THE EUCHARISTIC THEOLOGIES OF LAUDA SION AND THOMAS AQUINAS'S SUMMA THEOLOGIAE THOMAS J. BELL Emory University Atlanta, Georgia MANY works associated with Thomas Aquinas stand both the Office and Mass for the Feast of Corpus Christi. 1 The earliest witness to this association comes from two of Thomas's Dominican brothers and younger contemporaries, Tolomeo of Lucca and William of Tocco. Around 1317 Tolomeo wrote in his Historia Ecclesiastica: " Thomas composed [the Corpus Christi Office] in full, including the lessons and all the parts to be recited by day or night; the Mass, too, and whatever has to be sung on the day." 2 William, in his Historia beati Thomae completed around 1320, lists the liturgy of Corpus Christi among Thomas's works and informs us that Thomas wrote the liturgy " at the request of Pope Urban [IV]." 3 It is known that on August 11, 1264, Urban, in the bull Transiturus, declared that the Feast of Corpus Christi was to be celebrated throughout Christendom according to a "new, Roman," liturgy. 4 Thomas had returned from Paris to Italy, his 1 This does not mean that Thomas created the liturgy for the feast de nova. Rather it means that Thomas selected and combined older elements from the Scriptures, the Fathers, and existing liturgies, only venturing to write from scratch those hymns and prayers necessary for expressing the theological and devotional views central to the Feast of Corpus Christi. In other words, Thomas wrote or pieced together texts " proper " to the feast and united them with the " ordinary " texts of the Mass and Office. 2 James A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino: His Life, Thought and Works (Washington, D.C., 1974), p. 177. a Ibid., pp. 132, 177. 4 Ibid., pp. 179, 183. For a partial translation of the bull Transiturus see also Darwell Stone, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (London, 1909), vol. 1, 344-46. This "new, Roman" liturgy promulgated by Urban IV was, indeed, a new 163 164 THOMAS J. BELL homeland, five years before the bull was published. Furthermore, by 1264 he had developed a "warm friendship" with Urban, whom we know to have commissioned Thomas to write several works between 1261 and 1265.5 These facts have led most scholars since the early fourteenth century to conclude that Urban's "new" liturgy was the work of Thomas. 6 In recent years, however, Cyrille Lambot has questioned whether Thomas wrote or compiled the liturgy promulgated by Urban. He has noted that Reginald of Piperno, Thomas's amanuensis and companion from 1259 to 1274, did not include the liturgy for Corpus Christi in his list of Thomas's works. Moreover, the Dominican Order, like most Orders and dioceses, did not adopt Urban's liturgy for the Feast of Corpus Christi until 1317, when John XXII required its use throughout Western Christendom. 7 If Thomas had written the liturgy, argues liturgy composed for the celebration of Corpus Christi. Around 1246 a certain John, a religious of Mont-Cornillon, had compiled a liturgy for the " Body of the Lord " that was in place throughout the diocese of Liege. Being so impressed by the solemnities of the Liege eucharistic celebration, Hugh of Saint-Cher, a Dominican and the cardinal legate of Germany, declared in 1252 that the feast of Corpus Christi was to be celebrated throughout the territory under his leadership. Jacques Pantaleon, the future Urban IV, knew the solemnities of Liege from his time as the city's archdeacon. It seems that upon his election as Pope, Urban was urged by many people to establish the Feast throughout Christendom. Eventually he did this with the publication of the bull Transiturus. For more details, see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino, pp. 178-79. 0 Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino, p. 147. 6 The liturgy for the Feast of Corpus Christi that is associated with Thomas is not identical with the one currently used in both the Roman rite and Dominican rite. The modern texts for the Feast reflect the liturgical reforms that have occurred since Thomas's day. Notwithstanding these reforms, the Mass for the Feast (Cibavit eos), which includes Lauda Sion, has for the most part remained intact. However, the Office for the Feast has endured several changes, particularly in its night Office of Matins. For more details, see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino, pp. 177-78, 180-81. 1 Because Urban IV died very soon after he promulgated Transiturus, his effort to establish a new liturgy for Corpus Christi throughout Western Christendom lost momentum and his bull was disregarded. Clement V (1305-1314) sought to have Urban's bull and all the laws of the Church that had been enacted since Gregory IX, and that had not yet been codified, collected into a LAUDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 165 Lambot, certainly the Dominicans would have adopted it imme.. diately instead of waiting fifty-four years after the bull Transiturus was promulgated. 8 Admitting these facts, James A. Weisheipl does not believe that Lambot's arguments against Thomas's authorship are conclusive.9 Although it is not my purpose to rehearse the debate between these scholars, I would like to consider one piece of evidence that Weisheipl believes suggests Thomas's authorship. In his biography of the Angelic Doctor, Weisheipl writes, "The sequence Lauda Sion in the Mass [for Corpus Christi] is remarkable not only for its poetry, but also for its theological content; the individual stanzas can easily be aligned with the Eucharistic teaching of Thomas as found in the third part of his Summa theologiae." 10 In this paper I will examine whether the Eucharistic thought in Lauda Sion parallels that in the Summa. 11 I Like all medieval sequences, Lauda Sion appears in conjuncsingle Constitution. Before the project was completed, death visited Clement. However, his successor, John XXII, completed the project and in 1317 promulgated the Constitution, which included Urban's Transiturus. See Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino, p. 183. ·s See Cyrille Lambot, "L'office de la Fete-Dieu. Aperc;us nouveaux sur ses origines,'' Revue benedictine 54 (1942), 61-123. See also Cyrille Lambot and I. Fransen, L'office de la Fete-Dieii primitive: Textes et melodies restroves (:M:aredsous,1946). 9 Ibid., p. 183. For a similar opinion see William R. Bonniwell, A History of the Dominican Liturgy 1215-1945 (New York, 1945), 241, especially note 44. 1 0 Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino, pp. 180-81. 11 For discussion of Thomas's theology and other liturgical items in the Office and :M:ass for the Feast of Corpus Christi, see the following works: William R. Crockett, Eucharist: Symbol of Transformation (New York, 1989), pp. 115-16; Pierre-:M:arie Gy, "L'office du Corpus Christi et la theologie des accidents eucharistiques,'' Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques 66 (1982), 81-86; id., "L'office du Corpus Christi et S. Thomas d'Aquin, Etat d'une recherche," Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques 64 (1980), 491-507; and W. D. Loring, "Altar and Throne: A Study of Eucharistic Theology and the Vision of God in St. Thomas Aquinas," Anglican Theological Review 52 (1970), 97-102. 166 THOMAS J. BELL tion with the Alleluia of the Mass.12 Unlike the some 4,500 sequences written in the Middle Ages that the Council of Trent (1545-63) banned from the Catholic liturgy, Lauda Sion was one of four sequences that survived the liturgical reforms. 13 Perhaps the Council did not abolish Lauda Sion because it believed that the revered St. Thomas had written the work. This, plus the fact that Lauda Sion is a" sublime didactic poem on the Holy Eucharist," 14 almost certainly kept the Council from casting it aside. Lauda Sion has twelve stanzas. Stanzas 1 through 9 have six lines each, stanzas 10 and 11 have eight lines each, and the last stanza has ten.15 (See the sequence with English translation ap1 2 The sequence is not an easily defined composition. Indeed, musicologists are divided over its origin and early development. By Thomas's time it was basically a hymn-like Latin sacred poem, with regular patterns of both meter and rhyme, set to a preexistent melody. This melody was most often derived from an untexted portion of the Alleluia chant sung at Mass. For more information on the medieval sequence see Richard H. Hoppin, Medieval Music (New York, 1978), pp. 154-71 and Willi Apel, Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, 1958), pp. 442-64. 13 Most of the medieval sequences that are extant can be found in vols. 7-10, 24, 37, 39, 40, 42, 44, 53-55 of Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, 55 vols. (Leipzig, 1886-1922; reprinted, New York and London, 1961). The three sequences besides Lauda Sion not abolished by the Council are: (1) Victimae paschali laudes (by Wipo Burgundy, d. c. 1048) for Easter; (2) V eni sancte S piritus (variously ascribed to King Robert the Pious, d. 1031 ; Innocent III, d. 1216; and to Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, d. 1228) for Pentecost; and (3) Dies irae (attributed to Thomas a Celano, d. c. 1250) for the Mass for the Dead. In 1727 a fifth sequence was adopted for liturgical use, Stabat Mater (the text variously ascribed to Jacopone da Todi, d. 1306; Innocent III; St. Bonaventura, d. 1274; et la.) for the Feast of the Seven Dolours; see Apel, Gregorian Chant, p. 463. 14 Joseph A. Jungmann, S. J., Missarum Sollemnia, 2 vols. 1948; English translation The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, 2 vols. (New York, 1951-55; repr. Westminster, 1986), vol. 1, p. 438. 15 Lauda Sion is an exact metrical copy of Adam of St. Victor's sequence Lauda crucis attollamus. It is clear that whoever wrote Lauda Sion used Adam's sequence as a model. For a discussion of the rhyme and meter of Lauda crucis and Lauda Sion see Joseph Connelly, Hymns of the Roman Liturgy (London, 1957), p. 125. With the exception of two lines (which are found elsewhere), Lauda Sion also employs the same melody as Lauda crucis. This melody is derived from the second alleluia of the Feast for the Finding :tAU:DA SION AND StJMMA 'rHEOLOG!AE 167 pended to this paper.) Viewed broadly, the sequence divides rather unevenly into three parts. In the first five stanzas the Church is invited to join in remembering the first Holy Supper at which Christ gave His living and life-giving substance to His apostles. Stanzas 6 through 11 bring the past into the present. These six stanzas elaborate a rather lengthy and tedious lesson on Christ's presence in the bread and wine. The sequence ends with a one-stanza prayer asking Christ not only to feed His people in the present but also to make them " table-fellows " with Him and all the holy citizens of heaven in the future. Looking more closely at part one, we can observe that the sequence begins by calling Sion, the Church, to laud its Christ as the new Passover (Stanza 4). "Today," the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday, is Corpus Christi. Upon this solemn festival day the Church commemorates the Lord's institution and gift of the" living and life-giving bread" (stanza 2). Stanza 11, which concludes the middle section's lesson on the manner of Christ's presence in the elements, expands on this notion of Christ the bread. It teaches that Christ is "the bread of angels" who was foreshadowed in Old Testament figures. Isaac was Abraham's offering to God. At Passover the Jews sacrificed a lamb without spot or blemish for their sins. And God nourished His hungry people with heavenly manna. Each of these figures or types point toward Christ, who is the fulfillment of them all. Christ is the new Passover (stanza 4). He displaces the old Passover as " reality puts to flight the shadow " and " light banishes darkness." Here the sequence places the present Eucharistic celebration within the framework of the historical acts of God, affirming that Christ is the center of redemptive history. Part one of the sequence further reveals that the facts of this redemptive history are commemorated in the holy supper that Christ Himself instituted on the eve of his passion. At this supper the Savior described Himself to the twelve apostles as one who was about to be sacrificed. Thereby he fulfilled Old Testaof the Cross; see Apel, Gregorian Chant, p. 646. Clearly, it is a mistake to think that Thomas Aquinas wrote both the text and music of Lauda Sion. He may have written the poem, but he did not compose the music for Lauda Sion. 168 THOMAS J. BELL ment figures : He was the true Isaac, the true Passover lamb without blemish or spot that takes away the sins of the world, and the true manna from heaven that gives nourishment and eternal life to all believers. Christ enjoined His apostles to repeat the supper in His memory until He returns. This the Church does in every Mass, especially the Feast of Corpus Christi. The sequence is quite dear that the divine victim ( hostiam) is present in the elements. Therefore, one can rightly speak of a Eucharistic sacrifice. Indeed, the idea of Eucharistic sacrifice that Lauda Sion suggests is entirely in accord with Augustine and the patristic tradition as as the late Middle Ages: The Eucharist is a sacrifice in as much as it is a memorial, an anamnesis, of the sacrifice of Christ. It is more than a mere remembrance of a past event; and, moreover, it is not a new sacrifice or a repetition of the sacrifice of the cross. The Eucharist " is the sacramental or liturgical celebration of that which took place once for all in the past in order that the present community of believers can participate in its redemptive reality." 16 It is impossible to glance at Lauda Sion without recognizing its preoccupation with Eucharistic presence. Five stanzas ( 6 through 10) elaborate on the nature of Christ's presence. Stanzas 5 and 6 teach that following the consecration, " the bread is changed [transit] into flesh and wine into blood." To the senses the elements remain as they were before the consecration, namely, bread and wine. The bread and wine still feel, taste, and look like bread and wine, but faith knows better. Faith knows that the species are only signs of " hidden extaordinary realities " that lie under the bread and wine (stanzas 6 and 7). " Flesh is bread and blood is drink" (stanza 7). Thus, in thirteenth-century theological language, upon consecration the "substance "-the reality that underlies the material elements-of the bread and wine miraculously changes into the substance of Christ's risen and glorified body and blood, while all the "accidents "-mate16 William R. Crockett, Eucharist: Symbol of Transformation (New York, 1989)' p. 95. LAUDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 169 rial qualities and chemical properties-of the bread and wine remain intact. The inner reality of the bread and wine is Christ himself, whereas the elements' outer reality continues to taste, smell, feel, and look as before consecration. Lauda Sion, therefore, does not only affirm that Christ himself is present in the elements but explains His presence in terms of the doctrine of transubstantiation. The notion that the relationship between the elements of bread and wine and Christ's presence in them can be explained in terms of a " change " is not unique to Lauda Sion or the Middle Ages. As early as the fourth century Fathers in the East and West articulated this " conversionist " conception of Eucharistic presence. Ambrose was particularly instrumental in introducing the language of change into the Eucharist vocabulary of the western Church. According to his thought, upon consecration the elements are changed so as to mediate Christ's presence to the communicant. Thus, before consecration one reality is signified: bread and wine. However, after consecration, another reality is signified: the body and blood of Christ. The sign ( signum) and the reality (res) have virtually become one.17 Existing side by side with this conversionist interpretation is the " symbolic " interpretation. Taught also by Ambrose, this interpretation's most famous exponent was Augustine. Drawing on Platonism, Augustine distinguished between two levels in the sacrament. First, there is the level of the senses, where the communicant perceives the bread and wine. Second, these elements are " symbols " or " signs " that signify another level : the reality of Christ's body and blood. Although not perceived by the senses, this reality is known by the mind and by faith. The second level is the true reality of the Eucharist. The sacramental signs do not only point to this reality; they represent and make it present. Thus to partake of the symbols of bread and wine is to " participate" in the transcendent world that lies behind the world of sense-experience. Augustine means that Christ's body and blood are not merely " represented " by the signs (in the sense t1 Ibid., pp. 96-97. 170 THOMAS J. BELL of signs as substitutes) : they are mediated by the unity between the sign and the thing signified. This mediation occurs through the dialectic relation of symbol and reality, whereby a symbol essentially is that which it represents. In this view there is no need for a change of the elements' nature, for Christ is already present in (behind) the sign. 18 These two concepts of Eucharistic presence continued well into the Middle Ages, when Ambrose's conversionist notion eventually prevailed over Augustine's symbolic interpretation. By the early thirteenth century the conversionist concept was called transubstantiatio and was accepted as the definitive explanation of Christ's presence in the bread and wine. Indeed, in 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council defined it as a dogma of the Church. 19 With the acceptance of transubstantiation, the medieval church increasingly believed that it must take great care to prevent any profanation of the elements. The church particularly feared that some of the wine would spill as the cup was given to the laity. Gradually, therefore, priests gave only the bread to the laity and they alone received both the br·ead and wine.20 As seen from the perspective of the communing laity, Lauda Sion assures communicants that, though the two elements are consecrated separately, Christ has not been divided. His whole person is equally and " totally under each species " (stanza 7). Thus the communicant can know that he or she is partaking of " the complete Christuncut, unbroken, and undivided " (stanza 8). Furthermore, the sequence teaches that Christ is not spatially extended under the sacramental appearances in such a way that He is divided into as many pieces as the host is broken. He is whole in every part, both before and after fraction. The idea is presented in both stanzas 8 and 10. In the former the communicant is told that " [whether] received by one, [or] received by a 1s Ibid., pp. 78-98. 19 Ibid., p. 118. For an account of the late Medieval history of the doctrine of transubstantiation, see James F. McCue, "The Doctrine of Transubstantiation from Berengar through Trent: The Point at Issue," Harvard Theological Review 61 (1968), 385-430. 20 Jungmann, Missarum SoUemnia, vol. 2, 385, LAUDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 171 thousand, the quantity [of Christ] received by the one is as much as the thousand." Perhaps here the focus is on the number of recipients and the concern that a great number of communicants might diminish Christ and thus diminish the efficacy of the sacrament. Stanza 10 is likewise concerned with the diminution of Christ, but from the perspective of the fractured host. It assures communicants that : At last, when the sacrament is broken, have no doubt, but remember that there is as much [of Christ] in a fragment as in the whole. There is no rending of the reality, only a fracturing of the sign, which diminishesneither the state nor stature of the one signified. Although Lauda Sion insists that the whole living and risen Christ is received under each species, it does not explain how all of Christ is present under each of them. Rather, the sequence simply seems intent upon arguing that Christ is really and wholly present under the bread and under the wine. This emphasis. on the " whole " presence is not unique. " Since Anselm of Laon (d. 1117) and William of Champeaux (d. 1121)," writes Jungmann, " theological teaching had become more clear and precise, namely that in the Sacrament not only were the Body or the Blood of Christ present, but the whole Christ, totus Christus, was present." :zi However, it was not until the thirteenth century, when Thomas Aquinas articulated his theory of " natural concomitance," that the medieval church arrived at the " classic exposition" of how the whole Christ is present under each species.22 Before we look at Thomas's theory, we must complete our analysis of the sequence's teaching about the Eucharist. Stanza 9 argues that Christ's presence is so objective that both good and 21 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 118. 211 See Alan Richardson and John Bowden, The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology (Philadelphia, 1983), s.v. "Concomitance," by E. J. Yarnold. 172 THOMAS J. BELL bad communicants receive Him. (The sequence does not describe exactly who the good and bad are.) However, the two do not receive Christ with the same effect. "To the bad it is death, to the good it is life." Undoubtedly, the bad are guilty, as Paul says, "of profaning the body and blood of the Lord" (I Corinthians 11 :27). For late medieval people the seriousness of this evil act was profound, for they did not believe that the bad merely abuse a representation of Christ; the bad also desecrate the literal body and blood of Christ. It was for this reason above all others that bad communicants grew weak, ill, and died. The good, on the other hand, receive the same " living and lifegiving bread " that Christ gave to the twelve apostles. This is the " bread of angels " that has " become the food of the pilgrims [ viatorum]" (stanza 11). Whereas stanza 11 speaks of the bread that has come from heaven to the pilgrim, the final stanza shifts the pilgrim's attention toward heaven, the "land of the living." Here Lauda Sion brings out the future or eschatological dimension of the Eucharist. The pilgrim prays, " Make us Your table-fellows there in heaven." The sequence suggests that the sacrament prefigures a supper yet to come. It directs the communicant's faith and hope beyond the present to a future day when all of Christ's pilgrims will sit at table together. 23 Having closely examined the Eucharistic teaching of Lauda Sion, we have seen that the Mass, as a commemoration and representation of the Lord's passion, is indeed a sacrifice in as much as it celebrates the anamniesis of Christ's words of selfsacrifice at the Last Supper. Moreover, we have seen that Lauda Sion is preoccupied with Christ's presence in the Mass, explaining that presence by means of the doctrine of transubstantiation. The Mass, teaches the sequence, is of present significance because Christ communicates His living and life-giving body and blood to all " good " communicants who receive the bread and wine in faith. Thus the Mass has more than just a commemorative and 2 3 Geoffrey Wainwright, Press, 1971), p. 53. Eucharist and Eschatology (London, Erworth LAUDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE psychological significance-it life to the good recipient. 173 communicates grace and spiritual II In his Summa theologiae Thomas Aquinas takes up the topic of the Eucharist in part three, questions 73-83. A brief survey of these questions reveals the breadth of his concern. The Angelic Doctor treats in scholastic fashion the subjects of "The sacramentality of the Eucharist," " The Matter of this Sacrament," " The First Eucharist," "The Minister of This Sacrament," etc. Furthermore, he devotes three questions with eight articles each to the theory of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Under question 73, article 4, Thomas asserts that the sacrament points to the past, present, and future and therefore is called by many names. Becaus·e it commemorates the past passion of Christ, it is called a "sacrifice." In regard to the present, the sacrament points to " the unity of the Church " and thus is rightly called " communio " and " syna:ris." In its future dimension the sacrament" prefigures the enjoyment of God that will be ours in heaven." " Because it keeps us on the way to heaven,'' says Thomas, the sacrament is correctly called " viaticum." Thomas believes that the sacrament is also appropriately called " eucharist " and " metalepsis " (" taking to oneself ") . Thomas says quite clearly that the holy supper is a sacrifice because it commemorates the past passion of Christ. The modern reader may be looking for some explanation as to how the mass is (always) a sacrifice. In other words, he or she may be wondering whether Thomas and Lauda Sion teach that Christ's body is literally re-killed on the altar. Thomas treats the subject of sacrifice generally under the virtue of justice in the secunda secundae, question 85. 24 Here, Thomas seeks to show that sacri2 4 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 39, Religion and Worship: 2a2ae. 80-91 (Blackfriars translation), Introduction, Notes, and Glossary by Kevin D. O'Rourke (New York, 1964). In Appendix 4 (p. 262), we are told that "in the Commentary on the Sentences there is only a single article (III. 174 THOMAS J. BELL fice is an act of religion. He focuses almost exclusively on the act of offering, giving almost no consideration to either the person making the offering or the thing offered. Essentially Thomas argues that, although sacrifice may be revealed through external acts of religion, such as offering animals or eating bread, it is fundamentally an internal act. Sacrifice is ultimately an internal offering of one's self to God.25 In his discussion of Christ's passion Thomas says that the term " sacrifice " is correctly applied to " something done that is properly due to God for His honor to appease Him." He then quotes with approval Augustine's remark that "a true sacrifice is every work which is performed in order that in holy fellowship we may cleave to God, that is, which is related to the end of goodness in which alone we can be truly blessed." Now Christ, Thomas continues, " offered himself in suffering for us, and this very work, that he voluntarily bore suffering, was in the highest degree accepted by God, inasmuch as it proceeded from charity. Hence," concludes Thomas, "it is manifest that the passion of Christ was a true sacrifice." 26 Thus Thomas is quite clear that Christ's passion was a manifestation of His love for God and humanity, and a sacrifice for the sins of human race. Having established that Christ's passion was a sacrifice, Thomas continues in the third part of the Summa to consider the relationship between Christ's passion and the Eucharist. Thomas is quite clear that the sacrament " commemorates the passion of our Lord" 27 and "represents the passion of Christ." 28 9.I.I), composed of four quaestiunculae, devoted to the general concept of ' !atria', of which sacrifice is an external act; there sacrifice receives only passing consideration. The Summa Contra Gentiles similarly offers no development and sacrifice is only touched on in considering that the human mind must employ things of sense in order to communicate with God (III, 119-121)." Also, Thomas hardly, if at all, mentions the subject of sacrifice in his discussion of the Eucharist in Book 4, chapters 61-69 of Summa Contra Gentiles. Here, as in the Summa theologiae, the Angelic Doctor's. thought is caught up in the exposition of Christ's real presence in the Eucharist. 25 Summa Theologiae (hereafter cited in notes as ST) 11-11 q.83 a.3 and a.4. 2a ST III q.48 a.3. 21 ST III q.73 a.4. See also ST III q.74 a.l. 2s ST III q.73 a.4. See also ST III q.76 a.2; q.3 a.2 and a.4. LA UDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 175 It is the " memorial of the passion of our Lord " 29 and " a figure and an example which portrays the Lord's Passion." 30 Therefore, he concludes that " the Eucharist is at once a sacrifice and a sacrament." 31 Undoubtedly, in Thomas's mind the Eucharist is a sacrifice inasmuch as it points to Christ's past passion. Are we therefore to understand that the Eucharist is only a commemoration and not an actualization in the present of the sacrifice of the cross? Thomas seems to have anticipated our question. In the third part of the Summa, question 83, article 1, he asks, "Is Christ sacrificed ( immoletur) in this sacrament? " Yes, he answers, and for two reasons. Drawing on the authority of Augustine and Ambrose (actually, John Chrysostom), Thomas gives the first reason as follows : [This sacrament is called the sacrifice of Christ] because, as Augustine writes, " Images are called by the names of the things of which they are images, thus looking at a picture or fresco we say, That is Cicero, or, That is Sallust." Now, as we have said, the celebration of this sacrament is a definite image representing Christ's Passion, which is his true sacrifice. Hence [,] Ambrose writes on Hebrews, " In Christ was offered once a sacrifice potent for eternal salvation. What do we do? Is it not to offer it everyday, yet for the recalling of his death? " Clearly Thomas believes that Christ's sacrifice on the cross was offered once for all and cannot be repeated. He nevertheless says that Christ is sacrificed every time the Mass is celebrated. He can affirm both of these beliefs on exactly the same basis as Augustine. Because the sacrament is an image of the reality it signifies, it can, according to Platonistic reasoning, be called by the name of the reality it signifies. Therefore, as an image or symbol of Christ's passion, it does not merely point back to His past sufferings, representing something apart from the symbol itself. That is precisely the way modern culture is inclined to ST III q.73 a.5; See also ST III q.76 a.2. ST III q.83 a.2. a1 ST III q.79 a.5 and a.7. 29 30 176 THOMAS J. BELL understand a symbol. In ancient culture and in Thomas's understanding, a symbol participates in that which it represents so much that the symbol can almost be said to be that which it represents. In this thought there is little distinction between symbol and reality. " The symbol is the presence of that which it represents and mediates participation in that reality." 82 Secondly, Thomas quotes the Secret for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost as an authority for his belief that the sacrament is rightly called the sacrifice of Christ. The prayer affirms that " whenever the commemoration of this sacrifice is celebrated the work of our redemption is carried on." Though Thomas could have easily interpreted this text as an affirmation that each Mass is itself a propitiatory sacrifice, he did not. Rather, he interprets the prayer to mean that the Mass is a sacrifice " in respect of the effect of Christ's passion." And he adds, "By the sacrament we are made sharers of the fruit of the Lord's Passion." The Eucharist mediates the benefits of Christ's passion. Thomas discusses the effects, or fruits, of Christ's passion at length in question 79. As we shall see more fully below, the sacrament affords forgiveness of venial sins and unconscious mortal sins. 83 Moreover, the sacrament gives the Christian spiritual strength. Thomas writes, " This sacrament does for the life of the spirit all that material food and drink does for the life of the body by sustaining, building up, restoring, and contenting." 34 We have noted that Lauda SionJ, too, teaches that the Eucharist is a sacrifice. Like Thomas, the sequence does not detail this teaching. This comes as no great surprise because the subject of Eucharistic sacrifice was not a controversial issue before the sixteenth century. Until then, most everyone assumed that the Mass was a sacrifice, and so there was no need to discuss the topic at length.35 Just as the medieval church accepted the atoning power Eucharist, p. 80. q.79 a.3 and a.4. 34 ST III q.79 a.1. 35 Crockett, Eucharist, p. 120. a2 Crockett, 33 ST III LAUDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 177 of Christ's death and lacked a fully formulated explanalion of the atonement, so the Church believed the Mass to be a sacrifice. Though Thomas's teaching on Eucharistic sacrifice is less than what some of his modern readers might expect, his treatment of Eucharistic presence is elaborate and clear. When the priest says, "This is my body," or "This is the chalice of my blood," he is not merely repeating the words of Christ or reporting what Christ said, argues Thomas; 36 he is pointing to the body or the blood of Christ that exists upon consecration under the sacramental species. Like Lauda Sion, Thomas is emphatic " that the real body of Christ and his blood are in this sacrament." 37 Thomas asserts that the substances of bread and wine are not " annihilated " or simply reduced to " a more elementary kind of matter." Rather, upon consecration, he argues, "the complete substance of bread is converted into the complete substance of Christ's body, and the complete substance of the wine ·into the complete substance of Christ's blood." Hence the change is not a "formal change, but a substantial one." Thomas agrees with Lauda Sion that such a change " is outside the ordinary course of nature." 38 Therefore, he concludes that "it [the change] can be called by a name proper to itself-' transubstantiation." 39 Equally like the sequence, Thomas insists that the real presence is known only by faith. Both the Summa and Lauda Sion teach that, if communicants were to rely only upon their senses, they would never know that the substance of bread has been entirely transubstantiated into the substance of Christ's body, because the appearance or " accidents " of the bread and wine remain as they were befor·e the consecration. Though the bread still tastes, smells, feels, and looks like bread, faith accepts that Christ's substance is under the species.40 Thomas also asserts that " our Catholic faith makes it absolutely necessary to profess that the whole Christ, totus Christus, is in 36 ST III q.78 a.1-6. 81 ST III q.75 a.l. ss Stanza 6; compare with ST III q.75 a.5. 3 9 ST III q.75 a.3. 40 See ST III q.75 a.1 and Lauda Sion stanza 6. 178 THOMAS J. BELL this sacrament " 41 (my emphasis). By " whole," he means not only Christ's body and blood, but also His soul and Godhead ( divinitatem). But how is the whole Christ under each of the sacramental species ? In the case of the bread, Thomas argues that while it is changed into Christ's body by virtue of consecration, Christ's soul, divinity, and blood are present with the consecrated bread by "a natural concomitance." 42 Essentially Thomas believes that Christ's soul, divinity, and blood are present because they simply cannot be separated from Christ's body. Though at Christ's death the soul and the blood were separated from His body for three days, the two have been forever reunited. 43 As for Christ's divinity, it was never separated from the body; the two were " taken up into hypostatic union " never to be separated. 44 Christ's soul, divinity, and body are also equally present with the consecrated wine by concomitance. If Thomas did indeed write Lauda Sion, one wonders why he did not draw on this notion of concomitance to explain how the whole Christ is equally in each species, and equally in one or a thousand hosts. It is most certain that the author of the sequence believed that anyone partaking only of the bread receives, nonetheless, the totus Christus. However, ther·e is no clear evidence in the sequence that he taught the notion of concomitance that we find in Thomas' s Summa. Like Lauda Sion, Thomas also teaches that Oirist is not spatially extended under the sacramental appearances in such a way that a portion of Him is in one part of the host and another portion in another. He is equally under each and every part of the host, even before the priest divides it. 45 Furthermore, when fraction takes place, it is not " the actual body of Christ which is 41 ST III q.76 a.1. q.76 a.2. 4 3 Thomas does argue that if the sacrament could have been celebrated at the time of Christ's death, "under the species of bread would have been the body of Christ without His blood, and under the species of wine would have been His blood without His body"; ST III q.76 a.2. 44 ST III q.76 a.l. 45 ST III q.76 a.3. 42 ST III LAUDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 179 broken." This is so for two reasons. " First, it is outside all change and we can do nothing to it. Second, it is present in all its completeness under every part of the quantity [of the sacramental species]." Therefore, Thomas concludes that "the fraction takes place in the dimensive quantity of the bread, where all the other accidents also find their subject." 46 Thus, when the fraction takes place, the sacramental species, not the body of Christ, is divided up. Undoubtedly, Thomas agrees with Lauda Sion that when the host is broken, " there is no rending of reality, only a fracturing of the sign." 47 It is clear that both Lauda Sion and Thomas insist that Christ is truly and substantially present in the Eucharistic elements. Further, they both affirm, with the orthodox medieval tradition that culminated at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, that the objective presence of Christ in the Eucharist does not depend on the inner condition of communicants. Such an assumption raised a rather knotty problem for thirteenth-century theologians. In John L. Farthing's words, "Does the real presence of Christ imply that His body and blood may be consumed not only by sinners or unbelievers ( manducatio peccatorum aut infidelium) but even by a dumb animal who by chance eats bread that has been duly consecrated ( manducatio brutorum) ? " 48 Thomas deals with both the problem of the manducatio brutorum and the manducatio peccatorum in considerable detail. He claims that Christ remains corporeally in the consecrated species for as long as the accidents of bread and wine remain. 49 This opinion makes the question of manducatio brutorum particularly pressing. As Farthing has noted, 46 ST III q.77 a.7. Thomas defines dimensive quantity as "the very first accident which affects a material thing." He adds " that all other accidents cling to this first accident"; ST III q.77 a.2. 4 1 Stanza 10. 48 John L. Farthing, Thomas Aquinas and Gabriel Biel: Interpretations of St. Thomas Aquinas in German Nominalism on the Eve of the Reformation (Durham, 1988), p. 125. ST III q.76 a.6; q. 77 a.4 and a.5; q.83 a.6. •a 180 THOMAS J. BELL Proper care or disposition of the consecrated host becomes a matter of great concern if the host is not entirely consumed by the faithful, for the body of Christ will be contained in even a crumb of the consecrated matter so long as it exhibits the species proper to bread. And if that crumb should find its way into the stomach of a church mouse, the true body of Christ will have been eaten by a mouse.50 Thomas would most certainly have agreed with Farthing's scenario. He writes, "Even were a mouse or dog to eat the consecrated host, the substance of Christ's body would not cease to be under the species so long as the substance of bread remained." Though in point of fact the body of Christ is consumed, Thomas adds, the animal does not eat Christ's body sacramentally because the mouse or dog " is not of a nature to use it as a sacrament." 51 Even angels lack the nature to receive Christ sacramentally; they receive Him " spiritually by being united to Him in clear vision and enjoyment of perfect charity." 52 Human beings, however, do have the necessary nature; indeed, they alone of God's creatures are capable of receiving Christ's body and blood under sacrament. Lauda Sion says little or nothing about the manducatio brutorum. In passing it declares that the sacrament is for the pilgrim and is therefore " not to be cast to dogs." sa This is probably an allusion to Jesus' commandment " Do not give dogs what is holy! " (Matthew 7 :6) . Thomas brings up this verse in discussing whether a priest should deny the body of Christ to a sinner who asks for it. He concludes that the sacrament should not be given to "dogs, that is to notorious sinners." 54 Perhaps the sequence is contrasting pilgrims with both literal dogs ( manducatio brutorum) and Thomas's metaphorical dogs ( manducatio peccatorum). As the body of Christ does not cease to be present when a mouse eats a host, so, argues Thomas, it does not cease to be 50 Farthing, Thomas Aquinas and Gabriel Biel, p. 125. s1 ST III q.80 a.3. ST III q.80 a.2. ns Stanza 11. n ST III q.80 a.6. s2 LAUDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 181 present when a host touches the lips or teeth of a sinner. Rather, the consecrated bread remains in " bad " people as long as it stays in "good"-" until digested by natural heat .... Hence," writes Thomas, " it must be said that sinners, and not merely the just, can receive Christ's body sacramentally." 55 Here the Angelic Doctor is once again driving home his point that the substance of Christ's body is objectively present in the consecrated host for as long as the species of bread would have remained, had it not been transubstantiated. Thus, the unworthiness of a manducatio peccatorum cannot sever the union between the sacramental species and the reality of Christ's corporeal presence. If the sinner partakes of the sacrament, he or she receives the body and blood of Christ. We have seen that Lauda Sion, too, will have nothing of the notion that Christ is any less under the species received by the "bad" people than by the "good." It tersely affirms that "the good and the bad receive Him." 56 " Each receives the same [Christ], but," adds stanza 9, "with different results." "To the bad it is death, to the good it is life." The good receive Christ " to life" and the bad " to death." Thomas agrees that the good and bad partake of Christ with different results. But unlike the sequence, he is much more careful to explain what distinguishes the " good " communicant, who receives life, from the "bad," who receives death. Thomas argues that the " good " includes a lot of people, people who both ignorantly and consciously commit venial sins and even those who ignorantly commit mortal sin. 51 The term also includes people who commit " public " sins as well as those who commit " private " sins. 58 Essentially Thomas argues that nothing prevents one from receiving the grace of the Eucharist except the fully conscious commitment of mortal sin. 59 ST III q.80 a.3. Stanza 9. 51 ST III q.79 a.3. 58 ST III q.80 a.6. 59 ST III q.79 a.3. 55 56 182 THOMAS J. BELL Such mortal sin places a further obstacle between the communicant and the grace of the sacrament. That obstacle, argues Thomas, is the sin of unbelief. This heart of unbelief " cuts off at root a person from the unity of the Church [and] makes him utterly unfit to receive this sacrament." 60 Therefore, if a sinner receives the sacrament, he or she " acts a falsehood, and is guilty of sacrilege as a violation of the sacrament, and accordingly sins mortally." 61 Thus, such a communicant appropriately earns the opprobrious epithet "bad." Though forgiveness is available (through penance) to such bad people, they are cut off from the life-giving effects of the supper until the impediments of mortal sin are removed. They are " not spiritually alive," Thomas writes; they are "dead in sin." 62 And if they persist in their sin, they will remain forever cut off from Christ, the fount of life and forgiver of sins. Though when misused the Eucharist yields death, when used properly it transforms communicants by joining them to Christ in a union of fervent love. Thus he describes consecrated bread and wine as " spiritual nourishment" and " spiritual food and drink." 63 Furthermore, when considered in itself, the sacrament derives from the power of Christ's passion the power to forgive all past sins. However, Thomas is quick to point out that when considered in relation to the recipient, the sacrament's effect may be blocked by an obstacle. As we have seen, this obstacle is an unforgiven mortal sin of which one is aware even while communing. 6' The Summa and Lauda Sion agree that the Old Testament manna signified the living and life-giving bread of the sacrament. Both also teach that Christ's body and blood not only sustain the pilgrim ( viatorum) in the present, they also " keep [him or her] on the way to heaven." 65 Therefore, argues Thomas, the 60 ST III q.80 a.4. ST III q.80 a.4. ST III q.79 a.3. 63 ST III q.79 a.1 and a.2. 6 4 ST III q.79 a.3. Here Thomas is articulating the distinction between the efficacy of the sacrament es opere operato and ex op-ere operantis. 65 ST III q.73 a.4. 61 62 LAUDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 183 sacrament is correctly called viaticum. This viaticum prefigures the enjoyment of God that will be the viator's in heaven. III In conclusion, the Eucharistic thought expressed in the sequence Lauda Sion is, as James A. Weisheipl argues, very much like that found in Saint Thomas's Summa theologiae. As we have seen, the two works have a common emphasis on Christ's presence in the sacrament. They explain this presence in terms of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Both works are clear that the Mass commemorates Christ's passion and mediates His saving presence to all who participate in His passion through the signs of bread and wine. While the Eucharist is understood in both works to have this past dimension, it also has present and future significance. In the present, Christ is in the bread and wine communicating His live-giving substance to the faithful. This substance strengthens the pilgrim as he or she journeys toward heaven. There, in heaven, the pilgrims will sit at table with Christ and the other saints and partake of the ultimate banquet. Our study has not revealed anything that seriously undermines the tradition that Thomas wrote Lauda Sion. Notwithstanding the absence of the notion of concomitance in Lauda Sion, there is indeed a remarkable parallel between the Eucharistic thought expressed in the sequence and the Summa. This parallel in and of itself does not necessarily establish that Thomas wrote the sequence, but it does add more credibility to the testimony of Thomas's contemporaries Tolomeo and William, who both bore witness to Thomas writing the liturgy for the Feast of Corpus Christi. 66 Looda Sion Lauda Sion salvatorem, Lauda ducem et pastorem In hymnis et canticis. Quantum potes, tantum aude, Quia major omni laude Nee laudare sufficis. Praise, Sion, the Savior, Praise the Leader and the Shepherd In hymns and canticles I Dare to praise Him as much as you can, for He is beyond all praising and you will never be able to praise Him sufficiently. 66 I wish to thank Professors David C. Steinmetz, Susan A. Keefe, and Geoffrey Wainwright, as well as Byron D. Stuhlman, for their invaluable suggestions and comments on several drafts of this essay. 184 THOMAS J. BELL Landis thema specialis, Panis vivus et vitalis, Hodie proponitur : Quern in sacrae mensa cenae Turbae fratrum duodenae Datum non ambigitur. A theme of special praise, the living and lifegiving bread, is put before us today : The one who at the table of the holy supper was given to the twelve apostles, without any doubt. Sit laus plena, sit sonora, Sit jucunda, sit decora Mentis jubilatio. Dies enim solemnis agitur In qua mensae prima recolitur Hujus institutio. Let praise be a full, let it be a resounding. let it be a delightful, let it be a beautiful shout of joy. For the solemn day is being observed upon which the first of the tables of this institution is remembered. In hac mensa novi regis N ovum pascha novae legis Phase vetus terminat. V etustatem novitas, Umbram fugat veritas, N octem lux eliminat. On this table of the new King the new passover of the new law put an end to the old passover. The new displaces the old, reality the shadow, light banishes night. Quod in cena Christus gessit Faciendum hoc expressit In sui memoriam. Docti sacris institutis Panem, vinum in salutis Consecramus hostiam. What Christ did at the supper this He said should (must) be done in memory of Him. Taught by His holy words of instructions, we consecrate bread and wine in a sacrifice of salvation. Dogma datur Christianis Quod in carnem transit panis Et vinum in sanguinem. Quod non capis, quod non vides, Animosa firmat fides, Praeter rerum ordinem. The dogma is given to Christians that the bread is changed into flesh and the wine into blood. That which you cannot understand, that which you do not see, living faith affirms, it is beyond the ordinary course of things. Sub diversis speciebus, Signis tantum et non rebus, Latent res eximiae. Caro cibus, sanguis potus, Manet tamen Christus totus Sub utraque specie. Under the different species, in the signs only and not the things, there lie hidden extraordinary things. Flesh is food, blood is drink ; And nevertheless the whole Christ remains under each species. A sumente non concisus, Non confractus, non divisus, Integer accipitur. Sumit unus, sumunt mille, Quantum isti, tantum ille, The communicant receives the complete Christ-uncut, unbroken, and undivided. [Whether] one consumes, [or] a thousand consume, the quantity of this one is as much as that one, Nor is it diminished by being consumed. Nee sumptus consumitur. __ .i LAUDA SION AND SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 185 Sumunt bani, sumunt mali, Sorte tamen inaequali Vitae vel interitus. Mors est malis, vita bonis, Vide paris sumptionis Quam sit dispar exitus. The good consume and the bad consume, but with different lots: life or death. To the bad it is death, to the good it is life, See these equally taking [yet] how disparate is their dying. Fracto demun sacramento Ne vacilles, sed memento Tantum esse sub fragmento Quantum toto tegitur. N ulla rei fit scissura, Signi tantum fit fractura, Qua nee status nee statura Signati minuitur. Ecce panis angelorum Factus cibus viatorum, Vere panis filiorum, Non mittendus canibus. At last, when the sacrament is broken, have no doubt, but remember that there is as much [of Christ] in a fragment as in the whole. There is no rending of the thing (signified), only a fracturing of the sign, which diminishes neither the state nor stature of the one signified. Look! Behold! The bread of angels has become the food of travelers, the true bread of sons, not for casting to dogs. In figuris praesignatur, Cum Isaac immolatur, Agnus Paschae deputatur, Datur manna patribus. It is foreshadowed in figures, when Isaac is sacrificed, when a lamb is appointed for the Passover, when manna is given to the fathers. Bone pastor, panis vere, J esu, nostri miserere ; Tu nos pasce, nos tuere, Tu nos bona fac videre In terra viventium. Tu qui cuncta scis et vales, Qui nos pascis hie mortales, Tuos ibi commensales, Cohaeredes et sodales Fae sanctorum civium. Good shepherd, true bread, Jesus, have mercy on us; You feed us and You protect us. You let see the good in the land of the living. You who know and can do all things, who feed us here as mortals, make us Your table-fellows there, co-heirs and companions of the holy citizens [of heaven]. LIGHT AND METAPHOR IN PLOTINUS AND ST. THOMAS AQUINAS KEVIN CORRIGAN St. Thomas More College University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan I HA VE TWO CONCERNS in this paper. The first is a broad concern, related to the nature of metaphor, which stems from the destructionist or deconstructionist tendencies in some contemporary phenomenology or phenomenological existentialism. According to these views, the logocentric emphasis of the Western tradition must be shown for what it really is : an attempt to erect a cover upon a fundamental absence. In Nietzsche's well known view, "truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions; worn-out metaphors which have become powerless to affect the senses, coins which have their obverse effaced and now are no longer of account as coins but merely as metal." 1 For Jacques Derrida all metaphoricity is caught up in an endless circle, which precludes any privileged vantage-point from which one might determine order, hierarchy and center-point. In particular, the unique heliotropic metaphor which, in Derrida's polemic, determines the whole course of Western philosophy " from the Platonic eidos to the Hegelian idea" 2 rests only upon the infinite absence of circularity, for the movement of transference " which turns the sun into metaphor " also inevitably "turns philosophical metaphor towards the sun." 3 1 Nietzsche, "On Truth and Falsity in their Ultramoral Sense (1873)," Works 2 (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964), p. 180. 2 J. Derrida, "White Mythology", trans. F. C. T. Moore, New Literary History 6 (1974), 1: 5-74 ["La mythologie blanche" in Rhetorique et philosophie, Poetique 5 (Paris: Editions du Seliu, 1971)], p. 55. a Ibid., p. 51. 187 188 KEVIN CORRIGAN In this paper I shall examine the thought of Plotinus and Aquinas, broadly described as idealist and realist respectively, with a view to determining whether or not this transference from the physical to the metaphysical is only an illicit, covert erasure of the material sense and a forgetting that all metaphor is self-implicating, that there is no non-metaphorical standpoint from which to grasp the order and structure of the metaphorical. My second concern is much more specific. It is, first, to compare Plotinus and Aquinas on light and metaphor-two thinkers who might be considered to be poles apart on these questions: on the one hand, Plotinus, the father of N eoplatonic emanationism with its insistence upon the primacy of divine light and the father, surely too, of the tradition of light-metaphysics in the later, mediaeval period; on the other hand, St. Thomas, staunchly realist in the Aristotelian tradition. Second, I will seek to show that this first impression of the gulf between the two thinkers is not borne out by a close textual analysis, and that their respective theories, despite the admitted significant difference in viewpoint, are in some respects very close indeed. Let us look briefly at the light-metaphysics tradition first. For Robert Grosseteste light is the source of all activity and its diffusion is not a material change or a change in place, but rather an instantaneous and substantial multiplication of itself in three dimensions. 4 Thus, for the author of the De Intelligentiis light is the fundamental principle of motion and life: " Est autem prima lucis operatio in sensibilibus quad motum et vitam operatur in viventibus." 5 Since light is the noblest of corporeal things, it therefore has an intermediate place between pure form and matter, and for Grosseteste and also Bonaventure it is consequently named the f orma corporeitatis, the fundamental form of body as 4 De philosophischen W erke des Robert Grosseteste, ed. Ludwig Baur, in Clemens Baeumker, Beitriige zur Geschichte der Philosophic des Mittelalters, vol. IX (Munster, 1912), De Luce, p. 51. 5 Clemens Baeumker, Witelo: Ein Philosoph und Naturforscher des XIII Jahrhunderts, Band III, Heft 2 of Beitriige zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters (Munster, 1908), Liber de intelligentiis IX, p. 11. PLOTINUS AND ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 189 such, since light introduces dimension into matter. Light then is the substantial form of the physical universe. 6 But how is physical light related to spiritual light? For the light-metaphysics tradition, spiritual light (whether the Uncreated Light which is God himself or the created spiritual light by which our intellects understand) 7 is the true primal light. Corporeal light is either derived from the primal light by emanation (or, in some unspecified sense, by virtue of its incorporeal, substantial character), or else related to it only by analogy. 8 Some explanations combine these two views. For St. Bonaventure, for instance, as also for Augustine, light is predicated proprie of spiritual things, only metaphorically of physical things (cf. II sent. d. 13, a. 1, q. 1, obj. 3, p. 311 b). Implicitly, then, there is a community of being between the two lights : " Lux inter omnia corporalia maxime assimilatur luci aeternae, sicut ostendit Dionysius de Divinis N ominibus, et maxime in virtute et efficacia" (ibid. q. 1, f. 2, p. 319 A). On the other hand, this community is only by analogy: " Lux spiritualis est communis creatori et creaturae s·ecundum analogiam" (ibid. ad 4, p. 318 A). Bonaventure's analysis, then, is subtle and finely nuanced, but even here one can glimpse an important characteristic of the light-metaphysics tradition, namely, that corporeal light draws its essence from intelligible light in such a way that there is a fundamental identity between the two (if this is not to overstate the case) and thus metaphoricity ultimately disappears in so far as light brings about a true and literal designation of the intelligible object. When we come to look at Plotinus's views we find modern commentators themselves divided on the issue. For Werner Beierwaltes, 9 Plotinus is a precursor of the light-metaphysics s Grosseteste, De Luce, ed. Baur, p. 51. St. Bonaventure, II Sent. d.12, a2, q.1, p. 318A. 7 St. Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaeum XX, 7; PL, 42, col. 372. De Gen. ad Litt. liber imperfectus 5, 20; PL, 34, col. 288. 8 On this see Joseph Anthony Mazzeo, Mediaeval Cultural Tradition in Dante's Comedy (New York: Greenwood, 1968), p. 76. 9 Werner Beierwaltes, " Die Metaphysik des Lichtes in der Philosophie Plotins '', in Zeitschrift fur philosophische Forschung, XV (1961), 334-362. 190 KEVIN CORRIGAN tradition, since there is a W esensgleichheit between corporeal and intelligible light and thus intelligible light must not be taken to be a metaphor, but must be understood literally. Rein Ferwerda, 10 on the other hand, rebuts Beierwaltes's view on the grounds that the latter does not take sufficient notice of Plotinus's own awareness that he is using figurative language (e.g. the ubiquitous oiov, or 'ITWS) and thus concludes that light is used as a metaphor by Plotinus and that it does not designate the true nature of the three hypostases. While the evidence clearly seems to incline in Ferwerda's favor, the issue is complicated further, in my view, by the following two considerations. First, Plotinus may well use light of the intelligible in a metaphorical sense, but there is nonetheless the conviction that light so. used is being addressed in its most pure and proper sense, and that, therefore, all derivative light must find its purest reference in the intelligible universe. 11 Is it possible for Plotinus to maintain these two positions simultaneously? Second, Plotinus, like Grosseteste and Bonaventure at a later date, speaks of light very much as though it were a forma corporeitatis. In En!neads IV, 5 [29], 7, 36, for example, he states that the light from bodies is an external activity of the luminous body, while the light in such bodies, that is, bodies which are primarily luminous, is substance in accordance with the form ( ovCTfo. .;, KaTa To e!Oos ) 12 of the primarily luminous body. Further, if light is incorporeal in the sense that it is "closely parallel to the life which is the incorporeal activity of soul, and is ... formative principle and form," 13 then surely the light of the sun must be the substantial form of its corporeity. And if this is so, then is there not a sense in which solar light has its prime and proper reference in the intelligible? And again 10 Rein Ferwerda, La Signification des images et des mitaphores dans la pensee de Plotin (Groningen: J. B. Wolters, 1965), pp. 46-61. 11 Cf. Ferwerda (note 10), p. 47 re Phaedo llOA. See also Plotinus, I, 6[1], 9, 15-25; V.3[49], 8, 35-42. 12 Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1035 B 15-16, 1Q44 A 10. 13 A. H. Armstrong in Plotinus IV, Enneads IV 1-9, with an English translation by A. H. Armstrong (Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass.London, 1984) pp. 308-9, note 1. PLOTINUS AND ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 191 if this be granted, then Ferwerda's position, that light is employed figuratively by Plotinus, should be rejected. The solution to this problem, if any, lies, I believe, in the acceptance of both of these seemingly incompatible points of viewthose of Beierwaltes and Ferwerda-and I shall try to give a sketch of how this is possible as simply as I can. In Plotinus there are at least two important facets of the theory of light. Physical light, as such, is necessarily to be distinguished from intelligible light. Thus, Plotinus invariably speaks metaphorically of intelligible light, and in this he would agree with St. Thomas for whom the corporeal can be attributed to something spiritual only in a metaphorical manner. This facet of Plotinus's theory is also reflected in his insistence that there is no community of being between intelligible and sensible substance. 14 However, from another point of view, when one examines the meanings of light in relation to natural objects and in relation to the principle which makes them what they are, no simple arbitrary line between the physical and the spiritual can be drawn, and the necessity that both frames of reference overlap, or rather, stand together in the same logical space (while being quite different) becomes evident. At the root of this second point of view is an insistence, similar to that of St. Thomas (on which see below), that what is sensible as such cannot be· substance in the proper sense. If I interpret Plotinus correctly, this is one of the points I understand him to make in IV,5 [29] chapter 7, where he speaks of the incorporeal nature of light against the implicit background of the Aristotelian doctrine. First, for Aristotle light is the actualisation of the diaphanous 14 On this see particularly Kevin Corrigan and Padraig O'Cleirigh, " The Course of Plotinian Scholarship from 1971 to 1986 ", Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt, Tei! II, Band 36.1, pp. 571-623, espec. pp. 579-581. Cf. also P. Aubenque, "N eoplatonisme et analogie de l'etre" in Neoplatonisme, Melanges offers a Jean Trouillard (Cahiers de Fontenay 1981), pp. 63-76. P. Hadot, " L'harmonie des philosophies de Plotin et d' Aris tote selon Porphyre" in Atti del Convegno internazionale sul tema: Plotino e il N eoplatonismo in Oriente e in Occidente (Roma: 5-9 Ottobre 1970), Problemi attuali di sc. e di cultura, Quad. 198 (Roma 1974), pp, 31-47. 192 KEVIN CORRIGAN qua diaphanous. 15 Light is neither fire, nor body, nor efflux from body, but a presence. 16 It does not travel. It is present in the diaphanous not by local, but by qualitative, change. And since the diaphanous permeates bodies, and since light subsists in the diaphanous, when the diaphanous is actualized, light is incidentally the color of the diaphanous. 17 Plotinus, by contrast, extends Aristotle's theory. For him light is a physical process, within the analysis of whose meaning movement, quality, form, activity and power are all involved. Light is defined as the incorporeal energeia of the luminous body. 18 What does this mean? In one sense it means simply that it is not a body, even though it is dependent upon a body. However, it does travel to us and to the earth. 19 In another sense Plotinus speaks of " the light mingled in bodies." What he means is the light subsisting in the diaphanous, which is, incidentally, the colour of the diaphanous. Here light is a quality in a substrate, an accident to the substance of the object. But, to go further, the quality in the substrate also manifests, or proceeds from, a dynamic activity. And in this sense light is not just a qualitative actualisation, but, more fundamentally, a substantial activity. The visible activity or quality, the external activity, is what is strictly perceptible. Of the substantial form of the luminous body on its own Plotinus will only speak metaphorically: " it only, so to speak, tints the surface " ( oiov Emx_pwvvvaw, line 39). N onetheless, the source is present there where the perceptible activity is manifested. Hence, light is not simply the actualisation of the diaphanous, but the activity of the source, not as a body alone, but as an acting body by virtue of a productive, incorporeal power manifested in it Thus, in VI,4[22],7,31-32 Plotinus argues (in an extended critique of the emanation metaphor) that the physical source does not have light "qua body, but qua luminous body, by virtue of another power which is incorporeal." 15 De Anima 418 B 9, 419 A 11. 1s De An. 418 B 14-17. De An. 418 B 11. De Sensn, 439 A 18 ff. IV, 5 [29], 7, 33-34. II, 1 [40] 7, 20-30. 1 9 V.3[49], 9, 10-13. 11 1s PLOTINUS AND ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 193 And in VI,3[44],23,5-12 he even goes so far as to speak of the invisible power being perceived together with the visible activity, so intimate is the substantial presence of the source. We can now, therefore, give a more precise answer to the meaning of Plotinus's statement that " it is necessary to posit light as altogether incorporeal, even if it is of body " ( acrwµarov 8€ l/Tavrwr; 8et: riOevai Kss in order to heal someone.15 The student may not at first grasp the more universal statement, while being readily enough able to judge the less universal statement, which thus provides a basis from which the more universal principle can be grasped. 16 Passing now to similitudes, we find a good example of how they are to be employed in the following text, where Aquinas ex1 5 Ibid., # 54. Another example of the same would be: " It is illicit for one man to intend to kill another in order to defend himself, except for the one having public authority, who, intending to kill the man for the sake of his own defense, refers this to the public good, as is manif est in the soldier fighting aga.inst the enemy, and in the policeman fighting robbers." ST Ila-Hae, q. 64, art. 7c. 16 It is not always easy to distinguish between a concrete example and a proposition which is less universal. For instance, in the passage from In Ethicorum ( # 53), one might say that "it suffices for a doctor to know that this herb cures this sickness in order to heal someone," is an example of the general principle. Even an apparently concrete example, such as : " It is necessary that Socrates sit when he sits " is actually a universal statement, rather than a concrete example, since the 'when' here means whenever. Strictly speaking a concrete example would regard some particular thing or event situated at a particular time and place, e.g., remember how Aunt Mabel cured her cold last summer with that herb when she didn't even know its name. The mind has a tendency to universalize, often doing so even without an adequate basis in experience. Note also that Aquinas speaks about sensible examples, and not concrete examples, and thus he does not necessarily intend to divide example against less universal statement, and there may in fact be overlapping of these two forms. Also to be taken into account is the fact that some less universal statements express truths about sensible reality, and some do not. This point is in need of further investigation. MIND FORMING AND MANUDUCTIO 207 plains why good and bad fortune seem so haphazardly distributed among just and unjust alike: [B] ecause we are ignorant [of the right rule of providence] things seem to us to come about in a disorderly and irrational way; just as if someono entered an artisan's shop, the artisan's tools would seem to him to be uselessly multiple, if he did not know the reason for using each; which multiplicity appears to have a reasonable cause to the one who has insight into the virtue of the· art.11 Such comparisons do not prove the points in question, but do make them more intelligible to the beginner. Aquinas uses that instrument of manuductio which proceeds through opposites in resolving the question of whether honestas is a part of temperance : We have already said that honestas is a certain spiritual beauty. The beautiful, however, is opposed to the ugly. And opposites are what most manifest each other. H onestas seems then to especially belong to temperance which repels the things which are ugliest and most indecent for man, namely, bestial pleasures. 18 The reader familiar with Aristotle's Topics cannot help but note that the instruments of manuductio seem to correspond to those of the dialectician. 19 This might lead one to suppose that manuductio is nothing other than dialectic, or that dialectic is nothing but manuductio. After all, dialectic is an art which aids discovery, teaching one to do more perfectly and systematically what one does naturally when one seeks to discover something. And since teaching is an art which imitates nature, ideally the teacher retraces the process of discovery he went through, minus the fruitless steps. 17 DV, q. 5, art. 5, ad 6. Other well-known comparisons which Aquinas makes include those between art and nature, and between intellectus and synderesis. 18 ST IIa-IIae, q. 145, art. 4c. Another example of the use of opposites is found in the discussion of what it means to live : " We say that an animal lives when it begins to have motion from itself; and we judge the animal to live so long as such a motion appears in it; when indeed it no longer has some motion from itself, but is moved only by another, then we say that the animal is dead, through the extinction of life in it." ST la, q. 18, art. le. 19 Cf. Aristotle, Topics, especially, Bk. 1, c. 13. 208 MARIE I. GEORGE However, there is reason to think that manuductio is better defined in terms of something other than dialectic. For there is a passage where Aquinas maintains that the teacher can lead the student by the hand presenting arguments which are to be accepted simply on the authority of the teacher. In this he follows Aristotle who says that " it is necessary for the learner to take things on trust" 20 A teacher can assist the beginner by presenting him a difficult argument with instructions to : ' learn it by heart, and then we will get into some of the subleties.' Trust in a teacher is not proposed as a substitute for the learner's understanding things for himself, but rather as an aid to his doing so. For to be presented with the correct explanation, even before one is able to understand it, is an advantage insofar as one has definite words to keep in mind, and to reflect upon, until that time when, in the light of experience, one comes to see for oneself the truth of what one has been told. The reason that trust in a teacher's words provides a kind of manuductio stems from the human mind's limited capabilities: " Perfectae cognitionis homo in sui principio capax non est " 21our mind does not instantly seize the natures of things, and the necessary connections existing between them, but arrives at them only gradually, starting from sense experience. Since this process is lengthy and far from automatic, help from other individuals ° 2 Cf. DV, q. 14, art. 10c: "[I]n the beginning ... the instructor does not immediately present the one he is instructing the notions (rationes) of the subtleties about which he intends to instruct him: because then immediately in the beginning the one who is instructed would have perfect science; rather the teacher presents him certain things the reasons of which the student does not know at the time when he is first instructed; however, afterwards he is to know them when he has been perfected in science. And therefore [Aristotle] says, that it is necessary for the learner to believe [Sophistical Refutations, 165b3] : and he could not arrive at perfect science in another manner than by holding as true those things handed to him in the beginning, whose notions at that time he was not able to seize.... [M]an in the beginning is not capable of perfect knowledge; whence it is necessary that he accept some things through the way of belief (per viam credendi), through which he is led (manuducatur) to arriving at perfect knowledge,'' 21 lbid. MIND FORMING AND MANUDUCTIO 209 who have traced the path before us is necessary if we are to make any significant progress. We can see now that the instruments of manuductio are not only the fruits of the instruments of dialectic used to lead the learner, but are anything which helps the learner to see a given truth because of being adapted to the natural weakness and imperfection of the mind. 22 For, while arguments of authority have their place in a dialectical discussion, 28 faith or firm conviction in what another says does not. Further confirmation of our thesis is readily drawn by reviewing the four instruments which Aquinas names; for they all can be seen to minister to the weakness of a mind which is not ready at first to handle things of any great universality or intelligibility. For Aquinas, the most fundamental facts about the way in which our mind operates are that its starting point is sense experience and its goal is wisdom, i.e., scientific knowledge of the causes of all that is, and especially of the things which have the most being. There is a great distance between what we first know, namely, sensible things, which are less intelligible in themselves, 24 and what we ultimately seek to know. A demonstration explains things in terms of what is most intelligible in itself, i.e., in terms of causes, and thus while it constitutes the substance of science, it is nourishment too tough for the mind to digest in the beginning. A teacher who provides the student with nothing but abstract arguments, in the manner of certain scholastic manuals, strains the student's mind. To avoid deforming the mind, one 22 Msgr. Maurice Dionne remarks that: "[X] is not a good master for a young person because of his ignorance of the mode of the soul in knowing, which is marvelously described in question 117 [of the ST]." Emphasis mine. Les refutations sophistiques, Vol. 1, Ed. Yvan Pelletier (Ste-Foy, Quebec: L'Institut Apostolique Renaissance, 1976), 196. :28 Arguments from authority are " the weakest form of argument ". Cf. ST Ia, q. 1, art. 8 ad 2. 24 Cf. In Duodecim Libras Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Expositio # 285 (Turin: Marietti, 1964) : "The human soul ... by nature is the act of an organic body; it has a natural aptitude for knowing truth about bodies and sensible things, which are less knowable by their nature, on account of their materiality, but nevertheless are able to be known through abstraction from the phantasms of sensible things." Cf. also # 282. Hereafter cited as Meta. 210 MARIE I. GEORGE must first nourish it with things which are more proportioned to it, i.e., things which are closer to sense. "The mode of knowing connatural to man is to be led ( manuducatur) to invisible things through visible things." 25 Our natural knowledge has its beginning in sense; whence our natural knowledge can extend only so far as it can be led through sensible things." 26 This explains why almost every text on manuductio mentions sensible things. 27 The use of less universal propositions makes provision for the weakness of our minds, 28 inasmuch as being closer to sense, they are naturally more known to us than what is more universal and intelligible in itself.29 Similitudes and differences are helpful because we do not see directly into the nature of things, but have to compare them and contrast them with things extraneous to them. 8 ° For, since "our knowledge begins from sense which bears on exterior accidents, 25 ST Ia, q. 43, art. 7c. ST Ia, q. 12, art. 12c. La N ec., 18: "Sense is a necessity for the intellect. If one removed all the examples in the treatises of Aristotle so as to keep only the discourse which is strictly speaking intelligible, we could no longer understand them, and this would be especially the case in those treatises which are most intelligible by nature, as are to the highest degree the Metaphysics and the logical treatises. The more a discipline is abstract and difficult, the more it needs to be taught using manuductio. And this, once again, is what is being said in the Divine Names: ' Reason nourishes itself from the senses '. Senses which are well nourished contribute greatly to the intellect's growth." 28 Cf. ST Ia, q. 106, art. le: "[D] octores, quod in summa capiunt, multipliciter distinguunt providentes capacitati aliorum." 29 Cf. Meta. # 45 : " Those things which are most removed from what is sensible are difficult for man to know; for sense knowledge is common to all, since from it all human knowledge takes its beginning. But those things which are most universal are most removed from what is sensible, because sense is of singulars; therefore universals are most difficult to man to know." Cf. also Meta.# 46. ao Cf. In Ethicorum, # 131, 132: "It is necessary that something which was formerly said in outline (figuraliter), i.e., according to some likeness and description which is in some manner extrinsic to the thing . . . thereafter be more fully described.... [T]he reason for this is that it belongs to human nature to use reason to know the truth. It is not however proper to reason to immediately apprehend the truth; and therefore it belongs to man to perfect himself little by little in the knowledge of the truth." 26 :21 Cf. MIND FORMING AND MANUDUCTIO 211 our intellect from this exterior knowledge is barely able to arrive at interior knowledge of things." 31 Thus when we first try to define things, we generally start off by saying something in the line of: ' it is like this ' or ' it is like this, but it is not quite the same.' Moreover, lacking immediate insight into the natures of things, we are more sure that a thing is such when we see in contrast that its opposite is not that way. 32 Is everyone, then, in need of manuductio? We must recall that teaching is an art which ministers to nature, and that man is naturally endowed with the ability to discover. While no one can dispense with sensible examples, 33 comparison with sensible things, and such like, since the need for these stems from the very nature of the mind, it is possible, nonetheless, for one to come up with them by oneself. However, while what is most proportioned to the human mind are the natures of sensible things, the mind is very weak even in regard to these; as Aquinas so bluntly puts it: " no philosopher could ever completely investigate the nature of a fly.'' 34 And the mind is plainly even less well off when it comes to understanding non-sensible things. The disproportion between what is first known to us and what we seek to know is the initial situation of every human individual. 35 While it is a1 Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk. IV, c. 1. 32 Aquinas says that "opposites are what most manifest each other" (ST IIa-IIae, q. 145, art. 4c). Cf. also In Ethicorum, # 679: "Et quia opposita ex invicem manifestantur .... " The ability to grasp differences makes more demands on the intellect. It is relatively easy to note similitudes; indeed we are often deceived by similitudes due to the comparative difficulty of discerning differences. Msgr. Dionne takes up the very interesting question of whether any of the instruments of manuductio allow the learner to come to a definitive conclusion. He argues that this can happen only in the case of one instrument alone: differences. Cf. La N ec., 15-27. 33 Cf. Paul Valery, V arietes, Vol. I, quoted in La N ec., 83: " One has to resign oneself to wallowing in examples. Wallowing sometimes results in splashing up a few drops of light." 34 In Symbolum Apostolorum Expositio, # 864, Mar.ietti edition. 85 One is in need of manuductio in some disciplines more than others, according as that discipline is more or less proportioned to the mind. For example, a great deal of manuductio is required in logic, whereas next to none is required in mathematics. 212 MARIE I. GEORGE true that certain individuals are more able to be led by the things themselves 36 than are others, virtually everyone at some time is in need of being led by the hand or, at very least, would have progressed better with such help, and most of us are in need of it most of the time. It is easy enough to identify other forms of manuductio now that we see that an instrument of manuductio is anything which helps the learner to see a given truth because of being proportioned to the natural weakness and imperfection of the mind. 37 To name a few: a student should first be presented with the more general issues, before having to face very particular problems. In approaching a given issue, a student should be given a general idea of what is at stake, before getting into the details of rigorous argumentation. One particularly good way of doing the latter is to take up the opposed views of other thinkers. 38 When explaining a concept one ought to start, where possible, from the etymology of the word used to express it, since the etymological meaning is more concrete and closer to sense.39 Also, since we naturally wonder more readily about sensible and imaginable things than about intellectual problems hidden beneath the surface, the teacher ought to find suitable comparisons with tangible things so as to provoke wonder in students about intellectual matters which otherwise would appear to them to be of remote 3 6 Long before Aquinas, Aristotle spoke of people 'being led by things '; cf. Metaphysics 984a18. 37 I add "in seeing a given truth", because there are other things which the good teacher will present to the learner, but which are not ordered to seeing any specific truth, being rather general in application. These are logic and also the proper methods of the different particular disciplines. A good teacher will teach a student the method of a discipline before the discipline (Cf. Meta. # 335), but Aquinas never calls such teaching manuductio. Rather, manuductio is used to bring the student to understand particular truths, including truths about method. ·38 As Aquinas does, for instance, when he addresses the question of whether we have intellectual knowledge about sensible reality. Instead of simply stating the answer, he first takes up the opposing views of Heraclitus and Plato. '89 Aquinas's actual practice, as well as what he says in ST Ia, q. 18, art. Zc, shows that he sees examination of a word's etymology to be useful as manuductio. MIND FORMING AND MANUDUCTIO 213 interest. Many more forms of manuductio could be named, but those we have given should suffice. Let us then sum up what we have seen: Teaching is to imitate discovery. The process of discovery starts from what is best known to us but least knowable in itself, namely, sensible things, and ends when universal principles are correctly applied to the matter at hand. Since there is a great distance between these two points, the mind must be provided with a variety of aids or instruments which it can both grasp and use to progress toward scientia perfecta. These instruments, when presented to the student by a teacher, are forms of manuductio. The teacher who neglects using these aids, in favor of arguments which are more cogent in themselves, overtaxes the student's mind, and thus conduces to its deformation. Plainly, a general study such as ours leaves many interesting questions concerning manuductio unanswered. Our central purpose, however, has been to provide the basis for, and hopefully kindle an interest in, further study of a thomistic doctrine of singular value to anyone concerned with effective teaching. ON LEO STRAUSS'S UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURAL LAW THEORY OF THOMAS AQUINAS * DOUGLAS KRIES Gonzaga University Spokane, Washington I N COMPOSING the introduction to Natural Right and History in the early 1950's, Leo Strauss described the situation in American social science as a division between two parties : the modern liberals of one persuasion or another, who had largely abandoned natural right altogether, and the students of Thomas Aquinas. 1 Since the fundamental goal of that book was a recovery of the classical or pre-modern theory of natural right, one might have anticipated that Strauss's work would have been received enthusiastically by the latter group. If nothing else, Strauss and the Thomists were natural allies because they shared the same modern enemies: namely, historicism (the view that all human thought is confined to the immediate historical horizon of the thinker) and positivism (the view that human thought cannot make value judgments, but only judgments about observable matters of fact). Beyond that, Strauss explored very seriously the issues of reason and revelation .and of religion and politics-both of which are crucial for Thomistic political thought. Yet, despite such favorable auguries, a congenial affiliation of * The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful criticisms he received in the preparation of this manuscript from David Calhoun of the Philosophy Department at Gonzaga University. 1 Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 2, 7. 215 216 DOUGLAS KRIES Straussians and Thomists was never formed. 2 Many factors probably contributed to the losing of the opportunity, 8 but presumably chief among them was the fact that, even though Strauss' s view of Thomas was genuinely respectful, it was not unequivocally sympathetic. Strauss preferred classical natural right theory to modern natural right theory, and he came to the conclusion that Thomas's teaching on natural right-while certainly ' pre-modern ' 4-introduced novelties into the classical position which weakened it rather than improved it. The goal of this essay is to analyze Strauss's reservations about Thomas's statement of the problem of natural right. Such an analysis will, I hope, contribute to a more fruitful exchange between the students of Leo Strauss and those of Thomas Aquinas. I Perhaps the best way to initiate an explanation of Strauss's view of the differences between classical and Thomistic natural right is to contrast the starting points of the two theories. The classical approach begins with what is said about right, with the everyday opinions that are held about what is just. From such an immediate starting point the classical approach ascends toward true knowledge through the process of dialectics. Although all people have views about what is just, in fact such opinions, when examined through friendly disputation with a philosopher, are almost always found to be self-contradictory; however, the 2 This is not to suggest that Strauss was completely ignored and rejected by the Thomists. For an overview of the Thomistic literature which has considered Strauss, see James V. Schall, "Revelation, Reason and Politics: Catholic Reflexions on Strauss," Gregorianum 62 ( 1981), 349-365, 467-497. s See Ernest L. Fortin, "Rational Theologians and Irrational Philosophers: A Straussian Perspective," Interpretation 12 (1984), 349-350. 4 For Strauss, the fundamental division within the history of political philosophy was between the ancients and the moderns. He understood Thomas to be in the former camp and was critical of contemporary Thomists who, under pressure from the success of modern physics, had attempted to ' modernize ' Thomas by jettisoning his teleological view of nature. See Natural Right and History, pp. 7-8; What is Political Philosophy? (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1959), pp. 285-6. NATURAL LAW THEORY OF THOMAS AQUINAS 217 very fact that one comes to realize that contradiction and seeks to rectify it points to the fact that human beings realize that a more comprehensive, non-contradictory view might be possible. The contradictions thus force one to ascend beyond the opinions that are at best only partially true toward an ever more consistent view, a view based on nature; if such a process could reach culmination, the culmination would constitute a statement of what is right by nature. 5 The starting point in Thomas's theory of natural right is not what is said about justice; rather, as can be seen in the structure of the questions on law in the Summa theologiae, Thomas begins at the extreme opposite of the spectrum of truth, with God. God's wisdom rules the entire universe in accord with God's eternal law or providence. Human beings, however, are not subject to providence in the same way as irrational natures, which pursue their appropriate ends without understanding. Through the capacities of conscience, human beings have an immediate intellectual grasp of the end of human nature and so move toward that end voluntarily. They are therefore not mindlessly subject to providence, but actually participate in it, in the sense that they apply God's natural law, known to the human conscience, to themselves.6 The difference in the two approaches is striking. For the classical natural right theorists, one ascends to the knowledge of natural right through dialectics; for Thomas, _the knowledge about what is according to nature is a descent, from God, through providence, to the law known by the human conscience, to deduced conclusions about natural law. As Strauss puts it, the Socratic method begins not with what is first in itself or first by nature, but with what is first for us, with the opinions. 7 The implication is that Thomas, on the other hand, begins with what is first in itself or first by nature, i.e. God. For Socrates, then, knowledge of natural right is always accessible but never immeRight and History, pp. 123-6. Summa theologiae, Ia-Hae, q. 91, aa. 1-2; q. 93, aa. 1 Natural Right and History, pp. 123-4. 5 Natural 6 q. 94, a. 1. 218 DOUGLAS KRIES diate; the laborious endeavor of dialectics is always the pre-condition, and only philosophers master dialectics. For Thomas, though, we do have immediate access to natural right through the conscience or, more precisely, synderesis-an intellectual habitus which contains the first precepts of the law of nature. 8 Strauss emphasizes the importance and uniqueness of synderesis to Thomistic natural right theory. He insists that the origins of the term are to be found in Christian patristic authors rather than in classical antiquity and that the intellectual habitus which the term names is something quite foreign to classical natural right theory. He is willing to admit that human beings experience " a kind of divination that not everything is permitted,'' but suggests that such a divination is as apt to result in absurd taboos as it is in an understanding of natural right. 9 Strauss's concerns about Thomas's suggestion that natural right is known through synderesis as opposed to Socratic dialectics may at first seem tangential. Why does Strauss think that the issue is so crucial for the fate of natural right? The argument repeatedly raised against natural right is that knowledge of what is just varies from one society to another, from one historical epoch to another, whereas natural right must be unchanges Summa theologiae, Ia, q. 79, aa. 11-12; Ia-Hae, q. 94, a. 1; De veritate, q. 16, a. 1. 11 Natural Right and History, pp. 129-130, 157-8. The origin of Thomas's concept of synderesis is a matter of dispute among scholars. Harry V. Jaffa [Thomism and Aristotelianism: A Study of the Commentary by Thomas Aquinas on the Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 173], a student of Strauss, follows the lead of his teacher, pointing out that Thomas himself mentions Basil and Jerome as authorities for the existence of synderesis. Oscar J. Brown [Natural Rectitude and Divine Law in Aquinas (Toronto: Pontificial Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1981), pp. 1757] says that most authorities agree that the term itself entered the milieu of scholasticism through the commentary of Jerome on Ezekiel. Michael Bertram Crowe ["The Natural Law Before St. Thomas," Irish Ecclesiastical Record 76 (1951), 193-204] suggests that William of Auxerre is a more immediate source of the idea of a habitus of practical first principles parallel to the habitus of speculative first principles. John J. Schrems ["A Reexamination of Harry V. Jaffa's Thomism and Aristotelianism," Political Science Reviewer 18 (1988), 179-181] insists that the basic idea of synderesis may be found in Aristotle's Ethics (1151a15). NATURAL LAW THEORY OF THOMAS AQUINAS 219 able; the variety of opinions concerning justice supposedly proves that there is nothing which is just by nature. Strauss, however, is merciless in attacking this argument, insisting upon its irrelevance repeatedly in Natural Right and History. 10 Indeed, he initiates the very first chapter of the book with an assault upon this argument, claiming instead that unanimity of opinion concerning natural right is in no way "a necessary condition" of the existence of natural right : Some of the greatest natural right teachers have argued that, precisely if natural right is rational, its discovery presupposes the cultivation of reason, and therefore natural right will not be known universally: one ought not even to expect any real knowledge of natural right among savages. In other words, by proving that there is no principle of justice that has not been denied somewhere or at some time, one has not yet proved that any given denial was justified or reasonable.11 According to Strauss, the argument that lack of consent disproves natural right is the very same argument used by the conventionalists against natural right teaching in antiquity. As he puts it, the argument " has shown an amazing vitality throughout the ages, a vitality which seems to contrast with its intrinsic worth." 12 It would seem that Strauss's concern about Thomas's doctrine of synderesis is connected to this conventionalist criticism. The classical expression of the natural right teaching is immune to the objection which points to a lack of common consent about justice because the classical view does not claim that there should be common consent about justice. Indeed, for the dialectical approach the various and competing opinions about justice are precisely the pre-condition necessary in order for the question about natural right to arise. That most people do not know natural right is a given for the ancient authors. 18 It is not, however, so obvious that the Thomistic expression of natural right 10 Natural Right and History, pp. 9-10, 97-8, 124-5. 11 Ibid., p. 9. p. 97. 13 Ibid., pp. 10, 124-6. 12 Ibid., 220 DOUGLAS KRIES theory, which attempts to erect its foundations on the habitus of synderesis, can adequately answer the conventionalist objection, If synderesis is common to all human beings, should not all human beings have knowledge of natural right? Consequently, should there not be common consent about what is right by nature? This problem is compounded by Thomas's view that what is right by nature is actually natural law, The term "law," as Thomas himself notes, implies promulgation, 14 The law must be known or else it is not law, If one does not know a law, one cannot be held fully responsible for failing to abide by iL In other words, once Thomas has asserted that what is right by nature is actually natural law, does he not have to say that everyone knows that law? 15 Thomas, of course, clearly saw the problem himself and attempted to solve it by means of the distinction between primary and secondary precepts of the natural law, The primary precepts of the natural law are what synderesis knows immediately, and human knowledge of these precepts is immutable, These unchanging first precepts need to be applied to contingent matters, however, and this gives rise to the secondary precepts, These secondary precepts follow very closely from the primary precepts, and so consequently in the vast majority of cases such precepts are known, Nevertheless, it is possible that, due to the required descent from the unchanging first principles into the realm of contingent human events, in a few instances a person or even a whole group might be ignorant of one of these secondary precepts, The thieving Germans, Thomas says, were a case in point, for they were ignorant of the secondary natural law precept forbidding stealing, 16 Thomas thus anticipates the conventionalist criticism concerning universal knowledge or consent, Still, while perhaps his theory does not require universal consent concerning natural right, does it not require at least majority consent? Surely it Summa theolog£ae, Ia-Hae, q, 90, a. 4, ad L Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism, p, 172. 1s Summa theologiae, Ia-Hae, q, 94, a, 4, 14 15 NATURAL LAW THEORY OF THOMAS AQUINAS 221 must at least be said that the knowledge of natural right cannot be limited to the wise as in the Socratic view, for that would clearly violate the meaning of promulgation. Furthermore, one wonders what happens as one applies the natural law to ever more contingent circumstances. In such cases, will natural law still be known to all, or at least to most? In discussing the Mosaic law, Thomas mentions a tertiary group of moral precepts which, unlike the charity commandments or the decalogue, would have been accessible only to the wise if God had not revealed them. 17 However, Thomas is silent about a corresponding tertiary group of natural law precepts not immediately accessible to everyone; perhaps this is because it is difficult to see how such precepts, which lack promulgation if they are known only to the wise, could constitute a law. Perhaps in the end Thomas does have an answer to the conventionalist objection about consent. However, the very least that can be said is that this problem of the knowledge of what is right by nature raises all sorts of problems for Thomas which were simply not obstacles for the ancient theory of natural right. According to Thomas, those who do not know natural right are in the extreme minority; according to Plato, those who do know natural right-the philosophers-are in the extreme minority. Consequently, those who object to natural right teaching on the basis of human ignorance of natural right are clearly going to find Thomas an easier target than the classical authors. II According to Strauss, Thomas's doctrine of synderesis as the divine promulgation of the natural law has the effect of obfuscating the classical link between natural right and the question concerning the best regime. In classical natural right thinking, natural right is based upon human nature, but human nature is political, for human beings cannot be perfected, cannot live well, except by living with others. This means that what is right by na17 Ibid., q. 100, aa. 1, 3, and 11. 222 DOUGLAS KRIES ture for man will necessarily include an understanding of what is right by nature for man's political life, i.e. an understanding of justice. 18 But what is right by nature for man's political life is a question that is answered by a determination of the question concerning the best regime. The ancients did not spin stories about the best regime just because they had nothing better to do; the best regime is natural right ' writ large ' : The classic natural right doctrine in its original form, if fully developed, is identical with the doctrine of the best regime. For the question as to what is by nature right or as to what is justice finds its complete answer only through the construction, in speech, of the best regime.19 Thomas, of course, accepted the Aristotelian teaching that man is by nature political, and he does treat the question of the best regime. However, that question is not an issue of paramount importance to his theory; certainly the doctrine of the best regime is not the fullest or most complete expression of the natural law. In a footnote, Strauss directs the reader to Thomas's teaching that the regime of ancient Israel constituted the best regime. 20 According to Thomas, however, that regime was founded not by the moral precepts of the Mosaic law, which are basically correlates of the natural law precepts, but by the judicial precepts of Moses, which are only derivations from the moral preceptsderivations that do not have the full intelligibility and moral force of the natural law. Most significantly, after the coming of Christ those judicial precepts prescribing the best regime are abrogated. 21 Thus, the teaching about the best regime, which is paramount to the teaching of the Republic and of the Laws, plays only a minor and dispensable role in Thomas's natural law teaching. What constitutes the fullest expression of natural right for the former is for the latter a relatively unimportant topic. Strauss argues that the reason why Thomas was able to dis18 Natural Right and History, p. 129. 19 Ibid., p. 144. 20 Ibid., p. 144, n. 20. 21 Summa theologiae, Ia-Hae, q. 99, aa. 2, 4; q. 104, aa. 1, 3; q. 105, a. 1. NATURAL LAW THEORY OF THOMAS AQUINAS 223 engage natural right from the question about the best regime was that he linked natural right, or, to speak more precisely, natural law, to the notion of a divine lawgiver. In Thomas's theory, the natural law is higher than a discussion of the best regime, for it has been promulgated by God through synderesis and is therefore in effect always and everywhere-even in a bad regime, or even among those who do not live in a city. The natural law requires the observance of the decalogue and the moral precepts it embodies; such a code must be followed in a democracy, an aristocracy, an oligarchy, a monarchy, a tyranny, or a mixed regime. The natural law does not require a particular form of regime; instead, it requires that a particular set of precepts be observed in all regimes. 22 These observations bring us to one of Strauss's central concerns about Thomas's view of natural right. According to Strauss, classical natural right thinking was a very flexible theory that took into account the legitimate demands of expediency and urgency. One might come to know natural right through answering the question about the best regime, but no one claimed that this regime could exist always and everywhere. Indeed, the chances that such a regime should ever come into existence are exceedingly small. Philosophers, who know natural right, probably do not want to rule because they prefer to devote themselves to higher pursuits, and even if they for some reason were persuaded to rule, the non-philosophical majority probably would not want them, preferring their own opinions to the naturally just. Therefore, while the existence of the best regime is always theoretically possible, the best regime is in fact always constructed in speech. Moreover, the best regime is only best in optimal conditions. Most peoples, not being sufficiently perfected, could not have such a political regime. A regime less than the best regime is thus best for most cities. The exigencies of the present situation are consequently accorded great status in ancient natural right thinking. It was understood that natural right will frequently, nay, almost always, 22 Natural Right and History, p. 144. 224 DOUGLAS KRIES have to be suspended by political rulers. In other words, natural right requires what Strauss calls "dilution." Without such dilution, natural right is not beneficial to the city and instead becomes only a tremendous threat to stability, for virtually no regimes can truly be said to be by nature just: In descending into the cave, the philosopher admits that what is intrinsically or by nature the highest is not the most urgent for man. . . . When attempting to guide the city, he knows then in advance that, in order to be useful or good for the city, the requirements of wisdom must be qualified or diluted.23 Strauss explains that this position of the .ancients must not be confused with "relativism." 24 Indeed, he says, there is "a universally valid hierarchy of ends," but the demands of urgency are also legitimate, and the most urgent end may be a lower end than other, less urgent but more noble ends. In such a situation, the classical theorists felt that it was a sign of nobility to seek, as much as possible, the higher end over the urgent end, to make the higher end the most urgent end; still, one could not say that the demands of urgency ought never to be preferred to a higher, less urgent end. 25 In Thomas's view, of course, it is possible that in extreme instances certain precepts of the natural law can legitimately be suspended. The fundamental primary precepts of the natural law do not admit of dispensation at all, but the more concrete conclusions of those precepts, the secondary precepts, may admit of dispensation. The example that Thomas gives of such a dispensable precept is the case of returning a pledge to a man who intends to use it to attack one's own country. 26 Be this as it may, says Strauss, Thomas's dispensable natural laws are still secondary precepts of a law promulgated and en2a Ibid., p. 152. 24 Even less must it be confused with an unconscious "dance with Machiavelli " as Schall [" A Latitude for Statesmanship? Strauss on St. Thomas," Review of Politics 53 (1991), 128] suggests. 25 Natural Right and History, pp. 162-3. 20 Summa theologiae, Ia-Hae, q. 94, a. 4. NATURAL LAW THEORY OF THOMAS AQUINAS 225 forced by God. Perhaps on the rarest of occasions they may be suspended, but only on the rarest of occasions. Whereas Plato's doctrine of dilution recognized that natural right existed virtually nowhere except in a city constructed in speech, Thomas's doctrine of dispensations implies that the natural law must be practiced virtually always and everywhere. By standing over and immediately judging all positive law, Thomas's natural law theory has the effect of drastically restricting the latitude required by political leaders to confront the urgencies of the present situation.21 In Strauss's mind, then, the ubiquitous presence of the divine lawgiver has the effect of rendering the natural law teaching inflexible, and it was partially against this inflexible teaching that the modem political thinkers rebelled. 28 III In analyzing Strauss's understanding of these Thomistic innovations in natural right theory, it becomes clear that all paths of questioning lead to Thomas's divine, provident lawgiver. It is because of this provident deity that Thomas can assert the doctrine of synderesis, that he can demote the question of the best regime, and that he can make his theory of what is right by nature ' inflexible.' Ancient natural right teaching, Strauss claims, does not ground itself in a divine lawgiver who promulgates and enforces through providence, for the ancient teaching does not appeal to the author of nature but to nature itself: " The example of Aristotle alone would suffice to show that it is possible to admit natural right without believing in particular providence or in divine justice proper." 29 Strauss even finds the connection between providence and natural right to be foreign to the thought of Cicero, who is sometimes interpreted as arguing for such a view. The problem with such an interpretation of Cicero, says Strauss, is that in the key text of the Republic in which this teaching is 21 Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism, pp. 179, 182-3. 2s Natural Right and History, p. 164. 20 Ibid., p. 94. 226 DOUGLAS KlUES found, the speaker is not Scipio, who speaks for Cicero, but Laelius. so Since the ancients did not ground their understanding of natural right in the notion of a divine lawgiver, Strauss has very real doubts about the existence of a natural law theory, properly speaking, in the ancient world at all ; the exception would be Stoicism, which, like Thomas, accepted the doctrine of divine providence. 81 In fact, Strauss argues instead that since the fundamental distinction at the heart of classical natural right thinking is the distinction between nature on the one hand and law or convention on the other, the idea of " natural law " would virtually be a contradiction in terms to that tradition. 32 Without a divine lawgiver, the most that can be said is that some things are in accord with the hierarchical structure of human nature; that what is in accord with nature in this way can be said actually to constitute a law is only possible if one has recourse to a provident, legislating God. Strauss does not attempt to disprove the Thomistic doctrine of particular providence; neither does he attempt to disprove the teachings of synderesis or ' inflexibility' which are based upon Thomas's provident lawgiver. Indeed, it is important to understand that Strauss's criticisms of Thomas's theory of natural law are not immediately directed against the truth of the position. Rather, Strauss is concerned about the prudence of the position; he is concerned that Thomas, by erecting natural right on the unstable foundation of theology, has left natural right theory on shaky and uncertain ground. Thomas attempted to establish what is more evident (natural right) upon what is less evident (God) ; the result may not have been in the best interests of natural right, for Thomas thereby left natural right vulnerable to the attacks of the moderns : The modern efforts were partly based on the premise, which would have been acceptable to the classics, that moral principles have a 110 Ibid., pp. 154-6. 111 Leo Strauss, Platonic Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), p. 141. s2 Ibid., p. 138. NATURAL LAW THEORY OF THOMAS AQUINAS 227 greater evidence than the teachings even of natural theology and, therefore, that natural law or natural right should be kept independent of theology and its controversies.33 In objecting to the linkage between natural right and natural theology and the many conclusions that flow from such a linkage, the moderns in fact attacked not the ancients, but the medieval version of the ancients. If the ancients are examined only through Thomistic-colored glasses, it is not completely clear to ungraced human philosophy, Strauss implies, that they are in all ways superior to the moderns. In this sense, then, Thomas actually represents an obstacle to Strauss's project of resuscitating classical natural right theory. Though he does not actually attempt to establish the point, Strauss suggests that quite possibly the impetus for Thomas's innovations in the realm of natural right, for his overstating the claims of natural right, was his Christian faith : It is reasonable to assume that these profound changes [introduced by Thomas into natural right teaching] were due to the influence of the belief in biblical revelation. If this assumption should prove to be correct, one would be forced to wonder, however, whether the natural law as Thomas Aquinas understands it is natural law strictly speaking, i.e., a law knowable to the unassisted human mind, to the human mind which is not illumined by divine revelation.34 This remark is uncharacteristic of Strauss, since he frequently argued that the interpreter ought not necessarily to confine a great thinker's views to the historical horizon in which he wrote; given the context, Strauss's remark almost seems ad hominem, i.e., Thomas reached the conclusions he did not on the basis of argumentation but on the basis of his Christian background. 35 However, it should be pointed out that Strauss's view of Thomas's innovations in natural right theory is not logically dependent upon his assessment of the impetus for those innovations. In other words, it would seem to be logically possible to disagree 33 Natural Right and History, p. 164. 84 Ibid., p. 163. a5 See Schall, " A Latitude for Statesmanship? " esp. p. 133. 228 DOUGLAS KRIES with Strauss's view of the motives for Thomas's innovations and still agree with Strauss's critique of those innovations. Strauss himself admits his view of the motives which incited Thomas's innovations is only an unproven assumption. He presumably understood, then, that even if this assumption turned out to be wrong, his criticisms of Thomas's innovations would. remam. Nevertheless, Strauss's reservations about the naturalness of Thomas's natural law theory point to a profound disagreement with Thomas concerning the relationship between faith and philosophy, and one is thereby inclined to conclude that perhaps Strauss not only finds Thomas's innovations in natural right theory imprudent but also non-philosophic. It is neither possible nor necessary to explain completely Strauss's view of the tionship between reason and revelation at this juncture, but the key to understanding his concern with Thomas's position has to do with Strauss's understanding of what it means to be a ophe:r, an understanding which Thomas Pangle has explained as follows: We will never grasp adequately what Strauss, following Plato and Xenophon, means by " philosophy " so long as we try to conceive of philosophy as merely a method of thought, or an assemblage of intellectual tools, or even as the most comprehensive sort of reflection which culminates in a "total world-view": philosophy is, above all, a unique· way of life; and the authentic philosophers are human beings of a different kind from all other human beings. 36 H one understands philosophy as such a unique way of life,37 then the conflict between religious faith and philosophy becomes very sharp indeed. The believer's act of faith, to use Thomas's 3 6 Thomas L. Pangle, "Introduction" to Leo Strauss, Platonic Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), p. 9; see also Leo Strauss, "The Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy," Independent Journal of Philosophy/Unabhi:ingige Zeitschift fur Philosophie 3 (1979), 113. 3 1 h would seem that Schall ["A Latitude for Statesmanship?" pp. 1278] does not consider philosophy in such a fashion and is therefore puzzled at Strauss's view of the problem of faith and reason. NATURAL LAW THEORY OF THOMAS AQUINAS 229 own analysis, is an assent by the will to things that are not understood and, by definition, are not understandable, for they are supernaturally revealed. The philosopher, however, places understanding above all else; the philosopher lives according to understanding. To ask someone who lives according to reason to assent to something other than reason would be to ask the impossible. For Strauss, the doctrine of natural right emerged as a result of philosophy's struggle against religion. Pre-philosophic life is characterized by the identification of the good with the ancestral, with the customary way of living. Questions about the good in pre-philosophic life are answered by authority, by appealing to the authority of the ancestors or the authority of the gods. Philosophy instead seeks the answers about the beginnings, about the first things, from nature, and indeed philosophy can be said to have emerged simultaneously with the discovery of nature. By identifying the good with nature, philosophy uproots the identification of the good with the ancestral. Consequently, philosophy presupposes the doubt of the authority which identifies the good with the ancestral. 88 Philosophy thus becomes a whole different way of experiencing the world : ... the relation of reason or understanding to its objects is fundamentally different from that obedience without reasoning why that corresponds to authority proper. . . . By submitting to authority, philosophy, in partkular political philosophy, would lose its character; it would degenerate into ideology, i.e., apologetics for a given or emerging social order, or it would undergo a transformation into theology or legal learning.89 It would seem, however, that Thomas might freely admit this 'non-philosophic' (in the Straussian sense) character of his thought. Consider, for example, the work in which Thomas's supreme expression of his natural law theory is found, the Summa theologiae. That work begins with an article entitled with the question of "whether, besides philosophy, any further teaching as Natural Right and History, pp. 81-93. 39 Ibid., p. 92; see also "On the Interpretation Revue francaise d'anthropologie 21 (1981), 19. of Genesis," L'Homme: 230 DOUGLAS KRIES is required?" The question does not sound very auspicious for a work devoted to theology, but Thomas explains that in fact the science of sacred doctrine is required in addition to philosophy, and for two reasons : first, because human nature is directed to an end that exceeds the grasp of human reason; second, because even those truths about God which reason might come to know are only grasped by the reasoning powers of a few, and that after a long time and with the admixure of many errors. In other words, Thomas is suggesting that the philosophic quest is radically inadequate, for it is simply exiled from the highest things and all but exiled from other important but not supreme things. Whereas the initial article of the Summa begins by asking whether a teaching besides philosophy is necessary, by the time one finishes reading the article one wonders whether philosophy has any use at all, given the vast superiority of the science of sacred doctrine. Thomas says that in fact it does have a usebut only as a handmaid to theology. This ancillary status of philosophy is evident also in Thomas's treatise on law, a treatise which does not culminate in but begins with a discussion of the natural law and ascends from that discussion to treatments of the Mosaic law and the law of Christ. Interestingly enough, Strauss does not deny that, if natural right once emerges and becomes commonplace, it can be adjusted -with a bit of paring and whittling-to religious belief. In other words, if philosophy is understood not as a way of life but as a set of conclusions or doctrines, then it is perhaps not impossible to make faith and philosophy more or less compatible.40 One surmises that Strauss felt that this was what Thomas had done. However, the problem with such a procedure, according to Strauss, is that if faith predominates it " makes the quest for natural right infinitely unimportant: if man knows by divine revelation what the right path is, he does not have to discover that path by his unassisted efforts." 41 Thomas, as the first article of the Summa theologiae indicates, would more or less concur in 40 Natitral Right and History, p. 85; "Mutual Influence," p. 113. 41Natural Right and History, p. 85. NATURAL LAW THlWRY OF THOMAS AQUINAS 231 Strauss's description of the situation. While he might not say that philosophy is " infinitely unimportant" for faith, he does say that it is at best only a " handmaiden " who is exiled from the highest truths. Unlike the philosopher Strauss, however, Thomas does not find such a situation objectionable. IV As was noted in the introductory paragraph of this essay, at mid-century Strauss could describe the Thomists and the modern liberals as the two major parties in American social science. Indeed, he could plausibly claim that Roman Catholic thought was the most powerful opponent of the entire modern Western political project: Anyone who wishes to judge impartially of the legitimacy of the prospects of the great design of modern man to erect the City of Man on what appear to him to be the ruins of the City of God must familiarize himself with the teachings, and especially the political teachings, of the Catholic church, which is certainly the most powerful antagonist of that modern design.42 Since that time, of course, Thomism has collapsed, not only as an important party within American social science and a serious opponent to modern liberalism, but even as the dominant school of theology within Roman Catholicism, which has suddenly reconciled itself to life in the City of Man. By criticizing Thomas from the point of view of the ancients, Strauss extended to the Thomists a profound challenge, but such a challenge from the side of the ancients was hardly what the shrinking army of Thomists, then desperately fending off their modern critics, needed most. This may explain in part the relative silence with which Strauss's work was originally greeted within Thomistic circles.43 However, by indicating in the initial chapters of Natural Right and History and in other works how the powerful modern obstacles to the recovery of pre-modern thought might be 42 What 4 8 See 350. is Political Philosophy? p. 281. Fortin, " Rational Theologians and Irrational Philosophers," pp. 349- 232 DOUGLAS KRIES overcome, Strauss has done the Thomists a greater favor than they have heretofore realized.44 Moreover, even concerning those points at which the Straussian project diverged from Thomism it should be pointed out that there is little assistance so helpful to any group of thinkers as that provided by a truly profound critic. Consequently, even now it is not unreasonable to hope that the Thomists might be able to profit from Strauss's thought. 44 Ibid., p. 356. THEOLOGY, PRAXIS, AND ETHICS IN THE THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. JOEL ZIMBELMAN California State University, Chico Chico, California J I. Introduction ESUS OF NAZARETH Yesterday and Today is Juan Luis Segundo's most recent contribution in an on-going effort to forge a distinctive post-conciliar catholic theology. 1 · This five-volume work establishes Segundo as one of the most prolific, methodologically sophisticated, and constructive Catholic theologians of this century. In these volumes he moves beyond the task of reframing fundamental theology in political and social terms that he began in earlier works and undertakes a full elaboration of the theological method that he introduced in The Liberation of Theology.2 Better than any previous work, the recent effort witnesses to the author's range of interests and strengths, 1 Originally published in the Spanish as El hombre de hoy ante Jesus de Nazaret (Madrid: Ediciones Christiandad, 1982): Vol. I. Fe e ideologia; Vol. II/1 and 2 Historia y actualidad: Sinopticos y Pablo; Vol. II/3 El Cristo de los ejercicios espirituales; Vol. II/4 Lineas actuates de interpretacion de Jesus de N azaret. English translation Jesus of Nazareth Yesterday and Today, tr. John Drury (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books) : vol. 1 Faith and Ideologies (1984); vol. 2 The Historical Jesus of the Synoptics (1985); vol. 3 The Humanist Christology of Paul (1986) ; vol. 4 The Christ of the Ignatian Exercises (1987); vol. 5 An Evolutionary Approach to Jesus of Nazareth (1988). 2 The Liberation of Theology, tr. John Drury (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1976). For earlier efforts at political and social theology, see A Theology for Artisans of A New Humanity, tr. John Drury (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books): vol. 1 The Community Called Church (1973); vol. 2 Grace and the Human Condition (1973) ; vol. 3 Our Idea of God (1973) ; vol. 4 The Sacraments Today (1974); vol. 5 Evolution and Guilt (1974). 233 234 JOEL ZIMBELMAN including theology and philosophy, hermeneutics and critical social theory, linguistic theory, and biblical studies. Continuing analysis and assessment of liberation theory, and Segundo's recent effort in particular, is warranted for at least three reasons. First, Jesus of Nazareth and particularly its first volume, Faith and Ideologies, clarifies Segundo's constructive project. The volume reasserts much that is already familiar to Segundo's past readers : a deconstructive hermeneutic; the elaboration of the concepts of faith and ideology; and an interpretation of the relationship of faith to praxis, efficacy, and liberation. But it also breaks new and creative ground as it begins to construct the foundations of a moral epistemology and teleology, a more fully developed theory of value appropriation, and an anthropology grounded in transcendental-existentialist and process categories. One can only appreciate the scope and implications of Segundo's thought in a critical analysis of this recent work. Second, Segundo's ·effort calls for further discussion because of its inevitable influence on the development of other constructive and critical Christian theologies. The visions of " geotheology,'' "world Catholicism," and a "liberating theology" advanced by Latin and North American Catholics are no longer the preoccupations of a peripheral minority but reflect the aspirations of conservative, moderate, and progressive voices in the Christian church. As part of this constructive task, a growing number of contemporary thinkers are addressing concerns or appropriating categories and constructs developed or elaborated by Segundo. 8 His theological breadth and sophistication means 8 For discussions of this shift, see Alfred Hennelly, "Today's New Task: Geotheology,'' America 18 (January 1975): 27-29; and Penny Lernoux, People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism (New York: Viking/ Penguin, 1989). Those either indebted to or engaged in substantial conversation with Segundo include Matthew Lamb, Solidarity With Victims: Toward a Theology of Social Transformation (New York: Crossroads, 1982) ; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, " Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation," Origins: N. C. Documentary Service 15 (17 April 1986): 713-27; Rebecca Chopp, The Praxis of Suffering: An Interpretation of Liberation and Political Theologies (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1986) ; Alfred Hennelly, Theology for a Liberating Church: The New Praxis of Freedom (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1989). TltOUGB:T OF JUAN LUlS SEGUNbO, S.J. 235 that he is the Latin American thinker from whom North Americans and Europeans with constructive interests in theological and political ethics have the most to learn. Finally, Segundo's critics have leveled a range of charges against him and other liberation theologians. Some have criticized the scope of their work or questioned the commensurability of a Christian apologetic to their theological claims. Others have highlighted liberation theology's general lack of substantive ethics or sophisticated analysis concerning political economy. Most of these criticisms should be reevaluated in light of Segundo's most recent work, since it offers important clarifications and constructs that will render some criticisms obsolete while reinforcing others. 4 4 The best critical analyses of liberation theology and Segundo in particular include Schubert Ogden, Faith and Freedom: Toward A Theology of Liberation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979); J. Andrew Kirk, Liberation Theology: An Evangelical View From The Third World (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1979); Dennis McCann, Christian Realism and Liberation Theology: Practical Theologies in Creative Conflict (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1981); Doug Sturm, " Praxis and Promise: On the Ethics of Political Theology," Ethics 92(4) (1982): 733-50; Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1983), 42-68; Michael Novak, Freedom With Justice (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984), 183-184; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Certain Aspects of the "Theology of Liberation," Origins 14(13) (September 13, 1984): 193-204, though serious questions remain as to whether this document reflects a serious or accurate understanding of or engagement with Latin American liberation theology; Michael Novak, Will It Liberate? Questions About Liberation Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1986) ; Bernard T. Adeney, " Political Ethics: A Critical Examination of Liberation Theology's Ethical Methodology," Quaker Religious Thought 22 (1/2) (# 63-64) (Fall/Winter 1986): 21-36; Richard Rubenstein and John K. Roth, eds., The Politics of Latin American Liberation Theology (Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute Press, 1988); James Tunstead Burtchaell, The Giving and Taking of Life: Essays Ethical (Notre Dame, In.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 188-208; Daniel S. Schipani, ed., Freedom and Discipleship: Liberation Theology in an Anabaptist Perspective (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1989), particularly the essays by Rutschman, Swartley, and Yoder; Arthur F. McGovern, Liberation Theology and Its Critics: Toward an Assessment (Marylmoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1989) ; and Paul Sigmund, Liberation Theology at the Crossroads: Democracy or Revolittion? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). The best elaboration of Segundo's method of critical social 236 JOEL ZIMBELMAN In this paper I focus my analysis on Segundo's recent effort to address issues related to fundamental values, moral theology, and political praxis. In Part II, I orient the reader to Segundo's basic critical method and outline his reconstruction and elaboration of the concepts of faith, anthropology, and human valuing. I show how Segundo's concepts of anthropological faith, transcendent valuing, deutero-learning, and critical hermeneutics seek to provide a coherent framework in which social analysis, theology, politics, and praxis can be held together in the elaboration of an efficacious process of humanization. In Part III, I discuss the problems that are resolved by Segundo's effort and indicate others that result from his program. If, for Segundo, efficacious human liberation is the key to an authentic Latin American theology, then I suggest that this goal can be most fully realized if the author deemphasizes his personal-existential grounding of value and focuses his efforts on concerns of practical theology, morality, and ·ethics. Finally, in Part IV, I sketch the formal structure, a range of substantive and procedural moral principles, and a framework for critical ethical reflection that might strengthen Segundo's program while building on and remaining consistent with his commitment to a liberating praxis. Such principles and procedures, I argue, will permit Segundo to explicitly elaborate and publicly justify important moral concepts that he already accepts, center his theological effort on critical praxis and ethics, and permit him to address a range of practical problems that confront Latin America but have until now evaded both analysis and resolution by any Latin American liberation theologian. To the extent that they share his vision of efficacious liberation and human well-being, even those who are suspicious of and unsympathetic or hostile toward Segundo's program at the level of method have a stake in the practical implications of his position and thus in the constructive recommendations that I advance. Additionally, I argue that it will be at the substantive theory and its role in his ongoing project is Marsha Aileen Hewitt, From Theology to Social Theory: Juan Luis Segundo and the Theology of Liberation (New York: Peter Lang, 1990). THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 237 level of practical theology and ethical reflection-and not at the formal, foundational, and methodological level-that the distinctiveness and strength of Latin American liberation theology in general and Segundo's project in particular will be realized. II. Methodological Issues The Importance of Segundo's Task A substantial portion of Segundo's constructive work has focused on a reconstruction of the concept of faith in the context of a broader commitment to human authenticity and freedom. This reconstruction is important for both theoretical and practical reasons. According to Segundo, a reinterpretation of the meaning and task of faith to human existence is essential if the Gospel message of human liberation is to be fully appreciated and realized. Because of its basic commitments and theological method, Latin American liberation theology-better than most other theologies-embodies the spirit and intent of Vatican II in seeking an end to alienation and to the authoritarian, heteronomous, legalistic, and imputatory construals of grace and salvation that have characterized much Christian thought on both sides of the Enlightenment. Humanization can only be achieved if past interpretations of faith " in " certain persons, beliefs, or doctrines are replaced with a more human-centered, existential construal of this concept that can then serve as the foundation of the moral. A reinterpretation of faith also provides an opportunity for Segundo to delineate and emphasize humanity's shared vocation in history. By grounding faith in universal-existential and process-oriented presuppositions, Segundo is able to reinforce his move away from a classical conception of " Christian faith " to an appreciation of " anthropological faith " that is constituted by human-centered concerns. 5 Equating authentic Christian faith 5 For the distinction between Christian and non-christian, see The Community Called Church, 13, 17, 93, 117-18; The Liberation of Theology, 125. For the distinction between authentic and inauthentic humanity, see Grace and the Human Condition, 14-15, 24-38, 51-53, 77-78, 147. 238 JOEL ZIMBELMAN and " anthropological faith " supports Segundo's contention that true faith is not the exclusive claim of those who call themselves Christian. By extension, Christianity lacks distinctiveness with respect both to the authenticity of the faith it embodies and to the transcendent values to which it witnesses. The attractiveness of this move for Segundo is that it establishes a foundation for shared Christian and non-christian discourse on human concerns, but without the problems associated with natural law or various types of divine command theory. However, it requires a radical reassessment of the status of the claims of Christian belief, including the very notion of orthodoxy and Christianity's traditional claims to distinctive and decisive revelation concerning fundamental human concerns. Finally, this reconstruction of Christian faith is Segundo's response to those critics of liberation theology who have argued that it lacks the theological and methodological depth that is a prerequisite for establishing enduring credibility in theological discussions. 'With these warrants and justifications as a background and rationale for Segundo's effort, let me sketch the content of that project more fully. Faith and Ideology Segundo argues that a life of faith is essential to the fulfillment of the Christian-and human-task Understood apophatically, "faith is not a universal atemporal body of content summing up divine revelation" to which the Christian It does not serve as a repository of the " correct " strategies for addressing the problems of concrete human existence. Faith "lacks any precise instrument for measuring the historical life of Christians by pre-established standards." 1 Nor is it constituted by a set of conceptually objective truth claims, even though it empowers the search for value, satisfaction, and truth that is established e The Liberation of Theology, 108-110. 7 The Liberation of Theology, 108-110. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 239 on other grounds. 8 Positively, as a basic characteristic of all human beings, the expression of faith embodies a commitment to seek meaning and purpose in human existence through the expression of fundamental openness or trust towards others. 9 Faith thus advances human liberation through its ability to give human life coherence and meaning and to empower humanity to face the challenges of life. As beings of faith, all persons are called to take part in the construction of human-centered reality. 10 Because faith is for Segundo a formal characteristic of the human, it can only inform or influence concrete human existence when it is mediated by concrete, tangible, and practical beliefs. Ideology serves this purpose. Unlike faith, ideologies are simply substantive beliefs or normative programs of existence that concretize the basic values and goals apprehended through the posture of faith. Faith is logically distinct from and prior to ideology and can never be equated with any given ideology. But ideologies are necessary, essential tools that bring faith and values to bear on reality. As a result, faith can never be encountered or experienced independent of its " ideological manifestation." But at the same time faith is the mechanism and the process by which old ideologies are deconstructed and new, " helpful " ideologies are continually reinvented. Faith is thus the means to human liberation in both a negative and a positive sense; negatively, because it empowers and ratifies the dismantling of ideologies that enslave (it is " freedom from ideologies ") ; positively, because it undergirds a process of ideological creation in the changing contexts of reality. 11 s The Liberation of Theology, 11, 134-5. 9 The Liberation of Theology, 179; Faith and Ideologies, 15-16, 31-59. Note particularly 34, 37, and 45 where he refers to the necessity of the primacy of "human projects" and of a "sensitive human heart" to the life of faith. It is statements such as this that highlight the characteristics of an affective (rather than rationalistic) theology and a liberation spirituality that are integral to Segundo's theological vision. 10 The Liberation of Theology, 110, 120; Faith and Ideologies, 5-20, 24. 11 "A Conversation with Juan Luis Segundo, S.J.," in Faith, ed. Teofilo Cabestrero (Mary knoll: Or bis Books, 1980), 173; Segundo, The Liberation of Theology, 110, 120. 240 JOEL ZIMBELMAN Faith as the Existential Appropriation of Value: Transcenden1t Value, Satisfaction, and Eschatologicat Coherence. If faith has no content, then where and how does one apprehend the values that should be affirmed and that ought to guide the continuing critique and reconstruction of provisional ideologies? In earlier works, Segundo argued for the normativeness of the values of freedom, humanization, and human well-being.12 In Jesus of Nazareth he attempts, following Bateson, Rahner, and Berdyaev, a transcendental-existential grounding of those values as a first step in establishing a human vision of authentic existence and a complementary morality. Marsha Hewitt notes that Segundo determines the morality of actions as a function of their intented efficacy. As a result, " the moral quality of an act is not derived extrinsically, so that obedience to religious laws offers no basis for determining if an action is moral." 18 If Segundo were thus to argue for the authority of Scripture or a natural law theology as decisive in informing a substantive teleology or duty-based morality, he would undercut the centrality and significance of his interpretation of faith to his entire project. As a way of maintaining a commitment to faith and the moral, Segundo argues that the existence and continuation of a life of faith must be premised on a person's ability to express to the best of their ability and in full awareness of their lived situation a " scale of absolute or unconditioned " values that constitute the basic meaning structures of human existence.14 The reconstruction and deduction of these values will be essential to their ultimate justification in the context of "faith-fut" existence. One's choice of values is informed by the search for human well-being. The process of distinguishing and discriminating in one's choices, ordering, or ranking of values is a function of the degree to 12 The Liberation of Theology, 155, 178; The Community Called Church, 26, 107; Evolution and Guilt, 111; The Sacraments Today, 58. 13 Marsha Hewitt, " The Search for a Liberating Christology," Religious Studies Review 15(1) (January 1989): 49. u Faith and Ideologies, 63, 75, 78, 140. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 241 which they are perceived as being consistent with the attainment of satisfaction and human happiness. Segundo suggests at points that critical reflection on values presupposes and can only occur in a communal, dialogical, and relational context in which a person can learn from others how to appropriate values in the move toward satisfaction. It is historical communities, individuals, and traditions that temporally express a given set of values through the ideologies they embrace. These communities affirm various values as they commend them over time. To recognize that certain values have been affirmed by others through a process of concretizing or " ideologizing," however, does not guarantee that those expressions are either normative or essential to the attainment of satisfaction, happiness, or efficacious existence in the present. The act of valuing and the final decision about which particular values to appropriate is ultimately an individual challenge of existence in which self-referential determinations of satisfaction must shape one's choices of which values to appropriate as the basis of one's moral vision. 15 Choosing to embody or witness to certain values is a radical statement of faith, since one can never be sure whether a value can be realized in a particular, concrete setting: Just as we cannot enjoy direct experience of the satisfaction a given value can provide once it has been realized to the ultimate limits of human possibilities, so neither can direct experience provide the data required to complete the comparison between [various] values . . . the data are not transcendent solely when and if they have to do with God or the beyond. They are such because they transcend all possibility of empirical verification by the individual human being.16 Because persons are thus incapable of empirically testing or fully verifying the authenticity or efficacy of such values before they are chosen or embraced, Segundo suggests that value commitments will need to be undertaken in the context of an "existential wager." Individuals must choose to concretize-ideologize-transcendent values with an ultimate hope, grounded in 15 Ibid., 72-73, 322. 1 s Ibid. 242 JOEL ZIMBELMAN faith, that they are making the best possible choice concerning personal satisfaction and happiness for both the present and future.11 ·Such a wager seeks a state of "eschatological coherence." To some extent, then, every values-structure is necessarily grounded on the ultimate satisfaction one expects to get from the conjunction of reality with the practice of some value or set of values. The judgement which serves as the basis for this " faith " thus transcends everything which can presently be verified empirically. It presupposes a provisional way of acting as if. . . . Its verification is not ordinary empirical verification. Its verification is eschatological, hence an object of faith up to the very end.18 One verifies transcendent values by choosing in faith to concretize and act on them while recognizing that such verification is both incomplete, nonempirical, and imperfect. Still, such appropriation, though tentative and provisional, is essential, since faith can only be realized or exercised in the choice of a scale of substantive values that serve as the basis for an ideology. Segundo gives little indication of the nature, shape, or substance of these transcendent data and values which serve as the prerequisite, foundation, and impetus to the construction of ideology. To do so would undercut the decisiveness of the existential wager and would collapse the distinction between faith and ideology that he seeks to maintain. These volumes present no substantive discussion of preference satisfaction, though Segundo obliquely suggests that the satisfaction of any authentic preferences will necessarily entail an other-regarding (and therefore human-centered and moral) encounter with other persons. 19 His primary concern at this point in his constructive effort is to argue for the imperative of value-creation rather than for a specific ideological manifestation of faith and values. Still, he notes that authentic faith involves a commitment to the liberation of the poor and oppressed and to historical change based on love. As a result, Segundo seems to have some normative standard in mind with which to judge authentic and inauthentic faith. 20 11 Ibid., 152. 1s Ibid., 154, 165, emphases Segundo's. 10 The Liberation of Theology, 13, 39, 79. 20 Ibid., 44, 71-74, 81-84, 97. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 243 Deutero-Learning and the Life of Faith If an essential characteristic of the human task is critically to reflect on transcendent data and values in faith, then theology as a discipline and specific theological formulations or doctrines (ideologies) establish their legitimacy by helping these values "come to terms with historical reality." 21 For Segundo, a theology becomes authentic when it is placed in the service of struggling human beings. 22 If a person's "faith is to persist, it must increasingly be based on the creative ability to solve many problems, in line with the growing complexity of the reality with which he or she must deal." 23 Value apprehension, appropriation, and application are three distinct tasks in which all persons must be involved. 24 Segundo seems to suggest that value apprehension and the transcendental deduction of value is a task for which human beings, as a function of their humanity, are equally prepared. 25 Still, the appropriation of a scale of values and the application of those values to the construction of ideologies are learned behaviors essential to the flourishing of individuals and communities. Segundo terms this dynamic process "deutero-learning," emphasizing the central role that critical hermeneutics holds in this undertaking. The process of deutero-learning is thus at once a critical deconstruction of dominant ideologies and a creative act of praxis and politics that translates transcendent data and values into concrete 21 Faith and Ideologies, 130. 22 Faith and Ideologies, 64, 76, 80, 87. 2s Ibid., 75. 24 William Schweiker indicates the importance of distinguishing these three facets of Segundo's reconstructive effort in "The Liberation of Theology and the Revolution of Love: An Engagement with Juan Luis Segundo's Faith and Ideologies" (presented in the Currents in Contemporary Christology Group, Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Chicago, Ill., November, 1988, photocopy) . 25 See his discussion of the place of reason in the transcendental deduction in The Humanist Christology of Paul, 133, though it is not clear to me to what degree reason is necessary in order to apprehend or appropriate transcendent values. Its role in the construction and application of provisional ideologies is clearer. 244 JOEL ZIMBELMAN reality. 26 Deutero-learning, as the exercise of authentic faith in the construal of ideologies, thus embraces or is fundamentally guided by the formal or categorical imperatives to attain satisfaction and bring about humanization and efficacy. But its substantive formulations are hypothetical and context-dependent. Authentic praxis is simply the creative construal-the concrete attainment-of provisional ideologies. In summary, deutero-learning provides the framework in which Segundo claims to elaborate a formal, phenomenological, existential, and teleological morality. It is formal in its affirmation of the concepts of faith, transcendent data, and transcendent value that seek to provide a " moral " and " human " orientation toward reality. 27 It is existential in its affirmation of the necessity of personal and " subjectively authenticated" concrete reflection on transcendent values prior to their appropriation and application. 28 It is phenomenological in its claim that the construal of concrete values and their appropriation can only take place in the context of concrete existence. And it is moral to the extent to which Segundo claims that relational or other-regarding reality fundamentally informs the choice of which substantive values to affirm. 26 For a fuller analysis of this interpretation of the Scriptures as a witness to an historical and concrete process of "learning in faith," see Segundo Que es un Cristiano?: I. Etapas precristianas de la fe: Evolucion de la idea de Dias en el Antigua Testamento and II: Concepcion cristiana de hombre (Montevideo, Uruguay: Mosca, 1971). For a discussion of the parallels between Segundo's concept of deutero-learning and the concept of conscientization, see McCann, Christian Realism and Liberation Theology, 164-172, where the author argues that Segundo is indebted to Paulo Freire's notion of conscientization for his own formulations; and a rebuttal to this thesis in Matthew Lamb, " A Distorted Interpretation of Liberation Theology," Horizons 8 (Fall 1981) : 352-64. Alfred Hennel!y makes a claim related to McCann's when he argues for an understanding of Freire as liberation theologian with respect to ,stated ends and theological method; cf. Alfred Hennelly, Theology for a Liberating Church, 67-80. I believe both McCann's and Hennelly's assessments are substantially correct, though, as I will discuss shortly, I have serious questions about the adequacy of conscientization to the task at hand. 21 Faith and Ideologies, 322. 2s Ibid., 46, 157. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 245 Christian Theology in Light of Anthropological Faith and Deutero-Learning. The implication of Segundo's shift to the language of anthropological faith and the contextual determination of appropriate ideology is that Christianity may not presumptively provide the " best " (most efficacious) construal of human faith in all situations. Segundo still affirms Christianity as a decisive means of change and transformation in some situations. 29 Jesus of Nazareth is in part an argument for the relevance of Christian theology to the task of humanization and social construction and praxis. I want to take a closer look at Segundo's discussions of grace and christology in this context, since-as examples of theological reflection-they provide insight into the nuances of his claim for the relevance of Christianity in light of the methodological commitments just outlined. The task of grace is to overcome alienation and bondage in history; to break the barriers that limit and constrain humanity. so While Segundo rejects the distinction of planes of existence that is present in Thomistic thought, he argues that the work of grace irrevocably and comprehensively establishes a new "supernatural " mode of being by transforming humanity fully into the image and likeness of God. This anthropocentric transfiguration is evidenced through the attainment of human achievements, dominion over nature, personalization, and fraternal solidarity. 31 Segundo is thus committed to the centrality of the language of grace in his developing theological and social vision because it communicates an essential characteristic of human reality not fully captured by other concepts. Its legitimacy, however, is established not as a function of its doctrinal orthodoxy or its historical affirmation by Christians but because it reinforces the 29 For an argument concerning both Christianity's decisiveness and the Christian's privileged comprehension or understanding of the purposes of God, see The Community Called Church, 3, 10, 24, 40, 55, 72-83, 131; The Liberation of Theology, 228-31. 3o The Humanist Christology of Paul, 93. 31 The Liberation of Theology, 150; Grace and the Human Condition, 7-10, 28, 43-46, 60, 139; Evolution and Guilt, 46-7, 66, 83. 246 JOEL ZIMBELMAN notion of anthropological faith that is fundamental to all human experience. Thus, while Segundo is willing to concede that distinctive Christian theology (i.e., the construal of reality and construction of a provisional ideology based on Christian teachings) exists, grace is in reality something experienced by all persons as a function of their humanity. 32 What characteristics might a functional christology exhibit would be consistent with and reinforce this open, progressive, and universalist vision of grace? Jesus of Nazareth certainly contains the foundation for a christology of sorts. But any response to this question is complicated by the fact that Segundo himself refers to his effort of interpreting the life, ministry, and work of Jesus as an 'anti-christology." 33 He uses critical analysis of past christologies (the Synoptics, the first part of Paul's Letter to the Romans, and the Spiritual E:cercises of St. Ignatius) as occasions for exploring the implications of his critical method to the construction of contemporary provisional theologies. Based on this analysis, he suggests that three presuppositions ought to guide both one's reflections on the formal concept of christology and the construction of provisional christologies. First, to understand and/ or appropriate a christology is to appreciate or commit oneself to the concrete construal of the life of faith of that christology's creator. Christologies are products of human creativity refl.ecting concrete anthropological visions. For Segundo, the essential " truth " of a christology is not doctrinal82 Segundo is more that just a universalist when it comes to the experience and appropriation of salvation. He further argues that the experiences of grace and salvation are central to the human experiences of love, justice, and life; of overcoming the law, sin, and death; The Humanist Christology of Paul, 86, 97. as The Historical Jesus of the Synoptics, 13-21. It should be emphasized that this is not Segundo's first foray into christology. Indeed, most of the significant methodological presuppositions and substantive elements of christology found in Jesus of Nazareth were developed in earlier works. See, for example, Grace and the Human Condition, 34, 42, 85, 95, 118-119, 132; The Community Called Church, 10, 11, 13, 18, 26. The implications of Segundo's social theory on christology is deftly discussed by McCann, Christian Realism and Liberation Theology, 221-227. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 247 ly established or objectively affirmed, but is a function of whether or not it affirms the primacy of the process of critical faith (i.e. deutero-leaming) in the life of its creator. Because of this proviso, the critique-the critical deconstruction-of historical or contemporary christologies (including those of the New Testament) can never be interpreted as an act of idolatry or heresy. Rather, in keeping with the task of the life of authentic faith, such deconstruction seeks to uncover the limitations of particular ideologies as a propaedeutic to constructive undertakings. 84 Second, such christologies must be developed in the context of an existential, historically grounded, contextual, concrete, and process-oriented appreciation of the life of faith if they are to be experientially coherent. Such a construal of the Christian life is reaffirmed by the existential coherence of appr·eciating Christ as one who reveals the possibility of open, progressive human growth and perfection. Third, Segundo's appreciation of theology rules out the construction of metaphysical and dogmatic christologies and the attribution to Jesus Christ of the substantive embodiment of the necessary and sufficient revelation of God. 35 In fact, as Marsha Hewitt has observed, Segundo's fundamental commitment to human liberation means that It is Jesus' life, words and deeds, which interest Segundo much more than his substantive revelation to God. Segundo's preoccupation with social change leads him to focus much more on Jesus the man, than Jesus as Christ .... [T]he real point of faith in Jesus is that Jesus stands as a paradigmatic referential witness . . . of those values which promote the interests and welfare of humanity.36 84 It is this interpretation of the task of theology that distinguishes Segundo's position most clearly from that of The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, elaborated in "Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation," 193-204; Segundo's response to this attack is developed in Theology and the Church: A Response to Cardinal Ratzinger and a Warning to the Whole Church, tr. John W. Diercksmeier (Minneapolis: Seabury/Winston, 1985). 3 5 Faith and Ideologies, 50, 75-77. 36 Hewitt, From Theology to Social Theory, 11, 57, 163-165. 248 JOEL ZIMBELMAN McCann's observations and assessment of Segundo's earlier Christological reflections reinforce Hewitt's arguments concerning Segundo's most recent work. McCann observes that, for Segundo, Jesus is appreciated most as a model of what it means for humans to appropriate a critical approach to existence, This appreciation of faith empowers individuals to authentic life and the appropriation of experientially-based " coherent" truth. The salvific meaning of the Christian life is not substantive (though certainly there are substantive values that Christians may affirm) but the embodiment-the occasion-of the deideologizing task. 31 Segundo's construal of faith is an apologetic for a specific anthropologically-centered christology rather than, as with Barth and others, a christologically-based general anthropology. McCann's observations notwithstanding, Segundo's "antichristology " does not rule out confession of Jes us as Christ by the believer. Jesus of Nazareth attempts to ground this theology not in subjectivism or emotivism, but rather in a shared vision of a human faith. Segundo's vision is a witness to the primacy of critical reflection over substantive doctrinal affirmations and to the primacy of human faith over the provisional construal of dogma and ideology. It thus raises a range of challenges to tional theology, at the level of both content and method. HI. Critical Analysis Segundo's methodological and constructive efforts are not without their problems. Here, I detail a number of limitations with Segundo's project and introduce some options for resolving these conundrums in a way that might still permit Segundo to remain consistent with his fundamental presuppositions. First, Segundo needs to further justify why his recognition of the formal concept of anthropological faith and a commitment to personal authenticity and humanization requires a concurrent commitment to concrete, efficacious, and other-regarding con37 McCann, Christian Realism and Liberation Theology, 224; "A Conversation with Juan Luis Segundo, S.J.," in Faith, ed. Teofilo Cabestrero, 173; The Liberation of Theolog:;i, 108-110, 134-5. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 249 cerns. There are striking similarities here between Rahner's attempt to interpret and mediate the experience of salvation through the affirmation of the self and Segundo's notion of humanizationas-salvation mediated by transcendental-existentialist categories. 88 For both authors, the tension between an individualist, self-referential normative vision and a position that affirms other-regarding, interpersonal, and communally-based value claims is resolved in favor of the latter. In Segundo's work this move is never justified. Human expressions of faith, Segundo argues at points, are self-authenticating, and are not open to external judgments or critiques. They are neither externally verifiable nor falsifiable because there exist no evaluative criteria other than "subjectively authenticated" feelings for judging the authenticity and/ or efficacy of faith claims. In other words, there is no reason in Segundo's constructive vision why the attainment of personal-existential coherence must necessarily or universally result in a commitment to otherregarding concerns or communal efficacy. If, as I believe is the case, Segundo's understanding of faith as a fundamental but formal reality does not allow for any judgments or assessments concerning its substance, then there is no way for Segundo to judge or justify his preference for one manifestation of faith over another. In principle a person's expression of anthropological faith can affirm goals that oppose moral, humanistic, and liberative considerations. But of course, this is not the claim that Segundo ultimately makes. Rather, he argues that all authentic faith must be committed to, and all deutero-learning and conscientizing actions can be tested with respect to, certain humanistic values. Suddenly, it is substantive ideology which is judging, indeed shaping, authentic faith. The problem with this move is that it is precisely what the distinction between faith and ideology and the concepts of faith and eschatological coherence were developed to avoid. A second and related problem with Segundo's position centers on his claim that since transcendent values are apprehended in as Cf. Rebecca Chopp, The Praxis of Suffering, 19. 250 JOEL ZIMBELMAN relational and communal contexts, the values thus apprehended will necessarily be other-regarding. Segundo seems to argue here that all human beings will affirm similar if not identical values as a result of the shared participation in a process of transcendental deduction, and that the appropriation of authentic moral values will provide universally binding standards of authentication. 89 Again, this is a less than self-evident claim. Segundo never fully elaborates why the transcendental deduction in the context of faith needs to be relationally grounded. In fact, the language he employs to discuss anthropological faith and the attainment of eschatological coherence is surprisingly absent of interpersonal markers, metaphors, and language. And to claim that knowledge or values are imparted interpersonally is not a justification that such values must be moral. His failure to distinguish moral from non-moral value, and to develop an accessible and sustained justification of the primacy of the moral over the non-moral ultimately undercuts his later attempts to elaborate a moral teleology and a justification of the primacy of deuterolearning and praxis. At most, such a claim supports a formal epistemology, not any normative moral claim. His transcendental existentialism thus fails to carry the weight of establishing the political and practical theology and social agenda that are his aspiration. As a way of overcoming these types of criticisms, Segundo posits the existence and usefulness of interpretive ' keys " (political, anthropological, existential) that may be used to decipher the meaning and imperatives of life and that can provide insight for both critically evaluating and structuring provisional ideologies. Some keys are relevant universally or are more adequate to the task of understanding, in specific situations, what expression our faith ought to take. 40 At other points Segundo suggests that any key can-at any time-potentially or practically assist in the construction of an authentic ideology.41 The Historical Jesus of the Synoptics, 173. The Humanist Christology of Paul, 161-2; The Historical Jesus of the Synoptics, 34. 41 The Humanist Christology of Paul, 163. 39 40 THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 251 Here we run into a third limitation with Segundo's argument. The claim for the usefulness of interpretive keys assumes a positive relationship between the interpersonal disclosure of value and substantive other-regarding concerns. These values, it is implied, empower the discrimination and selection of one's "keys." But justifying the criteria that permit one to select the appropriate keys for the task at hand is precisely the problem with which one must deal and which justification in ideology, faith, and transcendent data and values all fail to provide. A fourth problem with Segundo's program derives from the inconsistency between his methodological claims and his commitment to the primacy of historical and contextual existence. Surprisingly, Segundo's transcendental-existential deduction is methodologically formulated and executed fairly independently of contextual considerations. Not only is it unclear what, for example, a distinctively Latin American context might provide to this social theory; it is obvious that lived history and the concrete reality of political community is important only as a secondary consideration at the level of defining, establishing, and appropriating particular ideologies. In Segundo's scheme, one commits to the fundamental values that inform ideologies independent of one's context. Political, communal, and contextual considerations provide only the necessary occasion for testing and elaborating a substantive agenda whose formal and existential coherence must be tested with respect to other criteria. The difference between Segundo's effort and the methodological aproach taken by other liberation theologians-for example Ernesto Cardenal in The Gospel in Solentiname-is profound, suggesting Segundo's dependence on a rather Kantian approach to resolving both moral and psychological conundrums. This recourse to transcendental language at the expense of a phenomenological starting point is ironic, since Segundo appeared to argue against such formalism in most of his earlier works. For a person committed to the emancipation of humanity, to humanity's substantive and efficacious liberation, his constructive effort remains theoretical and foundational. It never ventures into reflection on 252 JOEL ZIMBELMAN or discussion of concrete, practical problems or the establishment of essential though provisional ideologies" There are in Jesus of Nazareth references to but a total lack of substantive discussions of nuclear weapons; 42 economic structures and systems; 43 issues relating to the approval and/or use of force in the quest for liberation; 44 concerns of ecological ethics ; and the social and moral status of women in Latin America" 45 It is clear that Segundo rejects the ideological constructions developed in other contexts (particularly Europe and North America)" But throughout his work of the past 22 years he fails to develop even the rudimentary contours of an ideology consistent with his fundamental theological vision" A fifth and final limitation of Segundo's program is that it fails to discuss the necessary or sufficient conditions essential to the exercise of deutero-leaming, conscientization, and praxis; or to provide insight into precisely how these tasks follow from or relate to the knowledge gained through the experience of faith and the attainment of eschatological coherence" Sometimes Segundo suggests that the apprehension of transcendent values is empowered by a commitment to deutero-leaming and conscientization" At other times he argues that the exercise of faith and the An Evolutionary Approach to Jesus of Nazareth, 4, 127 n29" Social Justice and Revolution," America 118(17) (April 27, 1968): 57477; and " Capitalism versus Socialism: Cr1<.r Theologica," in Frontiers of Theology in Latin America, ed" Rosina Gibellini, tr. John Drury (Maryknoll: 42 43 " Orbis Books, 1979), 240-259, where Segundo takes the inconsistent position of absolutizing a temporally determined ideological manifestation-socialism" His most recent work addresses these issues only to the extent of affirming the biblical preferential option for the poor in the teaching of some Gospel writings, ct The Historical l esus of the Synoptics, 65, 76, 87, 9L However, the implications of this for further moral deliberation and the formulation of ideologies and public policy are not explored" 44 The Liberation of Theology, 156-166; Our Idea of God, 166-169; "Christianity and Violence in Latin America," Christianity and Crisis 28 (March 4, 1968), 31-34; and McCann's discussion of the limited nature of Segundo's discussion of these issues in Dennis McCann and Charles Strain, Polity and Praxis: A Program for American Practical Theo log;' (Minneapolis: Winston/Seabury, 1985), 148-9" 4 5 An Ei,olittionary Approach to Jesus of N a::areth, 24, 135 n155. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 253 appropriation of values is pre-critical and thus an activity independent of deutero-learning and conscientization. The preceding observations suggest that Segundo's program may not provide the essential epistemological and moral coherence necessary to justify his methodological moves and his concurrent commitment to efficacious humanization. I suggest, however, that some shifts in strategy at the level of fundamental moral theology might still provide a range of strategies for furthering his goals. Here, I wish to explore three possibilities. Segundo's first option might be to place morality, other-regard, and efficacious considerations at the center of his program. Such an approach could consistently maintain his fundamental commitment to liberation, humanization, efficacy, and other-regard, and would further strengthen his claim that all authentic values are disclosed contextually and interpersonally. Its major liability would be that it might be too normative and doctrinal an approach to theology and morality for Segundo, emphasizing critical reflection on beliefs, doctrines, and normative constructs rather than encouraging the appropriation of a critical and formal method of interacting with reality. Such an approach might require that the conception of faith and the transcendental deduction of value outlined in Faith and Ideologies be abandoned. If Segundo were to explore this line of argument, there might be at least two plausible ways for him to proceed in establishing a more secure ground for his moral theology. Marsha Hewitt has suggested that Hegel possesses, in his formulation of the concept of Absolute Spirit, a resource that might be employed as a foundation for a normative morality by individuals such as Segundo who are committed to a moral teleology and a dialectical or process-oriented vision of history. 46 Still, much work would need to be done in elaborating such a constructive position. It would require of Segundo a rethinking of the place of Hegelianism in his larger theological project (a commitment that Segundo has, for whatever reason, eschewed since his earliest writings on Berdyaev and Christian existentialism). 46 Marsha Hewitt, " The Search for a Liberating Christology," 49. 254 JOEL ZIMBELMAN A second way of maintaining the centrality of other-regarding considerations and a commitment to the interpersonal disclosure of value would be for Segundo to appropriate Habermas's theory of communicative competence as a foundation for his value theory. 47 Habermas suggests that it is through interpersonal participation and public communication and discourse that normative decisions concerning the structure and function of specific ideologies and/ or patterns of praxis are developed. The normative values of human existence (Segundo's transcendent values) are those that emerge through consensus as a " judgement acknowledged by all participants in discourse " as best able to satisfy the formal and substantive demands of discourse (e.g. coherence, comprehensiveness, consistency, simplicity, fidelity to lived experience and to one's expressed religious and moral authorities). 48 The apprehension of authentic values thus requires, at least in principle, the participation of all persons on whom such values would impinge. It seems to differ from Segundo's construal of value apprehension and appropriation in two ways. First, Habermas' s approach does not rely on the s·earch for individual eschatological coherence as the context for value appropriation. Second, the theory seems much more willing to accept a conceptual relativism of sorts than Segundo's position would. Habermas's approach to grounding and elaborating fundamental values could advance Segundo's program in a number of ways. First, it addresses Segundo's concerns about the determination of normative human values and the process of valuing. Similarly to Segundo, Habermas provides a formal, universalizable, procedural framework for the apprehension and explication of value. Beyond this Habermas's presupposition of "the gen47 Jurgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interest, tr. Jeremy Shapiro (Boston: Beacon, 1968) ; Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society, tr. with an introduction by Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979). 48 Strain and McCann, Polity and Praxis, 153. See also the excellent articles on the use of Habermas by Christian theologians in Dennis McCann, "Habermas and the Theologians," Religious Studies Review 7(1) (January 1981): 15-21 ; and Paul Lakeland, " Habermas and the Theologians Again," Religious Studies Review 15 (2) (April 1989) : 104-9. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 255 eralizability of interests," as both a presupposition of the act of valuing and the ground of normative values retains a certain contextual and communitarian primacy. It goes beyond Segundo's own efforts by making the interpersonal disclosure of value more than simply the occasion for the attainment of individual eschatological coherence. Rather, personal eschatological coherence and the determination of fundamental value cannot even be undertaken, nor does it make sense, apart from a posture of interpersonal communication. The phenomenological, political, and contextual nature of valuing is maintained, with moral and discourse an outgrowth of this posture. More clearly than Segundo's existential derivation, Habermas's notion of communicative competence reveals the positive, necessary relationship that exists between a non-emotivist, non-subjectivist procedural framework and the deduction of substantive moral values. Both Segundo's and Habermas's reconstructions seek to establish a fundamental grounding for values. Segundo's program also seeks a means of reconciling fundamental value considerations with commitments to efficacy and self-authentication. But a different option beyond the Hegelian and Habermasian options that Segundo might explore would be simply to abandon the search for a universalist or transcendental theory of value and praxis and focus his attention instead on the lived, concrete demands of neighbor welfare and efficacy. Indeed, such a philosophical reconstruction may be unnecessary to the task of praxis. As Richard Bernstein has observed, the attempt to reconstruct a foundation for a universal value theory (one distinguishing feature of modern European philosophy and theology and of Segundo's recent work) must necessarily prove futile. It is an approach that fails to address the pragmatic and practical concerns (including morality, ethics, social analysis, and political economy) of concrete contexts. 49 Such an " anti-foundational " approach that emphasizes, as Bernstein suggests, practical knowl49 Richard J. Bernstein, BeJ1ond Objectivism and Relatii1ism: Science, I-I ennene11tics, Gt!d Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985). 256 JOEL ZIMBELMAN edge, might be commended to Segundo for a number of reasons. Most importantly, it might appear to offer a better chance of elaborating and strategically implementing humanization and efficacy through praxis than his present scheme does. Even if Segundo were successful in his aspiration of reconstructing a concept of value (though he acknowledges that even the transcendental deduction of value tells us nothing about a scheme of general, concrete, or specific values), such a process could b<:: read as uncoupling critical hermeneutics and conscientization from any substantive values, in the process retarding the construction of even provisional ideologies. And appropriating Habermas' s method and procedural emphasis might force Segundo simply to exchange one type of naturalism for another. If from Segundo's perspective, the ultimate purpose of engaging in a reconstruction of Christian thought is to establish theology as an effective tool for social change, liberation, and praxis, and if deutero-learning is the linchpin of this process of efficacious praxis, then Segundo might constructively shift his efforts away from foundationalism and abandon his search for a universally recognized grounding for value. 50 Abandoning the task of reconstructing a theory of value based on a transcendental-existential deduction via a Hegelian dialectical teleology, through a theory of communicative competence, or by some other option, Segundo's value theory need not degenerate into radical subjectivism or nihilism. By emphasizing praxis and a more contextually-dependent and historical starting point for reflection on values, the centrality of deutero-learning, the use of critical social theory, and community-centered analysis and decision-making is maintained. Segundo would, however, be forced to explore other ways of construing a conception of value and the moral life. My task in highlighting these limitations and outlining these alternatives has been twofold. First, I have tried to indicate Anselm Kyongsuk Min makes a similar observation with respect to Ogden's " liberation christology" in " How Not To Do A Theology of Liberation: A Critique of Schubert Ogden," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 57(1) (Spring 1989): 83-102. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 257 stress points and some weaknesses in the theoretical foundation of Segundo's program. I have sought to reveal the problems that Segundo encounters when he tries to reconcile his emphasis on foundationalism with his commitment to humanism, efficacy, and praxis. My criticisms of his program notwithstanding, I am in enthusiastic agreement with him concerning the centrality of other-regarding and human-centered considerations to the moral -and theological-enterprise. I suggest, however, that his fundamental and methodological constructs fail in their present forms to provide a warrant or justification for the very values that are most central to his program. If Segundo is committed to efficacious praxis as the authentic concretization of faith, then he is compelled-independent of the foundational (or anti-foundational) stance he takes-to renegotiate, and to emphasize with vigor, the place of ethics (defined simply as critical reflection on morality and lived experience) in his program of praxis. Segundo might be reticent about this proposal, since he has argued consistently that ethics possesses at best marginal status in any program devoted to praxis. At points he suggests that critical reflection on praxis and humanization in the context of deutero-learning eliminates the need to reflect critically on morality. However, if one could demonstrate that Segundo misconstrues the nature and task of ethics, misinterprets the negative relationship of praxis and humanization to ethics, and fails to appreciate the functional and efficacious role that ethics might play in a constructive program such as his, then I suggest that he ought to give serious consideration to renegotiating the place of ethics in his program. 51 IV. Constructive Recommendations As a means of assuring the success of both the deconstructive and synthetic components of his program-to which "humanization " and " efficacy " are the desired outcomes-Segundo must establish a firm commitment to a liberation ethics : a sub51 This is not a novel observation; cf. Sturm, McCann and Strain, Polity and Praxis, 149. " Praxis and Promise "; 258 JOEL ZIMBELMAN stantive, concrete, practical moral theology. Such a commitment seems essential for at least three reasons. First, as Segundo has argued, faith requires an ideological manifestation-premised on an awareness and appreciation of historical existence-as a means to the concretization of that faith in the present. A program of ethics can assist in the construction of such an ideology. A second argument for the development of a substantive liberation ethic derives from the demands of praxis and efficacy in the lived situation of Latin America. With its growth and development as a significant theological presence, it is incumbent on liberation theology to establish now the contours of an efficacious praxis. The contemporary challenge to theologians like Segundo is to develop a constructive ethical, political, and economic posture that will facilitate the process of establishing just, sustainable, and participatory societies in the hemisphere. The changed political situation in Latin America and the institutional openings that have appeared since 1989 now require of all liberation theologians the development of a comprehensive moral and political theory that addresses some of the issues I will elaborate shortly. Finally, I believe that liberation theology's own best chance of forging a distinctively Latin American theology will be advanced when it undertakes the development of a clear, comprehensive, and substantive Christian political and social ethic. Other liberation theologians are beginning· this task, most notably Miguez-Bonino. 52 Let me indicate four areas in which I believe the development of a liberation dhic might be used by Segundo to advance his program of ideological construction, praxis, and efficacy. First, I have already indicated that Segundo might at some point profitably elaborate a conception of moral value. I am not suggesting he needs to fill in and expand on the theoretical program he has begun. Rather, he needs to concretize-to ideologize-that value theory in a way that clarifies the substance 52 Jose Miguez-Bonino, Toward a Christian Political Ethics (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983). THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 259 and concrete expression of terms such as " human responsibility "otherfor history," "praxis," "efficacy," "humanization," regard " " solidarity with" and " preferential option for the poor." There is some confusion among Segundo's interpreters over the moral theory that he advocates as most consistent with his general theology and social theory. Some interpret his position as something close to act·utilitarianism. 53 His recent effort seems to reinforce this assessment by suggesting some sort of teleological theory embracing a commitment to " satisfaction " and efficacy with scant reference to community-based guidelines for moral conduct. The question, of course, is whether Segundo's construal of deutero-learning in light of transcendent data and value provides a foundation for the development of a moral theory that is richer than a vulgar utilitarianism. The essential elements are present in his work of the past 20-25 years to construct a moral theory similar to rule-utilitarianism or a communitarian-based teleology. However, the distinction and priority of some moral over non-moral values in the context of praxis needs to be established. Such a theory need not focus simply on goals and ends, moral principles, or virtues, but might productively begin to reflect on how these facets of moral existence are related, particularly in the present situation of Latin America. For example, what virtues are most conducive to the practice of humanization? What moral defects or vices (in addition to or as a further specification of alienation and sloth) have until now guided the development and structuring of political communities on the continent? How might conscientization as a means of moral education be specified beyond what has already been noted by individuals such as Friere? On this issue, it seems to me, 53 See McCann, Christian Realism and Liberation Theology, 225; and McCann and Strain, Polity and Praxis, 148-9. The most compelling passage in support of this interpretation is The Liberation of Theology, 171. In addition, references to "the economy of energy," "efficacy," and "satisfaction " at points support this reading, cf. Our Idea of God, 114; Evolittfon and Guilt, 17, 111-12, 119; The Sacraments Today, 33, 58; The Liberation of Theology, 122, 155, 165. Segundo's attempt to distinguish his commitment to efficacy from vulgar utilitarianism based on " qualitative " distinctions fails to provide tangible criteria to accomplish that task; cf. The Sacraments Today, 55-6. 260 JOEL ZIMBELMAN Alasdair Macintyre might serve as a discussion partner, since his aspiration of a coherent teleology, balanced with a suspicion of ideological and principled immobility is similar to Segundo's. Jeffrey Stout's Ethics After Babel seems to grapple with many of the same concerns raised by Segundo, and suggests an alternative reading of ways in which theological resources can be brought to bear on theoretical and practical concerns. Additionally, Stanley Hauerwas has discussed the process and substance of formative Christian character in an ecclesial context in ways reminiscent of Segundo's work of the late 1960's and early 1970's. Indeed, the insights of narrative theologians might be particularly helpful to Segundo, given their attention to context and their shared critique of certain aspects of rule-morality, deontological construals of morality, and aspects of Enlightenment individualism. 54 Additionally, Eduardo Hoornaert has suggested a range of specifications to the general pedagogical task of the Christian community in light of deutero-learning and conscientization that emphasizes the charismatic dimensions of Christian belief reflected in an emphasis on transformation, wonder, miracle, imagination, and a shared community of goods. 55 Second, Segundo needs to recognize and affirm the importance of moral principles as tools of moral justification. In the past, he has consistently equated all concrete moral imperatives or 54 Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, In.: Notre Dame University Press, 1981) ; Jeffrey Stout, Ethics After Babel (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988); Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character (Notre Dame, In.: Notre Dame University Press, 1981). For other narrative theological perspectives, see Paul Nelson, Narrative and Morality: A Theological Inquiry (Pittsburgh: Pennsylvania State University, 1987), though the narrative and communitarian critiques and constructive alternatives are not without their critics; see Allen Buchanan, "Assessing the Communitarian Critique of Liberalism" Ethics 99(4) (July 1989): 852-82; and Todd Whitmore, "Beyond Liberalism and Communitarianism in Christian Ethics : A Critique of Stanley Hauerwas," in Diane Yeager, ed. The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 1989 (Knoxville, TN: The Society of Christian Ethics, 1989), 207-225. 5 5 Eduardo Hoornaert, The Memory of the Christian People (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988). THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 261 principles legalistically. 56 But his argument seems to be unjustified for at least four reasons. First, such a position is inconsistent with his recognition of the need for ideology. Not all ideologies are legalistic, particularly when constructed in full awareness of the realities of a critical methodology and social theory. And the language of moral principles provides a means to the justification of chosen ideological constructs in a way that the assertions of both transcendent data and deutero-learning are unable to accomplish. Second, moral principles need not be tightly or narrowly formulated as rules or laws. In our everyday language at both the interpersonal and political levels, principles are most consistently construed as broader or more fundamental than laws and rules. Segundo himself recognizes this at points, as when he discusses the "law of love" or the "principle of the economy of energy." Third, moral principles do not need to be interpreted absolutely. There is a difference between a categorical and a hypothetical imperative; between absolute norms, prima facie principles, and maxims. This is a distinction that Segundo consistently overlooks but that is absolutely crucial to the task of reconciling the language of enduring values with the importance of contextual demands. Finally, an elaboration of principles and reflection on their relevance, meaning, and weight would necessarily be conducted with respect for context and changing situations. Such principles need not be applied de facto, as Segundo suggests, "from above." But a recognition of the dual claims of both eschatological and moral coherence might permit Segundo to argue for the presence of something like prima f acie moral principles or duties and their relationship to contextually determined actual duties. 57 Alternately, and perhaps more successfully, Segundo might consider appropriating Richard McCormick's "proportional" approach to considering, weighing, and appropriating moral 5 6 See, for example, Evolution and Guilt, 95; "Capitalism/Socialism: Crux Theologica," 243-6. 5 7 See, for example, W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: The Oarendon Press, 1930). 262 JOEL ZIMBELMAN values. 58 McCormick's constructive contributions might be commended to Segundo as a starting point for his own constructive undertaking for a number of reasons. First, McCormick's commitment to contextually grounded critical moral reflection is strong. And he construes reality fundamentally in both otherregarding and relational terms, a position that resonates with much of Segundo's fundamental orientation. 59 Second, McCormick possesses at the foundation of his moral theory a well developed teleological value theory grounded in a notion of "basic human tendencies" that resonates with Segundo's notion of transcendent values and "personal satisfaction." eo McCormick has centered his notion of morality on the reality of "premoral," "physical" or "antic" goods and evils. Moral goods or evils, construed as such through proportionate judgments exercised contextually but in light of the more fundamental reality of antic goods and evils, serve as a bridge between fundamental value realities and practical or ideological concerns in much the same way that transcendent data and interpretive keys mediate faith and ideology for Segundo. 61 McCormick has also been forced over the years to defend his position against criticisms that it is consequentialist and reductionistic. His successful defense is one that might be commended to Segundo, who suffers similar criticisms. 62 Segundo appears at points to be able to accommodate these 58 The best overview of McCormick's moral theory is James B. Tubbs, "Recent Theological Approaches in Medical Ethics: McCormick, Ramsey, Hauerwas, and Gustafson" (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1990), 27120. 59 Richard McCormick, How Brave a New World! Dilemmas in Bioethics (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1981), 346-349; Tubbs, "Recent Theological Approaches," 32-35, 39-40. so See Tubbs, "Recent Theological Approaches," 41-42. 6 1 Tubbs, " Recent Theological Approaches," 45-52. A full discussion of the ontic/moral distinction is presented in Richard McCormick and Paul Ramsey, eds., Doing Evil to Achieve Good: Moral Choice in Conflict Situations (Chicago: Lcyola University Press, 1978). 6 " Tubbs, "Recent Theological Approaches," 77-102. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 263 recommendations. He recognizes a number of moral principles : political liberation grounded in efficacious love; 63 love as seeking the welfare of the neighbor; 64 love construed as mutuality and/ or self-sacrifice; 65 love construed as respect for persons and their autonomy, both as a goal and as a regulatory claim; 66 justice as fairness or equity; 67 justice as equality; 68 justice as giving to those in need ;69 justice as demanding the use of effective means (utility and proportionality) to bring about solidarity. 70 Still, further discussion of how such formulations relate to various acts of deutero-learning in different settings is necessary. It is not clear, for instance, how such principles presently relate to each other in Segundo's scheme, or whether there exist for Segundo such things as moral dilemmas in the context of conscientization, deutero-learning, the divine dialectic of history, or evolutionary humanization. Segundo might further explore the appropriation and justification of certain strands of rights language. For example, how might he justify and specify his claim of a " right to development " or " the undeniable right of the female to be treated on a 63 Our Idea of God, 114; The Liberation of Theology, 122, 155, 165; Evolution and Guilt, 17, 112, 119; The Sacraments Today, 33, 58; The Historical l esus of the Synoptics, 81. 64 Evolution and Guilt, 111; The Sacraments Today, 58; The Historical l esus of the Synoptics, 35. 65 The Liberation of Theology, 155; The Community Called Church, 26. as Our Idea of God, 115; "Capitalism Versus Socialism: Crux Theologica," in Frontiers of Theology in Latin America, 240-59; "Wealth and Poverty as Obstacles to Development," 21-31 in Human Rights and the Liberation of Man, ed. L. Colonnese (South Bend, In.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970). 61 The Sacraments Today, 22, 70. 68 Our Idea of God, 83. 69 The Community Called Church, 59. 7 0 Grace and the Human Condition, 94; The Liberation of Theology, 171; and The Liberation of Theology, 161, where both utilitarian interpretations of prudence and admission of a general principle of proportionality governing the use of "scarce resources" (the ability of humans to apply love) are discussed. 264 JOEL ZIMBELMAN footing of equality with the male " ? 71 Are such rights grounded in individual or communal conceptions of love or justice? Is it a right to a certain level of liberation, well-being, goods and services, freedom, or to a specific process of development? Does it imply a specific form of political economy? And how will such recourse to rights language be held together with communal conceptions of salvation, humanization, and solidarity with the poor through socialism? Additional principles might be commended to Segundo : a commitment to communal rather than individual eschatological coherence reflected at least in part through a principle of covenant fidelity " story-formed community," or communal solidarity grounded in a history of marginalization. Recent Papal Encyclicals from the 1960's on provide insight into other principled construals of morality that might be commended to Segundo. The procedural principle of subsidiarity (as elaborated by John XXIII in Pacem in Terris) might not only support the move toward a praxis of freedom, but might be creatively appropriated to argue for the necessity-even primacy-of the voice of base communities in the shaping of democratic political and economic institutions. 72 And the recent N CCB Pastoral Economic Justice for All might serve as a ready source of principled language that would support Segundo's evolving conceptions of justice. 73 McCann has noted that the development and elaboration of " middle axioms " might further specify the way in which moral n See " Wealth and Poverty as Obstacles to Development," 29; " Christianity and Violence in Latin America," 29, where the request for a " gift of development " to Latin America from the industrialized nations is balanced with a general rejection of the language of imperfect obligations as a ground for morality; An Evolutionary Approach to Jesus of Nazareth, 135 n155. 12 John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (Washington, D.C.: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1963), paragraphs 140-141, p. 33. 1a Though some writers have noted that it is precisely the principled language and anthropological realism resulting in the recognition of the legitimacy of a mixed economy that make it unamenable to, if not incommensurable with, the spirit and methological presuppositions of liberation theology ; cf. Dennis McCann, "Liberating Without Being a Liberationist: The U.S. Catholic Bishop's Pastoral Letter on the Economy," in Rubenstein and Roth, eds, The Politics of Latin American Liberation Theology, 266-287. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 265 principles and ethical deliberation are related to concerns of public policy and functional efficacy.74 This approach has been employed by Segundo on at least one occasion, specifically when he advanced the normativeness of socialist economic systems. 75 My suggestion is that more consistent recourse to such mediating constructs might provide support and direction to praxis in other situations. None of this is to say, of course, that such axioms need be taken as " objectively absolute" or universally binding. But they might, along with the idea of prima facie duties, ontic goods, and rights provide a helpful bridge between commitments to faith and concrete praxis. A third direction in which Segundo might develop his ethics would be to elaborate the relationship that holds between procedural and substantive issues in the pursuit of liberation and efficacy. He possesses a basic commitment to a "politics of inclusion " and the imperative of recognizing the voice of the voiceless. While he has made a start in showing how this inclusive approach to communal existence might be grounded methodologically and how it may be advanced in the context of his evolutionary vision of humanization, a number of concerns remain. First, he needs to emphasize negative or autonomy rights-what might be termed "protective praxis "-in this evolutionary scheme. The development of moral limits, side constraints, and boundaries on the action of individuals and social institutions are important to the establishment of a truly authentic political community. Greater recognition of the competing claims of individuals-and of various principled construals of humanizationwill support the development of this form of praxis. Segundo's ethical theory needs to justify his critique of certain classes of actions, conventions, and social constructs ( developmentalism, capitalism, violence) and his advocacy of the construction of just and participatory intermediary social structures (families, base 74 Dennis McCann, "A Second Look at Middle Axioms," in The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 1981, ed. T. Ogletree (Council for the Study of Religion, 1981), 73-92; McCann and Strain, Polity and Praxis, 161-9. 75 "Capitalism/Socialism: Crux Theologica." 266 JOEL ZIMBELMAN communities, and voluntary associations) and programs (land reform, environmental protection, industrial development, representative political institutions, human rights, just health care delivery systems, social security, and voter registration). 76 Fourth, Segundo needs to elaborate further his understanding of an interpersonal or community-based process of moral reasoning. While he notes that much of his earlier theological reflection took shape in the context of a dialogical community, Jesus of Nazareth fails to justify the centrality of such a process to authentic critical reflection. There is little elaboration or justification here of a community-based hermeneutic. And yet such elaboration appears essential to establishing any commitment to authentic praxis. Here, the reflections of individuals such as John Howard Yoder provide ready sources for exploring the theological and praxiological texture of such a position, suggesting the way in which divergent voices might dialectically relate in the uncovering of truth. 77 The authority of "hermeneutic communities " can be reasserted with respect to the establishment, articulation, and justification of values-between certain broad though substantive values and their culturally and context-specific manifestation in light of social analysis, theological reflection, biblical analysis, and a commitment to efficacious praxis. Such a context might provide further practical specification and sharper definition of a number of key concepts in Segundo's theology. It would force a rethinking of the procedural and substantive concepts of justice that are the necessary aim of his theology. And it would oblige theologians and the communities to which they belong to wrestle with the integration of individual and communal per76 "Capitalism/Socialism: Crux Theologica" and "Christianity and Violence in Latin America." 77 John Howard Yoder, "The Hermeneutics of Peoplehood," Journal of Religious Ethics 10 (1) (Spring 1982) : 40-67; and Michael Cartwright "The Practice and Performance of Scripture: Grounding Christian Ethics in a Communal Hermeneutic," in Diane Yeager, ed., The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 1988 (Knoxville, TN: Society of Christian Ethics, 1988), 31-53. THOUGHT OF JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, S.J. 267 spectives, reasoning, discourse, and spiritual and practical aspirations. Segundo might object to such recommendations on a number of grounds. But taking the steps I have suggested may be the price he must pay for facilitating authentic liberation at certain levels of human existence. By exploring such possibilities, he creates an opening for dialogue with a range of interesting perspectives and voices that have not yet been affirmed by liberation theology. Such an initiative offers an opening for the development of a distinctive liberation ethic and provides an opportunity for authentic hemispheric dialogue. 78 78 Earlier drafts of this paper were presented in the Currents in Contemporary Christology Group at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Chicago, IL, November 1988; and at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics, South Bend, In., January 1989. My thanks to Dennis McCann, Diane Yeager, and Max Stackhouse for critical comments and suggestions. RECENT BARTHIANA 1 JOHN N D. GODSEY Wesley Theological Seminary Washington, D.C. 0 ONE CAN responsibly do theology today without reckoning with the prodigious legacy of Karl Barth, the Swiss Reformed theologian who was born in 1886, began theological studies in 1904, entered a full-time pastorate in 1911, taught dogmatics successively at Gottingen, Munster, Bonn, and Basel between 1921 and 1962, and died in 1968. From his electrifying Commentary on Romans through his multivolumed but unfinished Church Dogmatics he wrote unceasingly in the areas of exegetical, historical, ethical, practical, and dogmatic theology, and ventured from time to time into the realms of politics and culture. Helper in organizing textile workers while pastor in Safenwil, questioner of major assumptions of neoProtestant liberal theology, spiritual leader of the German Confessing Church's struggle against Nazism, principal author of the Barmen Confession, participant in the 1948 Amsterdam Assembly of the World Council of Churches, and invited guest of Pope Paul VI in Rome in 1966-these are some of the highlights of Barth's colorful career. The books under review provide impressive testimony to Barth's ongoing significance for modern theology. One is a work 1 Karl Barth, The Gottingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion, vol. I, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Eerdmans, 1991). 490 pp. $39.95 cloth. George Hunsinger, How To Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology (Oxford Univ. Press, 1991). 298 pp. $32.50 cloth. John Macken, S.J., The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics: Karl Barth and his Critics (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990). 232 pp. $54.50 cloth. S. W. Sykes, ed., Karl Barth: Centenary Essays (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989). 171 pp. $39.50 cloth. 269 270 JOHN D. GODSEY by Barth himself, two grew out of doctoral dissertations, and the other contains interpretative essays by five theologians who wished to honor Barth on the occasion of his centenary year in 1986. To appreciate properly the surprising appearance of Barth's Gottingen Dogmatics requires a bit of history. After ten years as a pastor in the village of Safenwil in north-central Switzerland, Barth was called in 1921 to be "Honorary Professor of Reformed Theology" on the theological faculty of the University of Gottingen in Germany. Having neither doctorate nor teaching experience, he was offered the cp_air on the basis of the first edition of Romans ( 1919) with the expectation that he would represent the Reformed tradition in this German Lutheran stronghold. During his first years he presented exegetical lectures on biblical texts as well as historical lectures that would help him learn his own tradition: the Heidelberg Catechism, Calvin, Zwingli, the Reformed Confessions, and Schleiermacher. Not until 1924-25 did he dare attempt to lecture on dogmatics, and even then he was not allowed to use the title "dogmatics," which was reserved strictly for Lutherans, so he chose to name his lecture series " Instruction in the Christian Religion," recalling Calvin's chief work, Institutio religionis christianae. Unlike his second cycle of lectures in Munster in 1926 (published as Prolegomena to Die Christliche Dogmatik in 1927) and the magisterial Church Dogmatics that began in 1932, these first lectures on dogmatics were never published during Barth's life time. Preserved in his own handwriting, they were edited and finally made public in 1990 in the Swiss edition of his Collected Works. The first of two volumes has now appeared in English and comprises four of seven chapters : three on the doctrine of the Word of God (as Revelation, as Holy Scripture, and as Christian Preaching) plus one on the doctrine of God. Three other major loci (Anthropology, Reconciliation, and Redemption) will appear in Volume Two. Professor Daniel L. Migliore of Princeton Seminary has written a 48-page Introduction to the whole, which provides brilliant insights into Barth's theology and points RECENT BARTH IAN A 271 out the particular characteristics and peculiarities of this first (and only completed!) set of lectures on dogmatics. Why should one read the Gottingen Dogmatics rather than, say, the Church Dogmatics? First, Barth's basic theology, at least the lineaments thereof, is to be found here in what is perhaps its most accessible form; in relatively short compass he sets forth his methodological approach and an exposition of all the major loci. Second, there is a freshness and sense of excitement in these lectures that is engaging; Barth is obviously trying to forge something new, and in doing so he reveals to the students his struggles with his own Reformed tradition, why he departs from the reigning liberal theology of the time, and where he differs from the Lutherans and others. Finally, an impressive humility coram Deo pervades the work; Barth begins his lectures by quoting the prayer which Thomas Aquinas put at the head of his Summa Theologica: " Merciful God, I ask that thou will grant me, as thou pleasest, to seek earnestly, to investigate carefully, to know truthfully, and to present perfectly, to the glory of thy name, amen." If it is indeed more rewarding to read Barth himself than to read those who write about Barth, secondary literature nevertheless can provide helpful interpretative guidance into what is admittedly a complex subject, given Barth's long-term and voluminous contributions to theology. This is eminently true of the three books being considered here. Professor George Hunsinger of Bangor Theological Seminary, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Barth under the late Hans Frei of Yale, professes to have been reading Barth's Church Dogmatics for 15 years before undertaking to write How To Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology. The fruit of his labor is a book of exposition rather than criticism, because he wanted above all to provide a way of understanding Barth that would make it possible for criticisms to be more adequate and fair. His exposition, however, is not aimed at the content of the various theological loci of the Church Dogmatics (he recommends Herbert Hartwell's earlier volume, The Theology of Karl 272 JOHN D. GODSEY Barth: An Introduction, for that), but rather at helping readers develop a set of skills necessary for understanding Barth's arguments and, in particular, his conception of truth. To this end Hunsinger explicates six different dialectical and often counterintuitive patterns or motifs which must be recognized if one is to understand how the subject matter of the Dogmatics is shaped: actualism, particularism, objectivism, personalism, realism, and rationalism. Hunsinger argues that interpreters err in trying to find one key to Barth's theology. Only a multi-patterned approach can exhibit the internal coherence of the Church Dogmatics, disclosing the complexity-in-unity and the unity-in-complexity of the whole. How To Read Karl Barth is not an easy book to read! I found it to be somewhat repetitious and even dense at places. Nevertheless, I consider it to be the best secondary source for aiding the serious scholar to understand Barth's Church Dogmatics. Careful reading of the whole book is required, but the result will be a new appreciation for Barth's attempt to do justice to the mystery of God's revelation by incorporating dialectical and paradoxical modes of thought into his theological arguments. John Macken's The Autonomy Theme in the "Church Dogmatics": Karl Barth and His Critics grew out of a dissertation on the other side of the Atlantic, specifically at the University of Tiibingen under the guidance of Professor Walter Kasper. Macken is a Jesuit who now teaches at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy in Dublin. This book, which probes Barth's understanding of human autonomy before God against the background of its long history in Western theology since Augustine and Pelagius and its philosophical expression since Kant and Fichte, is a model of clarity of thought and composition. After each section the author presents a succinct summary of what he has just written, so that no one can miss the train of thought or the nuances of the argument, and at the end of work he formulates his conclusions and critical questions with precision. RECENT BARTHIANA 273 Beyond its informed and generally sympathetic treatment of Barth's interpretation of the relationship between human freedom and divine freedom, an added strength of this book is Macken's exposition of the critique of Barth's work by German theologians since 1950, but especially since Barth's death in 1968. The author is thoroughly familiar with the issues that have been hotly debated in a considerable body of German literature that is simply out of the reach of, and thus unknown to, the majority of English-speaking people-writings by Pannenberg, T. Rendtorff, Moltmann, Jiingel, Wagner, Marquardt, Krotke, Freyd, Schellong, Huber, Todt, et al. As one would expect from a Roman Catholic, Macken pays particular attention to Barth's struggle with questions of natural theology, synergism, and sacramentalism. For me, one of his surprising conclusions was that toward the end of the Church Dogmatics, and specifically in the fragment on Baptism in CD IV /4, Barth moved away from his earlier christologicaljparadoxical understanding of the relationship between divine and human action to the affirmation of a relatively independent human sphere of activity, a movement corresponding to his move from a sacramental to an ethical interpretation of Baptism. Such a conclusion, in my view, has to be hedged about with certain reservations, which I think Macken also recognizes. We turn now to the final volume: Karl Barth: Centenary Essays, edited by S. W. Sykes, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. In addition to the editor's Introduction, the book contains five substantial essays (one by Sykes) on various aspects of Barth's thought with the aim of demonstrating his continuing theological importance. Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Roman Catholic perspectives are represented. Ingolf U. Dalferth, a tutor in the Evangelisches Stift in Tiibingen, writes perceptively of "Karl Barth's Eschatological Realism," arguing that Barth is a realist who holds that theology essentially refers to the eschatological reality of the risen Christ, which is to be explicated to our mundane reality in terms of the Christological model of the " hypostatic union " formulated at 274 JOHN D. GODSEY Chalcedon. Professor Colin E. Gunton of King's College, University of London, writing on " The Triune God and the Freedom of the Creature," applauds Barth for grounding human freedom in the freedom of God to be God's own self, but faults Barth for not affirming the humanity of Jesus Christ as strongly as his divinity and for not giving adequate weight to the Spirit in his theology. Both Professor Sykes and Professor Philip J. Rosato, S.J., who teaches theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, are interested in the dialogue between Barth and contemporary ecumenism, particularly the dialogue with Roman Catholicism. In " Authority and Openness in the Church " Sykes points out that early on both Barth and Catholic theologians such as Erich Przywara and Karl Adam worked to restore the authority of revelation to the church in the light of its liberal dilution, but that Barth, mindful of Rome, also sought to assure the sovereignty of Christ over the church, the freedom of the Word of God over all human authorities (Pope, dogma, opus operatum, etc.). Rosato, in "Ad Limina A postolorum in Retrospect : The Reaction of Karl Barth to Vatican II," tells of Barth's dramatic two-week visit with Pope Paul VI and others in Rome in September 1966, and of the critical questions he raised concerning parts of the documents of Vatican II when he subsequently wrote his booklet, Ad Limina Apostolorum. Some examples are these: Is scripture given precedence over church and sacraments? Is the primary function of the church mediation or testimony? Has the inexhaustible task of proclaiming the Gospel been overshadowed by the controllable task of celebrating the Lord's Supper and other sacraments? Is there a fundamental inequality between ordained priests and lay apostles? Without being the least defensive, Rosato gives reasoned answers to these questions from a Roman Catholic understanding of the church and its mission. In the final essay, " The Reception of the Theology of Karl Barth in the Anglo-Saxon World: History, Typology and Prospect,'' Richard H. Roberts, lecturer in Theology in the University of Durham, presents the most thorough account of the reception of Barth's theology in Britain and America that I have read. RECENT BARTHIANA 275 The author has an amazing knowledge of the literature, from the earliest days before the translation of Romans to the present time, and for me this essay was worth the price of the book. What becomes increasingly clear is that there has not yet been a definitive Anglo-Saxon interpretation of Barth's theology which respects its context, content, and consequences, no comprehensive mediation rather than a merely passive reception of his theology. As Roberts indicates, such a work would have to go through and not simply around Barth. In conclusion, let me emphasize that all four of these books are well worth reading. But if you have to choose only one, then read Barth himself! MACINTYRE'S POSTMODERN THOMISM: REFLECTIONS ON THREE RIV AL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY THOMAS s. HIBBS Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts I N A RECENT issue of The Thomist, J. A. DiNoia, O.P., argues that certain themes in post-modern thought provide an occasion for the recovery of neglected features of the Catholic tradition. 1 DiN oia focuses on three motifs : first, a " broader conception of rationality," with an emphasis on the " role of tradition and authority," second, attention to the " role of texts and narrative in shaping thought and culture," and, third, the " importance of community in fostering personal identity." These themes have been prominent in the writings of Alasdair Macintyre. In his latest publication, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, he brings the Augustinian-Thomistic tradition into conversation with its principal rivals, encyclopaedia and genealogy. 2 The dialogical character of the work, the text of his Gifford Lectures, affords Macintyre the opportunity to sharpen and develop his views of rationality, of the connection between particularism and universalism, and of the Christian contribution to moral inquiry. What emerges from the series of dialectical encounters is a constructive, postmodern Thomism, one which is not susceptible to the genealogical critique of encyclopaedia and which circumvents the self-destructive tendencies of genealogy. 1 " American Catholic Theology at Century's End: Postconciliar, Postmodern, and Post-Thomistic," The Thomist 54 (1990), pp. 499-518. 2 The seminal text for each of the three rival versions was published in the 1860's: for encyclopaedia, The Ninth Edition of Encyclopaedia Brittanica, for genealogy, Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, and for tradition or Thomism, Aeterni Patris. 277 278 THOMAS S. HIBBS According to Macintyre, the terms of the debate over rationality between genealogy and encyclopedia have obscured apprehension of the Thomistic alternative. As they see it, " Either reason is thus impersonal, universal, and disinterested or it is the unwitting representative of particular interests, masking their drive to power by its false pretensions to neutrality and disinterestedness." But the mutually exclusive way of putting the question conceals a third possibility, the possibility that reason can only move towards being genuinely universal and impersonal insofar as it is neither neutral nor disinterested, that membership in a particular type of moral community, one from which fundamental dissent has to be excluded, is a condition for genuinely rational inquiry.3 The passage introduces the salient features of Macintyre's view of the relationship between particularism and universalism. 4 Macintyre develops his view not only in confrontation with genealogy and encyclopaedia, but also out of the Thomistic tradition. In a chapter entitled, "Too Many Thomisms? ", Macintyre describes the history of the revival of Thomism after Aeterni Patris. 5 Macintyre criticizes early neo-Thomism for reading Aquinas as a systematic thinker, whose project was fundamentally epistemological. By beginning with ·epistemology, neoThomism distorted Aquinas's texts, cast the terms of the debate between Aquinas and modernity in the distinctively modern language of epistemic justification, and predictably reenacted the futile history of modern philosophy. 6 Macintyre observes that there are simply "too many ways to begin." But even early on a Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), pp. 59-60. Henceforth referred to as TRV. 4 Many critics have misunderstood Maclntyre's insistence on the particularist means to universality. For a careful and sympathetic discussion of this question, see John Doody, " Macintyre and Habermas on Practical Reason,'' American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, LXV (1991), pp. 143-58. s TRV, pp. 58-81. 6 See the quite different understanding of this history in Gerald McCool's From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989) and "Why St. Thomas Stays Alive,'' International Philosophical Quarterly 30 (1990), pp. 275-288. THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 279 there was an acknowledgement by Kleutgen, among others, of the disparity between pre- and post-Cartesian philosophy. Still, early neo-Thomism failed to see that the break came not with Descartes but with Scotus. Hence, the decidedly unThomistic influence of Scotus upon Suarez-whose authority was crucial in the rehabilitation of Aquinas-was unconsciously incorporated into neo-Thomism. 7 The result of early neo-Thomism was an unhappy assimilation, adequate neither to Aquinas nor to modernity. 8 As Macintyre sees it, the neo-Thomist insight into historical rupture paved the way for a more historically nuanced recovery of Aquinas. Later Thomists sought to revitalize Thomism through historical reconstruction of the sources, literary forms, and pedagogical structure of Thomas's texts. Macintyre himself has moved steadily in the direction of historical reconstruction. In After Virtue, Macintyre sought to rehabilitate Aristotle's ethics by substituting social for natural teleology. In Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, and even more so in Three Rival Versions, Macintyre acknowledges the dependence of ethics upon speculative philosophy and locates particular issues within broader pedagogical structures. In articulating Aquinas's alternative to encyclopaedia and genealogy, Macintyre subordinates epistemology to pedagogy. 7 In contrast to Kleutgen, Macintyre argues that the De Veritate is a work of " conceptual clarification, analysis, and description, not at all one of epistemological justification." He also takes issue with Kleutgen's depiction of Aquinas "as presenting a finished system whose indebtedness to earlier writers is no more than an accidental feature of it." K!eutgen's Suarezian appropriation of Aquinas is by no means the necessary result of Aeterni Patris. As Macintyre notes, the document cites Cai etan not Suarez, nowhere adverts to epistemological questions, and describes Aquinas's achievement as "the culmination of a tradition." TRV, pp. 74-5. of aggiornamento in B DiN oia sees a similar weakness in the celebration Catholic theology after Vatican II : " When accorded primacy over resourcement, aggiornamento looks to postmodern eyes as if always on the verge of running out of breath. Conceived simply as the updating of theology, aggiornamento is never finished catch;ng up; conceived more grandly as modernization, it is already far behind." "American Catholic Theology at Century's End," p. 518. 280 THOMAS S. HIBBS In contrast to encyclopaedia's appeal to autonomous reason, Thomism issues an invitation to participation in a community of inquiry. The starting point is not impersonal, self-justifying rationality, but the " authority ... internal to the practice of the craft." 9 As a craft, philosophy does not justify itself in advance; nor does it present in a piecemeal fashion propositions that are immediately and equally accessible to the inspection of all rational beings. Rather, it asserts that the apprehension and pursuit of the goods sought in the craft presuppose at least the rudimentary possession of the very virtues which it is the goal of the craft to inculcate. The resolution of the paradox, which Macintyre identifies as a variant of the Meno paradox, is to assert both that the inquirer has certain potentialities to the relevant virtues and that he needs an authoritive pedagogue to assist in the actualization of these potencies. By attending to the unnoticed and inexpungeable presence of pedagogical authority, Macintyre's Thomism is at odds with genealogy. Maclntyre's account of philosophy as craft simultaneously highlights temporality and realism. The teacher " links past and present " in light of the goal to be realized in the future. The teacher forms the unformed dispositions of the student and makes explicit inchoate apprehension of first principles. The teacher also initiates the student into a tradition and community of inquiry, wherein the student's own history and pre-philosophic reflection find a place as part of a larger whole. Moreover, crafts " require the minds of those who engage in the craft to come to terms with and to make themselves adequate to the existence and properties of some set of objects conceived to exist independently of those minds." The Aristotelian-Thomistic account of human understanding is object-oriented; it treats objects, not consciousness or judgements, as primary. The analogy between philosophy and craft brings embodiment to the fore. Our natural existence among, and interaction with, sensible objects is prior to knowledge of things and of ourselves. 9 TRV, p. 63. THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 281 The understanding of philosophy as craft presupposes that human beings have within themselves the " potentiality for moving towards and achieving the relevant theoretical and practical conclusions." 10 One of the developments in Three Rival Versions is the emphasis on philosophical psychology, which Macintyre once rejected as an outmoded "metaphysical biology." He goes so far as to assert that "evaluative judgements are a species of factual judgement concerning final and formal causes of activity of members of a particular species." 11 The "plain person" knows the principium of the natural law not in the sense that he can explicitly "formulate " it, but " by showing a potentiality to do just that, in the way in which the truth of the principle is presupposed in a multiplicity of particular practical judgements." Indeed, the Thomist finds evidence of the universal possession of synderesis in the historical phenomenon of " recurring resistance to discarding " certain basic moral rules, even when the rules have become "unintelligible residues from a lost past." 12 Again, particularism is the necessary avenue to the fulfillment of universalist aspirations. In order to realize one's telos " as being, as animal, and as rational" one must " engage with others " in such a way that one can be a "teachable learner." 13 Nature gives moral inquiry its impetus and starting point, but the fruition of inquiry is largely dependent on the pedagogy of a virtuous community. Indeed, the fundamental precepts of the natural law, which are mostly negative, are variously described by Thomas as necessary for human happiness, as part of the content of the decalogue, and as necessary for the health and well being of the community. In the confrontation between tradition and genealogy, Mac10 11 TRV, p. 63. TRV, p. 134. 12 Macintyre expatiates on this point, " The Thomist . . . discerns in the continuous reappropriation of the rule, and in the recurring resistance to discarding them, evidence of the work of synderesis, of that fundamental initial grasp of the primary precepts of the natural law, to which culturnl degeneration can partially or temporarily blind us but which can never be obiiterated," TRV, p. 194. 1s TRV, p. 136. 282 THOMAS S. HIBBS Intyre contrasts the genealogical vision of the self as multiple with the " complex metaphysical " view of personal identity presupposed by tradition. The latter position supposes that an inquirer has certain natural capacities which are actualized through communal participation in a craft. The compatibility of the natural or rational and the social is central to the writings of Aristotle and Aquinas, yet natural law theorists have overlooked it. In fact, Macintyre could put the point more forcefully. Thomas inherited from Aristotle a view of the soul as a potency, which is actualized by interaction with the world and which knows itself obliquely by reflection upon its objects and operations. The potential nature of the soul undergirds the discussion of friendship in the Ethics. Men are better able "to think and to act" in community : they come to know themselves through knowing their friends.a The duality of the term logos, which may mean either reason or speech, is operative in the opening of Politics, where the ability to reason in common is said to be the mark of human nature. 15 The pedagogy of the polis offers a vicarious participation in reason. As Aristotle puts it, one must " learn to rule by being ruled." 16 Even the law, which commands obedience through fear, is a "logos proceeding from prudence and intellect." 17 The connection between the rational and the communal, the natural and the social, permeates the writings of Aristotle and Aquinas. The link between tradition and rationality is of course a leitmotif of Macintyre's writings. A consequence of the link is that, although truth may be the goal of philosophy, the most any tradition can assert is that it is the "best so far." Macintyre reads Aquinas accordingly. There is basis for Macintyre's emphasis on the temporal character of inquiry in Aquinas. Temporality surfaces implicitly in Aquinas's dialectical sorting out of authorities and in his adoption of the genre of the quaestio dis14 Ethics, VIII (1155a16), and IX, 9. Politics, I, 2 (1253al-30). 1s Politics, III, 4 (1277bl0). 11 Ethics, X, 9 (1180a22). 15 THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 283 putata, which mirrors the public debates of the universities. These public debates occur before particular audiences and consider only a limited number of objections. 18 Thomas contrasts the intuitive and timeless intellection of angels with human knowing through phantasms, which carry with them a temporal reference.19 While Thomas acknowledges the influence of historical conditions and the ineliminable reference to temporality in human knowing, he also thinks that philosophy reaches a certain adequacy with Aristotle. He reads Aristotle's treatises as containing both dialectical and demonstrative arguments. His most explicit remarks about limits have to do not with the linear movement of history but with the hierarchical order of knowledge. Macintyre himself adduces the text from the opening of the Contra Gentiles, where Thomas depicts sapientia " in terms of a hierarchy of crafts." 20 Thomas's understanding of hierarchical incompleteness is heavily indebted to Aristotle. The following Aristotelian theses are germane : Subalternate sciences accept as starting points things that higher sciences demonstrate, speculative sciences take their principles from first philosophy, and the highest science is itself essentially incomplete with respect to what transcends the imagination. First philosophy stands at the summit of the hierarchy of the sciences both because it studies the highest things and because it supplies what was missing in the practice of the particular sciences, namely, an account of their first principles. 21 Thomas underscores the hierarchical limits to the disciplines that touch upon the highest and best things. In his commentary on the De Anima, he states that philosophical psychology can say little or nothing about the conditions and nature of the separated soul. Similarly, is Thomas even proffers remarks on the historical development of Greek philosophy. He situates Plato's view of knowledge in its historical context, understanding it as a response to the materialism of pre-Socratic thinkers (Summa Theologiae, I, 84, 1). 19 Snmma Contra Gentiles, II, 94. 20 TRV, p. 67. 21 In De Trinitate, V, 1, ad 9. 284 THOMAS S. HIBBS in the Ethics, he insists that moral philosophy treats only of imperfect happiness. Finally, in metaphysics, he argues that, given the dependence of the human intellect upon images, first philosophy cannot go beyond proving the existence of God to any adequate knowledge of what God is. In each of these cases, philosophy points to what it cannot adequately explain. As Josef Pieper puts it, Thomas's philosophy is ultimately a philosophia negativa. Thomas's understanding of the hierarchical incompleteness of Aristotelian philosophy is defensible as a reading of Aristotle. When Thomas turns from his exegesis of Aristotle to a consideration of the relation between philosophy and theology, the principle of hierarchical incompleteness takes on wider import. Philosophic discourse culminates with the first and highest causes, the study of which is most desirable and delightful. Following Aristotle, Aquinas holds that a small amount of probable knowledge concerning the most noble things is more desirable than a certain and thorough knowledge of less noble subjects. 22 But philosophy reaches a tragic impasse in its study of the highest things. The authoritative voice of Scripture breaks the silence of philosophy and satisfies, beyond what we could ever demand or even hope, our desire to know and love. Macintyre's understanding of the role of temporality and historicity in Aquinas raises questions not only about Aquinas's self-understanding but also about the relationship of Macintyre's project to that of Aquinas. Macintyre critizes some neoThomists for assimilating Aquinas to modern thinkers and for obscuring the distinctive features of Aquinas's thought. But is not Macintyre open to the same objection? He counts among the influences on his own project Vico, Kuhn, and other contemporary thinkers : his middle ground between genealogy and encyclopaedia is reminiscent of Peirce's conception of historically self-correcting rationality. According to Macintyre, those who do what Thomas did are likely to rearticulate a tradition in unanticipated ways. How then are we to distinguish progress from unintentional betrayal? Macintyre's response has to do, I 22 Jn De Anima, I, le. 1. THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 285 first, with historical reconstruction, with the recovery of the sources and questions that motivate the project, and, second, with reading part in relation to whole. As he puts it, It is not in respect of their individual theses, considered item by item, but only in respect of those theses understood in their relationship to each overall specific mode of enquiry, that the true nature of the conflict between Thomism and . . . modern standpoints can be adequately explored.23 If our primary task is to understand Thomas as he understood himself, then should we not follow the pedagogical order he prescribes? In order to bring into focus the difference between Thomas's project and the epistemological project of modernity, a detailed analysis of the domains of, and modes of discourse appropriate to, logic, psychology, and metaphysics would be necessary. 24 A more complete account of the structure of philosophic pedagogy in Aquinas would take Macintyre more deeply into the history of the debates among Thomists over the dependence of metaphysics on natural philosophy, the role of Aristotelian logic in philosophic discourse, and the connection between philosophy and theology. 25 For the moment I will speak only about the status of natural philosophy. As we have already noted, the modern critique of Aristotle's natural philosophy led the Macintyre of After Virtue to substitute social for natural teleology. The subsequent works, however, contain numerous references to human nature, to philosophical psychology, and to the dependence of ethics upon speculative philosophy. The shift makes a confrontation with modern and post-modern science inevitable. Yet, aside from a pejorative assessment of its celebration of technique, Macintyre has little to say about modern science in Three Rival Versions. He seems to p. 77. has been little attention to these fundamental questions in Thomistic exegesis. A conspicuous and instructive exception is Mark Jordan's Ordering Wisdom: The Hierarchy of Philosophic Discourses in Aquinas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986). Macintyre acknowledges the importance of these issues when he refers to the De Ente and the De Veritate as seminal texts. 23 TRV, 24 There 286 THOMAS S. HIBBS subsume modern science under encyclopaedia. Macintyre begins the lectures by questioning the scientific model of rationality, as embodied in the genre of the Gifford lectures. Gifford's supposition, which reached "canonical expression" in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, was that ethics and theology were scientific disciplines. But, as Macintyre argues, the four elements of the science of nature, namely, "data, unifying conceptions, methods, and a history of continuous progress," are inapplicable to moral and theological investigation. 26 Indeed, Macintyre embraces the genealogical subversion of the encyclopaedic model of objective, progressive, and autonomous rationality. Is Macintyre right to assimilate modern science to encyclopaedia? Might not 19th-century encyclopaedia be a caricature of Cartesian or Newtonian science? Has the genealogical critique of modern science come to terms with the procedures and substantive claims of science from the inside? 27 As MacIntyre notes, the genealogical stance resists the sort of sustained submission to a tradition that is the necessary prelude to mature criticism. The gap in Macintyre's narrative is particularly troublesome given his castigation of the epistemological turn in neoThomism. The transcendental Thomism of Lonergan, for instance, claims to have advanced the Thomistic tradition precisely through an encounter with the methods and substantive conclusions of modern science. Until Macintyre addresses more amply the status of natural science in Thomism and the challenge of modern science, his critique of epistemological Thomism will remain tenuous. There is, I think, an additional reason for Macintyre to address the status of natural philosophy in Aquinas, one that bears upon his understanding of Aquinas's resolution of the conflict between Augustine and Aristotle. In Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, Macintyre argued that the conflict "could only be resolved on the basis of a systematic conception of truth which 26 TRV, pp. 20-21. this, see David Lachterman, The Ethics of Geometry: A Genealogy of Modernity (New York: Routledge, 1989). 2 7 On THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 287 enabled Aristotelian and Augustinian theses to be reformulated within one and the same framework." 28 Macintyre thinks that Aquinas developed the systematic conception of truth in the De Ente and the De Veritate. In these texts, Thomas provides an analysis of the causal and analogical relationships between key terms such as " truth " and "true," " being" and " essence." Behind these relationships stands the Christian doctrine of creation. Some have argued that Thomas had explicitly theological motives for embracing Aristotle. 29 Indeed, confusion in Augustine's teachings on divine illumination and the absence of any clear conception of what it would be for the human person to operate in accord with unfallen nature are both corrected in Thomas's Aristotelianism. Yet Thomas finds a mediating principle in the doctrine of creation. As Macintyre notes, " an Aristotelian account of nature ... was not merely harmonized with an Augustinian supernatural theology but shown to require it for its completion, if the universe is to be intelligible in the way in which parts relate to wholes." 30 Thomas's penchant for theological middles in the reconciliation of Aristotle and Augustine can also be seen in his frequent appeal to Dionysius in those places where disagreement between Augustine and Aristotle is most conspicuous. 81 Thus, he mitigates the tension between neo-Platonic Christianity and Aristotle. 2s Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), p. 171. 20 Josef Pieper writes, "Aristotle is for St. Thomas (in the measure in which he follows him) nothing more nor less than a clear mirror of the natural reality of creation." The Silence of Saint Thomas, transl. Murray and O'Connor (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1957), p. 32. ao The classic text on the creation and for the unification of Aristotelian and Augustinian understandings of the human person is the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles. s1 See, for instance, the first two questions from the treatise on man from the Summa Theologiae, I, 75 and 76. In I, 75, which treats of the nature of the soul, citations of Augustine dominate in the sed contras, while in I, 76 Aristotle is the chief authority. In the final article from 75, Thomas adduces a passage from Dionysius for the claim that the angel and the soul are not of the same species. Dionysius highlights the poverty of the soul which must gather knowledge from sensible things, a notion that is not far removed from Aris- 288 THOMAS S. HIBBS The question of the status of natural philosophy in Aquinas leads inevitably to the question of the relationship between philosophy and theology. There remains a certain ambiguity in MacIntyre's understanding of the relationship. He moves between "characterizations of Aquinas as a philosopher," who understood philosophy as a craft and who advanced and integrated two previously separate traditions, and an emphasis on the distinctively theological elements in Aquinas's ethics. 32 But what is the relationship between theology and tradition-constituted inquiry? Macintyre depicts the latter as offering only the " best so far " and as always open to the possibility of radical reversal. Indeed, he describes Thomas's own project in just these terms. Yet he also speaks of the " finality of Scripture and dogmatic tradition." 38 Concerning the connection between philosophy and theology, Macintyre writes, As metaphysics stands to the other disciplines within the Aristotelian scheme, so a theology which has integrated metaphysical commentary into itself is now to stand, but this theology has to argue with and 1cannot merely dictate to the subordinate disciplines in a form of active dialectical encounter.s4 Macintyre is correct, I think, to contrast the Thomistic understanding of dialectical encounter with both the " A verroist insistence on the autonomy of philosophy and the conventional Augustinian theology." Yet, as he notes, the content of revealed theology is not indifferent to, or equally well articulated by, various philosophic traditions. By the time of Aquinas, dogmatic theology had already incorporated elements of pagan philosophy totle's conception of the soul as a potency. The guiding principle, moreover, of Thomas's understanding of the relationship between nature and grace-namely, that grace does not destroy nature but rather perfects it-has a Dionysian origin. See, for instance, I-II, 10, 4, where the following Dionysian passage is cited : " it pertains to divine providence not to destroy but to preserve the nature of things." Precisely such a principle makes possible the inclusion of Aristotle within Christian theology. s2 TRV, pp. 127, 132-33. 83 TRV, p. 125. B4 TRV, pp. 132-33. THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 289 in order to give public expression to its central teachings. Indeed, as Augustine and Aquinas read it, Scripture itself is fraught with metaphysical implications. While Aquinas counsels the believer to " descend to reason " and engage philosophy on its own terms, precisely the certitude and universal efficacy of revealed truth evince its superiority to philosophic pedagogy. 35 This is not to say that theology cannot develop, or that it has nothing to learn from encounters with rival traditions. It is to say that radical reversal is inconceivable. More importantly, it is to say that Aquinas's success in mediating between and reconciling rival traditions is attributable not just to virtues of empathy, but also to his confidence that whatever truth natural reason can achieve must be compatible with revealed truth. As he puts it in the Contra Gentiles, What is introduced into the soul of the student by the teacher is contained in the knowledge of the teacher.... The knowledge of the principles that are known to us naturally has been implanted in us by God; for God is the author of our nature. These principles therefore are also contained in the divine wisdom. Hence, whatever is opposed to them is opposed to the divine wisdom and cannot come from God.36 The passage expresses Thomas's confidence in the veracity of revelation, even as it implies that the evidence of natural reason cannot be ignored. The question of the relationship between philosophy and theology is particularly important for Macintyre's reading of the secunda pars of the Summa. Macintyre argues that the pedagogy of the Summa anticipates the contemporary emphasis upon the moral relationships between author and text, text and reader. The text cannot be read intelligently by just any sort of person. Macintyre highlights the location of the treatise on law between those on sin and grace and argues that, according to Aquinas, the achievement of the ultimate end requires an acknowledgement of one's sinfulness and of the need for grace. Macintyre 35 Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 2. aa Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 7. 290 THOMAS S. HIBBS cites Leonard Boyle's essay on the setting of the Summa, which argues that the intent was not apologetic or even philosophic but pastoral. Boyle's essay ensconces the text within an explicitly Christian community, intended for a specifically Dominican audience, presupposing particular educational, ecclesiastical, and political institutions. Macintyre is aware of all this, yet he appears to read the text as if it were intended to engage the philosophic tradition directly. Especially problematic is the role of original sin. What one discovers in oneself and in all other human beings is something surd and unaccountable in terms of the rational understanding of human nature : a rooted tendency to disobedience in the will and distraction by passion, which causes obscuring of the reason and on occasion systematic cultural deformation.87 But what status does the universal experience of disobedience have in Aquinas? As Martha Nussbaum has objected, it is not clear that this ought to be taken as the central feature of our moral experience. 88 Macintyre himself notes that Augustine's depiction of fallen nature lacks an adequate account of what it would be " for the intellect to be rightly ordered according to its own nature." 89 Aquinas supplies what was wanting. Prior to the topic of original sin, the Summa treats the being and attributes of God, creation, human nature, the ultimate end, and the virtues. Even if disobedience were seen to be fundamental, the movement from such an experience to the affirmation of original sin would involve no necessity. Christian thinkers from Paul to Kierkegaard have indeed pointed to the phenomenon of sin as something that eludes rational explanation and treatment. But the identification of this phenomenon as sin cannot be made by reason alone; indeed, the doctrine of original sin is but part of the Christian narrative of redemption. 4'o As Macintyre notes, Christian the37 TRV, p. 140. Recoiling from Reason," New York Review of Books, 7 December 1989, pp. 36-41. 20 TRV, p. 101. 40 In the discussion of original sin in Summa Contra Gentiles, IV, 52, Thomas adduces probable arguments on behalf of the doctrine, but the absence 38 " THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 291 ology subsumes particular philosophic themes within the " larger narrative " of the movement of creatures from and to God and has at its starting point, not apologetics, but the " discovery of the self in Scripture." '11 Another controversial feature, to which Nussbaum also objects, concerns Macintyre's understanding of the authoritative limits to rational inquiry. The most sustained discussion of authority occurs in the section on Augustine. At times, Macintyre ties the need for authority to the influence of original sin; because the will is " initially perverse" it "needs a kind of redirection." 42 Hence humility and obedience become the crucial auxiliary virtues. It is important to see that these virtues are auxiliaries, even if they are indispensable in via. The Augustinian justification of authority, moreover, is not only or primarily the result of original sin. As Macintyre puts it, The story of oneself is embedded in the history of the world, an overall narrative within which all other narratives find their place. That history is a movement towards intelligibility. But in the course of discovering the intelligibility of the order of things, we also discover why at different stages greater or lesser degrees of unintelligibility remain. And in learning this we learn that authoritative testimony, to point us forward from where we are now, can never in our present bodily life be dispensed with.43 Once again the notion of hierarchy is relevant to the AugustinianThomistic conception of authoritative pedagogy. The Christian tradition embraces and extends the ancient view of pedagogy, which required as its starting point submission to a teacher, to a tradition of inquiry, and to the discipline of dialectic. Hence, authority is not an impediment t_o inquiry; rather it is constitutive of it. The introduction of theology into the hierarchy of the sciences accentuates the gap between what is presently believed and what of discussion of original sin prior to the fourth book, which marks the transition from matters accessible to reason to those received only through revelation, severely restricts the probative force of the arguments. 41 TRV, p. 83. 42 TRV, p. 84. •a TRV, p. 92. 292 THOMAS S. HIBBS will become intelligible during, or at the completion of, inquiry. But it does not undermine an analogous relationship between philosophy and theology. Macintyre's account of authoritative pedagogy not only brings to the fore the continuity between ancient and medieval thought; it also provides a basis for a more adequate expression of the relationship between philosophy and theology in Aquinas. The function of authority is to safeguard the good not only of this or that particular argument, but also of the community, intellectual and political. On this view of inquiry, individual intellectual progress is subordinate to, and cannot flourish apart from, the wellbeing of the inquiring community. Against the encyclopaedic view of the self as autonomous and already adequate to the objects of knowledge, the Augustinian-Thomist requires that the student first appropriate the tradition ( s) to which he is heir. The appropriation occurs principally through the exegesis of texts, through the reading of texts in such a way that the texts "in turn interpret the reader." Such exegesis demands morally committed modes of inquiry; it involves a willingness to subject oneself, one's interlocutors, and texts to interrogation. Macintyre writes, " Only the self as transformed through and by the reading of the texts . . . will be capable of reading the texts aright." 44 In reading various texts, one becomes attuned to the " different kinds of authority possessed by different types of text." 45 The notion of authority, then, is broad and analogical. Its function, moreover, is not peculiar to theology. The dialogues of Plato and the treatises of Aristotle impose a similar responsibility upon their readers. Philosophic inquiry began under the auspices and authority of the Good. As we have already noted, Macintyre embraces the genealogical critique of encyclopaedia. The Thomist and the genealogist have more in common with one another than either does with encyclopaedia. Both demythologize the encyclopaedic metaphors of objectivity, autonomy, and progress. They share a concern 44 TRV, p. 82. p. 233. 4 5 TRV, THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 293 with temporality, with the various genres and rhetorical features of philosophic discourse, and with the interpretation of signs that refer not directly to things but to other signs. Both appreciate the dialectical interplay of presence and absence in discourse, historical rupture, and the movement toward an authentic self. Yet fundamental differences persist. Central to tradition is the actualization of a telos over time, which implies that one can impute continuing accountability to agents and that human life has the "continuity and unity of a quest." Although tradition underscores the limits to everything short of beatitude, progress toward beatitude occurs in a number of intelligible stages. 46 Genealogy, on the contrary, repudiates the notion of personal identity and understands the role of hierarchy and authority in tradition as but another form of domination. In rejecting personal identity and accountability, genealogy poses problems for itself. Macintyre asks : " Is the genealogist not self-indulgently engaged in exempting his or her utterances from the treatment to which everyone else's is subjected?" To this, the genealogist may respond that he merely adopts a series of provisional masks for particular encounters, masks that are taken up and then discarded. Given the genealogist's rejection of categorial thinking, " it is incumbent upon " him " not to provide someone like myself with acceptable answers." To do so, the genealogist would "have to engage in a kind of discourse from whose presuppositions he or she claims to have decisively separated him or herself." 47 To those who stand outside the genealogical project there can be, and ought to be, no satisfactory response. Yet the eschewal of continuity and accountability raises an internal difficulty for the genealogist, particularly for the genealogist's goal of emancipation from deception. The process of emancipation " requires the identity and continuity of the self that was deceived and the self that is and is to be." The act of "disowning" presupposes con4 6 Aquinas holds that theology itself is a science subalternate to the beatific vision (Summa Theologiae, I, 1, 2). 41 TRV, pp. 206-10. 294 THOMAS S. HIBBS tinuity and identity. The genealogist thus risks engaging in the self-indulgence of making of himself the "great exception." The goal of liberation through disowning and deconstructing raises questions not only about personal identity and accountability, but also about the " extent . . . to which it is inherently derivative from and even parasitic upon " the concepts, modes of argument, and theses of those whom it opposes. Genealogy is thus in the odd situation of " drawing its necessary sustenance from that which it claims to have discarded." 48 Macintyre notes that it remains unclear whether the genealogist has the resources to circumvent these internal objections. From the vantage point of tradition, however, the project of "unmasking" is seen as a "mask for pride." 49 Indeed, the socalled masters of suspicion have unmistakable antecedents in the Augustinian tradition. The Christian conception of rational inquiry includes moments of subversion, which put into question the reliability of the powers of the person and the legitimacy of motives. The recognition of perversion in the will and disorder in the intellect is a necessary prerequisite to progress in inquiry, both practical and theoretical. For the Augustinian, suspicion is but one moment or a series of moments within a larger pedagogical framework, the ends of which become increasingly intelligible to the student over the course of time. The moment of selfaccusation is, moreover, unintelligible apart from the Christian doctrines of Incarnation and redemption. If Christian moral inquiry becomes dislocated either from its discursive, pedagogical hierarchy or from the Christian narrative of redemption, it does indeed become, in Nietzsche's terms, a "life-denying, ascetic ideal." 50 The difference between tragedy and comedy-for instance, between Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and Dante's Divine Comedy -is an instructive way to think about what separates genealogy and tradition. Yet Nietzsche's distortion of the Christian narraTRV, pp. 214-215. TRV, p .146. 5 0 TRV, p. 40. 48 49 THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 295 tive, a distortion that he inherited both from secularized Christian philosophy and from the Christian communities of his day, is increasingly an obstacle to the reception of Christian texts. Recent literature on Augustine, for instance, is not only inadequate to the complexity of his thought, but is especially blind to his narrative transformation of pagan philosophy.51 While MacIntyre asserts that Augustine subscribed to a basically Plotinian epistemology, he also notes the importance of temporality, embodiment, and human language in Augustine's narrative of the good life.52 Macintyre makes some suggestive remarks about the parallels between Aquinas's ethics and Dante's Divine Comedy. 53 But is there any basis for Maclntyre's narrative rendering of Aquinas's thought? Although Thomas did not write narrative theology, the dominant motifs of Christian comedies are operative in his texts. In the Summa Contra Gentiles, for instance, Thomas describes two ways of knowing God: the first through a gradual ascent from creatures to God and the second by means of God's descent to us. Thomas highlights the limits to the first way, since by our natural powers we can "scarcely reach a perfect knowledge of 51 In her remarks on Augustine, Martha Nussbaum is given to sweeping generalizations and unsubstantiated theories ("Recoiling from Reason"). Perhaps this is due to her reliance upon Elaine Pagel's Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Random House, 1988) as her sole source of information about Augustine and the early church. Yet Pagel's work offers at best a superficial and selective reading of Augustine. In her discussion of the preAugustinian church, she anachronistically associates pristine Christianity with the "American revolutionaries" and the Declaration of Independence (p. 55). As a corrective, see Frederick J. Crosson's "Structure and Meaning in St. Augustine's Confessions," PACPA 63 (1989), pp. 84-97. For a balanced assessment of the relationship between Church authority and popular piety in the Middle Ages, see John Van Engen's "Faith as a Concept of Order in Medieval Christendom," in Belief in History, ed. Thomas Kselman (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), pp. 19-67. 52 Compare Paul Ricoeur, " The Aporias of the Experience of Time: Book 11 of Augustine's Confessions," in Time and Narrative, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 5-30. 58 The dispute between Macintyre and Nussbaum may well reduce to a disagreement over whether tragedy or comedy provides the most comprehensive account of human life. 296 THOMAS S. HIBBS lower natures." The second way is the way of Incarnation. The "way of ascent," Thomas writes, " is the same as the way of descent." 54 But the latter route is the only efficacious means to the end. Christian revelation thus involves the comic reversal of the perspective of the philosopher. The comic elements can be seen in the accent upon descent as a means to ascent, upon the humble life and abject death of Christ as offering access to the transcendent good, upon the restoration of what appeared irrevocably lost, and upon communion over isolation. The Christian narrative of redemption accentuates Maclntyre's position on the particularist means to universality. Three Rival Versions has the sort of rhetorical unity that characterized After Virtue and that was conspicuously absent from Whose Justice? Which Rationality?. 55 The book begins and ends in the present, by analyzing the crisis of rationality in contemporary thought, and by posing questions concerning the moral and intellectual legitimacy of professional philosophy and university curricula. The present curriculum, with its emphasis on the unity of knowledge, rational autonomy, and progress, is a remnant of encyclopaedia. But, as the " stuttering ineptitudes " of the apologists for academe indicate, there remains no whole to be justified or salvaged. Indeed, the structure of the present curriculum is an obstacle to both genealogy and tradition, whose visions of inquiry and ethics must be distorted to be heard. Hence they are never actually heard. Macintyre proposes reconceiving the university as a " place of constrained disagreement, of imposed participation in conflict, in which a central responsibility of higher education would be to initiate students into conflict." 56 In the reconceived university, every teacher would play a " double role," on the one hand, as a " protagonist of a particular point of view," and, on the other, as "someone concerned to uphold and to order ongoing conflicts " with rival standpoints. 57 Summa Contra Gentiles, IV, 1. my view of the previous work, see "Macintyre, Tradition, and the Christian Philosopher," Modern Schoolman 68 (1991), pp. 211-223. 56 TRV, p. 231. s1 TRV, p. 233. H 55 For THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 297 According to Macintyre, Aquinas is a model not just for those interested in restructuring education along Thomistic lines, but for all who play the dual role of protagonist and interlocutor. But, as I have suggested, Aquinas's success in overcoming the conflict between rival traditions should not be attributed solely to his commitment to a certain model of rationality or to his possession of virtues of empathy, but equally, perhaps principally, to his Christian faith. Aquinas writes the Summa Con:tra Gentiles, in which he engages, corrects, and extends the views of pagan philosophers, as an unabashed advocate of the truth of the Catholic faith. Given Macintyre's ascetically restrained conception of truth, the infused virtues of faith and hope would provide indirect sustenance to inquiry. Christian confidence about the compatibility of faith and reason, moreover, would find embodiment in a willingness to engage all germane positions. A consequence of this slight modification of Macintyre's position is that Catholic universities would be the best hope for reconceiving the academic institutions of higher education. If this is correct, then the penchant of Catholic universities for conformity to the dullest of secular models is a spectacle more disquieting than the critique of Christian thought by its two principal rivals, encyclopaedia and genealogy. REJOINDER TO BRUCE MARSHALL FREDERICK J. CROSSON University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, J.ndiana D ISCUSSIONS HA VE to end sometime, and the differences in the reading of Aquinas by Bruce Marshall and myself will perhaps have sufficiently come into view if brief comments on several points are made. 1. In his second statement 1 Marshall seems to have shifted his argument. Originally he argued that a non-believer (e.g. a pagan philosopher such as Aristotle) could not know or even properly refer to God.2 But in the subsequent statement, he seems to concede that, according to Aquinas, " That there is one God was known even by the philosophers, and is not a part of faith " and that " while some of the Gentiles knew God with respect to certain things which were knowable by reason, nevertheless they did not know him insofar as he is the Father .... " (501; cf. 51213). Marshall seems now to hold that although that knowledge was possible at one time, it is not any longer: As Thomas reads Paul, then, the error (and specificallythe idolatry) of the Gentiles overrides the knowledge of himself which God has given to them " from 1creation through the senses " ; in consequence the further possibility of this knowledge . . . is withdrawn by God. With regard to the Gentiles, including their sapientes-the philosophers with demonstrative arguments-the denial of knowledge overrides the initial ascription of it ( 512, my emphasis). 1 Bruce D. Marshall, " Thomas, Thomisms, and Truth", The Thomist 56 (1992) pp. 499-524. His original article was in ibid. 53 (1989), pp. 353-402. Page references in the text or footnotes without other citation will be to these articles. 2 " The person whose discourse does not cohere with the broader norms of Christian belief is not even talking about God, and so cannot possibly know or refer to him " ( 378-379), emphasis mine. 299 300 FREDERICK J. CROSSON I confess to a certain difficulty in understanding what "overrides" means here: cancels? contradicts? blots out? In any case, it seems that it was, at some time and for some non-Christian thinkers (e.g. Aristotle), possible to come to the knowledge of God's existence by reason, but that Marshall interprets Aquinas as saying that that knowledge is no longer even possible. 2. Marshall's general claim is that Aquinas must be read as holding a coherentist notion of revealed truth, so that a pagan and a Christian cannot mean the same thing the word ' God '. But Aquinas says exactly the opposite: Neither a Catholic nor a pagan knows the nature of God as he is in himself, but each knows him by some understanding ( aliquam rationein) of causality or excellence or remotion . . . Consequently a pagan can take this name God, when he says an idol is God, in the same way that a Catholic does in saying an idol is not God.3 3. Again and again, Marshall returns to the claim that, according to Aquinas, " In simple things any failure of knowledge (defectus cognitionis) is in fact a total lack of knowledge " ( 382) ;4 he cites the Commentary on John, in which Thomas declares ... while it is possible for composite things to be known in part and to be unknown in part, if simple things are not grasped completely, they are not known ( 501) . In Marshall's view, these claims about the knowledge of simple forms exclude the possibility of any adequation between the conclusion of a pagan philosopher's demonstration and the Divine esse: ". . . the defectus cognitionis of which Thomas speaks in II-II, 2, 2, ad 3, entails not a partial, but a total lack of corres:. pondence between the mind and God" ( 384). Marshall seems to read such statements as if they made the following objection: a Summa Theologiae I, q. 3, a. 10, ad 5: Dicendum quod ipsam naturam Dei prout in se est, neque catholicus neque paganus cognoscit; sed uterque cognoscit earn secumdum aliquam rationem causalitatis vel excellentiae vel remotionis ... Et secundum hoc in eadem significatione accipere potest gentilis hoc nomen Deus, cum