"INTRINSICALLY EVIL ACTS" AND THE MORAL
VIEWPOINT: CLARIFYING A CENTRAL TEACHING
OF VER/TATIS
MARTIN

SPLENDOR 1

RHONHEIMER

Roman Athenaeum of the Holy Cross
Rome, Italy

1. Introduction: Distinguishing choices and their objects
from further intention:s and consequences

M

ANY CATHOLIC moral theologians have asserted
during the last few years that to know what a person
really does each time he or she is acting and, consequently, to qualify morally this concrete doing, one must take
into account all the further goals for the sake of which this person chooses what he concretely does. Equally, so these theologians contend, a balance of all foreseen consequences should be
established to make out whether a determinate behavior is the
right or the wrong thing to choose. Therefore, according to this
view it will always

be impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its speciesits "object "-the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behavior or
specific ads, apart from a consideration of the intention for which
the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of
that act for all persons concerned (VS 79).
The encyclical Veritatis Splendor rejects this view of so-called
" teleological " ethical theories 2 as incompatible with the exist1 I thank Prof. John M. Haas of Philadelphia for having carefully reviewed
my English version of this paper, originally written in German (and not
yet published).
2 The term "teleological " as a characterization
of ethical theories became
successful through C. D. Broad's essay, " Some of the Main Problems of
Ethics," Philosophy XXI (1946), reprinted in C. D. Broad, Broad's Critical

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ence of describable concrete actions which are " intrinsically evil,"
that is, which are evil " always and per se, in other words,
on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior
intentions of the one acting and the circumstances " (VS 80).
Consequently, this view finally is judged as incompatible with the
Essays in Moral Philosophy, ed. D. R. Cheney (London: Allen & Unwin;
New York: Humanities Press, 1971), pp. 223-246. Broad simply identified
any "teleological" argumentation with a consequentialist one. So he says (p.
230 of the reprinted essays) : " One characteristic which tends to make an
act right is that it will produce at least as good consequences as an alternative
open to the agent in the circumstances ( ... ) We can sum this up by saying that
the property of being optimific is a very important right-tending characteristic.
I call it teleological because it refers to the goodness of the ends or consequences which the act brings about." Broad, then, goes on to say that a " nonteleological " characteristic of an action would be, for example, the obligation,
independent from considering consequences, to perform what one has promised.
But already in 1930 Broad had distinguished "teleological" from "deontological" ethical theories; see C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1930), pp. 206 ff. Many, today, call non-teleological
ethics (in Broad's sense) "deontological "; cf. William K. Frankena, Ethics
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963). The term "teleological ethics"
was thus " imported " by German moral theologians, mainly by Bruno Schuller;
see his Die Begrundung sittlicher Urteile. Typen ethischer Argumentation
in der Moraltheologie, 2nd ed. (Diisseldorf: Patmos, 1980), pp. 282-298 (first
published in 1973). According to Schuller, a normative ethic would be "teleological " if it affirms that " the moral character of all the actions and the
omissions of man is exclusively determined by its consequences" (282). So
he uses "teleological ethics" as synonymous with "consequentialism" (a term
in fact created by G. E. M. Anscombe) and even with " utilitarianism." Its
counterpart would be " deontological ethics," which holds that there are some
actions the moral rightness of which should not be judged exclusively on the
basis of their consequences; see also Bruno Schiiller, "Various Types of
Grounding for Ethical Norms," in Readings in Moral Theology No. 1: Moral
Norms and Catholic Tradition, ed. Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 184-198. However, as
it seems to me, these distinctions are not very clarifying; they rather seem to
confuse judgments of prudence ("such and such is the right thing to do")
with judgments of conscience ("I must do what I know to be the right thing,
whatever the consequences "). Everyone must be a " deontologist" on this
(second) level, if he does not want to deny that one must follow one's conscience (see for this some of my publications to which I refer further on).
For supplementary terminological clarifications, see J. M. Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (Washington: Georgetown University Press; Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 81-86.

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existence of absolutely-without exception-binding prohibitive
(or : negative) moral norms, that is : with so-called " moral
absolutes."
The encyclical clearly distinguishes the object of a concrete
choice, and the corresponding action, from ulterior intentions
with which a choice is made. It seems to me that one of the
central problems implied in thus distinguishing choices and their
objects from further intentions may be formulated as follows:
What precisely is qualified when an action or freely chosen behavior is qualified as " morally evil " by virtue of its very " object" ? This point, I think, must be carefully elucidated if we
want to talk reasonably about concrete actions, or choices of determinate behaviors, being morally evil by virtue of their very object, i.e., independent of further intentions. If we could not
sustain the distinction between the "object" and "ulterior intentions " of a concrete choice, adherents of " consequentialism "
or " proportionalism " could successfully deny being implicated in
the encyclical's criticism of these positions.
In order to answer the above question, however, another very
important assertion of the encyclical must not be overlooked.
After having affirmed, in number 78, that " the morality of the
human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the 'object'
rationally chosen by the deliberate will," the text of the encyclical
adds the following remark :
In order to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies
that act morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of tho acting person.

And this is so, the encyclical continues, for the following reason
(the emphasis is mine) :
The object of the act is in fact a freely chosen kind of behavior.
( ... ) By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean a
process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on
the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the
outside world. Rather, that object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the
acting person ( VS 78) .

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The above quoted rejection (VS 79) which follows m the encyclical in fact is formulated in quite a sophisticated way (e.g.,
it refers both "object" and the predicate "morally evil" to
" choice of behavior " and not simply to " behavior "). 3 This
sentence, repeated in number 82, remains the doctrinal core of
the whole encyclical and one of the cornerstones of its argument.
And it seems to me that no " teleological " ethical theory-be it
" consequentialist" or "proportionalist "-can reasonably deny
being affected, indeed, hit in the heart, by this rejection. For it is
characteristic for all " teleological " ethical theories that they consider senseless any distinction between "objects" and "further
intentions," as well as that they reject the possibility both of
judging "wrong" a chosen action independently from all the
foreseen consequences, and of speaking on this level as such about
" moral evil."
During the following exposition I will, without referring much
to the text of the encyclical, simply expose how-according to my
views which owe so much to the work of many others-the encyclical's teaching should be understood. I not only intend to
follow Aquinas's ethical theory but also to render explicit some
implicit presuppositions in the field of action theory that are necessary to render fully intelligible both Aquinas's account of
"moral objects" as such and its pertinence for our present
problem. 4
8 Compare this also with No. 1761 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
quoted in VS 78: " . . . there are certain specific kinds of behavior that are
always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a disorder of the
will, that is, a moral evil."
4 See a more detailed account in my following books and articles : N atur
als Grund/age der Moral (Innsbruck-Wien: Tyrolia Verlag, 1987); La prospettiva della morale. Fondamenti dell'etica filosofica (forthcoming: Rome:
Armando Editore, 1994) ; "Menschliches Handeln und seine Moralitat. Zur
Begriindung sittlicher Normen," in Martin Rhonheimer, Andreas Laun, Tatjana Goritschewa, Walter Mixa, Ethos und Menschenbild (St. Ottilien: EOSVerlag, 1989), pp. 45-114; "Zur Begriindung sittlicher Normen aus der
Natur," and "Ethik-Handeln-Sittlichkeit,"
Der Mensch als Mitte und
Massstab der Medizin, ed. Johannes Bonelli (Wien-New York: SpringerVerlag, 1992), pp. 49-94 and 137-174; finally, my investigations into Aquinas's

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I shall first clarify the term " object " as used in practical reasoning (section 2). I then clarify the basic perspective in which
we have to consider our problem, the perspective of intentionality,
showing how problematic it is when an ethical theory distinguishes " moral " from " non-moral " goods (section 3). This
opens the way to speak properly about the " object " of a human
act, which of course is fundamental for knowing what precisely
is qualified when an action is qualified as " evil by virtue of its
object " (section 4). In the longest section ( 5), I will challenge
the distinction between " right making properties " and " good
making properties " of an action ; I argue for a virtue-orientated
rather than norm- or rule-based ethics, showing why only the
former is able really to explain why there are in fact some "intrinsically evil acts." In section 6, I shall show how intentionality
explains the rational structure of what we call the "object" of
a human act. Finally, in section 7, I will add some remarks about
how to integrate my analysis into the general frame of a natural
law theory.

2. Objects of actions as objects of practical reason
According to Aquinas, every action intended by the will is a
" bonum apprehensum et ordinatum per rationem," a " good understood and ordered by reason." 5 Clearly human acts are specified by different objects; every potency has its own specific object which is its proper end. However, the human act is morally
specified only by an "object in so far as it is related to the principle of human acts, that is reason." 6 One must, therefore, guard
against identifying the object which provides the moral specificainterpretation and completion of Aristotle's action theory are expected to be
published under the title Praktische Vernunft und Verniinftigkeit der Praxis
(Ber !in : Akademie Verlag, 1994) .
5 ST I-II, q.20, a.I ad 1. In ST I-II, q.18, a.IO, Aquinas affirms that the
object which specifies an action morally is a "forma a ratione concepta."
6 " ••• ab obiecto relato ad principium actuum humanorum, quod est ratio"
(ST I-II, q.18, a.8). The "bonum virtutis" consists "ex quadam commensuratione actus ad circumstantias et finem, q1wm ratio facit" (In II Sent.,
d.39, q.2, a.l).

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tion of an act with " things " or the natural ends of single potencies. As Germain Grisez has put it, " ... human acts have their
structure from intelligence. Just insofar as an action is considered
according to its naturally given structure, it is to that extent not
considered as a human act-i.e., as a moral act-but rather as a
physiological process or as instinctive behavior. Action with a
given structure and acts structured by intelligence differ as totally
as nature differs from morality. Nature has an order which reason can consider but cannot make and cannot alter. Morality has
an order which reason institutes by guiding the acts of the will." 1
The object which provides the moral specification is always the
object of a human act just insofar as it is an act of a human being.
Without the act of practical reason which relates to any object in
a specifically moral way, there is neither a human act nor a personal meaning of such acts. To speak of the "object of an action " is to speak of the content of an intentional action. That is
to say, the morally relevant object of an action is the content of
an act insofar as it is the object of an intentio voluntatis (whether
this is on the level of the choice of concrete, particular actions, or
on the level of intending further ends for the sake of which a concrete action is chosen as a means). With this we see that every
object is equally the object of the practical reason which orders
and regulates, the fundamental rule or measure of which is the
natural law. Only in this way do both the various natural ends
of human potencies and the usus rerum exteriorum become integrated into the personal suppositum in a cognitive-practical
way. They thus become objectified in their intelligibility which
renders possible the recognition of their morally objective
meaning.
3. The perspective of intentionality and the so-called
" non-moral " goods
The bona propria, i.e., the proper goods toward which the individual potencies are ordered as ends-considered in their ontic
1 Germain Grisez, "A
New Formulation of a Natural-Law
against Contraception," The Thomist 30 :4 (1966) : 343.

Argument

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structure, independently from their being potencies of a human
person, that is, considered on the level of their "genus naturae "
-are not yet moral goods which are as such morally significant
(they are no bona debita for the acting person as such). 8 But
calling them " non-moral" goods seems to be equally erroneous.
One simply cannot make moral judgments on the level of "genus
naturae." However, to call these proper goods of potencies "nonmoral goods " is actually a moral qualification since it is possible
only from an ethical perspective. To be ethical, a perspective must
take account of the acting subject's intentional relation to acts
and ends. To affirm that the ends of natural inclinations are nonmoral goods or non-moral values is to assert that they do not
possess an inherent " proportio ad rationem." This would mean
that they were exactly as inclinations "indifferentes ex specie,"
in St. Thomas's language, or that these inclinations, acts, and
ends are morally indifferent not only if we consider them " abstractly" in their "genus naturae,'' but also if we conceive them
as forming part of the human suppositum. Again, this would
mean that only further circumstances or intentions of the acting
subject by which he acts on these inclinations and performs the
acts proper to them would have a moral qualification, while the
inclinations themselves would not.
To look at natural inclinations and their ends in an abstractontic way is, however, neither ethically nor anthropologically an
adequate way of considering them. It simply can never lead to a
morally qualifying judgment, and this is precisely what the assertion means which states that they are " indifferent " (" adiaphora ") or non-moral goods. 9 It is not the ends of these inclina8 The distinction between (" actus" or "finis")
proprium on the one side,
and debitum on the other, goes back to ST I-II, q.91, a. 2. See for this my
N atur als Grundlage der Moral, pp. 72 ff.
9 Cf. ST I-II, q.18, a.8: Aquinas arrives at identifying an act as indifferent
"in specie " by the assertion that the act as such has no proportion to the
" ordo rationis" ; considered in itself the choice of such an act is not yet meaningful for practical reason, " sicut levare festucam de terra, ire ad campum et
huiusmodi." It is something quite different to consider an act, which by itself
does possess such a " proportio ad rationem," independently from this relation

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tions which are non-moral, but rather the abstract way of considering them which is non-moral. The problem springs from looking at natural inclinations simply as natural inclinations, inclinations of the "genus naturae " abstracted from the actual human
person. 10
This means that inclinations, their proper acts, and ends are
falsely looked at as " data," "facts," and " state of affairs," from
the perspective of an outside observer, rather than as inclinations
of a intellectually and thus willingly striving person. As such,
every human being experiences his inclinations as his inclinations,
as something that he willingly and intentionally pursues. This,
precisely, is not recognizable from the viewpoint of an outside
observer.
From the viewpoint of the external observer we also say that
birds build nests because the outcome of a bird's gathering different materials and executing determinate bodily movement is in
fact a nest. But do birds really build nests? That is, do they perform the action of "building a nest" ? For this they should intend, in gathering materiais, the goal of building a nest; they
should gather materials, move, and work for the sake of building
a nest. Moreover, they even should also intend the " why " of
building the nest, e.g., " to protect their offspring." With good
to reason, that is, on its merely natural level (e.g., an act of eating or nutrition, an act of sexual copulation). In this case, this will be a biological, physiological or psychological viewpoint which in no way allows a moral judgment.
The qualification of an act as "indifferent," however, is precisely such a moral
judgment.
1 0 Aquinas also sometimes uses the expression " consideratio absoluta," that
is, a consideration of acts detaching them from the wider context in which a
moral qualification would be possible. Cf. In IV Sent., d.16, q.3, a.1, qla.2 ad
2: "aliqui actus ex suo genere sunt mali vet boni ( ... ) . Hoc autem ex quo
actus reperitur in tali genere, quamvis sit de substantia eius inquantum est
ex genere moris, tamen est extra substantiam ipsius secundum quod consideratur ipsa substantia actus absolute: unde aliqui actus sunt idem in specie
naturae qui differunt in specie moris ; sicut fornicatio et actus matrimonialis."
Both fornication and a matrimonial act are, as sexual acts considered in their
"genus naturae" and in their corresponding physiological, biological, and in
a sense also in their affective aspects, strictly identical acts. Nevertheless the
human sexual act is not an "actus indifferens" if considered in its "genus
moris."

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reason we assume that they indeed are not doing this. 11 A
human person, however, who strives for self-preservation or for
the care of his off spring, and who performs corresponding actions, does not only "arrive at" preserving his life, etc.; rather,
he also intends it i'.n his actions. He does something for the sake
of preserving himself and caring for his offspring, and this "for
the sake of " is a content of his will. Self-preservation and care
for offspring are, in this case, objects of an intending will, guided
by reason. And as such, the corresponding goods ( self-preservation, care for off spring) are much more than the resulting states
of affairs of " self-preservation" or " protection of offspring." It
rather is a practical principle which guided a freely chosen act
and its intentional content, a content which determines as an intelligible good the agent's will. 12 These contents of intentionality
(self-preservation, care for others, and similar things) are already on the level of natural inclination a " good " of a striving
human person and, therefore, " good for man " in the context of
the person as a whole. It is precisely this which we call a "moral
good." " Moral goods " are the contents of acts of the will. And
the contents of acts of the will are precisely that which we call,
from a moral viewpoint, their objects.
We can conclude that to call the ends pursued by natural inclinations " non-moral " goods signifies, in the final analysis, a
moral qualification (or " dis-qualification ") based on the
"genus naturae" of these inclinations and their corresponding
acts. This, however, is an illicit transgressio in aliud genus and,
therefore, results in a conclusion easily recognizable as a sort of
"naturalistic fallacy." The naturalistic fallacy is based on a failure
to see that the "genus naturae" and the "genus moris" are not
11 This is not an argument against teleology in nature; just the opposite is
the case : this teleology exists because we affirm both ( 1) that birds do not
intend the goal of building a nest and (2) that they indeed do what they do
for the sake of building a nest; so the " intention " is inherent in nature.
12 Compare again VS 78 (the emphasis is mine): "The object of the act of
willing is in fact a freely chosen kind of behaviour. To the extent that it is
in conformity with the order of reason, it is the cause of the goodness of the
will; it perfects us morally. . .• "

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derivable one from the other. 13 The fallacy occurs when one
adopts a morally qualifying predicate on the level of " genus
naturae." But " moral indifference" actually is such a predicate.
Equally, "morally right " is a morally qualifying predicate. It is
a predicate which proportionalists adopt for actions on the basis
of the resulting balance of non-moral goods which can be foreseen.
In this context the Stoic doctrine of the adiaphora is sometimes
invoked: 14 Life, health, beauty, property, social status, honor, etc.
are not, one says, goods which determine a person's being a good
person. This depends exclusively on the goodness of the will. I
would argue in the following way against this attempt to defend
consequentialism by invoking this Stoic teaching : The Stoic doctrine only intends to differentiate the sphere of being from the
sphere of acting. Indeed, whether somebody is a good or a wicked
person does not depend on the state in which he happens to find
himself or the state in which he happens to arrive independently
from his willing as an acting subject. "Good" and "evil" as
objects of practical reason and intentional striving, however, are
not at all states of affairs, in which the acting subject happens to
find himself. As soon as the agent relates practically to goods/
bads as life, health, physical integrity, truth, property, it is no
longer possible to call those goods or bads adiaphora, indifferent
things or " extra-moral " goods; for the practical relation itself
involves, with regard to them, one willingly taking a position on
the basis of a judgment of practical reason; and it is precisely this
which determines the quality of the will as a good or an evil
will. So precisely insofar as a good is a practical good (or object
of a free will orientated to action) it cannot be a non-moral good
because it is impossible that the will relates to "good" in a nonmoral way (not even to a piece of bread practically judged and
i3 This reproach, which I have invoked against adherents of so-called "teleological ethics," is not, it seems to me, sufficiently refuted by W. Wolbert
in his critique of my position; cf. Werner Wolbert, "Naturalismus in der
Ethik. Zurn Vorwurf des naturalistischen Fehlschlusses," Theologie und
Glaube 79 (1989) : 234-267, especially pp. 259 ff.
1 4 Bruno Schuller,
Die Begrundung sittlicher Urteile; Werner Wolbert,
Ethische Argumentation und Pariinese in 1 Kor 7 (Diisseldorf: Patmos,
1981).

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chos·en as " to be eaten here and now "). The Stoics only wanted
to emphasize that moral goodness consists in an attitude of indifference with regard to any good other than virtue itself. So,
they intended to render praxis itself indifferent as far as it relates
to these goods called adiaphora. The important thing, the Stoics
affirmed, is to be virtuous, which means to live in apathia with
regard to indifferent goods. Consequentialists and proportionalists, however, are not Stoics. For they assert that precisely in
the sphere of these " indifferent goods " man has to take responsibility for optimizing these goods (and minimizing the bads),
and that this is the basic criterion of the " rightness " of an action. That means that they also consider the practical relation to
single adiaphora as "morally indifferent " (while Stoics want to
render insignificant this practical relation) and that only the action, which optimizes them, is morally right. This, however, is a
thesis in the field of action theory which is profoundly problematic.

4. "Object" in the perspective of human actions
This problematic consists in confusing the viewpoint of the
"first person" (the agent's perspective) with the viewpoint of
the third person (the observer's viewpoint). To a large extent,
these two perspectives correspond to two quite different concepts
of human action : the intentional and the causal-eventistic concept.15 The latter looks at actions " from outside " and sees them
as events which cause determinate effects. Events which cause
effects, however, are not yet actions (it could, for example, be an
earthquake). From such a perspective, " acting" can only be
reconstructed, as it were, by interpreting the foreseen connection
between act-event and its effect as being the reason for which a
rational subject has performed this particular act. An action
would be explained precisely when it was possible to indicate
u About the importance of the perspective of the "first person" see J. M.
Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics, pp. 114 ff.; Giuseppe Abba, Felicita, vita buona
e virtu (Rome: LAS, 1989) ; Angel Rodriguez Lufio, Etica (Florence: Le
Monnier, 1992) and finally my own La prospettiva della morale.

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those reasons which the agent might have had for performing
the action. The same applies to its moral qualification: The action itself and its effects are simply events or states of affairs
(that is, non-moral realities). Only those reasons which an agent
might have for causing through the action-event x the effect y
(the state of affairs) are morally qualifiable; this, however, only
as " morally right " or " morally wrong." This, I should add, is
more a qualification of effects (of y) and their desirability than
a qualification of the actions (of x) by which these effects are
brought about.
For example, the action-event x brought about by A could
consist in causing (in what way does not matter) the death of P.
The caused state of affairs will be "death of P." Only the reasons
for the desirability of P's death (in the context of a balance of
other goods and bads) would determine whether "to do x " is
right or wrong. Such a reason may be, e.g., the foreseeable consequences of A's doing x for all concerned (i.e., also the effects of
doing x with regard to the life of Q, R, S, ... , T as a consequence of A's doing x; e.g., in a case of hostage-taking and blackmail).
What here, however, is entirely put aside is precisely the acting
person as a subject which intends something in doing x; the acting subject, therefore, which performs x for the sake of causing
P's death (with the purpose of killing him). That is: What is
put aside is the choice of "killing-P " as a setting of A's will
against the life of P. This also means: What is put aside is A's
taking a position with regard to a specific person to which he
owes, as to his fellow-man, this and that. This act of choice can
adequately be seen only by looking at human actions in the perspective of the first person: From such a viewpoint there are not
only two states of affairs (an action-event and its resulting effect),
but also the act of intending P's death. This intentionality
(which here is a choice, the choice of an action) cannot be reduced to "causing the state of affairs of P's death." Otherwise
there would be no difference between what an earthquake " does "
and what an acting person does: the object and intentional content of "causing P's death" means to set one's will against the

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life of P ( = against P in the dimension of what fundamentally is
"good-for-him") and this positioning of one's will constitutes a
specific relation between the acting person and P. The content
of this "taking a position" shapes the agent's will and is, as such,
the content of a free will, and is " good " or " evil " wholly independently of other (foreseeable) resulting states of affairs
which might be brought about as a consequence of A's abstaining from killing P (as, for example, saving the lives of
Q, R, S, ... , T).
From an observer's viewpoint there is, therefore, no difference
between "causing P's death" and "killing P," that is, "doing
something for the sake of causing P's death." From the observer's viewpoint we may say in the same way" John killed ten
persons " and " the earthquake killed ten persons " (as we affirm
" The bird built a nest "). What we cannot say in either case
from this particular perspective is: Besides the ten killed persons, there is also a murderer. In the case of the earthquake this
would be simply nonsense; in the case of John, however, it could
well be the case that he is, in fact, a murderer. But it will never
be possible to justify such a differentiation from the observer's
viewpoint (otherwise we should equally admit that an earthquake
at least could be something like a murderer). In reality, however, "to kill P" is not simply "to cause P's being dead," but
rather it is to choose, to intend, to want P's death (for the sake
of whatever further end). Those practical goods which are objects of our actions (and here P's death is, for the agent, a "practical good," the content of his action) are never such objects
simply in their natural, antic value-quality as states of affairs,
but rather as objects of an act of the will guided by reason. That
is why objects of actions-precisely because of their being objects
of a human action-are goods in a moral sense. As said before :
bonum apprehensum et ordinatum per rationem.
Therefore, practical reason, which is embedded in appetite, and
the corresponding moral reflection never relate to the " bona
propria "-the particular goods of single natural inclinations-as
mere state of affairs on the level of their " genus naturae " ; as
such they cannot be objects or contents of the natural inclination

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of a humaw person who relates to them appetitively, by will informed by reason. For whom is "self-preservation" ever simply something given, a good only to be " taken into account " or
a mere state of affairs, no matter how desirable? For whom is it
ever a " non-moral " good, that is, a good which does not concern him as a person striving for the fulfilment of his being? As
it was said, the ontic-natural aspect of these goods or ends is a
posterior abstraction which abstracts them from the context of
practical self-experience; so, this purely natural aspect is a reduction of the proper intelligibility of these goods.
The goods of natural inclinations are never simply a set of
given facts, and man is not simply the sum of various inclinations. They rather constitute the proper practical self-experience
of persons as a certain kind of being. They form a whole, grasped
by intelligence as " my" being. So, the practical self-experience
of man as naturally striving for goods is precisely what constitutes the identity of a person as a human person : every inclination and its proper good are experienced as correlated to my
own striving and not as something alien to me, as, e.g., nature
which surrounds me, the world in which I am placed, my environment.16 This "good-for-me" as object of a reason-guided
1 6 This, it seems to me, is an often overlooked differentiation. An example
is provided by Louis J anssens, " Ontic Evil and Moral Evil," Louvain Studies
4 (1972) : 121 (note 34) and 135 f. The bodily dimension of man is here conceived simply as "material part of the material world"; it is named "human"
only insofar as this " material part of the material world " participates at the
same time in the subjectivity of single human individuals. Therefore, Janssens
considers the body, in a consequent way, as a " means to action," as an instrument of man's subjectivity for his being able to act in the sphere of the external world. With this, the properly "human" is restricted to a spiritually
understood subjectivity (without taking into account that also the body originally forms part of man's subjectivity). This, however, is not a personalist
view of man, but a view which we could call a " personalistic spiritualism."
The consequences of this view are, in the case of J anssens, absolutely clear,
e.g. when he says that the exterior act (" actus exterior") is an "exterior
event" (120) which, in itself, does not possess a moral meaning because it
does not yet participate in the subjectivity of man, i.e., before it is assumed by
the spiritual " ego " as a "means to action." So, bodily acts are, according
to this view, a sort of "raw material," determined in their moral meaning
exclusively by the spirit. This is obviously true as far as bodily acts need to

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will, as intelligible human good, is the content of true self-love
which, through the golden rule (a rule of reason and as such a
rule of the structural principle of justice based on acknowledgment of others as equal to me), leads to the command " Love your
neighbor as you love yourself."
This kind of self-experience reflects the original ontological or
anthropological integration of different natural parts of the
human suppositum. On the basis of a metaphysic of the suppositum, such an experience is open for a deeper explanation. So
it becomes obvious that each natural inclination by its very nature possesses, in the context of the person as a whole and precisely as an inclination belonging to a human person, a meaningfulness which from the beginning transcends the mere "genus
naturae." This transcendence is destroyed or at least obscured
by an abstract view which detaches these inclinations from their
original context as inclinations of a human person. In a moral
objectivation, the "natural meaning" of each natural inclination
is precisely a personal meaning which must not be identified with
its "genus naturae."
The proper work of natural reason-the acts of which are always acts of a person--consists in grasping the transcendence of
particular goods, exactly on the basis of the fact that they are
integrated into the whole of the human suppositum : as intelligible
goods. As such an experienced intelligible whole of goods they
form the "Self." In its natural act, which corresponds to a natural inclination to virtue, i.e., to a life guided by reason, reason
comprehends these particular goods as human goods and, therefore, as fundamental practical goods of the person. These goods
constitute our identity, the consciousness of who we are (I and
be "operationally" integrated into the whole of the person. It is not true,
however, as an anthropological thesis which reduces " moral meaning" to what
proceeds from the spiritual part of the soul or even as a thesis which reduces
"human person" to "spirit." Cf. also Martin Rhonheimer, "Contraception,
Sexual Behavior, and Natural Law," The Linacre Quarterly 56 :2 (1989) : 2057. Also published in "Humanae Vitae": 20 anni dopa. Atti del II Congresso lnternazionale di Teologia Morale, Roma 9-12 novembre 1988 (Milano:
Edizioni Ares, 1989), pp. 73-113.

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the others) and fundamentally shape the will in respect of " the
good for man."

5. The fallacious distinction between "right making
properties" and "good making properties" of an action
Moral philosophers who defend-however divergent be their
approaches-a consequentialist position (a " teleological ethic ")
usually are much concerned with emphasizing a fundamental difference between the " moral rightness" (or the " right-makingproperties ") and the " moral goodness" (the " good-makingproperties ") of an action. 11 The first, they say, concerns the
question about the properties which render an action " right " or
" wrong " ; the second is related to those properties of an action
insofar as it springs from a free will. By way of balancing goods
and bads, only the question about the " rightness of types of actions " is meant to be resolved. And this, it is asserted, is the
question which properly belongs to so-called "normative ethics."
The question, however, about what makes the will of the acting
subject a "good" will does not, according to their view, depend
on whether an action is " right " or " wrong" but rather, e.g.,
on whether one acts out of benevolence toward other persons, out
of love of justice, with a will to fairness or to respecting the
other's conscience, with a "Christian intentionality,'' etc.
Of course in a sense this is rather obvious. It is true in the
sense that an involuntary, and thus not imputable, error about
what one has to do-in this sense a wrong action-may not
hinder the will of somebody who acts in this way from being a
good will, even as it does the wrong thing, e.g., a will which, in
fact, intends justice even if it does not do the just thing. The
corresponding action, then, would be at the same time " morally
1 7 The distinction between the "goodness"
and the "rightness" of an action was introduced by W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930). The terms "right-making" and "good-making characteristics" ("wrong-making" and "bad-making characteristics") of an action
was first used in 1946 by C. D. Broad, in his famous, above quoted, essay
" Some of the Main Problems of Ethics."

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good " and " wrong." The widespread acceptance of this distinction seems to be caused, to a large extent, by the possibility
of this state of affairs. It is, however, a case in which the agent
in reality does not choose and thus willingly perform the action
which he thinks he is choosing and performing. It is, therefore,
an exceptional case which, for analytical purposes, must be set
aside until after having determined what basically causes the
goodness and the rightness of actions; precisely, because of this,
it cannot serve as a paradigm. To be able to justify a distinction
between " right " and " good " we must start from the normal
condition in which actions are chosen and performed, that is,
from the condition that the agent chooses and thus willingly performs exactly the action which he believes he is choosing and performing.
Now, the predicates "right" and "wrong" are morally
qualifying only insofar as we consider them as predicates for
human acts. Certainly, a physician may perform an operation
" rightly " (correctly, well, efficiently, competently, etc.) ; despite
this, his way of acting may be qualified as " wrong " (e.g., if it
is-in the first sense-a " well done " abortion). The first type
of qualification concerns the technical aspect of the physician's
acting, the second concerns the moral rightness of the choice of
this action. In both cases we may, instead of " right " or
"wrong," also call the action, respectively, " good" or " evil."
The designation derives from the perspective in which we consider the action: Either we consider it from the technical perspective (the aspect of surgical techniques) or we consider it
from a moral perspective (the aspect of its being the voluntary
and deliberate action of a human person; this is the properly
moral perspective). The second perspective includes the first
(one cannot act in a morally right way without caring about
one's technical competence). The distinction, however, between
" morally right " and " morally good " seems to be off the point
here. The only relevant distinction is the distinction between
" non-morally (e.g., technically) right/wrong " and "morally
right/wrong"; the second, however, is equal to (morally)
"good" and (morally) "evil."

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The position I am criticizing overlooks the fundamental difference between praxis and poiesis, taking its orientation from a
" poietical " model of action. 18 It is indeed characteristic of technical actions that its (technical) " rightness " is distinguished
from the goodness of the will of the person who performs a technical act. Aristotle, however, taught us that the goodness of a
praxis (which is eupraxia) and the goodness of a moral agent
(and this means his wilful striving: ore.xis) is a specific kind of
"rightness " ( orthotes) : the rightness of prohairesis, of the
choice of an action. Indeed, we can say that there exist fundamental structures of the " rightness " of desire which reveal
themselves precisely through the " le.r naturalis." These structures determine-despite the legitimacy of a limited and well defined balancing of goods-that certain actions are always wrong,
precisely because the desire or will involved in these kind of actions cannot be "right." Yet a will which is not "right" is an
evil will. In this sense it is " wrong " to choose to kill a human
person (that is : to set one's will against another man's life),
whatever be the further intention or end for the sake of which
this is chosen. To affirm that such a choice is "not right" (or
" wrong ") means precisely to affirm that this is a disorientated
choice of the will, that this is a type of action which as such
(" in itself ") is evil. " As such " or " in itself " here signifies :
independently from further intentions or foreseen consequences. 19
Such an action springing from a corresponding choice is evil, because it shapes the will, rendering it an evil will, a will directed
against "the good for man" (here from the perspective of jus1 8 See for this also Rudiger Bubner, Handlung, Sprache und Vernu·nft, 2nd
ed. (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1982), pp. 74-90.
19 Of course it may be considered as " good " (desirable)
that P finally dies
(and we may even pray for it) ; in this sense we also say: "It was precisely
the 'right' thing for him (and probably also for his relatives) that he finally
died." With this, however, we do not qualify an action or the choice of an
action, but a state of affairs and its desirability. The goodness, rightness or
desirability of such a state of affairs, however, cannot serve as a criterion for
qualifying a possible action of mercy-killing. Because in such an action a will
set against P's life is involved, with the further intention of bringing about a
desirable state of affairs.

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tice). This precisely is what we designate " not right " or
" wrong " in a moral sense. 20
Hence, the distinction between " right-making-properties"
and
" good-making-properties " is in principle questionable. We always have to describe actions and behaviors as objects of choices
and, therefore, as intentional actions. From such a perspective,
however, the goodness of the will is regarded as depending on the
goodness of freely chosen, wanted actions which also includes the
agent's willingly referring to the specific goal which constitutes
the objective intentionality of this action (I will come back to
this below). That is why acts of choice are always describable
as forms of rightness, that is, of the rightness of desire or of the
will. This enables us to indicate specific kinds of actions which
are never to be chosen because they are not consistent with a good
will, e.g., the choice of killing a person, whatever be the further
intention. On the other hand, it is indeed possible to choose what
2 0 This affirmation, as is obvious, presupposes that killing as the execution
of capital punishment (pronounced by the competent judicial authority) and
taking into account the fact that the punished is really guilty according to the
standards of penal law, cannot be described as a choice of the death of a person. Intentionally this action is (as any type of punishment is) "restoration
of the order of justice," violated by the criminal and in danger of being disrupted without imposition of punishment. However it is precisely not the
choice of the death of a person as resulting from weighing the good of a person's life against other goods which by this person's death would be brought
about (whether capital punishment can be considered as an adequate, proportionate, and in this sense just kind of punishment at all is another question
which still may be answered negatively; but in an objective-intentional sense
it is "punishment" and therefore an act intentionally and objectively belonging to the virtue of justice, and not the choice that a person not be, whether
as a means or as an end). Cf. the excellent treatment of this question in
John Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics, 127 ff.; and my own remarks in Natur
als Grundlage der Moral, 371-374 and in La prospettiva della morale V, 3, d.
Secondly, the above affirmation also implies the concept of non-intentional sideeffects, e.g., in the case of self-defense which (physically) causes the aggressor's
death. This means quite precisely that the aggressor's death was not chosen
for the sake of defending one's life; cf. ST 11-11, q.64, a.7: "illicitum est quod
homo intendat occidere hominem ut seipsum defendat." Here, "intendere"
means the elective will referring to the concrete action (" occidere hominem "),
while the defense of one's life is the further intention with which the concrete
action is chosen.

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is morally right with an evil intention; or to choose to do the
morally wrong thing with a good will. Moral philosophers and
theologians have always known this in the past, and it has traditionally been considered in ethics. 21
Certainly many decisions, probably even the great majority of
them, are legitimately worked out on the basis of weighing goods
and consequences. This is particularly true for decisions taken in
a wider social context (e.g. social, economical, scientific and research policy). But corresponding possibilities of action are, on
the grounds of moral reasons, restricted. They are restricted by
the condition that they be consistent with the fundamental " rightness of the will " on the level of concrete choices of actions. Here
we encounter the kind of responsibilities which we are accustomed
to expressing in so-called absolute prohibitions. On this level, the
" right " and the " good " (or : the " wrong " and the " evil ")
basically are identical. Here, balancing goods and calculating
possible consequences is excluded. 22
It is one of the most important assertions of classical virtue
ethics that there exist conditions for the fundamental rightness of
actions which depend on basic structures of the " rightness of
desire" and that it is therefore possible to describe particular
types of actions, the choice of which always involves wrong desire.
However, an ethic which understands itself-on the level of
"normative ethics "-as providing a rational discourse for the
purpose of justifying moral norms (or rules) will never be able
to acknowledge this. "Norm-ethics" are "objectivistic" in the
sense that they may not, on the level of the concrete performance
of actions, include in their reflection the acting subject and his
willingly " taking a position " with regard to " good " and
2 1 Compare Peter Geach, "Good and Evil," Analysis 17 (1956) : 33-42; republished in Theories of Ethics, ed. Philippa Foot (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 64-73; see especially p. 72.
22 This is why VS 77 rejects in a very specific and restricted way the method
of balancing goods and evils : " The weighing of the goods and evils foreseeable as the consequence of an action is not an adequate method for determining
whether the choice of that concrete kind of behaviour is 'according to its
species,' or ' in itself,' morally good or bad, licit or illicit."

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" evil " in choosing this or that particular action. Similarly they
cannot pose the question about the " rightness of desire," or
about the "truth of subjectivity," on the level of concrete choices
of particular actions (independently from taking into account
further intentions regarding the state of affairs or the weighing
of consequences which foreseeably will be brought about by these
actions or by refraining from them).
I concede it to be true, as has been argued, 23 that the traditional
doctrine about the " f ontes moralitatis" as such does not resolve
problems of normative ethics; it rather presupposes these problems to be already resolved. For with respect to this approach,
everything depends each time on what one considers to be the
"object" of an action. Consequentialists will assert that to determine the object of a concrete action, one has to take into account its foreseeably resulting consequences for all concerned. In
this sense, consequentialism does not deny the doctrine about the
"fontes moralitatis," it merely puts forward a specific solution
about how to work out what the "object" of a particular action
lS.

Nevertheless this classical doctrine about " sources of morality" contains an undeniable assertion which, however, is implicitly denied by consequentialism. It is the assertion that, with regard to human action, it is possible each time to distinguish between ( 1) an " object" by which this action (and the agent's
will) is already morally specified as " good," " evil," or " indifferent" independently from further intentions and (2) these further intentions. So the classical viewpoint holds that there are
actions which are evil despite the best of intentions or despite the
foreseen and intended outcomes precisely because the choice of this
particular kind of action through which these laudable intentions
are meant to be fulfilled must already be considered as morally
evil. It will, however, never be possible to render intelligible this
moral methodology on the grounds of an ethic which from the
28 Cf. Bruno Schuller, " Die Quellen der Moralitat.
Zur systematischen
Ortung eines alten Lehrstiickes der Moraltheologie," Theologie und Philosophie
59 (1984) : 535-59.

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beginning is concerned with justifying "moral norms." This is
so because in such an approach the distinction between "object"
and further intentions necessarily drops out of view. The only
thing which a norm ethic can produce in the way of an action
theory are the particular " occurrences " (" actions "), on the one
hand, and the consequences, brought about by them, on the other.
If an agent intends the best consequences, then it is these which
come to be designated the "object" of his "act."
But this does not correspond to our ordinary experience as
acting subjects and to the way we arrive at moral decisions; it
rather has about it the air of casuistry. From the viewpoint of the
acting subject we always encounter at least two intentionalities
to be distinguished. If I break the promise of repaying somebody
a determinate amount of money, causing by this his economic
ruin because I, simultaneously, intend to prevent by this action
the ruin of many others, I have chosen to break the promise given
to my creditor for the sake of realizing an intention which is very
laudable in itself. But here the object of choice ("breaking the
promise") is not less intentionally " taking a position " than the
further intention (" benefitting others "). The same applies to
killing or lying with good further intentions.
Moral virtue is not only, as it is sometimes asserted, the will
or the free determination to do " the right thing" each time.
Were it like this, there would exist only one single moral virtue.
Instead moral virtue is the habitual rightness of appetite (of
sensual affections, passions, and of the will, the rational appetite)
related to the various spheres of human praxis. An act which is
according to virtue is an act which is suited to cause this habitual
rightness of appetite which produces "the good person." To
keep one's promise is indeed such an act according to moral
virtue.
Certainly, we can describe the action " to promise " from the
very beginning in an "eventistic" way, say, as a kind of uttering words (a " speech act ") by which A causes in B the mental
state of being certain that A will do x. One may for various reasons consider it very beneficial that in a society there exists a
practice of this sort. So one will formulate a rule (or norm) ac-

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cording to which one is bound to abstain from any performance
which could deprive others from being certain that, whenever A
performs the speech act of "promising x," x will be brought
about by A. The norm " never break promises " means precisely
" always abstain from weakening the practice of promise-keeping." Even if one holds that the rightness of an action has to be
determined exclusively on the basis of its foreseeable consequences, one must equally consider that the weakening of the
practice of " promise-keeping " will be one of the consequencesprobably the most weighty one-to be included in the balance.
So, on the basis of such a rule-utilitarianism, one should insist
that one is always obliged to keep promises. Or more precisely:
one will not insist that promises have to be kept but rather that
the rule or norm "keep your promises " has to be observed. This
is an important difference (which will become clear immediately).
The rule does not express the intrinsic morality of a type of action but rather constitutes the reasonableness of a certain behavior
on the grounds of the utility of the rule under which this behavior
is subsumed and which is to be maintained by this behavior (for
the benefit of society, of course). It is obvious that there remains
the possibility of conflict with other such rules ("conflicts of obligations ") ; consequently the rule cannot be valid " absolutely."
As a result we have to work out which rule has to be followed in
such a case: Either on the basis of a "hyperrule," or by arguing
in an act-utilitarian way. Utilititarian ethics thus tends to become a complicated attempt to resolve the problems of " normutilitarianism." Actually it becomes much more concerned with
resolving the problems of utilitarian ethical theory than with resolving ethical problems.
It is quite clear that in all these cases an agent may very well
do the " right " thing with an evil will, and sometimes the
" wrong" thing with a good will (calculating or subsuming incorrectly or applying the wrong rule, though intending the overall benefit of society or of all concerned). Here, the discourse
concerned with grounding norms and resolving cases of conflict
of rules and obligations must be sharply distinguished from another discourse, the one concerned with the conditions of good-

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MARTIN RHONHEIMER

ness and wickedness of appetite and will. This distinguishing
does not, however, reflect the requirements and the structure of
moral action but merely the requirements which arise from the
particular characteristics of a " norm-ethic." As said before,
with such arguments one does not resolve ethical problems, but
at most, if at all, the intrinsic problems of a particular ethical
theory.
In reality, as acting subjects, we neither observe nor follow
norms or rules, nor do we work out our decisions each time exclusively on the basis of foreseeable consequences for all those
affected by our actions. Instead, human action realizes itself in the
context of definite "moral relationships," the relationships between concrete persons (fellow-men, friends, married persons,
parents and children, superiors and subordinates, employer and
employee, creditor and debitor, physician and patient, partners in
a contract, persons who live in a particular community, etc.). 24
Here, it is always concerned with what we owe to others, with
the question of right and of good will toward particular fellowmen, with the question of responsibilities toward concrete
persons.
Let us consider again the example of promise-keeping. Above
we have defined " to promise " (" eventistically ") as an utterance by which A causes in B the mental state of being certain
that A will do x. However, the bringing about of B's mental
state of being convinced that A will do x is not necessarily a
promise; it could also be a menace, an announcement or a reassurance (what is really meant by a speech act like " You can be sure
that tomorrow morning I'll come and see you " ?) . The above
eventistic description of promising contains everything except the
24 This category of " moral relationship " and its importance for explaining
responsibility in moral decision-making was very well emphasized by Robert
Spaemann, "Wer hat wofiir Verantwortung? Zurn Streit um deontologische
oder teleologische Ethik," Herder Korrespondenz 36 (1982) : 345-50 & 403-8.
The subsequent criticisms by A. Elsasser, F. Furger and P. Miiller-Goldkuhle
(ibid. 509 ff.; 603 ff.; 606 ff.) unfortunately do not enter into the fundamental
question posed by Spaemann; Spaemann himself remarks upon this in his concluding reply (Herder Korrespondenz 37 [1983]: 79-84).

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element which confers on this speech-act the quality of being a
promise. This it will be only if A wants to confer on B a right or
a claim on A's doing x. So B's certitude that A will do x is
grounded in a relation of justice caused precisely by the promissory act. Exactly this relation between A and B (that is : B's
having a claim or a right on A's doing-x, and B's owing to A to
do x)-a relation brought about by the speech-act "I promise
you "-shows that a norm " keep your promises " is nothing else
than a more particular or specific version of the principle of
justice to render each one what one owes him. The promissory
act indeed creates a relationship between persons in which this
general rationale of justice now is valid.
It may happen that a situation changes in such a way that the
doing of x (for whatever reason) subsequently turns out to be
an unjust action; or even that doing x was unjust from the very
beginning, that is, that A had promised B to do something unjust. Is it possible that B has a claim (a right) on A's committing an unjust act? Certainly not. The promise becomes in
reality vain (or reveals itself as vain or immoral from the beginning). So the promise, in reality, is not " broken " ; by not keeping it no injustice is committed; rather the very promissory act
was unjust, and it now would be according to justice that A in a
way indemnifies B, who has been deceived. In order to be able
to judge whether a promise keeps binding the person who made
it, the consequences of doing x must be considered (an action
without any consequence is not an action at all). But these will
always be the consequences in the sphere of the question whether
B continues licitly to claim A's keeping the promise, that is: A's
doing x. The question can never arise whether such an eristing
claim may be overridden in favor of other more important or
more numerous goods benefitting Q, R, S, ... , T (even if there
may be cases in which the benefits for Q, R, S, ... , T precisely
will determine whether B continues to have a claim on A's doing
x). In any case, the relation between A and B established by
making the promise, and the consequences relating to Q, R,
S, ... , T, are two different things; one cannot say that we are,
on principle, responsible for all the foreseen consequences of our

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actions or omissions. B's being deceived by a promise which may
possibly not be kept certainly cannot be regarded as simply one
among many consequences of not keeping the promise. So it may
be possible that not-keeping a promise is unjust with regard to
B even if the state of affairs resulting from not-keeping it were,
as such, more desirable than the one brought about by keeping
the promise. In this case, not keeping it would be morally wrong
because the choice of an unjust action involves the wrongness of
the will.
Anyhow, this view remains far too abstract. In reality things
are resolved in other ways. In reality an agent who intends justice
will try, for example, to achieve a delay in repaying the debt. Or
he will find (or at least try to find) a way to prevent by other
means the ruin of Q, R, S, ... , T. His refusal to commit an
injustice against his creditor by breaking the promise will lead
him to discover new lines of action, alternatives, and formerly
unseen opportunities. To describe this we would need to tell a
story. Virtuous actions are, in this sense, rendered intelligible
only in a narrative context. 25 But the right thing to do will always be the action which is consistent with the rightness of appetite, with the rightness of our will's relation to concrete persons with whom we live together in defined relationships.
Many details should be added, and there is still much to be
specified. But the fundamental difference between virtue- and
norm-ethics consists in the fact that for the former the morally
right is always determined, as well as rightness of appetite, with
regard to the " good-for-man " on the level of concrete actions
and in relation to particular persons, persons with whom the
agent encounters himself living in morally qualified relationships
(be they naturally given or be they relationships established by
free acts, such as promises, contracts, etc.). That is why a virtue
ethic can speak about actions which are " intrinsically," " always
and per se," "on account of their very object" evil (cf. VS 80).
A norm-ethic of utilitarian character, however, that in the last
25 This is one of the very valuable insights of Alasdair Mcintyre's
After
Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 1984).

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analysis is an argumentatively proceeding norm-ethic, cannot do
justice to such qualified relationships. Consequently, it is compelled to detach the category of the " rightness of actions " from
the category of the "goodness of the will." That is why it simply
will not understand that the intentional relation of the will to
"justice," i.e., the " just will," is at stake in every concrete choice
of a particular action. 26
6. The intentional structure of practical objects as
" forms conceived by reason"
So called " teleological ethics " owes a large amount of its
plausibility-as far as Catholic moral theology is concerned-not
least to the fact that it was directed against a naturalistic
(or " physicalist ") misunderstanding of the " moralitas ab
obiecto." 27 Yet, despite this justified aim, adherents to these
"teleological" approaches do not seem to have recognized the
real source of this misunderstanding, which consists in overlooking the fact that practical reason is embedded in the intentional
process of human acting, being a part of it. That is why, I think,
these new approaches remained themselves addicted to a surprising, even extreme, naturalism. Particular actions implicitly are
considered by them as analogous to " events " and their outcomes
as state of affairs. They implicitly presuppose, on the level of
particular actions, a causal-eventistic concept of action (action as
causing a state of affairs). I said " implicitly," because adherents
of " teleological ethics " do not explicitly defend such a corre26 This, it seems to me, explains why virtue ethics do not require a " personalistic complement." Recent personalism often seems to be an attempt to overcome the one-sided views of modern rule-ethics. Ethics based on the concept
of moral virtue are intrinsically " personalistic," but are also probably more
open to rational discourse than many forms of actual personalism.
27 See, e.g., Franz Scholz, Wege, Umwege und Auswege der M oraltheologie.
Ein Pliidoyer fur begrundete Aitsnahmen (Miinchen: Bonifatius, 1976), 16f.;
Joseph Fuchs, " 'Intrinsece malum '. 'Oberlegungen zu einem umstrittenen
Begriff," in Sittliche N ormen. Zum Problem ihrer allgemeinen und unwandelbaren Geltung, ed. Walter Kerber (Diisseldorf: Patmos, 1982), 76£.; Peter
Knauer, S.]., "The Hermeneutic Function of the Principle of Double Effect," in
Readings fo Moral Theology No. 1, pp. 1-39.

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sponding action theory (they actually deal very little with questions of action theory). 28 That is why they are compelled to reclaim the aspect of intentionality-the aspect of willingly taking
a position with regard to " good " and " evil "-on the level of
fundamental options and attitudes, on the level of Gesinnung.
So, consequentialists fail to see that, independently from further
intentions required to optimize consequences or goods on the level
of caused states of affairs, an action may already be qualifiable as
morally evil. And this means : That a particular type of action,
describable in behavioral terms, may be qualified as causing an
evil will simply because it is evil to want (and, therefore, to
choose) certain actions as practical objects ( = as the " good to
be done "). The problem is bypassed, even veiled, by describing
chosen actions from the observer's viewpoint, thus leaving out
of consideration precisely the act of choice. Probably the
most famous example of such an argumentative reductionism is
Caiaphas's advice to the Sanhedrin: " It is better for you that a
single man dies for the people, than that the whole people perishes." As a judgment about a simple event or a state of affairs
and its desirability this obviously is quite true. But it is well
known that Jesus did not simply die but was killed.
Precisely because objects of our actions are intentional objects, that is, objects of acts of the will, they can only be
" shaped " by reason; for the will is the appetite which follows
the judgment of reason. As Aquinas emphasizes: "Species
moralium actuum constituuntur ex formis, prout sunt a ratione
conceptae." 29 This "form conceived by reason" is nothing other
than the object of an action in its "genus moris."
This again is closely connected with the fact that every human
action is an intentional action. And this is why it is something
28 A more recent attempt to do so by referring to Kant is not very satisfying,
and it remains unclear to what extent the author may be called a representative
of "teleological ethics." Cf. Gerhard Hover, Sittlich handeln im Medium der
Zeit. Ansiitze zur handlungstheoretischen Neuorientierung der Moraltheologie
(Wiirzburg: Echter Verlag, 1988). However, this book contains some valuable criticisms of positions defended by adherents of " teleological ethics."
20 ST 1-11, q.18, a.10.

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that does not simply " happen," but something willingly pursued
and as such farmed or shaped by reason. A concrete practical
matter (" materia circa quam ")-the same applies to the "matter" of natural inclinations-is as such, considered in its pure
"materiality,'' always less than the content or object of an action
with respect to the natural inclination of a human person. If in
greeting somebody or giving a starting signal, I raise my arm,
then " raising my arm " (the matter of action) is as such something which can neither be chosen or performed. The real content of an act of choice and of the describable behavior is exclusively the intentional, i.e., human, action "greeting somebody"
or "giving a starting signal." In this, however, the practical
reason which judges the action as a practical good (something
good to do here and now) is already involved. To know what a
person is doing by raising his arm, one must know why (in the
sense of " what for") he raises his arm. The " why" here is
the formal aspect, the "f orma ration is " which only renders understandable the event of the raising of an arm as a human action. This " why " (or " what for ") confers on the action its
intentional identity which is able to inform and shape the agent's
will.so

In his " Philosophical Investigations,'' Ludwig Wittgenstein
asks "what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes
up from the fact that I raise my arm ? " 31 We might answer:
What is left over is precisely the purpose or intention to greet
so Cf. for this G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention. Professor Anscombe conceives, in the course of her analysis, the question " Why ? " in a larger sense
(any sort of motives, or also unvoluntary causes of actions); it includes the
"what for ?," without being reduced to it. But insofar as we are concerned
with properly human, voluntary actions, the "why ? " precisely is the "what
for? ". It properly concerns " intentions."
31 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, No. 621, translated by
G. E. M. Anscombe, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe, R. Rhees (Oxford : Basil Blackwell, 1958), 161e. Wittgenstein thinks that nothing is left over ("Are the
kinaesthetic sensations my willing ? "). Wittgenstein refuses (see the next
number) to differentiate conceptually, besides the physical fact, an act of willing. Anyhow, Wittgenstein here clearly mixes up the observer's viewpoint
("the fact that my arm goes up") and the acting person's perspective ("I
raise my arm"). Nobody ever can really observe "I raise my arm"; only

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somebody or to give a starting signal. That means that what remains is "to want to raise the arm under the aspect of a specific
description " which is a description of the intentionality involved
in the performance. To choose an action "under a description"
again involves practical reason which judges "greeting somebody " or " giving a starting signal " as something which is
"good" to do here and now. One might object: But you could
just simply raise your arm. Well, I would answer, just try to do
it! It is true that it might just "happen " (involuntarily, as a reflex, while sleeping); but this is not a human act. If, however,
somebody wanted " simply " to raise his arm, he again would do
more than simply "raise his arm." If we subtracted from his
doing this action the fact that his arm goes up, we would have left
over, e.g., "Wanting to show the author of this paper that he is
wrong." What would be left over is a " why," the intentional
content or the "form" of this act of "raising one's arm."
Therefore, "to greet somebody by raising one's arm" is properly the object of an action, which in itself possesses already an
intentional structure. In precisely this structure, respectively the
" whole " (the " matter " of the action
its " why" or " what
for ") is a "f orma a ratione concepta." Things like " greeting "
or affability or gratefulness or justice, that is, corresponding actions to these, do not " exist " in nature. There do not exist corresponding "natural forms." These acts are intentionalities
formed by practical reason. That is why the objective content
of human actions can be expressed ·each time only in an intentional description of the corresponding action. " What " we do
is always a " why " we do something on1 purpose. It is a " material doing " (" materia circa quam ") chosen under a description,
while it is the "description " which actually contains the intentional content of the action. That is why it seems to me correct
when Elizabeth Anscombe writes : " We must always remember

+

" the fact that my arm goes up " is observable. " I raise my arm " can properly be described only as a choice by a willing subject. Everybody has personal interior experience of such choices as something different from " kinaesthetic sensations."

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that an object is not what what is aimed at is; the description
under which it is aimed at is that under which it is called the
object." 32
It is often overlooked (as, for example, by L. J anssens) that
an object of the will necessarily is an action-matter "apprehensum et ordinatum a ratione." For this reason, it possesses by
itself a moral specificity; it never can be wanted or chosen as a
non-moral good or end. 33 Equally one overlooks that the "end"
("finis") is not only an object of further intentions, but also
that the particular choice of an action has its proper " end " : the
action as an object.
That is why, each time Aquinas speaks about "finis," an
author like L. Janssens reads "finis operantis," overlooking
thereby that the object of the exterior act of the will is in itself
an end, but not this further end for the sake of which the action
itself is chosen; instead it is the sort of end which Aquinas sometimes (very few times) calls the " finis operis." 34 This "finis
operis," however, is the basic intentional content of a concrete
action (without which it would not be a human action at all), and
therefore something like the "formal object" of an action. 35
Such basic contents are not events like " the raising of an arm,''
but rather " greeting somebody" or " giving a starting signal."
They are neither " things " nor " qualified things " as, for example, a res aliena; but actions " under a description " as " misa2 G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention,§ 35, 66.
33 Here

we may find probably the most decisive misjudgment of Janssens;
for he assumed that the will is able to relate to " ontic" goods as on tic; so
he asserts that it is possible to want " per se " an ontic evil on the level of its
being only an ontic state of affairs, and that, as such, it can be the object of
a choice which, then, would not be subject to moral qualification as a "good"
or an " evil " choice. Only if the ontic evil is the end of the further intention
with which a choice is performed, if it, therefore, were the proper reason of
bringing such an evil about, could a corresponding will be called an evil will.
Such an objectifying of ontic goods by the elective will, however, is simply
impossible; it contradicts the very nature of the will which is "appetitus in
ratione" or "intellectual appetite"; the will receives its object through reason.
Janssens' argument is simply naturalistic.
34 Cf. e.g. In IV Sent., d.16, q.3, a.l, qla.2 ad 3.
8 5 About formal and material objects of actions cf. Anthony Kenny, Action,
Emotion and Will, 5th ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan, 1976), pp. 187 ff.

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apropriate a res aliena," that is " stealing." The arm itself is not
able to greet or to give a starting signal; and an action in which
a " res aliena" is involved is not necessarily a theft (it may also
be the action of seizing something stolen carried out by the
police). Equally the so called " finis operis" is an agent's goal;
but it is the goal he pursues independently of the further goals he
may pursue by choosing this concrete action. It is the goal which
specifies the performed action as a determinate type of intentional
action, the one which Aquinas usually calls the " finis proximus"
of a human act, i.e., its object.
The " species " of an action is precisely the species " ab obiecto
relato ad principium actuum humanorum, quod est ratio." 36 The
"finis operis" is nothing other than the object of choice (the
choice of the action), which by itself is an act of the will informed by reason.
The so-called " absolute prohibitions," that is, normative
propositions which indicate that certain, describable actions may
never be licitly chosen and willingly performed, therefore relate
to actions described in;tentionally. It is impossible to do this independently from the content of the acts of choice which relate to
such actions. So, for example (although this is not the case with
such prohibited actions), a " norm " cannot refer simply to
"raising one's arm" but to "greeting somebody by raising one's
arm" or "giving a starting signal by a movement of one's arm."
Only to actions described in such a way can a moral norm reasonably relate. The norm "never kill" receives, in this way, a
clear structure. 37
7. Natural law: the fundamental rule for the
goodness of will
As Aquinas says in one of his most concise phrasings, "natural law is nothing other than the light of the intellect given us
a6 ST I-II,

q.18, a.6.
does the norm of never lying; see my N atur als Grimdlage der
Moral, 346 ff.; 367 ff. About both, killing and lying, see also La prospettiva
delta morale, chapter V, section 3 d. About contraception, see my paper Contracept,ion, Sc.ma! Behavior, and Natural Law.
3 7 Equally

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by God by which we recognize what is to be done and what is to
be avoided, a light and law which God has bestowed to man in
creation." 38 Natural law is not simply an object of human reason, but, like all kinds of law, it consists precisely in judgments
of practical reason itself, it is a specific set of "propositiones universales rationis practicae ordinatae ad actiones," a set of " universal propositions of practical reason directed to actions." 39
As I have shown elsewhere, there exists a parallelism between
the constitution of objects of actions as moral objects on the one
hand, and the constitution of the precepts of natural law on the
other. 40 Both objects of human actions and precepts of natural
law refer to an " appetibile apprehensum et ordinatum per rationem." Both the praeceptum of the natural law and the object
of a concrete action (which is the object of choice, in itself " prescriptive ") are " aliquid a ratione constitutum" 41 and spring
from an " ordinatio rationis." 42 By natural law, this objectivethat is, rationally ordered-meaning of natural inclinations is expressed in universali. And, therefore, natural law is properly the
law by which particular judgments of practical reason are rectified.43 So in two senses natural law is a " law of reason " : it is
a law constituted by reason (on the universal level), and a law
referred to and regulating reason (on the level of particular
judgments).
as Thomas Aquinas, In Duo Praecepta Caritatis et in Decem Praecepta, Prologus: " lex naturae . . . nihil aliud est nisi lumen intellectus insitum no bis
a Deo, per quod cognoscimus quid agendum et quid vitandum. Hoc lumen et
hanc legem dedit Deus homini in creatione." And further on: ". . . lumen
scilicet intellectus, per quad nota sunt nobis agenda."
aa ST I-II, q.90, a.l ad 2.
4o See Naturals Grimdlage der Moral, mainly part II.
"1 ST I-II, q.94, a.l.
42 ST I-II, q.90, a.4.
4 3 " Lex naturalis est secundum quam ratio recta est" (In II Sent., d.42,
q.2, a.5). This would be the appropriate place to speak about the constitution
of "prudentia" (practical wisdom or "prudence") by the " fines virtutum,"
and about the twofold (intentional and elective) aspect of moral virtue; finally
one must say something about the relation between " synderesis " and prudence.
See for this ST II-II, q.47, a.6.

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In this way the precepts of the natural law are recognizable as
properly practical principles of the practical intellect determining
concrete actions. This intellect possesses its perfection in prudence (practical wisdom). The questions dealt with here were not
questions of " normative ethics " ; I did not claim to ground specific moral norms. It concerned a question which first had to
be clarified before one could even speak about the grounding of
moral norms and normative ethics. I wanted to clarify how,
from a properly moral perspective, we have to speak about moral
norms and " normative ethics " and what " moral norms " even
refer to. Briefly we now can say: " Moral norms " are, in ethics
and in the moral life, a quite specific way of speaking about intentional human actions and their practical principles. More precisely, norms are normative propositions (propositions in the
mode of " ought," " may," " must not," etc.) about intentional
actions based on practical principles. 44
Theories like " teleological ethics " ( consequentialism and
proportionalism) sometimes present themselves as natural-law
theories. They on principle rightly do so, because every natural
law theory consists of a theory about practical reason and the
structure of moral judgment performed by human reason. And
teleological ethical theories, defending the cognitive " moral
autonomy " of man, in fact are theories about what is meant by
"to act according to reason ". 45 However, we may now be able
to give a critical evaluation of these theories. First, they do not
properly have a conception about principles of practical reason.
This can also be regarded as a consequence of their lack of action-analysis. " Teleological ethics " essentially and exclusively
is a decision-making theory: it tries to explain how we work out
44 About the relation of so-called " moral absolutes " to intentional actions,
see also the excellent Marquette Lecture by William E. May, Moral Absolutes.
Catholic Tradition, Current Trends, and the Truth, The Pere Marquette Lecture in Theology 1989 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989), especially pp. 40 ff.
4 s See Bruno Schuller, "Eine autonome Moral, was ist das ?,'' Theologische
Revue 78 (1982), 103-106. See for this my above quoted article "Zur Begriindung sittlicher Normen aus der Natur," especially pp. 67 ff.

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35

decisions about what to do here and now. If adherents of this
theory speak of principles, they do so only to establish some
more general rules for the orientation of decision making. These
rules or principles, however, do not have, according to this theory,
a proper origin, that is, an origin different from the very logic of
a particular decision making process. So consequentialism and
proportionalism do not really provide a natural-law theory.
They provide a theory about reasonable action which basically
fails to acknowledge what is most essential for natural law: The
existence of real practical principles which are not derived from
determinate forms of decision-making procedures, but are the
real moral measure for the decision-making process.
Secondly, by measuring the moral " rightness " of single types
of action exclusively on the basis of their foreseeable consequences
related to non-moral goods and bads, this theory presupposes a
concept of action which simply leaves out of consideration a
basic aspect of human actions: The fact that the acting subject,
that is, its will, takes a position with regard to good and evil already by choosing concrete actions which bring about such consequences. This taking a position relates to the agent's own person and to other persons (including God). So it seems that the
theory does not acknowledge what actually follows from a more
adequate analysis of human action : That in the will of the agent
the properly moral qualities of " good " and "evil " may also appear independen:tly from the whole of foreseeable consequences.
Adherents of so-called " teleological ethics " consequently omit in
principle an intentional description of those particular types of
action which afterwards they qualify, on the basis of their decision-making procedure, as "right" or "wrong." To defend
their theory, they are compelled to describe these actions as mere
" events." Then at the same time they indicate the difficulties and
aporias which logically derive from such a non-intentional concept of action, difficulties and aporias regarding the concept and
the respective determination of the "object" of an action, so that,
finally, they are able to offer their theory as the only reasonable
solution for these problems, problems, however, created by their

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very approach rather than by the subject matter of ethics itself. 46
The solution offered by adherents to " teleological ethics " maintains that "action-events" brought about by acting subjects may
be qualified as " right " or " wrong" according to whether they
bring about the best overall consequences for all the concerned,
an optimum of goods or a minimum of bads.
I have argued, however, that even if the non-moral consequences of an action are optimal and mostly desirable, the action
by which they have been brought about may nevertheless be an
evil action. I would insist that everybody knows that this is possible. Whoever brings about " the best of all worlds" (the world
with an optimum of non-moral goods or a minimum of non-moral
bads) can, at the same time, be a murderer or a villain, and this
not simply because he acted, say, to assure his own glory and,
therefore, with a fundamentally evil intentionality, but precisely
because we would judge as wicked the actions he performed. This
obviously shows already that such a world would not be the best
of all. The problem with consequentialist ·ethics is not that it does
not share this conviction or that its adherents are inclined to
plead for amorality, but that consequentialism is not able to explain what all of us know. The "secret" of consequentialism
does not consist in denying this truth, just as it does not deny
the truth of the proposition that a good intention cannot "sanctify " evil means. Instead the " secret " of these methodologies
consists in making the acting subject disappear which, in its concrete choices of particular actions, takes a position with his will
with regard to "good" and "evil." As a result, the verdict
about the good intentions which cannot " sanctify " evil means
is simply rendered irrelevant and pointless. For if the "means"
(that is : the concrete actions we choose and willingly perform)
46 This approach, however, is not so different from traditional approaches
that can be found in some classical manuals of moral theology. Some of them
used to look at actions as physical processes or events, relating them afterwards to the " norma moralitatis," an extrinsic rule determining whether it is
licit or illicit to perform such and such an " action." What most classical
manuals failed to do was precisely to render intelligible what a human action
is and that its moral identity is included in it because it is included in the intentional structure of an action.

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only can be " right" or " wrong," and this depending on their
foreseeably resulting consequences in the field of non-moral goods
and bads, then by definition there cannot exist such a thing as
an "evil means." Instead there can be, at most, "wrong means,"
that is, means chosen on the basis of an error about which means
would be the right one in order to achieve a determinate goal. To
justify the concept of " intrinsically evil action," an intentional
concept of action is required, and a corresponding concept of the
intentional basic contents of concrete types of actions. This " intentional basic content " of an action is what we usually call its
"moral object." 47
We all understand a " good person " to be a person whose will
is a good one, even if, to be good, such a will must often pay a
high price: The price of accepting mostly undesirable consequences of its being a good will. But it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it. 48 This proposition precisely means
quite specifically that it is morally better to abstain from an action the performance of which would be unjust, even if, as a consequence of refraining from it, a much greater injustice committed by others would foreseeably result, an injustice that, however, I will suffer. If we set aside the acting subject, the injustice
committed by me and the injustice suffered by me (and committed by another person) appear just as two different states of
affairs. The point (long ago expressed by Democritus) is that
one cannot and may not compare these two consequences, nor
may one weigh the action to be avoided against the undesirable
consequences of refraining from this action. And this simply for
the reason that the action as such, considered in itself, is an unjust action. This is precisely what a consequentialist (" teleological ") ethic is unable to justify.
It can be seen that the natural law manifests itself as the totality of principles of practical reasonableness which not only moves
us to act and to do the truly good but also compels us to refrain
47 For a full account of the concept of " intentional basic content " and " intentional basic action" see my La prospettiva delta morale.
• 8 For the following I am indebted to A. W. Mi.iller, "Radical Subjectivity:
Morality versus Utilitarianism," Ratio 19 (1977) : 115-32.

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from committing injustice. Natural law is the proper "law" of
a good will. It orients human persons, as striving subjects, to the
"good-for-man," on the level of himself and of his fellow-men.
It equally makes him refrain from evil, from " poisoning his
soul." A life that maintains this orientation to the "food-forman " in each and every single act of choice may rightly be
called a "successful" life. A person who lives such a life therefore deserves praise and we consider him or her as a person who
is on the way to sharing in true happiness, of participating in
what the Greek Philosophers called eudaimonia.
It will always remain difficult to disprove convincingly so called
" teleological " ethical theories ( consequentialism, proportionalism) as long as one tries to do so in the logic proper to norm
or rule ethics. The Church's teaching about "law"-" eternal,"
" natural," or " positive," " divine " or " human," " old" and
"new "-was, in the past centuries, profoundly and not very
happily influenced by the logic of norm and rule ethics. For different reasons, moral theologians emphasized the " observers'
viewpoint." Unlike the classical and medieval tradition of moral
theory, the modern tradition was not interested in exposing a
comprehensive conception of the good life as part of the intellectual enterprise involved in coming to an understanding of man
and of the sense of his existence. From the 16th century onward, moral theology, intensively permeated with casuistry, was
rather concerned with judgments about whether particular acts
were compatible, or not, with a conception of the good life
already established by revealed positive law and the corresponding moral norms.
This concern, however, falls short of the genuine way we arrive
at a proper understanding of the real requisites of morality. For
this, also in a Christian context, a virtue-centered moral theory is
needed, be it on the level of philosophical ethics or on that of
moral theology. 49 So called " teleological ethics " have not yet
49 See an example of the latter in Romanus Cessario, 0.P.,
The Moral
Virtues and Theological Ethics (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1991).

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escaped from the logic of a legalistic approach ; they only now
try to "save" freedom from a supposed menace by law. By asserting in number 78 that "to be able to grasp the object of an
act which specifies that act morally, it is therefore necessary to
place oneself in the perspective of the acting person," the encyclical Veritatis Splendor opens a new way directed to rediscovering the perspective proper to virtue ethics, which is the genuine
perspective of morals.

DID AQUINAS CHANGE HIS MIND
ABOUT THE WILL?
DANIEL

WESTBERG

University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia

0

NE OF THE MOST fundamental and challenging
problems in the interpretation of St. Thomas is the
proper relationship of intellect and will, on which so
much of moral theology (and thus of the Summa Theologiae)
hinges. As Alasdair Macintyre indicates in both After Virtue and
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? the problem involves our
understanding of how to appreciate the genius of Aquinas in the
monumental task of harmonizing Aristotelian practical reason
and the biblical and Augustinian categories of will, sin and the
law of God.
When this framework is brought to the reading of St.
Thomas, it is very difficult to understand certain texts which
can seem to be obscure or inconsistent. In some cases he seems
to be following Aristotle's explanations of practical reason and
choice, and elsewhere he emphasizes the freedom of the will. One
method of dealing with this is to argue for a change in Thomas's
thinking: that he shifted from an early emphasis on the intellect
(his Aristotelian phase) to an appreciation for the dynamic freedom of the will (which he inherited and developed from the
Augustinian tradition). This has the virtue of seeming to deal
neatly with inconvenient texts by consigning them to a position
which he abandoned; but as we shall see the treatments by
Aquinas do not fit the chronology required by this schema of
development.
There is very little evidence, actually, to recommend this thesis
though it has been advocated by prominent scholars-

41

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DANIEL

WESTBERG

and there are strong reasons why we should reject this theory
of change. That this explanation has nevertheless been widely
held says more about the tradition of voluntarism in our thinking (and our tendency to see Aquinas in that light) than about
the merits of the case brought forward to argue for Thomas's
shift from reason to will.

Proponents of the Theory of Change
Dom Odon Lattin questioned the dating of De Malo 6 to 126368 by Mandonnet (and ca. 1268 by Grabmann) on the basis that
the work shows advances in the treatment of liberum arbitrium.
He argued that whereas Thomas had placed the primary motive
factor on reason in his earlier works 1 the emphasis was shifted
to the will in De Malo 6 and ST I-II, q.9, a. 4. Therefore we
could conclude that De Malo is posterior to ST I and anterior to
ST I-II.2
Lottin was right about the dating, but not about the reasons
given for it. He alleged that the structure of the argument in De
Malo 6 is entirely different from previous treatments because the
distinction between voluntas and liberum arbitrium has disappeared and been replaced by " liberty of specification " and
"liberty of exercise." Lattin admitted, however, that the former
belongs to reason and the latter to will implying (without realizing it, perhaps) that we might well interpret this as a change
of terminology rather than a change of doctrine.
Lottin softened his claims the following year in an article where
he wrote: " ll ne faudrait pas urger la difference ... qui eziste
entre cet expose du De Malo et celui du De Veritate," admitting
that the distinction between specification and exercise is also to
be found in De Veritate. Therefore we should not speak "d' opposition ni meme de diversite de doctrine." 3
E.g. De Veritate 22.12; Summa contra Gentiles III, 89; ST I, q.82, a.4.
La date de la Question Disputee De Malo de Saint Thomas d'Aquin,"
Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique 24 (1928) : 373-388.
3 0. Lottin, "Le libre arbitre chez saint Thomas d'Aquin," Revue thomiste
12 (1929): 424, n. 1; reprinted in vol. 1 of Psychologie et morale a=- Xlle
et Xllle siecles (Gembloux, 1948).
1

2 "

DID AQUINAS

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43

There is still a difference, however, in emphasis, Lottin argued,
for two reasons: ( 1) In the De Malo a text from the Eudemian
Ethics of Aristotle is quoted to indicate that God is the first
mover of the will; this apparently undercuts the priority of the
intellect over the will; Lottin noted that this text is cited also in
ST I, so that the "change" in Thomas must now be shown to
have occurred before this work; and ( 2) the connection of the
argument of De Malo 6 with the controversies and condemnations of 1270.
Thomas Deman, however, had previously pointed to the influence of the Eudemian Ethics on Thomas's thinking in the Summa
Contra Gentiles.4 This meant that whatever "shift" Lottin saw
in Thomas's thinking should have taken place earlier in his career.
A few years later, in an article on human freedom, Lottin
argued again for a definite change in doctrine. 5 He was not concerned about the question of dating any longer because Glorieux
had clarified the chronology of Aquinas's disputed questions and
placed De Malo 6 to 1270. 6 He wanted, rather, to argue that the
shift in teaching about intellect and will occurred not between ST
I and De Malo but between De Veritate and ST. In Thomas's
early works, Lottin argued, the will always follows reason; and
especially in the De Veritate there is "un apparent determinisme
psychologique." 7 This determinism disappears when we come to
ST I because there the will, although subject to the influence of
the object presented by reason, moves itself to action as an efficient cause. 8
Lattin pointed to the distinction between efficient and final
causality with respect to the intellect in action. In De Veritate,
Thomas had attributed formal and final causality to the intellect :
4 T. Deman, "Le 'Liber de bona fortuna'
dans la theologie de s. Thomas
d'Aquin," Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques 17 (1928) : 42.
5 0. Lottin, " Liberte humaine et motion divine de s. Thomas d' Aquin a la
condamnation de 1277," Recherches de theologie ancienne et medievale 7
(1935) : 52-69, 156-173.
6 P. Glorieux, " Les Questions Disputees de Saint Thomas et leur suite
chronologique," Recherches de theologie ancienne et medievale 4 (1932): 1-33.
7 Lottin, " Liberte humaine," p. 56.
8 Ibid., p. 55, referring to ST I, q.82, a.4.

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ratio illa ostendit quad intellectus movet per modum finis: hoc
enim modo se habet bonum apprehen:sum ad voluntatem. 9 In
De Mala 6, however, final as well as efficient cause now become
" l' apanage exclusif de la volonte elle-meme" and thus removes
from the reason " toute idee d'infiuence determinante." 10 Lottin
sought to strengthen his case by unfairly stressing the aspect of
intellectual determinism in De Veritate and by presenting a quite
inaccurate emphasis on will in De Malo.
Bernard Lonergan made use of Lottin's analysis in his articles
concerning grace in St. Thomas. However, he completely
polarized the difference supposedly to be found in Thomas.
Lonergan alleged that in the De Veritate, De Potentia, and ST
I, Aquinas had equated freedom with non-coercion, but later saw
his mistake and retracted. As Lonergan put it:
This lapse in the teeth of contrary theory was repudiated with extreme vehemence in the later De Malo as heretical, destructive of all
merit and demerit, subversive of all morality, alien to all scientific
and philosophic thought, and the product of either wantonness or
incompetence.11
The strong opinion is indeed to be found in the words of Aquinas
(near the beginning of his response), but we shall see below that
the subject for attack was rather different from what Lonergan
thought.
The earlier writings on will by St. Thomas, said Lonergan,
must be regarded by historians " as a momentary aberration."
Along with the false view of freedom Thomas also " overcame
the Aristotelian doctrine of passive potency " : in the De Mala
and ST I-II, with passivity "transcended," Lonergan thought
he saw that " the freedom of man yields place to the freedom of
the will." 12
This is a misguided reading of Thomas by Lonergan. And
how are we to regard his presentation to us of a truncation of
9

De Ver. 22.12, ad 3, cited by Lottin, "Liberte humaine," pp. 54-55, n. 11.

lo Ibid., p. 163.
11 " St. Thomas's
Thought on Gratia Operans," Theological Studies 3
(1942) : 534.
12 Ibid., p. 536.

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freedom-the reduction of the " freedom of man " to the " freedom of the will "-as a more attractive or positive move? This
makes sense only if one takes the view of Duns Scotus that, since
the intellect being a natural faculty is determined, only the will
has free agency. This would support Vernon Bourke's contention that most Catholic understanding of Aquinas on the will
has been Scotistic. 18 Such is the weight of authority, however, that
several years later G. P. Klubertanz could say that Lottin and
Lonergan "have proved that St. Thomas's theory of the will
underwent a notable development from the Commentary on the
Sentences to the Prima Secundae." 14
Lonergan's interpretation did not go uncriticized. Marianne
Childress noted that Lonergan had treated final cause as the same
as efficient cause-probably through a misreading of Lottinthus making it appear as though Thomas had made a shift from
the intellect as final and efficient cause to the will as final and
efficient cause. 15 A proper reading of De Veritate, Childress
pointed out, does not sustain this interpretation. 16 In other
words, since Thomas never assigned efficient causation to the intellect the change was not nearly as sharp as Lonergan alleged.
R. Z. Lauer, though somewhat deferential to Lottin, questioned
his thesis that Bishop Tempier's actions caused Thomas to change
his view of will from passive to active. In Thomas's works "the
thought that is expressed seems to be consistent throughout his
writings"; and Lauer's summary is faithful to Thomas: "the
intellect moves the will inasmuch as the intellect apprehends the
object of election, apprehends it as having a ratio of good, which
is the final cause of the will." 17
13 V. Bourke, Will in Western

Thought (New York, 1964), p. 88.
P. Klubertanz, "The Unity of Human Activity," The Modern Schoolman 27 (1949-1950) : 94.
15 M. Childress, "Efficient Causality in Human Actions," Modern Schoolman 28 (1951) : 191-222.
16 Ibid., p. 201, n. 39. Lottin himself was aware of this:
cf. " Liberte
humaine," p. 54.
17 R. Z. Lauer, "St. Thomas's Theory of Intellectual Causality in Election,"
New Scholasticism 28 (1954): 318.
14 G.

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Lottin wrote a brief reply, saying that there are two problems
involved in the question of final causality: ( 1) the relation of
reason and will; and (2) the influence of the object on the act
of the will.18 Lauer confused these, Lottin said, not realizing
that in the commentary on the Sentences and in ST I only the
first problem is treated while the De Malo answers the second by
showing that reason is not the final cause.
Like a dog which will not surrender its bone, Lottin took his
position even further in order to explain Thomas's doctrine of
human freedom. To strengthen his case for change from De
Veritate to De Malo, Lottin exaggerated (in the manner of
Lonergan) the intellectual determinism of the earlier work : " le
vouloir suit necessairement le jugement "; " le desaccord est impossible entre le choix et le jugement pratique qui l' a determine." 19
Other scholars expressed their disagreement with Lottin and
Lonergan. Lebacqz distanced himself from Lottin's thesis, saying that it was based on "une meconnaissance fonciere." 20 The
" determinism " supposedly characteristic of the earlier works is
present in all his writings, and Lebacqz pointed to the fact that
Thomas uses the supposedly deterministic teaching of the operative syllogism in ST I-II, q.13, a. 1.,21 showing that Thomas did
not change his position between the prima pars and the prima
secundae. It is significant that Klubertanz in 1961 revised his
earlier position of agreement with Lottin and Lonergan on the
matter of evolution in Thomas's thought and asserted that the
" changes " were more apparent than real. If the teaching in the
later works was expressed in the categories of the early works
" the really significant differences could well disappear from
view." 22
1 s 0. Lottin, Bulletin de theologie ancienne et medievale 7 (1954-7) : 579580.
19 0. Lottin, "La preuve de la liberte chez S. Thomas d'Aquin," Recherches
de theologie ancienne et medievale 23 (1956) : 326.
20 J. Lebacqz, Libre arbitre et jugement (Paris, 1960), p. 35.
2 1 Ibid., p. 36.
22 G. P. Klubertanz, "The Root of Freedom in St. Thomas's Later Works,"
Gregorianum 42 (1961): 707.

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These notes of caution have been outweighed, however, by
further repetitions of the thesis of change. In 1971 Bernard
Lonergan's earlier studies on grace were re-edited and published
as Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St.
Thomas Aquinas and expounded Lottin's theory of a marked
change between De Veritate and De Malo. The wide circulation
of this book has undoubtedly given fresh currency, in an exaggerated form, to the erroneous view of a massive shift from
intellect to will in Thomas's thought without any qualification.
The same year marked the publication of Riesenhuber's attempt
to provide a metaphysical grounding for the superiority of the
will, which was followed up by articles in which he argued for
a shift in Thomas's later works to a doctrine of the autonomy
of the will. 23
If the proper way to understand individual passages and the
process of development in the Summa Theologiae has not been
very clear to critics, there seems to be much less doubt about
the De Malo. As we saw above, the teaching on the will in this
question has always been the cornerstone of the thesis of change
for Lottin and Lonergan and the point of comparison with the
emphasis on the intellect in the commentary on the Sentences
and the De Veritate. When we read De Malo, said Lottin, "nous
sommes loin du determinisme qui, dans le De Veritate, reliait le
vouloir au jugement pratique prealable." 24 Because emphasis in
De Malo 6 on the will has been more congenial, and because it is
among Thomas's later writings, scholars have urged us to consider it, whatever Aquinas may have said elsewhere, the final
word on the subject of free choice.
Some more recent criticism of Aquinas has tended to give up
entirely on the Summa Theologiae and make the De Malo the
2 3 K. Riesenhuber, Die Transzendenz der Freiheit zum Guten: Der Wille in
der Anthropologie und Metaphysik des Thomas van Aquin (Munich, 1971);
" The Bases and Meaning of Freedom in Thomas Aquinas,'' Proceedings of
the American Catholic Philosophical Association 48 (1974): 99-111 and "Der
Wandel des Freiheitsverstandnisses von Thomas von Aquin zur friihen Neuzeit," Rivista di Filosofia Neo-scolastica 66 (1974): 946-74.
24 Ibid., p. 328.

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DANIEL WESTBERG

only genuine presentation of Thomas's new understanding of the
nature of the will's freedom. This is based on seeing the survival
of some of the intellectualist elements in the discussions of human
action in ST I-II, qq. 1-21 and on finding a new basis of discussion in De Malo 6. 25

Problems with the Theory
The major difficulty in the theory of change is to indicate
where the major shift in Thomas's thinking occurred. We have
seen that various places have been proposed: after the prima pars
of the ST, then before the Summa contra Gentiles, and then after
the opening section of the secunda pars of the ST. The problem
for advocates of the theory of a shift has always been that in all
these works there are citations which seem to indicate that
Thomas had not overcome his " intellectualist " view. Even
after ST I-II, qq. 1-21 we may point to these elements: in ST
I-II, q. 76, for example, in the section on sin, the relation of sin
to ignorance is given an intellectualist base, using the practical
syllogism as the basis for decision, and not giving the will the
weight that one would expect if he had made the " shift " by this
point. When we come to ST III, q. 18, a. 4, in the question
whether there was liberum arbitrium in Christ, the discussion
picks up the framework used in ST I, q. 83 without any indication that Thomas had a new way of looking at the will's role
in decision.
There is, further, quite a problem in dating implied by this
revisionist program, especially by the enthusiasts for De Malo 6.
There is little disagreement with Glorieux's or Lottin's date of
25 0. M. Pesch, in "Philosophie und Theologie der Freiheit bei Thomas von
Aquin in quaest. disp. VI De Malo: ein Diskussionsbeitung," Miinchener Theologische Zeitung 13 (1962) : 1-25, sees the intellectualist links between the IaIIae and the pars Ia. More extreme is H.-M. Manteau-Bonamy, "La liberte
de l'homme selon Thomas d' Aquin : la datation de la question disputee De
Malo," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age 46 (1979), who
finds in ST I-II the same doctrine as in De Veritate, but in De Malo "la
volonte de !'homme est une puissance radicalement active" (p. 22). The dating problems which this view involves will be considered below.

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late 1270, in Paris, for this disputed question; but this of course
causes trouble for our treatment of the secunda pars of the
Summa Theologiae which was being composed also during this
period. If Thomas had had the breakthrough in his view of the
freedom of the will which is alleged, then this should have shown
up in the remainder of his work; but the evidence for the unity
of treatment in the ST is far stronger than the evidence for a
change in doctrine, as Pesch and Manteau-Bonamy admit.
One way to deal with this is to say that Thomas simply carried
on in the Summa with the old intellectualist way of looking at
things, and did not bother to integrate his new insights on the
will's freedom. At least one scholar is prepared to draw this conclusion and argues that for various reasons Aquinas decided not
to modify ST I-II, qq. 9-10 along the lines of his thinking represented in De Malo 6. 26
No Thomist could be happy with the idea that the answer to
a question as important as the role of the will in human action is
answered adequately only in a short disputed question (and a
single article at that). This would imply that whole tracts of the
Summa Theologiae must be ignored (remember that Lonergan
included ST I as part of Thomas' s " aberration ") or at best
read with cautious qualification. There can be very little satisfaction to know that St. Thomas finally got the problem of free
will right in the De Malo if this means that the centerpiece of
the Summa, the treatment of human action, morality and virtue,
is basically fl.awed. The value of Thomas as a theologian is immensely diminished if this theory is correct because it means not
only that his Summa is immature in some important ways, but
that by the end of 1270 he had the insights to improve his moral
theology but failed to integrate these new principles into his work.
There is a lesson to be drawn from J. B. Korolec's summary
article on free choice in the Cambridge History of Later Medieval
Philosophy. Following Korolec the reader would think that
26 The
only suggestion given by Manteau-Bonamy, in "La liberte de
l'homme," p. 33, is " que la Somme s'adressait a des novices qu'il fallait introduire progressivement a la verite pleniere."

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Thomas emphasized the will in the commentary on the Sentences,
that liberum arbitrium can be identified with the will which is
the source of freedom in the De V eritate, and that it is in the ST
that Aquinas stresses that the intellect and not the will " has the
major role in the moral activity of human beings"; further,
Korolec sees in the ST that final causality is attributed to the
intellect. 27 The fact that Korolec could offer the opposite thesis
to Lottin and Lonergan (without apparently realizing its implications) is not to be scorned so much as regarded as evidence
for the dynamic interdependence of reason and will for which we
would argue.
The thesis of a major shift in Thomas's thought can be
strongly challenged by considering texts from the De V eritate
which emphasize the will, and from De Malo 6 which describe
the role of the intellect. vVe saw above that in order to make his
case Lottin ascribed to the De Veritate an intellectual determinism against which the De Malo 6 can appear voluntarist.
Thomas, however, nowhere states that the will must accept the
judgment of reason. In fact, even in De Veritate, he emphasizes
their mutual interdependence : " the act of choice proceeds from
each potency in relation to the other." 28 Completely counter to
Lottin's interpretation of intellectual determinism, Thomas says
that the "will moves the reason by ordering its action." 29 There
is also full emphasis put on the will as early as the commentary
on the Sentences: "Choosing is principally an act of the will." 30
Similarly in De i11alo 6 Thomas speaks of the way in which
the intellect understands the interior act of the will in that
through the act of the intellect the will is somehow moved. 31
27 J. B. Korolec, "Free Will and Free Choice," The Cambridge History of
Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. Kenny, N. Kretzmann, and J. Pinborg
(Cambridge, 1982), p. 635.
28 De Veritate 24.4. " Sic enim actus electionis progreditur,
ab una scilicet
earum per ordinem ad aliam."
29 "Voluntas
movet rationem imperando actum eius" (De Ver. 24.6, ad 5).
30 "Eligere erit principaliter actus voluntatis"
(II Sent d. 24, q. 1, a. 3).
31 De lvfalo 6, ad 18: "similiter
etiam et interiorem actum voluntatis intelligit, in quantum per actum intellectus quodammodo movetur voluntas."

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Since there is evidence in all stages of Thomas's thought of a
strong emphasis on both reason and will, the most reasonable
and faithful explanation is not that of development or change
from one to the other, but that of a constant doctrine of the intimate combination of the two forces.

The Authentic Teaching of Aquinas
The most essential point to grasp is that reason and will do
not work in sequence but in harmony, at the same time. The intellectualist account pictures the will having to follow what the
intellect concludes; the voluntarist account says that the will is
free to decide on an action no matter what the intellect comes
up with. Thomas's teaching is neither of these, but that both
operate together: that when a decision is made it expresses the
agent's understanding as well as his desires. This is definitely
not the standard, "received" view of traditional scholastic commentators, but it has been noticed by several scholars including
G. Verbeke who realized the importance of both cognition and
volition in dynamic relationship. Verbeke correctly maintained
that the emphasis on both reason and will is present in Thomas's
doctrine throughout his writings. 32
This emphasis is characteristic not merely of Thomas's early
stage, but also of ST I-II and De Malo. In the very first question
which opens the discussion of human action Thomas writes that
"humans have dominion over their actions through both their
reason and will, which is why liberum arbitrium is called a fac32 " Les deux facultes superieures de l'homme se penetrent reciproquement,"
in G. Verbeke, "Le developpement de la vie volitive d'apres s. Thomas,"
Revue philosophique de Louvain 56 (1958) : 17. Servais Pinckaers made the
relation of reason and will a major theme in a series of polemical articles in
Nova et Vet era studying the decline of medieval moral theology, reprinted as
Les sources de la morale chretienne: sa methode, son contenu, son histoire
(Fribourg and Paris, 1985).
Mention should be made of two earlier perceptive works: Joseph Glanz, Die
Einheit des menschlichen Handelns bei Thomas von Aquin (Inaugural-dissertation at F. Wilhelms Univ., Bonn, 1932) ; and U. Serafini, "La liberta
umana secondo Aristotele e le interpretazioni averroistica et tomista," Giornale
critico della filosofia italiana 34 (1955): 167-185.

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ulty of the will and of reason." 33 Confusion is embedded in us
right from the start when we translate liberum arbitrium as "free
will." s4
There are different approaches and emphases in the various
treatments by Thomas, and it is indeed possible to point to
changes and improvements. One would expect to find, after all,
a different emphasis on the will in a work devoted to the subject
of truth from one dealing with the nature and causes of evil.
With this said, the unity of conception and treatment of the question of the function of the will throughout the works is also remarkable.
In the De Malo Thomas tells us that if we consider the activation of the potencies of the soul from the aspect of the specifying
object, then the first principle of motion is from the intellect; for
in this way the "understood good" moves even the will itself;
if however we consider the movements of the soul's potencies
from the aspect of the exercise of the act, then the principle of
motion is from the will. 35
This teaching of Thomas is not very different from the position established in De Veritate where he taught that man does
necessarily desire the good in general, 36 but that there is no necessity with respect to this or that particular good. 37 This is the
same teaching as that found in the various treatments. What is
stressed in De Malo 6 is that only the absolute good, beatitude,
is desired by necessity, and thus every good actually apprehended
by the intellect in this life is deficient in some respect and thus
free from necessity.
33 ST I-II, q.1, a.1. "Est autem homo dominus suorum actuum per rationem
et voluntatem, uncle et liberum arbitrium esse dicitur ' facultas voluntatis et
rationis '."
34 As Timothy Suttor does at ST I, q. 84 in his volume (no. xi) of the new
Blackfriars edition (London and New York, 1970).
35 De !Ylalo 6. " Si ergo consideremus motum potentiarium animae ex parte
objecti specificantis actum, primum principium motionis est ex intellectu: hoc
enim modo bonum intellectum movet etiam ipsam voluntatem. Si autem consideremus motus potentiarum animae ex parte exercitii actus, sic principium
motionis est ex voluntate."
36 De V eritate 22.5, ad 12, "et sic eti::m voluntas de necessitate vult bonum."
37 De V eritate 22.6, ad 5 " sed non determinate hoc bonum vel illnd."

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Lottin's account of the liberty accorded to the will in De Malo
is very different from Thomas's explanation. Lottin misunderstood completely Thomas's explanation of bonum quad non inveniatur esse bonum secundum omnia particularis. Instead of seeing the profound proof for the non-necessity of any bonum intellectum (other than beatitudo) Lottin says " Mais si ce bien
presente quelque deficience, la volonte peut choisir un autre." 38
Instead of seeing the indeterminacy inherent in every decision to
act, Lottin still continued to see reason and will in opposition, with
will making the final choice after all, thinking all the while that
this was Thomas's "new" teaching in De Malo.
The mistake almost always made in understanding this is to
impose a sequential model on the language of Thomas and have
the will follow the intellect or make its own decision, when he
wants us to see each guiding the other. The key to realizing this
is the fact that intellect and will are not two similar but distinct
faculties of the mind, one doing one job and one another (in
which case they would operate sequentially), but are actually
two different kinds of potencies according to Thomas. ag Using
his metaphysical basis, the intellect is the term for a person's
ability to recognize reality and truth, while the will is a person's
ability to be attracted toward good specified in this way. In
practical reasoning, both intellect and will need to be active at
the same time. Apprehension and inclination are simultaneously
necessary for action just as pitch and rhythm are both essential
for music (which must involve sound frequencies as well as motion forward in time).
The teaching of Thomas on intellect and will cannot be completely clear or convincing until its proper metaphysical foundations are presented, the relationships with Aristotle and Augustine are described, and the actual process of practical reasoning is
explained. That will need to be done elsewhere.40 But we can
3 s Lottin,

" La preuve de la liberte," p. 328.
De Veritate 22.4, ad 4. Helpful on this point is Lawrence Dewan, "The
Real Distinction between Intellect and Will," Angelicum 57 (1980) : 557-593.
4 0 My attempt at this appears in: Right Practical Reason: Aquinas on Prudence and Human Action (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
39

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get some help by considering the two points which Lottin and
Lonergan raised as the problems which they thought indicated
change in Aquinas, namely the notion of the will as a potentia
passiva and the attribution of final causality to the will.
We saw that one of the key issues to which Lonergan objected
was the notion of "passive potency." This is what he thought
was "transcended" by Aquinas in De Malo 6, and others have
thought that this work marks the place where he shifted to an
" active " rather than a " passive " view of the will. This is interpreted to mean that the will is now self-activated, rather than
being dependent on the determination of the intellect.
This term potentia passiva should be interpreted in the framework of Aristotelian physics and metaphysics as Thomas developed it, and not given a psychological connotation which seems
to make the agent " passive " with respect to his choices and actions. As Thomas develops the operations of the intellect and
will as " passive potencies " he employs a technical expression
indicating their relation to external reality. A passive potency, as
he described it in his commentary on the Metaphysics, is " a principle by which something is moved by something else inasmuch
as it is something else." 41 Both intellect and will are passive potencies with respect to an object (anything in the universe which
it is possible to think or be attracted to), and therefore are in
potency to change-to be "moved" by the object-but as potencies reduced to act they become active and enable a person to
be an agent, that is to be free to think, desire, and do things. We
expect this explanation of the function of intellect and will on
this very Aristotelian basis to be difficult for the modern mind to
accept; but it met with considerable opposition in Aquinas's time
as well.42
If we consider the texts involved-the De Veritate, the condemned proposition, and its version in the De Mala-we will see
41 Metaphys. 9, lectio 1, no. 1777.
42 See Z. Kuksewicz,
" Criticisms of Aristotelian Psychology and the
Augustinian-Aristotelian Synthesis," in The Cambridge History of Later
Medieval Philosophy, p. 623.

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that there was no abandonment of the prior Aristotelian metaphysics. In the earlier work Thomas, quoting Aristotle's De
Anima, says that "the appetite is a passive potency, because it is
moved by what is desirable." 43 Lattin has described for us the
hostility to this on the part of Franciscans like Gauthier de
Bruges, 44 and the general reaction that understood Thomas to be
denying the freedom of the will. It is clear that they simply did
not understand that Thomas was describing appetite in general,
the metaphysics of teleology including the "natural appetite" of
all creation as well as sensitive and rational appetite.
In December of 1270 a number of philosophical errors were
condemned by the Bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier. The ninth
seems to be directed at Thomas Aquinas : " That free choice is a
passive potency, not active; and that it is necessarily moved by
what is desirable," 45 but the substitution of liberum arbitrium for
appetitus makes a considerable difference. For Thomas free
choice is the principle of action, the product of both intellect and
will in act. 46
Thomas is supposed (by those who follow the theory of
change) to have been convinced by the pressure of opposition
against him into changing his position in De Malo 6, disputed
at about the same time the list of errors was published. In argument 7, one against free choice, Thomas expresses it this way:
" it seems that the will is moved by necessity by what is desirable.
Therefore there is no human free willing or not willing." 47
Thomas seems to be distancing himself from his former statement about the determination of the will, but notice that in the
4 3 De V eritate 25.1, " appetitus autem potentia passiva est, quia movetur ab
appetibili."
44 Lottin, Psychologie et morale, I, p. 243 ff.
45 " Quod liberum arbitrium est potentia passiva, non activa; et quod necessitate movetur ab appetibili." Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed.
H. Denifle, vol. I, (Paris, 1899), p. 48.
46 ST I, q.83, a.1, ad 3: " Dicendum quod liberum arbitrium est causa sui
motus; quia homo per liberum arbitrium seipsum movet ad agendum." Cf.
ST 1-11, q.l, a.l, 2.
47 De Malo 6, arg. 7. "Ergo videtur quod voluntas de necessitate moveatur
ab appetibili. Non ergo est liberum homini velle vel non velle."

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De V eritate he spoke of appetitus, while here it is voluntas itself.
Appetite is moved by what is desirable; the rational appetite is
moved by (the good) in general. The metaphysical basis is the
same, but in practice, the will is not moved by any particular
good, because of the freedom we have to see things from different
points of view.
This is of course the heart of the argument of De Malo 6 and
one that appears as well in his previous treatments. 48 In his reply
to the seventh argument Thomas does not deny the doctrine of
voluntas as a potentia passiva (in the technical sense) ; in fact
he reaffirms the teaching, for since the will is related in potency
with respect to universal good, no good can overcome the power
of the will, as though moving it by necessity, unless it is something good in every respect. 49 Thus the will would still be necessarily moved by completely perfect good.
There has also been misunderstanding of Thomas on the question of final causality on which Lottin based his theory of change.
Thomas had always maintained that the intellect was the formal
cause and the will the efficient cause (we saw that Lonergan was
mistaken in thinking that Thomas had ever associated efficient
causality with the intellect). The element of final causality seems
to be shifted from intellect to will but this is because of understanding more precisely the connection of voluntas with bonum,
and bonum with finis. As Verbeke puts it, the overall teaching remains the same, but in the De Malo it is " plus exacte" than in
the De Veritate because of the clarification of final causality. 50
Free choice is a matter of choosing, on the part of both reason
and will, the bonum intellectum. This never changes in Thomas.
But he came to express more precisely that final causality had to
do with the bonum aspect, and formal causality with intellectum.
There can be no question, however, of the separation of final
causality from intellect in order to show emphasis on the role of
De V eritate 22.5; ST I, q.82, a.l ; I-II, q.9, a.1.
De Malo 6, ad 7: " Cum autem voluntas se habeat in potentia respectu
boni universalis, nullum bonum superat virtutem voluntatis quasi ex necessitate ipsam movens, nisi id quod secundum omnem considerationem est bonum."
5o G. Verbeke, " Le developpement de la vie volitive," p. 13.
48
49

DID AQUINAS

CHANGE

HIS MIND

57

the will because of the inherent connection between intelligence
and finality. The essence of finality is the understanding of something done for a purpose or for a definite goal, which can be
properly true only for rational agents, though analogically of all
agents. 51
Far from shifting to an active notion of will, the intimate
combination of intellect and will and of formal and final causality
is strengthened in the teaching of De Mala 6. Good itself, with
respect to its being a certain apprehensible form, is contained
under the category of truth as a certain truth; and truth itself, to
the extent that it is the goal of intellectual operation, is contained
under the category of good as a certain particular good. 52
The introduction by Thomas of the Aristotelian text on God
as mover of intellect and will demonstrates not a shift in his
thinking as Lottin thought, but the difference in Aquinas from
the emphasis of other theologians on the spontaneous action of
the will. It actually underscores the need Thomas felt to provide
a metaphysical explanation for the ultimate activation of intellect
and will, and shows that he did not change his understanding of
passive potency (the need for intellect and will to be moved to
act by an exterior object) to a notion of radically free agency.
When we come to later thinkers there is a real difference. There
is no need in Scotus, for example, for God to be the first act, because he denies the principle "whatever is in motion is moved by
another." 53 It is this Aristotelian principle, still clearly maintained by Thomas in De Mala 6, which sets him clearly apart
from Henry of Ghent and the Franciscan voluntarists.
We may thus approach the texts and affirm the basic unity
51 " Since finality is a participated perfection, it must be reduced to its most
perfect source and cause, intelligence." L. Figurski, Final Cause and its Relation to Intelligence in St. Thomas Aquinas, Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham
Univ. (New York, 1977), p. 192.
52 " Unde et ipsum bonum, in quantum est quaedam forma apprehensibilis,
continetur sub vero quasi quoddam verum ; et ipsum verum, in quantum est
finis intellectualis operationis, continetur sub bono ut quoddam particulare
bonum."
5 3 Patrick Lee, " The Relation between Intellect and Will in Free Choice
according to Aquinas and Scotus," Thomist 49 (1985) : 341.

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WESTBERG

and consistency of teaching from the commentary on the Sentences to the ST II, and also explain the differing emphases.
Throughout his works, Aquinas wanted to emphasize how reason and will both share in human action as the cognitive and
appetitive aspects of an essentially united act.
There may be other factors besides a change in the definition
of the will to account for the apparent shifts. For example, if
the certainty attaching to moral knowledge is reduced, this gives
the effect of greater freedom. Intellectual determinism can also
be reduced by giving more weight to the role of emotions and
dispositions. A case can be made for these kinds of shifts in the
thought of Aquinas, which then make the need to account for a
change in his position on the will less compelling. 54

The Occasion and Purpose of De Malo 6
In some ways it is surprising that there is not a greater difference in the early and late works of Thomas on human action.
One of Thomas's purposes in the commentary on the Sentences
and in the De Veritate was to establish the proper role of intellect
against the voluntarist emphasis common in the tradition of
Philip the Chancellor and especially amongst the Franciscans. In
the later part of the 1260s, with nearly everyone misunderstanding his doctrine of passive potency-despite his emphasis on the
will's role in his treatment of liberum arbitrium in ST I, q. 83he came under increasing suspicion and attack by the traditionalist theologians. Being associated with the group of Siger of
Brabant on other points of doctrine, Thomas had to take pains,
especially in view of official action taken in 1270, to distance himself as much as possible from a deterministic position.
Thomas thus had several items on his agenda in writing the
De Malo 6:
54 Giuseppe Abba suggests that Aquinas moved from a conception of legalist
morality to one governed by virtue in Lex et virtus: Studi sull' evoluzione
della dottrina morale di san Tommaso d' Aquino (Rome, 1983). This book
has exaggerated the shift, but it does indicate that an explanation of change
need not involve a move towards " free will."

DID AQUINAS

CHANGE

HIS MIND

59

( 1) To confute Siger and those influenced by radical Aristotelian and Arabic determinism, using arguments from Aristotle (to which they would be open) in order to show why determinism was wrong. 55
(2) To convince his conservative opponents such as John
Peckham that his own position was not determinist. The "extreme vehemence " noted by Lonergan was directed at the radical
Aristotelians (not his own previous position !) and was to impress upon the theologians that he shared their convictions about
the deep and important connection between freedom and moral
responsibility.
( 3) To maintain and defend his own position on reason and
will. Without substantially changing the teaching of choice by
reason and will he stressed the indeterminacy of the will and refined his understanding of formal and efficient cause and his
doctrine of the relationship between reason and will and verum
and bonum.
We should judge Thomas's treatment of the problem of reason and will in human action in De Malo and ST I-II a brilliant
solution, and under the circumstances a tour de force. At the
time, however, Thomas appears to have succeeded publicly only
in his first objective, since it seems that Siger of Brabant may
have been convinced by Thomas's logic and then modified his
views. 56 John Peckham and the conservative theologians were
not convinced, however, by Thomas's defense of the will's freedom. Aquinas was subject to deliberate misunderstanding and
condemnation by the Franciscan school (if Thomas in fact had
shifted to emphasizing the will his conversion to the Franciscan
view would surely have not gone unacknowledged).
It is probably fair also to add that, given the hostile situation
around the year 1270, Thomas had to be careful in his descrip55 R. Hissette, Enquete sur les 219 articles condamnes a Paris le 7 Mars
1277 (Louvain and Paris, 1977), p. 230 ff., has a discussion of the condemned
articles dealing with the will in relation to the teaching of Alkindi, Averroes,
Siger of Brabant and others.
56 See F. van Steenberghen, Maitre Siger de Brabant (Louvain, 1977), pp.
401-403.

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WESTBERG

tion of the role of intellect in human action. Thus the cognitive
aspects of practical reason, such as the intellectual apprehension
connected with intention and the important element of judgment
and the syllogism connected with choice, are somewhat disguised
in ST I-II, qq. 12 and 13. The difficult climate Thomas faced
may well explain why the properly balanced roles of reason and
will could not be described quite as clearly as Thomas would
have liked, which in turn may be a factor in the tendency to misunderstand Aquinas still current in our day.

GOD, EMOTION, AND CORPOREALITY:
A THOMIST PERSPECTIVE 1
MARCEL

SAROT

University of Utrecht
Utrecht, The Netherlands

W

I. Introduction

HEN WE TAKE" impassibility" to mean" immutbility with regard to one's feelings or the quality of
ne's inner life," 2 the number of adherents to the doctrine of divine impassibility has continuously decreased during
the present century. Slowly but surely the concept of an immutable and impassible God has given way to the concept of a sensitive, emotional, passionate God. Before the Second World War
this tendency was restricted to British theology, 3 but since then
it has spread to the rest of Europe, notably to France and Ger1 A first draft of this paper was presented at a meeting of the Aquinas Research Group of the Catholic Theological University of Utrecht (The Netherlands) in May, 1990. I would like to thank the other participants for their
useful comments. The paper also profited from the valuable comments of
Prof. Dr. Vincent Brummer and Dr. Christoph Schwi:ibel. The writing
of this paper forms part of a research project on divine passibility, supported
by the Dutch Research Foundation for Theology and Religious Studies
(STEGON), and funded by the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Research (NWO).
2 I have argued for this definition in my article " Patripassianism,
Theopaschitism and the Suffering of God: Some Historical and Systematic Considerations," Religious Studies 26 (1990) : 363-375.
a See A. van Egmond, De Lijdende God in de Britse Theologie van de
Negentiende Eeuw: De Bijdrage van Newman, Maurice, McLeod Campbell
en Gore aan de Christelijke Theopaschitische Traditie (Amsterdam: VU
Uitgeverij, 1986); J. Kenneth Mozley, The Impassibility of God: A Survey
of Christian Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), pp.
127-166; Doctrine in the Church of England: The Report of the Commission
o·n Christian Doctrine Appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York
in 1922 (London: SPCK, 1938), pp. 55-56.

61

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MARCEL SAROT

many, to the United States and to Asia. 4 By now most of the
theologians who explicitly state their views on divine impassibility hold that this doctrine is to a greater or lesser degree false,
and Ronald Goetz rightly asserts "that the rejection of the ancient doctrine of divine impassibility has become a theological
commonplace." 5
Nevertheless the debate on this issue is not yet closed. Recently Richard Creel published a thorough study in defense of divine
impassibility, 6 which, I expect, will prove quite influential. Other
theologians who defend the doctrine can be cited as well. 7 To a
large extent, the arguments which these theologians put forward
in favor of divine impassibility are taken from the classic Christian theological texts. Among these, the writings of Aquinas are
not the least important and no one will be surprised to hear that
he is frequently cited in this connection. However, what has surprised me in my study of the debate on the issue of divine impassibility is that one of the most important arguments Aquinas
4 On passibilist tendencies in modern theology, see Richard
Bauckham,
" ' Only the Suffering God Can Help ' : Divine Passibility in Modern Theology," Themelios 9 (1984) : 6-12; Warren Mc Williams, The Passio1i of God:
Divine Swffering in Contemporary Protestant Theology (Macon: Mercer
University Press, 1985); Van Egmond, De Lijdende God, pp. 28-31, and
"Theopaschitische Tendenzen in de Na-Oorlogse Protestantse Theologie,"
Gereformeerd Theologisch Tijdschrift 79 (1979): 161-177; Marcel Sarot, "De
Passibilitas Dei in de Hedendaagse W esterse Theologie: Een Literatuuroverzicht," Kerk en Theologie 40-3 (1989) : 196-206.
5 Ronald Goetz, "The Suffering God: The Rise of a New Orthodoxy," The
Christian Century 103 (1986): 385. Also see the literature cited in the preceding note.
6 Richard E. Creel, Divine Impassibility:
An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
7 See, for instance, Brian Davies, Thinking about God (London: Chapman,
1985), pp. 155-158; William J. Hill, "Does Divine Love Entail Suffering in
God?," in: B. L. Clarke & E. T. Long, eds., God and Temporality (New
York: Paragon House, 1984), pp. 55-71 ; id., " The Doctrine of God after
Vatican II," The Thomist 51 (1987); pp. 412-414; Herbert McCabe, "The
Involvement of God," New Blackfriars 66 (1985) : 464-476, reprinted in
Herbert McCabe, God Matters (London: Chapman, 1987), pp. 39-51; JeanHerve Nicolas, "Aimante et Bienheureuse Trinite," Revue Thomiste 78
(1978): 271-292; John M. Quinn, "Triune Self-Giving: One Key to the
Problem of Suffering," The Thomist 44 (1980): 173-218.

GOD, EMOTION,

AND CORPOREALITY

63

provides in favour of divine impassibility-the argument that
bodily changes are necessarily involved in emotion-is almost
completely neglected in the contemporary literature on this issue. 8
In my opinion one cannot come to definitive conclusions with respect to the issue of divine impassibility without paying attention
to this argument.
The present article should be read as a plea for the inclusion of
this argument of Aquinas in the contemporary debate. I will
proceed in the following way. The major part of this article will
be devoted to an analysis of Aquinas's theory of human and divine emotion. This analysis should not be mistaken for a neutral
and balanced introduction to Aquinas's theory of emotion in
s I know of only four exceptions : Janine Marie Idziak, " God and Emotions" (Diss., Michigan, 1975); Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Suffering Love," in
Thomas V. Morris, Philosophy and the Christian Faith (Notre Dame, Indiana:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), pp. 196-237; Charles Taliaferro," The
Passibility of God," Religious Studies 25 (1989): 217-224; Robert Oakes,
"The Wrath of God," Philosophy of Religion 27 (1990): 129-140. Idziak is
of the opinion that an incorporeal God can have emotions, since physiological
changes are, in her opinion, not necessary to emotion. Moreover, God "can
experience something that at least bears some resemblance to our 'bodily'
sensations," and this can be considered as " an appropriate substitute for the
' bodily ' sensations that are involved in human emotional experience." Wolterstorff thinks that God cannot have emotions, "for a person can have an emotion only if that person is capable of being physiologically upset. And God,
having no physiology, is not so capable " ( p. 214). Nevertheless, W olterstorff
thinks this leaves open the question whether God suffers, since suffering is a
phenomenon distinct from emotion. Taliaferro (pp. 220-221) argues that attributing sorrow to God does not necessarily involve attributing bodily sensations to Him as well, since ( 1) "a non-physical being can have sensory experiences such as pain and pleasure" and (2) "sorrow is an emotion and there
is no apparent absurdity in imagining someone to be in sorrow who is not
thereby having any of the accompanying bodily associations of pain, her
stomach ' turning over,' shedding tears and the like." Oakes argues that
" while there appears to be an empirically invariant association between the
possession of affective capacity and the possession of a neurophysiology . . .
this clearly fails to entail that possessing a neurophysiology is conceptually
necessary for possessing affective capacity" (p. 134). Moreover, he asserts
that emotions are mental states and that, since traditional theism holds that
an incorporeal God can have intellectual mental states, it would be arbitrary
for a traditional theist to deny that God can have affective mental states (p.
134).

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MARCEL SAROT

general. On every page it shows the author's pre-occupation
with the questions whether emotions presuppose corporeality and
whether God could have emotions. I will show that for Aquinas
bodily changes are essential to emotions and that this is one of
the reasons why he holds that God cannot have emotions. In the
last part of this article I will show that Aquinas's argument is
still highly relevant for contemporary theology. In the present
theological discussion on divine impassibility, however, this argument must be presented in a different, more concrete way.

II. Thomas Aquinas on emotion human and divine 9
1. Aquinas on human emotion
Aquinas's theological discussions on whether God could have
emotions are profoundly influenced by the fact that he also made
a serious study of human emotions in their own right. Therefore, for a proper understanding of Aquinas's views on the possibility of divine emotion, it seems necessary first to have a look
at his theory of human emotions.
o My rendering of Aquinas's views is based principally on the following
texts: De V eritate XXV-XXVI, Summa contra Gentiles I, ch. 89-91, Summa
Theologiae Ia, qq. 75-82, laliae, qq. 22-48. All quotations from the Latin text
of the works of Aquinas are taken from S. Thomae Aquinatis, Opera Omnia,
Vols. 1-7 (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1980). The English translation
of texts from the Summa Theologiae is taken from the Blackfriars edition, the
translation of texts from the Summa contra Gentiles is taken from that by
Anton C. Pegis entitled On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, and the English
translation of texts from De Veritate is taken from that by Robert W. Schmidt
entitled Truth. With a view to the uniformity of the rendering of certain
terms I have in some instances changed these translations.
Beside these texts of Aquinas I consulted some of the most important studies
on his theory of emotions : Eric d' Arey, " Introduction,'' in St. Thomas
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae [Blackfriars Edition] Vol. 19, "The Emotions"
(London/New York: Blackfriars, 1967), pp. xix-xxxii; Richard R. Baker,
" The Thomistic Theory of the Passions and their Influence upon the Will "
(Diss., Notre Dame, 1941); Robert E. Brennan, Thomistic Psychology: A
Philosophic Analysis of the Nature of Man (New York: MacMillan, 1960),
pp. 147-168; H. M. Gardiner, Ruth Clark Metcalf, John G. Beebe-Center,
Feeling and Emotion: A History of Theories (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1970), pp. 106-118; ]. M. Idziak, "God," pp. 9-10, 66-68, 86-88;
Journet D. Kahn, "A Thomistic Theory of Emotion" (Diss. Notre Dame,

GOD, EMOTION,

AND CORPOREALITY

65

Dijf erent kinds of passion

Aquinas uses the term passiones animae where we use the term
"emotions." The term "passions of the soul" suggests correctly that there are other passions besides those of the soul. Aquinas
distinguishes between three kinds of passions : passions in a general sense, passions in a (most) proper sense, and passions in a
transferred sense.10 In the first and most common sense, passio
is used whenever any quality is received, even if the recipient loses
nothing in the process: for instance, one might say that the air
' suffers ' or ' undergoes ' illumination. However, this would be
more properly styled 'acquiring' a new quality than 'suffering'
something.11

In this sense anything that passes from potentiality to act may
be said to undergo a passion. Therefore, passion in the first
sense " is found in the soul and in every creature, because every
creature has some potentiality in its composition ... " 12 Only
1957); Matthias Meier, "Die Lehre des hi. Thomas von Aquin de passionibus
animae in quellenanalytischer Darstellung," Beitriige zur Geschichte der
Philosophie des Mittelalters XI/2 (1912); H.-D. Noble, "La Nature de
]'Emotion selon les Modernes et selon Saint Thomas," Revue des Sciences
Philosophiques et Theologiques 2 (1908) : 225-245, 466-483; id., "Passions,"
in A. Vacant, E. Mangenot, E. Amann eds., Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique XI/2 (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ane, 1932), pp. 2211-2241; Remi
Tittley, "La Douleur Sensible Est-Elle une Passion Corporelle ou une Passion
Animale Selon Saint Thomas d'Aquin?" (Diss., Montreal, 1967); Howard
Gil Weil, " The Dynamic Aspect of Emotions in the Philosophy of St. Thomas
Aquinas" (Diss., Rome, 1966); Bernhard Ziermann, "Kommentar," in
Thomas von Aquin, Die Menschlichen Leidenschaften [Die Deutsche ThomasAusgabe 10) (Heidelberg/Graz: Kerle/Styria, 1955), pp. 463-618.
1o On this distinction, see STh Ia, 79, 2; 97, 2; Iallae, 22.l ; 41, 1 ; De
V eritate 26, 1 ; 26, 3. More references are provided by Tittley, " Douleur Sensible," p. 5, n.10, and by Kahn, "Thomistic Theory," pp. 8-20. See also Meier,
"Lehre des hi. Thomas," pp. 14-28, and Weil, "Dynamic Aspect," pp. 52-56.
11 STh Iallae,
22, 1 c. : " uno modo, communiter, secundum quod omne
recipere est pati, etiam si nihil abiiciatur a re, sicut si dicatur aerem pati,
quando illuminatur. Hoc autem magis proprie est perfici, quam pati." See also
STh Ia, 97, 2 c.
12 De V eritate 26, 1 c. : " passio igitur prime modo accepta invenitur in
anima, et in qualibet creatura, eo quod omnis creatura habet aliquid potentialitatis admixtum, ratione cuius omnis creatura subsistens est alicuius
receptiva."

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MARCEL SAROT

the Supreme Being is impassible in this sense of passion, since
only in the Supreme Being is there no potentiality. 18 In the second and more strict sense,
the word pati is used when a thing acquires one quality by losing
another; and this may happen in two ways. Sometimes the quality
lost is one whose presence was inappropriate in the subject: for example, when an animal is healed, it may be said to ' undergo ' healing, for it recovers its health by shedding its illness. At other times,
the opposite happens: for example, a sick man is called a patient because he contracts some illness by losing his health. a
This last kind of case is called passion in its most proper sense.
Thus passion propriissime sumpta is an alteration in the subject
that removes what is suitable to it, whereas passion proprie
sumpta includes both alterations that are suitable to the subject
and alterations that are harmful. In both cases one quality is lost
and a contrary quality is gained. For Aquinas this means that
this sort of passion is a kind of motion : motion with respect to
quality. 15 Thus passion in its second sense
is found only where there is motion and contrariety. Now motion is
found only in bodies, and the contrariety of forms or qualities only
in beings subject to generation and corruption. Hence only such beings can properly suffer in this sense. Consequently the soul, being
incorporeal, cannot suffer in this sense; for even though it receives
something, this does not happen by an exchange of contraries but
simply by a communication from the agent, as air is lighted by the
sun.16
1a See Sent II, 19, 1, 3 c.; cf. STh Iallae, 22, 2 ad 1.
STh IaIIae, 22, 1 c.: "alio modo dicitur pati proprie, quando aliquid
recipitur cum alterius abjectione. Sed hoc contingit dupliciter. Quandoque enim
abiicitur id quod non est conveniens rei, sicut cum corpus animalis sanatur,
dicitur pati, quia recipit sanitatem, aegritudine abiecta. Alio modo, quando e
converso contingit, sicut aegrotare dicitur pati, quia recipitur infirmitas, sanitate abiecta. Et hie est propriissimus modus passionis."
15 For an illuminating discussion of Aquinas's views on motion and the
connection between motion and passion in its proper sense, see Tittley,
"Douleur Sensible,'' pp. 7-29.
16 De Veritate 26, 1 c.: "passio vero secundo modo accepta non invenitur
nisi ubi est motus et contrarietas. Motus autem non invenitur nisi in corporibus,
et contrarietas formarum vel qualitatum in solis generabilibus et corruptibilibus.
14

GOD, EMOTION,

AND CORPOREALITY

67

With respect to passion in its third or transferred sense Aquinas
writes:
Because passion in its proper sense involves a certain loss, inasmuch
as the patient is changed from its former quality to a contrary one,
the term passion is broadened in usage, so that whatever is in anyway kept from what belongs to it is said to suffer. Thus we should
say that something heavy suffers when prevented from moving
downward, or that a man suffers if prevented from doing his own
will.17
In this sense of passion, the soul can suffer a passion " ... in the
sense that its operation can be hampered." 18

The distinction between passio animalis and
passio corporalis
In short, we have seen that Aquinas distinguishes between
three senses of " passion," only the first and third of which can
be suffered by the soul. This leads us to expect that the emotions
or "passions of the soul " are passions in the common or in the
transferred sense of the word. However, the contrary is true:
the passions of the soul are passions in a proper sense. How can
this be? How can the soul suffer a passion properly so called, a
passion that can only be suffered by corpora? Aquinas answers
that it is by the soul's union with a corpus. The soul can experience passions proprie dicta by virtue of its union with the body.
This means that in such a passion the body suffers directly and
Unde sola huiusmodi proprie hoc modo pati possunt. Unde anima, cum sit incorporea, hoc modo pati non potest: et si etiam aliquid recipiat, non tamen
hoc fit per transmutationem a contrario in contrarium, sed per simplicem
agentis influxum, sicut aer illuminatur a sole." On the fact that it is impossible for anything incorporeal to suffer a passion proprie sumpta, see also
De V eritate 26, 2 c., and STh Ia!Iae, 22, 1 c.; 22, 3 c.
11 De Veritate 26, 1 c.: "quia ergo actio proprie accepta, est cum quadam
abiectione, prout pa ti ens a pristina qualitate transmutatur in contrarium; ampliatur nomen passionis secundum usum loquentium, ut qualitercumque aliquid
impediatur ab eo quod sibi competebat, pati dicatur; sicut si dicamus grave pati
ex hoc quod prohibetur ne deorsum moveatur; et hominem pati si prohibeatur
suam facere voluntatem."
1 8 De V eritate 26, 1 c.: "tertio vero modo quo nomen passionis transumptive sumitur, anima potest pati eo modo quo eius operatio potest impediri."

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MARCEL SAROT

the soul suffers only inasmuch as it is united to the body, and
therefore indirectly.
Now the soul is united to the body in two respects: ( 1) as a form,
inasmuch as it gives existence to the body, vivifying it; (2) as a
mover, inasmuch as it exercises its operations through the body.
And in both respects the soul suffers indirectly, but differently ....
A passion of the body is therefore attributed to the soul indirectly
in two ways: ( 1) In such a way that the passion begins with the
body and ends in the soul inasmuch as it is united to the body as its
form. This is a bodily passion. Thus, when the body is injured, the
union of the body with the soul is weakened and so the soul, which
is united to the body in its act of existing, suffers indirectly. (2) In
such a way that the passion begins with the soul inasmuch as it is
the mover of the body, and ends in the body. This is called a passion
of the soul. An example is seen in anger and fear and the like : for
passions of this kind are aroused by the apprehension and appetite
of the soul, and a bodily transformation follows upon them. 1 g
However paradoxical it may seem, Aquinas's "passions of the
soul " belong only per accidens to the soul. The soul suffers
through its union with the body and " passion strictly so called
cannot ... be experienced by the soul except in the sense that the
whole person, the matter-soul composite, undergoes it." 20 Now
19 De Veritate 26, 2 c.: "unitur autem corpori dupliciter: uno modo ut forma,
in quantum <lat esse corpori, vivificans ipsum; alio modo ut motor, in quantum
per corpus suas operationes exercet. Et utroque modo anima patitur per accidens, sed diversimode . . . dupliciter ergo passio corporis attribuitur animae
per accidens. Uno modo ita quod passio incipiat a corpore et terminetur in
anima, secundum quod unitur corpori ut forma; et haec est quaedam passio
corporalis : sicut cum laeditur corpus, debilitatur unio corporis cum anima, et
sic per accidens ipsa anima patitur, quae secundum suum esse corpori unitur.
Alio modo ita quod incipiat ab anima, in quantum est corporis motor, et terminetur in corpus; et haec dicitur passio animalis; sicut patet in ira et timore,
et aliis huiusmodi: nam huiusmodi per apprehensionem et appetitum animae
peraguntur, ad quae sequitur corporis transmutatio." On the bodily transformation as part of a passion of the soul, see, for instance: STh la, 20, 1;
75, 3, ad 3; IaIIae 22, 1 c. ; 22, 2, ad 3; 22, 3 c.; 24, 2, ad 2 ; 28, 5 c.; 31, 4;
31, 5; 37, 4; 41, 1 c.; 44, 1; 45, 3 c.; 48, 2 c.; 48, 3; 48, 4; ScG I, 89, 3;
90, 2; De Veritate 26, 2, ad 5; 26, 3 c.; 26, 7 c.; 26, 8 c.; 26, 9 c.; Sent IV,
49, 3, 2 c.; Kahn, "Thomistic Theory," pp. 58-181; Baker, " Thomistic
Theory," pp. 81-84; and Noble, "Nature de !'Emotion," pp. 471-476.
20 STh IaIIae, 22, 1 c. : " passio autem cum abiectione non est nisi secundum
transmutationem corporalem, unde passio proprie dicta non potest competere
animae nisi per accidens, inquantum scilicet compositum patitur."

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the soul can indirectly experience a passion in two ways : in the
way of a passio corporalis 21 and in the way of a passio aninialis.
As Aquinas's examples show, the first kind of passio roughly
corresponds to what we call a feeling, 22 while the second kind of
passio roughly corresponds to what we call an emotion. In a
bodily passion there first is an alteration in the body of the subject, which immediately thereafter is apprehended by the sense of
touch. 28 The alteration may be suitable or harmful to the subject;
in the first case it is apprehended as sensible pleasure, in the second case as sensible pain. 24 In the terms we use nowadays, both
of these would be classified as feelings. The passions of the soul,
however, correspond roughly to what we would call emotions.
In their case, the soul apprehends something suitable or harmful
and is drawn towards the suitable or repelled by the harmful.
2 1 This is not the place to go into what has been called " the 'passio corpora/is' difficulty." This difficulty consists of two closely connected problems:
(1) Aquinas makes the distinction between passio corporalis and passio
animalis both in his De Veritate and in his Scriptum Super Libras Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, but he never mentions passio corpora/is in
his tract on the passions in the Summa Theologiae. Why not? Did he change
his opinion, and did he at the time of the Summa reject his earlier distinction
between passio corpora/is and passio animalis? (2) In the Scriptum Super
Libras Sententiarum and in De Veritate Aquinas explicitly includes dolor not
among the passions of the soul, but rather among the bodily passions, whereas
in the Summa he classifies it as a passion of the soul. Here again one might
ask whether Aquinas changed his mind, and whether at the time of the Summa
he rejected his earlier passio corpora/is teaching. For a detailed and clear discussion of these questions I refer to Tittley, " Douleur Sensible"; cf. Kahn,
" Thomistic Theory,'' pp. 28-57. I decided to retain the distinction between
bodily passion and passion of the soul because it also figures in ScG I, 89-91,
the chapters in which Aquinas most extensively discusses the question whether
God could have emotions.
22 William P. Alston, "Emotion and Feeling,'' in Paul Edwards, ed., The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy II, (New York/London: MacMillan, 1967), p.
481, draws attention to the fact that " ... feeling was not recognized as a
distinctive category before the eighteenth century ... "
2 3 De V eritate 26, 3 c. : " tertio modo pertinet ad aliquam potentiam ut
apprehendentem ipsam : et sic proprie pertinet ad sensum tactus ; nam tactus
est sensus eorum ex quibus componitur animal, et similiter eorum per quae
animal corrumpitur."
2i Cf. De V eritate 26, 4, ad 5.

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Upon this a bodily transmutation follows, 25 by which the soul is
in turn indirectly affected. 26 The bodily transmutation, therefore,
originates with the soul, and this must be the reason why Aquinas
calls this sort of passion passio animalis: it is the only kind of
passion that is (efficiently) caused by the soul. This is the kind
of passion that we would call an emotion.

Passions and the soul
Aquinas distinguishes several different powers within the soul.
I want to introduce some of his distinctions because they can
shed some light on the way in which, according to Aquinas, the
soul is involved in the emotions. Moreover, these distinctions
will help us later on to explain the way in which one can and
cannot talk about divine emotions according to Aquinas. For
our purpose, it suffices to distinguish between four powers of the
soul: the sensitive apprehension, the sensitive appetite, the intellective apprehension and the intellective appetite. The sensitive
powers are distinguished from the intellective powers by their object: every sensible body can be the object of the sensitive powers,
whereas the intellective powers regard " a still more extensive object, not just the sense-world but all being, universally." 27 A
further difference between the intellective and the sensitive
powers is that the sensitive powers need corporeal organs for
their operations, whereas the intellective powers do not. 28 In the
2 s De V eritate 26, 2 c.: " ... nam huiusmodi per apprehensionem et appetitum
Cf. 26, 9 c.:
animae peraguntur, ad quae sequitur corporis transmutatio."
"... passio animalis ... causatur ex hoc quod anima aliquid apprehendit ex
quo appetitus movetur, cuius motum sequitur quaedam transmutatio corporalis."
2 6 Cf. Tittley, " Douleur Sensible," p. 69; Kahn, " Thomistic Theory,"
p.
33.
21 STh Ia, 78, 1 c. : " est autem aliud genus potentiarum
animae quod
respicit adhuc universalius obj ectum, scilicet non solum corpus sensibile, sed
universaliter omne ens." See also STh Ia, 80, 2 c.
2s STh Ia, 78, 1 c. A seriously flawed account of the distinction between intellective and sensitive appetite is provided by Mark Jordan, " Aquinas's Construction of a Moral Account of the Passions," Freiburger Zeitschrift fur
Philosophie und Theologie 33 (1986) : 88, who confuses this distinction with
that between sensitive apprehension and sensitive appetite; it is this last distinction that Aquinas discusses in STh Ia, 81, 1.

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case of both the sensitive and the intellective powers, the distinction between the apprehensive and the appetitive power lies herein, that the apprehensive power apprehends its object, while the
appetitive power seeks it. This implies that the objects of apprehension and appetite are " one subject but taken under two
aspects. It is apprehended as a being that is sensed or understood.
It is desired as something desirable or good." 29 A further distinction between sensitive apprehension and sensitive appetite can
be made on the basis of the different ways in which bodily organs
are involved in the functioning of both. so In the functioning of
the sensitive apprehension, the sense organs, like the tongue, the
eyes, and the ears, are changed " spiritually," that is to say, nonphysically, " the way the form of a color is in the eye, which does
not become the color it sees." 31 In the functioning of the sensitive appetite, however, the organs involved-of which the heart
is the most important 32-change naturally, that is to say, physically. 33 Thus the appetite of revenge is accompanied by a kindling
2 9 STh Ia, 80, 1 ad 2: ". . . id quod apprehenditur et appetitur, est idem
subiecto, sed differt ratione, apprehenditur enim ut est ens sensibile vel intelligibile; appetitur vero ut est conveniens aut bonum."
so For a critique of this distinction from the viewpoint of contemporary
psychology and a reformulation of it that meets this critique, see Kahn,
" Thomistic Theory," pp. 99-104.
s1 STh Ia, 78, 3 c. : " est autem duplex immutatio, una naturalis, et alia
spiritualis ... ; spiritualis ... secundum quod forma immutantis recipitur in
immutato secundum esse spirituale, ut forma coloris in pupilla, quae non fit
per hoc colorata."
3 2 STh Ia, 20, 1, ad 1 : "... proximum motivum corporis in nobis est appetitus sensitivus. Unde semper actum appetitus sensitivi concomitatur aliqua
transmutatio corporis, et maxime circa cor, quod est primum principium motus
in animali." That the heart is the most important organ of the sensitive appetite can also be seen from STh Ia, 20, 1, ad 2; Ia!Iae, 17, 9; 22, 2, ad 3;
24, 2, ad 2; 44, l; 45, 3 c.; 48, 2; 48, 3 c.; 48, 4; ScG I, 89, 3; De Veritate
24, 8 c.; 26, 3 c; Sent IV, 49, 3, 2 c., etc. See also Noble, " Nature de
!'Emotion," pp. 472-473 ; Kahn, " Thomistic Theory," pp, 75-80.
83 STh IaIIae, 22, 2, ad 3 : " est autem alia naturalis transmutatio organi,
prout organum transmutatur quantum ad suam naturalem dispositionem, puta
quod calefit aut infrigidatur, vel alio simili modo transmutatur . . . ad actum
appetitus sensitivi per se ordinatur huiusmodi transmutatio, unde in definitione motuum appetitivae partis, materialiter ponitur aliqua naturalis transmutatio organi; sicut dicitur quod ira est accensio sanguinis circa cor."

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of the blood about the heart and this is a real physical change. 1 '
Having made these distinctions we can inquire which powers
of the soul are involved in the passions. In the case of a bodily
passion the essence of the soul is affected by the passion since it
is the soul in its essence that is the form of the body. 85 This implies that all the powers of the soul are affected: " Since all
powers are rooted in the soul's essence the passion in question
pertains to all powers." 36 On the other hand, since by a passion
of the soul
the body is altered because of an operation of the soul, this kind of
passion has to be in a power which is joined to a bodily organ and
whose business it is to alter the body. As a consequence, such a
passion is not in the intellective part, which is not the actuality of
any bodily organ. · Nor again is it in the power of sensitive apprehension, because from sense apprehension no movement in the body
follows except through the mediation of the appetitive power, which
is the immediate mover. According to its manner of operating, then,
a bodily organ (e.g., the heart) from which motion takes its beginning is at once given a disposition suitable for carrying out that to
whkh the sensitive appetite inclines. In anger the heart accordingly
heats up, and in fear it in a way cools off and tightens up. Thus
passion of the soul is properly found only in the sensitive appetite.11
84 STh Ia, 20, 1, ad 2: " ... in ira .•. materiale est ascensio sanguinis circa
cor, vel aliquid huiusmodi; formate vero, appetitus vindictae."
BG De V eritate 26, 3 c. : " passio igitur corporalis praedicta pertingit ad potentias, secundum quad in essentia animae radicantur, eo quod anima secundum
essentiam suam est forma corporis, et sic ad essentiam animae pertinet • • ."
8 6 De Veritate 26, 3 c.: " ... potest tamen haec passio attribui alicui potentiae tripliciter. Uno modo secundum quod in essentia animae radicatur: et
sic, cum omnes potentiae radicentur in essentia animae, ad omnes potentias
pertinet praedicta passio."
87 De V eritate 26, 3 c. : " passio vero animalis, cum per earn ex operatione
animae transmutetur corpus, in illa potentia esse debet quae organo corporali
adiungitur, et cuius est corpus transmutare. Et ideo huiusmodi passio non est
in parte intellectiva, quae non est alicuius organi corporalis actus ; nee iterum
est in apprehensiva sensitiva, quia ex apprehensione sensus non sequitur motus
in corpore nisi mediante appetitiva, quae est immediatum mavens. Unde
secundum modum operationis eius statim disponitur organum corporate, scilicet
car, unde est principium motus, tali dispositione quae competat ad exequendum
hoc in quod appetitus sensibilis inclinatur. Unde in ira fervet, et in timore
quodammodo frigescit et constringitur. Et sic in appetitiva sensitiva sola,
animalis passio proprie invenitur." Cf. STh Ia, 20, 1, ad 1 ; 75, 3 ; IaIIae, 22, 3.

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In sum, bodily passions pertain to the essence and to all the
powers of the soul, whereas passions of the soul pertain to the
sensitive appetite.

The classification of the individual passions
In the above we have only considered Aquinas's theory of the
passions in general. Now I want to introduce his classification
of the distinct passions.
We have seen that the objects of the sensitive appetite are
sensible objects, regarded as suitable or harmful. Now sometimes there are circumstances in which the satisfaction of the
sensitive appetite is difficult, since the stimulus or situation is
not merely suitable or good, but arduously so, not merely harmful or evil, but strenuously so. Since Aquinas differentiates
powers by their formal objects, 38 he distinguishes between two
appetitive powers, one for seeking the simple good and avoiding
the simple evil, and one for pursuing the difficult good and fleeing from the difficult evil :
There must ... be in the sensitive part two appetitive powers. By
one of them the soul is simply attracted to what pleases the senses
and avoids what hurts them, and this is called concupiscible. By the
other an animal resists whatever threatens its pleasures and brings
danger, and this we call irascible. We say that its object is the difficult, for it tends to overcome and rise above threats. 39
sa See, for instance, STh Ia, 77, 3.
STh Ia, 81, 2 c.: " ... in parte sensitiva sint duae appetitivae potentiae.
Una, per quam anima simpliciter inclinatur ad prosequendum ea quae sunt convenientia secundum sensum, et ad refugiendum nociva, et haec dicitur concupiscibilis. Alia vero, per quam animal resistit impugnantibus quae convenientia
impugnant et nocumenta inferunt, et haec vis vocatur irascibilis. Uncle dicitur
quod eius obiectum est arduum, quia scilicet tendit ad hoc quod superet contraria, et superemineat eis" (Italics in English text mine). In the same article Aquinas explains that the concupiscible and the irascible powers cannot
be reduced to the same source, since sometimes they oppose one another :
"... interdum anima tristibus se ingerit, contra inclinationem concupiscuibilis,
ut secundum inclinationem irascibilis impugnet contraria." On the distinction
between the concupiscible and the irascible appetite, see also STh IaIIae, 23, 1 ;
De V eritate 25, 2; Daker. "Thomistic Theory," pp. 43-48, and Brennan,
Thomistic Psychology, pp. 155-157.
39

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SAROT

Accordingly, Aquinas distinguishes between two kinds of
passions of the soul, concupiscible and irascible passions. 40 He
includes six basic passions within the concupiscible appetite and
five within the irascible appetite. 41 There are three basic passions
of the concupiscible appetite which have the good as their object:
love (am or, the psychical union of the lover with the beloved),
desire ( desiderium, the movement of the lover towards the beloved) and joy (gaudium, the rest in the beloved when it has
been obtained). Correspondingly, there are three concupiscible
passions with the bad as their object: hate (odium), aversion
(fuga) and sadness ( tristitia). There are three basic irascible
passions relating to evil: fear ( timor, when the object is an impending evil, so difficult to avoid that it exceeds one's capacity),
courage ( audacia, when the object is an impending evil, difficult
to avoid but not exceeding one's capacity) and anger (ira, when
the object is present, difficult to avoid but not exceeding one's
capacity 42 ). There are only two basic irascible passions regarding the good. The reason for this is that when the good is possessed, it does not cause any difficulty. And when there is no
difficulty, there is no irascible passion. Thus the two irascible
passions are: despair ( desperatio, if one judges that the good is
so difficult to obtain that it exceeds one's capacity) and hope
( spes, if the good is difficult to obtain, but is judged not to exceed one's capacity). These are the basic passions according to
Aquinas. He acknowledges that in reality there are many more
passions than these eleven, and he accounts for them by referring
to the greater or lesser intensity of passions (rage is more intense than anger) and to the different ways in which the objects
of the passions can be good and evil (both envy and pity are
species of sadness, but in the first case the object is " the prosperity of someone else in so far as it is regarded as an evil for
for instance, STh IaIIae, 23, 1 ; De Veritate 26, 4.
On the following, see De V eritate 26, 4; cf. STh IaIIae, 23, 4.
42 If the evil is present and is regarded as exceeding one's capacity, " ... sic
nullam passionem facit in irascibili, sed in sola concupiscibili manet passio
tristitiae" (De Veritate 26.4 c.) Also see STh Iallae, 23, 3 c.
40 See,
41

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oneself," whereas in the second case the object is "the adversity
of someone else in so far as it is regarded as one's own evil " 43 ).
Finally, there is a certain order among the passions, and the
primary passion, from which all the other passions spring, is
love:
All other motions of appetite and will presuppose love; it is like
their very root. No one desires an object or rejoices in it unless it
be a good that is loved. Nor is there any hatred except for what is
contrary to a thing loved, and the same applies to grief and the rest:
they all come back to love as to their primordial source.44
Thus love is the primary passion and the principle of all the
other passions.
Contrary to this, it could be argued that joy is the first of the
passions, because joy is the final end of all passion. Aquinas responds to this argument by making a distinction between the
order of execution and the order of intention: " In the line of
execution and attainment love is the first passion, but in the line
of intention joy is prior to love and is the reason for loving." 45

Passions of the intellective appetite! 46
It sees to be clear from the above that anger, fear, love, and
43 De Veritate 26, 4 c.: "tertia vero differentia passionum animae est quasi
accidentalis: quae quidem dupliciter accidit. Uno modo secundum intensionem
et remissionem; sicut zelus importat intensionem amoris, et furor intensionem
irae; alio modo secundum materiales differentias boni vel mali, sicut differunt
misericordia et invidia, quae sunt species tristitiae: nam invidia est tristitia de
prosperitate aliena, in quantum aestimatur malum proprium; misericordia vero
est tristitia de adversitate aliena, in quantum aestimatur ut proprium malum.
Et sic est in aliis quibusdam considerare."
44 STh Ia, 20, 1 c.: " ... omnes alii motus appetitivi praesupponunt amorem,
quasi primam radicem; nullus enim desiderat aliquid, nisi bonum amatum, neque
aliquis gaudet, nisi de bono amato. Odium etiam non est nisi de eo quod contrariatur rei amatae. Et similiter tristitiam, et caetera huiusmodi, manifestum
est in amorem referri, sicut in primum principium." Cf. STh IaIIae, 25, 2;
29, 2, De V eritate 26, 5, ad 5.
45 De Veritate 26, 5, ad 5: "Ad quintum dicendum, quod in via exequendi
vel consequendi, amor est prima passio; sed in via intentionis gaudium est
prius amore, et est ratio amandi ... "
46 On this question, see De Veritate 25, 3; STh Ia, 20, 1, ad 1; 59, 4, ad
2; 77, 8, ad 5; 82, 5, ad 1; IaIIae, 31, 4; 35, 1 c.; IIaIIae, 30, 3 c.; Sent III,
15, 2, 2b c.; 26, 1, 5 c.; IV, 17, 2, lb, ad 1 ; Kahn, " Thomistic Theory," pp.
70-71; Ziermann, " Kommentar," pp. 493-495.

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the like can be located in the sensitive appetite only. This is correct: the passions of anger, fear, love, etc., can be located in the
sensitive appetite only. But, on the other hand, the terms "anger,"
" fear," " love," etc., can also denote acts of the intellective appetite. Thus, for instance, the will for revenge, an act of the intellective appetite, is sometimes called "anger." In the same way
the repose of the will in an object of spiritual affection can be
called " love" and the fleeing of the will from a future evil can
be called "fear." 47 Sometimes the term "passion" is also extended to these acts of the intellective appetite, although they are
not passions properly so called.
As we have said above, the object of the intellective part of the
soul is more universal than the object of the sensitive part. This
does not mean that the object of a sensitive passion must in reality be other than the object of an intellective act: both can have
the same object, but a sensitive passion seeks the object as containing in itself the reason for its appetibility, whereas an intellective act tends to it as sharing in goodness or utility itself. 48
In sum, when Aquinas writes about passions of the intellective
appetite he means operations of the intellective appetite similar to
those of the sensitive appetite, yet unaccompanied by passions
properly so called.
2. Aquinas on the possibility of divine emotion
Aquinas is quite conscious of the fact that on a literal interpretation many biblical texts seem to imply that God is capable
of experiencing emotions. In this connection he provides the following examples : 49
" I regret having made them " (Gen. 6 :7).
" Yahweh is tenderness and pity, slow to anger and rich in faithful love " ( Ps. 103 :8).
" Yahweh's anger blazed out at his people " ( Ps. 106 :40).
for instance, De Veritate 25, 3 c. and ScG I, 90, 2.
De Veritate 25, 1 c.; cf. ScG I, 90, 2.
49 See ScG I, 91, 12; STh IaIIae, 47, 1, obj. 1; ScG I, 91, 10; STh Ia, 20,
1 sed contra. The translation quoted is taken from The New Jerusalem Bible
(London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985).
41 See,

48

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"There is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant
sinner" (Lk. 15 :10).
"God is love" (1Jn.4:16).

In view of texts like these, Aquinas cannot simply deny that
God can experience emotions like repentance, mercy, anger,
wrath, joy and love. On the other hand, it is also impossible
for him to admit that God can experience emotions since God,
being incorporeal, cannot experience the bodily changes connected with them. 50
Every passion of the [sensitive] appetite takes place through some
bodily change, for example, the contraction or distension of the heart,
or something of the sort. Now, none of this can take place in God,
since He is not a body or a power in a body.... There is, therefore,
no passion of the [sensitive] appetite in Him. 51
Thus Aquinas is presented with a dilemma: the denial of emotion
in God seems to go against the witness of Scripture, whereas the
affirmation of emotion in God seems to be incompatible with the
divine incorporeality.

Emotions the object of which is unbefitting to God 32
For some kinds of emotion, it seems to be out of the question
that God could have them, since there is a twofold reason why
He cannot have them. This is the case with those emotions the
object of which is unbefitting to God. Even if the more general
reasons why God cannot have emotions were not there, God still
could not have these emotions. The object of an emotion can
be unbefitting to God in two ways. It can be unbefitting by being
evil as well as by being not yet possessed, but rather as something to be possessed. These objects cannot befit God because
Aquinas provides further reasons why God cannot experience emotions :
they are incompatible with His absolute immutability, with His being pure
act, etc.
H ScG I, 89, 2-3: "Secundum enim intellectivam affectionem non est aliqua
passio, sed solum secundum sensitivam . . . Praeterea omnis affectiva passio
secundum aliquam transmutationem corporalem fit : puta secundum constrictionem vel dilationem cordis, aut secundum aliquid huiusmodi. Quorum nullum
in deo possibile est accidere : eo quod non sit corpus nee virtus in corpore . . .
non est igitur in ipso affectiva passio."
This topic is discussed in more detail in ScG I, 89, 8-14.

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of His perfection, 53 which is so great that it cannot become
greater by the avoidance or annihilation of some evil or by the
addition of some good.
When we consider the list of basic emotions provided above,
it is clear that most of the emotions are in this way doubly unbefitting to God. The objects of hate, aversion, sadness, fear,
courage and anger are evil; the objects of desire, aversion, fear,
courage, despair and hope are not yet present. All these emotions,
then, are doubly unbefitting to God. Therefore it seems clear
beyond doubt that God cannot have these emotions.
The love, joy and pleasure of God u

There are some other passions which, though they do not
befit God as passions, do not have an object that is incompatible
with the divine perfection. In this connection Aquinas mentions
love, joy and pleasure. Love, as we have seen above, is the
psychical union of the lover with the beloved. It might be objected that the object of love is only psychically and not really
possessed, 55 and that this is incompatible with the divine perfection. To this objection Aquinas replies that love is not incompatible with real possession of the good object:
For we love something, not less, but more when we have it, because a good is closer to us when we have it. So, too, a motion to
an end among natural things becomes intensified from the nearness
of the end.56
5 s On the notion of perfection that is operative here, see Idziak, " God,"
pp. 86-88.
H On the following, see especially ScG I, 90-91.
55 Cf. De Veritate 26, 4 c.: ". . .
amor dicitur esse quaedam unio amantis
et amati. Id autem quod sic aliqualiter coniunctum est, quaeritur ulterius ut
realiter coniungatur : ut amans scilicet perfruatur amato; et sic nascitur passio
desiderii : quod quidem cum adeptum fuerit in re, generat gaudium."
56 ScG I, 91, 5: "nam amor est alicuius rei non minus cum habetur, sed
magis, quia bonum aliquod fit nobis affinius cum habetur; uncle et motus ad
finem in rebus naturalibus ex propinquitate finis intenditur . . ." It is difficult
not to see a contradiction between the text quoted and STh Iallae, 25, 2, ad
1 : "ut autem Augustinus <licit, ... amor magis sentitur, cum eum prodit indigentia." Also see STh Ia,20, 1 c.: " amor autem respicit bonum in communi, sive sit habitum, sive non habitum."

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Pleasure is a bodily passion which on the part of the body involves a real union with something agreeable and on the part
of the soul the feeling of this agreeableness. Joy, as we have
seen above, is also a passion of the soul, wherein the sensitive
appetite rests in something agreeable, upon which a bodily transformation follows. Thus the object of both pleasure and joy is
the present good, which does not give reason to deny these
passions to God. 57
Moreover, in addition to the Biblical witness there seem to be
further reasons to hold that God should have these passions. As
we have seen above, "wherever there is appetite or will there
must be love," 58 for no one desires an object or wills it unless it
be a good that is loved. Now Aquinas holds that there is will in
God, and therefore he must affirm that there is love in Him as
well. And as to joy and pleasure, Aquinas provides several
reasons why God should have them, two of which I quote:
Joy and pleasure are a certain resting of the will in its object. But
God, Who is His own principal object willed, is supremely at rest
in Himself, as containing all abundance in himself. God, therefore,
through His will supremely rejoices in Himself.
Moreover, each thing takes joy in its like as in something agreeable. . . . Now, every good is a likeness of the divine good, as was
said above, nor does God lose any good because of some good. It
remains, then, that God takes joy in every good.59
57 For the difference between joy (gaudium) and pleasure (delectatio) as
explained in the text, see ScG I, 90, 6 and De Veritate 26, 4, ad 5. Elsewhere Aquinas gives a different account of the distinction between joy and
pleasure. See, for instance, STh IaIIae, 23, 4 c.; 31, 3. For the relevant
references to the Scriptum Super Libras Sententiarum and the difficulties regarding the distinction between joy and pleasure there, see Tittley, "Douleur
Sensible," pp. 76-87.
58 STh Ia, 20, 1 c.: " ... in quocumque est voluntas vel appetitus, oportet
esse amorem ... "
59 ScG I, 90, 3, 5: "gaudium et delectatio est quaedam quietatio volu.itatis
in suo volitio. Deus autem in seipso, qui est suum principale volitum, maxime
quietatur, utpote in se omnem sufficientiam habens. Ipse igitur per suam voluntatem in se maxime gaudet et delectatur . . . unumquodque naturaliter in suo
simili gaudet, quasi in convenienti . . . omne autem bonum est divinae bonitatis similitudo, ut ex supra dictis patet : nee ex aliquo bona sibi aliquid
deperit. Relinquitur igitur quod deus de omni bona gaudet." Also see ScG I,
90, 2, 4.

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God, therefore, has joy and pleasure as well as love. He cannot
have them as passions of the sensitive appetite, however, since
every passion of the sensitive appetite takes place through a bodily
change. Thus God must have love, joy, and pleasure as
" passions " of the intellective appetite, as acts of the will which
are not accompanied by bodily changes. In Aquinas's own words:
Loving, enjoying and having pleasure are emotions when they
signify activities of the sensitive appetite; not so, however, when
they signify activities of the intellective appetite. It is in this last
sense that they are attributed to God.60
One question remains: Is there any difference between joy and
pleasure when both are acts of the intellective appetite instead of
passions of the sensitive appetite? To this question Aquinas
answers that for pleasure a really conjoined good is needed,
whereas for joy a non-conjoined good suffices. "From this it is
apparent that God properly has pleasure in Himself, but He takes
joy both in Himself and in other things." 61
In this way Aquinas has explained how God can have love,
joy, and pleasure, "passions" the object of which is not unbefitting to God.
The anger and repentance of God

Until now one tension has remained unresolved. We have
seen that the object of most emotions is unbefitting to God. This
means that God cannot have these emotions, not even as operations of the intellective appetite. But we have also seen that
Aquinas was well aware of the fact that the Bible seems to ascribe
some of these emotions, e.g., anger and repentance, to God. How
6o STh Ia, 20, 1, ad 1: "amor igitur et gaudium et delectatio, secundum
quod significant actus appetitus sensitivi, passiones sunt, non autem secundum
quod significant actus appetitus intellectivi et sic ponuntur in deo." On the
ascription of " passions " of the intellective appetite to God, also see STh la,
20, 1; Iailae, 22, 3, ad 3; 31, 4, ad 2; De Veritate 25, 3; 26, 9, ad 5; Sent
IV 15, 2, la, ad 4.
61 S cG I, 90, 6 : " ex quo patet quod deus proprie in seipso delectatur, gaudet
autem et in se et in aliis."

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81

then does Aquinas think that the Bible has to be interpreted m
these instances? 62 His answer to this question is
that the other affections which in their species are repugnant to the
divine perfection, are also said of God ... not indeed properly, .
but metaphorically,63 because of a likeness either in effects or in
some preceding affection.64
When Aquinas writes that affections are sometimes ascribed to
God " because of a likeness in effects," this means that sometimes
certain emotions are metaphorically ascribed to God when He
acts in the same way in which human beings act when they have
these emotions. Thus it is not uncommon for human beings to
punish those with whom they are angry. For this reason punishquestion, see STh Ia, 3, 2, ad 2; 19, 11 c.; 20, 1, ad 2.
are said metaphorically of God because, unlike passions the object
of which is not unbefitting to God, they necessarily imply imperfection. According to Aquinas, our knowledge of God is derived from the perfections
which flow from God to his creation. These perfections are in God in a more
eminent way than in His creatures. Now all words which we apply to God
are taken from creatures, and therefore it would seem that they all signify a
less eminent perfection than the divine perfection. This, however, is not true,
because there are some words the signification of which adjusts itself to the
demands of the context in which they are used in such a way that they can
be used literally of God as well as of His creatures. One of these words is
" good " : God is good in a more eminent way than His creatures, but still the
word " good " can be literally applied both to Him and His creatures because
the word " good " gives no information about the degree of goodness that is
signified. The same goes for "joy": when applied to human beings, this
term mostly signifies a passion properly so called, and, when applied to God,
it always signifies an act of His will. Most words, however, have a signification that necessarily implies imperfection. " Materiality" is part of the very
signification of the word "stone," and "having an object that is evaluated as
evil " is part of the very signification of "anger." Therefore these words can
be applied to God only in a metaphorical sense. See STh Ia, 13, 3 and the
comments of Herwi W. M. Rikhof, Over God Spreken: Een Tekst van
Thomas van Aquino uit de Summa Theologiae (Delft: Meinema, 1988), pp.
60-63.
ScG I, 91, 12: " Sciendum tamen etiam alias affectiones, quae secundum
speciem suam divinae perfectioni repugnant, in sacra scriptura de deo dici,
non quidem proprie, ut probatum est, sed metaphorice, propter similitudinem
vel effectuum, vel alicuius affectionis praecedentis." On the metaphorical
ascription of emotions to God, also see STh Ia, 3, 2, ad 2; 19, 11; 20, 1, ad
2; 59, 4, ad 1 ; lallae, 47, 1, ad 1 ; Sent IV, 46, 2, la.
6 2 On this

63 They

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MARCEL SAROT

ment is closely associated with anger, and when God punishes us
the Bible sometimes has it that He is angry with us. 65
The second reason why affections the object of which is repugnant to God are ascribed to God is " because of a likeness in
some preceding affection." Here Aquinas refers to the fact noted
above, namely, that love, the principle of all passion, and joy,
the final end of all passion, may be properly said to be in God.
Thus God is said to be saddened by something insofar as it is
injurious to something or someone He loves or enjoys. 66 In such
a case we say that God is saddened because when something happens that is injurious to an object we love or enjoy we experience the emotion of sadness. In God's case, however, there really
is no such emotion.
3. Summary of Aquinas on emotion human and divine
Above we have given an outline of Aquinas's theory of
emotions with a view to the connection between emotions
and corporeality. We have seen that there is a very close connection between emotion and corporeality: without corporeality,
no emotion. We have also seen that Aquinas poses the question
whether God can have emotions, and that the corporeality needed
for emotions is an important reason for him to answer this question negatively. When Aquinas tries to account for the usage of
the Bible, which seems to ascribe emotions to God, he explains
this language either as metaphorical or as denoting divine willacts which are unaccompanied by emotions. Thus one of the reasons Aquinas provides for rejecting divine passibility 67 is the fact
that passibility is incompatible with incorporeality.
65 STh Ia, 19, 11 c. In his earlier Sent III, 15, 2, 2b c., Aquinas argued
that the divine anger, like the divine love, joy and pleasure, could be interpreted as an operation of the intellective appetite. Cf. De V eritate 25, 3 c.
66 Cf. ScG I, 91, 12: "dico autem propter similitudinem affectionis praecendentis. Nam amor et gaudium, quae in deo proprie sunt, principia sunt omnia
affectionum : amor quidem per modum principii moventis : gaudium vero per
modum finis; unde etiam irati punientes gaudent, quasi finem assecuti, dicitur
igitur deus tristari, inquantum accidunt aliqua contraria his quae ipse amat et
approbat : sicut et in nobis est tristitia de his quae nobis nolentibus acciderunt."
67 It might be argued that the rejection of emotion in God does not imply

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83

III. The relevance of Aquinas's view on the connection
between emotion and corporeality for contemporary
theology
Two of the most important points for which I have argued
above are the following. First, one of the arguments Aquinas
provides for rejecting the idea that God is passible is that passibility implies corporeality. Second, this argument is widely neglected in contemporary theology. I want to conclude this article
by arguing that Aquinas's position points to a weakness in those
contemporary theological positions in which divine passibility is
asserted without any attention to the question whether divine
corporeality is a necessary concomitant of it. Though I cannot
do more than give some indications of the way in which contemporary theology might take up Aquinas's argument, I hope it
will become clear from what follows that this argument remains
central to the question of divine impassibility. It might well be
that the consequence of paying due attention to it will be that the
contemporary discussion on divine passibility will take a different
course.
1. The theological relevance of arguments based on
general theories of emotion
Since I will argue that Aquinas's argument should receive
more attention, it seems a good procedure in the first place to
ask why this argument is so widely neglected in the present. It
is not easy to give an answer to this question, because the fact
that it is so widely neglected does not bring with it reasons for
divine impassibility, because God might be passible by being capable of having
other, non-emotional experiences of a kind that suffices to make Him passible.
Against this objection I would like to point out that the concepts that are in
fact used by contemporary passibilist theologians to denote the experiences
that make God passible, concepts like sensitivity, feeling, pain, suffering,
(com) passion, sympathy, empathy and pathos, all point in the direction of
Aquinas's passions properly so called.

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MARCEL SAROT

such neglect. Nevertheless, I want to make a suggestion.
Through discussions about my own research on the connection
between passibility and corporeality, it has become clear to me
that many contemporary philosophers of religion and systematic
theologians consider Aquinas's view that there cannot be passibility without corporeality to be highly implausible. Several of
them have sincerely tried to convince me that Aquinas was mistaken in thinking that emotion and corporeality are so closely
connected and that my own research on this topic would prove
a dead end. Therefore my suggestion is that for many contemporary theologians the claim that emotions involve corporeality
is implausible and that this is at least one of the reasons for
neglecting Aquinas's argument. 68
In reply to this intuition of contemporary theologians I want
to point out that the idea that physiological changes play an important role in emotion is still defended in the majority of the
contemporary psychological theories of emotion. In this connection, let us look briefly at the two theories of emotion that have
present century. The first of
been most influential during
these is the James-Lange theory of emotion, developed by William James ( 1884) and Carl Georg Lange ( 1885). 69 William
James summarizes this theory in the following words :
es Another possible reason for the neglect of Aquinas's argument could be
the acceptance that in some sense God has a body. This is the position of
passibilist theologians like Charles Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God and the
Logic of Theism (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Company, 1941), pp. 174-211,
and A Natural Theology for Our Time (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court,
1967), pp. 97-102; Grace M. Jantzen, God's World, God's Body (London:
Darton, Longman & Todd, 1984), and Luco J. van den Brom, God Alomtegenwoordig (Kampen: Kok, 1982). Since this position is still quite exceptional,
there is no need for me to go into it further.
69 William James, "What is an Emotion ?," Mind 9 (1884) : 188-205, reprinted in Magda B. Arnold (ed.), The Nature of Emotion: Selected Readings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), pp. 17-36 and (partly) in: Cheshire
Calhoun & Robert C. Solomon, What is an Emotion! Classic Readings in
Philosophical Psychology (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1984), pp. 127-141. In the following all references will be to the reprint in
The Nature of Emotion. See also William James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. II (Reprint: New York: Dover Publications, 1950), pp. 442-

485.

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AND CORPOREALITY

85

Our natural way of thinking about ... standard emotions 70 is that
the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called
the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily
expression. My thesis on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting fact, and that our
feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion. Common
sense says ... we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be
defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect, ... and that
the more rational statement is that we feel . . . angry because we
strike, afraid because we tremble .... Without the bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in
form, pale, colourless, destitute of emotional warmth. 71
According to K. T. Strongman, who in the second chapter of
his The Psychology of Emotion\ reviews twenty modern theories
of emotion, the James-Lange theory is "probably the most famous of all." 72 And William Lyons asserts that this theory
" has been one of the reasons why many psychologists fasten almost exclusively upon physiological changes, and the feelings resulting from them, as the essence of emotion." 73
The second theory of emotion which I would like briefly to
summarize is the Schachter-Singer theory of emotion, which has
also been called the "two-component," "cognitive/physiological,"
and " cognition-arousal " theory of emotion. 74 Stanley Schachter
10 Beside these standard emotions James admits the existence of "feelings
of pleasure and displeasure, of interest and excitement, bound up with mental
operations, but having no obvious bodily expression for their consequence ... "
(James, "What is an Emotion?," p. 18). It is not this idea that has made
James's theory of emotion famous, however, but the idea that emotion is the
feeling of bodily changes. Hugo Miinsterberg extended James's theory of
emotions to include pleasantness and unpleasantness. See his " Lust und Unlust: Eine vorlaufige Mitteilung,'' in Beitriige zur experimentellen Psychologie
Heft 4 (Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr, 1892), pp. 216-238.
71James, "What is an Emotion?," p.19.
12 K. T. Strongman, The Psychology of Emotion (London: John Wiley &
Sons, 1973), p. 13.
7 a William
Lyons, Emotion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1980), p. 13.
74 Stanley Schachter & Jerome E. Singer, " Cognitive, Social and Physiological Determinants of Emotional States," Psychological Review 69 (1962):
379-399, partly reprinted in: Calhoun/Solomon, What is cm Emotion?, pp.
173-183. In the following all references are to this reprint.

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MARCEL SAROT

and Jerome E. Singer agree with the James-Lange theory that
" the individual will react emotionally . . . only to the extent
that he experiences a state of physiological arousal." 75 They disagree with the James-Lange theory, however, by holding that
Given a state of physiological arousal for which an individual has no
immediate explanation, he will label his state and describe his feelings in terms of the cognitions available to him. . . . Precisely the
same state of physiological arousal could be labeled ' joy ' or 'fury'
or ' jealousy ' or any of a great diversity of emotional labels depending on the cognitive aspects of the situation. 76
As Howard Leventhal and Andrew J. Tomarken remark, this
theory " has dominated social-psychological research for the past
20 years." 77
Above I have highlighted only the two theories of emotion that have been most influential during the present century.
That the close connection between emotion and corporeality is
corroborated by the majority of contemporary psychological
emotion theories can be seen from a review article of Paul R. and
Anne M. Kleinginna. 78 They found 92 definitions of "emotion"
in a variety of sources in the literature on emotion. Of these
definitions 32 were written before 1970, 3 of which had their
primary emphasis on physiological changes and 20 of which had
a secondary emphasis on physiological changes. Sixty definitions
were published between 1970 and 1980, 4 of which had their
primary emphasis on physiological changes and 39 of which had
a secondary emphasis on physiological changes. In sum, the ma75 Schachter/Singer,

"Determinants

of Emotional States," p. 183.

76 Ibid., p. 183.
77 Howard Leventhal & Andrew J. Tomarken, "Emotion:
Today's Problems," Annual Review of Psychology 37 ( 1986) : 565-610 (quotation from p.
567). See also Rainer Reisenzein, " The Schachter Theory of Emotion: Two
Decades Later," Psychological Bulletin 94 (1983) : 239-264, who provides a
very interesting discussion of the research that has been generated by the
Schachter-Singer theory of emotion.
78 Paul R. Kleinginna & Anne M. Kleinginna, " A Categorized List of Emotion Definitions, with Suggestions for a Consensual Definition," Motivation
and Emotion 5-4 (1981): 345-379. To my knowledge there is no similar review of definitions published during the last decade, but it is not my impression that much has changed since 1981 in this respect.

GOD, EMOTION,

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87

jority of contemporary psychological definitions of emotion include a reference to physiological changes.
Though this at least gives some prinia facie support to
Aquinas's idea that emotions and corporeality are closely connected, it could be objected that the connection between emotion
and bodily change that is made in many contemporary psychological theories of emotion is of another nature than the connection Aquinas uses in his argument against divine passibility. 79
The latter connection is a conceptual or logical connection : the
concept of an emotion includes bodily changes and therefore it is
conceptually or logically impossible that anyone can have an emotion without undergoing bodily changes. Even God could not
have an emotion without bodily changes, because it would not be
an emotion. Now contemporary psychology is not concerned
with conceptual or logical possibilities or impossibilities, but with
facts. Therefore physiological changes should be included in
psychological definitions of emotions when it is in fact the case
that human emotions do always involve corporeality. But even
when human emotions in fact always involve physiological
changes, this does not necessarily imply that it is (conceptually)
inconceivable that incorporeal emotions could exist, and thus that
an incorporeal being could have emotions.
This objection strikes home: while psychological theories of
emotion may conclusively argue that there is a factual connection between emotion and corporeality, they never can prove that
there is a conceptual connection between the two. For arguments
in favor of a conceptual connection between emotions and corporeality we should turn to philosophical theories of emotion, because conceptual inquiry is part of the philosophical approach to
emotion. And when we turn to philosophical theories of emotion,
it soon becomes clear that, though most of the attention of philosophers concerned with emotion is devoted to cognitive aspects,
some of the most important contemporary philosophers of emotion indeed do hold that there is a conceptual connection between
emotion and corporeality. In this connection I want to refer to
T9 On

the following, cf. Oakes, "The Wrath of God," p. 134.

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the important and in my opinion most balanced of contemporary
philosophical theories of emotion, William Lyons's "causalevaluative theory." This theory resembles the Schachter-Singer
theory in being a two-component theory, but it differs from it in
making the cognitive component the cause of the physiological
changes. William Lyons asserts that
The concept of something is the list of necessary and sufficient conditions ... for something's being that sort of thing. Now the causalevaluative theory gets its name from advocating that X is to be
deemed an emotional state if and only if it is a physiologically abnormal state caused by the subject of that state's evaluation of his
or her situation.80
This is a very clear example of a philosophical theory that defends a conceptual connection between emotion and physiology,
and it might be argued that if this theory is correct, an incorporeal God cannot have emotions.
This argument, however, though logically unimpeachable,
would not convince many passibilist theologians. As Nico Frijda
has remarked: " It is no use quarreling with definitions." 81 In
other words, it is always possible to define " emotion " in such
a way that physiological changes are or are not included. The
philosopher can decree any definition of emotion and he can include whatever features he wants. 82 Such definitions, however,
only prescribe a certain use of words, and therefore their relevance for the theological question whether God can have emotions can be doubted. Let us, for the sake of the argument, suppose that all philosophical theories of emotion agree that emotions necessarily involve physiological changes. Even then a
theologian who is convinced that God is passible is not compelled to give up this conviction. It is always open to him to
80 Lyons, Emotion, pp. 57-58. A similar definition of emotion is provided
by Robert Brown, Analyzing Love (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987)' p. 14.
8 1 Nico H. Frijda, The Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987)' p. 125.
8 2 Naturally it is possible to criticize philosophical theories of emotion when
they define " emotion " in such a way that this word comes to mean something quite other than we usually mean by it. When conceptual inquiry loses
the contact with the common usage of words, something has gone wrong.

GOD, EMOTION,

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89

argue that the experiences he wants to ascribe to God do not fall
under the "philosophical" concept of emotion; he means other,
" emotion-like " experiences, which do not involve any physiological changes. In fact, this is the strategy of Nicholas Wolterstorff in his article on " Suffering Love " which r quoted above.
On the one hand, accepting Lyon's causal-evaluative theory, he
admits that God cannot have emotions, but on the other hand he
asserts that this leaves open the question whether God suffers,
since suffering is a phenomenon different from emotion. 83
It seems, therefore, that arguments against divine passibility
that conclude from a general theory of emotion to the impossibility of ascribing emotions or passibility to God have only a
limited theological value. This limited value lies in that they can
help us to show that Aquinas's contention that emotion necessarily involves corporeality is not so implausible and that the
passibilists' implicit contention that it is possible to experience
emotions without having a body is not so plausible as these may
seem at first sight. While it is already noteworthy that, according to most psychological theories of emotion, emotions always
in fact involve physiological changes, it is even more significant
that at least some philosophical theories of emotion go so far as
to assert that it is inconceivable that anyone has an emotion without physiological changes. This suggests that there is a very
strong connection between the phenomena we commonly designate as emotions and physiological changes, and thus that passibilist theologians cannot without argument take it for granted
that incorporeal passibility is possible.
2. The theological relevance of the analysis of specific
emotions ascribed to God

In the present theological situation the best way to pursue the
intention of Aquinas's argument seems to be not by arguing
against the possibility of divine emotions in general but by
arguing against the possibility of specific divine emotions. Arguments concerning the connection between divine passibility and
83 See

Wolterstorff, "Suffering

Love," pp. 214-215.

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MARCEL SAROT

corporeality should ask whether the specific experiences passibilist theologians ascribe to God necessarily entail corporeality.
If this necessity can be shown by an analysis of these experiences,
then it will no longer be open to passibilist theologians to argue
that the criticism is misdirected insofar as it concerns experiences
other than those they want to ascribe to God.
Though it would exceed the scope of the present article to
work out this suggestion in detail, I want to give a rough sketch
of the approach I favor. In contemporary theology the doctrine
that God is passible has some clearly defined functions. By
analyzing the arguments that are given in favor of divine passibility, it is possible to find out what these functions are. Let me
give an example. One of the most central arguments for divine
passibility is based on the statement that God is love. Richard
Creel summarizes this argument as follows:
Love requires emotional passibility. To love someone is to care about
him, and to care about him is to care about what happens to him,
and to care about what happens to him is to be affected by what
happens to him; it is to be happy when things go well for him and
to be distressed when things go badly for him .... If God, the greatest conceivable lover, is emotionally unaffected by our ecstasies and
our agonies then it only shows that he is no lover at all. But God is
love. Therefore God must be thought of as emotionally passible.84
B4 Creel, Divine Impassibility, pp. 113-114, (italics his).
Creel himself disagrees with this argument, which is given by Anton Bodem, "'Leiden Gottes ':
Erwagungen zu einem Zug im Gottesbild der gegenwartigen Theologie," in
Anton Ziegenaus, Franz Courth, and Philip Schafer, eds., Veritati Catholici:
Festschrift Leo Sche-ffzky zum 65. Geburtstag (Aschaffenburg: Paul Pattloch
Verlag, 1985), pp. 596-597; Paul Fiddes, The Creative Suffering of God
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 16-25; Jean Galot, Dieu Souffre-tIl? (Paris: Editions P. Lethielleux, 1976), pp. 50, 172-173; Hartshorne, Man's
Vision of God, pp. 163ff.; Jung Young Lee, God Suffers for Us: A Systematic Inquiry into a Concept of Divine Passibility (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1974), pp. 6ff, 17ff; Geddes MacGregor, He Who Lets Us Be: A
Theology of Love (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), pp. 3-22; John Macquarrie, In Search of Deity: An Essay in Dialectical Theism (London: SCM
Press, 1984), p, 180; Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of
Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology (London: SCM
Press, 1977), pp. 222, 230; Huw P. Owen, Concepts of Deity (London: MacMillan, 1971), p. 24; Arthur R. Peacocke, Intimations of Reality: Critical

GOD, EMOTION,

AND CORPOREALITY

91

This quotation makes clear what for many theologians is one of
the theological functions of divine passibility: divine passibility is
a necessary condition for divine love. When God loves people,
according to these theologians, this means that He is distressed
when things go badly for them. And since on the analysis these
theologians give of love the measure of suffering of which one is
capable is an indication of the measure of one's love, they will
without hesitation assert that God has a capacity for great distress and for intense suffering.
My suggestion is that it would be worthwhile to inquire
whether the kind of suffering-out-of-love these theologians
ascribe to God necessarily entails physiological changes. Similar
inquiries should be made into other concrete experiences of passibility that are ascribed to God for other theological reasons. The
methods for these inquiries will have to be borrowed from the
philosophy of emotion, but the subject-matter will be provided
by theology.
For two reasons I suspect that this kind of approach will prove
much more successful than the general approach rejected above.
First, in this way one's analysis directly regards the specific experiences passibilist theologians ascribe to God, so the discussion
will not be on the question whether the analysis applies or not,
but on whether it is correct or not. Secondly, in this way there
is no need to establish that emotions in general necessarily involve
physiological changes, but only that those kinds of emotional experiences which passibilist theologians ascribe to God necessarily
involve these changes. Now in the example given above of a conRealism in Science and Religion (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1984), pp. 77-78; S. Paul Schilling, God and Human Anguish
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1977), pp. 253-254; Jon Sobrino, Christology at
the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach (New York: Orbis Books,
1978), pp. 197-198, 217, 225-226; John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ
(Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1987), p. 332; Kenneth Surin, "The Impassibility of God and the Problem of Evil," Scottish Journal of Theology
35 (1982): 98, 100-102; Gerald Vann, The Pain of Christ and the Sorrow of
God (Oxford: Blackfriars Publications, 1947), p. 60; Frarn;ois Varillon, La
Souffrance de Dieu (Paris: Le Centurion, 1975), pp. 65-71; Keith Ward,
Rational Theology and the Creativity of God (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982),

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MARCEL SAROT

crete emotional experience ascribed to God (suffering out of
love), the emotional experience is of a rather vehement, excited,
and profound kind. This is exactly the kind of emotional experience in which it is most likely that physiological change is necessarily involved. Though I have no space to prove this here,
the most important other arguments for divine passibility also
suggest vehement divine emotions. Hence it seems relatively
easy to show that for the kinds of emotion that are in fact
ascribed to God by passibilist theologians, God has to be
corporeal.
IV. Conclusion
I have argued the following points : ( 1) On the basis of his
general theory of ·emotion Aquinas argued that emotion necessarily involves corporeality, and that God, being incorporeal, cannot have emotions; (2) In contemporary theology it is often
argued that God can be passible and have emotions, while this
argument of Aquinas is almost completely neglected; ( 3) Since
contemporary theories of emotion generally agree with Aquinas
in asserting a strong connection between emotion and corporeality, one cannot without argument assume that it is possible for
an incorporeal being to have emotions; ( 4) Passibilist theologians will hardly be convinced by the argument of Aquinas and
other arguments for the thesis that physiological changes are
part of the concept of emotion and that God therefore cannot
have emotions, for it is always open to them to argue that the
particular " emotional " experiences they ascribe to God do not
fall under this concept of emotion; ( 5) This does not imply that
the point Aquinas wanted to make-that God, being incorporeal,
cannot have emotions and thus cannot be passible-cannot be defended. It seems, however, that the best way to defend it is to
proceed from an analysis of the specific emotional experiences
passibilist theologians ascribe to God.
p. 199; Daniel Day Williams, The Spirit and the Forms of Love (New York:
Harper & Row, 1968), pp. 127-128, and many others. In my 1989 lecture
" Auschwitz, Morality and the Suffering of God," now published in Modern
Theology 7-2 (1991) : 135-152, I myself whole-heartedly accepted this argument, which I now consider to be very questionable.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: HOMOGENEOUS
HETEROGENEOUS DEVELOPMENT?
BRIAN

OR

T. MULLADY, 0.P.

Holy Apostles College and Seminary
Cromwell, Connecticut

0

NE OF THE most difficult questions to confront those
who hold for a natural-law conception of Catholic moral
teaching which does not change with the development
of the times is the area of the freedom of religion in the political
order. The traditional teaching on this subject is expressed in
many places. The most difficult locus for anyone who wants to
defend the traditional opinion is found in The Syllabus of Errors
of Pius IX. In this document, the following canons are explicitly enumerated :

77. In this age of ours it is no longer expedient that the Catholic
religion should be the only religion of the state, to the exclusion
of all other cults whatsoever.
78. Hence in certain regions of Catholic name, it has been laudably
sanctioned by law that men immigrating there be allowed to
have public exercises of any form of worship of their own.
79. For it is false that the civil liberty of every cult, and likewise,
the full power granted to all of manifesting openly and publicly
any kind of opinions and ideas, more easily leads to the corruption of the morals and minds of the people, and to the spread
of the evil of indifferentism.1
1 " 77. Aestate hac nostra non amplius expedit, religionem catholicam haberi
tamquam unicam status religionem, ceteris quibuscumque cultibus exclusus. 78.
Hine laudabiliter in quibusdam catholici nominis regionibus lege cautum est,
ut hominibus illuc immigrantibus liceat publicum proprii cuiusque cultus exercitium habere. 79. Enimvero falsum est, civilem cuiusque cultus libertatem,
itemque plenam potestatem omnibus attributam quaslibet opiniones cogitationesque palam publiceque manifestandi conducere ad populorum mores animosque facilius corrumpendos ac indifferentismi pestem propagandam." Denizinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, n. 1777-1779 (2977-2979), hereafter refered to as DS.

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T. MULLADY,

O.P.

In this text, freedom of religion is clearly condemned. Yet
one finds about one hundred years later the issue of religious
freedom discussed by Vatican II. Here the conclusion reached
seems quite different.
The Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to
religious freedom. Freedom of this kind means that all men should be
immune from coercion on the part of individuals, social groups and
every human power so that, within due limits, nobody is forced to
act against his convictions in religious matters in private or in public, alone or in associations with others. The Council further declares
that the right to religious freedom is based on the very dignity of
the human person as known through the revealed word of God and
by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom
must be given such recognition in the constitutional order of society
as will make it a civil right. 2
These two documents seem to represent a significant change in
the teaching of the church. Beyond the obvious change in attitude towards religious freedom, many moral theologians also
see another change : the very language of the decree signals a departure from the traditional basis of the law of nature by a reference to the dignity of the human person. One example will
suffice:
It may also be a growing dissatisfaction with the traditional concept
of ' nature ' which has contributed in recent years to the focus of
moral attention moving from ' human nature ' to ' human person '
2 " Haec
Vaticana Synodus declarat personam humanam ius habere ad
libertatem religiosam. Huiusmodi libertas in eo consistit, quod omnes homines
debent immunes esse a coercitione ex parte sive singulorum sive coetuum socialium et cuiusvis potestatis humanae, et ita quidem ut in re religiosa neque
aliquis cogatur ad agendum contra suam conscientiam neque impediatur,
quominus iuxta suam conscientiam agat privatim et publice, vel solus vel aliis
consociatus, intra debitos limites. Insuper declarat ius ad libertatem religiosam
esse revera fundatum in ipsa dignitate personae humanae, qualis et verbo Dei
revelato et ipsa ratione congnoscitur. Hoc ius personae humanae ad libertatem
religiosam in iuridica societatis ordinatione ita est agnoscendum, ut ius civile
evadat." Vatican II, Declaratio de Libertate Religiosa: Dignitatis Humanae,
n. 2. Translations are taken from Vatican Council II, The Conciliar and Post
Conciliar Dornments, Austin Flannery, O.P., ed. (Collegeville, Minnesota: The
Liturgical Press, 1975).

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or ' human dignity.' Thus, the Second Vatican Council was certainly not unaware of the whole moral tradition centered on the law
of nature when it nevertheless considered basing objective moral
standards on ' the dignity of the human person,' and finally decided
to propose the need for such standards as based on the ' nature of
the [human] person and his acts.' 3
Modern moralists think that the emphasis on the human person is completely new. They think that the old natural-law ethics
has been replaced by a personalistic ethics. For them, norms
which expressed the law of nature and were exceptionless have
given way to norms which demand that exceptions be made.
There are too many factors and difficulties at work in this sort
of thinking " to be fully examined in a short article like this.
Suffice it to say at the beginning that the issue of religious freedom is often invoked as an example of such a change. Not only
is this offered as a change in the basis for the teaching on religious freedom, but this issue has been used to support a more general proposition that the church can and has changed her teaching
completely on other matters.
Some say that this claim of a change in church teaching is
used as a justification for not taking the papal teachings on
sexual ethics and birth control seriously: If one just waits long
enough, the teaching of the church will be changed on these matters as it has already been changed on the issue of religious freedom. Still others say that the document of the Second Vatican
Council on religious freedom is so startling a change that it falsifies the council and shows that at least this document is not
the work of the Holy Spirit. The teaching contained in this
document is so compromising to the traditional teaching of the
church that they even call into question the authority of the Pope
to teach it and suggest that perhaps Pope Paul was not a true
Pope. This is a radical opinion, it is true, but it is one point of
a John Mahoney, The Making of Moral Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 113-114.
4'Cf. Brian Mullady, The Meaning of the Term Moral in St. Thomas
Aquinas (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1986).

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view, exacerbated perhaps by the fact that Pope Paul called this
"one of the major texts of the Council." 5
The apologists for the document make their case more on
juridical rather than on theoretical grounds. As the issue is not
merely juridical, this seems to weaken their argument. One of
the principal apologists for the document is the great American
Jesuit, John Courtney Murray. Though his explanation is somewhat limited from the theoretical point of view, it contains a great
deal of merit as to the practical and juridical parameters of the
problem. 6 However, although John Courtney Murray was sure
that this document represented a development in doctrine, he was
not certain what this development might be. In the original
translation of the document of the Second Vatican Council into
English he states, " The course of the development between the
Syllabus of Errors ( 1864) and ... [this decree] ... still remains to be explained by theologians. But the Council formally
sanctioned the validity of the development itself; and this was a
doctrinal event of high importance for theological thought in
many areas." 7
Many moralists today see in this development a place where
the church has entirely changed her teaching on a subject of importance. They argue that there is really no magisterial teaching
which is forever fixed. This applies to many areas of interest but
has been used in a particularly effective way by those who have
opposed the teaching of the church on birth control in Humanae
Vitae. There are numerous examples of theologians who think
this way. For example,
Even this brief look at the history of our moral teaching should
prompt us to describe our teaching icompetence in more modest
terms. Either we must admit a drastic relativism which would
allege that all of that teaching was right in its day or we must admit
1966), p. 674;
5 W. M. Abbott, The Documents of Vatican II (London:
cited in Mahoney, Moral Theology, n. 150.
6 I shall not go into the juridical history of this problem in this paper. For
those who are interested in this, they can profitably read John Courtney Murray, The Problem of Religious Freedom (Westminster, Maryland: 1965).
1 Abbott, Vatican II, pp. 673, 672. Quoted in Mahoney, Moral Theology,
pp. 114-115.

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the presence of error in the history of the pilgrim church . . . To
stress this point: . . . the teaching of Gregory XVI and Pius IX
that it was ' madness ' to allege religious freedom as a right of man
and a necessity in society, and the proclamation of Vatican II that
such freedom is a right and necessity in society-such teachings are
not consistent or mutually irreconcilable. Even full recognition of
the historical context that spawned these statements does not establish doctrinal continuity. 8

In this article, Daniel Maguire applies this conclusion of a
lack of any sure doctrinal continuity in magisterial statements
to many other moral teachings of the Magisterium, including
those on usury and on contraception. Obviously, this presents a
very real challenge to the continuity of any doctrinal statement.
One is tempted to say that no doctrinal or moral statement is
universally true through time. This would compromise the very
nature of the truth and the ability of the church to define doctrines. Maguire expresses the implications very well: "Still, to
assert that in all this there is no change but simply development
is to play semantic games." 9
In this article, then, I would like to examine the question of
whether the teaching of the church has really changed or not. Is
this development truly homogeneous or heterogeneous (change) ?
If the former is true, then the teaching of the Second Vatican
Council should be viewed not as a conformity to the spirit of this
age, but rather as an application of the same traditional teaching
of the church looked at from a different point of view to correspond to new problems found in the signs of our times. In
other words, we may have always taught the same teaching as
Vatican II about religious freedom, but may not have emphasized
this part of the truth because of other moral problems in other
times. I would like to suggest that the religious freedom condemned in the Syllabus of Errors refers to religious freedom
looked at from the point of view of the action of the intellect, or
freedom respecting the truth; whereas the freedom of religion
8 Daniel C. Maguire, "Morality
and Magisterium," in Readings in Moral
Theology: No. 3, eds. Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, S.J.
(New York: Paulist Press, 1982), p. 45.
g Ibid., p. 46.

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guaranteed and encouraged by Dignitatis Humanae refers to religious freedom looked at from the point of view of the action of
the will in morals. In other words, those who see in these different expressions a change in teaching are committing the fallacy
of univocity of terms in logic. The terms " freedom " refer to
two very different acts of the soul.
One of the difficulties in discerning this truth comes from the
historical problem of the confessional state. John Courtney Murray makes a good examination of this problem from the point of
view of jurisdiction in law. I believe that this is the only basis
on which the problem of the confessional state need be discussed.
In other words, the union of throne and altar is a practical problem truly limited to one particular epoch in history and really
has little to do with the problem discussed in this paper. Regardless of whether there is a state religion or not, both the Syllabus
of Errors and Dignitatis Humanae present their teachings as
universally and necessarily true.
Another difficulty which must be addressed in this article is
the issue of the natural law as the ba,sis for morals. Many moral
authorities have used the supposed change in doctrine in Magisterial teaching as a sign that the church has changed the basis
upon which the church decides the reasonability of her teaching. 10
As a result, I would also like to show that the personalistic norm
is itself just another way of expressing what has always been
meant by the natural law, and that this in turn is truly the basis
for the different meanings of religious freedom in the documents
of the Magisterium.
The tradition of the church before Vatican II had already be1 0 For example, "But the founding of the right to religious freedom on the
dignity of the individual human person can be seen as a further indication of
the move from human nature to the human person and his dignity as the basis
for moral reasoning. In the circumstances it is significant that the criterion
of person rather than nature can be seen as flourishing in the thought of John
Paul II, ... in which, with reference to the subject of contraception, he invites theologians to shed more light on ' the biblical foundations, ethical
grounds and the personalistic reasons behind this doctrine.' " Mahoney, Moral
Theology, p. 114.

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gun to invoke a distinction with respect to the term " freedom of
religion." For example, Leo XIII says,
Another liberty is widely advocated, namely, liberty of conscience.
If by this is meant that everyone may, as he chooses, worship God
or not, it is sufficiently refuted by the arguments adduced. But it
may also be taken to mean that every man in the State may follow
the will of God and, from a consciousness of duty and free from
every obstacle, obey his commands. This indeed, is true liberty, a
liberty worthy of the sons of God.11
In this text, one can see that the Pope himself long before
Vatican II makes a distinction between a freedom of conscience
which suggests " everyone may, as he chooses, worship God or
not" and that every man " in the State may follow the will of
God and, from a consciousness of duty and free from every obstacle obey his commands."
Vatican II explains this distinction very clearly:

The Council further declares that the right to religious freedom is
based on ... [the] dignity of all men because they are persons, that
is, beings endowed with reason and free will and ... are both impelled by their nature and bound by moral obligation to seek the
truth, especially religious truth. 12
This clearly refers to the religious obligation of the truth
which is invoked in the encyclical of Leo XIII. There is no freedom of religion regarding this because the truth about God is
one. Religious freedom regarding the content of religious truth
is also obviously what is condemned in the Syllabus of Errors.
This freedom is always condemned in the context of nineteenth
century liberalism, which viewed the supernatural as something
basically unable to be defined. Real dogma was not possible, because one could really express nothing about God, or alternately,
any expression about God could be true. Because God acted in
XIII, Libertas Praestissimum, 30.
Secundum dignitatem suam homines cuncti, quia personae sunt, ratione
scilicet et Iibera voluntate praedicti ideoque personali responsabilitate aucti,
sua ipsorum natura impelluntur necnon morali tenentur obligatione ad veritatem quaerendam, illam imprimis quae religionem spectat."
Dignitatis
Humanae, n. 2.
11 Leo
12 "

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T. MULLADY,

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the world only through human reason, the laws of the State
should be the ultimate criteria for the truth of religion; the State
would establish the fact that all religions were the same.
Vatican II goes on to explain another aspect of the truth of
religion:
But men cannot satisfy their obligation in a way in keeping with
their own nature· unless they enjoy both psychological freedom and
immunity from external coercion. Therefore the right to religious
freedom has its foundation not in the subjective attitude of the individual, but in his very nature. 13
This clearly refers to the liberty of conscience which Leo XIII
expressed as the freedom to pursue one's duty free from every
obstacle. The teaching of the Council on this expresses the right
of a person to embrace any truth from the interior movement of
his will. One should notice in these texts-" with their own nature" and "in his very nature" -that the basis for the judgment
about the differences in which the civil law relates to freedom of
will and freedom of intellect is human nature itself. This is
a clue to the fact that the Council in no way changed the criteria
for judgment concerning the basis for religious freedom. What
forms the basis for the seeming contradiction in the statements
of the texts of the Magisterium? Far from being a change in doctrine as to morals, these different judgments simply respect a
classic distinction in St. Thomas Aquinas between the functions
of reason and will in the moral order. The word "freedom" may
express the necessary freedom from external coercion in any
moral act of the will for it to truly be an act of the will; it may
also express a judgment as to whether the objective truth of God
binds all men to seek it. The word refers to different powers
with different objects, and this situation demands that one examine the nature of those powers respecting truths about God.
13 " Tenentur
quoque veritati cognitae adhaerere atque totam vitam suam
iuxta exigentias veritatis ordinare. Huie autem obligationi satisfacere homines,
modo suae propriae naturae consentaneo, non possunt nisi libertate psychologica
simul atque immunitate a coercitione externa fruantur. Non ergo in subiectiva
personae dispositione, sed in ipsa eius natura ius ad libertatem religiosam
fundatur." Dignitatis Humanae, n. 2.

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This examination should lead to some insight not only into the
place of the civil order in coercion about these truths, but into
the place of coercion in general as well. A corollary would include the possibility of any religious truth leading to true human
freedom. All of this is based, of course, on the difference between
how the conscience relates to the will and how the conscience relates to the intellect.
Accordingly, I will examine the different ways in which the
conscience relates to the will and to the intellect, based on the nature of each in man. Please note that although various actual
situations may call for different emphases in this discussion (one
may emphasize the relation to the will at one point, the intellect
at another), such a change in emphasis in no sense falsifies the
previous teaching. Rather, the various emphases in the teaching
complement each other and help to give a complete picture of
the various foundations of the human act in general, an action
which follows nature. The references to the human person in
Dignitatis Humanae clearly refer not to a new historically-determined condition, but rather to a transhistorical nature which is
found in all men. The teaching of the whole Magisterium about
religious freedom is in no way an attempt to change the teaching
of the church to correspond to the spirit of the age. Just the
opposite is the case. The universal is not an impoverished sense
experience which must be continuously reformed according to the
culture. The way in which the intellect acts as it binds the conscience in truth and the way in which the will acts as it freely
embraces the truth are based on those very powers of the soul.
The term " freedom of religion " cannot be used in a univocal
sense. In the Syllabus of Errors and in Dignitatis H umanae this
term refers to freedom looked upon from two very different objects in two very different powers of the soul. The term " freedom " can become very confusing unless it is delineated as to
precisely what it means. Normally it is used to translate free will
in human acts. At the outset of the section in the Summa Theologiae on morals, St. Thomas makes the point that free choice
by which man is lord of his acts is expressed by the term

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"liberum arbitrium." There he explicitly states that free ( liberum) choice (arbitrium) means a faculty which includes both
the intellect and will. 14 For an act to be truly human, it must be
immanent. It must issue from both intellect and will. Acts
which do not issue from both do not befit rational beings and
are not placed in the genus of morals. 15
However, there are not two acts with two objects present in
an act of free choice. The act of free choice must be essentially
one. This act may be two in power, but only one actual act. 16
So, in free choice, both the intellect and the will concur, but in
different ways. Free choice is primarily an act of the will but
guided always by the act of the intellect.17 Still, the intellect
and the will contribute to the act of free choice each according to
its own manner of being as a power. One must then examine
the contribution of each to the one act of free choice.
The same object can be desired by the will and known by the
intellect. This object forms the basis for the distinction of powers.
For example, the same object may be seen, tasted, smelled, heard,
and touched, and this same object would form the basis for all
of the experiences of the senses as to their objects. In the case
of the movement of our souls, all objects may be looked upon in
their relation to the soul. This includes God as an object of religion. There is a twofold relationship of things to the soul. A
being outside the soul, whether an apple or God, has the possibility of being in the soul as it exists in itself, but experienced in
H " Est autem homo dominus suorum actuum per rationem et voluntatem :
unde et liberum arbitrium esse dicitur facultas voluntatis et rationis." Aquinas,
ST I-II, q. 1, a. 1, c.
15 " Illa ergo quae rationem habent, seipsa movent ad finem: quia habent
dominum suorum actuum per liberum arbitrium, quod est facultas voluntatis
et rationis . . . Illa ratione carent, tendunt in finem per naturalem inclinationem, quasi ab alia mota, non autem a seipsis." Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 1, a.
2, c.
l6 " Liberum arbitrium est tantum una potentia formaliter, sed duae virtualitcr." Aquinas, In Commentaria Super Sententias II, d. 24, q. 1, a. 3, ad 2;
De V eritate, 24, 5.
11 Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 13, a. 1, c.

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the spiritual way the soul exists. This makes something knowable.18
A thing may also be related to the soul in that the soul is inclined to desire the thing as it exists in itself. I may desire or
love God or an apple in my will as this being exists in its own
right. In fact, until I actually experience the being in its mode
of existence love is not satisfied. 19 There is a certain circularity
in knowing and loving. The circle begins with the act of knowledge which is drawn to experience an object in the manner of
the intellect and the act of the will which is drawn to experience
the object as it exists.
Basically, it is the contribution of each of these powers to the
act of free choice which divides morals into genus and species.
This is even the basis for the division of the treatment of morals
in the Summa Theologiae. St. Thomas treats of the contribution of the will to morals in ST I-II, qq. 6-17. An act is placed
in the genus of morals insofar as it is free, that is, voluntary. In
his treatment of this, St. Thomas examines the various conditions under which an act done by a man could not be voluntary.
Common to all those conditions is the presence of a certain violence which compels a person to act against his will. Violence
cannot be done to the act of the will itself (elicited). However,
a person can be compelled by exterior forces to do acts of his
other powers which he can command (imperated or commanded
acts).
As regards the commanded acts of the will, then, the will can suffer violence, insofar as violence can prevent the exterior members
from executing the will's command. But as to the will's own proper
act, violence cannot be done to the will . . . In like manner a man
may be dragged by force, but it is contrary to the very notion of
violence, that he be thus dragged of his own will.20
18 " Res autem ad animam invenitur duplicem habitudinem habere: unam
secundum quad ipsa res est in anima per modum animae, et non per modum
sui." Aquinas, De Veritate, 22, 10.
1 9 " Aliam secundum quad anima comparatur ad rem in suo esse existentem."
Aquinas, De Veritate, 22, 10.
2 0 " Quantum igitur ad actus a voluntate imperatos, voluntas violentiam pati
potest, inquantum per violentiam exteriora membra impediri possunt ne im-

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This violence introduces a condition into any human act which
compromises the existence of the genus of morals in it. This
violence may be the result of some compelling force. Someone
takes my hand and stabs someone else using it. He overpowers
me in doing so. It may also take the form of a kind of interior
violence. My emotions are incited to such great anger that I am
blinded by rage through no fault of my own. I commit murder
as a result. I have committed an objective sin, but I am not
responsible for the sin because my will was compelled by some
force outside of it. The more these exterior forces bind the
judgment of reason and move the will without this consultation,
the less freedom there is in such an act. 21 An act of any kind,
especially an act of faith, cannot be truly human and responsible
unless it is in the genus of morals. The more outside factors
compel such an act, the less free it is and the less it is in the
genus of morals.
An act becomes human because it is voluntary and results
from the will. It becomes good or evil according to the judgment of reason. No human act can be good unless this act is according to the truth. For this reason, Pope John Paul II says
often that freedom does not mean freedom from the truth but
freedom for the truth. Truth is not judged by the same standards as the freedom of will in an act. In fact, it is the compelling
nature of the truth which is the basis for the freedom in any act
of will.
The truth of a moral act must be judged not on the basis of
the lack of violence done to the will, but on the basis of reason.
This reason forms the foundation of the judgment of any moral
act as good or evil. " Thus good and evil in human acts are considered insofar as the act is in accord with reason informed by
perium voluntatis exequantur. Sed quantum ad ipsum proprium actum voluntatis, non potest ei violentia inferri . . . Similiter etiam potest homo per
violentiam trahi : sed quod hoc sit ex eius voluntate, repugnat rationi violentiae." Aquinas, ST I-II q.6, a. 4, c.
21 " Aliae vero causae sunt quae inclinant voluntatem ad peccandum, praeter
naturam et ordinem ipsius voluntatis, quae nata est moveri libere ex seipsa
secundum iudicium rationis." Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 73, a. 6, c.

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the divine law, either naturally, by instruction, or by infusion ...
[and] it is evil for the soul to be outside reason as for the body
to be outside of nature." 22
The conclusion naturally follows from this that the moral
goodness or evil of a human act is judged by a different criterion
from the human freedom of the act. For an act to be in the genus
of morals it must not suffer exterior violence. For the will to
be drawn to a good, all kinds of exterior influences may be
brought to bear on it, but until the individual accepts a given act
as good in his intellect and so moves his will, any good movement he makes will not be completely under his lordship and so
it will not be a deep act of love. The union which such an act
produces with the being to which it is united will be weak.
Though the truth is the primary criterion for what is good and
should be willed, one cannot really be compelled to embrace the
truth by violence. This is true of any human_ assent. It is even
more true of the assent of faith. This is based on the very nature
of the will and the object of faith who is God Himself.
Among the unbelievers there are some who have never received the
faith, such as heathens and Jews: and these are by no means to be
compelled to the faith, in order that they might believe, because to
believe depends on the will : nevertheless they should be compelled
by the faithful, if it be possible to do so, so that they do not hinder
the faith.23
It seems obvious to me that this text is clear about the ·fact
that the act of religion must be an act of freedom of will at least
for those who are not Christians. Though it is true that St.
Thomas later in the same article says that Christians may be
compelled by corporal punishment to return to a faith which they
22 " Unde bonum et malum in actibus humanis consideratur secundum quod
actus concordat rationi informatae lege divina, vel naturaliter, vel per doctrinam, vel per infusionem . . . quod animae malum est praeter rationem esse,
corpori praeter naturam." Aquinas, De JY!alo, 2, 4.
2s " Infidelium quidam sunt qui numquam susceperunt fidem, sicut gentiles
et ludaei. Et tales nullo modo sunt ad fidem compellendi, ut ipsi credant : quia
credere voluntatis est. Sunt tamen compellendi a fidelibus, si facultas adsit, ut
fidem non impediant." Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 10, a. 8, c.

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have already freely professed, the point that the primary act of
faith must be an act of will seems clear enough. St. Thomas
makes no distinctions in this article about the tolerance of unbelief in a state, though he does speak about it later. This shows
that the teaching of Vatican II in this matter was present in
germ many centuries before Vatican II. It also demonstrates
that the basis for this teaching does not have its origins in twentieth century personalist philosophy. The expression of the teaching in Vatican II may use terms like " personalist norm "; but
these terms are founded on all the rich tradition of the natural
law about the kind of moral acts which befit someone with a reasoning soul. The teaching is based on the nature of the freedom
of the will in the act of morals.
It seems equally clear to me that the teaching in the Syllabus
of Errors is based on the common teaching of St. Thomas about
truth in the intellect. The human intellect comes to experience
all beings in its manner. The being of the thing it experiences as
to its essential constitution is one. Each being expresses truth
which corresponds to it. "Truths which are in things are many,
as are the entities of things." 24 These truths are in some ways
accidental to the human intellect. They would still be things in
their essence if no human intellect existed. But they are not inseparable in any sense from the truth which God's intellect communicates to them. They are formed by his one idea in the Word.
His Providence governs them. God is the cause of all these
things and so their truth is one in Him. The truth is primarily
seen as He sees it. His truth is one and there cannot be many
conflicting ideas about Him which are all true. His truth is one
and every human intellect is bound to know this truth to be
moral and to be good insofar as it is able. The measure or standard for any truth is one if that truth is compared to the mind of
God which thinks it. 25
24 " Veritates autem quae sunt in rebus, sunt plures, sicut et rerum entitates."
Aquinas, De Veritate, 1, 4.
25 " Si ergo accipiatur veritas proprie dicta secundum quam omnia principaliter vera sunt, sic omnia sunt vera una veritate, id est veritate intellectus
divini." Aquinas, De Veritate, 1, 4.

RELIGIOUS

FREEDOM

107

If this unity of truth is applied to things in general it is even
more applicable to faith. Faith has as its object the first truth
which makes all things one. In faith, one begins to look at the
world from God's point of view, wherein the unity of creation, the
order of divine Providence, and the actions of human persons become more evident. If there cannot be many truths about things
looked at from God's point of view, there certainly cannot be
many different conflicting ideas of God which are all true. 26 The
truth of religion is such a truth. As to which religion is true,
then, there is no question. There is only one.
Further, the teaching of Vatican II has often been used to
justify dissent within the church as a sign of "healthy pluralism."
This seems strange as the council expressly states the following:
So while the religious freedom which men demand in fulfilling their
obligation to worship God has to do with freedom from coerdon in
in civil society, it leaves intact the traditional Catholic teaching on
the moral duty of individuals and societies towards the true religion
and the one Church of Christ. 27
Clearly Vatican II did not have any changes in mind regarding the traditional teaching of the church that all are bound in
conscience to form a right conscience. The right conscience must
pay an obligation to the order of reality. The human person does
not create the truth in the order of reality with respect to any
moral good, let alone religion. As to the order of truth, the presence of the thing in the mind as the mind assents to the thing in
a spiritual way, the equation of the idea and the thing are necessary for truth to be present. Though there can be no such equation with God, God has revealed his inner character both in nature and in revelation. This revelation can only be one. The reflection of the human mind on it can only be of a piece and all
human beings are bound in conscience to seek this insofar as they
are capable.
26 " Per se obiectum fidei veritas prima est . . . Veritas autem divinae
cognitionis hoc modo se habet, quad primo et principaliter est ipsius rei increatae; creaturarum verum quodammodo consequenter, in quantum quidem
cognoscendo seipsum omnia alia cognoscit." Aquinas, De Veritate, 14, 8.
21 Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, 1.

108

BRIAN

T. MULLADY,

O.P.

As to the freedom of the will in coming to assent to such a
thing, the more outside pressures (outside not in the sense of
instruction and teaching, but in the sense of violence done to the
body or the emotions), the less the act of the will becomes involved in the truth to which the person is assenting. In this sense,
the act of faith, or any other act, is more and more removed
from the realm of morals. The potential for virtue is reduced in
direct proportion to the freedom of the inner act of the will.
After this examination, it is possible to arrive at several conclusions. First, Vatican II made reference to a traditional argument found at least in Thomas Aquinas on the difference between
the binding character of the truth and the freedom of the will in
morals. Second, this distinction in no way calls into question the
traditional basis of the natural law for deciding on human goods.
Personalist terms may be used sometimes, but these perfectly reflect the constant philosophical tradition of the church. Third,
the Syllabus of Errors and Dignitatis Humanae are in perfect
theoretical accord on the nature of religious freedom. The former
emphasizes the intellect as bound to seek the truth, the latter the
will in its freedom from every exterior coercion in order to be a
natural, human act. The fact that they represent different jurisdictional ideas about the state religion is due only to the application of these principles in various times. Fourth, both teachings
have to do with freedom of conscience in the civil order and cannot be used to found the right of Catholics to dissent from the
teaching of the church. The only intelligent conclusion is that
there is a homogeneous and not a heterogeneous development of
doctrine exhibited by the two documents.

RECLAIMING
DOUGLAS

LIBERALISM

*

B. RASMUSSEN

St. John's University
Jamaica, New York

Through the shift of emphasis from natural duties or obligations to
natural rights, the individual, the ego, had become the center and
origin of the moral world, since man-as distinguished from man's
end-had become that center or origin.
-Leo Strauss

T:

HE CONCEPTION of individuality that lies at the
oundation of natural rights classical liberalism has been a
arget of criticism for some time. This is not news. What
is news and what is becoming more apparent to those who examine the issue is that the alternatives Strauss presents in the
above quotation are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, as I and my
colleague, Douglas J. Den Uyl, have recently observed:

Making the individual the moral center of the universe does not require that one accept nominalism, mechanism, or hedonism, nor does
accepting essentialism, teleology, and eudaimonism . . . require rejecting individualism. It is possible for the fulfillment of the individual to be interpreted in terms of the requirements for human wellbeing. There can be a view of the ego or self that is neither otherwordly nor Hobbesian, but Aristotelian. Further, the achievement
of man's natural end need not be interpreted along Platonic lines.
There is no such thing as the flourishing of "man." There is only
the flourishing of individual men. The human good neither exists
apart from the chokes and actions of individual human beings nor
independent of the particular " mix " of goods that the individual
human being must determine as appropriate for his circumstances.

* This essay is based on a paper presented at a meeting of the American
Association for the Philosophic Study of Society, American Philosophical
Association (Eastern Division) convention, December 29, 1991 in New York
City. This meeting was devoted to David L. Norton's book Democracy and
Moral Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
109

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B. RASMUSSEN

Strauss's dichotomy betrays a disturbing tendency, often found
among proponents of natural right and natural law, to reify the concept " natural end " and make it some good that competes with the
good of individual human beings.1
David L. Norton in his recent work, Democracy and Moral Development, has also noted the nonexclusivity of Strauss's alternatives.
Conditioned as we are by modernity's conception of the individual,
the question of replacing avarice as the thematic motivation in lives
of persons is likely to leave us at a loss. What else could possibly
serve? The purpose of this book is to propose the eudaimonistic answer, and that answer is love in the meaning of Eros. Thus understood, love is not exclusively or primarily interpersonal; it is first
of all the right relationship of each person with himself or herself.
The self to which love is in the first instance directed is the ideal
self that is aspired to and by which random change is transformed
into the directed development we term growth. When the ideal of
the individual is rightly chosen, it realizes objective values that subsisted within the individual as innate potentialities, thereby achieving
in the individual the self-identity that is termed "integrity" and that
constitutes the foundation of other virtues. 2
Norton desires to reconceptualize the individualism historically
associated with classical liberalism so as both to retain the gains
of classical liberalism and to overcome its moral minimalism.
According to Norton, the crucial problem with the conception
of individuality historically associated with classical liberalism is
that it is "non-developmental," or rather, there is only development within a single stage, namely, for self-preservation. There
is nothing more. There is no standard of self-perfection by which
to distinguish satisfaction of desire from satisfaction of right desire-no way to distinguish Socrates's satisfaction from that of a
fool's. Norton thus seeks to replace classical liberalism's non-developmental conception of individuality with a eudaimonistic conception of the individual.
1 Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uy!, Liberty and Nature: An
Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1991), pp.
2 Democracy and Moral Development, p. 40.
92-93.

RECLAIMING

LIBERALISM

111

By replacing classical liberalism's conception of individuality
with a eudaimonistic one Norton seeks both to overcome modernity's divorce of politics from virtue and to provide classical liberalism with what, according to Norton, it most notably lacks-a
normative grounding for individual rights. The primary object
of analysis for these comments will be Norton's attempt to justify
individual rights by appealing to eudaimonistic individualism.
According to Norton, eudaimonistic moral and political theory
holds responsibilities to be logically primitive, and so he conceives
of his argument for individual rights as requiring an exchange of
a " rights-primitive " conception of the individual for a " responsibilities-primitive " conception. In other words, rights are to be
derived from responsibilities. Norton's fundamental argument is
as follows : If every person has the basic moral responsibility to
discover and progressively actualize his or her innate potential
worth, then, by the logic of " ought implies can," persons have a
right (a moral entitlement) to what is needed to fulfill their basic
moral responsibility. 3 Norton contends that this argument will
generate rights that are ( 1) not inherently adversarial or competitive, (2) both positive and negative, and ( 3) circumscribed
by responsibilities.
Norton holds that in order for the "ought" of self-actualization to be attributable to individuals, it must be the case that they
can actualize their potential worth. Yet " can " has both a conditional and unconditional sense. The unconditional " can " refers
to what is possible for a person qua person, the conditional " can "
refers to what is possible for a person in certain circumstances.
Norton argues that the effect of this distinction is that, even
though a person may be blocked by circumstances from doing
what self-actualization requires, there remains an abstract moral
obligation for a person to struggle against these obstacles. A person's liability for failing to fulfill his basic moral responsibility
3 This argument is in some respects similar to Henry Veatch's in Human
Rights: Fact or Fancy? (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University
Press, 1985), pp. 160-167. Also, see Fred D. Miller, Jr. and Patrick Steinbauer's critical review, "A New Defense of Natural Rights," Humane Studies
Review 413 (Summer 1987), pp. 3-6.

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B. RASMUSSEN

may be proportionally diminished by circumstances, but his basic
moral responsibility is not absolved. Thus, when it comes to the
things that are needed for self-actualization, but which cannot
be self-provided and can come from others, the moral responsibility on the part of others to provide these necessary conditions also
remains. Norton states : " By the ubiquity of the abstract and unconditional 'ought' ... , it is the first responsibility of any society
to provide such conditions for all persons." 4
Norton divides basic rights into two classes: ( 1) rights that
can be self-provided, which are essentially to things and not
against persons, and require only a protective perimeter of " negative rights"; and (2) rights that cannot be self-provided, which
are essentially claims to the positive performances of others, and
thus are " positive " rights. According to Norton, one has a
right to what one needs and can use in one's primary moral work
of actualizing one's innate potential worth.
What are we to make of Norton's argument? His argument
seems to have the following structure. Suppose that in order for
Smith to actualize his innate potential worth he must perform
action M. This yields the premise :
( 1) Smith ought to do M.
This is an obligation that Smith owes to himself. According to
the " ought implies can " principle,
(2) If Smith ought to do M, then Smith can do M.
Therefore, it follows that
( 3) Smith can do M.
Now, suppose that Jones (who has the ability to do otherwise)
coercively interferes with Smith's attempt to self-actualize and
prevents Smith from doing M, or suppose that Jones (who has
the means) fails to provide Smith with the means by which
Smith might overcome obstacles that prevent him from doing M
in a particular situation, then
( 4) Jones brings it about that it is not the case that Smith
can do M.
Ignoring how it could be correct to say that Jones can, by failing
4

Democracy and Moral Development, p. 111.

RECLAIMING

LIBERALISM

113

to do something, cause Smith's inability to do something, it is
clear that even if Norton's argument has established ( 4), it has
yet to establish that
( 5) Nobody ought to bring it about that another person cannot perform his self-actualizing actions.
It is certainly true that Smith has the obligation either to do
M or take actions to overcome any obstacles that prevent him
from doing M, but this is a far cry from establishing any obligation on the part of others not to prevent Smith from doing M,
let alone provide Smith with the means by which he might do M.
What other premises are there to Norton's argument that might
provide ( 5) with a justification?
Norton claims that (6) eudaimonia is an objective value. It
is not imputed, but recognized. In response to Socrates's question
to Euthyphro, it is something which is desired because it is good.
Norton claims that since eudaimonia is of objective worth, it is
valuable not only to the individual who actualizes it but to everyone else who can recognize it. Thus, it is "on the premise of
innate potential worth in all persons, which is at the same time
responsibility for actualizing this worth " 5 that we impute responsibilities to persons unknown to us and affirm the basic
dignity of all persons. An individual's rights are derived from
responsibilities. Norton seems, then, to be claiming that since
eudaimonia is of objective worth, then Smith's actualization of his
innate potential worth is of value to Jones and vice versa. And
if this is so, then everyone has a responsibility for actualizing
this worth, regardless of whose worth it is.
There are three problems with this reasoning, however. First,
it may be true that eudaimonia is an objective value, but it does
not follow from this that its worth is the same for all individuals.
Eudaimonia could be an agent-relative 6 value such that the
s Ibid., p. 110.
We may say that the eudaimouia of any person, P 1' is agent-relative if
that state of affairs S 1 which constitutes the fulfillment of P 1 is relative to P 1 ;
and this is the case if and only if S 1 's distinctive presence in world W 1 is a
basis for P 1 ranking W 1 over W 2 even though S 1 may not be a basis for any
other 2gent ranking W 1 over \V".
6

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DOUGLAS

B. RASMUSSEN

weighting that is given by person P1 to his achievement of eudaimonia, Ei, is greater than what P1 gives to Pz's achievement of
eudaimonia, Ez. In other words, it is perfectly consistent for
eudaimonia to be an objective value and yet so essentially related
to persons that Ei gives P1 the primary moral responsibility
of achieving Ei without implying any such responsibility for P1
achieving E2.
Second, for everyone to recognize the objective worth of
eudaimonia does not mean that one person's achievement of
eudaimonia is the same as another's. As Henry Veatch has observed:
If the good of X is indeed but the actuality of X's potentialities, then

this is a fact that not just X needs to recognize, but anyone and
everyone else as well. And yet given the mere fact that a certain
good needs to be recognized, and recognized universally, to be the
good of X, it by no means follows that X's good must be taken to
be Y's good as well, any more than the actuality or perfection or
fulfillment of X needs to be recognized as being the actuality or perfection or fulfillment of Y as well.7
Eudaimonia is not something abstract any more than our humanity is some amorphous, undifferentiated universal. Eudaimonia
is to be found in the completion of our individual potentials.
Third, universalization of the claim " One ought to actualize
his innate potential worth " does not justify ( 5). It can be true
that if actualizing P1's innate potential worth is a basis or reason
for P1 taking a certain action, then P2 actualizing his innate potential worth is also a reason for P2 taking a certain action, but
this does not show either that P1's innate potential worth is P2's
or that P1 has any reason to assist, or even not interfere with, P2's
attaining his innate potential worth. Thus, it does not seem that
1 Henry B. Veatch, "Ethical
Egoism, New Style: Should Its Trademark
Be Libertarian Or Aristotelian ?," Swimming Against the Current in Contemporary Philosophy (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1990), p. 194.

RECLAIMING

LIBERALISM

115

Norton can find a justification for (5) by simply appealing to the
objective character of eudaimonia. 8
Is there any other premise to which Norton appeals? Norton
also holds that eudaimonism rejects the idea that a human being
is an isolated atom and holds (7) that human beings are inherently social beings. Maybe this premise will allow Norton to justify
( 5). It depends on the plausibility of what Norton takes the inherent sociality of human beings to mean or imply. To say that
we as human beings are inherently social certainly means that
our natural origin is within society, not some state of nature, and
that each of us needs to associate and cooperate with others in
order to fulfill our individual innate potential worth, but to say
this is neither to affirm nor to imply ( S). The fact that human
beings are naturally social does not establish that there are individual rights or even interpersonal duties; rather, it creates
the necessity for attempting to determine what the basic principles of human social, political, and legal life should be. How
can the individual innate potential worth of each and every person be achieved in a manner consistent with the inherent sociality
of persons? Something stronger than ( 7) is needed to answer
this question.
Norton links (7) with a claim about the "common good" of
a society. Eudaimonism holds (8) that "the common good is
no more and no less than the particular goods of individuals in
complementary interrelationship." 9 Norton claims that the complementary interrelationship of goods
is implicit in the fact that the good that is to be actualized, conserved,
and defended-the good that represents the individual's achieved
identity-is an objective good, that is, it is of value to others no less
than to the individual who actualizes it. Because this is so, no life
can be said to be fulfilled whose worth is not recognized and utilized
by (some) other persons in their own self-actualizing enterprises.
Correspondingly every well-lived life must utilize values produced by
s It is not true that unless X or X-ing is good for everyone, then it cannot
be good for anyone.
e Democracy and Moral Development, p. 124.

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DOUGLAS

B. RASMUSSEN

(some) other well-lived lives. And this is to say that within a society, every person has a legitimate interest in the essential personhood of every other. 10
The move from " some other " to " every other " in the above
quotation is legitimated, Norton claims, by the fact that those
who produce the values upon which you or I rely have need of
values which are produced by others, who in turn have need of
values produced by others, and so on. This forms the basis for
a community of true individuals.
While it is certainly true that the actualization of a person's
innate potential worth is caught up in various kinds of relationships with other persons, there are still some problems with this
argument. The fact that a significant number of a person's potentialities are other-oriented in nature does not show either (a)
that the actualization of P2's potential is or should be of the same
worth to P1 as the actualization of his own potential or (b) that
the fulfillment of P1's potential cannot be achieved without the
fulfillment of every other person's potential. Surely, there are
some other persons whose well-being is intimately tied up in my
own, and maybe an empirical case can be made that shows how
in certain circumstances my well-being and that of every other
person amount to the same thing. Yet this is not something that
flows from the very nature of eudaimonia. It is not something
known a priori. To use Norton's very words, "a duty to self
can be at the same time a duty to others," 11 but this does not
suffice to establish that every person's well-being requires an interest and concern in the well-being of every other person. Nor
does it establish ( 5).
Before ending these comments I cannot help but observe that
Norton's argument-though certainly powerful and moving in
many ways-seems disconnected. Norton states very early in
Democracy and Moral Development that eudaimonia is an inclusive end and that according to this interpretation it is openended, that is, it allows for "a multiplicity of kinds of self-actualio Ibid., p. 124.

n Ibid., p. 119 (my emphasis).

RECLAIMING

LIBERALISM

117

izing lives directed toward a multiplicity of ends." 12 But if this
is true, then eudaimonism, though an objective good, is also an
individualized and agent-relative good, and it is only in terms of
abstract principles that we can speak of e.udaimonia being the
same thing for different people.18 It is not concretely the same
thing for any Smith and Jones. 14 However, it does not seem that
Norton recognizes the implications of this position for his evaluation of the economic decisions of people in the classical liberal
society. Norton speaks of people being distracted from actualizing their innate potential worth by possessions that possess
them and holds that no one has a right to more of a good than
he or she can utilize. He speaks, for example, of people owning
sports cars they cannot utilize or whose utilization takes them
away from their life course. But, given Norton's view of eudaimonism, can such criticism be made from his philosophical armchair?
While misuse of goods by an individual is certainly a real possibility, this is not something that can be determined from a mere
abstract consideration of eudaimonia. If eudaimonia is truly individualized, then it achieves determinate from, i.e., becomes
something real, only in light of needs and circumstances that are
unique to the individual. In other words, there are individuative
features which are neither included nor implied by an abstract
12 Ibid., p. 6.
18 Consider the following statement by J. L. AckriU : " Aristotle may be
criticized for assuming that there is an answer to the question ' what is the best
life for man ? '-as opposed to the question ' what is the best life for this man or
that man ? ' He certainly does think that the nature of man-the powers and
needs all men have--<letermines the character that any satisfying human life
must have. But since his account of the nature of man is in general terms, the
corresponding specification of the best life for man is also general. So while
his assumption puts some limits on the possible answer to the question ' how
shall I live?,' it leaves considerable scope for a discussion which takes account of my individual tastes, capacities, and circumstances." Aristotle's
Ethics (New York: Humanities Press, 1973), pp. 19-20.
14 Showing that eudaimonia is not some kind of Platonic eidos or Aristotelian generic form was one of the central points of Norton's earlier book,
Personal Destinies: The Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1976).

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DOUGLAS .B. RASMUSSEN

account of human well-being that determine the proper weighting, valuation, pattern or balance of basic human goods for a
person. There is no preset weight or pattern that everyone
should have in order to self-actualize. Thus, when it comes to
determining just what eudaimonia concretely amounts to for a
person in certain circumstances, there is a central role for practical reason. The intellectual virtue of prudence 15 is absolutely
crucial. But practical reason only occurs when the individual
himself confronts the contingent and particular facts of his concrete situation and determines at the time of action what is in
that situation truly good for him. It is not something that Platonic Rulers or Norton can divine by some inspectio mentis procedure.
The individualized character of eudaimonia also has important
implications for how the relationship between ethics and politics
is conceptualized. Thus, when it comes to rejecting modernity's
divorce of politics from virtue, Norton should be more cautious.
Eudaimonism demands that severing any connection between
politics and ethics be rejected, but this does not require that
ethics and politics be identified or have the same function.
Neither does it require that " rights " be reducible without remainder to other moral concepts such as " responsibility,"
"duty," or even "justice." 16 Rather, "rights" may be an ethical concept that is not directly concerned with achieving self-perfection of individuals but instead with providing moral guidance
in the creation and interpretation of a political/legal context for
social life.
Indeed, given Norton's acceptance of an inclusive end interpretation of eudaimonia and dismissal of the idea that eudaimonia
requires a convergence toward a single form of life as objectively
the best, there is an important point to modernity's refusal to
collapse politics into ethics and its emphasis upon "rights." Since
pluralism and diversity necessarily characterize the actualization
by individuals of their innate potential worth and since an indi15 See Douglas J. Den Uy!, The Virtite of Prudence (New York: Peter
Lang, 1991) .
16 Nor does eudaimonia require that we assume that the goods of all individuals ideally exist in some complementary interrelationship.

RECLAIMING

LIBERALISM

119

vidual's worth can only be achieved with and among others, the
ethical principles employed to establish a political/legal context
for social life need to have a different function from those ethical
principles (e.g., the virtues) which guide individuals in seeking
self-perfection. The ethical principles 17 employed by politics need
to provide a standard for interpersonal conduct that favors no
particular form of self-perfection and at the same time provides a
context for diverse forms of self-perfection to be achieved. They
must allow for the compossible pursuit of self-perfection by each
and every individual in society. Hence, politics should employ
only those principles which, despite the diversity, deal with that
which is common to all acts of self-perfection and peculiar to
each. 18
It is at this point that the profound moral significance of a
liberal polity whose aim is not the creation of virtuous citizenry
but the protection of their equal negative liberty suggests itself.
The ethical principles a liberal polity employs (such as the natural right to equal negative liberty) in creating a political/legal
context for social life in which a citizen's self-direction or autonomy is protected may indeed be the proper political expression
of an ·eudaimonistic reclamation of liberalism. Though such a
polity would not guarantee that its citizens will be self-directed,
much less conduct their lives in self-perfecting ways, it would,
through a legal system dedicated to the protection of equal negative liberty, protect the possibility of their self-direction, and in
this way provide a connection 19 between ethics and politics. Examining this suggestion is, of course, a complicated task.
11 Since the ethical principles employed by politics are used to create a political/legal context in which people might go about the task of using normative
principles (e.g., the virtues) to achieve self-perfection, the ethical principles
employed by politics could be called "metanormative " principles. See Liberty
and Nature, pp. 96-115.
18 These principles must, in other words, be based on something in which
each and every person, in the concrete situation, has a necessary stake.
19 Norton does discuss the concept of " self-direction," but he seems to confuse it with "self-perfection." For an account of the crucial importance and
centrality of self-direction to an inclusivist conception of eudaimonia, see
Liberty and Nature, pp. 70-75 and pp. 92-96. Also, see The Virtue of Prudence, pp. 181-186.

THE START OF METAPHYSICS*
THEODORE

J. KoNDOLEON

Villanova University
Villanova, Pennsylvania

I

N HIS RECENTLY published book, John F. X. Knasas
seeks to answer this twofold inter-related question: What,
according to Saint Thomas's expressed teaching, is the subject of metaphysics and how does the human mind proceed to attain it for the purpose of study? While he acknowledges a debt
to Joseph Owens for certain of his basic positions, Knasas will
claim that the book's argument is original in the way in which
it opposes what he takes as realistically the subject of metaphysics
at its initial stage (or with the only understanding of beingens-metaphysics requires to begin) to what will become this science's subject at its later, more mature stage. Moreover, although
he may contradict himself on this point, he will reject, as Saint
Thomas's view, the position that a physical demonstration can
establish the existence of immaterial being, be it God or angels.
He will also argue at some length what he evidently considers a
crucial epistemic procedure for the start of metaphysics, viz., that
a series of judgments relating individuals back to their acts of
existence (from whence they were originally abstracted) is required for the "judgmentally constituted multitude" from which
the mind attains common being. Finally, since he will insist that
abstraction must be controlled by the data, he will allow no room
in Thomistic metaphysics for a beginning metaphysical intuition
in which being is seen as not necessarily linked to matter and motion, nor for an a priori approach to its subject which would start
*John F. X. Knasas, The Preface to Metaphysics: A Contribution to the
N eo-Thomist Debate on the Start of Metaphysics. New York: Peter Lang,
1990. Pp. 193.

121

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J. KONDOLEON

from the nature of the knowing subject, viz., the human intellect,
as open to and directed toward infinite being and intelligibility.
In what follows I will discuss (and critically assess) each of
these features of this book as well as address myself briefly to
certain things the author has to say about the Thomistic " five
ways."
In the first three chapters Knasas is primarily concerned with
showing that metaphysics cannot begin with a notion of being
understood in the sense of ens commune. This sense of the notion traditionally includes both material and immaterial being.
However, he argues, since (according to his reading of Aquinas)
only metaphysics can demonstrate the existence of immaterial being, its subject cannot, at least at its outset, encompass such being, not even as something conceivable. He therefore opposes the
view of Neo-Thomists who, basing themselve? on the now famous and frequently cited text from Saint Thomas's Expositio on
Boethius's De Trinitate (Question 5, article 3), insist that metaphysics begins with the recognition that being is something
separate from matter and motion (and not merely so in the
mind's consideration by abstraction). This separation is understood in the so-called negative judgment of separation: " it is
not of the nature of being to be in matter and motion (even
though it is sometimes found therein)."
On this point Knasas finds fault with " Natural Philosophy"
Thomists, among whom he includes the Dominicans L.-B. Geiger
(although this writer is barely mentioned and only in a footnote
discussion) and James Weisheipl, both of whom have argued
that the subject of metaphysics presupposes a demonstration from
natural philosophy that immaterial, unchanging being exists
(otherwise, they maintain, the separation of which Saint Thomas
speaks in the De Trinitate Commentary would have no fundamentum in re). Again, his main argument with these Thomists
is that no textual justification can be found for their view-indeed there is counter-textual evidence against it-that physical
philosophy proves the existence of immaterial being and that, in
the eyes of Aquinas, metaphysics awaits such a demonstration in
order to begin. He equally rejects the position, one which he at-

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tributes above all to Maritain, that, prior to any argument that
would establish the actual existence of God, being can be understood-and this thanks to an existential judgment in which existence is restored to the essence (for, in the act of simple apprehension, the essence has been considered in abstraction from existence) and the mind's focal point becomes the very act of to be of
things-as something not necessarily in matter and motion. In
this view, being is recognized from the outset as a transcendental
notion applicable, in an analogous manner, to all that is or can be
and as conceivably transcending the material and changing order.
Knasas disavows such a beginning for Thomistic metaphysics
since he thinks it unwarranted by anything given to the intellect
in direct and immediate human experience.
Finally, and in a similar empirical vein, he opposes Transcendental Thomism (here he singles out particular texts from
Marechal's Cahier V but also cites a few from Rahner's works)
and argues, not without textual support, that Thomistic metaphysics acknowledges no form of innate knowledge nor any initial subjective approach to philosophical knowledge of God based
on the immateriality of the human intellect and its consequent
natural tendency to infinite being and intelligibility. Knasas, it
should be noted, is fully aware that all these Thomists claim
some textual support for their views and see them to be in some
way secundum mentem Thomae; thus his dispute with them is,
in part, on textual grounds, he either interpreting the texts differently or else arguing that they are insufficiently conclusive to
establish his adversaries' positions.
For his part, Knasas would substitute for ens commun:e ( understood as including immaterial as well as material being)
habens esse (a "haver of existence") as the initial subject of
Thomistic metaphysics. Clearly one has ready access to this subject from the beings of his direct and immediate experience, without having to wait upon a prior demonstration of the existence
of immaterial being. Moreover, this position, Knasas also points
out, avoids the circularity involved in offering a metaphysical
argument for the existence of separate (i.e., immaterial) being
and/ or the textually unwarranted (if not questionable) view that

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a physical argument can establish its existence. Knasas finds
textual support for his view in Summa Theologiae I, q. 44, a. 2,
where Saint Thomas, tracing the development of ancient Greek
philosophy, notes its final arrival at a consideration of being
simply as being (ens inquantum est ens) and the subsequent inquiry into the cause of universal being. From this text, Knasas
argues, it can be inferred that metaphysics need only begin with
material beings qua being as its subject or with the general notion of habens esse (where the haver of existence is material substance) and then proceed from there to the First Cause of being
(viz., God). (In light of the importance of this text to Knasas' s
argument as to what constitutes the starting subject of Thomistic
metaphysics, it is somewhat surprising that he fails to quote it,
either in Latin or in English, but seems content merely to paraphrase it.) Knasas also contends that the notion of habens esse,
as the initial subject of metaphysics, implies existential judgments which regard two components in material beings, viz.,
essence and existence. Incidentally, he does credit Maritain with
drawing attention to the existence element in the notion of being
and in insisting that it is something given in a judgment of existence.
In Chapter Five (" Ens Commune") Knasas argues that
once the existence of immaterial being is established, habens esse
then becomes recognized as a commonality which need not be
confined to bodies. In other words, it becomes equated with the
traditional subject of metaphysics, ens commune. Yet he also
maintains here, as well as earlier in Chapter One, that ens commune is a commonality whose notion includes the (presumably
real) composition of essence and existence in the beings encompassed within its range. Consequently, as he had noted in
Chapter Four (p. 53), " God cannot fall under ens" and therefore, by implication, cannot be part of the subject of metaphysics:
indeed, according to Knasas, He stands outside this subject as
its cause. Yet, it should be noted, earlier in the same chapter, on
page 48, in expositing Thomas's teaching on naming God, Knasas
had also observed that names free of materiality, e.g. ens, are
properly said of God. (Whether his later statement in this

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chapter represents a contradiction on his part or simply reflects
what, for him, is an ambiguity in Saint Thomas's teaching on
this matter, this reviewer has no way of knowing, but it is seemingly the latter.) In any event, he goes on to say that the notion
of ens must be subtracted so that the subject (or haver) of existence is removed and only esse remains; it is this notion, viz.,
esse commune, which analogously applies to God. (Whether this
is a textually justified position or not is a question to which I
shall return later.)
But to come to what this reviewer found to be the most perplexing part of the book's entire discussion, it is Knasas's account (in Chapters Four and Six) of how the mind is to attain
the commonality habens esse as the initial subject of Thomistic
metaphysics. Again, it should be noted that, for Knasas, this notion takes cognizance of the (presumably real) composition of
essence and existence in material beings. Let me attempt to summarize here, accurately I hope, the series of steps he sees to be
involved in this procedure. Perhaps the first that should be noted
is the consideration of the class essence in abstraction from existence, the consideration of which Aquinas speaks in several places
in his early work On Being and Essence. However, to be assured
that this abstraction is distinct from the abstraction of the essence
from designated matter and thereby avoid a " redundancy problem," one must first abstract the individual from its real existence.
Now in order to do this one must also recognize that the individual has two existences : one a real existence and the other a
cognitional one (the reader is only told, in the later account in
Chapter Six, that this cognitional existence is in the order of
sense knowledge). What is common here, viz., the individual,
can now be considered apart from both modes of existence and
thus be regarded as "existentially neutral." After a number of
such considerations (i.e., of individuals apart from their real and
cognitional existences), one can proceed to abstract the specific
essence from existence with the understanding that this abstraction is not the same as its abstraction from designated matter.
Then, in the " fly-back activity " of judgment, one's intellect
composes the specific essence with some individual and ultimate-

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ly composes the individual with its real esse (of which the intellect now attains a " distinct perception "). Thus the object of
the judgment act is ultimately " a particular habens esse." Finally, from "a judgmentally constituted multiplicity" one's intellect
again abstracts to attain the commonality, and the analogous notion, ens, in the habens esse sense.
In Chapter Six, Knasas also develops an argument for God's
existence which claims to follow Aquinas's thought in Chapter
Four of On: Being and Essence. The argument is presented in
seven steps, one of which acknowledges that esse is something
" accidental " to the haver of existence, which, in this case, is
the essence or substance of a material being. One would think
that the distinction in question must be recognized as a real, not
merely as a conceptual distinction, if it is to support an argument
for God's existence which entails the premise that if existence is
something extrinsic to the essence of a being then it must be
something caused either by the intrinsic principles of the essence
or by an extrinsic cause. Yet Knasas argues in a footnote discussion (p. 51, n. 41) that" it is not clear whether the distinction
is just conceptual or also real" and concludes " In my opinion,
the De ente text does not presuppose the real distinction." (It is
obvious that in this matter Knasas is following Owens; it is just
as obvious, at least to this reviewer, that if esse is regarded, as
it is in this text, as something extrinsic to the essence and as
something caused either by the essential principles or by an extrinsic cause, then esse is being understood here as something
really distinct from the essence.) From the fact that esse is recognized as something accidental to the essence and as something
that cannot be caused by its intrinsic principles, Knasas argues
(following the text), then it can be inferred that it must be extrinsically caused, ultimately by the being whose essence is to
exist, viz., God.
Finally, in Chapter Seven Knasas offers his own rendition of
Aquinas's quinque viae. Here he is concerned to bring out the
" existential " dimension of these arguments, something he says
Aquinas neglects to do. However, that he sees the Fourth Way
as giving evidence of this neglect is certainly not indicated by his

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own presentation of it (indeed, it bespeaks just the opposite).
Yet the most " eccentric " part of this discussion concerns
Knasas's interpretation of the argument from motion (in the
words of Aquinas, "the most obvious way" viz., the prima via).
Evidently following Gilson and Owens, he interprets it not as a
physical argument, i.e., as an argument from motion, but as a
metaphysical one, i.e., as an argument from the existence of motion. Indeed, in Knasas' s interpretation, the argument becomes
an argument from participation. In his own words, "it seems
clear that the cause of the motion's existence can only be a thing
whose nature is existence . . . The unmoved mover causes motion by causing the esse of the particular nature that is motion "
(p. 158). Thus motion is given a particular nature and an esse
befitting that nature, thereby seemingly becoming a participated
being. This interpretation would appear to be in opposition to
Saint Thomas's view that motion is something incomplete and,
consequently, not something that participates esse (since what
has existence is in some way something complete or actual).
There are numerous other things which this reviewer finds
objectionable in this book; however, it would be impossible as
well as inappropriate to consider them all here. But to mention
briefly just some of them, there would seem to be no textual
justification for Knasas's assertion (on pp. 105 and 109) that
Aquinas represents God by the analogous notion of esse commune. "Being," as a name said of God, is usually expressed by
Aquinas by the Latin noun ens. (In other words, names said of
God must signify something subsisting.) There is also the perplexing, if not unduly complicated, procedure that Knasas would
have us engage in to attain the metaphysical notion of being.
Furthermore, that it involves judgment acts in which the mind
attains a " distinct perception " of particular individuals' acts of
to be reflects, I believe, a misunderstanding of Saint Thomas's
epistemology. Knowledge that our intellectual notion of being
represents the individual being is only reflex and indirect via a
conversion to the phantasm. It should also be noted in this connection that the analogous character of the notion of being is
best seen when the notion is predicated of the various classes of

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being, and of finite and infinite being. (This observation similarly applies to the gradation or hierarchy in being, where the gradation, on the finite level, is considered in terms of the degree
of limitation the class essence places upon the existing beings in
the class.) Knasas, perhaps following Gilson and Owens here,
neglects to bring out this noetic point due to his emphasis on
individual being as the ultimate form of reality. Moreover, his
phraseology (a phraseology which he repeats several times) " a
judgmentally constituted multiplicity" suggests a subjectivistic
idealistic epistemology that he would doubtlessly wish to avoid
in any form. Perhaps what he intends to say here is "a judgmentally known constituted multiplicity."
Two final objections, if I may. In the context of his argument with "Natural Philosophy" Thomists, Knasas
(p.
36) that he finds no textual evidence that Aquinas gives natural
philosophy an ability to prove separate substance. This statement seems, at least to this reviewer, to be contradicted by the
thoroughly Aristotelian character of Aquinas's argument in
Summa contra Gentiles I, Chapter 13, for an Unmoved Mover
(whom he will identify as God). According to Knasas' s interpretation of this text (p. 53) the "natural philosophy" part of
the argument only argues for an immobile part of an immobile
(sic.) self-movement. However, he goes on to say that Aquinas
"by a posterior argument at Summa Theologiae I, 70, 3, ...
argues that this soul is best construed as a separate substance."
(But perhaps this latter argument is also "metaphysical" since
its conclusion is an intellectual substance as mover!) Again, it
seems incorrect to say that separate substances are " metaphysically reached " insofar as they are (actually or possibly) the
causes of the esse of generable things by causing (as universal
causes) their substantial forms through their motion of the
heavenly spheres (see p. 112). For Saint Thomas, angelic beings
are not " metaphysically reached " by any a posteriori argument
having to do with motion or change; the arguments he presents
for their existence are truly metaphysical in character and involve
the notion of the completion of the finite hierarchy and/or the
notion of perfection. (On this matter see his Disputed Question

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De Spiritualibus Creaturis, article 5; see also Summa contra
Gentiles, Book II, ch. 46.)
My last objection concerns Knasas's representation of the position espoused by Transcendental Thomists. I find it less than
fair and accurate. For example, his observation " Echoing separatio Thomists, Transcendental Thomists grasp esse in judgment. Yet esse is now divine esse and judgment is an a priori
dynamism to that term" (p. 47). This statement could leave
one with the impression that Transcendental Thomists are ontologists. Again, Knasas seems to pass over, conveniently for his
purpose here, a text in which Aquinas acknowledges the active,
causal role of the agent intellect, i.e., of its dematerializing and
unifying function so far as its product, the intelligible object, is
concerned. I refer to Summa Theologiae I, Question 84, article
1. In this text, one widely known to Thomists, Thomas, partly
in sympathy with Plato, points out that the intellect knows in an
absolute (i.e., simple or unified), immaterial, and unchanging
way what exists in reality in a manifold, material and changing
way (for what exists in the knower exists there according to the
mode of the knower). Thus Knasas's statement on page 64 "In
contrast Aquinas presents the intellect simply as a condition for
knowledge ... the intellect never has a constitutive function ...
the nature of a cognitive power merely determines the range of
what is known, not how it is known,'' is mistaken on two scores.
As we have seen, the intellect, according to Thomas's teaching,
does determine how a thing is known, viz., in an absolute, or immaterial and unchanging way. Moreover, the intellect is not
simply a condition of knowledge, or a necessary condition of
knowledge (p. 61). The agent intellect is also a cause of knowledge, as Knasas implicitly acknowledges elsewhere in this discuss10n.
In conclusion let me say that Knasas's book is bound to be a
controversial one (as this reviewer's discussion of it has already
shown). While his effort to show that Thomistic metaphysics
emphasizes existence is indeed commendable, I believe it misfires
because of certain excesses in his interpretation of this most important aspect of Saint Thomas's thought. This may be seen in

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his " existential " reading of the prima via and in the epistemic
claim about direct intellectual knowledge of a particular individual's act of to be. And, on the other side of the coin, even
though this book at its outset and in its middle chapters does
acknowledge that the commonality habens esse takes cognizance
of two components in material beings, viz., essence and existence,
one is not quite certain, in light of his interpretation of Aquinas's
argument in De ente, Chapter Four, whether this composition is
acknowledged, all along, to be a composition of two really distinct principles. Finally, to close on a non-controversial point, I
noted just two typographical errors: on page 98 " substracting"
appears for the word "subtracting"; and on page 138 "cogition" appears instead of "cognition."

RAHNER ON THE UNORIGINATE
A COMMENT
PETER

R

FATHER:

c. PHAN

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

OBERT WARNER, in his article" Rahner on the Unoriginate Father," * critically investigates Karl Rahner's
interpretation of the New Testament usage of ho theos
as God the Father and his proposal to identify God the Father as
the unoriginate. In this brief note I would like to respond to his
criticisms and propose some further issues for reflection on
Rahner's trinitarian theology.
I. Rahner' s Thesis

Rahner's position can be summarized as follows:
( 1) The New Testament uses the word ho theos not only to
indicate (" stand for " or " refer to " = supponere) but also to
signify or mean ( significare) God the Father. In other words,
"God" in the New Testament does not mean "divine nature"
( divinitas or deitas) but the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the concrete person who possesses unoriginately the divine nature
and communicates it to the Son by eternal generation and to the
Spirit by active spiration. According to Christian revelation,
then, " God " is the f ons trinitatis. The Son and the Spirit are
" God " only insofar as they receive their " nature " from the act
of self-communication of the Father.
(2) God the Father, insofar as he is God not by receiving the
divine nature from anyone but is himself the source of divinity, is
properly called the unoriginate.
*The Thomist, 55, 4, October, 1991, pp. 569-593.

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( 3) This unoriginateness of the Father is known only by
revelation (" concrete unoriginateness "). Philosophy can know
only divine uncreatedness or aseity (God as agenetos, not as
agennetos). However, since there is only one God and since this
one God is the Father, what philosophers know, in Christian
perpective, is this God the unoriginate, even though they do not
know God as the unoriginate, that is, as the Father of Jesus
Christ and Spirator of the Spirit. Philosophers know, in Rahner's
terminology, "total unoriginateness."
( 4) There are then two central claims : (a) " God " means
the Father; (b) the "Father " means the unoriginate-who-communicates-himself-to-the-Son-and-the-Spirit. It is of paramount
importance to remember that when Rahner speaks of the Father
as the unoriginate, he never separates him from his relationships
to the Son and the Spirit. As a matter of fact it is precisely in
these relationships in the history of salvation that we know the
Father as the unoriginate.

II. Warner's Critique
Warner's criticisms of Rahner's understanding of the Father
as the unoriginate are as follows :
( 1) Rahner is guilty of contradiction in maintaining that x
(the first Trinitarian hypostasis) is both absolutely and relatively unoriginate.
(2) There is another self-contradiction: unoriginateness means,
by definition, incommunicable. How then can the Father who
is identified with the unoriginate communicate himself?
( 3) A third contradiction: if the act of self-communication of
the unoriginate is free, then the unoriginate is free to be Father
or not, free to be a trinity or not; if it is necessary, then the unoriginate is rationally deducible and hence philosophically knowable. Either option is liable to the charge of heresy.
( 4) Rahner' s notion of the Father as the unoriginate suggests
that there is an abyss lying behind the Father. Rahner's identification of the Christian notion of the unoriginate in trinitarian
theology with the philosophical notion of the abyss does not allow

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him to attach any concrete determination (such as Fatherhood)
to his concept of God.

III. Rejoinder
I would like to examine each of Warner's objections in turn.
( 1) Rahner does not assert that the same x (the first trinitarian person) is both absolutely and relatively unoriginate at the
same time. Rather what is affirmed is that Christians know God
as the concrete unoriginate and that philosophers know the same
God but not as the concrete unoriginate but as the total unoriginate. There is no contradiction in saying that the same thing is
known in two different ways. For Rahner there is no other God
than the Father of Jesus Christ and the Spirator of the Spirit,
so that if philosophers know God (and Rahner maintains they
do), then they know the God whom Christians profess, though
not as Christians profess him. In reality, then, there is only concrete unoriginateness which is constituted by the Father's selfcommunication to his Son and his Spirit. Note that total unoriginateness is not aseity but concrete unoriginateness known
implicitly. Hence total unoriginateness and concrete unoriginateness (or unoriginateness and Fatherhood) do not " move in opposite directions," as Warner alleges (p. 587), rather the former
is the implicitly known form of the latter.
(2) It is true that the notion of self-communication plays a
pivotal role in Rahner's theology. But it is false to say that " unoriginatedness is, by definition, incommunicable " or that " it
represents that in God which cannot be transmitted and the permanent logical bar to the very possibility of a complete self-communication " (pp. 587-588). First of all, it is simply not true
that what is unoriginated is ipso facto incommunicable. Not being originated (a passive state) does not of itself preclude communication of oneself (an activity in another respect).
But this is perhaps not what Warner means to say. Rather he
takes self-communication of the unoriginate (or Father) to mean
communication of the unoriginateness (or fatherhood) to another, and hence he sees a logical contradiction in maintaining
unoriginateness and self-communication simultaneously. But, of

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course, that is not what Rahner (nor Christian theology in general) intends with the notion of the self-communication of God.
When we say that the Father gives himself to the Son, we do not
mean that the Father gives his fatherhood to the Son. Rather
we mean that what the Father gives his Son is not something
other than what he is but his very being divine insofar as he is
fans divinitatis. Similarly, when we say that the Father (or the
unoriginate) gives himself to us in history in self-communication,
we do not mean that he gives us his fatherhood (or unoriginateness), but that he gives nothing other than himself by giving us
his Son and his Spirit in whose model (the Son) and by whose
power (the Spirit) we can call God our Father.
That Rahner insists on the " distance and inaccessibility " of
the Father who " remains the incomprehensible " in his self-communication, as Warner correctly points out (p. 588), is to be
attributed to his conviction that the Father qua Father cannot
be sent because he is the unoriginate, as Thomas Aquinas himself argues (ST, I, q. 43, a. 4). But this does not mean that the
Father is somehow not really and truly present to us so that
" God's transcendence competes with God's capacity for fellowship," as Warner puts it (p. 588). The Father is himself present
and given to us " mediately " in and through his Son and his
Spirit. In this way grace is always trinitarian in nature.
(3) Warner's third objection claims that Rahner's attempt to
make a transition from the economic Trinity to the immanent
Trinity in his trinitarian theology suffers from a logical inconsistency insofar as it affirms that the act of God's self-communication is both free and necessary. Or, as Warner puts it, it is a
" necessary accident," an obvious oxymoron (p. 590). There is
no doubt that for Rahner God's act of self-communication is free,
and therefore cannot be deduced from the concept of God as the
unoriginate or Father.
But in what sense can it be said to be necessary? Only in the
sense that if God wants freely to communicate himself to us, he
can only communicate himself as triune, because that is what God
is if what he communicates is himself, in his Word and Spirit,
which is the only way humans can receive him. What is neces-

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sary is not the act of self-communication (which remains a free,
undeducible historical fact), but its structure, which Rahner derives by way of "transcendental deduction,'' as opposed to a
priori deduction and a mere a posteriori induction from facts.
Does this necessary trinitarian structure of divine revelation
mean that philosophy can grasp, as Warner claims (p. 590), the
revealed God as triune? Not at all, because it is only in faith
that one can grasp the triune God. Warner assumes that everything that is necessary is ipso facto available to reason. But that
is not the case. It is quite possible that something necessary becomes clear to reason only after it is revealed, and then not even
by rationes necessariae, but only by rationes con'Venientiae. The
necessary trinitarian structure of divine self-communication derives from the necessary relations in God, even though such necessary relations are known to us only by God's self-manifestation.
Indeed, according to Catholic dogma, these trinitarian relations,
though necessary in themselves, will remain forever a mystery
to the human mind.
( 4) Finally, Warner suggests that behind Rahner's trinitarian
concept of the unoriginate lurks the philosophical concept of the
abyss with which the unoriginate is identified. In footnote 60,
he mentioned Schelling's romantic idealism as a possible source
for Rahner's speculation and adds, cryptically, that Rahner'strinitarian theology amounts to a " trinitarian theogony " that
only marginally offers a more appealing alternative to Hegel's
notion of Absolute Spirit. It is true that at the University of
Freiburg Rahner took two courses on Hegel's Phanomenologie
des Geistes and one course on Schelling's Uber das Wesen der
menschlichen Freiheit under M. Heidegger. It is also true that
Rahner frequently uses the language of abyss in speaking of God.
But is Rahner's notion of the ursprungslos the theological
equivalent of Schelling's (or Jacob Boehme's) Ungrund and vice
versa? It does not seem likely. For one thing, Rahner's trinitarian theology is deeply rooted in the New Testament data regarding ho theos as Father, Rahner's exegesis of which Warner
gives a brief summary (pp. 571-574) but unfortunately does not
pronounce whether it is right or wrong. It is not the fruit of

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philosophical speculation on the Ungrund out of which the Trinity and the spiritual and physical universes come (Jacob Boehme)
or on the " eternal contrariety " forever alienating himself from
himself (Schelling).
Furthermore, the abyss, as Warner correctly points out, is
"formless ontologically" (p. 592), whereas Rahner's notion of
the Father as the unoriginate is anything but that. Again
Rahner's description of the Father as the unoriginate based on
New Testament data in the article "Theos in the New Testament " is sufficient rebuttal of the view that the unoriginate is
" formless ontologically."

IV. Further Questions
Having examined the validity of Warner's criticisms of
Rahner's concept of God the Father as the unoriginate, I would
like now to offer some alternative proposals.
In rejecting Rahner's view of the Father as the unoriginate,
Warner appeals to Thomas Aquinas's treatment of the notiones
(pp. 581-583). Basically he accepts Thomas's view that innascibility does not constitute personhood in the Trinity, because it is
" a negative, affirming nothing" (ST, I, q. 40, a. 3, ad 3).
There are, in Thomas's opinion, only three person-constituting
properties, namely fatherhood, sonship, and passive spiration.
Since trinitarian persons are constituted by relations and since
innascibility does not indicate relation, except negatively, innascibility is not a person-constituting property.
A few observations should be made in this regard. First of
all, even though Thomas holds that relations rather than origins
constitute personhood in the Trinity (ST, I, q. 40, a. 2), his
position is nuanced. He acknowledges that divine persons are
distinguished both by relations and origins ( licet enim distinguantur utroque modo), since relations are brought about by
origination, even though he goes on to say that in his opinion it
is better to say (melius dicitur) that persons are distinguished by
relations first and foremost (prius et principalius).
However, Thomas's position is not without ambiguity. Since
trinitarian relations are rooted in origination, it must be said

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that ultimately and ontologically divine persons are distinguished
by their origination or their relations of origin. In fact, the first
question on the Trinity ( q. 27) deals with processions rather
than with relations, which can be intelligently discussed only subsequently ( q. 28).
Furthermore, is it adequate to say that in the first person of
the Trinity innascibility or unoriginateness is merely " negative,
affirming nothing " ? Bonaventure's view that ingenitus refers to
the fruitfulness of the Father [generat quia innascibilis (I Sent.
28, 1, 2, ad 3) J and that divine persons are constituted prior to
their relations cannot be dismissed lightly. In patristic tradition,
agennesia as applied to the Father indicates more than just lack
of relation or origin; it describes the Father as principiuni sine
principio, principiuni fontale, autotheos, ho theos epi panton.
Likewise, it would seem that Rahner's use of "unoriginate"
is much more than a negative assertion that the Father is not
originated like the Son and the Spirit. Rather it serves to emphasize the fact that it is only because the Father, as the unoriginate, is the underived infinite richness of being, truth and love
that he generates and spirates-generat quia innascibilis-to use
Bonaventure's expression. Furthermore, for Rahner, the unoriginateness of the Father should never be separated conceptually
from his generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit,
because that is how we experience him in the history of salvation.
But why, one may ask, does Rahner use this negative term
(taken in the privative sense, at least since Thomas) to express
something infinitely positive? Though Rabner has not explicitly justified the use of this term, several reasons readily come to
mind. First, the term recovers an ancient tradition which
ascribes a rich connotation to it and which is not done justice
to by Thomas. Secondly, by its apparently negative character it
serves well to retrieve the mystical tradition which privileges
the incomprehensibility of God. Thirdly, it is in accord with his
reductio in niysteriuni as expounded in his theology of mystery.
Lastly, it leaves open the question, at this stage of his trinitarian
theology, of whether the term " person " would be appropriate
today for a theology of the Trinity.

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C. PHAN

The foregoing defense of Rahner against Warner's strictures
should not be construed as an endorsement of Rahner's trinitarian theology inJ toto. Indeed, there are quite a few important
questions that beg for answers. In honor of the Trinity let me
mention only three. First, how does one apply Rahner's theology
of the symbol to the procession of the Spirit? It seems clear
enough that the Son can be said to be the symbol of the Father
in Rahner's ontology of symbol, but how does the Spirit fit in?
Secondly, given Rahner's Grunda.x-iom that the economic Trinity
is the immanent Trinity and vice versa, how does the event of
the Cross bear on our understanding of the immanent Trinity?
Should one accept von Balthasar's theologoumenon of a supratemporal " event " of suffering love in the inner trinitarian life
or Moltmann's bolder speculation on the Cross as the breakdown
of trinitarian relations? Thirdly, is not Rabner too dependent
on the Enlightenment conception of "person" as center of consciousness so that he is overly suspicious of the term in developing his trinitarian theology? Should one not make use of perichoresis, as Leonardo Eoff has done, as the central concept for a
theology of the Trinity?
These are weighty and obscure enough questions to be addressed to Rabner' s trinitarian theology and I do not pretend to
do anything more than raise them here. What I have shown,
I hope, is that Warner's criticisms of Rahner's concept of the
Father as the unoriginate do not hit the mark, or if they do, they
are not fatal.

BOOK REVIEWS
The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. Vol. VI: Theology:
The Old Covenant. By HANS Uns VoN BALTHASAR. Trans. Brian
McNeil, C.R.V. and Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis. Ed. John Riches.
San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991. Pp. 443.

In this penultimate-volume of The Glory of the Lord, von Balthasar
sets forth a " biblical aesthetics " in which the manner of the emergence of the Glory of God in the world of man is spelled out. He
proceeds by examining the bewildering variety of the manifestations
of God's Glory in the Old Testament, but always as unified in their
historical convergence upon Jesus, the Christ, the final and definitive
presence in history of the divine Glory in whom Word and Image,
Messiah and Servant, Son of Man and Son of God, are at one. This
manner of proceeding is little consonant with contemporary Catholic
exegesis, which prefers to regard the Old Testament as a free-standing
hook, and is rather fastidious about reading it as " literally " the prologue and the Sitz im Leben of the New. For such exegetes, the literal
and the historical senses are entirely distinct, because of their methodological enlistment in the historical pessimism of the Enlightenment.
Balthasar, of course, is not of their camp.
Balthasar's mastery of Old Testament exegesis is on a par with the
effortless command of the Western philosophical, theological, and literary tradition which he has displayed in the earlier volumes of this
work. While he relies heavily upon von Rad, a glance at the index
shows that his knowledge of Old Testament scholarship is based upon
a wide reading, upon which he levies throughout the book with practiced ease. The exegetical method implicit in his analysis is the one
employed by scholars such as de Lubac, Guillet, and Ligier; its classic
Augustinian understanding of the free unity of history, and of the consequently free meaning of Old Testament and the New as fulfilled in
the Kingdom of God, needs no apology. The currently common supposition that the " literal " sense of Scripture is that which an Enlightened positivism will permit needs only to be recognized to be rejected.
In the opening pages of the Introduction Balthasar sets the theme
which will dominate the book: the rationally irresolvable dialectical

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tension between God and all that is not God, a tension inherent in the
revelation of the Glory of God. In keeping with the emphasis of his
earlier volumes, Balthasar is insistent upon the radical gratuity of the
revelation of the Glory of God. The revelatory manifestation of
God as God, who is beyond all perception, all knowing, all communication, and yet is communicated, perceived the more surely where the
more veiled, and definitively revealed on the Cross. The revelation of
God's Glory is of God as the Absolutely Other, as formless, and so as
in tension with all form which would mediate the revelation. This
communication, this mediation, is utterly ex nihilo; it relies upon no
capacity in man, upon no natural process of spiritual development, and
is unrelated to, because absolutely transcendent to, all human projects.
Impossible to prepare for, the manifestation is constantly new, arising
out of no prior possibility in man or his world, and responding to nothing in him which might make the revelation capable of anticipation.
The paradox of God's self communication of his formless Glory is then
beyond all utterance, and yet is uttered, given form: the final Form is,
of course, the Christ.
This is the basic datum, the ground upon which all theology rests,
and is pure grace, a gift beyond all expectation, incapable of being
imagined. All the preparatory Old Testament images finally fail. The
paradox, the self communication of God who is beyond all utterance,
yet is uttered, has its resolution only in the Form, the personal unity,
of Christ. The revelation always at once transcends and assimilates
the concrete historical forms by which it is mediated. The pagan materials are transformed by their historical deployment in the revelatione.g., the pagan myths of creation, of divine wars and marriages, the
pagan wisdom-and in their deployment, they converge, hut not within
the Old Testament. The utterance, the revelation of Glory in the Old
Testament, however luminous, remains fragmented, for the sole unity
of the Old Testament revelation of Glory is proleptic. Its unity is revealed in the unanticipatable historical Form of Christ, in which all
the fragmentary Old Testament revelation is completed and fulfilled,
and thereby recognized as anticipatory, and because anticipatory, as
unified, as the revelation of Glory.
In an earlier volume, Balthasar has observed that the Old Testament
is the path from paganism to Christianity. He will allow the Old Testament no autonomous value, no autonomous " literal sense " possessing
revelatory value. This does not prevent, but rather warrants, his discriminating and brilliant exposition of the historical, prophetic and
wisdom literature of the Old Testament.
The perception of Glory (Balthasar considers the vision of Glory as
light/ darkness to he primary, and thus prior to any other manifestation
of Glory as word, image, or covenant) is always radically unprepared

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for, and always disconcerting to the point of shock. Its reception requires that the recipient transcend himself in an ecstasis, for he has no
powers of his own with which to respond. The perception of God's
Glory is inseparably the perception of God's supreme holiness and of
one's own uncleanliness. The grace of revelation is at once a judgment
upon sin and the purification of the recipient, and the historical confession of faith is always penitential as well as credal (204).
A review of this volume, as of its predecessors, must abandon any
pretense of summary. Balthasar's prodigious learning forbids that route
as an absurdity. However, systematic critique of the theological unity
of Balthasar's aesthetics may be of use to the prospective reader, if
only to suggest a provisional route through this formidable work. Little
more than suggestion of a point d'appui for the reader's own inquiry
can be attempted, but that has its importance. Balthasar is too important a theological resource to be read passively, for his work challenges the Christian understanding, and mere docile acceptance neither
meets that challenge, nor does it much honor a great theologian.
Balthasar's theological aesthetics has undoubtedly been influenced,
pro and con, by the dialectical theology of his great Calvinist counterpart, Karl Barth. For instance, on the negative side, Balthasar rejects
Barth's rigorous systematic construct as a deformation, and in rejecting Barth, rejects all system as inevitably trapping the Glory of God
in the necessary structures of formal logic, nullifying the freedom essential to the Glory of God. On the positive side, Balthasar accepts the
Barthian dialectic between creation and Covenant, which sees in creation the " outer ground " of the Covenant and in the Covenant the
"inner ground" of creation (88). But, curiously, Balthasar rejects
Barth's placing of the imaging of God in marriage (99). When discussing the image of husband and wife as employed in Hoseah, Balthasar twice insists that the symbolism is non-sexual, although it is
admittedly incarnate (23, 244).
While Balthasar is certainly correct in holding that the interpersonality which Barth considers to be the core of the marital imaging
of the Trinity is a concept far wider than the marriage relation, it is
rather the covenantal specificity of the marital relation, and its strict
association with the good creation in Genesis, that is pertinent for a
theology of Glory. This association is more than corroborated by the
Pauline assimilation to marriage of the Head-Body relation of Christ
to the Church, and thus to the New Covenant. Balthasar's objection
(99, n. 23) that "the second creation narrative speaks of sexual relationship so obliquely (woman comes from man; in Paradise there are
no children) that sexuality cannot be derived from man's original state
as image of God " ignores the rather pertinent Pauline teaching that
because the Body is from the Head, the Body is the Glory of the Head.

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Further, following Augustine in this, he forgets that it is not children
which complete the integral good creation of Adam and Eve, but the
marriage bond between them, the Covenant. Pope John Paul II has
given a repeated emphasis to this precise point. Balthasar's concern for
the Glory of God that is given in Christ can hardly ignore that the
Church is the Glory of Christ, and that the Christ, in whom Glory and
form are personally united, images the Father precisely by having a
Glory, which is to say, as the Second Adam, the source of the Second
Eve.
Balthasar's profound knowledge of the patristic tradition will have
reminded him of the common patristic interpretation of Christ's death
on the Cross as the deep sleep of the second Adam, in which the second
Eve is taken from his wounded side, the blood symbolizing the Euch·
arist and the water symbolizing Baptism. Clearly we have in the marital
relation between Adam and Eve, and between the second Adam and the
second Eve, much more than the interpersonality allowed by Barth
and evidently by Balthasar. If one may suppose that Christ's imaging
of the Father is fulfilled on the Cross, by which the New Covenant in
his blood is instituted, the marital character of that imaging is hard
to miss. But Balthasar speaks not of marriage; he refers rather to the
" sexual relationship " as a thing neutral or natural, but not inherent·
ly sacramental and thus not marital. But the marital symbolism used
to state the relation between God and his people, and therefore the marital symbolism of the Covenant itself, becomes more and more explicit
as we pass from Hoseah to Trito-lsaiah, where infidelity is routinely
assimilated to adultery and fornication. The femininity of the primeval
order of the good creation is further underwritten by the Wisdom litera·
ture; von Rad has stressed the femininity of the allure of created Wis·
dom and the masculinity of the response to her (see Wisdom in Israel
(1972), esp. ch. ix), as in Prov. 8:22, Sir. 14, 24, and Wis. 8. Balth·
asar acknowledges the femininity of Lady Wisdom (357), but finally
for him Wisdom is divine, not created (360). This reduces to mere
accommodationist metaphor the liturgical attribution of Wisdom to
Mary.
This raises a further difficulty in Balthasar's theology, one that is al·
ready present in his acceptance of Barth's dialectic of creation-Covenant. In what context are we to read the creation accounts in Genesis
with their representation of the integrally good creation whose goodness is complete with the appearance of Eve? Do these speak prophe·
tically of the Christ in such a manner that the Pauline idiom of " second Adam, second Eve" governs their real meaning? In a number of
places, Balthasar refers to the pre-existent Christ, the pre-existent
Church, and the pre-existent Covenant in a fashion consonant with the
Pauline imputation of primordiality to the Christ, as the second Adam,

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143

and to the Church, as the second Eve, and to the Covenant, as their
One Flesh. This imports the identity of the primordial and integral
Covenant with the good creation from which we are fallen, and so sets
a covenantal criterion for fallenness, which is neither from nor into
" nature,'' but is from the grace of Christ, of the Covenant, and thus
a rejection of the marital integrity of the Covenantal good creation.
Such a view rules out any consideration of a natural or ungraced creation. And yet, in Barth's view, and Balthasar's as well, such a creation,
opposed to the Covenant in the sense of being incapable of an unequivocal statement, is in some fashion its " outer ground."
The problem posed by this notion of the creation-Covenant dialectic
is of course that of the nature-grace relation. Barth supposes that creation (nature?) is prepared for and intended for grace. In the analytic
use of those terms, e.g., that given them by St. Thomas's act-potency
analysis, the statement so read is meaningless: uncovenanted creation
is ungraced by definition, without any possible analytic predisposition
for or concrete relation to grace and covenant as act to potency or potency to act. In fact, Balthasar insists upon their mutual exclusion
when speaking of the perception of the Glory of God. It is in precisely
the same sense that Barth was accustomed to speak of grace as " thrown
like a stone" before a totally unprepared recipient. The " dialectic"
of nature-grace, analytically understood, thus raises logical questions
to which, as Balthasar insists, there are no solutions.
Consequently we must drop as irrelevant to Balthasar's aesthetics the
analytic sense of the dialectic of nature and grace. Within that formally
logical context, the elements of that polarity have in fact never surmounted their logical contradiction. In any event, Balthasar opposes
that analytic context absolutely for theology.
There remains then the historical sense of nature and grace, the sense
proper to the phenomenological Augustinian tradition common to
Barth and to Baltbasar, in which nature is the historical or temporal
experiential prius of the grace of conversion or its free (and therefore
graced) refusal. From this theological stance, all of historical unity,
goodness, truth, and beauty is subject to the Lord of history, and no
part of the good creation, even as fallen, is untouched by that dominion,
which is neither forensic nor external, but inheres in the very constitution of creation of which Christ is Alpha and the Omega. But this
means that creation is " in Christ "; if there is a dialectical opposition
between creation and the Covenant instituted by Christ, it is free rather
than necessary, unless we take "creation " to be fallen as such, i.e.,
open to conversion. This cannot be what is meant by Barth, for such a
conclusion implies an ontological dualism which he would certainly
not accept, as Balthasar would not.
It would appear then that the dialectic upon which Balthasar insists

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between God and what is not God is ex peccato, although often
enough he treats it as though it were an implication of finitude and not
of fallenness. More often he simply ignores the distinction, which is
understandable, given his phenomenological methodology. Historically,
in the concrete, the creation and fallenness are in fact identical, in the
sense that all the historical creation is in fact fallen, the second Adam
and the second Eve excepted-for, as constituting in their One Flesh
the promordial covenantal prius, the good creation of which fallenness
is the free rejection, their involvement in our fallenness is redemptive
and not an unfree subjection to its necessities. Otherwise put, Christ
who is the Glory of God and the Church who is the Glory of the Glory
of God are veiled by fallenness hut are not fallen.
The historical sense of nature and grace, then, is that which recognizes the immanence of the Glory of God in the good hut fallen creation. This immanence is indeed dialectical, at once revealed and
hidden. The Old Testament and the New speak of it as veiled, and
Paul's development of this theme is familiar (2 Cor. 3:4-4:6). This
immanence of the Glory of God in history, in the historical creation,
emerges irresistibly throughout history into visibility and audibility,
and pervades history with its sovereign freedom. In fact, it is the immanence, quite evidently, of the Lord of history, whose Personal entry
into our fallenness-Logos sarx egeneto-is the final manifestation of
the Glory of God in the conception, the life, the death on the Cross,
and the Resurrection, of the Christ. Balthasar affirms this with admirable clarity. However, he thinks of this pre-existence in terms of
predestination, that is, statically and nonhistorically as a divine decree
or a divine idea and not as a concrete event in history (21).
But this immanence of Glory is historical and consequently it must
he dynamic, a free historical event. Further, this free immanenceevent engages not a fallen freedom, but the integral freedom of the
risen Glory of God, a freedom which, however veiled, is of the Lord of
history, who as Lord is not subject to recession in time and dissipation
in space: only the Lord of history is thus free of history, in history.
His freedom is obviously not that of the earthly Jesus, whose life
was lived in the context of our fallenness and mortality which he accepted freely as the free kenotic implication of his historical Mission
from his Father. Nor can this freedom be assigned simply to the risen
Christ, whose manifestation in our history ceased with the Ascension.
Clearly then we are speaking of the Eucharistic immanence of the risen
Christ, of the manifest Glory of God. It is this historical immanence
that alone provides the possibility of the revelation of the Glory of
God upon which Balthasar's theological aesthetics is intent.
Unless that Glory, as Image, as Covenant, and as Word, pervades all
of fallen time and space, all of the historical creation, its fragmentary

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manifestation-in the beauty of creation, in the patriarchal pre-history,
in the Noachic, Sinaitic, and Davidic covenants, in the historical events
of the Old Testament, in Old Testament prophecy, in the Temple
sacrifices, and in the Wisdom tradition-could never find integration
in Christ's Form. Neither, apart from that Eucharistic immanence of
the Glory of the Lord of history, could there be that quest, that anticipation of Glory, which Balthasar ascribes to the "realm of metaphysics." The integration of the perception of the Glory of God is
historical, not eschatological (204) ; that ongoing integration presupposes that history possesses a prior or primordial free unity which can
only be Eucharistic.
But it is curious that, while alluding to the Eucharist not infrequently, Balthasar appears to assign it a secondary role: it is consequence
rather than cause (e.g., 24). He affirms Origen's reduction, under Neoplatonizing influences, of the Eucharistic event to " a speech event"
(381) while insisting that this event is historical. Nonetheless he manifests here the hesitation before Eucharistic realism qua sacrificial which
emerges elsewhere in his works (e.g., Church and World, 1967, at 114,
125, 167). But only a sacrificial Eucharistic presence of the Christ
institutes the New Covenant; only if the Mass is thus the offering of
the One Sacrifice does it sign and effect the presence, per modum substantiae, of the New Covenant in history, by which history, as fallen,
is sacramental through the sacramental immanence of its Lord in One
Flesh union with the second Eve.
This raises a final point. Balthasar accepts a Neoplatonizing tradition in the patristic and spiritual literature---i.e., in the West, from
Augustine to Bernard, and from a Kempis and the devotio moderna
through a good deal of Baroque spirituality, reappearing in our own
time in C. S. Lewis-which uses marital symbolism to describe the
union of the "soul" of the Christian with Christ. This finds no justification in Scripture, nor in the Catholic liturgy; for both, the bride
of Christ is the Church, the Body, in One Flesh union with her Head,
the Christ. Since Justin Martyr and lrenaeus, Mary has borne the title
of second Eve as the antetype of the Church-which title is incidentally an implicit recognition of her unfallen integrity, for in her are integrated the expressions of unfallen femininity which in all other
women are fragmented and irreconcilable. Balthasar finds in her the
" real symbol " of the second Eve, and the one " who provides the
model according to which the believing soul strives to reach her Lord
and Bridegroom" (137; see also 359). This may be no more than a
rhetorical conclusion to a highly rhetorical passage, but nevertheless it
is worth affirming that the Christian's union with the Christ, however
mystical it may be, is radically sacramental; it is Eucharistic and

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ecclesial, and access to that union is only by way of that sacramental
mediation.
This fact simply rules out the Platonic aberration which would assign masculinity to God and femininity to creation, or masculinity to
the Christ and femininity to those who in and through the worship of
the Church affirm his Lordship. Were it otherwise, marriage would
not be a sacrament. The affinity Balthasar displays for this expression
of Neoplatonic cosmology is consistent with his emphasis upon the
factual contradiction not only between the formless God, as absolutely
Other, and the concrete form of the recipient of his revelation, but also
between man and woman in the created order. It is as contradictory
that the creation is " very good " ( 353) . We must then suppose that
their marital relation, as beautiful, is also conceptually and rationally
equivocal: in it their contradiction is transcended, but as beauty, not
as truth. Yet marriage is a sign, effective in signing: can Balthasar's
theology accommodate its sacramentality?
In this same connection, Balthasar passes on to the topic, perennial
in his thought, of the contradiction between human solidarity and final
damnation. His attribution of solidarity with the damned to God wh2
is beyond all contradiction (224) makes it understandable that some
have found in his theology a doctrine of universal salvation comparable to that illustrated by the Barthian allegory of the sinking ship
which cannot sink.
Such criticisms are of course systematic, and anyone accepting
Balthasar's view of systematic theology can hardly consider them, much
less offer a reply. On the other hand, they do not on that account
vanish. If Glory, as beauty, is also one of the transcendentals, at one
with unity, goodness, and truth, we may expect its theology, as a
quaerens pulchrum which is also a quaerens intellectum, however
aesthetic, to be open to such criticism as set out here. At bottom, the
dialectical relation-or tension-which Balthasar has placed between
creation and Covenant is in need of more explanation than he has given
it-but that explanation may well be methodologically forbidden by his
aesthetics.
Such dilemmas, unresolved and perhaps unresolvable, do not detract
significantly from the extraordinary achievement of The Glory of the
Lord, of which this volume is a worthy component. It is a book to return to, one whose reading can never be really finished. A classic, it
will outlive any criticism directed at it. No theologian should be without the seven volumes of The Glory of the Lord, if only to remind him
of his own responsibilities, in the light cast upon the office of theologian
by one of the transcendent scholars of our age.
DONALD

Denver, Colorado

J. KEEFE, S.J.

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147

The Godly Image: Christ and Salvation in Catholic Thought from
Anselm to Aquinas. By ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P. Studies in historical theology. v. 6. Petersham, Mass.: St. Bede's Publications,
1990. Pp. xxiv
214. $14.95 (paper).

+

The Godly Image presents a retouched version of the author's dissertation, first published in 1982 as Christian Satisfaction in Aquinas:
Towards a Personalist Understanding (Washington, DC: University
Press of America). Seeking a broader audience, the author has dropped
the dissertation's numerous Latin footnotes, shortened and enlivened
the chapter titles, and streamlined some of his arguments (e.g., pp. 9395). He has as well corrected (e.g., on Pannenberg, p. xxii; on Anselm, p. 157) or toned down (e.g., the description of monastic theology,
p. 1) earlier statements. Reference to the possibility that Aquinas suffered a nervous breakdown disappears (p. 18). Still, the work remains
substantially the same, reproducing even some typos (e.g., William of
St. Armour [sic], p. 3) from the original.
The new subtitle, Christ and Salvation in Catholic Thought from
Anselm to Aquinas, is unfortunate. First, it leads one to expect a survey of the major soteriological positions articulated in the period between the two, hut such is not forthcoming. The work remains what
the original title indicated, a study in the thought of Aquinas.
Second, in that work Anselm plays hut a perfunctory role, serving
as the foil from whose mercantile model (p. 73) or juridical mentality (p. 91) Thomas can advance to a more appropriately interpersonal
grasp of the mode of our salvation. This reading of Anselm, however,
leaves him in the hands of liberal Protestant historians of doctrine of
the nineteenth century, and, as the bibliography indicates, it ignores
more recent literature which rightly stresses the metaphysical and religious depth of Anselm's key concept of iustitia. For a precise rendering of the relation between Anselm and Aquinas, one may wish to place
greater emphasis on ST III, q.14, a.I, ad 1. In that text Aquinas
accomplishes two things. First, he integrates Anselm's concept of satis·
faction with the traditional religious insight that, in some sense, Christ
suffered what sinners deserve to suffer. At the same time he deepens the
concept by rendering explicit the place of love and obedience as the
formal element in satisfaction and thus rejoins Anselm in rejecting any
strict notion of penal substitution.
These reservations aside, the author's thorough, comprehensive, and
competent investigation into Aquinas fills a lacuna in the history of
soteriology, a lacuna, one regrets to say, still left open by the work
of his immediate predecessor, B. Catao. At the same time the scope

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of the author's work offers a further and important contribution. By
researching Thomas's thought on satisfaction in the context of penance
as well as soteriology, the author manages to suggest, and explicitly,
that the generative matrix for Thomas's theoretic work in both areas
lies in the cruciform dynamics of Christian conversion, the life of
grace. With this insight he opens a door from historical theology to a
contemporary systematics.
WILLIAM

P. LOEWE

Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

Free Will and the Christian Faith. By W. S. ANGLIN. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Pp. vii

+ 218. $55.00 (cloth).

W. S. Anglin, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Mathematics at
McGill University, has produced a highly compact and compelling
volume which attempts in just 218 pages to prove God's existence, to
argue for personal immortality, to defend the coherence of theism
against the problem of evil, to provide cogent analyses of both omnipotence and omniscience, and to examine criteria for distinguishing
divine revelation from other forms of communication. The thread
holding these rather motley swatches of cloth together is the author's
concentration on libertarian freedom which weaves throughout the
above issues in one way or another. It shows up in the expected places
(e.g., in the so-called 'free will defense' of the problem of evil) but
also in places hitherto unexpected (Anglin nicely argues that if humans
are truly free in the libertarian sense, then it is appropriate and necessary that the Scriptures take the form they in fact do) .
In light of the impossibility of touching on all of Anglin's concerns,
the difficulty in reviewing a work such as this is doing justice to what
the author has presented while neither ascending to generalizations
blind to nuances in his argument nor descending to cavil about particularities ultimately inconsequential to the book's thesis.
Allow me to propose the following as a way to go on: In his Preface,
Anglin explains that the aim of his book is to show " that it is possible
to be both a libertarian and a traditional Christian" (p. vii). Here,
then, are three elements to guide reflection on Anglin's work: libertarian freedom, the Christian tradition, and the relation between the
two. Let us take each one in turn.
Libertarianism: Libertarian views of freedom are a lot like tenure
and taxes: much maligned, perhaps necessary, and still around despite
the best efforts of intelligent people to defeat them. Indeed, there is

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something quite truthful in libertarianism. That is, it seems quite obvious that a situation in which I am not able to do other than I in
fact do would be one where I do not aot freely. Anglin does an extremely credible job of showing this in chapter 1, appealing to several
aspects of human life where it is necessary that one can do other than
one does: loving, moral responsibility, promise-making and keeping etc.
But doing other than what one does is perhaps the least interesting
aspect of freedom-just as tenure and taxes are perhaps the least interesting aspects of college teaching and the national debt, respectively.
For someone like Iris Murdoch in The Sovereignty of Good, libertarianism ignores the moral formation going on behind and between such
explicit moments of choosing. She argues that if we ignore all that is
within the person, we're quite likely to identify freedom with the outward movement of choice, since there is nothing else with which to
identify it. If, on the other hand, we attend to how structures of value
are imperceptibly built up within and around us, " we shall not be
surprised that at crucial moments of choice most of the business of
choosing is already over."
For those like Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, libertarianism
ignores the role of the community in situating freedom and inculcating
those good habits or virtues most conducive to a life of true goodness.
Neither identified freedom with unconstrained choice, but rather
affirmed that freedom was situated amidst particular surroundings and
actualized not by following just any one of all possible options but by
acting in accord with the goals or loves one already possesses as a living inheritance of the community of which one is a part. It is clear
that for Anglin freedom must extend to the choice of these values themselves. He states, " occasionally we stand back from our various desires and decide which ones we shall renounce and which ones we shall
encourage .... To choose values is to ' come out' from one's previous
culture, morality, and so on, and, in spite of such influences, embark
on a course that is really one's own" (pp. 17-18). Freedom for Aristotle and Aquinas, however, is not the ability to begin anew with ends
wholly of one's own determination but rather what one does with everything he or she has previously been given. Community becomes crucial here. Not only does a particular kind of influence not eliminate
human freedom, but it is in fact necessary if people are to be free.
Anglin also wants to talk about habits and character (pp. 27, 126,
141); but unlike Aristotle, Aquinas, and Murdoch, he doesn't seem to
think that this qualifies his libertarianism in any decisive way. But the
fact is that making room for habits and the formation of character in
one's presentation of freedom inevitably crowds a libertarian view of
freedom. If habits are simply repeated libertarian choices to act in
certain directions, then why speak of habits at all? If, on the other

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hand, a habit is a decisive qualification of libertarian agency in which
the will is gripped by something not entirely of its own choosing, then
whither libertarian agency?
Tradition: The index to this book lists 5 references to Augustine, 4
references to Aquinas, 2 references to Anselm, 2 references to Calvin,
and no references to Luther or Molina. In light of the relatively few
appeals to the theological tradition, I am puzzled, therefore, by what exactly Anglin means when he refers to a traditional Christian and how
exactly he considers his case compatible with traditional Christianity.
For example, Anglin quotes approvingly from Augustine's De Libero
Arbitrio. That, however, was an early work where Augustine was indeed much more indebted to something like the libertarianism which,
as Anglin admits, he later abandoned. Though the author does quite
imaginatively cite a number of Scriptural sources for such things as
the free will defense, that too seems a very truncated notion of what the
Christian theological tradition is. (One must also note that Anglin's
appeal to Scripture is quite selective because, as Robert Merrihew
Adams has argued, I Samuel 23:1-14 seems to affirm something Anglin
denies in his analysis of omniscience: that God's knowledge extends to
counterfactual propositions. Molina himself appeals to I Samuel 23:114 to argue for God's middle knowledge-that is, knowledge of what
each agent would do if placed in various circumstances, as well as to
the story of Chorazin and Bethsaida in Matthew 11 :21.)
Interestingly enough, the same error committed in the description of
human freedom recurs in the description of tradition. When discussing
freedom, Anglin presumes that human beings have the ability to step
hack from contingent desires and cultural influences to choose autonomously. This amounts to the ability to escape from the thickets of
human historicity to a clearing affording a less impeded, more objective
view. If the libertarian agent can do this with her own history, then
why cannot the libertarian agent do the same thing with a historical
tradition of thought? Anglin explains, "To reason is not just to work
out syllogisms hut also to evaluate reasons and, to do that, we must
respond to them in an undetermined manner. We must stand apart
from our wants, vested interests, and any other possibly determining
factors . . . true reasoning does require libertarian free will-so that
one can stand hack from the world, free of distorting influences, judging the premisses and their interconnections in a wholly objective manner ... " (pp. 12-13). But if the individual can step outside of her
tradition and historicity in this way and see things aright as Anglin's
analysis of human freedom seems to say, then why can't the scholar do
the same thing with the Christian tradition? And if one can do this,
then why even feign allegiance to the Christian tradition or even care
what it says since immersing oneself in the " wants, vested interests,

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and other possibly determining factors " of any tradition would seem
merely to impinge upon the libertarian freedom of the Christian scholar
to view things " in a wholly objective manner "?
Trying to start over from scratch in life or scholarship is always
an invitation to the self-deception of attempting to transcend one's
finitude and leap away from the shadow of one's own historicity. So
Anglin is surely wrong when he says that the only alternative to the
above notion of rationality is " an enfeebling scepticism " (p. 13) . We
cannot escape human finitude or the historicity of life and thought
which sustains it into an ahistorical realm of acting or thinking. Wishing we could wastes precious time and makes us bad stewards of the
conceptual and moral resources that are available to us by pining for
what we cannot have and neglecting what we do have. Just as "enfeebling scepticism" need not be the only alternative to Anglin's notion
of rationality, determinism need not be the only alternative to Anglin's
libertarianism.
Libertarianism and the Christian tradition: I hope I have said
enough already to argue why there may be a tension in this book between Anglin's dual allegiance to libertarianism and the Christian tradition. Allow me to push him a bit further here. Anglin rightly admits
in his preface that " Traditional Christian thinkers such as the later
Augustine have repudiated libertarianism because they cannot fit it
with the dogmas of the Faith" (p. vii). Yet, there is scant mention
later in the book of these ' traditional thinkers ' and only one paragraph explaining the changes in Augustine's views, which the author
partly attributes to a mistranslation of Romans 5:12. But doesn't
Anglin owe his readers some explanation of who else repudiated libertarianism, what they were responding to, and why (like Augustine)
they could have gotten ,things so wrong?
In addition, Anglin argues that God has libertarian freedom. St.
Anselm would have vigorously denied this. According to Anselm, libertarianism in God is a cheaper, less worthy kind of freedom for the
deity to have, for it would have implied an ability to sin which Anselm
refused to place in God. Anglin argues just the opposite: a being with
libertarian free will " is more exalted than persons without libertarian
free will " (p. 41). Yet Anglin also denies that God has the ability to
sin, but continues to parse that inability in terms of libertarian freedom. Why? He writes," Note that x can be morally good even if it is
determined that he never freely choose to do what he believes is evil. ...
For it is possible that ... one has freely chosen (in the libertarian
sense) to put oneself in a situation where it will be so determined. For
example, although the saints in heaven cannot sin, they none the less
deserve credit for not sinning since the reason they cannot sin is that
they freely chose to let God's grace fix them in goodness" (p. 105).

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The beginning of wisdom is always to call things by their proper name.
Too many provisos in the definition of freedom (as: libertarian freedom may allow one freely to decide never to have libertarian freedom
in the future) only weaken the force of the arguments. Truth be told,
it is hard not to resort to such provisos when trying to articulate a
view of freedom common to creatures on earth, the blessed in paradise,
and God in heaven. At the very least, the Christian tradition resists
reductions to libertarianism. Such a move is both historically inaccurate and blind to the messiness both made and endured by two thousand years of Christian philosophy and theology.
The inspiration behind this book, however, is exactly on target.
Much of the history of Christian theology can in no small way be seen
as a series of repeated attempts to figure out how the free agency of
the human person could possibly accommodate the free agency of the
creator. In few issues does this question rise to such prominence as in
discussions of divine providence. Anglin defends a notion of providence, though in a roundabout way. He correctly notes that God's foreknowledge is quite closely linked to God's providential care over the
world. While he affirms divine foreknowledge of future contingents, he
stipulates that it must be derived or " logically subsequent " to the actions of free creatures (pp. 80, ll8). Thus, if God " chooses to create
Mary, God is, in a sense, taking a risk" about what Mary would do,
the evil she may cause, etc. (p. ll8). But making God's knowledge
dependent in this way makes it hard to see how God can exercise
provident governance over the world, for " if God's foreknowledge is
causally posterior to the event then it cannot help God prevent that
event" (p. 128). The problem is that governance seems to presuppose
logical priority. But logical priority seems somewhat dangerous to
libertarian freedom. The language Anglin uses here is quite revealing
and rather problematic. He says God "inspires" people (p. 103), can
" bring them to repentance " or " can create new persons who will be
likely not to do evil" (p. 120). God even " encourage [es] us to use
our free will to do what is right. One might even say that [God] woos
us as a lover woos his beloved" (p. 181). The defender of libertarian
freedom thus faces an unpleasant dilemma: either God's providential
inspiration, encouragement, and wooing take away libertarian freedom
or they do not. If they do cancel libertarian freedom, Anglin has failed
in his attempt to show that " it is possible to he both a libertarian and
a traditional Christian." If they do not cancel libertarian freedom,
then it seems that God is not the one ultimately directing all things unto
good. If providence reduces without remainder to libertarian freedom,
then God is simply taking the chance that things will all work out. And
that's not providence--certainly not in any traditional sense.

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These objections to one side, one must compliment Anglin on the
thoroughness with which he pursues his points. He almost always provides several arguments for the same point. So we get eight arguments
for libertarianism, five for how natural evil comports with the existence
of a benevolent, all-powerful God, and so on. These arguments carefully avoid the repetitiveness one might expect and rather skillfully
succeed in revealing a mind concerned with mapping out all the knolls
and hollows on the intellectual terrain of the particular issue under
consideration.
Almost inevitably, any one hook's discussions of such disparate
topics will vary in both quality and depth. Some parts of this hook
(for example, the chapters on the existence of God and the problem of
evil) should he generally accessible to the interested beginner in the
philosophy of religion. Chapters 5 and 6 on the goodness of God and
the problem of evil are especially well done. Anglin honestly and
squarely faces the standard objections and manages to produce as complete and compelling a defense as one is likely to find anywhere in the
literature. His use of the Principle of Double Effect to exonerate God
from blame for creating creatures who may freely do evil was effective
and innovative. Other parts of Free Will and The Christian Faith (say,
the chapter defending God's foreknowledge featuring the rather paradoxical concept of "backwards causation " in which future free choices
cause past foreknowledge) seem to require and presuppose a more
thorough immersion in the recent scholarly literature. Some readers
may find the author's use of logical notation to explicate his arguments
distracting or alienating, though he takes great pains to explain the
symbols he employs in the prose he uses. In addition, he is quite helpful to the reader at the start of each chapter in providing concise previews of the arguments to come. On the whole, this is a hook with
occasional flashes of insight and innovation, hut with tangles and tensions in the arguments in other parts.
JOSEPH M. INCANDELA
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana

Quest for the Absolute: The Philosophical Vision of Joseph Marechal.
By ANTHONY MATTEO. De Kalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois Press,
1992. Pp. xi + 173. $30.00 (cloth).
The Belgian Jesuit Joseph Marechal (1373-1944) is little known in
North American philosophical circles. Indeed he is simply little known
outside the somewhat small circle of scholars interested in the history

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of twentieth century Roman Catholic theology. There Marechal's work,
in particular his five volume Le Point de Depart de la Metaphysique
(PDM) has a special place of honor. One need but think of Karl
Rahner and Bernard Lonergan among his intellectual heirs to recognize
the impact of the thinker and of the volumes. The service of Anthony
Matteo's Quest for the Absolute (QA) is to provide a clear and concise
study of Marechal's thought. It makes a valuable companion to Joseph
Donceel's A Marechal Reader (1970). To my knowledge, the only
other full-length discussion in English is Otto Muck's The Transcendental Method (1968), a book which is nearly unreadable in its Eng·
lish translation if not in its German original.
Marechal was a committed and convinced Thomist, but discussing
him under the rubric " transcendental method " brings home a critical
conjunction between his Thomism and certain strategies more characteristic of Immanuel Kant and his followers. Instead of seeing Kant
simply as undermining the objectivity of metaphysics and of natural
theology, he came to believe it possible to take the Kantian "turn to
the subject" and to show that it had possibilities not dreamed of by
Kant himself. One early indication of Marechal's revisionary approach
appeared in his notes for a 1914-1915 course on epistemology: "Kant
deceives himself in recognizing, in the operations of spirit, only the
pure synthesis of an empirical given. The human spirit is at once an
empirical faculty and a faculty of the Absolute. This second aspect was
only imperfectly grasped by the author of the Critique of Pure Reason." Thus Marechal was already on his way to answering his opening
question for volume I of PDM (1922): "Metaphysics, if it is possible,
has necessarily for its point of departure, an absolute objective affirmation: do we find in the contents of our consciousness, a similar affirmation, surrounded with all the guarantees claimed by the most exigent
critique? "
The arrangement of QA is basically the same as that of PDM. Having established the problem in the first few pages, Marechal wound his
way through the history of western philosophy from the pre-socratics
to William of Ockham in volume I. The movement was one of challenge and response followed by renewed challenge and so on. Thus
Aristotle overcame the sophists by a defense of the principle of identity and by an integration of intellection and sensation. But such over·
coming is never once and for all. In the thirteenth century, Thomas
Aquinas retrieved the Aristotelian balance in his critical realist contribution to the debate about universals. It was a balance disturbed by
Duns Scotus and then lost by Ockham. Volume II was a history of
modern philosophy with the polarities being Cartesian rationalism and
Humean empiricism. The subject-matter of Volume III was the Kan·
tian effort for a new synthesis of subject and object, impression and

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concept, sense and understanding through the transcendental method
and the theory of the a priori in knowledge. A posthumous volume IV
traced the idealist element in Kant and in his successors. This idealism
was, in part, the new challenge faced by the nineteenth century philosophers and theologians of the scholastic revival. In moving the Critique
of Pure Reason towards Aristotle and Thomas, volume V constituted the
original contribution of PDM to the revival.
Of course, Marechal's contribution was also a critique. Matteo
averts to the nervousness with which PDM was received by some scholastics and churchmen. But he gives little sense of just how far out on
a limb one had to go in the decades after the modernist crisis and
Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) to use Kant as the spring-board for
a retrieval of Aristotle and Thomas. It was Kant who often appeared as
the principal villain, one whom the Abbe Van Loo could even describe
in Kantianisme et Modernisme (1917) as 'le plus grand malfaiteur de
tous les siecles." Man'ichal never denied the weaknesses or the dangers
of the critique, but he preferred to take its strengths and to discover
their hidden possibilities. The turn to the subject could be a way to
show the a priori basis for the very critical realism and objective
theism which seemed shaken by this turn. In appropriating Kant for
such a surprising end, Marechal was reinventing not only the critique,
but also in some measure scholasticism.
The gist of Marechal's argument was somewhat as follows. Kant was
right that the human intellect has sensory data as its proper material
and that the concept remains empty without the data and the data
chaotic without the concept. Since it is also a faculty of judgment
affirming reality through the union of concept and sensation, a properly transcendental method appealing to the a priori of thought should
result in epistemological realism, albeit a dynamic realism. Then, since
the pursuit of knowledge and understanding has no limit, it moves to
the infinite as its a priori condition. QA quotes Marechal's conclusion:
"we may state in strictest logic, that the possibility of our subjective
last end presupposes logically the existence of our objective last end,
God. Thus in every intellectual act, we affirm implicitly the existence
of an absolute being."
Obviously in QA, Matteo has gone beyond an historical survey of a
neglected philosopher to an advocacy of the ideas of the philosopher.
Although he is not uncritical of Marechal's own reading of various
philosophers, he does accept the basic outline of his history of philosophy. Aristotle and Thomas become the heroes of the history for
Matteo as well as for Marcchal, and he works hard to show the intelligibility of the PDM both as an interpretation of Kant and as a
way hack to realism and theism. In his " Critique and Conclusion,"
he takes on Etienne Gilson, who had claimed that the turn to the sub-

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j ect could never arrive at a viable metaphysics and shows effectively
that Marechal's subject was never in isolation from the objects of
sensation and thought. On the other side, he presents the PDM as an
alternative to the soft theism of thinkers like Hans Kiing and as a
promising approach in contemporary epistemological debates involving Thomas Kuhn, Richard Rorty, Joseph Margolis, and many others.
The historians of philosophy will have to take up the critique of
Matteo and Marechal on the many figures which they survey in PDM
and QA. No one writer can cover so much ground without raising the
ire of the specialists in particular thinkers or epochs. I shall simply say
that the overview is helpful and that Matteo deserves credit for putting
Marechal's readings to the test of his own reading of the works at
issue. QA presents and evaluates this history with remarkable brevity,
a virtue which can have its vicious side. I found the brevity to be a
particular problem in the handling of Kant and of Marechal. The
Critique of Pure Reason and PDM are elaborate analyses of thought,
and Matteo proceeds in such summary fashion towards the big conclusions that he does less than justice to these analyses. Being so summary turns out to be a problem in showing that PDM can escape the
accusations of subjectivism and relativism made by its scholastic attackers and that it has a way around those problems in present-day
controversies. I myself am a partisan of the epistemology and metaphysics Marechal and Matteo advocate, but I find many of my doubts
about the project unresolved by its presentation in QA. My particular
concerns here center on conceptual relativism and theistic objectivity,
hut anyone who can resolve those doubts definitively will have done
a monumental service not just for the reviewer but for humankind.
Marechal himself had intended a sixth volume more straight-forwardly
along the Aristotelian-Thomist line, something which bad health prevented. We should wish Matteo the good health to develop the ideas
of PDM and QA at the greater length required to achieve fully the
promise claimed for them in this fine book.
MICHAEL J. KERLIN
La Salle University
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Priority of Prudence. By DANIEL MARK NELSON. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. Pp. ix
(cloth).

+ 164. $26.95

In recent years, we have seen a number of attempts to recapture the
natural law doctrines of Thomas Aquinas. This book is another such

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157

attempt, and in it Nelson attempts to do two things. First, he tries to
show that prudence is the most important of the virtues and is prior
to nature in the process of determining the moral character of actions.
Prudence is undoubtedly a highly important virtue because it is the
train that carries the agent to the moral good and it must stay on track
for the agent to realize fully the aims of morality. But it is not clear
that it is prior to other virtues, or to nature itself, as Nelson contends,
and a strong case can he made that charity is first among the virtues,
and that prudence is determined by charity. Prudence is prior to the
other virtues in the sense that they are all weakened by prudential
failures, hut prudence wanders aimlessly, not only in the absence of
the guidance of the other virtues, hut also without the guidance of
nature itself. Cut loose from its secure grounds in nature, prudence
and the other virtues collapse, and they need not only the secure
standards provided by justice, fortitude, and charity, hut also of nature to he authentic.
Second, he is trying to show that Aquinas is not so much a natural
law moralist as he is a rationalist and a virtue theorist. To do this, he
argues that nature serves merely an explanatory and foundational function for morality, and provides no information about moral judgments
(p. 100) . He subordinates nature to reason in order to resolve disputes between modern deontologists and consequentialists, hut in doing
this he transforms Aquinas from a natural law moralist to a rationalist.
He gives priority to reason at the expense of charity and nature, both
of which I think are actually more prominent in the thought of Thomas.
For Nelson, acts receive their moral character from everything hut
nature: circumstances, appropriateness to their object, and their fullness of being. He reduces all unnatural activities to violations of reason, implying an identity between the natural and rational, and denies
any identity between the natural and the good, believing that this undermines morality (p. 67). Because of his rationalist approach to
morality, he regards sin only as an irrational action, hut says little
about it being an action contrary to nature, and makes no claims about
sin being an act against charity. But if it is true that sin is irrationality,
then some of the most important salvific acts of Jes us' life could well
have been sinful, because they were irrational. For Aquinas, nature
occasionally declares a small number of acts wrong, like homosexuality,
hut Nelson regards this more as an aberration from the generally consistent position of Aquinas, and continues to reduce nature to reason.
In spite of what he claims, the traditional opinion that Aquinas
really is a natural law moralist is generally valid because the ultimate
ground and norm of morality for Aquinas is human nature. In arguing
as he does, Nelson stands in a long line of rationalist interpreters who
reject any intuitional aspects to moral knowledge. But there are natural

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moral concepts in the person, brought to light through experience, for
even the most mentally handicapped have a sense, feeling, or intuition
of unfairness, injustice, benevolence, and virtue. This is not purely
the result of their environment, and it seems to be a dimension of their
existence not duplicated among the beasts. For the primary principles
of the natural law, known through synderesis, explain how and why we
make moral judgments, and only the secondary principles guide conduct through the action of prudence (p. 65).
Nelson denies that human nature stands as either the measure or
guide of the virtues, and the natural law is essentially dumb and directionless, for it does not give any concrete direction to moral decision making, but merely grounds and explains our moral judgments
(p. 92). For Nelson, prudence guides actions, not by syllogistically
applying the primary principles to the action under consideration, but
more by acting like general rules of thumb (p. 145). This is a rather
paradoxical view because of his emphasis on the prominent role he
gives to reason at the expense of nature. While he believes we have
a natural aptitude for virtue, this aptitude does not inform our moral
decisions. Synderesis in its operations is thus neutralized because it
only apprehends the first principles of nature but cannot derive material content from them with any moral certainty, and does not employ syllogistic reasoning to infer clear and concrete guides for action.
Nelson describes Aquinas's moral system as eudaimonistic and teleological, which is true to an extent, but for Aquinas the moral life is
fundamentally theological, oriented through human nature to grace,
and it is the concept of nature that holds this all together. Our participation in the eternal law is through reason, virtue, nature and charity, and not merely by reason and charity, and to neutralize the authoritative position of nature puts the whole theological edifice in jeopardy.
This is of little concern to the ethicist, but it is of major interest to the
moral theologian. A morality based on virtue that does not prepare
human nature for the restoring actions of grace is ultimately futile.
For Thomas, nature linked the actions of the person to the rejuvena·
tion of their human nature and preparation for grace. Nelson's denigration of the position of nature makes Aquinas a rationalist in practice, which is to mischaracterize him.
Nelson radically suppresses the role of nature in morality because
he pays insufficient attention to Thomas's metaphysical doctrines which
link his moral teachings to his theological doctrines, and because of
this he fails to see the dynamic role of nature in Aquinas's morality.
Aquinas believes that nature interacts with reason, grace, virtue, and
charity to lead us to the fullness of the moral good. For Aquinas, all
of these are required to ascertain moral truth in the situation and to
do what is morally right, and to denigrate the position of one of them

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severely impairs the operations of all the others. For Thomas, the
proximate moral norms that determine the goodness or malice of actions are the virtues, but they do this in conjunction with reason, nature, charity and grace. By abandoning the role of nature in morality, he can dispense with the metaphysical foundations of morality, but
doing this undermines Thomas's notion that grace creates a new ontological order. If moral action is not oriented to restoring human nature, the power of grace to elevate our nature to the supernatural
would be compromised or negated. It is true in many instances that
the immediate standards for determining the morality of actions are the
virtues rather than nature, but in other cases, such as murder or theft,
nature establishes the immediate standard, which together with proximate material norms makes it possible to evaluate acts.
He admits that prudence requires a sustaining and all-encompassing
vision of what constitutes the good life to he a virtue, and it acquires
this because it is both a practical and an intellectual virtue (p. 84).
But grounding the operations of the virtues solely on practical reasonableness is naive because of the instability and subjectivity of reason.
He admits that the will inclines toward the apparent good presented by
reason, but does not tell us how the true good standing beyond the apparent good presented by reason can be known (p. 75). Nelson does
not seem to take seriously the difficulties involved in ascertaining what
is truly virtuous and rational. There is the false courage of the Nazi
concentration camp guard that cloaks astonishing cruelty. Abortionists cloak their homicidal acts by claims that they are protectors of
abused and vulnerable women. The cruelties of la'issez faire capitalism
were accepted for decades as necessary for justice, and the license of
the sexual revolution parades itself as tolerance, sensitivity, and intelligence. Nelson seems to be unaware that denying nature any role
in determining moral right and wrong vastly complicates the process of
moral discernment.
To repeat: he admits that the will inclines toward the apparent good
presented by reason (p. 75), hut does not tell us how the true good
standing beyond the apparent good presented by reason can be known.
For Aquinas, the real moral good is found by the joint action of nature,
reason, virtue and grace. All are necessary: practical reason, habitual
action enlightened by grace, natural concepts and inclinations, and the
powers developed as a result of the virtues. He admits that prudence
requires a sustaining and all-encompassing vision of what constitutes
the good life to be a virtue, and it acquires this by reason of the fact
that it is a practical as well as an intellectual virtue (p. 84). But
where does that vision required by the virtues come from except from
nature, grace and charity? Reason alone presents too cloudy and confused a picture to fulfill this role, just as does nature or virtue if taken

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alone, and it is only when all three of these are taken together that one
can arrive at an adequate comprehension of the full truth of morality.
To promote his analysis, I think Nelson misrepresents some views.
He argues that Aquinas condemns homosexuality as being contrary to
our "animal" nature, thus demeaning Aquinas's criticism of these ac·
tions. It is more precise to say that Aquinas regards this as contrary
not to just the animal dimension of our being, but to our very human
nature (p. 122). He agrees with Aquinas that some acts such as murder
and theft are known to be wrong by almost immediate apprehension or
intuition. But Nelson asserts that prudence determines whether an action is murderous or unjust taking or not (p. 121). I am not sure it is
entirely accurate to term this critical and decisive action the result of
a prudential judgment. His understanding of McCormick's views of
proportionate reasoning is really quite simple (pp. 134-5), for throughout the years proportionate reason has acquired many faces, and many
who have studied it closely are not entirely sure that it has the only
meaning he attributes to it.
His incomplete separation of virtue and nature may not succeed, for
if this link is weakened, one would have to ask what in practice would
make the virtues to be virtues if they orient us only to the rational but
not the natural? What is it that makes prudence and justice good for
persons in their operations? Why are fairness or intelligence good
things to have? And even further, will this incomplete separation
provide a satisfying answer to the question: " Why be rational
and why be virtuous? " I think not. I wanted to believe this book
was correct when I first read it, for I was convinced that the prevailing deontological direction of most natural law interpretations was
wrong. Before reading this book, I thought the great task before
moralists was to recover not only the virtues in general but prudence
in particular in order to recover the best of Aquinas. But I now think
this book is a serious distortion of Aquinas's thought and the first task
is to recover Thomas's concept of nature and relate it harmoniously
to reason and virtue. Under the guise of promoting the virtue of
prudence as a means of bringing peace to moral debate, Nelson has
radically altered the nature of Thomistic moral theology.
ROBERT BARRY, O.P.

Program for the Study of Religion
University of Illinois
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois

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161

In Defence of the Church Catholic: The Life of Stephen Gardiner. By
GLYN REDWORTH. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. xii
(cloth).

+ 354.

In a rather lengthy annotated bibliography to his 1977 history of
England during the Reformation, Geoffrey Elton wrote, under the
heading " Politics and Personalities," " For Gardiner we have only
the rather simple book by J. A. Muller, Stephen Gardiner and the
Tudor Reaction (London, 1926); a new book, long overdue, is rendered more urgent by the discovery of his 'Machiavellian treatise'."
It has puzzled me for a number of years that someone who was as
well known and influential among his contemporaries as was Stephen
Gardiner should be relegated to only occasional references in modern
texts about the period. Muller's book was, for almost seventy years,
the only work approaching a biography that had ever been published,
and while it studied many (though by no means all) of his works, it
is sketchy in a number of areas. In 1975, Peter Donaldson published
a work under the title of A MachiavelUan Treatise by Stephen Gardiner:
leaving aside for the moment the question of whether this treatise is,
in fact, by Gardiner at all, this work was the sole study of the Bishop of
Winchester's life and work since Professor James A. Muller's death in
1941.
It thus comes as a quite pleasant surprise that not one, hut two hooks
should be published within a year of each other dealing with this particular era and subject. By far the more scholarly is this work by
Glyn Redworth, an expansion of his doctoral thesis done under the
direction of Christopher Haigh. It has two great advantages which are
immediately evident. The first is that it is an original look at the life
of a man who was, by turns, Secretary to Cardinal Wolsey and Henry
VIII, Bishop of Winchester (the richest diocese in England at the
time), Master of Trinity Hall, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and Lord Chancellor under Queen Mary. Far from being a
revision of, or even dependent upon, Muller's work, it is a fresh look
which is most welcome. The second is the wealth of the notes and the
breadth of acquaintance with contemporary scholarship that is evident. One of the most revealing footnotes is the second note of the first
chapter, in which the "unsatisfactory" label of "revisionism" is discussed, and the reader is lead to a " sympathetic critique of revisionism" in a 1987 article by the author. At least it is obvious where the
author stands from the outset.
The strongest area of this work is the masterful consideration of the
period between the fall of Cromwell and the death of Henry VIII.

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Muller's biography was weak and distracted in this period, and Redworth not only follows Gardiner's activities quite closely, but places
those activities in the larger area of European diplomacy. Primary
sources are used in abundance, and the burgeoning secondary literature
is used with discretion.
There are, however, two drawbacks to this book. The first is a problem in the methodology. The author at the very beginning states that
he will concentrate on the life of Bishop Gardiner, and will not study
the man's writings. This is a fair enough statement, but the almost
complete absence of any reference to some of Gardiner's works, along
with a limited reference to others, makes even the life of the Bishop
incomplete. There are occasional references to the Oration on True
Obedience, Gardiner's defense of the Royal Supremacy and his most
famous work, but other than this, the literary side of Gardiner's life
is missing. Gardiner was, it is true, noted for his diplomatic and political skill (to hold all of the offices Gardiner did for over thirty years
and still to be able to die in his bed is remarkable for this period of
the sixteenth century) : nevertheless, his writings often were more important. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, in prison and awaiting execution in the reign of Queen Mary, was asked what was his greatest regret. The Archbishop replied that it was the fact that he had left one
treatise of Gardiner's unanswered, and now he was out of time.
Even sources which shed light on Bishop Gardiner's activities do
not show up in this biography. Gardiner's journal (Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, MS. 127), which he kept while imprisoned during
the reign of Edward VI, does not show up in the list of manuscripts
consulted, or in the footnotes of the text dealing with that period of
Gardiner's life. In that same manuscript are a number of records of
Gardiner's trial, which also are not mentioned in the biography. Most
of Gardiner's journal is spent in his attempts at Latin poetry (including a long and not very spectacular poem on the name "Jesus"), but
other information there is valuable to the assessment of the man. The
place of Gardiner in the fight over the pronunciation of Greek at Cambridge University, referred to in only one footnote (p. 222, n. 46), is
likewise a further area which is neglected to the detriment of the biography. Gardiner's letters on the subject are long, and show a scholarship that is not otherwise evident in his political correspondence. To
view this controversy, as Redworth does, as primarily a political one
in which Gardiner seeks to repress innovations only seems to catch part
of the story.
The author does, however, refer to the Machiavellian Treatise in some
detail, and rejects Gardiner's authorship. Here he performs the service
of righting a number of misconceptions. Both Muller and Pierre
Janelle, in an earlier generation of Reformation scholarship, knew of

BOOK REVIEWS

163

the treatise and discussed it in their correspondence. Both thought it
spurious. Redworth, independent (so far as I know) of Muller and
Janelle's correspondence, comes to the same conclusion for the same
reasons. Here the author's attention to at least one of Gardiner's attributed writings was of some value, but only by exception.
This lack of reference to Gardiner's writings leads the author to•
some inaccuracies. When Redworth concludes that Gardiner accepted
the 1549 Book of Common Prayer as an act of obedience to the will of
the prince, he ignores Gardiner's defence of the Prayer Book both in
his interrogations during his trial as well as in his attacks on Archbishop Cranmer regarding the Eucharist. Gardiner cited five points in
the Service of the Holy Communion which, he said, " were most consonant with Catholic doctrine." This was a shrewd political point, as
well, since Cranmer was the author of the service. Some have suggested
that the reason for the rushed revision, in a more radical and Protestant direction, of the Prayer Book in 1552 was that a Catholic interpretation could be put on the Service of Holy Communion by such as
Gardiner and his followers.
The second drawback of this biography is the use of the term
"Catholic" (with both a capital and lowercase "c "). The very title
of the Book, In Defence of the Church Catholic (as opposed to the
" Catholic Church " ? ) raises this question. The author's use of the
term " Catholic " is not consistent, even in his own writing. Sometimes
it refers to what would now he called the Roman Catholic Church, after
the Act of Supremacy had separated the Church of England. Sometimes
it refers to that party within the Church in England which sought to
retain the usages and doctrine of the pre-Reformation Church, and of
which Gardiner was the most famous and visible leader. Sometimes it
refers to a " Catholic " tradition or doctrine, used in a way which is
familiar to Anglicans of a particular stripe, hut which is not in common use (here, " Catholic " would almost he synonymous with
" Patristic ") ; this last usage may be closest to that of Gardiner and his
interlocutors. This confusion is not helped by the inconsistent usage
of the writers of the period. This whole problem is made worse by
the scholarly question of continuity; namely, what, if any, ecclesial
body is in continuity with the pre-Reformation Catholic Church in England? Is it the Church of England? Is it the Roman Catholic Church?
Is the Catholicism of Pole or More substantmlly different from Henrician Catholicism?
The polemic, and the difficulty of solution, of this latter problem is
evident in Gardiner's own life. John Foxe records that Gardiner, returning from the Colloquy of Ratisbon, was received at Louvain as a
Catholic Bishop and treated to a sumptuous banquet where Gardiner

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BOOK REVIEWS

"was presented with wine in the name of the whole University." That
evening, one of the feasters recalled that this was the man who had
written the foremost theological defense of the Royal Supremacy: the
following morning, when Gardiner asked for vessels and vestments to
say Mass before proceeding on his way, they were refused him, as to
an excommunicate or a schismatic. This incident is significant for a
number of reasons: it shows that, whatever anyone else might have
thought, Gardiner certainly thought he was a Catholic. The ambiguity
of that label, and how far exactly it extended, is also quite evident.
Some explanation of the difficulty and some consistency of usage in the
text of the biography would have been welcome.
The text itself appears to have a number of editorial flaws: p. 201
begins in the middle of a paragraph, and the opening lines are omitted.
In the second paragraph of p. 176, numbers are transposed so that
what is printed as 1534 should read 1543 (in the context, a significant
difference) .
The book is, on the whole, a contribution to scholarship that is long
overdue. That a man who was so powerful (not to say feared) during his own lifetime should wallow in oblivion is confusing. Redworth's biography, for all its incompleteness, is of great value in piecing
together the life of this leader, both political and ecclesiastical, who
sought to fashion the emerging English Church and nation into a
recognizably Catholic form.
W. BECKET SOULE, 0.P.
Dominican House of Studie$
Washington, D.C.

Art and the Word of God (Arte e la Parola di Dio): A Study of
Angelico Rinaldo Zarlenga, O.P. Edited by VINCENT I. ZARLENGA,
O.P. (text in English and Italian). River Forest, Illinois: Fra
Angelico Art Foundation, 1990. Pp. xiv
109.

+

The religious order of the Dominicans (Order of Preachers) was
founded in the thirteenth century by St. Dominic with the specific
purpose of preaching the Gospel or " ministry of the Word." With
the Franciscan Order it shared in the creative, artistic impulse that
produced the medieval cathedrals. It is often said that the great Summa
Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, for all its intellectual rigor, is also
a work of art comparable to the gothic masterpiece of Chartres
cathedral.
Dominicans and Franciscans thought that the Gospel should find
expression not only in words, but in poetry, music, architecture, and

BOOK REVIEWS

165

the plastic arts. Among the artists who were members of the Dominican
Order are the recently beatified Fra Angelico (BL Giovanni da Fiesole), Bartolommeo della Porta, an important influence on Raphael and
other High Renaissance painters, Juan Mayno the gifted Spanish contemporary of El Greco, Pere Couturier, the advocate of modern church
art and friend of Matisse, and the American sculptor, Thomas McGlynn.
Carrying on this Dominican tradition, Angelico Rinaldo Zarlenga
(1919-1986), a native of Italy, worked in the United States from 1949
until his death. The present work, edited by his brother Vincent, also
a member of the Order, makes available a chronological catalogue of
his paintings, sculptures, and designs in glass, with many illustrations
in full color, along with a biography and critical appreciations by
others, including Cardinals Joseph Bernadin and Mario Luigi Ciappi.
It is an important contribution to the history of Catholic religious art
in the United States.
The noted German theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar built his
whole theology not on the goodness and truth of God, but on His
beauty, or in biblical terms, God's "glory." According to St. Thomas
Aquinas, " beauty " is the " radiance of truth," that is, it is truth as
truth is related well to our knowing powers. Like the fit between the
key and the lock, beauty is the fit between known and the knower.
That is why a landscape on a cloudy day looks dull and uninteresting,
but when the sun comes out it appears strikingly beautiful. The sun's
illumination has made the dim objects vividly visible, radiant to our
eyes.
This is what the artist does for us. He does not clothe the facts of
reality with an adventitious beauty, but he illumines those facts so
that what before seemed dull every-day reality now appear to us in its
profoundly meaningful truth. Unfortunately too many artists today
have lost fatih in the meaningfulness of our world. To them it is absurd, empty. Consequently, they find nothing better to do with their
genius than to display their originality and skill or their private moods.
Angelico Zarlenga, as a man of faith, found a better way to be an
artist. It was not that he saw the truth of the world around him as
sweetly ideal. Many of his works, such as the " Crucifix of the Skyscrapers " (page 43) , have as their theme the bitter pain of our world.
But this painting does not make protesting evil its ultimate subject,
but rather the beauty of God's mercy shining through the suffering,
which he himself experienced both in lack of appreciation for his work
during his lifetime, and in his last long illness from cancer. Authentic
Christian art, therefore, never covers over the Cross, nor the ugly injustices of our world against which it must always protest, but it reveals the beauty of hope which the Gospel truth declares.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Those who read this handsome book and study the paintings and
sculptures of Zarlenga in excellent color will be able to follow the
phases of his artistic development and find many subjects for medita·
tion and enjoyment.
BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.
Aquinas Institute of Theology
St. Louis, Missouri

The Thought of Thomas Aquinas. By BRIAN DAVIES, O.P. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1992 (cloth); Oxford: Clarendon Press,
391.
1993 (paper). Pp. xv

+

An establishing circumstance of the ' restoration ' of Christian philosophy at the end of the last century, and the turn of this century, was
that the medieval authors whom Christian philosophers turned to were,
by profession, theologians whose appropriation of philosophy was for
explicitly theological ends. By and large, however, the modern authors
who set about retrieving medieval thought had an agenda quite different from that of their medieval luminaries. Still reeling from the
philosophical fall-out of the Enlightenment, and encountering rationalism, idealism, and empiricism on all sides, committed Christian thinkers
sought a source of philosophical reflection and, perhaps more importantly, justification, that could buttress the claims made by Christianity
for those who were within the believing community, and defend the
faith from the intellectual attacks of those who were not. The enduring
philosophical inheritance of the Middle Ages, and particularly the
philosophia perennis of St. Thomas Aquinas, was that source, wrote
Leo XIII in his Aeterni patris, and Catholic philosophers soon collected.
But the inheritance was not fully collected. With distinctive philosophical goals in mind, Christian philosophers focused upon the putative philosophy of medieval writers, particularly Aquinas, and largely
left theological reflection alone. And, when theological contentions on
the part of medieval authors did make their way into the discussion,
they were almost inevitably appropriated as a legitimate incorporation
of revealed teaching into what somehow remained the philosophical
project. The result was 'Christian Philosophy.' Although this resulted
in the flurry of Catholic philosophical study during the first half of
this century, the picture that emerged of the medieval authors, and of
Thomas in particular, was inevitably one-sided, and incomplete. An
overly pessimistic assessment of the situation would be to say that, for
all the hard work of the Gilsons and Maritains, Van Steenberghens and
DeKonincks, we are no nearer to Thomas today than we were in the
1870s.

BOOK REVIEWS

167

Brian Davies's endeavor seeks to change that, because it attempts to
provide the modern reader with a comprehensive introduction to the
great expanse of Thomas's thought according to the manner in which
Thomas himself presented it in his mature theological masterpiece, the
Summa theologiae. Fr. Davies has succeeded magnificently, and his
book will become, as it should, a mainstay on the bookshelves of university libraries, students, and teachers alike. Professional philosophers
whose work never leads them to Thomas's discussion on Christ, say,
can readily get a good working knowledge of how Thomas approaches
this center of Christian faith and practice. And the student who is altogether new to Aquinas can grasp something of the ' movement ' of
Thomas's thought by reading, and re-reading, Davies judicious renderings of Thomas's doctrine on human acts. This is a book of many uses,
all of them instructive and helpful.
Considering this book to be an introduction, as Fr. Davies does (p.
viii), does not do justice to the quantity of his achievement in writing
it, or of the student's investment in reading it. The work occupies some
391 pages, reading made difficult by the tightly-knit character of
Thomas's thought, though Davies' easy writing helps to allay the
burden. The physical constitution of the book, in slightly off-white
octavo paper and an 11-point base font, makes for comfortable reading.
Davies has avoided excessive footnoting, giving references to Thomas's
text judiciously, and he also provides a well-tailored and impressively
diverse bibliography at the end .of the volume which can be effectively
consulted by his reader. The author himself is a foundational theologian at Blackfriars in Oxford, so one might expect him instinctively
to address the particular audience he encounters in his work. But, save
on a very few occasions, Fr. Davies is mindful that in selecting a broad
audience he has cast a very wide net; the book is generally free from
various forms of philosophical or theological ' newspeak,' and thus all
readers with a willingness to read what is by necessity a long book
will find themselves both able to do so, at the outset, and rewarded
they when have done so, at the end.
The book begins with a preliminary chapter devoted to sketching
Thomas the man to the reader. Basing himself upon standard sources
in Thomistic literature, such as Weisheipl, Chenu, Boyle, Pegis, Gilby,
and others, Davies provides the reader with the ' Shape of the Saint,'
giving him an account of Thomas's life and profession, together with
a short explanation of the discipline Thomas called sacra doctrina.
Following the order of the Summa theologiae, Davies next turns to address how we get to God, and then to the divine attributes. Here Davies
is in comfortable, and constant, conversation with any number of
thinkers who frequent the discipline of the philosophy of religion, a
particular forte of Davies (Oxford University Press is presently pub-

168

BOOK REVIEWS

lishing his Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion). In fact, Davies'
coverage of Thomas's 25-question treatment de deo uno in the prima
pars of the Summa theologiae amounts to 163 pages of text, or more
than two-fifths of the entire book's length-the discussion of the Trinity, by contrast, is 22 pages long. But this portion of the book is no
mere recitation of topics interesting to philosophers of religion, for
Davies does the reader the service of unifying the minute considerations of this or that particular topic from the philosophy of religion
into a single, compelling presentation of Thomas's doctrine of God, a
presentation that in turn serves as a reliable foundation for the rest
of the book's topics, even though they receive less attention in terms of
the quantity of writing. In short, philosophers of religion will surely
want to read Davies's account to get some sense of where the Aquinas
they study from the point of view of his doctrine on, say, the divine
immutability or eternity, unity or predicability, sees the discussion of
God heading; readers with interests in ethics or christology, on the
other hand, will be able to obtain a sense of the God that Thomas sees
as the unifying dogmatic principle of all of the other topics considered
in the Summa theologiae.
Davies next turns to a presentation of the human person, considering
the constitution of humans, the immortality of the soul, and the nature of voluntary action, in a chapter entitled ' Being Human.' This
is followed by a very useful chapter, 'How to Be Happy,' that sketches
the outlines of Thomas's foundational moral teaching, and by 'How
to Be Holy,' which deals with the Old Law, the New Law, and divine
grace. Unfortunately, the selectiveness that Davies must exercise in so
large an undertaking as this book results in a treatment of faith, hope,
and charity that lasts only 22 pages, with no ex prof esso treatment of
the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or even of prudence and the other cardinal
virtues. The upshot is something of an inversion of the history of the
Summa theologiae: the secunda secundae, to which Thomas himself devoted the most text, and which medieval scriveners most often
copied, gets scant treatment in Davies book. It is true that there are
many able accounts of the subject-matter of the secunda secundae to
be found in Thomistic literature, but Davies has shown himself in this
book to be so able a presenter of Thomas's thought that one is sorry
not to see him use his gifts on a portion of Thomas's Summa that is
enjoying increasing popularity and influence today.
The book finally turns to treat of Christ, his saving work, and the
sacraments, with particular emphasis placed upon the crowning sacrament of the eucharist. Davies addresses well some objections raised to
Thomas's teaching on transubstantiation, and brings the chapter, and,
abruptly with it, the book, to a close. The book's ending does mirror
that of the Summa theologiae, even though it would have been helpful,

BOOK REVIEWS

169

I believe, for Davies to provide the reader with a separate summary of
the book in which he emphasized three or four of the main ' thrusts '
of the integral teaching of Thomas. Fr. Davies has been, after all, our
guide in the book, and someone who has performed the impressive
feat of appropriating Thomas's great literary legacy would surely have
some insights of enduring use to his reader.
Davies himself admits (p. ix) that his task, because of its size, required him to be selective, and indeed he is in the book, for there are
no significant treatments of Thomas's account of creation, the angels
(important if only for its account of created intellect and will), the
hexameron, human knowledge, the passions, sin, the cardinal virtues,
and the contemplative and active states in life. Yet in spite of this
Davies delivers to the reader a picture of Aquinas that will allow him,
I believe, quickly to appropriate Thomas's teaching on those subjects,
should he turn to them. And that, for any book of this type, is the true
test. This book is highly recommended for interested undergraduates,
graduate students whose work touches upon Aquinas's teaching in
whatever way, and philosophers and theologians who seek to have a
broad, well-integrated account of the teaching of the ' Common Doctor.'
MARK JOHNSON

Saint Joseph's College
Rensselaer, Indiana

GENERAL INDEX TO THE THOM/ST
VOLUME 58 (1994)
ARTICLES
PAGB

Boughton, Lynne C., More .than Metaphors: Masculine-Gendered
Names and the Knowability of God . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . .. . . . .. . .
Burrell, David, C.S.C., God's Knowledge of Future Contingents: A
Reply to William Lane Craig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . .
Deely, John, What Happened to Philosophy Between Aquinas and
Descartes 'I
. . . ••. . . . . . •. •. . . . . ••. . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . •. . . . . . •
Dulles, Avery, S. J., The Hierarchy of Truths in the Catechism . . . .
Durbin, Paul T., Ferment in Philosophy of Science Revisited . . . . . .
Hughes, Charles T., Embodied Human Agents Inhabiting a Material
World'/ . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Knasas, John F. X., A Heideggerian Critique of Aquinas and a
Gilsonian Reply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . •
Kondoleon, Theodore, The Start of Metaphysics . . . . . . . . • . . • . . . . .
Kronen, John D., The Substantial Unity of Material Substances According to John Poinsot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . .
Lee, Richard, The Analogies of Being in Aquinas . . . . • • . . . . . . . . . .
Macintyre, Alasdair, The Splendor of the Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •
Mixie, Joseph, The Teleological Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Molnar, Paul D., Reflections on Pannenberg's Systematic Theology
Mullady, Brian, O.P., Religious Freedom: Homogeneous or Heterogeneous Development 'I . . . . • . • . • . . . • . . • . . . . • . . • • • • • • • . • • • •
Murphy, James B., Language, Communication, and Representation
in the Semiotic of John Poinsot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ogunmodede, Francis I., The Political Philosophies of Aquinas and
Awolowo • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . • • .
Peterson, John, Does Kant Reduce the Cosmological Proof to the
Ontological Proof 'I • • . . . • • • . . . • . . • . . • . • • • • • . • . • . • . • • • . . . . •
Phan, Peter C., Rahner on the Unoriginate Father: A Comment...
Porter, Lawrence B., Summa Contra Gentiles III, Chapters 131-135:
A Rare Glimpse into the Heart and Mind of Aquinas . . . . . . . .
Principe, Walter H., C.S.B., An Important New Study of Thomas
Aquinas: Jean-Pierre Torrell's Initiation a saint Thomas
d'Aquin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . • . . . . . . • . . . . . . . • • . . .

283
317
543
369
655
389
415
121
599
471
171
635
501
93
569
265
463
131
245

489

INDEX OF ARTICLES ( Oontinue<l)
PAGE

Rasmussen, Douglas B., Reclaiming Liberalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Renick, Timothy M., Charity Lost: The Secularization of the Principle of Double Effect in the Just-War Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rhonheimer, Martin, The Moral Viewpoint of Veritatis Splendor . .
Sarot, Marcel, God, Emotion, and Corporeality: A Thomist Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sweeney, Eileen C., Three Notions of Resolutio and the Structure
of Reasoning in Aquinas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wawrykow, Joseph, The Summa Contra Gentiles Reconsidered: On
the Contribution of the De Trinitate of Hilary of Poitiers
Westberg, Daniel, Did Aquinas Change his Mind on the Will 'I . . . •
Young, Robin Darling, SHE WHO IS: Who is She'I . . . . . . . . . .• .

109
441
1
61
197
617
41
323

REVIEWS
Anglin, W. S., Free Will an<l Christian Faith (Incandela, Joseph
M.) ..•.................................................
148
Balthasar, Hans Urs von, The Glory of the Lora VI (Keefe, Donald
J., S.J.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Balthasar, Hans Urs von, The Theology of Henri <le Lubac: An
Overview (Napack, Mark D.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
Barrett, Cyril, Wittgenstein on Ethics an<l Religious Belief (Churchill, John) . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Bonino, Serge-Thomas, ed., "Un maltre en theologie: Le Pere MarieMichel Labourdette, O.P.," Revue Thomiste 92/1 (McCa:ffrey,
Kevin, O.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Bradshaw, Paul F., The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship. Sources an<l Methods for the Study of Early Liturgy
(Irwin, Kevin W.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . 704
Cessario, Romanus, The Godly Image (Loewe, William P.) . . . . . . . 147
Cunningham, David S., Faithful Persuasion: In Ai<l of a Rhetoric
of Christian Theology (Nichols, Aidan, O.P.) • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Davies, Brian, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Johnson, Mark) . . 166
Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars (Vidmar, John, O.P.) . . 357
Dulles, Avery, The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System
(Casarella, Peter J.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . 513
Emberley, Peter and Cooper, Barry, eds., Fatith an<l Political Philosophy: The Correspondence Between Leo Strauss an<l Eric
V oegelin (Poirier, Maben Walter) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • 538

INDEX OF BOOK REVIEWED (Continued)
PAGE

Finnis, John, Moral .Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth
(George, Robert P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jenson, Robert W., Unbaptized God, The Basic Flaw in Ecumenical
Theology (Buckley, James J.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Keenan, James F., Goodness and Rightness in Thomas .Aquinas's
Summa Theologiae (Cuddeback, John) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Kuschel, Karl-Josef, Born Before All Time: The Dispute over
Christ's Origin (Krasevac, Edward L., 0.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Leftow, Brian, Time and Eternity (Felt, James W., S.J.) . . . . . . . .
Matteo, Anthony, Quest for the .Absolute (Kerlin, Michael J.) . . . .
May, William E., An Introduction to Moral Theology (Grabowski,
John S.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Miller, Barry, From Existence to God: A Contemporary Philosophical .Argument (Dodd, Michael J., O.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nelson, Daniel Mark, The Priority of Prudence (Barry, Robert,
O.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
O'Hanlon, Gerard F., The Immutability of God in the Theology of
Hans Urs von Balthasar (Schindler, David L.) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
O'Meara, Thomas, Church and Culture: German Catholic Theology,
1860-1914 (Ford, John T., C.S.C.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pailin, David A., The .Anthropological Character of Theology: Conditioning Theological Understanding (Del Colle, Ralph) . . . . .
Redworth, Glyn, In Defense of the Church Catholic (Soule, W.
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348

677
342

699

525
153
359
364

156
335
354
694

161
522
689

164