THE USE OF SCRIPTURE AND THE RENEW AL
OF MORAL THEOLOGY: THE
CATECHISM AND VERIT ATIS SPLENDOR 1
SERVAIS

PINCKAERS,

0.P.

L'Universite de Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland

T.

HE SECOND Vatican Council ratified the biblical reewal that had prepared it. It truly gave Scripture back
o the Catholic people and recommended it as " the very
soul of sacred theology." 2 The Council invited theologians to
show the inner coherence of the mysteries of salvation proposed
by the Scriptures. They were exhorted to make use of the teaching of the Fathers and to engage in speculative reflection, with
St. Thomas as a guide, in order to search for the solutions to
human problems in a manner suitable to contemporary man. In
particular, the Council affirmed :
Special care should be given to the perfecting of moral theology. Its
scientific presentation should draw more fully on the teaching of holy
Scripture and should throw light upon the exalted vocation of the
faithful in Christ and their obligation to bring forth fruit in charity
for the life of the world.3
The document on the formation of future priests published on
February 22, 1976 by the Congregation for Catholic Education
1 This paper was presented at the Theological Consultation of American
Bishops at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, September 12,
1994. The English translation was prepared by Sister Mary Thomas Noble,
O.P.
2Dei Verbum 24; English translation by Liam Walsh,O.P., Vatican Council
II, ed. Austin Flannery, O.P., revised edition, (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1992), 764. See 0Ptatam totius 16.
s Optatam totius 16; English translation by B. Hayes, S.M., S. Fagan, S.M.,
and Austin Flannery, O.P., Vatican Council II, 720.

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makes the directives in this conciliar text beautifully explicit and
helps us to perceive its main lines. Notably, it states :

In the past, moral theology exhibited at times a certain narrowness
of vision and some lacunas. This was due in large part to a kind of
legalism, to an individualistic orientation, and to a separation from
the sources of Revelation. To counter all this, ... it is necessary to
clarify the method by which moral theology ought to be developed in
close contact with Holy Scripture ( n. 96).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the encyclical
V eritatis Splendor have each in its own way effected the reestablishment of the bonds between Scripture and moral theology. I
propose to touch upon the principal points of this scriptural renewal in the teaching of moral theology.
In order to get an idea of the novelty of these recent developments, a comparison will help. We shall look at the presentation
of Catholic moral teaching given in the manuals which have
served as textbooks in seminaries and which have oriented preaching and moral catechesis over the last four centuries, following
the Council of Trent. These manuals developed and transmitted
a certain systematization of moral theology based on categories
which have become classic. Even those who criticize the manuals,
proportionalists and consequentialists, for example, still use these
categories. The moral theory of the manuals constitutes a common cultural base, one whose concepts and categories (for the
most part connected with certain currents in modern philosophy
such as Kantian ethics) have exercised a determining role in the
relationship between the teaching of Christian ethics and Scripture.
In our effort to delineate the principal elements of scriptural
renewal proposed to us by the Catechism and the Encyclical, we
shall examine six points: firstly, the use of Scripture; next, the
great moral texts it offers us, the Decalogue, the Sermon on the
Mount, apostolic catechesis, and the treatment of cases of conscience; finally, we shall respond to the difficulty created by new
ethical problems and by recent cultural changes.

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I. SCRIPTURAL

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QUOTATIONS

We need only run through the moral section of the Catechism
to see that Biblical citations are there far more numerous than in
the manuals of former times. These citations appear even in the
section titles, such as " Life in Christ" and " Life in the Spirit,"
taken from Saint Paul in order to describe the moral life. The
table of contents of the Encyclical is likewise sprinkled with
Biblical citations.
Looking more closely, we see that the quotations are not simple
illustrations or proof texts, but constitute the primary source of
the doctrine being proposed. Such is the case with the beatitudes,
placed at the beginning of the moral section of the Catechism.'
It is also the case with the story of the rich young man who poses
the fundamental moral question : " What good must I do to have
eternal life? " 5-the question which traces for us the entire
framework of the Encyclical.
This renewal of contact with the Gospel leads to a profound
modification of the conception of moral theology. Christian
moral teaching cannot be reduced to the observance of a code of
obligations and prohibitions. It consists principally, as the Encyclical says, in "holding fast to the very person of Jesus." 8
And so for every believer, "following Christ is the essential and
primordial foundation of Christian morality." 7

The Question of Obligation and the Question of Happiness
In order to .reestablish a solid bond between moral theology
and the Gospel, it is not enough to multiply quotations from
Scripture. We are facing a basic problem which I shall try to
reduce to its bare essentials: it is a matter of knowing what is the
first and characteristic question for moral theology.
We have here a choice between two questions which embody
two concepts of moral theology. I shall mention first the one
"'Catechism of the Catholic Church, (Washington, D.C.: United States
Catholic Conference, 1994), n. 1716-1729, pp. 426-30.
5 Veritatis Splendor, (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993), n. 6ff.
11 Veritatis Splendor, n. 19.
1 Veritatis Splendor, n. 19.

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which is still the most widespread. Since the end of the Middle
Ages, moral theology has focused on the idea of obligation imposed by law, to such an extent that moral teaching has become
the domain of obligations, commands, prohibitions. The first
moral question has therefore become : What is obligatory? What
is allowed or forbidden? In consequence, moral theology has
been divided according to the ten commandments, understood as
the expression of the obligations and prohibitions imposed by the
law of God. It has been cut off from all that goes beyond obligation and from all that concerns the free search for perfection.
These have been relegated to another science, to the domain of
asceticism and mysticism, or of spirituality, or perhaps of parenesis (exhortation), as the exegetes call it.
As far as the relationship between Scripture and moral theology
is concerned, the result of all this is direct and logical: Since they
began with the question of obligation, moral theologians were
only interested henceforth in scriptural texts which established
obligations or formulated commands, that is to say the Decalogue,
seen as a legislative code, and passages of the New Testament
which could be related to this, such as the teaching on the indissolubility of marriage in Mt. 19 :9. Moral theologians were no
longer interested in sapiential and exhortatory texts. They did
not realize that they were overlooking the principal texts of the
apostolic moral teaching. Thus the contact between Catholic
moral teaching and Scripture narrowed by focusing on the Decalogue, which was identified, moreover, with natural law.
To aid us in reestablishing the connection between Catholic
moral teaching and Scripture, the theological tradition fortunately offers us another model, one that comes to us from the Fathers
of the Church. The approach of the Fathers to moral teaching
began with the question which Saint Augustine expressed in these
terms, " What is the happy life? " and which Saint Thomas later
posed at the beginning of the moral section of the Summa, asking, "What is true happiness?" In this way, they were rephrasing the question of the rich young man to Jesus: " What good
must I do to gain eternal life? " That is also the question of
salvation, according to another biblical formulation.

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With the moral question formulated in this way-" What is
the true good, the true happiness ? "-the horizon of moral theology is opened up broadly, beyond legal obligations, and the
scriptural texts evoked in response flow abundantly, beginning
with the Gospel beatitudes, which are like a summary of God's
promises to his people. The beatitudes bring us Christ's answer
to the question of happiness-a question which, according to
Saint Thomas' s commentary on Matthew, philosophers of all
schools tried in vain to resolve.
It is indeed in this direction that the Catechism orients us, together with the Encyclical which followed it, when it introduces
at the beginning of fundamental moral teaching-before the
study of liberty, human acts, conscience, and law-a chapter on
" Our Vocation to Beatitude " with its triple division: the beatitudes, the desire for happiness, and Christian beatitude. Since
the appearance of the first manuals in the seventeenth century,
the treatment of beatitude had been separated from fundamental
moral theology without a word being said. So complete was the
separation that one could discuss the entire field of moral theology
without mentioning the question of happiness or thus of the
beatitudes. This is borne out by the thematic indexes of these
treatises on moral theology.
What is at stake is of prime importance for us. If we approach
the Bible from the perspective of the question of happiness, the
entire body of Scripture will give us answers, by showing us the
ways which lead to the promised happiness and by furnishing us
with examples to support us in our pursuit of it. We then rediscover this Patristic idea: the entire Bible possesses a moral meaning centered upon the application of the teaching and the life of
Christ to our own conduct.
II. THE REINTERPRETATION

OF THE DECALOGUE

Having rediscovered the path to scriptural renewal in ethics,
thanks to the question of true happiness, we can now approach
the principal moral texts offered to us by Scripture.
The first text to look at is the Decalogue. Throughout Christian tradition, the Decalogue has provided the basic foundation

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for moral teaching, but the interpretation given it varies according to the place attributed to it in the theological systematization.
For Saint Thomas, for example, the Decalogue is at the service
of the virtues, beginning with the theological virtues which form
the heart of the New Law. In the study of each virtue, he examines the corresponding commandment of the Decalogue, as determining that without which no virtue is possible. In the
modern manuals, the structure of moral theology is formed by the
ten commandments, seen as the expression of moral obligations,
while the virtues are practically speaking dropped from fundamental moral theology in favor of the study of sins. They serve
merely as points of reference for classifying obligations and sins.
The Catechism proposes to us a broadening of the concept of
moral law and its domain. It directs the natural law and the Decalogue to the New Law as to their fulfillment. Thus it places
the Decalogue within the framework of the Covenant and makes
of it a preparation for the Gospel, at the service of love of God
and neighbor.
The Encyclical, in its turn, adopts this viewpoint and adds a
clarification which is of great importance for the interpretation of
the Decalogue. The Decalogue is not simply a list of commandments demanding obedience under pain of sin and punishment; it
is a gift of God's Goodness, a manifestation of his Wisdom and
Holiness. And here is the decisive point: more than legal obedience, the Decalogue requires of us a response of love,8 a love that
will take on the twofold form of love of God above all and love of
neighbor; these in turn are refracted into the precepts of the first
and second tables.
I should like to draw your attention to the importance of this
last point. In placing the response of love as the basis of the observance of the Decalogue, the Encyclical is making a fundamental change, a change that a quotation from Saint Augustine
introduced a little further on expresses quite well: " Does love
bring about the keeping of the commandments, or does the keeping of the commandments bring about love? " 9 In other words,
s Veritatis Splendor, n. 10.
9Augustine, In lohannis Evangelium Tractatus, 82, 3: CCL 36, 533; Veritatis Splendor, n. 22.

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which is first and fundamental? Is it obedience to the imperative
which a commandment formulates, or is it love, which is the object of the commandment? By thinking of morality as the domain of obligations, and particularly by reducing the treatment
of charity to a listing of the duties it imposes and the sins contrary to it, Catholic teaching in recent centuries had given priority
to commands in moral theology. The Encyclical invites us to a
conversion : to give love primacy over command, and to return
legal observance to its role as the servant of charity. This is indeed Saint Augustine's answer to his question: "But who can
doubt that love comes first? For the one who does not love has
no reason for keeping the commandments." 10 In moral theology,
the point is not to observe the commandments of the Decalogue
materially, to obey them so as to fulfill one's obligations or
through a sense of duty; the point is to observe them out of love,
with the heart. This is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit
when he infuses charity in our hearts, and when he forms the
New Law within us as an interior law.
It is the very crux of moral theology that is being modified
here. The Decalogue is being reestablished on the foundation of
charity and put in direct contact once more with the New Law.
It presides like a tutor over the first stage of the formation of
charity, a formation whose further growth will develop under the
aegis of the Gospel Law. This change of perspective has direct
and profound consequences for the relationship between moral
theology and Scripture, if it is true, as Saint Augustine thinks,
that love of God and of neighbor constitutes the principal criterion for interpreting all of sacred history; for charity is the soul
and the end of Scripture. 11
III. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND
THE NEW LAW
A major innovation in the Catechism and in the Encyclical is
that the New Law and the Sermon on the Mount have been re1 0 Ibid.

11 De Doctrina christiana, bk. I, ch. xxv, 39.

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introduced into the domain of Christian moral teaching. As the
Decalogue stood to the Old Law, so the Sermon on the Mount
stands to the New, as its specific text. This is a return to the
tradition of the Fathers which led to Saint Thomas. It is also
an essential point for the return to the Gospel.
The Sermon of the Lord is indeed a major part of apostolic
catechesis. The evangelist Matthew made of it the summary of
Jesus' teaching on justice, that is to say, on the moral life. It
has rightly been called the charter of the Christian life. For this
reason, it became a principal source of preaching and moral theology among the Fathers, Greek as well as Latin, up to the thirteenth century.
The discreet rejection of the Sermon from moral theology in
the modern era is easily explained, since the doctrine it proposes
cannot be integrated into a systematization of moral theology
based on obligations. It is impossible to reduce it to strict commands.
As Henri Bergson pointed out, moral systems of obligation or
command are by _nature static; they fix limits and determine
minimal requirements. On the other hand the teaching of the
Sermon is fundamentally dynamic; it is animated by a continuous tendency toward exceeding and surpassing, a tendency toward the progress and perfection of love in imitation of the
Father's goodness. While taking up again the precepts of the Decalogue, the Sermon radicalizes and maximalizes them by placing
itself at the level of the heart, or of interior acts, in Saint
Thomas's terms, ordering these precepts to the perfection of charity. We are dealing here with two different kinds of moral
teaching. Obligations do indeed remain a necessary basis in
Christian moral teaching, but they can only fulfill their role and
acquire evangelical value by being ordered, as servants, to the increase of charity, whose ways the Sermon on the Mount traces
out for us.
The reintegration of the Sermon of the Lord in moral teaching will not be easy, however, because it requires a modification
in the moral categories we have inherited from our education. A

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sign of this difficulty can be seen in the subject indexes of the
Catechism: No index, not even that in the recent English edition,
mentions the Sermon, even though it is explicitly treated in the
body of the text. 12 Still, in the Index of Citations from Sacred
Scripture there are 139 citations from chapters 5-7 of Matthew.
Clearly, in order to gather together the teachings of the Lord
on the Mount and to take account of them, we need a moral
theology which begins with the question of beatitude and develops
by following the virtues grouped around charity, even as the
structure of the Sermon itself indicates. It first teaches us the
blessings of the Kingdom and then describes the attitudes of heart
and the conduct that lead to them-in other words, the virtues
which prepare the blessings of the Kingdom and which will be
more explicitly indicated in the catechesis of the epistles.
In accord with the Sermon, the Catechism and Encyclical take
up again the teaching on the New Law, defined by Saint Thomas
as consisting essentially in an interior law formed by the grace
of the Holy Spirit, received through faith in Christ, and operating through charity. This teaching includes as secondary elements the text of the Sermon, as the moral center of Scripture,
and the sacraments, as the instruments which communicate the
grace of the Spirit. Thus the Holy Spirit once more enjoys a
preponderant role in Christian moral teaching. His indispensable
action is exercised notably through the gifts, which Saint Thomas
links closely to the virtues.
IV. APOSTOLIC CATECHESIS
The Sermon is not the only source of New Testament moral
teaching. It is not an isolated text; it appears as summary and
completion of Biblical sapiential doctrine, and should be seen in
relation to the other texts of apostolic catechesis, of which it is
a principal component, representing the direct authority of the
Lord.
The Catechism, even more clearly than the Encyclical, indicates
and recommends to us the principal texts of apostolic moral
iz Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1965-1970, pp. 477-78.

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chesis: Romans 12-15, I Corinthians 12-13, Colossians 3-4,
Ephesians 4-5, and so forth. 13 We can easily perceive here the
work of the apostles and the first Christian communities, impelled as they were by the desire to obtain, for their preaching,
catechesis, and meditation, summaries of moral teaching in a
formulation which would lend itself to being passed on and
learned by heart.
We encounter here, however, an exegetical obstacle based on
commonly accepted moral categories. Exegetes (and certain
translations, such as the Jerusalem Bible) place the texts we have
cited under the heading of "parenesis." Parenesis designates an
exhortation that is distinct from moral teaching, which ordinarily
takes the form of an imperative. In this view, because they do not
present imperatives, such texts thus belong to the field of spiritual
exhortation and do not belong to moral teaching properly so
called. This is effectively the opinion of " proportionalist "
writers, who consequently remove these texts from their ethical
system. Therefore it seems that the New Testament has little
to teach us about morality. One could thus construct the science
of morality without in fact any need to consult Scripture, by basing it solely on rational arguments and norms. These moral theologians proceed on the assumption that the first Christian generation had been little interested in moral teaching and had only
a confused idea of it; rather, the early Christians had been content to add some spiritual exhortations to the Decalogue. This
interpretation is based on a rigid application of the separation
between morality and spirituality.
This rather surprising conclusion is the sign of what we might
call an incompatibility of systems in the conception of moral theology. When these moral theologians question the New Testament from the viewpoint of their own system, focused on obligations and imperative norms, they obtain only a disappointing response. The end result of their research is not far from zero.
In fact, the teaching of the authors of the New Testament is
linked to a moral system, to a presentation and organization of
1 3 Catechism of the Catholic Church, n.

1971, p. 479.

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moral teaching which responds to the question of happiness and
salvation and which is based upon the teaching of the virtues,
beginning with faith in Christ and charity. And so their manner
of presentation differs from the imperative mode. It is properly
called " paraclesis," apostolic and fraternal exhortation.
This is obviously a decisive question with regard to the subject we are discussing: the use of Scripture in moral theology.
If we remain bound to a moral teaching of pure obligation and
imperatives, the situation will continue to be one of frustration,
and constant difficulties will arise over interpretation. We are at
an impasse; we need to extricate ourselves by revising our categories and by adopting those used by the sacred writers when
they are teaching about morality.
Paraclesis

In order to resolve the problem thus posed by the apostolic
form of catechesis, we first need to clarify our terms. In order
to designate the apostolic texts of which we have been speaking,
exegetical usage has employed the term " parenesis." In my opinion, this term is inadequate; it does not belong to the moral vocabulary of the New Testament (the verb parainein appears only
twice, in the account of the storm in Acts 27: 9, 22). It seems
to me the term "paraclesis," meaning urgent exhortation, would
be preferable. 14
Paraclesis becomes practically a technical term for Paul, who
usually uses it to introduce his moral teaching, as in the Letter
to the Romans 12 :1: " I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God ... " 15 as well as in the other passages mentioned
above. In either the substantive or verbal form the word occurs
thirty-eight times in the writings of Paul and more than a hundred times in the New Testament. Paraclesis is the teaching
mode that is appropriate for the apostle when he is transmitting
the Lord's teaching to disciples who have become his brothers,
14 See Heinrich
Schlier, Die Zeit der Kirche: Exegetisrhe Aufsiitze und
Vortriige (Freiburg: Herder, 1956), 74-89.
1 5 All Biblical quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version.

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and whom he addresses with fatherly affection. He no longer
issues orders or commands as he would to servants, for they
have opened their hearts to love, to agape; he exhorts them by
word and example, as brothers and sisters in Christ. Paraclesis
is perfectly suited to the regime of the New Law, to a morality
of charity and of the virtues, one that calls for each person's initiative. Paraclesis can therefore be considered as the specific form
of moral teaching in apostolic catechesis. In this perspective, it
presents itself to us as a principal source of Christian moral
theology.
Upon a close examination, for which we do not have space
here, we realize that these texts of apostolic catechesis, in the
same way as the Lord's Sermon, often constitute small syntheses
of moral teaching, syntheses that are well organized and formed
out of bits or pieces that have been carefully worked over (even
on a literary level) in the light of the tradition (primarily oral)
and above all in the light of practice. These presentations teach
us to follow the logic of the Holy Spirit, rather different from
Cartesian or Kantian logic, or even scholastic logic. As in the
Gospel, the center of moral teaching in these texts is the intelligent and loving heart. We have here real treasures to be rediscovered; they are part of our heritage. If moral theologians have
neglected them too much, we have to note that the liturgy has
fortunately continued to repeat them to us through the centuries.
V. DISCERNMENT

IN CASES OF CONSCIENCE

With the help of the Catechism and the Encyclical, we have
shown how Catholic moral theology can renew itself by contact
with the principal scriptural sources of moral teaching. I should
like at this point to complete this general overview by examining
how the sacred authors treat the concrete cases proposed to them,
cases of conscience as we call them. Saint Paul, among others,
provides us with models in the series of cases that he resolves in
I Corinthians. Yet, what is his method, what are his criteria?
The method is constant. We could characterize it as a compenetration of criteria of two orders. First of all, there are the

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criteria belonging to the order of reason, such as can be found in
the thought of the philosophers and rabbis. In the case of fornication, for example: " Every other sin which a man commits is
outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own
body" (I Cor. 6:18). At the same time, criteria based on faith
come into play: our relationship to Christ, to the Spirit, and the
bond of charity: " Do you not know that your body is a temple
of the Holy Spirit?" (I Cor. 6:19). We can thus perceive in
Saint Paul's work of discernment an intimate link between the
understanding of the human and the understanding of Christ.
Each penetrates and reinforces the other, but the Christian criteria become predominant, particularly through the work of charity which unites believers as brothers, as members of the same
body by the impulse of the Spirit. It is, moreover, within this
framework of the Church seen as the body of Christ that Paul
places his moral teaching in his epistle to the Romans, as well as
in that to the Ephesians.
In brief, we already find in Paul what later theology will develop-a close union between the moral virtues: sobriety, justice,
chastity, gentleness, discernment, etc., and the theological virtues
which provide the higher and decisive criteria. Charity in particular penetrates so deeply into the other virtues that they become
aspects or forms of agape. "Love is patient and kind .... Love
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things" (I Cor. 13: 4-7).
Saint Paul does not furnish his correspondents with readymade solutions, to be applied without variation. He proposes to
them models for solutions of cases of conscience; he gives them
the basic principles and conclusions; he teaches them how to
judge according to right reason and the Gospel, so that they will
be able to discern for themselves when other situations arise. In
this way, he educates their Christian conscience.
In the cases examined, we notice that the apostle is not content
to determine what is permitted and what forbidden. His reflection is always directed to the formation of charity in the hearts
of the faithful and in the ecclesial community, so that they may

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acquire wisdom in docility to the Spirit. In this concrete teaching, he aims primarily at progress in charity and in every virtue.
Nevertheless, in this nuanced teaching, as in the case of eating
food offered to idols where he wishes to take into account the
conscience of the weak, Saint Paul shows himself intractable in
regard to negative precepts and the vices involved : " Do you not
know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
... neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual
perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God" (I Cor. 6.9-10).
These vices corrupt agape. One must choose. On this level, no
compromise, no accommodation is possible.
It is clear that moral judgment takes place first at the level of
the heart, in the conscience, where virtues and vices are formed
beneath God's gaze and where actions are engendered. Paul is
categorical in his reprobation of vices. But the consideration of
sins is not predominant for him, as it will be in casuistry. It is the
work of grace through charity which is uppermost in his thought.
His catechesis is wholly oriented toward salvation in Jesus and
sanctification in the Spirit through the practice of the Gospel
virtues : " You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justi"
fied in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our
God" (ICor.6:11).
The study of the cases of conscience is truly a model for us,
showing the range of criteria to be used, with their ordering and
inter-connection, as well as showing how faith, hope, and charity
should guide a Christian's concrete behavior.
VI. NEW ETHICAL PROBLEMS AND
CULTURAL CHANGES
We now need to respond to two difficulties frequently presented in regard to the application of Scripture to concrete moral
jl1dgment. The advances of science and technology have created
new ethical problems. How can Scripture give us norms and
prescribe to us a line of conduct in the case of problems which
were not imagined in former times, such as those posed by bio-

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ethics? Or again : the Biblical authors and the first Christians
lived in a cultural context far different from ours, which has been
transformed with the advent of " modernity " and the progress
of the sciences. It seems that the solutions worked out in their
time cannot apply such as they are in our time. How can there
be a continuity between Biblical culture and our own, as far as
moral norms and their application are concerned ? This difficulty
calls into question not only the recourse to Scripture for the solution of concrete cases, but also the universal and permanent character of moral laws. Here we are at the heart of the current
debate raised by "proportionalism."
To respond to these questions, we should distinguish three
levels in human action, levels that are contained and united in action in the concrete.
1) We can consider the human act at the level of the external
act, as Saint Thomas put it. Later moral theologians would
rigidify matters by speaking of a physical level, and the " proportionalists " of a pre-moral or ontic level. At this material
level, it is clear that the progress of the sciences and technological
inventions have produced changes which have modified conditions of life and mentalities, creating a certain " scientific " or
" technological " culture. These are material and cultural facts
that we need to take into consideration in assessing the circumstances of action.
The danger exists, however, of in effect reducing moral judgment to this level, and of conceiving it according to the model of
a technical calct,tlation of profit and loss in view of a desired goal.
We would be basing our judgment on a comparison of the good
and evil consequences of the action, which the Germans call a
Giiterabwagung, a weighing out of goods. In this view, the
moral teaching of Scripture would be considered as one cultural
datum among others, more or less applicable to our times. In
this way, if we take the example of a judgment about abortion,
the unborn child will be assessed first of all as a datum in the
biological order that will be weighed against the interests of the
mother in the physical, psychological, or social order. If we are

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not careful, in this way of looking at things we will end up using
money as the measure, because money lends itself best to the
calculation of profit and loss. This method by way of comparison
of consequences could lead to a revision of the norms themselves,
if general conditions were modified to an important degree, as in
the case of the establishment of freedom of abortion by civil legislation.
2) Such a view of human action is partial. Although it suits
our technological mentality, it should not be allowed to hide from
us the properly moral dimension of the human act: it is the work
of the human person and qualifies him in his personality. Human
action is directly moral at the level of the interior act. If we rise
to this place, which touches us in our state as persons, the perspective changes profoundly. The moral plane is constituted by
the qualities of the human person at the level of reason, will, and
heart, where he has mastery over his actions. That is the domain
of the virtues, the virtues which make both the act and the one
who does it good.
At this higher level which is concerned with the human person
as human, the changes noted on the material level are reduced.
The virtues preached by Saint Paul, such as self-control, patience,
truthfulness, purity, as well as the virtues taught by the philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, which have become our
cardinal virtues-all these qualities of mind and heart with their
contrary vices remain relevant for us, whatever the changes which
have occurred over the centuries. These qualities enable us precisely to meas11re the profundity of such changes, notably by
means of prudential judgment. These moral perfections witness
to the permanence of the human vocation in the multiplicity of
peoples and civilizations. It is with regard to them that the
greatness or corruption of a culture can be judged; they stand at
the very source of civilization. It is on this same common human
base that we can establish the universality of human rights, as
well as obligations.
At this level, the view on abortion which we took as an example is also modified: Here the unborn child appears as a

CATECHISM

AND VERITATIS

SPLENDOR

17

human person as much as his mother. He has the seeds of virtue
already within him and is morally a subject possessing rights.
If justice is the will to render to everyone his due, it will, by
combining with her natural affection, inspire in the mother the
will to bring the child to his birth and to his full human formation, to the point of the active enjoyment of his rights. This will
for justice will then be an integral part of her maternal love.
3) If we wish to return fully to the Scriptures, we must rise
still higher, to the level of our relationship with God, to which
faith in Christ and charity give us entrance. Here the initiative
belongs to the Word of God, resonating in the hearts of believers
and using Scripture as his instrument. According to the definition of the New Law, we are the recipients of an interior Word
given by the grace of the Holy Spirit, received through faith in
Christ and operating through charity. Together with the sacraments, the text of Scripture is the instrument used by grace in
order to speak to us and enlighten us.
Exegetes, in my humble opinion as a moral theologian, have
fixed our attention a bit too much on human factors and on the
cultural context which conditioned the sacred authors in their
work of composition. We run the risk of forgetting that when
we read Scripture, through these historic data we are placed before a Word that has mastery over time and that creates history,
the history of a people that listens to it and of each believer personally, beginning with the most lowly. The Word leads them
to an encounter with the living God. Certainly we should carefully take into account the historical and human envelope of Scripture, but this should not prevent us from seeing that in its substance it is formed by a Word that surpasses words, ideas, categories, and sentiments. When God wishes to speak to a man,
who can hinder him, what reasonings of exegete or theologian?
We perceive here the higher source of theology and Christian
moral teaching. As the account of Pentecost shows, this Word
transcends differences of languages and cultures and, with the
perspicacity of wisdom, lights up the depths and details of human
action in order to work its discernment in the human heart. With

18

SERVAIS

PINCKAERS,

O.P.

regard to the problem of abortion, for example, the light of the
Spirit shows us, in the littleness and weakness of the child hidden
in its mother's womb, the work and the image of God, the very
figure of Christ identifying himself with the least of the little
ones.
Where shall we find the criteria of judgment about this interior
Word? Quite simply, we shall find them in the conformity to the
writings of the evangelists and apostles.
I should like to add two important clarifications. First of all,
the Gospel has been entrusted to the Church and should therefore
be read and interpreted in accordance with her teaching, within
the framework of liturgical prayer, as well as in personal prayer
and meditation. Secondly, all this is useless unless the Word is put
into practice; this alone wins us the experience of the realities of
the life of faith with spiritual wisdom. It is by practice that a
judgment of connaturality is formed within us, a judgment which
is the characteristic of the virtuous man and which bears fruit in
prudential judgment.
We have distinguished three levels in the complexity of the
human act : the material level of the external act; the directly
moral level of the interior act; and the level relating us to God,
which we may call theological. In a concrete action, however,
which is always personal, these three levels converge and compenetrate each other, beginning from the dynamic interiority
which conceives our acts and which is our very selves, in our
freedom received from God. The theological dimension raises us
above the level .of the moral life by inviting us to imitate the perfection of the "heavenly Father"; yet it also inclines us toward
what is most concrete, toward helping our brother in need, toward forgiveness, and toward love even of our enemy.
The reproach we might offer to " consequentialism " is that it
has narrowed moral theory by reducing judgment to a pre-moral
level, to a kind of technical calculation of consequences in view
of an end, and by limiting the moral plane to an option between
good and bad intention. At the same time, this system has practically severed the bonds between moral theology and Scripture

CATECHISM

AND VERITATIS

SPLENDOR

19

with its distinction between the transcendental and categorical
levels. Morality or ethics being confined to the categorical level,
the system was permitted to be developed with the aid of reason
alone, having no further need of Scripture.
Such rational, if not rationalistic, truncations impoverish moral
theology and are contrary to the perspective and language of
Scripture, which proceed directly from concrete experience in all
its richness, considered in terms of the heart, where man stands
before God and before his neighbor. The preaching of Jesus to
which the Sermon on the Mount bears witness, with its parables
and examples drawn from everyday life, is characteristic in this
connection, and is at the opposite pole from abstract divisions
and theories.
Scripture unites all the dimensions of the human act in the experience in which wisdom is formed: experience first of the Word
of God who is the source of Scripture; experience then of personal action in docility to this Word; experience too of the
ecclesial communion in which charity and the accompanying virtues place us; experience, finally, of the world as the work of
God, wrought through his creative Word who governs it. Such
is the loving Word revealed in Jesus Christ, which unites moral
teaching intimately with Scripture and presides over their relationship. The Word, received in the faith which justifies, engenders Christian morality through the grace of the Spirit, who
sanctifies us in charity.

THE PROBLEM OF THING AND OBJECT
IN MARITAIN
JOHN

c. CAHALAN

Methuen, Massachusetts

I

N THE essay, "Critical Realism," Jacques Maritain said,
"The problem of thing and object is the crux of the problem of realism." 1 Since then, the distinction between thing
and object has received little attention, except for some helpful
discussions by Yves Simon. Either Maritain and Simon were
very mistaken, or we have been missing something very important. This study will attempt to explain the importance of the
thing/object distinction by showing how it applies to a wide
range of questions about human knowledge, from the nature of
metaphysics to the problem of conceptual relativity in the philosophy of science and hermeneutics.
Skeptics and idealists grant that our awareness has objects.
Skeptics question whether we can make extramentally existing
things objects of awareness as they are. Idealists deny that things
have an existence other than being objects of awareness. 2 Maritain considered the presuppositions of calling something an " object " of awareness: what are we doing when we call something
an object of awareness and what conditions are necessary for
knowing that something is such an object. He found that the
conditions necessary for knowing that something is an object of
awareness provide the basis for refutations of skepticism and

1 Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerald B. Phelan
(New York: Scribners, 1959) 107 (translation corrected). Hereafter, I refer to this work as DK, followed by a page number.
2 Maritain uses " idealism " for both ways of denying that we directly attain extramental existents, that is, for any position holding that we must
begin from awareness of our mental states.

21

22

JOHN

C. CAHALAN

idealism. But his analysis also gives us a tool, the distinction between things as things and things as objects, capable of illuminating many other epistemological problems.
I will begin by explaining the thing/object distinction and how
it enables us to refute idealism. Then, I will apply the distinction
to problems concerning the knowledge of being in metaphysics.
Next, I will show how the distinction reveals, for the first time,
the nature of that " conformity" between the mind and things
which we call truth. Finally, I will apply the distinction to the
problems of skepticism and conceptual relativity.

I
How do the conditions required for knowing that something
is an object enable us to defend realism? We can ask epistemological questions because we are reflexively aware of our own
awareness. The reality we call "awareness" is a way of relating
to terms that we call its "objects." "Object" is a relational
term here; to call something an "object" of awareness is to describe it as a term of a knowledge relation (where " knowledge "
means cognition in general, not just knowledge of truth). " We
must distinguish," Maritain says, "between the thing as thingas existing or able to exist for itself-and the thing as objectwhen it is set before the faculty of knowing and made present to
it" (DK, 91). "The object is the correlative of a knowing subject ... which precisely takes the name 'object' from the fact
that it is presented to the mind" (DK, 93; my emphasis). When
we describe something as known, conceived, imagined, heard, referred to, expressed, meant, thought about, remembered, etc., we
are describing it as an object, in Maritain's sense. The subjectobject polarity is a fundamental fact that reflexive self-awareness
reveals to us: A state of awareness has an object that is distinct
from itself at least to the extent that the term of any relation is
distinct from the relation, and just as we can describe awareness
as a relation to something, we can describe that something as a
term of a relation of awareness, an object.
But we cannot describe objects solely as objects; for whatever
we are first aware of, we must be aware of other than as an ob-

THING AND OBJECT

IN MARITAIN

23

ject. To be an object is to be a term of a knowledge relation;
consequently, to be aware that X is an object is to have a knowledge relation whose term is the existence of a knowledge relation
to X. But what are we aware of by the latter relation? The fact
that X is an object? If so, the term of the latter relation is the
existence of a knowledge relation to X. There must be a knowledge relation, whose term is the existence of a knowledge relation, whose term is the existence of a knowledge relation to
X, and so on. Unless the first term of a knowledge relation is
known as something other than the term of a knowledge relation,
as something more than an "object," we are in an infinite regress.3
To take some concrete examples, what we see is not that something is seen but that something is red or round or moving; what
we imagine, in the first instance, is not that something is imagined
but that it is tall or swift or soft. " Seen " and " imagined " are
descriptions of something as an object of awareness. When we
are aware ( 1) by sight that something is moving, we are also
aware (2) that something is an object of sight. But what we see
3 It makes no difference that every awareness includes an implicit awareness
of itself that does not require a distinct, reflexive act. X is an "object" because it is the term of a knowledge relation, A. To know that X is an object
we must have a knowledge relation, B, whose term is knowledge relation A.
Since A and B have distinct terms, A and B are distinct relations, distinct
awareness-ofs, even if they result from the same act. Also, the bipolarity of
consciousness has a causal structure. The implicit awareness of one term of
the relation, the subject pole, depends on the explicit awareness of the other
term. The " what " of which we are aware in knowing the existence of the
subject pole is "a knower," that is, we are aware of the subject pole's existence only insofar as it is something with a relation of awareness of the object
pole; we are aware of ourselves precisely as something aware of objects. But
we could not be aware of the object pole, and therefore of the subject pole, if
we were not first aware of more about the object pole than that it is the object pole. (The argument in the text could be expressed as the circularity of
knowing subject Y only as a knower of X, when what we first know about X is
that it is known by Y.) It is possible that the term of a relation is only conceptually distinct from the relation, when the relation itself is only conceptual.
But the relation, awareness-of, really exists. Even if the existence of the
object were the same as its being known, that which exists when the object
exists would be other than its being known.

24

JOHN C. CAHALAN

in awareness ( 1) cannot be that something is seen; otherwise,
there would be nothing for awareness (2) to be aware of.
The refutations of idealism and skepticism will show that our
awareness of objects as more than "objects" is awareness of
them as extramental " things " ; for they will show that we know
objects to be actual or possible existents, where " to exist " is
other than to be known. The refutations derive from Maritain,
but his arguments are often so compressed that we can easily
miss their significance.
We can see how the argument so far presented derives from
Maritain by looking at his explanation of the assertion that the
problem of thing and object is the crux of the problem of realism.
Immediately after making that statement, he criticizes those who
call it " 'naive realism ' . . . to start with an act of knowledge
about things rather than an act of knowledge about knowledge "
(DK, 107). To hold that we do not know objects of knowledge
first as other than "objects" is to start with an act of knowledge
about knowledge; for something " precisely takes the name ' object ' from the fact that it is presented to the mind" (DK, 93),
that it is " set before the faculty of knowing" (DK, 91). And
to start with knowledge about knowledge is to "fain start with
what comes second" (DK, 108). To claim that we are not
aware of objects as other than objects is to start with what we
know to come second in awareness, because we know that awareness is a relation to a term other than awareness, a term that we
are, therefore, first aware of otherwise than as a " term of a relation of awareness."
Maritain's next statement may appear to beg the question:
" One cannot think about a ' thought thing ' until after one has
thought about a ' thinkable thing '-a thing ' good for existing ' "
(DK, 108). To call something a "thought thing" is to describe
it as an object; for " thought thing " describes something as term
of a knowledge relation. To call something a "thinkable thing"
is to describe it as potentially the term of a knowledge relation.
But why must a " thinkable thing " be a thing " good for existing " ? Because, for something to be potentially the term of a

THING AND OBJECT IN MARITAIN

25

knowledge relation, it must actually be something more than the
term of a knowledge relation. If it were not something more than
the term of a knowledge relation, more than an object, it could
not be the term of a knowledge relation even potentially, since
the term of the first knowledge relation would be a previous
knowledge relation. Maritain continues, " The cogitatum (a
description of something as an object) of the first cogito is not
cogitatum (that something is an object) but ens." We do not
first think the fact that something is thought; what we first think
about something must be other than the fact that we are thinking
about it; otherwise, the first cogito could have nothing for its
cogitatum and so could not exist. For, as Maritain immediately
adds," We do not eat what has been eaten; we eat bread" (DK,
108).
Like thinking, eating is a relation to a term; we eat something.
And for the relation of thinking to have as its first term the fact
that something is thought would be like eating, not bread, which
has carbohydrates, vitamins, and protein, but something that only
had the quality of being " the eaten." But if that were its only
quality, or just its most fundamental quality, there would be
nothing to be eaten, even potentially. Like any relation, the relation of eating has a term. If that term has no reality other than
what we express by describing it as term of the relation, as " the
eaten," that term would not exist, and so the relation of eating
would not exist. The infinite regress argument above shows this
for knowledge, and so does another argument.
When A eats 'B, we can describe B as " eaten by A," because
of a relation belonging to A, not B; the description " eaten " does
not directly express any characteristic belonging to B. Therefore, B will have no characteristics, and so be nothing, unless the
description " eaten " indirectly attributes characteristics to B by
implying that the term of the relation of eating has characteristics
in itself that are nonidentical with what we directly express by
"eaten by A." Likewise, when A thinks B, if that which is
thought were nothing more than " that which is thought," there
would be nothing thought, even potentially. The description of

26

JOHN

C. CAHALAN

something as "that which is thought" (that is, as an object)
must imply that the term of a knowledge relation possesses, in
itself, characteristics other than being the term of a knowledge
relation. Objects of awareness must be more than "objects of
awareness." We do not eat the eaten; we eat bread.
This way of developing Maritain's argument refutes idealism.
Berkeley, for example, does not deny that things " really" exist,
as opposed to being merely conceived or imagined; he holds that,
if and when an object of awareness really exists, its existence is
identical with being an object of perception. But if the existence
of anything is identical with what is directly expressed by " being
an object of awareness," the thing is, in itself, nothing. Something is describable as "an object of awareness" because of a
relation belonging to the knower, A, not the known, B; that description does not directly express anything belonging to B. Since
nothing has yet been said about B in itself, if the existence of B
is what we have directly expressed, B is nothing. " Being an object of awareness" can, however, indirectly attribute something
to the known in the sense of implying that something nonidentical
with being an object of awareness belongs to it, and when the object is a real existent, what must belong to it is an existence nonidentical with being an object of awareness-an entitative existence.
Maritain notes, however, that the word "object," in modern
language, " has received a very different meaning inasmuch as
the opposition of objective to subjective has finally made the
values proper· to 'thing' or the 'real' pass on to the object"
(DK, 91, n. 1). To express realism, we say there are" objective
facts"; we speak of what comes from the side of the "object" of
knowledge rather than from the subject, and so on. Why do we
find it natural, when asserting that things are what I have called
"more than objects," to describe them as "objects"? An "object " is a term of a knowledge relation and so is the correlative
opposite of the subject of the relation. Hence, in epistemology,
where we are describing the known from the perspective of the
knower, it is proper to distin:guish the known from the subject of

THING AND OBJECT

IN MARITAIN

27

knowledge by calling the known an "object." And while we are
thus distinguishing the known from what we call the subject, we
are aware that the known is independent of the subject; for in
reflecting on the bipolarity of consciousness, we recognize instinctively that our awareness of the object pole is awareness of
more than the subject's relation to the object or the object's relation to it. Therefore, we feel we are expressing the independence
of the known when we use "object" to distinguish the known
from the knower.
Maritain identifies the thing/object distinction with the Scholastic doctrine that by knowing the partial aspects of things that
directly terminate our knowledge relations (formal objects), we
also know the things (material objects) of which formal objects
are aspects (DK, 91, n. 1; 93). The preceding arguments do not
rely on that doctrine, because, in fact, Maritain's analysis starts
at a point logically prior to it, what it means to know that something is an "object" (whether formal or material) .4 He then
argues to the conclusion that formal and material objects are
" grasped at a single stroke and indivisibly by the very same perceptions" (DK, 93). (I refer to some of those arguments in
section IV, where I begin the reply to skepticism.)
4 Simon showed why the thing/object distinction always strictly coincides
with a material object/formal object distinction. In John Poinsot, The Material Logic of John of St. Thomas, trans. Yves R. Simon, John J. Glanville,
and G. Donald Hollenhorst (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)
623, n.44, he first states what it is to be an object (of any kind). Then he
notes that in human knowledge, a thing is never made object by means of the
whole of itself; some aspect or aspects of it become our object (formal object), and the thing itself is made object (material object) by means of that
aspect. The fact that things become objects only by means of certain aspects
may seem to compromise thing/object identity. But even at its lowest level,
awareness does not stop at the immediate aspect attained. By our awareness
of color, for example, we are also aware of extension, shape, motion, rest, and
number. The formal object is always known as an aspect of a whole made
present because of causal relations between it and the formal object. But if
that were not the case, our objects would still be identical with things that are
more than "objects"; in fact, we would know extramental things exhaustively, there being nothing in them beyond what directly terminates our knowledge relations.

28

JOHN C. CAHALAN

II
Before pursuing the thing/object distinction further, I want to
show its importance for questions other than the problem of realism. To that end, I turn to some long-standing disputes about
metaphysical knowledge that an understanding of the thing/object distinction could have prevented.
According to Etienne Gilson, metaphysics " is emphatically
not an abstract science of possible being." 5 The important words
here are " abstract " as said of science and " possible " as said
of being. An object of concept is known as a possible being, since
concepts, unlike judgments, do not tell us that anything actually
exists. But what could a philosopher mean by saying, as Maritain did, that metaphysics deals with possible being? Twice in
" Critical Realism," Maritain gives the following reason for saying that the intellect knows possible being: It knows necessary
truths about being. 6 If a statement is necessarily true, its opposite
is im-possible. Necessary truths express conditions for the possibility of existence, conditions without which it would not be possible for being or some mode of being to exist. A necessary truth
(such as " Every animal is mortal ") holds for every possible instance of something (the only animals that could ever exist are
mortal animals). Where existence is contingent, necessary truths
5 Etienne Gilson, The Elements of Christian Philosophy (New York: New
American Library of World Literature, 1963) 255. In Thomist Realism and
the Critique of Knowledge, trans. Mark A. Wauck (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 1986), 51,. n. 32, Gilson implied that his disagreement with Maritain
about the nature of " critical realism " was essentially verbal. But unlike
Gilson, Maritain saw that the self-evidence of realism (ibid., 52, n. 32) entails our being able to show, by reductio ad absurdum, that idealism is contradictory.
6 " By the very fact that it (intelligible being) is possible, that being is seen
by the intellect as involving eternal necessities (i.e., rigorous demands that
transcend time), it becomes the object of the intellect's first purely intellectual
certitude (the principle of identity)" (DK, 77). "When we speak of extramental existence, we are thinking . . . primarily of simply possible existence because our intellect ... does not only judge of that which exists but
also of a thing that can or cannot exist and of the de jure necessities contained in those essences " (DK, 92).

THING AND OBJECT

IN MARITAIN

29

do not inform us that anything actually exists. We know that
" God exists " is necessarily true by reasoning from necessary
truths that do not by themselves inform us that anything actually
exists and from contingent truths that do so inform us.
When Maritain speaks of the intellect's knowing being, that
which exists, as possible, therefore, the "possibility" he is talking about is a feature pertaining to our objects as objects; for
existence becomes associated with concepts and statements only
by being an object of human knowledge. Existence is not associated with concepts and statements in itself, that is, insofar as
it is an act exercised by things; it is associated with them only as
the term of knowledge relations. Possibility thus understood belongs to existence as an object known by metaphysics. But existence does not become an object of metaphysics by our knowing
what belongs to existence as an object; existence becomes an object of metaphysics by our knowing what belongs to existence as
exercised by things. The alternative is an infinite regress of
knowing objects to be objects of previous knowledge relations.
When existence becomes an object of metaphysics, we know
existence to be the act that definitively makes things more than
what is expressed by "object "; so possibility is not part of what
we must know about existence to be able to recognize that it is
" known." That is, possibility is not part of what we know about
existence when existence acquires the characteristic of being
" known as possible." Possibility is not a property belonging to
the term of the knowledge relation in itself; it is a logical property coincidental to the term known but not to the kind of knowledge by which it is known, a secondarily known logical property
that accrues to but does not enter into what is first known.
Attributing possibility to being illustrates the following crucial
fact about making things objects. When we know extramental
being, new predicates (like "known" and "object of knowledge") become attributable to what we know that neither describe it in itself nor are part of what we directly know about
it, but describe it as term of knowledge relations that are secondarily known. And the secondary predicates true of really exist-

30

JOHN

C. CAHALAN

ing things as a result of our knowing them include predicates that
are contrary to the primary predicates known about things as
really existing. For example, in real existence, the natures of
things are individual, while as objects of our concepts, they are
predicable of more than one individual, that is, are universal.
This contrariety between predicates attributable to objects of
knowledge as objects and predicates attributable to objects as
things is involved in many of philosophy's problems about knowledge, but contrariety alone does not generate those problems.
The fact that these contrary predicates must be attributed to the
same subject, once as object and once as thing, is what makes
epistemological confusion possible; unless we attribute contrary
predicates to the same subject, there is no appearance of contradiction. For example, that which must be called "universal" as
a result of being an object of concept is only logically distinct
from what must be called "individual" in its real existence, since
universality is a logical rela:tion, a relation characterizing objects
as objects. And among the contrary predicates attributable to objects as objects and as things, respectively, are "possible," said
of real existence as an object of knowledge, and "actual," said of
what is known by that knowledge : real existence as something
belonging to things.
Consequently, no truth about existence as exercised by things
can constitute, by itself, evidence that metaphysics does not know
existence as possible. Take any metaphysical statement emphasizing the supremely actual character of existence, for example,
" Existence is the act of all other acts and is itself in potency to
no kind of act." In that statement, existence is known as possible.
For that statement is not a contingent truth about existence, like
the truth that, today, existence is not the act of any dinosaur's
essence. That statement is true of any existence that ever has
been or ever will actually be exercised, because it is true of every
possible instance of existence. When known to be supremely actual, existence acquires the coincidental, logical property of being
known by a statement whose opposite is im-possible. The actuality asserted by that statement belongs to existence as exercised

THING AND OBJECT

IN MARITAIN

31

by things; the possibility attributed to existence belongs to it as
something made an object of knowledge in a statement of that
kind.
Gilson's denial that metaphysics is an abstract science illustrates the same point. As he says, " Reality is concrete." 7 But
does this fact prevent our describing as abstract, not reality in itself, the reality that metaphysics knows, but the knowledge relation by which it is known and reality as term of that relation?
That would be like saying that we cannot see square shapes
through round lenses. What Aquinas said about universality and
individuality, in relation to natures considered absolutely, we can
say about abstractness and concreteness. Just as Gilson thought
that existence's concreteness precluded the science of the existent
as such from being abstract, others have reasoned that whatever
is individual in its real existence cannot be known through universal concepts. Aquinas recognized that universality is a logical
property characterizing a term of a knowledge relation accidentally
and as a result of the knowledge relation; universality does not
enter into the nature predicated of individuals, because it does
not enter into what the nature is known to be when the nature
acquires universality as term of a knowledge relation. Likewise,
we should recognize that " abstract " names a logical property not
entering into what we know by the knowledge relation from
which the description " abstract " derives.
For example, in the statement, " Reality is concrete," " concrete" expresses an abstract object; for this object is known in
a way that does not include whatever is unique to Sue or Tom's
concreteness, just as " human," as said of Sue and Tom, does not
express whatever individuates Sue or Tom's humanity. There is
no more paradox in "concrete" expressing an abstract object
than there is in " individual " being a universal term. We can use
the term "individual " to assert, for instance, that Sue, Tom, and
everyone are individuals. When individuality is an object of
concept, it acquires universality, because we can attribute it to
1

The Elements of Christian Philosophy, 252.

32

JOHN

C. CAHALAN

more than one individual. Likewise, the distinction between what
belongs to concreteness absolutely considered, on the one hand,
and what belongs to it in its state as an object of concept or as
the concreteness of this existent, on the other, allows us to attribute abstraction to concreteness, not in itself or as part of what
we prereflexively know about it, but as a logical property concreteness acquires in order to be so known. 8 Although abstraction is the opposite of concreteness, for something to be known,
through concepts, as concrete, concreteness must terminate a
knowledge relation in a manner characterized by abstraction. But
abstraction does not enter into what we know by the knowledge
relation that endows concreteness with the logical property describable as " abstraction from ( noninclusion of) what is unique
to each instance of the concrete." Similarly, what we know to be
individual in real existence acquires universality as the term of
the kind of awareness by which we know that it must be individual in real existence.
Gilson feared that abstraction could deform reality. 9 In fact,
any deformation comes, not from abstraction itself, but from our
failure to distinguish the abstraction that pertains to an object of
knowledge as an object from what we know about the object as
a thing. Once again, " The problem of thing and object is the
crux of the problem."
Joseph Owens holds that a nature absolutely considered " cannot be represented distinctively as such in the mind," 10 because
natures can be known only in relation to their existence, which is
either individual or universal. And when a nature is known absolutely, it receives cognitional (that is, intentional) existence in
8 " Concreteness " expresses the same characteristic as " concrete," the only
difference being that, in another sense of " abstract," " concreteness " signifies
in a logically abstract way relative to " concrete." As " abstract " is used in
the text, what both " concreteness " and " concrete " express is abstract relative to individuals; for despite diverse modes of signifying (which pertain
to the signified only as object), what they signify is the same.
9 The Elements of Christian Philosophy, 252.
10 Joseph Owens, An Interpretation of Existence
(Houston: Center for
Thomistic Studies, 1985) 58.

THING AND OBJECT

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33

the mind as a universal. But considering a nature absolutely is
considering it as that which a possible entitative existent is, both
because a nature is nothing more than a capacity for entitative
existence and because absolute consideration knows necessary
truths about natures. In recognizing that a nature is a capacity
for entitative existence, we are relating it to possible entitative
existence. But possible existence, in the sense in which I have
been speaking of it, is not a third kind of existence. The existence
that acquires logical relations like universality and possibility in
order to be known is the same entitative existence exercised outside of knowledge by things (just as the nature that acquires
universality as object is the same nature that exists individually
in things). Such logical relations do not preclude the real identity of these existences; they strictly require that identity, because
the distinction they make is, by hypothesis, only logical and because the first terms of logical relations are necessarily more than
objects. 11 This real identity within logical diversity is what
Aquinas's doctrine of absolute consideration is about, and it is
what the thing/object distinction is about. 12
11 Hence, the distinction between what pertains to existence as an object of
the intellect (logical relations) and what pertains to the same existence as
exercised by things not only removes the need for a third mode of existence
but requires that there not be one. When we state what belongs to existence
as exercised by things, for example, when we say that it is actual or concrete,
we are stating what belongs to existence absolutely considered, since that is
what existence is, the ultimate act exercised by things. To consider it so, we
make existence an object of concept characterized logically by abstraction,
universality, and possibility. These logical relations do not prevent us from
knowing what pertains to existence as exercised by things. They simply
mean that what is unique to the concreteness, individuality, and actuality of
Sue's existence or Tom's is not included in existence absolutely considered.
And when we say " the concreteness, individuality, and actuality unique to
Sue's existence," we make use of abstraction, universality, and possibility to
objectify concreteness, individuality, and actuality.
12 At least four other positions of Aquinas also come under the umbrella of
the thing/object distinction: the doctrine that kinds of knowledge are distinguished by features of their objects as objects; the distinction between a
word's mode of signifying and that which it signifies; the doctrine of logical
distinction and real identity in truth; and the distinction between taking " understanding a thing otherwise than it is " to refer to understanding the thing

34

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C. CAHALAN

Simon criticized the exaggerated realism, like that of Suarez,
resulting from the failure
to distinguish between . . . existence as a thing and existence as an
object. This (failure) supposes that the intellect ... receives the
thing according to a one-to-one correspondence in which every mode
of objective presence has its exact and actual counterpart in ...
things. This is at once a realism and a confident sort of rationalism
which in effect models the ontological upon the logical, ... upon the
rational and dialectical mode of the human intellect.13
This fallacy would affect any attempt to account for our knowledge of possible existence by making possible existence something
other than entitative existence, and the same fallacy would affect
any argument denying that we know entitative existence as possible on the grounds that possible existence would have to be
something other than entitative existence. When we know entitative existence! entitative existence itself exists intentionally in
awareness, for being a term of a knowledge relation is what it
means to exist intentionally.
The insight that universality and individuality do not belong to
a nature absolutely considered concerns objects of concepts. And
some claim that the role of judgment, as opposed to conception,
in our knowledge of the object of metaphysics invalidates the
theory that metaphysics differs from other sciences by its mode
of abstraction from matter. 14 But in the context of distinguishing
the sciences by modes of abstraction, " abstraction " does not refer to an " operation " 15 to which judgment could be contrasted.
to be other than it is or to refer to the difference between what belongs to the
intellect in the understanding of a thing and what belongs to the thing understood.
13 The Material Logic of John of St. Thomas, 624, n. 52.
14 See Gerald A. McCool, S.J., Nineteenth-Century
Scholasticism: The
Search for a Unitary Method (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989)
254-255; From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolutio-n of Thomism
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1989) 155-156. For a comprehensive
critique of this view, see Edward Simmons, "The Thomistic Doctrine of the
Three Degrees of Formal Abstraction," The Thomist XXII (1959) 37-67.
15 See McCool, Nineteenth-Century
Scholasticism, 254; Etienne Gilson,
Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 1949) 203. And "abstraction" as used up to this point does not mean
an operation, but the fact that an object does not include individual conditions.

THING AND OBJECT

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35

It refers to a property pertaining to the objects of science as objects, a point Poinsot, the most proximate Scholastic source for
the theory of modes of abstraction, made in texts to which Simon
called attention :16
Here (in distinguishing the sciences) abstraction does not designate the act of the intellect which disengages something from something else, but the abstractability of the object or its immateriality.17
" Abstraction " does not designate, in the present connection, the act
by which the intellect performs an abstraction . . . " Abstraction "
signifies objective abstractability ... a foundation in the object for
bringing it to diverse stages of immateriality and presentation.18
Sciences are distinguished by characteristics of their objects as
objects, specifically, by whether their objects' features require the
causality of matter. Scientific objects can have features that do
not include (that abstract from) the individuating effects of matter, the active and passive properties that require matter, or any
property that requires matter. The diverse immateriality of these
objects depends on something true of them as things, their relation to the causality of matter. But that characteristic of things
as things enters the distinction of the sciences only as the foundation for diverse immateriality in scientific objects; for immateriality is essential to the objects of the intellect as such. So, again,
the fact that objects are identical with things, that their distinction is not a separation, can cause confusion (" being a foundation for diversity in objects " is a characteristic pertaining to
things as objects, not as things). But for the problem based on
the role of judgment in our knowledge of metaphysics' object, the
important point is that " abstraction " refers to a f eatu re of objects of knowledge as objects, whatever the acts by which we
make them objects may be.
The importance of the thing/object distinction to these longstanding disputes should be sufficient to justify its further study.
16 The .Material Logic of John of St.

Thomas, 629.

11 Ibid., 554.

1s Ibid., 557 (translators' interpretive insertions deleted).

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JOHN

C. CAHALAN

For that, I now turn to the issues of truth, knowledge of truth,
and conceptual relativity. 19

III
Maritain introduces the thing/object distinction in the context
of an analysis of truth and what it means to know the truth. For
Maritain, the nature of truth is the first question epistemology
must answer. He holds that the function of epistemology is to
evaluate, to state what goal awareness achieves in its various
phases. The principal goal of the intellect is awareness of truth;
conception and reasoning are stages on the way to the knowledge
that statements are true. Other epistemological questions presuppose that the nature of truth is given; for example, to ask
whether consciousness attains the external world is to ask
whether it is true that consciousness attains the external world.
Epistemological evaluation is just an extension of what we do
in any act of judging truth. Our everyday evaluations of statements as true involve an implicit reflection of the mind on itself;
otherwise, we would not be aware of the existence of "statements." Epistemology makes what we do in those everyday
evaluations explicit; we need epistemology because the implicit
understanding of what truth is gives rise to problems that philosophy cannot avoid.
We understand truth as some sort of "conformity " between
the mind and things, but what is this conformity, and how is conformity possible, given the vast differences between our concepts
and statements, on the one hand, and the realities they claim to
express, on the other? In Reflexions sur l'intelligence, Maritain
tried to solve the problems to which the idea of truth gives rise as
others had before him, by a distinction between what is from the
mind and what is from things. 20 But in " Critical Realism," he
19 Having dealt with these topics at length in John C. Cahalan, Causal
Realism: An Essay on Philosophical Method and the Foundations of Knowledge (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1985), I will be brief
here.
20 Jacques Maritain, Reflexions sur /'intelligence et sur sa vie propre, 2nd
ed. (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1926), 17.

THING AND OBJECT IN MARITAIN

37

adds something no one else had said, that we know truth, not by
directly judging the relation of our thoughts to things, but by
judging the relation of the objects of our thoughts to things. 21
The relation expressed by " This is a cat " or " This is cold " is a
relation between what the thing objectified by (meant by)
" This" is and the ways of being a thing (the " essences " or
"natures") meant by "cat" or "cold "-not between either the
thing meant by " This " or the way of being a thing meant by
" cat " or " cold " and the psychological states by which we objectify them. When we judge "This is cold," we do not compare a psychological concept to an individual present in sensation; we compare the object of which we are made aware by
means of a psychological concept, namely, what it is to be a thing
of a certain kind, to what an object of which we are made aware
by means of sensation is. These objects are identical with possible
and actual things, respectively, and although they are diverse as
objects, they can be identical as things.
There can be identity between what one thing is and multiple
objects of concept. Concepts objectify whole things by means of
some of their features; the meaning of " cat " or " cold " is not a
partial aspect of things, such as temperature, but what it is to be
a thing having a certain aspect or aspects. And " A cat is cold,"
is true when the natures objectified by " cat " and " cold " are
identical, as far as each one goes, with what the same thing is.
There is " conformity " between thought and thing because there
is identity between diverse objects of thought and the same thing.
As Simon says :
2 1 "To see in judgment ... a comparison between the mental word and the
object thought about, and an affirmation of the mental word's conformity with
the object, would be to involve oneself in the Cartesian path of thought in spite
of oneself. On the contrary, the thing is declared to be what the object (the
predicate) attained in the mental word is" (DK, 97, n. 2). The first sentence
uses "object " in the modern sense in which it is synonymous with " thing,"
because the failure to distinguish thing and object is what forces us to look
for a comparison between ideas and things. (And the examples on the same
page show that he calls subjects as well as predicates "objects." But gram- ·
matical predicates express what things are, while subjects need only name or
point to them.)

38

JOHN C. CAHALAN

Even though truth consists of a relation of conformity between
thought and reality, rather than in the identity between the object
and the thing, knowing truth certainly involves acknowledging expressly that identity.22
When I thus verify the identity of these objects in the transobjective
realm, by an operation that is strictly the work of my own mind, I
know at the same time that my mind conforms to the real thing.28
Nothing but identity between objects and things will do. We
cannot directly compare mental states to things because we have
no knowledge of things apart from that provided by our mental
states. To make the comparison, we would have to get outside of
what we know by our mental states. Nor can we compare one
mental state, a psychological concept, to the object of another
mental state, sensation. Apart from the fact that concepts make
us aware of objects, there is no relation between concepts and
sensory objects that could be the basis of a comparison. The same
problem would arise if the relation between objects of thought
and things were something other than identity; there would be
no way to know that our objects were "true" of things. "True"
is in quotation marks here because, in fact, there would be no
such thing as truth were our objects not identical with the things
about which we judge. Are our objects mental constructs that
" rules of representation " make true of things? If so, we either
do or do not know how the rules relate those constructs to things.
Knowing the relation would require knowing what both terms of
the relation are; so we would know truth by knowing that some
objects are identical with what things are. If we do not know
the relation, we do not know truth by knowing the relation of
such mental constructs to things.
Maritain's analysis, then, provides us with nothing less than
the solution to the most basic problem for the correspondence
theory of truth, the problem. made famous by Wittgenstein, of
2 2 Yves R. Simon, An Introduction to Metaphysics of Knowledge, trans.
Vukan Kuic and Richard J. Thompson (New York: Fordham University Press,
1990), 142.
2a Ibid., 147-48.

THING AND OBJECT IN MARITAIN

39

what is the " correspondence " (or " conformity ") between
statements and things. The correspondence of statements to
things is just the corollary of the identity between the objects of
our thoughts and things. When there is identity between diverse
objects, A and B, and the same thing, " A is B," the statement
objectifying A's being B (as a thing, not as an object), corresponds to things. " Correspondence " cannot refer to anything
but the identity of objects of thoughts with things. The purpose
of words like "thoughts," " concepts," and " statements" is to
name entities that explain our awareness of objects; so the relation of these explanatory entities to things is a function of the
relation of objects to things.
If there were a direct comparison between thoughts and things,
the reflection of the mind on itself in judgment would be explicit,
not implicit. We are not explicitly comparing mental entities to
things; we are explicitly comparing objects of which we are
aware by means of those mental entities, comparing them not as
objects, where they are diverse, but as things, where they can be
identical because each is known to be more than an "object." As
a result of that comparison, we know the relation of mental entities to things.

IV
By what evidence do we know, in particular cases, that diverse
objects are identical as things? By the evidence of necessary
truths or sense experience, since objects of concept and objects of
sensation are, in different ways, known to be identical with really
existing things. ObJects of concept are known to be identical
with possible real existents; therefore, they enable us to know
truths asserting that diverse objects are necessarily identical as
things, if and when those objects actually exist. For when we
look at the features objects of concept include insofar as they are
more than "objects," we find that they include being, the capacity
for real existence. We can construct beings of reason that do not
have a capacity for real existence, but being itself cannot be
merely "of reason," since it is included in the prior objects out

40

JOHN C. CAHALAN

of which we construct beings of reason. Maritain cites several
facts that provide justification for this claim.24
For one thing, we know that the principles of noncontradiction
and identity apply to all our objects. And a principle like, "A
thing cannot be and not be in the same respect," is a law of existence before being a law of thought (DK, 92, n. 1; 102). It is
not that things cannot both be and not be because, if they were,
contradictory statements could be true. Contradictory statements
cannot be true because, if they were, things could both be and not
be. If someone objected that the necessity of this principle derives from a being of reason, the relation of negation, Maritain
could reply that the first terms of this relation are objects that
are known to be more than" objects"; otherwise, there would be
no terms for this relation (DK, 94-95).
Another reason we know that being is included in our primary
objects of concept is that, otherwise, these objects could not have
the role in statements that they do have. Merely to contemplate
the possibility of a statement's being true requires us to consider
diverse objects to be identical in their state of being more than
objects, the state of existence. By hypothesis, they are distinct
as objects, so they can be identical only as actual or possible
existents. Therefore, the capacity for existence must be included
in that which we objectify by means of concepts.25
A further reason we know that being is included in our primary
objects is that these objects derive from sensation where they are
presented as actually existing. The existence we find in sensation is " the original type to which the notion of actual existence
corresponds" (DK, 96). The only other possible source for the
24 The following arguments are based on DK, 94-99, where Maritain defends the view that the grasp of formal objects is also the grasp of material
objects.
25 DK, 96-99. In Approches sans entraves (Paris: Fayard, 1973), 264-284,
Maritain offers a theory of "three concepts of existence " that appears to contradict this decisive insight. The later Maritain may have been mistakenly
looking to entitative rather than intentional existence for the point of contact
between his tradition and Heidegger. See John N. Deely, The Tradition via·
Heidegger (The Hague; Nijhoff, 1971).

THING AND OBJECT IN MARITAIN

41

concept of existence is reflection, but reflection presupposes direct
acts, the first of which is sensation.
Maritain does not dwell at length on sense knowledge, but his
principles enable us to see why the use of inductive reasoning to
distinguish between hallucinations and perceptions of real existents does not imply that belief in the existence of physical things
is belief in a mere pattern of sensations or an inference to something beyond sensed objects. Inductive reasoning is causal, but
the conclusion that an experience is a genuine perception is not
the conclusion that something exists beyond what the senses directly attain. The conclusion is that the experience is a direct
awareness, by the senses, of being acted on. Action is change as
having a relation of emanation from some cause. Awareness of
being acted on is an awareness of action as action, and so it is a
noninferential awareness that a cause of the action really exists,
and a noninferential awareness of what the cause is to the extent
that what it is includes the causal dispositions of which the action
is a communication; for causes communicate their own modes of
being. In seeing a color, we are aware of it as a manner in which
the environment is acting on our sense faculties and, therefore, as
a feature of something in our environment, the causal disposition
by which something is acting on the senses in this manner. The
manner in which a thing acts on the senses, and so its perceived
color, will vary according to the circumstances in which it acts,
including the condition of the patient, our sensory apparatus; action is received according to the mode of the receiver. But if our
brains were floating in a tank and our sensations artificially
generated, our first awareness would still be of the existence of
something or other acting on our sense faculties. 26
26 See DK, 96, n. 2; 118, n. 1, and Cahalan, Causal Realism, 387-417. The
identity of the causal disposition and the action on the senses does not imply
that our eyes become red (entitatively), when they see red. Color is action
on the sense organs objectified as action; that is, a color is action seen as related to or of the agent, not the patient. Likewise, although the manner in
which light acts on the retina is characterized entitatively by shape, to be
aware of color as an agent's manner of acting is to be aware of shape as de-·
limiting the area in our visual field from which the action emanates. The argu-

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JOHN

C. CAHALAN

Students of philosophy often reach the point of describing consciousness as a subject-object polarity, only to wonder how to
show the relation of the objects of consciousness to what is independent of consciousness. Maritain shows that what we spontaneously call an object is necessarily something that we know all
along to be more than an object, and he shows that we can know
this as soon as we form the notion of "object." The data of
which we are aware when we use the term "object" necessarily
justify our calling objects things; the objects of the subject-object polarity are known from the very beginning, before reflection, to be actual or possible
existents that we can later
call, after reflection, extramental existents. All along, the data
we need to affirm realism are there, are directly there, and are
demonstrably (by indirect proof) directly there.

v
The real identity between thing and object in truth necessarily
implies a logical distinction between them; that which is describable as a thing and that which is describable as an object are the
same, but being a thing is not the same as being an object. This
primary distinction gives rise to the distinction between features
pertaining to things as things and features pertaining to things as
objects of knowledge. The latter distinction helps us answer the
main argument for skepticism in contemporary philosophy, conceptual relativism's claim that we cannot know things as they are,
because what we express in any statement necessarily reflects an
interpretation imposed on things by our language and/ or our
ments of Causal Realism, 245-249, 328-332, can be extended to show that we
know (and do not just have reasonable belief) that it is totally unreasonable
to believe hypotheses of the " all our sensations are artificially produced " ilk.
We know that the opposite belief is the only possible reasonable belief, where
" reasonable " means fulfiling the goal of reason, awareness of what exists.
That goal requires cognition-independent evidence, since to be is not to be
known (a fact that more precisely explains why simplicity is a valid rule for
belief than Causal Realism's "principle of simplicity"). And it is a knowably
necessary truth that the manner in which things act on the senses is the only
possible evidence for the nature of those things.

THING AND OBJECT

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43

background theory. 27 I will respond to the form of the objection
holding that language imposes an interpretation on things, the
reply to either form of the objection being basically the same.
Language is a means for making things objects of knowledge.
As such, different languages do impose on things diverse features
pertaining to them as objects. To use a simple example for the
sake of brevity, one language might employ verbs of action where
another language employs adjectives and the copula. However,
when we use language to attribute something to things as things,
we need not attribute to things what pertains to them as objects.
As an object of concept, animal is a genus, but when we attribute
being an animal to a dog, we do not attribute being a genus.
Similarly, a grammatical construct, like a verb of action, need not
attribute anything to things as things that another construct, like
an adjective and the copula, does not attribute. Rather, conceptual relativism imposes interpretations of things as things on
language.
The relativist may object that we cannot distinguish the features we attribute to things as things from the features that pertain to things as a result of our using language to make them objects. But if the evidence for the truth of different sentences is
the same, there is no reason to believe that those sentences differ
in what they attribute to things as things. The relativist can reply that the nature of language as an interpretation impeaches
the very notion that evidence can determine the truth values of
conflicting statements. To count as evidence for or against a
statement, experience must be expressed in language. As soon as
we express experience in language, it is no longer raw experience (assuming there is such a thing) but interpreted experience.
However, a genuine conflict in that which statements attribute
to things requires more than the appearance of conflict. Statements are contradictory if and only if what they assert and deny
is the same, and sameness of meaning is ruled out if words from
27 For a view of this kind in a Maritain
critic, see Leslie Dewart, The Future of Belief (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966) 77-121. And see DK,
51-52.

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JOHN

C. CAHALAN

different languages (or theories) attribute to things meanings
unique to each language (or theory). Where statements are not
genuinely contradictory, they can both be true; where they are
contradictory, Maritain's principles show how evidence expressed
in language can determine which one is true.
We are capaple of knowing necessary truths that constitute
non-Kantian regulatory principles for deciding between conflicting claims. For instance, we can know that when a change occurs, an efficient cause must have brought about the change. We
can identify the cause through investigation, because it is a necessary truth that similar causes will have similar effects. 28 We
may be in doubt, for example, about whether the object of an experience really exists or is only phenomenal. Inductive methods,
guided by necessary regulatory principles, can settle the question.
If the object exists, it should produce other effects, including actions of which other sense experiences could make us aware, and
the object must have been brought into existence by causes that
would produce a similar effect in similar circumstances.
The same regulatory principles can establish the correct translation and interpretation of statements in other languages and
from other cultures. 29 Translation and interpretation (in this
more common sense of " interpretation ") are inductive causal
analyses. They explain behavior, for example, the making of
sounds, as the effect of agents that have certain features:
thoughts and the intention to communicate them. Significantly,
such analyses can rely on more causal data than do ordinary inductions, namely, on reflexively known conscious states, including desires that are biological, not cultural.
The regulatory principles are non-Kantian because they express, not conditions for the possibility of experience, but condi2s See Jacques Maritain, Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism, trans. Mabelle
L. and J. Gordon Andison (New York: Philosophical Library, 1955) 128,
n. 2.
29 Although Cahalan, Causal Realism, does not address hermeneutics explicitly, its demonstration, against Quine, that translation is empirical knowledge ( 40-44, 245-256) can be developed further to show that these regulatory
principles suffice to determine the truth of interpretations.

THING AND OBJECT

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45

tions for the possibility of existence, or conditions of possibility,
period; for possibility, in the first instance, is the possibility of
existence. (Even conditions for the possibility of experience are
conditions for the possibility of the existence of experience.)
There is no danger that these regulatory principles falsely interpret reality; they are true of whatever exists, since they are necessary truths about existence, its cognates, and immediate derivatives (what exists, what exists through another, etc.). Maritain calls such truths "ontological" (DK, 146-154). If some
language (or background theory) were to impose interpretations
that made objects nonidentical with things, the statements in
which it did so would be false, and the evidence of experience interpreted by means of necessary ontological truths could determine their falsity.
On the other hand, where the evidence for apparently conflicting statements is the same, the differences between the statements
pertain only to the order of objects as objects. Consequently, the
thing/object distinction, together with ontological necessary
truths, allows us to reply to conceptual relativism. There is room
for all manner of relativity in what belongs to objects as objects,
with no relativity in what we attribute to things as things being
implied.
Nor does it matter whether all languages can express ontological truths; it only matters that at least one language can. Einstein accounted for the relativity in measurements of space and
time by properly locating it with respect to something absolute,
the four-dimensional, space-time interval. To do so, he needed a
special language, that of tensor calculus. Similarly, Maritain's
special language, ontological language, enables us to locate cognitional relativity on the side of what pertains to objects as objects,
while preserving the absoluteness of truth about things as things.
Like Maritain, Kant saw that sensation is not a sufficient foundation for knowledge; we also need necessary truths. But where
Kant gave us a skeptical Copernican revolution, Maritain makes
possible a realist Einsteinian revolution, a revolution that, like
Einstein's, does justice to the relative by properly locating it with
respect to what is absolute.

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JOHN C. CAHALAN

Finally, Maritain did not say that the distinction between thing
and object is the crux of the problem of realism; he said that the
problem of thing and object is the crux. The thing/object distinction is not a club with which to beat our opponents; nor is it
a cure for all our philosophical problems. Instead, it is the source
of some of our most recalcitrant problems. The fact that the identity of things and objects must coexist with their distinction (and
vice versa) has created obstacles to the understanding of both
knowledge and being that most philosophers have found insurmountable. Being is the object of the intellect as such, but as
Simon pointed out, the problem of thing and object is peculiar to
the human intellect.30 To succeed in philosophy, we have to be as
attentive to truths about being as object of human modes of
knowing as we are to truths about being as being.

ao An Introduction to Metaphysics of Knowledge, 143.

IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES:
SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS ON SENSORY LOVE,
DESIRE, AND DELIGHT
MARK

P. DROST

University of Rochester
Rochester, New York

S

Introduction

AINT THOMAS AQUINAS characterizes delight (delectatio) as a state in which we are in " union with some
good" (I-II, 35, 1). 1 Further on he augments this description of delight : " we are not without the good we love, but
are at rest in its possession" (35, 6). Concerning love (amor) 2
Aquinas says, "love remains whether the object is present or absent " (28, 1). But Aquinas also says that when we love an obl Unless otherwise indicated all references (ordered by number of question
and article) refer to the Blackfriars edition of Aquinas's Summa Theologiae
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company) V. 19-21 (in the Prima Secundae
Questions 22-48), trans. Eric D'Arcy (Questions 22-30, 1967; 31-39, 1975)
and John Reid (Questions 40-48, 1965) and V. 11-12 (in the Prima Pars
Questions 75-89), trans. Timothy Sutter (Questions 75-83, 1970) and Paul T.
Durbin (Questions 84-89, 1968) .
2 " There will be as many kinds of love as there are kinds of orexis and
wanting" (26, 1). The notion of love ( amor sensitivus) that is under scrutiny
here is an event in the sensory orexis and occurs in the body-soul composite.
It is not a case of intellectual or spiritual love (which is an act of the will
and occurs in the soul alone). We are not dealing with the following notions
of love: dilectio (which adds to love the property of election), caritas (charity,
which is an act of will), or amicitia (friendship) which is more than love.
(With respect to amicitia, unrequited friendship is not possible in principle,
but unrequited love is factually real ; hence amicitia requires something more
than love, viz. reciprocity.) Surely one is capable of experiencing more than
one of these sentiments at a moment. One might be attracted on the basis of
one's sensory orexis to someone and simultaneously love that person as a
friend. Although these are not simultaneously incompatible affections, I will
exclusively focus on the notion of amor sensitivus.

47

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MARK P. DROST

ject, " we are already in some kind of communion with it. Love
therefore involves union" (25, 2). These statements are prima
facie inconsistent unless Aquinas acknowledges that there are
unions in which the object is not possessed. I contend that love
is a case of being intentionally directed to a good, but it is not
identical to the union which is a result of possessing a good. Although Aquinas describes love as a condition of union, love in
fact is a condition of union which is ontologically prior to the
union which is exhibited in delight. A consequence of Aquinas's
thesis is the ontological possibility of loving something without
taking delight in it or desiring it. We cannot, however, take delight in something or desire it unless we love it.

I. MOVEMENT AND REST IN THE DESCRIPTION

OF EMOTIONS
The metaphors of motion, rest, approach, and retreat play a
significant role in Aquinas's descriptions of the intentionality in
various emotional states. As appetitive powers whose principle
of operation is in the body-soul composite, 8 Aquinas often describes the emotions through metaphors that suggest a similarity
to the movement of physical objects (37, 2). The emotions are
instances of orectic movement, and orectic movement is analogous
to the movement of the inanimate orexis :
Now orectic movement is, in the operations of the soul, what physical
movement is in the physical world. Compare the physical movements
of approach and withdrawal: approach is, of itself, directed towards
something in harmony with nature; withdrawal is, of itself, directed
towards something discordant with nature: thus a heavy body by its
nature draws away from a higher place and towards a lower one
(36, 2).
The analogy between motion in the physical world and orectic
movement of the soul is a teleological one: just as a light or heavy
a Emotions, like perception (e.g. seeing, hearing), are powers whose principle of operation range in the body-soul composite. However, " some of the
soul's activities, namely understanding and willing, do not take place in bodily .
organs. Accordingly, the powers which are the source of these activities have
the soul [alone] as their seat" (77, 5).

THOMAS

ON SENSORY

LOVE, DESIRE,

AND DELIGHT

49

material body seeks its natural place on the basis of what is harmonious with its nature,4 orectic movement is a matter of the appetite seeking what is in conformity with its own nature.
Whereas the teleological proclivity of non-sentient physical bodies
is neither conscious nor intentional (cf. 41, 3), the orexis of
elicited appetite is directed by intention: " An appetitive reaction
presupposes a cognitive act " ( 46, 2). Although Aquinas uses
the analogy of physical motion to elucidate the notion of orectic
movement, " orectic movement is more concerned with intention
than performance" (29, 3). 5 The movement of non-sentient
physical bodies does not require cognition, but the teleological
motivation of elicited appetites is intentionally focused on objects: " That which exerts final causality in the case of orectic
movement is the object" (36, 2). In the case of the emotions
Aquinas identifies each emotion through its object: " where
there is a specific object, there is a specific emotion" (41, 2). 6
Ralph Barton Perry employs an analogy to describe the relationship between an object of value and its interest which is useful for explaining Aquinas's theory of the intentional focus in
emotions:
Being [an] object of interest means nothing more than being a point
defined by the projection of its original bias, as being a target means
nothing more than the direction of the marksman's aim.7
•"Natural love is not confined to the vegetative powers of the soul; it is
found in all the faculties of the soul, in all parts of the body, and indeed in
all created things ... for everything has a built-in sense of affinity with whatever accords with ·its nature" (26, 2).
5 Aquinas states : "there are two sorts of movement to be considered: one,
that involved in intending some end, which is a movement of the orexis ; the
other, that of executing that intention, which is a matter of external activity"
(31, 2).
6 " The nature of an emotion is determined by its object just as these other
[artificial or non-sentient] things are characterized by their forms" (43, 1)
... [the] "object determines both the identity and the very nature of an
emotion " ( 46, 6). For a further analysis of intentional objects in Aquinas's
account of the emotions see Mark P. Drost's "Intentionality in Aquinas's
Theory of the Emotions," International Philosophical Quarterly 31 (1991):
449-460.
1 Ralph Barton Perry,
General Theory of Value (New York: Longmans,
Green and Company, 1926) 52.

50

MARK P. DROST

By pointing at a material object you refer to it, and you can turn
the object you point to into a target simply by aiming at it.
Aiming always has a target, but nothing is intrinsically a target.
In light of this analogy, consider what Aquinas says about the
origin and directedness of orectic movement : " orectic movement
is from within: its direction is from soul to object" (35, 7). On
Aquinas's view, the emotions are instances of appetitive interest
that invest their (intentional) objects with a certain value, viz.
being the object of a certain interest. This valuative aspect of an
emotion is ontologically dependent on a perceptual or a quasiperceptual experience. 8 The sensory orexis is an intentional response to an object that is perceived to be a simple or arduous
good or evil. An emotion always has an object just as aiming
always has a target. An archer can aim at a target (through intention) even though he misses the target (by performance).
Aquinas's analysis of the emotions is more concerned with intention than with performance. The metaphor of movement in
the various descriptions of the emotions is meant to express the
particular directedness of an emotional state, but not the literal
movement or expressiveness of the physical body. For example,
Aquinas describes orectic movement as " a kind of flight or withdrawal " or as " a kind of pursuit or approach " ( 36, 2). These
descriptions are to be understood as attitudinal stances that the
emotional agent adopts toward the appetible object. In terms of
"orectic movement," one can affectively approach an object by
desiring it, or one can affectively retreat from an object in virtue
of aversion, despite the fact that one has not come closer to or
moved farther away from the object in terms of physical distance.
Consider the different sorts of movements Aquinas mentions
in a passage about hope :
8 The emotions qua sensory appetites are always associated with a perceptual
experience or a quasi-perceptual experience that may be produced by the
imagination. Aquinas can explain emotional states that are directed to purely
intentional objects in terms of the imagination: "the imagination
for itself an image or a model of something absent or even of something never
seen" (85, 2; cf. 81, 3).

THOMAS

ON SENSORY

LOVE, DESIRE,

AND DELIGHT

51

One sort of movement of the appetite is aroused by consideration of
the agreeable, another sort by a consideration of the disagreeable.
Movements differ, also, when what is perceived is present or future,
uncomplicated or difficult, possible or impossible. Thus hope is a
movement of appetite aroused by the perception of what is agreeable,
future, arduous, and possible of attainment. It is the tendency of an
appetite towards this sort of object ( 40, 2).
Hope is an affective approach toward an object that is taken to
be a future, arduous good to attain. It
obvious that Aquinas
does not mean that the agent must physically move toward the
object; in fact, the physical description of moving toward (or
moving away from) the object does not satisfy the intentional
description of the emotional state.
The metaphors of movement and rest pervade Aquinas's treatment of the emotions. Consider the metaphors of motion and
rest in contrasting desire to delight (pleasure). 9 If a good
. . . is not yet possessed, it sets up in [the orectic faculty] a motion
towards attaining this good which it has come to love. This is desire
. . . once [a good] is possessed, [the orectic faculty] finds repose in its
possession. This is pleasure (23, 4) ... pleasure is to the emotions
what coming to rest is to physical things (31, 8).
These diverse characterizations of the emotions make sense only
if they are comprehended as intentional stances of an appetitive
agent.
The thesis that the emotions are essentially sorts of desires or
aversions and are appropriately described through the metaphor
of movement may strike one as plausible, given some of Aquinas's
statements. Fo'r example, Aquinas characterizes the affective
( concupiscible) emotions in the following way :
Each of the affective emotions whose object is a good is a movement towards that good, viz. love, desire, and pleasure ; and each of
them whose object is an evil is a movement away from it, viz. hatred,
aversion or disgust, and sadness (23, 2).
8 As an emotion, delight or pleasure (delectatio)
should not be confused
with the purely spiritual joy known as gaudium. Spiritual joy occurs in the
soul alone, but emotions are events that have the body-soul composite as their .
subject.

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MARK P. DROST

Considering the emotions as instances of appetitive reactions,
Aquinas says : " Every such reaction is reducible to either pursuit or avoidance" ( 45, 2). These passages suggest that the emotions are essentially instances of orectic movement.
By analyzing the differences between the irascible and the concupiscible emotions in general, however, and discerning the differences between love, desire, and delight in particular, three
significant details in Aquinas's theory of the emotions come to
light. First, the emotions are not essentially movements of the
sensory orexis which are reducible to desires or aversions. In
fact, some emotions are unions with their objects and they are
not identifiable at all in terms of movement. This will be the
focus of part two. Second, the intentionality of sensory love
( amor sensitivus) is a necessary condition for any emotional
state. I will focus on this latter issue in part three. Third, though
Aquinas describes love as a condition of union, love does not require the presence or possession of the beloved as does delight.
Love seems to share with delight the properties of being in union
with and at rest in its object, but unlike delight, love is not a
union which possesses its object. This will be the subject of parts
four and five.
II. AFFECTIVE UNION
First, consider those intensified emotions that exhibit movement and are directed towards achieving rest : " the emotions of
the spirited orexis [passiones irascibiles] find in the emotions of
the affective [passiones concupiscibiles] both their origin and
term" (25, 1). The irascible emotion arises from the concupiscible emotion and seeks to return to it in order to rest. The difference between the irascible and the concupiscible is not simply
a difference of emotional intensity, even though as a matter of
fact the irascible emotions are more intense than the concupiscible
emotions. The essential difference between these emotions is
found in their intended objects: whereas the irascible emotions
are directed to arduous sensory goods or evils, the concupiscible

THOMAS

ON SENSORY

LOVE, DESIRE,

AND DELIGHT

53

emotions have non-arduous sensory goods or evils for their targets. Without considering the difference in their intentional objects, we would lose the essential difference between desire and
hope, for example, or between aversion and fear, since these are
characterized in terms of movement.
Some emotions are unions with objects. Consider again
Aquinas's comments on desire and delight. If a good
... is not yet possessed, it sets up in [the orectic faculty] a motion
towards attaining this good which it has come to love. This is desire ... once [a good] is possessed, [the orectic faculty] finds repose
in its possession. This is pleasure (23, 4).
The relationship between desire and love which is briefly mentioned in this passage is an important one to which I will return
in sections four and five. Desire is a case of appetitive movement, but delight (pleasure) is a case of appetitive rest. In emotions that rest in the possession of their objects, the intentional
state is not characterized in terms of approach or retreat, and
there may be no action generated from the possession of the object. "In pleasure ... we are not without the good we love,
but are at rest in its possession " ( 3 S, 6). Pleasure is an affective union with (or possession of) an object that is taken to be
present and good.
On the other hand, sorrow is an affective possession of an object that is taken to be present and evil. 10 In some cases of sorrow
there is no action generated from the possession of the evil, even
though ordinarily there is desire for the situation to be otherwise.
(Aberrant states of sorrow may be attended by the feeling of repose which is psychologically similar to the repose found in delight, since delight, like sorrow, is a union with its possessed object.) As much as the metaphor of movement pervades his account of the emotions, some emotional states are not instances of
approach or retreat, since they are in fact unions with their objects.
10 " The objects of pleasure, and of sorrow or pain, are contraries, viz. a
present good or evil" (35, 4). What they have in common is possessing
something that is present.

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MARK P. DROST

III. THE PRIMACY OF LOVE
While love is a necessary condition for orectic movement and
affective possession, it is not an instance of orectic movement
or affective possession. However, one problem with this thesis
is that Aquinas describes love and delight as instances of union.
Thus it would seem natural to think of love in the same terms in
which we think of delight, viz. as a case of affectively possessing
an object. But Aquinas does not think that love implies possession of an object. How is the union that is love different from
the union in delight ? What is the difference between the union
which implies possession and the union which does not? Again,
we may think that the affective possession of an object is the
model for affective union in general, and since delight is the most
obvious example of possessing an object, it would thereby be
thought of as the paradigm of affective union. But an analysis
of Aquinas's notion of love will show that there is a condition of
union that is ontologically prior to the union that occurs in delight.
According to Aquinas, no emotion is had without love:
There is none of the other emotions which does not presuppose love
of some kind. For every other emotion involves movement towards,
or repose in some object. Now all movement or repose arises from a
sense of affinity with [connaturalitate], or attachment to [coaptatione], some object; and it is precisely in this that love consists (27,
4).
Love is a necessary condition for every other emotion, and
Aquinas characterizes it in terms of " affinity" ( connaturalitate).
Furthermore, his explanation of affinity is couched in terms of
" inclination " rather than movement.
The primary originating principle of orectic movement is therefore
love, which is the very first inclination of the orexis towards the possession of a good ( 36, 2) .
Love is a first inclination ( inclinatio) ; it is not a movement
( motus). The notion of priority that is expressed here is ontological priority, since the analysis will show that desire (movement) requires love ( inclinatio), but not the converse. The dis-

THOMAS ON SENSORY LOVE, DESIRE,

AND DELIGHT

55

tinction between inclination and movement is also assumed in the
following passage where Aquinas distinguishes the feeling of attractiveness from that of orectic movement :
The first effect produced in the orexis by the object is called love,
which is simply a feeling of the object's attractiveness; this feeling
gives rise to an orectic movement towards the object, viz. desire;
and finally this comes to rest in joy" (26, 2).
As a feeling of the object's attractiveness, love is inclination, but
it is not orectic movement.
Aquinas relies on these metaphors to distinguish the approach
that constitutes desire from the proclivity that is love. The sense
of attractiveness referred to here is the most fundamental rapport
between an appetite and its object. Love is an elemental resonance of suitability between the sensory appetite and the appetible
object. It is a fundamental pro-attitude: "love is precisely such
a favourable attitude to some good, such a sense of its attractiveness" (25, 2). It is the sensory estimation that an object and
the appetite are naturally fitted ( connaturalitatem ad bonum 25,

r,, •

IV. THE OBJECT OF LOVE
.. \.s significant as the distinction between inclination and movement is, it is not sufficient to differentiate love from the other
emotions, since love will be a conditioning factor in any emotion.
\Ve need to focus on the intentional objects of emotions. For example, we can fµrther differentiate love from desire by contrasttheir objects to the object of pleasure:
Pleasure is caused only by real union; desire, implies the real absence of the object loved ; but love [am.or] remains whether the object is present or absent (28, 1).
Delight takes its object to be a simple good that is possessed
(hence present), whereas desire intends its object as absent ; but
love has a wider object. Love is directed to an object taken to
be a simple, non-arduous good that is present or absent. It inclines the lover to the object as such: love immures its object so
that it is open to the possibility of the object's presence or ab-

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MARK P. DROST

sence. Love is directed to a good, but it is not identical to the
union which is a result of possessing a good. Furthermore, it
is possible to love an object without desiring it, but we cannot
desire an object without loving it In this way love transcends the
difference between desire and delight. We desire only what is
taken to be absent and take delight only in what is present, but
we can love an object whether it is present or absent. The intentionality of love visualizes the object as such. In contrast to
desire and delight, the object of love is not necessarily approached
or possessed, but it may in fact be approached or possessed.

V. UNION IN POSSESSION AND UNION
IN INTENTION
Love is a union that does not require the possession of its object whereas delight is a union based on possession and is a case
of affective rest. We might think that love is more similar to
delight than it is to desire; after all, desire is disruptive and restless whereas delight rests in its possession and is a matter of
complacency as love seems to be.
Aquinas distinguishes the union that is pleasure from the union
that is love by referring to the elemental union which precedes
desire:
. . . once our affections are engaged, to the extent that we have a
sense of affinity with a thing and feel its attractiveness, we are already in some kind of communion with it. Love therefore involves
union; that uni.on precedes the impulse of desire (25, 2).
Although this passage does not directly contrast love to delight,
we can infer the differences in their unions. The union of love
is a state of intentional union (not physical union) between the
emotional agent and the intended object. Such a union is the
underlying condition of harmony between the appetite and the
appetible object. Any emotional state, such as delight or desire,
requires this fundamental intentional union as its condition of
possibility. The union of lover and beloved (object) is a condition of harmony and it is ontologically prior to the union of de-

THOMAS

ON SENSORY

LOVE, DESIRE,

AND DELIGHT

57

light which requires the possession of an object. It is a union
that is ontologically prior to the desire for an object.
In fact, desire for an object presupposes our already being in
some kind of communion with it. Supporting evidence for this
interpretation can be seen in the following passage in which
Aquinas claims that there are two ways in which people may be
united with the object of their love:
First, they may be united in reality; this is the case when the object loved is present to the lover in actual fact. Second, they may be
united only by inclination and feeling; and this [is] orectic union ...
Now of these two kinds of union-real, and orectic-love is an
efficient cause of the first, since it moves one to desire and seek the
presence of the object loved as possessing a special affinity with oneself. It is a formal cause of orectic union, for love consists precisely
in such a union or tie ( 28, 1).
The significance of this passage lies in contrasting real union
( unione reali) to orectic union ( unionem aff ectus) : the term
" union " cannot be co-extensive with " possession ;, ( adepto),
since there are unions that Aquinas cites in which the object is
not possessed. On the one hand, being united in reality is a union
based on the presence of an object. The paradigm of such union
is possessing the object that is appropriate to delight. On the
other hand, the union by inclination and feeling ( unionem
affectus) is not based on presence in fact; rather, it is the union
that was mentioned previously, viz. the underlying harmony between the appetite and the object. Aquinas calls this union in intention "orectic.union." Such a union does not require the actual
material presence of the beloved; it is a union based on a visualization of the object as such. Orectic union is a fundamental proattitude that serves as the foundation for any other affectivity.
That is why Aquinas characterizes love as an efficient cause of
being united in reality. 11 It is another way of asserting the thesis
11 As the efficient cause of real union, love is a necessary (but not a sufficient) condition of delight. The mere occurrence of love does not guarantee
being united (in pleasure) with the beloved object. There is always the possibility that love will not cause delight. The causal relationship between love
and delight is not a necessary relationship.

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MARK P. DROST

that love ( orectic union) is a necessary condition of delight.
Moreover, to say that love is the formal cause of orectic union is
to identify orectic union and love: the form of love is union.
On Aquinas's view, love is more similar to delight than it is
to desire, since it is a state of affective complacency: one can rest
in the mere vision of the beloved object. However, love precedes
possession; thus the complacency that characterizes love is ontologically prior to the repose that attends delight. On the one
hand, love is not logically dependent upon delight or desire; on
the other hand, it is a fact that in many cases the affective properties of love and delight will be present together. Where there
is love there typically will be delight (or desire). If, however,
the lover (qua lover) can rest in possessing the beloved in delight, the lover can also be complacent in the mere vision of the
beloved. A person may love another person or object without
simultaneously delighting in that person or object (which requires presence), but it seems that the beloved must have been
present to the lover at least once for this to occur. Delight requires presence, but it is possible to consider the object of delight
in absentia: one can envision the object of delight simply by
thinking or imagining it. That complacent vision of the object
betokens love itself.
Conclusion
Because love is most closely related to delight and desire, it is
difficult to explain love without referring to these other emotions
and their descriptions, e.g. in terms of possession or approach.
In fact, it is rather difficult to analyze love without an analysis
that contrasts delight to desire. The paradigm of presence and
possession is delight and the paradigm of absence and approach
is desire. Love is what desire and delight have in common: a
union through intention.

THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL THEORY
OF INDIVIDUATION
MICHAEL

POTTS

Methodist Callege
Fayetteville, North Carolina

I. HISTORICAL

OVERVIEW

A. The Influence of Plato
HE SPA TIO-TEMPORAL theory of individuation has
long history in the philosophical tradition. Its roots go
ack to Aristotle's theory of individuation by matter,1 and
ultimately back to Plato. In the Timaeus, Plato struggled with
the problem of how forms are instantiated in the phenomenal
world. Besides " a model form (paradeigmatos eidos), intelligible and ever uniformly existent" and "the model's copy
( mimeta paradeigmatos), subject to becoming and visible,"
Plato postulated a third thing, a " receptacle " ( hupodochen),
"the nurse of all becoming." 2 It is wholly indeterminate:
... while it is always receiving all things, nowhere and in no wise
does it assume any shape similar to any of the things that enter into
it. For it is laid down by nature as a moulding-stuff for everything,
being moved and marked by the entering figures, and because of them
it appears different at different times. And the figures that enter and
depart are copies of those that are always existent, being stamped
from them ... 8
1 I recognize that this is a controversial
claim. Since I am tracing the
spatio-temporal theory of individuation from Aristotle through St. Thomas
Aquinas, for the purposes of this paper I will follow St. Thomas's interpretation of Aristotle and accept the view that Aristotle took matter to be the
principle of individuation.
2 Plato, Timaeus 49a. The version used is the Loeb edition by R. G. Bury
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966).
a Timaeus 50b-c.

59

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MICHAEL

POTTS

The receptacle, then, is like formless wax upon which the forms
are stamped. It is " apprehensible by a kind of bastard reasoning
(logismo tini notho), barely an object of belief." 4

B. Aristotle
It may seem on the surface unusual that the idea of the receptable would later be modified and used to explain individuation. Plato himself was concerned with the universal, the form.
The instantiations of the forms in the phenomenal world do not
even deserve to be called "this " or " that." 5 With Aristotle,
however, the individual gains new importance, since for him
forms have their reality only in individuals and individuals are
primarily called "substance." If this is the case, then Aristotle
has to explain how " humanity " can be the same while
" Socrates" and " Callias" are two different individuals. Since
form is universal, it cannot individuate, so the source of individuation must be matter-two individuals are different human
beings, for example, because they have different lumps of matter .
. . . and when the whole has been generated, such a form in this flesh
and these bones, this is Callias or Socrates, and this is distinct from
that which generated it because the matter is distinct (hulen, hetera
gar), but it is the same in species since the species is indivisible.6
This view raises problems. Matter is indeterminate; it is Aristotle's modification of Plato's receptacle. How can anything indeterminate itself determine individual substances? More needed
to be done to .bring out the meaning of individuation by matter,
and St. Thomas Aquinas developed a more detailed and satisfactory position.
52b.
49d-50a.
6 Aristotle, M etaphyscis 28 ( 1034a5-8). The Greek text used is M etaphysica,
ed. by Werner Jaeger ( Oxonii : E Typographaeo Clarendoniano, 1957). The
English translation is by Hippocrates G. Apostle (Grinnell, Iowa: Peripatetic
Press, 1979) .
4 Timaeus

5 Timaeus

THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL

THEORY OF INDIVIDUATION

61

C. St. Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas, recognizing that prime matter is indeterminate and
therefore not something that can individuate, argues that the
principle of individuation is " signate" or " designated" matter.
"M ateria signata" is defined as matter as " sub determinatis dimensionibus consideratur," " considered under determinate dimensions." 7 While the exact meaning of this is unclear, it seems to
refer to matter under determinate spatial dimensions or coordinates. While the form determines what sort of thing an entity is, what determines it to be this individual is this matter with
a particular set of spatial coordinates.
Henry Veatch puts
Aquinas's view into more modern terms:
In fact, matter as determined by dimensive quantity guarantees
ontologically nothing more nor less than the locatability or perhaps
the localizability in space and time of any and all individual substances.... Finally, it is necessary that the individual in thus continuing to exist through time should have maintained what today
would be called a certain spatio-temporal continuity, and here it is
matter as designated and/or dimensive that is relevant.8

Thus, Aquinas modified the view of matter as individuator into
what turns out to be a spatio-temporal view of individuation.
II. EVALUATION AND CRITIQUE OF THE
SPATIO-TEMPORAL THEORY

A. The Key Issue: Individual Unity
A spatio-temporal theory of individuation, such as that of
Aquinas, seems to make a great deal of sense. It does seem that
two individuals cannot be in the same place at the same time, cannot have the same spatio-temporal relations to other individuals,
1 St. Thomas Aquinas, De Ente et Essentia, ch. 2, para. 4. The Latin text
is from Sancti Thomae de Aquino, Opera Omnia, Leonine edition, Tomus
XLIII (Rome, 1974) . For an English translation see Armand Maurer, On
Being and Essence (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies,
1949).
8 Henry B. Veatch, " Essentialism and the Problem of Individuation," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 48 (1974) : 69.

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MICHAEL

POTTS

and must have different histories or paths in space-time, and that
this is enough to insure individuality.
This in itself, however, does not prove that spatio-temporal relations are what individuate. First, numerical diversity is neither
a necessary nor sufficient condition for individuality. In order to
show that this is the case, I will explore the meaning of " individual " and " individuality."
In our experience we encounter individual entities. I am an
individual entity; the oak tree outside my window is an individual entity; my wife is an individual entity. There is at least
one feature which distinguishes one individual from another;
whatever this feature or features is is the " individuality " of a
particular individual. 9 One feature we do notice about the individuals we experience is that each individual is separate from
other individuals. It does seem that " separateness " or " distinction " is an adequate way to define " individuality."
Upon further examination, however, we see that this is not
the case. ] orge ] . E. Gracia points out, first of all, that " there
seems to be no logical connection between the concept of individuality and the concept of distinction," 10 because " universals,
such as ' human being ' and ' ape ' are clearly distinct, since they
are defined differently, and yet in spite of that they are not individual." 11 Distinction cannot, then, be a sufficient condition for
individuality. Gracia further argues that " distinction does not
qualify as a necessary condition of individuality, for one can, indeed, think of a universe in which there can be only one individual." 12 This does not even have to be a finite individual
limited by space and time; if we assume the existence of the JudeoChristian God, " before" God created anything and any diversity
at all existed, God " was/is" still an individual. Finally, the
" basic source " of
o Jorge J. E. Gracia, Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1988), 2.
10 Ibid., 34.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., 35.

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... the problems with the view that regards individuality as distinction [is] that distinction is an extrinsic relation and as such cannot
be used in the analysis of something like individuality, which is intrinsic to those things that have it.18
Duns Scotus recognized long ago that numerical diversity is
not the essential issue :
. . . primo expono quid intelligo per individuationem sive unitatem
numeralem sive singularitatem. Non quidem unitatem indeterminatam (qua quidlibet in specie, dicitur esse unum numero), sed
unitatem signatam (ut 'hanc ')-ita quad, sicut prius dictum est quad
individuum incompossibile est dividi in partes subiectivas et quaeritur
ratio illius incompossibilitatis, ita dico quad individuum incompossibile est non esse ' hoc ' signatum hac singularitate, et quaeritur causa
non singularitatis in communi sed 'huius' singularitatis in speciali,
signatae, scilicet ut est 'haec' determinate. 14
What Duns Scotus recognized is that unlike a class or a nature,
the individual is a unity which cannot be further divided and
retain its identity. For example, "humanity" can be divided into individual human beings and still be humanity, but Socrates
cannot be divided into other Socrates and retain his identity. An
individual seems to have a certain oneness or unity that is repugnant to division; that is, its unity does not permit division.
This repugnance to division is called in the philosophical tradition "incommunicability."
"To be communicable ... means
to be made common or become common to many." 15 Human13 Ibid., 36.

Scotus, Ordinatio II dist. 3 pars 1 q. 4. " ... first I explain what
I understand by individuation or numerical unity or singularity. Not indeed
indeterminate unity (by which anything in a species is said to be one in number), but rather signate unity (as a "this), so that, just as it was said above
that an individual is incompossible to be divided into subjective parts, and the
reason for that incompossibility is asked, so [too] I say that an individual is
incompossible with not being a designated "this " by this singularity, and the
cause is asked, not of singularity in general but of this designated singularity
in particular, namely, as it is determinately 'this '." The Latin text of the
Ordinatio is from Duns Scotus, Opera Omnia, ed. by P. Carol Balic (Civitas
Vaticanis: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950- ) . The English translation is
by Paul Vincent Spade, in Six Questions on Individuation (Department of
Philosophy, Indiana University, 1986).
1 5 Gracia, Individuality, 45.
14 Duns

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ness, for example, can be communicated to individual human beings, such as Peter or Paul. However, the " thisness " of Peter
cannot be communicated to any other human being; otherwise,
we would all be Peter. " Peter," unlike " humanness," cannot be
divided into parts and retain his identity. So an individual is an
entity that is incommunicable to other entities; it cannot be divided into parts and retain its identity. 16 It thus is " an essentially undivided and indivisible unity." 11
Defining the individual as " an incommunicable unity " is a
much better choice than defining an individual in terms of numerical distinction. Gracia argues that this definition fits as both
a necessary and sufficient condition for individuality. He says,
It [incommunicability, which Gracia calls "noninstantiability "] is
ontological and independent both of the specific kind of thing the
individual is as well as of the kind of universe to which the individual
belongs. Whether the universe in which the individual is found has
one or more individuals in it is immaterial if noninstantiability is
considered to be fundamental to the individual, since noninstantiability, unlike distinction, is not an extrinsic relation. Similarly, noninstantiability seems independent of duration and change, as well as
of the specific kind of individual involved, whether material or
spiritual. 18
Given that the individual is an incommunicable unity, the extension of " individual " is all entities which are incommunicable
unities. A tree is an individual. So too is a particular human being; even a particular rock is individual, given this definition.
16 On this point see Josiah Royce, " Individual," in James Mark Baldwin,
ed., Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, vol. 1 (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter
Smith, 1957 reprint of 1901 Macmillan ed, 534.
17 Johannes
B. Lotz, "The Individual," in \Valter Brugger, ed., Philosophical Dictionary (Spokane, Wash.: Gonzaga University Press, 1972), 19596. Gracia makes an important distinction between absolute and relative indivisibility (in Individuality, p. 246, n. 7). Obviously there is a sense in
which an individual can be divided; I can (unfortunately) be cut into parts.
Thus, I am not absolutely indivisible. However, individuals are relatively indivisible: " Socrates is an individual even though he is divisible [in the sense
given above], since the parts into which Socrates could be divided would
not be of the same specific kind as Socrates ; that is, they would not be human
beings " (ibid.) .
1s Gracia, Individuality, 46.

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65

"Humanity," "redness," and "the class of chess-players" are
not individuals, for they can be communicated to more than one
entity.
Since we have defined " individual " as that entity which cannot be divided into parts and remain the same entity, the key
" distinguishing feature " or " individuality " of Peter as opposed
to Paul is ultimately Peter's incommunicability, his individual
unity. To account for individuality metaphysically must ultimately be to account for incommunicability or individual unity.

B. The Fatal Flaw of the Spatio-Temporal Theory
There is a key difficulty, discussed by both Duns Scotus and
Francisco Suarez, with spatio-temporal theories of individuation
(and any theory of individuation which does not regard individuality as primitive) .19 Basically, it amounts to the claim that
these theories put the cart before the horse : that spatio-temporal
relations presuppose individuals and not vice-versa. To put the
difficulty in Aristotelian terminology, spatio-temporal relations
are accidental and cannot individuate a substance; they cannot
account for the incommunicable substantial unity which defines
the individuality of a substance. Individuality is a more primitive feature than spatio-temporal location or relations. It is a
feature which is presupposed in any relations into which the indi19 Scotus argued against the view that prime matter
is the principle of
individuation, and against the view that quantity is the principle of individuation. See Ordinatio. II dist. 3 pars 1, q. 3 and 4. He argues that quantity and
matter are accidents that cannot individuate a substance, since the final
unity and perfection of a substance demands a substantial explanation for
that unity. Suarez uses similar arguments in il! etaphysical Disputations V,
sect. 2 and 3. (For a translation of Suarez's work see Suarez on Individuation:
Metaphysical Disputation V: Jn.dividual Unity and its Principle. Trans. from
the Latin with Introduction, Notes, Glossary, and Bibliography by ] orge ] . E.
Gracia [Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1982]). Edward Allaire
makes similar arguments from an Anglo-American perspective. Allaire's arguments against the spatio-temporal theory of individuation are found in " Bare
Particulars " and " Another Look at Bare Particulars," in Michael L. Loux,
Universals and Particulars: Readings in Ontology (Garden City, N.Y.:
Anchor Books, 1970), 235-44, 250-57.

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vidual enters. Spatio-temporal relations or quantified matter already presuppose individuality.
Why is this the case? The contrary view has considerable
plausibility. It might seem, for instance, that a spatio-temporal
framework must already be present prior to individuals. As Kant
says concerning space,
. . . in order that certain sensations be referred to something outside me (that is, to something in another region of space from that
in which I find myself), and similarly in order that I may be able to
represent them as outside and alongside one another, and accordingly as not only different but as in different places, the representation
of space must be presupposed.20
Both space and time seem to be necessary postulates to account
for any experience of objects in the phenomenal world. If this
is so, it seems that the individuality of substances cannot be prior
to space and time.
Several points must be clarified here, however. It is true that
spatio-temporal relation is one of the ways we discern that one
individual is different from another. The most this would show,
however, is that a spatio-temporal framework is an epistemological necessity for our experience of individuals. In other words,
space-time may well be phenomenally prior to individuals in the
sense that in order, for example, to distinguish two ball bearings
of identical qualities from one another we need to refer to spatiotemporal relations. It does not follow from this, however, that
spatio-temporal location is metaphysically the cause of individuation. My concern is with what is metaphysically prior, not with
what is temporally prior or with what is epistemically prior. The
order of knowing should not be confused with the order of being.
Second, as the preceding discussion has shown, the issue here
is not the numerical diversity of substances, but the inability of
the individual substances to be divided into parts and remain the
same kind of entity; in other words, their incommunicability.
2 0 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp
Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965 reprint of 1929 Macmillan edition), 68.

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Numerical diversity may be one of the results of incommunicability, but is not the central issue in the problem of individuation. 21
Even if diverse spatio-temporal locations or histories or relations cause numerical diversity, it does not follow that they cause
incommunicability.
Third, I do not deny that both space-time and form play a
necessary role in the constitution of the individual material substance. Obviously if we are trying to explain the constitution of
an individual material substance, we need form as well as matter,
and the composite must have spatio-temporal coordinates and a
spatio-temporal history. The issue is what accounts for the individuality of the matter-form composite, i.e., what renders it incommunicable.
With these issues clarified, I argue that individuality itself
must be metaphysically prior to a spatio-temporal framework;
space-time itself could not " exist " without individuals. Suppose
that there are no individuals. Does it make sense to speak of
space-time " existing? " If we try to use the vocabulary we associate with space-time, we are in a quandary. First, let us try to
use the word " relations." How could one even conceive of relations in a world without individuals? Relations are always relations-of-x, but if there are no x's, there are no relations.
The same follows for the phrase " spatio-temporal history."
If there were even one individual, it would make sense to refer
to the spatio-temporal history or path of that individual. But if
no individuals exist, then there could be no spatio-temporal history. A spatio-temporal history is of an .r, where x is an individual entity. The notion of space-time seems vacuous without
individuals; if it makes sense at all, it seems akin to Aristotle's
prime matter, which is wholly indeterminate pure potentiality. If
this is so, it seems strange to suppose that what is indeterminate
and potential can somehow act as the principle of individuation.
If space-time individuates, this is not done in general. It must
be this particular spatio-temporal history or these particular
21 Gracia, from a Suarezian perspective, emphasizes this throughout his book
Individuality.

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spatio-temporal relations. But these particulars presuppose the
individual. One can always ask, " What makes this spatio-temporal history this spatio-temporal history? " 22 Something must
individuate space-time which is not space-time itself. Since a particular spatio-temporal history or location presupposes an individual, then the principle of individuation must be accounted for
by some reality in the individual substance itself. 23
Finally, the conclusion that individuality is not caused by
space-time has some basis in our experience : as Gracia expresses
it, "It is I who am here now, and my being here and now seems
somewhat dependent on me, and not vice-versa." 24 That is, it
seems that there is an " I-ness" which is prior to my position and
relations in space-time. While this may not make as much sense
if one is talking about a rock, in the case of human beings it seems
difficult to describe individuality, particularly as expressed in personality, by a bare spatio-temporal theory of individuation. The
spatio-temporal theory of individuation, therefore, fails as an adequate account of individuation.

was rceognized by Scotus, Ordinatio II, d. 3, pars 1, q. 4.
makes a similar point, although he affirms a very different
ontology. Since "actual entities are the only reasons" (Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, Corrected Edition, ed. by
David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne [New York: The Free Press,
1978], 24), space and time must be explained by actual entities and not vice
versa. It is enduring and spread out actualities which ground the possibility
of temporal and spatial relations.
24 Gracia, Individuality, 151.
22 This

2s Whitehead

THE SPECIES AND UNITY OF THE MORAL ACT
CHAD RIPPERGER

I

Rome, Italy

N AN ARTICLE written by Gerard Casey in the New
Scholasticism,1 the problem of a lack of unity among the
constituents of the moral act in St. Thomas's action theory is
posed. The question he asks is a valid one: where does the moral
act receive its unity? I believe St. Thomas answers that question,
but before we take a look at his answer, it is necessary first to
discuss what the constituents of the moral act are. This in itself
is not without its complications, for what the constituents of the
moral act are for Aquinas is likewise open to debate. In order to
answer Casey's question, the article will take the following form:
first, we will consider what the constituents of the moral act are;
then, we shall try to answer Casey's question: "Where does the
moral act receive its unity? "
I. The Constituen:ts of the Moral Act

One of the difficulties with Aquinas's treatment of the species
of the moral act is that of understanding precisely what he means
by the object of the moral act. Later on we shall see that Aquinas
uses the term "object" in a variety of ways referring to a number of different things. However, one of the ways he uses the
term "object" is in reference to the end. Therefore, it will be
necessary to point out how Aquinas uses this term in reference to
the will so that, in considering the object of the moral act, a
proper distinction can be made between the end and the object of
the moral act in the strict sense.
1 See Gerard Casey, "A Problem of Unity in St. Thomas's Account of
Human Action," New Scholasticism, 61, no. 2 (1987) : 146-161.

69

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Aquinas refers many times to the end as the object of the will.
However, the main idea he has in mind is in reference to his
theory of powers and their objects. For Aquinas, every human
power has its proper object, 2 and since the will is a power or
faculty of man, it has its proper object. Often, Aquinas simply
refers to the end as the object of the will: "the good and the end
is the proper object of the will." 3 Other times, however, Aquinas
refers to the end as that which is under the ratio boni.
Those which know the end are always ordered toward the good as to
an end: for the will, which is the appetite of the end already known,
does not tend toward something except under the aspect of the good
(ratio boni), which is its object. 4
What Aquinas is saying here is that the intellect apprehends some
being and presents it to the will under a certain aspect or concept
of the good. Now since the proper object of the will, which is an
appetitive power, is the good, then the particular thing must be
" seen " in a certain way so that the will will tend toward it.
Aquinas is pointing out that, materially, the object for the intellect and the object of the will do not differ. For instance, a
piece of candy may be the object of the intellect but it may also
be the object of the will once it has been apprehended by the intellect and presented to the will as desirable or under the aspect
of the good.
However, the ratio boni is more than just a way in which the
intellect presents the will with its object. The good by nature
has a universal or formal character about it. Because the intellect
and will are immaterial powers for Aquinas, the objects of the
these respective powers must be universals, forms or essences.
The will is presented with a form of the particular thing apprehended and this form is none other than the end.
T. I, 77, 3.
S.C.G. III, 1. See also Sent., II, 40, 1, 1; Sent. IV, 16, 3, 2; S.T. I, 1,
4, ad 3; S.T. I-II, 11, 1, and 19, 2, ad 1; De Ver., 22, 13; De Malo, 6, un.
4 S.C.G. III, 16. See also S.C.G. III, 3; De Malo 6, un., ad 6 and S.T.
I-II, 9, 2.
2 See S.
3

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71

But it is considered that since every inclination follows upon some
form, the natural appetite follows upon a form existing in nature;
the sensitive appetite, however, or even the intellective or rational
appetite, which is called the will, follows upon an apprehended form.
Therefore, just as that in which the natural appetite tends is the
good existing in the thing, so that in which the animal appetite or
the voluntary tends is the apprehended good. Therefore, just because
the will tends toward some thing, it is not required that it is the
good existing in a true thing, but that it is apprehended under the
aspect of the good ( ratione bani) and because of this, the Philosopher
says that ' the end is the good or the apparent good.' 5
For a rational creature, it is possible that what the will tends
toward is not a real good. Here the aspect of good or ratio boni
plays a very important role. It may be possible that the intellect
apprehends the bad action under some aspect of the good, and
hence tends toward it. This is how evil actions are possible, for
if every appetite (and especially the intellective appetite, viz., the
will) followed upon only real goods, then it would be impossible
to have evil actions. Therefore, Aquinas pointed out that there
may not be an adequation between the good really existing in the
thing and that which is presented by the intellect under the aspect
of the good.
There are three places where Aquinas directs his attention to
the question of whether the end itself gives a species to the moral
act. In the very first question of the Prima Secundae we find
Aquinas treating the end as a specification of the moral act.
A definition manifests the concept of a species. And in both ways,
the human a:ct, either considered by way of action or considered by
way of passion, receives its species from the end. For in both ways
they are able to be considered human acts, because man moves himself and is moved by himself. Moreover, it was said above that acts
are called human insofar as they proceed from a deliberated will ;
moreover, the object of the will is the good and the end; and therefore, it is manifest that the principle of human actions, insofar as
they are human, is the end; and similarly it is their terminus. For
that to which the human act is terminated, is that which the will intends as an end.0
S.C.G. III, 8, 1.
11 S.T. I-II,

1, 3.

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CHAD RIPPERGER

Every action begins and ends in a certain way. The beginning is
the principle of motion, i.e., that which causes the motion to
begin. Hence, as we saw above, upon the apprehension of some
form or end, the will is moved toward that end and specified by
that end. An example may make this clearer. If a person wishes
to eat, his action is specified by the fact that food is his end. Or
in other words, if the food were not the end of his action, then
his action would not tend toward obtaining the food but to some
other end. The actions he takes in getting the food will be specified or directed toward his end. Hence, for Aquinas, the species
of the moral act receives its species from the end as the final cause
of the action, for it is that to which his action tends.
In q. 18, a. 6 of the Prima Secundae, we see that Aquinas is
dealing with the question of whether a moral act is good or bad
from its end.
In a voluntary act is found a two-fold act, viz., the interior act of
the will and the exterior act. And both of these acts have their objects. The end is properly the object of the interior voluntary act;
that, moreover, about which the exterior act is, is its object. Therefore, just as the exterior act receives a species from that about which
it is, so the interior act of the will receives its species from the end
as from its proper object.7

Aquinas makes a distinction between the interior act of the will
and the exterior act to be performed. Moreover, each act has its
respective object which gives it its particular character or species.
That, moreover, which is on the part of the will is related formally
to that which is on the part of the exterior act; because the will uses
the members to act as instruments ; nor do the exterior acts have the
aspect of morality, except insofar as they are voluntary. And therefore, the species of the moral act is formally considered according to
the end; materially considered according to the object of the exterior
act. Hence, the philosopher says that " he who steals in order to
commit adultery is essentially speaking more an adulterer than a
thief." 8
1

S.T. I-II, 18, 6.

8

Ibid.

SPECIES

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73

Aquinas is noting the formal causal character of the end with
respect to the species of the moral act. In fact, for Aquinas, an
exterior act is not a moral act unless it possesses a voluntary or
formal character. This essentially means that without an end, an
act is not moral.
Aquinas has a clear idea of what is meant when the end is said
to be the form of the moral act. Clearly, the term form is used
analogically. Aquinas uses it to indicate that the species of the
moral act has an analogical similarity to a natural being. Hence,
when Aquinas says that the end to the moral act is like the form
to matter, he is saying that the end acts as the form does with
respect to a natural thing. Aquinas in one place 9 uses the analogy
of generating a form with respect to the end's causal influence on
the act. However, he has in mind something more than that.
As we saw above, the intellect presents to the will its object,
which is a universal form or essence under the aspect of the good.
This is why Saint Thomas says that the end is more universal
than the object of the moral act. 10 What the object of the
moral act is, i.e., what the matter of the moral act is, we shall
see shortly. However, we can see that this matter-to-form relationship has its effect with respect to the moral decision process.
The end concerns those acts of the will which precede and include the act of intention. 11 Once the end is intended, the subsequent acts of the decision making process (which concern the
means) are formed or ordered to the end.12
The notion of the end, then, is in some way in those which are
to the end or the means. 13 Just as the cause is in the caused, so,
9 See

S.T. I-II, 1, 3.

10 Ibid.
11 See S.T. I-II, 18, 7 (finis corpus).
Aquinas uses the analogy of form to
matter many times. Se also Comm. Ethic. 1, 9 (107); S.T. I-II, 1, 3; 9, 1;
13, 1; 18, 4; 18, 6; 20, 1, ad 3; 72, 3; 72, 6; 73, 3 ad 1; S.T. II-II, 110, 1;
De Malo 2, 2; Sent. II, 40, 1, 1.
12 See S.T. I-II, 11-17 for Aquinas's consideration of the decision making
process.
18 S.T. I-II, 8, 2. It is difficult to enter into the notion of how the end is
the form of the species of the moral act when the matter, i.e., the means
or object, has not been discussed. However, later on we shall see what the
object of the moral act is and also how it is considered the matter of the act.

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CHAD RIPPERGER

too, the end 1s in the means. Aquinas clarifies himself when he
says
everything which is compared to another as the reason for it [ratio],
is related to it as form to matter ; hence from the two comes one as
from matter and form.14
Again, the end plays a somewhat formal role in that what is in
the means or object 15 of the moral act somehow takes on the
(formal) character of the end by virtue of its relationship to it.
This is very important with respect to the species of the moral
act, because the end will determine or modify the species of the
moral act precisely because of this formal character.
The Object of the Moral Act

Undoubtedly, the most difficult moral determinant to pin down
in Aquinas's treatment of the species of the moral act is the object. We saw how the end is sometimes referred to as the object
of the will. However, Aquinas uses "object" in ways other than
in reference to the end. Differing interpretations of Aquinas's
texts have lead to two traditions with respect to the object of the
moral act. These two traditions are clearly divided into those
who say the object of the moral act is an object, i.e., the exterior
thing about which the exterior action concerns itself,16 and those
who say it is the exterior act itself. 11
At that time, a more thorough understanding of the end as the form will be
possible.
H De Malo 2, 2, .ad 11.
15 It may seem confusing when the terms, means, those which are to the
end, and object are used interchangeably. I will pick up the notion of the object being the means later and for now will assume their interchangeability.
Aquinas does note that the goodness of the end flows over into the means, as
I am quoting here, as well as into the object, as can be seen in questions nineteen and twenty of the Prima Secundae.
16 Among those who hold this position are Osterle,
Ethics (Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey, 1958), p. 103; Cronin, Science of Ethics (New York,
1909), p. 95; and Garrigou-Lagrange,
De Bonitate et Malitiae Actuum
Humanorum (Rome, 1951), p. 320.
1 1 Among those who hold this position are Davis, Moral and Pastoral Theology (New York, 1943), p. SS; and Coppens, A Brief Text-book of Moral
Philosophy (New York, 1924), p. 33.

SPECIES

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75

To resolve this difficulty let us turn to question eighteen of the
Prima Secundae, where St. Thomas is treating the notion of object as it is used in constituting the species of the moral act. In
this respect, "object" is being used differently than in reference to an end. Therefore, we must see what Aquinas means by
"object" in question eighteen and elsewhere. St. Thomas uses
the term " object" to refer to a thing which determines the moral
character of the external action. However, because the usage of
the term" object" in question eighteen of the Prima Secundae is
not entirely clear, let us turn to an example of how Aquinas uses
the term " object" to mean the exterior thing. In Aquinas's
treatment of lying, he refers to the constituents of the moral act
in order to sort out where the evil in lying resides :
Moral acts are sorted into species from two things, viz., from the object and from the end: for the end is the object of the will, which
is the first mover in moral actions.
Moreover, a power has its object from the motion of the will, which
is the proximate object of the act of the will, and is related in the act
of the will to the end, as matter to form, as is clear from what was
said above. It was said, moreover, that the virtue of truthfulness
(and consequently its opposite vice) consists in a manifestation,
which is through some sign.... The proper object, moreover, of the
manifestation or the enunciation is the true or the false.18
In this text, Aquinas is pointing out that manifesting or enunciating something is related to the virtue of truthfulness and also
its opposite vice. What is important to note is that the object in
this text refers to the exterior act of enunciating or manifesting.
This object is either the true or the false. Hence, it is seen that
Aquinas uses the term "object" to refer to the exterior thing
about which the action concerns itself.
In question eighteen, article two of the Prima Secundae, St.
Thomas begins the question with an objection which notes that
exterior things which are objects cannot determine a moral act
to be bad because they are, in essence, good and it is only the use
of good things for a bad end which constitutes sin. However,
Aquinas replies by saying that
1s

S.T. II-II llO, 1.

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CHAD RIPPERGER

although exterior things are in themselves good, nevertheless, they
do not always have the due proportion to this or that action and
therefore, insofar as they are considered as objects of such action,
they do not have the aspect of the good.19
In this text, St. Thomas is pointing out that objects of exterior
acts do modify the acts because they are proportionate or not
proportionate to that act. For Aquinas, although in this case the
object is not the act itself, and in moral action we want to know
whether an action is intrinsically good or bad, objects do constitute species of action by their proportion to that action. For
instance, in an act of fornication, the object, which is another
person, is not proportioned to the conjugal act.
Although Aquinas notes that exterior things are objects which
specify acts, he does not simply say that only things specify acts.
In other words, for Aquinas, the object of a moral act can be
an action itself as well. In a question in his commentary on the
Sentences, Aquinas says
because the exterior act is compared to the will as an object, hence,
the exterior act has the goodness of the will, not, however, in that
it is exercised, but according as it is intended and willed.20
A little further on in the same question he says :
If, however, we speak of the goodness of an act, which the exterior
act has in itself, then the exterior act completes the interior act in
goodness or badness, as the terminus of motion completes the motion; for it is compared, as was said, to the will as its object.21

Here Aquinas is noting that action itself, i.e., the exterior action, is the object of the will. That is to say it relates to the will
as constituting the goodness and badness of the will. When we
speak of the moral act, then, we are speaking of the will act, and
the object which modifies the interior will act is the exterior act.
In the text of the Sentences just quoted, we see that the context is the question of whether an exterior act adds anything to
the interior act of the will. The same context is found in De
S.T. I-II, 18, 2, ad 1.
Sent., II, 40, 1, 3.
21 Ibid.

10

20

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Malo, where we find Aquinas saying virtually the same thing.
He says, " considered in itself, it is compared to the will as an
object." 22 In the context of the quote, "it" refers to the exterior act as it is in apprehension as opposed to execution. In
apprehension the exterior act is the object presented to the will.
In the response to the first objection in this same De Malo text,
Aquinas says that " an act has a species from an object; and because of this, sin is denominated by the exterior act in that it is
compared to it [i.e., the will] as an object." 23 The passage also
points to Aquinas's theory that an act is made what it is by the
object about which it is concerned. Hence, the kind or species of
will act is determined by its object, viz., the exterior act as apprehended. Moreover, when the object of the moral act is bad,
then sin results, not in the exterior act as such, but only insofar
as it is the object of the will act. Hence, the response answers
the objection Aquinas is dealing with by noting that culpability
resides in the interior act, for it is, properly speaking, the moral
act. Therefore, we see that Aquinas is using the term "object"
not only in the sense of the exterior thing about which the exterior act is concerned, but also in reference to the exterior act.
As we saw above, the object of the exterior act specifies the
exterior act. But the exterior act is not a moral act unless it is
willed. And when it is willed, the exterior act itself becomes the
object of the will. This clarifies a great deal of confusion. The
problems that have occurred in understanding what pertains to
this term arise from the fact that Aquinas applies the term " object of the moral act" not only to that about which the exterior
act is concerned, but also that about which the interior act is concerned. Therefore, when we are talking of specification of a
moral act, we must consider how the phrase " moral act " is being used. If one is referring to the specification of the exterior
act, the object of the moral act will be the particular thing about
which the action is concerned. If, however, one considers the fact
22

De Malo, 2, 3.

2a Ibid., 2, 3, ad 1.

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that moral action, properly so called, is the will act, then the object of the moral act is an exterior action.
After Aquinas's treatment of the specification of moral acts in
question eighteen and the treatment of the interior act of the will
in question nineteen in the Prima Secundae, we find an objection
and a response to an objection which seems to affirm the distinction I have just made. In the objection to question twenty, article
one, the following problem is raised :
It seems that the good and the bad in the exterior act is prior to the
interior act. For the will is good from its object, as was said above.
But the exterior act is the object of the interior act of the will; for we
are said to will to steal or to will to give alms. Therefore the good
and the bad in the exterior act is prior [to the good and bad] in the
act of the will.24
What must be noted here is that Aquinas's objection sets the exterior act up as the object of the interior act of the will as well as
attempts to establish the priority of goodness between the interior
and the exterior act. The response to the objection is as follows:
the exterior act is the object of the will, insofar as it is proposed to
the will by reason as a certain good apprehended and ordered by
reason. And, thus, good in the act of the will is prior. 25
Aquinas acknowledges the fact that the exterior act is the object
of the will in such a way that the interior or moral act is good
specifically from the exterior action, i.e., its object.
Therefore, although the exterior thing specifies the exterior
act, that does not mean that it necessarily specifies a moral act.
For the exterior act to be a moral act, it must be willed. Now
the object of the interior act of the will, as we have seen with
respect to sin and moral action, is the proposed exterior action
itself. Therefore, one may say that the exterior thing specifies
the moral act when it specifies the willed exterior action. But the
exterior thing does not specify the moral act as such, viz., the interior act of the will, except insofar as it is seen as part of the
u S.T. I-II, 20, 1, obj. 1.
25 Ibid., 20, 1, ad 1.

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moral object, i.e., the exterior action. 26 Therefore, the object of
the moral act, properly so called, is the exterior action.
To clarify what the object of the moral act is, it will be necessary to discuss Aquinas's theory of the decision making process.
The process of decision making begins in the intellect's apprehension of a particular good or end. In each act of the intellect in
the decision making process, there is a corresponding act of the
will which relates to reason in a particular way. Therefore, prior
to the will act of velle, there is apprehension of the particular·
good. V elle, as it is described by Aquinas, is seen to include both
those ends which are possible and those which are not possible,
which makes velle distinct from the act of intendere in that the
latter is only of that which is possible for man to attain. The difference between velle and intendere is that to will ( velle) is to desire something in an absolute sense, 27 and by absolute is meant
that it is not subject to the boundaries of being attainable. This
is why some commentators have translated it as to wish, 28 for
wishing does not imply either that it is possible or that one is
tending toward it. The object of velle is not that to which something is ordered, since Aquinas has noted that the object of velle
is not that to which election is ordered, for that pertains to intention. 29
The point to draw out here is that there are two acts of the
intellect and two acts of the will that have ends as their objects.
The first act of the intellect apprehends something as good, pre26 Coppens refers to the object of the moral act and the object of the exterior
act this way: "The object of an act is the thing done. In reality, it is not
distinct from the act itself; for we cannot act without doing something, and
the something done is the object of the act say, of going, eating, praising, etc.
The act or object may be viewed as containing further specification-e.g.,
going to church, praising God, eating meat " (Coppens, p. 31). In other words,
the object of the moral act is the exterior action which in turn may receive
further specification by another object, such as meat, God, or church as
Coppens puts it.
21 See De Ver. 22, 13, ad 12 and 22, 15.
28 See Bourke, p. 59. In A Lexicon of St. Thomas Aquinas (Roy J. Deferrari, Boston, 1986), the term volo is given the meaning of wishing.
29 See De Ver. 22, 15.

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sents it to the will as good, 30 and the will wills ( velle) it in an
absolute sense. Next the intellect judges the end's attainability 81
and then, if it is attainable, presents the good to the will as attainable, and the will intends to obtain the object or the end. The
object of velle may or may not become the object of intendere.
If the object is not attainable, then the object of velle never becomes an object of intendere. However, the object of intendere
does not differ from the object of velle except insofar as the notion of attainability is added to it. That is to say that if a thing
is the object of intendere, it was also the object of velle except to
the extent that reason has added to that object the notion of being attainable.
The next step in the process of decision making is counsel.
Counsel is an act of the intellect whereby one considers the various means to the end intended. 32 When counsel is finished, the act
of consent takes place with respect to the various means proposed.33 Then there is a judgment by the intellect with respect to
which of the various means consented to should be the one to be
used.34
The next act of the will in the decision making process is
eligere or election.
The proper object of election is that which is to the end, which pertains to the notion of the good, which is the object of the will; for
the good is called the end, as honest or pleasurable, and that which
is to the end, as the useful.35
Here Aquinas refers to those which are for the end as the " object" of election. But the objects of election are exterior actions. 36 This is what divides the act of intendere from the act of
See De Ver. 22, 12; and S.T. I-II, 13, 5, ad 1.
See S.T. I-II, 12, 3 and 4.
32 See Comm. Ethic. III, 9 ( 484 and 487) ; and S.T. I-II, 14.
33 See S.T. I-II, 15.
3 4 See S.T. I-II, 13, 3; election follows judgment. See also S.T. I-II, 13, 1,
ad 2.
35 De Ver. 22, 15.
36 See De Ver. 22, 15, ad 3; and S.T. I-II, 13.
30

31

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eligere, viz., they have different objects about which their actions are concerned. The object of the act of intention is the end
and the object of the act of election is an action or that which is
to the end.
The object of counsel, consent, judgment (of those which are
to the end which should not be confused with judgment of the
end), election, command, and use is the same. The difference is
that the object is under a different aspect in each act. For instance in counsel the ratio of the object is its conduciveness to
the end, whereas the ratio of the object with respect to judgment
is whether it is the most suitable, the best action or object ordered
to the end. Moreover, each object of the act of the will determines the character of the will act. This is precisely why Aquinas
says that sin essentially resides in the will. For if the object of
intention, i.e., the end, is bad, then the will will be bad for intending it. Moreover, if the will elects a bad means, then, again,
the will will be bad from willing it.37
A moral act is a will act in which its object is freely chosen.
Since election is a voluntary act, election is a moral act. Therefore, when we speak of the object of a moral action, it is proper
that we are speaking of the exterior act, for the exterior act is the
object of the moral act of election.
When one takes counsel, the various circumstances and objects
which figure into the exterior action are taken into account and
the final product of them coming together is the object presented
to the will for election. This is why Aquinas says that circumstances become a condition or enter into the substance of the act
because, through counsel, these various things are put together
and considered with respect to the action that will conduce to the
end.
37 I will not enter into the discussion of the influence prudence and conscience share with respect to the decision making process. However, it is important to point out that prudence is with respect to the means, i.e., action,
and since conscience is an act of prudence which also concerns itself with action, it is clear that the object of the act of conscience and virtue of prudence
is the means or exterior action. See De Ver. 17, 1; Comm. Ethic. I, 1 (8)
and VI 11 (1289); S.T. II-II, 51, 3, ad 1; and Quod. 3, 12.

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Therefore, Aquinas is using the term "object" of the moral
act in three ways. 38 This is why the interpretations which hold
that the use of the term relates to only one of the usages is inaccurate. However, let us point out that when one is talking, in
a strict sense, of the object of the moral act one is talking of the
object of the act of election. This follows from the fact that election is properly speaking the moral act. By moral act is meant a
free volitional act, and the only act of the will which is free is
that of choice, for man does not have a choice with respect to
ends, but only with respect to the means. Hence, the act of election is the moral act and its object will be properly called the
object of the moral act.39

Circumstances
Circumstances play a very important role in Thomistic ethics.
Although one could not accuse Saint Thomas of situationalism,
he does give circumstances a place in determining the species of
the moral act. Moreover, since, for Aquinas, circumstances enter
into the morality of an act, i.e., its goodness and badness, it will
be necessary to consider circumstances as a constituent of moral
action. The term cfrcumstare, from which the word " circumstance" comes, means "to stand around."
Something is said to stand around things in a place, which is extrinsic to the thing, yet nevertheless touches it, or is next to it according to place. And therefore, whatever conditions are outside the
substance of an act, yet touch the human act in some way, are called
circumstances. However, that which is outside the substance of the
thing, yet perta1ns to that thing, is called its accident. Hence, circumstances of human acts are called their accidents.40
as St. Thomas uses "object" in a fourth way as anything that is proposed
to the will as an object. However, that which is proposed to the will as an
object is always done so according to the three objects delineated in this
article.
3 9 On the fact that for Saint Thomas man is free with respect to the means
and not to the end, see S.T. I-II, 13, 3. Hence, since a moral act is only an
act that is free, the moral act is the act of election. And therefore, the object
of the moral act is the object of election which is the exterior act or the
means.
40 S.T. I-II, 7, 1.

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Saint Thomas is pointing out three things. The first is the
etymological derivation of the word "circumstance." The second
is that circumstances are accidental to the substance of an act. 41
The third point is that only those circumstances which touch the
act seem to be of importance.
Aquinas seems to make a distinction between circumstances
which remain purely accidental and circumstances which are
conditions. In question eighteen of the Prima S ecundae, it appears that there are two kinds of circumstances; those which are
accidental and in no way cause a new species of the moral act, and
those which in some way are not accidental but are a condition of
the object. But he also makes a distinction between those which
remain circumstances and those that do not. 42 It is as if he is saying that conditions of the object are not circumstances. However, Aquinas clarifies his position by noting that:
that condition of the cause, from which the substance of the act depends, is not called a circumstance, but some adjunct condition; as
with respect to the object, it is not called a circumstance of theft that
it belongs to another, for this pertains to the substance of theft, but
that which is greater or lesser; and similarly it is of those circumstances which are taken on the part of other causes. For the end
which gives a species to an act is not a circumstance, but some
adjunct end.43
Circumstances are not those things which enter into the substance of the act. In Saint Thomas's example of the object of
theft, the fact that it belongs to another is not a circumstance,
but a substantial part of the act. An example may clarify this
distinction. When a thief steals someone's property, the fact that
it is someone else's property is not an accident, but part of the
very substance of the act. However, if the thief steals something
41 See also S.T. I-II, 18, 3, ad 1. In this passage, Aquinas notes the difference between the essence of the act and its accidents, which is the same
type of distinction as that between substance and accidents or circumstances.
See note 45 for a discussion on Aquinas's use of the terms "substance" and
"species."
42 S.T. I-II, 18, 10, ad 2.
43 S.T. I-II, 7, 3, ad 3.

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in a sacred place, then it becomes sacrilege. The location of the
other person's property or where the act takes place modifies the
species of theft into sacrilegious theft. The fact that the theft
occurs in some sacred place does not change the substance of the
act of theft, but becomes a new condition of the act. 44 Therefore,
the location is a circumstance and a condition touching the act.
If the thief had taken something sacred but not in a sacred
place, it still would have been sacrilege but because of a different
circumstance. The circumstance is not that it belongs to another,
but that the object is sacred. The sacredness of the object does
not pertain to the substance of the act of theft, but nevertheless
changes the species of the act to sacrilege. The fact that it is
sacred is a condition touching the act, but the fact that it is silver
or gold does not cause a new species of theft. Moreover, whether
it is a chalice or a crucifix does not change the species of theft.
For it can be seen that, even though conditions are accidental,
they are distinct from those accidents which do not in any way
affect the morality of the act. 45 Circumstances are part of the
moral act, however, and when there is a defect in the circumstances, then there is a defect in the action. And since a thing is
bad from any defect whatsoever, the moral act will be evil if the
due circumstances are not present. Therefore, the circumstance
can modify the goodness and badness of moral acts. 46
Aquinas uses this example, in De Malo, 2, 6, ad 2.
From the previous discussion, it can be seen that what Aquinas means
by species is not always the substance of the act. Because accidents can cause
a species, it is clear that species and substance are not always synonymous.
The distinction is between those constituents that make an act different from
another in substance and those constituents that make an act different with
respect to good and bad (even though the substance of the act may be good
or bad in itself). Sometimes St. Thomas uses species to refer to the goodness
or badness of an act because a good act and a bad act are essentially different
from one another, not necessarily in substance, but at least with respect to the
moral character of the act. Therefore, sometimes Aquinas uses species to refer
to the substance of the act and sometimes to the moral goodness of the act.
46 See S.T. I-II,
18, 3. The Pseudo-Dionysian principle is employed by
Aquinas, as is evident from the discussion at hand. Moreover, the fact that
circumstances do modify the morality of acts is testified to by the Council of
44
45

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Some circumstances affect the morality of the action but do not
change the species of the moral act. These are called aggravating
or extenuating circumstances. 47 They are called extenuating or
aggravating circumstances because they do not change the species
of an act, but add or take away from its goodness. 48 Circumstances, then, are able to modify an act in essentially five ways.
The first two ways are when the circumstances change the species
of an indifferent act to either good or bad. The third way is when
an act is good, but rendered bad from its circumstances. For example, the conjugal act between two married people is good, but
when done in public it is bad. In this case, the circumstance of
place (i.e., ubi or where) changes the act to bad. The last two
are when the circumstances augment or diminish the goodness or
badness of an act. For example, stealing five dollars is not as bad
as stealing five hundred. The numeration of the circumstances
differs according to which text of Aquinas one uses. 49 However,
it may be said Aquinas holds to seven circumstances: who, what,
where, when, why, in what way or how, and by what aid. Each
of these may enter into an act and modify its species.

II. The Unity of the Moral Act
From what we have seen thus far, there are various objects of
the moral act. Moreover, the circumstances are likewise an object of the moral act insofar as they are considered by the acts of
deliberation as we saw above. The question that immediately
arises is " how or in what way does the moral act possess unity? "
The problem of unity seems to be aggravated by the fact that
Aquinas says the object of the moral act gives a form to the act. 50
Trent's adoption of their importance, which is synonymous with Saint
Thomas's teaching. See Council of Trent, sess. 14, cap. 5 (Denz. 899/1681).
47 The names for these two types of circumstances were taken from Murray,
Jl. 171.
48 See S.T. I-II, 18, 11.
49 The two places where Aquinas lists the circumstances
differently are
S.T. I-II, 7, 3 and Comm. Ethic. 3, 3 (415).
;o St. Thomas mentions that the object of the moral act has a certain aspect
of form in S.T. I-II, 18, 2, ad 2 and this is accentuated in his discussion of a
moral act having two species, as we shall shortly see.

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This poses the problem of dual forms of a moral act. In question
eighteen of the Prima Secundae, Aquinas is asking which is contained under the other, i.e., the object under the end or the end
under the object. Saint Thomas notes two differing kinds of
acts.
The object of the exterior act is able to be related to the end in two
ways; in one way as essentially ordered to it, as to fight well is essentially ordered to victory; another way is accidentally, as to take
something belonging to another is accidentally ordered to giving
alms.n
Saint Thomas is noting two different kinds of relationships with
respect to the object of the moral act and the end, one essential,
the other accidental. Aquinas goes on to say that
when the object is not essentially ordered to the end, the specific difference which is from the object is not essentially determinative of
that which is from the end, nor conversely. Therefore, one of those
species is not under the other; but then the moral act is as if under
two disparate species. Hence, we say that he who has stolen in
order to commit adultery commits two evils in one act. If, truly, the
object is essentially ordered to the end, one of the said differences
is essentially determinative of the other ; hence one of those species
is contained under the other.52
Aquinas is pointing out two different kinds of acts, those in which
the object is essentially related and determinative of the end and
those in which the object is not determinative or ordered essentially to the end. The " essentially related act " has the end containing the
whereas the "accidentally related act" or the
act of disparate species does not have one contained under the
other.
Gerard Casey, in his article, criticizes Aquinas with respect to
his theory of disparate species. His question is simple : If there
are two species, how can there be one moral act? 53 In other
words, where does the moral act receive its unity? This question
s1 S.T. I-II,

18, 7.

62 Ibid.

ss See Casey, op. cit., p. 159.

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may also be extended to the moral act which enjoys essential relatedness, because there still seem to be three objects operative
in the moral act, viz., the end (i.e., the object of intention), the
object of election (i.e., the exterior act) and the object of the
exterior act.
First, let us consider Aquinas's treatment of those acts which
enjoy essential relatedness among their parts. We saw earlier
that the end was like a form in comparison to the means. Here
we begin to see the idea of unity Aquinas had in mind. Much like
the physical thing which has an essential unity between matter
and form, so too does the moral act enjoy unity between its matter and form when they are essentially related. That is to say,
just as the form informs and becomes essentially one with the
matter in natural things, so too in some moral acts do the end
and the object become essentially one. But the unity it has is
more than that.
Objects, as they are compared to the exterior act, have the aspect of
matter about which; but as they are compared to the interior act of
the will, they have the aspect of end; and from this the acts receive
their species.54
In this passage, Aquinas is noting that the object of the exterior act is also the object of the interior act with the aspect of
the good or end added to it. This unifies the end and the object
of the exterior act, but what of the exterior act itself?
The end, insofar as it is some thing, is an object of the will other
than that which is to the end ; but insofar as it is the reason for willing that which is to the end, it is one and the same object.55
The end, the object of the exterior act, and the object of the
moral act enjoy a unity, because they come together in the intellect as one object and are presented to the will as one object.
This occurs in the act of election, because only there do all of
these parts of the moral act come together to be willed.
54 S.T.
55 S.T.

I-II, 72, 3, ad 2.
I-II, 12, 4. ad 2.

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Saint Thomas clarifies this notion of unity among the parts in
the Sentences.
The end and that which is to the end, insofar as it is considered in
this way, are not diverse objects, but one object in which the end is
as the form if it is the reason for willing a certain thing; but that
which is to the end is as the matter, as also light and color are one
object.56
Saint Thomas employs his matter-form analogy in order to show
the unity of the moral act. Aquinas is noting that in one respect
the end and the means are one object, and yet in another respect
they are two objects. He goes on to note in the subsequent response to the objection that the end and that which is to the end
are as one continuous motion. Therefore, the unity of the moral
act comes from the fact that the act of intention flows into, if
you will, or is carried on in the act of election. The act of election possesses the complete object of the moral act, because there
all the circumstances, the end of the agent, the object of the exterior act, and the exterior act itself come together. The end is
seen as that to which the action tends and the action is modified
by the relevant circumstances. Hence, the unity of moral action
resides in the fact that it is conceptualized as having unity, i.e.,
the end and the means are related. Or in other words, the end is
in some way in the means and _the intellect puts them together
through counsel and judgment and proposes this one object to the
will. Hence, when one talks of the object's unity, one is talking
of the intellect's conceptual unity or relatedness of the various
objects of the moral act.
Hence, one thing comes from two things as from matter and form.
And because of this, color and light are one visible thing, because
color is visible because of light. And similarly, since the exterior action has the aspect of sin from an act of the will, the act of the will
and the conjoined exterior act are the same sin.57
This quote essentially says that the exterior and interior acts are
one object because one has its goodness from the other. More56
57

Sent. II, 38, 1, 4, ad 1.
De Malo 2, 2, ad 11.

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over, these two objects come together to form one moral act.
Above we also saw that the end and the object are related like
matter and form. The end and the object, then, are related essentially in the sense that, like the natural being, they constitute an
essential unity.
This solution to the problem is very easy for the essentially
related contituents of the moral act, but does this solve the problem of the disparate species? First, let us consider the fact that
with disparate species the act is divided into two species, one
from the "form" of the object and the other from the "form"
of the end. Therefore, you have two forms coming together into
the one act. This goes contrary to the matter-form analogy of
substantial beings. However, Aquinas does offer a clarification of
this problem.
According to its substance, something is not able to be in two species,
of which one is not ordered to the other; but according to that which
is added to the thing, something is able to be contained under diverse
species ; as this fruit according to color is contained under this species, viz., white, and according to odor under the species of sweetsmelling. And similarly, the act which according to its substance is
in one species by nature is able to be referred to two species according to supervening moral conditions.58
Aquinas is referring to the accidental relatedness or union of conditions of the act and the act itself of which we spoke earlier.
Aquinas draws the analogy of the fruit which has two species
according to sensation, yet comprises one piece of fruit. Therefore, when one considers the moral act, one is able to have two
species, one a condition, the other the substance of the act, which
together comprise one moral act. This is clarified in a subsequent
question where Aquinas notes the union of circumstances to the
moral act. 59 This is precisely the type of unity Saint Thomas has
in mind.
The moral unity of the act containing disparate species has an
accidental unity which is manifest through the accidents or ciros S.T. I-II, 18, 7, ad 1.
69 See S.T. 1-11, 18, 10, ad 1 and ad 3.

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cumstances it possesses. It is very important to remember that
for Saint Thomas the why or the end of the agent is a circumstance. 60 The circumstance is a condition and is accidentally related to the substance of the act. Therefore, the act containing
disparate species possesses an accidental unity much like a physical thing and its accidents possess an accidental unity.
The intellect, then, brings these two species together, not as
possessing a substantial unity, but as one being related to the
other accidentally. In other words, the exterior act will, in some
accidental way, lead to the end. Consider the man who steals in
order to commit adultery. Stealing is not essentially, but accidentally, ordered to the end of committing adultery. Therefore,
Aquinas is consistent in noting that the end of the agent is accidentally united to the act and they receive this unity from reason which brings them together in one moral object present to
the will for election. Hence, we have seen both the nature of the
constituents of the moral act, as well as how the constituents enjoy unity within the species of the moral act.

60 Sent. II, 16, 3, 1, 2, ad 3: The other is the end of the agent ... [which]
is called the circumstance of why. See also Sent. IV, 16, 33, 1, 2c and S.T.
I-II, 7, 3, ad 3.

UNDERSTANDING ST. THOMAS ON
CHRIST'S IMMEDIATE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Guy MANSINI, O.S.B.
Saint Meinrad Seminary
St. Meinrad, Indiana

HE International Theological Commission's 1985 statement on " The Consciousness of Christ Concerning Himel£ and His Mission " undertakes to state what by faith
Christians hold about the knowledge of Jesus. Jesus of N azareth knew : first, that he was the Son of God, and that he possessed divine and not merely prophetical authority; second, that
his mission was to preach the Kingdom and die for the salvation
of all; third, that he was founding a Church. Fourth and last,
since he was dying for all, he knew the " all" he was dying for
in such a way as to enable each Christian to say truly " he died
for me " (see Gal. 2 :20). Beyond this the bare statement that
Jesus was conscious of his identity and mission, the Commission
declines to go, and expressly avoids " theological elaborations calculated to give an account of this datum of faith." 1
The traditional account of this datum is, of course, the theory
of Christ's immediate (or " beatific") knowledge of God, and
usually as elaborated by St. Thomas. It is an approach to pre1 " The Consciousness of Christ Concerning Himself and His Mission," in
International Theological Commission: Texts and Documents, 1969-1985, ed.
Michael Sharkey (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989), 307. Again, the Commission " rules out any a priori philosophical terminology " ( p. 307). Hence I
take the liberty of using " knowledge " where the Commission speaks of " consciousness." The Commission characterizes the cognitional state of affairs it
imputes to Christ merely as a "presence" of the knowing-conscious subject to
itself in its " heart." I take it that the Commission means to avoid being specific with regard to any distinction between conceptual and non-conceptual
modes of knowledge, and that this is the reason it prefers "consciousness" to
" knowledge."

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cisely this account of St. Thomas's that I would like to outline in the second part of this article.
There are three things especially that seem to stand in the way
of approaching St. Thomas's account today. First, there is some
difficulty in seeing it precisely as that, an account of what the
Commission calls the datum of faith. Second, a key distinction
upon which St. Thomas's account depends, that between faith
and knowledge, tends to be obliterated in contemporary analytic
epistemology, where knowledge is described as "justified true belief." This makes it hard to see the difference St. Thomas supposes there is between the cognitive state of Christians, on the
one hand, and that of Jesus, on the other. Third, some modern
biblical theology discovers Jesus himself as the ·exemplar of
Christian faith. Thus, even supposing we have kept the distinction between faith and knowledge, the required application of the
distinction becomes impossible. 2 I will be unable to deal at any
length with these last two difficulties, but will advert to them
briefly within the outline of an approach to St. Thomas's account that I mean to give here. 3
I. St. Thomas's Position as an Account of the
Datum of Faith
The first difficulty, however, is to be addressed at the outset
and at some length. It arises from the way in which St. Thomas
presents his teaching on the knowledge of Christ in the Summa
2 Another cause of confusion as to what St. Thomas means by Christ's
immediate knowledge of God might be said to be the popularity of Karl
Rahner's " Dogmatic Reflections on the Knowledge and Self-Consciousness of
Christ,'' Theological Investigations V (London: Darton, Longman & Todd,
1966) ; 193-215, where Rahner conflates consciousness and knowledge in a
context where they need to be distinguished. This has been nicely sorted
out, however, in a study by Raymond Moloney, "The Mind of Christ in
Transcendental Theology: Raimer, Lonergan and Crowe," H eythrop Journal
25 (1984) : 288-300.
s There is also the difficulty for this question of modern exegesis, a difficulty mentioned by the International Theological Commission. But this is a
difficulty for the original apprehension of the datum of faith itself rather than
for understanding St. Thomas. I address this only obliquely.

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theologiae. But also, it is magnified by a common explication and
defense of St. Thomas's position by some of his contemporary
friends that seems to me to be without foundation in the texts.
I will first despatch this erroneous explication, and then address
the question of the order of the Summa.
The reason St. Thomas affirms Christ's immediate vision of
God, we are sometimes told, is that he thinks this follows as a
metaphysical necessity from the fact of the hypostatic union. 4
Thus for instance L. Iammarrone.
In the Coninientary on the Sentences and in other writings, the
Angelic Doctor affirms categorically that the beatific vision was due
to Christ not only as something fitting, but as a result of the hypostatic union: " From the very fact that the soul of Christ was personally conjoined to God, the union of fruition was due to it, and
was not made due to it through any operation." 5

Iammarrone notes St. Thomas's argument in the Summa that, by
reason of the personal subject of the grace of Christ, this grace
could not be increased. Such consummate grace implies enjoyment of the beatific vision. 6 Thus, as St. Thomas says in the
Compendium theologiae " it was necessary that the Word of God
incarnate be perfect in grace and in the wisdom of truth." 7 The
4 Karl Rahner suggests this course in "Dogmatic
Reflections," 204-205.
However, he claims but to argue broadly from " thomistic axioms." The
claim that the knowledge of vision follows from the hypostatic union is at
least as old as Matthias Scheeben see Rudolf M. Schmitz, "Christus Comprehensor. Die 'Visio Beatifica Christi Viatoris' bei M. J. Scheeben," Doctor
Communis 36 (1983) : 347-359. Schmitz does not, however, seem to think that
Scheeben is following St. Thomas at this point (p. 354).
5 Luigi Iammarrone, " La visione beatifica di Cristo Viatore nel pensiero di
San Tommaso," Doctor Communis 36(1983): 303-304: "Ne! Commento alle
Sentenze e in altri scritti !'Angelico afferma categoricamente che la visione
beatifica a Cristo era dovuta non solo per convenienza, ma in forza dell'unione
ipostatica: ' Ex hoc ipso quod anima Christi erat Deo in persona coniuncta,
debebatur ei fruitionis unio et non per operationem aliquam ei facta debita.' "
See In III Sent., d. 18, q. 1, a. 4, q. 4, c. The emphases are his.
This whole fascicle of Doctor Communis is devoted to Christ's beatific
knowledge. Luigi Bogliolo, " Strutture antropologiche e visione beatifica
dell' anima di Cristo," makes the same claim as Iammarrone ( p. 345) .
6 Ibid., 304. See Summa Theo/., III, q. 7, a. 12.
7 c. 213.

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necessity of the vision as following metaphysically from the hypostatic union is affirmed again by St. Thomas, according to
Iammarrone, where he writes : " Christus e.:r hoc quod fuit Deus
et homo etiam in sua humanitate habuit aliquid prae caeteris
creaturis: ut scilicet statim a principio esset beatus." 8
And so on. It is not necessary to follow every text Iammarrone
adduces. As to the text from the Sentences, I think it evident that
it affirms exactly and only the convenientia that does not satisfy
Iammarrone. As to the Summa, it is true that St. Thomas thinks
the fullness of the grace of Christ, which cannot be increased, implies vision. But it is not true that he dtduces this fullness of
grace as a necessary metaphysical consequence of the union. He
says indeed that " to the extent something receptive is nearer to
the influencing cause, the more it participates in its influence." 9
God is the cause of grace; the union of the soul of Christ to the
Word is personal; therefore what? " Et ideo maxime fuit CONVENIENS ut anima ilia reciperet influxum divinae gratiae." 10
As to the argument from the Compendium, the necessity in question is a function of Christ's role as the cause of beatitude in us,
not of the hypostatic union itself in its metaphysical structure. 11
As to the last quotation in the above paragraph, one has to have a
fair amount of imagination to make one poor " hoc " settle any
difference there may be between what is true of the soul of Christ
by metaphysical necessity and what is true of it according to
fitting reasons.
8 Iammarrone, ·" La visione," 305; see Summa Theol., III, q. 34, a. 4, ad
3 : " From this very fact that Christ was God and man he possessed in his
humanity as well something beyond other creatures : namely, that he was at
once from the beginning blessed."
9 Summa Theol. III, q. 7, a. 1 : " Quanta enim aliquod receptivum propinquius est causae influenti, tanto magis participat de influentia ipsius."
10 Ibid. : " And therefore it was in the highest degree fitting that that soul
received the influx of divine grace."
11 Iammarrone,
" La visione," 395, seems indeed to be partly aware of this.
But he says : " ii nesso necessario cioe metafisico tra l'unione ipostatica e la
visione beatifica si manifestava sotto due aspetti," the second of which is the
role of Christ in the economy. How is this a manifestation of metaphysical
necessity?

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Moreover, St. Thomas is as clear as he can be that the immediate knowledge of God does not exist in the soul of Christ
merely as a result of the union. He asks in Book III of the
Sentences, d. 14, q. 3, whether the soul of Christ knew the
Word through some mediating habit or not. The first objection:
Nothing is required for knowledge except that the knowable be united
to the knower. But the Word is not united to the soul of Christ by
any mediating habit. Therefore, it does not know the Word through
any habit.12
And the reply:
It must be said that it is not the same union by which the Word is

united to the soul of Christ in person, and by which it is united to it
as the seen to what sees, for it is united to the body in person, but
it is not seen by the body. And therefore, although there is no
medium in that union by which the soul is united to the Word in
person, it does not follow that there is required no medium for
vision-I do not say a medium in which it is seen, as a mirror or
species, but a medium under which it is seen, as light.18
The required medium, of course, is the light of glory. 14 Does the
light of glory follow as a necessary result of the union? This is
nowhere to be read. 15
St. Thomas does not affirm Christ's immediate vision of God
on the basis of some swift metaphysical deduction. Why does he
12 " Ad cognitionem enim non requiritur aliud nisi ut cognoscibile cognoscenti
uniatur. Sed Verbum unitum est animae Christi non mediante aliquo habitu.
Ergo V erbum cognovit non per aliquem habitum."
18 " Dicendum quod non est eadem unio qua unitur Verbum animae Christi
in persona, et qua unitur ei ut visibile videnti ; quia unitur corpori in persona,
non tamen videtur a corpore. Et ideo licet in illa unione qua unitur anima
V erbo in persona, non cadat aliquod medium ; non tamen oportet quod in
visione non cadat aliquod medium-non quidem dico medium sicut in quo
videtur, ut speculum vel species; sed sicut sub quo videtur, sicut lumen.
14 See also De Ver., q. 20, a. 1, c.
15 I should add that Iammarrone appeals expressly to Rahner's "Dogmatic
Reflections," where there is talk of the "actuation " of the soul of Christ in
virtue of its union with the Word. See "La visione," 307-308. For a criticism
of "actuation " as something distinct from act, the great thesis of M. de la
Taille, see B. Lonergan, De constitutione Christi ontologica et psychologica
3rd edition (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1961), # 27.

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affirm it? One can get the impression that the main reason St.
Thomas imputes an immediate knowledge of God to the human
mind of Christ is on the ground of a so-called " principle of perfection." Thus, for instance, E. Gutwenger and L. Walsh argue:
because of the dignity of the Person of Christ, it is fitting for the
humanity of Jesus to be endowed as perfectly as possible commensurate with the requirements of his mission. 16 And indeed,
we find St. Thomas arguing in just this way in Summa Theol.
III, q. 9, a. 1.
It is seriously misleading to take this as the whole story, however, and for two reasons. First, the more exact reason St.
Thomas gives in q. 9, a. 2, for positing an immediate knowledge
of God in the humanity of Christ turns on the end of the incarnation. The humanity of Christ is the instrumental cause by which
God brings us to the vision of God. But a cause ought to be more
potent that the caused; therefore, the soul of Christ enjoyed the
immediate knowledge of God. The same argument is repeated in
the Compendium, chapter 213. This should alert us to the fact
that the profound reason for the theorem of Christ's immediate
knowledge, like that of the incarnation itself, is economic, and the
argument depends on thinking out what it takes in the humanity
of Christ if that humanity is to have the desired effect.
But there is a second reason why it is misleading to suppose that
what leads St. Thomas to posit an immediate knowledge of God
in Christ is some "principle of perfection." This has to do with
the order of the Summa itself. What is this order? St. Thomas
indicates in the Prologue that he will lay things out according
to the ordo disciplinae. He means by this that he will lay things
out beginning with what is last known to us but more intelligible
in itself and proceeding to what is first known to us but less in1s Engelbert Gutwenger, "The Problem of Christ's Knowledge," in Who Is
Jesus of Nazareth? Concilium (English), vol. 11 (New York: Paulist, 1965),
91; Liam Wash, the Introduction to Summa Theologiae, vol. 49, The Grace
of Christ (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), pp. xxii-xxiii. Walsh recognizes
as well that St. Thomas asserts Christ's immediate knowledge of God on
economic grounds.

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telligible in itself.17 That is, he will proceed as much as possible
from real causes of being to the effects of these causes, or from
the prior theological reason to what is controlled by that reason. 18
And with the question of Christ's immediate knowledge, we have
an instance of both. Thus, from the fundamental reason for the
incarnation, namely the salvation of humankind, he argues to
what the assumed humanity must be like in order for it to do the
job it is intended to do.19 As to causes, it should be noted where
the treatment of the grace (qq. 7-8) and knowledge (qq. 9-12)
of Christ fall in the Summa. It comes after a treatment of the
hypostatic union, and after a treatment of the soul of Christ, for
these things are causally prior to the properties of that soul.
However, it comes before a treatment of the mysteries of the life
of Christ-the actual doings and sayings of Christ-for these op11 For example, consider the order of topics in the Prima pars. What is
closest to us is God's actual ordering and governance of the universe (q.
103ff.). But this is treated last. What is first treated are the principles that
enable us to understand that order and governance in its causes: (1) proximately, the parts of the universe, spiritual, material, and composite (qq. 50102); remotely, the creation of these parts (qq. 44ff.); (3) more remotely,
the creator of these parts, God (qq. 2-26). The power (q. 25), will (q. 19),
intelligence ( q. 14) of the Creator are similarly ordered: what is closest to
creating and governing is the power of God ; the principles of this are the will
and wisdom of God; the final principle of all is simply the divine being ( qq.
3-13). I am not trying to determine all of the many questions raised as to the
organization of the Summa, but I maintain that the ordering principle here
picked out is indeed operative in the organization of the Summa. See Bernard
Lonergan, Divinarum personarum conceptio analogica (Rome: Gregorian University, 1959), 20-28; De constitutione, # 46.
1 s For since God is not reduced to causes, the order of topics in the Summa
is not always according to prior causes, but sometimes according as one truth
is the reason of another; see Lonergan, De constitutione, # 43-45. So in the
preceding note, the divine understanding and will and power are not really
distinct from the divine essence; still, what is concluded about those things
has its reason in what is said about the divine essence.
19 Strictly, this too is a matter of causal ordering: final cause as determinative of means. But if we say that God's decision to save mankind is the reason
for his decision to endow the humanity of Christ in such and such a way, then
we are in the order of reasons, not causes, for the " decisions " of God are
distinct neither from one another nor from God, and yet there is still to be
discerned an order of reason as comprehended by the divine mind.

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erations of Christ are causally dependent on the properties in
question.
Thus, to continue this last point, it is no accident that the
knowledge of Christ is treated long before the questions on such
things as the manner of life ( q. 40) and the teaching of Christ
( q. 42). The perfections of the soul of Christ are explanatory of
these things. Correlatively, these things, the things first known
to us and most easily known by us, the things recorded in the
gospels, are the data whose theoretic intelligibility, an intelligibility that gives an account of the data in terms of causally prior
factors, has already been outlined in such considerations as are
devoted to the grace and knowledge of Christ.
In fact, if one turns to q. 42, on the teaching of Christ, one will
look in vain for an expression of the kind of connection I have
just indicated. This question takes up various aspects of the manner and circumstances of the teaching of Christ. Still, I point to
article 1 of q. 40, on whether Christ should have lived a life of
contemplative solitude rather than associating with men.
I answer that Christ's manner of life had to be in keeping with the
end of his incarnation, by reason of which he came into the world.
Now he came into the world, first, that he might publish the truth
... Second, he came in order to free men from sin ...
And by this point in the proceedings, we have already had it explained to us how it is that Christ has been rendered capable of
publishing the truth : what a man can teach depends causally on
what he knows, 20 and prior to considering his teaching, we have
indeed considered his knowledge. So also for redemption, we
have already considered the grace of Christ.
Still, one would like to see that St. Thomas concludes to the
immediate knowledge of God in Christ simply from the content
of Christ's teaching. And for this, one must forsake the Summa
and turn to his commentaries on Scripture. Even here, however,
things are not plain sailing. Thus, in the Lectura on the Gospel
of John, there are quite explicit affirmations of Christ's human
20 De Ver., q.

11, a. 2, c.

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knowledge as comprehensor, at 4 :45 and 6 :14, where Thomas
explains in what sense Christ is and is not a prophet. 21 In these
places, Christ is said to have the prophet's kind of imagination,
and so is viator; the light of his intellect, however, is beyond any
prophetic light and without defect, for he is comprehensor. He
does not, alas, fill in any argument as to how one can conclude
to the existence of this light, this knowledge, in the first place.
That is, he does not lay out for us the via inveniendi, the path
that leads us from the first and easily known data of the gospel
to the human knowledge of Jesus as explanatory of those data. 22
We get a glimpse of how the immediate knowledge of God in
the soul of Christ works as an account of the datum of faith only
by putting certain scattered things together. The bare assertion
of the human knowledge of Christ as comprehensor as above is
only one of these things. Two more things are needed. First,
there is the principle that, as God, Christ is the Truth, but as
man, the one who testifies to the truth before men. 23 And second,
it is important to see that what St. Thomas concludes from the
teaching of Jesus in John is commonly and in the first place the
more fundamental truth of faith that Christ the Word is the
Truth, i.e. that he is the consubstantial Son of the Father.
As to the last, commenting on 7 :29 (" I know him [the one
who sent me] ... because I am from him, and he sent me"), St.
Thomas argues as follows. A thing is known according as a
similitude of it is in the knower. The perfect knowledge of the
Father, however, can be based on no created similitude; such perfect knowledge can be grounded only on the perfect similitude
that the Son is, as proceeding from the Father and as of the
same essence as the Father. So much Christ tells us, when he
21 Lectura super Evangelium S. I oannis, IV, 6 ( # 667) ; VI, 2 ( # 868).
Paragraph numbers refer to the Marietti edition of 1952; they are the same
for the English translation by J. Weisheipl and F. Larcher, Commentary on
the Gospel of John (Albany, New York: Magi Books, 1980).
2 2 See also at 1 :14, Leet. I, 8 (# 189); 1 :18, Leet. I, 10 (# 211); 3:11,
Leet. III, 2 ( # 462) ; 13 :31, Leet. XIII, 6 ( # 1830); and 17 :8, Leet. XVII,
2 ( # 2201).
2a At 3 :32, Leet. III, 5 ( # 533-4), and at 4 :45, Leet. IV, 6 ( # 667).

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says he is from him, the one who sent him, "as it were, having
the same essence of nature with him by being one in substance
with him." 24 The claim of Christ to know what he knows leads
to an assertion of his divinity, since such knowledge is proportionate to the divine intellect alone. But of course, it is as a man
that Christ says to us " I know him" etc., and for this is required
a human knowledge: " so also because of this, that the soul of
Christ is united to the Word in a singular way, it has a singular
and more excellent knowledge of God, beyond that of other
creatures." 25
Sometimes St. Thomas inserts the human knowledge of Christ
as the required medium between his divine knowledge and his
preaching, as at 17 :8, where the two knowledges explain the
mediatorship of Christ. 26 Other times, however, he does not,
but simply presupposes it. At 17 :2S-26, he moves from the divine knowledge of Christ to the transmission of this knowledge
through the exterior word of Christ's teaching. 27 At 1S :1S, likewise, he moves from the divine knowledge of Christ to the disciples' sharing of this knowledge: what Christ knows perfectly
as the consubstantial Son, the disciples know imperfectly by
faith. 28
I think the foregoing explains what can otherwise disconcert,
namely that in the sed contra to Summa Theol. III, q. 9, a. 2,
establishing the fact of the human knowledge of Christ as comprehensor, St. Thomas adduces Jn 8 :SS, while in the commentary
on that passage, St. Thomas argues only to the divine knowledge
of Christ-what he knows as the consubstantial Word-and
nothing at all is said of his human knowledge.
In any case-and this is the point I wish to establish-the
ordo cognoscendi is clear. What we know in faith we know because of the preaching of Christ. From that content, we may
2 4 Leet. VII, 3 ( # 1065). And see the Leetura super Evangelium S. Matthaei
XI, 3 ( # 965-6).
25 Leet. super Evang. loanni VII, 3 ( # 1065).
26 Leet. XVII, 2 ( # 2201).
21 Leet. XVII, 6 ( #2267, 2269-70).
2BLeet. XV, 3 (#2017-18).

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conclude to what he knows as man, in his human soul. But since
that content either asserts or implies the identity of Christ as
the Word of the Father, we conclude at last both to this identity
and to the divine knowledge of Christ as God. And in this order
of things, the theorem of the man Christ's immediate knowledge
of God becomes evident as what it is: an account (part of the
account) of the datum of faith, precisely as the datum is handed
to our faith from the human preaching of the human Christ.
Thus, St. Thomas knows Christ's beatific knowledge because it is
required to explain the fact, recorded in the gospels and grasped
by faith, of what our Lord knows and tells us. The " principle of
perfection " is not the reason St. Thomas knows the beatific
knowledge of Christ; it is the theological glue of an argument ex
convenientia, and in the absence of a metaphysical deduction, that
serves as a bridge in the ordo disciplinae between a consideration
of the soul of Christ and a consideration of the properties of that
soul.
In what now follows, I want to show in relatively brief compass and informally what line of questioning can lead us today
to an appreciation of St. Thomas's account of the datum of faith
that the International Theological Commission spells out. This
itinerary is in part contained in Thesis XII of Bernard Lonergan' s De Verbo incarnato.29 But I think it is important today to
start the itinerary in the Synoptics rather than in John. Because
of the common opinion as to the already heavily interpreted and
theologized character of John, Lonergan' s treatment has lost
some of its persuasive character. This character, however, is
easily restored.
II. A Contemporary Path to St. Thomas's Position
Suppose we ask the following questions :
Did Jesus know who he was ?
Did Jesus know what he was doing?
2 9 De Verbo incarnato (Rome:

Gregorian University, 1964).

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where the answers to the questions :
Who was Jesus?
What did Jesus do?
already known to us as Christians and by faith, are :
He was the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity; and
He saved us all from sin by his passion and death and opened for us
the gates of heaven.80
Did Jesus know about himself what we know about him by faith?
If we put it like that, as I shall argue, the answer has certainly
to be Yes.
Notice that we are not asking whether Jesus, who is the Logos,
the Second Person of the Trinity, knows by the divine nature
with which his person is identical who he is and what his mission as incarnate was. The Logos, one in being with the Father
(Nicea), is also one in understanding with the Father. And just
as the Father knows all things, especially, his own infinite intelligibility (which is the intelligibility of infinite being), and
knows this by an infinite act of understanding not distinct from
himself, nor from his infinite being, so also does the Logos. 81 The
persons of the Trinity are not distinct according to being, understanding, will: they are the same infinite act of being, the same
infinite act of understanding, the same infinite act of willing. 82
They are distinct (" only ") according to the opposed relations of
Paternity-Filiation (the distinction of Father and Son) and
Breathing and .Breathed (Father and Son distinct from Spirit).
Notice also that we are talking about the pre-Paschal Jesus.
We are not asking about what he knows through his fully gloriso There is also a third question that can be added to the first set of questions: Was Jesus conscious of himself, where consciousness, the internal experience of oneself prior to understanding, is something distinct from knowledge, and the self is the divine self that is the Logos ? I am not going to deal
with this question. See Lonergan, De Verba incarnato, Thesis X.
s1 Summa Theol. I, q. 14, aa. 1-4.
a2 Summa Theol. I, q. 28, a. 2; q. 39, aa. 1 & 2.

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fied humanity after the resurrection, but what he knew while he
lived his life, before he died.
So, we are not asking about the knowledge of Jesus qua divine,
but about the knowledge of Jesus qua human (and indeed,
where the humanity of Jesus is not yet fully glorified). That is,
we are asking whether the Logos knows the things in question,
not only through his divine nature, but through his human nature. Does the human mind of the Logos (of Jesus) know the
things in question? Does Jesus know the things in question
humanly, through (or in) his human understanding? As I say,
the answer to the question must be Yes. Why?
The International Theological Commission answers the questions affirmatively on the basis of an " ecclesiastical-dogmatic "
reading of the New Testament, and one that, given the brevity
of the statement, is not indifferent to " historical-critical exegesis." 33 I do not have another starting point, except that, within faith's reading of the New Testament, I wish to pull out and
dwell on a more particular question embedded therein, namely,
the question as to how we know who Jesus is and what he did.
How do we know these things? By faith, of course. But faith
comes from hearing (Rom. 10:17). Nor does it do to stop with
what we hear from the apostles and the inspired writers. For
they know the answer to the questions only by faith, too. And
whence was their hearing? Who spoke to them? I mean to suggest that we (and the apostles and whatever Christian) know
these things only because Jesus himself so talked and so acted as
to give it out that he was the Son of God, and was in the business of saving us. These are not the sorts of things we could
know unless someone told us them. 34 He, Jesus, communicated
these things to us.
The Consciousness of Christ," 306-7.
mean to be making here the same point as Brian Davies does in "Why
Should We Believe It?" New Blackfriars 69 (1988): 365-366. See also
Michael Dummett, "Unsafe Premises: A Reply to Nicholas Lash," New
B lackfriars 68 ( 1987) : 562-563; and John Lamont, " The Nature of Revelation," New Blackfriars 72(1991): 335-345,
33 "

34 I

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Of course, he did not necessarily communicate these things to
us in these terms. 35 But I rely here on the common fundamental
theological reading of the New Testament, and especially on the
sort of historical work of the " New Quest " exegetes, according
to which we can discern in the words and actions of Jesus an at
least implicit claim to be divine. 36 And I advert briefly to the
most common and most historically defensible way of establishing this, namely Jesus' preaching of the nearness of the Kingdom
of God.37 If it is true that Jes us tells us that the Kingdom of
35 Nor am I claiming that he did. This should go without saying, but some
of the responses to Michael Dummett's "A Remarkable Consensus,'' New
Blackfriars 68(1987): 424-431, make it evident that it does not. For a list of
responses and replies, see New Blackfriars 69(1988): 544-545.
36 See e.g. Hans Conzelmann, Jesus (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1973),
49-50: " In deed and teaching, [Jesus] confronts the amazed people directly
with God through himself. In his figure one can find traits of the prophet as
well as of the rabbi. ... The concepts of prophet and rabbi, however, express
only a partial aspect and not exactly the core of the matter. Jesus understands himself as the one who makes the final appeal. His place is unique,
since after him nothing more ' comes '-but God himself."
3 7 See for what follows W. Kasper, Jesus the Christ (New York: Paulist,
1976), 100-104; J. Moltmann, The Crucified God (New York: Harper and
Row, 1974), 121-122; W. Pannenberg, Jesus-God and Man, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), 58-60.
For recent exegetical treatment of Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom, see
G. R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 1986), esp. his Conclusion, with which I think my remarks are congruent.
I mean to suggest here that it is mistaken to look for the New Testament
evidence that leads to the assertion of Christ's immediate knowledge of God
in the way, say, that Andre Feuillet does in "La science de vision de Jesus et
!es Evangiles," Doctor Communis 36(1983) : 158-179. Feuillet pretty much
reads off the immediate knowledge of Christ traditionally recognized from a
few J ohannine passages (1 :18; 3 :11-13) as well as Mt. 11 :27. It is not so
much that this is wrong as misleading : we may conclude in such a way to what
the gospels teach about what Jesus knew, but to conclude to the immediate
knowledge of God such as this is traditionally understood requires a theory
about what knowledge is. If one is working strictly as an historian, it seems
to me, one will conclude only to that datum of faith described by the International Theological Commission. It is like trying to find the homoousios in
the New Testament. It is there in a way, and not there in another way. If it
were there in the way that a historian could find it, Nicea would have been
unnecessary.

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God is near, and if it is true that he expects his hearers to accept
this in faith, and as guaranteed by his preaching it and by his
presence-if, that is, he associates himself personally with the object of his teaching, the Kingdom, as the authoritative herald
and guarantor of the presence of the Kingdom-then he is making a claim to be an eschatologically significant person. The anticipation of an eschatological event within time, namely his own
resurrection, confirms both his claim and his own importance in
relation to that claim. And for the purposes of this essay, I shall
assume that it is a short step from " eschatologically significant
person," or " uniquely eschatologically significant person," to
" divine person," divine in the same sense that the God of the
Old Testament is divine. What sort of person, after all, could so
guarantee the presence of the Kingdom by his own word and presence so as to justify not only faith in that word, but such faith
as has him himself for its object, as we see to be the case in the
call of the disciples? 88 All this, or something like it, must be
granted.
What it is necessary to dwell on for the purposes of this essay,
however, is the following: namely, that some such at least implicit
claim on the part of Jesus seems to be required for the reasonability of our faith. This can be seen if we put it like this: If we
can tell on the basis of his words and actions who he was, what
he was up to, how could Jesus not know? Could we know this if
he did not make a claim to be who he is? And if he in no way
knows the " implicit claim " he is making, then he is not making
any claim.
The situation seems to be this: he talks and acts in such a
way that we see he must be divine, and our savior. He does not
say he is divine. But we see that the intelligibility of his talk
and action is such. We " see " this in the way only of reinterpreting what he is claiming in his words and actions, as couched
in the categories of the Old Testament and of intertestamental
theology, in other, and sometimes non-Scriptural and systematic
88

For the call of the disciples, see Kasper, 102-103; Moltmann, 54-55.

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categories, as when we read the scriptures across Nicaea. Could
it be that Jesus gave out this intelligibility of his talk and action
unintelligently, as it were, unconsciously? Is it that we are claiming to understand him better than he understood himself? He
did not really know who he was, but we know? He did not really
know what he was doing, but we do? No; it is more like someone saying X and Y to us, and us responding, " I get it; what
you are really saying is Z." It is not that we are inferring something about him he did not know; we are rather changing categories, interpreting what he gave out in his speech and actions in
other categories. Where he says " Son of man " (or whatever),
we say "divine person."
In other words, he did not communicate these things to us the
way a drunk communicates to us he is drunk (he may not know
he is drunk, may deny it), or the way a paranoid schizophrenic
communicates to us that he is a paranoid schizophrenic (he does
not think he's crazy). It is not that the words and actions of
Jesus are pieces of data, " behavior," of which we seek an intelligibility unknown to Jesus himself. Rather, his words and
actions are formally communicative of who he is, what he did.
What I mean is that we do not infer Jesus' identity and mission
from his words and actions ; we learn them from his words and
actions because that is the meaning that informs them, and he is
the mean-er of this meant. It is not like deducing that the butler
did it from the clues that he unintentionally left behind; it is like
knowing the butler did it because he told us he did it.
Again, consider that Jesus' saving of us was a moral act.
Moral acts are intelligently done. If his saving us was a moral
act, then he did not perform it without knowing what he was
doing. Did he save us mechanically? without the engagement of
his mind and heart? Did he do things like a robot?
If we think of things in this way, then the answer has to be
that he knew the answer to the questions of who he was and what
he was doing, else he could not have acted and spoken in such a
way that we know the answers to these questions. Are we to
suppose he thought he was doing something else than saving us,

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but that, as the unintended consequence of his action, that is what
happened? But then, in an important sense, he did not save us,
and his action is not correctly described by saying he did. His
saving us becomes like somebody accidently "doing" something.
I reach for the sweater on the hook and I knock down the lamp.
" I knocked down the lamp." On the other hand, this is not what
I intended: I intended to get the sweater-that was my action.
But I was clumsy and also knocked down the lamp. This is quite
different from knocking down the lamp because I am tired of
looking at the ugly thing and want to break it. I am blamed for
knocking down the lamp differently according to the two situations. And in fact, we might say, if Jesus saved us unintentionally, without really meaning to, unconsciously, then we can blame
him for our salvation, but we cannot really thank him the way
we do.
Consider, finally, that if God does not save us from sin through
Christ insofar as Christ acts consciously, intelligently, like a
human being operating at the highest level of human operation,
with what is proper to a human being, then why the incarnation?
Why the pick the " instrument " of the humanity of Jesus, if it
is not really going to be used for what it is? 39
Now, if it must needs be that we know who Jesus is and because he knew, then the question to ask is:
How did he know? In what manner? with what kind of " knowledge" ?
But we should once more think of ourselves : How do we know
who he is and what he did?
According to the foregoing, we know because he told us. That
is, we know by what is called faith, where faith is " taking something as so on someone's word that it is so." And indeed, we can
say that we know by divine faith, where divine faith is " taking
something as so on a divine person's word that it is so."
What is it that we are taking as so? That Jesus is divine, and
that he saved us. And we are taking this on his word. We take
so See Smnma Theo/. III, q. 9, a. 1, c.

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this on his word, moreover, precisely as it is the self-authenticating word of God, of Jesus apprehended as God. So, we have
what we are taking to be so by divine faith : we believe that Jesus
is who he is, that he did what he did.
And we must now ask whether Jesus himself knows what he
knows by faith, divine or human, or in some other way. Our
language is sometimes confusing at this point. I have just
spoken of "knowing by faith," and this is perfectly good usage.
Sometimes, however, it is useful to distinguish knowledge and
faith, and that is what we shall do in the following: faith is taking something on someone's word: knowledge is a matter of
understanding the thing and knowing the truth of it "on one's
own," so to speak. It is the difference between knowing the
Pythagorean theorem because one has proved it for oneselfunderstood it, and verified the equation-and taking it on a
geometer's word. We will keep faith for the latter, and knowledge for the former. 40
Thus, to rephrase: Did Jesus have it that he was who he was
and did what he was doing by faith, or by knowledge?
The only way to answer this question, I think, is to examine
the New Testament. If you read the Gospel of John, the answer
is perfectly and abundantly plain: he knew; he did not have the
things in question on faith. Rather, faith is what he asks of
men-and he asks it on the ground that he knows, and is telling
them so in a manner worthy of their credence. For faith on the
part of those who hear Jesus means faith in him, and that he is
the Son of God .(see Jn 3:15, 16, 18, 36; 6:29 35, 40, 47; 7:38,
39; 8 :24; 11 :25, 26; 13 :19; 14 :10, 11, 12). Jesus knows the
Father (see Jn 3 :11; 6 :46; 7 :28, 29; 8 :38, 54, 55; 10 :15 )! 1
Some people, of course, do not like to rely on John for such
things. But it is to be wondered whether the reality referred to
in these J ohannine formulations does not also find expression in
the Synoptics, in such places as those where it is remarked that
See Summa Theol. II-II, q. 1, aa. 4 & 5.
See Lonergan, De V erbo incarnato, 386-387; J. Alfaro, Esistensa Cristiana
(Rome: Gregorian University, 1979), 55-66.
40

41

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Jesus teaches with authority, not like the scribes. See e.g. Mk
1 :22, 27; 6 :2; 9 :23, 24. And see of course Mt 11 :27. Jesus
does not act like one who believes or one who is a prophet in the
Synoptics. In the Sermon on the Mount, he does not say, " Thus
saith the Lord," but "I say."
What else should we expect ? We are the sick; Jesus is the
physician. We are sinners; Jesus is sinless and saves us from
sin. We are disciples; Jesus is the master. We have all gone
astray like sheep; he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins
of the world. Or, we are sheep; but he is the Good Shepherd.
We are branches; he is the vine. We are the hungry; he is the
Bread of Life. So also: we are the ones who have faith; he is the
one who knows. And after all, as Fr. Lonergan remarks, " where
all believe and no one knows, no one believes reasonably." 42
Someone must know, or belief is vain.
Of course, there are also all those passages in John where our
Lord says that he has "heard" or "received" all that he has
from the Father. St. Augustine, when he reads the Gospel of
John, says that certain things must be understood of the divinity,
and other things of the humanity of Christ. 43 He takes these
passages in John as referring to the divinity. That our Lord
has " heard " from the Father all that he speaks is a matter of
his being from the Father, being the Son, having his whole
reality in being generated and spoken by the Father. 44 However,
as Fr. Lonergan remarks, one ought not to suppose that the author
of the Fourth Gospel applies the distinction between Christ qua
God and Christ qua man, intending in this way to demarcate the
subject of his predications, since this distinction is the work of
patristic reflection.45 Therefore, where these predications can be
understood both of the Second Person of the Trinity, and of the
42 De V erbo incarnato, 391.
43 Homilies 01i the Gospel of John, XXI, 7; XXXVI, 2; XCIX, 1; CVI,
5; CVII, 5. Section numbers are as in the Oxford translation.
«Ibid., XVIII, 9-10; XX, 8; XXI, 4; XL, 5; XL VII, 14, CVI, 7. So also
St. Thomas, e.g. Leet. super E'l!lang. loannis III, 5 ( # 534).
43 De Verba incarnato, 388.

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man Jesus Christ, they ought to be. Therefore, while St. Augustine's interpretation ought to stand, it is incomplete, and we must
say also that Christ as a man, and in his properly human knowledge, " hears " and " receives " all he knows from his Father.
And since faith also seems to be a hearing and a reception, this
should make us think once again whether what Christ holds as
true is not rather a matter of faith than knowledge.
So we come to the third difficulty in approaching St. Thomas's
position I mentioned at the beginning of this article. For indeed, it seems that it is just this very character of what our Lord
holds as received that induces some modern interpreters to impute faith to Christ, and to find in him the model of our faith.
So, for example, G. Ebeling, in a remarkable passage on Jesus'
use of "amen," ordinarily a word of response to something that
is heard, concludes to the faith of Christ. 46 Moreover, since trust
and fidelity are important elements of New Testament pistis,H
and since we are to recognize in Christ a trust in and obedience
to his Father, there seems all the more reason to discern in
Jesus the model of the faith of Christians, and this in spite of the
fact that nowhere in the New Testament is faith explicitly imputed to Jes us. 48
46 Gerhard Ebeling, "Jesus and Faith," in Word and Faith (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1963) , 236-238. Thus in part, Jes us' use of " amen " gives expression " to the fact that Jesus understood his statements, and wished to have
them understood, as statements made before God, in which God himself is the
Guarantor of what is said . . . [as well as] to the fact that Jesus identifies
himself entirely with his words, that in the identification with these words he
surrenders himself · to the reality of God, and that he lets his existence be
grounded on God's making these words true and real. That means, he is so
certain of these words that he stakes his whole self on that certainty. And
this absolute certainty that puts his whole existence at stake is so much the
decisive thing in Jesus' proclamation that he sometimes begins with amen as
a sort of slogan to mark the tenor of the whole."
4 7 Alfaro, Esistenza Cristiana, 2-24.
48 This is commonly recognized, even by those who wish to impute faith to
Jesus. See Jacques Guillet, La Foi de Jesus-Christ (Paris: Desclee, 1980),
15. Guillet rounds up all the passages that seem to impute faith to Jesus. For
what to my mind are the most important, where we have the Pauline pistis
Christou, seep. 17: "Christ" designates the person of Jesus not as the object

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Neither of these arguments, however, is coercive. Knowledge
does not seem necessarily to preclude trust in and obedience to
God. 49 Thus, the trust and obedience of Christ does not mean
that, in the required sense of " taking something that one does
not see to be the case on the word of another," he is in our position of believing, and not in the position of one who knows. 50 So
also with the character of what our Lord holds as true as something received. This is to be admitted: what is granted to the
human mind of Christ concerning his identity and his work can
be just that, something granted. This does not mean that what
is granted is not granted in its evidentness. Further, then, as to
the very receptivity or passivity of faith, Christ can still be recognized as the model of faith, notwithstanding that he knows: for
perhaps it is the case that what he knows as a creature depends
on a greater receptiveness, a greater passivity before the always
greater God, than does our faith. 51
of faith, nor as exercising faith, but as evoking and inaugurating faith. See
also G. E. Howard, " Notes and Observations on the ' Faith of Christ ',"
Harvard Theological Review 60 (1967) : 459-465, for whom this pistis Christou
is the faithfulness of Christ.
49 For Lonergan's solution to this problem, see De Verbo incarnato, Thesis
15, the sixth part of the argument: since Christ's knowledge of God extends
only to the actual economy of salvation, but does not encompass the whole
of what it is possible for the divine wisdom to order and the divine power
to effect, Christ can be truly obedient to his Father with that kind of obedience
that does not see why the command is the best command in the circumstances.
See Summa theol. III, q. 10, a. 1.
5 For a resolution of matters along these lines, see L. Malevez, "Le Christ
et la foi,'' in Pour: 1me theologie de la foi (Paris: Desclee, 1969), 159-216, esp.
170-171, 175-177. However, Malevez thinks that the freedom and trust of
Jesus require a real not-knowing on the level of objectivated knowledge, notwithstanding a real "vision " of something at least of his role in the economy
of salvation which is unthematic and, as with Rabner, an immediate ontological effect of the hypostatic union. The faith-trust of Jesus is his existentielle
ratification of the ontic abandonment of the human nature of Christ, which
lacks a created act of existence.
51 I would make two remarks here. First, for St. Thomas, there is an important sense in which God is the only teacher. So in the Lectura super
Tivangeliimi S. Matthaei, XXIII, 1 ( # 1848): "It must be said that he is
properly called teacher who has his teaching from himself, not he who spreads

°

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If we stop where we are, then we stop just about where the
statement of the International Theological Commission leaves us.
Indeed, we have gone one small step beyond the statement, by
distinguishing knowledge from faith in the section just preceding,
for the Commission leaves it quite open as to how to characterize
the " consciousness " of Christ. Still, it is really only our next
question that moves us into the " theological elaboration " that
the Commission resolutely eschews. The further question is as
follows. If Jesus has the things he does by knowledge, and not
by faith, how shall we think of this knowing of his? It is at this
point that the nature of the objects known as well as the nature
of knowing itself become crucial.
Let us take up that last point first, and face the second difficulty in appreciating St. Thomas's position that I postponed
meeting. If we think of knowledge as " justified (evident, warranted) true belief," then we are pretty much thinking of knowledge as the justified holding of a proposition as true. 52 If we do
this, as with A. Plantinga and other proponents of so-called
a teaching received from someone else to others. And thus there is only one
teacher, namely God, who properly has a teaching; but ministerially, there
are many teachers." Thus, even Christ, knowing God in his humanity, is a
teacher only ministerially, and teaches only what he receives in his human
mind from the vision of God vouchsafed him. Second, the light of glory, for
which see below, is a perfection of the possible intellect, as St. Thomas says
in De Ver., q. 20, a. 2, ad 5. Now of course, every act of understanding is a
perfection of the possible intellect, and understanding is a pati, as Fr. Lonergan
never tired of pointing out. But for those sciences proportioned to the human
intellect, the sciences of material things, these things are in a way made intelligible for us by· the light of the agent intellect-that is, by our active and
strenuous inquiry. No matter that we are receiving the intelligibilities of things
that are intelligible only as similitudes of God, human science thus has the
character of something achieved, accomplished, made by us. But if what our
Lord holds as true has none of this character of the acquired, achieved, made,
this does not mean that it ceases to be scientia-according as knowledge here
means understanding the thing in itself in its own intelligibility-and is rather
to be described as faith.
5 2 For an introduction to the early stage of the contemporary analysis of
knowledge as justified true belief, see Knowing: Essays in the Analysis of
Knowledge, 2nd ed., ed. Michael D. Roth and Leon Galis (New York: University Press of America, 1984).

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" Reformed Epistemology," then there will be no good reason to
distinguish faith and knowledge as we did in the previous section. 53 If I am justified in taking the word of my geometer friend
that Pythagoras was right, then we shall have to count both the
geometer and me as knowers. And we shall likewise be unable
to distinguish Jes us as a knower from his disciples as believers.
If we are going to be able to distinguish, we shall have to continue to think of knowing as understanding the object known.
And we shall have to try to think what this knowledge, as understanding, is, which is by no means an easy thing to do. Aristotle
tried to do this, when he said that knowledge is the identity in
act of knower and known. 54 To know something is to be that
53 See Alvin Plantinga, The Twin Pillars of Christian Scholarship (Grand
Rapids: Calvin College and Seminary), 41-56. Plantinga knows the distinction between faith and knowledge such as I have outlined it above, but thinks
it vicious, since granting it means that very little of what we hold as true is
knowledge (58-60). The implication that very little of what we hold as true
is to be counted as knowledge pure and unalloyed with faith (human or divine)
is to be granted. I cannot see that this consequence vitiates the distinction.
And I grant, of course, that there is a sense of "knowledge" according to
which we know what we reasonably and responsibly believe. This is the sense
of St. Thomas's cognitio as distinct from scientia in, for example, Summa
Theol. I, q. 12, a. 13, ad 3: "fides cognitio quaedam est, inquantum intellectus
determinatur per fidem ad aliquod cognoscibile. Sed haec determinatio ad
unum non procedit ex visione credentis . . . et sic . . . deficit a ratione cognitionis quae est in scientia."
54 De anima, 430a3-5. What is the path from "justified true belief," the third
definition of knowledge in the Theaetetus (201C-D), to "identity in act of
knower and known" ? I conceive it to be as follows. First, the third definition of the Theaetetus, where the "justification" or "account" of the thing
known is said to be its difference from all else (208C), is rejected because Socrates introduces a learning paradox with regard to knowledge,
where the object is a sensible, material individual (209A-210A). The conclusion ought to be that such things are not the object of knowledge. Congruently, Aristotle's definition is for "objects which involve no matter." Second, something prior to belief, propositionally expressed, is to be recognized.
This is suggested by Theaetetus 191C-D, where the mind is compared to a
block of wax on which ideas are imprinted, and which becomes Aristotle's
writing tablet ( 430al-2), the mind which is potentially all things. To become
something, however, to think the definition of something, is to think its constitutive essence ( 430b27-28) ; but essence is especially form, which it is the
point of Metaphysics Z to sort out in its two careers: introduced into matter,

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something. It is not to be it as it is under all the conditions of
its own existence. But it is to be it " formally": it is to be the
thing by giving existence to its " idea," to its intelligibility, in
oneself. Predicates of propositions report this intelligibility as
lived by the knower, but they are posterior to it. Moreover, it is
to be wondered whether, if what we know depends on our being
able to report it in propositions, there are some things that cannot
be known.
Indeed, the question of the kind of thing we are supposing our
Lord to know is just as crucial as what we think knowing is.
For how is it with the things we are saying Jesus knew? It
would seem that their nature is strictly supernatural, where the
nature that these things are said to surpass is not only human
nature but any created nature whatsoever. The things known,
in other words, are things naturally proportioned to the divine
mind alone.
For just think of what these things are: Jesus knows who he
is! And he is the Son of God! And we can rephrase this by saying that for all intents and purposes Jesus knows the mystery of
the Trinity-mind, he knows it, he does not simply believe, as
we do, that God is Triune. Here, with our belief that God is
Triune, the propositions in which we express this belief do duty
for the Idea of the thing, for the perfect identity in act with the
intelligibility of the Triune God.55 And our holding these propoit is the substantial principle of the individual material substance; introduced
into mind, it is the principle of knowledge.
The point of this note is twofold : criticism of the contemporary career of
"justified true belief " is not criticism of Plato; I think it might be argued
that Plato and Aristotle are far closer on what knowledge is than Fr. Lonergan
sometimes suggests.
55 For the proposition as a substitute for intuition or idea, see Joseph
Marechal, A M arechal Reader, ed. Joseph Donceel (New York: Herder and
Herder, 1970), 156ff. The implicit affirmation of being as real and intelligible
implied in every judgment is the substitute for the intuition of being that is
the end of our intellectual dynamism. This is most evident, however, where
the affirmation is of some analogically understood predicate of God, for there
the particular judgment has itself to do expressly, and not just implicitly,
with ahsolutely intelligible Being.

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s1t1ons as true is justified, if we think that a divine person has
given us to hold them as true. That he has told us is sufficient
justification for our holding them. However, we are at the point
where we want to say that Jesus did not hold them by faith, as
we do, but knew of what he was speaking.
To know such a thing as the Triune God-meaning, to
understand it completely and properly and adequately-where
knowing is being one in act with the object known, would seem
to require an infinite act of understanding, proportioned to the
infinite reality of the object understood. And so there seems to
be a hitch in attributing knowledge of such a thing to Christ, for
our minds, all created minds, including the human mind of Christ,
are finite. Human minds are first of all only potentially identical
in act with what they know. They become actually one with what
they know only according as they receive some representation of
the object known (St. Thomas' s " similitude " or " species ").
By definition, however, there can be no finite representation that
properly represents something infinitely intelligible. 56 And therefore, there is no naturally infinite act of understanding that a
finite mind can enjoy.
Of if you want, think of the basic and original content of
] esus' preaching : " the Kingdom of God is at hand." If he asks
us to believe this, but himself knows it, how could he know such
a thing except knowing what is in the divine mind and wisdom
for the salvation of men? How can someone know this unless
for all intents and purposes he knows in just the way the divine
mind does ? How could he know this decision (and not just believe it or have information about it) unless he sees it in the
ordering wisdom of God?
"In just the way the divine mind does." How can a human
mind (remember, our question is of Jesus' human knowledge)
know " in just the way the divine mind does " ? If it cannot,
then there is nothing more to be said here, and there must be
some mistake in our preceding considerations.
5G

Smmna Theo/. I, q. 12, a. 2.

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Now it is just here that we arrive at very subtle point in St.
Thomas's account of the human knowledge of Christ. How can
a human mind know in the way the divine mind does? St.
Thomas does not think we really know the answer to this question. To know this we should have already to be knowing in the
divine way, and as long as we are in this life, we are not doing
that. We are walking by faith, not by sight. We have the
promise of eternal life, and suppose that it consists in knowing
both the Father and Jesus Christ whom he has sent (Jn 17 :3).
But we do not understand any of this yet in a full and adequate
way. The idea that we, and our Lord, can know God in God's
way of knowing himself is just as much an object of faith as is
what our Lord tells us, such things as we collect in the creed and
to which we give such names as "the doctrine of the Trinity."
"Knowing God in God's way," the end state of our knowledge
as Christians, a state St. Thomas imputes to Christ in his earthly life, is what is called " the beatific vision." By this is meant an
immediate knowledge of God as he is in himself, the finite mind's
sharing in the infinite act of understanding the infinite intelligibility that God is. But that such a thing could happen is not
known except to faith, and the idea of it is therefore just as much
a sort of limit or " analogical " idea-indeed an " anagogical "
idea-as is the idea we have of God, or of the Trinity, or of
the Incarnation. All St. Thomas really has to say about it is this,
that if no created similitude of God could really give us knowledge of him as he knows himself to be, then this knowledge does
not happen by way of a created similitude; rather, the divine being itself is what is immediately present to the created mind. 57
The idea of such a state of affairs is an odd one. We can talk
about the " light of glory" modifying our mind if we wish, but
to mention it is nothing more than to say that we trust God so
to arrange things that, whatever it takes to get a finite mind
ready to be immediately present to God, he manages to do. On
the other hand, there does not seem to be anything expressly con57 Ibid.

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tradictory about the state of affairs in question. 58 And to suppose that such a state of affairs exists, and exists for the earthly
Jesus, solves the problem of how he can know the things he tells
us. Or rather, it simply expresses the datum of faith in a context
where some thought has been given to the nature of knowledge.
If the immediate presence of God to the human mind of Christ
is the only condition under which he could know such things as
he told us in his life, then it follows that he enjoyed this same
immediate knowledge of God as we hope to enjoy in heaven.
That is the whole point of talking about his "beatific knowledge"
of God while he was on earth.
Certain difficult questions immediately suggest themselves,
however. When we talk about the immediate knowledge of God,
we are talking about something that is non-propositional, nonconceptual, and, in that respect, ineffable. For we can sayspeak-only that for which we have ideas. And yet we are supposing that our Lord delivers this knowledge to us, insofar as
it can be delivered to us, in human terms: he speaks what is unspeakable. How, then, are we to think the relation between these
two kinds of knowledge?
Before we take up the last question, let us check the argument
to this point. It is because of what Jesus the man communicates
to us, and communicates to us authoritatively, that we are led to
say that he knows these things. The things turn out to be things
that cannot be known by a human mind except that mind "see
God "-that is, share in the infinite act of understanding by
which God himself in his divine nature understands and knows
all things. But then, it turns out that knowing things in this way
is to know them non-conceptually, ineffably. So, the question
arises, even if, as a man, he did know the things in question by
sharing in the understanding of the divine mind, what good
would it do? How could this ineffable knowledge get put into
speech, so as to be communicated to us?
It is important here to stress the ineffability of what our Lord
might know in his human mind by that mind's sharing in the
;;s For the defense of this, see esp. the Summa Contra Gentiles, III, c. 51.

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understanding of the divine mind. For a man to understand
something effably-speakably-is
to have conceptual knowledge
of it. Our concepts, properly, are suited to dealing with the
sensible things of this world. By them, we distinguish one thing
from another, relate one thing to another. Because they are expressions of the intelligibilities of sensible things, they can themselves have expression in sensible words. But God's understanding of himself is an understanding of an infinite intelligibility,
one that is not suitably expressed in concepts that are fitted, first
of all, to the expression of finite things that are what they are,
and are in this way expressible, only by not being other things.
God is not what he is by not being other things-he would be
what he is and as he is even if all the other things that are were
not. Again, the intelligibility of God is not the intelligibility of a
sensible thing. 59
Of course, in one way, there is no problem. It is not as if our
Lord tries to communicate to us what God is in himself. His giving out to us who he is, and his giving out to us that the Kingdom is present (with all that means), is not a giving out of the
essence of God. It is a giving out of certain facts about God concerning his Tri-Personal life and concerning the plan of salvation, such facts as cannot be known, fully understood, unless one
sees God. But simply to affirm that God is Triune (which we imperfectly understand but nonetheless affirm in imperfectly understanding but yet affirming who Jesus is, the Son of the Father,
united with him in one Spirit) is not to understand what God is.
Simply to affirm that the Kingdom is at hand is not to understand what God is either. Nor is it to see the infinite wisdom of
the plan of God of which the presence of the Kingdom at Jesus'
time, in Jesus, is a principal part. It is (" merely") to affirm that
our destiny is intimacy with God; it is to affirm that God forgives
the sin that would otherwise impede us from reaching our des5 0 Lonergan, De Verba incarnato, 334. For God as not what he is by not
being other things, see Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason
(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), the first four
chapters.

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tiny; it is to affirm that we share in this intimacy even now according as we repent and believe in the Gospel. And, we may
say, an analogical understanding of God and his decision and action is sufficient understanding for our ability to affirm these
things.
So, it is not as if what our Lord communicates to us is, per
impossibile, the Idea of God.60 Still, there is a problem. If our
Lord knows all these things as a man in an act of understanding
God (and the decisions and actions of God-the decisions and actions of the three Persons), and if this understanding as such is
strictly inexpressible in human concepts and language, then how
does what our Lord understands by sharing in the understanding of God get into expressible, analogical form, so as to be communicated to us?
And there are other questions to be asked, as well. If our
Lord knows all things already in seeing God, does this not count
against his " being like us in all things but sin " ? For then how
does he know things the way we do, and how could he learn
anything? That is a second question: And third, since this
knowledge is supposed to make one perfectly happy, how could
he suffer anything?
I start with the third question because I think it is the easiest.
One of the reasons for speaking about our Lord's human knowledge of God as immediate and not beatific is precisely to avoid
the imputation that, as perfectly happy, he could not suffer anything. Still, the problem is not to be got rid of by a terminological device. The immediate knowledge of God is, one supposes,
something that, as a super-perfection of our humanity, and of
our intellectual desire, makes us happy.
However, it seems to me that the posing of the question in the
abstract-How can one be happy and sad at the same time?-has
the unfortunate consequence of deflecting attention from our own
sometimes quite complicated experience. Are we not in fact sometimes happy and sad at the same time ? Am I not both happy
and sad at the same time to send my friend off to Europe? I am
so See Summa Theol., I, q. 12, a. 11.

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happy in the prospect of his education and enjoyment; I am sad
to think I cannot share the common life of friends with him for
the next months. It would be very mistaken to think happiness
and sadness here are an alternation of acts; no, it is the abiding
presence at the same time of two affective states. And lovers,
after all, sometimes claim to experience at the same time what in
the abstract can only be described at contradictory affective
states. Furthermore, it is sometimes the very presence of our
happiness in the possession of some good that increases our sorrowfulness over some evil. I think this is well within our ordinary experience.
Thus, is it really so strange to hold that our Lord's identification with the experience of our alienation from God as sinners,
which is partially, at least, what it means to say he loves us
while we are still enemies of God (Rom 5 :8), and which it is
the concern of many moderns to impute to him, should co-exist
with his beatifying immediate knowledge of God? It is rather
because of the abiding love of Christ for his Father, a love the
human perfection of which is radically a function of his immediate knowledge of the Father, that all the more he can be sorrowful unto death at the sin because of which he dies, at sinners
for whom he dies, and at the consequences of sin, even the most
interior, that he bears in identifying himself in love with sinners. 61
As to the second question. How can Jesus learn anything if
he enjoys the immediate knowledge of God, in whom the intelligibility of .all created things is already contained? The answer would seem to be that he cannot, if learning means discovering an intelligibility that is not already possessed in the mind.
However, it is to be questioned whether " perfect in manhood"
necessarily implies sharing in the imperfect states and processes
that lead to what a supernaturally perfected humanity consists
in, one of which is the knowing in not-knowing of ordinary
learning.
But this does not mean that no learning whatsoever is to be
attributed to our Lord. That our Lord knows God immediately,
a1 Lonergan,

De V erbo incarnato, 340.

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remember, does not mean that he can say what he knows. And
yet, the point of the incarnation is precisely that: to say to us
what he knows. If he cannot learn what to say, he must still
learn how to say it. This kind of learning, moreover, is not something wholly outside our experience, as anyone who has tried to
explain something in a foreign language well knows. 62
But then, we are returned to our first question: how to think
more exactly the relation between the immediate and ineffable
knowledge of our Lord and that knowledge by which he can say
to us, analogically, what he knows. It is this problem which
especially concerned Bernard Lonergan, for on its solution depends our ability to conceive the human subjectivity of Christ as
something ordered and unified, rather than as a collection of unrelated knowledges (and volitions), beatific and acquired. 63
His solution depends on a prior identification of the principle
of unity in ordinary human subjectivity, and on a prior identification of the principle of unity in Christian subjectivity. What
are these principles? For created human subjectivity, this principle is the " light of the agent intellect." For Christian subjectivity, this principle is the "light of faith." As the light of the
agent intellect is a created participation in the First Light, God,
so the light of faith is an increased, but supernatural, participation therein. The limit of such increased supernatural participation is, of course, the " light of glory," that renders the mind able
to see God.
Therefore, what. the natural light of the intellect and the light of the
intellect and the light of faith do in us, that is what the immediate
knowledge of God did in Christ the man. What is ineffable in us,
the expression of which is our life, is that light in which all knowledge is originally impressed on us, by which we naturally desire to
have an essential knowledge of being, and therefore of God.64
This requires some comment, for we will understand the analogy
only according as we understand what the light of the agent insi Ibid., 342-344.

ss Ibid., 405ff. Here, if anywhere, I think, Lonergan might be said to go
beyond anything St. Thomas says.
&4 Ibid., 406.

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tellect is. What is it? It is the native and consciously operative
intellectual desire in virtue of which we ask discrete questions as
to the intelligibility of this or that thing, as to the truth of this or
that judgment. In Lonergan's formulation, it is the intention of
being as intending, 65 where being is what is known by understanding and judgment, where to speak of the intention of being
as intending indicates the tension that the human mind is, its
stretch from desire that is originally empty to a fullness of possession that would understand the whole of the real, the way stations on the way to which are our understandings of now this,
now that, now the other being or limited region of the real. He
indicates in the text just quoted that this light is " ineffable."
Why? What is effable, speakable, are the discrete realities that
we sense and understand and affirm in virtue of the light. But
the " light " itself is our intention of the complete intelligibility
of all that is. As intention, the light is prior to expression, which
is accomplished in concept and language. Further, just as in this
life we lack the ability to express the object of this intention completely and adequately, so, with regard to the very intending itself, we are reduced to speaking about it analogically. " All knowledge is originally impressed on us " by this light : for it is the
principle of our knowing whatever it is we do come to know.
Lonergan continues :
But what was ineffable in Christ the man, the expression of which
was the human life of Christ, was the divine Word itself, immediately known. Therefore, where we operate by moving from the intention of the end. unto the end to be attained, Christ the man, from
the end that was possessed, seen, and loved, shared out goodness;
which sharing out, indeed, was in the first place his human and historical life itself, and in the second place included all those things
that Christ did through his life.66
Thus the basic analogy Lonergan offers: as in our lives the
principle of their unity according as they are truly human, that
is, intelligently lived lives, is the light of the agent intellect, as in
as De Constitutione Christi, # 3.
66

De Verbo incarnato, 406.

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a Christian life the principle of its unity, insofar as it truly is and
becomes ever more truly Christian, is the light of faith, so in
Christ the unity of his life is the ineffable and immediate knowledge of God, which seeks, not to know, but to find expression
(for our sake) in the words and deeds of a complete human life.
Of course, the basic analogy is only that, a fundamentum. One
will understand more exactly and concretely (but still imperfectly) what the relation is between Christ's knowledge of God and
his action and preaching according as one has some understanding of the relation in us between the light of the agent intellect
and the innumerable discrete acts of inquiry and verification that
are the instruments of the fulfillment of our intellectual desire.
Still, you will ask how Christ the man proceeded from the ineffable
knowledge. But in the first place, one must ask how the scientist
proceeds to understanding, how the philosopher proceeds to truth,
how the saint proceeds to a holy life; for he who seeks understanding does not yet understand, he who seeks the truth does not yet
possess it, he who still has to achieve a holy life is not yet a saint;
all of whom, however, already know in a certain way what they desire and so can recognize it when they attain to it. To which men
Christ was in a certain way similar; and in a certain way not. For
he was not like them insofar as, having already gained the end, he
immediately knew God; but he was like them insofar as all his human
powers and capacities-as it were, a vacuum to be filled-strove to
that point such that they might render effable what was possessed in
an ineffable way within the same consciousness.67
It is time to conclude. Why is St. Thomas's account of the
datum of faith ·important? Evidently, the International Theological Commission is concerned simply to affirm the datum of
faith: Jesus knew who he was and what he was doing. Why, beyond that, is it important to attribute to Christ in his humanity
an immediate knowledge of God? One answer is simply to advert to the relative necessity of systematic theology, of faith seeking understanding, a necessity relative only to those who ask
about the conditions of the possibility of what faith grasps. Not
all believers ask systematic questions. On the other hand, the
er Ibid., 407.

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Roman magisterium is not known for entering into questions of
systematic theology just for the intellectual fun of it. And it has
entered into this question. 68 What is the religious import of St.
Thomas' s account?
I think it possible to approach this import if one asks what it
means to call Christ " Teacher." "You have one Teacher, the
Christ" (Mt 23 :10).
Socrates, our other teacher, claimed to know only that he did
not know. He taught by asking but not answering questions, the
cumulative import of which practice was simply to commend to
us the philosophic-but basically human-task of commending
ourselves in wonder to the mystery of being, and to the mystery
of ourselves as both open to but never perfectly possessed of being.
Is our Lord like Socrates? Is that the way in which he is a
teacher? What is the same about them is that they are both
men. But what is different about them is to be found in comparing the daimon of Socrates to a Father who is, not hoped or
wished for, not hypothesized nor intended across some absence,
but known. 69

68 E.g. DS 3433-35 (Lamentabili, 1907) ; DS 3646-47 (Decree of the Holy
Office, 1918); DS 3812 (Mystici Corporis).
69 The great comparison between Christ and Socrates as teachers, of course,
is in Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments, where the contrast is between
remembering what we already in some way know and hearing something new
that we have never known.

YVES SIMON'S APPROACH TO NATURAL LAW
STEVEN

A. LONG

St. Joseph's College
Rensselear, Indiana

VES SIMON'S recently reissued work, The Tradition
f Natural Law, originating from the author's lectures of
958 at the University of Chicago, represents an uncommonly intelligent approach to a philosophically complicated subject. Rather than immediately moving to defend the much-challenged notion of natural law, or to outline a positive account of
the latter, he considers the recurrent questions that render natural
law theory a permanent feature of the speculative landscape.
After all, in one sense anyone who is convinced that there is a
morally normative natural order-that some things " by nature "
are unjust-is a "natural lawyer." The same phenomenon that
nourishes sceptical impulses-diversity
in customs and moral
convictions-renders
ineluctable the asking of the question
whether any of the competing customs or moral tenets is ratified
by the evidence of nature. As Simon puts it:
There would be no eternal return of natural law without an everlasting opposition to natural law. Again, this opposition thrives on the
contrast between the notion of actions that are right or wrong by nature, and the lack of uniformity which we observe in actual judgments.1
·
Yet as Simon later observes:
There is a rumor that modern ethnology has demonstrated the absence of uniformity among peoples in matters of so-called natural
law. That is rather naive. This lack of uniformity was well known
long, long before what is called modern science came to exist. In
1 Yves Simon, The Tradition of Natural Law (hereinafter
cited as TNL)
ed. Vukan Kuic (New York: Fordam University, 1992), 4.

125

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fact, modern ethnologists would be rather more critical and skeptical
about stories of strange customs than men of antiquity or of the
Renaissance. 2
Simon recognizes that the opposition to natural law theory that
is predicated on the notion that natural law implies the absence
of divergent moral convictions is "as old as the theory." 3 Such
objection is a mere prefatory hurdle marking one's entry into
contemplation of the densely interwoven fabric of natural law.
The subject of natural law is, Simon insists,
difficult because it is engaged in an overwhelming diversity of doctrinal contexts and of historical accidents. It is doubtful that this
double diversity, doctrinal and historical, can so be mastered as to
make possible a completely orderly exposition of the subject of
natural law.4
As Dr. Russell Rittinger points out in his introduction to the
volume, Simon is aware that there is not merely one " tradition"
of natural law, but several. 5 The contrast between convention
and nature is susceptible of quite diverse formulations, and these
are in large part dependent upon social and institutional factors.
Nonetheless, in Simon's focus upon the doctrinal and historical
problematic of natural law theory, he achieves the difficult feat of
elucidating root speculative questions. Indeed, it is a major
strength of Simon's treatment that he is wary of the ideological
use of natural law theory. As he puts it:
an ideology is a system of propositions which, though undistinguishable so far as. expression goes from statements about facts and
essences, actually refer not so much to any real state of affairs as to
the aspirations of a society at a certain time in its evolution. These
are the three components which, taken together, distinguish ideology
from philosophy. The notion of truth which an ideology embodies is
utilitarian, sociological, and evolutionistic. When what is actually an
expression of aspirations assumes the form of statements about
TNL, 5.
TNL, 5.
4 TNL, 5.
5 Russell Hittinger's Introduction to The Tradition of Natural Law, xix.
2

3

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things, when these aspirations are those of a definite group, and when
that group expresses its timely aspirations in the language of everlasting truth-then, without a doubt, it is an ideology that we are
dealing with.6
By contrast, " the law of philosophy is altogether one of objectivity." 7 Whereas objects of aspiration are not purely speculative objects of contemplation, but are also ends, "the object of
cognition alone is a pure object." 8 The object of ideology is an
object of desire, while the object of philosophy is a pure object
of cognition. At a time when skepticism and immoralism enjoy
wide currency, there may be felt a "need for an ideology of
natural law." 9 However comprehensible this need is, it is bound
to exercise distortive philosophic effects. One of the chief of
these is the tendency to suppose that natural law can decide
" with the universality proper to essences, incomparably more
issues than it is actually able to decide." 10 Indeed, Simon notes
the tendency of certain teachers to treat as matters of natural law
issues that demand "treatment in terms of prudence." 11 Simon
contends that such exaggerated claims in behalf of natural law
will tend to engender " disappointment and skepticism " as well
as that contempt naturally felt for sophistry. 12
Simon's point is not at all that the content of ideology is necessarily opposed to philosophic truth. Rather it is that philosophic
truth is not defined simply by our contingent social aspirations.
Hence the confusion of social aspiration and consensus with that
speculative detachment requisite to philosophic inquiry will tend
to be at the expense of the latter. A natural law theory that is
pressed into service to carry the burdens of acculturation cannot
supplant the primary evidence it is devised to explain. Although
TNL, 16-17.
TNL, 21.
s TNL, 21.
9 TNL, 23.
10 TNL, 23.
11 TNL,23.
:..2 TNL, 23-24.
6

7

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A. LONG

the proliferation of skeptical philosophies renders plausible the use
of the language of natural law to reflect social aspiration, the
philosopher is liable thereby to be diverted from his speculative
inquiry-which is not exclusively hinged to the aspirational contours of any given society or epoch.
Simon delivered himself of these points during the high-tide of
"American exceptionalism": a time when a Thomist as renowned as Jacques Maritain could plausibly suggest the development of a " secular ideology " that could cement the moral consensus of democratic societies apart from the express formative
influence of the Church (i.e., apart from the Church's influence
upon the whole society, not merely the Catholic constituency) .13
Maritain's reflections highlight the manner in which men and
women of good will but opposed philosophic tendencies may-for
diverse reasons-nonetheless
agree upon the same practical
agenda. Whereas this point was developed by Maritain with the
optimistic expectation that such cooperation would preserve the
natural law insights of the American founding 14 through a cultural milieu too fragmented to allow of any deep philosophic consensus, Simon appears to have recognized this same point with a
certain foreboding for the integrity and liberty of philosophic discourse. Without making heady necessitarian claims about the
devolution of American society, the recent era of socio-political
conformism and "political correctness" suggests that Simon's
13 See Jacques Maritain, Man and the State (Chicago:
University of Chicago: Press, 1951), especially chapters 4 & 5. The titles of each of the initial
sections of these .two chapters are illustrative. The first section heading in
Chapter 4 is as follows: " Men Mutually Opposed in Their Theoretical Conceptions Can Come to a Merely Practical Agreement Regarding a List of
Human Rights." The section heading at the start of Chapter 5 is ' The Democratic Secular Faith."
14 See Man and the State, note 12 of Chapter IV, p. 95, where he refers to the
Founders, arguing that they "were men of government rather than metaphysicians and that they used the concept [of natural law] for practical rather
than philosophical purpose, in a more or less vague, even in a ' utilitarianist '
sense " but that such concern for " implementing the ends of human life "
should not be labeled utilitarian.

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was in context the more prudent assessment. Those whose reasons for sharing the same practical agenda vary too gravely are
likely to find their ideological cohabitation to be quite temporary.
This is indeed precisely what has come to pass-which does not,
of course, lessen the need for cooperation across philosophic divides in behalf of certain manifest goods.
Another great strength of Simon's treatment of natural law
derives from its Thomistic stress upon the primacy of the speculative. That is to say, Simon is well aware that "every practical
doctrine presupposes some theoretical positions." 15 In particular,
Simon is aware that natural law theory will presuppose some account of the vexed question of the nature of universals, if for no
better reason than that it must imply some view of the universality of human nature. "Let us confess that it is meaningless to
argue seriously about natural law without ever having raised the
question of the universals." 16 Additionally, Simon does not
dichotomize the practical and speculative intellects, doubtless
aware of the words of Aquinas:
The object of the practical intellect is good directed to operation, and
under the aspect of truth. For the practical intellect knows truth,
just as the speculative, but it directs the known truth to operation.17
Practical reasoning sets out from knowledge of some end,
which serves as the principle of one's practical reasoning. As
Simon emphasizes elsewhere (in speaking of our knowledge of
natural ends via inclinationis) the way in which we come to know
certain objects. to begin with is frequently through inclination
rather than simple cognition alone. 18 A fuller judgment by way
of cognition will frequently follow inclination.
1s TNL, 5.

BTNL, 7.
Summa Theologiae (hereinafter cited in the Leonine edition as Leonine
S-T), Q. 79, a. 11, ad 2: "ita obiectum intellectus practici est bonum ordin1

17

abile ad opus, sub ratione veri. Intellectus enim practicus veritatem cognoscit
sicut speculativus sed veritatem cognitam ordinat ad opus."
1s For Simon's discussion of this whole point, see TNL, 125-136, and 160161.

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Aware that for St. Thomas the motion of the will is none other
than an inclinatio sequens formam intellectam,19 Simon is distinguishing between a cognitive grasp reaching " up to immediate
axioms on the one hand and direct experiences on the other
hand," and a nonscientific knowledge by way of inclination. 20 It
is not that knowledge by way of inclination is unspecified by the
intellect (else he would not speak of two modes in the determination of judgment), but rather that knowledge via inclinationis is
knowledge of an object that is actually appetible (or the contrary
in cases of natural repugnance). Obviously one may know an object, and be aware of it in a special degree owing to one's inclination toward it, without thereby cognizing its relations to
other goods or delimiting its place in the good life. It is this last
ethically synthetic knowledge that I take Simon to intend when
he speaks of knowledge by way of cognition.
But no matter how it is that we are made aware of an end,
some knowledge of the end is presupposed by action toward it,
and such knowledge is either adequated to the objective nature of
the end or it is not. Hence knowledge of an end by way of inclination is at root speculative even while it becomes practical
when and as it is ordered toward operation. Simon's account implies that "speculative " knowledge is not necessarily theoretic.
In a sense, all practical knowing implies knowledge of the end and
hence adequation to it, proceeding from a speculative root even
while following a trajectory toward the incommunicable singular
and circumstantial. St. Thomas held that it is accidental to that
which is intellectively apprehended to be further ordered to operation, and that this " further ordering " to operation is what
distinguishes practical knowledge from purely speculative knowledge.21 Simon's emphasis upon knowledge via inclination in the
context of the intimate interrelation of speculative and practical
19 Cf. Leonine Summa Contra Gentiles (hereinafter cited as Leonine SCG),
Book III, Chapter 26: " Matus voluntatis est inclinatio sequens formam inteJlectam."
20 TNL, 127.
21 Summa Theologiae, I, Q. 79, a. 11.

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knowledge is a masterful development of this aspect of Aquinas's
teaching. 22
One fruit of this awareness of the speculative root of all practical reasoning is Simon's realization of the profound theistic
dynamism within natural law theory. As Simon explains while
describing the problem posed by the nature of moral obligation:
The depth of this difficulty is clearly seen when we once again point
out that natural law, in the very meaning of that expression, exists
ontologically before it exists rationally in our minds; it is embodied
ir1 things before it is thought out, thought through, understood, intelligently grasped. Plainly, it is because- natural law is first embodied
in things that we declare such and such an action to be right, and
such and such an action to be wrong, under circumstances which may
have to be defined with great attention and particularity. And here
we find ourselves face to face with the real problem of obligation.
It is clear what happens if we stop here. If we stop here, the last
word does not belong to the reason, the last word does not belong
to that which is intelligent. The last word belongs to things. That is
the real problem of obligation.23
Simon argues that only if there is an intellect that is " directing
by nature," 24 in which " to be," " to act " and " to think " are
one-an absolutely First Cause-will moral obligation be finally
intelligible rather than a mere bowing to an ontological surd. 25
Another way to put this is that only if the ordering of human nature is an intelligent disposing by the Governor of the commonwealth of nature can this ordering be intrinsically designated as
law." 26
22 It is one that calls, however, for great precision, lest it be suggested that
inclination is not always preceded by prior knowledge. What is at stake is the
difference between knowing one's own appetite for or possession of a good
versus merely knowing the good. In the second case, we know something
further about ourselves in relation to the end, the thematization of which provides actually appetible ends as principles in the ethical life.
23 TNL, 137.
24 TNL, 145.
25 TNL, 145.
2 6 For a rigorous and pathbreaking analysis of the analogical attribution of
the term "law," see Russell Hittinger's paper "Natural Law as Law" (1994
Natural Law Lecture, University of Notre Dame Law School), forthcoming

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STEVEN A. LONG

It might be thought that, since our knowledge of much of the
content of the natural law precedes our knowledge of the existence
of God, therefore the knowledge of natural law is conceptually independent of the knowledge of the existence of the First Cause. 27
Certainly Simon would not wish to deny that there is valid knowledge of much of the content of natural law prior to knowledge of
any proof for the existence of God. Yet " from this logical priority in the order of discovery it does not follow that the understanding of natural law can be logically preserved in case of failure to recognize in God the ultimate foundation of all laws." 28
Indeed, impairment in the knowledge of the natural law is
"logically inevitable" 29 when knowledge of the existence of God
is "blocked." 30 As suggested earlier, perhaps this is because it is
one thing to know some part of the content of the natural law,
in the American Journal of Jurisprudence. Rittinger argues that though nature is an " internal " principle, the ordering or law of nature is-qua lawnonetheless not an intrinsic but rather an extrinsic principle (a point made
expressly by Aquinas in his prologue to the Treatise on Law in the Summa
Theologiae, I-II). According to Hittinger's analysis, whether nature is truly
lawful cannot be settled merely by appealing to the fact that as one source of
positive law natural moral order is extrinsically denominated as lawful, i.e., it
is not the extrinsic analogy of attribution between medicine and health, but
knowledge of the nature of medicine, that tells us that medicine is not in the
strict sense "healthy." Similarly we must know the answer to a (theological)
question about nature-whether natural order is legislated, whether there is a
legislator of nature-before we conclude that in the strict sense natural moral
order cannot be law. That Simon supposes "law" to be intrinsically predicated
of natural moral order, and not merely by extrinsic analogy of attribution as
one " source" of positive law, is sufficiently indicated by his comment that the
study of natural law " involves the difficult theoretical problem of order in a
set of analogates connected by proper proportionality" (TNL, 160). See also
TN L, 129: " But law is a premise; it is a work of the reason having the
character of premise. And among laws, the natural laws have more the character of premises than positive laws; they are prior premises."
21 This, indeed, seems to be what is intended by John Finnis in his comment
from Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 49:
" the fact that natural law can be understood, assented to, applied, and reflectively analysed without adverting to the question of the existence of God ... "
28 TNL, 62.
29 TNL, 63.
aorNL, 63.

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TO NATURAL

LAW

133

and another to know it qua law. In any event, the philosophic
linkage between natural law theory and theism impels some
theorists--e.g., those associated with postulatory atheistic existentialism-to negate the natural law.81 If the virtue of natural
religion presupposes some natural knowledge of its object then it
is not only the status of natural law qua law but also (to some degree) the content of natural law that will require advertence to
the existence of God. Simon's address of the relation between
natural law theory and theism is remarkable in its synthetic grasp
of the speculative and practical dimensions of natural law theory.
His assimilation of the proof for the existence of God proceeding
from moral obligation to the pattern of the proofs from contingency, motion, causality, et al., is a tour de force.
A second benefit of Simon's understanding of the interrelation
of the practical and speculative elements in natural law theory
resides in his refusal to dichotomize physical and moral order.
The threefold Thomistic classification of inclinations into those
universal to all beings, those universal to animals, and those universal to rational nature for Simon " insures the community between the nature law of the moral world and the natural law of
the physical world," 82 despite their marked contrast in certain respects. The value of the doctrine of analogy to natural law theory
is, from this perspective, pronounced. According to Simon, it is
not the work of natural law theory but rather is "the most constant tendency of Kant and the Kantian tradition to strengthen,
bring forth, overdo, render overwhelming, if not theoretically
exclusive, the contrast between the universe of nature and the
universe of morality." 88
Simon's stress upon "the notion of order which is needed to
understand in what sense an end is ultimate." 34 points to yet a
third benefit of his sense of the relation of the speculative and the
practical. In The Tradition of Natural Law Simon exhibits a
TNL, 63.
TNL, 124.
as TNL, 124-125.
34 TNL, 101.

31
82

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STEVEN

A. LONG

thorough awareness of " the great metaphysical and ethical
truth that all good of a lower order falls short of any good of a
higher order." 85 Whereas the ethical incommensurability of
goods is the stock and trade of many contemporary legal and
ethical theorists, 86 Simon, like Aquinas before him, unabashedly
holds that "the common good indeed enjoys primacy over the
private good of the individual, when both are of the same
order." 37 This insistence upon the superordination of the common
good-suggesting a teleologically commensurated hierarchy of
ends-clearly marks the character of Simon's vision of natural
law. Simon's natural law teaching, cognate with that of Aquinas,
does not allow for the epistemic separation of axiological order
from the order of natural teleology. While one may logically aba5 TNL,

102.

ss Cf. Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford:

Clarendon Press,
1986), especially Chapter 13; or John Finnis, Natitral Law and Natural Right
(Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1980). The latter author considers commensuration of goods to be " logically impossible " ( N atitral Law and Natural Rights,
116).
ar TNL, 107. This is identically the point of Aquinas. Cf. Summa Theologiae, II-II, Q. 152, a. 4, ad 3: "The common good takes precedence of the
private good, if it be of the same genus." In the Leonine edition of the Summa
Theologiae: "AD TERTIUM DICENDUM quod bonum commune potius est
bono privato si sit ejusdem generis." Lest there be any confusion about this
question of the ordering of goods, one might note Aquinas's reasoning regarding capital punishment in S-T, II-II, Q. 25, a. 6, ad 2: "It is for this reason
that both Divine and human laws command such sinners to be put to death,
because there is greater likelihood of their harming others than of their
mending their ways. Nevertheless the judge puts this into effect, not out of
hatred for the sinners, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which he
prefers the public good to the life of the individual. Moreover the death inflicted by the judge profits the sinner, if he be converted, unto the expiation
of his crime; and, if he be not converted, it profits so as put an end to the sin,
because the sinner is thus deprived of the power to sin any more."-Leonine
S-T: "Et ideo hujusmodi peccantes, de quibus magis praesumitur nocumentum
aliorum quam eorum emendatio, secundum legem divinam et humanam praecipiuntur occidi. Et tamen hoc facit iudex non ex odio eorum, sed ex caritatis
amore, quo bonum publicum praefertur vitae singularis personae. Et tamen
mors per iudicem inflicta peccatori prodest, sive convertatur, ad culpae expiationem; sive vero non convertatur, ad culpae terminationem, quia per hoc tollitur ei potestas amplius peccandi."

YVES SIMON'S

APPROACH

TO NATURAL

LAW

135

stract from the order of nature, the character of such abstraction
cannot rightly supplant this order, much less prove its absence.
The Tradition of Natural Law subtly and insightfully engages
the root issues that precede, imply, and accompany natural law
theory. Indeed, perhaps the greatest virtue of the book is its constant recognition that " the difficulties proper to philosophy are
inescapably present in any discussion involving natural law." 38
Hence it follows that " whenever there is a good reason to avoid
these difficulties, there will also be a good reason to leave natural
law out of the picture." 89 Simon's work does not leave these difficulties "out of the picture." It will richly reward political and
legal theorists, metaphysicians, moral philosophers, and straightout natural law theorists. His explanation of the dilemma of
positivist jurisprudence--that it gains success in facilitating consensus only at the cost of the explanatory power and intelligibility
sought by the jurist 40-is itself a masterpiece of lucidity that
more than rewards careful scrutiny. This is a remarkably fine and
philosophically penetrating treatment of one of the densest of
philosophic subjects. I know of no other work that so well condenses and introduces the philosophical itinerarium mentis of
natural law theory.

ss TNL, 63.
39

TNL, 63.

4o

CF. TNL, 65-66.

BOOK REVIEWS
The Eucharistic Mystery: Revitalizing the Tradition. By DAVID N.
POWER, O.M.I. New York: Crossroad, 1992. Pp. xiii

+ 370.

Historical enquiry in the field of theology can he done with any
number of interests in mind. What David Power offers in this hook is
a way of doing it in the interests of systematic theology. He takes it
that the contemporary theologian is in necessary conversation with the
tradition of faith. The theologians of today are asking their own questions, which, when they are intellectually alert, will take account of
questions raised by what is increasingly called "postmodernity." The
theologian is putting these questions to a series of records that are them·
selves the response of a particular generation of believers, in a par·
ticular place, to its own questions. The records to he examined are
not just the written texts that tell how people thought; they are also
the multitudinous indications of how they acted and of the human
situations in which they acted and thought. The tradition that is examined by theology is one of practice as much as, and in intimate as·
sociation with, theory. There is an art, and even a philosophy, in reading such a tradition today. One has to he able to respect the historical
in its historicity and yet let the historical he prophetic in response to
today's concerns. Without committing himself to or seeking to establish any particular theory of interpretation, Power draws on contem·
porary studies in hermeneutics to suggest how a reading of the tradition of faith should he done today regarding the Eucharist. The contemporary standpoint that he adopts is one of particular sensitivity to
the cultural crisis that is associated with "postmodernity." He formulates the contemporary task of a hermeneutical theology on p. 13 as
one of asking " ... how is it possible to engage in a conversation with
the past amid the ruins of a culture and a civilization."
Having stated his intentions in a first chapter, Power spends the next
two chapters on the Eucharist in the New Testament: the dominant con·
cern in the first of these is with what the texts say; in the other it is
with what might emerge from a contemporary re·reading of them.
Then come four chapters on the Patristic period, before and after
Nicaea. One appreciates particularly how the interplay of eucharistic
practice, prayer, and theology is handled. At the heart of the four
chapters on the Eucharist in the later Middle Ages is a detailed study

137

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of the theology of the Eucharist in St. Thomas Aquinas. This theology
of Thomas also has a major place in the final group of four chapters,
which has the title, "Revitalizing the Eucharistic Tradition Today."
On page 238, there is a helpful list of six factors in Thomas's thought
that have been found of particular interest and importance in contemporary theology of the Eucharist.
General hermeneutical theory requires that the writings of a theologian like Thomas on the Eucharist be set within the social and religious world of his day. Power gives two chapters to analysing the social role and practice of the Eucharist in that mediaeval world. Without being doctrinaire about it he does make a good case for the value
of such analysis for uncovering the point of what a mediaeval theologian like Thomas might be saying, and not saying, to a contemporary
theologian of the Eucharist. The study of the text of Thomas in chapter
10 is no less thorough and objective for its sensitivity to what a contemporary theologian of the Eucharist might usefully hear in it. One
appreciates particularly the explanation of how there is at least as much
of negation as of affirmation in the theory of transubstantiation (pp.
222-225), and the refined analysis of how Thomas sees the Eucharist
to be sacrifice without really separating sacrifice from communion (pp.
226-230). One would question, however, his use of the term "substantial change " as a euphemism for " transubstantiation " in a contemporary reading of Thomas. The term already has a technical meaning in Thomistic Philosophy, which might be attributed to the changing of water into wine, but not to the conversion that Thomas postulates
in the Eucharist. For the deepest theological reasons, one must maintain at all costs that what happens in the Eucharist is a unique action
of God-mystery in the most proper sense-which is why Thomas
wants to give it a name that belongs nowhere else. One needs to talk
at least of "total substantial change," as Power does on p. 222.
The discussion on signification and causality in Thomas's theology
of the Eucharist is thorough and revealing. It is a crucial theme in the
contemporary debate about the kind of symbolic activity that occurs in
sacraments. One wonders why in considering the expression significando causant (p. 234) the text of De Veritate 27, 4 ad 13 was not
dealt with. Perhaps it would have helped, too, to have discussed how
Thomas uses the category res et sacramentum in dealing with the
Eucharist, and why he says sacramentum perficitur in the consecration
of the matter of the sacrament. It would seem that for Thomas the
very making of the sign in the Eucharist, in view of but not coextensive with the actual usus sacramenti, puts the christological and ecclesiological levels of causality in objective place and already draws some

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139

response from the community of faith that is necessarily engaged by
the celebration. Power exploits well the importance that Thomas gives
to the votum eucharistiae in his analysis of the sacramental life of the
Christian (p. 223-224) . One could further develop this theme of the
votum sacramenti, by relating it to the sacramental character: through
Baptism and Confirmation the believer is permanently related to the
res et sacramentum of the Eucharist, and this sign-bond becomes active in the causing of grace, which manifests how all grace is ultimately eucharistic. In his appeal to Thomas's general theory of sacraments,
Power has some very perceptive things to say about how efficacy and
exemplarity interact in the causality of sacraments. Perhaps one could
follow this up and get to the real heart of the relationship between
sign and cause by going right back in the Summa to Thomas's analyses of how three lines of causality, final, exemplar-formal, and efficient,
are always present together in God's action with creatures. The formal
determination of human actions under the grace of God ( communicated in revelation) makes these actions be an imitation of divine exemplars and their end be a communication in divine goodness. For
humans, such imitation of divine exemplars and intention to share in
divine goodness is an activity of sign-making on the properly theological level. This sign-making is individualized on the christological
and ecclesiological levels by being the imitation of Christ and the performance of the authorized rituals of the Church. It is in such human
sign-making that the efficient causality of sacraments is given by God.
This is a hook which will encourage many a systematic theologianand particularly those who take the thought of St. Thomas seriouslyto persevere in, and even to enjoy, the toils of historical theology, without dampening their speculative flair and their critical curiosity about
today's questions. It will give teachers a way of convincing students
that there is a future in looking at the past. It will give those who
want to do a contemporary theology of the Eucharist much information
(including a well-selected bibliography of books in English) and many
useful orientations about how to be at once well-versed in the tradition
and forward-looking.
LIAM G. wALSH, O.P.
L'Universite de Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland

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The Church: The Universal Sacrament of Salvation. By JoHANN AUER.
Translated from the German by Michael Waldstein. Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993. Pp. 541.
$24.95 (paper).
The Church, Community of Salvation: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology.
By GEORGE H. T AV ARD. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical
Press, 1992. Pp. 264. $18.95 (paper).
These two works represent two recent and very different attempts by
contemporary Catholic ecclesiologists to present a comprehensive or
systematic theology of the church. I shall deal with the specifics of each
work separately.
Johann Auer (1910-1989) was professor of dogmatics and the
history of dogma at the University of Bonn when in 1983 he first published his Die Kirche: Das allgemeine Heilssakrament. This present
work is an English translation of that German text which was Volume
VIII in a comprehensive, nine-part, dogmatic survey, with volumes
addressing the traditional dogmatic themes: God, Creation, Christ,
Grace, Eucharist, Sacraments, Church and Eschatology. Joseph Ratzinger was co-editor with Auer of the original series. And while Auer
authored the first eight volumes, Ratzinger authored the final volume on
eschatology.
We have seen this kind of dogmatic survey in English before in the
comparable six-volume work of Michael Schmaus called Dogma (1968).
As with Schmaus's work, this dogmatic survey is intended as a series
of textbooks for theology students and thus its method is to survey each
dogmatic theme focusing upon three elements, the biblical foundation
for the theme, the historical development of this theme, and finally its
systematic inner coherence or integral rational development. In this
volume, Auer accomplishes all three tasks in exemplary fashion and
with a depth of treatment Schmaus never aimed at approaching.
Auer's The Church is divided into eighteen chapters organized into
four thematic sections bearing the titles, " Pathways towards the Proper
Understanding of the Church," " Pathways towards a Theological Concept of the Church taken from Biblical Images," "Manifestations of the
Church's Being, Life and Activity in the Light of its Sacramental
Structure," and "The Church's Tasks and Its Ways to Self-Realization
in the World." Under these titles are treated all the traditional themes
expected of a comprehensive ecclesiology: the origin and authority of
the church, its mission and ministries, biblical images, organizational

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models and dogmatic marks of the church, ecumenism, the place of the
Blessed Virgin Mary among the People of God, relations between
church and state.
Auer's consideration of each of these themes is marked by his
thorough knowledge of the sources and his skillful handling of these
materials. Even so, Auer's work is hardly beyond criticism. For example, arguably the heart of the book is the author's 213-page treatment of the history and theology of the ministries which comprises
Part III, "Manifestations of the Church's Being, Life and Activity .... "
I want to call this section masterful because of the vastness of the enterprise (the development of the ministries over almost two thousand
years) and the wealth of careful distinctions Auer brings to his treatment of so much material. To choose among the riches here one might
single out Auer's treatment of the two principles of democracy and
hierarchy and the numerous collegial forms for participative governance and administration that have been created or once existed in the
church and have been revived since Vatican II (pp. 157-173). This is
a stimulating but balanced discussion, blending historical material with
more immediate and urgent concerns. But there are also some serious
weaknesses in the larger section. For example, while extended attention
is given to the offices of bishop and pope (almost a hundred pages on
the papal office alone) , comparatively little attention is given to the
role of presbyters (four pages) and the laity. As for the latter, though
Auer considers "The Question of the Secular Office of the Laity," he
never addresses the question of the religious office of the laity, that
is, their ministry in the church and not just to the world. He broaches
this theme in his section on " Vocations or Charisms, Ministries and
Offices or Commissionings " (pp. 179-194), but all too quickly he concludes this section with a reference to the secular character of lay
spirituality, the laity's orientation toward the world. In these limitations, Auer's book probably reflects the state of scholarship and theological speculation as of the late 1970s, limitations not entirely
remedied by the addition in this English language edition of an updated "Select Bibliography."
The real strength or value of Auer's The Church, however, is its distinctive or peculiar perspective. This perspective is expressed in the
book's subtitle, " The Universal Sacrament of Salvation." This sacramental view of the church is an ancient, patristic theme revived in
nineteenth-century German Romantic theology, especially that of the
Catholic Tiibingen school. In the twentieth century, Rahner and de
Lubac have been its foremost exponents. Through them and others it
found its way into the documents of the Second Vatican Council, for
example, the dogmatic constitution on the church, Lumen gentium,

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articles 1 and 48. This way of thinking sees the church as the effective
sign and symbol of salvation and insists the church functions as a
challenging invitation both to its members and to the world to conversion and commitment in a community whose structural elementsliturgy, preaching, sacraments, offices, and ministries-make for a personal and transforming contact with God. That is, the church is
the prophetic condition and embodiment of humankind's restored relationship to God, a visible communion and instrument of salvation, not
just a blessed fellowship. Arguably, these themes, with their emphasis
upon the genuine sacramentality and not just sociology of the church's
structures, make for a salutary correction to some all-too-horizontal
notions of the church as community current today, especially in American theology.
Along with an index of names as well as subjects, Auer's book has
been given a gracefully idiomatic English translation. Judicious editorial care is apparent from the addition of references to current English translations of works cited in the original German footnotes. And,
as I have already noted, a " Select Bibliography" of works in English
helps to bring us more up to date as regards significant thought and
research since the appearance of Auer's German original.
And so despite the two lacunae mentioned above, I can still recommend Auer's The Church as a superlative basic, introductory text, even
if this text will require some supplements with regard to its short·
comings.
George Henri Tavard is a member of the Augustinians of the Assumption, more commonly known as the Assumptionists, a congrega·
tion founded in 1845 in the south of France (in the United States they
established Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts) . Emmanuel d' Alzon, founder of the Assumptionists, was a staunch ultramontane, strongly influenced by the conservative philosophers de
Bonald, de Lammenais, and de Maistre. However, d' Alzon was also
much interested in Christian unity and made this one of the aims of
his order. I say all this because it explains perhaps some of the distinguishing characteristics of Tavard's The Church, Community of Salvation, and especially since Tavard, as he indicates in his introduction
(p. 13), is well aware of d'Alzon's thought and how his own takes a
self-conscious direction away from it.
This book is divided into an introduction and fourteen chapters organized into four major sections bearing the titles, "Vision," "Tradition," "Structures," and "Dialogues." At the conclusion of each
chapter there is a short bibliography " for further reading," and there
is a topical index at the end. But far more revealing as to this book's
contents is its subtitle: "An Ecumenical Ecclesiology." And one should

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not underestimate the breadth of Tavard's ecumenism. The author can
quote from the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, the
(Anglican/Episcopalian)
Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilaterals of 1868 and
1888, the (Lutheran) Augsburg Confession, the (Calvinist) Second
Helvetic Confession, the Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakoff as well as from the magisterial statements of Catholic Christianity
(up to the latest encyclical of John Paul II). Moreover, the Rig Veda
of Hinduism and the teachings of the Buddha several times find pertinent references in this book. These broadly ecumenical sources are
the result of the author's longtime interest in ecumenism; indeed, he
taught at a Methodist theological school in Ohio for several years. But
as rich and extensive as these sources are, in the end I think a reader
can still legitimately ask whether this is truly ecumenism or just rampant eclecticism.
For example, in the chapter entitled " Monasticity " Tavard tries
valiantly to find some place for " Monasticity ... as a basic dimension
of the Christian Church " (p. 115). Tavard is convinced that the asceticism and idealism of monasticism are the expression of a strong
note of eschatological expectation which should find significant expression in the church. Tavard's broadly ecumenical approach, however,
makes for a tortuous, even confusing treatment of this theme. On the
one hand Tavard's comprehensive method allows him to enlist the witness of such non-Christian monastic forms as the Essenes of Qumran
and the monks of Theravada Buddhism, but these witnesses are can·
celled by other sources required of Tavard's broadly ecumenical focus,
namely, traditional Protestant antipathy toward monasticism, the cur·
rent consciousness of the Western Church with its predominantly worldaffirming outlook, and the criticism provided by contemporary feminist
thought (see the section entitled, "Anti-feminism," pp. 124-125). At
one point this leads Tavard to the obviously painful confession: " One
may even wonder if the development of the monastic institution was
not, in a sense, a mistake" (p. 130). And at another point Tavard is
reduced to tracing such feeble vestiges of monasticism in the Protestant
tradition as the Shakers who are now close to extinction. Augustine
as well as d'Alzon might weep at such desperate maneuvers. For in the
end the reader cannot help but wonder: perhaps Tavard's ecumenical
approach left him wrestling with too many strong antitheses (monastic/anti-monastic) and relying too much upon casual analogies (upon
closer examination is there not more disparity than continuity between
industrious Shakers and contemplative Buddhist monks?) . Does it not
seem more appropriate to argue: if a case is to be made for the monasticity of the Church, it is only reasonable that we give more weight
to the long historical experience of Catholic and Orthodox Christianity?

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But Tavard's commitment to such a broadly ecumenical perspective will
not allow him this option.
Another problem posed by Tavard's method is his uncompromising
focus upon modernity, what he calls, variously, "the experience of being the Church" (pp. IO and 192), "awareness of being the Church"
(pp. 12 and 192, 226), "continuing existential experience" (p. 146)
and "the pilgrimage of the present life" (p. 152). Tavard prepared
us for this, his uncompromising focus upon present experience, when in
his introduction he registered the following careful disclaimer: "I ex·
pect to do justice to the Scriptures and to history. Yet this is not a
hook of biblical or historical research. It is a systematic organization
of the essential Christian beliefs about what the Church has been, is,
and ought to be. It is focused on the awareness of being the church ... "
(p. 12).
But, despite Tavard's disclaimer, whether the reader can accept
Tavard's theology will depend in no small measure upon the reader's
conviction as to whether Tavard's theology has indeed done justice to
the Scriptures and to history. This reader is skeptical. For example,
after reading this book I came away with the sense that Tavard's considerable historical. erudition made for a powerful tool whereby he
could attenuate the lessons of the past, deny the claims of history, and
focus all-too-exclusively upon certain demands of the present. By this
I mean that all-too-often Tavard was able to recall an historical precedent no matter how singular or anomalous that could seem not only to
challenge a later theological axiom or now traditional ecclesial practice hut he used as a hermeneutical or constructive principle for a
radically new theological trajectory. In this regard, see Tavard's employment of the historical observation: " There were instances in the
later Middle Ages when the Bishop of Rome authorized a number of
Cistercian and Benedictine abbots to ordain their monks" (p. 141). Is
there not some irony here in the way Tavard, who insists he is primarily
a systematic theologian, can yet seize upon an aberrant historical incident and endow it with momentous theological significance? In this
sense Tavard, no doubt, sees himself in intimate dialogue with history;
hut there should also be no doubt as to who Tavard feels is the major
partner in this dialogue, indeed its ultimate arbiter. History may he
the prime resource for Tavard's dialogue but it is "modernity," the
present, the now, that is the determining element. This radically subjective focus means that for Tavard, "neither the New Testament nor
the Trinitarian principles as such or even the conciliar passages that I
have quoted determine the locus of the church" (p. 32); rather much
more weight is placed upon the subjective or current experience of the
believer.

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This perspective is most evident in the last two chapters of his book,
chapter 13, "An Ongoing Pentecost" and Chapter 14, "Tomorrow's
Church." In these chapters he makes it clear that the character of the
Church is not determined by documents or experiences in the past but
by our contemporary " consciousness of being the Church " (p. 226),
especially as this is shaped by such ideas as " consensus " and " reception" (pp. 255-257). But does such a method do justice to Scripture
and history? Without lapsing into d'Alzon's traditionalism can we not
acknowledge the enduring validity of some historic experiences, some
historical developments, for example, the one expressed by the pseudonymous author of the Epistle to Titus in the mandate to " appoint
presbyters in every town" (1:5)? Is the past merely an historical attic
through which a theologian can rummage picking out those parts that
seem to fit the church's needs at this time, discarding the rest? Or
rather does not the attic of history also contain stuff that can make
claims upon us, for example, valuable if delicate heirlooms, like monasticism, which we should labor to maintain or such hard-won trophies
of spiritual and theological strife as the concepts of ordination and the
classic, three-fold form for ordained ministry, structures which reflect
early chaotic even necessary experiences but struggles we should not
be eager to invite again? Indeed, it is such formative lessons of history that might challenge contemporary consensus and make reception
a more mortifying, that is, self-effacing rather than (naively?) selfvalidating task. In the end I wonder if Tavard's insistence upon modernity at all costs is not an overreaction to the all-too-one-sided traditionalism of d'Alzon and his intellectual mentors de Bonald and de
Maistre.
Tavard's The Church is Volume I in a series of eight volumes of
systematic theology published by the Liturgical Press. The editor of
the series tells us in the preface to this volume that these books were designed as textbooks for " upper-division theology courses in Catholic
colleges and seminaries." This caveat is especially pertinent here.
Tavard, unlike Auer, has not written a basic, introductory ecclesiology
text but rather a highly speculative and ambitious attempt at revisioning the whole church. Even so, some people will doubt whether Tavard's
historical method warrants such ambition, can justify such revision.
Tavard's book is gracefully, indeed, engagingly written, but charm and
the skilled play of ideas should not be allowed to conceal weaknesses
in method and conception.
LAWRENCE

Seton Hall University
South Orange, New ! ersey

B. PORTER

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Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays. Edited by ROBERT P.
GEORGE. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. 371. $39.95 (cloth).
As the editor of this volume, Robert P. George points out in his foreword that this hook is yet another manifestation of the renewed and
growing interest in natural law theory. But why this recent increased
interest in natural law theory? What purpose is this theory supposed
to serve, or in what way do its proponents see it as an improvement on
existing theories? First of all, it must be noted, as the variety of essays
in this volume makes abundantly clear, that natural law theory, as it
is presently conceived, most certainly does not represent anything like
a unified, single theory of tightly knit principles and conclusions. In
the present volume one can easily see a half-dozen or more different
approaches to natural law theory. So different in tone and spirit are
some of the essays that one can easily wonder if they have enough in
common even to classify them as " family resemblances."
But if they all in their different ways do indeed evidence, as the
editor claims, an increased awareness of and interest in natural law
theory, the question immediately arises, why this increased interest?
What problems do the advocates of these theories hope to solve by them
or what questions do they think their theories will better address than
the theories currently in place?
First of all, one may make a division which places the theories, however
among themselves, into two general groups. The first of
these groups wishes natural law theory to function as a general approach to morality. For this group natural law does the work of a
moral theory. In this group I would place the essays of Joseph Boyle,
Robert George, Russell Bittinger, John Finnis, and Hadley Arkes
(probably). The second group uses natural law theory as a way of determining the connection between moral law and positive law or legal
theory. The essays of Jeffrey Stout, Neil MacCormick, Jeremy Waldron,
Michael Moore, Lloyd Weinreb, Joseph Raz, and Ernest Weinrib fall
into this second category.
In all there are twelve essays in this volume. Space will not permit
me to give a detailed analysis and critique of each. At most I can only
indicate very briefly some of their more salient features. The book is
divided into four parts, the first of which is titled "Natural Law, Practical Reasoning and Morality." In the very illuminating first essay of
this section, "Natural Law and the Ethics of Traditions," Joseph Boyle
undertakes to clarify the question of the relation of natural law theory
to tradition. Certain approaches to moral theory currently popular

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which are called virtues ethics, of which Alasdair Macintyre would he
an example, claim that natural law theory is tradition-dependent. If
Macintyre and other virtues ethicists are correct, then since natural
law theory is culture-hound, and since the culture in which it was horn
and flourished, medieval culture, has irretrievably retreated into the
pages of history, then natural law theory is equally dead, of interest,
if at all, only in an antiquarian way. Boyle carefully points out that
there is more than one sense of being tradition-dependent. It is true
that natural law theory is tradition-dependent in the sense that it did
indeed come into existence in a particular historic epoch and that its
language and thought do indeed express the period of its flourishing,
i.e. the medieval period. But this, Boyle is careful to point out, does
not mean that its validity and meaning were exhausted with the end of
that culture. Rather the tradition is a living tradition so that its rich
resources can continue to be exploited as that tradition is enlarged by
its application to present day moral problems. Boyle's conclusion then
is that in some senses natural law is indeed dependent on an ancient
and medieval tradition, hut not so totally dependent that it has lost all
validity for contemporary moral theory.
In the contribution by Robert George, "Natural Law and Human
Nature," George tries to defend Germain Grisez's version of natural law
against opponmts such as Weinreb, !Ettinger, and Veatch. Weinreb,
correctly in my view, claims that Grisez's version of natural law is
merely a cleverly disguised deontologism. Russell Rittinger has maintained, also correctly I think, that it is not a natural law theory at all,
since at a minimum a natural theory must involve a commitment to law
as " natural " and to nature as in some sense normative. This is not
the case, according to Rittinger, in Grisez's theory of natural law.
George defends Grisez's (and Finnis's) claim that to use a metaphysical
anthropology to derive moral norms is an illicit inference in which there
is more in the conclusion, the moral " ought," than there is in the factual premisses about human nature. Thus human nature cannot he
morally normative because it is still on the level of fact. To claim that
human nature can ever give rise to an " ought " is to be guilty of the
"naturalistic fallacy." Thus, it seems to me, that Grisez, Finnis, and
George are still stymied by Hume's well-known assertions about the is/
ought dichotomy and G. E. Moore's continuation of this line of thought.
But is there any way out of this impasse? A way out can be found, I
think, in Thomas Aquinas's teaching on natural inclinations (Summa
Theol. I-II, q. 94, a. 2). The natural inclination is a bridge over which
one can move from the factual " is " to the moral " ought " and thus
offers a way out of what is an impasse for Grisez, Finnis, and George.
As Russell Rittinger notes in his excellent chapter, "Natural Law

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and Virtue: Theories at Cross Purposes," recent moral theory has made
a sharp distinction between two different approaches to moral mattersnatural law theory and virtue ethics. Rittinger examines several of the
representative approaches, e.g. Alasdair Maclntyre's, Alan Gewirth's,
and Edmund Pincoffs'. What it seems to come down to, according to
Rittinger, is that you are forced to choose between an ethics of virtues
or one of rules and rights. Gewirth, who claims to identify himself
with the natural law tradition, believes that Maclntyre's virtue discourse is a totally inadequate substitute for moral rules governing individual moral rights. Pincoffs is the polar opposite of Gewirth and
makes a strong case for the recovery of virtues as an alternative to
moral minimalism. Rittinger finds both of these approaches unsatisfactory. Rittinger maintains that for St. Thomas, law and nature are
analogous terms. Thus his teaching on natural law is neither exclusively juristic nor some loosely construed teaching on virtue. Rather, the
teaching of Aquinas, and this is what Rittinger proposes, is a comprehensive approach to moral reality, encompassing the human good, moral
precepts, human law, custom, divine law, and most certainly, the virtues. What Rittinger proposes is a natural law theory, hut one not so
narrowly conceived as present day natural law theory tends to he, in
which natural law is reduced merely to political and legal rights claims.
Rather, Rittinger would like to see a natural law theory in which the
moral riches of the teaching on the virtues is an integral part.
Jeffrey Stout, in his essay, "Truth, Natural Law, and Ethical
Theory," takes up the problem of the collision between human positive
law and "higher law." His position regarding "higher law" may he
described as minimalist, since he eliminates what for both Aristotle
and Thomas Aquinas is the foundation of "higher law," i.e. eternal
law. He seems to espouse the view that the lonely dissenter's appeal to
a " higher law " is at bottom, plain rhetoric, albeit useful rhetoric, for
the dissenter makes a useful contribution to society by calling attention to the law's deficiencies. For Stout, the chief task of natural law
theory is to develop a theory concerning "higher law," but by rejecting eternal law it seems that he has made this task difficult if not
impossible, because in order for the "higher law" to which the dissenter appeals to make a moral claim on society it must he more than
mere empty rhetoric. If it is to make a moral claim its foundation can
only he one thing-eternal law.
Part Two of the hook deals with the relation of natural law and legal
theory. Neil MacCormick offers a reflection on John Finnis's hook,
Natural Law and Natural Rights, ten years after its publication.
Finnis's work, apparently, deeply impressed MacCormick and his reflections on it are very sympathetic, not withstanding MacCormick's

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well-known positivism. In fact he makes the very interesting observation at the conclusion of his essay on the supposed mutual opposition
of positivism and natural law theory: " I for one regard the issue of
mutual opposition as now closed and unfruitful " (p. 130) . In the past
the essence of the natural law position has frequently been portrayed
as holding that unjust laws are necessarily non-laws. If this truly represents the natural law position then MacCormick still does not agree with
this view because laws, unjust or otherwise, evidently do have at least
legal validity. But according to MacCormick's understanding of positi·
vism there is a separation between laws and morals and, as MacCormick now understands this separation, it is a conceptual separability of
legal validity from moral value. And understanding positivism in this
way, MacCormick finds it quite compatible with the natural law position of Finnis. As MacCormick now sees it, and here he is undoubtedly indebted to his careful study of Finnis, both law and morality are
the work of practical reason and this fact is the basis of the claim,
which he now acknowledges, of the necessary connection between law
and morality. They remain distinct, however, inasmuch as they have
different criteria for the validity of their norms. Legal reasoning and
moral reasoning are two species of the genus practical reasoning. He
further states that " ... law belongs to the realm of the reasonable"
(p. 121). This is certainly a remarkable statement for an erstwhile
stalwart positivist, since it would really seem to be of the essence of the
positivist position that the essence of law lies in command, and not in
reason.
For John Finnis, in his essay, "Natural Law and Legal Reasoning,"
natural law is an account of practical reasonableness in which practical
reason's first principles are the basic reasons which identify the basic
human goods as ultimate reasons for choice and action. These basic
goods are reducible to seven supreme genera, such as friendship, health,
leisure and play, knowledge of God, and so on. This statement of the
human goods of course involves an account of human nature, but this
is not to be understood as an attempt to deduce reasons for action from
some pre-existent theoretical conception of human nature. And the reason for this, as we noted above in Robert George's essay, is that, according to Finnis, " Such an attempt would vainly defy the logical
truth ... that 'ought' cannot be deduced from 'is '-a syllogism's
conclusions cannot contain what is not in its premisses " (p. 135). But
if natural law is an account of practical reasoning, how does natural
law relate to legal reasoning, and in what ways do they differ? Legal
reasoning is not the same as moral reason, although it is true they both
involve the use of practical reason, because legal reasoning is technical
in its nature whereas moral reasoning is not. The purpose of legal

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reasoning in addition to being technical is also particular, the resolution of disputes-who is in the right here?
In his contribution, "The Irrelevance of Moral Objectivity," Jeremy
Waldron attempts to defend an anti-realist meta-ethical position. His
moral epistemological skepticism leads him to a defense of an oldfashioned ethical emotivism. From the fact of disagreement about
moral values he concludes to moral skepticism. To say that his reasoning is superficial and slipshod is to exercise considerable restraint. The
following quotation concerning moral disagreements illustrates the
smug flippancy with which he approaches serious moral issues. " For
every stern preacher who talks about the reality of obligation, there is
a gum-chewing sophomore who says that all moral views are just matters of opinion and there's no ultimate standard" (p. 166). Apparently the opinions of " gum-chewing sophomores " have an equal worth
with those of professors of moral philosophy. And in his case he just
may be right. This approach is, unfortunately, yet another manifestation of the relativistic mind-set currently so prevalent in the groves of
Academe and delineated so convincingly by Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind.
The opposite approach to that of Waldron is taken by Michael Moore
in " Law as a Functional Kind." On Moore's view any natural law
theory worthy of the name must start from a meta-ethical position of
moral realism. But being a moral realist alone does not necel}sarily
make one a natural lawyer in legal theory. One could hold that there
are indeed objectively real moral values, but that these are walled off
from legal propositions. Thus he notes, " This would he the combined
view that there are mind- and convention-independent moral truth hut
such truths are irrelevant to the truth conditions of legal propositions "
(p. 192). This position is that of many, though certainly not all, legal
positivists. It is certainly not Moore's position. For Moore there is a
necessary connection between law and morality. Moore makes his own
the well-known expression of Augustine-an unjust law is no law at
all. Natural law in legal theory means for Moore that it is analytically
necessary that morality be part of law. It is in the very definition of
law.
Hadley Arkes, in his very interesting essay on Cicero's naturalism,
takes up the question of the categorically imperative nature of moral
principle versus moral expediency. Cicero constantly preaches that
moral principles suffer no exceptions and yet, seemingly inconsistently,
he can justify actions such a tyrannicide when necessity is sufficiently
exigent. In these hard cases one principle collides with another and
when this happens a lesser principle may have to yield to one more
fundamental. Arkes notes, " Principles may have to be suspended from

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one case to another, hut there may he deeper principles that tell us
when the principles may he suspended" (p. 274). On Arkes's reading
of Cicero, he is able to save the categorically imperative force of principle and yet to concede that in hard cases principles of one order may
have to suffer exceptions in order to save principles of a higher order.
Lloyd Weinreb, in "Natural Law and Rights," defends the view that
there is a genuine and strong connection between the philosophy of
natural law and rights. He wishes to preserve the enduring tradition
of natural rights, hut to do so from the perspective of the contemporary
analysis of rights. The way that Weinreb's analysis of natural law and
rights proceeds is by an examination of the close connection between
rights, human freedom, and responsibility. Weinreb claims that his
view is strongly Aristotelian (p. 297) and sets forth his philosophy of
natural law and rights as an alternative to the positivist's account of
rights.
Part Four of the hook deals with the legal formalism of Ernest Weinrib. For some unknown reason, the essay of Joseph Raz, "Formalism
and the Rule of Law," which is a critique of Weinrib's formalism, is
offered before Weinrib's own presentation of his theory. Raz's essay
is, however, self-sufficient since he includes all of the relevant texts of
Weinrib, but it certainly would have made more sense logically to allow
Weinrib to present his theory before offering a critique of it. As Weinrib conceives of formalism, its purpose is to synthesize the desirable
aspects of the tradition of natural law and rights. To show the inadequacy of contemporary legal scholarship he uses as a test case the
problem of liability in tort law. His analysis reveals that the standard
legal framework in tort law renders the corrective justice procedures
of tort law incoherent. This is simply one instance of a much wider
problem-the complete inadequacy of the standard framework of legal
scholarship. To overcome these deficiencies, he offers his theory of
formalism, the wellspring of which he claims to derive from the tradition of natural law and rights. Formalism for Weinrib means that the
law is immanently intelligible. Its form dictates its contents. It can
never be adequately understood by anything extrinsic to itself, nor can
it ever he rightly understood as an instrument of something else, since
an instrument is only intelligible because of something extrinsic to it,
e.g. its purpose. In this way Weinrib hopes to insulate the law from
politics, and to prevent the current seemingly irresistible drive to
politicize the law. His opposition to the instrmnentalization of law also
sets him at loggerheads with Roberto Unger and his epigones in the
Critical Legal Studies movement where the law is seen simply as an
instrument of social change. These are efforts that one can surely
sympathize with and praise, hut there are also some serious problems

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with Weinrih's theory of formalism which Joseph Raz points out in
his essay. One of the most serious of these deficiencies in my opinion
is the role that is accorded to the judiciary. Weinrih's theory, as Raz
shows, requires that when positive law is in conflict with the " form of
law," positive law should he disregarded by the courts, and the courts
in these cases not only have the legal right to disregard the statutes of
law hut even the moral duty to do so. To give such total discretionary
power to the courts is certainly to offer an invitation impossible to re·
sist, as the recent judicial history of the United States Supreme Court
clearly shows, to autocratic and politically motivated judicial activism.
The above remarks, inadequate as they are because of the constraints
of space, may offer some indication of the rich diversity of natural law
theories currently offering themselves for our consideration. Those interested in natural law theory either within the framework of moral
theory, or legal theory, or both, will surely find that a careful reading
of this volume will amply reward their efforts.
THOMAS A. FAY
St. John's University
Jamaica, New York

Metaphysics: An Outline of the History of Being. By MIECZYSLAW
ALBERT KRAPIEC, O.P., translated by Theresa Sandok. New York:
Peter Lang, 1991. Pp. 539. $69.95 (cloth).
This volume is the second in Lang's Catholic Thought from Lublin
series edited by Andrew Woznicki. Krapiec's work is a tour de force of
Gilsonian Thomism as it founds metaphyscis upon a judgmental grasp
of the act of existence in sensible things. The hook is unrelentingly
Krapiec. Though there are abundant historical descriptions, there is a
minimum of textual citation. Also, the reader can plainly see that
Krapiec is intent upon presenting his understanding of metaphysics ad
mentem Thomae.
Three main parts comprise the hook. Part One is on the object of
metaphysics-being as being (as existing). Part One contains the most
crucial pages of the hook, viz., pp. 86-100. There Krapiec explains the
attainment of this object. This portion is obviously the heart of the
hook, and I will treat it in detail later. Part One also includes a
lengthy exposition of the transcendentals.
Part Two focuses on the structure of being and elaborates the following: act and potency, substance and accidents, matter and form,
essence and existence, and the causes of being. There are two noteworthy points here. First, Krapiec's lengthy inclusion (pp. 313-374) of

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matter and form within his metaphysics seems to have metaphysics
swallowing up natural philosophy. One's misgivings are not assuaged
by Krapiec's presentation of the division of the speculative sciences
hack in his General Introduction. There the first degree of abstraction
is no longer the home of natural philosophy hut the home of the modern
humanistic and natural sciences (p. 28). The second degree harbors
mathematics, while the third degree is home not only to metaphysics
hut "philosophy" (pp. 28-9). The reader is left wondering what has
happened to natural philosophy. I see no exigency' for Krapiec's metaphysics to eclipse natural philosophy. Moreover, for some Thomists,
the move will create an unfortunate distraction from the good points
of Krapiec's metaphysics.
Second, by this reader's count, Krapiec presents no less than nine
arguments for the real distinction between essence and existence. These
arguments include the following: Aquinas's De Ente et Essentia argument that one can know what a phoenix is without knowing that one
exists; the necessary character of existence as an essence vs. contingent
realities; the monism of existence as an essence vs. the plurality of beings; the infinity of existence as an essence vs. finite realities; and the
reality of the potency/ act distinction applied to essence-as· potency and
existence-as-act. I cannot engage this involved topic in the short space of
a review. I will say, however, that with Joseph Owens, I fail to see why
a conceptual distinction between essence and existence is insufficient
to deal with the above facts and problems. Underwriting my skepticism
is the understanding that meanings can remain different as meanings
even if considered merged in some reality. For example, " rational "
and " animal " still differ as meanings (under pain of making all animals rational) even when considered as merged in Tom (who is both
rational and animal). Why may not Tom himself and his existence
mean two different items though understood as possibly merged in the
existent?
Part Three of the hook discusses the metaphysical role of analogy.
In his General Introduction under the rubric of " transcendentalizing
cognition" (pp. 10-19), Krapiec presented analogy as the only way in
which philosophy could obtain a non-distortive grip on the plurality of
beings. Without pre-empting existential judgments as our basic intellectual contact with the real, Krapiec glowingly describes transcendentalizing cognition as "connect[ing] us directly to the existing
world" (p. 12) and as "capable of apprehending the act of existence
and the real content of being" (p. 16). Part Three amplifies this role
of analogy. Noteworthy points include the following. First, analogy
of proportionality expresses the unity of the concept of being as being.
The analogy captures the sameness within the composition of any concrete essence and its existence (pp. 451, 18). Krapiec regards both

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substance and accident as having acts of existence (pp. 452, 382).
Second, Krapiec situates God, the first cause of existence, within the
analogy of proportionality that is being as being (pp. 459, 462). This
move strikes me as strange since there is no real distinction in God between essence and existence. Third, outside of metaphysics no genuine
analogy exists. Rather, purported cases turn out to be univocal relations
or metaphors (p. 471). Finally, Krapiec weighs in on the interpretation of the Quinque vwe; they are metaphysical arguments for they
are formulated in view of the basic composition of a concrete essence
and proportional existence (p. 494).
The volume concludes with a 14 page up-to-date bibliography that
is correlated with the above three main parts. An index is also provided.
In the remainder of the review, I want to focus on the crucial pp.
86-100. As mentioned, there Krapiec describes the attainment of the
object of metaphysics. That object is designated being as being whose
meaning Krapiec understands as any determinate concrete content (con·
crete essence) whatsoever as existing (p. 93) . Reaching being as being is a two stage process. The first stage consists of existential judg·
ments of the form "A exists." These express the cognitive affirmation
of real existence, for they resist any translation into predicative judgments. (Sometimes, e.g., pp. 86, 88, Krapiec identifies judgment with
the cognitive affirmation itself instead of the propositional expression.)
The content of existential judgments is first described as the "facti·
city" of the thing, but later (pp. 87, 92) it becomes the formulation
of the thing's act of existence. Krapiec concludes the first stage by
noting the variety of existential judgments. They deal with the exist·
ence of material and immaterial things (my thought of a triangle, my
love of a person), necessary (principle of non-contradiction) and nonnecessary things, natural and artificial things, and substantial and accidental things. My impression is that any one of these sets would do
for stage one. It is also interesting that none of the sets include an
extra-mental immaterial being.
Transition to the second stage consists in reducing this multiplicity
of judgments by constructing the concept of being as being. The construction is the work of separation, not abstraction. If I understand
Krapiec correctly, the construction proceeds along these lines. We
cannot identify the meaning of " exists " with any determinate content
because if we did, then the real multiplicity of different determinate
contents would have to he denied (p. 92). For example, if " exists"
were the same as " this here John," there would be no fact of exist·
ence apart from John, and existence would be exhausted in John. In
other words, to he a being means to be an instance of the real compo·

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sition between essence and existence because anything less denies the
multiplicity of things (p. 93) .
By way of comment, I want to say three things. First, Krapiec is
cavalier to go from the facticity sense of existential judgments to the
act sense. In his The Elements of Christian Philosophy, Etienne Gilson
noted that Thomists themselves are divided about whether existence
meant the fact of the thing or an act of the thing. Krapiec may be con·
fusing sense judgment with intellectual judgment. The former provides
a wholistic grasp of the existing thing; the latter furnishes a distinct
awareness of its existence. Unfortunately, as mentioned, intellectual
judgment receives scant elaboration. Judgment in the sense of exis·
tential propositions obtains the brunt of the analysis.
Second, I have difficulty seeing as separation the second stage's con·
structing of the concept of being. The procedure seems to be a varia·
tion of the absolute consideration of the essence argument in Aquinas's
De Ente. In sum, just as man does not include black, or one, or exist·
ence in the soul under pain of making all men black, one, or existing
in the soul, so too the meaning of man fails to include the meaning of
" exists " under pain of making man the only existent. But Aquinas
explicitly refers to absolute consideration as an abstraction.
From what I can tell, Krapiec's penchant for labeling the procedure
" separation " derives from his opinion that the procedure produces the
knowledge of a real distinction between the concrete essence and exist·
ence. But again, a close reading of Krapiec's second stage shows that
in truth the procedure is bringing out what may well be only a distinc·
tion between " meanings."
Finally, does not the first stage render otiose the elaborate procedure
of the second stage? In other words, if existential judgments truly reveal various things as composed with their respective existences, does
it not suffice to have the concept of being as being simply be a reflec·
tion of these data? Why the mentioned elaborate " construction " of
being as being?
In conclusion, despite my difference with Krapiec, Metaphysics: An
Outline of the History of Being is a book with which I am in profound
sympathy. The initiation of metaphysics through the judgmentally
grasped act of existence of sensible things, the dismissal of transcen·
dental method (pp. 77-85) , the reserving to metaphysics the proof of
God, the continual contrast of existence to " concrete essence " rather
than just essence, and the capacity of analogy to capture sameness in
difference, are all points that need reiteration in current discussion of
Thomistic metaphysics. Krapiec is no upstart novice but a seasoned
veteran, and to see him make these points is to me no small consolation. In a remark of a revealing personal nature, Krapiec mentions that
the wholistic view of the world achieved by metaphysics " fills the

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human being with happiness" (p. 34). I would only add that happiness is the reward of any reader who gives this book the attention that
it deserves.
JOHN

F. x. KNASAS

Center for Thomistic Studies
Houston, Texas

Henry VIII and the Conforming Catholics. By PAUL O'GRADY. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1990. Pp. 186. $11.95
(paper).
The careers and writings of what this author has called " Conforming Catholics " have been generally neglected by historians of the English Reformation, at least until recently. That is why it is even more
remarkable that not only one, but two books should be published in
1990 on this subject. Glyn Redworth's life of Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester (Jn Defense of the Church Catholic, London: Basil
Blackwell) is primarily a historical and biographical account of this
pivotal anti-papal Catholic, with particular emphasis on the period
from 1540-1547. This book, while complete and well written, concentrated on the life of Bishop Gardiner almost to the exclusion of his
writings, though some of these were mentioned in passing.
Paul O'Grady's book suffers from almost the reverse of that problem. In his Introduction, he contends that " intellectual systems, once
generated, have a logic of their own." His concentration on the " intellectual system " of anti-papal Catholicism at times overwhelms the
historical considerations of the period, and he falls into at least the
neglect of what Professor Geoffrey Elton calls " uncertainty as to what
actually happened." Dates are plentiful in this consideration, to be
sure, but the events selected are limited, and one gets the impression
that there is quite a bit more to the story than the author is letting on.
Quite a bit of familiarity with the period is assumed by the author on
the part of the reader, and much that is quite germane to the topic and
useful to following the text is relegated to footnotes.
The great contribution of this study is that it raises a number of
names to a higher profile, and highlights their writings. Gardiner,
though relatively neglected (at least until recently), is one of the few
names that surface about which a biography has been written. There
has been a significant amount of groundwork done for this book, and
merely the listing of titles by these authors is a valuable contribution.
But there are problems, some of which are hardly the fault of the
author. O'Grady uses the term "Henrician Catholic" in a number of

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places, which causes one to wonder, what was the Catholicism of Henry
VIII himself? J. J. Scarisbrick, in his magisterial biography of the
king, certainly goes over the evidence, and O'Grady adds nothing new.
The sources are scanty, and one is forced at times to make a series of
assumptions (based on Henry's choice of bishops and councilors, for
example) about what Henry actually believed that eventually become
a series of assumptions piled on top of other assumptions. Noticeably
and significantly absent from the consideration of Henry's management of his ecclesiastics is any attention to Henry's plan for the formation of a strong Tudor monarchy within England, the long standing
work of Professor Elton. Foreign policy, another issue in the religious
settlement of the period, is mentioned occasionally and briefly (here
Professor Redworth's book more than makes up the difference). One
cannot attempt to determine the king's theological positions in a vacuum, and although Henry VIII did (and still does) have some reputation as an " amateur theologian " in the period in question, there are
few purely theological statements by that monarch. Theology, to all
appearances, was just one lever used by Henry in erecting a strong
modern state: the imposition of theological and liturgical uniformity
was almost always a means to political uniformity, as the Prayer Book
Revolts in Cornwall and the West showed in Edward's reign.
Another problem arises in determining who, exactly, is an Henrician
Catholic? It is fairly simple to differentiate this group from the Reformers-the controversies over the Sacrament and justification by
faith do this clearly. But how can they he separated from the Roman
Catholics? O'Grady traces the use of Conciliarist authors (particularly
Gerson), and this is not a had test. There is also a chapter on "Erasmianism " which is helpful as well. But the limits of the author's work
here work against the clarity of his subject. The author has limited his
consideration to the period between the Act of Supremacy and the early
years of Edward VI (a period of about 15 years) , and his consideration
of that period is· limited further to periods of doctrinal controversy
which produced significant literature (from 1534-1540, and then again
1545-1548). Little notice is taken of the latter years of Edward's
reign, and (more significantly for an attempt to differentiate this
group from Roman Catholics) of the early years of Mary's reign.
The list of Anti-Papal Catholics appears to he overwhelmingly
clerical. In addition to Gardiner himself, we may include Edmond
Bonner, Bishop of London (after 1539) ; Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of
Durham (after 1530); Thomas Thirlhy, Bishop successively of Westminster, Norwick, and Ely (though his designation in this camp is
problematic, as the author realizes: he was one of Gardiner's closest
friends and was executor of his will); and Richard Sampson, Bishop
of Chichester (after 1536). Notice is lacking of a number of major

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names: Nicholas Heath, for example, Bishop of Rochester (and thus a
suffragan of Canterbury!) in 1539, Worcester in 1543, Archbishop of
York upon Mary's accession, and Gardiner's successor as Lord Chancellor (1555-1558).
While the author notes the traditional polemic against the friars, this
is hardly new with the Henrician Catholics, the Erasmians, or even the
sixteenth century. This polemic had become something of a set-piece
even in the thirteenth century. What may be overlooked is that there
also appears to be strong support for Henrician Catholicism among the
regular clergy, and particularly the friars. It is here, more than in
many other places, that the source documents must be read carefully,
because in sources such as the archives of religious orders the ideas
and polemic of a later period have taken over and overlaid anything
that might qualify as a contemporary understanding.
As an example, the Dominicans of the Province of England could
be cited. In the Middle Ages, the English Province of the Order of
Preachers was the largest in Europe, and its influence upon both that
Order and upon England was not inconsiderable. And yet, with fewer
than a dozen exceptions, the entire province followed the lead of its
Provincial and accepted the Oath of Supremacy, and, at the final Suppression, the Order scattered. Our documents on the Dominican houses
during this period are scanty: we have no record of even a single house
refusing the Oath. There was no counterpart to the Carthusians in this
period, and the only Dominican in the list of Roman Catholic martyrs
was professed in prison and died in 1600. Even looking at individuals,
rather than at houses, the Etory appears to be the same. John Hilsey,
former Prior Provincial, was associated with Cromwell, and died in
1538 as Fisher's successor as Bishop of Rochester, but was also author
of a treatise in defense of transubstantiation (De veri Corporis Esu in
Sacramento) . Documents which survive from the seventeenth century
and later about many English Dominicans of this period have also been
composed with the latter half of the sixteenth century and the CounterReformation firmly in mind. William Peryn, for example, Vicar General of the Dominicans after the Order was restored in Mary's reign
and prior of the sole Dominican house re·established in England
(Smithfield), died in August 1558. He left England in 1535, and the
Obituary Notices record that he returned after the execution of Cromwell (which a source recalls as Peryn's "falling into schism"). An
easier interpretation of this activity, however, would be to place Peryn
in the camp of anti·papal Catholicism, particularly as the date of his
return would suggest that the Royal Supremacy (not entirely a dead
issue in the 1540s) was not his primary reason for fleeing to the Continent. He published Three godly sermons of the sacrament of the altar,
in defense of transubstantiation, in 1546 and again in 1548. His later

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159

conduct, the sources record, was unexceptionably Catholic. Other Dominicans who can be classed as anti-papal Catholics from available
sources are Maurice Griffyn, bishop of Rochester under Mary ( 1554·
1558); John Hopton, Bishop of Norwick (1554-1558); and a priest
listed variously as Thomas Heskyns or Heskins. Three Dominicans, at
most, can be consistently classified as Papalist Catholic supporters
throughout the period from 1535-1555 of the hundreds in England at
the time of the Act of Supremacy. Research on the other orders of
friars in England at the beginning of the sixteenth century is not
available in the same profusion as it is about the Dominicans, but it
remains to he seen whether the story with these orders would be very
different.
Among non-clerical supporters of the Henrician Catholics, there are
other names that can be cited: in addition to most of the Howard clan,
we may properly include Thomas Wriothesley, Lord Chancellor and
first Earl of Southhampton, and Sir Robert Rochester and Sir Francis
Englefield, close friends of Gardiner. A significant omission in this
study is that of the Duke of Norfolk, though reference is made to him
in connection with the Act of the Six Articles.
Current scholarship (particularly in the last ten years) has produced
a plethora of studies of local clergy in the Tudor era. Studies such as
Houlhrooke's work on church courts during the English Reformation
have turned up a significant " middle level" layer of support for what
could be called "Henrician Catholicism." None of this work is mentioned in O'Grady's book. While most of these men left no literature
behind, the estimation of Henrician Catholicism is incomplete without
taking them into account.
A further limitation on this study is the excision of any sources not
in English. This is all the more surprising when O'Grady mentions
works which, while written in Latin, were avaliable in English in the
period. O'Grady says that Gardiner's treatise Si sedes illa (his defense
of the execution. of John Fisher) and the Contemptum humanae legis
(against Martin Bucer) were not published until 1930, but then quotes
passages from these with Tudor diction and orthography! In fact,
both of these circulated in printed English translations during
Gardiner's lifetime, and it is from these translations that the citations
are taken, not from a new translation or edition of 1930 (the reference
is presumably to Pierre Janelle's collection of shorter works of Gardiner published under the title Obedience in Church and State in 1930).
O'Grady's mention, in passing, of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer
and the Henrician Catholic reaction to it is problematic. The book
was, to be sure, more reformed than any previous service used in Eng·
land, but to characterize it as completely Protestant misses the mark.
Gardiner himself accepted the book, saying that, while he himself

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would not have made it what it was, it was still conformable with
Catholic doctrine. When examined on this later in Edward's reign,
Gardiner brought forth seven places in the Service of Holy Communion
of the Book of Common Prayer which supported the doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice and transubstantiation. Again, by limiting the scope of
consideration to the fifteen years in question, by limiting the research
only to works produced in English, and by limiting the figures considered to only the most famous, the author has come up with conclusions which need further refinement and nuance. This is the case
with the Eucharistic controversies, with the suppression of the monasteries, and with other issues which continue into the reign of Mary.
The controversial literature died out only when the writers of that
literature did. O'Grady asks what may he the central question: who
(if anyone) succeeded the anti-papal Catholics? He suggsets that
there is a lacuna of three centuries until Keble, Pusey, and the Oxford
Movement take over. This may he a hit overblown-the exact positions of the writers of 1535-1550 may not he reproduced in Mary's or
Elizabeth's reign, hut in substance their positions do find echoes. Here
again, the limitation of the study to this short period has deprived us
of answers.
The author's style tends to the cryptic. It is difficult to tell whether it
is the fault of the author or the editor. Words such as "ponent" appear on the one hand, along with colloquialisms on the other. The
editing in this hook is one of the worst efforts I have seen. The two
sets of footnotes (one set marked by asterisks, the other by superscript
numbers, but both included and intermingled as endnotes) are confusing, the typographical errors are numerous and occasionally amusing (such as p. 47, where "likely" should read "laity"), there are
about a half dozen sentence fragments without verbs, and the index in
the hack is a disaster and virtually unusable. A subject index is
promised by inclusion in the title page, but does not appear.
In the final assessment, the book opens a great many treasures, but
promises more than it delivers. It is too facile at points, and does not
appear to have fully engaged the vast amount of current scholarship on
the issue, even within the overly restricted period marked out for its
consideration. Its consideration of the literature of the period is limited,
hut significant. As a scholarly study it is lacking in depth; as a survey
it assumes too much.

W. BECKET SOULE, 0.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

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Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind. Volume 3 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical lnvestigatwns. By P. M. S. HACKER.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. xxi
575.

+

In this third volume of his magisterial analytical commentary on
Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical lnvestigatwns, Professor P. M. S.
Hacker of St. John's College, Oxford, writes without Gordon Baker,
who collaborated on the first two books. Each volume covers a dis·
crete stretch of text in Philosophical Investigations. In a first volume
subtitled " Understanding and Meaning " Baker and Hacker introduced
the series and set out Wittgenstein's view of philosophy as the thera·
peutic dissolution of philosophical questions. Volume 2 was subtitled
"Rules, Grammar, and Necessity." Through extensive use of material
from the Nachlass it explored Wittgenstein's discussion of rules and
rule-following. The current volume, " Meaning and Mind," deals with
the private language arguments and ancillary issues. A fourth volume,
"Mind and Will," will complete the series. The present book begins
with the generally-accepted first appearance of discussion of a private
language at # 243 and runs through the discussion of conscious processes and criteria at# 427.
In appreciation of the difficulty of the topic and the attention it has
attracted, Hacker writes of " The tropical undergrowth of the great
private language arguments," of how "the path is overgrown" and
covered with dark distorting shadows, of how " the path through this
terrain is shrouded in gloom," and its very direction difficult to discern (xv-xvi). Helpfully, however, he gives us a guide to his own
path-finding volume. It consists of thirteen essays, each intended to
stand independently of the rest, a fact which leads to a certain amount
of repetition and overlap. " The same nodes often appear in different
essays" (xvi), but in relation to different topics. Correlated with each
essay is an exegesis of the pertinent stretches of Philosophical lnvestig<P
tions. These too overlap to some degree with the essays. Hacker cautions the reader that his analytical commentary is not designed to be
read straight through. Accordingly, I shall sample from the topics pre·
sented-the private language arguments, thought, imagination, the self,
and consciousness-taking care to touch upon issues most likely to be
of interest to the general philosophical reader, as well as Wittgenstein
specialists.
Hacker rightly insists that there is not a single argument against
"private language," but a set of subtly interrelated investigations ·
aimed to show the incoherence of certain incredibly tenacious Cartesian
conceptions of human nature, the mind, knowledge, and language.

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Thus the private language arguments are central to Wittgenstein's effort
to understand and expose" both the inner/outer picture of the mind and
the Platonist conception of number, as well as their dialectical contraries, behaviorism and formalism" (16). The dominant theme of
these investigations is a reductw ad absurdum of these conceptions, accomplished by showing that they operate in a context in which there
" can be no rules, ... no ostensive definitions, no samples and no techniques of application [and hence only] . . . an illusion of meaning "
(21). In his analysis, Hacker highlights the following subsidiary
themes: privacy, avowals and descriptions, private ostensive definitions,
criteria, the ' inner ' and the ' outer '; minds and machines, and behavior /behaviorism. In the pursuit of this exposition Hacker embraces
familiar Wittgensteinian tenets of intention and technique; viz., one
must remember that it is one's own understanding one is trying to
grasp and reform, and it is only through repeated forays and examinations, from many different angles, that one comes to see the terrain
clearly.
In the exegesis of Philosophical Investigations # 243 Hacker carefully sorts out the " private language" whose possibility Wittgenstein denies: " ... his target is the idea of an unsharable language, one
which cannot, in principle, he made intelligible to anyone other than
its speaker. For the idea that such a language is not merely possible
but actual is an unnoticed presupposition ... underlying idealism . . .
and solipsism" (38).
In the essay on privacy Hacker vividly argues and illustrates how the
grammar of possession (" I have a pain") leads us to force an unfitting grammar on our language of sensation. Similarly, the tempting
language of certain knowledge ("Surely I know when I have a pain")
is disclosed as mistaken. The essay on private ostensive definition sorts
out the kind of " private language " under discussion by Wittgenstein;
i.e., a language existing anterior to and independently of any shared
language, the objects of whose referring expressions are knowable only
to the speaker of the language, because they are exclusively that
speaker's private subjective experiences. The aim is to show that the
idea of such a language, which is presupposed by the accounts of mind
and sensation produced by Locke, Descartes, and the other progenitors
and practitioners of modern philosophy up through the 20th century, is
incoherent. Hacker's discussion here admirably well integrates the issue
of the essentially private language with the matters of naming, ostensive
definition, and the provision of samples, all staple topics from the
critique of the "Augustinian Urbild" of language; i.e., the critique of
the supposedly primitive and contextless naming-relation as the foundation of all language.

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163

Hacker's discussion of the attribution of psychological states to
human beings, and not to their bodies, minds, body-parts, etc., puts him,
following Wittgenstein, at odds with much of the parlance of neuroscience. Brains don't see, hear, feel, etc.; people do. Similarly, he
works out the familiar view that mind is not a substantive entity named
by the noun "mind," so "thinking, perceiving, having emotions, wanting, intending, and resolving are not, pace Cartesians, properties of, or
activities performed by, the mind. It is living human beings ... that
reflect, ponder, and cogitate . . ." ( 155). From this it follows that
machines cannot think; and this is a grammatical remark, a statement
about how our language-the question whether its categories correspond with reality being nonsensical-obliges us to conceive things.
The heavy emphasis on the autonomy of grammar familiar to readers
of Hacker's other work on Wittgenstein will remind readers of this
work of the characteristic flavor of his interpretations. It reminds us
that Hacker often seems to he rendering a Wittgenstein whose view of
language seems to seal us inside existing grammatical forms without
provision for corrective recourse to how things are. By now, surely,
we all know that there is not going to he available to us anything like
a categorically neutral apprehension of how things are to serve as an
ultimate recourse; hut surely, too, few would he attracted by the apparently self-sealing consequences of the autonomy of grammar in
Hacker's sense.
In the essay "Avowals and Descriptions" Hacker clearly and authoritatively makes the case for understanding first-person, present-tense
pain language as avowing, rather than describing. Why does this matter? It matters because the descriptive reading-in which "I have a
pain" is an incorrigible description of a private, subjective situation
to which the speaker has direct, privileged, introspective access-is
part and parcel of the " classical picture of the relation between the
mental and the physical" (187) that is a chief target of Wittgenstein's
work. Hacker is scrupulous to guard the far flank of Wittgenstein's
position. The positive account, that present-tense, first-person pain language is avowing and expressive in character, hinges on the idea that
it grows out of and is an extension of our natural, unlearned behavioral
manifestations of pain. But these manifestations are not signs or
symptoms. They are part of the complex which, in living human beings,
we call" being in pain." Therefore, "to view avowals of pain as forms
of pain-behavior akin to moans or cries of pain is not to identify pain
with pain-behavior " ( 153) .
Hacker provides a concise history of behaviorism from Watson
through Russell to the Vienna Circle, noting that " when Wittgenstein
returned to philosophy in 1929, behaviorism was definitely in the air"
(231). But Wittgenstein did not simply embrace behaviorism. Rather,

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he saw the impetus toward behaviorism as a result of misconstrual of
sensation-language. That is, when the Cartesian model induces us to
construe sensation-language as referring to unobservable entities, a
principle of economy leads us to dispense with them. So to adopt behaviorism is one possible consequence of clinging to Cartesian categories. But is he some sort of crypto-behaviorist? Hacker's answer is
" No," on the ground that the logic of pain-avowals demands that they
be understood neither as a symptom of pain (Cartesian) nor as the
substance of pain (behaviorism), but as expressions of pain, pain which
while not a "something" referred to in pain-avowals, is (albeit obscurely) nevertheless not a "nothing" either. Hacker's excellent subessay on " Body and Behavior " sets out well the coherent view which
tends to sound rather lame in this " not-a-something/not-a-nothing "
version: in repudiating both " Cartesian and behaviorist conceptions of
body and behavior, as well as the Cartesian picture of mind" (251),
Wittgenstein is left with the rich, highly textured facts of human activity, in which we actually cannot see the " colourless movements"
alleged to be there by behaviorism. " What we see is expressive behavior ... " ( 253) . An essay on the pervasive metaphor of " the inner
and the outer " concludes " Chapter l " of the commentary and by implication marks Hacker's sense of the boundary between areas of discussion in the text of Philosophical Investigations. The break falls between ## 315-316.
The nature of thinking is the topic of the next "chapter," ## 316362. The great theme of the commentary in this section is to exhibit
Wittgenstein's attack on "the picture of an inner process of thought as
constituting the soul of language" (287). Hacker again provides
schematic maps graphically depicting the relations among the entries
in Wittgenstein's text and provides two essays: "Thinking: methodological muddles and categorial confusions, and " Thinking: The soul
of language."
Using the language of " mythology " and " superstition," Hacker expains that " the mystery of understanding language through the
medium of thought is produced by grammatical illusions," and the
"task of philosophy is ... to destroy those illusions" (297). The core
illusion is the idea that thinking is paradigmatically an inner, mental
process, an activity undertaken in the incorporeal medium of the mind.
This way of putting it shows how tightly this illusory paradigm is tied
to the preceding topic: thinking comes to seem a sort of silent speaking.
Hacker takes the hardest line to be wrung from Wittgenstein on this
question, explicitly decrying as a confusion of grammar the idea that
the brain is the organ of thinking, or that " thinking is a process or
activity of the brain " (309) . The grammar of thinking and the grammar of describing brain processes are of course wholly different. But

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Hacker, following Wittgenstein in his most flat-footed position (see for
example Zettel ## 608-609), seems to imply that brain activities have
nothing to do with thinking. But he also writes of " the correlation between thinking and parts of the cerebral cortex," calling it "contingent" and something that had to be discovered (308). What is sound
in Hacker's Wittgenstein is surely this: that just as thinking is not to
be identified as an incorporeal process occurring in the occult medium
of the mind (the blow at Cartesianism), so thinking is not to be identified as a physical process occurring in an organ of the body, the brain
(the blow at physicalism). Rather, the concept thinking is far more
diffuse and ramified than either of these paradigms would suggest, and
has to do with the complex behavior and interactions of living bodily
human beings in myriad social contexts.
But while the Cartesian mythology corresponds to just nothing
(there is no such incorporeal process) , the physicalist mistake is subtler
and needs subtler treatment. Surely we know there are physical processes of the brain that relate in discoverable ways to some of the sorts
of things we regard as cases of thinking. The relation is nothing like
the identity envisaged by the physicalist, and is probably irrelevant to
much or most of the grammar of thinking and thought. But to press
the point against physicalism as far as seeming to deny that brain activity ever has anything to do with thinking is to risk sounding absurd even to readers untempted by physicalist mind-brain identity
theories. Despite verging occasionally on this denial, Hacker's discussion follows a sound and accurate track through Wittgenstein's critique
of the" beguiling fallacy" (334) that thinking is an intrinsically meaningful mental language that vivifies spoken language by correlation
with it.
Moving from thought to imagination in Chapter 3, Hacker takes up
the stretch of text in Philosophical Investigations ## 363-397, again
providing the diagrams. The topics are imagining, mental images,
visual impressions, and related concepts. Identifying the " natural
philosophical impulse towards generalizations and imposition of unity
upon diversity " ( 399) as the ground of confusion, Hacker notes
Wittgenstein's insistence on the heterogeneity of the application of these
concepts. And what we need to do to attend to that heterogeneity is to
look at usage. In usage we find important disanalogies between the
grammar of imagining and the grammar of that concept we are most
tempted to use as its paradigm; namely, seeing. Hence, too, the analogy between imaginings and pictures weakens upon inspection, as does
that between visual impression and mental (visual) images. The main
burden of this discussion is to show that " seemingly intractable problems about the nature of the mind are . . . not empirical problems at

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all" and are, therefore, not subject to settling through experiment
(422).
Next comes a brief section on the self and self-reference (PI ## 398411) . In truth, the topic is certain uses of " I " and " my " which figure in philosophical problems. The point de depart is, of course, Cartesian metaphysics, and Hacker provides a genealogy of the modern
philosophical self via Locke, Hume, Kant and Schopenhauer. The
genealogy leads to the Tractatus, which drew on Schopenhauer and
Russell to produce an austere version of transcendental idealism.
Hacker narrates Wittgenstein's wrestling, in conversations with the
Vienna Circle, in Philosophical Remarks, and in The Blue and Brown
Books, with "I" as a source of confusion. What emerges is the view
that the search for the self or the I is unintelligible-" like looking for
the East Pole . . . It is not that one cannot find it, hut that nothing
would count as finding it" (487).
Similarly, the topic of Chapter 5, consciousness, is identified as a
locus of conceptual confusion. We do not, pace Cartesians, perceive
our consciousness. Nor is there, as the discourse of modern philosophy
would have us believe, a " world of consciousness." As for the "gulf "
between consciousness and body, the problem is a product of the typi·
cal source of philosophical confusion: " We project our own misunderstandings of the conceptual or grammatical articulations of our language onto reality, and rightly find reality thus conceived to he unintelligible" (522). But there is a criteriological relation between states
of mind (in a tamed, non-Cartesian sense) and states of the body (in
an enriched, non-reductionist sense). Yet "criterion" in Wittgenstein's usage is not a technical term on which hinges a theory of meaning, but a " modest instrument in the description of the ways in which
words are used" (546).
1£ a complaint is to be lodged against Hacker's approach in this
volume, it would pertain not to his scholarship, skill, or thoroughness,
hut to his Wittgensteinianism. There is not, as arguably there should
not be in an analytical commentary, any criticism of Wittgenstein's
mature perspectives here. But beyond that, Hacker frequently resorts
to Wittgenstein's concept of the autonomy of grammar. He consistently relies on the idea of philosophical practice as pure clarification, and
describes philosophical problems as rooted solely in confusions of
grammar, such that clarity resolves everything. This perhaps doctrinaire version of a genuinely strong Wittgensteinian theme sometimes
seems to brush puzzles aside, rather than solving them. For example,
we read " There is no deep mystery about how a living creature can he
conscious; after all, the alternative, for a sentient animal, to being conscious is being asleep or unconscious " ( 525) . Yes. But even after we
are disentangled from Cartesian problems-" How can a body he con·

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167

scious?" "How can mental substances relate to physical ones?"even then, to deflect philosophical thought about consciousness into the
distinction between being awake and being asleep may seem not to engage the puzzlement or the wonder that we bring to the issue. Now
maybe that puzzlement or wonder needs treatment, hut if so this should
he shown. Otherwise we may he left feeling the victim of verbal
brilliance, or of linguistic diversion. This, however, is a small quibble,
not a substantive problem in a work the size of Hacker's.
This is not the sort of hook one picks up to read through, even if
one is philosophically sophisticated and earnestly wants to understand
Philosophical Investigations. It is, rather, a hook-with its companions
in the series-to he consulted, read in, dipped into, sampled, and
savored, as an accompaniment to reading Wittgenstein. The exegetical
passages are strong, insightful, helpful. Extensive passages in the
original German are supplied at key points. Hacker is especially good
at displaying thematic flow and continuity through a difficult text. No
one, reading Hacker, could fail to see the tight focus on closely related
issues that generates Wittgenstein's unorthodox style. It is always clear
what he is getting at. So this series is a landmark, a monument in
Wittgenstein scholarship. It is an achievement worthy both of its
author and of its subject. Serious students of Wittgenstein will need access to these volumes.
]oHN CHURCHILL

Hendrix College
Conway, Arkansas

Prescription: Medicide. The Goodness of Planned Death. By JACK
KEVORKIAN. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1991. Pp.
268.
Jack Kevorkian's hook Prescription: Medicide defends two main
proposals: 1) death row inmates must he allowed to die under anesthesia so that they can donate their organs or undergo an experiment
if they choose; 2) the terminally ill must he given the freedom to die
by their own hand or another's in the manner described above and for
the same reasons.
The hook has three main sections corresponding to these proposals:
one on capital punishment (pp. 11-158), one on euthanasia (pp. 185end), and one on the ethical principles supporting his proposals (pp.
159-184). Much of the hook is historical, recounting the genesis of
the ideas and what has happened in the attempt to implement them.

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The tone is full of energy, enthusiasm, and frustration, the latter giving
rise to a host of ad hominems, some fallacious, some not.
Jack Kevorkian often dismisses his opponents as 'emotional,' and,
like many of us, he understands himself to he rational, logical, and
clear-headed. In view of this, one is particularly struck by the crude
self-contradictions in his hook. In some cases the contradictions occur
within three pages of each other, and there is at least one instance
where the contradiction occurs within a single sentence. Because of
these inconstancies, the reader will find no coherent theoretical basis
for Dr. Kevorkian's proposals.
Dr. Kevorkian is an ethical relativist who holds that no action is
right or wrong in itself, but right or wrong depending on the circumstances (p. 171). Yet he does not consistently maintain this. For example, he says on p. 188: " From that moment on I was sure that
doctor-assisted euthanasia and suicide are and always were ethical, no
matter what anyone says or thinks." On the next page he says something no ethical relativist can say: " If, therefore, such conduct was
ethical then, it's ethical now. Why the obvious double standard?" On
p. 86 with regard to experimenting on those condemned to death he
tells us of his " unshakable conviction that what [he] was trying to accomplish was unquestionably right. And it will always he right as long
as medicine is practiced and human beings are judicially destroyed."
On p. 175 we hear that an ' ideal doctor ' can handle any medical
ethical dilemma that might arise " if one essential principle remains
uppermost and permanently honored [my emphasis] in [his] ... mind:
the highest respect for the personal autonomy or self-determination of
the patient ..• Autonomy is paramount .... "
This same principle is mentioned in several other passages. On p. 29
he writes, " it [experimentation on capital offenders] would have to he
entirely voluntary on the part of the convicts ..•.. " On p. 37 he complains that the Nazi "never bothered about consent .... " Then on p.
89 he says " first, a condemned individual's autonomy must he respected at all times." It is clear that Dr. Kevorkian does not object to
having fixed principles at all. Rather, he simply objects to the ones
held by his opponents.
But one has to wonder how important and inviolable the autonomy
of the criminal is for Dr. Kevorkian. First of all, his theory, situation
ethics, does not support any moral absolutes. Second, when he first
mentions the importance of autonomy, he does so in connection with
the practical problem of getting his proposal accepted. " Thus, respect
for the condemned's personal autonomy eliminated another potential
problem for my planned crusade" (p. 29). Third, he himself places
limits on the importance and primacy of autonomy when he stipulates

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that " those who decide on anesthesia and experiments would be free
to change their minds; but revocation must be limited, say to within
one week of the scheduled date of execution (after which the initial
assent must stand), in order to avoid the waste of time, effort, and
money in preparing for the planned experiments " (p. 34, my emphasis). Not only is autonomy not absolute in Kevorkian's mind, it
cannot even measure up to goods as trivial as time, effort, and money.
Fourth, and maybe most important, Dr. Kevorkian emphasizes the
importance of making death, and especially capital punishment, positive. The execution of criminals today does no good. It is an essentially nihilistic aot measuring, at best, zero on the scale of good and bad.
Dr. Kevorkian wants us to do what the ancient Hellenistic Alexandrians
and medieval Cilician Armenians did: learn something from the people
we execute so that science can advance and society be benefited. Now
the Greeks and Armenians did not ask for consent from their condemned-if they had, they would have learned little or nothing, as few
if any would have consented-and they are praised by Dr. Kevorkian
for "dar[ing] to do what is right." I am suggesting that Dr. Kevorkian's respect for personal autonomy is a hindrance to his stated goal
of the advancement of science through human experimentation. For
even with today's anesthetics there will be far fewer volunteers on death
row than prospects.
In conjunction with his last point, consider Dr. Kevorkian's analysis
of the purpose of capital punishment. " The execution of a human
being should aim far higher than simply to satisfy the law. Such an
epochal event should serve as a means of elucidating the what, why, and
how of human thought and action-especially those of a criminal nature-and of health and disease, and of life and death" (p. 68). The
condemned are a valuable resource, and, in Jack Kevorkian's eyes, ·they
should not be wasted.
Finally, Dr. Kevorkian often speaks of the "debt" the criminal
owes to society.
Add all this together and you get state-mandated experimentation
on unwilling capital offenders. If the state has the right to take another person's life because of what he has done, why is it wrong for
it to stipulate that the manner of death must benefit society? Dr.
Kervorkian officially condemns such forced experimentation, but on
what ground? On p. 29 he says that it is " only fair and decent " to
respect the will of the convict. Does he suppose that after all moral
absolutes are gone, and " sanctity of life " is dismissed as mere invention, " fairness and decency " are sufficient to prevent us from
forcing criminals into experiments against their will, especially considering their " debt to society "? Probably not. If we can rightly

170

BOOK REVIEWS

take the lives of the condemned against their will, then their mode of
death is hardly an obstacle.
And what about euthanasia? Surprisingly, especially considering the
hook's title, Dr. Kevorkian devotes more space to the execution of
capital offenders. First, it is unclear whether he thinks euthanasia
should he legalized. But he does think a doctor should he allowed to
perform it. In this case it is called "medicide" (p. 202). In conjunc·
tion with this, a doctor should he allowed to advise people to end their
lives, or prescribe euthanasia. Hence the title Prescription: Medicide.
This is the medical specialty of which Dr. Kevorkian is at present the
only practitioner (at least in the US) .
But there is some confusion over whether Dr. Kevorkian thinks doc·
tors should he allowed to take life (euthanasia) , or only assist suicides.
For although he says medicide is euthanasia performed by a doctor
(see p. 202), he also says that with the dawn of his suicide machine
(" mercitron ") "no longer is there a need-or even an excuse-for
anyone to he the direct mediator of the death of another ... " (p. 233).
Those who can should do it themselves.
Be this as it may, the second part of Dr. Kevorkian's proposal is the
raison d'etre of the first. Those who wish to end their lives should he
given, like the death row convict, the option of donating organs or
undergoing an experiment. In connection with this, a new specialty,
"ohitiatry," should he developed to help bring something positive out
of death (p. 203). " Obitoria, or " suicide centers," would then be
opened up to run experiments and, when possible, harvest organs. Dr.
Kevorkian's ultimate goal is the institution of these ohitoria, and it is
for this that he practices medicide.
Does he not practice medicide in order to end the suffering of the
terminally ill? Look at what he says on p. 214 to one of his first candidates for death by the mercitron.
Under extraordinary circumstances like these [i.e. advising someone to
kill himself with the mercitron] I feel it is only decent and fair to explain my ultimate aim. I emprasized that it is not simply to help suffering or doomed persons to kill themselves-that is merely the first step,
an early distasteful professional obligation (now called medicide) that
nobody in his or her right mind could savor. I explained that what I find
most satisfying is the prospect of making possible the performance of
invaluable experiments or other beneficial medical acts under conditions
that this first unpleasant step can help establish-in a word, obitiatry •.•
(my emphasis).

Ending the patient's suffering is a reason, though clearly secondary.
The advancement of science is primary. There are other passages to
the same effect. Consider the final chapter, "Completing the Medical
Spectrum," where Dr. Kevorkian speculates over what science could
learn from experimenting on living human beings.

BOOK REVIEWS

171

This understanding of Dr. Kevorkian's purpose helps to make sense
out of a strange comment of his in an interview to the journal Free
Inquiry. There he says that ending agonizing suffering is a "minor
benefit " of euthanasia, and does not counter-balance the loss of human

life.
IK: Planned death is a system for making death, euthanasia, and
suicide positive instead of negative.
FI: And one positive benefit is that the patient will not suffer
agonizing pain and torment.
!K: That's a minor benefit. Minor benefits do not counter-balance
the loss of human life. But if the patient opts for euthanasia, or if
someone is to he executed, and at the same time opts to donate organs,
he or she can save anywhere from five to ten lives (Free Inquiry, Fall,
1991, p. 15, my emphasis).
Incredibly, ending agonizing pain and torment is only a minor benefit
in Dr. Kevorkian's eyes, a benefit so minor that it is not even a good
enough reason to take a patient's life. Dr. Kevorkian's campaign is
not, as it is made to seem, primarily for the sake of the terminally ill.
Their sufferings are also ended, but the campaign is chiefly for the
advancement of science and the benefit of future generations.
On p. 172 Dr. Kevorkian scornfully dismisses the danger that inevitable abuse will accompany the implementation of his idea. Such
concerns are tantamount to open admission of character weakness, he
says. But when one reads his book, one finds a person who has, like
many, rejected absolute moral laws (and any transcendent meaning to
life), who wants to bring good out of death, whose primary focus is
not his patients' well being, and who wants the medical profession to
be allowed to experiment on living human beings. Add to this that a
person may owe a debt to his society (be he a criminal or simply one
who has for many years benefited from his society) and we have a
recipe for abuse and atrocity.
ANDREW TARDIFF

University of Rhole Island
Kingston, Rhode Island

GENERAL INDEX TO THE THOM/ST
VOLUME 59 (1995)
ARTICLES
Augros, Robert M., Does Science say that Human Existence is
Pointless? .............................................
.
Buckley, James].,
Use of the Theology of Aquinas ..... .
Cahalan, John C., The Problem of Thing and Object in Maritain
Casarella, Peter J., On the "Reading Method" in Rorem's
.
Pseudo-Dionysius ......................................
Dewan, Lawrence, O.P., St. Thomas's Fourth Way and Creation .... .
Drost, Mark P., In the Realm of the Senses: St. Thomas Aquinas on
.
Sensory Love, Desire, and Delight .........................
Flannery, Kevin L., S.}., The Aristotelian First Principle of
.
Practical Reason .......................................
Hoping, Helmut, Understanding the Difference of Being: On the
Relationship between Metaphysics and Theology ............. .
Jones, John D., The Concept of Poverty in St. Thomas Aquinas's
Contra lmpugnantes Dei Cultum et Religionem .............. .
Knasas, John F.X., Thomistic Existentialism and the Proofs Ex Motu
at Contra Gentiles I, c. 13 ...............................
.
Lamont, John R. T., An Argument for an Uncaused Cause ......... .
Langan, John , S.J., Proportionality, Charity, and the Use of Nuclear
.
Weapons: A Reponse to Timothy Renick ....................
Liccione, Michael, Mystery and Explanation in Aquinas's
Account of Creation .....................................
.
Long, Steven A., Yves Simon's Approach to Natural Law ......... .
Macintosh, ]. ]., St. Thomas on Angelic Time and Motion ......... .
Mansini, Guy, O.S.B., Understanding St. Thomas on Christ's
Immediate Knowledge of God ............................
.
Marshner, William H., Aquinas on the Evaluation of Human Actions .
May, William E., The Splendor of Accuracy: How Accurate? ....... .
Palmer-Fernandez, Gabriel, A Note on the Relation of Pacifism and
Just-War Theory: Is There a Thomistic Convergence? ........ .

PAGE

577

517
21
633
371

47
441
189

409
591

261
617
223
125
547
91

347
465

247

INDEX Of ARTICLES (Continued)
PAGE

Pinckaers, Servais, O.P., The Use of Scripture and the Renewal of
Moral Theology: The Catechism and Veritatis Splendor . . . . . . . .
1
59
Potts, Michael, The Spatio-Temporal Theory of Individuation . . . . . . .
Rhonheimer, Martin, Intentional Actions and the Meaning of Object
A Reply to Richard McCormick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Ripperger, Chad, The Species and Unity of the Moral Act . . . . . . . . . .
69
Thompson, Christopher J., Benedict, Thomas, or Augustine?
The Character ofMaclntyre's Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Weinandy, Thomas, 0.F.M. Cap., The Case for Spirit Christology:
Some Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
REVIEWS
Auer, Johann, The Church: The Universal Sacrament of Salvation
(Porter, Lawrence B.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Blanchette, Oliva, The Perfection of the Universe According to
Aquinas: A TeleologicalCosmology (Gallagher, David M.) . . . . . . .
Bradley, Raymond, The Nature of All Being: A Study of Wittgenstein's
Modal Atomism (Churchill, John) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Braine, David, The Human Person: Animal and Spirit (Blosser,
Philip) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Burrell, David B., C.S.C., Freedom and Creation in Three
1raditions (Redpath, Peter A.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Del Colle, Ralph, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-Christology in
llinitarian Perspective (Weinandy, Thomas, O.F.M., Cap.) . . . . . .
Dulles, Avery, S.J., The Assurance of Things Hoped For:
A Theology of Christian Faith (Cessario, Romanus, O.P.) . . . . . . . .
Dussel, Enrique, ed., The Church in Latin America 1492-1992 (Cleary,
Edward L., 0.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Evans, G. R, Problems of Authority in the Reformation Debates
(Hendel, Kurt K.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Frei, Hans, Theology and Narrative: Selected Essays (Schner,
George P., S.J.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
George, Robert P., Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays
(Thomas A. Fay) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hacker, P.M.S., Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind (Churchill, John) . .
Haigh, Christopher, English Reformations: Religion, Politics,
and Society under the Tudors (Vidmar, John, O.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hall, Douglas C., The llinity: An Analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas'
Expositio of the "De llinitate" of Boethius (Rocca, Gregory P.,
O.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

140

485
336
341

489
656
645
330

326
493

146
161
512

318

INDEX OF BOOKS REVIEWED (Continued)
PAGE

Kevorkian, Jack, Prescription: Medicide. The Goodness of
Planned Death (Tardiff, Andrew) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Krapiec, Mieczyslaw Albert, O.P., Metaphysics: An Outline of the
History of Being (Knasas, John F.X.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Margerie, Bertrand de, S.J., An Introduction to the History of
Exegesis, vol. III: St. Augustine (Most, William G.) . . . . . . . . . . . .
Martin, Francis, The Feminist Question: Feminist Theology in the
Light of Christian 'l'radition (Young, Robin Darling) . . . . . . . . . . .
Mclnerny, Ralph, Aquinas on Human Action: A Theory of Practice
---, The Question of Christian Ethics (Frank,
William A.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mele, Alfred R., Springs of Action: Understanding Intentional
Behavior (Tracy, Thomas F.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nichols, Aidan, The Panther and the Hind: A Theological
History of Anglicanism (Soule, W. Becket, O.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
O'Grady, Paul, Henry VIII and the Conforming Catholics (Soule,
W. Becket, O.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Power, David N., O.M.I., The Eucharistic Mystery: Revitalizing the
Tradition (Walsh, Liam G., 0.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Santurri, Edmund and Werpehowski, William, eds., The Love
Commandments: Essays in Christian Ethics and Moral
Philosophy (Hibbs, Thomas S.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Schoot, Henk]. M., Christ the 'Name' of God: Thomas Aquinas on
Naming Christ (Krasevac, Edward L., O.P.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Stoeber, Michael, Evil and the Mystics' God:
Toward a Mystical Theodicy
---, Theo-monistic Mysticism: A HinduChristian Comparison (Clooney, Francis X., S.J.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Stump, Eleonore, ed., Reasoned Faith (Meynell, Hugo) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tanner, Kathryn, The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social
Justice (Werpehowski, William) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tavard, George, The Church, Community of Salvation:
An Ecumenical Ecclesiology (Porter, Lawrence B.) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wadell, Paul]., C.P., Friends of God: Virtues and Gifts in Aquinas
---, The Primacy of Love: An Introduction to the Ethics
of Thomas Aquinas Uohnson, Mark).........................
Weinandy, Thomas G., In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh: An Essay
on the Humanity of Christ (Grabowski, John S.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Zagzebski, Linda, ed., Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to
Reformed Epistemology (Degnan, Michael].)...........
.......
Zdybicka, Zofia]., U.C.J.A, Person and Religion: An Introduction
to the Philosophy of Religion (Knasas, John F. X.) . . . . . . . . . . . . .

167
152
506
674

653

332
666
156
137

313
503

662

498
659
140

508

649
670

323