THE CASE FOR SPIRIT CHRISTOLOGY:
SOME REFLECTIONS
THOMAS

WEINANDY,

O.F.M.,

CAP.

Greyfriars Hall, University of Oxford

I

N THE JUNE, 1992, issue of Theological Studies Roger
Haight, S.J., of the Weston School of Theology, authored
an essay entitled "The Case for Spirit Christology." 1 In
the December, 1992, issue of the same journal John Wright, S.J.,
of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, wrote a critical response entitled: "Roger Haight's Spirit Christology." 2 While
I fully endorse Wright's reservations, here I wish to offer some
of my own criticisms as well as expand upon some of his. 3
In order for a Spirit Christology to be viable Haight believes
that it must fulfill six criteria: 1) It must adequately explain why
Christians believe that their salvation is found in Jesus; 2) It
must be faithful to the Bible; 3) It must uphold the teaching of
the Councils, especially Nicaea and Chalcedon; 4) It must be intelligible and coherent; 5) It must respond to contemporary concerns, specifically the relationship of Jesus to the founders of other
1 Roger
Haight, S.J., "The Case for Spirit Christology," Theological
Studies 53(1992): 257-287. Hereafter referred to in the text by page numbers.
2 John
Wright, S.J., "Roger Haight's Spirit Christology," Theological
Studies 53(1992) : 729-735.
3 While this article will focus exclusively on Haight's
Spirit Christology,
much of what will be said here, by way of criticism, can be applied equally to
other expressions of Spirit Christology, since the various forms are quite
similar. Haight himself relies heavily upon and substantially agrees with
G. W. H. Lampe, " The Holy Spirit and the Person of Christ," in Christ,
Faith and History, ed. S. W. Sykes and J. P. Clayton (Cambridge: University Press, 1972) 111-130; and God as Spirit (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977).
For other recent examples of Spirit Christology see Haight's footnote 1, p.
257.

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religions; 6) It must be able to stimulate and empower Christian
life (see 260-262). As in Wright's response, I wish to examine
I-Iaight's Spirit Christology in light of these criteria.
I will begin with an extensive examination of Haight's second
criterion-faithfulness to scripture-for it is most central to his
whole enterprise. Then, more succinctly, I will address his other
criteria.
Biblical Revelation and Religious Language
The central, and therefore fatal, flaw within Haight's Spirit
Christology is that his understanding of '.' God as Spirit," upon
which the whole of his Christology is founded, is itself non-biblical. To discern Haight's understanding of " God as Spirit," we
must first examine his notion of religious language and the philosophy sustaining it.
For Haight, "the medium through which religious experience
takes place may be called a symbol, making all religious knowledge symbolic knowledge. A symbol is that through which something else is made present and known; a symbol mediates a perception and knowledge of something other" (263). While the
symbol makes the presence of God known, yet, precisely because
it is a symbol, God is beyond or transcends what is symbolized.
The symbol " both makes God present and points away from itself to a God who is other than itself" (263). Thus the symbolized " is" and " is not" the symbol (263).
Haight argues then that the biblical symbol, " the Spirit of
God " refers to God and is " materially and numerically identical
with God. God as Spirit is God" (266). However, God as
Spirit " indicates God at work, as active, and as power, energy,
or force that accomplishes something" (266-267). God as Spirit
refers not to God as he is immanent in himself, but to God as
he is "outside of himself," within the order of time and history.
Haight recognizes that the Old Testament also uses " Word"
and " Wisdom" as symbols along with " Spirit," but " all of
these symbols are basically the same insofar as they point to the
same generalized experience of God outside of God's self and im-

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manent in the world in presence and active power" (267). While
Haight acknowledges that these symbolic expressions were at
times personalized in the Old Testament, it would be wrong to
hypostatize them, that is, conceive them as objective and individual. To do so detracts, Haight believes, from the fact that they
are symbols of God himself and do not designate some intermediary between the world and God. Thus, " in order to preserve this primal quality of the biblical symbol Spirit, against the
tendency of objectifying a personification, I use the phrase God
as Spirit" (268). 4
Haight is correct that all religious language is, in some sense,
symbolic. However, his understanding of symbolic language is
not without ambiguity and error. This leads him to misrepresent
biblical language, and thus biblical revelation itself.
Firstly, he speaks, at times, of religious symbolic language as
being metaphorical. For example, Jesus as Savior is a "metaphor of understanding" (264). "God as Spirit" is a " metaphorical symbol" (267). The Old Testament use of "Word"
and " Wisdom " are " metaphors [which] contain imaginative
virtualities that reveal aspects of God" (267). He refers to the
" metaphorical and symbolic character of this term Spirit "
(267).
Now a metaphor is a word, phrase, action, etc., that is not literally applicable, such as " raining cats and dogs," or " a glaring
error." The Bible does use metaphor-God is said to be a rock,
or anthropomorphically, to possess eyes and ears. The statements
themselves are not literally true though they do express something that is true about God-that he is steadfast and faithful or
that he perceives human thought and action. However, while
terms, such as " the Spirit of God," "Wisdom," and " Word,"
are symbolic, they are not metaphors, for they are stating something that, in some sense, is literally true-God acts in time and
history by his Word, Wisdom, and Spirit in a way analogous to
the way human beings speak and act. There is something literally
4 Haight

is closely following Lampe here and refers to his God as Spirit,

37, 115-116, 179.

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true about what is expressed, even if what is said is not the whole
truth. Missing here in Haight's understanding of symbolic language is the traditional notion of the analogical use of religious
language where what is said about God is not just a metaphor,
but rather what is said actually lays hold of and literally corresponds to something true about God in himself and his activity.
This ambiguous understanding of symbolic language, however,
allows Haight to regard symbolic religious language as merely
metaphorical when he wishes to deny something within the Bible
that contradicts his notion of " God as Spirit," such as the personification of "Spirit," " Word," or " Wisdom."
Secondly, this leads to a more serious problem. Haight does
wish to maintain, as the above exposition of his thought confirms, that his notion " God as Spirit" actually does symbolize,
and thus truly express, the reality of God and his activity in the
world and within history. For Haight, however, the symbol itself " mediates " or " makes present and known " God. While
Haight then professes that " God as Spirit points to God as active" (268), underlying his understanding of the symbolic nature of religious language is a philosophy that does not see God
as actually acting in distinct and different kinds of ways in the
world or within history. (This becomes most evident when
Haight compares Jes us with the founders of other religions. All
religions embody " God as Spirit," that is, God's universal and
generic activity. There may be a difference of degree but not of
kind.) Rather the symbolic language itself mediates God's presence and merely articulates and expresses the continuous, generic
manner in which God is always "present" and "active." "The
metaphorical symbol of God as Spirit expresses the experience of
God's power and energy in creation; this power is seen in its
effects. The verbal or conceptual symbol points to the way God
is present in the world" (269). Thus the symbolic, for Haight,
expresses not a new and specific action of God as such, but rather
human insight into the transcendent nature of finite reality. The
symbolic gives utterance not to a new action of God, but to an
new insight of man. Because God's generic presence is perceived

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in a new way, God is said, symbolically or metaphorically, "to
act."
The philosophy behind Haight's understanding of religious
language then is hardly biblical. The Old Testament, when it
speaks of God ratifying a covenant with the Israelites, or inspiring
the prophets, or forgiving sins, or answering the prayers of the
poor is symbolically expressing, not just some human insight (although human beings did have to grasp what was happening),
but God's distinctive activity within history and in the lives of
individuals. The Israelites came to new knowledge because God
acted in a new way. Equally, the primary presupposition of the
New Testament is that God acted in a distinctive and new kind
of way in and through Jesus.
In summary-for Haight, human insight, expressed symbolically, is the immediate justification of revelation, and thus
man is the primary source of its meaning. Within the Bible,
God's specific and distinct action is itself revelatory, and therefore the source of its meaning, which is experienced and then expressed in a symbolic manner. For the Bible, God (by his revelatory action in word and deed) defines, specifies, and interprets
the symbol. For Haight, the symbol (of human origin) defines,
specifies, and interprets God.
The Spirit of God vs. God as Spirit
What has been said so far now converges upon Haight's use
of the term "God as Spirit." Despite Haight's continual appeal
to the necessity of a biblical perspective, the phrase " God as
Spirit " never once appears in the Bible. The Bible does speak of
" the Spirit of God " and Jes us tells us that " God is Spirit " (Jn
4 :24), but scripture never employs the idiom " God as Spirit."
This biblical absence does not necessarily discredit the expression,
for the Church does use non-biblical words and concepts to declare what it believes to be biblical revelation, such as Nicaea's
In this situation,
homoousios and Trent's "transubstantiation."
however, its absence is significant.

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The Old Testament's perception of the " Spirit of God" differs
in three ways from Haight's understanding of "God as Spirit."
Firstly, "Spirit of God" refers to God's distinctive activity in
history, and not just to human insight into God's generic presence
in history "as Spirit." Secondly, while " Spirit of God" in the
Old Testament is used to protect God's transcendence, yet it is
used precisely to affirm that the wholly other, as the wholly other,
(without losing his wholly otherness) is in our midst and acting,
and not the wholly other manifesting himself in some lesser degree or form " as Spirit." " God as Spirit" makes a non-biblical
separation between the wholly transcendent God and his lesser
manifestations in history "as Spirit "-as force, energy, power.
Thirdly, " Spirit of God" specifies the personal nature of the
God who acts in history. God personally acts in the Spirit and
not impersonally "as Spirit." " God as Spirit" subtly, but effectively, depersonalizes God. " God as Spirit " is no longer an
acting subject. Rather "God as Spirit" becomes the symbolic
expression of a philosophical principle-there is something transcendent or beyond (not necessarily a personal God) within the
realm of the historically finite that human beings can personally
embody, symbolically express, and so come to know. Haight's
understanding of " God as Spirit " is closer then to the metaphysics of Hegel and to the religious philosophy of Schleiermacher than to the revelation of the Bible. 5
Jesus and God as Spirit
Because Haight's basic concept of " God as Spirit" is nonbiblical, his Spirit Christology is not founded upon the New
Testament proclamation. Haight states that by Spirit Christology he means one " that ' explains ' how God is present and
5 While Haight continually appeals to the importance of historical revelation and our contemporary historical consciousness in order to advocate his
notion of "God as Spirit" and his Christology, yet his theology levels history.
History is only the backdrop for man to discern God's generic presence, rather
than the divine drama in which God himself acts in new and distinctive kinds
of ways. History no longer bears a divine expectancy.

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active in Jesus, and thus Jesus' divinity, by using the biblical
symbol of God as Spirit, and not the symbol Logos" (257).
Jesus then is not the eternal Son of God who came to exist as a
man; rather he is a man who incarnates in a pre-eminent manner " God as Spirit." 6 Haight believes that this is more in
keeping with the Synoptic portrayal of Jesus as speaking and acting by the power of the Spirit. Also, " God as Spirit " gives rise
to his filial consciousness and sense of mission (see 269). Equally, the apparent equating of the Spirit and the risen Christ within
the early Church tends to confirm this understanding (see 270271 ). 7
[Thus] the symbol of the Spirit more forthrightly makes the claim
that God, God's very self, acted in and through this Jesus. This
stands in contrast to the symbols of God's Word and Wisdom which,
insofar as they became personified and then hypostatized, tend to
connote someone or something distinct from and less than God that
was incarnate in Jesus even though it is called divine or of God. By
contrast the symbol of God as Spirit is not a personification of God
but refers directly to God, so that it is clear from the beginning that
nothing less than God was at work in Jesus (272).
Haight argues, in the above quotation, that "God, God's very
self, acted in and through this Jesus." He believes that this adequately accounts for Jesus' divinity. This understanding, however, is scripturally deficient in three ways. Firstly, this " self"
is not God as he exists in himself wholly as God, but the lesser
expression of himself "as Spirit." Thus, while Haight claims
that it is "nothing less than God at work in Jesus," it is not the
" whole fullness of deity " that dwells in him bodily (Col 2 :9).
Secondly, as Wright in his response emphasizes, Haight neglects
significant portions of the New Testament, specifically the heart
6 Lampe states:
" In this continuous incarnation of God as Spirit in the
spirits of men the Jesus presented to us by the Gospels holds his unique place.
. . . In Jesus the incarnate presence of God evoked a full and constant response of the human spirit. This was not a different presence, but the same
God the Spirit who moved and inspired other men, such as the prophets "
(God As Spirit, 23-24).
7 Again, Haight is much indebted to Lampe's exegesis, Cf, God As Spirit,
62-94.

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of the New Testament proclamation that Jesus is the unique Son.
That Jesus is Son of God is declared or implied throughout the New
Testament. Jesus is not just a son of God like every other believer,
but God's 'beloved Son' (Matthew 3 :17), 'his own Son' (Romans
8:3), to whose image we are predestined to be conformed (Romans
8:29), 'his only begotten Son' (John 1:14; 3:16). Paul's preaching of the gospel ' concerns his Son ' (Romans 1 :3). This Son is involved in the creation of the world: e.g. 1 Corinthians 8 :6; Colossians
1 :15-17; Hebrews 1 :2; John 1:3). 8
Moreover, even within the Synoptics, Jesus' divinity is implied
and revealed in such passages as the Infancy Narratives, in his
unique authority as Son to forgive sins and to augment God's
commandments, etc. (see Lk 1 :32-35, Mt 1 :23, Mk 2 :1-12, Mt
5 :21-48). Furthermore, and most obviously, as Wright also
notes, " Haight does not take serious account of the Christology
of John." 9 Thirdly, while Haight speaks of Jesus' filial consciousness and of " God as Spirit in his life " as the " ground
of Jesus' sonship" (269), yet the concept "God as Spirit" necessarily brings to Haight's Christology an impersonalism that is
totally absent in the New Testament. Jesus is not the eternal Son
who now as man relates to the Father in love and obedience, but
becomes " son " by incarnating " God as Spirit," that is, the
force, energy, and power of God. Despite Haight's disclaimer,
this is adoptionism, or rather "symbolic adoptionism." 10 What
Jesus is actually doing is embodying the philosophical principle
that there is something transcendent within the finite which is
symbolically called " God as Spirit."
Because of the impersonal nature of Haight's Christology, it is
not surprising that he never once refers to the Father. Significantly too, the ·emerging and even developed personal subjectivity
of the Holy Spirit within the New Testament is completely lost
s Wright, 730-731.
9 Wright states: "It is not only that he [Haight]
neglects John's teaching
on the Logos with God in creation (John 1 :1-3) and the affirmation of the
incarnation of the Logos (John 1 :14), but he also takes no account of the 'I
am ' assertions of the J ohannine Jesus " (731).
1.-0 Both Haight and Lampe believe that by saying Jesus embodied " God as
Spirit" from the first moment of his existence they have freed themselves

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within Haight's Christology. The Holy Spirit is not a divine
subject who anoints Jesus and sanctifies his followers, but the impersonal force or energy of the transcendent God which Jesus
and others embody and so " personalize " in themselves.
Jesus and Salvation
Given Haight's Christology, it is easy to discern his soteriology. Jesus brings salvation in that through embodying " God
as Spirit" he discloses in a preeminent manner, and so becomes
the paradigm for, how God has always acted and is present. This
revelation in turn empowers his disciples to follow his example.
It is a " revelational and exemplary theory of salvation" (278).
"Jes us saves by being the revealer of God and God's salvation
which God as Spirit has effected from the beginning, the revelation of what human life should be, and the empowering example
of life for disciples " ( 278). Haight again professes that this
soteriology is biblical in nature. While containing biblical elements, it is far from the whole truth, and by what it lacks it completely distorts New Testament soteriology.
Haight does not address the biblical notion of sin and its radical effect upon our relationship with God and others. Nor does
he envision the devastating effect that sin has upon us as human
beings. Because of this, his notion of salvation is Pelagian and
Gnostic. Jes us is the Gnostic redeemer who reveals to us and is
the paradigm for how we are to relate to God and so become
human. Once we have learned the lesson, we can do it on our
own. Equally, Haight reduces the Gospel to pure moralism, for
we are justified and saved not through faith, but merely by imitating Christ through our ethically good actions (see 278).
from adoptionism. Cf. Haight, 277; Lampe, " The Holy Spirit and the Person
of Christ," 125-126. The issue of adoptionism, however, is not a question of
timing, but a question of who ] esus is. Is the historical ] esus the eternal Son
of God existing as a man? Or, is he a man who is in some manner united
to God and so constituted his son? If the latter is the case, the time or manner
does not ultimately matter. It is still adoptionistic. If the Son is not God,
then the sonship is always one of adoption. Only if ] esus is the eternal Son
of God, and therefore needs no adoption, since he is Son by nature, can adoptionism be overcome.

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Moreover, once Jesus has revealed to us how we are to live
and so furnished the ultimate salvific clue of the universe, his importance ceases. The historical Jesus in himself is not the Savior.
He is purely a Gnostic functionary who performed his task of
putting us in the know. Gone is the biblical, historical Jesus who
took the sins of all upon himself and died, and now, as the risen
Lord, pours out his Spirit, intercedes for us in heaven, personally acts within the Church and sacraments, and who will come
again in glory.
In contrast, the New Testament professes that through Jesus'
historical death and resurrection our relationship with God and
with one another changes not in degree (from good to better),
but in kind (from bad to good). Jesus did not supremely reveal
an already founded relationship with God, and thus enable those
who follow to utilize better the pre-established salvific program;
rather through his death and resurrection, he changed in kind
our relationship with God. A whole new salvific order is initiated. We go from being enemies of God to being children of the
Father. Moreover, those who now live in Christ possess a relationship with one another that differs in kind from their relationships with those who do not believe. Furthermore, because of
and simultaneous to our new relationship to God, those who believe are changed, not in degree, but in kind. We become a new
creation in Christ, for the Holy Spirit now dwells in us in a new
way. 11
Jesus' lack of contemporary importance can also be seen
in Haight's view of Christian prayer. Because Jesus is a human
being who incarnates " God as Spirit," one does not really worship Jesus, but worships God through Jesus (see 283-284).
Haight admits that there are a few instances of prayer to Jesus
in the New Testament. Here again, however, he misrepresents
the scriptures. The recognition of Jesus as Lord means that our
relationship to him as Lord is one of worship (see Jn 20 :28,
Phil 2 :10-11). Moreover, the whole of the Book of Revelation
11 For a fuller expression of how salvation "differs in kind" see: T. Weinandy, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh: An Essay on the Humanity of Christ,
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993), pp. 85-88.

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is a portrayal of heavenly worship of the Father and the Son.
Not to worship Jesus, besides being contrary to the whole Christian tradition, radically transforms the nature of Christianity.
Christians, by definition, worship, adore, and glorify Jesus as
their Lord and God.12
In light of these criticisms, we are compelled to conclude that
Haight's Spirit Christology does not fulfill his second criterionthat of being faithful to the scriptures.
Spirit Christology and the Councils
Haight believes that his Spirit Christology is fully in keeping
with the doctrines enunciated at the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, namely that Jesus is truly God and truly man. In claiming that by hypostatizing the Logos one runs the risk of imposing a lesser intermediary between God and man, and by emphasizing instead that " not less than God was present to and operative in Jesus," Haight actually circumvents the heart of Nicaea' s
teaching.
Nicaea precisely proclaimed (against Arius) that the Son was
not some semi-divine intermediary, but that he was fully divine,
homoousios with the Father. While Haight consistently quotes
Chalcedon's statement that Jesus is homoousios with man, he
never quotes Nicaea's that the Son is homoousios with the Father.
The reason for this is simply discerned. H omoousios bears upon
one's ontological status. Haight does want to say that Jes us is
man, but he does not want to say that Jesus actually is God. This
is, however, expressly what Nicaea wishes to ensure. The historical Jesus, as the Son, is not only " not less than God," he also
ontologically is God. All that the Father is, the Son is. The Son
is not just "adverbially" God, as Haight maintains (287) .18
12 Wright comments : " Christian experience of Jesus is expressed in doxologies given to him in the New Testament (e.g. Heb 13 :21; 2 Pet 3 :18; Rev
5 :13) and found in Christian worship ever since. An experience of Jesus is
expressed in Thomas's profession of faith repeated by countless believers after
him: 'My Lord and my God! ' CJ ohn 20 :29). These expressions are not directed simply to God as Spirit dwelling in him, but to Jesus himself. Haight's
Spirit Christology does not justify this aspect of Christian experience" (730).
13 As Haight notes, he obtains this notion of Jesus being " adverbially "
divine from Lampe. Cf. " The Holy Spirit and the Person of Christ,'' 124.

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He (verbally) is God. This, Haight's Spirit's Christology will
not allow. Jesus may incarnate " God as Spirit" to the highest
degree possible, but God himself, in the whole of his reality as
God, is not man.
On the question of preexistence, Haight argues that in order
to assure that Jesus is thoroughly like us, one cannot " really
think of a preexistence of Jesus," since that would demand that
he be substantially different from us. As preexistent he would be
a different kind of man (276) .1 4 This argument misses the point
entirely. The eternal Son, as God, preexists; not Jesus as man.
As Wright remarks : " No one ever understood preexistence in
this way, so why trouble to refute it? " 15 We must remember
though that for Haight, if Jes us did preexist, he would necessarily
preexist as a man, since within his Christology there is no preexistent divine Son. Nonetheless, Haight attacks this bogus
heresy precisely because it helps to undermine the preexistence of
the Son as God and provides a platform for insisting that Jesus
incarnates "God as Spirit," which then guarantees that Jesus is
not only fully man but also only a man.
This same contrived confusion is evident on the question of
whether or not Jesus differs from us in kind or in degree. For
Haight, to say that Jesus is qualitatively different from us would
be " directly contradictory to the doctrine of the consubstantiality
of Jesus with other human beings " (279) .16 Again, no orthodox
theologian or council ever held that Jesus' humanity was different
in kind from ours. What the Christian tradition has always insisted upon, and which Haight denies, is that Jesus' sonship differs from us in kind since he is the eternal Son, and therefore that
God is present in Jesus in a different way, that is, as incarnate.
Haight's philosophy will allow only one kind of relationship with
argues in a similar vein. Cf. God As Spirit, 120-144.
Wright, 731.
16 It is interesting that those segments of the tradition with which Haight
agrees are called " doctrines," such as Jesus being homoousios with us, but not
those with which he disagrees, such as Jesus being homoousios with God.
14 Lampe

15

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God, that is, the embodying of " God as Spirit," and therefore,
by necessity, Jesus can only differ from us by degree in that he
incarnates " God as Spirit " more than we do.17
Haight, obviously, wishes to ensure the full humanity of Jesus
and believes that the traditional understanding of the Incarnation
jeopardizes this since the personhood of Jesus is the eternal Son.
While a discussion of this cannot be fully undertaken here, it
must be said that to specify the divine subjectivity of Jesus in no
way implies that he is less than human. He possess all that pertains to being human, including a human self-conscious "I."
What the councils and the tradition wished to ensure was that
the subjective identity of that human "I" was the eternal Son
of God. Not to acknowledge that Jesus is truly the Son of God
thoroughly abandons the significance of the full humanity and
thus of the Incarnation itself.18
With regard to the Trinity, Haight admits that the traditional
language about three persons in one God " is not directly reflected
in Spirit Christology " and that " more speculation will be
needed" (285-286). He denies that there is any intrinsic or
necessary relationship between the developed trinitarian doctrine
and the New Testament (see 285). Moreover, "the economic
Trinity is distinct from the doctrine of the immanent Trinity . . .
and the former does not necessarily entail the latter" (285).
Here, in speaking about the Trinity, Haight exposes how truly
non-biblical is his Spirit Christology. The personalism and the
communion of life between persons, which is so prevalent in the
Bible, is absent. Not only is the being of God no longer a communion of life and love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
17 While Haight states that he does not hold that the traditional Logos
Christology is wrong, but rather wishes " to characterize a Christology that is
more adequate to our situation" (259), actually the traditional Logos Christology is the only Christology that is ruled out of court.
18 For a fuller discussion of how the eternal Son can become man without
diminishing his humanity, see T. Weinandy, Does God Change?: The Word's
'Becoming' in the Incarnation (Petersham: St. Bede's Press, 1985), 96-100,
184-186; and In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh, 11-13. See also Jean Galot, The
Person of Christ (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), and Who Is
Christ? (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1981), 279-311.

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but also God no longer shares this communion of life with us.
" Father," " Son/Word," and " Spirit " only function as symbols or metaphors of our human perception of a solitary "transcendent being." He is not a God who acts, much less a trinity
of persons who desire to form a common life with us. Haight is
less than an Old Testament monotheist. He is simply, at best, a
unitarian. 19
Thus Haight does not meet his third criterion of being faithful to the tradition and to the councils. Nor then is his fourth
criterion feasible for the viability of his Spirit Christology-intelligibility and coherence. Wright is correct when he writes : " It
seems to me that Haight's position is coherent within itself, but
not with the experience of most Christians, with the teaching of
the New Testament, nor with the Councils of the Church and the
Great Tradition generally." 20
Jesus and Other Salvation Bringers
Haight's fifth criterion, that Christianity must take into account other religions and their founders can now be briefly examined. Haight writes : " In an historicist framework and on the
basis of a Spirit Christology one also confesses that Jesus is an
ontological mediation of God that is decisive, definitive, final, and
even absolute, provided that these determinations are not construed exclusively, as negating the possibility that God as Spirit
is at work in other religions " ( 282). Jesus may be decisive and
absolute for Christians, but this decisiveness and absoluteness is
relative because God is working in the same kind of way in other
religions-as Spirit.
However, this again is contrary to the New Testament and to
the Christian tradition. Granted that God can and does work in
other religions, yet Christians believe that Jesus, as the Son of
God incarnate, differs from other founders of religion not only
in degree (as Haight maintains), but in kind. Moreover, unlike
19 In response to Lampe's God As Spirit, E. L. Mascall wrote an essay
"Quicunque Vult ... ? Anglican Unitarians," in his Whatever Happened to
the Human Mind? (London: SPCK, 1980), 97-127.
20 Wright, 733.

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the founders of other religions, who in themselves are unimportant, but function as couriers of an important religious message
which is not about themselves, Jesus is himself fundamentally
significant and not just a proclamation about something apart
from himself. Jesus is himself the message. He is the way, the
truth, and the life CJ n 14 :6). He is the resurrection and the life
(Jn 11 :25). The Church preaches Jesus Christ and him crucified
( 1 Cor. 1 :23). Before him every knee is to bend and every voice
proclaim that he is Lord (Phil 1 :10-11). Jes us himself was important within his earthly life because only in his death and resurrection is sin and death vanquished so that now in him, as the
risen Lord, we have a new kind of life with Father, the fullness
of the Holy Spirit and the promise of eternal life. Many people
from other religions may get to heaven, but they will do so because in Jes us' name alone do we have salvation (Acts 4: 12). 21
Reason and Inspiration
In light of all that has been said, Haight's position does not
uphold his first and sixth criteria-that Christology justify our
faith in Jesus and inspire Christian life. Within Haight's Spirit
Christology there is little reason to believe in Jesus. Actually, as
noted earlier, the biblical concept of faith has been abandoned.
Faith is not an intellectual acceptance of nor a personal commitment to Jesus as Lord and Savior by which we are justified and
made holy, but is reduced merely to imitation. What we truly
require is the means to discern how to live a " good life " and
then live it. A noble philosopher could do as well as Jesus, although he would inevitably not practice what he preached. Jesus'
perfect example may then inspire us, but he is not the eternal Son
of God who has actually experienced our human plight, nor is he
our Savior who has radically changed our desperate condition. 22
21 Wright
believes that Haight's Spirit Christology "seems to undercut
radically the mission of the Church" to preach the gospel to all nations (734).
22 Wright states:
"At least for myself, as I contemplate a purely human
Jesus, though one in whom the Spirit is fully operative, I experience an immense sadness and sense of loss : for this would mean that God after all did not
love us enough to become one of us and die for us. But Haight thinks that
such a Jesus is one we can follow more readily " ( 734) .

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WEINANDY,

O.F.M.,

CAP.

In a world racked with so much injustice and war and in the pain
of sin and death that inflicts our personal lives we need a God
who does more than provide us moral encouragement.
This essay could be construed as being merely negative. 23 However, my goal has not been just to demonstrate the inadequacy of
Haight's Spirit Christology, but to defend the gospel as it has
been passed down to us through the Church. The only message
that gives life is this gospel, revealed and protected by the Spirit
of truth and lived out by the saints of all ages.

23 This essay should not be interpreted as implying that I see no role for the
Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus. Actually, I believe traditional Christology and
soteriology have been quite deficient in their understanding of the position of
the Holy Spirit. See Weinandy, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh, 59-60, 97,

102, 150-151.

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE OF BEING:
ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
METAPHYSICS AND THEOLOGY
HELMUT

HOPING

University of Tubingen, Germany

T:

Introduction

HE PHILOSOPHY of the twentieth century has been
o no small extent a critique of metaphysics. Admittedly,
philosophical programs have been developed in which the
tradition of metaphysics survives. Yet the position of metaphysics
in the modern age is disputed even today-as is demonstrated by
the recent controversy between Jiirgen Habermas and Dieter
Henrich about the possibility of metaphysics after Kant. 1 Since

1 See J. Habermas, "Ruckkehr zur Metaphysik: Eine Tendenz in der deutschen Philosophie?" Merkur 439/440, 39 (1985): 898-905; "Metaphysik nach
Kant," in K. Cramer et al., eds., Theorie der Subjektivitiit: Dieter Henrich
zum 60. Geburtstag (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978), 425-443. (Both
articles are reprinted in J. Habermas, Nachmetaphysisches Denken: Philosophische Auf siitze [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1988], 18-34; 267-279.)
Henrich replied to Habermas's critique in the article "Was ist Metaphysik,
was Moderne?: Thesen gegen Jurgen Habermas," Merkur 440, 40 (1986):
495-508 (reprinted in D. Henrich, Konzepte: Essays zur Philosophie der Zeit
[Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1987], 11-43). On the controversy between
Habermas and Henrich, see V. Gerhardt, " Metaphysik und ihre Kritik: Zur
Metaphysikdebatte zwischen Jurgen Habermas und Dieter Henrich," Zeitschrift fur philosophische Forschung 42 (1988) : 45-70. Habermas's notion of
a " return to metaphysics " undoubtedly has a certain diagnostic value; after
all, there has indeed been a recent " discovery " of metaphysics. But Habermas's criticism of the concept and content of metaphysics-i.e., his thesis that
after Kant metaphysics is impossible-not only contradicts the self-understanding of modern philosophy for which metaphysics is essential; it also fails to
recognize the metaphysical implications of his own theory of communicative
action. See W. C. Zimmerli, "Kommunikation und Metaphysik: Zu den
Anfangsgrunden von Habermas ' ' Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns,' " in
W. Oelmuller, ed., M etaphysik heute? Kolloquien zur Gegenwartsphilosophie,
vol. 10 (Paderborn: SchOningh, 1987), 97-111.

189

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metaphysics has been indispensable for the self-understanding of
philosophy in the modern age up until Hegel, this controversy
cannot be reduced to the simple disjunction: either the "end of
metaphysics" or the "return to metaphysics "-as Habermas
has suggested. The task of philosophy today lies in a metaphysical form of thinking that remains possible even after the
critique of metaphysics in Kant and Heidegger.
Until recently, the current debate about metaphysics has not
been adequately addressed by theology. That is surprising because metaphysics is also indispensable for theology. 2 But in the
light of the modern critique of metaphysics, the self-understanding
of theology and its relationship to metaphysics cannot remain unchanged-just as the self-understanding of metaphysics itself cannot remain unchanged. Yet at least in the realm of Catholic theology, the traditional doctrine of the praeambula fidei has not
been abandoned.
The aim of the following reflections is to show that the determination of the relationship between metaphysics and theology
depends upon how metaphysics understands the " difference of
Being" that is given with the manifold of beings. I will introduce
four different understandings of the " difference of Being": that
which is found in Aquinas's metaphysics; that in Kant's transcendental philosophy; that in Heidegger's thinking of Being; and
that in the metaphysics of the absolute projected by Henrich. In
some concluding reflections, I will then try to draw out some
implications of these understandings of the " difference of Being "
for the determination of the relationship between metaphysics and
theology.
I. Metaphysics of God and Creation :
Theological Difference (Aquinas)
It is well-known that Thomas Aquinas defines metaphysics as
the science of being qua being. The subject-matter that dis2 See W. Kasper, " Zustimmung zum Denken: Von der Unerlasslichkeit der
Metaphysik fiir die Sache der Theologie," Tiibinger Theologische Quartalschrift 169 (1989) : 257-271.

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tinguishes metaphysics from all other sciences is the ens inquantum est ens 3 or the ens commune. 4 Contrary to later concepts of
metaphysics, this is not an abstract-universal, for " the term ' a
being' [ens], which is applied to a thing by reason of its being
[esse], designates the same thing as the term which is applied by
reason of its essence." 5 Now the ratio entis of metaphysicsbased on a negative judgment that Aquinas calls separatio 6-is
not simply the same as the concept of being that " the intellect
first conceives as most known." 7 The discovery of metaphysics
leads to the knowledge of the principles of its subject-matter. And
it is well-known too that according to Aquinas the understanding
of being qua being is ultimately only possible in relation to a divine being. Although the divine being does not fall under the enl>
commune, 8 metaphysics deals with everything that is called "being." And theology is the goal and the conclusion of metaphysics.
Therefore, theology can be another name for first philosophy. 9
So both metaphysics and theology signify one and the same science.
If metaphysics deals with everything that is called "being,"
then a higher science going beyond that science seems to be impossible, for a science can only exist about being. 10 Now besides
InDe trin.,q. 5, a.4c (ed. Decker, 194:23-27).
In Met. Prooem. (ed. Marietti, 2).
5 In IV Met., lect. 2 (ed. Marietti, n. 558).
6 In De trin., q. 5, a. 3c (ed. Decker, 186 :13-16).
7 Illud autem quad primo intellectus concipit quasi notissimum et in quod
omnes conceptiones resolvit est ens (De ver., q. 1, a. le [ed. Leonina XXII/1,
5 :100-102]).
8 Ens commune est proprius effectus causae altissimae, scilicet Dei (Sum.
Theo. I-II, q. 66, a. 5, ad 4 [ed. Leonina VI, 436]).
9 Prima
philosophia tota ordinatur ad Dei cognitionem sicut ad ultimum
finem uncle et scientia divina nominatur (III Cont. Gent., c. 25 [ed. Marietti,
n. 2063]).
1 0 Non entis non est scientia (In Sent., pro!., a. 1, ob. 1 [ed. Mandonnet]).
See also : Praeterea, doctrina non potest esse nisi de ente: nihil enim scitur
nisi verum, quod cum ente convertitur. Sed de omnibus entibus tractatur in
philosophicis disciplinis, et etiam de Deo . . . Non fuit igitur necessarium,
praeter philosophicas disciplinas, aliam doctrinam haberi (Sum. Theo. I, q. 1,
a. 1 ob. 2 [ed. Leonina IV, 6]).
3

4

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the theology that is "part of philosophy," Thomas recognizes the
theology of "Sacred Scripture."
Theology or divine science is twofold : one in which divine things
are considered not as the subject of the science but as principles of
the subject-matter, and this is the theology pursued by philosophers,
which by another name is known as metaphysics; the other kind of
theology considers divine things themselves as the subject of the science, and this is the theology which is treated in Sacred Scripture. 11
The two theologies are generically distinct,1 2 for they belong to
different sciences, which Aquinas calls metaphysica and sacra
doctrina or (rarely) theologia. So metaphysics and theology
signify not only one and the same science but also two different
sciences.
The theology that is different from metaphysics is-like metaphysics-wisdom, ordering knowledge
the basis of knowing
the first causes and highest principles of everything. Yet it is not
metaphysics but rather theology as scientia prinicipalis that has
sovereignty over all other sciences subordinate to itself.13 The
reason for this is that theology deals with the truths of the incomprehensible God towards whom man is directed " as to an
end which surpasses the grasp of his reason." 14 But metaphysics
has a knowledge about God only as the "first principle" of all
beings 15 and this knowledge of God is known only by a few, after
11 Sic igitur theologia, sive scientia divina, est duplex. Una in qua considerantur res divinae, non tamquam subiectum scientiae, sed tanquam principia
subiecti, et talis est theologia quam philosophi prosequuntur, quae alio nomine
metaphysica dicitur. Alia vero quae ipsas res divinas considerat propter seipsas
ut subiectum scientiae, et haec est theologia quae in sacra scriptura traditur
(In De trin, q. 5, a. 4c [ed. Decker, 195 :6-11]). See also In I Sent., pro!.,
a. 1, sol. (ed. Mandonnet, 7-8); In De trin., q. 2, a. 2c (ed. Decker, 87:7-15);
I Cont. Gent., c. 3 (ed. Marietti, nn. 21-27); Sum. Theo. I, q. 1, a. le (ed.
Leonina IV, 6).
12 Unde theologia quae ad sacram doctrinam pertinet, differt secundum genus
ab ilia theologia quae pars philosophiae ponitur (Siiin. Theo. I, q. 1, a. 1, ad
2 [ed. Leonina IV, 7]).
13 In I Sent., pro!., a. 1, sol. (ed. Mandonnet, 8) .
14 Homo ordinatur ad Deum sicut ad quendam finem qui comprehensionem
rationis excedit (Sum. Theo. I, q. 1, a. le [ed. Leonina IV, 6]).
1 5 I Cont. Gent., c. 3 (ed. Marietti, n. 16).

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a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. 16 Theology
makes up for these inadequacies of philosophy.17
The unity of theology as a science different from metaphysics
cannot result from the ratio entis; otherwise there would not be
two different sciences. The proprium subiectum 18 through which
the theology of Sacred Scripture is distinguished from all other
sciences,19 i.e., the formal object that constitutes its unity, is God
himself.20 Contrary to metaphysics, which considers everything
inasmuch as it is "being," Le., sub ratione enJtis, theology considers everything sub ratione Dei. 21 Moreover, the subject-matter
of the theology that is different from metaphysics cannot simply
be the divine being insofar as it is known through natural reason,
but rather the divine being insofar as it is knowable through revelation. 22 The subject-matter of the theology of Sacred Scripture is
a quidam credibile 23 for which there exists no ratio demonstrativa
but only a ratio persuasoria.24
16 I Cont. Gent., c. 4 (ed. Marietti, n. 22-25) ; Sum. Theo. I, q. l, a. le (ed.
Leonina IV, 6).
11 In I Sent., pro!., a. 1, s.c. (Ed. Mandonnet, 7).
1s In I Sent., pro!., a. 4, ob. 3 et s.c. (ed. Mandonnet, 8) .
1 9 In I Sent., pro!., a. 4, sol. (ed. Mandonnet, 15-16).
20 Sum. Theo. I, q. 1, a. 3c et ad 1 (ed. Leonina IV, 12).
2 1 Omnia enim quae in haec scientia considerantur, sunt aut Deus, aut ea
quae ex Deo et ad Deum sunt (In I Sent., pro!., a. 4, sol. [ed. Mandonnet,
16]).
2 2 Sum. Theo. I, q. 1, a. 3c (ed. Leonina IV, 12). Thomas speaks of "inspiration" in In I Sent., prol., a. 4, sol. (ed. Mandonnet, 16).
2 3 In I Sent., pro!., a. 4, sol. (ed. Mandonnet, 15).
24. In De trin., q. 2, a. 1, ad 5 (ed. Decker, 84 :3-4). The theology of "Sacred
Scripture " is a science sui generis based on the " science of God and the
Blessed" (Sum. Theo. I, q. 1, a. 2c [ed. Leonina IV, 9]). Aquinas avoids
speaking of the theology that is different from metaphysics as a "dialectical
science,'' as Al-Farabi and Avicenna speak of kalam. Both classic kalam and
falsafa do not distinguish between philosophy and theology as did Christian
theologians in the Middle Ages (see R. M. Frank, "The Science of Kalam,''
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 2 [1992]). According to Al-Farabi and Avicenna, the difference between kalam and falsafa is that in kalam there exist
only " dialectical arguments,'' i.e., arguments based on opinions. Since the
theology of Sacred Scripture cannot regard the articles of faith as mere
opinions, Aquinas therefore also avoids calling the arguments of the theology
that is different from metaphysics " dialectical arguments "; instead, he speaks

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Now Aquinas's metaphysics does not lead-like Aristotle's
metaphysics-to a divine being that is, as the highest instance of
being, simultaneously a genus of being, albeit the " worthiest
genus of being." 25 God, or better, the divine, of Aristotelian
metaphysics is that necessary being upon which depend nature
and the heavens, the other genera of being. 26 Yet the divine
being itself is a part of the whole of beings and so seems to be a
finite being. 21 By contrast, Aquinas's metaphysics leads to a divine being that as the highest principle of existence is beyond the
whole of beings, i.e., beyond the difference of Being: Deus nJon
est in ge1i:ere. This understanding of the difference of Being depends on a proof for the existence of God that determines the relationship between metaphysics and theology. Thus the existence
of God does not belong to the " articles of faith " but rather is a
about rationes probabiles (see I Cont. Gent., c. 9 [ed. Marietti, nn. 51-56]);
only once does Aquinas use the term "dialectical argument " to signify the
character of an argument of probability of Christian faith, namely, in an article
about the fourfold function of Christian faith as an argument (De ver., q. 14,
a. 2, ad 9 [ed. Leonina XXII/2, 444:369-390]). Yet Aquinas's distinction between the ratio demonstrativa and the ratio persuasoria shows that he recognized that for the authentic truths of faith there exist no apodei:ris but rather
that the arguments of the theology of Sacred Scripture-like the arguments of
the Aristotelian Topics-have the goal of persuasion and thus require free
agreement. A ratio demonstrativa for an authentic truth of faith would eliminate the merit of faith: " Si autem talis ratio ad probanda ea quae sunt fidei,
induceretur, evacuaretur meritum fidei, quia iam assentire his non esset voluntarium, sed necessarium" (In De trin., q. 2, a. 1, ad 5 [ed. Decker, 84 :7-10]).
25 Meta. VI, 1, 1026a 21-22.
26 Meta. XII, 7, 1072b 10-14.
27 Aristotle's divine being belongs to that Being which is a priori present in
all genera (Meta. IV, 2, 1004a 4-5). According to J. Owens the divine being
of the Aristotelian metaphysics is not an infinite being as is the God of Christian belief (see "The Relation of God to World in the 'Metaphysics,"' in P.
Aubenque, ed., Etudes sur la Metaphysique d'Aristote. Actes du VI• Symposium
Aristotelicum [Paris: Vrin, 1977], 213, 219-221. On this see also R Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology
[Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982], 12-20; "Creation and
Christian Understanding," in D. B. Burrell and B. McGinn, eds., God and
Creation: An Ecumenical Symposium [Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press], 1990, 179-196),

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" preamble of faith " which is proved in philosophy and necessarily presupposed in the science of faith. 28
Among Aquinas's different proofs for the existence of God in
both of his Summae, the most important is the one based on the
contingency of beings; this proof is important because of its inner
connection with the center of Thomistic metaphysics, the thinking of the difference of existence ( esse) and essence ( essentia)
that determines the whole of beings. This proof is also the authentic metaphysical proof for the existence of God, if Kant's
thesis in his Critique of Pure Reason is correct, namely, that
every metaphysical concept of God presupposes the concept of an
ens necessarium.29 Admittedly, that concept appears as such first
in the ontological proofs for the existence of God in the modern
age; 30 and Aquinas does not understand God as causa sui. But
Aquinas already refers to the divine being as that being which is
necesse-esse 31 or, more precisely, per se necesse-esse.32 In this
28 Ad primum ergo dicendum quod Deum esse, et alia huismodi quae per
rationem naturalem nota possunt esse de Deo, ut dicitur Rom. 1,19, non sunt
articuli fidei, sed praeambula ad articulos (Sum. Theo. I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1 [ed.
Leonina IV, 30]) ; Primo ad demonstrandum ea quae sunt praeambula fidei,
quae necesse est in fidei scire, ut ea quae naturalibus rationibus de Deo probantur, ut Deum esse, Deum unum, et alia huiusmodi vel de Dea vel de creaturis in philosophia probata, quae fides supponit (In De trin., q. 2, a. 3c [ed.
Decker, 94 :27-95]). At the end of the methodological introduction to his Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas even maintains that without the proof for the
existence of God every consideration of divine things would be nullified and
that therefore the proof is the necessary basis of that work. " Inter ea vero
quae de Deo secundum seipsum consideranda sunt, praemittendum est, quasi
totius operis necessarium fundamentum, consideratio qua demonstratur Deum
esse. Quo non habito, omnis consideratio de rebus divinis tollitur" (I Cont.
Gent., c. 9 [ed. Marietti, n. 58]).
29 Critique of Pure Reason, B 611-619.
so See D. Henrich, Der ontologische Gottesbeweis: Sein Problem und seine
Geschichte in der N euzeit, 2nd ed. (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1967) ; Proofs for
Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish
Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 378-406.
31 I Cant. Gent., c. 15 (ed. Marietti, n. 124).
32 II Cant. Gent., c. 15 (ed. Marietti, n. 927). Aquinas speaks also about a
primum necessarium that is per se necessarium. See I Cont. Gent., c. 15 (ed.
Marietti, n. 124); Sum. Theo. I, q. 2, a. 3c; tertia via (ed. Leonina IV, 31).

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Aquinas is following Avicenna,33 who seems to be the first in the
history of philosophy for whom the necesse-esse per se, the later
ens necessarium, becomes the substantial concept of the absolute.
In Aquinas's S14mma contra Gentiles and his Summa theologiae
we find three different versions of the proof for the existence of
God based on the contingency of beings: I Cont. Gent., c.15, II
Cont. Gent., c.15, Sum. theo. I, q. 2, a. 3 (tertia via). In all
three versions there is a distinction drawn between things that
are generated and corruptible and things that are not. Things
falling under the latter category are the angels, the celestial
bodies, and the human souls. They are necessary, but do not exist
through themselves, so that they are in themselves contingent.
The first and the third versions of the proof begin with things
that are generated and corruptible. But the proof in its second
version begins with beings that are possible considered in themselves and according to their existence or non-existence, i.e., contingent beings. The second version of the proof leads-just like
the other versions of the proof-to something necessary that is
the cause of the existence of all contingent beings. Yet the second
version is closest to Avicenna's proof for the existence of God
and shows that Aquinas's proof is in itself independent of its
theological framework.
According to Aquinas, in all contingent beings, their essence
does not include their existence. The contingency of beings depends on the difference between ·existence and essence. Therefore
it is not surprising that that difference itself is the starting-point
for another proof for the existence of God. It is the proof (or, as
33 Meta. I 6-7, fol.73va-74ra
(van Riet, 43 :2-55 :55) ; Meta. VIII 4-5,
fol.98vb-99vb (van Riet, 397 :53-411 :48). See Thomas Aquinas, De pot., q.
5, a. 3c (ed. Marietti, 135: "Avicenna namque posuit [lib. VII Metaph., c.VI]
quod quaelibet res praeter Deum habebat in se possibilitatem ad esse et non
esse. Cum enim esse sit praeter essentiam cuiuslibet rei creatae, ipsa natura
rei creatae per se considerata, possibilis est ad esse; necessitatem vero essendi
non habet nisi ab alio, cuius natura est suum esse, et per consequens, est per
se necesse esse ; et hoc Deus est."

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some would insist, the alleged proof) in De ente et essentia that
leads Thomas directly to his actual metaphysical concept of God,
the concept of ipsum esse subsist ens.34 This proof depends on a
B4De ente, c. 4 (ed. Leonina XLIII, 376:127-377:146). On the systematic
connection between the proof for the existence of God in De ente, c. 4 and the
tertia via, see J. F. X. Knasas, "Making Sense of the Tertia Via," The
New Scholasticism 54 (1980) : 489-511. Among Thomists there is a controversy as to whether or not De ente, c. 4 contains a proof for the existence of
God. According to M. S. Gillet, De ente, c. 4 contains both the most direct and
the soundest proof for the existence of God in Aquinas, one that has to be
preferred to the proofs of the quinque viae (see Thomas d'Aquin [Paris:
Dunod, 1949], 67-68). Besides Gillet, also F. van Steenberghen, J. Owens, and
J. F. Wippel see in De ente c.4 a proof for the existence of God, yet van
Steenberghen maintains that the proof for the existence of God in De ente,
c. 4 is unsuccessful because it is based on an unsuccessful attempt to demonstrate a real distinction between existence and essence in finite beings. See F.
van Steenberghen, "Le probleme de !'existence de Dieu clans le 'De ente et
essentia' de Saint Thomas d'Aquin," in Melanges Joseph de Ghellinck, Vol.
II: M oyen age. Epoques moderne et contemporaine (Louvain: Duculot,
1951), 837-847; J. Owens, An Elementary Christian Metaphysics (Milwaukee:
University of St. Thomas, 1986), 80-81, 337-338; "Quiddity and Real Distinction in St. Thomas Aquinas," Mediaeval Studies 27 (1965): 17; J. F.
Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1984), 107-132. By contrast, E. Gilson
and A. Maurer deny that there is a proof for the existence of God in De ente,
c. 4. See E. Gilson, "La preuve du 'De ente et essentia,'" Doctor Communis
3 (1950)) : 257-269; "Trois le<;ons sur le probleme de !'existence de Dieu,"
Divinitas 1 (1%1) : 6-8; A Maurer, Introduction to On Being and Essence,
trans. A Maurer, 2nd. rev. ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 1968), 25-26. Their reason is that the argument of De ente, c. 4 appears neither in I Cont. Gent., c. 13 (ed. Marietti, nn. 81-115) nor in Sum.
Theo. I, q. 2, a. 3c (ed. Leonina IV, 31-32). That reason is not entirely convincing. First of all, it rules out a development in Aquinas's attempts to prove
the existence of God. Second, it does not recognize that the tertia via in the
Summa theologiae and the corresponding versions of the proof in the Summa
contra Gentiles presuppose a concept of the contingency of finite beings that
cannot be thought without a difference between existence and essence in such
beings, a difference that is more than merely conceptual. Admittedly, Owens
denies that the proof for the existence of God in De ente, c. 4 presupposes a
real distinction between existence and essence in finite beings. Yet Wippel disputes this interpretation of De ente, c.4 with convincing arguments (see Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas, 120-132). S. Macdonald also argues for
a real distinction between existence and essence. See MacDonald, " The Esse/

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logical and metaphysical argument for the difference between
existence and essence in all finite beings. The logical argument is
that the essence of any finite being can be understood without its
existence because the essence can be considered absolute in itself. 35
The crucial metaphysical argument is that there can be no more
than one being whose essence is Being itself, i.e., in which essence
and existence are identical. This would be Being itself ( ipsum
esse) or pure Being ( esse tantum) beyond all differences of genus,
species, and individuals in which Being is multiplied. Being itself or pure Being would neither admit a multiplication through
such differences nor could it be multiplied in itself, because such
a multiplication would require something potential receiving Being which could only be a possible essence or form. Therefore in
all beings apart from the assumed Being itself or pure Being,
existence and essence must be different. 36 But in all finite beings
Essentia Argument in Aquinas's De ente et essentia," J ourna:l of the History of
Philosophy 22 (1984) : 157-172. Owens has repeated his position in "Aquinas'
Distinction at De ente et essentia 4.119-123," Mediaeval Studies 48 (1986):
264-287.
35 Quicquid enim non est de intellectu essentiae vel quiditatis, hoc est adveniens extra et faciens compositionem cum essentia, quia nulla essentia sine
his quae sunt partes essentiae intelligi potest. Omnis autem essentia vel quiditas
potest intelligi sine hoc quad aliquid intelligatur de esse suo : possum enim intelligere quid est homo vel phoenix et tamen ignorare an esse habet in rerum
natura; ergo patet quod esse est aliud ab essentia vel quiditate. N isi forte sit
aliqua res cuius quiditas sit ipsum suum esse (De ente, c. 4 [ed. Leonina
XL III, 376 :94-104]).
36 ••• et haec res non potest esse nisi una et prima: quia impossibile est ut
fiat plurificatio alicuius nisi per additionem alicuius differentiae, sicut multiplicatur natura generis in species ; vel per hoc quod forma recipitur in diversis
materiis, sicut multiplicatur natura speciei in diversis individuis ; vel per hoc
quod unum est absolutum et aliud in aliquo receptum, sicut si esset quidam
calor separatus esset alius a calore non separato ex ipsa sua separatione. Si
autem ponatur aliqua res quae sit esse tantum ita ut ipsum esse sit subsistens,
hoc esse non recipiet additionem differentiae, quia iam non esset esse tantum
sed esse et praeter hoc forma aliqua; et multo minus reciperet additionem
materiae, quia iam esset esse non subsistens sed materiale. Unde relinquitur
quod talis res quae sit suum esse non potest esse nisi una; unde oportet quod
in qualibet alia re praeter earn aliud sit esse suum et aliud quiditas vel natura
seu forma sua; unde oportet quod in intelligentiis sit esse praeter formam, et

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their existence cannot be caused by their own essence or quiddity
or form-otherwise they must be their own cause, which is impossible.37 Therefore their existence must be traced back to a
primum ens that is the cause of existence (cause essendi) : pure
Being ( tantum esse), 38 Being itself ( ipsum esse), 39 or more
precisely that being which exists as Being itself ( ipsum esse subsistens) .40
With the difference between existence and essence and the two
above-mentioned proofs for the existence of God in Aquinas,
metaphysics reaches an understanding of the difference of Being
that is unknown in Aristotle's metaphysics. 41 For Aristotle's
ideo dictum est quod intelligentia est forma et esse (De ente, c. 4 [ed. Leonina
XLIII, 376 :104-377:126]). For the correct understanding of the different
arguments, see Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas, 129-132.
87 Omne autem quod convenit alicui vel est causatum ex principiis naturae
suae, sicut risibile in homine vel advenit ab aliquo principio extrinseco, sicut
lumen in aere ex influentia solis. Non autem potest esse quod ipsum esse sit
causatum ab ipsa forma vel quiditate rei, dico sicut a causa efficiente, quia sic
aliqua res esset sui ipsius causa et aliqua res se ipsam in esse produceret : quod
est impossibile (De ente, c.4 [ed. Leonina XLIII, 377 :127-135]).
ss De ente, c. 4 (ed. Leonina XLIII, 377: 145).
39 De ente, c. 4 (ed. Leonina XLIII, 376 :104)).
40 Ergo oportet quod omnis talis res cuius esse est aliud quam natura sua
habeat esse ab alio. Et quia omne quod est per aliud reducitur ad id quod est
per se sicut ad causam primam, oportet quod sit aliqua res quae sit causa essendi omnibus rebus eo quod ipsa est esse tantum; alias iretur in infinitum in
causis, cum omnis res quae non est esse tantum habeat causam sui esse, ut
dictum est. Patet quod intelligentia est forma et esse, et quod esse habet a
primo ente quod est esse tantum, et hoc est causa prima quae Deus est (De
ente, c. 4 [ed. Leonina XLIII, 377 :135-146]; see De ente, c. 4 [ed. Leonina
XLIII, 377:115]).
41 According to D. Henrich this applies to the whole of Greek philosophy
(see Der ontologische Gottesbeweis, 264). Henrich labels the difference between existence (esse) and essence (essentia) an "ontological difference." But
that difference is not simply identical with Heidegger's "ontological difference."
When Heidegger speaks about the " ontological difference," he means the difference of Being itself as Ereignis. Yet according to Heidegger the distinction
between existence and essence in all finite beings leads to the thinking of the
"ontological difference"; it touches upon that difference. See The Basic
Problems of Phenomenology [Grundprobleme der Phiinomenologie, 1975], A.
Hofstadter, trans. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 78, 120.

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question of Being 42 inquires about substance as the "first cause
of being"; 43 but Aristotle does not ask what it means for something to be a being at all. Yet if human reason gained something
by thinking of the difference between existence and essence, it
cannot stop there. Human reason must transcend the whole of
beings towards something beyond itself, which Aquinas sometimes
calls absolute Being ( esse absolutum) or infinite Being ( esse
infinitum )-as distinguished from beings whose existence is
limited through their essence. 44
Now Aquinas's understanding of the difference of Being effectively deals with the whole of beings in relation to the God of
Jewish-Christian monotheism. The difference of Being is understood on the basis of the difference between the one God and the
world as His creation, 45 a difference that we can call the "theological difference." Yet Aquinas's above-mentioned proofs for the
existence of God do not in themselves lead to the God of JewishChristian monotheism. Neither proof can give an answer to the
question of how necessary Being or pure Being has to be thought
in itself and in its relation to the whole of beings. In order to
answer this question, both concepts would have to be determined
not only in contradistinction to contingent beings but in an actual
definition. But this is impossible, not only according to Kant but
also according to Aquinas. 46
Instead, Aquinas starts by identifying the highest object of
metaphysics with the God of Jewish-Christian monotheism. The
crucial argument for that identity is meant to show that we have
42" In short, the question that has always been asked and is still being asked
today, the ever-puzzling question 'What is being? ' amounts to this : ' What is
primary being?"' (Meta. VII, 1, 1028b 2-4, Richard Hope, trans. [Ann
Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1960], 131).
43 Meta. VII, 17, 1041b 27-28.
44 See In I Sent., d. 8, q. 5, a. 1, sol. (ed. Mandonnet, 226-227); In I Sent.,
d. 43, q. 1, a. 1, sol. (ed. Mandonnet, 1003).
4 5 See I Cont. Gent., cc. 23-24 (ed. Marietti, nn. 981-1008).
46 See Exp. Peri herm. I, 14 (ed. Leonina I*l, 73-74).
According to
Aquinas, we have no comprehensive and defining knowledge of God. For more
on this, see Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas, 215-241.

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to ascribe all perfections found in the whole of beings to its origin.
The basis of that argument is Aquinas's application of the Aristotelian omne agens agit sibi simile to the origin of the whole
of beings. That principle leads Aquinas to extend his metaphysics
of the one God and His creation beyond the concept of the ipsum
esse subsistens. And it is that extension which determines
Aquinas's authentic view of the relationship between metaphysics
and theology. Thus what is proved in philosophy and what must
be presupposed by the science of faith is the existence of that God
who is one, 47 having intellect,48 will,49 and free choice,50 and who
is the creator of all things. 51 The God of the " I am "-at least
with regard to truths of the praeambula fidei-is a common object of metaphysics and of the theology of Sacred Scripture. 52
Yet the crucial argument leading to Aquinas's metaphysics of
God and creation does not have the same cogency as the abovementioned proofs for a divine being beyond the whole of beings.
Of course certain perfections are to be ascribed to the divine being, first of all the perfection of Being, which according to
Aquinas is the first non-univocal analogical name. 58 But it is not
at all conclusive that the origin of everything is individuated by
47 Sum. Theo. I, q. 11, a. 3c (ed. Leonina IV, 111).
4BSum. Theo. I, q. 14, aa. 1-4 (ed. Leonina IV, 166-172).
49 Sum. Theo. I, q. 19, a. 1 (ed. Leonina IV, 231).
50 Sum. Theo. I, q. 19, a. 10 (ed. Leonina IV, 248).
5 1 See In De trin., q. 2, a. 3c (ed. Decker, 94:27-95 :7), where Aquinas distinguishes between a threefold use of philosophy in the theology which is different from metaphysics : " Sic ergo in sacra doctrina philosophia possumus
tripliciter uti. Primo ad demonstrandum ea quae sunt praeambula fidei; quae
necesse est in fidei scire, ut ea quae naturalibus rationibus de Deo probantur,
ut Deum esse, Deum esse unum et alia huismodi vel de Deo vel de creaturis in
philosophia probata, quae fides supponit. Secundo ad notificandum per aliquas
similitudines ea quae sunt fidei, sicut Augustinus in libro De trinitate utitur
multis similitudinibus ex doctrinis philosophicis sumptis ad manifestandum
trinitatem. Tertio ad resistendum his quae contra fidem dicuntur sive ostendendo ea esse falsa sive ostendendo ea non esse necessaria."
52 Sum. Theo. I, q. 13, a. 11 (ed. Leonina IV, 162).
53 Sum. Theo. I, q. 13, a. 5, ad 1 (ed. Leonina IV, 147) : "in praedicationibus
omnia univoca reducuntur ad unum primum, non univocum, sed analogicum,
quod est ens."

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itself 54 and has to be thought as the one God with the whole
of beings as His creation. The " theological difference " of
Aquinas's metaphysics is a distinction that belongs to Christian
belief.55 Aquinas's crucial argument for the identity of the highest object of metaphysics and the God of Jewish-Christian monotheism is at most an argument of probability. But if the God of
Jewish-Christian monotheism cannot be a common object of metaphysics and theology, then their relationship cannot be determined
the way Aquinas determines it, namely, through his twofold notion of theology. At the same time, however, there can be no alternative to Aquinas's understanding of metaphysics and theology
as different sciences that both constitute wisdom and deal with the
origin of everything. For it is impossible to return to the patristic
view that the sapientia christiana is a higher form of philosophy. 56
II. Critique of Metaphysics: Transcendental
(Kant)

Difference

Kant's critique of metaphysics is not directed against metaphysics at all. Yet this critique asks about the possibility of metaphysics in general. In this sense, the Critique of Pure Reason is a
theory of metaphysical knowledge. Kant can therefore call it the
" metaphysics of metaphysics." 57 The basis of this " metaphysics
of metaphysics " is a " revolution in thinking " that gives human
self-referentiality a priority that had never been acknowledged before. Thus Kant's transcendental philosophy is based on a strong
philosophical notion of self-consciousness, or the notion of trans4De ente, c. 5 (ed. Leonina XLIII, 378:21-24); Sum. Theo. I, q. 3, a. 3c
(ed. Leonina IV, 39-40); Sum. Theo. I, q. 13, a. 11, ad 1 (ed. Leonina IV,
162).
55 For more on this, see R. Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason, 2130, 41-52; "Creation and Christian Understanding," 181-184, 188-190.
56 For the patristic
view, see An Early Christian Philosopher: Justin
Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters One to Nine, Introduction, Text,
and Commentary by J. C. M. van Winden (Leiden: Brill, 1977).
57 Letter to Marcus Herz from May 11th 1781, in Kant's
Gesammelte
Schriften, ed. Prussian Academy of Sciences ( = Acad.), (Berlin: W. de
Gruyter, 1902-), Vol. X, 269.
5

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cendental apperception, 58 from which empirical apperception is
distinguished. 59 This distinction makes it clear that for Kant selfconsciousness is not merely a psychological problem. 60 The word
" I " stands for a self-relation that goes beyond the self-relation
of a merely empirical and sensible self-possession.
The transcendental unity of self-consciousness in the " I think "
is the ground of the possibility that something can be thought and
known by me as an object. Any relatedness to an object is nothing other than the "correlate of the unity of apperception." 61
But since this in itself reveals no object, the subject of transcendental apperception, though unconditioned, cannot be an absolute subject. The knowing subject is a subject of facticity.
The facticity of transcendental subjectivity is expressed in various places. In his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics,
Kant refers to transcendental apperception as a " feeling of existence " that is " without the slightest concept" and that is merely
a " representation of that to which all thinking stands in relation." 62 In his Critique of Pure Reason, he refers to transcendental apperception as the act of determining one's own existence.68 " Existence is already given thereby, but the mode in
which I am to determine this existence, that is, the manifold belonging to it, is not thereby given." 64 Kant sees in transcendental
apperception something quite real. 65 Yet the subject of this consciousness is not empirical. 66 On the contrary, it is essential : " in
the consciousness of myself in mere thought I am being itself." 61
58

See Critique of Pure Reason, B 133a.

59 See Critique of Pure Reason, B 132.
6 0 See R.-P. Horstmann, "Gibt es ein philosophisches Problem des Selbstbewusstsein? " in Theorie der Subjektivitiit, 228-231.
61 See Critique of Pure Reason, A 250.
62 Prolegomena, Acad., Vol. IV, 334a.
68 See Critique of Pure Reason, B 158a.
6 4 Ibid.
65 See Critique of Pure Reason, B 419-420.
66 See Critique of Pure Reason, B 158.
61 Critique of Pure Reason, B 429. Therefore transcendental apperception is
not merely a principle of transcendental analysis. See D. Henrich, Identitiit
und Objektivitiit: Eine Untersuchung iiber Kants transzendentale Deduktion
(Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1976), 83, 111.

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Even if transcendental apperception is in itself a consciousness
of existence, Being cannot coincide with empirical Being. There
must then be two different kinds of Being, namely the Being of
the " I " and the Being of the things within the world. Only this
transcendental difference of Being makes it possible for the critique to take the object " in a twofold sense, namely as appearence
and as thing itself." 68 But how are we to understand this difference of Being in relation to Kant's well-known thesis concerning Being?
According to this thesis, stated in Kant's refutation of the
ontological proof for the existence of God, 69 Being is not a real
predicate, but rather the positing of a thing as itself. This simply
means that Being is not something that can be predicated of something else. Being, of course, can be used as a logical predicate, but
Being cannot occur in a judgment as a determination of the subject of the sentence. If Being does not simply mean the logical
relation between the subject of the sentence and the predicate in
judgment, then Being means the same thing as existence, and
precisely as the positing ( S etzung) of something, not only relatively but in itself, absolutely, 70 a positing that Kant therefore calls
absolute. 71 The sentence " God is " is used in this sense. But
what does "absolute positing" mean with regard to the meaning
of Being?
In the context of his refutation of the ontological proof for the
existence of God, Kant does not provide an answer. 72 But the
Critique of Pure Reason, B XXVII.
Critique of Pure Reason, B 620-630. For arguments similar to Kant's
thesis concerning Being from the Critique of Pure Reason, see the first section
of The Only Possible Argument for a Demonstration of God's E:ristence from
1763 (Acad., Vol. II, 70-92) and the Essay concerning Being (=Essay) from
the Herder-estate, which is probably related to Kant's lecture on metaphysics
(Acad., Vol. XXVIII/2.1, 949-961). See G. Lehmann, "Einleitung," in Acad.,
Vol. XXVIII/2.2, 1353.
70 Through the "it is," I think something as "given absolutely"
(Critique
of Pure Reason, B 627).
71 The Only Possible Argument, Acad., Vol. II, 73.
12 Also, in the The Only Possible Argitment Kant fails to say what "absolute positing " means.
6s

69 See

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" transcendental deduction of the pure concepts " does help here.
It labels the " is " of an existential proposition as that which is
represented in the " objective unity of apperception." 73 Since
transcendental apperception is the possibility of all thought and
knowledge, Being here cannot simply mean the logical relation
within judgment, but rather must have the meaning of existence.
According to the central theoretical part of Kant's philosophy,
Being as absolute positing (existence, e:risten'tia) has its place in
the transcendental unity of self-consciousness-but that means in
thinking. So Kant's thesis concerning Being becomes a thesis
about the relationship of Being and thinking. 74
If Being and thinking belong together, Being cannot be a matter of something that can be absolute, according to the original
sense of the word. When Kant speaks of Being as absolute positing, he uses " absolute" in the sense of " unconditional " and he
means by this that something is posited in itself and for itself in
its existence. But what is posited in this way through transcendental apperception is the empirical existence of things of the
world. But how are we to think of the existence of the " I " itself
in relation to Kant's thesis concerning Being? To give an answer
to this we must return to the refutation of the ontological proof
for the existence of God.
What is important for this refutation is not-as is often assumed-the logical argument according to which the conclusion
from the concept of an ens realissimum to its e:ristence constitutes
a metabasis eis allo gen:os [change into another genus]. This
argument ultimately plays, like the empirical argument, only a
subordinate role. In its main point, Kant's critique of the ontological proof for the existence of God is reducible to the objection
that the metaphysical concept of an ens necessarium cannot be
thought in a determinate manner and is thus contradictory as a
concept in an actual definition. 75 According to the only possible
73 Critique of Pure Reason, B 141.

See M. Heidegger, Kants These uber das Sein (Frankfurt am Main: V.
Klostermann, 1963), 17-32.
75 See D. Henrich, Der ontologische Gottesbeweis, 137-188.
74

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verbal definition, an ens necessarium is something whose nonbeing is impossible.76 But it cannot be shown that the concept of
an ens necessarium is identical with the concept of a highest divine being, which is like an individual, i.e., the ens realissimum
of Kant's transcendental ideal.
Now all existence that is known by us, including our own existence, is in itself contingent. This is shown by the possibility that
such existence can be conceived as negated without contradiction.
In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant labels such a negation
" transcendental negation " in opposition to mere " logical negation. " 77 Since all existence that is known by us is contingent, it
is a natural process for our reason to seek the ground of all that
exists in a being that is necessary in all respects. Although the
thought of such a being represents an abyss of human reason, 78
it is nevertheless a limiting concept for reason that can be avoided
only when thought is broken off in an arbitrary manner. And the
concept of an ens necessarium-as a limiting concept-can be
thought without contradiction. For acc?rding to Kant, there is
"a difference between assuming the necessary being with a view
to an other, and knowing a being through its concept as necessary." 79 But "we must regard what is absolutely necessary as
being outside the world." 80
The opposite of the negation of Being in the transcendental or
absolute negation is the " transcendental affirmation " 81 or the
absolute positing of Being. 82 But the absolute positing of Beingjust like the absolute negation of Being-is possible only in
thought which always already presupposes itself.83 Now Kant
76 Critique of Pure Reason, B 620.
77 See Critique of Pure Reason, B 602-603. The Essay refers to it as " absolute negation" (Acad., Vol. XXVIII/2.1, 955).
78 See Critique of Pure ReaSO'n, B 641; Metaphysics KS, in Acad., Vol.
XXVIII/2.1, 784.
.
1 9 Reflection 5783, in Acad., Vol. XIX, 354.
80 Critique of Pure Reason, B 645.
81 See Critique of Pure Reason, B 602.
5 2 Essay, in Acad., Vol. XXVIII/2.1, 955.
83 Being therefore, according to the Essay, " is the foundation of all our
thinking and the element by which we are filled" (Acad., Vol. XXVIII/2.1,
956).

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argues in the Critique of Pure Reason that a being that is thought
only through the concept of existence does not differ from a
merely possible being, and thus that objects of pure thinking cannot be known in their Being. 84
Yet transcendental apperception is not an object of thinking,
but rather the thinking in itself. Kant therefore can say without
contradiction that in transcendental apperception I am aware
" that I am " 85 and can understand that as a consciousness of
existence. The transcendental difference of Being is thus not incompatible with Kant's thesis concerning Being. With regard to
objects (things) of thinking, the consciousness of existence belongs without doubt " exclusively to the unity of experience." 86
But the unity of experience itself is established through transcendental apperception in which an "I" is distinguished from all
possible objects within the world. Only in the horizon of this
transcendental difference can it be said that something " is."
Kant's refutation of the ontological proof for the existence of
God and his thesis concerning Being show that that which comprehends both the " I" and all objects of the world must be conceived as the in-itself-unknown One that lies beyond all differences, the authentic absolute. Yet the absolute that lies beyond
the transcendental difference cannot merely be a regulative ideaotherwise the truth of the transcendental difference itself would
be a delusion. But this is the insight of a thinking that Henrich
called the " third reflectedness " ( dritte Refiektiertheit). 81 In
the irrefutable metaphysical "rising above" (Oberstieg) 88 beyond the " I " and the things within the world we are certain of
the absolute in its existence, even though its essence remains concealed from us.
84 See Critique of Pure Reason, B 629.

Critique of Pure Reason, B 157.
Critique of Pure Reason, B 629.
8 7 D. Henrich, Fluchtlinien:
Philosophische Essays (Frankfurt
Suhrkamp, 1982), 51.
88 Ibid., 17-18.
85

86

am Main:

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III. Return to the Ground of Metaphysics :
Ontological Difference (Heidegger)
Reflections on the transcendental difference of Being have not
yet brought us to an understanding of Being itself in the identity
of Being and thinking. To achieve this, it is necessary to consider Heidegger's "step back" into the essence of metaphysics. 89
Systematically viewed, this " step back" is that transcendence that
leads to the " essential origin of identity " 90 to which both Being
and thinking belong and that Heidegger calls Ereignis. Ereignis
here has to be understood as a singulare tantum. It is not an occurrence within the world, but rather the basic happening of Being as Ereignis. 91 According to Heidegger, Ereignis refers to the
task that remains for thought after the end of onto-theology: This
is the task of thinking Being out of difference and as difference. 92
The term " onto-theology " first turns up in Kant and means
theology based on the ontological proof for the existence of God. 93
Heidegger uses the term "onto-theology" in a wider sense to
signify the basic constitution of Western metaphysics up until
Hegel, which is, as the science of being, simultaneously a science
of God as the cause of all beings different from Him. Even
though Heidegger's critique of Wes tern metaphysics and his
thesis concerning its "forgetfulness of Being" does not do justice
to the history of metaphysics, the characteristic of Western metaphysics as
may be irrefutable-at least since Aristotle's metaphysics. 94
89 Identity and Difference
[ldentitiit und Differenz, 1957], J. Stambaugh,
trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 50-51. In the following quotations
from the translated work of Heidegger I have slightly altered the translations
in part. The German words Ereignis and Dasein remain untranslated because
there are no adequate words in the English language.
90 Identity and Difference, 39.
91 See On Time and Being [Zur Sache des Denkens, 1969], J. Stambaugh,
trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 19-21.
92 See Identity and Difference, 61-65.
93 Critique of Pitre Reason, B 660.
94 See G. Picht's informative remarks on the concept of the absolute in Plato
and Aristotle in Aristoteles "De anima" (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1987), 4786. According to Picht, metaphysics has had an onto-theological character
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Heidegger's thinking of Being is not a move away from metaphysics. Admittedly after the "turn," Heidegger does reject concepts such as " metaphysics " and " philosophy " ; but thinking
should not simply be identified with philosophy. 95 Heidegger seeks
to overcome onto-theological metaphysics in a new thinking.
Therefore his statements about the " end of metaphysics " 96 are
far more nuanced than is often assumed. Heidegger is not of the
opinion that metaphysics is at the "end" at all. 97 Heidegger's
thinking about Being seeks "to save metaphysics in its essence." 98
Therefore Heidegger's thesis about the "end" of metaphysics is
not incompatible with his earlier claim " that philosophy ultimately cannot do without its genuine optics-metaphysics." 99 If one
does not restrict the notions of metaphysics and philosophy to the
Western tradition of thinking up until Hegel-and there seems to
be no reason why such a restriction is obligatory-then one can
apprehend Heidegger's thinking of Being itself as a crucial contribution to a changed metaphysical form of thinking. 100
With Being as Ereignis Heidegger thinks his only thought. 101
9 5 See Letter on Humanism [Brief iiber den Humanismus, 1947], trans. F. A.
Capuzzi in collaboration with J. G. Gray and D. F. Krell, in M. Heidegger,
Basic Writings, ed. D. F. Krell (San Francisco: Harper, 1977), 236-242;
On Time and Being, 55-73.
96 Nietzsche, Vol. IV: Nihilism [Nietzsche II, 1961], F. A. Capuzzi, trans.
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), 147-149.
97 Already in Being and Time the postulated "destruction"
of metaphysics
is meant to be at the same time a " construction " as the " positive acquisition
of the past " so that it might be brought into the " full possession of the most
characteristic possibilities of questioning" (Being and Time [Sein und Zeit,
1927], J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, trans. [New York: Harper & Row,
1962], 41-42).
98 The Question of Being [Zur Seinsfrage, 1956], W. Kluback and J. T.
Wilde, trans. (New York: Twayne, 1958), 93.
99 Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus (Tiibingen: Mohr,
1916), 235. L. Oeing-Hanhoff holds a different position in this issue. See
"Metaphysik," in Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie, Vol. 5, 1269-1270.
100 See R. Maurer, " Thesen zu: Heidegger und die Metaphysik," in Metaphysics of physis " ( 46-49).
io1 See 0. Poggeler, "Sein als Ereignis," in Heidegger und die hermeneutische Philosophie (Freiburg-Munich: Alber, 1983), 118.

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This thought concerns nothing other than the difference of Being
itself, a difference that Heidegger calls the " ontological difference." It is the foundation of every difference in the realm of being, including the difference between myself and all the things
within the world. According to Heidegger, this difference is the
difference between the Dasein of man and all beings whose beingness is mere existence in the sense of being-available. Heidegger's
Dasein and the " I" of Kant's transcendental apperception are
not simply the same. But both describe a being that in its Being
is substantially different from the Being of the things within the
world.
The Being of the ontological difference is not something " being-like"; it " is," but not in the way a being " is." Being goes
beyond all beings. Similarly, the Being of the ontological difference is not the Being of God. Heidegger says explicitly: "Being
-is not God," 102 because Being " is in essence finite." 103 The
Being of the ontological difference is the prevailing difference of
Being itself, within which the being-understanding Dasein of man
emerges. So Being-that with which all philosophy must begin
according to Hegel 1° 4-amounts to a quite simply unavailable
W egmarken (Frankfurt am Main: V. Klostermann, 1967), 162.
What is Metaphysics? [Was ist Metaphysik?, 1929], D. F. Krell, trans.,
in Basic Writings, 110. The Being of the ontological difference is not the
ipsum esse subsistens of Aquinas's metaphysics. According to M. Muller (see
E:ristenzphilosophie: Von der M etaph}1sik zur M etahistorik, 4th ed. [Freiburg-Munich: Alber, 1986], 87) the Being of the ontological difference resembles the actualitas omnium rerum (see Sum. Theo. I, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3
[ed. Leonina IV, 50]). On the relationship between Heidegger's thinking of
Being and Aquinas's metaphysics of being, see T. Prufer, "Heidegger, Early
and Late, and Aquinas," in R Sokolowski, ed., Edmund Husserl and the
Phenomenological Tradition: Essays in Phenomenology, Studies in Philosophy
and the History of Philosophy, Vol. 18 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1988), 197-215. Like Muller, Prufer compares
the Being of Heidegger's ontological difference with Aquinas's esse commune,
which is not self-sufficient-unlike the ipsitm esse subsistens of God in Aquinas's
metaphysics of creation (212).
104 See the Introduction to Wissenschaft der Logik, Erster Band: Die objektive Logik (1812/1813), F. Hagemann and W. Jaeschke, eds., Gesammelte
Werke, vol. 11 (Hamburg: Meiner, 1978), 15-29.
102

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ground that is presupposed in all thinking, even in speculative
thinking. 105
Because Being itself is finite according to its very essence, Being and nothingness belong together. Therefore one can ask:
" Why are there beings at all, and not rather nothingness? " 106
The primeval ground of everything must lie beyond the Being of
the ontological difference, and that means beyond time. 107 Yet,
as such a ground, it is to be understood as the nameless abyss of
Being. 108 This is the real reason why " the onto-theological character of metaphysics has become questionable for thinking." 10 g
Heidegger's philosophy is not a philosophy against God. Admittedly, this thinking stands before a decision on theism; yet this
is " not because of any indifferent attitude, but rather out of respect for the limits that have been set upon thinking as thinking,
and indeed through that which gives itself to us as that which
has-to-be-thought, i.e., through the truth of Being." 110 Hence it
is understandable that Heidegger prefers " to keep silence about
God in the realm of thinking." m Yet Heidegger is convinced
that his " god-less thinking
giving up " the God of philosOn Time and Being, 49-50.
What is Metaphysics?, 112.
107 See On Time and Being, 19.
ms According to an announcement to M. Miiller, Heidegger in his first drawing up of the third section of Part One of Being and Time wanted to articulate
a threefold difference: " the ' transcendental ' or ontological difference in the
narrow sense : the distinction of the being from its beingness; b) the ' transcendent-like ' or ontological difference in the wider sense: the distinction of
the being and its beingness from Being itself; c) the 'transcendent ' or
theological difference in the strict sense: the distinction of God from the being,
from beingness and from Being" (Existenzphilosophie, 86). But Heidegger
abandons this as still onto-theological because a theological difference, which
remains a possibility and task after the " end " of Western metaphysics, is not
experienced in thinking. The unfinished third section of Part One of Being
and Time was to have been titled " Time and Being " and might have accomplished the so-called "turn," which was brought about in Heidegger's later
essay On the Essence of Truth [Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, 1943], J. Sallis,
trans., in Basic Writings, 117-141.
109 Identity und Difference, 55.
110 Letter on Humanism, 230.
lll Jdentity and Difference, SS,
105 See
106

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ophy "-is perhaps closer to the " divine God " and is perhaps
"more free for him, than onto-theo-logy might want to admit." 112
Heidegger's thinking about Being claims rather to think in that
dimension within which alone we today can ask meaningfully
about God.113 " Only from the truth of Being can the essence of
the holy be thought. Only from the essence of the holy can the
essence of divinity be thought. Only in light of the essence of divinity can we think and speak about what the word ' God ' is to
signify." 114 After the end of onto-theology, the question about
" God " can be no longer be pursued on old paths. We must
achieve a new understanding of what is brought up in the question of God.115 Thus according to Heidegger, we have to return
to the genuine "matter of thinking, whose revealedness remains a
mystery." 116
Even though onto-theology has become questionable for thinking, there remains for thought the very task that, according to
11 2 Ibid., 72. According to Pannenberg,
Heidegger claims that Christian
theology after the end of onto-theo-logy can no longer be the "science of God"
(see Metaphysics and the Idea of God, P. Clayton, trans. [Grand Rapids: W.
B. Eerdmans, 1990], 8-10) . In making this claim, Pannenberg refers to
Heidegger's treatise on the onto-theological basic constitution of Western
metaphysics (in Identity and Difference) and the treatise Phenomenology and
Theology [Phiinomenologie und Theologie, 1970]. Yet I think that neither
the theology in Phenomelogy and Theology nor the critique of the onto-theological metaphysics in Identity and Difference can support this thesis. Of course
Heidegger's statement, "Theology is not speculative knowledge of God" (Theology and Phenomenology, in The Piety of Thinking: Essays by Martin
Heidegger, J. G. Hart and J. C. Maraldo, trans. [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976], 15), is not without problems. But if Heidegger understands theology as reflection on Christian belief, then he recognizes that, according to Christian belief, the cross and resurrection go ahead of this belief
as its object and foundation (see Phenomenology and Theology, 8-11). When
Heidegger speaks in Identity and Difference about god-less thinking, he is refering to philosophy not to theology.
11 3 See Letter on Humanism, 230; The Essence of Reasons [Vom Wesen des
Grundes, 1929], T. Malick, trans. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1969), 91, note.
1 14 Ibid. See also Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Logik im Ausgang von
Leibniz, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 26 (Frankfurt am Main: V. Klostermann, 1978),
211, n. 3.
115 See Letter on Humanism, 492.
11 6 On Time and Being, 82.

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Plato, is the purpose of philosophy: Philosophy is a sea-journey
in search of ground 117 and leads to the absolute, the origin of
everything. 118 Admittedly, Heidegger's thinking about Being includes the thought of the absolute in the thought of the abyss-like
ground of Being. Yet in Heidegger's thinking about the Ereignis
of Being as the essential origin of that identity within which
Being and thinking belong together, Being will be returned to its
finitude. 119 " What remains to be said? Only this : Ereignis occurs. In saying this, we say the Same in terms of the Same about
the Same." 120 But the ontological difference itself cannot be the
concluding thought of thinking. 121 Beyond it, the thought of the
absolute is inevitable if we want to understand subjectivity in the
Dasein of man. Although man belongs to the Ereignis of Being,
he emerges therein as subject. Yet in his position as subject, he
rises above Ereignis. Heidegger's critique of the modern philosophy of subjectivity leads him in his later thinking to dissolve
human subjectivity in the truth of that very Being that has been
returned to its finitude. 122 But the identity in which Being and
See Phaedo 99D.
Politics SllA. Plato's "absolute" might be seen as the idea of the
good beyond being. See Politics 509B.
119 See On Time and Being, 49, 54.
120 Ibid., 24.
121 Pannenberg is right to recognize here the limit of Heidegger's thinking
of Being. See Metaphysics and the Idea of God, 17-18.
122 See W. Marx, Is There a Measure on Earth?
Foundations for a Nonmetaphysical Ethics, T. ]. Nenon and R. Lilly, trans. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977), 34-39, 126-146; H. Ebeling, Das Verhiingnis:
Erste Philosophie (Freiburg-Munich: Alber, 1987), 21, 31-34; "Das Subjekt
im Dasein. Versuch iiber <las bewusste Sein," in Theorie der Subjektivitat 7880. In the treatise The Essence of Reasons a retrospective remark on Being
and Time shows that in Being and Time the Dasein of man has become subjectless. According to this retrospective remark, the Dasein of man admittedly is determined through selfbeing. Yet the selfbeing of Dasein should be
neutral over against I-being and you-being. "All essential propositions of an
ontological analytic of ' Dasein' in man take this being a priori in this neutrality" (The Essence of Reasons, 87). Only to the extent to which man
loses his position as subject can Ereignis in the later thinking of Being be considered pure in itself-as a neutrale tantum (On Time and Being, 47).
111

118 See

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thinking belong together is not without the subjectivity of man.
Therefore this subjectivity must be made as clear as possible
through the metaphysical "rising above."
IV. Metaphysics of the Absolute:
Speculative Difference (Henrich)
In contemporary German philosophy, Dieter Henrich in particular has endeavored to effect a renewal of metaphysics. He
attempts a speculative thinking that is supposed to be possible
after Kant's critique of metaphysics and that seeks to unite Kant's
basic ideas with those of Hegel in a workable way. 123 This thinking develops within the context of a theory of subjectivity that has
as its starting-point " conscious life." In "conscious life" man
knows himself both as an empirical individual being in a world of
ordered individual things and as a unity-producing subjectivity to
which the world and all individual things are related. Thus Henrich-like Kant-starts with the fundamental difference between
the Being of man as subject (" I ") and the Being of things within the world.
The " basic-relation " is the name that Henrich gives to the
same original self- and world-relatedness of conscious life-to
which man awakes daily and to which relations with other human
beings belong.124 In the "basic-relation," there exists an imbalance in the correlation between self-consciousness and the unity of
the world in favor of the unity-producing subjectivity. As a subject, man possesses a " central position as the anchoring-point of
our knowing relatedness-to-the-world." 125 And the self-relatedness in which man knows himself " as the One opposite the whole
world" 126 constitutes a" real knowledge." 121 "It is a knowledge
of the real and of reality itself, and both are necessary at the same
12s See Selbstverhiiltnisse:
Gedanken und Auslegungen zu den Grundlagen
der klassischen deutschen Philosophie (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1982), 173-208.
124 See Fluchtlinien, 99, 135.
125 Ibid., 141, 162.
126 Ibid., 138.
121 Ibid., 144.

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time." 128 The subject, to which the world and every individual
thing in the world is related, possesses a unique ontological status.
It is not determinable as a thing within the world. 129
The self-relation of the subject cannot be understood through
itself alone. According to Henrich, there can be no theory of selfconsciousness that intends to start out from the elements of the
internal structure of self-consciousness, because any such theory
must always presuppose self-consciousness. 130 Self-consciousness
arises in human consciousness instantaneously. It cannot be
brought into reality; that means, it cannot be produced. 131 The
self-relation of the subject occurs in a consciousness "which is
not its own possession and which constitutes the ground of the
possibility of all its activities and achievements. In such an understanding, the self overcomes reflection as the real definition of
its reality and dignity." 132 So, like Heidegger, Henrich denies
that self-consciousness has the right to be the first evidence in
philosophical grounding. 133 Yet in contrast to Heidegger's dissolution of human subjectivity in the truth of Being, Henrich
maintains the priority of self-consciousness and subjectivity m
conscious life.
Since the " basic-relation " cannot be understood through itself alone, conscious life must naturally be unclear about its nature
and its origin. One can achieve an understanding of oneself only
by " rising above" ( Uberstieg) the fundamental but complex fact
of the basic-relation. According to Henrich, this " rising above,"
which is caused through the basic-relation itself, determines the
128 Ibid.
129 Ibid.,

144, 162. Here Henrich, like Kant, begins with the fundamental
difference between the Being of man as subject ("I") and the Being of things
within the world.
130 See Selbstverhiiltnisse, 57-82. See also D. Henrich, "Selbstbewusstsein:
Kritische Einleitung in eine Theorie," in R. Bubner, ed., Hermeneutik und
Dialektik, Vol. I: Methode und Wissenschaft. Lebenswelt und Geschichte
(Tiibingen: Mohr, 1970), 264-269.
131 See S elbstverhiiltnisse, 99.
132 S elbstbewusstsein, 283.
133 See Selbstbewusstsein, 283.

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concept of metaphysics. 134 Metaphysics is not cosmology.135 The
metaphysical transcendence of the basic-relation leads neither to
a formula that explains everything about the world, nor to a first
divine substance. It leads instead to the concluding thought of the
absolute "which as such is nothing individual." 186 Because the
metaphysical " rising above " is a departure from the ontology
of the natural world, which is determined through individuals, 137
the metaphysical " rising above " is simultaneously an alternative
to that ontology.
According to Henrich, the absolute in its relation to the world
of individuals has to be grasped as the thought of a difference set
in opposition to its own self. Following Hegel, he would extend
the thought of the absolute to the basic speculative idea of " selfrelating difference." In such speculative thinking, self-consciousness would then be understood as " knowing oneself as oneself in
the other of oneself." 138 According to Henrich, a metaphysics of
the absolute is possible if it follows this direction. Metaphysics
leads to the thinking of a speculative difference: the difference of
the absolute itself. Yet Henrich denies that metaphysics can attain a knowledge of the absolute in itself. If one takes Kant's
critique of metaphysics seriously, then the metaphysics of the absolute must be essentially a thin;king of the absolute. 139 But the
absolute is not merely a regulative idea. It is present in speculative thinkingY 0 The thinking of the absolute is a constructive
kind of thinking that interprets the basic-relation through the absolute. In this way, speculative thinking protects human subjectivity from its naturalistic or materialistic dissolution. 141
See Selbstbewusstsein, 167, 169.
See 'Grund und Gang spekulativen Denkens," in D. Henrich and R.-P.
Horstmann, ed., Metaphysik nach Kant? (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1988), 101102.
136 Fluchtlinien, 171-172.
137 See Fluchtlinien, 174.
138 Fluchtlinien, 175.
1 39 See Fluchtlinien, 176; "Grund und Gang spekulativen Denkens," 106.
140 See Fluchtlinien, 177.
H1 See Fluchtlinien, 178.
134

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In the metaphysics projected by Henrich, the basic-relation is
not to be dialectically sublated in the unity of the absolute. Since
the concluding thought of the absolute can only be reached in
transcending the basic-relation, this thought remains bound by its
starting-point. Therefore the absolute has " to be thought as a
process of emerging from itself out of which the ' basic-relation '
first comes into existence," 142 so that the whole basic-relation is
to be thought as a kind of descent.143 Naturally it is closed in itself. Yet the basic-relation can only come to its self-elucidation
and its actual freedom in transcending the natural world. 144
This is where there arises a problem for Henrich's project of a
metaphysics of the absolute. According to Henrich, philosophy in
the modern age inherits religion's task of providing a comprehensive understanding of the natural world. Henrich determines the
relationship between religions and metaphysics in a Hegelian
manner. But how far can metaphysics proceed with its constructive thinking of the absolute when the absolute in itself remains
unknown? There is no doubt that metaphysics is necessary for a
comprehensive understanding of the natural world. But an understanding of the world apart from which man can live is provided only in religions. This is because only religions give final
answers to the questions about the origin, the future, and the
salvation of man, questions that are unavoidable-just like the
metaphysical question about the absolute.
V. The Wisdom of Religion:
The Difference Between Metaphysics and Theology

In Western metaphysics the thought of the absolute has been
connected with the thought of God. This is easy to explain : Ever
since the beginnings of metaphysics, its knowledge of the origin
of everything has been related to man's historical pre-set consciousness of God. And up until Hegel, metaphysics started from
an identity of reference presupposing that its concluding thought
14 2 Ibid.,

180.

14a Ibid., 110.

144 Ibid., 180.

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must be identical with the thought of God. Now the word
" God " originally belongs to the language of religion. Therefore
in philosophy this word is, according to an expression of Richard
Schaeffler, a "loan-word." 145 If philosophy combines the thought
of the absolute with the thought of God, then it already uses the
language of religion. 146 But because of the religious origin of the
word " God," the representation of some kind of personality cannot be separated from it. 147 Therefore the thought of God is not
simply identical with the thought of the absolute. 148 The absolute
can be understood as the non-personal One from which all individuals emerge and into which they all pass-as, for example, in
Buddhism. 149 So the concluding thought of metaphysics is in itself equally open for both the Semitic and the East Asian types of
religion. 150
Now the truth claims of different religions can only be maintained argumentatively with reference to the concluding thought
of metaphysics. This thought makes religions above all into
" possible candidates of truth " (W. Pannenberg). But the reference to the concluding thought of metaphysics presupposes that
religions can express the whole of reality and are capable of a
comprehensive understanding of the natural world. This probably applies only to high religions for whose wisdom the thought
145 See R. Schaeffler, Das Gebet und das Argument.
Zwei W eisen des
Sprechens van Gott: Eine Einfuhrung in die Theorie religiosen Sprechens
(Diisseldorf: Patmos, 1989), 290-292.
146 See W. Pannenberg, Metaphysics and the Idea of God, 19.
147 Ibid., 28-29; W. Pannenberg,
"Eine philosophisch-historische Hermeneutik des Christentums," in Theologie und Philosophie 66 (1991): 486; An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1991),
8-9.
1 48 See D. Henrich, " Grund und Gang spekulativen Denkens," 109.
H 9 See D. Henrich, " Ding an sich: Ein Prolegomenon zur Metaphysik des
Endlichen," in J. Rohls and G. Wenz., ed., Vernunft des Glaubens: Wissenschaftliche Theologie und kirchliche Lehre, Festscrift zum 60. Geburtstag van
W. Pannenberg (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck, 1989), 92.
150 See D. Henrich, Fluchtlinien, 117. According to Henrich, these two types
of religion are distinguished by the fact "that in knowledge of the unimaginable origin they posit either the individuality of person or the purity of conscious life as the ultimate orientation."

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of the unity of reality and of its origin is decisive. While it may
be that one cannot decide once and for all about the truth claims
of religions, from metaphysics there emerge criteria that are relevant for passing judgment on their truth claims. 151 Thus the truth
claim of the Christian religion could not be mainta,ined if the theological concept of divine personhood were incompatible with the
thought of the absolute-as Fichte claimed. 152 And Buddhism
could not be true if its critique of the brahmanic doctrine of the
self were to mean that human personality and subjectivity are
nothing other than appearance compared with nirvana, the condition of the Awakened One-as is often assumed. 153
Both metaphysics and high religions understand the natural
world with a view towards the origin of all. But the comprehensive understandings of the natural world in high religions have
their actual ground of validity in a religious experience relating to
either a historical revelation of the absolute, as in Christian faith,
or to a process of inner enlightenment, as in Buddhism. Therefore
each religion has to show its comprehensive understanding of the
natural world to its best advantage based on some virtue unique
to it.
The wisdom that is called theology is necessarily related to the
thought of the one God. But if the thought of God is not simply
identical with the thought of the absolute, then the possibility of
151 See D. Henrich,
" Ding an sich," 92; W. Pannenberg, "Eine philosophisch-historische Hermeneutik des Christentums," 486-487.
152 According to W. Pannenberg, the Boethian definition of person as an
" individual substance of intellectual nature " led to an image of God as mind
or intellect. To reconcile the Christian doctrine of creation with the Aristotelian concept of God, the medieval theologians argued that God as a mind or
intellect must also have free will (An Introduction to Systematic Theology,
33). The decisive question for systematic theology is how to formulate the
Christian doctrine of God in light of modern philosophical critiques of it.
153 Admittedly the Buddhistic critique of the brahmanic doctrine of the self
does not include the thesis about the complete annihilation of the arhat (see
M. Eliade and I. P. Couliano, The Eliade Guide to World Religions: The
Authoritative Compendium of the 33 Major Religious Traditions [San Francisco: Harper, 1991], 28). Yet the decisive question for passing judgment
about Buddhism is whether or not human personality and subjectivity have
any reality.

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theology depends on the fact that the unimaginable ongm of
everything reveals itself as the one God. A conceptual history of
the word " theology " can unite different meanings of theology by
labeling all talk of God as "theology." 154 But in order to be able
to determine the concept and matter of theology, one has to appeal to a historical revelation of God. That means that the concept of theology cannot be determined independently of the concept of revelation. 155 Since human thinking by itself has no knowledge about such a revelation, a philosophical theology in its traditional meaning is impossible.156 Of course there is need for a phi15 4 For more on this, see M. Seckler, "Theologie als Glaubenswissenschaft,"
in W. Kern, H. J. Pottmeyer and M. Seckler, eds., H andbuch der FundaHerder, 1988), 180-190.
mentaltheologie, Vol. 4 (Freiburg-Basle-Vienna:
155 For more on the concept of revelation, see M. Seckler, "Offenbarung,"
in H andbuch der Fundamentaltheologie, Vol. 2 (Freiburg-Basle-Vienna:
Herder, 1985), 60-83.
156 This is not to deny the possibility of a natural knowledge of God in
contradistinction to the supranatural knowledge of God-as taught by the First
Vatican Council (DS 3004, DS 3026) with reference to Rom 1 :19-20. Admittedly, this Council presupposed that the praeambula fidei, and above all the
existence of God, are susceptible of proof (DS 3019). But to be able to understand this, it is necessary to take into account that this Council, standing
within the tradition of Thomism, had to defend the faith against scientific and
philosophical opponents like materialism, naturalism, and rationalism, and had
to defend the rationality of faith against fideism (see H. J. Pottmeyer, Der
Glaube vor dem Anspruch der Wissenschaft: Die Konstitution iiber den
katholischen Glauben "Dei Filius" des Ersten Vatikanischen Konzils und die
unveroffentlichten theologischen Voten der vorbereitenden Kommission [Freiburg-Basle-Vienna: Herder, 1968]). In addition to that, one has to realize
that the natural knowledge of God is not simply the same as the alleged knowledge of God in philosophy. The natural and supranatural knowledge of God
are not two completely different kinds of knowledge. According to the First
Vatican Council, the same God who reveals the mysteries of faith (DS 3015)
also places himself in the mind of man through the natural light of reason
(DS 3017). Yet in saying this the Council refers back to a self-manifestation of God in His creation, i.e., a kind of revelation. The Second Vatican
Council therefore can place the natural knowledge of God within the framework of that history of salvation which is given through God's unfathomable
will-to-reveal-himself (Dei Verbum 6). Of course the self-manifestation of
God in His creation is to be distinguished from God's supernaturalis revelatio.
But the natural knowledge of God taught by both Vatican Councils does allow
for a kind of divine revelation as the very condition of its possibility.

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losophy of religion whose task is to ask about the nature and the
truth claims of religions and their relationship to the understanding of the natural world in metaphysics. But it belongs to the task
of systematic theology to justify the understanding of the natural
world in Christian faith so far as possible.157
To sum up: It is the lasting insight of Thomism that the relationship of metaphysics and theology as two kinds of wisdom is
substantially a relationship of difference. But if the God of
Jewish-Christian monotheism is not simply identical with the
highest object of metaphysics, then the relationship between metaphysics and theology can no longer be determined as that of two
kinds of theology. In contrast to metaphysics, which leads to a
thir:king of the absolute, theology has to be understood as that
wisdom whose object is the one God who becomes accessible
through the history of His revelation and the history of faith.
Yet it is the task of both metaphysics and theology to protect that
which the language of religion calls the holy or the divine over
against the natural world, and thereby to protect the natural
world from any naturalistic reduction to itself.

1 5 7 Further reflection on the concept of systematic theology would be beyond the scope of this article. For an important contemporary concept of
theology in the tradition of Catholic theology, see M. Seckler, " Theologie als
Glaubenswissenschaft," in Handbuch der Fundamentaltheologie, Vol. 4, 179241. See also M. Seckler, "Fundamentaltheologie:
Aufgaben und Aufbau,
Begriff und Namen," in Handbuch der Fundamentaltheologie, Vol. 4, 450-514.
The most impressive contemporary concept of systematic theology in the tradition of Protestant theology is elaborated by W. Pannenberg. See Theology and
the Philosophy of Sciences, F. McDonagh, trans. (Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 1976); Systematic Theology, vol. I (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans,
1991), 1-61; An Introduction to Systematic Theology.

MYSTERY AND EXPLANATION IN AQUINAS'S
ACCOUNT OF CREATION
MICHAEL

C

LICCIONE

Houston, Texas

ONTEMPORARY philosophers of religion have devoted much worthy effort to analyzing and reconsidering such important traditional doctrines as those of divine omniscience and simplicity. But the similarly important and
traditional doctrine of creation ex nihilo has not been enjoy,ing
the same kind of attention. One reason for this may be that its
purport seems clearer, and its place in classical theism accordingly less controversial, than those of certain other doctrines, so that
neither proponents nor opponents, are as much inclined to puzzle
over it as over those other doctrines. But in Aquinas's magisterial
account, at least one of the doctrine's aspects bears a philosophical
interest that is easy to overlook. In this paper I will bring out
that aspect by resolving two alleged inconsistencies in Aquinas's
account.
Two well-known writers have argued that Aquinas's explanation of God's creating is incompatible with his description of
God's freedom in creating. In the late 1940s, most of the pertinent textual and philosophical matters were hotly debated between Lovejoy 1 on the one hand, who attacked the Common

1 Arthur
0. Lovejoy, "The Duality of Thomistic Theology: A Reply to
Mr. Veatch," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 7 (1947): 413438; "Analogy and Contradiction: A Surrejoinder," Phil. Phen. Res. 7
(1947) : 626-34; "Necessity and Self-Sufficiency in the Thomistic Theology:
A Reply to President Pegis," Phil. Phen. Res. 9 (1948) : 71-88; "Comment
on Mr. Pegis' Rejoinder," Phil. Phen. Res. 9 (1948): 284-90.

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Doctor's account as thus inconsistent, and Veatch 2 and Pegis 3
on the other hand, who defended it as both consistent and true.
More recently, Kretzmann 4 has advanced a professedly tentative
interpretation that offers what is, in effect, a weakened version of
Lovejoy's attack; and though he refrains from citing Lovejoydoubtless for good reason-Kretzmann is only the latest exponent
of a line of criticism that the great historian's influence has been
largely responsible for sustaining. But even though my sympathies lie with such traditional Thomists as Veatch and Pegis,
much of their treatment was as unnecessary as it was tortuous.
Rather than rehearse the details of the older debate, then, I shall
analyze the passages to which we should attend most closely, and
then use them to show why Lovejoy and Kretzmann are wrong.
That will in turn help to show that the existence of the world
is both fully explicable and essentially mysterious. It is fully explicable inasmuch as God effectively wills it, with good and sufficient reason for doing so. It is essentially mysterious inasmuch
as God freely wills it, with no reason to create rather than not,
and no reason to create this world rather than any other he could
have created. The question why the world exists thus has a good
answer that preserves the wonder which Aristotle says is the beginning of philosophy.
God's Reason for Creating
Aquinas says that
... the distinction and multitude of things is from the intention (ex
intentione) of the first cause, who is God. For he brought things
into being in order that his goodness might be communicated
2 Henry Veatch, "A Note on the Metaphysical Grounds for Freedom, with
Special Reference to Professor Lovejoy's Thesis in The Great Chain of Being," Phil. Phen. Res. 7 (1947) : 391-412; "A Rejoinder to Professor Lovejoy," Phil. Phen. Res. 7 (1947): 622-25.
3 Anton C. Pegis, "Principale Volitum: Some Notes on a Supposed Thomistic Contradiction," Phil. Phen. Res. 9 (1948): 51-70; Autonomy and Necessity: A Reply to Professor Lovejoy," Phil. Phen. Res. 9 (1948): 89-97.
4 Norman
Kretzmann, "Goodness, Knowledge, and Indeterminacy in the
Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas," Journal of Philosophy 80 (1983): 63149.

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(propter suam bonitatem communicandam) to creatures, and be represented by them. And because his goodness could not be adequately
represented by one creature alone, he produced many and diverse
creatures ... (ST Ia Q47 Al). 5

Therefore, God's creating the world is intentional: the intention
is to communicate his goodness to creatures and adequately represent it by them (better: through them). Nevertheless, what
God thus intends by creating the world is not the same as his
reason for creating it. To understand that reason, it is essential
to understand first why, for Aquinas, the communication (and
representation) of the divine goodness must be God's intention in
creating.
Consider a key use Aquinas makes of the venerable N ea-platonic principle bonum est diffusivum sui et esse-" the good is
diffusive of itself and being." On that use, any action performed
by any agent entails the agent's communicating its goodness:
The communication of being and goodness proceeds from goodness.
This is clear both from the very nature of good and from its concept (ratio). For by nature, the good of anything whatever is its act
and perfection. Now something acts insofar as it is in act, and by
acting, it diffuses its being and goodness into other things ... For
this reason it is said that " the good is diffusive of itself and being."
This diffusion belongs to the God (Deo competit), for ... He is the
cause of being for other things. (SCG I.37.5) 6
Now if communicating its goodness to other things is what any
agent does just by acting, then, it seems, God's acting at all enAt any rate, Aquinas
tails his creating something-or-other.
clearly implies that God communicates his goodness by diffusing
it into other things, and Aquinas seems to imply that some such
diffusion is entailed by God's doing anything at all.
s Cf. II Cont. Gent. c. 45, 9. English translations of the Summa theologiae
(abbreviated here as ST) are from Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas,
Anton C. Pegis, ed. (New York: Modern Library, 1948).
6 The phrase Deo competit is difficult to render;
"belongs to God" is a
short way of expressing its meaning here, which is something like "befits and
is rightly attributable to God." Unless otherwise indicated, the translations
from the Summa contra Gentiles (abbreviated here as SCG) are my own.

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Moreover, just by producing something, God represents his
goodness: " ... everything seeks after its own perfection, and the
perfection and form of an effect consist in a certain likeness to
the agent, since every agent makes its like . . ." (ST la Q6 A 1 ) .
Creatures necessarily " participate" or partake in their first efficient cause by being, and tending to be, like it; creatures thus necessarily represent that cause. By the same token, that cause is
their final cause. As Aquinas continues in the same passage:
. . . hence the agent itself is desirable and has the nature of good.
For the very thing which is desirable in it is the participation of its
likeness. Therefore, since God is the first producing cause of all
things, it is manifest that the aspect of good ... belong[sJ to Him ...
Indeed Aquinas answers the question " whether God is the final
cause of all things " affirmatively by arguing that
. . . every creature intends 7 to acquire its own perfection, which is
the likeness of the divine perfection and goodness. Therefore the divine goodness is the end of all things (ST Ia Q44 A4).
Creatures are ordered to God's goodness by tending to be like it,
and that is what God's final causality consists in. Just by being
the efficient and final cause of other beings, then, God represents
his goodness.
If so, then God's representing his goodness by creating is necessarily equivalent to his communicating his goodness by creating.
That is because, for Aquinas, an agent's producing something entails the communication of its goodness, and every agent produces its like, which as such represents it. Therefore, assuming
that creation is intentional and that he knows what he is about,
God necessarily intends by creating both the communication and
the representation of his goodness.
For all that has been said so far, we could conclude that God's
intention in creating the world is simply to do " adequately "
1 Although the Latin is intendit, a better translation for contemporary ears
might be "aims at." Aquinas is not insinuating a form of pan-psychism, according to which every agent harbors a conscious or quasi-conscious intention
to do what it does ; he is merely describing a necessary tendency to act for an
end, in line with his essentially teleological conception of the universe,

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what his doing anything at all entails. If so, and assuming that
God is necessarily active in some-or-other sense, then what reason other than what we have heard God intends could he have
for creating the world? Indeed, since Lovejoy's now-classic lectures, 8 something like this view has not only been respectable as
exegesis of Aquinas but has also been upheld as a truth in its own
right. For we have heard that God cannot represent his goodness adequately except by creating "many and diverse things";
representing his goodness is necessarily equivalent to communicating his goodness; and communicating its goodness ad e:rtra is
what any agent does just by acting. Or so it would seem.
Certainly, if Aquinas is right, both the communication and the
adequate representation of his goodness is what God is about in
creating the world. (For brevity, let us simply say henceforth
that what God is thus about is the diffusion of his goodness.)
Moreover, we regularly cite what somebody intends in doing
something as their reason for doing it or the reason why they do
it; and the diffusion of one's own goodness seems fit to be called
such a reason, as well as what God intends by creating. So one
might think that, for Aquinas, the diffusion of his goodness is
God's reason for creating the world. But Aquinas never says
this. What he does say is that the end or reason for which God
creates is the divine goodness-period.
Prima facie, this is quite puzzling. When we say that somebody has a reason for performing an action A, we typically mean
or imply that there is some good they want to achieve by performing A. One might thus say that they are after some good that
they believe performing A would secure or attain. But it would
be utterly false to Aquinas's notion of the divine perfection to
suggest that God could be after anything by creating, for there
neither is nor could be any good that God seeks to attain or secure thereby. Thus, although it "belongs" to " imperfect"
agents, "to intend, by acting, the acquisition of something," this
" does not befit the First Agent, who seeks only to communicate
s Published as The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1936).

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MICHAEL LICCtONE'.

His perfection, which is his goodness " (ST Ia Q44 A4). Whatever other goods they may seek and achieve by acting, imperfect
agents always act so as to become more perfect; but that cannot be
the case with an absolutely perfect being. Hence, even though
the diffusion of his goodness is what God intends by creating the
world, to say that what God thus intends is his reason for creating the world would involve too close an analogy between God
and lesser agents.
At the same time, however, Aquinas rejects "the error of certain people who say that all things ( omnia) depend on the simple
divine will, without any reason,'' 9 since "every agent acts for an
end." 10 When an intelligent agent acts as such (i.e., acts per intellectum), it acts " under the conception of the good (sub ratione
boni) that is the object of the will" (SCG III.3.6). In creating,
God is the First Agent; and since an agent by intellect and will is
" prior " to an agent that acts merely " by nature,'' God must act
"by intellect and will" (ST Ia Q19 A4). In this way, the end
or good for which an agent acts may be called the reason (or at
least a reason) for the agent's so acting. Hence, there must be a
good or end that constitutes a reason, perhaps the reason, for
God's willing other things (ratio volendi alia; SCG I.86.2)even though God has nothing to gain, and cannot improve reality,
by so willing.
That the divine goodness must be the reason for which God
wills that there be other things follows if " [the divine will]
wills nothing ... except by reason of its goodness " ( nisi ratione
suae bonitatis; ST Ia Q 19 A2 ad3). That God wills only by
reason of his goodness is said in turn to " follow " from the fact
that God's "own goodness suffices the divine will." It is plausible
but insufficient to read this argument as a truncated version of
another argument that God is liberal: " since the goodness of God
is perfect and can exist without other things, inasmuch as no perfection can accrue to him from them, it follows that for him to
9 II Cont. Gent., c. 24, 7. From the context of this passage, it is clear that
"all things" means "what God has created."
10 Sum. theo., I, q. 44, a. 4; cf. III Cont. Gent., c. 2, 17-18.

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will things other than himself is not absolutely 11 necessary " (ST
Ia Q19 A3; cf. SCG I.81.2); yet God does will other things;
hence "God alone is the most perfectly liberal giver, because he
acts not for his own profit ( utilitatem), but only out of his own
goodness " (propter suam bonitatem; ST Ia Q44 A4 adl).
As evidence of his liberality, God's creating the world is e:rpliccable by his goodness. But this cannot be the sense in which
God's goodness is the reason for which, or reason\ why, he creates
the world. That God is perfectly liberal is only an inferencealbeit a valid one-from the fact that God has nothing to gain by
creating and yet diffuses his goodness by doing so. Yet we are
still left with the question : Why create?
Strictly speaking, nothing can be a cause of God's willing to
create (ST Ia Q19 AS; SCG I.87). God's goodness can, it
seems, be called such a cause (SCG I.87.2; cf. ST Ia Q19 Al
ad3), inasmuch as it moves his will as the latter's principal object.12 But since God's goodness is identical with his existence,
his " act and perfection" ( SCG I.37.6), and thus with his " act
of will" (SCG I.87.2), 13 to cite God's goodness as a cause of
his act of will is not to explain that act in any clear and nontrivial way. So, one should not assign a cause to God's act of will
according to the sense in which some philosophers say that reasons
can be causes. Rather, "the will of God is reasonable insofar as he
wills one thing to be because of another " (ST Ia Q 19 AS adl).
More specifically, for every creature, there is at least one other
creature such that God wills that "one of them is the cause of
the other's being ordered to the divine goodness" ( SCG I.87.3).
In characteristically lapidary style, Aquinas concludes that God
" wills this to be as means to that ; but he does not will this because of that " (ST Ia Q 19 AS). God's goodness is the ratio of
creation: his goodness is that to which each creature is ordered
11 We shall discuss the distinction between absolute necessity and necessity
ex suppositione below.
12 For an inventory of texts on this point, see Basic Writings, 56ff.
13 This is a consequence of Aquinas's doctrine of divine simplicity, which is
beyond our scope. My aim here is merely to indicate how Aquinas thought
we could say that there is a reason for creating.

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by causal relations with other creatures. What God creates is
thus intelligible-as well-ordered.
But this cannot be the complete answer to the question why
God creates the world. If it were, the answer would come to :
" Because the world is well set up." But God in se, who wills
and loves his own infinite goodness " by the necessity of natural
order" (De Ver. Q23 A4) and cannot augment it by creating,
is set up better than anything else can be. So even leaving aside
the question whether God has reason enough to create, such an
answer by itself would not tell us how God has any reason to
create. It supplies a ratio of creation, but no rationale for creation.
Fortunately, a fuller answer may be extracted from Aquinas's
account. Consider :
. . . if natural things, insofar as they are perfect, communicate
their good to others, much more does it pertain to the divine will to
communicate by likeness its own good to others as much as is possible. Thus . . . [God] wills both Himself to be, and other things to
be; but Himself as the end, and other things as ordained to that end,
inasmuch as it befits ( condecet) the divine goodness that other things
should be partakers therein (ST Ia Ql9 AZ).
As we have heard before, God communicates his goodness to
other things by producing them and ordering them to it; things
so produced and ordered somehow "partake" in God's goodness
by being " ordained" to it. That communication is a diffusion
of God's goodness, which is God's intention in creating; and to
execute his intention in creating is for God to act reasonably,
since creation, as ordered to God's goodness, is well-ordered.
Here, however, we also hear that the communication especially
"befits" God. Since that communication is a diffusion of God's
goodness, it follows that to diffuse itself also " befits " the divine
goodness. Therefore, there-being-other-things-ordered-to-God'sgoodness befits the divine goodness. And it is in that sense that
the divine goodness is creation's rationale.
To see why, consider an analogy. A good work of art will
naturally reflect the artist in various ways; in Aquinas's sense, it

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will diffuse and befit the artist's goodness, his characteristic "act
and perfection." That can be one of the artist's reasons for creating a work. When it is, it forms part of the work's rationale.
Of course, it is both more common and commonly right to say
that the work itself is the reason for creating it; but if we ask in
what respect the work counts as such a reason, its befitting the
artist in its composition is sometimes a good and sufficient answer.
Now if Aquinas is right, we may infer that the world itself is a
reason for creating it. But the world counts as such a reason because, in diffusing God's goodness by its order, it befits that goodness. If so, then his goodness is God's reason for creating the
world: it is creation's rationale. 14 Therefore, though Aquinas
did not say so explicitly, I conclude from his account that God's
goodness is his reason for creating the world in the following
dual sense: the world's existence befits his goodness in diffusing
it and diffuses it by being ordered to it. That is also the reason
why the world exists.
Now following Lovejoy, 15 some would object that, on this
interpretation, Aquinas faces an insoluble dilemma. On the one
hand, if creation neither adds anything to God's goodness nor
otherwise serves as a means to his perfection, then God can
acquire no good by creating; if so, then there is no reason for
God to create rather than not; and thus there seems no explanation for God's creating. On the other hand, if there is a reason
for God to create, then God secures some good by creating that
he does not enjoy just by existing; if so, then God does have a
reason to create rather than not; and thus there is an explanation of God's creating, namely, that in some sense he is better, or
better off, for creating. And even though it does not follow from
14 Professing to agree with Aquinas, James Ross asserts that God's reason
for creating is simply "what he makes" (see "Creation II," in F. Freddoso,
ed., The Existence and Nature of God [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1983], 135). Aquinas, however, never says this explicitly;
moreover, this only invites the question as to why what God makes counts as a
reason for his making it. What I am claiming that Aquinas does in fact say,
however, would answer that question.
15 Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, 425ff.

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this alone that something is added to the divine goodness by creation, it is natural to conclude that creation's being ordained to the
divine goodness consists not just in God's being its final cause,
but in its being a means to the end of God's goodness. 16 Thus,
God's goodness requires both the act and the content of creation
in order to be the infinite goodness it necessarily is. The dilemma,
in short, is this : Either God has no reason to create rather than
not, or his goodness necessitates that he create.
But conceiving this choice as a dilemma derives from an unfounded prejudice. It is true, as Lovejoy would have insisted,
that the sort of interpretation I am giving does not have Aquinas
explaining why God created rather than not. But if God has a
reason to create, it does not follow that there is a reason why he
created the world rather than not-either for Aquinas or in general. That is partly because there is no general principle of explanation according to which a reason-why-.:r must also be a reason-why-x-rather-than-anything-incompatible-with-.:r.
To be sure, it is trivially true that a reason-why-x is also a reason-why-.:r-rather-than-some-things-incompatible-with-x.
For example, suppose that I plan to devote a particular evening to doing
something befitting a good husband, and that any of several alternatives open to me would fill the bill. I thus have a reason for
doing any one of them that is also a reason for not doing anything
incompatible with each and every one of them. So, whatever I do
to carry out my plan, the reason why I do it is, in this rather
trivial sense, also a reason for doing it rather than anything incompatible with being a good husband. But there is also a sense
in which my reason for doing it could be a reason for doing any
of a number of things that would befit a good husband but that are
also mutually incompatible as things stand. For suppose also that,
as it happens that evening, I can fulfill my plan either by taking
my wife to the movies or by staying home and cooking dinner
for her, but that there is no time for both. Even so, given my
16 That is why Lovejoy generally favored the translation
of ordinata ad
finem and ea quae ad finem as " means to an end" rather than as " directed to
an end."

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reason for doing one or the other, either would serve just as well;
and thus my reason for doing the one is equally a reason for
doing the other, even though they are mutually incompatible as
things stand. Therefore, my reason for doing the one need not
also be a reason to do the one rather than the other. The same
goes, I think, for a great many exercises of what the later scholastics called " liberty of spontaneity."
If so, then we can reasonably say, on the one hand, that the
fittingness of God's diffusion of his goodness ad extra is a reason
for him to create and, on the other hand, that it is no reason for
him to create rather than not. For the fittingness of that diffusion
makes neither for more good-in-general nor a better God in particular than there would be if that diffusion were not to occur.
"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good"; but since
creation is purely contingent and derivative, the world is good in
its diffusing the goodness of its source only by being ordered to
that source-i.e., only inasmuch as the divine goodness is its reason for being. There is no su_ch thing as a quantity of goodness
that purely contingent good things could augment; still less is
there a virtue of goodness that their production would enhance.
There is only infinite and self-sufficient goodness, which can intelligibly diffuse itself ad extra, but need not.
God's Freedom in Creating

If, as Aquinas maintains, God creates the world intentionally
but not necessarily, then God creates it strictly "of his own accord " (propria sponte; sec I.88.2)' by free choice (liberum
arbitrium). I shall not try here to expound this claim fully or
reconstruct all of Aquinas's arguments for it. But I shall adduce
considerations that help us to appreciate its import. Thus, just as
God has good reason to create, though no reason to create rather
than not, so too does God have good reason to create this world,
but no reason to create this world rather than any o_ther he might
have created.
Lovejoy thought that Aquinas also commits himself to the
negation of that proposition. If Lovejoy were right, then

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Aquinas's account of creation would be so fundamentally inconsistent that its interest would lie not in its synthesis of mystery
and explanation but in the question how to explain its inconsistency. So, I shall first show that Lovejoy was wrong. Next, I
shall refute Kretzmann's view that Aquinas implies, inconsistently, that God must create some world or other, though not this
world in particular. I shall thus exhibit the full extent to which,
for Aquinas, creation is mysterious.
According to Lovejoy, Aquinas holds the "principle of plenitude," which here entails that God " necessarily " creates, and
creates "all things that he understands as possible." 17 From this
point of view, Aquinas seems committed to a version of what I
call monomodalism: the doctrine that the actual world is the only
possible world. The two main texts Lovejoy cites to support this
interpretation are sec I.75 and sec II.45; but before considering them, note how grossly he misreads an important passage that
militates against his view.
Aquinas therein implies that God has not created all that he
understands as possible:
. . . the universe could not be better than it is, because of the supremely befitting order which God has assigned to things, wherein
the good of the universe consists. If any one of these things were
[separately J better, the proportion which constitutes the order of the
whole would be vitiated . . . Nevertheless, God could make other
things than he has, or could add others to the things he has made ;
and this other universe would be better. (ST Q25 A6 resp. & ad 6)
Lovejoy asserts that the third sentence of this argument is "the
formal negation of the first." 18 That assertion, of course, is a mistake about logical syntax; but it is also wrong as textual interpretation. Aquinas says, in effect, that given the constituents
of the universe, its composition is optimal, though there could
have been other or more things that would have made for a better universe-one that, in God's wisdom, would have been optimally composed in its own way. 19 There's nothing odd about this:
11 Lovejoy,

The Great Chain of Being, 73ff.

1s Ibid., 79.
19 Kretzmann,

"Goodness, Knowledge, and Indeterminacy," 640-41.

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from the fact that God makes the world as good as he can make it,
it does not follow that he makes as many good things as it is possible for him to make. And so neither does it follow that God
creates all that he understands as possible.
Indeed, Aquinas elsewhere implies that no possible world could
contain all that God so understands. 20 Whatever one may think
of his actual arguments-a matter that need not detain us-the
conclusion seems unassailable. For not all things that are severally possible for God to create are compossible-even if, per impossibile, a collective actualization were to consist in all the several
possibilities' being actualized in a particular order. Whatever the
order, it seems that another would have been logically possible,
because whatever God creates, there is always something different
he might have created as well or instead. So, why think that
Aquinas is committed to the principle of plenitude?
Lovejoy quotes:
Everyone desires the perfection of that which for its own sake he
wills and loves: for the things we love for their own sakes, we wish
... to be multiplied as much as possible. But God wills and loves his
essence for its own sake. Now that essence is not augmentable or
multipliable in itself but can be multiplied only in its likeness, which
is shared by many. God therefore wills things to be multiplied, inasmuch as he wills and loves his own perfection. (SCG I.75.3)
Moreover, God in willing himself wills all the things which are in
himself; but all things in a certain manner pre-exist in God by their
types ( rationes). Therefore in willing himself God wills other things.
(SCG I.75.5) 21
In essence, the argument Lovejoy builds on this passage runs as
follows. For Aquinas, any being other than God multiplies the
divine essence in its likeness, and nothing can be unless God wills
20 This implies of course that God cannot create any " best possible world "
and therefore that no such world is really possible. See In I Sent. d. 44, q. 1,
a. 2 and Kretzmann's explication of it; cf. De Veritate, q. 23; De Potentia
Dei, q. 1, a. 2; Veatch, "A Note on the Metaphysical Grounds for Freedom,"
401ff.
21 The translation here is that of Fr. Rickaby, used by Lovejoy. The phrase
" multiplied in its likeness " would be better translated as "multiplied by way
of likeness."

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it. So if, as the quotation seems to imply, God has willed as
many things-that-multiply-his-essence-in-its- likeness as possible,
then God has willed all the things that are really possible. Given
divine omniscience, this result is equivalent to God's willing all
that he understands as really possible. Therefore, Aquinas is committed to the principle of plenitude, despite his all-but-explicit disavowals of it elsewhere.
If this argument were sound, Aquinas's account of creation
would indeed be inconsistent. And it would be sound if the first
sentence of the passage meant: " Necessarily, if x wills the perfection of some F that x wills and loves for F's own sake, then
x wills that there actually be produced as many Fs as possible."
But construed this way, the sentence is so patently false that we
should doubt that a thinker of Aquinas's robust good sense would
have believed it. If I will my perfection for its own sake-in
whatever sense that is so-it does not follow that I want there
to be as many beings like me as possible. One may ask: Does it
not follow for God in particular if not for everyone in general?
Not according to Aquinas, who not only implies that it does not
(in what I quoted above from ST Ia Q25), but expressly denies
it a few chapters after the passage we are now considering (in
SCG I.81). In fact, Lovejoy's quotation omits part of the first
sentence, which when fully translated reads: " Everyone desires
the perfection of that which for its own sake he wills and loves:
for the things we love for their own sakes, we wish to be most
perfect, and always to become better and to be multiplied as much
as possible " (emphasis added). Aquinas obviously did not believe that the divine essence can become better. What, then, are
we to make of the sentence at issue?
Well, Aquinas thinks that the other things God wills necessarily are things as they pre-exist in him-in N eoplatonic terms,
the " divine ideas." In necessarily knowing his essence, God necessarily knows all the ways in which it can be imitated (SCG
I.54) ; the divine essence as known necessarily includes all the
divine ideas; hence, so does the divine essence as willed and
loved. It is in this sense that, necessarily willing his own good-

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ness, God necessarily wills other things. But it simply does not
follow that he necessarily wills to create those things, i.e., to invest them with actual existence ad extra. Whatever one may
think of the notion of divine ideas (or of Aquinas's understanding of it), its role in SCG I.75 is clear. In light of this, the sentence in question is not intended as a premise in any argument that
God must create. At most, it introduces an analogy meant to
show how reasonable it is that God wills some possible things to
be actual.
Needless to say, a difficulty remains, and we shall have to make
a detour to dispose of it. Lovejoy makes much of Aquinas's insistence, in the very next chapter of the SCG, that God necessarily
wills by one act of will whatever he wills ( I.76). Thus, it is in
some sense necessary that, in willing his own goodness or perfection, God wills not only all the divine ideas themselves but also
wills to create what some divine ideas are ideas of. Quite so;
but if so, then does not God necessarily will whatever he wills?
No. To see why, note first that Aquinas is unquestionably
committed only to :
( 1) Necessarily, for any F not identical with God, if God wills that
there be an F, then God wills himself and there-being-an-F in one
act of will.
This is an instance of what the scholastics called the " necessity
of the consequence." But Lovejoy seems to read Aquinas as claiming also that :
(2) For any F not identical with God, God necessarily wills himself and there-being-an-F in one act of will.
This is an instance of the " necessarily of the consequent." Now
(2) implies that God necessarily creates. But ( 1) does not, and
( 2) neither means the same as ( 1) nor follows from ( 1) in virtue of their logical form. If Lovejoy thought that Aquinas either
means or is committed to (2) in virtue of meaning or being committed to ( 1), then the problem is that Lovejoy is attributing his
own fallacy to Aquinas.

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But the problem is more likely his failure to appreciate the subtleties of certain other texts. For one thing, it is, all-too-easy to
have Aquinas sliding from ( 1) to (2), because as we will shortly see, there is a sense in which, for Aquinas, (2) is true-never
mind that it does not follow from or mean the same as ( 1). If
(2) is true in any sense at all, then from (1) and in the absence
of other considerations, one easily concludes that God wills to
create not just by reason of his goodness but by just the same
necessity by which he wills his goodness. In order to show how
to forestall this result, we must consider three points Aquinas
makes later in the Summa theologiae: one about necessity, the
other two about will.
He consistently distinguishes absolute necessity from necessity
e:r suppositione. Absolute necessity arises from the relation of
terms-e.g., "a man is an animal" or "numbers are odd or
even." Necessity e:r suppositione might be explained as necessity
on a given hypothesis-e.g., given that God wills something in
particular, he cannot not will it, for his will is unalterable (ST
Ia Q19 A7 resp. and ad7). Hence, "on the supposition" that
God creates anything at all, (2) is true if construed as:
(2*) For any F not identical with God, God unalterably wills himself and there-being-an-F in one act of will.
Now since Aquinas constantly affirms that creation is not absolutely necessary, he would clearly have said that, where 'F '
ranges over creatures as well as the divine ideas, (2*) holds only
if God creates. Hence, even though God wills both himself and
creatures unalterably, the modal operator in (2*) is weaker than
that in ( 1), which also signifies absolute necessity. 22 That is why
(2), on that construal of it which Aquinas would have affirmed,
in no way follows from ( 1 ) .
As to will, there are two dispositions that " pertain to the
will " : by the first, one " seeks " ( quaerat) some good or " tends "
22 I avoid calling ( 1) 's modal operator one of " logical " necessity because
(1) is not true in virtue of its logical form, but only in virtue of richer conceptual considerations on its terms.

AQUINAS'S

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toward it if one lacks it; by the second, one " rests " ( quiescat)
in a good when one has it (ST Ia Q19 Al). For Aquinas, it is
clear that God's will does not seek his goodness-Le., his "act
and perfection "-by doing things to bring it about or augment it,
but simply rests in it. And though I cannot pause to do justice
to this profound and readily misunderstood claim, we can understand it well enough for present purposes by considering the related point that there are two ways in which something can be,
or come about'' by will'' (ST Ia Q41 A2).
In one way, use of the ablative voluntate-" by will "-only
designates " concomitance " ( concomitantia) between the will
and an already obtaining state of affairs. For example, " I am
human by my will" would mean not that I have willingly made
myself human but that I happily accede to being human (it is
worth noting that the example Aquinas uses here involves my
will' s acceding in something necessarily true of me.) In the other
way, the ablative form voluntate is used as a way of characterizing the cause of some state of affairs: e.g., "an artisan works by
his will " means that the artisan's will (rather than any necessity
of his nature) is the cause of his work. We may take the former
way in which something can be" by will" to be one of the waysor aspects-in which someone's will can "rest" in something he
possesses. In context, Aquinas employs this distinction between
two uses of voluntate to argue that, although the Father begets
the Son by will in the former sense, the Father only produce5
creatures by will in the latter sense.
From what he says here and elsewhere, it follows that God as
triune must will the divine goodness in the same way in which
the Father wills the Son: God's will thus rests and accedes in
the divine goodness by natural necessity. The same goes for the
divine ideas as belonging to the divine essence; for given divine
simplicity, the latter is identical with the divine goodness. But
what of creatures? Even if God wills in one act of will whatever
he wills, it would be absurd, in Aquinas's terms, to say that God's
will necessarily rests in creatures, for they are not the terminus
of his will : such " other things " are willed only " by reason of "

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and " as ordained to " God's goodness. So Aquinas must rather
say that, in one and the same act of will, God rests in his own
goodness and brings about creatures as ordered to that goodness.
And so the question arises : How can one and the same act of will
be both a resting in its end, which is absolutely necessary, and a
production of things ordered to the end, which is necessary only
ex suppositione?
Lovejoy's answer would almost certainly have been: "It cannot." But I confess I cannot see why not. Take our own case:
We will our own act and perfection-i.e., our own goodness-by
natural necessity, yet freely will various things we believe, rightly or wrongly, will contribute to it. That is because, as regards
all except the "principal object" or last end of its will,
any rational nature ... so has its inclination within its power that it
does not necessarily incline to anything appetible which is apprehended, but can incline or not incline. And so its inclination is not
determined for it by anything other than itself. It can come about
that something determines for itself its inclination to an end only if
it knows the end and the bearing of the means to the end.... (De
Ver. Q22 A4; my translation)
Given this connection of freedom with rationality, we can see that
there are many cases in which, in one actual intentional state, an
agent wills its own goodness by natural necessity and yet freely
wills what seems to him best suited to producing it. There are
of course major differences between God's willing to create and
our willing to do produce anything-differences on which I need
not here elaborate. The point is simply that it not only logically
possible, but the most common thing in the world, for one act of
will to have more than one object, one of which is willed by
natural necessity, the other either by hypothetical necessity or only
contingently.
Lovejoy's major difficulty was that he was bent on proving a
larger historical thesis with which the above considerations are
incompatible. The thesis was that a " principle of plenitude "
stretching back to Plato's Timaeus, and handed down to the theologians of the Latin West through the Pseudo-Dionysius, en-

AQUINAS'S

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tailed that God necessarily created as much as was compossible.
Adherents of that principle tended to believe that, had God not
created as much as was compossible, he would have been less than
perfectly liberal and hence not perfectly good. Since this result
would have been wholly unacceptable to them, they concluded
that God's producing as many things as possible was necessary
to his being perfectly good, and hence that creation was a " means
to the end" of God's goodness. And if "to will the end is to
will the means to the end "-as Aquinas was rightly fond of saying-then God's willing his goodness by absolute, natural necessity entailed his willing to create by the same necessity. But we
can now see why, for Aquinas, it just was not so.
Having completed this lengthy but, to my mind, rewarding detour, we can now see that the first major passage Lovejoy considers (SCG I.75) is no evidence that Aquinas is there committed to a principle of plenitude that he tries to evade in the
larger body of his work. And the other passage Lovejoy quotes
-a large section of SCG II.45-suits his purposes even less.
Since his treatment of it may be rejected for roughly the same
reasons for which I have rejected his treatment of ST Ia Q25, I
leave the matter to the interested reader.
Still, when Aquinas says elsewhere that " the divine will communicates its own good by likeness to other things as much as
possible " (ST Ia Q 19 A2, emphasis added), his aim is to argue
that God creates other things. And we do find a closely related,
more detailed argument to that effect at SCG I.75.6:
To the extent to which something has the perfection of a power, its
causality is extended to more things and over a wider range ... But
the causality of an end consists in the fact that other things are desired because of it. Therefore the more perfect and willed an end is,
the more the will of the one willing the end is extended to more
things by reason of that end. But the divine essence is most perfect
in the essential nature ( ratione) of goodness and of end. Therefore
it will diffuse its causality as much as possible- to many things, so
that many things will be willed because of it-and especially by God,
who wills [the divine essence] perfectly in respect of all of its
power.28
28 The translation

is Kretzmann's (emphasis mine).

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Kretzmann offers the latter passage as evidence that, in conjunction with two other claims, Aquinas is committed to concluding
that God must create something-or-other, though not this world
in particular. 24 If Aquinas were so committed, his account of
creation would indeed be inconsistent.
The two other claims Kretzmann cites are clear and familiar :
" in willing himself God also wills other things " (the thesis of
SCG I.75) and " God wills himself and other things in one act
of will" (the thesis of SCG I.76). The former, as Aquinas
wants us to accept it, means that in one act of will, God wills himself as end and other things as ordered to it; the latter, that this
willing, though it has more than one object, is no more than one
act. But why, given Aquinas's strong denials that God necessarily
creates anything at all,25 should we think that the three claims in
question entail that God must create?
Kretzmann reminds us of Aquinas's repeated invocation of the
Neo-platonic principle we have heard about already-" the good
is diffusive of itself and being " (call it ' GD ' for short). 26 I
have already quoted one passage (SCG I.37.5) where Aquinas
invokes GD to describe an essential note of goodness; and the
long passage I quoted above from SCG I.75.6 might also be construed as containing an application of GD. Now as Kretzmann
acknowledges, Aquinas did not typically adopt GD as entailing
that an agent, to the extent it is good, efficiently causes (produces) something-or-other (call this version ' GDe '). Indeed, if
Aquinas be interpreted as consistent, he adopted GD only as entailing that, whatever things an agent produces, it exerts its final
causality over them as much as possible (call this version
' GDt '). 21 Thus the more perfect it is, the more the agent makes
24 Kretzmann, " Goodness, Knowledge, and Indeterminacy,"

636.
cite just a few of the better-known examples: Sum. theo., I, q. 19, a.
3; I Cont. Gent., c. 81, 2; II Cont. Gent., c. 28, 10.
26 Because a version of the principle had been lent authority in Christian
theology by Pseudo-Dionysius, Kretzmann gives this principle the more specific name " Dionysian."
2 7 The wording of GDe and GDr is mine; the basis for it is De Veritate, q.
21, a. 1, ad 4, which Kretzmann says "may be Aquinas' only explicit discussion" of GDt ("Goodness, Knowledge, and Indeterminacy," 635).
2 5 To

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the things he makes as good-of-their-kind as possible. Now it is
a wise rule of thumb, when dealing with a thinker of Aquinas's
caliber, to interpret him as consistent if at all possible. But Kretzmann, while not exactly ignoring this rule, seems all-too-willing
to break it. He claims that GDr does not leave room for God to
refrain from creating something-or-other, and that, recognizing
as much, Aquinas implicitly embraces GDe in sec I.75.6.
To show why, Kretzmann supposes arguendo that only GDt
is true, and that God creates nothing at all. In such a state of
affairs,
God's will has no object other than its principal object, goodness itself, or the divine essence; and so the final causation inherent in
God's goodness must draw only God's will, and only in the direction
of God himself. The diffusiveness of goodness conceived as final
causation cannot be extended to the drawing of anything other than
God himself toward it unless there are other things ... But in those
circumstances, why should God's will cause anything to begin to
exist? ... Granting that God's will is the efficient cause of the existence of something besides God, we are left with the need for an explanation of God's willing it. 28
The explanation, according to Kretzmann, can only be found in
Aquinas's embracing GDe. Essentially self-diffusive, God's goodness entails that God create something-or-other ordered to it. It
is this explanation that Kretzmann says Aquinas " comes close
to presenting" in sec I.75.6, despite his "explicit rejection"
of it elsewhere.
But the explanation we can derive from Aquinas's corpus is
the one I have already presented: the world befits God's goodness in diffusing it, and diffuses it by being ordered to it, i.e., by
being finally caused by it. For the reasons I have given, this is
explanation enough; so Aquinas does not need GDe to explain
why God creates the world. Rather, for him, the essential self-diffusiveness of his goodness entails only that if God creates, he
diffuses his goodness as much as possible, and in that way has
good reason to create. To be sure, that explanation shows neither
28 Kretzmann,

"Goodness, Knowledge, and Indeterminacy," 635.

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that God must create rather than not, nor why God creates this
world rather than some other. But it is by no means a trivial explanation. So Kretzmann's critique is misguided.
In light of this, the correct interpretation of SCG I.75.6 is
that, assuming he creates, God so diffuses his final causality that
" many things " share it. In creating many things rather than
only one or a few, God causes things to cause other things' existing and resembling him. As we saw at the beginning of the previous section, that is what God must do to diffuse his goodness
adequately. God therefore diffuses his goodness by diffusing his
final causality in an optimally composed world-which serves to
explain how he can communicate his goodness as much as possible in creating (cf. ST Ia Q47 Al).
The argument that Aquinas believes GDe rather gains force
from SCG I.37.5 and its background: "Something acts insofar
as it is in act, and by acting, it diffuses its goodness into other
things." Must not God, who is goodness itself (SCG I.38) and
"pure act," (SCG I.16.5), therefore create?
No. Within a domain of causally interrelated beings, it does
follow that if a being acts, it diffuses its goodness into some other
being. But even supposing that in general, when goodness is diffused, it is diffused into an "other," Aquinas hints in an early
text that God " communicates " or diffuses himself as much as
possible initernally in their being " more than one distinct person
in the unity of the divine essence," i.e., in the Trinity. 29 This
holds whether or not God creates. Kretzmann brushes that text
aside, saying that
in Aquinas' system it is the triune God whose essence is goodness itself. Unless there is some further intrinsic diffusion, beyond the
pluralizing of persons, the essential self-diffusiveness of goodness remains intact and calls for extrinsic diffusion.30
But if the triune God " acts insofar as he is in act " and is pure
act, it does not follow that he must act ad extra. According to
the orthodox doctrine to which Aquinas adhered, each of the
three divine persons, as subjects of intellect and will, necessarily
In I Sent., d. 2, q. 1, a. 4, sed contra; cited by Kretzmann (634).
ao Kretzmann, " Goodness, Knowledge, and Indeterminacy," 634.

29

AQUINAS'S

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know and love each other (ST Ia Q27). Those relations are an
" intrinsic diffusion " that satisfies GDf. That is all Aquinas
needs, if indeed he needs even that. 31
To be sure, Kretzmann does adduce a passage from the De
V eritate to try to prove that Aquinas thinks God must create
something-or-other : " [God's] goodness has no need of things
that are ordered to it except as a manifestation of it, which can
be appropriately accomplished in various ways. And so there remains for him a free judgment for willing this one or that one,
just as in our own case" (De Ver. Q24 A3). 32 But this need
only be interpreted as : If God manifests his goodness, then he
must produce some-thing-or-other, though not anything in particular, that is ordered to it. To insist now that, for Aquinas, the
persons of the Trinity must collectively diffuse the divine goodness ad extra by efficient causation, not merely severally diffuse
it ad intra by final causation, would just be marching on the spot.
If Aquinas is both consistent and right in implying that God
need not create anything at all, then the world has been produced
by an act of perfect liberality. There is thus sufficien:t reason for
God to create, but no reason for him to create rather than not.
For no matter what God creates, what he ultimately intends
thereby is already fulfilled just by his own existence. We might
well say, with Miss Anscombe, that God creates out of " sheer
exuberance." The question why the world exists is fully answered
by a mystery.
31 He did not seem convinced he needed such a deus ex revelatione: in subsequent writings, he does not invoke such Trinitarian considerations in order
to defend GDf. Perhaps he thought that the ad intra diffusion required by
GDt is effected by the necessary ordering of God's will to his goodness as its
principal object. If so, then he can be interpreted as adopting a still weaker
version of GDf than I have so far been considering. That version would a
fortiori preserve the consistency of his overall account.
32 As John Wippel has pointed out to me, comparing editions of the original
Latin helps here. The Latin that Kretzmann quotes, and translates by " except as a manifestation of it," is from the Marietti edition and reads nisi eius
ad manifestandam. But the Leonine edition reads nisi eius manifestationem.
The gerundive-with-ad construction in the first reading allows the translation, "unless his goodness is to be manifested," which would accord well with
Kretzmann's interpretation. The second reading does not admit this translation and does not suggest Kretzmann's interpretation.

A NOTE ON THE RELATION OF PACIFISM AND
JUST-WAR THEORY: IS THERE A THOMISTIC
CONVERGENCE?
GABRIEL

1

PALMER-FERNANDEZ

Youngstown State University
Youngstown, Ohio

F

OR CENTURIES, the moral analysis of war began with
a consideration of a set of principles which together form
the doctrine of the just-war and with a rejection of pacifism. However, several recent studies by Catholic moralists argue
that pacifism and just-war theory have much in common and converge in at least one morally important way-namely, they share
a presumption against violence. In this note I want to consider
whether or not classical just-war theory gives us reason to accept this claim. I will give evidence against it, and suggest that
the "original just-war question," as James Turner Johnson calls
it, does not begin with prohibitive presumption or some equivalent constraint on action. If we are to speak of a presumption in
classical just-war theory, it is that justice be done for the sake of
the common good.
Up to very recent times, those Christian denominations which
Ernst Troeltsch called the "church-type" (Lutheran, Anglican,
Calvinist, and Roman Catholic) upheld a " two-tiered " or
"double" morality. A "vocational" pacifism was required of
clerical ranks, and the individual Christian was obligated to take
up arms for the sake of the common good. For example, prior
to the Second Vatican Council, Roman Catholic teaching on war
rejected conscientious objection to all war (i.e., pacifism) as an
option for Catholics. Manuals of moral theology prior to Vatican

a

1 I wish to acknowledge the very helpful and detailed comments provided
by Richard B. Miller to an earlier version of this paper.

247

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II did prohibit the soldier from fighting in an unjust war and
made room for subjective doubt about the justice of a particular
war. But the consensus among Catholic theologians was both
wide and deep. Pacifism for individual Christians did not have
any moral-theological justification. It was, in fact, a grave moral
error.
In spite of this, Vatican II called for a " completely fresh reappraisal of war." 2 The policy of obliterating whole cities enacted
during World War II, coupled with the development of nuclear
and other indiscriminate weapons of destruction (e.g., incapacitating gases, biological weapons, etc.) and the instability of
superpower relations, created an unprecedented condition for
which traditional teachings on war seemed woefully inadequate,
if not morally dangerous. A new, more far-reaching perspective
was needed. And this was to allow for individuals the pacifist option as a second and complementary moral doctrine alongside traditional teaching on war. 3 As the American Catholic bishops said
in their pastoral letter on war and peace :
2 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, in A. Flannery,
0.P., ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents
(Collegeville, Minn. : Liturgical Press, 1975), par. 80.
3 This development in contemporary
Roman Catholic teaching on war and
peace has been challenged with considerable force by George Weigel in what
has become one of the most controversial studies on the subject. In Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987),
Weigel advances several arguments which are meant to correct what he insists is a failure among Catholic ethicists in the U.S. to develop their tradition, and, indeed, an abandonment of their heritage. " At the level of moral
theory," Weigel maintains, "the two classic positions [just-war theory and
pacifism] are not reconcilable. The attempt to merge them ... tends to corrupt both traditions. Pacifists end up making judgments on military strategy
and tactics, and just-war theorists are held accountable to arguments they
previously declined to accept. ... The net result is to bifurcate morality and
politics, and to abandon attempts to apply the tradition of reason to the limit
case of the use of armed force in the defense of values-which is precisely the
result Murray most feared in his strictures against moralism" (251). For
David Hollenbach's rebuttal, see his review essay, "War and Peace in American Catholic Thought: A Heritage Abandoned? " Theological Studies 48
(1987) : 711-727.

IS THERE A THOMISTIC

CONVERGENCE?

249

just-war teaching and nonviolence ... diverge on specific conclusions,
but they share a common presumption against the use of force as a
means for settling disputes .... We believe the two perspectives support and complement one another, each preserving the other from
distortion. 4
The church's teaching on war and peace establishes a strong presumption against war which is binding on all; it then examines when
this presumption may be overridden, precisely in the name of preserving the kind of peace which protects human dignity and human
rights. 5
The moral theory of the " just-war " or " limited war" doctrine begins with the pre·sumption which binds all Christians: We should do
no harm to our neighbors. . . . How is it possible to move from
[this presumption] to the idea of a justifiable use of lethal force? 6
The bishops' question in the last quotation is important. It introduces a degree of doubt that recourse to force can ever be
morally justified. Given the presumption against war and the corresponding negative duty to " do no harm," how can acts of
violence that maim and kill be licit? If war undoubtedly brings
harm, then it seems the presumption against harm forbids it. In
the 1988 Report which reflects on the original pastoral on war
and peace, the bishops say that the moral tradition they employed
" runs from the Sermon on the Mount through the statements of
John Paul II" (par. 31). Any reader of the Sermon will likely
come away with the opinion that Christians are to " turn the other
cheek" to violence and whoever kills " shall be liable to judgment." Yet the bishops, or some of them, are convinced that war
can be a legitimate means of settling disputes and is sometimes
the right and obligatory thing to do. When important values
are threatened by an adversary the presumption against harm is
overridden by an entirely different form of reasoning about deadly force.
While the bishops do not state in what way this presumption
is related to traditional Catholic teaching, David Hollenbach and
4 The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response (Washington,
D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1983), paragraphs 120-121 (emphasis mine) .
5 Ibid., paragraph 70 (emphasis mine).
6 Ibid., paragraph 80 (emphasis mine),

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J. Bryan Hehir, among others, appeal to Aquinas's quaestio on
war. Hollenbach and Hehir wish to argue that Aquinas presumes war to be morally unacceptable. Hollenbach says :
The quaestio with which Thomas begins his reflection is this: " Is it
always a sin to fight in war?" The just war tradition, therefore, is
not the result of ignorance or rejection of the biblical and theological
evidence of Jesus Christ's challenge to a peaceful and nonviolent way
of life. Rather the just war tradition, again when it is properly understood, rests on the conviction that violent warfare should be presumed to be morally unacceptable and even sinful. ... The original
just war question implies that nonviolence is the Christian norm and
that the use of force can only be moral by way of exception, if at all.
Violent warfare should be presunied to be incompatible with a fundamental Christian orientation. 7
And Hehir, the chief architect
writes:

of the bishops'

1983 pastoral,

This presumption against war is reflected in the way Aquinas poses
his quaestio regarding war: " Is fighting in war always a sin ? " In
the pacifist tradition this " strong presumption " becomes in effect an
absolute rule admitting of no exceptions. The just-war ethic retains
the presumption, but acknowledges exceptions to the rule. 8

It is important to note that these are doubtful claims when put
alongside the assessment by other modern commentators of
Aquinas's teaching on war, for example, Regout and Mgr. de
Solages. Even Joan Tooke, who agrees with the pacifist sympathies of commentators like Vanderpool and Stratmann, characterizes Aquinas's teaching as "abstract and theoretical, and inspired by no personal emotion or thought. . . . he regarded the
7 David Hollenbach, Nuclear Ethics: A Christian Moral Argument
(New
York: Paulist Press, 1983), 14.
8 J. Bryan Hehir, "The Just-War Ethic and Catholic Theology: Dynamics
of Change and Continuity," in T. Shannon, ed., War or Peace? (Maryknoll:
Orbis, 1980), 18. Daniel Dombrowski makes the same point: "The presence
of the word 'always' in this question suggests that normally war is sinful, or,
better, the burden of proof is on the person who would like to argue that
waging war need not be sinful. And because this is the only question in all of
Aquinas's writings that deals specifically with war, the phrasing of this first
article to the question should especially be noted" (Christian Pacifism [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991], 7).

IS THERE A THOMISTIC

CONVERGENCE?

251

limited ' common good' of a province or nation as sufficient justification.... For Aquinas, Christian revelation elevated just warfare to a divine activity, and affected the spirit of love, justice,
and punishment in which it ought to be fought." 9 I am going to
bring some further doubts to bear on these claims. The question
I consider is this : Does the proposition that violent warfare
should be presumed to be " morally unacceptable and even sinful "
or " incompatible with a fundamental Christian orientation "
square with what Aquinas says about war?
II-II, Q. 40, art. 1 of Aquinas's Summa Theologiae raises the
question, " Is it always sinful to kill in war? " What can we
make of this question? Does it imply that Aquinas presumes killing in war is sinful? Hollenbach and Hehir suggest that the very
wording of the quaestio indicates that Aquinas holds a negative
attitude towards the subject of the question, that is, we should
presume war to be sinful. But if the wording of this quaestio indicates some presumption against or negative attitude towards war
as such, then what are we to say about similarly phrased questions, for example: " Is charity a virtue? " or " Is charity the
greatest of the virtues? " Should we also understand that
Aquinas holds a negative attitude towards or presumption against
the subject of these questions and say that charity is not a virtue
nor is it the greatest of them all? This, of course, is not true. A
more plausible suggestion is that in Q. 40 Aquinas wants to rebut
some mistaken replies his readers might give to the question of
Christian participation in war, and to specify those conditions
which make warfare the morally right and binding thing to do.10
9 Joan Tooke, The Just War in Aquinas and Grotius (London:
SPCK,
1965), 170-71.
10 Leroy Walters says on this matter: Aquinas's "general answer can best
be formulated in negative, theoretical terms : In principle, there is no valid
objection to the act of waging war .... [Aquinas] concluded that war was
not an intrinsically evil object. The practical effect of this conclusion was to
categorize war as a morally neutral act, that is, an act which was potentially
good or evil depending on the circumstances of the act and the goal of the
agent .... [He] would have accepted the following general ethical proposition : It is morally right to wage war . . . provided that due circumstances are

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Since the wording of the quaestio does not clearly indicate a presumption against or objection to war, is there something else in
Aquinas that might lead the reader to presume that killing in war
is sinful? Can we locate the presumption elsewhere?
One could say that killing in war is an expression of a general
sinfulness that gives rise to political institutions much in the same
way St. Augustine thought. Like slavery, political institutions
and social inequalities that make some persons subject to the will
of another are at once, as Augustine put it in that famous phrase
of his, a punishment and a remedy for sin (poena et remedium
peccati). So warfare as an instance of the exercise of political
power is an expression of sin. But this is not Aquinas's understanding of political life. For him, the regulative and coercive
functions of the political state are a natural outgrowth of human
sociality and are also necessary features of human life, whether
in our primitive condition or in historical existence. 11 If we must
presume war to be sinful, it cannot be so on this account.
Perhaps Hollenbach and Hehir think that for Aquinas killing
as such is sinful. But this too is false. Although killing is always
an evil, not every act of killing is a moral evil. For an act to fall
under moral assessment, more is required than its description
under what Aquinas calls its natural species. To be sure, some
acts are always morally evil-e.g., scandal, bigotry, simony, sloth,
murder. This is because they are species of injustice. They are
always irredeemably sinful. But in order to determine whether
an act of killing or causing harm, like an act of removing property from another, is forbidden we should have to know its full
circumstances before we can say that this act ought not to be done,
and that doing it is sinful.12 That an act brings harm or death, or
observed and a proper end is intended." ("Five Classic Just-War Theories:
A Study in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas, Vitoria, Suarez, Gentili, and
Grotius." [Ph.D dissertation, Yale University, 1971], 66, 71). This seems to
be the consensus among Catholic theologians. As Suarez puts it in Chapter
I, first conclusion of his Treatise on Charity: "War in itself is not intrinsically evil, nor is it prohibited to Christians."
11 See, for example, Su1mna Theologiae, I, Q. 96.
12 See ibid., 1-11, Q. 7.

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that property is removed from another, only describes a physical
element of an act without making even implicit reference to a
moral principle. So we cannot say that for Aquinas killing as
such, like murder, simony, sedition, and a wide catalogue of other
acts, is always and in every instance sinful.
It may be that what Hollenbach and Hehir believe is sinful in
an act of killing is that the agent inlends the death of another, and
this is an impermissible intention. There is some support for this
belief. For example, Aquinas is insistent that a private person
may never intend the death of another as a means or an end, even
in self-defense. 13 In II-II, Q. 64, art. 3, sed contra, Aquinas appeals to the authority of St. Augustine who says, "A man who,
without exercising public authority, kills an evildoer shall be
judged guilty of murder." And murder is always, as I stated
above, a species of injustice and sinful. But in his response to
Q. 64, art. 3, Aquinas says that just as " it belongs to a physician
to cut off a decayed limb, when he has been entrusted with the
care of the health of the whole body," so too it is lawful, indeed,
praiseworthy and advantageous, for persons having public authority to "put evildoers to death." The conceptual foundation
for this response is a distinction between what is permissible for
private persons and what is permissible for public functionaries.
This is a longstanding distinction in Christian ethics that allows
public authorities to do things on behalf of the common weal that
are always impermissible for individuals to do in the sphere of
13 Richard B. Miller interprets Aquinas's teaching here as implying a "presumption against violence." Charity, Miller says, "produces a bias against
violence, precluding all forms of intentional harm, even against the attacker in
justified self-defense " ( Interpretations of Conflict: Ethics, Pacifism, and the
Just-War Tradition [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991], 25). While
charity might produce a bias against private violence, it does not do so with
regard to the public use of force. The intentional taking of a life by a public
authority for the sake of the common good is, for Aquinas, " praiseworthy and
advantageous" (II-II, Q. 64, art. 2, respondeo). Miller thinks this is an
" apparent concession to the necessities of war " on the part of Aquinas. But
Miller fails to explain how if Aquinas does believe that charity precludes all
forms of intentional harm it could ever become morally " praiseworthy."

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private life. Persons who have care of the common good may intend the death of an evildoer without committing sin. 14
If it is wrong to think that Aquinas presumes killing in war is
sinful for any of the above reasons, is there some basis for the
claim that Aquinas presumes killing to be " incompatible with a
fundamental Christian orientation"? I think there is, but only
for a narrow class of persons whose role is incompatible with
"excessive entanglement" in the business of war. In II-II, Q. 40,
art. 2, Aquinas comes very close to prohibiting war. There he
argues that warfare is incompatible with the duties of bishops
and clerics. War, he says, is a terribly upsetting business that
prevents " the mind from contemplating divine things." Moreover, bishops and clerics are ordained " for the ministry of the
altar." So even if war can be waged without sin, it would be an
" irregular" activity for them. The special function of bishops
and clerics makes them " unfit " for bloodshed. But nothing
Aquinas says in this article or the quaestio presumes that war is
incompatible with a fundamental Christian orientation. Indeed,
bishops and clerics may " prepare and urge others to fight in a
just war," by giving counsel, offering prayers, and engaging in
any activity that is fitting to religious orders. Aquinas goes so
far as to say in the ad quartum of this article that just as it is
"meritorious " for a married couple to engage in sexual union,
so too it is meritorious "to wage a just war," except for those
whose vows commit them " to a higher good." 15
14 See also Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, Bk. I. A recent exposition of
this view is found in Elizabeth Anscombe. She says : " The right to attack
with a view to killing is something that belongs only to rulers and those they
command to do it. ... it does belong to rulers precisely because of that threat
of violent coercion exercised by those in authority which is essential to the
existence of human societies" ("War and Murder," in Collected Philosophical
Papers, Vol. III: Ethics, Religion and Politics [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981], 53).
15 But see Vitoria's
commentary on II-II, Q. 40, art 2. The prohibition
against clerics fighting in a just war "is not directly imposed either by natural
or divine law; to no one is fighting prohibited by divine law because of the
fact that he is a cleric .... I reply . . . that it is permissible for [clerics] to
do battle and slay, for the purpose of defending the goods of the Church ....

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There are, however, some complicating features of II-II, Q. 40.
In the prologue to Q. 34, Aquinas makes clear that his intention
in this section of the Summa is to discuss the several vices opposed to charity. These are vices against the act of love (hatred),
against the joy of loving (spiritual apathy and envy), against
peace (discord and schism), against neighborliness (offensiveness), and against fraternal correction (scandal) . In this initial
classification, there is no mention of war, brawling, or sedition,
all of which are considered in QQ. 40, 41, 42, respectively. Then
in the prologue to Q. 37 he lists schism, brawling, and war as
" sins " against peace. Here there is no mention of sedition. Only
in the final catalogue given in Q. 39 do we get a complete list:
schism, brawling, sedition, and war. Why is war omitted from
the initial catalogue? If Aquinas does presume war to be so
serious a matter that it is sinful or incompatible with a fundamental Christian orientation, why would he (so casually) neglect
to include this important matter in the initial classification of
vices opposed to charity? And why if his considered opinion is
that a just war is " meritorious " does he include war in a list
of sins against peace?
That war is catalogued with vices such as spiritual apathy and
discord gives some initial support to the belief that for Aquinas
war and Christianity are incompatible. After all, it is said to be
a sin against peace. From the context of Q. 40, one might think
that just as sedition and brawling are sins because they are against
love and destroy human communities, so too is war insofar as
it produces the same consequences. Hence we must presume it to
be against charity. Yet Aquinas's reply in Q. 40 expresses the
conviction that war waged for the right cause, by the proper authority, and with a righteous intention " rescues the weak and
secondly, that it is permissible for them to engage in warfare in defense of
the goods of the community and in defence of the state, when such a course of
action is necessary" (in J. B. Scott, The Spanish Origin of International Law
[Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934], Part I, Appendix F. trans., Gwladys L.
Williams, cxxvi, cxxviii). Suarez's commentary on art. 2 concurs. The only
source of prohibition for clerics fighting in a just war comes from canon,
and not from divine, natural, nor human law.

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needy from the clutches of the wicked and establishes a more perfect peace." It is not necessarily incompatible with, or a failure
of, charity. Given that Q. 40 appears in a treatment of charity,
it may be that for Aquinas war under the specified conditions is
motivated by and an expression of a virtuous love for others.
And this is a love binding on all Christians.
Another complicating feature of Q. 40 is that while its immediate context is a discussion of charity. Aquinas refers more
often to justice and in one place to the "natural order." This is
puzzling in at least two ways. What is the relation between
justice and love? The first is a natural virtue and it is treated
elsewhere in the Summa. Aquinas does not give us a clear indication of their relation either in the several questions on justice
or in the Treatise on Charity. And secondly, in Q. 40 and the
other war articles, one finds no sustained discussion of the moral
status of war from the point of view of justice. So it is difficult
to say whether a just war is a matter of charity or justice. But
from what he does say it is fairly clear that war is one or the
other. In the quaestio on prudence, II-II, Q. 50, Aquinas devotes
an entire article to military skill as a "kind of prudence." " For
the course of reasonable living," he says in the reply to art. 4,
" we require not only political prudence to promote the common
good, but also military prudence, to repel the assaults of enemies."
On this account, war is justified solely on natural grounds and
for the defense of the common good. And insofar as war has a
direct positive effect on the common good, justice seems to be its
principal concern.
But these are matters that cannot be settled here. My hunch
is that there are different equally plausible views on the question
whether war is a matter of justice or love.16 One view I am very
inclined to believe captures Aquinas's thought on war is Eliza16 For a view different from the one I note here, see Thomas Pangle's
interesting essay, "A Note on the Theoretical Foundation of the Just War
Doctrine," The Thomist 43 (1979) : 464-473. He notes that whether Aquinas's
intention was to base just-war on charity or justice, " in succeeding centuries
his followers [e.g., Vitoria, Suarez, de Solages, Regout, among others] have
assumed that the doctrine of just war is based on natural law" ( 470). If it

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beth Anscombe's, which stands in sharp contrast to Hollenbach's,
Hehir's, and the American Catholic bishops' in their letter on
war and peace. Anscombe's 1939 essay, "The Justice of the
Present War Examined," opposing British involvement in the
war against Hitler, operates solely within the idea of a natural
law morality which specifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for the " proper working out of relations between man and
man, and between societies, each having his due." Anscombe
makes a very important point here. I suspect that many schooled
in the Catholic faith prior to Vatican II are familiar with it, even
when they have abandoned it.11 " [M]odern men," Anscombe
says, " have lost [sight of the idea of a natural law morality] ;
but without it they cannot live in peace within themselves, or
socially or internationally .... the only way to ... happiness is an
observance of the law." That law says that to be truly free and
live according to human nature, we must observe " the ordered
activity of Creation." And this requires us to consider the
"justice of the things [we] propose to do" in our relations with
others and among nations. 18
By this account, moral reasoning about war does not begin
with the presumptive duty to do no harm, nor is there any attempt to lay down areas of convergence with pacifism. There are
none. Indeed, Anscombe thinks pacifism a false and dangerous
doctrine because it makes " no distinction between the shedding
of innocent blood and the shedding of any human blood.... [and
has a share] in the universal forgetfulness of the law against killhappens that for the Christian justice is a less stringent requirement than
charity-" Let all that you do be done in charity" (I Cor: 16 :14)-and we
can make a strong argument for just-war theory on the basis of justice, we
should be able to make at least an equally forceful one on the basis of love.
Whichever one chooses, the two cannot be separated. For Aquinas there is no
apartheid of justice and love.
17 As I believe Hollenbach, Hehir, and the bishop's letter have. That these
authors appeal to the authority of Aquinas to support the presumption against
war and the convergence of pacifism and just-war theory is extremely puzzling.
They appeal to an authority which I think they really want to forget.
18 G. E. M. Anscombe, "The Justice of the Present War Examined," in
Collected Philosophical Papers, Vol. III, 72 (emphasis mine).

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ing the innocent." 19 Is this also true of the presumption against
harm? Does it have a share in this " universal forgetfulness " because it fails to make the necessary distinction? Anscombe's point
is that absent the distinction between killing the innocent and the
non-innocent, or between killing civilians and soldiers in war,
then whatever limits may be imposed upon war are erased, and
what is otherwise an unspeakable crime is now sanctioned when
justified by necessity. In this way pacifism is like consequentialism, which Anscombe equally condemns in her famous essay
"Modern Moral Philosophy." 2° For her, both fail to distinguish
between just and unjust killing, that is, between war and murder:
one by drawing a moral equivalence between them; the other by
establishing the rightness of acts in whatever maximizes good
over evil. Each has its own distinctive share in the " universal
forgetfulness of the law against killing the innocent."
Here we see the difference between classical just-war theory
and what is put in its place nowadays. Reasonable men and
women can " discover by reason, checked and guaranteed by the
divine revelation of Scripture," 21 the principles for a right and
just order between persons and states. Motivated by a desire for
justice and rightly ordered relations among persons and states,
the application of those principles to our reasoning about war
yields a rule-governed use of force. Aquinas and Anscombe insist that there are some situations in which justice requires that
war be waged. For them, it is not that there are sometimes conditions which, all things considered, either override a prohibitive
presumption against war or make war an available option, the
choice being left up to one's own discretion. Rather, given certain conditions, war is simply the right and just thing to do. If
Aquinas and the long tradition of Catholic teaching on war presume anything, it is that the presumption against killing in war
is at least a rebuttable presumption, or that it is a mistaken presumption which needs to be corrected. This, however, does not
19

"War and Murder," in Collected Philosophical Papers, Vol. III, 57-8.

20 Ibid., chapter

21 Ibid., 73.

4.

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necessarily mean that the presumption itself is false. There may
be some other independent account that might establish the incompatibility of killing in war with a fundamental Christian
orientation. War might then be presumed immoral and even sinful. But what I have said should be sufficient to show that
Aquinas does not presume war to be " morally unacceptable, even
sinful " or in any way " incompatible with a fundamental Christian orientation." Hence the view that just-war doctrine begins
with a presumption against war and converges with pacifism is
unsound.

AN ARGUMENT FOR AN UNCAUSED
JOHN

CAUSE

R. T. LAMONT

Dominican College of Philosophy and Theology
Ottawa, Canada

S

I

T. THOMAS AQUINAS offers five arguments for God's
existence in his Summa Theologiae, arguments that he referred to as five "ways." In Three Philosophers, Peter
Geach gives an account of them:
If we now consider the " five ways" in detail, we shall see that four
of them quite clearly depend on the legitimacy of that lumping-together of things by which one would pass from particular things to
the world as a whole. The first " two ways " differ only in that one
relates to processes of change and the other to things' coming to be:
the further argument is quite parallel in each case. If B is the cause
of a process going on in A, or of A's coming to be, then it may be
that this happens because of a process in B that is caused by a further thing C; and C in turn may act because of a process in B that is
caused by a further thing C; and C in turn may act because of a
process in C caused by D; and so on. But now let us lump together
the chain of things B, C, D, .. ., and call it X. We may predicate of
each one of the causes B, C, D, .. ., and also of X as a whole, that
it causes a process in A (or the coming-to-be of A) in virtue of
being itself in process of change. But what is it that maintains this
process of change in X? Something that cannot itself be in process
of change; for if it were, it would just be one of the things in process
of change that causes the process in A (or the coming-to-be of A) ;
i.e. would after all be just part of the changeable system of causes we
called X, and not the cause of the process in X. Thus we are led to
a changeless cause of the change and coming-to-be in the world ....
The number of items in X is irrelevant ; and the changeless cause is
introduced as the cause of the change in the whole system X, not as
the last link in a chain, directly related only to the last link but one.1
1 G. E. M. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, Three Philosophers (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1961), 113-114.

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As Patterson Brown points out in his paper " Infinite Causal
Regression," 2 Geach's version of Aquinas rests upon an argument from composition. Patterson Brown does not think that this
is actually the argument that Aquinas gives, nor does he think
that the argument succeeds. I do not know if he is right about
what Aquinas actually thought. I do think that the argument
given by Geach can be successfully defended, given a few modifications and explanations. (For simplicity's sake, I will refer to
Geach's version of Aquinas's argument as "Aquinas's argument," despite any uncertainty about whether Geach has been
faithful to Aquinas's views.)
II
Arguments from composition are arguments that argue from
the parts of a whole having a certain property to the whole itself
having that property. Examples would be:
-Every part of the fence is made of wood.
-Therefore, the fence is made of wood.
-Every tile in the floor is green.
- Therefore, the floor is green.
-Each brick in the wall weighs 1 kg.
-Therefore, the wall weighs 1 kg.
-Every member of the human race has a mother.
-Therefore, the human race has a mother.
I want, following Geach, to present Aquinas's second way as a
successful argument from composition. The second way argues
for the existence of an uncaused cause. I would state it as follows:
i.

There are effects.

11.

To be an effect is to have a cause.

111.

Nothing can cause itself.

2 The Philosophical Review
75 (1966): 510-525. Reprinted in Aquinas,
A. Kenny, ed. (New York: Anchor Books, 1969), 214-236.

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iv. Premise (i) states that there are effects that occur in the world
-effects A, B, C, D, etc. Each of these effects, since it is an effect,
has a cause which is different from itself. Now consider the group
of all the effects that there are; call this group X. Since the parts of
X are effects, X itself is an effect. Since it is an effect, it has a cause.
This cause cannot be itself an effect. For if it were it would be a
part of X, and so X would cause itself, which is impossible. Thus the
cause of X is not itself an effect. Thus there is an uncaused cause of
all effects.
" Effects " I understand broadly to mean any and all of the
sorts of things we might describe as effects, whether they are substances, particulars, non-relational properties, relational properties, states of affairs, or events. Some philosophers have held that
certain types of causal relationships are more basic than others.
(Donald Davidson, for example, has maintained that causation is
basically a relation between events.) I will leave aside the question of whether this is so or not. This understanding of causation is broad enough to cover all causal transactions. For instance, if someone drops a cigarette onto your carpet and the
cigarette leaves a burn mark, this involves a property being
brought into being-your carpet's property of having a burn
mark-by a cause, the cigarette.
Notice that the argument does not proceed by taking a particular effect or effects and claiming that although these effects
might have a cause that is itself an effect and the cause of the
cause may also be an effect, if we go back far enough we must
eventually arrive at a beginning. It allows for the possibility of
there being causal chains that have no beginning or end; whether
there are any such-whether X has a finite or an infinite number
of members-is not relevant. The uncaused cause is not thought
of as being the first member of a causal chain-it is supposed to be
the cause of causal chains as a whole. This is a feature of
Aquinas's argument that makes it superior to other cosmological arguments that have been proposed. Such arguments have
often rested on the assumption that causal series cannot go back
to infinity, an assumption that seems to be false.

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III
In the past, arguments from composition have been described
as instances of the "fallacy of composition." However, as W. L.
Rowe has pointed out, 3 it is wrong to assert that all such
arguments are fallacious. Many composition arguments are deductively valid. Rowe gives as examples " all the parts of this
chair are brown : therefore, this chair is brown " and " all the
parts of this desk are made of metal : therefore, this desk is made
of metal." 4 We need to determine whether the composition
argument used by Aquinas (or Geach' s Aquinas) is valid or not.
Unfortunately, this is not a straightforward task, because it is
difficult to identify principles that separate good composition arguments from bad ones. For example, the difference between relational and non-relational properties is not the test for validity.
Some arguments from composition that refer to relational properties are valid, and others are not. Consider these :

-Every atom in the universe is smaller than a basketball.
-Therefore, all the atoms in the universe together are smaller than
a basketball.
-Each person in the crowd is south of the river.
-Therefore, the crowd is south of the river.
The same goes for non-relational properties. It is easy to think
of both valid and invalid arguments that deal with non-relational
properties :
-Each brick in the brick wall is red.
-Therefore, the brick wall is red.
-Each person in the class has two hands.
-Therefore, the class has two hands.
The different formal characteristics that relational properties can
have are not of any use in distinguishing good composition arguments from bad ones, either. Consider the characteristic of transia W. L. Rowe, "The Fallacy of Composition," Mind 71 (1962) : 87-92.
4 Rowe, 87.

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tivity. The relations " is smaller than" and " is east of " are
transitive:
-Each cod in the Atlantic is smaller than a typical blue whale.
-Therefore, all the cod in the Atlantic put together are smaller than
a typical blue whale.
-Each person in the crowd is east of the river.
-Therefore, the crowd is east of the river.
As these arguments illustrate, both valid and invalid composition
arguments can refer to transitive relations. Nor are other formal
characteristics like symmetry or reflectivity of any help.
We can conclude that formal properties are of no use in distinguishing valid composition arguments from invalid ones. 5
Nor are there any known non-formal characteristics that valid
composition arguments share. There are valid composition arguments for both quantitative properties and non-quantitative properties (e.g., " is red," " weighs more than ") ; there are also invalid composition arguments of both sorts. The distinction between spatial parts and wholes and temporal parts and wholes is
not of any use, as both valid and invalid composition arguments
can be found on either side of this distinction. The great diversity
of valid composition arguments makes it doubtful whether there
are any universal rules for identifying them. By " universal
rules " I mean rules that apply to all composition arguments and
that for any given composition argument are capable of determining whether it is valid or not. To my knowledge, no-one has
yet succeeded in formulating such rules. 6 Furthermore, there
s I do not think that mereology can provide any formal tools that will enable us to distinguish between valid and invalid composition arguments, though
I cannot offer a justification for this position here. Nor do I think that future
mereological developments will be of much use. The purpose of mereology
after all is to establish universal theories that describe the properties of all
parts and all wholes. But the property of sustaining composition arguments is
one that some parts and wholes have, and others lack. It is unlikely therefore
that this property is describable in mereological terms.
a Douglas Wal ton and James Woods, in their paper " Composition and Division" (Studia Logica 36 [1977] : 381-406), agree that there are no universal
principles available: " It will be agreed, then, that it is not for logic to com-

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

is no presumption one way or another with respect to the validity
of composition arguments. We may not assume that particular
composition arguments are valid until proved invalid, or invalid
until proved valid. There are no grounds for accepting either of
these assumptions. One is led to suspect that there are no general
principles that divide good composition arguments from bad ones;
that the goodness or badness of a composition argument depends
solely on the property to which it refers; and that there is nothing significant in common between the properties that produce
good composition arguments or between the properties that pro·
duce bad ones.
If this is so, there are three possible attitudes one might take
to Aquinas's argument:
i. One might say that it is not clear whether Aquinas's argument is
valid or not. We ought therefore to suspend judgment on the question of its validity.
ii. One might say that it is intuitively clear that Aquinas's argument
is valid. It does not matter that we have no universal principles to
tell us when composition arguments are valid; we are quite capable
of determining that particular arguments are valid. In the examples
of composition arguments given above, we have no difficulty in deciding which ones are valid and which ones are not. In the case of
Aquinas's argument, we can see that it is valid.
iii. Conversely, one might take the opposite position to (ii) and say
that it is intuitively obvious that Aquinas's argument is not valid.
The difficulty with these three alternatives is that the choice
between them is left to our intuitions about the argument. If different people have different intuitions about it, there does not
seem to be any way of convincing any of them that they are
plete the theory of aggregates, and that decision-procedures for composition
and division are, for now at any rate, too much to hope for" (395).
Of course the fact that no universal principles are known does not mean
that no universal principles exist. I am inclined to suppose that such principles
do exist, simply because it could not be a coincidence that so many arguments
with the same form (the composition form) happen to be valid. They must
have something in common that makes them valid.

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wrong. Disagreement about the validity of Aquinas's argument
will thus be a standoff.
However, it would be premature to give up in this way. Although there are no known universal principles for evaluating the
validity of composition arguments, there may still be general
principles that identify particular types of composition argument
as valid or invalid.
Take this principle: " Composition arguments that refer to the
property of ' being entirely made of a certain kind of stuff ' are
valid." We can see that this principle is true by considering its
instances. If all the parts of a thing are made of wood, the thing
itself is made of wood; if all the parts of a thing are made of
bronze, the thing itself is made of bronze, if all of the parts of a
thing are made of ice, the thing itself is made of ice, and so on.
The principle that would apply to Aquinas's argument is this :
" If you take a group of things that are all effects, the group itself will be an effect." ("Things" here should be understood
broadly as meaning "things that are capable of being effects,"
which will include substances, particulars, properties, and the
other sorts listed above.) Consideration of arguments that are instances of this principle will lead us to accept this principle as
true.
-The destruction of each one of the buildings in the city was caused.
-Therefore, the destruction of all the buildings in the city was
caused.
-Each word in the inscription on the monument was caused.
-Therefore, all the words in the inscription on the monument were
caused.
- The cooking of each one of the buns in the bakery was caused.
-Therefore, the cooking of all of the buns in the bakery was caused.
-The acceleration of each one of the particles in the particle accelerator was caused.
-Therefore, the acceleration of all of the particles in the accelerator
was caused.
("Being caused" and "being an effect" mean the same thing, as
the second premise of Aquinas's argument states.)

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It might be objected that these examples are of finite collections
of effects. 7 Some forms of composition arguments are valid
when applied to a finite group, but invalid when applied to an
infinite group. Since the group of all effects may be infinite, we
cannot use these examples to argue for the validity of Aquinas's
argument. An example of a composition argument that is valid
when applied to a finite group, but invalid when applied to an infinite one, is the following: Suppose there exists a line of rocks
placed side by side, that extends to infinity in both directions.
For any finite subgroup of this line, we can say that since each
rock that is a part of the subgroup has another rock to the left
of it, the whole subgroup has a rock to the left of it. But we cannot say for the whole line that because every rock that is a part
of it has another rock to the left of it, the whole line has a rock
to the left of it-since the whole line stretches to infinity, there is
nothing to the left of it.
It is however possible to devise examples of valid composition
arguments that are instances of the above principle, and that apply
to infinite groups of effects. Suppose that the universe extends
to infinity in all directions. Suppose further that we can truly say
of every event in the universe at time t, that it has a cause and
that there is an infinite number of such effects (since the universe
is infinitely large). We can validly infer that because each of the
effects at time t is caused, the group of all the effects at time t is
caused. We thus cannot say that the principle " If you take a
group of things that are all effects, the group itself is an effect "
breaks down when applied to groups of effects with an infinite
number of parts.
Composition arguments like this one can seem disquieting when
we think of them in connection with Aquinas's argument. The
fact that they are valid seems trivially true, and we feel that the
sort of arguments whose validity is a trivial truth ought not to
be able to produce conclusions as substantial as those of Aquinas.
However, as long as it is admitted that arguments of Aquinas's
sort are valid, this cannot really constitute an objection. On the
7 Bob

Bright suggested this objection to me.

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contrary, the more trivially true it is that Aquinas's argument is
valid, the better for him.
The instances of the principle that have been given are all obviously valid. Such instances can be multiplied indefinitely, and
no exceptions to the principle can be found. Moreover, when we
reflect on them we can see that the reason we accept them as valid
is that they are instances of the principle. We ought therefore to
accept that the principle is true, just as we accept the principle
" Composition arguments that refer to the property ' being entirely made of a certain kind of stuff ' are valid " is true, after reflecting on its instances. Aquinas's argument is thus valid. Since its
premises are obviously true, its conclusion is therefore true as
well, and we should accept that there is an uncaused cause of all
effects.
David Hume hints at, or obscurely states, a possible objection
to the validity of Aquinas's argument:
In ... a chain ... or succession of objects, each part is caused by
that part which preceded it, and causes that which succeeded it.
\\There then is the difficulty? But the whole, you say, wants a cause.
I answer that the uniting of several parts into a whole, like the uniting of several distinct countries into a kingdom, or several distinct
members into one body, is performed merely by an arbitrary act of
the mind, and has no influence on the nature of things. 8

Hume could be understood as saying that because "the uniting
of several parts into a whole ... is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and has no influence on the nature of
things," we cannot argue from the parts of a whole being caused
to the whole itself being caused. But this is not so. Take the example of the buns-in-the-bakery composition argument given
above. Hume would presumably admit that the grouping together of the buns is an " arbitrary act of the mind," the things
in the group having no essential connection or bond of inner
unity. Nor does grouping the buns together have an " influence
on the nature of things." The composition argument is nonethe8 David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, H. D. Aiken, ed.,
(New York: Hafner, 1948), 59.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

less a valid one. The fact that the collection 9 to which composition arguments are applied are arbitrarily chosen, and that the
mental act of considering the members of the collection as a group
has no effect on the world, is not therefore an impediment to the
validity of those arguments.

IV
In addition to the second way, Aquinas also offers an argument for the existence of an unchanging cause of all change-the
first way-and an argument for a necessary being that is the
cause of the existence of all non-necessary beings.
Both of these arguments depend on answers to the question,
What is an effect? What is it about a thing or a happening that
makes us assume it to be an effect, assume that it is caused by
something else? It is not simply knowledge of its cause that makes
us assume something to be an effect. If this were so, we would
never try to find out the causes of things or happenings. There
must be some other property or properties that make something
an effect.
The first way, the argument for an unchanging changer, assumes that one of the properties that make something an effect is
change. Every change is an effect; whenever we encounter
change, like the rotting of food or change in the weather, we assume that it has a cause. Since every change is an effect, all
change put together is an effect and has a cause. This cause cannot itself be changing, so there is an unchanging cause of all
change. Moreover, since there is an uncaused cause of all effects
9 I have purposely avoided the term " sets" in describing the wholes to
which composition arguments refer in their conclusions, preferring to speak
of "wholes," "groupings," or "collections." Sets are abstract objects that are
not subject to causal influences. They are not the things that people have in
mind when they use composition arguments. The set of all the buns in the
bakery is an abstract object. But there is obviously something aside from the
set of all the buns, which one might call the group of all the buns, which is
not an abstract object. All the buns together are, after all, in the bakery, and
not beyond space and time. It is this intuitively obvious meaning of "group,"
"whole," or " collection " that I have in mind. Tyler Burge discusses this
notion of a group in his "A Theory of Aggregates," Nous 11 (1977): 97-117.

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(as we have seen), and all changes are effects, the uncaused cause
of all effects will also be the cause of all change; the uncaused
cause and the unchanging changer are one and the same.
Although the first way assumes that all changes are effect, it
need not assume the converse statement-that all effects are
changes. It can accept that the group of all changes is only a part
of the group of all effects.
The third way, arguing for a necessary cause of all non-necessary beings, gives a different answer to the question, What is an
effect? It states that to be non-necessary is to be an effect. A
being that is not necessary is one that might not have existed.
A being that is necessary is one that has to exist; it is impossible
for it not to exist; it belongs to its nature to exist. Why might
one think that to be non-necessary is to be an effect? One would
have to give these sorts of reasons : If something is non-necessary,
we can ask the question, Why does it exist? And the very fact
that we can ask this question about something, that we can seek
an explanation for it, indicates that it is an effect. Scientists, in
practice, assume that this is so. Whenever they find a phenomenon about which they can ask the question, Why does it exist?
they set about trying to find the cause for its existence-that is,
they assume that it has a cause, that it is an effect. They do not
require some extra property to assure them that the phenomenon
is an effect and thus that it is worthwhile trying to find its cause.
If we accept that scientists are justified in doing this, we must
accept that to be non-necessary is to be an effect. And we should
accept that they are justified. Since science is a respectable and
successful intellectual enterprise, we ought to believe that the principles it uses are rational ones.
The third way runs on the same lines as the first. Since all
non-necessary beings are effects, they have a cause which is itself not non-necessary, i.e., is necessary. The uncaused cause of all
effects will thus itself be the necessary cause of all non-necessary
beings, as well as the unchanging cause of all change.
Some philosophers have objected to the idea of a necessary
being on the grounds that a necessary being would have to have

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existence as a part of its nature and it is impossible to have existence as a property. Existence cannot be a property of things in
the way that "being an animal" or "being made of copper" or
"being generous" is; it just is not a property. It is hard to know
how good this objection is, because it is hard to determine just
what existence is. Since the nature of existence is uncertain, the
objection need not trouble us. If Aquinas's argument for a necessary being is sound, that is a good enough reason-in the absence of any other conclusive considerations-for accepting that
existence is a property of something, since the argument implies
that it is a property of God. But if the argument is not valid,
then we do not have to worry about the objection, since we will
not have any reason for believing in a necessary being anyway.
The arguments for an unchanging changer and a necessary being are really special cases of the argument for an uncaused cause.
They depend for their validity on the validity of the argument
for an uncaused cause. To prove their conclusions, they rely not
only on the validity of the argument for an uncaused cause but
also on the truth of assumptions about the nature of causationthe assumptions that changes and non-necessary beings are sorts
of effects. Although these assumptions are plausible, to prove (or
disprove) them conclusively would require a full-fledged investigation of causation, which is beyond the scope of this paper. I
will content myself with asserting that they are plausible.

v
Someone might raise the objection that although this argument
for an uncaused cause is sound, its conclusion is not very interesting.10 It allows for the possibility of there being several uncaused causes that jointly cause all effects; and some or all of
these uncaused causes could be entities that belong to the natural
world. But the purpose of Aquinas's argument is to show that
there is a single immaterial uncaused cause, which he hopes to
1 0 Prof. Richard
Swinburne
dence.

put this objection to me in private correspon-

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273

be able to identify with God. The argument thus fails of its
purpose.
If the argument is not to fail of its purpose, the possibility of
there being more than one uncaused cause, and of the uncaused
causes belonging to the natural world, must be ruled out.
i) Immateriality of uncaused causes
I take it that the "natural world " means the physical world,
the physical universe. Contemporary science ascribes causal liabilities of some sort or other to all physical things. By " causal
liability " I mean a propensity to be causally affected in one way
or another. For instance, anything that has mass has the power
to affect causally other things with mass-by attracting themand has the liability to be causally affected by them in turn. Another example would be things with a positive electric charge.
Having positive electric charge means that other things with
positive charge have the power of repelling you, and things with
negative charge have the power of attracting you.
If we accept that all physical things are capable of being causally affected in some way, we must also accept that an uncaused
cause is not physical. For an uncaused cause is by its nature incapable of being causally affected in any way. And the statements
of contemporary scientific theories are not the only grounds for
holding that all physical things are capable of being causally
affected. It seems conceptually necessary that physical things
have causal liabilities of some sort-it is impossible that they be
without them. Not just contemporary scientific theories, therefore, but any scientific theory that could ever be thought adequate is going to ascribe causal liabilities to physical things. 11
11 Someone might object to the conclusion that uncaused causes cannot be
physical on the grounds that science postulates physical events that cause but
are not caused; the decay of an atom of a radioactive isotope is not caused,
though it conforms to certain probabilistic laws. However, it is wrong to describe these events as being incapable of being causally affected in any way,
and thus wrong to describe them as uncaused causes. The decay of an atom
of uranium 235 at a particular time t depends on the existence of that atom.
It could be prevented, through the destruction of the atom before t. It is thus

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

If we accept the first and third ways, we will have two more
arguments for believing the uncaused cause to be immaterial.
Physical things are essentially subject to change. Even if they
do not actually change, it is always possible for them to do so.
An unchanged changer is essentially incapable of change, so the
unchanged changer cannot be physical. Physical things are also
essentially contingent. The necessary cause of all non-necessary
things, which cannot be contingent, thus cannot be physical.

ii) Number of uncaused causes
Even if uncaused causes cannot be part of the natural world, why
may there not be more than one of them?
A case can be made for believing that there is only one uncaused cause, in this fashion:
-We know that there is at least one uncaused cause. In the absence
of any evidence to the contrary, we ought to believe that there is no
more than one uncaused cause, because that is the simplest available hypothesis.
-We cannot have any evidence in favor of there being more than
one uncaused cause.
An effect has several causes when ( i) there is no one thing
that has brought it about, and (ii) there are several different
things, each of which contributed to its happening, none of which
is sufficient by itself for its happening, and all of which together
have brought it about.
There are two different ways in which several things can combine to cause an effect. Each of the things can be a partial cause
of the effect, in the sense that each one of them is in certain circumstances necessary for any part of the effect's happening.
Without every one of the partial causes the effect will not happen at all, so none of the partial causes is sufficient for the effect.
An example would be the different items loaded on a camel's
back. Suppose a number of items are loaded on to a camel's back;
not immune to any causal influences. However, the uncaused cause established
by Aquinas's argument must be immune to any causal influences; so the decay
of a radioactive atom cannot be an uncaused cause of that sort.

AN ARGUMENT

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when the last item, a straw, is loaded on, the camel's back breaks.
None of the items by itself is enough to cause the camel's back
to break. All of the items together are needed to break the backif only part of them, and not all of them, had been loaded on, the
back would not have broken. Each item makes its contribution
to breaking the camel's back, though, and all of them together
are enough to cause the back to break. Call these partial causes
" partial 1 causes."
Another sort of partial cause is a cause that brings about part,
but not all, of the effect. If it were not there, a part of the effect
would not have occurred, but the other parts would still have
taken place. An example would be a single bomber plane that took
part in the destruction of Hamburg in 1943. If that plane had
been missing, a part of the destruction caused by the bomber force
as a whole-the part caused by that plane's bombs-would not
have occurred. This sort of partial cause is a full cause of part
of an effect. We can call these partial causes "partial 2 causes."
The way to determine whether an effect has several causes in
either sense, and not just one cause, is by using Mill's methods.
Mill's method of difference is used to determine if a factor is a
sufficient cause of an effect. If something is the sufficient cause of
the whole of an effect, it is the full cause of that effect. The
method of difference involves taking a situation where an effect
is present and comparing it to situations where the effect is absent. If a factor can be found in situations where the effect is absent, it is not a sufficient cause of the effect. If a factor is found
only in situations where the effect is present, and never in situations where the effect is absent, it may be a sufficient cause of the
effect.
If we look at all the factors in a situation where the effect is
present, and find that there is only one factor that cannot also
be found in situations where the effect is absent, we can conclude
that one factor is the sufficient cause of the effect. Alternatively,
if it is in our power to produce the factor that we suppose to be
a sufficient cause of the effect, and we find that whenever we produce the factor the effect happens, that is also grounds for sup-

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

posing that the factor is a sufficient cause of the effect. If we
produce the factor, and the effect does not happen, that means
that the factor is not a sufficient cause for the effect. Looking
for sufficient causes in these ways will enable us to find out if an
effect has a single full cause, or if it has partial 2 causes.
To find if something is a necessary condition, we can use Mill's
method of agreement. This involves taking numerous instances
where an effect occurs and seeing what those instances have in
common. If a certain factor is common to all the instances, the
instances are evidence for it being a necessary condition. If the
effect is ever-present without the factor, the factor is not a necessary condition. This gives us a way of testing whether a factor
is a necessary condition; we can take a situation where the effect
occurs and alter it in only one way, by removing the factor we
think is a necessary condition. If the result is that the effect does
not happen, the factor is not a necessary condition. These
methods, combined with the methods used for identifying sufficient causes, can be used to determine whether an effect has
partial l causes.
But all these methods are useless when it comes to the question of how many uncaused causes there are. Since the effect we
are interested in is the group of all effects, we can never compare
situations where the effect is present to situations where the effect
is absent. There are no situations where the group of all effects
is absent, and if there were one, we would not be there to observe
what it was like. Since the causes we are trying to count are by
their nature uncaused causes, we will be unable to produce them
and see what happens. Nor will we be able to remove them and
see if any or all of the effects disappear. We will not be able to
compare different situations where the effect occurs, since there is
only one situation where the group of all effects occurs.
Even if per inipossibile we could apply these methods to the
uncaused cause or causes of all effects, the methods presuppose
that the things to which they are applied have been clearly identified. But there are no means available for distinguishing one
p9ssible uncaused cause from another. We cannot distinguish

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277

them by their physical locations, because they are immaterial. We
cannot distinguish them by causally affecting them in some way.
We cannot distinguish them through their different effects, because we do not yet know what those different effects might be;
that is what the methods are trying to find out. All these methods
are thus doubly useless.
We can therefore never have reasons for thinking that there is
more than one uncaused cause. Given that we have reasons for
thinking that there is at least one uncaused cause, Ockham's
Razor tells us to believe that there is one and only one uncaused
cause. The fact that we could never have reasons for thinking
that there is more than one uncaused cause raises doubts about
whether it even makes sense to suppose that there might be more
than one uncaused cause.
Aquinas's argument for an uncaused cause thus rests secure.
Someone might object that although the purpose of Aquinas's
arguments is to prove that God exists, the being established by
Aquinas's first, second, and third ways-the uncaused cause of
all effects, which is unchanging and exists necessarily-is not the
same as God. This uncaused being has some of the attributes
that are usually ascribed to God, since it is all-powerful, necessary, and the creator of everything that exists besides itself. But
Aquinas has not shown it to have other attributes that are thought
of as essential to divinity, like infinite knowledge, personality, or
perfect goodness. His first, second, and third ways do not show
that the causing of the group of all effects is in any way purposive.
Aquinas does indeed try to establish that the other divine attributes follow from the ones demonstrated by the arguments he
uses as his starting points. However, his efforts to do this are
beyond the scope of this paper.

INTENTIONAL ACTIONS AND THE MEANING OF
OBJECT: A REPLY TO RICHARD McCORMICK
MARTIN

RHONHEIMER

Roman Athenaeum of the Holy Cross
Rome, Italy

I

N HIS ARTICLE, " Some Early Reactions to Veritatis
Splendor," 1 Richard McCormick discusses my article on
V eritatis Splendor and its teaching about intrinsically evil
acts. 2 He challenges my defence of the encyclical's views and
poses some concrete questions for me. At the same time, McCormick complains once more about what he calls the encyclical's
misrepresentation of the proportionalists' views, as well as about
a general misunderstanding on the part of critics of what proportionalism, consequentialism, and their teleological approach are
really about.
To begin with, I find it somewhat surprising that McCormick
presents intentional understanding of human acts and their objects as something discovered by proportionalists. By this he obscures the fact that most critics of proportionalism, consequentialism, and so-called " teleological ethics " (I will not further distinguish these different labels) work with what is precisely an
intentional conception of moral objects. 3 For example, my own
1 Theological Studies 55

(1994): 481-506; see 500-502; 504.
Rhonheimer, " ' Intrinsically Evil Acts' and the Moral Viewpoint:
Clarifying a Central Teaching of Veritatis Splendor," The Thomist 58 (1994) :
1-39.
3 There may be some exceptions, for example, Russell Rittinger;
see his
article, "The Pope and the Theorists," Crisis 11 (December 1993) : 31-36.
G. E. M. Anscombe, one of the first and most incisive critics of consequentialism, attacked it on the grounds of an intentional concept of action, developed in her famous study Intention (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957; 2nd ed.
1963). Cf. Anscombe, Contraception and Chastity (London: Catholic Truth
Society, 1975).
2 Martin

279

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MARTIN

RHONHEIMER

position, situated in the context of virtue ethics, 4 is one in which
an intentional conception action plays a crucial role. McCormick
seems to evade this level of argument, however, and in this way
appears to beg the question about one of the central issues in the
debate.
At the same, it is not entirely surprising that McCormick had
some difficulty in dealing with the central point of my argument
(and of similar arguments), 5 because his methodology is so entangled in the categories of the strongly legalistic and casuistic
manual tradition. 6 In my article, I explicitly dealt with the difficulty of understanding a virtue and first-person-centered view
from the perspective of the manual tradition:
It will, however, never be possible to render intelligible this moral
methodology on the grounds of an ethic which from the beginning is
concerned with justifying " moral norms." This is so because in
such an approach the distinction between " object" and further intentions necessarily drops out of view. The only thing which a norm
ethic can produce in the way of an action theory are the particular
" occurrences " ("actions ") on the one hand, and the consequences
4 See Martin
Rhonheimer, "'Ethics of N arms' and the Lost Virtues.
Searching the Roots of the Crisis of Ethical Reasoning," Anthropotes IX, 2
(1993) : 231-243; La prospettiva della morale. Fondamenti dell'etica philosophica (Rome: Armando, 1994) ; Praktische Vernunft und Verniinftigkeit
der Praxis. Handlungstheorie bei Thomas van Aquin in ihrer Entstehimg
aus dem Problemlwntext der aristotelischen Ethik (Berlin: Akademie Verlag,
1994). Contrary to the impression which McCormick gives in his article, I
do not share the Grisez-Finnis theory about basic goods and practical reason,
nor do I argue on its grounds, in spite of many important common views.
5 See
William E. May, Moral Absolutes. Catholic Tradition, Citrrent
Trends, and the Truth (Milwaukee, Wisc: Marquette University Press, 1989) ;
John Finnis, Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991); Alasdair Macintyre,
"How Can We Learn What Veritatis Splendor Has To Teach?" The
Thomist 58 (1994) : 171-195. See also Robert P. George's and Hadley's Arkes's
contributions to " The Splendor of Truth: A Symposium," published in First
Things (January 1994) and rather unfairly criticized in McCormick's article.
6 This is also the case with Bruno Schuller and his disciples; see the recent
paper by Werner Wolbert, " Die 'in sich schlechten' Handlungen und der
Konsequentialismus," M oraltheologie im Abseitsf Antwort auf die Enzyklika
"Veritatis Splendor," ed. Dietmar Mieth (Freiburg: Herder, 1994), 88-109.

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MCCORMICK

281

brought about by them, on the other. If an agent intmids the best
consequences, then it is these which come to be designated the " object" of his "act." (21-22)
McCormick's article thus confirms this assertion, since the author
finally arrives at the conclusion that talking about " objects "
and wrongness e:r obiecto is not a helpful terminology and should
be abandoned. 7 I shall return to this point.
The questions put to me by McCormick, and which I shall try
to answer, deal with the following issues : 1) The meaning of
"object" (which is, as he rightly states, the central point) ; 2)
the closely related " question of intentionality " ; and 3) what is
according to McCormick " a key question " for my position :
" Why in choosing to kill a person or deceive a person, does
one necessarily 'take a position with his will with regard to
" good " and " evil" ' ? " 8 Finally, I shall also have to say something about what McCormick falsely calls the encyclical's misrepresentation of proportionalism, because this is intimately connected with all the rest.
"Object"

in Veritatis Splendor: Not Just a
"Kind of Behavior"

Let me start by specifying some points about V eritatis
Splendor's teaching. In his presentation of the encyclical's understanding of the "object," McCormick says that according to
the encyclical (and presumably also to me) an object simply is
" a freely chosen kind of behavior." But it seems that he fails
to grasp what the encyclical's text wants to stress in this passage.
Its intention is not to tell the reader that objects are "kinds of
behavior," but that objects are to be understood as something related to the acting person's choices. Therefore, the point made by
the encyclical is about intention involved in choice of kinds of
behavior and not about "kinds of behavior " as such.
7 He had already drawn the same conclusion in his article, " Document Begs
Many Legitimate Moral Questions," National Catholic Reporter (October 15,
1993) : 17.
s McCormick, " Some Early Reactions to V eritatis Splendor," 501.

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RHONHEIMER

The entire text (which I quoted at the very beginning of my
article) runs as follows :
In order to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that
act morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person (VS, n. 78).

What V eritatis Splendor is saying is this: Do not look at human
acts " from outside "; do not focus only on what happens, what
is the case, and on the state of affairs brought about by a behavioral performance; but rather put yourself in the perspective
of the acting subject, for whom "actions" or "behaviors" are
objects of choice, informed by reason, as immediate goals of the
will. Thus the encyclical continues :
The object of the- act of willing is in fact a freely chosen kind of behavior. . . . By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean
a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on
the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the
outside world. Rather, that object is the proximate end of a deli.berate
decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting
person. (VS, n. 78, emphasis added)

In his reading of this passage, McCormick's attention seems to be
entirely conditioned by his own methodology-which adopts the
standpoint of the observer, as is typical for norm-ethics and
casuistry-and by the argumentative problems that logically arise
in this perspective. Therefore he does not enter at all into the
rather sophisticated argument set forth by the encyclical.
It is significant that immediately after this statement Veritatis
Splendor quotes n. 1761 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
(which also focuses on choice). " There are certain specific kinds
of behavior that are always wrong to choose, because choosing
them involves a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil." In n.
1755, the Catechism gives an example, fornication, to illustrate
its teaching. Clearly, " fornication" is not simply a material behavioral pattern (this would be " sexual intercourse between male
and female "). The encyclical's verdict about moral evil is not
about this pattern, but about the choice of it, that is, about a spe- .
cific case of this choice, called " fornication," that is describable

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MCCORMICK

283

in universal terms (as a " species " of human act), a description
that applies to a multiplicity of particular acts independently from
further circumstances or consequences. Notice that the description of an (observable) behavioral pattern as such and the description of the choice of this behavior may be two quite different
things. 9
Let me spell this out in more detail. When Jim chooses to have
sexual intercourse with Jane, Jim actually not only chooses a behavioral pattern (to have intercourse with a female, or with
Jane), because Jane either is or is not his wife. This is a circumstance relevant for practical reason that judges about the corresponding behavior as a practical good to be either pursued or
avoided. It is a circumstance that, in this specific situation, is
given and is thus prior to choice. It is not, however, inherent in
the behavioral pattern as such; it is recognizable only by reason
and it confers on the chosen behavior an inherent, though not
simply naturally given, " form." The behavior could not be
chosen at all apart from this "form." 10 Therefore, provided Jim
and Jane are not married, Jim necessarily chooses, not just " intercourse with a female," but "fornication." 11
Accordingly, the concrete behavior considered as an object of
choice is much more than merely a material behavioral pattern.
In choosing a concrete behavioral pattern, one necessarily
chooses it " under a description," which is precisely the description of an intent formed by reason. Sexual intercourse, as a
chosen kind of behavior, is the object of a judgment of reason of
the following sort: " Having sexual intercourse with Jane, who is
9 The problem is that in common speech the choice and the corresponding act
tend to be lumped together under a common designation derived from some
characteristic behavioral aspects of the act. In reality, however, the two can
never be equated one with the other. Here, as John Finnis has pointed out,
"common speech ... is not a safe guide" (Moral Absolutes, 72).
10 That is why (as I pointed out in sections four and six of my article)
Aquinas calls objects "forms conceived by reason."
11 If Jim or Jane is (or both are) married, but not with each other, Jim and
Jane choose what one calls "adultery." That is the classic example mentioned
by Aquinas (Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 18, a. 5 ad 3) ; it illustrates well the
difference between genus naturae and genus moris.

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RHONHEIMER

not my wife (or even is another's wife, etc.), is a good here and
now to be pursued." This precisely indicates an intention that
defines the act in question. If there were no intention-which is
impossible-there would be no reason, nor would there be a perceived good to be pursued. There would exist nothing but an
observable behavioral pattern, not a human act. Thus the chosen
act is precisely what Veritatis Splendor calls the " proximate end
of the [choosing] will." As such, the very act indudes an intention, formed by reason, without which it could not be described
as a human act. This intention (choice) of Jim to have intercourse with somebody who is not his spouse is perfectly describable and morally qualifiable independently from further intentions
(e.g., the intention of doing it for the sake of obtaining some
information necessary to save the lives of others).
The encyclical's understanding of the object of a human act explains the formulation in n. 79, which I quoted in the opening
section of my article. This sentence, which contains the key
formulation, is, however, mostly ignored by revisionists. The
verdict here concerns " choice of certain kinds of behavior." In
VS, n. 80, "intrinsical evil" is referred to the object, and this
again means: to kinds of behavior, insofar as they are objects of
choice. What is called " intrinsically evil," therefore, is concrete
choice, describable in behavioral terms, that cannot be reduced to
simple " behavior," however, because every choice includes an intention of the will and a corresponding judgment of reason.
That is also the reason why the encyclical speaks here about
ulterior intentions, and not about intention as such: because " object " and intention are not mutually exclusive terms. There is
some intentionality required so that an object of a human act can
be constituted. 12
12 If it is said that the "object is a chosen act, describable only by referring
to an intention, one might wonder how one can then simultaneously affirm-as
does Veritatis Splendor, along with traditional moral theology-that the goodness of the (choosing) will depends on the object. Someone might claim that
we should be able to describe the object as something "given" and without
immediate reference to an intention. The solution of this apparent puzzle, how-

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McCormick affirmed in his article that proportionalism makes
precisely this point, imputing to Veritatis Splendor, and to critics
of proportionalism generally, a different view, one rather easy
for him to criticize. In this way he avoids the real issue and conceals the weakness of proportionalism and consequentialism. This
weakness, however, is that a consequentialist refuses to speak
about "actions " or about intention involved in the choice of concrete actions; he or she only talks about intentions as related to
foreseeable consequences, thereby describing, aud continuously redescribing, " actions " from the standpoint of a value-balancing
observer; in this way he arrives at what he calls the " expanded
notion of object." When McCormick says, " Intention tells us
what is going on,'' he is perfectly right. But he neglects to ask:
How are intentions shaped? Upon what do they depend? and,
finally, What is, not intention and intentionality, but intentional
action?
Intentionality and " Intentional Actions ":
The Implicit Physicalism of Proportionalism
Perhaps the reader of my article on Veritatis Splendor will
remember the ·example of " arm rising," " greeting," and so on.
It was a simple example-inspired by Wittgenstein and Anscombe
-of showing how intentional actions are structured. I asserted:
ever, is easy: The object, its intentional element included, is first an object of
reason, and in this sense it is prior to choice, insofar as choice is an act of the
will shaped by reason. That is the point of Aquinas's teaching. See the following statements from the Prima secundae: bonuni per ration em repraesentatur voluntati ut obiectum; et inquantum cadit sub ordine rationis, pertinet
ad genus 111oris, et causat bonitatem moralem in actu voluntatis ( q. 19, a. 1,
ad 3) ; bonitas voluntatis dependet a ratione, ea niodo quo dependet ab obiecto
(q. 19, a. 3); actus exterior est obiectum voluntatis, inquantum proponitur
volitntati a ratione ut quodda1n bonum apprehensum et ordinatur per rationem
(q. 20, a. 1, ad 1). Again, the object, like the "spec_ies," is a forma a ratione
concepta which includes the cognitive or rational element of intention, purpose.
For more details, see Rhonheimer, Natur als Grund/age der l\!loral: Eine
Auseinandersetzung mit autonomer Moral und teleologischer Ethik (Innsbruck-Wien: Tyrolia, 1987), 317 ff., and also Praktische Vermmft imd
Verniinftigkeit der Praxis.

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The so-called " absolute prohibitions," that is, normative propositions
which indicate that certain, describable actions may never be licitly
chosen and willingly performed, therefore relate to actions described
intentionally. It is impossible to do this independently from the content of the acts of choice which relate to such actions. (32)
I have always conceded that proportionalism and consequentialism
in Catholic moral theology have aspired to overcome the limitations and flaws of a traditional physicalist understanding of the
"moral object." 13 At the same time, however, I have contended
that they have not succeeded because they have overlooked, and
thus conserved, the basic error inherent in this tradition: to fail
to understand human acts as embedded in an intentional process,
that is, to fail to understand them from the perspective of the acting person.
This can be seen very well in the case of Josef Fuchs (one of
McCormick's chief witnesses for the proportionalists' innocence).
According to my judgment, Fuchs speaks about " intentions," but
he does not seem to have a notion of what an intentional action
is. He speaks only of (premoral) " physical acts " or behavioral
patterns (realized, performed, etc.) to which he adds intentions
(as a " premoral " element!). What Fuchs calls the " act " in
itself or the " act as such " has no moral identity. Only the
combination of the three premoral elements " act,'' " circumstances," and " intentions " becomes for him a moral whole.
The problem is that " physical act " plus " intention " (defined
by some " reason ") will never result in an " intentional action."
" Intentional action " is a concept belonging to action theory, not
to moral casuistry. It is not part of a theory about how to combine "reasons" and " intentions" in order to justify an action
normatively (that is, to know whether it is "allowed " and right
or " illicit" and wrong). The concept of " intentional action "
expresses the very nature of human acting. So one has to talk
about the acting person and about what is going on in his or her
will when he or she acts. The discourse will be about choice and
13 See Rhonheimer, " Intrinsically
Evil Acts; and the Moral Viewpoint," 27,
and the Introduction to N atur als Gritndlage der Moral.

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about intention involved in human acts, that is, in chosen acts
(or behaviors, to use the encyclical's term).
Let us have a look at Fuchs's well-known article, "The Absoluteness of Moral Terms." 14 In this article, Fuchs argues that
"human acts" are composed of three elements: the (physical)
act; special circumstances; and the intention. He first points out
correctly that: " Morality, in the true (not transferred or analogous) sense, is expressible only by a human action, by an action
which originates in the deliberate and free decision of a human
person." 15 So a human action, Fuchs continues, must be performed "with the intention of the agent." He then adds the following example :
One may not say, therefore, that killing as a realization of a human
evil may be morally good or morally bad; for killing as such, since
it implies nothing about the intention of the agent, cannot, purely as
such, constitute a human act.16
The problem here is that " killing as such " is not an act, not
even an " act as such," because " as such " it is not described as
a chosen: act, that is, as an act that is the object of choice. Of
course, "killing" as behavioral pattern (putting another person
to death) could also be the performance of a robot. Considered
on this level, " killing " is nothing but a behavioral pattern defined by a specific outcome. But, we should ask, what is going
on when John chooses to kill Harry (for whatever reason: either
because John simply wants Harry to be dead; or because John
wants his uncle Harry to be dead for the sake of getting an inheritance, or for the sake of revenge, or for the sake of marrying
Harry's wife) ?
The point is that " killing as such " is not conceivable as a
describable action, as if this could be understood apart from intention. If John kills Harry, he already has, in choosing the kill14 Gregorianum 52 (1971) ; reprinted in Readings in Moral Theology No. I:
Moral Norms and Catholic Tradition, ed. Charles E. Curran and Richard
McCormick (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 94-137.
15 Fuchs, "The Absoluteness of Moral Terms," in Readings in Ji![oral Theology No. 1, 19.
16 Ibid.

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ing, an intention: he wants Harry to be dead (this independently
of whether he chooses " killing Harry " for its own sake or as a
means to a further end). Fuchs, however, falling into the trap
of dealing with acts as if they were pure events (" realizations of
goods and evils "), continues :
The conclusion in definitive terms is: 1) An action cannot be judged
morally in its materiality (killing, wounding, going to the moon)
without reference to the intention of the agent; without this, we are
not dealing with a human action, and only with respect to a human
action may one say in a true sense whether it is morally good or
bad.17
From this it obviously follows that, prima facie, any "act" (in
his sense of performing a behavioral pattern) can be justified,
even if it brings about a (premoral) evil (e.g., " death "). This
brings us to Fuchs' second criterion :
2) The evil (in a premoral sense) effected by a human agent, must
not be intended as such, and must be justified in terms of the totality
of the action by appropriate reasons.18
Therefore, if I do not kill just for killing-without further reason
besides the victim's death itself -, then any killing could be, on
principle, morally justified, provided there are "appropriate reasons." Or do I somehow grossly misunderstand Fuchs?
In this way, we are presented with an action analysis in which
" acts " are simply physical events (" realizations of goods and
evils " or of " lesser evils ") to be given a moral character by intentions that justify these performances on the ground of "appropriate" (commensurate) reason. The acting subject focuses
exclusively on the overall outcome of his or her doings, not on
what he or she concretely does. The acting subject disappears as
a subject that chooses and thus willingly performs concrete acts,
acts that are not simply events causing consequences, but proximate ends of a choosing will. 19
11

Ibid., 120.

18 Ibid.
19 Of course, I have never said that proportionalists
explicitly hold such a
causal-eventistic concept of action (since it is obviously absurd). Rather, my
criticism was based on showing that they hold such a concept implicitly-be-

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Fuchs sums up his argument by asserting:
A moral judgement is legitimately found only under a simultaneous
consideration of the three elements (actions, circumstance, purpose),
premoral in themselves; for the actualization of the three elements
(taking money from another, who is very poor, to be able to give
pleasure to a friend) is not a combination of three human actions
that are morally judged on an individual basis, but a single human
action.20
The example given by Fuchs, of course, is revealing and confirms
what I reproach. The problem is that " taking money from another" is not a good description of a "chosen kind of behavior."
A better description would be: "Appropriating money, taking it
from its legitimate owner, against his will." This is an intentional description of an action called "theft." It has its moral
form independently from whether the acting person has this or
another " purpose " (intention), and from whether the outraged
person is poor or not. Provided he or she in fact is poor, then
the theft may be more condemnable and called "mean." If the
purpose is frivolous (" to give pleasure to a friend "), then the
whole theft will be a frivolous action in addition. Such a theft,
however, will not only be a frivolous one, but also, by its very object, an unjust one! If the purpose ("further intention") is
laudable, the intention remains laudable, but not the action as
such, which remains unjust, though it probably will be, despite
its wrongness, more understandable. In any case, on the whole
it will be an evil action, maluni ex quocumque def ectu. On the
grounds of Fuchs's and McCormick's methodology, however, these
kinds of differentiations are completely ruled out in favor of a uniform overall judgement about " rightness " or " wrongness " of
the act.
To sum up, this methodology has three main characteristics.
First, it confounds the intentionality involved in actions with the
cause otherwise their position would not be coherent-and that this demonstrates that their position is erroneous. Consequently I argued that they should
pay more attention to action theory. See Rhonheimer, " Intrinsically Evil Acts'
and the Moral Viewpoint," 27 ff.
20 Fuchs, "The Absoluteness of Moral Terms," 121.

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reasons one might have to judge certain outcomes as desirable.
Proportionalism, of course, does not forget intention or intentionality, but it reduces " action " to " intending" and to " having appropriate reasons." What is lacking is an intentional concept of
action itself. For proportionalists, action remains a purely physical event that realizes the state of affairs one has a " reason " to
bring about. Splitting up human acts into "acts as such," on one
side, and " reasons " and " intentions related to foreseeable consequences," on the other, proportionalists seem to assert that
choice proceeds on a double track : One first chooses, on the
grounds of appropriate reasons, the state of affairs to be brought
about, and afterwards the physical " act as such " that will cause
it (e.g. " killing as such ") is chosen. The second choice-according to the theory-receives its moral species exclusively from
the first ("as such," it has none); it has a purely instrumental
relation to the first. That is precisely what I would call an
" eventistic " and thus non-intentional notion of action.
The second characteristic derives from this : The " basic action," the concrete act or behavior immediately chosen and then
referred to whatever end, is not conceived as an intentional action. This is a very important point, because I take the "object"
of a moral act to be precisely the content of what I have called
an " intentional basic action," 21 which itself can be distinguished
from further intentions. This inability to isolate the basic in.tentional content of actions in relation to further intentions leads to
the third feature of proportionalism, what McCormick calls the
" expanded notion of object," an " object " that is to be understood as being already the result of a process of weighing and
" commensurating " all foreseeable consequences. The " expanded
object " thus contains the intentions that define what in a morally
significant sense the acting person is doing (and so, prima facie
everything becomes morally possible, provided there is an ap21 See Rhonheimer, La prospettiva della morale, 39, 85 ff., 239 ff. The term
"basic action" was first introduced by A. C. Danto ("Basic Actions," American Philosophical Quarterly 2 [1965] : 141-148), but in quite another sense, i.e.
not referring to intentional action.

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propriate reason). The expanded notion of object, however, in
reality is equivalent to the abolition of the notion of object altogether, for the very notion of " object" necessarily implies a distinction between the basic intention that characterizes the object
and further intentions.
McCormick's "Expanded Notion of Object"
The problem of the proportionalist " expanded notion of object" can be well illustrated with the case of Paul Touvier, a
French Nazi collaborator in the Vichy regime, recently condemned, who was ordered to shoot seven Jews on June 28, 1944.
On trial fifty years later, Touvier argued that both he and the
chief commander of the militia of Lyon knew that Gestapo chief
Werner Knab was planning to execute a hundred Jews in reprisal for the Resistance's killing of Philippe Henriot, the head
of Vichy's propaganda organization. By convincing Knab to execute only thirty, and then in fact executing seven Jews, Touvier
argued that they had in fact prevented the execution of one hundred desired by the Gestapo Commander. The key point here is
their argument that what they did in reality (the morally relevant " object" of their doing) was not kill seven Jews, but save
the lives of ninety-three of them.
That is an argument based on an " expanded notion of object." 22 The corresponding reasoning that would, in proportioninalist terms, justify such an action begins by affirming that
" killing as such "-that is " without reference to the intention of
the agent "-is neither good nor evil, but only the " realization of
a (premoral) human evil" that can be justified, provided one
does not directly intend this evil as the goal of the action, and
that there be a "commensurate reason." Taking into account
" the whole of the action," circumstances and foreseeable consequences, Touvier came to the conclusion: If I do not kill the
seven, then one hundred (these seven probably included) will be
killed. Therefore, in killing the seven (which as such is beyond
good and evil), I can save ninety-three Jews. Thus Touvier rea:22

Or was it, mistakenly, not expanded enough?

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soned: the morally relevant "object" of my action-that is, what
I am really doing-has to be called meritorious or at least responsible and justified as life-saving.
Although a proportionalist can produce reasons why Touvier
should have refrained from killing the seven Jews, this will be a
consequentialist argument and will be accomplished by an even
greater expansion of the object. For example, one could argue:
" Acting in that manner could have foreseeably weakened consciousness of the criminal character of the Nazi Regime, which
would have cost the lives of even more Jews in the long run."
The problem here is not the result of the proportionalist reasoning, but rather its very structure. It is precisely the methodology of weighing the consequences, taking into account premoral
" values "-in this case, lives of innocent human beings-so as
to determine whether or not there is a " commensurate " reason
for " realizing the premoral evil " of killing them. Why not simply admit that the intentional killing of innocent persons is immoral, unjust, criminal, that one is never allowed to do such a
thing?
According to proportionalism, however, what one chooses are
mainly the consequences of one's actions (actions therefore conceived as simple behavioral performances), but not the actions
themselves. As Fuchs put it:
The object of the ethical decision for an action is, therefore, not the
basic (e.g. physical) act as such (in its ethical relevance, such as
killing, speaking falsehood, taking property, sexual stimulation), but
the entirety of the basic act, special circumstances, and the chosen or
(more or less) foreseeable consequences.23
A problem here is that everything depends on your preferencesincluding the determination as to which reasons are commensurate
and which are not. Yet is preference ever sufficient as a basis for
moral judgement? Who would not prefer the killing of only
2a Josef Fuchs, "Das Problem Todsiinde," Stimmen der Zeit 212 (February
1994): 83 (the English translation is that offered by McCormick in "Some
Early Reaction to Veritatis Splendor," 500). In this 1994 article about Veritatis Splendor, Fuchs restates the same basic position he had presented in his
article written more than twenty years earlier.

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seven, instead of a hundred innocent people? Who would not, to
use McCormick's famous wording, prefer "to choose the lesser
evil " ? 24
Of course, I prefer the lesser evil, too. I am happy when I
learn that not one hundred but only seven innocents were killed,
as I am happy to know that only seven instead of one hundred
persons were killed in an air crash or by an earthquake. But I
will not choose and willingly perform an evil action because I
think it to be less evil then another and because otherwise foreseeably somebody else would commit the greater evil (I shall try
to prevent that, of course). The proportionalist will rebut :
" Sorry, you did not understand me. I meant that choosing the
lesser evil signifies that this action was precisely the good one."
I then would reply: "So you really think that when choosing and
freely performing an action, nothing else happens than what happens in an air crash or an earthquake? Are the evil results of
certain actions somehow simply given, beyond both my power to
change and my responsibility? Or are they rather intrinsically
bound up with the action that I perform? "
On the grounds of this and similar examples, we can better
understand why V eritatis Splendor, n. 77 pronounces a very important warning, a warning overlooked, it seems, by most proportionalists :
The weighing of the goods and evils foreseeable as the consequence
of an action is not an adequate method for determining whether the
choice of that concrete kind of behavior is "according to its species,"
or "in itself," morally good or bad, licit or illicit.
Of course, in the light of the preceding example this statement is
perfectly intelligible. The proportionalist " expanded notion of
object," however, renders it meaningless because in proportion24 Cf. John Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (Washington:
Georgetown, 1983),
93 ff. For McCormick, choosing the lesser evil is simply a self-evident
principle, "beyond debate: for the only alternative is that in conflict situations
we should choose the greater evil, which is patently absurd" (Doing Evil to
A chi eve Good, ed. Richard McCormick and Paul Ramsey [Chicago: Loyola,
1978], 38). This of course also means that we choose and therefore are responsible for the foreseen consequences of our omissions.

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alist terms there simply is no possible choice of a concrete kind
of behavior that could be called morally bad " by its species "
or " in itself " before the foreseeable consequences have been
weighed-consequences that change from case to case-and before a judgment about commensurate reasons has been reached.
The problem here is with what are called intrinsically wrong or
evil actions; in such cases already the very object should serve as
an indication that one should not persist along this line of action.
McCormick avoids facing this problem directly by employing examples like "one takes a vacation trip in order to commit adultery " to maintain that only in such cas·es can one discern " an intention in addition to the object," because " there are two distinguishable actions here, each with its own object." 25 This is
then a simple means-end relation. In the example, the basic action is perfectly indifferent or even good, but not the end. Yet is
not the situation radically different in the case, for example, of
one who commits adultery in order to rescue an innocent person
and save his life and one who kills seven Jews in order to save the
lives of ninety-three? Are there not also " two distinguishable
actions here, each with its own object"? McCormick's choice
of examples serves to avoid the real issue.
Proportionalists thus describe and redescribe concrete chosen
basic actions, without looking at what the acting person chooses
on the level of action (or " means ") ; rather, they concentrate on
what he or she chooses in the order of consequences and on the
corresponding commensurate reasons, all of which finally constitute the "expanded object." As we have seen, however, the expanded notion of object is in reality not a notion of "object" at
all, but precisely its abolition, because "object" means the basic
intentional content of a human act, distinguishable from further
intentions. 26
To borrow an example from William May, it would be more
truthful to say that Macbeth killed Duncan instead of saying that
McCormick, "Some Early Reactions to Veritatis Splendor," 498.
of course, are also " objects " of the will. See John Finnis, " Object and Intention in Moral Judgments According to Aquinas," The Thomist
55 (1991): 1-27.
25

26 These,

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Macbeth stabbed Duncan and as a result Duncan died. Stabbing
Duncan " as such " is not a sufficient description of a chosen kind
of behavior or of an action. A description of the object must include, in Aquinas's terminology, both the materia circa quam, 21
" matter about which," and the " form" of the action: Macbeth
stabbed Duncan for the sake of causing his death, or, because he
wanted him dead (that was precisely his reason and his intention
or purpose). We rightly call this kind of act an act of "killing."
That is what he chose and what he did; that is the object of his
action. In order to express our moral disapproval we also call it
"murder." It would not make any sense to say: Macbeth chose
stabbing Duncan with the further intention of causing his death,
of killing him. You cannot describe " stabbing Duncan" as a reasonable, freely chosen action without indicating an intention.
This way of describing an act by the intention involved in it is
not always truthful. Thus it is not truthful to say that Touvier
" saved ninety-three Jews " instead of saying that " Touvier
killed seven innocent Jews, and as a result ninety-three were
saved." We cannot call this action an act of " life saving " merely because the foreseeable result (the sparing of the ninety-three)
was a " commensurate reason " for shooting the seven, and thus
" life itself " was " better served." We are not calculating with
quantities of the " good of life," but relating to concrete living
persons. To speak truthfully, Touvier killed seven innocent people
(he shot at them with the intent of ending their lives) which is
murder-with the further intention of preventing the killing of a
hundred.
Thus it is not truthful to say that abortion, given that it means
killing an innocent human being, is either an act of life saving
when done for the sake of saving the mother's life or an act of
saving family stability in certain difficult family situations. Nor
can the manipulation and sacrifice of human embryos for the sake
of health research (considered as a commensurate reason) be
taken as simply an act of health care by virtue of its (expanded)
27 Summa

theol., I-II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 2.

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object. The notion of expanded object does not work; or, better,
it works for anything whatsoever. Again, everything depends on
the preferences one has. 28
McCormick conceals the problem by adopting examples that, in
themselves, are precisely not examples of " expanded objects"
(and that I would call intentional basic actions). Let us take the
example of masturbation. 29 Of course, stimulation of the genital
organs " as such " is not a kind of behavior that can be chosen or
willingly performed by a human person; a basic reason, intent,
or purpose is needed. 30 That is why the Catechism of the Catholic
Church very correctly writes in n. 2352: "By masturbation is
to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs
in order to derive sexual pleasure." That seems very clear. If
one chooses the same behavioral pattern (stimulating genital organs) in order to get semen for fertility analysis, then one simply
chooses an action that is different by its object.
What happens, however, if one chooses to masturbate for the
sake of psychological release? Is the action properly described by
calling it " deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to
have psychological release ? " I think not. Rather, what one
deliberately chooses is " the stimulation of the genital organs in
order to derive sexual pleasure" (=object), and this with the
further intention of getting psychological release. The key here is
that the release obviously does not derive from stimulating genital
organs " as such," but from the corresponding sexual pleasure.
Thus what the intentional basic action (or its object) turns out
to be is not simply a question of preference.
2s In the proportionalist schema, one simply calls "object" what one concludes to be morally relevant, " what one wanted to condemn as wrong ex
objecto" (McCormick, "Some Early Reactions to Veritatis Splendor," 504).
In this way, one can simply keep expanding the object of one's action so as to
justify one's preferences and reach the result corresponding to one's personal
intuitions about what is morally relevant.
2 9 Cf. his example of organ transplantation,
as distinguished from " killing
for world peace" ("Some Early Reactions to Veritatis Splendor," 504).
so Likewise, one simply cannot choose to " remove a kidney from a living
donor " purely "as such," without any reason that constitutes it as a human act.

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At the same time the behavioral pattern alone does not decide
everything and is sometimes ambiguous. Consider the following
situations. John, a college student, for the sake of forgetting his
girl-friend troubles drinks lots of whisky in order to induce a
temporary loss of consciousness; in other words, he gets drunk.
This is an act of intemperance, drunkenness. On the other hand,
Fred, a soldier, for the sake of avoiding the pain of an emergency
operation, drinks the same amount of whisky in order to induce
a temporary loss of consciousness; in other words, he undergoes
anesthesia. The behavioral pattern may be exactly identical, 31 but
without indicating an intention (a " Why? "), it is impossible to
describe properly what John and Fred are doing, i.e., what, in a
basic sense, they choose. 32 If you remove any intention or purpose whatsoever, there is no action. Thus in every case you arrive
at a basic level, which is the level of intentional basic actions. 38
There are also adherents of a non-intentional concept of object
who fear that this consideration of intention opens the way to subjectivism: 84 Any behavioral pattern, they object, could serve for
any object whatsoever: "by shifting intention to and fro, the
agent constitutes out of whole cloth the moral properties of his
act." 35 Moreover, their concern is "whether the norm of acts
exists prior to human choice, or whether it only comes into being
with our consideration of proportions, circumstances, and consequences." 36 And finally: Is it possible to say that intention is
so important; should we not hold " that the concrete nature of
acts tells us whether an intention is morally good or bad " ? 87
31 For an intentional notion of contraception, see Rhonheimer, "Contraception, Sexual Behavior, and Natural Law. Philosophical Foundation of the
Norm of 'Rumanae Vitae,'" The Linacre Quarterly 56, 2 (1989) : 20-57.
s2 Cf. G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention,§ 22.
33 The opposite is also possible, i.e., different or even contrary behavioral patterns, but the same intentional action, e.g., " the action of killing" and " the
omission of a possible action of life saving." The objects of both choices are
identical.
34 E.g., Russell Rittinger;
see his article, " The Pope and the Theorists,"
Crisis (December 1993) : 31-36.
85 Rittinger,
" The Pope and the Theorists,'' 34.
36 Ibid., 33-34.
s1 Ibid., 34.

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These formulations are, however, somewhat misleading. First,
the " nature of an act " necessarily includes an intention, because
there is no human act without an intention formed by reason. And
that is precisely why Aquinas calls the species of an act, which is
determined by its object, a forma a ratione concepta, a "form
conceived by reason " ; 38 likewise, he defines the good that is by
nature specific to each virtue as a good formed " e.r qitadam commensuratione actus ad circumstantias et finem, quam ratio facit,
" from a certain commensuration of the act to circumstances and
to the end, a commensuration produced by reason." 39 Such
formulations seem to justify the position of Fuchs and McCormick, but only seemingly, however, because the underlying understanding of human action is different. What Aquinas and the
tradition say is: One cannot simply "choose" a (physical) act
and additionally order it to any intention formed by commensurate reasons that would justify the act. To deny this does not
mean, however, that a human act could be described without referring to intention altogether.
Secondly, we have quite an extended power to organize our actions intentionally, and thus in a sense to constitute the moral
properties of our acts. But there are what I would call naturally
given limits to this. Therefore, (provided sound perception) I
cannot shoot at a person's heart and truthfully say, "I love you,"
meaning that I am doing this with the intent of doing good to this
person. What is crucial to recognize is that not every behavioral
pattern fits for any intention. For example, I cannot shoot at a
person and, e.g., have the intention of healing his wound.
To have a human act one needs to have a basic intention; on
this much we agree. But can one, as Bittinger fears, simply
" shift intention to and fro "? Given a determined situation
(which is precisely given and does not depend on the subject's will
or preferences), it is not simply up to me to decide whether my
shooting at a person's heart is or is not an action of punishment.
theol., I-II, q. 18, a. 10.
In II Sent., d. 39, q. 2, a. 1. "Act" here means the physical or "material" part.
38 Summa
39

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And John who drinks to forget his girl-friend troubles simply
cannot reasonably intend his act to be an act of anesthesia. Fred,
on the other hand, who "does the same thing" cannot intend
that what he does be an act of drunkenness. There are given contexts (shaped by circumstances and recognizable, as a morally significant contextual unity, only by practical reason) that, in a basic
sense, decide what kind of intentions we reasonably can have if
we choose a determined "kind of behavior," independently from
further intentions.
From this it follows that even if there is no act (and no object)
possible without an involved intention, what the intention reasonably can be does not depend on pure preferences, or decisions, or
any other power of the subject. This is (in many cases, but not
always) simply given. 40
Thus Paul Touvier had no power to decide what would be his
basic intention in killing seven innocent people. To describe his
action properly, one must include the purpose or the intention,
" wanting them to be dead" (even if he would regret it; that is
only a motivational side-feature, but not the very intention of his
acting). Touvier clearly wanted the seven to be killed; he chose
their deaths for the sake of some greater benefit. 41
If someone should wonder why " intention " should be included
in the "object" or in the " intrinsical nature of an act," he also
should wonder why generally things like " will," " intellect,"
" reason," etc., should be included in human nature. It seems
rather obvious that the very " nature " of the acts of a spiritual
being-moral acts-includes spiritual elements as "purposes " or
" intentions " of the will, shaped by reason, and not only observable behavioral patterns. Is this not precisely the constant teach40 It belongs to the virtue of prudence to understand the contexts in which
we act; see my N atur als Grundlage der Moral, 346 ff., and La prospettiva
della morale, 288 ff.
4 1 This is precisely what does not occur in the case of capital punishment
(the argument applies also if one is for other reasons opposed to capital punishment), nor in that of legitimate self-defense, nor in that of killing in a just
war (which must always have a defensive, anti-aggression character).

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ing of Aquinas? 42 Why should " realizing the evil of death " as
such be taken as the adequate description of the object of a human
act or express its " intrinsical nature," when exactly the same
thing could be brought about by an earthquake or by a robot?
Why should simple " solitary stimulation of genital organs as
such" be the definition of the object and the intrinsical nature of
a human act, when this contains absolutely no indication as to
why one would do such a thing?
One can therefore describe concrete choices of kinds of behavior
as wrong or evil independently from further intentions. Such descriptions, however, always include a basic intention, an intention
that itself presupposes a given ethically relevant context without
which no intention, formed by reason, could come into being. This
has nothing to do with the "expanded notion of object." But it
includes a certain complexity that is due to the plurality and
multiplicity of virtues that in turn reflect human life and its richness in relations between persons, including the differences of
ethically relevant practical contexts.
The Shaping of Intentional Basic Actions and the Virtues :
Some " Manual Cases "
To explain accurately what I have just said at the end of the
preceding section, I should explain how practical principles are
generated in a moral theory based on the " ends of virtues." 43
While my approach grows out of a tradition rooted in classical
virtue ethics, proportionalism is entirely situated in the context
of the manualistic tradition. 44 In opposition to this classical tradi42 See Summa theol., I-II, q .1, a. 3 ad 3: Fines morales accidunt rei naturali;
et e converso ratio naturalis finis accidit morali.
43 See La prospettiva de/la morale, chapter five.
44 In order to understand correctly the Catholic tradition of moral teaching,
however, one must recover the classical standpoint of virtue ethics. From this
standpoint, actions are not considered from the outside-as processes that cause,
by combining (premoral) goods and evils, foreseeable states of affairs-but
rather in terms of " my " intentional relating to good and evil in different
ethical contexts (relations between persons, to community and communities, to

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tion, proportionalism provides, on the basis of modern consequentialism, a relatively uniform theory of decision making, one
that can be summed up in some very simple key principles :
" What one does, considered as such, is not yet morally decisive;
whatever one does, however, one ought never directly to intend
premoral evil; rather, one should always act with a commensurate
reason, so as to maximize benefit and/or to minimize harm or
evil."
In order to justify his position, McCormick adduces a whole
range of classical examples, self-defence, masturbation, lying, contraception, sterilization, theft. 45 Insofar as he deals with these
problems as a proportionalist, however, he simply begs the question. By affirming that to describe a moral human action an intentional element is required, McCormick asserts what nearly all
hold. There is more, however, to the proportionalist position.
McCormick affirms that proportionalists " are saying that an action cannot be judged morally wrong simply by looking at the
material happening, or at its object in a very narrow and restricted sense." 46 Yet by identifying the "object in a very narrow and restricted sense " with the " material happening," he has
already accepted the physicalist fallacy.47 So he is necessarily unable to understand how an intentional basic content can be formed.
Like Fuchs, Knauer, et al., he will only look at material happenings (the act " as such ") and then at all the intentions (among
myself and my body, to God etc.), so that in choosing certain concrete acts or
behaviors my will becomes an evil will, whatever the consequences. Only in
this perspective can one understand the shaping of " intentional basic actions "
(which correspond to different "moral species" of acts and "moral objects").
45 See also his article, "Killing the patient," The Tablet (October 30, 1993):
1410-11.
46 McCormick," Killing the patient," 1411.
47 McCormick commits the same error, even more explicitly, in his article,
"Geburtenregelung als
der Enzyklika," where he asserts that the "object in a narrower sense" is identical with the Thomistic materia circa quam
(Moraltheologie im Abseits? 271-284). This is clearly false and shows a physicalist reading of the tradition.

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which those that will be morally decisive will be those for which
one is able to adduce commensurate reasons) .48
What I maintain is that it is possible both not to be a proportionalist and simultaneously to assert that there is a difference in
basic intentional content, i.e., the object, in the case of the following actions :
-simple killing for any end whatsoever (an action against justice),
even if the ulterior end is saving one's life (this is illicit murder);
-(legitimate) killing in self-defense (killing praete·rintentionem) ;
-(carrying out of) capital punishment (an act of punishment, which
may be regarded as unjust, but which is by its object different
from simple killing for any further end whatsoever) ;
-killing of combatants in war, on the battlefield.
These are not actions to be defined differently only because of
different " reasons " one might have for realizing them. Not only
their intentional content, but also their very intentional structure
is very different in each case. Since they represent different intentional basic actions, they also are different by their object. Take
for example the difference between " self-defence " and " the
choice of killing in order to save one's life." On the level of " reasons " regarding the further end, both cases are identical : the
reason for acting is to save one's life. But if you look at the action not from outside, but from the acting person's perspective,
you will notice that there is a different choice (and so there is
a different object, too). In legitimate self-defence, what engenders
my action is not a will or a choice for the aggressor's death. A
sign of this is that I only use violence proportionate to stop his
aggression. This may lead me to kill him (praeter intentionem),
but the reason for my action is not wanting him to be dead (for
the sake of saving my life) ; rather it is wanting to stop his aggression. Thus there is a difference of intention on the level of
48 We have already seen in the Touvier case that this methodology does not
work. Nor did it work in the case of masturbation, or drunkenness. The problem with killing is that there are some apparent "exceptions," like capital
punishment, killing in war, and killing the aggressor in self-defense.

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concrete chosen behavior, and that means, on the level of the
object. 49
Or, take " killing on a battle-field " : Am I a murderer or simply
a soldier who is fighting against an aggressor? Provided the war
is what one calls a just war ( ultima ratio-defence against an
aggression), it entirely depends on what is going on in my heart,
i.e., whether I want the enemy soldier to be dead, or simply to
stop his aggression and to win the battle. Therefore, if as a
soldier you do not want to be a murderer, you must care for
wounded enemy soldiers. This shows that the object of your acting-the intention involved in your action-obviously was not
wanting them to be dead, not even in the moment of battle, even
if killing them in the moment was the foreseeable and necessary
physical outcome of violence proportionate to stop their aggress10n.
With theft it is slightly different. Theft refers to property.
Property is not a natural or physical entity, but a moral and legal
one. Property is not simply " what I have in my hands," but
" that to which I am entitled " or " that to which I have a right."
Such entitlement and rights, in a given situation, do or do not
exist (and this precisely does not depend on consequentialist reasoning). But situations may change: they are contingent. Unlike a person's life, property is not an unchangeable matter. It is
a contingent matter, relativized by higher principles of justice.
So there are situations of extreme necessity in which no one is
reasonably entitled to say to the starving: " This is my property;
you have no right to it." If the starving one takes what he needs
4 9 This corresponds to the traditional
distinction between "direct" and "indirect " killing, a distinction that reflects the easily misleading ambiguity of
the word "killing." This is precisely what Aquinas very explicitly explains in
the famous article 7 of Summa thcol., II-II, q. 64. What proportionalists never
understand in their reading of this article is that Aquinas here not only maintains that actions are morally shaped by id quad intenditur, but also that the
shaping of intentions depends on what yon are doing, in this case-on the
amount of violence you use to stop the aggression. But in any case he says :
illicitum est quad homo intendat occidere hominem itt seipsum defendat. It is
not a question of " proportionate reason," but of intention involved in action.

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to survive, it will simply not be the action we call " theft," meaning an action that is contrary to justice.
Therefore one has to analyze intentional contents as belonging
to the structure of virtues. Admittedly, the traditional manuals
were not very careful in this. Their methodology was rather
legalistic, focusing on the external features of actions, referring
them to positive law, and only secondarily applying some corrections to recuperate important intentional aspects. 50
In any event, it seems clear that justice related to property and
related to life are two quite different matters. Notice that my
arguments adopted so far have nothing in common with a proportionalist reasoning. The question was not whether there was a
commensurate reason to realize the premoral evil of appropriating
another's property, so that the act would not be "theft" anymore.
Rather, the question was whether or not in a given practical context there existed a title of property (this certainly is not a question of commensurate reason or of utility). Once the question of
rights is settled, however, these rights may not be overruled by
consequentialist reasoning. 51
If one applies the proportionalist methodology of decision-making to these questions, one will never discern the differences, even
though in certain more simply structured cases one will probably
arrive at the same result. As a consequentialist, one arrives at
this result by speaking only in terms of physical acts, foreseen consequences, and commensurate reasons, a level of discourse that
will prove profoundly misleading in more serious questions, as
50 Thus St. Alphonsus de Liguori treated natural law as if it were a positive
legal codex, teaching that epieikeia could be applied to it; this meant, however, not negative precepts but those positive precepts that Aquinas describes
as valid only ut in pluribus (as deposita sunt reddeiida). Alphonsus' spirit is
absolutely correct, but his methodology is of course misleading (he tries to
argue within a legalistic framework). St. Alphonsus is today abused by authors
who are nevertheless interested in maintaining the "legalistic" approach, so as
to apply epieikeia even to negative precepts, without however noting the enormous difference. See Gunter Virt, " Epikie und sittliche Selbstbestimmung,"
Moraltheologie im Abseitsf 203-220.
51 See Macintyre,
"How can we learn what Veritatis Splendor has to
teach? " 179-182.

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illustrated by the Touvier case. Moreover, that is not how upright people really act and live. We act in given circumstances
and personal relationships that form basic intentional contexts
and corresponding intentional basic actions. Some of them are
simply evil by their basic content. They divert the acting person
from human good, and make the will and the heart evil.
The "Key Question" and the Encyclical's Alleged
" Misrepresentation " of Proportionalism
At this point we finally arrive at what McCormick calls the
"key question." Why, he asks me, in choosing to kill a person or
deceive a person, does one necessarily "take a position with one's
will with regard to ' good ' and ' evil ' "? While some elements
of my answer are contained already in what I have explained in
the foregoing sections, to answer the question systematically I
would have to repeat all that I have said about the misleading
distinction, fundamental for proportionalists, between " rightness " and " wrongness " of actions, on the one hand, and the
" goodness " and " wickedness " of persons and their actions, on
the other. I invite the reader to have a second glance at the original article. Let me add, however, the following.
Proportionalists say that an action is right if what one does is
justified by commensurate reason. In this view, a person is a
good person if he or she does not directly intend to realize a premoral evil, but intends to act so as to maximize goods or to
minimize evils ("in the long run," Knauer would add), meaning
to act responsibly by commensurate reasons.
I consider this to be simply erroneous. In my article I wrote :
It is one of the most important assertions of classical virtue ethics
that there exist conditions for the fundamental rightness of actions
which depend on basic structures of the " rightness of desire " and
that it is therefore possible to describe particular types of actions,
the choice of which always involves wrong desire. (20)
With regard to proportionalist decision-making theories (and
their characteristic as " rule ethics ") I then added that these
theories

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may not, on the level of the concrete performance of actions, include
in their reflection the acting subject and his willingly " taking a position " with regard to " good " and " evil " in choosing this or that
particular action.

So, if I choose to kill P, I simply set my will against a fundamental right of P, which is moral evil; if I choose to have intercourse with Q, to whom I am not married, I act against the
truth of sexuality, harming my own integrity (in the case of simple fornication), or, in the case of adultery, I moreover violate
faithfulness due to the person to whom I am married. This implies disorder of my free will, and exactly this we commonly call
an evil will. If I choose to utter falsehood to a person, given a
practical context in which speech acts are meant to be acts of
communicative justice (which is not the case in war situations,
aggression, etc.), then I am lying to my fellow man. This means
setting my will against social ties due to this person, and this is
disorder in my will, moral evil. The same, obviously, applies to
theft. At the same time, the one who carries out a capital punishment does not do what he does because he wants the executed to
be dead (this could be a further motive, but a condemnable one) ;
he may even do it after having done everything to liberate him.
This is an act of punishment, that is, of retributive justice. 52
Following proportionalist methodology, one will not see, or not
concede, the point because one omits focusing on what is going on
in the acting and choosing person, precisely where moral evil
comes about. Proportionalists are concerned with the reasons one
might have to bring about certain state of affairs as the consequences of one's doings; and only this allows a judgement about
"right" and "wrong." That is why consequentialists discuss for
example the question of whether it could be right to execute the
innocent, instead of simply asserting : to execute an innocent per52 See Rhonheimer, La prospettiva della morale, 283; also, the helpful analysis by Agnes Heller, Beyond Justice (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 156
ff. I want to repeat that my argument does not yet settle the question whether
capital punishment is a good or proportionate, and in this sense, just punishment; it only settles the basic objective meaning of the corresponding acts as
actions of punishment or retributive justice.

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son for whatever reason is evil by its object. Thus precisely what
proportionalists do not want to acknowledge is that, according to
the encyclical's quotation of n. 1761 of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church
there are certain specific kinds of behavior that are always wrong to
choose, be-cause choosing them involves a disorder of the will, that is,
moral evil,
and that, according to V eritatis Splendor's key sentence in n. 79,
one must therefore reject the thesis, characteristic of teleological and
proportionalist theories, which holds that it is impossible to qualify
as nwrally evil according to its species-its "object "-the deliberate
choice of certain kinds of behavior or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality
of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned.
Obviously, the encyclical goes right to the point, and McCormick's
reaction, along with similar reactions, confirms that the Pope was
right.
This relates to that for which McCormick most reproaches
Veritatis Splendor, its "misrepresentation" of proportionalism, 53
namely, the encyclical's assertion in n. 76: " Such theories however are not faithful to the Church's teaching, when they believe
they can justify, as morally good, deliberate choices of kinds of
behavior contrary to the commandments of the divine and the
natural law." McCormick repeatedly says that with this the encyclical gravely misrepresents the proportionalists' views, reproaching them falsely "that [the proportionalist position] attempts to justify morally wron:g actions by a good intention."
This is simply not true. McCormick's complaint would be
justified if the Pope held the same understanding of the nature of
natural and divine law that is proper to revisionist moral theology. Unlike proportionalists, however, the encyclical holds that
in natural and divine law there are included certain negative preto certain kinds of behavior
cepts that precisely refer
that one never may choose. The encyclical does not reproach
53 McCormick, "Some Early Reactions to Veritatis Splendor," 490 ff., 497;
"Killing the Patient," 1411.

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proportionalist theologians for wanting to justify by good intentions what is already determined to be morally wrong. The reproach is that proportionalism is a theory by which, in concrete
cases, you can justify as morally right what the Church teaches to
be universally, semper et pro semper, wrong. The Pope therefore
reproaches proportionalism for denying that there are certain
negative precepts that refer universally to certain kinds of behavior that one may never choose (killing the innocent, adultery,
fornication, theft, contraception, abortion, lying, etc.).
In fact, what the encyclical rejects is the proportionalist notion
of expanded object that allows one in every concrete case to "redescribe" concrete actions, reducing the commandments of law
simply to forbid certain immoral attitudes, but not choices of determined and intentionally describable behaviors or acts.
Therefore V eritatis Splendor does not here affirm something
about the formal structure of proportionalist moral judgement
(imputing to proportionalists a theory that seeks to justify the
principle, " One may do good evil that good come about") ; the
reproach is a material one, that is, that proportionalism is a theory
according to which such universal negative norms cannot exist,
so that, according to this theory, one comes to declare to be morally right what natural and divine law, according to the Church's
teaching, declares to be morally wrong and evil. Thus V eritatis
Splendor's assertion in n. 76 does not characterize proportionalism as a theory, but it characterizes the result of this theory, its
material implications, as leading to moral judgments explicitly
contrary to what the Church teaches as morally wrong and evil.
As evidence for this judgement, I refer again to the example of
Fuchs, who wrote in 1971: "What value do our norms have
with respect to the morality of the action as such, prior, that is,
to the consideration of the circumstances and intention? We answer: They cannot be moral norms, unless circumstances and intention are taken into account." 54 Some pages later, referring to
norms related to actions that "could never be objectively justified," he concludes:
54 Fuchs, " The Absolutness of Moral Terms,"

121.

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Viewed theoretically, there seems to be no possibility of norms of
this kind for human action in the inner-worldly realm. The reason
is that an action cannot be judged morally at all, considered purely
in itself, but only together with all the " circumstances " and the
" intention." Consequently, a behavioral norm, universally valid in
the full sense, would presuppose that those who arrive at it could
know or foresee all the possible coinbinations of the action concerned
with circumstances and intentions, with (pre-moral) values and nonvalues (bona and mala ' physica '). 55
Of course, Fuchs-like others-neglects to distinguish here between negative (prohibitive) and affirmative norms, which would
make all the difference. And so, in a recent paper, he even speculates that in a future, yet unknown time, the command " you shall
not commit adultery" could change and no longer be valid without exceptions; there could be imaginable " rare exceptions, on
the grounds of highly important reasons and with mutual consent." 56
Similarly, it is not surprising that with regard to " murder,
adultery, stealing, genocide, torture, prostitution, slavery, etc."
McCormick cites with approval the argument of Lisa Sowle
Cahill : " These phrases, Cahill correctly notes, do not define acts
in the abstract, ' but acts (like intercourse or homicide) together
with the conditions or circumstances in which they become immoral.' " 57 In their view, precisely because these "conditions or
circumstances " can be discerned only in each particular case, the
general norm indicating a species or kind of behavior tells us
nothing definitive about whether the act is right or wrong, but
merely provides us with a name for something of which we disapprove. Yet McCormick misses the point when he complains
that Robert P. George "misrepresents proportionalists as maintaining that rape, murder, and adultery could be justified by a
Ibid., 124.
Fuchs, "Die sittliche Handlung: das instrinsece malum," M oraltheologie
im Abseils? 183. Of course, for Fuchs this should not be called "adultery"
any more; one would have to devise another name for it.
5 7 McCormick,
"Some Early Reactions to Veritatis SPiendor," 492; the
quotation is from Cahill's article, "Accent on the Mascuiine," 1.:,,:: Tablet 247
(December 11, 1993) : 1618-19.
55

56

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proportionate reason," 58 for what the critics of proportionalism
are arguing is that the acts that proportionalists would not designate as " adultery " or " murder " because of the " conditions or
circumstances " are in fact precisely acts of " adultery" or
"murder," regardless of the new names given to such acts by the
proportionalists. McCormick's complaint simply begs the question.
The notion of "expanded object" requires that any universally
formulated norm be open to exception because of a "commensurate reason " that redescribes the act in question. Proportionalism thus teaches that precisely on the grounds of intention, determined behaviors that are held by the Church's teaching to be
semper et pro semper immoral, evil, and wrong according to divine and natural law may be become " right," here and nowwhen the "expanded object" is taken into consideration. 59 The
trick is precisely to affirm this by a theory that is immune against
the reproach, "you are trying to justify evil means by good intentions," since the very theory eliminates even the possibility
of doing such a thing, for it argues that only evil intentions render
an act evil and that a well-intentioned act is necessarily good. And
that is why this theory is not only erroneous, but moreover
dangerously confusing moral reasoning. Proportionalism is a
methodology by which one in fact always can with good conscience act according to the principle " let us do evil so that good
come about," because the methodology gives one the conviction
that, provided good comes foreseeably about, what you did was
not evil at all, but just the morally right thing, so that the ominous
principle does not apply in your case. Whoever nevertheless reproaches you for trying to justify, on the grounds of "good reasons," what in reality is morally evil, will be " misrepresenting"
your position.
"Some Early Reactions to Veritatis Splendor," 487.
This is clearly seen in Veritatis Splendor, n. 56, where the encyclical
points out that according to the methodology that it rejects "a certain concrete existential consideration . . . could legitimately be the basis of certain
exceptions to the general rule and thus permit one to do in practice and in
good conscience what is qualified as intrinsically evil by the moral law."
58 McCormick,

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McCormick said that the reason for what he sees as my error
was probably that I had " taken one general description of consequentialism and applied it indiscriminately to all recent revisionist analyses." I do not think this is the case. But even if it were
true, McCormick's position is still included in what I criticized
in my article. And I also think that his position is one of those
reasonably rejected by V eritatis Splendor.

BOOK REVIEWS
The Love Commandments: Essays in Christian Ethics and Moral Philosophy. Edited by EDMUND SANTURRI AND WILLIAM WERPE·
HOWSKI. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1992.
Pp. xxii
307. $35.00 (paper).

+

The essays in this volume address numerous philosophic and theological issues surrounding the two commandments of love of God and love of
neighbor. A brief review cannot do justice to the careful argumentatation contained in the essays. Forced to make an unhappy choice, I
have decided to provide some sense of the main line of argument in
each piece and to add a few general comments about the dominant approaches to Christian charity in the volume.
Gene Outka's "Universal Love and Impartiality," which sets the stage
for many of the other pieces, asks: Should there be " no disparity between our consideration of others and our consideration of ourselves? "
( 3) . On the basis of a sustained comparison of Christian universal love
with impartiality, Outka concludes that, " while universal love allies itself with impartiality at certain junctures, it represents an advance
over impartiality because it more readily accommodates differences between neighbor-love and self-love" (79-80). Christianity's normative
emphasis on regard for others goes beyond impartiality toward altruism. Christian ethics is not, however, identical with altruism if the
latter means that the " self does not matter." This would be contrary
to the theocentric framework of the commandments, which refer directly to the "self's well-being" (82). In contrast to both impartiality
and altruism, universal love accents " inclusiveness " over " comparative measurement." On a descriptive level, impartialists " fall to take
seriously enough the power of self-preoccupation." The simple assertions of equal regard do not meet the need for ameliorative strategies to
correct our tendencies toward selfishness and pride. There are other
disparities between self- and neighbor-love and thus between universal
love and impartiality. In contrast to impartiality, universal love includes "legitimate, normative self-regarding considerations."
This
provides a response to the criticism that Christian love involves selfannihilation. A complete passivity to others can result in a loss of a
determinate sense of self; but, as Outka argues, such passivity is not

313

314

BOOK REVIEWS

to be confused with Christian humility. Rather, it can be rooted in the
sin of sloth, disguised as humility. The theocentric concern with the
self avoids both pride and sloth through obedient willing. Finally,
there are legitimate and ineradicable self-regarding considerations at
the descriptive level: I cannot "promote and protect" the well-being of
neighbor and self in " exactly the same way" (87).
In "Who is My Neighbor? Love, Equality, and Profoundly Retarded Humans,'' Edmund Santurri contrasts the humanist and inclusive view of equal worth with the rationalist view, which identifies being a person with having a rational capacity to desire, choose, evaluate,
and so forth. As a way of clarifying the Christian-humanist view,
Santurri considers various interpretations of the scriptural language
concerning man as an image of God. He argues that in the biblical
narrative all beings born of humankind are created in God's image. He
then addresses two rival construals of personhood. The first limits personhood to those who have the capacity to value their existence, while
the second accords equal standing to those who can participate in communal deliberation. Both views abstract from historical and social con·
nections embedded in species life ( 124) . The argument for inclusion
of the severely retarded rests not on reductionist biological principles,
hut upon social phenomena: " the retarded are born of us, look like
us, and interact with us in a wide assortment of highly distinctive social settings " ( 126) .
In "'Agape' and Special Relations," William Werpehowski begins
by engaging Gewirth's attempt to justify ethical particularism on the
basis of ethical universalism. While his view is not as susceptible to
criticism as some have thought, Werpehowski is nonetheless sympathetic
with the concerns of Amelie Rorty, who worries that a view like that of
Gewirth " locates the focus of moral theory and moral action in the
processes and rules for justification " which thus " underdescribe and
underdetermine the detailed thoughtfulness required for appropriate
action" (146-147). As a corrective, Werpehowski appeals to Christian
moral discernment or prudence. In a number of ways, we can construe
special relations in terms of neighbor love: each is a creature of God,
a sinner for whom Christ died, and a companion in beatitude. Thus,
there need be no incompatibility between Christian universalism and
its particular narrative.
David Little's "The Law of Supererogation" takes its point of departure from David Heyd's criteria for a supererogatory act: it is
neither obligatory nor forbidden, its omission is not wrong, it is morally good, and it is done voluntarily for the sake of someone else's good
( 159) . Little brings out his own view by considering the views of
R. M. Hare, who holds that " ought" applies only to acts that are uni-

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versalizable, and Macintyre, who counters that acts of supererogation
are precisely the sort of acts that cannot be universalized but that can
nonetheless constitute an individual " ought" ( 164). Little proposes a
distinction between mandatory and permissive oughts. He thus sides
with Macintyre by affirming that the term " ought " applies to supererogatory acts, but against Macintyre he holds that these acts can be
understood as in some sense "prescriptively universalizable"
(169).
The degree of permissibility accruing to an action varies and depends
upon a number of factors; when the action requires little sacrifice and
the benefit to the recipient is high, there is little permissibility. As the
sacrifice increases and/or the benefit decreases, the permissibility increases. The " capacity, availability, and effectiveness" of the benefactor are also germane, but when these are high, the crucial categories
have to do with benefit to the beneficiary and cost to the benefactor.
Supererogatory acts are reserved for those acts that have a high grade
of beneficence (174-176). In these cases, as when someone freely sacrifices his life for others, there can be an " agent-specific " or permissive
ought. The criteria adduced by Little show that there are " transsubj ective judgments concerning the sort of ought that is warranted in
given circumstances" (177). All of this is compatible with the apparently paradoxical Christian position that the law of love binds us to
permissive action.
In "Christian Love and Political Violence," Timothy Jackson advocates a version of Ramsey's Augustinian position on the complicated
relationship between love and justice. On this view, love and justice are
not necessarily opposed and thus there is no necessary connection between Christian ethics and nonviolence. The defense of the innocent
need not be seen as a secular motive isolated from the motive of Christion charity: the " desire to protect the innocent is a part of love's inspiration" (192). He then contrasts the views of Ramsey and Segundo,
both of whom see the scriptural admonitions to " turn the other cheek "
and " resist not evil " as " tactical rather than in-principle " ( 197). Yet
Segundo's radical contextualism, where the " only truth is liberation itself,'' eviscerates moral discourse, since there is no substantive account
of liberation itself (198). An alternative to Segundo is the view that
" one may not directly take innocent life even to ensure national survival, but one may restrain political aggression in a just cause." Thus,
" agape is politically active but morally self-limiting" (202). Jackson
also responds to three objections to the primacy of charity: Nietzsche's
meritarian criticism of the denial of egoism as unjust; the naturalistic
objection that charity entails the devastating repression of natural instincts; and the liberal objection that the ethic of love " generates intolerance" (205-206). He concludes that "love serves others most pro·
foundly by making them loving in their turn" (213).

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In "'Agape' and Self-love," John Whittaker generally agrees with
Outka but is troubled by his reference to the commandment as a " substantive moral principle," which suggests that it can guide " specific
actions." Whittaker counters that it "represents more of a dispositional
guide than a rule for performance" (223). He addresses numerous dif·
ficulties with construing how we are to love others as we love ourselves:
To what extent should we attend to the freedom, the basic needs, and
the moral life of the neighbor? This underscores the problem with
understanding the commandment in terms of clear-cut principles. Whittaker distinguishes two senses of the desire for happiness or two ways
we love ourselves. One consists in our desire for " particular ends,"
the other, in a longing for " fulfillment as an unfocused concern "
(228). Concern for the satisfaction of the latter longing is the focus
of the commandment of love. What makes this distinctively Christian
is the particular source of the disposition underlying concern for others.
A gracious response to an unmerited gift of happiness, a gift that satisfies the unfocused longing mentioned above, frees us from the anxious
struggle for happiness and fosters in us a disposition to attend to the
happiness of others ( 235) .
Jean Porter's "Salvific Love and Charity" compares Rahner and
Aquinas. The former focuses on our awareness of ourselves as inquir·
ing and loving subjects, as beings capable of self-transcendence toward
the infinite (242). Openness to God is present "pre-thematically" in
genuine acts of love of neighbor. Thus, the realm of the moral and
the realm of salvation "become co-extensive" (255). Porter worries
that the detachment of salvation from Christian beliefs may impoverish
Christian moral discourse (253-254). Aquinas's view that there can be
morally good acts, not ordered to salvation, provides a useful distinc·
tion. Aquinas's conception of Christian charity as a distinct virtue, as
an " enduring trait of character," spells out "the kinds of dispositions
and enduring orientations that it produces" (254). Thomas thus pro·
vides a more adequate account of the intelligibility of the Christian
life, of what is distinctive about it and why it might be a desirable way
of life.
In " Kant on Christian Love," Ronald Green attempts to rehabilitate
Kant's position on our universal duties toward others. Noting passages
where Kant suggests that moral feelings are not irrelevant to the moral
life, Green holds that Kant's apparent dismissal of the role of feelings
has to do with what can and cannot be commanded. Since the " emotions are beyond our control," these cannot be commanded; only ac·
tions in accordance with duty can be ( 263) . While noting that there is
some tension in Kant between " unaided duty " and a " qualified reliance on God's aid" (267), Green also points out that Kant's arguments

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317

on behalf of " active regard for the neighbor " coincide to some extent
with the Christian understanding of agape. Thus, " Christian ethics
shares a commitment with an ethics based on reason and open to all
who are human" (275).
John Reeder's "Analogues to Justice" addresses the question whether
a society governed by benevolence alone would have need of justice.
He discuses the society on the "moon Anarres" in Ursula LeGuin's
The Dispossessed. Since all members act out of benevolence, the society
lacks what Rawls calls the "subjective circumstances of justice." Such
a society, Reeder argues, would still have the "objective circumstances
of justice," that is, moderate scarcity, and thus would need distributive
policies. Although Reeder thinks that " under certain historical circumstances (Anarres) extensive benevolence can render justice otiose,"
he also admits that the present prospects for such a society do not warrant optimism. He adds that, " in theological language, given finitude
and sin, love needs justice" (299).
The essays in this volume are preoccupied with modern, secular doctrines of equal regard, impartiality, and altruism. These are perhaps
necessary dialectical starting points for reflection on charity, given that
our inarticulateness about charity arises in part from our inability to
distinguish it from its modern, secular substitutes. Nonetheless, Green's
assumption that "those interested in deepening their understanding ...
of Christian neighbor-love will not do badly by starting their reading
with Kant" (277) is problematic. I do not mean that Kant has noth·
ing to teach us, hut rather that Kant, following numerous Enlightenment thinkers, replaces the notion of virtue, with its emphasis on excellence of character and on participation in a communal way of life,
with that of universal law, with its accentuation of the formal and the
procedural. Reflection on charity is, I think, better served by taking
its point of departure from pre-modern Christian sources, which treat
law as ordered to virtue. How would this he helpful?
One pervasive concern of the volume, a concern which is the focus
of Porter's essay, is the distinctiveness of Christian charity. That is,
how does charity provide intelligibility to the Christian life? Porter's
essay points up an essential feature of Thomas's account of charity, a
feature that is absent in the other essays in the volume. For Thomas,
charity finds its fullest expression less as a law than as a virtue. The
account of charity as a virtue, an excellence of character peculiar to the
Christian way of life, suggests a response to the growing and influential
number of critics who follow Nietzsche in identifying Christian love as
self-annihilation. Indeed, Thomas grounds his account of charity in
analogues to the Aristotelian notion of friendship. Of course we owe
all human beings certain things simply in virtue of their human na-

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ture. But when it comes to love, " we should measure the love of different persons according to the different kinds of union." Thomas underscores what Outka calls the " inclusive " conception of universal love.
God is to be loved as the supreme good, as the source of all happiness;
the neighbor is loved as sharing in the happiness we receive from God.
Charity eviscerates neither our natural inclination for happiness nor
our natural associations with others. Rather, it " commands each act of
other sorts of friendship " in relation to our friendship with God.
Charity is inherently prudential and thus an account of " special relations,'' which Werpehowski and others address, is incorporated into the
discussion of charity. Of course one might make the same objection
against Thomas's appropriation of Aristotle that I have leveled against
the appropriation of modern notions. But Aristotle is not so much a
secular rival of Christianity as he is a philosopher of human nature.
A return to Christian Aristotelianism is suggested by Kierkegaard's
dictum that we have forgotten what it means to be Christian because we
have forgotten what it means to be human.
THOMAS
HIBBS

s.

Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA

The Trinity: An Analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas' Expositio of the
"De Trinitate" of Boethius. By DOUGLAS C. HALL. Studien und
Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 33. Leiden/New York:
Brill, 1992. Pp. vi
131. $40 (cloth).

+

Aquinas's expositio of the De Trinitate of Boethius is an admirable
paradigm of profound analysis and interpretive genius. Adhering closely to a literal reading of the short sexpartite Boethian tractate, but
breaking off his analysis (for reasons unknown) just before the end of
section two where Boethius begins his ex professo treatment of the Trinity, Aquinas ends up mainly plumbing the depth of Boethius's prefatory remarks about the epistemological status of theology, and thus
in six questions (comprising 24 articles) constructs the most extensive treatment in all his works of the nature and method of theology.
Little wonder, then, that Leo Elders titles his introduction to the expositio of Aquinas Faith and Science (Rome, 1974) or that Armand
Maurer names his two volume translation of it Faith, Reason and Theology and The Division and Methods of the Sciences (Toronto, 198687). In Thomas's commentary, only the fourth article of question three
treats the doctrine of the Trinity directly, though the four articles of

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319

question four also discuss the cause of plurality, a crucial topic for
trinitarian theology.
I was mildly surprised, then, that Douglas Hall gives the title The
Trinity to what professes to offer a " careful textual analysis and criticism" (112) of the methods and contents of Aquinas's commentary.
In this slender book of four chapters, Hall inserts, between a short introduction and a conclusion, a second chapter on all five of Boethius's
tractates and a third on Aquinas's commentary on the De Trinitate.
He has some interesting things to say about the dating and contents of
the Boethian works, and also makes some good points about Thomas's
commentary, especially as regards questions five and six. But the title
is a misnomer, for Hall skips over lightly the five articles mentioned
above where Aquinas treats trinitarian issues, devoting only three pages
to them. Hall's main concern, like Aquinas's, is theological methodology
and epistemology.
Hall attempts a rather Hegelian, dialectical appraisal of Aquinaswhich stresses Aquinas's reconstruction of Boethius by highlighting
their common methodological theme of agnosia-and links it with an integrative approach which grounds itself in " a transcendental reading
of Aquinas, while retaining themes from participationist and analogical
literature" (112). The first chapter discusses the participationist,
analogical, and transcendental strains of contemporary Thomism, and
evinces a certain predilection for Rahner (his influence is also evident
on pages 50, 58, 92-95) . In sum, Hall combines a Rahnerian and dialectical reading of Aquinas. Due to his presupposition, however, he frequently does not engage Aquinas on his own grounds but burdens him
with false problems and dubious theses as he seeks to sort out Aquinas's
" dialectical tensions." Often the result is a rather gratuitous reading
encumbered with unsubstantiated non sequiturs that obfuscates rather
than clarifies Thomas's text. Some examples are in order.
Aquinas and Rahner. Pages 49-53 comment on the following text
from Thomas's prologue:
Et ideo Deus humano generi aliam tutam viam cognitionis providit, suam
notitiam mentibus hominum per fidem infundens .... Sicut ergo naturalis
cognitionis principium est creaturae notitia a sensu accepta, ita cogni·
tionis desuper datae principium est primae veritatis notitia per fidem infusa. . . . Philosophi enim, qui naturalis cognitionis ordinem sequuntur,
praeordinant scientiam de creaturis scientiae divinae, scilicet naturalem
metaphysicae. Sed apud theologos proceditur e converso, ut creatoris
consideratio considerationem praeveniat creaturae.
(Accordingly God has provided for the human race another, safe way of
knowing, imparting his knowledge to the minds of men through faith ....
Consequently, just as our natural knowledge begins with the knowledge
of creatures obtained by the senses, so the knowledge imparted from
above begins with the cognition of the first Truth bestowed on us by

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faith .... Philosophers, who follow the order of natural knowledge, place
the science of creatures before the science of God, that is to say, natural
philosophy before metaphysics, but theologians follow the opposite path,
placing the consideration of the creator before that of creatures " [Faith,
Reason and Theology, Armand l\faurer, trans. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1987), 3-4].)

Hall blunders into two unfortunate interpretations of this text. First,
he hijacks the meaning of creature notitia a sensu accepta by assuring
us, without any clear textual warrant, that Thomas is here teaching that
abstract knowledge based on the senses is a necessary but not sufficient
cause of the first principles of knowledge, of the notio entis which is
equivalent to the notio creaturae. In effect, on the basis of just a few
words read out of context he expresses the kernel of Rahner's transcendental interpretation of Aquinas's epistemology. It would be hard
to imagine a more egregious eisegesis.
Second, Hall convinces himself that in this text Thomas holds that
faith and theology afford us an immediate knowledge of God which
somehow precedes and circumvents the whole natural order of cognition-a position which he deems, a la Rahner, to be setting up a false
wall of division between the natural and supernatural orders. In fact,
however, it is clear from Thomas's corpus as whole that these orders are
distinct without being existentially separate, and that faith and theology
affirm true judgments about God which make use of rather than circumvent the natural order of knowledge. Thus, when Thomas says that
the theologians' consideratio creatoris precedes their consideratio creaturae, he does not mean, pace Hall, that theologians possess a special
branch of knowledge which entirely circumvents the natural order of
knowledge based on experience, but that their discipline, grounded in
a conjunction of revelation and reason, has God as its central, formal,
and unifying focus.
Elsewhere, in like fashion, Hall charges Aquinas with teaching that
revelation has an independent " content " not based on abstraction
from the senses or interpretation of experience (92, 108), and fallaciously interprets Thomas's statement that theologians may rightfully
use philosophical arguments in their theology (2.3 ad5) , as giving " the
impression that sacra doctrina is somehow constituted as a reflective
reality in human consciousness prior to and independently of an engagement with natural knowledge" (77). In fact, however, what
Thomas teaches, in a paradoxical manner which Hall does not appre·
ciate, is that a theological judgment based on revelation-e.g., that
Jesus is the human enfleshment of the Word of God-while its truth
transcends what pure sensation or experience could give us on their
own, is nevertheless constructed out of the content of concepts and
images whose natural environment is the senses and human experience.

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Aquinas and Boethius. Hall misunderstands Boethius and Aquinas
on the nature of their agnosia. To begin with, in an interpretation
largely unwarranted by the texts of the tractates themselves, Hall sees
Boethius as imbued with a profound agnosia which has no great confidence in the ability of theology to formulate understandable propositions about God-even though Hall admits that at the end of his Utrum
Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus Boethius states that he wants to reconcile faith and reason as far as possible, and even though Hall describes in detail how the De Trinitate discusses such purely philosophical topics as plurality, substance, accidents, and the ten categories,
especially relation (27-35). According to Hall, moreover, most of
Aquinas's texts modify and water down Boethius's extreme dialectical
tension and insist on a much cleaner reconciliation between faith and
reason.
In reality, however, Boethius and Aquinas do not seem that far apart
on the reconciliation of faith and reason, though the texts of Thomas do
demonstrate a more moderate negative theology than, for example, those
of Pseudo-Dionysius. Hall is only speculating somewhat fancifully,
therefore, when he writes: " Aquinas quite frequently presents formulations that seem to have clarity of surface structure and terminology,
but these are structures for novices, because Aquinas thought that his
own, overpowering agnosia in faith would cause too much scandal and
harm to those who were lacking refined cultivation in philosophical
knowledge and maturity of faith" (79). If this were the case then all
of Thomas's writings would have been intended for novice theologians-which they were not-since all his writings manifest an equal clarity
of structure and terminology.
Aquinas and Theology. Because of his emphasis on Thomas's supposed agnosia, Hall is also committed to finding any indication in
Thomas that theology is not a true affirmative science, even though he
knows that this flies in the face of Thomas's many assertions to the
contrary. " It has been a concern of the present investigation to show
that if one follows Aquinas's methodology, one can say almost nothing
about the Mystery itself" (120). For example, pages 110-11 argue
that, in 6.4 ad3, Aquinas holds that theology is most properly under·
stood as not being a speculative science, because there he states that in
the heavenly vision of God's essence, the happiness of the blessed occurs
not through some speculative science but through the light of glory.
Hall first correctly notes that Thomas is here contrasting the beatific
vision with the knowledge gained through speculative science, but next
incorrectly argues that since the beatific vision is not properly scientia,
then a fortiori, neither can faith or theology be properly scientia. In
fact, however, Thomas would never deny that the beatific vision is some
sort of scientia or cognitive assimilation of God's reailty; what he

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denies is that it is a speculative scientia, i.e., a knowledge gained
through the senses, images, and abstractive concepts. By equating
scientia with speculative scientia, Hall has unwarrantably narrowed the
rich ambiguity of Aquinas's use of this term. Hall also thinks that
Aquinas's assertion that theology is a limited attainment of the divine
is tantamount to the assertion that theology " cannot draw strict conclusions" (75), though the second assertion is neither tantamount to
the first nor what Aquinas holds.
The book's fundamental flaw is its lack of a solid, synthetic comprehension of Thomas's subtle and nuanced theological epistemology.
Ironically, Hall is not dialectical enough in his appreciation of that
epistemology. Thus, on pages 91-92, for example, it is clear he does
not understand Thomas's distinction between a quidditative knowledge
of God (which we cannot have in this life but which the blessed possess
in heaven) and true judgments about God's very being (which theology
possesses even in this life). Hall conflates the two, whereas Thomas
asserts the paradoxical and dialectical view that theology knows truths
about God's very being even though it has no quidditative insight into
that being. Moreover, Hall shows no sensitivity as to how Aquinas's
distinction between concept and judgment permits him to assert, paradoxically, that the truth of theological judgments outstrips the very
meaning of the concepts used to construct those judgments. For Thomas,
concepts gained from the senses and experience are necessary prerequisites for theological judgments, and thus theological judgments are
simultaneously mediated by but also transcend the meanings of concepts and words grounded in reason and experience.
Hall claims that his book surpasses Ralph Mcinerny's Boethius and
Aquinas (Washington, 1990), as well as the works of Maurer and
Elders mentioned above, by providing a more detailed analysis than
their introductory treatments can, and by emphasizing more than they
the deep dialectical structures of Thomas's thought. As more reliable
guides to Thomas's expositio on its own terms, however, as well as
more incisive discussions of its various themes, the reader will find
those other works more profitable than this study.
GREGORY

Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
Berkeley, California

P. ROCCA, O.P.

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323

Person and Religion: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion.
By ZOFIA J. ZDYBICKA, U.C.J.A. Translated by Theresa Sandok.
New York: Peter Lang, 1991. Pp. xix+ 397 (cloth).
Zdybicka's volume is the third in Peter Lang's series, "Catholic
Thought from Lublin." A convenient way to display the contents of
Person and Religion is to elaborate the meaning of " philosophy of
religion " and its comprising terms. Philosophy of religion designates
the attempt to arrive at an ultimate explanation of the empirically
given and existentially apprehended fact of religion (p. 96). In other
words, why does religion exist at all and what are its subjective and
objective grounds? This endeavor Zdybicka understands to be a recent one. Despite a wealth of reflection on religion over the centuries
(See her historical survey, pp. 1-49), only since the 19th century have
there been separate disciplines with the phenomenon of religion as their
object.
Zdybicka also emphasizes that not any kind of philosophy is equal
to the task of carrying out the above mentioned attempt. Since the
ultimate explanation of religion as truth or fantasy will entail determining whether God exists, only philosophies capable of grasping the
real can serve the interests of philosophy of religion. Forms of Kantianism and phenomenology are not equal to the task (p. 97). Only
a realistic philosophy connected with a theory of being stands a chance
of offering an ultimate explanation of religion. In particular, the metaphysics borne in mind here is that of Krapiec. Peter Lang has recently published an English translation of it under the title, Metaphysics:
An Outline of the History of Being (see my review in the January issue
of The Thomist.) This work is indispensable background reading for
Part III of Zdybicka's volume. Though this metaphysics is existential
Thomist, its employment in a philosophy of religion will not resolve
the question of which religion is true, though some religions will be
ruled out as unsuitable for the human being (p. 97).
What is understood as "religion"? In its basic meaning the religious fact is the reference or orientation of the human being toward
a transcendent reality (p. 109). Considered more closely, the religious
fact is actually multiphasic. First, there is the experience of our own
ontic insufficiency and the consciousness of our transcendence and
search for a value capable of preserving us in being and giving us
complete existential meaning. Second, there is the religious experience
in its strict sense. This second phase is itself divided into three phases.
First is some kind of revelation from the religious object. Zdybicka
stresses that this revelation occurs through signs to which we respond
in faith; there is no direct cognitive contact with the religious object.

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Second, there is the active response of the one struck by this revelation. The response consists in pursuing union with the deity. This
second phase involves purification. Finally, there is the realization of
the bond with the sacrum. What is achieved in the human person is
holiness. The book concludes (pp. 315-22) with an extended discussion of this value. In sum, the phases of the religious experience properly speaking are: encounter, dialogue, and union.
Zdybicka regards religious cults and rites as simply the externalization of religious acts (p. 129). They complete the description of the
religious fact. Zdybicka also takes some time to distinguish religious
experience from cognitive, moral, and aesthetic experience. Finally, pp.
157-59 contain an interesting inductive argument that the object of
religious experience has always been understood as personal.
In Part III Zdybicka performs a philosophical assessment of the religious fact. Specifically, the assessment is of the above mentioned introductory phase. Also as mentioned, Zdybicka takes advantage of
Krapiec's Gilsonian existential Thomism which has denominated
"classical philosophy." This philosophy's analysis of the human person and of reality critically validates both the subjective and objective
grounds for the fact of religion properly speaking.
The philosophically established subjective grounds include the contingent ontic status of the human person as this is evinced in the presence of the essence/existence composition. They also include an analysis of the person's ability to know and will that reveals an orientation
to an Absolute Thou as our only completion. The analysis thoroughly
roots the activation of these activities in sense experience. They are
generated a posteriori. They are not a priori as in Transcendental
Thomism.
Importantly, the analysis of knowing and willing establishes only the
possibility of an Absolute Thou (p. 303). Its existence is known in
metaphysics, the philosophy of being, as it is founded on the essence/
existence composition (p. 295). Zdybicka surveys Aquinas' quinque
viae and in line with Krapiec regards them as metaphysical demonstrations. The philosophy of being also proves that the nature of the Absolute is infinite, immaterial, free, and has intellect and will. In sum,
the Absolute is a living personal being.
In these ways classical philosophy shows that the human person and
reality itself are both such that they can support the religious relation.
The book concludes with a re-expression of the religious fact properly
speaking, i.e., the mentioned second phase. A new and especially arresting point (p. 314) is that if God decides to create the human person, then union with God is something God must offer the human person. Zdybicka says:

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325

Because God created the human being out of love and God is love, the
fullness of goodness and truth, God cannot not love the human being, i.e.,
God cannot not desire the fullest development of the human person. If,
therefore, the human person attains the fullest development through
union with God, then it is impossible for God not to desire this union,
since God is, after all, the " author" of the human being's nature.

To complete this summary, I also want to mention that on pp. 204-48,
Zdybicka critically surveys 19th and 20th century theories of religion.
These include psychoanalytic theories (Freud, Jung, Fromm); sociological theories (Marx, Garaudy, Bloch, Durkheim), and phenomeno·
logical theories ( Scheler, Otto, Elia de, van der Leeuw) .
To conclude this review I wish to mention three assorted points.
First, extensive as Person and Religion is, the book strikes me as con·
taining two significant omissfons. The first omission concerns the
problem of faith raised by analytic philosophy of religion. In sum, the
problem is that since assent should be proportioned to the evidence,
then faith, viz., firm belief in the absence of irresistible proof, requires
intellectual dishonesty. Zdybicka has very little to say about the act of
faith (pp. 124-5), especially vis-a-vis this problem. [For a discussion
of the issue, see Thomistic Papers V (Houston: Center for Thomistic
Studies, 1990) .] The second omission concerns the commitment of the
genetic fallacy by any sociological or psychological explanation of religion. To know the social or psychological origin of an idea says noth·
ing about the truth or falsity of the idea in itself.
Second, Zdybicka's claim (p. 314 and cited above) that i£ God
creates the human being, then God must desire the human being's union
with himself appears to be not a religious or theological claim but a
philosophical one. As such the claim seems to be incompatible with
the teaching of Humani generis (1950) that the gratuity of the super·
natural order should not be destroyed by suggesting that it would be
impossible for God to create rational beings without ordaining them
for the beatific vision and calling them to it. In fact, a Thomist like
Joseph Owens has argued that as far as Aquinas' philosophy is con·
cerned, only the soul's incorruptibility is demonstrable, not the soul's
continued activity apart from the body ["Soul as Agent," The New
S'cholasticism 48 (1974): 70]
Third, the chief and significant value in my eyes of Person and Religion is its rooting the possibility of religion in a realistic philosophy
that is unmitigated in its aposteriorism. A careful reading of Zdybicka's philosophical validation both of the subjective and objective
grounds of religion (especially in the light of Krapiec's metaphysics)
shows no appeal to a priori factors. The dynamism of knowing and
willing " kick in " and are " excited " by an encounter with being as

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the notion has been abstracted from sensible things. Zdybicka's approach to religion, then, stands in contrast to Karl Rahner's in his
Hearers of the Word which relies heavily upon the philosophy of transcendental method that he sets out in Spirit in the World. Gilson's interpretation of Aquinas, which appears to be operative in Lublin
Thomism, has never been seriously taken up into Catholic systematic
theology. Perhaps with the dissemination of Lang's "Catholic Thought
from Lublin " this will change.
JOHN

F. x. KNASAS

Center for Thomistic Studies
Houston, Texas

Problems of Authority in the Reformation Debates. By G. R. EVANS.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xvi & 328.
$59.95 (cloth).
In this attractively presented, carefully constructed, and clearly articulated study, G. R. Evans seeks to "piece together underlying connections and habits of thought in the huge collective endeavour of the
theology of the Reformation period " in order to " glimpse the shadow
of a systematic theology of authority and to begin to see why the sixteenth-century attempt to find a theological resolution which all sides
could recognise was not successful." Although the content of her study
focuses on the sixteenth century, she really has the contemporary ecumenical scene in mind as she writes this book. Thus the author seeks
to make a contribution to twentieth-century efforts to remove the
stumbling blocks in ecclesial relations which are still vestiges of the
sixteenth-century heritage. The theme of authority, as that theme manifested itself in various ways, serves as the unifying thread in the
author's exploration of crucial aspects of the theological debates during the Reformation era. Rather than examining all of the fine points
of discussion, she focuses particularly on the thought processes and
linguistic styles of the antagonists, thereby pointing to what she considers to be the ultimate explanation why the debates failed to foster
understanding or resolve conflict. It is her underlying hope that the
identification of the reasons for failure will facilitate the contemporary
ecumenical agenda and prevent similar mistakes.
Evans achieves her goal of clarifying " underlying connections and
habits of thought " in the theological discussions of the Reformation
era. The following are salient points in her presentation. Evans argues
correctly that various methodological factors must be considered as one

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327

seeks to understand the sixteenth-century context. Logic and language
were decisive elements in defining the nature and content of the debates. The use of topics (loci) , articles, and disputations in focusing
the discussion, identifying essentials, and serving as authoritative articulations of particular positions was also crucial. The proper under·
standing of words such as fides, justitia, and justificatio, was essent·
tial since it could clarify, divide, or unite. While the reformers sought
to employ biblical terms rather than scholastic vocabulary, it became
necessary to choose theological neologisms. That choice was a matter
of great concern which required much care. In the area of epistemology, the precise relationship between words and things was also discussed.
The central issues related to the question of authority are carefully
examined in the course of the argument. Evans proceeds from the basic
premise that the question of whether Christ's authority was at risk in the
church's life and whether Christ's Word, Scripture, was disregarded by
the ecclesiastical authorities stood at the center of the Reformation debate. Hence the authority of Scripture and its relationship to other
textual authorities (the Fathers, decrees, canons, etc.) was a volatile
issue as sixteenth-century theologians argued about the truth of the
faith. Questions regarding the authoritative text of Scripture, its mean·
ing, and appropriate hermeneutical methods resulted in much discord.
While the reformers generally emphasized sola Scriptura, they did not
thereby reject the usefulness or necessity of past and contemporary interpretations of Scripture. However, they were concerned that the
church might abuse, indeed, had abused, its teaching authority by misinterpreting Scripture and by denying the individual believer's right to
interpret and to judge the teachers' and preachers' interpretations. Such
claims of authority for the universal priesthood concerned the ecclesial
authorities and their theological defenders as the truths of the faith
were discussed.
Saving authority was still another focus of debate. As far as Luther
was concerned this constituted the crux of the matter in his struggle
with the Roman Church. In his doctrine of justification, he stressed
that humans are declared righteous as the alien righteousness of Christ
is granted freely through the gift of faith. While all human merit is
rejected in the justificatory process, works of love are viewed as necessary expressions of faith. Although Luther and other reformers rejected
the freedom of the will, which Trent affirmed, they did maintain that
the regenerated will can choose to do good.
The church's authority to reconcile, in particular the necessity and
effects of the sacraments in the life of the believer, was a third major
issue which inspired heated discussion. The reformers agreed with the

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church that the sacraments are necessary, but they also asserted that
salvation is possible without them. Baptism was not a major divisive
issue between the magisterial reformers and Rome, although the radicals rejected infant baptism because of their denial of original sin. It
should be added that their sacramental theology and their understanding of faith were also contributing factors. Regarding penance, substantial disagreements emerged. The reformers argued that the power
of the keys has nothing to do with temporal power and that the keys
do not belong to the priests or specifically the pope. Rather, they are
a gift of Christ to the whole community of faith. Absolution is nothing
else than the proclamation of the Gospel. Transubstantiation and sacrifice, both of which were intimately related to the understanding of
priestly power, were major eucharistic issues during the sixteenth cen·
tury. The nature of the real presence inspired debates not only between
the reformers and Rome, but also among the reformers.
As they discussed authority in the visible community, both ecclesial
and temporal, the reformers repudiated the tendency to view the
church's authority in a political way, especially in terms of the two·
swords theory. Except for the radicals, they also recognized the author·
ity of temporal government and the necessity of obedience on the part
of the Christian citizen. In defining the doctrine of the ministry and
the exercise of authority within the church, they abandoned the distinction between the so-called temporal and spiritual estates, affirmed the
priesthood of all believers by virtue of baptism, and argued that the
ordained are chosen to exercise authority which belongs to all. The
Roman theologians stressed ordination as a sacrament, defended the
notion of indelible character, and asserted that special potestas is given
to priests sacramentally in ordination, not in baptism. Papal primacy
was challenged by the reformers, episcopal collegiality promoted, and
Christ confessed to be the only necessary Head of the church.
Finally, the authority to make decisions within the church engendered
lively debate. The sola Scriptura principle raised questions about how
scriptural truth is to be determined and by whom. All sides viewed
councils as decision-making bodies and as preservers of unity. Because
decision-making was considered to be part of the ministry of oversight,
bishops, functioning collegially, were given primary authority in this
area. It should be noted, however, that defenders of papal power argued
that conciliar decisions must be approved by the papacy in order to
have authoritative status. Laity could be present at councils, but were
not allowed to vote. The authority of conciliar decisions was not
viewed uniformly, of course. The reformers continued to defend the
individual's right to make theological decisions and posited the possibility of error, even on the part of councils, since the church consists

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329

both of saints and of hypocrites. At the same time, the disputants main·
tained that there is only one divine truth and consensus statements were
produced periodically with the intention of articulating that truth. In
spite of such efforts, it is apparent that the opposing sides viewed each
other as enemies, manifested little patience when negotiating, and were
clearly not sufficiently committed to the unity of the church. Thus the
sixteenth-century debates failed to resolve disagreements or achieve
mutual understanding.
In the course of her presentation, Evans quite obviously focuses on
crucial issues which divided the church during the century of the Reformation. While offering carefully nuanced and defensible interpreta·
tions and explications, she fails to consider the passionate faith commitments of the sixteenth-century antagonists, nor does she recognize
sufficiently the crucial role of theological conviction in the Reformation
debates. Perhaps most importantly, the radical understanding of the
Gospel, which Luther articulated and many others affirmed, is not sufficiently highlighted as the central issue of the Reformation struggle.
For Luther, and for others, the Gospel was at stake, and that fact shaped
their attitudes, their literary style, their ecclesiology, and their understanding of and response to all authority questions. Their evangelical
perspective also informed the specific content of their theological proposals. This fact must always be kept in mind as the sixteenth-century
conflicts are explored and analyzed. Passion for the Gospel should also
inform and shape contemporary ecumenical efforts to achieve theological understanding, to address the question of authority in the church,
and to overcome the divisions which are, unfortunately, part of the
Reformation heritage and which obviously persist.
Although Evans' analysis is an interesting and helpful one, her basic
findings are not novel. The use of polemics during the sixteenth century, the rejection of hierarchical authority, the defense of individual
judgment and interpretation, an ardent party spirit and a lack of appreciation for the ideals of catholicity and unity, the focus on sola
Scriptura rather than traditio, the disinclination to dialogue and seek
mutual understanding, the tendency to focus on differences rather than
on baptismal unity are all well-known facts. Their reiteration and
clarification is an important and helpful contribution of this study.
However, simply recognizing these realities and analyzing their divisive
effect during the sixteenth century will not foster the ecumenical agenda
today, as Evans hopes and suggests. There must be a strong personal
and ecclesial commitment, based on theological as well as practical con·
victions, to pursue new methods of theological debate; to affirm the divine gift of unity which transcends all causes of division; to clarify
what is essential and what are adiaphora; to expect and tolerate diversity within unity; and to seek agreement concerning the Gospel, which

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is the power through which the Holy Spirit creates and nurtures the
church, which is the source of all authority in the church, and which
is the norm for all that the church teaches and practices. Only then
will the use and abuse of power within the contemporary church be
addressed in theologically sound and healthy ways. Only then will
ecclesiastical divisions be healed and the common mission of the church
pursued with faithful commitment.
KURT K. HENDEL
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

The Church in Latin America 1492-1992. Edited by ENRIQUE DussEL.
Maryknoll,
(cloth).

N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1992. Pp. x

+ 501. $49.95

This volume is the result of an exemplary effort to stimulate the study
of the history of Latin American churches, to communicate the results
of historical scholarship across national lines, and to bring many persons of diverse tendencies and religious backgrounds together in a unified enterprise. Cooperation at the Latin American level has been made
difficult at times due to repression, internal wars, and opposition by conservative church leaders. Heroic efforts by Enrique Dussel and the
Commission for the Study of Church History in Latin America brought
forth an eleven-volume General History of the Church in Latin America.
The present volume benefits from this magnanimous enterprise and
includes many contributors to the larger series. The result is a singlevolume history of the churches, Catholic and Protestant, with many
strengths and weaknesses.
The editor structured the work to provide a chronological survey of
the region in its first section, one which is succinct and useful for understanding the distant roots of the Catholic church. The middle section
takes up regional histories and generally succeeds in conveying well the
history up to the contemporary period. Including the treatment of the
church in Chile, however, with that in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay does not work well. Their civic cultures and ecclesiastical histories differ greatly, especially in this century.
The final part devotes itself to special topics and becomes less historical than descriptive and evaluative. Here themes such as theology
of liberation, Afro-American slavery, and religious orders receive special attention. This section offers much less reliable guidance to Latin
American history, in my view.

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331

One of the distinctive marks of the collaboration has been a determined effort (although not uniformally carried out) to recount history
from the underside, from the point of view of the poor and oppressed,
as well as from the perspective of religious and secular elite members
who are thought to make history. This is an admirable and egalitarian
ideal, but much basic research from this point of view has not been
done.
Within this section, Moises Sandoval provides a view of Hispanic
Catholicism in the United States. He manages to sustain a view from
the grassroots. The chapter, one of the best in the volume, could be
required reading for any student of Nor,th American history.
A few chapters may be marred by revisionist frameworks. The
chapter on Protestantism is one. In my view, Jean Pierre Bastian's ideo·
logical simplification does not allow him to give adequate consideration
to the contemporary theological iand ecclesiological convictions behind
notably diverse Protestant positions. Pentecostals account for 75-90 percent of Protestants in most Latin American countries; yet much of the
history of Protestant churches in Latin America, as Bastian has re·
counted it, has been irrelevant for explaining Pentecostal growth. This
is not a minor consideration, since ,the volume lacks a sense that Pentecostal churches are major religious organizations within Latin America.
Similar tendencies mar the work of some Catholic writers who are
wedded to the discourse of the " historical process of liberation." Such
discourse leads to extravagant characterizations, as by Jose Comblin.
He writes in the chapter on the church and human rights: "New
democracies are totally unstable. Development has stagnated. There is
no future in sight " (pp. 452-453) . Comblin, a highly regiarded theologian, not a social scientist or historian, does not account for the great
expansion (more than 2,000) of human rights organizations in Latin
America. Many of these groups are tied to the church and came into
existence largely in response rto the factors Comblin described: ineffectual democracies and stagnant economies.
Enrique Dussel and collaborators provide a work which is especially
helpful for understanding the history of the Catholic church in the long
period before 1964. The volume is less successful in dealing with contemporary history and special themes. The deficiencies of contemporary
history can be made up by recourse to recent national analyses, published as separate works, by Brian Smith (Chile) , Jeffrey Klaiber
(Peru), Thomas Bruneau or Scott Mainwaring (Brazil), and Daniel
Levine (Colombia and Venezuela) .
The Latin American church is the largest regional church within
Catholicism and is assuming leadership within the larger church body.
Making use of its past will aid in understanding its theologies, its pas-

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toral inventions (such as basic Christian communities), and the religious backgrounds of millions who help to make up the churches, Catholic and Protestant, of the United States.
EDWARD L. CLEARY, O.P.
Providence College
Providence, RI

Springs of Action: Understanding Intentional Behavior. By ALFRED
R. MELE. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Pp. 272
ix. $39.95 (cloth).

+

Alfred Mele's overarching aim in this book is to offer an account of
the role of intentions in the explanation of intentional action. He
works within the familiar terms of causal theories of action, and is
particularly indebted to Donald Davidson. In Part I, Mele borrows a
set of theses from Davidson's desire/belief model of intentional action,
and in the process of addressing problems associated with these theses,
he progressively refines an account of action that understands an agent's
reasons to have explanatory force by virtue of being among the causes
of action. In Part II, Mele argues that desire /belief models are insufficient as they stand and need to be filled out by recognizing that
intentions provide a crucial link between reasons and actions.
The discussion begins with the vexed question of how the content of
mental states can be relevant to the causal explanation of action. We
constantly appeal to our desires, beliefs, plans, and so on (i.e., to various propositional, or intentional, attitudes) in explaining our behavior.
But how does, say, my appetite for good wine and my belief that the
house chardonnay is such a wine figure in the causal order that brings
about my act of ordering a glass of it? Presumably, these intentional
states supervene upon certain physical states of my body, and the latter
do the causal work of producing wine-ordering behavior. However,
there are good reasons to think that, with certain sorts of changes in
my history and environment (viz., of the sort described in twin earth
thought experiments) , these physical states could be the realization of
different intentional states. So can a causal theory of action actually
accord my desires and beliefs any role in explaining my action?
Mele argues that even if we hold (with externalists) that the agent's
history and environment help to fix the content of her intentional states,
we can nonetheless say that unless the agent had intended what she did,
she would not have acted as she did. The behavior is intentional action by virtue of issuing (in the right way) from physical processes

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333

that realize the agent's reasons for acting, and these processes realize
these reasons only if the processes have an appropriate causal history.
The result is that what we desire, believe, and intend does after all
make a systematic difference in what we do.
Mele makes some helpful refinements in the standard account of the
causal role of desire in intentional action. It has typically been claimed
that when an agent's wants compete, the "strongest" of them deter·
mines the action; if an agent wants to do A more than anything else
that she takes herself to be able to do, then if she acts intentionally
she will do A. Mele points out that this general claim must be qualified
so as to index desires to times, to accommodate both unsuccessful at·
tempts and the agent's estimates of the likelihood of success, and to
deal with the complex relations between desires. He explores the way
in which agents are able to control the motivational strength of their
desires, and he works out a definition of irresistible desire.
One of the deepest challenges to the claim that action is caused by
what we most desire arises in considering "motivational ties." How,
on this account, is intentional action possible when we equally desire
each of two incompatible alternatives? An arbitrary decision procedure can be adopted (e.g., a coin toss) , but this alone does not en·
hance the attractiveness of the randomly selected alternative. Here
Mele introduces his thesis about intentions: viz., that intentions have
an "executive quality that is not reducible to desire-strength" (p. 72),
so that even when there is no preponderant motivation to do A, an
agent can form an intention to do A, and this intention initiates, sustains, and guides the act of A-ing.
In Part II of the book, Mele develops and defends this view of in·
tentions and their role in the generation of action. Intentions include
both motivational and representational components. Intentions constitute a motivational step beyond desire; one can desire to do A (and
perhaps believe that one will do A) without intending to do A. Desires,
Mele contends, lead to action only by way of intentions. In intending
to do A, the agent " settles upon " A, i.e., the agent commits herself
(for however long this intention persists) to A-ing. When the inten·
tion is for action here and now (a proximal intention), it "triggers
the appropriate actional mechanisms and . . . causally sustains their
functioning" (p. 180). Intentions also, of course, include a represen·
tation of the action to be performed, and this functions as an action
plan that guides and coordinates the agent's behavior.
Mele is at pains to contend that intentions cannot be analyzed with·
out remainder into complexes of desires and beliefs. There is, he
argues, a distinctive and crucial causal role for intentions over and
above the i:oles played by desire and belief, Mele presses this point by

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arguing that desire /belief accounts are inadequate to explain inten·
tional action in certain difficult cases. We noted above his remarks
about motivational ties, i.e., circumstances in which the agent's reasons
are evenly balanced both for and against some course of action. In
introducing his discussion of intentions, he goes on to contend that
both weakness of will and strength of will (e.g., continence in the face
of temptation) pose important additional problems for desire/belief
analyses. When an agent acts against his better judgment, he pursues
a course of action even though, in his own estimation, there are better
reasons to do otherwise. Mele suggests that there is no adequate rea·
sons-explanation for why the agent acts on the one reason rather than
the other (p. 122). When an agent resists temptation, on the other
hand, there is a puzzle about how we can explain the agent's ability to
form an intention to act against his preponderant motivation. Cases
of this latter sort play a particularly prominent role in Mele's argument
that intentions have an " executive " function.
Mele's argument here is problematic. It is not clear that the kinds
of cases he cites do in fact pose special problems for a desire /belief
analysis of intentional action. First, with regard to motivational ties,
it is open to the desire /belief theorist to argue that, given two equally
motivated incompatible actions A and B, the agent wants to do one of
A or B more than he wants to do any other action at that time, and
that this is what motivates action in accordance with an arbitrary de·
cision procedure. Second, cases involving weakness of will appear to
yield readily to analysis in terms of competing motivational conditions;
an agent may judge it best on moral or prudential grounds to perform
one action, and yet be strongly inclined toward another, incompatible
action. An agent's desire to do what he judges best (by some standard
of practical reasoning) may well be overwhelmed by other, less well·
credentialed desires.
The possibility of such mismatches between rational assessment and
preponderant motivation sets the stage for Mele's discussion of the
third set of cases, i.e., those involving strength of will. Here he argues
explicitly against the motivational strength thesis (MST), viz., that
"whenever an agent acts intentionally, he is more motivated to per·
form the intentional action ( s) that he performs than he is to perform
any competing action that he takes to be open to him at the time " (p.
172) . We can, he contends, be preponderantly motivated to undertake
some action A and yet resolve and intentionally undertake not to do
A. This debate with the MST, which is a prominent part of the sec·
ond half of the book, has an elusive quality about it. The disagree·
ment may in part be verbal, turning on questions about what is included in "preponderant motivation." Our assessments of what we de·

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sire, on Mele's account, play a role in motivating action. In contrasting assessment and preponderant motivation, therefore, he must he re·
garding the latter as comprised of some (or perhaps all) motivational
factors other than our assessments. But in that case, a defender of the
MST need not disagree with Mele's claim that we can choose to act
against our preponderant motivation (i.e., we will do so whenever our
assessments carry sufficient motivational clout to overcome these other
considerations) . If, on the other hand, preponderant motivation does
include the motivational factors associated with our assessments, then
Mele's rejection of the MST undercuts his causal theory of action, since
if we can act against our preponderant motivation (in this inclusive
sense), then our executive intention cannot itself he adequately explained.
It is not clear, in the end, that Mele needs to make the arguments
that provoke these objections. His central claim, viz., that intentions
play an irreducible role in the production of intentional action, does
not depend upon (and may not even he advanced by) the claim that
desire/belief analyses fail in any of the ways noted above. That is,
even if it were the case that whenever we act intentionally, there is
something that we are preponderantly motivated to do and we act as
we do because we are so motivated, it does not follow that intentions
can he eliminated from the account of the causation of intentional action. Mele's key contention is that intentions have functional characteristics that desires lack; they occupy a crucial position in the transition from what we desire to what we do, and they sustain and direct
action. It is possible to affirm this irreducible causal role for intentions,
and therefore to hold that desire /belief theories are incomplete in this
respect, without denying the motivational strength thesis.
Mele is particularly deft at constructing interesting cases that elicit
and shape philosophical intuitions. His argument often turns on such
cases, incorporating the points they illustrate in a series of working
formulas that he further tests and refines. He combines this technique
with mastery of an extensive philosophical literature, and the result
is a discussion rich in helpful commentary on some of the major
issues in contemporary action theory.
THOMAS

Bates College
Lewiston, Maine

F. TRACY

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The Nature of All Being: A Study of Wittgenstein's Modal Atomism.
By RAYMOND BRADLEY. New York and Oxford: The Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xxi
244. $39.95.

+

Bradley offers as his point of departure this epigraph from Wittgenstein's Notebooks 1914-1916, written 22 January, 1915:
My whole task consists in giving the nature of the proposition.
the nature of all being.

In giving
(And here being does not stand for existence.)

His aim in this contribution to the corpus of Wittgenstein scholarship
is to " bring into sharp focus the crucial role which modal notions-the
notions of necessity, contingency, possibility, impossibility, and so onplay in Wittgenstein's early thinking" (xiii). At this task the book is
a clear success. I know of no other work on the Tractatus which is so
thoroughly dedicated to the role of modal notions, nor of any which
does so much to bring the early Wittgenstein into conversation with
contemporary philosophers who work on modal logic and who talk
about possible worlds. Bradley convincingly argues that Wittgenstein
is not only the largely unrecognized Urvater of modal logic in the
twentieth century, with a stature that ought to be equivalent to that of
Leibniz, he also presented arguments that even now have an important
role to play in contemporary debates among possible world theorists
and practitioners of modal logic. Philosophers who are interested in
modal logic, especially its history, or in the logical structures of the
Tractatus, will find very much of interest in this book. Those who, on
the other hand, are chiefly interested in Wittgenstein's views on ethics,
the aesthetic, God, or the mystical, or who are interested in the relation
between the Tractatus and his later work, will find little here to their
taste.
The book's structure perspicuously tracks Bradley's argument.
Chapter One sets the reader straight on what modal atomism is, giving
the history of Wittgenstein's association with Russell, and establishing
that the atomism of the Tractatus is in fact modal in nature. Chapter
Two argues that Wittgenstein is a possibilist, that is, that he asserts
the reality of merely possible entities and that his work is consistent
with the modern modal logic called SS. Chapter Three turns to the
ontological side, showing how Wittgenstein's commitments to atomic
objects as the " substance of the world " entails certain modal relations
among objects and the complex facts which they may form. In Chapter
Four logic and ontology are brought together in an account of the
mirroring relation through which language depicts the world, with attention to a set of intricately argued principles that makes this relation
possible. The final chapter brings Wittgenstein's thought to bear on the

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whole range of contemporary problems and issues in modal logic,
demonstrating by example the author's contention that the Tractatus,
rightly attended to, contains important contributions, still unappre·
ciated, to the field.
Bradley's overall intentions could not be more clear. His strategy
for each chapter is clear. Each chapter is divided into between ten and
twenty short sections each of which has a specific and well-defined
topic. The argumentation within each such section, with a pardonable
lapse or two, is well-structured and easy to follow, even for one whose
expertise in modal logic is not honed by regular practice. And yet the
hook has, on reading, the feel of a very dense landscape of trees, with·
out much overview of the forest. This impression is given, I believe, by
the style of argumentation. While the topics are sequentially related
and build to a general picture, the arguments that must be articulated
and answered in each section have little relation, one to the next: a
problem in this view, a contradiction or a paradox in that, a resolution,
and then on to the next section, where an apparent inconsistency of
some sort must be addressed, and so on. There is the feeling of dealing serially with connected topics, but not the feeling of cumulative
argumentation building toward a conclusion. A conclusion, however,
there is: that Wittgenstein was the modal logician par excellence of the
early 20th century, who has much to teach contemporary philosophers.
In order to establish this point, Bradley must first show that he was
a modal logician. The beginning point of this effort is a review of
readings of the logic of the Tractatus. Despite some attention to the
modal element in Wittgenstein's thought by Stenius and von Wright,
the dominant readings-whether Russell's early assimilation of the text
to his own tendencies toward epistemological atomism and sense data
or Anscombe's canon-setting non-epistemological reading-have left the
modalism in relative neglect. Bradley finds a chief obstacle to appreciating Wittgenstein's modalism to he the tendency to assimilate his
view of the truth-table to a Russellian material implication, which cannot distinguish between, for example, a conditional being always true
in the actual world and being true in all possible worlds, or between
the existential quantifier meaning "It is possible that ... " and "There
are some ... " (52-8). Wittgenstein's modal atomism, by contrast,
"treats modality and existence in possibilist terms," where "possibilism" is "the belief in things which are merely possible, ... non-actual possibilities" (29). Now the crucial question one wants to ask
here is: What do you mean by belief in? And we get around to that.
But first, we get arguments claiming to show that Wittgenstein accepted
the tenets of possibilism in the first, second, and third degrees. These
degrees are, unlike those of murder, ranked in ascending order of seri•

338

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ousness. The first degree possibilist believes in non-actual states of
affairs. Put maximally benignly, the first degree possibilist believes that
there are ways things could have been that are different from the ways
things are. Like so much of the discourse of modal logic, this way of
putting it oscillates between a totally harmless and vacuous sense (that
things could have been different) and a metaphysically loaded one
(that out there somewhere there are lurking entities called" ways things
could have been," non-actually existing, or subsisting, or existing but
not actually existing). Moreover, Bradley shows Wittgenstein to be
committed to second and third degree possibilism as well. Second degree possibilists must believe in non-actual complex objects-not really
very different from non-actual states of affairs. But third degree possibilists also believe in non -actual simple objects; i.e., they think that in
some possible worlds there are objects alien to our world. The argument that implicates the Tractatus in this view is a characteristically elegant one, beginning with the point that Wittgenstein held it a logically
open question whether the actual world contains an infinite number of
of objects. Since he did, he must also have held that it is logically open
whether a world could exist with more objects than ours, and hence,
it must be possible for there to be a world with some objects not in
ours-" alien" objects.
But then how could Tractatus 2.022-2.203 be true, in its assertion
that objects constitute the logical form of all imaginable worlds?
Bradley's answer is that Wittgenstein means all possible objects, not
just actual ones. The form of all possible worlds is "the set of possibilities generated by the set of all objects, that is, by the set of all
possible objects, that is, by the union of the sets of actual objects and
non·actual but possible objects " ( 44).
It turns out, on Bradley's reading, that the modal logic to which Wittgenstein commits himself is that generated explicitly later by C. I.
Lewis, called SS. Mapping SS onto the Tractatus calls for close analysis. A number of different uses of the term "object" are distinguished, including a " non-contrastive use " in which it simply means
" thing." " Simple " is also thoroughly explored through three senses:
metaphysical, semantic, and epistemological. While Wittgenstein occasionally flirts with the last (see the Notebooks 64 [7]) and loosely uses
the middle, it is the first to which he is systematically tied. Bradley
explores two chief interpretations of Tractarian simple objects, phenomenological and physical, finding the preferable interpretation to he
the latter, that objects are physical point masses (not particles) . It is
hard to see what the point of this question is, since Wittgenstein ruled
the issue out of the bounds of logic (it does not matter) and even if
it did matter you could not say (for objects can only be named, not

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339

described) . Bradley devotes much argumentation to showing what
sorts of properties-formal, material, etc.-objects have, and how they,
as the substance of the world, should be thought of as combining to
make up states of affairs. He has an illuminating section on the mess
made, first by Wittgenstein and then by translators, of the SachlageSachverhalt /fact-state of affairs issue, and of the fundamental inconsistency introduced into the Tractarian system by Wittgenstein himself
in the contention that all states of affairs are mutually independent.
Bradley shows how to tinker with truth tables in harmless ways to let
him give up this implausible position and still salvage the system.
In this stretch there are two small-scale problems. On p. 35, the
formula given as "0 P > o P" should be "0 P o 0 P." And on
p. 103, " Gewisheit " should be " Gewissheit." Of more moment is this
oddity on p. 104: " More than twenty years after he had finished the
Tractatus, in his 1929 paper 'Some Remarks on Logical Form,' he
considered .... " By this reckoning Wittgenstein finished the Tractatus
in 1909. In some possible worlds, yes, but not the actual one. The
date was 1919. This is surely a slip, but Bradley elsewhere refers to
the Tractatus and the Notebooks 1914-1916 as "both his early works,''
a way of speaking that ignores and obscures the tentative, not-for-publication character of the Notebooks, making it sound as if they were
just another book. He also, incidentally, uses the Notebooks in just
this way, lacking entirely the sort of caution with which philosophers
usually approach the question of construing the Tractatus according to
the early writing. These things add up to a particular sort of approachnon-historioal, attentive to small and well-defined problems of logic hut
not to the larger context. For example, we find Bradley criticizing
Moore for not getting the point when Wittgenstein gave him notes on
logic in Norway in 1914. Specifically, a problem that these notes should
have solved was bothering Moore, according to Bradley, "more than
half a century later" (145). Well, Moore died on October 24, 1953.
How can Bradley have believed that he was doing logic after 1964?
The answer, surely, is that Bradley, to judge by his bibliography, relied
on P. A. Schilpp's The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, published in 1952
but republished in 1963. Bradley's bibliography has the latter date,
and this fact led him into the supposition that Moore was doing logic
after his death. This point, trivial in itself, shows the limitation of the
problem-oriented style that may have a wonderful analysis of someone's
position, but no idea of when the position was articulated, or under
what circumstances.
Chapter Four takes us to the connection of logic and the world in
language. There are useful discussions of the inconsistent use, in the
Tractatus, of Satz and Satzzeichen, and of Gegenstand, Eigenschaft,

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Relation, and einfach. Bradley does a nice job relating Wittgenstein's
possibilism to the saying-showing distinction (126-9) and in general
does a good job with the explication of the picture theory of language.
Six principles are articulated: the familiar " Proxy Principle," according
to which names "go proxy for objects:" the "Form-Signalizing Principle," according to which the form of the names in a proposition mirrors the form of the objects composing the possible fact which is its
sense; the "Generalized Compositionality Principle," which states that
the meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meanings of its
constituents; the " Compositional-Freedom and -Constraint Principles,"
providing that names in language are open to any combinations possible to the objects named by them, and similarly closed; and the
" Same Multiplicity Principle," the idea that propositions must have
the same number of constituent items (names) as the facts they mirror
(objects) . In this stretch there is little that expands our grasp of the
Tractatus beyond familiar accounts of its theory of language, except for
the elevation of these various aspects of Wittgenstein's views into
"principles," an elevation that must be chiefly useful to make them
more readily available for argument. There is a clear section here on the
Theory of Types, Wittgenstein's response to it, and the Liar's Paradox
generally.
Bradley's last chapter, reiterating the conclusion that the early Wittgenstein is " a de re possibilistic atomist operating within the framework of a possible worlds ontology " ( 171) , brings his work into contact with current and recent issues in modal logic. Seriatim, he discusses the work of Robert Merrihew Adams, David Lewis, Rudolph
Carnap (whose crediting of Wittgenstein with the genesis of much of
his work in Meaning and Necessity has been largely ignored), Nicholas
Rescher, Robert Stalnaker, and D. M. Armstrong. At last in this chapter we get a treatment of the question, " Just what is it that possibilists
believe about the being of possibilia? " There turn out to be three
schools of thought: nominalists, who believe that possibilia are merely
ways of speaking reducible to things that actually exist; conceptualists,
who believe that possibilia exist in mental realms as concepts or some
other sort of mental structures; and realists, who have the good robust
belief that possible things exist. One almost says " really exist " but
that is what actually existing things do. Possibilia just exist, but realists
think that they really do just exist. To borrow from the later Wittgenstein: How high the seas of language run here!
In any case, Bradley's contention is not only that the early Wittgenstein was a realist about possibilia, but that the person in the street is,
too. Somehow I doubt that the philosophically untutored are as metaphysical as all that. And I do not trust what you could get them to say

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if you started asking them questions about possible worlds. But
Bradley's contribution is to have given us a painstaking and thorough
reading of some extremely tightly wound and important aspects of
the Tractatus, to have brought that text into direct contaot with con·
temporary issues, and to have made progress toward showing that how·
ever remarkable we thought the Tractatus was, it is still more remarkable than that.
JOHN CHURCHILL

Hendrix College
Conway, Arkansas

The Human Person: Animal and Spirit. By DAVID BRAINE. Notre
Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. Pp. xxv
555. $32.95 (cloth).

+

Any study in philosophical anthropology that rejects both mate·
rialism and dualism, and seeks to set forth a " holistic " alternative,
may be met in many quarters with some skepticism today-especially
if that alternative seeks to accommodate itself to religious teaching regarding the soul's continued existence after death. For, it will be asked,
on the one hand, how can it deny that the esse of the human being
ceases at death ( 538) without affirming some sort of dualism? On the
other hand, unless it is some sort of soft-headed New Age philosophy
(which this most certainly is not) , how can it sustain its claim to
"holism" while rejecting the monolithic materialism of those whom
Walker Percy once described as our "brain engineers, neuropharmacologists, and chemists of the synapses " ? The challenge is " how to
produce an account which allows the human person to continue exist·
ing after death, and even to have body restored to it, while remaining
completely faithful to the insight that it belongs to human nature to be
bodily," and, at the same time, to " avoid reerecting the soul into a
complete substance" (xix).
The peculiar obstacle faced by such a project is the pervasive proclivity towards reductionism in modern accounts of human nature
stemming from the impress of both materialism and dualism. Both
analyze the human person into an aggregate of parts in certain relations, the behavior of the whole being ·the result of the interactions of
these parts. " In all this the materialist has exactly the same picture as
the dualist. Indeed, unless the mental can first be represented as inner,
logically independent of anything in the ' outer man ' and the ' world,'
there is no way in which it can be identified with a brain-process or

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state" (3). So whether one thinks of the mind as an independent en·
tity (as in dualism), or not (as in materialism), the body is left to
be accounted for by the brain engineers and their aggregates of physi·
ological, anatomical, neurological, and chemical causes. And since materialism involves no complicating questions about causal interaction
between the physical and the mental (as in dualism), it is usually preferred on grounds of its simplicity-all causation being subsumed under the physical.
In this ambitious tome, David Braine, a philosopher at the University of Aberdeen, offers a thoroughgoing analysis and critique of
such views, whereby he undertakes to overturn these ways of viewing
human nature and to offer a holistic alternative. He sets forth a framework for understanding things like perceiving, doing, and speaking as
irreducibly the acts of the psychosomatically integrated beings to which
we normally attribute them-an understanding that conforms to the
ordinary experience of such acts in ourselves and in others. He seeks
to expose how materialist arguments repeat the mistakes of the dualists
by reducing human beings (and other animals) to their aggregate
parts, segmented sequences, and their interrelations. He takes issue with
the arguments of recent analytical philosophers (such as Davidson and
Dummett) in detail, and sets forth a holistic alternative-both with re·
spect to the human person as " animal" and as " spirit."
As to the human as "animal," Braine notes, accordingly, that "it
is the bodily animal being as such, not just its mind, which is an ' I ',
a ' he or she ', a focalized subject in relation to the world. The primary
reason why human behaviour cannot be simulated by a computer does
not lie in things special to human beings, but in the fact that this fo.
calized psychophysical structure which they share with the higher
animals cannot be thus simulated " ( 5). As to the human as " spirit,"
it is language, in both its complexity and its flexibility, he says, that
serves as the defining feature, differentiating human beings from other
animals. This is not to "name some property (say intellectuality) independent of being an animal . . . but to name that particular form of
intellectuality which fits human beings as animals" (351).
Braine divides his work into two halves, the first devoted to the
human as " animal," the second to the human as " spirit." In the first
part, he explores the nature of psychophysical unity in acts of perception, intentionality, and action, which he regards as essentially the
same for human and non·human animals alike. In the second part, he
examines the particular human transcendence revealed in language, yet
continuing to insist that even linguistic acts exhibit an animal form of
intellectuality that calls for holistic understanding. His last two chapters
take up alternative views of how linguistic behavior may be viewed as

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betokening human transcendence of the body and continud existence
(even if not as a " complete substance") after bodily death.
A unique feature of Braine's approach is the way he combines the
insights and modes of analysis of both the ordinary-language and
phenomenological traditions with perceptive formulations of the Aristotelian and Thomistic positions. The fact that he is able to make philosophical bedfellows of the likes of Wittgenstein, Ryle, and Austin, on
the one hand, with Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, on the
other-or, at least, to make cobelligerents of them against the com·
mon foes of dualism and materialism-is a feat in itself. That he manages to bring together these two historically quite independent traditions with the no-less-independent Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition in
order to develop fresh, insightful formulations of old, familiar problems
is even more remarkable. The whole multi-perspectival project seems to
be focused and animated by the assumption that the modes of analysis of
phenomenology and ordinary-language are united in the approach of
St. Thomas, who appeals to our phenomenal experience of acts of perceiving and thinking, as well as to the ordinary language by which we
describe and refer to such acts. The result is a fascinating and provocative conjunction of traditionally unrelated approaches.
Braine's basic thesis is that the human being (and other higher animals) cannot be understood properly as an aggregate of parts in certain relations, but only as a subject and agent. Likewsie, human and
animal activity cannot be understood properly as an aggregate of segmented events-as chains of physiological, anatomical, neuro-chemical
or psychological occurrences. Rather, it can be understood only when
seen holistically-as " focalized " and discharged by centers of con·
sciousness " in such a way that it can be attributed to such centers of
consciousness and in such a way that consciousness enters into, not only
the description, but also the explanation of the behavior " (4) . This is
not to deny that operations such as perceiving, acting, or speaking do
not involve constituent parts, but only that such operations cannot be
understood as "focalized" acts of living subjects so long as they are
approached as aggregates of independent events. The constituent parts
of such operations, once isolated, no longer retain the same identity they
had as parts of the integrated whole of the " focalized " act-life of the
living agent.
In Part One, this translates into the interesting argument that the
material or physical aspect of animal and human life lacks self-sufficiency and has no existence or intelligibilty apart from the animating
principle traditionally attributed to the soul (which leads Braine to em·
brace a non-dualistic conception of " soul " whereby other animals may
be understood as also having souls, somewhat after the fashion of an·

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cient Hebraic conceptions). Any reductionist attempt to explain the
act-life of living agents by exclusive reference to independent material
(or mental!) operations threatens to destroy their psychophysical unity.
For example, it could dissolve the integral act of perception into, first,
a " perceptual experience " conceived as something entirely " interior "
to the mind or brain, then into " external " occurrences in the sense
organs and physical world, and, finally, into a causal relation between
these.
Against such tendencies, Braine seeks to reveal the animating principle that serves to integrate all such constituent elements in the animal
and human esse. Thus, to stick with the perceptual example, the subsidiary physical processes involved in seeing-in the eye, the optic
nerve, and the brain-remain " internal " to the act of seeing and therefore unnoticed by the subject. Even as Aristotle and St. Thomas observed, such physiological processes are not themselves the object of
perceptual consciousness, nor even ordinarily available to our consciousness. What we are conscious of is simply the perceived object
itself. The " internal " physiological processes are subsumed typically
into an integrated act whose animating principle (anima) traditionally
has been called the "soul "-though it should not be viewed as an independent entity and, if Braine is right, is no less evident in other
higher animals than in humans. " The animal or human being is a
'focalized subject', not in having a head, brain, soul, or mind as a
focal centre within it, but in having its relations with the world . . .
focalized upon it as an anima, a psychological subject, as such undivided and indivisible" (318).
What is true of perception is largely the case with intentional actions
such as walking someplace. The subsidiary physical processes involved
in walking-in the nervous system, muscles, joints, motion of our feet
-are " internal " to the act of walking. They are subsumed into an
integrated act, which is focalized by an intended end. Ordinarily, we
are not directly aware of these aggregate processes, as becomes evident
the moment we try concentrating our attention on the movement of our
feet as we run down a flight of stairs and nearly trip over ourselves.
When the subsidiary processes become detached from the intended end
to which they are ordinarily subordinated, they literally dis-integrate.
On the other hand, we become aware of our agency in an act such ·as
walking, not through direct consciousness of any " mental " processes
such as " intentions " or " volitions " occurring within us, but through
our awareness of ourselves as intending the act. " I know why I did it,
and that it was not, for example, like an involuntary twitch or spasm "
(135).
In Part Two, Braine carries this argument over into human ·Ian-

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guage. As physical processes involved in perception and action are " internal " to them, so those involved in speaking and making sounds are
" internal " to talking and thinking in the medium of words. The most
ambitious modern form of materialism, "Artificial Intelligence," seeks
a completely mechanistic account of human thought and language. But
it does so only by ignoring mathematically proven results as to the impossibility of formalizing natural language or even elementary modes of
proof available in natural arithmetic-ignoring
Tarski and Godel as
well as a multitude of philosophers from A11istotle to Wittgenstein. The
unformalizability of natural language, as well as the relation of langue
and parole implied by it, rule out any completely reductionist account
of speaking and thinking in terms of digitized brain-processes (461) .
This irreducibility, in turn, leads Braine to an account of human
transcendence that is essentially sympathetic to Aristotelian and Thomist
positions. Some activities of the human being in which its existing or
esse may wholly or partly consist-such as thinking in the medium of
words-are not operations of any bodily organ. It therefore follows
that the human being has an esse which transcends the body and does
not necessarily cease at death. "When one has died, one is not a nothing but one has no body: we could say that one is a soul, but this would
not be a statement of what one is as if a soul were a sort of tl1ing "
( 51.0) . A person without a body is incomplete-not as an otherwise
complete soul lacking a body to inhabit, but as an animating spirit
lacking any subsidiary bodily operations to integrate into one's own
life. It is as if, instead of the conventional dualist picture of the soul
inhabiting a body, the body is meant to inhabit the soul.
A fascinating and rewarding study. Highly recommended.
PHILIP BLOSSER

Lenoir-Rhyne College
Hickory, North Carolina