THE IMPACT OF VER/TATIS SPLENDOR ON
CATHOLIC EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY AND
SECONDARY LEVELS*
CARDINAL PIO LAGHI
Prefect of the Sacred Congregationfor Catholic Education

T

INTRODUCTION

HE TOPIC which has been proposed to me, "The
Impact of Veritatis Splendor on Catholic Education at
the University and Secondary Levels,'' requires a note of
clarification with regard to the word impact. When this
Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II appeared, it was received
with much comment, both positive and negative, on the part of
the press and the other media. This is one aspect of the topic proposed: to trace in a synthetic way a picture of the reactions which
the document stirred. Such would certainly be an interesting
study, but I would perhaps be led to traverse much terrain before
arriving at the nucleus of what I feel is my duty to say to you. I
shall limit myself, therefore, to commenting on two positive reactions appearing in Italian newspapers immediately after the
publication of the Encyclical.
The first was in the well-known Roman newspaper, Il Tempo,
under the title, "An Act of Consistency in an Epoch of Doubt." It
states: "If lighthouses had been moved every month, the sailors
in the night would have seen the ships of history dashed against
the rocks; and no voyager would have reached his homeland
again if the North Star, within the Zodiac, had to obey vacillating positions of fashions and ideologies .... The papal document
stirs discussions .... Nevertheless it is very much of current
interest. While many ships finish on the rocks because they have

* This paper was originally presented at the Forum on Catholic University
Education at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, 3 November 1995.
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CARDINAL PIO LAGHI

sailed following fireflies instead of lighthouses and while the ruling classes have shipwrecked for having chosen compasses that
lie, there is abroad a need to see the permanence of certain values recognized in the midst of all that changes, the necessity of
an ethical nucleus linked to principles of the human person, honesty, freedom and responsibility."
This is a positive reaction, then, which welcomes the
Encyclical as a text which says things that have to be said, giving basic directions for a journey, and stating the things no one
dares to speak but of which everyone knows the necessity in
daily living. This is also the substance of another comment on
the Encyclical that I think it would be useful to cite. Carlo Bo, a
university professor and a well-known figure in Italian intellectual life, writes: "Modern culture no longer has objective criteria
for distinguishing good from evil,'' and he adds, "John Paul II
has fought against Communism in defense of freedom; now he
criticizes Western culture, which makes of freedom an absolute
value .... The exaltation of freedom leads to ethical relativism,
against which the Pope raises his voice." Agreement and basic
approval are transparent in these lines, but the title under which
they appear is "A Call to Order." Immediately the image is
evoked-negative to the sensitivities of our times-of a commander intent on imposing order on his soldiers.
The heart of the problem perhaps, at least with regard to the
teaching of moral theology in the Catholic context, is in the clear
perception of the need for an unchanging point of reference, of a
lighthouse for the voyage, and at the same time the fear of speaking of this need, of making it the subject of reflection, communication, and teaching. There is a kind of widespread fear which
keeps us at a distance from the truth, from the permanent foundations of human acting, from the objective and the universal;
a fear which is perhaps the principal cause on account of which
so great a part of contemporary humanity risks dying of thirst
while standing before a spring of cool water. In order not to
appear authoritarian or negative, one keeps silent, does not
speak, expresses oneself in a partial or even an erroneous way
with regard to all that is most necessary for life. It would be difficult not to see in this a problem which is typically an educa-

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tional one, upon which many questions converge. Can one speak
of what is objective without diminishing the subject? Of law,
without killing freedom? Of truth, without violating conscience?
Of concrete actions, without fragmenting the unified impulse
which must animate the human person? Of the intrinsic evil of
an act, without taking into consideration the circumstances and
motives for that act? On what basis can all this be done? When
we speak of these things, do not our voices risk becoming that of
a command, of an external order imposing itself without any
opportunity for appeal?
And here we come to the second aspect of the word "impact"
in the title of my presentation. With what tone of voice does John
Paul II call attention to the unchangeable principles which are to
direct our actions? What resonance or impact is his call meant to
have within the context of our daily commitment to the formation of the future generations?
These are the questions to which I wish to respond, dividing
my paper into three parts:
1) in the first, I should like to spend some time on a global presentation
of the document, highlighting its context and its educational concern;
2) secondly, I shall seek to bring to light some central ideas of the
Encyclical;
3) finally, I shall try to show some concrete consequences for teaching
and, in particular, for the teaching of moral theology at the university
and secondary levels of Catholic education.

I. A DOCUMENT THAT RAISES AN EDUCATIONAL

QUESTION

We find a key passage for understanding the fundamental aim
of Veritatis Splendor in n. 4 of the document. The Pope, after
having pointed out the constant tradition of magisterial expressions concerning specific moral questions, underlines the originality of the intervention he is about to make: "Today it seems
necessary to reflect on the whole of the Church's moral teaching,
with the precise goal of recalling certain fundamental truths of
Catholic doctrine which, in the present circumstances, risk being
distorted or denied." In other words, the Magisterium cannot be
concerned only with covering all the areas of human life, in
extenso, so to speak. It must also assume responsibility for the

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basic elements of the Christian ethical vision, without which the
moral teaching of the Church in the individual sectors of life, no
matter how well argued, cannot be assimilated, and thus will
remain superficial and ineffective. Hence the effort at removing
obstacles in an area of communication which today encounters
particular difficulties: communication concerning moral choices.
An observation presents itself immediately: namely, one has
the impression that the modern person finds it ever more difficult to perceive that his behavior, his decisions, can have need of
instruction. At the pedagogical level there is, for example, a hesitation in the face of any kind of directivity or of setting forth
proposals for what should be done or how it should be done.
Frequently one is confronted with the idea that teaching should
not carry with it a communication of contents, but should consist essentially in a "drawing out," an explication of what is
already there. When one leaves the field of communicating technical skills and moves to the field of morality, this hesitation
increases. Here the notion is widespread that one cannot or
should not teach; that even less should there be the concern to
make people aware of something objective, of what is received
from outside oneself, what is independent of the will or understanding of the individual. But experience shows that, at every
level, just as a true communication without the free involvement
of two subjects cannot exist, so also human communication cannot exist unless it has a message, a content. Thus whoever holds
that one must remain silent with regard to permanent foundations for giving direction for human choices leaves no room for
the development of freedom and autonomy. Such a position
instead lays the foundation for the development of a closed ideology, without any authentic opening, impenetrable to the reality of life. Against such a vision Veritatis Splendor raises its voice.
In the Pope's words, which take their point of departure from
a look at the present situation of moral reflection in the ecclesial
context, "[today] a new situation has come about within the
Christian community itself, which has experienced the spread of
numerous doubts and objections of a human and psychological,
social and cultural, religious and even properly theological
nature, with regard to the Church's moral teachings. It is no

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5

longer a matter of limited and occasional dissent, but of an overall and systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine, on the basis of certain anthropological and ethical presuppositions. At the root of these presuppositions is the more or less
obvious influence of currents of thought which end up by
detaching human freedom from its essential and constitutive
relationship to truth" (n. 4).
The concern evidently is for the teaching of morality in the
ecclesial context. Such teaching risks being weakened in two
ways. On one hand there is a decreased awareness in the field of
moral theology of its being, no less so than dogmatic theology, at
the service of the living Tradition of the Church. On the other,
there is the danger of constructing a moral theology which has
nothing to say to the contemporary world, a moral theology
which dilutes the gospel or even alters it nature. Moreover, the
tragedy which the Pope points to is that of moral thought which,
for fear of appearing authoritarian and extrinsic to the subject,
has in fact conferred an absolute character upon partial visions
of the human reality. Ideas about man resulting from a study of
limited aspects of human existence (psychological, intellectual,
social, economic, etc.) have been transformed into ideologies
claiming to account for the totality of man, if not ideologies
which are in fact totalitarian. These, presenting themselves in
the elegant and appealing vesture of scientific reality, have not
always been recognized or uncovered by the moral theology of
recent decades. It is in this way then that the necessity of discernment carried out and called for by the Encyclical is to be
seen: it is not a "call to order,'' but penetrating look, an attention
to the roots of the problems, an effort at clarity so as to prevent
people from falling victim to their own illusions.
In this light one can see how the Encyclical has in view, without neat distinctions between them, two circles of an intended
audience for its teaching, two circles which are destined to interset throughout the course of the document. In the first place,
obviously, the ecclesial community, with its preaching, catechesis, its reflection and teaching in moral theology. But, inseparable from the Church, the Encyclical also has in view the whole
of humanity in our troubled times, with its culture, its philo-

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CARDINAL PIO LAGHI

sophical thought, its political, economic, and social order. There
can be no separation between these two realms. Certainly the
Church is concerned about maintaining the purity of its message,
but for no other reason than to be able to continue to proclaim it.
Certainly, it thinks about the negative influences which some
ideas can have on its thought, but while doing so it seeks to bring
to the heart of these very ideas the liberating light of the gospel.
The central question, indeed, is that of keeping alive today the
dialogue, the "educational" communication between Jesus and
the human person. This is what we read in n. 25 of Veritatis
Splendor: "Jesus' conversation with the rich young man continues, in a sense, in every period of history, including our own. The
question 'Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?'
arises in the heart of every individual, and it is Christ alone who
is capable of giving the full and definitive answer .... Christ's
relevance for people of all times is shown forth in his body, which
is the Church." Seen within this perspective, it is difficult to
place Veritatis Splendor within the military imagery mentioned
earlier.
Let us see now whether this approach holds up to an examination of the central message of the Encyclical.

II. THE CENTRAL MESSAGE
We have seen the profoundly dialogical, "educational" intention which animates the document. We must now try to show
that this intention is concretized in the focal point to which the
Pope calls attention: those "certain fundamental questions
regarding the Church's moral teaching" spoken of inn. 5.
As you know, the Encyclical is composed of three chapters,
each with a specific character: the first one is "Biblical,'' centered
on the dialogue of Jesus with the "rich young man" (Mt 19:16);
the second is "doctrinal,'' in which the problem of the discernment of some tendencies of contemporary moral theology is
addressed in a language which at certain points is technical; the
third is "pastoral,'' concerned with indicating the consequences
of this reflection for the concrete life of the Church and the
world.

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7

Notwithstanding this apparent diversity in literary genre, the
document in its entirety has a profound interior unity. A kind of
unifying element pervades the whole document and assures its
solidity. It is the fundamental question of the relationship
between freedom and truth, or better, in Christ's own words:
"You will come to know the truth and the truth will make you
free" (Jn 8:32). So much so that the title of the Encyclical, instead
of Veritatis Splendor, could be Libertatis Splendor.
Whence comes the necessity of insisting on this aspect?
Veritatis Splendor does not hesitate to respond to the question,
pointing out explicitly that there is a "crisis"-a crisis which has
developed, as far as regards fundamental moral theology, around
two aspects of the present culture:
a) the more philosophical aspect, leading to the claim of human autonomy in the area of morality, beginning with the discussion of freedom
and truth;
b) the more theological aspect, that is, the loss of awareness of the
authentic relationship between faith and moral conduct.

On one side, then, there is a sort of "fusion" which has progressively led philosophical reflection to identify truth and freedom, making of this latter the only absolute-truth "dissolved"
in freedom. On the other, there is the risk-for moral theology
which is faced with this philosophical vision-of dissociating in
the life of the believer the area of faith from that of particular
moral choices. In one case a kind of absolute affirmation of freedom, destined to lead to its own negation; in the other, a sort of
"practical fideism" which robs faith of its influence and relevance for the effective determination of a way of acting.
This, we must acknowledge, is the decisive topic of our time,
a topic which, with the fall of the communist dictatorships, has
become yet more urgent: How to learn to live correctly in freedom? A freedom which is conceived of in a purely individualistic way, which approaches arbitrariness, can only be destructive;
it would in the end place everyone against everyone else. The
danger of again determining freedom from outside the human
person and substituting for truth the result of the "collective
will" is evident. Think, for example, of the analysis which John

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Paul II made in his speech to the United Nations (5 October
1995): "Freedom is not simply the absence of tyranny or oppression. Nor is freedom a license to do whatever we like. Freedom
has an inner 'logic' which distinguishes it and ennobles it: freedom is ordered to the truth, and is fulfilled in man's quest for
truth and in man's living in the truth. Detached from the truth
about the human person, freedom deteriorates into license in the
lives of individuals, and, in political life, it becomes the caprice
of the most powerful and the arrogance of power" (n. 12).
Within this broad horizon we can see the crisis which the
Encyclical points out. Naturally, Veritatis Splendor is a response
of the Magisterium. As such, it is important to emphasize, it is
not a "theological" response in the technical sense of the term.
That is, in the document there is not to be found-no matter how
tempted one may be to think so-the canonization of a particular "theology," chosen from among those existing at the present
time (cf. nn. 29 and 116). (Such theologies are recognized in their
specific role of providing "a more appropriate way of communicating doctrine to the people of their time" [Gaudium et spes 62,
cited inn. 29].) Even though the Encyclical treats, in great part,
questions of the theoretical order concerning morality, the
demands intrinsic to the Christian "way" (cf. Acts 22:4) remain
its central point of reference. Therefore the source is Sacred
Scripture, the living Tradition of the Church, and, in particular,
the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (cf. nn. 5; 27; 29).
From the "magisterial" character of the Encyclical's response
to this crisis flows the principal purpose which the document sets
for itself. That purpose can be summed up in the world "discernment." In fact the title of the second chapter is: "The Church
and the Discernment of Certain Tendencies in Present-Day
Moral Theology." "Discernment," that is, "comparison" between
some tendencies in moral theology and the "sana doctrina,"
therefore, is certainly a "critical discernment," capable of
acknowledging what is legitimate, useful and of value in them,
while at the same time pointing out their ambiguities, dangers
and errors" (n. 34 )-a discernment, finally, that makes its own
Saint Paul's warning not to conform oneself to this age but to be
transformed by the renewal of one's mind (cf. Rm 12:2).

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9

Now to the object of this act of the Magisterium. It is not easy
to specify it in just a few words. The "discernment" of the
Magisterium focuses on a convergence of debated questions
more vast and more complex than ever before. The problematic
can be set forth in terms of two sides of the question of the relationship between truth and freedom:
a) that of the law, that is, the Law of God, both in its universal formulation (nn. 35-53, in which is treated the relationship between divine
law and human freedom), and in its application to the concrete personal situation, that is, conscience (nn. 54-64, in which is treated the relationship between conscience and truth);
b) that of the concrete putting of freedom into action, both in the free
subject (that is, the person who acts freely, following a "fundamental
option" expressed in "particular choices,'' nn. 65-70), and in its result
(the moral act, nn. 71-83).

How can we come to grasp the deepest meaning of this intervention of the Magisterium on these two aspects of our topic? It
is necessary, I think, in the case of both of the perspectives mentioned, to look at what would be the final negative outcome of
the tendencies criticized by the Encyclical.
A) The perspective of the law
In this regard, the tendency to which Encyclical calls attention derives from a presumed conflict. The Law of God is understood as external to the human subject, constraining him, humiliating human freedom. A complete sovereignty on the part of
human reason in determining the norms necessary for the ordering of life in this world is claimed as the fundamental premise for
the autonomy of the human being.
It is not difficult to see how such a tendency leads inevitably
to the canonization of man's solitude and, consequently, to the
denial of the intimate structure of the person as open to dialogue
and to communion. The presumed externality of God's law is
eliminated by suppressing in man the capacity of listening. Thus
the Word of God becomes "an exhortation, a generic paraenesis,
which the autonomous reason alone would then have the task of
completing with normative directives which are truly 'objective,' that is, adapted to the concrete historical situation" (n. 3 7).

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It is a word then without "objective" content, without concrete
incisiveness on the life of humanity, a word without "substance,"
deprived of that intrinsic gratuitous dynamism which leads it to
become incarnate in history.
But the risk of canonizing man's solitude by means of a system of philosophy or moral theology has a still graver aspect.
Not only must the Word of God conserve all of its power for an
"objective" permanent and unchangeable proposition, but it
must also be possible to grasp the interiority of the Word in all of
its depth. The systems which are "ruinous" for freedom and
which the Encyclical denounces are also the ones which deny
that the freedom in man carries within itself its own regulation
such as can be recognized as the order of his nature. What is this
principle of regulation? The first and fundamental reply of the
Pope is this: The principle of regulation is the truth, the truth
which is found in our being human. Our "nature," which derives
from the Creator, is the truth which guides and instructs us. The
fact that we ourselves carry our truth within us, that our
"nature" is our "truth,'' is also expressed with the term "natural
law."
This idea, which goes back to pre-Christian philosophy, was
developed further by the Fathers of the Church and by medieval
philosophy and theology and had an entirely new relevance and
urgency at the beginning of the modern era, in the face of the
usurpations by the colonial lords. Those new peoples, even
though not members of the Christian community, were not for
that reason without rights, because man's "nature" confers rights
on man as such. From this comes the principle that every man,
insofar as he is man, by reason of his human nature, is the subject of fundamental rights that no one can take from him,
because no human institution has conferred them on him.
Today the accusation is constantly heard that, with the concept of natural law, the Church makes man a slave of an outdated metaphysics or a backward biologism, attributing to biological processes the value of moral laws. The Encyclical rejects
such an accusation, citing Saint Thomas: "The natural law is
nothing other than the light of intelligence infused in us by God."
The natural law is a "rational" law: it is the nature of man to be

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11

endowed with reason. When it is said that our nature is the regulation of our freedom, not only is reason not excluded, but its
place is fully acknowledged. In this way also we acknowledge
fully the dialogical nature of human conscience, which is the seat
of the relationship between man's freedom and God's law.
"Moral conscience does not close man within an insurmountable
and impenetrable solitude, but opens him to the call, to the voice
of God. In this, and not in anything else, lies the entire mystery
and the dignity of the moral conscience: in being the place, the
sacred where God speaks to man" (n. 58).
B) The perspective of putting freedom into action

Following the same line of thought, that of the dignity of the
human person as a being open, in his totality, to listening to the
Word, and thus capable of recognizing in the Law of God the
keystone of his freedom, we can easily approach the second perspective on the relationship freedom-truth of which the
Encyclical treats.
In this case as well, we can begin from what would be the negative outcome of the dominant tendencies of contemporary
thought. Here attention is drawn to the wholeness of the
response which the human person is called upon to give to God
by means of his moral life. The risk to freedom under this aspect
is that of taking away the meaning and the seriousness of human
action, seen either in its entirety or in the particularity of the
individual act.
In accordance with his presumed incapacity to listen to a
truth of which he himself is not the speaker, contemporary man
tends to remove personal meaning from his concrete actions. In
this conception of things, "particular acts ... would constitute
only partial and never definitive attempts to give ... expression"
to the so-called "fundamental option"; "they would only be its
'signs' or symptoms" (n. 65). But such a vision leads to a tearing
which renders fragmentary and, in the end, meaningless man's
historical action; he is thereby, deprived of his capacity to
express his deep adherence to the divine call. "To separate the
fundamental option from concrete kinds of behavior means to
contradict the substantial integrity or personal unity of the moral

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agent in his body and in his soul" (n. 67). Veritatis Splendor,
therefore, affirms that the human person cannot be defrauded of
the possibility conferred on him to enter, with all that is connected to his being historical, into the dialogue of love which
God offers him. Individual human actions must in fact remain
open to being the expression of the person's adoration and his
adherence to God's call as well as of the tragedy of his refusal of
it. Only in his way is there ultimately guaranteed the fullness of
meaning which human freedom can assume.
In the same context of safeguarding the integral dignity of the
human moral response should be placed the rejection of teleologism (proportionalism and consequentialism). If the moral act
does not contain within itself the ultimate reason for its own
goodness or evil, this implies that the human person does not
bear in himself his own meaning, but receives it from an abstract
superstructure made up of limited motivations and goals. The
human person thus finds himself slave to a utilitarian vision of
reality. For this reason, there must be "intrinsically evil" acts in
order not to condemn man to the exclusive pursuit of relative
goods, not to close him within the circle of his finitude, to save
for him the possibility of opening himself up to the infinite by
means of each one of his acts. To say that every human act has
an object, the goodness of which does not derive from circumstances or consequences, means saying that human acts do not
remain forcibly trapped in the net of limited temporal meanings
but can in themselves "be ordered" to the ultimate end which is
God (n. 79). This gives an infinite character to even the smallest
action, guaranteeing the possibility of a greatness in man of
which he on his own cannot conceive.
The central message of the Encyclical turns out then to be
animated by a profound intention to keep open, in a theoretical
reflection on morality, the full breadth of the vision of man of
which the Church makes itself guarantor. Rather than closing
the door to ethical reflection, Veritatis Splendor asks that this
reflection not "dissolve" the Christian paradox with illusory solutions. "No absolution offered by beguiling doctrines, even in the
areas of philosophy and theology, can make man truly happy:

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13

only the Cross and the glory of the Risen Christ can grant peace
to [man's] conscience and salvation to his life" (n. 120).
It is now time to see, in this light, what are the educational
and formational consequences on the secondary and university
levels.

III. THE CONSEQUENCES

FOR TEACHING

A) Consequences for education in general
In the first place, it seems important to note how the "educational" concern of the Encyclical is in itself a reminder for all
who teach. I think we can speak of a call to safeguard a certain
"difference" in education.
In order to have dialogue, and above all educational dialogue,
it is necessary to maintain a "difference." No fusion favors the
growth of freedom. But perhaps it is precisely that which is happening in our time and which the Encyclical criticizes. The conflictual situation in which humanity lives today pushes ever further toward finding individualistic solutions to various problems
which present themselves. The confrontation with the "other"whoever he is-is excluded a priori by a mentality which justifies the creation of values by the individual conscience. The
teacher and the educator, in these circumstances, have a difficult
task in reaching their students. From this there derives on every
level a disorientation, which, far from aiding the exercise of
autonomy and freedom, renders the maturation of the students
difficult.
A first and essential impact of Veritatis Splendor on the task
of the teacher is, therefore, at this basic level, that of maintaining the essential "difference" of the educational dialogue, thanks
to the proclaiming of a truth and of a concrete truth. In this
regard it should be noted that it would be a grave error to think
that in Veritatis Splendor there are two parallel discourses: on
the one hand about an abstract truth, attainable by the light of
reason beginning from created reality; on the other hand, about
a personal truth who is Jesus Christ, Son of God, made flesh for
our salvation. In reality, in the light of Encyclical, Catholic
teaching is called to an awareness that only one truth can be liberating for the human person and that it is a truth at one and the

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same time universal and concrete. In the final analysis, the traditional expression "natural law" means nothing other than this.
It says that truth is a concrete possibility for the heart of every
human creature, not a particular concept or idea, but a living
Light, accessible to all in every circumstance, the "image of God"
in man, the light of the Word "who illuminates every man" (Jn
1:9) and which the faith of the Church sees resplendent in the
face of Jes us of Nazareth.
As John Paul II has himself observed recently in his talk to
the Bishops of Brazil during their ad limina visit (18 October
1995): "it will not be by weakening moral truth and neglecting
true values that the Church will accomplish its mission on behalf
of man. The Church, obedient to the Lord, who came not to
judge but to save, must show mercy towards people without,
however, giving up the principle of the truth and of a consistency according to which one cannot call good evil and evil good. It
is an eminent form of charity towards souls not to reduce to
nothing the redemptive doctrine of Christ" (n. 6).
B) Consequences for the teaching of moral theology
In this light too should be seen the consequences specifically
concerned with moral theology indicated in nn. 109-113 of the
document. Outside of the perception of a concrete Tuuth, unique
and unchangeable, there remains only the banality of utilitarian
thought, which makes the human being a slave of a finite purpose and finally of an abstract system, intolerant and tyrannical,
which humiliates the person and does not recognize his vocation
to the infinite and the eternal. This type of thought certainly cannot find a place in moral theology if this latter intends to take its
part in the Church's mission of evangelization. Veritatis
Splendor addresses this with the following points:

i. the ecclesial character of moral theology and the relationship with the Magisterium
The Encyclical's first point about the task or role of moral
theology is its necessarily ecclesial character. Moral theology participates with full credentials in the description proper to all the-

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15

ology, which "by its very nature and procedures ... can flourish
and develop only through a committed and responsible participation in and 'belonging' to the Church as a 'community of
faith' " (n. 109).
But the ecclesial character proper to moral theology has its
specificity in a peculiar relationship with the Magisteriun of the
Church, which "in proclaiming the commandments of God and
the charity of Christ ... teaches the faithful specific particular
precepts" and "carries out an important work of vigilance" (n.
110) in service to the faithful. In the face of this teaching of the
Magisterium, the task of moral theology is, certainly, in the first
place, that of having the faithful, especially future pastors, come
to know the teaching of the Magisterium. Even more there is a
necessity of deepening this knowledge. "Working together in
cooperation with the hierarchical Magisterium, theologians will
be deeply concerned to clarify ever more fully the biblical foundations, the ethical significance and the anthropological concerns which underlie the moral doctrine and the vision of man
set forth by the Church" (n. 110).
Along these lines, it is necessary to develop a precise ecclesial
consciousness, a consciousness which will welcome, not just in a
negative way, the discernment which the Magisterium will effect
with regard to individual problems. More than closing off certain areas of theological research, interventions of the
Magisterium must be seen to be indicative of certain fixed points
which are capable of marking the area of fruitful and productive
theological reflection.
ii. service to the Church, society, and culture
In this way too one sees the contribution which moral theology offers not only to the growth of the Christian community, but
also to society and culture. The scholarly reflection of moral theologians is essential for setting forth the dynamic and unifying
aspect of Christian living. Because it cannot "be reduced to a
body of knowledge worked out purely in the context of the socalled behavioral sciences," moral theology must always keep in
mind the question which dwells in man" "What is good or evil?

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What must be done to have eternal life?" (n. 111). These are the
questions-already present in every human heart, even though
often not explicitly and consciously-which make up the human
person's concrete and operative point of reference for living.
iii. discernment
The third element which Veritatis Splendor calls to the attention of moral theologians is that of discernment with regard to
modern culture. It is a question of a focusing better on the critical function to be exercised with respect to relativism, pragmatism, and positivism, to which so often the contemporary mentality is exposed. In the face of the tendency to obtain by empirical methods even moral principles for the ordering of human
action, moral theology must strengthen its role as guarantor of
"the spiritual dimension of the human heart and its vocation to
divine love . ... It is the gospel which reveals the full truth about
man and his moral journey, and thus enlightens and admonishes sinners; it proclaims to them God's mercy, which is constantly at work to preserve them both from despair at their inability
to know and keep God's law fully and from the presumption
that they can be saved without merit" (n. 112).
iv. ecclesial responsibility
Finally, the invitation of Veritatis Splendor to moral theologians is synthesized in a call to assume responsibility. It is important that the person dedicated to teaching in Catholic institutions of learning grasp this aspect of the document well and not
let himself be taken in by partial or reductive visions of his function within the Church and the world. The horizon indicated by
the Encyclical is vast, I dare say, planetary. It is a question ultimately of the defense of man in his wholeness. For that reason,
courage is needed to enter fully into this dynamic, avoiding secondary aspects of polemics or dissent. Moral reflection is not
simply the fruit of the comparison of opinions and respect for the
democratic procedures of discussion. If it were thus, instead of
aiding, it would obstruct the bursting forth of that Word which
from deep within every human being calls upon his conscience.
The educational dialogue, the possibility of teaching and of help-

THE IMPACT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR

17

ing others to grow in freedom, would be cut at its roots. Within
this framework should be placed the impact of Veritatis
Splendor on Catholic teaching which we have been seeking to
describe in these remarks.
CONCLUSION

Now, as a concluding word, I should like to recall an image
which could almost be emblematic of Veritatis Splendor, an
image which John Paul II gave to the Church during the sixteenth year of his pontificate. It is the image of the Pope who,
looking forward to the beginning of the Third Christian
Millennium, speaks to five hundred thousand young people
gathered in Cherry Creek State Park in Denver, the fourteenth
and fifteenth of August 1993. In the words he spoke on that occasion we grasp in synthesis the Church's passion for education
and the universal horizon within which it unfolds. The Holy
Father said:
On many questions, especially those of moral theology, the doctrine of
the Church is today in a cultural and social situation which makes it at
one and the same time more difficult to understand and more urgent
and irreplaceable for promoting the true good of men and women. In a
technological culture in which people are used to dominating matter,
discovering its laws and mechanisms in order to transform it according
to their wishes, the danger arises of also wanting to manipulate conscience and its demands. In a culture which holds that no universally
valid truths are possible, nothing is absolute. Therefore, in the endthey say-objective goodness and evil no longer really matter. Good
comes to mean what is pleasing or useful in a particular moment. Evil
means what contradicts our subjective wishes. Each person can build
a private system of values .... In the depths of his conscience man
detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds
him to obedience. That law is not an external human law, but the voice
of God, calling us to free ourselves from the grip of evil desires and sin,
and stimulating us to seek what is good and true.

It is truly to be hoped that this voice will be heard by each of
us and that it will be able to inspire every Catholic teacher to do
his share to make that voice audible in the hearts of all.
I end with a brief "story": a certain gentleman, at a very late
hour of the night, is about to enter his house, but has lost the key

18

CARDINAL PIO LAGHI

that opens the door. He bends down under a street light and
begins to search for it breathlessly. At this moment a passer-by
stops, wishing to help the man who lost his key. He too bends
down and begins to search for the key.
They do not find it. After a while the passer-by turns to the
man without his key and asks him: Are you sure you lost the key
here? No, he replies, I lost it some distance from here, but where
the key is, it is dark. I am looking for it here because I am underneath the light.
How many moral theologians bring people under an artificial
light and ask them to find there the key to the truth, when
instead it is to be found elsewhere, even if in a place where it is
dark. Let us not be tricked by artificial lights; the Pope has indicated to us where we must search for the key to the truth, even
where it is laborious to find it, because the search requires effort
and sacrifice: under "the shadow of the cross."

MARITAIN AS AN INTERPRETER OF AQUINAS
ON THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUATION
}UDE P. DOUGHERTY
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

I

T

HE MEDIEVAL problem of individuation is not the
contemporary problem of "individuals" or "particulars"
discussed by P. F. Strawson, J. W. Meiland, and others. 1
In a certain sense the problem of individuation originates with
Parmenides, but it is Plato's philosophy of science that
bequeaths the problem to Aristotle and to his medieval commentators. Its solution in Aquinas is not that of Aristotle, nor is
it that of Scotus or Suarez. Aquinas will distinguish between the
problem of individuation and what we may call the problem of
"individuality" or the problem of "subsistence." The solution to
both will draw upon many Aristotelian distinctions but will
incorporate key elements of St. Thomas's own metaphysics,
including the real distinction between essence and existence and
his doctrine of participation.
It is Maritain's appropriation of St. Thomas 's metaphysics
that enables him to produce a realistic philosophy of science, one
that he offers as compatible with contemporary scientific
enquiry. It also enables him to develop a theory of person and
personality. But the story begins with Plato.
Although Plato's theory of knowledge may appear fanciful to
the modern reader, his analysis of scientific knowledge contains
a basic set of observations whose truth remains uncontested even
1 Cf. P.F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London:
Methuen and Co., 1959); J.W. Meiland, Talking About Particulars (New York:
Humanities Press, 1970); P. Butchvarov, Resemblance and Identity (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1966).

19

20

JUDE P. DOUGHERTY

though his explanation be faulty. Plato saw clearly that science is
of the universal. Things may be particular, but when we consider them as objects of enquiry, the intellect focuses upon the form
taken as an exemplar. In Plato's explanation things belong to
their various kinds by participating in incorporeal, eternal, and
unchangeable archetypes. From a realist's vantage point the
problem may be stated simply: Since things are singular, how is
it that we intellectually apprehend them as universal? Aristotle's
solution is well known and it is one adopted and amplified by St.
Thomas. Universals are abstracted from singular things.
No one would present Maritain as a medievalist, but, as an
interpreter of Aquinas, he has wielded considerable influence in
the United States and in Latin America. Many have come to St.
Thomas under his tutelage. His knowledge of Aquinas is extensive and is drawn upon throughout his lifelong work, but perhaps nowhere more than in his philosophy of science and in his
discussions of the person. The primary text for Thomas 's doctrine of individuation is his commentary on Boethius 's De
Trinitate, where he discusses the division and methods of the sciences. Maritain's philosophy is indebted mainly to his reading of
Thomistic texts, but he draws heavily, as well, on the works of
his contemporaries, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange and Louis
Geiger, and on those of the classic commentators on Thomas,
Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, and John of St. Thomas.
Though employing St. Thomas, Maritain is always a man of
the twentieth century. In books such as the Degrees of
Knowledge, Science and Wisdom, Existence and the Existent,
and A Preface to Metaphysics, his foe is always some contemporary exponent of a nominalist position. 2 "Nominalists,'' he will
say, "have a taste for the real, but no sense of being." 3 Timeless
2 Degrees of Knowledge [Les Degres du Savoir(l 932)], trans. G.B. Phelan, 4th ed. (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1959); Science and Wisdom [Science et Sagesse (1935)],
trans. B. Wall (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940); Existence and the Existent
[Court Traite de L:Existence et de L:Existant (1947)], trans. L. Galantiere and G.B.
Phelan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1948); A Preface to Metaphysics [Sept
sur
L'Etre et les Premieres Principes de la Raison Speculative (1934)], trans. B. Wall (New
York: Sheed and Ward, 1939).
3 Degrees of Knowledge, 3.

AN INTERPRETER OF AQUINAS

21

metaphysics, he will lament, no longer suits the modern intellect.
"Three centuries of empirico-mathematics have so warped the
intellect that it is no longer interested in anything but the invention of apparatus to capture phenomena.'" An overstatement to
be sure, but indicative of the thrust of Maritain's metaphysical
project: to engender a respect for the stable, enduring, timeless
aspects of things.
II
My aim in this paper is first to set forth the Thomistic doctrine
and then to discuss Maritain's appropriation of it to show that
Thomas is alive in the twentieth century. Within the philosophy
of St. Thomas, it is first necessary to distinguish between the
problem of "individuation" and the problem of "individuality,"
although Thomas himself does not use the latter term. 5 Both are
aspects of what may be called "the problem of multiplicity and
plurality." The distinction of one thing from another is the problem of "individuality" or "subsistence." Membership in the same
class is the problem of "individuation." Metaphysical analysis
forces us to recognize both. Whereas being is directly attained in
a highly individualized manner through judgment, it is conceptualized in the widest of its universal aspects.
As agents reflecting on nature, we are confronted not only
with a multitude of individual beings but with a multitude of
beings within a class. Philosophically, how are we to explain
numerical differentiation? How, on the other hand, are we to
explain the existence of beings that share with each other a distinctive character? Or put another way: From a philosophical
point of view, how is the evident individuality of a being mainIbid.
s For a discussion of the diverse terminology employed in addressing the problem from
the Middle Ages to the present, see Jorge J.E. Gracia, Introduction to the Problem of
Individuation in the Middle Ages (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1984). Other works of interest include: Gracia, Individuality: An Essay
on the Foundations of Metaphysics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988);
Gracia, ed., Individuation and Identity in Early Modern Philosophy (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1994); and Gracia, ed., Individuation in Scholasticism:
The Later Middle Ages and the Counter-Reformation (1150-1650) (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1994).
4

22

JUDE P. DOUGHERTY

tained at the same time that its sameness with others in a class is
said to have a foundation in reality? It is axiomatic that where
there is similarity we must look for difference, lest similarity
becomes identity.
Indeed, Plato recognized the problem. To the question of how
there can be many individuals in a class, each member sharing a
limited perfection of the class, his doctrine of forms and his
notion of participation supplied the answer. Aristotle's analysis
of cognition, his doctrine of abstraction, and his distinction
between potency and act provided him with materials for a different answer. For Aristotle, the groupings are not subjective but
have a basis in reality. The intellect can consider all members of
a class under a single concept because of the process of abstraction in which differences are left aside. Each member of a class
has in common with other members of its class a nature, or
essence, different from that had in common by the members of
other classes. The groupings are not invented by the intellect but
are discovered in antecedent reality. Given that analysis, how is
sameness between beings that have their own unique reality to
be explained?
For Thomas, the context is not simply the Aristotelian one, or
even the one that he encounters in commenting on Boethius's De
Trinitate. Thomas's full explanation will incorporate his doctrine of the real distinction between essence and existence and
his notion of participation. When we consider the texts of
Aquinas, the first aspect of the problem of the one and the many
is the multiplication of beings: How can there be more than one
being?r, His distinction between essence and existence, between
what the thing is and the act whereby it is, is crucial. There can
be more than one being because. the act of to be can be limited in
a multiplicity of ways. In finite beings essence places a limitation
on the act of to be. But individuality is a concept that pertains
not only to material natures but to the divine and to angelic
natures as well. It is existence that makes one thing distinct from
another. "[T]wo features belong to the notion of an individual,
6

Summa Theologiae, I, q. 29, a. 4.

AN INTERPRETER OF AQUINAS

23

namely, that it is actually existent, either in itself or in something
else; and that it be divided from other things that are or can be
in the same species, existing undivided in itself. m Those two features, existence-as-a-unit and division-from-all-other-things,
remain the basic features of Thomas 's treatment of individuality. Everything has unity and individuation in accord with its
having existence. "Each being," says St. Thomas, "possesses its
act of existing and its individuation in accordance with the same
factor." 8 But existence cannot give rise to diversity. Plurality
requires the recognition of composition. Every being other than
subsistent being is necessarily composite, involving its own limitation. Individuality is brought about by something that functions only in a potential not in an actual manner.
In purely spiritual, but nevertheless finite, creatures, form is
the sole essential cause of the individuality of a substance. Each
distinctive form, or essence, places a different limitation on its
act of to be. Thus Thomas can say that each angel is a species
unto itself. With material substances, however, we have individuals, each with its own act of to be, but having a sameness
because its nature places on it a same limitation of the act of to
be.
To the question, "How can there (in the case of material substances) be many similar individuals in a class, each member
showing a limited perfection of the class?" Thomas answers that
the difference must be caused by something distinctive of matter
itself. If each individual is regarded as participating in the perfection possible to its class, the principle of limitation cannot be
found in the form, or principle of actuality, that makes the composite thing to be what it is, but only in the potential essence or
prime matter. Without such a limiting principle the essence
could not be multiplied. Considered abstractly, there is nothing
in the concept of "essence" as such that requires multiplication.
Conceivably, as with angels, an essence could be a species unto
itself. The principle of actuality in the essence, that which makes
the thing to be what it is, is the form. For a form to be multiplied,
1 IV Sent., d. 12, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3.
• Q. D. de Anima, a. 1, ad 2.

24

JUDE P. DOUGHERTY

it must be limited. In fact, there is no individual being of our
experience that exhausts all the conceivable perfections of its
class. Whatever is later to be said about the role of "signate matter,'' primary matter for Thomas is the first intrinsic potential
principle of limitation in the essence of material things. It must
be noted that Aristotle's hylomorphic doctrine becomes in the
hands of Thomas a metaphysical doctrine and not merely one to
explain change.
For Thomas, the problem of individuation is not simply one of
how an individual is recognized, i.e., by shape, size, color, or
activity. Beings, rather, are intrinsically different within their
own class. Quantity, on this account, exercises an auxiliary role.
On this interpretation, the principle of individuation by which
each being is distinct from every other member of its class or
species is a physical intrinsic constitutive principle in the individual essence. Whereas Aristotle identifies the individual
essence with unchangeable form, Thomas places in material
essences themselves an intrinsic principle of limitation, namely,
primary matter.
The positions taken by Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, and
John of St. Thomas constitute alternative interpretations of
Aquinas and are responsible for discussions that extend over
centuries. Maritain, although indebted to Cajetan in many
respects, is closer to Sylvester than to Cajetan in his understanding of the role of "signate matter." Quantity for Thomas is understood as a proper accident inhering in the material substance
whereby the substance has parts outside of parts in space, that
is, has extension. Matter under determinate dimensions, "signate
matter,'' as a proper accident, flows from the essence necessarily.
It may be called an "absolute" or necessary accident. Essentially
divisible, quantity is the basis of numerical designation. It makes
a material substance fully individuated in a class or species. Yet
it should be remembered that, on Thomistic principles, what is
primarily individuated is neither the matter nor the form but the
received act of to be. Thomas 's distinction between the principles of essence and existence, principles related to each other as
potency is to act, is thus the foundation of his doctrine of individuation.

AN INTERPRETER OF AQUINAS

25

Thomas's theory of being is consistent with his theory of
knowledge. Whereas Scotus will say, "That which is first known
by the intellect is the individual being,"', Thomas insists that the
intellect does not immediately and directly know the individual
as individual but, rather, knows it indirectly and reflectively by
a turning back to the image. The Thomistic universal is produced by abstraction, not as Scotus would have it by a process of
precision or cutting off (abscisus) of differences. The Scotistic
theory of individuation is consistent with Scotus's theory of
knowledge, but that is another story.

III
Maritain incorporates these doctrines in a well developed theory of being and knowledge. They play a central role in his philosophy of science, which remains essentially that of St. Thomas
but is updated to take account of modern achievements. He
draws upon Thomas's theory of abstraction, his doctrine of
causality, his theory of explanation, and, of course, his solution to
the problem of individuation.
Maritain takes as his starting point the manner in which the
object of natural science is attained. To use his own language,
when the mind's eye falls upon the flux of the sensible, it must
immediately turn from it to the intelligible, the immutable,
which is able to be extracted by the mind from the things of sensory experience. It is only in the mind that the universal enjoys
the positive unity proper to it. 10 Yet the intelligible object as resident in external things and in the senses is a concrete singular.
The intelligible instead of being transcendent to things is there
immanent in them. The object of science is not an ens rationis
but the natures of material things. The senses reveal ontological
diversity and report a multiplicity of happenings in a changing
world. The intellect, discerning commonality, moves from an
experience of the singular to affirmations about the class. It is
those observations, formulated as patterns or laws of nature,
9
'0

De Anima IV, c. 3, n. 15.
Degrees of Knowledge, 22ff.

26

JUDE P. DOUGHERTY

that stand in need of explanation. The movement from particular to universal leaves difference behind. It is a characteristic of
science in general, not simply modern mathematical science, to
do away with individuation. There can be no science of the particular and yet the particular cannot be understood without the
conceptual schema science brings to it.
"It is absolutely necessary to distinguish the thing with which
science is concerned ... and the perfectly precise object ('the
formal object') upon which it lays hold and from which it
derives its stability." 11 Anyone beginning in this manner will
soon have to confront the problem of individuation. If one begins
as a nominalist, one has an entirely different sort of problem,
most likely, in contemporary parlance, "the reidentification of
particulars." Maritain's starting point is obviously Plato's.
"Science," he writes, "bears directly and of itself upon the
abstract, on ideal constancies and super-momentary determinations-let us say, on the intelligible objects that the mind seeks
out in the real and sets free from it. They are there, they exist
there, but not at all in the conditions of abstraction and universality that they have in the mind. mi Human nature is realized
concretely in each of us, but only in the mind is it realized as a
universal nature common to all men. The laws of nature
described by the natural sciences are possible because they concern natures or essences. Take, for example, the law of expansion
of solids by heat. The law means that a solid has within it the
secrets of its nature, a certain structure that necessarily and
unfailingly determines it to expand according to specific co-efficients under the action of heat. 13 Heat may be described as kinetic energy and further described in a statistical law governing
molecular motion, but behind this statistical law there is a nature
that is undergoing modification. Movement is of its very nature
a physical and not a mathematical thing. Nominalism of necessity is limited to the sense report and leads to mechanism as a
philosophy of science. "If the universal does not directly or indiIbid., 24.
Ibid.
11 Ibid., 25-26.
II

12

AN INTERPRETER OF AQUINAS

27

rectly designate an essence, but only a collection of individual
cases, it is not at all possible to understand how scientific law can
be necessary and the succession of singular events contingent."1 4
The mind can consider intelligible objects abstracted from, and
purified of, matter but only to the extent that matter is the basis
of diversity amongst individuals within a species, i.e., insofar as
matter is a principle of individuation. 15
Basic to Maritain's understanding of the problem of individuality is Thomas 's distinction between essence and existence,
between the whatness of the thing and the act of to be whereby
it is. This is seen in Maritain's analysis of the so-called "existential judgment." In one simultaneous awakening of the intellect
and the judgment the intellect affirms the existence of "something," i.e., "this thing exists." 16 "In forming this judgment the
intellect, on the one hand, knows the subject as singular (indirectly and by reflection upon phantasms) and on the other hand,
affirms that this singular subject exercises the act of existence." 11
It thus reaches the actus essendi (in judging)-as it reaches
essence (in conceiving)-by meditation on sensorial perception.
With respect to self-knowledge the intellect only secondarily,
by an explicit reflection upon its own act, becomes conscious of
itself as thinking subject. The intellect is ordered primarily to
being. From the very beginning, in the act of knowing it knows
explicitly as extra-mental, the being and the existence of its
object. 18

IV
Maritain's discussion of person is found in a slim but important work, The Person and the Common Good. There he draws
heavily on St. Thomas, making a distinction between "individuality" and the "person." Both concepts, "individuality" and "person," may be predicated of God, angels, and men. The divine
Ibid., 28-29.
35.
16 Existence and the Existent, 27.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., 28.
14

15 Ibid.,

28

JUDE P. DOUGHERTY

essence in its sovereign unity and simplicity is supremely individual. Angels are individuated essences. In the human composite, individuality flows from the material component. "Matter
itself is a kind of non-being, a mere potency or ability to receive
forms and undergo substantial mutations .... In every being
made of matter, this pure potency bears the impress of a metaphysical energy-the 'form' or 'soul'-which constitutes with it
a substantial unit and determines this unit to be that which it
is." 19 Matter is characterized as an "avidity" for being; it derives
all of its determination from form. "By the fact that it is ordained
to inform matter, the form finds itself particularized in such. and
such a being which shares the same specific nature with other
beings equally immersed in spatiality." 20 In order to exist, any
being must be undivided and distinct from every other existent.
In pure spirits individuality derives from the form constituting
them as such and giving them their degree of intelligibility.
Corporeal beings by contrast are individuated because of matter
with its designated quantity. "Their specific form and their
essence are not individuated by means of their own entity, but by
reason of their transcendental relation to matter understood as
implying position in space." 21 As a material entity, man has only
a precarious unity, a unity easily shattered into a multiplicity, for
in itself matter is inclined to disintegration. 22
The doctrine of participation is invoked at the same time as
the precariousness of human existence is stressed. "As an individual each of us is a fragment of a species, a part of a universe,
a unique point in the web of cosmic, ethical, historical forces and
influences-and bound by laws. Each of us is subject to the
determinism of the physical world." 23 Nonetheless, each of us is
a person. Personality signifies interiority, spirituality, and is
traceable to the immaterial form. One and the same reality is in
19 Person and the Common Good [La Personne et le Bien Commun], trans. J.J.
Fitzgerald (London: G. Bies, 1948), 26.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., 2 7.
22 Ibid.
21 Ibid.

AN INTERPRETER OF AQUINAS

29

one sense an individual and in another sense a person. 24 Our
whole being is individual by reason of that in us which derives
from matter and is a person by reason o(that which derives from
spirit.
In another text, speaking of the composite, Maritain writes:
"We cannot conceive the notion of body without the notion of
organism, of caro et ossa, and we cannot conceive the notion of
organism without the notion of qualitative heterogeneity; and
we cannot conceive the notion of qualitative heterogeneity without that of the properties perceived by the senses." 25
In this text Maritain is arguing that we must respect the sense
report of material reality. Because the sensory properties flow
from the essence of the material nature, the senses themselves
disclose far more than they are formally able to appreciate. The
form or principle of intelligibility is grasped intellectually in the
sense report. Respect for simple sense awareness is suppressed in
purely physico-mathematical reports dependent on instruments
of observation and measurement that methodologically fail to
attain the intelligible whole. The universe of abstract quantity,
Maritain will say, filters out nature. 26
Maritain earlier in his Degrees of Knowledge laid the groundwork for this analysis of the concept of "person." In that work he
uses the word "subsistence" rather than "individuality" in making distinctions. "The first metaphysical root of personality is
what is called subsistence. Subsistence presupposes a (substantial) nature that is individual or singular." 27 This nature (person)
from the fact that it is endowed with subsistence cannot communicate with any other substantial nature in the very act of
existence. It is, so to speak, absolutely enclosed with regard to
existence. 28 "Subsistence is for the nature an ontological seal, as
it were, of its unity. When this nature is complete (a separated
soul is not a person) and above all when it is capable of possessIbid., 31.
Science and Wisdom [Science et sagesse], trans. B. Wall (London: Geoffrey Bies,
1940), 57-58.
2" Ibid., 58-59.
27 Degrees of Knowledge,
231.
28 Ibid.
24

25

30

JUDE P. DOUGHERTY

ing itself, of taking itself in hand by the intellect and will, in
short, when it belongs to the spiritual order, then the subsistence
of such a nature is called personality." 29 Man must win his personality as he wins his liberty. A person develops personality
within a community and runs the risk of contamination thereby.
"For the same man who is a person ... is also an individual in a
species and dust before the wind. " 30 Predicated of man, the word
"personality" implies the laborious and the limited, the indigent
and the complicated. Yet it designates man in the fullness of his
human condition.
From considerations of human personality it is possible to free
the notion "personality" from material limitation and to predicate it not only of man, but of angels and of God as well. Of
angels, Maritain writes: "Think of what an angelic person must
be. Such a one is still a created subject, but each exhausts by
himself alone a whole specific essence. Finite in relation to God,
he is infinite in relation to us. He subsists immutably above time,
a mirror of God and of the universe. "31 And of God he writes: "In
reality, as soon as one leaves images behind in order to think of
Divine Transcendence, it is clear that it demands personality
absolutely and necessarily. Personality is the seal of that transcendence." 32 In Pure Act there is absolute unity, absolute
integrity of nature, absolute individuality. Thus, Maritain finds
that the notion of "individuality" is one that is predicated analogously. One seeks in Maritain's work, Philosophy of Nature, an
analogous predication of the concept "individuation," as it might
be said of the organic and inorganic, but he does not broach the
topic:'·'

v
Although Maritain never engages in what we today call "textual study," from beginning to end he is immersed through and
Ibid., 232.
Ibid.
31 Ibid., 233.
Ibid., 234.
Philosophy of Nature [La Philosophie de la Nature], trans, I. Byrne (New York: The
Philosophical Library, 1951).
29

30

AN INTERPRETER OF AQUINAS

31

through in the thought of St. Thomas. He does not simply appropriate St. Thomas, he makes the Angelic Doctor's philosophy his
own. It is a philosophy used to achieve wisdom within the context of the Faith, but used extensively in Maritain's never-ending
war on what he takes to be erroneous views of nature and cognition, views that would deprive us of a metaphysics that opens
one to the transcendent. From Antimoderne to Le Paysan,
Maritain's philosophy is of a single piece. In the abstract his enemies are primarily nominalism, rationalism, positivism, mechanism, and mathematicism. He is to be found correcting
Descartes, Kant, Eddington, Russell, Meyerson, Husserl, and
scores of contemporaries. He not only draws heavily on the classic commentators of St. Thomas and authors previously mentioned, but he has read Banez, Gredt, Hoenen, Chenu, Gardeil,
Blondel, and Marechal, among others, sometimes respectfully
disagreeing with their interpretation of Aquinas. Gilson and
Garrigou-LaGrange may be considered his foremost tutors.
Maritain's Thomism is never without textual foundation, but
it is a Thomism that speaks with a twentieth-century accent. In
drawing upon St. Thomas's doctrine of "subsistence" and "individuation" Maritain is faithful to the texts, but he employs those
notions in a way that Thomas himself never envisaged. This is
characteristic of the whole of Maritain's work. It does not
advance textual study, but it does further the development of a
Thomism relevant to the matters that we have been discussing.
With respect to these key doctrines, it is obvious that one has to
interpret St. Thomas in the context of his Opera Omnia. There
are no essay length, let alone book length, studies to be found in
Aquinas on the problem of individuation. Maritain's interpretation of St. Thomas is certainly a valid reading and supported in
studies by Joseph Owens, Armand Maurer, and Charles A. Hart,
to name but a few. 34
14 Cf. J. Owens, "Thomas Aquinas," in Individuation
in Scholasticism, 173; also
"Judgment and Truth in Aquinas," Medieval Studies 32 (1970): 138-158; A. Maurer,
Introduction to Thomas Aquinas, The Division and Methods of the Sciences (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1963), ix-xi; C.A. Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1959).

32

JUDE P. DOUGHERTY

We began with Plato and must end there. The problem of
individuation in the sense in which we have been studying it
does not arise in most contemporary philosophy. The problem
occurs only when a philosopher maintains that there are individuals with natures or essences common to other members of
the species. Individuality has to be explained in the presence of
commonness.
My reading of contemporary philosophical literature, particularly that of the last decade, suggests that the philosophy of science has taken a realist turn. Various forms of empiricism have
failed to account for the success of inference in modern physics
and biochemistry, as that which in one generation was postulated as a plausible mechanism for observed phenomena has
become directly or indirectly visible in another. Realistic interpretations of natural science confront the philosopher with the
same problems that underlie Aristotle's analysis and Thomas's
development thereof. Maritain in confronting the inadequacy of
much twentieth-century empiricism was in many respect prescient; he has a much to teach ad mentum divi Thomae.
Through him Aquinas becomes very much a contemporary
philosopher.

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION
MARIE I. GEORGE

St. John's University
Jamaica, New York

I. INTRODUCTION

A

QUINAS EXPLICITLY addresses the question of
whether reincarnation is possible on numerous occasions.1 Not surprisingly, his most extensive and subtle
treatment of the subject is found in a work addressed to nonChristians, the Summa Contra Gentiles.
Aquinas took it to be his duty as Christian philosopher to
address errors which were apt to have a detrimental effect on the
faith of Christian believers. 2 In this spirit I have undertaken the
task of presenting Aquinas's philosophical arguments against
reincarnation. For nowadays belief in reincarnation is becoming
increasingly widespread, even among Christians, in spite of the
fact that it is incompatible with belief in the resurrection of the
body. My treatment of the matter will necessarily be summary,
both because of the large number of arguments which Aquinas
proffers, and because a full understanding of Aquinas's arguments presupposes an understanding of his teachings on natural
philosophy, and especially on the soul.

1

A partial listing of the works in which Aquinas discusses reincarnation is as follows:

In Super Evangelium S. Matthaei, ed. P. Raphaelis Cai, O.P. (Turin: Marietti, 1951), n.

925, Aquinas refers to transmigrationem animae. Reference is made to the Pythagorean
fables on the subject in In A ristotelis Librum De Anima Commentarium (Turin: Marietti,
1959), n. 131 (hereafter cited as De Anima). Extended discussions of reincarnation are
found in Summa Contra Gentiles (hereafter cited as ScG), II, c. 83, ed. C. Pera, O.P., et
al. (Turin: Marietti, 1961), and in Scriptum super Sententiis (hereafter cited as Sent.), IV,
d. 44, q. l, a. 1 (Paris: Lethielleux, 1956). The Index Thomisticus indicates that the word
"metempsychoseos" is used twice in the Catena Aurea (Matt.), but does not appear in any
of Aquinas's own writings.
2 Cf. De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas.

33

34

MARIE I. GEORGE

What is reincarnation? The problem in attempting to understand and to form a proper judgment about the idea of reincarnation stems from the fact that this word designates a cluster of
disparate beliefs and doctrines, some popular, some philosophical, others religious. If reincarnation has always figured prominently in the religious and cultural fabric of Eastern thought, it
has been less present in the West. In spite of some precedents in
the past, it is only really quite recently that this idea has been
gaining ground here, although in forms quite different from
those of the East. The question, then, is a vast one. For this reason, among others, we intend to limit our consideration to those
versions for which Western philosophers have offered a defense.
Their claim is that upon death the spirits of at least certain people enter into other human bodies (generally those of newly conceived infants), or even into the bodies of lower life forms.
Moreover, it is usually maintained that the kind of being one's
spirit will enter after death depends upon how one has lived
one's previous life. One might thus return as a queen, or as a
poor and miserable person, or even as a slug, in correspondence
to the goodness or evilness of one's former life.
Aquinas's arguments against reincarnation are of two sorts.
Sometimes he argues against what he calls the roots of a given
version of the theory:' What he means by roots are positions the
acceptance of which render reincarnation necessary or plausible.
In showing that the roots are unsound, Aquinas refutes a given
account of reincarnation, but does not refute the basic doctrine
as such, for there may be some other account that would justify
the belief. The other sort of argument which Aquinas gives positively establishes that reincarnation is impossible. We intend to
consider here both sorts of argument. 4

'Cf. IV Sent., d. 44, q. I, a. 1, sol. 1.
Note that Aquinas does not address the religious versions of the theory with the
exception of Plato's theory which can be considered religious to the extent that it is
derived from the Pythagorean mysteries. Aquinas interests himself in those theories
known to him that both offer a rational account and have some plausibility.
4

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION

35

II. ARGUMENTS DRAWN FROM NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
VS. THE THEORY OF REINCARNATION

A. Plato's Theory of Reincarnation 5
We shall begin by examining Plato's theory of reincarnation,
because it is, of the two philosophical theories that have some
degree of verisimilitude, the less subtle and at the same time the
more widely held. Plato's theory is founded upon his position on
the relation of the soul to the body. As Aquinas recounts:
Plato held that the human soul not only existed of itself, but also that it
had in itself the complete nature of the species. He maintained that the
whole nature of the species is in the soul, saying that man is not something which is composed from soul and body but the relation of soul to
body was like that of a sailor to a ship or one clothed to one's clothes."

The soul's being reincarnated then would pose no more difficulty than changing clothes does to a person. Aquinas goes on to
argue that it is false to say the soul relates to the body as sailor to
ship, and in doing so attacks the root of Plato's belief in reincarnation:
However, this position is untenable. For it is manifest that the soul is
that by which the body lives, for to live is the being of the living thing:
the soul therefore is that by which the human body has actual existence. It belongs to a form to give actual existence. Therefore the soul
is the form of the body. So if the soul were in the body as a sailor in a
ship, it would not make the body the kind of thing it is, nor the body's
parts the kind of thing they are. The contrary, however, is obvious from
the fact that once the soul leaves the body, the particular parts do not
5 Plato's teachings on reincarnation are found in the Republic, Philebus, Laws, Meno,
Timaeus, Phaedo, and Phaedrus. In both the Phaedrus (495ff.) and the Phaedo (8la) the
account is basically the same, namely, that after death the philosopher's soul spends the
rest of its time with God (Phaedrus 249a), whereas the souls of those who live unrighteously "are compelled to wander about graveyards as a punishment, wandering until at
last through craving for the corporeal which unceasingly pursues them, they are imprisoned once more in a body. And as you might expect, they are attached to the same sort
of character or nature which they have developed during life.... [T]hose who have cultivated gluttony or selfishness or drunkenness ... are likely to assume the form of donkeys and other perverse animals" (Phaedo 8ld, 8le, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato,
eds. Hamilton and Cairns [New York: Pantheon Books, 1961]).
6 Cf. Quaestio Disputata
de Anima (hereafter cited as QD de Anima), a. 1, in
Quaestiones Disputatae, vol. II, ed. P. Bazzi et al. (Turin: Marietti, 1965).

36

MARIE I. GEORGE

retain their original name except by equivocation. For the dead eye is
called an eye by equivocation, as are stone eyes and eyes in pictures;
and same with the rest of the parts. And furthermore, if the soul were
in the body as a sailor in a ship, it would follow that the union of body
and soul was accidental. Death, therefore, which brings about the separation of body and soul, would not be the corruption of any substance-but this is obviously false. 7

Plato's theory of how body and soul are related offers no explanation for why the body corrupts once the soul departs. And it
makes the human body to be a puppet or a costume, but not
something that is itself living. 8
Aquinas brings out yet another absurd consequence of Plato's
theory:
Moreover, every mover moving itself exists in such a manner that it has
itself [the power] to move or not to move. But the soul, according to the
opinion of Plato, moves the body as moving itself. Therefore it is in the
power of the soul to move or to not move the body. If therefore it is not
united to the body except as motor to mobile, it will be in the power of
the soul to separate itself from the body when it wills, and to unite to it
once again when it wills; which is manifestly false. 9

Some people claim that the soul does leave the body, namely,
when a person dreams. However, one cannot dream at will. Yet
if the soul were united to body only as its mover, it would be able
to leave and come back to the body at will.
Another way of attacking Plato's theory of reincarnation is by
showing that the conception of the relation of body and soul
upon which it is based is flawed not only in its claim that the soul
is related to the body only as its mover, but also in its claim that
human nature is to be found wholly and exclusively in the soul.

Ibid.
ScG II, c. 57: "the mobile does not have being through its mover, but only motion. If
therefore the soul were united to the body only as mover, the body would certainly be
moved by the soul, but it would not have being through it. To live, however, is a certain
being of the one living. The body therefore would not live through the soul."
9 ScGII,c.57.
7

8

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION

37

Aquinas's line of argument is as follows. 10 An essential property
of a human being is the ability to think. Now, experience shows
that we cannot think without imagining. For we notice that
when we are trying to learn something we form for ourselves
images to serve as examples, so that we may see in them what we
want to understand. 11 When we are unable to form suitable
images because of fatigue, illness, or lack of experience, we find
ourselves unable to learn. Moreover, not only are images necessary for learning, but they are necessary if we are to be able to
think about what we already know. For everything we know is
known in reference to sensible things, and these cannot be correctly understood except as existing in individuals, for that is the
sort of thing they are. Thus without reference to an individual
represented in imagination, we could not truly understand the
nature of a material thing 12 and consequently neither could we
understand any other kind of thing. 13 Now, since imagining is a
process carried on by the brain, one cannot think unless one has
the said bodily part. Without a body, then, a complete human
person cannot exist. In sum:
We are able to know the mode of being of the human soul from the
operation [activity] of the human soul. Insofar as it has an operation
which transcends what is material, its being goes beyond the body and
does not depend on the body. Insofar as its nature is such that it
acquires immaterial knowledge from material things, it is plain that the

10 Another argument Aquinas gives against the position that the soul is the whole
human being is as follows: "For animal and man are certain sensible and natural things.
This would not be, if the body and its parts were not of the essence of man and animal,
but if the soul were the whole essence of both" (ScG II, c. 57). Cf. also Quaestiones
Disputatae de Potentia (hereafter cited as De Pot.), a. 10, in Quaestiones Disputatae, vol.
II, ed. P. Bazzi et al. (Turin: Marietti, 1965): "This cannot be the case, because, man being
thus [sic] would not be a per se being, but a per accidens being; nor would man be in the
genus of substance, but in the genus of accident, as this thing which I call clothed, and
shod."
11 Cf. ST I, q. 84, a. 7c.
12 Cf. ibid.
13 Cf. ST I, q. 84, a. 7c: "All the things which we understand in our present state, are
known by us by comparison with sensible natural things." Cf. also De Veritate, q. 12, a.
3, ad 2: "because the principle of our knowledge is sense, in a certain manner it is necessary to resolve everything which we judge in sense [experience]."

MARIE I. GEORGE

38

completion of its nature cannot be without union with the body. For
something is not complete in nature, unless it has those things which
are required for the proper operation belonging to that nature. 14
A rational soul without a body cannot exercise its rationality, for
the intellect cannot think unless the imagination provides it with
objects to think about.1.1 Souls without bodies are thus incomplete persons.
Aquinas thus demolishes Plato's case for reincarnation by his
several arguments which show that the conception of the human
person upon which Plato bases his account is false. 16

B. An Alternative to the Platonic Theory of Reincarnation
One might object, though, that the very reasons Aquinas gives
to destroy the roots of Plato's version of reincarnation, namely,
those that show that a human being is not an accidental unity of
body and soul, require one to postulate a return of the soul to a
body after death:
... because if the resurrection of the body is denied, it is not easy,
indeed it is rather difficult to maintain the immortality of the soul. For
it is the case that the soul is naturally united to the body, [to be] separated from it, however, [is] contrary to its nature and per accidens.
Whence the soul divested of the body so long as it is without the body
is imperfect. However, it is impossible that that which is natural and
per se, be finite and as nothing; and that which is contrary to nature
and per accidens, be infinite, [which would be the case] if the soul
would last forever without the body. And therefore the Platonists positing the immortality [of the soul], posited reincarnation [reincorporatio]
17

Crucial to this argument are the notions that body and soul form
a naturally complete whole, and that imperfect states are never
permanent in nature. The imperfect exists for the sake of the per14

QD de Anima, a. 1.
Boethii de Trinitate, ed. Decker (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1959), q. 6, a. 2,

15 Cf. In Librum

ad 5.
16 At the other extreme from those who deny that their bodies are part of themselves
are those who claim to be only their bodies, claiming their intellect to be a bodily part,
the brain.
17 Super Epistolas S. Pauli, ed. P. Raphaelis Cai, 0.P., vol. 1 (Turin: Marietti, 1953), I
Cor., n. 924.

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION

39

feet, not for its own sake, and nature does nothing that is purposeless. Aquinas offers two counter-arguments to this argument
for "cosmic recycling" of souls. One of them shows that this version of reincarnation entails an absurdity similar to that which it
was meant to avoid: namely, that natural causes would have as
per se end the bringing about of an imperfect state.
Consider first the form of reincarnation that claims that a
human being not only can be reincarnated as another human
being, but also as a plant or animal. What we observe about natural processes is that they result in organisms having the right
tools for the activities they have to perform: the beaver has the
teeth it needs in order to cut down trees for dams; the Sphex
wasp has the stinger, the poison, and the instinctive knowledge
needed to paralyze successfully the grasshopper which serves as
food for its young. Only in rare cases, such as the appendix, do
natural processes result in something useless, and such cases are
limited to parts of minor importance. Major flaws are eventually bred out of a population because the individuals carrying the
genes for the flaws die before they can reproduce. The minor
flaws that are found in a few defective individuals do not disprove that nature in general does nothing in vain. Minor flaws
that are widespread among the individuals of a species are sometimes due to evolutionary ancestry, i.e., in the species' predecessor these parts were previously useful. Moreover, such parts tend
to be bred out over time (e.g., the fin size of the whales has
diminished over time, which is understandable since whales do
not need such large ones, and it is a waste of energy to produce
them). Those cases where they are not bred out can often be
explained by the fact that they are genetically linked to some
trait which is beneficial. 18 Genetically linked flaws are not without utility as they may prove beneficial when environmental
18 Although Aquinas was unaware of many of the specific utilities of traits of organisms discovered by modern science, he nonetheless acknowledged them in principle. He
further recognized in general that the presence of certain defects in natural things was
due to material necessity. A knife will rust if it is iron, but will not cut if it is made of
plastic (in spite of what the airlines pretend). There is always a trade-off; cf. Quaestiones
Disputatae de Malo, q. 5, a. 5, in Quaestiones Disputatae, vol. II, ed. P. Bazzi et al.
(Turin: Marietti, 1965) and QD de Anima, a. 8.

40

MARIE I. GEORGE

conditions change, and thus allow for the development of a new
species. Thus though minor flaws of this sort do not contribute
to the good of the particular individuals bearing them, they do
contribute to the good of the origin of new species. Therefore, it
is rightly thought that as a general rule nature does nothing in
vain, that is, nothing of major significance on a permanent basis.
Now according to the reincarnation theory, humans reincarnated as plants or animals would have the ability to think and to
invent new technology, but could make no use of these abilities.
This is especially obvious in the case where human beings would
be reincarnated as plants, 19 but it is also true where they would
be reincarnated as higher animals such as a monkeys, for monkeys lack a brain sufficiently developed for the imagination and
memory needed in order to provide the mind with an adequate
object of thought. Even if one conceded that the monkey did
have an adequate imagination and memory 20 the fact would still
remain that there would be no necessary correspondence
between the ideas of any given human soul and the memories of
any given monkey. Without such correspondence, the human
soul would have many ideas about which it could not think.
Natural processes would continually and perpetually result in
the reduction of some human beings to this frustrated state.
Thus, the cosmic recycling theory results in the same absurdity
it aimed at avoiding, namely that of holding that nature acts in
vain.
The same consequence follows even on the hypothesis that the
adult soul, rather than entering into the body of a lower organism, enters into that of a human infant. For although an adult
soul does not differ from an infant soul in kind, it does differ
from it inasmuch as the adult soul has acquired the perfections
19 Note also that not only would nature be acting in vain by frustrating the human
soul, it would moreover be acting in vain by giving the plant a soul having more actuality than was needed for the plant to function as a plant.
' 0 This cannot be the case. For if the monkey's body were so disposed that it had the
bodily instruments that are required for human thought, it could only be because it was
informed with a soul giving such an aptitude-which is to say that it would have a
human soul; cf. QD de Anima, a. 8 and a. 9.

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION

41

of a certain number of ideas. If the intellect of the child is as a
blank slate, that of the adult is as a slate that has something written on it. To put an adult soul in an infant body would result in
the same consequence as putting it in the body of a monkey. For
the adult soul would possess certain ideas about which it would
be incapable of thinking, inasmuch as it lacked the corresponding experiences and images which are required as an object of
thought. If nature does not do things which are pointless, it could
not be the natural state of things that adult human souls be reincarnated in bodies that would not allow them actually to think
about ideas they had acquired.
The above argument is a variation of the following argument
which Aquinas gives in regard to the question of whether the
soul could pre-exist the body. The argument is based upon the
fact that the soul and its operation is the final cause of the body:
If therefore [Aquinas argues the truth of the antecedent earlier in the
article] the human soul needs the senses in order to understand [nature,
however, never fails in what is necessary in order to execute proper
operations, as in the case of animals having a sensitive and motive soul,
it gives them suitable organs of sense and motion], therefore the human
soul would not have been instituted without the necessary aids of the
senses. The senses, however, do not operate without corporeal organs .
. . . Therefore the soul was not instituted without corporeal organs."

21 ScG II, c. 83. Cf. De Anima, n. 811 where a similar argument is made in response to
those who might think that immobile animals have the capacity to move, but not the
instruments: "And because someone might believe that they [immobile animals] do not
lack a motive principle, but that they Jack suitable instruments for motion; in order to
remove doubt about this, he [Aristotle] adds that nature does nothing in vain [frustra],
nor does it fail as to things that are necessary, except in mutilated and imperfect animals,
as are monstrous animals: which monsters certainly occur outside the intention of nature,
from the corruption of some principle in the seed. But immobile animals are perfect in
their species, and are not mutilated as monsters are: A sign of which is that they generate individuals like to themselves, and they have due growth and decrease, which is not
the case of mutilated animals; therefore in such animals nature does nothing in vain, nor
does it fail as to things that are necessary. Whence it follows that if they had a principle
of motion, they would have the organic parts disposed to progressive motion. Otherwise
the motive principle in them would be superfluous, and the things necessary for the executii:m of the motive potency would be wanting. And this, however, we are able to accept:
That to each thing in which a principle of life is present, organs suited for that principle
are present; and that the parts of the body are for the sake of the parts of the soul."

42

MARIE I. GEORGE

Aquinas gives basically the same argument, based on the
notion of soul as final cause of the body, in the Compendium
Theologiae:
Since, however, the soul is united to the body as form, [and] to each and
every form, however, a proper matter corresponds, it is necessary that
the body to which the soul for a second time is united be the same in
definition and species with the body which it deposed through death.
For the soul in the resurrection does not resume a heavenly body or an
airy body, or the body of some other animal. ...
Further. As to the same form according to species is due [debetur] the
same matter according to species; so to the same form according to
number is due the same matter according to number: for as the soul of
a cow cannot be the soul of the body of a horse, so the soul of this [one
cow] cannot be the soul of another cow. It is necessary, therefore, since
the rational soul remains numerically the same, that in the resurrection
it be united again to the numerically same body."

Just as cow souls in general require a suitable matter, i.e., certainly bodily parts through which the powers of the cow soul can
be effective, so too each individual cow ought to have the particular bodily parts suited to the particular powers of its soul.
Loss of these parts may come about due to injury, disease, or old
age, but the addition of a whole and different body to a given
soul would be in vain because the two would not be fitted to each
other, and the body would thus hinder the soul.
A second argument that Aquinas gives is taken from the
nature of the soul as form. The cosmic recycling theory again
maintains that one cannot be a complete person without a body,
but claims that any body will do. In other words, one needs a
body to function as a person, but one does not need a particular
body in order to be oneself. Aquinas argues that you could not be
you without the particular body that you have. Nor could your
soul be your soul if it were united to any other body than your

22 Compendium Theologiae, c. 153. Cf. ScG II, c. 83: "[l]t was shown above that the
soul is united to the body as its form. It is necessary that forms be proportioned to their
proper matters, since they relate to each other as potency and act; a proper act, however, corresponds to a proper potency. Therefore one soul is not united to many bodies."

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION

43

own. It is impossible that one and the same soul be united to
diverse bodies:
For human souls do not differ from one another in species, but only in
number; otherwise humans would also differ in species. Differences
according to number, however, are present according to material principles. It is necessary, therefore, that the diversity of human souls be
drawn according to something material; not, however, such that matter
be a part of the soul itself; for it was shown above that it [the human
soul] is an intellectual substance, and that no such substance has matter. It remains, therefore, that according to the order to the diverse matters to which the souls are united, the diversity and plurality of souls is
taken in the mode spoken of above. If therefore there are diverse bodies it is necessary that they have diverse souls united to them; therefore
one soul cannot be united to many. 23

If humans differed from one another by their soul or form alone,

they would differ from one another in species as square does
from triangle, and four from five. However, we plainly do not
differ from one another in species. We have actual existence due
to our souls, which are of the same species, but which differ from
one another according to the diverse matter to which each soul
is united and to which each corresponds even when the body
ceases to be. Each of our souls is individualized by its union with
a proper matter, and cannot be individualized again, and thus is
incapable of being united to any other matter. 24
We should note, however, that the above argument brings
with it many familiar problems, since it is based upon the difficult-to-grasp notion of matter as principle of individuation.
Perhaps the most acute problem in understanding individuation
as it relates to the question of reincarnation regards the way in
which the soul retains a relationship to a specific body. In a number of places Aquinas says that in order for the same person to
come to life again, the same soul must be reunited to the same
body. 25 What, however, makes a body the same body? In some
ScG II, c. 83.
attributes this argument to Avicenna (De Pot., q. 3, a. 10).
25 Cf. ScG IV, c. 84: "[l]n order that a man rise again numerically the same, it is necessary that his essential parts be numerically the same. If, therefore, the body of the man
rising again is not [composed] of this flesh and these bones from which he is now composed, the man will not be raised again numerically the same."
23

24 Aquinas

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MARIE I. GEORGE

places, Aquinas seems to indicate that the same prime matter is
needed in order to have the same body: "In the resurrection,
however, both the numerically same soul will come back again,
since it is incorruptible, and this numerically same body restored
by divine power from the same dust into which it had disintegrated; and thus will the numerically same man rise again." 26 In
other places, however, he seems to say that any suitable matter
to which the soul could be united would constitute the same
body. He acknowledges that the matter constituting the body
changes during one's lifetime, and this without prejudice to
one's individuality. Thus it is puzzling that he would hold that
one would need (some of) the matter that had actually constituted one's body in order to have the same body, when new matter,
so long as it is of the appropriate sort, would seem to do just as
well. 27
This problem notwithstanding, Aquinas insists that it is
impossible for the human soul to be recycled in another body:
Further, in those things which are generated and corrupted, it is impossible that they come back again through generation the same in number; for since generation and corruption is a motion to· substance in
those things which are generated and corrupted, the same substance
does not remain, as it remains in those things which move according to
local motion. But if one soul were successively united to diverse bodies
which were generated, man would return the same in number through
generation; which according to Plato follows of necessity,who said that
man is a soul clothed with a body. It even follows on any other position;
Super Epistolas S. Pauli, I Cor., n. 1015.
Cf. ScG IV, c. 81: "In the body of man, while it lives, there are not always the same
parts according to the matter, but only according to the form; according to the matter the
parts in fact flow out and flow in. Nor does this prevent a man from being one in number from the beginning of his life even until the end .... [F]or the form and species of the
individual parts of [the body] remain continuously through its whole life, but the matter
of the parts is dissolved through the action of natural heat and is once again generated
through food. There is not a numerically other man according to diverse parts and states
of life, although not everything which is materially in man according to one state is in
him according to another. Thus, therefore, it is not requisite, to this that a man rise again
numerically the same, that everything which was materially in him according to his
entire lifetime be taken up again, but only so much as suffices for completing an appropriate quantity, and it seems that what was more perfectly existing under the form and
species of humanity is chiefly what is to be taken up again."
26

27

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION

45

because, since the unity of a thing follows upon form as even does its
being, it is necessary that those things be the same in number of which
the form is one in number. Therefore it is not possible that one soul be
united to diverse bodies.'"

The body and the soul make up the same substance, the former
being the potency and the latter the actualization,2 9 so when the
soul is united with some suitable matter it is going to give that
matter the same being it gave to the matter it actualized before
the person died.
[T]he form of other generable and corruptible things is not per se subsisting, such that they have the power to remain after the corruption of
the composite, as is the case of the rational soul, which retains the being
which it acquires in the body even after the body [corrupts], and in the
participation of which being the body is drawn back [to life] through
the resurrection, since the being of the body is not other than the being
of the soul in the body; otherwise the conjunction of soul and body
would be accidental; and thus no interruption has taken place in the
substantial being of man such that it would not be possible for the
numerically same individual to return due to an interruption in being,
as happens even in other corrupted bodies, of which the being is completely interrupted, the form not remaining, the matter remaining,
however, under another being."'

The two arguments just given do not simply show that it
would be unfitting, and thus unnatural for the soul to be united
ScG II, c. 83.
Aquinas defines the soul as "the act of a natural body having life in potency" in De
Anima, n. 230 (n. 229 specifies that it is the "first act"). From this definition he solves a
certain doubt about the manner in which the soul and body make up one thing (n. 234):
"And certain were positing some medium by which the soul was united to the body, and
in some manner attached. But there is no room now for this doubt since it has been
shown that the soul is the form of the body .... [l]t is shown in the eighth book of the
Metaphysics that form is united to matter through itself [per se ], as the act of it; and it is
the same that matter be united to form as that matter exist in act. And this is even what
he says here: that since one and being are said in many senses, namely, being in potency
and being in act, that which is properly being and one is act. For as being in potency is
not being simply, but relatively speaking [secundum quid], so too is it not one simply, but
secundum quid: for in this manner something is said to be one even as it is said to be
being. And therefore as the body has being through the soul as through form, so even is
it united to the soul immediately, insofar as the soul is the form of the body."
30 IV Sent., d. 44, q. l, a. 1. Cf. ST I-II, q. 4, a. 5, ad 2. Cf. QD de Anima, a. 19, ad 5:
'"sense' is said in two senses. In one way in regard to the sensitive soul itself, which is
the principle of potencies of this sort; and thus through sense an animal is an animal as
28

29

46

MARIE I. GEORGE

to any body other than its own, but that such a union is in fact
impossible (on account of the nature of the human soul as selfsubsistent form of the body).
The cosmic recycling theory, initially attractive because it recognizes both finality in nature and the natural character of the
union of body and soul, ends up being a position little different
from that which says that soul stands to body only as mover and
not as form. For as Aquinas shows, the soul can be the form or
act of only one body, and each soul and body are uniquely fitted
to one another. If one imagines a given soul in another body, one
in effect is denying that it is the particular form that it is because
of its relation to the particular body of which it is the form. Thus
in effect one is envisaging a particular soul as indifferent to any
particular human body, rather than as something dependent
upon one particular body for its proper completion. 31 Although a
correct understanding of the nature of the soul as form of the
body sufficiently shows the absolute impossibility that the soul
give existence to a body other than its own, a second sort of argument against reincarnation can be used against a person who
mistakenly thinks that the soul could actualize a second body.
This is the argument based on the order of final causality, specifically the order of the body to the soul which is further ordered
to the life activities of the organism. The argument proceeds by
showing that souls when reincarnated would be in a bodies lackthrough its proper form. In this mode sensible is taken from sense, according as it is
the difference constitutive of animal. In another way, sense is said in regard to the sensitive potency itself, which, since it is a natural property, as was said, is not constitutive
of the species, but only follows upon the species. In this sense, therefore, sense does not
remain in the separated soul, but only in the first sense does it remain. For in man the
essence of the sensible and rational soul is the same. Whence nothing prohibits a man
who rises again from being the same numerical animal. For in order that something be
numerically the same, it suffices that the essential principles be numerically the same; it
is not required that the properties and the accidents be numerically the same."
31 While "the human soul differs from other [material] forms, because its being does
not depend on the body, nor does its being individuated depend on the body; for anything, insofar as it is one, is of itself undivided, and distinct from others" (QD de Anima,
a. 3), nonetheless since the soul has the nature of a part, it does not attain its proper perfection apart from the whole of which it is a part, and the identity of this whole depends
on the presence of the same matter, i.e., the same body, as well as the same form. These
considerations ground one of Aquinas's arguments for the necessity of the resurrection
of the body (cf. ScG IV, c. 79).

47

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION

ing the tools suited to them; yet it is not possible that natural
processes result in things being regularly reduced to frustrated
states.
C. Another Problem with the Theories of Reincarnation
Another problem with most theories of reincarnation is that
they provide no explanation for why most of us forget our previous life or lives. One notable exception is Plato's theory which
accounts for the soul's forgetting in terms of the soul's being
aggravated by the body which it enters. In the Meno, Plato offers
as support for this view evidence which appears to show that
people do not learn, but rather recollect things known to them
from a previous life. Aquinas gives numerous arguments against
the notion that learning is remembering, one of which is that if
this were so, a person who was blind in his present life would be
able to have scientific knowledge about color since he had sense
knowledge of it in a prior life where he was not blind-which of
course is not the case. 32
Ill. ARGUMENTS AGAINST REINCARNATION

BASED UPON A

DIALECTICAL EXAMINATION OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUPERNATURAL CAUSALITY

Reincarnation could not be a natural phenomenon, for the
reasons we have just seen. Another way of trying to defend reincarnation is by attributing it to supernatural causes. One alternative would be to say that it is due to "cosmic necessity." 33 This
account is hardly satisfactory, however, since it leaves unexplained from whence the necessity, and moreover, why in this
instance this necessity runs counter to the finality observed in
nature when it does not do so as a general rule. Another more
likely alternative is to ascribe it to the willful intervention of
supernatural powers. To examine this position fully would be an
32 ScG II, c. S3; in the same place he gives three other arguments vs. this position,
including an interesting analysis of the Meno (cf. Meno Sia, Sib). Note that in ScG II, c.
S3 Aquinas destroys another root of reincarnation that we have not mentioned, namely,
the eternity of the world or at least the unendingness of the future generation of humans.
B Cf. S cG II, c. S9 for a discussion of a particular "cosmic necessity" theory.

48

MARIE I. GEORGE

extremely difficult task inasmuch as it would involve examining
the existence and nature of supernatural powers. Thus the arguments offered in this section will be dialectical.
Two possible motives are generally offered for why supernatural powers would reincarnate human beings, namely: 1) in
order to reward or punish them; 2) as a way of showing mercy to
them.
Let us consider the first possibility: It is evident that it is
pointless to punish someone, if they are unaware that they have
done anything wrong, and could not possibly be aware. Most of
us are unaware of having had a previous life. Therefore to punish us for what we did in a previous life must be due either to stupidity or to cruelty. Certainly, stupidity and maliciousness are
not characteristics that most people attribute to supernatural
beings. Those, then, who hold that these consequences of the
reincarnation-as-punishment-or-reward
theory are untenable .14
must reject the theory itself if they are to be logically consistent.
Another motivation sometimes offered for why a supernatural power (or powers) would cause us to be reincarnated is that
this is due to mercy, for successive reincarnations give us extra
chances to live wholesome lives. The supernatural being in its
mercy does not want to condemn us definitively for the wrongdoings of our first life.
This explanation suffers from a number of defects: First, if
most of us do not remember our previous life, we cannot appreciate our present life as a merciful second chance. Second, if the
supernatural being in its mercy does not want to condemn us for
the wrongdoings of our first life, why would it condemn us for
them in later lives? And what if the cycle of reincarnation stops
when certain individuals who had lived good earlier lives, have
gone downhill in their most recent life? Where is the mercy in
34 Indeed, Aquinas shows that these things cannot be true of God; cf. ST I, q. 6 and q.
14. According to Aline Lizotte, Hinduism envisages God in quite another manner: God

creates the world "on the basis of an elan vital born by libido. Creation is then a cosmic
error, an act of self-negation on the part of the creator, the entry in the world of multiplicity which is the destroyer of the One" ("La Reincarnation est-elle compatible avec la
foi?" Famille Chretienne 767 [Sept. 24, 1992]: 50).

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION

49

that? One could of course ask a similar question on the supposition that a person has only one life. Multiplying lives, however,
increases the amount of time one has, but it does not increase the
likelihood that one meet one's final destiny in a good rather than
a bad moral state. Moreover, a second chance is reasonably given
in two situations: The first is when the original test was poorly
designed. But most will not countenance that the cosmic tester
be lacking in intelligence. A second ground for retesting is found
when some factor outside the control of the individual being tested hampers his or her performance (e.g., sickness or inexperience). Yet, while Aquinas grants that bad upbringing and lack of
intelligence have a detrimental impact on one's moral development, he also maintains that all human beings in virtue of their
intellect and free will are able to overcome these handicaps and
live morally acceptable, albeit morally diminished lives (as happens in the case of those who suffer from invincible ignorance
and those who never arrive at virtue, but only at continence). 35
Aquinas would plainly reject the version of reincarnation that
assumes that the cycle will not stop until all become good. (Some
stones take longer to be smoothed by the waves than others, but
given enough time they eventually get there.) There are many
obvious problems with this theory, the most blatant of which is
that it in effect denies free will, since we all become good
whether we want to be or not (or, alternatively, we all eventually have to want to be truly good).
Aquinas does not give the arguments presented in this section.
He probably saw little need for them given that his argument
based on the nature of the soul as formal cause of the body shows
that it is impossible even for God to reincarnate a human soul.
The closest Aquinas comes to addressing the possibility that
reincarnation is explicable by supernatural causes is when he
discusses whether those who hold that the soul pre-exists the
body can offer any explanation for why the soul becomes united
with the body."6 The dialectical arguments we have offered here,
·" Cf. In Decem Libras Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum Expositio,
Raymundi M. Spiazzi, O.P. (Turin: Marietti, 1964), Bk. III, lee. 1 and 2.
·'"Cf. ScG II, c. 83 and ST I, q. 118, a. 3.

ed.

50

MARIE I. GEORGE

however, are based on what Aquinas holds regarding the nature
of God, punishment/reward, voluntary action, and free will.

IV. CONCLUSION
All theories of reincarnation in some way affirm that soul and
body are two independent entities. Crucial to Aquinas's refutation of reincarnation as a possible natural phenomenon is an
exposition of the correct understanding of the relation between
the individual person's soul and body. To recapitulate: Aquinas
offers two related arguments, one from the nature of soul as
form, and another from the nature of the activities of the soul as
final cause. Aquinas shows that the soul can be the form or act
of only one body because the soul is the individual soul that it is
because of the particular body to which it is related, and because
the soul, being a subsisting form, gives the same being to the
body to which it is united after death as to the one with which it
first acquired its being. Each soul and body are thus uniquely fitted to one another. A further consequence of this relation is that
any body will not do when it comes to the exercise of the powers
of the soul, neither those that require a bodily organ nor those
that depend on activities that involve a bodily organ (as the exercise of the intellect depends upon imagining). As for theories that
invoke supernatural causes, they are to be rejected because they
entail the absurd consequences that the supernatural being
would have to be stupid or malicious. Moreover, even if there
were some reasonable motive for the supernatural power to reincarnate humans, it could not do so. It is no more possible to unite
the soul of a deceased individual with a different body than it is
to unite this very shape or accidental form of one material object
to another material object:'7

37 God, however, could join the human soul to an alien matter, but in this case it would
not be the actualization of that matter; rather, it would be the prisoner of an otherwise
actualized matter. Such a union would not be by nature, but only by force. It would thus
be painful to the soul, much as Plato thought of the soul's union to its own body. Cf. QD
de Anima, a. 21: "Utrum anima separata possit pati poenam ab igne corporeo."

AQUINAS ON REINCARNATION

51

V. EPILOGUE

One is correct in noting that the above arguments are not likely to convince most of the people who subscribe to reincarnation.
This is partly due to the fact that some of the arguments are difficult, presupposing knowledge about the human soul: its
immortality, its relation to the body. 38 And it is partly due to the
fact that a certain number believe because they want to believe
it-after all most popular versions of reincarnation seem to
absolve one from responsibility by leaving it vague about when,
if ever, beyond the present life one will be rewarded or punished
for one's actions, some versions even going even so far as to
claim that one will eventually arrive at a perfected state in spite
of oneself. Why, then, make the difficult choices one would have
to make if one only lived once and one wanted to be good?
There is a third reason, as well, why some believe in reincarnation, namely, because they think that there exist genuine cases
of people who are reincarnated. These people are of course reasoning correctly when faced with an argument that supposedly
proves that a universal negative statement is true and with one
genuine contradictory instance they reject the supposed proof (or
at least reject its universal scope, since some arguments do show
something to be true for the most part). What people commonly
overlook, however, is that unless they themselves have observed
an instance of something, they do not know it to be a fact. Rather
they are either simply believing that the case is genuine on the
word of the person claiming it or they are inferring that the case
is genuine from signs (some of which signs may only be known
by taking the word of a person who claims to be reincarnated).
The case is not a direct object of their observation. When one
relies on the words of another, there is plainly the possibility that
that other intentionally or unintentionally deceive one. Thus,
people are mistaken about thinking that cases known at second
hand settle the question of reincarnation. They fail to realize that
18 Cf. ScG II, c. 68 where Aquinas gives an impressive list of the authors who misunderstood the relation of body to soul, each in a somewhat different way.

52

MARIE I. GEORGE

claims could be accepted as only probable at best, and that only
after being documented. 39
In addition to confusing knowing with believing or opining,
people are often ignorant of the sort of criteria to apply in order
to determine whether there is any plausibility to the supposedly
reincarnated person's claim. What are the signs by which one
judges the authenticity of such a claim? Knowledge of these criteria pertains more directly to science than to philosophy, so it
would be out of place to go into them here. We must also point
out, however, that some of the supposed evidence for reincarnation cannot be easily dismissed, either on scientific grounds or on
philosophical grounds, and may be attributable to the actions of
supernatural beings, namely, demons. 40 But an examination of
this too falls outside philosophy's scope.

39 The other thing about cases is that even when one oneself has experience of paranormal phenomena, one must be careful to distinguish the experience from the opinion
one readily forms to explain the experience. For example, a person dreams that the next
party would be a flop, and it in fact turns out to be a flop. Did that person foresee the
future? Or did he or she simply project conscious or unconscious misgivings about the
party's success in his or her dream, and this dream just happened actually to correspond
with reality? Or was the person perhaps influenced by the dream to do things which
brought the event about (self-fulfilling prophecy)?
40 Aquinas speaks in many places about demons revealing hidden things to humans in
order to lead them away from God (cf. De Pot., q. 6, a. 10; ScG III, c. 154). Most often
he speaks of demons providing people with information about the future. It is not hard,
however, to see how demons could inform people of things that happened before those
persons' births in order that these people might be convinced that they were reincarnated (and/or convince others that this is the case), thus destroying their belief in individual
judgment, the last judgment, and the resurrection of the body.

NATURAL LAW, IMPARTIALISM,
OTHERS' GOOD*

AND

MARK C. MURPHY

Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.

T

he title of a recent article by Henry Veatch and Joseph
Rautenberg asks "Does the Grisez-Finnis-Boyle Moral
Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?'"; the answer that the text
of that article produces is, unsurprisingly, "Yes." Veatch and
Rautenberg argue that despite superficial similarities between
the moral theory defended by Germain Grisez, John Finnis, and
Joseph Boyle and the eudaimonist moral theories defended by
Aristotle and Aquinas, the Grisez-Finnis-Boyle
(hereafter
"GFB") view is more akin to utilitarian impartialism than to
I shall argue that
Aristotelian or Thomistic eudaimonism.
although Veatch and Rautenberg are correct to label the GFB
view a type of impartialism, they misunderstand both the character of its impartialism and the mistake on which it rests. A
clearer understanding of what is at issue between impartialist
and eudaimonist natural law theories will bring into focus the
severity of the problem faced in trying to decide between these
accounts.
I

Call the thesis that all correct practical reasoning proceeds
from one's own good as a principle "eudaimonism"; call the thesis that all correct practical reasoning proceeds from the good
* I owe a debt of gratitude to Melissa Barry, Lenn Goodman, Trenton Merricks, and
(especially) Thomas Williams for their comments on early drafts of this article.
1 Henry
Veatch and Joseph Rautenberg, "Does the Grisez-Finnis-Boyle Moral
Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" Review of Metaphysics 44 (1991): 807-830.

53

54

MARK C. MURPHY

impartially
considered "impartialism."
As Veatch and
Rautenberg point out, the GFB view endorses impartialism:
from the point of view of practical reason, whether a good is
instantiated in you or in me makes no difference. 2 This impartialism places the G FB view on the side of the utilitarians
against the eudaimonism of Aristotle and Aquinas. That Grisez,
Finnis, and Boyle part ways with Aristotle and Aquinas on this
issue is, of course, no argument against the GFB view. Veatch
and Rautenberg attempt to call the GFB impartialism into question, though, by arguing both that the GFB impartialism has
absurd consequences and that the argument by which Grisez,
Finnis, and Boyle reach the impartialist thesis contains plain
errors.
Veatch and Rautenberg hold that the impartialism advocated
by the GFB view is a result of modern moral philosophy's disconnecting the concept of a good from that of human needs,
desires, and interests:
The notion of 'good' [on the 'modern' view] needs to be denatured and
completely dissociated from all reference to our liking, desiring, or finding pleasing those things which we take to be good. Instead, all 'goods'
are to be converted into so many 'oughts', and as 'oughts' they are to
be furthered and pursued. 3

On the modern view, to assert that pleasure is a good is to assert
only that pleasure ought to be promoted; to say that knowledge
is a good is to say only that knowledge ought to be pursued.
From this sundering of the relationship between the idea of a
good and that of human needs and interests it is a small step

2 Although both utilitarianism and the GFB view endorse impartialism, they differ
importantly in that utilitarianism is consequentialist whereas the GFB view is not. To
move from the impartialist thesis that the good impartially considered is the starting
point for practical reason to the utilitarian thesis that one ought to act so as to maximize
overall goodness requires, among other presuppositions, the assumption that another's
good and my own are commensurable. This premise the GFB view denies; no two
instantiations of basic values between which choice is possible are commensurable. See
Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, and John Finnis, "Practical Principles, Moral Truth, and
Ultimate Ends," American Journal of Jurisprudence 32 (1987): 99-151, esp. 110.
·1 Veatch and Rautenberg, "Grisez-Finnis-Boyle Moral Philosophy," 816.

NATURAL LAW, IMPARTIALISM,

AND OTHERS' GOOD

55

indeed to impartialism: once goods are no longer such in virtue
of anyone's needing or desiring them, there is no reason to promote one's own good over that of anyone else: "Instead, all goods
having now been converted into so many 'oughts', it would seem
to follow that this cannot but impose on the moral agent a strict
obligation to further and promote every and all goods equally
and impartially." 4
Veatch and Rautenberg argue that this impartialism has
absurd implications. First, it makes the connection between our
reasons for reckoning something good and our reasons for furthering or promoting it completely unintelligible. For on this
view, what is good is simply what one ought to further and promote, and one's reasons for furthering and promoting it derive
from this moral "ought." We reckon something good, however,
because it fulfills a need or interest or desire. Now, to be sure,
there is no inconsistency here. What there is, though, is a relationship between desire for something and a moral requirement
to promote or pursue it that is totally surd.
Secondly, Veatch and Rautenberg claim that impartialism
would lead to an immobility of practical reason. If "a moral
agent may not show the slightest preference or partiality for one
good over against another,'' then he or she "is under a strict obligation to work for and to promote all goods equally and impartially.'" Veatch and Rautenberg wonder whether rational action
would be possible on such a view, given the vast array of goods
to be promoted or pursued:
How can any one moral agent work to further all goods and all values,
not only his own, but those of all others as well, and do so all at once
without showing the slightest partiality for any one good that might
prompt him to choose that one as over against another?•

The sincere impartialist would, on Veatch and Rautenberg's
view, become the practical equivalent of Buridan 'sass, unable to
fix upon a subset of goods to pursue, and hence would be unable
to pursue any.
Ibid., 815.
Ibid., 817.
6 lbid.
4

5

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MARK C. MURPHY

Granting for a moment that these absurd consequences follow from impartialism, it might be wondered why the GFB
view endorses it. Veatch and Rautenberg hold that the GFB
impartialism is the result of a mistake concerning what the principle of universalizability requires of moral judgments. It is
often taken to be an essential feature of moral judgments that
they be universalizable, that is, that they be applicable to all persons, and that they be formulable without use of proper names,
using only predicates and logical operators. 7 A difficulty seems
to result, though, if one attempts to universalize judgments concerning what is good. For what is good is typically indexed to
someone's needs or interests; but "the fact that I hold a thing to
be good, or to be of value to me, certainly does not imply that
anyone or everyone else must therefore hold it to be good or of
value for him as well." 8 Given that what is good is initially
picked out by reference to human needs and interests, we may
decide either that judgments about what is good are never moral
judgments (because they are not universalizable) or that at least
some uses of "good" are disconnected from human needs and
interests. "Modern ethics,'' on Veatch and Rautenberg's view,
opts for the latter. Thus, "good" is stripped of its connection to
human needs and interests, and becomes "so many 'oughts'." 9
As Veatch and Rautenberg point out, however, this line of
reasoning is specious. The principle of universalizability does
not enjoin us to disconnect the notion of "good" from all human
needs and interests; it enjoins us only to disconnect the notion of
"good" from any particular set of human needs and interests. In
order to universalize the judgment that knowledge is good, for
example, we need not disconnect knowledge from its character
7 Rawls divides the principle of universalizability as I have formulated it here into two
requirements: that of universality, according to which moral principles "must hold for
everyone in virtue of their being moral persons," and that of generality, according to
which moral principles must employ only those predicates that "express general properties and relations." See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1971), 131-132. Rawls recognizes that universality and generality do
not entail impartialism; see 136.
8 Veatch and Rautenberg, "Grisez-Finnis-Boyle Moral Philosophy," 812.
9 Ibid., 816.

NATURAL LAW, IMPARTIALISM,

AND OTHERS' GOOD

57

as fulfilling for humans; we need only note that for each human,
it is the case that knowledge is fulfilling for that human. Goods
may be indexed to human interests without being indexed to any
particular human's interests. The judgment that G is good is
therefore perfectly universalizable: it means that for anyone in a
particular set of circumstances, G would fulfill some interest any
person in those circumstances would have. 10
If Veatch and Rautenberg were correct in their characterization of the impartialism of the GFB view, as well as in their
accounts both of how Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle arrive at that
impartialism and of what implications follow from it, then the
G FB view would be hopeless. I shall argue, though, that Veatch
and Rautenberg go astray from the start in their characterization
of the GFB impartialism: the GFB view does not advocate any
disconnection between the concept of a good and that of human
interests. Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle arrive at their impartialism
not by way of any concerns about moral language, but by way of
a certain account of what is self-evidently grasped as good by
practical reason. And further, given the proper characterization
of the GFB impartialism, the absurd consequences that Veatch
and Rautenberg impute to it do not follow.
Veatch and Rautenberg hold that the impartialism that is
characteristic of modern ethics generally, and of the GFB and
utilitarian views in particular, is the result of the disconnection
of the notion of goodness from that of human interests.
Significantly, the only author that Veatch and Rautenberg cite on
behalf of this view is G.E. Moore, who undoubtedly held it:
according to Moore, one can determine whether a state of affairs
is intrinsically good by isolating in imagination that state of
affairs; if one judges that it would be good for such a state of
affairs to exist, that state of affairs is intrinsically good. On
Moore's view, the strict application of this test results in the
detaching of the notion of "good" from any relationship to
human interests." But Moore is, I think, the exception rather
Ibid., 829-830.
See G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1988), esp. §50
where he attacks Sidgwick for holding that the good is necessarily connected to human
interests.
IO

11

58

MARK C. MURPHY

than the rule in modern ethics. To attempt to prove this point
here, though, would take us off the track; our concern is whether
Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle disconnect the concept of a good from
that of human needs, interests, and desires. It is clear, however,
that Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle do not make this move. For the
central concept of their moral theory is that of a basic good or
basic value, that is, a good sought for its own sake. But on the
GFB view, the goodness of any basic value is constituted by its
contributing to human fulfillment, and the reason to promote the
basic values is their contribution to human fulfillment. To judge
that something is a basic good is to judge that it is "a general
form of human well-being" and a "fulfillment of a human potentiality." 12 The fundamental concern of ethics, then, is the fulfillment of persons, 13 and the "basic goods are basic reasons for acting because they are aspects of the fulfillment of persons." 14 This
is not a moral view that reduces goods to "so many 'oughts."'
The G FB view does not, therefore, transform claims of the
form "G is a good" to claims of the form "agents are morally
required to pursue or promote G." 15 How, then, does it embrace
impartialism? It embraces impartialism by holding that while
the character of something as a good does depend on its being
fulfilling of human interests, its character as a good does not
depend on the identity of the person whose interests that good
fulfills: "As intelligible, the basic goods have no proper names
attached to them. So that they can be understood as goods and
provide reasons for acting whether, in a particular case, the
agent or another may benefit." 16 The "as intelligible" in this
statement contrasts with "as sensible": for considered not in their
John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 72.
Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, Volume I: Christian Moral Principles
(Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), ll5.
14 Grisez, Boyle, Finnis, "Practical Principles," 114.
15 Indeed, given Finnis 's emphatic assertion that the judgments that the basic values
are goods are not moral judgments, but rather "the evaluative substratum of all moral
judgments" (Natural Law and Natural Rights, 59), it is hard to see why Veatch and
Rautenberg would think that the Grisez-Finnis-Boyle view turns goods into so many
"oughts."
16 Grisez, Boyle, Finnis, "Practical Principles," 114.
12

13

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59

intelligible aspect (that is, as exerting a pull on one's intelligence)
but only in their sensible aspect (that is, as exerting a pull on
one's feelings), the basic goods are agent-centered, for our feelings are swayed more by the prospect of the participation in
basic values either by ourselves or by those close to us than by
the prospect of such participation by those in no special relationship to us. Considered in their intelligible aspect, though, my
good and the good of any other person are indistinguishable.
Why is it, though, that these goods are indistinguishable by
practical reason? This impartialism is not the result of an application of the principle of universalizability; as Veatch and
Rautenberg make clear, such an application would be a misapplication. Rather, the G FB impartialism springs from their view
that what is grasped by practical reason as good is simply participation in the basic values, not participation in the basic values by a certain person or persons. Consider basic value V. It is
the view of Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle that what your practical
reason grasps self-evidently as good is simply participation-in-V,
not participation-in-V-by-you. And if participation-in-V is what
is grasped as good by practical reason, then one is required in
reason to be impartial between one's own participation in V and
another's participation in V, for both are equally participations
in V.
From his earliest writings on natural law to his most recent
discussions, Finnis has defended this account of why reason
requires impartiality among all those who can partake of the
basic goods:
[O]ne is confronted not only with the pull of one's experienced desire
for self-preservation [for example], but also with the concept that
human life [for example] is a value to be realized and respected, and an
awareness that the value is realized as much in your life as mine.
Intelligence thus faces the problem, which realization of the value to
pursue, and cannot solve the problem by declaring that my life is more
valuable, as such, than yours."

17

John Finnis, "Natural Law and Unnatural Acts," Heythrop Journal 11 (1970): 368.

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MARK C. MURPHY

[T]he basic goods are human goods, and can in principle be pursued,
realized, and participated in by any human being. Another person's
survival, his coming to know, his creativity, his all-round flourishing,
may not interest me, may not concern me, may in any event be beyond
my power to affect. But have I any reason to deny that they are really
good, or that they are fit matters of interest, concern, and favour by
that man and by all those who have to do with him? . .. we can add, to
the second requirement of fundamental impartiality of recognition of
each of the basic forms of good, a third requirement: of fundamental
impartiality among the human subjects who are or may be partakers of
those goods. 1•
One can consider as desirable the participation of other people in goods
of the same sort, i.e. one can think it good that other people, even people who do not engage one's affections at all, should be able to act (or
to share in the results of action) under the same description: what at the
level of mere feeling is radically different (his securing a good and my
securing a good) becomes, at the level of understanding, significantly
'the same'. 19

At the level of understanding your good and my good are indistinguishable in value. I may be moved to promote my own good
over yours, but my pursuit of my good in preference to yours is
the result of emotion, not of the recognition of intelligible reasons
for action. 20
If Veatch and Rautenberg have mischaracterized the impartialism of the G FB view, however, they have also mischaracterized the impartialism of at least the most historically prominent
versions of utilitarianism. It is instructive to note the similarity
between Finnis's argument for impartialism and Sidgwick's
argument in The Methods of Ethics that philosophical intuitionism leads to the principle of utility. Sidgwick argues that the selfevidence of a principle forbidding arbitrariness provides the
basis for a dialectical argument against the egoist: so long as the
egoist holds that desirable consciousness is good, he or she is
committed to the claim that desirable consciousness is just as
good when instantiated in another as it is when instantiated in
"Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 106-107 (emphasis added).
John Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 46.
20 John Finnis, "Natural
Law and Legal Reasoning," in Natural Law Theory:
Contemporary Essays, ed. Robert George (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 149.
1

19

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61

him- or herself. The egoist would therefore be acting contrary to
reason if he or she were to promote his or her lesser good at the
expense of the greater good of others. 21 Both Finnis and
Sidgwick rely on the following claim: if something is unqualifiedly good, then it must be just as good when instantiated in
person A as it would be when instantiated in person B. Both
Finnis and Sidgwick hold that participation in certain values is
unqualifiedly good: for Finnis, the basic values of life, play,
knowledge, religion, etc. 22 ; for Sidgwick, desirable consciousness. 23 Both suggest that what results from the injunction
against partiality is a requirement to see the world from a God'seye point of view: Finnis likens one who fulfills this requirement
to an "ideal observer,'' 24 whereas Sidgwick likens this impartial
person to one who takes "the point of view ... of the Universe"
in his or her moral judgment. 25 For both Sidgwick and Finnis,
the good is essentially related to its desirability for human persons, but the identity of the person in whom the good is instantiated is irrelevant from the point of view of practical reason. 26
For the moment we may bracket the issue of whether the form
of argument endorsed by Finnis and Sidgwick is persuasive in
order to focus on the issue of whether the absurd consequences
that Veatch and Rautenberg assert to follow from impartialism
do in fact follow from it. The first of the two absurd implications
is that if impartialism is true, then one's reason for holding something to be good and one's reason to promote the good are not
21

Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th edition (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981),

382.
Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 81-90.
Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 395-407.
24 Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 108.
21 Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 382.
'" Sidgwick is not the only utilitarian writer attracted to this strategy. When questioned in correspondence about the dubious proof of the greatest happiness principle
presented in the fourth chapter of Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill's reply seems to be
that his argument was intended to show that if one takes his or her own happiness as a
good, he or she must admit that others' happiness is a good as well, and that the sum of
all of these goods is itself a good. See the Later Letters of John Stuart Mill, vol. 16 of
Collected Works (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 197 2), 1414. For this reference I
am indebted to Alan Ryan's "Introduction" to John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham,
Utilitarianism and Other Essays (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), SO.
22

23

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MARK C. MURPHY

intelligibly connected. For we characterize something as good
because of its capacity to meet a human interest; but on Veatch
and Rautenberg's formulation of impartialism, the reason to
promote the good is simply that we are morally bound to do so.
But given the proper formulation of the GFB impartialism, the
relationship between how something is recognized as a good and
the reasons for promoting or pursuing it is not surd; that relationship is perfectly intelligible. One's reason for recognizing
something as a good is that it conduces to human fulfillment (not
necessarily one's own); one's reason for pursuing or promoting
something that is good is that it conduces to human fulfillment
(once more, not necessarily one's own). Hence the unintelligibility that results from the Veatch-Rautenberg characterization of
impartialism is absent on a proper understanding of the GFB
view.
Neither does impartialism turn a sincere impartialist into a
Buridan's ass for fear of showing partiality.
Veatch and
Rautenberg seem to think that the requirement of impartiality is
a requirement not to show preference for any good over another.
But this is not right; the requirement of impartiality is a requirement not to devalue any instantiation of a good in one's deliberation because of the location of its instantiation. Hence, if one
were a utilitarian impartialist, one could act to realize certain
goods in oneself and not in others if realization of the former
would produce greater good than the realization of the latter. In
so doing, one need not violate the requirement of impartiality by
devaluing the good that could be produced in others; one need
only recognize that the good to be produced in oneself is the
greater good. No arbitrary partiality is displayed in such a case.
Of course, the G FB view rejects the commensurability of instantiations of basic values, but this rejection of commensurability
conjoined with the requirement of impartiality does not lead to
paralysis either. For each of us is in a better position to promote
certain instantiations of basic goods-e.g., those instantiated in
oneself and in those close to one-rather than others. And, further, it must be remembered that action is not without desire:
one's sensible desires toward some instantiations of basic values
rather than others may determine which goods one acts to pro-

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mote, and this can be done without acting contrary to reason,
provided that one does not do so on the belief that instantiations
of basic values in some persons are intrinsically more valuable
than instantiations of basic values in others.
The GFB impartialism neither proceeds from the shoddy reasoning that Veatch and Rautenberg place at its source nor
implies the absurd consequences that Veatch and Rautenberg
impute to it. If advocates of the eudaimonist thesis are to challenge impartialism, then they must produce alternative arguments showing that the GFB impartialism generates unpalatable consequences or that the GFB impartialism rests on a different kind of mistake. I shall take the latter option: I shall argue
that Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle inadequately support the claim
that what is grasped as good by practical reason is participation
in basic values as such and not participation in basic values by
oneself.
Consider once again the comparison between Finnis 's and
Sidgwick 's arguments for impartialism. Both assert that if one
takes the instantiation of a certain value to be good, then one
must in reason admit that an instantiation of that value is just as
good in one person as in another. Yet in spite of the close similarity between these arguments, Finnis and Sidgwick do not
reach a conclusion of the same form. Finnis concludes that partiality is as such unreasonable. Sidgwick concludes that there
are competing principles of practical reason, one of which
declares partiality unreasonable, the other of which declares partiality eminently reasonable. 27 Whence the difference?
The argument which leads from philosophical intuitionism to
the principle of utility only functions, on Sidgwick's view,
against the egoist who accepts that desirable consciousness is
good as such, and not merely that his or her desirable consciousness is good for him or her.
If the Egoist strictly confines himself to stating his conviction that he
ought to take his own happiness or pleasure as his ultimate end, there
seems to be no opening for any line of reasoning to lead him to

27

Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 498.

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MARK C. MURPHY

Universal Hedonism as a first principle; it cannot be proved that the
difference between his own happiness and another's happiness is not
for him all-important. .. When, however, the Egoist puts forward,
implicitly or explicitly, the proposition that his happiness or pleasure is
Good, not only for him but from the point of view of the Universe, ...
then it becomes relevant to point out to him that his happiness cannot
be a more important part of Good, taken un!vcrsally, than the equal
happiness of any other person.zs

One who denies that desirable consciousness as such is good
need not recognize that another's desirable consciousness is as
good as one's own is, or even that it is good at all. Now,
Sidgwick's response on behalf of the egoist is applicable to
Finnis 's argument against partiality in pursuit of the basic values. Finnis's argument for impartialism depends on the truth of
the claim that what practical reason grasps is that participationin-V is good, and not simply that participation-in-V-by-me is
good. Yet, if I understand Veatch and Rautenberg correctly, their
position is that all that is grasped by practical reason is that one's
own participation in basic values is good for him or her; we may
also recognize that another's participation in basic values is good
for that person, but (unless that other is in a special relationship
to us) that recognition is of no practical import. Does the GFB
view have the resources to show that the Veatch-Rautenberg
view is mistaken on this point?
As we have seen, Finnis insists that at the level of understanding one's own participation in basic values and others' participation in basic values is indistinguishable
qua good.
Consider the following analogy. Suppose that you were given
the task of collecting red objects, and that is the only aim you are
pursuing. You collect fire engines, and cherries, and stop signs.
If one day you were to refuse to allow Macintosh apples into
your collection, though, merely because they are apples, we
would find your behavior to be irrationally arbitrary. To refuse
to allow red apples into your collection of red objects merely
because they are apples is to refuse to allow red apples into your
collection for no reason at all; even though it is an apple, it is just
28

Ibid., 420-421.

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65

as red as a cherry, or.a fire engine, or a stop sign, and therefore
should be included in your collection of red objects.
We might think that this imagined case of the arbitrary collector is strictly analogous to the condition of the eudaimonist of
the Veatch-Rautenberg variety. To treat others' participation in
basic valties not as a good is to dismiss it arbitrarily, without any
reason at all; even though your participation in V is not my participation in V, it is just as good as mine is.29 The cases are not
analogous, however. One who holds only that his or her participation in Vis (self-evidently) good is not claiming that another's
participation in V is any less a participation in V than his or her
own participation in V is. Rather, one who holds such a view is
claiming only that the other's participation in Vis not (self-evidently) good. It is arbitrary to include a cherry in a collection of
red objects yet not to include an apple; and it would be arbitrary
to count one's own knowledge as participation-in-knowledge yet
not to count another's knowledge as participation-in-knowledge;
but it is not primafacie arbitrary to count one's own knowledge
as a good yet not to count another's knowledge as a good. On
the eudaimonist view, one need merely hold that the goodness of
an act of participation in a basic value is constituted jointly by
the fact of participation and the fact that it is oneself that is
doing the participating. Of course, one who holds this view can
affirm that knowledge is a human good, a good for all humans.
What he or she means is that my knowing is good for me, your
knowing is good for you, and due to the capacities and potentialities that humans have by nature, for each human his or her
knowing is good for him or her. This is what it means, such a
person would say, for knowledge to be a human good. But it
does not commit one to the view that one ought to be impartial
between his or her own and another's participation in any basic
value.

29 I am not assuming that for the eudaimonist his or her good is never constituted at
least in part by others' good, such as in the case of friendship. When I refer to "others"
I mean it strictly to mean those with whom one is in no special relationship; they are
completely other.

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The impartialist might concede that there is prima facie no
arbitrariness, but might claim that upon closer inspection the
arbitrariness becomes apparent. Derek Parfit describes a hedonist who cares a tremendous amount about his future experiences, with the following exception: he does not concern himself
with pains or pleasures that will beset him on any future
Tuesday. This person has "Future-Tuesday-Indifference." 30 This
is not to say that on Tuesdays this hedonist does not care about
his present pleasures and pains; it is merely to say that when considering future pleasures and pains he treats all of those pleasures and pains that will occur on future Tuesdays with total
indifference. Thus, if this person has a choice between undergoing a severe pain on a future Tuesday and a mild pain on a future
Wednesday, the hedonist will choose the severe pain on Tuesday.
Parfit writes that "This man's pattern of concern is irrational.
Why does he prefer agony on Tuesday to mild pain on any other
day? Simply because the agony will be on a Tuesday. This is no
reason. '"'1
We might think that one who treats one's own participation in
values as good and others' participation not as good is evidently
as irrationally arbitrary as one who has Future-TuesdayIndifference. As we might point out that the pain experienced on
a future Tuesday will be just as painful as the pain experienced
on a future Wednesday, we might point out that another's participation in basic values is just as much participation in basic
values as one's own is. But we are back to where we started.
The eudaimonist should grant that another's participation in
basic values is just as much participation in basic values as his
or her own is. But the difference resides in whether one should
recognize that the other's participation is good.
At this point, the impartialist might ask for an explanation of
why the fact that participation in a value is one's own is sufficient to transform it into an intelligible good. The eudaimonist
·"'Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 124.
11 Ibid.

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should reply, though, that the relevance of the fact that participation in a value is one's own is deep, too deep to be explained
by any other considerations. As Sidgwick writes,
It would be contrary to Common Sense to deny that the distinction
between any one individual and any other is real and fundamental, and
that consequently "I" am concerned with the quality of my existence as
an individual in a sense, fundamentally important, in which I am not
concerned with the quality of the existence of other individuals."

The eudaimonist might ask the impartialist: "Don't you think
that your own good is of special concern to you, and not just
because you are in a better position to promote it? Don't you
think that it has a 'first claim', so to speak, on your efforts?" The
eudaimonist might try to bring the point home by drawing the
following picture. "There is someone on the other side of the
earth with whom you have no contact, with whom you have no
special relationship. There is no doubt that participation-inknowledge is good for this person. But do you think that this
person's participation-in-knowledge is a good in the same way
and with the same practical relevance that your participation-inknowledge is a good?"
These considerations do not, of course, show that impartialism is false. They do show, however, that we cannot at this point
be confident that practical reason self-evidently grasps that participation in basic values is good as such. It may appear that we
are at an impasse. For the conflict here-whether what my practical reason grasps as good is participation-in-V, or participationin-V-by-me-is a conflict concerning the self-evident first principles of practical reason. How can this conflict be resolved?
32 Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 498. The reason why Sidgwick encloses the "I"
in quotation marks seems to be that Sidgwick questioned whether there is any such subsisting individual: "Grant that the Ego is merely a system of coherent phenomena, that
the permanent identical 'I' is not a fact but a fiction, as Hume and his followers maintain; why, then, should one part of the series of feelings into which the Ego is resolved
be concerned with another part of the same series, any more than with any other series?
However, I will not press this question now; since I admit that Common Sense does not
think it worthwhile to supply the individual with reasons for seeking his own interest"
(The Methods of Ethics, 419). Parfit carries out the project of deducing the ethical consequences of a Humean account of personal identity in Reasons and Persons, 199-347.

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II

Decisions regarding what propositions are adopted as the first
principles of a science are not made by simply gathering up the
propositions pertaining to that subject matter that are obviously
true. No substantive science could be produced by starting with
such frail material.'· 1 How, then, can decisions about first principles be made? Such decisions are made by examining the sorts
of deductive schemes that different candidate sets of principles
are capable of generating; only by examining these schemes are
we able to assess the relative merits of different candidate sets of
principles. To assign the status of "first principles" to a candidate set of propositions is to say, then, that of all the competing
theories, there is one that has shown itself to be superior to its
rivals, and this set of propositions is the set of first principles in
that theory.
I take it that it has been shown in the first part of this paper
that the first principles of the impartialist GFB view and the first
principles of the eudaimonist Veatch-Rautenberg position are, so
far, dialectically undefeated; in order to assess the merits of their
rival claims to be first principles of the most defensible natural
law theory, we shall have to examine the theoretical power that
each account possesses. To bring them into contention in this
wholesale manner would be, of course, a massive undertaking. I
propose to spend the rest of this paper considering just one kind
of problem to which both theories would have to provide a solution: that of how one ought to respond to others' good.
Impartialist theories have an easy time explaining why and to
what extent persons are required by reason to respect, foster, and
promote others' good. On this view, self-preference is as such
irrational; to promote one's own good over that of another simply because it is one's own is to act arbitrarily. It does not follow, though, that self-preference can never be justified. For each
of us is in a better position to promote his or her own participation in basic values than anyone else's. Part of the explanation
.i.i See Alasdair Macintyre,
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 17 3.

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for this is the simple truth that we are better able to foster participation in basic goods by those who are close to us, and no one
is closer to us than ourselves. But there is a deeper reason that
justifies some self-preference. Participation in some basic values
is in whole or in part constituted by free choices and voluntary
actions. 34 We might be able to foster a set of conditions in which
others may make these free choices and perform these voluntary
actions, but we could not produce them in others. Self-preference is further justified because in these cases it is necessarily up
to each person to perform those acts whereby each participates
in basic values. 35 As Finnis notes, though, these allowances for
justified self-preference leave the requirement of impartiality
very much in force:
when all allowance is made for [justified self-preference], this [requirement of impartiality] remains a pungent critique of selfishness, special
pleading, double standards, hypocrisy, indifference to the good of others whom one could easily help ('passing by on the other side'), and all
the other manifold forms of egoistic and group bias.1('

A natural law theory that embraces impartialism, then, seems
capable of providing a reasonable arena for self-preference while
placing strict requirements on the respect that must be shown
with regard to others' good.
Veatch and Rautenberg seem to think that a eudaimonist natural law theory would also have little difficulty accounting for
the requirements that we are under with regard to others' good.
[I]f one should try to make a rejoinder [to eudaimonism] ... by asking
whether in an Aristotelian or Thomistic [i.e., a eudaimonist] context
there can be no such thing as a love of neighbor, or no sacrificing of
oneself for the good and well-being of others, the reply is that not only

14 Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle call all those goods constituted (at least in part) by choice
"reflexive": "The instantiations of these goods include the choices by which one acts for
them" ("Practical Principles," 107). These reflexive goods are the goods of practical reasonableness, friendship, and religion (ibid., 108).
.JS Finnis, "Natural Law and Unnatural Acts," 368-369; Natural Law and Natural
Rights, 107-108 .
.Jo Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 107.

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MARK C. MURPHY

is provision made for such a thing as an individual's love of his friends,
but also and more generally a love of neighbor is actually something
morally requisite for each and every human being. Yet this certainly
does not mean that such a love of neighbor for Aquinas is ever to be
construed as an exercise in utilitarian impartiality ... No, for Aquinas,
as for Aristotle, a love of neighbor is to be construed as a love for one's
friend in which one's friend's good is identified with one's own good,
and where to pursue the good of one's friend is to show even a definite
partiality for one's own happiness and well-being, of which the good of
one's friend becomes an integral part. To put it in a nutshell: one's
obligation is to love one's neighbor as oneself! 11

We might read Veatch and Rautenberg's treatment of the problem of others' good as an effort to turn the tables on Grisez,
Finnis, and Boyle, since it is part of the GFB view both that
friendship is one of the basic goods and that it is constitutive of
friendship that the good of one's friend becomes an aspect of
one's own good. In participating in friendship, one necessarily
finds oneself in a situation in which his or her good is bound up
with the good of others: as Finnis writes, "self-love (the desire to
participate fully, oneself, in the basic aspects of human flourishing [including friendship]) requires that one go beyond self-love
(self-interest, self-preference, the imperfect rationality of egoism). " 38
The Veatch-Rautenberg position may be fairly summarized as
this: the way to handle the problem of others' good is, on a eudaimonist account, to make the others somehow less other- that is,
to emphasize the existence of special relationships such as those
of friendship (either directly, or perhaps mediated by God in caritas) or community.'' 1 Now, there is no doubt that on both impar·11 Veatch and Rautenberg,

"Grisez-Finnis-Boyle Moral Philosophy," 820-821.
Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 143.
·' 9 Scott MacDonald also seems to employ this strategy in his "Egoistic Rationalism:
Aquinas's Basis for Christian Morality," in Michael D. Beaty, ed., Christian Theism and
the Problems of Philosophy (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990),
327-354. While affirming that on Aquinas's view the rational agent seeks his or her own
good, MacDonald points out that each person's interests are "not narrowly individualistic. One might hold that by virtue of their possessing intellect human beings have an
interest in a good that includes, perhaps even predominantly, the good of others. Hence,
when human beings seek the good of the family or the city they seek it as part of their
own good" (339). MacDonald holds that altruistic concerns can be explained in these
terms (340).
·' 8

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tialist and eudaimonist natural law theories the requirements of
reason arising from these special relationships have an important
place. But to rely wholly upon them as a way of handling the
problems surrounding others' good is ill-advised, for two related
reasons. First, to rely wholly on contingent unifying relationships to explain one's obligations to respect others' good is to
allow that in the limiting case of the person who does not participate in the good of friendship, for whatever reason (commitment to other basic goods, emotional distaste for friendships,
serious chemical imbalance in the brain), such a person is under
absolutely no requirements with regard to others' good.
Secondly, even for those who participate to a great extent in the
goods of friendship, there are still many who remain completely
other-perhaps the stranger on the roadside who has been set
upon by thieves, or perhaps the stranger on the other side of the
earth whose environment we might contaminate for our own
convenience. With regard to such people, we are under no
requirements, if all requirements to respect others' good derive
from special relationships in which another's good becomes
assimilated to one's own.
The Veatch-Rautenberg response to the problem of others'
good is inadequate, and it might seem that the GFB impartialist
formulation of the first principles of practical reason is preferable on this score. How could one who accepts the eudaimonist
formulation, which takes as its starting point one's own good,
defend a strong requirement to respect others' good?
Consider the following story. Suppose that Joan has a certain
set of dispositions and capabilities that suit her for the game of
chess. She is introduced to the game, she enjoys playing it, she
diverts much of her leisure time to chess-playing. Eventually she
judges that her playing chess, or, as we might say, participationin-chess-by-her, is a good. Since Joan recognizes that the status
of her participation in chess as a good for her is due at least in
part to her being suited to play chess, and her being suited to
play chess is due to her capabilities and dispositions, she recognizes that others of similar disposition and capability who have
not yet been introduced to the game could come to judge that
their playing chess is good for them. This judgment is inert from

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MARK C. MURPHY

the point of view of practical reason, though; Joan does not yet
believe herself to have any reason to respect or to foster their
chess playing.
In participating in the practice of chess, though, Joan comes to
reflect on her relationship to that game. She comes to judge that
the game of chess is a source of value for her, a source of value
toward which she ought to display respect. One way of expressing her respect for the game of chess is to exhibit certain behavior toward others who are capable of or are participating in the
practice of chess. To those who are capable of playing and
enjoying the game, yet have not been introduced to it, she may
give her used chess-board, or teach the rules, or give pointers
about strategy. To those who play the game, she may encourage
their progress, or congratulate on successes and console on losses. There will be a set of actions that she will take to be signs of
disrespect, and thus that she has reasons to refrain from: belittling the game by her words, for example, or interrupting others'
games. Joan comes to believe that in exhibiting this kind of
behavior to those who play the game she would somehow be disrespecting the game of chess, a practice that she ought to respect
given its status as a source of value for her.
Did Joan come to hold false beliefs in this story? Would she
be in any way required to express respect for the game of chess
in such circumstances? I shall argue that in this story certain
sorts of action come to be required of her due to expressive reasons resulting from her relationship to the practice of chess. I
take the notion of an expressive reason from the work of Joseph
Raz, who considers friendship to be a paradigm for the sort of
relationship that can generate reasons for action of this kind.
Consider first two ways that friendship can be cited as a reason
for action. First, one has some amount of goodwill for his or her
friend, and this goodwill may be cited as a reason for acting to
benefit the friend. 40 Secondly, friendships generate expectations
such that it would be wrong to disappoint them, and these expectations are reasons for acting as well. 41 However, Raz wants to
40 Joseph Raz, The Authority of Law: Essays on Law and Morality (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1979), 254.
41 Ibid.

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AND OTHERS' GOOD

73

say that there is another kind of reason that friends have for acting, which he calls "expressive reasons." 42 One has reason to promote the interests of one's friend, but the reasons for doing so are
not exhausted by the goodwill that one has toward him or her.
One has reason to perform other actions which do not benefit the
friend at all; the reason to perform such actions is that they are
symbolic of the relationship that exists between them. These
reasons are expressive reasons, so labelled because "the actions
they require express the relationship or attitude involved." 43 To
employ Raz's example, even if one's friend will not be harmed by
confirming innuendoes that are made about him or her, one's
confirming them would be inappropriate given the relationship
that exists between friends. 44
How might Raz's discussion of expressive reasons support the
rationality of the imagined chess-player? What I suggest is that
in the case of the chess-player, what occurs is that through participating in the practice of chess and becoming committed to it
as a good to be sought one stands in a relationship to that practice which generates expressive reasons for action. The relevant
relationship that generates the expressive reasons is that of being
a source of value for another: the reasons that Joan has to behave
in certain ways toward prospective and actual chess-players
derives from her relationship to a game, a source of value for her.
Even if others' good qua chess-players does not constitute her
good, she has reasons to forbear from hindering their progress,
and perhaps even reasons to foster their participation. The reasons that she has to respect others' participation in the practice
of chess are therefore not welfare reasons, but symbolic reasons.
It might seem that they are welfare reasons, given that by fostering others' participation in chess Joan would be helping them
to secure a good. This appearance is misleading, though. An
expressive reason that is a welfare reason is a reason to act, arising from a special relationship, that requires one to benefit the
party with whom one has a special relationship; a symbolic rea42 Ibid.,

Ibid.
44 Ibid.

43

255.

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MARK C. MURPHY

son is a reason to act, arising from a special relationship, that
requires an action which does not aim at benefiting the party
with whom one is in a special relationship. But the expressive
reason to respect others' participation in the practice of chess
does not arise from the relationship to other chess-players, but
from the relationship to the practice of chess itself; Joan has reason to foster others' participation in chess not primarily under
the description "helping them secure (or not hindering) their
good qua chess-players,'' but primarily under the description
"expressing respect for the practice of chess" and only derivatively under the description "helping them secure (or not hindering) their good qua chess-players." Joan's reason to foster their
participation in the practice of chess is that the action of fostering their participation in that good is expressive of respect for
that practice.
I am going to suggest that a eudaimonist natural law theory
should hold that our reasons for respecting others' participation
in basic values are expressive reasons: as the imagined chessplayer has expressive reasons for action due to the relationship
in which she stands to the game of chess, each of us has expressive reasons to respect others' participation in basic values due
to the relationship in which each of us stands to the basic values.
But this claim faces immediate objections. First, as Raz notes,
the actions that we have expressive reasons to engage in due to
friendship are culturally determined and culturally variant.
Presumably, though, a natural law account of the requirements
that we have with regard to others' good should not depend
wholly on variant cultural factors. Unless it is possible that there
be expressive reasons that are not wholly culturally determined,
expressive reasons cannot serve as part of a natural law theory
of practical reasoning. Secondly, in the case of the practice of
chess, the expressive reasons that were generated were due to a
relationship with chess which Joan voluntarily entered and
which, if she desired, could be terminated. 45 But presumably a
4-' This is not to say that the relationship could be terminated at will, that is, by the
very choice to terminate the relationship. But one could begin a course of action whose
predictable outcome is the severing of one's relationship with the practice of chess.

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AND OTHERS' GOOD

75

natural law account should not be such that the requirements we
have with regard to others' good can be so easily taken up or put
away; indeed, they should not be able to be taken up or put away
at all.
With regard to the first objection, we may grant that Raz is
right to say that many of the actions that one has expressive reasons to perform due to a friendship relationship are culturally
determined. But it is far from clear that all such actions are culturally determined. There may be actions that are naturally
expressive of certain relationships. It is even more plausible, in
fact undeniable, that there are some actions-murder, assault,
rape, torture-that are naturally expressive of a lack of respect
for certain relationships. One who has a friend has an expressive
reason not to murder one's friend, not to assault, rape, or torture
him or her. This is culturally invariant. It might be tempting to
say that one's reason not to harm friends in these ways derives
from the fact that one's friends also happen to be human beings,
all of whom we are required to respect. But this is quite implausible upon a moment's reflection. We realize that there is additional reason not to rape, murder, or torture friends, reasons that
we are most aware of when we confront the particularly horrible
cases in which one friend harms another in these ways. So the
actions that we have expressive reasons to perform are not confined to those that are determined by particular and varying cultural patterns. It is possible, then, for a natural law account of
respect for others' good to employ expressive reasons for action
that are culturally invariant.
Secondly, it is true that the expressive reasons that are generated by the relationship of friendship are the result of voluntary
acts, even if these voluntary acts are not performed with the
intention of generating such reasons. One who does not enter
into such a relationship does not have the relevant expressive
reasons for action. In the case of the basic values in which one
can participate, though, the relationship is not the result of voluntary acts at all. The relationship is a given, if, as I have
assumed, natural law theory is correct to say that all humans are
capable of grasping a variety of basic values as good. Since the
expressive reasons for action result from certain relationships,

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MARK C. MURPHY

and for all persons the relationship to the basic values is a given,
it is possible that all persons necessarily have expressive reasons
for action resulting from their relationship to the basic values.
Although there is nothing essential to expressive reasons for
action that precludes the existence of such reasons that are natural and culturally invariant, we have not yet considered any
positive argument for the existence of expressive reasons that
would require us to respect others' good. Without such an argument, the attempt to provide a defensible eudaimonist account of
how we ought to respond to others' good would have an ad hoc
air about it: it would look like a eudaimonist natural law theory
with the assertion "we ought to express respect for others' good"
tacked onto it. If the requirement to express respect for others'
good is not to be ad hoc, we shall have to connect it to one of the
two foundational features of natural law theory: that there are
certain natural goods and that there are self-evident principles of
practical reasonableness that specify how it is reasonable to
respond to these goods. If we are to provide a well-grounded
account of the expressive reasons to respect others' participation
in basic values, we shall have to root the reason to express
respect for others' good either in one of the basic values or in
some self-evident principle of practical reasonableness.
Let us consider first the possibility that the reason to respect
others' participation in the basic values is rooted in a self-evident
principle of practical reasonableness. Consider the following
distinction: a source of value V is derivative if it is a source of
value in virtue of its being the means by which one may participate in another source of value W; a source of value is fundamental if it is not derivative. If natural law theory is correct,
then the basic values are fundamental sources of value, and the
only fundamental sources of value. Suppose that it is a principle
of practical reasonableness that fundamental sources of value
are to be shown respect. If so, we could argue as follows to the
conclusion that we ought to respect others' good. The basic values are to be shown respect, since the basic values are fundamental sources of value, and fundamental sources of value are to
be shown respect. Not to respect others' participation in the
basic values, though, would be to express disrespect for the basic

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AND OTHERS' GOOD

77

values. Hence, one ought to respect others' participation in the
basic values. The important question, then, is this: is it a principle of practical reasonableness that fundamental sources of
value are to be shown respect?
As we have already noted, the question of the status of a
proposition as a principle is only settled by an examination of the
deductive scheme in which that principle has a place; we can,
though, raise considerations that at least make plausible this
proposition as a principle of reasonable action. For what could
be more worthy of respect than a fundamental source of value?
All things that are worthy of respect are such in virtue of their
being good in some way; given that everything good in the world
is good ultimately in virtue of a fundamental source of value,
does it not seem that fundamental sources of value would themselves be eminently worthy of respect? If it is admitted that such
sources of value must be eminently worthy of respect, does it
seem plausible that there would be a deductive argument connecting the concept "worthy of respect" with the concept "fundamental source of value"? If there is no such argument, yet it
is granted that fundamental sources of value are worthy of
respect, we must hold that the principle in question is a basic
principle of practical reasonableness.
If there were not a reason to express respect for a fundamental source of value, then it would seem that the only explanation
for this state of affairs could be that the source of value is also a
source of disvalue, i.e., the instantiation of that value is intrinsically opposed to another value. But none of the basic values is
intrinsically opposed to another. Sometimes we can participate
in a basic value only at the expense of not participating in others; our time and opportunities in this world are limited. It is
true that we can bring about participation in a basic value sometimes by attacking another: we can attempt to deceive ourselves,
for example, in order to bring about inner peace. But these are
per accidens oppositions between basic values; no participation
in a basic value is in itself an attack on another. Hence we cannot say that the explanation for our not having a reason to
express respect for a fundamental source of value is that it is also
a source of disvalue.

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MARK C. MURPHY

Perhaps, then, we should posit as a principle of practical reasonableness that fundamental sources of value are to be shown
respect in one's actions. Including such a principle within the
framework of a eudaimonist natural law theory would provide
for a fuller account of how we ought to respond to others' good.
If, however, this line of reasoning were rejected-the inclusion of
the principle regarding respect for fundamental sources of value
may still appear ad hoc-then we would be forced to turn to the
basic values to see whether any of them provides a way to
ground the requirement to respect others' good. As we saw earlier, this is the strategy employed by Veatch and Rautenberg:
they attempt to ground respect for others' good in the basic
value of friendship. Unfortunately, their theory would provide a
far too voluntaristic account of what is owed to others. Is there
another basic value that could serve as the basis for a requirement to respect others' good?
Consider the list of basic goods 46 : life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, practical reasonableness, friendship, and religion. The first four of these goods could not conceivably serve:
on a eudaimonist natural law theory, these goods are irretrievably self-centered. One's concern for one's own life, or knowledge, or play, or aesthetic experience, could not reach outward to
embrace others' good, except perhaps instrumentally.
Friendship has been ruled out due to the contingency of friendship and the limited scope of concern that accompanies it. As the
good of practical reasonableness is participated in by adhering to
self-evident practical principles, reliance on that value would
send us back to the task of formulating a self-evident principle
regarding respect for fundamental sources of value. There
remains, then, only one basic good to consider: that of religion.
How could the good of religion, conceived eudaimonistically,
serve as a basis for respecting others' good?
The good of religion is the good concerned with "the estab-

46 I use Finnis's list of basic goods as given in Natural Law and Natural Rights, 86-90.
I take this list to be substantially correct.

NATURAL LAW, IMPARTIALISM, AND OTHERS' GOOD

79

lishment and maintenance of proper relationships between oneself and the divine." 47 For, as Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle write,
most people experience tension with the wider reaches of reality.
Attempts to gain or improve harmony with some more-than-human
source of meaning and value take many forms, depending on people's
world views. Thus, another category of ... good is peace with God, or
the gods, or some nontheistic but more-than-human source of meaning
and value.48

There is a tradition of natural law thought, though, according to
which the variety of goods in which humans can participate are
but so many ways of assimilating oneself to God by becoming
likenesses thereof: as Aquinas writes, all creatures "acquire their
last end insofar as they share in the divine likeness, inasmuch as
they are, or live, or even know." 49 Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle do
not disagree with Aquinas on this point: "every human fulfillment is a participation in the divine goodness."'" This identification of participation in the basic values with participation in
the divine goodness would, however, make possible an account
of respect for others' good grounded in the good of religion
eudaimonistically conceived. On a eudaimonist natural law
view, one aspect of one's good is participation in the basic value
of religion; if one is to achieve one's good, one must be related in
a proper way to the divine. But surely it must be the case that
expression of respect (or at least an absence of expression of disrespect) for the divine is necessary for maintaining a proper relationship to it. It would be an expression of disrespect for the
divine, though, not to respect others' participation in basic values, since participation in the basic values is participation in the
divine goodness. Hence, the actions that one must perform in
order to participate in the basic value of religion would include
actions respecting others' participation in all of the basic val-

Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 89.
Grisez, Boyle, Finnis, "Practical Principles," 108.
49 Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 1, a. 8.
so Grisez, Boyle, Finnis, "Practical Principles," 135

47

48

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MARK C. MURPHY

ues.-11 A concern for one's own good would require a respect for
the overall well-being of others.
In the first part of this paper I argued that impartialist and
eudaimonist readings of the self-evident principles of practical
reason are incompatible yet dialectically undefeated; the second
part of this paper was devoted to examining the responses that
impartialist and eudaimonist natural law theories are capable of
providing to the problem of others' good. Although the impartialist natural law theory defended by Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle
seems to have an easy time dealing with the problem of others'
good, I have argued that there are excellent prospects for a successful eudaimonist solution to this problem. The success of
eudaimonism in this regard should be both welcome and regrettable to defenders of eudaimonist natural law theories. It should
be welcome to them insofar as they are eudaimonists: for eudaimonism presents powerful evidence for its viability by its capacity to handle a problem that would initially appear to be insoluble in its terms. Insofar as the eudaimonist natural law theorist
is a natural law theorist, though, the success of eudaimonism
may be cause for regret. For the ability of eudaimonism to handle the problem of others' good nourishes the spectre that haunted Sidgwick: the possibility that there are two rival sets of first
principles of practical reason, one eudaimonist, one impartialist,
neither of which can be shown superior to the other; this condition Sidgwick rightly took to be "Chaos." 52 If one is committed
to natural law theory, one ought to hope that reasons are forthcoming to prefer one account of the first principles of the natural law to the other, whether the victor be impartialism or eudaimonism.

-' 1 Of course, if this path to a requirement to respect others' good is to be navigable, we
must be capable of possessing sufficient knowledge of God's existence, attributes, and
activity to hold that participations in the basic values are but so many ways of becoming like God. Either we must be capable of such knowledge naturally, or else this sort
of eudaimonistic account of others' good will fail to operate until the necessary data are
supplied by revelation.
-''Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 1st edition (Macmillan, 1874), 473.

LAW AND THOMISTIC EXEMPLARISM
JOHN PETERSON
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, Rhode Island

C

IVIL LAW differs from empirical law in that the former
prescribes regularities in human action while the latter
describes and predicts regularities in the world apart
from human action. By an empirical or descriptive law scientists
mean a law that is knowable on the basis of observed regularities. An example is Boyle's law. That at a constant temperature
the volumes occupied by a constant mass of gas are in inverse
ratio to the pressures they support is an observed regularity. This
law also describes and predicts a regular occurrence in the world
apart from human action. The same is true of Galileo's law that
the acceleration of free fall on Earth is thirty-two feet per second
per second. But the law that citizens ought to pay taxes in proportion to their incomes prescribes a type of action human
beings are obliged to take at regular intervals. A notable difference is that predictability is much lower in the case of civil law
than it is in the case of empirical law. You can infallibly predict
that the inverse ratio of volumes to pressures in a gas will hold
in the next case or that the next free fall will accelerate at thirtytwo feet per second per second. But that your neighbors will pay
their fair share of taxes next year is a risky guess. This is part of
what it means to say that empirical natural laws are in the world
in a way that the laws of society and the state are not. Events,
activities, or relationships in the world do not fail to conform to
laws whereas actions of citizens often fail to conform to the laws
of the state.
From empirical laws scientists distinguish theoretical laws.
These more general laws are usually called theories or hypotheses. Unlike empirical laws, theories are never generalizations
drawn from observations of phenomena. Moreover, theories are
often the explanation of empirical laws. So the latter both enter
81

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JOHN PETERSON

into the explanation of a phenomenon and are for their own part
explained by theories. Empirical laws are thus both explanans
and explanandum as regards phenomena and theories respectively. Thus, Galileo's law of acceleration both enters into the
explanation of the particular event of the free fall of this stone at
thirty-two feet per second per second and is itself partly
by Newton's laws of motion and his law of gravity. 1
But whether or not causal-deductive explanation includes
empirical laws that are themselves explained by theoretical laws,
all such explanation includes both explanandum and explanans.
The former is always some empirical phenomenon. And the latter, as Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim point out, is generally
made up of two parts, a law or laws and statements of fact or
antecedent conditions. 2 In the following schema the first two
lines comprise the explanans and the last line the explanandum.
Thus:
C1, C 2, ... , Cn (statements of conditions)
L 1, L 2, ... Ln (laws)
E (description of phenomenon to be explained) 3

While much causal-deductive explanation in science follows
this pattern, not all of it does. For while the explanans must
include a law, it need not include a statement that is not a law.
For example, Hempel and Oppenheim cite the case in which the
regularities that govern the motion of the double stars are
explained solely in terms of the laws of celestial mechanics. 4 In
any case, whether it is the explanandum of a theory or the
explanans of a particular observed phenomenon, an empirical
law has these three characteristics: first, it is originally based on
observations; second, no term in the statement of it fails to occur
in the observation statements from which (in the order of knowl1 Carl G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, "Studies in the Logic of Explanation,"
in
Janet A. Kourany, ed., Scientific Knowledge: Basic Issues in the Philosophy of Science
(Belmont, Cal.: Wadsworth, 1987), 31.
2 Ibid., 31.
·1 Ibid., 32.
4 Ibid., 31.

LAW AND THOMISTIC EXEMPLARISM

83

edge) it is based; and third, no values of its variable terms are
determined in relation to each other or to the law.-1 Thus, Boyle's
law, Hooke's law, and Snell's law are empirical laws since they
satisfy all three criteria while Newton's second law is not since it
fails to satisfy the third criterion. Force and mass are not independent of each other in the sense specified. 6
But behind the criteria of empirical law and the dual role
empirical law can play in causal-deductive explanation (i.e., as
explanans and explanandum) lies the deeper question: What is
the ontological status of law? On this question turns the philosophical issue of realism vs. anti-realism as regards law. Since
laws are universal in form,7 answers to the question echo the
classical division on universals. There are the nominalist, the
conceptualist, and the realist accounts of the status of empirical
law. More difference than is commonly thought divides the first
two. Much more separates the first two from the last. In what
follows, I distinguish the three views and argue in favor of the
realist view. Then I show that the realist view in turn takes three
forms, i.e., Platonic, Aristotelian, and Thomistic realism. Finally,
I defend the Thomistic analysis. If the defense succeeds, then
empirical law, no less than what in Thomistic ethics is called natural law, is part of the divine eternal law.
I

Given our datum that empirical law is part of the world in a
way that civil law is not, how can nominalist scientists retain the
datum? If laws are both universal and part of the world and if
nominalists deny universals altogether, then nominalist scientists
deny that empirical laws are in the world. But if they are not in
the world at all, empirical laws are not in the world in the way
that civil law is not. And then no account of the datum in question is given.
5 C. F. Presley, "Laws

and Theories in the Physical Sciences," in Arthur C. Danto and
Sidney Morgenbesser, eds., Philosophy of Science (New York: Meridian, 1960), 208.
6 Presley, 208.
7 The form of a statistical law, of course, is not universal but particular. But just for
that reason statistical laws are laws in a derived sense of "law."

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JOHN PETERSON

N ominalist scientists respond by denying that empirical laws
are real universals. Logical empiricists make up the most celebrated members of this group. They include Carnap, Hempel,
and Reichenbach. For them, an empirical law is not a universal
thing but a true universal statement that is used to explain and
predict things. 8 Recall that in the foregoing schema of Hempel
and Oppenheim's an empirical law Lis one of the statements in
the explanans that is used to explain the empirical phenomenon
described by E, the explanandum. Under this view, a law is no
occult universal entity that lurks behind and explains a regularity or string of similar occurrences. Thus, to say that the rate of
acceleration of a particular falling apple is an instance of the
general law of acceleration is not to say that the falling apple,
something ordinary, exemplifies a transcendent universal, something extra-ordinary. It is rather to say that the falling apple
behaves like every other observed case of a falling body. And
since this regularity is predictable in a future case in a way that
taxpayers' conformity to tax laws is not, the datum in question is
retained without counting laws as real universals.
Conceptualist scientists are different. They classify the laws
of science not as true universal statements but as true universal
judgments. Here, "judgment" refers to a mental entity and not,
like "statement,'' to a linguistic entity. Recall that conceptualists
of all stripes hold that universals exist only in minds. That is
what separates them from nominalists, for whom universals lack
even mental existence. Recall too that all conceptualists deny
that there is anything common in real things as the basis for the
universality of concepts. That is what separates them from realists.
Thus defined, conceptualists break up into two kinds, empirical and a priori. The difference between them mirrors the difference between Locke and Kant on universals. According to
empirical conceptualists, all universals, including empirical
laws, are derivedfrom sense data. But in the view of a priori con8 Hempel and Oppenheim, "Studies in the Logic of Explanation,"
38-39. See also
Rudolf Carnap, "The Confirmation of Laws and Theories," in Scientific Knowledge,

122.

LAW AND THOMISTIC EXEMPLARISM

85

ceptualists, at least some universals, empirical laws included, are
imposed by science on sense data. The latter view originated
with Kant. For Kant, the only reason Galileo's law of free fall
acceleration is called "empirical" is that it applies to sense data.
It is not called "empirical" because it is derivedfrom sense data.
Thus, while for empirical conceptualists like Locke all universals are a posteriori, for constructionist (a priori) conceptualists
like Kant some universals, empirical laws included, are a priori.
Like nominalists, both kinds of conceptualists deny that universals are real entities. But, unlike nominalists, both types of conceptualists affirm that universals exist in mente.
Empirical conceptualists, just like nominalists, provide an
explanation for the datum that empirical laws are in the world in
a way that civil law is not. The difference is that for them empirical laws are universal judgments rather than universal statements. Ernst Mach, for example, claims to be in close agreement
with Karl Pearson in holding that laws of nature are "mental formulas. " 9 They are "the consequence of our psychological need to
find our way in nature" and "nothing but subjective rules for the
guidance of an observer's expectations." 10 These mental formulas or judgments do not here refer to acts of judging (otherwise,
these conceptualists would succumb to psychologism). But neither do they refer to the object judged, where by "object" is
meant some mind-independent entity (otherwise, since for conceptualists laws are universal judgments, laws would be real universals; and then on the matter of the status of law conceptualists would be realists and not conceptualists). Rather, mental formulae or judgments here refer to objects judged, where "objects"
refers to mind-made universals.
By contrast, a priori conceptualists satisfy the datum in question very differently. Though they agree that empirical laws are
universal judgments, in the sense of "judgment" just specified,
they deny that these laws are based on observed regularities. It
Ernst Mach, "The Significance and Purpose of Natural Laws," in Philosophy of
Science, 267.
' 0 Mach, 270, 273.
9

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JOHN PETERSON

is just the other way around. The regularities are determined by
the laws. For the regularities in nature themselves require explanation and the explanation is in terms of a priori laws. The regularities are thus not ultimate and irreducible but require a universal behind them. It is due to universal laws that there are regularities among particular events in nature; it is not due to regularities among particular events in nature that there are universal laws. Karl Popper, for instance, says that instead of sitting
back passively and waiting for repetitions to impress regularities
on them, scientists actively impose regularities on the world. "We
try to discover similarities in it, and to interpret it in terms of
laws invented by us." 11 And speaking more of scientific paradigms than of the laws of nature that enter into them, Thomas
Kuhn remarks that, with the exception of anomalies, all phenomena have a "theory-determined place" in any paradigm. 12
This means that it is theory that determines phenomena in any
given theory (paradigm) and not the other way around. That is
part of what he means by "the priority of paradigms." According
to Kuhn, this priority of paradigms to phenomena is indicated by
the circularity in which each side of a paradigm debate is implicated. When in the history of science a debate over paradigms
breaks out, each side must appeal to its paradigm in arguing in
behalf of its paradigm.1.1 This is because any phenomena to
which a paradigm-defender may appeal as proof are already
determined by the paradigm.
Under constructionism, therefore, science finds regularities in
nature because it is science that puts them there. This it does by
imposing on sense data structures or laws to which those data
must conform if phenomena are to be made intelligible.
Empirical laws are just the way scientists make sense of the
world. They are part of the world in a way that civil law is not
because science makes them part of the world in order to explain
the world. And by "world" here, of course, is meant not world as
Karl Popper, "Science: Conjectures and Refutations," in Scientific Knowledge, 148.
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of
Chicago, 1970), 97.
13 Kuhn, 94-95.
11

12

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87

it is in itself but world as explained by science. And so we find
Karl Popper applauding the Kantian characterization of science
as an inquiry that proceeds from theory to observation instead of
from observation to theory. The understanding does not derive
its laws from nature but imposes its own laws on nature. 14 The
only difference is that for Popper these laws are pragmatic and
relative whereas in Kant they are fixed and absolute. As anomalies crop up that under existing laws and the paradigm of which
they are a part are either awkwardly or inadequately explained,
a paradigm change takes place and different laws are conceived
that prove to be more serviceable. This is the transcendental
turn, with a pragmatic slant, as applied to science.
As against these anti-realist assays of empirical laws, realist
analyses hold that such laws are real universals. Under this view,
either the general law of acceleration, say, is found exemplified in
each and every instance of a falling body or else it subsists independently and timelessly, separated from the individual falling
bodies that mirror it. The former is moderate realism and the latter is extreme or Platonic realism. Moderate realism, in turn,
may take two forms. First, universal empirical laws like the law
of acceleration are found both temporally in individual falling
bodies as well as in our minds and eternally in the mind of the
Creator. This is scholastic realism. 15 Second, such laws are found
in individual falling bodies only. And this is Aristotelian realism.
What is common to all three realisms is the belief that empirical
laws are both universal and independent of human beings. In
this realists are separated from all anti-realists be they nominalists or either empirical or a priori conceptualists.
II
It turns out, however, that five of the foregoing six analyses of

empirical law are wrong. Four of them fail to meet the conditions
Popper, "Science: Conjectures and Refutations," 150.
realism, of course, predates the concept of empirical law in science. But
had they known about such laws of nature, scholastic realists would have construed
them in this way.
14

15 Scholastic

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necessary for saying that any instance of an empirical law conforms to that law. And the fifth fails for other reasons.
To see this, it must be pointed out at the start that any law
must be such that it is capable of being conformed to. Otherwise
it is not a law. This is true of empirical laws, theoretical laws,
mathematical laws, socio-economic laws, international laws, or
laws of the city, state, or community. Suppose a person R recognizes that the following is a law: At constant temperatures the
volumes occupied by a constant mass of gas are in inverse ratio
to the pressures they support. But suppose that at the same time
R denies that the law in question (Boyle's law) is ever capable of
being conformed to. We should say in that case that R simply
misunderstands what is meant by "law." For whatever else it is,
a law is something that can be conformed to. The case is no different with civil law. Suppose Congress passes a law directing
each American to send sixteen ounces of gold every Tuesday to
Fort Knox. Such a "law" even falls short of being an unjust law
since it is no law at all. And it is no law at all because it cannot
possibly be conformed to.
Supposing, then, that any and every law can be conformed to,
what are the conditions of that conformability and how do four
of the six possibilities just reviewed fail to meet those conditions?
To answer, if one thing conforms to another the second is
always the standard or measure of the first. We say that A's
polite actions conform to the rules of etiquette, that B's dress
conforms to the current style, that C's actions on a soccer field
conform to the rules of soccer, that D's acts conform to the moral
law, that a nation's naval actions conform to international law,
that certain events conform to Boyle's law, and so on. In these as
in all other cases of conformity what is conformed to is the standard or measure of what conforms to it. But, quite generally, if
one thing is the standard or measure of another, then the former
is both logically prior to and explains the latter. In the foregoing
examples, a code of etiquette is logically prior to and explains a
person's polite actions, a certain dress code is logically prior to
and explains the mode of a person's dress, a set of game rules is
logically prior to and explains the actions of a soccer player on
the field, and so on. Since, therefore, law is that to which other

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things conform, law is always logically prior to and hence
explains that of which it is the law.
Further, to say that one thing conforms to another is to say
that the two terms in this relation, the standard conformed to
and that which conforms to it, have something in common.
Conformity, in other words, is an identity-in-difference. To recur
again to our examples, it is the very same rule of etiquette and
not just something like it that exists particularly in A's act and
universally in the minds of all or most members of the society to
which A belongs. Otherwise, act and rule would not jibe and it
would be falsely said that A's act conforms to the rule. And it is
one and the same dress style and not merely a similar one that is
found both particularly in B's actual dress and universally in the
mind of the designer who creates the style. Otherwise, it would
be false that B's dress conforms to the current style. Clothing
that resembles but does not exemplify the going style is shunned
by modish teen-agers. They see that, appearances aside, it does
not really conform to the prevailing style.
Taken together with the logical priority of law to that of
which it is the law, this identity-in-difference of the law-relation
implies further that law is both transcendent and immanent. It
both stands above its instances and is present in them. To see
this, note first that the law-relation is a two-term asymmetrical
relation. Since things conform to law and not the other way
around, law is logically prior to the things that conform to it.
Second, since things conform to and do not just resemble law, an
identity holds between the two terms. Since the terms are two
and not one, it is a formal and not a numerical identity. For it is
one and the same law that exists both universally as measure and
particularly in that which is measured. In a state such as our
own, for example, a law of Congress transcends the citizens
whose actions follow that law. Yet, to the extent that citizens follow the law, it is the law itself, and not just something similar to
it, that is present in their lawful actions. The same is true of the
laws or rules of etiquette in a society. American etiquette exists
in the minds of Americans. As such it transcends and guides our
actions. But it is the very same etiquette, and not just one that
resembles it, that is present in our everyday polite actions. And

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in matters of dress, the latest dress style in the minds of Paris
designers transcends the individual dress of the style-conscious
majority. But it is the very same pattern, and not some close facsimile, that is exemplified in the way fashionable persons are
actually dressed.
Nor is there any contradiction in saying that law is for the reasons just given both transcendent and immanent. Being transcendent and being immanent do not here refer to opposed characters of the same thing. They refer to two opposed ways in
which a character exists. They are thus adverbial and not adjectival. Saying that law is both transcendent and immanent is like
saying that whiteness is both in minds and in reality. As being in
mind and being in reality are two ways in which whiteness
exists, so, too, being transcendent and being immanent are two
ways in which law exists.

III
If law is both universal and the measure of conformity, it fol-

lows that both nominalist and empirical conceptualist assays of
empirical law go astray. For under these views, no empirical law
ever logically precedes any one of its instances. Recall that for
nominalists laws are true statements in universal form. But
while true universal statements serve as premises for concluding
statements in arguments, no true statement ever logically precedes a fact. It is just the other way around. Facts are logically
prior to the truth of statements. It is because grass is green that
the statement "Grass is green" is true and not vice versa. But
while statements of instances of laws are surely made, and, if
Hempel and Oppenheim are right, serve as explananda in
causal-deductive explanation, the instances themselves are not
statements but facts. And, as Hempel and Oppenheim themselves recognize, it is these instances, of course, that are
explained by laws. 16 Either, therefore, laws are not true universal
statements or else no law logically precedes its instances. But if
16

Hempel and Oppenheim, "Studies in the Logic of Explanation," 31.

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no law is logically prior to its instances then no law explains its
instances. For a cause is logically prior to its effect. It follows
that to the extent that they identify laws with true universal
statements, nominalists prevent laws from explaining their
instances. But, then, since a law's explaining its instances is a
condition of saying that the latter conform to the law, no nominalist covers the conformity-relation in which law consists.
The same criticism works against the empirical conceptualist 's view of law. Under that analysis, empirical laws are true
universal judgments rather than true universal statements. But
true judgments no more logically precede facts than do true
statements. Once again, it is the other way around. It is because
grass is green that the judgment "Grass is green" is true and not
vice versa. But laws are logically prior to their instances and the
latter are facts and not judgments. So it follows once more that
either laws are not true universal judgments or else laws do not
logically precede their instances. But without being logically
prior to its instances no law explains its instances. Just so far as
they count laws as being true universal judgments, therefore,
empirical conceptualists follow nominalists in preventing laws
from explaining their instances. But, then, since explaining its
instances is a necessary condition of saying that a law is conformed to by its instances, empirical conceptualists join nominalists in failing to explain the conformity-relation in which law
consists.
But nominalists and empirical conceptualists may answer
that the objection rests on a simple misstatement of their view. It
is not law statements or law judgments in the explanans that
explain the instances or facts described by the explananda. It is
rather the laws that are expressed by those statements or judgments. And those laws are identified by nominalists and empirical conceptualists alike with observed regularities in nature.
Thus, Galileo's law of acceleration is identified with the aggregate of those events in which the free fall of a body has been
observed to accelerate at thirty-two feet per second per second.
This clarification of the nominalist and empirical conceptualist account of law evidently escapes the objection in question.
True statements or judgments are not under that assay made log-

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ically prior to facts since to begin with no nominalist or empirical conceptualist ever does identify laws with either statements
or judgments. And then an obstacle is cleared to construing laws
as explaining their instances. For causes are logically prior to
their effects. Thus, a given instance of Galileo's law, a fact, is
explained not by a statement or judgment but by other facts,
namely, the collection of past cases of free falling bodies that
have been observed to accelerate at thirty-two feet per second
per second. And it is this latter regularity that is identified with
an empirical law.
But identifying laws with observed regularities instead of
with the statements or judgments that express those regularities
blocks explanation on another front. For causal explanation not
only forbids that law be logically posterior to instance but also
that law be particular. For law by definition is universal. But
according to nominalists and empirical conceptualists, all that is
real-observed regularities included-is purely particular.
Therefore, substituting observed regularities in the world for
universal statements or judgments reaps nominalists and empirical conceptualists no advantage in answering the objection that
the identification of laws with the latter fails to cover the explanation of facts by law. The fact of the matter is that nominalists
and conceptual empiricists succumb to a perfect dilemma.
According to them, laws are either true universal statements or
judgments or the regularities in the world that are recorded by
those statements or judgments. If the former, the universality of
law is satisfied at the cost of surrendering the logical priority of
law to instance. For true statements and judgments are conditioned by and not the conditions of facts, as was said. But if the
latter, the logical priority of law is uncontradicted at the cost of
spiking the universality of law. In either case causal explanation
is ruined. For causal explanation consists in the instance-law
relation and the latter is both a relation of conditioned to condition, of the logically posterior to the logically prior, and a relation
of particular to universal.
To resolve the dilemma, it might be answered that law, or that
which explains some present or future instance, is not necessarily universal. For we say that knowledge of a past regularity

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explains why we believe that a similar present or future instance
conforms or will conform to that regularity. And yet the regularity is not a universal but an aggregate of particular similar
events. If a present event e is similar in some respects to a large
number of past events, then I expect e to be similar to those
events in another respect. I expect the ball I hold to fall when I
release it because so many other balls have done so in the past.
Here the evident counter-reply is that this is not explanation
but justification. Causes are not reasons and explanation is
always a matter of citing causes for facts. It is not a matter of giving reasons for believing propositions. If with regard to my
believing that the ball I release will fall one is concerned with not
the mere psychological fact of the belief but my grounds for
holding it, then citing a past regularity between released balls
and falling balls is relevant. For here it is not asked what the
cause or explanation of the belief is but what the reasons are for
holding it. But if with regard to that same belief it is just the psychological fact of the belief with which one is concerned and not
my reasons for believing what the belief states, then citing the
same past regularity is not relevant. For here it is not asked what
the reasons are for holding the belief but what is the cause or
explanation is of the fact of the belief. And the answer is had only
by recourse to what is universal.
Moreover, in the example cited each member of the past
observed regularity must itself have been explained by the same
law by which the present falling ball is explained. But if laws are
past observed regularities, then the law governing those members must be identified with a prior regularity. Furthermore,
since the members of that regularity are also instances of falling
balls, then they too must have themselves been explained by the
same law by which both the more immediate past falling balls
and the present falling ball are explained. But, once again, if
laws are past observed regularities, then the law governing the
members of this more distant past observed regularity must be
identified with a still further observed regularity in the more distant past, and so on, ad infinitum.
Now the trouble with this identification of laws with past
observed regularities is not just that it implies this infinite

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regress of laws. It is also that it fails to cover the fact that a present, a past, and a more remotely past instance of a law are
explained by the same law. Since, in the example, it is a different
aggregate of past observed regularities each time that is the law
of a present, a past, and a more remotely past instance of a
falling ball, it is, if laws are identified with these regularities, a
different law each time that explains these instances. And this is
counterintuitive.
Finally, identifying laws with past regularities prevents laws
from being logically prior to or the conditions of their instances.
An aggregate of past observed cases of bodies accelerating at
thirty-two feet per second per second is nothing but the sum of
its members, all of which are individual instances of bodies that
have accelerated at that rate. But since in each case their free fall
must have been explained, their free fall is hardly the explanation of the free fall of a present instance. If a law L is identified
with a given series of past events similar to a present event e,
then Lis not logically but only temporally prior toe. But since
any law is logically prior to that of which it is the law, then L is
not the law of e. Not only that, but if L is comprised of past
events which, of course, no longer are, then L no longer is. But if
L is not, how is it sensibly said that e, a present event, is an
instance of L, something non-existent? It seems, therefore, that
when law is not universal but a series of past observed regularities, explanation of events by law is no explanation at all.
And so it can be said that the foregoing dilemma holds after
all. In their assay of law nominalists and empirical conceptualists are caught between relinquishing the logical priority of law
to instance and denying the universality of law. But, in either
case, the fact and possibility of explaining facts in the world in
terms of empirical laws are lost. And then, as accounts of law, it
follows that both nominalism and empirical conceptualism are
defeated.

IV
The conformity-relation that is entailed by one thing's being
the law of another also defeats both Platonic and Aristotelian
realism as regards empirical law. Here, however, the argument

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turns not on the logical priority of what is conformed to to what
conforms to it but on the formal identity of the two, on the fact
that the two have something in common. When a given instance
of a law L conforms to L, it is the very same law that exists universally in L as measure and individually in the instance as measured, as was stated. Otherwise, it is falsely said that the latter
conforms to the former. For, to repeat, all conformity is an identity-in-difference. But it was just shown that this identity-in-difference in turn implies that in the law-relation law is transcendent on one side of the relation and immanent on the other. The
trouble is that Platonic realism provides for the transcendence of
law at the cost of denying the immanence of law, while
Aristotelian realism provides for the immanence of law at the
cost of surrendering the transcendence of law.
To explain, take again Galileo's law of free fall. There is no
problem as to how such a law is transcendent under a Platonist
view of universals. For, according to Platonists, laws like this
subsist in a timeless heaven separately from their exemplifications. But there is a problem about how such a law can ever be
immanent. For, under Platonism, not universals themselves but
only copies or reflections of universals are found in nature. If,
therefore, immanence as well as transcendence characterize any
law and a Platonist assay of empirical law covers the latter at the
expense of the former, then such an assay of empirical law comes
up short. As for an Aristotelian realist account of empirical law,
this suffers from the very opposite deficiency. Empirical laws
like Galileo's law of acceleration are immanent in individual
accelerating bodies but are in no sense transcendent according to
that analysis. They neither exist separately in Plato's heaven nor
do they exist eternally as divine exemplars in the mind of acreator-God who makes the world after them. True, Galileo's law
under this type of moderate realism exists universally in our
minds as abstracted from its instances in nature. To that extent,
it, as well as all known empirical laws, can be said to "transcend"
their particular instances in nature. But this is a different sense
of "transcend" from that which is meant when it is said that law
transcends its instances. For the latter sense of "transcend"
entails that what law transcends conforms to law and hence both

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logically follows and is explained by law. But it is just the other
way around with empirical laws when they exist universally in
our minds as abstracted from their particular instances. In such
a state, these laws conform to and hence both logically follow
and are explained by the particular lawful events from which
they are abstracted. So in the relevant sense of "transcendent,"
no empirical law under this Aristotelian account ever is transcendent. But, if not, Aristotelian realism as regards empirical
law fails for the reason opposite to that for which a Platonist
assay of empirical law fails. As the latter fails to provide for the
immanence of law, the former fails to provide for the transcendence of law. But providing for both dimensions of law is necessary to any adequate view of empirical law, since, as was said,
both transcendence and immanence are entailed by the relation
of conformity in which law consists.

v
That leaves just two possibilities, namely, a priori conceptualism and Thomistic realism. These hold an advantage over the
foregoing four accounts in that they cover the conformity
between law and its instances and all that is implied by that conformity. Under a priori conceptualism, empirical laws are interpretations scientists give to the world. They are not abstracted
from the world but are imposed by scientists on the world. They
are thus a priori and not a posteriori. But such laws are evidently not a priori in the sense of being "innate" forms of human
understanding like the categories of Kant. Otherwise, human
beings would always and necessarily interpret the world in terms
of, say, Galileo's laws. But this was evidently not true before
Galileo. Instead, Galileo's as well as all other empirical laws are,
in the age in which they occur, the unique creation of a few outstanding scientists of that age. Nor are they written in stone.
Since they are nothing but convenient ways of explaining and
predicting phenomena, these same empirical laws are pragmatic
and relative. They may be modified at any time or even outright
abandoned in favor of other, more serviceable laws. They thus

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follow the more relative a priori of philosophers like C. I. Lewis
and Karl Popper rather than the absolute a priori of Kant.
This pragmatic constructionism implies that empirical law is
much closer to civil law than is first thought. For like civil law,
empirical law is on this analysis made and not discovered by reason. The product of creative imagination, it depends on mind to
exist. And just like civil law, it is, to repeat, imposed on and not
abstracted from phenomena. The only differences are: (1) while
civil law governs the voluntary behavior of humans, empirical
law governs non-voluntary activities and events, human or otherwise; and (2) while a future event in the case of a empirical law
is predictable, no one reliably predicts that a civil law will be
obeyed in the next instance.
The strength of this pragmatic a priori approach to empirical
law is that it does provide an explanation for the conformityrelation in which law consists. That is the advantage this
realism has over the two realisms that were just reviewed. Under
this a priori conceptualism, empirical law is logically prior to its
instances, is the measure or standard of its instances, and shares
something with its instances. Thus it explains all three features
of the law-relation that we saw are implied by the conformityrelation. Here, law is logically prior to its instances because the
latter are explained by the former and not the other way around.
As in Kant, object conforms to concept and not concept to
object. And this is because object or phenomenon is interpreted
and organized in terms of a creative, a priori pattern or law in
the mind of the gifted scientist. Thus the law in question is, as it
by definition must be, the standard or measure of the phenomena it explains. Here, too, law as stated or thought (i.e., law as
transcendent) and what conforms to law (i.e., law as immanent)
have a common pattern. And this is something that, as was previously shown, is also implied by the conformity-relation. Under
this same constructionist view, what conform to law are not
activities or events as they are in themselves apart from being
construed by the minds of physicists. Rather, they are occurrences that, just because they do conform to preconceived laws,
necessarily bear the stamp of that law. And so the construction-

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ist view of law covers the identity-in-difference that characterizes the law-relation.
To this transcendental view of empirical law it may at first be
objected that it implies skepticism. Since empirical laws apply to
things as structured by science, empirical laws are never known
to be true. For it is never known that such laws apply to things
in themselves. Behind this objection, though, is an assumption
that every constructionist denies. And so no constructionist takes
the objection seriously. That assumption is that truth is the conformity of statement to reality. But if instead truth is defined as
the conformity of statement to appearance (i.e., reality as structured by science), the objection of skepticism fails. Since according to constructionists appearance is known and since a stated
empirical law is true just when it conforms to appearance, it cannot be alleged that under constructionism statements of empirical laws are not known to be true.
One might counter, however, by arguing that, though this
redefinition of truth escapes skepticism as regards empirical
laws, it implies skepticism as regards reality. In the view of constructionists, since the laws conformed to by phenomena are the
products of human minds, it is human beings who make the
world. It is the creative scientists or philosophers in any given
time, i.e., the Galileos, the Newtons, the Einsteins, who for that
time make the world what it is both for themselves and for others. But the trouble with this is that it resurrects the unknowable
thing-in-itself. If empirical laws are imposed a priori on the
given, then what is delivered up by this imposition is, to repeat,
and not reality as it is in itself.
reality-as-structured-by-science
The ability of physics to disclose reality as it is in itself-or at
least the possibility of our ever knowing or saying that physics
discloses the nature of reality as it is in itself-is excluded. Since
interpretation is necessarily interpretation of something, it cannot be said that all there is is interpretation. Behind interpretation is something that is being interpreted and about the nature
of that hidden something or Ding an sick nothing at all is known.
But, with Kant, many find this principal skepticism about
ultimate reality innocuous. So long as phenomena are conveniently organized, managed, and predicted by law, why lose any

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sleep over noumena? Besides, to insist that ultimate reality is
known for what it is in itself is to hark back to a pre-Kantian,
dogmatic metaphysics and this has long since been repudiated.
Still, for anyone who takes the transcendental turn in philosophy
or science, the unknown thing-in-itself sticks out. For one need
only recall Fichte's point that to acknowledge that there is an
unknown thing-in-itself is to claim knowledge about it, namely,
that it is unknown. And then a contradiction lies coiled in the
heart of the constructionist's program of distinguishing mindstructured phenomena from ultimate noumena.
This is not the only trouble, however. Because under constructionism laws are not abstracted from objects but are rather
imposed by mind on objects, what is meant by calling a stated
empirical law "true" is not that it corresponds to reality. Rather,
such a law statement is called "true" because it conforms to
appearance. This appearance is determined by the reigning paradigm. That means that, if there is a paradigm change in the
near future, the same law statement may then turn out to be
false. This is Kant's "Copernican revolution" with a pragmatic
twist. Thus, while true statements still consist in correspondence, the measure of the correspondence is no longer mindindependent reality but man-made appearance. Truth thus
varies with and is relative to the prevailing paradigm and that is
all there is to truth.
Now the peculiarity of this pragmatic a priorism is that it
installs a dogmatism in science that rivals religious dogmatisms
of old. Persons cannot conduct independent research to see if the
laws are true. Or at least any such research is ruled out of order
from the start. For since these same laws are already true in the
only sense "true" has under this view, namely, "corresponds to
the received paradigm," the research is illicit. Not only that, but
it is the received paradigm that determines in the first place the
nature, scope, and limits of all research. But from this it follows
that any such thing as independent research-research that
seeks out the raw facts of nature uninterpreted by any preconceived model or paradigm-is meaningless. All research is necessarily "in-house" research and hence all research confirms the
paradigm that directs it.

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Nor does this self-serving dogmatism of scientific constructionism go unnoticed. For example, though he concedes that the
preconception and resistance to innovation that comprise this
dogmatism "could very easily choke off scientific progress,"
Thomas Kuhn nonetheless defends the dogmatism. It is, he says
in effect, the price one pays for the vitality of research. ' 7 How
research gains genuine vitality when it can choke off scientific
progress is neither made clear nor is it easy to see.
Second, a closely related objection to pragmatic constructionism is that it countenances the possibility that two opposed
physics are simultaneously true. Suppose two rival physics, each
with its own laws and each espoused by a different community
of researchers, emerge. Then, since both physics conform to reality as structured by a community of scientists, both physics are
true at the very same time.
To this objection, however, constructionists have an easy
answer. For they would insist that only the physics that wins out
is true. This is another way of saying that truth is defined not as
the conformity of a stated law to how a community of scientists
construes reality but rather to how the community of scientists
construes reality. Thus, as long as the rivalry continues, so far
from it being the case that both physics are true, neither one is
true. But this evades the contradiction at the cost of denying
that, in any contest of opinion, those on the winning side ever
justifiably prefer their view to that of the losing side because it is
true. This is because, in any such conflict, the view that wins out
does not win out because it is true but is rather true because it
wins out. And equally disconcerting, this same escape implies
that what all or a majority of researchers believe cannot possibly
be false; that a consensus of opinion in science is ipso facto the
true opinion in science. As Kuhn freely admits, the matter of paradigm choice in science is the same as it is in political revolutions. In either case, "there is no standard higher than the assent
of the relevant community.'" 8
Thomas S. Kuhn, "The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research," in Scientific
Knowledge, 254.
18 Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 94.
17

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101

This is not only startling in itself but it implies a stinging
irony. If in natural science truth is wholly relative to received
opinion, then, to escape arbitrariness, constructionists must say
that truth in any discipline whatever is relative to what happens
to be believed in that discipline. And this is a philosophical and
not a scientific belief. It is the philosophical tenet that consensus
is always and everywhere the measure of truth. But the fact of
the matter is that this same wider or philosophical conventionalism is not believed by a majority of philosophers. But, then, by
the constructionist's own criterion of truth, it follows that this
same philosophical conventionalism-which is required by the
constructionist to save his own scientific conventionalism from
arbitrariness-is false. Therefore, the constructionist assay of
empirical law is either arbitrary or self-defeating.

VI
Nevertheless, constructionism holds a clear advantage over
the four other possibilities that have so far been reviewed. For it
provides an explanation, as they do not, for the conformity-relation in which law consists. And this is another way of saying that
it accounts for, as they do not, both the transcendence and the
immanence of law. And so the question is, without sacrificing
that advantage, is it possible to identify a sixth account of empirical law that escapes the three pitfalls of constructionism? This
would be a view that not only sidesteps the dilemma of being
either arbitrary or self-defeating but that also avoids both the
dogmatism and the Ding an sich of paradigms.
The answer to this question is that there is at least one such
possibility and that is the account of empirical law that would
have been given by scholastic realists of the Middle Ages. It combines the best of both realism and anti-realism in law, while leaving behind the deficiencies of each.
Consider, for example, how the account of law given by a
scholastic realist like St. Thomas Aquinas achieves this synthesis. All law, says Aquinas, is in its primary sense located in mind

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JOHN PETERSON

as a rule or measure of activity. 1'' That means that law is something that can be conformed to by activity, human or otherwise.
And right here one finds in Aquinas the fundamental identification of the law-relation with a conformity-relation. True, the
activity Aquinas here refers to is activity that directs a thing to
its end. But bracketing the question of teleology, one can still say
that, for Aquinas, to the extent that things, persons, or events follow laws, they conform to those laws. Nor is Aquinas unaware
of the fact that this conformity implies the immanence as well as
the transcendence of law. Activities that conform to a law are not
just copies or images of the law as the reflection of a tree in a
pond is the copy or image of the tree. Rather, the law is really
present in the conforming activities. Otherwise, they would not
be really lawful activities any more than the image of the tree in
the pond is really a tree. And then they would falsely be said to
conform to law just as dress that simulates, but falls short of
exemplifying, the current style is falsely said to conform to that
style. And so we find Aquinas insisting that, though law is properly and primarily found in the mind of a lawgiver, it is also
properly, if secondarily, found in its concrete instances in the
world.' 0 Law is thus both transcendent and immanent. And both
features of law are entailed by law being at once a rule of reason
with respect to something else and a relation of conformity. As
regards the latter, if any law L is a rule of reason with respect to
some event e that conforms to L, then L is on a higher level than
e, or in other words, L transcends e. For being a rule or measure
of reason with respect to e, L is both logically prior to e and at
the same time external toe, just as any one term in a dyadic relation is external to the other. Thus, since L is at once logically
prior to and external to e, it can be said that L transcends e.
So far, there is nothing to choose between this Thomistic assay
of law, and hence of empirical law, and the pragmatic a priori
account of law that was just reviewed. Both analyses cover the
fact that the law-relation is an identity-in-difference, that, as a
'''Summa Theologiae I, q. 91, a. 2; I, q. 90, a. 1, ad 1.
Summa Theologiae I, q. 90, a. 1, ad 1.

20

LAW AND THOMISTIC EXEMPLARISM

103

relation of conformity, law entails both transcendence and
immanence. And we have said that this is the distinct advantage
that these two views hold over the remaining four accounts of
law.
Here the similarity ends, however. For all the scholastics,
Aquinas included, join Fichte and the post-Kantian idealists
(and for that matter the later Wittgenstein, too) in eschewing any
such thing as a hidden, unknowable Ding an sick. It is a curious
thing how opposites sometimes come together. As over against
pragmatic constructionists who more or less follow Kant,
Thomistic realists and the German objective idealists all insist
that reality is knowable. And one reason for their optimism on
this score is the apparent inconsistency of saying the opposite.
But Thomistic realism in law not only covers the conformityrelation in which law consists without the hidden thing-in-itself.
It does this without either dogmatism or conventionalism. And,
as was shown, the two go hand in hand. As for the first, we saw
that under pragmatic constructionism, anyone who questions
the truth of a received physical law is automatically branded as
being out of order and politically incorrect. For such a received
law is already true by the fact alone that it is received. It is a law
that is part of an overall physics. And, since that overall physics
has prevailed over its rivals, it is just on that account the true
physics. And as for the second, we saw that, aside from implying
this dogmatism, the trouble with pragmatic constructionism is
that the scientific conventionalism it entails escapes being arbitrary by adopting a wider, philosophical conventionalism. And
the irony in this is that, by its own criterion of truth, this universalized conventionalism turns out to be false.
For its part, however, Thomistic realism escapes both dogmatism and conventionalism by denying in the first instance their
common source, namely, constructionism. As the name states,
Thomistic realism is realism and not a priori conceptualism.
Under it, empirical laws are not a priori imposed on events by
gifted scientists but are rather abstracted by them from events.
To that extent, it is an empiricist and not a rationalist realism.
This abstraction of laws from lawful events presupposes that the
laws must, to begin with, be present in those events. But this

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JOHN PETERSON

immanence of law in lawful events is so much grist for the
Thomistic mill. For, as was said, the conformity-relation in
which all law consists implies the immanence of law in that of
which it is the law and, since they define law as the rule or measure of activities, Thomists construe law as a relation of conformity. With realism replacing constructionism as regards the status of law, however, both dogmatism and conventionalism fall
by the wayside. For under this realism truth is not the conformity of statements to appearance or reality-as-structured-by-science but rather the conformity of statements to reality itself.
Accordingly, statements that conform to reality-as-structuredby-science or to the received scientific paradigm may turn out to
be false statements. And so, saying that a law is believed by all
or a majority of physicists at any given time is quite compatible
with saying it is false. Not only that but, since truth does not here
consist in a consensus of belief, those who question that consensus are not automatically ruled out of court as being politically
incorrect. So the advantage of this Thomistic view of law is that
it bypasses all three pitfalls of pragmatic constructionism, i.e.,
the hidden thing-in-itself, dogmatism, and conventionalism,
while all along accounting for the immanence of law.
But in abandoning constructionism, Thomistic realism is not
deprived of explaining what constructionism explains, but what
nominalism, empirical conceptualism, and even Aristotelian
realism all fail to explain, namely, the transcendence of law. As
was stated, constructionists account for the transcendence
required by the conformity-relation by tracing the source of
empirical law to human minds. And this a priori status of law is
equivalent to the transcendence of law. But to abandon constructionism is not necessarily to surrender the a priori or transcendent status of law. One can keep the latter and also avoid the
three pitfalls of constructionism that were just reviewed by making God and not humans the author of empirical law. God subjects events and activities in the real world, the world as it is in
itself, to certain laws that exist as eternal exemplars in His own
mind. It is, for example, formally if not numerically one and the
same law of acceleration that exists transcendently as divine
exemplar and immanently in the falling stone. In the former con-

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105

dition the law is ante rem. It is a priori and cause only and not
effect. But in the latter condition the same law is in re. Here, it
is both effect (of the Exemplar) and cause (of our idea of it).
Finally, it is one and the same law of acceleration that exists in
both these ways and that also exists post rem or a posteriori in
the mind of Galileo. And here it is effect only and not cause. This
is constructionism inverted. For, on the side of knowledge,
Galileo does not a priori impose the law of acceleration on the
world but rather discovers it a posteriori in the world. And, just
because of that, his statement of that law is true because it conforms to reality itself and not true because it conforms to reality
as interpreted by him. But on the side of being, like every other
instance of the law of acceleration, the falling stone conforms or
measures up to that law. And this implies, as was said, that the
law of acceleration is both logically prior to and separate from
that instance.
That it is logically prior to this or to any other instance of it is
evident. It is law that explains what conforms to law; it is not
what conforms to law that explains law. But, if you once overstress the dependence of our knowledge of general laws on perceived instances of laws, you run the risk of missing this truth.
For you are then psychologically set up to draw the unconscious
inference that, because knowledge of law depends on instances of
law, law depends on instances of law. This mistake of confusing
what is logically prior with what is prior in knowledge or belief
is the mistake that nominalists and empirical conceptualists
make about law. And like most important mistakes, it comes
from the exaggeration of a truth. It is the truth, missed by constructionists, that knowing is not making but discovering, that
all our knowledge of the world is, as the gentle Locke insisted,
derived from sense experience of the world.
So far as the separateness of universal law from its instances
is concerned, this is less evident. It is not evident to Aristotelian
realists. But it becomes evident as soon as attention is paid to the
logic of the relation of conformity. For there to be a relation of
conformity there must be two things, the thing that conforms
and the thing it conforms to, the measured and the measure. In
this, conformity is no different from the relation of being to the

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JOHN PETERSON

left of, being taller than, or any other asymmetric, dyadic relation. Law, then, is one thing and any instance of law is quite
another thing. But, further, the thing conformed to is on a higher level than what conforms to it since the former explains the
latter. Law, therefore, is transcendent.
Like nominalism and empirical conceptualism, Aristotelian
realism also springs from the exaggeration of a truth. It is the
truth on which Aristotle insists as against Plato, namely, that
universals are instantiated in particulars. Humanity is really in
Socrates and justice is really found in individual just acts. If,
therefore, there are universal empirical laws, these laws are also
immanent in the events of which they are the law; so at least an
Aristotelian realist holds. And in the heat of this eagerness to correct a one-sidedly transcendent view of Forms and laws, it is easy
to run to the opposite extreme of excluding transcendence altogether. But for all of this correct insistence on the part of
Aristotelian realists on the immanence of Forms or laws, it does
not follow from their immanence that laws are not also transcendent. And transcendent it has been shown they must be if
law is a relation of conformity.
VII
To sum up, from the fact alone that law as such is a relation
of conformity it follows that the analyses of empirical law proffered by nominalists, empirical conceptualists, and both Platonic
and Aristotelian realists all miss the mark. For the conformityrelation in which any law consists entails (A) that law is on a
higher level than and separate from that of which it is the law
and (B) that law is at the same time a universal pattern that is
present in lawful events or activities. This is what is meant by
saying that law is both transcendent and immanent. But none of
the assays of law just mentioned account for both (A) and (B).
That is why they destroy the identity-in-difference of the lawrelation.
(A), (B), and the identity-in-difference they entail are accounted for only by the a priori conceptualist and the Thomistic realist conception of law and hence of empirical law. Yet, as between

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these two views of empirical law, it cannot fairly be said that
there is nothing to choose. For despite the fact that many scientists prefer pragmatic conceptualism to Thomistic realism, it is
questionable whether this preference is either consistent or correct. That it is a preference that revives the thing-in-itself is troublesome enough. Echoing Kant, such scientists tell us that what
is known is reality-as-structured-by-science and not reality as it
is in itself. And in this they seem to overlook Fichte's warning
that you cannot consistently say that only reality as structured
by science is known. Further, it is a preference that says that any
song different from that sung by the reigning paradigm is a priori out of tune. Science, of all things, then ends up defending
dogmatism and the status quo. And worst of all, it is a preference
that is caught between being arbitrary and being self-defeating.
To guard their own scientific conventionalism from the charge of
arbitrariness, constructionists require a wider, philosophical conventionalism as regards truth. But the irony is that by their own
criterion of truth the latter is false.
But Thomistic realism satisfies both (A) and (B) above without any of these difficulties. Under it, there is a relation of formal
identity between God and lawful events and activities in the
world. In other words, each term in the relation incorporates the
self-same law. Otherwise, it would be falsely said that the events
and activities conform to that law. It is just that in God the law
is transcendent while in events and activities in the world it is
immanent. To use the language of the tradition, it is one and the
same law or essence that has two different ways of existing.
Here, law is a dimension of what Aquinas and scholastic
philosophers generally call ontological truth. This is the truth of
things rather than the truth of propositions. According to a more
familiar dimension of this truth, things like trees and toads are
called true because they measure up to the Idea of treeness and
toadness respectively in God's mind. This is the divine Idea as
exemplar. But Aquinas, for one, insisted on another dimension of
ontological truth. This holds not between things and their transcendent exemplars but between events or activities and their

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transcendent laws. This, he says, is the divine Idea as law.21 But
whether it is divine Idea as exemplar or divine Idea as law, truth
in this relation is found primordially in God and not either in
natural things on the one hand or in natural events on the other.
For it is these things and events that conform to exemplars and
laws respectively and not the other way around. And much to
the disappointment of constructionists and humanists of all
stripes, in that same hierarchy of truth the human intellect ranks
last. Says Aquinas:
Thus, the divine intellect measures but is not measured; natural things
measure and are measured; but our intellect is measured, and it does
not measure. 22

:; Summa Theologiae I, q. 93, a. I.
De Veritate, q. 1, a. 2.

EMOTION AND GOD: A REPLY TO MARCEL SAROT*
DANIEL WESTBERG
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia

M

ARCEL SAROT has helpfully drawn attention to the
question of St. Thomas's treatment of divine emotion;
and in my view he rightly protests against the widely
fashionable approach of rejecting the classical doctrine of impassibility in favor of a suffering and passible God. Nevertheless, I
disagree sharply with his contentions (1) that emotion is restricted to corporeal creatures,' and therefore (2) that emotion cannot
be ascribed to God.
What kind of moral agent would God be without emotion?
Sarot is not helpful here, and in this respect the critics of impassibility have a legitimate point; for, if we eliminate emotion from
God, then we have to treat the Scriptures as "embodying primitive anthropomorphic conceptions of God," so that God's love,
wrath, mercy, justice, and even his "serious concern for the welfare of His people are meaningless." 2
To dismiss the biblical picture of God as anthropomorphic,
maintaining not only that "anger" and "joy" are symbolic, but
that even the notions of care and concern are not applicable to
the divine being, seems unfaithful to revelation. It also calls into
question the nature of God's personality and agency.'
*See Marcel Sarot, "God, Emotion, and Corporeality," The Thomist 58 (1994): 61-92.
Much of this paper was prepared for a theological discussion group at the University of
Virginia, before the appearance of Sarot's article. I am grateful for the points raised by
Robert Wilken, Jamie Ferreira, Eugene Rogers, David Hart, and others in the discussion, and for the helpful comments of Jeff Greenman on this version.
1 Sarot, 82: "without corporeality, no emotion."
2 T. E. Pollard, "The Impassibility of God," Scottish Journal of Theology 8 (1955): 360 .
.1 R. E. Creel thinks that emotional impassibility is compatible with caring about and
acting for the welfare of another person, but that such a being could not be "rejoiced by
the good fortunes of its beloved and distressed by its misfortunes" (Divine Impassibility:
An Essay in Philosophical Theology [Cambridge: Cambridge, University Press, 1986],
117). I do not think this is close enough to the biblical presentation.

109

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DANIEL WESTBERG

The burden of my response, and what I explain below, is this:
Being a rational agent implies emotion of a kind. If we can speak
of God having intellect and will, which St. Thomas does (STh I,
qq. 14 & 19), so that God is an intelligent being with powers to
act, then we should be able to speak (with similar qualifications)
about emotion in God. In other words, agency by intellect and
will implies emotion, which means that emotion should be
ascribed to God, as the Bible does, but in a way that does not
attribute passibility.
The two basic mistakes I see in Sarot's account are these: (1)
to rely on physicalist definitions of the nature of emotion; (2) to
assume that the Latin passio is the same as the contemporary
English term "emotion." Thus I agree that Aquinas understood
the relevant meaning of passio to refer to a person undergoing
some bodily change (a transmutatio corporalis), but deny that
this extended in Aquinas's account over the entire range of even
human emotion.
Much of the recent work in the field of emotion, amongst both
philosophers and psychologists, suggests that bodily sensation is
only sometimes an aspect of emotion, and not essential in its definition. I shall attempt to show the parallels between the distinctions made by Aquinas and the framework of some of this contemporary research.

I. EMOTION AND MORAL AGENCY
The essence of emotion has to do with being a moral agent,
not with bodily existence. Any moral being (including angels and
other spirits, God and human beings) has emotion. This is the
implication of any moral psychology (especially, though not necessarily, Aristotelian) that analyzes moral action as a result of
choice combining reason and desire in reference to an end to be
obtained. Beings that have intellect and will (or rational
appetite) have emotion; that is, they are capable of being
"moved" towards (or away from) an object by appetite.
For human beings, the paradigm experience of emotion is the
feeling of arousal (such as anger or fear) by which one is suddenly ready for response. The quickened heartbeat, the rush of
adrenaline, the experience of these bodily responses is the sign of

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111

the experience of emotion. To ascribe these feelings to God, with
terms such as the Hebrew 'af (which conveys an image of God
with inflamed nostrils), is to indulge in anthropomorphism or
anthropathism, ascribing the human experience or feeling to
God.
That part of the emotional description that denotes the attitude of the agent, however, is not metaphoric. The love of God
(or the joy or the anger) is a real quality, and stands in the same
relation to its symbolic representations (such as an embrace for
love, or inflamed countenance for anger) as the power of God
does to the expression of God's "scepter" or "right hand." The
emotions ascribed to God refer to the attitudes of a moral agent,
not only those with bodies. In other words, the emotional
descriptions refer primarily to an attitude and action arising
from it, rather than to accompanying feelings. Anger is hostility,
not rising blood pressure; love is faithful concern, not a feeling or
other sentiment. 4
In understanding this point, consider the question of emotion
in angels, creatures that are neither corporeal nor divine. There
is no question of their having the same attributes as God, but still
they are moral agents without bodies. According to the categories of St. Thomas, angels have a rational appetite (will), but
no sense appetite, and therefore no "irascible" and "concupiscible" passions (STh I, q. 59, a. 4). However, there is a sense in
which one can speak about fear, or courage, or temperance in
angels in terms of the will. 5 Angels are not simply intelligences;
they have amor and dilectio naturalis (STh I, q. 60, a. 1). In an
intellectual nature there is found a natural inclination governed
by the will; in natures with sensation, this is a sensitive inclination.''
4 This approach is the direct opposite of the view of William James, which shaped psychological views in the earlier part of this century (and seems to underlie Sarot's view;
see below), that the feeling (awareness of physiological arousal) is the emotion. A person
experiences the symptoms of fear-heartbeat, trembling-then interprets this in the
light of the circumstances. In cognitive theories of emotion, it is the interpretation of the
situation that produces the emotional reaction.
5 STh I, q. 60, a. 1, ad 3.
"STh I, q. 60, a. 1: Unde in natura intellectuali invenitur inclinatio naturalis secundum voluntatem; in natura autem sensitiva, secundum appetitum sensitivum.

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DANIEL WESTBERG

Without a body there can be no question of experiencing an
emotion in a way that depends on sensation. But there is a connection between emotion and being a moral agent: to have goals
and to want them achieved, to be disappointed when they fail
and delighted when they are fulfilled. "There is joy before the
angels of God over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15: 10) cannot
be a mere metaphor for sexless and bodiless beings who obediently make another entry in the Book of Life; it refers to spiritual beings, with intellect and will, who see something take place
that they had been hoping for and are pleased by it. They have a
stake in what happens, and that is what is implied in being a
moral agent.
II. PASSIO AND EMOTION
Let us begin with the passage where Aquinas seems to present
a categorical denial of emotion in the nature of God. In Summa
Theologiae I-II, q. 22, a. 3, St. Thomas presents as an objectio
what many would regard as an excellent argument for considering emotion in God: "Joy and love [amor] are emotions. Now it
must be possible for them to occur in the intellectual orexis as
well as in the sensory, since the Scriptures attribute them to God
and the angels." 7
In his reply, Thomas quotes St. Augustine with this explanation:
When love, joy and the like, are attributed to God or the angels or to
man's intellectual orexis, they refer simply to acts of will which produce indeed the same sort of result as does action prompted by emotion, but are not in fact accompanied by emotion [absque passione].'

The word passio should not be taken as equivalent to the
English "emotion" (even though Eric D'Arcy's translation in the
7 STh I-II, q. 22, a. 3: Praeterea, gaudium et amor passiones quaedam esse dicuntur.
Sed haec inveniuntur in appetitu intellectivo, et non solum in sensitivo; alioquin non
attribuentur in Scripturis Deo, et angelis.
8 Dicendum quod amor et gaudium et alia huiusmodi, cum attribuuntur Deo vel angelis, aut hominibus secundum appetitum intellectivum, significant simplicem actum voluntatis cum similitudine effectus absque passione (STh I-II, q. 22, a. 3, ad 3). The
English translation given here is by Eric D' Arey in the Blackfriars edition of the Summa
theologiae (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964-81), 19:13-15.

EMOTION AND GOD: A REPLY TO MARCEL SAROT

113

Blackfriars edition does so, along with a few contemporary
philosophers 9 ). Passio for Aquinas implied change, which
implied potentiality and imperfection; thus passio would be
problematic in connection with the being of God. But passion in
the stricter sense that Thomas develops as part of the treatment
of moral psychology in STh I-II, qq. 22-48 cannot be attributed
to God because it implies bodily change. To suffer (pati) in the
strict sense (and Thomas also describes two more general senses
in STh I-II, q. 22, a. 1) applies to bodies: "passio properly speaking is found where there is a corporeal change." 10
There is, however, another category of feeling or emotion not
covered by this term. For Thomas passio meant strictly emotion
accompanied by physiological change; non-bodily emotion was
something he recognized, described, and associated with the
dynamic quality of the will; he distinguished it from passio, but
did not mean to deny it as an aspect of emotion. Below we shall
discuss some of the passages where he uses the term affectus to
describe the movement of the will without passio.
By following Thomas closely we realize that when he denies
passion in God, he is not denying emotion (in the wider sense)
but passion in the more technical sense of bodily change. It is not
so much that we cannot ascribe emotion directly to God as that
we cannot ascribe bodily emotions to the divine nature, which
follows from not having material existence. I believe it can be
demonstrated that St. Thomas accepted the ascription of emotion to God in another sense, that of the will. Recognizing this
means that efforts either to attribute emotional qualities to God
by dismantling the traditional divine attributes by arguing for
suffering and change or to defend an impassible deity as nonemotional are not necessary.
For those who do not immanentize the divine nature, the
point should be taken that it is possible to reject passio in the
9 E.g., Robert C. Solomon, The Passions: The Myth and Nature of Human Emotion
(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976).
10 Passio autem cum abiectione non est nisi secundum transmutationem
corporalem,
unde passio proprie dicta non potest competere animae nisi per accidens (STh I-II, q. 22,
a. 1).

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technical sense without rejecting emotion in the general sense. It
is possible to have emotion in the sense of personality or moral
agency without experiencing the feelings associated with embodied human agents.
It is possible to have great joy without the feeling of "walking
on air," sorrow without the possibility of sobbing or tears, disappointment without "a sinking feeling," or anger without rising
blood pressure. If emotion is defined in terms of these physical
symptoms, then not only are God and angels emotionless, but a
person who reacts vindictively with steely calm is not angry.
Much of the problem seems to be one of doubt that an agent
really has an emotion unless the feeling is experienced with physiological arousal. This aspect of the problem seems to rest on a
fallacy that needs exposing. Human emotion is the way in which
human beings react and operate as moral agents, but it is not a
requirement for personal agents in general.
If one is in a car, rounding a bend, and an oncoming truck is
in one's lane, only a few yards away, a response of fear at imminent disaster will trigger adrenaline. The "fight" or "flight" reaction is still a basic pattern of human reaction, and enables
humans and other animals to take necessary action with maximum readiness. An angel or demon would have no rush of
adrenaline; but could still envision the possibility of a dreaded
outcome, just as humans talk about their "fears" of a rising
unemployment rate. The demons who recognize one God (cf.
James 2: 19) experience genuine fear but no real trembling.
But this covers only some situations, and cannot be generalized to provide a biological basis for all instances of fear. In other
situations, without any perceptible change in bodily sensation,
we can appraise a situation, see what is at stake in reference to
our goals or values. We may, for example, refrain from saying
something potentially hurtful, or phone the stock broker to sell
some shares, and afterwards describe these actions as: "I hated to
offend my host"; or "I was afraid the stock market would fall further." The use of emotional terms cannot be dismissed as merely
fictional: the agent's affection for her friend produces a real aversion to causing her harm; the investment at stake represents the
resources for retirement that she could ill afford to lose. Yet the

EMOTION AND GOD: A REPLY TO MARCEL SAROT

115

hate or fear is not detectable by facial expression or heart beat,
that is, by awareness of change in physical state.
Let us push further the assumption that only a person with a
body really has emotions by an analogy with listening to music.
My enjoyment of a symphony by Mozart needs to involve a
recording or a live performance. I read music, but not well
enough to follow a complicated score and "realize" it without
also hearing it performed. But there are professional musicians
who can "hear" a work in their minds and master a score without actually hearing any sounds.
Now, if we may imagine God's "enjoyment" of the symphony,
this would have the additional advantage of immediate totality.
God would know beginning and end together, understand its
structure and meaning instantaneously. This may seem too
remote from the ordinary experience of music; but it seems to be
the same sort of mistake to insist that a piece of music must be
heard sequentially, and with actual sound waves produced, if it
is to be a genuine experience of music, as to say that physiological changes are essential to emotion.
Ill. CURRENT THEORIES OF EMOTION
A major limitation of Sarot's account is his assumption that
the James-Lange and Schachter-Singer theories still hold the
field. 11 These older accounts support his interpretation of
Aquinas because they incorporate physiological arousal in the
definition of emotion.
Basically, the James-Lange theory postulates that an external
event produces bodily responses in an individual, particularly
approach or avoidance reactions, and it is the person's perception of these events that constitutes the emotion; the experiments
of Schachter allowed room for cognition by positing first a general visceral response, particularized by the individual's evaluations of her external and internal world. 12
11 Sarot's estimate, "the two theories of emotion that have been most influential during the present century" (Sarot, 86), is perhaps accurate through the 1960s but does not
recognize the massive recent shift to cognitive theories.
12 See the summary account in G. Mandler, "Emotion," Oxford Companion to the
Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

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In the last fifteen years there has been a remarkable production of books and articles devoted to theories stressing a cognitive view of emotion. 13 What is common to these views is the
point that the experience of emotion (to whatever extent physiology is involved) is preceded by a cognitive appraisal of a situation from the individual's point of view. Fear, for example, is
generated not by a biological response system but by the rational
assessment of some threat. This means that there are few
philosophers or psychologists, contrary to Sarot's assertion, who
would hold to the older physiological view of emotion without
serious criticism or major modification. 14
There is a double irony in Sarot's unawareness of the shift to
cognitive views, and his continued association of Aquinas with
the James and Schachter legacy. First, the recent cognitive theories are much more in line with Aristotelian-Thomist psychological principles; and second, one of the psychologists most influential in the 1960s for the shift away from the James-Lange paradigm actually based her work on Thomistic theory. 15
Many modern theorists, both philosophers and psychologists,
have pointed to the need to develop a description of emotion in
a broader sense-that emotion is a product of cognition and perception, that it reflects attitudes or beliefs of the agent, that it is
13 Major studies include: N. Frijda, The Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985); Ronald de Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press, 1987); and A. Ortony, G. L. Clore, and A. Collins, The Cognitive Structure of
Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
14 For examples of those ranging from the more sympathetic to the radically opposed:
William Lyons, Emotion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), supports a
physiological definition, but note that Lyons 's version is much more subtle than the
James-Lange theory that he criticizes for its excessive Cartesianism (see 12-16); De
Sousa, Rationality of Emotion, does not eliminate the James-Lange tradition but
changes it by stressing the cognitive aspect of emotion; R. M. Gordon, The Structure of
Emotions: Investigations in Cognitive Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987), devotes a chapter to demonstrating that the James and Schachter theories
trivialized emotions by getting the relationship between sensation and emotion completely backwards.
15 Magda Arnold, Emotion and Personality, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1960); and Magda Arnold, ed., The Nature of Emotion: Selected Readings
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968).

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117

an important part of subsequent action, and that it is sometimes
felt.
In other words, contrary to popular impression and to many
prior theories, the connections between cognition and emotion
and between emotion and action are essential ones; but whether
they are "felt" or not is less central. In the study of Johnson-Laird
and Oately, for example, the associated physiological aspects are
separable from the emotion itself: "one can experience the bodily sensations without the emotion; one can experience the emotion without the bodily sensations." 16
Physiological arousal is treated almost as a side aspect of emotion by Ortony, Clore, and Collins, who define emotions as
"valenced reactions to events, agents, or objects, with their particular nature being determined by the way in which the eliciting situation is construed." 11 Emotions are not simply apprehension and appraisal, but involve what they term "affect," which is
central to the concept of emotion. Arousal is incidental to emotion; it reflects the intensity and type of reaction of the agent, but
it is far from essential to emotion itself. 18

IV ST. THOMAS ON AFFECTUS AND DIVINE EMOTION
When Aquinas denied passion to God (STh I-II, q. 22, a. 3),
we have seen that he did so not on the grounds of God's perfection or impassivity, but because there is no sensation and sense
16 P. N. Johnson-Laird and K. Oately, "The Language of Emotions," Cognition and
Emotion 3 (1989): 86.
17 Ortony, Clore, and Collins, The Cognitive Structure of Emotions, 191.
18 The distinction between emotion in a general sense and emotion or feeling associated with bodily change is in accordance with lines emerging in contemporary philosophy and psychology. In addition to the work of Ortony et al., there are others who are
working on cognitive theories of emotion compatible with the Thomistic view. Nico
Frijda, in The Emotions, one of the most comprehensive recent treatments of the subject, defines emotion as "action readiness change" (71), expressing a viewpoint fundamentally similar to the Augustinian and Thomistic tradition in associating emotion primarily with agency. In Frijda's terms, emotion proper is "relational action tendency" and
the change in "relational action tendency (activation)."
It is the narrower sense of emotion for Frijda, which is the paradigm case of "felt"
emotions, that seems to correspond exactly with the definition of passio by Thomas as
response involving sense appetite and bodily change; and the wider sense of emotion as
action tendency seems to overlap with the Thomistic view of the will.

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DANIEL WESTBERG

appetite in God. For this reason God and angels do not experience passion. But this should not be read as the exclusion of emotion.
When qualities such as love and joy are attributed to God (or
to human beings with respect to their rational appetite), they signify "a simple act of the will, with similarity of effect, but without passion." 19 This is not a denial of emotion in God but of
arousal; a denial of passion in the sense of arousal or excitement
in spiritual beings, but still an affirmation of emotion in the
broad sense of "valenced reaction to events, agents or objects."
Aquinas used the term affectus to describe emotion in God
and other spiritual beings. In the section on the human will (STh
I, q. 82) Thomas applies the term affectus to the kind of emotion
found in moral agents without corporeal being (angels, demons,
and God). He says (q. 82, a. 5, ad 1) that love and other passions
can be taken in two ways. As passions, they refer to an excitement of the soul, and this is the usual notion, which applies only
to beings with a sense appetite. But in another way they signify
a basic affectus without passion or excitement of the soul, and
they are acts of the will. And in this fashion they are attributed
to angels and to God. 2°
I believe that the framework of Aquinas's theory of moral
agency included emotion in connection with the intellect and
will of spiritual beings; the fact that he used the term "affect"
indicates that he was affirming more than a fictional usage of
emotional terms for God. The topic of emotion in God is not
developed by Aquinas, however, apart from the treatment of
love in general (and in special relation to the Holy Spirit).
Let us consider the one passage where Thomas treated directly the question of divine emotion: STh I, q. 20, a. 1, "Whether
there is love [amor] in God." The affirmation of the presence of
love in God in the main response is along the lines presented
19 STh I-II, q. 22, a. 3, ad 3: amor et gaudium et alia huiusmodi, cum attribuuntur Deo
vel angelis, aut hominibus secundum appetitum intellectivum, significant simplicem
actum voluntatis cum similitudine effectus absque passione.
20 STh l, q. 82, a. 5, ad 1: Alio modo significant simplicem affectum absque passione
vel animi concitatione. Et sic sunt actus voluntatis. Et hoc etiammodo attribuuntur
angelis et Deo.

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119

above; although the term "affect" is not used, Thomas teaches
that the dynamic quality of appetite in general towards different
objects is the basic meaning of the term love, and this applies to
God who has will, or intellectual appetite.
In the first article Aquinas briefly lists the arguments that
might be brought to bear against the notion of love in God: love
is a passion, and there is no passion in God; sadness and anger
are attributed to God only metaphorically.
Aquinas affirms the necessity of ascribing love to God and
shows its broader application not just to sensation but to the
will. The action of the will, and of any appetitive power, is to
tend towards good and away from evil as objects of action. Since
reference to evil is secondary to what is good (in that it is seen in
opposition to good), the positive motions in reference to bonum
are primary, while motions in reference to malum are secondary.
This means that amor and gaudium are primary in comparison
to sadness and hate.
Thomas summarizes his own argument here for considering
the existence of emotion in God. All appetitive movements, i.e.,
of appetite in general, including the will, presuppose love as a
kind of first root. No one desires something unless it is a loved
good; neither does one enjoy anything but a loved good. Hate
also occurs only for something that is contrary to something
loved; and, similarly, for sadness and other emotions of this kind,
it is clear that they are to be referred to love as first principle.
Thus wherever there is will or appetite, there is love; where the
first principle is removed, then the others are removed. Since
God has will, we must say he has love. 21
This part of Thomas 's teaching, which forms the main part of
the response, is that to which I want to draw attention, as it supports the point that emotion is to be taken in a general way and
21 STh I, q. 20, a. 1 c: Et propter hoc omnes alii motus appetitivi praesupponunt
amorem quasi primam radicem. Nullus enim desiderat aliquid nisi bonum amatum;
neque aliquis gaudet nisi de bono amato. Odium etiam non est nisi de eo quod contrariatur rei amatae. Et similiter tristitiam, et cetera huiusmodi, manifestum est in
amorem referri sicut in primum principium. Unde in quocumque est voluntas vel appetitus, oportet esse amorem; remoto enim primo, removentur alia. Ostensum est autem in
Deo esse voluntatem. Unde necesse est in eo ponere amorem.

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is characteristic of the will and therefore of any moral agent.
This must be kept in mind when Thomas appears to deny emotion in God.
In the replies to the arguments (q. 20, a. 1, ad 1 & 2) Aquinas
makes it clear that the element of emotion that he does not
ascribe to God is bodily change (transmutatio corporalis). It is
the accompanying physiological change that defines a passio. A
passion then has a technical meaning: activations of the sense
appetite, insofar as they have a bodily change connected with
them, are called passions, and not acts of the will. 22
Therefore love (amor), joy, and delight, when they signify acts
of the sense appetite are passions, but not as they signify actions
of the intellectual appetite; and this is how they are ascribed to
God. God loves without passion (sine passione amat).
In reference to God at the beginning of the Summa Aquinas
uses the term affectibus mentis, affects of the mind (STh I, q. 3,
a. 1, ad 5). In treating of the relations within the Trinity and the
procession of the Holy Spirit as the love of God, Aquinas speaks
of the impression of love as an affection.
The use of the term "affection" to signify non-corporeal emotion is applied to human action in a number of places in Summa
theologiae 1-11 that treat the psychology of human action.
Thomas distinguishes there between emotion that is associated
with the will, as motivation for action, and passion in the narrower sense which we would call (bodily) feeling. There is an
important passage in STh I, q. 64, a. 3, for example, where
Thomas says that sadness and joy, etc., cannot apply to demons,
because passions require a sense appetite with a bodily organ .
But in the sense that these emotional terms refer to "basic activations of the will" (simplices actus voluntatis) they do apply.

V. CONCLUSION
There is a clear distinction made by Thomas that needs to be
recognized: There is a kind of affective reaction not dependent
on the sense appetite or bodily change, included in the English
22 STh I, q. 20, a. 1, ad 1: Sic igitur actus appetitus sensitivi, inquantum habent transmutationem corporalem annexam, passiones dicuntur, non autem actus voluntatis.

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121

term "emotion," that is characteristic of all moral agents with
will, including God. Thomas described this negatively (sine passione) but he also used the positive term affectus. The English
term "emotion," both in ordinary modern usage and in scholarly analysis (such as that of Frijda), has that wide meaning. We
might be able to differentiate within the range of emotion
between feeling and affection (or possibly between passion and
sentiment 23), but .the fluidity of terms should not be allowed to
obscure the fact that emotion has a comprehensive sense; it was
by Aquinas and is acknowledged in modern study. A
being with an intellect, if it is to be an agent, must have a will;
and if a will, then emotion.
I think the fundamental reason for our difficulties in understanding the problems of divine emotion and the relation of
emotion and reason in human action, and why Thomas did not
devote any special treatment to the term a.ffectus (which would
have helped a great deal), is that the modern view of the will has
shifted from the biblical and Augustinian view that incorporated affect, to a mere decision-making faculty independent of and
often opposed to emotion. 24 Thus I believe that Aquinas presupposed in his use of the term voluntas the affective properties
argued for here. A reformed moral psychology must not only
revive the proper category of emotion, but continue to dismantle the Cartesian view of intellect and will.

23 A suggested by A. Kenny, The Metaphysics of Mind (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1989), 58.
i• Many aspects of the relation of intellect and will in human action are dealt with in
my book, Right Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action, and Prudence in Aquinas (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1994).

THREE-PERSONED SUBSTANCE: THE RELATIONAL
ESSENCE OF THE TRIUNE GOD IN AUGUSTINE'S DE
TRINITATE
SARAH HEANER LANCASTER
Dallas, Texas

W

ITH THE RECENT resurgence of interest in the
doctrine of the Trinity, there is a need not only to
attempt to speak to the concerns of our time but also
to be attentive to the tradition of the Church. In this latter task,
it is impossible not to take account of Augustine's work in De
Trinitate. Theologians who have already written constructive
accounts of the doctrine of the Trinity often set their positions in
contrast to Augustine's understanding. Those who are concerned
to stress God's relationality often view Augustine's position as a
barrier to this understanding because Augustine is taken to have
given priority to the one substance over the three persons. Thus,
it is said, he has stressed absolute essence at the expense of relationality.
In this paper, I would like to offer an alternative interpretation of Augustine's understanding of substance and person as it
is stated in De Trinitate. To show how my reading is an alternative, I will first indicate how Augustine is often understood by
highlighting the main points of one analysis of De Trinitate, that
done by Catherine Mowry LaCugna in her book God for Us: The
Trinity and Christian Life. There, LaCugna presents Augustine
as producing a conception of the immanent Trinity in which
essence or substance precedes and has priority over relation. In
contrast, I will try to show that rather than giving priority to
substance over relation, Augustine is trying to bring the reader to
an understanding of God in which substance is itself three-personed. The substance itself is the relations of the persons.
123

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SARAH HEANER LANCASTER

I
In LaCugna's view, one should speculate about God's nature
only insofar as that speculation is rooted in God's economy.
Theologia (the mystery of God) and oikonomia (the mystery of
salvation) belong together, and "the fundamental issue in trinitarian theology is not the inner workings of the 'immanent'
Trinity, but the question of how the trinitarian pattern of salvation history is to be correlated with the eternal being of God." 1 In
her view, when one links theologia with oikonomia, one gets a
theology of relationship that has consequences for Christian life
and praxis. Unfortunately, trinitarian theology has suffered
because the essential connection between the threefold pattern of
salvation history and God's being has been lost. LaCugna discusses what she calls the "emergence and defeat" of the doctrine
of the Trinity in great detail, and her discussion encompasses the
period from before the Council of Nicaea to Gregory of Palamas
in the fourteenth century. For the purposes of this paper, it is
important to note only that in her view Augustine's way of
understanding substance and relation paved the way for a concern in Western theology to discuss God's relations in se, without much regard for God's acts in salvation history. 2
Though she recognizes that De Trinitate begins with an
account of the divine missions and the biblical record of salvation, LaCugna yet maintains that for Augustine the unity of the
Trinity takes precedence over the economy and even becomes his
real "starting point. " 3 She will not go so far as to say that
Augustine's theology is noneconomic, but she does think that
Augustine has a hard time keeping his development of the doctrine of the Trinity connected with the economy. 4 There are three
decisive elements of his thought that, in her view, have contributed to the division between theologia and oikonomia: 1) a
1 Catherine
Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 4 (original emphasis).
2 Ibid., 81.
3 Ibid., 99.
4 Ibid., 98.

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125

preoccupation with processions over missions; 2) the emphasis
on the unity of divine essence over the plurality of divine persons
within salvation history; and 3) the relocation of the economy
away from the events of salvation history to within the human
soul, a relocation that she describes as an "interior economy" in
which one "becomes perfected by knowing and loving God
through knowing and loving self." 5 These three elements are
manifested in two principles of Augustine's theology that later
became standard to Western Trinitarian theology: 1) the works
of the Trinity ad extra are one (opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa
sunt) and 2) the doctrine of appropriations. In LaCugna's view,
the first principle blurs the distinction between the persons in
salvation history and leaves us with a unitary relationship with
God. The second is a compensating strategy to make up for the
mistake of the former. Augustine's preoccupation with processions, his relocation of the economy to the soul, and these two
principles are all related to starting with the unity of substance. 6
It is important, then, to see on what LaCugna bases the claim
that this is indeed Augustine's emphasis.
LaCugna finds the evidence for the priority of essence over
relation primarily in Book VII. She notes that in Book V, as he
argues against the Arians that the Son is equal to the Father,
Augustine has made ingenious use of the category of relation.
Nothing is said of God according to accident, but, Augustine
maintains, not everything is said of God according to substance.
Some things are said according to relation. Because it is eternal,
the Son's relation to the Father is not an accident; but this relation is not a predicate of the substance either because the Father
is not called Father with reference to self (ad se) but with reference to another (ad alterum). Similarly the Son is called Son not
ad se but ad alterum. The Father is God according to substance,
the Son is God according to substance, and the Spirit is God
according to substance, but the Father is Father according to
relation, the Son is Son according to relation, and the Spirit is
97, 98.
Ibid., 99, 101, 102.

5 Ibid.,
6

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SARAH HEANER LANCASTER

Spirit according to relation. 7 This ingenious use of relation she
believes to be undermined in Book VII. There, she says,
Augustine loses the relative character of a divine person when he
equates person with substance. 8 She cites what she calls "a
famous and difficult text" in which, using LaCugna's translation, Augustine says:
[I]n God to be is not one thing, and to be a person another thing, but it
is wholly and entirely one and the same. When we say the person of the
Father, we mean nothing else than the substance of the Father.
Therefore, as the substance of the Father is the Father Himself, not
insofar as He is the Father but insofar as He is, so too the person of the
Father is nothing else than the Father Himself. For He is called a person in respect to Himself, not in relation to the Son or to the Holy

Spirit, just as he is called in respect to Himself, God, great, good,
just, and other similar terms. 9
In interpreting this passage, LaCugna says:
Earlier in the treatise Augustine had cited Father, Son, and Spirit as relative terms, but in this passage he denies the relative character of a
divine person and equates person with substance. The person of the
Father is the same as the being of the Father. The person of the Father
is thus absolute, without relation to Son and Spirit. '0

LaCugna points out that the passage to which she refers has
been an "embarrassment" to subsequent theologians because of
its inconsistency with what Augustine has said before. The difficulty lies in reconciling the two statements: "to be and to be a
person are identical in God" and "a divine person subsists in
relation to another." 11 Attempts to reconcile the two statements
have not been satisfactory, and even Augustine himself ends
Book VII admitting that he cannot explain precisely what a
divine person is. Still, LaCugna offers her own interpretation of
what Augustine means in this particular passage:

Ibid., 85.
Ibid., 89.
9 Ibid., 88-89.
IO Ibid., 89.
II Ibid.
7

8

THE RELATIONAL ESSENCE OF THE TRIUNE GOD

12 7

What Augustine is trying to express here is that when two subjects are
in relation to each other, such as master to slave, one can differentiate
between the master in him/herself, and the master in relation to the
slave. In this sense essence precedes relation. Applied to God, one can
differentiate between the Father in the Father's self, and the Father in
relation to the Son; similarly, the divine essence in some sense precedes
relation. Augustine means that to be God and to be the Father (or Son
or Spirit) are one and the same. 12

It is this idea that she feels becomes dominant in Augustine's
thinking and that contributes so much to the breakdown of the
connection between theologia and oikonomia. It is my contention that there is more of a connection between theologia and
oikonomia in De Trinitate than LaCugna sees, and it is her failure to see this connection that leads her to say that Augustine
prefers essence over relation.

II
To see how the economy shapes what Augustine has to say
about God's being and our understanding of it, one must read
Books V-VII in the context of the work as a whole. Augustine
points out at the beginning of Book I the several ways in which
people may err in their conceptions of God. The problem for all
who conceive God wrongly is that they have not been purified,
morally and cognitively, so as to see God rightly. Those who err,
however, do not accept talk about their "unfitness" as a genuine
reason for their failure to understand. Rather, they see such talk
as an excuse to mask the ignorance of those who defend the
orthodox faith. Augustine says, then, that he is undertaking "to
give them the reasons they clamor for, and to account for the one
and only and true God being a trinity and for the rightness of
saying, believing, understanding that the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit are of one and the same substance or essence." 13
By offering them intellectual reasons for the Trinity, Augustine
hopes they may actually realize that this supreme goodness does
Ibid.
Augustine, De 1'rinitate, 1:4, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Brooklyn, N.Y.: New City
Press, 1991).
12

13

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SARAH HEANER LANCASTER

exist, that it can be truly grasped only by purified minds, and
that they have not yet seen it because their minds, like any
human mind, must be "nursed back to full vigor on the justice of
faith" in order to concentrate on the overwhelming light. 14 The
first step in his process is to show that scripture does indeed
authorize the kind of faith about which he speaks, and this step
occupies his attention through Book IV.
Augustine's problem in this part of his task is to show how
scripture can be understood to affirm the Catholic faith about
the Trinity, namely, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a divine
unity in the inseparable equality of one substance, so that there
are not three gods but one God; that, still, the Father begets the
Son, who is not the Father; that the Spirit is neither the Father
nor the Son; and that despite their coequality and inseparability,
only the Son became incarnate, only the Spirit descended at
Jesus' baptism and at Pentecost, and only the Father's voice
spoke from heaven. 15 Scripture itself presents a problem for this
Catholic understanding, though, because it contains texts in
which the Son is spoken of as equal to the Father and also texts
in which the Father is spoken of as greater than the Son.
Augustine proposes reading these texts as ascribed to the Son in
different ways. Statements that indicate equality are made "in
virtue of the form of God." Statements that indicate subordination are made "in virtue of the form of a servant." 16 There is a
third kind of statement about the Son, though, seen in those that
"mark him neither as less nor as equal, but only intimate that he
is from the Father." 11 In this third category of statements,
Augustine finds a link between the Son's being and work. He
says that "the life of the Son is unchanging like the Father's, and
yet is from the Father; and that the work of Father and Son is
indivisible, and yet the Son's working is from the Father just as
he himself is from the Father; and the way in which the Son sees
the Father is simply by being the Son." 18 Augustine has linked
14

Ibid.

15 Ibid., I: 7.

Ibid., I:14.
II:13.
18 Ibid., II:3.
16

17 Ibid.,

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129

being and work so that the work is distinct yet inseparable in the
same way that the being of the divine persons is distinct yet
inseparable. 19 Both the Son and the Son's work are from the
Father. Augustine examines more closely the force of the word
"from" with regard to the sending of the Son. First, because they
already fill the universe, the Son and Spirit do not "go" to someplace where they were not. Second, the sending cannot be interpreted to mean that the Father alone sent the Son. The work of
the three is inseparable, so all three participated in the sending;
but the Son alone is "sent" in the sense that it is the Son who
appears in the flesh and not the Father or Spirit. Here the adverbial qualifications that Augustine has already established
become important. The Son "in the form of God" participates in
the sending, but the Son "in the form of a servant" can be said to
be sent. The same argument can be used to explain the sending
of the Holy Spirit. 20 The reason for the sendings of both Son and
Spirit was to present them in a manner suitable to the human
senses, because the senses are incapable of perceiving the substance of God. 21
Book IV takes up the purpose of this sending and shows the
influence of neo-Platonism on Augustine's thought. Humans are
exiled from unchanging joy, and yet we yearn for it. So,
Augustine says, "God sent us sights suited to our wandering
state, to admonish us that what we seek is not here, and that we
must turn back from the things around us to where our whole
being springs from." 22 In order to bring us back, God had to persuade us of two things: first, of how much God loves us; and second, of what kind of people we are, namely, people who are
blinded by depraved desires and unbelief. We are people who
need to be enlightened, and "our enlightenment is to participate
in the Word, that is, in the life that is the light of [humans] (Jn.
1:4). Yet we were absolutely incapable of such participation and
19 See also Edmund Hill, "Karl Rahner's 'Remarks on the Dogmatic Treatise De
Trinitate' and St. Augustine," in Augustinian Studies 2 (1971): 67-80, where the same
point is made using evidence from Book VI.
20 De Trinitate, II:lO.
21 Ibid., II:12.
22

Ibid., IV:Z.

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SARAH HEANER LANCASTER

quite unfit for it, so unclean were we through sin, so we had to
be cleansed." 23 This cleansing has to do with Christ's mediation,
which Augustine takes up more extensively in Book XIII. There,
he recalls the point he made at the beginning, that what was
needed for our salvation was a demonstration of God's love, and
he discusses at some length both in Book IV and in Book XIII
the justice and result of God's action in sending his Son to die for
us.24
For the purposes of this paper, the important point to be made
with regar<;l to the mediation is that it is accomplished by temporal means in order to lead us to eternal things. In distinguishing between temporal knowledge gained from salvation history
and eternal wisdom, Augustine says:
Among things that have arisen in time the supreme grace is that
[humanity] has been joined to God to form one person; among eternal
things the supreme truth is rightly attributed to the Word of God. That
the only-begotten from the Father is the one who is full of grace and
truth means that it is one and the same person by whom deeds were
carried out in time for us and for whom we are purified by faith in
order that we may contemplate him unchangingly in eternity .... Our
knowledge therefore is Christ, and our wisdom is the same Christ. It is
he who plants faith in us about temporal things, he who presents us
with the truth about eternal things. Through him we go straight
toward him, through knowledge toward wisdom, without ever turning
aside from one and the same Christ. 25

The Christ who is known in temporal salvation history is the
same Christ whom we contemplate in unchanging eternity.
Temporal knowledge of Christ brings us to the faith by which
our minds are purified so that we can see the truth of the eternal
Christ. In Augustine's view, we were incapable of grasping eternal truth because of the weight of our sins, which we contracted
by our love of temporal things. We needed to be purified, but
God could only get our attention, as it were, in order to purify us
by adapting himself to the temporal realm to which we were
bound. It is right, then, to accord faith to the temporal things
Ibid., IV:4.
Ibid., IV: 11.
25 Ibid., XIII:24.

23
24

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131

done for our sake, because we are purified by means of them.
The Son became human in order that by allying himself with us
in our temporal condition God might provide a bridge to eternity. But as we are purified, sight and truth succeed this faith.
Augustine says, when our faith becomes truth by seeing, our
mortality will be transformed into a fixed and firm eternity, that
is, eternal life. 26 The actual mission of the Son is, then, for the
purpose of eliciting the faith by which we are purified in order
that we may contemplate the truth. 21 The temporal mission acts
as a bridge to eternal truth because it manifests the divine procession of the Son from the Father. We see in time that the Son is
"from" the Father, so we have an indication that the Son is
"from" the Father in eternity and thus begin to know God as God
truly is.28 The temporal mission by itself, however, is misleading.
Because the eternal truth of the processions cannot be manifested inseparably in the created order, the temporality of the sending gives the appearance of separability among the divine persons. 29 Eventually, even this temporal understanding has to be
given up, but the temporal missions act as a crucial bridge to
that eternal truth and are an irreplaceable step along the way
toward purification. I will return to this point shortly.
First, I need to deal with Books V-VII, in which Augustine
turns his attention to elaborating this eternal truth as fully as it
can be elaborated in temporal speech. He reminds the reader
that no temporal thought or speech can grasp God as God truly
is, but he makes the effort to speak of God both because the
faithful out of piety burn to know the divine and inexpressible
truth and because he intends to dismantle the arguments of the
heretics. 30 Rather than rehearse Augustine's complex arguments
here, I shall highlight the main points. As LaCugna has noted,
Augustine begins by discussing how statements refer to God in
order to find an answer to the Arians who say that the unbegotIbid., IV:24.
Ibid., IV:25.
28 Ibid., IV:29.
29 Ibid., IV:30.
30 Ibid., V:l; IV:32.
26

27

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SARAH HEANER LANCASTER

ten Father and the begotten Son are of two unequal substances.
Augustine points out first that since in God there are no accidents, nothing can be predicated of God with reference to accident. Not all things, however, are said with reference to substance. Some things are said with reference to eternal relations.
The question then arises about which things are said of God in
which way. Father, Son, and Spirit present a particular problem.
For instance, "Father" signifies only the Father, but not in such a
way as to indicate a separate substance. The Father is called
with a name proper to itself (per se), but is called that name with
reference to another (ad alterum). Anything that the Father is
called with reference to substance (ad se) it is called with the
other (cum altero). 31 In other words, anything that is said properly or peculiarly of any person ("Father," "Son," "Spirit," and later
he will include "Word" and "image") is not said with reference to
self but to another. 32 Other things, such as "good,'' "great," "eternal,'' or even "God,'' are said with reference to substance and are
said with the others. "Good,'' for instance, refers to God's substance because God does not participate in goodness but is goodness. It is not one thing for God to be and another to be good, or
great, or eternal, or God. 33 To be, for God, is to be good. To be is
to be God. Because Father, Son, and Spirit are of the same substance, they are equally good, great, and so on. Any of thesegood, great, and so on-may be said "three times over about
each of the persons,'' but to say it three times over does not indicate three good ones or three gods but only one good one or one
God.
This discussion of how things are said of God with reference
to substance leads to two questions: one is about multiplicity in
God and the other is about how substance predicates apply to
the three persons. Since the answer to the latter question sheds
light on the former, I shall take it up first. In a long series of arguments that are too involved to go into here, Augustine explores
the problem of how substance terms, such as "wisdom,'' "being,''
31 For this formula, see footnote 1 to Book IV of Edmund Hill's translation of De
Trinitate.
32 De Trinitate, V:l2.
33 Ibid., V:9.

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133

and even "God," apply to the Trinity. To understand what he is
doing, one must keep in mind that, for him, these terms are interchangeable by virtue of God's simplicity. What one says about
God's wisdom one must also say about God's goodness, etc.,
because they all have to do with God's very being. I Corinthians
1:24, however, presents a problem. This passage says that Christ
is the wisdom and power of God, and it seems to indicate that
the Father is not power and wisdom but the begetter of power
and wisdom. The problem, and thus his arguments, center
around how to understand the Son as the wisdom of God, in
accordance with scripture, and yet acknowledge that it is God
and not just the Son who is wise. In Book VII, Augustine puts
the question in this way:
whether we can predicate of each person in the Trinity by himself, and
not just together with the other two, such names as God and great and
wise and true and omnipotent and just and anything else that can be
said of God with reference to self as distinct from by way of relationship; or whether these names can only be predicated when the trinity
or triad is meant. 34

He explores the problem from various angles. If wisdom is said
individually of the Son only with reference to the others, in the
way that "Word" or "Son" is, then the Father begets wisdom
instead of being wise. The Father, then, would not be wise in self
but only with the wisdom of the Son. The absurdity of this position becomes even more clear if we substitute "great" and "God"
for wisdom. We would then be saying that the Father is great
only with the greatness that the Father begets and that the Son
is the Godhead of the Father. Augustine says: "This means that
apart from being Father, the Father is nothing but what the Son
is for him .... Are we not then forced to say that he is the Father
of his own being just as he is the Father of his own greatness, just
as he is the Father of his own power and wisdom?" 35 But perhaps
wisdom is said of the Son individually but not with reference to
the others. This move fails also because we lose the relation
between the Son's wisdom and the Father's wisdom. Since we
34

Ibid., VII: 1.

35 Ibid.

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SARAH HEANER LANCASTER

may substitute "being" for "wisdom," we would also lose the crucial relation between the Son's being and the Father's being. We
would no longer be able to say that the Son and the Father are
of one being. The problem, then, cannot be solved by assigning
the terms to the Son individually. But it cannot be solved either
if the terms are assigned to the three only with reference to each
other and not in self. If Father, Son, and Spirit do not have being
in themselves but only with reference to each other, then we are
left with the "unexpected conclusion that being is not being, or at
least that when you say being you point not to being but to relationship."36
There appears to be an intractable problem, but Augustine
presses on. He says, "[E]very being that is called something by
way of relationship is also something besides the relationship." 37
If, for instance, the Father is not something with reference to self,
then there is nothing there to be talked about in relationship.
Augustine then affirms:
the Father is himself wisdom, and the Son is called the wisdom of the
Father in the same way as he is called the light of the Father, that is,
that as we talk of light from light, and both are one light, so we must
understand wisdom from wisdom, and both one wisdom. And therefore also one being, because there to be is the same as to be wise. 38

The same reasoning would apply to any substance term, such as
"good," "great," and so on. Augustine has tried to show that when
one talks about the substance of God, there is both an aspect of
speaking of each person with reference to self and with reference
to each other. The Son may appropriately be called "wisdom"
when we speak of the Son "in the form of a servant" because
Christ was sent to manifest God's wisdom to us so that we might
imitate it. But the wisdom that is manifest temporally, and thus
incompletely, is the wisdom that Father, Son, and Spirit are. 39 We
should take the option given in the second half of his question
and name the triad itself as wise and good and God.
36

Ibid., VII:2.

37 Ibid.
38
39

Ibid.
Ibid., VII:4-6.

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135

When thinking of God as triad, though, the question is bound
to come up: "If not three gods, then three what?" Augustine
reserves the term "person" for this answer and discusses its
meaning in Book VII. It is here that the "famous and difficult
passage" to which LaCugna refers appears. In it, let us recall,
Augustine says:
as the substance of the Father is just the Father, not insofar as he is
Father, but insofar as he just is; so too the person of the Father is nothing but just the Father. He is called person with reference to himself,
not with reference to the Son or Holy Spirit; just as he is called God
with reference to himself, and great and good and just and anything
else of that sort. And just as it is the same for him to be as to be God,
to be great, to be good, so it is the same for him to be as to be person.40
Since Augustine is calling to our attention the similarity in the
use of"person" to other substance terms, such as "good,'' it is well
to keep in mind what he has already said about how those terms
apply. There is in his mind no simple dichotomy between selfand other-reference when speaking of God's substance. There is
not necessarily, then, the contradiction that has been such an
"embarrassment" for scholars. Still, as is commonly noted,
Augustine himself finds the term "person" inadequate for speaking about the mystery of God. In fact, the discussion in Book VII
is designed to show the inadequacy of the term. Augustine asks
questions, gives tentative answers, but then dismantles the
answers he has given. What is not commonly noted is how this
inadequacy plays into his larger argument. He has been trying in
part to give reasons for believing, thinking, and understanding
that Father, Son, and Spirit are of one and the same substance or
essence. 41 This is precisely what he has done in Books I-VII to
the extent possible through ordinary reasoning. The other part of
his plan, however, is to show that the supreme goodness the
reader now understands to exist cannot be grasped truly by
minds that have not been purified. With the discussion of the
term "person," Augustine has reached the limits of ordinary
human thought and speech. The question, "Three what?" simply
40

41

Ibid., VII:l l.
Ibid., 1:4.

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SARAH HEANER LANCASTER

cannot be answered as long as one continues to think in spatial
and temporal categories. 42 The last part of Book VII consists of a
frank admission that the mind cannot grasp the truth of the
Catholic faith until it has been purified. He is making a transition into the project he undertakes in Books VIII-XV, namely,
the effort to purify the mind and raise it, to the fullest extent possible in human understanding, to the vision of God. It is to this
second project that we now turn.
III
Augustine says at the beginning of Book VIII that he will continue to discuss the same things as before, but this time they will
be discussed in a more inward manner. What humans seek is
God, the unchangeable good, and we are able to know and love
God because this good is not far from us. It is that in which we
live and move and are because we are made in its image. 43 Still,
though the good is so close, we misconceive it because our minds
are flesh-bound. We cannot love what we do not know, and we
do not know God rightly. We must, then find a way to come to
know the unknown God; and we can begin to do that by way of
comparison with what we do know in ourselves. Since God is the
best of all that is, we look for analogy in that which is the best
part of us, the intellect.
Augustine leads the reader through a series of trinitarian
analogies by which he draws the reader closer and closer to the
analogy that is most fitting. In Books IX and X, he explores the
operations of the mind and discovers in it a threefold pattern of
memory, understanding, and will that resembles what he has
said about the Trinity in Books V-VII. The mind in remembering itself remembers itself as a whole, and the same goes for
understanding and willing itself. In this way, wholes are in
wholes, though each is distinct. Each of the three is perfect in
itself, yet the three are inseparable from each other. But it is
important to note that this threefoldness of the human mind is
not by itself the image of God. The image of God is realized
42

43

Ibid., VII:l2.
Ibid., VIII:S.

THE RELATIONAL ESSENCE OF THE TRIUNE GOD

13 7

when the threefold mind exercises its remembering, understanding, and willing on God rather than on itself. 44 Even though contemplation of self is an important step along the way, it is not
entirely accurate to say that Augustine has relocated the economy to the "interior" so that we know God by knowing ourselves.
If we contemplate only ourselves, we never truly know God.
Instead, this step is followed by one that is decisive-remembering, understanding, and willing the temporal manifestation of
God, the incarnate Son. Here, the link with salvation history is
clear. As we have already seen, this temporal manifestation performs the crucial task of persuading us of God's love. It also acts
as a bridge to eternal truth so that we may contemplate God
rightly by enabling us through the missions to have some understanding of the processions. Through the temporal manifestation of God, we are brought to the faith that is necessary for
gaining eternal wisdom; but we also hope to move beyond faith.
When we strip away even the bodily elements of the temporal
manifestation of God, we give up faith for sight and attain the
vision of God that restores the image of God in us and gives us
true wisdom. 45 Though one gains this wisdom individually,
Augustine's interest is not strictly individualistic. He says in
Book IV that Christ wants his disciples to be one in him so that
they may overcome their divisions of will and become bound in
the same fellowship of love that binds the Father and the Son
together. 46 The oneness with God that comes with the vision of
God is the precondition for this united fellowship and so occupies most of his attention, but there is indeed a practical consequence of this concern for knowledge of God's being that should
not be overlooked. 47
In Book XV, Augustine says that though we can begin to
understand the Trinity through the image of the Trinity that is in
Ibid., XIV:15.
Ibid., XIV:3, 15, 23-26.
46 Ibid., IV:12.
47 For a discussion about the practical value of recovering the trinitarian image of
God, see Rowan Williams, "Sapientia and the Trinity: Reflections on the De Trinitate,"
in Bernard Bruning, Mathijs Lamberigts, and Jozef van Houtem, eds., Collectanea
Augustiana: Melanges T.J. van Bavel, vol. 1. (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990),
317-332.
44
45

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SARAH HEANER LANCASTER

us, even our perfected image falls short of the Trinity that God
is. A human is not the same as memory, understanding, and will.
One can say, "I have these three," but not, "I am these three."
With supreme simplicity, though, God is Trinity. 48 Because for
Augustine God is Trinity, I do not think that it is accurate to say
that essence precedes relation. Nor is it accurate to say that "person" is simply equated with absolute "substance." Rather, the
persons, which are defined by their relations, are nothing other
than what the substance is. It is not that "person" equals "substance," but that the substance is three-personed. Just as for God
it is the same thing to be as to be wise, for God, it is the same
thing to be as to be triune. Anything that is said with reference
to substance is said of all three persons because the three persons
are the substance. According to Augustine, it is on this point that
our human understanding fails us. We can grasp much of the
truth, but because we still live a temporal existence, we cannot
fully understand what it is to be Trinity rather than have a trinity of some sort in us. For that understanding, we will have to
wait until we have been transformed fully from mortality to
eternity.

IV
I hope I have shown that Augustine should not be set aside as
unhelpful to new constructive understandings of the doctrine of
the Trinity simply because he is taken to have a bias for essence
over relation or a preoccupation with God's immanent relations
over God's economy. However his work may have been utilized
in the centuries that followed, Augustine was, I believe, in his
own way trying to be faithful to the economy in the understanding of God that he presents. He has been concerned precisely with what LaCugna believes to be the important question
for theology, namely, how to correlate the trinitarian pattern of
salvation history with the being of God. In fact, one might say
that for Augustine as for Rabner, LaCugna, and many others,
"The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity." Though neo48

De 1'rinitate,XV:42.

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139

Platonism informs his conception of God, one need not share his
neo-Platonism in order to appreciate his concerns. For instance,
many would object to the dualism between eternal and temporal things in his project; but as long as one recognizes that God
is not simply one object alongside others, that God is the Creator
and not one of the creatures, one can recognize the need to make
category distinctions when talking about God and the created
order. Augustine's point, then, that language taken from experience in the created order may be misleading when applied to
God is one that bears reflection. Furthermore, it is important to
see that Augustine was redefining a neo-Platonic understanding
of God in important ways on the basis of Christian faith. He is
not talking about God as monad. What concern he has for
stressing the unity of God does not come, I think, from a bias for
essence but rather from a need to address the perennial problem
of what Christians mean when talking about the one true God
as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a problem that is presented by
scripture's own varied witness to the economy and one that
should be of concern to any theologian. Augustine is aware that
assigning separable actions to separable persons leads to tritheism, and his talk about the indivisible opera ad extra should be
seen in this light. The unity that he sees, though, is not simply
absolute. It is the unity of relational essence. Augustine's vision
of God as three-personed substance may prove to have more
similarities with contemporary concern for relationality than
once thought. It may also be that Augustine can remind us that
a concern for unity and essence has its place as well. In both
respects, his work may provide fertile ground for constructive
work.

BOOK REVIEWS
Nonfoundationalism. By JOHN E. THIEL. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994.
Pp. 123.
This work initiates a new series entitled Guides to Theological Inquiry
edited by Kathryn Tanner and Paul Lakeland. The guides, which will include
topics such as herme.neutics, critical social theory, and postmodernity, are
meant neither as simple surveys nor as exhaustive monographs. They seek,
rather, to provide "reliable, programmatic statements" of the main lines of
central contemporary issues and "assessments of their theological impact."
The present work on nonfoundationalism proceeds in three chapters: nonfoundationalism as a philosophical movement; the impact of nonfoundationalism on contemporary theology; and critical questions addressed to nonfoundationalist thought. The author makes clear from the outset that the nonfoundationalism envisioned here is not of the deconstructive variety, but of
the more moderate position holding that one cannot speak of ontological or
epistemological foundations for knowledge that serve to ground other claims.
The ultimate point of nonfoundationalism is to show that foundationalism
promises "an epistemic security, completeness and stability that knowledge
does not possess" (12).
While acknowledging that foundationalist thought extends back to Plato
and Aristotle, Thiel begin his story with the modern epistemological quest for
certitude. The Cartesian search for self-justifying first principles was continued by the British empiricists, Locke and Hume, who turned toward sense
experience as a ground for philosophy, and by the German idealists, Kant,
Fichte, and Schelling, who stressed the a priori first principles provided by
human cognition. But it is precisely this idea of a prima philosophia that is
now called into question by nonfoundationalist thought.
Thiel sketches, briefly and deftly, the pragmatic precursors of philosophical nonfoundationalism who are currently enjoying a renascence: James,
Peirce, and Dewey. Central here is the reservation of these thinkers about the
modern search for Archimedean starting points and their concomitant celebration of a consensual notion of truth issuing from the network of beliefs and
social contexts of the community of inquiry. This unmasking of universal perspectives and methods is echoed and developed in the work of Wittgenstein.
Moving beyond the early positivism of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein later
argued that various socio-cultural circles comprise specific "grammars"

141

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BOOK REVIEWS

shaping the contingency and particularity of meaning. Meanings and logical
rules thrive only within unique and untranslatable frames of reference determined by convention and social circumstance.
The postpositivist empiricism of Sellars and Quine is another important
pillar of contemporary nonfoundationalism. The former's Myth of the Given
calls into question the foundational and authoritative givenness of sense data,
while the latter's Myth of the Museum reproaches the notion of a fixed, objective meaning separable from conceptual and linguistic formulation and
usage. Meanings are so enmeshed within original contexts and coordinate
systems that any alleged transferability is simply unfounded. Thiel concludes
the chapter with discussions of the well-known thought of Davidson, Rorty,
and Richard Bernstein.
In chapter two, Thiel takes up the theological implications of nonfoundationalism. For the most part, nonfoundationalism is used by certain theologians in confrontation with mediating theology or Vermittlungstheologie.
Since Schleiermacher, there have been attempts at reconciling Christianity
and post-Enlightenment culture. These "mediating" theologies seek to establish common ground between theology and secular culture by using such
bases as "general human experience," a particular anthropology, or an epistemological or communicative theory (46). Nonfoundationalist theology, however, opposes mediating or apologetical theories because they often seem to
compromise the absolute truth of the Christian gospel. Thiel discusses the
work of several nonfoundationalist theologians: Barth, Lindbeck, Thiemann,
Tanner, and Frei. The central themes of their works are now familiar. At its
worst, mediating theology can: justify revelation before the bar of modem philosophy and culture; subordinate the Word of God to finite, sinful human
experience; abandon theology's specifically ecclesial context; and, ultimately, reduce theology to anthropology. Mediating theologies, nonfoundationalists conclude, are simply another ploy of fallen human nature seeking to justify its elf.
In their place, Lindbeck proposes the specificity and normativity of the
cultural-linguistic model, arguing that it must be the religion proposed in
Scripture that defines being, truth, and beauty. All non-scriptural exemplifications of these need to be transformed by the gospel (59). Similarly, Ronald
Thiemann's polemic against mediating theologies is based on the central thesis of the prevenience of God's grace. Arguing that apologetical theologies are
too concerned with epistemological justifications, Thiemann concludes that
modernity, in its philosophical and anthropological dimensions, cannot be
taken as normative without compromising the truth of the gospel.
Nonfoundationalism holds, then, that much modern theology has become
dangerous precisely because it has committed itself "to the apologetic enter-

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143

prise undertaken ... [as] fundamental or foundational theology as a way of
validating the intelligibility of Christian claims before the epistemic demands
of post-Enliglltenment culture" (60-61).
In the final chapter, Thiel offers critical observations on nonfoundationalism. He says, astutely, that nonfoundationalist theology appears committed to
the latest philosophical developments yet offers an approach to theology that
seems premodem (79). This theological style fears that extrabiblical theory or
universal experience will become the norm for the gospel, thereby jeopardizing the revelational authority of the Christian tradition. Nonfoundationalism
resists the idea that the logic of Christian reasoning needs the extrinsic validation of philosophical speculation. Thiel notes that nonfoundationalism has
found a home particularly in Protestant theology because of its traditional
judgment that "metaphysically inclined reasoning ... substituted its own
claims for those of divine revelation" (98). Thiel wisely cautions that the
insularity of the nonfoundationalist approach can make theology too resistant
to change and development.
The author succeeds according to the stated intentions of the series' editors. The basic architecture of nonfoundationalism is clearly outlined. Thiel
has boiled down to a slim volume an enormous amount of complicated material and sifted through several authors and difficult issues-presenting them
with coherence and clarity. Some criticisms remain: In a volume of this size
the author cannot examine all of the pertinent issues; he notes at several
junctures that the works and topics treated are illustrative not exhaustive ..
Thiel narrows his compass excessively, however, when he places virtually his
entire emphasis on the pragmatic and postpositivist empirical tradition.
Mention of Heidegger is scant and Gadamer is not to be found in the index.
But surely contemporary nonfoundationalism is the result of the confluence
of two rivers: the postpositivist tum in analytical philosophy and the move in
Continental thought toward hermeneutical phenomenology. Indeed, one may
cogently argue that Heidegger's critique of Dasein's burial of historicity in
questions of truth and ontology is the major engine fueling nonfoundationalism. No doubt this will be treated in the forthcoming volume on hermeneutics, but some mention of this should have been included here.
What are the some of the specific concerns raised by nonfoundationalism,
particularly in light of Catholic theology? Two important issues emerge: One
major theme of nonfoundationalist thought-that philosophy not establish a
Procrustean bed for the gospel-is relatively uncomplicated. Catholic theology, even when foundationalist in kind, traditionally takes for granted that it
is the gospel shaping philosophy rather than vice-versa. Christian theology
cannot now take modernity as an absolutely equivalent interlocutor anymore
than it once took Platonism or Aristotelianism as such. This is the position
championed by Przywara, von Balthasar, and Bouillard in defending the
Catholic use of the analogia entis against Barthian attacks arguing that a
general ontology was now determining the gospel. All three authors argued

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that analogy was a principle "abstracted" from revelation for the sake of revelation's own intelligibility; priority, however, was always afforded to the act
of faith.
From a different angle, De Lubac and Chenu maintained that the malleability of philosophy to faith was precisely the reason for encouraging the
church to develop philosophical pluralism. The church "canonizes" no system (even if it recognizes some as particularly adequate). It uses philosophy
insofar as a particular conceptual system or framework can aid the church in
expressing the truth of Christ's gospel. This understanding was clearly ratified by Vatican II (as well as by post-conciliar magisterial documents) in its
endorsement of legitimate and authentic pluralism. With one major theme of
nonfoundationalism, then, Catholic theology is in agreement: the hegemony
of revealed truth over culture or philosophy. When Thiel concludes that nonfoundationalist theologians hold that Athens will always be involved with
Jerusalem, but on Jerusalem's terms (108), it should be added that this is the
proper foundationalist position as well.
The second and less tractable question about nonfoundationalism is this:
Can Catholic theology use nonfoundationalist thought when it seemingly militates against any theological ontology and epistemology, and particularly
against any form of metaphysics? Is nonfoundationalism capable of supporting the universal and perduring truth-claims that are maintained by the
Catholic dogmatic tradition? Can it justify the reconstructive notion of
hermeneutics that this tradition apparently needs? Does the nonfoundationalist approach adequately sustain the church's commitment to theological
realism? Must we not admit that the nonfoundationalist hesitancy about
metaphysics and epistemology is largely born from the traditional Protestant
fear of nature and the sola gratia position? Lindbeck and the nonfoundationalists present us with an either/or: One must affirm either the truth of the
gospel or foundationalist, mediating theologies. But this leads, of course, to
the traditional rejoinders: Must nature be jettisoned in order for the truth of
the gospel to appear? Should a radical divide be introduced between the
orders of creation and salvation? Cannot one defend both the prevenience of
grace, the hegemony of revelation, and foundational and mediating approaches, properly understood? Foundationalists are not necessarily philosophical
Pelagians, as sometimes charged (56), but one wonders if, to revive
Przywara's term, nonfoundationalists are not guilty of epistemological concupiscence with regard to nature. Thiel knows all this and hints at it at several
points (89, 99), but the style of the book prevents a full-fledged examination
of these questions.
Of course, any defense of foundationalism must be highly nuanced since
a large part of twentieth-century Catholic theology has been spent overcoming conceptualism and emphasizing the contextual, social, and perspectival
elements that inform knowing. Inasmuch as nonfoundationalism has done

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145

much to bring to light the existential contingencies, ideologies, webs of meaning, and networks of belief affecting thought, it has made enormous contributions. The sophisticated foundationalist theologies of Lonergan, Kasper,
and Rabner have been at pains to incorporate successfully the historicohermeneutical elements that saturate the noetic moment while still maintaining the realistic epistemology and the metaphysical/transcendental subject
apparently essential for sustaining the fundamental affirmations of Catholic
thought. The perduring question affecting theological issues is this: Is it theological legerdemain to continue to defend nature, realism, and stability of
meaning amidst the thick welter of elements influencing thought and being?
Thiel's work will help to clarify the issues surrounding this question.
THOMAS G. GUARINO
Seton Hall University
South Orange, N.J.

The Christian God. By RICHARD SWINBURNE. Oxford: The Clarendon Press,
1994. Pp. 253. $55.00 (cloth); $22.00 (paper).
In this the third volume of his magisterial series on the philosophy of
Christian doctrine, Swinburne deals with belief in the Trinity and the
Incarnation. His aim is to give a coherent account of the meanings of these
doctrines, and the kinds of reasons one might have, given a prior belief that
there is a God, for supposing that they are true. While he maintains that reason alone can show that God is triune, he does not believe that the same is
true of the Incarnation, which is after all a matter of what God has freely chosen to do; but he does think that one can show that there were good reasons
for God to become incarnate and thus that God was quite likely to do so. To
judge in addition that this actually happened, further arguments are needed,
and are supplied by Swinburne, from revelation and history.
The first part of the book is concerned with general issues of metaphysics,
with the nature of substance, necessity, time, and causality. With the aid of
these concepts, Swinburne, expounds the nature of the Western God, and
shows how this understanding of God develops quite naturally into belief in
the particular doctrines constitutive of Christianity. God's essential properties, as Swinburne sees it, all follow from God's having "pure, limitless
power." Now this essence belongs to God in virtue of what God is; it is not a
"relational" property, dependent on the divine relations with other things that
are or may be-to use Swinburne's terminology, it is metaphysical rather than
ontological. It follows that God is the greatest conceivable being, and the doctrine of divine simplicity, properly understood, also follows quite logicallythough it seems to Swinburne that the late patristic and early medieval
authors expounded this in a way so misleading as to give the doctrine a bad

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name, by claiming God was somehow identical with the divine properties.
How could any entity, he asks, even God, be identical with its properties?
And how could properties such as omnipotence and omniscience be identical with one another? But, in spite of these errors, the authors concerned were
trying to bring out something true and important-the fact that "there is no
more to God than essential properties" (163).
Now, by "monadic" properties Swinburne means those that belong to
something quite apart from its relations with anything else; he distinguishes
"monadic" from "relational" properties. While monadic properties characterize something as the kind of thing that it is, it is relational properties that
constitute it as the particular individual of that kind it is. If there are different divine individuals, they must be individuated by virtue of their relations
with one another. The first divine individual will actively cause another, and
in cooperation with that other will cause a third. Is there an overriding reason for the first divine individual thus to cause others? (The withers of
Western Christian theologians, though not I think of Eastern, will be wrung
by this talk of "causality" within the Trinity; but the difficulty, such as it is,
is merely terminological.) According to Swinburne, the love of God is such a
reason; love involves giving and receiving, and cooperating with another to
benefit a third party. "Love must share and love must co-operate in sharing"
(178).
Given that God has created a universe with human beings liable to sin,
and so in need of reconciliation, is it necessary for God to become incarnate?
Some theologians, notably Anselm, have held that it was necessary; but the
majority, followed by Swinburne himself, have maintained that it was not.
Divine concern for our plight need not have expressed itself in an incarnation; but there is "a generous propriety" (218) in its having done so, as can
be shown in many ways. Having created such a good thing as human nature,
it seems as proper for God to assume it as it would be for the designer of a
sort of coat to wear it himself. The Incarnation teaches us the dignity of
human nature, and shows us the extent of God's love for us, as well as an
example of how to live a human life. Also, propositional revelation is more
convincing as coming from a divine human being than through a mere
prophet. Furthermore, it is fitting for God to share with creatures the suffering to which they have been subjected for their greater good.
Granted these reasons why an incarnation would be appropriate, what
kind of evidence could we have that such an event has actually happened?
The main evidence would be that the human being concerned has lived a life
that would be appropriate to the fulfillment of the aims that have been mentioned-that he lived a life of perfect goodness that showed his love for us,
and taught us important truths that we could not otherwise have known. We
should understand the Resurrection as God's seal of approval on the teaching
and mission of Jesus; given the a priori reasons for expecting such a miracle

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(argued in Swinburne"s book on Revelation), the historical evidence for this
event need not be strong. The Church's teaching about what the Lord said and
did is to be believed as authenticated by God. "Revelation confirms the public evidence that Christ lived the sort of life that God Incarnate would be
expected to have set himself to live" (221).
Unfortunately, immense scholarly erudition is incompatible neither with
intellectual incompetence nor with triviality of mind; obviously it would be
invidious to cite examples, but they are legion. This only serves to set in relief
Swinburne's combination of philosophical power, detailed knowledge of
orthodox Christian doctrine, and just appreciation of its intellectual riches,
for it is as admirable as it is rare.
HUGO MEYNELL
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta

Biblical Faith and Natural Theology: The Gifford lectures for 1991. By
JAMES BARR. Oxford: The Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993. Pp. vii+ 244. $48.00 {cloth); $17.95 (paper).
The subject of the Gifford Lectures is "natural theology"; so when a prominent Old Testament scholar is invited to give these lectures, one might reasonably expect him to discuss the degree to which his own research has warranted the designation of the texts he studies as employing "natural theology." And this is precisely what James Barr did in his 1991 Lectures-in
about three of the ten lectures. In others, he ranged widely over almost every
other subfield of theological inquiry, including New Testament studies, literature, philosophical and systematic theology, and moral theology. The results,
in the published version of these lectures, is a relatively small amount of
analysis of the Old Testament and the Jewish tradition, and much speculative
assertion about the implications of these claims for other theological disciplines.
Such is the province of the Gifford Lecturer; having achieved enough notoriety to be invited to give these prestigious lectures, one can say whatever one
wishes. Barr did not waste the opportunity; he used the lectures to attack,
with vigor, all opponents of natural theology-especially Karl Barth, but also
T. F. Torrance and "Barthians" generally. The result is a very uneven book,
providing interesting insights into the Old Testament and its background
while making some very dubious claims about the theological endeavor generally, and about certain of its practitioners in particular.
The book begins by defining natural theology-a matter that would ordinarily need little comment, except that here Barr lays the groundwork in ways
that provide a positive prejudice for the arguments made later in the book.

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Natural theology, says Barr, means that '"by nature', that is, just by being
human beings, men and women have a certain degree of knowledge of God
and awareness of him, or at least a capacity for such an awareness; and this
knowledge or awareness exists anterior to the special revelation of God made
through Jesus Christ, through the Church, through the Bible" (1). Barr then
describes several narrower definitions, but returns to the original (and widest)
one, which seems to subsume all the others. Natural theology is thus defined
so widely as to include almost every human activity-a tremendous advantage as Barr turns to attack its critics.
Barr turns to the dispute between Karl Barth and Emil Brunner over the
subject of natural theology, culminating in Barth's angry pamphlet Nein! But
despite the sustained attack on Barth, Barr offers little analysis of this allimportant text. Instead, he focuses on Barth's own Gifford Lectures (193738), in which (on Barr's tendentious reading) Barth refuses even to admit the
existence of natural theology. As is well known, Barth's position was motivated in part by his opposition to the deutsche Christen; in his view, natural theology too easily became a rationalization for human striving. Barr admits this,
yet refuses to read Barth as a contextually-motivated theologian (despite a
citation of Stephen Webb's fine book on the rhetorical nature of Barth's theology). Indeed, Barth's later retraction of his early extreme position on natural theology is mentioned only briefly by Barr. By the beginning of chapter
two, Barr speaks of "Barth's complete rejection of all natural theology" (21).
Only by this narrow focus on the most extreme version of Barth's argument
can Barr justify the intensity of his attack.
The attack is carried out in three major stages. The first stage, comprising
chapters two and three, focuses on St. Paul-including his apparent invocation of natural theology (e.g., in the Areopagus speech in Acts 17, and in
Romans 1, to name the two most notable examples), and then exploring the
degree to which this invocation would have seemed natural in light of Paul's
Jewish background. That background is explored in the second stage of argument (chapters four and five), first in terms of the intertestamental Wisdom
literature, then focusing on the Old Testament, suggesting that a form of natural theology is already present in the Bible itself.
Finally, in the third stage, Barr returns to the modern discussion, arguing
that because the Bible itself employs natural theology, one cannot deny it
while appealing to the Bible. This is, in fact, the thesis of the book-which
unfortunately seems (to me, at least) something of a non sequitur. Barth would
no doubt have argued that he cared only about natural theology attempted
outside the biblical witness; the problem, as already noted, was that natural
theology justified human self-aggrandizement. The inspired Biblical writers
could never fall into the trap of arguing from "purely human" motives.
Besides, the Bible's "natural theology" never exists in isolation from revelation; even if Paul did appeal to the Athenians' general acceptance of the existence of higher powers, he certainly did not isolate this from his preaching of

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Christ crucified. And so Barth would have probably applauded Barr for his
assemblage of natural-theology-like arguments from the Bible, and then
responded that these did not affect his argument that natural theology was not
the business of twentieth-century theologians. In other words, the mere
occurrence of such arguments in the Bible does not invalidate the claim that
there is no "point of contact" between God and human beings outside of the
revelation of Jesus Christ.
So might Barth have responded. But Barr never offers his opponent a
chance to respond. Indeed, the attack on Barth is so polemical-at times
even vicious-that the idea that he might have answered the charges made
here does not seem to have crossed the author's mind. The tirade never ceases, though in some places it is mercifully less intense, as when Barr explores
some of the implications of his analysis for certain related subjects: his rehabilitation of the "history of religions" approach to theology (chapter seven);
his reconstruction of the doctrine of the imago Dei (chapter eight); and, in
chapter nine, his exploration of "science, language, parable, and scripture"-especially valuable for its clear advocacy of the Bible as "the
Church's book" (197-98). Because these chapters occasionally lay aside the
anti-Barthian polemic, they are more readable and more valuable.
The first two stages of Barr's argument are (in my view) relatively persuasive readings of certain biblical texts as employing natural-theology-like
arguments. But Barr will not allow me this view, because he does not believe
that "readings" are worthy of the name of "theology" (205 n. 7). He believes
that there is something more basic and essential that texts actually "say," that
exists independently of their readers, and that he can disclose to us, via the
method he has used since his 1961 book The Semantics of Biblical Language.
Contemporary interpretation theory has cast considerable doubt on the
proposition that semantic structures contain "meanings" that can somehow
be rendered transparent by any skilled exegete. Yet Barr speaks, without
apology, of concepts being "in" the Bible (e.g., 20, 83); he makes the text the
subject of active verbs, such as permits (19) and supports (60); he even claims
that the Bible can, all by itself, "point in a direction different from" a theologian's convictions. In short, Barr believes that texts place limits on their
own interpretation-limits that are only evident to the semantically-alert biblical scholar.
Does this mean Barr is unware that readers actively "do things" with
texts? No indeed; he tells us that Kiisemann holds beliefs that "he most wants
and needs to find in Paul" (47), that Barth superimposed ce1tain theological
constructions on texts (79), and that "Barthianism moulded past intellectual
history in his own image" (105). Yet while Barr is sharply critical of others'
interpretive efforts ("philological recklessness of a high degree," 86 n. 8;
"theologically irresponsible," 161 n. 14), he seems to have no doubts about
the pure objectivity of his own work.

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As the book progresses, natural theology is claimed to be demonstrated
whenever. the Bible can be read in ways that show some influence of neighboring Near Eastern tribes (because "transreligiosity" is a sign of the acceptance of natural theology), or when it makes commonsense claims that could
be made without access to special revelation (such as sensible modes of judicial administration, or statements of fact). As Barr piles up these examples,
he actually makes his case less persuasive, since it begins to look as if Barth
is defeated every time that someone in the Bible is said to think or act. This
tendency reaches the point of self-parody in chapter seven, where Barr
claims that because theologians must use their own "thoughts, reason,
instincts, and experience" in order to interpret the text (152), this somehow
invalidates any statement of opposition to natural theology. As if to say:
"When Barth argues against natural theology, he has to think in order to do
so; therefore his argument fails." Does anyone seriously believe that Barth's
position is compromised by an argument such as this?
Barr might have provided the scholarly community with a very worthwhile
service, had he simply surveyed the biblical text and offered his own reading
of the Bible as a document in which natural theology plays a central role. But
his effort to trip Barth up on his own devotion to the Bible leads him into
uncharted waters, proposing a dissolution of the distinction between natural
and revealed theology without any sense of what might be put in its place. For
example, his final chapter suggests that our ethical sensibilities might be
misled by the Bible but repaired by moral philosophy. This chapter contains
an interesting discussion of those Old Testament practices that most offend
us today (such as the herem-Barr calls it "consecration to destruction"-in
effect, a genocidal obliteration of defeated Canaanite cities). However, as to
why we should prescind from the claims of the Bible on this matter, Barr can
only quote Stewart Sutherland's principle that "a religious belief that runs
counter to our moral beliefs is to that extent unacceptable" (219). This principle looks very attractive when applied to the herem, but Barr fails to recognize that it would look equally attractive to the fascist or the torturer seeking
to relieve himself of certain "religious" beliefs. While Roman Catholicism
has a broad tradition of moral theology to fall back on in this regard, modem
Protestantism does not; the removal of its base in biblical revelation would
make it subject to the extreme individualism of the culture in which it has
developed, with disastrous consequences.
And this is only one case in which Barr's insatiable desire to devour Karl
Barth leads him out of his depth. For example, he spends considerable energy in chapter six ridiculing Barth for having learned his methodology from
Anselm. Besides the fact that Barr has been misled into thinking that Anselm
is a philosophical theist who forwards "proofs" (in the modern sense) of God's
existence, he also accuses him of being "totally devoid of insight" (131) into
the claims about the Bible made by Barth and others in the Reformed tradition-a statement that is hardly borne out by a thorough reading of Anselm.

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Barr is an Old Testament scholar, and it is not his business to know every
aspect of theology-unless of course he chooses to make the sweeping claims
he so often makes in this book. It is, in fact, the book's tone that is most offputting-from the self-promoting footnotes to the high-handed pronouncements on the illegitimacy of any approach to biblical interpretation besides
Barr's own. Example: "the countless pages of wearisome, inept, and futile
exegesis in the Church Dogmatics, especially in the later volumes, were only
a testimony to the fact that the Bible cannot be used theologically when the
work of biblical scholarship is brushed aside" (203). Such assertions of theology's dependence on historical-critical biblical scholarship are wholly
unwarranted, especially given the consistently waning influence of historical
criticism in contemporary biblical hermeneutics. Indeed, we are increasingly aware that some of our most profound insights into the biblical text come
from writers like Augustine, Thomas, and Luther-despite the fact that they·
received no imprimatur from the guild of historical-critics.
DAVID S. CUNNINGHAM
The University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, Minnesota

Seeking the Humanity of God: Practices, Doctrines, and Catholic Theology. By
]AMES J. BUCKLEY. Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1992. Pp.
xvii+ 222. $14.95 (paper).

The enterprise proposed in this work consists in "seeking the humanity of
God," as its title indicates. The author is eager to present his thesis explicitly:
doing theology is relating the practices and teachings of the Catholic community
to the practices and teachings of our common and not so common humanity in
ways that engage what God is doing for all humanity in Word and Spirit. (19)

Or, stated as a practical recommendation:
Seek the humanity of God in each and every particular joy and grief of our
lives---{)ur Scriptures and worship, our holy but sinful Church, the reasons we
give to a world of diverse gods and unbeliefs, and all our quests for the new heaven and earth God is creating in Word and Spirit. (19-20; see 182)

How are we to seek theologically the humanity of God?
Still further, the thesis is about seeking the humanity of God as we seek and
inquire into specific practices and doctrines and patterns of relationships-as we
use our Bible, celebrate liturgies, enact the common goods of the Church, give
reasons for the hope that is in us, and identify with and identify the joys and
griefs of all humanity. (22; original emphasis)

After a first chapter, which acquaints us with Buckley's project, the fol-

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lowing ones put forward five sub-theses-each of them italicized at the
beginning of every chapter. Thus, chapter two begins with the context set up
by the Christian initiation; chapter three deals with Jesus Christ and
Scriptures; chapter four discusses views of salvation; chapter five tackles the
doctrine of God; and chapter six takes up the issue of the meaning of world
history.
A look at the table of contents makes it clear that every chapter is subdivided in the same fashion: A, B, and C. The author explicates this threefold
architecture: "each chapter describes a pai1icular 'practice,' articulates a
specific 'doctrine,' and proposes a theological way of relating those practices
and teachings to other practices and teachings" (x).
As far as A is concerned, he remarks that the practices with which he
commences each chapter are "not catholic 'practices in general' but Catholic
practices" (20). (In Buckley's usage, "Catholic"= "Roman Catholic"; see xi.)
The role of such practices is highlighted "by describing 'samples' of 'competent speakers'-or 'paradigmatic ideals' of Christian praxis" (20; original
emphasis). As far as B is concerned, "each chapter will then provide an
instance, a sample, or example of inquiry into teachings or doctrines ... suggesting ways to articulate teachings about specific topics or subject matters
in particular context" (20). Finally, as far as C is concerned, "each chapter
will provide an example of proposing patterns of relationships between
Catholic practices and teachings and other practices and teachings" (21).
If readers pay close attention to what is actually going on in his sections
A and B, however, they might wonder whether the distinction between practices and teachings is not often blurred. The author finds many of his practices in texts, which are said to be narratives and which include teachings.
Moreover, he constantly talks of "relationships." But the manner in which he
relates practices and teachings may appear hazy. Consider, for example, how
he recapitulates his first sub-thesis:
I have proposed that because baptismal inquiry is the presiding ritual context of
Christian inquiry which drives and is driven by the catechumenal rule, the
Christian life is a permanent catechumenate constituted by continuing schooling
in weaving the inquiry into Christ with inquiries into our world in a way that conforms to what God is doing with our world. (51)

Are these general considerations insightful, or are they mere truisms? Many
readers will ask, along with the author himself: "Where does this leave us?"
(51).
Proceeding by models or types also leaves much to be desired. For
instance, in the "Three Patterns of Relationships Between Truths" (44), can
we ascribe inclusiveness (and validity) to the first model-"natural theologians"-that is based on Swinburne but does not correspond with the thought
of Aquinas or of Vatican I?
Buckley tells us that he has "tried to keep in mind an audience of college
students (along with the theological experts who teach them) who need to

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know what prompts theological inquiry, how it relates to other inquiries, and
whether it is worth undertaking" (xii). No doubt the book makes readers more
aware of the several contexts-liturgical, christological-scriptural, soteriological, theistic, and cosmological-in which theologizing develops.
Furthermore, in accord with Buckley's conviction that we cannot do theology
but from the vantage point of a particular tradition (10), the documents he
examines are "Catholic": the "Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults" (chapter
2), Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
(chapter 3), Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, followed by
volume VII of Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue, entitled Justification by
Faith (chapter 4), excerpts from Vatican II on God (chapter 5), and again
Vatican H's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (chapter 6).
Given Buckley's insistence on theologizing from a particular viewpoint, it
is surprising that he does not inform his intended audience (especially the
"college students" he addresses) that his whole problematic, far from being
"Catholic," is the one framed by Karl Barth (more comprehensively, LessingKierkegaard-Barth) and developed by thinkers associated with Yale
University. In this regard, what he writes in his Preface (xv) is not explicit
enough. For all the many interesting theological suggestions made by Frei,
Lindbeck, Christian, Ford, Thiemann, Marshall, and others (see the index),
the limits of their approach ought to have been adumbrated. It also remains
doubtful whether Buckley sheds additional light on what members of that
"Yale School" have already brought up.
If, as its subtitle indicates, this work is supposed to be an exercise in
"Practices, Doctrines, and Catholic Theology," how is it that it discusses
almost exclusively twentieth-century documents and writings? Is it not characteristic of Catholic theology to move beyond the mere interaction between
Scriptures and the way that they must be appropriated in our days, and to
take the time, on each issue, to learn from the great patristic and medieval
doctors? Except for rare allusions, this book ignores nineteen centuries of
Catholic thinking.
Buckley asks grand-scale questions that cover almost everything in matters of Christian practice and doctrine. In 183 pages of text, he wants to relate
Catholic pedagogy, the sacraments, biblical hermeneutics, soteriology, the
treatise on God, and world religions. His treatment of those topics is generally "narrative" in a very broad sense. Moreover, his use of words is not technical, but "common sensical," as he says himself. For him, theology is
inevitably "particular" and therefore imbedded in liturgical and catechetical
practices that are expressed in common sensical language.
Does not Buckley's stance run against the whole intellectual evolution, in
the patristic and medieval ages, from common sense to theory? This extraordinary evolution was marked by accounts of truth, made by such great minds
as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, that have become basic to Catholic the-

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ology. For example, on the issue-rightly central to Buckley-of whether
Christian beliefs that look particular can nevertheless be held as universal,
that is, valid for all minds, they had strong views and they gave good reasons
to support them. Buckley does not mention those views on truth or their supporting reasons.
Buckley's fundamental interest seems to lie in the conflict between particularity and universality (the Lessing problem). Any good patristic or
medieval thinker would take him to task for the very way he frames the tension between "Catholicity" and "catholicity." Among those of his readers who
are theologians knowledgeable in the Catholic tradition, several are likely to
ask: How can a book that purports to introduce college students to Catholic
theology ignore the contribution not only of the ancient Catholic doctors, but
of a brilliant contemporary Catholic author like Bernard Lonergan, who, in
Method in Theology, comes to grips with the Lessing problem, namely, historicity and truth? Buckley's discussion of doctrinal "rivalries" could have
profited from Lonergan's functional specialties (hardly sorted out in Buckley's
book), differentiations of consciousness, or distinction between different complementary perspectives and different incompatible horizons.
When he introduces an issue, usually Buckley does not take a firm stance
(44-50, for instance). At times, he suggests that it is preferable not to resolve
problems: "the unresolved problems are what constitute it [soteriology] as an
inquiry (in contrast, say, to a set of settled questions)" (120). Fortunately, he
escapes-at least once-this fashionable yet unwarranted precept (of opting
for inquiry at the expense of settling questions). Interestingly, it is when he
adopts Karl Barth's settling of the question of how one can relate Christian
and other soteriologies (113-117).
In sum, many readers will probably find useful Buckley's compendious
endnotes and his formulation of the current difficulties involved in doing theology. For all its riches, however, the perspective adopted in this work is narrowly contemporary in its ignorance of relevant Catholic insights.
LOUIS ROY, 0.P.
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA

Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality. By ROBERT P.
GEORGE. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Pp. 241. $45.00 (cloth).
Making Men Moral, by Robert George of Princeton, is an intensive,
provocative, and dispassionate contemplation of the nature of public morality and civil liberties. Although my last phrase reverses the order of the book's
subtitle, this reversal of order accords well with the basic structure of
George's argument. For he contends that the nature of the good is the foun-

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dation of civil liberties, which liberties he derives from a "thick," i.e., content-filled, notion of the good.
George articulates this rooting of civil liberties critically, in response to
"antiperfectionist" analyses that epistemically divorce civil liberties from the
nature of the good, while also positively sketching a "perfectionist" account
of civil liberties. The central "perfectionist" tenet that George sets out to
defend is stated at the very beginning of the book. Having pointed out that
law is not able of itself to make men moral, but only to command outward conformity, he nonetheless notes about the pre-liberal tradition of political
morality that:
According to this tradition, laws forbidding certain powerfully seductive and
corrupting vices (some sexual, some not) can help people to establish and
preserve a virtuous character by (1) preventing the (further) self-corruption
which follows from acting out a choice to indulge in immoral conduct; (2)
preventing the bad example by which others are induced to emulate such
behavior; (3) helping to preserve the moral ecology in which people make
their morally self-constituting choices; and (4) educating people about moral
right and wrong. (p. 1)

This positive evaluation of the moral justification and helpfulness of legal
constraints is frontally challenged by the liberal tradition. From the harm
principle articulated by J. S. Mill, according to which wholly self-regarding
action is viewed as beyond the just constraint of the law, to various schools of
thought that consider "the right" to be prior to, and unfounded upon, "the
good," liberals have tended to deny that any "legislation of morality" by the
state can be a good thing.
George, in delineating the scope of his disagreement with the liberal tradition as it has evolved, takes care to point out that his principled arguments
justifying laws concerning morals do not in themselves suffice to establish the
reasonability of any particular law. Such considerations will involve determinations of prudence, and considerations of the distinctive needs and character of the society in question. Nonetheless, George does consider that the
principled liberal arguments against morals legislation fail to meet critical
tests of reason.
His book is divided into three principal sections. In the first he provides
an illuminating analysis of one of the most prominent and important
exchanges in legal philosophy of the twentieth century, namely that between
H. L. A. Hart, the famed Oxfordian legal positivist, and Lord Patrick Devlin.
Interestingly, Devlin himself assumed a noncognitivist position concerning
morals-i.e., he considered morals to be unfounded in principled objective
reasons but rather founded in sentiment and faith alone. Yet Devlin proposed
in his powerful lecture (later published as The Enforcement of Morals) a utilitarian justification for the suppression of vice. The coherence of society,
Devlin thought, was threatened by even seemingly "private" and self-regarding acts of vice. Hence society's interest and right in suppressing such vice
was in Devlin's judgment cognate with society's interest and right in sup-

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pressing treason, which-even when its results are not dire-is nonetheless
an intolerable act striking at the roots of society.
Hart, whose writings exhibit little revulsion at noncognitivist theories of
morality, focused his criticism upon Devlin's insistence that vice threatens to
bring about social incoherence and breakdown. Either this is merely a matter of defining society as inconsistent with vice-in which case every minor
change in moral sentiment is definitionally transmuted into a social revolution-or else it is an empirical matter. Since the first interpretative option
leads to absurdities, Hart construed Devlin's thesis as an empirical one: societies necessarily break down insofar as vice becomes prevalent within them.
For this latter proposition, Hart found no evidence, and hence rejected
Devlin's thesis out of hand.
George rejects noncognitivist accounts of morality, and has no interest in
sustaining Devlin's view that society may rightfully impose its sense of right
upon persons irrespective of the truth. On the contrary, George argues forcefully for a cognitivist account of morality, under which a necessary but not
sufficient condition of the rightfulness of the legislation of morals is that the
enforced morals be objectively justified. Given this important dissent from
Devlin's noncognitivism, however, he does suggest an exegetically refreshing
interpretation of Devlin's thesis.
Rather than interpret Devlin's thesis as either an unfounded definitional
assertion (tantamount to holding that society is its morality at any given time,
which moral code cannot change or develop an iota without destroying the
society in question), or as an empirical assertion for which there is no evidence (i.e., interpreting it as the assertion that the flourishing within a society of what it has in the past viewed as vice guarantees its descent into chaos,
social disorder, and dissolution), George suggests a third option. One can
read Devlin more profitably, he suggests, by supposing that Devlin meant to
identify a good of social coherence beyond mere spatial proximity and the
absence of violence. Clearly, vice may not cause social breakdown in the
sense of necessarily promoting violence or social antagonism. The distinctive
good of social coherence is not mere coexistence in peace, but rather
... a state of affairs in which individuals identify their own interests with
those of others to whom they understand and experience themselves as integrally related by virtue of common commitments and beliefs. On this
assumption, the thesis that social disintegration is likely to result from the
breakdown of a shared morality is neither trivial nor implausible. (pp. 7071)

While George will have none of Devlin's relativization of the good, this
more fruitful way of construing Devlin's argument is instructive. He illustrates Devlin's thesis, thus understood, with the case of a married couple who
drift apart. Once they cease to harmonize their lives around common commitments and engagements, they may persist in coordinating their activities
for reasons of convenience: but the relationship has changed, and a good has

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been lost. "They no longer act precisely for the sake of the integration that is
constitutive of that friendship considered as something good in itself' (p. 68).
When combined with the cognitivism championed by George, this interpretation manifests the harm that objective immoralism can work upon community.
The second part of George's book constitutes a sustained criticism of various legal and moral theorists who embrace forms of antipeifectionism to
ground their opposition to morals legislation. Ronald Dworkin founds his
case against morals legislation upon a general right of all persons to be treated by the state with equal concern and respect. By contrast, Jeremy Waldron
defends a "right to do wrong" in the sense of a right not to be interfered with
while doing wrong; John Rawls argues for a theory of justice that putatively
does not presuppose any controversial themy of the good but only a sense of
fairness; and David Richards propounds the view that personal autonomy (not
moral autonomy in the Kantian sense) is sufficient to constitute moral worthiness independent of the nature of one's actions.
In response to all these authors, George patiently uncovers basic non
sequiturs that have gone unaddressed in the interests of antipeifectionist liberalism. For instance, there is nothing in the notion of "equal concern for all"
that obstructs morals legislation: it may be precisely because of one's concern
for those who harm themselves through immoral conduct that one supports
some measure of moral paternalism. This paternalism is "unconcerned" or
"contemptuous" only if one builds this into one's stipulative definition of
moral paternalism-which is a move that requires some justification.
Waldron, George thinks, may be correct that at times one has a right not
to be impeded in doing a wicked act-but not because one has a positive
right to do wrong, but because others cannot rightfully constrain one owing to
other goods and commitments that might be jeopardized by such suppression.
As looters may have a right that government not use excessive force (but not
a right to loot), so a vicious person may have a right to act unimpeded by the
government when otherwise it would need to trample upon due process, or
other important social goods, in order to impede him. But this is hardly a right
to viciousness: it is a right that is a shadow of another's prior obligation.
George's treatment of Rawls is masterful. It shows that the putative neutrality of utterly fair "contractors" drawing up social rules in ignorance of
their future substantive interests, convictions, and beliefs treats the concern
of such contractors territorially rather than morally-i.e., those behind the
"veil of ignorance" are more concerned with providing for the possibility that
they might at some time in the future hold such and such a moral view, than
with the worth of this view.
But, George avers, the mere fact that one holds a belief or interest is not
an independent ground of value: one normally holds a belief because of conviction in its truth. Addressing legal order while abstracting from this basic
datum of moral epistemology, is-in my words, not George's-something of a

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con game, pre-determining a radically individualist trajectory for one's political theory. Of course, regarding Richard's assertions regarding the supreme
value of autonomy vis-a-vis morality, George simply uncovers them as
unfounded: there is little else to do with them.
The final section of the book is, in many respects, the most bracing.
George considers the analyses of Joseph Raz, author of the seminal work The
Morality of Freedom which attempts to found liberal views of morals legislation (and of the state generally) in a perfectionist rather than antiperfectionist
account of the relation between the right and the good. Raz insists that autonomy is valueless when used for self-destructive, vicious ends. For him, Mill's
"harm principle" concerning the alleged ethical impermissibility of penalizing "self-regarding" vices should be construed, not as a principle contrary to
the enforcement of morals, but rather as a principle dictating "the proper way
to enforce morality" (p. 182).
Raz argues that morals laws unduly constrain a miscreant's autonomy in
general as the price for constraining and punishing particular vices, subjecting the offender to "global" and "indiscriminate" sanctions. While accepting
the proposition that governments both can and should prevent moral harm,
this stops short, for Raz, of being a just claim to punish "victimless" immoralities. Here George insists that all coercively enforced laws constrain autonomy, so that a distinctive reason must be given why so-called "victimless"
immoralities are never to be subject to penalty. The reason why autonomy
seems to augment the goodness of an act, George argues, is precisely its relation to practical reasonability-a good not possessed in the absence of autonomy, but also not necessarily possessed in its presence. He closes his book
with a brief sketch of an argument founding civil liberties and rights upon
morality. While professedly merely a sketch, this treatment is a valuable
effort to outline the moral goods for whose sake civil liberties are finally valuable.
One must utter one caveat about this work. George throughout rejects any
morally pertinent teleological hierarchy of basic human ends or goods. He
posits basic goods not teleologically commensurated with one another. As Fr.
Benedict Ashley and others have argued, this leads to the positing of several
final ends-a kind of ethical multiple personality disorder. Insofar as knowledge of the hierarchy of ends-up to and including the natural contemplation
of God-is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of the good life, one will
have reason to argue with the inscape of George's cognitivism and with his
moral epistemology. Nonetheless, all persons devoted to rational reflection
about moral and legal order should profit from the gem-like analyses and sustained reasonability of this fine volume.
STEVEN A. LONG

Silver Spring, Maryland

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Virtuous Passions: The Formation of Christian Character. By G. SIMON
HARAK, S. J. New York: Paulist Press, 1993. Pp. 180. $11.95 (paper).
Veritatis Splendor spoke of the need for theologians to make central once
again the essential unity between body and soul, correcting those elements in
contemporary thought that treat the body as an aside in moral considerations.
Though not his expressed intention, G. Simon Harak promotes a similar end
in his Virtuous Passions, reminding us of the significance of embodiment in a
consideration of Christian virtue. While his efforts dovetail in a number of
directions, they raise questions concerning the significance of embodiment,
especially passions, in Christian morality. "It is my central concern in this
book," he says, "to work out a moral theological account of that sense of the
rightness or wrongness of passion, and further, to consider ways to transform
morally blameworthy passions, and to foster morally praiseworthy passions"
(2).
Beginning with an overview of contemporary research among the sciences
concerning the dynamics of human emotion, Harak challenges a number of
contemporaries on the grounds that most conceptions of human action and
emotion have some remnants of a "Cartesian" model of the self, i.e., a dualism that bifurcates the essential unity between the physical body and the
"self." The effects of this trend are two-fold, both problematic according to
Harak: an inability to account for the integrity of the embodied self in the
domain of moral action; and a tendency to present the passions as mere "disturbances." Especially in terms of the latter, Descartes is blamed for the contemporary context, "for he, more than any other thinker ... is responsible for
the present prevailing model of virtue as a struggle for control of the passions
by reason" (8).
Harak's attempt to place the blame for contemporary shortcomings at the
feet of Descartes is certainly consistent with a chorus of similar postmodern
projects that have chronicled the damaging effects of the Enlightenment. He
effectively sets his reader up for an engaging reappropriation of a more "integrated" model of the passionate human person as presented by Thomas
Aquinas. A more careful articulation of the limitations of Descartes's conception of "control" would have been helpful, however, in order for the reader to appreciate more fully the alternative model that Harak claims Aquinas
offers. Without this further qualification, the reader is left to wonder about the
significance of his criticisms against Descartes, who "came to provide us with
our image of the strong and virtuous person: one who can control his passions
and the reactions of his body to the stimulus of the other" (9).
For Aquinas, of course, passions are "controlled" through their paiticipa-

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tion in right reasoning, while Descartes (as Harak presents him) presents a
wholly extrinsic model. Thomas's integrated, participatory model of the
embodied human being fuels Harak's efforts in the second chapter, as he
attempts to show that "Thomas' understanding of the passions is far more
interactive than his commentators have grasped ... and is quite congenial to
contemporary biochemical and neurophysiological research" (69). He argues
that Thomas offers an "interactive" model of human agency insofar as one
allows "the other" to affect oneself through the passions in significant ways.
Thus the meaning of our encounters with others and the world is, Harak suggests, largely a shared phenomenon between the "subject pole" and the
"object pole." Harak is correct to note the essential receptive dimension of
our passionate selves, and this marks one of the more important contributions
of his work. Still, there are times when he comes close to a coherentist model
of meaning in human actions in which the normative truth of things is wholly contextualized by the agents involved. He avoids falling entirely into this
position, however, by stating that "the interaction cannot wholly define either
interactor" (39). There is, in other words, "a distinctiveness to every human
that precedes even such primary interactions" (39). That distinctiveness
turns out to be human nature, which, as participating in the rational order of
creation, supplies the normative context of moral action. Harak's recognition
of the significance of our human teleology is an essential dimension of St.
Thomas's interactive account of the passions, but his treatment of this aspect
is far too brief.
His unwillingness to emphasize the normative dimension of recta ratio and
the constitutive role that rational nature plays in Thomas's account of virtue
leads to a distortion of St. Thomas's balance. It is certainly important to avoid
a Cartesian reading of Aquinas, but Harak is almost apologetic for Aquinas's
occasional "lapses" into notions of reason ordering the passions. It is true, for
example, that St. Thomas says that we can love God more than we can understand Him, but this does not signal, as Harak seems to suggest, that "love and
not the intellect is our best way of approaching God" (91). Had he sufficiently stressed that a proper love for God participates in reason (even though at
times exceeding the mind's grasp), Harak might have avoided some of the
imbalances in his account. He needed to discuss how our "passion" for God,
as an expression of our rational appetite (the will), is complemented by the
intellect.
Following this discussion, he takes up the Spiritual Exercises of St.
Ignatius of Loyola, suggesting that a connection exists between a Thomistic
account of the passions and the Exercises. This is one of the more provocative
aspects of his work, as more needs to be done to illustrate the ways in which
a Thomistic account of the virtues relates to spi1ituality, though here, too, had
he placed more emphasis on the place of reason and intelligence in the life
of virtue, he could have established a stronger systematic connection to St.

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161

Ignatius. According to Harak, a connection between St. Thomas and St.
Ignatius lies in the affirmation of the primacy of the imagination. Though he
admits that St. Thomas "is not strong in his discussion of the imagination in
the Treatise on the Passions" (98), Harak never fully explains that the reason
why this is so is that, for St. Thomas, reason (and not the imagination) is the
most adequate guide to a life of virtue. Still, Harak is correct in recognizing
that St. Thomas and St. Ignatius would agree that "our passions become neither moral nor holy by some kind of suppression or Cartesian control. They
become holy through our habitual communion with Jesus, through our passion for God" (117). The Thomisitically motivated meditation on the Exercises
(as well as the reflection on the life of non-violence undertaken in the last
chapters) is spirited in its development and marks an important element of
his work.
Harak's book serves as a catalyst for further discussion and inquiry into
the possibilities of a contemporary engagement with Aquinas. Each chapter,
taken independently, lights up aspects to be considered by those engaged in
the questions of passion, virtue, and Christian moral maturity, though the
connections among the chapters are not always clear. Notwithstanding the
reservations mentioned here, the book could serve as an instructive piece,
engaging Thomists, psychologists, and students of the Christian moral life
alike.
CHRISTOPHERJ. THOMPSON
University of St. Thomns
St. Paul, Minnesota

letters from lake Como: Explorations in Technology and the Human Race. By
ROMANO GUARDINI. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Introduction
byLouis Dupre. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans. 1994. Pp. 130.
$9.99 (paper).

The new Ressourcement series extends the "Retrieving the Tradition" feature of Communio International Catholic Review. Guardini's book fits the purpose, for it could not have been written without St. Thomas's hylomorphic
anthropology or epistemology of the existential judgment. Written in the
1920s, these letters show a chilling prescience of technology run amok. And
they give a dramatic account of the gaining of their final insight. They form a
trilogy with the later Power and Responsibility and The End of the Modern
World.
The first letter seeks an integral metaphysics of technology and of human
nature. The inhabitation and industrialization of the entire landscape from

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Milan to Lake Como saddened Guardini. The problem was not the urbanity
that is humanity. The sudden sight of a factory gave him a deep sense that
death was somehow overtaking life. The second letter finds his sadness deepened, for a longing for untouched nature is a result of culture, not barbaric.
Culture is human intervention in nature to serve the spiritual needs of persons within the natural world. Technology denies these needs and alienates
us from nature. Both culture and technology are artifices, but culture respects
natural limits. A sailboat distances us from nature as swimming does not.
Naturally heavy, it is by human artifice light enough to be moved by the wind.
But in it we retain a closeness to nature that suits our human make-up, minds
above matter and yet integrated into it. An ocean liner is totally artificial,
thus crossing a border that alienates us from nature. The problem is to identify that border.
The third letter begins an answer. Culture, as symbolic, mediates between
nature and the human spirit even while creating a certain necessary distance
between them. It draws us away from concreteness to find a universal rather
than an ad hoc stance toward raw nature. The question intensifies: Is an
alienating abstraction our only way to the universal? Guardini's answer is a
strong Thomistic "No!" Human intellection reaches the universal in the singular, not in isolation from it. A false abstraction makes symbols ends in
themselves. But, as a means, abstractions mediate our encounter with singular concrete realities, enabling us to integrate the universal and the particular. Human knowing attains the truth of things, which remains its constant
criterion. Later theories of knowing would make abstract concepts the primary object of the mind, leading to the nominalism of modem science and the
arrogance of the technological imperative.
A monstrously heightened cognition of the factual details of history, geography, and astronomy, and even of the human body and mind, is the topic of
the fourth letter. It has come to be a general attitude, turning mental life into
a series of interruptions that preclude the self-forgetful confidence required
for human activities. The question evolves: Does consciousness itself take us
across the boundary that separates the cultivation of nature from the domination of nature that is the death of culture and, finally, of nature and humanity as well?
The fifth letter shows how our ability to survey the earth has erased the
distinction between inhabited and uninhabited territories, bringing a new,
global frontier with newly urgent problems. The ordering of human relationships-family ties, national origins, and inter-cultural relations-now calls
for criteria other than a normative Europe. New ways of ordering the
resources of the whole are required. The ancient need to seek the intensive
meaning rather than the extensive facts seems to be coming back under a new
guise. It is the desire to know what is truly human.
The sixth letter meditates on mastery, an analytic separation of the parts

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163

of a thing so as to rearrange them arbitrarily. Culture instead respects the
inner unity of things and transforms them accordingly. Capricious mastery
has become the general attitude even toward human beings. Guardini concludes, with deepening sadness, that a change in kind, not just in extent, is
relentlessly bringing us not a new culture but barbarism.
The seventh letter attacks mass production, for culture requires a certain
aristocracy of its participants. But the boundary between technology and culture is not mere quantity. A sail on the Lake has brought into view just a few
artifacts-a couple of villas, a bridge. Like the great cathedrals, they
required time for their production, time to clarify and then express inner
forms. The inner formation of human participants in culture requires a parallel, slow effort. The recent inner vulgarizing of people has seen a reciprocal
vulgarizing of films, of religious belief, of language, even. Mass production
makes questionable the very possibility of human life.
The eighth letter uncovers the essence of culture. It is the product of living persons in organic relation to nature, their bodies informed by souls with
properly human powers. Culture can make and use tools; as extensions of our
bodily organs, they are human while remaining in harmony with nature.
Hand-shaped stone steps on a donkey trail are an example of their products.
But the organic connection to nature is broken by the analytic knowledge of
modern science. The capricious will produces machines-such as automobiles, and highways for them-that display neither human nor natural form.
Culture is then not just transformed but destroyed, succeeded by barbarism.
The theme of the ninth letter is the task that modern barbarism sets for
us-an event rather than a formula, living human action. A new generation,
taking full critical account of technology, must declare the past culture dead.
A new Christian attitude will put us into immediate relation to God. Only so
will we have the courage to distance ourselves from nature in order to construct symbols that will mediate our presence in it. Technology itself has
become a monstrous raw material to be cultured. The task will require a new
inner human form, an awareness that is not analytic, and a will that submits
to the will of God. A new humanity must make a new world.
Guardini's final hope for the replacement of the technological barbarism
of his day by a new human culture is breath-taking. The first entry of German
inwardness into history brought a transformation in the culture of the past.
Now the Enlightenment caricature of education must be replaced by a new
formation of inner selves, paralleled by a new social and cultural ambience.
Guardini sees precursors of these correlated inner and outer changes in some
of the architecture and literature of his Germany, and in the members of his
Catholic youth movement who, opposed to recent mechanization and individualism, were yet ready to humanize technology. Here was evidence of God's
working in the depths. So the letters end. And then came the Third Reich.

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Guardini could not have foreseen in the 1920s what he saw in the 1940s.
He seems to have lived a private life after being dismissed, in 1939, from the
University of Berlin for opposing the Nazis. In 1948 he was calling publicly
for Germany to pay reparations to the Jews. In 1960 he appended to the fifth
edition of his Letters from Lake Como his talk to the Munich College of
Technology, "The Machine and Humanity." Here he dares to call for a technological culture in which artifacts, not machines, would extend what is truly
human to global, even cosmic, limits. But we need an ethics of power, for we
have turned ourselves into machines. Sobered, but still hopeful, he admits
that, so far, humanly destructive forces have won out more often than not.
What can one say? Guardini could not have foreseen in 1960 what we
have seen since, when the very beginnings and endings of human life have
been mechanized for utilitarian purposes. His diagnosis was right, and the
remedy remains the same: the choice to humanize ourselves as well as physical nature. That hope is now personified in the philosopher-theologian seated on the throne of Peter. But the culture of death must die before the civilization of love can be born.
This book, itself an instance of humanized technology, carries on its cover
a painting by Jeroen Henneman, Lake Returns Greeting. The shoreline of a
lake has the appearance of a man tipping his hat to an observer on the shore,
who is tipping his hat to the lake. When man respects nature-both physical
and human, nature-both human and physical-returns the compliment.
MARY F. ROUSSEAU
Marquette University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The God Who Acts. Edited by THOMAS F. TRACY. University Park, Penn.: Penn
State Press, 1994. Pp. 148. $28.50 (cloth); $14.95 (paper).
This volume is intended to stimulate conversation between philosophers
and theologians on topics of mutual interest. It contains four chapters: two by
philosophers and two by theologians. Each chapter is followed by a response.
The responses to philosophers are by theologians; the responses to theologians are by philosophers. By arranging the volume in this way, the editor has
insured that it will provide examples of the sort of conversation that he hopes
it will stimulate. Initial drafts of most of the chapters were presented at a conference that the editor organized at the University of California at Los
Angeles. A brief introduction by the editor sets the stage for what is to follow.
The editor has divided the volume into two parts. The first is entitled
"Particular Divine Action: Providence and the Problem of Evil." In it the

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topic of conversation is issues raised by claims about particular divine interventions in the world. Maurice Wiles, a theologian, begins the conversation
with an essay called "Divine Action: Some Moral Considerations," and
Robert Merrihew Adams responds to Wiles in an essay with the title
"Theodicy and Divine Intervention." William P. Alston, a philosopher, continues the conversation in an essay called "Divine Action: Shadow or
Substance?" and James M. Gustafson responds to Alston in an essay with the
title "Alternative Conceptions of God." The second part is entitled
"Universal Divine Action: Creation, Human Freedom, and Sin." In it the
topic of conversation is issues raised by the doctrine of divine creation and
conservation of all contingent reality. Thomas F. Tracy, the editor and a
philosopher, starts the conversation with an essay called "Divine Action,
Created Causes, and Human Freedom," and David B. Burrell, C.S.C.,
responds to Tracy in an essay with the title "Divine Action and Human
Freedom in the Context of Creation." Kathryn E. Tanner, a theologian, continues the conversation in an essay called "Human Freedom, Human Sin, and
God the Creator," and William Hasker responds to Tanner in an essay with
the title "God the Creator of Good and Evil?"
Each of these two conversations ranges widely over many issues of both
philosophical and theological interest, and a brief review cannot do full justice to their scope. But each of them also has a central theme, and I shall
focus my attention on these thematic unities.
The central theme of the first part is the revisionary proposal that belief in
divine providential intervention in the created world be eliminated from
Christian theology. Curiously, the two theologians, Wiles and Gustafson, are
favorably disposed toward this proposal, while the two philosophers, Adams
and Alston, oppose it. Wiles argues forcefully that "there are significant
moral reasons against accepting the idea of direct or special actions of God
in history of a kind that might appropriately be described as a form of divine
intervention" (23). There are two moral objections to interventionist accounts
of divine providential action. As they are portrayed in Christian scripture and
tradition, God's interventions in history are very selective. They appear to be
distributed in a way that displays an arbitrary partiality and thus casts doubt
on God's fairness or justice. In addition, they seem often to promote relatively trivial ends when set in the context of horrors such as the Nazi genocide,
which no divine intervention prevented, and hence also cast doubt on God's
goodness. These two objections are, of course, specific forms of the problem
of evil.
Wiles also suggests that there are metaphysical reasons for accepting "the
incompatibility of a strong doctrine of God's transcendence and the idea of
divine intervention" (23). When moral and metaphysical considerations are
combined, he takes the result to be a case of formidable force for abandoning

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interventionist accounts of divine action. He is prepared to pay a high price
to remove such accounts from Christian theology. It includes acknowledging
that miracles "should have no place in Christian theology" (26), conceding
that the doctrine of the virginal conception has a "legendary character" (27),
and thinking that neither the early New Testament witness to the physical
resurrection of Jesus nor its role in Christian theology as a whole "requires
an interventionist understanding of divine action in relation to it" (28). Many
Christians would be unwilling to pay such a price. So it is important to ask
whether the force of the moral objections to interventionist accounts of divine
action proposed by Wiles can be blunted. Both Adams and Alston argue that
they can.
Adams tries to outflank Wiles theologically by setting interventionist
accounts of divine action in the larger context of a story of salvation. If there
is life after death for human beings, then horrific evils can be defeated by
great goods. But unless one believes that what survives death is a naturally
immortal soul, it will seem plausible to regard life after death as a miracle
that involves special divine intervention. Moreover, occasional miracles can
provide a foretaste of the great goods of the afterlife. As Adams sees it, "we
may well welcome signs of the greater good breaking into the present life,
even if that involves some inequity in the distribution of the lesser goods and
evils" (37). Many theistic stories of salvation depict it as taking place within
the context of a personal relationship with God. If fostering such personal
relationships with human beings is an important divine purpose, God has,
Adams concludes, "a reason to intervene sometimes, and perhaps to work
miracles occasionally, even if divine purposes regarding our freedom require
that miracles should be infrequent" (39).
Alston's reply to the moral objections set forth by Wiles takes a different
tack. Though he views them as serious difficulties, he argues that their force
is diminished just because they are particular forms of the problem of evil.
Quite apart from problems about divine interventions in history, there are
plenty of unanswered questions about why God's creation contains the natural evils with which we are familiar. Adding in unanswered questions about
the distribution of divine interventions does not make the problem of evil significantly worse than it would be in the absence of such questions. If theism
is tenable at all, it is tenable despite the lack of answers to many questions
about the presence of natural evils in creation, and so the lack of answers to
further questions about the distribution of divine interventions cannot be a
conclusive reason for rejecting theism. Alston's conclusion is this: "If our
inability to answer such questions is a conclusive negative reason, then theism goes down the drain whether we accept divine intervention or not. And if
it is not a conclusive negative reason, it leaves the belief in divine intervention standing" (56).

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As I see it, considerations of the sort advanced by Adams and Alston show
that the moral objections are, as Wiles admits, not decisive against interventionist accounts of divine action. Such considerations reduce but do not altogether destroy the force of the objections. Even though it is useful for theologians to explore alternative pictures, portraying God as an actor on the historical stage remains of live option for Christian theology.
The central theme of the second part of the volume is the relation between
the divine action of creating and conserving all contingent reality and free
human actions. Tanner proposes a very strong doctrine of creation, which is
defended by Burrell and criticized by Tracy and Hasker. On her view, "everything nondivine, in every respect that it is, is dependent upon God's creative
activity, which brings it forth" (113). This relation of dependence is direct or
immediate. God does not act indirectly by first making creatures with causal
powers of their own and then leaving them at liberty to exercise such powers
on their own. Instead, since "God's creative calling forth is indeed unconditionally and neressarily efficacious," we are to suppose that "what God wills
for the world as its creator must happen in just the way God wills" (114). Such
a doctrine of creation is bound to provoke questions. Is it even consistent with
there being creatures with causal powers of their own? Does it leave any room
for human actions that are free in the libertarian sense? And does it make
God the agent of and hence responsible for human sin?
Tracy argues that creatures cannot exercise causal powers of their own if
God is the direct or immediate cause of every contingent event. There can, of
course, be Humean regularities connecting contingent events even if all contingent events are directly caused by unconditionally and necessarily efficacious divine action. Such regularities, however, are not to be understood in
terms of the exercise of creaturely causal powers bringing about effects; they
are rather to be understood in terms of God treating the occurrence of an
event of one type that he has directly brought about as the occasion on which
he directly brings about the occurrence of an event of another type. "While
classical theists do affirm that whatever active powers a creature possesses it
has from the hand of God," Tracy notes, "it does not follow that absolutely any
form of divine action will be compatible with the exercise by creatures of genuine causal powers" (86). And it appears that the particular form of divine
creative activity proposed by Tanner implies a kind of occasionalism that precludes the operation of secondary causes in nature.
As Hasker argues, it also seems to imply theological determinism. To be
sure, Tanner's view of God's creative action is consistent with the claim that
some human actions are not determined by any factors within the created
order. But even actions not determined at the creaturely level will be directly brought forth by God's creative activity and hence will not be products of
human libertarian freedom. According to Tanner, "without jeopardizing God's

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infallible efficacy, human beings can retain a kind of Lockean freedom 'to do
whatever they choose to do'; they can in fact execute what they intend" (120).
The logic of Tanner's position, however, seems to leave space for nothing
more than a compatibilist understanding of such Lockean freedom.
Tanner insists that "a theologian holding our picture cannot deny that,
given God's infallible working, human beings must choose when and what
God wills" (127). In order to avoid making God responsible for human sin,
she also insists that "if the creature sins, that is contrary to God's will in that
God's will does not extend to the bringing to be of sin" (133). But since
humans do sin, something not brought to be by, and contrary to, God's will
occurs, and so it seems false that human beings must choose when and what
God wills. Tanner supposes that the difficulty can be resolved by "multiplying, perhaps indefinitely, the outcomes that may conform to God's will for the
world" (134). If God's will for the world is consistent with many outcomes,
however, then God's will does not determine the world in all its details. As
Hasker points out, such divine underdetermination would leave room for
there to be "many ways God's will can be fulfilled, depending on the decisions
of the human agents" (145). But in that case there would be some nondivine
things, specifically those human decisions that are not brought forth by direct
divine creative activity. So perhaps, as Hasker suggests, Tanner's position is
inconsistent because she begins by affirming but, under pressure from the
problem of human moral evil, ends by denying theological determinism. In
any event, her position faces severe difficulties.
The quality of the essays in this volume is very high. They tackle tough
problems in philosophical theology and make original contributions to the
published literature devoted to discussion of these problems. And they set a
standard of excellence for conversations between philosophers and theologians that future conversations of this sort should aspire to live up to, even
though doing so will not be easy.
PHILIP L. QUINN

University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

Philosophy and Theology in the Middle Ages. By Gillian R. Evans. New York:
Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1993. Pp. x + 139. $49.95 (cloth);
$14.95 (paper).

An enormous amount of scholorship is condensed in this rather thin survey of philosophy and theology. Unlike most considerations of these disciplines in the Middle Ages, this work is not organized chronologically, but by
topic. The first section treats primarily of the sources of mediaeval philoso-

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phy, with an analysis of the basic problems of language and logic; the second
section considers a series of topics, broadly following the outline of a summa
of theology (God, creation and the cosmos, man). No attempt is made to distinguish between theology and philosophy, but the interplay between the two
disciplines is evident throughout. The summary of the classical sources of
mediaeval philosophy is quite handy, and the presentation of the problem of
universals is clear and well-organized.
This is neither an introductory text, nor a specialized monograph. There is
only the briefest possible biographical information about any of the writers
cited (rarely more than the birth and death dates), and even within the individual topics presented a chronological order is not maintained (and thus the
writer moves from Anselm to Aquinas to Augustine to Alan of Lille to
Boethius to Albert the Great in one short section). A great number of authors
are summarized in this work, the little no less than the great: along with
A'!gustine, John of Salisbury, and Aquinas, we find Hugh of Amiens,
Rudolph Agricola, and James of Venice. Almost all of the bibliographical references are to modern Latin editions of these authors' works.
Evans's work is most useful as an introduction to the basic topics under
debate throughout the Middle Ages, beginning with the question of the suitability of philosophical discourse in theology, and ending with the continuity
(and discontinuity) of scholastic discourse and method in the early years of
the Protestant Reformation. This survey is a valuable springboard for discussion, and could be used with profit as an undergraduate text; the lack of a
chronological arrangement, however, may lead to anachronism among those
whose background is introductory. The selectivity in certain areas is also
occasionally puzzling: in the treatment of "Ethics and Politics," a summary
of parts of Marsiglio of Padua's Defensor Pacis is given, but there is only the
briefest nod given to Conciliarist thinkers in the conclusion, and the connection between Ockham and Marsiglia is buried over lightly; the
Condemnations of 1277, surely a significant point of reference in a consideration of the relation between philosophy and theology, receive scant notice
and that only in the final conclusion.
On one topic, however, the consideration is much fuller and more complete: Evans uses the Eucharistic controversies of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries on the nature of the sacrament as "a closer case study, to illustrate
something of the texture of the philosophical treatment of theological problems in the Middle Ages." The vast majority of the author's sources in this
work are from the twelfth century; Professor Evans's treatment of the sweep
of the intellectual transformation of the mediaeval period is encyclopedic,
however, and a worthwhile and vivid introduction to the debates of the millennium from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Reformation.
There are few, if any, comparable texts available in English, and this thin
book fills a large gap.

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BOOK REVIEWS

This work was first produced as the second volume of a series published
in German; this English version, by the same author, contains only minor
modifications and adaptations.

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