SACRA DOCTRINA AND THE THEOLOGY
OF DISCLOSURE
BRIAN J. SHANLEY,

0.P.

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

A

S IMPLIED by the title, Robert Sokolowski's recent
Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of
Disclosure has a dual purpose: it is both a theological
reflection on the Eucharist and "an example of the kind of thinking
that can be called a theology of disclosure." 1 What is innovative
about Sokolowski's project is that it represents an attempt "to
discuss a type of theological thinking that draws on philosophical
resources provided by phenomenology." 2 Sokolowski argues persuasively that Husserlian phenomenology, hitherto underutilized
as a theological tool (in contrast with Heideggerian phenomenology), provides peculiarly powerful resources for both engaging and
transcending the problematic engendered by modernity's psychologistic disparagement of appearances. Through a phenomenological recovery of the dimensions of disclosure latent in
manifestation or appearance, it is possible to articulate a kind of
theological thinking wherein the display of Christian thingshow they come to light-is explicitly thematized as revelatory
and disclosive of the divine. Sokolowski's rehabilitation of
appearances is not only an attempt to chart a postmodern

' Robert Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 17 3 (hereafter cited
asEP).
2 EP, 1.

163

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

approach for theology, it is also a self-conscious attempt to
retrieve a premodern, patristic style of theology. 3
It is precisely this double project of both engaging the postmodern problematic and retrieving a premodern kind of theology
that makes Sokolowski's work pregnant and provocative. The
purpose of this essay is to push Sokolowski 's project in the direction of a retrieval of a style of premodern theology that he unfortunately overlooks: Thomas Aquinas's sacra doctrina. In
Sokolowski 's reading of the history of theology, the medieval
period marks the ascendancy of what he characterizes as
speculative-ontological theology, in distinction from the theology of
disclosure. I intend to show, however, that what Sokolowski
understands by the theology of disclosure is at the heart of what
Aquinas understands by sacra doctrina secundum revelationem
divinam. Herein lies a certain irony: what Sokolowski (along
with most others) overlooks in Aquinas, he also reveals in his
articulation of the theology of disclosure. Hence Sokolowski's
theology of disclosure can function as a hermeneutical tool to
retrieve a proper understanding of Aquinas's sacra doctrina in a
way that both enhances and contemporizes the latter.
In order to establish this claim, I will begin with an exposition
of Sokolowski's general account of the theology of disclosure,
emphasizing how it differs from more traditional styles of theology and how it represents a strategic response to the problematic of
modernity. Then I will highlight certain fundamental themes in
the theology of disclosure that will be helpful in the retrieval of
sacra doctrina. In the second section, I will show how Aquinas's
understanding of sacra doctrina secundum revelationem
divinam is an exercise in the theology of disclosure and how that
is reflected in the very structure of the Summa Theologiae. In the
final section, I will offer some concluding remarks regarding
why this dimension of Aquinas's thought has been obscured and
why it needs to. be retrieved.
·1 "The Fathers, in their Neoplatonic style, accepted the display of Christian things as
part of the subject of their theology. Emanation, splendor, presence, concealment, and
imaging were spontaneously accepted and vividly described. It is this aspect of Christian
reflection that the theology of manifestation is to recover, but in a manner appropriate to
our day and age and with recognition of the contributions of both speculative and
positive theology" (EP, 10).
·

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I

A) Sokolowski's General Account
"One of the central forms of thinking used in phenomenology
is the activity of making distinctions .... [it] is a much more
strategic part of philosophy than is usually recognized. " 4
Sokolowski accordingly begins his exposition of the theology of
disclosure 5 by characterizing it as an "intermediate form of
reflective thought" 6 distinct from the traditional forms of faith
seeking rational understanding exemplified in positive and speculative theology. Drawing primarily upon history, positive theology aims (1) to show "how the articles of faith are found and
developed in Scripture and Tradition" and (2) "to formulate the
truths of revelation in contemporary terms." 7 Drawing primarily
on philosophy and presupposing the findings of positive theology,
speculative theology aims "to provide an ordered and comprehensive understanding of these truths [of faith], using distinctions, definitions, causal explanations,
and analogies. " 8
Speculative theology targets the realities or "things" that have
come to light through Christian revelation: God; his nature,
attributes, and activities; the cosmos; the human being, etc. 9 In
its analysis of Christian realities, speculative theology manifests
an "ontological" concern to define things and to articulate their
intelligible connections. This is the form of theology developed
4 EP, 197-98. See also Sokolowski's essay on "Making Distinctions" in his Pictures,
Quotations, and Distinctions (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 55-

91.
5 Sokolowski acknowledges that the term "theology of disclosure" is not entirely satisfactory, but argues that it works better than any alternative candidates like "theology of
manifestation" or "phenomenological theology." See the discussion of terminology in EP,
173-74.
6 EP, 5.
7 EP, 5-6. The text goes on: "Biblical studies are the primary part of positive theology,
but other parts examine the Fathers of the Church, the Papacy, the Councils, the liturgy,
and the general history of the Church as it is related to the articles of faith. Positive theology discusses the historical settings in which the truths of faith have been revealed,
confirmed, and transmitted; it tries to shed light on these truths by discussing the historical contexts in which they have been presented to us, and it also tries to formulate
them again in terms appropriate to our own context."
8 EP, 6.
9 See the description of speculative theology in EP, 6.

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

and displayed most fully in the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages
(and a fortiori in the theology of Thomas Aquinas).
Sokolowski distinguishes the theology of disclosure from the
two traditional forms as follows:
There is room for another form of reflective theological thinking. This
third form, which I will call the theology of disclosure, would have the
task of describing how the Christian things taught by the Church and
studied by speculative theology come to light. ... While historical theology examines facts, the theology of disclosure examines structures of
disclosure; it describes the forms of manifestation proper to Christian
things. It tries to describe how Christian things must display themselves, in keeping with what they are, and how they must distinguish
themselves from things that resemble them and with which they may
be confused. Thus, the theoIOgy of disclosure differs from speculative
theology because it examines the manifestation of Christian things and
not, primarily, their nature, definition, and causes; and it differs from
positive theology because it is concerned with the essential structures of
disclosure, which would hold in all times and places, and not with matters of historical fact. Although it differs from these two theologies, it is
obviously closely related to them and does not contradict anything they
establish as true. 10

To connect the theology of disclosure with manifestation and
appearance is to confront immediately the deeply entrenched
modern tendency to disparage appearances by reducing them to
inner-subjective states of consciousness (ideas) that are split off
from some unknown and unknowable outer-objective way that
things "really" are. This divorce of "mere" appearance from the
"real" display of being is one of the main targets of phenomenology's
philosophical therapy. Phenomenological thought attempts to
recover the connection between appearance and being ingredient in
the Greek understanding of eidos. 11 This retrieval is gained not
10 EP, 7-8. This rather abstract discussion of the theology of disclosure provides only
the barest sense of the actual reality. The only adequate way to grasp the nature of the
theology of disclosure is to consider its exemplification in Sokolowski's treatment of the
Eucharist.
11 "Appearance, manifestation, disclosure were appreciated in antiquity; the very term
eidos, which was central to the thought of Plato and Aristotle, implies presentation.
Eidos primarily means the 'look' or 'view' that things present to us. In modernity, the
eidos of a thing, instead of being a disclosure, becomes merely the subjective impact the
thing makes on us or the idea that we ourselves fabricate of an unknown thing. The eidos

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by making an end-run around modernity back to a naive premodern posture, but rather by directly confronting the question of appearance as "the metaphysical problem of modernity." 12
Phenomenology does not attempt to refute the modern problematic,
however, since such a refutation would necessarily fail insofar as
it accepts the psychologistic starting point of an isolated subjectivity in search of reassurance regarding a common world behind
the veil of ideas; to begin with the egocentric predicament is to
become locked inside a mental cabinet from which there is no
escape. Instead, "Husserl helps us to see that the mind is 'outside' from the start and that the world presents itself to man." 13
Sokolowski 's phenomenological strategy is to expose the
"problem of the real world" and its constitutive doctrine of
"ideas" as a pseudo-problem arising out of a misunderstanding of
the status of our speech "about things insofar as they are experienced and spoken about: that is, insofar as they present themselves to us or are intended by us in the various modes
achieved'" 4 in (1) pre-philosophical world-directed discourse
about things, features, and relationships and (2) our subsequent
ontological reflection on them. Reflection on things as experienced in the various modes of intentionality-for example, as
present or absent; as pictured, quoted, or remembered-is properly phenomenological. Now one way in which things can be
intended is as merely supposed or proposed by a speaker to some
hearer through the use of words; when something is intended by
someone as presented by another in speech, then it becomes an
idea, or a concept, or a proposition, or a meaning. The basic
modern error is to reduce this way of intending things, this way
of being in the world and allowing things to present themselves
to us, to a pseudo-realm of private mental representations. The
of classical philosophy is replaced by the 'idea' of modernity" (EP, 183). Sokolowski
notes that eidos originally had an ambiguous meaning: "The word means the substantial form of things (a principle of ontology) and also the appearance, the 'look' of things
(a factor in phenomenology). One of the benefits we can draw from modernity is a
sharper distinction between these two forms of reflective thought" (EP, 193).
12 EP, 184.
'·' EP, 182.
14 EP, 191 (emphasis in the original).

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

thing as presented to us in speech is substantialized into an internal entity that is other than the thing itself and so a dubious
intermediary between the ego and the "real world." The modern
doctrine of ideas is the result of a profound misunderstanding of
intentionality: ideas are the postulates of philosophical confusion, not
the givens of experience. 15
Once the modern epistemological predicament is exposed and
dissolved, the way is open to reconnect being and appearance
through an analysis of the multifarious ways in which things
manifest themselves to us and become meaningful to us.
Phenomenology helps us to recover the truth that the way things
are presented to us is part of their being. Of particular importance to the theology of disclosure is a recovery of an appreciation
for the way in which things become manifest and meaningful for
us as presented by another, particularly in speech. When something is presented to us by another in speech, a new dimension of
the world can be disclosed. Speech does not have as its aim the
introduction of private mental entities into consciousness, but
the disclosure of a new presentational dimension of being. The
words of another can alter how we take the world and how
we in turn present the world to others. It is the task of the theology of disclosure to show how the world takes on a new presentational dimension when the speaker is divine.

B) Fundamental Themes
There are numerous themes opened up by the theology of disclosure, but they all presuppose the central issue of disclosure:
the new perspective on the world that is introduced in
Christianity. It is a perspective opened up not by philosophical
reflection, but rather by divine revelation and Sacred Scripture. 16
The key to this new perspective lies in what Sokolowski calls the
15 EP, 190-93. For a fuller exposition of this topic, see Sokolowski 's "Exorcizing
Concepts" in Pictures, Quotations, and Distinctions, 17 3-85.
16 "The Christian understanding of the world as having been created by God was not
reached through the exercise of mere natural intelligence. It was disclosed through biblical revelation. Biblical revelation does more than give us new information: it provides an
entirely new perspective on the world, on the divine, and on ourselves. It engages new
forms of intentionality, new modes of presentation, and new distinctions" (EP, 138).

SACRA DOCTRINA, THEOLOGY OF DISCLOSURE

169

Christian distinction between the world and God that is disclosed by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. 11 God is disclosed in
Christian belief as being perfectly self-sufficient such that
creation is an act of sheer generosity that introduces no increase
of being or goodness into the divine nature. 18 That God has originated a universe of beings is an obvious fact, but the sheer
givenness of the world takes on a new light when it is considered
as profiled against the possibility that it might not have been at
all except for the generosity of God. The God who is the Creator
need not create in order to be God. God could have been all that
there is, alone, without suffering diminution in being, or
loneliness.
Sokolowski notes that in order to appreciate the originality of
the Christian distinction, it is helpful to contrast it with the natural
understanding of the world and the divine that is ingredient in
"pagan" (i.e., classical Greek and Roman) thought. In pagan
thought the divine is understood to be only a part-albeit the
necessary, permanent, most powerful, and hence best part-of a
more encompassing whole that comprises both God and the
world; the divine and the nondivine are complementary correlatives within the larger and more fundamental whole. Within the
horizon of the pagan perspective, it is both false and meaningless
to assert the proposition that God could be all that there is without a world, since to be divine is to be the most important part
of the more ultimate whole that necessarily includes both the
divine and the non-divine. In the horizon opened up by creation,
however, God and the world do not constitute a necessary whole
since the transcendence of the Creator means that God is not
encompassed by some larger totality. Because the Creator God
could meaningfully have been the whole, what originates from
creation does not constitute a greater whole that relativizes the
divine to a part.
11 Sokolowski's original and fuller exposition of the "Christian distinction" can be
found in his The God of Faith and Reason (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1982), 1-52. See also Thomas Prufer, Recapitulations: Essays in Philosophy (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 32-42.
18 For an excellent analysis of the gratuity of creation, see Kenneth L. Schmitz, The
Gift: Creation (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1982).

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A proper appreciation of the Christian distinction leads to a
shift in our fundamental perspective on the whole and it is one
of the central tasks of the theology of disclosure to thematize the
importance of that shift. Drawing on Husserl's analysis of our
fundamental belief about the whole (Urglaube or Urdoxa),
Sokolowski highlights the need to recognize how our conscious
reflection on specific parts (here individual theological doctrines)
presupposes a more basic stance regarding the whole that normally remains unthematized. Biblical revelation and the
Christian distinction shatter the natural whole so that we come
to see God, ourselves, and the world within a completely new
context. The natural whole is now seen as utterly contingent,
non-ultimate, and therefore gracious when profiled against the
God who is not a part of the whole and who could have been
apart from the natural whole in undiminished being. A proper
appreciation of this new whole requires radical rethinking of the
ways in which such concepts as necessity, contingency, choice,
and agency are applied to God and creatures; 19 it also requires a
new sense of absence and presence to do justice to the transcendent immanence of God. 20 It must be recalled, however, that all
such further precisions depend upon the more basic Christian
distinction as opening up the context in which they can be made.
The fundamental horizon-opening Christian distinction must
therefore be continually recalled and remade as a remedy to our
proclivity to lapse back into the horizon of the natural whole:
"This Christian distinction is always energetic and always needs
to be worked out and worked through, because we have a permanent propensity to take the whole as ultimate and to see the
divine as part of the whole." 21
Understanding the Christian distinction is not like the registration of a fact about a particular thing, but rather it is the disclosure of a new dimension, a new formal mode of presentation.
As Sokolowski notes, the disclosure of a new dimension is more
subtle and strategic than the discovery of a new fact because "a
See EP, 42-51.
EP, 194-95.
21 EP, 198.
19

20 See

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form of presentation arises for us and consequently the whole
world, and everything in it, begins to look different." 22 A central
presentational dimension thematized in the theology of disclosure
derives from the recognition that the manifestness and intelligibility
of the world are not exhausted by the human perspective. Just as
the world takes on a new dimension of presentation when intersubjective experience reveals to us that what we experience is
also given to other datives of manifestation or centers of awareness, so too the world takes on a new presentational dimension
when we realize that there is a divine dative of manifestation.
The world takes on a different look when it is seen from the
point of view of the Creator:
If the intersubjective dimension enhances the identity and being of
things, how much more does this divine perspective strengthen them in
our eyes? The world and the things in it are now seen as being known
and chosen to be by the Creator. We ourselves cannot, of course, adopt
the divine point of view, but in faith we can formulate something of
what it is, and we can strive to see the world as subject to it. The theology of disclosure strives to bring out the special features of this
dimension, this form of presentation, which is one of the constitutive
elements in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
Reflection on the act of faith, for example, must take into account how
the God we believe in is presented or represented to us, and also how
we understand the world and ourselves to be presented to him. 23

As I hope to show in what follows, this articulation of the theology of disclosure is also an articulation of Aquinas's understanding
of sacra doctrina.
II

A) Sacra Doctrina
Aquinas begins his analysis of sacra doctrina in the Summa
Theologiae by describing it as a teaching secundum revelationem
divinam. 24 As T. C. O'Brien has demonstrated, this qualification
22

EP, 200.

23

EP, 204.

24 "Dicendum quod necessarium fuit ad humanum salutem esse doctrinam quandam
secundum revelationem divinam praeter philosophicas disciplinas, quae ratione humana
investigantur" (STh I, q. 1, a. 1). The Summa text cited in this essay is the Ottawa edition
of 1941.

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

holds the key to the proper interpretation of Aquinas's understanding of sacra doctrina. 25 The necessity of another body of
knowledge in addition to the already established disciplines
(praeter philosophicas disciplinas)2 6 follows from the revelation
by God that humanity is called to a destiny beyond the ken of
natural reason. 27 Following genetically or sequentially from the
encounter with God revealing, there arises the need for another
teaching or intellectual discipline in conformity with the new
dimension of intelligibility disclosed by God. 28 Revelation

25 See T. C. O'Brien, "Sacra doctrina Revisited: The Context of Medieval Education,"
The Thomist 41 (1977): 475-509. The nature of sacra doctrina is a much-disputed point
among Aquinas's interpreters. I cannot enter into the debate in this essay; the interested
reader should start with 0 'Brien's piece and follow the references provided in his notes.
See especially James A. Weisheipl, "The Meaning of Sacra Doctrina in the Summa
theologiae I, q. 1," The Thomist 38 (1974): 49-80; Weisheipl's article is the foil for
O'Brien's piece and provides a summary of classical interpretations of sacra doctrina.
Since the publication of 0 'Brien's article, two important collections of articles on the theology of St. Thomas have appeared: Albert Patfoort, Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Les clefs
d'une theologie (Paris: FAC-editions, 1983), and Yves Congar, Thomas d'Aquin: Sa vision
de theologie et de l'Eglise (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984 ). I am convinced that
0 'Brien's reading of the first question remains the most illuminating and the most underappreciated.
26 As O'Brien shows, philosophicas disciplinas refers to the entire corpus of human
learning ("Sacra doctrina Revisited," 478-92).
27 The corpus of STh I, q. 1, a. 1 as cited inn. 24 continues: "Primo quidem quia homo
ordinatur ad Deum sicut ad quendam finem qui comprehensionem rationis excedit,
secundum illud Isaiae LXIV: Oculus non vidit Deus absque te, quae praeparasti diligentibus te. Finem autem oportet esse praecognitum hominibus, qui suas intentiones et
actiones debent ordinare in finem. Unde necessarium fuit homini ad salutem quod ei nota
fierent quaedam per revelationem divinam, quae rationem humanam excedit. Ad ea
etiam quae de Deo ratione humana investigari possunt, necessarium fuit homine instrui
revelatione divina. Quia veritas de Deo per rationem investigata, a paucis, et per Iongum
temp us, et cum admixtione multorum errorum homini proveniret; a cuius tamen veritatis
cognitione dependet tota hominus salus, quae in Deus est. Ut igitur salus hominibus et
convenientius et certius proveniat, necessarium fuit quod de divinis per divinam revelationem instruantur. Necessarium igitur fuit praeter philosophicas disciplinas, quae
per rationem investigantur, sacram doctrinam per revelationem haberi."
'" 0 'Brien notes that the preposition secundum has two interrelated meanings in this
context: "The first, immediately linked with the derivation of secundum from sequor, is
'following after,' in time, succession, rank, value. The first meaning of the stated conclusion of
art. 1, then, is that there is need for sacra doctrina as a teaching following on divine revelation, genetically or sequentially. The second, extended meaning that secundum has is
'agreeably with,' 'in accord with,' 'according to'; it takes on the idea of conformity or

SACRA DOCTRINA, THEOLOGY OF DISCLOSURE

17 3

discloses that the philosophicas disciplinas do not exhaust the
intelligibility of the real because the world as manifested to
human reason is an incomplete manifestation of the world's
meaning to the Creator God. The revelation of a divine dative of
manifestation who graciously wills to share the divine dimension
necessitates a radical rethinking of the whole.
The new horizon or whole explored in sacra doctrina originates in the encounter of God revealing and human believing
that is described by Aquinas in his analysis of the theological
virtue of faith. Some central points in that analysis bear recollection here. The most significant feature of a theological virtue
for Aquinas is that it bears directly upon God as its object. 29 This
technical terminology wherein God is described as an "object"
must be carefully understood. It is not meant either to reify God
as an impersonal thing or to register the banal fact that a theological virtue is somehow "about" God. It is rather meant to
express the profound truth that what makes a virtue theological
is its origination in an immediate, vital, immanent, and gracious
personal union with God. 30 To say that God is the formal object

fidelity to a model. The second meaning of the stated conclusion of art. 1, then, is that
there is a need for a teaching in keeping with, conformed to divine revelation" ("Sacra
doctrina Revisited," 493). O'Brien's analysis of secundum relies on the entry in Charlton
T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1969): 1654-55.
29 "Et huiusmodi principia virtutes dicuntur theologicae: tum quia habent Deus pro
objecto, inquantum per eas recte ordinamur in Deum; tum quia a solo Deo nobis infunduntur; tum quia sola divina revelatione in sacra Scriptura huiusmodi virtutes traduntur"
(STh 1-11, q. 62, a. 1).
30 On the meaning of "object" in the Summa, see O'Brien's appendix 1, "Objects and
Virtues," in Faith, volume 31 of the English-Latin edition of the Summa Theologiae,
trans. T. C. O'Brien (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1974): 178-85. On the idea of God
as the object of the theological virtues, O'Brien writes: "the statement that God himself
is the formal objective of the theological virtues is the attempt to articulate the reality of
such a union of operation, to state what the mystery of grace is revealed to be. That God
is object means that the acts of faith, hope, and love exist and are what they are because
God communicates himself as the one to be believed, to be hoped in and to be loved in
return. The actuating and perfective function of object with reference to act is elevated
to a new level, and is delegated to express the actual graciousness of God. The language
of object in this use is meant to describe God's giving of himself. The theological force,
so far from being impersonal or from managing God, means that the acts of the theological virtues are pure reciprocity, and are freely given responses to God, lovingly
communicating himself to man" (184).

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

of the theological virtues is to affirm the central truth of
Aquinas's theological vision and his Summa: by grace we have
really become partakers in the divine nature. 31 By grace, the soul
and its capacities are given a share in the very life and activities
of God such that faith involves our intellect participating in
God's own knowledge. 32
Aquinas's realism about grace is reflected in his assertion that
the formal object of faith is nothing other than First Truth itself
(nihil aliud est quam Veritas prima). 33 Faith is an immediate and
grace-filled cleaving to God precisely as the First Truth. Faith
first accepts God himself speaking and initiating communication
(credere Deo) before it accepts what God reveals (credere
Deum). 34 Faith is primarily an assent not to a body of propositional truths, but to Truth itself disclosing itself; 35 revelation is
first of all a Revealer revealing and then what is revealed. Of
course the believer does assent to a body of truths, a corpus of
sacred writings, a Church, because God has chosen a specific
historical way to reveal saving Truth. Yet it must always be
remembered that the assent to these other truths, the various
material objects of faith, presupposes the formal object as

31 "Alia autem est beatitudo naturam hominis excedens, ad quam homo sola divina virtute pervenire potest secundum quandam divinitatis participationem; secundum quod
dicitur II Petr. 1,4, quod per Christum facti sumus consortes divinae naturae" STh 1-11,
q. 62, a. 1. This article points ahead to the central teaching of the Summa on the reality
of grace as a participation in the divine nature, articulated in 1-11, q. 110.
32 "Unde relinquitur quod gratia, sicut est prius virtute, ita habeat subiectum prius
potentiae animae; ita scilicet quod sit in essentia animae. Sicut enim per potentiam intellectivam homo participat cognitionem divinam per virtutem fidei; et secundum potentiam voluntatis amorem divinam, per virtutem caritatis; ita etiam per naturam animae
participat, secundum quandam similitudinem, naturam divinam, per quandam
regenerationem sive recreationem" (STh 1-11, q. 110, a. 4).
33 STh 11-11. q. 1, a. 1.
34 In explaining why the virtue of religion is not a theological virtue, Aquinas asserts
that acts of worship do not attain God directly as does faith: "Cui cultus non exhibetur
non quasi actus quibus Deus colitur ipsum Deus attigant, sicut cum credimus Deum, credendo attingimus, propter quod supra dictum est [11-11, q. 2, a. 2] quod Deus est fidei
obiectum non solum inquantum credimus Deum, sed inquantum credimus Deo" (STh 1111, q. 81, a. 5).
35 "Actus autem credentis non terminatur ad enuntiabile sed ad rem" (STh 11-11, q. 1,
a. 2, ad 2).

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providing the authenticating force for the assent. 36 Faith always
assents to a truth on the basis of the formal motivation quod est
a Deo revelatum or quod est a Deo dictum. 37
If by faith we transcend the human horizon and participate in
the divine perspective, 38 such sharing nevertheless remains
secundum modum cognoscentis. The fullness and simplicity of
divine Truth in se is grasped through a glass darkly, in limited
and fragmentary ways. 39 Faith is not yet the fullness of vision
towards which it points. 40 Aquinas makes it clear that belief, as
an intellectual activity, necessarily involves incompleteness and
imperfection. 41 In his analysis of the traditional Augustinian definition of belief as cum assentione cogitare, Aquinas notes that it
is of the very nature of belief as a cogitare to involve a kind of
restless pondering that is ended by a firm assent based not on
intellectual vision, as in scientia, but rather on the concomitant

36 "Dicendum est quod cuiuslibet cognoscitivi habitus obiectum duo habet, scilicet id
quod materialiter cognoscitur, quod est sicut materiale obiectum; et id per quod cognoscitur, quod est formalis ratio objecti. Sicut in scientia geometriae materialiter scita sunt
conclusiones; formalis vero ratio sciendi sunt media demonstrationis, per quae conclusiones cognoscuntur. Sicut igitur in fide, si consideremus formalem rationem obiecti, nihil
est aliud quam veritas prima: non enim fides de qua loquimur assentit alicui nisi quod
est a Deo revelatum; unde ipsi veritati divinae fides innituitur tanquam medio" (STh IIII, q. 1, a. 1).
37 Super epistolam ad Romanos lectura, c. IV, lectio 1, n. 327 in Super epistolas s. Pauli
lectura, ed. Raphaelis Cai, vol. 1 (Rome: Marietti, 1953).
38 "Unde oportet quod fides, quae virtus ponitur, faciat intellectum hominus adhaerere
veritati quae in divina cognitione consistit transcendendo proprii intellectus veritatem"
(De Veritate q. 14, a. 8 in Opera omnia, vol. 22 [Rome: 1972]).
39 STh II-II, q. 1, a. 2.
40 "Ad tertium dicendum quod visio patriae erit veritatis primae secundum quod in se
est, secundum illud I Joann. 3,2: Scimus quoniam cum apparuerit, similes ei erimus, quoniam videbimus eum sicuti est. Et ideo visio ilia erit non per modum enuntiabilis, sed per
modum simplicis intelligentiae. Sed per fidem non apprehendimus veritatem primam
sicut in se est" (STh II-II, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3). Faith as the inchoation of the beatitude that
will eschatologically consist in vision is a pervasive theme in Aquinas. See II-II, q. 2, a.
3 on the way in which faith is the beginning of our learning about beatitude from God
our teacher: "Unde ad hoc quod homo perveniat ad perfectam visionem beatitudinis
praeexigitur quod credat Deo tanquam discipulus magistro docenti."
41 "Fides autem in sui ratione habet imperfectionem quae est ex parte subjecti, ut scilicet credens non videat id quod credit" (STh I-II, q. 67, a. 3). See also II-II, q. 2, a. 1 and
De Verit. q. 14, a. 1. For a superb analysis of belief, see O'Brien, "Belief: Faith's Act,"
appendix 4 in Faith, 205-15.

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activity of the will. 42 The will supplies the firmness and certitude
that would otherwise be lacking; the faintness of vision is remedied by the influence of love. This means that belief is an inherently restless intellectual state because the mind naturally seeks
clarity and vision and so chafes at being brought to assent on the
basis of something extrinsic to itself. The intellect of the believer
therefore seeks something more akin to the divine vision of the
whole. This intellectual questing is both steadied and prodded
by the will: "For when anyone has a ready will to believe, he
loves the believed truth and reflects upon it and embraces any
supporting arguments that may be found." 43 Fides is inevitably
quarens intellectum. Faith demands a sacra doctrina that
explores the new intelligibility of reality revealed by Veritas
prima, a doctrina that explores the godly view of the whole
opened up by faith. The conformity to divine revelation implied
by secundum revelationem divinam means more than that sacra
doctrina develops in a manner that is logically consistent with
what has been revealed. At the deepest level secundum revelationem divinam implies a conformity of perspective, a seeing
with God; it is a teaching that strives to display the luminosity
and intelligibility that the things believed have in God's own
mind.
The way in which a new intelligible unity or whole is displayed in sacra doctrina is explained by Aquinas in response to
the question of whether or not sacra doctrina is one science. 44 He
begins by recalling one of the basic axioms of his thought: acts,
powers, virtues, and ways of knowing are specified by their formal objects. 45 The sciences are diversified by the different dimen42 "Dicendum quod intellectus credentis determinatur ad unum non per rationem, sed
per voluntatem. Et ideo assensus hie accipitur pro actu intellectus secundum quod a
voluntate determinatur ad unum" (STh 11-11, q. 2, a. 1, ad 3).
43 "Cum enim homo habet promptam voluntatem ad credendum, diligit veritatem
creditam, et super ea excogitat et amplectitur si quas rationes ad hoc invenire potest"
(STh 11-11, q. 2, a. 10).
44 STh I, q. 1, a. 3.
45 "Est enim unitas potentiae et habitus consideranda secundum obiectum, non quidem
materialiter sed secundum rationem formalem obiecti; puta homo, asinus et lapis conveniunt in una formali ratione colorati, quod est obiectum visus" (STh I, q. 1, a. 3). For
a classic text on the diversification of the sciences, see In Boethii de Trinitate, q. 5, a. 1.

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sions of intelligibility latent in reality; 46 different habits of knowledge correspond to the different dimensions of intelligibility.
What specifies and diversifies sacra doctrina as a distinct discipline is the new intelligibility of reality opened up by divine
revelation: "Since holy scripture considers things insofar as they
have been divinely revealed (as already noted), all things whatsoever that are revealable by God [revelabilia] share in the one
formal object of this science. " 47 The term revelabilia here bears
the burden of describing the new horizon opened up by divine
revelation; it denotes the capacity for reality to be grasped in the
light of divine revelation. 48 The formal object of sacra doctrina is
the intelligibility of the world as spoken by God. Sacra doctrina
is a sharing in God's unified view of the whole as an impressio
divinae scientiae. 49 Thus theology is a matter not simply of communicating new information, but rather of articulating an entirely
new view of the whole based on the presentational dimension
that results from faith's encounter with God revealing.
The scope and unity of the new intelligible whole given by
divine revelation involves an ordering: "it [sacra doctrina] treats
principally of God and then of creatures insofar as they are
"Diversa ratio cognoscibilis diversitatem scientiarum inducit" (STh I, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2).
"Quia igitur Sacra Scriptura considerat aliqua secundum quod sunt divinitus revelata, secundum quod dictum est, omnia quaecumque sunt divinitus revelabilia, communicant in una formali obiecti huius scientiae. Et ideo comprehenduntur sub sacra doctrina
sicut sub scientia una" (STh I, q. 1, a. 3). Aquinas shifts between sacra scriptura and sacra
doctrina as if the two were largely synonymous throughout STh I, q. 1. While the terms
are not synonymous, they are closely connected; see Per Erik Persson, Sacra Doctrina:
Reason and Revelation in Aquinas, trans. Ross MacKenzie (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
46

47

1970), 86-90.
48 The meaning of the term revelabilia has long been a matter of dispute and a proper
understanding of it is the key to grasping the meaning of sacra doctrina: "The term does
not stand for the later scholastics' 'virtually revealed,' i.e., deducible from the data of
revelation. Nor does it have the meaning given in the fanciful interpretation that it covers truths which, in distinction from the revelata, could possibly be revealed, but need not
be because they are accessible to unaided reason. In its context revelabilia means simply
the quality, the formal interest, or intelligible value in every subject matter that engages
the act of sacra doctrina" (O'Brien, "Sacra Doctrina Revisited," 502-3).
49 "Et similiter ea quae in diversis scientiis philosophicis tractantur, potest sacra doctrina una existens considerare sub una ratione, inquantum scilicet sunt divinitus revelabilia, ut sic sacra doctrina sit velut quadam impressio divinae scientiae, quae est una et
simplex omnium" (STh I, q. 1, a. 3, ad 2).

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related to God as their principle and end." 50 God is the true subject of sacra doctrina and everything else is considered sub
ratione Dei vel secundum ordinem ad Deum. 51 Thus nothing lies
outside the ken of sacra doctrina because in the great exitusreditus of creation everything has God as its principium vel
finem. In contrast with metaphysics, which attains only to a
whole wherein God is known mediately as the First Cause,52
sacra doctrina attains a share in God's own knowledge of the
whole and thus constitutes a radically new kind of wisdom. 53 In
the light of this new wisdom, the conclusions of the philosophicae disciplinae are not annulled, but rather relativized; they are
seen now as providing only partial manifestations of the world's
full meaning. It belongs to sacra doctrina to bring the partial
perspectives into the unified whole disclosed by divine revelation; it is a new binding together of God and the world in the
light of God's own perspective on the whole.

B) The Structure of the Summa
The new presentational whole opened up by divine revelation
is displayed and disclosed in the very structure of the Summa
so "Dicendum quod sacra doctrina non determinat de Deo et creaturis ex aequo, sed
de Deo principaliter, et de creaturis secundum quod referuntur ad Deum, ut ad principium vel finem" (STh I, q. 1, a. 3, ad 1).
si "Omnia autem pertractantur in sacra doctrina sub ratione Dei, vel quia sunt ipse
Deus, vel quia habet ordinem ad Deum, ut ad principium vel finem. Unde sequitur quod
Deus vere sit subiectum huius scientia" (STh I, q. 1, a. 7).
52 On the limited character of the knowledge of God arrived at by metaphysics, see
Thomas C. O'Brien, Metaphysics and the Existence of God (Washington, D.C.: The
Thomist Press, 1960), especially 124-69.
s3 "Dicendum quod haec [sacra] doctrina maxime sapientia est inter omnes sapientias
humanas, non quidem in aliquo genere tantum, sed simpliciter. Cum enim sapientis sit
ordinare et iudicare, iudicium autem per altiorem causam de inferioribus habeatur; ille
sapiens dicitur in unoquoque genere, qui considerat causam altissimam illius generis.... Ille
igitur qui considerat simpliciter altissimam causam totius universi, quae Deus est,
maxime sapiens dicitur: unde et sapientia dicitur esse divinorum cognitio, ut patet per
Augustinum, XII de Trinitate. Sacra autem doctrina propriissime determinat de Deo
secundum quod est altissima causa; quia non solum quantum ad illud quod est per creaturas cognoscibile, quod philosophi cognoverunt, ut dicitur Romans 1,19: Quad notum
est Dei, manifestum est illis; sed etiam quantum ad id quod notum est sibi soli de seipso,
et aliis per revelationem communicatum. Unde sacra doctrina maxime dicitur
sapientia" (STh I, q. 1, a. 6).

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theologiae. The ordo disciplinae of the Summa is determined primarily not by the pedagogical requirements of instructing beginners in theology (as indicated in the Prologus), but rather by
theology's overriding task of articulating the whole secundum
ordinem ad Deum or sub ratio Dei. The ordo disciplinae is dictated by the order that things have in God's own knowledge; the
ordo of the Summa is not the construct of human rationalization,
but rather the attempt to articulate the way the world is
constructed by the creative mind of God.s4
The precise nature of the guiding architectonic plan of the
Summa theologiae has been subject to vigorous speculation in
the wake of M. D. Chenu's groundbreaking work.ss In a modified version of Chenu 's original proposal to interpret the structure of the Summa in terms of the exitus-reditus motif, M. D.
Leroy has argued persuasively that the key to understanding the
plan of the Summa as a whole is the classical distinction between
theologia and oikonomia. 56 Following the discussion of sacra doctrina in q. 1, the first section of the Prima pars (qq. 2-43) is the
theological moment of the Summa, treating de Deo secundum
quod in se est, one in essence and three in persons. The remainder
54 "II s'agit d'autre chose, pour S. Thomas, que d'une systematisation rationelle,
comme chez Abelard. II s'agit, autant que cela est possible, de s'elever jusqu'a voir Jes
choses comme Dieu lui-meme Jes voit: c'est-a-dire toutes relatives a Son mystere necessaire, celui qu'il est lui-meme en Son unite et Sa Trinite. Qu'on parle de !'Incarnation et
de la Redemption, de la creation, des anges, de l'homme, des sacrements, Dieu lui-meme
est le veritable sujet de tout ce que !'on expose, on s'efforcera de penetrer et de construire ces mysteres a partir de Dieu et vers Lui, tout comme ii Jes a
et poses a partir
de Soi et vers Soi" (Yves Congar, "Le sens de l'economie salutaire dans la 'theologie' de
S. Thomas d' Aquin," in Thomas d'Aquin: Sa vision de theologie et de l'Eglise, 76-77). See
also the remarks by M. D. Chenu in Introduction a l'etude de Saint Thomas d'Aquin,
deuxieme edition (Montreal: Institut d'Etudes Medievale, 1954), 263-64.
55 Chenu 's original article on this topic was "Le plan de la Somme theologique de saint
Thomas," Revue Thomiste 47 (1939): 93-107. The same material appears in his
Introduction, 255-76. It is the latter work that sparked renewed scholarly interest in the
plan of the Summa. For an overview of the lines of the debate and bibliographical references, see Jean-Pierre Torrell, Initiation asaint Thomas d'Aquin (Fribourg, Switzerland:
Editions Universitaires, 1993), 219-28. A valuable overview can also be found in H.-D.
Gardeil, "Le plan de la Somme theologique," in Somme theologique: La theologie (Ia.,
Prologue et Question 1), (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1968), 171-92.
56 Leroy's proposal comes in the context of a review of Patfoort's Saint Thomas
d'Aquin: Les clefs d'une theologie, Revue Thomiste 84 (1984): 298-303.

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of the Summa considers the oikonomia wherein God is considered as the origin and end of all things, especially rational creatures (secundum quod est principium vel finem earum et specialiter rationalis creaturae).57 It is within the divine economy of
the Summa that the exitus-reditus schema is central. The second
part of the Prima pars (qq. 44-119) is dominated by the exitus or
procession of creation from God, while the secunda and tertia
partes treat the reditus of fallen humanity to God through Christ,
who is our way of returning to God (via est nobis tendendi in
Deum).
In the context of this discussion, what is significant about the
theologia-oikonomia articulation of the Summa's structure is that
it discloses a presentational whole that is reflective of
Sokolowski's Christian distinction. The theological moment of
the Summa establishes God's absolute independence and transcendence vis-a-vis creation. The treatment of God in se makes
it clear that God does not need to be principium or finis of anything ad extra in order to be God. In the midst of this consideration Aquinas makes it clear that the key to understanding the
relationship between God and the world lies in understanding
the Trinity. In the context of explaining why natural reason cannot arrive at knowledge of the Trinity, Aquinas explains the
importance of such knowledge:
Knowledge of the divine persons was necessary to us for two reasons.
First, in order that we might judge rightly concerning the creation of
things. For when we say that God made everything by his Word, we
rule out the error of those claiming that God produced things by necessity of nature. And when we affirm that there is a procession of love in
God, it is clear God produced creatures not out of any need for creatures nor as a result of any extrinsic cause, but rather out of love for his
own goodness .... The second and more important reason is so that we
might judge rightly concerning the salvation of humankind, which is
accomplished by the Son who became flesh and by the Gifts of the Holy
Spirit. 5•
57 The distinction
between Deus secundum quod est in se and secundum quod est
principium rerum et finis earum is found in the prologue to I, q. 2.
58 "Dicendum quod cognitio divinarum Personarum fuit necessaria nobis dupliciter.
Uno modo ad recte sentiendum de creatione rerum. Per hoc enim quod dicimus Deum
omnia fecisse Verbo suo, excluditur error ponentium Deum produxisse res ex necessitate

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To judge rightly concerning the creation of things in the light
of the Trinity is to understand what Sokolowski means by the
Christian distinction in an even deeper sense. Indeed, what
Sokolowski intends by the Christian distinction might best be
termed the "Trinitarian distinction" in Aquinas. It is the conception of God as Trinity that ultimately distinguishes the Christian
view from both pagan and other monotheistic views of the
divine. To grasp the Trinitarian distinction is to see that God
could have been all that there is and completely happy 59 in the
community of Persons that is the Trinity quite apart from creation;
creation is an act of pure generosity that adds nothing to God.
The procession of creatures ad extra is utterly gratuitous because
the processions ad intra of Verbum et Amor, Son and Spirit, constitute the perfect plenitude of divine life. Hence the procession
of creatures is a pure gift of love that finds its deepest meaning
in its reflection of the very processions of the Trinity. 60 The
Trinitarian meaning of the exitus is reflected most significantly
in the creation of the human person to reflect the image of the
Trinity in a special way by sharing in the divine life through
grace and, ultimately, the beatific vision. 61
Just as the exitus of creation from God as principium must be
understood in the light of the Trinitarian distinction, so too the
way in which God constitutes himself as the finis of creation and
especially of the reditus of humankind must be understood in the
light of the distinction between the triune God and the world.
God's decision to share the divine life with humankind as its
finis is as sovereign and free as God's decision to create and still
naturae. Per hoc autem quod ponimus in eo processionem amoris, ostenditur quod Deus
non propter aliquam indigentiam creaturas produxit, neque propter aliquam causam
extrinsecum, sed propter amorem suae bonitatis. Unde et Moyses, postquam dixerat: In
principio creavit Deus caelum et terram, subdit: Dixit Deus, Fiat lux, ad manifestationem divini Verbi; et postea dixit: Vidit Deus lucem, quad esset bona, ad ostendendum
probationem divini amoris; et similiter aliis operibus. Alio modo, et principalius, ad recte
sentiendum de salutate generis humani, quae perficitur per Filium incarnatum et per
donum Spiritus Sancti" (STh I, q. 32, a. 1, ad 3).
59 Notice that the treatment of the divine essence (STh I, qq. 2-26) ends with a
discussion of God's happiness.
60 See STh I, q. 45, a. 6.
61 See STh I, q. 93.

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more wonderfully gratuitous. Thus the entire moral horizon outlined in the Secunda pars is transformed by the disclosure that
human action is a response to the triune God's generosity in creation,
redemption, and ongoing sanctification. The finalization of
human action by the gracious gift of God's own life requires new
resources for human action, that is, the theological virtues, the
infused moral virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 62 It is vital
to note that sacra doctrina involves a new 'frinitarian way not
only of seeing the whole, but also of experiencing the whole. 63
The divine disclosure engages and transforms the entire person.
By the gracious indwelling of the 'frinity we attain a new perspective that is not a disinterested speculative shift, but rather a
complete reorientation of emotions and experience because the
knowledge involved is affective, per modum inclinationis; it is a
notitia experimentalis, a verbum spirans amorem. 64 It is knowledge by sympathy, familiarity, affinity, instinct, and assimilation;
it is the knowledge of a mind in love. 65
62 Sokolowski has explored this theme in his chapter on "Theological Virtue" in The
God of Faith and Reason, 69-87.
63 "Dicendum quod cum iudicium ad sapientem pertineat, secundum duplicem modum
iudicandi, dupliciter sapientia accipitur. Contingit enim aliquem iudicare uno modo per
modum inclinationis, sicut qui habet habitum virtutis, recte iudicat de his quae sunt
secundum virtutem agenda, inquantum ad ilia inclinatur unde et in X Eth. dicitur quod
virtuosus est mensura et regula actuum humanorum. Alio modo per mod um cognitionis,
sicut aliquis instructus in scientia morali posset iudicare de actibus virtutis, etiam si virtutem non haberet. Primus igitur modus iudicandi de rebus divinis pertinet ad sapientiam
quae ponitur donum Spiritus Sancti, secundum illud I Car. 2.15: Spiritualis homo iudicat omnia, etc.; et Dionysius <licit, II cap. De Div. Nam.: Hierotheus doctus est non solum
discens, sed et patiens divina. Secundus autem modus iudicandi pertinet ad hanc doctrinam, secundum quod per studium habetur, Iicet eius principia ex revelatione habeantur"
(STh I, q. 1, a. 6, ad 3). A fuller treatment of this theme is found in Aquinas's discussion of the gift of wisdom in STh 11-11, q. 45, especially a. 2.
64 STh I, q. 43, a. 5, ad 2.
65 See "The Dialectic of Love in the Summa," appendix 10 in Christian Theology, volume 1 of the English-Latin Summa theologiae, trans. Thomas Gilby, O.P. (London: Eyre
and Spottiswoode Limited, 1964), 124-32. Note especially the following passage wherein
Aquinas describes the difference between faith's knowledge of God and every other kind
of knowledge of God: "Nam notitia de Deo quae habetur per alias scientias, illuminat
intellectum solum, ostendens quod Deus est causa prima, quod est unus et sapiens, etc.
Sed notitia de Deo quae habetur per fidem, et illuminat intellectum, et delectat affectum,
quia non solum <licit quod Deus est prima causa, sed quod est salvator noster, quod est
redemptor, et quod diligit nos, quod est incarnatus pro nobis, quae omnia affectum
inflammant" (Super secundum epistolam ad Corinthios, 11, lect. 3, n. 73 in Super epistolas s. Pauli lectura, vol. I).

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The Trinitarian distinction is also required to make sense of
Aquinas's treatment of the Incarnation and the saving work of
Christ in the Tertia pars. The rationale for Aquinas's apparent
relegation of Christ to the Tertia pars has long been a matter for
dispute and criticism. 66 In this context what is important is that
Aquinas presents the Incarnation and redeeming work of Christ
as another expression of the sheer goodness of God.67 Like creation,
Incarnation and redemption find their ultimate reason in divine
generosity. The placement of the historical redeeming work of
Christ within the Tertia pars highlights the absolute gratuity of
the Incarnation within the divine economy. The exitus-reditus
circle is completed in the return to the Father through the
Imago of the rational creature originally made in the image of
God. 68
What emerges from an attentive reading of the Summa is an
appreciation for the way in which the structure articulates a new
view of the whole, a new presentational dimension, opened up by
faith in divine revelation. Crucial to this new presentational
whole is an understanding of the relationship between the Trinity
and creation disclosed in the distinction between theologia and
oikonomia, and this distinction unlocks the structure of the
Summa as an expression of the divine view of the whole. It is
the understanding of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and
the world as graciously created, redeemed, and sanctified that
distinguishes sacra doctrina's view of the whole from that of
philosophy. This completely new understanding of the divine,
the world, and the human is successively worked out in the various tracts of the Summa. Yet these parts can only be understood
within the horizon of the larger presentational whole and
especially the Trinitarian distinction that is reflected in the
theologia-oikonomia structure.

See Gardeil, "Le plan de Somme theologique," 187-92.
See STh III, q. 1, a. 1.
68 See the remarks on the connection between the Incarnation and the exitus-reditus
schema in Torrell, Initiation, 223-28.
66
67

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

III
When the presentational dimension of theology as a sacra doctrina secundum revelationem divinam and the hermeneutical
priority of the whole to the part in the Summa were obscured, so
too was the deepest unifying dimension of Aquinas's thought.
The history of this occlusion cannot be told here, but it must be
acknowledged that it was powered by factors beyond the
modern disparagement of appearances that Sokolowski so ably
identifies. The rise of nominalism with its diminished sense of
the power of reason to aid faith's search for understanding and
the fragmentation of theology in the post-Reformation period
were two major historical forces contributing to the loss of
Aquinas's vision of sacra doctrina. As a consequence, Aquinas's
thought came to be presented by his Neoscholastic adherents as
a form of speculative-ontological theology. The legacy of this
presentation is that even those who approach Aquinas sympathetically from inside the Scholastic tradition are likely to be
blind to the presence of a theology of disclosure. Those who
approach Aquinas from outside the Scholastic tradition are still
more likely to share this blindness, since they tend to read the
Summa theologiae in piecemeal fashion as the ultimate encyclopedic repository of speculative theology; their ignorance of the
whole leads them to a distorted interpretation of the parts.
The fact that even Sokolowski, a perceptive reader and a proponent of the theology of disclosure, could fail to appreciate the
presentational dimension of Aquinas's thought is an indication,
however, that perhaps Aquinas himself did not do enough to
bring that side of his theology from latency to patency. I would
argue that two features internal to Aquinas's own presentation
of the nature of sacra doctrina in the first question of the Summa
help to explain this difficulty. I have tried to argue that the first
question of the Summa is programmatic for a theology of disclosure in its articulation of sacra doctrina as secundum revelationem divinam and as having revelabilia as its formal object.
Yet that reading of the first question, pioneered by O'Brien,
represents a hermeneutic that can be obscured in the light of that
very same question's other aim: to justify the status of theology

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as a full-fledged scientia in the Aristotelian sense. If sacra doctrina is assimilated too closely and univocally to the Aristotelian
model of a human scientia, then theology loses its presentational
dimension and takes on the look of a speculative-ontological
enterprise concerned solely with deducing new conclusions (revelabilia in the traditional and erroneous sense) from prior principles. Traditional Scholastic interpretations of the question, as
typified in the late James Weisheipl's contribution to this journal's septicentenary celebration of Aquinas in 1274, reflect this
incomplete understanding of the nature of sacra doctrina. While
Aquinas does indeed practice deductive or speculative-ontological
theology throughout the Summa, all such exercises presuppose
the deeper presentational dimension as their ultimate horizon.
Within the theology of disclosure, the paradigm is not the
scientia of Aristotle's logical treatises, but rather the scientia
Dei et beatorum.
The second factor internal to Aquinas's own presentation of
sacra doctrina that obscures the latent practice of the theology of
disclosure is that he does not clearly require that question 1 be
read in the light of the subsequent analyses in the Summa of faith
and the other theological virtues. As I have tried to show, sacra
doctrina presupposes the encounter of the believer with God that
results in a sharing in God's own life. In the intersubjective experience of faith, the horizon of the believer is completely transformed (both cognitively and affectively) so that the world takes
on a new presentational dimension in the light of God revealing.
The world is disclosed as having a new manifestness and intelligibility as presented to the believer by God's Word. It is the task
of sacra doctrina to explore, deepen, and expand the divine presentational dimension opened up by faith. Yet this essential connection between faith and sacra doctrina is not clearly made by
Aquinas in the opening question of the Summa. Perhaps he
assumed that the first question of the Summa would be taken as
a part and read in the light of the whole; for while in a sense the
first question is the key to the whole, it cannot escape the part's
dependence on the whole. The nature of sacra doctrina cannot
be understood until the end of the Summa, whose own incomplete status stands as a reminder of the provisional character of

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theology in the light of the ultimate disclosure in the beatific
vision.
Sokolowski's project of articulating a theology of disclosure
can serve two important roles in the recovery of Aquinas's theology of disclosure. 69 The first is to provide a hermeneutical tool
that will enable us to get past the many factors that have
occluded this latent dimension in Aquinas's thought. It is important to make it clear, however, that what is being advocated here
is not some kind of naive or triumphalistic return to or repetition
of premodern theology, but rather a genuine retrieval
(Wiederholung) of premodern theology in the light of the contemporary problematic. It is neither desirable nor possible to
assert the presence of a theology of disclosure in Aquinas and
then simply reiterate it as if modernity could be neutralized by
denial. Herein lies the second role of Sokolowski 's project for
those interested in the ongoing viability of Aquinas's theology:
Sokolowski has shown how phenomenology provides philosophical
resources for engaging modernity as well as for appreciating
dimensions of the previous tradition veiled by modernity.
Thomists who have hitherto construed phenomenology as simply another species of post-Cartesian idealism will need to
reevaluate their positions in the light of Sokolowski's more "realistic" presentation. 70 Sokolowski argues that phenomenology can
help us to recover the mind's place in the world, the connection
between appearance and being, an appreciation of the presentational dimensions of disclosure in speech, the importance of
making distinctions, the hermeneutic of the whole, etc. All of
these themes ought to be congenial to a Thomist looking for
69 While I am concentrating on the relevance of Sokolowski's work for retrieving
Aquinas, it must be acknowledged that Sokolowski's analysis of the Eucharist is itself a
superb example of the theology of disclosure in operation.
70 Sokolowski's "realistic" reading of Husserl is somewhat controversial. For an
overview of his place within the spectrum of interpretations regarding the status of
known objects (noema) in Husserl, see the "Introduction" in The Cambridge Companion
to Husserl, ed. Barry Smith and David Woodruff Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), 22-27. I put "realistic" in quotation marks since I do not think
that Sokolowski himself would approve of the term on the grounds that the realismidealism debate and the attendant labels are generated by the modern pseudo-problem
of the egoistic predicament.

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ways of recovering and expanding Aquinas's theology of disclosure in a postmodern context; Sokolowski provides resources for
genuine retrieval that anyone interested in the theology of disclosure ought to welcome. As Aquinas himself sought aid for the
truth wherever it was found in the swirling currents of his
contemporaries' thought, so too ought his followers do the
same. 11
In this essay I have tried to show how Aquinas's understanding of theology as a sacra doctrina secundum revelationem divinam can be understood as an exploration of the intelligibility of
the new presentational dimension of the whole opened up by
divine speech. As practiced by Aquinas, sacra doctrina encompassed all that would later be separated out into speculative,
moral, and positive theology. When those subdivisions subsequently lost their larger context, they lost the horizon that gave
them their deepest meaning. Rather than being an "intermediate
form of theology," as Sokolowski describes his theology of disclosure, Aquinas's sacra doctrina is the architectonic form of
theological thinking that makes it possible to do speculative,
moral, and positive theology aright. 12 A recovery of a theology of
disclosure is needed therefore not just as another kind of
theology, but rather as the key to all forms of theological
endeavor. That is why its retrieval is so important. 73

71 These general remarks ought not to be construed as papering over some obvious and
serious conflicts between Sokolowski's phenomenology and Aquinas's position. For
example, Sokolowski's campaign to exorcise concepts and species is obviously at odds
with Aquinas's insistence on their necessity to an explanation of knowledge. My concern
is not to argue for complete compatibility, but rather to claim that there are resources
within Sokolowski's version of phenomenology that can be used to bring Aquinas's
thought into dialogue with contemporary concerns.
72 Leonard Boyle's historical work has shown, for example, that one of Aquinas's
major aims in the Summa was to situate practical-moral theology within a fully unified
theological perspective. See his The Setting of the "Summa theologiae" of Saint Thomas,
Etienne Gilson Series 5 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1982).
73 I would like to thank my confreres Kurt Pritz! and John Allard for helpful
comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

AQUINAS'S DOCTRINE OF MORAL VIRTUE AND ITS
SIGNIFICANCE FOR THEORIES OF FACILITY
RENEE MIRKES,

0.S.F.

Director, Center for NaProEthics
Omaha, Nebraska

T

HOMISTIC COMMENTATORS
from the postScholastic era to the modern period generally restricted
their discussions of Aquinas's doctrine on the relationship between the acquired and infused virtues to the question of
facility, that is, whether or not each kind of virtue facilitates the
acts of the other. R. F. Coerver 1 gives 1943 as a cutoff date for
contemporary discussion of the question of facility in the infused
virtues. His 1946 dissertation on the topic notes that many theologians of his day had discarded the distinction between intrinsic
and extrinsic facility and, with the exception of the manuals of
Merkelbach (1871-1942) and Herve {1881-1958), "few of the
modern theologians devote much space to the interrelation of the
acquired and infused moral virtues." 2
'See Rev. Robert Florent Coerver, C.M., The Quality of Facility in the Moral Virtues,
The Catholic University of America Studies in Sacred Theology 92 (Washington, D.C.:
The Catholic University of America, 1946).
'Ibid., 113. A literature search from 1946 to 1994 (The Guide to Catholic Literature,
Catholic Periodical and Literature Index, and American Theological Library Association
Index) confirms Coerver's observation. The subject of facility in the moral virtues has
not appeared as a topic of theological investigation since the 1940s. An exception is
Romanus Cessario's Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics ([Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1991], introduction, 10), which contains a section on the relationship
of the acquired and infused moral virtues. After a discussion of Aquinas's distinction
between the facility of acquired and infused virtue respectively, Cessario demonstrates
how the development of the virtuous life of the Christian depends on the "dynamic interplay which exists between the exercise of the acquired and the enjoyment of the infused
virtues." An article by John F. Harvey ("The Nature of the Infused Moral Virtues,"
Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Convention of the Catholic TheologicalSociety of America
[1954]: 172-221) gives extended space to the relation of the infused and acquired moral
virtues in terms of facility but relies primarily on Coerver's 1946 research. The small number of articles written after 1950 on the relation between acquired and infused

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More recently, however, theologians such as Jean Porter 3 and
Otto Hermann Pesch 4 have recognized that, in order to facilitate
a critical appropriation of Aquinas's doctrine of virtue amidst
the contemporary revival of a virtue-based ethics, it is critical
that the exposition of his theory be complete. In attempting to
assemble such a substantive account, however, one encounters a
lacuna in the area of moral virtue. While insisting on the two
species of moral virtue, acquired and infused, Aquinas devotes
the greatest proportion of the Secunda secundae of the Summa
Theologiae to the analysis of the acquired moral virtues and
neglects a correspondingly full exposition of their infused counterparts. 5 Then, in the scattered references in which he does compare and contrast the two species of moral virtue, although he
affirms that they can coexist in the Christian,6 and that the presence of acquired moral virtues exerts 7 a positive impact on

moral virtues demonstrates a shift in thinking from interest in the relation between the
acquired and infused moral virtues in terms of facility to their significance within the
divine-human unity of Christian moral activity. This article reconsiders the earlier facility discussion in light of the reconstruction of the divine-human unity of moral activity
as proposed by Aquinas.
3 Jean Porter ("The Subversion of Virtue," The Annual of the Society of Christian
Ethics [1992]: 38) opines that to appropriate Aquinas's virtue theory for contemporary
purposes, one needs "to offer some account of the relation of acquired to infused virtues
in the case of the individual who possesses both." In the same article Porter argues that
because Aquinas does not systematically address the question of the relation between the
acquired and infused virtues in the Summa Theologiae, one must reconstruct his theory
on the basis of his explicit teaching on virtue and related topics. My research into other
works in Aquinas's corpus in which he focuses on virtue, namely, De virtutibus in communi, De caritate, De spe, De cardinalibus virtutibus, De veritate, In decem libros
Ethicorum ad Nicomachum, and Scripta super libros Sententiarum, verifies Porter's conclusion.
4 Pesch ("The Theology of Virtue and the Theological Virtues," in Concilium 191:
Changing Values and Virtues, ed. Dietmar Mieth and Jacques Pohier [Edinburgh: T & T
Clark Ltd., 1987], 91) insists that an account of Aquinas's doctrine of virtue cannot be
complete until one examines in detail "the relationship between the theological and moral
virtues, between infused and acquired virtues."
5 See STh 11-11, qq. 47-170.
6 See III Sent. d. 33, q. 1, a. 2, qcla. 4, s.c; STh 11-11, q. 47, a. 14, ad 1; q. 53, a. 1, ad 3.
7 In the course of this article, the human soul, its powers, and their perfections, the
habits and virtues, are frequently described in a way that connotes hypostatization: the
soul understands; the will desires; prudence directs; the acquired moral virtues exert, etc.
Aquinas insists that one must always remember that it is the person who wills, the per-

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facility in the performance of virtuous acts,8he does not discuss
precisely how the two species of moral virtue interrelate in the
moral activity of the Christian who possesses both.
Accordingly, we need to investigate the following. First, since
Aquinas does not engage in an ex professo treatment of the question at hand, is it in accord with his theory of virtue to say that,
in the Christian who acquires human virtue, the acquired and
infused moral virtues coexist in a parallel fashion? That is, do
these virtues enable the individual to perform purely natural
acts of virtue at one time and purely supernatural acts of virtue
at another? Or do both species of moral virtue contribute in
some manner to the performance of the same moral act? Second,
if the latter is the case, what is the theoretical explanation for a
single moral act following from two causes, one natural, the
other supernatural?
I will advance a reconstruction of Aquinas's theory of moral
virtue by means of a twofold thesis. 9 First, in the Christian who
also possesses the acquired moral virtues, each acquired virtue
and its infused counterpart are the material and formal principles, respectively, of the perfect realization of that particular
moral virtue and constitute a unified virtue that is supernaturally
transformed. Or, to state the thesis differently: In the Christian
moral life, a perfect moral act directed to a single material object
but performed from two ordered motives, natural and supernatural, is able to realize a created good that is a means to attaining
the absolutely ultimate end. Second, the theoretical explanation
of the unity of perfect moral virtue 10 not only serves as a litmus
son who is prudent, the person who is virtuous. Reference to the soul, powers, or virtues
is only for purposes of analysis and classification, and a certain reification of them is not
intended to obfuscate the principal point that habits and powers of the human person are
properties of a substantial human being pertaining to the accidental category of quality
(see STh 1-11, q. 56, a. 5).
8 See STh 1-11, q. 65, a. 3, ad 2.
9 Aquinas's "theory of the relation between the acquired and infused moral virtues in
the Christian" is alternately referred to throughout this investigation as "the theory of the
unity of perfect moral virtue."
10 To understand the first part of the thesis, one must note that (1) Aquinas uses the
term "virtue" analogically of human and divine virtue; (2) the terms "matter" and "form,"
when applied to the relation of these two types of virtue, are also analogical, since both
are spiritual qualities when used in reference to virtue; and (3) the term "perfect moral
virtue" is applied in its absolute sense only to human virtue transformed by grace.

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test for the validity of representative theories of facility but also
demonstrates the proper context within which the notion of
facility will function as an apt tool in the reconstruction of
Aquinas's theory of moral virtue.
I. FOUNDATIONS FOR THe RECONSTRUCTED THEORY

A) Aquinas's Explicit Teaching on "Habitus" and Virtues
The appropriate first step in grasping what Aquinas explicitly
teaches regarding virtue is to investigate his theory of habitus. 11
Aquinas's concept of a habit, the genus of virtue, lays a foundation for the thesis of this paper in two ways. First, it highlights
the active power of a habit, a cardinal concept in the theoretical
part of the thesis which involves the concept of habits related to
one another as potency to act or matter to form. In the introduction to his treatise on habit, Aquinas declares that powers and
habits are the intrinsic sources of action in the human agent. 12 As
a disposition to act, a habitus is an active principle or agent that
orients a power of the soul to perform a certain operation with
ease, promptness, and enjoyment. 13
11 Habitus is a fourth declension noun which, in the nominative case, has the same
form in the singular as in the plural. It is derived from the verb habere, meaning to have
or possess something, or se habere, to be in a certain state (see STh 1-11, q. 49, a. 1).
Translations are often misleading. To translate habitus with the English word "habit"
could confuse contemporary connotations of the word with the Scholastic meaning.
Whenever the word "habit" (or habitus) is used in this paper, it is used in its Scholastic
sense. In short, it does not mean some automatic reflex or response passively developed
through repetition (as a twentieth-century person might speak of "a habit of smoking")
but rather a deliberate qualification of human powers whose exercise always constitutes
a freely chosen act.
12 "Principium autem intrinsecum est potentia et habitus" (prologue to STh 1-11, qq. 4954: Leonine edition, 6:309).
13 Understood in hylomorphic terms, a habit is related to a power as form to matter or
act to potency. It determines or perfects a power, which has the potency to act indeterminately, and causes it to act in a determinate way in an easy and steadfast manner.
Because human beings can act in more than one way and because they are subject to random, chance influences, their actions require habituation. They can choose and determine their goals and the means to those goals. Human agents, therefore, need added
dispositions to ensure that they act in accord with their nature. Good habitus ensure that
the rational powers and their natural dispositions toward truth and goodness function
optimally. Habitus are vicious if these basic dispositions are relativized in evil choices,
that is, in choices that cripple the practice of the natural good habit.

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193

The second way Aquinas's theory of habitus lays a foundation
for my thesis is by illustrating that a habit is also a passive power
or agent, that is, capable of receiving further perfection from a
superior habit. Aquinas is careful to point out that habits, like
human activity, are complex. For example, a good habit of the
intellect, such as the habit of science, functions optimally only
when the possible intellect and the interior cognitive senses are
perfected in their respective activities.14 From another perspective,
a habit of science, although materially a habit of the knowledge
of conclusions reached by reasoning, is also formally a habit of
the first principles known by insight from which this reasoning
proceeds. Moral habitus are also complex. Although essentially
an appetitive habit, a moral habit is accidentally or secondarily
a habit of the intellect, that is, prudence. 15 The habit of the intellect is related to the habit of the appetite as the accidental form
of a power is related to the substance of the soul, that is, as form
to matter.
The material and formal principles of a composite human
habit (e.g., the habit of a particular science) have the following
significance. The habit that is the material component (e.g., the
habit of memory) is the necessary substratum for the perfecting
form (the habit of science) and, while maintaining its own essential form, the habit of memory is further defined by the form that
it receives from the superior habit of science. The reality of the
composite habit of science transcends that of either component
principle. Therefore neither the habit of memory nor the habit of
science in se is a habit in an absolute sense. Alone the inferior or
superior habit is imperfect or incomplete, but together the
ordered components form one complete or perfect habit that is
unified by the form of the superior habit.
When we move from Aquinas's discussion of habitus to good
habits or virtues, especially human or acquired virtue, three
See STh 1-11, q. 50, a. 3, ad 3.
Aquinas speaks of moral virtue as a requirement of prudence. See STh 1-11, q. 57, a.
4. "Therefore, for right reason about things to be done which is prudence, it is necessary
that man have moral virtue" ("ideo ad rectam rationem agibilium quae est prudentia,
requiritur quod homo habeat virtutem moralem") (STh 1-11, q. 58, a. 5: Leonine, 6:376).
All English translations of Latin texts are mine.
14
15

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points of central interest vis-a-vis the thesis emerge. First,
Aquinas's analogous use of the term "virtue" creates a fluid hierarchy of human virtue. Insofar as the criterion for superior
human virtue is that which inheres in the most perfect human
faculty, the intellect, and that which is directed to the noblest
human activity, contemplation, intellectual acquired virtue
ranks higher than, or is superior to, acquired moral virtue. But
when Aquinas defines human virtue in its absolute sense as that
which involves the will directed to the formal good, then
acquired moral virtue ranks as virtue in an absolute sense (simpliciter) while intellectual virtue is virtue in a restricted sense
(secundum quid). 16

With Aquinas's introduction of infused virtue into the hierarchy
of virtue, however, the superiority of acquired moral virtue is
itself relativized. Since divine or infused virtue is directed not to
a particular good but to the absolute Good, 11 acquired moral
virtue is no longer virtue in an absolute sense but, in reference to
infused virtue, is virtue in a restricted sense. Nevertheless,
because Aquinas demonstrates the complementarity of the
16 For Aquinas, the speculative virtues are more excellent than the moral virtues,
objectively speaking, because they proceed more directly from the rational part of the
human soul and are directed to the ultimate end, the contemplation of God. They are less
excellent in thefullest sense of virtue, however, because they lack an act of the will directed
to a formal good. Since only the will, or faculties directed by the will, is directed to bonum
ut bonum, only virtues that perfect these appetites are virtues strictly speaking.
Therefore, in the order of human virtue, only moral virtues are virtues in an absolute
sense. "Thus only the habits pertaining to the appetitive part can be called virtue, not,
however, the intellectual habits, and especially not the speculative habits" ("sic solum
habitus respicientes appetitivam partem virtutes dici possunt, non autem intellectuales,
et specialiter speculativi") (III Sent., d. 23, q. 1, a. 4 qcla. 3, sol. 1: Moos, 3:712).
17 If the human agent is to move toward an end, the end must be known and desired,
i.e., it must be seen as attainable and lovable. Faith is the virtue that enables the human
being to know God for, through faith, "the mind comprehends those things which it
hopes for and loves" ("apprehendit intellectus ea quae sperat et amat") (STh I-II, q. 62, a.
4: Leonine, 6:405). Hope is the virtue that gives the recipient the confidence that God is
attainable, for, perfected by hope, the will reaches out to its end with a "movement of
intention tending toward [the good] itself as if toward that which is possible to attain"
("motum intentionis, in ipsum tendentem sicut in id quod est possibile consequi") (STh III, q. 62, a. 3: Leonine, 6:403). And charity is the virtue that enables the person to love
God because "through it [the will] is transformed, so to speak, into that end" ("per quam
quodammodo transformatur in ilium finem") (ibid.).

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195

respective ends of acquired moral virtue (particular good) and
infused moral virtue (absolute Good), it can be argued that he
presents acquired moral virtue as disposed toward infused moral
virtue.
Second, Aquinas sets the active-passive potency of the natural
dispositions as the standard for the causality that is characteristic
of human virtue. 18 Hence, just as the natural dispositions or
"seeds of virtue" are the perfecting principles of the inferior
power of their respective faculties, so is it reasonable to argue
that acquired moral virtue is the perfecting principle of the
natural dispositions that are subordinate to it. Just as natural
dispositions are the perfectible or material principles of the more
perfect principles of the acquired intellectual and moral virtues,
so is it reasonable to argue that acquired moral virtue is the perfectible or material principle of infused virtue, which is superior
to it.
Third, through his theory of the unity of human moral virtue,
Aquinas demonstrates that perfect moral virtue is materially an
acquired moral virtue and formally a virtue of prudence. He
asserts that knowledge alone fails to ensure good human activity;
the human appetites, both rational and sensitive, can present
formidable opposition to the direction of reason and demand the
perfection of the moral virtues to dispose them to obey reason,
that is, to obey the direction of prudence. 19 Therefore, perfect
moral virtue in the human order, or relatively perfect moral
virtue, is a composite virtue that is formally a virtue of prudence
and materially a virtue of justice, temperance, fortitude, or their
allied virtues.
18 The natural dispositions or "seeds of virtue" are passive principles because they are
receptive to the form of the perfected or acquired virtue, and they are active agents
because, like the natural principle of fire, they induce their own form into the power from
which their action originates. In this way, natural dispositions, with a graduated impact,
impress their form on their respective powers and on each act that proceeds from their
powers until by the frequent repetition of these acts the habits of the virtues and sciences
are perfected.
19 To cite only one example, it is not enough for someone to be well-disposed toward
temperate acts in food, drink, and sex by moral virtue; one must also have the knowledge
of how, where, why, and when to be temperate through the intellectual virtue of prudence
before one can be assured of actually being temperate.

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Furthermore, with the composite nature of relatively perfect
moral virtue, a single human virtue consisting of ordered components that are in a matter-form relationship, Aquinas sets the
precedent for the composition of an absolutely perfect moral
virtue. That is, through the unifying presence of prudence,
Aquinas defines the prototype of each species of human virtue,
both intellectual and moral, as a composite virtue. Similarly,
through the unity of charity, 20 he defines absolutely perfect moral
virtue as a virtue that is formally an infused virtue and materially an acquired virtue. All the infused moral virtues, Aquinas
insists, depend on charity. 21 Charity, or supernatural love of God,
is the form, source, and end of all action that is supernatural and
meritorious. As a result, besides acts of faith, hope, and charity,
Christians can posit supernatural acts of fortitude, temperance,
justice, prudence, and their allied virtues, acts that are the means
to attaining their supernatural end or happiness. The other
moral virtues cannot exist without prudence, and prudence cannot exist without the other moral virtues, for the latter dispose a
person to certain natural ends from which the judgment of prudence begins. But for prudence to judge rightly regarding the
supernatural end, the virtue of charity that fits the agent to that
end must be present. 22 In other words, an infused moral virtue,
20 For Aquinas, the principle that charity is the form of the virtues means, in its most
general sense, that charity perfects the acts of the other virtues by commanding or directing them to their ultimate end, in effect by making the justified capable of acts of love
that would otherwise exceed the power of the human will.
In De caritate, Aquinas reiterates the notion of charity as an exemplary form iforrna
exemplaris), but he qualifies the notion slightly by explaining that charity is an effective
exemplar form (exemplar effectivum), a form producing acts like itself. Here charity is the
form of the virtues not so much as generating other virtues like itself but as producing
virtues that operate like itself. The nexus between charity and the other virtues is underscored in Aquinas's description: "charity, considered as an act, not only has an exemplarity, but it also has a motive and effective force. For there is no effective exemplar
without its copy, because it produces something in being. And thus charity does not exist
without the other virtues" ("Caritas quantum ad actum non sol um habet exemplaritatem,
sed etiam virtutem motivam et effectivam. Exemplar autem effectivum non est sine
exemplato; quia producit illud in esse; et sic caritas non est sine aliis virtutibus") (De
caritate 3, ad 8: Vives, 14:239).
21 See STh I-II, q. 65, a. 3, and ad 1; De virtutibus cardinalibus 2.
22 Aquinas insists that charity is essential to the infused moral virtues. The infused
virtue of prudence is able to judge correctly regarding the supernatural end only by
means of the direction of charity. Likewise, the other infused moral virtues that are con-

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197

having received its perfect form from charity, is also able to
effect, produce, and create its own form or perfection in its
acquired counterpart, enabling the acquired virtue to function
just like the infused.
Finally, although Aquinas teaches that a particular acquired
virtue and its infused analogate have the same material act, they
have different formal objects or motives. 23 The motive for practicing supernatural temperance in regard to food, for example, is
a supernatural measure: Christians should chastise their bodies
and bring them into subjection. The motive for practicing natural
temperance in regard to food is a natural measure: food should
not harm the body nor hinder reason. 24 The end of an acquired
moral virtue is good behavior in human affairs; the end of an
infused moral virtue is to perfect the person as a citizen of heaven. Because of the ordered relationship of imperfect to perfect
principles, Aquinas demonstrates that the motive and end of
acquired moral virtue is included within, or is the material component of, the motive and end of infused moral virtue. As a
nected with prudence and cannot exist without it, also require the perfection of charity
in order to direct the agent to the absolutely ultimate end (ad finem ultimum simpliciter).
What Aquinas appears to be saying is that the line of command or direction from charity
to the infused moral virtues, except for prudence, is a mediate one. Prudence maintains
its command of the other moral virtues on the supernatural plane; charity informs prudence directly and, through prudence, the other infused moral virtues. In one sense, then,
both charity and prudence connect the infused moral virtues, but charity is their ultimate
bond because all the di vine virtues are directed to the end of charity.
23 See STh I-II, q. 63, a. 4; De virtutibus 10, ad 7, 8, 9; III Sent., d. 33, q. 1, a. 2, qcla. 4.
24 "Habits are specifically distinguished in two ways: in one way ... according to the
specific and formal characters of their objects .... It is evident, however, that the mean
which is imposed on desires of this sort according to the rule of human reason differs
from that mean which is imposed according to the divine rule. For example, in the consumption of food, by human reason the mean is established that it should not injure bodily health nor impede the act of reason. But according to the rule of divine law, it is
required that, by abstinence from food and drink and from other like things, man should
chastise his body and reduce it to servitude" ("dupliciter habitus distinguuntur specie.
Uno modo ... secundum speciales et formales rationes obiectorum .... Manifestum est
autem quod alterius rationis est modus qui imponitur in huiusmodi concupiscentiis
secundum regulam rationis humanae, et secundum regulam divinam. Puta in sumptione
ciborum, ratione humana modus statuitur ut non noceat valetudini corporis, nee impediat rationis actum; secundum autem regulam legis divinae, requiritur quod homo castiget corpus suum, et in servitutem redigat, per abstinentiam cibi et potus, et aliorum
huiusmodi") (STh I-II, q. 63, a. 4: Leonine, 6:411; see also ibid., ad 1).

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result, an act of temperance following from a perfect virtue of
temperance is a single act performed from two ordered motives
and for two ordered ends. 25

B) Aquinas's Teaching on Structurally Related Issues
We have demonstrated the compatibility of the reconstructed
theory of the relation between acquired and infused moral
virtues with Aquinas's explicit teaching on virtue, but it is also
possible to verify the validity of this theory by illustrating its
complementarity to his indirect teaching regarding this question,
that is, in respect to cases that are analogous to the relation of the
two species of moral virtue and that illustrate his conception of
the unity of any entity that consists of distinct components
ordered to each other as matter to form. 26 For example, Aquinas
argues that the informed human act, though composed of the
material-formal components of the commanded act and the act
of command, is one act. 21 The human person, though composed
of the material-formal principles of body and soul, is one human

25 As far as the intention of an act is concerned, Aquinas insists that the human agent
is able to intend more than one thing at the same time. Therefore, since intention
responds to both a final and a proximate end, it is possible to do one and the same act for
both a natural and a supernatural end. See STh I-II, q. 12, a. 3.
26 See G. P. Klubertanz, "The Unity of Human Activity," The Modern Schoolman 27
(January 1950): 75-103.
27 "But just as in the genus of natural things a certain whole [being] is composed of
matter and form as, [for example] the man who is one natural being is composed from
soul and body, although [this whole] may have many part, so also, in human acts, the act
of an inferior power is related to the act of the superior power materially. For the inferior power acts in virtue of the superior power moving it; even so the act of a prime mover
is related to the act of its instrument formally. Hence, it is evident that a command and
the act commanded are one human act, just as some whole [thing] is one, but as to its
parts is many" ("Sicut autem in genere rerum naturalium, aliquod totum componitur ex
materia et forma, ut homo ex anima et corpore, qui est unum ens naturale, Iicet habeat
multitudinem partium ita etiam in actibus humanis, actus inferiores potentiae materialiter se habet ad actum superioris, inquantum inferior potentia agit in virtute superioris
moventis ipsam: sic enim et actus moventis primi formaliter se habet ad actum instrumenti. Unde patet quod imperium et actus imperatus sunt unus actus humanus, sicut
quoddam totum est unum, sed est secundum partes multa") (STh I-II, q. 17, a. 4: Leonine,
6:121).

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person. The activity of Christ, though composed of the materialformal causes of human and divine activity, is a single activity, 29
and the Divine Law, though composed of the material-formal
elements of the Old Law and the Gospel Law, is a single law. 30
Therefore, we can deduce, mutatis mutandis, what Aquinas
might have said if he would have asked the question "How do
the acquired and infused moral virtues function within the justified person?" Moral virtue in the Christian, though composed
of acquired and infused moral virtue, is an indivisible but composite virtue that is formally an infused moral virtue and
materially an acquired moral virtue.
28

II. INADEQUATE THEORIES OF F ACILITY 31
A) The Suarezian Theory of Facility in the Moral Virtues
The main lines of the sixteenth-century Scholastic response to
the objection that infused moral virtues do not confer facility 32
28 "It is not necessary to ask if the body and soul are one [thing] as neither [is it necessary to ask whether] the wax and its shape are [one thing]" ("non oportet quarere si unum
est anima et corpus, sicut neque ceram et figuram") (cited in STh I, q. 76, a. 7, s.c.:
Aristotle, De anima 2.1 [412b 6-9]).
29 "Dionysius posits a theandric operation, that is, a divine-male or divine-human operation in Christ, not through some confusion of the activities or powers of both natures but,
through this, that his divine action uses his human action and his human action participates in the power of the divine action" ("Dionysius ponit in Christo operationem theandricum, idest divinam-virilem vel divinem-humanum, non per aliquam confusionem
operationum seu virtutem utriusque naturae, sed per hoc quod divina operatio eius utitur humana eius operatione, et humana operatio participat virtutem divinae operationis") (STh III, q. 19, a. 1, ad 1: Leonine, 11:240).
30 See STh I-II, q. 91, a. 5.
31 Coerver identifies a number
of principal opm10ns regarding facility among
Thomistic commentators between the mid-16th and 20th centuries. Of these, the opinions of Suarez and Billot are, in Coerver's estimate, the two main theories. See Coerver,
Facility, 65-67.
32 John Duns Scotus, O.F.M. (1274-1308) denied the existence of infused moral virtues
distinct from theological virtues, particularly from charity which he argued is sufficient
to direct the acquired virtues to a supernatural end. Subsequent to this refutation, an
extensive debate ensued over the existence and the nature of infused moral virtue (see
Coerver, Facility, 10-11; Cessario, Moral Virtues, 103-4). Sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Scholastics, in the revival of theological speculation that accompanied the
Counter-Reformation, defended Aquinas's doctrine on the infused moral virtues against
two principal objections: first, the moral virtues are not infused; second, these supposed
virtues do not confer facility in the practice of virtue.

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can be traced to Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), who, followed by
the Salmanticenses (Discalced Carmelites) and J. B. Gonet, O.P.
(ca. 1616-81),33 introduced the distinction between extrinsic and
intrinsic facility in reference to the acquired and infused moral
virtues, respectively. He explains the distinction thus:
A twofold facility can be distinguished: one is intrinsic which per se is
in each faculty in relation to the act to which [that faculty] is inclined;
the other is through the removal of impediments which occur per accidens. These [infused] virtues, therefore, give the first kind of facility
inasmuch as they confer an intrinsic ease of acting to the acts to which
they are connaturally inclined as to their own end and ultimate act.
Therefore, since these virtues are intrinsically in their powers, they are
as certain weights inclining the powers to their proper acts. In this way,
they give intrinsic facility.... But they do not supply an extrinsic facility
because the contrary difficulty comes either from natural ignorance or
inconsideration, or from the stirrings of concupiscence, or from the
corruptibility of body; these impediments, however, are not taken away
by the [infused] virtues. 34

Suarez argues that although the intrinsic facility of the infused
virtues qualifies as facility in a broad sense by conferring a positive inclination of the faculty to the good of virtue, it does not
remove external impediments that may cause difficulties in the
exercise of the virtuous act. 35 In order for the intrinsic facility of
the infused virtue to become operationally functional, it needs to
33 Coerver (Facility, 26-28) points out that in his Clypeus theologiae thomisticae contra novos ejus impugnatores, Gonet quotes verbatim the definition of intrinsic and extrinsic facility from the Cursus Theologicus, a theological treatise based on the outline of the
Summa Theologiae, the bulk of which was written in the seventeenth century by the
Salmanticenses, Discalced Carmelites of the College of St. Elias in Salamanca, Spain.
34 "Duplex enim facilitas ... distingui potest: una est intrinseca, quae per se inest
cuicumque facultati respectu actus ad quern inclinatur; alia est per ablationem impedimentorum quae per accidens occurrunt. Hae igitur virtutes priorem dant facilitatem, eo
ipso quod intrinsecam conferunt operandi facultatem ad actus ad quos connaturaliter
inclinantur tanquam ad finem suum, et ultimum actum. Uncle cum hae virtutes intrinsece
insint suis potentiis, sunt veluti pondera quaedam ad suos actus inclinantia potentias.
Hoc ergo modo dant intrinsecam facilitatem sicut supra etiam de Theologicis virtutibus
tetigimus. At vero extrinsecam facilitatem non praebent, quia contraria difficultas
provenit aut ex naturali ignorantia vel inconsideratione, aut ex fomite concupiscentiae,
vel corporis corruptibilitate; haec autem impedimenta per has virtutes non auferuntur"
(Suarez, Opera Omnia, vol. 9, book 6, chap. 9, n. 9: Coerver, Facility, n. 52).
35 Coerver, Facility, 29.

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be complemented by the extrinsic facility of the acquired virtue.
In what way acquired virtues render this assistance is the next
issue to be investigated.
After making the distinction between the extrinsic facility
associated with the acquired virtues and the intrinsic facility
proper to the infused virtues, Suarez discusses yet another difficulty that is both practical and theoretical. Experience teaches
that there is an extrinsic facility of action connected with the
repeated exercise of infused virtues. How does one account for
this kind of facility? Suarez suggests two logical sources:
First, as a result of the same [repeated] supernatural and infused acts
that are from infused habits or those that are elicited by divine help,
other habits are acquired, or, second, as a result of other natural acts
which can be produced concerning the same matter of the infused
habits ... habits are produced proportionate to such acts.' 6

In the first solution, an acquired habit that is generated directly
from the repeated acts of infused moral virtues is the origin of
the facility. For example, repeated acts of infused prudence
would produce an acquired virtue of prudence which, in turn,
lends a facility of action to the infused virtue. Suarez rejects this
theory "because a habit which is acquired concerning natural
acts tends toward acts of the same kind as those from which it
originated and toward the same object under the same formality;
the acquired habit cannot tend to the same object under the
same formality [as an infused virtue] because that object is
supernatural." 37 Therefore, infused acts of virtue could no more
generate an acquired virtue than acquired acts of virtue could
produce infused virtue. As Suarez states, "A natural quality does

36 "Primo, quia per eosdem actus supernaturales et infusos, qui ab habitibus infusis; vel
per divinum auxilium eliciuntur, alii habitus acquiruntur. Secundo, quia per alios actus
naturales qui circa easdem materias habituum infusorum fieri possunt ... producuntur
habitus talibus actibus proportionati" (Suarez, Opera Omnia, vol. 9, book 6, chap. 14, n.
2; Coerver, Facility, 36 n. 2).
37 "quia habitus qui acquiritur circa actus naturales, inclinat ad actus ejusdem rationis
cum his a quibus genitus est, et ad idem objectum sub eadem ratione formali; habitus
acquisitus non potest inclinare ad idem objectum sub eadem ratione formali, quia illud
objectum supernaturale est" (Suarez, Opera Omnia, vol. 9, book 6, chap. 14, n. 7).

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not have a natural appetite toward the supernatural. " 38 Instead,
Suarez suggests that the facility of action associated with the
exercise of infused virtues originates directly from the grace of
God that increases the effective power of the infused virtue. The
repetition of purely supernatural acts of virtue, then, disposes
faculties for ease in the exercise of infused virtue "by removing
impediments, by moderating some affections, or by in some way
excluding repugnant habits." 39
Suarez explains that a second possible source of extrinsic facility
associated with the exercise of infused virtue has its origin in
purely natural acts of acquired virtue. In this case, acts of
acquired prudence exercised independently of acts of infused
prudence would communicate facility to the virtue of infused
prudence. Suarez endorses the second theory but nuances it.
Although the repetition of purely natural acts of virtue does not
confer direct extrinsic facility of action on the infused virtues, it
does give a per accidens extrinsic facility. In other words, there is
a connection between purely natural acts of acquired virtue and
purely supernatural acts of infused moral virtues in that the
exercise of the acquired virtue, being directed to the same material object as the infused virtue, contributes a facility of action,
or ease of performance, to the latter.
In sum, then, according to Suarez the acquired and infused
moral virtues are principally related in one way: the repeated
exercise of purely natural acts of acquired virtue can communicate a certain facility of action to their infused counterparts.
That is, they do not directly or positively assist in the performance of supernatural acts of virtue, but they assist in an
indirect or dispositive way by removing impediments, moderating
affections, and excluding vices. Only the grace of God and
repeated acts of purely supernatural virtue, however, contribute
directly and positively to facility in the infused virtues.

'" "tum quia naturalis qualitas non habet naturalem appetitum ad supernaturalia"
(ibid.).
39 "tollendo impedimenta, moderando aliquos affectus, vel habitus aliquo modo repugnantes excludando" (ibid., n. 24; Coerver, Facility, 37 n. 3).

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. B) Critique
Suarez is correct in his recognition and interpretation of basic
Thomistic principles regarding the differences between the
acquired and infused virtues. However, if he had carried the
implications of these principles to their logical conclusion, he
would have come to a different verdict. As it stands, he contradicts
the very principles he initially upholds.
First, it should be conceded that the distinction Suarez makes
between extrinsic facility proper to an acquired virtue and
intrinsic facility associated with infused virtue (theological and
moral) is a faithful interpretation of the brief references of
Aquinas to the question. Furthermore, Suarez's definitions of the
nature of the two kinds of facility are accurate representations of
the distinctions noted by Aquinas. In sum, by eradicating impediments to virtuous acts, acquired virtues make the performance
of those acts easy, prompt, and enjoyable. Infused moral virtues,
on the other hand, are infused by God rather than acquired
through human practice, and therefore do not confer an extrinsic
facility of action. They do incline the person to the good of
virtue,
and the respective human power to the good of
virtuous acts.
Nevertheless, after this clear delineation of the distinct kinds
of facility peculiar to acquired and infused virtues, Suarez contradicts himself when he insists that extrinsic facility of action
cannot be attributed to acquired virtues but comes directly from
grace, particularly from the persistent exercise of the infused
virtues. It is probably correct to suggest that such a conclusion is
an effort by Suarez and proponents of his theory of facility to be
solidly anti-Pelagian. 40 But it must be said that, by the time he
wrote the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas was also thoroughly antiPelagian; yet he manages to keep in balance the supremacy of
divine intervention and the dignity of human effort. While
Aquinas admits the complementarity and reciprocity between
human and divine effort in the Christian moral life, Suarez
appears to underscore the preeminence of the divine by denying
any human contribution to supernatural moral activity.
40

Billot, De virtutibus infusis, 58.

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Second, it should be conceded that Suarez correctly maintains
two complementary rules that Aquinas sets down throughout his
treatise on virtue: first, virtues are divided into different species
based on their distinct formal objects; second, the effects of
virtue are proportionate to their cause so that, for example,
infused virtue cannot be said to be the cause of acquired virtue,
nor acquired virtue the cause of infused virtue. Based on their
specific difference, Suarez contends that repeated acts of infused
virtue cannot produce an acquired virtue anymore than repeated
acts of acquired virtue can generate supernatural virtues. A
supernatural effect, therefore, cannot have a natural cause and
vice versa. If this principle is applied logically to facility in
virtue, an acquired virtue cannot produce intrinsic facility, and
an infused virtue cannot generate extrinsic facility. Suarez, therefore, accurately interprets Aquinas's teaching on the specific difference between the acquired and infused moral virtues by reasoning that if one wants to account for the extrinsic facility that
experience indicates can also be associated with repeated acts of
infused virtue, one cannot say that the acquired virtue responsible
for this facility is generated by an infused virtue. Nevertheless,
instead of insisting that the acquired virtue would have to be
produced by a proportionate natural cause, he denies his original
association of extrinsic facility with acquired virtue and claims
that the extrinsic facility of the infused virtue comes directly
from grace and from the repeated acts of infused virtues.
Perhaps the underlying flaw that is responsible for Suarez's
inconsistent reasoning is his exclusive notion of moral virtue,
namely, his assumption that in the Christian life there can be
purely natural or purely supernatural virtues. The comprehensive or inclusive view of virtue proposed by Aquinas and supposed in the thesis of this study, namely, that perfect virtue for
the Christian who also possesses the acquired virtues is a composite but single entity, dictates that every Christian virtue, adequately considered, is an ordered reality in which the component
parts are related as matter to form. A moral virtue, in its
absolutely perfect state, is formally speaking supernatural or an
infused virtue and materially speaking natural or an acquired
moral virtue. For an infused moral or theological virtue to be

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rated as a complete or perfect example of that kind of virtue,
both the material and the formal causes or principles must make
their proper contribution. The formal cause is the supernatural
perfection that determines the composite virtue to be the kind
that it is; the material cause is the natural perfection that is in
potency to the perfecting formal cause and is able to be determined by it, while at the same time exercising its own reciprocal
causality.
There is no evidence in Aquinas, then, to support the claim
that, in the life of the Christian who also possesses the acquired
virtues, there is the possibility of performing purely natural acts
of acquired virtue. One could argue that there might be
Christian acts of moral virtue that are performed predominantly
from natural motives, but taking into account what Aquinas
says about virtual intention and charity, even these acts would
be formally supernatural. 41
Although Aquinas speaks of a Christian who performs exclusively supernatural acts of diligence or prudence, he also points
out that such an act falls short of perfect virtue or the "fuller"
virtue of diligence. 42 A moral virtue of diligence or prudence that
lacks a material component only aids the individual to make
good decisions regarding supernatural life; it does not also help
him to decide well in human affairs. Suarez's exclusive notion of
virtue requires him to substitute a caricature of infused virtuean act that is purely supernatural-for the inclusive notion of
perfect nioral virtue presented by Aquinas. Only when absolutely
perfect moral virtue is understood as a single, ordered reality do
the examples of Aquinas that allude to a lack of facility in those
who are practicing infused moral virtue make any sense. The
reason that the person still suffers a lack of ease in the performance of infused virtues after their restoral following sacramental
penance, for example, is that the infused virtue is still linked
with the material component of an acquired vice or a vicious disposition. Until the person is able to replace the acquired vice
with an acquired virtue, ease in performing the infused virtue
41

See De car., 11, ad 2.
STh II-II, q. 4 7, a. 14, ad 1.

42 See

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cannot occur. If Suarez were correct and the repeated acts of
purely supernatural infused virtues and grace produced a direct
extrinsic facility, Aquinas's examples would be nullified. The
individual who repents and therefore possesses the infused
virtues and practices them should, in the Suarezian view,
perform them with ease.
Finally, Suarez's conclusions about facility in the infused
virtues fail to provide an explicit discussion of the implications
of the theory of facility for the larger question of the interplay
between human moral effort and divine intervention in the life
of a Christian. Instead of making an "end" of the theoretical discussion of facility and the insight it gives about the relationship
between the acquired and infused virtues, Aquinas's doctrine on
perfect moral virtue in the Christian acts as a "window" that
opens onto the broader view of the divine-human interplay in
the Christian life as a whole. The first practical implication that
one can draw from Aquinas's schema is that human moral effort
in the Christian life is not to be suppressed or neglected. By its
very nature, human activity lies open to or is dispositive toward
divine intervention with its purifying and perfecting power. God
expects human beings to do their part and accepts human effort
as the very complement of grace. 43 The second practical implication is that grace and divine infusion of virtue is the primary or
formative cause of Christian moral activity. Grace permeates
nature. The contribution of the Christian, by way of the exercise
43 It is well to note here that Aquinas's concept of nature and grace, which the matter/form relation of the acquired and infused moral virtues presages, bears little resemblance to the "standard view of nature and grace in post-Tridentine and neo-Scholastic
theology" to which Karl Rahner (Nature and Grace, trans. Dina Wharton [London and
New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963], 1; see esp 1-44) strenuously objected. For Aquinas,
grace transforms nature without destroying it; grace corrects and perfects nature without
denying its dignity. Rahner was correct, then, in his criticism of later Thomistic commentators who taught that the natural and supernatural "interpenetrate as little as possible," or that nature's orientation to grace "is thought of as negatively as possible," or
that the natural being of man "is a closed system complete in itself with grace as a pure
superstructure that leaves what is beneath unchanged" (ibid., 7). Aquinas's theory of the
unity of perfect moral virtue, with its focus on an existential description of the
nature/grace composite of the moral act of a Christian, accomplishes precisely what
Rahner insists contemporary theology must teach about grace, namely, how grace
"penetrates our conscious life, not only our essence but our existence too" (ibid., 26).

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of virtue, takes place only because of the antecedent gratuitous
will of God; divine grace precedes all human effort. Human
moral activity and the growth and development of virtue in the
Christian life have their source and their ultimate meaning and
perfection in God.
C) Billot's Theory of Facility in the Moral Virtues
If the concept of facility is to be applied to the infused virtues,
Louis Cardinal Billot argues, it must include more than the conferral of the possibility of supernatural activity. The facility of
the infused virtue must also confer an inclination to the object of
virtue (i.e., the good), or an inclination to acts of virtue (i.e., the
actual pursuit of the good). These two types of inclination are
formally distinct and existentially separable, however. One could
have an inclination to the object of virtue without having the
inclination to the act of virtue. 44 In order to illustrate his point,
Billot appeals to the example of two persons who are in bad
health. The first has a strong desire to get well, but he has no
inclination to take medicine that he dislikes. The second does not
have a burning desire to get well, but he has no aversion to
taking medicine. The infused virtues confer the first kind of
facility in that they give a "special inclination to the good which
is its object," 45 but they do not confer the second type of facility,
that is, an inclination to acts of virtue. Only the acquired virtues
suppress their contrary vices, temper the passions, and thus
make possible the prompt and easy exercise of acts of virtue.
Nevertheless, Billot maintains that the facility of the infused
virtues still qualifies as facility in the broad sense because it
includes an inclination to the good. 46
Regarding the question of whether an acquired virtue communicates a facility to its concomitant infused virtue, Billot
agrees with Suarez that, if the Christian possesses the acquired
moral virtues, they confer a per accidens facility in performing
Coerver, Facility, 32.
inclinationem ad bonum quod est eius obiectum" (Billot, De virtutibus
infusis, 34 ).
46 Coerver, Facility, 32.
44

45 "specialem

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supernatural acts of virtue. 47 But, in response to the question of
whether repeated acts of the infused virtues contribute to the
facility of the infused virtues, Billot maintains that human experience teaches that they produce acquired habits and, therefore,
facility. 48 In the lives of saints, for example, there is no adequate
explanation for the facility that one sees in their practice of the
infused virtues unless one admits that through the repetition of
supernatural acts an acquired virtue is produced. The latter
ensures that "the natural power is better subjected to the same
infused virtue, and it is always more and more disciplined to
perform promptly according to [the infused virtue]." 49
Against the Suarezian position that describes God as the
direct or per se origin of the facility of the practice of the infused
virtues, Billot argues that grace is an extrinsic factor, and the
kind of facility that accrues to the infused virtues is intrinsic to
the respective faculty. Also, when Suarez and proponents of his
view admit that the facility that belongs to the repetition of acts
of infused moral virtues moderates passion, Billot asserts that
"they implicitly concede our conclusion, namely, that a habit is
generated by which ease of practice of the same virtue is positively acquired." 50 It is inconsistent for proponents of the
Suarezian theory, on the one hand, to admit that the facility that
follows from the repetition of the infused virtues moderates passions and removes impediments to virtue and, on the other, to
deny that repeated acts of infused virtue produce an acquired
virtue. 51 Furthermore, to hold such a position is absurd because
it is tantamount to admitting that, despite the repetition of
infused virtue, Christians will never have the ease, readiness,
and delight in their moral activity that persons without grace
exhibit who possess acquired virtue. 52
47

Ibid., 39.

48 Ibid., 58.
49 "naturalis potentia eidem infusae virtuti melius subiicitur, et semper magis magisque
disciplinatur ad prompte operandum secundam ipsam" (Billot, De virtutibus infusis, 50;
see Coerver, Facility, 55 n. 67).
50 "implicite concedunt conclusionem nostram, videlicet: generari habitum quo facilitas exercitii eiusdem virtutis positive acquiritur" (Billot, De virtutibus infusis, 51).
51 Coerver, Facility, 55-56.
52 Ibid., 56.

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In response to Suarez's argument that an infused virtue with
its specific formal object cannot produce a concomitant acquired
virtue with a different formal object, Billot contends that this
claim substitutes an obscure point for an obvious fact. He advises
that, first, the abstruse remarks concerning the specific formal
objects of the infused and acquired virtues ought to be abandoned in favor of the straightforward empirical datum that facility
does develop from the repetition of acts of infused moral virtue. 53
As Billot insists: "What is more clear than that from repeated
acts of infused virtue the same facility of exercise is totally
acquired as is ordinarily acquired from any repetition of human
acts?" 54 Second, if one makes a distinction between the way a
habit is caused by repeated acts and the way acts are caused by
a habit, the difficulty of diverse formal objects can be resolved. 55
When we analyze the way an act is caused by a habit, Billot
explains, it is clear that the act takes on the same formal determination as its respective habit and the faculty it perfects. On
that account, only supernatural acts will follow from a power
perfected by a supernatural virtue. According to the mode of
operation of a supernatural virtue, then, a supernatural habit
neither produces an acquired virtue or act nor is it directed to the
same formal object as the acquired virtue.
But if we examine the way a habit is caused by repeated acts,
it is possible to argue that a natural virtue can proceed from a
supernatural virtue; a natural virtue is virtually contained in the
supernatural, and the natural virtue is directed to the same formal object as the supernatural. 56 Billot argues that although each
faculty, as a passive power, receives the impressions of repeated
supernatural acts, it does not receive their supernaturality. The
faculty, exercised in the same way by repeated acts of both
acquired and infused moral virtues, is indifferent to natural or

Ibid., 58.
clarius quam quod ex frequentatione actuum virtutis infusae eadem omnino
acquiritur exercitii facilitas, quae acquiri solet ex qualibet repetitione actuum humanorum?" (Billot, De virtutibus infusis, 53).
55 Coerver, Facility, 68.
56 Ibid., 68-69; Billot, De virtutibus infusis, 60.
SJ

54 "quid

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supernatural formation: 11 What happens when the faculty is
formed by repeated supernatural acts is that it acquires a disposition and a propensity to perform similar acts of virtue. In other
words, this disposition and propensity are the acquired habit
and the facility that follows from it. Therefore, when the active
agent determining the faculty is the repeated acts of infused
virtue, the disposition or facility that is produced in the faculty
is nevertheless an acquired virtue. 18 Thus, according to the way
in which a habit is produced by acts, there is a common formal
object between the acquired and infused virtue, and therefore a
univocal predication between the substance of the acquired
moral act and that of the act of the infused virtue. 59
In defense of the position that the facility that accompanies
repeated acts of infused virtue has its source in acquired virtue
as generated from the infused, Billot has his own interpretation
of the following passage from the Summa Theologiae.
(Coincidentally, this text is also used as a proof for the Suarezian
argument that an infused virtue cannot produce an acquired
virtue.)
Acts which are produced by an infused habit do not cause some habit
but strengthen a preexisting one, just as medicines brought to a naturally healthy man do not cause health but rather reinforce the health
already possessed. 60

Billot argues that if this text is understood in its context, it does
not contradict his position. 61 First, Aquinas is referring to both
the theological virtues and the infused moral virtues when he
refers to the category of "infused virtue." Second, it must be
noted that Aquinas is presupposing the principle that two habits
of the same species cannot exist in the same subject. With this
context in mind, one can interpret Aquinas as saying that the
Coerver, Facility, 58.
Ibid., 58, 69.
59 Ibid., 68.
60 "Dicendum quod actus qui producuntur ex habitu infuso, non causant aliquem
habitum, sed confirmant habitum praeexistentem: sicut medicinalia adhibita homini
sano per naturam, non causant aliquam sanitatem, sed sanitatem prius habitam corroborant" (STh 1-11, q. 51, a. 4, ad 3: Leonine, 6:329; cited in Coerver, Facility, 61 n. 84).
61 Coerver, Facility, 61-62.
57

58

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211

infusion of virtue does not mean that two species of the same
virtue exist in the Christian at the same time. Neither the repeated
acts of theological virtue nor the repeated acts of infused moral
virtue produce virtues of the same species. For that reason, the
exercise of infused moral virtue (one species) cannot produce
infused moral virtue (same species), nor can the exercise of
infused moral virtue produce acquired moral virtue, because, in
Billot's schema, "the per accidens infused virtue [infused moral
virtue] is of the very same species as the acquired virtue." 62
Based on the same principle, the exercise of repeated acts of
theological virtue (one species) cannot generate other theological
virtues (same species). However, Aquinas does not, according to
Billot, rule out the possibility that the repeated exercise of theological virtue (one species) is able to generate acquired virtue
(different species). Thus Billot concludes that Aquinas's text
does not contradict his theory that the exercise of infused theological virtues produces an acquired virtue.
D) Critique

In Billot's theory of facility in the infused virtues, the acquired
and infused virtues are related in two ways. First, repeated acts of
purely natural or acquired virtue can communicate an accidental extrinsic facility to the performance of their infused counterpart. Second, repeated acts of infused theological virtue generate
acquired virtue which, in turn, confers to the theological virtues
a per se facility of action. 63 Billot's notion of a natural virtue
being virtually contained in an infused theological virtue means
that the acquired and infused virtue are directed to the same
object, the supernatural end, and therefore are of the same substance. Although this approximates Aquinas's idea of a composite moral virtue in the Christian life, Billot is unsuccessful, on
another score, in doing justice to Aquinas's inclusive concept of
moral virtue in the life of grace. Having categorized the acquired
62 "infusus per accidens omnino eiusdem speciei est cum acquisito" (Billot, De virtutibus infusis, 56).
63 As discussed above, the first type of facility is called accidental because it follows
from acts performed independently of the infused virtues. Per se facility follows directly
from repeated acts of infused virtue.

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and infused moral virtues as the same species of virtue, and following Aquinas's principle that two species of the same virtue
cannot exist in the same subject, Billot is unable to extend his
analysis of per se facility in the infused virtues to include the
question of the relationship between the two species of moral
virtue. Failing on that point, he is also prevented from mining
completely the rich vein that Aquinas explores, namely, the
human fullness of moral virtue in the Christian life, with its even
richer implications for the interplay of nature and grace in the
moral activity of the justified.
In his observations regarding the communication of an accidental facility from the acquired virtues to the infused, Billot displays
the same exclusive theory of moral virtue as Suarez. Accordingly,
the Christian is able to practice purely natural acts of virtue
which, in helping to remove impediments to the exercise of
virtue, make performance of acts of infused virtue easier.
As discussed above, this exclusive notion of Christian virtue
cannot be reconciled with Aquinas's presentation of absolutely
perfect moral virtue. In the Christian who also possesses the
acquired virtues, moral virtue is a composite, ordered reality. It
consists of an acquired virtue or material component and an
infused virtue or formal component that together enable the justified to perform moral acts that are directed to one material
object under two different but ordered formalities. We have
already noted that Aquinas does recognize that moral virtue in
its perfect state does not belong to every Christian. However,
although he alludes to the fact that some Christians perform
good acts from the infused virtues alone, 64 Aquinas does not present the reverse possibility of a Christian who performs purely
natural acts of virtue. He admits, of course, that the good pagan
can be naturally virtuous, 65 but even these virtues must be
understood against Aquinas's remarks that all good acts are the
result of divine and human causality.
64 In STh II-II, q. 47, a. 14, ad 1, Aquinas presents the case of an infused virtue of diligence that suffices for good judgment regarding supernatural matters versus a "fuller"
supernatural virtue of diligence that equips one for good judgment in both eternal and
temporal affairs.
65 See STh I-II, q. 65, a. 2.

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213

Essential to Billot's theory is his assertion that what ought to
be given primary consideration in the discussion of facility is not
the obscure point of the specific difference between the acquired
and infused virtues that Suarez emphasizes but a datum of universal experience, namely, that the practice of acts of infused
virtues is accompanied by a facility of action. There are two criticisms to be raised against this assertion. First, as we have
already pointed out, personal experience and examples from
texts of.Aquinas contradict Billot's insistence on a direct corollary between facility and the exercise of infused virtues.
Aquinas's example of a Christian who, following a sincere act of
contrition for serious sin, experiences difficulty in his practice of
virtue due to acquired vicious dispositions challenges Billot's
suggestion that facility or an acquired virtue universally accompanies the exercise of infused virtues. The fact that, after
recourse to the sacrament of penance, a person once again possesses the infused virtues but still experiences a lack of facility in
their performance belies Billot's theory. Similarly, the case of a
saintly person who possesses the infused virtues and who practices supernatural acts of temperance but who, as a recovering
alcoholic, struggles to stay sober because he lacks the acquired
virtue of temperance or the material component of Christian
moral virtue also rebuts Billot's assumption. What conforms
more closely to a lived experience of the graced life for many is
the situation of a Christian who exercises infused moral virtues
without having the acquired counterpart and who struggles in
the practice of moral virtue. Therefore, only when that exercise
of infused moral virtue is accompanied by an ease of practice can
we posit the existence of the acquired virtues as the source of
that facility. In short, facility can accompany the performance of
infused virtues, but it does not universally do so.
The more fundamental question that Billot's theory answers
only unsatisfactorily is: What is the cause of the acquired virtue
that confers facility in the performance of infused virtues when
it is present? Certainly Billot has discovered part of the answer
when he connects facility with the possession of acquired virtues.
Yet when he maintains that the acquired virtues are generated
from the repeated acts of infused virtue, it is clear that he does

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not grasp the whole answer. It is consistent for Billot to argue in
this manner because he ignores the implications of Aquinas's
teaching on the difference of formal objects between the
acquired and the infused virtues. If he had recognized the connection between the specific difference of the acquired and
infused virtues and Aquinas's principle of the proportion
between cause and effect, he would eventually have had to justify his claim that an infused virtue containing a supernatural
perfection could generate a virtue containing a natural perfection.
The principal flaw of Billot's conclusion regarding the cause
of the facility that accompanies the performance of infused
virtue is that he neglects to take account of an important factor
in the generation of a virtue: a perfection or virtue is produced in
its respective power only when the act that is repeatedly
performed contains the perfection of that virtue. To acquire a
natural virtue of prudence, for example, the person needs
repeatedly to perform acts that contain the perfection of right
reason until the accumulated effect of these acts brings the
power from a state of potency to actuality, and the person is able
consistently and with ease to judge rightly about what is to be
done in the here and now. It is the perfection or the goodness of
the repeated act in which the agent wills the good as a good for
himself that is responsible for the formation of the virtue.
Against Billot's claim that the power itself, merely by its repeated
exercise, produces a perfection or virtue, it is necessary to point
out that the power in se is in potency; it lacks perfection and only
becomes determined, actualized, or perfected through repeated
acts that contain the perfection of the virtue being formed. In
short, one cannot explain the cause of a perfected power or
virtue by something within the power itself, because the power
is only in potency to the virtuous disposition.
Billot is correct to insist that the natural faculty lacks the
capacity to receive the supernatural character of the repeated
acts of an infused virtue. This, after all, is precisely why Aquinas
insists that supernatural virtues must be infused by God. But
Billot is led to a faulty conclusion regarding the cause of the
acquired virtue and its facility when he neglects the point that

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215

human faculties do have the capacity to be determined by the
natural perfection of repeated acts of acquired virtue. This natural
perfection follows from the mean of the virtue set by the rule of
reason which is realized in the formal object or motive of the act.
The perfection or mean of the acquired virtue of temperance in
food consists of the practice of moderation in food from the
motive of promoting health of mind and body. This virtue is
acquired by the person who, over time and in varying circumstances, deliberately chooses to eat moderately in order to promote a healthy mind and body and to become a productive
member of the temporal city. Only after the faculty of the concupiscible power is exercised by acts containing this perfection
does the power acquire the perfection of that virtue and the concomitant ease of performance. In sum, Billot's conclusion that
acquired virtue proceeds from repeated acts of infused virtue not
only contradicts the Thomistic principle that effects are proportionate to their causes, but also deviates from Aquinas's explanation of the correlation between the perfection of the repeated
acts and the actualization of the respective power in the process
of acquiring virtue.
Billot's attempt to prove that there is no contradiction
between the text of Aquinas that states that repeated acts of
infused virtue do not produce another habit of the same species, 66
and his own theory that repeated acts of infused theological
virtue generate an acquired virtue, 67 also deserve closer examination. First, Billot argues that the passage applies to virtue
infused per se, that is, to theological virtue, not to infused moral
virtues. Second, viewed in this framework, the text only denies
that acts of theological virtue are able to produce other theological virtues. But it does not exclude the possibility that acts of
theological virtue are able to produce virtues of other species,
such as acquired virtues. Therefore, in concluding that repeated
acts of theological virtue (one species of virtue) can produce
acquired virtue (a different species of virtue), Billot emphasizes

66
67

See STh I-II, q. 51, a. 4.
Billot, De virtutibus infusis, 55-56.

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that he does not violate Aquinas's principle that virtues of the
same species cannot coexist in the same subject. 68
The logic of Billot's argumentation, particularly regarding the
specific likeness of the acquired and infused moral virtue, completely diverts him from the question of the relation between the
repeated acts of infused moral virtue and facility. One can only
speculate that, if he had taken into account the specific difference between the acquired and infused moral virtues, he might
have been led to a correct account of the proportionate cause of
that acquired virtue, namely, repeated acts of acquired virtue.
From that conclusion he might have reasoned further to the
important implications that follow from the relation of acquired
to infused moral virtue represented in the concept of facility.
Particularly, he would have had an incipient insight into
Aquinas's view of the divine-human cooperation in Christian
moral action, a view that accepts human effort as the "matter"
that is capable of being transformed by grace. However, aside
from such speculation about what Billot might have concluded,
we are left with only the tenuous connection that he sees
between acquired virtues and their infused counterparts by way
of an accidental facility that is communicated from the former to
the latter.
Ill. CONCLUSION:

AN ADEQUATE THEORY OF FACILITY

As we have argued, neither of the representative theories of
facility accurately represents Aquinas's concept of the relation
between the acquired and infused moral virtues. Certainly,
Billot's is a more faithful interpretation; he recognizes that the
theological virtue and its acquired counterpart form a single
virtue, although he does not explain their relationship in terms of
matter and form. The opinion of Suarez, in failing to assign any
role to acquired virtue in the per se facility of the infused virtue,
completely neglects the notion of the acquired virtue as the
material component of perfect moral virtue and thereby minimizes the importance of human effort in the Christian moral life.
68

Ibid., 56.

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217

These critiques of the theories of Suarez and Billot might
tempt one to conclude that using the concept of facility to identify Aquinas's view of the unity of perfect moral virtue is unproductive at best or counterproductive at worst. I would like to
argue that the insight that led four centuries of Thomistic commentators to use the issue of facility as a way to reconstruct
Aquinas's theory of the relationship between the acquired and
infused virtue is essentially a sound one. However, this approach
will only lead to an accurate interpretation of Aquinas's view of
Christian moral virtue when facility is assessed within its full
context. In other words, it is critical that the notion of facility is
understood, first, within the perspective of Aquinas's notion of
the composite nature of perfect virtue discussed in part 1.
Second, the theory of facility and its implications for the relation
of the acquired and infused moral virtues can only be properly
understood within the context of Aquinas's teaching on other
issues that deal with a single, ordered reality, such as those discussed in part 2. And, third, an adequate understanding of facility depends on a careful implementation of the relevant
Thomistic principles that figured in both the theories of Suarez
and Billot and their critiques in this chapter. Our concluding
remarks will be directed to the question: How is the topic of
facility an effective key to a recognition and substantiation of the
matter-form relation of the acquired and infused moral virtues
within the unity of perfect moral virtue?
Aquinas's distinction between the type of facility proper to the
acquired virtues and that proper to the infused, as well as his
examples of lack of facility mentioned above, indicate that only
when both types of facility are present in Christian moral activity is the person able to perform supernatural acts of virtue with
ease. When one recalls the recurring motif of Aquinas that it is
unthinkable that God would provide in a less generous way for
the execution of the life of grace than he does for the life of natural
virtue, it is clear that, according to Aquinas, ease in performance
is something that should mark Christian moral activity just as it
does the activity of the non-Christian. In other words, in the very
way that Aquinas defines the facility proper to the acquired and
infused virtues respectively, he indicates that both ought to be

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integral qualities of the moral activity of the Christian and,
therefore, characteristics that ought to mark the Christian life.
The acquired virtue and its facility constitute the material component of Christian moral virtue; this comprises the visible or
observable facility. This facility allows for the easy performance
of virtuous acts due to the moderation of passions and the
destruction of contrary vices that can only come as a result of the
repetition of acts of virtue over time in varying circumstances.
The infused moral virtue and its facility comprise the formal
component of Christian moral virtue since the infused moral
virtue enables the faculty and its natural virtue to adhere firmly
to the good of virtue and, through charity, to be ordered to the
supernatural end.
The incomplete nature of each type of facility implies their
complementarity. The intrinsic facility of the infused virtue cannot be operationally functional without the extrinsic facility of
the acquired virtue, and this latter cannot be depended on in the
midst of temptations to sin unless united to the perfection of
intrinsic facility. If extrinsic-intrinsic types of facility, proper to
the acquired and infused moral virtues, respectively, are ordered
components of a single reality related to each other as matter to
form, a fortiori the virtues that generate those respective qualities must also be so ordered. It follows, then, that the relationship
between the qualities of extrinsic and intrinsic facility is analogous to the relationship between the acquired and infused moral
virtues that produce those types of facility.
In a search for the theoretical explanation for the causality of
the acquired virtue that confers extrinsic facility on the performance of supernatural acts of virtue, one must be guided by the
principle that effects are proportionate to their causes. The
acquired virtue and its concomitant facility, then, can only be
generated by a cause proportionate to them, that is, by repeated
acts of natural virtue. This conclusion leads to another: in
Aquinas's view, in the context of the generation of facility in the
performance of supernatural acts of virtue, human moral effort
is a constitutive element which, when transformed by the supernatural, forms an operational unity with grace and the infused
virtues.

DEIFICATION IN THE SUMMA THEOLOGIAE:
A STRUCTURAL INTERPRETATION OF
THE PRIMA PARS
A. N. WILLIAMS
University of Puget Sound
Tacoma, Washington

W

HAT IS HUMAN DESTINY? To become God. That,
at least, was the belief of the earliest Christians. Such
an understanding is evident in the letters of St. Paul
(Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 15:49; and 2 Cor 8:9) and the first Christians
found it in the pages of the Hebrew Bible (Ps 82:6, quoted in
John 10:34). Above all, the nascent theological tradition pointed
to 2 Peter 1:4: "Thus has he given us, through these things, his
precious and very great promises, so that through them you may
escape from corruption that is in the world because of him, and
may become participants in divine nature." As the tradition
reflected on these texts, deification became the dominant model
of salvation and sanctification in the patristic period, from
Ignatius of Antioch to John Damascene, in the West (in the
writings of Tertullian and Augustine) as well as in the East. 1
Although the doctrine retained this place of pre-eminence in
Eastern theology, at some point it ceased to be the prime model
for salvation for the West. Conventional wisdom would
1 Good, concise accounts of deification can be found in Jules Gross, La divinisation du
chretien d'apres les peres grecs: Contribution historique a la doctrine de la grace (Paris:
J. Gabalda, 1938); Dictionnaire de spiritualitt!, ascetique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, s.v. "divinisation"; William G. Rusch, "How the Eastern Fathers Understood What
the Western Church Meant by Justification," in Justification by Faith: Lutherans and
Catholics in Dialogue 7 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985); and G. W. H. Lampe, "Christian
Theology in the Patristic Period," in A History of Christian Doctrine, ed. Hubert
Cunliffe-Jones (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978).

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maintain that the point of breakage occurred in the Middle
Ages, when the West focused first on the doctrine of the atonement and later on justification. Like much conventional wisdom,
this account contains a germ of truth; deification lost its dominance at some point, for it clearly no longer occupies such a position in our time, signs of its renascence notwithstanding. Where
the conventional wisdom errs, however, is in locating the break
in the Middle Ages, for the greatest of all medieval Western
theologies, the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, contains
a highly developed doctrine of deification.
Indeed, the doctrine of deification pervades the Summa. If
Western readers have failed to notice it, we may conjecture they
have done so for two reasons. The first is that it is precisely pervasive and not localized: one finds no question "Whether Human
Persons Are Deified?" in the pages of the Summa. Second,
Western readers may be unable to see the doctrine simply
because they are unfamiliar with it. Because this model of sanctification has been absent from Western theology for so long,
Western readers do not recognize either the paradigmatic structure of the doctrine or the language that traditionally conveys it.
To see the Summa's doctrine of deification, then, we must first
describe it in its classic, which is to say patristic, form.
Deification may be distinguished from other doctrines of sanctification in that it refers the question of human holiness in the
first instance to the doctrine of God. Sanctification consists
simply in participation in divine nature. To describe the transformation of the human person, therefore, we do not undertake
principally to specify virtues like gentleness or courage, or
powers like healing or levitation. Rather, the description of sanctification departs from a distinctive description of God. One of
the prime characteristics of a doctrine of deification, then, lies in
the integral connection between theology and anthropology.
A second mark of this doctrine is the particular doctrine of
God that forms its basis, balancing two conflicting impulses. On
the one hand, God is the giver who not only creates, but invites
the creature into communion. On the other hand, in a Christian
context, which takes for granted the distinction between creature and Creator, the divine distinctiveness must be upheld,

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against the threat of an encroaching, albeit unwitting, pantheism; moreover, for the self-giving to be genuinely divine selfgiving, the giver must remain transcendent.
In classic formulations of deification, the guard against pantheism and the protective rail around divine transcendence take
the form of a particular conception of grace. Grace does not
denote some "thing" that is separate from God and that communicates God's power in the manner of an intermediary, conferring on the recipient a degree of godliness that is less than being
God. Nevertheless, because God alone gives grace, the assertion
that the human person becomes divine by grace rather than by
nature effectively reinforces the ontological divide between
Uncreated and created. The distinction between creature and
Creator can now be parsed as the difference between the One
who voluntarily and generously shares his life, and those who
can only be recipients of that life. By grace the deified indeed
share in divine nature, but they never themselves become
Deifiers.
The two chief notes of both the doctrine of deification as a
whole and the doctrine of God upon which it is founded are thus
the claims of divine transcendence and free self-giving, the assertions that we genuinely participate in the divine nature, but
never become divine in the way in which God is divine. The doctrine of deification engages in a never-ending shuttle between
these two poles: the assertion of the union of Uncreated and created,
and yet the unbreachable ontological divide that separates them.
Another important distinguishing mark of the doctrine of
deification is the implication of seamlessness between this life
and the next. This seamlessness is not so much directly asserted
as strongly implied by the lack of all distinction between sanctification and eschatology. Doctrines of deification decline to specify
the qualitative distinction between this-worldly sanctity and
next-worldly perfection. They do not, it should be carefully
noted, claim that sanctity in this life differs in no respect from
the life with God in the age to come; yet their silence regarding
the difference implies a unity of sanctification and consummation.
The final identifying mark of the doctrine in its classic form is
the well-defined set of images the Fathers use to characterize

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deification. This body of images constitutes the doctrine's most
important tradent, which is another reason for its invisibility to
Western eyes. 2 As Western theology became more systematic in
its structure, more propositional in its form, it tended to lose
sight of earlier forms of theological exposition. Deification, even
in its patristic form, has become virtually invisible to the eyes of
modern Westerners because instead of defining deification, or
providing a phenomenological description of the deified, the
Fathers use a set of cognates for deification that forms a quasitechnical vocabulary. Three of these terms-participation,
union, and adoption-function as virtual synonyms for deification. Others, like grace, virtue, and knowledge, denote means or
loci of growth in sanctity that are common to all Christian doctrines of sanctification. Another group, light, contemplation,
glory, and vision, are found in medieval and modern Western
theologies, but tend to be appropriated either to sanctification
(light and contemplation) or consummation (glory and vision),
rather than denoting the unity of the two, as they do in a doctrine
of deification. The status of this last group becomes further complicated by their use in the West primarily within the tradition of
mystical and ascetical theology, a position that leaves them largely
ignored by modern theologians.
These images fail in the end to give a precise definition of
what it means to be deified. They fail to do so, necessarily,
because deification, even more than other forms of sanctification, asserts a form of human engagement with God that transcends human experience and defies the descriptive power of
human language. Nevertheless, while this body of images is both
relatively large and allusive and cannot neatly encapsulate the
whole meaning of deification, it provides a description consistent
with the three marks of the doctrine already noted: to be deified
is to be transformed by God's gift of self, to know God and to
grow in virtue towards likeness to God, to contemplate God and
to see anew, to encounter light and be illumined by it, in virtue

1 See, for example, A. N. Williams, "Light from Byzantium: The Signficance of
Palamas' Doctrine of Theosis," Pro Ecclesia 3 (1994): 483-96.

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223

of the gift of grace that makes one the adoptive child of God, a
participant in divine nature by grace, grafted into God's life in a
bond that begins in this life and extends into the next in an
unbroken unity, but that never violates the transcendence of the
gracious Giver.
This doctrine of deification is therefore what we are seeking in
the pages of the Summa. Since we cannot simply turn to the article
that treats it directly, we must use other methods of finding it.
We might begin by looking for instances of the images just identified; doing so would not only clearly show the pervasiveness of
the doctrine in the Summa, but would also demonstrate that
despite its systematization Thomas 's theological method retains
many similarities to that of the earlier tradition. Such an undertaking would take much more space than we can afford here.
Instead, we will look for the doctrine in two other forms: in the
handful of direct references to deification, and in the doctrine's
structural exposition, the particular way in which the doctrine of
God intersects with theological anthropology in the Summa.
I. DIRECT REFERENCES TO DEIFICATION

We begin by establishing the existence of a doctrine of deification in its most elementary form, with those passages where
Thomas speaks directly and unambiguously of deification,
deiformity, and participation in divine nature. Although few in
number, these references indicate that Thomas takes deification
for gran-ted. 3 The best example occurs in the response in STh
I-II, q. 112, a. 1, where he seeks to establish that God alone is
the cause of grace: "It is . . . necessary that God alone should
deify, bestowing a partaking of the divine nature." 4 While he
is here chiefly concerned with an adjacent but nevertheless distinct matter, Thomas clearly indicates that he understands the

3 In addition to the direct references treated here, the reader is referred to STh I-II, q.
3, a. 1, ad 2; I-II, q. 50, a. 6; II-II, q. 188, a. 2, obj. 1 (quoting Denys); III, q. 1, a. 2 (quoting Augustine); III, q. 2, a. 1, ad 3; III, q. 16, a. 7, ad 3; suppl. q. 31, a. 1.
4 Quotations generally follow the translation of the English Dominican Province edition of the Summa (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1911, rev. 1920, rpt. 1980),
although the language has here and there been modernized.

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creature's gracing as deification. Indeed, his description of the
gift of grace in this response indicates that he sees it primarily in
this way: "The gift of grace surpasses every capability of created
nature, since it is nothing short of a partaking of the divine
nature, which exceeds every other nature." 5
Grace results in deiformity not in the form of some unspecified
gift, but specifically in the form of the theological virtues. These
virtues are so called because they direct us to God (STh I-II, q.
62, a. 1, s.c.). They are, Thomas claims, divine virtues (ibid., ad
2) that perfect human persons, enabling them to attain an end
that by nature surpasses them, an end that we "can obtain by the
power of God alone, by a kind of participation of the Godhead,
about which it is written that by Christ we are made 'partakers
of the divine nature"' (ibid., resp.). In quoting 2 Peter 1:4,
Aquinas has placed himself firmly in the tradition of the Fathers.
Furthermore, he alludes to the obvious problem entailed by the
assertion of deification and solves it along lines already well
established in the tradition: "A certain nature may be ascribed to
a certain thing in two ways. First, essentially: and thus these theological virtues surpass the nature of man. Secondly, by participation, as kindled wood partakes of the nature of fire: and thus,
after a fashion, one becomes a partaker of the divine nature"
(ibid., ad 1). Within this article, therefore, Thomas has laid out a
doctrine of deification on the classic lines of the patristic tradition, insisting on the one hand on a genuine participation in
divine nature, but, on the other, on a distinction between modes

5 Here we broach a question that will lurk in the background of much of this discussion for readers familiar with the secondary literature on Thomas: the question of created
and uncreated grace. The discussion here presumes that, at the very least, Thomas primarily treats grace as uncreated. In doing so, it builds upon the work done earlier this
century by La Taille, "Actuation creee par acte incree," Recherches de science religieuse
18 (1928): 253-68; and De Letter, "Created Actuation by the Uncreated Act," Theological
Studies 18 (1957): 60-92; idem, "Divine Quasi-Formal Causality," Irish Theological
Quarterly 2 7 (1960): 221-28; and idem, "Reciprocal Causality" The Thomist 25 (1962):
382-418. Similar positions have been adopted by Robert Morency,
Bourassa,
Henri Bouillard, C. Moeller, G. Philips, Otto Pesch, Albrecht Peters, and E. L. Mascall.
Karl Rahner's position is somewhat more qualified, but nevertheless largely concurs; see
below, notes 13 and 19.

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225

of possession of that nature, and the grounding of the whole in
the text from 2 Peter. 6
If question 62 reveals the closest similarities between
Thomas 's doctrine and that of the Fathers, it is by no means the
first explicit statement of deification in the Summa, for Thomas
first broaches the subject near the beginning of the Prima pars.
In question 12 he is ostensibly concerned with human knowledge
of God, but the doctrine of divinization pervades this question.
To know God, Thomas tells us, is to become like God; indeed,
likeness to God is the prerequisite of knowing God: "The light of
glory cannot be natural to a creature, unless the creature has a
divine nature; which is impossible. But by this light the rational
creature is made deiform" (STh I, q. 12, a. 5, ad 3). Deification,
then, not only attends growth in knowledge of God, but is the
gift that makes any such apprehension of God possible, and
makes possible the qualified reach across the ontological divide.
Thomas reiterates this idea in positive form in the next article:
"The light of glory ... establishes the intellect in a kind of deiformity" (ibid., a. 6). Here we see again the two poles of deification:
the creature indeed becomes a participant in God, yet such participation is not by nature, but in virtue of a divine self-giving.
Thomas states exactly this idea in the response to article 5, this
time without using explicit terms such as "deiform": "When any
created intellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself
becomes the intelligible form of the intellect."
Question 12 thus establishes two important principles that
will guide our inquiry into the rest of the Summa. First, we see
in this question a mixture of the classic terminology of deification, which leaves no doubt but that Thomas incorporates the
6 The Thomistic notion of participation has received extended treatment in the secondary literature; see especially Cornelio Fabro, Participation et causalite selon S.
Thomas d'Aquin {Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1961); Francis J.
Klauder, A Philosophy Rooted in Love: The Dominant Themes in the Perennial
Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994);
and Ralph Mcinerny, St. Thomas Aquinas {Boston: 1\vayne, 1977; reprint, Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1982). These treatments are however chiefly concerned
with participation as a philosophical concept, examining that kind of participation in
divine being which allows any creature to exist at all. Participation in its patristic sense,
as a form of sanctification, has largely been ignored in Thomas 's work.

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idea into his theology, and a restatement of the basic idea of theosis in terms that are characteristically Thomistic and make no
use of the patristic terminology, as in the last quotation from article 5. This mixture warrants extending our search for the doctrine beyond those loci where Thomas uses obvious language of
deification, into those places where we see deifying structures.
Second, STh I, q. 12 and I-II, q. 62 both signal the most important structure through which Thomas will develop his doctrine
of deification in the Summa: the interplay of intellect and will,
which undergirds each part of the Summa. In I, q. 12, a. 6, for
example, he not only claims that the intellect will become
deiform, he also anticipates the treatise on virtues when he maintains that "he will have a fuller participation of the light of glory
who has more charity." Deiformity thus entails specifically the
likening of the human intellect and will to the divine intellect
and will. The treatise on virtues reveals a similar kind of balancing; if Thomas gives pride of place in the order of generation
to faith, drawing on the Augustinian principle that one cannot
love what one does not know, he nevertheless maintains that in
the order of perfection, charity remains the most important of
the "divine virtues," those virtues which direct us to God (I-II, q.
62, a. 4). It is through the complex interplay of the intellect and
the will, then, that we will see God transforming humanity into
himself.
With this preliminary sketch in mind, we turn to the less
explicit articulation of the doctrine in the Summa, those loci
where Thomas speaks of deification without using terms like
"divinize" or "deiform." In the account that follows, we will confine ourselves to the Prima pars. This restriction has two purposes. The first and more obvious is that we cannot undertake
an investigation of the whole work here; the second, and more
important, is that in the Prima pars we will see Thomas articulate the theme of his doctrine of deification. The doctrine as it
appears in the rest of the Summa is a set of variations on that
theme. If we grasp the doctrine in the Prima pars, then, we will
have seen the Thomistic doctrine of deification not exhaustively,
but at least in its most fundamental form.

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II. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD

We begin with the Five Ways, traditionally that part of the
Summa that has been of the greatest interest to philosophers.
What often gets lost in the debates over whether these are ultimately persuasive arguments for the existence of God, or more
recently whether they are indeed such arguments at all, is that
the Five Ways are also five portraits of God. The third article of
question 2 does not simply establish the existence of what is
under discussion in the Prima pars; it is the small beginning of
the great description that will take up the majority of this part.
That description, moreover, contains within it one of the structures we have identified as essential to and characteristic of the
classic doctrine of deification: the assertion of a God who is ontologically independent of his creation and yet desires to draw
creatures to share his life.
The Five Ways describe God as Prime Mover, First Cause,
Necessary Being, Source of goodness, and End of all nature. All
of these descriptions, however, directly supply information not
only about God, but also about the relation of God to not-God.
The Prime Mover, after all, must move something, the First
Cause must cause something, the Source of goodness must yield
goodness in something, and the End of nature must draw something to itself. These four descriptions of God, then, not only
assert the existence of God, but assume the existence of not-God,
and sketch the paradigm of their relation. That relation, as
implied in Ways One, Two, Four and Five, is one of dependence
of not-God upon God. The Third Way clarifies that this relationship of dependence extends in only one direction: because of
the aseity of divine Being, God does not need to move, cause, or
perfect in order to be God. We know God both as related to ourselves, and as free of any necessary relation to us. Here is the central principle of deification in nuce: the Transcendent, who need
not create at all, not only does so, but invites his creatures to
share in his life; yet this free sharing of self in no way compromises the Creator's freedom or transcendence. Every doctrine of
deification must depart from such a picture of God if it is to preserve divine transcendence and thereby guarantee that the life in

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which creatures share is genuinely divine and not merely superhuman. It is precisely with such a picture of God that Thomas
begins his massive summary of theology.
At this point, one might legitimately protest that a doctrine of
deification entails not just a description of the kind of God who
could deify, but of creatures who are in fact deified. Yet, while
the transformation of the human person forms a necessary component of a doctrine of deification, we must recall that the doctrine in its classic form tends towards theocentricism. The
description of the Five Ways is not less a doctrine of deification
because it focuses on God; rather, it is a description of a God who
in fact divinizes because it assumes that there are sharers of the
divine life to which it attests.
Question 2 establishes the doctrine's general outlines. Thomas
reinforces and extends them in question 3, where he treats divine
simplicity. The relevance of simplicity for deification as we have
been describing it is in one respect readily apparent, for simplicity, like divine aseity, is one of the chief principles that
articulate the ontological divide between creature and Creator.
The assertion of simplicity, however, has much greater significance; to appreciate it fully we must first turn to other sections
of the De Deo uno.
As we saw in the direct references to deification in the Prima
secundae, love is central to Thomas's understanding of human
sanctification. If growth in love constitutes deification, however,
we would expect love to be central to Thomas's doctrine of God.
It might seem initially perplexing, then, that the same theologian
who so emphasizes love in his treatment of human habits has so
little to say of love in his doctrine of the one God (one scanty
question, q. 20). The reason for this lack has nothing to do with
an indifference to love, and everything to do with principles
established in qq. 3 and 13. These two questions balance each
other: in q. 3 Thomas explains that since God is pure actuality,
we do not rightly think of God as a collection of attributes or
qualities; in q. 13 Thomas qualifies this claim by explaining that
although God is not an assemblage of distinct parts, our language can only describe him in terms of distinct qualities, and
since we have no medium but this admittedly imperfect one, we

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are reduced to speaking of God as if his goodness were something other than his love or his justice, or indeed his being.
Because of the tension created by the disparity between God's
being and the manner in which our language permits us to
describe that being, Thomas singles out certain attributes like
goodness, love, and justice, and treats them briefly, with primary
reference back to the question of simplicity.
The assertion of love in God rests ultimately on scriptural
authority; hence Thomas opens his discussion of divine love by
citing 1 John 4:16 in the sed contra of question 20. The reasoning of the response, however, which explains how it is that God
is love, locates love initially in volition. God loves because he
wills (q. 20, a. 1). We assert will of God because will follows upon
intellect and there is intellect in God (q. 19, a. 1). While Thomas
does not devote a question of the Summa to divine intellect itself,
he discusses it within question 14, which treats the knowledge of
God, providing two basic explanations for his claim of divine
intellect. The more important of the two, the one to which he has
more frequent recourse, is based upon God's pure actuality: "It
must be said that the act of God's intellect is His substance. For
if His act of understanding were other than His substance, then
something else, as the Philosopher says, would be the act and
perfection of the divine substance, to which the divine substance
would be related, as potentiality is to act" (q. 14, a. 4). The second
sort of argument for divine intellect also ultimately reverts to
question 3, but by a more circuitous path: In q. 14, a. 1 Thomas
argues for divine intellect on the basis of divine immateriality
and infinity. The argument for immateriality leads directly back
to the claim of simplicity made in q. 3, a. 2; and while the claim
of infinity is made in q. 7, a. 1, it is based directly on the distinction
between matter and form in that same locus (q. 3, a. 2).
The reasoning that demonstrates how 1 John 4: 16 may be
understood as true, that shows how God can be understood to be
love, reverts by means more or less direct to the assertion of
divine simplicity. The reason it is important to grasp this fact is
not merely to admire the strong web of coherence in the Summa,
but to understand why Aquinas might have relatively little (four
articles) to say about a tenet that lays strong claim to being the

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single most important Christian assertion about God. Thomas
finds it important explicitly to make the point that love is in
God-he does not leave the reader to draw the logical conclusions for herself, after all. Nevertheless, given that in the context
of Thomistic reasoning divine love is a logical consequence of
divine simplicity, we need not marvel at the brevity of his treatment. Nor, more importantly, should we assume from that brevity
that love ranks low in some Thomistic hierarchy of divine attributes.
Failure to grasp that the treatment of love is brief, not because it
is less important than simplicity, but because it is in Thomas's
view simplicity's inexorable consequent, will lead one to perceive
a sharp divide between, on the one hand, the Summa's exposition
of the one God, and, on the other, its treatment of the Trinity and
human sanctification. 7 In fact, all three doctrines point in the
same direction, as we shall see; the difference between them lies
solely in where love lies in the order of logic. In the exposition of
the one God, love is an entailment rather than an axiom, but it is
not on that account a less important postulate of divine being
itself-though it is indeed less important in the order of our
understanding of divine being, a status that may seem problematic
to some.
The derivation of divine love from simplicity raises nonetheless one important problem, important from the perspective of
both theological history and the congeniality of Thomas's notion
of love to a doctrine of deification. The association of love with
union has always been a powerful one in Christian theology;
from patristic exegesis of the sensuous imagery of the Song of
Songs as God's love for the Church to the works of PseudoDenys the Areopagite and Bernard of Clairvaux, Christians
have taken the theological meaning of charity to overlap considerably, if not entirely, with the idea of union. A doctrine of deification, moreover, implicitly claims a union of the divine and
human-indeed, "union" and "participation" are often used
interchangeably in treatments of theosis. The Thomistic idea of
1 Precisely that seamlessness is contested by Catherine Mowry LaCugna, the central
theme of whose reading of Thomas is that he has separated the immanent from the economic Trinity. The treatment of Thomistic deification presented here may be taken as a
dispute with such a reading.

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love as the correlative of simplicity therefore invites the charge
of having abandoned the traditional concept of love, one so congenial to the assertion of theosis, with the result that a union of
the divine and the creaturely risks compromising divine simplicity.
Aquinas recognizes this problem and addresses it in a way
that demonstrates his desire to hold a conception of love that is
both derived from simplicity and tied to the Dionysian notion of
love as a unitive force. Having described the act of love as a
willing of good to someone, he continues:
Love is called the unitive force, even in God [dicitur amor vis unitiva
etiam in Deo], yet without implying composition; for the good that He
wills for Himself, is no other than Himself, Who is good by His essence .
. . . And then again the divine love is a binding force [amor divinus est
vis concretiva], inasmuch as God wills good to others; yet it implies no
composition in God. (Q. 20, a. 1, ad 3)

Here we see the tendency of Thomas 's doctrine of God, in even
its most technical aspects, to reach toward his anthropology and
to express a link between the two. He portrays love as linked
immediately both to the characteristic that distinguishes God
from all creation and to that which joins God and humanity
most intimately. 8 Within the opening questions of the Summa he
has moved inexorably from the description of divine being in se
to divine being pro nobis.
Like the Five Ways, then, Thomas's treatment of what seems
at first glance a purely philosophical issue proves on closer
8 The same paradigm of unity-in-distinction operates elsewhere in q. 20, in Thomas's
treatment of the manner of God's love and ours. God does not love everything that exists
as we love such things. The difference lies in the active agency of love. Our love is elicited
by its object; "the love of God," in contrast, "infuses and creates goodness [amor Dei est
infundens et creans bonitatem in rebus]" (q. 20, a. 2). Although Thomas has nothing further to say on the subject of infusion in these articles, the introduction of the concept
here in the doctrine of God is important because of the way it foreshadows what will
become a central concept of his doctrine of grace. Even here, however, the portrayal of
God's love as, in part, a love for creatures that infuses goodness is significant, for it indicates that the essential structure of God's active and free sharing of himself with creatures involves his being becoming a gift to theirs. If love is the same, in actuality, as
God's simplicity, existence, eternity, immutability, and all the rest, then the love that
infuses and creates goodness is not conceived as some unspecified growth in goodness,
but God's gift of self.

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examination to form a crucial part of his doctrine of deification.
It is because God's being is utterly simple that we can also know
God to be love. It is love that unites and binds us to God, because
our growth in love is a growth into participation in divine being.
Ill. THE TRINITY AND ITS MISSIONS

The importance of deification to the Summa as a whole
becomes evident as we turn from the De Deo uno to the De
Trinitate, for after having grounded the doctrine in the idea of
divine simplicity, the hallmark of the De Deo uno, Thomas proceeds to root it just as deeply in his doctrine of the Trinity. While
Thomas 's account of the divine processions differs little in its
essentials from the psychological model of the Trinity that had
reigned in the West since the fifth century, he has not simply reiterated Augustine's De Trinitate in medieval Scholastic form. Nor
has he, by explicating first the doctrine of the one God and then
the doctrine of the Trinity, divided one from the other or given
priority of one to the other-a criticism of his theology that has
become almost as common in the contemporary West as it has
always been in the East." Rather, he has taken Augustine's essential insight and expanded it, producing what one might call a
theological Cubist image: the De Deo uno and the De Trinitate
are portraits of the same God viewed from different perspectives. Within the De Deo uno the knowing and willing simple
Being h.as one mien, within the De Trinitate it has another, one
in which the actions of knowing and willing take the form of
Persons. In the Secunda pars this portrait will be overlaid with a
third image, drawn from yet another, differing perspective, in
which the activities of knowing and loving take on a human
form that imitates God's. 10
The connection between divine being, love, and human
sanctification is therefore by no means confined to the exposition
9 See, for example, Edmund Hill, The Mystery of the Trinity, Introducing Catholic
Theology 4 (London: Chapman, 1985), 150.
' 0 This reading of Thomas resembles the position taken by Rahner in "Concerning the
Relationship between Nature and Grace," in Theological Investigations, vol. 1: God,
Christ, Mary and Grace, trans. Cornelius Ernst (Baltimore: Helicon, 1961), esp. 310.

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presented in the De Dea uno. The establishment of intellect and
will in God, of divine knowing and loving, is the cornerstone of
Thomas 's doctrine of the Trinity, which is in turn vital to his
understanding of deification. As we follow the unfolding of the
Summa's De Trinitate, we hear echoes of the De Dea uno,
because Thomas reverts in both to the two fundamental principles of intellect and will, showing first how from these two
derive all attributes of God and then how the relations of the
three divine Persons may be understood as the interplay of
precisely these two principles.
Where Thomas 's Trinitarian doctrine becomes most relevant
to his conception of deification is in his description of the distinctive characteristics of each divine Person. Fully to grasp the
significance of this connection, we would have to examine his
treatment of each of the three Persons, something we cannot
undertake here. Instead, we will take one element of his
portrayal of the Father as an example of his typical procedure.
In his account of what modern theologians would term the
"immanent Trinity,'' Thomas stresses that the inner-Trinitarian
distinctions are distinctions of relation. This has drawn charges
of inadequacy from Eastern commentators, but, whatever its
demerits, such a view has the advantage of permitting Thomas
to make connections between the relations of the Persons among
themselves, and to creation. Thus, while the Father is so called
pre-eminently because of his relation to the divine Son (q. 33, a.
3), this name also signifies a certain relation to creation, and in
describing the nature of this relation, Thomas uses the classic
language of deification.
Of some, namely, the rational creature [He is the Father], by reason of
the likeness of His image, according to Deut. xxxii.6: Is He not thy
Father, who possessed, and made, and created thee? And of others He
is the Father by similitude of grace, and these are also called adoptive
sons, as ordained to the heritage of eternal glory by the gift of grace
which they have received, according to Rom. viii.16, 17: The Spirit
Himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God; and if
sons, heirs also. Lastly, He is the Father of others by similitude of glory,
forasmuch as they have obtained possession of the heritage of glory,
according to Rom. v.2: We glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of
God. (Ibid.)

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Aquinas here traces three degrees of likening to God (though
he does not label them as degrees). The first is the rational creature's innate likeness; for our purposes here, this means little
more than the creature's inalienable connectedness to God, inasmuch as God is the source of her being, and her potential for further likening. The second degree of likening occurs in virtue of
the gift of grace; while the language of "ordained to the heritage
of eternal glory" seems to postpone intimate relations with God
to the afterlife, the language of adoptive sonship posits an analogical relationship between the relation of the graced creature to
the Father and the relation of the divine Son to the Father, a relationship clearly thought to obtain in this life. Intra-Trinitarian
relations are mirrored in the relation of Uncreated to created, so
that even though there are clear differences between the two (i.e.,
a shared nature in one case, the absence of such in the other) the
similarity allows one to envisage the creature's gracing as a form
of sharing in modes of Trinitarian existence. The third degree of
likening suggests that the creature participates in the Father's
glory in an even more complete way, so that now we are no
longer God's adoptive children, but his children pure and simple. The suggestion of an analogy between the Father's relations
to the Son and to rational creatures arises again, obliquely, at the
article's end, where Aquinas states that paternity designates the
relation between the First and Second Persons in the first
instance, and only secondarily the relation between God and
creatures. While Aquinas's intent here is clearly to establish the
pre-eminence of paternity-filiation language for speaking of
God, he also implies that the two uses of Father are suitably
applied, though to different degrees, so that a proportionate
likeness between them is also assumed.
The discussion of the Father's relation to the Son and Spirit,
therefore, a question that would appear wholly located within
the doctrine of God, turns out to have immediate implications
for God's relationship to the human person. Furthermore, it is
here that we first glimpse the characteristically Thomistic pattern of sanctification as growth from the likeness of nature,
through grace, to glory. This pattern, far from dividing nature
and grace dialectically, as it has sometimes been claimed to do,

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takes sanctification precisely as part of that kind of seamless
growth into God which we have noted typifies a doctrine of
deification. In two different respects, then, Thomas's doctrine of
the Trinity contains within it the decisive elements of a doctrine
of deification.
In the De Trinitate, ostensibly focused on the processions and
character of each of the Persons, Thomas constantly keeps one
eye on the significance of the Trinity for human persons and
their relation to God. The treatment of mission (q. 43) then may
be regarded not as the turn to a new issue in Trinitarian doctrine,
but as the culmination of a long train of thought that has been
building since the beginning of the treatise.
Thomas begins his account of the relation between Uncreated
and creation by insisting that God's orientation toward creation
does not suppose that creation is an end in itself: "The notion of
mission includes two things: the habitude of the one sent to the
sender; and that of the one sent to the end whereto he is sent" (q.
43, a. l). 11 The initial principle of Aquinas's discussion of creation,
then, is that creatures and the created order do not exist for their
own sake, but for a purpose, God's purpose. Having grounded
the mission in divine will, Aquinas then draws God and creation
yet closer, by inviting comparison between Trinitarian relations
ad extra and ad intra: "Anyone being sent implies a certain kind
of procession of the one sent to the sender" (ibid.). The impression that procession might imply the continuation of the Trinity's
inner life in those for whom the mission is intended is confirmed
as Thomas continues: "The habitude to the term to which he is
sent is also shown, so that in some way he begins to be present
there [ut aliquo modo ibi esse incipiat]" (ibid.). The purpose of
mission, Thomas seems to say, is the repetition of an innerTrinitarian dynamic in the human creature so that God's selfgiving to humanity results in the union of divine and human life.
He summarizes:
Thus the mission of a divine person is a fitting thing, as meaning in one
way the procession of origin from the sender, and as meaning a new
11 "Unum est habitudo missi ad eum a quo mittitur, aliud est habitudo missi ad terminum ad quern mittitur."

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way of existing in another [novum modum existendi in alio ]; thus the
Son is said to be sent by the Father into the world, inasmuch as He
began to exist visibly in the world by taking our nature. (Ibid.)

Here Aquinas makes explicit what has been implicit throughout
his exposition of the Trinity: the internal Trinitarian processes
are echoed in creation, and in a way that implies creation's sanctification and participation in divine existence ("a new way of
existing in another").
The new way of existing in another that Thomas begins to
elaborate in question 43 explicitly connects the Prima pars to the
Secunda pars, his theology to his anthropology. On the one hand,
this question hearkens back to the fundamental dynamic of both
the De Deo uno and the De Trinitate, the analysis in terms of
knowledge and will: "There is one special mode belonging to the
rational nature wherein God is said to be present as the object
known is in the knower, and the beloved in the lover .... the
rational creature by its operation of knowledge and love attains
to God Himself" (q. 43, a. 3). The "special mode" of which
Thomas speaks also hearkens forward to the Secunda pars, for it
is nothing other than sanctifying grace (ibid.). The appearance of
grace here, when Thomas is still concerned with the Trinity, is
significant in that he identifies the sending of the Third Person
with grace: "The Holy Spirit is possessed by human persons, and
dwells within them, in the very gift itself of sanctifying grace.
Hence the Holy Spirit ipse is given and sent" (ibid.). Thus, procession, God's indwelling in the human person, humanity's possession of the Spirit, and the sanctification wrought by grace are
all bound together in the Thomistic understanding of mission,
the point at which Trinitarian doctrine and the doctrine of sanctification meet in a form that increasingly acquires the aspect of
a traditional doctrine of theosis.
The recapitulation of the traditional doctrine in distinctively
Thomistic form emerges clearly in the replies to the objections to
q. 43, a. 3. The first states unmistakably the connection between
sanctification, as Thomas conceives it, and consummation. The
gift of sanctifying grace is said to perfect the rational creature in
such a way that she can both use the created gift, and even enjoy
the divine Person himself. Here Aquinas allies the gift of grace

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with perfection, implying precisely that kind of seamlessness
between sanctification in this life and consummation in the next
that is characteristic of a doctrine of deification. Even more significantly, he acknowledges that the gift of grace entails not only
grace's effects within the human person ("the created gift itself
[ipso dono creato ]") but an assimilation to the Uncreated ("enjoy
also the divine person Himself [ipsa divina Personafruatur]").
The reply to the second objection gives a characteristically
Thomistic flavor to the traditional, patristic doctrine as it
glances forward to the Secunda pars, identifying the Spirit's selfgiving with charity, the chief of the "divine" virtues:
Sanctifying grace disposes the soul to possess the divine person [ad
habendam divinam Personam]; and this is signified when it is said that

the Holy Ghost is given according to the gift of grace. Nevertheless the
gift itself of grace is from the Holy Ghost; which is meant by the words,
the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.

Because God is love and grace is love's gift, Thomas can claim
that through grace the human person comes to resemble God:
"The soul is made like to God by grace. Hence for a divine person to be sent to anyone by grace, there must be a likening of the
soul to the divine person Who is sent [oportet quodfiat assimilatio illius ad divinam Personam quae mittitur], by some gift of
grace" (q. 43, a. 5, ad 2). Thomas thus takes the mission of the
Trinity to be inseparable from the soul's likening to God, portraying the Trinitarian mission as itself an inherently deifying
work.
Confirmation of the connection between mission and deification comes as he continues in the reply to the second objection:
Because the Holy Ghost is Love, the soul is assimilated to the Holy
Ghost by the gift of charity: hence the mission of the Holy Ghost is
according to the mode of charity. Whereas the Son is the Word, not any
sort of word, but one Who breathes forth Love. Hence Augustine says:
The Word we speak of is knowledge with love. Thus the Son is sent not
in accordance with every and any kind of intellectual perfection, but
according to the intellectual illumination, which breaks forth into the
affection of love.12
12 "Non igitur secundum quamlibet perfectionem
intellectus mittitur Fili us, sed
secundum talem institutionem vel instructionem intellectus, qua prorumpat in affectum

amoris."

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Here Aquinas has not only again asserted the significance of the
infusion of charity (as he did in q. 20, on the love of God), namely,
that it constitutes nothing less than the Holy Spirit's gift of self,
but has also reminded the reader forcefully of the Trinitarian
dimension of the bestowal of charity. Not only does the language
of knowing and loving recall his (and, of course, Augustine's)
account of the divine processions, but Thomas has now implicated the Word in the act of loving more inevitably than ever
before. Until now, the relation between knowing and loving was
generally portrayed as the necessity of the act of the intellect preceding that of the will-one cannot love what one does not
know. Now, however, the Son's mission is associated exclusively
with sanctifying knowledge. Growing in likeness to the Son is
not a matter of stupendous intellectual achievement, but an illumination. Although Aquinas provides us with no information at
this point as to how, precisely, this illumination differs from
knowledge in general, the context strongly suggests that it pertains to God in a way that knowledge in general does not.
Furthermore, this sanctification of the mind appears to lead,
almost spontaneously, to the expression of love, so that this particular kind of knowledge seems inseparable from charity, just as
the Son and the Spirit are united indivisibly in the Trinity.
Aquinas asserts a different kind of unity in the following article,
where he considers whether the invisible mission is to all who
participate in grace. That the kind of union and participation
Aquinas has been discussing does not belong exclusively, or even
principally, to the afterlife is made abundantly clear. Because
every graced creature is sanctified, and the purpose of the invisible mission lies precisely in such sanctification, the mission must
be sent to every graced creature (q. 43, a. 6, s.c.). As he elaborates, he specifies divine indwelling as the experience of both the
saints on earth and the blessed; inasmuch as mission implies
both the indwelling of grace and renewal by grace, the invisible
mission must be sent to those in both states (q. 43, a. 6). While
"indwelling" (inhabitatio) might apply equally to this life or the
next, "renewal" (innovatio) can denote only the state of the via-

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tor, the one whose journey to God is not yet complete-yet the
sending, in virtue of which God "belongs" to the sanctified,
brings about both indwelling and renewal.
The replies to the objections underline this dual application.
The second and the fourth refer unmistakably to this life: "The
invisible mission takes place also as regards progress in virtue or
increase of grace" (ad 2); "Grace resides instrumentally in the
sacraments of the New Law .... the mission of the divine persons
is not sent to the sacraments, but to those who receive grace
through the sacraments" (ad 4). The reply to the third objection,
on the other hand, seems to confine itself to the sanctification of
the departed: "The invisible mission is directed to the blessed at
the very beginning of their beatitude. The invisible mission is
made to them subsequently, not by intensity of grace [non
secundum intensionem gratiae ], but by the further revelation
of mysteries; which goes on until the day of judgment."
Within the compass of q. 43, aa. 6 and 7, then, Thomas unites
earthly sanctification and heavenly consummation, with precisely
that kind of seamlessness characteristic of a doctrine of divinization. Thus, even while Aquinas does not use the words deification, or even deiform, here, a divinizing form of sanctification is
clearly operative. The asserted unity of experience of the wayfarers and the blessed witnesses to this, but the location of these
claims within the Summa also is significant. The assimilation of
the temporal to the eternal, and the temporal's consequent transformation, takes place within the sphere of the Trinity's activity,
and as a result of that activity. By expounding his notion of the
unity of sanctification and consummation within his treatment of
Trinitarian doctrine, Aquinas suggests to his reader two ideas.
First, sanctification as we commonly think of it-"grace through
the sacraments," "renewal by grace," "the indwelling of grace"is nothing other than God's self-giving to the creature.
Sanctification is not the administration of some divine medicine
called "grace" that is other or less than God. All sanctification
must be understood under the rubric of the mission of the
Trinity, which is the revelation of the eternal Trinitarian proces-

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sions in time to finite creatures consequently transformed: "The
Son has been sent visibly as the author of sanctification; the Holy
Ghost as the sign of sanctification" (q. 43, a. 7).
The second point follows from the first: the unity of sanctification and consummation is grounded in the unity of their cause.
Aquinas does not state as much explicitly, but the structure of
question 43 suggests such an interpretation. The articles we have
been considering, which essentially treat the effects of mission
and how they are experienced in time, all derive from the center
portion of the question. They are sandwiched between articles
dealing more with the immanent Trinity, the source of mission
and the end to which it is directed. Both the opening and closing
articles affirm the unity of the Trinity, so that although the central articles necessarily distinguish the characteristic work of Son
and Spirit, the opening article takes pains to indicate that the
distinctive role of each of the three implies no disunity: "The
divine person sent neither begins to exist where he did not previously exist nor ceases to exist where He was. Hence such a mission takes place without a separation, having only distinction of
origin [sine separatione; sed habet solam distinctionem originis]"
(q. 43, a. 1, ad 2). The final article stresses the unified heart of all
missiological activity even more strongly. Aquinas determines
that a divine Person is sent by one from whom he does not proceed (thus denying any absolute correspondence between the
patterns of procession and mission), but takes this position in
order to affirm the unity of the Trinity's operation in sending:
"The whole Trinity sends the person sent" (q. 43, a. 8).
Question 43 thus stresses two kinds of unity: the unity of sanctification and the unity of sanctification's cause. Nowhere in this
question does Thomas explicitly link the two: nevertheless, the
question's movement from the unity of the source, to the unity of
the sanctified person's experience of God, back to the unity of
the source, certainly suggests that the two are connected in his
mind. The internal life of the Trinity is a life of unity, and our life
of growing incorporation into divine existence is also a single
whole which death may interrupt, but not rupture.

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IV CREATION
Long before Aquinas treats creation proper, his doctrine of
deification has been established. As we now turn to his doctrine
of creation, we will see this same connection of creature and
Creator, but from a new perspective. Aquinas reminds us of the
necessary connection between the two right at the beginning of
the doctrine of creation, in question 44. Although he will shortly
consider the emanation of things from the First Principle (q. 45),
his intent here is assuredly not to paint an emanationist picture,
whereby divine nature produces creation virtually automatically.
Thomas has in mind quite the reverse: to assert the necessary
dependence of creatures on God rather than a divine selffulfillment that requires the production of creation.
The terms in which he describes the necessary dependence of
creation on God may, especially as the question progresses, seem
fundamentally Aristotelian in their dependence on causal analysis. In the first article, however, Thomas 's language sounds like
that of a Neoplatonist. This terminology is also strongly reminiscent of the classic lexis of divinization:
It must be said that every being in any way existing is from God. For
whatever is found in anything by participation, must be caused by that
to which it belongs essentially, as iron becomes ignited by fire ....
Therefore all beings apart from God are not their own being, but are
beings by participation [non sint suum esse, sed participant esse].
Therefore it must be that all things which are diversified by the diverse
participation of being, so as to be more or less perfect, are caused by the
one First Being, Who possesses being most perfectly. (Q. 44, a. 1)

In a sense, the Thomistic understanding

of participation in
divine life radically exceeds patristic notions of deification in its
scope, for Thomas portrays it as occurring initially not as the
sanctifying work of hypostatic union in the Son or graced
renewal in the Spirit, but in order for the creature to exist at all.
Traditionally, divinization insists upon a continuity between
sanctified existence in this life and consummate union in the
next. Aquinas extends the participatory link backwards,
portraying the creature as participating in divine being from
the first moment of her existence, in virtue of that very

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existence; it is this participation which provides, logically,
the base for all other varieties or degrees of participation in
divine being, such as the renewal by grace and the extension of
grace mentioned in q. 43, a. 6.
This participation in being, however, results from no spontaneous
eruption of divine being, but from God's deliberate will, as
Thomas makes manifest in the article on exemplary causality: 13
God is the first exemplar cause of all things. In proof whereof we must
consider that if for the production of any thing an exemplar is necessary, it is in order that the effect may receive a determinate form ....
Now it is manifest that things made by nature receive determinate
forms. This determination of forms must be reduced to the divine wisdom
as its first principle, for divine wisdom devised the order of the universe, which order consists in the variety of things. And therefore we
must say that in the divine wisdom are the types of all things, which
types we have called ideas-i.e., exemplar forms existing in the divine
mind. And these ideas, though multiplied by their relations to things, in
reality are not apart from the divine essence, according as the likeness
to that essence can be shared diversely by different things [prout eius
similitudo a diversis participari potest diversimode]. (Q. 44, a. 3)

For God to have made the world, then, he must have had a specific
idea of the diverse creatures he intended to fashion, an intentionality that sits ill with a classic emanationist view, since
1.1 There is an extensive body of literature discussing the exact nature of divine causality with respect to the human soul in Thomas's theology. Some, like Robert Morency,
want to deny the appropriateness of speaking in terms of formal causality at all (!.:union
de grace selon Saint Thomas, Studia Collegii Maximi 8 [Montreal: Editions de
l'Immaculee-Conception, 1950], 246). Others are willing to speak of some variety of formal causality
Bourassa, "Role personnel des Personnes, et relations distinctes
aux Personnes," Sciences ecclesiastiques 7 [1955]: 151-72). Still another school wants to
speak of a quasi-formal causality (De Letter, "Divine Quasi-Formal Causality," Irish
Theological Quarterly 22 [1980]: 224). De Letter regards Rahner as also thinking in terms
of quasi-formal causality, although Rahner himself tends to speak of formal causality,
albeit at times with some qualification ("Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of
Uncreated Grace," in Theological Investigations 1:335). Otto Pesch is also willing to
think in terms of a quasi-formal causality (Theologie der Rechifertigung bei Martin
Luther und Thomas von Aquinas: Versuch eines systematisch-theologischen Dialogs,
Walberger Studien, Theologische Reihe, Die Theologie [Darmstadt: MatthiasGriinewald, 1967], 650-51), while Aertsen claims that Thomas understands the selfcommunication of the good not in the sense of efficient but of final cause (Nature and
Creature: Thomas Aquinas's Way of Thought [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988], 345).

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Thomas has separated the thinking of the forms from their
production.
While the argument with emanationism as a whole is not
particularly significant for our purposes, the element of divine
intentionality is, for this notion provides the underpinning of the
Thomistic conception of God as final cause. In the following article,
Thomas maintains that every agent acts for an end, and quoting
Proverbs 16:4 identifies God's end in creation: "The Lord has
made all things for Himself'' (q. 44, a. 4, s.c.). God's agency differs from others, however, in that he does not desire to acquire
any end, but intends only to communicate his perfection, which
is his goodness. Creatures, in contrast, intend to acquire their
own perfection. Since this perfection is the likeness of divine perfection and goodness, the divine goodness must be the end of all
things (q. 44, a. 4). The purposes of creation, then, are that all
things become good and perfect and that all things find their
consummation in divine goodness, which is none other than the
divine essence (q. 6, a. 3). These two purposes are in reality the
same, of course, for to become perfect, to become truly good, is
to become God; conversely, to be likened to God, at least as
Thomas understands God, is necessarily to become good and
perfect. Without any exaggeration, one may say that for Thomas
the purpose of creation is deification, that God made human
beings in order to deify them.
The deifying focus of Thomas 's doctrine of creation emerges
clearly from his treatment of the emanation of things from God
(q. 45). Although notions of deification and emanation are
sharply distinguished from one another by the insistence of the
first on the ontological divide and the tendency of the second to
blur it, Thomas uses the question on emanation to indicate
exactly how the patterns established in the doctrine of God apply
to creation.
He begins by establishing that creation is ex nihilo (aa. 1 and
2), which constitutes no more than a restatement, in the context
of the doctrine of creation, of his first and most important assertion about God, namely, that God is the One whose essence is
identical with his existence. God alone is necessary being; all else
derives its being from God. This derivation, however, is not an

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involuntary, automatic outpouring of Being, but the result of
God's act of creating from nothing. "Creation," Thomas declares
in the first article, "which is the emanation of all being, is from
not-being, which is nothing." In creation we have not the subdivision of the divine into lesser parcels called creatures but, once
again, the consequence of a voluntary divine act: "Creation signified actively means the divine action, which is God's essence,
with a relation to the creature [quae est eius essentia cum relatione ad creaturam]" (q. 45, a. 3, ad 1). It is because creation is
the expression of divine will, bringing something to be out of
nothing, rather than the necessary outflow of Being reproducing
itself according to the dictates of its nature, that Thomas can
claim, as he did in question 13, a one-way ontological relationship between God and creature so that God's relation to the
creature is understood as a purely conceptual relation, while the
creature's relation to God is real (ibid.). 14
The significance of Aquinas's repetition of this point becomes
clearer when we reach article 6, for there he begins to expound a
correspondence between Trinitarian procession and creation.
Had this article not been preceded by the articles asserting God's
utter independence of the world, Thomas would risk leaving the
impression that there is a necessary relation between God and
the world. Instead, his procedure in this question follows exactly
the paradigm of the classic doctrine of deification: asserting both
the utter distinctiveness of the divine and a genuine participation in it on the part of creatures. The argument with emanationism reasserts the first of deification's two poles; the other
pole acquires a distinctly Thomistic stamp in the later articles of
question 45.
The intention of Thomas 's doctrine of correspondence
between procession and creation is not so much to trace attractive mirror images in distinct areas of doctrine as to assert the
unity of the Trinity's action ad extra: the act of creation belongs
properly to the whole Trinity, not only one of the Persons (q. 45,

14 "Sed relatio in Deo ad creaturam non est realis, sed secundum rationem tantum.
Relatio vero creaturae ad De um est relatio realis."

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a. 6).' 5 Yet Aquinas clarifies that although creation is the
common work of the Three, it should not be taken as the work
of the Three undivided; indeed, the nature of the Trinity's structure imposes a certain order in creation, because that procession
imposes a certain kind of causality:
The divine Persons, according to the nature of their procession, have a
causality respecting the creation of things .... God the Father made the
creature through His Word, which is His Son; and through His Love,
which is the Holy Ghost. And so the processions of the Persons are the
types [rationes] of the productions of creatures inasmuch as they
include the essential attributes, knowledge, and will. (Ibid.)

Because of this typology, it is possible to say not only that the
Trinity creates but, specifically, that the processions of the divine
Persons are the cause of creation (ibid., ad 1). As creation goes,
so goes the creature. The structure of the human person mimics
the divine procession, not because it is ontologically derived
from the Trinity, but because it is the Trinity's reflection:
The processions of the divine Persons are referred to the acts of intellect and will .... For the Son proceeds as the word of the intellect; and
the Holy Ghost proceeds as the love of the will. Therefore in rational
creatures, possessing intellect and will, there is found the representation of the Trinity by way of image [repraesentatio Trinitatis per
modum imaginis], inasmuch as there is found in them the word
conceived, and the love proceeding. (Q. 45, a. 7)

Thus far, then, Thomas has confirmed the application of his
doctrine of God: nature, grace, and glory form a single unbroken
unity, in virtue of God's desire to draw his creatures to himself.
What Aquinas has chiefly sought to assert in question 45 has
been the creature's origin in the Creator; however, in specifying
the nature of that causality, he has established the first principle
of his anthropology, as is well illustrated when he continues on
from the passage quoted above: "In all creatures there is found
the trace of the Trinity [repraesentatio Trinitatis per modum
15 "To create is, properly speaking, to cause or produce the being of things. And as
every agent produces its like, the principle of action can be considered from the effect of
the action; for it must be fire that generates fire. And therefore to create belongs to God
according to His being, that is, His essence, which is common to the three Persons. Hence
to create is not proper to any one Person, but is common to the whole Trinity."

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vestigii], inasmuch as in every creature are found some things
which are necessarily reduced to the divine Persons as their
cause" (ibid.). We encounter here once again two characteristic
traits of Thomas's theological procedure in general and his doctrine of deification in particular: the tendency of apparently
philosophical questions (such as causality) to become immediately relevant to questions of sanctification, and the tendency of
the doctrine of deification to emerge from analyses of divine and
human nature as the interplay of intellect and will.
To see the specific ramifications of these characteristics in
Thomistic anthropology, we must turn to the next article, where
Thomas first gives a detailed account of what the traces of the
Trinity look like in a human being:
For every creature subsists in its own being, and has a form, whereby
it is determined to a species, and has a relation to something else.
Therefore as it is a created substance, it represents the cause and principle; and so in that manner it shows the Person of the Father, Who is
the principle from no principle. According as it has a form and species,
it represents the Word as the form of the thing made by art is from the
conception of the craftsman. According as it has a relation of order, it
represents the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as He is love, because the order
of the effect to something else is from the will of the Creator. (Q.
45, a. 7)

In this vision, the traces of the Trinity in the creature determine
four important anthropological points. First, the paternal element signifies that the human person is a creature whose origin
lies in the divine principle; the creature's relation to God as effect
establishes an ontological divide between the two that is eternal
and inviolable, just as the Father's relation of origin in respect to
the Son and Spirit is eternal and unchangeable. Second, the
human species has a particular connection to the Second Person,
representing the form of that Person in creation; it is therefore to
Christ that we look to understand what it means to be a human
being as human beings were intended to be in the mind of God.
Third, it is through the Holy Spirit that we are to understand the
nature of our relatedness to God; it is the work of the Spirit,
Thomas here implies, to preserve and strengthen that relation.
Fourth, since the relation between God and humanity is conceived

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particularly through the Third Person, it is understood to be
established and strengthened particularly through love; we
would expect, then, that love will prove especially important to
Thomas 's account of how the effect returns to its cause and the
source of its being. Once again, Thomas's doctrine of creation
anticipates his analysis of habit and virtue, and therefore his
doctrine of sanctification.

V. IMAGO DEi
Thomas reserves full exposition of the divine tracery in the
human person for the end of the Prima pars. Not until question
93 does he begin his exposition of what was perhaps the single
most important element of patristic anthropology, the doctrine of
the imago Dei. The placement of Thomas 's doctrine of the imago
indicates two different ways in which his theology relates to that
of the Fathers. The first was suggested by our analysis of the
question on emanation: for Aquinas the significance of the divine
image in the human person does not lie principally in the way it
describes humanity's prelapsarian state. 1°Certainly, he discusses
the image long before he discusses the Fall, which he does not
treat until STh I-II, q. 81, in the treatise on sin. Nevertheless, the
theological import of the imago Dei lies not in how we are
ordered to this life, or what we were intended to be before we
turned from God; the exposition of the imago serves not to show
what we lost at the Fall, but how we are ordered to our end. The
imago Dei theology tells us primarily what we will be, not what
we are. In this respect, Thomas differs from the Fathers, who
tended to distinguish between image and likeness, seeing the
image as obscured in consequence of the Fall, and appropriating
sanctification to growth in likeness to God.
On the other hand, Thomas resembles the Fathers in making
the divine resemblance the cornerstone of his anthropology and
of his understanding of the divine-human relation, a point easily
missed if one attends only to how late in the Prima pars we find
the question on the imago. Although question 93 constitutes
16 Pace Mcinerny, who claims that human beings are in the image of God for Thomas
because we have free wills (St. Thomas Aquinas, 52).

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Thomas's first formal broaching of the doctrine of the image in
humanity, he has long before this point laid extensive groundwork for it. Since we cannot examine all of this material here, we
will not treat it in detail, but instead trace this thread lightly so
as to highlight the disparate points at which Aquinas has
touched on this theme. He begins in q. 4, a. 3, where he maintains
that the likeness of creatures to God is analogical and solely analogical; we have just seen the full exposition of this position in his
treatment of emanation. We see it again in q. 6 where he claims
that there is a relation between divine goodness and all other
goodness, the latter participating in the exemplary and effective
cause of goodness by way of an assimilation nonetheless remote
and defective. In q. 8, a. 3 he affirms the existence of God in all
things by presence, essence, and power, both as efficient cause
and as the object of operation is in the operator. Finally, as we
saw, q. 45 claims an analogy of structure between the Trinity and
the human person. None of these assertions in itself constitutes a
doctrine of the imago Dei, of course. Nevertheless, all bear some
resemblance to elements of that doctrine and show an affinity for
its central claims. If Aquinas waits until q. 93 to give the doctrine
formal treatment, he has certainly hinted strongly at it from the
earliest pages of the Prima pars. 11
Thomas 's formal treatment begins on the same note we
observed in question 45, the uniqueness of God: "Equality does
11 D. Juvenal Merriell implies a similar view when he claims that Thomas locates the
principle of analogical likeness between God and humanity in our participation in God's
knowledge and love (To the Image of the Trinity: A Study in the Development of Aquinas'
Teaching, Studies and Texts 96 [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1990],
221). Merriell thus suggests that the foundation of the imago Dei is the De Dea uno. His
reading of the Summa nevertheless differs from that presented here. While he acknowledges that some texts speak of the Spirit's indwelling by grace or charity outside the question on divine missions, he regards these as "insignificant" and indeed attributes the
infrequency of such usage to Thomas's desire not to overburden the reader by making
explicit connections between the various parts of the Summa (233). The reading presented
here advocates the opposite view, namely that it is precisely in the tight connections
between the parts that the doctrine of deification (which necessarily entails the union of
Uncreated and created) is chiefly to be found. Walter Principe takes the moderate position that Thomas's anthropology views humanity in the Spirit as in the image of the
Trinity (Thomas Aquinas' Spirituality, Etienne Gilson series 7 [Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Medieval Studies, 1984], 23).

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not belong to the essence of an image .... in humanity, there is
some likeness to God, copied from God as from an exemplar; yet
this likeness is not one of equality, for such an exemplar infinitely
excels its copy. Therefore there is in humanity a likeness to God;
not, indeed, a perfect likeness, but imperfect" (q. 93, a. 1). His
reason for this insistence in this context is clear; he wishes to preserve the uniqueness of divine nature and therefore reserves the
perfect likeness to God, which could only exist in an identical
nature, in Christ (ibid., ad 2). This affirmation echoes question
35, on Christ as the perfect image of God, which in turn reflects
the mainstream of patristic teaching. Aquinas's doctrine of the
image therefore emphasizes both the unity of Persons in the
Trinity (the Father and Son sharing divine essence) and humanity's simultaneous ontological distinction in form and likeness to
the divine Creator, a dual emphasis both of whose distinctive
impulses emerge strongly in the objections, as if Aquinas must
constantly struggle to remind the reader (and perhaps even himself) of both polarities. Thus the reply to the second objection
states of the image: "It exists in man as in an alien nature [sicut
in aliena natura]," while the third proclaims: "As unity means
absence of division, a species is said to be the same as far as it is
one. Now a thing is said to be one not only numerically, specifically, or generically, but also according to a certain analogy or
proportion. In this sense a creature is one with God, or like to
Him [sic est unitas vel convenientia creaturae ad Deum]."
No more than an analogous unity can be predicated of the
image because properly speaking a true image requires likeness
of species (q. 93, a. 2). While humanity does not share species
with God, human beings differ from the rest of the created world
(with the exception of the angels) in possessing a higher degree of
likeness to God. Likeness in virtue of existence and life is
a fairly low level of likeness. What Aquinas considers far more
important is the likeness in virtue of knowledge and understanding, a likeness possessed solely by intellectual creatures
who alone therefore are properly regarded as being made

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in the divine image (ibid.). 18 Indeed, this intellectual element is
so important that it is what determines that the angels possess a
greater likeness to God than humanity does (q. 93, a. 3).
The significance of the intellect for the doctrine of the imago
Dei does not lie principally in the way it distinguishes amongst
degrees of likeness in creation, however, but in the way intellectual activity in the human person imitates the internal processions of the Trinity:
Since human persons are said to be to the image of God by reason of
their intellectual nature, they are the most perfectly like God according
to that in which they can best imitate God in their intellectual nature.
Now the intellectual nature imitates God chiefly in this, that God
understands and loves Himself. Wherefore we see that the image of
God is in humanity in three ways. First, inasmuch as human beings
possess a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this
aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to
all. Secondly, inasmuch as a human person actually or habitually
knows and loves God, though imperfectly; and this image consists in
the conformity of grace [per conformitatem gratiae]. Thirdly, inasmuch
as the human person knows and loves God perfectly; and this image
consists in the likeness of glory [similitudinem gloriae]. (Q. 93, a. 4)

Aquinas here traces the by now familiar three-step process of
likening to God, from a likeness embedded in our nature, to a
likeness that increases in this life through grace, to a likeness in
the next life, when the human imitation of the Trinity's knowing
and loving will be perfect.
1\vo elements of Thomas 's exposition here are striking. The
first is that the three steps once again strongly suggest (though
Aquinas himself makes little of it) an unbroken continuity. 19 The
18 Aquinas distinguishes between the image found in rational creatures and the likeness by way of trace found in other creatures. He has used the terms "likeness" and
"trace" before, but in q. 93, a. 6 he contrasts them directly. The likeness is furthermore
found only in the mind of the rational creature; in her other parts, the likeness is that of
the trace.
19 Cf. Rahner: "The life of grace ... and the life of future glory do not stand in a
purely moral and juridical relation to each other, such that the latter is the reward of the
former as merit; the life of glory is the definitive flowering (the 'manifestation,' the 'disclosure') of the life of the divine sonship already possessed and merely 'hidden' for the
moment. Hence, grace, as the ontological basis of this supernatural life, is also an inner
entitative principle (at the least a partial principle) of the vision of God" ("Some
Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace," 326).

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implication is that one level of likeness depends on the other, and
that each succeeding level contains the preceding one within it,
so that the likeness of glory encompasses the likenesses of grace
and nature. Second, although Aquinas began by stressing the
intellect's significance for the likeness in this article, he has executed a subtle shift. The intellectual nature that imitates God
now functions through the process not only of understanding,
but also of loving, an activity that in the doctrine of the Trinity
was associated exclusively with the functioning of the will. The
imago Dei, Thomas seems to be saying, lies not solely in humanity's possession of intellectual capacities, but in the possession of
a rational nature broadly conceived so as to encompass the activities of both the mind and the will (cf. his definition of the will as
a "rational appetite" in q. 82, a. 5). The shift of emphasis from the
intellect alone to both intellect and will also recalls Thomas's
doctrine of the Trinity, a suggestion confirmed by the subsequent
article.
"The distinction of the divine Persons is suitable to the divine
nature," Aquinas reminds us:
And therefore to be to the image of God by imitation of the divine
nature does not exclude being to the same image by the representation
of the divine Persons: but rather one follows from the other. We must,
therefore, say that in human beings there exists the image of God, both
as regards the divine nature and as regards the Trinity of Persons. (Q.
93, a. 5)

Here Aquinas provides the reader with precise instructions for
understanding the relation between his De Deo uno and his De
Trinitate on the one hand, and his theology and anthropology on
the other. From the De Deo uno he takes his definition of God as
the one in whom essence and existence are identical, who is the
supremely cognitive being in virtue of his immateriality, and also
his conception of analogy; from the De Trinitate he takes the
processes of knowing and loving as the structure of both the entity
itself (the Trinity and the human person) and its relatedness ad
extra (the procession of the Trinity and humanity's relation to
God through a progressive likening). Properly and fully to
understand both humanity and humanity's link to God, therefore, we must take into account the whole of the Thomistic

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description of God. There is in this mode of doing theology
already an intimation of a doctrine of deification, for Aquinas is
claiming that we must look to God to see our truest self. In God
we find not only divine perfection, but also the perfect model of
humanity. To look to God is therefore to understand both what
we are and what we are meant to be, both our origin and our
destiny.
In article 5, this second element of the promise contained in
the image is only implicit: the divine perfection of which the
human person falls short is what we would resemble, but for that
shortcoming. In later articles, however, Thomas dwells in some
detail on becoming, furnishing the reader with an important preview of the yet-to-be-developed doctrine of sanctification. As
Aquinas searches for the image of the Trinity in the soul, he finds
it, not in the soul at rest, but in the soul in action:
If the image of the Trinity is to be found in the soul, we must look for

it where the soul approaches nearest to a representation of the species
of the divine Persons. Now the divine Persons are distinct from each
other by reason of the procession of the Word from the Speaker, and the
procession of Love connecting Both. But in our soul word cannot exist
without actual thought, as Augustine says. Therefore, first and chiefly,
the image of the Trinity is to be found in the acts of the soul, that is,
inasmuch as from the knowledge which we possess, by actual thought
we form an internal word; and thence break forth into love. But, since
the principles of acts are the habits and powers, and everything exists
virtually in its principle, therefore, secondarily and consequently, the
image of the Trinity may be considered as existing in the powers, and
still more in the habits, forasmuch as the acts virtually exist therein. (Q.
93, a. 7)

In article 7, then, Aquinas effectively sets in motion the vast
machinery of the Secunda pars, with its treatment of habits and
virtues. If we read the Secunda pars in light of question 93, we
come to understand that the treatise on the habits and virtues is
not, in the Thomistic scheme of things, a study of human endeavornot even, in the first instance, graced human endeavor-but rather
an extended meditation on the Trinitarian processions. Indeed,
Aquinas goes so far as to use the term "procession" of the human
soul's activity, a procession of the word in the intellect, and a
procession of love in the will, which in itself constitutes a

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created image or representation of the uncreated Trinity (q. 93,
a. 6). As the mission of the three reflects the internal processes of
the Trinity so does the internal activity of the human person,
albeit imperfectly. Because the most important way in which the
soul reflects the Trinity is in its activity, Thomas claims that it is
in the acquisition and exercise of the habits that we most completely image God. The corollary of this claim is that the image
of God is something whose fullness we grow towards. The imago
Dei is no static endowment to be taken for granted, but principally what we become in virtue of the acquisition and exercise of
habits, and secondarily the natural precondition of the development
and exercise of those habits.
If studying the doctrines of God and the Trinity had not
persuaded us that the treatise on the virtues would prove a crucial link between those doctrines and Thomas 's anthropology,
we have decisive proof now. The means by which we know and
love God are the very means by which we mirror God in the
world, and the means by which we are made most like to God.
Thomas states this conviction succinctly and definitively in q.
93, a. 8:
We refer the divine image in man to the verbal concept born of the
knowledge of God, and to the love derived therefrom. Thus the image
of God is found in the soul according as the soul turns to God, or possesses a nature that enables it to turn to God [imago attenditur in
anima secundum quodfertur, vel nata est Jerri in Deum].

On the essential base of the Trinitarian likeness which is the
soul's capacity to know and love is fashioned an image that
comes more and more to resemble God; this growing resemblance will come about through exercise of the habits, but it will
be God's work, not that of the human person herself, since the
knowledge and love of God can exist in us only by grace (ibid.,
ad 3). Ever so fleetingly, Aquinas alerts the reader to another
theme that will prove highly determinative of his anthropology
and his account of sanctification: his doctrine of grace.
As we have seen, Thomas often employs some of the classic
terminology of deification, such as participation and union, to
describe the nature of the soul's relation to God. He does not

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neglect to speak of the imago Dei in these very terms at the end
of his formal treatment of the image: "Likeness is a kind of unity,
for oneness in quality causes likeness" 20 (q. 93, a. 9). Lest any
reader take Thomas to be claiming only some general affinity of
the creature for the Creator, he here removes all question of such
an interpretation. Throughout question 93 he has built steadily
on groundwork already laid to bring us to this vantage point in
the Summa, from which we look both backwards and forwards.
The backwards glance reveals the doctrines of God and of the
Trinity, and tells us what we are to become: a likeness of divine
nature and the Trinity. The forward glance opens up the vista of
the Secunda pars, whose treatment of habit, virtue, and grace
will tell us how this likening will be accomplished.
VI. CONCLUSION

Within the confines of the Prima pars, well before Thomas
has embarked upon his doctrine of sanctification proper, he has
provided a complete account of deification, one that possesses all
the characteristics of the doctrine established by the Fathers. On
this classic patristic doctrine, however, Thomas has placed his
own distinctive mark.
In the De Deo uno, he takes the picture of the deifying God
and fits it into two frames: the proofs of the existence of God
based on Aristotelian conceptualities and the intricately wrought
notion of simplicity. The picture takes on a different aspect in
each of these frames, but it is the same picture nevertheless. The
Five Ways show how Thomas can use ostensibly philosophical
issues to advance his doctrine of sanctification. The treatment of
simplicity devolves on the twin foundations of intellect and will,
which we will see again as the ordering principles of the doctrine
of the Trinity and the anthropology. In the former, God's deifying intentions towards humanity are analyzed in terms of divine
intellect and will; in the latter, human intellect and will are
shown to have been fashioned on the basis of deifying intentions.
Taken as a whole, the theology and the anthropology show the
20

"Similitudo quaedam unitas est; unum enim in qualitate similitudinem causat."

DEIFICATION IN THE SUMMA THEOLOGIAE

255

intent of God's creative work to rest in deification. God destines
humanity for grace and glory by constituting us as creatures
endowed with the capacity for knowledge and love of God and
therefore for deifying communion with God. Over and over
again, throughout the Summa, Thomas returns to these basic
insights, never allowing the reader to lose sight of the identity of
God as self-giving and transcendent, or to forget humanity's
destiny to participate in this divine life. In view of this particular structure of Thomas 's doctrine of God, theological anthropology, Christology, and the connection between them, it is no
exaggeration to say the Summa lacks a question on deification
because the subject of its every part is deification.

MATTER AND THE UNITY OF BEING IN THE
PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY OF SAINT THOMAS
AQUINAS*
GRAHAM J. MCALEER
Loyola Callege
Baltimore, Maryland

S

AINT THOMAS TELLS US that a day will come when
the sun and the moon will be obscured, inducing dread
amongst all people; this is a sign of the Second Coming. At
this time, there will be a general resurrection, when the souls of
all people who have ever lived shall be reunited with their
bodies. This event is made possible through the whole of creation
being reordered to God. Conforming to God, the human soul will
receive the power to order its own body completely, to
harmonize the elements that constitute its body, and to satisfy
fully the desire of prime matter for form. In satisfying the natural
appetite of matter for form, the soul, which is the form of the
body, restricts the potentiality of matter for forms other than
itself so that the human person remains bodily, and perpetually, free
from corruption. When general resurrection occurs, all matter
is reconciled with form, and the complete unity of all being is
achieved.
All of this, however, is only possible if matter in its most profound metaphysical status is thoroughly ordered to form. The
argument of this essay shall be that it is St. Thomas's concept of
the concreatum that secures for him an analysis of matter and
'I would like to thank Jos Decorte, Jennifer DeRose, and Steven J. Sherwood for their
help with this essay. A shorter version of this essay was read at the Twentieth
International Conference on Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies at Villanova
University on 16 September 1995.

257

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GRAHAM J. MCALEER

form that sustains the metaphysical hope that the desire of matter for form can ultimately be satisfied. I thus want to show that
underlying Thomas's theory of the material composite is a
concern to establish a metaphysical foundation for resurrection.
Crucial to this undertaking, I shall argue, is a concept of matter
in which the desire of matter is structured, from its very
inception, by the promise of its satisfaction by form. That matter and form have been created together in the concreatum is the
guarantee of this promise, a promise made possible most fundamentally by the fact that form gives matter its act of existence.
This is to say that Thomas 's theory of material composition is at
once a theory of matter and a theory of desire: form gives being
to matter, but, as shall be seen, form also gives to matter understood as a principle of desire its nature as a desire of some particular kind. Since what kind of desire matter comes to be
cannot be separated from the form with which it exists in the
composite substance, it is possible to say that the satisfaction of
desire by the desired object is promised at the very inception of
the desire.
The importance of Thomas's account of substantial composition to his theology cannot be overstated, I think. Thomas tells
us that peace consists in desire coming to rest in the object of
desire (pax consistit in quietatione et unione appetitus)' and that
the very concept of peace (ratio pacis) demands that desire be
able to come to rest in that object without any impediment. 2 In
other words, the concept of peace is based on the promise that
desire can attain its desired object. Without such a promise,
there could be no hope in the Christian faith: no hope that there
will be the peace of all things having rest in God. Moreover,
without hope there can be no desire, for hope fortifies and

1 STh II-II, q. 29, a. 2, ad 3. Unless stated otherwise all citations to the works of Saint
Thomas are based on the Marietti editions.
2 "Et ideo necesse est quod omne appetens appetat pacem, inquantum scilicet omne
appetens appetit tranquille, et sine impedimento pervenire ad id quod appetit, in quo
consistit ratio pads, quam Augustinus definit 'tranquillitatem ordinis"' (ibid., q. 29, a. 2).

MATTER AND THE UNITY OF BEING

259

sustains desire. 3 Thus, were there to be no hope of rest in God 4
there could be little love of God, for, as Thomas explains, we do
not desire so intensely those things for which we have no hope
(non enim ita intense desideramus quae non speramus).5
As a contrast with the metaphysics of Averroes immediately
brings home what is at stake for Thomas in his theory of matter,
and what his position on the material composite accomplishes, I
want first to demonstrate that in the metaphysics of Averroes
there is always a disjuncture between God and matter. Averroes
describes the desire of prime matter as that which can never be
satisfied by any form and thus cannot be satisfied by God either.
Indeed, his treatment of the celestial realm is governed by a similar logic, one that is equally incompatible with a metaphysics of
unity. 6 Thus, whereas Thomas speaks of the material composite
as a concreatum, Averroes speaks of it as a congregatum.7
According to Averroes, substantial composition issues when the
substance of matter is perfected by form,8which perfection only
augments the being that prime matter already has independently of
form; 9 in consequence, the substance of prime matter always
3 "Ad tertium dicendum, quod spes causat vel auget amorem, et hoc ratione delectationis, quia delectationem causat; et etiam ratione desiderii, quia spes desiderium
fortificat" (STh 1-11, q. 27, a. 4, ad 3).
4 "Proprium ac principale spei objectum est ipsa aeterna beatitudo" (STh 11-11, q. 17,
a. 2).
5 STh 1-11, q. 27, a. 4, ad 3.
6 The only extensive treatment of matter in Averroes, a very interesting and rare treatment in that it goes far beyond superficialities to philosophical issues, is the article by
Alfred L. Ivry, "Towards a Unified View of Averroes' Philosophy," The Philosophical
Forum 4 (1972): 87-113. In very many ways, my interpretation of Averroes on matter is
quite opposed to that oflvry.
7 In II De anima, Averrois Cordobensis Commentarium magnum in librum Aristotelis
De anima, ed. F. Stuart Crawford (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America,
1953), 2:130; 7:139; In VIII Metaphysicorum, vol. 4, fol. 211r, E.
8 "ldest, et materia est substantia que est in potentia; forma autem est substantia per
quam perficitur hec substantia que est in potentia forma" (In II De anima, 2:131). The
fact that Averroes speaks of matter being assimilated to form might indicate that matter
has some measure of being independent of form. He writes, "istud subiectum, quia
recipiet formam, assimilatur ei, quod est in actu, et quia dimisit earn assimilatur ad non
esse" (In VIII Metaphysicorum, vol. 4, fol. 211r, E).
9 "Potentia autem reducitur ad materiam, de qua est possibile ut fiat congregatum ex
ea et ex forma, scilicet compositum. Potentia enim, quae est in materia, est super individuum compositum ex ea et ex forma" (In XII Metaphysicorum, vol. 26, fol. 310v, M).

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GRAHAM J. MCALEER

retains an independent being even when the substance of form is
educed to constitute a composite substance with matter. 10 To conceive of a composite substance in this manner, according to
Thomas, destroys any rigorous account of substantial unity: the
unity of the composite is only properly secured if prime matter
has its very being from the act of existence that comes to the
composite through substantial form. I shall argue that the congregatum as a conception of substantial unity issues from
Averroes's description of form as external to the desire of matter.
More, I shall argue that Averroes's understanding of composition reflects a more general consequence of his metaphysics:
namely, that matter prevents, by its very nature, an ultimate synthesis of the principles of being, which in turn entails that matter
always remains a source of anguished finitude to the creature.
In contemporary philosophical theology, Paul Ricoeur has
argued that theology is to be explored "in accordance with the
norm of eschatology." 11 In particular, he asks, "How can we
interpret the Resurrection in terms of hope, of promise, of the
future?" 12 Ricoeur's question guides this present essay, and I
would like to show that his answer to this question is not entirely
satisfying. Resurrection is treated in many of his articles, some
explicitly theological, others philosophical. He insists, however,
that any hermeneutics of hope that is theological must rely upon
a prior philosophical exploration of the dialectic of desire and
spirit. 13 Philosophically, he argues, hope is best explored in terms
10 Prime matter is a substance that can be perfected in actuality through substantial
forms which exercise its potentiality. Averroes certainly thought that substances that are
in act can be further perfected in act by subsequent substantial forms without loss of
their own peculiar substantiality. This may be seen explicitly in his account of the four
elements. See my "Augustinian Interpretations of Averroes with Respect to the Status of
Prime Matter," The Modern Schoolman 73 (1996): 159-72. Thus, there should be even less
reason for him to balk at the idea that a substance in potency could be further perfected
in its being and substantiality.
11 Paul Ricoeur, "Freedom in the Light of Hope," in The Conflict of Interpretations:
Essays in Hermeneutics (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 404; cf.
Paul Ricoeur, "Hope and the Structure of Philosophical Systems," in Figuring the Sacred
(Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1995), 204.
12 Paul Ricoeur, "Freedom in the Light of Hope," 405-6.
13 Paul Ricoeur, "A Philosophical Interpretation of Freud," 161.

MATTER AND THE UNITY OF BEING

261

of a "semantics of desire" in which inchoate desire ("the archaeology of desire") is transformed into an ordered love of God
("teleology of spirit") through a deep wish for unity ("totalization"). 14 Ricoeur notes that every philosopher has to face the
problem of the relation between desire and meaning, and,
accepting Freud's position that desire has a meaning anterior to
spirit, he posits a "mixed discourse" of constituents that belong to
"different levels of coherence and two universes of discourse.ms
Employing this same dialectic of desire and spirit with respect to
alienation and redemption, 16 he understands this "mixed discourse" as a "terrible battle for meaning" in which "timid" hope
must cross a desert of "mourning." 11 While spirit (teleology)
strives towards synthesis, desire (archaeology) "pulls us back and
insinuates the whole backward drift of affectivity." 18 Ricoeur
takes from Leibniz 1• the idea that though desire constantly seeks
out new meaning it is incapable of realizing these meanings;
Leibniz, like Freud, understands meaning and desire to constitute
quite distinct orders. It is this ontological separation of the order
of desire from that of spirit that leads to a Christian vision in
which hope must traverse a desert of mourning.
Though Ricoeur identifies Leibniz, and elsewhere Kant,2° as
the source of his own theory of desire, he could just as well have
identified Averroes, for he and Ricoeur share an ontology that
ultimately issues in a desire for God that cannot find satisfaction
Ibid., 174-76; cf. "Freedom in the Light of Hope," 418.
of Freud," 167, 169.
16 Paul Ricoeur, "The Image of God and the Epic of Man," in Truth and History,
(Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1965), 121-23; cf. "Freedom in the Light
of Hope," 423.
17 Ricoeur, "A Philosophical Interpretation of Freud," 176; cf. "Freedom in the Light
of Hope," 422.
18 Ricoeur, "A Philosophical Interpretation of Freud," 173.
19 For Ricoeur, it is Leibniz who has most accurately captured the relationship
between desire and culture when he writes: "The action of the internal principle which
brings about the change or passage from one perception to another may be
ti.ilim.It is true that appetite may not always entirely attain the whole perception toward
which it tends, but it always obtains something of it and arrives at new perceptions"
(ibid., 169).
20 Ricoeur, "Freedom in the Light of Hope," 417.
14

15 Ricoeur, "A Philosophical Interpretation

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GRAHAM J. MCALEER

because desire and God are not intrinsically linked, being of two
distinct orders of meaning. Having recognized that the "mixed
discourse" of desire and culture is a repetition of Averroes's own
version of the "mixed discourse," the congregatum, Ricoeur shall
be seen to share with Averroes a metaphysics of desire that is
incapable of sustaining hope in bodily resurrection.
This study has as its philosophical aim to demonstrate that the
Thomistic theory of desire can sustain hope in the Christian
belief of the bodily resurrection, while the metaphysics of desire
that Christian thinkers like Ricoeur and Leibniz 21 in fact share
with Averroes cannot do so (and one might wonder about other
theories of desire dominant in much of poststructuralist
thought). Historically, I want to show that the theory of desire
employed by Ricoeur has an antecedent in the works of Averroes
which St. Thomas would have known. I limit myself, therefore,
solely to the Latin Averroes and the ideas in his texts that Latin
authors might have embraced or rejected. I hope to add to our
understanding of Averroes's account of matter 22 and to explore
his theory of desire, which has never been treated to my knowledge, as well as to challenge an evident consensus that Averroes
and Thomas, but not the Augustinians, largely agree about the
nature of matter. 23

I. PRIME MATTER AND DESIRE IN THE LATIN AVERROES
According to Averroes's cosmology there is an deep alienation
within the world. 24 Commenting on Aristotle's description of
21 At least, for the Leibniz rendered by Ricoeur. It should be noted that Leibniz furnished Maurice Blonde! with the notion of the vinculum. In Blondel's theory of the
material composite, the vinculum plays a similar role to Thomas's concreatum.
22 As the bibliographies compiled for the Bulletin de Philosophie mediivale 30 (1980),
32 (1990), and 35 (1993) show, no detailed textual studies have yet appeared with respect
to the theory of matter in Averroes.
23 I have tried to show elsewhere that this interpretation is not obviously correct. See
my "Augustinian Interpretations of Averroes."
24 Remi Brague has noted that the Middle Ages saw various theologically inspired
interpretations aimed at mitigating Aristotle's depiction of the alienation of the world
from God. The argument of this essay is that Averroes adopts the position of Aristotle
while Thomas articulates a theory of desire to overcome this alienation. See Remi
Brague, "Le destin de la «Pensee de la Pensee» des origines au debut du Moyen Age," in
La question de Dieu selon Aristote et Hegel, ed. Thomas de Konninck and Guy PlantyBonjour (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991) 153-86.

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263

prime matter as that which desires form, in book 1 of the
Physics, Averroes states that there is a natural desire in matter
(desiderium naturale) for form which is the cause of material
things being open to generation and corruption. 25 He explains
that matter has a desire for form after form because it does not
have a form of its own iforma propria): 26 "And what Aristotle
says is evident. For if there were not something here not having
a form, there would not be something here desiring form after
form." 27
At the center of Averroes's metaphysics of matter is the natural
desire of prime matter for form that can never be fully satisfied
by any form. In the passage that describes Averroes's account of
the natural desire of matter there is a very evident theological
dimension to the discussion. 28 Prime matter has a natural desire
for form, which is, Averroes says, a desire for the divine. Forms
are the proxies of God (Averroes and Thomas agree that in desiring form matter in fact desires the divine); 29 since no form can
arrest the desire of matter for any great length of time, however,
it must follow that the desire of matter cannot be satisfied by
God either. According to Averroes, the divine is present in the
world through form and the perfection form brings. 30 Every
nature, except prime matter, has an actualization that, once
attained, is its complete assimilation to the divine (secundum
In I Physicorum, t. 81, fol. 46r, C-D.
Ibid., t. 69, fol. 40v, L; t. 79, fol. 45r, C; De substantia orbis, c. 1, fol. 3v, L; In II De
anima, ed. Crawford, t. 2, p. 130.
27 "Et hoc, quod dixit, manifestum est. Quoniam, si non esset hie aliquid non habens
forma, non esset hie aliquod appetens formam post formam" (In I Physicorum, t. 81, fol.
46r, F). All citations from the works of Averroes are drawn from the Iunta edition unless
otherwise stated.
28 "Et dixit: 'Quoniam, quia est hie aliquid divinum,' etc. Idest, et quia privatio accidit
materiae de necessitate, et est haec perfectio divina maxima, cui omnia entia appetunt
assimilari et ex qua appetunt acquirere secundum quod natura eorum potest recipere,
dicimus nos quod materia, secundum quod accidit ei privatio est innata appetere se
assimilari primo principio secundum quod potest, et hoc est appetere receptionem
formae" (In I Physicorum, t. 81, fol. 46r, C-D).
29 "Sed omnia similantur Deo, qui est actus purus, inquantum habet formas per quas
fiunt in actu; et inquantum formas appetunt, divinam similitudinem appetere dicuntur"
(Aquinas, ScG II, c. 43).
30 In XII Metaphysicorum, t. 55, fol. 340r, A.
25

26

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J. MCALEER

quod natura eorum potest recipere). Prime matter, on the other
hand, while it desires to be assimilated to the divine, and so
happily receives any form as the presence of the divine, is not a
kind of being with a nature that can realize its actualization, and
thus no form can perfect the being of prime matter. It does not
have a form of its own and therefore it is always beyond the
provenance of the divine. This failure of any and every form to
satisfy the desire of prime matter, which is a failure of the divine,
leads Averroes to speak of prime matter as marked by a
necessary privation: without any structure to a satisfactory
actualization by form, such being can never attain a completion
of its nature and thus suffers a primordial lack (diminutionem
contingentem sibi). 31 Hence, privation accrues to prime matter
from necessity-not because prime matter has privation as a
part of its essence, 3 ' but because it does not have an essence able
to receive the divine. There is then, according to Averroes, a
primordial fracture within being.
Averroes speaks of order issuing from the Prime Mover 33
because all things have a desire for God. 34 While St. Thomas
would certainly agree with Averroes that God is the source of
order 35 he would not at all agree with Averroes as to the extent
and completeness of this divine order. For Thomas, God in being
ipsa bonitas, veritas pura, ipsum esse is the exclusive origin of
order and nothing falls outside of his provenance (impossibile est
quod aliquid contingat praeter ordinem divinae gubernationis). 36
Crucially, for Thomas, if the unity of being is to be preserved all
things must have their being from God as the sole source of being
31 "Omne enim ens, ut dictum est, diligit se permanere. Sed materia diligit induere formam post aliam propter diminutionem contingentem sibi" (In I Physicorum, t. 81, fol.
46r, F); ibid., t. 79, fol. 4Sr, C.
32 In I Physicorum, t. 81, fol. 46v, F-G.
33 De substantia orbis, c. 2, fol. 6v, L; In VII Metaphysicorum, t. 9, fol. 160r, C.
34 De substantia orbis, c. 6, fol.13r, A; ibid., c. 4, fol.lOr, F-fol.lOv, G; In II De caelo,
t. 71, fol. 146r, A. Goffredo Quadri speaks of this order as "une echelle de plaisirs"; see his
La philosophie arabe dans I'Europe medievale des origines a Averroes, trans. from Italian
into French by Roland Huret (Paris: Payot, 1947), 252.
35 I II M etaph., lect. 11, n. 48 7.
36 STh I, q. 103, a. 7; De sub. sep., c. 14, n. 129; II Sent., d. 18, q. 1, a. 1; ScG II, cc. 39,
42.

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265

(ipsum suum esse).31 This universal cause makes it possible that

all oppositions can ultimately be overcome. 38 The logic of desire
in Averroes, according to Thomistic strictures, entails that the
effects of an agent go beyond the intention of the agent, leading
inevitably to monstrous consequences 39 and an anguished
finitude. This is so because Averroes does not believe that God
is the sole source of being, and does not believe that prime
matter has its origin in God. 40 Of course, Thomas would agree
that matter does not have a form of its own, but he does not
accept Averroes's position that the natural desire of matter for
form issues from a principle that exists eternally through itself
and is co-primordial with God.
Prime matter is its own kind of being, a nature after some
fashion, 41 a substance 42 whose essence is not potentiality as such
31 II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 1.
38 "Similiter etiam qui invenerunt duorum particularium effectuum contrariorum duas
causas particulares contrarias, nesciverunt reducere causas particulares contrarias in
causam universalem communen. Et ideo usque ad prima principia contrarietatem in causis esse judicaverunt. Sed cum omnia contraria conveniant in uno communi, necesse est
in eis, supra causas contrarias proprias inveniri unam causam communem; sicut supra
qualitates contrarias elementorum invenitur virtus corporis caelestis; et similiter supra
omnia quae quocumque modo sunt, invenitur unum primum principium essendi, ut
supra ostensum est (quaest. II, art. 3)" (STh I, q. 49, a. 3).
39 "Unde, si aliquis effectus consequitur dispositionem materiae et intentionem agentis,
non est ex materia sicut ex prima causae; et propter hoc videmus quod ea quae reducuntur in materiam sicut in primam causam, sunt praeter intentionem agentis, sicut monstra
et alia peccata naturae" (ScG II, c. 40).
40 Miguel Cruz Hernandez, Abu-l-Walld Ibn Rushd (Averroes): Vida, obra, pensamiento,
influencia (Cordova: Caja de Ahorros, 1986), 155-59; Barry S. Kogan, Averroes and the
Metaphysics of Causation (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1985), 191;
Quardi, La philosophie arabe, 222; George F. Hourani, "Averroes Musulman," in
Multiple Averroes (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1978), 25-26; Michel Allard, Le rationalisme
d'Averroes d'apres une etude sur la creation, vol. 15, Bulletin d'etudes orientales
(Damascus: Institut Frarn;ais de Damas, 1954), 50; Ivry, "Towards a Unified View of
Averroes' Philosophy," 103. Exceptions to this consensus include: P. Manuel Alonso, S. J.,
Teolog{a de Averroes (Madrid: Instituto 'Asfn Palacios,' 1947), 300; and Kassem
Mahmoud, "La philosophie d'Averroes et ses rapports avec la Scolastique latine," Actas
del V Congreso Internacional de Filosofia Medieval (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1979),
211.
41 "Antiqui enim ignoraverunt quod inter non esse purum et esse purum est medium
aut aliqua natura" (In I Physicorum, t. 78, fol. 44v, G); ibid., t. 68, fol. 40r, F.
42 In I Physicorum, t. 70, fol. 41r, D; In II De anima, ed. Crawford, t. 2, p. 130; In VII
Metaphysicorum, t. 8, fol. 159r, A; In VIII Metaphysicorum, t. 4, fol. 21lr, B.

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J. MCALEER

(subiectum est substantia non potentia, neque privatio) 43 but is
said rather to receive potency. 44 Most crucially, Averroes's metaphysics claims that prime matter is not profoundly related to
God because it is through itself that it exists. 45 Averroes speaks of
two eternal causes of generation and corruption: the agent of
such change (ultimately God), and that (aliquid) from which (ex
quo) such change issues. 46 These causes are said to exist in re and
to be ontological primitives, which structure all other substances. 47 The independent existence of prime matter as an
eternal principle is clearly affirmed in a number of passages in
the Latin works of Averroes known in the thirteenth century. In
his commentary to book 7 of the Metaphysics, Averroes writes,
"And I say that matter, etc." That is, I understand by matter that which
is existing through itself, what is neither a quality, nor a quantity, nor
something of the other categories; because it is in potency all of those
things which are according to the ten categories, as has been made clear
in the Physics. 48

In I Physicorum, t. 70, fol. 4lr, E-F; De substantia orbis, c. 1, fol. 3v, L-M.
In XII Metaphysicorum, t. 18, fol. 304v, I.
45 "Et potentia istius declarationis est talis quia forma praecedit secundum substantiam
et esse materiam. Et materia perficitur per illud quod est perfectum secundum actum,
non secundum potentiam. Ideo est necesse ut actus sit perfectior potentia et prior ea in
esse. Deinde dixit: 'Et similiter in aliis' etc., id est: Et similiter est de aliis potentiis, nisi
potentia, quae est in prima materia" (In IX Metaphysicorum, Das Neunte Buch Des
Lateinischen Grossen Metaphysik-Kommentars
van Averroes, ed. Bernhard Biirke
[Bern: A. Francke, 1969] t. 16, p. 60).
46 "Quoniam si generatio est semper, necesse est ut sit aliquid, quod agat generationem
primo, et quod sit ingenerabile, et aliquid, ex quo sit primo generatio, quod est etiam non
generabile. Deinde <licit: 'et ut sint principia istorum,' etc. Idest, necesse est enim ut
principia generationis non sint generabilia cum nihil fiat ex nihilo neque in infinitum" (In
III Metaphysicorum, t. 12, fol. 52r, B); In II Metaphysicorum, In Aristotelis Librum II
metaphysicorum commentarius, ed. Gion Darms, Thomistiche Studien, vol. 11 (Freiburg:
Paulusverlag Freiburg Schweiz, 1966), t. 6, pp. 61-62.
47 "Deinde <licit: 'cum sciverimus causas eius simpliciter.' Et intendit, ut mihi videtur,
causas existentes in re, primas, non compositas, et sunt prima materia, et ultima forma:
quae sunt praeter primam materiam, et ultimam formam cuiuslibet rerum naturalium
sunt materiae compositae, et formae compositae" (In I Physicorum, t. 1, fol. 6r, E); In III
De anima, ed. Crawford, t. 5, p. 410.
48 '"Et dico materiam,' etc. Idest, et intelligo per materiam illud, quod est existens per
se, quod est nee quale, nee quantum, nee aliquid aliorum praedicamentorum: quoniam
est in potentia omnia ista, secundum decem praedicamenta, ut declaratum est in
Physicis" (In VII Metaphysicorum, t. 8, fol. 159r, D); the emphasis is mine.
43

44

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267

This same insistence on the absolute existence of matter (quad
est existens per se) occurs in his commentary on book 5 of the
Metaphysics:
Further he says: "an element is common, etc." That is, since the definition of
an element is that said before about which we say that it is manifest
that a true element is common to all composites. It is the first out of
which all things are composed and is existing in each of them and is
that into which all things are dissolved. Whatever is that element must
be the cause of all the others, and this is what he says is prime matter. 49

Prime matter exists in each of the four elements and is posited as
a foundation common to all of their transformations. This
statement about the nature of matter also confirms that the
potentiality of matter issues from something peculiar to the
nature of matter itself and to nothing else. The same idea is
found elsewhere. For example, when Averroes insists that the
esse that belongs to matter is different from that being which
belongs to any of the ten categories, he says, "it has been made
clear that prime matter is the substratum to all of the ten
categories and that its being (esse) is other than the being (esse)
of any of these others." 50 A similar and even stronger passage is
to be found in his dense and brilliant De substantia orbis:
And therefore matter has no form of its own and has no nature existing
in act; but its substance is in potency and by this fact matter receives
all forms. But potency, by which this substratum is substantiated, also
differs from the nature of the substratum that is substantiated by this

49 "Deinde dicit: 'Et elementum est commune,' etc. idest: et cum diffinitio elementi sit
ilia praedicta quam diximus, manifestum est quod verum elementum est commune
omnibus compositis, quod est primum ex quo componuntur omnia, et est existens in
unoquoque eorum et in quo dissolvuntur omnia: et istud elementum debet esse causa
aliorum elementorum. Et hoc quod dixit est prima materia" (In V Metaphysicorum,
Averrois in Librum V metaphysicorum Aristotelis commentarius, ed. Ruggero Ponzalli
[Bern: A. Francke, 1971], ed. Ponzalli, t. 4, p. 89); the emphasis is mine. "Elementum
enim non dicitur de causis extrinsecis et dicitur de intrinsecis et dignius de materia"
(ibid., t. 4, p. 83).
50 "Deinde dicit: 'est enim aliud,' etc. Idest, declaratum est enim subiectum esse
omnibus praedicamentis decem: et quod suum esse est aliud ab esse cuiuslibet eorum"
(In VII Metaphysicorum, t. 8, fol. 159r, E).

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GRAHAM J. MCALEER

potency, in this, that potency is said in respect of form: this substratum,
however, is one of those beings existing through themselves and one
eternal element of those beings existing through themselves, of which
beings it is a substance in potency.s1

From these passages, it is clear that Averroes argues both that
prime matter exists through itself and that form cannot constitute the
being of prime matter.
Thus, prime matter does not have a form of its own, and its
nature exists eternally through itself. It has a desire for form but
this desire has not actually been created by God; the desire precedes
the actuality of God, and is co-primordial with this actuality. 52 If
there is a desire that does not have its origin in God, then one has
a metaphysical dualism. 53 The Averroistic world is thus stricken
by an eternal dualism: the divine is incapable of perfecting all of
reality and a profound alienation infuses being. Thomas certainly
does not find any comfort in such a metaphysical conception:
"Certain people have asserted that the substance of the world

si "Et ideo nullam habet formam propriam et naturam existentem in actu: sed eius substantia est in posse: et ex hoc materia recipit omnes formas. Sed posse, quo substantiatur
hoc subiectum, differt etiam a natura subiecti quod substantiatur per hoc posse, in hoc,
quod posse dicitur in respectu formae: hoc autem subiectum est unum entium
existentium per se, et elementum unum aeternum, existentium per se, quorum substantia est
in potentia" (De substantia orbis, c. 1, fol. 3v, L-M); the emphasis is mine.
si Cf. Cruz Hernandez, Abu-l-Walld Ibn Rushd (Averroes), 159. Since Cruz Hernandez
acknowledges that "la materia es tan eterna como el Primer motor," I do not understand
how he can confirm the research of Asfn Palacios that Thomas and Averroes agree (1)
about the sense in which God governs the world and (2) that from the unity of the world
it is possible to demonstrate the unity of God. While the argument of my essay casts
doubt on (1), Thomas explicitly attacks (as does Giles of Rome) the position of Averroes's
theory of celestial matter as destroying the unity of the world (STh I, q. 66). For Cruz
Hernandez's comments see pages 259-61 of the above-cited work. Alfred Ivry has made
a tortuous attempt to reconcile Averroes's metaphysics with a philosophy of unity while
recogniZing that Averroes posits matter as a principle coeternal with God; see his
"Towards a Unified View of Averroes' Philosophy," 102-8.
s3 A number of commentators have noted that a profound and ultimate dualism is
characteristic of Averroes's metaphysical thought: Salomon Munk, Des principaux
Philosophes arabes et de leur doctrine (Paris: «Vrin-Reprise»-J. Vrin, 1982); Quadri, La
philosophie arabe; and Gerard Verbeke, "L'unite de l'homme: saint Thomas contre
Averroes," D'Aristote a Thomas d'Aquin: Antecedents de la pensee moderne (Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 1990).

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269

might not be from God; and this is an intolerable error of theirs;
and therefore from necessity it must be refuted."s 4 For Thomas,
any metaphysics that fails to affirm the creation of heaven and
earth is to be roundly rejected as against faith.ss In Thomas's
cosmology, God is the source of the being of both prime and
celestial matter and the power of God extends to both; s6 in
Averroes's cosmology, there are two original principles, the one
desiring, the other the object of that desire. Yet if the object of
the desire is not at the very foundation of that desire, thinks
Thomas, there is no reason to suppose that the two can ever
achieve a complete union-and this will be the insight that
Ricoeur needs so desperately. Thomas's thought here is simple: if
there are two distinct principles of being eternally existing
through themselves and ordering the world, there is absolutely
no reason to think that God could order the other principle to
Himself.
In Averroes, God cannot reach down into the very depths of
being and make His presence felt; desire is eternally cut off from
God. In fact, the presence of God in the world is especially
restricted in the thought of Averroes. In his cosmology, the celestial
realm is populated by celestial animals. But the body of the
celestial animal is a kind of matter that is in act,51 and nowhere
in the texts of the Latin Averroes is it said to desire. The actuality
of celestial body is quite independent of the actuality of the celestial soul conjoined to it; this means that the actuality of the celestial body stands in opposition to the actuality of the unmoved
mover. More accurately, perhaps, the celestial soul desires the
prime mover but the celestial body has no desire of any kind
whatsoever. It does not then desire God, but is indifferent to
God; the fifth element is a complete and eternal nature of itself
and only moves because it is the subject of a celestial soul that
desires its own completion.ss The celestial soul must drag this
54 "Quidam enim posuerunt quod substantia mundi non sit a Deo; et horum est intolerabilis error; et ideo ex necessitate refellitur" (STh I, q. 46, a. 2, ad. 1).
55 Ibid., q. 46, a. 2.
56 Ibid., q. 46, a. 1, ad 3; ibid., q. 105, a. 1.
51 In I Physicorum, t. 79, fol. 45, D.
58 In XII Metaphysicorum, t. 41, fol. 325r.

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GRAHAM J. MCALEER

body along as the soul seeks to become more completely like
God. A hopeless finitude, therefore, also marks the celestial animal: the desire of the celestial soul is always thwarted by the
indifferent body to which it is conjoined, and, as a result, an
ultimate union through imitation of God is forever withheld.
Thus the logic of desire in the terrestrial realm is repeated in
the celestial realm. In both, the logic is incompatible with a
metaphysics of unity. It is clear that the forever restless desire of
prime matter and the indifference of the fifth element in the
metaphysics of Averroes shatter completely the hope of a final
moment when all being shall be at peace in an ultimate union
with God. The perpetuity of desire without satisfaction, which
is reflected in Averroes's acceptance of the eternity of the world,
is a rejection of that metaphysical hope which is able to sustain
a belief in bodily resurrection-a belief not held by Averroes, of
course. He denies that a bodily resurrection of a composite of
form and prime matter is possible; for such a composite, only a
temporary participation in the conditions of immortality is
possible.

II. THE CONCREATED STATUS OF FORM AND MATTER
ACCORDING TO THOMAS

A principal aim of Thomas 's theory of matter is, I would
claim, to confront and refute Averroes's position on desire and
hope. Note that Averroes is not mentioned in Thomas's exposition: he is neither set up as a target, nor drawn upon as an
authority for the Thomistic position. In fact, Averroes is never
cited as an authority for Thomas 's theory of prime matter and
potentiality, 59 and he is seldom referred to with respect to other
59 He is not mentioned at all in those pages where Thomas gives his most subtle treatment of the nature of prime matter, VII Metaphys., lect. 2. Again, though he is not mentioned by name, Averroes's position that potentiality is not the essence of prime matter is
explicitly rejected by Thomas in his commentary on book I of the Physics. There is a reference to Averroes in the very early De principiis naturae when Thomas renders prime
matter as that which has esse incompletum. However, the reference is consigned to the
alternative readings in the critical apparatus by both the editors of the Leonine
Commission and by John Pauson. See De principiis naturae, ed. ]. Pauson, Textus
Philosophici Friburgenses (Fribourg: Societe Philosophique; Louvain: Editions E.
Nauwelaerts, 1950), 80.

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271

issues centering around the concept of matter. 60 Saint Thomas
had to reject Averroes's conception of matter as monstrous and,
because it induced a hopeless finitude in the creature, destructive
of faith. The doctrine of the general resurrection specifically
denies that the world is eternal and asserts, to the contrary, that
desire has to find its rest in God at some time. 61 For Thomas,
metaphysics must include the principles whereby finitude is
removed in a final unity of all being with God. 62
Love is the foundation of desire 63 and in all things there is an
amornaturalis. 64 For Thomas, the desire of matter for form, 65 like
all desire, is but an instance of the order oflove (ordo amorum).66
Love is a vis unitiva 61 which, because it strives to convert the one
loving into the beloved, 68 is a power that binds matter and form
together in a profound unity.69 When the form of a thing is in
another perfectly then that thing in which the form has come to

60 Thomas does call upon Averroes as an authority when discussing the status of the
desire of matter for form (De Pot., q. 4, a. 1, ad 2). Thomas notes here that Averroes in
his commentary on book 1 of the Physics states that the desire of matter for form is not
an action of matter (non est aliqua actio materiae) but is rather a disposition of matter
(quaedam habitudo materiae adformam, secundum quod est in potentia ad ipsam). This
use of Averroes leaves undetermined the relationship between the authors on the
problems of the origin and character of natural desire.
61 "Optima autem gubernatio est quae fit per unum. Cujus ratio est, quia gubernatio
nihil aliud est quam directio gubernatorum ad finem, qui est aliquod bonum. Unitas
autem pertinet ad rationem bonitatis, ut Boetius probat, per hoc quod sicut omnia
desiderant bonum, ita desiderant unitatem, sine qua esse non possunt; nam
unumquodque intantum est, inquantum unum est. Uncle videmus quod res repugnant
suae divisioni quantum possunt, et quod dissolutio uniuscujusque rei provenit ex defectu
illius rei. Et ideo id ad quod tendit intentio multitudinem gubernantis, est unitas, sive
pax" (STh I, q. 103, a. 3).
62 "Et ideo mundus hoc modo innovabitur, ut abjecta omnis corruptione, perpetuo
maneat in quiete" (STh suppl. III, q. 91, a. 5).
63 STh 1-11, q. 27, a. 4, ad 2; ibid., q. 29, a. 6, ad 2.
64 III Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (vols. 3 and 4, ed. M. F. Moos [Paris: Lethielleux, 1933-47)).
I have found Joseph de Finance's work Etre et agir, 2d ed. (Rome: Librarie Editatrice de
l'Universite Gregorienne, 1960) to be invaluable in understanding Thomas's position on
the nature of the desire of prime matter.
65 I Phys., lect. 15, n. 136; I Metaphys., lect. 1, n. 2; De Pot., q. 4, a. 1, ad 2.
66 STh 1-11, q. 27, a. 1.
67 Ibid. I, q. 70, a. 2, ad 3; q. 36, a. 1.
68 In De div. nom., c. 4, lect. 2, n. 296.
69 III Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 1; I Sent., d. 10, q. 1, a. 3, sol.

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GRAHAM J. MCALEER

be is perfectly assimilated to its being and no longer tends
towards its end, but desires to remain at rest in that end. 70 If the
assimilation is as yet incomplete, which is said by Thomas to be
a case of something having in itself the form of an end and of a
good in potency (aliquid habet in se formam finis et boni in
potentia), it continues to tend towards that form as its good. This
is the case with prime matter (materia dicitur appetere formam,
in quantum est in eaforma in potentia). 11 In other words, prime
matter has a constant desire for the divine but unlike in
Averroes's metaphysics, this desire can ultimately be satisfied by
the divine. Indeed, in some sense this desire has always been
partially satisfied by God from its inception: for it is a condition
of desire that everything desires what in some way or other has
a similitude with itself, 12 and prime matter, though radically
different from God, nevertheless possesses some similitude of
God. 73 This similitude can be seen in Thomas's rendering of the
material composite as a concreatum. 74
Through the notion of the concreatum, Thomas can argue
both that prime matter is only a principle of pure potentiality or
desire 75 and that it is always determined to some ratio 76 or "way
of being possible" (ratio possibilitatis) 77-that is, determined to

De Verit., q. 5, a. 9, ad 7.
Ibid., q. 22, a. 1; In De div. nom., c. 4, lect. 9.
72 I Sent., d. 3, q. 1, a. 2, ad 1.
73 In De div. nom., c. 4, lect. 2, n. 297; ScG I, cc. 25 and 29.
74 "Materia prima non existit in rerum natura per seipsam; cum non sit ens in actu, sed
potentia tantum; unde magis est aliquid concreatum, quam creatum" (STh I, q. 7, a. 2, ad
3); III Metaphys., lect. 9, n. 453; De Pot., q. 3, a. 1, ad 12.; q. 4, a. 1; ScG II, cc. 38, 43, 47;
ibid. IV, c. 47; STh I, q. 13, a. 1; q. 44, a. 2, ad 3; q. 45, a. 4, ad 3; Le "De ente et essentia,"
ed. M.-D. Roland-Gosselin, Bibliotheque Thomiste, vol. 8 (Kain: Le Saulchoir, 1926), 8.
75 Thus Thomas argues in De Veritate that prime matter as an insensible nature
(natura insensibilis) does not have in it anything inclining ( aliquid inclinans) but is only
in some fashion a principle of inclination (solummodo inclinationis principium) (De
Verit., q. 22, a. 4).
76 Thomas argues that though prime matter is always the same with respect to the kind
of being it is, namely, ens in potentia, it can be many with respect to its possible rationes.
Cf. I Phys., lect. 15, n. 131.
77 Thomas writes, "sed diversae materiae seipsis distinguuntur secundum analogiam
ad diversos actus, prout in eis diversa ratio possibilitatis invenitur" (II Sent., d. 12, q. 1,
a. 1, ad 3).
70
71

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273

some specific kind of desire or some specific manner of potency
(diversum modum potentiae)78-by the form with which it is concreated. The essence of matter does not come to be essentially
different in different concreated substances of matter and form,
argues Thomas; only the way of being possible of that essence is
rendered differently through the essences of the concreated substances. The consequence of this position is that matter is always
and already a principle of desire structured by form, a principle
whose way of being possible, whose very character and identity
as a desire of some kind, is ascribed through form and the act of
existence (potentiae diversificantur secundum diversitatem
actuum ad quos sunt). 79
The relations within the concreatum bespeak an intensification of the dependence of matter on form. Potency is specified 80
through act, says Thomas, which determination ensures that
there is no moment when there is simply desire but always and
already an enstructured desire of some kind or other: terrestrial
or celestial in the case of material composites, finite 81 and glorified in the case of material composites that are also human persons. Thus, whether a substance is corruptible or incorruptible
depends not on matter as a principle of pure potentiality or
desire but on the power of the form to maintain itself in being by
neutralizing (or profoundly channeling) the potentiality of matter82 and educing a certain kind of desire. Desire, therefore, is
always co-constituted and has its possible satisfaction as a part
of its very structure. It is only this structure of desire, where the
promise of satisfaction is found at the inception of the desire,
STh I, q. 66, a. 2, ad 2.
"Subiecto enim est eadem: et hoc est quod dicit, quod id quod subiicitur est idem,
qualitercumque sit ens (quia scilicet non est ens actu, sed potentia). Non est autem idem
secundum esse vel rationem: aliam enim rationem et aliud esse accipit prout est sub
diversis formis, et etiam secundum hoc ipsum quad ordinatur ad diversis formis; sicut
corpus est aliud ratione secundum quod est aegrotabile, et aliud secundum quod sanabile, licet sit idem subiecto" (I Gen., Iect. 9, n. 72); the emphasis is mine. II Sent., d. 12,
q. 1, a. 1, ad 3; De Pot., q. S, a. 3.
80 III Sent., d. 12. q. 2, a. 2.
81 II Sent., d. 19, q. 1, a. 4, sol.
82 De sub. sep., c. 8, n. 86; c. 6, n. 63; STh I, q. 9, a. 2; VI Metaphys., lect. 3, n. 1211;
De Pot., q. 3, a.17, ad 2.
78
79

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J. MCALEER

that can support faith. That desire has its origin in God, and that
it can be satisfied by God is the foundation of metaphysical hope.
This theory of desire has its ontological basis in two metaphysical principles, the first of which is rooted in the second: (I)
matter is essentially ordered to form; (2) matter has its being
from the act of existence. Thomas tells us that matter is essentially ordered to form (materia per se habet ordinem ad formam ),83 that potency is nothing other than a certain order to form
(potentia nihil aliud est quam quidam ordo ad actum), 84 and that
the principle of desire is nothing other than an ordered tending
towards form or perfection (nihil igitur est aliud materiam
appetere formam, quam eam ordinari ad formam ut potentia ad
actum). 85 This essentially ordered state of matter to differing acts
of being invokes such a state of dependence in existence (and
Giles of Rome would take Thomas to task over this) 86 that prime
matter is always enstructured by form iforma quodammodo est
in materia, in quantum habet aptitudinem et ordinationem ad
ipsam) 87 and thus, that there never is desire plain and simple but
always desire of some particular kind.
Whatever character prime matter as the principle of pure
potentiality or desire comes to have is dependent upon the kind
of act of existence it receives, which comes to matter and desire
through the other principle of the composite, form. This is the
yet deeper ontological principle upon which Thomas's theory of
desire is elaborated. Thomas denies that matter could be separated from form 88 and held apart in existence by God. 89 Matter is
83 X Metaph., lect. 11, n. 2131; STh I, q. 66, a. 2, ad 4; I Phys., lect. 15, n. 138; I Gen.,
lect. 6, n. 62; II De gen., lect. 8, n. 234.
84 II De an., lect 11, n. 366; "Cum esse in potentia, nihil aliud sit quam ordinari ad
actum" (De malo, q. 1 ad 2).
85 I Phys., lect. 15, n. 138; II De an., lect. 7, n. 315; ScG II, cc. 23, 40.
86 Thomas 's argument did not satisfy Franciscan thinkers either. For them, the notion
that matter was a principle of being meant that it could not be dependent for its own existence upon form. See Gonsalvus Hispanus, O.F.M., Quaestiones disputatae et de quolibet, ed. P. Leonis Amoros, O.F.M., Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica, vol. 9,
(Quaracchi, 1935) q. 14, ad 4.
87 In De div. nom., c. 4, lect. 9.
88 ScG II, c. 43; STh I, q. 45, a. 4, ad 3; De Pot., q. 4, a. 1; ScG II, c. 47; Le "De ente et
essentia," p. 33; Quodl. 3, q. 1, a. 1.
89 Quodl. 3, q. 1, a. 1; ScG II, c. 22. Cf. Cajetan, In De ente et essentia (Turin: Marietti,
1934), c. 5, q. 9, p. 127.

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never created in isolation from substantial form and indeed the
term of creation is always a substance in act. 90 Form gives esse
simpliciter to prime matter and esse simpliciter is the term of
creation: 91 Creare autem est dare esse.92 Unity, Thomas insists, is
marked by a single act of existence, 93 and thus he renders the
composite as two principles of being, matter and form, and the
act of being, the esse. All of these together go to form an individual composite substance or a thing and none of them alone
are substances or things. Indeed, if the notion of the concreatum
is to make any sense, says Thomas, not only must matter not
have its existence through itself, 94 but matter must be neither a
thing (it is in potentia ad rem) 95 nor a substance. 96 If it is, the idea
of the concreatum is artificial. This is a most crucial point, for it
distinguishes Thomas not merely from Averroes but from other
Scholastic thinkers, both Franciscans and, more generally,
Augustinians.
Thomas specifically applies his theory of matter and substantial composition, which we have now seen is in fact a theory of
desire, to the problem of bodily resurrection. According to
Thomas, the desire of prime matter is ultimately satisfied when
the human soul is beatified and by grace is infused with the
power to satisfy completely the potentiality of prime matter.
Resurrection, a time when the world will exhibit the ministry of
the Creator (exhibere ministerium Creatori),91 will consist in God
reordering the desire of prime matter by establishing a new conformity between the soul and God. Because the soul is the form
ScG IV, c. 47; STh I, q. 44, a. 2, ad 3.
ScG II, c. 21.
92 ISent.,d.37,q.l,sol.
93 STh I, q. 4, a. I.
94 "Materia enim per se non potest esse separata a singularibus, quia non habet esse
nisi per aliud" (ill Metaphys., lect. 9, n. 453); STh I, q. 75, a. 5, ad 3; Quodl. 3, q. 1, a. 1;
ScG II, c. 22.
95 I Phys., lect. 15, n. 132.
96 "Materia autem et fonna, quae est principium actionis in agente, non sunt substantiae
nisi inquantum sunt principia substantiae compositae" (VII Metaphys., lect. 6, n. 1386);
I Phys., lect. 15, n. 132.
91 STh I, q. 64, a. 11, ad 3.
90
91

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of the body this reordering of the soul also means that prime
matter receives a new ratio possibilitatis.
Thomas explains that generation typically arises from a form
that freezes (ligare) the potency of matter by the act of determining
the matter to itself. 98 In their natural state, material forms cannot
perfectly freeze the potentiality of matter, and when the matter
is determined to another form, the inhering form must release
the matter and fall into corruption. 99
With resurrection, however, because the soul is immutably
subject to God (conformatur Deo) 100 so the body is immutably
subjected to the soul. 101 In this new conformity to God, prime
matter through its concreated form receives a new kind of desire
for that form and only for that form. In this conformity the finitude of the human subject is overcome. Such a possibility is
ruled out in Averroes, for no substantial form could ever complete the desire of prime matter for long, since its being has no
formal structure at its foundation. Thus, not even God can satisfy
the desire of prime matter: God is but one more form among others. It is the forever restless desire of prime matter that thwarts
the total presence of the divine and puts being asunder. The ultimate satisfaction of all desire by God, a final moment of perfect
peace when all being will be united and reconciled under the
ministry of the Creator, 102 is metaphysically impossible in
Averroes's thought.

III. CONCLUSION
Resurrection, as the ultimate destiny of the human person and
all of creation, is the measure of Thomistic metaphysics.
98 "Et ideo in corporibus illis manet eadem potentia ad formam aliam quae nunc inest,
quantum ad substantiam potentiae; sed erit ligata per victoriam animae supra corpus, ut
numquam in actum passionis exire potest" (Ibid. suppl. III, q. 82, a. 1, ad 2).
99 Ibid. I, q. SO, a. 5.
' 00 Ibid., q. 43, a. 5, ad 2; II Sent., d. 19, q. 1, a. 2, sol.
101 II Sent., d. 19, q. I, a. 2; STh suppl. III, q. 82, a. 2; III, q. 56, a. 2; De Verit., q. 13,
a. 4; De Pot., q. 5, a. 10; STh suppl. III, q. 82, a. 1, ad 1; De Pot., q. 9, a. 10.
102 "Una quidem perfecta, quae consistit in perfecta fruitione summi boni, per quam
omnes appetitus uniuntur quietati in uno; et hie est ultimus finis creaturae rationalis,
secundum Psal. CXLVII, vers. 14: 'Qui posuit finis tuos pacem"' (STh II-II, q. 29, a. 2,
ad 4).

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277

Thomas, as we have seen, has articulated a metaphysics capable
of sustaining hope in bodily resurrection through his concept of
the concreatum: a description of desire wherein form gives to the
principle of desire its very being and structure and thus implicates itself thoroughly in the desire; one can say that it offers
itself to the desire and in so doing promises desire its satisfaction. Ultimately, of course, it is God who orders all desire. Every
inclination, whether natural or willed, is nothing other than a
certain pressure (impressio) from God just as, Thomas tells us,
the inclination of an arrow to a determinate target is nothing
other than a certain pressure from the archer (sicut inclinatio
sagittae ad signum determinatum nihil aliud est quam quaedam
impressio a sagittante ). 103 In this sense, prime matter has a desire
which is always a determinate pressure from God and expressive of God's order. In Averroes, however, for whom the material composite is a congregatum, the desire of prime matter is not
structured through form at its inception; rather does it continually
approach and withdraw from form. One might say it has the
object of its desire outside of itself. As we have seen, this character
of desire results from Averroes's conception that desire does not
have a formal structure at its root and therefore that it cannot be
satisfied by any formal structure.
It will be recalled that Ricoeur's philosophical theology
employed the notion of desire as a "mixed discourse" in which
the constituents of desire and spirit relate to one another as do
the parts of the material composite in Averroes's congregatum
and not as in Thomas's concreatum. Ricoeur speaks of "timid"
hope because his theory of desire is unequal to the task of sustaining a belief in bodily resurrection and condemns the creature
to an anguished finitude. By contrast, the metaphysical hope of
St. Thomas is equal to both a philosophy of finitude and a
philosophy of totality. The Thomistic theory of desire can both
sustain the central Christian belief and critically address themes
and theories in contemporary philosophical theology and, more
generally, philosophical anthropology.

103

Ibid. I, q. 103, a. 8.

ST. THOMAS, LYING, AND VENIAL SIN
LAWRENCE DEWAN,

0.P.

College Dominicain
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

I

S IT GOOD TO TELL a harmless lie in order to save a life?
Immanuel Kant held that it is very bad, for even though the
lie does no immediate harm to the individuals involved, the
liar is doing all he can to undermine the basis of law and contracts.1 Thomas Aquinas, following St. Augustine's lead, had a
much less severe judgment in the matter. While he held that all
lying is bad, what he called a "sin" (peccatum), 2 nevertheless a

'Cf. Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (New York: Vintage
Books, 1979). She includes in an appendix (pp. 285-90) an excerpt from Immanuel Kant,
"On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives," from The Critique of Practical
Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy, ed. and trans. Lewis White Beck
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949). Kant clearly regards any lie as what
Thomas would call a "mortal sin." Kant says:
Truthfulness in statements which cannot be avoided is the formal duty of an
individual to everyone, however great may be the disadvantage accruing to
himself or to another. If, by telling an untruth, I do not wrong him who unjustly
compels me to make a statement, nevertheless by this falsification, which must
be called a lie (though not in a legal sense), I commit a wrong against duty generally in a most essential point. That is, so far as in me lies I cause that declarations should in general find no credence, and hence that all rights based on
contracts should be void and lose their force, and this is a wrong done to
mankind generally.
Thus the definition of a lie as merely an intentional untruthful declaration to
another person does not require the additional condition that it must harm
another, as jurists think proper in their definition (medacium est falsiloquium in
praeiudicium alterius). For a lie always harms another; if not some other particular man, still it harms mankind generally, for it vitiates the source of law
itself. (286)
Obviously this is to say that any lie is against the common good, and so is what Thomas
would call unjust and mortally sinful.
'We might note STh I-II, q. 71, a. 1: "Properly 'sin' [peccatum] names an act which
lacks order [actum inordinatum], just as the act of a virtue is an ordered and due [debitus] act" (1088bl0-13; all pagination references are to the edition of the Summa
theologiae published in 1941 by the College Dominicain, Ottawa).

279

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LAWRENCE DEWAN, O.P.

harmless lie to save a life is only a venial sin, not a mortal sin.
Still, some interpreters of Thomas would like to eliminate even
this stricture, and to do so, they sometimes attempt to redefine
the event of which Thomas is speaking. 3 I am afraid that, in so
doing, they tend to undermine our identification of species of sin.
They cast doubt on the validity of moral taxonomy. I wonder if
this is not, in part, due to a failure to understand the nature of
venial sin. Accordingly, I propose here to recall some features of
Thomas 's doctrine of venial sin, and see how it applies to the discussion of lying.
I. VENIAL SIN

The distinction between venial sin and mortal sin is not
directly about species of sin. What is in kind a venial sin can be
done in such a way as to make it mortal, and what is in kind a
mortal sin can be done in such a way as to make it venial.
However, there are kinds of sin that by virtue of their very kind
are mortal, and kinds that are venial. 4 A mortal sin is one that
goes contrary to the inclination to the true ultimate end, eternal
beatitude. A venial sin is one that is not thus contrary. The result
of a mortal sin is that the spiritual principle of life within the person, namely, grace and charity, is eliminated. Accordingly, the
person does not have the inner resources to live spiritually. Such
a sin has, as its appropriate punishment, perpetual banishment
from beatitude. On the other hand, a venial sin does not eliminate or even decrease charity, and so one can repair oneself
spiritually. The appropriate punishment is of limited duration. 5
3 The Newsletter of the Center for Thomistic Studies, Houston, Texas, in 1994 reported a
Ph.D. dissertation by Austin Rockcastle, entitled St. Thomas Aquinas on the Nature and
Morality of Lying. It said that, using the sort of"speaking contra mentem" without intention to deceive exemplified by an actor in a play, Rockcastle argued that such exceptions
could allow for speaking contra mentem to a would-be murderer. This shows the sort of
odd twist in readings of an otherwise quite clear doctrine to which this issue gives rise.
Thomas certainly would not call such speech to a would-be murderer anything more or
less than a lie that is a venial sin.
Cf. for example Kenneth W. Kemp and Thomas Sullivan, "Speaking Falsely and
Telling Lies," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 67 (1993) [Annual Supplement:
ACPA Proceedings]: 151-70. They try to make the acts under consideration "not assertions" (166).
4 STh I-II, q. 88, a. 2.
5 Ibid., q. 72, a. 5.

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281

Thomas views the entire moral life as the movement of the
rational creature towards union with God in the beatific eternal
life.6 The acts that move us in that direction are those which are
in accordance with reason, whereby we are in God's image. 7
Thus, the entire moral enterprise is seen as enlivened by charity:
that is, the love of God as source of beatitude, the love of oneself
as capable of union with God in beatitude, the love of one's
neighbor as capable of association with us in beatitude. 8
God is the ultimate end. 9 Creatures are "for the ultimate
end." 10 Thus, if one acts in such a way as to give a creature the
status of the ultimate end, one commits a mortal sin. 11 If one
treats a creature according to its true status in the scheme of
things, there is no sin. 12 Where, then, does venial sin come in?
One can tend towards a creature in a way that is somewhat disorderly, and yet not make it the ultimate end. One retains one's
love for the true ultimate end (see Appendix 1),13 even though one
tends towards a creature in a somewhat disorderly waydisorderly, that is, from the viewpoint of reason.
6 Ibid., I, q. 2, prologue (lla28-29) characterizes the entire Second Part as "concerning
the movement of the rational creature unto God [de motu rationalis creaturae in Deum]."
7 Ibid., 1-11, and 1-11, q. 5, a. 7.
8 Ibid., 11-11, q. 26, aa. 2, 3, and 4.
9 Ibid., 1-11, q. 3, a. 8.
10 This is true even of the created person destined for beatitude. Thus, in charity one
loves oneself as a being pertaining to God (ibid., 11-11, q. 25, a. 4 [1545b16-23]):

We can speak of charity as regards its own proper nature, according as it is a
friendship of man with respect to God primarily, and consequently with respect
to those things which have to do with God. Among which things, also, is the
man himself who has the charity. And thus, among other things which one loves
out of charity, as pertaining to God [quasi ad Deum pertinentia], one loves even
oneself out of charity.
Ibid. 1-11, q. 88, a. 2.
Ibid. 11-11, q. 64, a. 1 (17 56b5-7): "no one sins by the fact that he uses something for
that for which it is [intended] [nullus peccat ex hoc quod utitur re aliqua ad hoc ad quod
est]."
13 Ibid. 1-11, q. 88, a. 1, ad 3: "he who sins venially adheres to the temporal good, not as
someone [there] finding ultimate satisfaction [non utjruens], because he does not establish the goal in it; but rather as someone making use of it [sed ut utens 1 relating {himself} to God, not actually but habitually." Th. Deman, O.P., in his article on sin, "Le
peche," in Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, ed. A. Vacant et al. (Paris: Librairie
Letouzey et Ane, 1933) t. 12, col. 140-275, at col. 237-44, discusses at some length the
question of the ultimate end one has in view in committing sins venial in kind. All one's
11

12

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LAWRENCE DEWAN, O.P.

Reason is the key to moral life, because it constitutes the proper
nature of man. A thing is good inasmuch as it acts in accordance
with its nature, and so man is good inasmuch as he is reasonable. 14 And reason itself determines right action by considering
the natures of things and their proper roles, one with respect to
another. We are supposed to treat things, including ourselves, in
accordance with their natures. 15 Indeed, reason is that whereby
actions must be done for the sake of an ultimate end. In venial sin, one is not doing something that can advance one towards the ultimate end. Nevertheless, one cannot be acting
for any ultimate end other than the true one; else it would be mortal sin. Thomas holds
that one acts for the true ultimate end, taken not actually but habitually. Thus, at STh
II-II, q. 24, a. 10, ad 2, on whether charity can undergo diminution, Thomas is led to
speak about a type of love for a creaturely good that is merely venial sin and so does not
diminish charity; in connection with it, he says: "that which is loved in venial sin, is loved
on account of God [propter Deum amatur] habitually, even though not actually [habitu,
etsi non actu]." And Thomas addresses the issue in a more ex professo fashion at ibid. III, q. 88, a. 1, ad 2 and ad 3, as quoted above. Deman focuses on someone who consciously commits the venial sin, considering that it is "only a venial sin." However negative this outlook, it does take into consideration one's own status regarding the ultimate
end.
14 STh I-II, q. 71, a. 2 (1089bl6-44):
The nature of each thing is primarily [potissime] the form in accordance with
which the thing obtains its species.
But man is constituted in a species through the rational soul.
And so that which is against the order of reason is properly against the
nature of man inasmuch as he is man; but what is in accordance with reason is
in accordance with the nature of man inasmuch as he is man.
But the good of man is to be in accordance with reason, and "the bad of man
is to be outside accordance with reason [praeter rationem]," as Dionysius says,
On the Divine Names 4 [no. 32 (PG 3:733)].
Hence, human virtue, which makes a man good, and renders his deed good,
is in accordance with the nature of man, inasmuch as it is in accordance with
reason; and vice is against the nature of man, inasmuch as it is against [contra]
the order of reason.
Notice that contra and praeter here do not seem to differ greatly; of course, Thomas is
restricted by the words of the quotation from Dionysius, which text actually has (in the
translation of Johannes Sarracenus): "est malum ... animae praeter rationem"; cf.
Thomas, In De div. nom. 4.22 (ed. Pera, Rome and Turin, 1950: Marietti, text no. 247).
15 See especially STh II-II, q. 154, a. 12 (2185bl4-30):
In every order, [what is] worst is the corruption of the principle on which the
others depend. Now, the principles of reason are those things which are according to nature; for reason, those things being presupposed which are determined
by nature, disposes the others according as is suitable. And this is apparent both
in speculative and in practical matters. And thus, just as in speculative

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283

we are united to God, 16 and our treatment of natures as they
deserve constitutes already a social relation to the author of
nature. 17
Thus, Thomas teaches that all acts of injustice, acts that truly
harm our neighbor, such as murder or theft, are mortally sinful.
They are against charity. They do not treat the neighbor according to his proper nobility in the divine scheme. 18
Suppose we contrast a mortal and a venial sin. One act of simple fornication (i.e., non-contraceptive reproductive activity by
people who are not married at all) is a mortal sin, because it is
against the welfare of the child who could be conceived: such a
child, having no father, will be handicapped as regards its entire
life. On the other hand, one act of overeating is a venial sin. It is
the expression of an excessive appetite for food, that is, an
matters an error concerning those things the knowledge of which is naturally
implanted in man is most serious and most unseemly; so also, in matters of
action, to act against those things which are determined by nature is most serious and most unseemly. Therefore, because in those vices which are against
nature man transgresses that which is determined by nature concerning the use
of sexuality, thus it is that in this matter this sin is most serious.
16

Ibid. 1-11, q. 100, a. 2 (1260a42-51):
the community to which the divine law orders is that of men with God, whether
in the present or in the future life. And therefore the divine law proposes precepts concerning all those things through which men are well ordered towards
communication with God. But man is conjoined to God by reason or mind, in
which there is the image of God. And therefore the divine law proposes precepts
concerning all those things through which the reason of man is well ordered.

17 Ibid. 11-11, q. 154, a. 12, ad 1; Thomas is replying to an objector who thinks that sexual sins against nature are less grave than such things as adultery, since the latter hurts
others, whereas a sexual sin against nature does no harm to another:

just as the order of right reason is from man, so also the order of nature is from
God himself. And therefore in sins against nature, in which the very order of
nature is violated, injury [iniuria] is done to God himself, the Orderer of nature.
Hence Augustine says, in Confessions 3 [cap. 8 (PL 32:689)]:"Disgraceful acts
which are against nature are everywhere and always to be detested and punished, such as were those of the people of Sodom; which, if all peoples performed them, all would be held in the same guilt of crime by divine law, which
did not so make men that they might make use of themselves in that way.
Indeed, that very society is violated which ought to be between us and God,
since the very nature of which he is the author is polluted by the perversity of
carnal desire." [Italics mine]
18

Ibid., q. 59, a. 4.

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LAWRENCE DEWAN, O.P.

appetite not in accordance with reason. However, one such act
does no great harm, and certainly not for the whole of anyone's
life (see Appendix 2). 19
Accordingly, when Thomas distinguishes between mortal and
venial sin, the contrast is great. Indeed, he tells us that there is
an infinite difference between them:
sins do not differ infinitely on the side of the turning towards the
changeable good (in which the substance of the act consists); but they
differ infinitely on the side of the turning away [involved]. For some
sins are committed by turning away from the ultimate end, whereas
some [are committed] by disorder having to do with those things which
are for the end. Now, the ultimate end differs infinitely from those
things which are for the end. 20

Furthermore, confronted with an adversary who cites
Augustine's definition of sin (a thought, word, or deed against
the eternal law), an adversary who argues that since what is
against the eternal law is mortal sin, all sin is mortal sin, Thomas
replies that the word "sin" is said analogically of mortal and
venial sin. Venial sin does not correspond perfectly to the idea of
sin. Just as "a being" is said of both substance and accident, but
of substance by priority, of accident merely in a secondary way,
so also "sin" is so said of the mortal and the venial. Venial sin is
not "against the eternal law" [contra legem]. Thus, Augustine's
definition applies properly only to mortal sin. Venial sin is "out
of step" with law [praeter legem], since law always prescribes
that things be done according to reason. Venial sin lacks the reasonableness that law promotes. Still-and this should be
stressed-no law prohibits venial sin, even though it is not something licit. As Thomas says, "someone sinning venially does not
do what the law prohibits, or fail to do that to which the law by
precept obliges." 21
Ibid., q. 154, a. 2, ad 6.
Ibid. I-II, q. 87, a. 5, ad 1 (italics mine); and we are told at I-II, q. 88, a. 4 (1196b2124), "Not all the venial sins in the world can have as much liability for punishment as one
mortal sin."
21 Ibid., q. 88, a. 1, ad 1; to understand how Thomas can say that venial sin is not prohibited by law, yet is "illicit," remember that illicitus, as in such crucial texts for our purposes as 11-11, q. 110, a. 3, ad 4 (1996a20), means not "against the law," but rather "not a
thing which should be done" in a more general way; Iicet is not cognate with lex, but
appears closer to the lib- in liber. One is not altogether free to do what is illicit.
19

'0

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285

In this same line of thinking, we should hesitate even to say
that venial sin is "bad." At least, we must recognize that "bad" is
said in different ways. Thus, Thomas tells us: "venial sins do not
exclude the spiritual good, which is the grace of God or charity.
Hence, they are not called 'bad,' unqualifiedly [malum simpliciter], but in a qualified sense [secundum quid]." 22
A further gauge of the proper weight to be assigned to venial
sins is the teaching that, for them to be forgiven, there is not even
need that one think of them individually. Any actual charitable
movement of the mind towards God includes the repudiation of
all such "being out of step" with the divine plan. Still, one ought
to have the ambition to cut down on such sin; otherwise one
stands in danger of failing. Repeatedly sinning venially is seen as
a "disposition" toward mortal sin. 23

II. LYING
How does lying stand with respect to sin, mortal and venial?
Here Thomas distinguishes between two intentions on the part
of the speaker: (1) the intention to say what is false, and (2) the
For the distinction between contra legem and praeter legem, see also II-II, q. 105, a. 1,
ad 1 (1971 b44-46): "Venial sin is not disobedience, because it is not against the law [contra praeceptum], but rather [is] out of step with the law [praeter praeceptum]." And the
same vocabulary is at work in I-II, q. 74, a. 9 (1124b40-46).
It is clear in II-II, q. 110, a. 4, ad 1, and especially in ad 2, that Thomas does not regard
all lying as against the law.
22 Ibid. I-II, q. 78, a. 2, ad 1.
23 Ibid., q. 88, a. 3 deals with the sense in which venial sin "disposes" to mortal. Cf.
also 3, q. 87, a. 1, ad 1. This whole article, on the need for repentance if venial sin is to
be remitted, is of great interest. One must have more than just the existence of the habitus of charity (habitual displeasure with such sin, identified with the virtue itself), for the
remission of such sin. However, one need not think of individual sins and be sorry for
them singly. One must have a virtual displeasure, that is, an actual movement of the
affection towards God and things divine, such that whatever would occur that would
retard one from that movement would be displeasing, and one would be sorry for having done it, even if one does not actually think about it.
This is important in placing venial sin within a wholesome spiritual life. One should
not be satisfied to have done such a thing. One ought to have the purpose of preparing
oneself for reducing venial sin; otherwise, there would be danger of failing, since the
appetite for improving would desert one, or the appetite for removing the impediments
to spiritual progress, both of which are venial sins (ad 1).
One need not have the purpose of abstaining from all such sins, collectively (an impossibility), but one should have the purpose of abstaining from them individually.

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intention, by so doing, to deceive someone. It is the first that is
formal (i.e., essential) for the lie. The second is the lie's proper
perfection, so to speak (something distinct from, but normally
accompanying, the essence). 24
Thomas teaches that every lie is a sin, using the word sin to
cover both venial and mortal. The reason is that words are naturally ordered to the manifestation of truth. Accordingly, to use
words to express the false is an abuse of nature. In no circumstances, then, is a lie licit. Thomas makes the argument very
carefully, so as to arrive at a universal ban on lying:
that which is in itself bad in kind, can in no way be good and licit,
because in order that something be good, it is required that all [factors]
rightly concur: "for the good is from the complete cause, while the bad
is from any particular defect," as Dionysius says in On the Divine
Names 4 [no. 30 (PG 3:729)].
But a lie is bad in kind. For it is an act falling upon undue matter,
for since spoken words are naturally signs of thoughts, it is unnatural
and undue that someone signify by speech that which he does not have
in mind. Hence, the Philosopher [Aristotle] says in Nicomachean
Ethics 4 [7 (1127a28)] that "the lie is in itself bad [pravum] and to be
avoided; the true is good and praiseworthy."
Hence, "every lie is a sin,'' as Augustine also says, in the book
Against the Lie [1(PL40:519); 21 (40:547)].'5
24 Ibid. 11-11, q. 110, a. 1, discussing "whether the lie is always opposed to the truth [i.e.
to the virtue of veracity]?": "Now, the proper object of manifestation or enunciation is the
true or the false. But the inordinate intention of the will can bear upon two items, one of
which is that the false be enunciated, the other is the proper effect of false enunciation,
viz. that someone be deceived" (1992b13-20). Now we begin to envisage the act as a
whole:

If, therefore, these three concur, i.e. that that which is enunciated is false, and
there is present the will to enunciate what is false, and also the intention of
deceiving, then there is falseness materially, because the false is said; and formally, because of the will to say what is false; and effectively, because of the will
to give a false impression. However, the intelligible aspect: "lie" is taken from
the formal falsity, i.e. from the very fact that someone has the will to enunciate
the false. Hence, the lie [mendacium] is named from this, that it is "said contrary
to the mind" [contra MENtem DICitur]. (b20-32)
25 Ibid., q. 110, a. 3: the Ottawa editor includes references to Enchir. 18 (PL 40:240) and
22 (40:243).
It is notable that Thomas stresses in this argument the natural character of words as
such. In the much earlier Quodl. 8, q. 6, a. 4, he speaks merely of words having been
"devised" [inventa] in order to be signs of what we have in mind (though the doctrine is
the same).

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This article is the occasion for Thomas to treat of the perennial "Gestapo question": what is one to say to the murderous
agent of an unjust regime, asking about the presence of a victim
one is hiding in one's house? His answer is quite simply that one
ought not to lie, no matter what the consequences. He indicates
that evasiveness should be exploited, but lying is not a thing to
do. The argument of the objector interestingly tries to compare
lying to amputation for health:
The lesser evil is to be chosen so that one avoid the greater evil, as for
example the medical practitioner amputates the member lest the entire
body be corrupted. But it is a lesser harm that someone give rise to a
false opinion in the mind of someone than that someone kill or be
killed. Therefore, a man can licitly lie so as to preserve one [person]
from homicide and preserve another [person] from death.

We notice, in this argument, the social character of veracity and
lying; it measures the harm one does to one's neighbor by lying.
Thomas replies:
It is to be said that the lie does not have the character of sin solely from
the harm it inflicts on one's neighbor, but [already] from its own disorder, as has been said. But it is not licit [non licet] to make use of some
illicit disorder [aliqua illicita inordinatione] in order to impede the
harms and deficiencies of others; just as it is not permitted to steal in
order that a man engage in almsgiving, save perhaps in the case of
necessity in which all things are in common [ownership]. And so it is
not permissible to tell a lie in order that one free another from any peril
whatsoever. Nevertheless it is permissible to hide the truth prudently
under some dissimulation, as Augustine says in the book Against the
Lie [10 (PL 40:553); cf. also On Lying, c. 10 (PL 40:501)].'6

We see that the conception of the lie as a sin is very much tied to
the right use of things (i.e., use in conformity with their own
natures). Just as one should not allow one's appetites (e.g., one's
anger or one's desire for wealth) 21 to be out of line with the rea-

26

27

STh 11-11, q. 110, a. 3, obj. 4 and ad 4.

See ibid., q. 158, a. 3 (2203a44-bl), on anger, and q. 118, a. 4 (2022a38-52), on
avarice, as venial in kind.

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sonable, so one ought not to allow one's speech to be out of line
with its reasonable condition. 28
But is every lie a mortal sin? Definitely not. Reminding us that
a mortal sin is an act contrary to the charity by which we love
God and our neighbor, Thomas presents a discussion in which
we can see the many possibilities involved in lying. We can see
mortal sins of lying, (1) considering the lie just in itself, or (2) considering the further intention one has in lying, or (3) considering
some incidental feature of the situation.
Most important for our topic is the presentation of the lie "just
in itself." Thomas will present a hierarchy of types of lie. It seems
that the word lie, from the viewpoint of moral taxonomy,
requires the same sort of care as does soul in Aristotle's De
anima. Soul does not name one kind of thing only, but a hierarchy of forms, some more perfect than others. 29 So too, here, there
is a hierarchy of lies. To consider the lie "in itself,'' one looks
directly at what it talks about: "ex ipsafalsa signijicatione," from
the false meaning itself. Suppose one lies about God. That is a
mortal sin. Suppose one lies about the nature of things, or about
moral formation. That is a mortal sin, though less grave.
Suppose one lies about a contingent truth, such that the person
to whom one speaks is not harmed by it. That is a venial sin. 30
We see, then, that it would be wrong to say, "lying is only a
venial sin." There are types of lie that are mortal sins, and there
is a type of lie that is a venial sin.
This hierarchy should be related to Thomas 's conception of
the proper perfection of the human mind. Thomas himself does
not make this comparison in the text of the question on lying, but
I believe it is the relevant, and indeed crucial, background. It is
not simply knowledge of any contingent fact that constitutes

28 These sorts of abuses of nature are analogous to what one finds in the criticism
(ibid., q. 154, a. 12) of those sins of lust which are against nature, but in that latter case
the matter is intrinsically grave.
29 Aristotle, De anima 2.3 (414b20-415a15).
30 STh II-II, q. 110, a. 4 (1997a31-b10).

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what properly perfects the mind. 31 Rather, it is (1) the truth about
God, the author of reality; (2) truth about the permanent features
of reality (the species of things, the objects of science); and (3)
truth about morals: these are the things we naturally desire to
know. Thomas presents Adam, prior to the Fall, as perfect in the
order of knowledge of science and morals (though not yet at the
ultimate goal). Yet Adam was not thought to know "how many
pebbles are at the bottom of this or that stream." 32 So also, in
teaching about the communication among angels Thomas distinguishes carefully between the speech that is properly called
"illumination" and the speech that is "merely speech." The former communicates truth concerning God and the nature of
things. The latter speaks merely of what depends on the will of
this or that creature. 33
Thus, lies about things that pertain to the proper perfection of
the human mind are against justice and charity. They are mortal
sins. A lie, on the other hand, that is false concerning contingent
truth not pertaining to the person addressed is a venial sin. It is
31

See especially ibid. I, q. 12, a. 8, ad 4:
the natural desire of the rational creature is to know all those things that pertain to the perfection of the intellect; and these are the species and genera of
things, and the natures [rationes] of them, which anyone seeing the divine
essence will see. But to know other singulars, and their thoughts and deeds,
does not pertain to the perfection of the created intellect; nor does its natural
desire tend towards that, nor again to know those things which are not yet, but
which can be made by God. If nevertheless God alone were to be seen, who is
the fountain and principle of all being and truth [qui est fons et principium
totius esse et veritatis], that would satisfy the natural desire to know, which
would seek nothing else, and would be happy.

Ibid., q. 94, a. 3 (587al-4).
Ibid., q. 107, a. 2. Cf. also 11-11, q. 60, a. 4, ad 2, on whether, in judging the conduct
of persons, what is doubtful ought to be interpreted for the better: It is said that in judging about things (de rebus), as distinct from judging persons (de hominibus), one ought to
take care to judge them precisely as they are. However, in judging of persons, one ought,
if possible, to judge the person favorably. Does this not reflect on the one who judges,
when mistaken, as being an inept judge? Thomas says:
32

33

As for the man who judges, the false judgment by which he judges favorably of
someone does not pertain to what makes his intellect bad [ad malum intellectus
ipsius], just as it does not pertain essentially [secundum se] to the perfection of
[his intellect] to know the truth concerning contingent singulars; rather, it [the
favorable judgment] pertains to good inclination.

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LAWRENCE DEWAN, O.P.

a disorder merely touching on a created good, a thing "for the
end" (adfinem) and not the ultimate end. It is the conception of
the mind and its proper perfection that allows us to assess the
gravity of this sin, and find it "venial."
It is only after he has presented the types of lie that are, in
themselves, mortal and venial that Thomas raises the question of
the further intention, that is, an end in view beyond the lie itself.
It is here that we have the famous triad of lies: malicious, jocose,
and officious (or out of kindness). Obviously, lies that aim to
injure are mortal sins, but lies that are in themselves venial, and
are performed to amuse, are venial. And even less grave than the
comic lie is the kind lie, where one's motive is actually to help
someone. This should be underlined. The so-called officious
lie-the lie out of kindness, the lie to save lives-is of even less
moral importance than the comic lie which, by the way it is told,
is meant to deceive no one.
Lastly, to leave nothing out, Thomas reminds us that there is
always the possibility of a situation that will turn any lie into a
mortal sin (e.g., if it could cause scandal under the circumstances).34
Most illuminating is his treatment of the Egyptian midwives,
who lied to Pharaoh in order to save the male infants of Israel
from death. He treats this first in the discussion of whether every
lie is a sin. The Book of Exodus tells us that God rewarded the
midwives by building them houses. 35 Surely they were not
rewarded for sin! Thomas replies that they were rewarded for
their reverence for God and benevolence toward the Israelites.
They were not rewarded for the lie itself, which followed upon
this good will. In this Thomas is echoing St. Augustine. 36
Ibid. II-II, q. 110, a. 4 (l 997bl1-32).
Exodus 1:21. Modern translations generally say that God gave the midwives "families" or "a posterity" or "descendents." However, the Vulgate has it that God built them
houses: "Et quia timuerunt obstetrices Deum, aedificavit eis domos."
36 STh II-II, q. 110, a. 3, ad 2. Cf. St. Augustine, On the Psalms, vol. 1 (Psalms 1-29),
Ancient Christian Writers 29, translated and annotated by Dame Scholastica Hebgin and
Dame Felicitas Corrigan, Benedictines of Stanbrook (New York: Newman Press, 1960),
53-55: "To speak of what is, is to speak the truth; to speak of what is not, is to tell a lie
[Si enim hoc dicitur quod est, verum dicitur; si autem hoc dicitur quod non est, mendacium est (PL 36:85)] (p. 53). Augustine remarks:
34
35

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However, much more is said in the context of the question, Is
every lie a mortal sin? An adversary, contending that every lie is
a mortal sin, appeals to St. Gregory. The idea is that the good
will of the midwives would ordinarily merit for them an eternal
reward. However, they receive a terrestrial reward. Thus, the lie
must be the occasion for losing the eternal reward, and so must
be a mortal sin (and if even such a lie is a mortal sin, what lie is
not?). Thomas, in his reply, denies that the midwives lost their
eternal reward. Rather, for their good will they did merit eternal
life. Thus St. Jerome has interpreted the "houses" as an eternal
dwelling-place. Thomas even opines that they might have
received terrestrial houses as a reward for the lie itself (that is
how Gregory ought to be interpreted). Thomas had already said,
in an earlier discussion of rewards, that merely terrestrial goods
are not "rewards" properly so called. But he definitely sees the
midwives as meriting eternal life, and the lie does not deprive
them of that. 37 This is in keeping with his doctrine that venial
sins do not eliminate or even diminish charity and grace.38
Many lies are apparently told out of kindness, not malice, the object being
someone's safety or advantage; such were the lies told by the midwives in
Exodus who gave a false report to Pharaoh in order to save the male infants of
Israel from death. But eyen here what is praiseworthy is not the action but the
motive. since those who merely tell lies such as theirs will deserve in time to be
set free from all dissimulation. for in the perfect not eyen these are to be found
Let your speech be Yea, Yea: No, No, we are told. And that which is over and
above these is of evil. Not without reason does Scripture elsewhere declare:
The mouth that belieth killeth the soul, in order to teach us that no perfect and
spiritual man is free to tell a lie to save this transitory life either for himself or
another, since its loss does not kill the soul. (53-54, underlining mine)
However, he goes on to say:
If this is at present beyond us, we must at least admit of lies only in strict neces-

sity. We may then deserve to get rid even of white lies, if we do no worse, and
receive strength from the Holy Ghost to make light of any suffering for truth's
sake ....
To sum up: there are two kinds of lie which are no great crime but not exactly free from sin, the lie spoken in jest, and the lie spoken to render some service. The lie spoken in jest does very little harm, since it deceives nobody. The
man to whom it is told knows it is only banter. And the second lie is all the less
offensive because it means well. (54)
37 STh 11-11, q. 110, a. 4, obj. 4 and ad 4. The earlier discussion is I-II, q. 114, a. 10 and
ad 2.
38 See ibid. 11-11, q. 24, a. 10:

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If we apply this solution to our modern question about lying
to the Gestapo to save the Jewish family we are hiding, the
answer of Thomas is that we should not tell a lie, even a harmless lie. To do so would be a venial sin, and one should never
commit a venial sin, no matter what good might come of it.
However, given the human condition, most good people, most
saints (we might even say), will tell the lie, that is, will commit
the venial sin. 39 For their charity, which consists in their good
will toward their neighbors, God will reward them with eternal

Similarly also, neither can charity be diminished by venial sin, neither effectively nor meritoriously. Not indeed effectively, since it does not touch charity
itself. For charity is with respect to the ultimate end; but venial sin is a disorder
with respect to those things which are for the end. But the love of the end is not
diminished by the fact that someone commits some disorderly act [inordinationem] regarding those things which are for the end; for example, sometimes it
happens that some weak people, while they love health very much, still behave
in a disorderly fashion as regards the keeping to a diet; so also in the speculative sciences, false opinions regarding those things which are deduced from the
principles do not diminish certitude concerning the principles ....
Similarly also, venial sin does not merit the diminution of charity. For when
someone is delinquent in a minor matter, he does not merit to suffer detriment
in a major one. For God does not turn himself away from man more than man
turns himself away from him [God]. (1538a52-b22)
Thomas adds that one can call "indirectly, diminution of charity" the disposition to corruption of charity which is brought about by repeated venial sin.
39 In ibid. I-II, q. 74, a. 9 and in De Malo q. 7, a. 5, it is asked about venial sins in the
ratio superior, that is, reason considering the eternal or divine law, and, by deliberation,
having the last word on what we do. The latter text, at Leonine edition lines 191-98,
reads:
[Concerning deliberation] But when something is accepted [i.e. chosen] which
does not exclude the [true ultimate] end, but nevertheless without it one comes
to the end in a better way, because in some respect it retards from the end or
disposes to the contrary of the end, then it is a venial sin: for example, when
someone speaks an idle word [verbum otiosum], even deliberating that it is a
venial sin disposing to a mortal sin and is in some respect deficient [deficiens]
from the rightness of justice which leads to God.
This would pertain to my scenario in which I say that I am going to lie to save a life. Such
saying would pertain to deliberation about venial sin, and, as terminating in the choice
of the lie, would be itself a venial sin. Teaching people that it is not a venial sin (i.e. no
sin at all), or that it is a mortal sin, would be a mortal sin; in other words, knowingly
teaching a false doctrine as to the nature of lying would be a lie that is contrary to charity and justice.

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life. It is even possible that for the venial sin God might reward
them with some terrestrial goods, though that is hardly of interest to such people.
Ill. REALLY BAD?
Now, thus far my aim has been to show how minor a moral
fault a venial sin is, and this venial sin in particular. I did say
that venial sins could only be called "bad" in a qualified sense of
the word. However, to the extent that I have succeeded, the
question arises: is a venial sin really bad in any sense? Might we
not say that the person should lie to the Gestapo? Might it not be
a terrible moral fault not to tell the lie? And it is the answer to
this challenge which seems to me to show the importance of the
entire question of venial sin. For the answer turns on one's fundamental conception of the moral life. One must have firmly in
view the project of friendship with God, a friendship to be perfected by action according to reason. One is dealing with an
almighty and universally provident God. He is the author of
nature. We humans come upon an already given scene, and our
role is to cooperate with the author of nature. The rejection of
mortal sin is obvious. The rejection of venial sin is the extension
of the same primary project to every nook and cranny of our
existence. We should refuse to perform any act that misuses the
nature that is given into our charge (which ultimately includes
the whole material universe). 40
The temptation to think that we would be morally at fault for
not telling the lie to save a life arises from quite a different moral
scenario. Of course, it plays on our quite reasonable and wholesome love of human life.41 However, it arises from a conception
of the moral agent as much more "an engineer of reality" than a
co-operator with the author of reality. It acknowledges certain
given "ends or goals of life," but sees less than it should of the
givenness of nature and natures.
To fill out the appropriate picture of our moral life, and the
40 STh I, q. 96, aa. 1 and 2.
41 Cf. nevertheless ibid. I-II, q. 2, a. 5: human corporeal existence cannot be the goal
of the human being.

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zone to which venial sin pertains, it is necessary to recall certain
doctrines concerning the condition of Adam before the Fall, that
is, the state of "original justice" or "innocence." Thomas conceives of this state of grace as one in which, as long as the mind
of man remained properly subordinate to God, the lower powers
of man would be rightly subordinate to the higher powers.
Accordingly, in that state, venial sin was impossible. This is
because sins venial in kind have their origin in a certain insubordination of the sense appetites. 42 For example, in the Gestapo
case, we may lie because we "just cannot stand the thought of
those good people dying"; such an event would be just too sad.
Thus, venial sins are conceived of in the light of the perfect condition of the human being, in which there can be no flaw in the
functioning of the lower appetites in their order to our higher
nature. In other words, it is necessary to view the human being
as capable of very great moral perfection, if one is to take seriously the sort of fault that is venial sin. This is to say that venial
sin is part of the doctrine of human nature as a fallen nature.
Somewhat in the same line of thought, we see that a pure spirit,
an angel, simply cannot commit a venial sin. Only one sin of the
angel was possible, and that had to be a mortal sin. 43 The venial
sin is thus a problem typical of the human being in the fallen
state. It corresponds to the nobility of the human calling, and the
wounded character of our nature.
From what I have said, the question should arise, to what
42 Ibid., q. 89, a. 3. Cf. ibid., q. 71, a. 2, ad 3; the third objection points to the prevalence of vice among human beings. Surely what is against human nature will not be
found to prevail among humans? Thomas answers:

in man nature is twofold, viz. the rational and the sensitive. And because
through the operation of sense man comes to the acts of reason, therefore more
people follow the inclinations of sensitive nature than the order of reason; for
there are more who attain [assequuntur} to the beginning of a thing than who
follow through [perveniunt] to its achievement. But it is from this that vices
and sins occur among human beings, that they follow the inclination of the sensitive nature against [contra] the order of reason. (Italics mine)
Though the argument concerns mortal sin primarily, it is a most important consideration
of the rationale of the existence of sin in the human race. It should help us in our conception of the psychology of sin.
43 Ibid., q. 89, a. 4.

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extent is this a doctrine that pertains to moral philosophy, as distinct from Christian theology? 44 Without the doctrines of the
state of original justice and of the Fall, one might simply judge
that such disorder in human behavior is an inevitable failing of
human nature. One might think, then, that it is something to
avoid if possible, but not something to take very seriously in the
moral life. This is certainly, I would say, a much better, more reasonable, view than that proposed by Kant.
Kant's approach seems far too abstract. Thomas's distinction
between what does and what does not constitute the perfection
of the human intellect makes good sense. Once the reality of a
"lie about contingent truth" is isolated for consideration, one can
then raise the question of one's intention in telling the lie. There
is a world of difference between lying in such matters harmlessly to
save a life, and lying for commercial advantage or other unjust
reasons.
Thomas, contrasting his own approach in morals with that of
Aristotle, notes that Aristotle calls "bad,'' properly, whatever is
harmful to other people, and so he said that the prodigal person
is not "bad." The same is the case with other actions that do no
harm. Thomas says that he himself calls "bad," more generally,
everything that is repugnant to right reason. 45 Also interesting,
when cataloguing the acts of law (viz., to command, to forbid, to
permit, and to punish), Thomas says of "permission," "But there
are some [acts] which, as to their kind, are [morally] indifferent;
and with respect to these, the law has [the role] of permitting."
But he immediately adds: "And all those acts, also, can be called
'indifferent' which are either slightly good or slightly bad [vet
parum bani vet parum mali]." 46 We should remember Thomas's
doctrine that the law does not prohibit the venial sin. Still, the
venial sin, for example, the harmless lie, is not properly a morally
"indifferent" act. It is flawed from the viewpoint of reason.
44 We should also remember what Jacques Maritain called "moral philosophy, adequately taken" ("la philosophie morale adequatement prise"): the need moral philosophy
has, for its own proper full development, to be supplemented by divine revelation even
as regards the order of specification. Cf. Maritain, Science et sagesse (Paris: Labergerie,
1935), 288-345.
45 STh I-II, q. 18, a. 9, ad 2.
46 Ibid., q. 92, a. 2 (1217a29-33).

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IV. CONCLUSION
By way of conclusion, I will simply say that reflection on the
conception of venial sin cannot be neglected, if one wishes truly
to assess the morality of the harmless and indeed helpful lie.
Kant's contention that such a lie is "a wrong done to mankind
generally" should be rejected. With St. Thomas and St.
Augustine, we do not approve of such a lie, but we do say, to others and to ourselves, that if refraining from such lies
is at present beyond us, we must at least admit of lies only in this sort
of necessity. We may then deserve to get rid even of these lies, if they
alone remain, and receive strength from the Holy Ghost to make light
of any suffering for truth's sake.47 (See Appendix 3)
APPENDICES

1)

In connection with the Holy Eucharist and its reception, there
are good texts on the distinction between habitual charity and
actual charity, so that while one does not have the spiritual
refreshment of the sacrament, one can still have the grace from
the sacrament; this is important for the question, can one sin
venially and love God charitably?
The text I have in mind is STh III, q. 79, a. 8. Thomas asks
whether venial sin impedes the effect of the Eucharistic sacrament. Speaking of actually exercised venial sin fprout sunt actu
exercita], he says:

47 Augustine, On the Psalms, 1:54 (on Ps 5). Here I have revised the translation, quoted earlier. The Latin reads:

[He is speaking of avoiding lies of the description: Multa quidem uidentur pro
salute aut commodo alicuius, non malitia, sed benignitate mendacia.] Si autem
hoc nondum potest, uel sola huius necessitatis habeat mendacia, ut etiam ab
istis, si sola remanserint, liberari mereatur et Spiritus sancti robur accipere,
quo quidquid perpetiendum est pro ueritate contemnat.
Augustine wrote these commentaries (on Pss. 1-32) in 392, the year after his ordination
to the priesthood, and three years before he became bishop (see On the Psalms, 1:5-7) He
is commenting on verse 7: "Thou wilt destroy all who speak a lie." Presenting the lie as
the contrary of the truth, he is quick to deny that the lie has any nature of its own. It partakes of nonbeing, not of being.

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venial sins do not totally impede the effect of this sacrament, but [do so]
partially. For it has [already] been said that the effect of this sacrament
is not only the obtaining of habitual grace or charity, but also a certain
actual refreshment of spiritual sweetness. This latter is impeded if
someone comes to this sacrament with a mind distracted through
venial sins. But it does not take away the growth in habitual grace or
charity.

And in the reply to the first objection we read:
he who approaches this sacrament with an act of venial sin eats spiritually in habitual fashion, but not actually. And so he receives the
habitual effect of this sacrament, but not the actual.

We thus see that habitual action, "going through the motions" to
a certain extent (where that involves no disrespect), results in a
growth in grace and charity, at the habitual level: that is, one
obtains an increase in one's readiness to act charitably. Thus,
what one does habitually, one really does, and one really derives
benefit from it. This helps us to get the picture of ourselves as
caught in venial sin, and yet as habitually ordered towards God
as source of beatitude (even though what we are actually doing
does not have such a character as to advance us actually towards
beatitude). There is nothing in what we are doing that points us
towards an ultimate end other than God, the object of beatitude.
We are loving God as ultimate end, not actually, but habitually.
2)

While sins can be venial or mortal depending on factors having to do with the sinner himself, what I wish to get at is the
venial sin, as so determined by the very nature of the act. The
following text [De Malo q. 7, a. 1 (Leonine lines 335-62)] seems to
me especially helpful. Thomas says:
In another way, it comes about that some sin is contrary or is not contrary to charity from the very type of the act, which is from the side of
the object or matter which is contrary or not contrary to charity. For
just as some food is contrary to life, for example a poisonous food,
whereas some food is not contrary to life, though it imposes an impediment as regards the right condition of life, for example fat food and not
easily digestible food, or else, if it is suitably digestible, because it is not
taken in due measure; so also, in human actions, something is found
which of itself is contrary to charity towards God and neighbor: viz.

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LAWRENCE DEWAN, O.P.

those things by which are taken away subjection and reverence of man
to God, as blasphemy, diabolic activities, and things of that sort; and
also those things which do away with the association [convictum] of
human society, for example theft, murder, and such; for human beings
cannot live socially together where such things are perpetrated randomly and indifferently. And these are mortal sins in their very type, no
matter with what intention or disposition of the will they be done. But
there are some [actions] which, though they contain an inordination,
nevertheless do not directly exclude either of the aforementioned: as,
for example, that a man tell a lie not concerning the Faith, nor tending
to harm one's neighbor, but to delight him or even to aid him, or if someone goes to excess in food and drink and other such. Hence, these are
venial sins in their kind or type. [Italics mine]

Notice this inclusion of drink. We might note that Thomas
changed his mind about the seriousness of excessive drinking
when the beverage can cause drunkenness. Thus, in De Malo q.
2, a. 8, ad 3 and q. 7, a. 4, ad 1, drunkenness is venial in kind,
whereas in STh I-II, q. 88, a. 5, ad 1 and II-II, q. 150, a. 2 (which
is directly on the topic), it is very explicitly mortal in kind.
However, he still mentions venial sins of overindulgence in beverages generally.

3) Disputed Questions
When I put the question to a philosophical (and decidedly
Christian) friend, he said he would be inclined to think one
might be culpable for not telling the lie. The only answer to that
is the natural status of speech.
He asked whether there is not reason to abuse a nature in
extreme circumstances. This might well be what the philosopher
without revelation should say, at least as regards lying about
contingent truth, a rather minor abuse of a nature. The lie
becomes inconsiderable in the setting of the saving of a life.
I am saying that there is a criticism to be made of the lie, but
that most people will tell the lie, and that it is not gravely wrong.
They are in the position of the midwives.
Someone asked me why I could not use the lie as a form of
self-defense, just as I would use a gun. The only answer is that
some things qualify as legitimate weapons, the sort of thing one
can use to defend oneself, so long as one uses it moderately.

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Words used as lies are not suitable weapons. Words might be
used as weapons, as when I shout to frighten someone. But the
lie is using the word in a bad way to scare someone off. It would
be somewhat similar, or analogous, to committing fornication as
a means of avoiding death. (However, that would be a mortal
sin, and lying about contingent truth in a harmless way is a
venial sin.)
Why is an amputation good and a little life-saving lie bad? I
believe the answer must move along the lines of self-defense.
Amputation is presented in terms of part and whole. Still,
prominent in its explanation is the responsibility one has for
one's own health (STh II-II, q. 65, a. 1). And this is prominent in
the presentation of self-defense (ibid., q. 64, a. 7).
The answer, then, seems to lie in the reply to the question,
concerning self-defense, why one cannot commit adultery or fornication, or any other mortal sin, to save one's life. Thomas
replies:
the act of fornication or of adultery is not ordered to the conservation of one's own life by necessity [ex necessitate], the way the
act [is] from which sometimes homicide follows. (Ibid., q. 64, a.
7, ad 4)
All the more, there is a certain natural necessity in the relation
of parts to whole that justifies amputation. But there is not the
same relation of lying to saving the life of oneself or one's neighbor. The lie may not be a mortal sin, but it is something not to
be done.

ON AFFIRMING A DOMINICAL INTENTION OF A
MALE PRIESTHOOD
GUY MANSINI,

0.S.B.

Saint Meinrad School of Theology
Saint Meinrad, Indiana

ECENT EXAMINATION of the Church's exclusion of
women from presbyteral orders has focused in large part
n the theological intelligibility of the exclusion. Granted
the fact of the "constant and universal tradition of the Church,''
theologians have sought to explain its theological significance,
and, in fact, have located it precisely in the order of "significance": a male priest more fittingly communicates the agency,
both historical and present, of Christ in the constitution of the
sacrament of the Eucharist. Furthermore, the maleness of
Christ, as well as male-gendered designations of God, are bound
up with the signification of the transcendence of God to the
created order. 1
"Granted the fact"-largely, the fact of the constant tradition
has been granted, notwithstanding skirmishes over such matters
as Junias in Romans 16 and the status and function of deaconesses. 2 The demand of the argument has therefore been as
follows: even supposing the "constant and universal tradition of
the Church" in this matter, we cannot tell whether this tradition
is properly theological or not unless we can discern why the
' I will mention here only Benedict Ashley's "Gender and the Priesthood of Christ: A
Theological Reflection," The Thomist 57 (1993): 343-79, which is especially comprehensive as to the entire gamut of questions involved.
2 So for instance the draft study paper of the CTSA, "Tradition and Woman's
Ordination: A Question of Criteria," Origins 26, no. 6 (27 June 1996): 90-95, raises no
questions about the fact of the constant exclusion of women from presbyteral orders.

301

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GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

tradition of exclusion is a "good thing," as opposed to an accident
of human history having nothing to do with revealed truth and
the communication of grace. It is not enough simply to appeal to
the material fact of the tradition of the exclusion of women. It is
but a dead fact unless we can discern in it some soul of theological
intelligibility.
When such intelligibility is provided, however, the argument
promptly returns to the question of the tradition and, specifically,
its foundation. Grant the intelligibility of the exclusion delimited
in the "iconic" argument and in such appeals to presbyteral
action in persona Christi as we have seen over the years: still, it
can be alleged, there is no reason to maintain the tradition, intelligible as it may be, unless we know that this tradition is willed
by Christ. There can be lots of intelligent arrangements of things
in the Church that nevertheless are not functions of the divine or
dominical will. The bare example of Christ (i.e., "he didn't, in
fact, call women to be of the Twelve") is a brute fact. Why take
it, as does Ordinatio sacerdotalis, as indicating the Lord's will
and intention? Is it, too, rendered "non-brute" by the theological
intelligibility delimited just above? If it is applied to the example
of the Lord from outside of it, so to speak, as something stuck on,
then we are no closer to a discernment of dominical intention.
And apart from that, it may be urged, the tradition, intelligible
as it may be, is not normative. 3
The relation of the intention of Christ to the theological intelligibility of the exclusion of women from presbyteral orders,
then, is the same as its relation to the fact of the constant tradition. They are necessary, but not sufficient conditions for asserting that the exclusion is intended by Christ. If Christ willed the
exclusion, then it will follow both (a) that there is a constant tradition of not ordaining women and (b) that there is some
theological intelligibility to the exclusion. For (a) it must be that
3 There is also question raised about the constancy in the tradition of the expression of
the intelligibility which the exclusion is alleged to have; so the CTSA's "Tradition and
Women's Ordination," 91-92. But supposing that some past explanations, or the earliest
explanations, of the exclusion appeal to an inferiority of women to men that cannot be
sustained, it is hard to see that this implies anything against either the correctness of current explanations that make no such appeal or the possibility of dominical intention.

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the Church remains faithful to dominical intention concerning
her substance. And (b) the Lord could have no arbitrary intentions touching the substance of the Church. If there is no theological point to the exclusion, therefore, he could not have
intended it. Still, to assert the intention of Christ on the grounds
of (a) and (b), either alone or together, is to fall prey to the
fallacy of affirming the consequent.
It seems that nothing will satisfy except some more direct
argument manifesting the intention of Christ. It is my intention
here to show how such an argument might be made. 1\vo difficulties stand in the way. First, since this manifestation can hardly
be expected to appeal to an express intention of the Lord, some
sense has to be given to an appeal to an "implicit" intention. 4
Second, such an argument evidently assumes that the Lord
intended both an apostolic ministry in the Church and, indeed,
the Church. It supposes that he instituted the Church and her
ministry.
It is perhaps with this second matter that we locate the concealed but real sticking point for many who have difficulty with
the Church's teaching and practice excluding women from
orders. They find it preposterous to impute any intention on this
matter to the Lord because they have been taught by a skeptical
fundamental theology that it is preposterous to impute any
intention to the Lord concerning the Church at all, and this
notwithstanding the straightforward teaching of the Church
that, together with her ministry in its current and lived form, she
has indeed been instituted and willed by Christ. 5
All that F. P. Fiorenza, for instance, feels himself able to
defend is that the Church is in dynamic continuity with Jesus of
Nazareth, not that she is instituted by him. That is, the Church
does the things and says the things that Jesus did and said. There
is a continuity of teaching and praxis. That is all that can be critically historically asserted, and so that is all that Fiorenza feels
4 I mean to bracket here Manfred Hauke 's controverted reading of 1 Corinthians 14:37
in his Women in the Priesthood? (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 363-90.
5 See for instance Lumen gentium, 18ff., and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos.
763-66, 874.

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himself able to assert theologically. 6 F. A. Sullivan, to take another instance, tries to elide the question: he downplays the importance of any "mere act of institution" by Jesus of Nazareth, and
prefers to concentrate on the Church as the "fruit" (effect) of the
Paschal Mystery. 1 And relative to the ecclesial form of the apostolic ministry, Sullivan defends the divine, but not the dominical,
institution of the monarchical episcopate. 8
My own position wili become clear in what follows, but it will
perhaps be helpful for me to state some matters of principle at
the outset. First, the statement that Jesus of Nazareth founded or
instituted the Church is a statement that, while in principle falsifiable by history, is not such as to be wholly accessible except to
faith. History can falsify, or support, but not establish it.
Supposing it true, however, that all that critical historical studies
can establish is "dynamic continuity" between Christ and the
Church, there is no reason to take that as a limit, as Fiorenza
does, to what in faith we confess the historical Jesus did and
intended. 9 On the contrary, the critical establishment of probable
continuity provides just what is needed from historical science,
no more, no less, to assert in faith that Jesus of Nazareth founded the
Church. To state this another way: critically established "dynamic
continuity" provides rational warrant for seeing such things as
the celebration of the Last Supper and the election of the Twelve
as acts of foundation. 10
6 F. P. Fiorenza, Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church (New York: Crossroad,
1984), 168: "Something is divinely instituted to the degree that it mirrors the relations
between Jesus and the Church as normatively described in the New Testament." But the
New Testament is not interested in the relation of"foundation" (131); the only normative
relations are those of continuity of praxis and preaching. See especially his reading of
Matthew 16 (141-46).
For the notion of "dynamic continuity," see A. Cody, "The Foundation of the Church:
Biblical Criticism and Ecumenical Discussion," Theological Studies 34 (1973): 3-18.
1 F. A. Sullivan, The Church We Believe In (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), 9, 21, 6970.
8 Ibid., 182-84.
9 It is true that Fiorenza says as much (82-83), but I think he in fact decides that the
absence of an historical demonstration of foundation means that we cannot assert it even
theologically.
10 This is different, evidently, from holding that historical reason all by itself establishes
foundation on the basis of such things as the institution of the Eucharist and the election
of the 1\velve.

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The exclusion of women from priestly orders has the same sort
of status, it seems to me, as does the statement that Christ
founded the Church.
Second, I do not think there is any distinction to be made
between the divine and dominical institution of the Church, her
ministry, structure, sacraments, etc. But this Christological
matter will best emerge only later.
Since we can hardly speak of an intention to exclude women
from presbyteral orders unless we can def end in some way that
these orders themselves are intended by Christ, I offer a general
reconstruction of the constitution of the Church's ministry relative to the "intention" of Christ. This is largely coincident, evidently, with the relation of the monarchical episcopate to the
intention of Christ. This section will have the advantage, I hope,
of indicating the way to allay skepticism as to the foundation of
the Church generally, as well as showing us how the argument is
to be constructed as bearing on the exclusion of women. Second,
the argument as bearing on women is picked out in detail. Third,
I anticipate some objections to the idea of "implicit intention."
I. THE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH 's MINISTRY
If such things as the monarchical episcopate and the exclusion
of women from orders cannot be tied to an express dominical
word, either before or after the resurrection, how can we speak
of Christ's intending these things at all? How can the Church
teach that "he willed that their [the apostles'] successors, the
bishops namely, should be the shepherds in his Church"? 11
The Church can do so according to some such story as the following, in which the priestly ministry of the Church is seen to be
constituted in the concatenation of the following temporally
discrete moments.
On the "criterion of dissimilarity," see Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London: SCM
Press, 1973), chapter 4, and on the relation between faith and history, chapter 5. See also
the third proposition of the International Theological Commission's "The Consciousness
of Christ Concerning Himself and His Mission," International Theological Commission:
Texts and Documents, 1969-1985 (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989), 311-13, and note the
appeal to "ecclesiastical-dogmatic" exegesis (306).
11 Lumen Gentium, 18 (Flannery edition).

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A. The Lord Jesus before his passion, death, and glorious resurrection chose twelve apostles whose function is: (1) to signify
the fullness of the eschatological gathering of Israel set afoot by
the Lord; (2) in the future Kingdom, to judge the twelve tribes of
Israel (Matt 19:28); (3) even before the Paschal event, to help
effect the gathering of Israel by preaching the same message as
that of the Lord, namely the nearness of the Kingdom (see the
missioning in, e.g., Matt 10; Mark 6); and (4) after the Paschal
event, but signified prior to it, to bind and loose on earth in a
way effective for heaven (Matt 18: 18; cf. Matt 16: 19).
The third function derives from the first: the 1\velve are truly
signs because they help bring about what they signify. And the
fourth derives from the second: for it is according as one recognizes Jes us now that he is recognized by the Lord in the eschaton
(Luke 12:8), and so it is according as one conforms to the witness
of the 1\velve that he is saved, and therefore also, the witness
and preaching of the 1\velve must even now be authoritative
and normative. If one thinks that the sayings that indicate (2) are
plausibly historical, then it seems that the sayings indicating (4)
are so also, for there is no great leap from one to the other:
eschatological fate depends on present faith, just as in Luke
12:8.
B. On the night before he died, the Lord further charged the
1\velve (5) to celebrate the Supper as a memorial of him and his
mission.
C. The Risen Lord showed himself to the corporation of the
1\velve and so gave them the further function (6) of witnessing
to the inauguration of the Kingdom as already effected by his
redeeming passion, resurrection, and by the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit; and (7) of baptizing (Matt 20); and (8) of forgiving
sins Gohn 20). One could say that (7) and (8) are contained in (6):
witnessing to the forgiveness of sins effected by Christ and to the
gift of the Spirit is not some abstract announcement, but is consummated in the communication of forgiveness and the Spirit in
baptism.
As confirmed and consolidated by the resurrection and their
function of witnessing to the resurrection (6): (3), itself a

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consequence of (1), founds the post-resurrection preaching
function of the apostolate; (4), itself a consequence of (2), and in
conjunction with (7) and (8), founds their ruling or shepherding
function in respect to that visible gathering of those destined to
the Kingdom, namely the Church; and (5), again in conjunction
with (7) and (8), founds their responsibility for the Christian cult.
D. The late-first-century Church (as the Gospel of John witnesses) discerns in the complex of A, B, and C an intention of the
Lord that those whom the Lord sends as in (3) are themselves
sent with the power to send, even as was he Gohn 17:18; 20:21).
For the gospel as we have it envisages a time when the 1\velve
will die Gohn 21:2 lff.). Furthermore, the Third Letter of John,
written by an "elder," is addressed to a Gaius, who is a leader of
some sort, and speaks of Diotrephes, another leader, probably a
proto-bishop. There is also witness to the same intention in the
First Letter of Clement (44). It is, furthermore, implausible to
suppose that the Lord thought that eleven disciples would be
sufficient to make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19). These
indications do not necessarily mean, however, that we have to
impute to the pre- or even post-Paschal Lord a signifying of this
intention that is more than implicit. We should, however, be
quite clear about the fact that the late-first-century Church was
in a better position to discern the intentions of the Lord than we
are.
E. In the Holy Spirit, the late-first-century Church also determines that the commissioning or sending of further witnesses by
the apostles or their collaborators occurs by the laying on of
hands, as evidenced by the Pastorals. This is simply a cultic and
sacramental way of signifying access to a sacramental ministry
that has responsibility for the Christian cult. 12 Such congruence

12 "Sacramental ministry" is meant here in the sense picked out by Cardinal Ratzinger
on the basis of such texts as Matthew 10:40 and John 15:5: "a ministry ... in which the
human being on the basis of divine communication acts and gives what can never be
given or done on the basis of human resources is in the church's tradition called a sacrament"; see his "Biblical Foundations of Priesthood," Origins 20, no. 19 (18 October 1990):
312.

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suggests the unfolding of what is implicated, implicit, in the
original establishment of the apostolic ministry.
F. The monarchical episcopate emerges in the late first and
early second century as an institutional response to docetism and
gnosticism, and so is to be ascribed to the work of the Holy Spirit
of Christ. This emergence is a determination of the reality of
apostolic office as already constituted by the Lord, both pre- and
post-Paschal (A, B, C), and as already understood by the Church
(D) and regulated by the Church (E). It is a way of structuring
apostolic ministry within the local Church. Can we say that it,
too, is implicitly intended by Christ? In the Letters of St.
Ignatius of Antioch, the monarchical episcopate appears as a sort
of (non-demonstrative) deduction from an appreciation of the
reality and requirements of the unity of a local Church: the unity
of faith and love; the unity of worship around "one altar"; the
unity of local presbytery and Church as imitating the unity of the
apostles under Christ and of all things under God the Father. If
such unity can be ascribed to the intention of the Lord CT ohn
17:21), then so can the means to achieve it. The formation of the
monarchical episcopate as well, then, can be understood to be
implicitly intended by the Lord.
G. Also in the second century, when the question arises of
ordaining or not ordaining women, the Church consciously and
of set purpose does not, and on the basis of an appeal to the
intention of the Lord. Therefore, etc. But of this last more later.

II. THE INTENTION TO EXCLUDE WOMEN FROM ORDERS
Sections D through G above appeal to the notion of an
"implicit" intention. The nature of this appeal has now to be
clarified; the condition of rightly appealing to it has now to be
stated.
The notion itself was introduced by the 1993 "Clarifications"
of the second Anglican-Roman
Catholic International
Commission. 13

13

Origins 24, no. 17 (6 October 1994): 303.

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The sacramental ministry is something positively intended by God and
derives from the will and institution of Jesus Christ. This does not necessarily imply a direct and explicit action by Jesus in the course of his
earthly life. A distinction needs to be drawn between what Jesus is
recorded as saying and doing, and his implicit intentions, which may
not have received explicit formulation till after the resurrection, either
in words of the risen Lord himselfor through his Holy Spirit instructing the
primitive community.
There are explicit, formulated intentions, and unformulated but
still real intentions implicit in what is explicitly formulated and
actually done. Granted this distinction, part-but only part-of
the argument in section F, for instance, runs as follows:
Whatever can be imputed to the Church's determination in the
Holy Spirit of apostolic office, and as required for its existence,
can be imputed to the Lord's intention, express or implicit; but a
monarchical episcopate can be so imputed; therefore, it can be
imputed to the Lord's intention. But since there is no direct or
explicit word or action of Jesus so signifying, it must be ascribed
to an implicit intention. The key idea is that whatever is required
for the existence of an institution is a means to the end of the
existence of the institution, and that he who wills the end wills
(and intends) the means. In willing the existence of apostolic
office, the Lord willed what is required for its existence.
It may be objected that this argument simply identifies without warrant what the Church in fact decided with a decision in
the Holy Spirit and an intention of the Lord. This however is not
so, and the above formulation captures but part of the argument.
There must be some word or action in which the implicit can be
seen to be contained. That is a condition of responsibly appealing to an implicit intention. So, with regard to the monarchical
episcopate, the alleged warrant consists in the sort of things St.
Ignatius evokes, like the presidency of the Lord over against the
apostles, or more simply the implied concern that a teacher-the
Teacher-has for his students to remain in his teaching and so be
of one mind. In other words, the Lord has so to indicate the
shape of the end that the means settled on by the Church really
do suggest themselves as the requisite means. For here, after all,
the "means" are not extrinsic to the "end," but rather are more

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simply specifications of it, or internal articulations within it. It is
more like figuring out how an artist intended to complete a portrait than it is like figuring out what road to take to the county
seat.
Is there any similar warrant, however, when it comes to the
exclusion of women from orders? Yes, there is. It consists in the
convergence of two things. First, there must be an appreciation
of apostolic ministry as rightly described as ministry in persona
Christi, as "representing" the Lord, on the basis of such texts as
Matthew 10:40, "He who receives you receives me." 14 Second,
there must be an appreciation of the dominical adoption of the
sexual symbolism of the Old Covenant in such sayings as
Matthew 9:15 ("Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the
bridegroom is with them?") and the story of the wise and foolish
virgins (Matt 25). 15 As L. Ligier observes, in virtue of the incarnation the nuptial symbolism of the Old Testament passes from
the order of figures to that of reality, and acquires a sacramental
sense. 16 But the point I emphasize here is that this symbolism is
applied by the Lord to himself. The convergence of these two
things-apostolic mission as an extension of the mission of
Christ and Christ's understanding of his mission in terms of the
nuptial symbolism of the Old Covenant-permit us to see his
example of electing only men to the 1\velve as instinct with an
"intention." These are the "explicit" things in which the Church
can discern an "implicit" intention.
It will be observed that the "implication"-either
for the
monarchical episcopate or for the exclusion of women-is pretty
loose. From what the Lord is taken to have done and said, there
is no strict demonstration of either of these things. This should
not surprise us. Presumably, we have learned that the development of doctrine is not really conformable to any of the various
14 See Ratzinger, "Biblical Foundations," 312, on the mission of the apostles as a continuation of the mission of Christ, such that "someone becomes Christ's voice and hands
in the world."
15 See the further reflections of this symbolism in John 3:29 ("he who has the bride is
the bridegroom"); the miracle of Cana in John 2 as an allegory of the marriage of Christ
and his Church; and Rev 19:7; 21:2, 9; 22:17; 2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:23.
16 L. Ligier, "Women and the Ministerial Priesthood," Origins 7, no. 44 (20 April 1978):
698.

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theories of the "theological conclusion." Development, just as it
is not anti-historical, is not anti-logical. But neither is logic its
adequate instrument. Development of doctrine is theological,
and therefore, when it is said that the Church determines things
"in the Holy Spirit,'' the addition is not superfluous or idle. 17
III. IMPLICIT INTENTION

I will skip the host of objections of a purely historical and
exegetical nature that can be put to the foregoing; such questions, for instance, as to whether the missionary commissioning
of the Twelve in Matthew 10 is a retrojection of post-Paschal
practice, or as to the relation of the "Twelve" to the "apostles,'' or
as to the anti-hierarchical character of John, or as to the presidency of the Eucharist, etc. This ground has been dug, churned,
shelled, mined, and booby-trapped for a long time now. I suppose everyone knows the issues and knows his or her own mind
on them.
I turn rather to objections to the form of the arguments and,
especially, to the notion of an implicit intention.
The utility of the distinction between an express and an
implicit intention is that it lets one take with all seriousness the
relative probabilities, as determined by a consideration of texts,
times, and cultures, of someone being able to ask questions about
office in the Church. The relevant questions cannot be formulated
prior to the practical situations that generate them. Prior to the
situations that call for discernment and decision, it is neither
prudent, possible, nor necessary for the Lord to give direction. It
is not prudent, for one does not effectively teach in the absence
of real questions. It is not possible, for one cannot formulate
answers to unaskable questions. It is unnecessary, for it is
enough for the Lord: (1) to establish the reality of office; and (2)
to send his Spirit onto the Church.
The point of the distinction might be put as follows. If the historian says, "There is no evidence of an express intention of Jesus
17 For the distinction of logical and theological accounts of development, see Jan H.
Walgrave's magisterial Unfolding Revelation: The Nature of Doctrinal Development
(London: Hutchinson, 1972).

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of Nazareth relative to such things as the episcopate, the laying
on of hands, and the exclusion of women,'' that is fine. On the
other hand, if it is thence to be concluded that Jes us of Nazareth
did not intend these things at all, and that therefore they are
human inventions, and that consequently they may be revised,
that is something else. But it is the ascription of these things to
an implicit intention that takes account of the absence of
evidence for an express intention.
At this juncture, it is to be emphasized that an implicit intention is being taken to be an unexpressed but actual intention.
One may, for instance, express his will of an end but not express
his will of the means. "I want to go to the store." "Are you taking
the Ford or the Chevy?" "The Chevy; the Ford doesn't have any
brakes, remember?" In expressing an intention to go to the store,
we may say that the intention to take the Chevy was already
implicitly present. Again, in expressing one's will of some reality
under a general description, one may implicitly intend a specification of that reality, which specification would come to light
under appropriate questioning.
There is, however, another way one might want to analyze an
implicit intention. 18 "I want to go to the store." "You'd better take
the Chevy, since the Ford is unreliable." "Thanks, I didn't know
that; I'll take the Chevy." We might say here, too, that there was
an intention to take the Chevy already present in the intention to
go to the store. Evidently, however, the cognitive situations of
the one intending at the time he first speaks are quite different in
the two cases. In the second, there is a real ignorance, and the
settled intention to take the Chevy is present only potentially or
virtually. For the sake of clarity, let us limit "implicit intention"
to the first case, and call the second "virtual intention."
Now, it might be objected that, for such matters of Church
order as are in question here, there is no reason to impute more
than a virtual intention to the Lord. What warrants imputing an
actual, implicit intention to him? Are we not rather going beyond
what historical considerations can deliver? Doesn't taking it in
18 See for instance St. Thomas's notion of implicit faith in, for example, Summa
Theologiae 1-11, q. 2, a. 5.

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this way in fact mean that one is not taking the relative probabilities of someone being able to ask and answer questions about
office seriously? And, in any case, why would we want to take it
as an actual, implicit intention?
To answer the last question, there is in the first place a very
simple dogmatic reason for doing so. When the Church teaches
that the Lord instituted the Church and her ministry, then, without proof to the contrary, this should be understood to mean that
he knew whereof he intended. The appeal to a virtual intention
does not in fact preserve the meaning of "intention." What it
really does is to assert a counter-factual: If he knew such and
such, then he would have intended and willed thus and so. But
in fact, he didn't know such and such, and so, really and truly,
he had no intention thus and so. I think it would be very difficult
to sustain such an understanding of the Church's teaching about
dominical institution over the last nineteen hundred years.
But there is also a Christological reason for taking the Lord's
intention to be implicit, actual, and notjust virtual, namely, the
traditional imputation to the Lord of an immediate vision of the
divine essence. Such a vision entails an actual knowledge of the
entire economy of salvation as known by the divine mind and
willed by the divine goodness. The grounds upon which one
asserts an actual intention of the Lord for a monarchical episcopate or the exclusion of women from orders, therefore, turn out
at this juncture to be the grounds upon which one asserts the
theorem of Christ's human mind's immediate vision of the
divine essence. These grounds are such things as his communication, and so knowledge, of his own divine identity and his
knowledge of the nearness of the kingdom of God. Arguably,
such things cannot be known by a human mind without "seeing
God." 19
For some, however, such considerations will seem to imply
that theology is either dictating to historical science or at least on
holiday from it. This is not, I believe, the case. But seeing that it
is not depends on distinguishing very carefully between the kind
19 For the argument, see Guy Mansini, "Understanding St. Thomas on Christ's
Immediate Knowledge of God," The Thomist 59 (1995): 91-124.

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of knowledge possessed by historical persons as it is the object of
historical science, and the kind of knowledge asserted in the
theorem of the immediate vision of God. Such knowledge is
"a-thematic," "non-conceptual," "ineffable." 20 The knowledge
that is the object of historical science is, on the other hand, quite
thematic, conceptual, expressible, and indeed expressed. The
attempt to understand faith in the divine identity of Jesus and
his communication of it deals in the first kind of knowledge. The
historian is left to reach his own judgments about the second
kind of knowledge.
The argument in the foregoing has not been: Jes us of
Nazareth possessed an immediate knowledge of the divine
essence in which the economy of salvation, including matters of
the ecclesial and sacramental order, were known; therefore, he
knew that the episcopate was to be monarchically determined
and that women were to be excluded from orders. It has rather
been argued that what the Church determined as to the structure
and requirements of apostolic office, thinking to follow the mind
of the Lord, depended centrally on what the Lord communicatedexpressly, conceptually-but in which communication there can
be seen other things not expressed. In other words, there can be
no appeal to an intention of the Lord apart from the sort of evidence that would enable one to assert at least a virtual intention:
that is, on the basis of what the Lord did say and do, one
concludes to what he would say and do if he were in other circumstances. But once this is achieved, and one has accepted the
reasons for imputing an immediate knowledge of the divine
essence to Christ's human mind, then one passes from the
assertion of a virtual intention to the assertion of an actual,
though implicit, intention.
Of course, the simple illustration of an implicit intention as
given above is not wholly analogous to the case of our Lord. For
the illustration remains wholly within the realm of the "conceptual." But a conceptually possessed intention has not been
imputed to the Lord. There is indeed an element of virtuality in
20 See especially B. Lonergan, De Verba Incarnato (Rome: Gregorian University, 1964),
thesis 12.

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the Lord's intention of the episcopate or of his intention to
exclude women from orders. To render his actual intention
actually expressible would require not a simple evocation of the
concepts and categories involved in the question about orders
and Church order, but the acquisition of the concepts and categories involved in being able to ask the question. Nonetheless,
this acquisition would serve to render expressible what is
already known and intended in virtue of his (human) participation in the divine knowledge of the economy. It would be like
finding a language to say what one knows, and not just using a
language one already has to say what one knows.
In the introduction, I made critical mention of any position
that asserts a divine but not a dominical institution of the
Church, orders, etc. It should now be clear why. It should be
clear, as well, why there has been little attention in the foregoing
to whether we speak of the pre- or post-Paschal Jesus. The
immediate knowledge of God's essence, including centrally the
plan of salvation and the disposition of the Church, is the same
in our Lord before and after the resurrection. Whatever the Lord
knew of the divine plan and intended in its fulfillment after the
resurrection, he knew and intended before. Further, the content
of the divine plan and the disposition of the economy is a content
of knowledge common to the Three Persons. Whatever the Holy
Spirit inspires with regard to the economy or the disposition of
the Church is also known by the Word. And whatever the Word
knows relative to this economy and disposition is also known by
him through the human mind of the assumed nature.
Indeed, it is usual in the tradition to speak of the Church
deciding or discerning what to do and how to act "in the Holy
Spirit." This does not mean that the Holy Spirit inspired things
of which the Lord knew not. It is rather an indication of the fact
that the Church's discernment of what is implicit in what the
Lord explicitly said and did cannot be rendered in a syllogism
that demonstrates what we used to call a "theological conclusion." The Church's discernment of the mind of the Lord is
rather a properly theological act moved by the Holy Spirit.
Understanding that such discernment is not strictly measured by

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human reason goes for reason in its Scholastic as well as in its
historical guise.
It has been my intention here to show how one can assert that
the Lord intended the exclusion of women from orders. I have
done nothing, I hope, but assemble theological elements and
analyses known to every theologian. If there is any merit to the
assemblage, it is in the reminder of the relevance of the theorem
of the Lord's immediate knowledge of the divine essence, and
perhaps, also, of the nature of doctrinal development. 21

21 I would like to thank Prof. Lawrence J. Welch of Kenrick Seminary for help with
this paper.

BOOK REVIEWS
Peter Lombard. By MARCIA L. COLISH. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994. Pp. 893 (2
vols.). $228. 75 (cloth).

The four books of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which received their
final form ca. 1158, were the standard theological textbook for several centuries. Friedrich Stegmiiller's Repertorium Commentariorum in Sententias
Petri Lombardi (1947) lists hundreds of extant commentaries, starting within
a few years of the completion of Lombard's work (178 commentaries are
listed from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries alone); the Sentences were
used and commented on in the schools of Western Christendom until well into
the seventeenth century.
Peter Lombard's work is essentially a compilation of older sources, from
the Scriptures and Augustine down to several of Lombard's older contemporaries (such as Hugh of Saint Victor, the Summa Sententiarum, and Gratian's
Concordantia Discordantium Canonum). The importance of this work is not
so much its material, since very little of it is original with Lombard himself,
but rather Peter Lombard's organization of the material and his ability to
present the areas of conflict and controversy while supplying a brief and
objective summary of the relevant opinions and his own solutions.
Marcia Colish's two volumes, volumes 41 and 42 in the Brill Studies in
Intellectual History series, answer two important needs in the study of mediaeval theology: her study makes Peter Lombard's thought accessible in
English (since the Sentences have yet to be translated into English apart from
scattered extracts), and the mid-twelfth-century context of the theological
issues the Lombard addresses is presented in each case, with completeness
and care. The lengthy bibliography at the end of the second volume is a
further welcome part of this work.
In fairness to the author as well as to the mediaeval commentators,
Colish's work cannot be classified as a "Commentary on the Sentences," however much it may at first glance appear to be so. The work begins with a biographical introduction, summarizing the sources for information on the life
and work of Peter Lombard (ca. 1095-1160), canon and later bishop of
Paris, and master of the Sentences. The glossae on the letters of Saint Paul and
on the Psalter are then considered, with emphasis on some of the textual
problems of their composition and transmission, along with a presentation of
significant themes. Two chapters follow on the theological language and
method of the Master, and the remainder of the two volumes presents the
Sentences section by section. Each topic is considered first in its historical

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context (with the state of the question presented by a chronological survey of
relevant writers), and then with Lombard's determination and response. The
final chapter summarizes, by recapitulation, the highlights of the Sentences.
The author takes full advantage of the work of Ignatius Brady and the footnotes in the critical edition produced by the Franciscan editors in
Grottaferrata. Colish's work is the first full-scale work in English on Peter
Lombard since the completion of the critical edition of the Sentences in 1981,
and makes many of Brady's findings available to a wider audience.
In particular, Colish does a fine job summarizing the debate on whether
consent or consummation makes marriage. The labyrinthine and tortuous
development of this question, trying to uphold both scriptural authority (particularly asserting the validity of the marriage between Mary and Joseph) and
quite evident human experience, is clearly and succinctly presented. Many
of the sources are presented via Gratian, however; this may be because they
are found most conveniently in that collection. This summary of the question
and presentation of Lombard's views may be read with profit by both the
expert and the novice.
There are several serious drawbacks to this work, whatever title one may
wish to attach to it. The first has to do with the author's rewriting of Lombard.
Although most of the work follows the Sentences in structure and organization,
Colish transposes several portions of the Sentences to create her own structure and fit her particular system. The most obvious instance of this is the
treatment of sin, which Lombard takes up at the end of book 2; Colish defers
her consideration of the final distinctiones of book 2 until after she completes
her section on Lombard's Christology (book 3 of the Sentences). She does not
mention this transposition, and the unwary reader who is not attentive to the
footnotes will think that Lombard's structure follows this arrangement. A significant insight into Lombard's thought is thus lost, since it is not clear from
Colish's work that Lombard links part of his treatment of the virtues and the
vices with creation and the fall (in book 2) rather than with Christology (book
3).
There are other and less important, although still annoying, instances of
rewriting the Master. Lines such as "another answer which he could have
given here, and which he does not give" (1:381) serve as notice that the
author is striking out on her own; while attempting to remain faithful to the
text, the reader should be warned and wary of such expeditions.
A second serious drawback is the author's misinterpretation of some of
Lombard's writings. In several places, Colish imposes her own modern, and
rather anachronistic, categories on Lombard's text; the most obvious of these
is with regard the role of women. Colish claims that Lombard holds for the
fundamental equality of men and women, that he is opposed to "patriarchy"
(2:696), and put together a manifesto for the liberation of women. Colish,
"helping" the Master along, even points out several places in which he
"missed an opportunity" to strengthen his attack on patriarchy and male

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chauvinism, making his work appear to be a treatise of the 1960s rather than
the 1160s. However, when the footnotes are investigated, the narrow ledge on
which Colish's interpretation of Lombard is perched collapses. Lombard
wrote in his glossa on Colossians that while man was created in the image of
God, woman was created in the image of man (PL 192:282C)-something of
a mediaeval commonplace. In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Lombard
notes that man and woman are only equal with respect to the marriage debt:
"They are debtors one to the other in this case only, lest there be given an
occasion of sin; in all other things the man is superior" (PL 191:1588A).
While commenting on that most famous passage in 1 Timothy on women
keeping silence in churches, Lombard marshals almost all of the scriptural
texts possible in a lengthy catena to show the subordinate status of women
(PL 192:340-342). He singles out the Cataphrygae for special refutation,
since they claimed that women could be ordained to the diaconate: "quod
contra auctoritatem est" (PL 192:346A). However much Colish may wish the
Lombard to champion the fundamental and radical equality of women, in
marriage or in the Church, it still remains the case that he was a man of his
time, and interpreted these scriptural loci very much along the lines of the
traditional consensus.
A final drawback of these volumes has to do with Colish's language. It is
usually rather vivid and sometimes entertaining; nevertheless, this rhetoric is
often used at the expense of clarity. After all, what precisely is "a theological
flying Dutchman" (1:224)? Some of her images are not particularly apt and
also used incorrectly, such as "bill of attainder" (1:373); some references are
simply anachronistic-does lvo of Chartres really require "marriage
counseling" (2:667)?
Colish draws a sharp and what to her must be a self-evident distinction
between canonical ("legalistic") and pastoral, a distinction unknown in the
twelfth century and one that would have been roundly rejected by the canonists of
that age, who certainly felt that they were being "pastoral" in their writings.
Colish makes a dangerous and arbitrary distinction, for example, between
Rolandus as a theologian and Rolandus as a canonist (1:65-68), and then
classes him as a "disciple of Abelard" (1:326), for which there is not a significant amount of evidence. The citations and references to canonical texts,
such as Gratian, are often garbled, do not follow the standard forms of citation, and are unusable (such as 2:590 n. 313 and 591 n. 315). Colish also
sidesteps the issue of how much of Gratian Peter Lombard in fact knew; the
date and the authorship of the De penitentia are still subjects of controversy,
and assertions based on Gratian's authorship must be given in a qualified
manner.
Given the size and the complexity of this project, there are many avenues
that are left untravelled. Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that there are
only infrequent and scattered references to the later commentaries on the
Master (such as 1:261, where Colish points out that the notion of the Holy

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Spirit as charity in his mission to men was later rejected by Thomas Aquinas
and other thirteenth-century Scholastics); their absence, however, is completely understandable given the length of the book even without this extension. Furthermore, however, many arguments are made from silencenotoriously the weakest form of argument. Thus, sexual equality in marriage
is extrapolated from Lombard's silence (2:656), and Colish claims that
Lombard holds that the penitent is the minister of the sacrament of penance
(2:760), which Lombard never states in so many words. Peter Lombard in the
Sentences does not hold that the minister of the sacrament of anointing is a
bishop, as Colish contends (labeling this "idiosyncratic," 2:613), although he
does mention that the oil must be consecrated by a bishop (which was certainly the practice in Lombard's time, as in the Latin Church until recently).
Further, when Lombard lists the seven grades of holy orders, he does not present cantor or prophet (vatis) among them, but adds them afterwards as something of an appendix. Colish writes that Lombard was "unique" in listing the
cantor as an office or dignity (2:625), despite the fact that Lombard's sources
(Isidore's Etymologiae and Hugh of Saint Victor's De sacramentis) both do so,
along with Gregory the Great.
In spite of some confusion in its presentation, however, this work's strong
points outweigh its weaknesses. The broad strokes and the breadth of the
consideration make it particularly useful as a way of approaching the
Sentences for the first time; the presentation of the historical context and the
state of each theological question synthesizes quite a lot of material that is
scattered over many books and articles; and were this the book's only contribution it would still be of great value. The work as a whole, while flawed in
scattered details and occasionally giving in to the (relatively understandable)
tendency to rewrite Lombard, or at least appeal from Lombard to "Lombard
better informed" (so that his opinions may always agree with the author's
own), is certainly magisterial in its own right and must earn for its author the
title of sententiaria.

W BECKET SOULE, 0.P.
Blackfriars
Cambridge, England

Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: Sacred Doctrine and the Natural
Knowledge of God. By EUGENE F. ROGERS, JR. Notre Dame, Ind.:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. Pp. xvii + 248. $34.95 (cloth).
ISBN 0-268-01889-8.
This remarkable book makes a complex and detailed case for a bold yet
modest thesis: there is convergence between Aquinas and Barth on natural
knowledge of God. The thesis is bold because it will strike many students of

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Aquinas and Barth as counter-intuitive. This is the very reason Rogers's case
must be complex and detailed. And yet, despite this complexity, Rogers's
thesis is ultimately quite modest and persuasive-even for those like myself
who will quibble with details.
Rogers has "three audiences and two agendas" (c. 1). He addresses an
evangelical reading of Thomas to Catholics, an Anselmian (as I will call it,
although Rogers does not) reading of Barth to Protestants, and a theological
reading of Thomas (one that aims "to consider nothing God-forsaken") to neopragmatists in religious studies departments. Rogers only addresses the first
two audiences directly, leaving open a variety of interesting questions about
how the convergence for which Rogers argues would function in the modern
university.
Thus, Rogers's two agendas are "first to interpret Thomas, and also to
compare him to Barth" (5)-the first agenda taking up two-thirds of the book.
Thus, part 1 offers a reading of Summa Theologiae I, q. 1, aa. 1-10 under the
hypothesis that "the more Aristotelian [sacred doctrine] is, the more
scriptural it is, and the more Aristotelian it is, the more christoform it is" (9,
17). Part 2 tests this hypothesis by studying the full context of Aquinas's
commentary on Romans 1:20. Part 3 takes up Thomist and Barthian
objections, gives (Rogers's account of) Thomas's replies, and concludes with
"The Common Thomas of Barth and Vatican I."
Let me reconsider Rogers's argument in three phases. First he aims to
"displace" (xiii) what I will call The Standard View of Aquinas and Barth on
natural knowledge of God. On the one hand, although Aquinas and the
tradition climaxing in Vatican I warrant natural knowledge by appeal to
Romans 1:20, the true home of Aquinas's position (says The Standard View)
is the propositions of Thomas's Summae rather than his scriptural commentaries; the Five Ways are the paradigms of claims to natural knowledge of God
(6, 10). This Standard View presumes, further, that Aquinas "divides human
knowledge into two domains, one accessible, one inaccessible to reason"
(205). Still further, such natural knowledge is read as providing "foundations" for revealed knowledge (ibid.), resulting in "the notorious two-story
Thomism of the handbooks" (52; cf. 11, 44, 109)-a Thomism that related
nature and grace as autonomous and extrinsic to each other (28f.; 55f.). On
the other hand, according to The Standard View Barth rejects such natural
theology-along with the analogia entis, and similar philosophical grounds
for faith. This Barth pursues a focus on God's self-revelation by insisting that
God reveals himself in hiddenness, in an ever-actual dialectic. (Rogers also
sometimes speaks of "vulgar Protestantism" or the "hyper-Protestant" [107,
186]; this is seemingly not Barth but truncated views of the Reformation
where grace is sheer rival to nature.)
On this View, once one is clear on such oppositions between Aquinas and
Barth, there is not a great deal to talk about on this matter, except to
redescribe the basic opposition in numerous ways (Catholic versus

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Protestant, analogy versus dialectic, analogy of being versus analogy of faith,
grace perfecting nature versus grace sublating nature, etc.).
Rogers seeks to "displace" such readings of Aquinas and Barth. However,
he keeps "explicit engagement with rival readings to a minimum," seeking
"to shift the burden of proof' rather than "to demolish alternatives" (xiii).
Rogers knows that he is issuing a minority report, harnessing heretofore
dispersed readings: his own teachers Victor Preller and George Lindbeck;
Continental interpreters of Thomas like Otto Herman Pesch and Michel
Corbin; and contemporary English-speaking philosophers and theologians
like Alasdair Macintyre, David Burrell, and Bruce Marshall. The history of
this counter-tradition has yet to be written; it would reach back at least into
Barth's study of the Prima Pars in the 1920s and those German Catholic
theologians who studied Barth (e.g., Erich Przywara and Gottlieb Sohngen).
But Rogers is the first one to bring together and extend the threads of this
counter-tradition, yoking them in the cause of actual "convergence" between
Aquinas and Barth on the issue of natural knowledge of God.
How does he shift the burden of proofif not by demolishingthe alternatives? A
second stage of his argument is a re-reading of Aquinas that is at once genetic and
logical. Relying on Michel Corbin, Rogers argues that Thomas's arguments
shifted between the writing of the Summa contra Gentiles (1259-64) and the
Summa Theologiae (1266- 73). The former provides some evidence for the
kind of "two-story" reading of Thomas; the latter does not. (Given the
disputed dating of the Romans commentary, Rogers offers no hypotheses
"about the influence of the Summa on the Romans commentary or vice versa"
[12-13].)
But Rogers does not hang his argument on the historical point (xi-xii). His
main argument is that we need to reverse The Standard View's tendency to
view Aquinas's Scripture commentary as accidental to the more substantive
questions of the Summae. Hence the importance of part 1 (on the Summa
Theologiae) and part 2 (on Aquinas's Romans commentary). The central
argument of part 1 is that STh I, q. 1, aa. 1-10 "has a circular structure according
to which article 1 demands something foreknown about the end ... that
article 10 supplies, and article 10 sets up a structure of scriptural authority
upon which article 1 has already depended" (55). Rogers makes his case by
arguing that, in these initial questions, Aquinas simultaneously and
consecutively interprets Aristotle's scientia while bending and breaking it to
conform to scientia Dei et beatorum. "Sacred doctrine assumes scientia as
Christ assumes flesh" (40, underlining Rogers's).
This part of Rogers's argument is sure to stir debate, for he offers a reading of
how creation ex nihilo and classic Christology bend and break (perfect and
exceed, we might also say-although Rogers insists that no single metaphor
will do [50]) Aristotle's scientia. But the central gain for Rogers's argument is

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that he shows how the Summa Theologiae's own claims about Scripture
require us to give Aquinas's Scripture commentariesa priorityover the Summa.
In part 2, then, Rogers shows how Aquinas's reading of Paul's Letter to the
Romans depends on a reading of Paul's story as a "vessel of election" (Acts
9:15). Thomas reads the first verses of Romans as displaying Paul as an
exemplary case of knowledge of God (99). The crucial passage (Romans 1:20:
God's "invisible nature ... has been clearly perceived in the things that have
been made") is "nested" in a structure of governing assertions (104ff.) at once
Christological, Trinitarian, and attuned to the diverse circumstances of the
Gentiles who are said to know God without thanking God. Their natural
knowledge of God is "a self-consuming artifact" (108, 126, 128)-or "merely
detained cognitions, or cognition so called by courtesy" (129).
The re-reading of Barth centers on Barth's reading of Anselm as well as
his reading of Paul in the 1956 commentary on Romans (not to be confused
with Barth's earlier commentaries on this epistle). This is the Barth who used
the medieval Anselm against the Enlightenment. Anselm's approach was
faith seeking understanding by offering "an intratextual or intrasystematic
account of the necessity of God's existence," conceding nothing to the nonbeliever who concedes nothing (137). Further, this is the Barth who read
Romans 1:20 as implying an "objective knowledge of God" (198), who insisted
that there were "secular parables of the kingdom," who wrote that he "would
gladly concede that nature does objectively offer a proof of God, though the
human being overlooks or misunderstands it" (206), and who (I would add)
said that Vatican l's teaching that we can know God by the natural light of
reason "is not in itself absolutely intolerable as an interpretation in meliorem
partem" (Church Dogmatics [1940], vol. 2, part 1, pp. 79-84).
As Rogers warns from the beginning, the reading of Barth is not as
detailed as the reading of Aquinas, both because the book would have been
too long and because "the interpretation of Barth is (I think) less controversial than the interpretation of Thomas" (xii-xiii). "Less controversial," of
course, unless one agrees with Barth. That is, Rogers argues against The
Standard View of Aquinas in favor of a more evangelical Aquinas. But he
does not so much argue against The Standard View of Barth as imply that
Barth's dialectical arguments against natural theology sit uneasily with the
more Anselmian Barth. Rogers seemingly stands between those who argue
that Barth was and remained a fundamentally "dialectical" theologian (e.g.,
Bruce McCormack) and those who argue that Barth changed "from dialectic
to analogy" (e.g., at least sometimes, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Hans Frei).
This is, I think, a not unreasonable place to stand. For example, it explains
both why Barth could offer a minimal assent (or non-dissent) to Vatican I's
posse, and why Catholics rarely notice this. But, although not unreasonable,
it will prove no less controversial than the reading of Aquinas.

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A third stage of Rogers's argument uses these re-readings of Thomas and
Barth to argue for "convergence." By "convergence" Rogers means that both
have "just such a pattern of argument as Paul executes first and Barth and
Thomas follow, as it were, at a distance"; they converge in what they read
Paul saying about natural knowledge of God in Romans 1 (8, 201). Rogers
exemplifies what he means by "convergence" rather than offering an abstract
definition. But his use is not inconsistent with the use of the notion in some
recent ecumenical discussions. Here "convergence" indicates movement
towards, not arrival at. Thus, "convergence" is not complete consensus or
agreement. It also does not mean that oppositions vanish. It means that oppositions are re-located as no longer at the center of things. Rogers knows that
"large and important differences remain between Thomas and Barth,"
although "they are differences that distinguish different human beings on the
side of the angels rather than one on the side of the angels and one on the
side of the Antichrist" (201).
For example, Rogers proposes that Protestants and Catholics have offered
different solutions to Kant's split between subject and object, mind and
body/world. Protestants like Schleiermacher and Barth accepted the split,
but, seeking to protect "God's independence and grace's gratuity," Barth
insisted that God is a subject irreducible to any object and therefore
Revelation is in no way deducible from human consciousness (209-10).
Those Catholics who did not "turn to the subject," on the other hand, rejected
the split of subject and object and insisted on "the human creature's integrity
and grace's universality" (211-12). Rogers seems to imply that Thomas's
focus on grace's universality and the creature's integrity can embrace Barth's
rightful insistence on God's independence and grace's gratuity in the way that
latter concerns cannot embrace the former. A supporter of BHrth, I presume,
could argue the opposite. But if Rogers is right, this argument could take
place without each side excommunicating the other, for they interpret Paul in
convergmg ways.
Thus, Rogers's central claim is that, once we cut through stereotypical
readings of Aquinas and Barth, and marshal readings based on what the two
actually said, we can say that both agree in their interpretations of Romans
1:20-and we can say this without denying that their theologies are different
and opposed on a range of other issues. This is what I mean when I say that
Rogers's thesis is modest: he is claiming that Aquinas and Barth essentially
agree on how to interpret Romans 1:20, and their respective Aristotelian and
Kantian theologoumena should not distract from their basic agreement on this
score.
There are questions that remain at this third stage of Rogers's argument.
Perhaps most importantly, what does it imply for communities that share
Aquinas's and Barth's theology of natural knowledge? Is "convergence"
enough to make us regard the issue of natural knowledge as no longer
Church-divisive? Or is "convergence" only enough to bring us back to genuine

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debate, this time without condemnations based on unwarranted stereotypes?
Rogers wisely leaves such issues open. It is more than enough to have resisted
the cliches, analyzed the texts with such care, and shown us a way through a
seeming impasse. Rogers's book will be an indispensable part of the future
debate on Aquinas, Barth, and natural knowledge of God.
]AMES]. BUCKLEY
Loyola College
Baltimore, Maryland

The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. 7. Edited by GERARD
TRACEY. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Pp. xxvi + 550. $95.00
(cloth).

C. S. Dessain began editing and publishing Newman's twenty thousand
extant letters and his diary entries thirty-five years ago, beginning with the
Roman Catholic period, 1845 (vol. 11 of the projected thirty-one volume
series). Fr. Dessain died as volume 31 went to press. Gerard Tracey, Dessain's
successor as archivist of the Birmingham Oratory, coedited the first six
volumes of the Anglican period and now, as sole editor, gives us volume 7,
covering the important years 1839 and 1840. What I wrote years earlier
regarding Dessain's scholarly editorship (The Thomist 38 [1974]: 372-75) is
equally applicable to Tracey's editing of this volume.
Newman's autobiographical Apologia of 1864 and Anne Mozley's 1890
edition of selected Anglican-period letters that Cardinal Newman put into her
hands-she was sister to the Mozley brothers who had married Newman's
sisters Harriett and Jemima-had been the best windows on the events of
1839 and 1840 from primary sources. Tracey's volume is now the definitive
window. Not only does Mozley's edition present a small portion of Newman's
letters, whereas Tracey presents everything extant, including the diary
entries, Mozley also cut off portions of letters. For example, Newman wrote a
letter of spiritual direction to Ms. Mary Holmes on 19 July 1840; Anne
Mozley has the letter, but the opening paragraphs are excised, where Newman
wrote of the consequences of sinning and of God's punishment of those God
still loves-important issues to be sure!
For more than a century the Apologia (114, 116) has been the normal
window through which to view the eventful happenings of these years in
Newman's spiritual odyssey. During the summer of 1839 he studied the fifthcentury Monophysite controversy and said, "I saw my face in that mirror, and
I was a Monophysite"; in August he was handed Nicholas Wiseman's article
on Augustine and the Donatists, and Augustine's anti-schismatic recipe,
securus judicat orbis terrarum, "kept ringing in my ears." These 1864 words

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of Newman are a retrospective; he had lived through the subsequent explosive
impact of those 1839 perceptions and viewed matters accordingly. The Tracey
volume gives us a more realistic feel for the events, for we are viewing
Newman day by day during those unsettling times. We see matters arise, fade,
perhaps to rise again, perhaps overtaken by other events. In a phrase, we get
what Newman himself desiderated in knowledge of this kind: we get a real
apprehension of his unfolding life and its issues.
For example, the Monophysite alert was in reality more muted, with only
a 12 July letter to Frederic Rogers noting "two things ... very remarkable at
Chalcedon-the great power of the Pope ... and the marvelous interference
of the civil power" (104). In 1839 Newman saw this exercise of civil power as
a rejoinder to the Roman charge of an Erastian Anglican church, and the
exercise of papal power supplied him ammunition against the liberals in his
own church. Only some years later did he see the import of these events at
Chalcedon, such that the contending parties (the papal party, the
Monophysites, the Eutychians) mirrored respectively the Roman Catholics,
the Anglicans, and the Protestants. Newman's "via media" AngloCatholicism began to look suspiciously like a heresy itself, hence Newman's
reference in the Apologia to seeing one's Monophysite face.
If Newman's study of the Council of Chalcedon had an initially more
muted effect, the appearance of Fr. Nicholas Wiseman's 1839 Dublin Review
a1iicle on the Donatists apropos Anglicanism was absolutely unnerving, as
the Apologia expresses and as the letters confirm. The article was put into
Newman's hands by Robert Williams, a Tractarian who already suspected
Anglicanism to be in wrongful schism, when Williams visited Newman and
walked to Littlemore with him on 19 September. Three days later Newman
wrote to Frederic Rogers that "I have had the first real hit from Romanism.... It
has given me a stomach-ache .... At this moment we have sprung a leak ... .
This is a most uncomfortable article on every account" (154). To his sister
Jemima he termed the Augustinian argument against schism to be "fonnidable"
and "calculated to do harm, considerable harm" (187).
Newman's fear was that the Wiseman argument would tip those AngloCatholics already sitting on the fence to convert to Rome. From this moment
on Newman urged his Tractarian colleagues that John Keble must write the
Anglo-Catholic rejoinder. Keble never did, and it never became clear in the
letters and diaries why not, and why Newman took up the challenge.
As Newman wrote to friends about the Wiseman article, we can detect his
emerging position: (a) Anglicans are in a minority position, as were the
Donatists, but the current Roman Church is as pale a reflection of the patristic
Church as we are (206). (b) We charge Romanism with lacking in those very
Church principles that we desiderate in ourselves (197). (c) Rome uses
duplicity to convert us, "holding out tales for the nursery ... and physic
concealed in jam .... Who can but feel shame when the religion of Ximenes,
Borromeo, and Pascal is so overlaid?" (198).

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Newman's response to Wiseman appeared as "The Catholicity of the
Anglican Church" in the British Critic (Jan. 1840)-now in Essays Critical
and Historical (2: 1-73)-followed by the retraction he added when he republished this article as a Roman Catholic. Newman's letters from 1839 make
clear that his foreboding focused prophetically on the charge of schism, and
it is not surprising that his 1871 retraction indicts Anglicanism more with
being in schism, being out of catholicity as it were, than with being nonapostolic. That is why Newman came to see Augustine's words, securusjudicat, as palmary and as the easier way to decide which Church body is in the
right and which is in the wrong.
It would be remiss to leave unmentioned the prominent role publishing
played in Newman's thinking and in Tractarian strategy. During these two
years Newman edited the British Critic, which he took over when Hugh James
Rose became ill and which he handed over to his brother-in-law Tom Mozley
in 1841. The letters are filled with Newman's attempt to gin up articles, not
just essays to fill pages but essays to urge "church principles," as the
Tractarians termed their agenda. He worked with Keble and Pusey on editing
The Library of the Fathers; this series of translations of early Church theologians was meant to show Anglicans the primitive integrity and vivid spiritual life
of patristic Christianity. Furthermore, he republished his earlier British
Magazine articles as the Church of the Fathers, telling his friend John
Bowden that it "is regularly strong meat. I suppose I must expect a clamor"
(202). Newman wanted to transform his Church, and to that end he utilized
every possible form of print media.
For those whose interests in Newman focus on Grammar of Assent and topics
in the philosophical foundations of religion, Newman's 1840 letters to his
brother Frank, which had not been printed in the Mozley edition, are important indicators of his early thoughts on such topics. Frank was in the midst of
drifting from the Plymouth Brethren to an unbelieving rationalism when the
brothers reconnected after a silence of some years. The letters of 22 October
(412-15) and IO November (436-42), too nuanced to summarize here, must
be consulted for ideas such as these: "Men judge in religion, and are meant
to judge by antecedent probability much more than by external evidences,
and that their view of antecedent probability depends upon their particular
state of mind" (438); "I conceive that if a man rejects such a mere preponderance of probability, this is a proof that he has no great desire to attain the
truth in the matter at hand; and his fault becomes a moral one" (414).
Newman's letters often give instructive hints to the meanings and
intentions of his published writings, as in this comment to colleague J. F.
Christie about P.S., IV.- [sermons 3, 7] "are the two on which the whole
volume turns. I meant the whole to be on that one subject, how mercy and
judgment can be reconciled" (25).
I share an astonishment. On 27 February 1841, not two months after the
last of Newman's letters and diary entries in this volume, Tract 90 appeared.

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"Ninety" was a pivotal moment, as is well known and as Newman at the time
thought. But there is not one hint, even as late as December 1840, that
"Ninety" is on the horizon. The letters abound, to be sure, with Newman's
apprehension that the Movement was stirring up "catholic" aspirations for
which the Church of England provided in a far weaker fashion that the
Roman Church might. He wrote "Ninety" to argue that the 39 Articles
tolerated Anglo-Catholic sentiments vis-a-vis the preponderant Protestant
ethos of the Anglican Church. I can only conclude that Newman's decision to
write "Ninety" came suddenly.
Gerard Tracey has provided excellent footnotes as well as the germane
portions of letters sent Newman that occasioned his responses. Thumbnail
biographies are provided of all persons mentioned. Some materials too extensive for the footnotes are included as appendices.
Just over the horizon of Newman's life, in 1841, are the three great blows,
as he termed them: the melting away of the via media theory, the episcopal
condemnation of Tract 90, and the coestablishing of a Jerusalem bishopric
involving Protestant heretics. I await eagerly Gerard Tracey's next volume. If
it is like this one, it won't disappoint.
EDWARD JEREMY MILLER
Gwynedd-Mercy College
Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania

Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology and Scripture. By WILLIAM
C. PLACHER. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994. Pp. xix+
188. $14.99 (paper). ISBN 0-664-25534-5.

The basic thesis of this book is that Christianity proclaims a vulnerable
God who has revealed himself in the story of Jesus Christ. In the light of this
norm we Christians are called upon to review our attitudes, actions, and institutions to see where we have capitulated to the allure of power and are thus
false to the Gospel. Placher divides his study into three parts. Part 1 considers
God as vulnerable, eternal, and triune. Part 2 looks at diversities as a sign of
vulnerability, in opposition to monolithic consistency as an expression of
power. Thus, the diversity of the Gospel narratives mediates the lack of a
coercive order, though still within the parameters of a meaningful and referential discourse. Jesus himself is present to us as a non-dominating Savior
who wins victory over evil through suffering but he cannot be presented to
others either as a motive for the passive suffering of oppression or for
Christian intolerance in the face of pluralism. Part 3, finally, applies these
principles to Christian existence in the Church, the Church's relation to the
world, and the relation of Christian theology to the academic public.

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The author endeavors to imitate the model he sets before us by being
vulnerable himself. He acknowledges the privileges that are his as a white,
male, middle-class academic; he states his confessional affiliation as
Presbyterian; and he describes his intellectual context to be that which is
labeled "narrative theology," "post-liberal theology," or "the new Yale
school." The argument of the book seems to run in two directions. There is
first of all a critique of the way the Church, through connivance in politics,
economics, and social affairs, has incorporated a kind of worldly power which
perpetuates the hegemony and exclusivity of the world at large. Most of this
critique I find to be justly merited, especially by the clerical and academic
sectors of the Church, which sometimes in Placher's text seem to count for
"Church" almost to the exclusion of the great number of "little" people who
are either only nominally involved in such business or who, in their own,
often heroic, way, live the Gospel of Love's power despite bad "leadership."
The dilemmas posed by the actual situation of the mainline Churches are
frankly and fairly faced and some constructive proposals are made relying on
Calvin's dictum that "Christians should live as members of a community in
which the Word of God is preached and heard and the sacraments are
properly administered" (137).
It is clear from both the critique and the proposed remedies what Placher
means by "power." It is the actually exercised ability to impose one's self and
one's will upon others in a way that denies their rights and their dignity, and
forces them to cooperate in a system that profits the powerful and neglects the
powerless. In this context it is also clear what he means by "vulnerable" (a
word often invoked but never defined). It is the situation of being affected by
the unjust exercise of power. In the movement of the first argument, then,
power and vulnerability are moral categories describing domination and the
suffering of domination. Even here, however, we would do well to recall the
words of Martin Luther King: "What is needed is a realization that power
without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental
and anemic"(Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? [New York:
Harper and Row, 1967) 37).
My problems with Placher begin when we look at the second direction of
his criticism, that is, when these moral categories are projected onto the
biblical description of God and his power. Placher rejects, naturally, such
notions of domination, etc., in connection with God, but he implies that the
fault lies in the attribution of power to God and the continuance of that attribution in the tradition. He then goes on to speak of the love and vulnerability of
God as though these are incompatible with his power. When discussing the
terms person and substance (65) Placher makes a distinction between giving
up on the traditional terminology and acknowledging that "the terms themselves do not initially give us much help in understanding." He would have
done well to apply that distinction to the term power when used of God. It may
be that "initially" the term does not help us in understanding God. Distorted

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by the Enlightenment's restriction of human action to the imposition of the
subject upon other persons and things, "power" has become synonymous with
domination and coercion-and coercion, as the Letter to Diognetus (7.4)
reminds us, is incompatible with God.
Power is the ability to effect change. Biblically, God's power, his ability to
effect change, is not domination but generosity. The act of creation itself,
when there was nothing to dominate, is the most striking manifestation of this
generosity in which God shares himself without losing himself, and in which
he crowns humankind with "honor and glory" (Ps 8:6), divine prerogatives,
by which we image God and share his breath. On the level of redemption, it
is precisely to the slain Lamb that the hymn goes up, "Worthy is the Lamb
that was slain to receive power [dynamis] and riches, wisdom and strength
[ischus], honor and glory [Ps 8] and blessing" (Rev 5:12).
Placher cites approvingly (22 note. 12) a remark of Catherine Mowry
LaCugna to the effect that "the denial of real relations to creation in God
means only that God's relations to the world are freely chosen." Is not this the
secret of God's vulnerability? God is so powerful that he can love to the limit
of folly and vulnerability. No one else can. God is so free that he can adjust
his actions to the freely willed activity of his creatures without suffering any
loss in his freedom; he is so transcendent that he is completely immanent
without thereby being identified with creation. When power is made equivalent to domination, freedom to total control, and transcendence to absence,
then we have made a caricature of the God revealed in whole plan of salvation whose culminating point is Jesus Christ and the act of love in which he
died. When we have once imposed upon God our misunderstanding of such
categories, he becomes fearsome indeed. We then need to make God vulnerable according to our image and likeness; we need a God we can "get at." But
then our trust is not in his totally unforced and free gift of himself, in his
willingness to be affected, but rather in our capacity somehow to affect him;
our trust is in ourselves.
There are several chapters in the book that do not much rely on Professor
Placher's contrast between power and vulnerability as theological (as opposed
to moral) categories, and these are particularly enlightening. I would single
out especially chapters 2 and 3, on "The Eternal God" and "The Triune God"
respectively. In chapter 2, the question is one of grounding God's vulnerability in his eternity, that is his consistency (he is always the same). Eternity,
according to Boethius, is "a perfect possession all at once of limitless life"
(31). Eternity is therefore not so much timelessness as a perfect possession of whatever time is when it is freed of the fragmentation that characterizes our time. Placher contrasts human temporality-in Heidegger's understanding, being made up of an irreparable past of lost opportunities, a future
of extinction, and a present of fleeting, anxious moments-with the temporality of Jesus whose past is perfectly in accord with the Father's plan, whose

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future lies in the culmination of that plan and whose present is thus characterized by self-possession. This is a sort of eternity.
Building on this insight, I would like to offer the suggestion that Jesus'
earthly life is an initial "type" or "icon" of eternity for precisely the reasons
Placher presents, and this does show us the consistency of the vulnerable
God. However, the "perfect possession of limitless life" is not a quality of
Jesus "in the days of his flesh" but only of his humanity now that he is completely transformed by the divine action. Even now, this humanity is but a
perfect type or "analogate" of the intrinsic eternity of God's nature and this
eternity of God is the reason why Jesus is eternal at all. What I am suggesting is
that Jesus' once non-fragmented and now perfect possession of limitless life
is a revelation of God and can be the starting point for a consideration, yet to
be undertaken, of what "eternal" means as applied to God. By considering
Jesus' manner of possessing time, Placher's reflections have opened up a way
to move beyond the conflict between temporality and eternity in a manner
that complements the valuable proposals of Hans Urs von Balthasar in A
Theology of History (reprint, San Francisco: Ignatius, 1994).
This is an honest book that tries to point to the obfuscation of revelation
that is being caused by the Church's attachment to dominative power. It
should call us to pay attention and change. My criticism of Professor
Placher's failure to articulate a more biblical understanding of God's power is
meant to enhance, not weaken, his witness.
FRANCIS MARTIN
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

The Splendorof Doctrine. By AIDAN NICHOLS, 0.P. Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
1995. Pp. x + 159. $18.95 (paper). ISBN 0-567-29271-1.
The Splendorof Doctrineforms the first panel of what its author describes
as a diptych of the Catechismof the Catholic Church. This metaphor from the
world of art seems an especially appropriate point of departure for this author,
for throughout the work he consistently appeals to the aesthetic facet of his
reader's nature.
On the first panel of the diptych, the author sketches the contours of the
Catechism on the Creed. The second panel will render the Catechism on
Christian practice: the sacramental, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of the
faith. In addition, in the sequel the author intends to "investigate and respond
to some of the criticisms that have been voiced of the Catechism's project,

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and/or the way in which it has been effected." It is clear, then, from the beginning, that The Splendor of Doctrine represents a perspective quite sympathetic to the Catechism. "The Church's concern in the Catechism," the author
asserts, is "to hold all the splendors of the faith before us so that we can see
the Catholic tradition, and the Christian life, for what they are-a seamless
web of beauty, truth and goodness which reflects, ultimately, the very being
of God himself." It is precisely because of this perspective that The Splendor
of Doctrine is able to exploit so well the implications of several of the
Catechisms achievements.
The first chapter highlights the main themes in Pope John Paul II's
apostolic constitution Depositum fidei. The author points out the "masterstroke in the pope's preamble," the interrelation of the four books. "The key
concept used to bring off this coup is that of the Christian mystery." The unity
of God's saving design reveals Christ at its center. Thus Christian belief, worship, action, and prayer are parts of an integrated whole held together in
Christ. This Christocentrism is one of the Catechisms most conspicuous characteristics. "The mystery of the Saviour forms the living, personal unity of the
Catechisms four parts: for he is the source of faith, the saving presence in the
sacraments, the model of Christian action and the master of Christian
prayer."
The author is also concerned with what the pope articulates as one of the
primary intentions of the Catechism: "the writing of new local catechisms,
which take into account the various situations and cultures." He insists that
local catechisms based on the Catechism are necessary, but should remain
faithful to the "full range of doctrinal propositions put forward in the great
Catechism, diverging from it only in the choice of texts, episodes and
examples used to illustrate its truths." "Otherwise," he asserts, "the
Catechism of the Catholic Church would simply relaunch the churches in
communion with Rome on the high seas of relativism, where their last state
might be worse than their first."
In the second chapter, the author looks beneath the prologue. He finds
several of the perspectives from which the Catechism is composed. For
example, the Catechisms "point of departure is unashamedly theological." It
argues forcibly for the renewal of a "doctrinal catechesis." In the world of
biblical interpretation, the Sacred Scriptures "are not on all fours with every
other text that happens to have come down to us from the ancient world." The
principal aim of Catholic exegesis, the author asserts, should be "the
deepening of faith."
The remaining chapters take up the content of the first book of the
Catechism and provide insightful commentary first on revelation and then on
each of the persons of the Trinity. Throughout the work the author seems to
savor especially the counter-cultural dimension of the Catechisms achievement. Within a world he perceives to be largely secularist and relativist, he

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suggests that doctrine is splendid and faith is not only an authentic human
response to revelation, but the "only adequate response."
Contrary to its popular reputation as a vague sentiment with distinctly
questionable cognitive credentials, faith is an exactly precise attunement of
man's subjective faculties-mind and heart-to the divine invitation which
revelation comprises. This is not to say, however, that one crucial aspect of
the secularist's poor opinion of faith is misplaced, for the text goes on to
underline the character of faith as not only obedience (to God) but even
submission. In an anthropocentric world, where man is the measure of all
things, this is fighting talk. (27)

Within a Church whose diversity at times seems more evident than its
unity, he contends that the Catechism affirms "the over-arching unity of this
community, despite its many tongues." This "is vital to the Catechism's whole
project, and to meeting the urgent needs of world Catholicism at this juncture in time, that we stress the unicity of the language of the Church, while
noting that speakers of one language may have many dialects, and, a fortiori,
accents."
Taking up another dimension of the theme of diversity in harmony, the
author calls upon voices from the modern theological world not cited in the
Catechism, but who nevertheless resonate with it: von Balthasar on the
paschal mystery, Congar and Guardini on ecclesiology, Danielou on primitive Christian symbols, and de Lubac on the social aspects of dogma. He
underscores the attempt of the Catechism to recall the voices of the Eastern
theological tradition as well by incorporating the work of such scholars as
Afanas'ev, Kereszty, McPartland, and Noujelm.
In one of the more interesting developments of the book, the author senses
the Catechism's subliminal appeal to the aesthetic and artistic dimensions of
faith. He recognizes that the Catechism attracts the heart as well as the mind.
He blends the evocative voices of classic, obscure, and contemporary poets
with a straightforward summary of doctrine. The lines of Vergil, Dante,
Goethe, Manzoni, and Romanos the Melodist combine with verses from
Hopkins, Carmichael, Jones, Lewis, and Saint-Exupery to probe the
inspirational, more affective potential of the Catechism.
In sum The Splendor of Doctrine provides an erudite yet accessible introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The author's use of the
metaphor of a diptych alerts the reader to the aesthetic and evocative
potential of the Catechism. His careful attention to the Catechism's fundamental theological themes is the controlling perspective of the work. It is the
author's imaginative presentation of the colors, tones, forms, and shadows of
this first panel of the diptych that prompts the reader to anticipate the
second.
John E. Pollard
Office of the Catechism
National Conference of Catholic Bishops
Washington, D.C.

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A General Doctrine of the Sacraments and The Mystery of the Eucharist. By
JOHANN AUER. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1995. Pp. xxx + 425. $39.95 (cloth), $24.95 (paper). ISBN 08132-0824-6 (cloth), 0-8132-0825-4 (paper).

This is the third volume to be offered to the English-speaking public of the
German series Kleine Katholische Dogmatik by Johann Auer and Joseph
Ratzinger. The present work (vol. 6), follows the English publication of
Eschatology (vol. 9) and The Church (vol. 8). Dogmatic Theology (as the
series is known in English) was composed in the theological wake of the
Second Vatican Council as a series of textbooks for German theology
students. It attempted to fill a gap by offering a coherent compendium of
dogmatic theology for use in classroom lectures.
The volume at hand (authored by Auer) consists of two essays, "A General
Doctrine of the Sacraments" (1-148) and "The Mystery of the Eucharist"
(151-364). The first essay treats the following themes of sacramental theology:
the concept and nature of sacrament (I); the structure of the sacramental sign
(II); the reality and efficacy of the sacraments (III); questions about origin,
number, and organic structure (IV); the minister (V); the recipient (VI); sacramentals (VII); and God's Word as sacrament (VIII). The essay on the
Eucharist first treats the sacramental sign (I), then turns to the interrelated
ideas of Eucharist as sacramental sacrifice (II) and sacrificial meal (III), and
concludes with reflections on the adoration of the Eucharist (IV) and the
relationship of the Eucharist and the Church (V).
Throughout the series emphasis is laid on the biblical foundations and
history of doctrine together with systematic reflection on the coherence of
particular doctrines one with another (xi-xii). This methodological attention
to Scripture, history, and systematic coherence is meant to serve, not
dominate, the theological exposition of the sacra doctrina as a whole (xii).
Auer's use of Scripture in the present volume takes several forms. His
occasional appeal to "proof' from Scripture (84-85, 259-61, passim), is no
more than a doctrinal and ecclesial reading of Scripture intended to elucidate
the biblical basis for the teaching and practice of the Church (85, 259). Auer
also presents examples of critical exegesis. His treatment of the sacramental
sign in the Eucharistic mystery begins with a scriptural exegesis of the words
of promise and institution. He considers together the bread of life discourse
in John, the so-called Petrine and Pauline accounts of the institution, the portrayals of the paschal meal by the Synoptics and Paul, and other NT texts
(177-86). The aim of the exegesis is steadfastly theological and ecclesial. For
example, here it clarifies the scriptural sign in the context of salvation history
so that a vital relationship may be maintained between the concrete, present-day
Eucharistic cult and the Eucharistic sign of the Scripture (178).

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Historical theology for Auer is a resource for dogmatic theology and is in
the service of revealed truth. In other words, his historical reflections never
degenerate into romanticism, still less into a dialecticism or evolutionism in
which particular expressions of revelation are necessarily provisional. For
example, his treatment of the sacramental character imparted by baptism,
confirmation, and holy orders is guided by the fact that this is an established
doctrine of the Church (70). Historical investigation illumines the consistency
with which Christianity has embraced the truth of the sacramental character
in various situations and at various stages of development-whether in the
early rebaptism controversies, in the struggles against the Donatists, or in the
condemnation of the Waldensians (69-70). Historical theology also aids in the
fuller and ongoing systematic explicitation of this doctrine by identifying the
abiding concerns underlying the various historical (and sometimes
provisional) formulations of the problem (73-74).
Every systematic reflection on theology must keep in mind the relationship between theology and the human sciences (not excluding philosophy)
employed by the theologian. A good example of how Auer understands the
normativity of any particular philosophy for expressing the truths of the faith
is his handling of the doctrine of transubstantiation (198-238). According to
Auer, the term transubstantiation gives "unique and apt expression" to the
saving truth that Christ's sacramental presence is not merely "a subjective
matter of faith, not merely an objective sensory reality," but instead a historical
truth that actually relates to our "spatio-temporal condition" even if it is a
truth that can only be grasped by faith (236). There is no question of
"baptizing" any particular metaphysics. Philosophical terms like transubstantiation become normative insofar as the Church judges them "valuable
dialectical instrument[s] in the service of the uncompromisingmysteriological
affirmations" of the Christian faith (238).
Having analyzed the methodologyof the work, I now tum to its theological
contribution. Auer's essay on sacramental theology begins with the affirmation
that Christian existence is impossible without the reality known as "sacrament" (1). His theology of the sacraments, based on this affirmation, is
further illumined by, and tries to account for, four fundamental problems of
human existence: the distinction of body and soul as constitutive principles
of the human person, the interdependence of the individual and the community, the distinction of intellect and will as root forces in the human spirit, and
the relationship in man of "being" and "acting" such that man is seen as that
creature who must "realize himself' in word and deed (1-3).
Auer summarizes the tradition by distinguishing four elements that
determine the structure of a sacrament: (1) the external sign perceptible to
the senses; (2) the interior reality of grace and efficacy; (3) the institution by
Jesus Christ; and (4) the ecclesial dimension of each sacrament, indicated by

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their "location" between a minister and a recipient (13-17). The bulk of the
essay is an explication of these principal elements.
Auer's own sacramental theology eludes easy categorization. He rejects
certain aspects of Scholastic doctrine for (in their accounts of sacramental
efficacy, at least) a kind of "sacramental materialism" (ll8). He is sympathetic to the apparently more personalistic accounts given by Rahner and others. Yet he also balks before Rahner's "symbolic" account of the manner of
the sacraments' effect in which "sacrament" is understood as the most
radical case of "God's word" coming to man. According to Auer, thus understood, the sacramental sign emerges as an absolute Word (in the Hegelian
sense), thereby abolishing "the Scriptural polarities between Creator and
creature, material world and spiritual world" (81). Instead, on this matter,
Auer endorses the position of St. Thomas that the sacramental sign is "a
directly human, inner-worldly reality, and hence only a mediate sign of God"
(ibid.). Maintaining this polarity bars the way toward either a theisticsupranaturalistic interpretation of grace or a purely anthropocentric-naturalistic
one. (Auer's dismissal of Scholastic causal accounts of sacramental efficacy
as materialistic or anti-personal should be corrected by Colman O'Neill's
well-reasoned defense [in a personalistic context!] of causal accounts in his
work Sacramental Realism [Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1983]).
Ultimately, although he acknowledges the limits and insufficiency of any
one explanation of the sacraments' interior reality and efficacy, Auer favors
the principal insights of Odo Casel's mystery theology because they represent
the best way to preserve "the central concerns of our time when we are
aiming at a new understanding in our sacramental theology and, indeed, in
the Church's total doctrine of salvation, and at a deepened liturgical practice"
(65). The thrust of mystery theology is that within the locus of the ecclesial
"cultus" alone is the full meaning of the reception of the sacraments reached
and achieved (67). This is because the recipient of the sacrament realizes his
or her existence within the Church by means of a sacramental appropriation
of the mystery of Christ. According to Auer, this is the basic view of the
sacraments which Sacrosanctum Concilium made its own.
In the second essay of the book, Auer attempts to show how, in the sacrament of the Mass, God addresses the whole of "reality" and the "welfare"
(salvation) of mankind. He argues that the sacramental sign of the Eucharist
is the sign "of the actual aid to salvation that the living God has localized in
Jesus Christ himself' (154). In other words, the realist Catholic understanding
of the presence of Christ's "body and blood together with [his] soul and divinity"
in the Eucharistic species (a presence defined at Trent as vere, realiter,
substantialiter) is the condition and sure guarantee that the sacrament of the
Eucharist is understood as the "actual aid" to man's salvation established by
God rather than merely "some indeterminate" aid to salvation (154). Auer's

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exegesis of the scriptural basis of the sacramental sign of the Eucharist, as
already indicated, shows the connections between the liturgical celebration,
the sacrificial (Passover) meal at the Last Supper, and Christ's paschal
sacrifice on the Cross. The Mass then can be understood only in light of the
Last Supper which in turn takes it fundamental meaning from Christ's
sacrificial death on the Cross (279).
This paschal understanding of the Eucharistic liturgy undergirds the heart
of Auer's Eucharistic theology, that is, the interrelated conceptions of the
Eucharist as "sacramental sacrifice" (the meal-sacrifice) and as "sacrificial
meal" (the meal as sacrament). The liturgical action of the Sacrifice of the
Mass takes its origin from the command of Christ at the Last Supper. In the
context of the Last Supper, Christ may be understood to have instituted "a
sacramental rite that was based on the paschal meal" (271). The Church has
understood by Christ's action that (a) this sacramental rite was to be
performed by the Apostles and their successors, (b) it had a direct relationship (albeit relative) to Christ's absolute, bloody sacrifice on the Cross, and
(c) its sacrificial character is indicated by its institution during the sacrificial
meal of the Passover (Christ's flesh, offered and eaten, in place of the
sacrificial flesh [271-72]). This threefold view excludes the following interpretations: that the Mass is only a subjective memorial celebration, that its
essence resides in the ritual destruction of the sacrificial species, or (most
common at the popular level) that it is primarily a community meal of
brotherhood in the Lord.
According to Auer, the Eucharist is first and last a sacrificial meal (an
Opfermahl), that is, a sacramental representation of Christ's unique sacrifice
in which we participate through a meal, the partaking of the sacrificial offering.
This "partaking," due to Christ's presence in the sacrament, constitutes "a
genuine sacramental communion with the bodily Lord" (326). Christ's enduring
presence in the consecrated species is the basis for Eucharistic adoration,
understood as a prolongation of sacramental communion (335-40). This
communion is in turn the foundation of Christian charity and ecclesial union
among the fellow members of Christ's Mystical Body (341-62).
Besides the doctrinal themes indicated, Auer addresses many pastoral
concerns that arise in sacramental (especially Eucharistic) theology, for
example, intercommunion, the ritual form of the sacraments, their effects,
and their necessity for salvation. As a matter of principle, however, such
questions are considered solely in the context of the dogmatic investigations.
For Auer, there is no possibility of fencing off dogmatic theology from
pastoral theology.
The English-language editions of Dogmatic Theology, begun in 1988,
meet a situation in which the pluralism of theology and theological method
have begun to exert strains on ecclesial unity. Increasingly, the need is felt
for basic but thorough textbooks in the sub-disciplines of dogmatic theology

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which can provide a foundation of knowledge for a common theological
education in seminaries and schools of theology. Dogmatic Theology 6, a
model of concision and learned objectivity in its presentation, meets that
need for sacramental theory in general and Eucharistic theology in particular.
An up-to-date English bibliography (organized by chapter) appears at the
end of the book, augmenting its usefulness for English-speaking students
of theology.

RICHARD C. HERMES, S.J.
Weston Jesuit School of Theology
Cambridge, Massachusetts