Tbe Tbomist 64 (2000): 161-210

CHRISTIANITY, "INTER CULTURALITY,"
AND SALVATION:
SOME PERSPECTIVES FROM LONERGAN
ANDREW BEARDS
Ushaw College
Durham, United Kingdom

T

he 1998 Synod of Asian Bishops in Rome helped to focus
attention in a very concrete way upon theological issues
surrounding notions such as "evangelization" and "inculturation," and the interplay between the mission of the Holy
Spirit, preparing all humankind in the diversity of cultures and
religions to receive the incarnate Word, and the mission of that
Word himself, Christ Jesus. One of the participants at the Synod,
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, was certainly no stranger ..:o the
complexity of the theological issues being raised. In 1993 he had
turned his attention to the issue of Christianity and inculturation
in a lecture delivered in Hong Kong entitled "Christ, Faith, and
the Challenge of Cultures. " 1 Some years earlier he had offered
theological reflections on questions concerning "anonymous
Christianity" and allied theological issues in a paper that included
a discussion of Rahner's approach to these matters. 2
In his 1993 lecture the cardinal attempts an analysis of the
dynamics of evangelization and inculturation that involves a
critique of a Western relativist evaluation of what such a process
can and should entail. He points out that such relativism was
voiced against the Christian claim to uniqueness early in the
1 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "Christ, Faith, and the Challenge of Cultures," Origins 24
(March 1995): 679-86.
2 Joseph Ratzinger, Principlesof Catholic Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987),
161-70.

161

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ANDREW BEARDS

Church's history by such Roman writers as Symmachus, and
remains substantially the same objection today. Against such
relativism he argues, firstly, that any human culture if authentic
must be open to the discovery of truth-truth that may challenge
and revise some of its deep-seated assumptions. Secondly, philosophical relativism is in fact alien to most cultures and religious
world-views. And, thirdly, Christianity can be seen to transform
and redeem other religious-cultural world-views in the way it
preaches a God now brought dose, in the Incarnation-a God, or
"Divinity," often implicitly recognized in these world-views as
somehow "distant."
A further point Ratzinger makes, and one that I wish to
highlight for discussion in this article, is that the Church, the
People of God, is itself a "cultural subject." Insofar as there is an
intersubjective communion of heart and mind in the body of
Christ this must be so. We cannot isolate the incarnate Word
from the Jewish world-view and culture which he enters into,
transforms, renews, "assumes," and, in doing so, confirms. This
culture of the Old Covenant is itself, as Ratzinger points out, a
result of what Gadamer might term a "fusion of horizons" with
other cultural elements of its neighbors, taking place over
centuries. However, such an evolved cultural form receives
something of a definitive confirmation from the perspective of
Christian faith once and insofar as it is taken into the life and
mind of Christ. This process of cultural fusion then enters a new
phase, but continues in the history of the Church, in which this
Jewish world-view, confirmed and renewed in Christ, encounters
and transforms the cultural forces it encounters in the process of
evangelization. In this way Christianity, unlike some religions but
akin to, for example, Buddhism, creates a universal Christian culture while also allowing (indeed, fostering) what in sociological
terms one might call "subcultures" -that is, the varied local
cultural forms of Christian societies, nations, cultures. This
phenomenon Ratzinger terms "interculturality." 3
In some ways this analysis appears to move against the current
evident in much of the theological reflection on evangelization
3 Ratzinger, "Christ, Faith and the Challenge of Cultures," 681-83.

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and inculturation this century. Pope Pius XI remarked to Fr. M.
D. Roland-Gosselin that the object of the Church is not to
"civilize" but to evangelize, 4 and since the encyclical Summi
Pontificatus (1939) the magisterium has often repeated the need
to differentiate the two processes. This process of making an
increasingly sharp theological distinction between evangelization
and inculturation went forward under the impetus of historical
developments. A period in which evangelization had gone hand
in hand with European colonization and imperial expansion was
passing away, and a new appreciation of Catholicism as a world
Church was emerging.
In line with such developments Bernard Lonergan insisted that
we were moving away from a period of "classical culture" in
which Christianity was seen as linked to a view which distinguished bet:ween, on the one hand, a normative classical culture
of meanings and values and, on the other, human groupings that
were not cultured but barbarian. In the final section of his work
Method in Theology, entitled "Communications," Lonergan treats
of evangelization, the culmination of the Christian message:
Now a classicist would feel it was perfectly legitimate for him to impose his
culture on others. For he conceives culture normatively, and he conceives his
own to be the norm. Accordingly for him to preach both the gospel and his
own culture, is for him to confer the double benefit of both the true religion
and the true culture. In contrast, the pluralist acknowledges a multiplicity of
cultural traditions .... Rather he would proceed from within their culture and
he would seek ways and means for making it into a vehicle for communicating
the Christian message.5

Is Ratzinger then proposing a return to what Lonergan would
term a classicist model of evangelization? Does his analysis of the
People of God as a cultural subject, such that one can indeed
speak of a "Christian culture," pit an ideology of normative
culture against the pluralist view Lonergan outlines?

Quoted in Walter Abbott, ed., The Documents of Vatican II (London: Chapman, 1967),
264 n. 192.
5 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (London: Darron, Longman and Todd, 1972),
363.
4

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ANDREW BEARDS

One of my aims in this article is to attempt to provide an
answer to this question. However, in attempting to answer the
question further issues arise regarding the
of Lonergan's
work for such notions as cultural normativity, Christianity, and
inculturation. I wiH also, therefore, examine some of those implications. Finally, I shall extend the discussion to further matters
that arise in a consideration of Christianity and mission: the
claims to uniqueness on the part of Christianity and the theological cogency and desirability of theories of "anonymous
Christianity."
L FROM CLASSICAL CULTURE TO HISTORICAL MINDEDNESS

One phrase of Lonergan's perhaps more than any other
appears to have imprinted itself upon the minds of latetwentieth-century theologians in the English-speaking world: the
shift from classical culture to historical mindedness. For some it
has become part of an arsenal to be deployed against anything
which is deemed to be "pre-conciliar," myopic, traditionalist; a
slogan with which to hail a "world come of age." For others, who
react against the former view, it can appear as yet another
modernist mantra which surely fails to do justice to the
complexity and diversity of the Catholic ecclesiastical tradition. 6
When one takes into consideration postmodern critiques of the
"modern" (appreciating that ecdesiastical modernism was and is
but a subspecies of the same), one may wonder whether this
6 See, for example, Charles Curran's use of the terms in C. Curran and R. Hunt, Dissent
in and for the Church: Theologians and Humanae Vitae (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1969),
155-69. In response, Janet E. Smith objects, quite rightly I believe, both to the imprecision
to which Curran's use of the terms "Classicism" and "historical mindedness" leads, and to the
way it is a caricature of even Platonic moral theory Ganet E. Smith, Humanae Vitae: A
Generation Later [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991], 180
and 397). Curran's lack of real understanding of the implications of Lonergan's position is
manifested in, among other things, his repeated drawing of a distinction between "classicist"
thinking as deductive and modern thinking as inductive. for Lonergan, the discussions of
both deduction and induction of the "modem" period fail to make the transposition from
"logic to method" (see Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding [New
York: Philosophical Library, 1957], 288 and 301). On Lonergan and ethics in general see
Andrew Beards, "Moral Conversion and Problems in Proportionalism," Gregorianum 78
(1997): 329-57.

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165

Lonerganian phrase is not a celebration of the "modem" which
has now had its day.
My first task in this section is, therefore, to clarify somewhat
what Lonergan means by this expression. Its open-textured
character, including as it does sketches of viewpoints that are
actually opposed, make it ill suited to be transformed into a
slogan. One should bear in mind Lonergan's own insistence that
ideal-types, or models for facilitating historical explanation,
should not be imposed on the data in such a way as to become, in
H. Marrou's words, "great anti-comprehension machines. " 7 One
of the principal means I will use to clarify Lonergan's meaning is
to raise and examine the question: is Aquinas a classicist for
Lonergan?

A) Continuity and Diversity in Cultural Change
Lonergan credited the transition in his thinking from a
normative, classical notion of culture to an empirical notion of
cultural diversity to the reading of Christopher Dawson's The Age
of the Gods in the late 1930s, and F. E. Crowe notes the
appearance of remarks on the limitations of "Classicism" in
Lonergan's writing as early as 1949. 8 In works of the late 1950s
and early 1960s such criticisms of classicism increase. 9 Something
of the open-textured nature of the term can be seen from these
early uses: in the 1959 lectures on education we read that
classicism "in its best sense" is to be seen in the Greek discovery
of mind, the Greek achievement of theory. This always remains
a cultural achievement, despite its limitations, an instance of true
progress in Lonergan's view. 10 In the 1962 paper "Time and
Lonergan, Method in Theology, 226-29.
Bernard Lonergan, "Insight Revisited," in A Second Collection (Darton, Longman and
Todd, 1974), 264; F. E. Crowe, in Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol 6,
Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964 (Univ. of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1996),
154-55, n. 25.
9 See F. E. Crowe, ed., Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 10, Topics in Education
(Univ. of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1993), 74-78; and "Time and Meaning," (a 1962 paper),
and "The Analogy of Meaning," (a 1963 paper), in Crowe, ed., Collected Works 6, 94-121,
and 183-212.
10 Crowe, ed., Collected Works 10, 75.
7

8

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ANDREW BEARDS

Meaning" we find another attribute of the classicist highlighted,
an attribute not so evident in Lonergan's later sketches: he is one
who speaks in respectful and deferential tones of the "greats" of
the Western intellectual tradition-Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas,
Newton, etc.-but has little if any appreciation of what it actually
means to think systematically and creatively as did these cultural
giants; the classicist has little real appreciation of what Lonergan
calls the theoretical differentiation of consciousness. 11 In a way
this echoes a constant theme in Lonergan's work: the authentic
human act of understanding has no substitute in a mere parroting
of formulae or theory little understood. A tension may be noted
here: "classicism" denotes the theoretical differentiation of consciousness, the capacity that emerges in culture for systematic,
theoretical reflection, but it is also used to denote cultural
deference to such an achievement on the part of those who do not
properly participate in it.
The 1968 paper "Belief: Today's Issue," provides a fairly
lengthy treatment of the contrast between classical and modem
culture, highlighting the limitations of both. Of the limitations of
classicism we read:
Classicist culture was stable. It took its stand on what ought to be, and what
ought to be is not refuted by what is. It legislated with an eye to the substance
of things, on the unchanging essence of human living and, while it never
doubted either that circumstances alter cases or that circumstances change, still
it was also quite sure that essences did not change, that change affected the
accidental details that were of no great account. 12

Classicist culture was also essentially "ethnocentric": it contrasted
itself not with alternative cultures but with human groups which
had simply to be designated "barbarian." "By conceiving itself
normatively, [it] also had to think of itself as the one and only
culture for all time. But modern culture is culture on the move. It
is historicist. " 13
There are other examples of the indefiniteness of Lonergan's
historical ideal-type of classicism. For instance, he characterizes
Crowe, ed., CollectedWorks 6, 121.
Second Collection, 92-93.
13 Ibid., 93.
11

12 Lonergan,

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as "classicist" both the metaphysical theorist, who tends to
abstract from the particularity of human history and individuals,
and the "person for whom the rhetorician or orator of Isocrates
or Cicero represents the fine flower of human culture." 14 Yet
while one may be both an admirer of theoretical metaphysics and
of Cicero, it is dear from a study of such periods of Western
cultural history as that of Renaissance humanism that admiration
for the latter can entail opposition to the former. Furthermore,
Lonergan says that "a classicist would maintain that one should
never depart from an accepted terminology," 15 and would
therefore be opposed to authentic development of dogma (i.e.,
development in accord with Vincent of Lerins and Vatican I). But
then he demonstrates very ably in his own work on doctrinal
history 16 that new terminology was accepted to express further
insight into doctrine both in the patristic period, the theology of
which is affected by a "tincture" of theory, and in the medieval
period, whose theology exhibits a full theoretical and systematic
exploration. In other words these periods, characterized in some
way as classical by Lonergan, did and could accept new
theological terminology, something to which the classicist is,
according to the above quotation, opposed.
Finally, it is important to observe that Lonergan on occasions
also identifies philosophical and theological deductivism and the
quest for certainty as a characteristic of classicism.
In the second place, the classicist judged modern science in the light of the
Aristotelian notion of science and by that standard found it wanting, for
modern science does not proceed from self-evident, necessary principles and
it does not demonstrate conclusions from such principles. 17

This more than anything else should make us wary of thinking
that Lonergan has given us anything like an "explanatory
definition" with the term "classicism." Throughout his career it
14 Bernard Lonergan, Philosophy of God and Theology (London: Darton, Longman and
Todd, 1973), ix.
15 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 123-24.
16 See, for example, Bernard Lonergan, The Way to Nicea (London: Darton, Longman and
Todd, 1976).
17 Lonergan, Second Collection, 112.

ANDREW BEARDS

168

was such theological deductivism, arising from the fourteenthcentury nominalist use of Aristotle, that he strove to contrast with
the authentic thought and methodology of St. Thomas Aquinas.
If my indications here of a certain "untidiness" to Lonergan's
notion of classicism may appear somewhat disingenuous I would
simply reiterate the point that what we have in this notion is not
an explanatory concept but something like a Wittgensteinian
nominal definition through "family resemblance." Lonergan
makes more or less this point himself when he writes:
But I would like to say that the contrast I have drawn between classicist and
modern is not based on some a priori typology or periodization. It is a
summary of a whole set of conclusions concerning the defects of our
theological inheritance and the remedies that can be brought to bear.

More importantly, he continues,
If we are not just to throw out what is good in classicism and replace it with
contemporary trash, then we need to take the trouble, and it is enormous, to
grasp the strength and the weakness, the power and the limitations, the good
points and the shortcomings of both classicism and modernity. 18

If we now address the question "is Aquinas a classicist?" we
will gain a better understanding of what Lonergan considers are
the strengths of the past that we need to import into the present.

B) Is Aquinas a Classicist?
In Method in Theology and elsewhere Lonergan sketches an
account of the evolutionary development of the history of
meaning in Western culture in terms of three stages or plateaus of
achievement. 19 In the first stage we witness ordinary or commonsense meaning (the plateau of "undifferentiated consciousness").
The second stage, growing out of the first, is signaled by the
Greek discovery of mind; it is the period of theoretical consciousness, and in terms of Christianity Lonergan sees evidence of
Ibid., 98.
Lonergan, Method in Theology, 85-99; see also Bernard Lonergan, A Third Collection
(London: Chapman, 1985), 179-82.
18

19

"INTERCULTURALITY" AND SALVATION

169

a "tincture" of such theory in the Christological debates of the
first millennium, while a full engagement with theory is evident
in the Scholastic period. The third stage grows out of the second.
It is marked by the growing autonomy of the sciences, both
physical and, later, human, from philosophy and the various
philosophical responses to these developments, ranging from the
"turn to the subject" in Descartes, Kant, and Idealism to the
repudiation of such a move in positivism or linguistic analysis.
While this is a general sketch of the ongoing differentiations of
consciousness in the West, the models available for the cultural
interpreter of the process increase as one approximates to
concrete examples of historical processes, since one may also take
into account some thirty-six possible combinations of these
conscious differentiations. 20
It is clear from this general historical scheme both that the
second stage or plateau is, for Lonergan, the stage of classicism
and that it is the stage in which, historically, Aquinas is to be
located. It would appear to follow, therefore, that Aquinas is a
classicist. However, it is clear that Lonergan is reluctant to apply
the term to St. Thomas. Rather, it is through a retrieval of
Aquinas's thought that one overcomes the limitations of classicism. This is a constant theme throughout Lonergan's work,
exemplified by the motto he took for his endeavors from Pope
Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris: "novae vetere ex augere et perficere."
From the beginning of his published work Lonergan's hermeneutic of suspicion is directed against Scotist naive realism in
epistemology and its deductivist companion in theology. This
conceptualism had entered through Suarezianism into the Jesuit
intellectual tradition into which Lonergan was initiated in his
youth. It was a breaking free from this background, being enabled
to think through the challenges of historically minded modernity
for Catholic thought, that characterized Lonergan's years spent
"reaching up to the mind of Aquinas."

20 In addition to the three differentiations of common sense, theory, and interiority (or
the turn to the subject, of stage three), there are such differentiations as, for example, the
religious, artistic, and scholarly. See Lonergan, Method in Theology, 272, 275.

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In such papers such as the "Future of Thomism," 21 "Aquinas
Today: Tradition and Innovation," and the recently published
"Fundamental Theology" 22 Lonergan continues to affirm his
assessment of Aquinas as the theologian of the tradition, more
than any other, whose fundamental theological and philosophical
approach is that which we must appropriate in order to move
forward. Although Aquinas did not explicitly move from a
cognitional theory and an epistemology to ground a metaphysics
based upon them, Lonergan believes that both he and Aristotle
before him pointed in that direction. For, on Lonergan's view, we
find in their work, implicitly and obscurely, some combination of
a "phenomenology of the subject" with a "psychology of the
soul. " 23 It is only through an encounter with Aquinas that
Lonergan is able to deconstruct the "knowing as looking" myth
that has bedeviled Western philosophy since the late Middle Ages,
and in its place outline a critical realism-a realism that holds that
reality is not known through sensation but through the
deployment of intelligent and reasonable operations.
Further, from Aquinas we learn a totally different approach to
theology from that found in fourteenth-century nominalism and
deductivism. One understands theology as some attempt at a
fruitful understanding of revealed truths, not an exercise in logic
that strives for "scientific certainty." The irony here is, of course,
that such a notion of "science" itself becomes replaced, after a
long historical process, with the very notion of a good theory as
that which is the best possible in the circumstances, the attitude
to theory which St. Thomas himself had with regard to theology.
Thus, one of the characteristics of classicism we noted above, its
ideal of logical deductivism in theology and science, is replaced
by a return to St. Thomas. As Lonergan writes, contrasting the
limitations of "classical Thomism" with the authentic mind of St.
Thomas (and suggesting transpositions required to achieve the
retrieval of that authentic voice):
Lonergan, Second Collection,, 43-53.
Lonergan, Third Collection, 35-54; Bernard Lonergan, "Fundamental Theology,"
Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 16 (1998): 5-24, see 22-23.
23 Bernard Lonergan, "Introduction," in Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, ed. David E.
Burrell (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1967).
21

22

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171

You may ask, however, whether after the introduction of the ... transpositions
just outlined there would be anything left of Thomism. And at once I must
grant that the five emphases I attributed to classical Thomism would disappear.
One may doubt, however, whether such emphases are essential to the thought
of St. Thomas or of the great Thomists. 24

Certainly there are transpositions to be made from Aquinas's
thought to a contemporary theology and one must note the
limitations of St. Thomas's horizon. One can surely say that
Aquinas simply does not have the same sense of historical
movement, of the ongoing genesis of methods and cognitive
disciplines that we experience in contemporary culture. This is
what Lonergan sees as a limitation in his thought. But even here
we need to handle the word "limitation" carefully. Naturally, one
does not "blame" a thinker of seven hundred years ago for not
answering the questions that arise for us today; they simply did
not arise for him. However, even here Lonergan's retrieval of
Aquinas leads us to qualify this admission. While Aquinas's
reflections on doctrinal development or the historicality of human
thought are not conspicuous, the indications of an awareness of
issues at stake are there. So when Lonergan insists that there is
only one eternal truth, in God, and that human truth is both
genuine truth but historically conditioned in its formulation (so
that one may discern a genuine history of truth), that "concepts
have dates," in other words, he is simply exploiting and
developing insights he discovered in Aquinas. Thus Lonergan
draws attention to St. Thomas's point in the Summa contra
Gentiles that human insights and judgments, even in metaphysics,
have some temporal reference, given the nature of human
knowing. 25 Further, he draws attention to St. Thomas's point
(following Aristotle) that human knowledge and understanding
only occur in an ongoing, historical process of collaboration. 26
On the other hand, Scotist nominalism blocks such attention to
24 Lonergan,
25 Lonergan,

Second Collection, 52.
Verbum, 63-64 (fhe work originally appeared in article form between 1946

and 1949).
26 Bernard Lonergan, Understandingand Being:The Halifax Lectureson Insight, ed. E. and
M. Morelli, F. E. Crowe, R. Doran, and T. Daly (foronto: University of Toronto Press,
1990), 383.

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ANDREW BEARDS

the historicity of human thought through its account of
"unconscious" concept formation, and diverts attention away
from concrete historical process. Unlike St. Thomas, who was
concerned to understand something of the mystery of that historical event, the Incarnation, with its implications for the real
world of history, the nominalist diverts our attention away from
concrete historical process to speculation concerning logical
possible worlds. 27 While St. Thomas could not possibly anticipate
in a fulsome way the massive development of the Geisteswissenschaften in the last three centuries, still Lonergan detects
heuristic anticipations of the important issues. Thus the methodological attempt to gather the authoritative texts of the tradition in
the mediaeval period anticipates modern efforts in research and
interpretation. 28 And the attempts of modern historical scholarship to understand the common sense of other cultures and times
are obscurely anticipated in Aquinas's examination of human
commonsense understanding in his analysis of prudentia. 29
There are achievements in Aquinas's theology-with respect to
grace, the Trinity, and other issues-that Lonergan believes are
"classic," in the sense that no theologian working in these areas
today or in the future can or should ignore them. But far more
important are the avenues for epistemological, metaphysical, and
theological research Aquinas opens up: avenues that, Lonergan
believes, open up possibilities for developing positions in these
areas which admit of permanence and development-allowing for
the adumbration of basic philosophical positions fostering
development, but restricting radical revision at the cost of selfdestructive incoherence. What is really, profoundly important in
Aquinas is the discovery of heuristic or methodological indications of what both permanence and authentic development, on
the one hand, and inauthentic decline, on the other, could be in
human thought and culture.
This retrieval of Aquinas, which is at the core of Lonergan's
whole enterprise, implies that for Lonergan there is a history of
philosophical truth just as there is a parallel history of dogmatic
Verbum, 69.
Lonergan, Third Collection, 52.
29 Ibid., 44.

27 Lonergan,
28

"INTERCULTURALITY" AND SALVATION

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truth. In this respect Lonergan's work can be fruitfully compared
and contrasted with that of Alasdair Maclntyre's retrieval of
Thomism (which emphasizes its strengths as a tradition-based
form of philosophical enquiry). There are important differences
between these two positions, 30 yet much also that is complementary. In fact, reading the former in light of the latter helps to
highlight the postmodern moments in Lonergan's thought, particularly with regard to his retrieval of a premodern thinker,
Aquinas. In many ways, then, we can see Lonergan's critique of
"classicism" as a critique of "modernity." The central role played
by the premodern thought of Aquinas in this critique reveals that
any understanding of Lonergan's notion of the defects of
classicism which reads this as a "modern" or modernist critique
could not be more mistaken.
Further, it is interesting to observe some of the striking
postmodern themes in Lonergan's work. Even in his magnum
opus, Insight, a work of "pure philosophy" if ever there was one,
such elements are evident. A central theme of the work is an
analysis of the way human attempts to reach cognitive and moral
self-transcendence in knowing the true and the good, and acting
accordingly, are stymied by the mystery of human bias and sin.
The only "solution" to this human condition is the divine one of
salvation. Thus a philosophical enquiry into human understanding inevitably heads towards a faith perspective. "Objectivity
30 Michael P. Maxwell, Jr., "A Dialectical Encounter Between Macintyre and Lonergan
on the Thomistic Understanding of Rationality," International PhilosophicalQuarterly 33
( 1993): 385-99; see Alasdair Macintyre, Three RivalVersionsofMoral Inquiry (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). Maxwell draws attention to Maclntyre's denial of
the validity of nineteenth and twentieth-century attempts by Thomists to answer the
epistemological questions of modernity; naturally, there is a divergence from Lonergan in this
crucial area. Maxwell successfully argues that (as Lonergan points out) we cannot foist such
a prejudice against meeting the epistemological challenges of modernity upon Aquinas and
that there are many elements of Aquinas's thought that would allow the development of an
extremely powerful critique of the deficiencies of the epistemologies of modernity. Finally,
Maxwell shows that elements within Maclntyre's version of Thomism as a form of Thomistic
fallibilism (akin therefore to views such as those of Popper or Davidson) become involved in
incoherence (Maxwell, "Macintyre and Lonergan," 399). I would add to Maxwell's criticisms
the point that if some are suspicious about a reading of Aquinas that imports his thought into
the epistemological debates of modernity, it is appropriate to wonder, by parity of historical
suspicion, about the Thomistic authenticity of an account like Maclntyre's, which provides
a metanarrative in terms of such fallibilist criteria.

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is the fruit of authentic subjectivity," and that authenticity only
comes about through the divine initiative healing the broken
human community. This is parallel to Maclntyre's insistence that
genealogical and deconstructive critiques have unmasked the
pretended impartial objectivity of the Enlightenment as flawed
and, in reality, far more scattered and fragmentary in its vision of
the world than its propaganda would have us believe. Without a
tradition in which the virtues are cultivated truth cannot flourish
and, ultimately, that tradition must be based upon resources
beyond those which a mere humanism can provide. 31
More fundamentally, of course, the issue is not one of
awarding marks to either Lonergan or Macintyre on the basis of
how "postmodern" they appear. The issue is, more fundamentally, one of a possible critique of postmodernity, itself very
difficult to delimit, and of possible hermeneutical analyses which
might even redefine movements in the Western cultural heritage
in a way that challenges those genealogies espoused by some of
the more noted representatives of postmodernity. For Lonergan,
for example, what is at stake may well have already been played
out in some way in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries; the
aporias and their resolution may already be present in the
dialectical relationships obtaining between Aquinas, Scotus, and
Nicholas of Autrecourt. One may remark that, for all its critique
of Enlightenment modernity, postmodernity cannot but be its
child in the "hubristic pride" it manifests in claiming a total and
revolutionary rupture from the past-a past which, in whatever
circumlocutory phrases one attempts to express it, is now deemed
mistaken and illusory. 32 In contrast Macintyre and Lonergan are
31 Macintyre,

Three Rival Versions, 127-31.

32 Of course Derrida will claim, much to the chagrin of American parmers in debate such

as Rorty, that one can never "escape" the Western intellectual tradition. But it is evident that
he cannot avoid making the implicit claim that at least he has struggled free enough to achieve
the elbow room that allows him to "take" and "re-take" that tradition but no longer to take
it "seriously"; see Jacques Derrida, "Remarks on Deconstruction and Pragmatism," in
Deconstruction and Pragmatism, ed. Chantal Mouffe (London: Routledge, 1996), 77-88.
Derrida brings out in these remarks how fundamental the aporias and problems he
encountered in Husserl remain for his thinking. In some ways, Derrida stands to Husserl as
Wittgenstein II stands to Wittgenstein I regarding the failure of the "philosophical project."
Crucial to any discussion of the relationship between Lonergan and Derrida is precisely a
recognition of the way Lonergan retrieves from Aquinas perspectives and approaches that

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among those alone capable of a true deconstruction of the
pretensions of the enlightenment: for only a viewpoint that sees
itself as an ongoing collaboration in the discovery of truth, from
past to present, from present to future, can really claim to retrieve
in any meaningful way what is valid in the past, or "premodern."
Before we conclude this section, examining what classicism
might mean for Lonergan, it may be worth drawing attention to
two further points.
First, Lonergan's hermeneutical retrieval of Aquinas, although
central to his appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of the
theological tradition, should not blind us to his positive
evaluation of other elements in the theological tradition up to and
including those evident in the nineteenth and twentieth-century
Catholic tradition. Newman, for example, is a nineteenth-century
theological figure who remains very important for Lonergan.
Then one finds, in an early essay on the possibility of defining the
dogma of the Assumption, positive evaluation of the nondeductivist approach shown to the issue of "implicit revelation"
by the theological commission that prepared the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception in 1854. 33 Lonergan writes, "Out of the
Augustinian, Anselmian, Tho mist tradition, despite an imervening
heavy overlay of conceptualism, the first Vatican Council
retrieved the notion of understanding. "34
Second, given the variety of characteristics Lonergan brings
under the rubric of "classicism" one may note, perhaps with some
surprise, the characteristics evident in the thought of some more
recent theologians which would render their work classicist. Thus
in his critique of Schoonenberg's Christo logy Lonergan makes the
point that the Dutch theologian's failure to understand what
Chalcedon taught on the divinity of our Lord has to do, in part,
with a "classicist" failure to appreciate the historical context of
were simply not "available" to Husserl. Derrida is more aware than many another thinker of
Hegel's dictum "all negation is determinate," but for all that, in even the most tentative or
"obvious" judgment concerning a text (and Derrida is insistent on rigor in textual
interpretation) one cannot avoid the exigencies of intelligence and reasonableness, nor,
therefore, Lonergan would avow, one's commitment to objective reality as the intelligible.
33 See "The Assumption and Theology," in Collection (London: Darton, Longman and
Todd, 1967).
34 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 336.

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that council's use of the term "Person" (although the meaning of
the council's teaching, Lonergan insists, is "not obscure"). 35
Further, Guy Mansini has argued forcefully for the dramatic differences that exist between Lonergan and Rabner in a number of
key areas of theology, one of these being the crucial area of
methodology. 36 According to Mansini (we shall return to this
issue below), from a Lonerganian perspective Rabner still appears
as a theologian captive to the deductivist tradition, which places
a premium on philosophical proof in theology rather than
nondeductive understanding or insight regarding the divinely
revealed truths-the tradition that all too readily conflates intelligibility with necessity. If this is so, then we may observe
something quite ironic: Lonergan, normally considered the
"philosophers' theologian" may, in effect, place greater emphasis
on the transcendence of the mysteries with regard to our
understanding, than does the "theologian of mystery," Rahner. If
this is so, Rahner's work would still be tied, in some respects, to
classicist, conceptualist models from the viewpoint of Lonergan's
methodology.
II. CULTURE, CHRISTIANITY, AND CULTURAL NORMATIVITY

Lonergan's contrast between a classicist evangelization, which
regards cultures other than the Christian West as "barbaric," and
a pluralist evangelization, which attempts to work within the
possibilities of another culture recognized as an equal in terms of
its communal sharing of values, should not blind us to the fact
that there are in the Catholic historical tradition various forms of
evangelization which do not work with the "non-barbarian
(Christian) versus barbarian (non-Christian)" model. One can
think of the evangelization undertaken by the Jesuits in China and
India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a fairly obvious
example (one which Lonergan himself acknowledged). 37 Beyond
Lonergan, Second Collection, 260.
Guy Mansini, O.S.B., "Quasi-Formal Causality and 'Change in the Other': A Note on
Karl Rahner's Christology," The Thomist 52 (1989): 293-306.
37 In conversation with Fr Eric O'Connor (I am unable to find the reference to this
remark).
35

36

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this, however, analyses like those of Ratzinger begin to draw our
attention to something that requires a good deal of further
research and reflection. We are emerging from a period in which
Christian evangelization was linked to European colonial expansion. Much of the theological reflection on evangelization in this
century, including that found in the magisterium, has been taking
stock of this movement beyond European hegemony. But this new
phase requires its own forms of reflection: in many ways the
emergence of Europe and the West as post-Christian enables us to
see anew the distinctions between Christianity and European
culture, and between Christian mission linked to European
colonial expansion and Christian mission separate from it. In the
context of the latter distinction one element required for a proper
understanding of evangelization is a retrieval of historical models
of Christian mission prior to late medieval and Renaissance
colonial expansion on the part of the West. A reflection on these
earlier forms may help us move away from too rapid an
identification of evangelization with the Western "imperialist"
imposition of a world-view. From St. Paul's mission in the
diaspora to the Franciscan missions to Beijing in the thirteenth
century, one does not witness an "imposition" of Western culture
on those to be evangelized, a mission backed by the "big
battalions," but nevertheless an unashamed call to accept and
adapt to a new truth, a new world-view, and a call to make the
sacrifices, sometimes great indeed, which this change of view
requires. One can reflect that the Christian mission was
established in India certainly by the second century, and when
"Thomas Christians" prayed for the world to accept Christ they
would have been praying for many a pagan area of Northern
Europe. 38
A further, important issue to draw attention to is the
relativization of culture, and in some ways Western "classical"
38 See, for example, T. Puthiakunnel, "Jewish Colonies of India Paved the Way for St.
Thomas," in The MalabarChurch, ed. J. Vellinan, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 186 (Rome,
1970), 187-91. It is also important to notice the dialectical encounter already under way
between Christian and Hindu thought in the writings of the early Fathers, such as Irenaeus
and Hippolytus. The background to such exchanges was the Alexandrian school, and the
Hindu-Hellenistic cultural encounter which had been underway since Alexander's conquests
in Northern India.

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culture, through the emergence of Christianity itself. From the
New Testament period on through the writings of the Fathers, we
witness a dialectical process of reception, rejection, and transformation of that which Christianity encounters as it permeates
Greco-Roman culture. Lonergan himself wrote at some length on
this process in his analysis of the "Origins of Christian Realism,"
and to this I shall return below. But what Ratzinger's account of
the Church as itself a cultural subject draws attention to (although
it is not a feature of his lecture) is the process of relativization of
culture which emerges. It emerges with particular clarity in St.
Augustine, the cultured man of Western classicism, who had,
before his conversion, despised the "barbarity" of mere Christianity, with its coarse and unappealing Hebrew Scriptures.
According to Peter Brown, following H. L Marrou, this
relativization of classical culture went forward in Augustine's later
period in works like City of God and De Doctrina Christiana. 39
The rupture with classical ideals was radical, as Augustine began
to realize the significance of the fact that God's truth had been
communicated through the culture of the Hebrews, a people akin
to the tribes that lived on the margins of Augustine's RomanNorth African world. Brown writes of Augustine's new approach
to culture in De Doctrina Christiana:
He began by remarking that culture was a product of society: it was a natural
extension of language. It was so plainly the creation of social habits as to be
quite relative. There could be no absolute standards of classical "purism." 40

Brown concludes: "It is a rare thing to come across a man of
sixty, living on the threshold of a great change, who had already
come to regard a unique culture and a unique political institution
as replaceable." 41 Nor was Augustine's insight, which somehow
crystallizes the attitude of the Fathers to pagan classical culture,
lost in the Christian West. It is present in the Scholasticisrn of the
Victorines in the High Middle Ages, and it reemerges with force
in the Renaissance debate over the language of Scripture. So in
Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London: Faber and Faber, 1967), chap. 23.
Ibid., 265.
4 I Ibid., 266.

39
40

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the sixteenth century we find Giles of Viterbo and Cajetan at
loggerheads over the question of the value of Greek as opposed
to Hebrew: for Cajetan the latter is primitive and defective,
whereas for Giles it is perfect, for it is the vehicle of God's
revelation. The debate seems to have constituted part of the
background to the querelle des anciens et des modernes, which
Gadamer sees as a feature of the emergence of modernity in the
West. 42 Of course, in the period of the Enlightenment Hume and
Gibbon would range themselves on the side in the debate
opposite to Augustine and Giles.

A) Intersubjectivity and the Christian Cultural Subject
The relativization of culture that emerges with Christianity
comes about, therefore, because Christianity realizes itself to be,
in Ratzinger's words, a "cultural subject": it itself is a community
constituted by common meanings and values, expressed and
communicated in common symbols and aesthetic carriers of
meaning, allowing and effecting intersubjective communication
both between its members and between those members and
Christ, the head of the mystical Body. Turning back to Lonergan,
we do not find in chapter 14 of Method in Theology (on
communications), or chapter 12 (on doctrines), which together
treat of evangelization, an analysis of the Church as a "cultural
subject." So we return to the question asked at the beginning of
this article: is Ratzinger's notion of Christianity as a cultural
subject, with his allied notion of "interculturality," a classicist
approach from Lonergan's perspective? I think not. Rather, I
believe there is an important complementarity between their
approaches.
The primary focus of Lonergan's attention in these chapters in
Method is the manner in which Christian dogma develops: the
truths of faith revealed in one culture may be understood in a new
way (always retaining the same meaning) in another culture. A
paradigmatic example Lonergan uses to illustrate this
development-with-continuity comes from mathematics: the same
42 Hans-Georg Gadamar, Truth and Method, ed. J. Cummings and G. Barden (London:
Sheed and Ward, 1975), 20, 242.

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truth, that two plus two is four, was understood by the ancient
Babylonians, later by the Greeks, and later still in modern
mathematics-there is a growth of understanding of the same
truth. 43 This notion of development-with-continuity is Lonergan's
central concern. However, what Ratzinger's analysis of Christianity as the cultural subject indicates is that when Christianity is
preached, what is primarily preached is a person, Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, that person, the divine Person in a human nature
and consciousness, is a cultural subject: one cannot prescind from
encountering and in some way embracing the Word made flesh
without at once embracing the culture taken up and transformed
in his humanity-"for salvation is from the Jews" Uohn 4:22), or
in the words of Pius XI, "we are all Semites spiritually."
All this, however, is implicit in Lonergan's approach. What is
distinctive about Christianity is the intersubjective encounter with
Christ Jesus, and what Christian evangelization is about is
proclaiming Christ Jesus. That communication invites an encounter with the incarnate meaning of the incarnate Word. As
Lonergan writes, "The word, then, is personal. Cor ad cor
loquitur: love speaks to love, and its speech is powerful. " 44 And
agam:
We express ourselves, we communicate, through the flesh, through words and
gestures, the unnoticed movements of the countenance, pauses, all the manners
in which, as Newman says, "cor ad cor loquitur," the heart speaks unto the
heart. And the Incarnation and the Redemption are the supreme instance of
God communicating to us in this life.45

On Lonergan's view, the person is not a monad but comes to be
himself through the "mutual self-mediation" of a community or
culture (such mutual self-mediation being what is written about by
novelists as they trace the intricacies of interpersonal relations in
community); 46 this applies equally to the Word made flesh. One
43 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 325.
44

Ibid., 113.

45 Crowe, ed., Collected Works 6, 65-66.
46 Lonergan, "The Mediation of Christ in Prayer," in ibid., 176. The theme of the Corad
cor loquitur, intersubjective communion of feeling between Christ and his followers, found
in Lonergan's writings could provide a starting point for a theology of the Sacred Heart; such

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cannot come close to another without in some ways coming close
to his culture. The images and symbols to which the Sacred Heart
responded as truly manifesting the truths and values which Jesus
had come to communicate must also become the sources of my
authentic feelings, my intentional responses to truth and value, if
I am truly to enter into an intersubjective communion with him.
And those images and symbols, signs and words are, as Ratzinger
shows, that which is transformed yet fundamentally confirmed by
the Word incarnate. Indeed, as Lonergan argues, our faith affirms
that this Jewish culture was prepared as the seed bed of the
Incarnation over generations. Following Eric Voegelin, Lonergan
points out that the control or integration of symbols and signs in
Israel took place not through any philosophical critique but
through the purification wrought by the prophetic word which,
from the viewpoint of faith, we take to have been a divine work. 47
This particular culture, then, with its world-view, its theology,
and its anthropology, is, from the viewpoint of faith, a culture
with a normativity no other can claim: it was a people formed by
Yahweh for the coming of the Word.
The account of evangelization given by Lonergan in chapters
12 and 14 of Method may benefit from an analysis such as
Ratzinger's. While Lonergan's examination of the continuity and
development of truths about the faith through diverse cultures is
essential, still it needs to be complemented by an appreciation of
the cultural implications of saying that at the center of evangelization is the intersubjective encounter with the person Jesus
Christ. I have indicated already some of the elements in Lonergan's work which might prove helpful in teasing out the
theological implications involved in such a reflection. The relativization of cultures which takes place in Christianity, so evident
in St. Augustine's relativization of "classical culture," occurs
precisely from a realization of the implications of this theological
a theme could be fruitfully reflected upon in the context of what Lonergan has to say about
some dogmatic developments as being characterized principally by "a refinement of feelings."
47 Lonergan, Way to Nicea, 110. It is perhaps interesting to note, given Lonergan's
contention that the anthropological, as opposed to classicist, idea of culture entails study of
distinctive forms of common sense, that in Insight he enumerates "Catholic" common sense
as a distinct type (Lonergan, Insight, 416).

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fact: the least of aH peoples, the people of Israel, has been chosen
as the vehide for God's salvation of the world. Precolonial
evangdization was always a realization of this. It is not ethnocentric imperialism that takes a cultural story as in some way
normative for all human cultures and therefore prodaims in the
name of truth that this cultural story, not the old one (however
adaptable the old may be to the new), is now normative. Both
Lonergan and Ratzinger argue that the authenticity of any culture
is gauged precisely
terms of its openness to the true and the
good from whatever source this may come. There are many
self-destructive inconsistencies in modem Western relativism, but
one of the most evident is its own metanarrative of cultural
encounter which denies what has in fact occurred through most
cultures and historical periods: the permeability of cultures one
to another; the abandonment, at times painful, of traditions and
religious world-views because new ones have been accepted. It is
not for the modern Western relativist to impose (great irony here
of course) his metanarrative on the cultures of human history so
as to attempt some "anti-ethnocentric" policing
protection
from the pain of conversion.
However, beyond drawing out the implications of aspects of
Lonergan's work that allow a fuller acknowledgement of
Ratzinger's point that Christianity is a cultural "subject," one may
observe that there is a yet more radical thesis in Lonergan's work
that goes beyond Ratzinger's analysis of a certain "cultural
normativity" implicit in Christianity: the thesis of "the origins of
Christian realism."

B) Christian Realism as a Cultural Catalyst
In the chapter on "Communications" in Method Lonergan
writes, concerning evangelization and inculturation:
The pluralist acknowledges a multiplicity of cultural traditions. In any tradition
he envisages the possibility of diverse differentiations of consciousness. But he
does not consider it his task either to promote the differentiations of
consciousness or to ask people to renounce their own culture. 48
48

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 363.

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Something of what Lonergan means by "differentiations of
consciousness" has been sketched above. However, there is a very
significant, and perhaps easily overlooked, modification made by
Lonergan of the position he expresses in Method in one of his last
papers, "Unity and Plurality," dating from 1982. There we read,
of communications and evangelization, "There follows a manifold
pluralism. It remains that within the realm of undifferentiated
consciousness there is no communication of doctrine except
through available rituals, narratives, titles parables, metaphors."
So far this expresses the same ideas one finds in Method.
However, Lonergan continues,
An exception to this last statement must be noted. The educated classes in a
society, such as was the Hellenic, normally are instances of undifferentiated
consciousness. But their education had among its sources works of genuine
philosophers, so that they could be familiar with logical operations and take
propositions as objects on which they reflected and from which they inferred.
In this fashion the meaning of homoousion for Athanasius was contained in a
rule concerning propositions about the Father and the Son: What is true of the
Father also is true of the Son, except that the Son is not the Father.
Similarly, the meaning of the one person and two natures mentioned in the
second paragraph of the decree of Chalcedon stands forth in the repeated
affirmation of the first paragraph, namely, it is one and the same Son our Lord
Jesus Christ that is perfect in divinity and the same perfect in humanity ....
Now the meaning of the first paragraph can be communicated without the
addition of any new technical terms. But it can give rise to reflection and to
questions. Only after someone asks whether the divinity is the same as the
humanity and, if not, then how can the same be both God and man, is it
relevant to explain that a distinction can be drawn between person and nature,
that divinity and humanity refer to two natures, that it is one and the same
person that is both God and man. Such logical clarification is within the
meaning of the decree. But if one goes on to raise the metaphysical question
whether person and nature can be really distinct or the anthropological
question whether there can be any real distinction between subject and
subjectivity, then the issue is being transported from the fifth century to the
thirteenth on the metaphysical issue, and to the twentieth on the
anthropological issue. One not only steps beyond the context of Chalcedon,
but also beyond the capacity of undifferentiated consciousness to discover any
possible solution. 49

49

Lonergan, Third Collection, 243-44.

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In this passage Lonergan is gesturing in the direction not only of
his own contributions in the area of Christology and the Trinity
but also towards his thesis concerning an implicit "differentiation
of consciousness" that goes forward within the development of
dogma: the emergence of "Christian realism" -that is, not only
a distinctive Christian metaphysic, as integral to the Christian
cultural world-view, but a distinctive Christian epistemology. The
passage also places in context the previous passage from Method.
In the light of the subsequent remarks one can see that in the
earlier passage Lonergan has undifferentiated, or "primitive,"
consciousness in mind as the receiver of the Christian message.
But in the later passage he takes cognizance of other stages of
consciousness as possible receivers of that same message. In light
of this, if one is going to communicate the Christian message
effectively to cultures with a more differentiated consciousness (or
rather with elements of, for example, philosophical or theoretical
differentiation present in the culture), one will have to be on the
level of that task. Furthermore, if the truth of Christianity is to be
effectively communicated, questions and further questions have
to be met. And this will only be achieved by further theoretical
differentiation, or (in a "turn to the subject") by the shift to
interiority, in the modern context. If this is so then it cannot be
true, in an unqualified way, that the pluralist evangelizer avoids
promoting differentiations of consciousness. For in order
effectively to communicate Christian truth, not error or myth, he
may very well have to invite the hearers of the message to move
from commonsense meaning to an understanding involving some
theoretical elements and, at the limit, metaphysical and psychological elements, if authentic questions are to be met. One may
indeed expect such differentiated forms of evangelization to occur
in cultures such as those of Asia, where commonsense and
religious elements are complemented by metaphysical and
psychological traditions of speculation of some sophistication.
We need to understand further something of the significance
of this for Lonergan's bold claim concerning a normativity
implicit in Christian culture. Foundational in Lonergan's view of
method in theology are three conversions: intellectual, moral, and
religious. Intellectual conversion is a matter of moving away from

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all forms of naive realism, empiricism, idealism, rationalism, and
relativism to an adequate cognitional theory and epistemology
which can be justified in a self-referential manner; this basic
position (which may be indefinitely improved but not radically
revised under pain of incoherence) will then provide the basis for
the adumbration of a critically grounded metaphysics, ethics, and
natural theology. Being intellectually converted is a matter of
moving out of the world of the infant, the world of immediacy,
into the world mediated by meaning; it is being able to make
explicit in knowledge of the self the intellectual and moral operations used since childhood of which, due to the "polymorphism"
of consciousness, it is extremely difficult to give an accurate
account. Lonergan sees this work of adumbrating a self-consistent
basic philosophical position as occurring within an historical
tradition and precisely because of that tradition. Not only are
Aristotle and Aquinas key figures here, but because it is necessary
to reappropriate their basic insights in terms of a philosophy
based on the data of one's own consciousness others in the
tradition such as Augustine, Descartes, and Newman are also
essential contributors. Lonergan's attitude to the Western intellectual tradition, then, is one of acknowledged dependency but at
the same time critical retrieval. The metaphysical terms and
relations which the theologian may critically justify in terms of
the evidence of consciousness are congruent with many of those
found in the tradition, primarily as represented by Aquinas.
Lonergan's "movement to the third stage of meaning" (focusing
on consciousness, interiority) is, then, neither a Wittgensteinian
kicking away of the ladder once one has used it to ascend to
where one would, nor an Hegelian Aufhebung which sees past
elements as "blind" in their incompleteness.
Such an appropriation of Western culture, as critical of that
culture's shortcomings as it truly
is indeed a strong claim
concerning a normativity implicit in that culture. But as it stands
it is a claim that de facto through the mediation of forces within
that culture one is able to mount to a critical epistemology and
metaphysics. Given this thesis one could argue that since on
Lonergan's view the intellectual and moral operations implicit in
human acting are transcultural, other cultures could just as well

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provide the milieu for the process of self-mediation required for
such development" Indeed, while Lonergan did not delve much
the intricacies of the religious philosophies of Asia there is
plenty of evidence
the theoretical differentiation has been
operative there, and that the move to interiority, or reflection on
consciousness, is present in such religious-philosophical speculation, just as one finds explorations into consciousness (anticipating a philosophical position that would exploit this in a
systematic fashion) in Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas"50
However, Lonergan's analysis of the "origins of Christian
realism" appears to be an even stronger thesis than this: it is a
thesis concerning an intellectual normativity implicit
Christianity precisely as Christian" The process that witnessed the
emergence of Christian dogmas was, Lonergan believes, a dialectical one"51 The word of God as truth was apprehended in diverse
differentiations of consciousness, in commonsense, symbolic, or
aesthetic manners, but always as true. Furthermore, as further
questions arose this word of God as truth was the subject of
questioning, of attempts to understand its implications. Lonergan
insists that any attempt to play off the "simple integrity of the
gospel" against the "corruption of Hellenized dogma," whether
this be espoused by biblical "romantics" or those operating from
a philosophical position (e"g", L. Dewart or Bo Welte), does justice
neither to what Catholic faith nor to what reason tells us of this
process of dogmatic development" The dialectic operative in the
process manifests itself in the way various philosophical
tendencies resist the emergence of the Trinitarian and Christological dogmas. Lonergan stresses that the very philosophical
positions that resisted their emergence are in important respects
similar to the philosophies that today continue to deny the
50 On may observe how even in Anglo-American philosophical circles of late there have
appeared works relating philosophical discussions well known in the Western tradition to
similar debates in the history of Asian philosophy. For example, see Chakravarthi
Ram-Prasad's treatment of the epistemological debate between Vasubandhu and Sankara,
"Dreams and the Coherence of Experience," American Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1995):
225-39.
51 See Lonergan, Way to Nicea; also "The Origins of Christian Realism" (1961), and
"Theology as Christian Phenomenon," in Crowe, ed., Collected Works 6; and "The Origins
of Christian Realism," in Lonergan, Second Collection, 1974.

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cogency of the dogmas. 52 In accepting the truths of faith as taught
by the magisterium the Christian is a "dogmatic realist." That is,
he believes the truths proposed for him to judge as true on the
authority of the Word of God. Nor, on Lonergan's view, can one
play off "cold propositions" against the "interpersonal encounter"
with Christ. This is a large topic, one with which Lonergan was
concerned one way or another in much of his work, but a couple
of points will suffice to indicate how the issue can be approached.
First, in Aristotelian-Thomist terms knowledge is not primarily
via correspondence (proposition over against thing with which it
is concerned) but by intentional identity between knower and
known. Second, propositions are means by which we necessarily
express insights into fact and value in our lives, including the vital
area of interpersonal relations. Without such insights, which are
myriad, and occur in the complexity of relations, these relations
could hardly be described as interpersonal at all-for aspects of
human intersubjectivity are also shared by the higher animals.
Third, affirming truths about what a relationship is can be
essential to the flourishing of that relationship (truths about one's
marriage, for example). And to affirm as true that God did not
get a man to die for us and free us from our sins but that God did
this himself makes all the difference to our intersubjective
relationship with Christ Jesus.
The Christian as dogmatic realist accepts the truths of faith in
judgment in a way cognate with the critical realist's position that
truth is known only in judgment: not in sensate experience alone,
nor in a combination of that experience with understanding, but
through a judgment as to the truth, falsehood, or probability of
that understanding of experience. Given natural human tendencies towards various forms of picture thinking (such as empiricism
or naive realism, on the one hand, or idealism and rationalism,
on the other), there will be a resistance to the view, implicit in the
Christian dogmatic affirmation, that truth is known in judgment.
Thus Lonergan finds in T ertullian, for example, a type of
Trinitarian thinking which must picture reality as the spatially
extended: a form of empiricism and materialism. In Origen, on
s2 Lonergan, Way to Nicea, section 1, p. 8.

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the other hand, one discovers a form of Neoplatonism, caught up
in philosophical confusions engendered by talking of God in
terms of the Good beyond Being. It is interesting to note that on
Lonergan's view the contemporary philosophical parallels to
Origen are found in the post-Husserlian thought of J. Trouillard
and H. Dumery. The dialectical approach he implies should be
taken to their work would, I believe, extend in some way to that
of Levinas and Marion. 53
To argue that Christianity fell captive to Greek thought is,
therefore, to understand little of what was happening. Rather,
The statement that Christ is God, that Jesus of Nazareth is God, created
Christian philosophy; working from its presuppositions, you are forced to some
sort of ontology. At Nicea, there was not an adequate basis provided by any
Greek philosophy. The current philosophies of the time were Stoicism and
Platonism and Epicureanism, and none of them would bear the type of thinking
represented by the homoousion, the consubstantiale, of Nicea. A new type of
philosophy would have to be developed to enshrine, to be able to include, that
notion, a philosophy in terms of existence in the medieval sense. It was not
something readymade that the Fathers borrowed from the Greeks; there was
no Greek philosophy they could borrow to express what they concluded from
revelation. Aristotle never was much esteemed by the Greek Fathers; he was
looked upon, at that time, as simply an empiricist-a judgement that has not
a little foundation in the Aristotelian writings. 54

According to the thesis of Christian realism, then, the world-view
implicit in Christianity involves not only a distinctive theology,
53 Crowe, ed., Collected Works 6, 125 n. 8. The materials for a detailed "face-to-face"
encounter between Lonergan and E. Levinas are certainly there. In his own way Lonergan
acknowledges the importance of the phenomenology of the "face" (see ibid., 96-98; Method
in Theology, 59-60). Like Levinas he rejects an epistemological and ethical solipsism (which
Levinas detects in Husserl and Heidegger); knowledge of self or consciousness is a knowledge
of an aspect of Being, and, also, it is achieved as ethical endeavor towards, ultimately, the
Other of God. Further, such an endeavor can only come about, de facto, within the context
of authentic community. However, much divides the two thinkers precisely in terms of the
difference in traditions noted in note 33 above. From Lonergan's perspective one would have
to bring out the inevitable cognitional and metaphysical consequences implicit in Derrida's
critique (of course denied by him) of Levinas in terms of an incoherent attempt to slip free
of the language of the "same" (which is, in fact, employed) to refer to the "Other."
54 Crowe, ed., Collected Works 6, 262. See, also, works mentioned in note 52 above, and
the celebrated book review, "The Dehellenization of Dogma," in Lonergan, Second
Collection.

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cosmology, and anthropology but also a distinct epistemologynamely, an epistemology that implies that forms of empiricism or
idealism are inimical to Christian faith. This philosophical
position becomes increasingly explicit in the tradition itself
through the lived tradition of faith within which the pronouncements of the magisterium play their role, and as we move from
the reflections of Augustine to those of Aquinas to those of
twentieth-century Christian thinkers such as Lonergan. That
Christian tradition is itself the "way down" (to use a Lonerganian
expression): the culture of meanings and values in which Lonergan was able to delineate anew, with a precision and accuracy at
the level of our philosophical times, that critical Christian realism
from "below upwards" (i.e., from reflection on consciousness to
an adumbration of a metaphysics, ethics, theology). This Christian world-view, then, is no product of Hellenized philosophy,
nor of any other particular contribution made from a cultural
context in which Christianity has grown. On Lonergan's view it
is a distinctive Christian philosophical world-view. This thesis,
then, is a claim concerning the normative elements in Christian
culture even more radical than that outlined by Ratzinger.
Such a thesis is cognate with the views on the origins of the
scientific world-view expressed by scholars such as Whitehead
and, more recently, Stanley Jaki. On their view the scientific
world-view of the West can only be understood within the
metaphysical context of the Judaeo-Christian world-view. One
might add that, for better or worse, the scientific world-view of
the West has enjoyed far more missionary success in all parts of
the globe than its supposed Christian parent. Now, however, in
a post-Christian Western culture one witnesses a form of tragic
battle, a struggle to the death between the Cain of scientism and
the Abel of philosophical relativism.
According to Lonergan's notion of the origins of Christian
realism, then, there was a certain inevitability about the way in
which the preaching of the Christian faith in various cultural
contexts during the first millennium would involve a "promotion" of the differentiations of consciousness, as that message was
received and its meaning and implications for life were sought.
Yet this will also be inevitable in our own day. In preaching the

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Word as true in the developed cultures of Asia one will also
encounter cultures suffused with elements of the theoretical, and,
further, in whatever part of the globe the Christian message is
preached Western science is already there proclaiming some kind
of world-view which, given the exigencies of human being, will
have to be related in a meaningful way to the prior cultural
traditions of the region, which may or may not have already
elements of the theoretical differentiation of consciousness within
them. If the distorted progeny of the Christian world-view, scientism and relativism, are not to gain a foothold that would resist
the preaching of the faith, then the readiness to "promote" philosophical differentiation in the culture is all the more urgent.
As we have seen, Lonergan argues vigorously that Christian
realism, the philosophical world-view of Christianity, arose in
dialectical tension with the existing philosophies of the first
millennium. This is not to deny the enormous importance of the
"Greek discovery" of mind for this process, but it is to place it in
proper perspective. If it is the Christian doctrines that bring about
this new world-view, this new philosophy, with its metaphysics
and epistemology, then it should be clearly understood that in
promoting such a world-view one is not promoting European
culture but Christian culture. This is witnessed to not only by the
very evolution of that world-view but by the withdrawal of Western culture from this world-view in another dialectical process
which has gone on apace since, at least, the Enlightenment.
Today in a largely secularized West the theological, anthropological, and cosmological perspectives of Christianity are ignored
or challenged in terms of materialism, relativism, and the like.
Ultimately the question of evangelization and inculturation is
not a matter of West and East, North and South, but of
Christianity and its reception in the world as a whole. The
passing of the modern period of "colonial evangelization" should
help us gain this perspective ever more clearly. In reality we are
in a situation more akin to those of the early centuries of
evangelization: a situation in which Christianity does not enjoy
cultural hegemony. In terms of the Lonerganian theory of
Christian realism what is at issue here is an intellectual conversion
which must take place, sooner or later, within the cultures

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Christianity encounters. Just as the intellectual and moral
operations of the human person are, Lonergan argues, transcultural, so is the "polymorphism" of human consciousness; so
also is the difficulty of moving from the world of infant immediacy to an account of how we come to know reality and the
good in a world mediated by meaning. Significantly, in this
regard, Lonergan draws attention to the family resemblances
between (Western) Platonism and (Eastern) Brahminism in their
failure to effect just such a philosophical transition: they are
unable to express philosophically the criteria for correct knowledge of reality--criteria with which, without explicit reflection,
we operate spontaneously from childhood. 55 The philosophical
issue, therefore, is not primarily one of East versus West.
Lonergan relates the story of a missionary who was able to
convert a Japanese bonze only after he had assisted the later to
grasp the principle of noncontradiction: that not all paths up
Mount Fujiyama were one and the same. 56
One may reflect that the same problem occurs at present for
the evangelizer in the post-Christian West, where relativism and
indifferentism are the order of the day for many. Lonergan's
principle, enunciated in the final chapter of Method, that the
evangelist should not ask others to renounce their culture but
should rather seek ways to "proceed from within their culture ..
. making it into a vehicle for communicating the Christian
message," 57 is totally laudable as the ideal for which to strive. But
once this is situated in the context of other perspectives from his
work, namely, the thesis on "Christian realism," one can
appreciate that in many situations the new wine will not sit well
in old bottles. Thus, a culture that has at its center human
sacrifice (e.g., the Aztec) or a culture that feels its metaphysicopolitical ethic threatened by Christianity (e.g., Japan in the
seventeenth century) will experience no little upheaval as the old
metaphysical world-view is replaced. This is equally so in the
modern West. For a post-Christian culture to accept once more
the Christian metaphysic and anthropology, the relativism and
Crowe, ed., Collected Works 6, 120-21.
Understanding and Being, 301.
57 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 363.
55

56 Lonergan,

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materialism in which the only still point in a turning world is
some kind of communality based on hedonism must be
repudiated and an anthropological view of the sacredness of
human life from conception to death accepted, along with the
social ethic of human solidarity which this anthropology implies.
One may examine what Lonergan has to say about this
Christian realism, as distinctive of, I would say, Christian culture,
from the angle of his analysis of the three conversions (intellectual, moral, religious). He distinguishes between a general
definition of religious conversion, as a "falling in love in an unrestricted way" with the otherworldly and transcendent, on the
one hand, and how this may be judged to be actually achieved, on
the other. 58 To be authentic, religious conversion must be
ongoing; it must also promote moral and intellectual conversion.
This is a methodological, or phenomenological, point concerning
religion and conversion in general, without specific reference to
any particular religion. But one can note that even from this
perspective what Lonergan is suggesting is that a religious conversion or a religion may ultimately be assessed in terms of how
well it promotes views congruent with the epistemology and
metaphysics that arise, historically, from Christianity. However,
there is more to be observed with regard to the analysis of the
triple conversions. Later in Method Lonergan writes, "Men may
or may not be converted intellectually, morally, religiously. If
they are not, and the lack of conversion is conscious and
thoroughgoing, it heads for loss of faith." And he continues,
"while the unconverted may have no real apprehension of what
it is to be converted, at least they have in doctrines the evidence
both that there is something lacking in themselves and that they
need to pray for illumination and seek instruction. "59
58 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 283-84. The broader and deeper perspectives opened
up by Lonergan and Ratzinger for the theme of inculturation and evangelization entail that
Rahner's often cited position that Vatican II marked a shift from a European to a world
Church has only limited value. It is not so much the case that Christianity is or was a
European phenomenon as that Europe is a Christian phenomenon.
59 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 298-99. These words of Lonergan are in some way
echoed by Cardinal Ratzinger in his address to the 1998 Synod of Asian Bishops in Rome,
when he affirmed that experience is not the measure of the truths of faith, rather it is itself
judged and transformed by. those truths.

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When one reflects on this passage from the perspective of the
Christian-realism thesis one appreciates that one of the issues
being touched upon is that resistance to the rise of Christian
dogmas and Christian realism can arise from philosophical
positions that in some way still resist their acceptance; and such
resistance, one may anticipate, is transcultural.
The passage is also worth pondering with regard to a topic
debated among students of Lonergan's work: how does the
"phenomenologically" outlined "religious conversion" stand to
conversion to a specific religion, to Christianity? One may
methodologically describe some features of religious conversion
in general (the orientation to other-worldliness), and even have
some "religion-independent" criterion in evaluating a religion or
a religious conversion in terms of how well it ultimately fosters
intellectual and authentic moral conversion. However, the further
question arises: above and beyond moral and intellectual criteria
how can one evaluate religious conversion? The last passage cited
shows that this cannot be done in a "nondenominational" way;
it has to be from the viewpoint of some specific religious
conversion, such as that to Christianity. Evaluating the authenticity of a religious conversion is evaluating an ongoing process,
not just simply noting that religious conversion is "towards the
unworldly." One can write, as Lonergan occasionally does, of
being an authentic or inauthentic Buddhist, Hindu, etc., but from
a religion-neutral or merely phenomenological viewpoint this
cannot be consistently pursued, for it implies that when a
Buddhist or Hindu rejects such and such a doctrine or typical
feature of his religion then the conversion is inauthentic. But it is
not for the methodologist to determine whether it is the dissident
or the doctrine in question that is inauthentic; that may only be
determinable from the viewpoint of the conversion to the specific
faith itself. Thus when Lonergan writes that the unconverted need
to pray and seek instruction in order to accept doctrine he is
presuming a specific faith commitment. Finally, then, the
authenticity of religious conversion, when this involves questions
over and above what may be examined in terms of intellectual
and moral criteria, can only be determined from within a faith
context: as a Catholic I see another's rejection of some teaching

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of his faith not as inauthentic but, perhaps, as a move along the
road of authenticity.
As an evaluation of the contextualization and embeddedness
of Western intellectual endeavor Lonergan's analysis of the
origins of Christian realism has a peculiarly postmodern ring to
it. Where the Enlightenment sought freedom from that context,
the postmodern thinker is adept at detecting just where the
Christian presuppositions of Enlightenment proclamations of
self-evident truths and moral principles appear at the margins. But
as was noted above, both Lonergan and Macintyre as Catholic
thinkers make common cause with postmodern critiques of
modernity only to part company with them in showing that they
are parasitic upon what they would oppose. Thus Christian
realism, as providing the context for the genius of Aquinas,
provides also indications of an epistemological critique of postmodernity. To say that intellectual endeavor is embedded in
Christian faith is not thereby to vitiate that endeavor, but rather,
just as science has relied on cultural context (Popper's "metaphysical research programmes") for genuine advance, so
Christianity fosters the context and the virtues for genuine
advance in truth. It was perhaps no accident that one of the most
severe critiques of epistemological scepticism issued from the
newly converted Augustine in the Contra Academicos. And there
is deconstructive irony in the way the constitution Dei Filius of
the First Vatican Council, and the encyclical Pascendi of Pope St.
Pius X, provided the context in which intellectual endeavor in
Catholicism could move confidently on, steering between the
Scylla of nineteenth-century fideism and neo-Kantian modernism
and the Charybdis of eighteenth and nineteenth-century rationalism and positivism. For the Enlightenment dream of unfettered
rationality had only issued in a nightmarish oscillation between
profound Nietzschean scepticism and heady Comtean positivism.
At this point it would be well to sum up the principal points
made in the argument of this section. First, it has been argued that
Ratzinger's analysis of Christianity as a "cultural subject" is not,
from the perspective of Lonergan's thought, an instance of
classicism reasserting itself. Lonergan's own analysis of classicism
is not to be taken out of context. Indeed Ratzinger's analysis helps

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to draw attention to elements in Lonergan's work that may
require development. Thus, insofar as for both Lonergan and
Ratzinger embracing Christianity is entering into an intersubjective relationship with the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ,
just so this intersubjective relationship will involve a participation
in the culture that the Word assumed, transformed, but
fundamentally confirmed. Second, Lonergan proposes a more
radical thesis than that proposed by Ratzinger, but in the direction of Ratzinger's thought. This is Lonergan's notion of
"Christian realism": a specifically Christian "philosophy" or
world-view, involving theological, metaphysical, and anthropological but also epistemological elements. While this world-view
emerges in clarity only over time, and through a process with
particular historical and cultural features, still it is intrinsic to
Christianity and is, therefore, transcultural. Therefore any
culture, be it Western or Eastern, must adapt to the exigencies of
this Christian world-view if the faith is authentically to take root
in it; this process, ideally, will involve some "fusion of horizons"
between the receptor culture and Christianity, for at base all
cultures are equally human cultures. But it cannot evade the cross
of conversion, which also involves leaving "home and family" to
follow the Lord.
III. EXTRA ECCLES/AM NULLA SALUS

Towards the end of his 1993 lecture Ratzinger turns his
attention to the radical nature of Christian conversion as this is
seen by the Fathers. This theme is not new in his theology. It is
one upon which he dwelt in the course of a critical reflection on
Rahner's approach to the question of the salvation of the nonbaptized: the question of the universality yet historical particularity of Christianity, issues which Rahner has discussed under the
rubric of "anonymous Christianity." 60 Ratzinger notes what he
sees as positive elements in Rahner's Hearersof the Word but then
goes on to outline what he sees as the heart of Rahner's conceptual solution to the questions which arise in this area, and, in
60 See Ratzinger,

Principlesof Catholic Theology, 161-70.

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a series of questions, asks whether this solution really does justice
to the problem. He then proceeds to critique some of the more
"popular" versions of "humanist Christianity" claiming to derive
from Rahner but which, Ratzinger points out, do not do justice
to Rahner's analyses. 61
Rahner attempts to combine the universality of history with
the particularity of Christianity without sacrificing the latter's
uniqueness. According to Ratzinger, Rahner makes a first attempt
at this by describing Christianity as the most successful apprehension of what is always and everywhere implicitly accepted in
human consciousness. 62 However, Ratzinger senses that Rahner
feels more needs to be said. Rahner does so, first in terms of an
analysis of Christ as the one who is apprehended as the "Absolute
bringer of Salvation," the One who alone can be said to be God's
final word in history since what is achieved in him is the highest
that can be achieved in human nature. As the successful instance
of human self-transcendence, Christ is in some sense the "concrete
universal." Ratzinger continues:
From what has been said, it follows "that in the meeting with him [Christ] ..
. the mystery of reality itself ... " is present. Even more clearly: "The
relationship to Jesus Christ, in which an individual ... makes Jesus, present
within him, the mediator of his direct relationship with God" is such "that man
in his existence ... is always already within this relationship whether he is
explicitly aware of it or not." From this, Rahner develops his basic formula of
Christian existence ... : "He who accepts his existence ... says ... Yes to
Christ." 63

In response to this conceptual scheme, Ratzinger writes:
This broadly outlined thesis of Rahner's has something dazzling, something
stupendous, about it. The particular and the universal, history and being, seem
to be reconciled .... But is that really the answer? Is it true that Christianity
adds nothing to the universal but merely makes it known? Is the Christian just
man as he is? ... Is not man as he is insufficient, that which must be mastered
and transcended? Does not the whole dynamism of history stem from the
61 Ibid., 168-70.
62 Ibid., 164. The reference is to Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, trans.
William V. Dych (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1978), 151.
63 Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 165; Rahner, Foundations, 204-6, 225-26.

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pressure to rise above man as he is? Is it not the main point of the faith of both
Testaments that man is what he ought to be only by conversion, that is, when
he ceases to be what he is?64

Another way to grasp what is "dazzling" about the Rahnerian
thesis of "anonymous Christianity" is to reflect that what was in
the tradition a mysterious "marginal" doctrine of the salvation of
the unbaptized has become transformed into the norm. Does this
not, one may ask, reduce the missions of the Holy Spirit and the
Son one to another? Is there any longer a real urgency about
hearing the word and accepting the Word, of entering into
intersubjective communion with Jesus of Nazareth, whose historical, incarnate presence is mediated, for the most part, through
intersubjective encounter with his Body the Church? What
appears to have happened in this Rahnerian construction, which
makes the mysterious and marginal central, is a buckling and
bending of the data of the tradition, the preaching, prayer, and
teaching concerning salvation, so that it is now forced to fit in
with a thesis which began life precisely as a theological model to
assist in gaining insight into the belief of the faith tradition itself.
By presenting this thesis of anonymous Christianity Rahner has
only made us raise a new question, a question implicit in
Ratzinger's questioning: how are we to think through the
eschatological urgency of conversion to Christ? This eschatological urgency, which surely cannot be rendered as peripheral to
the gospel message, is what the Church in her magisterium has
safeguarded through the teaching "no salvation outside the
Church," a teaching which received classic formulations at
Lateran IV and Florence.
There are perspectives from Lonergan that would throw light
on this issue, an issue intimately connected with the themes of the
distinctiveness of Christianity, evangelization, and inculturation.
To begin with, I think it important to return to Mansini's critique
of Rahner. As was noted, Mansini believes that from Lonergan's
viewpoint Rahner is still captivated by a scientific ideal in
theology which has not yet appreciated the shift from proof to
understanding as the ideal of systematics-a shift parallel to that
64

Ratzinger, Principlesof Catholic Theology, 166.

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which has occurred in the development of modern science, but
the implications of which were well known to Aquinas. 65
For example, is the thesis of "anonymous Christianity" framed
and expressed as theological argument ex convenientiae (a model
or hypothesis in the area of a systematic reflection on the
doctrines of the tradition) or does it take on the dimensions of a
quasi-philosophical anthropology in its own right, a system which
appears to bend and buckle the data of the tradition? If Lonergan
is right about systematics, then one should perhaps be as
suspicious here as one would be of a scientific hypothesis which
lacks critical control, or "modesty" with regard to the data it
would explain. In other words, is the theory of anonymous
Christianity somewhat extravagant, more than is needed for
gaining insight into this area of the tradition? And does it actually
do justice to all the data, including the eschatological urgency of
conversion through intersubjective encounter with Christ and his
Body? To add a prescriptive precept to these probings, one might
say that for Lonergan, the last thing systematics is about is systems
building.
A second, yet allied, issue concerning the uniqueness of Christianity from the perspective of Lonergan's work is the distance he
maintained from one of the central positions of the nouvelle
theologie, as this emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. Lonergan took
the view, and argued the case philosophically, that one could not
rule out a "state of pure nature," while at the same time he
maintained that the "state of pure nature" was itself a rather
peripheral theological theorem. 66 If he held the latter, one might
65 Mansini is not alone in believing there is quite massive disagreement between the
positions of these two theologians, once the implications of their positions are worked out
dialectically, despite the linking of the two as "transcendental Thomists" in the standard
dictionary entries. See Raymond Moloney, "The Mind of Christ in Transcendental Theology:
Rabner, Lonergan and Crowe," The Heythrop Journal 25 (1984): 299-300; J. Michael
Stebbins, "Introduction," in The Divine Initiative (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1995); Michael Vertin, "Marechal, Lonergan, and the Phenomenology of Knowing," in M.
Lamb, ed., Creativity and Method: Studies in Honor of Bernard Lonergan (Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 1981), 411-22; Guy Mansini, "Rabner and Balthasar on the
Efficacy of the Cross," The Irish Theological Quarterly 63 (1998): 232-49.
66 See "The Natural Desire to See God," in Bernard Lonergan, Collection (2d ed.), ed.
F.E. Crowe and R.M. Doran (Toronto Univ. Press: Toronto, 1988); also the ample treatment
of this area of Lonergan's theology given in Stebbins, The Divine Initiative.

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ask, why bother to go to the trouble of defending the former
notion? I think it is especially in hindsight that the point of such
a defense becomes dear. What Lonergan detected in some of the
aspects of the nouvelle theologie were elements cognate with a
theology modeled on philosophical deduction, or demonstration,
which had been manifest before in fourteenth-century nominalism
and nineteenth-century semirationalism.
Given this context as background, one can move on to
examine some of the points relevant to our question made by
Lonergan in chapter 20 of Insight, a chapter Lonergan continued
to believe important in his late period as can be witnessed from
his late essay "Mission and the Spirit. " 67 This chapter is a
Lonerganian equivalent to Rahner's Hearers of the Word, or the
philosophical reflections on the "obediential capacity" one finds
in, say, BlondeL However, the differences are as significant as the
similarities. For one thing, Lonergan's position runs counter to
Rahner's central thesis concerning the "deduction" of the
Incarnation from the phenomenon of the "final bringer of
Salvation." Lonergan argues that one may anticipate a divine
solution, communication to humankind, given the problem of evil
and the divine goodness. However, he distinguishes between what
he calls "natural solutions," "relatively supernatural solutions,"
and "absolutely supernatural solutions"- among the latter of
which, one may infer, would be the Incarnation. 68 If Lonergan's
philosophical analysis is correct here, Rahner's attempted
transcendental deduction is stymied. For one could not deduce
that the word of God claiming to be definitive (and part of the
divine solution would be assistance offered to see that this was
God's definitive word as far as human history is concerned)
entailed the Incarnation of the Word. One can, of course, think
of concrete historical examples which would give some idea of
what this could mean: for example, the Koran accepted as God's
definitive word, and ruling out an idea of Incarnation. One
would be hard put to it to show that this Islamic approach was
incorrect on purely philosophical grounds, and one would have
to contend with Lonergan's argument to the contrary.
67

68

In Lonergan, Third Collection, 23-34.
Lonergan, Insight, 725.

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One of the philosophical perspectives Lonergan brings to bear
on this theological issue derives from his analysis of the
emergently probable course of cosmic evolution. Given the
indeterminacy of stages or levels of emergence relative to future
developments, the indeterminacy of the potency of a stage of cosmic development implies that one cannot always determine with
exactitude what such and such a "nature" will ultimately require
or demands (within the wider context of world-order) for its
fulfillment. It is therefore again too quick, from a philosophical
perspective, to say that human beings require divine sonship for
the fulfilment "nature" demands, or that the Incarnation has any
kind of cosmogenic or anthropological necessity attached to it.
One might suggest that in this way, maintaining a notion of
"obediential capacity" which is genuine and yet highlights
indeterminacy, Lonergan does more justice to the Barthian
insistence on the novelty and sovereign freedom of divine
self-communication.
In a number of ways Ratzinger's questions concerning the
adequacy of Rahner's analysis are cognate with Lonergan's
treatment in chapter 20 of Insight. Just as Ratzinger indicates that
Christianity and conversion have more to do with "going
beyond" being a man than with accepting oneself as such, and
that history's own tension manifests this struggle, so Lonergan
insists that
the heightened tension, which would result from a supernatural solution,
would not lack its objectification in the dialectical succession of human
situations ... when this problem of evil is met by a supernatural solution,
human perfection itself becomes a limit to be transcended ... there will be a
humanism in revolt against the proffered supernatural solution ... rest[ing] on
man's proud content to be just a man, and its tragedy is that, on the present
supposition of a supernatural solution, to be just a man is what a man cannot
be.69

What this analysis of Lonergan's suggests is that every form of
"humanism" is some fundamental form of alienating ideology. A
constant theme of the present pontificate has been the Holy
Father's proclamation of the teaching of Gaudium et spes: m
69 Ibid., 728-29.

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God to Man Christ at once reveals man to himself.
Perhaps one may say, then, that any form of "humanism," of
human religion (and here one can include all religions of
humankind to some extent which, unlike Christianity, are not the
self-revelation of God, whatever their undoubted God-given
goodness may be), has to it the tragic aspect of concealing and
alienating man from himself, since none propose precisely that
self-revelation of man as son in the Son, to which dignity he is
called and compelled. To reverse Rahner's point, that to accept
oneself and one's existence is to accept salvation, one may urge
that the tragic element in history involves mutually self-mediating
meaning and (dis)values in human beliefs which precisely prevent
any real discovery of who one is or what one is, most
fundamentally, called to be. Thus without the Word I cannot
accept my existence, for I know not what that self and that
existence are, or are meant to be.
Here we may return to the methodological issue of a
systematics which is truly "modest" and which truly strives to do
justice, through models and analogies, to the truths of faith. For
one can ask whether the Rahnerian scheme of things does justice
to the massive theme in revelation of the profound tragedy which
marks the history of the human race in its alienation from God,
a tragedy which goes hand in hand with the wonder of redemption from the thrall of such alienation. We need, then, models
that do justice to the drama of conversion, to the passionate
desire for the Word, and intersubjective communion with Him
and his Body-models that do justice to the eschatological
urgency of conversion, and the redemption of a whole universe
in the pangs of giving birth, as the Pauline vision has it.
A key element in Rahner's account is the analogy or model of
the move from "anonymous Christianity" to explicit conversion
to Christ provided by the philosophical analysis of the way a
person may move from implicit, unthematic "knowledge" to
explicit, thematic knowledge regarding, for example, his own
cognitive capacities. Although Lonergan and Rabner have
divergent views of knowledge, consciousness, and this very
process of explication, one may grant, from Lonergan's perspective, that something akin to what Rabner describes can occur in

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the process of individual self-discovery. No doubt, one can say
that such a process is indeed a good both for the individual and
for the
community, and is vitally important as history
progresses: for we have seen how vitally important intellectual
conversion is for Lonergan. However, the question remains
whether this transition, or conversion from implicit to explicit,
provides us with a dramatic enough instance for understanding
the drama of conversion to Christ. For myriad are those in
human history (saints included), who have lived out authentic
lives without such a process of self-discovery. Can we say that for
the individual such a growth in self-knowledge is so decisive or
totally necessary? For it does not appear that the gospel call to
conversion is offered in such an "optional" manner, or to the few
who might benefit from it and mediate its benefits to others.
There is, I believe, a more dramatic anthropological model to
be found
Lonergan's work which provides images for insight
into the passionate urgency which the call to conversion has
always manifested in Christianity.
Writing of the necessity of the Word for human meaning and
being, Lonergan uses the analogy of the couple who are in love
but have not yet offered the word, or expression, of love to one
another; when they do so the word is not optional, nor empty,
but creates a new situation of mutual self-mediation in its expression. 70 However, while Lonergan employs this analogy when
writing of the significance of the word for religion, in Method, he
provides an even more powerful anthropological image of the
importance of the word in an earlier section of the work, a
section dealing with linguistic meaning in which the discussion
has no intended theological import. The story he uses is that of
the breakthrough to linguistic meaning of the dumb and mute
Helen Keller. Lonergan writes,
The moment of language in human development is most strikingly illustrated
by the story of Helen Keller's discovery that the successive touches made on
her hand by her teacher conveyed names of objects. The moment when she first
caught on was marked by the expression of profound emotion and, in turn, the
emotion bore fruit in so powerful an interest that she signified her desire to
70

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 113.

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learn and did learn the names of about twenty objects in a very short time. It
was the beginning of an incredible career of learning. 71

He goes on to draw out the existential and ontological
significance for the becoming of the person of Helen Keller of this
encounter with the liberating word:
In Helen Keller's emotion and interest one can surmise the reason why ancient
civilizations prized names so highly .... Prizing names is prizing the human
achievement of bringing conscious intentionality into sharp focus and, thereby,
setting about the double task of both ordering one's world and orienting
oneself within it. Just as the dream at daybreak may be said to be the beginning
of the process from impersonal existence to the presence of a person in his
world, so listening and speaking are a major part in the achievement of that
presence. 72

While the move from potency to act involved in the shift from
adult self-consciousness to explicit self-knowledge, which provides Rahner with an analogy for the shift from unthematic
anonymous Christianity to explicit Christian conversion, is no
doubt an important good, the far more dramatic instance of
Helen Keller's transformation from inchoate, passionately
frustrated conscious disorientation to a new life of presence to self
and to others through the mediation of the word is a far more
appropriate instance of the movement from potency to act
through which to appreciate the drama of the moment of
Christian conversion. Again, returning to Rahner's point concerning self-acceptance as salvific acceptance of Christ, we can see
in poor Helen Keller's example an anthropological image of
helplessness such that acceptance of oneself or one's existence is
impossible without the coming of the word which, as coming
from the outside, both reveals the "other" of the teacher and the
world and at once allows Helen's own self-discovery and selfconstitution. Sacrament-like, it effects, as effective and constitutive meaning, what it proclaims. To return to a point made above,
one can perhaps say that aH "humanisms" (including all
non-Christian religions), whatever noble and graced elements
71
72

Ibid., 70.
Ibid.

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there may be in them, nevertheless contain "words" of obfuscation and alienation within them precisely insofar as they cannot
be that incarnate Word of Christianity which reveals to persons,
and effects as it reveals, their new nature as sons and daughters in
the Son.
A further allied question may be raised at this point. Does the
gospel message of salvation and the truths of faith revealed
require us to say that Christian nature, the nature of adopted
Divine filiation, is always and everywhere found with human
nature? In other words, is Rahner's anthropological model of
anonymous Christianity a cogent way of understanding the truths
of faith concerning the call to conversion? Bearing in mind the
methodological point made above concerning the relation
between systematics and doctrines in theological method, we can
ask whether there are not only rivals to Rahner's account here,
but in fact models which do more justice to the eschatological
urgency of the gospel call to conversion than does Rahner's view.
Keeping in mind the points made so far, then, I will now move on
to consider a little more explicitly some questions that arise from
the teaching "no salvation outside the Church. " 73
The Church has always held to the teaching "no salvation
outside the Church," which received explicit formulation in the
magisterium at the councils of Lateran IV and Florence, as
expressing the eschatological urgency of Christian conversion
found in the gospel. Since 1863, however, there have been a
number of explicit statements of the magisterium that guard
against false interpretations of the Church's faith; thus it is held
that in the mysterious providence of God those not now in visible
communion with Christ or his members may become so and thus
see the face of God. Understandably, perhaps, these two aspects
of the Church's teaching in this area are sometimes felt to be in
some tension. But one can point to other areas in the develop73 Still helpful in this area, for texts and commentary, are Joseph Fenton, The Catholic
Church and Salvation (Glasgow: Sands and Co., 1959); and George J. Dyer, Limbo:
UnsettledQuestion (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964). A more recent treatment is Francis
Sullivan, Salvationoutside the Church? (London: Chapman, 1992). Sullivan's interpretation

of the data in this area of doctrinal development is, however, not without its critics: see Avery
Dulles, "The Church as Locus of Salvation," in The Thought of Pope john Paul II, ed. John
M. McDermott, S.J. (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1993), 169-88.

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ment of dogma where non-mutually-exclusive truths are finally
discerned as complementing each other within the plan of
salvation. One can think of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, opposed by some in the name of the doctrine that all
men and women require salvation from the fallen human state by
Christ. The doctrine could be readily confessed once it was
realized that it was not a negation of this truth: our Lady was
truly redeemed by Christ, but in an exceptional and anticipatory
manner.
Perhaps the most explicit magisterial statement on the way the
Church's doctrine is to be understood is the Holy Office letter
"Suprema haec sacra" of 1949. The letter draws an analogy
between those not visibly in the Church and those who died as
catechumens, or received baptism by desire in some way (e.g.,
soldiers in the early centuries of persecution who expressed
solidarity with their intended Christian victims and thus shared
their fate). The "baptism of desire" of these persons, always
admitted by tradition as genuine (thus by the fathers of Florence),
may be extended so as to include an "implicit desire" for baptism
on the part of those not visibly in the Church but who respond to
God's grace with upright lives. It is clear, then, that salvation only
comes through being incorporated into Christ. However, one
should note that the document modestly states that those who live
an upright life and thus may been deemed to have an implicit
desire for union with Christ can be saved. It does not put flesh on
the bones to say more concerning the manner of this salvation.
One could go on to ask, therefore, further questions: for example,
does an implicit desire need, at some point, to become more
explicit if it is to be recognizably a desire for an intersubjective
encounter with the incarnate Word? Indeed, other statements of
the magisterium may incline one to pursue such further questions.
Thus the teaching of Florence that each person must embrace the
faith before death points, I believe, in the direction of some
account of this "implicit" desire becoming more explicit.
The alternative to Rahner's view that "Christian nature" is
always and everywhere found in history which I would suggest is
that, firstly, we need not make this affirmation. Rather, I would
suggest the anthropological model suggested by the Helen Keller

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story: without the encounter with incarnate Word, normally as
mediated by the members of his Body, one neither knows the
nature to which one is called nor does one yet share that nature.
The mission of the Spirit is not collapsed into that of the Son on
this account. For the passionate dynamism, the upward struggle
towards the fullness of life, so strikingly exemplified in the Helen
Keller story, is the unsettling, yet consoling, work of the Holy
Spirit calling us towards knowledge of and reception
filiation
share this nature
grace, but all experience
in the Son. Not
the call to it in an
way. Of course, those who have
received the priceless gift hear the words that "to those whom
much is given much is expected," and part of that expectation is
that they share the gift with those who have not yet received it.
Perhaps the Keller story, of someone so heroic and so
physically challenged, suggests a broader theological analogy. In
the world order God has created many there are who are not
destined to grow to maturity in the physical order of creation;
numerous are those who have died as infants or before birth. In
God's mysterious design these too will grow into maturity, and
that through the grace of his life, death, and resurrection.
However, one can understand that the created world order is, in
some way, primarily for the full growth to maturity of human
persons, without denying that these others will, in God's mercy,
do so. Analogously, all are called to the fullness of life beginning
here and now in encounter with Christ, but in God's providence
many wiH not achieve this until an eschatological moment at the
end of life; yet they will do so "through the others," through
Christ and his members.
What then could one suggest in place of Christian nature
always and everywhere being found, if one admits of a general
desire for that nature, and also admits the teaching of the
magisterium that only
the Church can there be salvation? To
suggest reflections in this area pertaining to the theology of the
moment of death would not be novel. The theologian B. C.
Buder, reflecting upon the implications of Lonergan's work for
ecclesiology, came to the condusion that a theological model
suggesting conversion to Christ and reception into his Body at
(before) the moment of death would best do justice to the

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theological data to be understood. 74 Interestingly enough the text
from Lonergan that suggested such a conclusion to Butler
supports the teaching of Florence. For, Lonergan insists, the
divine solution must be accepted and assented to in conscious
freedom. (One can understand that the Florence assertion of the
need of "acceptance before death" is itself not some drawing of
an artificial line but an assertion concerning freedom.) Such a
theology of the moment of death need not involve itself in the
problems associated with such positions as those of L. Boros
(successfully criticized by G. Grisez and others). 75 In this area, I
believe, there is no reason why, with due caution, theologians
should not take as seriously as do a number of philosophers the
data which the numerous studies on "near-death experiences"
offer for analysis. One of the theologian's doughtiest opponents,
A. N. Flew, a philosopher with every reason to wish for a
reductive explanation of such data, has in recent work admitted
that much of it is extremely difficult to explain away. 76 For our
purposes it is interesting to observe that many of the accounts of
such near-death experiences concern "conversions" of a moral
and cognitive nature: persons have a different view of existence
after them, may move from atheism to theism, and so forth. A
theological model making sense of the data provided by the
tradition could suggest that "before death" as the final separation
there is such an encounter with Christ or his members as to
constitute an explicit conversion: an acceptance of an intersubjective relationship with Christ.
How "explicit" this would need to be in order to be a genuine
intersubjective encounter freely welcomed before death (welcomed by one prepared through grace-filled upright living) is
74 Bishop B. C. Butler, "Lonergan and Ecclesiology," in Foundations of Theology, ed.
Philip McShane (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1971), 4-5. Butler refers to Lonergan, Insight,
697.
75 For Grisez's criticism of L. Boros see, G. Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 1
(Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), chap. 16. J. H. Wright's article, "Death (Theology
of)," in the New Catholic Encyclopaedia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 687-95, also
critical of "fundamental option" theories of the moment of death, demonstrates, however,
the variety of divergent theological theories in this area at the time of the appearance of
Boros's book. See also Dyer, Limbo, chapters 4 and 5, for examples of Catholic theologies
from 1930 to 1960 of "the moment of death."
76 See, e.g., Anthony Flew, The Logic of Mortality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).

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open to further reflection. But one should recall that there are
lessons here in the way the tradition recognized that unbaptized
catechumens or even those who died a martyrdom in solidarity
with Christians were "in the Church." Their knowledge of
Christianity might be very meager, rudimentary; but in such cases
there was a genuine intersubjective encounter with Christ or his
Body, not simply a transcendental orientation towards the divine
or divine salvific acts. Ratzinger worries that the "transcendental
orientation" to Christ is precisely that which tends to render the
intersubjective encounter in history with Christ otiose. What is
the difference between such a "relationship" and the relationship
to possible nonincarnate divine salvific acts? What distinguishes
our relation to the Son in his mission from that to the Spirit in
his? No doubt the objection will be made that postulating some
kind of encounter with Christ and his Body at (before) death,
however mysterious an encounter it is acknowledged to be,
smacks of a Deus ex machina solution. However, it appears to me
less strained than a theory that would postulate that those who
explicitly excoriate and deny Christ and his Body or are
indifferent to them, for apparently upright reasons, are still,
implicitly, in an intersubjective relationship of love with Him.
This appears to strain the notion of intersubjective relationship
with another incarnate person beyond any meaningful limit.
Besides, there appear to be numerous divine interventions in the
New Testament which from a variety of perspectives would be
seen by opponents as marked with ex machina artificiality.
One further observation concerning the "urgency" of the call
to Christian conversion can be made. As was noted above, when
those who in God's providence are not destined to grow to "full
stature" in this life are called by Him to do so in the next, it is
through the Other, Christ, and his Body that they do so. The
urgency of the call to conversion to Christ is then not just for my
own salvation but that I might assist in the salvation of the others.
The Christian message is that I am only saved in working for the
salvation of others, and this is no less true regarding the mystery
of the salvation of those who enter the Church and thereby
assume a new Christian nature only at the eschatological point of
death. Just as the infant receives baptism through the faith of

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others (viz., the parents), so those persons also receive that faith
through the mystery of the life and faith of the Church. Through
the offering of the sacrifice of the Mass, the worthy celebration
and reception of the sacraments, and the living from them into
daily life, God's grace flows also to these others. God's victory
and victorious presence in this world are assured through his
death and resurrection. Yet He genuinely requires our help in
continuing this work: the Church can through the lives of its
members be more or less effective in being a beacon of salvation
to the nations. The urgency of conversion to Christ is an urgency
not only for myself but also the concern that others, including
those not in communion with the Body during most of the course
of their lives, enter the kingdom.
CONCLUSION

This article has taken the form of an extended reflection on
issues raised in Cardinal Ratzinger's 1993 lecture "Christ, Faith,
and the Challenge of Cultures." I have attempted an exploration
of those issues from the perspective of Bernard Lonergan's philosophy and theology. In clarifying what Lonergan means by the
shift from "classicism to historical mindedness" I have not only
attempted to show that a more careful and nuanced appropriation
of his meaning is required than is sometimes evident, but I have
attempted to elucidate some quite far-reaching consequences of
his position that bear upon discussions of Christianity and
culture. In particular I have indicated the quite radical
implications that emerge from Lonergan's analysis of the "origins
of Christian realism" for discussions of inculturation and mission
in a postmodern context. Lonergan's notion of the identity of
Christian culture in the ongoing contexts of history is, I suggest,
a strong one. It is perhaps worth reflecting on the fact that the
very scholar from whom Lonergan learned an anthropological
notion of culture, Christopher Dawson, also argued forcefully for
a strong version of the thesis of Christian cultural identity, not

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from a classicist base, but precisely in terms of anthropological
and historical data. 77
Lonergan's analysis of Christian realism is both a powerful
argument in favor of such cultural identity and a brilliant analysis
of the way in which the divinely revealed truths of the Catholic
faith are the dynamic catalysts of authentic spiritual and cultural
evolution. As we now shift from a "modern" ·period, in which
theological modernism found its milieu, to a postmodern, the
writings of Lonergan, Macintyre, and Ratzinger, among others,
point the way to an authentic appropriation of what might be
entailed in such a cultural shift, sifting the wheat from the
deconstructive and relativist chaff.

77 On the thought of Christopher Dawson see Stratford Caldecott and John Morrill, eds.,
Eternity in Time: Christopher Dawson and the Catholic Idea of History (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark Publications, 1997).

The Thomist 64 (2000): 211-37

ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A PURELY
NATURAL END FOR MAN
STEVEN A. LONG
Universityof St. Thomas
St. Paul, Minnesota

D

enis Bradley's recent book,Aquinas on the Twofold Human
Good, 1 addresses St. Thomas's central and profound
teaching regarding the relation of nature to grace. Bradley's interpretation of this doctrine is specially informed by the
seeming contradiction between St. Thomas's affirmation of a
natural desire to know the essence of God 2 and his insistence that
"there is another good of man that exceeds the proportion of
human nature because the natural powers are not sufficient for
attaining, or thinking, or desiring it. " 3
The passages reflecting these teachings, prominently compared
by Bradley,4 are further complicated by another argument he cites
from Thomas:
Man would have been created frustrated and in vain if he were not able to
attain beatitude, as is the case with anything that is not able to attain its
ultimate end. Lest man be created frustrated and inane, because he is born with
original sin, God proposed from the beginning a remedy for the human race,
through which man could be liberated from this inanity-the mediator, himself
God and man, Jesus Christ. Through faith in Him the impediment of original
sin is able to be taken away.5

1 Denis Bradley, Aquinason the Twofold Human Good (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America, 1997), hereinafter cited as Aquinas.
2 Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 3, a. 8.
3 De veritate, q. 14, a. 2, quoted from Aquinas, 457.
4 Ibid., 457.
5 De malo, q. 5, a. 1, ad 1, quoted from Aquinas, 473.

211

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In a tradition of exegesis that hearkens to the influence of Henri
de Lubac in this century, Bradley interprets these teachings as
affirming an implicit natural desire for intrinsically supernatural
beatitude. 6 He argues further that the imperfection of natural
beatitude, and the doctrine that man can be intellectively and
volitionally fully perfected only by the vision of God, leaves us
with a nature that is "naturally endless. " 7 That is, short of
supernatural beatitude, not only in this given economy of God's
providence but in any possible order of divine providence, human
nature would be naturally endless because "radically unfulfilled. " 8
Or, as Bradley puts it, "Natural beatitude in any form does not
satisfy man's natural desire for beatitude. "9 From this proposition
he derives the putative fact of human nature's endlessness. This
point is further accentuated by his insistence that for St. Thomas
obediential potency is merely a creature's susceptibility to miraculous divine action, rather than the passive potency distinctively
characterizing a being's susceptibility to God's active agency. 10
Accordingly, I will here address five principal points, with a
view toward showing the coherence of St. Thomas's teaching and
thus contextualizing the problematic texts highlighted by
Bradley's incisive treatment. To this end I will (1) briefly address
St. Thomas's doctrine of human nature's obediential potency for
grace; (2) summarize Bradley's account of the natural "endlessness" of nature; (3) present an interpretation of the natural desire
for God that does not imply the "endlessness of nature" apart
from intrinsically supernatural beatitude; (4) consider the inner
symmetry between St. Thomas's teaching that nature would be
6 Aquinas, 445-46: "Aquinas says with unequivocal clarity that the will as a nature does
have a natural appetite or an innate desire for good in general or happiness. This innate desire
for happiness, which is not an elicited desire since it is antecedent to any intellectual act, is
certainly an inclinatio naturae. The natural desire to see God is implicitly contained in the
necessary desire for the perfect good or happiness that structures the will, or in the necessary
desire, which follows upon the nature of the intellect, to know in general the cause of any
known effect." I shall treat this argument of Bradley in detail below.
7 Ibid., 514.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., 513.
10 Aquinas, 449: "Miracles, then, serve as the Thomistic prototype for understanding the
obediential potency of a creature."

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213

vain apart from grace and his teaching that the natural end
proportioned to man could, in a different order of providence,
have been a genuine (if imperfect) finality; and finally (5) attempt
to show how the doctrine of obediential potency, and a correct
interpretation of the natural desire for God, enable St. Thomas to
affirm an ontological profundity of man which is corevealed to
humanity in Christ, and which could not positively be grasped on
the basis of pure nature alone.
The substance of these issues-a source of mid-century crisis
at the time of Humani generis,11 and of persistent controversy
since-is brought to new exigence by Bradley's work, by the
contributions of the Communio school of theology, 12 and even by
certain strands of contemporary Greek theology. 13 Hence to this
issue's systematic profundity we may add a note of contemporary
significance.
I. OBEDIENTIAL POTENCY

Obediential potency represents the passive potency of a nature
in relation to an extrinsic active agency. Hence in De virtutibus in
communi, a. 10, ad 13, St. Thomas addresses an objection to the
effect that acts are of the same genus as their potencies, but that
11 For an example of an effort during this time favorably to articulate certain aspects of
the Dominican commentator tradition on this issue of the desire for God-especially given
the prominently contrary teaching of Henri de Lubac, which was gaining widespread
influence at the time-see William R. O'Connor, The Natural Desire for God (Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 1948). His analysis may be found at greater length in his work
The Eternal Quest (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., Inc., 194 7). O'Connor's criticisms
of the Scotistic reading of St. Thomas are apt, and his insistence that the natural end is not
"terminative" is striking. But in the present author's judgment his excellent analysis falls short
in one critical respect: it does not sufficiently articulate the philosophic and theological
richness of the conception of obediential potency as safeguarding the most profound elements
in Christian anthropology.
12 Cf. Cf. David Schindler, Heart of the World, Center of the Church (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996); or his "Christology, Public Theology, and
Thomism: De Lubac, Balthasar, and Murray," in The Future of Thomism, ed. Deal W.
Hudson and Dennis Wm. Moran (Notre Dame: American Maritain Association, 1992),
especially 253-54 n. 9, wherein he argues that nature is definitionally unknowable in
precision from grace.
13 E.g., John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's
Seminary Press, 1985).

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STEVEN A. LONG

creatures by definition lack potency for divine acts. Inasmuch as
creatures have different passive potencies in relation to different
active agencies, a passive obediential potency for acts achievable
only with divine aid is intelligible. As St. Thomas writes: "and
accordingly we say that the whole creation is in a certain potency
of obedience, according as the whole creation obeys God to be
able to receive in itself whatever God wills." 14 This "potency of
obedience" is readily and initially understood by many interpreters as merely a susceptibility to divine miracle. Such a
tendency is understandable, but overgeneric. The specific character of obediential potency is found in the differing passive
potencies of natures in relation to different active agencies. As St.
Thomas argues, water or earth have diverse passive potencies in
respect of the diverse active agencies of fire, the heavenly bodies,
and God. 15 And these diverse passive potencies vis-a-vis different
active agencies are partially rooted in the characters of the natures
involved.
For example, one might say that there is an obediential
potency of a stone to be miraculously transformed by God into a
human being, but this would be an extremely generic and
improper use of the conception of "obediential potency" since
obediential potency has to do with what a nature can receive from
the active agency of God, and in this case the nature of the stone
in fact receives nothing, but is simply transformed so as no longer
to be a stone. Properly speaking, it is dear that a 'stone does not
have an obediential potency to perform specifically human acts,
because a rock lacks any passive potency-even with divine aid
-either to understand or to will (it naturally lacks these faculties,
and hence it cannot even be "helped" to understand and love). By
contrast, the human soul does have an obediential potency for the
supernatural gift of divine friendship, because-owing to the
natural character of intellect and will-it can, with divine aid, be
brought to intimate knowledge and love of God. This human
obediential potency for intrinsically supernatural friendship is
purely passive, for the human intellect and will can reach to
14 "et secundum hoc dicimus quod in tota creatura est quaedam obedientialis potentia,
prout tota creatura obedit Deo ad suscipiendum in se quidquid Deus voluerit."
1.1 St. Thomas Aquinas, De virtutibus in communi, a. 10, ad 13.

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215

intimate knowledge and love of God solely through divine aid.
Yet the passive potency is conditioned by the actual nature God
has bestowed-it is only because of man's essentially spiritual
nature that he has an obediential potency to the supernatural life.
Bradley argues that whereas obediential potency is spoken of
by St. Thomas in relation to Christ's possession of infused
miraculous or prophetic knowledge, Thomas expressly fails to
mention obediential potency in relation to Christ's knowledge of
the beatific vision. Thus, for example, "The term is not
mentioned at the very juncture where it could be used if Aquinas
had thought it should be used. " 16 Sed contra: if the notion of
obediential potency must be deployed to account for our Lord's
human possession of lesser instances of supernatural knowledge,
a fortiori must it be deployed to account for his possession of the
beatific vision. If obediential potency merely referred to
susceptibility to transmutative miracle, then this conception could
not be used by Thomas regarding Christ's possession of infused
miraculous or prophetic knowledge. It is human nature, under the
active agency of God, which in a sense is capable of such
knowledge-and so this knowledge is not mere extrinsic
susceptibility to miracle.
The supernatural vision of God, being starkly supernatural,
dearly outstrips the capacity of unaided nature. 17 The phrase
actually used by St. Thomas about beatific vision as being "in a
certain way above the nature of the rational soul, according as it
cannot come to it of its own strength" ("quodammodo supra
naturam animae rationalis, inquantum scilicet propria virtute ad
earn pervenire non potest"), while yet affirming that "in another
way it does accord with its [the soul's] nature according as it is
capable of it as made according to the likeness of God" ("Alio
vero modo est secundum naturam ipsius, inquantum scilicet
For this whole discussion see Aquinas, 453-55. The quotation is taken from p. 455.
CL Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 9, a. 2, ad 3: "Dicendum quod visio seu scientia
beata est quodammodo supra naturam animae rationalis, inquantum scilicet propria virtute
ad earn pervenire non potest. Alio vero modo est secundum naturam ipsius, inquantum
scilicet per naturam suam est capax eius, prout scilicet ad imaginem Dei facta est, ut supra
dictum est. Sed scientia increata est omnibus modis supra naturam animae humanae."
16
17

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STEVEN A. LONG

secundum naturam suam est capax eius, prout sdlicet est
imaginem Dei facta"), conforms perfectly to the doctrine of an
obediential potency to grace and glory. In other words, human
nature, with divine aid, is capable of beatitude. Alone it is not
capable of attaining it, but even so it does retain the remote
capacity to be so aided by God-a capacity lacking in any
noncognitive being.
Further, it ought be noted that St. Thomas considers the
"capacity" of a nature
relation to that which God can bring
forth from it precisely in addressing the capacity of human nature
for "the grace of union, which is the greatest grace." Referring to
this grace of union, he writes that
A double capability may be perceived in human nature: one, according to the
order of natural power, and this is always fulfilled by God, Who apportions to
each according to its natural capability; the other according to the order of
divine power, which all creatures implicitly obey; and the capability we speak
of pertains to this. But God does not fulfill all such capabilities, otherwise God
could do only what He has done in creatures, and this is false, as earlier
stated. 18

Surely it is noteworthy that St. Thomas here states that a "duplex
capacitas attendi potest in human natura." For this capacity of
human nature for the grace of union under the active agency of
God (1) is a capacity-for only a cognitive being can be so
uplifted to the grace of union-and (2) is thus a "potency under
obedience" or obediential potency-that is, a "capacity" that can
be realized only under the active agency of God and
is purely
18 SI'h HI, q. 1, a. 3, obj. 3, wherein the objection hinges on human nature's capacity for
the greatest grace as not increased by sin; and then ad 3, wherein we are instructed:
"Dicendum quod duplex capacitas attendi potest in humana natura. Una quidem secundum
ordinem potentiae naturalis. Quae a Deo semper impletur, qui dat unicuique rei secundum
suam capacitatem naturalem. Alia vero secundum orclinem divinae potentiae, cui omnis
creatura obedit ad nutum. Et ad hoc pertinet ista capa,citas. Non autem Deus omnem talem
capacitatem naturae imp let; alioquin Deus non posset facere in creatura nisi quod facit; quod
falsum est, ut in Primo habitum est.-Nihil autem prohibet ad aliquicl maius humanam
naturam productam esse post peccatum; Deus enim permittit mala fieri ut incle aliquid melius
eliciat. Uncle dicitur Rom. V: 'ubi abundavit delictum, superabundavit et gratia'. Uncle et in
benedictione cerei paschalis dicitur: 'O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere
Redemptorem"' (emphasis added).

MAN'S NATIJRAL END

217

passive on the part of the creature, yet founded on the character
of the creature's nature as susceptible to a given kind of divine
aid. Ergo Bradley's argument that "the term is not mentioned at
the very juncture where it could be used if Aquinas had thought
it should be used" preoccupies itself solely with terminology
where the identical principle, however accidentally divergent in
terminological expression, ought to be discerned. For in the
relevant passage the purely passive capacity of human nature to
be aided by God to achieve the grace of divine union is identified,
and this capacity is founded on two elements: the spiritual nature
of man and the active agency of God.
The nature and role of the doctrine of obediential potency
within St. Thomas's doctrine is much controverted, and in this
century figures such as LaPorta and de Lubac have argued
vigorously against it being a constituent of St. Thomas's teaching
of the relation of nature and grace. 19 In another context I have
tried to address in depth the anthropological structure upon
which the obediential potency for grace is conditioned, and to
19 See, for example, Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: Etude historiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946);
Augustinisme et theologie moderne (Paris: Aubier, 1965), 242-51; Le mystere du surnaturel
(Paris: Aubier, 1965), noteworthy for its criticism of the Dominican commentator tradition,
87-88, 142, 179-89; in English, see de Lubac's The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans.
Rosemary Sheed (New York: Herder & Herder, 1967). See also J. Laporta, La destinee de
la nature humane selon Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: J. Vrin, 1965). Laporta devotes an appendix
to arguing that St. Thomas does not use the language of obediential potency in his account
of the supernatural destiny of man (133-46).
In a recent article, Brian Shanley approvingly cites Bradley's "challenge to the legitimacy
of any allegedly Thomistic ethic based on the fictitious 'natural end' of man," noting that
Bradley is in line with Laporta on this point (Brian J. Shanley, O.P., "Aquinas on Pagan
Virtue," The Thomist 63 [1999]: 555). Shanley himself argues that acquired natural virtue
as efficacious apart from grace is localized wholly Within political order, apparently because
of the realization that after the Fall man is no longer able naturally to love God above himself
(see STh 1-11, q. 109, a. 4). The point is well taken. However, once acquired natural virtue is
defined exclusively within a limited political context, it would seem that personal ethical
virtues would be subject to moral norms only from the side of grace, and not from
nature-yet it is with natural love, even prior to divine charity, that we aboriginally flow
forth from creation loving our Creator above ourselves. When this rational inclination is
diminished through sin (as St. Thomas teaches that it is: see STh 1-11, q. 85, a. 1) the whole
ethical life shivers with the tremors of alienation. As it is a natural (as well as a supernatural)
ordering that is disrupted by sin, so one can identify the natural acquired virtues that, despite
this disruption, are ordered to God.

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STEVEN A. LONG

give summary response to the issues raised by these critics. 2°For
the present, it will suffice merely to indicate that the conception
of obediential potency outlined here can apply to the relation of
nature to supernatural grace (as shown regarding the "grace of
union"), and that, while utterly passive, the obediential potency
yet is founded upon something positive: namely, upon the
intellective and volitional powers of man, which are intrinsically
spiritual powers manifesting the ontological profundity of human
nature.
Hence the words of Jacques Maritain: "It is necessary that
there be in man an 'obediential potency' which, answering to the
divine omnipotence, renders him apt to receive a life which
surpasses infinitely the capacities of his nature. " 21
II. THE PUTATIVE "ENDLESSNESS" OF NATURE

There has long been a difficulty regarding the status of the
arguments brought by St. Thomas to the effect that perfect
beatitude is possible only in the next life, and that it requires
vision of the divine essence. Working on the force of the
conclusion that the perfectly final end is supernatural beatitude,
which alone can fully perfect and satisfy intellect and will,
Bradley argues that nature taken in itself, and in precision from
supernatural completion, is "endless. " 22 That is, since only the
vision of God can perfectly fulfill human nature-a proposition
clearly asserted by Thomas-in an order of providence lacking
supernatural fulfillment man's nature would be vain.
In this respect, Bradley can draw heavily from the teaching of
St. Thomas Aquinas in the Prima secundae:

20 I treat the anthropological structure implicit in St. Thomas's teaching regarding the
human obediential potency for the supernatural life in "Obediential Potency, Human
Knowledge, and the Natural Desire for God," InternationalPhilosophicalQuarterly (March,
1997).
11 Jacques Maritain, Approachesto God, trans. Peter O'Reilly (New York: Harper, 1954),
112.
22 For example, Bradley speaks forthrightly of what he describes as "Aquinas's doctrine
of man's natural endlessness" (Aquinas, 529).

MAN'S NATURAL END

219

It is therefore necessary for the last end so to fill man's appetite, that nothing
is left besides it for man to desire. Which is not possible, if something else be
required for his perfection. Consequently it is not possible for the appetite so
to tend to two things, as though each were its perfect good. 23
Man must, of necessity, desire all, whatsoever he desires, for the last end. This
is evident for two reasons. First, because whatever man desires, he desires it
under the aspect of good. And if he desire it, not as his perfect good, which is
the last end, he must, of necessity, desire it as tending to the perfect good,
because the beginning of anything is always ordained to its completion; as is
clearly the case in effects both of nature and of art. Wherefore every beginning
of perfection is ordained to complete perfection which is achieved through the
last end. Secondly, because the last end stands in the same relation in moving
the appetite, as the first mover in other movements. Now it is dear that
secondary moving causes do not move save inasmuch as they are moved by the
first mover. Therefore secondary objects of the appetite do not move the
appetite, except as ordained to the first object of the appetite, which is the last
end. 24

These two passages establish, first, that the natural good cannot
be construed as coequal with the supernatural good, as though the
natural good in precision from supernatural beatitude were a
separate and perfect end. Second, St. Thomas argues that all ends
derive their "end-likeness" or very appetibility from being further
ordered to the last end. Inasmuch as all Christians admit that in
this order of providence the final end for man is the supernatural
beatific vision, it seems to follow that the imperfect natural end
is an end at all only inasmuch as it is further ordered to
supernatural beatitude-of which any natural end is an imperfect
similitude and participation.
Moreover, it is dear that for St. Thomas no finite good can
quell the will perfectly:
It is impossible for any created good to constitute man's happiness. For
happiness is the perfect good, which quiets the appetite altogether; else it
would not be the last end, if something yet remained to be desired. Now the
object of the will, i.e., of man's appetite, is the universal good; just as the
object of the intellect is the universal true. Hence it is evident that nothing can
quiet the will of man, save the universal good. This is to be found not in any
23 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 5.
24 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 6.

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STEVEN A. LONG

creature, but in God alone; because every creature has goodness by
participation. Wherefore God alone can satisfy the will of man. 25

While some may argue that this argument is formally theological,
one notes that there is no premise in the argument knowable only
through revelation; rather, the argument sets forth simply from
the character of the formal object of the wm, and from the datum
that no finite good so comprises the good-in-general as to render
the will incapable of further desire. Hence only if the universal
good subsists in one unique instance, and is attained by the
creature, can the will be quieted-and God uniquely comprises
the universal good.
Now, there is indeed no doubt that for Thomas the end of
man is not only de facto that of the supernatural vision of God,
but that man has some natural appetite to know God from the
start. And it is in part the character of this "natural appetite" to
know God that raises the question of man's natural "endlessness."
If the natural "end" attainable in precision from supernatural
beatitude cannot perfectly finalize the will-as we have just seen
Thomas argue that it cannot (for he teaches that there is no
natural knowledge of God other than that mediated by creaturely
effects)-it would appear that apart from supernatural beatitude
man is naturaHy "endless" and indeed (as Thomas says above)
"vain." In responding to this argument and assessing it-both as
it issues from Bradley, and in the roots of his interpretation
within St. Thomas's text-we must first address the issue of the
natural desire for God. For it is partiaHy in relation to this
"natural desire" that it is supposed that man would be specifically
unfulfilled and "endless" were God not to have ordained human
nature to supernatural completion.

25 STh I-H, q. 2, a. 8: "Dicendum quod impossibile est beatitudinern hominis esse in aliquo
bono creato. Beatitudo enim est bonum perfectum, quod totaliter quietat appetitum; alioquin
non esset ultimus finis, si adhuc restaret aliquid appetendum. Obiectum autem voluntatis,
quae est appetitus humanus, est universale bonum; sicut obiectum intellectus est universale
vemm. Ex quo patet quod nihil potest quietare voluntatem hominis, nisi bonum universale.
Quod non invenitur in aliquo creato, sed sol um in Deo, quia omnis creatura habet bonitatem
parricipatam. Uncle solus Deus voluntatem hominis implere potest."

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221

Ill. THE NATURAL DESIRE FOR GOD

The natural desire for God is a desire either elicited by prior
knowledge -as when Thomas argues to this effect, "When a man
knows an effect and knows that it has a cause, there remains in
man a natural desire to know about the cause what it is. . . .
Consequently, for perfect happiness, the intellect must reach the
very essence of the First Cause" 26-or it is not merely elicited by
a particular bit of knowledge, but "natural" (voluntas ut natura as
opposed to any particular voluntary act elicited by special
knowledge). For St. Thomas "each power desires by the natural
appetite that object which is suitable to itself. " 27 This is
distinguished from animal appetite and likened to "sight for
seeing or sound for hearing" ("utpote visio ad videndum et
auditio ad audiendum"). But what is suitable to the will by its
nature in this sense is intelligible good as such.
So there are two distinct types of natural desire that may be
alleged: one elicited by our discovery that finite being has a
unitary cause, and the other proceeding from the very nature of
the will as ordered toward the universal good. In this second
respect (regarding voluntas ut natura) Bradley argues that the
desire for God-in whom the universal good subsists fully and
uniquely-is natural and not elicited, because it is implicit in that
universal good which is the formal object of the will. Hence he
writes:
Aquinas says with unequivocal clarity that the will as a nature does have a
natural appetite or an innate desire for good in general or happiness. This
innate desire for happiness, which is not an elicited desire since it is antecedent
to any intellectual act, is certainly an inclinatio naturae. The natural desire to
see God is implicitly contained in the necessary desire for the perfect good or
happiness that structures the will, or in the necessary desire, which follows
upon the nature of the intellect, to know in general the cause of any known
effect. 28

26 As cited by Bradley in

Aquinas, 457; originally from STh 1-11, q. 3, a. 8.

27 STh I, q. 80, a. 1, ad 3: "Unde unaquaeque appetit obiectum sibi conveniens naturali

appetitu."
28

Aquinas, 445-46.

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Cleady he considers the elicited desire to target the vision of God
(although Bradley will not designate it as in the strongest sense
"natural," howsoever necessary it may be once we know the truth
of the proposition that God exists). 29 The passage quoted above
also and primarily bears witness that he deems voluntas ut natura
to constitute a genuinely natural desire for God
the strongest
sense of "natural!'
Referring first to what Bradley judges the lesser or improperly
natural instance of "natural desire" -the elicited desire to know
God-it is important to note
this desire is proportioned to
the creaturely knowledge whence it originates. One may respond
with adequacy to the text that the elicited desire is precisely not
a supernatural desire for God. It is not a desire positively ordered
to the inner being of God. Of course, whether the elicited desire
to know the essence of the cause of creaturely effects is considered
"natural" in the strongest sense or not, it is dearly natural as
opposed to being supernatural. But it is a creaturely desire
proportioned to the finite evidence whence it proceeds. This is to
say that it is a desire to know the essence of the God who is
incognito, known only through the effects of creatures.
There is an infinite disproportion between God in Himself and
God merely as "cause of these created effects," because there is
infinitely more perfection in God than in the creature. It is for
precisely this reason that no Leibnitzean "best of all possible
worlds" is intelligible from a Thomistic point of view, for any
possible creation can be indefinitely "improved" by God, owing
to God's infinite power: all possible worlds are infinitely remote
from the divine perfection. So to desire God merely as "cause of
these effects" is to desire God under an improper and
disproportionate ratio. As such the elicited desire "knows not
what it asks." Hence as Maritain writes:
But this desire to know the First Cause through its essence is a desire which
does not know what it asks, like the sons of Zebedee when they asked to sit on
the right and on the left of the Son of Man. Ye know not what ye ask, Jesus
replied to them. For to know the First Cause in its essence, or without the
29 Aquinas, 447: "metaphysical desire to see God cannot, despite what Ferrariensis and
Banez suggest, be called, in the precise Thomistic sense, a "natural desire."

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intermediary of any other thing, is to know the First cause otherwise than as
First Cause; it is to know it by ceasing to attain it by the very means by which
we attain it, by ceasing to exercise the very act which bears us up to it. 30

One recalls the cognate judgment of St. Thomas that
philosophic knowledge of God should be compared with beatific
knowing more as not-seeing to seeing than as not seeing so well
to seeing better. 31 Because the elicited natural desire is materially
a desire for God, but formally a desire for God solely under the
ratio of "cause of these effects," it is not a desire for intrinsically
supernatural beatitude. However, after the fact of revelation and
under the light of grace, we do become aware that the object of
this natural desire is in fact included within the object of the
graced appetite for the beatific vision of the triune God. Yet this
second graced appetite for beatific vision proceeds, not from mere
natural evidence, but from the active agency of God upon the soul
through supernatural grace.
This leaves us to consider voluntas ut natura, the desire that
Bradley underscores as natural in the strongest sense (i.e., as
following upon the native tendency of the volitional power). His
argument is that desire for God is actually implicit in the natural
ordering of the will to its formal object, which is the universal
good. Yet this argument obscures an important proposition
which, once understood, makes short shrift of this position. For
it is truer to say of the universal good that its full perfection
inheres "in" God than to say that the supernaturally beatific good
is actually and implicitly "contained" in the universal good.
If it is held that naturally and in precision from grace we
implicitly and actually desire God Himself in beatific vision under
the ratio of the desire for intelligible-good-in-general, then the
supereminent divine good is robbed of its utter perfection and
transcendence. For the universal good is the-good in-general-it
is the intelligible good in general to which the will is ordered by
nature. 32 Yet God is no more this intelligible good in general than
30 Maritain,

Approachesto God, 109-10.

31 Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 18, a. I.
32 By "in general" I mean, not that the definition of the good as such includes generality,
as in this case no individual good could be desired. Rather I mean to emphasize what St.
Thomas emphasizes by referring to the formal object as "universal" (whereas the good as such

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STEVEN A. LONG

he is being-in-general. The error of supposing God to be included
within universal being (or good) is an error in application of
analogous predicates. The full perfection of good resides in God.
Hence to say that God is implicitly included in the-good-ingeneral collapses creature and creator within a imivocal framework while also defining the object of the will as naturally deific
(for only God naturally and properly knows and wills the divine
good). It is indeed true that transcendental being and good are
more truly predicated of God than of creatures. But we do not
know the mode in which these transcendental perfections exist in
God, but only the truth of the proposition that they do so. Thus,
to affirm that the full perfection of transcendental good resides in
God is not tantamount to the confession that the formal object of
the will actually and implicitly contains God, because between the
good in general and ipsum bonum subsistens per se there is an
infinite divide.
By way of comparison one should consider the analogous ratio
of being as contemplated by the metaphysician. Although the
universal perfection of being subsists only in God, being is studied
by the metaphysician in its created participations, which are not
God. The metaphysician does not enjoy beatific knowledge in the
contemplation of being, as he does not thereby enjoy direct
knowledge of ipsum esse subsistens per se. Similarly, the universal
truth and good, although subsisting only in God, signify truth and
good in general in specifying the intellect and will, not a deific
ordering of mind and will directly to the triune God. These
observations do not prejudice the truth that all things find their
perfection in God, and that intellective agents do so in an
intellective manner. But natural knowledge of (and desire for)
God remains infinitely distant from supernatural knowledge of
(and desire for) God.
The desire for the intelligible good-in-general is not only far
from being an actually implicit desire for supernatural beatitude;
it is also not simply and absolutely "pre-cognitive" -although
doubtless it is, as Bradley argues, "antecedent to any intellectual
in definition is neither universal nor particular)-namely, that the good as such is not any
specific good. This sense of the formal object bears comparison with essence absolutely
considered as neither individual nor universal by its notion.

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act. "33 Volition, howsoever natural, is defined by its relation to
the form of reason. This is what will is: appetite following
intellective form. Hence will is ordered to the intelligible good,
and apart from the intellect the will can exhibit no tendency
whatsoever, because its being is defined by its relation to
intellect. 34 For this reason alone, it becomes apparent that the
desire for the intelligible good-in-general bears the natural
impress of our knowledge, for the formal object of the will is
conveyed thereto by means of the intellect. But in human beings
neither the object of knowledge nor of volition may rightly be
said to be naturally deific.
Recall Bradley's argument: "The natural desire to see God is
implicitly contained in the necessary desire for the perfect good
or happiness that structures the will, or in the necessary desire,
which follows upon the nature of the intellect, to know in general
the cause of any known effect." The "necessary desire for the
perfect good or happiness that structures the will" is the desire for
the intelligible-good-in-general. Under the active agency of God
this desire is susceptible of becoming a true desire for divine
beatitude. But in and of itself this natural desire is not the desire
for supernatural beatitude, for the-good-in-general is neither
naturally identical with, nor does it naturally "include," the divine
good. The full perfection of the good subsists uniquely and supereminently in God, and hence under God's active agency we may
be brought to graced desire for the divine good. Seen in this light,
our ordering to the good-in-general constitutes an obediential
potency or natural translucence for the supernatural vision of
God. But this natural ordering is not a positive desire for

33 Aquinas,

446.

34 See, for instance, STh I, q. 82, a. 4, ad 3 (Leonine ed.): "quod

non oportet procedere
in infinitum, sed statur in intellectu sicut in primo. Omnem enim voluntatis motum necesse
est quod praecedat apprehensio: sed non omnem apprehensionem praecedit motus
voluntatis." See also Quodlibet 6, q. 2, a. 2: "motus voluntatis est inclinatio sequens formam
intellectam." Likewise Summa contra Gentiles III, c. 26 (Leonine ed.): "Motus voluntatis est
inclinatio sequens formam intellectam." See also STh 1-11, q. 8, a. 1 (Leonine ed.), where St.
Thomas clearly argues that "Ad hoc igitur quod voluntas in aliquid tendat, non requiritur
quod sit bonum in rei veritate, sed quod apprehendatur in rationi boni." For the will to tend
toward anything as good, it must do so by virtue of an apprehension of the mind.

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supernatural beatitude apart from its elevation and illumination
by grace.
Thus one may not "build into" the desire for indeterminate
perfection and the good-in-general an actually implicit desire for
knowledge of the triune God without doing violence to Thomas's
teaching regarding the very nature of intellect and will. The
immateriality of the intellective and volitional faculties
constitutes, as it were, a purely passive natural translucence
through which the active. agency of God may order the human
subject to the infinitely higher end of supernatural beatitude. The
openness of intellect and will toward the good is simply
this-openness. The initiative of God in moving intellect and will
to the actual desire of Himself remains essentially supernatural.
IV. CAN THE NATURAL DESIRE BE IN VAIN?

Bradley argues that natural desire for God cannot be vain 35
and that therefore this desire is known, from natural evidence, to
be susceptible of fulfillment. Admittedly, to say that natural desire
for God must be susceptible of fulfillment neither specifies
precisely how this may be so, nor does it involve affirming the
natural knowledge of an intrinsically supernatural mystery. It is
only through revelation that we know that the object of the
natural desire for God is included within the essentially
supernatural object of the beatific vision. There is infinitely more
in God than "cause of these effects," but the elicited desire to
know God seeks to know Him under the ratio of "cause of these
effects," a ratio that is infinitely inadequate to the proper inner
truth of God. Hence to say that this limited desire to know God
cannot be in vain even if true would still not inform us of the
identity of this desideratum with that represented by the
intrinsically supernatural beatific vision. The very possibility of an
35 And, it should be noted, on our analysis only the elicited desire is properly a natural
desire for God, since the natural tendency of the will toward its object is not deific. This puts
one in the interesting position of maintaining that that desire for God which Bradley denies
to be natural is a more fit claimant to the title; while that which he affirms to be natural, is
here argued not to be a desire for God at all, but merely the ordering of the will to the
intelligible good in general.

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intrinsically supernatural mystery cannot be proven from natural
evidence alone. The natural desire to know the essence of the
unitary cause of being is conditioned by the finitude of the
evidence whence it derives. In precision from grace this aforesaid
desire seeks the essence of God in a manner knowably
disproportionate to its object. Like the child's desire to capture
the ocean, it is inefficacious. It is a conditional desire, that is, one
whose satisfaction is not owed to nature.
As a material prelude to consideration of the relation between
natural ends and supernatural finality, it is useful to contemplate
the natural desire for God as a conditional desire. One may well
concur with Jacques Maritain that the natural desire for God is
conditional in the sense that its fulfillment is not simply owed to
nature, and that this alters when, illumined by faith, this desire is
elevated to unconditionality. That whereby the natural desire for
God becomes unconditional is the further ordering of nature to
the beatific end, and it is only as so uplifted that it is impossible
for this desire to be vain. Apart from revelation we know not
what we seek by this desire, a desire whose material object wholly
transcends the evidence that gives rise to and conditions it, and
whose satisfaction is not due to nature. 36
We naturally seek the highest knowledge of the First Principle
of which we are capable, and desire to know the divine essence
while nonetheless simultaneously realizing-as a condition of this
very desire-that this is a thing impossible to nature simply in its
own right. But once revelation teaches us to hope for supernatural
beatific vision, we realize the coextension of graced desire for
God and natural desire. The natural desire for God then partakes
of the supernatural finality without which, in this order of
providence, human nature would be vain. Thus from being
inefficacious and conditional the natural desire is elevated to
become an unconditional aspiration. 37
36 On this point, note the long footnote of Maritain, no. 91, in chapter 6 of The Degrees
of Knowledge.As frequently is the case, in a long note Maritain succeeds in bringing greater

clarity to this issue than many another complete book or essay achieves.
37 Maritain does not much like the language of velleity, which I here avoid in stating his
position although I do not share his interpretation of its past use, and consider it apt to
articulate the character of a conditional natural aspiration. But he did not think this term
appropriate in respect of the natural desire for God. Cf. Approachesto God, 112: "It is not

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This view of the elevation of the natural desire within grace
does not imply the endlessness of human nature apart from grace.
In a different economy of providence wherein nature from its
inception were not ordered by grace, the failure to fulfill the
natural desire to know God quidditatively would not derogate
from the felicity of the natural end. Within an economy of
providence wherein nature were not ordered by grace, the natural
desire for God would be known to be utterly disproportionate
with nature, not owed to nature, and indeed impossible for
nature by itself.
cannot be quelled
Neither the negative knowledge that the
by any finite good, nor the natural elicited desire to know the
essence of God-which seeks God under the ratio of "cause of
these effects"-implies the impossibility of a natural end lesser
than knowledge of the divine essence. The negative knowledge
that no finite good may wholly quell the will, is-absent the
promptings of grace-merely as it were the shadow of any natural
possession of the good. Apart from the actual ordering of human
nature to the supernatural, the incapacity of the will to be fulfilled
by any finite good would not be tantamount to Augustinian
restlessness, for this incapacity would be marked neither by
nostalgia for grace nor by the corresponding normative teleology
to the beatific vision. Rather, this mobilism of the wiH-its
incapacity to be quelled by finite goods-naturally appears simply
as the condition for human achievement of any perfection.
The end proportioned to nature is thus imperfect. But
knowledge of this imperfection
an economy of providence
wherein nature is not ordered to the supernatural) would be
merely dialectical and, as it were, shallow. For, in the absence of
that active agency of God which coreveals man's profundity in
revealing the divine friendship, the possible supernatural object
and ontological depth of human nature are not actually brought
to light. Hence the supernatural vision of God "exceeds the
proportion of human nature because the natural powers are not
sufficient for attaining, or thinking, or desiring it." 38 One notes
a simple velleity, a desire of supererogation. It is born in the very depths of the thirst of our
intellect for being." It is unclear to me that Banez and others mean to suggest by their use of
the term that this is a desire of supererogation.
38 De Verit., q. 14, a. 2, cited in Aquinas, 457.

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the term "desiring." Neither the elicited desire to know God, nor
the natural ordination of the will toward its formal objectintelligible-good-in-general-constitutes
an actual desire for
supernatural beatific vision apart from grace and revelation.
V. NATURE VAIN APART FROM GRACE?

But what about St. Thomas's distinct argument regarding the
need for grace lest man have been created "frustrated and in vain"
or "inane"? These last words must be understood as presupposing
this actual order of providence in which nature from its first
institution is created in grace, and in which it is redeemed from
sin and mercifully ordered through the redemption toward the
beatific vision. 39 Within this order, surely nature if deprived of
grace would be vain. This judgment is made all the stronger by
the quotation whence these descriptives are drawn: "Lest man be
created frustrated and inane, because he is born with original
sin. "40

39 STh I, q. 95, a. 1 (Leonine, Ottawa ed.): "Sed quod fuerit conditus in gratia, ut alii
dicunt, videtur requirere ipsa rectitudo primi status, in qua Deus hominem fecit, secundum
illud Eccle. VII: 'Deus fecit hominem rectum'. Erat enim rectitudo secundum hoc quod ratio
subdebatur Deo, rationi vero inferiores vires, et animae corpus. Prima autem subiectio erat
causa et secundae et tertiae; quandiu enim ratio manebat Deo subiecta, inferiora ei
subdebantur, ut Augustinus <licit. Manfestum est autem quod ilia subiectio corporis ad
animam, et inferiorum virium ad rationem, non erat naturalis; alioquin post peccatum
mansisset, cum etiam in daemonibus data naturalia post peccatum permanserint, ut Dionysius
<licit cap. N De Div. Nam. Unde manifestum est quod et ilia prima subiectio, qua ratio Deo
subdebatur, non erat solum secundum naturam, sed secundum supernaturale don um gratiae;
non enim potest esse quod effectus sit potior quam causa" ("But the very rectitude of the first
state with which man was bequeathed, as is said by others, seemingly requires that he was
created in grace, according to Eccles. VII, 'God made man right'. For this rectitude consisted
in reason being subject to God, the lower powers to reason, and the body to the soul. But the
first subjection was the cause of the second and the third; for as Augustine says, while reason
was subjected to God, the lower powers remained subject to reason. It is manifest that such
a subjection of the body to the soul, and of the lower powers to reason, was not from nature;
elsewise it would have remained after sin, as so in the demons the natural gifts remained after
sin as Dionysius stated in N De Div. Nam. Wherefore it is clear that the first subjection
whereby reason was subject to God was not simply according to nature, but according to the
supernatural gift of grace; for it is not possible that the effect be more efficacious than the
cause").
40 De mala, q. 5, a. 1, ad 1.

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STEVEN A. LONG

To clarify the matter, it helps to remember the primacy of the
principle of act within the theology and philosophy of St.
Thomas. His accounts are focalized by act-for neither mere
potency, nor the distinct, diverse notion of possibility, can by
itself account for anything actual. As a theologian Thomas is
focused upon the given actual providential synthesis of God.
There are indeed, as Bradley notes, places wherein Thomas
contemplates a regimen of pure nature, but these are few and
atypical, 41 forced upon one's consideration, as it were, as "a
corollary of the supernatural character of the beatific vision. " 42
Rather, his primary concern is with the given actual providential
synthesis. Since every end derives its end-likeness-its
appetibility-from its further ordering to the ultimate end, 43 it
follows that in this dispensation of providence, wherein God
further orders the end proportioned to nature to the end of
supernatural felicity, nature would be vain apart from the beatific
vision. But this entailment from the actually given providential
order does not imply that no other providential order could
square with the divine power and wisdom. Indeed, Bradley
expressly notes the importance of the hypothesis of pure nature
for sustaining the theological truth of the pure gratuity of
supernatural grace. 44
41 Aquinas, 475, nn. 235-37. Bradley rightly cites II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 1; II Sent., d. 29,
q. 1, a. 1; De Verit., q. 24, a. 14; STh I-II, q. 109, a. 4; Quodl. 1, q. 4, a. 3; and finally the
lines of ScG III, c. 53, wherein Thomas, speaking of the lumen gloriae, notes preliminarily
that any created intellect can enjoy complete existence in the species proper to its nature
without seeing the substance of God.
42 Aquinas, 475.
43 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 6: "Dicendum quod necesse est quod omnia quae homo appetit,
appetat propter ultimum finem."
44 Aquinas, 429-30: "Aquinas states, very clearly, that the gift of the beatific vision is not
a necessary concomitant of the creation of human nature, but rather it is something
supernatural that God freely and gratuitously gives to those who love Him. Hence the
actuality (i.e., factuality) of this gift (and a fortiori the necessity of man's attaining the vision
of the divine essence) cannot be proven philosophically. Men, indeed, could have been
created and left to remain in a 'state of pure nature' without benefit of the supernatural gift
of the beatific vision."
Yet one is hard pressed to hold both the "endlessness" of nature and the gratuity of grace.
It does not accord with the wisdom of an agent to ordain something to an end and yet
provide no means by which the end can be attained. Therefore it does not accord with the
wisdom of God to ordain man to an end beyond his unaided natural capacity (the

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The issue then is, in what does the putative "endlessness" of
nature consist? Does it consist merely in the truth that, in this
order of providence, nature is further ordered to grace? But even
so, there is an imperfect natural beatitude, as acknowledged by
Bradley. Does this endlessness consist in the proposition that,
lacking supernatural fulfillment, man could have no end? In this
order of providence, it is true that no natural end could finalize
man. Does the putative endlessness of nature consist in the
proposition that, in a different economy of providence, wherein
nature were not from its institution ordered in and by grace, there
could still be no final natural end? It is this last hypothesis that we
must consider.
Specifically, it must be realized that the actual further-ordering
of nature to grace-which from the beginning characterizes this
economy of providence, as man is created in the state of
sanctifying grace-implies of necessity that, absent an end in
grace, nature is vain. But in a state wherein nature is not further
ordered, the end proportioned to human nature remains a true
felicity, a genuine end. One grants that this felicity would be
imperfect because mobile. No finite good can perfectly quell the
will, and apart from revelation all knowledge of God is causal
knowledge proceeding from creaturely effects. Still, natural felicity is imperfect only relative to an end utterly disproportionate
to human nature that we cannot even rise to desire apart from
grace.
Jacques Maritain has perceptively described imperfect natural
happiness as a "felicity in motion. " 45 It is the life of obedient
servitors of the unseen God, contemplating and serving Him from
"endlessness" of nature) if it is possible that he would never provide the means by which it
could be attained (the gratuity of grace}.
45 Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to the Basic Problems of Moral Philosophy, trans.
Cornelia N. Borgerhoff (New York: Magi Press, 1990), 111. Maritain draws the distinctions
as follows: "l)that the ultimate End of the human being is God; 2}that, in the natural order,
this ultimate End can only be achieved imperfectly and at a remove, by means of a natural
quasi-final state or a felicity in motion which consists in the operative perfection of the
human subject, and principally in a natural contemplation and natural love of God through
and in His creatures that falls short of perfectly actuating the intellective and volitional
powers; 3)that, in the supernatural order, the ultimate End is reached perfectly and directly,
by means of a supernatural final state or a beatitude which consists in the vision of God
known by us as He knows us."

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STEVEN A. LONG

afar through the veil of His created effects and in the integrity of
moral rectitude. This order of ends proportionate to human
nature does not disappear with the bestowal of elevating grace,
but is assumed and further ordered toward the felicity of the
supernatural end. But within a radically different providential
economy, in which nature were not created in grace, this
proportionate natural felicity-surmounted
by the natural
contemplation of God-would indeed constitute a genuine end.
Only grace and the light of revelation show us that the very
object of the natural desire for God is included within the object
of intrinsically supernatural beatitude. The natural desire for God
does not reveal to the mind how such knowledge might be
possible, nor does it in itself manifest the real possibility of supernatural beatific vision. It is only owing to grace and revelation
that the attainability of the natural desire and the inclusion of its
object within beatific vision is known. As the "end-likeness" of
any end is derived from its ordering to finality, and the finality in
this order of providence is supernatural beatific vision, natural
ends are ends at all by virtue of their further ordering in grace
and toward the supernatural vision of God. Ergo, within this
providential economy the natural desire for God-realized to be
possible of fulfillment owing to revelation-receives its "endlikeness" and unconditionality from the supernatural finality.
So, the question arises: in a regime of pure nature would
humanity be unfulfilled apart from the knowledge of God in His
essence-a knowledge which revelation alone indicates to be truly
possible in the supernatural vision of God? Nature would indeed
be lacking a fulfillment, but one that is utterly disproportionate
to, and outside the unaided agency of, man. More importantly,
the actual contactus with God within such an economy of
providence would be wholly canalized through the contemplation
of God via creation. Within such an order of providence, it would
be, as it were, to "interrupt God when He is speaking" should one
turn from what He actually is providing for our perfection to an
inefficacious desire whose object is desired in a manner that is
utterly disproportionate.
While reading a good novel, do we stop enjoying it because of
the discursive imperfection and potency entailed by reading and

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page-turning-do
we chiefly lament the lack of angelic
intuition?-or do we enjoy the book? When the author of the
terrestrial "book" is knowably God, who directs us toward avid
reading, does this cease to constitute a licit end merely because it
lacks the perfection of an order of being infinitely beyond it? One
grants, again, that such a purely natural "end" is imperfect vis-avis the beatific vision. But the very possibility of the beatific
vision, as an intrinsically supernatural mystery, is indemonstrable
from natural evidence. One also grants that the element of
imperfection in such a purely natural end constituted by the
mobilism in which such an end would be enjoyed would be
knowable. But this imperfection, like the silence between words
in a spoken sentence, would be felt as merely the condition for
the perfection enjoyed, and not as a debilitating utter frustration
of nature. Lacking any positive apprehension of the real
possibility of perfect finality, and existentially focused upon
God's actual providential articulation, the human person within
the regime of pure nature would discern the good as framed
rather than obscured by the limits of human nature.
Bradley argues that "Natural beatitude in any form does not
satisfy man's natural desire for beatitude. "46 Arguably one ought
to respond that natural beatitude does not satisfy the desire for
beatitude of which man is naturally capable with divine aid; yet
this capability, while rooted partially in human nature, is only
actually realizable under the causality of grace, such that man
himself would be positively ignorant of this capability as such in
the absence of supernatural revelation. Ergo: natural felicity or
imperfect beatitude would indeed constitute true ends within a
different economy of providence, proportionately perfecting
those aspects of the human person whose perfection is naturally
knowable (in precision from grace), and which are due to nature.
Our present sense of the deficiency of unaided nature is
conditioned by the drama in which we are ourselves immersed:
that of fallen and redeemed nature. It is unavoidable that our
reason instruct us as to the vanity of nature apart from grace, for
in this order of providence this is so. Indeed, we know the
46

Aquinas, 513.

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intimate connections obtaining between the impossibility of the
will's being quelled by any finite good and our divine call to the
beatific end, just as we now undergo the natural desire for God as
an unconditional desire, owing to the inclusion of its object
within the supernatural finality to which we are called. But-ex
hypothesi-if God did not actually further order the end
proportionate to nature to supernatural beatitude, it would truly
not be so ordered. Apart from such further ordering, human
nature would not then, by itself, be in vain-although a specific
profundity of that nature in relation to God's active agency would
never be existentially discovered by man. It is to this theme that
I shall now briefly turn.
VI. THE PROFUNDilY OF THE HUMAN PERSON
AS COREVEALED IN CHRIST

I have argued that although the end proportioned to human
nature is imperfect vis-a-vis supernatural beatitude it does not
follow-were God to have ordered human nature no further than
to this end-that this imperfection would vitiate enjoyment of the
natural end or render it vain. There is a further implication of this
line of consideration which harmonizes well with the teaching
that in Christ God reveals man to himself. Clearly the revelation
of God in Christ manifests the truth of human destiny. In so
doing, it also coreveals the ontological profundity of the human
person. The purely passive potency of human nature to receive
divine aid and friendship is partially founded upon the character
of human nature. Human nature cannot take the first step to this
exalted end apart from a first initiative which is wholly and
absolutely God's.
As earlier argued, obediential potency is not mere susceptibility
to transmutative miracle, but a specific range of actuation to
which a given nature is susceptible given divine aid. Obediential
potency is the potency of a specific nature to actuations possible
only with the help of God and through receiving that which God
alone distinctively can give. In this light, the profundity of the
spiritual powers of the human creature may be fully fathomed
only in the realization that the human creature is, indeed, capax
dei. Yet this realization-so penetrative of the ontological depth

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of the creature-while it pertains to human nature, is not merely
a realization of nature.
Indeed, were we to say that humanity realizes itself as capax
dei altogether apart from divine revelation, we would imply that
God does not reveal man to himself in Christ, for the simple
reason that man already would know by nature and, as it were,
in advance that human nature is in trajectory to the inner being
of God. Thus in the incarnation we would learn of our beatific
perfection in the concrete. Grace would on such an analysis
constitute merely a means for the perfection of a tendency already
generically familiar and antecedent to revelation.Yet surely grace
is more than the perfection of the natural desire for God
(although it does so perfect the natural desire). Grace brings with
it the incipience of supernatural life, and in the present economy
of providence this life is teleologically ordered to beatific vision.
In short, grace orders human nature to an end that infinitely
transcends the most profound philosophic contemplation of
human finality. The original truth of nature is reinstated by grace;
but it is elevated to a plane higher than that of any finite nature
whatsoever, the plane of supernaturally beatific friendship. 47 Far
from being merely the projection of a natural line of tendency by
"other" means, supernatural grace directs us toward God in a
radically new way, and in so doing manifests the created dignity
and profundity of human nature whereby the person may be
elevated to divine friendship, aided to receive God, and finally be
joined with God in beatific knowledge and love. As St. Thomas
writes:
But eternal life is a good exceeding the proportion of created nature, as
likewise it exceeds its knowledge and desire, according to 1 Cor. ii. 9: "Eye has
not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man." 48
47 This is not to imply that there is no such thing as a "natural" friendship with God; but
such a friendship is of inferior dignity-because the distance between creator and creature
is not overcome by a divine revelation, such a natural friendship is a lesser type of friendship.
Yet this notion can analogically be affirmed, inasmuch as natural gratitude for God, and love
of God more than self-which St. Thomas affirms as pertaining to integral nature (STh I, q.
65, a. 5)-obtain.
48 STh I-II, q. 114, a. 2: "Vitaautem aeterna est quoddam bonum excedens proportionem
naturae creatae, quia etiam excedit cognitionem et desiderium eius, secundum illud I ad Car.
II: "Nee oculus vidit, nee auris audivit, nee in eor hominis ascendit."

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The idea that the profundity of man as a fit recipient of divine
friendship is naturally "self-fathomed" apart from grace and
revelation appears insufficiently cognizant of the sublimity of the
beatific end as well as of man's need for these divine gifts in order
to know the extent and character of human dignity. The
specifically Christian sense of the dignity of the human person
proceeds from a knowledge accessible through divine faith,
whereby we realize the truly infinite "potential" of the soul in
relation to God's merciful love.
The similitude of the stained-glass window illumined by the
sun's rays well bespeaks the character of the doctrine of
obediential potency as applied to the relation of nature and grace.
The stained-glass window, were it cognizant, could not "know
what it was missing" were it never to irradiate its bright colors
under the influence of the sun. It would be a window, still, and
function as part of the structure-though it would, in a given
respect, not be fulfilled. It would be what it is, not fail to be part
of the whole structure of which it would form an integral part,
nor lack its own participation in the good of the whole as a
specific perfection. Yet its nature stands properly revealed only
under the extrinsic causality of the sun's illumination: seeing it so
illumined, we know what stained glass truly is for.
Similarly, from the vantage of the doctrine of obediential
potency, man only fathoms the true profundity of his spiritual
powers when these are sounded and illumined by the active
agency of God ordering them to Himself. This ordering is indeed
possible owing to the character of human nature as passively
susceptible of a definite and distinct range of actuation under the
active agency of God. Human nature cannot, simply of itself,
attain to grace, desire for supernaturally beatific union, or
supernaturally beatific finality. But human nature is such that it
may be aided by God and elevated in divine friendship so as to
desire the vision of God and be moved to intrinsically
supernatural bliss. It is as so aided that we begin truly to know
God in the life of supernatural grace and the theological virtues
and gifts. It is also as so aided that we properly discover the true
spiritual profundity of the human person, a profundity that is
significantly but faintly presaged in our natural knowledge of the

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spiritual nature and powers of the soul. Hence it is the doctrine
of obediential potency which, par excellence, articulates the
theological truth that the inner profundity of human nature is
manifested to us through the revelation of God in Christ.
Everything articulated within this essay is, as it were, contained
within St. Thomas's teaching, and the teaching of his great
commentators, especially John of St. Thomas and Banez, and such
luminaries of the twentieth century as Jacques Maritain. 49 But at
a time when the dignity of the human person is, perhaps more
than ever before, a watchword of theological and philosophic
discourse, it is perhaps well to accent the sublimity, coherence,
and analytic rigor of St. Thomas's teaching regarding the relation
of nature to grace, and of the human obediential potency for
divine revelation, friendship, and beatitude.

49 For John of St. Thomas (Poinsot), see Cursus theol., t. II, <lisp. 12, a. 3, n. 23; for
Banez, note his commentary on STh 1-11, q. 3, a. 8, his "solutio dubii" to the issue "An
speculatio Dei, qua per essentiam ipse videtur, sit finis naturalis hominis." Banez provides an
elegant argument, flowing from St. Thomas's distinction of the order of nature from the
order of grace. Maritain we have cited above.

The Thomist 64 (2000): 239-69

THE GOODNESS OF CREATION, EVIL,
AND CHRISTIAN TEACHING 1
PATRICK LEE
FranciscanUniversity
Steubenville,Ohio

I

t is at least a very venerable doctrine in Catholic circles that
evil as such is a privation. That is, while there are evil things,
what makes them evil (evil as such) is a lack of being that is
due the thing. The simple example of blindness, a favorite in
metaphysics and theology texts, illustrates the doctrine. Blindness
is real, but it is not a nature or actuality; it is the lack of sight.
Moreover, it is the lack of sight in a thing which is due sight-the
lack of sight in a rock or a tree, for example, is not a privation but
a mere negation and is not evil. As there are various types of
beings, so there are various types of privations. There are
privations in the physical domain (sickness, death, etc.), in the
intellectual domain (ignorance and error), in the technological
domain (inefficiency, malfunctions), and in the moral domain
(omissions, commissions, vices, etc.).
In this article I first argue that the position that every entity,
accidents as well as substances, actions as well as other types of
beings, is good to the extent that it is actual, and that therefore
evil as such is negative, is immediately entailed by Catholic
teaching. That is, although the thesis that evil as such is a privation is not defined, 2 it can be inferred by a simple argument from
defined teaching. No other position on evil is compatible with
what the Church has defined. Second, I present philosophical and
1 I am grateful to John Crosby, Norris Clarke, S.J., Kevin Flannery, S.J., James T.
O'Connor, and Germain Grisez, for reading and criticizing earlier drafts of this article.
2 Yet the proposition that evil is not a nature is defined (see below, p. 4).

239

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PATRICK LEE

theological arguments to support and explain the position that
evil as such is a privation. Third, I examine objections to this
position, and, finally, I indicate in some detail its practical import
for theology-for this doctrine has a profound impact on how
one views sin, salvation, and God himself.
I

Few people hold all of the doctrines that the ancient or
mediaeval Gnostics or Manichaeans held. Everyone is aware that
it is incompatible with Christian doctrine to hold that all matter
is evil, or that there is a supreme, independent, evil god, a "god
of darkness. "3 However, in reply to these heresies the Church not
only rejected Manichaeism as a whole system but also made it
clear that it is part of revealed doctrine that all being other than
God, to the extent that it is actual, is from God, and is therefore
good.
The Manichaeans held that there was an evil god and a good
god, that matter was the creation of the evil god and was evil, and
that procreation was evil insofar as it subjected another spirit to
matter and the god of evil. Salvation involved liberation from
matter. The Church was concerned, almost from the beginning of
her existence, to distinguish the Christian doctrine on creation
from such views.
Scripture seems quite clearly to teach that all of creation is
good. Everything other than God is, for as long as it exists, held
in being by God: ''Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from
whom all things are and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus
Christ, through whom all things are and through whom we exist"
(1 Cor 8 :6). "For from him and through him and for him are all
/
things" (Rom 11:36). 4
The ancient professions of faith proclaim belief in God, who
is Creator, "of all things visible and invisible." Some of these
professions make explicit the teaching that all creatures are good,
3 However, perhaps some people's notions of Satan approach this, inadvertently. See the
Sacred Congregation on Divine Worship's decree in 1975, "Les formes multiples des
superstitions," translated in Austin Flannery, O.P., Vatican Collection, vol. 2, More
Post-Conciliar Documents (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1982), 456ff.
4 Cf. John 1:3; Acts 4:24; 14:14; 17:24; 1Tim4:4.

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and that evil is not a nature. A major proclamation on the
goodness of being was made in 1215 in reaction to the
Albigensians and Catharists, the mediaeval Manichaeans:
We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true
God, eternal, infinite and unchangeable .... [The three divine persons] are the
one principle of the universe, the creator of all things, visible and invisible,
spiritual and corporeal, who by His almighty power from the beginning of time
made at once out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the
corporeal, that is, the angelic and the earthly, and then the human creature.
(DS 428)

The Manichaeans had asserted that there is an evil creator as well
as the good creator, and that the evil creator creates evil beings.
Matter, the Manichaeans held, was in its essence or nature evil.
In response, the Lateran Council clarified revelation, and
proclaimed that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the one "Creator
omni um visibilium et invisibilium." Then the council made
explicit what is contained or implied by this truth of revelation.
It asserted: "For the devil and all other demons are created by
God naturally good, and they made themselves bad" (DS 428).
Thus, the council asserted that: (1) God is the only creator
(i.e., all creatures are created by God), and (2) even the demons
are naturally good. Now, if one claims that evil is a positive
entity, then he must say either that it is not created by God, which
contradicts (1), or that God creates evil. And yet the council
assumes that God does not create evil, for that is the basis of its
explanation that the demons are naturally good ("natura creati
sunt bani"). The demons are by nature good because everything
created by God is good.
The Council of Florence added another point. It proposed
several professions of faith for the reunion of various Christians
of the East with those in communion with Rome. The Coptic
Christians had separated in the fifth century during the
Monophysite controversy; their bishops were at the Council of
Florence and agreed to what was called the "Decree for the
Jacobites." 5 The Coptic Christians had been bothered by
5 The Coptic Christians were called "Jacobites" after the Orthodox] acob Baradai, bishop
of Edessa in the sixth century.

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PATRICK LEE

Manichaean sects, and so the decree reiterates the Church's belief
on creation, with a special concern to exclude Manichaeism. The
profession reads, in part:
[The Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and proclaims that the
one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is the creator of all things, visible
and invisible [esse omnium visibilium et invisibilium creatorem ], who, when he
so willed, out of his goodness made all creatures, spiritual as well as corporeal
[universas, tam spiritales quam corpora/es, condidit creaturas.] They are good
since they were made by Him who is the highest good, but they are mutable
because they were made out of nothing. She also asserts that there is no nature
of evil, since every nature, insofar as it is a nature, is good [nul/amque mali
asserit esse naturam, quia omnis natura, in quantum natura est, bona est]. (DS
1333) 6

Several things are asserted here. First, every creature is made
by God. That is, every being other than God is a creature of God.
The mediaeval Manichaeans held that there was another creator,
and that it was a purely spiritual, powerful being, independent in
its substance from God. However, the council does not limit itself
to excluding this particular position; it excludes any position in
which a being exists which is not a creature of the one God.
Indeed, the council is simply reaffirming here part of what is
asserted in the prologue to the Gospel of John: "All things came
to be through him, and without him nothing came to be" Oohn
1:3).
Suppose one held that evil is a positive thing-for example, an
actual quality produced in a morally evil act. In other words,
suppose one held that moral evil, in some cases, is an actual
quality, an actual stain, so to speak. 7 Would this evil quality be a
creature? Clearly, it would have to be: .it would be produced by
a moral agent, at least; it would not be a self-sufficient being, and
6 Cf. Vatican I, the decree on creation: OS, 1782/3001; 1801/3021-1805/3025. When the
council says that every being is good "secundum totam substantiam," this does not mean that
only the substance is good, and not the accident. This expression frequently occurs in both
St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and its meaning is that every aspect of the thing, the materials
from which it is formed, as well as the resulting entity, is good.
7 Phenomenologists following Dietrich von Hildebrand hold this position, although it is
not clear whether von Hildebrand himself held it. For von Hildebrand's notion of value, see
his Ethics (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1953), 23-63.

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it would not be a mere brute fact. Then, would this creature be
made by God or not? To say it would not contradicts the ancient
professions of faith, which proclaim that every creature is made
by God. It would be a creature which is not made by God.
However, if one says that it is made by God, then one is holding
that God directly creates evil. Aside from the obvious incongruity,
this position contradicts the Council of Trent:
If anyone says that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that God
performs the evil works just as He performs the good, not only by allowing
them but properly and directly, so that Judas's betrayal no less than Paul's
vocation was God's own work, anathema sit. (DS 1956)

The declaration asserts, in response to Calvinism, that evil works
are not related to God's causality in the same way good works
are. On the one hand, it is Catholic doctrine that every creature
is made by God. On the other hand, it is also Catholic doctrine
that evil is not made by God. That is, everything actual other than
God is from God; evil is not from God. Evil cannot be an
actuality; it must, then, be a negation or lack.
This argument is not new; it is the logic behind the constant
teaching of the Church. The Greek Father St. Methodius (d. 311),
bishop of Olympus in Lycia, expressed concisely the dilemma for
any theist holding that evil is positive, as Charles Journet recounts: "Either God is the author of all being, and consequently
of evil, or it is necessary to say with the Gnostics that evil comes
from eternal matter for which God is not responsible; in the one
case God is not good, in the other he is not absolute." 8
Moreover, the Council of Florence added, as we saw above,
the following point: "There is no nature of evil, since every
nature, insofar as it is a nature, is good." At first, this may sound
like strange language. But it could have been borrowed from St.
Thomas, who asked, "Whether evil is a nature," to which he of
course responds negatively. 9 Or it could have been borrowed
8 Cited by Charles Journet, The Meaning of Evil, trans. Michael Barry (New York: P.J.
Kennedy, 1962), 31.
9 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 48, a. 1.

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from an earlier pronouncement by Pope Leo I, 10 who perhaps
borrowed the language from St. Augustine. Pope Leo declared,
against the Priscillianists, that
the true faith professes the substance [substantiam=being or ousia] of all
creatures, spiritual and corporeal, to be good, and that there is no nature of
evil [et mali nullam esse naturam]: because God, who is the creator of all
things, makes nothing that is not good. (DS 286) 11

To deny that evil is a nature is to say that it is not a something; it
is to say that the word does not denote a positive aspect of reality.
The word clearly does not denote a fiction or relation of reason.
So, it must denote a negation or lack.
Again, suppose evil were a positive something, a positive
quality. As a quality it would be a nature, or have a nature. But
this contradicts the teaching of the council. Someone might think
that natura here refers only to substance, as distinguished from
accidents, so that one could say that evil is a certain type of
accident as a positive entity. But this cannot be the council's
meaning, since its reasoning is that every nature is good because
every nature is created by God, and his creation is not restricted
to substances: he creates all things, visible and invisible, and these
surely include accidents as well as substances.
The general point can be seen in a slightly different way. The
Church teaches, first, that a human being's good free actions are
not from him acting without God's present, active causality. "As
often as we do good, God operates in us and with us, so that we
may operate," says the Second Council of Orange. 12 If a human
being makes a good choice, his act is caused to be by God; and
God's causality in no way destroys this human being's freedom.
DS 286.
And of course by this time the council could have been influenced by St. Thomas's
terminology. In STh I, q. 48, a. 1, he asks: "Utrum malum sit natura quaedam?" (Whether
evil is a certain nature?).
12 The Second Council of Orange, DS 182. Cf.: "For God is the one who, for his good
purpose, works in you both to desire and to work" (Phil 2:13); "Not that of ourselves we are
qualified to take credit for anything as coming from us; rather, our qualification comes from
God" (2 Cor 3 :5); "What do you possess that you have not received? But if you have received
it, why are you boasting as if you did not receive it?" (1 Cor 4:7).
10
11

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The Church leaves open how to conceive this causality. Dominican, Jesuit, Augustinian, and other theologians had various
theories of how the divine causality is related to free choice. But
they all agreed, because it is Church teaching, that God does in
some way cause free choices. The Church teaches only that, in
some way, God directly causes the act of choice, and in such a
way that it remains our act as well, and it remains free. Since the
act of the will is a being, a creature, it must be caused to be or
held in being by God.
On the other hand, the Church also teaches that if a human
being makes a bad choice, God does not cause the evil of the act,
but only permits it. In short, the good free choice is from God, as
well as from the human being; the evil in the morally bad choice
is not from God but is only from the human being and is permitted (i.e., not prevented) by God. Now, suppose one says that
moral evil is something positive, a quality: how then can one give
a different account of the evil act than of the good act? If a
human being has sufficient power to do evil (as a positive something) by himself (supposing, of course, that God is holding this
person, as a substance, in being), how could he not also have the
power to do good by himself?
Once one sees that evil as such is a privation, however, the
answer is clear: a human being can do evil by himself, since evil
is a privation; he cannot do good by himself, but only as a
secondary cause, cooperating with God's primary causality, since
all being other than God is immediately caused by God. Without
the doctrine that evil is a privation, there is nothing different
about the free evil action as an event or being to make sense of
the asymmetry between the good action's relation to God and the
evil action's relation to God. One will then be moved to say that
the freedom of an action means that it is from the human being
and not immediately from God also. But this contradicts the
teaching of the Church, which clearly gives a different account of
the goodness of our good free actions than of the evil of our
sinful free actions.

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Recent papal teaching reaffirms the doctrine. Pope Leo XIII
affirms it. 13 Pope John Paul II affirms it also. In SalvificiDoloris
he writes:
Christianity proclaims the essential good of existence and the good of that
which exists, acknowledges the goodness of the Creator and proclaims the
good of creatures. Man suffers on account of evil, which is a certain lack,
limitation or distortion of good [quod est quaedam privatio, depravatio boni].
We could say that man suffers because of a good in which he does not share,
from which in a certain sense he is cut off or of which he has deprived
[privavit] himself. He particularly suffers when he "ought"-in the normal
order of things-to have a share in this good and does not have it. 14

This difference between suffering and evil which Pope John Paul
explains here is central to the whole teaching in this document.
It is not a mere obiter dictum. I conclude that the position that all
being is good, and that evil is negative, is entailed by teachings of
the Church, and is reaffirmed by recent papal teaching.
II
The first argument that evil is a privation is based on the
notion of goodness. Goodness is not a nature or property. It is
not like the color red, for example. The feature that makes a
sweater red is specifically the same as the feature that makes a fire
truck red. When we say that a sweater is "red" and that a fire
truck is "red," the word has the same meaning in the two cases;
it denotes a quality shared in common by various objects.
13 Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, 33: "But if, in such circumstances, for the
sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even
should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil
of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator
is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability."
14 Popejohn Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, 7, inActaApostolicae Sedis 76 (1984): 201-50, at
207. Also see his apostolic letter in 1986 on St. Augustine. There the Pope makes his own the
teaching of St. Augustine that evil is a privation: "[St. Augustine] understood that the first
question to be asked about the serious question of evil, which was his great torment, was not
its origin, but what it was; and he saw that evil is not a substance, but the lack of good: 'All
that exists is good. The evil about the origin of which I asked questions is not a substance'"
(Pope John Paul II, Augustinum Hipponensum, August 28, 1986 [Boston: Daughters of St.
Paul, 1986), p. 6).

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Goodness is quite different. There is no distinct quality
possessed in common by a book, a washing machine, and a
person, in virtue of which we say they are "good. " 15 The word
"good" does not have the same meaning when said of various
things-it is not said univocally. But it does not have totally
different meanings when said of various things either-it is not
used equivocally.Rather, it is used analogically:the meanings are
different but related, partly the same and partly different.
The argument can now be formulated. 16 If goodness or value
were a nature, substantial or accidental, then, most likely, the
word "good" (as well as the words "value" and "valuable") would
be predicated univocally of various types of things-the word
"good" would be used in the same way "red" is used. However,
that is not the case.
As Peter Geach argues, "good" is an attributive expression.
That is, it shifts its meaning according to what it is applied to. 17
It makes sense to argue as follows: "Tweetie is yellow; Tweetie is
a bird; therefore, Tweetie is a yellow bird." However, one cannot
argue: "Joe is good; Joe is a baseball player; therefore, Joe is a
good baseball player." The reason is that, while "yellow" and
"bird" signify directly properties or natures held in common by
various things, "good" is an attributive expression. It signifies, not
directly a nature or property, but a way or extent of having other
properties, different properties in different cases.
The primary meaning of "good" can perhaps best be understood by looking first to artificial objects. A good washing
machine is one that achieves its purpose, that has all of the
features and achievements that one expects of a washing machine.
"Good" here means fulfillment or completion of purpose; "bad"
means falling short of purpose. "Good," as applied to artificial
objects, does not refer to any feature or nature shared in common
by several objects, but rather to the fulfillment of purpose. And
15

Cf. John Campbell and Robert Pargetter, "Goodness and Fragility," American

Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1986): 155-65.
16 Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.6; Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 21, a. 1.
17 P. T. Geach, "Good and Evil," in Theories of Ethics, ed. Philipa Foot (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1967), 64-74; cf. Bernard Williams, Introduction to Morality (New

York: Harper and Row, 1972), 40-50.

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since the purposes of different artificial objects are different, the
be quite distinct from the goodness of
goodness of one
another. Goodness in natural objects is similar. Not an natural
objects have conscious purposes, but they do have inherent tendencies or orientations, or, at least, potentialities. And of course
different natural things have different inherent potentialities.
"Good" as said of natural objects expresses the fulfillment or
achievement of their inherent potentialities. Thus a good heart
(literaHy) is one that functions according to the inherent
tendencies or potentialities of a heart. A good tree (in the natural
sense, as a botanist might express it, instead of the sense it which
it is good for us) is a tree that
its potentialities: namely, it
grows taH, sturdy, performs its living functions smoothly, and so
on. Moreover, "good" said of either artificial or natural objects
expresses desirability: what is good is desirable and preferable to
the non-good or bad.
Thus, to say that something is "good" in the primary sense is
to say, first, that it fulfills the potentialities or standards for the
sort of thing it is, 18 and, second, that as a consequence it is
desirable. 19 The standards for the sort of thing one is talking
18 If it is an artifact, this standard is the purpose for which it was made or is now being
used; if it is a natural thing, the standard is the actuation of its inherent potentialities.
19 So the word "good" is usually used in such a way as to have more than descriptive force.
The statements in which it occurs often guide choices rather than just describe. Still, it seems
to me that the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive force primarily concerns
propositions and statements rather than concepts or words.
Aristotle and Aquinas say that good expresses desirability and perfection (see STh I, q. 5,
a. 3, ad 1). The "-able" in "desirable" is important: to call something "good" is to say that the
thing (or state) has what it takes to be the object of a desire or tendency, or to elicit a desire
or tendency. Now, that which can elicit tendency or desire, or which is apt to do so, is the
same as a thing's fulfillment or perfection (and so is not, in the central case, another thing but
the full actuality of the thing in question). So, the two notes are interconnected. On the
notion of goodness, cf. William Marshner, "Aquinas on the Evaluation of Human Actions,"
The Thomist 59 (1995): 347-70, esp. 348-53.
Note also that a thing is desired because it is good, not vice versa. Although we cannot
conceive of goodness without the comparison of it to tendency or desire, in reality what is
perfect or perfective does not depend on desire or tendency, but vice versa. This means that
goodness, in its primary instance, is inherent or intrinsic to a thing. The concept involves a
comparison (hence a relation in one's thought) of the thing in its actuality to what the thing
could or should be, but what is conceived, that is, the reality apprehended by the concept, is
not a relational entity.

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about may come from extrinsic ordering (in the case of an
artificial object) or from the inherent potentialities of the thing (in
the case of a natural entity). In either case, these standards differ
for different sorts of things. Thus, an inherently good tree need
not have all of the perfections or features we expect of an
inherently good horse or human being. A good book is one that
one would select in relevant circumstances (it is desirable),
because it has those characteristics which make it fulfill the
standards for a book (or a specific kind of book). The book's
goodness is not some quality over and above its character development, vivid description, and intricate plot; those characteristics
are its goodness (although conceived as desirable and meeting the
relevant standards). Likewise with a good human action: it is one
that fulfills the standards for human actions.
One could say that the meaning of the word "good" has a
constant schema and a varying content. 20 Its primary meaning
always includes desirability and fulfillment (the constant schema),
but this will mean different things in different cases, since the
characteristics that constitute a thing's fulfillment differ for
different sorts of things (varying content). 21 In a secondary sense,

20 The vocabulary is Germain Grisez's: Beyond the New Theism (Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame, 1975), 248-55. Thomas Aquinas spoke of a ratio communis and a ratio
propria; see STh I, q. 13, a. 5. This is close to the distinction R. M. Hare draws between
"meaning" and "criteria" for the use of the word "good." See R. M. Hare, The Languageof
Morals (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 94-110.
21 Perhaps what is said here about goodness might be clarified by comparing it with beauty,
for they are very similar. What does it mean to say that something is beautiful? Take a simple
example, say, a beautiful color. I believe we say it is beautiful simply because, as Aquinas put
it, it "pleases when seen." This does not mean that beauty is subjective. On the contrary, it
means that the color has in it what it takes for the perception of it to be pleasing. Clearly,
though, the beauty is not a quality in the color over and above its other features. Rather, what
makes it the color it is and what makes it such that it is pleasing when seen are one and the
same. The word functions in the same way when used of more complicated instances of
beauty, say, a photograph of a beautiful face. The beauty in the photograph is not some
quality over and above its other qualities.To say that the photograph is beautiful is to say that
its components--the colors, the lines, the light, and so on-are arranged in such a way that
it is pleasing when seen. This explains how a piece of music, a book, and a face can all be
beautiful, although they clearly have no nature or property in common: each has what it takes
to be pleasing or delightful when experienced. Beauty and goodness are similar: neither is a
distinct characteristic, but each is a certain way of possessing various other characteristics.

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a thing is "good" if it would fulfill another or help another fulfill
itself, as water or food is good for a tree. 22
To this one might object that goodness or value is something
like a quality when one speaks of persons or actions, but has the
meaning it has as set out above in all other cases, say, when one
speaks of books and washing machines. On this view, goodness
or value is something like a quality in persons. But in other
things, such as books, washing machines, and so on, goodness is
nothing over and above the thing's full-being or degree of
full-being. However, if this were the situation, then the word
"good" (and "value," etc.) would be predicated equivocally. In
one type of case the word "good" would denote something like
a quality, while in all other cases it would express a complex
concept as explained above. But surely this is not true. "Good"
said of a person is not totally equivocal with "good" said of a
washing machine. It is surely not coincidence that the same word
is used of those various objects.
Finally, one might grant that the word is used analogically but
still try to maintain that it denotes a distinct quality in the case of
persons and actions. The words "good" and "value," one might
say, always mean "fulfills" (or "fulfilling"), but in the case of
persons this involves a quality over and above their other
features, while in the case of a washing machine or book it does
not. But this view is incoherent. It concedes that being a good
person means, at least in part, having all of the features or
qualities which are due a person, all of the features and qualities
that constitute the fulfillment of the standards for a person. It
adds that one of the features due a person is simply the feature of
goodness or value itself. However, if a person lacked this quality,
proponents of this view would have to say, on the one hand, that
he was good to a certain extent, since he had almost all of the
perfections due a person, but at the same time, that he was not
good at all, since he simply lacked this property. I conclude that
22 Aquinas says that the intelligibility (ratio) of "good" is "fullness of being," but the
subject of which this ratio is predicated may be related to it in various way-as possessing it
simply, as possessing it to a certain extent, as causing it, and so on. Cf. STh I, q. 5, aa. 1-3;
I-II, q. 18, a. 2.

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goodness is not a distinct nature or property. Rather, it is the
full-being, or degree of full-being, in a thing, and this involves
various features in various things. 23
Therefore, "good" and "evil" do not signify contrary
properties. Rather, since goodness is the full-being of a thing, its
meeting the standard for the sort of thing it is, it follows that evil
as such is not a nature, either substantial or accidental, but is the
lack of, or deviation from, what is due a thing. If goodness is the
fullness of being due a thing, evil must be the negation of what is
due a thing, a privation.
A second argument to show that evil as such is a privation runs
as follows. In the world are various types of agents. 24 Things
differ from each other precisely in that they are different types of
agents. And agents differ from each other in that each type of
agent has a tendency to act and react in a certain way (or a set of
tendencies to act and react in certain ways). If two things have the
same type of tendencies to act and react, then they have the same
nature.
So, beings are agents, and each being has within it a natural
tendency or a set of natural tendencies. These tendencies must be
toward the actualization of the potentialities of that thing. If A
naturally tends toward X, then A must have the potentiality for
X, and X must actualize some potentiality in A. A thing could not
naturally tend toward an object which did not actualize its
potentialities. To say that "A tends to do X, but X is not
proportionate to A's nature" would be incoherent. We know
what A is only in and through its actions. The actions of a thing

23 It is worth noting that the concept of "dignity" is distinct from the concept of "good."
"Dignity" refers to a specific type of goodness. The "dignity of persons" refers to that in
them, whatever it is, which makes it such that one ought not to kill them, one ought not to
use them for food, and one ought to take account of their well-being for its own sake when
one acts. The concept of dignity is distinct from the concepts of person, or of rational being,
and so on. But it does not follow that what one refers to by "dignity" is really distinct from
being a person, or being a rational being. Rather, that in a person which makes it such that
he deserves respect is just his being a person, not some other quality or aspect.
24 0n this point see Patrick Lee, "Human BeingsAre Animals," InternationalPhilosophical
Quarterly 37 (1997): 292-94, 301-2.

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are just the unfolding of what it is. If A tends to do X, then that
just shows that A is the sort of thing that does X. 25
Now, the actualization of a thing's potentialities, as such-that
is, just insofar as it is the actualization of a thing's
potentialities-perfects that thing, makes it a more perfect or
more complete instance of the type of thing it is. And in fact the
actualization of a thing's potentialities, its completion, is called its
"good." The more fully X a thing is, the more it realizes the
potentialities of an X, the better an X it is. That to which a thing
naturally tends is its perfection and its good.
What, then, is evil? Evil cannot be a substance. If it were a
substance, then it would be an agent. If it were an agent, its
fulfillment would be its good, and its continued being would be
good for it; its substantial being would be, at least in some sense,
good. Nor can evil be an accident. Every accident must actualize
the potentiality of some substance; otherwise, it could not inhere
in anything. Therefore, evil cannot be either a substance or an
accident. Since it cannot be a fiction or a relation of reason (that
is, a being conceived as having a relation it does not have in
reality), evil must be negative, in fact a privation-the lack of
what is due a thing.
The distinction between a mere negation and a privation must
be maintained. Not every negation is evil, but only the negation
of what is due a thing. A favorite example of the Scholastics was
blindness in a human being, as opposed to the lack of wings in a
human being. The second is not evil, because human beings are
not due wings, are not naturally apt to have wings. 26 The first,
however, is obviously evil (not a moral evil, but a "physical evil"),
because sight is due a human being. Clearly, blindness is real, but
it is not a positive something. It is the not-having-sight in
something which is naturally apt to see. The arguments show that

25 Note, however, that the various tendencies in a complex being must be properly
ordered to the good of the whole being, else their actuation may result in privation for the
whole being. That is, the actuation of one tendency in a being or agent, while good insofar
as it perfects the agent, could be bad, overall, because it also brings about defects in other
aspects of the agent.
26 Cf. Aristotle's definition of privation in Categories10.

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what is true of blindness must be true of every instance of evil, in
some way or other.
Even this simple example shows that to say that evil is a
privation is in no way to deny its importance or reality. It is
important and real, although it is not a nature, either substantial
or accidental.
Moreover, the position that evil is a privation does not mean
that there are no evil things. 27 There are evil things, but what
makes them evil is privation. One can speak of a virus or of
certain bacteria as evil things, but what makes them evil is the
privation they cause. 28 Morally evil acts are actual entities, but
what makes them evil is the privation of order in them in relation
to the standard of morality-the lack of agreement between
judgment and choice.
Similarly, there can be evil persons. The Church teaches, of
course, that Satan is an evil, spiritual person. But what makes a
person evil is, first, the disorder or privation in his will, and,
second, the privation he causes. To the extent that such persons
have being or actuality they are good.
To say that a thing is good, then, is to say that it has
everything one can expect from that type of thing, or, at least,
that it is good in certain respects because it has a considerable
degree of the being due the sort of thing it is. This is why the
same property or behavior in one case might be called good while
in another case bad. Licking the bowl clean, for example, is good
if done by one's dog, but bad if done by one's twelve-year-old
child. If "good" denoted a property, it is hard to see how the very
same property could be good in one case but not good in another
case. "Good" expresses the fulfillment of the relevant standard.
If a being is good just insofar as it fulfills the potentialities
proper to it, it follows that evil cannot be something positive. It
27 See the first article of St. Thomas's disputed question on evil. The question he raises is
"Whether evil is something [aliquid]?" His answer is that that which is evil is something,
although evilness itself is a privation (De Malo, q. 1, a. 1).
28 Of course, viewed in itself, the bacterium (and perhaps the virus also) is a distinct
organism, with its own nature and a tendency to its own fulfillment; only, its growth involves
the privation in its host organism (in certain bacteria). Another example is cancer. What
makes it evil is the privation of order in its growth-the lack of regulation of the growth of
those cells which would keep them from interfering with various functions in the organism.

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cannot be a nature, either substantial or accidental. Therefore,
evil must be the falling-short, or diverting from what one can and
ought to be.
A third argument for the proposition that evil as such is
privation was decisive for many of the Fathers of the Church. If
evil were something positive, then one would have to say either
that this evil is caused by God, in which case God is in some way
evil (which is incoherent, for several reasons), or that there is
some being in the universe which is not caused by God, in which
case there is some creator other than the one God (which can also
be shown incoherent in various ways).29
Could one say, perhaps, that some positive evil is caused by
creatures, human beings and other free agents, so that God does
not directly cause evil, but he does cause the beings that cause
evil? The idea would be that God causes A and A causes B
(something positive and evil), but that God does not directly
cause B. One might suppose that God causes the person and then
the person causes evil. In this way one would avoid having to
attribute the doing of evil to God: God does not do it; the person
does it, and God causes it only indirectly insofar as he causes the
person.
If this were true, then God would cause A to exist and then A
would cause B to exist, and B would depend on God only indirectly, that is, only insofar as B was caused by A which was
caused by God. This would mean that, although A had first to
exist in order to cause B, still, A was adequate of itself to cause B
to exist.
But this cannot be the case. A can be an adequate cause, and
thus provide an adequate explanation, only of what belongs to it
by its nature, either formally or virtually. That is, the cause can be
greater than the effect, so that the effect does not measure up to
the cause, and the cause and the effect do not have the same
nature. But there cannot be less perfection in the cause than there
is in the effect. The reason is that the cause explains; if the cause
lacks a perfection equivalent to or greater than that in the effect,
then it cannot provide an explanation. For example, the heat in
29 For example: St. Thomas, STh I, q. 11, a. 3; Grisez, Beyond the New Theism, 248-55.

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the coil on the electrical stove is explained by the electrical energy
coming from the electrical outlet and ultimately from the
electro-magnetic generator in the city's electrical power plant.
The electro-magnet is not formally hot but it is virtually hot:
there is not less, but more perfection, more energy, in the
electro-magnet than in the electrical coil on the stove. The cause
must pre-contain the perfection of the effect, either formally or
virtually. If the adequate explanation is found in A, then what A
is must provide the intelligibility one is seeking. But if the feature
one is trying to explain is a feature which A also lacks just of itself
(does not have, according to its nature) either formally or
virtually, then A cannot provide the adequate explanation and
cannot be the adequate cause. (Cause is just the real counterpart
to the explanation, which is a logical entity.) For example, a
saxophone cannot be the adequate cause of the melodious
patterns in its sounds; a word processor cannot be the adequate
cause or explanation of the meaningfulness of the marks it
produces. These aspects of their effects require some immediate
cause other than the saxophone or word processor.
Things in this material universe are real causes. They cause
heat, light, life, meaning, and so on. But their causal powers,
dearly, are limited. Their causal powers or natures explain why
things exist in this manner or that manner, why they have these
features or those features. 30 But the things in this material
universe-their causal powers or natures-do not provide an
explanation for why things exist as such, for none of them has
existence as belonging to its nature, either formally or virtually.
Since none of them exists of itself, none of them can be an
adequate explanation of the very existing of their effects.
Expressed more formally: the adequate explanation of a
thing's having F must be something which has F of itself, either
formally or virtually. This point applies to existence. Hence the
30 Rather than causing something simply to be rather than not be, a natural cause always
operates upon something pre-existing and gives it a new form. Fire acts on water or air,
parents act on genes, a human artist acts on a canvas. Even our thinking operates upon images
or premises. Thus, the causality performed by things in the material universe is a transforming
causality. The causal powers of things are not proportioned to the very existing of those
things. Cf. Herbert McCabe, O.P., "The Logic of Mysticism," in Religion and Philosophy, ed.
Martin Warner (New York: Cambridge University, 1992), 45-59.

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only thing whose causal power is proportionate to existence, as
opposed to this or that form or essence, is something which has
existence of itself. Only a necessary being, a fully self-sufficient
being-God-has existence of itself.31
It follows that God, who alone has existence of himself, is
causally operative in each new effect, in each coming to be. While
the natural cause can explain the nature or manner of existing of
the effect, only God can explain, or be a proportionate cause of,
the very existing of the effect. Thus, in every effect produced by
a creature, both God and the creature are immediately at work.
When a teacher writes a sentence on the chalkboard with
chalk, the teacher is the principal cause and the chalk is the
instrumental cause. Both the chalk and the teacher produce the
whole effect, but in different ways. The chalk produces the whole
effect, but there is that in the effect which exceeds its power,
namely, the intelligible design of the deposited dust so that it
forms words. Another aspect of the effect, its whiteness, is
proportionate to the power of the instrumental cause. So, the
chalk acts in virtue of its own power, but it also acts in virtue of
the power of the principal cause acting in it (the teacher). Hence
both causes act immediately on the effect, but in different ways.
Similarly, when a creature produces an effect, it does so only
as cooperating with God's primary causality. There is an aspect
of the effect which is proportionate to its nature, so it is a real
cause: its nature explains why the effect exists in this manner
rather than that. But there also is an aspect of the effect which
exceeds its power, and that is the existence of the effect, which is
proportionate only to the principal cause, which is God. Each
produces the whole effect, rather than one producing one part
and the other producing the other part, but different aspects of
the effect are proportionate to the different causes. Thus, as the
chalk produces the writing on the board, but only insofar as it is
caused by the writer, so natural causes really produce effects, but
only as secondary causes cooperating-freely, in the case of
rational beings-with the primary cause, God. One cannot say,
therefore, that God causes only the human person and then the
31 For arguments to support this point, see Grisez, Beyond the New Theism, 36-94; and
McCabe, "The Logic of Mysticism."

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human person causes an evil nature. If a thing is actual, then it
must be directly caused by God. If it is directly caused by God,
then to the extent that it is actual it is good. Therefore, evil as
such must be negative or, more precisely, privative.

m
There are three important objections to the thesis that evil as
such is a privation: two alleged counterexamples, and an
objection concerning God's causality of created free choices.
The first objection is that pain is certainly a positive
something, and yet it is dearly evil. If, then, in this case evil as
such is something positive why not in other cases?32
Let us first consider physical pain, for example, a toothache or
the excruciating pain experienced by a cancer sufferer. The first
point to notice is that any animal (including ourselves, since we
are animals of a particular type) who cannot feel pain is in grave
danger. Pain sensations have a real function in the organic life of
an animal. Their function is to signal to the animal that there is
a real harm occurring and to press it to correct the problem.
Thus, as the sense of smell has a real function to play in the
organic life of animals, and in that consists its goodness, so pain
has a real and necessary function in the animal's life, and
therefore is good.
Of course, pain can perform its function only by being
repugnant. 33 If by "evil" or "bad" one simply means "unpleasant,"
then, of course, pains are "evil." It is in this sense that we might
call a piece of candy "good" (pleasant-tasting) but a tart apple
"bad" (repugnant to taste). Yet we would add that, while the
apple is "bad" in that sense, it is genuinely good, and it is that
sense we are discussing here. Precisely the same feature which in
digestion or reparative cell division makes us recognize that they
32 This objection is pressed by G. Stanley Kane, "Evil and Privation," International Journal
of the Philosophy of Religion 11(1980):43-58; for a reply, see Bill Anglin and Stewart Goetz,
"Evil Is Privation," International Journal of the Philosophy of Religion 13 (1982): 3-12.
33 This is an important point. One might argue that another warning device could have
been designed. But only something intensely repugnant would serve to press the animal to do
something about the cause of the pain.

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are genuinely good (instead of just sensibly "good" or "bad") is
also present in sensations of pain-namely, their functional place
in the life and flourishing of the whole animal. Pain-sensations
are a certain sort of sensation, exactly like all other sensations in
their role of specifying the animal's adaptation to its
environment.
Yet other features of pain prevent one from saying that it is
simply good. Pain is the sensation which accompanies and signals
a real privation. Every painful situation will therefore also involve
a real evil, a privation (or at least the threat of harm). Moreover,
excruciating pain disrupts the rest of the functioning of an animal,
and especially of a human being; thus there is a kind of disintegrity caused by pain. This is one reason why it is frequently
morally right to take measures, such as pain-relieving psychoactive substances, to remove or lessen pain. Still, the sensation of
pain itself is not a real evil, and so it does not constitute a
counterexample to the position defended here.
It might be objected that these points only show that pain can
have good effects. Utility does not show that an entity is good;
what is evil can be useful.34 But this objection would misconstrue
the argument. The argument is not simply that pain-sensations
lead to good effects, but that having pain-sensations in certain
circumstances is part of the healthy functioning of an organism.
It is useful here to compare pain-sensations to a genuine evil, for
example, blindness. Of course, good things can sometimes result
from someone's blindness; it might cause him to reexamine the
meaning of life, grow in patience, and so on. But the good that
might result from blindness would be a distinct effect. The
blindness would function only as an occasion for a good quite
extrinsic to the blindness. It is otherwise with pain. Of course,
pain is not a whole or basic human perfection, and so pain.is not
intrinsically good in the way that life, knowledge, friendship, and
so on are. Also, one feels pain only when (or usually only when)
there is some injury, that is, a real physical privation. However,
having pain-sensations when one's flesh burns, for example, is
Jorge Gracia, "Evil and the Transcendality of Goodness: Suarez's Solution to the
Problem of Positive Evils," in Scott MacDonald, ed., Being and Goodness (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell U., 1991), 157f.
34

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part of the functioning of a healthy organism, not just an extrinsic
condition for some other good. This is why not having such
sensations when flesh is burnt would be bad (a privation) and one
would visit a physician to see if that condition could be
remedied. 35 That is, the inability to have pain-sensations in
appropriate circumstances, or even the absence of pain-sensations
in appropriate circumstances, is a malfunction of the organism.
This shows that the ability to have pain, and the actual having of
pain, in the appropriate circumstances, are parts of being a
healthy organism.
One might object, however, that this shows only that most
pains are good, not that all are. What about useless pains, or
those that continue after they have served their function, for
example, in a patient whose cancer is incurable? In reply, there
surely is evil here, but the evil is not precisely in the nervous
system and in its functioning. Since the injury the pain alerts one
to and presses one to alleviate cannot be alleviated, the pain is in
one sense useless. However, the nervous system is functioning the
way it should, or according to its design. It is analogous to the
heart's continuing its pumping action even when it has dogged
arteries. The defect, the evil, once again, is in a lack of proper
order of its actions-actions in themselves healthy-toward the
functioning of the organism as a whole. In this respect pain is not
unlike other organic functions. Functioning that is in itself healthy
is bad if it is not properly ordered to the survival and well-being
of the organism as a whole. What makes it evil, once again, is
privation. 36
We must also consider the case of emotional pain. Sorrow, for
example, is an emotion, and thus not evil but simply a reaction to
what is evil, or at least what is perceived as evil. Sorrow is indeed
35 Roger Trigg discusses the case of a woman who lacked pain-sensations. Her condition
was far from enviable; she constantly suffered injury because of her indifference to it. Roger
Trigg, Pain and Emotion (London: Oxford University, 1970), 163-68.
36 One also should note that pain is one type of a broader class of sensations that we find
repugnant or, at least, undesirable. Pain-sensations are in the same class as itches, sweltering
heat, cramps, electric shocks, and vile smells. Cf. R. M. Hare, "Pain and Evil," in Joel
Feinberg, ed., Moral Concepts (London: Oxford University, 1970), 29-42. Clearly, such
sensations are not evil: in their various ways they too are aspects of the animal organism's
adaptation to his environment. But pain-sensations are not qualitatively different from them.

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unpleasant or repugnant, but one should feel sorrow over a real
harm to onesdf or one's friend, There would be something wrong
if one did not, Sorrow is analogous to physical pain: as pain is the
physical reaction to injury, sorrow is the emotional reaction to
injury, The case is the same for an enduring or intense sorrow,
Emotional pain is therefore not a counterexample, and the evils
to which emotions are reactions will, in the end, be privationssickness, death, broken relationships, lost opportunities, and so
on.
The second objection to the privation thesis is that morally evil
acts are not mere privations, The morally evil act of adultery and
the morally evil act of hatred of God, for example, are obviously
good, They are positive acts.
more than just absences
Moreover, the objection continues, that which makes them evil
seems to be something positive; for there is in each of these acts
an opposition to what is good, rather than just a failure to do or
pursue the good. "Is it not obvious," someone might ask, "that
Hider was a positive evil force, and that what made him evil was
something positive, namely, his hatred?"
Aquinas considered this objection, 37 as have others in the
Scholastic tradition, 38 Consider intellectual acts first. One might
think that the privation thesis is committed to saying that all error
is basically of one sort. Error would be just the lack of truth. But,
surely, one might object, there is a difference between ignorance
and error-between not knowing something, even something one
ought to know, and holding an opinion that is opposed to the
truth, Error is more than just lack of truth, one may object, it is
something opposed to the truth,
The mistake here is to
that the privation constituting the
evil must always be located the same place. What makes a false
opinion bad is indeed a privation, but the privation is not in the
same place, so to speak, as it is in ignoranceo In ignorance there
37

St. Thomas, Summa contra Gentiles III, cc. 8-9.

38 For example: Francisco Suarez, The Metaphysics of Good and Evil according to Suarez,

trans. and ed. Jorge Gracia and Douglas Davis (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 168f. Bill
Anglin and Stewart Goetz are correct when they observe that, "Indeed, given the fact that the
philosophers, such as Augustine and Aquinas, who held the privation theory gave very careful
thought to moral evil, it would be quite surprising if moral evil constituted a counterexample
to the privation theory" (Anglin and Goetz, "Evil is Privation," 8).

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is an absence of the act of knowing. In error there is a positive act
of belief, but the belief lacks conformity with reality. In error one
holds a proposition to be true, that is, to conform with the facts
(supposing here a realist view and a theoretical rather than a
practical proposition). An intellectual act of this sort is good, as
far as it goes, but the problem lies in the lack of conformity
between the proposition one believes and what is the case. In
other words, there is first of all a lack in the proposition. 39 The
act of holding that a proposition with that sort of lack in it is true
has a privation in it, since one ought to affirm only true
propositions. Ignorance is a privation of an intellectual act; error
is an intellectual act with a privation in it.
There is a similar distinction in the moral order. Omissions are
clearly distinct from commissions, and not every moral evil is an
omission. Still, the moral evil consists in a privation, the privation
in the choice. That is, there are privations of choices (omissions)
and choices with privations (evil commissions).
The morally bad choice is not done for the sake of the moral
evil in it. Rather, it is done for the sake of something that at least
seems in some way good. The choice of adultery, for example, is
made for the sake of the experience involved. A murder might be
committed for the sake of money or power. But there is joined to
the object chosen, or there is found in the object chosen, the
privation of due order to the objective moral standard. 40 Aquinas
expresses this point as follows:
Yet neither does the absence of the due end by itself constitute a moral species,
except as it is joined to the undue end; just as we do not find the privation of
the substantial form in natural things, unless it is joined to another form. Thus,
the evil which is a constitutive difference in morals is a certain good joined to
the privation of another good; as the end proposed by the intemperate man is
not the privation of the good of reason, but the delight of senses without the

39 Although a false proposition lacks conformity with reality, there is no reason to hold
that every proposition should be a true one. Every believedproposition should be true, but
one might do various things with propositions-consider them, compare them to others, and
so on. So, the lack in question here is not yet a defect or privation. The privation occurs when
a false proposition is believed.
40 One can disagree about what that standard is and still accept this point.

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order of reason. Hence evil is not a constitutive difference as such, but by
reason of the good that is annexed. 41

In other words, the sinner chooses some object that has, or seems
to have, some good in it-otherwise there would be no point in
choosing it-but the object chosen has a privation in it as well,
of which the sinner is quite aware, though he makes the choice
anyway. One rightly says that the whole act is evil; still, that
which makes the act evil is a privation. 42
The same is true in other morally bad choices. In the doctrine
of the seven capital sins the tradition explains how sins arise.
These basic sins are not the most serious, but they are the roots or
heads (from capita, "heads") from which other sins flow. Pride,
avarice, gluttony, and lust are the inordinate desires for status,
wealth, food and drink, or sexual satisfaction. These are the first
capital sins, based on the desire for some good. Notice that all of
them are desires for things that are in themselves good. Excellence
or status, wealth, pleasure in food, drink, and sex are good
things; it is only the inordinate desire for them that is a sin.
A similar point is true for aversions. We naturally have
aversions to what is harmful or in some way repugnant to us. But
a disorder-a privation-can arise, in that something that is
actually good can seem harmful to us. This happens in the other
three capital sins. Thus, sloth is aversion to one's own moral or
spiritual good, because of the difficulties in its pursuit. Envy is
sorrow at another's good, because his good is perceived as
threatening one's own excellence. And anger is an inordinate
desire for vindication or vengeance. In sinners, Aquinas points
out, an actual hatred for the good can arise-not a hatred of the
good precisely because it is good, but a hatred of it because it
threatens status, comfort, or some other true or apparent good.
Such hatred, though, as he points out, is not a capital sin; it
41

STh I, q. 48, a. 1, ad 2.

42 This is not a specificallyThomistic doctrine. It is shared by other doctors of the Church.

For example, St. Bonaventure writes: "Sin is the corruption of mode, species, and order.
Because it is a defect, it does not have an efficient cause but a deficient_cause,namely, the
defect in the created will" ("Et hoc est peccatum, quod est modi, speciei et ordinis
corruptivum; quod quia defectus est, non habet causam efficientem, sed deficientem, videlicet
defectum voluntatis creatae" [Breviloquium3.1.3]).

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emerges only somewhat later in the deterioration of the sinner
(one does not usually become morally bad all at once). The hatred
is a disorder founded on a prior love, actually a love that already
has gone awry. So, in sinning one wills something that is in itself
good, but wills it in an inordinate way. The sin is choosing some
good in such a way as to turn away from a full respect for all
other goods, and thus in such a way as to turn away from God's
plan. 43
The doctrine of the capital sins makes clear some basic truths
about the moral life. First, sin involves an inordinate choice of a
good. All of the things pursued in the capital sins are objects
which if pursued appropriately and wisely, and in accord with the
other goods of the kingdom (the fulfillment of God's plan for
creation and redemption), would be quite reasonable and morally
good. A status fitting my vocation, pleasure in healthy food and
drink, pleasure in sexual acts which truly embody and actualize
my marital communion, and so on-these are goods which it is
fitting to pursue. It is the pursuit of status, pleasure, comfort, and
so on as independent from the kingdom planned by God that is
the source of sin. Sin is the narrowing of one's concern to what
one wants, no matter what its relation to the kingdom. 44
But hatred of God, one may object, is a positive opposition to
the good and God, and not just the absence of a good. Precisely
what makes it evil (the objection continues) is something positive,
its opposition to God.
However, not every hatred, whether it be emotional or
volitional, is evil. It is natural and healthy for animals and
43 Thus, one of the traditional

definitions of a sin is "the willing of a changeable good in
an inordinate way, so that it involves a turning away from the unchangeable God" (STh 1-11,
q. 84, a. 1).
44 Since evil is a privation it follows that we do not have, strictly speaking, tendencies
toward evil. One treats evil as if it were a positive nature if one views our concrete nature as
having distinct tendencies toward evil, perhaps as a result of original sin. Instead of having
simply evil tendencies, or tendencies simply toward evil, we have disorders, privations, in our
tendencies. For example, there is no such thing as a tendency toward selfishness, literally
speaking. Rather, selfishness is a disorder in other tendencies: a privation in our basic
tendencies toward food, sexual acts, and so on. A so-called tendency toward cruelty is a
disorder in one's disposition or capacity to have aggressive emotions. Our basic tendencies
and our basic emotional constitution are good; but they are more or less disordered, from
original sin, personal sins, defects in our culture, and so on.

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rational creatures to have an aversion for what threatens them.
Hatred is a type of act which in some circumstances is
appropriate. We should hate whatever is really harmful to
us-but that, of course, does not in.dude either God, our
neighbor, or ourselves. What makes hatred of God or of a human
person evil is that such acts are directed toward objects to which
they should not be directed. In other words, what makes such acts
evil is their departure from the due order. Hatred should be
directed only toward certain nonpersons that are actually or
potentiaHy harmful. The evil is the departure from that due order.
There is a strict analogy here with the intellectual order. One may
assent or one may dissent (hold that something is false). Neither
assent nor dissent is in itsdf inteHectuaUy bad; the bad consists in
the disorder arising from assenting to what is false or dissenting
from what is true. Likewise, there is an act of love and there is an
their
act of hate. Neither is of itself an evil; the evil consists
disorder.
Moreover, it is worth noting that one cannot hate God
precisely because he is good or because he is who he is: goodness
is not hated for its own sake. It is nonsense to imagine that
someone can acquire a nature such that he hates good because it
is good and loves evil because it is evil. However, one can hate
God if God is perceived as getting in the way of something else
one wants, something which is good, or seems to be good, on
some level or other.
A third objection concerns God's causality of free choices. I
have argued that God causes every being other than himself,
including free choices, but that he does not cause the evil, the
privation, in
free choices. One might object, however, that
this position cannot be maintained. I also argued that human
beings do not directly intend the evil, but are responsible for it
insofar as they knowingly will to pursue something else to which
this privation is attached. It might be objected, however, that the
creature's choice seems to be related to God in precisely the same
way, and so the reason for saying that the human person is
responsible for moral evil would also apply to God.
However, evil is related to the sinner quite differently than it
is related to God. Aquinas uses the following analogy. When an

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animal limps, two causes are to be considered: the motive power
of the animal, and a defect in the animal's leg, namely, a
curvature of the bone. Clearly, the motive power of the animal
causes the act, but the limp insofar as it is a privation is not due
to that motive power; rather, it is due to the defect in the leg, the
bone's curvature. Or suppose an expert saxophone-player is
playing a defective saxophone. The music will be defective, but
the defect will be due solely to the saxophone and not due to the
saxophone-player. Indeed, whatever there is of good in the music
will be due to both the saxophone and the saxophone-player,
while the defects in the music will be due solely to the saxophone.
The analogies apply to the morally evil act and its relation to
God and the human being. Good free choices by human beings
are both from God and from the human beings. In an evil free
choice, the actuality and degree of goodness that is in it is from
both the human being and God. But the defect, the evil, is solely
from the human being, and is not traced back to God at all. God
moves the human being only toward good. As a defect in the
bone prevents the animal's motive power from producing a
perfectly good walk, or as a defect in the saxophone prevents the
expert saxophone-player from producing beautiful music, so a
defect in the human secondary cause prevents God's
causality-which is only toward good-from resulting in a
morally good act. God causes actuality in the morally evil act (and
the human being is also a cause of the act in this respect, but as a
secondary cause), but the evil, the privation, is traced back to a
(voluntary) defect in the human being and in no way traced back
to God.
IV

There are several ways in which this doctrine has a profound
practical impact on faith. First, the basic Christian attitude toward
sin involves a balance. On the one hand, Christian teaching insists
that sin really is unreasonable, foolish. On the other hand,
Christian teaching equally insists that we all are sinners and are
subject to temptation. So, on the one hand, there must be an
objective standard by which one can see, even from within the

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perspective of sinning, that sin is unreasonable. Those who sin are
not merdy choosing the side opposite the side "we" have chosen.
On the other hand, there must be some point to the sin, lest we
imagine we are beyond temptation.
This balance can be maintained by recognizing that the evH in
the sinful act is a privation. As an inordinate act, sin has two
aspects. As an act, it has an inteHigible purpose, a purpose that, as
far as it goes, is good. Thus, one can understand why someone
might sin. As inordinate, however, sin is unreasonable, with an
unreasonableness that is
is, an unreasonableness
that can be seen by all, not just by those who have already opted
for one "side" rather than the other.
However, if one thinks that evil as such is positive, then one
is likely to think that evil as such is attractive, that sin is the
choice of evil (as such) versus good. But if evil is thought of as a
kind of quality some people are sometimes attracted to, then this
penchant for evil will be either natural or not. If it is natural, then
there must already be some evil in us substantially. 45 If it is not
natural, then it is hard to see how we could be tempted to it
without already having been somehow corrupted-but then that
corruption would require explanation.
H one does find evil attractive, then how can one see its
irrationality while sinning? That is, within the perspective of this
tendency one could not see its irrationality. H evil is some positive
quality and doing evil is choosing the evil itself, then, to the
extent that one is inclined toward good, doing evil will be sheerly
irrational; but to the extent that one is inclined to this evil
quality, this inclination wiH remain unexplained, and there will
be no absolute standard by which one can then see the
unreasonableness of doing evil.
Moreover, if evil is viewed as a nature, even accidental,
keeping to the good will begin to seem restrictive, for it will
appear to be a pursuit of some positive reality and a turning away
45 The idea that there are positive evils, but only among accidents, and not also somehow
internal to substances, is inconsistent. Positive accidents must stem from the internal natures
of things; their positive being must be explained by reference to a substance or substances.
Hence those who conceive evil, or some evil, as a quality will tend to trace it back to an
inherently evil substance.

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from another positive reality. The morally right thing will seem
to be defined by the boundaries of moral rules. The tendency will
be toward a negative and legalistic frame of mind. There is also
the strong likelihood that the commission of evil will seem quite
unlike anything one is regularly tempted to do, for acts which
even seem to be motivated by love of evil for its own sake are
quite rare. This would lead to the comforting but illusory thought
that one never sins.
If one recognizes, however, that evil as such is a privation, one
sees that doing evil is the pursuit of some type of good in such a
way as to suppress in oneself an appreciation of the goodness of
other things, and thus in such a way as to turn away from God's
plan, his orienting us to love of all good. Thus, the very
orientation by which one is inclined to the particular good one
seeks in a sinful act provides a standard by which one can see the
unreasonableness, the wrongness, of this act. Even if one is doing
evil, there is a standard within that perspective that can show its
unreasonableness.
Once one sees that evil as such is a privation one sees that
departing from God and his plan is not really going in a separate
direction. We sometimes think of cooperating with God on
analogy with going in a certain direction, say, going upward, or
going north. Then we may think of doing evil as going in the
opposite direction, going down or south. However, this is
misleading. The full unreasonableness and objective wrong of
doing evil is revealed when we see that doing evil is not going in
any opposite direction-there isn't a positive something apart
from God, there isn't another "team" independent of God, really
offering something not offered by God. There is no positive point
which is a term of departures from God. To depart from God is
to diminish, to shrivel, to move toward non-being-without
making "non-being" a something.
Second, believing that evil as such is a nature is likely to make
evil seem more powerful than it is. But to see that evil as such is
a privation is to see that however powerful evil persons can be
(e.g., Satan, or other evil powers), they still exist only insofar as
they are preserved in being by the Creator, and they act only
insofar as their actions, to the extent that they have actuality in

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them, are held in being by the Creator. There is a battle between
the forces of good and the forces of evil, as St. Paul and the
tradition of the Church assure us; yet the battle is very unlike
other battles with which we are familiar. The forces of evil have
no chance of ultimately winning, and the very weapons at their
disposal are permitted them by the head of the opposite force.
Third, the idea that evil is something positive could prevent
one from seeing that God does not directly do evil of any kind,
that, as Jacques Maritain emphatically expressed it, God is
absolutely innocent of evil.46 If evil as such is a nature, then it is
hard to see any reason one could have for saying that God would
not do non-moral evil, here and there, for a good reason. If evil
as such has a positive nature, then on what grounds could one say
that (non-moral) evil is alien to God's nature or essence?47 It is
incoherent to think of God as bound by some moral rules distinct
from himself; therefore, if it is not simply incoherent to think of
God as doing (non-moral) evil, then there will be no reason at all
to think he does not.
Finally, God is a God of love and forgiveness-which does not
mean that he does not hate sin or insist on our repentance and
reformation. It does mean, however, that he has a definite
strategy for dealing with evil in his creation, especially with moral
evil, that is, sin. His strategy, revealed in the gospel, at first seems
paradoxical. He responds to evil and hatred with love and the
offer of forgiveness. This strategy is actually the most realistic
possible, since evil is a privation. 48 The most realistic way of
dealing with evil is by overcoming, with healing love, to the
extent free creatures will cooperate, the wound, the privation,
which is the problem.

46 Jacques Maritain, God and the Permission of Evil (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1966), ch. 1.
47 Our thinking about God is analogical. We reason that creatures, the effects of God's
creation, are to some degree like God. So, whatever positive perfections there are in the
world must be reflections--vague and inadequate perhaps---of a more eminent perfection in
God. If evil were a nature, then, it is hard to see how one could consistently think of God as
all good. Would not this nature have to be conceived as also a reflection of some aspect of
the Creator's being?
48 Cf. Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 1, Christian Moral Principles
(Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), 120-25, 332-36.

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269

However, if evil as such is thought of as a nature, then God's
real strategy for dealing with evil will seem incoherent.
Consistency will push one toward different strategies. Perhaps
one will wish to destroy the things infected with evil, as did the
zealots. Or perhaps one will incline toward dissociating oneself
from evil, as did the Pharisees. To the extent that one does incline
toward a different strategy one has compromised the Cross,
which is God's utterly realistic, but scandalous, strategy for
dealing with evil. Saint Paul says he preaches nothing but Christ,
and Christ crucified. God's response to evil in the Cross is neither
to destroy, nor to dissociate himself from, evil things and evil
persons. His response is to offer love and forgiveness, a strategy
that makes sense only if evil is a privation, a wound that needs. to
be healed.

The Thomist 64 (2000): 271-300

ELEMENTAL VIRTUAL PRESENCE IN ST. THOMAS
CHRISTOPHER DECAEN
Thomas Aquinas College
Santa Paula, California

P

erhaps the best-known example of how Aristotle's
philosophy of nature is thought to have been superseded by
the scientific revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries is the establishment of the atomic theory. The Stagirite's
thoroughgoing opposition to the reduction of substances to
aggregates of atoms is evident throughout his physical works and
to the modern reader it seems that if there is any point on which
Aristotle has been proved wrong it is this. It is therefore natural
to think that, because they adopted Aristotle's mistake, the
medieval philosophers-most notably St. Thomas Aquinas-are
similarly outmoded. However, given the considerable revision of
our understanding of the existence of atoms underway in
contemporary science (particularly in quantum theory) since the
beginning of the twentieth century, one is tempted to reassess the
degree to which the Aristotelian abhorrence of atomism is truly
obsolete. 1

1 See Edward MacKinnon, S.J., "Thomism andAtomism," Modern Schoolman 38 (1961):
121-41; William A. Wallace, O.P., "Are the Elementary Particles Real?" in From A Realist
Point of View: Essays on the Philosophy of Science (2d ed.; Lanham, Md.: University Press
of America, 1983), 171-83. More recently, see Wolfgang Smith, "From Schrodinger's Cat to
Thomistic Ontology," The Thomist 63 (1999): 49-63; and The Quantum Enigma: Finding
the Hidden Key (Peru, Ill.: Sherwood Sugden and Company, 1995), especially chapters 3 and
4. For another recent but more careful exposition of St. Thomas's doctrine, focused on
virtual presence and less concerned with the implications of quantum theory than the others
are, see Joseph Bobik, Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements: A Translation and
Interpretation of the De Principiis Naturae and the De Mixtione Elementorum of St. Thomas
Aquinas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998).

271

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

While this paper will not offer such a reassessment, it will ·
provide at least part of what must serve as a necessary foundation
for it. In the following I will present a critical exposition of St.
Thomas's account of the manner in which elemental substances
are present in non-elemental substances, referred to as "mixtures. " 2 If this mode of existence, usually referred to as "virtual
presence, "3 is not articulated very carefully, it will be not only an
obstacle to any attempt at showing the present-day relevance of
Aristotelian natural philosophy, but in fact an enigmatic and
obscure account of the workings of nature.
Virtual presence has received surprisingly little space in the
already sparse literature on Thomas's natural philosophy. One
2 The words in Aristotle and St. Thomas are µ(1;1i;; and mixtum (or mixtio), respectively.
I hesitate in deciding how to translate these words, the main reason being that what modern
chemistry refers to as a mixture is something more precise, and probably less substantially
united, than that to which Thomas and Aristotle refer.
In chemistry mixtures are divided into two categories: heterogeneous and homogeneous.
However, the definition of each is primarily operational. A mixture is heterogeneous if it is
an aggregate in which the particles are merely juxtaposed and can be mechanically separated,
whether by filtration, distillation, or simply by using a pair of tweezers. It is homogeneous (or
a solution) if there is such a thorough blending among the parts that the one dissolves in the
other and they cannot be mechanically separated. Such mixtures are opposed to chemical
compounds, in which there is a much stronger bond between the parts, one that involves the
sharing or transferring of electrons on the atomic level (and such are subdivided into ionic
and covalent bonds, each of which can also be further subdivided), and which possess
properties radically different from those of their constituents. An example of a heterogeneous
mixture would be salt and pepper shaken together in a jar; an example of a homogeneous
mixture, salt water; and an example of a chemical compound, table salt (sodium chloride).
While it is clear that Thomas would not consider a heterogeneous mixture to be a mixtum
(in De Mixtione Elementorum, In. 34, he calls such a confusio or a mixtio ad sensum, as
opposed to a vera mixtio), the question is more difficult in the case of solutions and
compounds.
Hence, while many stand by the cognate (Williams, Fine, Code, and Crombie), other
suggested translations vary from "mixed body" (Bobik), to "gel" (Fine), to "compound"
(Wallace, Hoenen, and Van Melsen), to "chemical compound" (Phillips, Bittle, and Bogen),
to "chemical combination" Uoachim and Gill), while some vacillate between "compound,"
"mixture," and "combination" (Cohen). Some use the old chemical terminology from the
nineteenth century, calling this a "mixt" (Duhem and Needham), while others (Maier) have
simply refused to translate the expression at all. While noting that each of these ways of
translating has its benefits, rather than choose among them I will simply stand by the
traditional cognate "mixture" or "mixed substance."
3 Thomas never uses this actual expression. I will say more on the significance of this
below.

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273

can only speculate as to the reason for this, as the doctrine itself
is not exactly transparent. 4 However, insofar as Thomas's
doctrine is really just an interpretation of Aristotle's words in De
Generatione et Corruptione, 1.10, it is noteworthy that Aristotle
himself, at least in recent years, has not been similarly neglected. 5
Indeed, the recent deluge in Aristotelian studies being made by
those who are principally of the analytic tradition has made
Thomas's work all the more relevant. To put it simply, these neoAristotelians are in some respects reinventing the wheel with their
careful studies of Aristotle on mixtures; many of them, after
detailed analysis of Aristotle's works, are reaching conclusions
that Thomas reached over seven hundred years before them.
Because few of them seem to notice that they might have saved
time by reading Thomas's commentaries and related opuscula, 6
4 The only study produced in almost a generation is Bobik, Aquinas on Matter and Form
and the Elements. This work goes a long way both toward explaining Thomas's doctrine and
toward showing its congeniality to contemporary particle physics. Indeed, aside from Bobik
the most recent work done on virtual presence is acerbically critical of it, namely that of
Marius G. Schneider, O.F.M., "The Anachronism of Certain Neothomistic Physical
Doctrines," Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, vol.. 4, ed. John K. Ryan
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1969), 142-73.
5 For example, PacificPhilosophical Quarterly devoted its September and December issues
to "Form, Matter, and Mixture in Aristotle" (vol .76 [1995]). Other recent work includes
Mary Louise Gill, "Matter Against Substance," Synthese 96 (1993): 379-97; Paul Needham,
"Aristotelian Chemistry: A Prelude to Duhemian Metaphysics," Studies in the History and
Philosophy of Science 27 (1996): 251-69; Sheldon M. Cohen, Aristotle on Nature and
Incomplete Substance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 55-100. Strangely,
Anneliese Maier thinks that this matter is really a non-issue in Aristotle; see her On the
Threshold of Exact Science, ed. and trans. Steven D. Sargent (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 131-32.
6 The only exception to this that I have seen is Cohen, who makes some reference to St.
Thomas's account, comparing it to that of Gill (see Cohen, Aristotle on Nature and
Incomplete Substance, 90 and 98 n. 69). Cohen thinks St. Thomas's doctrine and arguments
directed against Averroes are also opposed to his own position; however, I am not sure that
Cohen's position is really that similar to Averroes's, so I suspect that he did not give Thomas
a careful reading. It should also be noted that Kit Fine gives a nod to the medieval
commentaries on De Generatione et Corruptione, 1.10. In an endnote he admits that there
are "many points of contact" between his discussion and the medieval debates on the subject
(Kit Fine, "The Problem of Mixture," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 76 [1995]: 366 n. 12).
This is not to say, of course, that these fresh studies have nothing to add to what Thomas
says. Indeed, their additions often can serve to make Thomas's interpretation of Aristotle
more precise.

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

this may be something of which both disciples of St. Thomas and
these neo-Aristotelians should take note. 7
I. THE AMBIGUITY OF THE DOCTRINE

St. Thomas presents the notion of virtual presence in response
to a question: "in what manner are elements in a mixture?" 8 The
dilemma that provokes his answer can be formulated in the two
ways one can stress this question. On the one hand, in what
manner do the elements exist in a mixture, a being that is
substantially one, possessing its own nature? On the other hand,
in what manner do the elements exist in a mixture, that is, how
are they constituents of and present within the mix? Even before
Thomas offers his account-which is merely his interpretation of
Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione, 1.10 9-one expects a
7 There is a slight difference in motivation and spirit behind the study of the AristotelianThomistic account. Many of the neo-Aristotelians seem to take it for granted that Aristotle
is wholly and manifestly obsolete in this matter, and hence are interested in Aristotle simply
for the sake of giving an historically accurate exegesis; see, for example, Fine, "The Problem
of Mixture," 266-67, and 309; and Harold H. Joachim," Aristotle's Conception of Chemical
Combination," Journal of Philology 29 (1904): 77 n. 1. The majority ofThomists, however,
are interested in whether or not the doctrine is true. Some even wish not only to understand
but also to defend the doctrine (e.g., Hoenen, Philips, Bobik, Duhem, and Wallace). Even
those neo-Scholastics that think that Thomas's account is no longer viable still feel the need
to argue their position; see, for example, Schneider, "The Anachronism of Certain
Neothomistic Physical Doctrines"; Virgil G. Michel, O.S.B., "On the Theory of Matter and
Form," &clesiastical Review 73 (1925); and Celestine N. Bittle, 0.F.M., From Aether to
Cosmos (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1941), 334-40.
8 St. Thomas's opusculum De Mixtione Elementorum ad Magistrum Phippum de Castro
Caeli begins with this question: "Dubium apud multos esse solet quomodo elementa sint in
mixto." I will translate from the Leonine edition, Opera Omnia, vol. 43 (Rome: Santa Sabina,
1976). For the sake of giving special care to accuracy, all translations of St. Thomas and
Aristotle will be my own except when otherwise noted.
9 I say that the idea of virtual presence is merely Thomas's reading of De Generatione et
Corruptione, 1.10, because whenever he discusses virtual presence he references it. It is
unfortunate that Thomas never completed his commentary on De Generatione et
Corruptione; he commented only on 1.1-5, while one of his disciples, probably Thomas of
Sutton, finished the commentary. It is clear that St. Thomas was intent upon finishing the
document but was interrupted by his fateful call to Lyons (seeJean-Pierre Torrell, O.P ., Saint
Thomas Aquinas: The Person and His Work, vol..1, trans. Robert Royal [Washington, D.C.:
The Catholic University of America Press, 1996], 235). In any case, a few years earlier
Thomas wrote DeMixtione Elementorum, and this is certainly his most articulate explanation
of virtual presence. A comparison of texts makes it clear that Thomas of Sutton made

ELEMENTAL VIRTIJAL PRESENCE

275

distinction: in a way they are in a mixture, and in a way they are
not. Indeed, following Aristotle, Thomas says that the elements
are present potentially, but not actually. 10 However, he is still
more specific.
Thomas summarizes his doctrine by saying that the substantial
forms of the elements are present in a mixed substance virtute,
that is, "by power." However, the exact meaning of this idea of
presence "by power" is ambiguous not only because Thomas
applies it in various ways among radically diverse beings (from
putrefying matter to God), 11 but even more so because it seems to
suggest a modality of existence that is in some sense "between"
potency and actuality. 12
The rather natural English translation of the ablative noun
virtute by the adverb "virtually" only exacerbates the difficulty. 13
In modern English the word "virtually" means "more or less," or
"practically," or "pretty much but not quite." If we were to stand
by this translation of virtute, then Thomas's answer to the
question of how the elements are present in a mixture would be
equivalent to saying that they are "pretty much there but not
extensive use of it while completing the commentary for De Generatione et Corruptione,
1.10, often simply transcribing whole paragraphs, but the commentary on this chapter is also
based heavily upon tract. 6 of St. Albert's commentary on De Generatione et Corruptione.
10 Whether one is commenting on Aristotle or on St. Thomas, it is generally agreed that
they do not think the elements are actual in a mixture. The only exception that I have seen
is Sharvy, who is focused on Aristotle, not Thomas (R. Sharvy, "Aristotle on Mixtures,"
Journal of Philosophy 80 (1983): 439-57; see especially 445-56). For a straightforward
refutation of Sharvy, see Fine, "The Problem of Mixture," 279-85.
11 Thomas says both that maggots exist "by power" in putrefying matter (Summa
Theologiae l, q. 73, a. 1, ad 3), and that all things created by God are in Him inasmuch as
"the effect preexists by power in the cause" (STh I, q. 84, a. 2; see also STh l, q. 4, a. 2). This
of course suggests the analogical character of virtual presence.
12 This expression will be severely qualified below.
13 Schneider himself employs this word in his translation of De Mixt. Elem., In. 149; for
one so critical of those who obfuscate the doctrine, he is surprisingly lax about being literal
here (see Schneider, "The Anachronism of Certain Neothomistic Physical Doctrines," 164).
Bobik is the only translator to use the expression "by power" (he includes "virtually" as an
alternative in parentheses) for this same passage (see Bobik, Aquinas on Matter and Form and
the Elements, 122). Note that while no explicit reference to St. Thomas or Aristotle is being
made in this context, Wallace's account of "powers models" in inorganic substances implies
the doctrine of virtual presence, or presence by power (see William A. Wallace, O.P., The
Modeling of Nature: Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis
[Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996], 70-73).

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

quite," which is hardly a philosophically precise manner of
speaking.
It is clear, then, that if we insist upon saying that the elements
are present virtually we are under an obligation to distinguish
explicitly this use of "virtually" from its common use. However,
many who purport to be explaining Thomas's account simply say
that the elements are "virtually" in the mixed substance and leave
it at that, as though the matter is thereby made clear. 14 This shows
the superiority of translating virtute as "by power," because it not
only avoids the misapprehensions that almost inevitably arise
with "virtually," but its somewhat awkward sound suggests that
a technical distinction is being made. 15 Indeed, as I will show
below, by directing the reader's attention to the powers of the
elements and mixtures the fittingness of this technical expression
becomes clear. Nonetheless, very few Thomistic commentators
seem to recognize that this translation is preferable, and have
often offered expositions of the doctrine that lend themselves to
confusion.

14 Although he does much to defend and articulate the Aristotelian-Thomistic position,
William Kane does not seem to think it necessary to explain why we should use the word
"virtually" at all: "Let us say that the elements are virtually present in the compound, that is,
by virtue of the substantial form of the compound" (William Kane, O.P., "Hylemorphism
[sic] and the Recent Views of the Constitution of Matter," Proceedings of the American
Catholic Philosophical Association 11 [1935], 73). Bittle, in a lengthy treatment of the
Aristotelian "hylomorphic theory," is no more clear: "every compound must have a single
form, while the elemental forms themselves have passed out of existence; the latter are
contained 'virtually' in the form of the compound" (Bittle, From Aether to Cosmos, 311). In
an historical analysis of the debate about the unicity of form among the medievals Daniel
Callus simply states that according to Thomas and his disciples the elemental forms are in a
mixture "only virtually as implied, synthesized, and comprised in the higher form" (Daniel
A. Callus, O.P., "The Origins of the Problem of the Unity of Form," in The Dignity of
Science: Studies in the Philosophy of Science presented to William Humbert Kane, O.P., ed.
James A. Weisheipl, O.P. [Washington, D.C.: The Thomist Press, 1961], 123). Finally, one
of the worst culprits in this matter is R. Phillips, using "virtually" and "virtual" almost a
dozen times in explaining substantial change, without explaining the meaning of the term
until pages later. Even then he does not quite say why the word is an appropriate technical
term (see R. P. Phillips, Modern Thomistic Philosophy, vol. 1: The Philosophy of Nature
[Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1948], 137-39, 143-46).
is Indeed, it may be no coincidence that Thomas never uses the adverb virtualiter or the
adjective virtualis in the present context; he is always more concrete, using the noun virtus
(in its nominative and ablative forms).

ELEMENTAL VIRTUAL PRESENCE

277

Because of this confusion, it is worthwhile first to note some
of the criticism that has been made of Thomas's doctrine and of
contemporary Thomistic expositions of this doctrine. More than
half a century ago Virgil Michel criticized Thomists who
attempted to reconcile contemporary science and AristotelianThomistic natural philosophy concerning substantial change,
saying that these neo-Thomists are forced to have
recourse to the obscure virtual permanence of the forms [of the elements] ...
[But] in the explanation of this phenomenon there is no common
understanding among the authors. The attempts at an explanation of this
virtual presence in general do not contribute to the honor of Scholastic clarity
of thought, and are to some intelligible only when taken to be a vaguer way of
merely saying that the old elements do as a fact reappear upon the corruption
of the compound. 16

More recently, Marius Schneider has made similar criticisms,
beginning with the thesis that "Neothomistic views of the constitution of corporeal being conflict not only with one another,
but-in spite of their intended faithfulness to Aquinas' philosophy-also with the teaching of St. Thomas itself," 17 a criticism
with which I will agree to an extent. However, he then goes on
to make the further, and ultimately more important, claim that
virtual presence "not only sounds but most certainly is naive and
medieval," 18 and that the accounts of Thomas and the
interpretations of his present-day disciples are inherently
16 Michel, "On the Theory of Matter and Form," 252. Michel's own view is that any
attempt at explaining the presence of the elements in a mixture in terms of potency or virtual
presence is utterly contrary to experimental data: "It seems difficult to-day [sic] not to accept
the conclusion that the elements retain their individual substance in compounds. The whole
mass of scientific evidence in fact, for the building up of the elements out of common
particles, when taken together, is overwhelming ...• It can therefore hardly seem
unphilosophical to subscribe to the actual permanence of chemical atoms in a compound"
(ibid., 251-52 [emphasis added]).
It seems that Michel opts for what was traditionally the other position popular among the
medievals: the doctrine of the plurality of forms in a substance (see ibid., 255-56). Note also
that it is probably not a coincidence that Michel's article was written just before the birth of
quantum theory (in the 1930s), in which the character of the "scientific evidence" changed
considerably, and consequently so did our understanding of the atom.
17 Schneider, "The Anachronism of Certain Neothomistic Physical Doctrines," 142; see
also 152-53.
18 Ibid., 151.

CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

278

bankrupt, given the scientific evidence. Hence, Schneider reveals
an underlying attitude that
neoscholastic philosophy cannot fulfill its task of offering a much desired
realistic philosophy of nature as it is known in our age.... [For] whoever is
faintly acquainted with modern physics ... is aware that ... scarcely any of
the corresponding doctrines of the scholastic physics is true .... and whatever
the truth value of modern science may turn out to be, the necessary scientific
presupposition of Aristotelian hylomorphism most certainly does not represent
a true conception of physical being. 19

Hence, Schneider concludes his paper by asking rhetorically,
Is it too much to expect that contemporary Thomists who subscribe to the
modern scientific views of the constitution of physical being ... seriously
reflect upon this insight of their master, 20 finally give up the attempt to defend
obsolete physical doctrines, and offer their help for the realization of a truly
neoscholastic philosophy of nature? 21

Schneider seems to be making three points: (1) contemporary
disciples of St. Thomas give neither plausible nor consistent
accounts of the presence of elements in mixed substances; (2)
these accounts are deformations of that offered by St. Thomas,
and are motivated by a wrongheaded desire to reshape virtual
presence in the image of modern scientific data; and (3) Thomas's
own account cannot be salvaged and must be discarded. The first
and second criticisms are true to a certain degree, while the last
seems a bold but false assertion. However, since in this article I
am concerned only with explaining Thomas's position, not with
its truth or falsity as such, I must set aside the third criticism
altogether; the first and second are more immediately pertinent
to the present inquiry. That is, what is Thomas saying about how
the elements are preserved in a mixed substance, and how does
contemporary scholarship interpret this?
19 Ibid., 153, 160-61,

168.
The insight to which Schneider refers is Thomas's admission that if light were atomic,
then Aristotelian natural philosophy would be based on faulty principles. See II Sent., d. 13,
q. 1, a. 3.
21 Schneider, "The Anachronism of Certain Neothomistic Physical Doctrines," 173.
20

ELEMENTALVIRTUAL PRESENCE

279

II. THE ALTERNATIVES TO ST. THOMAS'S DOCTRINE

The natural way to present the answer to this is to look at St.
Thomas's explanations of the subject, focusing in particular on his
only extended treatment of the matter, De Mixtione
Elementorum. Thomas begins with a via negativa, telling us how
the elements are not present in a mixed substance. The two
explanations which Thomas opposes are particularly noteworthy
insofar as some Thomists seem to be close to attributing one or
both of them to Thomas.
The first position Thomas addresses, and then criticizes, is that
of Avicenna, 22 namely that "while the active and passive qualities
of the elements are reduced in some way to a mean [quality]
through alteration, the substantial forms of the elements remain
[in the mixed substance]. " 23 Avicenna is saying that the elemental
substantial forms retain their actuality even after the generation
of the mixture, and the only real change seems to be an accidental
one. Hence, Thomas summarizes Avicenna's account elsewhere by
saying that the elemental forms "remain integral," "in act," and
"in the mixture in act with respect to essence. " 24
One might notice that this is essentially the doctrine of the
plurality of forms about which there was much controversy in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 25 Indeed, if the description is
22 "Elements are not corrupted into their species in the complexion [complexione], but
are converted [convertuntur]" (Avicenna, Metaphysica, tract. 8, cap. 2, fol. 97vb-98ra; see
also Sufficientia, tract. 1, cap. 10, fol. 19rb). Callus notes that Avicenna is inconsistent in this
matter inasmuch as he gives a very different account of how the forms of lower organisms are
in those of higher ones (see Callus, "The Origins of the Problem of the Unity of Form," 12729, esp. n. 10).
Thomas does not specifically attribute this position to Avicenna here, although he does
elsewhere (STh I, q. 76, a. 4, ad 4; and De Anima, a. 9, ad 10). Algazel seems to agree with
Avicenna in this (see his Metaphysica II, tract. 3).
23 "qualitatibus activis et passivis elementorum ad medium aliqualiter reductis per
alterationem, formae substantiales elementorum manent" (De Mixt. Elem., II. 3-6).
24 "integras remanere"
(STh I, q. 76, a. 4, ad 4); "actu remanere" (Quaestiones
Quodlibetales I, q. 4, a. 6, ad 3); "actu sunt in mixto secundum essentiam" (De Anima, a. 9,
ad 10).
25 Callus notes this as well (Callus, "The Origins of the Problem of the Unity of Form,"
128 n. 10). If this is correct, one might also include Avicebron and Gundissalinus as targets
of Thomas's criticism here, although there is no explicit reference made to the raging debate
on the plurality of forms in this opusculum.

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

taken strictly, it is congenial to an atomic theory of matter. I
should qualify this claim, however, because most atomists would
say that there is no substantial form of the whole aggregate of
elements, and hence no true mixture, while pluralists admit that
there is a primary substantial form of the mixture to which the
elementary forms are subordinated and by which they are
directed.
Thomas begins to probe the second position-that of
Averroes 26-by pointing out that some recognized the
problematic character of Avicenna's position, and so posited a
more complicated alternative to avoid its absurdities: 27
the substantial forms of the elements in a way remain in the mixture. But ...
the forms of the elements do not remain in the mixture according to their
completeness, but are reduced to a certain mean. For they [Averroes and his
followers] say that the forms of the elements admit of more and less, and have
contrariety with respect to one another. 28

No language of actuality or potentiality is used in this account, so
the position is somewhat vague. It is like Avicenna's insofar as the
elemental substantial forms are present in the mixture (in
actuality?); it is unlike it insofar as they seem to be blended in
some way, perhaps analogous to the way Avicenna describes the
blending of the active and passive qualities of the elements.
Now, because Averroes knows that substance does not admit
of degree, 29 his position must be more subtle. According to
Averroes,
26 See Averroes, De Caelo et Mundo, bk. 3, corns. 67 and 68. Again Thomas does not refer
to his opponent by name in this context here, but he does elsewhere (see De Anima, a. 9, ad
10; STh I, q. 76, a. 4, ad 4; and Expositio Super Librum Boethii De Trinitate, q. 4, a. 3, ad 6).
On the Averroist doctrine, see Andrew G. Van Melsen, From Atomos to Atom: The History
of the Concept Atom, trans. Henry J. Koren (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1952),
66-73; Robert P. Multhauf, "The Science of Matter," in Science in the Middle Ages, ed. David
C. Lindberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 384-86.
27 De Mixt. Elem., II. 53-54.
28 "formas substantiales elementorum aliqualiter remanere in mixto. Sed . . . formae
elementorum non manent in mixto secundum suum complementum sed in quoddam medium
reducuntur; dicunt enim quod formae elementorum suscipiunt magis et minus et habent
contrarietatem ad invicem" (De Mixt. Elem., II. 56-57, 59-64).
29 "Each substance as such is not said to admit of variation of degree. For example, if that
substance is a man, he cannot be more of a man or less of a man, whether he is compared to
himself [at different times] or with another man" (Aristotle, Categories, 5.3b36-37).

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the forms of the elements are the least perfect [forms] inasmuch as they are
closest to prime matter. Whence they are means between substantial and
accidental forms, and thus inasmuch as they approach the nature of accidental
forms, they can admit of more and less.30

Hence, because of the grades of perfection found in various
natural forms, Averroes in effect says that elemental substances do
not fit into one of the ten categories of beings. Rather, he
attributes to the elements in a mixture 31 a sort of intermediate
position between accidents and substances. While the elemental
forms do seem to be actual, 32 they are not quite substantial and
yet are more than accidental. 33
Thomas takes issue with both of these positions. 34 So we know
that whatever he means by virtual presence or presence "by
power," he cannot mean that the elements exist in actuality; nor
can he mean that, because of the ontologically impoverished
nature of the elements, they are able to straddle the distinction
between substance and accident. That describes how the elements
30 "Formae elementorum sunt imperfectissimae, utpote materiae primae propinquores;
uncle sunt mediae inter formas substantiales et accidentales, et sic, in quantum accedunt ad
naturam formarum accidentalium, magis et minus suscipere possunt" (De Mixt. Elem., II. 6873). See also De Anima, a. 9. ad 10; STh I, q. 76, a. 4, ad 3; and Quodl. I, a. 6, ad 4.
31 Thomas does not specify whether, according to Averroes, the elements as such-i.e.,
both in and outside of a mixture-have forms that are intermediates between accidental and
substantial forms. The language seems to suggest it, but one can answer the question with
certainty only by a careful study of Averroes's cosmology.
32 This seems the more natural reading of the text, although some have held that the
imperfect existence that Averroes is attributing to the substance of the elements is a form of
potential existence. See, for example, Wallace," Are the Elementary Particles Real?", 179; and
Anneliese Maier,An der Grenze von Scholastik undNaturwissenschaft, (2d ed.; Rome: 1952),
29.
33 If the reader finds it difficult to understand Averroes's position, he should note that
Thomas describes this odd doctrine as being "improbable for a number of reasons," and as
"even less plausible" than that of Avicenna (Ins. 74 and 54). Elsewhere he puts it more
strongly: "this is even more impossible" than Avicenna's account (STh I, q. 76, a. 4, ad 4), and
is "ridiculous" (De Anima, a. 9, ad 10). If the fundamental notion of substance is "being in
itself" and of accident "being in another," how can something be neither a substance nor
accident? How can it be in between? This seems to deny the law of the excluded middle.
34 The arguments he offers against them are in De Mixt. Elem., II. 18-52, 74-118, for
Avicenna and Averroes respectively. Note that if Averroes's account is interpreted loosely or
charitably, Thomas agrees with it (see In Boet. de Trin., q. 4, a. 3, ad 6). But it is fairly
obvious that this is not the meaning that Averroes intends.

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are not in a mixture. The question remains, how are they in a
mixture?
III. ST. THOMAS'S GENERAL SOLUTION TO THE QUESTION

Saint Thomas then makes the transition to his own account,
noting the parameters required for any answer to be plausible,
saying that "one must discover another mode by which both the
veracity [genuine character] of the mixture is preserved, and yet
the elements are not totally corrupted but remain in the mixture
in some way. "35 After explaining the manner in which elemental
qualities affect each other he offers the following solution:
Therefore, the powers of the substantial forms of the simple bodies are
preserved in mixed bodies. The forms of the elements, therefore, are in the
mixed bodies not in act but by power. And this is what Aristotle says in the first
book of De Generatione et Corruptione: "Therefore they," that is, the elements
in the mixture, "do not remain in act, like 'body' and 'white' [remain in act],
and neither are they corrupted, either one or both of them. For their power is
preserved. "36

This summary is the core of the doctrine referred to as "virtual
presence." It is both an explanation and an interpretation of a
notoriously ambiguous passage from the Aristotelian corpus that
has plagued commentators for over two millennia. We will
unpack this account by focusing on different aspects of it.
The first and most obvious point that Thomas (and of course
Aristotle) is making is that, contra Avicenna and Averroes, the
elemental substances are not actually preserved in the generation
of the mixed substance. To use Aristotle's example, "white" and
35 "Oportet igitur alium modum invenire, quo et veritas mixtionis salvetur, et tamen
elementa non totaliter corrumpantur, sed aliqualiter in mixto remaneant" (De Mixt. Elem.,
II. 119-22).
36 "Sic igitur virtutes formarum substantialium simplicium corporum in corporibus mixtis
salvantur. Sunt igitur formae elementorum in corporibus mixtis, non quidem.actu sed virtute.
Et hoc est quod Aristotelis dicit in I De generatione, 'Non manent igitur--elementa sclilicet
in mixto--actu ut corpus et album, nee corrumpuntur nee alterum nee ambo: salvatur enim
virtus eorum'" (DeMixt. Elem.,, II. 145-53; see also Quodl. I, a. 6, ad 3; SI'h III, q. 77, a. 8;
Summa contra Gentiles, IV, ch. 35; II, ch. 56). The passage from Aristotle is De Generatione
et Corruptione, l.10.327b29-3 l, with Thomas using the Moerbeke translation.

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283

"body" can each be predicated of a man that has undergone an
alteration of skin tone, and this is because these predicates signify
his actual qualities or attributes. 37 However, when (according to
the medieval theory of elements) a metal is generated out of a
certain proportion of earth and water, we cannot predicate earth
or water of this metal because they are not its actual qualities or
substance-unless we say that the metal is not a substantial unit.
At best we can say only that the metal is earthen or aqueous,
meaning that it is made from such, and that such are in the metal.
Simply put, whiteness and corporeity are in act in a mixed
substance, while the forms of the elements are not. The
substantial forms of the elements, according to St. Thomas, have
corrupted in some fundamental way.
The natural question, then, concerns this denial of the actual
preservation of the elements: is virtual presence, then, nothing
more than potential presence? For dearly one does not want to
say simply that virtual presence is a third mode of being between
potency and actuality. To do so would be to deny that the
distinction between the actual and the potential is exhaustive of
what in any way exists. This interpretation would not only be
contrary to the convictions of Thomas, a good disciple of
Aristotle, but it might also be unintelligible; what is either is in
actuality, or is able to be (and this ability exists in things that are
in actuality). Indeed, to read Thomas to mean that virtual being
is literally and unequivocally a mode of being between actual
being and potential being would be to claim that Thomas is
making a mistake similar to that of Averroes when he posited the
being of the elements in a mixture to be between accidental and
substantial being. In both cases the distinction would be ad hoc
and probably a contradiction in terms, so if one insists on
describing presence by power as a third mode of existence
between potency and act, he may do so only by making severe

37 "White" signifies an affective quality or a disposition, while "body" signifies a secondary
substance.

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

qualifications of this expression. 38 Properly speaking, this
description is inaccurate, and so one should avoid it.
The only logical possibilities, then, are that the elements in
mixtures exist either in act or in potency-and, because Thomas
explicitly rules out the former, the latter is the only option.
Hence, virtual presence must at its root be a kind of potential
existence. Indeed, the word virtus itself suggests this inasmuch as
it is the translation of dunamis
in the De Generatione
et Corruptione passage Thomas quotes above. Dunamis itself may
be translated as "potentiality," "possibility," "capability," and of
course "power," and the shades of difference in meaning found
among each of these alternatives makes translation difficult. 39
However, we can rule out at least one very restricted use of the
word dunamis in the present context: the word is not intended to
refer to the technical name of the second species of quality in
Aristotle's Categories, 40 for at least some of the "powers" or
"capabilities" of the elements include heat and frigidity, which fall
into the third species of quality. 41 Hence, the use of dunamis (and
virtus) Thomas understands to be implied here is broader in its
scope.
38 Although it is clear from his numerous works on related matters that Wallace has a very
penetrating understanding of St. Thomas on virtual presence, he chooses this infelicitous
expression on at least one occasion, saying that Thomas "took a middle position [between
those of Avicenna and Averroes], that the elements were present in compounds neither
actually nor potentially, but virtually.... Although real, however, [an elementary particle]
is not fully actual, nor is it merely potential; rather it has a virtual existence" (Wallace, "Are
the Elementary Particles Real?", 179). Peter Hoenen likes to say that "the forms of the
elements are not present in pure potency nor in act, but virtually" (Peter Hoenen, S.J., The
Philosophical Nature of Physical Bodies [the first and second parts of book 4 of the
Cosmologia], trans. David J. Hassel, S.J. [West Baden Springs, Ind.: West Baden College
Press, 1955], 39 [emphasis added]). The modifier "pure" helps to ameliorate the ambiguity
insofar as it specifies that the kind of potency we are ruling out is that proper to prime
matter, as Hoenen goes on to say (see ibid., 40-45).
39 Note that because virtus is a translation of ouvaµtc;;, not of OpETTj, it is less fitting to
translate virtus as "virtue," a word which in English suggests moral excellence and would be
inappropriate in a discussion about inorganic substances. However, the notion of excellence
will be relevant in our discussion of the blending of the elemental qualities. Indeed, there is
an etymological connection between virtus in the sense of power and virtus in the sense of
moral virtue inasmuch as virtus comes from vir, "man"; virtus implies "manliness,"
"courage," and "strength."
4°Categories 8.9al4-28.
41 Ibid., 8.9a29-10a10.

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285

However, the fact that dunamis can be translated as
potentiality and possibility suggests another question: does saying
that an element is virtually present in a mixed substance mean
nothing more than that it is within the pure potentiality of the
mixture to corrupt into that element again? Is Thomas saying
simply that it is physically possible-that is, nothing more than
"not impossible" -for the mixed substance to perish at some time
and thereby to produce the elements from which it originally
came to be? This would appear to say little more than that the
mixed substance, having prime matter as a constituent principle
in it, can in principle corrupt into any physical substance. What
is virtually present, then, would be simply what is within the pure
potentiality of the primary matter of a physical substance.
This is obviously not what Thomas has in mind. If it were,
then there would be no need to give a new name-presence "by
power" -for such a kind of potential being, and this sort of
potentiality would not be peculiar to the relationship of a mixture
with its constituent elements. If by calling something virtually
present in something else we mean simply that the former "has
the power" to be generated from the latter, then not only are the
elements virtually present in the mixture, but also one element is
virtually present in another element, since the elements can
transform into each other. In fact, on this account a mixture
would be virtually present in an element, since the latter can
become the former (e.g., water can become wine). However, as
Thomas never speaks in such a way, it is clear that he restricts the
doctrine of virtual presence to the presence of elements (or
simpler substances) in mixtures (or more complex substances). 42
Earth is said to be present by power in metal, the plant soul in the
animal soul, 43 and the lesser number in the greater, 44 but not vice
42 Aristotle himself is clear about this when he discusses elemental presence in mixtures,
when he brings up presence ouv<iµe1, "by power" or "by potency," for the sake of
distinguishing mixtures from elemental change. See De Generatione et Corruptione,
2. 7.334b8-30.
43 See Quodl. I, a. 6; De Unitate Intellectus, par. 49; STh I, q. 76, a. 4, corpus and ad 5.
I will say more about what one might call "psychic virtual presence" in the concluding
section.
44 See Quodl. I, a. 6, corpus and ad 1; STh I, q. 76, a. 3. See also Aristotle, De Anima,
2.3.414b19-32.

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

versa. So it is clear that he does not mean that the elements are
present in a manner of pure potentiality-the way we say prime
matter is potential, and indifferent, with respect to every material
form-when he says the elements remain virtute.
If virtual presence does not mean that the elemental substantial
forms are actually in the mixed substance and if it does not mean
simply that they are within the pure potentiality of the prime
matter of the mixture, then Thomas means something in between
these two extremes of actual being and purely potential being. On
these things, I should note, there is little disagreement in the
literature interpreting St. Thomas. However, there are shades of
disagreement concerning the further specification of the doctrine,
which I will discuss as I expound Thomas's account.

IV. PRESENCE BY POWER
Let us return, then, to the discussion of Thomas's and
Aristotle's respective choices of the words virtus and dunamis.
According to Thomas, if an element is virtually present-present
"by power" -in a mixture, while its substance is not actually
present, its powers are preserved. When he says the "powers" or
"abilities" are preserved, this word may signify any number of
attributes or properties of the element; in fact, the very
opposition Thomas draws between the elemental powers
(preserved) and the elemental substantial forms (not preserved)
suggests both that these powers are actualities and that the word
is being used to refer to accidental forms indiscriminately. 45 This
interpretation seems to be supported, and somewhat specified, by
Thomas's description of how the qualities of the elements exist in
the mixture, for as he lays the foundation for his doctrine of
virtual presence he notes that

45 I use the word "accident" in a broad sense to include not only attributes that are purely
incidental and transient-as when one says that "in the Agora" or "blushing" are accidents
of Socrates-but also those that are peculiar and predicable only of one species-as when one
says that "risible" is an accident of Socrates. Simply put, by "accident" I mean anything that
is not a primary substance or its substantial form. See the distinction between kinds of
accidents in De PrincipiisNaturae, c. 2, par. 343; and De Ente et Essentia, c. 7.

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287

It should be considered, then, that the active and passive qualities of the
elements are contrary to each other and admit of more and less. Moreover,
from contrary qualities that admit of more or less can be constituted a mean
[intermediate] quality that savors of the nature of each extreme, such as grey
between white and black and tepid between hot and cold [do]. Therefore, with
the excellences of the elementary qualities having been so remitted, a certain
mean quality is constituted from these which is a proper quality of the mixed
body.46

The powers referred to as being preserved in the mixture appear,
then, to be the active and passive qualities that differentiate the
elements and allow them to act upon each other. Thomas seems
to be using "power" in a way that coincides with the fundamental
notion of dunamis Aristotle offers in the Metaphysics, namely, a
"principle of change in another thing or in the thing itself as
other." 47
However, it would be premature to conclude from this that
virtual presence is simply a combination of the potential presence
of the substantial forms of the elements and an actual presence of
the elemental qualities. As Thomas says, the active and passive
elemental qualities, being contraries, can be present in the mixture
only in the way that extremes are present in a mean; whatever
this latter expression means exactly, we must at least say that
these qualities are not actually present, lest we deny the principle
of non-contradiction. Thomas would then be saying that a
substance composed of fire and earth would be both actually dry
46 "Considerandum est igitur quod qualitates activae et passivae elementorum contrariae
sunt ad invicem, et magis et minus recipiunt. Ex contrariis autem qualitatibus quae recipiunt
magis et minus, constitui potest media qualitas quae sapiat utriusque extremi naturam, sicut
pallidum inter album et nigrum, et tepidum inter calidum et frigidum. Sic igitur remissis
excellentiis qualitatum elementarum, constituitur ex his quaedam qualitas media quae est
propria qualitas corporis mixti" (De Mixt. Elem., II. 123-32). See also STh I, q. 76, a. 4, ad
4; and ScG IV, c. 81. Note that he also says that the elements "remain in power, as Aristotle
says. This is inasmuch as the proper accidents of the elements remain with respect to a certain
mode [i.e., moderation], in which the power of the elements remains" (De Anima, a. 9, ad 10
[emphasis added]).
47
fonv dpxl] µETaf3oAi'jr; f.v W.J.41 UW.J.o" (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 9.1.1046a10).
Wallace's interpretation of the plural of dunamis and virtus as "powers of action" (Wallace,
"Are the Elementary Particles Real?", 179) is then fairly accurate. Schneider's "accidental
forces" (Schneider, "The Anachronism of Certain Neothomistic Physical Doctrines," 164)
interpretation of virtutes in De Mixt. Elem., I. 146, conveys the sense to a certain degree but
it certainly is not a good translation.

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and actually moist, one composed of water and air both actually
hot and actually cold. 48
Nor can we, to avoid this incoherence, say that one part of the
mixture is actually hot and another actually cold, for Thomas and
Aristotle understand inanimate mixtures to be perfect blends,
homogeneous substances. Each of the parts of such mixtures,
then, must be like the others; this means that each part shares not
only in specifically and numerically one substantial form, but also
in specifically and numerically one active or passive qualitative
form-the mixture properly speaking has one temperature and
one degree of moisture. It is true that Thomas sometimes classifies
organisms among mixtures, and that these are obviously
heterogeneous (for example, some parts of an organism are more
moist than others). 49 However, the primary concern in the
doctrine of the virtual presence of the elements is their
preservation in a homogeneous mixture, what Aristotle calls a
"homoeomer" (oµotoµt::ptjc;). 5° For the elements are only
indirectly components of organisms-the matter from which a
man is produced is seed and menses, not earth, air, fire and
water-but are directly the components of homogeneous
mixtures, which can thereby be disposed to serve as the matter of
organisms. Hence, we are again forced back to some manner of
potential existence, this time for the elemental qualities.51
48 For "contraries ... cannot belong at the same time to the same thing" (Aristotle,
Metaphysics, 4.6.1011b17; seealso4.4.1005b36-32; and5.10.1018a25-38). Schneider voices
a similar warning, or rather a complaint (Schneider, "The Anachronism of Certain
Neothomistic Physical Doctrines," 164). In the medieval account (adopted from Aristotle)
of the four fundamental elemental qualities corresponding to the four terrestrial elements,
fire is hot and dry, air is moist and hot, water is cold and moist, and earth is dry and cold.
The order of the predicates is not arbitrary; fire and air are both hot, but fire is hotter and
heat distinguishes it more than air. See Bobik,Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements,
144-82 and 252-83.
49 For example, see De Caelo et Mundo III, lect. 8.
50 See Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione, 1.5.321b17-22; 1.10.328a3- l 4; and 2. 7-

8.
51 Aristotle is explicit in calling this a mode of potential presence: "When one [contrary
quality] exists simply in act, the other exists in potency [liuvciµEL];when, however, it is not
wholly so, but [relatively] hot-cold or cold-hot, because in being mixed things destroy each
other's excesses, then ... neither of the contraries will exist simply in act, but something
intermediate which, inasmuch as it is in potency more hot than cold (or vice versa), is
proportionately twice (or three times or such) as hot in potentiality as cold" (Aristotle, De

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289

However, again we must distinguish: the elemental qualities
are not potentially present in the intermediate quality in an
unqualified potentiality. The elemental qualities do not survive
the mixing, but neither are they wholly corrupted. As Thomas
puts it, the quality proper to the mixture "savors" or "has the
flavor of" 52 the qualities of the elements. Just as the taste of
something bitter is apparent in the flavor of something bittersweet, and sweetness in sweet-and-sour pork, so are the qualities
of elements readily apparent in the intermediate or mean quality
proper to the mixed substance.
Thomas's analogy with mixed colors 53 illustrates the same
point: one can almost see the presence of black and white in the
color grey, and if (per impossibile)someone had never seen the
color grey or a particular shade of grey he could immediately
identify the extremes blended in this mixture. 54 This is why grey
Generatione et Corruptione, 2.7.334b9-16 [emphasis added]). Similarly, Thomas says that
"the mixture itself does not have in actuality something of those things which came together
in its mixing [i.e., the elemental forms and qualities], but in potency only fpotentia tantum ]"
(Metaphys. I, lect. 12).
52 "sapiat" (De Mixt. Elem., I. 127). Phillips likes to say that the elemental powers are
themselves virtually present in the mixed substance (Phillips, Philosophy of Nature, 134 and
144-45). Although the reason for wanting to speak this way is understandable, this is an
unfortunate way of describing the matter because it amounts to saying that the powers of the
elements are present in the mixture by their powers being present. Since there is little
illumination in this manner of speaking, we should restrict the designation of "virtual
presence" to the elements themselves, not to their powers themselves.
53 See De Mixt. Elem., II. 128-29, quoted above. This is drawn from Aristotle, De Sensu
et Sensato, 3.439b18-440b25.
54 This is very similar to the lone exception to absolute empiricism that Hume makes:
"Suppose, therefore, a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years, and to have become
perfectly acquainted with colors of all kinds, except one particular shade of blue, for instance,
which it never has been his fortune to meet with. Let all the different shades of that color,
except that single one be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the
lightest; it is plain, that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is wanting, and will be
sensible, that there is a greater distance in that place between the contiguous colors than in
any other. Now I ask, whether it be possible for him, from his own imagination, to supply
this deficiency, and raise up himself the idea of that particular shade though it had never been
conveyed to him by his senses? I believe there are few but will be of opinion that he can"
(David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding [2d ed.; Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing, 1993], sect. 2, pp. 12-13). Though Hume is suggesting that we can almost see the
mean in the extremes, while Thomas is saying that we can almost see the extremes in the
mean, nonetheless the parallel is obvious. Even the staunch empiricist admits an exception
to the basis of his philosophy because of the manifest nature of this case.

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is sometimes defined as light-black or darkened-white, depending
on the shade. Hence, in commenting on Aristotle's discussion of
the mixture of sensible qualities, Thomas says that "those things
which are mixed together obscure each other. "55 Notice that
Thomas says that colors obscure (obscurant) each other, not that
they are hidden by (latent) or completely eclipse (occultant) each
other. 56 Hence, black and white are known to be present in grey
not only from the experience of grey yielded from mixing the two
together, but from a simple observation of the color itself.
Similarly, Thomas is suggesting, the presence of each of the
elemental qualities in the intermediate seems to be readily
apparent to the discerning eye. This is clear again with the case of
hot and cold in tepid, 57 which-unlike black and white in
grey-is not just an analogy but is a real example of the blending
of elemental qualities. Lukewarm water is sometimes described as
cold and at other times as warm, depending on what use one is
going to make of it-cold when one wants a bath, warm if one
wants to fill a vase of roses. So Thomas means nothing vague or
mystical (and certainly nothing dubious) in suggesting that we can
discern the elemental qualities in their intermediate; rather, he is
appealing to a manifest matter of experience. We can recognize
the intermediate quality as intermediate, that is, as an actual
quality in its own right that is at the same time a sort of balance
or equilibrium 58 between two extreme qualities. The extreme
ss "ea quae comrniscentur obscurant se invicem" (De Sensu et Sensato, c. 7). This is a
summary of Aristotle at De Sensu et Sensato, 7.447a14-33.
s6 Obscurant is also Moerbeke's translation of a<j>avtl;EtV(at 447a22) which could mean
either "to conceal" or "to obscure."
57 See De Mixt. Elem., II. 129-130, quoted above.
58 One is tempted to say "tension," but this choice of words seems a little too
Empedoclean and violent sounding for what is really a natural unity, or synthesis. Today we
might call it a bipartisan compromise or resolution.
One might go even further and draw an analogy between the extreme elemental qualities'
presence in the mean quality of the mixture and the relationship between contrary extreme
habits, called "vices," and the mean habit between them, called "virtue," The virtue of
courage is not a combination of being alternately rash and cowardly, or in feeling an inner
struggle in which one desires both to run away and to dash into the fray. The courageous man
is not in inner turmoil because his intellect and his passions are harmonized; he recognizes
the danger of performing an action but also knows that the common good must be served in
protecting the city. Similarly, a mean quality in a mixed substance is one quality that is a
perfection and union of two opposed qualities that nonetheless coexist (in potency)

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degree of the quality of the element is not preserved but the
quality itself is inasmuch as the mean quality has a "share of the
natures of each" extreme. 59
To make the nature of this sort of tempering of the extremes
a little more concrete, Thomas continues, saying that the
intermediate quality proper to a mixed substance
differs in diverse [mixtures] according to the diverse proportions of [elements
in] the mixture. And this quality is indeed the proper disposition to the form
of the mixed body just as the simple quality is to the form of the simple body.
Therefore, just as the extremes are found in the mean which shares in the
nature of each, so the qualities of the simple bodies are found in the proper
quality of the mixed body. 60

Naturally, there is a ratio among the parts or respective
concentrations of the elements in the mixture and this ratio is
proper to each species of mixture. 61 Thus, the more one element
harmoniously in the mixture. On a virtue as a disposition or quality that is the perfection of
an imbalanced or extreme power, see STh I-II, q. 49, a. 1; STh I-II, q. 55, aa. 1 and 3. On
Aristotle's general doctrine on the composition of intermediates from their contraries, see
Metaphysics, 10.7.1057a18-29.
-' 9 "participat naturam utriusque" (De Mixt. Elem., I. 138). Bobik says cryptically that "it
is not at all necessary for this mean quality to be anything at all like either of the extreme
qualities; it may turn out to be a surprise of some sort, even a complete surprise" (Bobik,
Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements, 123-24). How a quality can be intermediate
between two extreme qualities and yet be nothing like them is mystifying to me. How could
we discern the extremes in the mean at all if this is possible? Looking at the color grey we
would not be certain that it isn't a mean between purple and green.
60 "differens tamen in diversis secundum diversam mixtionis proportionem; et haec
quidem qualitas est propria dispositio ad formam corporis mixti, sicut qualitas simplex ad
formam corporis simplicis. Sicut igitur extrema inveniuntur in medio quod participat naturam
utriusque, sic qualitates simplicium corporuminveniuntur in propria qualitate corporis mixti"
(De Mixt. Elem., II. 133-40). See also ScG III, c. 22, pars. 7 and 8; IV Sent., d. 44, q. 1, a. 1,
qcla. 1, ad 4; and Quodl. 10, a. 3, ad 2.
61 The difference in quality, then, is in a sense due to a difference in quantity (see
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 10.7). This fact is of prime importance to anyone trying to articulate
how the Aristotelian-Thomistic account of elemental combination fits with contemporary
science and atomic theory. Many have recognized this and done just that (see, for example,
Bobik,Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements, 121-26, Hoenen, Philosophical Nature
of Physical Bodies, 65-74, Kane, "Recent Views of the Constitution of Matter," 72-74, and
Phillips, Philosophy of Nature, 144-50). One might call this the ancient "law of fixed
proportions." In any case, it should be noted this is not necessarily an atomistic account of
the mixing of the elements. One can speak of two quantities having a ratio but not thereby
corresponding to a number of discrete particles. Indeed, two continuous quantities could be

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predominates in a mixture, the more the qualities of the mixture
will resemble those of that element. 62 While the substantial forms
of the elements corrupt in their own proper and actual existence,
the ratio of these parts that go into the production of this mixing
bowl, as it were, is fixed and is the proper disposition of the new
substance.
Before completing his explanation of virtual presence in De
Mixtione Elementorum, Thomas makes a further point about how
the elements are present in the mixed substance by their powers
somehow being preserved. This is worth adding if we are to give
a full account of virtual presence. He notes that
while the quality of a simple body is indeed other than its substantial form, it
nonetheless acts in virtue [i.e., in the power] of its substantial form; otherwise
heat would only be able to make things hot, and by its action a substantial form
would not be educed into actuality (since nothing acts beyond its species).
Thus, therefore, the powers of the substantial forms of the simple bodies are
preserved in mixed bodies. 63

incommensurable (and therefore necessarily non-atomistic) and still bear a ratio to one
another.
62 Indeed, if the ratio of one component to another is exceedingly high, Thomas
(following Aristotle) thinks that not only is the mixture simply referred to by the name of the
predominant component, but in fact (if a certain threshold ratio is breached) the substantial
form of this component consumes that of the more diffuse component form. For example,
a mixture of water and a drop of wine is really just water (although the water now acquires
some of the qualities of the wine to some extremely mild, usually indiscernible, degree). The
opposite occurs if the wine predominates by far and the water is diffuse. See Aristotle, De
GenerationeetCorruptione,l.5.321a33-b3; l.10.328a23-32,andThomas'scommentaryDe
Generationeet Corruptione,lect. 14.
63 "Qualitas autem simplicis corporis est quidem aliud a forma substantiali ipsius, agit
tamen in virtute formae substantialis; alioquin calor calefaceret tantum, non autem per eius
actionem forma substantialis educeretur in actum, cum nihil agat ultra suam speciem. Sic
igitur virtutes formarum substantialium simplicium corporum in corporibus mixtis salvantur"
(De Mixt. Elem., II. 140-47). Elsewhere he makes a similar comment about the meaning of
presence "by power": "the power of the substantial form [of the element] remains in the
elementary quality, allowing that it has been remitted and as it were reduced [redacta] to a
mean. For the elementary quality acts in the power [in virtute] of the substantial form, and
otherwise the action which is done through the heat of fire would not terminate at the
substantial form [of fire being educed]" (Quodl. I, q. 4, a. 6, ad 3). On the manner in which
mixtures or elements bring about substantial changes through alteration, see Sfh III, q. 7, a.
12; IV Sent., d. 44, q. 1, a. 1, qcla. 1, ad 4; Quodl. I, a. 6, ad 2; X, a. 3, ad 2.

ELEMENT AL VIRTUAL PRESENCE

293

Thomas, perhaps having in mind the fact that certain rubbing
motions of sticks or the scraping of flint and steel can produce
fire, draws the conclusion of the final sentence by means of an
implied minor premise. The syllogism is as follows: fire is able to
induce another body to combust only by virtue (i.e., by the
power) 64 of its substantial form in it; certain mixed substances can
induce other bodies to combust; therefore, these mixed substances
do this only by virtue (i.e., by the power) of the substantial form
of fire in them. Somehow the virtue or power of the fire to cause
combustion is present in substances that have fire as one of their
elemental constituents. And, like other qualities, this power or
virtue exists in the mixed substance to a remitted or tempered
degree. Thus, the most distinctive and most significant activity
that a fire can perform can also be performed, albeit less readily
and to a lesser degree, by what has fire in it. Hence, the virtue or
power of the element fire that is preserved in the mixture is not
only the active quality heat (tempered by its contrary, cold), but
also fire's ability to induce combustion which derives from its
substantial form.
Thus, Thomas's answer to the question of how the elements
exist in a mixed substance is that they exist by their powers
existing, and this means that their substantial forms in and of
themselves do not exist in actuality, and in fact neither do their
active and passive qualities, at least not to their full
"excellence. " 65 Speaking most properly, both are preserved only
in potentia, although I add that the preservation of the elemental
powers is both more evident and less potential than that of the
elemental substantial forms. 66 For (as I argued above) not only is
64 Alternately, "under the influence" or "guidance," as Bobik puts it (Bobik, Aquinas on
Matter and Form and the Elements, 124-25).
65 See De Mixt. Elem., I. 130.
66 Emphasizing that virtual presence is a kind of potential presence, Bobik summarizes St.
Thomas's account by taking an example from modern chemistry, saying that "hydrogen and
oxygen are not there actually, though they are there potentially-and in two senses of
'potentially': 1) virtually (by their power), and 2) retrievably" (Bobik, Aquinas on Matter and
Form and the Elements, 125). I have not focused as much on the retrievability of the elements
because St. Thomas does not focus on it in his explanation of virtual presence (although it is
certainly implied). The second difficulty I will point out in the concluding section, revolves,
at least in part, around the significance of elemental retrievability.

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

the presence of the elemental qualities evident to sense-unlike
that of the elemental substantial forms in the mixture-but the
substantial forms are there only virtute, that is, only by means of
their powers. We know the former are preserved because we know
that the latter are preserved, although technically both are
preserved only potentially, the elemental substantial form because
there can be only one actual substantial form of one substance,
and the elemental powers because opposed qualities cannot exist
in one (homogeneous) subject at the same time. 67
I will add one more comment to make a little dearer how the
power of the dement can be preserved potentially (in an
intermediate) but preserved nonetheless with a higher grade of
actuality-and therefore a greater degree of evidence-than the
elemental substantial form. It can be said that in some mixtures
the presence of elements is more evident than in others-one
might say that the virtual presence is stronger in them. For, if one
element predominates
a mixture (providing it does not
consume the other element[ s]),68 the proper quality of the mixture
wiH be very dose to that of the element. For example, the
medievals readily inferred that water predominates in glass
because of its transparency, its coolness to the touch, and its

However, it seems to me that Bobik is not dear enough that the qualities or powers of the
elements exist themselves in a sort of potentiality. He frequently (see ibid,, 124-25) refers to
the elemental forms as corrupted and the elemental qualities as preserved, and while this is
true in the sense explained above, it is not true without qualification because this language
sounds as if the elemental qualities are preserved in act. However, this is to a certain degree
a matter of emphasis.
It is interesting to note that the interpretation of Aristotle offered by at least one nonThornist concerning elemental presence in a mixture seems almost identical to that of St.
Thomas: "(a) Fire, Earth, Air, and Water are present in a chemical compound only by ability
(dynamei) [virtute], i.e., in virtue of the possession by the compound of intermediate abilities
of the same kinds of [sic, as?] the maximal abilities which are peculiar to the heat of Fire and
Air, the cold of Earth and Water, the dryness of Fire and Earth, and the wetness of Air and
Water; (b) The presence by ability of an element in a compound consists of (nothing more
than) the possession by the compound of the relevant non-maximal abilities" Games Bogen,
"Fire in the Belly: Aristotelian Elements, Organisms, and Chemical Compounds," Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly 76 [1995]: 379).
67 On how the elements mix inasmuch as their qualities mix, see De Partibus Animalium,
2.1.646a12-24; also see Fine, "The Problem of Mixture," 304-5.
68 See note 62 above.

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295

smoothness (reducible in part to moisture). 69 Although it possesses
none of these to the degree that water does (water is a better
medium of sight, is cooler, and is obviously more moist), it is not
unreasonable to say that glass is, for example, transparent,
without making any further qualification. This quality of the
element seems to be preserved almost wholly intact; it is more
actual than, say, the slight grade of opacity the glass has from the
earth that is in it. 70 While we can say of the water's substantial
form as such that it exists in the glass simply in potency,
nevertheless its powers are stronger, more actual in the glass, and
so by these powers-virtute-water's presence is stronger. 71
V. REMAINING QUESTIONS

Despite my elucidation of Thomas's account of virtual
presence, most of which has been said before by others, there
remain points about which there has been much debate in making
sense of both St. Thomas and Aristotle on this matter. 72 Hence,
what I have offered is at best only the foundation of an
interpretation of Thomas's account of virtual presence. However,
to point the way wherein more work needs to be done, I will
conclude by noting two disputes on the nature of the preservation
of the elements in mixtures according to Thomas and Aristotle.
69 Glass even takes its name from glacies, "ice" (contrary to myth, Aristotle did not take
ice to be substantially different from water; see Meteorology, 1.11.347b15, where he says that
snow, frost, and rain-water are all the same substance, "differing only in degree and
amount"). Note that even contemporary science classifies glass as a liquid because of its lack
of integrity over time-that is, its ability to flow (albeit, very slowly). This amorphous
character is observable in old windows (e.g., stained glass in old churches) that appear warped
and "runny."
70 On the intrinsic opacity of earth, see Aquinas, De Sensu et Sensato, c. 5.
71 On the grades of potentiality in a mixed substance according to St. Thomas, see ScG III,
c. 22; De Potentia, q. 3, a. 4, ad 14 and 16; and XIIMetaphys., lect. 2. Hoenen uses language
similar to mine in describing virtual presence: "In the compound the forms of determined
elements are not in pure potency, but in potency which approaches the act of elements"
(Hoenen, Philosophical Nature of Physical Bodies, 42; see also 48-49).
72 It is unfortunate that neo-Scholastics-focused
as they are on making sense of St.
Thomas, sometimes forgetting his self-identification as a disciple of Aristotle-and
analysts-who long ago set aside the medievals as less-than-critical interpreters of the
Philosopher-do not pool their resources and compare notes in this discussion. Much could
be gained on both sides, and perhaps many exegetical matters could be resolved.

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

First of all, can one say that an element existing potentially or
virtually in a mixture is the same in number with the element that
went into the change? Or-since this is somewhat misleading, and
since one wonders what it would mean for something to have
potential numerical unity--can the very same piece of earth that
went into the mixture be yielded out of it upon the corruption of
the mixture? On Aristotelian-Thomistic principles, one's inclination should be to answer in the negative,73 but the fact that there
has been some dispute about this should give one pause. 74
This question obviously owes part of its motivation to the
contemporary atomistic viewpoint, for therein one tends to think
of atoms as particles that move from one molecular composition
to another: as it is sometimes put poetically, "we are each made
of stardust." The atomist, and even a Thomist trying to overcome
modern atomistic prejudices, will imagine and speak of the atoms
as though they retained their numerical identity throughout their
existence. 75 However, one should recall that, if properly
understood, 76 the idea of atomic building blocks is not opposed
to Aristotle's or St. Thomas's understanding of elemental
73 Aristotle is fairly clear on this: "This again is where the investigation begins: do all
things return on themselves in the same way, or not, but rather some in number and some in
form only? It is evident that those whose substance ... is imperishable will be the same in
number ... but those whose substance, on the contrary, is perishable must necessarily return
on themselves in form, not in number. That is why water from air and air from water is the
same in form, but not in number, and if these too are the same in number, still they are not
things whose substance comes to be, the sort, namely, that is capable of not being" (De
Generatione et Corruptione, 2.11.338b12-19). This translation is taken from Aristotle's De
Generatione et Corruptione, trans. C. J. F. Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982),
59. On numerical unity in general, see Aristotle, Metaphysics, 3.4.999b28-1000a4;
5.6.1016b32-1017a3.
74 Cohen, for example, promotes the idea of numerical unity. See Cohen, Aristotle on
Nature and Incomplete Substance, 91-93, and 99.
75 One should be careful about identifying the atomistic view with the reality of the
situation. Quantum theory seems to demand that this intuitive inclination to tag atoms with
numerical identity throughout their various alterations and interactions be resisted and even
discarded. Scientists are finding themselves hesitant to say anything about atoms when they
aren't actually being measured. There is a sea of literature on this topic; from a Thomistic
viewpoint, see Wallace, "Are the Elementary Particles Real?", 171-83; idem, "Elementarity
and Reality in Particle Physics," in From a Realist Point of View, 185-212; Edward
Mac.Kinnon, S.J., "Atomic Physics and Reality," Modern Schoolman 38 (1960): 37-59.
76 That is, if and only if atoms are understood not to have actually distinct substantial
forms while in the mixed substance; they can possess only virtual existence.

ELEMENTAL VIRTUAL PRESENCE

297

combination; their doctrine of natural minima should settle that
question. 77
This leads us to the second difficulty. If an element does not
maintain its numerical identity after becoming a part of a mixture,
one starts to wonder in what way virtual presence preserves the
elements in any significant sense. On this matter one finds two
main camps in the secondary literature: on the one hand, those
who interpret Thomas (and Aristotle) to be promoting a watereddown and almost metaphorical sense in which the elements exist
in the mixture, and, on the other, those who find a more tangible
and "full-blooded" account of the same.
The controversy revolves around a distinction between
whether virtual presence means that the elements are
"constitutionally" or merely "genetically" present in the
mixture. 78 While there are sometimes significant nuances that
distinguish their particular positions, Wallace, Cohen, and Fine
fall into the former camp, 79 while Maier, Schneider, Gill, Bogen,
n See Aristotle, Physics, 1.4.187b13-22 and b30-37; De Caelo, l.9.278bl-3. Also see
Thomas's commentary, I Phys., lect. 9. For discussions of natural minima in Thomas and the
other medievals, see Wallace," Are the Elementary Particles Real?", 177-79, especially nn. 14
and 15; and Anneliese Maier, Die Vorlaufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert (Rome: Edixioni di
Storia e Letteratura, 1949), 179-90. Oddly, Maier seems to think that the ideas of atoms and
of natural minima are unconnected, at least among the medievals; see Maier, On the
Threshold of Exact Science, 130 n. 5.
78 I draw these terms from Schneider, "The Anachronism of Certain Neothomistic
Physical Doctrines," 164-68. Among the Aristotle scholars, Bogen refers to the former as
"component realism" (Bogen, "Fire in the Belly," 388-89). Fine holds for the elements as
"concurrent ingredients" in the mixture (Fine, "The Problem of Mixture," 276).
79 See Wallace, "Are the Elementary Particles Real?", 177-79; Cohen, Aristotle on Nature
and Incomplete Substance, 90-98; and Fine, "The Problem of Mixture," 266-370, esp. 27385. Cohen's position is a bit difficult to categorize, especially his notion of "ontological
sabbatical"; he sometimes says that "on my view, the compound ["mixture" in our languageJ
... consists of elements bereft of their natural dispositions" (98 n. 69), which sounds a lot
like actual presence. Nonetheless, I think Cohen is more in line with the constitutional
account than the genetic one; in any case, he thinks that his interpretation differs from that
of St. Thomas, which he thinks is equivalent to Gill's, a genetic interpretation (see ibid., 90,
98 n. 69). He also believes that the genetic interpretation of Aristotle is "probably the most
plausible one" (ibid., 90), despite his own inclinations and speculations.
As regards other members of this division, some (e.g., Hoenen and Phillips) are difficult
to categorize because they do not address the problem explicitly. However, I suspect that
both lean more in the direction of the constitutional account (see Hoenen, Philosophical
Nature of Physical Bodies, 70-72, and Phillips, Philosophy of Nature, 144-46).

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

and Needham fall into the latter. 80 The question depends on
whether it is accurate to say that the elements are component or
integral parts; those who say the elements are constitutive of the
mixture say yes, while those on the genetic side say no. To use the
words of a member of the former camp, "one can say that an
elementary particle is a part of a physical body .... Part is to be
taken to be correlative with whole . . . [and hydrogen and
oxygen] are fully real as its [water's] parts .... [an element is] a
real part of such a body, as an integral component." 81 On the
bther side, the claim is that the elements are not components;
they are ingredients in the mixture only in the sense that it came
to be out of these elements and they will corrupt back into these
elements. Thus, virtual presence merely defines where the mixture
came from and what it will later on become. A mixture is simply
a substance that is disposed to corrupt into certain things rather
than just anything, and thus the elements are in it simply in the
sense that they are that into which the mixture will break down. 82
I suspect that a definitive determination of what Thomas
would say in this matter will require a careful study of how he
uses the words "in," "part," and "whole," and so the natural
places to focus would be his commentaries on Physics 4.3 and
Metaphysics 5.23-26. 83 Depending on how this question is
80 See Maier, On the Threshold of Exact Science, 138-39; Schneider, "The Anachronism
of Certain Neothomistic Physical Doctrines," 164-66; Gill, "Matter against Substance," 393;
Bogen, "Fire in the Belly," 384-86, 389-90; and Needham," Aristotelian Chemistry," 262-69.
Each of these has a slightly different position. Many of the analytic philosophers believe that
Aristotle's elemental forms are nothing more than the combined active and passive
qualities-that is, they have no substantial forms. Nonetheless, this position, which is
obviously opposed to that of Thomas, will not affect the essence of the controversy.
81 Wallace, "Are the Elementary Particles Real?", 177, 179.
82 Cohen summarizes the genetic position by saying that the elements' "potential existence
amounts to nothing more than their recoverability" (Cohen, Aristotle on Nature and
Incomplete Substance, 91); this presence is a "genetic property," merely a "remark about its
[a mixture's] origins and ancestry" (ibid., 97). As Needham puts it, "Earth is, however, totally
absent from an Aristotelian mixt [sic].... Although there may be a sense in which a mixt
might be considered to be derived from, or decomposable into, elements they are not present
in the mixt, not even potentially" (Needham," Aristotelian Chemistry," 266, 269). Note that
Needham's final claim, that the elements are not even potentially present in the mixture, is
saying more than the others who stand by the genetic interpretation; there is a tendency for
this position to reduce to saying that the elements are not really preserved at all.
83 IV Phys., lect. 4; lect. 5; V Metaphys., lect. 20; lect. 21. See also STh II-II, q. 48, a. 1.

ELEMENTALVIRTIJAL PRESENCE

299

resolved, there is still the further question of whether or not
Thomas's position will be viable as an accurate description of the
physical world. For if the genetic account of virtual presence is
correct-and this is the more conservative reading, I think-and
this account follows from the Aristotelian-Thomistic conviction
that mixtures are homoeomers (i.e., every part is like every
part), 84 then Thomas's position may need modification. For, as
Hoenen puts it,
today no one can hold that tenet generally accepted because of defective
experimentation from the time of St. Thomas up to modern times, namely, the
tenet that for the most part inorganic compounds ... are homogeneous. Today
the heterogeneity of microstructure is established without a doubt. 85

However, Thomas frequently describes heterogeneous
substances-that is, the higher living things (which he even calls
mixtures on occasion) 86-as having not only inferior kinds of
souls, but even the elements in them virtute. 87 Hence,
heterogeneity is an impediment neither to substantial unity nor to
the virtual presence of the elements. 88
In any case, it is difficult to determine the truth of the matter
even with the measuring instruments we possess today, and one
should not be surprised at such difficulty in understanding
something that comes so close to prime matter in its nature (or
lack thereof). 89 At least we can say that we have made a good
84 This is held by both Bogen ("Fire in the Belly," 384-86) and Needham ("Aristotelian
Chemistry," 264-69).
85 Hoenen, Philosophical Nature of Physical Bodies, 49; see also ibid., 70-73.
86 See above, note 49.
87 See Quodl. I, q. 4, a. 6, corpus and ad 1; STh I, q. 76, aa. 3 and 4.
88 Hoenen agrees; Thomas and Aristotle "proposed no theoretical objections to it [i.e., the
heterogeneity of a substance]-this is impossible even on peripatetic principles .... Jn fact,
St. Thomas ... had some difficulty in trying to explain why specific heterogeneity was
present only in living beings and not in the inorganic" (Hoenen, Philosophical Nature of
Physical Bodies, 71). Phillips makes similar points (see Phillips, Philosophy of Nature, 14850).
89 As we delve into more and more fundamental material levels, we approach what is
closer and closer to primary matter, which has no actual properties in and of itself; it is pure
potentiality and essentially indeterminate. See ScG II, c. 90; STh III, q. 57, a. 4; Compendium
Theo/ogiae, c. 74. No doubt this is part of the reason for the so-called "quantum strangeness"
that permeates the data of particle physics nowadays. On this matter, see citations in notes
1and75.

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CHRISTOPHER DECAEN

beginning toward articulating St. Thomas's account of elemental
presence virtute, "by power," his resolution of a debate that is as
old as the Presocratics, and therefore as old as philosophy itself.

The Thomist 64 (2000): 301-8

REDUCTIONISM IN METAPHYSICS:
A MISTAKE IN LOGIC?
JOHN PETERSON
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, Rhode Island

ome philosophers say that all is G where G stands for either
matter, mind, or some neutral being. They thus make G the
highest or widest genus. These are materialists, idealists, and
neutral monists, respectively. Despite their differences, these
metaphysical reductionists succumb to the same dilemma. They
must either forego all difference in their worlds or else abandon
their worlds altogethero
In the first section of this paper I explain the dilemma and
show how it is solved. Then I raise and answer four objections to
the solution in the second section.
I

Materialists say that all is matter, idealists say that all is mind,
and neutral monists say that matter and mind are appearances of
some more basic stuff into the definition of which neither matter
nor mind enters. But any philosopher who says that all is G,
regardless of what G stands for, identifies G with the highest
genus. Otherwise he says that G falls under a wider genus, H.
And then he countenances the possibility that H has some species
besides G. When Thales says that all is water he makes water the
highest genus. Otherwise he says that water is a species of a
higher genus, H. And then he implies that possibly not all is
water.

301

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JOHN PETERSON

Put generally, if it is true that all is G then all difference within
G must be due to something besides G. No genus explains its own
differences, because difference is outside the definition of genus
and anything that is implied by genus. No sooner, then, do
philosophers who say that all is G recognize difference in their
worlds than they admit features about the world that fall outside
of G. Hegel once complained that Schelling's philosophy was a
night in which all cows were black. 1 Schelling might have replied
that that is the price all must pay who say with consistency that
all is G.
Materialists, then, make matter the highest genus. Otherwise
they countenance the possibility that what in fact is the highest
genus includes nonmatter as one of its species. But that is just
what they wish to exclude. In any case, if they recognize
difference in the world, materialists then swallow the
contradiction that all difference in matter is due to nonmatter.
They must therefore choose between denying all difference in
their world and abandoning their world entirely. Seeing this fork,
Descartes placed motion, the proximate cause of all difference in
the world, outside the definition of matter. And for him motion,
in turn, is introduced into the world by God. It might be going
too far to say that Descartes used God only to serve physics. But
that the father of modern philosophy left himself open to that
charge explains Pascal's quip that Descartes only needed God to
cause motion in the world.
Materialists cannot say that mind explains the differences
among material things without admitting something besides
matter-for example, mind. And then they are dualists and not
materialists. Nor can they say that a type (or types) of matter
explains those differences. Otherwise difference in matter
explains difference in matter. By definition, any type or species
includes a difference. If, then, a type (or types) of matter explains
difference in matter and that same type (or types) of matter
includes a difference, then we come to the circular argument that
difference in matter explains difference in matter.
1 G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind, trans.J. B. Baillie (London: Allen and Unwin,
1955), 79.

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303

Similarly, idealists cannot say that matter explains differences
among mental things without admitting something besides mind,
(i.e., matter). They then abandon idealism in favor of dualism.
But for the same reason as we saw before, they cannot say that a
type (or types) of mind explains difference within mind either.
Otherwise difference in mind explains difference in mind. If a
type (or types) of mind or mental activity explains difference in
the domain of mind and that same type (or types) of mind
includes a difference (since any type or species includes a
difference) then difference in the domain of mind explains
difference in the domain of mind. Thus, a perfect circle once
again accrues.
What holds for materialists and idealists also holds for neutral
monists. The latter hold that matter and mind are two features we
add on to reality which in itself is neither physical nor mental.
Recall James's paint which in a pot in a paint-shop is saleable
matter but on canvas represents a spiritual function. 2 Yet neutral
monists are still philosophers who say that all is G; it is just that
for them G refers to being that is neutral as between matter and
mind. They must therefore ascribe all difference we foist onto G
either to something besides G or to a type or species of G. But
suppose they do the former and say that all difference in G is
introduced by something besides G, say, mind. Then they
recognize mind as something distinct from G or neutral being.
Thus, they end up both affirming and denying that all is G. But
suppose they do the former and ascribe all difference that is
foisted on G to a type or species of G. Then there are two species
of G, namely, the type of G on which differences are foisted and
the type of G called mind that foists differences onto the first
type. But once again, since difference is outside genus, this
difference between the two types of G, neutral being, must be due
to something besides G. And then, since something else besides
neutral being is admitted, neutral monism collapses.
Neutral monists like James (and the early Russell) might
protest that this distorts their program. The diverse appearances
that neutral being gives off are grounded in neutral being. They
2 William James, "Does Consciousness Exist?" in Barbara MacKinnon, ed., American
Philosophy:A HistoricalAnthology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 245.

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JOHN PETERSON

are not just foisted onto it by us. But the counterreply is that the
difference makes no difference. If the various appearances have a
foundation in reality then neutral being is no bare identity but
itself contains differences, quite apart from any differences that
are introduced by us. But since difference is not due to genus, it
follows that some real thing besides neutral being causes these
differences within neutral being. And then neutral monism falls
again.
II

Joining forces, materialists, idealists, and neutral monists might
proffer four objections to our critique. First, suppose that
something outside matter, mind, or neutral being must be brought
in to explain the differences within matter, mind, and neutral
being, respectively. Then by parity of reasoning something
outside the genus animal must be invoked to explain the fact that
some animals are warm-blooded and others are not. But to hold
this is senseless. For an animal's being warm-blooded is due to its
being a mammal, yet being a mammal is evidently not something
that falls outside the genus animal. It follows that the objection to
monism is also senseless and our argument fails.
This objection confuses the intension of a genus with its
extension. Being a mammal does not fall outside the extension of
the genus animal any more than does being human. Otherwise it
would be false to say that mammals are animals. But mammality
as well as warm-bloodedness do fall outside the intension of the
genus animal. Otherwise all animals would be both mammals and
warm-blooded. It is the intension and not the extension of the
putatively ultimate genera of matter, mind, and the neutral stuff
that is concerned when it is claimed that, to explain difference
within those supposed ultimate genera, something outside those
genera must be invoked. What is meant is that something outside
the intension of those genera must be brought in to cover
difference within those genera.
Nevertheless, materialists, idealists and neutral monists, have
a second objection. Difference within matter, mind, or neutral
being, they might counter, is ultimate and irreducible. But since

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305

what is ultimate and irreducible is insusceptible of explanation,
then to try to account for difference in matter, mind, and neutral
being is from the start futile. So too is any attempt to explain
difference in those supposed ultimate genera. Since, then, the
argument falsely assumes that materialists, idealists and neutral
monists are obliged to cover difference in their respective worlds
when in point of fact they are not, it does not hold.
The evident reply to this is that nothing accidental is ultimate
and irreducible. Since bending is accidental to a bough, a bough's
bending is not ultimate and irreducible. It is due to something
external to the bough (viz., the wind). But difference, though
essential to species, is accidental to genus. And it is in its relation
to genus and not to species that difference is here taken.
Therefore, so far from being insusceptible of explanation, any
difference in the supposed ultimate genera of matter, mind, or
neutral being requires explanation. Therefore the dilemma still
stands. Either those differences in G are explained by a type of G
or by some substance besides G. Once again either circularity or
contradiction is incurred. It follows, therefore, that materialists,
idealists, and neutral monists are all caught between eliminating
all difference in their worlds and relinquishing their worlds
altogether.
A third objection is that our argument faces a dilemma of its
own. Without the idea of a highest genus it cannot prove anything
but with that idea it proves too much. The argument contends
that the highest genus cannot be identified with either material
substance, mental substance, or neutral substance, because when
differentiae are admitted either circularity or contradiction
accrues. But if that is so, then the highest genus cannot be
identified with any kind of substance without inviting the same
dilemma. Yet the irony is that the idea of a highest genus does
imply some all-embracing substance in which all things
participate. So either what is necessary for the argument (i.e., the
idea of a highest genus) is denied from the start or else the
argument proves too much.
' This third objection turns on an ambiguity in the word
'substance'. True, when the highest genus is identified with some
all-embracing kind of substance, the fork in which our argument

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JOHN PETERSON

was just placed is ineluctable; either a condition of the argument
(the idea of a highest genus) is denied or the argument proves too
much. But this dilemma fades as soon as 'substance' refers not to
a certain kind of thing but to substratum or substrate. For
substance in this sense is not a thing but a relation, the relation of
what is potential to what is actual. It is not a complete thing in its
own right but the potentiality in a thing to be the kind of thing it
is. Since substance in this Aristotelian sense of substrate belongs
to all things, substance is the highest genus. All things are said to
be substantial. To be sure, the differences among these things are
not due to a specific type (or types) of substance. Otherwise
specific difference is explained by specific difference and
circularity once again results. Instead, those differences are due to
something distinct from substance or potentiality altogether,
namely, to form or actuality.
Nor does saying that the difference comes from nonsubstance
this time contradict the claim that all things are substantial. It is
not at all like saying that all is matter, all is mind, or all is neutral
being. That is because neither substance nor nonsubstance is a
certain complete thing, as we saw matter, mind, and neutral being
are complete kinds of thing. For here substance is the potential
and nonsubstance is the actual. And so far from being complete
kinds of things in their own right, the potential and its actuation
are but two sides of a complete thing-in fact of every thing. That
being the case, one can consistently say both that all things are G
and that difference within G is due to non-G. For the actual is
distinct from the potential. If things are assayed into the potential
(G) and the actual (non-G) as distinct but incomplete aspects of
those things, then one consistently says both that all things are G
and that all differences in G are due to non-G.
The fourth and final objection is that our argument is selfdefeating. Having rejected materialism because it fails to cover
difference without either circularity or contradiction, our
proposed alternative only installs materialism. To say that things
are comprised of the potential and the actual is to say that they
are comprised of matter and form in Aristotle's sense of those
terms. But everyone knows that all such composites in Aristotle
are and must be quantified or spatial things. Thus we end up

REDUCTIONISM IN METAPHYSICS

307

saying with the materialist that all things are spatiaL Then, if we
once recognize difference in the world, we are placed on the
horns of that same dilemma of circularity or contradiction in
which we implicate all materialists. So our argument only
boomerangs on itself.
The reply to this final objection is that it fails to distinguish
saying that all things are spatial and saying that all there is is
spatial. One consistently believes that all things are spatial and
disbelieves that all there is is spatial just in case to be is not to be
a thing. But saying that things are composed of matter and form
makes only the narrower claim that all things are spatial and not
the wider claim that all there is is spatial. Thus, it is compatible
with saying that some being is nonspatial, just so long as the latter
is not being in the sense of a thing. But materialism is defined as
the broader view that all there is is spatial, be it a thing or a
nonthing. Since, therefore, our alternative is not wide enough to
be materialism, it is insusceptible of the dilemma of circularity or
contradiction in which all materialists who recognize difference
in the world are caught.
To sum up, reductionist metaphysicians cannot consistently
hold that all is G and cover differences in G. For to say that all is
G is to make G the highest genus and all difference falls outside
of genus. They must therefore choose between eliminating all
difference in their worlds and abandoning their worlds
altogether, conceding, after all, that not all is G. The only escape
from this dilemma is to identify G not with any actual thing but
with the potentiality to take on or become some kind of thing.
Then it can be consistently said that all things are G and that all
differences in Gare due to non-G.
Can it not be said, then, that materialism, idealism, neutral
monism, or for that matter any other reductivist metaphysics
feeds on a mistake in logic? And does not that error consist in
forcing a genus to supply its own differentiae? The implications
of doing this would be less alarming if the genus in question were
relatively proximate. But as is evidenced by the daim that all is G,
the genus that is here forced to deliver its own differentiae is
nothing less than the highest genus. But no genus, proximate or
remote, can be called upon to do what it cannot possibly do-that

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JOHN PETERSON

is, explain its own differences. Since difference is accidental to
any genus, reductionists must either deny that all is G or concede
that their G is bare unity without difference.

BOOK REVIEWS
The Metaphysics of Creation: Aquinas's Natural Theology in Summa Contra
Gentiles II. By Norman Kretzmann. Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp.
483. $65.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-19-823787-1.
The Metaphysics of Creation is the sequel to The Metaphysics of Theism and
the second in a projected three-volume investigation of the "natural theology,"
or what Kretzmann calls "generic theism," contained in the first three books
of Aquinas's Summa contra Gentiles. Kretzmann claims that his book is not a
commentary but rather a "selective, critical analysis of Aquinas's natural
theology" (2). Given Kretzmann's intention to show the relevance of Aquinas's
natural theology to contemporary debates in analytic philosophy of religion,
one would expect his selection to be governed in a significant way by
contemporary currency. That is the case, for example, in a chapter entitled
"Origin of Species," which is devoted to showing that certain purported
oppositions between creation and evolution are wrongheaded (183-227). Yet
even here Kretzmann's approach (which makes very interesting use of
Aquinas's distinction between creating, distinguishing, and furnishing) has a
strong textual basis. More so than the book on ScG I, this book attends to the
intricate structure of ScG and especially to the prominence of dialectical
skirmishes with rival, inherited philosophical positions and interpretations of
Aristotle. Whereas Kretzmann had insisted on the demonstrative order of the
ScG in his exposition of book I, he now speaks repeatedly of the dialectical
structure and mode of inquiry of book IL His philosophical commitments and
his manner of reading ScG II come to the fore in his analysis of three issues: the
necessity of creation, the union of soul and body, and the incorruptibility of
the human soul.
In the discussion of divine creation, he follows Aquinas's line of argument
fairly closely. He denies, for example, that God's perfection unduly
circumscribes his creative options. He rejects the notion that God must create
the best possible world if what we mean by "best possible world" is a world
none better than which can be conceived (224-26). While he agrees that God
is not necessitated concerning what He creates, he departs from Aquinas on the
question of whether God must create. The latter necessity is not a requirement
of justice, but is instead a requirement of God's goodness, following from the
principle of the diffusiveness of the good. Kretzmann's position is not reducible
to the necessitarian view of Avicenna, whom Aquinas is at pains to combat in
309

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this section of ScG. Avicenna's necessitarianism is that of natural necessity
wherein the cause is determined to one effect; it is what Kretzmann calls
"single-effect causation." Kretzmann's position is that the necessity of creating
is compatible with freedom concerning what to create. But what is his
argument that God must create? There is an "inconsistency in the notion of
goodness that is for ever unmanifested, never shared by the perfectly good,
omnipotent agent." This follows from Aquinas's principle that "the sharing of
being and goodness proceeds from goodness" as "its defining characteristic."
Kretzmann elaborates, "a being that is good ... simply is a being productive
of good things external to it" (136). Of course he is adding to Aquinas's
position the term "external," since Aquinas holds that God's communication
of his own goodness is completely shared only within himself. In fact, it would
seem that the Trinity is God's complete self-diffusion. In a footnote,
Kretzmann anticipates this line of argument and notes that Aquinas himself
argues this way in the Sentences. His response is twofold. First, such arguments
can have no place in natural theology; second, it is "God, not some one divine
Person, whom Aquinas identifies as 'goodness itself.... ' Consequently ... the
essential self-diffusiveness of goodness as an aspect of the essence of God
remains in force, necessitating external, volitional diffusion" (135). The latter
rejoinder is wide of the mark, since the basis of the Trinity is not a single
Person, which would create an inappropriate inequality among the divine
Persons, but rather the divine essence itself. The crucial question concerns the
necessity of external manifestation, but this requirement seems to rely on too
strict an analogy between natural and human productivity, on the one hand,
and divine artistry, on the other. Kretzmann can of course recur to his claim
that such arguments are out of place in natural theology, but then we have to
insist, as Aquinas so often does in ScG, on the limits to natural reason, which
in this case can assert only that God's self-knowledge and self-love are limitless
and involve complete self-communication without being able to hazard
anything more than feeble guesses as to how this self-communication occurs.
Indeed, the attempt of philosophy to do more than this leads to the variety of
neo-Platonic emanationist schemes that Aquinas targets in ScG II.
After the discussion of creation, Kretzmann turns to a careful exposition of
the intricate and in many ways confusing structure of book II, whose study of
creatures begins with a common consideration of all intellectual substances,
that is, of both human souls and angels, then turns to the union of soul and
body and the proper operation and incorruptibility of the human intellect, and
ends by underscoring the difference in species between the human soul and the
separate substance. The common consideration of souls and separate substances
has misled Thomists such as Gilson and Fabro into thinking that the
incorruptibility of the soul can be established by immediate, metaphysical
arguments. This would be the case if the initial arguments for the
incorruptibility of all intellectual substances were equally compelling for
separate substances and human souls. But, as Kretzmann rightly notes, the
subsequent arguments on behalf of the union of the human soul with the body

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311

render dubious the previous, common argument on behalf of the incorruptibility of all intellectual substances. Aquinas himself concedes this point when
in chapter 79 he makes the specific case for the incorruptibility of the human
soul. We will turn shortly to Kretzmann's appraisal of the argument of chapter
79, but before we do so we should attend to what he calls "metaphysical
hybrids," that is, composites of intellectual souls and bodies. The use of the
term "hybrids" might seem warranted by Aquinas's pattern of speaking of
intellectual souls prior to his investigation of whether and how an intellectual
substance can be united to the body. Yet, as Kretzmann himself shows,
Aquinas's own account of that unity defends Aristotle's thesis that the
intellectual soul is the substantial form of the body, a thesis that the term
"hybrid" fails to capture. As Kretzmann puts it in his careful exposition of
Aquinas's dialectical encounters with rival accounts of unity, the "standard is
unconditional unity."
As he also notes, the opening of chapter 57, which argues that only
Aristotle's account of the unity of soul and body can save the nature of man,
is pivotal. In this chapter, after having considered the inherited views on the
union of soul and body, Aquinas appeals directly to the phenomena to be
explained, namely, the human operations of sensing and knowing. The nature
of sensation as a shared operation of body and soul and of the dependence of
the intellect on phantasms are "dialectically crucial." What needs especially to
be saved and explained is the fact that "this man understands." The problem
with certain Arabic claims concerning the separate existence and unity of the
intellect is not so much that they are internally incoherent as that they simply
eliminate the phenomenon that a theory of knowledge sets out to explain.
Kretzmann wonders why Aquinas takes so seriously such a "fantastic theory"
(339), especially given that the debate in the universities over the unity of the
intellect had not yet arisen. Aquinas certainly thinks the position is false both
philosophically and as an interpretation of Aristotle. But he does not think it
entirely unfounded. Further reason for his attention to it can be easily adduced.
He is worried about the implications of the unity of the intellect not only for
the question of personal immortality but also for the question of whether the
ultimate end of human life can be achieved by a natural process, which
constitutes the central dialectical debate of book III. The attention lavished on
the unity of the intellect is consonant with the general practice in the ScG,
which is to devote the most attention to those views that are directly and most
forcefully subversive of the teachings of Catholic theology, even when the
position might seem to be easily dismissed. So, for example, in book I, chapter
20, Aquinas devotes seemingly inordinate attention to the topic of whether
God is a body, even though potency and matter have already been denied of
God. Here he is concerned to eradicate any vestiges of idolatry and to remind
his readers that they must not be slaves of the imagination in the investigation
of divine things.
Kretzmann is aware that one of the central issues for Thomas's project in
ScG is personal immortality. So it is not surprising that Aquinas would devote

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considerable attention to the question of the incorruptibility of the human soul
(see especially ScG H, c. 79). Yet Kretzmann finds Aquinas's arguments so
unconvincing that he concludes that it would have been better for Aquinas to
"consign the whole topic of immortality to Book JIV, where the data of
revelation are admitted into the enterprise" (418). The central arguments
converge upon the distinctiveness of intellectual activity, which is dependent
on the body to provide its object of knowledge, but whose operation is not
mixed with the body. It is easy, as Kretzmann seems to do, to lose sight of the
key argument for the subsistence of the intellectual soul, which runs thus.
Whatever has an operation proper to itself subsists; but the intellectual soul has
an operation in which the body does not share; therefore the intellectual soul
subsists. The technical term for what subsists and is complete in its nature is
hoc aliquid; given that the inteHectual soul is naturally the form of the body,
it can be said w subsist but not to be complete in its own nature. lit is, in fact,
just part of a species. The human soul can called a hoc aliquid in only a
diminished, analogical sense (ScG U, c. 91). Nonetheless, the subsistence of the
intellectual soul provides the basis for the affirmation of its incorruptibility.
The problem, as Kretzmann points out, has to do with the "mode" of
intellectual activity of a separated intellect. Even if we grant that the
intellectual soul is distinct from the body, given its inherent dependence on
phantasms it is not at all dear how such a power could operate apart from the
body. Aquinas's response is that it does so by means of a different mode of
activity. But Kretzmann objects that "no other mode of intellectual activity has
been established" (416). In fact, Aquinas's assertion that the separated intellect
will know as the separate substances know runs afoul of his subsequent
contention that human souls and angels are entirely distinct species. As Anton
Pegis remarked years ago, in the process of answering one problem Aquinas
creates another. Kretzmann is certainly right to insist that a dear answer to the
question of immortality must await the teaching of revelation, but this does not
mean that the entire topic should be consigned to revealed theology. Indeed,
the question of immortality is a philosophical one. H we can establish that the
intellectual soul is capable of separate existence but not precisely how it would
operate in such a state, then we would simultaneously underscore the
achievement and the limits to philosophical inquiry and provide a starting
point for the dialectical engagement of philosophy by theology.
One of the most impressive features of Kretzmann's interpretationsomething that is likely to be more appreciated by exegetically minded
Thomists than by the analytic philosophers of religion for whom Kretzmann is
the way he links together its various parts, especially the way he
insists upon the connections between the first and second books of the ScG,
both of which have as their object knowledge of God. The turn from God
(book I) to creatures (book II) is
a "further study of God," a shift from
his immanent to his extrinsic activity (8). ScG U corrects multiple errors about
creatures and thus refines our understanding and increases our appreciation of
God's wisdom, power, and goodness. As Kretzmann notes, the philosophical

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BOOK REVIEWS

center of book II consists of a series of dialectical encounters with rival
conceptions of creation and creatures. Given what he has already asserted
about the intimate link between books I and II, it seems natural to suppose that
rival conceptions of creation and creatures reflect differing conceptions of the
divinity. If that is so, then we shall have to reject his central thesis about the
inquiry of ScG I-II: namely, that it teaches generic theism.
THOMAS S. HIBBS

Boston College
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

Les principesdes chosesen ontologie medievale (Thomas d'Aquin, Scot, Occam).
By MICHEL BASTIT. Bordeaux: Editions Biere, 1997. Pp. 361 + vii.
In this study, Michel Bastit, a professor of philosophy at the University of
Bourgogne, attempts to arrive at a comparative perspective on medieval
metaphysics whereby he may render a philosophical judgment upon the
thought of the three outstanding Scholatic authors mentioned in the book's
subtitle: Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.
Professor Bastit is clear that, although he uses historical data and texts to arrive
at descriptions of his subjects, he does not intend to trace historical linkages
between the authors or to place them in historical context in any detailed
manner. To do so, he feels, would be to become a prisoner of historical study
and to forego the more challenging and valuable task of making a philosophical
judgment about the thought of the authors studied (15).
In order to achieve the comparative perspective required for making his
philosophical evaluation, Bastit examines themes treated by each of the
authors, themes arising from the authors' common acceptance of Aristotelian
doctrines in the areas of metaphysics and natural philosophy. In the first part
of the work, subdivided into two chapters, he examines wisdom and the orders
of being and discourse; in the second part of the work, subdivided into four
chapters, he treats of determination, fulfillment, hylomorphic composition, and
ontological composition; and in the final part, subdivided into three chapters,
he studies wisdom and prudence, order and will, and the conflict of freedoms.
Although the first two parts are genuinely comparative in the sense that each
of the authors is discussed immediately in reference to the common theme
being treated, the final part breaks with this pattern by devoting its first
chapter to Aquinas, its second to Scotus, and its last to Ockham.
In approaching Aquinas on the subject of wisdom or first philosophy, Bastit
characterizes the fundamental issues as being: (1) whether, in light of the

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conflict between Aristotle and traditional Augustinian teaching, to reduce
Aristotelianism to a general ontology above which to place a revealed theology
or to think through a natural onto-theology that would subsequently be
surpassed by theology but would yield analogical concepts useful to it; and (2)
whether or not Aristotelian onto-theology is a competitor to or an ally to faith
and sacra doctrina (19-20). To Bastit, Aquinas seems to give both philosophy
and sacra doctrina their due: philosophy follows the order of things and
reaches thereby some conclusions about God; it does not need to turn to
theology to find solutions to its own problems. Likewise, theology reveals not
only truths surpassing altogether what human reason might know, but also
truths knowable, in principle, by human reason. (21)
As to the subject-matter of metaphysics proper, Bastit, while recognizing
that St. Thomas identifies that subject as ens in communi, sees the assurance for
the unity of metaphysical knowledge in the causes and principles of ens in
communi, namely the immaterial substance that is God. Thomas's position on
the manner in which God enters into metaphysics as a subject of discourse
means for Basitit that Aquinas is actually moving away from the Avicennian
position to one similar to that of Averroes. It is the use of causality by Aquinas
in showing the existence of God, however, that gives metaphysics its truly
transcendental character, and the foundation for discourse about God is the
discovery of the Unmoved Mover in the study of physics (25-26).
Turning to Scotus, Bastit focuses his attention initially upon the prologues
of the Lectura and the Ordinatio. In these texts, which are attempts by Scotus
to justify the legitimacy of theological discourse through arguing that the end
of man cannot be rightly discerned by natural reason, Scotus shows, according
to Bastit, the extent to which he has undergone Augustinian influence and
anticipates similar later efforts by Luther and Kant to delimit reason.
Criticizing Gilson's interpretation of Scotus as being too facile and relying on
uncertain developmental hypotheses (32), Bastit proposes a synthetic reading
of the Subtle Doctor's teaching on the subject-matter of metaphysics, basing
himself primarily upon selections from Scotus's Quaestiones super libros
Metaphysicorum Aristotelis. Ens commune is the subject of metaphysics for
Duns Scotus and God enters into metaphysical discourse under the rubric of
primum ens and not primum mavens; to Bastit's mind, Scotus's rejection of the
primacy of the Unmoved Mover argument for showing God's existence means
that his is an attempt to do metaphysics without physics (35). The only
development that Bastit sees from the first questions in Scotus's Quaestiones
super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis through the Lectura and Ordinatio to
the Reportationes Parisienses is in regard to the doctrine of the univocity of
being, a doctrine that was required ultimately, in Bastit's opinion, because of
Scotus's position on the subject-matter of metaphysics.
Ockham's position upon the subject-matter of metaphysics is considered an
elimination of the problem of identifying the subject of metaphysics more than
a solution to it (35-44). Ockham denies any single subject for the science of
metaphysics, just as he does for all other sciences. Each syllogistic argument

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employed in metaphysics has a distinct subject, the logical subject of its
conclusion. Metaphysics is a term we use to refer to a certain group of subjects
of discourse contained in Aristotle's book of that same title; the unity
belonging to metaphysics is that of loose collection, not that of a formally
united object.
The evaluative dimension of Bastit's comparative presentation becomes
painfully obvious in the second chapter's treatment of the order of being; but
once that dimension comes into play it remains throughout the balance of the
book. Bastit argues that the heart of Aquinas's understanding of being is
analogy and, in particular, the analogy of proportion as opposed to the analogy
of attribution. The latter requires formal consideration of the Creator/creature
relation, something that is beyond philosophy and pertains rather to theology
(63). What philosophy deploys instead of the analogy of attribution is a
transcendental analogy of proportion in its own theological discussions. In
contrast to Aquinas's teachings, Scotus's account of the order of beings is
marred in several respects. By substituting ens commune for God as the primary
subject of metaphysics, Scotus sends philosophy down the road leading to
modern philosophy. Univocity and analogy are, furthermore, strictly opposed:
the destruction of Thomistic analogy is the construction of Scotistic univocity
(65-67). With his wayward tendencies, Scotus opens up the way for the
destructive critique of Ockham which dismantles the problematic of univocity
and analogy by allowing ens to be univocal logicially speaking, but utterly
equivocal when predicated concretely (72-75).
The manifestly hostile stance adopted toward Scotus and Ockham continues
in the succeeding chapters. In the third chapter, entitled "Determination" but
dealing mainly with the respective thinkers' doctrine of substance, Aquinas's
doctine of substance is identified with that of Aristotle. Scotus's Aristotelianism
on substance, though supported, Bastit acknowledges, by numerous texts, is
more apparent than real (92). Scotus modifies the doctrine of substance to
accommodate Eucharistic concerns, thereby revealing his theological
preoccupations. On the knowability of substance, Scotus's argument that we
know substance by inference since all that the senses perceive are accidents is
considered to be a capitulation to the inscrutability of substance, leaving
metaphysics as a transcendental ontology stipulating the conditions for
phenomena with which we are immediately acquainted but which are
unknowable in themselves. This cleavage between substance as known by
inference and phenomena known directly evidences, Bastit believes, a return
by Scotus to the "dualistic Platonism discarded by Aquinas" (98). Ockham is
interpreted as treating the metaphysical doctrine of substance on a linguistic
level, while reducing substance to singular, concrete substance in ontology (98101).
In the fourth chapter, which deals with ontological perfection, Aquinas's
appropriation of a genuinely Aristotelian understanding of act and potency,
understood as conceiving potency as strictly relative to act, is contrasted with
the essentialism of Scotus and the empiricism of Ockham. Bastit interprets

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Aquinas as attributing to rational powers the capability of making contrary
determinations, but also claims that Aquinas's doctrine of potentiality and
possibility involves holding that (1) every possible is limited by a future that
will be actual and (2) some possibles are possibles that will never be (111).
Although he reviews in some detail the complicated discussion of potency in
Scotus's key text on potency and act, Quaestiones in libros Metaphysicorum
Aristotelis, book 9, Bastit accuses Scotus of conflating logical with metaphysical
senses of possibility, thereby reputedly detaching essences from their ground
in actual existence. Scotus's effort at exploring possible essences in his ontology
Bastit labels 'logicism' and sees in it a forerunner of Kant and Husserl (114).
Though Scotus's distinction between objective and subjective potencies is
canvassed, it is thought of as being connected to his doctrine of being as
essence, which leads, in turn, to Scotus's attributing to matter a kind of nonformal actuality, providing Ockham with his opportunity to reduce actuality
to factuality (119). Ockham's analysis of esse in potentia is construed as more
logical than properly ontological. Contrary to Aristotle's doctrine of actuality
as a qualitative perfection of the subject, Ockham's notion of actuality tends to
reduce actuality to a set of successive qualitatively undifferentiated states. The
dynamic tendency of things toward fulfillment is lost in Ockham's account of
potency and act (115-22).
The final two chapters of the first part treat of hylomorphic composition
and ontological composition. Regarding hylomorphic composition, Aquinas is
viewed as achieving a balance lacking in the other two philosophical authors
since he alone commits to the classical Aristotelian thesis that matter is pure
potency, never existing apart from form. Aquinas holds that matter always
exists as signate matter; according to Bastit, this means matter determined by
the forms of the elements (130). Even Thomas's natural-law doctrine needs to
be set in the cosmological framework in which matter and form composites
have an essential unity of potency/act. If one attributes to matter and lower
forms a greater autonomy than Aquinas does, the union of matter/form
composites begins to be placed in question (133). Yet that is exactly what
happens, we are told, in the case of St. Thomas's two successors. Both Scotus
and Ockham attribute some actuality to matter; in Scotus's case it leads, Bastit
asserts, to a quasi-Platonic doctrine of matter having its own entity and
intelligibility (13 7), thereby causing a decomposition of the paradigmatic union
of matter and form, whereas in Ockham's case it leads to a devaluation of final
and formal causality (152-53).
On the topic of ontological composition, Bastit sets the terms of the
discussion against the background of what he admits is a lacuna in the
Aristotelian ontology; contingency in the doctrine of the historical Aristotle is
found only on the part of the material causes of things and in any event such
contingency is not radical enough to express the givenness of creation.
Avicenna's effort at coping with the difficulty of finding room in the
Aristotelian ontology for the doctrine of creation is his own proposal of the
distinction between essence and existence with its emphasis upon the

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existential neutrality of essences; yet Avicenna's doctrine needed to be
modified to find a place in the Scholastic authors (171-72).
At this point, Bastit turns his attention to twentieth-century interpretations
of Aquinas's metaphysics that have made the distinction between esse and
essentia the keystone for their presentations of Aquinas's thought. Focusing
upon Etienne Gilson and Cornelio Fabro, Bastit contends that what these
proponents of a nontraditional interpretation of Aquinas hope to discover is
not only his original teaching as opposed to that handed down by later
Thomists, but also a version of his thought that can be more easily brought to
bear upon contemporary concerns. Furthermore, he observes that they usually
find such an Aquinas, an Aquinas more existential, free of Aristotelian
conceptualism, and one not forgetful of being and ontological difference-that
is, one capable of escaping from the Heideggerian critique of Western
metaphysics (173-75). As opposed to the existential Aquinas of Gilson and
Fabro, Bastit proposes what he deems to be a more Aristotelian interpretation.
In his view, the chief problem with the existential interpretation is that it
misconstrues the distinction between philosophy and theology, failing first to
distinguish between ontology and natural theology within philosophy proper
and second to distinguish between the reflection upon the relation of things to
God in natural theology and the use of that reflection within the scope of sacra
doctrina (176). After reviewing Aquinas's De ente et essentia, Bastit makes some
rather startling assertions, though ones in keeping with hints he had dropped
earlier in the book. First, the esse/essentiadistinction may not even pertain to
philosophy since the distinction relies on the concept of creation that itself may
lie beyond the scope of philosophical knowledge (179-80). Second, the fact
that Aquinas assigns the role of communicating esse to the composite to form
in his metaphysics indicates the basic importance of essentia in his philosophy
and not the act of being (182-83). Finally, texts wherein Aquinas's doctrine of
creaturely participation in esse is found are better seen as cases presenting a
doctrine of natural or revealed theology, albeit one building on an Aristotelian
philosophical foundation (186-87).
Nonetheless the failure of Aquinas's successors to appreciate the value of
his teaching on esse is another sign, to Bastit's mind, of their lack of
philosophical acuity. Scotus's attribution of a kind of being to essences
combined with his emphasis on the contingency of actual existence and his own
peculiar rendering of the act/potency distinction means that he is incapable of
appropriating the doctrine of Thomistic esse (189). In what must be one of the
most vituperative attacks ever made upon the Subtle Doctor, Bastit proceeds
in short order to list what he considers to be the defects of Scotus's
metaphysics: (1) Scotus has to locate indeterminacy in God; (2) instead of
making creation something outside the realm of philosophy and an ordered
relation that could be eternal, Scotus opts for a transcendental science removed
from primary substances, whether sensible or eternal; (3) metaphysics becomes
a science of intelligibles; (4) as such, it becomes a science of sciences but not
a science of subsistent beings; (5) in abandoning physics, Scotus's thought

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opens the road to a physics that becomes mechanics and a metaphysics that
becomes a logic or general ontology; (6) Scotus's distinction between
created/Uncreated being as a transcendental division of being shows that he
takes this division as evident while the distinction is unavailable to the
philosopher who neither knows, at the outset of his inquiry, of God's existence
nor, at any point, of the creation of the world; and (7) Scotus's so-called
demonstration of God's existence cannot actually succeed at its ultimate stage
and thus drifts into rhetorical suasiones to accomplish its aim (189-90).
Ockham fares little better, though he does manage to escape the invective
directed at Scotus. The Venerable Inceptor is simply dismissed with the
observation that he reduces the distinction between essence and existence to
a conceptual or verbal one by sharply distinguishing between the copula and
the sense of existence as a nominal feature (198-200).
In the third and final part of the book, Bastit undertakes to show how the
differing metaphysical theses of the authors lead ineluctably to their varying
conceptions of the realm of human action and governance. Much of the
seventh chapter, which deals mainly with Aquinas, is given over to a fairly
straightforward presentation of the key points in St. Thomas's philosophical
psychology. After summarizing Aquinas's account of the sensible and
intellectual powers, Bastit characterizes the Thomistic doctrine of will as
embracing the thesis that the will is neither essentially autonomous nor
essentially self-determining. The will is free to the extent that it is not in the
presence of the complete good that would render it perfectly happy; since the
conditions of the present life are such that no such good is presented to it, a
person may will or not the particular goods presented. The Thomistic
explanation of individuation through matter in combination with the claim that
all individuals within a species are identical through their specific form is
appealed to as providing the basis for community life and the flourishing of the
individual within the polis; since Aquinas holds that the whole being of the
individual is determined by its specific form which nonetheless is individuated
by matter, there is within the individual a bond with everything else of its
species and yet an irreducible difference between a given individual and
another, owing to the material conditions of each individual and the
particularity attaching thereto, the object for prudential judgment (233).
In the final two chapters, Bastit finds hardly any philosophical value in the
outlook of either Scotus or Ockham regarding the human person and the
community. Curiously enough, though little of the seventh chapter focused on
Aquinas's account of the interrelationship between the divine will and the
divine intellect, much of the final two chapters consists of treating the Scotistic
and Ockhamistic teaching on the divine will. Scotus is faulted, thanks to his
formal distinction between the divine will and the divine intellect, for
attempting to find a radical separation in God between knowledge and
existence and thus between the speculative and the practical (258). This
separation leads to the distinction, characteristic of Scotus's thought, between
the necessary and the contingent precepts of the natural law, while his doctrine

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of divine ideas, in its comparison of God to a creative artist, is guilty, in Bastit's
eyes, of anthropomorphism (260). Furthermore, Scotus opens up the way for
a teaching more fully evident in Ockham: a picture of God as capricious and
arbitrary (344-46). Ockham's doctrine of individuals as the only elements in his
ontology, with universals being found exclusively in the mind and meaning
reduced to the referential dimension of mental language, entails for Bastit that
the world is now constituted by, and manipulable by, the knowing subject
(308-9). In the end, in Bastit's judgment, Ockham's ontology leaves us with
brutal states of affairs that are both expressions of a blind divine power and
sources of human power and self-aggrandizement (327).
Unsurprisingly, Bastit concludes by reiterating his negative philosophical
judgment on the value of the thought of Scotus and Ockham as compared to
that of Aquinas. Only Aquinas's principles are capable of reconciling reason
and revelation, properly treating philosophy and theology, and allowing us to
avoid the manifest errors of modern and contemporary philosophy, to which
the dialectic of conflicting claims advanced by Scotus and Ockham inevitably
leads (346-48).
In reviewing such a work, one finds oneself unsure of what canon of
evaluation to use in judging it. On the one hand, much of the work is historical
in nature and makes claims about the meaning of philosophers' doctrines found
in the history of philosophy; on the other, many of the claims are speculative
in nature and would need their own independent forum to be presented and
defended. To the extent that Bastit's book has as a preliminary task
understanding and presenting the thought of those authors which it intends to
compare and evaluate, I feel justified in pointing out at least of few of the more
egregious mistakes and aberrant interpretations. Bastit's effort to contrast St.
seems
Thomas's view of the subject-matter of metaphysics with that of
to miss the point; Thomas does have a different position precisely because his
position is a third alternative to the positions taken by Averroes and Avicenna,
not because his is a slightly adapted version of the Commentator's, as Bastit's
interpretation implies. On this score, Scotus's position is much more in keeping
with the majority of the Latin commentators and does not deserve to be singled
out for its oddity, but rather for the ingenious manner in which Scotus refines
the more common opinion. Furthermore, Scotus is not suggesting that
metaphysics should be done without physics; rather, following the lead of
Aquinas's teacher Albert the Great, he is pointing out that natural philosophy
can only arrive incidentally at the cause of being since it does not consider
being as such. If to hold the opinion that ens commune is the subject of
metaphysics is to start down the road of modern philosophy, then Scotus has
plenty of predecessors, companions, and fellow travelers on that journey. Much
the same could be said of Bastit's criticisms of Scotus's doctrine of substance.
Scotus is not the first to raise questions about how substance is knowable; after
all, things cannot give what they do not have-if accidents are not substances
they cannot provide species of substances. To accuse Scotus of Platonism
because he restricts our knowledge of sensible substances to what we can arrive

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at through careful observation of their accidental properties strikes me as a
strange way to describe what seems to be sound, scientific methodology. The
accuracy of Bastit's interpretation of Scotus in general is questionable. Indeed,
whether he has a firm command of which works are authentic and which
spurious is uncertain; on pages 202-8, notes 108-9, for example, he appeals,
as to a genuine work of Scotus, to the Pseudo-Scotus's (probably John of
Cornwall's) Questions on the Posterior Analytics printed by Wadding. Finally,
Bastit's remarks on Ockham are riddled with misreadings. To give an obvious
instance, Ockham does not hold that virtue of any sort is impossible without
knowing by revelation the will of God, as Bastit thinks (324-26); what he does
hold is that the highest virtue is impossible without loving God for his own
sake, but this is just a rather commonplace position on the privileged status of
Christian virtue.
In conclusion, I do not recommend this book, since it depicts poorly the
historical figures it seeks to compare. The idea of a comparative study of these
authors' metaphysics and ontology is one worthy of pursuit, but I fear that it
will take the learning of a Gilson or a Boehner to be able to put that idea into
practice. Until such a great scholar should once again arise, the goal of this
book will remain unfulfilled.
TIMOTIIY B. NOONE

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

Saint Thomas d'Aquin et le sacerdoce. Actes du colloque organise par l'Institut
Saint-Thomas-Aquin les 5 et 6 juin 1998 aToulouse. Revue Thomiste 99
(1999). Pp. 295 (paper).

As the editor of this volume, S. Bonino, formulates it, the premise of the
colloquy whence this collection of papers proceeds is as descriptive of the
United States as of France: the high academic study of St. Thomas has moved
from the care of theologians to philosophers, from clerics to lay men and
women in secular institutions. While there are aspects of this movement to
rejoice in, there are also dangers to avoid, since St. Thomas is not understood
well in abstraction from the explicit theological intention of his work, an
intention most easily assimilable in institutions of ecclesiastical character.
Hence the gathering of mostly clerics, mainly Dominican, preponderantly
associated with the teaching of theology in an ecclesiastical institution, that has
produced this collection of papers. And a very nice collection it is indeed,
illustrating, as Bonino says, the sapiential and contemplative character of
contemporary Thomist studies, as well as their historical-critical maturity.

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the mind of St. Thomas
Whether it also demonstrates the abiding capacity
to respond to contemporary concerns is more difficult to judge, and depends
in part on the place the reader accords St. Thomas in the tradition.
The collection is ably introduced by Msgr. E. Marcus, archbishop of
Toulouse. He articulates the challenges to any attempt to make St. Thomas
speak to contemporary concerns about the priesthood, challenges that range
from the relative dearth of extended treatments of priesthood by St. Thomas,
to the absence in St. Thomas of an ecclesiology in which to situate the concept
of priestly mediation, to the greater role contemporary discourse on ministry
accords to the triplex munera. The American reader may find just as interesting
the archbishop's insightful summary of the theological questioning of the
priesthood in France from 1943 (La France pays de mission) to the present.
The contributor most easily recognized by English speakers will doubtless
be J.-P. Torrell, and indeed, his article on the priesthood of Christ in question
22 of the Tertia pars can claim a certain pride of place in the collection, since
Christ is the cause and exemplar of the entire Christian priesthood and cult (a.
4). Torrell's commentary shows how question 22 is a crossroads of tradition
and Christo logical principle: both Augustine and Cyril of Alexandria, both the
instrumentality of the humanity of Christ and the personal dignity of the One
who uses the instrument, are in play in understanding the priesthood of Christ.
A sort of nerve-center of the Tertia pars, question 22 looks back to question 8
(on the headship of Christ) and forward to the theology of the cross in
questions 48 and 49.
Since Christ is priest because he is mediator (a. 1), teaching God's law to
men and offering man's sacrifice to God, Torrell wonders at the placement of
question 26, on Christ as mediator, after question 22. G. Remy takes up just
this issue of the relation of the notions of priesthood and mediation in St.
Thomas. In this study, the cross appears as the supreme mediation between
God and sinful man, requiring Christ to engage the charity by which he
exceeds the angels and the capacity to suffer by which he is beneath them. At
the same time, the satisfaction of the cross is the sacrifice of Christ the priest.
Like Torrell, Remy is puzzled by the placement of the questions on mediation
and priesthood in the Summa.
The mediation of the cross is made present in the double mediation of the
Mass, which is both God's sanctification of the worshipers and cult rendered
to God; the role of the eternity of the priesthood of Christ in explaining the
eschatological effect of the Eucharist is developed in a last article on the
priesthood of Christ by D. Chardonnens, a development of article 5 of question
22. Since the victim of the cross is eternal, the offering can be represented
daily. More particularly, the priesthood of Christ is eternal because, though the
oblation has occurred once and for all, both the internal attitude of Christ
whence the oblation proceeded and as well the effect of the oblation are
everlasting. The Eucharist proceeds, therefore, from the eternal Christ;
moreover, the goal of the Eucharist is to bring us to eschatological glory.
Chardonnens develops this teaching of St. Thomas with attention to the

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instrumentality of the humanity of Christ and the influence of St. Cyril of
Alexandria, for whom the influence of the Eucharist depends on the
instrumentality of the life-giving flesh of the Word.
The foregoing considerations of the priesthood of Christ are doubtless
fundamental, but the most exciting articles in this collection deal with the
spiritual priesthood of Christians. I include here the important articles on St.
Thomas's treatment of priesthood in two scriptural commentaries, that on
Hebrews and that on the Psalms. Admittedly, C. Berceville is on the track of
the priesthood of Christ in the commentary on Hebrews. But see what
beautiful things emerge: exterior is related to interior cult as is the body to the
soul, and so Christ's priestly death is the instrument and realization of his own
interior, spiritual sacrifice of prayer and devotion. The definitive sacrifice of
Christ's blood, moreover, is ordered to our interior sacrifice-the spiritual
sacrifice of every baptized Christian-and it enables our interior sacrifice by
provoking the act of faith. In this way, the fruit of his priesthood is the Church
herself in her entirety.
The companion piece to the foregoing is M. Morard's article on the
sacrifice of Christ and of Christians in the Super Psalmos. The special value of
this article should be noted, given the confused state of the text of Super
Psalmos, and the fact that Morard is the editor of that text. His appreciation
of this commentary is thus very complete, and I think this article is worth the
price of the whole collection. The Super Psalmos is late, and according to
Morard has less to do with dogmatic exploration than with the reception of
Scripture on the part of the dogmatically, systematically mature mind of
Aquinas. It is a reception at once traditional and alive to the unity of the canon.
Moreover, receiving the Psalms, Thomas receives the Scriptures as a whole, for
he shares with the Areopagite the view that the Psalms express the whole of
Scripture under the formality of praise. If the Psalms do not speak often of
priesthood, moreover, David the anointed King is for St. Thomas a figure of
Christ the anointed Priest and King. The Psalms are the prayers of Christ; they
are the prayers of Christ the Priest; they are the interior sacrifice of Christ the
Priest. For here, as in the commentary on Hebrews, the finality of exterior
sacrifice is once again the interior act. The sacrifice of the cross, its
representation in the Mass, all are ordered to enabling the interior cult of the
Christian. With St. Augustine, sacrifice is any good work aiming at union with
God. It is the interior act of the soul, the act of charity, that unites, and this
means that Christ's sacrifice is most perfect. On the other hand, words are the
signs par excellence of the interior acts of man. Christ's sacrifice is thus
especially ordered to our sacrifice of praise-to our praying of his prayers, the
Psalms.
The words of teaching and preaching also manifest interior acts, and
moreover do so in such a way as to lead others to make the same act. The
Christian teacher is therefore also priest. This last kind of spiritual sacrifice is
discussed by both Morard and by G. Emery, who develops its connection with
the Dominican mission, and inserts it into a treatment of the sacrifice of

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religious life as a prolongation of the spiritual sacrifice that is an exercise of
baptismal grace. Emery's study of the spiritual priesthood of the faithful is a
discourse both comprehensive and, like Morard's, edifying. Together with B.D. de La Soujeole, who writes on the three munera in St. Thomas, Emery
makes the point that the priesthood of the baptized faithful means a
participation in sanctifying grace. Again, the exterior is for the interior cult, as
both eliciting it and signifying it. This spiritual priesthood of the baptized,
which St. Thomas calls a "mystic" priesthood, is not an unreal priesthood, and
"priesthood" is not said metaphorically here, as Cajetan will have it later. De
La Soujeole, for his part, provides a thoughtful rendering of St. Thomas's
comparisons of the three munera. Most important, I think, he points out that
when teaching and ruling are picked out as "secondary" relative to the
"principal" function of sanctifying, "secondary" does not mean "accidental."
The munera have the same relations to one another as do faith, hope, and
charity. Faith's priority to charity, like that of teaching to sanctifying, is a
priority in the order of generation. And as hope is an effect of charity, so is the
possibility of ruling an effect of sanctifying. This discussion is very useful for
thinking about the munera in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.
Between the priesthood of Christ and the spiritual priesthood of the
baptized, there is the priesthood conferred by the sacrament of orders. Readers
will appreciate P.-M. Gy's magisterial summary of the development of St.
Thomas's thought on this sacrament from the Sentences commentary, to the
Contra Gentiles, to whatever can be gleaned of the late Thomas from question
22 of the Tertia pars and the treatment of character in question 63. Three
things especially are to be noted from the article. First, Gy observes that the
distinction of sacraments ordered to one's personal good and sacraments
ordered to the common good is to be found neither in St. Albert nor in St.
Bonaventure. Second, the clearest point of doctrinal evolution is the shift from
locating the primary instance of character in baptismal character (Sentences
commentary) to locating it in priestly character (Summa). And this seems to be
an inference that follows from maintaining that character is a participation in
the priesthood of Christ. For Christ's priesthood is a priesthood for others (STh
III, q. 22, art. 4), and the ministerial priest participates in Christ's priesthood
under just that formality, since this is a sacrament ordered to the common
good. Third, and in express contradiction to]. Lecuyer's study of some forty
years ago, Gy gives us his opinion that the episcopate is not sacramental for St.
Thomas. Unfortunately for those of us who have been faithfully recounting
Lecuyer over the years, Pere Gy does not defend this opinion in any detail.
In a second article on the sacrament, G. Narcisse reports his doctoral
dissertation on how the argument ex convenientia functions for St. Thomas,
and how it functions specifically to exclude women from orders. If we no
longer consider that women are in a state of subjection and so for that reason
unable to signify hierarchical superiority, the principle of Christological
exemplarity still plays a role in understanding orders. The humanity of Christ,
and so, necessarily, a sexually determined humanity-this humanity-is the

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instrument of grace. Orders are fittingly given to a person who evokes that
humanity, a male humanity. And as to "fittingness" itself, Narcisse reminds us
that all St. Thomas claims for the priesthood of Christ is that it is "fitting" for
Christ to be a priest. To find the fittingness of one of the arrangements of the
economy is to find an intelligibility determined by the divine mind. Narcisse
closes his article with a reminder of the fittingness of finding new roles for
women in the Church today.
Finally, C. Morerod and M.-B. Borde contribute studies on the reception
of St. Thomas's teaching, the first in Cajetan and the second in the
Salmanticenses. S. Bonino's contribution considers priesthood as a natural
religious institution.

GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B.
Saint Meinrad School of Theology
St. Meinrad, Indiana

Mystical Theology. By MARK A. MCINTOSH. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
1998. Pp. 246. $26.95 (paper). ISBN 1-55786-907-3.

In a previous book (Christology from Within: Spirituality and the Incarnation
in Hans Urs von Balthasar [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1996]), Mark Mcintosh probed the integral relationship between spirituality
and theology in the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar and suggested its
paradigmatic necessity for theology as a whole. In the present book he
undertakes a full-scale treatment of the thesis and leaves the reader with a wellconsidered charge for anybody undertaking the task of theology. By an explicit
turn to mysticism and mystical theology (as the title suggests) Mcintosh
achieves a retrieval of that discipline so often marginalized by systematicians.
As is clear from his weighty first chapter much needs to be negotiated along the
way with pitfalls to be avoided by practitioners of each discipline. In doing so
he sets up a standard for both spirituality and theology which he himself must
meet. Suffice to say that Mcintosh is clearly successful in his endeavor.
Spirituality is a minefield in and of itself-mysticism as well! Much passes
under this bridge which has little to do with established religious traditions, not
to mention theology. A significant strain of modern Protestant dogmatics from
Albrecht Ritschl to Karl Barth considered mysticism as almost inimical to
evangelical faith while Catholic dogmatics has (certainly with less hostility)
simply sidelined it to specific subordinated disciplines (ascetical, mystical, or
spiritual theology) with little consequence for systematic theology. Mcintosh
does not simply accuse theology for the regrettable divorce between the two

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disciplines (with ill effects for both). Spirituality bears its responsibility as well,
beginning with no less a figure as Bernard of Clairvaux.
Bernard's opening to his third sermon on the Song of Songs as in part
quoted by Mclntosh-"Today the text we are to study is the book of our own
experience [in libro experientiae]"-is the linchpin for the misreading of
mystical texts within the spiritual tradition and for the distortion of spirituality
which separates it from theology. Needless to say this distortion, which
Mcintosh identifies as "experientialism" with the help of Denys Turner (see
The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995]) is endorsed by a good number of moderns,
only adding to the problem which the book is seeking to overcome. Mcintosh's
strategy, both critical and constructive, is threefold.
First, he must identify methodologically his manner of proceeding. Early on
in the book Mcintosh critically reviews various takes on the academic discipline
of spirituality studies. To the extent that an anthropological approach
dominates in this field, whether based on psychological states or even a
self-transcendence oriented to ultimacy, it tends "to render God peripheral"
(21). For Mcintosh this is no light matter. His definition of spirituality, which
situates "the discovery of the true 'self' precisely in encountering the divine and
human other" (5), demands attention to the reality of God revealed and
communicated, the active presence of God which engenders and empowers
spirituality. The real question concerns the interpretation of mystical and
spiritual texts in this regard. This baseline cannot be forfeited if the theological
connection is to be affirmed.
Second, theology as the expression of encounter with God in speech and
understanding is also integral to Christian mystical experience. To establish his
case Mcintosh devotes two chapters to a query of historical and twentiethcentury theologies. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor,
and Bernard of Clairvaux are the three focal figures for his tracking of
developments from the Fathers through the medieval era. The first is clearly
decisive for any study of Christian spirituality but serves in this work as a
measure along with Meister Eckhart for that strand of Christian spirituality
which is grounded in the apophatic. If theology is to have a integral purchase
on mystical experience it must be demonstrated here as well as in the more
cataphatic traditions of Bernard, Bonaventure, and Ignatius Loyola (whom he
also references). While attending to these others Mcintosh's burden is to
adjudicate the distinctly Christian element in the former. Again, for him, the
stakes are rather high. As he states in it in sum, "the mystical is not simply the
ineffable incomprehensibility of God ... but precisely the infinite self-giving
of God which is the fundamental characteristic of the divine Trinity and is
enacted in history in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus" (44). If one
captures this for Dionysius and Eckhart then one is well on the way to
affirming that it is the very content of the Christian gospel that deepens our
perception of the divine mystery-theology surely is not left behind even in
mystical silence.

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This also explains Mcintosh's turn to Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von
Balthasar for his probing of twentieth-century theology on this score. If
theology and spirituality meet in contemplation then Rahner and Balthasar
stand out as the two Catholic alternatives on the matter. While the Trinitarian
and Christological credentials of both are not in question Mcintosh's
sympathies are with Balthasar when it comes to the integration between the
mystical and theological. He prefers to situate the divine mystery in the latter's
well-known emphasis on the paschal transitus with its inner-Trinitarian and
Christological explicitness rather than in the former's transcendental
orientation to apophatic silence.
Mcintosh concludes the first part of his book on "Issues of History and
Method" by specifically taking up the theological hermeneutics of spiritual
texts. One must be mindful that he is arguing not as a purveyor of religious
mysticism in general but as a Christian theologian who is mining the revelation
of the triune God in specifically Christian mystical texts. Again Mcintosh insists
on the particularity of both mystical texts and Christian gospel. Hence
(borrowing from his insightful description of the role of Christ in Maximus's
account of mystical knowledge) mystical texts convey not some primordial
inner experience to be duplicated but rather "the perceptivity of our bodies .
. . the linguisticality of our minds and the sensitivity of our feelings" (61). Here
he returns to his critique of experientialism, which substitutes experienceseven negative contentless "dark night" experiences-for the activity of God in
the believer's life. The intentionality of mystical texts is to point to the divine
Other in the "hidden reality of God's encounter with humanity" (142).
Therefore, it is proper to interpret the "apophatic momentum of Christian
mystical texts ... [as] bear[ing] the marks of that ultimate apophasis enacted
by Jesus" (127) even where the Incarnation and the Cross are not named.
The second part of the book follows through by illustrating mystical
theology in practice. If Christian mystical experience is to be read in a
Trinitarian and Christological register Mcintosh fruitfully addresses both areas
of dogmatic inquiry. For the former he takes an interesting and original
pneumatological turn. Consonant with other recent theological attention to the
Holy Spirit Mcintosh explores the Spirit as the affectus of Trinitarian yearning
between the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is "the love which arouses us
to full personhood by inciting in us a response to (and a participation in) the
personhood of Jesus the Word incarnate" (158). This "pneumatological
grammar" is essential for the overall project (how else to integrate spirituality
and theology!) and also for the theological rendering of self and personhood
which mystical experience and postmodern discourse are both so occupied
with.
Before arriving at his own intervention in the discussion over anthropology
(his final chapter) Mcintosh first addresses a series of Christological issues now
illuminated by this integrated theological perspective. He answers several
objections to an incarnational Christology voiced primarily by John Hick in
order to affirm an incarnational maximalism over against "Left Incarnational

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Minimalism" and "Right Incarnational Minimalism," respectively diminishing
the divinity or humanity of Christ. Questions about the mutual exclusivity of
Christ's humanity and divinity and the limits of Jesus' self-knowledge are deftly
dealt with. In his defense against charges of docetism in traditionally orthodox
incarnational Christology Mcintosh invokes the language of mystical paradox
to say that Jesus is most fully divine and the incarnation most fully
consummated on Golgotha. This buttresses the attempt to argue that "that
which distinguishes Jesus from other human beings is not anything at the level
of nature" (204). His intent is to affirm with Chalcedon and from a
Cappadocian perspective that the nature of the union in Christ is hypostatic
and not essential. Yet while he also affirms that Jesus' identity is that of the
eternal Word of God (a personal identity by which he is distinct from others),
how Jesus does not also differ in his divinity (not humanity) from us is not
sufficiently acknowledged. He means to say that "who Jesus is" is different
from us but not "what he is." True enough for his humanity but how is it true
for his divinity? At least some more discussion remains for this issue.
Although Mcintosh did not want to begin his study with an anthropological
hermeneutic of mystical experience, he ends with the fruits of an anthropology
that emerges from his Trinitarian theological hermeneutic. Engaging among
others such postmodern thinkers as Emmanuel Levinas and Edith Wyschogrod,
his richest writing is reserved for his use of the saintly testimony of Edith Stein
and Simone Weil. The relationality and otherness of the postmodern self are
addressed within the perspective of a Trinitarian radicalism in which the
"openness of the Trinity to the other sustains not only the infinite othering of
the divine persons but also the finite other of human persons" (237). The stuff
of the human self is not just relation via otherness but self-bestowal and
self-giving within the matrix of participation in the Trinitarian life of God.
I have little to quibble with in this book apart from further development of
the Christological point mentioned above. But there is an interesting matter to
pursue which gets us back to the quotation from Bernard of Clairvaux.
Mclintosh does attempt to defend Bernard from misreadings, although in the
end he seems to allow the charge of experientialism to stick. My point does not
so much concern Bernard as it does Mcintosh's comments about Madame
Guyon, whom I suppose one could consider the epitome of experientialism.
Mcintosh comments that her utter resignation of the self was an elaborate
rhetoric of the self and turned out to be an ever more baroque technology of
the self (8). Considering that she was the quintessential Quietist it only furthers
the case against experientialism. But does this dispose of experience even if we
maintain that experience in and of itself is never the measure of spirituality?
Consider Ignatius Loyola whom Mcintosh invokes (especially in regard to
Balthasar). Certainly attention to the motions of one's heart and the movement
of God in one's prayer and life inform the Spiritual Exercises. Mcintosh
comments that for Balthasar these are subordinated to "the believer's growing
obedience to the will of God" (107) while in general the Spiritual Exercises
serve "not as a prescription for working up a series of particular experiences,

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but as a matrix of symbols which serves to re-contextualize one's experiences
entirely" (135). Certainly. But without denying that Christian spirituality is not
simply an inventory of the self (even the spiritual self!), and that it is inherently
communal and generative of "concrete, historical meaning" (62)-thus
Mcintosh's acknowledgment of the contributions of liberation and feminist
theologies-might not we attend more to the pneumatological texture of
Christian experience? In fact I believe that is where Mcintosh is directing us.
If there is a caveat here, it is simply that out of gratitude for his work we might
also experience the Spirit anew where theology and spirituality blend together
again.
RALPH DEL COLLE

Marquette University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Virgin and the Dynamo: Use and Abuse of Religion in Environmental
Debates. By ROBERTROYAL. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999. Pp.
xi + 271. $25.00 (paper). ISBN 0-8028-4468-5.
When assessing this book it is important to bear in mind that Robert Royal
is vice president for research and a senior fellow in religion and society at the
Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., was assisted by George
Weigel and Elliott Abrams in shaping its contents, and that a major part of the
work derived from the author's delivering the Bradley lectures in 1997 at the
American Enterprise Institute. As such it is less an integral whole than a series
of essays edited with recurring themes. The author lays no claim to being a
theologian. In the introduction he states "I am no theologian, and I do not
think it would be wise to spend much time reading modern theology for
enlightenment on environmental or other human problems" (9). Thus is the
tone set for a wide ranging tour de force about the "use and abuse" of religion
in environmental debates today.
The book's title derives from Henry James's assertion that our age is torn
between "the Virgin and the Dynamo." For James "the Virgin" is an image of
the fullness of religious belief and human meaning as well as beauty and nature
itself, representing a spirituality that James could no longer accept. James
judged that "the Dynamo" was the efficient and powerful achievement of
modern science and technology which had forever destroyed the plausibility of
truths associated with the Virgin. The Dynamo had in effect become an
alternative religion, unrecognized as such by most people, but dominant in its
power and effects all the same. Royal uses this framework to characterize the

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polarities evident in the stance of many authors on the role of religion and
theology in environmental debates today. He rightly cautions that all too
frequently some "environmentalists" assert a romantic opposition of nature to
civilization. He asserts that his approach in this book does not fit easily in the
usual dichotomy of environmentalism or developmentalism. This assertion
rings true throughout the book's introduction (containing a most useful
overview of the work) and seven chapters.
More often than not Royal juxtaposes biblical insight with descriptions of
evidences of today's ecological crises which concern, among other things,
global warming, gas emissions, endangered species, wetland preservation, and
the ozone layer. (These are summarized in the introduction and rather fully
developed in the first part of chapter 3.) While affirming the command of
Genesis that humans are to be stewards of creation Royal asserts that such an
admonition "does not give us much concrete guidance" (2) in what to do about
environmental crises today. True as far as it goes, this is the kind of assertion
(which recurs throughout the book) by which Royal asserts that theology and
religion ought to limit what is said and argued about what human stewards
ought to do about the environment. Obviously those from a rich theological
tradition such as Catholicism need to avoid any kind of "prooftexting" and
fundamentalism of the biblical or any other sort. But is it not precisely the
contribution of a living, teaching, theological tradition to face contemporary
issues on the basis of the scriptural and magisterial tradition it represents?
Royal often opts for the simplistic, dismissive comment and tone about
theology and religion. As such his work is as fundamentalist and simplistic as
some of the authors and positions he quite accurately and (most often)
carefully critiques. Very early on he evidences a "sleight of hand" and
rhetorical flair that unfortunately conceals rather than reveals issues for
legitimate debate and theological insight. For example, he asserts that he will
avoid the term "sustainable development" because of the many dubious
assumptions people have attached to it of late. This ignores the fact that the
phrase can well be used to argue in favor of both development, as opposed to
a romantic notion of creation, nature, and the environment, and the equitable
distribution of the world's resources, insuring that what is "developed" can also
be life giving and preserving for the world's inhabitants-in effect be
ecologically and humanly sustainable. But because of overgeneralizations and
possible misunderstandings Royal (boldly) writes "sustainable development
generally makes the socialist mistake of thinking that a central bureaucracy can
plan for the operation of a whole economic order better than the innovators
and entrepreneurs within it" (17). The assumption that sustainability and
central bureaucracies go together is at least unnuanced rhetoric if not in fact
unproven. Regrettably this kind of rhetorical flair overgeneralizes a host of
issues throughout the book. What would have been welcomed is more
theological precision and the making of careful distinctions (the very craft of
the theologian).

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The first chapter ends with a helpful summary of issues about the environment and ecology today and the challenges which these offer to the religiously
grounded, thoughtful person, which issues derive from a rather brief but
overall very insightful summary of reflections from the Bible, St. Augustine,
and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. These sources are used to defend a balanced
approach to issues about preserving creation for all creatures, especially since
some extremists in environmental circles can be legitimately criticized for
almost divinizing nature. The author's comments about a certain hierarchy in
the cosmos and different claims which creatures can make on the world's
resources are quite accurate. But again, even here, a certain caricaturish
rhetoric is evident.
Despite the fact that Royal claims no real competence in modern science, in
the second chapter he offers an admirable summary of contemporary science
as it relates to ecology. Quantum physics and the theories of Stephen Hawking,
among other things, are clearly presented and offer helpful insight for the
theologian of the demands which science can and should place on any
theologian working on ecology today. Again, a chief contribution here is to
insure that nature and creation and their preservation are not romantically
idealized.
This theme is helpfully reiterated in chapters 3 to 7, whose main focus is to
evaluate the writings of some contemporary thinkers (many Catholic theologians among them) with respect to fallacies in their approaches to ecology,
more often than not because they have (at least in Royal's estimation) so
overemphasized creation and the environment that the role of humanity is
eclipsed and the uniqueness of the human person as created in God's image and
likeness is diminished. Not surprisingly the names Thomas Berry and Matthew
Fox recur (chapter 5 is entitled "The Gospel according to Matthew," meaning
the contemporary author not the evangelist) and "ecofeminists" are grouped
together as though theirs was a univocal stance or that they proffered a single
argument in favor of ecology. But even with this drawback Royal is to be
commended for indicating some of their extreme views and theologically thin
assertions. To be welcomed are his pleas for depth and nuance in contemporary
religious thinking about ecology and the environment. One would have
expected such from those claiming to be theologians. Unfortunately in
"environmental theology" today such cannot be presumed; theology itself is
thus diminished because of such overly generalized statements and theological
thinness.
Royal unfortunately gives scant or no attention to sources for legitimate
theological development in Catholic thought as it relates to issues of the
environment today. It would seem obvious that among the contributions which
Catholic theology and the magisterium have made to the credibility of the faith
is the fact that traditionally they evaluated contemporary issues in light of the
sources of the faith and articulated credible, contemporary insights derived
from that age-old faith. Contemporary crises in the world today resulting from
the misuse of the environment can (and should) be taken seriously as an

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opportunity for Catholicism to articulate its beliefs in a new way. Most
surprisingly and glaringly Royal skirts some of the more useful avenues
explored by the contemporary magisterium, by some newer voices in theology,
and by some ecumenical parties.
Hence, it is unfortunate that the contemporary magisterium on the
environment and ecology is given slight attention, if not short shrift. Although
Pope John Paul II has frequently noted the problems of ecological degradation
in a variety of talks and messages (for example to the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences in 1991and1993), his World Day of Peace Message (1January1990)
"Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All the World," which contains his
most complete treatment of these issues, is noted only in passing. The
encyclicals Centesimus Annus (specifically nos. 37, 53) and Evangelium Vitae
(specifically nos. 22, 27, 34, 42) stand out as building blocks in a contemporary
magisterium on the interrelationship among concern for the earth, the needs
of people, and overconsumption of resources in the developed world, inviting
people to adjust agrarian policies and economic structures so as to ensure the
well-being of all citizens of this earth. More popular applications of these
teachings appear in the Holy Father's Lenten messages for 1992, 1993, and
1996, none of which are even noted here. That the editors of the Catechism of
the Catholic Church deliberately took pains to emphasize the integration
between belief in the God of creation and belief in the God of redemption is
also conspicuously absent as a fruitful avenue for Catholic theology to pursue.
In addition, among the more useful contemporary approaches to ecology
from a Catholic perspective is the collection of essays published by the U. S.
Catholic Conference And God Saw That lt Was Good: Catholic Theology and
the Environment (noted in chapter 5, n. 1) or Stephen Bede Scharper's
Redeeming the Time: A Political Theology of the Environment (summarily
dismissed in the introduction and n. 3). That the Orthodox have taken up
environmental issues as key to their contemporary teaching is clear from
official statements such as Orthodoxy and the Ecological Crisis from the
Ecumenical Patriarchate, co-published by the World Wide Fund for Nature
International, and the writings of theologians such as Kallistos Ware (noted in
n. 24 of the introduction but nowhere developed as one way of integrating
sacramentality and the ecology). The almost decade-old American ecumenical
initiative cosponsored by the U.S. bishops' conference, the National Religious
Partnership on the Environment, is regrettably not even mentioned.
These writings share a vision of Catholic theology that is integral,
specifically one that emphasizes both creation and redemption, sacramentality
as a broad concept and the celebration of liturgy and sacraments as the chief
way we articulate our beliefs, contemplation and action, and orthodox teaching
and deeds in service of God's justice for the world and all who dwell in it.
Unfortunately Royal's book on the "use and abuse of religion in environmental
debates" is a one-sided debate against religious bodies and theologians
legitimately raising their collective and individual voices about the environment
because of some extremist views and approaches, legitimately exposed. There

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are a number of quite orthodox, centrist, and mainline theological voices that
are worth hearing, supporting, and even expanding on. While Royal
legitimately notes where the theological minefields are located, he most often
remains content to indicate danger rather than the contribution which
(especially Catholic) theology can make to developing a theology that is
ecologically aware. Gratefully, (admittedly) tentative first steps have been
taken on a number of thoroughly orthodox Catholic fronts to face the issue of
how Catholic theology responds today to the environmental crisis
theologically, spiritually, and pastorally. A greater appreciation of these
approaches might have helped to fill out the book's subtitle by at least noting
the very significant usefulness of these voices in today's environmental debates.
That the religious voice is scarcely heard among environmentalists is to our
collective chagrin. Royal is on target when he notes this absence. He misfires
when he ignores insightful and reasonable challenges that Catholicism can and
should offer to the whole field of environmental studies and environmental
science today.
KEVINW. IRWIN

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

The Ethics of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Two Courses. By IGNATIUS THEODORE
ESCHMANN, 0.P. Edited by EDWARD A. SYNAN Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1997. Pp xxx + 242. $49.50. ISBN 088844-720-5.

In the era after World War II many students came from Canada and the
United States to Toronto to take courses at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, leading to a licentiate in mediaeval studies and/or an M.A. or Ph.D. in
Philosophy granted by the University of Toronto. Most of these students took
an introductory course on the life and writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas in the
fall semester and "The Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas" in the spring semester.
These courses were taught by the Reverend Ignatius (for Ignatius of Antioch)
Theodore Eschmann, O.P., who had come to the institute in 1942 and
remained as a professor of philosophy until his death in 1968. While
recognized as a leading authority on the works of Aquinas as well as his moral
philosophy and theology, Eschmann's writings were not copious. Now some
years after his death Msgr. Edward A. Synan has edited for publication the

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lectures Eschmann wrote for his ethics courses. Synan himself, a professor and
former president of the institute, died in 1997, the year of publication.
This work includes a short, interesting biography of Eschmann. He was born
in Diisseldorf, Germany, in 1898; he received a classical education at the Royal
Prussian Hohenzollern-Gymnasium in Diisseldorf, graduating in 1916; from
there he went into the German army in which he served as a machine-gunner
until the end of the war. It is of interest to students of the revival of Thomism
that Etienne Gilson, Eschmann's colleague as founder and director of the
institute, served in the French army as a machine-gun officer until taken
prisoner at the battle of Verdun in 1916. Eschmann's "A Catalogue of St.
Thomas's Works" is an appendix to Laurence K. Shook's translation of the fifth
edition of Gilson'sLe Thomisme. This catalogue was also an appendix to James
A. Weisheipl, O.P., Friar Thomas D'Aquino.
Eschmann entered the Cologne province of the Dominicans after the war
and was sent to Rome for his philosophical and theological training in the
1920s and early 1930s at the Angelicum. He began his writing here, mainly
reviews, usually in the language of whatever book he was reviewing. In 1936
he returned to what had become the National Socialist Germany of Hitler; an
early assignment was to preach and explain from the pulpit the 1937 Mit
Brennender Sorge letter of Pius XI, written under the direction of Eugenio
Pacelli, Vatican secretary of state and the future Pius XU. For this he was
imprisoned by the civil authorities of Cologne for a year, during which time he
suffered some brutality. After his release he was able to get to Canada where
he was part of the project of the Dominicans under Fr. Louis-Marie Regis,
O.P., to edit and publish what came to be known as the Ottawa Summa. He
had a short period at Laval University, where he had an unhappy controversy
with Charles De Koninck over the political thought of Jacques Maritain, before
he went to Toronto in 1942 to teach at the institute. This biography is told by
Synan with many more details and anecdotes which make a fascinating
introduction to the lectures edited by Synan. It is acknowledged that Professor
Mark Jordan made a first effort at organizing Eschmann's lectures and Synan
thanks Jordan for suggestions he used in the later preparation for publication.
One of the suggestions was to divide the lectures according to the headings
"Eschmannus Bellator" ("Eschmann the Warrior") and "Eschmannus
Aedificator" ("Eschmann the Builder") to indicate on the one hand his strong
criticism of much post-renaissance Thomistic interpretation of the Prima
secundae, and on the other hand his positive and extensive analysis of St.
Thomas's treatment of prudence.
A feature of Eschmann's classes was that he read the Latin text of Aquinas
in such a way that students of limited language ability found that text perfectly
intelligible. In this edition the texts of Aquinas are in English with the Latin in
the footnotes. Another feature of this study is that Synan has enriched the
lectures of Eschmann with the fullest information about those quoted added in
the footnotes. As a student and later a colleague at the institute Synan has made
this edition a work of loving piety toward his teacher.

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Eschmann strongly repudiated the post-Trent division of theology into
dogmatics and morals. In affirming the unity of the Summa Theologiae he
stressed the continuity that flowed from the Prima to the Secunda pars and
consequently he emphasized in explaining the prologue to the Prima secundae
the notion of the human person being in the image of God as an intelligent and
free being. His lectures brought out Aquinas's debt to Aristotle's Ethics as well
as the special Augustinian and Christian context, but the thrust was always in
seeing man acting for an end that would fulfill his being as a person. The
happiness of the human person comes through acting in a rational way that
would perfect his nature. Thus the seventeenth-century theologians who
approached morality in a legalistic way, affirming the rules which kept one
from sinning, even if they claimed Aquinas as their mentor came in for special
criticism in these lectures by Eschmann. His objective was to explain and
analyze the first question of the Prima secundae, going into the historical
background of each objection, showing the parallel passages in the early
Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, as well as sources in Aristotle and
Augustine, but also he wanted to show his students, who one day would be
teachers of other students, how to read St. Thomas Aquinas. Again and again
he stressed the need to re-read and study the text as part of a larger whole.
In this context he showed how Aquinas developed in his own treatment of
an issue; how the answer given to a difficulty some years later in the Summa
was an improvement over the treatment given in the Scriptum; and how this
technique of analysis could be used in determining the chronology of some of
the writings whose dates are subject to dispute. A further lesson here was to
recognize the limitations of some Thomistic textbook writers who used
"scissors and paste" to put together texts, ignoring the context of the original
quotation. Those who had the privilege of being Eschmann's students will be
delighted with Synan's work for it will recall their student days, and those who
did not have the opportunity will benefit Eschmann's exposition and come to
understand why he downgraded those moral theologians who had what he
regarded as a legalistic approach to morality.
The second course Synan presents from Eschmann's notes is headed
"Eschmann us Aedificators" and sub-headed "The Ethics of the Image of God."
Here he presents St. Thomas on the virtue of prudence; but it is much more
than that since it goes beyond the virtue and embraces the wholeness of
Eschmann's understanding of what morality meant for Aquinas. It is a positive
exposition of morality as the fulfillment of the person as made in God's image,
intellectual and free. Crudely put, Eschmann is repudiating the morality of
duty and rules and is affirming a morality of personal perfection where to be
moral is the realization of being all that one can be. It owes a great deal to
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics but grasped in a Christian way wherein the
supernatural perfects the natural. And it is great reading because it is so
practical: Eschmann is giving his own distillation in a life devoted to the
understanding and meditation on Aquinas.

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Eschmann reflects on a number of topics as he builds toward his conclusion
of the liberty of the Christian as the perfection of prudence: ethics, natural law,
conscience, the teleology of human life, and the parts of prudence. Speaking
of solertia or ingenuity as part of prudence he says,
this ingenuity, is also a certain quickness of moral wit which grasps
human situations, even complicated human situations, in an inkling and
accurately, instructively as it were, by connatural perception,
unhampered by the temptations of injustice, of cowardice, of
immoderation. There is more to this than meets the eye, at bottom it
is a spiritual and vital soundness .... The doctrine of prudence calls for
vital sanity ... which is the hallmark of classical and Christian ethics
of virtue. (207)

One is tempted to go on quoting Eschmann, but there is no substitute for
reading the book, which I strongly recommend especially to those who did not
have the opportunity of hearing this teacher himself. Synan has done a great
service to contemporary Catholic thought in making available the Eschmann
lectures and one has to be grateful for their publication now some thirty years
after his death by Toronto's Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
DESMOND

University of San Francisco
San Francisco, California

J. FITZGERALD