The Thomist 69 (2005): 1-30 THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION ACCORDING TO THOMAS AQUINAS 1 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. Pontifical Gregorian Universiry Rome, Italy S ONE STUDIES what Thomas Aquinas wrote over his career about human-that is, moral-action, one gradually realizes that he held to a general methodological principle: namely, that the field of moral action is to be extended as widely as possible, that is, as widely as it is possible to find even the most minimal involvement of the will. There is good reason for this. Involvement of the will means the field of moral action: if we do not include within this field something that exists only by virtue of the wiH's operation (however flickering such operation might be), where else are we to put it? If this is not a logical principle, it comes very dose to being such. The purpose of this essay is to show, first of aH, that Thomas does indeed hold to this methodological principle, and then to show how this bears upon his characterization of particular human actions. Section 1 is devoted primarily to establishing that Thomas adheres to the principle; it gives special attention to the first movements of the will. Section 2 is a look at Thomas's use of ideas presented in the first few pages of the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle explains that certain factors make an action-or, at least, an aspect of an action-involuntary. Section 3 picks up on a remark in this same section of the 1 I am very grateful to the Dominican community at the Dominican House of Studies (Washington, D.C.), whose hospitality I enjoyed while researching and writing this essay. I thank Basil Cole, O.P., of the Dominican House of Studies, and also Fr. Stephen Brock and William E. May for their helpful remarks and criticisms. 1 2 KEVIN L. FLANNERY,S.J. Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle presents his list of the socalled circumstances that can have a bearing upon the moral character of an action. How he understands these things is important for establishing the extent and the nature of moral responsibility for particular human actions. Section 4 continues this discussion, arguing that various passages in which Thomas uses the expression "besides the intention" (praeter intentionem) are less important for determining moral responsibility than the use he makes of the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics-in other words, that the voluntary, the analysis of which depends upon the methodological principle identified in section 1, is more important than the intentional. Section 5 is a very brief conclusion. I. THE WIDE EXTENT OF THE MORAL Medieval editions of Peter Lombard's Sentences included no footnotes or quotation marks. So it was often not easy for medieval commentators to differentiate between the numerous references to and quotations from the Church Fathers and Lombard's commentary. This was the case with respect to a phrase that comes at the end of Lombard's discussion of a section of the twelfth book of Augustine's De Trinitate that treats of the different levels of sin. Augustine associates the superior part of reason with Adam, the inferior part with Eve, and the sense appetites with the serpent. 2 When we commit a mortal sin, it is as 2 Augustine, De Trinitate 12.12.1-10: "Sicut enim in illo manifesto coniugio duorurn hominum qui primi facti sunt, non manducavit serpens de arbore vetita, sed tantummodo manducandum persuasit; mulier autem non manducavit sola, sed viro suo dedit, et simul manducaverunt; quamvis cum serpente sola locuta, et ab eo sola seducta sit; ita et in hoc quod etiam in homine uno geritur et dignoscitur, occulto quodam secretoque coniugio carnalis, vel, ut ita dicam, qui in corporis sensus intenditur, sensualis animae motus, qui nobis pecoribusque communis est, seclusus est a ratione sapientiae." See also De Trin. 12.3.14-20: "Et sicut una caro est duorurn in masculo et femina, sic intellectum nostrum et actionem, vel consilium et exsecutionem, vel rationem et appetitum rationalem, vel si quo alio modo significatius dici possunt, una mentis natura complectitur; ut quemadmodum de illis dictum est: 'Erunt duo in came una,' sic de his dici possit: 'Duo in mente una.'" Also De Trin. 12.7.101c7: "Sed quia sexu corporis distat a viro, rite potuit in eius corporali velamento figurari pars ilia rationis, quae ad temporalia gubernanda deflectitur; ut non maneat imago Dei, nisi ex parte mens hominis aeternis rationibus conspiciendis vel consulendis adhaerescit, quam non solum masculos, sed etiam feminas habere manifestum est." So, Augustine does not deny that women THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 3 if Adam were to eat again of the forbidden fruit, for not only does the inferior part of reason give in to the blandishments of the senses (as did Eve to the serpent) but the higher part gives full consent as well. "For it is not possible," says Augustine, "for a sin to be opted for by the mind, its being regarded not only favorably [suaviter] but also as efficaciously to be perpetrated, unless that intention of the mind, to which belongs the supreme power of putting the limbs into action or of impeding the same, yields to the evil action and does service. " 3 But what about the movements of the sensual appetites as they first come into contact with the intellect and will? Such movements are sometimes called the motus secundo primi, "secondary first movements," in order to characterize them as first but also to distinguish them from movements that are purely physiological, the "primary first movements" (motus primo primi). Are they even venially sinful? Augustine does not confront this question directly. He does says that the soul's "grasping interiorly at the false images of corporeal things and in vain meditation combining them" is sinful, 4 and he suggests that sins of thought that involve no will to act but only a will to delight in the thought of sinful actions are venially sinful. 5 But these sins are located somewhat have rationis pars superior, although, in his view, they are characterized by the presence of rationis pars inferior. (The expression rationis pars superior does not actually appear in Augustine but is supplied by Lombard.) 3 Augustine, De Trin. 12.12.32-36: "Neque enim potest peccatum non solum cogitandum suaviter, verum etiam efficaciter perpetrandum mente decemi, nisi et ilia mentis intentio, penes quam summa potestas est mernbra in opus movendi, vel ab opere cohibendi, rnalae actioni cedat et serviat." 4 Augustine, De Trin. 12.10.14-16): "et corporearum rerum fallacia sirnulacra introrsus rapiens et vana meditatione componens." This is sinful since the person makes these things into his ultimate end ("ut in his finem boni sui ponat" [ibid., 12-13]) so that nothing appears divine unless it is like these corporeal things ("ut ei nee divinum aliquid nisi tale videatur" [ibid., 16]). Augustine is clearly speaking about mortal sin since he distinguishes this "grasping interiorly at false images" from humana temptatio (ibid., 6-7; 1Cor1:13 ), which he regards as involving venial sin (see In Iohannis evangelium tractatus 90.2.14-29) .. This same grasping seems to be connected with action in some way since just before that phrase ("et corporearum rerum fallacia simulacra introrsus rapiens et vana meditatione componens") he says, "Cum ... aliquid agit, quidquid agit, turpiter agit" (Augustine, De Trin. 12.10.10-13). 5 Augustine, De Trin. 12.12.37-41: "Nee sane, cum sola cogitatione mens oblectatur illicitis, non quidem decernens esse facienda, tenens tamen et volvens libenter quae statim ut attigerunt animum respui debuerunt, negandum est esse peccatum, sed longe minus quam si 4 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. farther down the road to perdition than the motus secundo primi. Lombard speaks more explicitly about these latter: "If, therefore, the enticement of sin is retained [teneatur] only in the sensual movement, the sin is venial and of the lightest sort. " 6 Indeed, he seems to put Augustine's sins of thought into the category of mortal sins in order to make room for these as venial. One sins mortally, he says, not only when one is disposed to perform an evil action or actually performs it "but also when one is detained [tenetur] for a period of time by delight in the thought [of such actions]." 7 A number of medieval commentators, including Thomas, Bonaventure, and Thomas's teacher Albert the Great, follow this line, the last laboring under the impression that Lombard was quoting Augustine. 8 When Albert-who, it must be admitted, was et opere statuatur irnplendum." 6 Peter Lombard, Sententiae 2.24.9: "Si ergo in motu sensuaii tantum peccati illecebra teneatur, veniale ac levissirnurn est peccaturn" (Peter Lombard, Sententiae in N Libris Distinctae, Spici!egium Bonaventurianum 4-5 [Grottaferrata: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971-81, 3rd edition] torn. 1, pars 2, p. 457). 7 Peter Lombard, Sent. 2.24.12.2): "Itaque, ut breviter surnrnarn perstringam, quando peccatum ita in anirna concipitur ut illud facere disponat vel eliarn perficiat, aliud frequenter, aliud vel semel, vel etiarn quando delectatione cogitationis diu tenetur, mortale est. Cum vero in sensuali rnotu tanturn est, ut praediximus [2.24.9.3], tune levissirnum est, quia ratio tune non delectatur." 8 Thomas, in the sed contra of H Sent., d. 24, q.3, a. 2 appears to realize that the phrase "Si ergo in rnotu sensuaii tan turn" is not a quotation from Augustine but he does think that it expresses Augustine's position: "Hoc etiarn expresse habetur per hoc quod in littera dicitur, quod si in rnotu sensuali tantum peccati illecebra teneatur, veniaie ac levissimurn peccaturn est." This is the position he defends in the corpus. In Bonaventure, at the beginning of a question entitled, "Utrum in sensualitate possit esse veniale peccaturn," we find the following: "Circa prim um sic proceditur, quod in sensualitate posset esse veniale peccatum: 1. Primo per illud Augustini duodecimo de Trinitate, quod recitat Magister in littera: 'Si in rnotu sensuali tantum peccati illecebra teneatur, veniale est"' (Bonaventure, II Sent., 24.2.3.1, in Bonaventure, Opera Omnia, ed. Franciscan Friars of Quaracchi [Florence: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1882-1902], v.2, p. 583). In Albert's commentary on the Sentences, the overall question is "Utturn in sensualitate possit esse peccatum." The first point in the sed contra is, "Prirni rnotus sunt peccata, ut dicit ibi Augustinus [ibi referring to Lombard's II Sent. 24.9]. Et primi motus sunt in sensualitate: ergo peccaturn est in sensualitate." Albert's own response is notable for its lack of argumentation; here it is in its entirety: "Sine praejudicio dicendurn, quod in sensualitate est peccatum quod vocatur prirnus moms, qui secundurn Augustinurn, peccaturn levissimum est" (Albertus Magnus, II Sent., 24.F.9, in Albert the Great, Opera Omnia, ed. S. C. A. Borgnet [Paris: Vives, 1894], v. 27, p. 407). On this general issue, see THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 5 rather vague regarding the boundaries of the moral-discovered that the remark was not Augustine's, he changed his mind completely: the first movements (motus primi) of the sense appetites, he now said, do not come under the influence of the will and cannot, therefore, involve sin, even of the lightest sort. 9 But Thomas sticks to his guns, maintaining throughout his career that it is possible for sin to be present in sensuality itself. He readily acknowledges that the sin involved takes place without deliberation, and so it is not "perfectly a human act" (i.e., a moral act). 10 But it is a moral act, however imperfect, since it is of the nature of sensual appetite to be moved by the will. 11 The sin that can enter into sensual appetite is voluntary since the range of the will's influence includes not only itself (i.e., when it puts itself in act) but also other powers insofar as they can either be put in act or suppressed (STh 1-11, q. 74, a. 2). If a person fails to suppress these first movements when they occur, his act is voluntary even if he does not decide to allow them to continue. Thus, although James Athanasius Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D'Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1983), 73-74, 421; also Odon Lottin, "Le doctrine morale des mouvements premiers de l'appetit sensitif aux XII• et xm• siecles," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du mayen age 6 (1931): 49-93; also Thomas Deman, "Le peche de sensualite," Melanges Mandonnet, Bibliotheque Thomiste 13 (Paris: Vrin, 1930): 265-83. 9 In his Summa theologiae 2.15.92.4, obj. 2 (Albert the Great, Opera omJtia, v. 33, p. 197), Albert no longer attributes the remark "Si in solo motu sensuali tantum peccati illecebra remaneat et teneatur, veniale ac levissimum peccatum est" (as he gives it there) to Augustine; moreover, in the response to the first objection (ibid., p. 198), he says that Lombard is wrong to say that there is sin in the motus primi: "Ad primum ergo dicendum, quod Magister vocat ibi veniale peccatum motum primum, qui non est in sensualitate nisi sicut in corrupta origine: et sic potius est poena peccato quam peccatum." On Albert's vagueness with respect to the boundaries of the moral, see Kevin L. Flannery, "The Multifarious Moral Object of Thomas Aquinas," The Thomist 67 (2003): 102-10. (Page 110 of this article contains a typographical error: in line 11, "On the other hand," should be "Whereas.") 10 STh I-II, q. 74, a. 3, ad 3: "illud quod homo facit sine deliberatione rationis, non perfecte ipse facit, quia nihil operatur ibi id quod est principale in homine. Unde non est perfecte actus humanus. Et per consequens non potest esse perfecte actus virtutis vel peccati, sed aliquid imperfectum in genere horum. Unde talis motus sensualitatis rationem praeveniens, est peccatum veniale, quod est quiddam imperfectum in genere peccati." 11 STh I-II, q. 74, a. 3: "Manifestum est autem quod actus sensualitatis potest esse voluntarius, inquantum sensualitas, idest appetitus sensitivus, nata est a voluntate moveri." 6 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. Thomas occasionally associates the will with deliberation, 12 more basic to the voluntary-and therefore to the moral-is the mere possibility of exercising control. He readily acknowledges that it is not possible to suppress every movement of the flesh: as one is suppressed, another springs up. But the fact that any single movement is suppressible is enough to say that culpability enters into sensual appetite itself. 13 This idea of the nondeliberative voluntary is important for marking out the field of moral action. It goes well beyond the widely recognized Thomistic position that even a person who has no options to deliberate about does what he does freely-his will is involved-since he could have declined to do what he does at all. 14 In such cases there is clearly an act, but the cases now under consideration are cases in which Thomas finds voluntariness but which most of us would say involve no act at all. In his early remarks on the second book of Lombard's Sentences, he asks explicitly, "Whether in every sin there is some act" (II Sent., d. 35, q. 1, a. 3). 15 His answer here is yes, although when it comes to omissions that yes is qualified dramatically. There are two opinions, he says, regarding whether a sin of omission needs to involve an act which is actually elicited from its corresponding potency, as when someone who can lift his arm or can speak 12 See, for instance, STh I-II, q. 1, a. 1; I Sent., d. 48, q. 4; and II Sent., d. 24, q. 3, a. 1. Thomas uses in these places the expression voluntas deliberata, which is distinct from the voluntas naturalis, by which man naturally wills the good. 13 STh I-II, q. 74, a. 3, ad 2: "Et ideo non potest homo vitare omnes huiusmodi motus, propter corruptionem praedictam, sed hoc solum sufficit ad rationem peccati voluntarii, quod possit vitare singulos. n 14 See, for instance, STh I-II, q. 10, a. 2: "si proponatur aliquod obiectum voluntati quod sit universaliter bonum et secundum omnem considerationem, ex necessitate voluntas in illud tendet, si aliquid velit; non enim poterit velle oppositum." Or see Ill Sent., d. 18, q. 3, ad 2, where he makes use of Aristotle's NE 3.3.1112bll-12 in order to argue that, when it is clear which means ought to be used, merit requires no deliberation but only intention of the end. See also De malo 6 (ll.435 40; throughout this article, parenthetical line numbers refer to the Leonine edition) and Kevin L. Flannery,Acts amid Precepts: The Aristotelian Logical Structure of Thomas Aquinas's Moral Theory (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001) 122-23. 15 The commentary (if we are to call it that) was largely composed between 1252 and 1256, although even in the latter year it was still not complete: see Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., St. Thomas Aquinas: The Person and His Work (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 332. THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 7 actually does so. Some say that such an act is not necessary; some say that it is, whether this be an interior act of the will, as when someone wills not to obey a precept, or whether it be exterior, as when someone performs some act by which he is impeded from carrying out a precept-and an example is offered of one who stays up late and is not able to rise at the proper hour. 16 Thomas argues that this second position is not compelling: if the will is free in this instance, it is free both to do something and not to do it In this way, he says, a person can simply omit something without willing its contrary-nor does he even need to think about its contrary or about anything else that per se would be an impediment to that which he is obligated to do. 17 Moreover, if the act that does "take the place" of that which the person should be doing is not directly opposed to it, that act need not be described as culpable since in itself it could be perfectly licit. 18 So, it appears, we are (or, at least, can be) left with no culpable act at all: an act contrary to the obligation is not necessary and an act that merely takes its place is not necessarily culpable. "It is therefore dear," he says, "that a sin of omission consists in the mere negation of the required act." 19 But how can this be? The whole point of this article is to show that "every sin must in some way consist in an act" 20 Thomas argues that the absence of an act is to be considered in some way 16 II Sent., d. 35, q. 1, a. 3: "Quidam enim dicunt quod in peccato omissionis semper oportet aliquem actum esse, per quern aliquis retardatur ab expletione mandati vel praecepti, sive interiorem vohmtatis, ut cum aliquis vult praecepto non obedire; sive exteriorem, ut cum aliquis facit aliquem actum per quern ab expletione praecepti impeditur; et ponirur exemplurn de illo qui nimis vigilat, et non potest surgere hora debita." 17 lbid.: "Sed ista opinio non videtur necessitatem habere: cum enim voluntas libera sit, nee ad aliquid faciendum vel non faciendum determinetur; potest hoc modo praetermittere aliquid quod ejus contrariurn non velit, nee de ejus contrario cogitet, nee etiam de aliquo alio quod sit per se irnpedimentum ejus quod facere tenetur." 18 Ibid.: "[E]tsi enim aliquid velit quod, quantum est in se, non est impedimentum expletionis praecepti, sicut oppositum, constat quod ex hoc quod vult illud, non peccat; quia illud potest esse secundum se licitum." 19 Ibid.: "[U]nde patet quod peccatum omissionis in sola negatione actus debiti consistit." 20 The lead sentence of II Sent., d. 35, q. 1, a. 3 is, "Respondeo dicendum, quod omne peccatum oportet aliquo modo in actu consistere, non tamen eodem modo." 8 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. an act. This is possible since opposites are "led up to" one and the same genus (in idem genus reducuntur): just as white and black are both colors, so an act and its negation (its omission) are, in a sense, both acts. What provides the ontological basis for an omission is not an elicited act but the mere potency for such. 21 When sin involves an elicited act, as when a person steals something, that act has the nature (the ratio) of sin; if the sin consists in merely omitting to do what is obligatory (to worship God, for example), that omission acquires the nature of sin in so far as it is voluntary: the person could have done otherwise. 22 For the idea that opposites are led up to the same genus, Thomas invokes Augustine and also his own discussion, earlier in this same commentary, of the question whether we can say that the Father is ingenitus (ungenerated). 23 An objection would have it that only relations properly distinguish the persons of the Trinity; since ingenitus is a negation and nothing so solid as a relation, it cannot be used to distinguish the Father from the Son. In reply, Thomas acknowledges that "no negation or privation is per se within a genus [in this case, the genus of relation], for it has neither quiddity nor being, but it is led up to the genus of the affirmation, according to which being is understood in non-being 21 See the expositio textus to II Sent., d. 35, where Thomas discusses an argument found in the text of Lombard (Peter Lombard, Sent., 2.35.2 [Grottaferrata ed., p. 533, II. 26ff.]) to the effect that an omission does involve a positive act: "lsta solutio procedit secundum illam opinionem quae ponit in peccato omissionis actum esse; sed secundum aliam opinionem solvetur ista objectio, quia privationi qua malum omissionis dicitur malum, substat res bona, scilicet potentia in actum non exiens." 22 II Sent., d. 35, q. 1, a. 3, "Sed quia opposita in idem genus reducuntur, ideo omissio actus peccati rationem consequitur ex eo quod voluntaria est; sicut et actus voluntarius rationem peccati et culpae habet." Thomas goes on to say that this is consonant with what Aristotle says in NE 3.1.111 Ob31-33, where those who neglect to inform themselves of what they should do are justly punished. In III NE, lect. 3 (§410 [Marietti ed.]), Thomas says that such individuals are "unjust with respect to others and evil with respect to themselves" ("iniusti quoad alios, et mali quoad seipsos"). 23 II Sent., d. 35, q. 1, a. 3, ad 1: "Ad primum ergo dicendum, quod, sicut dictum est, opposita reducuntur in idem genus in quo vel utrumque est per se, ut patet in contrariis et relativis; vel unum est per se, et alterum per reductionem, ut patet in privatione et habitu, et affirmatione et negatione; unde habitum est in [I Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 1) ab Augustino, quod in eodem genere est genitus et non genitus." The reference to Augustine is doubtless De Trinitate 5.6-7. THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 9 and affirmation in negation. " 24 Thus we can say that not only genitus but also ingenitus refers to a relation. These earlier remarks of Thomas's help us to understand the briefer remarks on the same topic in question 71 of the Prima secundae ("Whether in whatever sin there is some act" [STh I-II, q. 71, a. 5]). There, although his laying out of the problem is the same as in the Sentences commentary ("Some say that in every sin of omission there is some act, whether interior or exterior . . . [b]ut others say that in a sin of omission no act is required" [ibid.]), Thomas says that "it is truer to say that it is possible for some sin to be without any act. " 25 Those who say that an act is necessary are correct insofar as, even when a person does something else from which it merely follows that he does not do what he ought, there was present the occasion of doing the right thing. 26 Thomas uses again the example of the man who stays up late and so does not get to church: he could have gone to bed. Strictly speaking, however, there was no act of not going to church. All the man did was stay up late; not going to church was "beside" his intention (praeter intentionem ). 27 (This latter expression will become important below.) 24 I Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3:"Ita etiam nulla negatio vel privatio est in genere per se: quia non habet aliquam quidditatem nee esse; sed reducitur ad genus affinnationis, secundum quod in non esse intelligitur esse, et in negatione affirmatio." He goes on to attribute this idea to Aristotle: "ut p\ TOO KtvElv Ta upoopa. Gauthier argues convincingly that the Tl and the Tivt in n:::pi Ti ii Ev TlVt are both neuter and that Aristotle is referring to the object of the act (n:::pi Ti) and its "entire domain" (lv T1vt}, "encompassing all the conditions which it [the act] in fact requires" (Gauthier and Jolif, 2/1:184-85). This in effect makes f.v TlVt equivalent to EV (ii found at 1110b33-1111a1; 1111a16, 18, and 24, which in turn refers to the particulars (Ka0' EKaCITa, 1110b33). The pronoun in lv TlVt has been attracted into the singular by the pronoun in rr:::pi TL So, where Albert and Thomas associatetv TlVt with what can easily be understood as accidents, that is, "in what place" and "at what time," the Gauthier-Joli£ translation has: "Disons done qu'il s'agit de savoir qui agit, ce qu'il fait, quel est l'objet ou le domaine de son action, quelquefois aussi avec quoi ii agit (par exemple, avec quel instrument), per quel resultat (par example si ce resultat sera de sauver la vie aquelqu'un) et comment (par exemple, doucement ou violemment)" ([Gauthier andJolif, 1/2:59). Thomas commented upon the following Latin translation of Aristotle: "Forsitan igitur non malum determinare haec, quae et quot sint: et quis utique et quid et circa quid vel in quo operatur, quandoque autem et quo, puta instrumento, et gratia cuius, puta salutis, et qualiter, puta quiete vel vehementer." His comment is as follows: "Enumerans ergo haec singularia, dicit, 'quis,' quod pertinet ad personam principalis agentis, et 'quid,' scilicet agat, quod pertinet ad genus actus, et 'circa quid,' quod pertinet ad materiam vel obiectum." And then a few lines later: "quod autem dicitur 'in quo,' dividit in duas circumstantias, scilicet in quando et ubi" (ill NE, 3.138-50 [Leonine ed.]). IBE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 17 (he does) if he innocently reveals a secret, for instance, or accidentally brings down a house with a catapult ("I didn't know it was loaded"). 41 One might think mistakenly that one's son is an enemy or that the sword one uses is tipped instead of bare or that a potion is medicine instead of poison or that a sword-thrust is restrained instead of penetrating: any such ignorance will take an action, at least in that respect, outside of the field of moral action. 42 Thomas uses these circumstances (which are found also in Cicero although differently formulated) not so much in order to get dear about the voluntary and the involuntary as in order to explain how the nature of a human act can change as these circumstances change. 43 It is not inconceivable that Aristotle did the same. It is apparent in the way that he introduces the circumstances-"Perhaps it would not be a bad idea to set these out" -that their origin is in another philosophical context. Moreover, although, as Arist-otle says, the circumstance "who" is of little use in establishing an act as involuntary, it has a role to play in establishing the nature of an act: a king's saying "Off with his head" is different from a pauper's saying the same thing. 44 In any case, Thomas does use the circumstances in this way in order to further differentiate the field of moral action: they help us to understand what precisely an agent is doingo ., NE 3.L1111a10-11: d:4iE1vm, we; 6 TOY KaTUT!EATl']Vo 42 But not all that which is thus outside the voluntary is involuntary, as Aristode explains at NE J,1.1110b18-24, If, for instance, having killed an intruder one discovers that it was one's son but this is not displeasing-"he was spending too much money anyway"--granted that killing one's son was not voluntary, nonetheless it was not involuntary, 43 On Cicero's list, see STh I-II, q. 7, a, 3; it is found in De inventione 1.26 (Marcus Tullius Cicero, Rhetorici libri duo qui vocantur de inventione, ed. Eduard Stroebel, Bibliotheca Scriptornm Graecomm et Romanomm Teubneriana [Leipzig: Teubner, 1915], 34), The mnemonic verse quoted by Thomas, "Quis, quid, ubi, qui bus auxiliis, cm, quomodo, quando," is attributed to Matthew of Vendorne, author of Ars versificatoria (Gauthier and Jolif, 2/1:186), For the background against which Thomas was writing, see Odon Lottin, "La place du 'finis operantis' dans la pensee de saint Thomas d'Aquin," in Odon Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XII' et XIII' siecles (Louvain: Abbaye du Mont-Cesar; Gembloux: J, Duculot, 1942-60), 4:489-517, 44 Cf. Gauthier and Jolif, 2/1:186. 18 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. John Finnis has reservations about this, with which I am not entirely out of sympathy. He is worried about an approach to the analysis of moral acts that makes behavior as it exists in genere naturae basic. People, he says, sometimes treat the distinction in genere moris/in genere naturae "as conveying simply that behavior understood in genere naturae is assessed by comparison with moral norms and consequently judged and described in genere moris, i.e. with the peculiarly moral predicates such as 'just,' 'unjust,' 'virtuous,' 'vicious,' and so forth. " 45 He says that Thomas has left himself open to such an interpretation since, in some passages (e.g., STh I-II, q. 18, aa. 4 and 10), he is "willing to identify or specify acts by reference to morally relevant circumstances which are praeter intentionem." This, he says, is a "source of confusion" since "acts are morally significant, and are morally assessed in terms of their type, their intrinsic character, just insofar as they are willed, are expressions of the agent's free selfdetermination in choice." 46 Speaking in a moral context of praeter intentionem circumstances favors the erroneous idea that the moral is mere description of the pre-moral. Finnis is certainly right to insist that in Thomas the material of moral analysis is, as I have argued elsewhere, all moral. This is why Thomas is so interested in a precise demarcation of the field of moral action: he realizes that, if his ordering of beings is to be correct, the genus naturae must be wholly distinct from the genus moris. 47 Moreover, Finnis is right to hone in on the notion that the circumstances are, according to Thomas, in some sense accidental. (In the articles cited by Finnis, Thomas does not speak of the circumstances as praeter intentionem but rather as 45 John Finnis, "Object and Intention in Moral Judgments according to St. ,Thomas Aquinas," in Finalite et intentionalite: Doctrine thomiste et perspectives modemes, ed. J. Follon and J. McEvoy (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin; Louvain: Editions de l'Institut Superieur de Philosophie, Louvain-la-neuve, 1992), 140. See also SI'h I-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3. 46 Finnis, "Object and Intention in Moral Judgments according to St. Thomas Aquinas," 141; see also ibid., 140 n.43: "But we should not fail to note that St. Thomas is willing to identify or specify acts by reference to morally relevant circumstances which are praeter intentionem and thus in a sense is willing to treat good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and vice, as if they were somehow categories within the moral order (see e.g. STh I-H, 18, 4 & 10), and that this is a source of confusion." 47 See Flannery, "The Multifarious Moral Object of Thomas Aquinas," 110-13. THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 19 "accidents," which is a broader concept.) But this itself is a product of the texts Thomas was using and the historical tradition within which he was operating, which, contrary to the general thrust of his own theory, spoke of the circumstances as accidents. Rene Antoine Gauthier points to a possible textual cause of this misunderstanding. At the conclusion of Aristotle's explanation of how the circumstances might affect the voluntary and involuntary (NE 3.1.1111a18-19), he says that certain circumstances are more important. The standard critical text reads here, KUptwTaTa o' dvm OOKEl f.v oic; it Kal OU EVEKa, which translated literally means, "And the most important appear to be the circumstances of the act and the end." But there is clearly something wrong here since, according to this reading, Aristotle would be saying that most important among the circumstances are the circumstances, plus the end. Gauthier, following Richards, proposes, therefore, the following emended text: KUptwTaTao' dvm OOKEl f.v oic; it 0 Kai OU ifVEKa: "And the most important conditions within which an action occurs would seem to be that which one does and the end. " 48 As Gauthier explains, this not only removes the absurdity of the principal circumstances including the circumstances; it also pulls us away from the notion that the elements in Aristotle's list-"what," "regarding what or with respect to what," "with what" (instrument), "for what reason," and "how" -are accidents with respect to the act itself. What are traditionally called the circumstances are rather the particulars-that is, [Ta] Ka0' EKaOTa (1110b33)-that give to an act its singularity: what it is. When these factors-"what," "regarding what," etc.-become morally relevant they are not accidental at all but essential to what the agent is doing. 49 Thomas himself appears uncomfortable with the notion that the circumstances might be accidents, but neither the text he was 48 Gauthier's translation is as follows: "or, !es principales des conditions de fait dans lesquelles se deroule !'action, ce sont, de l'aveu unanirne, l'acte que !'on fait et le resultat auquel ii aboutit" (Gauthier and Jolif, 1/2:60). 49 See Gauthier and Jolif, 2/1:188. See also Herbert Paul Richards, Aristotelica (London: G. Richards, 1915), 6. 20 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. using nor the tradition within which he was working provides him with much room to maneuver. His solution is simply to say that these accidents are special: they are especially dose to that which they characterize. In question 7, artide 1 of the Prima secundae he asks whether circumstances are accidents of the human act; his position, of course, is that they are. But in the sed contra he first points out that, although the circumstances of any one thing are called "accidents that individuate it, the Philosopher in EN iii calls them particulars-that is, particular conditions of individual acts." Thomas is referring to the Ta Ka0' EKama mentioned above (NE 3.1.1110b33). It is striking how dose his language is to that of Gauthier, who also prefers to speak of conditions rather than circumstances. 50 And, in the corpus of the same article, Thomas is dearly trying to minimize the distance between the circumstances and that to which they refer, explaining that the literal meanings of words like "circumstance" are often tied to relations among physical objects (such as "spatial distance from"') but that we need not import such physical conceptions into other, more figurative usages, Moreover, in the response to the second objection he points out that there a.re two ways for something to be an accident with respect to something else: either by inhering in a subject as white inheres in Socrates, or by being together with something else in another thing, in the way, for instance, that white is an accident with respect to musical, "in as much as they converge and, as it were, meet one another in the same subject. "51 It is in this second way that circumstances are accidents. But, thus conceived, a circumstance's "'accidentalness" is not about the relationship between it and the act in which it inheres but about its relationship with other circumstances. It happens to be there with them; it could have happened differently. Let us say that the circumstance "with what instrument" is a circumstance of a particular act. 50 See his translation, innote48 above, of NE 3.1.11Ha18; see also, for example Gauthier andJolif, 2/1: 187-88 where Gauthier speaks of "!'expression lv oi<; i; npill;u; designant toutes !es conditiones de fait de I' action" (emphasis in original). 51 STh I-II, q. 7, a. 1, ad 2: "Alio modo quia est simul cum eo in eodern subiecto, sicut dicitur quod album accidit musico, inquantum conveniunt, et quodammodo se contingunt, in uno subiecto." THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 21 Another circumstance will be "what" (what the act is). According to what Thomas says in the response to the second objection, the circumstance "with what instrument" is on an equal footing with the object of the act. Of course, it is easier to understand how "what" fits into such a scheme by thinking of it not as a circumstance or an accident at aH but rather as a particular condition of the act itself: one of the things that make it to be what it is. And this, as it seems, would be more in line with what Aristotle actually meant. I agree with Finnis that Thomas's saying that the circumstances are accidental is a "source of confusion," but not because it erroneously suggests that acts can be identified or specified "by reference to morally relevant circumstances which are praeter intentionem." Circumstances can be, but are not necessarily, praeter intentionem; but even as "accidents" they are not necessarily distinct from what an agent is doing. Following the spirit but not what he read as the letter of Aristotle, Thomas insists that a circumstance can be "the principal condition of the object which determines the species of the act" 52 In an act of theft, for instance, that which constitutes the object in the strictest sense is simply something that belongs to another. But, says Thomas, if taking that thing involves the circumstance that it is in a sacred place (Le., that it is a sacred object), this comes to be part of what, morally, the agent is doing: And thus 'place,' which was previously considered a circumstance, is now considered the principal condition-incompatible with reason--of the object. And in this way, whenever some circumstance is related to the specific order of reason, either positively or negatively, it is necessary that the circumstance give species to the moral act, whether it be good or evil. 53 52 STh I-II, q. 18, a. 10: "Et ideo qnod in uno actu accipitur ut circumstantia superaddita obiecto quod determinat speciem actus, potest iterurn accipi a ratione ordinante ut principalis conditio obiecti determinantis speciem acttis." 53 Ibid.: "Et ideo locus, qui prius considerabatur ut circumstantia, nunc consideratur ut principalis conditio obiecti rationi repugnans. Et per hunc modurn, quandocumque aliqua circumstantia respicit specialem ordinem rarionis vel pro vel contra, oportet quod circumstantia det speciem actui morali vel bono vel malo. See also U Sent., d. 36, q. 1, a. 5, ad 3; and II Sent., d. 37, q. 2, a. 2, ad 4. 22 KEVIN L FLANNERY, S.J. Into an earlier discussion of whether a circumstance, being an accident, can puH (possit trahere) an act into a different species or genus of sin, 54 Thomas introduces the issue of whether a circumstance that is even (in a certain sense) praeter intentionem can do the same thing. The passage comes in the fourth book of the Sentences commentary; Thomas uses the example we have just seen of the sacred object. It is dear [he says] that a circumstance can sometimes pull [an act] into another species of sin; there is doubt, however, as to how this can be. For some say that this happens in as much as these circumstances are accepted as ends of the will, since from the end a moral act accepts its species. But this appears not to be well said, for sometimes the species of a sin is varied without the intention being carried to that circumstance, as when a thief would as willingly take a nonconsecrated golden vessel as a consecrated one-and, yet, the sin is changed into another species, i.e., from a simple theft into a sacrilege. And so, according to this position, only that circumstance which is called "for what reason" can change the species of a sin; and this is false. 55 Just after making the point about the confusion engendered by suggesting that circumstances specify acts, Finnis writes: More particularly: acts are morally significant, and are morally assessed in terms of their type, their intrinsic character, just insofar as they are willed, are expressions of the agent's free self-determination in choice. More precisely: for moral assessment and judgment, the act is what it is just as it is per se, i.e. just as it is intended, i.e. under the description it has in the proposal which the agent adopts by choice. 56 54 IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 3: "Videtur quod circumstantia non possit trahere in aliam speciem vel in aliud genus peccati." 55 Ibid., sol. ad qda 3: "Ad tertiam quaestionem dicendum, quod aliquando circumstantiam trahere in aliam speciem peccati manifestum est; sed quomodo possit esse, est dubium. Quidam enim dicunt, quod hoc accidit inquantum iilae circumstantiae accipiuntur ut fines voluntatis, quia a fine actus mornlis accipit speciem. Sed hoc non videtur sufficienter dictum: quia aliquando variatur species peccati sine hoc quod intentio feratur ad circumstanriam illam; sicut fur ita libenter acciperet vas aureum non sacratum sicut sacratum; et tamen in aliam speciem peccatum mutatur, scilicet de furto simplici in sacrilegium; et praeterea secundum hoc sola ilia circumstanria quae dicitur 'cujus gratia,' speciem peccari mutare posset; quod falsum est." The Latin expression "cujus gratia" ("for what reason") corresponds to Aristotle's l"vi:Ka Ttva<; (NE 3.1.1111a5). 56 Finnis, "Object and Intention in Moral Judgments according to St. Thomas Aquinas," 141. THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 23 The just-quoted passage from the Sentences commentary is about as direct a contradiction of the Finnis thesis as one could find. 57 It is consistent with Thomas' s general methodological principle of extending the field of moral action as far as possible that he should accept into that field a circumstance that is unconnected with what the agent wishes to accomplish with an action. It is true that the thief is not interested in having a sacred vessel but only a golden vessel; but he could have avoided what he knew was sacrilege by not taking the vessel at all. Sacrilege is, therefore, what he does: it is within his will, if not within his intention. 58 There are, moreover, metaphysical reasons for saying that the circumstances of Nicomachean Ethics, book 3, chapter 1 attach to what the agent does. A circumstance is, morally, something. This is presupposed by all that Thomas says in these regards: the circumstances with which he is dealing are those that make a difference morally. 59 But if this is the case, a philosopher is obliged to give an account of such things. As I have argued, circumstances are not accidents; they are better called "conditions"-or even "essential conditions." But, as such, they must attach to something. The most reasonable thing to say is that they attach to acts, which function here as substances do in the physical universe. Someone might object: "But not everything to which we attach culpability is an act; a vice, for instance, is not an act." Or 57 Another related passage difficult to reconcile with the Finnis thesis is STh I-II, q. 20, a. 1: "Respondeo dicendum quod aliqui actus exteriores possunt dici boni vel mali dupliciter. Uno modo, secundum genus suum, et secundum circumstantias in ipsis consideratas, sicut dare eleemosynam, servatis debitis circumstantiis, dicitur esse bonum. Alio modo dicitur aliquid esse bonum vel malum ex ordine ad finem, sicut dare eleemosynam propter inanem gloriam, dicitur esse malum. Cum autem finis sit proprium obiectum voluntatis, manifestum est quod ista ratio boni vel mali quam habet actus exterior ex ordine ad finem, per prius invenitur in actu voluntatis, et ex eo derivatur ad actum exteriorem." 58 See II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 5, where Thomas makes a distinction between the end of the willer and the end of the will in cases where an act is not evil in every respect. So, in the case of a man who steals in order to give alms, his end is good, although the end of the act of the will is not. As he puts the matter in ibid., ad 1, "quando aliquis vult malum propter bonum, illud bonum non est finis actus voluntatis, secundum se considerati, sed est finis a volente inordinate praestitutus." 59 See STh I-II, q. 7, aa. 1-2, especially a. 2, ad 2 and ad 3. 24 KEVIN L. FLANNERY,S.J. someone else might argue: "Why can we not just say that something which is praeter intentionem might still be immoral, not in so far as it comes into the act but in so far as it violates one or another general background principle, such as 'Honor the Lord thy God'?" The response to such arguments is that moral blame eventually comes back to acts or it makes no sense at all. If someone blames another simply for being possessed of a certain vice, the accused reasonably replies, "But what have I done?" Or, "How do you know that I am possessed of that vice?" As to the proposal that the extramoral content comes from the violation of general background principles, the accused thief might respond: "But what have I done to dishonor God? You yourself say that sacrilege does not attach to what I did." IV. THE INTENTIONAL VS. THE VOLUNTARY This brings us up against a crucial issue regarding the field of moral action. If sacrilege comes into the thief's act simply by virtue of his knowing that the vessel is sacred, does this mean that anything of possible moral significance that an agent knows to be connected with what he does is within the field of moral action? It is clear that this is not the case since it does sometimes happen that effects an agent knows will come about because of his actions are not attributable to his will. Thomas certainly recognizes this. In the famous article in which he defends the morality of personal self-defense, he says: Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention fpraeter intentionem ]. Moral acts, however, take their species according to what is intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental as explained above. 60 60 STh II-II, q. 64, a. 7: "Respondeo dicendum quod nihil prohibet unius actus esse duos effectus, quorum alter solum sit in intentione, alius vero sit praeter intentionem. Morales autem actus recipiunt speciem secundum id quod intenditur, non autem ab eo quod est praeter intentionem, cum sit per accidens, ut ex supradictis patet." The last reference is to STh II-II, q. 43, a. 3; also pertinent is STh I-II, q. 72, a. 1. THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 25 He goes on then to argue that no one is obliged to omit an act of proportionate self-defense in order to avoid killing another. Obviously, for the question of omitting an act of self-defense even to come up, an agent would have to know that his action could have the effect of killing an assailant. If we are to have a valid theory of human action, there must be some way of limiting in certain cases what comes into the field of moral action. How do we determine what is to be included and what not? In the hunt for the theoretical wherewithal to solve this problem, a promising track would seem to be the phrase praeter intentionem. Could we not just run down all the passages where Thomas uses this phrase and thereby come to know how he determines the extent of the moral? Unfortunately the phrase turns up in a number of disparate contexts in order to say quite disparate things: it cannot bear the theoretical weight that we might wish. For instance, although in the article just quoted Thomas clearly means for us to understand that that which is praeter intentionem (as opposed, presumably, to that which is intra intentionem) does not enter into the will, in discussing omissions he uses the phrase with quite the opposite implication, as we have already seen. When a person stays up late and so does not get to church, this act, says Thomas, is accidental to the omission "since the omission follows praeter intentionem. "61 But he also holds that the omission is attributable to the agent's will since it was within his power not to stay up late. In another passage in the Summa contra Gentiles, Thomas considers Aristotle's example of jettisoning cargo, saying that, "although the evil [e.g., of losing the cargo] is praeter intentionem, it is nonetheless voluntary." 62 61 STh I-II, q. 71, a. 5: "Et tune actus iste interior vel exterior per accidens se habet ad omissionem, quia omissio sequitur praeter intentionem; hoc autem dicimus per accidens esse, quod est praeter intentionem, ut patet in Phys. [2.5.196b17-197a35]." 62 ScG III, cc. 5-6 (§1907 [Marietti ed.]): "Ex quo patet quod, licet malum praeter intentionem sit, est tamen voluntarium, ut secunda ratio proponit, licet non per se, sed per accidens. Intentio enim est ultimi finis, quern quis propter se vult: voluntas autem est eius etiam quod quis vult propter aliud, etiam si simpliciter non vellet; sicut qui proiicit merces in mari causa salutis, non intendit proiectionem mercium, sed salutem, proiectionem autem vult non simpliciter, sed causa salutis." 26 KEVIN L. FLANNERY,S.J. Another pertinent passage is found in book 2 of the Sentences commentary, where culpability (culpa) and punishment (poena), understood as one and the same thing but under different aspects, are said to be according to the will and praeter intentionem respectively. But this entails that the same thing is both according to the will and praeter intentionem, depending upon the aspect under which it is considered. 63 In the same book of the Sentences commentary, Thomas also says that the intention of any agent is to bring about its own similitude in another; and, therefore, that which is per se intended by an agent is that some good be brought about; thus, good has a per se cause, but defect occurs beside the agent's intention fpraeter intentionem]. 64 But if, as Thomas says in the Secunda secundae, "moral acts ... take their species according to what is intended not according to what is praeter intentionem," the upshot of this remark in the Sentences commentary would seem to be that no immoral action ever enters into the will. My point in mentioning all this is not that Thomas is inconsistent or confused but that the philosophical significance of the phrase praeter intentionem shifts depending upon the context in which it is used. The phrase is not so much a theoretical engine as a means of combing through and putting in order the various types and levels of voluntary attitude under consideration in a 63 II Sent., d. 36, q. 1, a. 3: "Respondeo dicendurn, quod contingit idem esse culpam et poenam, non tamen secundurn eamdem rationem; quia omnis poena, inquanturn poena est, voluntati contraria invenitur; omnis autem culpa voluntarii rationem habet." Towards the end of the same corpus he remarks: "inquanturn enim a voluntate progreditur, culpae rationem habet; sed inquanturn praeter intentionem voluntatis ipsam animam deturpat, sicut res indecens sibi, poenae rationem accipit." 64 II Sent., d. 34, q. 1, a. 3: "Intentio autem cujuslibet agentis est similitudinern suam in altero efficere; et ideo id quod est per se intentum ab agente, est quod aliquod bonum efficiatur; unde bonurn per se causam habet; sed defectus incidit praeter intentionem agentis." Thomas also says in the same passage that fire's chasing away air is praeter intentionem: "Ignis enirn intendit formam suam in rnateriam inducere; sed quia forma ignis non compatitur formam aeris, inde sequitur praeter intentionern agentis privatio formae aeris." See also II Sent., d. 35, q. 1, a. 5, ad 4: "similiter est in eo qui peccat; intendit enim delectari in opere peccati; sed corruptio anirnae praeter intentionem ejus sequitur"; see also II Sent., d. 36, q. 1, a. 3, ad 5. THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 27 particular argument. The arguments in which the phrase appears are always driven by other considerations; it is best, therefore, not to look to it for help in establishing the extent of the field of moral action. So where are we to look? It would seem reasonable to turn to the ideas with which this essay began, to the voluntary rather than the intentional, for it is in his treatment of the voluntary that Thomas confronts this issue most directly. Perhaps from within that discourse we can come to understand why he says in the Secunda secundae that, in an act of private self-defense, the death of an assailant does not give moral species to the act. One factor that comes into the determination of the extent of the moral is, of course, force (f3(a in Aristotle). If a person is not forced to perform or to omit an action (and if he is not ignorant in the relevant sense), he is responsible for it. We have already seen, however, that this does not get us very far since, even with the absence of force established (as in self-defense), it is still not clear whether the things the agent brings about are attributable to his will. But in Thomas's remarks about forcing and omissions there is an idea that does bring us farther ahead. In question 6, article 3 of the Prima secundae, he says something that calls to mind Aristotle's remark (at NE 3.1.1110a3) about the pilot's not being responsible for his ship's being blown off course by the wind. 65 He says that the term "voluntary" can be used not only of that which a person directly does but also of that which he does not do, "just as the submersion of a ship is said to be due to the pilot in so far as he ceases to pilot." And then he adds: 65 Llke Gauthier (Gauthier and Jolif, 2/1:172), Thomas holds that Aristotle has in mind something other than the agent himself being borne away by the wind: the ship within which he stands, for instance. "Et ponit exemplum: puta si spiritus, idest ventus, per suam violentiam impulerit rem aliquam ad aliquem locum" (III NE, 1.100-102 [Leonine ed.]). At V Metaphys., lect. 22 (§ 1141 [Marietti ed.]), a comment on Aristotle's Metaph. 5 .30.1025a25-3 0, Thomas says that being blown off course and arriving at the wrong destination (Aegina) is praeter intentionem. At Metaph. 5.5.1015a25-26, sailing to the same destination (the Greek island Aegina) in order to get money is said to be necessary, that is, in order to get the money. 28 KEVIN L FLANNERY, S.J. But it needs to be said that that which follows upon the want of an action is not always attributed as to its cause to an agent in so far as he does not act but only when it is possible for him to act and when he ought. For if the pilot cannot guide the ship o:r if charge of the ship has not been commissioned to him, the submersion of the ship, which occurs on account of the absence of a pilot, is not imputed to him. 66 So, we see, what is attributed to the will of an agent, what is contained within the field of moral action, depends upon obligations that are independent of the particular situation at hand. It depends upon a prior social arrangement by which particular responsibilities are assigned to particular persons. Failing to pilot a ship is morally attributable only to the pilot to whom the ship has been commissioned. 67 We have already seen a similar idea in the circumstances listed by Aristotle at the beginning of the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics. Among them is "who" (NE 3.1.1111a3), that is, who is acting. As Aristotle himself acknowledges, in determining what is involuntary by virtue of ignorance, this circumstance is not terribly useful: Who does not know who he is? But it is very useful in determining whether someone is responsible for an omission. If a law is not signed or a malefactor not punished, it makes a big difference in assigning responsibility who is the king. Applying this approach to the issue of private self-defense, the death of the assailant can (in the relevant sense) be beside the intention of the agent only insofar as self-defense is according to natural law and so legal in a well-ordered society. This is a social 66 STh I-ll, q. 6, a. 3: "Respondeo dicendum quod voluntarium dicitur quod est a voluntate. Ab aliquo autem dicitur esse aliquid dupliciter. Uno modo, directe, quod scilicet procedit ab aliquo inquantum est agens, sicut calefactio a cal ore. Alio modo, indirecte, ex hoc ipso quod non agit, sicut subrnersio navis dicitur esse a gubematore, inquanturn desistit a gubemando. Sed sciendmn quod non semper id quod sequitur ad defecturn actionis, reducitur sicut in causam in agens, ex eo quod non agit, sed solum tune cum potest et debet agere. Si enim gubernator non posset navem dirigere, vel non esset ei commissa gubernatio navis, non imputaretur ei navis submersio, quae per absentiam gubematoris contingeret." 67 Thomas is not considering here the case in which, for example, the commissioned pilot falls ill and another person, who knows how to pilot a ship, omits doing so. We might think of a ship that goes off course while several potential pilots are in the hold drinking. Not all of the potential pilots are to be blamed for omitting to right the ship but only the one with the specific obligation. THE FIELD OF MORAL ACTION 29 arrangement analogous to the social arrangement that gives command of the ship to its pilot: it is in place before the agent actually has the intention that he has. As Thomas says, "Such an act, therefore, insofar as what is intended is the preservation of one's own life, does not have the character of the illicit, since it is natural for anything to keep itself in being, as far as possible. " 68 This indeed is the true theoretical basis of Thomas's saying that the species of the act of self-defense does not include the second effect of the assailant's death. If the agent were to do the same thing to a person who does not threaten his life, the victim's death could not be praeter intentionem (again, in the relevant sense), no matter what goes through his mind regarding why he is killing the other person. None of this is to say, of course, that force does not also play a role in determining what is voluntary and what is not. To use an example become classic in considerations of the principle of double effect, it is sometimes possible for a surgeon to remove a cancerous uterus without the death of the fetus therein contained being attributed to his will. This is possible partly because such an operation is a standard medical practice; but the act can be declared moral only if the surgeon has been forced by circumstances connected with the mother's health to perform the operation as and when he does. If he could have waited-if, for instance, a small and nonaggressive tumor was simply an excuse for an abortion-the death of the fetus is attributable to his will. It has to be. The death of the fetus is dearly something that, for one reason or another, he wills: he is moving toward that. This "moving toward" is no mere physical entity; it must, therefore, be situated within the field of moral action. The answer, then, to the question, what foreseeable evil consequences of an action are not morally attributable to the agent whose action brings them about, is the following: those which particular (and justly constituted) responsibilities obligeor, at least, permit-one to bring about. This answer may strike 68 STh H-H, q. 64, a. 7: "Actus igitur huiusmodi ex hoc quod intenditur conservatio propriae vitae, non habet rationem illiciti, cum hoc sit cuilibet naturale quod se conservet in esse quantum potest." 30 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. one at first as circular (i.e., one may bring about certain evil consequences if one may) but it is not, for we are dealing with two different senses of permissibility here, the first general moral, the second tied to particular social structures (such as the responsibilites of pilots and doctors). When medical considerations foreclose other options, a doctor is permitted-indeed, ought-to perform the appropriate properly medical act called for by the situation: he ought, for instance, to remove a cancerous uterus. The doctor is, therefore, not obliged to ensure that the consequent evil effect, the death of the fetus, not come about. A doctor, however, who is not so forced finds himself in the position of any layman: he is responsible (within the realm of possibilities) for the evil effect not coming about-and this is possible for him in the relevant sense since he is not forced by narrowing possibilities and his responsibilities as a doctor to perform the operation leading to the death of the fetus. 69 V. CONCLUSION action theory has A large amount of contemporary concentrated upon intention. It has done so with good reason: the distinction intra/praeter intentionem often helps us to sift through and identify morally relevant aspects of a human act. But intention is by no means the whole of ethics or even of action theory; and the very elastic intra/praeter intentionem distinction often cannot perform the philosophical heavy lifting expected of it. Indeed, right from the beginning, in the writings of Aristotle, the voluntary, which includes the intentional as a proper part, has been regarded as the more important-the more fundamentalconcept. In Thomas Aquinas the ethical significance of the phrase praeter intentionem is difficult to fix; but that is not an overwhelming problem since it is the voluntary that determines the extent of the fidd of moral action. 69 I discuss these matters more extensively in Flannery, Acts amid Precepts, especially chapter 7. The Thomist 69 (2005): 31-77 THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION IN SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS 1 GILLES EMERY, 0.P. University of Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland HEN SCHOLASTIC theologians explore the economic act of the Trinity, they frequently refer to the doctrine of appropriations. They understand by "appropriation" the attribution to one divine person of features common to the whole Trinity, in order to illumine better the distinct properties of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 2 It is in this way, for example, that the Scholastic authors of the thirteenth century generally considered the attribution of creation to the Father ("I believe God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth") or sanctification to the Holy Spirit believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life"). 3 Resting on a complex analysis of the divine attributes, the theory of appropriations possesses a realism 1 English translation by Matthew Levering. A portion of this article appeared in an earlier French version in the Freiburger Zeitschrift fur Philosophie und Theologie 50 (2003): 334-53. 2 St. Bonaventure, Breviloquium I, c. 6 (Opera omnia, vol. 5 [Quaracchi: Ed. Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1891], 214-15). 3 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 6, ad 2. The aim of appropriation is not to diminish the personal features of the Trinity (as is sometimes suggested by modern criticism) but, on the contrary, to make the persons more manifest to believers (STh I, q. 39, a. 7). References to Aquinas are taken from the following editions. Summa Theologiae: Leonine Edition, vols. 4-12 (Rome, 1888-1906); Scriptum on books I and Hof the Sentences: ed. P. Mandonnet, 2 vols. (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929); Summa contra Gentiles: ed. P. Marc, C. Pera, and others, 3 vols. (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1961-67); Qv.aestiones Disputatae De Veritate: Leonine Edition, vol. 22 (Rome, 1975-76); Quaestiones Disputatae De Potentia: ed. P. Bazzi and others (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1965); Quaestiones De Quolibet: Leonine Edition, vol. 25 (Rome, 1996); Contra errores Graecorum: Leonine Edition, vol. 40A (Rome, 1967); Lectura in Ioannem: ed. R. Cai (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1952); Super Epistolas S. Pauli lectura, ed. R. Cai, 2 vols. (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1953). 31 32 GILLES EMERY, O.P. that Albert the Great, for example, describes by explaining that Trinitarian appropriation is founded "on the side of the reality itself" and not solely in our mind. 4 However, today the theory of appropriations provokes reservations among many theologians who accuse it of obscuring the personal dimension of the Trinitarian act or running the risk of being a mere linguistic game. 5 The appropriative method would be quite unsatisfying if one regarded the divine act as pertaining exclusively to the divine essence and the Trinitarian dimension as dependent only on an appropriation. In other words, appropriation would be badly understood if one used it in order to cover up or "disguise" a monist conception of divine action. Is appropriation, however, the sole explication of the Trinitarian dimension of the divine act? Is it not necessary, rather, to recognize a mode of acting proper to each divine person, beyond the appropriations? Certain oft-repeated diches in this domain aim at opposing the Thomist tradition to the Greek tradition (with the latter recognizing a distinct mode of acting of the hypostases in the single operation of the Trinity). 6 In fact, the texts show that Thomas Aquinas upholds a personal, proper modality of the act of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. It is this teaching, too little known even today, that we wish to present here, by situating it in its doctrinal context. The structure of this article will be as follows. I will describe first the fundamental principle of the thought of St. Thomas concerning the Trinitarian act: The Father creates and does everything by his Son in the Holy Spirit (1). This principle 4 St. Albert the Great, I Sent., d. 34, a. 5 (Opera omnia, ed. A. Borgnet, vol. 26 [Paris: Vives, 1893], 171). Following his master, St. Thomas Aquinas explains: "From the standpoint of the reality, the likeness of the appropriated attribute to the person's property makes the congruity of the appropriation, a congruence which would be there even if we did not exist" (I Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 2). 5 See Yves Congar,Je crois en l'&prit Saint (Paris: Cerf, 1995), 346-61; for examples of a sharper criticism, see Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), 99-lOl;Anne Hunt, The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery: A Development in Recent Catholic Theology (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1997), 113-14, 176. 6 See for example H. Barre, Trinite que j'adore: Perspectives theologiques (Paris: Lethielleux, 1965), 150. THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 33 governs the speculative thesis of the "causality of the Trinitarian processions" that St. Thomas develops in a proper and original way (2). This affirmation of the personal dimension of the Trinitarian act raises a question (3): is it necessary to recognize a "proper role" or "a distinct action" of each divine person? In order to attempt to respond to this question, I propose to consider first the exegesis of John 1:3, in which St. Thomas shows that to be the one "through whom" the Father does aH things is a proper feature of the Son (4). This exegesis rests on the Trinitarian doctrine of the distinct "mode of existence" of each divine person: because the mode of action reflects the mode of being, it is necessary to recognize a distinct mode of action of each divine person (5). This teaching can be illustrated by the exegesis of many biblical passages. AB an example, I propose to consider the way in which St. Thomas shows that the Son and the Holy Spirit both exercise the role of Consoler, but in distinct modes (6). In all these explications, however, St. Thomas maintains quite firmly the unity of the divine action and the unity of the Trinity as the source of created effects: the doctrine of perichoresis permits him to show the profoundly personalist character of the rule of the unity of action of the Trinity (7). This unity of action does not signify that, in the life of faith, believers have only a relation to the undivided Trinity: there is rather, in the life of grace, a relationship of believers to each divine person in his distinction. This relationship is not found at the "entitative" level by which we are ontologically referred to the Trinity as cause, but at the level of the "intentional" or "objective" union with the divine persons; from this standpoint, the gifts of grace refer us to the divine persons in their distinctiveness (8). This theological path is complex but it is necessary if we are to render a faithful account of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. L THE FATHER CREATES AND ACCOMPUSHES ALL THINGS BY HIS SON IN THE HOLY SPIRIT The properties of the divine persons clarify not only their distinction and their subsistence in the immanence of the Trinity, GILLES EMERY, O.P. 34 but equally their act in the world. With respect to the Father, Thomas Aquinas shows that paternity designates primarily the intra-Trinitarian relation of the Father to the Son and secondarily the relation that God the Father holds with the world according to diverse degrees of participation (paternity toward creatures lacking reason and toward creatures made to the image of God, divine paternity according to nature and according to grace): it is by participating in the relation that the Son holds with his Father that creatures have God for their Father. 7 In his study of the Son, Thomas establishes that the Word, by virtue of his personal property, possesses a relationship toward creatures, because the Father accomplishes aH things by his Word. The very name of Word signifies the Son in his exemplar and efficient causality: it permits one to understand the foundation of the manifestation of the Father as accomplished by the Son. 8 The study of the name Son as well as the theme of the Image (a proper name of the Son) clarifies equally the creative and the salvific action of the Son. 9 One can hardly summarize, at one stroke, this vast teaching. Let us recall the master idea that guides Aquinas's explanations: Whoever makes something must preconceive it in his wisdom, which is the form and pattern of the thing made: as the form preconceived in the mind of an artisan is the pattern of the cabinet to be made. God makes nothing except through the conception of his intellect, which is the eternally conceived Wisdom, that is, the Word of God and Son of God. Accordingly, it is impossible that God should make anything except through his Son. And so Augustine says, in his De Trinitate, that the Word is the Art fuH of the living patterns of all things. Thus it is manifest that all things which the Father makes, he makes through the Son. 10 STh I, q. 33, a. 3. STh I, q. 34, a. 3: the Word of God, insofar as he is the Word (Verbum), expresses and causes creatures. 9 See notably STh III, q. 3, a. 8; ScG IV, c. 11 (#3474), c. 11 (#3483), c. 13, and c. 42. Throughout this article, parenthetical numbers refer to paragraphs in the Marietti edition. 10 In loan. 1 :3 (#77): enim aliquid facit, oportet quod illud praeconcipiat in sua sapientia, quae est forma et ratio rei factae: sicut forma in mente artificis praeconcepta est ratio arcae faciendae. Sic ergo Deus nihil facit nisi per conceptum sui intellectus, qui est sapientia ab aeterno concepta, scilicet Dei Verbum, et Dei Filius: et ideo impossibile est quod aliquid faciat nisi per Filium." The English translation (here with modifications) is taken from Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, part 1, trans. James A. Weisheipl and Fabian R. Larcher (Albany, N.Y.: Magi Books,1980); part 2, trans. James A. Weisheipl and 7 8 THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 35 This action of the Father "through his Word" concerns creation (the Word is the expression and the productive source of creatures), providence, the manifestation of the Father and his revelation, salvation, and the gift of filiation-in brief, the whole creative and salvific divine act. In every case, Thomas Aquinas explains the action of the Son by means of his property of Word, Son, and Image, that is, by means of what characterizes him distinctly in the Trinity. In a similar manner, the personal property that manifests the distinction and the eternal existence of the Holy Spirit permits one also to account for his act in the economy of creation and grace. It is by means of the property of Love that Thomas Aquinas explicates the action of the Holy Spirit in creation, in the exercise of providence, in the movement of creatures, in vivification, sanctification, and the life of grace. Being personally Gift, the Holy Spirit is given to the saints and abides in them; he communicates the presence of the Father and of the Son, showering the Church with his gifts. 11 Let us note, here again, the guiding idea of this teaching: Even as the Father utters himself and every creatures by the Word he begets, inasmuch as the Word begotten completely expresses the Father and every creature, so also he loves himself and every creature by the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit proceeds as Love for the primal goodness, the motive of the Father's loving himself and every creature. 12 This explanation implies that the Love by which the Father and the Son are mutually united is also the Love by which they associate us in their communion: "The Father and the Son are loving each other and us by the Holy Spirit or Love Fabian R. Larcher (Petersham, Mass.: St. Bede's Publications, 1999). 11 See notably ScG IV, c. 20-22. 12 STh I, q. 37, a. 2, ad 3: "Sicut Pater dicit se et omnem creaturam Verbo quod genuit, inquantum Verbum genitum sufficienter repraesentat Patrem et omnem creaturam; ita diligit se et omnem creaturam Spiritu Sancto, inquantum Spiritus Sanctus procedit ut Amor bonitatis primae, secundum quam Pater amat se et omnem creaturam." It is the reason why the name "Love" (Amor), as a proper name of the Holy Spirit, includes not only intra-Trinitarian relationship but can also imply a reference to creatures: "By the Holy Spirit, the Father loves not only the Son but Himself and us as well" (ibid.). 36 GILLES EMERY, O.P. proceeding. " 13 The theological exposition of divine action rests thus on the study of the persons in their common essence and in their properties. 14 In his analysis of the names Word, Love, and Gift, Thomas shows that these names bear a relationship to creatures. 15 He specifies that the divine person (the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit) is related to creatures not directly according to the pure relation of origin that it holds within the eternal Trinity, but under the aspect by which this person includes the divine essence: The name of 'person' includes the nature indirectly: a person is an individual substance of intelligent nature. Thus the name of a divine person does not imply a reference to the creature according to the personal relation [of this person], but such a name does imply a reference to the creature according to what belongs to the nature [of this person]. However, nothing prevents such a name, as including the essence in its signification, from bearing a relationship to the creature. Just as it is proper to the Son that he be the Son, so also it is proper to him that he be 'God begotten' or 'Creator begotten'. That is how the name 'Word' bears a relationship to creatures. 16 One finds in these explanations the structure of relation and the elements of the Thomistic notion of person, applied to the Trinitarian economy. Relation, we note briefly, bears a double aspect: (1) it is pure relationship to an other, and (2) it possesses existence in a subject. The first aspect constitutes the proper notion or ratio of relation (relationship to another), and the second aspect accounts for the being (esse) of a real relation. 13 S'I'h I, q. 37, a. 2: "Pater et Filius dicuntur diligentes Spiritu Sancto vel Amore procedente et se et nos." 1• On the Trinitarian dimension of divine economic actions, see G. Emery, Trinity in Aquinas (Ypsilanti, Mich.: Sapientia Press, 2003), 33-70 and 171-75. 15 S'I'h I, q. 34, a. 3, ad 1 (on the name Word); see q. 37, a. 2, ad 3 (Love); q. 38, a. 1, ad 4 (Gift). 16 S'I'h I, q. 34, a. 3, ad 1: "In nomine personae includitur etiam natura oblique, nam persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia. In nomine igitur personae divinae, quantum ad relationem personalem, non importatur respectus ad creaturam, sed importatur in eo quod pertinet ad naturam. Nihil tamen prohibet, inquantum includitur in significatione eius essentia, quod importetur respectus ad creaturam: sicut enim proprium est Filio quod sit Filius, ita proprium est ei quod sit genitus Deus, vel genitus Creator. Et per hunc modum importatur relatio ad creaturam in nomine Verbi." THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 37 These two aspects are required for every real relation. In God, the first aspect consists in the pure relationship of person to person according to origin (paternity, filiation, spiration, procession). As regards the second aspect, the divine relation is identified with the very being of the divine essence; it is this divine essence, it is God. 17 The combination of this double aspect allows one to conceive of the divine person as a relation that subsists: the person is distinct under the aspect of relationship to another according to origin (the first aspect of relation) and it subsists in virtue of the divine being that it formally includes and with which it is identified (second aspect of relation). 18 It is this analysis that Thomas applies to the relationship that the divine persons hold with creatures. We will examine more closely these two aspects of relation. According to Thomas Aquinas, the relationship to creatures does not intervene in the first aspect of the divine relation, that is, in the aspect of the pure relationship to another which constitutes the "proper reason" of the relation. Under this first aspect, the intra-Trinitarian relation is a pure relationship of person to person according to origin. The divine person, distinguished and constituted by a relation, is not distinguished and constituted by a relationship to creatures, but by the relation it holds with another divine person. To introduce the relationship to creatures in this first aspect would amount to thinking that the very existence of the Trinity (the real distinction of persons) depended on the action of God in the world, as if the world intervened to make a divine person exist. Such a view of things would imply a pantheist conception of the Trinity or would lead to the difficulties of Arianism and of SabeUianism which understood the procession of persons along the lines of an action of God in the world. 19 One could no longer account for the divinity of the persons and their eternal distinction. 17 STh I, q. 28, a. 2; De Pot., q. 8, a. 2. 18 STh I, q. 29, a. 4; De Pot., q. 9, a. 4. Trinity in Aquinas, 139-44. 19 STh I, q. 27, a. 1. On this doctrine of divine relation, see Emery, GILLES EMERY, O.P. 38 The relationship to creatures, however, is included in the second aspect of the divine relation, which "includes" the divine essence and possesses the being of the divine essence. The divine essence contains the ideas of the creatures which preexist in it, and it is the source or the cause of creatures (exemplar, efficient, and final cause). These elements have been explained in the treatise of the essential attributes that concern the divine operation (the knowledge of God, his wiH and love, his power). It is by his essence that God creates: by his wisdom, by his will and his love, by his mercy, by his power. 20 In other words, God creates because he is God and insofar as he is God. This is why the relationship to creatures belongs not in the personal relation as pure "relationship to another" (first aspect of relation), but rather in relation under the aspect of its divine being (second aspect of relation). And what one explains in terms of relations applies also to person. The divine person bears a relationship to creatures not under the aspect of his pure relationship toward another divine person, but rather under the aspect of his divinity. The Holy Spirit saves, the Son creates, because the Son and the Holy Spirit are divine persons, that is, because they are God and inasmuch as they are God. 21 This is what St. Thomas explains regarding the names Word, Love, and Gift: the relationship to creatures belongs not in the "personal relation," but in the divine essence that the person "indudes." It is in this manner that the Son is the "begotten Creator": the word begotten signifies the Son in his relationship to the Father and the word Creator signifies the Son in his divine being. The notion of "divine person" gathers or includes these two aspects. In Aquinas, the theological understanding of the relationship that a divine person holds with the world implies the fundamental elements of the speculative synthesis on relation and person. In affirming that the relationship to creatures pertains to the divine essence common to the three persons, and not to the pure 20 21 STh I, q. 14, a. 8; q. 19, a. 4; q. 20, a. 2; q. 21, a. 4; q. 25. Cf. In Joan. 3:5 (#444); 10:35 (#1460); 17:3 (#2187); etc. THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 39 relationship of person to person, has Thomas obscured the personal features of the Trinitarian economy? Has he suggested that the essence alone (and not the person as such) is involved in the creation and the economy of grace? No, because the person is not constituted solely by the relationship to another, but also by the essence in virtue of which it is a person. This is why Thomas explains that the relationship to creatures is indeed "included" in the notion of divine person, or that it belongs "in second place" in the proper name of the divine person. When Christians confess that the Son is the Word, or when one recognizes that the Holy Spirit is Love and Gift, the relationship to creatures is present in these personal names "in the way that essence enters the meaning of 'person'. " 22 In explaining that the relationship to the created world concerns the divine essence, Thomas dearly holds that this relationship belongs to the person, since the essence formally pertains to the person as person. In order better to grasp the personal dimension of the creative and salvific act, it is necessary therefore to take an additional step. In the relationship to creatures, what "role" should one grant to what each person possesses as a personal property? How does the property of each person belong in the action of the Trinity in the world? Before answering this question, let us note briefly the theme of the "causality of the Trinitarian processions" which extends the above reflections. II. THE "CAUSALITY" OF THE TRINITARIAN PROCESSIONS Beginning with his first synthesis of theology, the commentary on the Sentences, Thomas Aquinas formulated this central thesis: "The eternal processions of the persons are the cause and the reason [causa et ratio] of the entire production of creatures. "'23 22 STh I, q. 38, a. 1, ad 4 (about the name Donum proper to the Holy Spirit): "Nee tamen per hoc quod importatur respectus ad creaturam oportet quod sit essentiale, sed quod aliquid essentiale in suo intellectu indudatur, sicut essentia includitur in intellectu personae, ut supra dictum est." 23 I Sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1: "Processiones personarum aeternae sunt causa et ratio totius prodm:tionis crearurarum." 40 GILLES EMERY, O.P. The words cause and reason are completed by other terms specifying the Trinitarian foundation of creation. The procession of persons is the source or origin (origo ), 24 the principle (principium) 25 and the model (exemplar) 26 of the procession of creatures. This affirmation is presented as a theological exegesis of biblical texts concerning the action of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. One finds it almost twenty times in the Thomistic corpus, in the same terms 27 or in related formulations: "The temporal procession of creatures derives from the eternal procession of the persons, " 28 "the going forth of persons in the unity of essence is the cause of the going forth of creatures in the diversity of essence. " 29 Saint Thomas was able to find this theological thesis in his master, St. Albert the Great. 30 It is also manifestly inspired by St. Bonaventure who, without expressly formulating this thesis, likewise taught that the procession of the Son and that of the Holy Spirit possess a causality and an exemplarity with regard to creatures: the "extrinsic diffusion" of the good (the act of God in the world) has for its reason the "intrinsic diffusion" of the sovereign Good in the divine persons, in a manner in which the first reality is the cause of all the secondary realities that derive from it. However, neither Albert nor Bonaventure developed the creative causality of the Trinitarian processions in a manner comparable to Thomas: the systematic exploitation of this thesis 24 I Sent., d. 32, q. 1, a. 3: "Processio divinarum personarum est et quaedam origo processionis creaturarum." 25 I Sent., d. 35, divisio textus: "de processione divinarum personarum in unitate essentiae, quae est principium creaturarum et causa." 26 I Sent., d. 29, q. 1, a. 2, qcla 2; De Pot., q. 10, a. 2, sc 2. 27 I Sent., d. 10, q. 1, a. 1; I Sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 2; I Sent., d. 26, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2; I Sent., d. 27, q. 2, a. 3, ad 6; De Pot., q. 10, a. 2, arg. 19 and ad 19; STh I, q. 45, a. 6, c. et ad 1; q. 45, a. 7, ad 3. 28 General Prologue of the Scriptum on the Sentences: "Sicut trames a fluvio derivatur, ita processus temporalis creaturarum ab aetemo processu personarum." See also Super Boetium de Trinitate, pro!. 29 I Sent., d. 2, divisio textus: "Exitus enim personarum in unitate essentiae, est causa exitus creaturarum in essentiae diversitate." 30 St. Albert, I Sent., d. 20, a. 3, sc; I Sent., d. 29, a. 2, sc 2 (Opera omnia, ed. A. Borgnet, vol. 25, p. 191; vol. 26, p. 76). THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 41 appears as a characteristic feature of his theology. The Trinitarian processions are the exemplary, efficient, and final source of the procession of creatures (creation and grace), the motive of the creative action on the part of God, and the principle of creatures in the ontological order and in the order of intelligibility. 31 A correct and integral understanding of God's action in the world therefore requires knowledge of the procession of the divine persons. 32 In these explanations, creation is not attributed in a proper or exclusive manner to a single divine person. God is creator in virtue of his essence, which is common to the three persons: the three persons are one single Creator God. 33 The creative "causality" is not therefore attributed in a proper manner to one divine person; rather, Thomas relates it to the Trinitarian processions. The word processionmeans the origin-the coming to being, the way to the existence-of a reality from its principle. 34 In considering in an analogous manner the Trinity and creation under the aspect of procession (the Son and the Spirit proceedeternally and creatures also proceedfrom God, although on a completely different order), Thomas uses a concept that permits one to grasp analogously the communication of being. Creation and the economy of grace are not connected solely to a particular divine person but to the Trinity: Thomas emphasizes the influence of the whole "Trinitarian process." "Procession" in the Trinity signifies the personal communication of the plenitude of the divinity: the Father communicates eternally the plenitude of his divinity to the Son; with the Son, he communicates it to the Holy Spirit. When one speaks of "procession" in God, one considers the persons under the dynamic aspect of the eternal communication of the divinity. With regard 31 G. Emery, IA Trinite creatrice (Paris: J: Vrin, 1995). For a shorter account, see Emery, Trinity in Aquinas, 33-70. 32 STh I, q. 32, a. 1, ad 3: "Cognitio divinarum personarwn fuit necessaria no bis dupliciter. Uno modo, ad recte sentiendum de creatione rerum." 33 STh I, q. 45, a. 6. 34 I Sent., d. 13, q. 1, a. 1: "Dicitur processio eductio principiati a suo principio." STh I, q. 40, a. 2: "Origo autem alicuius rei ... significatur ... ut via quaedam a revel ad rem." The procession or origin is signified in the mode of an act (ibid.). GILLES EMERY, O.P. 42 to creation, in an entirely different order, "procession" consists in a participation of creatures in being and in the divine perfections (as communicated by God's action in the world). It is at this level of the communication of a participation of divine perfections, implying the doctrine of analogy, that Trinitarian causality is situated. The communication of the entire divine essence in the Trinity is the cause and the reason of the communication of a participation of the divine essence to creatures, in a radically different order: "The going forth of persons in the unity of essence is the cause of the going forth of creatures in the diversity of essence. " 35 As one easily ascertains, it is a question of the distinction and the relationship between the immanent action (Trinitarian processions) and the transitive action (action of God in the world): the first is the "reason" of the second. 36 Thomas Aquinas provided successively two interpretations of this "causality" of Trinitarian processions, the first in his commentary on the Sentences and the second in the Summa Theologiae. One discovers here a deepening of understanding. In his first work, Thomas explains that, in order to understand the action of divine persons, it is necessary to take account of two complementary rules: (1) the efficiency of the divine essence and (2) the causality of the eternal procession of the persons. "The procession of divine persons is also a certain origin of the procession of creatures, since everything that is first in some genus is the cause of what comes after; but the efficiency with regard to creatures is nevertheless attributed to the common essence. "37 This double principle is invoked in order to explain in what manner "the Father and the Son love us by the Holy Spirit." It permits one also to show in what way "the Father speaks all things by his Word." The divine act is not explained solely by the divine nature, that is, by the essential knowledge and will of the Trinity. I Sent., d. 2, divisio textus. ScG II, c. 1 (#854), after having distinguished between "immanent actions" and "transitive actions," Aquinas explains: "Oportet quod prima dictarum operationum sit ratio 35 36 In secundae et earn praecedat naturaliter, sicut causa effectum." 37 I Sent., d. 32, q. 1, a. 3: "Processio divinarum personarum est et quaedam origo processionis creaturarum; cum omne quod est primum in aliquo genere sit causa eorum quae sunt post; sed tamen efficientia creaturarum essentiae communi attribuitur." THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 43 It is explained also by the Trinitarian processions which are the reason of the works that God accomplishes in the world: the Word is the efficient model of all communication that God accomplishes by his wisdom, and the Holy Spirit is the reason of all communication that God accomplishes by the generosity of his love. The Word is the sole person who, in God, proceeds by mode of intellect: he is thereby the uncreated model and reason of the procession of works of wisdom accomplished by God. The Holy Spirit is the sole person who, in God, proceeds by mode of love: he is thereby the reason of the procession of creatures which come forth from God by the mode of a divine gift. Under this aspect, the creative causality ("efficiency") belongs to the divine essence, but the reason of this causality ("reason of the efficiency") pertains to the procession of the Son and to the procession of the Holy Spirit in virtue of the proper and distinct mode of these processions. 38 Creation is the common work of the three persons, acting by their essence, and each person is involved in this act according to his personal property. In the Summa, Thomas explains the exemplarity and the causality of the Trinitarian processions, with more precision, by means of his of relation. This explanation bears the mark of the progress of his Trinitarian theology. Whereas in his first work he based his Trinitarian doctrine on the notion of procession, he organizes it more resolutely in the Summa around the notion of relation, following the two aspects of divine relation that we have described above (the relationship to another and the divine essence): The divine Persons, according to the formal feature of their procession, have a causality respecting the creation of things. For as was said above [STh I, q. 14, a. 8; q. 19, a. 4] when treating of the knowledge and will of God, God is the cause of things by his intellect and will, like an artist is the cause of works of art. Now an artist works through the word conceived in his mind, and through the love of his will bent on something. Hence also God the Father made the creature through his Word, which is His Son; and through his Love, which is the Holy 38 Ibid. It is a question of the "reason of the efficiency not with regard to the agent but with regard to creatures" ("ratio efficientiae non ex parte efficientis sed ex parte effectorum"). In other words, the Trinitarian processions are not the cause of God's action (they do not cause God to act), but they are the cause of creatures. 44 GILLES EMERY, O.P. Spirit. In this way also the processions of the persons are the "reasons" of the production of creatures, inasmuch as they include the essential attributes of knowing and willing. 39 This explanation invokes the analogy of intelligence and will. It is a question, once again, of making explicit the relationships that the immanent acts (Trinitarian processions) maintain with the acts that proceed toward an exterior reality (creation and salvation). The seeming simplicity of the example of the artist should not deceive: this analogy implies a very powerful metaphysical reflection on the transcendental principles of action. For our purpose, it is the conclusion that deserves attention: the personal processions are the reason or "the cause of creation" 40 inasmuch as they "include" the essential attributes of knowledge and will. Thomas no longer exploits two complementary rules, as in his commentary on the Sentences, but rather one single theological principle: the personal procession of a divine person includes the essence. This explanation is attached to the doctrine of person and relation, whose results are henceforth applied to the divine act. In the divine action, the essence is not on one side, with the personal properties on the other side. Everything converges in the relation (conceived as based on the procession) and in the person who formally gathers the aspect of the distinction and the aspect of the essence. 41 The persons create and 39 STh I, q. 45, a. 6: "Divinae Personae secundum rationem suae processionis habent causalitatem respectu creationis rerum. Ut enim supra ostensum est, cum de Dei scientia et voluntate ageretur, Deus est causa rerum per suum intellectum et voluntatem, sicut artifex rerum artificiatarum. Artifex autem per verbum in intellectu conceptum, et per amorem suae voluntatis ad aliquid relatum, operatur. Unde et Deus Pater operatus est creaturam per suum Verbum, quod est Filius; et per suum Amorem, qui est Spiritus Sanctus. Et secundum hoc processiones Personarum sunt rationes productionis creaturarum, inquantum includunt essentialia attributa, quae sunt scientia et voluntas." On the continuity and evolution of this teaching in Aquinas, see G. Marengo, Trinita e Creazione: Indagine sulfa teologia di Tommaso d'Aquino (Rome: Citta Nuova, 1990). 40 STh I, q. 45, a. 6, ad 1: "Processiones divinarum Personarum sunt causa creationis, sicut dictum est." 41 It is in this sense that, in his commentary on the Sentences (I Sent., d. 26, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2), St. Thomas explains: "All procession and multiplication of creatures are caused by the procession of the distinct divine persons" ("ex processione personarum divinarum distinctarum causatur omnis creaturarum processio et multiplicatio"), in order to show the THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRlNITAfUAN ACTION 45 act in the world in virtue of the processions (i.e., the Father acts through the Son whom he begets and in the Holy Spirit whom he spirates with the Son), insofar as the processions include the essence (as the relations also do)-that is, because the personal processions are divine. We find again precisely the path of explication that Thomas followed when he examined the properties of the Word, of Love, and of Gift. HI. THE "PROPER ROLE" OF PERSONS The theological manifestation of the creative and salvific act of the divine persons brings us back to our first question: in the divine act, what "role" should one recognize for that which each person possesses in a proper manner? Following the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, two solutions should be avoided. Let us examine them briefly. (1) A first path toward a (unsatisfying) solution responds that there is no proper mode in the action of a divine person 9 because the persons act solely according to that which is absolutely common to them-namely, the divine nature, which is the principle of their act. This solution takes account of the Orthodox rule of the unity of energy of the three persons, or the Augustinian principle of the indivisibility of the works of the Trinity ad extra. The distinction of persons would then be involved in their eternal relationships but not in the act which they exercise in our favor. This explanation has been supported by various authors in modern Scholasticism and one finds it in certain Trinitarian treatises of the twentieth century. 42 It led to connecting the economy of creation and grace to the "one God" (De Deo uno), thereby pushing aside the role of the Trinitarian creative influence of the divine relations. The divine relation, however, does not have such a causality insofar as it consists of a reference to another (the "ratio" of the relation), but rather inasmuch as it is divine (the "being" of the relation): «ex hoc quod est relatio divina" (ibid.). 42 Among the dearest examples of this line of thought, see P. Galtier, L'habitation en nous des trois personnes (Rome: Pontificia Universitl Gregoriana, 1949). The central thesis of this work is the following: no action of a divine person is really personal; in the economic action of the Holy Spirit, nothing belongs properly to him. GILLES EMERY, O.P. 46 plurality for understanding the divine act. Likewise, it weakened the value of the doctrine of appropriations in making these appropriations the only way to grasp the Trinitarian dimension of the divine act. The rule of the unity of action of the Trinity is fundamental, and the reader of Thomas Aquinas must not fail to observe its importance; it is found at the heart of the Trinitarian treatise. 43 Creation and grace are not the exclusive work of a single person; rather, the three persons are all together the source, by reason of their common divine nature. Not to recognize this would lead one to reject the Trinitarian consubstantiality. At the same time, appropriation is a valuable method, the foundations of which have been clearly underlined by Aquinas. 44 The mistake of this first response does not therefore consist in an error about the principles invoked (the unity of the divine act and the appropriations), but rather in the exclusivity that it attributes to them, as if the rule of the unity of operation constituted, by itself, all the explication, the single key for understanding the action of the Trinity. Aquinas's theology does not present such an exclusivity. The constant presence of the Trinitarian act in the study of the properties clearly shows this. In other words, the rule of the indivisibility of the Trinity in its act ad extra is perfectly exact and fundamental, but its application is excessive if one attempts to reduce to it all the aspects of the action of the divine persons. (2) A second path of response, reacting vigorously against the preceding one, affirms that each divine person exercises a proper action in our favor. The thought of many theologians today seems to be favorable to this manner of conceiving the act of the divine persons. Such thought attempts then to specify the "personal causality," the "proper activity," the "proper function," or the "specific role" of each divine person. 45 Grace, for example, would Cf. notably ITh I, q. 32, a. 1; q. 45, a. 6. I Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 2; see note 4 above. 45 As representative of this second line of thought, see H. Miihlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person {Miinster: Aschendorff, 1963); idem, "Person und Appropriation. Zurn Verstiindnis des Axioms: In Deo omnia sunt unum, ubi non obviat relationis oppositio," in Munchener 43 44 THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 47 be attributed in a specific way to the Holy Spirit, as if it fell properly to the Holy Spirit (unlike the other persons) to procure this grace. The same line of thought emphasizes, concerning the gift of adoptive filiation, that filiation makes us children of the person of the Father to the exclusion of the other divine persons. The thesis of a "(quasi-)formal causality" of a divine person is often advanced in such accounts, notably in the case of the grace of the Holy Spirit. 46 The Holy Spirit, personally given to the saints, would himself exercise the role of immanent principle of the human acts of faith and charity. One could thus explain the distinct work of persons and, more profoundly, the properly personal foundation of the Trinitarian gifts.47 In addition to the problem of the confusion of God and the world raised by the theory of a divine "formal causality" (because a form is, by definition, inherent to a creature, it is one of its constitutive ontological elements, it enters into real composition with the creature), 48 the thesis of the proper action of one divine person presents a difficulty that is insurmountable with regard to the principles of Thomistic theology. To reserve an action and a divine gift to one person rather than to another is to put in Theologische 'Zeitschrift 16 (1965): 37-57. The Trinitarian thought of Miihlen, a leading theologian on this question, had a very large influence. 46 The vocabulary of the "quasi-formal" causality of divine persons is not unknown among the Scholastics. Albert the Great, for instance, employs it in order to designate the Holy Spirit as the one by whom we love God and neighbor. But he specifies immediately that neither the habit nor the act of charity are "by essence" the Holy Spirit: rather they are effects of the Holy Spirit. See St. Albert, Summa Theologiae I, tract. 8, q. 36, c. 3, in: Opera omnia, Editio Coloniensis, vol. 34/1 (Miinster: Aschendorff,1978), 282. We thus find again the affirmation of the inseparable causality of the Trinity, with the doctrine of appropriations (Summa Theologiae I, tract. 7, q. 32, c. 2, [Opera omnia 34/1:254]). 47 For an exposition on this theme, in the wake of Karl Rahner, see K. Obenauer, Thomistische Metaphysik und Trinitiitstheologie (Miinster: Lit Verlag, 2000); cf. my critical review in Revue Thomiste 101 (2001): 614-17. 48 Aquinas clearly emphasizes the exemplarity of the Holy Spirit in the gift of charity, but without considering the Holy Spirit as a formal inherent cause in the saints, and without excluding the Father and the Son: "Oportet ponere charitatem esse habitum creatum in anima; quae quidem efficienter est a tota Trinitate, sed exemplariter manat ab amore qui est Spiritus Sanctus" (I Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a 1, sol.; cf. STh 1-11, q. 110, a. 1; STh, II-II, q. 23, a. 2). If we were to consider the Holy Spirit as the formal cause of charity, this would imply that the saints had a divine being or were hypostatically united to the Holy Spirit, a thesis that, of course, Aquinas rejects (I Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a 1, sc 3). 48 GILLES EMERY, O.P. question the unity of the Trinity both in its essence and in its relations. It is a question of a principle absolutely fundamental in Thomas Aquinas: the three persons act by a single action or operation, 49 in virtue of their common nature, and consequently the effects of the divine action always have for their source the entire Trinity. 50 The incarnation of the Son-that is, the assumption of the human nature by the person of the Son-does not constitute an exception to this rule. Aquinas distinguishes between the act of assuming (actus assumentis: the uniting of the human nature to the Word of God) and the term of the assumption (terminus assumptionis: the person of the Word to whom the human nature is united), and states: "What belongs to the act of assuming is common to the three persons; but what pertains to the term belongs to one person in such a way that it does not belong to another. For the three persons caused the human nature to be united to one person, the Son. "51 Theological reflection on the Trinitarian economy can never go against this rule, which comes into play as a fundamental aspect of the question. In sum, the attempt to highlight the Trinitarian dimension of the divine act appears in the following perspective: the rule of the essential unity of the three persons furnishes a determinative criterion, but Aquinas does not claim that such a rule constitutes the sole aspect of the Trinitarian act. Rather, he distinguishes a proper mode of action of each divine person. This teaching on the Trinitarian mode of action deserves closer examination. IV. "ALL THINGS WERE MADE THROUGH HIM": A PROPERlY OF THE SON The three persons act inseparably in virtue of their common divine nature, and each effect has for its source the entire Trinity. 49 See for example &G IV, c. 25 (#3625): "The Three Persons are one principle of creatures and they produce creatures by a single action [una actione]." 50 See for example STh III, q. 23, a. 2. 51 STh Ill, q. 3, a. 4: "Quod est actionis in assumptione commune est tribus personis; sed id quod pertinet ad rationem termini convenit ita uni personae quod non alii. Tres enim personae fecerunt ut humana natura uniretur uni personae Filii." THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 49 But, in this common action, each person acts in the distinct mode of his relation with the other persons. This thesis can be illustrated by Aquinas's teaching on the creative act of the Word. In his exegesis of John 1:3 ("all things were made through him"), St. Thomas explains that the Word is the one through whom (per quem) the Father does all things. He then offers a more extended reflection on the act of the Son: What does the fact of being the one "through whom" the Father does all things mean? It can be understood in two ways.52 (1) If one takes "through whom" to refer to the "formal principle" (causa formalis) of the action-that is, the principle of the act of the Father (the "in virtue of which" the Father acts)-then it is necessary to recognize there the divine essence. The Father, like the Son and like the Holy Spirit, acts through his essence: it is through its nature that a being acts.53 Thomas speaks here of "formal" principle in order to avoid all idea of an "efficient" principle, because nothing, including any person, pushes or moves the Father to act in the manner of an efficient cause. 54 As regards the "formal" principle of the Father's action, Aquinas holds that neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit is such a "principle" of action of the Father, because the Son and the Holy Spirit do not have a relation of principle with regard to the Father: the Trinitarian order does not permit one to see, in the Son or the Holy Spirit, a principle of being of the Father, or a principle of action of the Father. If one takes "through whom" to refer to the formal principle, it would therefore be appropriated to the Son, because God the Father acts through his essential wisdom which is appropriated to the Son: If the through denotes a formal cause, as when the Father operates through his wisdom, which is his essence, he operates through his wisdom as he operates through his essence. And because the wisdom and power of the Father are 1:3 (#76). "narure" (natura) means the inner principle of action and hence the specific essence of a being (STh ill, q. 2, a. 1; cf. STh l, q. 29, a. 1, ad 4). 54 In loan. 1:3 (#76): "Sic ergo cum dicirur omnia per ipsum facta sunt; si ly per denotet efficientem causam, seu moventem Pattern ad operandum, dicendum est quod Pater nihil operatur per Filium, sed per seipsum omnia operarur." 52 In loan. 53 In this context, 50 GILLES EMERY, O.P. attributed to the Son, as when we say "Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:24), then by appropriation we say that the Father does all things through the Son, i.e., through his wisdom. 55 It is for this reason that, in themselves, the biblical formulas "from whom," "through whom," and "in whom" (see Rom 11 :36) are not proper to a person, but rather are appropriated. 56 With these explanations, one has obviously moved away from the apparent sense of John 1:3, but one has made an important specification: to say that the Father acts through the Son is not to make the Word a principle of the act of the Father. The Father does not receive his act from the Son. One cannot say that the Father acts "through the Son" as one says of a man that he acts "by his mind" or "by his nature." In this sense, the Father acts through himself or through his essence. Saint Augustine had already noted that when one holds that "the Father is wise by his begotten wisdom," one cannot mean that the Son is the cause of the wisdom of the Father (one would arrive at this "absurd" conclusion: the Father would not be wise by himself but by his Son, and the Father would therefore have his essence from the Son), The Father and the Son are one single wisdom as they are one single essence. The Son is not the wisdom by virtue of which the Father is wise, but he is the "begotten Wisdom" come forth from the Father. 57 The same reflections are applied to the act of the Father. (2) However, if in the formula "through him" of John 1:3 one understands the causality of the Word with regard to creatures, 58 55 In loan. 1:3 (#76): "Si vero lyperdenotetcausam formalem, sic cum Pater operetur per sapientiam suam, quae est sua essentia, operatur per suam sapientiam, sicut operatur per suam essentiam; et quia sapientia et virtus Patris attribuitur Filio, I Cor. I, 24, dicimus: Christum Dei virtutem, et Dei sapientiam, ideo appropriate dicimus quod Pater omnia operatur per Filium, idest per sapientiam suam." 56 STh I, q. 39, a. 8. 57 St. Augustine, De Trinitate 7.1.1-2; 15. 7.12 (Sancti Aurelii Augustini, De Trinitate libri XV, ed. W. J. Mountain, 2 vols. [Turnhout: Brepols, 1968]: 1:244-49; 2:475-77). Aquinas, I Sent., d. 32, q. 2, a.1; STh I, q. 34, a. 1, ad 2. 58 hi this second sense, the preposition "per" refers not to a causality towards the father's act (ex parte operantis), but to a causality towards creatures (ex parte operatt) that are made by the Father "through his Word." See also IT Sent., d. 13, q. 1, a. 5. See above, note 38. THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 51 then it is a question strictly of a property of the Son, This is without doubt the more manifest sense of John 1:3, Taken in this sense, the expression "through him" designates not the principle of the action of the Father (this would lead us back to the first consideration), but the principle or the cause of creatures, and it is here that one should recognize a proper feature of the Word, going beyond appropriation: If the "through" [all things were made through him] denotes causality from the standpoint of the thing produced, then the statement, "The Father does all things through the Son," is not appropriation but it is proper to the Word, because the fact that he is a cause of creatures is had from someone else, namely, the Father, from whom he has being. 59 The Son is the one "through whom" the Father acts because he is the Son and Word begotten by the Father, In the act of the Father through the Son, the preposition "through" refers to the auctoritas of the Father, the property of the Father as principle of the Son, The Son exists in receiving eternally his being from the Father and he acts in receiving eternally his act from the Father. The action of the Father and the Son is one; the principle of this action is also one (it is the divine nature or essence); the effects of the action are common to the Father and to the Son, But the actors (the subjects of the act: operantes) are personally distinct and their mode of action is also distinct, 60 Thomas writes likewise in the Summa Theologiae: In some instances the preposition "through" applies to a median cause, e.g. in the statement that a smith works through his hammer. And so the preposition "through" is not always appropriated to the Son but sometimes means a property 59 In loan. 1:3 (#76): "Si vero ly per denotet causalitatem ex parte operati, tune hoc quod dicimus Pattern omnia operari per Filium, non est appropriat:um Verba, sed proprium eius, quia hoc quod est causa creaturarum, habet ab alio, scilicet a Patre, a quo ha bet esse." One sees here that, for St. Thomas, the verse of John 1 :3 is not limited to creation in a strict sense but concerns the divine action in the world. 6 Cf. Il Sent., d. 13, q. 1, a. 5, ad 4: "It is by reason of the Father's auctoritas towards the Son, inasmuch as the Son holds his being and his action from the Father, that the father acts through the Son." In Trinitarian context, the word "auctoritas" means the relationship of a divine person as principle or source of another person (see STh I, q. 33, a. 1, ad 2; I Sent., d. 29, q. 1, a. 1; De Pot., q. 10, a. 1, arg. 17 and ad 17). ° 52 GILLES EMERY, O.P. of the Son, according to this verse of St. John (1:3): "All things were made through him"; not because the Son is an instrument, but because he is the "principle from the principle." 61 Such is the path by which Thomas Aquinas gives weight to the distinction of the persons in their act. The formula "prindpium de principio" refers to the person of the Son as the principle begotten by the Father. The Son exists from the Father and, accordingly, acts by receiving his being and his power of action from the Father: the Son acts as the "principle from the principle." This means no subordination but only the relation of origin by which the Son is referred to the Father. This distinction does not divide the action of the Trinity, or its power, or the principle of action, which are common to the three persons by reason of their one nature. It also does not concern the effects of the action: these effects come forth from the three persons in virtue of their one action. One could also, indeed, show this by the doctrine of perichoresis: the Father is in the Son, the Son is in the Father, the Holy Spirit is in the Father and in the Son, and reciprocally. For this reason, the action of the three persons is inseparable. Thomas Aquinas explains, for example: "The Son acts by reason of the Father who dwells in him by a unity of nature." 62 The profundity of the perichoresis is such that, in the act of the Son, the Father himself acts, and the Holy Spirit acts in them, inseparably. The action of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is not therefore different from that of the Fa th er, since the persons act in indwelling the one in the other, according to their mutual immanence and thus by one and the same operation. In this common action, however, each person acts according to the mode of his relative personal property. This mode of action 61 STh I, q. 39, a. 8: "Haec vero praepositio per designat quidem quandoque causam mediam; sicut dicimus quod faber operatur per martellum. Et sic ly per quandoque non est appropriatum, sed proprium Filii, secundum illud loan. I, omnia per ipsum facta sunt; non quia Filius sit instrumentum, sed quia ipse est principimn de principio." This observation has generally escaped the majority of studies, perhaps because it is found in the question on appropriations. 62 In loan. 14:12 (#1898): "Filius operatur propter Patrem in se manentem per unit:atem naturae." THE PERSONALMODE OF TRINITARIANACTION 53 does not express anything other than the personal property. One sees this well in the explanations regarding the act of the Father through his Word. The distinct mode of the action of the Son (the Son is the Word by whom or through whom the Father acts) does not consist in an exclusive relationship of the Son as regards creatures; rather, it consists in the proper relationship that the Son has with his Father within the Trinity. The same applies to the action of the Holy Spirit: the Son acts through the Holy Spirit, in such a way that what is done by the Holy Spirit is also done by the Son. 63 In other words, this proper mode lies in the intraTrinitarian relation of person to person, and not in a different relation with creatures. This is exactly what Thomas explains, from another point of view, with regard to the names Word, Love, and Gift: in the Trinitarian act, the personal distinction does not belong on the side of the relationship to creatures, but rather on the side of the intra-Trinitarian relation. And if, when drawing these two aspects together, one brings the personal intra-Trinitarian relation to the forefront, then one can then understand what is meant by the "proper mode of act" of the divine persons. The Father creates the world and saves humankind through the Son in the Spirit: this mode of acting through the Son in the Spirit is proper to the Father. It belongs properly to the Son to be the one through whom the Father creates and accomplishes all things: in the Trinity, the Son is the only one who acts in this way, as befits his property of Son, Word, and Image of the Father. And it belongs properly to the Holy Spirit to be the one by whom or through whom the Father and the Son act, in virtue of his property of Love and Gift. This is what Thomas explains when he shows that "the Father utters all creatures by his Word" and that "the Father and the Son love us by the Holy Spirit," 64 or when he teaches that "the processions of the persons are the cause of the procession of 63 In Ad Eph. 2:18 (#121): "Sic autem habemus accessum ad Pattern per Christum, quoniam Christus operatur per Spiritum Sanctum .... Et ideo quidquid fit per Spiritum Sanctum, etiam fit per Christum." 64 STh I, q. 34, a. 3; q. 37, a. 2, ad 3. 54 GILLES EMERY, O.P. creatures." 65 These expressions have a proper, not (only) appropriated, sense. Appropriation is not our only resource for understanding the Trinitarian dimension of the divine act. V. PERSONAL MODE OF BEING AND PERSONAL MODE OF ACTING These observations are confirmed by many aspects of the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, notably by the relationship between the mode of being and the mode of acting of the persons, as well as by the distinction of the persons in their same action on behalf of creatures (creation and grace). A being acts according to what it is: as one is, so one acts. The mode of acting (modus operandi) is grounded in the mode of being (modus essendi), which it manifests. 66 Now, if the being of the three persons is identical, their mode of being is distinct. This mode of being consists in the manner according to which a person possesses the divine essence, in accordance with his relative property (fatherhood, sonship, procession): "Though the same nature is in Father and Son, it is in each by a different mode of existence, that is to say, with a different relation. " 67 The essence of the three persons is one, but each person possesses this divine essence (more precisely, each person "is" this divine essence) according to a distinct relation. Thus, the divine nature is found in each person according to a proper and distinct manner which consists of the personal relation of each person. Saint Thomas explains it with great clarity: Just as the three persons have one and the same essence, it is not in each under the same relation or with the same mode of existence. 68 I Sent., d. 32, q. 1, a. 3. I, q. 89, a. 1: "As nothing acts except in so far as it is actual, the mode of action [modus operandi] in every agent follows from its mode of existence [modus essend1]"; see also I, q. 50, a. 5; I, q. 75, a. 2: "Only what actually exists acts, and its manner of acting follows from its manner of being." 67 De Pot., q. 2, a. 1, ad 13: "Licet eadem natura sit in Patre et Filio, est tamen secundum alium modum existendi, scilicet cum alia relatione." 68 De Pot., q. 2, a. 5, ad 5: "Sicut una et eadem est essentia trium personarum, non tamen sub eadem relatione, vel secundum eumdem modum existendi est in tribus personis." This distinct "mode of existence" applies to the essence in each divine person and hence to all divine attributes (here all-mightiness) in each divine person. 65 66 SI'h THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 55 Though the same nature is in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it has not the same mode of existence in each one of the three, and when I say "mode of existence" I mean in respect of the relation. Nature is in the Father as not received from another, but in the Son it is as received from the Father. 69 Although the Godhead is wholly and perfectly in each of the three persons according to its proper mode of existence, yet it belongs to the perfection of the Godhead that there be several modes of existence in God, namely, that there be one from whom another proceeds yet proceeds from no other, and one proceeding from another. For there would not be full perfection in God unless there were in him procession of the Word and of Love. 70 The teaching on the "modes of existing" restates the Cappadocian Trinitarian doctrine formulated by Basil of Caesarea: each divine hypostasis is characterized by a tropos tes huparxeos (literally, "mode of existence") which defines the concrete content of its proper hypostatic subsistence. 71 Medieval Western theologians had access to this teaching through the Latin translation of John Damascene. 72 Each person exists in a distinct manner according to a relation. For Thomas, this means that the personal property designates the relational mode of being proper to each person: the Father exists in the mode of the unbegotten source, the Son exists in the mode of filiation insofar as he 69 De Pot., q. 3, a. 15, ad 17: "Licet eadem natura sit Panis et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, non tamen eumdem modum existendi habet in tribus, et dico modum existendi secundum relationem. In Patre enim est ut non accepta ab alio, in Filio vero ut a Patre accepta." 70 De Pot., q. 9, a. 5, ad 23: "Licet tota et perfecta divinitas sit in qualibet trium personarum secundum proprium modum existendi, tamen ad perfectionem divinitatis pertinet ut sint plures modi existendi in divinis ut scilicet sit ibi a quo alius et ipse a nullo, et aliquis qui est ab alio. Non enim esset omnimoda perfectio in divinis nisi esset ibi processio Verbi et Amoris." 71 Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 18.46 (see the critical edition by B. Pruche: Basile de Cesaree, Sur le Saint-Esprit, Sources Chretiennes 17 bis [Paris: Cerf, 1968], 408-9). See also Basil of Caesarea, Letter 235.2 (critical edition by Y. Courtonne: Saint Basile, Lettres, vol. 3 [Paris: Belles-Lettres, 1966], 45); idem, Homily 24.6 (PG 31:613). n De fide orthodoxa 1.8. See Saint John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa: Versions of Burgundio and Cerbanus, ed. E. M. Buytaert (Louvain: Nauwelaerts; Paderborn: Schoningh, 1955), 35: "Etsi enim Spiritus Sanctus ex Patre procedit, sed non generabiliter, sed processibiliter. Alius modus existentiae est hie, incomprehensibilis et ignotus, sicut et Filii generatio. Ideoque omnia quaecumque habet Pater, eius sunt, praeter ingenerationem, quae non significat substantiae differentiam neque dignitatem, sed modum existentiae." GILLES EMERY, O.P. 56 receives his existence from the Father through generation, the Holy Spirit exists in the mode of Love who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Each person is characterized therefore by a relative mode of existence (the content of the "proper mode of existence" lies in the personal relation). This distinct mode does not disappear in the action of the persons; it remains present and qualifies intrinsically this act. The distinct mode of acting bears the same noteworthiness and the same profundity as does the mode of existing. A precision should be made: in the Trinity, the personal distinction does not modify the divine being or nature as such, or the power of acting, or the action. But the three persons are distinct under the aspect of the mode of being of the divine essence in them and, consequently, under the aspect of the mode of acting corresponding to the mode of being. The distinction of these modes concerns therefore the proper relation of the person, that is, the intra-Trinitarian relationship of person to person according to origin. Each person exists and acts in accordance with his relation to the other persons. This mode of being and of acting expresses the order (ordo) of the persons, since the real plurality of the divine persons rests in this order. For Thomas Aquinas, indeed, the personal distinction is not based solely on the difference of origin of the Son and the Holy Spirit (generation and spiration), nor even on the mode of the procession of the Son and Holy Spirit (mode of nature or intellect, mode of will or love), but on the order of origin within the Trinity: the Son has his existence from the Father, the Holy Spirit has his existence from the Father and the Son. 73 This order of origin consists solely in the fact that a person has his existence from another, without any priority or posteriority. 74 It is this order that ultimately grounds personal plurality: "It is necessary that there is procession from procession, and that one of the persons who proceed comes forth from the other: this is what makes a real difference in 73 De Pot., q. 10, a. 2; ScG N, c. 24 (#3615-16). 74 STh I, q. 42, a. 3. THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 57 God. " 75 The mode of existence in divine persons and their distinct mode of action consist therefore in this personal order according to origin, that is, in the relation of origin. This is what Thomas explains in saying that it belongs properly to the Son to be the one "through whom" the Father acts. In order to account for the Trinitarian dimension of creation and grace, it is therefore necessary to consider the persons who act-the subjects of the action (the "agents")-by paying more attention to the mutual relation of these persons. Concerning the relationship of the Father and the Son, Aquinas states: It is from the Father that the Son has being and acting, and this is why the Father . acts through the Son. 76 The Son, who is acting, exists from the Father. 77 We say that the Father acts through the Son, because the Son is the cause of what is accomplished in virtue of one same and indivisible power, power that the Son possesses in common with the Father but which he receives, nevertheless, from the Father by his generation. 78 This relative order has been illumined by means of the property signified by the name Word: in naming the Son Word, we identify him as the "operative cause" of the works that the Father accomplishes by him. 79 The exegesis of John 1 :3 also specified this point: the Son is a subject of action (an operans) distinct from the Father. 80 The Father acts "through the Son" because the Father, in the eternal generation, gives to the Son the divine essence by which the Son acts. De Pot., q. 10, a. 2, ad 7: "Et sic oportet processionem esse ex processione, et procedentem ex procedente; hoc autem facit realem differentiam in divinis." 76 II Sent., d. 13, q. 1, a. 5, ad 4: "Filius a Patre habet et esse et operari, ratione cujus Pater per Filium operatur." 77 II Sent., d. 13, expositio textus: "Filius, qui et operans, a Patre est." 78 II Sent., d. 13, q. 1, a. 5, sol.: "Sic dicimus Pattern per Filium operari, quia est causa ipsorum operatorum una et indivisibili virtute cum Patre, quam tamen a Patre nascendo recepit." 79 STh I, q. 34, a. 3. 8 Cf. In loan. 1:3 (#85). 75 ° GILLES EMERY, O.P. 58 The explanations of the action of the Holy Spirit show his personal distinction in a comparable way. The Father and the Son, spirating the Holy Spirit, give to the Holy Spirit the divine essence and, with it, the power of acting. This is the reason why the Father and the Son act "in the Holy Spirit" or "through the Holy Spirit." 81 The Father and the Son are, in this regard, the principle of the act that the Holy Spirit performs, insofar as they communicate to him the divine power of acting. 82 Thomas makes explicit this teaching by means of the property signified by the personal names Love and Gift. In recognizing the Holy Spirit as Love and Gift (these names express his distinct property), we signify him as the source of the effects that the Father and the Son accomplish through him, that is, as the Love by which the Father and the Son love us and procure for us their gifts. 83 In sum: "Whatever the Son does he has from the Father." 84 Likewise, the Holy Spirit acts by receiving his action from the Father and the Son, because he receives from them the divine nature. It is from the Father and from the Son that the Holy Spirit receives being and the power of acting, and it is thus that he accomplishes his actions. When commenting on John 16: 13 ("He will not speak from himself"), St. Thomas explains that Just as the Son does not act from himself but from the Father, so the Holy Spirit, because he is from another, that is from the Father and the Son, will not speak from himself, but whatever he will hear by receiving knowledge as well as his essence from eternity he will speak. 85 The three persons act in one same action, but each performs this action in the distinct mode of his personal relation, that is, 81 De Pot., q. 10, a. 4. by whom the Holy Spirit acts [principium operandi Spiritui Sancto], because the Son gives the power of action to the Holy Spirit." This communication of the power of action belongs to the spiration of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son, and it explains that "the Son acts through the Holy Spirit" (ibid.). Cf. De Pot., q. 10, a. 4. 83 SI'h I, q. 37, a. 2, ad 3; q. 38, a. 2. 84 In loan. 15:26 (#2061): "Filius quidquid operatur, habet a Patre." 85 In loan. 16:13 (#2103): "Sicut enim Filius non operatur a semetipso sed a Patre, ita Spiritus Sanctus, quia et ab alio, scilicet a Patre et Filio, non loquetur a semetipso sed quaecumque audiet, accipiendo scientiam sicut et essentia ab aeterno, haec loquetur." 82 Contra errores Graecorum II, c. 4: "The Son is the principle THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 59 according to his proper "mode of existing" in accordance with the Trinitarian order. The Father acts as source of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Son acts as Word of the Father, the Holy Spirit acts as Love and Gift of the Father and the Son. We are not in the domain of an appropriation, but rather in the domain of a property of the person, as Thomas expressly explains with regard to the Word. The proper mode of the persons' acting, we repeat, does not give rise to an exclusive action of one person in the world; rather, it concerns the hypostatic relation (the relation of divine person to divine person) always implied in the action that the Three perform in creating the world and saving humankind. VI. AN EXAMPLE OF DOCTRINAL EXEGESIS: THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT AS "PARACLETE" We already noted above the way in which St. Thomas finds in John 1:3 the property that characterizes the mode of acting of the Son. This teaching can equally be illustrated by other explanations that allow one to apprehend better the Son's mode of acting. One of the most illumining examples is the exegesis of John 14:16 on the name Paraclete: "I will pray the Father and he will give you another Paraclete." Saint Thomas's interpretation shows his concern, in specifying the distinct modality of the action of each person, to maintain the unity of the action of the divine persons in virtue of their common nature. The exegesis on this verse also manifests the unity of speculative theology and biblical exegesis in St. Thomas, as well as the tight bonds that unite Trinitarian theology and Christology. Saint Thomas explains that Paracletemeans the "advocate" or the "consoler. " 86 It is thus a name that designates the Holy Spirit in his economic act. This act of the Holy Spirit consists in the mission that he receives from the Father and the Son: to dwell amongst the disciples so as to obtain the presence of Father and 86 In loan. 14:16 (#1911-1912): "Sed attende quod hoc nomen Paraclitus est graecum, et significat consolatorem .... Spiritus Sanctus est consolator et advocatus." In his exegesis, Aquinas also often associates with the Holy Spirit words stemming from "deprecator" (intercessor). 60 GILLES EMERY, O.P. Son for them, to lead the disciples to the full understanding of Christ's teaching, to bear witness to them on behalf of the Son. In a first step, St. Thomas explains briefly why this name is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. The term Paracletefits well for designating the Holy Spirit "since he is the Spirit of Love": he is the love that procures spiritual consolation, joy, intercession. 87 The attribution of the name Paraclete to the Holy Spirit is therefore justified by the affinity between the action of the Holy Spirit and his personal property (Love):88 Love is the principle of action signified by the name Paraclete.In a second step, however, St. Thomas notes that the New Testament does not exclusively restrict the name Paracleteto the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the Fourth Gospel designates the Holy Spirit by the name ParacleteGohn 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; 16:7), specifying that the Spirit is "another Paraclete" Gohn 14:16): Christ is also named Paraclete (1John2:1). This raises a question under the form of an objection: The word Paracleteimports an action of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, by saying another Paraclete,a difference in nature seems to be indicated, because different actions indicate different natures. Thus the Holy Spirit does not have the same nature as the Son. 89 The principle invoked by this objection is clear: a being acts in virtue of what it is, that is, according to its nature, because the nature is the principle of action. For this very reason, action makes manifest the nature of a being: "For the clearest indication of the nature of a thing is taken from its works. " 90 Saint Thomas often invokes this metaphysical law in order to show the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit: "When we want to know whether a certain thing is true, we can determine it from two aspects: its nature [natura] and its power [virtus]. For true gold is that which 87 In loan. 14:16 (#1911): "Cum sit Spiritus Amoris; amor autem facit spiritualem consolationem et gaudiurn." 88 On Love (that is to say the "impression" or "affection of Love") as the personal property of the Holy Spirit according to Aquinas, see STh I, q. 37; see Emery, Trinity in Aquinas, 15356. 89 In loan. 14:16 (#1912). 90 In loan. 10:38 (#1466). THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 61 has the species of true gold; and we determine it if it acts like true gold. " 91 Such is the principle that guides the "soteriological argument" that St. Thomas draws from the Fathers of the Church: 92 because the Son does the works proper to God (to pardon sins, to judge, to save, etc.), this shows that he is true God. In the same manner, St. Thomas shows the divinity of the Holy Spirit from the works that the Holy Spirit produces: because he accomplishes the works proper to God (to sanctify, to deify), the Holy Spirit is God. Here is a brief example of this doctrinal exegesis often practiced by St. Thomas: "He from whom men are spiritually reborn is God; but men are spiritually reborn through the Holy Spirit, as it is stated [in John 3:5]; therefore, the Holy Spirit is God. " 93 One easily perceives the governing idea of this teaching: the action is the sign that allows one to identify the nature of the one who acts. The objection raised regarding the name Paraclete rests on these explanations: because the Holy Spirit is "another" Paraclete, and because this name signifies an action, does the gospel suggest that the Holy Spirit exercises another action than the Son, and therefore that the Spirit is of another nature than the Son? So would the action of the SpiritParaclete be different than that of the Son-Paraclete? Or, inversely, would the action of the Spirit be conflated with the action of the Son-Paraclete? The doctrinal stakes of the question are manifest: how can we account for the action of the Son and the Holy Spirit while avoiding the pitfalls of Arianism and Sabellianism? Saint Thomas's response deserves to be pondered over in depth. I reply that the Holy Spirit is a Consoler and Advocate, and so is the Son. John says that the Son is an Advocate: "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous One" (1 John 2:1). In Isaiah we are told that he is a Consoler: "The Spirit of the Lord has sent me to comfort those who mourn" (Isa 61: 1). Yetthe Son and the Holy Spirit are Consolers and Advocates in a different way [alia et alia ratione], if we consider what is congruent to each person. Christ In loan. 17:3 (#2187). See for exemple St. Athanasius of Alexandria, De synodis 51 (PG 26:784). 93 In loan. 3:5 (#444). On the same soteriological argument, see In loan. 10:35 (#1460) and17:3 (#2187); ScG N, c. 17 (#3528). 91 92 GILLES EMERY, O.P. 62 is called an Advocate because as a human being he intercedes for us to the Father; the Holy Spirit is an Advocate because he makes us ask. Again, the Holy Spirit is called a Consoler inasmuch as he is formally Love [inquantum est amor formaliter]. But the Son is a Consoler inasmuch as he is the Word [inquantum est Verbum]. The Son is a Consoler in two ways: because of his teaching and because the Son gives the Holy Spirit and incites love in our hearts. Thus the word "another" does not indicate a different nature in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Rather, it indicates the different mode in which each of them is both an Advocate and a Consoler [designat alium modum quo uterque est consolater et advocatus]. 94 The effects of the action of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in helping the disciples are identical: consolation, joy, forceful witnessing, adhesion to the word of God, assurance in prayer. But if the action of the Son is like that of the Spirit (under this heading, both of them are Paraclete), this action takes a distinct mode. The solution of St. Thomas comprises two moments: the first concerns the term Advocate and the second the word Consoler (these two terms both specify an aspect of the name Paraclete). Following the first approach, the distinct mode of the act of the Son is characterized by the action of his humanity. Indeed, to speak properly, "to intercede" or "to pray" is the action of a rational creature, inferior to the divine nature. 95 Thus, it is in his humanity (secundum quod homo) that the Son intercedes for us before the Father. In this case, because of the hypostatic union, it is a question of the proper action of the Son, inasmuch as this action has for its formal principle the humanity proper to the Son incarnate. The actions accomplished by the humanity of Christ are properly attributed to his divine person, because the person is the subject of actions performed either in virtue of his divine nature or in virtue of his human nature. 96 One can extend this response to all the acts that Christ accomplishes in his humanity: insofar as the action of the Word incarnate implies the cooperation of his humanity as a proper instrument, conjoined and free, this theandric action belongs properly to the person of the Son. By 94 In Joan. 14:16 (#1912). 95 STh II-II, q. 83, a. 10: "Prayer is an act of reason by which a superior is petitioned." 96 STh ill, q. 16, a. 4; cf. STh ill, q. 19, a. 1. THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 63 reason of his personal humanity, only the Son is born of the Virgin Mary, preaches, suffers, dies, rises from the dead, ascends, intercedes for us before the Father. The action of the Holy Spirit as Advocate is of another order. Indeed, the Holy Spirit does not exercise personally a created action,97 but he is the cause of a human action: the Holy Spirit "intercedes" insofar as he is the source of the prayer of the saints. This first exegesis of the name Advocate can be summarized in the following way: "The Son is said to ask or to pray according to his assumed nature, that is, not according to his divine nature but according to his human nature. The Holy Spirit is said to ask because he prompts us to ask. " 98 In a second moment in his commentary on John 14:16, St. Thomas considers the name Consoler as signifying an action of the Son and the Holy Spirit according to their divine personal property. In this case, the personal mode of the action of the Son no longer concerns his humanity as such. The Son "consoles" in the mode of his divine and incommunicable personal property, which is being the Word of the Father. In this regard, the Son gives interior teaching and spreads the Holy Spirit: this belongs to the Word as Word. Indeed, it is by reason of his property of Word of the Father that the Son reveals the truth and makes known the Father, because he is personally the expression of the whole wisdom of the Father, 99 he proceeds as the "begotten Wisdom" of the Father. 10° For this reason, St. Thomas states, "Since the doctrine of anyone is nothing else than his word, and the Son of God is the Word of God, it follows that the doctrine of the Father is the Son himself. " 101 At the same time, it is by reason of his property of Word, that is, inasmuch as he is the 97 This would imply an Arian or Macedonian understanding of the Holy Spirit, because "to intercede or to ask is the act of an inferior" ("postulare enim est minoris"; In Ad Rom. 8:26 [#692]). 98 srh 11-11, q. 83, a. 10, ad 1. 99 ScG N, c. 13 (#3495); In loan. 1:9 (#127-29); In loan. 17:25 (#2267): "Human wisdom consists in knowing God. But this knowledge flows to us from the Word, because to the extent that we share in the Word of God, to that extent do we know God." 100 STh I, q. 34, a. 1, ad 2; ScG N, c. 12 (#3484). 101 Inloan. 7:16 (#1037): "Cum doctrina uniuscuiusque nihil aliudsitquam verbum eius, Filius autem Dei sit Verbum eius: sequitur ergo quod doctrina Patris sit ipse Filius." 64 GILLES EMERY, O.P. divine Word, that the Son spirates the Holy Spirit: "The Son is the Word; not, however, just any word, but the Word breathing Love. " 102 It is in this manner that the Son procures the knowledge of God by faith: the Son interiorly teaches believers "by giving them the Holy Spirit. " 103 Such is the completely personal mode by which the Son, according to his property of Word, is the Consoler by his teaching. On the part of the Holy Spirit, the mode of action comes from his pernonal property as Love. The Holy Spirit is properly and personally the Love who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Existing personally as Love, he acts in the mode of the "impression" or the "affection" of love of the Father and the Son, in communicating to human beings the impulsion of love which gives them their union to God: he spreads charity, that is, he communicates a participation in his personal property, obtaining consolation and joy (which belongs formally to the Spirit as Love). 104 In this way, St. Thomas can explain that the Son and the Holy Spirit, possessing the same nature, exercise the same action: to console. They receive therefore, under this aspect, the same name: Consoler. This is moreover the reason why the name Consoler is appropriated: it is not proper to a person, as the New Testament attests. But each person exercises this action according to his proper mode (alius modus). The Son consoles in accordance with his property of Word: he is the Word through whom the Father consoles and who, with the Father, sends the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit consoles in a manner that corresponds to his property of Love: he is the Gift through whom the Father and Son console us and give us a share in their Love. The proper mode of the personal action does not imply that the effect is exclusively proper to one person (the created effect, like the divine action that 102 STh I, q. 43, a. 5, ad 2: "Filius autem est Verbum, non qualecumque, sed spirans Amorem;" cf. STh I, q. 36, a. 2; I Sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3. 103 In loan. 17:26 (#2269): "Alia cognirio est interior per Spiritum Sanctum; et quantum ad hoc dicit Et notum faciam, scilicet eis dando Spiritum Sanctum." 104 ScG IV, c. 21 (#3578), and c. 22 (#3586); In loan. 14:26 (#1959). THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIANACDON 65 produces that effect, is appropriated); 105 rather, this mode concerns the relative property of the persons, the intra-Trinitarian relation of person to person: the Son acts inasmuch as he is begotten as Word of the Father, the Holy Spirit acts inasmuch as he is personally Love proceeding from the Father and his Word, and the Father acts through the Son whom he begets and in the Holy Spirit whom he spirates with the Son. VII. IMMANENTTRINITI, ECONOMIC TRINI1Y,AND PERICHORESIS In explaining that the distinction of the mode of action applies on the side of the relation of divine person to divine person (personal property), and not on the side of effects of the divine action, is St. Thomas truly able to show the personal dimension of the relationships that the divine persons have with us? In other words, does this doctrine honor sufficiently the aspect quoad nos of the Trinitarian act in its personal dimension? We have already indicated above the reasons why Thomist thought can accept neither that a created effect be attributed in a proper manner to one divine person to the exclusion of others, nor that an action in the world belongs to one person rather than to another. But the objection remains, because it could seem that the Thomist explication has divided the Trinity by a kind of dichotomy: on the one hand, the intra-Trinitarian relations in which one observes a personal distinction and a distinct mode of action, and on the other, the relations to creatures in which the personal distinction no longer intervenes directly and cedes its place to the unity of the Trinity. This difficulty can be formulated in terms derived from Karl Rahner: does not St. Thomas's explanation divide the "immanent Trinity" and the "economic Trinity"? Indeed, following the thought of St. Thomas, the distinct mode of action of the persons consists in their eternal personal properties ("immanent Trinity") 105 Appropriation is based precisely upon the affinity between the effect (or the essential attribute) and the relative property of the divine person. 66 GILLES EMERY, O.P. and not in a different relation of persons with creatures ("economic Trinity"). In this case, can one still affirm that "the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and vice-versa"? Does not the Rahnerian Grundaxiom imply that the solution of St. Thomas ought to be avoided? In reality, the teaching of St. Thomas leads rather to the following position: the Trinity acts in the world, reveals itself and gives itself ("economic Trinity"), as it is in itself ("immanent Trinity"). In themselves, in the intra-Trinitarian life, the divine persons are distinguished by their relative properties. The Trinitarian plurality arises neither from a difference of essence, nor from a different relationship of persons toward something exterior to the Trinity; 106 instead, it arises from relations of origin, in the measure in which one person proceeds from another. In the same way, when the persons act in the world, they are distinguished neither by a difference of essence, nor by a different relationship to creatures; instead, they are distinguished by their mutual relations, in the measure in which the persons who act are each referred to the others. This point bears repeating: in the "immanent Trinity," the real distinction of persons arises only from their personal relations and consists in these opposed relations; 107 in the same way, in the "economic Trinity," the distinction of persons who act resides entirely in these mutual relations according to origin. This is what is expressed by the affirmation of the "relative mode of acting" of the persons within their common action for us. Precisely where, at first glance, one could have suspected a division of the "immanent Trinity" and the "economic Trinity," it is instead necessary to recognize that St. Thomas coherently maintains the identity of the Trinity in itself and in its act for us. 106 This is the reason why speculative Trinitarian theology, in St. Thomas, is founded on the doctrine of the immanent processions: if one began from the act of God in the world (transitive action), Arianism and Sabellianism could no longer be avoided; cf. SI'h I, q. 27, a. 1. 107 Quodlibet XII, q. 1, a. 1: "Veritas fidei habet quod in divinis solum est distinctio quae est secundum relationes oppositas." THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 67 This teaching can be illustrated by the doctrine of the missions and, even better, by that of perichoresis. The sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in grace ("invisible mission"), according to St. Thomas, consists in a twofold relation: the relation of origin of the person sent (Trinitarian relation) and a relation to the created effect. 108 The first relation is the eternal relation that constitutes the person of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The second relation implies a created effect that is appropriated to the person sent, in virtue of an affinity between the created effect (wisdom, charity) and the personal property of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the mission of the divine person includes his eternal procession, to which it adds a created effect in virtue of which this person is made present in a new manner (one then speaks of the "temporal procession" of the divine person). 109 The Son and the Holy Spirit are sent according to their relation of origin: the person sent is the person proceeding, the person inasmuch as he proceeds. The completely proper character of the invisible mission of the Son and of the mission of the Spirit does not primarily reside in the created effect (this effect, common to the whole Trinity, is appropriated to one person), but instead resides in the eternal personal relation that the mission includes: the Son is sent in being turned toward the Father who begets him; the Holy Spirit is sent and given according to his relation to the Father and the Son who spirate him. Extending these reflections, St. Thomas explains that the "visible mission" of the persons, that is, the incarnation of the Son and the manifestation of the Spirit by sensible signs, consists in a twofold manifestation: the manifestation of the eternal procession of the person sent, and the manifestation of a plenitude of grace 108 STh I, q. 43, a. 1: "In ratione missionis duo importantur: quorum unum est habitudo missi ad eum a quo mittitur; aliud est habitudo missi ad terminum ad quern mittitur .... Missio igitur divinae Personae convenire potest, secundum quod importat ex una parte processionem originis a mittente; et secundum quod importat ex alia parte novum modum existendi in aliquo." Cf. STh I, q. 43, a. 2; q. 43, a. 5. 109 STh I, q. 43, a. 2, ad 3: "Missio includit processionem aeternam, et aliquid addit, scilicet temporalem effectum." Cf. I Sent., d. 14, qq. 1-2. The created gift is a disposition (dispositive cause) to receive the uncreated Gift, that is the divine person himself (efficient, exemplar, and final cause). GILLES EMERY, O.P. 68 that flows forth visibly, in the presence of witnesses, in order to establish the Church in faith and charity. 110 Here again, the proper foundation of the "visible mission" is taken from the eternal property of the person: the visible mission manifests the Holy Spirit insofar as he is personally Love and Gift (this is his relative property), 111 that is, insofar as he is the "sanctifying Gift" of the Father and the Son; as regards the Son, he is sent insofar as he is, according to his property, the principle and the giver of the Holy Spirit, that is, insofar as he is "the author of sanctification. " 112 The Son is manifested by the holy humanity that he assumes: this holy humanity, participating instrumentally in the power of the divinity, works to procure salvation. The human act of Christ collaborates with his divine act and reveals the person of the Son in his personal traits, because this human act manifests the Son as Son of the Father and as principle of the Spirit. The proper characteristics of the act of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in their mission, are thus taken principally from the eternal relation that this mission makes manifest. The doctrine of perichoresis offers a synthesis of this teaching. Saint Thomas explains that the divine persons are mutually "each in the other" according to a threefold point of view. Each person is interior to the others: (1) in virtue of their common essence, because where there is the essence of a person, there is the person himself; (2) in virtue of their relations, because each relation implies in itself its correlative; (3) in virtue of the processions, because these processions are "immanent": the person who proceeds dwells in the person from whom he proceeds. 113 The latter two aspects also permit one to understand the reciprocity of 110 I Sent., d. 16, q. 1, aa. 1-2. 111 Cf. SI'h I, q. 37-38. m SI'h I, q. 43, a. 7: "Nam Spiritui Sancto, inquantum procedit ut Amor, competit esse sanctificarionis donum; Filio autem, inquantum est Spiritus Sancti principium, competit esse sancrificarionis huius auctorem." Cf. ibid., ad 4. 113 STh I, q. 42, a. 5. Saint Thomas explains, with regard to the procession of the Son, that "the Son came forth from the Father from all eternity in such a way that the Son is still in the Father from all eternity. And so when the Son is in the Father, he comes forth, and when the Son comes forth he is in the Father: so the Son is always in the Father and always coming forth from the Father" (In loan. 16:28 [#2161]). THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 69 the divine persons. Indeed, under the aspect of the unity of essence, the Father is in the Son in the same way as the Son is in the Father, that is, by identity of nature, because each person possesses the same divine nature. 114 Nevertheless, under the aspect of relations, the mutual presence of persons assumes the proper mode of the relation. This mode is not interchangeable but distinct in reciprocity. The Son is in the Father insofar as he is related to the Father as his Son, just as the Father is in the Son insofar as he is his Father. Paternity and filiation thus imply two distinct modes of presence in reciprocity: "On the side of the relation, the mode [of presence of the Father in the Son and of the Son in the Father] is different, according to the different relationship of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father." 115 The same point holds when one considers the persons under the aspect of origin: the Father is in the Son insofar as he begets the Son, the Son is in the Father insofar as he is begotten by the Father; the Holy Spirit is in the Father and the Son insofar as he proceeds from them, just as the Father and the Son are in the Holy Spirit insofar as they spirate him. 116 The relations are therefore not limited to "distinguishing" the persons by reason of the "opposition" that they have; they are also the reason of the unity of the persons that they distinguish. 117 Relation thus grounds the Trinitarian communion. Perichoresis sheds light not just on the being and the relations of the Trinity in itself, but also on the act of the Trinity within this world. In the first place, the mutual "being in" of the persons 114 I Sent., d. 19, q. 3, a. 2, ad 3: "Si accipiatur Pater esse in Filio propter unitatem essentiae, eodem modo est Pater in Filio et Filius in Patte: et rune haec praepositio 'in' non importabit aliquam relationem realem, sed tanturn relarionem rarionis, qualis est inter essentiam et personam, secundmn quam essentia dicitur esse in persona." 115 Ibid.: "Si autem hoc accipiamus ex parte relarionis, tune est alius modus, ut dictum est, secundmn diversam habitudinem Patris ad Filium, et Filii ad Pattern." In this case, the relations are really distinct (fatherhood and sonship). 116 I Sent., d. 19, q. 3, a. 2, ad 1: "Unde Filius est in Patre sicut originatum in originante, et e converso Pater in filio sicut originans in originato." 117 Relations account for the unity and for the real distinction in the Trinity: uQuamvis Pater sit in Filio per unitatem essentiae, et quantum ad intellectum relationis; tamen relatio, inquantum habet rationem oppositionis, distinguit Pattern a Filio secundum suppositum" (I Sent., d. 21, q. 1, a. 2, ad 4). 70 GILLES EMERY, O.P. implies their common act. Just as the persons exist indivisibly, they act inseparably: the Father who acts is in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, the acting Son is in the Father and in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who acts is in the Father and in the Son, in such a way that their action is common and that the effects of this action are also common. The action of persons in the world cannot be different, since each acts by having the others in him and by being in the others. Likewise, the effects cannot be related to a single person, because the three persons act mutually "one in the other." But the persons are not conflated: the Son acts in being turned toward the Father by his filiation and in being turned toward the Holy Spirit by spiration (the Son acts a Patre and per Spiritum Sanctum), the Father acts in being turned toward the Son by his paternity and toward the Holy Spirit by spiration (the Father acts per Filium and per Spiritum Sanctum), and the Holy Spirit acts in being turned toward the Father and the Son by his procession (the Holy Spirit acts a Patre and a Filia). Such is the proper "mode" by which each person is distinctly in the other and acts distinctly in the other under the aspect of personal relation. Perichoresis shows the depth of the communion of persons (unity and distinction) in their act. Working inseparably in the economy, the three divine persons are therefore also inseparably present. This presence concerns, in the first place, the mysteries of the Son of God in his flesh: in Christ, the Son incarnate, the whole Trinity is made present to humankind, by reason of the divine consubstantiality and by reason of the Trinitarian relations. The presence of the Trinity is also given when the Son and the Holy Spirit are sent into the souls of saints ("invisible mission" of the divine person). The Father is not "sent," because he does have have a principle: he is rather the one who sends the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, the Father comes to dwell in the hearts of the saints, along with the Son and the Spirit whom he sends. In both cases, perichoresis accounts for the coming and for the presence of the three persons together: THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 71 The Father is in the Son, the Son is in the Father, and both are in the Holy Spirit. For this reason, when the Son is sent, the Father and the Holy Spirit come also, simultaneously. This takes place in the Son's advent in the flesh, as he says himself in John 8:16: I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent me. This holds also when he comes into the soul [of saints], as he likewise says himself in John 14:23: We will come to him, and we will make our home with him. This is why the coming and the inhabitation belong to the whole Trinity. 118 Due to perichoresis, the coming of the Son in the economy of salvation is a presence not only of the Son, but also of the whole Trinity. This is the reason why the incarnation and the mysteries of the life of Christ are a revelation of the Trinity. And, in the gift of grace, the perichoresis of divine persons is extended to us. When the Holy Spirit is given with the charity that he spreads, when the Son comes to inhabit human beings by living faith, it is the whole Trinity which is made inseparably present, as much in virtue of the common essence of the persons as in virtue of their relations. The mutual indwelling of the divine persons, explicated by the doctrines of processions, relations, and essence (the pillars of Trinitarian doctrine), thus illumines the two aspects of the Trinitarian act: (1) the inseparable unity of the action of the persons, the unity of their presence in the economy, and the unity of their effects; (2) the personal dimension of the Trinitarian act, which is rooted in the proper mode of being of the persons and in their mode of action according to their distinctive property. VIII. OUR RELATION IN GRACE TO EACH DIVINE PERSON: OBJECTIVE UNION In the explications that we have undertaken to this point, we have principally considered the causal action of the Trinity, that is, the divine persons as efficient and exemplar source of the gifts of nature and of grace. Under this aspect, St. Thomas invites us to 118 I Sent., d. 15, q. 2, ad 4: "Cum Pater sit in Filio, et Filius in Patre, et uterque in Spiritu Sancto, quando Filius mittitur, simul et venit Pater et Spiritus Sanctus; sive intelligatur de adventu Filii in carnem, cum ipse dicat, Joan. 8:16, Solus non sum, sed ego, et qui misit me Pater, sive intel!igatur de advenru in mentem, cum ipse dicat, Joan. 14:23, Ad eum veniemus, et man:sionem apud eum faciemus. Et ideo adventus vel inhabitario convenit tori Trinitati." 72 GILLES EMERY, O.P. recognize the unity of the Trinity, because the three persons exercise together one single causal action. This is why the created effects, considered in an "ontological" or "entitative" manner, refer us to the three persons in their inseparable causality. 119 Does not, however, the experience of faith give us a relation with each divine person in particular? Consequently, is it not necessary to recognize that grace enables us to enter into relation not only with the unity of the Trinity, but with each person in his distinct personality? Saint Thomas responds clearly: yes, when the Son and the Holy Spirit are sent to the saints in grace, the saints come to "enjoy" each person in his personal property. But this relation to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit in their distinct personality is no longer situated at the level of the causality of the Trinity (the ontological or entitative aspect): it concerns the intentional or objective engagement with the divine persons who are really "given" and "possessed" by the beneficiaries of grace. Saint Thomas explains that, by grace, the Trinity dwells in the human being "as the known is in the knower and as the beloved is in the one who loves. " 120 The Trinity, in the distinction of persons, is given to human beings as "object" of acts of supernatural knowledge (faith, beatific vision) and as "object" of charitable acts (charity, fruition). The divine persons are no longer only understood as the cause of the effects which they procure in us, but rather they are given and present "as the object of the operation is present in the one who operates. " 121 The word object in this context should be rightly understood. It does not indicate any depersonalization of God (in the manner in which, today, one may distinguish a relationship to another in terms of "subject" or "object"). The word object is taken here in its formal sense and 119 Recall that the divine action or the created effect can be appropriated to one person in particular, but this appropriation finds its place within the common causality of the whole Trinity. 120 STh I, q. 43, a. 3. This new relation to the divine persons does not pertain to the order of nature (creation), but exclusively to that of grace. 121 STh I, q. 8, a. 3 : "sicut objectum operationis est in operante"; cf. I Sent., d. 37, q. 1, a. 2 ; d. 37, exp. prim. part. text.: "per modum objecti." THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 73 designates what is directly attained or apprehended by an action, the end toward which the activity or the "operation" is carried out by an acting subject. \Vhen applied to God, this word means that, by the habits or the acts of wisdom and of charity, human beings attain, apprehend, or "possess" the divine persons inasmuch as they are united to these persons by knowledge and love. This is why, in order to designate this relation to the divine persons, the Thomist tradition speaks of the objective presence of the Trinity, or of the intentional presence of the divine persons (the terms intentional or spiritual designate, by opposition to natural, the mode of being that a reality assumes in the subject who knows it and who loves it). 122 One can summarize the explications of St. Thomas in the following manner. The whole Trinity, in one same action, is the source or the cause of sanctifying grace (grace is appropriated to the Holy by reason of the affinity that grace possesses to the property of the Holy Spirit as Love and Gift of the Father and the Son). The whole Trinity is the source or the cause of our filial adoption (adoption is appropriated to the Father as its author, to the Son as its model, and to the Holy Spirit as to the one who inscribes it in our hearts). 123 The whole Trinity is the cause of the gifts of wisdom and of love (the gifts that illumine the intelligence are appropriated to the Son, while the gifts that inflame charity are appropriated to the Holy Spirit). 124 But salvation consists in the reception of the divine persons themselves: the presence of the Son and of the Holy Spirit who are sent, and the presence of the Father who comes to indwell the hearts of his children with the Son and the Holy Spirit whom he sends. 125 The created gifts caused by the Trinity (sanctifying grace, wisdom, charity) are a disposition conferred upon human beings to make them capable of receiving the divine persons who are themselves really given 122 The vocabulary of intentionality is of philosophical origin; it comes from Arab authors (Averroes); see the note of Fr. Rene-Antoine Gauthier in Sentencia libri de anima, Leonine Edition, t. 45/1, p. 169. 123 STh III, q. 23, a. 2, ad 3. 124 STh I, q. 43, a. 5, ad 1, ad 2 and ad 3. 125 Cf. STh I, q. 43, a. 4. 74 GILLES EMERY, O.P. and substantially present. 126 In order to designate this relationship to divine persons, St. Thomas speaks of "fruition" (frui, fruitio). 127 This word designates the union of love with the divine persons who are the ultimate end of the human being and in whom the human being finds his happiness. 128 Saint Thomas is very clear: by grace, "we enjoy [fruimur] the property of each person. " 129 To enjoy the divine persons, or to "possess" (habere) the divine persons, 130 is to be united to the divine persons as they are the "object" of knowledge and of love, to be caught up in the divine persons known and loved by faith (and then by the vision) and by charity (fruition). The doctrine of the image of the Trinity in the human being develops the same points. It is in knowing and loving the divine persons that we are conformed to these persons, and it is then that the image of the Trinity in the human being attains its highest degree (image of grace and of glory). According to Aquinas's teaching, the perfect image of God in the human being is accomplished when the human being is conformed to the Trinity (assimilation to the divine persons) by his acts of knowledge and of love ("objective" union)-that is, when the human being, configured to the Word and to the Holy Spirit who are sent, is united to the Trinity known and loved. 131 It is in this "objective" order that the fruition of the divine persons and the indwelling of these persons in the heart of the human being is realized. The divine persons are not ontologically mixed with the creature, but the creature is enabled to be united to the divine persons who are really present in the mode of a known and loved "object." 126 I Sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, qla 1; d. 14, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2; d. 15, q. 4, a. 1; cf. STh I, q. 43, a. 3, sol., ad 1, and ad 2. The just receive not only created gifts, but the uncreated Gift himself, that is to say, the divine persons. The divine persons are the "cause" and the "end" of the created gifts. This is why the gift of the uncreated divine person is absolutely primary (simpliciter prius) in relationship to the created gifts (I Sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 2, qla 2). 127 STh I, q. 43, a. 3 ; cf. STh I, q. 38, a. 1. 128 I Sent., d. 1, q. 2; d. 14, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2; cf. STh 1-11, q. 11. 129 I Sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2 : "proprietate uniuscujusque personae fruimur." 130 STh I, q. 43, a. 3. 131 STh I, q. 93, aa. 7-8: the image of God is found in the human being according to the acts which have God for their object. THE PERSONAL MODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 75 In this context St. Thomas speaks of our "experience" of the Son and the Holy Spirit in their proper personality. This teaching extends that of St. Augustine. The bishop of Hippo had explained that the Son is sent in the soul of the saints when he is "known as having his origin in the Father"; in the same way, the Holy Spirit is sent when he is known as proceeding from the Father and from the Son. 132 In his mission, the divine person is manifested; the Son and the Holy Spirit are made known by the gifts that represent them and that are appropriated to them. 133 And when the person is thus manifested, the person is given in his personal relation. The Son is made known in his relation to the Father: in faith, he is received as the one sent from the Father and as the Son of the Father. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is made known in his relation to the Father and to the Son: he is received as the Spirit of the Father and the Son. As regards the Father, he is known as the source of the Son and the Holy Spirit whom he sends into our hearts. 134 This knowledge of the divine person in his personal distinction belongs to the very notion of "mission. " 135 In order to make explicit such a grasp of the persons in their mission, St. Thomas speaks of an "experimental knowledge" of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The expression, in St. Thomas, is not rare in this context: one finds it many times, as much in the Commentary on the Sentences as in the Summa, and always in reference to the love that makes knowledge perfect. 136 This knowledge is an experience of the divine person present and acting, a "fruitful knowledge" (fruitio) of the divine person. This theme of "experimental knowledge" makes explicit the union given by the mission of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that is, the union to the 132 Saint Augustine, De Trinitate 4.20.29 (Mountain, ed., 1: 199). I Sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 1, ad 1. 134 I Sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 1 ; cf. d. 14, q. 2, a. 2. 135 I Sent., d. 15, q. 2, ad 5 ; d. 15, q. 4, a. 1, ad 1. 136 I Sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3 ; d. 15, q. 2, ad 5 ; d. 15, exp. text. ; d. 16, q. 1, a. 2; STh I, q. 43, a. 5, ad 2. On this theme, see in particular Albert Patfoort, "Cognitio ista est quasi experimentalis (I Sent, d. 14, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3m)," Angelicum 63 (1986): 3-13; idem, "Missions divines et experience des personnes divines selon S. Thomas," Angelicum 63 (1986): 545-59; Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, Spiritual Master (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 94-98. 133 76 GILLES EMERY, O.P. Son and to the Holy Spirit inasmuch as we are "conformed" or "assimilated" to them through our acts of knowledge and charity. According to these explanations, therefore, it is necessary to distinguish the "ontological" aspect and the "intentional" aspect of grace. 137 Under its "ontological" or "entitative" aspect, that is, considered in itself (in the subject to which it is given), grace is the effect of the action of the whole Trinity and refers us therefore to the Trinity in the unity of the three persons. 138 Under its "intentional" aspect, when one considers it in its dynamism, that is, from the side of the object or the end toward which it leads us (the "objective" manifestation of known and loved divine persons), the gift of grace (wisdom and charity) refers us to the three persons inasmuch as these persons are distinct from each other and are apprehended in their proper singularity, one as Father, the second as only-begotten Son, the third as Holy Spirit come forth from the Father and the Son. 139 IX. CONCLUSION Aquinas firmly recognizes the unity of action of the divine persons, the unity of their principle of action and the unity of their relationship to created effects. Appropriations come into the picture at this level: that of the action itself (e.g., to create, to vivify, to sanctify, to comfort), that of the principles of action (e.g., power, wisdom, goodness) and of created effects (e.g., being, grace, adoptive filiation, consolation) which, being common to the three persons, are nevertheless attributed specially to one person in virtue of an affinity with the exclusive property of this person. But Aquinas also clearly maintains a relational mode of acting of each person, a proper and distinct mode which consists in the personal intra-Trinitarian relationship qualifying 137 For further discussion, see Charles Journet, L'Eglise du Verbe Incame: &sai de theologie speculative, vol. 2,: Sa structure inteme et son unite catholique (Saint-Maurice: Editions Saint- Augustin, 1999), 454-68. 138 It is here that the appropriations find a place. Cf. ill Sent., d. 4, a. 1, a. 2, qcla 1. 139 Under this aspect, it is no longer a question of appropriation, but of a relation to the three divine persons, each one being apprehended in his proper and distinct personality. THE PERSONALMODE OF TRINITARIAN ACTION 77 intrinsically the act of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The recognition of a propermode of acting of each divine person gives more value to the doctrine of appropriation, because appropriation of essential features rests precisely on the relative property that characterizes the distinct mode of existence and act of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. By accounting for the personal dimension of the divine action, the proper mode of acting of the persons grounds the Trinitarian structure of the economy: all comes forth from the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit. At another level, in the order of the objective union to the Trinity known and loved (and no longer only in the order of the causality of the divine act), St. Thomas shows that the gifts of grace enable human beings to enter into relation with each person in particular, that is, each person apprehended in a proper and distinct way. In highlighting the proper features of the act of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, this doctrine gives a particular prominence to the person of the Father: being the source in the Trinity, the Father is the "ultimate term" 140 to which the Holy Spirit and the Son lead human beings. Creation and salvation are accomplished in the rhythm of the Trinitarian relations. 146 I Sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 2. The Thomist 69 (2005): 79-125 ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS AND THE GENESIS OF SOME CENTRAL OBJECTIONS TO CONTEMPORARY VIRTUE ETHICS CHRISTOPHER TONER Air University Montgomery, Alabama D ESPITE ITS RETURN to prominence in the past twentysome years, virtue ethics1 has been the target of a standard battery of objections. Perhaps chief among these is that, in counseling the agent to pursue eudaimonia (flourishing or happiness), (1) it embraces egoism, (2) it leaves no room for a special moral motive, and (3) it eliminates freedom or autonomy. All these closely related objections have roots in Kant, who argues in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that the principle of one's own happiness reduces virtue to sharp-sightedness for one's own advantage, destroys the sublimity of morality (so that the virtuous and vicious are pursuing the same thing, happiness), and submits us to determination by an empirical principle. What I hope to show in this paper is, first, that these objections have deeper roots in a running debate in medieval theology regarding the nature and causes of the fall of the devil; and, second, that cogent answers to all three objections were developed more than seven hundred years ago. While I hope my exposition and comparison of texts on angelic sin will be of some exegetical value, its chief purpose here is to support a genealogy of a mindset that makes these objections to virtue ethics look compelling. 1 My focus in this article is on Aristotelian or eudaimonistic virtue ethics. 79 80 CHRISTOPHER TONER The preoccupation of medieval thinkers with the theme of the fall of the devil was not solely due to their theological concern with the angels. In exploring this question, they sought also to understand what it is about freedom that makes sin possible. The first sin of the angels was a case presenting this question in its purest and thus most difficult form. As Augustine puts it, Man saw both options before him: one from the commandment of God, and the other from the suggestion of the serpent. But from what source did the devil himself receive the suggestion to desire the impiety by which he fell from heaven? 2 Augustine and those who followed him desired to make dear how a rational creature could choose evil, apart from the ignorance and incontinence that characterize our present (fallen) condition, indeed even apart from the evil persuasion of a tempter. What is it about the wiH that makes such a choice possible? It was on this anvil that the medievals forged their theories of the will, theories that were to be greatly influential upon later moral thought, even of those who rejected their theological beliefs. It is Scorns who will emerge as the villain in this story-a conclusion with which I am somewhat uncomfortable and will later qualify. Here, however, let me anticipate my reason for drawing it in the first place. What Scorns did-and in this he was admittedly picking up threads from no lesser figures than Augustine and Anselm-was to divide the will. The natural inclination to stand in the right relation to the good that was fundamental in Aristotle and Aquinas was replaced by two affections, one for justice and one for advantage. The will itself now stands over against these determined drives and, roughly put, freely chooses to follow the one or the other. I call this a "dualism of ultimate principles. " 3 The idea of freedom as the product of 2 St. Augustine, De libero arbitrio 3.25 (On Free Choice of the Will, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993). 3 This expression is derived from C.D. Broad's "Egoism as a Theory of Human Motives" in Twentieth Century Ethical Theory, ed. Steven Cahn and Joram Haber (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995). Where Broad speaks of monism or pluralism of ultimate desire, I speak of principle, leaving it open as to whether the principle is desire or something else (such ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 81 "superdetermination" (as in Aquinas) is rejected or ignored, and freedom is instead seen as a fundamental indetermination or indifference. 4 With this division within the will, it becomes possible to identify one of these affections (that for justice) as a specifically moral motive and the other (that for advantage) as "egoistic." Here we have the materials for the three objections: eudaimonism accounts neither for our freedom from natural impulse nor for the moral quality of our actions, and indeed if unchecked counsels the selfish pursuit of one's own happiness. It is in part this move by Scotus that opened up the field for dualistic moralities of obligation, from Ockham onward. Scotus is not responsible for all that followed him. My contention, rather, is that his formulation of dualism (in which the natural aspiration for eudaimonia must be reined in by a governing moral principle in order to preserve the freedom and moral character of human activity), as well-intentioned and subtly (and powerfully) argued as it is, first, was not strictly required to solve the problem of angelic sin (or to speak to the related issues of freedom and the moral quality of the pursuit of eudaimonia); and second, has been one key factor in bringing about a climate increasingly hostile to eudaimonism, largely by supplying the motive and materials and for precisely the three objections listed above. The paper will take shape as follows. I first lay out some definitions and assumptions about the nature of eudaimonia, egoism, and freedom. I then look at one set of Augustine's remarks on the sin of the angels, and then in more detail at Aquinas's account, which can be seen as a development of these development fully consonant with his eudaimonism. Third, I look at another set of Augustine's remarks, and then at Anselm's development of them into his own account of the fall; it is here that we first encounter the two affections of the will. as judgment). 4 Servais Pinckaers speaks of the supersession of Thomistic ufreedom for excellence" by the modernizing "freedom of indifference" (although the villain in his story is Ockham, perhaps because he is focused on moral theology rather than moral philosophy); cf. The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), part 3. 82 CHRISTOPHER TONER Fourth, I examine Scotus's account, which elaborates upon that of Anselm and sets out a developed theory of dualism of ultimate principles. Fifth, I trace forward the ramifications of this move to Kant, Sidgwick, and Nietzsche (whose accounts of morality structurally mirror Scotus's), and illustrate how they set the stage for the debates of contemporary moral philosophy and its versions of the three objections to virtue ethics with which we began. I dose by indicating what I take to be the implications of this history for these debates. I. PRELIMINARY DEFINITIONS AND AsSUMPTIONS To assess the first objection under consideration, that virtue ethics is egoistic, we require a working definition of egoism: the doctrine that each agent take as his primary, overriding goal the achievement of his own welfare, what is good for him (pursued precisely as what is good for him). This definition fits both common usage (an egoist is generally taken to be a selfish person, one driven solely by self-interest) and the usage of recent writers on welfare, such as L. W. Sumner. 5 Sumner defines welfare as "authentic happiness," where happiness comprises cognitive and affective satisfaction with one's life, and the authenticity condition ensures that the satisfaction does not rest upon compulsion or deception. 6 Robert Adams's account of welfare is largely in agreement, except that he insists that what we are satisfied with must itself be excellent; he settles upon "a life characterized by enjoyment of the excellent. " 7 Rather than trying to settle the issue here, for our purposes we can define welfare simply as a state of things going well for the subject, best understood as a life of authentic happiness (in Sumner's sense) or a life of enjoyment of the excellent (in Adams's sense). 5 See L. W. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 13. 6 Ibid., c. 6. 7 See Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 93. ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 83 "Welfare," and more often its synonym "well-being," are sometimes used by Aristotelians as stand-ins for concepts such as being well, living well, or even flourishing (eudaimonia). Yet this does not mean that eudaimonia is the same as welfare defined above, such that a life dedicated to its pursuit will be egoistic. The definition that Aristotle finally settles on in book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics (1. 7) is that eudaimonia is a life of virtuous activity. Aristotle was a perfectionist, not an egoist. The same thing can be said of Aquinas, who takes man's last end, happiness or flourishing (beatitudo ), to be "man's ultimate perfection. " 8 The same goes for Augustine, who characterizes happiness in terms of existence perfect for a thing of that kind (De libero arbitrio 3.7). 9 This might initially seem to be a distinction without a difference: is it not the case that in both egoism and perfectionism the agent takes as his primary goal what is good for him? But there is a crucial difference of emphasis. The perfectionist takes as his primary goal what is good for him; the "for him" is necessary because what it is to be good varies across persons (e.g., a man who has children cannot be good without being a good father, whereas as a childless man can). As the true athlete is committed to excellence in sport and not simply to enjoyment, so the perfectionist is determined to live a successful human life. If such a life turns out to involve satisfaction and enjoyment of the excellent, 10 that is in a sense a pleasant surprise, even if not too surprising given the role of virtue in attuning emotions and desires to reason. But if the good life includes welfare, it is not limited to 8 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 3, a. 2. The Latin text consulted is that contained in Summa Theologica, editio altera romana (Rome: ex Typographia Forzani et S., 1894). The principal translation consulted is Summa Theologita, trans. the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 194 7). I have also consulted John Oesterle's translation of questions 1-21 of the Prima Secundae (Treatise on HafYPiness [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983]). 9 Thomas Williams writes in his introduction to his translation that for Augustine "the fundamental human desire is to be in the fullest possible sense" (xix). It would take considerable work to harmonize all of the things Augustine says about happiness or beatitude with this, but I believe it could be done. 10 In "Aristotelian Well-Being: A Response to L. W. Sumner's Critique," forthcoming in Utilitas, I argue that, on an Aristotelian view, welfare is a proper part of perfection, and is pursued in that capacity, as perfective. 84 CHRISTOPHER TONER it, is not essentially the same as it, is not "one in being" with it. Notice also that pursuit of one's own perfection need not be (in fact needs not to be) self-centered, just as excellence in sport typically involves excellence in teamwork. The egoist, on the other hand, takes as his primary goal his own welfare: what is good for him (pursued precisely as what is good for him). The world may turn out to be such that the best way to pursue one's own welfare is to be a "team player" (as some of those who interpret Aristotle and Aquinas as "formal egoists" claim), but if so this is an unpleasant surprise for the egoist. Even if it would be difficult for us to separate perfectionists from the most sophisticated egoists, there are grounds, available to one who "sees in secret," for the sharpest of distinctions. Another apparent problem arises for eudaimonism, for in fact Augustine thinks that not only do we will beatitudo, but we will it necessarily: in book 11 of De Trinitate he writes of "the will of man as such, which has no other final end but happiness." 11 Aquinas will agree (STh I, q. 82, a. 1, citing De Trinitate 13.4, where Augustine says that all desire to be happy). Here is where the third objection to virtue ethics arises: if for eudaimonists we necessarily do everything we do for the sake of happiness, in what sense are we free? The answer will lie in precisely this natural directedness that seems to be the problem. In addition to insisting that we necessarily will happiness, Augustine insists that, presented with a field of objects, the will is able to accept or reject anything in this field (De lib. arb. 3.25). As Thomas Williams puts it, "the will, truly the captain of its soul, looks out over a vast sea of good things and sails wherever it pleases. " 12 The will necessarily wills happiness. While many objects presented to the will promise to contribute to happiness in various degrees and thereby attract the will, none of them (in this life) offers happiness in any complete sense. So while the will tends toward those objects that promise some degree of happiness, it is not necessitated by any of them and thus remains free to 11 St. Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1991), 311. 12 Thomas Williams, "Introduction," in St. Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, xii. ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 85 choose them or not. Its natural aspiration for the universal and infinite good of happiness results in its being, in Yves Simon's parlance, "superdetermined" with respect to the finite, so that it exercises a "dominating indifference" over any option presented to it by particular goods. 13 We see this same pattern in Aquinas. He reminds us first that the will tends naturally toward the ultimate end, or the good in general (STh 1-11, q. 10, a. 1), and second that any particular good may be accepted or rejected. His own words make his position clear enough: Now because the lack of any good whatsoever has the aspect of a non-good, consequently only that good which is perfect and lacking in nothing is such a good that the will cannot not will it, and such a good is happiness. Any other particular good, insofar as it lacks some good, can be regarded as non-good, and in this respect can be refused or accepted by the will, which can tend to one and the same thing from different points of view. (STh I-II, q. 10, a. 2) It is precisely the necessary volition of the last end that safeguards the will's "power to do otherwise" in concrete situations, which is so often taken to be the hallmark of freedom. 14 If the eudaimonistic principle is really nonegoistic and nondeterministic, much of the motivation for having a special moral principle to oversee it disappears. If these objections to eudaimonism can be so easily answered, why are they so influential, so often asserted and accepted without argument? I believe it is because dualism is generally presupposed today. To see why this is the case, we must look back at the course of a central debate in medieval theology. 13 Cf. Yves Simon, Freedom of Choice, ed. Peter Wolff (New York: Fordham University Press, 1969), 102-6, 119-20. For an account that stresses our capacity to judge our judgments as well as our capacity to will to make them, see David Gallagher, "Thomas Aquinas on the Will as Rational Appetite," Journal of the History of Philosoplry 29 (1991): 559-84. 14 Regarding the worry that the entertainment of the possibility of beatific vision might necessitate the will in this life, Servais Pinckaers points out that, since its actual attainment is arduous, even this good could be viewed as limited and thereby rejected (cf. Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 396). Eudaitnonism is consistent with our "power to sin." CHRISTOPHER TONER 86 IL EUDAIMONISTIC ACCOUNTS OF ANGELIC SIN One way to account for the sin of the angels is to maintain that, motivated by both duty and self-interest, they freely followed the latter. Anselm and Scotus adopt accounts along these dualistic lines. But this move is not strictly necessary; it is possible to account for the first sin along eudaimonistic lines (neither positing two basic drives nor attributing egoism to the angels). A) Augustine on the Fall Augustine's thought on the fall is a source for both Aquinas and Anselm. Certain elements of this thought are in at least prima facie tension with each other. I begin with some of his remarks that are consonant with the theory of the faH that Aquinas will elaborate. Augustine says in the De libero arbitrio: In its contemplation of the highest wisdom ... the changeable soul also looks upon itself, and somehow enters its own mind. But this happens only as the soul realizes that it is not the same as God, and yet that it is something that, next to God, can be pleasing. It is better, however, if the soul simply forgets itself in the love of the unchangeable God or regards itself as worthless by comparison with him. If instead someone takes pleasure in his own power in a perverse imitation of God, he becomes more and more insignificant as he desires to become greater. This is "pride, the beginning of all sin. " 15 The angel moves into its own view, so that where before it saw only God, now it sees God and itself. In a third "moment" it pridefully turns,,frorn God to itself, and falls (or rather, this turning is the fall). Augustine reaffirms elsewhere that: pride is the cause of the angels' fall. 16 He describes pride in terms of a denial of dependence upon God, taking oneself to be sufficient, to be De lib. arb. 3.25; emphasis added. Here Augustine quotes Sirach 10:13. See for example Augustine, De civitate dei 12.6 (The City of God against the Pagans, trans. R.W. Dyson [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998]). 15 16 ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 87 one's own good (De lib. arb. 3.24). It is a perverse desire to be like God. 17 But, did the angel not know what would happen? Did it not know that its misery would result, that acting on its desire to be more than it was would result in its being less? And if cleaving to God is our perfect happiness, how could Augustine allow that a rational creature could turn from him? The first point to be made is that in discussing the things present to the attention of the mind (De lib. arb. 3.25, just prior to the passage cited above), Augustine denies that the Trinity is present to the mind, for it "far surpasses its grasp." Although the mind is clearly aware of God in some sense, the contemplation of which Augustine speaks here is not the Beatific Vision. The angel did not yet possess perfect happiness. 18 The angel confronts two objects, neither of which seems to it at this point to promise perfect happiness: God (not yet seen in his full splendor) and itself. But this means that neither object's attractive power would necessitate the will. The angel's sin is quite compatible with Augustine's doctrine of free will, according to which, as we saw, we can accept or reject any of the things we see. In the Garden of Eden, Augustine says, man saw a superior thing (God's command) and an inferior thing (the serpent's suggestion), and freely chose to follow the latter. The problem about the devil's fall was discerning what object could rival God, absent a tempter. Augustine's answer is, the devil himself. Perhaps, an objector might say, this shows how the fall is possible on Augustine's (eudaimonist) view, but surely it remains immensely improbable. We could choose turnips over rack of 17 "For it is pride that turns one away from wisdom .... And what is the source of this turning away, if not that someone whose good is God wants to be his own good, as if he were his own God?" (De lib. arb. 3.24). Since it is pride that does the turning, I take it that pride can be identified with the source of the turning, and that therefore we may see pride, for Augustine, as the inordinate desire to be like God. Here he also cites Genesis 3:5, where the serpent makes this promise to our first parents. 18 This is corroborated in De civ. dei 12.6, where Augustine seeks the respective causes of the blessedness (beatitudo) and misery (miseria) of the good and wicked angels. He finds them in their cleaving to, or forsaking, God. In either case an angelic act of will precedes the reward. It seems to follow that blessedness is not had at the very outset. 88 CHRISTOPHER TONER lamb, but this hardly makes it likely that we would. However, Augustine believes self-deceit is possible. He holds that when someone "loves something which is not the truth, he pretends to himself that what he loves is the truth ... he hates the real truth for the sake of what he takes to his heart in its place. " 19 When we love something, we may stubbornly, pridefully, refuse to admit that something else is superior. We might prefer the turnips that we have cultivated to the meat raised by another-as Cain did before us, and the devil, in a less literal sense, did before him. B) Aquinas on the Fall When Aquinas takes up the question, he begins by arguing for the un-Aristotelian claim that sin is an ineradicable possibility for a rational creature, prior at least to the advent of grace: "An angel or any other rational creature considered in his own nature, can sin; and to whatever creature it belongs not to sin, such creature has it as a gift of grace, and not from the condition of nature" (STh I; q. 63, a. 1). The reason is that only the divine will is its own measure; all other wills are measured by the divine will, and hence can deviate from their measure-they must freely accept, or freely deviate from, the measure. Any creature, even the highest, can sin. Yet we still need to know why the creature sins, especially if the creature is an angel not subject to human passions or ignorance. In the next article (STh I, q. 63, a. 2, sc), Aquinas turns to Augustine, quoting De civitate dei: "the devil 'is not a fornicator nor a drunkard, nor anything of the like sort; yet he is proud and envious'" (De civ. dei 14.3) In the body of the article he cashes this out: Now a spiritual nature cannot be affected by such pleasures as appertain to bodies, but only by such as are in keeping with spiritual things; because nothing 19 St. Augustine, Confessions 10.23 (Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin [London: Penguin, 1961]). He is here speaking of human beings, but I see nothing in what he is saying of self-deceit that would restrict its application to us and refuse it to him who is a liar, and the father of lies. ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 89 is affected except with regard to something which is in some way suited to its nature. But there can be no sin when anyone is incited to good of the spiritual order; unless in such affection the rule of the superior be not kept. Such is precisely the sin of pride-not to be subject to a superior when subjection is due [et hoc est peccatum superbiae, non subdi superiori in eo, quo debet]. He ends, "the first sin of the angel can be none other than pride." The devil was attracted to something in some way suited to his nature, and therefore in some way perfective of him. This means that he sinned by willing in a way consonant with Aquinas's eudaimonism. Willing what was in some way perfective of him was, in this instance, a sin, because he refused to subject his will to that of God. And this refusal is the sin of pride; thus Aquinas can say that his first sin was one of pride, not selfishness. The devil did not need to become an egoist to fall. To what then was the devil attracted? "Without doubt," Aquinas says, "the angel sinned by seeking to be as God fpeccavit appetendo esse ut Deus]" (STh I, q. 63, a. 3)-to be as God is, not merely to be satisfied as God is. Not indeed to be "as God" in the sense of being his equal, for the angel knew that this was impossible. Rather, he sought to be as God by likeness to him. Again, every creature by nature desires to be like God, and this is not sinful, provided it desires this "in proper order, that is to say, that he may obtain it of God." But the devil, Aquinas tells us, "sought to have final beatitude of his own power, whereas this is proper to God alone." 20 The foregoing makes it clear that Aquinas thought that the devil fell, and fell freely, not through an egoistic desire for his own pleasure or welfare, but through an inordinate desire for his own greatness. It is not egoism that is invoked, but a misguided perfectionism. However, more should be said about pride and the inordinacy of the angel's desire in order to reconcile these claims with those Aquinas makes elsewhere concerning self-love, covetousness, and the desirability of pleasure for its own sake (as 20 It is worth noting that Aquinas is concerned to show that his account agrees with Anselm's in De casu diaboli at least to this extent: "This harmonizes with Anselm's opinion, who says that 'he sought that to which he would have come had he stood fast"' (STh I, q. 63, a. 3). 90 CHRISTOPHER TONER these can appear to imply that egoism is involved, or dualism called for). 1. Pride and Excellence Aquinas takes up the subject of pride at greater length later in the Summa, elucidating the concept in terms of excellence: 21 pride is "the appetite for excellence in excess of right reason" (STh II-II, q. 162, a. 1, ad 2). But as God is in turn the rule of right reason, "pride properly regards lack of this subjection [to God], in so far as a man raises himself above that which is appointed to him according to the divine rule or measure" (STh II-II, q. 162, a. 5). Just what is excellentia?It is not simply a synonym for perfectio (as has largely come to be the case with our "excellence" and "perfection"), but it is a kind of perfection: "Now one of the things man desires among others is excellence, for it is natural not only to man but also to anything whatsoever to want in the desired good the perfection which consists in a certain excellence. " 22 To be excellent is not simply to be good, but to be better, to excel others, to be superior. Comparison to another is built into it, and so too, then, is the possibility that the comparison will become invidious. 23 To desire excellence is not in itself a sin; we have seen that Aquinas takes this desire to be natural. Pride turns out to be the vice of excess contrary to magnanimity, 24 and "to be proud is nothing else but to exceed the proper measure in the desire for excellence;" the proper measure being "the rule of reason informed by the law of God" (De Malo 8.2). Aquinas's example has to do with the excellence of the eminent state of a bishop: "If a bishop exercises the functions proper to the eminence of his 21 In what follows, I have been greatly assisted by Paul Weithman, "Thomistic Pride and Liberal Vice," The Thomist 60 (1996): 241-72. 22 St. Thomas Aquinas, De Malo, q. 8, a. 2 (On Evil, trans. John and Jean Oesterle [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995]). 23 Aquinas holds that envy was the second sin of the angel (STh I, q. 63, a. 2). 24 In the Summa Aquinas argues that pride is the vice of excess contrary, in different ways, to both magnanimity and humility: "to humility, inasmuch as it scorns subjection, to magnanimity, inasmuch as it tends to great things inordinately" (STh II-II, q. 162, a. 1, ad3). ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 91 state it is not imputed to him as pride, but if a simple priest attempted to exercise the functions of a bishop this would be imputed to him as pride" (ibid.). The bishop claims this eminence in order to be a good shepherd; the priest in the example seeks this eminence in order to exalt himself. Thus his desire for this excellence, unlike the bishop's, is inordinate. This is an instance of a man who "despises others and wishes to be singularly conspicuous" (STh 11-11, q. 162, a 4). Aquinas in this article defends Gregory's enumeration of four species of pride: the one just mentioned, holding others in contempt and seeking one's own eminence, is the fourth. The first three are as follows: first, taking one's good to be from oneself; second, admitting it to be from above but claiming to have deserved it by one's own merits; and third, boasting of a good not possessed. All involve the pursuit of excellence not governed by "the rule of reason informed by the law of God. " 25 This classification sheds some light upon the devil's fall. Aquinas declines to rule on the precise character of the angel's sin, but he goes beyond Augustine in speculating in a bit more detail on forms it may have taken. Perhaps he desired to be like God of his own power (the first species) (STh I, q. 63, a. 3), or perhaps he desired to be like God by means of the bestowal of grace, but not according to God's ordering (the second species) (ibid.). Aquinas does not explicitly mention anything corresponding to the third species (although we might surmise that some sort of boasting, if only to himself, was associated with the angel's sin-this would echo the role played by self-deceit in the Augustinian account of sin), but he does insist that the devil "sought to have dominion over others" (ibid.), and indeed was envious of man's good and of God's excellence (STh I, q. 63, a. 2). As this last surely involved contempt for God and man, it is an instance of the fourth species. 26 25 For a helpful discussion of these species of pride, cf. Weithman, "Thomistic Pride and Liberal Vice," 249ff. 26 Since it may be that this sort of contempt must follow upon envy, and envy is the second sin, it may be that a sin of pride in its fourth species could not have been the first sin. 92 CHRISTOPHER TONER 2. Pride, Self-Love, and Covetousness The cause of the fall, the source of evil, is pride, the inordinate desire for excellence. But how does this cohere with Aquinas's claims elsewhere that "inordinate love of self is the cause of every sin" (STh I-II, q. 77, a. 4), and that "desire for riches is the root of all sins" (STh I-II, q. 84, a. 1)? These claims seem to suggest there is some egoistic tendency that, when not controlled (perhaps by some separate moral principle), leads to sin. We must first note that, in the same part of the Summa, Aquinas says that pride "is said to be the beginning of every sin" (STh I-II, q. 84, a. 2). The key role of pride has certainly not been forgotten; yet, how are we to reconcile these three texts, where sin seems to begin from three different points? And what is the significance of the fact that Aquinas calls love of self the cause or (in the title of the article) the principle (causa, principium), covetousness the root (radix), and pride the beginning (initium)? The first point to note is that in these passages Aquinas is assimilating into his theology the claims of traditional authorities: in the case of love of self, Augustine (in STh I-II, q. 77, a. 4, sc, he cites De civ. dei 14.28); in the case of covetousness or cupiditas, St. Paul; and in the case of pride, the author of Ecclesiasticus. 27 The relevance of these sources also explains the source of the terminology Aquinas uses in the latter two cases: St. Paul speaks of the love of money as "the root of all evil," and the Old Testament author speaks of pride as "the beginning of all sin"-in Aquinas's translation, of radix and initium, respectively. The second point to note is that, happily, Aquinas himself, having assimilated these authorities, also takes the trouble to reconcile them (STh I-II, q. 84, a. 2). We may begin by quoting in full his reply to an objection: In desiring to excel, man loves himself, for to love oneself is the same as to desire some good for oneself. Consequently it amounts to the same thing whether we reckon pride or self-love as the beginning of every evil. (STh 1-11, q. 84, a. 2, ad 3; emphasis added) 27 Aquinas cites the same passage that Augustine does (Sir 10:13). ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 93 Pride and self-love are the same thing. As it is clear from his earlier discussion of self-love (STh I-II, q. 77, a. 4) that it is only inordinate self-love that is sinful, 28 and as it is clear from our discussion above that pride consists in the inordinate desire for excellence, we may qualify this identity: pride is the same thing as inordinate self-love, with respect to excellence. What of covetousness (STh I-11, q. 84, a. 1)? Aquinas seems to be trying just a bit too hard to assimilate the literal meaning of an authoritative text. "According to some," he begins, we may understand covetousness in three ways: first, as a special sin pertaining specifically to the desire for money; second, as an inordinate desire for mutable or temporal goods; and third, as the inclination of a corrupt nature to such inordinate desires. It looks as though taking the Apostle to mean "love of money" in this broad sense is a promising way to understand his claim. But, "though all this is true, it does not seem to explain the mind of the Apostle" on this point. Aquinas takes St. Paul to mean "love of money" quite literally. He goes on to explain that "by riches man acquires the means of committing any sin whatever," and it is in this sense that the love of money is the root of all evil, that is, by making it possible. 29 But now, of course, he is forced to render the Apostle's meaning nonliteral in another way: for, is money really the means to all temporal things? Accordingly, he admits in his reply to the third objection that he is speaking of what holds for the most part, rather than always: "when we assert that covetousness is the root of all evils, we do not assert that no other evil can be its root, but that other evils arise more frequently therefrom." And it is obvious, anyway, that the love of money could not have been at the root of the fall of the devil, or the sin of Adam. Still, how does covetousness, however precisely understood, relate to pride? In the next article Aquinas clarifies this relationship: 28 Cf. SI'h I-II, q. 77, a. 4, ad 1, where he makes it dear that well-ordered self-love is right and natural. 29 Cf. SI'h I-II, q. 84, a. 1, ad 2, where he makes it clear that money is not sought for its own sake, as the last end, but as "useful for any temporal end." 94 CHRISTOPHER TONER In voluntary actions, such as sins, there is a twofold order, of intention, and of execution. In the former order, the principle is the end .... Now man's end in acquiring all temporal goods is that, through their means, he may have some perfection and excellence. Therefore, from this point of view, pride, which is the desire to excel, is said to be the beginning of every sin. On the other hand, in the order of execution, the first place belongs to that which by furnishing the opportunity of fulfilling all desires of sin, has the character of a root, and such are riches; so that, from this point of view, covetousness is the root of all evils. (STh 1-11, q. 84, a. 2) Money, and temporal goods more broadly conceived, are sought first in the order of execution (they are what we first move toward), and in this sense the coveting of them is the root. But excellence is the end sought first in the order of intention, and thus the reason we seek temporal goods; in this sense pride, the inordinate desire for excellence, is the principle and beginning. We covet temporal goods as the means to an end, but we do not desire the means at all unless we first desire the end. Pride is the "source" (to choose a word neutral between root, beginning, and cause or principle) in a more important way than is covetousness, for it is pride that explains covetousness, as the desire for the end explains the desire for the means. Neither the labeling of covetousness as the root of sin, nor of self-love as the principle and cause of sin, contradicts the thesis that pride is the principal source of sin for Aquinas. Thus also, these claims of Aquinas neither pose a challenge to understanding him as a perfectionist (we do not need to appeal to some egoistic principle to explain the fall), nor support the idea that there is more than one fundamental principle of willing. 3. Perfection and Pleasure But there remains one more challenge: Aquinas's claim (STh I, q. 5, a. 6) that we desire the pleasurable good (bonum delectabile) as well as the "virtuous" or "honest" good (bonum honestum) for its own sake. 30 Since we can desire the pleasurable good even 30 This point is made in the course of his discussion of the traditional division of the good into the virtuous or honest, the pleasurable, and the useful. Saint Ambrose is Aquinas's authority here, but of course the division is found in Aristotle too, in the friendship books of ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 95 when it is contrary to virtue, it might seem that here we have a harbinger of Scotistic dualism, such that our desire for the virtuous must constrain the desire for the pleasant. This worry is strengthened by Aquinas's clarification that, although the honest good is also pleasant, here "those things are [strictly speaking] called pleasing which have no other formality under which they are desirable except the pleasant, being sometimes harmful and contrary to virtue" (ibid., ad 2). 31 While it is true that we can pursue what is pleasant qua pleasant, we can never desire pleasure, simply. We must desire to take pleasure in something, something good in at least some respect: "the virtuous [honestum] is that which is desired for its own sake; but that which terminates the movement of the appetite in the form of rest in the thing desired, is called the pleasant [delectabile]" (STh I, q. 5, a. 6; emphasis added). What one desires in desiring the pleasurable good is to enjoy and rest in some good thing possessed. Maritain puts this well: The pleasurable good is the good as the repercussion or reverberation of an act or a perfection. It is the repercussion, in the affective powers of the person, of a moral or ontological good already possessed. Here again, this can't continue ad infinitum; something must be good, not as the effect or psychological repercussion of another good, but in itself. 32 We may call this thing, good in itself, the good that the pleasurable good "tracks." And as Maritain notes, it may be a moral or merely an ontological good, 33 but it must be good in some respect. the Ethics. 31 In what follows, I have been assisted by John Oesterle, "How Good Is the Pleasurable Good?" The Thomist 28 (1964): 391-408; and Cornelius Williams, O.P., "The Hedonism of Aquinas," The Thomist 38 (1974): 257-90. 32 Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to the Basic Problems of Moral Philosophy, trans. Cornelia Borgerhoff (Albany: Magi Books, 1990), 40. 33 The briefest word about this distinction: for Maritain any moral good (e.g., a morally virtuous action) is an ontological or metaphysical good, but an ontological good ('good' in its transcendental sense which is coextensive with 'being') is not necessarily a moral good (a leaping frog is ontologically good, but morally neutral). The morally good is a subset of the metaphysically good: "it is the good-an ontological good-in the particular line or order of mankind ... it relates to what man, as a free agent, is made to be" (Maritain, Introduction, 33). 96 CHRISTOPHER TONER But whatever sort of good the pleasure tracks, that good will be willed by the agent qua perfective of him (cf. STh 1-11, q. 1, a. 6). This will be true whether the good is virtuous activity of the sort truly perfective of a human being (the moral good or bonum honestum ), the inordinate pursuit of excellence of the sort leading to the fall, or something even less glorious like adultery or profit. And whatever sort of good it is that the agent not only desires, but also desires to take pleasure in, that pleasure is also desired qua perfective of the agent. Of course for Aquinas, as for Aristotle, pleasures taken in bad activities (e.g., adultery, or prideful pursuits) are themselves morally bad. But just as we pursue profit or undue excellence as perfective of us (albeit given a faulty conception of the good), so we pursue the associated pleasures. Pleasures, even those that are morally bad (or as Aquinas puts it, "harmful and contrary to virtue"), are still ontologically good. For they are still "beings"activities of a rational creature. Thus Aquinas makes the Aristotelian point that pleasures perfect or complete activities (STh I-II, q. 33, a. 4), and even says that pleasures result in the "expansion" (dilatatio) of the mind and heart (STh 1-11, q. 33, a. 1). The enjoyment of a good is good-at least ontologically good, even if morally evil. There is the good principally desired and pursued: the bonum honestum or the merely ontological good we are erringly allowing to do duty for it; this is the good tracked by the pleasure. Then there is the pleasure, that resting of the appetite in the good tracked that completes the activity, which is also desired. We can distinguish in thought the pleasure from the good it tracks, and this is why Aquinas allows that the pleasurable good has no other formality (ratio) under which it is desirable than its pleasantness. There is no suggestion here that there is a basic desire for perfection, and a basic desire for pleasure, and that the two can vie with each other for control. The desire for pleasure in some thing is subordinate to the desire for that thing. In particular cases I may abandon what I know to be the moral good for the sake of the pleasurable good (e.g., cases of ANGELIC SIN IN AQIBNAS AND SCOTUS 97 incontinence). But there is no basic difference between these cases and cases in which I abandon the moral good for the sake of my undue excellence, or profit, or civic honor. In each of these cases, I am torn between two ontological goods (in these circumstances, the one morally good, the other morally evil) and choose wrongly. In each of these cases, I choose (the wrong) ontological good for the sake of (wrongly conceived) perfection. Aquinas, in adopting this traditional division of the good, in no way incurs a division of the will of the sort that will mark the thought of Anselm and Scotus. This is due to his eudaimonism, his tenet that everything a rational agent wills is willed for the sake of his perfection (see, e.g., STh I-II, q. 1, a. 6). This natural inclination to the good is not egoistic, and further seems able to account for key moral and theological data: in particular, robust human (and angelic) freedom, including the possibility of radical evil, and the possibility of desiring pleasure contrary to the moral good. It looks as though a second specifically moral principle over and above the natural aspiration for eudaimonia is not needed. III. THE ORIGINS OF DUALISM OF ULTIMATEPRINCIPLES It is eminently understandable how such data, along with this threefold division of goods (which makes an explicit appearance in Sootus's question on angelic sin), could tempt one toward a dualism of principles: it would be easy to envision a moral principle tending toward the bonum honestum, and a nonmoral (possibly egoistic) principle tending toward the pleasurable good. Dualism, in answering to this division of goods, would at the same time promise to provide an account of freedom and the attendant possibility of evil. The temptation will be felt most strongly in discussions of the devil, and his fall. The decisive formulation of dualism of ultimate principles will be that of Scotus. Yet although this dualism will indeed be a radical break with the eudaimonistic tradition, Scotus was no sheer innovator; like Aquinas he could locate himself in the stream of Christian tradition. In the crucial passage of the 98 CHRISTOPHER TONER Ordinatio (H, d. 6, q. 2) on which we shaU soon focus, he draws on both Augustine and Anselm. We will begin, then, by looking at his sources. A) Augustine on the Two Loves "Two cities, then," Augustine writes, "have been created by two loves: that is, the earthly by love of self [amor sui] extending even to contempt of God, and the heavenly by love of God [amor Dei] extending to contempt of self" (De civ. dei 14.28). The two loves are not yet the two affections in Scotus. The love of self is another name for pride; Augustine goes on in this chapter to speak of the princes of the earthly city glorying in themselves and their own strength, and being governed by the libido dominandi. 34 It is not, essentially, egoistic in our sense-it is not simply a desire for one's welfare. This passage is reconcilable with the passages discussed above. But, certainly, we should note that here there appears to be a dualism bf principles, a dualism that appears to be fundamental, underlying the division of the cosmos into good and evil. It is easy to see how one could find here support for the idea that our wills are fundamentally divided, such that our love of God must in some way restrain our love of self. B) Anselm on the Two Wills Anselm develops Augustine's two loves into an explicit dualism of ultimate principles: the will-for-justice and the wiH-forhappiness. 35 In this and other ways, Anselm not only follows and 34 Cf. also De civ. dei 12.6; and 14.3: "Certainly, we cannot say that the devil is a fornicator or a drunkard .... He is, however, supremely proud [superbus] and envious." 35 This explicit link to Augustine's doctrine of the two loves is speculative. The work in which Anselm develops this theory, De casu diaboli, is a dialogue, and in it he is not concerned to trace his ideas to their sources. The primary translation I use is "On the Fall of the Devil," trans. Ralph Mclnerny, in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, ed. Brian Davies and G. R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). I have also consulted the translation in Anselm of Canterbury, vol. 2, ed. and trans. Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson (Toronto: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1976). The Latin text consulted is that in ANGELIC SIN IN AQlilNAS AND SCOTUS 99 develops Augustine, but anticipates Scotus. 36 My claim is that two paths from Augustine lead to Aquinas and to Scotus; Anselm is an important bridge in the latter path. 1. Anselm on the Fall of the Devil De casu diaboli takes up the question of how, given that all things receive being from God, it could be the devil's fault that he fell: "So tell me," the student asks, "what his fault is, seeing that he did not persevere because he was not given perseverance, without which gift he could do nothing" (De casu diaboli, c. 2). The teacher will say that the only things the devil could will were "justice, or what was useful to himself . . . happiness" (De casu diaboli, c. 4). He goes on, "he sinned by willing something that pleased him [aliquod commodum] and that he did not have and that he should not then have willed, but that could increase his happiness [augmentum beatitudinis]" (ibid.). And in willing this (the student chimes in), he deserted justice. What he willed, the teacher continues, was inordinately to be like God (voluit esse inordinate similis Deo ). Furthermore, in doing this, "he put his own will above God's" (ibid.). The first passage quoted in the previous paragraph seems to indicate that there are two principles of willing, the love of happiness and the love of justice. This is made more explicit in chapters 13 and 14, where the two principles receive the names of the will-for-happiness (beatitudinis voluntas) and the will-forjustice (iustitiae voluntas). Anselm does not employ the Augustinian terminology of amor sui, nor of pride (superbia), but the devil's goal seems to be a mixture of selfishness and pride-he seeks both that which will please him and benefit him, and also to exalt his own will above God's. There is no reason to think that Anselm made the distinction that we tend to make between wellbeing and self-exaltation (inordinate excellence)., . Obras Comp/etas de San Anselmo, vol. 1, ed. P. Julian Alameda, O.S.B. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1952). 36 Cf. Etienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955), 139. 100 CHRISTOPHER TONER Anselm's chief concern is, not egoism, but the question of how an angel created good could have fallen freely (and by extension, how men created good could freely sin). 37 Thus, he argues that an angel with only the will-for-happiness could not be unjust, nor an angel with only the will-for-justice just: for both would lack the power to do otherwise than they did, and thus would not have done it freely (ibid., cc. 13-14 ). It is only the presence of both of these wills (or inclinations to wiH) that makes us free, for when both are there, we (like the angels before us) may choose between them. Both justice and happiness attracted the will of the devil, but neither determined it. He chose to abandon justice simply because he willed it, for there is no efficient cause of willing other than the will itself (ibid., c. 27). 2. Anselm and Scotus The next topic to be considered is just what it is of Anselm's thought on this matter that Scotus adopts, and also what he does not. This will also help make dear why it is that I see Scotus rather than Anselm as the "villain" who originates the dualism of ultimate principles now commonly accepted. One reason that Scotus plays this key role is that, as a matter of fact, he was more influential upon his successors than was Anselm. But another reason is this: Anselm seemed to see the wiHfor-jusrice not as a natural tendency of the will, but as a gracious gift of God. He speaks of a "natural will" (naturalis voluntas) for happiness (ibid., c. 12), but he says that once justice is freely abandoned only the will-for-happiness remains (ibid., c. 17). It seems to follow that the will-for-justice can be lost, and is thus not natural, not of the essence of rational creatures (thus he says that all "will to be well. ... Not everyone wants justice" [ibid., c. 12]). 37 It seems dear that Anselm takes freedom to be similarly instantiated in angels and men. The argument for the need for both wills (for happiness and for justice) to vouchsafe freedom in De casu diaboli, cc. 13-14 would seem to apply just as well to humans as to angels. In another work, De libertate arbitrii, Anselm states that the definition of freedom as the power to preserve rectitude for its own sake is "common to every rational nature" ("On Free Will," trans. Ralph Mdnerny, in Davies and Evans, eds., Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works). ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 101 If in Anselm's theory the presence of grace is required to achieve the dualism thought necessary to freedom, it will ipso facto bear a much more distant relation to modern dualisms. In other ways Anselm strikingly anticipates Scotus. He speaks in De libertate (c. 8) of a just will as one that wills, not what perfects it, but what God wants it to will. Most importantly, he attributes to the devil both the will-for-happiness and the will-forjustice, seeing this dual attribution as necessary to explain freedom and the possibility of sin. He even speaks of justice as governing the will as a bridle (frenum) steers a horse (De casu diaboli, c. 26) (Scotus, we will see, speaks of the affection for justice as a "checkrein" upon the affection for advantage.) Scotus's account of the fall is in many ways a development of Anselm's. N. SCOTUS ON THE Two AFFECTIONS OF THE WILL Gilson tells us that Scotus was temperamentally a post-1277 thinker, and we see this in his concern to avoid the intellectual determinism attributed to Aristotle and his Arabic commentators, so strongly condemned that year. 38 In his sharp break with eudaimonism and his adoption of a dualism of ultimate principles, his concern to safeguard the freedom of the will operated in conjunction with his conviction that obedience to God (and not just pursuit of one's own advantage) is central to the moral life. Also relevant, we shall see, were his working through the details of the problem of angelic sin, his understanding of the division of goods, and his respect for the authority and arguments of St. Anselm, whose position he adopted and improved upon. 39 38 Cf. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy, 465. We see it also in the Prologue to the Ordinatio, in a controversy Scotus presents between "philosophers" (representing views popular in the Parisian Faculty of Arts, and in some instances condemned in 1277) and "theologians" (representing the theological reaction to such "radical Aristotelianism "). Mary Beth Ingham discusses the Prologue informatively in "Duns Scotus, Morality and Happiness: A Reply to Thomas Williams," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 74 (2000): 173-95. 39 A Scotist might appeal also to a plausible interpretation of the moral experience of both wanting to do something, yet knowing it to be wrong and thus also wanting to do otherwise (see Richard Cross, Duns Scotus [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999], 89); one suspects that St. Paul is in the background too. Here I address only those reasons related to 102 CHRISTOPHER TONER A) The Sin of Lucifer Scotus takes up the question of the fall of the devil in the Ordinatio (II, d. 6, q. 2). 40 He begins by examining the division and ordering of the acts of the will. The two chief acts of the will are to like (love, pursue: velle) and to dislike (hate, avoid: nolle); (Scotus also accords a role to the suspension of willing, non velle). Next, we may divide acts of love into the love of friendship (velle amicitiae) and the love of desire (velle concupiscentiae). Scotus then examines the ordering of these acts, insisting that love must precede hate (we hate something only if it conflicts with something else that we love), and that friendship must precede desire (we desire something for a person [ourselves or another] only if we first love that person as a friend). So far there is nothing for a Thomist to quarrel with. Neither does the first point Scotus makes about the fall raise any red flags: from the ordering of acts established, together with the claim that if a prior act is ordered so will be the act that follows upon it, it follows that the first inordinate act must have been an act of inordinate love of friendship. Not friendship for God, for God cannot be loved too much. Nor is the inordinate friendship likely to have been for another creature, for as Aristotle says, persons are most of all friends to themselves (i.e., we naturally incline more toward ourselves than to other creatures). 41 The devil's "first inordinate act, therefore, was one of benevolence the central objections to eudaimonism catalogued at the outset. 40 See Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, texts selected and translated by Allan Wolter, O.F.M. (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986), selection 29. Except where otherwise noted, Scotus citations are from this question. For the translations and, where the unavailability of a critical edition made it necessary, the Latin text itself, I have used Wolter. For the Latin text of this crucial question on the sin of Lucifer, I have consulted the text of the Vatican Critical Edition (Opera Omnia [Vatican City: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1950-], vol. 8). Scotus is hardly trying to be rigorous here. He gives only a probable argument that the inordinate love of friendship could not have been for another creature; and excessive intensity is not the only way for love to be inordinate. Is it not possible that the angel's first inordinate act was to love God too little? Scotus does not, at any rate, rule this out. Presumably, he feels comfortable moving so quickly here because it is generally accepted that the devil fell through inordinate self-love. ANGELIC SIN IN AQillNAS AND SCOTUS 103 [friendship] towards himself [actus amicitiae respectu sui ipsius]." Here Scotus pauses to link his account to Augustine's discussion of the origins of the two cities (De civ. dei 14.28). So far his account is also consistent with the Thomistic account according to which the devil fell though pride, which we saw can be understood as the inordinate love of self. It is only when he turns to the question of the initial disorder of the love of desire that we see the break with any eudaimonistic account of the fall: First, the initial inordinate desire did not proceed from an affection for justice [ex affectione iustitiae], as no sin proceeds from such. Hence, it must have come from an affection for the advantageous [ex affectione commodt], because every act elicited by the will stems from an affection either for justice or for the advantageous, according to Anselm. And a will that fails to follow the rule of justice will seek most of all what is most advantageous, and thus it will seek such first, for nothing else rules that unrighteous will but an inordinate, immoderate appetite for that greatest beneficial good, namely, perfect happiness [beatitudo perfecta ].-And this reason can be gleaned from what Anselm says in ch. 4 of The Fall of the Devil. Here are introduced, with reference to the authority of Anselm, the two affections of the will. Putting aside for now the question of what Scotus means by 'happiness', we notice the implication of the fact that he places the blame on the desire for happiness, and that he posits another, blameless, principle of willing, the affection for justice (from which no sin proceeds). As Richard Cross notes, "Scotus's two inclinations allow him to give a radically un-Aristotelian solution to the problem of wrongdoing. "42 Because Scotus says that "every act elicited by the will stems from [or is elicited in accordance with (elicitur secundum)] an affection either for justice or for the advantageous," we need to look back at what he says of the first inordinate act of friendshiplove. In line vvith an Aristotelian notion of friendship, to love someone as a friend must be to wish good to him-to himself in this case. And since no sin proceeds from the affection for justice 42 Cross, Duns Scotus, 88; emphasis added. 104 CHRISTOPHER TONER (the angel could hardly have sinned by wishing himself to perform just activity), this inordinate love must have been willed in accordance with the affection for advantage. The angel must have loved himself too much in the sense of wishing happiness to himself inordinately. This was the first inordinate act, the act of friendship-love that preceded the first inordinate act of desirelove (the actual desire for the happiness). We have here a dualism of ultimate principles, brought in to explain how a rational creature, created good, freely fell (and thereby to help reveal the nature of human freedom as well). The affection for justice is obviously the moral principle, and the affection for advantage (the desire for happiness) an amoral principle 43 in need of restraint by the moral principle. Thus Scotus calls the affection for justice "the first checkrein on the affection for the beneficial fprima moderatrix affectionis commodtl." If this affection for advantage is actually egoistic, then we will have the basis of our three objections to virtue ethics. There are some good reasons for thinking this is the case. Scotus's second argument concerning the nature of the devil's fall draws on the division of goods into the useful, the delightful, and the honorable. He begins by saying that the first sin of desire-love will involve a desire "either just, utilitarian, or hedonistic for nothing is loved save in one of these three ways." He continues, But it was not a just or honorable love, for then the angel would not have sinned; neither is it utilitarian, for this is never first (inasmuch as this regards someone for whom it is useful, and no one covets the useful first, but rather that for which it is useful). Hence he [the devil] first sinned by loving something excessively as his supreme delight [tamquam summum delectabile]. What is supremely delightful, however, is the honorable good and as such is beatitude itself [est bonum honestum et ipsa beatitudo unde talis]. (Emphasis added) Allan Wolter, whose translation I am following, inserts "[viz., God]" after "beatitude itself." I am not sure this is right. Aquinas 43 As Thomas Williams puts it, Scotus "makes it clear that the moral life cannot be some sort of refinement of the Aristotelian project. The pursuit of happiness, however conceived, is not the whole story. It is not even a moral story at all" (Thomas Williams, "How Scotus Separates Morality from Happiness," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 69 [199 5]: 427). ANGELIC SIN IN AQlliNAS AND SCOTUS 105 sometimes speaks of God as happiness itself (cf. STh 1-11, q. 3, a. 1, ad 1), and perhaps Scotus does too. But elsewhere he speaks of beatitude as the perfection of the individual (cf., e.g., Ordinatio IV, suppl., d. 49, qq. 9-10, a. 1).44 But whether we understand ipsa beatitudo as God or as perfection, it does seem clear that the object is pursued in the wrong way and that this is what makes its pursuit sinful: it is pursued as delightful. 45 This is ratified by what Scotus says in his fourth argument that the devil sinned by coveting happiness immoderately: If justice did not regulate it, what the will would want first is something it would want if such alone existed and in the absence of which nothing else would be wanted. Now, delight [delectatio]is such a thing. For if one were sad, what one would want would not be excellence or any other such thing, but happiness [delectatio]or something like it. 46 Unregulated by the affection for justice, the will pursues delight. This must be the object of the affection for advantage, since, as we have seen, every free action is elicited in accordance with one of these two affections. But if it is the case that Scotus sees the affection for advantage as tending toward delight, then it is a kind of egoistic principle, Wolter, trans., selection 7. Scotus says of the argument cited in the block quotation above that "this argument is based on what the Philosopher says in Bk. VIII of the Ethics and the commonly accepted distinction of good into what is useful, delightful, and honorable." It is only loosely based on this. The honorable good (bonum honestum), or that which is taken to be such, is willed as perfective in some way (other than being simply delightful). I do not see that it follows that this love or desire must be "just." In Aquinas's account, as we saw, the devil wills excellence, a kind of perfection; he does not will this simply for the sake of pleasure---nly to those who accept his reading of the distinction. 46 Here Scotus rejects Aquinas's account of the fall in terms of an inordinate desire for excellence. 44 45 106 CHRISTOPHER TONER whether that of the egoistic hedonism Sidgwick discusses or of a more subtle kind that acknowledges higher and lower pleasures. 47 We seem to have in Scotus an argument that the eudaimonistic principle (here called the affection for advantage) is egoistic, and needs to be regulated by a specifically moral principle (the affection for justice). If the affection for advantage is not regulated by the moral principle, if it is given free reign, then the agent will be an egoist. Given that Scotus identifies the affection for advantage with intellectual appetite, the will itself as understood by eudaimonists, 48 it will follow that eudaimonism (the theory of Augustine and of most of the medievals up to this point) is egoistic, and thus surely unacceptable to Christians. This would be a radical break with the mainstream of tradition indeed. Scotus thus seems to provide us with what we were after: a dualism of ultimate principles, and a tendency to label (or mislabel, for the intellectual appetite does not tend exclusively or primarily to delight for these thinkers) eudaimonists as egoists. However, although there are reasons for thinking that the affection for advantage is egoistic, there are also good reasons for thinking that it is not. In his discussion of angelic sin, Scotus tells us that "a will that fails to follow the rule of justice will seek most of all what is most advantageous ... perfect happiness [beatitudo perfecta]." But as he makes clear elsewhere, happiness is the same as perfection: "the will as nature necessarily wills its perfection, which consists above all in happiness [suam perfectionem quae maxime est beatitudo]" (Ordinatio IV, suppl., d. 49, qq. 9-10, a. 1). We should also note that Scotus says, tentatively, that the "first angel ... sinned or could have sinned by willing such, namely, equality with God" (Ordinatio III, suppl., d. 33). 49 Here he sounds much more like Aquinas. 50 47 In fact, given the Scholastic understanding of pleasure, the egoism would surely be closer to the sort based on Robert Adams's theory of welfare as the enjoyment of the excellent. But the important point is that it would be a form of egoism. 48 Scotus says, for example, that a free will "is bound, in eliciting its act, to moderate the appetite qua intellective, which means to moderate the affection for the advantageous" (Ord. II, d. 6, q. 2); cf. Williams, "How Scotus Separates Morality from Happiness," 426-27. 49 Wolter, trans., selection 22. 50 Williams, also, insists that the affection for advantage is not egoistic but perfectionist; cf. section 2 of Williams, "How Scotus Separates Morality from Happiness." ANGELIC SIN IN AQillNAS AND SCOTUS 107 We must be very cautious about labeling the affection for advantage an "egoistic principle." Neither can we say confidently that Scotus would have taken Aquinas or Aristotle, or any eudaimonist, to be an egoist. Scotus' s moral thinking may have been "un-medieval" 51 in some respects (although if we say this, what will we say of Anselm?), but it would be going too far to say that therefore he was "modern" in his appraisal of eudaimonism. Of course, even if Scotus does not, in the last analysis, see the affection for advantage as egoistic (objection 1), he still takes himself to have grounds for objecting to a psychology that sees only this affection as fundamental. First, it seems to leave no room for obedience to God as a basic motive for action: it seems that we would obey God only insofar as this turns out to be a means to our own perfection (objection 2, with the special moral motive in its medieval form of obedience to God). It is clear why a Christian might find this worrisome. And second, Scotus, like Anselm, believes that a creature endowed only with the affection for advantage could not be free (objection 3), and thus could not be held morally responsible for his actions (clearly a problem for a Christian theologian): But if some power were exclusively appetitive ... that power still could not sin in seeking such, for it would be powerless to seek anything other than what the intellect would show it or in any way other than the cognition would incline it. In order to be made free, the power must also have the capacity of moderating itself "according to the rule of justice it has received from a higher will. ... a free will is not bound in every way to seek happiness." It is only the affection for justice, he thinks, that enables the will to moderate itself, through obedience to God's commands. B) What Happened to the Will? We have seen that Scotus, following Anselm, divides the will into two fundamental affections, for justice and for advantage. We 51 Williams speaks of "Scotus's very un-medieval moral theory" (ibid., 425). $ 108 CHRISTOPHER TONER have withheld judgment as to whether the affection for advantage is egoistic or perfectionist. Scotus goes beyond Anselm by insisting that the affection for justice is not essentially dependent upon grace, saying that we should understand by 'justice' "not only acquired or infused justice, but also innate justice, which is the will's congenital liberty by reason of which it can will some good not oriented to self [aliquod bonum non ordinatum ad se]" (Ordinatio III, suppl., d. 46). 52 It appears that he is thinking here of the good commanded by God: "A free appetite ... is right ... in virtue of the fact that it wills what God wills it to will. "53 But the essential point, for our purposes, is that this good is not (essentially) that which perfects us as the kind of creatures we are. Our perfection is not the target of the affection for justice. And therefore, even if we do identify the affection for advantage with the natural will for perfection, our natural tendency is in need of supervision by another principle, a specifically moral one (thus Scotus sees the affection for justice as a "checkrein" upon the affection for advantage). Even if Scotus would not have called Aristotle and Aquinas egoists, he set in motion the process that would enable later dualists to do so. C) A Thomistic Rejoinder Before turning to these later dualists, however, we should take stock. I have already argued that eudaimonism need not be egoistic, that it is consistent with a robust account of freedom, and that it can handle, in a way consistent with freedom and inconsistent with egoism, even the hard case of the fall of the devil. Anselm and Scotus offer a powerful alternative solution to the problem by introducing the affection for justice, but its introduction was not strictly necessary to solve the problem. What I want to make dear now is that its introduction was not strictly necessary to secure the importance of the motive of obedience to God, either. It might be that Scotus's affectio commodi cannot 52 Wolter, trans., selection 5. 53 Scotus, Reportatio parisiensia Il, d. 6, q. 2; cited in Williams, "How Scotus Separates Morality from Happiness," 437; cf. also Williams's argument in ibid., 436-37. ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 109 secure obedience's importance: this is because he has not so much accepted the old inclination and added a new as split the old into two new principles. It is dear that the Thomistic natural inclination to the good is not the same as the Scotistic affection for justice. It is indeed an inclination to perfection and not, principally, a desire to do what God wills because God wills it. Neither, dearly, is it the same as the affection for advantage if we understand this in the egoistic sense suggested by some passages in Scotus. But neither again, less obviously, is it the drive to perfection as Scotus seems to understand this in the other passages cited. Here is a strong statement of the claim at issue: what Scorns in fact does is to take the whole of eudaimonistic ethics-which surely includes the fove of certain goods for their own sake-and assign it to the affectio commodi. In his mind, the affectio commodi is neither more nor less than what the will is in the standard Scholastic account. 54 Williams allows that our perfection indudes, for example, being a good friend in the Aristotelian sense, but he thinks we still need another principle, the affection for justice, to enable us to follow God's commands because he has so commanded. I believe, however, that there is room for this within Thomas's eudaimonism. Consider this claim of Madntyre's that seems to support Williams's contention: Hence [for Aquinas] to know that God commands those precepts of the natural law, in obedience to which one's good is to be realized, gives one no further reason for obedience to those precepts, except insofar as our knowledge of God's unqualified goodness and omniscience gives us reasons-as it does-for holding his judgments of our good, as promulgated in the Old and New Laws, to be superior to our own. 55 I daim instead that although the fact that one can be a good human being only by, for example, not committing murder does Williams, "How Scotus Separates Morality from Happiness," 431. Alasdair Macintyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 154. 54 55 110 CHRISTOPHER TONER motivate, it is given further weight by the fact that God forbids it, even on Aquinas's view. God has, graciously, extended to us a kind of friendship-an eminent case of the (unequal) friendship that obtains between a father and child. A father has authority over a child, and to be a good filial friend the child must acknowledge and honor this. To murder someone is now not only to stand in the wrong relation to the victim; it is also to stand in the wrong relation to our Father. Our perfection must be understood, for Aquinas, as the perfection of creatures, who stand, essentially, in relation to their Creator. Being obedient to God is an essential part of our perfection, 56 valued for its own sake and not merely as a means to some other good. To be sure, if one's good or perfection includes this obedience, then the command in some sense gives one "no further reason" for obeying; yet this does not seem to be what Macintyre has in mind. But my point is to controvert, not Macintyre, but Williams and Scotus. If my reading of eudaimonism is correct, there is no need to posit a second fundamental principle of willing, for the tendency to obey God is already implicit in the tendency to our own perfection: being a perfect creature includes being an obedient one. Perhaps Scotus did mean for his affection for advantage to include (all of) the inclination to the good as Aquinas understood it; but if so Scotus misunderstood Aquinas when he placed obedience beyond the reach of this principle. 57 D) Toward Modernity There is substantial agreement among commentators that Scotus's moral thought points toward modern moral philosophy. 56 Remembering that pride is a vice, and therefore contrary to our perfection, it is worthwhile to look again at STh I, q. 63, a. 2, where Aquinas describes pride in terms of not being "subject to a superior where subjection is due." In appealing to the fact of God's grant of paternal friendship, I do not mean to deny that we owe God obedience prior to this: I take it that obedience to Creator is part of creaturely perfection in the natural order as well. 57 Williams may be right in claiming (Williams, "How Scotus Separates Morality from Happiness," 432) that Scotus did not split the will into selfish and selfless drives, and that Scotus meant simply to add a new drive and not to split the will "as conventionally understood" at all; he is wrong in saying that Scotus did not in fact split the will as at least Aquinas understood it. ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 111 As Macintyre puts it, "Scotus thus not only made possible but provoked a good deal of later moral philosophy, directly and indirectly, from Occam all the way to Kant." 58 I suggest that he "points" toward modernity in three ways. First, he certainly continues to have some direct influence, and this will probably grow in the wake of his recent beatification. Second, he has had, I think, a vast indirect influence. Third, as I will show, a great deal of modern moral philosophy has a great deal of affinity with his thought. What I am chiefly concerned to bring out is the fact that the concerns that led Scotus to split the will are shared by his "followers" who embrace structurally similar dualisms of ultimate principles. The concerns, to recapitulate, are three: 1. The worry that eudaimonism is egoistic (which we saw was implicit in at least certain passages in Scotus); 2. The worry that eudaimonism leaves no room for the motive of obedience to God's commands (in later thinkers the theistic element of this worry will be shed, but a concern for a special "moral" motive will remain); 3. The worry he shares with Anselm that an agent with only a natural aspiration for happiness will not be free, or, in later parlance, autonomous. I have argued that eudaimonism can in fact answer all of these worries. It is not egoistic; it accommodates freedom of choice; and it allots a role for a motive of duty in the sense of obedience to rightful superiors (preeminently to God)-although, surely, there is no space for a separate moral motive standing over against the drive for perfection. Eudaimonism did not need the corrections offered by Scotus and accepted by later thinkers. 58 Macintyre, Three Rival Versions, 155. Great admirers of Scotus make similar claims: see Alexander Broadie (who calls Scotus the greatest Scottish philosopher), The Shadow of Scotus (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 38; and Mary Beth Ingham and Mechthild Dreyer in the final chapter of The Philosophical Vision of John Duns Scotus (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004), esp. 207-8. We will see in section 5.A that Thomas Williams does so as well. 112 CHRISTOPHER TONER Nevertheless, from Scotus on these innovations were "in the air," and, as I shall illustrate, can now be found almost everywhere. E) A Smoking Gun? It seems clear that I have assigned to Scotus a villain's part in a murder mystery, which might be entitled, "Who shot eudaimonism?" I earlier stated my uneasiness about this, and promised to qualify the attribution of villainy to him. I have been engaged here in writing what Bonnie Kent calls a "Great Man tour of history." Much of importance transpired between the philosophical primes of Aquinas and Scotus and to ignore these thirty-odd years could have a distorting effect on my portrayal of their relation. 59 What I have said so far may be taken to suggest that, some time after Aquinas put down his pen, Scotus took up his and for his own reasons worked out an alternative theory of moral psychology and philosophy. But of course Scotus was actually writing in the wake of the condemnations of 1277 and the ensuing debates between psychological voluntarists (largely Franciscans) and intellectualists (largely Dominicans). Compared directly with Aquinas, Scotus may look like a voluntarist, but in the post-1277 debates, compared with thinkers like Peter Olivi and William de la Mare, he looks more moderate. Scotus's chief interlocutors were the voluntarist Henry of Ghent and the intellectualist Godfrey of Fontaines, and he seeks to steer a via media between the extreme forms of voluntarism and intellectualism. 60 59 Kent strongly insists upon this; cf. Bonnie Kent, Virtues of the Will (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 2-3. 6°Cf. ibid., c. 3, especially pp. 143-49. But on this point see also Stephen Dumont's "Did Duns Scotus Change His Mind on the Will?" in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277, ed. Jan Aersten, Kent Emery, and Andreas Speer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), 719-94. Dumont argues that not only was Scotus's position in the Reportatio parisiensiamuch closer to Henry of Ghent's, but also that this more voluntarist view was Scotus's mature position--<>r at least that in his mature position Scotus admitted the Ghentian view as "probable alongside the Oxford solution" (777), the moderate view of his earlier Lectura. A Thomist cannot help finding this debate, which focused on the causal role of the object and intellect in willing, somewhat misguided, for its central question is what efficient causal role they play, whereas Aquinas assigned them a final/formal role (but again, cf. ibid., 744 n. 81). ANGELIC SIN IN AQillNAS AND SCOTUS 113 To take a related example: Scotus, unlike Aquinas, insists on locating all genuine virtues in the will. This can be portrayed as a step toward a Kantian "good will ethic," but as Kent points out, this portrayal supposes (wrongly) that Scotus was stepping off from Aquinas. 61 Scotus was instead reacting to Henry of Ghent, who not only located all virtues in the will but also insisted that we must understand virtues to be in the will taken as deliberative, rather than in the will as free: "The inclination to choose in accordance with one's pattern of past choices has become external to the will as a faculty of choice. " 62 Virtues have become, in Henry, obstacles to freedom. Once again, Scotus takes a step back from the brink: the will, even considered as free, can acquire habits, virtues, which serve as concurrent efficient causes of action along with the will. 63 This is not really so far from Aquinas who insists in un-Aristotelian fashion that even the virtuous can sin. I certainly want to stop short of calling Scotus a Tho mist, 64 and I do not want to vindicate him of all responsibility for what followed him. My point is just that, even though Scotus occupies a "lower" position on the graph plotting moral philosophies (assuming eudaimonism to be "up"), he still stands at a local optimum: things were "worse" before him, and again got worse after him. Despite all this, Scotus must still play the role of villain in this story, for the "worse" things that follow him are more indebted to him-via influence or at least affinity-than they are Kent, Virtues of the Will, 243. Ibid., 232. 63 Ibid., 243. 64 Mary Beth Ingham, although certainly not calling Scotus a Thomist, argues for an interpretation of Scotus that brings him much closer to Thomas (as I interpret him here). In particular, she writes that Scotus offers not a deontological or divine command theory of morality, but a personalist and relational theory---obedience to God is simply part of loving him properly (see especially Ingham, "Duns Scotus, Morality and Happiness," 193-95). Her interpretation is in many ways attractive as a moral vision, and I will be delighted if she turns out to be correct. Here I will limit myself to two remarks. First, I am not convinced that Ingham has offered sufficient textual evidence to overturn what she admits to be the traditional interpretation of Scotus as a deontologist. Second, if her claims are borne out, this would certainly force me to revise, but not wholly reject, my thesis here: the fact would remain that Scotus did split the will, and did give a powerful impetus to the dualism rampant today. He will still be left holding a smoking gun, even if one of a much smaller caliber. 61 62 114 CHRISTOPHER TONER to, say, Henry of Ghent. There are Scotists today, but few Ghentians. In the late thirteenth century there were many who were, in varying degrees, voluntarists, and may have been feeling their way away from eudaimonism; but it was Scotus who so accurately anticipated (in part by helping to bring about) the dualist form of the antieudaimonism to come. V. DUALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY: KANT, SIDGWICK, AND NIETZSCHE Bypassing such key figures as Ockham, Luther, and Suarez in the propagation of the influence of a Scotistic dualism of happiness and obligation, 65 I now leap forward several hundred years to the modern period. Kant, Henry Sidgwick, and Nietzsche, between them, set the stage for Anglophonic moral philosophy in the twentieth century. I believe a fuller history would reveal a substantial if indirect influence of Scotus upon modern moral philosophy, perhaps especially upon Kant, and perhaps especially through the three theologians just mentioned. Here I settle for showing a deep affinity, again especially with Kant .. But all three of these moderns exhibit, in different ways, dualisms of ultimate principles, and all of them have contributed, again in different ways, to the contemporary tendency to see eudaimonistic ethics as susceptible to our three objections. 65 I do not mean to attribute Scotus's psychological doctrine of the two affections of the will in its precise form to these three. For a (very critical) view of Ockham's role in the development of modern obligational theories of ethics, see Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, cc. 10, 14. For a snapshot of the deep structural affinities between Scotus and Luther, and for a discussion of Suarez on law and obligation (which for Suarez supervenes on the natural), see J.B. Schneewind, The Invention ofAutonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University . Press, 1998), cc. 2 and 4. Although Scotus was one of Suarez's primary authorities, and although Ockham doubtless influenced Luther in some ways, I do not at all mean to suggest that the four form a "Scotistic school" (or that Scotus would have harbored, or that Suarez did harbor, particularly Lutheran sympathies). In light of ongoing debates about the relationship of Suarez to modern philosophy, my only claim here is tha4 among other aspects of his thought, his philosophy of law and obligation exerted a great influence on later philosophy. ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 115 A) Kant Kant is the only one of these three explicitly to mention the fall of the devil, 66 and he immediately goes on in good Kantian fashion to say that the character of this fall lies beyond our comprehension. But Kant's affinity with Scotus cannot be doubted. Williams writes of Scotus's thought that There are certainly important affinities with Kant, for example. As I understand the affectio commodi, for example, it is very much like Kant's prudence. It operates deterministically, is aimed at happiness, and is irrelevant to morality. The affectio iustitiae is much like Kant's respect for the moral law. It is an expression of freedom, is unconcerned with (if not positively threatened by) the desire for happiness, and is essential for morality. 67 Williams is basically right here: there are in Kant two warring principles, one of which is a moral principle that must restrain the other. But we should note that both the imperative of prudence and respect for the moral law are phenomenal: "The ground of this evil cannot," Kant tells us, "be placed, as is commonly done, in the sensuous nature of the human being, and in the natural inclinations originating from it" (Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, 6:34-35). We must look deeper for Kant's basic dualism: "we cannot inquire into the origin in time of this [evil] deed but must inquire only into its origin in reason" (ibid., 6:41). Because we are free, the imperative of prudence cannot determine the will to action. And since the will can autonomously determine itself to action in accordance with the categorical imperative, there seems to be an important lacuna in the Groundwork: why would a will able to act morally well fall into acting badly? There must be something about the character of the human will that enables it to "give in." Kant supplies this in Religion: 66 Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, trans. Allan Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 6:44, 78. 67 Thomas Williams, The Moral Philosophy of]ohn Duns Scotus (Ph.D. diss., University of Notre Dame, 1994), 147. See also Williams, "How Scotus Separates Morality from Happiness," 444. 116 CHRISTOPHER TONER the ground of evil cannot lie in any object determining the power of choice through inclination, not in any natural impulses, but only in a rule that the power of choice itself produces for the exercise of its freedom, i.e., a maxim. (6:21) Kant goes on to say that all human beings hold within themselves "a first ground (to us inscrutable) for the adoption of good or evil (unlawful) maxims" (ibid.). To say that we are fallen is to say that within us and within our wills there is a struggle for dominance between a good and an evil principle. This refinement of Williams's claim leaves his basic point untouched: Kant sees the moral life as a continuous struggle between two principles; success consists in the moral principle reining in the nonmoral principle. This dualism actually occurs at two levels in Kant: at the empirical level, where the struggle is, as Williams says, between respect for the moral law and the imperative of prudence (which is, at least arguably, an egoistic principle); and at a more fundamental level, where the struggle is between the good and evil principles of the will. Like Scotus, Kant seeks to give an account of the origins of evil; and like Scotus, he does so by adopting a dualism of ultimate principles. But if there is this very important affinity, there is also a very important difference: although Kant is willing sometimes to speak of our moral duty in terms of doing what God commands (see e.g., Religion, 6:99), it is clear that, for Kant, the moral law is essentially a law that we autonomously give to ourselves. Just prior to characterizing duty in terms of divine commands, Kant had made very clear that "neither can ethical laws be thought of as proceeding originallymerely from the will of this superior (as statutes that would not be binding without his prior sanction), for then they would not be ethical laws" (6:99). Kant's God, it seems, meekly ratifies what we can already tell ourselves. I do not mean to suggest that the theological trappings of Kant's moral theory are merely window-dressing, but clearly God has been demoted. In many of Kant's followers, God will disappear altogether. The special moral motive found in Scotus remains, but, by shedding its divine origin, its character is ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 117 becoming even more specifically moral (it is moving toward the modern "moral ought," which Elizabeth Anscombe alleged to have a "mere mesmeric force"). Finally, we find in Kant updated versions of the three chief objections to eudaimonism that we found in Scotus: 1. That it is egoistic: The word 'egoism' is not prominent in Kant, but it seems to me that the concept is: "Empirical principles are wholly unsuited to serve as the foundation for moral laws ... the principle of one's own happiness is the most objectionable ... making a man happy is quite different from making him good and making him prudent and sharpsighted for his own advantage quite different from making him virtuous. " 68 2. That it leaves no room for a special moral motive: The principle of one's own happiness destroys the "sublimity" of morality, "inasmuch as motives to virtue are put in the same class as motives to vice and inasmuch as such incentives merely teach one to become better at calculation, while the specific difference between virtue and vice is entirely obliterated. "69 3. That it eliminates freedom: A will determined by a natural end is heteronomous. The reader may see an obvious and devastating objection to my claim about Scotus's role: Kantian dualism of ultimate principles, it may be maintained, was an inevitable development of modern philosophy, at the very most incidentally indebted to Scotus. For dualisms of various sorts-perhaps all varieties of the dualism of reasons and causes (think of the opposed logical spaces of John McDowell and others)-are simply endemic to modern philosophy going back to Descartes, and must be, given the advent of the mechanism rooted in the scientific revolution. Kant's 68 Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysicsof Morals, 3d ed., trans. James Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 4:442. 69 Ibid. 118 CHRISTOPHER TONER dualism was a reaction to Newtonian science, not to medieval debates. I have been careful to allege that Scotus is "one key factor" and "a smoking gun" rather than the lone villain: of course Scotus does not bear sole responsibility for the current state of moral philosophy. But he remains a key factor. Perhaps it was inevitable that some modern thinker concerned with morality and human freedom would set the will outside nature even if Scotus had never written. It does not follow inevitably from that that the will thus placed must be a Scotistic will characterized by two basic principles (one moral and the other in need of restraint). The will set outside mechanistic nature could have been a Thomistic will inclined to perfection (we see something roughly along these lines in McDowell's blending of Kantian idealism and Aristotelian ethics). But as we noted Kant reproduced the phenomenal dualism of prudence and respect at the intelligible level of the will. A Scotistic will suggests itself if one thinks, as Kant did, that eudaimonism is amoral {perhaps even egoistic) and incompatible with freedom. This incorrect view of eudaimonism is a legacy of Scotus. The history of our three objections to eudaimonism cannot start with Kant, but must go back to medieval debates over angelic sin where they were first raised by Anselm and Scotus, and answered by Aquinas. B) Sidgwick Unlike Kant, Sidgwick is not centrally concerned with freedom of will, nor is he especially sanguine about a special moral motive, separate from a desire for one's own happiness. He acknowledges that there are these two separate motives, but he is unhappy about having to do so, for he thinks that the potential conflict between them puts the rationality of morality in doubt. Sidgwick is deeply concerned with egoism, and in his work not just the concept but also the word itself is constantly placed before us. Sidgwick takes upon himself the task of winning the egoist over by argument, and fails spectacularly-as he himself admits. The Methods of Ethics ANGELIC SIN IN AQillNAS AND SCOTUS 119 ends with the hope that we can find grounds to accept the existence of a God (himself a utilitarian) who will terrify the egoist into submission. The problem that drives him to this extreme is what he calls the "Dualism of Practical Reason. " 70 Sidgwick thinks that, if we think things through enough, we can boil our reasons for action down into just two categories: those of Prudence and those of Rational Benevolence; he speaks also of the Egoistic and the Universalistic/Utilitarian Principles (both of these principles, for Sidgwick, are hedonistic: the question is whether I aim just at my own pleasure, or at everyone's). Sidgwick does offer a "proof" that it is reasonable for the egoist to aim instead at universal happiness, but we need not delve into it, for he himself admits that it is merely persuasive, and the egoist can easily, and without contradiction, refuse to accept its conclusion. 71 So in Sidgwick, too, we find a dualism of ultimate principles. One is a moral principle (the utilitarian principle of rational benevolence); the other is not only nonmoral and thereby needing to be somehow reined in, but egoistic, and at last explicitly so. C) Nietzsche Suppose now that one is convinced that the phenomenal world is formless and without value, apart from what we ourselves supply (one might speak in terms of a "value-positing eye"). Suppose further one thought that the notion of an intelligible world was a figment of the brain, and that metaphysical conceptions of freedom were fictions invented by the resentful seeking ways to blame others for their misfortunes. And suppose that one is a eudaimonist of sorts, but that one's basic principle can no longer be expressed in terms of seeking to stand in the right relation to the good-an antimetaphysical posture prevents one from finding value out there in the world-there is, in McDowellian terms, spontaneity without friction. Instead, then, 70 Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (Indianapolis, Hackett: 1981), 404 n. 71 Ibid., 497-98. 1. 120 CHRISTOPHER TONER of calling one's basic principle an inclination to the good, one caHs it the win-to-power; eudaimonia (though not by that name) is now to be sought in stylistic self-expression and the manifestation of force. The moral life, or at any rate the meaningful life, is not a response to value, but the creation of it. Such a one was Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche is a fitting dose to our survey of thinkers on the devil and the basis of immorality. He does not, to be sure, speak of the fall of the devil; but he does call for his rise: "he must yet come to us, the redeeming man of great love and contempt, the creative spirit . . . this Antichrist and antinihilist; this victor over God and nothingness-he must come one day." 72 Nietzsche shows what can become of a eudairnonistic principle in a world not worthy of it. He thought not only that the world was not such as to demand or merit any particular response from the wiH, but that the world-the human world-was such as to place obstacles in the way of the free self-expression which is the last desperate goal of a perfectionist. The chief obstacle the human world throws up, of course, is what Nietzsche in the Genealogy calls "slave morality," based upon the ressentiment of those oppressed by the strong, and designed to keep the strong down. Nietzsche sees this as contributing to "the diminution and leveling of European man [that] constitutes our greatest danger . . . with the fear of man we have also lost our love of him, our reverence for him, our hopes for him" (Genealogy, I, sect. 12). I have said that Nietzsche was a sort of eudaimonist or perfectionist, but there is an important sense in which he was also a dualist. We have a drive for perfection, seen in terms of creative self-expression, but there is another principle holding us back: namely, the sense of guilt imposed from without by the slave morality laid upon us by Christianity. Now it is true that Nietzsche sees even this as, at bottom, an expression of the willto-power, perhaps even a fitting expression for the weak or the 72 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufman and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), II, sect. 24. ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 111 sick. 73 But in the strong and creative, it must be experienced as a restraint, as something to be thrown off. In this way Nietzsche is an "immoralist." Nietzsche inherited the conception of morality as obligation, as something imposed upon us from without, that came down to him from his predecessors. He saw this obligational morality as "Christian," but this understanding of Christian morality is Scotist and Kantian rather than Augustinian or Tho mist. Nietzsche would actuaHy have agreed with Aquinas in seeing the well-lived life as the pursuit of perfection, though they would of course have disagreed drastically about how to characterize human perfection. Still, Nietzsche would also have agreed with Aquinas in rejecting egoism. He would have regarded with contempt one who was concerned in an overriding way with his own well-being: "Am I concerned with happiness? I am concerned with my work. "74 Nevertheless, Nietzsche is bound to look like an egoist to those laboring under the obligational conception of morality so congruent with a dualism of ultimate principles-and much more so than previous eudaimonists, who were uniformly concerned to show how eudaimonism preserves something recognizable, even by dualists, as at least similar to morality (justice, personal and civic friendship, and so on). So even though Nietzsche and his followers are not concerned to press the three objections to virtue ethics that we are focusing on here, he may have unwittingly contributed to their seeming plausibility. After Nietzsche, a philosopher rejecting dualism and its specifically moral principle is in for a harder time. An Aristotelian is likely to look like a Nietzschean who is naively optimistic about the congruence of self-expression and, say, justice. 73 Here I am fol!mrifing Alexander Nehamas's interpretation (cf. Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985], c. 4, "Nature against Something That Is Also Nature"). This dualism will be "on the surface" rather than fundamental as with Scorns, Kant, and Sidgwick. A tendency on the part of a potentially strong and creative person to follow the dictates of the morality of the herd could be seen as a kind of incontinence. 74 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke :larathustra, trans. Walter Kaufman (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), part 4, sect. 20, "The Sign." 122 CHRISTOPHER TONER VI. DUALISM AND CONTEMPORARY EUDAIMONISTIC VIRTUE ETHICS Our glance at Kant, Sidgwick, and Nietzsche, aH expounding or reacting against a conception of morality taught by Scotus, brings us to the verge of the twentieth century. These three are among the most important modern moral philosophers, especially in terms of their influence upon Anglophonic ethics in the last hundred years. Consequentialism and neo-Kantianism dominated most of the century, and much of the remaining terrain was claimed by "antitheorists" influenced to varying degrees by Nietzsche. Dualism of ultimate principles is everywhere, largely in the form of widespread, often unargued, agreement that what is required is a specifically moral principle to rein in a dangerous amoral or even egoistic principle of happiness: dualism is now often the starting point of argument. Thus Samuel Scheffler claims that the refusal of the demands delivered "from an impersonal standpoint" is "complete egoism"; 75 the perceived need of a moral principle to overcome our natural egoism is endemic to the consequenrialist project. As another prominent example of dualism, this time in a neo-Kanrian vein, consider Rawls's distinction of the rational and the reasonable (which must govern the rational). Consider also Thomas Nagel's sharp distinction between the moral life and the good life, or living right and living weU/ 6 and Christine Korsgaard' s insistence that an adequate answer to the question, "Why should I be moral?" must be able to convince me that I should sacrifice my good, even my "heart's desire," to comply with the demands of morality. 77 While it is not certain that these theorists consider eudaimonism egoistic, they do seem to hold that it does not yet rise to the level of morality. 75 Samuel Scheffler, The Rejection of Consequentialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 8. 76 Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), c. 10. 77 Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Nonnativity, ed. Onora O'Neill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 9-10. ANGELIC SIN IN AQIBNAS AND SCOTUS 123 Although many recent moral philosophers have given up on the idea of metaphysically free will, autonomy continues to be a concern, especially among neo-Kantians. And autonomy tends to be cashed out in terms of living in accordance with principles everyone could accept from an original position of equality, or that no one concerned to reach unforced agreement could reasonably reject-in other words universalizable, specifically moral principles. This dualistic milieu has had some distorting effects on the revival of virtue ethics, and upon its reception. The early Philippa Foot did come very close to being an egoist, and the middle Foot espoused a rather Nietzschean antitheory, before she finally settled down to Aristotelian-Thomist eudaimonism. 78 Rosalind Hursthouse's virtue theory takes the form of a reconstructed dualism. 79 Commentators on Aristotle muddy the waters by interpreting Aristotle as a benign "formal egoist" 80 (and it is possible that part of the draw of Hume on Michael Slote and others is the promise of a virtue ethics free from supposedly egoistic eudaimonism). If the argument of this paper has been largely correct, deontologist and consequentialist critics err when they instinctively endorse Kantian (and ultimately Scotistic) objections to virtue ethics, and virtue theorists cheat themselves when they 78 See, respectively, Philippa Foot, "Moral Beliefs" and "Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives," both in Twentieth Century Ethical Theory, edited by Steven Cahn and Joram Haber (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995). In the first she presents virtues as traits we will need to accomplish the things we want; in the second she sharply rejects the legitimacy of the categorical imperative as a specifically moral principle able to exert (rational) influence upon our wills, and throws us back upon our contingently given ultimate concerns. She comes toward the light, I think. in Natural Goodness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001). 79 See Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), part 3, where she seeks to base ethics on the separate (and separable) foundations of excellence and welfare. 8° For this sort of view see, for example, Paula Gottlieb, "Aristotle's Ethical Egoism," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (1996): 1-18; Terence Irwin, Aristotle's First Principles (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), esp. 444, 606 n. 32; and Kathleen Wilkes, "The Good Man and the Good for Man in Aristotle's Ethics" in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amelie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 341-58. 124 CHRISTOPHER TONER become egoists or antitheorists to avoid the tyranny of some special, impersonal moral principle. We have seen that the aspiration for eudaimonia is neither egoistic (objection 1) nor deterministic (objection 3). For neither of these reasons, then, does it need a separate moral principle to govern it (objection 2). But might there be another reason to insist upon such a principle? Perhaps, even if eudaimonism does not imply egoism, it still somehow subverts what Kant calls the sublimity of morality? Here too, although I have not traced it, dualism's distorting effect is great In Aquinas the point of morality is to order us to our last end of human flourishing (sublime enough, perhaps, when this is conceived, with Aquinas, as filial friendship with God). Every deliberate action is morally evaluable (cf. STh I-II, q. 18, a. 9): it is well or poorly ordered to this last end. Every action is a step-or misstep-in a quest for the divine. 81 In Scotus (as in Kant), this feature no longer obtains. Actions not performed out of the affectio iustitiae can be indifferent, evaluatively neutral, of no moral worth (cf. Ordinatio II, d. 41). 82 Scotus and Kant have not introduced moral worth into a domain previously devoid of it; rather, they have pardy emptied it by their mistrust of natural aspiration. The criticisms of virtue ethics appear plausible, and the countering avoidance-via egoism or anti-theory-appears necessary, because of the widespread acceptance of dualism of ultimate principles. This brings us full cirde, for the roots of this dualism are in the running medieval debate over the nature of angelic sin, in mistaken (or at least unforced) moves made under the apparent pressure of the very objections dualism now makes seem so powerful. We can step outside this circle when we see that the eudaimonistic principle of Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas is neither Kant's principle of happiness, nor Scotus's affectio commodi. It is an aspiration for perfection both 81 Those who advance sttictly naturalistic versions of eudaimonism certainly lose some of this "sublimity," but the same can be said for recent, watered-down versions of Kantianism (i.e., Kant minus God, freedom, and immortality). And few would claim much sublimity for consequentialism. 82 Wolter, trans., selection 13. ANGELIC SIN IN AQUINAS AND SCOTUS 125 compatible with (indeed at the foundation of) freedom radical enough to account for the datum of angelic sin, and essentially different from the egoistic pursuit of mere welfare-so much so that its going wrong takes the form of inordinate pursuit of excellence, and its going right importantly and noninstrumentally involves duty and submission of the will (especially in the form of obedience to God). The obviousness of the dualism of moral principle and natural aspiration is merely apparent. Eudaimonists should not be naive in proclaiming "man's natural goodness" (Augustine certainly was not!), but they should not feel pressured by the objections canvassed here (which today derive their seemingly unquestionable force from dualistic presuppositions) to abandon faith in natural aspiration and its foundational role in the moral life. 83 83 I am grateful to Ms. Linda Major of Notre Dame's Medieval Institute for research assistance and to The Thomist's referees for invaluable comments and criticisms. The Thomist 69 (2005): 127-52 THE NATURAL SCIENCES AS AN ANCILLA THEOLOGIAE NOVA: ALISTER E. MCGRATH'S A SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY JAMES E KEATING Providence College Providence, Rhode Island LISTER E MCGRATH'S three-volume A Scientific Theology offers a major contribution to the field of theological method and ought to serve as a stimulus for theologians attentive to the necessity of reconceiving the theological task for each age. While McGrath writes from an he defines as one explicitly evangelical viewpoint-which "nourished and governed at all points by Holy Scripture" -his project is intended to appeal to theologians across confessional divides. The ecumenical scope is dear from the wide range of conversation partners drawn upon in fashioning "a principled negotiation between classic Christian theology and the working assumptions and methods of the natural sciences, based on a unitary vision of reality which is grounded and sustained by the specifics of the Christian religion" (l:xi). This "scientific theology" takes the natural sciences as an ancilla theologiae nova and relies upon their vibrancy and universal repute to serve contemporary theology in the way Platonism served patristic theology and Aristotle's thought served Scholasticism. Today's theological reader is, of course, inundated with books relating science and theology and it is important to identify at the outset why these volumes deserve special notice" McGrath is certainly well situated for his task. Not only is he an established theologian and historian of theology, he holds a doctorate in 127 128 JAMES F. KEATING molecular biophysics from Oxford. Yet this combination of scientific and theological training is not especially rare-John Polkinghorne and Ian Barbour being two outstanding examples. As with these authors, McGrath offers his readers the expected tutorials on the intersections of theology and science, and most will benefit from an increased familiarity with mathematics, genetics, evolutionary biology, quantum physics, and astronomy. Although impressive, it is not the science that makes McGrath's work so remarkable, but rather its scrupulous attentiveness to the theological problematic embedded in the idea of theological handmaidens, scientific or other. McGrath knows his theological history well enough to appreciate how easily servants become masters within the house of theology. Thus, he matches enthusiasm for the theological usefulness of the sciences with a "Barthian" concern for the precariousness of theology's proper dependence on divine revelation. These convictions converge in McGrath's daim that the rationality at work in science provides theology with "strategies" for maintaining the priority of revelation in its own methodology. His confidence in these strategies is such that he employs them to construct a natural theology that can appeal to those who deny revelation without thereby denying revelation itself. The interest in McGrath's project abides, therefore, in his attempt to enter into dialogue with the sciences not despite theology's attachment to divine revelation, but in the service of it. Given the conditions McGrath sets, it is upon the success of this difficult balance that his scientific theology stands or falls. Each of the volumes in the trilogy-Nature (1), Reality (2), and Theory (3 )-focuses on a concern common to theologians and scientists. It is important to note, however, that McGrath's interest is not directed toward specific scientific claims about the world. Linking Christian theology to a particular scientific theory compromises theology's proper autonomy and fails to recognize the provisional character of aH scientific claims. The damage done to the gospel's credibility by the churches' stubborn adherence to discredited theories of the solar system and the emergence of species speaks for itself. A far wiser approach, according to MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 129 McGrath, is to focus on the methods and presuppositions involved in the work of science in order to show how a consideration of these can illuminate aspects of the contemporary theological enterprise. Accordingly, his emphasis is on the history of science and the philosophical theories that best explain that history. I. NATURE The first volume, Nature, treats the most obvious shared reference point for theology and science and the one that has proved the most problematic for modern theology. The tension arises from the widespread assumption that the natural sciences possess a unique capacity to deliver objective truths about nature which theology cannot hope to match. If theology is to have a role with respect to nature it must be limited to placing interpretation on top of the foundation laid by science. Theology, however, cannot accept the status of handmaiden to science without thereby denying its own basis in revelation. This dead-end can be avoided, McGrath argues, to the extent that one appreciates the difficulties involved in viewing any particular conception of nature as foundational for all others. To make this point, he offers a wideranging survey of the diverse ways "nature" has been employed by poets, scientists, sociologists, and artists. 'Nature' is thus not a neutral entity, having the status of an 'observation statement;' it involves seeing the world in a particular way-and the way in which it is seen shapes the resulting concept of 'nature'. Far from being a 'given', the idea of nature is shaped by the prior assumptions of the observer. One does not 'observe' nature; one constructs it. And once the importance of socially mediated ideas, theories and values is conceded, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the concept of nature is, at least in part, a social construction. If the concept of nature is socially mediated-to whatever extent-it cannot serve as an allegedly neutral, objective or uninterpreted foundation of a theory or theology. Nature is already an interpreted category. (1:113) If the natural sciences are seen as offering interpretations of nature, and not the single fundament upon which all must build, nothing prevents Christians from asserting their particular 130 JAMES F. KEATING interpretation of nature as God's creation and entering into dialogue with the sciences on an equal footing. Yet, while all orthodox Christians affirm nature as the creation of God, there is much debate concerning its theological significance. To establish his own approach, McGrath begins, not surprisingly, with the Bible. With respect to the Old Testament, he notes that the doctrine of creation is found in a variety of places and serves a variety of purposes. Within this diversity, however, the themes of origination and ordering dominate. Creation by the God of Israel is "to be understood not merely in terms of the raw material out of which the world is composed, but as the order and coherence in which it is composed" (1: 154 ). This basic idea is carried forward in the New Testament, but with the important specification that God created the world through the Logos become incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. The assertion of the Logos as the principle by which nature was created compelled patristic theologians to distance the faith from Greek ideas of an eternal world or one created out of preexisting material, since they introduce creative principles other than Christ. Over time, this logic would yield a unanimous Christian affirmation of creatio ex nihilo. The implications of a distinctly Christian approach to nature would receive great attention in the theologies of Aquinas and Calvin. Aquinas is credited with demonstrating the conceptual consistency of asserting that God is the "first principle of all things" and that created things operate according to their own natures. Yet, McGrath judges that "Aquinas's exposition of creation ... offers something falling short of a full account of the impact of sin upon the ontology of nature. Aquinas tends to regard sin as a falling short of perfection, and thus to locate any absence of perfection within the created order as a direct result of its creatureliness" (1:174-75). By Calvin combines the autonomy of creation with a superior appreciation of sin's distorting power both in the operations of nature itself and in the human mind's capacity to appreciate the ways nature points to its creator. The resulting insight is that Christ's victory over sin MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 131 encompasses both the restoration of the order of nature and the human mind's ability to move from nature to God. Two tasks remain for McGrath in his treatment of nature from the viewpoint of a scientific theology. First, he must show how the Christian view of nature can be attractive to those outside the faith impressed by science's explanatory power. Second, he needs to demonstrate that natural theology can be carried out in a manner consistent with the priority of divine revelation. With respect to the first task, McGrath rejects any attempt to bolster the credibility of Christianity by the perceived failings of contemporary science. Such a "god of the gaps" approach not only exposes the gospel to being undermined by scientific progress, it misses the forest for the trees. It is not the present failures of science that should be of interest to theology, but science's remarkable successes. In particular, McGrath refers to "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" (1 :209). It is far from obvious that one should be able to move from mathematical relations developed by human intelligence to the dynamics of physical processes. Yet because this is exactly what happens, some type of explanation is required. Natural scientists are themselves ill equipped to offer one, since their work relies upon the very compatibility of mathematics and nature that they hope to explain. It is at this point that a Christian conception of nature as creation reveals its illuminative power for science. If one views nature as created by a deity who also created human beings in the divine image, an intrinsic resonance between their mental constructs and the intelligible structure of nature is to be expected. The Christian view is not thereby proved, but an implication of that view is borne out in the demonstrable success of the sciences. What the natural sciences are forced to assume-in that it cannot be formally demonstrated without falling into some form of circularity of argument or demonstration-the Christian understanding of 'wisdom' allows to be affirmed on the basis of divine revelation, and correlated with the existence of a 132 JAMES F. KEATING transcendent creator God, responsible both for the ordering of the world and the human ability to grasp and discern it. (1:222) The first volume culminates with a proposal for "the purpose and place of natural theology" (1 :241) within a scientific theology. In raising this topic, McGrath is aware of treading upon highly contested theological ground, particularly within his own Reformed tradition. As a result, he combines respect and resolution in confronting the claim that a strong doctrine of revelation is ultimately incompatible with the notion that nature reveals God as well. More often than not, such a negative judgment rests upon a failure to distinguish between modem and premodem approaches. In premodern theologies, consideration of how nature provides some access to God took place within a theological framework determined by Christian revelation. In contrast, the modem conception of natural theology bears the marks of its origins in the Enlightenment desire to create a theology free of the church and beholden to universal reason alone. The failure to acknowledge this difference has, in McGrath's judgment, marred the debate. To make a fresh start, McGrath grounds his proposal in what the Bible says about whether and how nature reveals God. Taking Psalm 19 as indicative, he observes how the Psalmist connects the ways in which the "heavens" proclaim their creator with what may be known about this same God through his revelation of the Mosaic Law. He finds a similar contextualization in Paul's statements on the matter to Greek pagans (Acts 17) and wayward Roman Christians (Rom 1). Thus, while the Bible gives no support to the Enlightenment conception that "God may be known independently of the divine revelation to Israel" (1 :259), it affirms that from within the perspective of faith nature affords some knowledge of God. The complexity of this biblical teaching explains both the wide consensus among Christians that nature reveals God and the intense disagreement over how to relate this knowledge to the revelation found in Christ. McGrath enters the debate over natural theology by confronting two of its most influential critics, Alvin Plantinga and MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC 1HEOLOGY 133 Karl Barth, both of whom he faults for inadequately distinguishing its classical and modern forms. Plantinga's position is treated in light of his criticism of Aquinas's attempt to demonstrate the rationality of belief in God's existence on the basis of what is believed about nature. According to Plantinga' s characterization, the proofs assume that there are certain nonreligious beliefs about nature that enjoy universal and immediate assent (e.g., every event has a cause) and upon which belief in God can rely epistemicaHy. Such argumentation fails on at least two counts. First, the foundationalist assumption of the existence of a single set of universally self-evident beliefs cannot withstand philosophical scrutiny. Second, the attempt to prove God's existence by such means makes the unseemly assumption for a religious thinker that belief in a creator is somehow not a proper starting point for rational reflection while secular beliefs about nature are. McGrath does not take a firm position on Planringa's alternative of viewing belief in God as basic for the believer, but charges him with imposing a modern conception of natural theology on Aquinas. Closer analysis reveals that Aquinas's "natural theology is not intended to prove the existence of God but presupposes that existence; it then asks 'what should we expect the natural world to be like if it has indeed been created by such a God?' The search for order in nature is therefore not intended to demonstrate that God exists, but to reinforce the plausibility of an already existing belief" (1:267). Plantinga's critique, therefore, simply fails to appreciate the extent to which natural theology can operate within a context which begins with and is governed by faith. McGrath next turns to the influential position of Karl Barth, who not only denies that nature can tell us anything about God, but casts natural theology itself as a sinful human assertion against the revealing God. The attentive reader anticipates at this point that Barth's position will come in for some fairly rough treatment, and in fact McGrath accuses Barth of imposing his agenda on Scripture and of misleading an entire generation of Protestant students about their own history, and emphasizes the need to liberate theology from its "Barthian captivity" (1:279). Strong 134 JAMES F. KEATING words, to be sure, but, even as McGrath repudiates Barth's conclusion, he acknowledges that modern natural theology has often operated to shield humanity from the full force of allowing God to determine where and how he is made known. Hence, any attempt to revive the enterprise of natural theology must be as attentive as Barth to the dangers presented by modernity and, like him, formulate "appropriate theological strategies" (1: 118) to ensure the priority of divine revelation. Happily, once Barthian extremism is rejected, it is possible to see how premodern theologians can assist in fashioning a "subtle and nuanced correlation between natural and revealed theology" (1:270). To find such a balance, McGrath looks to Calvin and Thomas Torrance. Calvin wrote of nature's capacity to tell of its creator, traced the universal spread of religion to a naturally endowed internal awareness of divinity in human nature, and described nature as the "theater" and "mirror" of God's glory, even commending astronomy for unveiling the hidden intricacies of what God has wrought. At the same time, there is no sense with Calvin that nature provides a path to God independent of Christ. The inevitable tendency of human beings to twist nature's indications of God to their own sinful purposes makes Christian revelation necessary. Apart from it, natural knowledge of God remains fragmentary and prone to corruption. With this revelation, however, what God has allowed to be known of himself in nature is gathered up and consolidated. Otherwise put, Calvin's natural theology presupposes that nature is created according to the Logos incarnated in Jesus Christ the savior. Torrance, in McGrath's judgment, attunes Calvin's insights to a modern context. While conceding the human tendency to employ natural theology to domesticate the revealing God, the Scottish theologian rejects the charge that natural theology inescapably undermines a proper adherence to revelation. This danger is avoided, however, only if "the legitimacy of natural theology lies not in its own intrinsic structures, nor in an autonomous act of human self-justification, but in divine revelation itself. Theologia revelata both legitimates theologia MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 135 naturalis and defines its scope" (1:281). So close is this to McGrath's position that when he begins to spell out the details of Torrance's proposal, it becomes clear why the book is dedicated to him. Indeed, McGrath's synopsis of Torrance provides an excellent summary of this first volume: While the neutral observer of the natural world cannot, according to Torrance, gain meaningful knowledge of God, another observer, aided by divine revelation, will come to very different conclusions .... Torrance argues that the restoration of a legitimate and viable natural theology must rest upon a recovery of an authentically Christian understanding of nature. It is only when the theologian has deconstructed nature-that is to say, identified the ideological constraints which have shaped the manner in which 'nature' is conceived-and recovered a Christian construal of the natural order that a proper 'natural theology' may be restored. (1:286) Thus, McGrath begins his first volume by denying science mastery over the concept of nature, asserts the illuminative power of a theological conception of nature as created by the same God who creates human minds capable of understanding his creation, and concludes with a natural theology subservient to revelation. At this point in McGrath's unfolding project, an important question arises from the standpoint of Catholic theology. While McGrath's assertion of the theological legitimacy of natural theology clearly ought to be welcomed, can the same be said for his anxiety about preserving the priority of revelation? By way of answering, let us return to his interpretation of Aquinas. The idea that Aquinas's natural theology is a by-product of a methodological subservience to revelation rather than an autonomous intellectual project finds support in a number of recent Thomist commentators. Where McGrath differs is in the importance he gives to the fact that Thomas's natural theology was developed in a prescientific context which no longer exists. Yet even here it must be granted that the Angelic Doctor was wholly innocent of the intellectual and cultural upheavals that would result from Newton's replacement of the science of the ancient world with a different and much more successful method for unveiling the truths of nature. To be sure, he faced down the radical 136 JAMES F, KEATING AristoteHans, but it was only with the emergence of experimental science that theology lost its stature in Western culture and revelation ceased to be a widely accepted intellectual category. Accordingly, McGrath seems justified in insisting that carrying forward Aquinas's project requires the adoption of new strategies to ensure that revelation remains determinative. It is in considering these strategies, however, that the most significant difference between McGrath's and Catholic natural theology emerges. Primary among these strategies is to deny science a foundational status with respect to nature. If science offers no more than an interpretation of nature, Christian theology freely takes revelation as its starting point without seeking prior permission from science. Catholic theology, however, is wont to relate the scientific and theological views of nature in a more harmonious manner. The capacity of human reason to discover important truths about nature is not seen to be in competition with an acceptance of revelation but rather as a God-given first step toward an understanding completed by that acceptance. This confidence in reason lies behind the Catholic habit of constructing philosophical demonstrations for God's existence to move the intellect of those without faith and thereby prepare the way for the Word of God revealed in Christ. McGrath, in contrast, sees the proofs as an example of philosophical overreach and as theologically suspect. For him, natural theology after the advent of science must take all the more seriously Calvin's warning against the tendency of sinful human beings to employ philosophy against the full acceptance of revelation in faith. Does this difference in the assessment of reason render McGrath's scientific theology useless to Catholic theology? A prudent judgment must await McGrath's specific treatment of the power and limits of reason. IL REALITY The question of how the human mind moves from reality to "warranted bdief" about reality is the focus in McGrath's second MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 137 volume. Theological interest in epistemology derives from the allconsuming desire of Christianity to respond faithfully to the reality of God made known in the revelation of Jesus Christ. McGrath's particular approach draws attention to the demise of the Enlightenment dream to construct a rationality based upon a foundation of truths universally recognized as incorrigible and self-evident. As long as such a project is deemed viable, Christian theology is forced either to submit its tradition-specific truths to a universal standard and thereby lose its connection to revelation, or to be seen, and perhaps see itself, as operating outside of the bounds of reason. Since neither option is acceptable for orthodox Christianity, McGrath reckons foundationalism's collapse as the liberation of theology from Enlightenment constraints. If rationality is no longer widely seen as singular, nothing prevents Christian theology from claiming its own particular version. In language reminiscent of what he said about nature in the first volume, McGrath describes rationality as "a contested notion" (2:64 ). Since human beings employ their rational capacities within particular historical and cultural contexts, "there is no universal rationality which allows basic beliefs to be identified on a priori grounds. What is 'basic' will depend upon the socially-mediated ideas, values and practices of the community to which the individual thinker belongs" (2:101). McGrath concedes, of course, the nagging presence of another group of intellectuals joyously dancing among the ruins of foundationalism who celebrate the end of the Enlightenment project as the end of philosophy itself. According to Richard Rorty and others, foundationalism was philosophy's last chance to demonstrate that some rational procedure exists by which human beings can secure their truth-claims through reference to a universally shared reality. Its failure means that "truth" can no longer be conceived as the yield of mind in conformity with a reality determined independently of human artifice because "there is no 'objective' reality outside the community, which anchors and affirms its beliefs, or which functions as a criterion by which they may be evaluated" (2:6). If valid, such a line of reasoning would 138 JAMES F. KEATING be particularly bad news for theology. While life in the shadows of the Enlightenment has proved difficult, co-existence with relativism is simply impossible for a Christian theology that conceives of itself as an appropriate response to divine reality. Embedded within the very idea of theology is the notion that "there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of human beings, and that human beings can obtain reliable, if imperfect and tentative knowledge of these properties" (2: 189). Accordingly, theologians simply cannot afford to ignore the epistemological debate over whether foundationalism and realism go down together. We have a dog in the fight. Here again, the natural sciences offer invaluable service to a scientific theology. Not only can it be easily demonstrated that natural scientists operate under realist assumptions in their work, the startling success of this work represents the strongest argument for the capacity of the human mind to know something of reality. McGrath gleefully notes the disrepute postmodern philosophers have brought upon their approach in attempting to convince the public that scientific theories have more to do with the social location of their inventors than the unveiling of reality's intrinsic structures. Yet, discrediting postmodernism is a modest service compared to the capacity of natural science to provide a basis for a credible reassertion of realism after the demise of foundationalism. In making this case, McGrath relies heavily on the "critical realism" of the philosopher of science Roy Bhaskar. According to Bhaskar, the actual work of science is best described as the prioritizing of ontology over epistemology. Science progresses when reality itself dictates how it will be known; it falters when a particular epistemology comes to determine how the world is supposed to be. The basic impulse of the scientific method lies in an engagement with the real world, untroubled by prior philosophical notions of what that real world ought to look alike, and what human observers ought to be able to make of it. For the natural sciences, 'ontological finality' ... rests with nature itself. It is the natural world itself which determines how we should investigate it, and how we are to make sense of it. Where models or other constructs are needed to rationalize a complex empirical situation, scientists are perfectly willing to use MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 139 them-provided they are regarded as provisional, heuristic devices, which may need to be modified or even discarded in the light of an increasing body of observational data, or increasingly sophisticated mathematical means of interpreting them. In the end, the final verdict lies with nature itself. (2: 121-22) In contrast to a foundationalist interpretation of science, which deals in epistemological a priori, Bhaskar argues that proper scientific method is emphatically a posteriori, devising rational strategies in response to the demands of reality. McGrath also follows Bhaskar as he employs this insight against those who equate science with the methodology of the natural sciences. Without denying the greater reliance on "constructed" notions in such fields as psychology and sociology than in physics, Bhaskar argues that the difference is not a matter of realism versus nonrealism, but of different "strata" of reality evoking different methodologies. Sociology, for example, relies upon constructed categories such as "race" or "class" because "social reality" differs from "natural reality" and is known differently. To reduce science to a particular methodology is to commit what Bhaskar terms "the epistemic fallacy" whereby one conflates reality with a particular way of knowing reality. Apart from the strictures of a specific epistemology, reality reveals itself as stratified and requiring a plurality of sciences. Bhaskar argues that each science develops methodologies appropriate to their ontologies .... and cannot be determined a priori on the basis of some implicit foundationalism. Methodology is consequent upon ontology, and is hence to be determined a posteriori.The stratification of reality demands different working methods and assumptions across the spectrum of the sciences, despite the critical commonalities that may be identified. (2:12) The theological application of Bhaskar's notions is fairly clear. If methodology follows ontology, Christian theology is free to "adopt a methodology which is appropriate to, and determined by, the ontology of its specific object" (2:225). The idea that theological methodology is properly determined by its revealed object and not by some extraneous demand of universal reason is of the greatest importance to McGrath's 140 JAMES F. KEATING project. If theology's engagement with natural science means aping its methodology, the idea of a scientific theology would be in decisive conflict with a theology beholden to revelation. At the same time, McGrath rejects any notion that theology's freedom to develop its rational method in response to God's revelation in Jesus Christ liberates it from critical and open engagement with other tradition-specific rationalities and their claims about reality. While separable from foundationalism, realism necessarily implies that there exists a single, albeit highly stratified, reality to which all who seek to know are responsible. Accordingly, "a scientific theology attempts to offer a view of the world, including God, which is both internally consistent and which is grounded in the structures of the real world. It aims to achieve extra-systematic correspondence with intra-systematic coherence, regarding both these criteria as of fundamental importance" (2:5 6). In this division of labor, McGrath assigns internal consistency to systematic theology and the responsibility of demonstrating the appeal of the Christian construal of reality to those of other traditions to natural theology. In discussing natural theology as an example of "transtraditional rationality," McGrath relies upon Alasdair Macintyre' s description of intellectual history as "competing traditionmediated rationalities, which are in conflict, and which cannot be totally detached from the traditions which mediate them" (2:64). Since there is no universal framework to which one can appeal, debate concerning the ultimate truth about reality takes place within the encounter of traditions. These meetings present each tradition with features of reality not previously encountered or properly understood, and the chance to demonstrate the ways in which its internal resources explain the existence of other traditions and resolve problems found in them. At this point, the wisdom of McGrath's construal of natural theology whose roots are intra muros ecclesiaebut whose relevance extends extra muros ecclesiaebecomes clear. Only a natural theology grounded in the Christian conception of creation can offer "an interpretative grid by which other traditions may be addressed on the common issues MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC IHEOLOGY 141 of existence, enabling the coherence and attractiveness of the Christian vision to be affirmed" (2:75). The final task of McGrath's second volume is to spell out the "contours of a scientific theology" with respect to its particular encounter with reality and in light of what can be garnered from a study of the critical realism operative in the sciences. McGrath locates four major characteristics and a fifth "postulate." First, a scientific theology seeks-in McGrath's neat formulation-to "correspond coherently to reality" (2: 16). Against those who attempt to formulate a nonrealist theology (e.g., Don Cupitt [2:249-57]), or a mere grammar of faith (e.g., George Lindbeck [2:39-54]), McGrath insists that "a scientific theology is not a free creation of the human mind, an expression of unrestrained creativity and innovation" but "a deliberate and principled attempt to give a faithful and adequate account of the way things are, subject to the limits placed upon human knowledge on account of our status as sinful creatures, and our location in history" (2:248). Second, because it is realist, a scientific theology proceeds a posteriori.Far from setting the conditions under which divine reality makes itself known, theology begins with the fact of revelation and responds by devising rational strategies best suited to understand and communicate its significance. In McGrath's terms, Jesus Christ is the "generative event" which compels human beings, and especially theologians, to "rethink and refashion our understandings of such matters as God, and human nature and destiny" (2:275). Emblematic of this approach for McGrath is Luther's theology of the cross: "a calculated and systematic attack on the role of a priori notions of God in any Christian theology" (2:278). A third characteristic of a scientific theology is that its methodology arises in "response to its distinctive object" (2:279). McGrath has prepared his readers for a rejection of a universal conception of reason, but knows that a diversity of rationalities, if pushed too far, threatens to undermine the unified conception of reality required by philosophical realism. In order to achieve the right balance, McGrath refers to the variety of methodologies 142 JAMES F. KEATING deployed in the sciences, each developing "a vocabulary and a working method which is appropriated or adapted to its object" (2:280). To this extent, the natural sciences support Barth's assertion in his famous debate with Heinrich Scholz that appropriateness to its particular object, and that alone, constitutes theology as a science. Scholz had argued that methodological appropriateness does not exhaust what it means to be scientific and insisted that theology must formulate its claims as propositions, relate all of its propositions to a single and unified aspect of reality, and state its claims in a manner open to testing. In evaluating this dispute, McGrath accepts Scholz's fundamental point that the unity of reality requires that "the principles which lead to theological statements being formulated require investigation and should be open to testing" (2:287). If the statements of theologians are in response to reality, they must demonstrate that connection and be responsible to other interpretations of the same data. At the same time, Scholz's insistence that theologians formulate foundational axioms from which their theorems are deducible evinces a commitment to a discredited notion of a universal rationality and, if adopted, would hinder theology's full responsiveness to revelation. Theology operates best, according to McGrath, when its method arises from engagement with the intrinsic meaning of revelation as, for example, in Chalcedon's philosophically innovative formulation of homoousios or the rejection by the Reformation of philosophical conceptions of justice as the appropriate basis for understanding how God justifies the sinner (2:289). McGrath gives little attention to the fourth characteristic that relates scientific theology to the task of explanation, since this is the topic of his final volume. Instead, he moves quickly to the "postulate" that a scientific theology must be "christocentric." Although no explanation for the shift from "characteristic" to "postulate" is provided, his point is clear enough: "the theological approach which has dominated the significant 'science and religion' constituency to date has focused on the doctrine of creation" (2:297) without explicit reference to Christ. McGrath MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 143 rejects this approach as insufficiently attentive to the way the Christian view of nature is determined by a Christie account of its origin, redemption, and ultimate reconciliation. Apart from what it has learned from Christ, Christian theology has little if anything significant to contribute to a dialogue with science. Indeed, McGrath employs the adjective "foundational" to describe Jesus Christ as a revealed reality that in Christian theology enjoys absolute priority over all pre-Christian conceptions of God, humanity, and the world. This foundation, unsurprisingly, has its own strata: Christ as historical point of departure, Christ as revelation of God, Christ as bearer of salvation, and Christ as the shape of the redeemed life. This is the complex reality to which Christian theology seeks to correspond coherently via theory. Before treating McGrath's description of theological theory, it is best to consider how far we have come. The heart of McGrath's second volume is his insistence that rationality responds to reality most fully when it eschews the search for foundations beyond those which arise from direct and ongoing encounter with a particular object. Accordingly, theology, which legitimately speaks of God only on the condition that it is an appropriate response to the reality of what he reveals, has an interest in developing rational strategies that promote maximal openness. Philosophy's role in developing these strategies consists in garnering the epistemological implications of the work and the history of science, for example, the problems of foundationalism, the warrants for realism, and the contextual but nonrelativistic character of all rationality. I suspect that most Catholic readers will insist that philosophy can do much more, even providing insights into the nature of reality itself. Again, we encounter the divide: McGrath invariably sees reason apart from faith as a threat to the priority of revelation, while Catholics live in the hope of a philosophy that is both compatible with faith and convincing to those without it. Why this difference? At one level, we are dealing with two distinct interpretations of the history of faith and reason. For McGrath, the primary dynamic is the sinful tendency of human philosophy to seek prominence over divine revelation 144 JAMES F. KEATING (e.g., the God of the philosopher versus the God revealed in the cross of Christ). The typical Catholic reading, however, focuses on the struggle of good philosophy over bad (e.g., moderate realism versus nominalism). The significance of this difference plays itself out in McGrath's final volume. III. THEORY The question of just how Christian theology responds faithfully to the reality of Christ is the topic of McGrath's final volume, entitled Theory. After discussing the ways in which an understanding of natural science can assist theology in methodologically grappling with nature and reality, McGrath's project culminates in a treatment of how a scientific theology moves from encountering reality to the development of theories about that reality. Readers expecting a definitive statement of this matter from McGrath, however, will be disappointed at being informed toward the end of the book that the question of theory anticipates not only a systematic theology, but two additional monographs, one on the development of doctrine and another on heresy. Nevertheless, McGrath gives his readers plenty to consider in this volume as they await further word. Of first importance to McGrath's approach is the connection he draws between theology and the "communal beholding" of the reality of God which called forth and sustains the church. The church is called into being through its apprehension of this vision of God, which it is called to pursue in its theology, spirituality and ethics. Theology begins within this community of faith, as it seeks to give an account of its communal beholding of the vision of God. Indeed, it could be argued that the supreme task of theology is to keep this sense of wonder alive, as the process of unfolding the object of wonder and worship proceeds-in other words, as apprehension gives way to reflection, and supremely to the formulation of theory. (3:3) In describing the relationship between theological theorizing and ecdesial experience, McGrath combines the etymologies of Heidegger and Habermas for the Greek term for "theory." MCGRATH'S SCIENI'IFIC THEOLOGY 145 Heidegger argued that 9Ewp€w was derived from and opaw, a beholding of the divine. Habermas, preferring society over divinity, traces the origins of the word to the public function of the theoros entrusted to behold and communicate what occurred during public festivities. Theory is, therefore, at root both divine and social. Theological theory begins with the Church's communal beholding of God's revelation in Christ and seeks "to capture and express the sense of the emerging orderedness, underpinned by a sense of authority, which such a revelation elicits" (3 :9). In connecting theology to a communal experience beyond the capacity of words to express, McGrath demonstrates acute sensitivity to the charge that theory inevitably levels and distorts. Indeed, he quips that "to criticize theory for being 'reductionist' is like criticizing water because it is wet; that is simply the way of things" (3 :35). At the same time, theory is part of the human response to reality and attempts to save wonder at the price of theory ironically end up limiting reality's claim on our attention. A wiser course is to inquire into the exact danger theory presents and develop strategies for humbling theory in the face of the mystery to which it is responsible. As usual, McGrath is convinced that an appreciation of how theory operates in the natural sciences sheds important light on these matters for theology. A study of the role of theory in the natural sciences reveals both the possibilities and the perils of theorizing. The progress of science clearly demonstrates that human beings have the capacity to move with some degree of confidence from the particulars of experiment to the construction of theories with universal relevance. That same history, however, reveals that "theory exists in a highly ambivalent relation to particulars. On the ,ol.1e hand, it owes its existence to them; on the other, they perpetually threaten to undermine and overthrow it" (3 :39). It is for this reason that theories, even ones widely accepted by the scientific community, should never gain "epistemological precedence" over particulars arising from ongoing experimentation. McGrath offers historical instances when the order was reversed and "provisional" theories 146 JAMES F. KEATING operated to obscure the truth embedded in the particulars (3: 11930). The health of science, therefore, requires that the utilization of theory not threaten its fundamentally a posteriori approach to reality. A similar dynamic operates in Christian theology in the relationship between theory and dogma. The theologian is responsible both to the particulars which arise from the Church's ongoing engagement with the stratified reality of God's revelation in Jesus Christ and to those hard-won theoretical insights which the community has come to recognize as doctrine. The key is to achieve the right balance between preserving the achievements of the past and being responsive enough to recognize when development is required for the sake of the revealed reality. Just as premature "closure" creates a distance between the scientists and the reality being investigated, too rigid a commitment to a particular doctrinal formulation can have the effect of hindering God's word to the Church. It is essential, therefore, to match a clear affirmation of the realist character of Christian doctrine with an honest recognition that all human reception of divine revelation is "accommodated" to the inevitable limitations of human existence. While Christian theologians have tended unfortunately to affirm one at the price of the other, the natural sciences demonstrate that responsiveness to reality requires both to be affirmed with equal force and clarity. The question for theology then becomes how "this variegated reality be represented in a manner that is accommodated to its nature, yet tempered by the limitations of the human language which must be the vehicle of its transmission" (3 :xii). McGrath captures the excitement and challenge of theological theory by emphasizing the complexity involved in human reception of revelation. Within the reality of revelation, McGrath distinguishes "revelation proper," the divine words and events in the history of Israel culminating in Jesus Christ, and the depositum fidei, the stratified historical residue of revelation which constitutes Christian tradition. Theology operates within this tradition and is responsible for clarifying its various strata and MCGRATH'S SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 147 critically investigating the relationship particular aspects bear to the originating and normative revelation. With respect to the first task, McGrath delineates eight strata of theory and praxis: texts, patterns of worship, ideas, communities, institutional structures, images, vocabulary, and religious experience (3:146-48). McGrath concedes that other lists are possible and that proportional weight varies with confessional stance. Nonetheless, such diversity does not tell against theological realism, but is an expected consequence of the constructed character of all theological explanations. Theological theories, no less than scientific ones, reflect the social and cultural location in which they are expressed and received. Moreover, just as the scientist is responsible for evaluating the adequacy of theory against the aspect of reality to which it refers, the theologian is responsible for assessing the adequacy of particular theories and practices for whether they correspond coherently to revelation. The fact that this revelation exists in the past and is known solely through the traditions that have emerged in its aftermath means the theologian must master the technique of "abduction" found in evolutionary biology and cosmology. Unable to recreate the originating event, the theologian must work backward, moving from present evidence to its most likely explanation. "A scientific theology sets itself the agenda of determining what brought the Christian tradition into being, and how this can and should continue to sculpture its intellectual contours" (3: 151 ). This work is greatly complicated by the twists and turns of Christian tradition, a path so herky-jerky that it has defied all attempts to plot its progress in a consistent and inclusive way. McGrath explicitly rejects Newman's organic model of development in favor of one more attuned to the a posteriori character of the theological task. Borrowing an image from Otto von Neurath, McGrath compares a theologian operating within. the church's tradition to a sailor on the open sea. Deprived of a foundation outside the immediate frame of reference, all work is done in via and out of the varied resources at hand. When parts become worn or encrusted, refurbishing is required to restore their original 148 JAMES F. KEATING luster and function. At other times, unique challenges require reconfiguring by the incorporation of passing driftwood. Yet, regardless of how useful a particular piece of driftwood proves to be, it never becomes part of the original constitution and must be jettisoned when no longer useful. McGrath clearly means this image to be both descriptive and normative for the history of theology. As a description, it highlights the provisionality all theological theories share in their service to the Christian church. Indeed, McGrath draws a parallel between the "underdetermination" characteristic of scientific theories with respect to the evidence and theological theories before the divine mystery. The relevant community in each case often accepts theories more by intuition (Pierre Duhem's "le bon sens") than airtight argumentation (3:229-31). As a norm, the image conveys the necessity for theology, even in its critical mode, to seek no other support than the community transformed by the vision of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The final piece of McGrath's project is a brief consideration of the place of metaphysics in Christian theology. While this section does not read like a climax to the project, McGrath's position is emblematic of his overall approach. In examining the criticisms leveled at metaphysics from Logical Positivism, Postmodernity, and Radical Orthodoxy, McGrath finds that each conceives metaphysics as an a priori discipline which lays a conceptual foundational role for what can and cannot be said about reality. If this were in fact the case, a scientific theology would be required to reject metaphysics on that basis alone. However, a close study of the ways in which metaphysics emerge from the theologies of Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, as well as from the followers of Luther and Calvin, suggests the possibility of a metaphysics generated by and beholden to divine revelation. Accordingly, "there is an ongoing legitimate place for metaphysics in Christian theology, where the nature and style of that metaphysic is determined a posteriori, in the light of the specific nature and characteristics of the gospel proclamation" (3 :293 ). In the case of metaphysics, as with so much else, McGrath suggests MCGRATH'S SCIENIJFIC IHEOLOGY 149 that dose attention to the rigorously a posteriori, nonfoundationalist character of the natural sciences provides "strategies" for how the classical theological tradition can be brought forward in a contemporary context. Theory, therefore, plays an important role in a scientific theology even if one fraught with ambiguity. When fully responsive to revealed reality, theory is capable of great things. When it predetermines the nature and scope of revelation, theory ends up distancing theology from its revealed basis. IV. EVALUATION The burden of this review has been to present the basic contours of McGrath's scientific theology. Of course, a work that spans as many debates within the philosophy and history of science, not to mention theology, requires critical engagement on all these levels. McGrath anticipates such criticism in the work's almost rueful epilogue: "What seemed like a bright idea . . . has proved to be far more difficult than I had imagined, and its execution less satisfactory than I had hoped. . . . What I had hoped might be extensive discussions of central methodological questions have ended up being rather shallow; what I had hoped to be dose readings of seminal texts seem to have turned out to be little more than superficial engagement" (3:295). At the same time, McGrath def ends the decision to publish in light of the mrgent need to enhance the contemporary discussion of theological rationality within a post-foundational, but thoroughly scientific culture. By this standard his project must be judged a success. Despite a host of areas in which one could wish more exactitude, there can be no doubt that McGrath has moved the discussion over the theological value of dialogue with the natural sciences in a new and most welcome direction. In particular, he insists with clarity and sophistication that dialogue with the sciences must and can be in service of theology's ongoing quest to remain subordinated to God's revelation in Jesus Christ. After McGrath, the notion that revelation must be bracketed for the 150 JAMES F. KEATING purpose of dialogue with the sciences should find no takers and, in any case, will be rather difficult to justify. I shall conclude this review by highlighting the radical character of McGrath's approach and returning to the place of philosophy in his project. The novelty of what is being proposed is such that it easy for traditional and liberal theologians alike to miss it, accustomed as they are to pit post-Enlightenment reason against orthodox Christianity. It is necessary, therefore, to appreciate the extent to which the proposal relies upon the detection of a fatal irony gnawing at the heart of the Enlightenment's conception of rationality. The project of laying a foundation of universal and self-evident beliefs was initially intended to weaken, even destroy, revealed theology, and, thereby, clear the way for science's unencumbered progress. Yet, the constricted view of reason that resulted has proven unable to account for the success of science and in many instances has shown itself to be an obstacle to the augmentation of knowledge. The path actually traveled by science points to a much more open conception of reason and one that presents no real hindrance to the reassertion of revelation as a respectable intellectual category. Thus, in an unexpected twist of fate, science, that most beloved offspring of the Enlightenment, can now be seen by theology as a handmaiden. Science serves theology not only by demonstrating the vibrancy of philosophical realism, but also by providing rational strategies for its own methodology. The strategies for ensuring the priority of reality over human conception which have proven so successful for science are useful for a theology which measures success in light of singular and exhaustive fidelity to the reality of the revealing God. Science, therefore, is a fit handmaiden for theology because it offers theology tools to better serve its own Lord and Master. In this sense, the fulfillment of the Enlightenment's dreams for science redounds to the benefit of its old nemesis, revealed theology. But what use is McGrath's scientific theology to Roman Catholics? Up to this point, a particular divergence has been highlighted: a suspicious versus a confident appraisal of philo- MCGRATH'S SCIENIIFIC THEOLOGY 151 sophy without and within the theological enterprise. By way of conclusion, we can ask whether this difference can be bridged for mutual benefit. Catholics, for their part, should join McGrath in confronting the ever-present temptation to give greater allegiance to commonly accepted philosophical insights than the often scandalous truths embedded in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Even if the conflict between faith and reason has been at times a matter of bad philosophy, the history of Christian faith, its glories and miseries, cannot be explained apart from the necessity of salutary reassertions of revealed truth over accepted philosophical judgments. There is also merit, I believe, in McGrath's contention that the primary culprit is a foundat:ionalism which implies the existence of a set of universal truths with epistemic primacy over revelation. Once philosophical assumptions are seen to provide the basis upon which theology receives its justification, revelation invariably loses its proper priority. Christian theologians, however, can borrow strategies from the scientist to firmly subordinate philosophical anticipations of reality to what reality reveals itself to be. Once foundationalism is rejected for a hermeneuticaUy sophisticated realism, the task of presenting the intellectual attractiveness of the Christian vision to those outside the fold can be saf dy pursued without endangering the priority of revelation. The danger philosophy poses to revelation consists, then, in its inclination toward autonomy. To the extent that philosophy emerges from the Church's ongoing encounter with revelation it serves theology in a similar way that theory serves experimental science. Ought Catholics to accept this taming of philosophy? Yes and no. Catholics can agree that specifically Christian philosophy flows out of an encounter with revelation and remains under its controL And, if science provides strategies for ensuring philosophy's subordination to revelation, they should be considered and possibly embraced. At the same time, Catholics should press McGrath on the philosophical status of the resulting insights. Do they not, at least potentially, possess a binding force on all God's human creatures regardless of historical or cultural context? McGrath shies away from this 152 JAMES F. KEATING conclusion, but it is not dear that he needs to in order to preserve his central insight. At this point it might seem a touch ungrateful to ask further clarification of McGrath, but it is quite fitting for a theologian who insists that theology is always done in via. BOOK REVIEWS Natural Law and Human Dignity: Universal Ethics in an Historical World. By EBERHARDSCHOCKENHOFF. Trans. by BRIANMCNEIL. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 330. $44.95 (doth), $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8132-1339-8 (doth), 0-8132-1340-1 (paper). Eberhard Schockenhoff is Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Freiburg. As a member of the National Ethics Council in Germany, he recently concurred in its recommendation that therapeutic cloning should not "at this time" be allowed in Germany. He, along with a minority on the council, argued that creating and then destroying human organisms is morally impermissible, even for research and medical purposes. It is dear, then, what sorts of ethical dialogue his book is meant to make comprehensible. Schockenhoff has an ambitious three-part plan: (1) outline and address recurring critiques of natural-law theory, particulady those stemming from the "irreversible" historicization of our consciousness of morals and culture; (2) argue for the reasonableness of natural-law theory's claim of universality, which is limited to the establishment of absolute rights, leaving significant room for a more robust ethics based on a richer theory of human nature; (3) establish the foundations of a universal claim for "biblical ethics" as contained in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, Ultimately, the life of the Christian churches must "bear witness to the inherent rationality of the high ethical teachings contained in the biblical history of revelation" and put them on offer in an "open contest about the humanum, where the various world religions, political utopias, and secular humanisms challenge each other" (284), The denouement of this program is a section on the distinction betvveen law and morality, which nevertheless suggests that they have a common origin in a basic notion of human rights, which becomes an alternative to the notion of "basic norm," used in positivistic theories of law to avoid an infinite regression in justifications. Schockenhoff is seeking a moral relativity without moral relativism: a thesis which will account for changes in the Roman Catholic teaching on slavery, torture, lending at interest, and voluntary organ donation, without ceding that there is no kernel of universal teaching. He wants, in addition, an historical consciousness without historicism, where the human being is understood as a 153 154 BOOK REVIEWS subject with an "inherent historicity": "the constitution of his finite nature as body and soul give him this character a priori: therefore, he is not only 'made' by history, but 'makes' it" (128-29). Schockenhoff reviews four argumentative strategies used by twentiethcentury philosophers against ethical relativism as a preliminary to making the case for universal ethics (42-81). Each strategy reveals something of what he demands from a successful ethical theory. (1) While cultural studies at the empirical level cannot establish either moral universals or irreducible moral pluralism, (2) dismissing the empirical level in order to avoid the naturalistic fallacy deprives moral philosophy of a due reflection "on the problem posed by the empirical plurality of our moral ideas." (3) All ethical (as opposed to merely cultural) relativisms either do not incorporate a principle of tolerance, or suffer logical collapse because they do, since this principle is nonrelative. The practical requirement of some sort of intercultural dialogue as an alternative to violent conflict requires "the transcultural validity of the principle of reason" to establish differing groups as equal partners in the discourse. (4) Finally, distinguishing among different levels of moral consciousness allows for the coexistence of disagreement on surface levels and agreement on the level of the principles from which the ultimate justification of an action or rule is derived. On the analogy of biology, the "occurrence of individual deviations or the formation of irregular patterns is not evidence against the existence of a universal species-specific program, according to which all the examples ... display a core of common characteristics in exactly the same way." Schockenhoff's retrieval of natural-law theory is centered on Thomas Aquinas and assumes that his teaching "has not simply been disposed of by the critical objections to" later rationalist and neo-Thomistic doctrines (136). He divides contemporary interpretations of Aquinas on the relationship between natural law and practical reason into four groups on a spectrum from the formalist, where natural law "is nothing more than a formal structural law of the practical reason," to the ontological, where "the ethical law is an ontological order immanent in human nature." He concentrates, however, on the debates between the second group (e.g., L. Honnefelder), for whom natural inclinations "present an outline of how the substantial regulation by the reason will turn out to be" and the third group (e.g., M. Rhonheimer), for whom "the substantial ends at which nature aims agree a priori-as if in a slumber-with that which the reason recognizes to be good" (138). He identifies three points of dispute among contemporary Thomists. First, does the primal, evidential character of practical reason apply only to its highest basic principle ("Do good ... ", etc.) or does it extend to principles linked to the highest, those roughly identical to the Ten Commandments? Are natural inclinations merely "raw material" for practical reason or is practical reason merely their "scanning organ"? Finally, how should the transition from general principles to specific individual judgments be conceived, or in other words how do conclusio and determinatio function as mediating activities? BOOK REVIEWS 155 Schockenhoff accepts, as do all but the "extremists," the "genuine equality in origin of theoretical and practical knowledge"(148-49) and the subsequent autonomy of ethics, but through his answers to the three contentious points, he places himself firmly in the second group. He argues, first, that the "basic commandment-bonum faciendum, ma/um vitandum-is articulated ... in the universal principles of the practical reason," but also that "Thomas never gives an exhaustive list of these principles, contenting himself with indications." While he acknowledges that Thomas "can identify the highest principles of natural law with the Ten Commandments," Schockenhoff clearly does not think this is central to Thomas's natural-law theory. "Thomas says nothing about the relationship of these universal principles to the one fundamental commandment of the moral law or how individual moral commandments can be deduced from them" (151-52). Second, Schockenhoff notes the important "distinction between the passive participation of irrational creatures in the divine reason which governs the world and the actively regulating participation on the part of the human person" (159 n. 63), which he believes is "flattened" by the naturalistic interpretation of neoThomism. Nor is mere "recognition" of a pre-existing order sufficient to do justice to the "regulating and measuring" activity of the human person in imitation of divine rule in which he participates. "The inclinationes natura/es belong to the natural law only as a striving completely shaped by reason" (163), while practical reason, in turn, "informs" or "imprints" a form on the ends of natural striving" (164). Third, since "one and the same practical reason" comprehends both the "universally valid commands of the natural law" and "the concrete determinations of the judgment of prudence and conscience," there must be "intermediary stages and transitional points" along this path (166). The integrity of the "gradated structure" of practical reason requires "the elaboration of rules for specific conduct, where both historical discernment (adinventio) and more precise definition (determinatio) play a role." Schockenhoff claims that, for Aquinas, "apart from the highest principle of bonum faciendum ... the only immutable, universally known and absolutely valid principles, where the human reason cannot err, are the Golden Rule and the command to love one's neighbor." For, although the "secondary commandments" are, according to Aquinas, "the common property of mankind," since "necessary expansions [of them] have become a part of history and are themselves subject to further changes, the natural law never attains validity in history otherwise than in mutable form, even though its universal commandments are immutable per se. An absolutely immutable ethical law would be conceptually impossible for Thomas, since it would accord neither with the mutability of the circumstances of human life nor with the laws governing the activity of practical reason" (17374). This interpretation of Thomas allows Schockenhoff to move to a refutation of the classical objections to natural law outlined in chapter 1, namely, commission of the naturalistic fallacy, circular justification, and an ahistorical 156 BOOK REVIEWS understanding of nature. In turn, answering these objections opens the way to a recovery of the natural-law theory's concept of intrinsically evil acts, without an agenda geared to a set of solutions to contemporary problems or to shore up church teachings, but as part of "the common tradition of all non-utilitarian ethical systems" since Aristotle (191). This recovery begins with Aquinas and with a problem: "what can it mean to employ such a category" if it "itself is subject to the historicity of our moral knowledge" (192)? Schockenhoff is interested in Aquinas's analysis of the "patriarchal exceptions," such as Abraham's agreement to kill Isaac, Hosea's adulterous marriage, and the "spoiling of the Egyptians." He focuses on "historical change" in the case of the patriarchs and "changed circumstances" in the particular case of theft, to argue that Aquinas is able to preserve exceptionless norms, because acts which appear to be the same can nevertheless differ: in one instance the act is deformed and in the other it is conformed to the order of reason or justice, as in the case of the person in extreme circumstances, who appropriates what is materially another's, but formally his, on account of his need. Thus, "theft" remains "intrinsically evil," while the assessment of which acts constitute theft may change. This, however, does not amount to approving theft because in some cases it produces better consequences than respect for other's property. Schockenhoffs own criterion for the "intrinsically evil" act is tested in a debate with "teleological ethics" over killing innocent persons, torture or sacrifice of the innocent, and adultery and rape. He proposes to establish that a "mode of conduct must always be considered as intrinsically evil and as incompatible with the personal dignity of another human being when it attacks the irreducible minimum conditions for his human existence, which must be protected in order to give him the possibility of free ethical self-determination" (201-2). These conditions, as revealed in the three discussions, include bodily life, the exercise of the will in self-determination, and respect for the gift of self, which requires exclusive, faithful marriage and prohibits coerced sexual activity. In support of a "universal ethics," Schockenhoff has crafted a natural-law framework that will uphold traditional prohibitions on murder, abortion, theft, and adultery, based solely on absolute rights, whose grounding makes no appeal to any vision of the "good life." However, questions about monogamy, homosexuality, and artificial contraception would, on his account, have to be dealt with by a "high ethics," like biblical ethics, which obligates the human person to "live in accordance with God's image, in which he was created" (235). The attraction of this project is obvious: the prohibition against killing the innocent cannot be written off as "based on a highly exaggerated view of the value of life" (208) attributable to specific religious beliefs, and yet those same beliefs are authorized to enter the contemporary vacuum where liberty means the freedom "to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." There are some unexpected pleasures in this book, including the illuminating discussions of Wilhelm Dilthey, Ernst Troeltsch and Karl Jaspers which the BOOK REVIEWS 157 author uses to illustrate that there may be a universality which is historical rather than metaphysical. The survey of recent biblical criticism regarding the giving of the law on Sinai and the delivery of the Sermon on the Mount forms a useful tutorial for philosophers, particularly those of an ahistorical bent. Most of Schockenhoff's partners in the debates over natural-law theory are German and it would have been interesting to see how Grisez, Finnis, the later Macintyre, and others would have been fitted into his schema. As it is, they remain in the footnotes. The translation by Brian McNeil, while generally clear, is occasionally ponderous (e.g., "nostalgic imprecations" [20]) or infelicitous (e.g., "orientate" fpassim]), and there are places where breathless sentences could have been divided without loss. MARY C. SOMMERS University of St. Thomas Houston, Texas Sex and Virtue: An Introduction to Sexual Ethics. By JOHNS. GRABOWSKI. Catholic Moral Thought Series. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003. Pp. 213. $39.95 (cloth), $19.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8132-1345-2 (cloth), 0-8132-1346-0 (paper). John Grabowski provides an introductory account of Catholic sexual teaching, portraying it as both liberating and life-giving. He presents this teaching by means of insights from biblical and sacramental theology, drawing on elements from psychology and Christian personalism. His study, however, is not entirely what the title would suggest. Although the book's stated goal is to "undertake a systematic application of biblical and virtue-based categories to the topic of sexuality" (xiii), the focus is not so much on portraying sexuality from within a psychology of virtue as on presenting it from within the Christian personalism of John Paul II. Stated more precisely, insights from virtue ethics are presented from within the framework ofJohn Paul's personalist concerns: sexual union as an embodied self-giving and the self-mastery in conjugal chastity that makes this self-giving possible. The book's seven chapters form a study in four parts. First, the author examines briefly the historical genesis of contemporary Catholic attitudes about sex (ch. 1). Second, he advances a biblical theology of marriage that emphasizes the importance of covenant fidelity (chs. 2 and 3). Third, he develops a personalist account of sexuality and marriage rooted in his biblical theology (chs. 4-6). Finally, he sketches the practices and institutions required to promote the virtues proper to an ordered sexual life (ch. 7). 158 BOOK REVIEWS Grabowski begins by noting that many Catholics are "alienated" from magisterial teaching on sexual issues. He sees this alienation as arising from the inability of the manualist tradition to offer a coherent view of sexuality in the contemporary context. Grabowski argues that contemporary culture portrays sex as an "innocent ecstasy," understood "as bearing the promise of ecstatic release, personal fulfillment, and salvific power" (7-8). After noting the "unrealistic expectations" and added burdens that this view places on a couple's sexual relationship, Grabowski focuses on the limitations of the manualist heritage. He asserts that by embracing a physicalist notion of the natural law and by portraying morality as principally about how law restrains individual freedom, moral theology failed to provide a convincing account of Catholic sexual teaching. The task, therefore, is to present sexuality from within a larger theological context with the aid of Christian personalism. Grabowski seeks to do this by placing sexuality in the context of biblical covenant (ch. 2). A covenant is "an agreement or oath of fidelity between parties made with or before God in which one promises one's very self to another" (29). Grabowski affirms that marriage in the Old Testament is viewed as a covenant analogous to Israel's covenant with God. They both require "a faithful and exclusive promise of self" (41). In the New Testament, the parallel deepens: marriage becomes an image of the relationship between Christ and his Church (41-42). Grabowski further explains that oaths and symbolic acts were integral to covenants and enacted them. In the marriage covenant, sex has this enacting role. Just as covenants with God were begun in an oath and enacted in a sacred act, so too the sacrament of marriage is ratified in the exchange of consent and consummated in sexual intercourse (45). Sexual intercourse, therefore, is part of the "language of the body," whereby spouses communicate their "total selfdonation" and enact in bodily form "the unconditional promise and acceptance" expressed in their wedding vows (46). Moreover, just as biblical liturgies entail a remembering that makes present the event remembered, so too does sexual union (38). Sex functions as an "anamnesis" that both remembers and enacts the promise the couple made when they exchanged their vows (47-48). After outlining the place of marriage in Christian discipleship (ch. 3), Grabowski introduces a personalist account of chastity (ch. 4). Prefacing this account with a brief historical sketch of patristic, Thomistic and manualist views of chastity (a sketch that is remarkably critical of these traditions), Grabowski argues that Karol Wojtyla's philosophy of chastity overcomes the limitations of these earlier views. "Karol Wojtyla would see chastity as not merely the mastery of reason over the passions, nor still less a flight from all sexual activity, but rather a form of self-possession that makes sexual and other forms of selfdonation possible" (86). This self-possession is necessary, because "a person can only truly give as a gift that which they themselves first possess" (87). Sexual desire "informed" by chastity respects the other's personal dignity, while lust violates this dignity by seeking the other's body "independently of the value of the person" (ibid.). BOOK REVIEWS 159 Grabowski next addresses the difficult question of sexual complementarity (ch. 5). After noting recent attempts to understand the equality and difference between men and women, Grabowski argues that the equality of the sexes resides in their shared human nature, while sexual difference is "a fundamental relation constitutive of personhood" (98). In a way analogous to the plurality of persons in the unity of the Trinity, human personhood is a relation inherently ordered to communion with others (111). This is what John Paul means by the "nuptial meaning of the body." The human person's embodied sexuality is ordered toward the gift of self to another in love. It is here that the role of chastity as self-possession emerges: for a couple truly to establish the communion of persons proper to marital love, they must possess themselves as persons in self-mastery so as to give themselves to each other in a way that respects their personal dignity (111). Grabowski next interprets sexual sins as various failures to respect the personal dignity of the other (112-25). In chapter 6, Grabowski considers the relationship between the gift of self and fertility. The Church has constantly proclaimed that "any deliberate action contrary to either the procreative purpose of sexuality or the fidelity of marriage is gravely disordered" (129). The encyclical Humanae vitae confirmed this by insisting on the "inseparable connection" between the unitive and procreative aspects of sexual union. Grabowski adds, however, that "the encyclical never fully explained the basis for this connection." Moreover, the encyclical's natural law arguments "were found by many to be insufficient" (130)" Grabowski seeks to overcome· this insufficiency by employing John Paul's notion that embodied sexuality is inherently linguistic. From this perspective, the unitive and procreative aspects of sexual union are the two meanings of sexual intercourse symbolically expressed in the embodied self-giving proper to marital love. Since fertility is "integral to the person" of each spouse, sexual intercourse can function as a "covenant ratifying gesture" only if it respects this fertility (13132), otherwise it becomes "a dishonest expression of this gift" (151). Grabowski traces how this personalist understanding of sexual relations renders more intelligible the Church's teaching on issues such reproductive technologies and homosexuality. He gives special attention to the issue of natural family planning. Critics often view the periodic abstinence proper to NFP as a negative feature endured solely to prevent pregnancy (147). Grabowski holds, however, that "periodic continence" is actually a positive good. Quoting Wojtyla at length, Grabowski asserts that "periodic continence" deepens a couple's ability to love each other as persons. He employs Alasdair Madntyre's notion of a "'practice" to suggest how NFP plays this positive role (149-50). Macintyre famously portrays a practice as a socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that activity are realized. From this perspective, virtues are acquired human qualities that enable us to achieve the goods internal to practices. Grabowski. argues that NFP is a practice that both requires and promotes chastity and other related virtues. He appeals to the experience of practitioners of the method to illustrate how this occurs. Among the effects that couples who use NFP report are deepened mutual respect, more honest 160 BOOK REVIEWS communication, profounder intimacy (expressed in physical but nongenital forms of communication and affection), and a fuller mutuality in all areas of their relationship (153). In the last and shortest chapter, Grabowski examines the issue of moral education. He affirms that to counter the distorted vision of sex advanced by the dominate culture, Christians must offer a compelling alternative. He asserts the importance of identifying and promoting cultural practices that foster reverence for human dignity and the development of chastity. He then sketches Servais Pinckaers's analysis of the stages of moral development, noting the role of rules at each stage. This leads him to introduce John Paul's portrayal of gradualism as the recognition that conversion is an ongoing process whereby we are called to deepen our understanding of true holiness. Lastly, Grabowski traces the role of community (family, friendship, and culture) in helping Christians to live chaste and virtuous lives. Grabowski's study has much to recommend it. The crisis that erupted in the aftermath of Humanae vitae forced the Church to consider anew the reasons for its teaching. In doing so, it has discovered elements of a richer vision of marital love. Karol Wojtyla, from his time as archbishop of Krakow and throughout his twenty-six years as pope, helped articulate these richer elements. In Sex and Virtue, Grabowski presents the fruit of these insights in an attractive and compelling way. Nonetheless, as a study of sexuality from within virtue ethics, the book suffers several limitations. First, any Christian account of virtue must confront the inherent tension between biblical and pagan conceptions of moral excellence. For example, Aristotle argues that virtue is acquired only after long training in a privileged environment, asserting that it is virtually impossible to recover from bad moral training; as a consequence, most people are unable to acquire virtue. The New Testament, however, refers explicitly to virtues such as prudence and temperance as gifts from God for which we should pray. Moral transformation is thus possible for all, even for the hardened sinner. There is, therefore, a tension between these two accounts, a tension that Grabowski never addresses. This is unfortunate because, as Aquinas recognized, the New Testament portrayal of infused moral virtue helps us understand the phenomenon of the divided self. Those who are inclined to impurity because of the residual effects of acquired vices can nonetheless live chastely in the grace of conversion by means of the infused moral virtues. Although Grabowski notes the importance of the infused moral virtues, he never develops an account of them nor considers them in relation to the acquired virtues and vices. Second, any personalist account of virtue must confront the tension between personalism and virtue ethics. While Christian personalisrn often attempts to prescind from questions of nature and the natural teleology inscribed in human nature, virtue theorists increasingly assert the need for a renewed philosophy of nature. The analogy with language is instructive. Language is learned in the context of one's initiation into the goal-directed tasks of a community. If, therefore, there is a natural language inscribed in the body, this implies that there is also a goal inscribed in human nature and that certain activities naturally 161 BOOK REVIEWS promote the attainment of that goal. What these natural goal-directed tasks are and how are they transformed and elevated by grace are questions that Christian personalism cannot skirt. Otherwise, appeals to the "language of the body" risk becoming as unintelligible to our contemporaries as neo-Scholastic natural-law arguments are. In other words, unless John Paul's personalism is rooted in a renewed philosophy of nature, appeals to it risk becoming attempts to teach a language outside of the nature context in which that language is lived. The language can be learned by rote, but it will always remain a foreign language and not a natural idiom. This is what makes Grabowski's reserve toward Aquinas unfortunate. Aquinas's treatment of nature--even his conception of the sins against nature, which Grabowski sharply criticizes-<>ffer more resources for the renewal of Catholic sexual ethics than Grabowski recognizes. Even with these limitations, however, Grabowski's study offers a fine introduction to Catholic sexual teaching from a Christian personalist perspective. It can serve as a useful resource for helping couples discover the liberating beauty of Catholic sexual teaching. MICHAEL SHERWIN, 0.P. University of Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland Ethics and Theological Disclosures: The Thought ofRobert Sokolowski. Edited by GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B. and JAMES G. HART. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 198. $69.95 (cloth) ISBN 0-8132-1351-7. Anyone who knows Husserlian phenomenology knows about Robert Sokolowski. Anyone who knows Sokolowski will know of his seminal studies in phenomenology. The list is impressive-The Formation of Husserl's Concept of Constitution (1964), Husserlian Meditations: How Words Present Things (197 4 ), Presence and Absence: A Philosophical Investigation of Language and Being (1978), Moral Action: A Phenomenological Study (1985), Introduction to Phenomenology (2000)-and the list goes on. But Msgr. Sokolowski is not only a phenomenologist; he is also a Catholic theologian-a theologian who brings his phenomenological perspective to bear on his theology. Representative works include The God ofFaith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (1982, 1995) and Eucharistic Presence: A Study in The Theology of Disclosure (1994). As Sokolowski's phenomenological philosophical perspective informs his theological reflections, so his classically rooted Aristotelian-Thomistic perspective informs his phenomenological work. In both respects his gifts have proved invaluable and his contributions illuminating. 162 BOOK REVIEWS The present volume is a Festshrift yielded by a conference organized by Fr. Guy Mansini at the St. Meinrad School of Theology honoring Sokolowski on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday. James Hart tells us in his preface that because an earlier "Sokofest" was devoted primarily to Sokolowski's philosophical writings (see The Truthful and the Good: Essays in Honor of Robert Sokolowski, ed. John J. Drummond and James G. Hart, 1996), it was decided that this one would aim primarily at his ethical writings and theology. The contributions to this volume, following a helpful introduction by Guy Mansini, are organized around several key themes in Sokolowski's work. The first clusters of essays (by John Drummond, Richard Cobb-Stevens, and Guy Mansini) deal with ethics generally, and with justice and friendship in particular. The second group of essays (by Owen Sadlier, Gerard Jacobitz, James G. Hart, John McCarthy, and John Brough) deals with various aspects of Sokolowski's theology of disclosure. Francis Slade introduces the theme of politics in a subsequent essay that pushes the ethical concerns of the volume into the sphere of questions of sovereignty. Finally, Sokolowski himself provides a capstone essay on the disclosure of the Trinity in the use of personal pronouns by Jesus and others in the New Testament. A list of Sokolowski's publications from 1959-2003, prepared by John Drummond, is appended to the contributed essays. The first group of essays on justice and friendship are led off by John Drummond's essay, "Judging One's Own Case," which concerns cases of judgment where one's impartiality may be called into question because of a conflict of (self-)interest. Drummond says that his purpose is not so much to challenge Sokolowski's account of the issue (in "Friendship and Moral Action in Aristotle") as to "complicate" it-an undertaking he executes with remarkable success by means of illustrations involving an imaginary "Dr. Peebrane" and symbolic analytics such as Q;[[(Q,A - k,,x)(B + k,,x) = (Q,A + k,,x)(B-k,,x)J] where Q; represents the irrelevant interests that are not allowed to operate over the content of the just judgment, and so on. The upshot is that we must learn to exercise a kind of "hospitality" toward the parties involved in our judgments, discerning their interests and bracketing our own irrelevant interests, much as friends would. Richard Cobb-Stevens and Guy Mansini take up the theme of friendship explicitly-the former philosophically, the latter theologically, but both depending expressly on Sokolowski's analysis of its categoriality. Cobb-Stevens begins with Sokolowski' s categoriality of moral action-"the recognition of what is good or bad for another ... as good or bad for me"-noting that the discernment involved in friendship, as opposed to justice, is based less on detachment and impartiality and more on mutual affection and common ends, and, at least in perfect friendship, on a regard for the other and the mutual friendship as ends in themselves. If the categoriality of moral action is elevated to a kind of perfection in friendship, Mansini argues that the categoriality of friendship is perfected, BOOK REVIEWS 163 "under theological pressure," by elevating it to its supernatural end. "When St. Thomas identified the charity poured into our heart by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5 :5) with friendship," he writes, "he pressed into theological service the philosophical appreciation of friendship found in the Nichomachean Ethics." Friendship is here transformed in such a way that its primary analogue is not friendship between virtuous Athenian gentlemen or even between philosophers, but between Christians and their God. Mansini thus applies Sokolowski's categoriality in showing both how God makes our good his own and how we make God's good our own. The next duster of five essays, devoted to Sokolowski's theology of disclosure, begins with Owen Sadlier's discussion of foundational elements. Basic to this theology is the peculiar distinction Christians make between God and the world-the distinction Sokolowski calls "the Christian distinction"-namely, that God plus the world is not more than God. Beginning with this distinction, Sadlier discusses the epistemology of disdosure in connection with Sokolowski's essays "Making Distinctions" and "Picturing"; the ontology of disclosure in conjunction with Sokolowski's understanding of "genetic constitution" (as a basis for his view of biblical exegesis) and the logic of "parts and wholes" (in view of the Christian distinction between God and world)-showing, finally, how Sokolowski's analysis of "presence and absence" directs thinking beyond philosophy to revealed theology. Gerard Jacobitz offers an intriguing discussion of the disdosive function of metaphor, drawing on Paul Ricoeur as well as Sokolowski in examining how statements such as "Red is a loud color" effect an unfamiliar identity synthesis by means of a "submerged analogy" to yield a "surplus of meaning." Suggesting that metaphor may be pressed into theological service, Jacobitz argues that George Lindbeck's postliberal "cultural-linguistic" approach to religion may help us see how. He cites Lindbeck's hypothesis that Christian doctrines function as grammatical rules within a particular language game and refer neither to something "out there" in the world (as "cognitive-propositionalists" suppose) nor "in there" at the center of human experience (as "experiential-expressivists" suppose), but rather to "something utterly mysterious." But if Christian doctrines retain their "transcendental value" on this view, as Jacobitz suggests they do, it remains for someone to spell out more precisely how. James Hart explores the wholes and parts of "the Christian distinction" in order to reflect on the questions about divine intentionality this generates. If God's being is absolutely self-subsistent and immanent., and there is nothing outside of it that can either add to or detract from it or account for the being of creatures, then God's being is innermost to all that is in such a way that the innermost core of each creature lies outside itself in God. This means not only that God may not be conceived simply as a transcendent object, but also that the self-presence of divine being does not involve the separation of itself from itself that intentionality typically requires. This leads to a consideration of Franz Brentano, who ·rejects the Christian distinction since he finds intentionality essential to God, as well as the Indian philosopher Shankara, who rejects the 164 BOOK REVIEWS notion that Brahman could intend anything outside of Brahman as though it were real. The Christian distinction, however, requires the capacity of divine intentionality toward the other, even though how such self-transcendence breaks forth within the absolute immanence of divine being is difficult to say (although the Trinity begs addressing here). Sokolowski simply calls it "incomparable generosity." However it originates, this intentionality cannot result in anything greater than God alone. Hart concludes with an extended reflection on the intentionality of faith and prayer as conceptualized within the Christian distinction, the result of which is "a God more intimate to me than I am to myself." John McCarthy investigates the role of reason in the knowledge of a God whose distinction from the world is first announced in divine revelation. Taking issue with the entrenched prejudice that Christian faith has little regard for reason or its prerogatives, he explores the "reach of reason" in matters of faith, assessing the significance of the biblical locus classicus of natural theology in Romans 1: 19-20, as well as Paul's famous discourse before the Athenians on the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34). If "the reach of reason exceeds its grasp," says McCarthy, "Christian belief, though beyond human conception, can be humanly appreciated as a completion of our rational aspirations." In this connection, he raises the interesting question for Catholics of how Sokolowski's position relates to that of the First Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic Faith, Dei Filius (1870). John Brough concludes the essays in this section with a discussion of Sokolowski's Eucharistic Presence. He begins his essay by briefly addressing reservations that might arise from the {Jrimafacie difficulties that would seem to be involved in taking a phenomenological approach to investigating matters of faith. Even though phenomenology suspends the "natural attitude" and its world of belief, setting aside questions of existence, it jettisons nothing, he says, but enables us to reflect on the forms of disclosure proper (in this case) to theology. Brough also offers some observations on "the Christian distinction" and how it differs from Hegel's conception, in which the Absolute embraces within itself the finite world. But the majority of his essay is devoted to the presentational forms operative in the Eucharist. How can the Eucharist be the same sacrifice as that offered by Jesus on the cross? What is conceptually impossible within the temporal horizon of the mundane perspective becomes possible only as reconceptualized within the domain of faith against the horizon established by "the Christian distinction" where the Eucharist discloses itself as the eternal entering into time. Francis Slade turns our attention in a new direction in his essay, "Rule and Argument in Political Philosophy." As we learn from Mansini's introduction, Slade here continues a thread of reasoning about sovereignty begun in the first volume of essays dedicated to Sokolowski. He contrasts ancient and modern selfunderstandings of regimes. In contrast to Aristotle, whose understanding of political life is grounded in nature, a basic canon of modern philosophy is that the concept of a thing does not come to us from nature; therefore, a fortiori, the state is not grounded in nature but exists by reason. Slade finds an anticipation BOOK REVIEWS 165 of this difference in two arguments in Plato's Crito. One is "an argument for obedience, but it is the obedience of a philosopher, and therefore, appropriately it is a philosophical argument." The other is "an argument for rule, but it is not a philosophical argument," but "an argument propounded by the rulers of a republic, the laws." Slade then shows how this distinction is collapsed in modern political theory, illustrating this in Thomas Hobbes. The characteristic modern assumption about political obligation, he says, is that the arguments of philosophy are reducible to the arguments of rule. "Unlike Socrates in the Crito," writes Slade, "Hobbes unreservedly and emphatically identifies himself with the political arguments and the political arguments with reason." The final essay of the collection, by Msgr. Sokolowski himself, is entitled "The Revelation of the Holy Trinity: A Study in Personal Prounouns." He begins by setting the ground for what a phenomenological theology of disclosure can do by contrasting it with other approaches. It differs from "speculative" Scholastic theology by focusing on how the Christian mystery comes to light, rather than on its definition, and from "positive" historical theology by focusing on structural necessities rather than primarily on matters of fact. He then proceeds to a detailed discussion of how the Trinity is disclosed through the use of personal pronouns by and about Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament-but especially on Jesus' use of the declarative form of the pronoun "I," to reveal the Father and to reveal himself as the Father's Word. PHillP BLOSSER Lenoir-Rhyne College Hickory, North Carolina Truth in the Making: Knowledge and Creation in Modern Theology and Philosophy. By ROBERT C. MINER. New York: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 192. $33.95 (paper). ISBN 0-415276985. Robert Miner's Truth in the Making has been published in the Radical Orthodoxy series edited by John Milbank. The movement claims to "combine a sophisticated understanding of contemporary thought, modern and postmodern, with a theological perspective that looks back to the origins of the Church." At first glance, Miner's book is not an obvious fit. Outside of a few caveats, he steers clear of both postmodern and patristic theology. Readers familiar with Radical Orthodoxy's origins will make the connection that both Miner and Milbank published their first books on Vico, who also proves to be the hero of the present work. Truth in the Making explores how six pre-Kantian thinkers (Aquinas, Cusanus, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, and Vico) articulate the relationship 166 BOOK REVIEWS between making and knowing. Radical Orthodoxy thinks it for worse that the "verum-factum" has been associated so closely with Immanuel Kant. For Kant, the subject does not see the object in itself, but instead relies on the categories as well as sensible intuitions (time and space) constructed by the subject to see an appearance. Th.rough these constructions the subject gains a cognizance of the external world. Miner's thesis involves more than just the recovery of "less influential thinkers such as Vico and whoever else was fortunate enough to anticipate the Kantian standpoint" (xii). The problem at hand is not the one diagnosed by Heidegger, namely, that modernity conceives making within a mechanical-technical framework. For Radical Orthodoxy, Heideggerian "dwelling" in a world cut off from transcendence is just as nihilistic as the post-Kantian legacy culminating in Nietzsche. Miner suggests that we recover a non-nihilistic form of making that follows a trajectory analogous to that of the divine creation ex nihilo-in short, Miner wants poesis instead of techne. Miner calls Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes "the architects of radical modernity" in his analysis of their account of construction. The uniquely modern account conceives "of making as technical production that occurs within a domain that has been sealed off from the transcendent .... This conception of making differs from the earlier concept of making found in Aquinas and Cusanus .... Our criticism is not that secular modernity connects knowing and making-orthodox theologies of creating had already accomplished this linkage-but that its particular mode of connecting the two ultimately serves to deny the dignity of making itself" (xv). The most common complaint about the radically orthodox is their (alleged) butchery of texts. Such an accusation does not apply to Miner. His reading of Aquinas (ch. 1) is careful and precise. He shows how Aquinas distinguishes between making and creating. Unlike the house builder, God creates the matter with which he works. God is not a derniurge working with primordial stuff, or according to some archetypes, but instead creates ex nihilo. Consequently creation differs essentially from craft. "Creation involves no distinction between means and end, no distinction between raw material and finished product and artifact, no distinction between matter and form" (5). Divine creation does not take place over time, but is a nontemporal emanation. The divine knowledge or plan concurs with the practical decision to make. The key point is that God as creator exemplifies the verum-factum connection because the transcendentals coinhere. This point is standard for Christian metaphysics, as shown in the wellknown Anselmian insistence that God's justice and mercy do not cancel or contradict each other. This chapter would have been improved by including a discussion of actus purus to explain why God's creation does not happen in the way we are conditioned to understand how anything happens. To understand creation, says Aquinas, one must have a knowledge of the Trinitarian persons. The verbum and amor in Trinitarian creation excludes both arbitrariness and necessity. Aquinas writes, "The fact of saying that God made all things by His Word excludes the error of those who say that God produced things by necessity" (STh I, q. 32, a. 1). This leads Miner to conclude that BOOK REVIEWS 167 creation is not a technical making, but more like a poesis. (On this point, Miner's general thesis would have been filled out a bit by treating Luther and Hamann. For these two creation is always a word spoken. Especially in Hamann, this insight informs much of his counter-Enlightenment diatribe. It is no secret that Radical Orthodoxy views Hamann, along with Vico, as a prophet of radical orthodoxy, but it remains to be seen whether Hamann's-and Milbank'spronounced fideism can fit under the same tent as the sober, critical realism of Aquinas.) Having explained how God makes, Miner turns to human making in Aquinas. Humans are already given the matter with which they work, but human malting shares an analogy to divine making in a twofold fashion: in the use of freedom and intelligence, and in interior conception, an example of which would be the ability to conceive a perfect triangle (9). Consequently the knowing process is not restricted to realism, but also includes a construction usually attributed to later thinkers. Further, humans participate in creation in that God's providence makes room for human freedom and decision. The question of participation leads Miner to discuss analogy in Thomas. Miner successfully navigates through the various extreme solutions regarding Aquinas's understanding of analogy and concludes that, "the analogy of being is, in its most basic form, a participation of the esse of creatures in the esse of God, considered as their efficient, exemplary and final cause" ( 16). In bringing out the neo-Platonic moments of Thomas's metaphysics, Miner shows how human making, while distinct from divine making, does not take place in a sealed-off pseudo-autonomous realm. Only by insisting on such a metaphysics of analogy can one preserve the integrity of human making without severing human creativity from divine participation. Miner's chapters on Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes show how the secular continues to expand at the expense of the sacred. A herrneneutical precision informs his reading; he portrays both Bacon and Descartes as thinkers whose expansion of the secular seems more accidental than malicious. In The Advancement of Leaming, Bacon dedares that, without charity, "the ideal of fruitful knowledge will degenerate into mere power" (55). Bacon's modern turn against Scholasticism has as much to do with Scholasticism's privileging of contemplation over charity as with its pretension. Still, as much as Bacon carves out room for charity, his division between faith and reason goes beyond Scholasticism's distinction. Miner concludes: "Bacon's secular successors have responded to this incoherence ... 'Why should natural philosophy serve charity ... [if charity involves] a conception of the good which cannot be rationally justified, but only fideistically asserted?" (59). After treating Bacon, Miner uncovers how Descartes posits a continuous creation that does not allow for a "secular space" that is not given, but paradoxically affirms human autonomy in construction and knowing. One must tum to Hobbes for the resolution of this paradox. Hobbes privileges the role of making, leading such interpreters as Leo Strauss to attribute an arbitrary voluntarism to Hobbes. Miner points out that, for Hobbes, the making of 168 BOOK REVIEWS definitions is first philosophy, but this making is arbitrary only in a limited sense (85). These points carry over into Hobbes's political philosophy. The commonwealth is a human artifact, but, as Miner argues convincingly, it is not a creation ex nihilo. It arises instead out of the nature given to human beings. Consequently, Hobbes makes a firm connection between making and knowing, but one also needs a familiarity with the given matter that pre-exists what is made. At the end of the chapter on Hobbes, Miner states most clearly what is at stake in the verum-factum question that occupied these thinkers (95). Hobbes's mistake was to reject dogmatism and insist that his Leviathan followed the same rigor as geometry. But there is a final cause in the commonwealth, namely, the protection of its members, and without this final cause the very impetus to make this commonwealth disappears. As Miner explains, there are several options once one separates final causality from making. One can dismiss anything made as the product of human hubris. But here one does not get much farther than Heidegger's pseudo-religion. Or one can embrace the factum, either by turning man into God, or, more nihilistically, by saying that reality is nothing but arbitrary human constructs that one can deconstruct at one's fancy. For the Christian tradition and Radical Orthodoxy, none of these options are viable. Miner embraces Vico, who rearticulates how the making of the truth is inscribed within a theological metaphysics. Miner is a good reader of texts, and his arguments are well constructed and easy to follow. Unlike some Radical Orthodoxy scholarship, Miner resists the temptation to attribute to any of these architects of modernity all of modernity's deleterious results. If anything, Miner encourages his readership to re-engage these authors, instead of giving the impression that one need not bother. Despite these strengths, the book still falls short in many respects. Radical Orthodoxy proposes to do an alternative historiography writ large, but Miner's work pays little attention to historiography writ small. The chapter on Aquinas relies almost exclusively on the Summa Theologiae. Some of the more impressive scholarship on Aquinas in recent decades has examined the development of Aquinas's thought, or taken Aquinas seriously as a biblical thinker. Of the scant secondary literature listed by Miner, nearly all of it comes from the Englishspeaking world or has been translated. More specifically, Miner never says whether the Summa is exhaustive for Thomas's understanding of the question at hand. In the same vein, he relies quite heavily on Cusanus's Idiota de Mente without saying why. If Miner's selection of texts appears as if by fiat, so does his selection of authors. Why these six, and not Suarez or Leibniz? Would the story run differently if chapters on Spinoza and Wolff were included? It is not my suspicion that Miner is naive, but that this work, coming so closely on the heels of his first book on Vico, seems rushed. This also underlies the weakness of the Radical Orthodoxy editors, who, in general, have been more concerned about launching offensives than about doing the careful, meticulous work that scholarship requires. The care that Miner shows in explaining certain texts should have been extended. In short, the book could have been more BOOK REVIEWS 169 German. Still, Truth in the Making tells a compelling story. Readers interested in early modernity and the relation between knowing and making will find many gems in Miner's work. GRANT KAPLAN Loyola University New Orleans, Louisiana Natural Law Reconsidered: The Ethics of Human Liberation. By STEPHEN THERON. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. Pp.213. $35.95 (paper). ISBN 08204-5414-X. The thesis of this book is that there is a need to transcend a legalistic approach in ethics by emphasizing the role of charity and creativity in the moral life. The book seeks a liberation not from human nature or human indination but rather from the false constraints of human law and misconstruals of the natural law. In coming to his condusions, Theron draws on a wide variety of sources including Old and New Testaments, twentieth-century analytic philosophy, and contemporary continental philosophy. Theron's primary authorities in this reconstruction are Aristotle and Aquinas but surprisingly also Nietzsche. For Theron, Nietzsche's role is to help deconstruct moralistic and legalistic understandings of the natural law that have crept into the interpretation of some Thomists, such as Grisez and Finnis. Theron seeks to integrate the various components of Thomas's construal of the moral life into a coherent whole. His wide-ranging work treats subjects in applied ethics such as legal and moral debt (ch. 7), eros (ch. 8), murder (ch. 9), and the beatitudes (ch. 11), as well as handling more theoretical topics such as natural law (ch.1), virtue (ch. 2), consequentialism (ch. 3), and natural inclinations (ch.14). A central daim of the book is that natural law is, for Thomas, not really a "law" in the proper sense of the term, since Thomas links natural law to human indinations and flourishing rather than what Theron calls an a priori moralism. "There are many ... indications of how far Aquinas is from attaching any literal legality to natural law, which he defines as a reflected divine light, something rather distant from any usual notion of law, to say the least'" (13). A law, for Thomas, is a dictate of reason for the common good promulgated by the one who has care of the community (STh HI, q. 90, a. 4). Theron insists that natural law should not be considered truly a "law" because, among other reasons, the divine promulgation of a natural law would be akin to a divine command theory of ethics (51). Theron also holds that Jesus' command of love discretely discards the old ethics of law and obedience for a new ethics of love and creativity. "One 170 BOOK REVIEWS acts according to natural law when one's action is in tune with reality, especially the reality of one's needs" (12). He sees then a great disjunction between the emphasis of the New Testament and that of the Old. In this, he believes he follows the lead of Thomas. "Aquinas, after a preliminary nod at the Old Testament, declares that the new or gospel law, the one that counts, is nothing written at all, but, rather, a grace or charity infused into the human heart" (13). Certain difficulties for this quasi-Marcionite approach present themselves when one considers the Summa Theologiae as a whole. The Summa makes much more than a preliminary nod at the Old Testament; indeed the discussion of the Old Law is much longer than the discussion of natural law, human law, or the new law. Although subsequent interpreters give it much attention, Thomas's treatment of the natural law is relatively brief. The Decalogue plays a prominent role in Thomas's treatment of the moral life, especially his treatment of the virtue of justice. Nor is the importance of the Old Testament limited to "moral" issues. In Christ's Fulfillment of Temple and Torah: Salvation According to Thomas Aquinas (a book appearing after Theron's), Matthew Levering argues convincingly that Thomas sees Christ as fulfilling the Hebrew Scriptures in an unsurpassed and unique way. He came not to destroy the original covenants between God and his people but to fulfill them. In various sections, Theron's book addresses the relationship between freedom and law, and love and law (112), but it could have overcome its assumption of a freedom-law dichotomy by incorporating the work of Servais Pinckaers on the distinction between freedom of indifference and freedom for excellence. For Thomas, New Law and Old Law are both extrinsic principles given to us by God to help us to achieve the good. For the most part, Theron operates under a more recent paradigm according to which law and freedom are opposed rather than seeing law, at least good la"llv, as serving authentic freedom. Theron is right to distance himself from a law unrelated to love, but his emphasis sometimes veers towards antinomianism. Theron is aware of a possible weakness of his view: namely, that his "creative" ethic could foster acts that he himself abhors. One could imagine a "creative" ethic that led to the killing of "the unfit, the aged, unwanted or handicapped infants, born or unborn, excess female children, lingering AIDS victims" (125). To combat what he calls the anti-ontological stance, echoing arguments made in Centesimus annus, Theron notes a certain contradiction whenever violations of the weak take place with the approval of a democracy. "In effect, if it is laid in the hands of a majority to decide who becomes, or when, a member of the human community, then human rights have already been abolished. The idea of such rights presupposes that one, everyone, has already a right to membership of that community, and that can only be through biologically belonging to that species" (131). He also emphasizes the goodness of human nature, in its physicality not only in its rationality. Properly understood in its anti-Cartesian fullness, the person on the Thomistic view is a unity of body and soul, and this unity has ontological value. BOOK REVIEWS 171 Theron finds confirmation of this view in the papal magisterium. He has a great appreciation of Veritatis splendor, and highlights some neglected themes from the encyclical. "Those who feel constrained at the thought of having a natural teleology simply fail to understand the nature of freedom. Freedom does not begin where nature leaves off, but is rather its crowning aspect as being of the essence of rationality itself, will flowing from intellect as intellect itself flows from the substance of soul" (199). Thus, freedom cannot be properly understood as a simply an indifference between good and evil, but rather as the ability to do good, to fulfill one's nature, to achieve one's end. Interestingly Theron reads in the encyclical not only a condemnation of liberalizing trends among moral theologians but also an implicit correction of their most vigorous opponents. "Thus John Paul's understanding of those inclinations which are knowingly referred to integral personal fulfillment as being the source of the moral law is utterly faithful to Thomism and indeed supplies a corrective to certain rationalizing interpretations" (201). Theron sees Veritatissplendoras a critique, not an affirmation, of the Grisez-Finnis position. Although the book is primarily philosophical, sections are undoubtedly theological. "One effect of the legal notion of sin is to set a gulf between Jesus and other human beings. 'Which of you can convict me of sin?' Uesus] is represented as saying, and the whole idea has been institutionalized in the notion of original sin, from which Jesus alone (or perhaps Mary his mother) is held to be free. But if there is no law interposed between love and its object there is, in this sense, no sin either .... This is not my first attempt to rescue sin from legal categories. In an earlier paper, I tried to generalize it as an envious resentment on the part of the creature at being a creature and not God. Now, today, I don't think God minds us wanting to be God. He rather encourages it: 'greater things than I shall you do'." (64). Unfortunately, Theron's treatment of the uniqueness of Jesus and the notion of original sin is much too brief to do justice to these important topics. Original sin can be interpreted in a legalistic way, but it can also underscore a common human condition in need of God's help in Christ. And, although "sin" can be misunderstood as merely a violation of an arbitrary rule, our present circumstances suggest that relatively few people labor under scrupulosity with respect to capricious moral norms. Much more common today is the tendency to disregard even well-established norms with a close, if not necessary, connection to human inclination, flourishing, and love. Finally, if God doesn't mind us wanting to be God, it is difficult to understand the purpose of the ordering of loves suggested by Jesus: love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. A God of love would not want us to want to be God, since to want to be God is to ensure that one's desire will never be satisfied. The style and argumentative structure of Natural Law Reconsideredis often difficult to follow, with various themes and quotations appearing and reappearing without a clear sense of their place in the larger argumentative whole of the chapter and book. Indeed, argument per se is often missing. Theron spends a good deal of time implicitly and explicitly criticizing the natural-law theory of Grisez and Finnis, but unfortunately he does not engage their views 172 BOOK REVIEWS with sufficient care. Although frequently mentioned, actual quotations from Grisez and Finnis are scarce and deep engagement with and refutation of their arguments is missing entirely. The natural-law work of Ralph Mcinerny, Russell Bittinger, Martin Rhonheimer, and other prominent authors in this area are not included in the discussion at all. Nevertheless, filled with potentially fruitful directions of development of the natural-law tradition, the work of this book may yet find completion in future studies. CHRISTOPHER KACZOR Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, California