The Thomist 71 (2007): 171-98

A CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDING OF
ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER
GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B.
Saint Meinrad Archabbey
Saint Meinrad, Indiana

T

HE SACRAMENTAL CHARACTER of orders is treated by
St. Thomas in several places. The most extensive treatments
lie in his commentary on the Sentences, where he deals with
the effects of baptism and orders, and in the Summa Theologiae,
where he treats the sacraments in general. The latter in particular
presents a problem internal to his view. My purpose in this article
is to offer a speculative solution to this problem, 1 and to link this
solution with the way the Second Vatican Council talks about
priests in Presbyterorum ordinis 2.
The problem internal to St. Thomas's account of sacerdotal
sacramental character shows up clearly in the Tertia Pars of the
Summa, question 63. It can be stated as follows. In itself, sacramental character is fully realized only in the character of orders, 2
and sacerdotal character is a power received from Christ through
the sacrament of orders. The primary act of this power is to confect the Eucharist, and its secondary act is to dispose the faithful
1 It is a problem internal to his account of character as such; however, the priestly
character is the primary instance of character for St. Thomas, and this will be the main
concern of this paper.
2 Note the distinction between receiving gifts and bestowing gifts in STh III, q. 63, a. 2:
baptismal character is receptive, sacerdotal character active. For St. Thomas's consideration
of sacerdotal character as the analogatum princeps relative to the characters of baptism and
confirmation, see Jean Galot, La nature du caractere sacramentel: Etude de theologie medievale
(Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1956), 179-81; and Pierre-Marie Gy, O.P., "Evolution de saint
Thomassur la i::heologiedu sacrament de l'Ordre," Revue thomiste 99 (1999): 181-89, at 18586.

171

172

GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B.

for the reception of communion by absolving them of their sins. 3
The power of orders is a power of efficiency, perfective of and
not merely dispositive to its effect. 4 It is, however, a merely
instrumental power. Instrumental power, furthermore, is only a
vis fluens, the transient motion of the instrument precisely as it is
being moved by the controlling hand of the principal agent to
produce an effect beyond the proportion of the instrument itself. 5
As transient, instrumental power is received in the instrument
only while it is being used. Therefore, it should follow that the
character is received in the priest only when he says Mass or hears
confessions. To the contrary, and as a datum received from a
prior tradition in which St. Thomas has perfect confidence, the
character is indelible, something permanent in the priest.
The ordinary solution to this problem given by those who try
with care, accuracy, and reverence to expound St. Thomas's view
of sacramental character is to distinguish the character imparted
by orders from the instrumental power received at the very time
the priest confects the Eucharist or pronounces absolution. On
this view, the character is a permanent capacity for sacramental
action, a permanent qualification of the priest, but there is a
further power received when the sacrament is celebrated, a
temporary vis. Receiving the sacramental character, therefore, is
as it were like iron being given an edge, or like an axe head being
fitted to the handle-the iron is "instrumentalized," made into an
instrument. In the use of the instrument, however, there is an
altogether new power given it, according as it is moved now in
this way, now that, now with this force at this angle and now with
For this, see N Sent., d. 24, q. 3, a. 2, qla., 1 = STh Suppl., q. 40, a. 4.
See H.-D. Dondaine, O.P., "Apropos d'Avicenne et de saint Thomas: De la causalite
dispositive ala causalite insturmentale," Revue Thomiste 51 (1951): 441-53. A good overview
of St. Thomas's sacramental theology as a whole is provided by John P. Yocum, "Sacraments
in Aquinas," in Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed. Thomas Weinandy, Daniel
Keating, and John Yocum (NewYork: T. & T. Clark, 2004), 159-81.
5 See the key texts on instrumentality in De Potentia, q. 3, aa. 4 and 7; and St. Thomas's
commentary on the first proposition of the Liber de causis. See also Bernard J. F. Lonergan,
Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. J. Patout
Burns (New York: Herder, 1971), 80-84; and idem, "On God and Secondary Causes," in
Collection, ed. F. E. Crowe (New York: Herder, 1967), 54-67.
3

4

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

173

that force at that angle, to square the timber or notch the log or
whatever it might be that the principal agent is doing.
There is nothing incoherent in this view, and it is, in fact, more
or less standard. 6 The very language of sealing and marking that
St. Thomas inherits lends itself to this way of taking things. A
soldier may be marked with a seal, but he is not always fighting.
Moreover, there are several texts that suggest this sort of solution.
A passage from the Summa contra Gentiles seems especially to
envisage sacramental character as a stable power distinct from the
discrete acts that, from time to time, flow from it. 7
There is, however, an alternative avenue of reconciliation:
namely, that while the character is indeed a mere vis fluens, the
transient power imparted to the priest only while being used by
the principal agent to confect the sacraments, Christ is in fact
always using the priest. So to speak, he is an axe the builder never
lets out of his hand, but is always using.
The difficulty that immediately presents itself is that it seems
we would have to imagine the priest always saying Mass or
hearing confessions every minute of his life. Since it is manifestly
untrue that priests do this or even can do this, the alternative
solution must be false. Addressing this difficulty is the chief
burden of this paper. First, however, we shall look at some key
passages of question 63 of the Tertia Pars.
I. SUMMA THEOLOGIAE III, QUESTION 63

After describing the character in article 1 as a spiritual sign
bespeaking the Christian's deputation to "something spiritual
6 See, e.g., Stephen McCormack, O.P., "The Configuration of the Sacramental Character,"
The Thomist 7 (1944): 458-91, at 468, 470, 480; Emmanuel Doronzo, O.M.I., Tractatus
dogmaticus De ordine, Tom. III: De causis extrinsecis (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), 252-53,
following John of St. Thomas; Colman O'Neill, O.P., "The Instrumentality of the Sacramental
Character," Irish Theological Quarterly 25 (1958): 262-68, at 265; William van Roo, S.J., De
sacramentis in genere, 2d ed. (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1960), 248-49; John F.
Gallagher, C.M., Significando Causant: A Study of Sacramental Efficiency (Fribourg,
Switzerland: The University Press, 1965), 234.
7 ScG IV, c. 77. At STh III, q. 69, a. 10, Thomas calls the baptismal character a "quasiform."

174

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

pertaining to the worship of God" (aliquid spirituale pertinens ad
cultum Dei), St. Thomas defines it more narrowly in the next
article as a spiritual power, active or passive as the case may be for
the giving or receiving of a sacrament. Specifically, it is an
instrumental power, for according to Aristotle, ministers are a
kind of animate instrument. Saint Thomas says most explicitly
that it is an instrumental power, "as was said above regarding the
power which is in the sacraments" (sicut supra dictum est de
virtute quae est in sacramentis). Moreover, he explains:
just as the power which is in the sacraments is not in a genus of itself but is so by
reduction, since it is something fluid and incomplete, so also the character is not
properly in a genus or species, but is reduced to the second species of quality. 8

"Just as ... so also": this speaks very strongly for conceiving the
character also as a vis fluens. If it were not, it would be a stable
form and so not "reduced" to the second species of quality but
rather would properly and simply speaking be said to be a power.
The text assimilates the character of the priest or baptized person
to the instrumental power of the sacraments themselves and indicates no distinction whatsoever. The task is to see whether
everything else St. Thomas says about the character fits with this
straightforward way of taking article 2.
The natural sense of speaking of "character" and "sealing"
reasserts itself in article 3, where we are led to think of a sort of
permanent mark by analogy with a military seal. The same sense
appears in article 4, in the reply to the first objection, where the
character is spoken of as "disposing" the soul to doing what
pertains to the divine cult, and therefore seemingly as something
stable beyond and independently of its subject's actually
celebrating or receiving a sacrament.
The greatest difficulty for this way of reading article 2 lies in
article 5, which asserts the indelibility of the sacramental character. The corpus argues for the perpetual nature of the character
8 STh III, q. 63, a. 2: "sicut virtus quae est in sacramentis, non est in genere per se, sed per
reductionem, eo quod est quiddam fluens et incompletum; ita etiam character non proprie est
in genere vel specie, sed reducitur ad secundam speciem qualitatis."

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

175

in virtue of the perpetual nature of the intellect, where St.
Thomas locates it, and on the ground that the character is a kind
of consecration; therefore, just as an altar remains consecrated for
as long as it lasts once it has been consecrated, so also a man's
intellect is "characterized" for as long as it lasts, which is forever.
The reply to the third objection states that even after wayfaring
and in glory, where sacraments shall pass away, the character
remams.
It is just here, though, in article 5, that the initial reading of
article 2 reasserts itself, in the replies to the first and second
objections. In the first reply, St. Thomas sharply distinguishes the
ways in which grace and the character are in the soul. Grace
subsists there as a form, "having complete being in it" (habens esse
completum in ea), but character only as some instrumental power.
Grace subsists, therefore, according to the condition of the graced
person, but character according to that of the principal agent.
And therefore character inheres in the soul indelibly, not on account of its own
perfection, but on account of the perfection of the priesthood of Christ from
which the character is derived as a kind of instrumental power. 9

Very clearly, again, the character is not a stable form, but
something constantly derived from the principal agent, a vis
fluens. It is indelible even so, however, because of the perfection
of the principal agent, who always has this instrument in his hand.
We should probably think of the perfection of the priesthood of
Christ along the lines of the Letter to the Hebrews, for which it
is perfect because it is eternal, founded on a "once and for all"
entering into the sanctuary of heaven. Christ, whose priesthood
remains forever, is as it were always using the. instrument;
therefore, the vis, transient as it might be, is always newly infused.
This seems to be very exactly stated in the reply to the next
objection, which argues that since one may pass from the worship

9 STh III, q. 63, a. 5, ad 1: "Et ideo character indelibiliter inest animae, non propter sui
perfectionem, sed propter perfectionem sacerdotii Christi a quo derivatur character sicut
quaedam instrumentalis virtus."

176

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

of Christ into apostasy, the character, which deputes one to the
worship of Christ, can be lost.
The idea of an instrument consists in this, that it be moved by another, but not
in this, that it move itself, which belongs to the will. And therefore, however
much the will be moved unto the contrary, the character is not removed, on
account of the immobility of the principal mover. 10

No matter what the one who has received the character does or
wills, the principal agent immutably moves him. Thus, the
character, an instrumental power, is always to be imputed to the
one baptized or ordained, because he is always being used by
Christ the priest. 11 To be sure, the priest is not always saying Mass
or hearing confessions. How, then, can he be thought to be always
being used by Christ, the high priest?
Our investigation shall proceed by considering five aspects of
this topic: (1) the analogy with a tool; (2) the sign value of the
character; (3) the acts St. Thomas associates with the character;
(4) the relation of the priesthood to the episcopacy, and the
episcopacy's relation to the Church; 12 and (5) the Eucharist as the
culmination of Christian life and so of priestly ministry. We shall
then be ready link up the discussion to Prebyterorum ordinis.
II. THE TOOL ANALOGY

In thinking about sacramental character, and in thinking of it
as the factor that "instrumentalizes" a Christian relative to the
STh III, q. 63, a. 5, ad 2: "ratio ... instrumenti consistit in hoc quod ab alio moveatur,
non autem in hoc quod ipsum se moveat, quod pertinet ad voluntatem. Et ideo,
quantumcumque voluntas moveatur in contrarium, character non removetur, propter
immobilitatem principalis moventis."
11 It must not be thought that identifying the character with that part of the causality of the
sacraments for which the priest is responsible and of which sacraments he is the minister
would reduce the character to an exterior deputation. The vis fluens of which the character
consists is real; the relation of dependence of sacramental grace on the priest is real. As for the
question that the defrocked and apostate priest poses, a failed priest does not cease to be
someone marked by ordination, but becomes in addition a sort of preeminent invitation to
think of the mystery of providence and freedom, as Graham Greene knew.
12 That relation has been thought to encompass the whole of a bishop's life, in which all
his energy is exhausted in his ministry. This will turn out to help us to a solution.
10

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

177

sacraments, it is helpful to work out the analogy of hand tools,
already invoked, in more detail. First comes the making of a hand
tool, then its use. In making a hammer, for example, a lump of
iron is fashioned into the head. Next, the head is fitted to a
handle. Fashioning the head gives the instrument its own nature,
in virtue of which it can convey a certain force in the plane of the
flat surface of the head, over an area of a square inch or so. The
handle lets the head be connected to the principal agent; it is the
configuration of the tool to the hand of the carpenter. As for its
use, the hammer can deliver some force simply when dropped or
in motion because it is thrown and intersecting with something in
its path. But then it is not really being used and is not really
operating as the instrument it is. When it is used as an instrument,
the principal agent ensures that the plane of the hammer head is
parallel to the plane of the nail head, that the line of force does
not vary from the line of the nail, and that this force is deployed
regularly, at fixed distances. In this way, the hammer contributes
to an effect-the roof installed, the house framed-beyond its
nature.
Now, if the sacramental character makes a man an instrument,
is it like shaping the head of the hammer, putting an edge on an
axe head? Or is it like fitting the business end of the tool to a
handle? It is not like shaping the iron of hammer or axe. Consider
what the priest does at Mass, what he brings as an instrument to
making the sacrament. He produces the sacramental sign, the
sacramentum tantum, whose formal element is the words of
consecration. In other words, he quotes the words of Christ at the
Last Supper. But anyone can do that, and the priest does not need
to be refashioned in order to quote Christ. If it be true that only
an ordained priest consecrates, because only he is the instrument
of Christ at Mass, then his being made an instrument is not like
the iron being given a new shape. Furthermore, St. Thomas holds
that what makes a creature a supernatural instrument of God
cannot be communicated to it as a stable habit, but can only be
the transient motion it receives as moved by God, and this seems

178

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

to argue against taking the character in this first way of something
being made an instrument. 13
Is his being made an instrument therefore a matter of the
priest's being "enhandled," conformed to Christ so as to be connected to the humanity of Christ, as an axe head is enhandled to
conform to a man's hand? But this is no good either. Such conformation does not consist in holiness, for that is a matter of grace
and the virtues, nor in any stable, complete form, for that is just
how St. Thomas distinguishes character from grace. 14 It seems that
there is nothing for the conformation of the instrument to consist
in except the person's simply being used by Christ the priest. 15
Therefore, if we want to think along the lines of a hand tool,
we must say that the priest is not like a hammer whose head must
be shaped in order to be a hammer, or like a stone axe whose
unshaped stone head is lashed to a handle. Rather, he is like a
stone that is simply picked up and used to pound nails. The stone
remains a tool for as long as it is being used; the priest remains an
instrument of Christ the priest as long as he is used by Christ. The
character will be indelible, moreover, if the priest is always being
used, and there is therefore always in the priest the vis fluens, the
instrumental power, of which the character consists. In this way
of thinking, the character does not enable sacramental acts so
much as consist in them. More precisely, the character is the vis
of these acts as causing grace, which is to say it is the relation of
dependence of their supernatural effect on them. 16 In this way of
thinking, the priest is always somehow acting as a priest.
13 See STh II-II, q. 178, a. 1, ad 1. For this reason and apropos of this very text,
McCormack holds that "the character is a completely unique reality" ("The Configuration of
the Sacramental Character," 468). The point of departure of this paper is that such uniqueness
is highly suspicious. The issue at STh II-II, q. 178, a. 1, ad 1, is the power to perform miracles,
but this by no means makes it irrelevant to our topic. On using one application of the notion
of instrumentality to illuminate another, see Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 81-84.
14 STh III, q. 63, a. 5, ad 1.
15 Perhaps we could say that the conformation consists in the person's being known to be
ordered to such use.
16 For causation as the relation of dependence in the effect, see Lonergan, Grace and
Freedom, 64££. For strenuous rejection of Lonergan's view as helpful in understanding St.
Thomas on sacramental causality, see Mark Jordan, "Theology and Philosophy," in The
Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, ed. Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993), 232-51, at 245.

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

179

III. THE CHARACTER AS A SIGN
Just above, we spoke of the conformation of the instrument to
the principal agent. This brings us to the "configurative" nature
of the character, which is closely related to taking it as a sign.
From the time St. Augustine introduced the notion of
sacramental character, it has been supposed to be a sign. Before
St. Thomas, it had also already been styled a configuration to
Christ. 17 Saint Thomas accepts this inheritance in a very restrained
way. The first article of question 63 tells us that the character can
indeed be said to be a kind of sign, but that this is so insofar as it
is produced by a sensible sacrament, the visible rite (ad 2). This
location of the real sign value of the character in the rite must be
remembered in considering the important replies to the second
and third objections of article 3. Sacramental character is the res
et sacramentum of the sacrament of orders. Replying to the
second objection, St. Thomas says:
sacramental character is a thing [res] with respect to the exterior sacrament [the
sacramentum tantum] and a sacrament with respect to the ultimate effect [the res
tantum]. And therefore something can be attributed to the character in two
ways. In one way, according to the idea of a sacrament. And in this way, it is a
sign of the invisible grace which is conferred in the sacrament. In another way,
according to the idea of character. And in this way it is a configurative sign,
configuring to some principal [agent] with whom the authority resides regarding
that to which someone is deputed: just as soldiers, who are deputed to battle, are
signed with the sign of the leader, by which sign they are in a certain way
configured to him. And in this way, they who are deputed to Christian worship,
whose author is Christ, receive a character by which they are configured to
Christ. 18
17 That it configures to Christ was asserted by Alexander of Hales; that it configures to
Christ the priest is asserted by Philip the Chancellor. See Galot, La nature du caractere
sacramentel, 94££. and 115££.
18 STh III, q. 63, a. 3, ad 2: "character sacramentalis est res respectu sacramenti exterioris
[sacramentum tantum] et est sacramentum respectu ultimi effectus [res tantum]. Et ideo
dupliciter potest aliquid characteri attribui. Uno modo, secundum rationem sacramenti. Et hoc
modo est signum invisibilis gratiae, quae in sacramento confertur. Alio modo, secundum
characteris rationem. Et hoc modo signum est configurativum alicui principali, apud quern
resider auctoritas eius ad quod aliquis deputatur: sicut milites, qui deputantur ad pugnam,
insigniuntur signo ducis, quo quodammodo ei configurantur. Et hoc modo illi qui deputantur
ad cultum Christianum, cuius auctor est Christus, characterem accipiunt quo Christo

180

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

In itself, as an instrumental power, and as residing in the intellect,
the character is not perceptible to the senses. Therefore, it is a
sign of the grace of the sacrament given to one who receives the
character only in virtue of the rite. But it is also to be considered
in itself, as a res, in its ratio as a character-which means, in its
ratio as an instrumental power. In this way, it is a signum
configurativum, an instrumental power that configures to Christ.
How should we think of this being configured to Christ by which
priests are related to the cult, the acts to which they are deputed,
and which, as a "figuring," bespeaks once again the value of a
sign, not of grace, but of Christ?
The configuration in question is not the configuration to Christ
worked by grace, charity, the virtues, and the gifts. Saint Thomas
regards these things as habits, modifications of human powers,
whereas he regards character as a capacity, not to do something
well or ill (and so, a habit), but to do something at all. 19
Furthermore, grace and the virtues can be lost, but character is
indelible. If the character is a sign (sacramentum) only by virtue
of the visible rite, then perhaps it too configures to Christ by way
of the "exterior sacrament," the rite. There are two possible ways
to take things here. We could say for instance that when the one
being ordained is anointed with chrism, he is visibly configured to
Christ, the Anointed One. Or we could say that, when the one
who has been ordained does the things for which he is ordained,
that is to say, when he offers Mass and absolves sins, he is
configured to Christ. 20
The two ways just mentioned need not be exclusive. The
second way, however, seems preferable. If it is the very character
that configures to Christ, and character is instrumental power, the
power something has when being used, then the configuration is
to be found more in the celebration of those sacraments to which
the character deputes the priest than of the sacrament by which he
configurantur."
19 STh III, q. 63, a. 2. For the character as a habitus, see Avery Dulles, The Priestly Office:
A Theological Reflection (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), 12.
2 For this sense of things, see McCormack, "The Configuration of the Sacramental
Character," 487-89.

°

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

181

is deputed. 21 In other words, a priest is configured to Christ
according as he is being used by Christ.
Both ways of taking configuration can be perceived in the reply
to the third objection, where the issue is the character as a
distinguishing sign.
One person is distinguished from another by a character in relation to some end
unto which one who receives a character is ordered, as has been said about the
military character, by which a soldier of the king, ordained to battle, is
distinguished from a soldier of the enemy. And likewise, the character of the
faithful is that by which the faithful of Christ are distinguished from the servants
of the devil, either as ordered to eternal life or as ordered to the worship of the
present Church. Of which the first happens by charity and grace, but the second
by sacramental character. 22

This could mean that one is distinguished in virtue of the
sacrament he has received-baptism or ordination. On the other
hand, it seems rather to mean that one is distinguished in virtue
of the cult to which baptism gives access, or in virtue of the
sacraments of which ordination makes one the minister. If such a
distinction were always evident to both the minister and the
people of God, moreover, then the configuration to Christ would
be as good as indelible.
In the commentary on the Sentences, there is a particularly
striking recognition of the priest as a sign of Christ, one moreover
that relates the priest as sign expressly to his instrumental power.
Saint Thomas is comparing the instrumental virtus of the word the
priest speaks to that of the priest himself in confecting the
Eucharist.
Because the priest has a greater likeness to the principal agent than does the
word, because the priest bears his image, therefore and simply speaking, the
Sent., d. 4, q. a, a. 2, sol. 2, ad 4.
distinguitur aliquis ab alio per comparationem ad
aliquem finem in quern ordinatur qui characterem accipit: sicut dictum est de charactere militari, quo in ordine ad pugnam distinguitur miles regis a milite hostis. Et similiter character fidelium est quo distinguuntur fideles Christi a servis diaboli, vel in ordine ad vitam eternam, vel
in ordine ad cultum presentis Ecclesiae. Quorum primum fit per caritatem et gratiam ...
secundum autem fit per characterem sacramentalem."
21 See also in this sense N

22 STh III, q. 63, a. 3, ad 3: "charactere

182

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

priest's instrumental power is greater and more worthy, whence also it is
permanent and is related to many effects of this kind. 23

The indelible nature of the power, that is, the character, is here
entirely a function of the priest as a sign of Christ. Moreover, he
seems to be taken as a sign independently of this or that liturgical
action-the power is "related to many effects of this kind."
Therefore, he is a permanent sign. We may ask how he is a sign,
or in what his being a sign consists. It seems to be nothing more
than that he knows himself to be a priest and is recognized as a
priest, as one who images Christ. 24 Thus, in that he is always and
everywhere a sign, simply as one known to be ordained, he is
always and everywhere being used by the principal agent of whom
he is a sign.

IV. PRIESTLY ACTS
There is another avenue to explore in imagining how it can be
truly said that the priest is always being used by Christ as an
instrument of his own priestly sanctification of his members. 25
According to St. Thomas, the sacerdotal acts enabled by the
character are two: first and primarily, consecrare verum corpus
Christi, "to consecrate the true body of Christ"; second, preparare
populum ad susceptionem huius sacramenti, "to prepare the
people for the reception of this sacrament. " 26 This second act is
cleansing from sin, and in virtue of that, the priest is the proper
minister (minister proprius) of baptism, penance, and extreme
unction. 27
23 N Sent., d. 8, q. 2, a. 3, ad 9: "quiasacerdos estsimilior principali agenti quam verbum,
quia gerit eius figuram, idea, simpliciter loquendo, sua virtus instrumentalis est maior et
dignior, uncle etiam permanet et ad multos huismodi effectus se habet."
24 In this light, cf. De Potentia, q. 3, a. 7, where St. Thomas says that the instrumental
power of an axe in use, the vis artis, could be in the axe as a permanent form if only the axe
had an intellect.
25 For St. Thomas, the grace by which Christ is head of the Church is that by which he is
a priest (STh III, q. 22, a. 1, ad 3).
26 N Sent., d. 24, q. 3, a. 2, qla., 1, c = STh Suppl., q. 40, a. 4.
27 N Sent., d. 24, q. 2, a. 2 ad 1 = STh Suppl., q. 37, a. 4, ad 1.

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

183

If these two acts, taken narrowly and only for as long as it
takes to perform them ritually, are the only things and fill the
only moments for which the sacramental, sacerdotal character is
required and in play, and are thus the only times when the priest
is being used by the principal agent, Christ, and if the character
just is the vis fluens in the instrument being used for as long as it
is being used by the principal agent, then the character is not
indelible, but comes and goes. Contrariwise, if the character is the
vis fluens, and indelible, we must find some way to take the
sacerdotal acts of the priest more broadly, and, as it were,
architectonically and so as inclusive of his life.
It is not dear that St. Thomas himself needs to be read as
taking things in this way, and of course, he did not live to treat
orders again and in conformity with the texts of question 63 most
suggestive of the reading argued for here. But there is in fact
considerable material that can be pressed into this reading. In a
remarkable article of over thirty years ago, M.-J. Nicolas
marshaled many of the resources there are in St. Thomas for
moving in this direction. 28
First, not every act said to require a character fits into the mold
of instrumental efficient causality. There are in the first place the
protestationes fidei of the baptized and confirmed. These seem to
proceed from their confessors not so much as from instruments as
from principal causes. 29 Additionally, there are the acts of the
bishop relative to the mystical Body, the Church, which are at
least remotely grounded in the res et sacramentum of episcopal
consecration. 30 Saint Thomas does not speak of "character" for
bishops, on the grounds that episcopal consecration does not
provide a new relation to the corpus verum. But for all intents and
purposes, episcopal consecration produces an effect analogous to
28 Marie-Joseph Nicolas, O.P., "La doctrine de S. Thomas sur le sacerdoce," in San
Tommaso e l'odierna problematica teologica, Studi Tomistici 2 (Rome: Citta Nuova Editrice,

1974), 309-28.
29 Ibid., 319-20.
30 So, speaking of the power conferred in confirmation and orders (IV Sent., d. 4, q. 1, a.
4, qla. 3), St. Thomas says that this power is "ad sacramentorum dispensationem, et aliarum
sacrarum hierarchicarum actionum exercitium" ("for the dispensation of the sacraments and
for the exercise of other sacred hierarchical actions").

184

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

character, which includes the power to ordain as part of the
power of ruling the Church. 31 If ordaining may easily be conceived along the lines of instrumental efficient causality, however,
jurisdictional and magisterial acts are more difficult to press into
that mold, and yet ruling acts are at the very least called for if not
exclusively enabled by the power to ordain. 32
Second, some texts of St. Thomas go some distance in
including more in priesthood than Eucharistic consecration and
sacramental absolution. For example, the end of the Eucharist is
not simply the presence of the sacrament but its distribution to the
people. 33 That is, the primary act can be described so as to include
a reference to the corpus mysticum and not just to the corpus
verum: "the power of orders is principally directed to the
consecration of the body of Christ and its distribution to the
faithful. " 34 Again, the priest offers the Eucharist not only for
himself but for the people. 35 Further, when St. Thomas introduces
in the Summa contra Gentiles the necessity of orders for the
spiritual community, it is, as Nicolas notes, by way of an analogy
to those who care for the natural community of mankind, parents
and rulers. Those in orders are thus propagatores et conservatores
spiritualis vitae, "progenitors and preservers of the spiritual life,"
and take the role of parents and kings in the spiritual order. 36 This
seems to place a sort of spiritual paternity in all grades of order,
and to make a munus gubernandi connatural to them. 37 Further,
to convert men to faith "is proper to priests to whom it belongs
to preach and teach" (proprie est sacerdotum quorum est
31 See e.g. IV Sent., d. 13, q. 1, a. 1, qla. 2, ad 2; and for thorough treatment, Joseph
Lecuyer, "Les etapes de l'enseignement thomiste sur l'episcopat," Revue thomiste 57 (1957):
29-52.
32 On Lecuyer's reading of St. Thomas (see "Les etapes,") the power of orders of a bishop
is his competence to govern (which is not the same as jurisdiction, of course) and includes the
power to ordain. See also H. Bouesse, "Le caractere episcopal," in L'eveque dans l'eglise du
Christ, ed. H. Bouesse (Brussels: Desclee de Brouwer, 1963), 361-69.
33 STh III, q. 74, a. 2; see Nicolas, "La doctrine," 318-19.
34 ScG IV, c. 75: "potestas ordinis principaliter ordinatur ad corpus Christi consecrandum
et fidelibus dispensandum."
35 STh III, q. 65, a. 1; see Nicolas, "La doctrine," 315.
36 ScG IV, c. 58; Nicolas, "La doctrine," 315.
37 See ScG IV, c. 74, where orders generally are for the building up of the Church.

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

185

praedicareet docere).38 Last, it belongs to those in orders to drive
out ignorance from the people. 39 This is not to say that these
things belong exclusively to those in orders, but, importantly, that
they are not alien from orders, and not alien from the priesthood
of presbyters.
It is true that these things do not show up in St. Thomas's
definition of ordained priesthood. But as Nicolas explains, it is
easy to see why. The ordained priest is a ministerial priest. A
minister is an instrument. The priest is most evidently and strictly
an instrument in doing those things beyond his own natural power
as a man and even a baptized man, and those things are
consecrating the corpus verum and absolving sins. Therefore, the
ministerial priest is defined by these two acts. 40 A definition,
however, does not state all that is proper to the defined.
These first two things just noted mean that we can distinguish
a broader and a stricter sense of instrument. A priest is an
instrument in the strict sense when he is being used to effect
something beyond his natural powers, as at the consecration of
the elements at Mass. On the other hand, although he functions
as a principal cause in evangelizing, preaching, teaching, and
ruling, still, since he is nevertheless teaching and implementing a
message not his own but one he is commissioned to teach and
implement, it makes sense to think of him as an "instrument" in
a larger sense, an instrument of the one who sends him and whose
message he repeats. 41
What would be the relation of these other acts to sacramental
character? How could the character be seen to sustain them as
well as the acts of consecrating and absolving? If they are ordered
to and in that sense dependent on those acts strictly contained in
the definition of the priest, such that they would lose their point
38 IV Sent., d 6, q. 2, a. 2, qla. 3; although prebaptismal catechesis is proper to deacons,
priests also are capable of this.
39 IV Sent., d. 24, q. 1, a. 2, qla.1 = STh Suppl., q. 35, a. 1, ad 1. See Nicolas, "La
doctrine," 316.
40 Nicolas, "La doctrine," 315-16.
41 On the other hand, for all true creaturely speaking of speculatively beheld truth as
principally and in the first place a divine speaking and teaching, see G. Mansini, "Doing and
Speaking, Created and Uncreated," Logos 10 (2007): 105-30.

186

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

were they not so ordered, then they too could be acts in which a
vis fluens moves, if from a greater distance, to the grace of the
sacraments. First, however, we must look at what St. Thomas said
of bishops, and what that might make us want to say of priests
today.
V. LEARNING ABOUT PRIESTHOOD FROM THE EPISCOPACY

We must next take into account the pressure exerted on St.
Thomas's account of the priesthood by the phenomenon of large
numbers of monastic priests living without care of souls. This
encouraged a view of priesthood centered on the Eucharist, and
even on the rite of the Eucharist relatively distant, as it were, from
ordinary Christian life. 42
Such a view of the priesthood harbors the idea that while the
bishop has a necessary relation, a fully pastoral relation, to the
corpus mysticum, the simple priest does not. By his episcopal
consecration, a bishop's whole life and attention are dedicated to
the service of the mystical Body, the Church. 43 And although we
have seen in St. Thomas some attention to priestly acts whose
intelligibility connects them both more broadly and more
immediately to the people of God, still, the existence of large
numbers of monastic priests and prebenderies seemed sufficient
grounds on which to deny to simple priests such a totalizing
consecration to the people of God. 44
For St. Thomas, the same relation that priest and bishop have
to the Eucharist led him to deny that bishops constitute an ordo
distinct from that of simple priests, and to deny as well that
episcopal consecration imparts a character. 45 This does not mean
that he did not recognize a difference of potestas ordinis for priest
and bishop. Because of their consecration to the service of the
corpus mysticum, and unlike priests, bishops are given the power
Nicolas, "La doctrine," 321ff.
STh 11-11, q. 184, a. 5.
44 It is commonly noted that St. Thomas reports the usages of the medieval Church as data
to be taken into account, not as possible objects of criticism and reform.
45 IV Sent., d. 24, q. 3, a. 2, sol. 2, ad 2 = STh Suppl., q. 40, a. 5, ad 2.
42
43

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

187

to rule, and they are also given the sacred power to confirm,
ordain, and consecrate churches and vessels. Thus, equivalently,
there is something for bishops exactly analogous to what Thomas
calls "character" for priests, and it is not true that he thinks
bishops differ from priests only in possessing potestas
iurisdictionis. 46 This must be borne in mind in the following
discussion, for otherwise it will not seem that a discussion of what
Thomas thinks about bishops could shed any light on what we
might want to think about priestly sacramental character. If the
bishop's constant service is his rule, and his rule is somehow
founded in the potestas ordinis given him at ordinationequivalently, "character"-then the bishop is always being applied
to use by the principal agent, and his "character" is in this way
indelible.
The different relations of priest and bishop to pastoral care has
an important consequence in how the bishop, as opposed to the
priest, can be spoken of relative to his representation of Christ.
When priests consecrate the elements at Mass, they act "in the
person of Christ," both quoting Christ within the institution
narrative, and doing so as instruments of Christ. 47 Acting in the
person of Christ, the priest is also said to "bear the image of
Christ" (gerit imaginem Christi) in the celebration of the
Eucharist. 48 Bishops, on the other hand, receive power "to act in
the person of Christ over his mystical body" (ut agat in persona
Christi supra corpus eius mysticum), in virtue of which the bishop
blesses chrism and consecrates churches and altars. 49 Does the
bishop so take on the person of Christ only when he is actually
doing something? Bishops are said to "take the place of Christ"
(vicem gerunt Christi) in that they are the heads of their dioceses,
just as the pope is the head of the whole Church. 50 Simply being
the head of the diocese seems to make one bear the image of
Christ, and so represent him. We could say the bishop's relation
Lecuyer, "Les etapes,'' 32, 34, 51-52.
STh III, q. 78, a. 1; q. 82, a. 1; q. 82, a. 5.
48 STh III, q. 83, a. 1, ad 3.
49 STh III, q. 82, a. 1, ad 4.
so STh III, q. 8, a. 6.
46

47

188

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

to the corpus mysticum places him in a stable relation of
signifying Christ.
We end with a stricter and a looser sense of acting "in the
person of Christ," just as we have encountered a stricter and
looser sense of instrument, where the looser sense is used for
bishops, and the stricter sense for priests saying mass. 51
The different relations of priest and bishop to pastoral care
also entailed a difference as to their state of life. Although St.
Thomas always recognized the requirement of interior holiness
for both bishop and priest, he held that only bishops were to be
thought of as in a state of perfection, meaning that the very form
of their life consisted in taking on the assured means of holiness
the Church has always recognized in the counsels of poverty,
chastity, and obedience. The state of perfection is established by
two things: obliging oneself to the means of perfection
perpetually, and undertaking this obligation publicly, solemnly. 52
When the bishop obligates himself to pastoral care in being
consecrated, he obliges himself to a standard of perfection even
beyond that of religious. 53 A state of perfection, of course, is an
abiding thing. We could say that because of a bishop's relation to
the Church, he is in the state of perfection, a properly episcopal
state of perfection (more perfect than that of mere religious), and
so always engaged precisely as a bishop, and so always bearing the
image of Christ, and always figuring the person of Christ.
If we wish to conceive of the priest as a diminished bishop, as
with the Second Vatican Council, rather than of the bishop as a
priest with additions, then it might be possible to think of the
priest as similarly always dedicated to the Church, as similarly in
a sort of state of life and, ordinarily anyway, as always dedicated

51 It is true that the priest is said without qualification to "represent Christ" (repraesentat
Christum) as the mediator of God and men at IV Sent., d. 13, q. 1, a. 3, qla. 2, but the context
is Eucharistic. There is also the general statement of STh III, q. 22, a. 4, on the priesthood of
Christ, where a priest of the New Law is said without qualification to work in the person of
Christ (in persona ipsius operatur).
52 STh II-II, q. 184, a. 4.
53 STh II-II, q. 184, aa. 5 and 7.

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

189

to pastoral care. 54 Beginning with the Council of Trent, moreover,
as Nicolas observes, that is indeed how the Western Church has
come more and more to think of priests. Paradigmatically, priests
are parish priests. Parish priests are the extension of the bishop in
the local parochial community, and are therefore likewise fittingly
thought of as wholly given over to pastoral care in their very form
of life.
But in this case it would similarly be possible to think of the
priest as always in some way representing Christ, in all of his life,
all of his activity. If priests were thought of as bearing a stable
relation to the corpus mysticum, then they too could be thought
of as bearing the person of Christ more generally and
permanently. We might even say that the priest's life as a whole
constitutes a sort of public and official protestatio fidei. And the
protestationes fidei of the confirmed, we recall, are rooted in
sacramental character. 55
VI. THE EUCHARIST AS THE GOAL

I have suggested a totalizing view of priestly ministry insofar as
the whole of a priest's life and all his acts, like a bishop's, would
be in service to the people of God. Additionally, the totalizing or
architectonic role of the celebration of the Eucharist must be
attended to, the "principal act" for which sacerdotal character is
necessary. 56
The spiritual life of Christians consists in the exercise of their
spiritual priesthood in union with Christ, which is the spiritual

For the bishop as a priest with additions, see, e.g., George Edward Dolan, The
Distinction between the Episcopate and the Presbyterate according to the Thomistic Opinion
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1950). If this view is to be
imputed to St. Thomas, account must be taken of such Dionysian texts as N Sent., d. 13, q.
1, a. 1, qla. 2, c. and ad 2, where the priest very clearly only participates in a fullness which
it is the part of bishops to possess.
55 STh III, q. 72, a. 5.
56 These two ways of totalizing priestly ministry do not, of course, compete with one
another. It was one of the objects of Presbyterorum ordinis to make that plain.
54

190

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

sacrifice of themselves to God in Christ. 57 The Eucharist, of
course, is the sacrament most of all ordered to this spiritual
sacrifice of charity; it is the sacrament whose res is the growth of
charity by which we are united to Christ and in Christ to one
another. 58 Therefore, "the Eucharist is the consummation of the
spiritual life and the end of all the sacraments. "59 And therefore
also, the priest's pastoral care of the faithful is oriented toward
the celebration of the Eucharist, where the spiritual priesthood of
the faithful and their spiritual sacrifice are completed because
most really joined to the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ most
really present through the sacramental ministry of the priest. If
therefore all that the priest does in the spiritual and sacramental
life of the faithful is ordered to their participation in the
Eucharist, then all that he does in some way disposes them to the
sacrifice, and all that he does is likewise oriented to his own
priestly confection of the Eucharist. This includes the priestly
work of teaching and shepherding. Everything that is not the
Eucharist disposes the faithful to the Eucharist. Therefore, what
is thought of as enabling both the Eucharist and its distribution to
the faithful as well as their disposition to the Eucharist, namely,
the character, is in play-for the priest is always either disposing
to the Eucharist or celebrating it. In this way, the priest is always
being used by Christ, in all his work, to move the corpus
mysticum toward the table of the corpus verum. In this way, the
vis fluens of the instrumental power is always actual, the character
is permanent and engaged in all the pastoral and sacramental
work of the priest.
A collection of texts of St. Thomas taken together supports this
view of things. First, the act by which a priest disposes the faithful
for communion depends on the primary act, the act of confecting
the Eucharist and distributing it to the faithful. 60 Second, just as
we have discovered a broader and stricter sense of acting in the
57 See the study of Gilles Emery, O.P., "Le sacerdoce spiritual des fideles chez Thomas
d'Aquin," Revue thomiste 99 (1999): 211-43.
58 STh III, q. 73, a. 3; q. 79, a. 1, ad 2.
59 STh III, q. 73, a. 3.
60 IV Sent., d. 24, q. 1, a. 3, qla. 2, ad 1 = STh Suppl., q. 36, a. 2, ad 1.

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

191

person of Christ and a broader and a stricter sense of being the
instrument of Christ, a broader and a stricter sense of disposing
the faithful for the sacrament is also acknowledged. Proximately,
the priest disposes by absolution; other ministers dispose the
faithful more remotely-for example, by teaching. 61 Third, what
the lower orders do in virtue of their office, the higher orders can
do in virtue of theirs. 62 But what any order does is done in virtue
of its character, and this is so for all orders, both major and
minor. Saint Thomas held that each grade of order has a spiritual
act, even the porter in closing the doors, for which a character is
required. 63 While the minor orders are no more, the following
principle remains true: what the lower orders do or did in virtue
of their character is done by the higher in virtue of theirs. All the
acts of the orders are directed to the Eucharist, however, even if
not necessarily as parts of the Eucharist (as, evidently, the
secondary, dispositive act of absolution is not part of the
Eucharist). 64 Instruction in Christian doctrine is remote
preparation for the reception of Eucharist, and was assigned to
lectors, subdeacons, and deacons. 65 This was signified within the
Mass itself, where the lector read the Old Testament, the
subdeacon the Epistle, and the deacon the Gospel. But like
absolution, this remote preparation of declaring the word of God
was not necessarily part of the Eucharist, nor is it so today when
a priest does it.
It can be concluded from the above argument that whatever a
priest does by way of teaching or anything else dispositive to the
Eucharist-and that is everything he does-is done in virtue of his
priestly character. This does not mean that the power to teach
N Sent., d. 24, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1 = STh Suppl., q. 37, a. 4, ad 1.
N Sent., d. 24, q. 1, a. 2, qla. 5 = STh Suppl., q. 35, a. 5; N Sent., d. 24, q. 2, a. 1, qla.
2, ad 2 = STh Suppl., q. 37, a. 2, ad 2; N Sent., d. 24, q. 2, a. 2 = STh Suppl., q. 37, a. 4, ad
3.
63 N Sent., d. 24, q. 1, a. 2, qla. 2, c. and ad 1 = STh Suppl., q. 35, a. 2, c. and ad 1. Some
acts of the lower orders can be carried out by laymen, but not officially; see N Sent., d. 24,
q. 2, a. 2, ad 9 = STh Suppl., q. 37, a. 4, ad 9. Where such acts are carried out by one in
orders, however, they are carried out in virtue of the character of orders.
64 N Sent., d. 24, q. 2, a. 2, c. and ad 1 = STh Suppl., q. 37, a. 4, c. and ad 1.
65 N Sent., d. 24, q. 2, a. 2, ad 4 = STh Suppl., q. 27, a. 4, ad 4.
61

62

192

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

need be thought of in the same way as the power to confect the
Eucharist. Indeed, it seems they should not be thought of in the
same way, since the capacity to teach can be lost. 66 It means rather
that, when a priest teaches, we see something that disposes to the
Eucharist being done by the one who represents Christ at the
Eucharist, and so, remotely but really, we are already in the realm
of making the Eucharist. 67 The dependence of the disposing acts
on the primary acts need not be all of the same kind.
VII. THE TEACHING OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

In section III, it was noted that the character can be taken as
configuring the priest to Christ, so making him a sign of Christ,
because of the rites and sacraments of worship he is deputed to
preside over. From section V, we see that the priest can be taken
as a sign of Christ also because of the pastoral care of the people
of God to which, like the bishop, he is devoted. After section VI,
we can say that the priest is always a sign of Christ because all he
does either is the celebration of the Eucharist or is the disposition
of the faithful to the reception of the Eucharist. The priest is
always in the use of Christ, therefore, for two reasons. First, he is
always in use because all his ministry and acts are ordered to the
Eucharist (see sections IV and VI). Second, he is always in use
66 See G. Mansini, "Episcopal Munera and the Character of Episcopal Orders," The
Thomist 66 (2002): 369-94.
67 Nicolas, "La doctrine," 328: "the concept of an activity that disposes to grace is large
enough in St. Thomas to embrace everything that of itself contributes to the progress and to
the defense of the Faith, to preaching the Gospel, to gathering men in the Church--everything
that is within the compass of the pastoral mission .... For a work so limitless, and so mixed
up with daily human action, it is not necessary to be a priest and it is often enough better not
to be one. But whatever the priest does, even if it is not always materially reserved to him, he
does as a natural consequence of his role in the Eucharistic Sacrifice" ("le concept d'activite
dispositive a la grace est assez large dans S. Thomas pour embrasser tout ce qui concourt de
soi au progress et a la defense de la Foi, a !'announce de l'Evangile, au ressemblement des
hommes en Eglise, tout ce qui est du ressort de la mission pastorale .... Pour une oeuvre aussi
illimitee, si melee a !'action humaine quotidienne, ii n'est pas necessaire d'etre pretre et ii
convient souvent mieux de ne l'etre pas. Mais ce qui fait le pretre, meme si cela ne Jui est pas
toujours materiellement reserve, ii le fait par une suite naturelle de son role dans le sacrifice
eucharistique").

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

193

because, just insofar as all his ministry and acts are ordered to the
Eucharist, he is also always a sign of Christ (see sections III and
V). In his activity and in his person, he is both moved by Christ
and just as such always bespeaks Christ's movement of Christian
life and community through him to the sacramental realization of
itself that occurs in the celebration of the Eucharist. We can say
he is a sign because he is used. But also, and better, we can take
things the other way around: because he is a sign, he is always
being moved by Christ as his instrument. This is the better way
because we are in the sacramental order, and sacramentum in
genere signi est, and they cause by being signs.
Notice also that we can organize the priest's life around the
Eucharist, or around pastoral care, and of course, both
synthetically. The protestatio fidei that is the priest's life is
ordered to the Christian cult whose culmination is the Eucharist;
also, we can say that it is ordered to the actualization the people
of God are brought to when they offer themselves to God with
Christ at Mass. This is how Nicolas puts it, speaking of the priest's
mission.
Power over the Body of Christ, over the mystical Body, yes-but especially does
the priest have a mission to give Christ a sacramental presence among men and
to install that presence at the heart of their lives. 68

The appreciation of the priest as always a sign, and in terms of a
mission whose goal is to bring the people of God to the heavenly
banquet through their own sharing in the Eucharistic table, brings
us to the point also where our reading of St. Thomas can be
linked up with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and
Pope John Paul IL
Presbyterorum ordinis orients the priesthood of presbyters to
the service both of bishops, functioning to extend episcopal
ministry, itself the extension of apostolic mission, and of the
people of God, enabling their spiritual sacrifice to be joined to the
68 Ibid., 321: "Pouvoir sur le Corps du Christ, sur le Corps mystique, oui, mais surtout
mission de donner au Christ une existence sacramentelle parmi !es hommes et de la repandre
au coeur de leur vie."

194

GlN MANSINI, O.S.B.

one sacrifice of Christ in the sacrifice of the Mass. Speaking of the
sacrament of orders, the council fathers say that by it "priests, by
the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are signed with a special
character and are conformed to Christ the Priest in such a way
that they can act in the person of Christ the Head" (PO 2.3).
Acting in the person of Christ the Head of the Church means, in
context, acting authoritatively in all three munera-teaching,
ruling, and sanctifying. The ability so to act is said to be the result
of the character and of conformation to Christ. Though the text
cites Lumen gentium 10, it is in tact constructed on the model of
Lumen gentium 21, where, speaking of bishops, the council
fathers say that as a result of episcopal ordination, "the grace of
the Holy Spirit is given in such a way, and a sacred character is
impressed in such a way, that bishops ... take the place of Christ
himself, teacher, shepherd, and priest, and act in his person." In
neither text should acting in the person of Christ in all three
munera be taken to be founded exclusively in the character. 69 The
texts rather mean that both character and grace enable both
bishops and priests to act in the person of Christ. Although the
fathers go beyond Trent in Lumen gentium in asserting the
sacramentality of episcopal ordination and the fact that it imprints
a character, in neither text did the fathers intend any new
teaching on the nature or properties of the sacramental character
itself. Here, they do not go beyond Trent, which itself declined to
settle disagreements among Catholic theologians on this matter. 70
69 Some English translations suggest this, but the Latin does not: "perspicuurn est ...
gratiam Spiritus Sancti ita conferri et sacrum characterem ita imprimi, ut episcopi ... ipsius
Christi Magistri, Pastoris et Pontificis partes sustineant et in Eiuis persona agant." The final
clause, a result clause, is a function both of the conferring of grace and of the imprinting of
the character.
70 See the relatio of Cardinal Konig of 21 September 1964, on paragraphs 18-21 of the
next-to-final draft of Lumen gentium. In affirming that consecration imprints a character, he
says, "the words were chosen in such a way as to abstract from disputed questions: namely,
whether it be a new character or only a broadening of presbyteral character, and so on" (Acta
Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Vaticani II [Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970- ],
3/2:204). And in the relatio accompanying the final text, the Doctrinal Commission,
responding to a request that the text say that the powers of teaching and ruling are founded
in that of sanctifying, says that it seemed best to confine the text to an assertion of their
conferral, "and not enter into the question of their connection with one another" (Acta

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

195

That the character is in any way said to found the ability of
bishops and priests to act in the person of Christ is moreover a
sort of accident of the construction of the text of Lumen gentium
21. At first, the text had indicated the permanent effect of the
sacrament of orders by stating that, because of the character, a
bishop could not once again become a simple priest. To the
request that the effect of the sacrament be stated positively and
not negatively, it was proposed to say that, in virtue of grace and
the character, the bishop acts in the person of Christ in teaching,
ruling, and sanctifying. So it was determined in the final text, and
the Decree on the Life and Ministry of Priests simply repeated this
stratagem: instead of saying that a priest cannot lose his
priesthood because of the abiding sacramental character, the text
says that ordination imprints a character and configures to Christ
and so enables the priest to act in the person of Christ the Head.
Texts, however, have a life of their own, especially texts
composed with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Notwithstanding:
the actual history of their composition and the intent of thel
fathers not to innovate either in Lumen gentium 21 or in
Presbyterorum ordinis 2, the texts say that, in virtue of the
sacramental character and of grace, bishops and priests are, as it
were, in the state of representing Christ, and do so in all their
ministerial acts. 71 Priests represent Christ also in teaching and
ruling the corpus mysticum, while St. Thomas spoke in this way
only of bishops. The conciliar texts definitively stretch the
language of acting in persona Christi beyond a Eucharistic context,
and insofar as the character in some way grounds the entire
Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Vaticani II, 3/8:61; modus 38). The Commission reports that
it is understood that the text does not undertake to settle any disputed question as to the
origin of jurisdiction, or questions concerning sacramental character (ibid., 63; modus 45).
The relatio for the final text of Presbyterorum ordinis tells us that the text of no. 2 does not
say that it is only by sacramental character that the priest is configured to Christ; therefore
neither does it say that all three munera are founded therein (Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti
Concilii Vaticani II, 4/7:121; response to modus 24). For this and the next paragraph, see G.
Mansini, "Sacerdotal Character at the Second Vatican Council," The Thomist 67(2003): 53977.
71 For the constitution and the wirkungsgeschicte of Presbyterorum ordinis 2, see G.
Mansini and L. Welch, "The Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests," forthcoming.

196

GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

ministry of priests, let us think of the character as a vis fluens
always actual in the entire life and ministry of both bishops and
priests.
The further teaching of Presbyterorum ordinis 2 harmonizes
with this, where we read that the entire ministry of priests is
ordered to enabling the faithful to join their spiritual sacrifice to
the sacrifice of Christ. Let us quote this most beautiful text at
some length.
Through the ministry of the priests, the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is made
perfect in union with the sacrifice of Christ, the only mediator, which sacrifice,
through their hands and in the name of the whole Church, is offered
sacramentally in the Eucharist and in an unbloody manner until the Lord himself
comes. The ministry of priests is directed to this goal and is perfected in it. Their
ministry, which begins with the evangelical proclamation, derives its power and
force from the sacrifice of Christ. Its aim is that "the entire commonwealth of the
redeemed and the society of the saints be offered to God through the High Priest
who offered himself also for us in his passion that we might be the body of so
great a Head." 72

All priestly ministry is accomplished under the aegis of the
Eucharist, to which all is ordered.
It is therefore unsurprising to find John Paul II, in the postsynodal apostolic exhortation Pastores dabo vobis, speaking of the
priest as always, in his whole life and activity, given over to being
a sign of Christ.
The priest finds the full truth of his identity in being a derivation, a specific
participation in and continuation of Christ himself, the one high priest of the
new and eternal covenant. The priest is a living and transparent image of Christ
the priest. 73

Further and concordantly with this notion of the priest as in his
very existence always working because always a sign of Christ, we
find asserted of priests precisely what St. Thomas asserted of the

72 The quotation is from St. Augustine, The City of God 10.6. See also no. 5 of the Decree:
"the Eucharist appears as the fount and culmination of all evangelization."
73 Pastores dabo vobis 12.

ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER

197

bishop; namely, that he is wholly dedicated to the service of the
mystical body.
In the Church and on behalf of the Church, priests are a sacramental
representation of Jesus Christ-the head and shepherd-authoritatively
proclaiming his word, repeating his acts of forgiveness and his offer of
salvation-particularly in baptism, penance and the Eucharist, showing his loving
concern to the point of a total gift of self for the flock, which they gather into
unity and lead to the Father through Christ and in the Spirit. 74

Consecrated to the service of the mystical body in this way, the
priest approaches the "state of perfection" in which St. Thomas
held that bishops stand. Moreover, the exhortation does not fail
to recommend the evangelical counsels to all presbyters, and in
the name of pastoral charity. 75
VIII. CONCLUSION

Contemporary dogmatic theology of orders that wishes to be
in continuity with prior Western magisterial and theological
tradition will include an assertion that the sacrament has for one
of its effects an indelible character. A contemporary systematic
theology of orders, moreover, may very well attempt to
understand the nature of the sacramental character imprinted by
orders as does St. Thomas, as an instrumental power. But then it
must also face the difficulty that the terms and relations St.
Thomas employs in speaking about power, efficient power, and
instrumental efficient power, have a sort of integrity in virtue of
which they cannot be made to mean whatever we want.
Specifically, when St. Thomas speaks narrowly and carefully
about instrumental power, it is a vis fluens. The intelligibility of
such a notion is as plain as, for instance, the order and pattern of
hammer strokes received in the hammer as moved by a principal
agent, an order and pattern beyond the nature of the tool itself,
an order and pattern that is very much something transient,
74 Pastores dabo vobis 15.
75

Pastores dabo vobis 27-30.

198

GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B.

something in the hammer only as long as it is used by the
carpenter. If we hold strictly to the identification of the character
with a vis fluens, and if the only acts for which it is needed are
those of the consecration of the elements at Mass and the
absolution of sins, and if these acts are taken purely in their
liturgical and ritual reality, there is an apparent difficulty in
speaking of sacramental character as at once an instrumental
potency and as something permanent.
It is possible to multiply categories, and to find in the character
a metaphysically unique reality, or another sense of instrumental
cause. 76 Also, it is possible to find a way in which to conceive of
the priest as always in use. I have tried to show both that there are
resources in St. Thomas for just this conception, and also that this
conception is concordant with more recent authoritative
magisterial pronouncements on the nature of the priesthood.

76 McCormack, "The Configuration of the Sacramental Character," 468; O'Neill, "The
Instrumentality of the Sacramental Character," 265 n. 4.

The Thomist 71 (2007): 199-220

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITIVISM
ARMAND MAURER
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

0

PPOSITION TO POSITIVISM was a lifetime concern of
Etienne Gilson. His first published article, entitled "Sur le
positivisme absolu," was a criticism of an article defending
absolute positivism by the Parisian philosopher Abel Rey. 1 Both
articles, along with Rey's reply to Gilson, appeared in 1909 in the
journal of the University of Paris, Revue philosophique de la
France et de l'etranger.2 At the time Gilson was teaching philosophy and mathematics at the lycee in Rochefort-sur-Mer on the
Atlantic coast, and he was about to submit his second, complementary doctoral thesis to his master at Paris, the positivist and
sociologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl, who also happened to be an editor
of the Revue philosophique. Gilson knew that Levy-Bruhl
fundamentally agreed with the positivism of Abel Rey, that
science is the only valid way of knowing, but he gave his critical
article to his master, who graciously published it while letting
Gilson know that he thought his position was out of date.
Gilson recorded this event sixty-three years later when giving
three public lectures "In Quest of Species" at the Pontifical
taught in French lycees and at the University of Paris. He wrote
on psychology, morality, sociology, the philosophy of physics, and the history of science. See
Larousse du XXe siecle (Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1932), 5:1063. For an earlier view of
Gilson's article on Rey see Laurence K. Shook, Etienne Gilson (Toronto: Pontifical Institute
of Mediaeval Studies, 1984), 40-41.
2 Abel Rey, "Vers le positivisme absolu," Revue philosophique de la France et de l'etranger
67 (1909): 461-79; Gilson's article and Rey's reply to it both appeared in "Notes et
discussions sur le positivisme absolu," Revue philosophique de la France et de l'etranger 68
(1909): Etienne Gilson, "Sur le positivisme absolu," 63-65; Rey's reply, 65-66.
1 Abel Rey (1873-1940)

199

200

ARMAND MAURER

Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, just before leaving for
France in final retirement in 1972. Opening these lectures, he
recalled his first article in 1909 in criticism of Abel Rey's absolute
positivism. "At that time," he mused,
'absolute positivism' was a new term, coined by Abel Rey, a professor of
philosophy at the Sorbonne, in order to designate what we today more harshly
call 'scientism'. I do not remember the words I used then, but I distinctly recall
my state of mind in raising that youthful protest against scientism. I was naively
but intensely feeling indignant about a university professor of philosophy
brazenly teaching that there was no such thing as philosophy. 3

Thus at the beginning of his career Gilson struck a pattern of
thought that would remain until the very end.
This essay proposes to examine the interplay of ideas in the
three articles of Abel Rey, Etienne Gilson's critical response to
Rey, and Rey's rejoinder to Gilson. This is followed by a brief
account of Gilson' s views on Auguste Comte, the founder of
positivism, and its relation to Rey's absolute positivism. Finally,
we shall consider Gilson's own philosophy in the light of his
criticism of positivism. Though his article occupies only three
pages, it assumed some importance when he recalled it in his
lectures on species in 1972. Having firmly turned his back on
positivism at the beginning of his career, he confirmed his
rejection of it at the end. His was a lifelong opposition to Auguste
Comte. At the beginning of his lectures "In Quest of Species,"
Gilson said: "Some of us only late in life realize what confers a
degree of unity upon our philosophical reflection." One of the
themes that give unity to Gilson's philosophical life is his rejection
of positivism and his conviction of the validity of philosophy as a
way of knowing specifically distinct from that of science.

3 Gilson, "In Quest of Species," three unpublished lectures, in the Archives of the Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. On these lectures, which are being readied for
publication, see Shook, Etienne Gilson, 40-41, 387-88.

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITIVISM

201

I. ABEL REY

Rey begins with the provocative statement: "Since the
beginning of Greek philosophy up to the nineteenth century,
philosophy has been the work of scientists [savants]." 4 Justifying
this bold statement, which brings the history of philosophy into
agreement with Rey's own positivism, he asserts that during these
centuries science and philosophy were so mixed that it was almost
impossible to separate pure science from philosophy. In fact,
contemporaries found it clearly impossible to draw the line
between the two. The best they could do was to consider scientific
what we do today, namely, "very precise particular results," and
philosophical "general views that concern less particular facts than
vast systems." The authors of these general philosophical views
regarded them as the natural consequences and conclusions of
their detailed studies and purely scientific research. 5 This was true
not only for scientists but also for philosophers of old. Rey writes:
The majority of Greek philosophers, the great scholastics, and the scientists of
the Renaissance possessed all the science of their era and they possessed it as
masters. It is not surprising then that with them science should quite naturally
and of itself end up with a system of nature considered in its totality, with a
general view of the universe, with a philosophy. 6

This notion of the relation between science and philosophy, Rey
continues, is impossible today. Science has become so specialized
since the end of the eighteenth century that both scientists and
4 "Depuis Jes debuts de la philosophie grecque jusqu'au XIXe siecle, la philosophie a ete
!'oeuvre des savants" (Rey, "Vers le positivisme absolu," 461). The French savant has a wider
meaning than scientist; in general it means scholar, scientist, learned or erudite person (see
Dictionnaire Franqais-Anglais, nouvelle ed., ed. Marguerite-Marie Dubois [Paris: Librairie
Larousse, 1981 ]). However, it is clear from Abel's (and Gilson's) use of the term in connection
with science, that it means "scientist" in their essays.
5 Rey, "Vers le positivisme absolu," 461.
6 "La plupartdes philosophes grecs, des grands scolastiques et des savants de la Renaissance
ont possede toute la science de leur epoque et l'ont possede en maltres. It n'est pas etonnant
alors que chez eux la science aboutisse tout naturellement, comme d'elle-meme, a un systeme
de la nature consideree dams sa totalite, a une vue generale de l'univers, a une philosophie"
(ibid., 462).

202

ARMAND MAURER

philosophers have agreed to a divorce. Science has gained its
independence of philosophy, and philosophy (especially metaphysics, exemplified by German idealism) developed above or
beside science on an entirely different level. Metaphysicians
regard science as busied with the relative, the half-truth, or more
exactly with apparent truth; absolute truth they "modestly"
reserve to themselves. Scientists, for their part, look upon
metaphysics as a flight of individual fancy with an aesthetic and
not a logical appeal. A scientific philosophy, one emerging from
science and using the method of science, is thought to be a myth. 7
Living in the age of positivism inaugurated by Auguste Comte,
Rey aimed to show that a scientific philosophy is indeed possible
and necessary. This entailed the revision of the nineteenth-century
divorce between science and philosophy. Not that science should
once again be mixed with philosophy and depend on it. The great
progress of science was entirely due to its separation from the
speculations and obscurities of philosophy. "Science," Rey says,
"is above all a system of partial propositions over which philosophy has no jurisdiction. " 8 But, given this fact, it must be
granted that positive science needs theories and general
conceptions. Scientists themselves, even the most positivistic, try
to answer questions that have always been classified as
philosophical. Earlier positivists (Rey is thinking of Auguste
Comte and his first followers, who considered positivism to be a
philosophy specifically other than the positive sciences) 9 were too
narrow and timid to acknowledge this. In short, their positivism
was not absolute. Today, however, according to Rey, positivists
attempt to answer these questions, not like the nineteenth-century
metaphysicians but like the philosophers of old, only with more
prudence and much less generality and certainty. Their answers
Ibid., 463.
"La science est d' abord un ensemble de propositions partielles sur laquelle la philosophie
n'a aucune juridiction" (ibid., 464).
9 For Comte's positive philosophy see his Cours de philosophie positive, 6 vols., 6th ed.
(Paris: Alfred Costes, 1908-34), l:l-16; E. Gilson, "French Positivism," in Thomas Langan,
Etienne Gilson, Armand Maurer, Recent Philosophy: Hegel to the Present, A History of
Philosophy 4, ed. E. Gilson (New York: Random House, 1966), 267-76.
7

8

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITMSM

203

are not general ideas springing from an individual imagination or
fights of fancy, but from the facts of science itself. 10
What then is philosophy for the absolute positivist? The first
thing to be said, according to Rey, is that philosophy cannot and
must not add to what the scientists say. They produce philosophy
in its entirety, either actually or potentially. They alone are
competent to know reality. Hence philosophy can be defined as
"the system of positive science." Philosophy cannot be nor ought
to be, in spirit and content, anything but the system of positive
sciences. 11 Can philosophy at least be given the task of
systematizing the results of science for its own purposes and
criticism? This was a widespread notion of positive philosophy,
attributed to Auguste Comte. 12 To Rey, however, it is bad
metaphysics. He insists that if philosophy is to be truly positive it
adds nothing to science. If philosophy is organized science, it
would add something to it and complete it, but this is the work of
science itself.
It might be objected that there are a great number of questions
left unanswered by science, like the nature of matter and
consciousness, and this leaves the door open to metaphysics. But
Rey sees no reason to think that positive science has any definite
limits. It might leave us ignorant about a certain matter, but we
should be confident that, using the methods of science, the
scientist will eventually find the solution, which will be accepted
by everyone. 13
This would seem to leave the philosopher with nothing to do.
But Rey finds a task for the positivist philosopher that is both very
important and difficult. He is the historian of contemporary
scientific thought, noting the differences and agreements between
scientists and schools of science, recording questions that remain
open and the evolution of scientific ideas. For this he himself must
have a broad knowledge of science to be assured that he does not
10 Rey, "Vers le positivisme absolu," 465-66.

11 Ibid., 461 n. 1.
12 For the constructive and critical role of Comte's positivism with regard to science, see
Gilson, "French Positivism," 273-76.
13 Rey, "Vers le positivisme absolu," 471.

204

ARMAND MAURER

make mistakes. The scientist also likes to take a hand in these
philosophical endeavors but always from his own limited and
partial point of view, unlike the philosopher who takes a broader
and more systematic view of the subject. So the philosopher does
have a very definite speciality: he studies the evolution of
scientific and philosophical ideas, and this puts him in direct
contact with facts and yields a true experience. 14
This gives the positivist philosopher a broad field in which to
work. He tries to synthesize in each period of history its
knowledge, methods, and hypotheses, not only as a sort of stocktaking (of which scientists above all feel the need because of the
specialized nature of their own work), but especially to provide
scientists with a general spirit or culture (a humanism in the best
sense of the term) that specialized sciences are unable to furnish.
The education and culture these sciences instill would be narrow
and even harmful without general philosophical views. Thus
philosophy (in the positivist sense) comes to the help of science,
which cannot survive without these views. 15
More can be said about the value of philosophy according to
Rey. Scientific knowledge avoids anthropomorphisms; its aim is
to be absolutely disinterested and as dehumanized as possible. But
humankind now as always raises general questions about human
life and destiny that vitally concern it. Rey insists that they must
be answered in a positivist spirit and not a priori, artificially and
with imagination or tradition. The role of positive philosophy is
to examine these new questions like all the others-namely, in the
light of the teachings of science, that is to say, in the light of
observation and experience, with the sole aim of looking for the
truth. 16
When approaching questions concerning religion and the
spiritual and social life that call for an answer, can we appeal to
utility? Can we say, "Believe this because it is useful?" Rey refuses
this pragmatic reply, for humans are looking for a reason for
believing en verite, that is, in the order of knowledge and truth.
14 Ibid., 473
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid., 474.

(Rey's emphasis).

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITIVISM

205

The new positive philosophy must search for answers, and it will
find them above all in the suggestions of science-not in studies
of the cosmos, but especially, and perhaps exclusively, in
psychology and sociology. 17
It is easy to detect here, as elsewhere, the influence of Comte
on Rey's notion of positivist philosophy. As we shall see, Comte
had no use for studying astronomy (except the sun and moon),
because it does not serve the interests of human life. Rey's
emphasis on sociology reflects Comte's notion that this science is
most fundamental, for it enables the philosopher to systematize
the results of all the other sciences. 18
Like Comte, Rey also stresses the need of religious sentiment
and tolerance of religious beliefs for the cohesion of life in
society, and he gives them an important place in positive
philosophy. Religion should be encouraged, at least in the broad
sense acceptable to the majority, though not in its actual particular
manifestations, and perhaps not in its mystical form. 19 Contrary
to Comte, Rey insists that positive philosophy should not furnish
a system of religious beliefs. But, like Comte, he emphasizes the
importance in general of affection and feeling in the positivist
philosophy, remarking: "This is the profound basis of our
conscious life, the eminent source of our actions, which the whole
contemporary science of psychology teaches us. Why would we
despise it to the advantage of an exclusive intellectualism, as
narrow and superficial as it is little positive?" 20
Rey's description of positivist philosophy would seem to
distinguish it in some way from the sciences, but he insists that
their functions are not different in nature but only in degree
-presumably, above all, in their degree of generality. Each of the
various sciences has its own speciality; philosophy emerges from
17 Ibid., 474-75.
18 On the role of sociology for Comte see Gilson, "French Positivism," 274; The Unity of
Philosophical Experience (New York: Scribner's, 1941), chap. 10.
19 Rey, "Vers le positivisme absolu," 477.
20 "Celle-ci [i.e. la vie affective] est la base profonde de notre vie consciente, source
eminente de nos actions, a ce que nous enseigne toute la science psychologique
contemporaine. Pourquoi la mepriser au profit d'un intellectualisme exclusif, aussi etroit et
superficiel que peu positif" (ibid.).

206

ARMAND MAURER

them in the mind of scientists as their continuation and
culmination, unifying their conclusions and applying to them the
historical and critical method. It is rightfully opposed to
metaphysics, by which is meant philosophies that do not use
scientific data and method but believe they have a method
superior to that of the sciences.
IL GILSON'S CRITICISM OF REY
Gilson's reply to Rey is a brief but passionate plea for the
independence of philosophy (and especially of metaphysics) from
science. Philosophy, he contends, cannot be reduced to science in
its contents, spirit, or method. It has its own content and method
which do not emerge from the results of science. There are
problems that philosophy alone can solve because they do not
come within the scope of science nor can they be addressed by the
scientific method.
In Rey's absolute positivism philosophy loses its autonomy and
has no other content or method than those of science. AB we have
seen, in absolute positivism philosophy cannot add anything to
what the scientists say; they do everything. 21 Gilson agrees with
Rey that scientists are competent to delve into their special
domains, and they can also rise to consider the philosophical
generalities concerning their specialities. A mathematician, for
example, can analyze mathematical reasoning and a geometrician
can tell us what he understands by space. But when a scientist
gives us conclusions about the meaning and value of science, or
about the limits of knowledge, he clearly goes beyond his
competence and becomes a philosopher and a metaphysician. No
scientific discipline confers on a scientist a special competence to
raise the central problem of the critique of knowledge. There is,
therefore, a place for metaphysics or a critique of knowledge
(whatever it might be called) alongside and above science itself. 22

21 See above, p. 202.
22 Gilson, "Notes

et discussions," 64.

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITMSM

207

Do metaphysicians look down on science and its methods, as
Rey claims? Gilson asks who these metaphysicians might be. Rey
himself mentions contemporary philosophers, like Renouvier,
Bergson, Boutroux, among others, but they believed in the
necessity of metaphysics and showed respect for science and its
method as necessary introductions to the whole of philosophy. 23
Gilson also finds Rey's statements about the roles of
philosophy in absolute positivism inconsistent. According to Rey's
own account, the positivist philosopher does nothing but make an
inventory of the results of science and write the history of
contemporary scientific thought, which, Gilson adds, Rey himself
has happily done. But Rey goes further and claims to raise the
problem of human destiny and the meaning of life in the light of
psychology and sociology, relying on the results of observation
and experience. Gilson doubts that these problems arise in
science, even in Rey's terms. He insists that no science, not even
psychology or sociology, addresses them. They are problems for
metaphysics and theology and are by definition ignored by
positive science. He asks how absolute positivism can be a
'humanism', concerned with the fundamental problems of life and
action, and yet it "cannot and must not add to what the scientists
say."24
Gilson sees the basis of Rey's rejection of metaphysics as his
desire to avoid putting limits to science, destroying science's
monopoly of knowledge and curbing its rights. But Gilson does
not see metaphysics as a peril for science; rather, he sees absolute
positivism as a veritable peril for philosophy. 25
Gilson's final remarks in his reply to Abel stress the
independence of philosophy as such from both theology and
science:
In the Middle Ages it was said that philosophy is the handmaiden of theology
(Philosophia ancilla theologiae). Philosophy is now freed from this servitude.
Today it is said that philosophy is the handmaiden of science (Philosophia ancilla
Ibid., 63. See Rey, "Vers le positivisme absolu," 467.
Gilson, "Notes et discussions," 65.
25 Ibid., 63.

23

24

208

ARMAND MAURER

scientiae). This second servitude would be no better than the first. Philosophy is
no one's servant. Without isolating it from science, but also without absorbing
it in science, let it continue the work begun several centuries ago. Like science
itself it will achieve from its own point of view ever closer approximations of the
truth. 26

Gilson wrote these lines in 1909, before encountering Thomas
Aquinas and the role of 'handmaiden' that philosophy played in
his theology. 27 At the time, this role appeared to him, in the spirit
of the Enlightenment, as a servitude from which philosophy
should be liberated. His deepening knowledge of medieval
philosophy, and of Thomism in particular, convinced him that the
role of philosophy as a handmaiden of theology was not a harmful
enslavement for philosophy but a positive enrichment. 28 At the
same time he insisted that in order to be a good handmaiden,
Thomism as a philosophy had to be strictly rational in its
principles and its argumentation. 29
III. REY'S REPLY TO GILSON

Replying to Gilson, Rey first clears up what he sees as a
misunderstanding between them. He then points out irreducible
oppositions between their points of view. The misunderstanding
concerns the expression "Philosophy is the handmaiden of
26 "On disait au moyen age: 'Philosophia ancilla theologiae'. La philosophie s'est liberee
de ce servage. On nous dit aujourd'hui: 'Philosophia ancilla scientiae'; ce second servage ne
vaudrait pas mieux que le premier. La philosophie n'est la servante de personne. Laissons la,
sans l'isoler de la science mais aussi sans l'y resorber, poursuivre !'oeuvre commencee depuis
plusieurs siecles; comme la science elle-meme elle realisera, du point de vue qui lui est propre,
des approximations de plus en plus rigoureuses de la verite" (ibid., 65).
27 The notion of philosophy as the handmaiden of theology comes from the Church
Fathers. See Bernard Bandoux, "Philosophia, ancilla theologiae," Antonianum 12 (193 7): 293326; Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University, 1956), 1:97-101. It is implied in St. Thomas' Summa Theologiae I, q. 1, a. 5, sed
contra: "aliae scientiae dicuntur ancillae huius [i.e. theologiae]."
28 For Gilson's classic defense of this opinion see his The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy,
trans. A. H. C. Downes (New York: Scribner's, 1940), chaps. 1 and 2. See also his The
Philosopher and Theology, trans. Cecile Gilson (New York: Random House, 1962).
29 Etienne Gilson, Thomism: The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, 6th ed., trans. L. K.
Shook and A. Maurer (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2002), xiii.

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITMSM

209

science," which Gilson attributes to Rey by analogy with the
medieval dictum "Philosophy is the handmaiden of theology."
The expression is unacceptable to Rey, for it implies that there is
a philosophy apart from science that could be its servant. For him,
the correct expression is absolute: "Philosophy is science," for
there is no other philosophy than positive science. 30 Nevertheless,
according to Rey, philosophy still exists, absorbed in science and
one with it, giving to the special sciences general views, broad
syntheses, a wide education and culture, without which there
would have been no science. The specialized sciences cannot
furnish them, but they must be supplied by the philosophy implied
by positive science itself. 31 Again, positive philosophy seeks to
clarify for each historical period the synthesis of knowledge and
the methods and hypotheses in use, which the scientists are the
first to feel the need of because of the specialty of their own work.
No doubt Gilson had statements like these in mind when he
attributed to Rey the expression "Philosophy is the handmaiden
of science."
The oppositions between Gilson and Rey are clear enough.
The main irreducible opposition between their points of view,
Rey says, is that for him there are no extra-scientific questions,
"for there is no legitimate method apart from the methods of
science." He illustrates this with the problems relating to human
destiny. These religious problems, Rey assures us, are not at all
extra-scientific; they can only be "technical applications of
scientific data .... Psychology, and above all sociology, sciences
of facts, exhaust for me the study of the question, and the same [is
true] for the problem of morality and the problem of knowledge."
Positive science is formed, Rey continues, by slowly eliminating
religious myths and magic rites, rejecting everything that cannot
measure up to the demands of knowledge. The best definition of
positive science that he can give is: "It refines and unifies the
means, all the means, and the sole means, of arriving at the truth."
From the point of view of both knowledge and action, "outside of
30 Rey, "Notes
31

et discussions: Sur le positivisme absolu," 66 (emphasis added).
Rey, "Vers le positivisme absolu," 466.

ARMAND MAURER

210

science there is no salvation." This is the uncomprom1smg
position to which Rey gives the title 'absolute positivism'. 32
In a postscript Rey clarifies his attitude toward metaphysics.
He finds metaphysical reflection very legitimate as a form of art,
responding to our aesthetic needs, but not at all as a way of
knowing or directing our actions. 33
.
IV. GILSON AND COMTE

Gilson devoted only a few pages in the 1909 issue of the Revue
philosophique to Rey's absolute positivism. In the years that
followed he gave considerable attention to Auguste Comte (17981857), the founder of positivism, and to the development of
absolute positivism among Comte's followers like Abel Rey and
Emile Littre (1801-81)-a movement that in Gilson's eyes
radically altered the founder's ideas. 34
Gilson finds two basic principles underlying Comte's
positivism, one intellectual, the other sentimental. The first is,
"Everything is relative," to which he adds in blatant contradiction,
"and this is the only absolute principle." 35 Suggested to him by his
reading of Hume, among others, the principle expresses, for
Comte, the positive spirit inherent in the human mind. Having
passed through the theological and metaphysical stages of history,
32 Rey, "Notes

et discussions," 66 (emphasis in original).

33 Ibid. (Rey's emphasis).
34 Gilson wrote extensively on Auguste Comte, including "La specificite de la philosophie
d'apres Auguste Comte," in Congres des societes americaine, anglaise, beige, italienne et de la
societe franqaise de philosophie (communications et discussions ... a la Sorbonne du 27 au 31
decembre 1921) (Paris: Colin, 1921), 382-86; "Essai sur la vie interieure," Revue
philosophique de la France et de l'etranger 89 (1920): 23-78; "Le bilan religieux du XIXe
siecle franc;;ais," Poi et vie 26 (1923): 1197-1202; Les metamorphoses de la cite de Dieu
(Louvain: Publications universitaires; Paris: J. Vrin, 1952); The Unity of Philosophical
Experience (New York: Scribner's, 1941), chap. 10; Gilson, "Auguste Comte," in Gilson,
Langan, and Maurer, Recent Philosophy, 267-76; Choir of Muses, trans. Maisie Ward (New
York: Sheed & Ward, 1953), 103-30. For an excellent account of Comte's philosophy see
Henri Gouhier, Lajeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme, 3 vols. (Paris: J.
Vrin, 1933-41).
35 "Tout est relatif, voila le seul principe absolu" (Comte, Systeme de politique positive, 4
vols. [Paris: Mathias, 1831-54[, 4:11. Cited in Gilson, "La specificite de la philosophie d'apres
Auguste Comte," 363;"Auguste Comte," 272.

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITIVISM

211

in which ideas and even things themselves were conceived as
absolute, humankind has finally reached the positive stage in
which everything is recognized as relative. This at once separates
Comte from followers like Rey and Littre, 36 for whom positivism
itself becomes something absolute. Thus, as we have seen, Rey can
say absolutely that philosophy is science, whereas Comte finds a
distinct role and method for philosophy. There are higher and
lower sciences for Comte, but this does not do away with the
distinctive character of his positive philosophy.
Comte's second principle is the importance of sentiment or
affection for a complete philosophy and a happy life. "Tender
affections," Comte writes, "are the source of the greatest
happiness. " 37 This includes the feminine element of humankind,
which he regarded as infinitely better than the masculine; without
it there can be no happiness. Affection introduced into Comte's
philosophy a subjectivism which stressed the primacy of feeling
over knowledge. As we have seen, Rey also emphasized the role
of affection in his absolute positivism, but unlike Comte he did
not elevate feeling and love above knowledge, as Comte
increasingly did in the second part of his career. 38
Comte's notions of science and philosophy and their relations
derive from these two principles. Since there are no absolutes for
him (except the principle that all is relative), Rey's absolute
statement: "Philosophy is science" would make no sense for
Comte. Although he granted no other source for the substance of
philosophy than that of science, 39 he clearly distinguished between
the two by giving philosophy its own functions and method.
In Comte's view, science studies things objectively and in
themselves. It sets up a systematic order of the sciences depending
on the greater or lesser generality of their objects. Biology, for
example, is a fundamental science because it deals with the
general fact of life, while entomology is not a fundamental science
36 For Littre, see Gilson, "La specificite de la philosophie d'apresAuguste Comte," 378-79;
"French Positivism," 277 n. 14.
37 Cited in Gilson, "La specificite de la philosophie d'apres Auguste Comte," 365.
38 Ibid., 376; Gilson, "Auguste Comte," 275.
39 Gilson, "Auguste Comte," 268, 274.

212

ARMAND MAURER

because the facts it studies are less general. For Comte, the order
of the sciences corresponds to the layers of reality and their
degrees of generality. Gilson calls this "perhaps the boldest
metaphysical assumption common to all the positivisms founded
on the rejection of metaphysics. They assume that there are such
things as more or less general facts, as if generality were not a
thing of the mind. " 40
Among the sciences Comte found a lacuna: none deals with
social facts. To fill this void he created sociology, a 'social physics'
that would make possible the creation of a truly organic society,
centered around the love of humanity. This positive science
became the keystone of his philosophy. The fundamental law of
sociology is the "law of the three states," according to which all
knowledge passes through three successive stages: theological or
fictive, metaphysical or abstract, and positive or scientific. In the
present positive stage of knowledge the aim is to explain
phenomena by discovering the general laws governing them.
Unlike knowledge in the metaphysical stage, it is not a search for
causes; rather, in Gilson's words, "it substitutes the search for
laws for the search for causes. In other words, it substitutes
science for metaphysics. "41
We have still to see the role Comte's positive philosophy plays
in human life. Science, the objective study of reality, is admirable
in itself, but Comte thought that the mind should go further and
consider things subjectively, that is, from the perspective of
human life and affection. It then reaches wisdom, the study of
which is traditionally called philosophy. This leaves no room in
Comte's philosophy for pure science. He shows disgust for the
pure scientist and for "the fatal dryness that accompanies, above
all today, the scientific culture. "42
The need for philosophy was evident to Comte. Science tends
to multiply and specialize, with the result that it is incapable of
offering a system of ideas that would give unity to our intellectual
life. Positivism brings together the general conclusions of the
40

Ibid., 269.

41 Ibid., 272.
42 Gilson, "La specificite de la philosophie

d'apres Auguste Comte," 377 n. 2.

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITMSM

213

sciences and gives a systematic interpretation of the world. 43 Far
from being reduced to science, positivist philosophy absorbs it,
dictates to it, and judges it, for the regeneration and unity of
society. 44 This leads Gilson to the important conclusion that
Comte's positivism, unlike that of Rey, is not 'a mere scientism'. 45
Comte was living in the aftermath of the French Revolution of
1789 and saw the need of restoring order and unity in society. For
this, he thought a positive system of ideas was needed, but above
all an awakening of sentiment and universal love for humankind.
Previously these were fostered by Christianity, but with its decline
he thought a new religion without God was needed, which he
aspired to provide with a religion of humanity. The worship of
man was to substitute for the worship of God; and there would be
"a City of Man, a positivist duplicate of the Christian City of
God, including a High Priest and a positivist clergy." 46
Writing in the review Poi et vie in 1920, only two years after
the greatest massacre of the human race in history, in which
Gilson himself had suffered, he pointed out the failure of Comte's
new religion of humanity. Comte acknowledged the need of a
faith and religion, based not on a transcendent object, like the
Christian God, but on an object of our own making, namely, the
love of humanity. But Gilson retorts that the events of the last few
years (i.e., the First World War) convinced us that faith and
religion can only be nourished by an object transcending not only
man but humanity. After the war, how laughable it is to expect us
to adore ourselves! 47

Gilson, "Auguste Comte," 268-69.
Ibid., 274-75.
45 Ibid., 273.
46 Ibid., 2 75; Gilson, "La specificite de la philosophie d' a pres Auguste Comte," 3 7 6. Gilson
treats of this theme, which he calls "the profound aspiration" of Comte's positivist doctrine,
in Les metamorphoses de la cite de Dieu, 248.
47 Gilson, "Le bilan religieux du XIXe siecle franc;;ais," 1200. I wish to thank Richard J.
Fafara for this reference and his comment on it in his "Gilson and Gouhier: Approaches to
Malebranche," in A Thomistic Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Etienne Gilson, ed. Peter A.
Redpath, Valuelnquiry Book Series 14 2 (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2003 ), 107-5 5.
43

44

214

ARMAND MAURER

Abel Rey, like other followers of Comte, refused to accept his
new positive religion, regarding it as a failure. 48 Nevertheless, as
we have seen, Rey insisted on the importance of religious
sentiment for its social value. He envisaged "a general protection
of religious tendencies in the name of social needs, which
amounted to a positive use of religions." He thought that none of
the current religions would gain worldwide acceptance. Rather,
they would gradually lose their force, and religion might become
a purely individual affair, "an entirely personal culture," an object
of study by psychology and sociology. 49
In Gilson's view, this is a decline from the partial scientism of
Comte to pure scientism and in fact to the end of positivism as a
philosophy:
Hence scientism and so-called absolute positivism, which make the content of
philosophy coincide with the content of science, mark the necessary ending of
the historical breakup of Comtism. At the precise moment when philosophy not
only refuses to lay claim to a power of knowing transcending that of science, but
even refuses to be only a human wisdom that actively intervenes in our
knowledge in order to arrange it in view of our needs and to submit it to the
demands of our interior perfection, philosophy as such surrenders into the hands
of science and at that moment ceases to exist .... absolute positivism is the
absolute negation of positivism. 50

V. GILSON AND PHILOSOPHY

Many of the ideas of Comte and his immediate followers live
on in logical positivism and logical empiricism, and they are still
widely influential among contemporary philosophers and scienRey, "Vers le positivisme absolu," 474.
Ibid., 477.
50 "Le scientisme et le positivisme dit absolu, qui font coincider le contenu de la
philosophie avec le contenu de la science, marquent done le point d'aboutissement necessaire
de la decomposition historique du comtisme. Au moment precis oil la philosophie, non
seulement refuse de s'arroger un pouvoir de connaftre transcendant il celui de la science, mais
renonce meme il n'etre qu'une sagesse humaine qui intervienne activement clans nos
connaissances pour !es ordonner en vue de nos besoins et !es soumettre aux exigences de notre
perfectionnement interieur, la philosophie comme telle abdique entre !es mains de la science,
et cesse au meme moment d'exister .... le positivisme absolu est la negation absolue du
positivisme" (Gilson, "La specificite de la philosophie d'apres Auguste Comte," 380).
48

49

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITMSM

215

tists. Among these are the notions that the scientific method is the
only means of reaching the truth, that philosophy (if admitted at
all) is inextricably bound up with science and emerges from it, and
that theology and metaphysics belong to ages long past and have
no place in the modern world as purveyors of the truth. 51
What is at stake here for Gilson is the integrity and specificity
of philosophy in relation to science-in short, the existence of
philosophy itself. Is philosophy a specific discipline with its own
object and method, or is its content and method identical with
those of science? These are problems he takes up in Methodical
Realism, when he treats of the specific nature of the philosophic
order. 52
Is it not reasonable, Gilson argues, that, since the objects of the
various sciences and philosophy are different, they should have
different methods? Rather than speaking, with Descartes, of the
method of seeking the truth, should we not speak of the methods?
He writes:
The mathematical method corresponds with the order of abstract quantity; even
so it has to diversify itself according to whether it is dealing with continuous or
discontinuous quantity, with geometry or with arithmetic. The physical order has
its method, because it has to study the movement and properties of inorganic
bodies. The biological order requires still another method, because it tackles the
study of organized beings, and so on for psychology, morality, and sociology. 53

The sciences study the various modes of being, while
metaphysics studies "being in itself, in its essence and in its
properties. It is the science of being as being," so it is natural that
it should have its own method, distinct from those of the sciences.
Metaphysics is necessary, Gilson writes,
51 In a recent work Joseph Margolis says, "Scientism remains the most salient vision of the
whole of analytic philosophy," adding "which is no closer now to being vindicated than it was
a hundred years ago" Goseph Margolis, The Unravelling of Scientism [Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2003], 11). For Margolis, any philosophy is marked by scientism that
advocates the use of a single method. Thus Cartesianism is an example of scientism.
52 Etienne Gilson, Methodical Realism, trans. Philip Trower (Front Royal, Va.:
Christendom Press, 1990), 81-107.
53 Ibid., 99-100.

216

ARMAND MAURER

[For] over and above the problems which the different modes of being raise,
there is the problem raised by being itself; not, how do such and such things
exist, but what is existence? In what does it consist? Why is there existence at all,
seeing that the existence we directly know does not seem to have in itself a
sufficient reason for its existence? Is it necessary or contingent? And if it is
contingent, does it not postulate a necessary existence as its cause and
explanation? 54

Throughout his career as a philosopher, metaphysics with its
many problems was Gilson's dominant preoccupation. His
numerous books and articles devoted to metaphysics give witness
to his love of the subject and to his conviction that Aristotle was
right in calling it the primary philosophy and human wisdom par
excellence. So intent was Gilson on the cultivation of this wisdom
that some have thought, or at least, suspected, that he equated
philosophy with metaphysics. 55
In fact, Gilson recognized a philosophy of nature, or what he
calls "the philosophy of the science of nature" in his book on final
causality and evolution. 56 Unlike Jacques Maritain and many other
Thomists, he did not think the philosophy of nature should be
conceived as a philosophical discipline formally distinct from
mathematics, the natural sciences or physics, and metaphysics. 57
Rather, it is the wisdom that probes the principles of the sciences
and takes up problems encountered in them but beyond the range
of the sciences themselves. Scientists are best qualified to engage
in these pursuits, and in fact some feel impelled to do so, but then
they do not speculate as scientists but as philosophers. This is the
54 Ibid., 106-7.
55 For example, Mortimer J. Adler, "Problems for Thomists, 2," The Thomist 2 (1940):
253 n. 219; John M. Quinn, The Thomism of Etienne Gilson: A Critical Study (Villanova:
Villanova University Press, 1971), 18-20.
56 Gilson, From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species,
and Evolution, trans. John Lyon (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984),
xix, 16.
57 For Maritain, the distinction between science and the philosophy of science results from
two specifically distinct types of the analysis of sensible reality, empiriological in the first case
and ontological in the second Uacques Maritain, Philosophy o(Nature, trans. Imelda C. Byrne
[New York: Philosophical Library, 1951], 73-74). Only in the seventeenth century was this
distinction clearly made with the Galileo-Cartesian revolution. See Jacques Maritain, "The
Conflict of Methods at the End of the Middle Ages," The Thomist 3 (1941): 527-38.

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITMSM

217

case with the principle of final causality in nature, which "belongs
to the philosophy of the science of nature. "58 What Gilson seems
to have in mind is not simply Comte's higher and lower levels of
science, the philosophy of nature being the highest and most
general, but a discipline emerging from science but using a
philosophic method to examine subjects beyond the reach of
science. This carries the philosophy of nature beyond Abel Rey's
absorption of philosophy in science and Comte's conception of
positive philosophy.
Gilson says little about the philosophy of nature in his
published works. However, he talks briefly about it in his
unpublished lectures "In Quest of Species," given in Toronto in
1972. 59 In the second lecture he says:
I have nothing against the project of a philosophy of nature, for there can be a
philosophy of everything. Every time you push up to the generalities and
principles of some discipline you reach its philosophy, but the philosophy of a
discipline is part of that discipline as being its crowning part. So, if there is a
philosophy of nature, since the science of nature is physics, that philosophy
should be conceived as the crowning part of physics.

In the twilight of Gilson's life he wrote several works critical
of positivism or scientism. Among these works is his book on
modern linguistics: Linguistics and Philosophy. 60 In this work he
records the attempt of linguists like Ferdinand de Saussure to
make a rigorous science of linguistics, avoiding all philosophical
commitments: what Gilson calls "linguistic positivism." He
contends that linguistics cannot do without philosophy, because
in reality language is meaningful, and meaning cannot be
58 Gilson, From Aristotle to Danuin and Back Again, 16. It should be noted that, since the
philosophy of nature, as Gilson conceived it, is a part of physics, it cannot have the full
autonomy of philosophy as described in Methodical Realism. Metaphysics alone would seem
to measure up to this independence. Nevertheless, the philosophy of nature has its own object
and method.
59 For these lectures, see above n. 3.
60 Etienne Gilson, Linguistics and Philosophy: An Essay on the Philosophical Constants of
Language, trans. John Lyon (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988). See
Armand Maurer, "Gilson on Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language," Doctor Communis
38, no. 1 (1985): 335-44.

218

ARMAND MAURER

understood without taking into account thought, which is an
immaterial and metaphysical factor. 61
Gilson also opposed modern scientism in his book on final
causality and evolution: From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again.
From the start he takes a stand against scientism in modern
biology. A modern biologist who is a pure mechanist, he says,
declares that it is scientific to exclude final causality from the
explanation of living beings, because it cannot be integrated into
his research. It is a fact, however, that the parts of a living
organism act for an end, and hence there is final causality or
teleology in nature. "[l]t is difficult," Gilson remarks, "to speak
of the function of an organ or of a tissue without dangerously
brushing against the idea of a natural teleology." 62 He writes:
The pure mechanist in biology is a man whose entire activity has as its end the
discovery of the "how" of the vital operations in plants and animals. Looking for
nothing else, he sees nothing else, and since he cannot integrate other things in
his research, he denies their existence. This is why he sincerely denies the
existence, however evident, of final causality. 63

Gilson's purpose is not to make final causality a scientific
notion but "a philosophical inevitability and, consquently, a
constant of biophilosophy, or philosophy of life." 64
Thus, from his first published article in 1909 to his last works,
Gilson was a critic of positivism and its implied scientism. At stake
was no less than the existence of philosophy itself as a specific
mental discipline. Contrary to Abel Rey, he insisted that
philosophy is not identical with science but has its own object and
method, distinct from those of the sciences. Using its own
method, it is able to solve weighty problems and to delve into
mysteries that would elude the sciences. Not that philosophers
should separate themselves from the sciences; rather, they should
avail themselves of their data, which they can use for philosophy's
own enrichment. Scientists for their part should turn to
Gilson, Linguistics and Philosophy, 69, 87.
Gilson, From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again, 11.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid., xix.
61
62

ETIENNE GILSON, CRITIC OF POSITMSM

219

philosophy when faced with questions lying beyond their
competence.

Gilson's defense of philosophy as a specific rational mode of
inquiry extends, beyond its relation to science, to that of theology.
It does not come within the scope of this essay to examine
Gilson's notion of Christian philosophy-an expression, he said
in later years, "which some wrongly imagine I like, whereas all I
like is the right to use it. " 65 (A surprising statement indeed, in
view of his defense of Christian philosophy in his Gifford
lectures!) He did not think that when philosophy is used as a
handmaiden of theology it is absorbed by theology so as to lose its
integrity and rationality and to become indistinguishable from it.
He insisted that it is appropriate to speak of the philosophy of
Thomas Aquinas, even when it lives in its fullness within his
theology. In the sixth and final edition of his Le thomisme (1986)
he continued to emphasize the essentially theological character of
Thomas's teaching because it is directed to a theological end, but
he added: "I maintain more than ever that his theology by its very
nature includes not only in fact but necessarily a strictly rational
philosophy. To deny this would be like denying that stones are
real stones just because they are used to build a cathedral. " 66
Commenting on Pope Leo XIII's description in Aeterni Patris of
philosophy's role in theology as a "way of philosophizing" (genus
philosophandi), he asserts:
[T]he philosophizing that reason is here doing is indeed philosophy .... In all
that falls under its competence, let philosophy follow its own method, use its
own principles and its own methods of demonstration .... In this religious use
of reason, philosophy should be present such as it is in itself, or otherwise the
Christian could not really use it. 67

Gilson, Thomism: The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, xiv.
Ibid., xiii. For the nature of Thomistic philosophy and its direction to theological ends,
see ibid., 1-37, especially 9.
67 Gilson, The Philosopher and Theology, 190-91.
65

66

220

ARMAND MAURER

Hence in its relation to theology, as well as in its relation to
science, Gilson guarded the integrity and rationality of
philosophy. It was in defense of philosophy in this sense that he
set his face against absolute positivism in his youthful essay on
Abel Rey and continued to criticize the positivism of Auguste
Comte and his followers throughout his long career.

The Thomist 71 (2007): 221-67

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD:
AQUINAS AND LONERGAN ON THE QUEST AFTER
COMPLETE INTELLIGIBILITY
ALICIA JARAMILLO

'' ONE

Saint Michael's College
Colchester, Vermont

CANNOT CONFINE human knowledge within
the domain of proportionate being without condemning it to mere matters of fact without explanation and so stripping it of knowledge not only of transcendent but
also of proportionate being." 1 Those who take their inspiration
from Bernard Lonergan's philosophical method for its ability to
shed light on the problems of human knowing and living are as it
were obligated to come to terms with this statement from Insight.
What Lonergan is in effect saying is that, sooner or later, one
must raise the question of God. At least in the speculative domain,
the inquiry into human understanding terminates in the
affirmation of an unrestricted act of understanding that no human
knower can identify with her own developing understanding, but
that she must affirm in order to make sense of her own limited
acts of understanding. Because this unrestricted act of
understanding would have to be the understanding of everything
about everything, Lonergan identifies it with the idea of being, for
an idea is the content of an act of understanding. 2 Such an idea
and its corresponding act of understanding, because it would be
1 Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, S'h edition, vol. 3 of
Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran (Tor onto
and Buffalo: Published for Lonergan Research Institute of Regis College, Toronto, by
University of Toronto Press, 1992), 676.
2

Ibid., 667.
221

222

ALICIA JARAMILLO

the understanding of being in all its universality and concreteness,
would have to be absolutely unconditioned and unlimited. Such
an intelligence could only be what men in all ages have called
'God'. 3
Lonergan aligns his approach to the problem of God (at least
in Insight) with the five ways of Thomas Aquinas. He identifies
the unrestricted act of understanding with Aquinas's ipsum
intelligere, one of the primary attributes of the First Uncaused
Cause who is affirmed at the end of Aquinas's demonstrations for
the existence of God. Lonergan acknowledges the Thomist debate
over whether being or intelligence is logically prior in Aquinas's
conception of God and firmly places his interpretation on the side
of the primacy of the act of intelligence. 4 I do not intend here to
enter into this debate. However, I shall attempt to show that
Aquinas's method of arriving at the affirmation of God is guided
every step of the way by the demands of intelligence in such a way
that the final product of the affirmation must be thought to be the
intelligent ground of all finite intelligence and intelligibility in the
same way that Lonergan's unrestricted act of understanding
grounds the intelligibility of the real. In effect I shall be
the usual distinction
made between the
challenging
Aristotelian/Thomistic physical or cosmological affirmation of a
first cause and Lonergan' s own method of delving deeper and
deeper into the demands of intelligence in order to arrive at what
he calls 'general transcendent knowledge'. 5
3 Such is the general argument, drastically abbreviated, of the penultimate chapter of
Insight, entitled "General Transcendent Knowledge." The final chapter, "Special Transcendent
Knowledge," lays out the heuristic structure of a possible supernatural revelation.
4 Bernard J. F. Lonergan et al., Understanding and Being: The Halifax Lectures on Insight,
2d edition, vol. 5 of Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (Toronto and Buffalo: Published
for Lonergan Research Institute of Regis College, Toronto, by University of Toronto Press,
1990), 240-41.
5 Lonergan himself claims that the "two processes are equivalent" (ibid., 240). Frederick
Crowe, one of Lonergan's foremost interpreters, distinguishes Lonergan's approach as
'transcendental' in contrast to the traditional 'cosmological' approach of Aquinas. See
Frederick E. Crowe, "Lonergan's Thoughts on Ultimate Reality and Meaning," in idem,
Appropriating the Lonergan Idea (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1989), 71-105. I will argue that Lonergan's approach simply makes explicit what is
implicit in Aquinas's five ways.

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

223

This paper will follow the general lines of Aquinas's argument
in the five ways as well as its presuppositions (without entering
into the particularities of any of the five ways themselves) in order
to show how the demands of intelligence and intelligibility lead
Aquinas to the affirmation of a first uncaused cause of being. In
doing so, Aquinas is in effect arguing for the speculative necessity
of raising the question of God. 6
I would like to show that Lonergan' s method of inquiry after
God essentially corresponds to Aquinas's own procedure, as there
has been some recent concern that Lonergan's 'transcendental'
approach to the question of God (and more generally, the
question of being) cannot get us to the classical First Uncaused
Cause of Thomist metaphysics. 7 I shall show how Aquinas's
metaphysical assent to God's existence is itself an expression of a
quest after the complete intelligibility of being, so that Lonergan' s
approach in chapter 19 of Insight can really be understood as a
reflection upon the intellectual operations that gave rise to this
affirmation of God as first cause.
I shall begin with the fact of the intellect's openness to all
reality and all truth evidenced in the wonder that is inspired in it.
This wonder on the part of the human spirit, recognized by
Aristotle and Aquinas and identical to what Lonergan calls the
pure and unrestricted desire to know, necessarily becomes an
inquiry into causes or explanatory principles. This inquiry,
6 The philosophical question of God-at least as a being who is totally other than finite
being-cannot be framed adequately until one has succeeded in rising to the affirmation of
a first uncaused cause of being. Until then, any notion of what one means by God risks being
conflated with the immanence of human reason. I have discussed this issue in my doctoral
dissertation especially in relation to Hegel (A. Jaramillo, The Total Transcendence of the
Infinite in Thomas Aquinas [Ph.D. diss., Boston College, 2005]). I have entitled this paper
"The Necessity of Raising the Question of God" rather than "The Necessity of Affirming the
Existence of God" precisely because I would like to draw attention to the genesis of the idea
of God from intelligence's immanent dynamism in its encounter with the data of experience.
The first expression of this dynamism is always a question, not a judgment. This is Lonergan's
argument in Insight. For an opposing view, which insists on the primacy of judgment, see
Frederick E. Wilhelmsen, Being and Knowing: Reflections of a Thomist (Albany, N.Y.:
Preserving Christian Publications, 1991).
7 See John F. X. Knasas, "Transcendental Thomism: A Metaphysical Assessment,"
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 64 (1995): 15-28.

224

ALICIAJARAMILLO

founded in the wonder that gives rise to philosophy, is intelligent
and reasonable, and therefore structures itself into the quest after
more and more universal principles of explanation for the beings
it knows. In order to be true to its own rationality, this quest must
terminate not arbitrarily, but necessarily at a first universal
principle of being that is the explanatory principle of all things.
Here I shall consider Lonergan's reflections on causality in order
to make more clear the necessity of arriving at a first uncaused
cause (in Lonergan's terminology, the formally unconditioned).
Finally, as an afternote of sorts, I shall acknowledge the practical
and existential turn of contemporary philosophy, 8 and show that
the necessity of the question of God, while truly one in the
speculative or theoretical order, has certain existential or practical
preconditions that must be met in order for the question
adequately to be raised.
I conclude this way in order to show that I am sensitive to the
fact that the question of God-at least as the intelligible ground
of being-is in fact one that is no longer commonly raised in a
speculative context. I shall attempt to give some reasons for the
divergence between the de jure and the de facto prominence of the
question in human rational endeavor. This aspect of the question
of the necessity of raising the question of God is one that neither
Aquinas nor Lonergan neglected.
This article intends to contribute to the ongoing effort to bring
both Aquinas and Lonergan into dialogue with contemporary
trends in philosophy and theology, especially in the case where
epistemological and ontological 'foundationalism' has been
rejected. In an article critical of Lonergan's demonstration for the
existence of God, R. M. Burns defines foundationalism as "the
traditional attempt to conceive of knowledge as necessarily
grounded in absolutely self-evident or purely given foundations
whether of a rationalist, empiricist, or Kantian-transcendentalist
8 For the primacy of the existential in contemporary philosophy, see Bernard J. F.
Lonergan, "The Subject," in idem, A Second Collection, ed. William J. F. Ryan and Bernard
J. Tyrrell (repr.; Toronto: Published for Lonergan Research Institute of Regis College,
Toronto, by University of Toronto Press, 1996), 79-84.

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

225

kind." 9 It is clear from Bum's article that he believes that
Lonergan's philosophical project falls under this label, and he
argues that such a project is ultimately untenable and that the
quest after complete intelligibility in the universe is a fool's
errand. In contrast, Burns proposes that it is a kind of
philosophical faith, or Grundvertrauen, that founds the epistemological enterprise and resists the attempt of human beings to
overcome all facticity by illuminating the foundations of reason
itself with the light of intelligence. Consequently, he takes issue
with Lonergan's (as well as Aquinas's) characterization of God as
the ground of intelligibility, and even goes so far as to propose an
alternative theology in which unlimited divine intelligence is
rejected in favor of an unconscious or nonintelligible abyss at the
core of the Godhead, reminiscent of Gnosticizing trends in both
antiquity and modernity. 10
Much contemporary theology as well is committedly
'antifoundationalist',
even in its foremost proponents of
speculative theology, in the sense that the fundamental role of a
rational metaphysics for theology is denied. With respect to
Lonergan, this often presents itself as a critique of his
methodological 'transcendentalism'. 11 This seems to be the
position of John Milbank, the founding father of 'Radical
Orthodoxy', who takes issue with the "anthropological starting
9 R. M. Burns, "Bernard Lonergan's Proof of the Existence and Nature of God," Modem
Theology 32 (1987): 153. Another interpreter of Lonergan, more sympathetic to Lonergan's
philosophy of religion, defines foundationalism as "the view that knowledge requires some
theoretical grounds for its justification" Uim Kanaris, "Lonergan and Contemporary
Philosophy of Religion," in Deane-Peter Baker and Patrick Maxwell, eds., Explorations in
Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion [Amsterdam and New York: Editions
Rodopi, B.V., 2003]).
10 For an illuminating study of this trend, see Cyril O'Regan, Gnostic Return in Modernity
(Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2001). O'Regan locates gnostic trends in thinkers as disparate as
Boehme, Schelling, Hegel, and Altizer.
11 Lonergan defines a method as transcendental when it "considers the operations of the
intellect and will, whose objects are transcendental" ("The Method of Theology," notes for
lectures delivered in Latin at the Gregorian University, Rome, under the title De methodo
theologiae [1962; unpublished translation produced in Toronto at the Lonergan Research
Institute in 1990], 7-8). The text also presents Lonergan's concise and useful comparison of
his transcendental approach with Kantian transcendentalism.

226

ALICIA JARAMILLO

point" of a thinker like Lonergan, particularly with respect to the
latter's interpretation of Aquinas. 12 Milbank and his colleague
Catherine Pickstock go so far as to suggest that while Aquinas may
have perceived his metaphysics of creation as "universally available
to rightly-directed reason," it is actually "rooted in the Biblical
tradition. " 13 This contrast between the logic of creation as the
"transcendental possibility of a negative specification of the unknown" and creation as a grammar that is "the explication of
culturally-specific meaning-presuppositions" causes Milbank to be
highly suspicious of the project of 'natural' or philosophical
theology.
This preference for grounding reason or intelligence in that
which is nonrational or nonintelligent is a trend so pervasive in
contemporary philosophy and theology that it would take several
books to treat the variety of objections raised against the viability
of 'natural theology' or 'philosophy of God'. 14 I shall limit my
efforts to showing exactly how both Aquinas and Lonergan held
that, in the case of knowledge of God's existence, scientia, which
normally requires insight into its first principles, 15 is possible,
although in fact it is rarely realized. I shall also show how
especially Lonergan's particular way of grounding human speculative endeavor tends to escape the criticisms leveled at classical
foundationalisms. I acknowledge the main insight of the antifoundationalist trend in theological thinking by arguing for the
existential necessity of religious conversion for an affirmation of
God and the theological context (in the strong sense of revelation)
in which such an affirmation usually takes place. However, I hold
12 John Milbank, "Critique of Theology of Right," in idem, The Word Made Strange
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 15.
13 Ibid., 13.
14 For a thorough-going treatment of the question of Lonergan's philosophy of God and
the question of foundationalism, see Ulf Jonsson, Foundations for Knowing God: Bernard
Lonergan's Foundations for Knowledge of God and the Challenge from Antifoundationalism
(Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1999).
15 The exception being 'subalternate' sciences, whose first principles are taken from a
higher science, the principles of which are per se known to it. See Aquinas's discussion of
sacred doctrine as a subalternate science in the first question of the Summa Theologiae (STh
I, q. 1, a. 2).

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

227

firmly to the de jure integrity of the philosophical pursuit of
complete intelligibility, in the sense that this quest's crowning
affirmation of God does not depend upon revealed truth or
"culturally-specific meanings" for its intrinsic intelligibility. In so
doing, I am arguing for the viability of the Aristotelian ideal of
scientia for our knowledge of God, an ideal transposed by
Lonergan into modern terms by his focus on method.
I. FROM WONDER TO THE INQUIRY AFTER CAUSES

The treatment of the question of God in terms of a First Cause
has fallen into disfavor in contemporary philosophy. 16 As James
Collins has suggested, 17 contemporary phenomenology considers
itself to be a purely descriptive, noninferential science that does
not inquire into the causes of the phenomena in question.
Accordingly, contemporary phenomenology of religion seems to
want to dispense with the 'ways' or demonstrations favored by
Aquinas and to focus on immediate religious or even theological
experience. 18 While this is not the place to balance one method
against the other, we must begin our inquiry into the necessity of
the question of God with an apology for the way it appears in
Aquinas's work, that is, as a question that is necessitated by the
way of causality. We can do this by showing how the inquiry after
causes begins in a phenomenon that is itself distinctly human.
Aristotle's Metaphysics famously begins by stating that all men
by nature desire to know. 19 Aquinas comments that the desire to
know follows from everyday experience, for men begin to
philosophize when they are struck by the things around them:
"perplexity and wonder arise from ignorance. For when we see
certain obvious effects whose cause we do not know, we wonder
For a representative of this critique see Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1991).
17 James Collins, God in Modem Philosophy (Chicago: H. Regnery Co., 1959).
18 See Marion, God without Being. Marion belongs to the Heideggerian tradition's move
away from the propositional forms of truth (assertion, inference, etc.) towards a theory of
truth as disclosure.
19 Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.980a22-980a27 (trans. W. D. Ross, in The Complete Works of
Aristotle, v. 2 [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984], 1552).
16

228

ALICIA JARAMILLO

about their cause. " 20 'Effects' that are 'manifest' in our experience
naturally strike us as fascinating. The ignorance of which Aristotle
and Aquinas speak is not a dumb opacity before the phenomena,
but the human potency for knowing that is identical with a
questioning spirit. This wonder or admiratio is not some rarified
experience but is common to the poets or myth-makers (in
Aristotle's mind, nontheoretical types) as well:
Since wonder was the motive which led men to philosophy, it is evident that the
philosopher is, in a sense, a philomyth, i.e., a lover of myth, as is characteristic
of the poets. Hence the first men to deal with the principles of things in a
mythical way, such as Perseus and certain others who were the seven sages, were
called the theologizing poets. Now the reason why the philosopher is compared
to the poet is that both are concerned with wonders. For the myths with which
the poets deal are composed of wonders, and the philosophers themselves were
moved to philosophize as a result of wonder. 21

Human intelligence, whether in its poetic or theoretical mode, 22
is activated by the fascination of being. The intellectual event of
wonder, which gives rise to questioning, is in some sense common
to all persons endowed with imagination and intelligence.
Experience, especially new and puzzling experience, gives rise to
a desire to explain the obscure, to illuminate the principia rerum,
to penetrate the givenness of experience with the light of
understanding. Admiration and wonder are not givens in sense
experience. They are rather the effect of intelligence's interplay
with such experience. One might venture to say that wonder is the
affective aspect of the experience of intelligence itself.
The philosophical quest begins in wonder at existence; it sets
the dynamism of the intellect on its way to convert admiratio et
ignorantia into scientia et sapientia, which are the ends of the
intellect. Now, the way to achieve a desired end is not through
20 Aquinas, I Metaphys., lect. 3 Gohn P. Rowan, trans., Commentary on Aristotle's
Metaphysics [Notre Dame, Ind.: Dumb Ox Books, 1995], 19).
21 Ibid. (Rowan, trans., 19).
22 For the differentiations of consciousness, see Lonergan, Insight, 204-12, where he
examines the different ways in which human experience is patterned. See also Bernard J. F.
Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), 81-99, where
he discusses 'stages of meaning' and 'realms of meaning'.

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

229

some haphazard succession of activity, but through a determinate
series of mediate operations. In the case of the intellectual desire
ignited by admiratio, what is called for is an engagement in an
ordered series of questions that inquire into the grounds for the
phenomena of experience. The dynamism of the intellect manifests itself as an inquiry after causes:
Man has a natural desire to know the causes of whatever he sees: wherefore
through wondering at what they saw, and being ignorant of its cause, men first
began to philosophize, and when they had discovered the cause they were at rest.
Nor do they cease inquiring until they come to the first cause; and then do we
deem ourselves to know perfectly when we know the first cause. Therefore man
naturally desires, as his last end, to know the first cause. 23

In this particular passage, Aquinas speaks about knowledge of the
first cause as also the final end of human life, such that knowledge
of this cause would be closely linked to appropriating the meaning
of existence. 24 Human reason inquires after causes in order to cast
light on the experience of a wondering mind; causes are multiple,
but the inquiry cannot stop until the first cause has been
discovered. This first cause must be considered not simply as the
first of a series of causes, but also as the most universal of causes.
Intelligence inquires after particular causes in the particular
sciences, where being presents itself under some particular aspect.
However, while each of these sciences converts admiratio into
scientia about some particular aspect of the experience of being by
investigating its causes, only the science that asks about being as
being can reach to the primary cause of wonder in itself. As we
shall see, this primary cause must be considered to be the first
cause of the intelligibility of phenomena 25 as well as of the
phenomena themselves. 26 This amounts to asking about the
universal cause of everything, the cause that not only accounts for
23 Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles III, c. 25 (Vernon J. Bourke, trans., Summa contra
Gentiles, Book Three: Providence, Part I [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press,
1975], 101; translation modified).
24 For the existential implications of the unrestricted desire to know, the inquiry after
causes, and the quest after complete intelligibility, see section IV, below.
25 That is, their relation to intellect.
26 See below, section III.

230

ALICIA JARAMILLO

particular phenomena, but also that accounts for there being
anything at all for us to wonder about.
It is in this 'accounting' that we can find the importance of
asking about causes. For Aristotle and Aquinas, causality is not
just a matter of necessary connection among phenomena or
events. A 'necessary connection' could be understood merely as a
fact, even if a necessary fact. Nonetheless, the 'necessity' would
remain opaque to the understanding, something that would still
inspire admiratio. Rather than resting in brute matter-of-factness,
the classical ideal of science, explained in Aristotle's Posterior
Analytics and practiced in the Metaphysics, seeks the full
intelligibility of beings as given in experience (of matters of fact)
through causes. Human beings look for causes because the cause
is thought of as being more intelligible in itself, for the cause
accounts for the being of the effect, not vice-versa. This is why
wisdom, the most explanatory of the intellectual virtues and the
one that orders all things, 27 concerns itself with the inquiry after
causes: "Since the certitude of science is acquired by the intellect
knowing causes, a knowledge of causes seems to be intellectual in
the highest degree. Hence that science which considers first causes
also seems to be the ruler of the others in the highest degree. " 28
The inquiry after causes is for the sake of a more and more
penetrating understanding of reality, of the things that we know
through experience. Causes give us not only sufficient reason for
the fact that something is; they also give us insight into how and
why something is the way it is. As human knowledge begins in
questioning, the types of questions that arise will heuristically
determine the types of causes that may be known. But we do not
ask only whether something is so, but also why it is so. Reason
seeks the truth in its totality, and therefore perseveres until it
discovers a first cause that could account for why things are as
they are. 29
In Metaphys., prologue. See also ScG I, c. 1.
In Metaphys., prologue.
29 It can be argued that in his inquiry after the meaning of being Heidegger rejected the
way of causality because he interpreted it according to the reduction by the modern
rationalists of causality to the a priori principle of sufficient reason. For a classical presentation
27
28

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

231

The wonder that manifests itself in philosophical inquiry is
indeed the desire to know everything; however this "desire to
know everything" must be qualified in light of a proper understanding of what science or scientific knowledge means for
Aristotle. In Aristotelian science, knowledge of causes is the
defining feature of wisdom, for the illumination of being belongs
to the knowledge of all things through their causes. In contrast,
this "knowing of all things" that belongs to wisdom does not
include exhaustive knowledge of particulars; for, as there are or
could be an infinite number of singular things, it is impossible to
comprehend them: "In general we all consider those especially to
be wise who know all things, as the case demands, without having
a knowledge of every singular thing. For this is impossible, since
singular things are infinite in number, and an infinite number of
things cannot be comprehended by the intellect. " 30 The desire to
know all singulars could be better characterized as curiosity.
Indeed, it is for the intellectual vice of curiosity, a prurient
obsession with the aesthetically interesting, that St. Augustine
condemns himself in the Confessions, 31 ·and not for the wonder at
God's transcendence and paradoxical omnipresence which opens
the work. 32
of this principle, see Rene Descartes, "Replies to First Set of Objections," in The Philosophical
Writings of Descartes, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984 ), 78: "[f]he light
of nature does establish that if anything exists we may always ask why it exists; that is, we may
inquire into its efficient cause, or , if it does not have one, we may demand why it does not
need one." For Heidegger's critique of the principle of sufficient reason, see Martin
Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, trans. Reginald Lilly (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana
University Press, 1991). Descartes's principle of sufficient reason as the intellectual ground of
causality is clearly a priori. For Aquinas, on the other hand, first principles are learned through
concrete sense experience, even though the light by which they are apprehended is innate
(Super Boethium de Trinitate, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4).
30 I Metaphys., lect. 2.
31 Confessions10: "There are many respects, in tiny and contemptible matters, where our
curiosity is provoked every day ... it distracts me perhaps indeed from thinking out some
weighty matter" (Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick [Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1991], 212).
32 Confessions 1: "Why do I request you to come to me when, unless you were within me,
I would have no being at all? ... Who then are you, my God? ... Most high, utterly good,
utterly powerful, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, deeply hidden yet most
present ... "(Chadwick trans., 4).

232

ALICIA JARAMILLO

The contrast that Aquinas makes between knowledge of
principles and causes, on the one hand, and knowledge of
particulars, on the other, leads us to suspect that the first cause
cannot be conceived as merely one being, albeit the first, among
many. Wisdom belongs to the one who knows the highest causes
because they are in some way non-particular; they possess a
universality in terms of explanatory power. There has to be something universal about a cause that accounts for a plurality and
diversity of facts. For the more universal ('higher') the cause, the
more beings is it able to comprehend under its power. The first
cause as most universal would have to be able to account for all
beings, and perhaps for being itself in its commonality. 33
In seeking the first universal cause as explanatory of the
phenomena of experience, the mind inquires after that which may
exceed finite powers of knowing, but nonetheless is more
intelligible than that for which it accounts. 34 The perfection of the
intellect consists, not in the (impossible) traversal of an infinite
series of singulars, but in the act of beholding some principle that
would comprehend the rationes of all things, including those of
all particulars, under its power.
The natural desire of the rational creature is to know everything that belongs to
the perfection of the intellect, namely, the species and the genera of things and
33 We draw this distinction because of Aquinas's tendency to think of God as the creator
not only of esse and therefore of all particular beings, but of common being as esse cum
ordine, so that the order of the universe can be considered to be the primary effect of God (In
De Div. nom., c. 7, lect. 4; ScG I, c. 42). Crowe claims that, unlike classical causal
demonstrations for the existence of God, Lonergan's transcendental approach to the
affirmation of God can countenance the break, occasioned by the development of modern
science, between empirical causality (immanent causes and correlations) and metaphysical
(extrinsic) causality. On this account, God is no longer used to explain phenomena in the
world and their operations, which must be explained by an immanent explanatory scheme.
God is rather the explanation of the world itself, of reality or being (Crowe, "Lonergan's
Thoughts on Ultimate Reality and Meaning"). I would say that this is an extension of
Aquinas's own conception of the distinction between particular and universal causes, especially
his insistence that the first cause causes not only the being but the operative potency of the
second cause. Therefore immanent causes are causes only because their causality is caused by
a transcendent principle. See note 38, below. Cf. note 37 for Lonergan's discussion of this
problem.
34 STh I q. 12, a. 1.

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

233

their types, and these everyone who sees the Divine essence will see in God. But
to know other singulars, their thoughts and their deeds does not belong to the
perfection of the created intellect nor does its natural desire go out to these
things. 35

As we can see from this passage, Aquinas equates this principle of
explanation with God. It may be too precipitate for us to accept
this assertion, however, for we have yet to examine other
candidates that have been proposed. Let us look at one that makes
its appearance in Aquinas's own demonstrations.

II. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF THE INFINITE REGRESS
For Aquinas, the necessity of affirming a first uncaused cause
lies in the fact that reason cannot rest in the positing of the most
obvious alternative: an infinite regress in per se subordinated
causes, each cause itself caused by a higher or more universal
cause, such that there would be no first uncaused cause or most
universal cause. The impossibility of an infinite regress in causes
is an axiom upon which Aquinas's proofs for the existence of God
stand or fall. Although this axiom is not fully analyzed in the
Summa Theologiae, it is nonetheless a truth that can be made
more manifest, as Aquinas attempts to do in other works. 36
Aristotle speaks of the impossibility of an infinite regress in the
four causes that he explored in the Physics. What will concern us
here, however, are only the efficient and final causes of the
universe, what Aquinas calls 'extrinsic causes'. 37 For Aristotle and
Aquinas, it is impossible to posit an infinite regress in efficient
causes because of the nature of instrumentality in causes:
Three things are found in motion: one is the mobile object which is moved;
another is the mover; and the third is the instrument by which the mover moves.
Of these three it is clear that that which is moved must be moved, but it is not
35 STh I q. 12, a. 8, ad 4. Translations from the Summa Theologiae come from Saint
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the EnglishDominican Province (New
York: Benziger Brothers, 1948).
36 ScG I, c. 13; I Metaphys., lect. 3-4.

37 De Principiis, c. 3.

234

ALICIAJARAMILLO

necessary that it move. The instrument by which the mover moves must both
move and be moved (for it is moved by the principal mover, and it moves the
ultimate thing moved). Hence everything which both moves and is moved has
the nature [ratio] of an instrument. 38

Something that has the nature of an instrument cannot be a first
cause. An instrument is such that it cannot operate except by the
operation of its moving cause. 39 For Aristotle and Aquinas, to
posit an infinite regress of causes is to deny that there is a first
cause; this would render all causes instrumental. In an infinite
series of intermediaries (i.e., of nonultimate or instrumental
causes), there can be no cause of the causality of the
intermediaries. And intermediaries are causes only because their
causality is nonultimate, that is, caused. Thus the intermediaries
could not exist as intermediaries: "Consequently, if the causes of
motion proceed to infinity in this way, there will be no first cause.
But a first cause is the cause of all things. Therefore it will follow
that all causes are eliminated; for when a cause is removed the
things of which it is the cause are also removed. " 40
Here we are given an expanded version of the axiom remota
causa, removetur effectus. The cogency of the argument rests on
one's ability to understand causality not just in relation to things,
but in relation to operations as well. One can inquire into the
causes of the causality of particular causes. Secondary causes
cannot operate without the operation of a primary cause, because
this primary cause is the cause of their causal power. This is
evident in the very meaning of an instrument, which is always the
instrument of an agent. For Aquinas, not only are artifacts
instruments, natural beings are as well, whose causality is effective
only through the operation of higher beings, whether these be the
heavenly bodies, separate substances, or God himself. Lonergan

38 VIII Physic., lect. 9. Translations of Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle's Physics are
from St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, trans. Richard J. Blackwell,
Richard J. Spath, and W. Edmund Thirlkel (Notre Dame, Ind.: Dumb Ox Books, 1999).
39 II Metaphys., lect. 3.
40 Ibid.

THE NECESSITYOF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

235

calls this the "slightly difficult concept of 'causing causation'. "41
Thus, the first cause is not only the cause of the being (or, as in
Aristotle, the motion) of the intermediate causes and ultimate
effects, it is the cause of the active power of all intermediate
causes and of their action. That is, the first cause causes the
motion of the intermediate cause or causes, and also enables the
intermediate causes to cause the motion of the ultimate effects.
Not all instrumental causes receive their being from the primary
cause that operates an effect through them (e.g., a person can use
a hammer that he has not fashioned). But they all receive their
operative efficacy through being used by a more primary cause.
Aquinas insists that the primary or universal cause, although
more remote, is plus influens and operates more powerfully
(vehementius) than the secondary cause.
The operation by which the secondary cause causes the effect is itself caused by
the first cause; for the primary cause assists the secondary cause by making it act;
therefore with respect to the operation by which the effect is produced by the
secondary cause, the first cause is more a cause than the secondary cause. This
Proclus expressly proves: for the secondary cause, since it is the effect of the
primary cause, has its substance from the primary cause; but from that which
something has its substance, from that same thing it has its power or force to act.
Therefore the secondary cause has its power or force from the primary cause.
But the secondary cause according to its power or force is the cause of the effect;
therefore that very thing in the secondary cause that causes the effect it has by
the first cause. 42

41 Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St
Thomas Aquinas. (Buffalo: Published for Lonergan Research Institute of Regis College,
Toronto, by University of Toronto Press, 2000), 87. See esp. chap. 4, "St. Thomas' theory
of operation" (87££.).
42 In de Causis, lect. l: "Eminentius convenit aliquid causae quam causato; sed operatio
qua causa secunda causat effectum, causatur a causa prima, nam causa prima adiuvat causam
secundam faciens earn operari; ergo huius operationis secundum quam effectus producitur a
causa secunda, magis est causa causa prima quam causa secunda. Proclus autem expressius hoc
sic probat: causa enim secunda, cum sit effectus causae primae, substantiam suam habet a
causa prima; sed a quo habet aliquid substantiam, ab eo habet potentiam sive virtutem
operandi; ergo causa secunda habet potentiam sive virtutem operandi a causa prima. Sed causa
secunda per suam potentiam vel virtutem est causa effectus; ergo hoc ipsum C[uod causa
secunda sit causa effectus, habet a prima causa." All translations from Aquinas's commentary
on the Liber de causis are mine.

236

ALICIA JARAMILLO

There are orders of causes, ordered according to the power and
universality of the cause, which is partly what Aquinas has in mind
when he speaks of a per se subordination: "[The series is] per se
when the intention of the primary cause has in view everything up
to the final effect through all intermediate causes, just as the art
of the maker moves the hand, and the hand moves the hammer
which pounds the iron, which is the aim of the art. " 43 The order
of causes itself entails distinct orders, each of which contributes
in a unique way to the execution of the effect, which is the
intention of the first cause. Not so with a per accidens order of
causes:
It is a per accidens [order] when the intention of the cause do not extend beyond
the most proximate effect; however, whatever else happens to be effected by that
effect is beyond the aim of the first mover, as when someone lights a candle, it
is beyond his aim that this lighted candle would again light another and that one
another; and that which is outside an intention we call per accidens.44

It is only with a per se subordination of efficient causes that
Aquinas's insistence holds: "non autem est possibile quod in causis
efficientibus procedatur in infinitum." In a per accidens order of
causes, there could indeed be infinite regress; however, any
particular instance in this sequence of causes would itself require
a per se order of higher causes and a first cause that does not
belong to the infinite sequence. The notion of per accidens would
not exclude the necessity that an infinite regress of a per accidens
order of causes be comprehended under the power (and
knowledge) 45 of higher, more universal causes and of the first
cause. Instrumental causes depend upon the primary cause. The
43 Ibid.: "Per se quidem quando intentio primae causae respicit usque ad ultimum effectum
per omnes medias causas, sicut cum ars fabrilis movet manum, manus martellum qui ferrum
percussura extendit, ad quod fertur intentio artis."
44 Ibid.: "Per accidens autem quando intentio causae non procedit nisi ad proximum
effectum; quod autem ab illo effectu efficiatur iterum aliud, est praeter intentionem primi
efficientis, sicut cum aliquis accendit candelam, praeter intentionem eius est quod iterum
accensa candela accendat aliam et illa aliam; quod autem praeter intentionem est, dicimus esse
per accidens."
45 Aquinas's doctrine of Providence requires that God's infinite intellect be able to
comprehend an infinite number of singulars. See STh I, q.22.

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

237

number of instrumental causes could be infinite, but this does not
preclude the necessity of a primary agent cause.
Because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the
intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause,
whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the
cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among
efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. 46

On the other hand, an infinite per se sequence of efficient causes
would render all causes instrumental and therefore in themselves
impotent.
Aquinas absolutely rejects the infinite regress as truly a 'bad
infinity' that is not only a merely superficial intellectual
penetration of the phenomena, but also a descent into
unintelligibility and a renunciation of all explanation in terms of
per se subordinated causes. An infinite series of causes, conceived
as unconditioned, would not give us a determinate phenomenon
to be explained, and therefore cannot be comprehended
conceptually. The infinite regress excludes a final terminus, and
as such is indefinite and indeterminate. 47
But if we were to hold that there is an infinite series of moving causes in the
above way, then all causes would be intermediate ones. Thus we would have to
say without qualification that all parts of any infinite thing, whether of a series
of causes or of continuous quantities, are intermediate ones; for if there were a
part that was not an intermediate one, it would have to be either a first or a last;
and both of these are opposed to the nature of the infinite, which excludes every
limit, whether it be a starting-point or a terminus. 48

If we look for other instances in the history of philosophy of
the rejection of the infinite regress, we come upon Hegel's
treatment of the 'spurious infinite' in his dialectic of the finite and
the infinite and subsequent transposition of the dialectic onto the
causal relation. Like Aquinas, Hegel shows that Verstand's (what
he calls the finite understanding's) indefinite and interminable
46 STh

I, q. 2, a. 3.

47 Aristotle associates this indeterminateness
48 II

Metaphys., lect. 3.

and indefiniteness with the material principle.

238

ALICIAJARAMILLO

positing of finite causes is not properly explanatory until it has
been comprehended by Reason (Vernunft) as the unity of the
finite and its beyond. This unity is the 'affirmative infinite' of the
causa sui:
In the usual sense of the causal relation the cause is finite, inasmuch as its content
is finite (just as it is in finite substance) and inasmuch as the cause and the effect
are represented as two diverse independent existences [Daseiende]-but that is
only what they are when we abstract from the causal relationship in considering
them. In the realm of the finite, we do not get beyond the distinction of the
form-determinations within their relation; hence, it is the turn of the cause to be
also determined as something-posited or as an effect; this effect has yet an other
cause; and in this way the progress ad infinitum, from effects to causes, arises
once more. A descending progress arises in the same way, since it follows from
the identity of the effect with the cause that the effect is itself determined as a
cause and at the same time as an other. 49

Hegel, in asserting that the infinite series is uncaused, or rather
self-causing, is claiming that beyond the infinite play of finite
oppositions there is nothing about which one could inquire.
According to Hegel's Logic, this is precisely the insight that allows
one to advance to the comprehension of the 'affirmative infinite'.
In effect, Hegel denies the infinite progress's lack of intelligibility
and attempts to show that it can be comprehended in the
Concept. One might venture to say that for Hegel the
'quidditative' or 'explanatory' definition of the infinite regress is
the concept of affirmative infinity. Reason is able to comprehend
the whole that is represented by the Understanding as an endless
series of causes and effects.
In contrast, for Aquinas, the very positing of the infinite
regress, not merely an inadequate interpretation of it in terms of
an irrational beyondness, is what is truly indeterminate and
unintelligible, in the privative sense of lacking any terminus and
of being only an abstraction that cannot have concrete being. For
Aquinas, if one were to posit the infinite regress, it would not
make sense to inquire into its essence or quiddity, because there
49 G. W. F. Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic, trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H.
S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1991), 228-29.

THE NECESSI1Y OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

239

is no determinate existence affirmed about which we can ask but
merely an agglomeration of finite oppositions (or endless repetition of the same). To 'understand' the bad infinite/infinite
regress is to understand that it has no intelligibility, 50 that it
cannot be traversed rationally nor defined, as Aquinas says.51
Aristotle and Aquinas were concrete thinkers whose scientific
method entailed explaining difficult and abstract ideas (such as
infinite regress or uncaused cause) by means of what is better
known to us. This is why, in explaining the impossibility of an
infinite regress in causes, Aristotle emphasized final causality. In
attempting to clarify the impossibility of an infinite regress in final
causes, Aristotle avails himself of an analogy taken from the
domain of practical reason or rational action, a maneuver that
Aquinas also adopts. 52 The final cause is literally "that for the sake
of which" (ou EVEKa or cuius causa). We have already used the
principle of the final cause to elucidate the dynamism of the
intellect as a search for ultimate causes. 53 The meaning of rational
action entails purposive activity, which is activity in view of an
end. Positing an infinite regress in final causes, however, leaves
the agent without a determinate end to pursue: "One who posits
an infinite number of final causes does away with a limit, and
therefore with the end for the sake of which a cause acts. But
every intelligent agent acts for the sake of some end. Therefore it
would follow that there is no intellect among causes which are
productive; and thus the practical intellect is eliminated. "54 In
practice, we think of ourselves as sources of activity acting for
some purpose or another. But to act for a purpose is to determine
a limit towards which we strive. Rational activity of its very
nature cannot pursue a 'bad infinite' or infinite regress in ends,
50 Since matter's intelligibility depends upon its form (the act of the matter), an unlimited
material component would be absolutely unintelligible.
51 I Anal. Post., lect. 34. All translations of Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle's Posterior
Analytics are from St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle,
trans. F. R. Larcher (Albany, N.Y.: Magi Books, 1970).
52 ScG III, c. 2.
53
does this more fully in his attempt critically to ground the principle of realism.
See J. Marechal, Le point du depart de la metaphysique (Paris : Desclee De Brouwer, 1944).
54 II Metaphys., lect. 4.

240

ALICIAJARAMILLO

because the rational agent will not pursue anything it conceives of
as in principle unattainable.
III. FROM THE INFINITE REGRESS TO UNLIMITED INTELLIGIBILITY

According to Aristotle and Aquinas, the principle of conscious
purposive activity described above can, by analogy, be extended
to include the natural world as well:
If there were an infinite number of final causes, no one could reach a last
terminus, because there is no last terminus in an infinite series. But no one will
attempt to do anything unless he thinks he is able to accomplish something as a
final goal. Therefore, those who hold that final causes proceed to infinity do
away with every attempt to operate and even with the activities of natural
bodies; for a thing's natural movement is only toward something which it is
naturally disposed to attain. 55

This extension of the analogy of finality to the entire universe of
being is important for Aristotle's affirmation of the First Unmoved
Mover. It would be beyond our objectives to rehearse in detail
Aristotle's argument for a hierarchy of moved movers to account
for the many varieties of motion observed in the universe: the
eternal process of generation and corruption as caused by the
eternal circular motion of the heavenly bodies, who are moved
movers; these in turn moved by an unmoved mover, who is able
to cause eternal, regular motion in the heavenly bodies because it
is unmoved pure act that always· acts in the same way. What is
important, however, is to note that, for Aristotle, the Unmoved
Mover moves (primarily) by being desired, that is, as a final cause.
This is important, because while Aquinas will initially follow this
shift from efficient (motive) causality to final causality in moving
from the material to immaterial orders of causes, 56 his mature
thought will emphasize the efficient and exemplary causality of
the First Unmoved Mover. For Aristotle, efficient causes that are
bodies cause movement by coming into physical contact with what
they are moving. Obviously, the immaterial first cause cannot
55 Ibid.
56 Cf. XII Metaphys.;

ScG I, c. 13.

THE NECESSI1Y OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

241

cause movement in this way; for the same reason, neither can
bodily movers be unmoved movers. According to Aristotle, then,
an unmoved mover must move another only by way of being the
end desired by that other: "Now the first mover causes motion as
something intelligible and something appetible; for these alone
cause motion without being moved. "57 The first mover causes
motion without being moved, because it is the ultimate object of
the natural and intellectual desire of the earthly and heavenly
bodies: "since it has been shown that the first mover is unmoved,
it must cause motion in the way in which the desirable and the
intelligible do; for only these, the desirable and the intelligible,
are found to cause motion without being moved. "58 All moved
movers act in order to liken themselves to the first mover, by
being causal principles: "Now it is said that the first mover causes
motion as something appetible because the motion of the heavens
has this mover as its end or goal, for this motion is caused by
some proximate mover which moves on account of the first
unmoved mover in order that it may be assimilated in its causality
to the first mover and bring to actuality whatever is virtually
contained in it. " 59
The question becomes, can we restrict the search for higher,
more universal causes to that of final causality, that is, conceive
the power of the first mover as causing solely by being desired?
The inquiry after causes, the manifestation of the intellect's
dynamic and unrestricted desire, seeks complete intelligibility and
total explanation. That Aquinas believed that something other
than final causality was necessary is evident even as he comments
on Aristotle, who thought of the first mover as ordering the
universe primarily by being the focus of intention, as the
commander is the intentional focus of an army.
And since the formal character of things which exist for the sake of an end is
derived from the end, it is therefore necessary not only that the good of the army
exist for the sake of the commander fpropter ducem ], but also that the order of
57

Aristotle, Metaphysics 12.1072a26.
Iect. 7.

58 XII Metaphys.,
59 Ibid.

242

ALICIAJARAMILLO

the army depend on the commander [a duce], since its order exists for the sake
of the commander. ... For the whole order of the universe exists for the sake
of the first mover inasmuch as the things contained in the mind and will of the
first mover are realized in the ordered universe. Hence the whole order of the
universe must depend on the first mover. 60

Here Aquinas reads something like exemplary causality into
Aristotle's military analogy. 61 The commander leads not only by
being that for the sake of whom the order of the army composes
itself, but is also the one who conceives and executes the ordering
of the army itself.
Can we then extend the analogy to inquire into whether God,
the unus princeps totius universi, 62 can be thought to be the cause
of the order of the universe by being the efficient cause of its very
being? Aquinas himself certainly thought so, even in commenting
on and correcting Aristotle's affirmation of the eternity of the
world. For while Aquinas did not believe that the universe was
eternal, or that motion was eternal, nonetheless, he showed that
even on the hypothesis that there is no beginning nor end to
motion, as Aristotle believed, the question of the universal
efficient cause of being, that is, the question of creation, is still
relevant. Eternal things are not necessarily uncaused. 63 The
question of the universal cause of being is meaningful even on the
presupposition of the eternity of the world, for the very reason
that the inquiry after causes cannot be restricted to the inquiry
after a beginning in time but rather is in essence a quest for
ultimate intelligibility in the universe, whether that universe be
temporally limited or not.
Aquinas was aware that, in inquiring into the universal cause
of being simply (i.e., into the existence of things in the world), we
are not to be satisfied with a cause that would remain at the level
XII Metaphys., lect. 12.
Aristotle's text: "We must consider also in which of two ways the nature of the universe
contains the good, and the highest good, whether as something separate and by itself, or as
the order of the parts. Probably in both ways, as an army does; for its good is found both in
its order and in its leader, and more in the latter; for he does not depend on the order but it
depends on him" (Metaphysics 12.1075a11-15).
62 XII Metaphys., lect. 12.
63 See Aquinas's third way (STh I, q. 2, a. 3).
60

61

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

243

of a matter of fact (i.e., an existence that is contingent and has no
intelligible reason for existing). For Aquinas, the questions that
inquire into whether something exists-quia, an sit, si est: in a
word, is it so?-are always either propaedeutic to or consequent
upon the question of quid or prapter quid, because the proper
object of the intellect is the quad quid est64 or what will account
for what is. This is because the intellect is not perfected with the
knowledge of mere matters of fact, but always desires to know
why something is so. On one level, the intrinsic intelligibility of
a thing, expressed by its explanatory definition, answers the
question why: what is this, why is this the way it is? Starting with
a nominal definition, we begin to ask what are the terms and
relations that make it be the kind of thing it is, what in the
classical tradition is called the formal cause or the quad quid est.
The answer to such a question gives us explanatory knowledge. 65
The essence or quad quid est of a thing is formally its 'reason
why', because it expresses its intrinsic intelligibility. It is from the
quad quid est that the definition of a thing is taken. 66
But the mind can ask a further variety of the question why:
namely, "Why does something exist, why does anything exist,
why is there anything rather than nothing?" In the finite being
that we know, existence presents itself to us ultimately as a matter
of fact, that is, a contingency verified in judgment: things, and
even the universe as a totality, happen to be, they exist, but not
necessarily. Our judgments are founded on what Lonergan calls
the 'virtually unconditioned', that is, a conditioned whose
conditions happen to be fulfilled. 67 The relative nature of the
virtually unconditioned is obvious: it is dependent upon its
conditions. As for these conditions, to be able to affirm their own
existence within the realm of proportionate being would be again
to arrive at a virtually unconditioned. Can we go on to infinity in
this affirmation of the virtually unconditioned?
See STh I-II, q. 3, a. 8.
For the distinction between descriptive and explanatory knowledge, see Lonergan,
Insight, 35.
66 II Post. Anal., lect. 1.
67 Lonergan, Insight, 304-8 (in chap. 10, "Reflective Understanding").
64

65

244

ALICIAJARAMILLO

Anything that is affirmed as a virtually unconditioned must be
ultimately known as a mere matter of fact, for the virtually
unconditioned is a conditioned whose conditions just happen to
be fulfilled. However, matters of fact that could not be grounded
would be absolutely or ultimately unintelligible, and therefore
could not belong to being, for being as being must have an
explanation. In elucidating this controverted statement of
Lonergan' s we will come to understand the importance of
emphasizing the centrality of causality for Aquinas in raising the
question of the God as well as elucidate Lonergan's own rationale
for approaching the question of God via an examinaton of the
grounds of knowledge. 68
Lonergan defines being heuristically as whatever is to be
grasped intelligently and affirmed reasonably. 69 It must be
intelligible, because it is intended as intelligible and for
intelligence; anything that would in principle fall outside of
intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation would not belong to
what the intelligent inquirer means by 'being'. Lonergan' s thesis
is actually equivalent to what any intelligent inquirer
performatively affirms; for we do not inquire into things that we
anticipate must remain opaque and unintelligible:
[T]he fundamental anticipation is the detached, disinterested, unrestricted desire
to understand correctly; the fundamental assumption is that the real is coincident
with the grounded intelligibility to be known by correct understanding; the
fundamental reflective enucleation of all intelligent and rational anticipation and
assumption is to conceive the idea of being, and thereby the notion of God, and
to affirm that the real is being, and thereby to affirm the reality of God. 70

68 For the remainder of this section, I rely primarily on Lonergan's discussion of 'general
transcendent knowledge' (that is, knowledge of an absolutely transcendent being) in Insight,
chap. 19.
69 "The pure notion of being is the detached, disinterested, unrestricted desire to know.
It is prior to understanding and affirming, but it heads to them for it is the ground of
intelligent inquiry and critical reflection .... since the pure notion of being unfolds through
understanding and judgment, there can be formulated a heuristic notion of being as whatever
is to be grasped intelligently and affirmed reasonably" (Lonergan, Insight, 665).
70 Ibid., 707.

TI-IE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

245

This is not a statement of pure idealism, much less of ontologism:
it is only to affirm that being as such presents itself to us in
intelligent inquiry, in understanding and judgment. Otherwise, no
amount of intelligent inquiry and critical reflection, which is the
way that human beings are compelled to approach the very
question of being, will yield any results. "For us to have valid
knowledge, for us to say anything significant, for us to use our
intelligence and reasonableness, it is necessary that being be
intelligible. " 71 In turn, the affirmation of God is the anticipation
of complete intelligibility in the universe, in order to safeguard
the intelligibility that we experience in our knowing of proportionate being.
If we were to look for something other than the intelligible
objective of correct understanding that might qualify as a
candidate for being, 'matters of fact', the raw data of sensitive
experience, might seem like a plausible candidate, or perhaps
more interestingly, a phenomenological 'presence' (or 'presencing', as in Heideigger's later philosophy). But on closer
reflection, we understand that this cannot be so. Matters of fact
belong to the data of experience about which we inquire.72
Phenomena are occasions for intelligence's setting itself in motion,
rather than constituting its terminus ad quem. Intelligence is what
brings matters of fact to light; it infuses the raw data of
experience with the light of being. This is precisely the wonder
and admiratio at things of which we do not yet know the cause,
as described by Aquinas in his commentary on the Metaphysics.
Because it is the starting point of rational inquiry and not the
ending point, 'brute existence' or matter of factness is not in itself
intelligible but can be known only insofar as it contributes to
intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation.
However, we inhabit a world affirmed as a verified matter of
fact. We might have penetrated the laws of nature, or, more
Lonergan, Understanding and Being, 244.
By 'matters of fact', we are referring to what goes by the name of 'facticity' in postHeideggerian philosophy: the 'thereness' of the factum brutum. This usage must be
distinguished from what Lonergan refers to as 'concrete judgments of fact', which indeed do
have a limited intelligibility, that of being virtually unconditioned.
71

72

246

ALICIA JARAMILLO

accurately, the schemes of recurrence that are statistically
probable rather than necessary. 73 But why should these laws or
schemes of recurrence necessarily 74 be? Why not others? Why any
at all? Empirical science and a philosophy that restricts itself to
the domain of immanence will always find itself confronted with
what Lonergan calls 'the contingence of existence and
occurrence'. 75 Existence cannot be denied, but neither does it
seem to have an explanation that is proportionate to our
knowing:
If nothing existed, there would be no one to ask questions and nothing to ask
questions about. The most fundamental of all questions, then, asks about
existence, yet neither empirical science nor a methodically restricted philosophy
can have an adequate answer. Statistical laws assign the frequencies with which
things exist, and the explanation of statistical laws will account for the respective
numbers of different kinds of things. But the number of existents is one thing,
and their existing is another. Again, in particular cases, the scientist can deduce
one existent from others, but not even in particular cases can he account for the
existence of the others to which he appeals for his premises. As far as empirical
science goes, existence is just a matter of fact. Nor is the methodically restricted
philosophy better off. So far from accounting for existence, the philosopher can
establish that it cannot be accounted for within the limits of proportionate 76
being. For every proportionate being that exists, exists conditionally; it exists
inasmuch as the conditions of its existence happen to be fulfilled; and the
contingence of that happening cannot be eliminated by appealing to another
happening that equally is contingent. 77

Existence interpreted as a mere matter of fact is not intelligible.
Therefore contingent (virtually unconditioned) existence is not
ultimate, is not a mere matter of fact, but is grounded in
something other that is more intelligible. The 'otherness' of this
something necessitates the inquiry after ultimate extrinsic causes,
that is, final, exemplary, and efficient causes. This is where
Lonergan, Insight, 677.
Here we are speaking of necessity in terms of what Aquinas calls the 'necessity of
supposition' (see STh I, q. 19, a. 3).
75 Lonergan, Insight, 670.
76 That is, proportionate to the grasp of human intelligence. For the heuristic structure of
proportionate being, see ibid., 45 6-511.
77 Ibid., 676-77.
73

74

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

247

Lonergan's method meets that of Aquinas in the five ways. In
Lonergan's own words, "causality denotes the objective and real
counterpart of the questions and further questions raised by the
detached, disinterested and unrestricted desire to know. " 78
Because we are seeking to penetrate being with the light of
intelligence, the first and ultimate causes of being will have to be
more intelligible than that for which they account; otherwise, they
are not causes in the sense of accounting or explanatory
principles. This is the fundamental reason Aquinas rejects an
infinite regress of efficient or final causes. In Lonergan's words,
To account for one happening by appealing to another is to change the topic
without meeting the issue, for if the other happening is regarded as mere matter
of fact without any explanation then either it is not being or else being is not
intelligible .... For one misses the real point to efficient causality if one supposes
that it consists simply in the necessity that conditioned being becomes virtually
unconditioned only if its conditions are fulfilled. On that formulation, efficient
causality would be satisfied by an infinite regress in which each conditioned has
its conditions fulfilled by a prior conditioned or, perhaps more realistically, by
a circle illustrated by the scheme of recurrence. However, the real requirement
is that, if conditioned being is being, it has to be intelligible; it cannot be or exist
or occur merely as a matter of fact for which no explanation is to be asked or
expected, for the nonintelligible is apart from being. Now both the infinite
regress and the circle are simply aggregates of mere matters of fact; they fail to
provide for the intelligibility of conditioned being; and so they do not succeed
in assigning an efficient cause for being that is intelligible yet conditioned. 79

This is the root reason why the infinite regress is not an
acceptable solution to the question of ultimate causes and why any
inquiry into the intelligibility of being and its ultimate grounds
must terminate in the affirmation of a first uncaused cause. Only
that which is purely intelligible in itself, that whose existence and
intelligibility are contingent upon no conditions, what Lonergan
calls the 'formally unconditioned', will answer to the intrinsic
dynamism of our immanent intelligence and reason's demand for
truth in its totality.

78
79

Ibid., 674.
Ibid., 678-79.

248

ALICIA JARAMILLO

It is this demand for complete intelligibility that is the
'transcendental' or psychological origin of the metaphysical
inquiry after ultimate causes. A focus on the transcendental
demand that being be completely intelligible does not entail that
one has abandoned the classical cosmological ascent to God in
favor of an explanation of beings that originates in the intellectual
dynamism of the transcendental subject. 80 It is an attention to this
immanent demand of intelligence that distinguishes both
Aquinas's five ways and Lonergan's discussion of general
transcendent knowledge from the classical modern proofs for
God's existence, which Kant rightfully debunked. When
Heidegger criticizes the 'ontotheology' of modern metaphysics, it
is because he sees that the question of being (Sein) historically has
been obscured rather than illuminated by the Enlightenment
endeavor to prove the existence of a highest being (Seiendes).81
What Aquinas and Lonergan seek is the full intelligibility of being,
which cannot be reached by mechanically resorting to another
being or fact, leaving out the question of the meaning of Being
which in a way is more foundational. Aquinas and Lonergan
disagree with Heidegger in that they affirm that the meaning of
Being can be and in fact is coincident with a substantial act of
understanding that is Being itself. Heidegger's interpretation of
the traditional 'metaphysics of substance' and his 'retrieval' of the
'ontological difference' will not allow him to do this. 82
An adequate understanding of the explanatory force of causes
will make sense of Aquinas's preference for efficient causality in
the five ways, which occupy themselves with efficient causality in
some form or another-as the efficient cause of motion, or of
possible and necessary being, or of the transcendental properties,

°Cf. Knasas, "Transcendental Thomism," 25-28.

8

Martin Heidegger, "The Ontotheological Constitution of Metaphysics," in idem,
Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 42-74.
82 For an Aristotelian-Thomist critique of Heidegger's rendering of the problem of
metaphysics in terms of an 'ontological difference', see Oliva Blanchette, "Suarez and the
Latent Essentialism of Heidegger's Metaphysics," Review of Metaphysics 53 (1999): 3-19;
idem, Philosophy of Being: A Reconstructive Essay in Metaphysics. (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 3-42.
81

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

249

or of finality in nature. 83 In the demonstrations for the existence
of God, it is the existence or actuality of beings, the fact that they
are, from which we must begin and that must ultimately be
accounted for, since, as Lonergan has shown, simple facticity
cannot be ultimate. Only the efficient cause accounts for the
actuality of the effect. In contrast to Aristotle's preoccupation
with final causality in his account of the Intelligent Movers,
Aquinas emphasizes efficiency, because the efficient cause is that
which causes the being or existence of its effect, makes the effect
to be actual (ec-facio). The final cause may be the 'cause of
causes', but its explanatory force is essentially that for the sake of
which something exists rather than that from whence something
receives its very existence and actuality.
It is absolutely necessary to affirm a first uncaused efficient
cause. However, it must be emphasized here, at the end of
Aquinas's five ways for demonstrating the existence of God, that
what we have arrived at in this affirmation of an absolutely
intelligible ground of being is primarily an x, an unknown whose
properties or attributes are not initially known. Lonergan
describes this as the 'heuristic structure' of general transcendent
knowledge, and not its determination. 84 We are still at the very
beginning of a philosophical theology, but this initial inquiry is
crucial. It is one thing to claim that the universe has an intelligible
ground that is not (and perhaps cannot be) comprehensively
known; it is another to claim that we cannot know whether such
a ground exists. This important distinction puts to rest empiricist
or Kantian objections that not only have we stepped beyond the
boundaries of all possible experience, but also that in doing so we
have not added anything to our knowledge. 85 The affirmation of
83 Contrary to an initial impression, the fifth way does not show that God is the final cause
of rerum natura, but rather that he is the efficient cause of there being immanent finality in
nonconscious nature. For the distinction between finality and final cause, see Lonergan's
discussion in Insight, 470-76.
84 Ibid., 657.
85 See Burns, "Bernard Lonergan's Proof of the Existence and Nature of God,"
147:
"Moreover that the extrapolative leap [from empirical knowledge of proportionate being to
general transcendent knowledge] does not so much 'complete' as abandon the process of
knowing the empirical universe, is apparent from the fact that whoever might return to

250

ALICIA JARAMILLO

this intelligible ground is precisely that: an affirmation, that is to
say, a judgment that does not presuppose an explanatory
understanding of the reality that one is affirming. 86
Therefore Lonergan can align his quest for transcendent
knowledge with "the knowledge of God that, according to St.
Thomas Aquinas, consists in knowing that he is but not what he
is. " 87 In other words, to affirm an unrestricted act of understanding as the ultimate explanatory principle for all our finite
acts of understanding of proportionate being is not equivalent to
enjoying that unrestricted act ourselves. Indeed, the primary and
secondary components of the idea of being that Lonergan outlines
in chapter 19 of Insight can be compared to the knowledge of
what God is not in the Prima Pars. Both are thoroughly
analogous; that is, they extrapolate from restricted acts of
understanding of proportionate being.

IV. FROM SPECULATIVE TO EXISTENTIAL NECESSITY
Up until this point, we have occupied ourselves with the
speculative necessity of posing the question of God as the first
empirical investigation after such an excursion would find himself in exactly the same state
of knowledge/ignorance of this world as beforehand. It is hard therefore to avoid the
conclusion that it is, to adopt a phrase from Strawson, an expression of a kind of 'fatigue of
reason' rather than a genuine extension of cognition." Burns cites Kant's precept that
transcendental hypotheses as 'mere ideas of reason' cannot serve as explanatory principles of
natural beings. But it is here that Burns fails to see a crucial distinction between Kant and
Lonergan on this score. While Kant talks of mere ideas, Lonergan's discussion of general
transcendent knowledge begins with a heuristic idea of being in its primary and secondary
components but ends in a judgment that such an unrestricted act of understanding does indeed
exist (Lonergan, Insight, 692-98). There can be no corresponding judgment in Kant's
epistemology, and God remains merely a 'regulative ideal'. The 'extrapolative leap' from
knowledge of proportionate being to knowledge of transcendent being is no leap at all, since
it consists not in a jump from sensible perceptions to nonsensible ideas, but rather in a grasp
of the condition of possibility for finite human judgments, which rest on the 'virtually
unconditioned'.
86 For Aquinas's explanation of how we can make a judgment about that which we do not
(fully) understand, see his discussion of how, in a demonstration for the existence of an
unknown, a nominal definition takes the place of a quidditative one (ScG I, c. 12). For
Lonergan on the generally heuristic nature of metaphysics see Lonergan, Insight, 415££.
87 Lonergan, Insight, 657.

THE NECESSITYOF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

251

uncaused cause of the universe of being. This cause we must
conceive as absolutely unconditioned and completely explanatory.
However, the human intelligence that poses this question is
eminently self-reflective, and so another way of bringing the
necessity of the question of God into focus is the way Lonergan
approaches this theme in his later works. If the inquiry into the
intelligibility of being has manifested itself in the search for
causes, there is a more profound, second-order question that
questions intelligibility itself, that is, the intelligibility of
intelligence. While the former method is perhaps to be preferred
in a metaphysical affirmation of God because it keeps firmly in
mind human intelligence's subordination to the transcendence of
being, the latter method of questioning intelligence-or as Lonergan puts it in Method in Theology, 'questioning questioning' -is
closer to the subjective genesis of metaphysics in the interior
experience of one's own intellectual dynamism.
The question may be stated as such: Should the real be
intelligible? On what grounds? "The structure of our minds is the
ground of our knowing that the real must be being and
intelligible. But there is a further question: What accounts for the
fact that the real is intelligible and being?" 88 Lonergan is
commenting here on the method of Insight, yet there is a nuance
to this question that turns the focus to our conscious
intentionality, and that is expressed explicitly in asking for the
ground of our very questioning, understanding, knowing, willing,
and loving. It is this ground that in Insight Lonergan had called
the intelligible in the "deeper sense": "it denotes the primary
component in an idea; it is what is grasped inasmuch as one is
understanding; it is the intelligible ground or root or key from
which results intelligibility in the ordinary sense. " 89 It is the act of
understanding itself rather than its content. Thus there is a
transition from inquiring into the ground of what we affirm as
intelligible to inquiring into the ground of the conscious
intentionality that intends intelligibility itself: "In the measure that
88 Lonergan,
89 Lonergan,

Understanding and Being, 245.
Insight, 670.

252

ALICIAJARAMILLO

we advert to our own questioning and proceed to question it,
there arises the question of God .... The same transcendental
tendency of the human spirit that questions, that questions
without restriction, that questions the significance of its own
questioning, and so comes to the question of God. " 90
Why must we equate the question of ultimate significance and
ultimate value with the question of God? Because in doing so, we
are inquiring into the source of our own conscious intentionality,
our intending of truth and value. Apart from any consideration of
the question of God, this intending is only a fact: as a finite
subject, I do, as a fact, intend complete intelligibility; the natural
quest after causes attests to this. But why am I entitled to do so? 91
In itself, the human mind is not the sufficient ground of
intelligibility. This further question arises naturally, as soon as one
has averted to one's own conscious intentionality, which is
dynamically oriented not towards mere matters of fact, but
towards intelligibility. God is the traditional name for this source
of intelligibility; in Lonergan's words, God "is not some datum to
be explained .... He is absolute explanation, pure intelligibility
in himself, and the first cause and last end of everything else." 92
In this article we have been trying to show how Aquinas and
Lonergan conceive the necessity of raising the question of God.
We have been focusing on the speculative necessity of the
question of God in terms of the natural dynamism of the intellect
and its pursuit of wisdom or unrestricted intelligibility. In
principle, the question of God is necessary, that is, it is demanded
by the natural and rational progression of an intelligence
90 Lonergan, Method

in Theology, 103.
about this very point as related to the pure desire to know, see Knasas,
"Transcendental Thomism," 23-25. It is of course not universally accepted that the human
mind is 'entitled' to intend complete intelligibility. Hans Georg Gadamer believes that this
drive is in fundamental conflict with the historicality of our being: "What a man has to learn
through suffering is not this or that particular thing, but insight into the limitations of
humanity, into the absoluteness of the barrier that separates man from the divine .... In it all
dogmatism, which proceeds from the soaring desires of the human heart, reaches an absolute
barrier" (Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G.
Marshall [New York: Continuum, 1996], 357).
92 Cited in Bernard Tyrrell, Bernard Lonergan's Philosophy of God (Notre Dame, Ind.:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), 127.
91 For concerns

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

253

intellectually present to the data of experience. If we are to
inquire into the full intelligibility of being, we must ask the
question of God. The normative dynamism of the intellect
demands this; the search for causes and ultimate explanation
requires it. All inquirers of sufficient intellectual capability,
honesty, and good will are oriented towards the eventual posing
of this question in one way or another. This is indeed true.
However, in the contemporary context, we are bound to admit
that the necessity of the question is often neither clearly seen nor
acknowledged; in fact, it is the pervasive secularity of intellectual
life in our times that has given birth to so passionate a reaction as
the Radical Orthodoxy movement. These thinkers tend to offer
a metanarrative of the history of philosophy, from late medieval
Scholasticism to the present, in an effort to explain how this state
of affairs came about. 93 This article can only attempt to offer a
more modest explanation grounded in its quasi-phenomenological
analysis of the genesis of the question of God in the human mind.
Thus I would like to raise the question of possible existential
conditions for asking this speculative question, if the abstract
necessity that has been argued for is to become concretely
intelligible. Both Lonergan and Aquinas were attentive to this
personal-existential 94 dimension of the question of God.
As shown above, J.he intelligent inquirer must judge a failure to
consider the question of God as in effect a failure of the natural
dynamism of humah intelligence to be entirely consistent with
itself. How can we account for this default in reasonableness,
which today has not merely affected individuals, but an entire
culture? An examination of Aquinas's rationale for the necessity
of divinely revealed truth for human beings is a good place to
start.

93 For example, see Conor Cunningham, Genealogy of Nihilism (London and New York:
Routledge, 2002).
94 In this section I will be using the term 'existential' in a way similar to that of the
philosophers of existentialism. This is Lonergan's own usage, and is not to be confused with
the existence or actus essendi to which 'existential Thomists' (Etienne Gilson, Jacques
Maritain, et al.) refer.

254

ALICIA JARAMILLO

According to Aquinas, a myriad of temporally or historically
circumstantial factors interrupt the natural dynamism of the
human spirit. He recounts these factors in the Summa contra

Gentiles:
[F]ew men would possess the knowledge of God. For there are three reasons
why most men are cut off from the fruit of diligent inquiry which is the
discovery of truth. Some do not have the physical disposition for such work. As
a result, there are many who are naturally not fitted to pursue knowledge; and
so, however much they tried, they would be unable to reach the highest level of
human knowledge which consists in knowing God. Others are cut off from
pursuing this truth by the necessities imposed upon them by their daily lives. For
some men must devote themselves to taking care of temporal matters. Such men
would not be able to give so much time to the leisure of contemplative inquiry
as to reach the highest peak at which human investigation can arrive, namely, the
knowledge of God. Finally, there are some who are cut off by indolence. In
order to know the things that the reason can investigate concerning God, a
knowledge of many things must already be possessed. For almost all of
philosophy is directed towards the knowledge of God, and that is why
metaphysics, which deals with divine things, is the last part of philosophy to be
learned. 95

Aquinas concludes this passage with an apparently paradoxical
statement: "It is not possible to arrive at the inquiry about the
aforesaid truth except after a most laborious study: and few are
willing to take upon themselves this labour for the love of
knowledge, the natural desire for which has nevertheless been
instilled into the mind of man by God. "96 The question of God,
which in some sense is the question of human fulfillment, has an
immediate urgency to all human beings, and yet the rational
posing of the question is reserved for the crowning achievement
of a very specialized theoretical labor. 97 Truth is learned little by
95 ScG I, c. 4. Translations from the Summa contra Gentiles are taken from Saint Thomas
Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, Book One: Providence, Part I, trans. Anton C. Pegis (Notre
Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975).
96 Ibid. (emphasis added).
97 Lonergan of course acknowledges that the mythological imagination has sought to
answer this question from the beginnings of human history. But it is equally clear that
Lonergan finds this approach to be inadequate. See Lonergan's discussion of the need for a
'control of meaning' in 'Dimensions of Meaning' in Collection (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1988), 232-246.

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

255

little, and the successful answering of initial questions is the
prerequisite for raising the ultimate question of God. Aquinas
illustrates the arduous process of learning in his recounting of the
ancient philosophers' ascent to the concept of a first cause of
being, from the ancient physicists through Plato to Aristotle (who
in Aquinas's opinion did indeed raise the question of a first
efficient cause):
The ancient philosophers gradually, and as it were step by step, advanced to the
knowledge of truth. At first being of grosser mind, they failed to realize that any
beings existed except sensible bodies. And those among them who admitted
movement, did not consider it except as regards certain accidents, for instance,
in relation to rarefaction and condensation, by union and separation. And
supposing as they did that corporeal substance itself was uncreated, they assigned
certain causes for these accidental changes, as for instance, affinity, discord,
intellect, or something of that kind. An advance was made when they understood
thatthere was a distinction between the substantial form and matter, which latter
they imagined to be uncreated, and when they perceived transmutation to take
place in bodies in regard to essential forms. Such transmutations they attributed
to certain universal causes, such as the oblique circle [the ecliptic], according to
Aristotle (De Gener. ii), or ideas, according to Plato. But we must take into
consideration that matter is contracted by its form to a determinate species, as
a substance, belonging to a certain species, is contracted by a supervening
accident to a determinate mode of being; for instance, man by whiteness. Each
of these opinions, therefore, considered "being" under some particular aspect,
either as "this" or as "such"; and so they assigned particular efficient causes to
things. Then others there were who arose to the consideration of "being," as
being, and who assigned a cause to things, not as "these," or as "such," but as
"beings." Therefore whatever is the cause of things considered as beings must be
the cause of things, not only according as they are "such" by accidental forms,
nor according as they are "these' by substantial forms, but also according to all
that belongs to their being at all in any way. And thus it is necessary to say that
also primary matter is created by the universal cause of things. 98

The pre-Socratic physicists were unable to raise the question of
an absolute cause of being. Because they had identified the real
with body, and were only able to imagine change in terms of the
joining together and separating of bodies, they were unable to rise
to the question of substantial change. Once the physicalist
limitations of the imagination were successfully transcended by
98 STh

I, q. 44, a. 2

256

ALICIA JARAMILLO

Plato and Aristotle, these philosophers were able to distinguish
matter and form and account for the actual coming to be of
substances rather than their mere alteration, and to account for
this generation by reference to universal causes of genera (such as
the sun, the universal cause of life in all living things). Finally,
having appropriated the notion of universal causality, the ancients
were in a position to ask about the cause of being qua being. But
this question about being as being rather than being restricted to
coming to be (substantial change) 99 could not be successfully
fielded until an inquiry into the speculative content of the
doctrine of creatio ex nihilo could relativize the unintelligibility of
prime matter. Then, finally, it could be asked, why indeed is there
something rather than nothing?
Aquinas's narrative of the history of the question of creation
alerts us to the fact that the ability adequately to raise the question
of God as transcendent first cause is contingent upon historical
factors. The acquisition of knowledge has always been a collaborative effort, with fresh insights either building upon and
coalescing with or overturning previous insights in favor of a
more adequate understanding. In addition, science is attained by
way not only of an intuition of first principles but also by an act
of faith in one's teacher, who leads the student's intellect from
potency to act. 100 This means that the intellectual successes and
failures of the past will affect one's ability successfully to raise the
question. Thus while Aquinas never ceased to draw attention to
the discursive and therefore temporally conditioned character of
human intelligence, Lonergan was able to take the implications of
our historical nature a step further to incorporate the historical
character of meaning itself: "Historicity means-very brieflythat human living is informed by meanings, that meanings are the
product of intelligence, that human intelligence develops
cumulatively over time, and that such cumulative development
99 Contrary to Nietzschean and Heideggerian analysis of the history of metaphysics,
Aquinas does not oppose being and becoming; being as a transcendental must be predicated
of becoming.
100 STh I, q. 117, a. 1. For the importance of faith to human society in general and to the
process of learning in particular, see Super Boet. de Trin., q. 3, a. 1.

THE NECESSITYOF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

257

differs in different histories." 101 This means that human
meaning- and therefore learning and knowing-cannot be fully
accounted for by the static norms of logical analysis, because acts
of intelligence are mediated by the meaning embodied in
historically particular conceptual and linguistic forms.
Fundamental to this awareness of the constitutive role of
historically mediated meaning in human knowing and living is the
recognition of the horizons in which particular insights are had
and judgments are made. A horizon defines the particular scope
of our knowledge and range of our interests; it is our worldview.
Horizons differ according to differences in education, culture,
social position, and personal development. They are always
shifting with the development of the individual, of the society to
which he belongs, and of the history which he helps make and
which makes him. Lonergan came to realize that the simple
presentation of a valid argument for the existence of God could
not be sufficient for securing an apprehension of the rational
necessity of affirming God's existence. Beyond this presentation,
there must be effected a shift of horizon-on both the subjective
and objective poles of the demonstration-that would make this
argument meaningful to the subject.
Insight insists a great deal on the authenticity of the subject, on his need to
reverse his counter-positions and develop his positions, on the importance, in
brief, of intellectual conversion. . . . More specifically, proof in any serious
meaning of the term presupposes the erection of a system, in which all terms and
relations have an exact meaning, and all procedures from some propositions to
others are rigorous. But the system itself, in turn, has its presuppositions. It
presupposes a horizon, a world-view, a differentiation of consciousness that has
unfolded under the conditions and circumstances of a particular culture and a
particular historical development. 102

In other words, the problem with the demonstration for the
existence of God in chapter 19 of Insight lies not in the validity of
101 Bernard Lonergan, A Lonergan Reader, ed. Mark D. Morelli and Elizabeth A. Morelli
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 438.
102 Bernard Lonergan, Philosophy of God, and Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1973), 12.

258

ALICIA JARAMILLO

the proof, but in the subject's achieving an adequate apprehension
of the terms and relations that comprise this proof. Lonergan had
already gone a long way towards bringing modern critical
credibility to the Thomistic philosophy of God by his shifting
from Scholastic metaphysics to an empirically informed analysis
of human knowing. However, the resolution of philosophical
counterpositions is not achieved merely by exchanging one system
for another (e.g., post-Kantian critical philosophy for Thomist
Scholasticism) and adapting to the present cultural horizon
(although this is necessary), but more fundamentally by a radical
change in the subject. The horizon within which one might
apprehend a valid argument for the existence of God is, more
likely than not, dialectically 103 related to the horizons in which the
modern subject finds herself. We have undoubtedly witnessed a
transition, propelled by the rise of modern empirical science and
historically minded consciousness, from the horizon constituted
by a classicist world view, which was at home with both
speculative metaphysics and religious language, to that of modern
culture, negatively distinguished (for the purposes of our
argument) by a reluctance to engage in speculative metaphysics,
considered to be too abstract to have any bearing on either
empirical science or concrete living, and by a humanism that if it
does not outrule the question of God at least relegates it to the
margin of human concerns in the here and now. This entails that,
while Aquinas saw the history of philosophy up until his time as
a process of development, the basic positions of the ancients being
genetically related to his own, Lonergan, while praising the
advances of modern culture, could not be so sanguine about its
philosophical patrimony. What is required here is not only the
transposition of meaning into modern idiom, but, more radically,
conversion on the part of the subject.
Most basically, in order to apprehend Lonergan's argument for
the existence of God, the subject must be a critical realist, for
whom the real is limited neither to immediacy (whether empirical
or 'existential') nor to subjective/cultural construction of meaning,
103 "Dialectic ...

deals with conflicts" (Lonergan, Method in Theology, 235).

THE NECESSITYOF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

259

but rather to the universe of being, the objective of the pure and
unrestricted desire for complete intelligibility, and as unlimited as
that desire. But one is not born a critical realist; one becomes one
after a long labor of self-appropriation of one's own cognitional
structure. Lonergan's goal in Insight, which contains his elaborate
demonstration for the existence of God, was not primarily the
laying out of a systematic philosophy (although it indeed accomplishes this), but rather self-appropriation on the part of the
reader, in the sense of intellectual conversion. Intellectual
conversion allows one to apprehend the truth of this simple
syllogism and of the premises which comprise it: "If the real is
completely intelligible, God exists. But the real is completely
intelligible. Therefore God exists. " 104 Demonstrare means to show
or to point out. Aquinas, following Aristotle, says that the
successful demonstration makes (jacit) the pupil know. 105 Thus
there is a subjective element built into the very notion of
demonstration, for, as any teacher knows, what makes one person
know may not work for another, and this is often due not to any
dullness on the part of the student, but to an inadequate
intellectual horizon. As for Lonergan's demonstration, unless
intellectual conversion 106 is successfully achieved, the demonstration of the exigency for general transcendent knowledge
cannot be apprehended. We would say the same for Aquinas's
deceptively simple five ways.
However, intellectual conversion itself is a factor that rests on
others.
In the present instance men must exist. They must be healthy and enjoy
considerable leisure. They must have attained a sufficient differentiation of
consciousness to think philosophically. They must have succeeded in avoiding
the pitfalls in which so many great philosophers have become entrapped. They
must resist their personal evil tendencies and not be seduced by the bad example

Lonergan, Insight, 672.
STh I, q. 117, a. 1.
106 For Lonergan's brief description of what he means by intellectual conversion, see
Method in Theology, 238-39.
104

105

260

ALICIAJARAMILLO

of others. Such are just a few very general conditions of someone actually
grasping a valid argument for God's existence. 107

This passage suggests that in addition to the circumstantial
difficulties (whether existential, social, or historical in nature) of
following through the demands of the innate intellectual desire,
there is the sheer unwillingness that manifests itself in slowness to
moral and religious conversion. Lonergan holds that intellectual
conversion is unlikely without some degree of moral conversion,
if only for the reason that not only moral reasoning, but remotely
all reasoning in its ultimate meaning as seeking adequate grounds,
does not occur apart from the deliberation and choosing of the
subject. If these are not rightly oriented, it is unlikely that the
subject will be able to appropriate fully the meaning and
implications of her own rationality.
Take for example Aristotle's description of human speculative
bliss in the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle's virtuous man
approaches the ideal of wisdom to the extent that he is able to
contemplate the highest realities 108-we might say, to the extent
that he is able to ask and answer the ultimate questions about
himself and the universe he inhabits. However, who is this man?
He is not the average person, but the man who is exercising both
the moral and intellectual virtues, the man who has realized arete
in his concrete living. He is the one who desires what is truly and
unrestrictedly good-which includes the good of the intellect,
truth-rather than the merely apparent or relative or limited
good, and whose pursuit of the good is reflectively conscious and
oriented toward the ultimate end. It is perhaps this person alone
who would be able fully to recognize the cogency of Aristotle's
analogy referred to above, which makes an argument for the
existence of one supreme final cause in the universe from the
logic of human praxis. The idea of such an ultimate final cause
corresponds to the reasonable pursuit of happiness, because it
acknowledges the end towards which all one's actions are
ultimately directed. While everyone desires happiness and pursues
107
108

"The Natural Knowledge of God," in Lonergan, A Second Collection, 133.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 10. 7.

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

261

it, not everyone does so attentively, intelligently, and reasonably,
as Aquinas is well aware:
To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by
nature, inasmuch as God is man's beatitude. For man naturally desires happiness,
and what is naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him. This,
however, is not to know absolutely that God exists; just as to know that
someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching,
even though it is Peter who is approaching; for many there are who imagine that
man's perfect good which is happiness, consists in riches, and others in pleasures,
and others in something else. 109

While every agent acts for an ultimate end, only the wise man
self-reflectively and in full conscience keeps the horizon of his
existence open to an ultimate end, has determined the objective
for which he will strive, and knows why he is doing so. The many
are dispersed in distraction and error, and the question of God
does not occur to them. Now, if one can be blind to the practical
or existential urgency of the question of God, how much more
prone to derailment is the speculative orientation of the intellect
towards transcendent truth.
Because the pure desire to know can be interrupted by other
desires and inclinations, one must deliberately pledge one's
fidelity to the demands of inquiry. 110 Moral authenticity is
especially relevant to the affirmation of God, for this metaphysical
judgment has the peculiarity of directly bearing on concrete living.
But if moral authenticity is necessary, it is fulfilled only by falling
in love with God. 111 Falling in love with God is the radical
conversion by which our latent drive towards self-transcendence
is made effective, where our spirit is wrested out of habitual
inattentiveness, unreasonableness, and irresponsibility. Falling in
love, whether it be this- or other-worldly, is prior to the knowing
and choosing by which we achieve self-transcendence; it reorients
109

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

°For the epistemological problems related to bias, see Lonergan, Insight, 214-69.

11

111 See Lonergan, Method in Theology, 101-24, for his account of religious conversion as
falling in love with God. "Falling in love in an unrestricted fashion" is the gift of sanctifying
grace as experienced; cf. 267-71, for his discussion of the foundational role of conversion in
theological method.

262

ALICIA JARAMILLO

that knowing and choosing, and rekindles desire, that dynamic
first principle of self-transcendence. The dynamic state of being
in love establishes a new horizon within which our knowing and
valuing are radically reoriented. Falling in love with God is a
falling in love in an unrestricted fashion: "Just as unrestricted
questioning is our capacity for self-transcendence, so being in love
in an unrestricted fashion is the proper fulfillment of that
capacity." 112 Being in love with God restores within us the pure
and unrestricted desire to know, gives it new energy, dismantles
obstacles to its fulfillment. It is true that the pure desire belongs
to human nature; it is equally true that this nature fulfills itself
only by, in the words of a Pauline text that Lonergan is fond of
quoting, "God's love flooding our hearts through the Holy Spirit
which has been given to us" (Rom 5 :5). This means that the
knowledge of God proportionate to the human intellect is
attained only by the help of grace; for while self-transcendence
involves the development of the subject "from below upwards,"
falling in love is a change that occurs "from above downwards,"
that is, from a principle that does not originate in ourselves. 113
Therefore we are faced with a paradox that intertwines the
natural and supernatural orders: "Natural knowledge of God is
not attained without moral judgments and existential decisions.
These do not occur without God's grace. Therefore the natural
light of human reason does not suffice for man's so-called natural
knowledge of God." 114
While the necessity of the question of God is speculative to the
highest degree, it is not to be thought of as absolutely divorced
112 Lonergan, Method

in Theology, 106.
of "below upwards" and "above downwards," see Bernard J. F.
Lonergan, "Healing and Creating in History" in idem, A Third Collection, ed. Frederick E.
Crowe (NewYork: PaulistPress, 1985), 100-109.
114 Lonergan, A Second Collection, 133. In this essay on the natural knowledge of God,
Lonergan quotes Vatican I's constitution Dei Filius (DS 3004, DBl 785): "Eadem sancta mater
Ecclesia tenet et docet, Deum rerum omnium principium et finem, naturali humanae rationis
lumine e rebus creatis certo cognosci posse" ("Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that
the existence of God as the principle and end of all things can be known from created things
with certainty by the natural light of human reason"). Lonergan insists that this
pronouncement answers to a quaestio juris, not a quaestio facta.
113 On the metaphors

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

263

from its practical preconditions. The speculative and practical
exercises of reason may be distinct, but they are the operations of
one and the same existential subject. The existential has
implications for speculative knowledge, for we do not really know
and we cannot fully and responsibly exercise judgment-which
requires intentional self-transcendence into the realm of
being-unless we are aiming for and at least in part achieve real
self-transcendence, which belongs to the moral and religious
exigencies of existence. 115
As for Aquinas, the demonstrations for the existence of God do
not occur in a philosophical treatise, but within the context of
religious conversion presupposed for the readers of the Summa
Theologiae. It is within the context of sacra doctrina that the
question of God as the ground of the intelligibility of being has
historically been raised, and Lonergan has argued for returning
the philosophy of God to this original place within systematic
theology. 116 This is essentially different from Radical Orthodoxy's
claim to have deconstructed the traditional Thomist distinction
between faith and reason, or between philosophy and theology,
or, more accurately, between the natural and the supernatural. 117
Where current trends like these aim at problematizing the
conceptual distinction between philosophy and sacred doctrine to
the point of calling into question the possibility of a rigorous or
scientific treatment of either, Lonergan penetrates beneath this
(valid) conceptual distinction to the subject for whom this
115 "I should urge that just as the intellectual, moral, and the religious are three phases in
the single thrust to self-transcendence, so too, moral and religious development only reveal
more fully the God that can be known by the natural light of human reason" (Lonergan, A
Second Collection, 132). For the concept of self-transcendence, see Lonergan, Method in
Theology, 104-5.
116 Lonergan, Philosophy of God, and Theology, 45ff.
117 JohnMilbank and Catherine Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas (London: Routledge, 2001),
21: "Throughout we hope to show how a 'radically orthodox' position {primarily
characterized by a more persistent refusal of distinct 'natural' and 'supernatural' phases and
a consequent assault upon an autonomous naturalism as 'nihilistic'), can indeed be rendered
as an attentive reading of Aquinas." Milbank presents a much more nuanced-if not entirely
clear-position on the nature/grace question in The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and
the Debate Concerning the Supernatural (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 2005).

264

ALICIA JARAMILLO

distinction does not map neatly onto the various phases of selftranscendence. 118
This caveat about the existential obstacles to the posing of the
question does not subtract from the rational necessity of the
question of God. It only helps reason to own up to its own de
facto failure to live up to its lofty natural finality. Many who ask
the speculative question of God come from a context of faith, or
at least of religious conversion, broadly conceived, but this does
not imply that the question of God (and the validity of any answer
to it) is restricted to a "community of faith" for which alone such
discourse has meaning. 119 Such a presupposition of "theological
commitments" is not the same as the requirement of conversion,
which is preconceptual and predoctrinal, since it is conversion
that enables one to apprehend the meaning and judge rightly of
metaphysical concepts and theological doctrines in the first place.
Neither does one have to appeal to a nondiscursive "intellectual
vision" of transcendent realities, granted by grace, in order to
secure realism or be able to rise to the affirmation of a
transcendent first cause. 120 The question of God, if not the
answer, is fully within the domain of human reason, which, as we
have seen, proceeds from effect to cause, from that which is better
known apud nos to that which is more knowable in se. This is the
real significance of preserving the so-called autonomy of reason,
118 For an interesting defense of 'philosophies of subjectivity' (albeit tainted by an overly
Kantian insistence on the 'autonomy' of both reason and subjectivity) against Radical
Orthodoxy's abandonment of them, see Paul D. Janz, "Radical Orthodoxy and the New
Culture of Obscurantism," Modern Theology 20 (2004}: 362-405.
119 See John Caputo, "Auto-Deconstructing or Constructing a Bridge? A Reply to Thomas
A.F. Kelly," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 (2002): 341-44.
120 Milbank and Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas, 22ff. Milbank and Pickstock mistakenly
interpret Aquinas as identifying the apprehension ("intellectual vision") of the transcendental
concepts (being, good, true, beautiful) with an inchoate intuition of God. They interpret
Aquinas as subscribing to a thoroughgoing Augustinian theory of illumination, where
judgment is grounded in the inspection of eternal verities. For Lonergan's rejection of this
interpretation, see Lonergan, Insight, 394: "Augustine had advanced that our knowledge of
truth originated not from without but from within us, yet not simply from within us but in
some illumination in which we consulted the eternal ground and norms, not by taking a look
at them, but by having within us a light of intelligence that is a created participation of the
eternal and uncreated light." For a detailed treatment of this issue, see Bernard Lonergan,
Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997).

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

265

a misnomer that fails to bring out reason's essence as the demand
for intelligibility and meaning that is apprehensible to reason
itself. Philosophical or 'natural' theology serves both its
propaedeutic and its ancillary roles to the proper task of Christian
theology 121 only when its rational integrity is respected and not
overcome by overhasty appeals to transcendent sources of truth. 122
That said, however, the reasonableness of the speculative question
of God can be judged rightly only by one who is intellectually,
morally, and religiously converted, who has a firm commitment
to personal self-transcendence into the full intelligibility of being.
CONCLUSION

The question of God is speculatively necessary, but this
speculative necessity is not merely one of an impersonal cosmic
order, but rather one of intimate relation to the innate dynamism
of human intelligence. For Aquinas, the intellect was made for an
unlimited source of intelligibility. Although he never uses the
natural desire of the mind to know this source as a demonstration
for the existence of such a being, the affirmation of such a being
on causal grounds does answer to the mind's demand for
complete intelligibility. Without this necessary movement of
reason, the mind confines itself to the opaqueness of matter of
121 I.e., intellectual reflection on the mysteries of faith.
122 Cf. John Milbank, "Only Theology Overcomes Metaphysics," in Milbank, The Word
Made Strange, 36-52. For Milbank's latest discussion of the relation between theology and
metaphysics, see his "Only Theology Saves Metaphysics," an on-line paper published on the
web site of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham(posted
Nov. 2006), <http://theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/papers.php#milbank>.
Milbank's
position on the relation between philosophy and theology is somewhat ambiguous, mostly
because he is unclear about what exactly he means by either philosophy or theology. He insists
that the Christian context for the rise of a metaphysics of actuality is not a mere matter of
historical accident, which would establish a de facto dependence of such a metaphysics on the
Christian theological tradition. However, because in his discussion he moves between two
distinct senses of the word 'theology', from the concept of theology in Aristotle's sense as first
philosophy's investigation of first principles (our task here) to the concept of theology as
revealed doctrine, it is unclear whether Milbank would agree with the statement that
philosophy has a certain rational integrity of its own. He denies that the methodologies of the
one or the other are really distinct. See Milbank and Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas, 21ff.

266

ALICIAJARAMILLO

fact, the supposed ultimacy of which, in Lonergan's words,
consigns all knowledge of proportionate being to oblivion. It is
here that we see the peculiar character of Lonergan' s 'foundationalism'. One must affirm the intelligibility of being, and as
a consequence the existence of God as the ground of that
intelligibility, since to do otherwise would eventually land one in
a performative contradiction. Since all our knowledge is somehow
dependent upon being's supposed intelligibility, to deny this
intelligibility is to pull the ground of the meaningfulness of any
affirmation or denial out from under oneself. 123 Human
intelligence requires no 'self-evident' grounding principle, but it
does need to be consistent with itself, with its own performance.
Therefore Lonergan can see the personal appropriation of one's
own intelligence as foundational for both metaphysics and
theology:
[T]he metaphysics I would envisage would not be a philosophic first. It would
be a conclusion derived from epistemology and cognitional theory, and these in
turn would be formulations of one's personal experience of one's own
cognitional operations. In this fashion philosophy and the root of theological
method would come out of the personal experience of the thinker. 124

Lonergan's 'anthropological starting point' is remarkably different
from traditional transcendentalisms, because it demands a personal appropriation of the intellectual operations that generate
methods and by which any method, whether it be transcendental,
phenomenological, poststructural, linguistic, or hermeneutical,

123 Crowe makes a similar point about Lonergan's epistemology: that no one can challenge
the foundation of knowledge unless he himself assumes that critical spirit that is itself the
foundation, according to Lonergan (Crowe, "Ultimate Reality and Meaning," 70). Therefore
Lonergan's 'foundationalism' is not of a kind with the positive foundationalism proposed by
Descartes's fundamentum inconcussum or even the Kantian a priori. Nonetheless, Lonergan's
position does not ultimately rest on faith (although the practice of his method of criticism does
presuppose an initial trust in the validity of the critical spirit), but on knowledge in the sense
of science, for the meaning of 'self-appropriation' in Insight is to be able to arrive at an insight
about the nature of knowing and reality and subsequent judgment that knowing is of being,
which rests in more foundational judgments about what knowing is.
124 Bernard Lonergan, "Philosophy and Theology," in idem, A Second Collection, 204.

THE NECESSITY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD

267

can be examined and criticized. 125 His analysis of and insistence
on conversion offers a most 'radical' vision for both philosophy
and theology: it is precisely intellectual, moral, and religious
conversion that pull one out of inauthenticity and enable one to
judge rightly one's intellectual, cultural, or religious horizon. By
reinterpreting the 'first principles' of philosophy and theology in
terms of conversion, Lonergan restores philosophy to a "way of
life," while it also promises to contribute to the much needed
reintegration of theology and spirituality. 126
Aquinas's approach to the question of God shows that he was
committed to the intelligibility of being, and consistently so. He
expressed this intelligibility in the second-order language of
metaphysics. Lonergan's transcendental method, proceeding by
way of intentionality analysis, is useful in taking us behind the
scenes to witness the genesis of metaphysics in the intelligence and
reasonableness of the subject. It invites us to return to the
intellectual acts, verifiable in experience, from which the metaphysical terms and relations derive their meaning . This is not to
say that Aquinas's treatment of the question of God is prereflective. His approach is eminently reflective and approaches
the Aristotelian ideal of science in that he is careful to point out
the ineluctability of this crowning question of metaphysics. He
indicates this rational necessity by bringing out the demands of
intelligence in its search after causes.

125 For an illuminating dialectical treatment of the claims of linguistic philosophy as applied
to theology, see Lonergan, Method in Theology, 253-57.
126 For philosophy as ascetical practice, see Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life,
trans. Chase, Michael (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995). For the problem of the modern
divorce between theology and spirituality, beginning with the devotio modema of the
sixteenth century, see David Schindler, "The Religious Sense and American Culture," in A
Generative Thought: An Introduction to the Works of Luigi Giussani (Toronto: McGill
University Press, 2003), 84-102. In this essay Schindler refers to the work of Hans Urs von
Balthasar, esp. a piece entitled "Theology and Sanctity," in Explorations in Theology, vol. 1
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989). It is because Lonergan's epistemological 'foundations'
are personal authenticity and intellectual conversion rather than self-evident propositions or
beliefs that Ulf Jonsson judges that Lonergan is not a foundationalist in the "strict sense"
(Jonsson, Foundations for Knowing God, 310).

The Thomist 71 (2007): 269-317

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY:
A DISCUSSION
JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

T

HE COLLECTION OF ESSAYS Mind, Metaphysics, and
Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions, edited by
John Haldane, 1 is aimed at promoting a more fruitful
engagement between the two traditions of its title. For complex
historical and cultural reasons, the twentieth-century revival of
Thomism tended in its encounter with contemporary philosophy
to focus upon Continental European philosophy in its
phenomenological and existentialist strains. With some notable
exceptions, analytic philosophers often thought of Thomism as so
thoroughly infected by the perceived authoritarianism of religion
and the presuppositions of theism as to be discredited at the bar
of philosophy. Thomists for their part tended to view analytic
philosophy as deeply corrupted by Logical Positivism with its antimetaphysical bias. This two-sided suspicion at times had more to
do with mutual ignorance than considered philosophical dispute.
More recently, this suspicion has become weaker as a result of
the work in analytic philosophy of theists like Michael Dummett,
Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and others. In addition,
figures like Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Geach, Alasdair Macintyre,
Anthony Kenny, Norman Kretzmann, Eleanore Stump, Fergus
Kerr, and Haldane have directly engaged Aquinas in their
1 John Haldane, ed., Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical
Traditions (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002). Pp. 240. $45.00 (cloth).
ISBN 0-268-03467-2.

269

270

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

different ways with an eye toward the issues that concern analytic
philosophy. Indeed, even thoroughly secular analytic philosophers
have been studying authoritative aspects of their own tradition for
philosophical insight. Almost no one any longer believes that
presuppositionless philosophy is possible. Finally, the last three
decades or so have seen a robust metaphysical turn in analytic
Philosophy, as well as the seeds of a rapprochement with some
strains of the phenomenological movement. This volume is a
welcome addition of high-quality papers to the thaw that has been
taking place.
Just as within contemporary Thomism one will find a number
of different approaches to the work of Aquinas, signaling that it
is not a monolithic tradition, so also 'analytic philosophy' is a
broad term covering a number of different approaches to
contemporary philosophy. The wide array of essays collected here
display that diversity of approach on both the Thomistic and the
analytic sides. The limitations of space given to the authors
required the writing of essays that very often are rich suggestions
for much longer research projects. As the title suggests, the papers
fall into three general categories, though the category of 'Value'
is represented by only one essay, "Practical Reason and the Orders
of Morals and Nature in Aquinas's Theory of the Lex Naturae,"
by M. W. F. Stone. Stone argues that it is a mistake to try to fit
Aquinas's discussions of natural law too quickly into the contemporary category of ethical naturalism, as "plausible yet contrary
readings of the theory of natural law, readings which lend
themselves to both naturalist and anti-naturalist interpretations,
can be derived from important passages in the Summa
Theologiae" (196). Stone suggests that a good deal more
examination of Aquinas' theories of action and mind has to be
done before we can really begin to understand his theory of
natural law.
Perhaps coincidentally then, seven of the twelve essays
consider questions in the Philosophy of Mind and Action. In
"Aquinas after-Wittgenstein," Fergus Kerr argues that while
Aquinas agrees with Wittgenstein that there is no problem

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

271

aligning the private world of thought with the public world of
objects, since the very possibility of thought "presupposes the
existence of public objects," nonetheless, Aquinas felt the need to
argue for this position, where Wittgenstein did not. Kerr focuses
upon the discussion of human knowing in the first part of the
Summa Theologiae for Aquinas's arguments against the
'"Cartesian' conception of the self-transparent subject" (4). He
adds a very strong defense of Aquinas against the charge that his
account leads to an overly individualist account of language
learning and knowledge acquisition.
Jonathan Jacobs's essay, "Habits, Cognition, and Realism"
should be read in conjunction with Kerr's piece. Jacobs wants to
use Aquinas to address Quinean and post-Quinean worries about
the normativity of concept use-metaphysically "what underwrites the applicability of general concepts to particulars," and
epistemologically "what is it, on the side of the mind, that makes
for the correct use of a concept" (109). The solution suggested by
Jacobs is the Thomistic thesis that the mind's concepts are
formally identical to their objects, and not simply causally
(efficient) related to those objects. The "intentional actualization"
(114) of worldly forms in the mind constitutes knowledge of
those worldly objects. So actualized a concept cannot be anything
other than the normatively appropriate concept of the worldly
object.
Jacobs's paper also complements Haldane's own contribution,
"The Breakdown of Philosophy of Mind." After giving a brief but
informative survey of the "untenablity" of reductive physicalism,
and the "mess" that nonreductive physicalism is in within analytic
Philosophy, Haldane suggests that their common difficulty is an
inadequate conception of the principles constitutive of physical
being, whether on the part of the human knower or on the part
of the known. Analytic philosophy needs on the part of the
knower "a notion of psychophysical substantiality that does not
reduce to substance monism plus attribute dualism," and on the
part of the known a recovery of the "notion of formal causation
that does not reduce to efficient causation" (68).

272

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

David Braine in "The Active and Potential Intellects" shows
how Aquinas's discussion of concepts and the intelligible species
or structures that in-form them differ radically from the
"empiricist accounts [of ideas] typified in Locke and Hume, and
exemplified in the 'psychologism' rejected by Frege" (22). Once
one has rejected readings of Aquinas along those lines, one can
begin to appreciate the "permanently valuable" insights that he
provides in the philosophy of cognition.
In "Aquinas and the Mind-Body Problem" Richard Cross,
presupposing three basic positions in contemporary analytic
philosophy of mind-substance
dualism, "hard (reductive)
materialism," and "soft (non-reductive) materialism or property
dualism" (36)-seeks to translate Aquinas's discussion of soul and
body into a "philosophy of mind," in order to place it within the
contemporary debate. He argues that Aquinas dearly rejects both
the hard and the soft versions of materialism. He believes Aquinas
espouses a position on the relation of mind to body that is not
quite captured by substance dualism, but is dose enough insofar
as the human being is more than the living composite of matter
and substantial form, that is, more than the living body, since a
human being also includes "that part of the soul which on
Aquinas's showing is not part of the body (i.e., its cognitive and
appetitive capacities)" (43).
Two of the very best essays in the book concern the philosophy
of human action: C. F. J. Martin's "Voluntary Action and NonVoluntary Causality" and Stefaan E. Cuypers's "Thomistic AgentCausalism." Martin focuses upon the conditions necessary for an
adequate account of voluntary action. He seeks to reverse the
order of assimilation in contemporary discussions of causality,
where nonvoluntary causality is taken as the dear and distinct
case, and voluntary causality a troubling departure that must be
assimilated to it in some fashion. Instead, his strategy is "to
assimilate non-voluntary and voluntary causality, in the hope that
there will be some element in voluntary causality that resists
assimilation. [But he] shall do this by assimilating non-voluntary
causality to voluntary causality." Cuypers seeks to develop a

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

273

distinctive Thomistic "agent-causalist" account of human action
that rejects mechanistic event-causalism, but also rejects the "paramechanistic flavour" (90) of many contemporary agent-causal
accounts descending proximately from Roderick Chisholm, and
remotely from Thomas Reid. The departure of Thomistic agentcausalism from the Reidian accounts consists in its teleological
form, relying upon the interplay of intellect and will, where "an
instance of agent-causation is a contingent exertion of a person's
will-power in a teleological context" (100). Taken singly, these
papers are excellent. Coupled together, they pose a powerful
challenge to contemporary discussions of human action.
Reflective of the wide diversity of topics treated in contemporary metaphysics, the four remaining essays devoted to
'Metaphysics' do not share the general unity that animates the
section on 'Mind and Action'. In "Hylomorphism and
Individuation," David S. Oderberg begins by examining and
rejecting a number of candidates for the role of the principle of
individuation in Scholastic thought, in order to settle on "matter
designated by indeterminate quantity" (130). He suggests applying
this analysis to problems with Aristotelianism suggested by Kit
Fine. Christopher Hughes, in "Aquinas on God's Knowledge of
Future Contingents," raises difficulties for the role of necessity in
Aquinas's treatment of the topic within the Summa contra
Gentiles, De Veritate, and the Summa Theologiae. He proposes to
modify Aquinas's discussion in the Summa Theologiae in order to
align it more clearly with the general Boethian treatment of
eternity that he takes Aquinas to be committed to. In "Ontology
and the Art of the Possible," Gerard J. Hughes, S.J., argues that
contemporary discussions of necessity and possibility are unsatisfactory in a number of ways, insofar as they base themselves upon
intuitions grounded in a "strictly logical approach." He suggests
that these inadequacies may be remedied by taking greater
account of the traditional approach to potentiality given by
Aristotle and Aquinas that grounds our notions of possibility in a
prior metaphysical analysis of act. Finally, following closely upon
Hughes, in "Contemporary 'Essentialism' vs. Aristotelian

274

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

Essentialism," Gyula Klima raises a number of difficulties for
contemporary semantic discussions of necessity and essentialism,
in order to contrast the virtues of his own brief sketch of the
semantics of the Aristotelian essentialism one sees in Aquinas. He
claims that while the latter semantic apparatus does not beg any
metaphysical questions, it allows room for the properly
metaphysical reflection lacking, indeed excluded, in contemporary
logical discussions.
Despite particular differences among the authors, all of the
essays provide rich opportunities for further philosophical
reflection and argument. Still, a difficulty faced by anyone interested in the thought of Aquinas is to figure out what approach to
take in addressing recent philosophy. At least two approaches
suggest themselves. One might be to take one's bearings from
recent philosophy, recognizing its issues and problems as
fundamental, and then to look piecemeal to Aquinas and the
Thomistic tradition for arguments here and there that may be
brought to bear upon the solution, or at least the advancement, of
those issues and problems. On the other hand, one might
approach Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition as by and large a
systematic philosophical enterprise that poses comprehensive and
wholesale challenges to the presuppositions of much of recent
philosophy. Both of these approaches can take extreme forms, but
it is likely that most Thomists will find themselves somewhere on
a spectrum between one extreme and another. Almost all of the
essays in this volume, while genuinely conversant with and
respectful of contemporary analytic philosophy, suggest ways in
which Thomism can contribute to remedying some of its
fundamental inadequacies as well. In that regard they tend gently
toward the second approach. This attitude is welcome, as one
suspects that the chilly reception some Thomists of the past gave
analytic philosophy was due in part to a reaction against the
attitude of many analytic philosophers toward Thomism-namely,
that all was well with the analytic world and the Thomists would
have to assimilate or die. For the most part, the approach here is

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

275

neither a capitulation to that hubris, nor a rejection of the value
of analytic philosophy.
That point made, there are some broad questions about the
essays worth considering at greater length. I will look at two in
particular, namely, the importance of the historical study of
Aquinas to a living Thomism, and conflicts between different
approaches to Aquinas and Thomism having to do with the often
quite different philosophical idioms within which the two broad
traditions operate. I will illustrate these two questions by
considering two papers in particular, Oderberg's "Hylomorphism
and Individuation" and Cross's "Aquinas and the Mind-Body
Problem."
I. HISTORICAL STUDIES

Oderberg's paper "Hylomorphism and Individuation" on
matter as the principle of individuation, while very interesting,
illustrates the problem of the place of historical study in any effort
at advancing the Thomistic tradition within recent analytic
philosophy. He appears to reject the importance of such study as
"the ossified material of an essentially tedious historical analysis"
(125). Instead he depends heavily upon secondary sources, and in
particular The School, by Thomas Harper, S.J., a Scholastic
textbook published in 1879. Indeed, Oderberg does not so much
discuss Thomism or the Thomistic tradition, as, rather, "the
philosophy of the School" (ibid.). The connection to Aquinas is
established by the thesis that "all schoolmen [are] obliged to hold
the Thomistic opinion on all matters of philosophy as their
default position" (126). This statement is of course normative; but
it immediately raises a factual question about whether The School
and other such textbooks did in fact hold such Thomistic default
positions, and whether they were the expression of a tradition of
sufficient unity to bear the normative weight placed upon them.
In fact, the reliance upon Harper is unfortunate. In one
particular instance it is very much so, since Oderberg uses
passages quoted and translated by Harper that purportedly come

276

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

from works of Aquinas, De Natura Materiae et Dimensionibus
Interminatis and De Principia Individuationis, that, since 1879,
have been judged inauthentic, 2 and that involve theses that
conflict in serious ways with positions that Aquinas certainly held.
One is faced with the question whether Oderberg's paper is
advancing the Thomistic tradition or some other conflicting
tradition. One of the major achievements of historical studies in
the twentieth century was to demonstrate the great difficulties
inherent in the presupposition that there was something called
Scholasticism and a definite medieval "school," rather than quite
a few Scholasticisms and schools that often disagreed upon very
substantive philosophical issues.
Oderberg believes that for "The School," "Thomism," and
Aquinas himself, "designated matter of indeterminate quantity" is
the principle of individuation. Before considering Oderberg's
thesis, I think it important to say something about the problem
itself. In order to understand a philosophical thesis, it is very often
helpful to ask what question the thesis is designed to answer.
When one asks what individuates some being, the answer Aquinas
gives is complicated. One must distinguish at least two different
senses of the question. 3 The first sense is: what makes this being
to be identical with itself and not another being? The second sense
is: how do these distinct members of a kind differ from one
another?
With regard to the first sense of the question, being one
(unum ), that is, being indivisible in itself, and being other (aliquid,
from aliud quid), 4 that is, being divided or distinct from all other
beings, are transcendental features of any being whatsoever. They
pertain to any being as such. They do not pick out distinct
properties that inhere in a being and qualify it. Nor do they pick
2 See Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Person and His Work, trans.
Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 360. See
also the list of falsely ascribed works, compiled by Enrique Alarcon, on the Corpus
Thomisticum website, housed in Pamplona at the University of Navarre
(http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html#OF).
3 For such a careful analysis of the questions see P. T. Geach, "Aquinas," in G. E. M.
Anscombe and P. T. Geach, Three Philosophers (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), 72.
4 See De Verit., q. 1, a. 1.

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

277

out different principles of being, as for example form and matter
do in a material substance, or esse and essentia do in a creature.
So, they differ from being as such not at all in the thing that exists,
but rather in our understanding of existing being. Something
different is expressed and communicated conceptually by the
terms 'being', 'one', and 'other', even as the terms do not pick out
any distinct properties, features, or principles in the things to
which they are applied. The same thing that is said 'to be' is said
'to be one' and 'to be other'. In that case no intrinsic principle or
feature is the cause, or makes a being to be the very individual
being that it is and different from all other beings-'to be' is 'to
be this indivisible thing and not that'. And the only extrinsic
principle, if there is one, that could be said to cause the being to
be this rather than that is an extrinsic principle that causes it to
be. For this reason, Aquinas says that self-identity is a relation
only in thought, "positing nothing in reality." 5
Certainly a material object, like a particular human being or a
horse, must be caused to be in such a way that there is a
hylomorphic union of some particular or designated matter and
a particular form. 6 The possession of a particular form and some
designated matter are thus necessary conditions for the existence
of a particular material substance. However, 'being a necessary
condition for the existence of a material substance' no more posits
designated matter as "the principle of individuation" in this first
sense than it does "particular form."
De Verit., q. 1, a. 5, ad 16.
Aquinas is committed to individual forms as the forms of individual things. There is no
general form existing in a thing. "It cannot be said that the definition of a genus or a species
pertains to human nature insofar as human nature exists in individuals, because human nature
is not found in individuals as a unity, as if one form which all the individuals have, which is
the definition of a universal [namely-one form which a number of individuals have]" (De
Ente et Essentia 2). See STh I, q. 85, a, 2, ad 2. The term 'universal' is used analogously as
predicated of the nature or form that exists in individual things, which is the basis in things
that, through abstraction, results in the universal properly so called, the form or nature
existing in intellect. By abstraction the intention of universality accrues to the nature or form
as it exists in the intellect, while the individual nature or form itself is called universal because
it leads to this genuine universal in the intellect, even though it is not a universal in being. See
also ScG II, c. 50, where it is said "among things, whatever is a composite of matter and form
is a composite of individual form and matter." See also De Spirit. Great., a. 9.
5

6

278

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

Matter enters into the discussion of individuation when we
consider a second sense of the question, namely, the sense in
which we presuppose that some beings are beings of the same
kind. When we do so, we consider them according to a certain
sameness or unity. 7 The principles of that unity are the individual
substantial forms or natures intrinsic to them that determine them
as beings of a certain kind. Members of a kind "do not differ"
with respect to those natures "considered absolutely." But
members of a kind do differ when considered in other respects.
Take two human beings, Socrates and Xanthippe. Socrates is
clearly not Xanthippe, even though when we consider them
simply as human beings we do not note a difference between
them. At any particular time, Socrates is of such and such size and
mass, while Xanthippe is of some other size and mass. He is over
here, while she is over there. He is male, while she is female.
However, these features do not pertain to being as such; they
are not an expression of the unity and otherness of the beings
under consideration, the unity and otherness that pertain to the
first sense of the question. Nor do they belong as such to the
substantial forms or natures, since the objects are judged to be the
same according to their respective forms. The forms are the
fundamenta in rebus that account for the lack of difference found
between these two human beings considered absolutely, or, more
generally, two members of a kind considered absolutely. Yet it
does pertain to the substantial form or nature of such material
beings to specify that they have some quantity of mass or other,
and that they be in some place or other at some time or other, and
in the case of sexually reproducing animals that they be male or
female. However, their forms or natures as such do not specify
which quantity of matter, where, when, and so on. The only
intrinsic principle that can account for this difference between
individuals qua members of the material kind is the actual bunches
of matter that are hylomorphically composed with each of the
respective substantial forms, given the historical generative or
According to Aquinas there are at least four different senses of "being one": numerically,
specifically, generically, and by analogy or proportion. See STh I, q. 93, a. 1, ad 3; V
Metaphys., lect. 8 (876). Parenthetical numbers refer to paragraphs in the Marietti edition.
7

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

279

augmentative processes by which they came to be the matters of
those substances.
Thus, for Aquinas, matter as the principle of individuation
answers a very specific question: positing that we have two or
more members of one material kind, how do they differ as
members of that kind? Aquinas writes, "matter is not the principle
of numerical diversity except insofar as being divided into many
parts, the many parts receiving a form of the same ratio it
constitutes many individuals of the same species," 8 and "it ought
to be said that matter subject to dimensions is the principle of
numerical distinction in those types of things in which a multitude
of individuals are found of one species, for things of this kind do
not differ according to form." 9 To see this, notice that giving the
disposition of some lump of matter, its quantity and location, may
be part of an answer to the question how members of different
kinds differ-for example, how this dog differs from that man.
But it is not a particularly adequate, complete, or good answer to
that question, since what is most striking about how this man
differs from that dog pertains to the formal character of their
particular actions, like speaking versus barking, walking on two
feet versus walking on four, etc. If we ask, "what is it that
individuates Socrates, in the sense of distinguishing him from
Fido," a much more significant answer than "designated matter of
indeterminate quantity" is "his rational activity." But his rational
activity pertains to his form, which is the principle through which
he has being as the individual he is.
In members of different kinds, the more important differences
individuating them are differences that pertain to the difference
of species, not differences of material quantity and spatiotemporal location; and the more adequate answer to the question
of what individuates them expresses those species differences. But
species differences are taken according to formal differences. In
other words, between a particular dog and a particular human
being their forms are as much principles of individuation
De Trin., q. 5, a. 3, ad 3. I have deliberately left the term 'ratio' untranslated.
q. 6, a. 1, ad 18. See also De Spirit. Creat., a. 1, ad 19: "it ought to be said that
matter is the principle of numerical distinction in the same species."
8 In Boet.

9 De Malo,

280

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

distinguishing this man from that dog as are the quantities of
matter involved in each. Indeed, in many ways their forms are
more important principles of individuation than their matter,
because being comes to a substance through form.
Consider an angel and a human being. Aquinas famously
denied universal hylomorphism, the thesis that all creatures are
composed of matter and form (in the case of spiritual substances,
a kind of spiritual matter). Since there is no material principle
available to individuate angels within a species, it follows for
Aquinas that there can be no multiple instances of a particular
angelic species. A single angel completely exhausts the possibilities
of instantiation for its species-necessarily there is one angel per
species of angel. Thus multiple angels differ simply according to
their being, which is entirely formal. When we ask how an angel
differs from a particular human being, material differences do not
apply, other than the species claim that the angel has no matter
whatsoever, a claim that can only pertain to its particular form.
Matter takes on primary importance as a principle of
individuation only in the context of two or more things posited as
more or less the same in everything else, that is, alike down to
their species characteristics. But even in that setting this doesn't
tell us why Socrates is the individual he is and no other-why he
is Socrates and not Xanthippe. It simply tells us ways in which
Socrates differs from Xanthippe, given the fact that they are both
human beings.
The position Oderberg attributes to "The School," and thus to
Aquinas, is that the principle of individuation is "matter
designated by indeterminate quantity." He thinks it must involve
"indeterminate quantity" since the actual determinateness of the
quantity can change without the individual ceasing to be the
individual it is. If the principle were matter designated by
determinate quantity, then the ceasing to be of the determinate
quantity would imply the ceasing to be of the individual. But
Socrates can gain and lose weight, and move from here to there,
and yet remain Socrates. So the principle cannot involve
"determinate" quantity but, rather, "indeterminate" quantity. But

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

281

this position appears to be confusing the first sense of the question
of individuation with the second. Matter of any sort does not tell
us why Socrates is Socrates and remains Socrates amidst change. 10
It simply tells us how Socrates differs from other members of the
human species.
With regard to matter as an answer to the question of
individuation in its second sense, Oderberg's thesis is disputed as
an interpretation of Aquinas by the best of recent scholarship-for
example, John Wippel's The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas
Aquinas. 11 As Wippel argues, Aquinas probably rejected that
position by the end of his work, since it is not clear at all what
"indeterminate quantity" could be as a real metaphysical
principle, as opposed to an abstract logical notion used to talk in
a general way about the only matter that is real, namely,
determinate matter. 12 Thus we run directly up against the
philosophical importance of historical study, since examining the
actual discussion in Aquinas may raise for us similar issues in our
own discussions of individuation.
In fact, once we see matter as the principle of individuation
within a kind, determining differences not of beings as such but
of members of a kind, it is not at all clear why "designated
matter" of determinate quantity cannot do the job. This matter of
this human being over here is not of indeterminate quantity, but
of determinate quantity. Such determinate quantity is sufficient to
account for the difference within the kind from that human being
over there. If its quantity changes by depletion or augmentation,
there is no danger that suddenly this being will cease to be the
being it is (i.e., lose its identity), since that issue pertains to the
first sense of the question, the sense that 'matter' was never
designed to answer. Its quantity will simply change, and qua
member of a kind it will remain different from other members of
its kind by the very quantity that it now has, the quantity of
matter that is here and not there. Indeed, the substantial identity
10 See Geach, "Aquinas," 72-73.
11 John F. Wippel, TheMetaphysica!ThoughtofThomasAquinas (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 351-75
12 See also Geach, "Aquinas," 84.

282

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

of the matter changes as it is integrated into the substance, for it
takes on the identity that is metaphysically prior to it, namely, the
unity and otherness of the being itself. Some bit of matter has
become this horse's matter, rather than that cow's; before that it
was the matter of the grass that has ceased to be.
Another way in which the problem of individuation is often
put is that, given multiple instances of a universal, there must be
some principle that particularizes the universal to those instances.
This seems to be what Oderberg has in mind when he writes that
"form is common, whereas individuality is not," (128) and "it is
matter which divides common form, i.e., which turns the
communicable into the incommunicable" (129). This might seem
to be Aquinas's position when we look at the role of form in
determining individuals to be in the same kind, the sameness that
we recognized in them considered absolutely. It may seem that
Aquinas is committed to some common formal being in things
that needs particularizing to this thing versus that, making the
individual of a species a kind of complex of universal and
particularizing conditions.
However, the claim that matter "individuates or particularizes
the universal" can be taken in a robustly metaphysical sense, or in
a less robust logical or semantic sense. In the robust metaphysical
sense one is committed to the existence of universals or common
forms as extramental beings. Matter "enters into" composition
with the extramental universal and in a sense "does" something
ontologically to it, so that the individual is a complex being of
common form "individuated" or "particularized" by incommunicable matter; it makes or "turns the communicable into the
incommunicable," whatever one might mean metaphysically by
"makes," "turns, "enters into," "particularizes," or "individuates"
in this context.
The problem with this robust metaphysical position for the
Thomist is that Aquinas does not attribute any being to common
forms or universals beyond the mind. Universality characterizes a
form as existing in a human intellect. 13 Neither universality nor
13 See De Ente 2; II De Anima, lect. 12 (378-80); and STh I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 2.

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

283

particularity pertain to form as such or considered absolutely; in
other words, forms in themselves are neither individual nor
common. But forms in themselves do not exist, according to
Aquinas. "In themselves" is a way of considering forms; it is not
a way of being for forms. Universality characterizes our way of
knowing, not what we know. Forms existing in things are in no
way common; they are individual. There is no thing or being that
is common to individuals, or a common part of individuals. So
there is no universal in things that needs to be made particular by
something else. There is no doubt that Aquinas leaves open the
very difficult question of how it is that two existing individual
forms in two distinct things can be the basis for a lack of
difference between those two things when we consider them
absolutely. Nonetheless, "absolute consideration" is a way of
considering, not a way of being. Aquinas is thus not committed to
the robust metaphysical view that there is some being beyond the
mind that is common and that must be "particularized" or
"individuated" in the individuals in which it exists. Matter, in
turn, cannot be performing any role as "individuating" the
universal in any robust metaphysical sense.
On the other hand, given the rejection of extramental
universals by Aquinas, one can understand matter as the principle
of individuation in a much more benign sense, namely, a logical
or semantic sense. Given that understanding is expressed in the
intellect in a universal way, or that we use universal terms in our
discourse, if we are to think about or talk about individual things
employing that universal understanding or those universal terms,
then we must somehow particularize our thought or the reference
of our terms by expressing the apprehension of the individual
material conditions of the objects that we talk about in a
particular sensory context, 14 a particularizing function that
14 See Peter Geach, Mental Acts (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), 64. Geach
might be uncomfortable with my phrase "particularize our thought" if it is misunderstood. I
do not mean that we take the conceptual meaning of the thought and render that meaning
particular. I mean what he means when he writes, "the content of the judgment is always
intelligible and conceptual-acquaintance with a particular sensible thing is no part of the
judgment itself-but an act of judgment performed in a particular sensory context may

284

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

Aquinas attributes to the "cogitative power." 15 In that sense we
can say that the apprehension of designated matter, taken in a
logical or semantic sense, particularizes our universal way of
thinking of things that takes place in intellect. For example, in
"Socrates is a human being" we only succeed in thinking about
Socrates as a human being, rather than, say, Plato as a human
being, by expressing our apprehension of those particular features
of his matter that characterize him along with his humanity. 16
Finally, in defense of his claim, Oderberg considers fictional
entities. He claims that these presumed fictional nonexistent
entities, like Hamlet, or just plain nonexistent individuals that we
think of, like "a big brown bear," have individual essences, and
that even here it is matter designated by indeterminate quantity
that is the principle of individuation for these things.
We can ... conceive of a wholly non-existent individual, say a big brown bear,
or a man who wins the presidency .... Such a thing conceived of is no more or
less an individual essence, and it contracts its species just as a species contracts
its genus whether or not the species has any actual members. . . . Hence
individuality must be contained in the individual essence of a thing, not in its
existence. (128-29)

"If existence is the actualization of an individual essence, it
presupposes the individuation of that essence, i.e., it presupposes
an individual potentiality" (129). Thus Oderberg argues that
existence cannot be the principle of individuation, since these
individuated essences do not exist and yet must still be
individuated.
What individuates existence? That is, what distinguishes the existence of a from
the existence of b. If existence is self-individuating, then why not say the same
of essence, which is prior to existence 'in the order of nature and of perfection',
as the Thomist would say? (129)

thereby be referred to particular sensible things."
15 ScG II, c. 60; STh I, q. 78; De Verit., q. 10.
16 See I Perherm., lect. 10 (121).

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

28s

We have already seen that, according to Aquinas t notliing
individuates or distinguishes the existence of a from b, because
nothing has to. To be 'one' and 'other' just is the condition of
being at all; along with 'good' and 'true', they just are identically
'being'. Aquinas says that the term 'ens' or 'being' is taken from
the 'act of existence' (actus essendi). Saying of some being that it
is undivided in itself, and something other than anything else, is
not to posit some principle in the thing, or property of it, that
makes it to be this rather than that (i.e., a principle or property
that individuates this or that). In the thing, 'to be one' and 'to be
other' just is the very same thing as 'to be'.
In addition, it is difficult to imagine a Thomist saying that
"essence is prior to existence 'in the order of nature and
perfection'." 17 Aquinas regularly says that in the order of nature
act is always prior to potency, that esse (the actus essendi) is
compared to essentia as act to potency, and, further, that esse is
the act of all acts and the perfection of all perfections. 18
Are we to think that the matter that is doing the individuating
of the nonexistent yet still individuated essence is itself
nonexistent matter? After all, what could the matter of a
nonexistent entity be other than nonexistent matter? If it is
nonexistent, how can it be a principle of anything? How can what
does not exist individuate anything? 19 At this point we seem to be
17 By using the term 'Thomist' here and throughout, I do not intend to adjudicate who is
and who isn't a Thomist, as if there were a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for
someone being called a Thomist, rather than prudential considerations. I simply use it as a
convenient term that covers historic and contemporary traditions of philosophical thought
informed by the work of Thomas Aquinas.
18 "Esse est actualitas omnium actuum, et propter hoc est perfectio omni um perfection um"
(De Pot., q. 7, a. 2, ad 9).
19 Perhaps there is an equivocation at play here. Perhaps what Oderberg intends to say is
that the individual essences of things exist, not as intrinsic principles or features of existing
things, but as abstract entities. So while Hamlet does not exist, his individual essence does,
though it is not exemplified. So one would say that Hamlet's, a particular unicorn's, and my
individual essence all exist, even if Hamlet, that unicorn, and I do not exist. In that case, it
isn't non-existent matter that is individuating Hamlet, the particular unicorn, or me. It is
existent abstract matter in the individual existing abstract essence that is individuating the
essence. But that simply raises the question of how that presumably abstract matter is related
to the presumably concrete matter that actually enters hylomorphically into composition with
my soul such that I exist, the intrinsic feature of my being that is the principle of potency and

286

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

very far afield from the "default" position of Aquinas. There is no
reason to think that Aquinas in particular holds that fictional
beings are individual essences or things with essences, only
nonexistent essences. When we speak of what appear to be beings
that do not exist, fictional or otherwise, they are called beings in
a derivative sense because they enter into the subject place of
many affirmative propositions, as for example, "Hamlet is a
character of Shakespeare's," "Hamlet treated Ophelia shabbily,"
"my fourth son, were he to exist, would be younger than my
second daughter." We are speaking "as if" there were such beings;
but that is a fact about us, not about beings that do not exist. Such
nonexistent beings are not things (res) for Aquinas because they
have no essence, and thing (res) as a transcendental feature of
being only applies to existing being, being (ens) in the proper
sense. Similarly they are not one (unum) or different from
anything else (aliquid). 20 When we talk about them we are not
talking about nonexistent things with essences, even though we
may appear, at first glance, to be talking about some thing. We are
talking in a way derivative upon our ability to talk about existent
things with essences. We are mimicking our talk about the
existent world when we talk in a fictional or imaginative way; in
other words, we can only talk about nonexistent things by
modifying our talk about existent things. 21 Any truths that are
change in me. And presumably that abstract matter is not a principle of change and potency
in the abstract essence; so in what sense would it be matter at all? However, I don't think
Oderberg really wants to go this route, as he writes "we can ... conceive of a wholly nonexistent individual, say a big brown bear, or a man who wins the presidency, without
embedding the conception within any identifiable frame of discourse, and so without
presupposing the thing's existence in any sense .... Such a thing conceived of is no more or less
an individual essence ... "(p.128) This statement suggests not that we are thinking about some
abstract existing object which may or may not be exemplified, but, rather, about the very
concrete object that is said not to exist, but to be, nonetheless, an individuated
essence-"without presupposing the thing's existence in any sense."
20 See De Ente, c. 1; De Verit., q. 1, a. 1. For the background of my point here, see the
discussion of fictional entities in relation to real entities in my Thomist Realism and the
Linguistic Tum (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 182-94.
21 To be fair, this position seems to be what Oderberg denies when he writes, "we can ..
. conceive of a wholly non-existent individual ... without embedding the conception within
any identifiable frame of discourse." My point is that even if the talk of the fictional entity is
not embedded within a frame of discourse like a play or novel, the talk remains derivative

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

287

enunciated in such talk are derivative from the truths that
characterize the real things we talk about, as for example, "if I
had seven daughters and seven sons, I would have fourteen
children. " 22
Unfortunately, Oderberg does not note the difference between
his discussion of 'existence' and Aquinas's discussion of 'esse'. 23
Oderberg appears to be operating with something like the Fregean
sense of existence that marks the instantiation of a concept or
property, as in "a man exists" is equivalent to "there is an instance
of humanity." 24 He is adding to that Fregean background the
notion of individual essence, or 'haecceity', which we might take
to be an individual Fregean concept of sorts. 25 "Socrates exists"
upon our talk of existing things, and is a mimicry of it.
22 Though it is tangential to our purpose here, we may note a distinction between
speculative truths enunciated in fictional settings and the practical truths enunciated about
such settings. It is true that "Hamlet treated Ophelia shabbily" because Shakespeare made it
so; quantity that exists, not art, makes it true that "if I had seven daughters and seven sons I
would have fourteen children."
23 See Geach's excellent discussion of the difference between what is meant by "an est" and
"esse" in Aquinas (Geach, "Aquinas," 88-90).
24 "In this respect existence is analogous to number. Affirmation of existence is in fact
nothing but the denial of the number nought" (Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic,
trans. J. L. Austin [Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1980], 65).
25 We have to be very careful here in speaking of Fregean "concepts," as we risk
equivocation. I am here deliberately ignoring the different ontological commitments of Frege
and Aquinas on concepts. Frege was adamant that concepts not be thought of as mental
entities or acts. A concept for Frege is the reference of a predicative expression. One gets a
predicative expression by taking a statement and removing one or more proper names from
it. We get the predicative expression"_ is walking" by taking a statement like "Socrates is
walking" and dropping the 'Socrates'. So concepts are for Frege always predicative in nature.
They are not the referents of proper names. Objects are the referents of proper names. The
object that is the referent of a proper name completing a predicative expression and thus
forming a true statement can be said to exemplify the concept referred to by the predicative
expression. And an individual concept will be a concept that is exemplified by only one
object, either as a matter of fact or necessarily so. It may just happen to be the case that" __
is walking" is satisfied by only one object. But "__ is my third son" can only be satisfied by
one object in a possible world, though it may be satisfied by different objects in different
possible worlds. "__ is identical to Socrates" can only be satisfied by one object in a possible
world, and can only be satisfied by that very object in all possible worlds in which it exists.
Though Frege had no use for haecceities, they would be individual concepts akin to the latter.
For more on individual essences see the discussion of essences in Alvin Plantinga, The Nature
of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), chap. 5, "The Necessity of Natures."

288

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

becomes "there is an instance of Socrateity," or better "Socrateity
is instantiated" (since the phrase "there is an instance of
Socrateity" might leave the impression that there could be more
than one instance). Here existence is indeed of very little interest
to the metaphysics of individuation, since one has already posited
the individual concept, individual essence, or 'haecceity' prior to
the apparently banal question of existence (i.e., instantiation), and
that individual essence is doing serious metaphysical work. One
can see how it is matter of some sort that is supposed to
"individuate" the individual essence prior to existence, since in
this context the contrast is between Fregean common concepts
and certain individual concepts or 'haecceities'. The common
concept or essence is combined with some individuating
conceptual principle or principles to compose an individual
'concept', 'essence', or 'haecceity'.
Aquinas would have no problem with the Fregean sense of
'existence' as marking the instantiation of concepts or
thoughts-"a dog exists," "a human being exists," "a god exists,"
"a unicorn exists"-provided the general concepts or 'thoughts'
do not have the kind of Platonic weight that Frege seems to
attribute to them. 26 This is the sense of est that is at play in
answering affirmatively the an est question from the Posterior
Analytics. That is one sense of 'existence' or 'exists', but not the
sense that expresses the act of existence or esse of an individual,
the actus 27 to which any essentia stands in potency as a limit of
26 These would just involve nominal definitions for Aquinas, that is, they would specify the
usus loquentium of a term.
27 I am using the Latin 'actus' here rather than the English 'act', since, as Anthony Kenny
has pointed out many times, 'act' in English is more closely associated with the notion of an
action. In saying that any creature is composed of esse and essentia, Aquinas does not mean
to suggest that esse is a kind action being performed by the subject. For our sense of action,
Aquinas will very often use the Latin 'operatio'. Esse cannot be something the subject does,
since the subject only exists as an agent, capable of doings, through its esse. Esse is not
subsequent to the subsistent subject such that it could be an action or a "doing." It constitutes
the subsistent subject as existing such that it can be a subject that acts. On the other hand, one
should not push this point too far, as actions are just particular expressions of actus. Thus we
have the distinction between so-called first act and second act. First act is what a thing is in
its nature or essence. Second act is what a thing does as conditioned by what it is, conditioned,
that is, by its first act. Actus is much closer to the Greek energeia, and esse is the actus of a

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

289

that actus, an essence that only has being, is other than nothing,
through that actus. On the other hand, there is no reason
whatsoever to think Aquinas would have any truck with the
notion of individual essences that may or may not be exemplified
or instantiated, and no reason for thinking that Thomists who
ground their work in his should either.
Individual essentia is always for Aquinas the limited character
of esse. To speak of an individual essence is, for Aquinas, always
to speak of some thing that exists, not of some thing that may or
may not exist. For Aquinas, there are no beings (entia in the
proper sense) or things (res) that do not exist. 28 Here we see a
fundamental difference between the way 'essence' is used in
contemporary analytic terminology as involving abstracta
determining a classificatory scheme instantiated by one or more
individuals (individual essence if necessarily only one), and the
way it is used by Aquinas for an intrinsic principle of limitation to
the fundamental actus of some existing being. In Aquinas essentia
is the intrinsic limiting principle for the actus or esse of any
existing being. It is the intrinsic finitude of esse as we encounter
it; 29 as such it is certainly not an abstract classificatory entity, that
is, not an abstract entity distinct from a concrete being that
instantiates it. Oderberg's discussion of the existence of the
individual, or the individuation versus instantiation of the abstract
being.
28 For an extended discussion of the background from which I making this point see my
Thomist Realism and the Linguistic Turn, 182-94. At best, one might be able to speak of a
"nominal essence," that is, a description that is or is not satisfied by things (res). And perhaps
those nominal essences could be so fully specified as to be only possibly satisfiable by one
thing, such as "my fourth son," if one wants to count that as a nominal essence. But such
nominal essences are the products of our descriptive capacities. They are not what Aquinas
is talking about when he talks about the essentia that enters into the constitution of some thing
as an intrinsic principle determining for that thing "what it is for it to be." After all, such
nominal essences, which are linguistic entities, could be fully determined and individuated by
merely nonessential features-"my fourth son," or "the only white thing in the room."
29 In this sense, 'essence' is only said of God by analogy, precisely because there is no
intrinsic limiting principle to the divine esse-God is the infinite act of being. In God his
essence and his esse are the same. In creatures, essence and esse are not the same precisely
because essence is the intrinsic principle in a being that limits its esse, with the result that it is
finite esse, not infinite esse like God.

290

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

individual essence, appears to have little to do with Aquinas's
discussion of the unity and otherness that attends the being of
anything whatsoever that has an essence as the limit of its act of
existence or esse.
The position Oderberg describes may be interesting for certain
recent philosophical discussions, but I have been trying to argue
that its relationship to the Thomistic tradition is dubious,
especially when the author adds to it a commitment to such
philosophical caloric as the "haecceity (individual essence) of the
complete composite substance" (126, 128-29) and the phrase
characterizing "all schoolmen [as] being obliged to hold the
Thomistic opinion on all matters of philosophy as their default
position" (126).
It is ironic that The School was published in 1879, the same
year that Leo XIII promulgated Aeterni Patris. That encyclical
ignited the revival of the philosophical and historical study of the
works of Aquinas himself, a revival that became a distinctive and
vibrant philosophical tradition in the twentieth century, and
which in many ways made possible this volume in the twenty-first.
In so doing Aeterni Patris also sounded the death knell for the
kind of moribund Scholasticism represented by textbooks like The
School, an ahistorical Scholasticism that very often tried to
reconcile the irreconcilable by a forced combination of modern
epistemological and ontological presuppositions with an often
sterile synthesis of distinct medieval traditions. It was, as Newman
reports in his Apologia, the kind of Scholasticism in which no one
even in Rome wanted to read with him the works of Aquinas
himself. Indeed, the rejection of the importance of the study of
history to the advancement of one's tradition is one of the general
faults that Haldane attributes to analytic philosophy in his
introduction (vii, ix). Aquinas does not answer all of our
questions, and he gets others wrong. But the life blood of a living
Thomism that seeks to engage recent philosophy must find its
source in a historically informed philosophical understanding of
his texts. If we want to pick up the issues of interest in the recent

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

291

debates about individuation against the background of Thomism,
we must engage in historical analysis of Aquinas's own texts.
II. PHILOSOPHICAL IDIOM

The second broad question of interest mentioned above concerns conflicts among different approaches to engaging the two
traditions given the different philosophical idioms they employ.
Is Thomism to be incorporated within an analytic framework that
by and large goes unquestioned? Or is it to be seen as benefiting
at times from the encounter with this framework, while at the
same time often challenging it, and thus attempting to improve it?
This question of metaphysical idiom comes up most explicitly
in Richard Cross's paper. In a critical vein, Hilary Putnam has
argued that Cartesian methodology continues to animate much,
if not all, of recent philosophy of mind, a methodology that he
calls Cartesianism-cum-materialism. According to him this method
remains in play even as Descartes's substance dualism is taken to
be manifestly absurd by many and at the very least false by most.
Such methodology begins with the presumption that the
conceptual analysis of mind apart from an analysis of body is
relatively unproblematic. He argues that this is a presumption
presupposed to the intelligibility of the mind/world and
mind/body problems that cry out for solutions in contemporary
philosophy. 30 Putnam's criticism of this Cartesian methodology
suggests that it is a mistake, or at least a presumption worth
questioning, to think that there is an adequate "philosophical" or
conceptual analysis of mind apart from body.
If this Cartesian methodology is as endemic to contemporary
analytic philosophy as Putnam suggests, we might ask what it does
to Aquinas's discussion of body and soul. In their different ways,
Kerr, Braine, and Haldane all challenge the legitimacy of this
Cartesian methodological approach to Aquinas. Cross, on the
other hand, takes it to be fundamental to a contemporary
30 See Putnam's Royce Lectures reprinted as part 2 of Hilary Putnam, The Threefold Cord:
Mind, Body, and World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).

292

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

appropriation of Aquinas. Thus, it is Cross's paper on "Aquinas
and the Mind Body Problem," with the near-miss substance
dualism that he ends up attributing to Aquinas, that raises in their
most explicit form some of the difficulties attendant upon the
project of this volume. 31
According to Aquinas, a person is an individual substance of a
rational nature. In the case of human persons, that substance is a
living human body. A person is not the rational soul of a living
human body, as a soul is not a complete nature and thus cannot
be a person. Only the living human body is a substance complete
in its nature, and thus a candidate for being a human person. Its
nature is constituted by a formal principle or soul that is the
substance's being actually a substance of this or that kind, along
with a material principle which renders the substance subject to
accidental physical change or dissolution in substantial change.
The soul is the matter's being actually human, rather than being
actually some other kind of substance. The soul as formal
principle and the matter as potential principle are not two things
constituting another thing. They are the one thing that is the
substance of a certain kind potentially subject to change. 32
A) Cross's Aquinas

In order to approach Cross's paper, one has to recognize two
major features that animate it: first, a kind of reformation project,
and second, a translation project. He intends first of all to reform
31 This is particularly striking by contrast with Haldane's paper on the need to reintroduce
into contemporary philosophy a genuine notion of formal causality, as well as the need for a
notion of psychophysical substantiality.
32 "[T]hey held such [erroneous views] because they inquired about what makes a potency
and an act to be one thing, and they sought the differences of these things, as if it were
necessary to collect them as through some single medium, just like things which are diverse
according to act. But as has been said, the ultimate matter, which is appropriate to a form, and
the form itself are the same thing [idem]. For one .of these is as potency, while the other is as
act .... [P]otency and act are in a certain respect one. For that which is in potency is made to
be in act. And so it is not necessary for them to be united through some bond, like those things
which are entirely diverse. So no cause makes those things which are composed from matter
and form to be one, except that which moves a potency to act" (VIII Metaphys., lect. 5
[1767]). See also QSC q. 1, a. 3

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

293

Aquinas's discussion of soul so as to correct a confusion or even
contradiction that he perceives in it. Second, he intends to
translate the reformed Aquinas's discussion of the human person,
body and soul, into the contemporary framework of the mindbody problem and the language of properties and property
bearers. Cross presupposes that the translation project can go
through with little or no difficulty for adequately capturing
Aquinas's position. Thus, he does not question the framework,
nor does he suggest that Thomists might find its presuppositions
inadequate to the task of expressing Aquinas's analyses of the
person, mind, soul, and body. Even if the full-bore Cartesian
metaphysical position of substance dualism is only one position in
the contemporary debate canvassed by Cross, the setting of all the
positions within the debate tends to presuppose methodological
Cartesianism, in which one provides separate analyses of mind
and body only to ask how those things which one has analyzed
separately are identified, related, or eliminated in reality. 33
Aquinas's methodological approach to the soul through the acts
of the living body is deeply opposed to this, and his metaphysical
position may be just as deeply deformed by attempting to translate
it without remainder into the Cartesian methodological
framework.
B) Cross's Reformation of Aquinas

The reformation of Aquinas begins when Cross places the
focus in Aquinas on the "mind" as in some sense distinct from the
soul. He does so by raising an apparent conflict he thinks exists
between two claims in Aquinas. The first claim is that God
directly creates the entirety of each and every human soul. The
second is that the powers of intellect and will, like any powers of
the soul, are "caused" by the soul as propria of it. Cross cannot
see how it is that God can cause the soul by direct creation while
the soul "causes" its powers. He suggests a reformation of Aquinas
33 For an excellent survey of the issues in contemporary philosophy of mind, see Jaegwon
Kim, Philosophy of Mind (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 2005).

294

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

that would avoid this apparent conflict, namely, that Aquinas's
account should be modified to the more modest claim that God
directly creates intellect and will, that is, the mind as a part of the
soul, while the soul itself, excluding the mind, is not directly
created by God, but is, rather, generated in reproduction from the
underlying matter, just as any other animal soul is. Thus "the
whole human being is more than just a human body" (42-43). In
other words, while we may still treat intellect and will as parts of
the human soul, and the mind as a whole, containing both
intellect and will, as a part of the soul, we must drop the claim
that they are propria of the human soul. Moreover, we must drop
the claim that the human person just is the living human body,
because the living human body is simply the body informed by the
soul sans intellect and will, or sans mind generally. Thus, for the
reformed Aquinas, the human person is "more than" the living
body in virtue of the mind that God directly creates.
There are several difficulties with this reformation of Aquinas's
account of the soul. In the first place, its motivation is unwarranted. Cross does not explain what the conflict is between
God's causal role in the creation of the soul and the soul's causal
role vis-a-vis its powers as propria. Let us suppose for the sake of
argument that the sense of 'cause' at play in both is the same,
namely, efficient causation. In general Aquinas thinks there is no
conflict at all between God's creative causality causing things to
be and those things exercising genuine causality of their own. 34
When we place Aquinas's discussion of the soul and its powers
within the framework of primary and secondary causality, it
simply follows that the powers of the soul are not identical with
or integral parts of the soul, a position he actually holds, as we
will see later. Perhaps this broader metaphysical claim of
Aquinas's about primary and secondary causality will not stand in
the end, but insofar as his arguments for it are entirely general as
concerning all created causes, it would seem that some work
needs to be done to back up an intuition that there is a conflict in

34 See De Pot., q. 3.

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

295

Aquinas when he claims that God is the direct cause of the soul,
and the soul the cause of its powers.
In addition, for Aquinas the human being is in fact nothing
"more than" the living human body. Aquinas does deny that the
acts of intellect and will are the actualities of any bodily organ, or
even of the "body" in one sense of the term. But it does not
follow that the human substance is something "more than" a
living human body in another sense of the term, and that the acts
of intellect and will are not acts of that human body in that sense.
There is a complicated equivocation at play here in Cross's
discussion between at least two senses of the term 'body', two of
the three senses of 'body' that Aquinas analyzes in chapter 2 of De
Ente et Essentia. 35 In one sense the body is an integral part of the
human substance when we prescind from the perfection of life,
and it is distinguished from the soul as another integral part taken
as the principle of life. It is in this sense that Aquinas speaks of the
human being as composed of body and soul. Call this sense
'body/. In another sense, the primary sense, as "in the genus of
substance," the substances Socrates and an iron stone are not
composed of a body and something else. They just are bodies, and
the soul is the substantial form that causes the body that is
Socrates to be actually a living body rather than a lifeless body like
the stone. 36 Call this sense 'body 2 '.
In this sense, Socrates just is a living human body 2 • The death
of the body 2 is the death of Socrates. It is not that Socrates is said
to die in some derivative sense because an integral part of him
dies. The integral part called the body 1 does not strictly speaking
die, since in the sense in which it is an integral part it is not alive.
The living substance body 2 is alive, and that living substance dies.
Socrates himself dies because the body 2 that he is dies.

35 See Gyula Klima, "Man=Body+Soul: Aquinas's Arithmetic of Human Nature," for an
excellent sorting through of these senses (available on Klima's faculty website at Fordham
University: http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/BODYSOUL.HTM).
36 The metaphysical analysis of substance here is not invalidated by the growth of physical
knowledge that might drive us to claim that iron is really an aggregate of substances, that is,
iron atoms. Just put 'iron atom' in where I have written 'iron stone'.

296

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

Consider, for example, the following discussion in Aquinas's
commentary on the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Paul
claims that without the hope of the resurrection of the body,
Christians can only have hope and confidence in this life, not the
next. Aquinas considers an objection to the effect that Christians
could have confidence in the next life because of the immortality
of the soul. In other words, the objector thinks the continued
existence of the soul after death is sufficient for the Christian to
be confident of his or her survival after death. Aquinas responds:
The position [that we need not be confident only in this life, but can be
confident in the next life because our souls survive] can be defeated ... because
it is agreed that a man naturally desires his own salvation. However, the soul,
since it is part of a human body, is not the whole man, and my soul is not I.
Therefore, granting that the soul obtains salvation in another life, nonetheless
from that fact neither I nor any human being achieves salvation. 37

Here Aquinas makes it clear that the person is not identical with
his soul. But he also makes it clear in the discussion that the hope
or confidence human beings have for their immortality resides in
the hope of the resurrection of the body 2 • The question is about
the resurrection of the body as what the Christian hopes for, and
"it is agreed that a man naturally desires his own salvation." The
reason Aquinas rejects the objection is that the person is identical
with the body 2• Christians hope for their resurrection, not the
resurrection of one of their parts, but themselves, the living
bodies 2 that they are. 38 I am not confusing Cross's position with
37 Super I Car., c. 15, lect. 2.

38 Aquinas is thoroughly

consistent in this position, applying it to questions about the
identity of the souls of the dead. "Abraham's soul, properly speaking, is not Abraham himself,
but a part of him (and the same as regards [Isaac and Jacob]). Hence life in Abraham's soul
does not suffice to make Abraham a living being, or to make the God of Abraham the God of
a living man. But there needs to be life in the whole composite, i.e. the soul and body[ 1]: and
although this life were not actually when these words were uttered, it was in each part as
ordained to the resurrection. Wherefore our Lord proves the resurrection with the greatest
subtlety and efficacy" (STh suppl., q. 75, a. 1, ad 2). He is responding to an objection that
when God said he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, those three were dead, implying
thus that they are identical with their souls which survive death. The use of 'body' in this
quotation pertains to the first sense, as I have indicated. But the resurrection of Abraham is
not the resurrection of some part of Abraham who continues to exist as a disembodied soul

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

297

the position that the person is identical with his or her soul. I am
looking at Aquinas's argument from the other side, namely, that
the reason for rejecting the immortality of the soul as the hope for
immortality of the person is that the person is identical with the
living body 2 • This position is sufficient for rejecting both the claim
that the person is identical with the soul and Cross's claim that the
person is something more than the living human body.
It is by reference to body 2 that Aquinas denies, for example,
that it is the intellect that understands, or even the soul with that
power, but affirms, rather, that it is Socrates himself, the living
body 2 , who understands. Indeed, one of Aquinas's most important
arguments is that the form that intellect takes in a human being is
rational precisely because it is essentially a power of a soul that is
the actuality of a living body 2 •39 Angels and God, while
intellectual, are not rational. 40 This is one striking instance where
Haldane's point about the need for an adequate conception of
psychophysical substance presses in most forcefully on the
question. If Cross's reformed position were true, and mind were
not essentially a power of the soul of the body, Aquinas would
also have to drop his arguments about what constitutes rationality,
and why it is distinctively human.

prior to the resurrection. Properly speaking the resurrection is the resurrection of Abraham
himself, not a part of him. Aquinas also applies it to the Catholic practice of praying to and
for the souls of the dead. He considers this objection: "the soul of Peter is not Peter. If
therefore the souls of the saints pray for us, so long as they are separated from their bodies,
we ought not to call upon Saint Peter, but on his soul, to pray for us: yet the Church does the
contrary. The saints therefore do not pray for us, at least before the resurrection." He
responds, "It is because the saints while living merited to pray for us, that we invoke them
under the names by which they were known in this life, and by which they are better known
to us: and also in order to indicate our belief in the resurrection, according to the saying of
Ex. 3:6, 'I am the God of Abraham,' etc." (STh II-II, q. 83, a. 11, obj. 5 and ad 5). Notice he
does not challenge the presupposition of the argument that the soul of Peter is not Peter. He
explains the practice of invoking the soul under the name of the living composite who no
longer lives, expressing a hope in the resurrection of those saints. And again he invokes the
passage about Abraham. The resurrection of Peter is not the resurrection of an integral part
of Peter, who has continued to exist as a disembodied soul. It is the resurrection of Peter.
39 STh I, q. 79, a. 8.
40 Indeed, insofar as 'intellect' is ordinarily taken from the human case of intellect as the
power of reason, it is applied to God and angels by analogy.

298

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

While Aquinas argues that the soul is the terminus of God's
direct act of creation, Cross's intuition of the direct creation of
the mind, comprised of intellect and will, as a part of a naturally
generated soul raises the possibility of naturally generated living
human bodies in which God has refrained from creating a mind
as a power of their souls. As Cross notes, intellect and will are
propria. But proprium is a technical term for Aquinas. It refers
back to the second mode of per se predication discussed in
Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, and what Aquinas refers to as
"necessary" or "essential" accidents. Here accident does not have
the sense it has in contemporary metaphysics, in which an
accident is taken to be a property that an object may lose while it
maintains its identity as that object, suggesting that all accidents
are non-necessary properties. In Aquinas, an accident is a
formality or actus that is not the essential actus of the object in
question; an accident will not enter into an ultimate specification
of "what it is to be" that object. And yet such accidents may be
divided into features that the object may lack and others that it
may not lack. The ability to laugh is one such "necessary accident"
for a human being, according to Aquinas, as it arises from the
embodied form that reason takes in a human being-a rational
animal can laugh because of the ability to reason that is required
to grasp the point of a humorous situation and the expression of
that rational grasp through the voice box. Thus, while an angel
may grasp the point of a humorous situation, it cannot laugh. And
while a hyena may make sound more or less akin to the sound
made by human beings when they laugh, it is not laughing because
the sound it produces is not an expression of reason's grasp of a
humorous point or situation. So the particular proprium of human
beings that is the ability to laugh flows necessarily from the
essence of humanity, which essence is to be a rational animal,
without being an element or integral part constituting it. It is not
the essence because it is not the principle or origin of distinctively
human life. It is consequent upon more fundamental features.
Now, pursuing the implications of Cross's intuition about
mind, namely, that Aquinas should not hold that intellect and will

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

299

are propria of the human soul, it is logically possible for God to
refrain from creating them in any particular case of the soul of a
human body. An even more striking logical possibility is that
because they would not be propria of a human soul, God could
just as well create them as parts of some other soul, for example,
as part of a dog's soul, or a worm's soul, a tree's soul, or for that
matter a nonliving thing's substantial form, such as that of a lump
of iron. To be fair, Cross, while asserting that "Aquinas's account
does not take very seriously his own claim that propria are caused
by the 'essential principles of a species"' (45), suggests that
Aquinas might take it to be a decision on God's part to create
these powers only as powers of "the substantial form of a human
body." God might then decide to treat brain development as a
"necessary (and part of a set of jointly sufficient conditions) for
God's creating the human soul 41 with its sorts of cognitive and
appetitive capacities" (ibid.). Thus, it is a conditional set of
necessary and sufficient conditions, in the sense in which I might
treat my child's turning eighteen years of age as a necessary and
sufficient condition for allowing him or her to learn to drive. On
a supposition of divine voluntarism, we would never be
confronted by either human beings lacking mind or rocks that
think. Aquinas, by contrast, takes intellect and will as propria of
the human soul very seriously indeed. For example, he explicitly
rejects the logical possibility of the human soul existing without
these powers, not as a matter of a divine fiat, but as involving a
contradiction in terms. 42
The conflict Cross sees appears to be based upon a failure to
attend to the different senses of 'cause' at play in Aquinas's
discussion. God's creatively causing the soul to be is a mode of
efficient causality. However, Aquinas describes the being of
powers as propria flowing from the substantial form by a certain
41 This must be a slip on Cross's part, given what he has said about reforming Aquinas's

discussion of soul. What he must mean is "for creating the human mind with its sorts of
cognitive and appetitive capacities."
42 De Spirit. Great., a. 11, ad 7; also Q. D. DeAnima, a. 12, ad 7. This follows from what
he says about propria as necessary accidents and as involving per se predication in the second
mode.

300

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

"natural result," while immediately suggesting that such a "natural
result" is not a mode of efficient causation when he denies that it
involves a change or motion. 43 As propria, in the second mode of
per se predication, the powers are related to the human soul
definitionally, and thus in terms of formal, not efficient, causality.
Aquinas's position on powers as propria, formally related to the
soul as caused by it, explains why he says that it would be a
contradiction in terms for there to be a human soul without those
powers.
Haldane's call for an adequate conception of formal causation
is on point. It is because the powers of the soul are propria,
related definitionally to the human soul, that not even God could
create a human soul without creating its propria,44 nor could they
be created except as the powers of the human soul. 45 Aquinas's
argument for rationality as the form that intellect takes in a
human being depends upon the claim that it is through sensate
acts of the body that the intellect abstracts its concepts, and so
rationality is a proprium of a certain kind of living body.
According to Aquinas, the soul does not have intellect as such as
its power, but intellect as the power of reason, discursively
moving from one thing known to another. This is why "rational,"
not "intellectual," is the specific defining feature of the human
animal in the definition "a man is a rational animal," which
involves nothing "more than" a certain kind of living body 2, an
animal body 2, in the genus of substance. There is no general
43 STh I, q. 77, a. 6, c. and ad 3.
44 This is in fact a more complicated claim than I have presented above, and I do not have
the space to pursue it at length. Briefly, it is not that the powers enter into the definition of
the soul as such. In the second mode of per se predication, it is that the soul enters into their
definition. However, that fact establishes that they are propria, and thus as powers necessary
accidents. And, insofar as a substance is known through its powers as necessary accidents,
Aquinas believes the powers themselves can be used to define in a provisional way the
substance in the absence of a direct unmediated insight into the essence of the soul itself, that
is, in the absence of the direct unmediated insight that God has. We will see later that the
powers are not integral parts of the soul; nonetheless because they are necessary accidents,
Aquinas thinks they can be used to define it.
45 'Will' of course is said only analogously of God and angels, as in human beings it is
rational appetite, and we have already seen that neither God nor angels are rational. Thus,
while they do have will in an analogous sense, they do not have rational appetite.

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

301

conflict between God efficiently causing the entirety of the soul
to be and the soul formally causing its powers as propria of it,
unless one does not recognize the different senses of 'cause' at
play in the discussion.
Finally, even if the soul were the efficient cause of its propria,
as we supposed earlier for the sake of argument, there would be
no conflict with the claim that God creates them, once we
recognize that the powers of the soul are not integral parts of it.
This lack of conflict is implied by Aquinas's larger position that
there is no conflict at all between God's causality in creating
natural agents that have their own genuine natural causality.
Indeed, the conflict that Cross sees in Aquinas between the two
claims-that God directly causes the soul and that the soul causes
its propria-appears to be driven by a confusion about the kind of
"parts" of the soul that powers are.
Aquinas distinguishes three distinct senses of "part" -integral,
subjective, and potential (potentialis). 46 Integral parts are the
elements that enter into the constitution of some compound
being; the examples used by Aquinas are the walls, roof, and
foundation of a house. Subjective parts are a little more difficult
to understand. Against the background of Aristotelian classification in terms of genus and species, Aquinas has in mind the
way in which a member of a species is also a member of the
genus. The study of the species is part of the subject studied in the
genus. For example, the species ox and the species lion are both
parts of the genus animal, and so the study of oxen and lions will
be part of the subject of the study of animals. Finally, the third
kind of part has to do with the relationship of powers to the soul.
Aquinas gives the examples of the nutritive and the sensitive
powers as "parts" of the soul in this sense. In speaking here of
"potential" parts, we should not think of the broad English notion
of "potential," but more narrowly of specific powers as
potentialities related to particular types of soul.
Cross's intuition would have some bite to it if we were to
construe powers of the soul as integral parts of it. If the soul has
46

STh II-II, q. 48, a. 1.

302

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

integral parts, and if the powers are among those integral parts,
then how could the soul cause its integral parts if indeed God
directly causes the soul to be? Wouldn't God then be the direct
cause of any integral parts the soul has, if it has any?
However, Aquinas clearly distinguishes powers as parts of the
soul from integral parts of any kind. Whatever is meant by calling
a power a part of the soul, it is not so called as an integral part or
element of the soul entering into its composition. Cross, on the
other hand, appears to be treating the powers as integral parts of
the soul, in something like the way in which arms, legs, heart,
kidneys, and so on, are integral parts of the body. We will see
later that Aquinas does not think the soul has any integral parts at
all. Still, even if the soul does have integral parts, what Aquinas
says about the powers as propria "flowing from" the soul by a
certain natural result makes it fairly clear that we should not think
of the powers as among such integral parts.
In addition, Cross's effort at reformation generally inverts the
distinction in Aquinas between the bodily powers and the powers
of intellect and will. Bodily powers, Aquinas argues, have their
origin in the soul like any powers, but exist in the body 1 as in
their immediate subject, while intellect and will have their origin
in the soul, but also exist in the soul as their immediate subject. 47
Cross, in reforming Aquinas for the contemporary framework,
rejects this distinction, and holds that Aquinas should count the
body's essential properties as not simply having their origin in the
soul, but just as much parts of the soul as intellect and will (48). 48
However, Aquinas makes his distinction between the powers on
the basis of his argument that the bodily powers differ from
intellect and will insofar as their actus are actus of bodily organs
while the actus of intellect and will are not. Having made that
distinction, he goes on to argue for the immaterial mode of
existence of the soul, which is the immediate subject of the

47

STh I, q. 77, aa. 5-6.

48 That is, accepting, for the sake of argument

and despite what I have argued above about
"parts" of the soul in Aquinas, Cross's thesis that in having the soul as the subject of their
existence they are "parts" of the soul in whatever sense Cross intends.

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

303

intellect and will, and then on the basis of that immaterial mode
of existence that God must directly create the human soul.
If we abandon this distinction between the powers for the sake
of argument, we must nevertheless note that Aquinas does not
claim that intellect and will alone are propria of the human soul,
but that all the powers of the body are as well. 49 Being propria
bears upon the question of the origin of powers, not their
immediate subject of existence. In that respect, according to
Aquinas there is no distinction between intellect and will as
propria of the soul and all of the other powers of a human being.
As propria they all have their origin in the human soul, and they
are all of a piece.
But we have already seen that Cross thinks Aquinas should
abandon the distinction between the powers on the basis of their
subject of existence. By having God directly create only the
powers of intellect and will, which pertains to their origin, while
leaving the bodily powers alone to originate as propria from the
naturally generated soul, Cross has effectively inverted Aquinas's
position. Aquinas held no distinction between the powers on the
basis of their origin as propria of the soul, but distinguished them
on the basis of their immediate subject of existence. In Cross's
reformed Aquinas the powers will now be distinguished on the
basis of their origin-bodily as propria of a naturally generated
soul, intellect and will as directly caused by God and not propria
of the soul-in the absence of any distinction among them on the
basis of their subject of existence. Insofar as Aquinas's discussion
of the relationship between the soul and its powers has been
inverted, it is difficult to see how it remains in view at all.
C) Cross's Translation of Aquinas
Turning now to the translation part of Cross's project, a
significant problem with the translation into the talk of properties
and their bearers is that it at best masks, and at worst eliminates,
the central feature of substantial forms for Aquinas, namely, that
49

STh I, q. 77, a. 1, ad 5; I, q. 77, a. 6, c. and ad 3.

304

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

they are principles of actus and unity, what Aquinas calls "first
act." It is difficult to capture what is meant by actus in Latin or
energeia in Greek. Aristotle warns against trying to define it,
preferring to proceed by example and analogy. He gives such
examples as "that which is building to that which is capable of
building," and "that which is wrought to the unwrought." 50 The
soul as substantial actus determines the substance to be what it is,
to be indivisible as that kind of thing, and to be only one such
being. Powers, on the other hand, are in most cases principles of
potency toward "second act" in a substance. 51
One of Aquinas's central concerns in the discussion of soul and
body is to argue against the claim that there are many souls in a
human being, or that the human soul itself is composed of many
subsouls, or subsubstantial forms-in other words, against the
claim that the soul has any integral parts. 52 This position of
Aquinas against the so-called plurality of forms position was
almost unique to him in his time, and rested firmly upon his
understanding of Aristotle's metaphysics of substance as set out in
the Metaphysics and analyzed in his own Commentary on the
Metaphysics of Aristotle.
Aquinas's arguments against both pluralist positions rely
primarily upon his emphasis on the unity of human life as
exhibited in its animate activities. In a human being the actuality
(first act) of being animal just is the actuality (first act) of being
rational, even as the powers characteristic of such being may be
actually exercised (second act) episodically and apart from one
another. In addition, even when they are exercised episodically
and apart from one another, most often they enter into the
constitution of intentional actions that possess a per se unity
subordinated to rational goals teleologically determined by the
nature of the soul as first act. This unity is by contrast with a per
accidens unity. In one of his more forceful statements, Aquinas
concludes that if the pluralist position distinguishing reason as a
50 Aristotle, Metaphys. 1047a35-1048a9, trans. W. D. Ross, in The Complete Works of
Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
51 ScG II, cc. 59-60; STh I, q. 75, a. 4, ad 1; and esp. I, q. 77, a. 1.
52 See STh I, q. 76, aa. 3-4.

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

305

form from the substantial form of the body were true, reason and
will would have no more relation to the animal life of human
beings than does being white, namely, none; technically, being
rational would be per accidens to being human. He treats this
latter position about reason and will as manifestly false.
Rationality is the form of animality in a human being; its union
with the animal acts of a human being is per se. Failure of one of
the powers involved in the per se unity of such an intentional act
leads to some measure of failure in accomplishing the act as such.
Here Cuyper's "Thomistic Agent-Causalism" is relevant, with its
critique of "para-mechanistic" agent causalism. We do not have
two or more actus tied together by divine fiat, but, rather,
identically one simple unity of actus (first) that is the substantial
form determining the natures of its propria and their fulfillment
in second act. And yet, it is precisely according to divine fiat that
Cross has the reformed Aquinas treat the relation of reason and
will to the life of the animal whose soul with its animal powers
has been naturally generated. God could just as well treat brain
development as a necessary and sufficient condition for creating
the hair color of all human beings to be brown, as he treats it for
creating the powers of intellect and will.
Aquinas's arguments may fail, perhaps, in the end, but the
difficulty with Cross's translation is that it comes close to making
Aquinas's position appear unintelligible. If 'property' translates
both 'form' and 'power', as Cross uses it, the soul is a property
and it has properties as parts. Aquinas's position, in the language
of form, is that the soul is a substantial form and it has powers as
parts. The soul cannot have powers as integral parts because they
are fundamentally in potency, while it is fundamentally actus.53 If
it had the potencies as its integral parts, there would have to be a
further more fundamental actus determining the union of those
integral potencies as parts of the soul. In the contemporary idiom,
there is no such barrier to one property having other properties
as integral parts. It is no surprise, therefore, when Cross treats the
53 Recall the analysis above whereby it is shown that Aquinas does not in fact treat powers
as integral parts.

306

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

translated Aquinas's discussion of "parts of the soul" as involving
integral parts, despite Aquinas's denial in his own idiom that this
IS SO.

In fact, in Cross's translation, we are forced into a plurality of
properties where Aquinas had argued in his own terms against a
plurality of forms. The translation masks or eliminates the
difference between the soul and its powers, unless with Cross one
has recourse to the property of "being a substantial form of a
body," which the soul in some sense bears and its powers do not
(41). But this latter property looks suspiciously like a Cambridge
property to be doing any serious metaphysical work. It is ad hoc,
and is introduced to distinguish the soul as a property from all the
other properties of the substance. However, specification of this
property plainly requires use of the term 'form' that is supposed
to be translated. Presumably, the property of "being a substantial
property" will not do to characterize the soul apart from the
powers, since intellect, will, and all the other properties of the
human substance are presumably substantial properties as well.
What is lost in translation is that substantial form is the intrinsic
principle of being, actus, and unity in a substance, features of
existence not adequately captured by more recent notions of
property. Certainly recent philosophy of mind has no use at all
for the notion of forms, let alone substantial forms. In particular,
failure to recognize the role of substantial form as principle of
unity in human life and action is precisely what Aquinas thinks
leads to the 'plurality of forms' position of his contemporaries,
and what we might recognize in Cross's analysis as the plurality
of properties. In the end, Cross finds himself in a position in
which he must return to the unanalyzed notion of 'form' in
"property of being a substantial form of a body," lest the
translation fail to distinguish the soul from all the other properties
of the human substance. Thus, it simply looks as if the term 'form'
as Aquinas uses it in the discussion of human life cannot be
translated without remainder as 'property'.
Furthermore, if we take the property of mind to be the
intellectual principle-which, according to Cross, should not be

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

307

a proprium of the human soul-property-by introducing the mind
as a property directly created by God that is not the naturally
generated soul-property, Cross's translation commits Aquinas to
a position that he deliberately and significantly argues against in
the Summa, namely, that the intellectual principle is something
other than the human soul itself. 54 In the translated terms, Cross
argues that Aquinas should treat the soul-property as naturally
generated with the body, while the mind-property is directly
created by God. Thus the mind-property is not identical to the
soul-property. But if the mind-property is the intellectual
principle, it follows that the soul-property is not. On the other
hand, if the soul-property does not have the mind-property as one
of its propria, it is difficult to see how the soul-property could in
any sense be called the intellectual principle. But in Aquinas's own
argument, that the soul is the intellectual principle is an identity
claim. It has the necessity of an identity claim; not even God
could make the human soul to be, even counterfactually, anything
other than the intellectual principle of a living body.
Thus the reformed and translated Aquinas needs to abandon
one of the most unique positions he took in his own time, namely,
against the plurality of forms. He must also abandon one of the
most substantive positions he took on the relation of intellect and
will to bodily life, namely, that the principle of intellect and will
is nothing other than the substantial form or principle of life in a
particular kind of animal body. No wonder then that this updated
Aquinas ends up a kind of near-miss Cartesian dualist, in the
terms and context of recent analytic debate about the nature of
mind.

54 STh I, q. 76, a. 1. It is important not to confuse or treat as synonymous 'the power of
intellect' and 'intellectual principle'. 'Principle' is just an English near-transliteration of the
Latin 'principium', which is in turn the translation of Aristotle's Greek 'arche'. It is a technical
term in Aquinas, the various senses of which are analyzed as the first entry in book 5 of
Aristotle's Metaphysics and Aquinas's commentary on it. The point of Aquinas's argument in
STh I, q. 76, a. 1 is that the intellectual principle is not a power but the soul itself. From this
it follows that, again, the power of intellect is thus a proprium of that intellectual principle of
human bodily life.

308

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

D) Cross and the Interaction Problem
Cross uses the contemporary idiom of properties and their
bearers to translate Aquinas's language of form, powers, and
substance. The soul on this account turns out to be a property that
can itself bear properties, namely, the powers of intellect and will
that it has, as well as "the property of being a substantial form of
a body." How does this translation fare in dealing with one of the
central problems of contemporary dualism in analytic philosophy,
the "Interaction Problem"? Cross's reformed and translated
Aquinas will see part of the soul as part of the body, and the
essential properties of the body as parts of the soul, not simply as
having their origin in the soul. "The causal influence of the
human body on the human soul can be explained by the soul's
being causally affected by one of its properties" (48). Going in the
other direction from mind to body, insofar as it is "a substantial
form of a human body, the human soul is, in the relevant sense,
a part of the human body. And the causal influence of the soul on
the body can be explained in terms of the body's being affected by
one of its own parts" (49).
Granted that Cross has little space to develop this thought, it
is far from obvious that it is "prima facie unproblematic" (48),
that the reformed and translated "[Aquinas] will have no difficulty
accounting for the causal activity of the human body on the
human soul" (ibid.) and vice versa, and that this Aquinas will have
solved the Interaction Problem. Cross claims that "on Aquinas'
account, the individual subsistent (the human soul) which is the
mind, is also that in virtue of which a human body has the
essential properties which it has" (ibid.). But this claim is at best
ambiguous, and at worst false in the present context. In the first
place, in the unreformed Aquinas, the claim is seriously
ambiguous. Aquinas treats the term 'mind' in its proper sense as
synonymous with the term 'intellect', and as referring to the
power of intellect alone, not intellect and will, or intellect and any
other set of powers. In the proper sense, Aquinas denies that mind

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

309

or intellect is the soul itself. 55 He is willing to grant that the term
'intellect' may be applied to the soul as substantial form of the
body. However, such a use of the term is by analogy, as he says
that the soul can be named from its highest power which is
intellect or mind. 56 And certainly, neither of these senses, the
proper or the analogous, is what is meant by the term 'mind' in
recent philosophy of mind.
In the second place, considering the reformed and translated
Aquinas that Cross has given us, the claim is false. Cross has the
reformed Aquinas rejecting the claim that God creates the human
soul, which should be taken to be naturally generated with the
body, while the "mind," that is, the powers of intellect and will
are created by God as parts of the naturally generated soul once
brain development has reached a certain point. But this new part
of the soul is not an essential part of the soul, and so it cannot
constitute a new soul. So the complex of soul-plus-mind is not
identical to the soul that was naturally generated, and it is not a
new soul of the body. Thus, Cross cannot help himself to the
claim, which we have seen is ambiguous in the unreformed
Aquinas, that the soul is the mind. On the new view, the mind
created by God is clearly something other than the soul naturally
generated by the body, and so the claim that the human soul is the
human mind is clearly false.
In addition, Cross slides ambiguously between the two idioms
of properties and forms: bodily properties are properties of the
soul and in that sense parts of it, while the soul is a substantial
form of the body and in that sense a part of it. Is 'part' here being
used in the same sense? According to Cross, the soul as a property
is a part of the body; as such, it can causally affect the body. If
there is to be causal symmetry here between soul and body, then
it would seem that the body itself must be a property that can
causally affect the soul. But a property of what? Is it a property of
the soul, and a part of the soul in that sense, since according to
Cross the properties of the body are parts of the soul? If not, what
55
56

STh I, q. 79, a. 1.
Ibid., ad 1.

310

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

else could the body be a property of, and in "the relevant sense"
a part of?
We have little difficulty with the idea that one physical part of
the body can causally affect another part, as when in a fit of
laughter I leave a red mark on my thigh from slapping it with my
hand. Here one integral part of the body is casually (as an
efficient cause) affecting another integral part of the body. But
presumably my soul, which Cross's Aquinas thinks is in some
sense a part of my body, is not a part in the same sense as my
hand or thigh is. All the work is being done by Cross's phrase "in
the relevant sense." But what is that relevant sense in
contemporary terms? Cross does not tell us.
A favorite candidate for causal explanation in analytic thought
would have it that the event of my thigh being red is caused by the
event of my hand striking my thigh because the two events fall
under a covering law that relates with natural necessity certain
physical properties that the events exemplify. Applied to Cross's
proposal about Aquinas, we would then have the claim that a
certain bodily event is caused by a certain mental event because
the two events fall under a covering law relating bodily properties
exemplified by the bodily event to mental properties exemplified
by the mental events, and vice versa; we could cash out the
"relevant sense" of 'part' by relating it to this account.
But that account doesn't solve the "soul-body problem"; it
states it. Given assumptions about the causal closure of the
physical that animate recent philosophy of mind, the very
existence of such psychophysical laws, the kinds of events that fall
under them if they exist, whether mental events are type-identical
with physical events, whether they supervene on physical events,
and so on, are some of the central features and most controversial
difficulties associated with the Interaction Problem in recent
analytic philosophy. Unless Cross intends a type identity theory,
in which mental types are identical with physical or bodily types,
there is no solution here of the Interaction Problem. If he does
intend such a theory, it only solves the problem at a cost rejected
by most philosophers of mind in the analytic tradition. And

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

311

certainly Aquinas himself, the un-reformed and un-translated
Aquinas, in his own terms had no intention of affirming a type
identity theory when he argued that the actus of the power of
reason is immaterial. There are other ways of approaching an
analysis of cause and effect, but unless we understand what is
meant by the "soul is a part of the body in the relevant sense,"
they will most likely suffer the same problem.
There is an even deeper problem here. We have taken at face
value Cross's claim about a part of the soul being a part of the
body, as the precondition for addressing the Interaction Problem.
The difficulty is that on Cross's account this part of the soul
cannot be the relevant part for addressing that problem, that is, it
cannot be the mind that is this part of the soul that is part of the
body. Cross had suggested that the reformed Aquinas treat the
mind, consisting of the powers of intellect and will, as a part of
the soul directly created by God. However, these powers cannot
be the part of the soul that is also part of the body, because Cross
had also said that it is in virtue of these powers, that is, in virtue
of the mind, that the human person is "more than" the living
human body. The reformed Aquinas will hold that the soul with
its bodily powers is naturally generated with the body. Once brain
development hits the right condition, God will create the mind as
a part of the soul, but a part that makes the person to be more
than the living human body. It is difficult to see how that part that
makes the person more than the human body could itself be a part
of the human body. If it is a part of the human body then how
could the person through that part be more than the human body?
Thus, whatever part of the soul it is that is supposed to be a
part of the body in solving the Interaction Problem, it cannot be
the mind as Cross conceives of it. We are left precisely with that
Interaction Problem in straightforward Cartesian terms: how is it
that the mind that God creates interacts with the human body? If
Cross were to say that it interacts with that part of the soul that
is part of the body, this would not solve the difficulty, but simply
relocate it in a latter-day search for the pineal gland. None of this
is prima facie unproblematic. And it is clear that despite his claims

312

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

to the contrary Cross's reformed and translated Aquinas appears
to have no solution to the "Interaction Problem."

E) Aquinas and the Interaction Problem
In Aquinas's original language of form as act, by contrast, it is
not clear that there is an interaction problem at all to be solved.
Recall Aristotle's gruesome insight that a detached human hand is
only called a human hand equivocally. That equivocation arises
because a real human hand is what it is in virtue of its actually
being alive, that is, in virtue of the form of life that animates it,
the human soul. The same of course is said, mutatis mutandis, of
a dead body and a real human body. But forms do not "interact"
with that which they inform. Either as first act or as second act,
forms are not sufficiently distinct from the objects they inform so
that they could interact with them. 57 Forms just are the objects,
considered as what they actually are and do. Thus, forms
determine the ways in which objects interact with the world,
without themselves interacting with the objects they inform.
For example, the sphericity of the iron sphere does not interact
with the iron. It is the iron being actually spherical, where the
iron could be but is not actually some other shape. And it is
because the iron is actually spherical that the iron interacts with
its environment in typical ways and not others-rolling, for
instance, rather than sliding. Its actual motion as rolling depends
on the sculptor who fashions it, upon the child who pushes it, and
upon the sphericity that informs but does not push it. And there
is no competition here between the sphericity, the sculptor, and
the child, as to responsibility for moving the bronze. All of them
can be said to cause it to roll, so long as we recognize the different
modalities of causality at play. A form as an intrinsic principle of
some object is explicitly contrasted in both Aristotle and Aquinas
with an efficient cause as an extrinsic principle of that object.
Aquinas does say briefly that the soul "moves the body ...
through the motive power" (STh I, q. 76, a. 4, ad 2) and the soul
57

VIIIMetaphys., lect. 5 (1767).

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

313

may thus be taken to be a moving part while the body is a moved
part. Cross takes this passage to be evidence for his claim that the
soul can act upon the body as an efficient cause (49), and thus
evidence for the issue of interaction in Aquinas's account.
However, prima facie, the claim doesn't say that, and all Aquinas
is giving is a fafon de parler. Because soul and body are contrasted
in this text as parts, the sense of body must be bodyi. But recall
that body 1 was that sense in which one does not consider the body
as living; one prescinds from that in order to consider it simply as
material with a weight and size, composed of certain elements and
compounds, and so on. When we consider body 1, we do not
consider it as alive, and a fortiori as a source of motion. To
consider it as alive, and as a source of a particular type of motion,
human motion, we must advert to the human soul that informs it,
just as we must advert to the sphericity of the bronze if we are to
consider the actual type of motion it undergoes. We can say that
the bronze's shape moves it to roll rather than slide, without
thereby committing ourselves to the shape as a little agent (a quasi
homunculus) within the bronze. Without considering the soul, we
can say nothing of the body as a source of a particular kind of
motion, the human kind. 58 Thus, because the body is not the
origin of motion when we simply consider it as body 1' the soul is
a principle of motion in the body, and the moving part in that
sense, just as the sphericity can be called the rolling part of the
bronze. But it is not an efficient principle of motion in the body,
not a moving part in that sense.
Expanding upon and explaining at greater length elsewhere the
claim that the soul "moves the body . . . through the motive
power," Aquinas identifies this motive power with the union of
cognitive and appetitive powers, including not only intellect and
will, which belong to the human soul alone as subject, but also
sense cognition and sense appetite, which are powers that involve
bodily organs, not the soul alone. "Since motion is directed at
58 It is evident that motions of animals cannot be adequately described at the level of the
genus motion. Canine motion differs from feline motion, which differs from human motion;
and these are formal differences required in the specification of the motion itself, not in the
efficient cause of the motions.

314

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

something particular, the intellective part, which apprehends
universally, only moves through a particular apprehension and
desire which belongs to the sensitive part." The union of
intellective and sensitive part required here is none other than the
simple unity of the soul as first act. Aquinas concludes, "it is that
part of an animated body. to which it belongs to apprehend
(particular things) and desire (them) that moves the body." 59
Notice that Aquinas speaks of motion requiring a "desire which
belongs to the sensitive part," in conjunction with rational
appetite which informed by intellect only desires in a general way.
But desire that leads to action is directed at a particular goal or
end as final cause. And neither Aristotle nor Aquinas has any
difficulty referring to the end or final cause moving some being,
without thereby reducing the end or final cause to a species of
efficient causality that would "interact" with the moved.
Aquinas says it is a part of the "animated body" that moves the
body. And yet is it not the case that the soul moves the body? Yes
and no. Consider human sight as an analogy. The soul causes the
body to see because the power of sight has its formal origin in this
type of soul. In this sense, mole souls do not cause, do not move
moles to see. And yet it is the living human body that sees, since
sight exists in that body as in its immediate subject. Similarly the
"motive power," like any power, has its origin in the soul-it is a
proprium-and in that sense is caused by the soul, while it does
not exist in the soul as its immediate subject. Only intellect and
will exist in the soul as their immediate subject. In that sense, the
motive power exists in the living body as its subject, and it is
nothing other than the body's power of movement.
Here again one wants to avoid the paramechanistic agent
causalism critiqued by Cuypers. Since Aquinas holds that an
efficient cause must be extrinsic to that which it efficiently
causes60 and powers of the composite body are not extrinsic to the
composite, this movement of the body by its cognitive and
appetitive powers cannot be a mode of efficient causality. The
59

Q. D. De Anima, a. 9, ad 6.

60 V Metaphys,

lect. 2 (763-76); and De Prin. Natur., c. 3.

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

315

soul moves the body through the motive power, not in the sense
of efficiently interacting with it, but in the sense of informing it,
and causing it to be what it is, as it informs the eye, and causes
human vision to be what it is. Other integral parts of the body 2
interact with the eyeball in human vision-the optic nerve, and
muscles surrounding it, and so on-much like when I slap my
thigh and leave a red mark. But the soul does not move the
eyeball in that sense. It informs it, and makes it a human eyeball
involved in human vision rather than canine vision. To make the
soul the efficient cause of some motion of the body would require
denying that the soul informs that part of the body. But that
would require treating that part of the body as nonliving. If we
were to take the hand, for example, and deny that it is informed
by the soul in order that it could be efficiently moved by the soul,
we would be left with Aristotle's gruesome detached human hand,
and the motion of our attached human hands would be no
different in principle from the motion involved in picking up the
detached human hand and waving it about. But this is simply to
misunderstand the nature of human action, and the form that it
takes. Again, Cuypers and Martin's papers are relevant here.
Thus in speaking of the soul moving the body through the
motive power, we have ample evidence and philosophical reasons
for thinking the mode of causality involved is not one of efficient
causality of the soul upon the body, "interacting with it." In fact,
what the point from question 7 6 of the Prima Pars amounts to is
the claim that the living body moves in virtue of the distinctive
cognitive and appetitive powers appropriate for the kind of living
being in question. Thus it is significant that in his extended discussion of the issue, Aquinas did not confine the discussion to the
human soul and body, but broadly to any animal soul and body.
Like the iron sphere, the living body moves distinctively in the
way it does in virtue of its distinctive form. But unlike the iron
sphere, it does so in a distinctive fashion animated by the cognition and desire appropriate to the kind of being it is, determined
formally, not efficiently, by its soul. Dogs move in distinctively
doglike ways not simply because their bodies are structurally

316

JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN

different from cat bodies, but because their cogmt1ve and
appetitive powers are different from the cognitive and appetitive
powers of cats. Human beings move in distinctively human ways,
not simply because they are upright and bipedal, but because in
their animal bodies sense cognition and appetite are formally and
thus existentially united with reason and will in the human soul.
In the framework of being and act that animates Aquinas's
thought, the Interaction Problem between soul and body simply
does not arise. If I am correct in this assessment, then the fact that
it arises when translating Aquinas into the contemporary idiom
should give one pause not only about the translation, but
philosophically about the idiom itself.
'Form', particularly 'substantial form', looks to be simply untranslatable. Following Haldane's suggestion, we ought to face
that fact and try to develop an adequate philosophical account of
it, not in terms of, but, rather, as a genuine philosophical contribution or even a challenge to the adequacy of analytic philosophy
to provide an account of human life and action without it. The
elements of an adequate philosophical anthropology may be one
of the most important contributions that Thomism can make to
contemporary philosophy. Cross's paper is both important and
well worth the attention one gives to it. It genuinely wrestles with
the difficulties of engaging recent philosophy of mind employing
the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Such wrestling should take place.
But the paper is also useful because it displays just the sorts of
difficulties that have to be faced if one wants to translate
Aquinas's discussion of soul and body into the contemporary
analytic setting. Both Oderberg and Cross are living philosophers
trying in their own ways to take seriously an historical figure as a
genuine philosophical interlocutor worthy of more than
antiquarian interest, and they should be applauded for that.
Too often Thomists want to place Aquinas in recent debates
without struggling with the issues Cross struggles with. Perhaps
the struggle proves too great in this instance, and the Tho mist's
account of the soul is a challenge to the adequacy of the
philosophical presuppositions of the recent debate, rather than a

THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

317

position that can be translated into it. The conflicts, as one sees in
all the papers in this volume, are the stuff of which good
philosophy is made. If there are genuine philosophical insights to
be found within Thomism, Thomists must seek to engage the
living philosophy of our age, one major area of which is
contemporary analytic philosophy. Those Thomists who take up
that responsibility with all its potential triumphs and pitfalls
would do very well to read this collection of essays. 61

61 I am grateful to David Burrell, Fred Freddoso, and Alasdair Macintyre for their helpful
comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

BOOK REVIEWS
Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard, and Alan of Lille: Words in the
Absence of Things. By EILEENSWEENEY. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2006. Pp. 236. $65.00 (cloth). ISBN 1-4039-6972-8.

This is a very timely study on an important segment of the intellectual
tradition of the Middle Ages, one, moreover, that not many scholars with
expertise in this field would be capable of undertaking. One reason is that it
moves outside the set fields of Augustinian, Victorine, or Chartrian studies, thus
positioning itself deliberately in an open arena. Another reason is that it
combines three divergent areas, that is, logic, theology, and poetry. Whereas any
combination of two would have yielded interesting but slightly predictable
perspectives (logic and theology, theology and poetry), the addition of a third
derails any prior notions of synthesis and harmonious development one might
have.
The combination of authors from Boethius to Abelard and on to Alan of Lille
is a responsible choice and creates an exciting span, as the Three Theological
Treatises of Boethius are connected with the Theological Rules of Alan of Lille,
reflecting the longue duree that is typical of medieval thought. The fact that
Sweeney's analysis is under three hundred pages long speaks to her authorial
skills, as her conciseness of argument makes for a clear and efficient read.
The book's subtitle is "Words in the Absence of Things," which points to the
similar texture of semantics found in all three authors, connecting them as part
of one continuous tradition. The major achievement of the study lies in its view
of the era from late antiquity to the early Scholastic in an unbroken light. Doing
so requires intellectual reach and philosophical stamina, both of which are
demonstrated here in exemplary fashion.
Sweeney's book unfolds as follows. In the introduction she clarifies her
thematic approach of "words in the absence of things" by referring to
Augustine's division of reality into signs and things-the latter referring
ultimately only to God-which was designed in his On Christian Doctrine and
canonized in Peter Lombard's Sentences. Based on this division, all metaphysical
problems are problems that regard signs, and hence pose as problems of
interpretation, an interpretation that is duly complicated because its central
object, that is, God, is itself the only 'thing' and as such inexpressible. This is the
absence to which the book's subtitle refers, and which rather indicates a latent
presence or substrate. Rather than analyzing the thought of Augustine-whose
responsibility for the "semiological consciousness of the Christian West" stems
319

320

BOOK REVIEWS

from his firm interest in "redeemed language" mediated through the presence of
Christ as the Word-however, Sweeney focuses on the technical mastery of the
language arts exhibited by Boethius, Abelard, and Alan. Her overall thesis is that
even in these potentially more arid thinkers the logical and analytical were
combined with the imaginative and the existential, a connection that would last
until the thirteenth century. Although a similar point about the merger of
analytical and imaginative discourse was made by Peter Dronke (see his Fabula:
Explorations into the Uses of Myth in Medieval Platonism [Leiden and Cologne:
E. J. Brill, 1974], 1), it has rarely been turned into an epistemological program
and Sweeney should be much commended for doing so.
The book has three chapters, which are similar in length and closely follow
the texts of the selected authors. The chapter on Boethius (7-61) is entitled
"Translation, Transfer and Transport," and combines an analysis of his mediating function in the history of Western thought with the more unusual task of
lending a kind of unity to his works, portraying him in the process as an original
and autonomous thinker rather than a compiler. Main Boethian themes are the
distinction between the order of words and things and the conventionality of
language (8). Notwithstanding Boethius's aim of mediation, Sweeney rightly
points out how his logical categories form an extra layer between the reader and
the things described by the text (9), thereby causing many of the intellectual
problems with which the Middle Ages would henceforth struggle.
Sweeney discusses the Commentary on the Isagoge, the Commentary on the
Peri hermeneias, and the Theological Tractates, carefully laying out in each case
what the work intends and what Boethius's aim with it is. In Contra Eutychen
et Nestorium Boethius posits theological reasoning as finding the mean between
two heresies, a position that in De hebdomadibus is concretized as a refutation
of Manichean dualism. Sweeney here follows the view of Robert Crouse (21,
26), that a being can only be good to the extent that it is related to that which
is Being or Good in a perfect unity, that is, God. In De trinitate Aristotelian and
Neoplatonic categories meet again, but it proves difficult for Boethius to go from
the 'thing' of divine unity to the plurality of its names ('words'): that is, as
synonymous names signifying the single divine nature, as names with different
meanings indicating the same God, or as nonsynonymous names for the different
persons. The difficulty is that the Trinity cannot be fully understood by us as it
is, which necessitates different and hierarchically ordered approaches through
physics, mathematics, and theology. In Sweeney's view Boethius is giving up any
esoteric superiority in these tractates, assuming a position of supplication as the
only fitting mediating posture to stretch language from this world to the next
(38).
The same is true for the Consolation, which takes mediation one step further,
as Boethius aims at a transformation of his own perspective on suffering. There
are clearly different voices in this work, ranging from Boethius the victim to
Lady Philosophy as his therapist, yet there is no reason either to see Boethius as
unable to control all of these roles or to identify him with just one of them.
Instead, Sweeney sees the Consolation's project as the development and

BOOK REVIEWS

321

hierarchical arrangement of different perspectives on suffering, taking this work
as pars pro toto for Boethius's entire oeuvre. In a long segment, she carefully
weaves its different threads together in such a way that we can still hear the deep
echoes of classical knowledge. Seeing the absence of direct Christian allusions as
a relevant problem, she feels generally at home with Marenbon's solution of
seeing this work as reflecting the failure, rather than the success of philosophy
(60). She ends this chapter by pointing to the work's poetry as both mirroring
the fragmented vision of philosophy and complementing it in the attempt to
overcome the limits of human reasoning.
While Boethius's Consolation, in Sweeney's vision, was "baring the wound"
(39), her chapter on Abelard ("A Twelfth-Century Hermeneutics of Suspicion"
[63-125]) opens with this thinker's attempt to "keep open the wound of exile"
(63). Here too she goes through the logical developments of the author under
review only to end with an analysis of his poetry, especially the planctus, a set
of biblical poems often thought to display personal notes to his life story.
Sweeney sees in Abelard not the mediation typical of Boethius but struggle and
opposition against complacent masters, as Abelard scratches their surface and
measures their (false) depths. His "tragedy" is that the outcome of his search is
that surface and depth cannot be matched, and hence his quest for coherence
must ultimately fail. But that may be too harsh a judgment on Sweeney's part,
because his exposition of the gaps that he detects in, for example, Boethius's
logical works, led to many improvements, as did the collection of conflicting
patristic authorities in his Sic et Non or the listing of arguments against the
Trinity in his Theologia 'summi bani' (66). In light of the book's central problem
of 'words' and 'things' Abelard's position on universals is obviously of key
importance, as he argues that a universal is common to all and proper to none
(69, with reference to Glosses on Porphyry 21.34). Abelard is interested above
all, Sweeney states, in keeping the realms of words, things, and thoughts separate
so as to make language functional. This squares with the position of Klaus Jacobi
(77), that Abelard's logic has an essentially negative character, in that all his
arguments warn against reductional accounts. This leads to an interesting
tension, observed again by Jacobi, for Abelard's dialectical thought and
arguments reach farther than he can actually account for, while Jolivet sees him
as combining nonrealism and Platonism (78).
Sweeney's interesting analysis of Abelard's theological works zooms in on his
siege-mentality. Instead of Boethius's order, here we have conflict (81). While
there are good reasons for Sweeney to make this statement, we should not forget
that the amorphous weight of tradition necessitated a drastic makeover indeed
and Abelard's offensive strategy can perhaps also be explained as an attempt to
cut his way through the forest, trying to construct roads where there were none.
Sweeney hints as much when she detects a development in Abelard's work from
being merely defensive to trying gradually to close the gap between language and
reality through rational arguments; she identifies the remaining niches as the
dwelling place of faith.

322

BOOK REVIEWS

Where Abelard's theology breaks off, his laments begin, and Sweeney gives
an excellent analysis of these attempts to reject and rewrite allegory at the same
time (95-114). Perhaps composed as stimuli for personal contemplation, they
modulate on cases of biblical loss and on the theme of loss in general, creatively
twisting conventional readings of biblical stories. Sweeney's suggestion to see
these laments as an emotional Sic et Non, offering different perspectives on a
single biblical problem text, is particularly helpful.
The chapter ends with Sweeney's analysis of Abelard's Ethics and his Letters,
especially his Rule for Heloise's nuns, which she sees as bridging the very gaps
that his other works opened up. They can do so only because a mature Abelard
regards his own struggles as being in the service of spirituality. In his search for
coherence of word and deed, Sweeney concludes that Abelard eventually comes
to dwell in the gaps, the very 'de-reification' of his theologies repeating the
absences more than filling them (124 ).
In her final chapter on Alan of Lille ("Language and its Peregrinations to and
from Divine Unity" [127-75]), Sweeney concentrates on the paradox between
innovative form and conservative content in Alan, which she explains through
the analogy of strength rather than weakness used by Alan himself, namely, that
of fighting fire with fire. Alan writes poetry to fight poetic falsehoods and gives
correct theological vocabulary to those trying to find terminology that is
analogous to that used in the other arts. But, Sweeney goes on, he uses these
methods, as he is conscious of their limitations (128). She then takes her readers
through Alan's. works: the Regulae caelestis iuris, the Summa quoniam horniness,
and the Liber in distinctionibus dictionum. The chapter ends again with
(allegorical) poetry, this time Alan's prosimetricDe planctu naturae, followed by
his poemAnticlaudianus. Whereas contemporary interpretation of these poems
oscillates between considering Alan either a sombre moralist exploring sexual
terminology or a medieval postmodernist undermining stable meaning, Sweeney
stresses the similarity between his sexual language and his God-talk. This is in
line with her functional approach to Alan's use of genre and method. His
confident use of reason and the arts to capture God implies at the same time his
deep scepticism about their possible success. Both allegorical poems highlight
that vice and God fall outside the arts.
The advantage of Sweeney's interpretation is that, while making Alan less a
typical twelfth-century schoolmaster, she adds to his complexity, bringing in his
interest in Dionysian negative theology. Alan, as she states, "emphasizes God as
radically other. He gives the reader no chance to bask in the certainty of God as
the ground of nature before he brings home the way in which God confounds
nature" (167). Precisely what this means for Alan's own agenda beyond his
functional approach I would have liked to see elaborated a bit further;
nevertheless, Alan's portrait is a much 'thicker' one indeed than often comes
across. His approach is also fully in line with Augustine's De doctrina christiana.
After all, 'things' and nature are signifiers rather than signified (173).
In her brief conclusion about "Language and the Ascensus Mentis ad Deum"
(177-83) Sweeney commends "her" works as worthy of being lifted above the

BOOK REVIEWS

323

quagmires of Scholasticism as reflective of more existential questions. The
arguments to support this thesis which her book has put forth certainly whet our
appetite to reread them all closely.
WILLEMIEN OTTEN

Utrecht University
Utrecht, The Netherlands

Form and Being: Studies in Thomistic Metaphysics. By LAWRENCE DEWAN, O.P.
Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy 45. Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006. Pp.265. $59.95
(cloth). ISBN 0-8132-1461-0.
It is a pleasure to spend time with Lawrence Dewan in the pages of this book.
His mastery of Aquinas, eagerness to teach, zeal for philosophical truth, critical
intellect, and gentle humor illumine every chapter. The book is a collection of
thirteen of his essays on the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas published between
1980 and 2004. As the title indicates, they are centered on the notion of formal
causality, a focus he sees as distinguishing him from such philosophers as Joseph
Owens and Etienne Gilson, with their emphasis on the act of being (esse) (xii).
The essays range from general discussions of the nature of metaphysics to
treatments of specific topics such as causality, the immortality of the human soul,
the notion of substance, the principle of individuation, and the real distinction
between the formal cause and the act of existing (esse). They often have the
flavor of disputed questions, with Dewan taking the part of the master and many
of the great Thomistic thinkers of twentieth century serving as objectors,
including Joseph Owens, Etienne Gilson, Ralph Mcinerny, Cornelio Fabro,
Jacques Maritain, and James Weisheipl. Dewan's method always involves a close
reading of Aquinas's texts combined with his own insights, including his
emphasis on the importance of formal causality and on the "continuity of
thought between Aristotle and Thomas, even as to the doctrine of the act of
being" (xii).
The first article considers the fundamental challenge of metaphysical thinking,
an enterprise not for the faint of heart or intellect. Dewan's conviction of the
continuity between Aristotle and Aquinas surfaces in his assertion that Aristotle's
first cause is "one being which is both final cause and efficient cause of all [sic]"
(8). This view is quite different from that of Gilson, who saw Aquinas's God as
both a final and efficient cause, but Aristotle's first principle as a final cause only.
Dewan provides a reference to support his assertion (Metaphys. 12.10.107 Sb 34107 6a 4 ), but admits that "I am very far from thinking that what I say here jumps
right out from this text" (8 n. 43). The essay concludes with an addendum on the

324

BOOK REVIEWS

"Big Bang," in which Dewan rightly points out that the discussion of creation
belongs not to physics but to metaphysics. The Big Bang cannot be identified
scientifically with the moment of creation since "from a strictly physical
perspective" some previous event is always "presupposed by any posited 'first
event"' (10). It is "a principle needed for the existence of any experimental
science" that "an event occurs if and only if the appropriate conditions obtain"
(11). (It would be interesting to see how Dewan would apply this principle to the
Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, where quantum events are
understood as having no cause.)
The task of metaphysics is examined in the second article. Its work is
something like constructing a "spiritual trampoline or launching pad" to lead the
philosopher from the consideration of contingent, sensible, material things to the
highest cause or first principle (ix, 7). In establishing what it means to study
being as being, Dewan reviews Aquinas's presentation of the four "modes" of
being: "(1) negations and privations, (2) generations and corruptions and
movements, (3) inhering accidents, and (4) substances" (17). The last are the
special concern of metaphysics since "to be" is "used in the unqualified, we
might say 'uninhibited,' 'full blast,' way when it is said with reference to the
thing's very substantiality" (19).
The third and fourth essays are concerned with the starting point of
metaphysics, the knowledge of being. Noting the "undeserved abuse" that the
notion of abstraction has suffered "in recent decades" (3 9) and responding to the
views of Cornelio Fabro, Dewan argues that our knowledge of being (ens) is a
product of abstraction and that this product forms the basis of our knowledge
of the act of existing (esse). He also argues against the contention of James
Weisheipl and the "River Forest" School of Thomism that it is physics, by
proving the existence of immaterial reality, that provides metaphysics with "its
proper subject of study, being as being" (47).
The fifth and sixth essays deal with causality and analogy. Dewan explains
how efficient causality involves relation, and then exploits the notion of relation
to show in what ways David Hume was justified in disassociating effect from
cause. Since relationship implies only reference to another, and not reference to
the substance in which the relation exists as an accident, "Hume's contention
makes sense, that one can think of an effect without thinking of its cause" (76).
One can focus on the thing in which the relation inheres without alluding to the
referent of the relation. The effect's dependence and need for a cause are seen
only if one considers its existential aspect by thinking of cause and effect "as
having being" or questioning, for instance, whether the composite of matter and
form can be thought of "as existing without an efficient cause" (80-81). In the
sixth essay, Dewan argues (against Ralph Mcinerny) that analogy is not primarily
a problem of logic and that "the account of analogy given by logic cannot be
expected to do the job that a metaphysician will do" (85).
The seventh essay comprises three insightful, though somewhat disconnected
parts. Its basic theme is the "terribly neglected" topic of substance (x). It begins
with a playful account of "contemporary Presocratics" who, like their

BOOK REVIEWS

325

predecessors, make the kinds of universal claims that belong to metaphysics
while still "under the spell of physics or mathematics" (98). Physicist Stephen
Weinberg, for instance, claims that physics itself can investigate the "deepest
questions," and biologist Michael Behe contends that the discussion of intelligent
design belongs within empirical science. Dewan proposes to awaken them from
their "dogmatic slumbers" by pointing out that their universal claims exceed the
limits of their espoused disciplines (98-101). The treatment of such thinkers is
abruptly dropped, however, for a discussion of the nature of substances,
especially their unity and primacy in being. The essay then reviews Charles De
Koninck's understanding of the forms and essences of material things, and
concludes with three addenda of related texts from Aquinas and De Koninck.
The topic of substantial form continues in the eighth essay, which analyzes key
parts of Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, providing "a lesson
on the centrality of substantial form for the study of metaphysics" (x).
The next three essays are concerned with explaining in what way form is a "a
principle of the act of being" (xi). This is an intriguing topic since Aquinas
teaches that esse, as the "act of all acts and the perfection of all perfections," is
also the act by which the form (in immaterial creatures) and the composite
substance (in material creatures) exists (De Pot., q. 7, a. 2, ad 9). Recognizing the
intimate relation of form and esse, Dewan remarks ironically that "a healthy
conception of form should tend to confuse it with the act of being" (xi).
Certainly his essay allows form and esse to skate perilously close, yet without
tumble or mishap. He gives a carefully reasoned explanation of how form has
priority over existence in that "the influence of the efficient cause on the caused
thing will be the existence of the caused thing only inasmuch as the efficient
cause also provides form for the caused thing" (169). He points out that Aquinas
"has no difficulty in viewing esse as the effect of form (as long as an outside
efficient cause is posited)" (170). If form is considered as "that by which the
agent's influence is appropriated to the effected thing, form is 'resulting' in esse,
and so is causal" (171). Dewan explains that this doctrine "that esse is the per se
result of form as form" does not compromise the teaching that in all creatures
form "participates in esse" and "stands related to esse as potency to act" (172).
He also shows that form and esse, despite their close association, "are indeed
really, and not merely notionally, distinct" (188).
The twelfth essay discusses form as nature, using the human soul as an
example of how form is the principle of a substance's activity (xi). Here Dewan
is pleased to give "equal time" to essence after the "difficult time" it had in the
twentieth century "when the insistence was decidedly on existence" (205).
The final essay considers the subsisting thing as such. Dewan sees it as the
third "target" of metaphysical inquiry, following the targets of the essence or
form and the act of being (xi). He is primarily concerned with refuting Joseph
Owen's contention that esse is the ultimate principle of individuation and
establishing the individual as "a mode of being" (229). His conclusion is that "in
diverse levels of being there are diverse 'principles' of individuation" (247). An
eye-opener to me was his treatment of the "need for a special doctrine of

326

BOOK REVIEWS

individuation" to accommodate the phenomenon of nutrition in living things.
Such substances (which change their matter through nutrition, growth, and
diminution, while maintaining their substantial identity) require "a special mode
of substantial form, somewhat immaterial, and thus somewhat akin to the
subsisting form which is the human soul" (233). Quoting Aquinas, he explains
that such a form is "like an immaterial form" since it "does not determine for
itself any designated matter, but at one moment is preserved in this, at another
moment in that" (234). This makes one wonder whether today we would not
have to say that the forms of all material substances must be "somewhat
immaterial," given our present scientific understanding of the natural world in
which all substances, living and non-living, constantly gain and lose matter
(electrons) while maintaining their substantial identity.
Father Dewan and the editors of the Studies in Philosophy and the History
of Philosophy series have performed a service to the philosophical community
in bringing these essays together. The book's index of names and detailed index
of topics allows the reader easily to find and track a given figure or theme
through the various articles. Dewan has promised future collections of essays on
the doctrine of being and natural theology (ix). These will be most welcome in
providing ready access to the rich fruits of his continuing "apprenticeship with
Thomas Aquinas" (xiii).
MICHAEL]. DODDS, 0.P.

Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
Berkeley, California

Love of Self and Love of God fn Thirteenth-Century Ethics. By THOMAS M.
OSBORNE,JR. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
Pp. 336. $60.00 (cloth), $30.00 (paper). ISBN 0-268-03723-X (cloth), 0268-03722-1 (paper).
Thomas M. Osborne's study of the development of thirteenth-century ethics
focuses on a thematic that has not received the attention it deserves: the
relationship of love of self to love of God. While for modern ethical theories the
relationship of self to God has often appeared as a conflict between egoism and
altruism, the medieval treatment of human love as foundation to ethics reveals
a much richer and more intricate and therefore more integrated treatment. As
this textual study demonstrates, the dichotomy is not as obvious for medieval
thinkers as it might be for moderns.
Comprised of five chapters, this work begins with the Augustinian tradition's
emphasis on loving God as the key to the happy life, a tradition presented as
largely Neoplatonic and in contrast to the Aristotelian ethical project which is

BOOK REVIEWS

327

centered on happiness. Chapter 2 follows the Scholastic development in the midthirteenth century prior to Aquinas. This chapter is especially helpful in the way
it brings to the forefront the work of William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor,
and Albert the Great, not simply as predecessors to Thomas Aquinas, but as
thinkers who dealt with this question in important ways. Chapter 3 focuses on
Aquinas and on his distinct manner of dealing with the question, informed by his
Aristotelian perspective. Chapter 4 helps fill out the picture in the final quarter
of the thirteenth century, with thinkers such as Siger of Brabant, Boethius of
Dacia, and James of Viterbo. Here again, light is shed on aspects of the debate
that have not often been studied in depth. Finally, the fifth chapter takes up the
position of John Duns Scotus, showing how his treatment of this theme is both
similar to and distinct from Aquinas and other earlier thinkers.
The first chapter sets the trajectory for the entire work, with its emphasis on
Augustine and the way in which later, thirteenth-century Christian thinkers
would attempt to integrate the central Augustinian insights when they read
Aristotle. Augustine's Platonism is the key for Osborne's study, both for his
emphasis on love and for his focus on God as the summum bonum. The
influence of the Augustinian tradition on the eleventh and twelfth centuries is
presented, however, as if the medievals developed a largely Platonic ethic prior
to the arrival of the Nicomachean Ethics. Platonic influences are clearly present
in this early medieval period, but this chapter would have benefitted from a more
developed treatment of Stoic influences, both on Augustine's own theory of
goods of use and intrinsic goods, and on the overall development of ethical
questions. Despite this lack, the chapter offers very good information regarding
the positions of Hugh of St. Victor, William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor,
and Albert the Great.
Chapter 2 is also a very helpful treatment of the positions of Albert the Great,
Alexander of Hales, and Bonaventure. The focus of their discussion is the dignity
of nature, and the natural capacity of anyone to love God in the absence of
grace. This chapter offers a nice contrast between the different positions,
showing how they both develop and diverge from earlier positions, such as those
of William of Auxerre and Philip the Chancellor. Osborne carefully lays out the
distinct ways in which each thinker handles the Augustinian categories of uti!frui
in love for God and self, as well as the distinctions between propter se and
propter aliud. Albert's attempt to reconcile pagan moral theory with Christianity
appears clearly in his discussion of friendship; here again, Osborne's study might
have benefitted from a stronger connection to Stoic sources, such as Cicero
(mentioned only in passing). Nonetheless, with its attention to textual detail and
analysis, this chapter is exceptionally helpful in setting the stage for Aquinas's
treatment of the two loves.
The chapter devoted to Aquinas is extremely good, laying out the relevant
texts and showing clearly how important St. Thomas is to the transformation of
the debate to one focused on natural desire and the common good. It is within
this context that Aquinas integrates Aristotelian ethics and metaphysics. Here
again, a stronger Stoic connection might actually have helped Osborne's

328

BOOK REVIEWS

argument, showing how the earlier legacy prepared the way for Aquinas's
important role. The first portion of this chapter engages in a rich and detailed
explanation of various scholarly positions relative to Aquinas's treatment of
natural love. Osborne plays out the varying interpretations and positions, his
own interpretation among them. While interesting to the specialist, this section
seems to be out of harmony with the rest of the book, for at no time in any other
chapter do we follow the scholarly debate so carefully. After presenting several
texts and versions of Aquinas's argument on natural love for God, Osborne
helpfully lays out the central argument that he attributes to St. Thomas (85) and
clarifies the distinction between charity and natural love.
Chapter 4, like chapter 2, is extremely helpful in bringing out the key
developments between 1270 and 1300, in thinkers like Siger of Brabant,
Boethius of Dacia, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Henry of Ghent. Especially helpful
here is the way in which the debate changes during the last quarter of the
thirteenth century, in regard to the relationship between moral science and
theology. Osborne's presentation of James of Viterbo's position and its
relationship to that of Godfrey of Fontaines brings out clearly what was at issue
at the end of the century: whether or not natural moral philosophy is primarily
self-interested. This section of the chapter is particularly helpful in its discussion
of the move from earlier positions that considered moral psychology to later
developments that focused on the nature of the moral order and its relationship
to self or God.
With the debate of the final quarter of the thirteenth century, Osborne has
aptly set the scene for the moral theory of John Duns Scotus. The final chapter
both presents Scotus's treatment of the two affections in the will (for happiness
and for justice) and points to the continuity and discontinuity of his ethical
position with that of Aquinas. By noting the important metaphysical grounding
of Scotus's position on the nature of the will, Osborne shows how significant
Scotus's theory on the centrality of freedom is for later thinkers and how
traditional Scotus was in his own ethical affirmations. Osborne's situation and
assessment of Scotus relative to Aquinas are especially helpful and welcome.
Osborne states in the introduction that this work originated in his doctoral
dissertation. One does not get this impression in reading it, except in those
sections where he attempts to lay out the scholarly debate regarding the
interpretation of a given thinker, for example, Thomas Aquinas. The
development of Osborne's interpretation of Aquinas in chapter 3 is hindered by
his attempt to contrast De Lubac, Gilson, Geiger, and Rousselot in their various
theories and responses to one another. This scholarly debate, while interesting
for the specialist and essential in a doctoral dissertation, might better have been
placed, in the notes, or perhaps in an appendix. As it stands, the author's own
interpretation of the texts is far more interesting for the study itself.
This study is extremely insightful and illuminating, especially in regard to the
periods between Albert and Thomas, and between Thomas and Duns Scotus. It
offers, as well, a quantity of textual material not often seen in works devoted to
medieval ethics. More work on the figures involved in these transitional debates,

BOOK REVIEWS

329

as well as on their influence for the key thinkers, is sorely needed for any
accurate interpretation of the central role of medieval ethics and its
development. For this contribution alone, Osborne's study is worthy of praise.
Osborne is correct when he states that the dominant historical reading of
medieval ethics is overly influenced by modern categories of moral discussion,
such as the antipathy of self-love and love for God. However, his choice to focus
on the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions alone works against what he is trying
to achieve. Indeed, the narrow frame within which the study is organized does
not provide sufficient conceptual resources to correct the false historical reading
that the entire study so eloquently critiques. When, for example, Osborne
presents the central role of the common good as mediator between the two
loves, he contextualizes Aquinas's position relative only to these two main
philosophical traditions. As was the case in earlier chapters, the discussion of the
natural inclination and self-love would actually have been helped by some
reference to Stoic sources, such as Cicero or Seneca, both of whose texts were
influential in medieval ethics. Contrasting Aristotle's eudaimonism to Platonic
love (as eras, philia, or agape) results in the very dichotomy between self-love
and love of God that Osborne tries so carefully to avoid. Indeed, given only
these two traditions as sources for the medieval discussion, it does not seem
possible to avoid understanding the medieval position as either a type of
enlightened self-interest (94) or a proto-Kantian discussion involving legal
obligations (97). Likewise, the presentation of the two affections for Scotus
(natural affections which embody the dynamic attraction toward love of self and
love of God) would have been far more integrating, had Osborne made more of
the Anselmian and Stoic integration of the dynamic of human love.
In short, this is an extremely good introduction to the ethical debates of the
thirteenth century, providing a wealth of textual and bibliographical resources.
An acknowledgment of the role of Stoicism for the central ethical discussion of
love (whether of self or of God) would have helped Osborne make an even
stronger case for his position. It would also have helped him avoid falling
dangerously close to the very dichotomy (self vs. God) he seeks to correct.
MARY BETH INGHAM, C.S.J.

Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, California

330

BOOK REVIEWS

Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas: Theological Exegesis and Speculative
Theology. Edited by MICHAEL DAUPHINAIS and MATIHEW LEVERING.
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005. Pp.
416. $79.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-8132-1405-X.
This volume, ably edited by Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering, aims
at "speculative theological reflection upon St. Thomas's" Commentary on John
(xiii). It draws its content from the first in a series of conferences sponsored by
Ave Maria University's Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal. Subsequent
conferences have addressed the themes of "John Paul II and the Renewal of
Thomistic Theology" (2003), "Aquinas the Augustinian" (2005), and
"Sacraments in Aquinas" (2007). Like the rest of the conferences, Reading John
with St. Thomas Aquinas represents an international, interdisciplinary, and
ecumenical engagement with the work of the Angelic Doctor.
The essays in this volume offer close readings of the Commentary on John on
its own and often in dialogue with the Summa Theologiae. Indeed, it is
structured along the lines of the great Summa. It begins with the theme of
revelation, continues with sections devoted to the triune God, the moral life, and
the person and work of Jesus Christ, and concludes with contributions on the
Church and the sacraments. The handsome volume includes an extensive
bibliography and a helpful index.
One of the delights of any conference, but particularly one focused on a
theme that attracts wide expertise, is the conversation before, between, and after
papers. The contents of Reading John reflect the riches of such conversation since
it examines the Commentary intra-Thomistically (i.e., within the context of
other works by St. Thomas), and extra-Thomistically (i.e., in dialogue with a
wide range of thinkers, ancient and contemporary). Given the constraints of
space, I can only highlight a small portion of the book before turning to
proposals for further study.
Reading John opens with John Boyle's "Authorial Intention and the Divisio
textus." Boyle engages Beryl Smalley, the important twentieth-century scholar
of medieval exegesis, in conversation to disagree with her. He locates Thomas's
importance in the fact that "he is not one of us" and so has something to say to
"the modern interpreter of Scripture" (3). Concisely and with humor, he points
out Thomas's indifference to a text's single meaning-there could be many-and
instead turns his attention to authorial intention, "to what ultimate end did St.
John write [a] particular passage" (8). He then spells out the significance of
divisio textus, the careful and, for many today, graceless means of textual
organization that Thomas used to convey evangelical and so divine intentions for
human salvation.
Other conversations in the volume include those with Thomas's predecessors.
Janet Smith, in "'Come and See"' (cf. John 1:39, 46), notes the "influence of
some key Aristotelian principles" on the Commentary "to explain why some who
encounter Christ recognize him as divine and why others do not" (211). Stephen
Brown, in "The Theological Role of the Fathers in the Aquinas's Super

BOOK REVIEWS

331

Evangelium S. Ioannis Lectura," presents Peter Aureoli's definition of declarative
theology in the fourteenth century: it clarifies and defends the articles of faith.
Brown identifies, with the assistance of the Fathers, Thomas's own practice of
declarative theology.
Reading John also includes conversations with our contemporaries. David
Burrell, in "Creation in St. Thomas Aquinas's Super Evangelium S. Joannis
Lectura," engages the academy. He does so by "deconstructing" "the unilateral
focus on Aquinas the philosopher" that separated theology and philosophy in the
study of the Angelic Doctor and also separated these university faculties (115).
He takes the theme of creation in the Commentary and argues that Thomas
bridges the two disciplines with a philosophical theology that treats subjects
"theological in character, while the mode of treatment [is] philosophical" (116).
Bruce Marshall returns to a question that has vexed him elsewhere. Western
accounts of the Trinity seem to suffer "from a pneumatological deficit" that,
apparently, do not give "the Holy Spirit anything to do" (62). For Marshall, the
Commentary represents something of a cure because of the significant role the
Spirit plays within it. It also supplies theological tools for maintaining unity of
divine action (including action by the Spirit) and diversity of persons in the
Trinity.
Most of the essays place Thomas in conversation with himself. Frederick
Christian Bauerschmidt opens his "'That the Faithful Become the Temple of
God': The Church Militant in Aquinas's Commentary on John" by asking,
"Where did Thomas Aquinas put his ecclesiology?" He examines the
Commentary in light of the Summa Theologiae, a range of secondary sources,
and even iconography to take up the question of the Church's sinfulness.
Bauerschmidt writes, "Thomas makes no attempt to distinguish between the
'objective' holiness of the Church and the 'subjective' sinfulness of her members"
(309). He adds, "This should not be taken as a slight to the significance of the
Church, which is, after all, the temple filled with the majesty of God .... [It] is
like Peter, who stands in all his inadequacy before the risen Lord and receives his
command: feed my sheep. It is like Thomas, reduced to the silence of learned
ignorance in the face of the mystery of God" (311).
Gilles Emery's "Biblical Exegesis and the Speculative Doctrine of the Trinity
in St. Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on John" is the longest at thirty-nine
pages. It represents a very close reading of the Commentary (evidence for this
claim can be found in Table 1, which links an entire page of Trinitarian
references in the Commentary to those in questions 2 7-43 of the Summa's prima
pars [25]). Emery compares the Trinitarian doctrines of the Summa and the
Commentary and enumerates themes that are more developed in the latter than
in the former. He continues with a careful study of the method and sources of
the Commentary and concludes with its contribution. It helps "to renew our
reading of St. Thomas's Trinitarian theology" (56). "If we want to follow St.
Thomas today our first task is to show the deep biblical and Patristic foundations
of his Trinitarian doctrine" (61).

332

BOOK REVIEWS

Two essays stand out for their richness. Paul Gondreau, in "Anti-Docetism in
Aquinas's Super Ioannem: St. Thomas as Defender of the Full Humanity of
Christ," draws on works across the genres in the Thomistic oeuvre. He also cites
patristic authors, Thomas's near-contemporaries, current Thomas scholars, and
biblical and systematic theologians to argue that "What we find formulated in the
Commentary on John, then, stands as a testament to Aquinas's commitment to
probe ever deeper the human dimension of the Incarnation" (275).
Richard Schenk's "And Jesus Wept: Notes Towards a Theology of Mourning"
responds to the "Christian tradition's ambivalence toward death" (216). He
develops his account by citing (among many others) St. Augustine and his
Platonic background, St. Bonaventure, Shakespeare, Bultmann, Schnackenburg,
Brown, Rahner, and Metz. Schenck underlines the significance of Jesus'
mourning for Thomas. It is real; it demonstrates his humanity; it supplies us with
an example, in fact, a saving example. He finally extends Thomas's argument to
link hope with mourning. "The same love that teaches us to mourn the losses of
humankind teaches us to hope for the salvation of human goods .... A Church
that could not mourn is one that could not hope; a Church that could not hope
is one that could not mourn for long. The future vitality of Christianity will
depend on the revival of these twin virtues" (237).
A conference's strength lies not only in the quality of its papers but also in the
critiques it elicits, and the same is true of a book. I conclude with critiques and
suggestions for future directions. Pim Valkenberg, at the beginning of "Aquinas
and Christ's Resurrection," writes, "some years ago, I could not find many
studies about Aquinas as commentator on Scripture. But the majority of these
few ... were concerned with the Commentary on John" (277). Even though this
volume focuses on speculative theology, an introductory essay on the
Commentary itself, its organization, content, and intra- and extra-Thomistic
significance would have prepared readers better for the interchange between the
two.
Moreover, better documentation would have assisted readers not privy to
certain debates. For example, one author quotes Hans Frei without attribution
(296 n. 9) and locates, without evidence, St. Therese of Lisieux and us "in the
age of modern atheism" (308). Another holds that "Arianism is not a limited
historical phenomenon, but a general tendency of the human mind." It states that
we live in "an age in which ... many speak in unguarded ways of the Trinity as
a community of persons" (103). Another records opposition to Thomas's
position, "Some authors believe ... others think ... and of course, continental
a priorists ... All these objections cannot be fielded here" (143). It is true that
the limits imposed by this format prevent every objection from being argued, yet
it would have been helpful for the authors to document these claims and to
direct interested readers to pertinent resources.
Similarly, the essay "The Analogy of Mission and Obedience" rightly stresses
the centrality of obedience in the Gospel of John and its place in the
Commentary. Yet one of the most dramatic moments in Thomas's life was his
disobedience to his parents. In their unsuccessful attempt to dissuade him from

BOOK REVIEWS

333

joining the Order of Preachers, they had him captured, sequestered in the family
compound, and, by means of temptation and privation, tried to make him
rethink his decision. This biographical moment would have undergirded the
argument by pointing out how Thomas's filial disobedience represented at the
same time pietas or obedience to God. Thomas's use of Aristotle represents
another instance of apparent disobedience. As the Parisian condemnations of
12 77 suggest, there were at least some who considered immersion in the thought
of the Philosopher dangerous. Using him so heavily not only in the great Summa
but even in his biblical commentaries suggested to some Thomas's tacit support
of the more controversial Aristotelian positions. While perhaps disobedient on
one level, Thomas's move can again be reframed as obedient, in this case to the
truth and in deploying the tools necessary for communicating the truth about
God and creation.
This volume and its antecedent conference together reflect and encourage
important moves in Thomistic studies, that is, the recentering of the biblical
commentaries and their "reintegration" with "speculative theology" (xiii). As the
Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal continues to sponsor conferences and
publications, it might ask where dangerous work analogous to Thomas's is being
done today. Might future volumes bring to bear contemporary and, perhaps for
some, dangerous theory to illuminate the Angelic Doctor? Theorists are myriad,
but one possibility is to include sympathetic readings of those David Tracy
designates as the three great hermeneuts of suspicion-Marx, Nietszche, and
Freud.
In sum, this volume contributes to scholarship on St. Thomas because it fills
out our picture of him by highlighting one of his overlooked genres. It invites
further research, and it teases out implications for the life of the Church, all vital
tasks for speculative theology today.
THOMAS F. RYAN

St. Thomas University
Miami Gardens, Florida

Paths to the Triune God: An Encounter between Aquinas and Recent Theologies.
By ANSELM K. MIN. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press,
2005. Pp. 408. $50.00 (cloth), $26.00 (paper). ISBN 0-268-03488-5
(cloth), 0-268-03489-3 (paper).
Anselm Min is attempting to accomplish several things at once. His central
conviction is that Thomas, with his sapiential and theocentered theology, is able
to provide themes and insights that importantly address the anthropocentricism
and praxis orientation (which he refers to as "prophetic") that characterize

334

BOOK REVIEWS

contemporary theology. The positive presentation of Thomas is set out in
chapters 1 to 5. While Min ranges over the breadth of Thomas's thought, he
remains generally focused on the doctrine of the Trinity. The encounter with
recent theologies takes three forms: an ongoing interaction with contemporary
currents of theology in which Thomas is allowed to critique and be critiqued;
more sustained presentations of three social approaches to the Trinity (chapter
6); and treatments of a number of contemporary issues including the salvation
of those outside an explicit Christianity (chapters 1 through 3), feminist and
other critiques of God-language (chapter 6), and theological methodology
(chapter 7). I will comment in more detail on Min's presentation of Thomas
(with which I was quite impressed) and on his suggestions for contemporary
theology (with which I was less impressed). His critiques of recent theologies are
insightful but there is no need to rehearse these separately.
Key points are set out in the first chapter. Min begins by arguing for the
contemporary relevance of a natural theology understood more broadly than it
was in traditional apologetics. Interreligious dialogue requires "a mode of
knowing God that is not so tied to a particular religious tradition as to exclude
all common ground" but that can be justified from within the perspective of a
particular religious tradition itself (14). This sets the stage for a Thomistic
understanding of the relationship of philosophy and theology that overlaps but
does not identify with the relationship between reason and faith. It is the formal
object, the ordo ad Deum which considers all things sub ratione Dei, that
distinguishes theology or sacra doctrina, not the material considered or the use
of reason. Min's treatment of this material is accurate and fairly standard.
Less standard but carefully reasoned from Thomas is Min's presentation of
Aquinas's Trinitarian theology of creation. He goes beyond the simple
identification of the God of reason and the God of revelation and argues that
Aquinas works out the ordo ad Deum "in terms of a christological, trinitarian,
iconic theology of creation and reason" (27) to assert that "the analogy of being
is founded on the analogy of imaging" since the analogy of being is possible only
because of the likeness that exists from the causal relationship of creation to God
(27-28). This allows for an integrated understanding of the relationship between
nature, grace, and glory where each is oriented to the next as potency to
perfecting act. For Thomas there is "no purely natural aptitude that is not
already in the process of being actualized and perfected by grace." The
nature-grace distinction is itself "posited by the grace of the triune God who
seeks the participation of the human creature in her [sic] own life in glory" (30).
Min interprets this as involving a "christological mediation of the movement of
all creation from and to God."
On the structure of the Summa Min is something of an eirenicist, trying to
reconcile the exitus-reditus approach pioneered by M.-D. Chenu, O.P., and
followed by the majority of commentators, with the insights of Michel Corbin
(Le chemin de la theologie chez Thomas D'Aquin [Paris: Beauchesne, 1974])
which sets out a fat more Christocentric vision of the Summa which fits in quite
well with Min's own approach and which I personally endorse. I wonder,

BOOK REVIEWS

335

however, at the ultimate compatibility of the two positions. Followers of Chenu
tend to interpret the Tertia Pars as the concrete actualization of the general
principles developed in the second half of the Prima Pars and in the Secunda
Pars; Corbin sees the Tertia Pars as the climax of an act-potency analysis where
the divine (act) and the human (potency) are combined in Christ. What is
generally overlooked, and Min is no exception, is that because Christ is God he
is the proper object of sacra dactrina in his own right and not simply as the
concrete actualization of God's redemptive action in history or even as the fullest
exemplar of the divine image.
Min summarizes (101-2) his Thomistic argument for grace in a sacramental
theology of religion in nine points: the universal salvific will of God, the
mediation of all salvific grace through the humanity of Christ, the Spirit of Christ
"orders the world to its teleological fulfilment" and is present wherever there is
even implicit faith in Christ, the appropriate means of salvation will be provided
to all, grace is given "in a way suitable to human nature and the human
condition" (an example would be the "sacramental principle"), "the means of
salvation must be available with reasonable ease," "God is not bound to the
sacraments [of the Church] or their ministers to confer grace," different things
are required of different persons respecting the diversity of circumstances, and
implicit faith made concrete through good morality can substitute for an explicit
faith for those who have not had an opportunity to concretely encounter Christ.
Each point is detailed and accurate. He notes that these suffice to ground "the
possibility of the salvation of non-Christians as individuals." He wants to go
further than this and move toward a theology of religious pluralism, but he is
clear and accurate about what can and cannot be found in Thomas for this
project.
The chapters on theology as contemplative wisdom and on Thomas's
Trinitarian doctrine are likewise accurately and incisively developed with every
step grounded in the text. He avoids the pitfalls of Thomistic interpretation that
bedevil so many contemporary theologians. He sees through, for instance, the
complaints regarding the separation of the tractates De Dea una and De Dea
trina or the abstractness of Thomas's theology; he correctly understands
Thomas's God as goodness which is self-diffusive, over and against those who
would contrast Thomas to Bonaventure. His presentation of Thomas is
consistently among the finest I have encountered.
At the end of his presentation of a "christological, trinitarian, iconic theology
of creation and reason" Min argues, reasonably enough, that the "locus or source
of theology ... is not limited to biblical revelation" but that God's revelation
extends to all of creation including the religious experiences that animate the
world religions. He concludes that one may "look for the traces, images, and
graces of the triune God in all of these because they belong to God's graced
creation." This is true but he further concludes that the "pneumatically
motivated teleological ordination of reason to the beatific vision is as operative
in non-Christian religions as in the Christian" (39-40). If, as Min argues, all
movement from and to God is mediated by Jesus Christ, then how does one

336

BOOK REVIEWS

conclude to this equivalence between non-Christian religions and Christianity,
even granting that his point is about the universal ordination of reason to the
vision of God? The concrete fallenness of human reason which tends to obscure
the truth and place obstacles in the way of grace is not here discussed. Christians
suffer from fallenness as well but the explicitness of the revelation of God in
Christ Jesus and the remedies to fallenness provided in the sacraments would
seem to confer some advantage even on the level of reason itself to Christians.
In the second chapter Min proposes to develop a pluralist theology of
religions "which considers each religion a sacrament in the same way that
contemporary Catholic theology considers the church the 'basic' sacrament out
of which the particular sacraments flow" (77). Min's discussion of the necessarily
"sacramental" structure of God's grace mediated to everyone is interesting and
he may be right that "contemporary Catholic theology" has an understanding of
the Church that allows one to identify the sacramentality of the Christian
Church and the "sacramentality" of the world religions (quite a few theologians
have taken over the nonsacramental Protestant notion of the Church as the free
assembly of believers-compare Min's explanation that "the light of faith, when
shared, produces a church" (107); this allows him to say that when the light of
implicit faith is shared, as in a world religion, it produces a sacramental reality
equivalent to the Christian Church). However, the Christian Church is the Body
of Christ, a relationship to Christ and his saving graces that can be claimed by no
other religion qua religion. Their "sacramentality," as Min himself points out,
is on the level of creation only-all of creation in some way reveals or points
toward God; all of creation can in some way mediate God's grace. The opening
lines of Hebrews marks a distinction between the revelation of God through the
prophets (and in principle all of creation) and through the Son who mediates "a
new and better covenant." This is better than what? the covenant mediated
through creation itself? the covenant mediated through Moses?
There are other points that could be contested in Min's move toward a
pluralistic theology. This must suffice here.
Min's treatment of the feminist critique is quite short; its effect is quite
pervasive-feminine references to the deity show up even in translations from
the text of Thomas. Min claims with many feminists that the exclusion of the
feminine in the creedal and liturgical formula of the Church "hides, nurtures,
and justifies patriarchy" (249); I would disagree on many levels but pursuing this
here would be a distraction. His treatment of the various alternatives offered by
others are insightful, recognizing the tendencies toward crypto-modalism,
subordinationism, or simple infelicity of different attempts. His own suggestion
retains "the traditional formula of 'Father, Son, and Holy Spirit' for referring to
the triune God while referring to the one God in the feminine ... to balance the
masculine language of the traditional trinitarian formula by using the feminine
whenever the reference is to the one God" (255-56).
This creates as many problems as it solves. Masculinity and femininity are
inherently relational. What masculine are we to imagine over and against the
femininity of the one God: the world? The point in referring to the world as

BOOK REVIEWS

337

feminine in reference to God lies in the receptivity of the world to the divine
initiative; what would it mean to refer to the world as masculine in reference to
God? the three masculine divine persons? Sexual referencing is personal
referencing; are we to imagine the one God as a fourth feminine "person" over
and against the three masculine ones? In point of fact all Min is doing is playing
a language game, one that strips sexuality of all connotations of personhood or
interrelationality. That seems a high price to pay.
The traditional formula is firmly rooted in the economy. Jesus was the male
child of Mary. When one asks the rather literal question, "who is the father of
this child," one receives a surprising answer, "God is the Father." The literal
femininity of Mary grounds the masculinity of the Father in the generation of
this child. There have been attempts to understand the Spirit as feminine (see for
example Yves Congar, O.P. or Donald Gelpi, S.J.). Min makes no mention of
this sort of solution. Still, even here the question posed above remains-the
Spirit is feminine in relation to what masculine? In this case there are somewhat
acceptable answers-the Spirit is feminine in relation to the masculinity of the
Son as the "hands" of God, or the Spirit is feminine in relation to the
"masculinity" of the Father in the generation of the Son. The problem in both
cases is that the Son and the Father in their masculinity are understood as
correlated with other feminines, the Church in the case of the Son, Mary in the
case of the Father. Still the Spirit is closely associated with both as if the Spirit
were making them to be "divinely" feminine not as a masculine principle (which
would make the Spirit to be the Father and/or the Bridegroom) but as, in some
sense, the source of this divine femininity.
Min argues with respect to the monarchy of the Father that "we must find a
way or principle within the monarchy of the Father and inherent in that
monarchy whereby we can also transcend that monarchy: we must articulate a
form of monarchy that is also capable of canceling itself into an affirmation of
equality" (l84). A similar resolution is required with regard to the masculine
references to God or persons of the Trinity, understanding masculinity as a total
pouring out of oneself that subverts inequality. The Father pours himself out
toward humanity in sending his Son; that human, Jesus, sits at the Father's right
hand in full equality. More needs to be done with this than can be done here.
The point is that one need not resort to verbal games to address these issues.
My final point regarding the correlation Min postulates between a sapiential
theology such as Thomas's and contemporary prophetic theology is more a
question rather than a criticism. His assessment of the state of contemporary
theology and his typology of these two sorts of theology demonstrate the same
sort of acuity of thought which was evident in his presentation of Thomas
throughout and in his earlier treatments of specific theologians and issues. He
argues that the two types of theology can only be held in tension "not mere
balance or complementarity ... as two inseparably related moments of one and
the same theology, not as two parallel types of theology" (319). "Balance," he
later explains, "means peace and harmony between the two," but the relation
"between two ways and paradigms of theology with opposing ultimate claims

338

BOOK REVIEWS

and tendencies . . can only be conceived in terms of a dialectic or tension
between the two" (333). Mutual confrontation and challenge are required, not
balance. The tension is understood explicitly "in the Hegelian sense of aufheben"
(335-36).
This sort of tension or opposition evokes Platonism of one sort or another
(and Hegelianism can be so described) with its correlation of being and
nonbeing. The Aristotelian character of Thomism suggests that another sort of
correlation is possible that does not presuppose methodological tension between
the two forms of theology. An Aristotelian approach presumes the intelligibility
of the object investigated and seeks to explore that intelligibility. If one presumes
that a prophetic theology is fundamentally intelligible, Thomism intends to
explore that intelligibility in all its integrity. There is no question here of
"balancing" or "complementation" but of a complete penetration. The opposition felt between a sapiential and a prophetic theology has less to do with any
intrinsic opposition (unless a given prophetic theology is truly irrational) than
with the concrete stances taken by individual practitioners. The question is, then,
why does Min see here an inescapable tension?

EARL MULLER, S.J.
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Detroit, Michigan

The Augustinian Person. By PETER BURNELL. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2005. Pp. xiii + 218. $24.95 (paper). ISBN
0-8132-1418-1.
Augustine's conception of the human person is a difficult topic to
comprehend, even for seasoned readers of his works. Peter Burnell, however, has
managed to do so with extraordinary skill by engaging in a painstaking analysis
of the subtle details of Augustine's texts that oftentimes go unnoticed. As he
indicates in the preface, his primary concern is to clarify Augustine's thought on
the person and human nature by making plain what is implicit in his texts and
subsequently correcting the distorted meanings that his critics attribute to them.
With this objective in mind, Burnell addresses seven controversial areas of
Augustine's thought. Taken together, these areas cover a complex of ideas in
Augustine's works that revolve around the notions of person and human nature.
These areas include the relationship between body and soul, the mind's structure,
the stages of the human condition, the centrality of charity in attaining
humanitas, the essence of citizenship in human society, the nature of the divine
image in human beings, and three open questions regarding human nature that

BOOK REVIEWS

339

remain puzzling. In the end what emerges from this meticulous study of
Augustine is a comprehensive vision of his anthropology together with a clear
sense of the centrality of the person in his thought.
Burnell's primary strategy in undertaking this endeavor is to concentrate on
the theme of unity. Because Augustine's critics have frequently dismissed his
thought on the grounds of incoherence, Burnell sets out to demonstrate that, far
from being unsystematic and undeveloped, Augustine's works display a concern
for unity. Consequently, Burnell's approach to Augustine's anthropology reflects
the emphasis in Augustine's texts on finding the middle path between opposing
extremes, the ideal of harmony and moderation that pagan and Christian authors
shared and that, by Augustine's time, had achieved a long currency in Western
thought. As a Christian philosopher and theologian, Augustine was acutely aware
of the necessity of the Incarnation for overcoming the division between God and
humankind. Burnell effectively captures the significance of this event in
Augustine's works, while at the same time subjecting his critics' objections to
unrelenting logical scrutiny for their failure to observe the unifying effect of the
Incarnation in those works.
Burnell's opening chapter "Soul and Body" provides a useful illustration of
his approach to Augustine's texts at the same time that it sets the tone for the
chapters that follow. Burnell begins his exploration of Augustine's position on
human nature by focusing on the fact that a human being consists of two parts,
a soul and a body. He then raises the question whether or not for Augustine a
human being is one substance. Despite its simplicity, this question remains
controversial among Augustine's critics, who persist in interpreting his
conception of human nature dualistically given the Neoplatonic influence on his
thought.
Burnell's response to the dilemma is to dialogue throughout the chapter with
Augustine's critics, both past and present. In so doing, he is able to pinpoint the
weaknesses in their views while highlighting the strengths of Augustine's insights
into human nature. Though he rarely accepts the views of critics without some
form of modification, an examination of their views nevertheless allows him to
expose the problems that arise from a misguided reading of Augustine's texts and
to question the legitimacy of the assumptions on which it rests.
Thus, in regard to the disputed question concerning whether or not a human
being is one substance, Burnell contends that Augustine's response would be an
unequivocal, ''Yes." Metaphysically speaking, Augustine is a dualist because he
is aware of the difference between bodily and spiritual substances and refrains
from mixing them together. But his recognition of this fact does not entail the
notion that a human being is reducible to a bodily being that includes a physical
soul or to a spiritual being that is somehow attached to a nonhuman body. Nor
does it follow that a human being is a composite of two substances: a body that
is wholly independent of a soul and a soul that exists entirely apart from the
body. Rather, human nature combines two distinct metaphysical substances, the
intelligible and the material, in a way that allows for the possibility that an

340

BOOK REVIEWS

intelligible nature formed out of dust exists as a single nature. In this sense,
Augustine cannot be said to be a dualist.
Nor is dualism the cause of the fallen condition of human nature and the
concupiscence that afflicts it on account of the Fall. Though Augustine never
provides a definitive answer to the question concerning the soul's origin, he does
emphasize that the soul is exclusively spiritual in nature. If concupiscence exists
in the soul, it does so because of a human being's inner disobedience to the
divine command, not because a being of this sort possesses a dualistic nature.
Moreover, since no division exists between physical animation and a mental will,
the soul is both purely mental and one. If the soul appears to be divided into
parts because it wavers between one course of action and another, this implies
that the soul is capable of directing itself in one direction or the other, not that
the soul is literally divided into parts. The concupiscent soul directs its attention
towards the world, the contemplative soul towards God.
In chapter 2 Burnell turns his attention to a consideration of the mind's
structure or to the faculties of personality. As in the previous chapter, he initiates
his inquiry into Augustine's thought with a series of questions, now with respect
to the mind's unity. For Burnell the upshot of the inquiry is that, by focusing on
the mind's functioning rather than on its faculties, Augustine is able to specify
the difference between mental acts such as willing, understanding, and
remembering at the same time that he maintains that each of these acts implies
the presence of the other two. Willing, for example, partakes in the act of
knowing and knowing in the act of willing. And even though willing and
understanding are distinct acts, whereas willing and feeling are not (they are
indistinguishable), the first two acts are nevertheless one faculty, and each is the
entire mind. The same principle applies to memory because memory, too, is
present in knowing and willing, and vice versa.
Burnell concludes chapter 2 by emphasizing Augustine's distinction between
animal and human memory and affirming his analogy between the divine and
human mind. In the latter case, Augustine recognizes that the two minds differ
in that a real distinction among three persons cannot exist in a corporeal being.
And yet, despite the distinct activities of willing, understanding, and
remembering, the image of God exists in the whole human mind, not just in a
part of it.
Augustine's views on the unity of person and mind in the first two chapters
provide the background for an analysis of the compatibility of these views with
the human condition. Burnell's primary objective in chapter 3, then, is to
overcome the potential contradiction between the mind's activity and its fallen
condition. Consequently, his analysis focuses largely on concupiscence and grace
and the impact that these two dispositions have on human nature. He also
reflects on the significance of original sin, infant baptism, and human destiny in
the life to come. In the end, he is able to make a plausible case for the existence
of human freedom despite the aftermath of the Fall.
Burnell expands his analysis of the implications of Augustine's perspective on
the human condition in chapter 4 by defending the integrity of Augustine's

BOOK REVIEWS

341

notion of charity, a central principle in his ethics. Noting the failure on the part
of both Catholics and Protestants to discern Augustine's commitment to the
unity of love, he devotes the entire chapter to excavating Augustine's insights
into how this unity is possible. For Burnell, the key to understanding Augustine's
thinking on love is the acceptance of the idea that charity is compassion.
Moreover, all of the crucial forms of love that later theologians distinguished to ·
correct the deficiencies in Augustine's thought are in fact present in his texts.
The examination of the unity of love leads Burnell to reflect upon the
implications of this love within the context of civil society. In chapter 5 he shifts
his attention to the social constitution of charity, exploring its relevance to
Augustine's division of society into the heavenly city and the earthly city. The
unity in Augustine's thought that Burnell seeks in this chapter pertains to the
continuity between any given state (or church) and the eschatological one
towards which charitable individuals strive. He is astute enough, though, to
recognize that for Augustine the complete identity of these two states cannot
exist at present on account of the fluidity of the religious and ethical allegiances
of their inhabitants. Nevertheless, whenever continuity does exist, it depends
upon an Incarnational compassion that permits citizens striving towards the
realization of an eschatological state to enjoy peaceful relations with one
another, if only temporarily on account of their captivity to the earthly city.
The trajectory of Burnell's conclusions in chapter 5 directs his attention in
chapter 6 to the possibility of human deification, since this is the ultimate goal
of the charitable inhabitants of the earthly city who long for the loving embrace
of God. Because God constitutes each individual as a person on account of his
compassion for others, Burnell interprets Augustine's notion of human
deification in terms of the complete fulfillment of each individual.
This thumbnail sketch of the main thrust of Burnell's analysis of the
Augustinian person reveals a conscious effort on his part to structure the
contents of that analysis along the lines of an Augustinian ascent from the natural
world to God. As his analysis unfolds, Burnell guides his reader from a
consideration of the intricacies of Augustine's thought on human nature and the
mind's structure to the soul's inner dispositions. He then ponders the effect that
the Fall had on a human being's ability to cultivate a morally good disposition
in his inner life and to promote peace and harmony in civil society in his outer
life. Finally, given the human soul's eschatological longing for everlasting peace,
Burnell focuses the reader's attention on the fulfillment of human nature that
occurs when the twofold impulse to love the self and others coalesces in the love
of God.
Burnell's Augustinian approach to St. Augustine implies as well that the
human mind's attempt to arrive at a definitive understanding of the person and
human nature will forever be incomplete in this life. Like Augustine before him,
Burnell implicitly acknowledges the mind's limited ability to comprehend all that
there is to know about the human person. It is fitting, then, that in his final
chapter he addresses three open questions regarding Augustine's conception of
the human person, namely, the inexplicability of evil, the meaning of civil justice,

342

BOOK REVIEWS

and the implications of contemporary science for a fuller account of human
nature. Burnell realizes that these questions bring both his reader and himself
closer to the precipice of human understanding, beyond which the human person
remains an unsolved mystery. In the meantime, though, his tenacious efforts to
comprehend what can be known reveals the essential unity of Augustine's
thought, defending Augustine against the charge of dualism. Burnell's book
certainly deserves the highest praise in this regard because it provides a clear
alternative to dualistic accounts of Augustine's works that overlook the subtleties
of his thought and the Incarnational nature of his approach to mediating
extremes.

MARIANNEDJUTH
Canisius College
Buffalo, New York