The Thomist 72 (2008): 345-69

AQUINAS'S EXEMPLAR ETHICS
BRIAN

J. SHANLEY, 0.P.

Providence College
Providence, Rhode Island

T

HE PROVOCATIVE THESIS of Leonard Boyle's seminal
1983 essay entitled "The Setting of the Summa theologae of
Saint Thomas" 1 is that the Summa Theologiae represents an
attempt on Aquinas's part to set the pastoral or practical theology
that was at the center of the Dominican curriculum into a larger
theological context. According to Boyle, Aquinas used the freedom accorded to him at the studium personale in Rome to depart
from the accepted tradition of using as principal texts (in
addition, of course, to the Bible) Peter Lombard's Sentences for
dogmatic theology and Raymond of Penyafort' s Summa de casibus
with William Peraldus's Summa de vitiis et virtutibus for practical
theology. Dissatisfied with this approach because it disconnected
moral theology from its larger setting, Aquinas set out to compose
a new textbook for theology that would combine all of sacra
doctrina into a unified whole:
But he [Aquinas] now gave that practical theology a setting which had not been
very evident in Dominican circles before him. By prefacing the Secunda or moral
part with a Prima pars on God, Trinity and Creation, and then rounding it off
with a Tertia pars on the Son of God, Incarnation and the Sacraments, Thomas
put practical theology, the study of Christian man, his virtues and vices, in a full
theological context. Christian morality, once for all, was shown to be something
more than a question of straight ethical teaching or of vices and virtues in
isolation. Inasmuch as man was an intelligent being who was made master of
himself and possessed of freedom of choice, he was in the image of God. To
1 Leonard Boyle, The Setting of the "Summa theologiae" of Saint Thomas, The Etienne
Gilson Series 5 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983).

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study human action is therefore to study the image of God and to operate on a
theological plane. To study human action on a theological plane is to study it in
relation to its beginning and end, God, and to the bridge between, Christ and his
sacraments. 2

It is a testimony to Aquinas's conviction about the significance of
this approach that he kept working on the Summa Theologiae
long after the responsibility for educating incipientes ceased to be
his primary charge.
As Boyle's study of the subsequent manuscript tradition reveals, however, Aquinas's grand project of situating moral or
practical theology within the larger whole of sacra doctrina seems
to have gone for naught insofar as copies of the Secunda Secundae
soon circulated independently from the rest of the Summa (as did
the other parts, but not as many). Neither the Summa as a whole
nor the Secunda Secundae as a part played a leading role in
Dominican education in the period after Aquinas's death; rather,
the Summa confessorum of John of Fribourg, which borrowed
from Aquinas, became the main guide to practical theology.
Business as usual had returned, despite all of Aquinas's efforts,
and moral theology remained disconnected from speculative
theology. In assessing the reasons for the failure of Aquinas's
vision to take hold, Boyle ends his essay by saying:
One could argue, finally, that in any case the relationship between the various
parts of the Summa is not as clear as it might be in the various prefaces, and that
Thomas profitably could have been more forthright about precisely what he was
up to when, in the Summa theologiae, he wrote what I may now venture to call
his one 'Dominican' work, and made what I have suggested was his own very
personal contribution to a lopsided system of theological education in the Order
to which he belonged. 3

I esteem Leonard Boyle as one of the greatest Dominican
scholars that I have known, and I think this article in particular is
among his finest. Yet I would argue that the prologues of Aquinas
do provide clear architectonic clues for the connections of moral
2
3

Ibid., 16.
Ibid., 30.

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theology to the whole of theology. Specifically, I will argue in this
article that the prologue to the Secunda Pars (implicitly referred
to by Boyle in the first quotation above) gives us the decisive
connection in its reference to human beings as imago Dei. My
purpose is to try to paint a broad connective canvas showing how
the doctrine of imago Dei means that human action, including
human freedom, can only be understood in the light of the
exemplar of the Trinity. The Secunda Pars makes sense only in the
light of the Prima Pars and as pointing to the Tertia Pars.
I. QUIA HOMO FACTUS EST AD IMAGINEM DEI

The prologue to the Secunda Pars gives strong prima facie
evidence that imago Dei is the key conceptual link between what
has come before and what is yet to come:
Because, just as Damascene said, the human person is said to be made in the
image of God insofar as image implies intellectuality, free choice, and selfcontrol, after having spoken of the exemplar, namely God, and of what came
forth from the divine power in accord with God's will, it remains for us to
consider God's image, the human person .... First we must consider the ultimate
end of human life.4

The import of the opening quia is that somehow the doctrine of
imago dei is the explanation for why Aquinas proceeds in the way
that he does. It implies also that a proper understanding of free
human agency is only possible in the light of the exemplar of
God. As we shall see also, even the discussion of human beatitude
presupposes the exemplar of divine beatitude. As Aquinas indicates, everything in sacra doctrina is conceived sub ratione dei,
including human being and agency. 5 So before moving forward we
have to look back to the Prima Pars to find out what is being
4 All citations from the Summa Theologiae will be from the Ottawa edition (1941-45).
"Quia, sicut Damascenus <licit, homo factus est ad imaginem Dei dicitur, secundum quod per
imaginem significatur intellectuale et arbitrio liberum et per se potestativum; postquam
praedictum de exemplari, scilicet de Deo, et de his quae processerunt ex divina potestate
secundum eius voluntatem; restat ut consideremus de ejus imagine, iciest de homine ... Primo
considerandum occurrit de ultimo fine humanae vitae." All translations are my own.
5 STh I, q. 1, a. 7.

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

presupposed. Specifically, we have to look at the discussion of
imago Dei and then behind it to the Trinity.
As Colman O'Neill has pointed out, 6 there is an early clue in
the Summa that Aquinas's understanding of the image of God is
intrinsically connected to human completion in the beatific vision.
In the sed contra to question 4, article 3 of the Prima Pars,
Aquinas begins his affirmative answer to the question whether
creatures can resemble God by appealing to two biblical texts: (1)
"Let us make man in our image and likeness" (Gen 1 :26), and (2)
"When he appears we shall be like him" (1 John 3:2). Protology
and eschatology are here inextricably intertwined; it is not
possible to understand the creation of the human person without
seeing it as ordered to its end. We are made in the image and
likeness of God in order to be assimilated to God, both now and
in the life to come. In reply to an objection in the treatise on the
Trinity that the imago Dei does not apply properly to the second
person of the Trinity since it is also true of human beings, Aquinas
notes that the second person is the perfect image of the Father,
while humans are only said to be ad imaginem because their
imaging of God is a dynamic tending toward a perfection to be
achieved rather than an already-realized state. 7
This becomes clear in the formal discussion of imago Dei in
question 93 of the Prima Pars, which is framed in terms of the
finis of God's creation of human beings. In the opening article
Aquinas explains that what image adds to the vestigial similitude
found in every creature is that it belongs to an image to be from
another as an imitation of the other in its activity. 8 Exemplar
causality implies both formal and final causality: an image is made
like its original in form in order to become like the original
through its own actions. Specifically, the difference that makes a
6 Colman O'Neill, "L'homme ouvert a Dieu (Capax Dei)" in Humain a !'image de Dieu,
ed. Pierre Buhler (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1989), 248.
7 STh I, q. 35, a. 2, ad 3. Commenting on the meaning of being created ad imaginem Dei,
Fergus Kerr has recently remarked: "A small bit of grammar carries a good deal of theology"
(Fergus Kerr,After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism [Oxford: BlackwellPublishing, 2002], 124).
8 "Similitudo est de ratione imaginis, et imago aliquid addit supra rationem similitudinis,
scilicet quod sit ex alio expressum; imago enim dictitur ex eo quod agitur ad imitationem
alterius" (STh I, q. 93, a, 1).

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difference is that human beings are created with the capacity to
know and love, and herein lies the formal similarity that makes us
images of God. Of course, the image and the original do not share
in the same form in the same way, since the infinity of God's
being cannot belong to a creature; rather, the human being images
God only in an imperfect way through conformity, participation,
and dynamic assimilation.
The fourth and central article asks the question whether the
image of God is found in every human being. Aquinas begins by
arguing that human nature imitates God to the highest degree
when it imitates what characterizes God's nature in the highest
degree: God's own self-knowing and self-loving. He goes on to
say:
Thus the image of God in human beings can be considered in three ways: one
way is insofar as human beings have a natural aptitude to know and love God,
and this aptitude is constituted by the very nature of mind which is common to
all people. A second way is insofar as a person actually or habitually knows and
loves God, although in an imperfect manner; this kind of image is through the
conformity of grace. The third way is insofar as a person actually knows and
loves God perfectly, which follows from the image in accord with the similitude
of glory. 9

Here we see the dynamic relationship between nature, grace, and
glory. The purpose of the creation of human nature, with its
natural aptitude for knowing and loving God, is that human
beings might actually know and love God through grace as the
prelude to glory. Here we see also the relationship between exitus
and reditus, the great architectonic theme of the Summa. The
9 "Uncle imago Dei tripliciter potest considerari in homine. Uno quidem modo secundum
quod homo habet aptitudinem naturalem ad intelligendum et amandum Deum; et haec
aptitudo consistit in ipsa natura mentis, quae est communis omnibus hominibus. Alio modo,
secundum quod homo actu vel habitu Deum cognoscit et amat, sed tamen imperfecte; et haec
est imago per conformitatem gratiae. Tertio modo, secundum quod homo Deum actu
cognoscit et amat perfecte; sic attenditur imago secundum similitudinem gloriae" (STh I, q.
93, a. 4). The best treatment of this article is found in Louis B. Geiger, "L'homme, image de
Dieu: Apropos de Summa theologiae, Ia, 93,4," in Rivista di filosofia neoscolastica 66 (197 4):
511-32. For a full treatment of imago Dei, see D. Juvenal Merriell, To the Image of the
Trinity: A Study in the Development of Aquinas' Teaching (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1990).

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

exitus of creation finds its consummation in the creation of the
human as the image of God and, precisely for that reason, human
nature has inscribed into it as image a dynamic orientation to
return to the source in the peculiar way possible for an image:
that is, through a freely chosen relationship with the ThreePersoned God.
While Aquinas's doctrine of grace cannot be reviewed here, it
is important to note that his fundamental definition of grace is "a
special love by which God draws the rational creature above the
condition of its nature to participate in the divine good." 10
Aquinas is a realist about grace in the sense that he thinks it is a
real sharing in God's own life; it is a deification. 11 By knowing
and loving God, we share in God's own life 12 and God's own
beatitude. 13 The kind of activity that Aquinas associates with
imaging God is not doing what God does merely in imitation of
God from the outside, as one person might imitate the example
of another, but rather entering into the very knowing and loving
that is the Trinitarian life of God. It is an imitation of the Trinity
as a real sharing in the Trinitarian life of beatitude. Aquinas makes
this eminently clear in the final two articles of question 93 when
he says that because "the divine persons are distinguished
10 "Alia autem dilectio est specialis, secundum quam trahit creaturam rationalem supra
conditionem naturae, ad participationem divini boni" (STh I-II, q. 110, a. 1).
11 "But the infused virtues dispose man in a higher manner and towards a higher end;
hence it also an ordering to some higher nature. This is nothing other than an ordering to
participate in the divine nature that is called the light of glory; as it is said in 2 Peter I, 4: 'God
has given us the greatest and most precious promises, that through these we become sharers
in the divine nature"' ("Virtutes autem infusae disponunt hominem altiori modo, et ad
altiorem finem; uncle etiam oportet quod in ordine ad aliquem altiorem naturam. Hoc est in
ordine ad naturam divinam participatam quae dicitur lumen gratiae: secundum quod dicitur
II Petr. 1, 4: Maxima et pretiosa nobis promissa donavit, ut per haec efficiamini divinae
consortes naturae" [STh I-II, q. 110, a. 3]). The Eastern theme of deification in Aquinas is
treated in A. N. Williams, The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999). As Jean-Pierre Torrell has noted, a spirituality of
deification is one of the central elements in Aquinas's theology. See his Saint Thomas d'Aquin,
maftre spirituel (Fribourg, Switzerland: Editions Universitaires, 1996), 498-99. My reading
of Aquinas is indebted to Torrell.
12 God is life in the highest degree because God acts maximally ex seipsis in knowing and
loving himself. See STh I, q. 18, a. 3.
13 See STh I, q. 26.

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according to the procession of the Word from the One speaking
it and the Love uniting them to each other," 14 the image of God
is realized in us first and foremost when our minds actually reflect
that structure: "namely, insofar as from the knowledge that we
have, we form an interior word through which we burst into
love. " 15 The structural imitation is a result of God's action in us
conforming us to God's own life; our knowing and loving are
only a knowing and loving of God as God when it is a sharing in
God's own knowing and loving by grace or glory. 16 Precisely as a
real sharing in the Trinitarian life of God, this knowing and loving
presupposes and harkens back to the doctrine of divine indwelling
outlined in Aquinas's treatment of the divine missions, wherein
the thematic link between Trinity and creation is articulated. The
key passage reads:
The soul is conformed to God through grace. Thus in order for one of the divine
persons to be sent to someone through grace, it is necessary that the one to
whom the divine person is sent be assimilated to that divine person through
some gift of grace. And because the Holy Spirit is Love, it is through the gift of
love that the soul becomes assimilated to the Holy Spirit; hence it is through the
gift of charity that we understand the mission of the Holy Spirit. The Son is the
Word, not just any kind of word, however, but rather one breathing love ....
Accordingly it is not as a result of just any intellectual perfection that we
understand the mission of the Son, but rather according to that instruction which
bursts forth into an affection of love .... Thus Augustine says expressly that the
Son is sent whithersoever he is known and perceived. Now perception here
signifies a kind of experiential awareness and this is properly called wisdom. 17
14 "Divinae autem Personae distinguuntur secundum processionem Verbi a dicente et
Amoris connectentis utrumque" (STh I, q. 93, a. 7).
15 "Et ideo primo et principaliter attenditur imago Trinitatis in mente secundum actus,
prout scilicet ex notitia quam habemus, cogitando interius verbum formamus, et ex hoc in
amorem prorumpimus" (ibid.).
16 "It is God himself who proceeds from God through human acts" ("C'est Dieu lui-meme
qui procede de Dieu au travers des actes humains" [Ghislain Lafont, Structures et methode
dans la somme theologique de saint Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1960), 270]).
17 "Ad secundum dicendum quad anima per gratiam conformatur Deo. Uncle ad hoc quod
aliqua persona divina mittatur ad aliquem per gratiam, oportet quod fiat assimilatio illius ad
divinam personam quae mittitur per aliquod gratiae donum. Etquia Spiritus Sanctus est Amor,
per donum caritatis anima Spiritui Sancto assimilatur. Uncle secundum donum caritatis
attenditur missio Spiritus Sancti; Filius autem est Verbum, non qualecumque, sed spirans
Amorem .... Non igitur secundum quamlibet perfectionem intellectus mittitur Filius, sed

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

The tight conceptual link between the Trinitarian missions and
the doctrine of the imago Dei is a reflection of one of Aquinas's
deepest theological intuitions structuring the Summa but present
in his mind even in his earlier commentary on the Sentences of
Peter Lombard:
In the going forth of creatures from their first principle there follows a kind of
revolving or turning around since all things return as to their end to that
principle from which they came forth. And thus it is necessary that the very same
principle from which they came be that by which they return to their end.
Accordingly it follows that since it has already been established that the
procession of the divine persons is the pattern and explanation for the
production of creatures from the first principle, it follows that that same
procession be the pattern and explanation for their return to their end; because
it was through the Son and the Spirit that we were created, so through them we
are conjoined to our ultimate end. 18

What this text indicates is that the reditus of the human person as
the image of God can only be understood in the light of the
procession of the Son and the Spirit. The return of the image is
both patterned on and powered by the life of the Trinity. The
reminder that we are looking at the human person qua image of
God at the beginning of the Secunda Pars is a signal to the reader
to see the moral life in the light of the exemplar of the Trinity as
pattern and source. The beatitude at the heart of the Secunda Pars
is Trinitarian. The assimilation to the divine or the deification is
Trinitarian. It is by freely chosen acts of knowledge impregnated
with love in union with the Trinity that we are beatified and
deified. Ultimately Aquinas's moral thinking is an ethic of deifisecundum talem instructionem qua prorumpat in affectum amoris .... idea signanter dicit
Augustinus quod Filius mittitur cum a quoquam cognoscitur atque percipitur; perceptio autem
experimentalem quamdam notitiam significat et haec proprie dicitur sapientia" (STh I, q. 43,
a. 5, ad 2).
18 "In exitu creaturarum a primo principio attenditur quaedam circulatio vel regiratio, eo
quod omnia revertuntur sicut in finem in id a quo sicut principio prodierunt. Et ideo oportet
ut per eadem quibus est exitus a principio, et reditus in finem attendatur. Sicut igitur dictum
est, quod a processio personarum est ratio productionis creaturarum a primo principio, ita
etiam est eadem processio ratio redeundi in finem, quia per Filium et Spiritum sanctum sicut
et conditi sumus, ita etiam et fini ultimo conjungimur" (I Sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 2 [ Scriptum
super libros sententiarum, vol. 1, ed. Pierre Mandonnet (Paris: Lethielleux 1929), 325]).

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cation or beatification; the moral life is a progressive entering into
inchoate beatitude through actions in union with the triune God.
It is especially through the exemplar causality of the Son and the
Spirit that we become who God created us to be. We may now
follow out that assimilative pattern.
II. CHRIST: VIA EST NOBIS TENDENDI IN DEUM

If the goal of life is progressive assimilation into the Trinity,
then the way along that path lies through Christ, whom Aquinas
describes in the prologue to question 2 of the Tertia Pars as "For
us the way of tending toward God" (via est nobis tendendi in
Deum). In the prologue to the Tertia Pars, Aquinas says:
Because our Lord and Savior Lord Jesus Christ, "in saving his people from their
sins" as the angel said, demonstrated to us the way of truth in himself by which
we can arrive at the happiness of eternal life by rising up, it is necessary in order
to bring this entire theological enterprise to its fulfillment that, after considering
the ultimate end of human life along with the virtues and vices, our
consideration turns to the Savior of all and the benefits offered by him to the
human race. 19

That the consideration of Christ is necessary "to bring this entire
theological work to its fulfillment" implies that the deepest
meaning of what has thus far been written cannot be understood
apart from Christ the Savior. What I want to suggest here is that
Christ as exemplar is necessary to understand the reditus of the
image described in the Secunda Pars.20 The way into Trinitarian
beatitude is through Christ, especially through the cultivation of

19 "Quia salvator noster Dominus Jesus Christus, teste angelo, populum suum salvum
faciens a peccatis eorum, viam veritatis nobis in seipso demonstravit, per quam ad
beatitudinem immortalis vitae resurgendo pervenire possumus, necesse est ut ad
consummationem totius theologici negotii, post considerationem ultimi finis humanae vitae
et virtutum et vitiorum, de ipso omnium Salvatore et beneficiis ejus humano generi praestitis
nostra consideratio subsequatur" (STh III, pro.).
20 I will leave out the healing (gratia sanans) work of Christ here and concentrate on the
way in which union with Christ elevates human nature (gratia elevans) because I am focusing
on the theme of deification.

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the virtue of Christ, which sheds new light on the entire discussion of virtue in the Secunda Pars.
In discussing the motive for the Incarnation, Aquinas consistently stresses our need for Christ as moral exemplar in order
to attain beatitude. In question 1, article 2 of the Tertia Pars,
where he discusses the necessity of the Incarnation in order that
we might better and more fittingly attain our end (per quad melius
convenientius pervenitur ad finem), he enumerates five reasons
why the Incarnation furthers us in the achievement of our good.
Two of them bear on the themes of this paper: (1) "for the sake
of right action, in that he has given us an example in his own
life" 21 and (2) "for the sake of a full participation in divinity, in
which lies our beatitude and the end of human life, and this is
bestowed on us through the humanity of Christ. " 22 In the parallel
discussion in the Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas begins by
noting that the Incarnation is the most efficacious help in our
journey to beatitude because it gives us hope that we can attain it.
More relevant to my concerns here, however, are remarks that
Aquinas goes on to make about our need for a moral exemplar in
order to acquire virtue:
It is clear that beatitude is the reward of virtue. Accordingly it is necessary that
those striving for beatitude be disposed in accord with virtue. But we are led to
virtue by both words and examples. Now the words and example of another are
more effective in inculcating virtue the more confident we are in our opinion
regarding that person's goodness. Regarding no person, however, can there be
completely infallible opinion about his or her goodness because even the holiest
people are found deficient in some things. Hence it was necessary for us, so as
to be confirmed in virtue, that we receive teaching and examples of virtue from
God-made-man. For this reason our Lord said: I have given you an example so
that just as I have done, so too you also might do On 13:15). 23
21 "Quantum ad rectum operationem, in qua nobis exemplum se praebuit" (STh III, q. 1,
a. 2). The end of the corpus indicates that this formulation comes from a sermon of Leo the
Great.
22 "Quantum ad plenam participationem divinitatis quae vere est hominis beatitudo et finis
humanae vitae et hoc collatum est nobis per Christi humanitatem" (ibid.).
23 "Similiter etiam manifestum est quod beatitudo virtutis est praemium. Oportet igitur ad
beatitudinem tendentes secundum virtutem disponi. Ad virtutem autem et verbis et exemplis
provocamur. Exempla autem alicuius et verba tanto efficacius ad virtutem inducunt, quanto
de eo firmior bonitatis habetur opinio. De nullo autem homine puro infallibilis opinio

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It is a standard Aristotelian doctrine that one needs the example
of a phronimos in order to learn virtue. Aquinas shows here,
however, that the need for Christ as moral exemplar is
fundamentally a Johannine claim closely connected with what
might be termed an Augustinian intuition that the reality of sin
implies that we cannot count on anyone being a completely
virtuous moral exemplar.
The need for the Incarnation in order to provide a moral
exemplar is connected with the doctrine of imago Dei. Apart from
Incarnation, how would we know how to imitate Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit? As Aquinas says in commenting on 1 Corinthians

11:1:
The primordial principle of the procession of things is the Son of God, as it says
in Jn 1: Through him all things are made. Thus He Himself is the primordial
exemplar who is imitated by all creatures as the true and perfect image of the
Father. ... But in a special way He is the exemplar of the spiritual graces which
shine forth in spiritual creatures .... Having been generated before all creatures
in resplendent grace, he has in an exemplar way in himself all the splendors of
all the saints. Previously the exemplar was exceedingly remote from us .... And
thus He willed to become human so that he might give to humans a human
exemplar. 24

The inaccessibility of the internal life of the Godhead is remedied
by Incarnation. God the Father is only knowable to us through his
perfect image, the Son, and in the Spirit. We are only conformed
to the Father through conformity to Christ: "since the Son is
bonitatis haberi poterat quia etiam sanctissimi viri in aliquibus inveniuntur defecisse. Uncle
necessarium fuit homini, ad hoc quod in virtute firmaretur, quod a Deo humanato doctrinam
et exempla virtutis acciperet. Propter quod ipse Dominus dicit, Ioan.XIII.15: Exemplum dedi
vobis, ut quemadmodum ego feci, ita et vos faciatis" (ScG IV, c. 54; I am citing the Editio
leonina manualis [Rome, 1934]).
24 "Primordiale autem principium totius processionis rerum est Filius Dei, secundum illud
Io. l: 3: Omnia per ipsum facta sunt. Et Ipse ideo est primordiale exemplar, quod omnes
creaturae imitantur tamquam veram et perfectam imaginem Patris .... Speciali tamen quodam
modo exemplar est spiritualium gratiarum ,quibus spirituales creaturae illustrantur ....
Genitus est ante omnem creaturam per gratiam lucentem, habens exemplariter in se splendores
omnium sanctorum. Hoc autem exemplar prius erat a nobis valde remotum .... Et idea homo
fieri voluit ut hominibus exemplar humanum praeberet" (Super primam epistolam ad
Corinthios lectura, c. 11, lect. 1 [in Super Epistolas Pauli lectura, 8th ed., ed. Raphaelis Cai
(Rome: Marietti, 1953), 1:583]).

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similar to the Father in sharing the same essence, it is necessary
that if a person is made into the image of Christ, he will also be
made into the image of the Father." 25 It is important to note that
Christ's exemplarity is not merely at the level of a moral model to
be imitated, as one might imitate a saint, but rather also involves
genuine exemplar causality such that it is through Christ, and
especially Christ's humanity, that we are made capable of acting
in imitation of Christ. We are created in his exemplar likeness and
actively enter into that likeness through Christ's grace.
As Gillon 26 and Torrell 27 have pointed out, the idea of the
moral life as an imitatio Christi is not prominent in Aquinas's
systematic works, while it does figure prominently in his Scripture
commentaries and in his preaching. 28 It is not entirely absent from
the Summa Theologiae, however, insofar as Aquinas accepts the
theological axiom that every action of Christ is meant to be an
instruction for us. 29 As Torrell has noted, the Christology of the
Tertia Pars is unique in the medieval period for the way in which
it incorporates an extended treatment of the mysteries of the life
of Christ as an integral part (qq. 27-59); the entirety of the life of
Christ is a mysterion with both exemplar and soteriological
significance for us. 30 No part of Christ's life is more important as
an exemplum in our own lives than his passion:
"Cum secundum aequalitatem essentiae Filius sit Patri similis, necesse est si homo sit
factus ad similitudinem Filii quod sit factus ad similitudinem Patris." STh Ia. 93, 5 ad 4.
26 L.-B. Gillon, "L'imitation du Christ et la morale de saint Thomas," Angelicum 36
(1959): 263-86.
27 J.-P. Torrell, "Imiter Dieu comme des enfants bien-aime," in Recherches thomasiennes
(Paris: J. Vrin, 2000), 325-35.
28 Torrell notes that one of the main themes of Aquinas's preaching is imitatio Christi ("La
pratique pastorale d'un theologien du XIIIe siecle," in Recherches thomasiennes, 303-4). For
example, in De decem preceptis IX, Aquinas says: "the deeds of Christ should be an example
for us in all our actions" ("in omnibus factis nostris factum Christi debet esse exemplum
nobis"). I am citing the critical Leonine edition as established by Torrell, "Les Collationes de
decem preceptis," in Recherches Tomasiennes, p. 79, II. 12-13.
29 See Richard Schenk, "Omnis Christi actio nostra est instructio: The Deeds and Sayings
of Jesus as Revelation in the View of Thomas Aquinas," in La doctrine de la revelation divine
de saint Thomas d'Aquin, ed. Leon Elders, Studi Tomistici 37 (Rome: Libreria Editrice
Vaticana, 1990), 104-31.
30 Jean-Pierre Torrell, Le "Somme" de saint Thomas (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1998),
83.
25

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357

For as blessed Augustine says, the passion of Christ suffices completely as
instruction for our lives. Whoever wills to live perfectly should do nothing other
than to contemn what Christ contemned on the Cross and desire what Christ
desired. No example of virtue is lacking from the Cross. 31

It is the life of Christ contemplated in its totality that gives the
Christian an example of what it means to live in the image of the
triune God. It is above all else an example of virtue, the key
category of the Secunda Pars, because it is the inculcation of the
right sets of dispositions that is crucial to making the free choices
in the fabric of our own lives as images of God. Christ gives us an
example of how to make our way to our end, but that way must
be realized and indeed created in the particular context of our
own lives, especially through charity and prudence. This is not a
slavish imitation but rather a free creation; we cannot copy
exactly the life of Christ, we can only imitate it. And this cannot
be accomplished without the Spirit:
We read in Sacred Scripture that we are configured to the Son: You have received
the Spirit of adoption as sons (Rm 8: 15) and Because you are sons, God sent the
Spirit of his Son into your hearts. Now nothing is configured to something else
except by the seal of what is proper to the model. For we see in created natures
that what conforms something to itself does so through something from itself (as
when semen makes a man like a man instead of a horse). But the Holy Spirit is
from the Son as his proper seal, hence it is said of Christ that he has signed us,
sealed us, and given us the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts. 32

31 In symbolorum apostolorum expositio, a. 4 (ed. R. Spiazzi [Rome: Marietti, 1954], nn.
919-20). It bears recalling here how devoted Aquinas was to meditating on the Cross of Christ
in his own personal piety.
32 "Habetur autem ex sacra Scriptura quod per Spiritum sanctum configuramur Filio,
secundum illud Rom. VIII, 15: Acceptistis Spiritum adoptionis filiorum; et Galat. IV, 6:
Quoniam estis filii, misit Deus Spiritum Fillii sui in corda vestra. Nihil autem configuratur
alicui nisi per eius proprium characterem. In naturis etiam creatis ita est quod id quod
conformat aliquid alicui est ab eo; sicut semen hominis non assimilatur equo, sed homini a quo
est. Spiritus autem sanctus est a Filio tanquam proprius character eius; uncle dicitur de Christo,
II Cor. I, 21-22: Quad sigrzavitnos et unxit nos et dedit pigrzusSpiritus in cordibus nostris" (De
Potentia, q. 10, a. 4 [in Quaestiones Disputatae, vol. 2, ed. P. M. Pession et alia (Rome:
Marietti, 1953)]).

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III. PER SPIRITUM SANCTUM DEO CONFIGURAMUR

A suggestive text from the Summa contra Gentiles links the
Spirit to some of the key concepts of this paper and describes it,
like Christ, as our way to beatitude:
In order to attain the fruition of beatitude, which is proper to God by his nature,
it is necessary first that we be assimilated to God through spiritual perfections,
then act in accord with them, and so achieve beatitude. The spiritual gifts are
given to us by the Holy Spirit, as established already. Thus it is through the Holy
Spirit that we are configured to God, through the Holy Spirit that we are
rendered fit for good works, and through the Holy Spirit that the way to
beatitude is opened to us. 33

It is through the Holy Spirit that we are deified, assimilated,
conformed, and beatified. This begins with the gift of sanctifying
grace and flowers in all the other ways in which our sharing in the
divine nature transforms our capacities for action through the
theological virtues (especially charity), the infused moral virtues,
the gifts, and the beatitudes. It is obviously not possible here to
rehearse all this. What I want to do is to examine two key
treatises in the Summa Theologiae34 that display a particular
emphasis on the role of the mission of the Holy Spirit in the
moral life, especially with respect to the way in which our actions
imitate the freedom of God as a sharing in the Trinity.
The discussion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in question 68 of
the Prima Secundae follows the general discussion of virtue as the
interior principle of good human action. The first question
Aquinas considers is whether or not the traditional sevenfold gifts
of the Holy Spirit should be considered as distinct principles of
good human action in addition to the virtues. The objections and
"Ad hoc quod homo ad beatitudinem fruitionis, quae Deo propria est secundum suam
naturam, perveniat, necesse est, primo quidem quod sunt spirituales perfectiones Deo
assimiletur; et deinde secundum eas operatur; et sic tandem praedictam beatitudinem
consequetur. Dona autem spiritualia nobis per Spiritum Sanctum dantur, ut ostensum est. Et
sic per Spiritum Sanctum Deo configuramur; et per ipsum ad bene operandum habiles
reddimur; et per eundem ad beatitudinem nobis via paratur" (ScG IV, c. 21).
34 Albert Patfoort calls them "zones de grande concentration pneumatologique" in Thomas
d'Aquin: Les cles d'une theologie (Paris: PAC-editions, 1983), 83.
33

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359

the opening part of the reply itself propose various arguments to
reduce the gifts to the virtues. In resolving the question, Aquinas
argues that the key is to look carefully at how Scripture (Isa 11 :2)
emphasizes that the gifts are spiritual, implying that they are in us
by divine inspiration. He goes on to explain that the term
"inspiration" implies a motion from without (exterior), meaning
that the gifts are distinct from the interior moving principle of
human action (reason). 35 As we shall see, it is vital not to construe
the Spirit of God "moving" as an "exterior" principle as though
it were like a physical object moving another object exterior to it
in space. Aquinas goes on to say that whatever is moved must be
proportioned to what moves it, and that the greater the perfection
of the mover, the greater the degree of readiness presupposed in
the mover; for example, the greater the mind of the teacher, the
more finely developed the student must be. The human virtues
dispose a person to be docile to the judgment of human reason, as
is natural for us. But the human virtues do not by themselves
make us docile to be moved by God; hence there must be higher
perfections that dispose us to be moved by God, and these are the
gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are called such not just because they
35 "In order to distinguish the gifts from the virtues, we must follow the mode of speaking
in Scripture, in which they are given to us not under the name of 'gifts,' but rather under the
name 'spirits.' For thus it is said in Isaiah 11,2: 'There shall come upon him a spirit of wisdom
and understanding, etc.' From these words it is obvious that we are to understand that these
seven are enumerated there insofar as they are in us by divine inspiration. Inspiration signifies
some kind of motion from without. Now it must be kept in mind that there are two moving
principles in man: one of them is interior, that is reason; the other is exterior, that is God, as
was said earlier. Aristotle says the same thing in his work On Good Fortune" ("Ad
distinguendum dona a virtutibus debemus sequi modum loquendi Scripturae, in qua nobis
traduntur non quidem sub nomine donorum, sed magis sub nomine spirituum; sic enim dicitur
Isaiae XI, 2: Requiescet super eum spiritus sapientiae et intellectus, etc. Ex quibus verbis
manifeste datur intelligi quod ista septem enumberantur ibi, secundum sunt in nobis ab
inspiratione divina. Inspiratio significat quandam motionem ab exteriori. Est enim
considerandum quod in homine est duplex principium mavens: unum quidem interius, quod
est ratio; aliud exterius, quod est Deus, ut supra dictum est [9, 4 and 6]; et etiam Philosophus
<licit hoc in cap. De bona fortuna"). The Liber de bona fortuna was the only part of the
Eudemian Ethics known to the medievals; it corresponds to book 7, chaps. 14-15. On the role
of this text in shaping Aquinas's thought, see Th. Deman, "Le Liber de bona fortuna clans la
theologie des. Thomas d'Aquin," Revue des sciences philosophiqueset theologiques 17 (1928):
38-58; and Cornelio Fabro, "Le liberde bona fortuna de l' Ethique aEudeme d'Aristote et la
dialectique de la providence divine chez saint Thomas," Revue thomiste 88 (1988): 556-72.

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

come from God, but rather also because they dispose us to be
easily moved by divine inspiration. 36
The subsequent history of moral theology has shown a tendency to identify the "higher acts" to which we are disposed by
the gifts of the Holy Spirit as mystical. Yet Aquinas goes on in the
next article (STh I-II, q. 68, a. 2) to ask whether or not the gifts
are necessary for salvation. And the answer is affirmative:
Human reason is perfected in two ways by God: first, by a natural perfection,
that is by the light of natural reason; in another way by supernatural perfections,
that is by the theological virtues (as said above). And while this second kind of
perfection is higher than the first, nonetheless the first is possessed in a more
perfect manner by us because it belongs to us as fully possessed, while the second
is possessed in an imperfect way because we love and know God imperfectly ..
. . Yet anything that possesses some nature or form or virtue imperfectly cannot
act through itself, but only as moved by another. ... Accordingly when it comes
to those matters which are subject to human reason in its orientation to its
connatural end, we may act through the judgement of reason .... But as ordered
to a ultimately supernatural end, with respect to which reason is in some way
only imperfectly disposed by the theological virtues, the direction of reason is
not sufficient unless there comes to it from above an instinct and movement of
the Holy Spirit; as it says in Romans 8: 14, 17: Those who are led by the Spirit are
sons of God, and if Sons .. . also heirs; it also says in Psalm 142:10: Your good
36 "Now it is evident that whatever is moved must be proportionate to the mover. The
perfection of the mover insofar as it is moveable is the disposition by which it is disposed to
be moved well by its mover. Accordingly, the more the mover is higher than the moved, the
more it is necessary that what is moved be proportioned to it by a more perfect disposition,
just like we see that a student must be more perfectly disposed in order to grasp a higher
doctrine from his teacher. But it is clear that the virtues perfect human beings insofar as they
are born to be moved by reason in what they do either interiorly or exteriorly. Accordingly,
there must be present in human beings higher perfections, through which they are disposed
to be moved by God. Now these perfections are called "gifts", not only because they are
infused by God, but also because through them it comes about that man is disposed to be
promptly moved by divine inspiration" ("Manifestum est autem quod omne quod movetur,
necesse est proportionatum esse motori; et haec est perfectio mobilis in quantum est mobile,
dispositio qua disponitur ad hoc quod bene moveatur a suo motore. Quan to igitur movens est
altior, tanto necesse est quod mobile perfectiori dispositione ei proportionetur; sicut videmus
quod perfectius oportet esse discipulum dispositum ad hoc quod altiorem doctrinam capiat
a doctore. Manifestum est autem quod virtutes humae perficiunt hominem secundum quod
homo natus est moveri per rationem in his quae interius vel exterius agit. Oportet igitur inesse
homini altiores perfectiones, secundum quas sit dispositus ad hoc quod divinitus moveatur.
Et istae perfectiones vocantur dona, non solum quia infunduntur a Deo; sed quia secundum
ea homo disponitur ut efficiatur prompte mobilis ab inspiratione divina").

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Spirit leads me into the right land. For no one can attain the inheritance of that
land of the blessed unless he is led by the Spirit. And so in order to attain that
end, it is necessary that we have the Gift of the Holy Spirit. 37

Aquinas's doctrine on the gifts of the Holy Spirit is a reminder
that our sharing in the divine life is always imperfect and fragile,
both because of the discrepancy between creature and Creator and
because of the reality of sin. We need a special docility to the
movement of the Spirit in order that our interior sources of action
might be unified in responding to the promptings of God. The
purpose of the gifts is not to inspire us to actions that go
"beyond" the virtues in a supererogatory fashion, but rather to
remedy the imperfect mode of how we act when it comes to what
pertains to the divine. By describing the movement of the Spirit
as an instinctus or impulse, Aquinas implies that while this motion
originates in God, it is nonetheless interior to us like the natural
impulse to the good commensurate with our nature; it is
"exterior" in the sense that its source is in a transcendent other
rather than in the sense of being "external. " 38 Because this
movement is associated with the Holy Spirit, there is an affective
component to it, yet because it is meant to provide some kind of
guidance, it is also cognitive. In this way it recalls the central
37 "Ratio autem hominis est perfecta dupliciter a Deo: primo quidem naturali perfectione,
scilicet secundum lumen naturale rationis; alio autem modo, quadam supernaturali
perfectione, per virtutes theologicas, ut dictum est supra. Et quamvis haec secunda perfectio
sit major quam prima, tamen prima perfectio perfectiori modo habetur ab homine quam
secunda; nam prima habetur ab homine quasi plena possessio, secunda autem habetur quasi
imperfecta; imperfecte enim diligimus et cognoscimus Deum .... Sed id quod imperfecte
habet naturam aliquam vel formam aut virtutem non potest per se operari, nisi ab altero
moveatur. .. Sic igitur quantum ad ea quae subsunt humanae rationi, in ordine scilicet ad
finem connaturalem homini, homo potest operari per judicium rationis .... Sed in ordine ad
finem ultimum supernaturalem, ad quern ratio movet secundum quod est aliqualiter et
imperfecte informata per virtutes theologicas, non sufficit ipsa motio rationis, nisi desuper
adsit instinctus et motio Spiritus Sancti; secundum illud Rom. VIII 14, 17: Qui Spiritu Dei
aguntur, hi filii Dei sunt . .. et haeredes; et in Psalmo 117: 10 <licit: Spiritus tuus bonus deducet
me in terram rectam; quia scilicet in haereditem illius terrae beatorum null us potest pervenire,
nisi moveatur et ducatur a Spiritu Sancto. Et ideo ad ilium finem consequendum, necessarium
est homini habere donum Spiritus Sancti."
38 On the gifts as "instincts" see Servais Pinckaers, "L'instinct et L'Esprit au coeur de
l'ethique chretienne," in Novitas et veritas vitae, ed. C.-J. Pinto de Oliviera (Fribourg,
Switzerland: Editions Universitaires, 1991), 213-23.

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

teaching about the divine indwelling being a notitta experimentalis, a word breathing love. It results in a loving sense of
what God wants; not, perhaps, a full understanding of why but
rather a feel for what is right. Aquinas assigns each gift to a
corresponding virtue, seeing the two principles as working in
synergy, with the gifts disposing us to act in accord with the
prompting of the Spirit and in accord with virtue. Charity is what
binds the virtues and the gifts together: "Hence just as the moral
virtues are connected together through prudence, so the gifts of
the Holy Spirit are connected to each other in charity such that
whoever has charity has all the gifts of the Spirit, none of which
can be had without charity. " 39
At this point, however, we encounter a paradox about
freedom. Aquinas's doctrine of the gifts stresses that someone who
acts in accord with the Spirit is moveatur ab alio. Yet the prologue
to the Secunda Pars, where this all began and where it now will
end, describes the human person as reflecting the image of the
Trinity in being originative through itself of action and in being
the principle of its own activities (per se potestativum, suorum
operum principium) because of its intellect and freedom of choice.
How can the image be both the principle of its own actions and
moved by another? What sort of freedom is compatible with being
in the image of God? In order to answer this question, I want to
turn our attention to the other great pneumatological zone of the
Summa.
IV. UBI EST SPIRITUS, IBI EST LIBERTAS
It is worth noting that the climax of the Prima Secundae is the
classic Pauline triptych of sin, law, and grace, with the link
between law and grace being Aquinas's treatise on the New Law
(qq. 106-8). It should not be surprising, then, to discover that
ultimately Aquinas's account of freedom is more Pauline than
39 "Uncle sicut virtutes morales connectuntur sibi invicem in prudentia, ita dona Spritus
Sancti connectuntur sibi invicem in caritate; ita scilicet quod qui caritatem habet, omnia dona
Spiritus Sancti habet, quorum nullum sine caritate haberi potest" (STh I-II, q. 68, a. 5).

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363

Aristotelian, 40 and completely outside the box of contemporary
philosophical debates about freedom in terms of libertarianism
and compatibilism. 41 The interplay of Aristotelian and Pauline
notions of freedom comes into clear focus in a parallel text in the
Summa contra Gentiles where Aquinas discusses the effects of the
Spirit in moving creatures toward God:
It should be noted that those made sons of God by the Holy Spirit do not act as
slaves, but as free people. For since to be free means "to cause oneself" to act
[causa sui], we act freely when we act from ourselves. This is to act from our
wills, for when we act against our will we act in a servile manner rather than
freely, whether that be through unqualified violence-as when the entire
principle of the action is outside the agent and the agent contributes nothing, as
when someone is pushed to move-or whether it be violence mixed with
voluntariness as when someone is forced to do or suffer something less contrary
to his will in order to evade something even more contrary. But the Holy Spirit
inclines us to act so that we act by our wills insofar as we have been made lovers
of God. Accordingly, those who have been freed by the Spirit act out of love, not
out of servility. Hence the Apostle says in Romans 8:15: You did not receive a
spirit of slavery leading once more to fear, but a spirit of adoptive sonship. 42

In this remarkable passage we see Aquinas using Aristotelian
concepts to promote a Pauline view of freedom. Aquinas is fond
of the Aristotelian axiom fiber est qui causa sui est. 43 Now this
40 See Torrell, Maitre spirituel, 266-73; Bernard Montagnes, "Autonomie et <lignite de
l'homme," Angelicum 51 (1974): 186-211.
41 I argue at length for this in "Beyond Libertarianism and Compatibilism: Thomas Aquinas
on Created Freedom," in Freedom and the Human Person, ed. Richard Velkley (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 70-89.
42 "Considerandum tamen est quod a Spiritu Sancto filii Dei aguntur non sicut servi, sed
sicut liberi. Cum enim liber sit qui causa sui est [I Meta. 982b], illud libere agimus quod ex
nobis ipsis agimus. Hoc vero est quod ex voluntate agimus: quo autem agimus contra
vountatem, non libere, sed serviliter agimus; sive sit violentia absoluta ut quando totum
principium est extra, nihil conferente vim passio [III Ethics 111 Ob] puta cum aliquis vi
impellitur ad motum; sive sit violentia voluntario mixta, ut cum aliquis vult facere vel pati
quod minus est contrarium voluntati, ut evadat quod magis voluntati contrariatur. Spiritus
autem Sanctus sic nos ad agendum inclinat ut nos voluntarie agere faciat, inquantum nos
amatores Dei constituit. Filii igitur Dei libere a Spiritu Sancto aguntur ex amore, non serviliter.
Uncle Apostolus, Rom VIII: 15: Non acceptistis spiritum servitutis iterum in timore, sed
Spiritum adoptionis filiorum" (ScG IV, c. 22).
43 I am indebted here to C.-J. Pinto de Oliveira, "Une morale de liberte evangelique aux
prises avec une eglise des pecheurs," in Oliveira, ed., Novitas et veritas vitae, 191-211.

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cannot be taken in a libertarian sense of an origination of action
independent of any antecedent metaphysical causality or divine
causality. Aquinas makes this clear in the context of answering an
objection-based on the principle that free action must be causa
sui-that human beings do not have free choice because God
moves the will as its first cause. In replying, Aquinas makes an
important distinction between causa sui and prima causa sui:
Free choice is the cause of its own motion because the human person moves
himself to act through free choice. But it is not necessary for liberty that what is
free be the first cause of itself, just as neither is it required that what is the cause
of another be the first cause of it. Accordingly, God is the first cause moving
both natural and voluntary causes. And just as by moving natural causes God
does not take away their natural quality, so in moving voluntary causes God does
not annul the voluntary character of their activities but rather makes them to be
voluntary, for God operates in each in accord with its own properties. 44

God is the causa prima of all human action, both in the order of
nature and in the order of grace, in accord with the priority of act
over potency and in accord with the priority of grace to human
initiative. Paradoxically, God's motion causes the human will to
choose freely; God's ultimate causality is somehow the
explanation for human freedom rather than its enemy. Aquinas
interprets the connection that Aristotle makes between free action
and being causa sui in terms of its political meaning (i.e., the
distinction between a free person and a slave) rather than as a
claim about causal origination. A free person, in contrast to a
slave, is someone whose actions come from out of his own self
and for his own sake (rather than for the sake of another). 45
44 "Liberum arbitrium est causa sui motus, quia homo per liberum arbitrium sepisum movet
ad agendum. Non tamen hoc est de necessitate libertatis quod sit prima causa sui id quod
liberum est; sicut nee ad hoc quod aliquid sit causa alterius requiritur quod sit prima causa
eius. Deus igitur est prima causa movens et naturales causas et voluntarias. Et sicut naturales
causis, movendo eas, non aufert quin actiones earum sint naturales; ita movendo causas
voluntarias non aufert quin actiones earum sint voluntariae, sed potius hoc in eis facit;
operatur enim in unoquoque secundum eius proprietatem" (STh I, q. 83, a. 1, ad 3; emphasis
added).
45 "Ille homo proprie dicitur liber, qui non est alterius causa, sed est causa suiipsius. Servi
enim dominorum sunt, et propter dominos operantur, et eis acquirunt quicquid acquirunt"
(I Metaphys., lect. 3 [ed. R. Spiazzi (Rome: Marietti, 1950) no. 58]). Aquinas sees precisely

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365

Freedom is the capacity to orientate oneself from within toward
that good which is one's ultimate completion. A servile will is one
that is unable to set its own end and pursue it spontaneously.
Aquinas sees the Holy Spirit not as violent external agent, but
rather as acting through the power of love and friendship to
incline our wills interiorly towards God as our own good precisely
insofar as our being incorporated into the life of the Trinity makes
God's good our own by participation. The primary model of causality here is friendship and love, not a Deistic Deus ex machina or
a Frankfurt-style malevolent demon operating on our brains. God
inclines us from within through love and frees us from slavery to
sin. How that exactly works Aquinas does not say. It is axiomatic
for him, however, that "God does not work within us without
us," and that both at the moment of conversion (operative grace)
and in the life of the Spirit, grace works through human
freedom. 46
The parallel text in the Summa Theologiae is in the treatise on
the New Law (STh I-II, qq. 106-8), which Aquinas defines as
gratia Spiritus sancti given through faith in Christ; it is through
this that we attain our ultimate end. 47 Aquinas discusses there
whether it is appropriate for the New Law to enjoin or forbid
external works, and remarks that while it is fitting for some
external actions to be enjoined or forbidden by the New Law
because they are either necessary for or contrary to faith working
through love, the New Law of Christ leaves most things to
this kind of freedom as characteristic of God in a sed contra in De Veritate, q. 23, a. 1, s.c. 4:
"Liber enim est qui sui causa est, secundum philosophum in 1 Metaphysicorum, quod maxime
de Deo verificatur" (Quaestiones Disputatae, vol. 1, ed. R. Spiazzi [Rome: Marietti, 1953]).
46 I have discussed the general problem in "Divine Causation and Human Freedom in
Aquinas," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1998): 99-122. On grace
specifically, see STh I-II, q. 111, a. 2, ad 2: "God does not justify us without us, since through
the motion of free will we consent when we are justified by God's justice; that motion is not
the cause of grace, however, but rather its effect" ("Deus non sine nobis nos justificat, quia per
motum liberi arbitrii, dum justificamur, Dei justitiae consentimus. Ille autem motus non est
causa gratiae, sed effectus"). See also STh II-II, q. 52, a. 1, ad 3.
47 "Nothing can be closer to the ultimate end than what is immediately brought there, and
this is what the New Law does" ("Nihil enim potest esse propinquius fini ultimo quam quod
immediate in finem ultimum introducit, hoc enim facit nova lex" [STh I-II, q. 106, a. 4]).

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individual discretion. 48 The New Law is thus fundamentally an
ethic of prudence and a lex libertatis. In response to an objection
that any kind of prescription is contrary to freedom, Aquinas
answers:
According to the Philosopher, "a free person is self-causing." Thus someone does
something freely when the action is from him. Now a person who acts by virtue
of a habit in accord with his own nature acts from himself because a habit
inclines us in a natural way. But if the habit were to be opposed to nature, then
the person would not act from himself but rather in accord with some corruption
that he has taken on. Accordingly the grace of the Holy Spirit is like an interior
habit infused into us, inclining us to righteous action, that makes us free to do
what is in accord with grace and to avoid what is repugnant to grace. Thus the
New Law is said to be a law of liberty in two ways. First, because it does not
compel us with respect to what must be done or avoided except in those matters
that are necessary or repugnant to salvation and that fall under the prescription
or prohibition of the law. Second, because even with respect to precepts or
prohibitions of this kind, it enables us to fulfill them freely insofar as we fulfill
them from an inner instinct of grace. And for these two reasons the new law is
said to be a law of perfect liberty. 49

Here we see that the paradigm of free action is virtuous action,
insofar as it flows out of the second nature of a person that is the
48 "But there are other works which are not necessarily contrary to or in accordance with
faith working through love. These works are neither enjoined or prohibited by the original
establishment of the law; rather, they are left by the legislator, namely Christ, to each person
insofar as he must exercise care for others" ("Alia vero sunt opera quae non habent
necessariam contrarietatem vel convenientiam ad fidem per dilectionem operantem. Et talia
opera non sunt in vova lege praecepta vel prohibita ex ipsa prima legis institutione sed relicta
sunt a legislatore, scilicet Christo, unicuique secundum quod aliquis curam gerere debet" [STh
I-II, q. 108, a. 1]).
49 "Secundum philosophum in IMetaph [982b26], fiber est qui sui causa est. Ille ergo libere
aliquid agit qui ex seipso agit. Quod autem homo agit ex habitu suae naturae convenienti ex
seipso agit, quia habitus inclinat in modum naturae. Si vero habitus esset naturae repugnans,
homo non ageret secundum quod est ipse, sed secundum aliquam corruptionem sibi
supervenientem. Quia igitur gratia Spiritus sancti est sicut interior habitus nobis infusus,
inclinans nos ad recte operand um, facit nos libere operari ea quae conveniunt gratiae, etvitare
ea quae gratiae repugnant. Sic igitur lex nova dicitur lex libertatis dupliciter. Uno modo quia
non arctat nos ad facienda vel vitanda aliqua, nisi quae de se sunt vel necessaria vel
repugnantia saluti, quae cadunt sub praecepto vel prohibitione legis. Secundo quia hujusmodi
etiam praecepta vel prohibitiones facit nos libere implere, inquantum ex interiori instinctu
gratiae ea implemus. Et propter haec duo lex nova dicitur lex perfectae libertatis (lac. 1:25)"
(STh I-II, q. 108, a. 1, ad 3).

AQUINAS'S EXEMPLAR ETHICS

367

creation and the deposit of his or her own free actions. It is not a
liberty of indifference, but a freedom for the good that accords
with our nature. Action in accord with vice, by contrast, is the
paradigm of unfree action and so a kind of slavery since it leads
us to what does not fulfill our nature. Action in accord with the
New Law of the grace of the Holy Spirit is like virtuous action
because it flows from a habitus infused in us in accord with our
divinized nature. Insofar as we have become sharers in the divine
nature, actions that flow from the Spirit are actions that flow
freely and spontaneously from within us.
The parallel between nature and grace, virtue and the New
Law, points to one of the most important intuitions in Aquinas's
thinking: the interior origin of morality. When Aquinas describes
law as an "exterior" principle, 50 this is only to say that it
originates in God, not that it involves heteronomy; "exterior"
here means having its ultimate origin in another (God) rather than
being "outside" or "coercive." Both the natural law and the New
Law are indita a Dea, inscribed in our hearts, built into our
natures both created and graced. In discussing natural law,
Aquinas remarks that rational creatures share in the Eternal Law
in a special way as being provident for self and others as God is
provident. 51 Natural law is our sharing in the eternal law in a
manner commensurate with our status as images of God; it is
precisely because we are created in the image of God that the
source of morality must be interior to us. God implants within our
nature the resources to know the good and an attraction for it.
We recognize the good as something to be done because we are
created with an affinity for it; because God the creator is God the
legislator, the natural law is nothing other than our recognition of
what we must do to become what we were created to be. In this
50 In the prologue to the treatise on law at the head of STh I-II, q. 90, Aquinas says: "The
exterior principle moving us to the good is God, who instructs us by law and helps us by
grace" ("Principium autem exterius movens ad bonum est Deus, qui et nos instruit per legem
et iuvat per gratiam").
51 See STh I-II, q. 91, a. 2. On the connection of natural law with imago dei asserted here,
see Ignatius Eschmann, The Ethics of Thomas Aquinas: Two Courses, ed. Edward A. Synan
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1997), 211-31.

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BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P.

sense Aquinas's account of human agency is a form of autonomy:
while the moral law has its ultimate origin in God, nonetheless we
discern it from within as in accord with our natures. 52
Aquinas's account of the New Law presupposes that God provides for us in the order of grace in a manner that parallels the
order of nature by giving us an interior principle whereby we may
have a correlative inclination to the good in accord with our
deified nature. The New Law is a deeper entering into divine
providence, indeed a sharing in it precisely as Trinitarian:
returning to the Father through the Son and in the Spirit. It is an
ethic of freedom and an ethic of prudence. The whole of the
moral life of a Christian is an enactment in time and history of the
interior life of God-this is its ultimate meaning in the light of the
Summa theologiae. We enter most deeply into the life of the
Trinity when charity is crowned with the gift of wisdom resulting
in a deep affective affinity (compassio sive connaturalitas) for the
things of God as our own, and the resultant ability to judge them
aright on that basis (recte judicium propter connaturalitatem). 53
V. CONCLUSION

As noted at the beginning, it has been the fate of Aquinas's
moral thought to be detached from its whole. This is still true
today, though perhaps for different reasons. People who write
about Aquinas's "ethics" these days tend to be academic specialists
who look closely at some part, often as small as a single article or
question, and attempt to distill a doctrine out of it. Often there is
no attempt to read the part in the light of the theological whole.
As Boyle notes, and I would concede, Aquinas does not always
signpost the deep connections as much as one would like, yet they
are there to an attentive reader. Perhaps if Aquinas had lived to
finish the Summa, he might have gone back to make the con52 In the Pauline sense, however, full moral autonomy is only possible under the New Law
because only under it can we fulfill the precepts of the natural law in a complete way; apart
from the New Law, human existence is fundamentally akratic and in that sense servile. See
STh I-II, q. 109, aa. 2-4 on the effects of the Fall on our ability to fulfill the natural law.
53 STh II-II, q. 45, a. 2.

AQUINAS'S EXEMPLAR ETHICS

369

nections clearer. In an era in which philosophy and theology are
distinct disciplines and theology itself is fragmented in ways that
would astonish Aquinas, for whom the unity of sacra doctrina
comprises everything that is divided in a modern academic
department, those deep connections are not easily perceived.
What I have tried to indicate, albeit sketchily, is that there is a
deep unity in Aquinas's moral thought that comes from the
Trinity and that is expressed in the exitus and the reditus that is
the grand theme of the Summa. Aquinas's theology is above all
else Trinitarian. If that is so, then the key for an understanding of
Aquinas's moral thinking would be the human person as imago
Trinitatis.

The Thomist 72 (2008): 371-407

DETERMINING THE CONTENT AND DEGREE OF
AUTHORITY OF CHURCH TEACHINGS
]OHNR.

T. LAMONT

Catholic Institute of Sydney
Strathfield, NSW, Australia

T

HE TEACHING OF THE Second Vatican Council on
religious liberty in its declaration Dignitatis humanae has
been a subject of bitter disagreement ever since the
promulgation of that declaration. Presented by some as one of the
council's main achievements, it has been condemned by others as
a departure from the past teaching of the Church. Most seriously,
perhaps, it has been celebrated as being both these things, and as
thereby establishing that it is possible for the Church to change
her teachings, however authoritative, in the light of a better
understanding of reality.
There are two issues involved in this disagreement: the
question of the content of the document's teachings, and the
question of the level of authority of these teachings. These
questions turn upon the more general issues of the nature of the
principles to be used in determining the content and authority of
Church teachings. These general issues are the topic of longstanding disputes in Catholic theology, disputes that are at least
as important as those on religious freedom itself. This paper will
attempt to resolve these disputes, partly as a preliminary to
considering the issue of religious liberty, and partly on account of
their intrinsic interest. It will not go on to apply its conclusions to
Church teaching on religious liberty because of space limitations;
this task will be undertaken in subsequent publications. However,
the consideration of positions on the interpretation of church
371

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

teachings and the consideration of Dignitatis Humanae are not
entirely independent tasks. The debates on both these issues
emerge from a common theological and ecclesiastical history, and
the exposition of this history that is necessary for a consideration
of interpretation of Church teachings will prove essential for an
understanding of Dignitatis humanae.
None of the teachings of Dignitatis humanae are infallible
pronouncements that of themselves demand the assent of faith.
This is the case with all the teachings of the Second Vatican
Council, since that council did not make any dogmatic
definitions. 1 Dignitatis humanae thus raises the particular issue of
the level of authority of noninfallible Church teachings. It is really
only for this category of Church teaching that the question of
level of authority arises in an important way, since infallible
teachings by their nature have the highest level of authority, an
authority that excludes rejection or doubt on the part of those
who profess the Catholic faith. For theology, the question with
respect to infallible teachings is not properly speaking their level
of authority, but the means of identifying them. The question of
how to identify infallible teachings has been fairly thoroughly
discussed, and has in fact been the main focus of theological
disputes about the authority of Church teachings. These disputes
have generally been asking, what level of authority-fallible or
1 This was asserted by Paul VI, in his discourse closing the council on 7 December 1965.
Umberto Betti claimed an authority for the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium that
virtually reached the level of infallible teaching (Umberto Betti, "Qualification theologique de
la Constitution," L'Eglise de Vatican II, vol. 2, Commentaires, ed. Y. Congar [Paris: Editions
du Cerf, 1967]). This claim was contested by J. Ratzinger (J. Ratzinger, "Announcements and
Prefatory Notes of Explanation," in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 1, ed.
H. Vorgrimler [New York: Herder and Herder, 1967]). Ratzinger, in describing Betti as taking
a view that "raises most of the Council's declarations practically (though not technically) to
the status of dogmas" (ibid., 299), ignores the fact that Betti bases his evaluation of the degree
of authority of Lumen gentium principally on the prefix "dogmatic" that is applied to it:
"Avant tout, ii s'agit d'une Constitution dogmatique. Ce qui importe, ce n'est pas la
denomination de Constitution - qui aurait pu aussi bien etre remplacee par d'autres, comme
Decret, Bulle, etc., mais la qualification de 'dogmatique'. Celle-ci indique que le magistere
universe! a pour tache comme tel de proposer la doctrine contenue clans la Constitution,"
(Betti, "Qualification theologique," in Congar (1967), 214-15). Betti's maximizing
interpretation of the authority of the conciliar documents thus expressly applies only to those
constitutions described as "dogmatic"-which excludes Dignitatis humanae.

THE CONTENT AND AUTHORITY OF CHURCH TEACHINGS

373

infallible-does a given Church teaching have? The question that
concerns us, however, is what are the levels of authority below
infallibility that Church teachings can possess, and how are these
levels to be identified?
I. HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF DOCTRINE

In order to determine the content of a teaching (and, in some
cases, the degree of its authority), it is necessary carefully to
examine the circumstances in which it is issued. The relevant
circumstances include the nature of the theological terms used and
the theological approaches within which these terms emerged, the
errors that are intended to be condemned, and the conciliar
discussions that gave rise to the texts. The force of the forms used
to promulgate a teaching may also vary with time, and requires
some attention to context to be understood. Neglect of these
circumstances has at times led to more or less serious misrepresentations of conciliar teachings. A good example of this is
the teaching of the Council of Trent on Scripture and Tradition
as sources of revelation. The standard view of this teaching for
many years was that it asserted that oral tradition was an
independent source of revelation, in the sense that it contained
and passed on divinely revealed truths that are not contained in
Scripture. However, investigations of the deliberations of the
Council of Trent have shown that the council cannot be said to
teach this position. 2
It is also necessary to interpret particular teachings in the
context of Church teaching as a whole. All these teachings are
issued by the same authority, which intends them to harmonize
with and to interpret each other. The fact that teachings are
2 This thesis was advanced by J. Geiselmann in "Un malentendu eclairci. La relation
Ecriture-Tradition clans la theologie catholique," Istina 5 (1958): 197-214; and by George
Tavard in Holy Writ or Holy Church (London: Burns & Oates, 1959), ch. 12. A more
satisfactory treatment is J. Ermel, Les sources de la foi (Tournai: Desclee, 1963); his findings
are summarized in John Lamont, Divine Faith (London: Ashgate, 2004), 174-76.
To say that that Council of Trent did not teach this position does not mean that it denied
it. Nor, it should be pointed out, does the denial of this position imply that all of revelation
can be extracted from Scripture independently of tradition.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

intended to be read in the context of the whole of the Church's
teaching is often explicitly stated in conciliar documents, in such
phrases as "following the saintly fathers" (Chalcedon) 3 or "following without deviation in a straight path after the saintly fathers"
(Constantinople III); 4 it was expressed at the Second Vatican
Council in Dei Verbum 1 and Lumen gentium 51. The presumption is therefore that one teaching does not reject or contradict
another, unless it is impossible to understand it except as doing
so. The practice in the rare instances where a previous teaching is
corrected by a subsequent one is for this correction to be made
explicit (as in the condemnation by the Third Council of Constantinople of the teaching of Pope Honorius on Monothelitism).
This means that the meaning that we might attach to a teaching
if taken in isolation may not be the meaning that we should
understand as meant by the Church, when the whole of the
Church's teaching is taken into account. This principle of
interpretation is not confined to magisterial documents; as Rene
Laurentin remarks, "when a pontifical document seems to go
contrary to an opinion received by the Fathers or Doctors of the
Church, notably by such a one as St. Thomas Aquinas, this
doctrine should not be thought to be rejected by it, unless the
papal document says so in so many words. "5
It may be the case that the meaning of a given teaching is
clarified by another teaching, even if the clarification occurs
centuries later. An example is Pope Leo the Great's assertion
about the divine and human natures in Christ, to the effect that
"the activity of each form is what is proper to it in communion
with the other: that is, the Word performs what belongs to the
Word, and the flesh accomplishes what belongs to the flesh. " 6 On
its own this expression could be understood in a Nestorian sense,
as implying that the two natures are independently acting entities.
3 Norman Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.:
Georgetown University Press, 1990), 1:86.
4 Ibid., 1: 124.
5 Fr. Rene Laurentin, Mary's Place in the Church (London: Burns & Oates, 1965), p. 97;
tr. by I. G. Pidoux of La question mariale (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1963).
6 "agit enim utraque forma cum alterius communione quod proprium est, verbo scilicet
operante quod verbi est, et came exequente quod carnem est" (Tanner, ed., Decrees, 1:79).

THE CONTENT AND AUTHORITY OF CHURCH TEACHINGS

375

It was indeed understood in this way by many theologians, an
understanding that contributed to the Monophysite schism. This
understanding was however excluded by the Third Council of
Constantinople, which interpreted Leo's claim as asserting that
there is both a divine and a human will in Christ, and thus as
being a rejection of Monothelitism. 7 Even if this meaning was not
present in Leo's original statement, it became part of the meaning
of that statement after the clarification of Constantinople III. This
is because Leo was not expressing his private opinion, but
teaching in his official capacity. The meaning of an official
statement is determined by the authority that issues the statement,
not by the individual who happens to exercise that authority at a
given time; and the authority in question has the power to expand
the meaning of its assertions. A humdrum example is British law
on value-added tax, which states that bread is not subject to this
tax but that cake is. The question arose as to whether bagels
should count as bread or as cake; when it was legally decided that
bagels were bread, the previous legislation then acquired the
content of exempting bagels from value-added tax, a meaning that
it did not have before that decision. 8
The example of the Third Council of Constantinople is a case
in which the clearer teaching occurs later than the less clear one.
Although this is a sensible order in which to proceed, there is
nothing about order in time as such that means that a later
statement is to be used to interpret an earlier one rather than vice
versa. Statements of greater authority are to be used to interpret
statements of lesser authority, and clearer statements are to be
used to interpret less clear ones, regardless of the temporal order
of the statements in question. A case where earlier teachings are
to be used to interpret later ones is where the later teachings
repeat earlier ones that have been solemnly defined, as with the
Christological teachings of the Second Vatican Council. The
former teachings, those of the great Christological councils, are
more authoritative than the latter, which are not solemn
7
8

See ibid., 1:128-29.
I am grateful to Katharine Allen for providing me with this example.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

definitions. They are also more precise, because the solemn
definitions were intended to settle specific controversies, whereas
the appeal to this teaching at Vatican II was intended to give a
more general picture.
There are particular principles of interpretation that have been
proposed specifically for the teachings Vatican II that ought to be
mentioned here. It is sometimes said that these teachings should
be interpreted in the light of the "spirit" of the council, or the
"location of the texts within that historical thrust ... towards selfunderstanding by the Church and definition of its relationship
with history," 9 or should give "greater interpretative privilege to
the thesis supported by the greater majority of voters. " 10 The
problem with such principles is not simply that they are not very
specific, and are thus open to manipulation by people with their
own agendas, 11 but that they are wrong, full stop. They violate the
principle that a council is only to be interpreted as teaching what
it manifestly and officially teaches.
These proposals for reading Vatican II stem in fact from a
transposed ultramontane heritage. The extreme ultramontane
position on the extent of the authority of the pope, and the
ultramontane psychological attitude towards that authority, were
expressed by W. G. Ward:
Take the obvious illustration of a parent; and suppose it were revealed to me,
that my mother's guidance is infallible in every particular of moral and religious
training. That I should accept with unquestioning assent the very least detail of
her explicit instruction, is but a small part of my submission to her authority. I
should be ever studying her whole demeanour in my regard-her acts no less
than her words-in order that I may more fully apprehend her implied principles

9 M.-D. Chenu, quoted in Daniele Menozzi, "Opposition to the Council (1966-84)," in
The Reception of Vatican II, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo, Jean-Plerre Jossua, and Joseph A.
Komonchak (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987), 328.
10 Ormond Rush, "Dei Verbum Forty Years On," Australasian Catholic Record 83 no. 4 (
Oct. 2006): 408.
11 The principle about accepting the thesis supported by the majority of conciliar voters,
for example, would scarcely be applied by its author to the thesis about the nature of papal
infallibility that was held by the majority at Vatican I.

THE CONTENT AND AUTHORITY OF CHURCH TEACHINGS

377

of conduct, and gather those lessons of profound wisdom which she is privileged
to dispense. 12

This ultramontane attitude is simply transferred by some
theologians to the Second Vatican Council. The faithful, in
relation to the council, are to be like the slaves in the psalm
keeping their eyes on the hands of their master. In reality, this
attitude is only appropriate towards God. It can be applied to
pope or council when these entities are exercising the divine
authority, but this attitude is only called for when this authority
is exercised in proper form. Otherwise, it is not faith but a
regression to childishness, to seeing pope or council as a parental
authority whose every word and intention is to be uncritically
accepted.
II. "HISTORICAL CONDITIONING" OF DOCTRINE

The purpose of the investigation of the context of Church
teachings is to find out how these teachings represent reality.
Acceptance of these teachings consists in holding that reality is
indeed how they say it is, on account of their saying that it is. This
seemingly banal clarification needs to be made because it is
rejected by some currently influential accounts of the
interpretation of doctrine.
One such account was given in clear and summary form in an
address by Julius Cardinal Dopfner to a conference of European
bishops in 1969:
All the dogmas in the strict sense of the word, in turn call for interpretation.
Although they also contain, with the help of the Holy Spirit, a "timeless" truth,
i.e. an objectively valid truth for all times, they still present this truth in a timebound language. Dogmas are always statements which are historically
12 W. G. Ward, The Authority of Doctrinal Decisions Which Are Not Definitions of Faith
(London: Burns, Lambert, and Oates, 1866), 82. Ward makes this claim in the course of
correctly opposing the view that the only obligation in matters of belief to which Catholics
are subject is the obligation to believe solemnly defined doctrines. His error, of course, lies in
ignoring the possibility of a mean between his view and this minimizing approach.
It may be noted that the view expressed in this passage was the view of Ward's friend
Cardinal Manning, the leader of the majority at Vatican I.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

determined in a conceptual system; they are tied to a particular time and a
particular way of thinking. Dogmas come to be in a concrete situation because
of a specific set of causes. Doctrinal statements, therefore, always express the
truth which is their object in an inadequate and fragmentary way which,
nonetheless, is valid from a specific perspective, namely, the perspective of a
certain group of hearers. In order to understand a doctrinal truth, one must be
familiar with these circumstances. Insofar as these circumstances have changed,
the context of a certain dogma no longer exists for us. 13

This notion of the historical conditioning of doctrine is derived
from Karl Rahner. I have criticized this notion in an earlier
article, 14 and will simply recapitulate in brief the contents of that
criticism. This understanding of the way doctrine is historically
conditioned takes the perfectly true claim that doctrinal
statements are conditioned and limited by the historical
circumstances in which they are made, and adds to it the further
claim that this limitation must result in their not being perfectly
true. But the former claim does not justify the latter one. Every
statement of any kind at all must be subject to limitations of this
sort, since every human being and every institution composed of
humans exist in historical circumstances that shape and limit what
they can know and express. These limitations do indeed mean
that there are things that people in a given set of circumstances
will be unable to know or comprehend. Such limitations are part
of the explanation for the development of doctrine; as conceptual
horizons expand, new questions about the subject matter of the
faith can be put that require an answer.
13 Julius Dopfner,
"Das Bleibende und Sichwandelnde in Priestertum," Herder
Korrespondenz 23 (1969): 369-70; quoted and translated in Piet Schoonenberg, "The
Theologian's Calling: Freedom, and Constraint," inAuthority in the Church, ed. Piet Fransen,
S.J. (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1983), 104. Fransen presents Dopfner as replying to,
and rejecting, the claims made by Paul VI in his encyclical Mysterium Fidei, in which the view
of historical conditioning criticized here is rejected. Fransen's article provides a good
explanation and a good illustration of this view. The fact that in this paper Fransen, professor
of theology at the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, gives the coeternity of the three divine
persons as one of the teachings that can be considered as due to historical conditioning, rather
than as part of the faith (ibid., 111), illustrates how this notion of historical conditioning has
been used to reject the most central Christian teachings.
14 John Lamont, "The Historical Conditioning of Church Doctrine," The Thomist 60
(1996): 511-35.

THE CONTENT AND AUTHORITY OF CHURCH TEACHINGS

379

The existence of limitations on knowledge and comprehension,
however, does not imply that there is nothing that can be fully
known or comprehended. That men are mortal, or that water
becomes solid if cooled sufficiently, are examples of statements
that describe reality entirely truthfully, and that are comprehensible to anyone with a normal human conceptual apparatus. The claim that the Holy Spirit guides the Church into the
truth is to be understood as asserting that the Holy Spirit guides
the Church to teach only statements that fall within the
conceptual capacities of the Church, at the time the teaching is
made, for describing reality as it is-and, furthermore, that
succeed in describing reality as it is. The idea that at some times
the limits on the conceptual capacities of the Church have
prevented her from accurately describing reality is no more than
the disguised assumption that the Holy Spirit does not in fact
guide her into the truth. This notion of historical conditioning is
simply an expression of unbelief.
So understood, belief in the historical conditioning of Church
teaching denies the teaching of Vatican I that "if anyone says that
it is possible at some time, given the advancement of knowledge,
a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church
which is different from that which the Church has understood and
understands; let him be anathema." 15 It thereby asserts some of
the tenets of the Modernist heresy. 16 However, unlike Modernism, it does not amount to a coherent view. It faces the difficulty
that if historical conditioning means that some aspects of past
doctrines are not to be accepted as part of the faith, it follows that
we cannot now know what the faith is. We, like believers in other
epochs, exist in history, and hence are subject to historical
conditioning that limits our perspectives. Because we cannot get
outside our own historical situation, we have no way of finding
Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:811.
Current sympathizers with Modernism have made attempts to rehabilitate it, but these
cannot survive examination of the beliefs of the principal Modernists. George Tyrrell, for
example, thought (some time before the publication of the anti-Modernist encyclica1Pascendi)
that Jesus had not intended to found a church, and that the pope was an Antichrist; see David
F. Wells, "The Pope as Antichrist: The Substance of George Tyrrell's Polemic," Harvard
Theological Review 65 (1972): 217-73.
15

16

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

out what those limits are, and hence no way of knowing what part
of our own beliefs is historically conditioned and not objectively
true. We thus cannot determine what features of our own
understanding of the faith are historically conditioned, and hence
untrue.
The Modernists did not face this problem, because they
discarded the idea of faith as giving any "objectively valid truth
for all times" at all, and evaluated religious beliefs solely by their
conformity to the needs of a given time. This makes it unlikely
that the origins of this notion of historical conditioning are to be
found primarily in Modernism. It is probably more the result of
belief in progress and the superiority of the present-of the
assumption that people in the past were inevitably ignorant and
prejudiced in comparison to us, and that their views have to be
altered in order to take into account our greater knowledge. This
assumption explains why "historical conditioning" is attributed to
past teachings, but its implications for present teachings are not
considered.
There is a particular version of the historical-conditioning
notion that requires further discussion. It is frequently maintained
that the concepts used in particular Church teachings change over
time, and thus that the teachings have to be re-expressed in
different concepts in order to preserve their original message.
Taken as stated, this notion can be straightforwardly dismissed.
The notion of a concept usually designates a component of the
mental life of a particular individual. In this sense, the content of
Church teachings cannot depend on particular concepts, because
concepts of this sort are not publicly available, and Church
teachings are expressed in language. Since language is a public
means of communication, its meaning can only be acquired by
reference to interpersonal things and events that are publicly
identifiable. This familiar point about language means that the
vicissitudes of people's concepts are not relevant to the content of
Church teaching. They are only relevant to the degree of
comprehension that a given individual may possess of them.

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381

We can also use the term "concept" to refer, not to the
components of the mental life of a particular individual, but to the
content of such components. The point made in the preceding
paragraph about the teachings of the Church applies to this notion
as well. Since these teachings are expressed in language, their
content must be given by the elements of the external, publicly
observable world that provide meaning to language. The relation
between external things and the vocabulary of the language that
determines the meaning of this language is that obtaining at the
time of the teachings. This does not change; it refers to a relation
obtaining at a single specified time, and change of the meaning of
language must occur over a lapse of time. Careful investigation,
of the sort described above, is often necessary to discern the exact
nature of this relation-since languages and their expressive
resources change over time-but there is no such thing as
conceptual change that this investigation needs to take into
account.
However, many of the theologians who talk about changing
concepts seem in fact to have a different notion in mind. They
point out that Church teachings are expressed not just in terms
that derive their meaning from the external publicly observable
world, but also in terms taken from theories that attempt to give
a philosophical account of the external world, and that in so
doing elaborate concepts that go beyond what is evident to
observation. They argue that Church teachings are not intended
to advance philosophical theses, and that the Church has no
authority to settle philosophical questions. Since the philosophical
concepts in Church teachings stand or fall with the truth of the
philosophical systems of which they are a part, such theologians
conclude that these concepts do not form a constitutive part of
these teachings, and can be dispensed with or replaced by other
philosophical notions. The specifically philosophical element of
Church teaching is thus identified as a historically conditioned
element that does not demand the assent of faith. These are the
concepts that can change, and that need not be retained.

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If this view is correct, the question of the teaching of Vatican
II on religious liberty, for example, would at once be settled.
Liberty is a notion that must be explicated in philosophical terms,
and any statements about it would thus be disqualified from
forming part of the teaching of the Church. This consequence is
a good example of why this view is untenable. It is not possible
for Church teaching to be expressed without making use of
philosophical notions, because the subject matter of this teaching
is inherently philosophical. It deals with such ultimate realities as
the nature of God, of humanity, of knowledge, of good and evil.
These are philosophical realities; philosophy itself came into being
as the investigation of them. Divine revelation does not have a
subject matter that is entirely separate from that of philosophy.
Where it differs from philosophy is in the reason for belief that it
offers, and in conveying some truths that philosophy is incapable
of reaching. To reflect on many central theological issues just is to
venture into philosophy, and the accurate formulation of claims
about them will necessarily use philosophical notions (cf. Fides et
ratio 66). This is apparent in the early councils that dealt with
Christological issues; these described Christ using the philosophical conceptions of substance, nature, hypostasis, and person.
It is necessary to use these notions not only to accept, but to
reject, these conciliar teachings; the only way to avoid philosophical characterizations of Christ would be never to think
seriously about him at all-which is scarcely an option for
theology or faith. The claim that particular philosophical concepts
cannot be an intrinsic part of Church teaching is false.
As for the Church not being in the business of teaching
philosophical systems, it is true that the falsity of a philosophical
system can entail the nonapplicability of the concepts that make
it up, but making use of philosophical concepts to describe the
world does not amount to embracing a complete philosophical
system. Such concepts can be elements of more than one system.
The necessary employment of philosophical concepts by the
Church in her teaching thus does not constitute an endorsement
of a particular philosophical system, and cannot be rejected on

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that account. Such employment does limit the available philosophical options by excluding philosophies that do not admit
these concepts, but the rejection of philosophical views that are
incompatible with the faith is an unexceptionable and necessary
element of the Church's teaching-one could hardly say that a
condemnation of solipsism, to take an extreme example, would go
beyond the authority of the Church because it settles a
philosophical question. It is thus false to say that the Church lacks
the authority to settle philosophical questions (cf. Fides et ratio
50).
The nonexistence of a core content in Church teaching that is
independent of philosophical concepts means that if one maintains that the philosophical concepts in Church teachings can be
changed, such teaching becomes a nose of wax, able to be twisted
into any shape called for by one's philosophical convictions.
Because the essence of these teachings is expressed philosophically, a change in philosophy produces a change in their
essence. The exercise of finding examples of such twisting in
contemporary theology I leave to the reader; it does not require
very extensive research.

A) Twentieth-Century Debates over Historical Context and
Historical Conditioning
The importance of historical context in understanding Church
teaching, and the falsity of notions of historical conditioning of
this teaching, are at the heart of twentieth-century debates in
Catholic theology-debates that retain their importance today.
The first of these theses is a key theme of the nouvelle theologiethe theological approach associated with the Dominicans of Le
Saulchoir and the Jesuits of Lyon-Fourvieres-and the basis of its
principal achievement; the second is its fatal flaw.
The crucial achievement of the nouvelle theologie, produced by
the application of its program for investigating the historical
context of doctrine and theology, was the discovery that the
generally accepted conception of Catholic theology in fact had

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

serious shortcomings. This conception was inherited from the
baroque Scholasticism of the Counter-Reformation period. What
the nouvels theologiens brought to light was the fact that baroque
Scholasticism had lost some of the key insights of previous
Catholic theology, and had acquired severe flaws not present in
that earlier theology. 17 These problems were largely the result of
the thought of the Counter-Reformation not having sufficiently
emancipated itself from the nominalism of the late Middle Ages.
The nouvels theologiens connected the problems in the Church
with the need to remove these flaws, and to return in theory and
in practice to the better understandings that had existed before
the disaster of nominalism, a disaster that bore much of the
responsibility for the Reformation.
The better understandings that needed to be restored were
variously described. Some were sought in the Fathers, especially
in the Greek Fathers; but a significant strand of ressourcementinspired above all by Marie-Dominique Chenu-looked for these
understandings in St. Thomas himself. It is this strand of
ressourcement that will be considered (and argued for) here. Its
program involved a rejection of the form of Thomism accepted by
neo-Scholastics, which accepted and built upon the thought of
baroque commentators on St. Thomas, such as Cajetan and John
of St. Thomas. These commentators, and their neo-Scholastic
heirs, were alleged to have imbibed certain nominalist assumptions, and to have introduced errors of their own. As a result, the
"Thomism" of the neo-Scholastics was a significantly changed and
impoverished version of the thought of St. Thomas, many of
whose deep insights needed to be restored.
Not surprisingly, the neo-Scholastics reacted violently to this
accusation. They conceived of the relation of the baroque
commentators and themselves to St. Thomas as analogous to the
relation of physicists working on general relativity after Einstein
17 The term "baroque Scholasticism," and the insight that this Scholasticism already
contained many of the key elements of modernity, seem to have been originated by Karl
Eschweiler in his Die zwei Wege der neueren Theologie (Augsburg: Benno Fitser, 1926).
Henry Donneaud sees Eschweiler's work as an inspiration for M.-D. Chenu; see Henry
Donneaud, "La constitution dialectique de la theologie et de son histoire selon M.-D. Chenu,"
Revue Thomiste 96 (1996): 48-49.

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to Einstein himself. Einstein's successors simplified and extended
his theory a great deal, but their work was based on and incorporated the fundamental insights developed by Einstein
himself as the discoverer of general relativity. The notion that the
work of later Thomists could be corrected by reference to St.
Thomas himself struck the neo-Scholastics as being like the notion
that later physicists could be corrected by reference to Einstein's
pioneering work (although they would see later Thomists as more
dependent on St. Thomas than later physicists on Einstein).
Apparent differences between St. Thomas and his followers would
result from the fact that reflection over the centuries would
express St. Thomas's original conceptions in clearer ways, and
attempts to show that St. Thomas was different in significant
respects from his followers-the "palaeo-Thomism" mocked by
simply trying to take
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange-were
advantage of the inevitable occasional unclarity to be found in the
founder of a school of thought, in comparison with later
elaborations of that school.
It is not clear whether or not the neo-Scholastics can fairly be
described as being hostile to historical research in maintaining this
view-as the nouvels theologiens claimed-or whether they
should rather be described as having a historical thesis about
Thomism that happened to be wrong in some respects. After all,
they held a historical view about the development of Thomism,
and they looked to history to find the favored sources of their
ideas, namely, the baroque Scholastics. Whichever of these is the
case, the fact remains that the nouvels theologiens were right
about baroque Scholasticism and its heirs being different from,
and inferior to, the thought of St. Thomas himself.
This endorsement of this claim of the nouvelle theologie needs
to be qualified; it is not as if the neo-Scholastics got St. Thomas
totally wrong. Some of them were in fact responsible for reviving
and building on important aspects of his thought-for example,
Garrigou-Lagrange's work on spiritual theology (a synthesis of the
views of St. Thomas and of St. John of the Cross on contemplation), which was crucial to Vatican H's teaching on the
universal call to holiness. (The value of this synthesis illustrates

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the fact that the Counter-Reformation, producing as it did a
theologian of the caliber of S. John of the Cross, was not barren
of theological achievement.) This observation about the
contribution of some neo-Scholastics to the broader program of
ressourcement brings out the fact that that program was not
peculiar to the nouvels thiologiens or to the subjects they
considered. The Thomist revival promoted by Leo XIII,
particularly its historical element, was both a precondition and to
some extent a form of ressourcement. Moreover, the program of
ressourcement was carried on past Vatican II and persists up to the
present. 18 The newly revived understandings of the notions of
conscience and right that prove to be crucial to the discussion of
religious freedom, for example, are a product of ressourcement.
The fatal flaw of the nouvelle thiologie was the espousal, by
many of its significant figures, of forms of the theses about
historical conditioning of Church teaching described above. These
theses were expressed most clearly by Henri Bouillard, 19 and
criticized courteously and effectively by M.-M. Labourdette in an
article that is still worth reading (a criticism that earned him
dismissal from teaching duties by the Dominicans after the
council). 20 They were criticized more bluntly by GarrigouLagrange, who answered his own question "La nouvelle theologie
ou va t'elle?" by "Le modernisme." 21 As applied to the historicalconditioning element of the nouvelle thiologie, GarrigouLagrange was right, as the postconciliar period was to show. The
verification of this claim has contributed to a guarded and partial
rehabilitation of Garrigou-Lagrange by Fergus Kerr, who admits
that Garrigou-Lagrange was right in criticizing Maurice Blondel's
rejection of truth as adaequatio rei et intellectus, and that M.-D.
Chenu was wrong in effectively siding with Blondel on this
My own book Divine Faith is an attempt at ressourcement in the theology of faith.
In Henri Bouillard, Conversion et grace chez S. Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Aubier, 1941);
see esp. 220-24.
20 See. M.-M. Labourdette, "La theologie et ses sources," Revue Thomiste 46 (1946): 35371; and Aidan Nichols, "Thomism and the Nouvelle Thfologie," The Thomist 64 (2000): 2.
21 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, "La nouvelle theologie oil va t'elle?" Angelicum23 (1946):
126-45, followed up by "Vfrite et immutabilite du dogme," Angelicum 24 (1947): 124-39.
18

19

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387

issue. 22 It is most unfortunate that the truth of the position of the
nouvels thiologiens on the general need for ressourcement
contributed to the force of neo-Scholastic criticism of other
aspects of their views being ignored.
Etienne Fouilloux sees an evolution in Chenu's thought. It
began with the idea of ressourcement, but moved to an acceptance
of the notion of historical conditioning. 23 The key to this
evolution was a philosophical assumption that Chenu inherited
from nominalism, via the baroque Scholastics he despised. The
nominalist account of concepts described them as particular
contents of individual minds, which relate to the things in the
external world that they are concepts of through signifying these
things. 24 This view is repeated in the "Thomist" account of John
of St. Thomas. 25 On this understanding, concepts are signs of
things, of a kind that serve as intermediaries between the person
understanding and the things that are understood. The assumption
of this understanding of concepts is what permitted Chenu to hold
that concepts are capable of failing adequately to represent the
things they signify, and are susceptible of being replaced by other
22 See Fergus Kerr O.P., Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell,
2007), 30-32; idem," A Different World: Neoscholasticism and Its Discontents," International
Journal of Systematic Theology 8 (April 2006): 128-48. The work by Chenu that Kerr singles
out for criticism is his "Veri te evangelique et metaphysique W olfienne aVatican II," Revue des
sciences philosophiques et theologiques 57 (1973): 623-40. Kerr does not mention that
Chenu's position in this paper is anticipated in M.-D. Chenu, Une ecole de theologie: Le
Sau/choir (repr.; Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1985); see, e.g., 125, 139-40.
23 Etienne Fouilloux, Une Eglise en quete de liberte (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1998),
135-36.
24 For discussion and bibliography on this nominalist view and its contrast with the view
of St. Thomas, see Henrik Lagerlund, "Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy," in
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta,
(http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/representation-medieval/). Complementary
discussions and bibliographies are to be found in Stephan Meier-Oeser, "Medieval Semiotics,"
in Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition)
(http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/semiotics-medieval/); and Gyula Klima,
"The Medieval Problem of Universals," in Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition) (http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/universalsmedieval/).
25 See John of St. Thomas, "Super libros perihermeneias," in Cursus philosophicus
thomisticus, vol. 1: Ars logica (Rome: Marietti, 1948), 702-7. Jacques Maritain, in his Formal
Logic (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1937), took John of St. Thomas as a guide.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

concepts that do the job better-and, in consequence, that the
same can be said of propositions, which are made up of concepts.
Chenu thought, furthermore, that the mystical encounter with
God that is basic to faith is not mediated through concepts, and
that it is higher than any conceptual encounter; he described
propositional assent as the medium for supernatural illumination. 26 Hence his claim that every theology is the expression of a
spirituality; a theology is the expression, in conceptual terms, of
a higher spiritual encounter. 27 Hence, as well, his view that
theology must be adapted to the historical situation of the theologian. This historical situation affects the conceptual capacities
of the theologian (to deny this is to deny that the theologian exists
in history). The theological enterprise must therefore respond to
the historical situation, must respond to the "signs of the
times"-a demand that Fouilloux claims was adopted by Vatican
II from Chenu 28-rather than pretend to an atemporal understanding of truth, an understanding that would inevitably be
ossified and cut off from the living object of faith.
This position on concepts led Chenu to his support of
Blondel's definition of truth, and to his belief that the Modernists,
with their concern to adjust doctrine to historical circumstances,
had important insights. 29 It also contributed to his view, shared by
the other nouvels theologiens, that the faith ought to be expressed
in terms of contemporary philosophies, as well as-or instead
of-Scholastic categories. This view was in effect an acceptance
of a version of the Modernist heresy. A particular philosophy
gives a global account of reality, and significantly different
philosophies are different just because they give different accounts
of reality. To change the philosophical systems and concepts that
are used to express the faith is thus-as noted above-to change
26 Chenu, Une ecole de theologie, 130. In addition to this work, the important reference
for Chenu's views on this subject is his "Position de la theologie," Revue des sciences
philosophiques et theologiques 24 (1935): 232-57, collected in La parole de Dieu, I: La foi
dans !'intelligence (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1964).
27 Chenu, Une ecole de theologie, 75.
28 Fouilloux, Une Eglise en quete de liberte, 140.
29 Chenu's opinion of the Modernists was shared by Bruno de Solages and Yves Congar:
see ibid., 79-80.

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the content of the teachings of the faith; the replacement of the
notion of transubstantiation by that of transsignification is a
contemporary example. Part of the nouvels theologiens' motivation for adopting contemporary philosophies was no doubt an
apologetic intention coupled with a lack of understanding of what
philosophy is, but the baroque Scholastic understanding of
concepts would also have played a role.
Chenu's views are an instance of an important failure of
ressourcement: its glaring omission, in its researches into medieval
Scholasticism, of the central role that logic, philosophy of
language, and semantics played in medieval thought. 3° Chenu's
historicism was not entailed by his view of concepts as signs, since
one can accept this view without holding that the relation of a
given concept to the world can be improved or changed. But the
view of concepts as signs gives room for Chenu's historicism,
whereas St. Thomas's understanding of concepts does not. Saint
Thomas does not consider concepts to be signs that can represent
reality more or less accurately, because he holds that the content
of concepts is identical with the natures of the realities that they
are concepts of: "intelligibile in actu est intellectus in actu" 31 (STh
I, q. 14, a. 2). Concepts may be of more or less general types of
realities-the concept of 'man' is more specie than the concept of
'animal'-but a concept cannot represent reality inaccurately,
because all there is to the content of a concept is the feature of
reality that it is about. Nor does St. Thomas consider that there
can be a grasp of reality, aside from sense experience, that is
nonconceptual; for him, to grasp reality in a way that is not
seeing, touching, hearing, etc., just is to have a concept, or to
30 This omission was first remedied in a significant way by J.-M. Bochenski, A History of
Formal Logic (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1961), trans. and ed. by
Ivo Thomas (orig., Formate Logik [F reiburg and Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 19 5 6] ), and Peter
Geach, Reference and Generality (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962). Both authors
were Catholics, but neither of them were theologians or had any connection to the nouvelle
theologie. Serious consideration of medieval logic, a topic essential to the understanding of the
medieval philosophical and theological heritage, is still confined almost entirely to analytic
philosophers.
31 STh I, q. 14, a. 2 (St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars [Madrid: Bibilioteca de
Autores Cristianos, 1951], 106).

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undersand a proposition that is composed of concepts. This latter
position is easily established. We cannot have a grasp of reality
that does not present what we grasp as having a determinate
character. We cannot grasp a feature of reality as being no more
than a "something I know not what"; that is not a grasp of
anything. But to have an intellectual grasp of a feature of reality
as having some determinate character just is to have a concept of
the character in question. What else is it to have a concept?
The substantial philosophical topic of whether or not concepts
are signs does not have to be fully addressed in order to dispose
of Chenu's position. The understanding of concepts as signs has
been attacked by Wittgenstein, Peter Geach, 32 and Hilary Putnam,
and St. Thomas's understanding has been defended by Geach 33
and in at least some respects by Anthony Kenny. 34 The idea of
concepts as signs, or as mental representations, has nonetheless
retained a large following, largely because of its perceived
usefulness in offering a physicalist account of thought. 35 It is not
however accepted by philosophers in any form that could lend
support to Chenu. In these theories, there is no form of
nonconceptual understanding that can provide a superior
nonrepresentational grasp of reality. Propositions are true if they
accurately represent the world; if their representation of the
world is something that can be corrected (as opposed to
supplemented by the provision of more information), that means
that they are not true. To accept a theological assertion or a
Church teaching as true, on these theories, is thus to admit that
they are not susceptible of correction.
There are a number of ironies about this debate between the
nouvels theologiens and the neo-Scholastics. Henri de Lubac,
although he came to the defense of his Jesuit colleagues in the
32 Peter Geach, Mental Acts (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), a work that also
discusses St. Thomas's view.
33 Peter Geach, "Aquinas," in Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach, Three Philosophers
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1961).
34 Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Mind (Routledge: London, 1993).
35 This motivation is evident in David Pitt, "Mental Representation," in Zalta, ed., The
Stanford
Encyclopedia
of Philosophy
(Fall
2008
Edi ti on)
(http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/mental-representation/).

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debates with Labourdette and Garrigou-Lagrange, did not in fact
accept the historical-conditioning notion at all; he thought that his
claim about human nature as such being ordered to the beatific
vision was true, in the immutable, essentialist way attacked by
Danielou. The neo-Scholastics, in holding to the classical Aristotelian definition of truth, were being loyal to tradition, while
the nouvels theologiens, in distinguishing concepts and intuitions,
conceptual values and religious perceptions, supernatural
illumination and propositional assent, a catalogue of propositions
and living material, and in claiming that theology investigates
events rather than the nature of things, 36 were committing the sin
of which they accused their opponents-that of imposing an
anachronistic philosophical framework on Catholic tradition that
falsifies and obscures it (in this case, a mixture of Cartesian,
Enlightenment, sub-Kantian, and existentialist ideas).
More generally, the neo-Scholastics, in attacking the views of
the nouvels theologiens on historical conditioning by offering a
reasoned philosophical case against them, were following in the
footsteps of St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Augustine, and St.
Thomas. 37 The nouvels theologiens, for their part, did not attempt
any substantive reasoned reply to this criticism. It is doubtful
whether they could have managed to offer one; they did not think
philosophically. This is shown by their enthusiasm for Blondel,
and by their taking Pierre Teilhard de Chardin seriously. Blondel
was a confused thinker 38 and T eilhard was an intellectual
charlatan; but both were gifted rhetoricians, and their rhetoric
made the nouvels theologiens accept them as philosophers.
Indeed, rhetoric was what the nouvels theologiens understood
36 See Chenu, Une ecole de theologie, 123, 116, 130, 132, 137; also J. Danielou, "Les
orientations presentes de la pensee religieuse," Etudes 249 (1946): 5-21.
37 Kerr remarks of Garrigou-Lagrange that "he had a more informed and better-balanced
picture [of modern philosophy] than many philosophers, let alone Thomists, at that time ..
. . Ironically, when this inveterate adversary of the historico-contextualist approach considers
the philosophical options adopted by philosophers in his own day, he becomes a model of
how to engage with the philosophical issues about being, truth, and so on" (Kerr, TwentiethCentury Catholic Theologians, 13, 16).
38 Gilson remarked of Blonde! that "je suis allergique a la prose d'un esprit qui pense qu'a
force d'ecrire ii finira par savoir ce qu'il veut dire" (Fouilloux, Une Eglise en quete de liberte,

150).

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philosophy to be. In this they were children of the CounterReformation. Rhetoric, unlike philosophy, uses appeals to desires
and emotions to affect belief- that is, it uses factors connected
with the will. This revulsion from philosophical thought on the
part of the nouvels theologiens was a much more radical departure
from Catholic tradition than anything of which the neoScholastics were guilty. 39 If belief is seen as obedience to a
command, in the characteristic fashion of Counter-Reformation
theology, rhetoric will be the natural way to produce it, and
rhetoric, rather than philosophy, will be the appropriate tool for
addressing issues of faith. 40

B) Problems with the Neo-Scholastic Approach to Doctrine, and
Their Remedy
The ideas about the interpretation of Church teachings that
have been criticized so far emerge from "progressive" theological
currents that have become widely accepted only since the 1950s.
Immediately before this period, the predominant approach to the
interpretation of Church teachings was that of neo-Scholastic
theologians, itself a development of the views of baroque
Scholastics. Although this approach is still the one generally used
by theologians who reject the heterodoxy of the progressive
notions, resorting to the neo-Scholastic approach is not a
satisfactory method for evaluating certain conciliar teachings, such
as that on religious liberty. While this approach is not heterodox,
it nonetheless has serious shortcomings. Remedying them requires
39 In recounting this history it is worth noting the lone figure of Gilson, a personal and
intellectual opponent of Garrigou-Lagrange, who espoused the importance of historical
investigation-and
practiced it on a much higher level than any of the nouvels
theologiens-and sided with Labourdette in the debate over historical conditioning. See
'"Correspondance Etienne Gilson - Michel Labourdette," Revue thomiste 94 (1994): 4 79-529.
40 Eugene Marcotte, in a very important and neglected paper, described the development
of this conception of belief in the theologians of the Counter-Reformation: a conception
where the argument from authority becomes the centerpiece of theology, and the allocation
of theological notes to a conclusion that specify its degree of authority becomes the highest
task of the theologian (citing A. Gardeil O.P., "Lieux theologiques," in Dictionnaire de
theologie catholique vol. 9 [1926], col. 736). Marcotte identifies Melchior Cano as the main
influence on this theological approach, in Melchior Cano, De Locis theologiis, lib. 12, c. 4.
See Marcotte, "De Saint Thomas a nos manuels," Revue de l'universite d'Ottawa 154-74.

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some constructive work on the issue of the interpretation of
Church teachings.
One class of shortcomings arises from its dependence on a
mistaken theory of revelation, which I have dubbed the "magisterial" theory of revelation, and criticized elsewhere. 41 This theory
underlies the neo-Scholastic system of theological notes, which
divides teachings into the categories of de fide divina, de fide
divina et catholica, de fide catholica, de fide in genere, theologice
certa, doctrina catholica, and proxima fidei. The falsity of the
magisterial theory and of the theories of the development of
doctrine that are associated with it means that these classifications
are mistaken or inadequate. 42 However, since most of these notes
are intended to be applied to teachings that are infallibly taught,
we need not go into their shortcomings in detail. The feature of
the neo-Scholastic system that does concern us closely is its
general approach to Church teachings, which conceives of assent
to these teachings as primarily obedience to a command.
It should be pointed out that criticism of this conception does
not involve rejecting a crucial principle of interpretation of
Church teachings. Such teachings both convey information and
impose an obligation on believers to accept that information as
true. The content of the teaching and the fact of its promulgation
must be made manifest. To the extent that the teaching is not
made dear and binding, it does not convey information or impose
an obligation. 43 The need for clarity and promulgation is common
41 Lamont, Divine Faith, chap. 7. Fergus Kerr agrees with this dismissal of the magisterial
account; see his review of Divine Faith in New Blackfriars 88 (2007) 499-501.
42 Examples of this classification are found in M. Nicolau and I. Salaverri, Sacrae theologia
summa, I: Theologia fundamentalis, 4rh ed. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1958),
805-15; Sixtus Cartechini, De valore notarum theologicarum (Rome: Typis Pontificae
Universitatis Gregorianae, 1951); G. van Noort, Dogmatic Theology, vol. 3, The Sources of
Revelation: Divine Faith, trans. and rev. John J. Castelot and William R. Murphy (Cork:
Mercier Press, 1961), 290 (a version in English). Rejection of these theological notes should
not be construed as involving rejection of the standard theological censures of the Church (on
which see Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, s.v. "Censures doctrinales"). These censures
evolved long before the neo-Scholastic system of theological notes and the theology of
revelation that underlies them, so the content of a particular censure cannot be seen as
equivalent to the negation of a particular neo-Scholastic note.
43 This basic point is made in Cartechini, De valore notarum theologicarum, 22.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

to teachings of the faith and to commands. Nor is criticism of this
approach meant to imply that there is no such thing as obligation
in faith. The trouble with the neo-Scholastic view is that it loses
sight of the primary form of obligation that faith involves. This
obligation is not the obligation to obey an order from a superior,
but the obligation to believe the assertion of a trustworthy speaker
(cf. 1John5: 10). This mistaken perspective of the neo-Scholastic
view emerges in two of its characteristic features.
The first of these features is the classification of Church
teachings according to the sin involved in rejecting them, rather
than the degree of rational conviction that they should be given.
This feature is neatly expressed in Sixtus Cartechini's diagram of
the various kinds of teachings, to each of which is attached the
degree and nature of the sin incurred by disbelief in them. 44 This
kind of classification is certainly what is needed by a confessor
dealing with very erudite penitents. However, it is of less use to
theologians, for whom it is not the sin involved in rejecting a
teaching, but its truth and degree of warrant, that are of interest.
These features of a teaching cannot always be simply read off
from the degree of sin (if any) that is involved in rejecting it. In a
particular individual, blameless ignorance and stupidity will affect
the degree of culpability of disbelief, but not the degree of
warrant of a teaching. And when we consider teachings taken in
themselves and abstract from the effects of ignorance and
stupidity, the degree of sin involved in disbelieving them is not a
fine-grained enough measure to identify the degree of warrant
they deserve. For one thing, sin can attach only to the fact of
disbelief as such; there is no sin in accepting a Church teaching as
true, but not awarding it the degree of probability it deserves.
The second characteristic feature is the predominant neoScholastic view that Church teaching should be interpreted in
such a way as to minimize as far as possible the obligation of
Catholics to believe. This view results from combining the notion
of faith as obedience with the position in moral theology known
as probabilism. It is usually expressed with regard to infallible
44

Ibid., 134-35; see also van Noort, The Sources of Revelation, 290.

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teaching, but the general principle that Catholics should only have
to believe the minimum that can reasonably be expected of them
applies a fortiori to noninfallible teaching. It is stated by Cartechini in his manual for theologians of the Holy Office:
"Condemnation, as an odious thing, is to be restricted .... Since
infallibility demands a sacrifice of the mind, the Church requires
this sacrifice to the minimum extent possible. "45
The same teaching is also advanced by a great name, John
Henry Newman. In his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, he writes,
So difficult a virtue is faith, even with the special grace of God, in proportion as
the reason is exercised, so difficult is it to assent inwardly to propositions,
verified to us neither by reason nor experience, but as depending for their
reception on the word of the Church as God's oracle, that [the Church] has ever
shown the utmost care to contract, as far as possible, the range of truths and the
sense of proposition, of which she demands this absolute reception. 46

Newman was not giving here the fruit of his personal investigation and reflection on this topic. He was accepting Fr. Ignatius
Dudley Ryder's account of the Catholic theology of faith, and
Ryder in turn was repeating the standard baroque Scholastic view.
It is Ryder's criticism of W. G. Ward that Newman cites as the
source of his position. 47 Ryder later gave a clear and characteristic
identification of faith with obedience: "What probabilism is in
moral, that is minimism [Ryder's own view] in dogmatic theology;
they are both based upon a common principle, 'lex dubia non

45 "Damnatio, ut res odiosa, restringenda est.... Infallibilitas ergo, cum exigat sacrificium
mentis, Ecclesia imponit hoc sacrificium in minimo gradu possibili" (Cartechini, De valore
notarum theologicarum, 25, 26). Cartechini makes this point to buttress his claim that it is the
contradictory, not the contrary, of an anathematized proposition that must be believed as a
matter of faith-quite unnecessarily, since this claim follows as a matter of logic.
46 John Henry Newman, "A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk on the Occasion of Mr.
Gladstone's Recent Expostulation," in Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic
Teaching, vol. 2 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1910), 320.
47 Newman (ibid.), quotes Ryder's Idealism in Theology, a Review of Dr. Ward's Scheme
of Dogmatic Authority (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 18 67). No doubt Newman was
glad to have this position to hand to combat Ward's excesses, which would explain why he
did not consider its shortcomings.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

obligat.'" 48 Cartechini quotes this very maxim, "lex dubia non obligat," in his handbook. 49 Newman's espousal of this view found
expression in his criticism of the definition of papal infallibility:
"When has definition of doctrine de fide been a luxury of
devotion, and not a stern painful necessity?" 50
This view can only be maintained if we do not think about the
fact that the object of faith is the gospel of Christ. When we do
think about this, we realize that what Newman, Ryder, and
Cartechini are saying is that the faithful should be asked to believe
as little of the gospel as possible, and hence that they should be
required to know as little of the saving truth of the gospel as
possible, and to make the minimum possible number of those acts
of charity that are acts of the virtue of formed faith. This view
implies that professing the Catholic faith is a stern painful
necessity; that the faithful would be better off in some respects if
there were fewer books of the Scripture and fewer articles of the
Creed; and that Christ's hearers became worse off in some
respects when they heard him explain how he was the fulfillment
of the Scriptures, because this explanation imposed on them a
sacrifice of the mind, through requiring them to believe more
things as a matter of faith. It ignores the fact that faith gives us the
most important truths.
The premise from which these absurd conclusions follow is,
not surprisingly, a false one. For the principle "lex dubia non
obligat" to be applicable to faith, not only would probabilism with
respect to laws have to be true, but in addition an act of faith
would have to consist in obedience to a command, which is not
the case. The fact that disbelieving God is a sin does not entail
48 Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder, unpublished review of Salvatore di Bartolo's Criteri
teologici, in Essays (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1911), 316. Ward's ultramontane
view of papal authority, in contrast, could be compared to tutiorism in moral theology, but
argument for an approach to interpretation of Church teachings analogous to tutiorism does
not seem often to have been advanced by academic theologians, and the minimizing view had
become the generally accepted one by the twentieth century.
49 Cartechini, De valore notarum theologicarum, 22.
so John Henry Newman, "Letter to Bishop Ullathorne, Jan, 28'h 1870," in Letters and
Diaries, vol. 25, ed. C. S. Dessain and T. Gornall, S.J. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 1819. Newman sacrifices logic to rhetoric in this criticism, since the two alternatives he proposes
obviously do not exhaust the possibilities.

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that the object of an act of faith is a command. Faith is belief in
God's testimony, 51 and an act of believing someone's testimony is
not an act of obedience to a command; it is an act of accepting
their claim as true, on account of their saying it. 52 The criteria for
determining what it is that someone is saying are simply the
criteria for understanding expressions in human language. There
is nothing that requires or permits "contracting as far as possible
the sense of a proposition" that is believed on the basis of
someone's testimony.
The fact that faith is belief in God's testimony reveals the
mistake in Newman and Cartechini's claim that increasing the
content of the faith as such means increasing the difficulty of
faith. Believing another dogma is not like having to donate
another $1000 to the poor. The basic psychological and
intellectual difficulty of faith lies in accepting that the Church, to
outward observation simply a human group, is in fact speaking for
God in announcing the faith. If this difficulty is overcome, it is
not intrinsically more difficult to believe more doctrines than less;
just as if we accept that a given individual is a competent doctor,
we go on believing the advice he gives us about our health,
without taking into account the volume of the advice he gives. We
may have difficulty in believing him if his advice seems contrary
to other evidence, but it is the seeming contradiction that gives
rise to the problem, not the volume of advice he gives as such.
The same applies to believing the teachings of the Church.
The minimizing view of belief is often supported by appeal to
the fact, noted above, that teachings of the faith, like ecclesiastical
laws (which are commands), require manifest promulgation in
order to be binding. It is thence concluded that the requirement
of manifest promulgation justifies the application of the principle

51 Lamont, Divine Faith, chaps. 2, 8, expands on this basic dogma, which is set forth in
Vatican I's dogmatic constitution Dei Filius.
52 On belief in testimony, see Lamont, Divine Faith, chap. 6; C. A. J. Coady, Testimony:
A Philosophical Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Bimal Krishna Matilal and Arindam
Chakrabarti eds., Knowing from Words (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1994); J. Lackey and
E. Sosa, eds., The Epistemology of Testimony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

"lex dubia non obligat." 53 However, we can see the fallacy in
arguing from the need for manifest promulgation to a minimizing
view of doctrine by considering a parallel with systems of civil
law. Such systems usually include the requirement for a law to be
promulgated in some manifest way in order to be binding. In
Canada, for example, federal law must receive the royal assent
from the Governor General, and then be published in the Canada
Gazette. This does not however enable Canadian lawyers to apply
a probabilist kind of minimizing to Canadian law. The issue of
manifest promulgation bears on the question of whether a law
exists, not on the question of what the content of a law
commands; and it is in relation to the latter question that the issue
of minimizing arises. It is of course possible to attempt to
minimize obligations by questioning the existence rather than the
content of Church teachings, but this is rarely feasible in practice,
because systems of promulgation are deliberately arranged to
make the fact of promulgation clear. Thus, for example, since the
issuance of the constitution Promulgandi pontificias by Pope St.
Pius X (29 Sept. 1908), publication in the Acta apostolicae sedis
is required for a law of the Holy See, unless the Holy See provides
otherwise through some other recognized form (e.g., an apostolic
constitution). This should not be taken as implying that certain
precise forms of promulgation are required for a Church teaching
to be promulgated and thus binding. Given the varied
circumstances of the Church throughout the centuries, such a
requirement would be impractical. All that is necessary is that the
form of words used and the method of their being communicated
53 The principle is enunciated by Gratian: "Leges instituuntur, cum promulgantur" (Decreti
prima pars, dist. 4, c. 3 [Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 1, A. L. Richter ed. (Leipzig: Tauchnitz,
1879), 6]). Saint Thomas argues for this principle in STh I-II, q. 90, a. 4, citing Gratian as an
authority. The principle is not a universal one; the Japanese legal code of 1790, for example,
stipulates that it is only to be shown to the officials concerned with implementing it. This in
turn seems partly rooted in a saying attributed to Confucius, to the effect that the people
should obey the laws but not be instructed in them; see Gilbert Bailey, "The Promulgation of
Law," The American Political Science Review 35, no. 6 (Dec. 1941): 1059-84. I have not been
able to determine whether Gratian was the first explicitly to formulate this principle (it is not
in the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, book 5, which is where Gratian gets much of the
material he uses in this distinction). If Gratian was the first legal thinker to explicitly formulate
this principle, this is a very important advance.

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399

clearly manifest the intention of addressing a binding teaching, of
whatever level, to the whole Church. 54
In addition to the need for manifest promulgation, there is also
a requirement that the content of a teaching be clear; we are
obligated to believe only what is clearly taught. However, the fact
that clarity is a necessary condition for the existence of a Church
teaching is not a ground for minimizing. The clarity of the content
of a teaching is a function of the meanings of the sentences used
to express it, which in turn is a function of the rules of meaning
for the languages in which the sentences are uttered, taking into
account the context. These rules will determine the degree of
clarity-that is, of lack of vagueness and/or ambiguity-of a
teaching. But there is no rational basis for attempting to minimize
the content determined by these meaning rules. In fact, the rules
themselves incorporate standards for determining the amount of
content that should be attributed to utterances. Provided that
there is some clear content to a teaching, the nature of its content
is simply that which is determined by the rules of the language
used; and that content is what we have a duty to believe, without
any maxim1zmg or minimizing.
It could be maintained that although minimizing ought not to
be applied to the content of a Church teaching, the degree of
obligation to believe a Church teaching, once its meaning has been
ascertained, is subject to the principle "lex dubia non obligat," and
ought thus to be minimized. This would not apply to teachings
that have been taught by the Church as a matter of faith, but
might be claimed to apply to noninfallible teachings. This claimas Ryder says-stands or falls with the truth of probabilism, of
which this principle is a maxim. The issue of the truth of
probabilism is an important one, that will be addressed in
subsequent work on the issue of religious freedom; it will there be
54 Cartechini makes this point with respect to papal teachings ex cathedra (De valore
notarum theologicarum, 28). Lucien Choupin, in his standard work Valeur des decisions
doctrinales et disciplinaires du Saint-Siege, 3··d ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1928), makes the same
point: "the Pope is not obliged to use a specific form" ("le Pape n'est pas astreint a une forme
speciale" [27]). This principle applies to Church teachings generally, not only to papal ones.
The rule that publication in the Acta apostolicae sedis is not a necessary condition for
promulgation was established by a decree in the Acta apostolicae sedis 5 (1913): 558.

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argued that probabilism is a harmful mistake that has had destructive effects in the Church. But even if probabilism is true, the
claim will still be one that is relevant to the confessor, rather than
the theologian, for the claim professedly bears upon the moral
obligation to believe a teaching, rather than the rational degree of
assent that the teaching merits.
In attacking the minimizing view as absurd, some explanation
is called for as to why, if absurd, it came to be generally accepted.
One of its sources, the notion of faith as obedience to a command,
was partly a result of attitudes inherited from nominalism, which
conceived of the moral life entirely in terms of obedience to
commands. Since faith is a virtue, it follows from this view that
faith is a disposition to obey commands. This notion was
reinforced by the habits of mind produced by the measures
adopted to deal with the emergency of the Reformation. The
project of the Counter-Reformation relied crucially upon the
substitution of seminaries for universities as the means for training
clergy, and upon the Society of Jesus. Both these institutions
exalted obedience as the supreme virtue, and discouraged
independence of mind. This was particularly true of the Jesuits on
account of their requirement that Jesuit scholars teach as true the
more common Jesuit opinion, as opposed to the one that struck
a given Jesuit as best supported by reason. The other source of the
minimalist view, the probabilist approach to obedience, was also
a result of the nominalist inheritance (and of measures taken to
deal with the results of this inheritance).
The ultramontane attitude to belief also strengthened the
minimizing approach, once ultramontanism became powerful in
the nineteenth century. From a psychological point of view, the
minimizing approach is a sort of adolescent rebellion against the
infantile features of the ultramontane attitude. The minimizing
approach in turn strengthened the ultramontane approach, by
giving rise to alarm about the risk of eroding the faith of
believers-a danger against which the ultramontane approach
presented itself as a shield. The two fed on each other, at the
expense of an approach dedicated to finding out exactly what the

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401

Church taught, without attempting to minimize or maximize, and
then believing it.
This conception of faith as obedience to authority, and the
general nominalist outlook from which it sprang, had an
important influence on the debate over religious liberty and the
production of Dignitatis humanae. It meant that objections about
Dignitatis humanae contradicting previous teaching were not
taken very seriously by most bishops at the council. If one's
fundamental model of faith is that of obeying a command rather
than that of grasping reality, it is psychologically easier to accept
a Church pronouncement that seems hard to reconcile with earlier
teachings, because it is quite permissible-and even necessaryfor an authority to issue one command at one time, and a contrary
command at a later time. The effect of this fundamental model
can be seen in the expression "the contemporary magisterium."
Theologically this expression is nonsensical, because there is only
one Church with one teaching office, and the pronouncements of
this teaching office, from the apostles to our own time, are to be
interpreted as a whole. If however these teachings are seen as
commands, it is reasonable to conceive of a "contemporary
magisterium" distinct from the past magisterium, and to conceive
of the deliverances of the former as superseding those of the
latter. The continued debates over the morality of contraception
and the possibility of women's ordination reflect this conception
of the faith (as well as the acceptance of notions of the historical
conditioning of doctrine criticized above). Church teachings on
these subjects are conceived of as orders that could in theory be
countermanded, rather than as what they in fact are-descriptions
of reality that are true beyond a reasonable doubt.
The debate over Dignitatis humanae was also influenced by
this conception of faith in a more general fashion. The notion of
belief as obedience to authority had a blighting influence on the
philosophical culture of the Church, because it tended to destroy
the habits of mind needed for philosophy. This can be seen by
comparing the philosophical achievements of the clergy before

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

and after the Counter-Reformation. 55 Some of this philosophical
decline is no doubt due to the fact that Counter-Reformation
systems incorporated incompatible elements from earlier thinkers.
(The principal incompatibility was the acceptance of nominalist
concepts while allegedly following St. Thomas.) This meant that
one could not adhere to these systems if one thought deeply about
philosophical issues; probably this was partly a product and partly
a cause of clerical intellectual weakness. Leo XIII's attempt to
revive Thomism had limited success in reforming this shortcoming, in part because many of its supporters tried to impose
this revival principally as a matter of obedience. This shortcoming
fatally handicapped discussion of the right to religious freedom,
a discussion that centered around difficult philosophical issues.

C) The Degrees of Warrant of Noninfallible Church Teachings
Having established the unsuitableness for theological purposes
of considering belief in noninfallible Church teachings in terms of
obedience to authority, we can set about the positive task of
describing the degrees of warrant that can attach to such
teachings. There are four basic categories of warrant that they can
possess.
(A) Taught with such a degree of authority that it is
unreasonable to suppose that there could ever be any good
evidence against their being true.
In understanding this category, it is important to remember the
character of infallible teachings. These teachings have the highest
55 Malebranche (d. 1715) was the last cleric to make an important philosophical
contribution. Significantly, after his time, those priests who were important to
philosophy-Bolzano and Brentano-left the priesthood. A key step in the demise of Catholic
philosophy was the replacement in the late seventeenth century of St. Thomas's commentaries
on Aristotle by philosophical manuals as texts for instruction, "mainly in order to meet the
pedagogical requirements of students preparing for the ministerial priesthood" (Romanus
Cessario O.P., A Short History of Thomism [Washington, D. C.:The Catholic University of
America Press, 2005], 83-84.) The elements of a revival of philosophical aptitude among the
clergy that were fostered by the Thomist revival were cut short by the postconciliar reforms,
which destroyed almost all serious philosophical formation for clerics.

THE CONTENT AND AUTHORITY OF CHURCH TEACHINGS

403

degree of warrant that a human belief can have; they are as
certain as that 1 + 1 = 2. This is the degree of warrant that
attaches to beliefs where there is no logical possibility of their
being false, and where the nonexistence of such a logical
possibility is known with certainty. (This is not a claim that
infallible teachings are of this character. They are not, since if
they were, belief in them could not be voluntary and could not be
an exercise of faith. It is rather a claim that infallible teachings
have the same degree of warrant, and demand the same degree of
assent, as statements of this character.)
Beneath this strength of warrant, which in matters of faith
belongs only to infallible teachings, there is a lesser degree of
warrant, according to which the logical possibility of a belief's
being false is admitted (e.g., the belief that I am not deceived by
an evil demon in the way described by Descartes, or the belief that
the world did not come into existence five minutes ago with all
the apparent traces of its past built into it), but where it is
unreasonable to suppose that any good evidence for their being
false will ever turn up. Sufficiently authoritative Church teachings
which nonetheless fall short of infallibility fall into this category.
(B) Authoritatively taught, and without any evidence against
their truth, but where the real possibility of there being such
evidence is not excluded.
(C) Authoritatively taught, and with existing evidence against
their truth, but where the evidence against them is not strong
enough to justify rejecting them.
(D) Authoritatively taught, but contradicted by evidence that
is so strong that they ought reasonably to be rejected.
Any discussion of the truth of a noninfallible Church teaching
will effectively be assuming that that teaching does not belong to
category (A), and discussing whether or not it belongs to category
(D).

Such discussion must begin by identifying the sense of the
teaching in question. In making this identification, we must take
into account the point, made above, that we ought to understand

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

a given individual teaching as having a sense that is true and that
harmonizes with the rest of the teachings of the Church, unless
the way in which such a teaching is expressed makes such an
understanding impossible. The sense we attribute to a given individual teaching may thus not be the one we would have ascribed
to the sentences that express it, if we had encountered those
sentences in a different context. This could be described as giving
these sentences a nonnatural sense, or as giving them a pious
interpretation. Such descriptions are however misleading, because
they imply that we are interpreting the sentences in question in
some kind of unusual or nonstandard way. This is not the case;
we are simply applying the principles that are to be used in
understanding utterances generally. 56 What makes the result of
this application seem unusual is the fact that the application is not
to the utterances of Pope X or Council Y taken in isolation, but
to the utterances of the Catholic Church, who speaks through
these instruments, and whose meaning is not therefore to be
understood as corresponding to what these individuals or groups
might be understood as saying if they were speaking on their own
behalf.
This principle of interpretation has implications for the
question of whether or not a particular Church teaching is false.
The whole body of Church teaching forms a harmonious whole.
The minimal form of harmony that can exist between a particular
Church teaching and the whole body of Church teaching is that
of absence of contradiction. Typically, however, because Church
teaching is a unified whole dealing with a particular subject
matter, this harmony will consist in a particular Church teaching's
repeating and/or elucidating other teachings. Because Church
teaching as a whole cannot be false, the latter kind of harmony
makes it difficult for an individual teaching to be false, and
impossible for it to be a radical misrepresentation of reality.
Ascribing a sense to a given Church teaching that harmonizes with
Church teaching as a whole will thus also be ascribing a sense to
56 For exposition of these principles, with a particular application of them to Church
teaching, see Richard Swinburne, Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy, ld ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007).

THE CONTENT AND AlITHORITY OF CHURCH TEACHINGS

405

it that makes it unlikely to be false, and that is not a radically
wrong description of reality. This in itself will make it unusual to
identify a Church teaching that falls under category (D).
If, however, there is no option but to ascribe to a given Church
teaching a sense whose truth seems doubtful, there are a number
of considerations that need to be kept in mind in evaluating it.
One consideration is that although there is by definition a (low)
possibility of any noninfallible teaching that is not in category (A)
being false, this does not imply that there is a possibility (however
low) of all these teachings being false; no such possibility exists.
These teachings are brought into being by God for the purpose of
teaching the faithful, and this purpose would be frustrated if a
majority of them-or even a greater proportion than an extremely
small minority-turned out to be false. It is impossible for God to
be frustrated, so it would be impossible for this to happen. It
follows that if there is a sufficient weight of teaching in favor of
some doctrine, the possibility of the doctrine's being false must be
excluded, even if none of the teachings taken individually is
infallible or in category (A). This fact has traditionally been
recognized by theologians, who have accepted that a sufficient
weight of teaching in favor of a doctrine has the effect of making
that doctrine a teaching of the faith, even if each individual
teaching that asserts the doctrine could in itself possibly be false.
This is connected to a general point about theological
investigation that is pertinent to questions such as those of
religious liberty. Such investigation can only be focussed on the
authority of a particular noninfallible pronouncement respecting
it when it is a question of whether or not that teaching is in
category (A). For the other levels, what is needed is an
investigation of all the factors that are relevant to the question,
where the Church teachings that will have to be considered
cannot be restricted to one pronouncement that addresses the
question, but must instead be Church teaching taken as a whole
in so far as it has any bearing on the subject at hand. Focussing
upon particular magisterial utterances, when it comes to teachings
that are not infallibly taught, is (except for category [A]) an

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

inappropriate transfer to fallible teachings of an approach that
properly belongs to the consideration of infallible ones. With
infallible teachings, this approach is correct, because particular
infallible teachings are capable on their own of finally settling a
debated question, and are typically intended to do just that.
Noninfallible teachings in categories (B), (C), or (D), on the other
hand, are not suited to being considered except within the whole
context of Church teaching and tradition that bears upon the
subject they address. Since the contents of Dignitatis humanae
certainly do not belong to category (A), this is the approach that
needs to be taken to the question of the teachings of the Church
on religious liberty.
If there is a real case for the falsity of a given teaching, either
because it contradicts another teaching or because there is very
strong evidence against it that is external to Church teaching, two
issues will arise: (1) proving its falsity, and (2) explaining its
falsity. These will be related, since it will be easier to conclude
that a teaching is false if a plausible explanation for its falsity is
available. Such explanation is called for, because an authoritative
Church teaching is not the sort of thing that can just turn out to
be false every once in a while, in the way that the conclusions of
statistical inferences with a probability of .95 will just happen to
be false one time in twenty. Such teachings have the function of
conveying the truth, and the Church has the capacity to
communicate the truth through them-that is why they are
authoritative. If they fail in this function, it is because something
has interfered with this capacity. Nothing could bring it about that
the Catholic faith could itself contain any falsehood, so the
explanation for a false Church teaching can only be a failing in
the human instruments who formulate it. Such failings can result
either from error or from deceit in these instruments, these being
the two possible explanations for the falsity of any form of
teaching. A claim that a given Church teaching is false, if it is to
be plausible, must thus include reasons for believing that the
human instruments who uttered it on behalf of the Church were
either deceitful or in error.

THE CONTENT AND AUTHORITY OF CHURCH TEACHINGS

407

This account of the methods for identifying the content and
degrees of authority of noninfallible Church teaching does not
make any radically new proposals. Instead, it systematizes and to
some extent makes explicit principles that theologians have always
been practicing. This is how it should be; a radically new account
of how to determine the content and degree of authority of
Church teachings would imply that theologians have been badly
mistaken about these teachings for two thousand years, which is
absurd if Catholicism is true. The need for this explicit
systematization arises from the development of approaches to
Church teaching that are radically new-approaches that have
described and criticized above. These radically new approaches
have promoted distorted understandings of the Church's teachings
on a number of subjects, and especially in the field of religious
liberty. Application of this systematized approach will be valuable
in correcting this distorted understanding. However, as the
account of this approach given above makes clear, its application
requires a thorough consideration of the Catholic tradition on the
questions at issue; and this consideration must be undertaken in
a further discussion.

The Thomist 72 (2008): 409-42

DIONYSIAN ELEMENTS IN THOMAS AQUINAS'S
CHRISTOLOGY: A CASE OF THE AUTHORITY AND
AMBIGUITY OF PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS
ANDREW HOFER, 0.P.
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

T

HOMAS AQUINAS FEATURES Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite 1 in the very first article of the Tertia pars of the
Summa Theologiae, on whether it was fitting that God
should become incarnate. This use of Dionysius to begin the
treatise on the Savior can prompt us to step back and reconsider
him as a source for Aquinas's teaching on Christ. The general
authority of Dionysius has been a source of some dispute, both in
the tradition and at present. 2 Christology today could gain much
from considering Aquinas's sensitive appropriation of this
enigmatic ancient figure.
The most influential Greek patristic authority in Aquinas's
thought, Dionysius presents within Aquinas's treatment on Christ
a pervasively ambiguous source. Aquinas adapts Dionysius's
teaching to strengthen his own understanding of the incarnation.
Aquinas's frequent recourse to the theandric operation, in
particular, demonstrates his keen appreciation for Dionysius and
the wider Greek tradition. Yet, the most significant point of
1 For the sake of brevity, hereafter I refer to him as Dionysius or the Areopagite.
2 For example, see the intra-Orthodox

debate on Dionysius's orthodoxy in the exchange
between Kenneth Paul Wesche and Hieromonk Alexander: Kenneth Paul Wesche,
"Christological Doctrine and Liturgical Interpretation in Pseudo-Dionysius," St. Vladimir's
Theological Quarterly (1989): 53-73; Hieromonk Alexander, "On the Other Hand," St.
Vladimir's Theological Quarterly (1990): 305-23; and Kenneth Paul Wesche, "Appendix: A
Reply to HieromonkAlexander's Reply," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly (1990): 324-27.
409

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

convergence between the Christology of Dionysius and that of the
Summa Theologiae lies not in explicating Christ's theandric
operation, but rather in extolling the divine goodness and
philanthropia in Christ for the salvation of sinners.
My investigation falls into four parts. The first sketches a
broad assessment of the presence of Dionysius in the thought of
Aquinas in order to establish his preeminence among Aquinas's
Greek patristic sources. The second undertakes a brief overview
of Dionysian Christology, particularly in regards to its articulation
of Christ's theandric operation and its emphasis on philanthropia.
The third surveys the Dionysian presence in Aquinas's Christo logy
in questions 1-59 of the Tertia pars. With all this as background,
the fourth section offers a more detailed and critical appreciation
of all of Aquinas's uses of one Dionysian contribution: Christ's
theandric operation. I conclude by suggesting the importance of
Aquinas's understanding of the theandric operation for ecumenism today and underscoring the common emphasis in Dionysius and Aquinas of God's love made known in the Savior for us
smners.
I. DIONYSIUS AS A SOURCE FOR AQUINAS

Estimates in assessing the role of Dionysius in Aquinas's
thought vary considerably. T. C. O'Brien defines an auctoritas for
medievals as a privileged text "from the canonical Scriptures,
ecclesiastical writers, canon law, liturgy, even the philosophers."
He then claims that Dionysius is cited by Aquinas "more than any
other single auctoritas." 3 This is an exaggeration, as the canonical
Scriptures are for Aquinas a far superior and more frequently
cited authority than any nonbiblical source. 4 Significantly for our
3 T. C. O'Brien, "The Dionysian Corpus," Appendix 3 to Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologiae, vol. 14 (Ia. 103-109), Divine Government, trans. T. C. O'Brien (New York:
McGraw-Hill Co., 1975), 182-83.
4 For the position of biblical authority versus other authorities, see esp. STh I, q. 1, a. 8,
ad 2. For an important study of Scripture in St. Thomas's theology, see Wilhelmus G. B. M.
Valkenberg, Words of the Living God: Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology
of St. Thomas Aquinas (Leuven: Peeters, 2000). For example, Valkenberg states that 4,105
explicit scriptural references are found in STh III, qq. 1-59. Adding implicit quotations,

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411

present interest, Aquinas often poses objections to the use of a
nonscriptural term in theology on the basis of Dionysius's
authority that no one should ever dare to say anything about God
except what is divinely expressed to us by the Sacred Scriptures. 5
In fact, Wayne Hankey goes so far as to say that "Denys
determines his [Aquinas's] interpretation of Holy Scripture." 6
Returning to a position reminiscent of O'Brien's, Hankey states
flatly, "[T]he authority and strength of Denys' writings for
Aquinas is unsurpassed by others. " 7
In light of the profound and complex influences of Aristotle
and Augustine on Aquinas, Hankey's claim is unconvincing, but
a more manageable question can be asked. How does the
Areopagite compare with other Greek Fathers as an auctoritas for
Aquinas? Even this question has hazards. In an article on Aquinas
and the Fathers of the Church, Leo Elders offers a table of
research results from the Index Thomisticus. 8 The tabulation gives
statistics of patristic references in Aquinas, but it should be
interpreted with care. For example, Elders knows that the Opus
imperfectum, excerpted liberally by Aquinas along with John
Chrysostom's homilies on Matthew, is falsely attributed to
Chrysostom. 9 However, his research does not take this fact into
account when it gives 1,281 citations of "Chrysostom" in the
Catena aurea on Matthew. Omitting the many false references
allusions, and vague resemblances, he finds that the number rises to 6,251 (ibid., 24).
5 Dionysius emphasizes the scriptural bounds for our discourse at the beginning of On the
Divine Names. Aquinas quotes Dionysius on this principle in Summa Theologiae I, q. 29, a.
3, obj. 1; I, q. 36, a. 2, obj. 1; I, q. 39, a. 2, obj. 2. Aquinas paraphrases it without mention
of Dionysius in STh III, q. 35, a. 4, arg. 1. See Valkenberg's treatment of "Scripture as
auctoritas," in Words of the Living God, 11-18.
6 Wayne John Hankey, "Dionysian Hierarchy in St. Thomas Aquinas: Tradition and
Transformation," in Denys l'Areopagite et sa posterite en Orient et en Occident, Actes du
Colloque International Paris, 21-24 September 1994, ed. Ysabel de Andia, Collection des
Etudes Augustiniennes, Serie Antiquite 151 (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Augustiniennes, 1997),
405-38, at 435.
7 Ibid. Hankey says that Aquinas's acceptance of Dionysius determines his choice and
understanding of the other leading authorities-Aristotle and Augustine.
8 Leo J. Elders, S.V.D., "Santo Tomas de Aquino y los Padres de la Iglesia," Doctor
Communis 48 (1995): 55-80; table on p. 66.
9 Ibid., 61.

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

would reduce that number, but it should still be conceded that
Chrysostom exercises a far greater influence in the exegetical
works authored and compiled by Aquinas than does Dionysius.
Dionysius, after all, has extant only four treatises and ten
letters-no biblical commentary or homily.
How frequently does Dionysius appear throughout Aquinas's
opera omnia? J. Durantel's groundbreaking study on the
Dionysian influence on Aquinas reports 1,702 explicit citations,
not including other forms of reference. 10 But this number is now
known to be too low. According to John D. Jones, whose
Catalogue of Citations of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the
Opera Omnia of St. Thomas Aquinas will be published by The
Catholic University of America Press, Aquinas "refers directly to
Dionysius in nearly 2200 texts-more references than to any
other author except Aristotle and Augustine." 11 Indeed, Jones's
own careful notation of explicit citations shows that Dionysius
appears 755 times in the Scriptum super Sententiis, 582 times in
the Summa Theologiae, and 48 times in the Summa contra
Gentiles. 12 These figures can be compared with Chrysostom's 42
times in the Scriptum, 240 times in the Summa Theologiae, and 0
times in the Summa contra Gentiles, as well as Damascene's 285
times in the Scriptum, 328 times in the Summa Theologiae, and 7
times in the Summa contra Gentiles. 13 Moreover, Aquinas chose
to write commentaries on only two Christian nonbiblical authors:
Boethius and Dionysius. When taking Aquinas's commentary on
10 See the 1917 doctoral thesis of J. Durante!, Saint Thomas et le Pseudo-Denis (Paris:
Librairie Felix Akan, 1919), 60.
11 John D. Jones, "An Absolutely Simple God? Frameworks for Reading Pseudo-Dionysius
Areopagite," The Thomist 69 (2005): 371-406, at 371. This number does not include the
constant internal references within the Commentaria in librum de Divinis Nominibus.
12 Jones generously shared the results of his research with me before his publication. The
references to Dionysius in Aquinas's Scriptum super Sententiiss can be found 167 times in the
first book, 221 times in the second book, 122 times in the third book, and 245 times in the
fourth book. In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas refers to Dionysius 260 times in the Prima
pars, 102 times in the Prima secundae, 113 times in the Secunda secundae, and 107 times in
the Tertia pars.
13 See Elders, "Santo Tomas de Aquino y los Padres de la Iglesia," 66. As Jones readjusts
the figures for Dionysius, one can imagine other ways of figuring the tallies for Chrysostom
and Damascene.

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413

Dionysius's longest treatise, On the Divine Names, into
consideration, the material presence of Dionysius significantly
increases. Thanks to Jones's research, Dionysius should be
esteemed as the leading Greek Christian authority for Aquinas's
writing. 14
Moreover, the evidence of Aquinas's ongoing adaptation of
Dionysius is not limited only to explicit citations of the
Areopagite. Aquinas famously writes "Therefore, since grace does
not destroy nature but perfects it ... ". 15 Less well known is how
closely this relates to what he twice quotes from Dionysius
elsewhere in the Summa Theologiae, "It is characteristic of
providence not to corrupt nature, but to preserve it. " 16 Another
case is taken from Aquinas's Christology. Aquinas asks whether it
was fitting that Christ should preach to the Jews, and not to the
Gentiles (STh III, q. 42, a. 1). In the second reason he gives for
this fittingness he notes that Christ's coming was from God, by
whom all things are ordered. Because of their faith and worship
of the one God, the Jews were closer to God. Therefore, Aquinas
argues, Christ's doctrine should have been first propounded to the
Jews and "through them it be transmitted to the Gentiles, just as
also in the celestial hierarchy the divine illuminations come down
through the higher angels to the lower ones." 17 Aquinas does not
14 For a different reckoning, see Gilles Emery, O.P., "A Note on St. Thomas and the
Eastern Fathers," trans. Jennifer Harms and John Baptist Ku, O.P., in Gilles Emery, O.P.,
Trinity, Church, and the Human Person: Thomistic Essays (Naples, Fla.: Sapientia Press,
2007), 193-207. Emery considers Dionysius to be "only in second place" to Chrysostom for
material presence in Aquinas's works ( 196). He also states, "However, concerning reflections
organized in a synthetic manner, it is to St. John Damascene that St. Thomas turns the most
often" (198). I agree that Aquinas turns most frequently to Damascene among the Greeks in
certain areas. For a pertinent example, Aquinas cites the name Damascene in the Christology
of STh III, qq. 1-59 over 120 times.
15 "Cum igitur gratia non tollat naturam sed perficiat" (STh I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2).
16 "Providentiae non est naturam corrumpere, sed salvare," from Dionysius, On the Divine
Names 4. Quoted in STh II-II, q. 165, a. 1; and STh III, q. 44, a. 2, obj. 1. Cf. Paul Rorem,
Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 168 and 177 n. 12; and Richard Schenk, O.P., "From
Providence to Grace: Thomas Aquinas and the Platonists of the Mid-Thirteenth Century,"
Nova et Vetera 3 (2005): 307-20.
17 STh III, q. 42, a. 1: "per eos transmitteretur ad gentes; sicut etiam in coelesti hierarchia
per superiores angelos ad inferiores divinae illuminationes deveniunt."

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

explicitly cite Dionysius, and Dionysius does not discuss the
transmission of the gospel to the nations through Israel. However,
the Dionysian inspiration is palpable. This suggests that Aquinas
used the Dionysian concept of hierarchy without any need for
added elaboration. Indeed, the Dionysian word "hierarchy" had
become a standard term in Western usage by Aquinas's day. 18
Such a pervasive reliance upon Dionysius was by no means
universal in Western Scholasticism. Peter Lombard quotes
Dionysius only three times in all of his Sententiae. 19 Between the
time of Lombard's Sentences and Aquinas's Scriptum, Scholasticism received a rather dramatic Dionysian infusion. 20 Reputed
to be Paul's Athenian convert mentioned in Acts 17 :34, Dionysius
enjoyed a nonscriptural authority like no other among some
Scholastics in the mid-thirteenth century. 21 Aquinas follows his
mentor Albert the Great, who commented on all of Dionysius's
works and cited the Areopagite from the originalia (in Latin
18 For a detailed study of Dionysian hierarchy, see Ronald F. Hathaway, Hierarchy and the
Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius: A Study in the Form and Meaning of
the Pseudo-Dionysian Writings (The Hague: Martin us Nijhoff, 1969). Hathaway observes, "In
the several recent discussion of the term 'hierarchy' and its use by Ps.-Dionysius, one fact of
obvious importance is never emphasized: Ps.-Dionysius is the virtual author of the term with
the lexical meaning which it has possessed ever since" (xxi).
19 Peter Lombard, Sententiae in N Libris Distinctae tom. 1, pars 2 (lib. 1 et 2)
(Grottaferrata: Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971). Lombard cites De cael.
hierarchia in II Sent., d. 9, c. 1 (Grottaferrata ed., 371); II Sent., d. 10, c. 1 (Grottaferrata ed.,
377); and II Sent., d. 11, c. 1 (Grottaferrata ed., 379); cf. the implicit presence of De cael.
hierarchia in II Sent., d. 9, c. 2 (Grottaferrata ed., 371).
2 For analysis, see H.F. Dondaine, O.P., Le corpus dionysien de l'universite de Paris au
XIIIe siecle, Storia e letteratura racccolta di studi e testi 44 (Rome: Edizioni di storia et
letteratura, 1953).
21 For example, according to Bonaventure, John Damascene follows Moses in saying that
"He who is" is God's primary name, but Dionysius follows Christ in saying that God's
primary name is "Good" (Itinerarium mentis in Deum 5.2). The latter goes beyond the former
in that it leads to the consideration God as Trinity, which prepares for spiritual and mystical
ecstasy. Bonaventure's description of this ecstasy, at the end of the Itinerarium, features two
quotations from Dionysius's De mystica theologia. Also, Bonaventure says that whereas
Augustine teaches the allegorical sense of Scripture in the eternal generation and incarnation
of Christ and Gregory the Great teaches the moral sense of Scripture in the pattern of human
life, it is Dionysius who teaches the anagogical sense of Scripture, the ultimate goal of the
other two spiritual senses, in the soul's union with God (De reductione artium ad theologiam
5).

°

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415

translations) more frequently than did any other Scholastic. 22 For
his part, Aquinas did not simply repeat his teacher's method of
appropriating Dionysius, but forged his own interpretation, which
has received critical approval in our day. For example, Andrew
Louth criticizes Westerners for "pillaging" the Dionysian writings
for themes and images quite remote from their original context
and rendering them in a way foreign to Dionysius's intention. 23
Exceptionally, Louth gives this positive assessment: "St. Thomas
Aquinas read Denys with great care and attention: and whole
areas of his theology-the doctrine of the divine attributes,
angelology, to name but two-are deeply in debt to him." 24
Especially since Durantel's pioneering study, scholars have
appreciated more and more the Dionysian influence on Aquinas,
effectively countering the stereotype of Aquinas as simply a
"Christian Aristotelian. " 25 However, most contemporary scholarship on Aquinas's appropriation of Dionysius has concentrated on
matters concerning Neoplatonist philosophy and language of
God, leaving aside other important aspects of Dionysius found in
Aquinas. Fran O'Rourke's work exemplifies this contemporary
22 H. F. Dondaine, O.P., "Les scholastique citent-ils !es Peres de premiere main?" Revue
des sciences philosophiques et theologiques 3 6 (1952): 231-43. This article's general-sounding
title is misleading, as Dondaine compares the Scholastics' citation of Dionysius's original texts
in Latin translations.
23 Andrew Louth, Denys the Areopagite, Outstanding Christian Thinkers (Wilton, Conn.:
Morehouse-Barlow, 1989), 120-27, esp. 126. Paul Rorem offers a similar observation.
Paraphrasing Alan of Lille's comment that authority has a wax nose that can be bent in diverse
directions, Rorem notes, "As a presumably ancient authority, Dionysius had his nose and his
texts bent in several directions" (Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, 38). For Alan of Lille, see his De
fide catholica 1:30 (PL 210:333A).
24 Louth, Denys the Areopagite, 126.
25 For example, Wayne Hankey argues for situating Aquinas within the Christian
Neoplatonist tradition. See his "Denys and Aquinas: Antimodern Cold and Postmodern Hot,"
in Christian Origins: Theology, Rhetoric and Community, ed. Lewis Ayres and Gareth Jones
( London: Routledge, 1998), 139-84; God in Himself: Aquinas' Doctrine of God as
Expounded in the Summa Theologiae, Oxford Theological Monographs (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1987); "Aquinas, Pseudo-Denys, Prod us and Isaiah VI.6," Archives d'histoire
doctrinale et litteraire du Mayen Age 64 (1997): 59-93; and "Aquinas and the Platonists," in
The Platonic Tradition in the Middle Ages: A Doxographic Approach, ed. Stephen Gersh and
MaartenJ. F. M. Hoenen (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002), 279-324. Brian Davies, O.P.,
in his review of God in Himself, considers Aquinas to be more Dionysian than Hankey argues
(journal of Theological Studies n.s. 40 [1989]: 290-94).

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

appreciation for Aquinas's debt to Dionysius. Yet O'Rourke concludes his suggestive study observing that Dionysius' s "importance
for Aquinas, both in philosophy and theology, should not be
underestimated; the phrases and themes of Dionysius appear
almost at every turn and in the most unexpected contexts. " 26 A
study of Thomistic Christology could well complement the more
recent research on Aquinas's use of Dionysius in the Prima pars by
Gregory Rocca and Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht. 27 However,
one first ought to be acquainted with Dionysian Christology in its
own right in order to appreciate Aquinas's adaptations.
II. DIONYSIAN CHRISTOLOGY

Paul Rorem warns, "Analyses of the Areopagite's teaching
about Christ must sift the entire corpus and gather the various
unsystematic comments." 28 I propose to touch upon Dionysius's
Christology, a daunting task in a controversial field, in only two
respects. 29 This cursory overview notes the difficulty of
Dionysius's proposal of Christ's theandric operation and exposes
26 Fran O'Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 276. O'Rourke recognizes, "Most of the literature on
Dionysius and Aquinas deals with the question of knowledge and language about God" (xvi).
27 Gregory P. Rocca, O.P., Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the
Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2004); Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht, O.P ., Theologie negative et noms divins
chez saint Thomas d'Aquin, Bibliotheque Thomiste 57 (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin,
2005).
28 Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, 142.
29 For example, Timothy A. Mahony gives a brief reply to Bernard McGinn's concern that
even scholars sympathetic to Dionysius cannot find in him an adequate prominence for Christ.
See Timothy A. Mahoney, "A Note on the Importance of the Incarnation in Dionysius the
Areopagite," Diakonia 35 (2002): 49-53. Similarly, I cannot support the argument of A. I.
Hauken, O.P., "Incarnation and Hierarchy: The Christ according to Ps-Dionysius," in Studia
Patristica, vol. 15, Seventh International Conference on Patristic Studies at Oxford (1975),
ed. Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Berlin: Akadamie-Verlag, 1984 ), 317-20. For Hauken, Dionysius's thought is "thoroughly God-centered, and he represents a God-mysticism rather than
a Christ-mysticism or anything like a 'Jesus-religion"' (ibid., 317). Furthermore, Hauken
thinks Dionysius overturned the vision of St. Paul and the early Church on the faithful's
accessibility to Christ without hierarchy. For another view, see Rene Roques's discussion of
Dionysius's understanding of Christ, especially in reference to hierarchies, in L'univers dionysien: Structure hierarchique du monde selon le Pseudo-Dionysius (Lille: Aubier, 19 5 4 ), 3 05-29.

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417

the theme of philanthropia in its decisive role as the main concern
in his Christology. The twofold project paves the way for a more
detailed study of Aquinas's reception of Dionysian Christology.
Unlike those who immediately situate Dionysius with respect
to the philosophical traditions of Neoplatonism, 30 Louth
perceptively introduces the world of Dionysius through the
Christological controversies of the late fifth and early sixth
centuries. Significantly, the first record of Dionysius comes from
a 532 colloquy in Antioch between Chalcedonians and Severians
in which the latter (mis-)quoted Dionysius's fourth epistle to
support the position of Severus of Antioch against the Chalcedonian doctrine of two natures. 31 The misquotation has to do
with the fact that the Severians claimed that Dionysius wrote of
a "single" (mia in Greek) theandric operation. The controversial
passage, even without the word "single," still poses a challenge for
interpretation: "Furthermore, it was not by virtue of being God
that he did divine things, not by virtue of being a man that he did
what was human, but rather, by the fact of being God-made-man
he accomplished some new theandric operation [kainen tina ten
theandriken energeian] in our midst. " 32
The Christology of Dionysius's fourth epistle has been the
subject of a recent, extensive study on the Greek and Syriac texts.
Against a Severian interpretation, Istvan Perczel considers
Dionysius's Christology to have "a rather pronounced Dyophysite
doctrine" and he states, "this already gives us cause to wonder
30 The philosophical identification of Dionysian theology as Neoplatonist, although
admittedly important, may lead readers to determine (falsely in my opinion) that
Neoplatonism is the guiding "rule of faith" in Dionysius and in those influenced by him.
31 Louth, Denys the Areopagite, 14.
32 Ep. 4 (PG 3:1072C; Luibheid, trans., 265). The Dionysian epistles are found in G. Heil
and A. M. Ritter, eds., Corpus Dionysiacum II: Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. De coelesti
hierarchia, de ecclesiastica hierarchia, de mystica theologia, epistulae, Patristische Texte und
Studien 36 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991), 155-210. I use that edition for quoting the Greek, but
it appeared too late for Colm Luibheid's translation (Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works,
trans. Colm Luibheid, with foreword, notes, and translation collaboration by Paul Rorem
[New York: Paulist Press, 1987]), which is based on Corderius's edition in Migne'sPatrologia
Graeca 3. Therefore, I give the PG 3 citation in the notes to accompany Luibheid's translation.
For something comparable to what is found in Epistle 4, see the expression ti's anthropikes
autou theourgias in On the Divine Names 2.6.

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why the hypothesis that the author was a Monophysite or cryptoMonophysite has been and is still held so firmly by so many
scholars." 33 Indeed, Jaroslav Pelikan calls the theandric operation
formula from Epistle 4 "[t]he most notorious statement ... of
Dionysian spirituality, and the one with the most momentous
consequences for its Westward odyssey." 34 Profoundly aware of
the controversy in interpretation, Pelikan writes starkly,
"Whatever the status of his alleged 'Monophysitism' may be,
however, his 'Monenergism' does indeed seem to be an 'obvious
fact'; and Monenergism was condemned, too. That remains so
even after putting as charitable a construction as possible on his
words." 35
We will soon consider how Aquinas interprets the most
notorious statement from the Areopagite. First, though, I would
argue that the central aspect of Dionysian Christology is
something more broadly conceived than theandric operation. It is
divine philanthropia, which was frequently translated into Latin
as benignitas. This Latin word does not adequately capture the
Greek concept, "loving humanity," an idea that propelled
Christians to speculate about its appropriateness to describe the
incarnation. Pace John Rist, the term itself is scriptural. 36 Its
33 Istvan Perczel, "The Christology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: The Fourth Letter
in its Indirect and Direct Text Traditions," Le Museon 117 (2004): 409-46, at 415.
34 Jaroslav Pelikan, "The Odyssey of Dionysian Spirituality," in Luibheid, trans., The
Complete Works, 11-24, at 19. Pelikan notes his reliance upon Yugoslav scholar Jossip Marie's
use of the phrase "the most celebrated formula" (Jossip Marie, "Pseudo-Dionysii Areopagitae
formula christologica celeberrima de Christi activitate theandrica: Secunda quaestio praevia
ad Novam Apologiam Honorii I papae," Bogoslovska smotra 20 [1932): 105-73).
35 Pelikan, "The Odyssey of Dionysian Spirituality," 21. For more of Pelikan on
Dionysius's role in the debates on Christ's actions and wills in union, see Jaroslav Pelikan, The
Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 2, The Spirit of Eastern
Christendom (600-1700) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 62-75.
36 John Rist, "Love, Knowing and Incarnation in Pseudo-Dionysius," in Traditions of
Platonism: Essays in Honour of John Dillon, ed. John J. Cleary (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999),
3 7 5-88. Rist explores "whether that concept of philanthropia (despite its non-scriptural name)
is a serious attempt to represent some scriptural motif" (377). In fact, Titus 3:4 says, "But
when the kindness and the philanthropia of our Savior God has appeared." Granted that the
term also has non-Christian currency, its appearance in the Epistle to Titus and its influence
in second-century Christian writings, such as Clement of Alexandria's Protrepticus, should be
better appreciated.

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biblical derivation supports in this instance Dionysius's
protestation of being completely dependent upon Sacred Scripture. Moreover, the very brief Epistle 4 features philanthri5pia
twice to show the context in which Christ's theandric operation
must be understood. Dionysius says:
He who exceedingly loves humanity [ho diapheront6s philanthropos] became
quite truly a human, both superhuman and among humans; and, though himself
beyond being, he took upon himself the being of humans .... As one considers
it all in a divine manner, one will recognize in a transcending way that every
affirmation regarding Jesus' love for humanity [epi tei philanthr6piaitau Iesou]
has the force of a negation pointing toward transcendence. 37

These two instances of philanthri5piademonstrate the very reason
for the incarnation and how our positive statements (such as
affirming the theandric operation) must yield to what cannot be
said about the utterly transcendent mystery of Jesus, who is God
among us. The theandric operation is, in a sense, (only) a telling
detail of what Dionysius gives as the big picture of God's

philanthrapia.
While Epistle 4 is the most controversial text in Dionysian
Christology, Epistle 8 contains the most vivid description of
Christ and philanthrapia.38 In this letter to the monk Demophilus,
the Areopagite offers a Christology that underscores the divine
kindness to the human race. Dionysius writes to Demophilus
because that monk had overstepped his place to criticize a priest
who showed mercy to a repentant sinner. Demophilus is told,
"You are ignorant of the very truth of scripture, you who abuse it
daily to the misfortune of those who hear you. " 39 Dionysius
expounds a biblical account of Christ's compassionate mercy. He
recounts how Jesus even in his suffering asked the Father to
forgive those who did him wrong. He rebuked the disciples
because they had sought punishment against the impious
Samaritans. Among several references to the Letter to the
Hebrews, Dionysius quotes Hebrew 4: 15, "We do not have a high
Ep. 4 (PG 3:1072B; Luibheid, trans., 264 [translation modified]).
in its variants four times in ep. 8.
39 Ep. 8 (PG 3:1089B; Luibheid, trans., 273).

37

38 Dionysius uses the word philanthropia

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. " 40 Unlike
Demophilus who beat back the man who was on his way to
repentance, Christ in his kindness goes out to look for the one
who is lost. Dionysius clearly understands Christ's compassion to
be an example for others, as he writes, "Those who do not know
must be taught, not punished. We do not hit the blind. We lead
them by the hand." 41
Moreover, at the end of this letter Dionysius refers to a private
revelation to present the scriptural teaching on Christ's mercy. He
recounts a story of a visit on Crete with a holy man by the name
of Carpos. Carpos told Dionysius that he once felt great hostility
to two certain sinful men when he awoke in the middle of the
night for prayers. He prayed that God would hurl thunderbolts at
the men. Suddenly, he experienced a transformation of the place
where he was. A vision of heaven showed Jesus surrounded by an
endless throng of angels. When Carpos looked at the ground, he
saw the two men whom he had cursed sliding down a pit where
serpents and men were trying to pull the two down with them.
The sight delighted him, and he tried repeatedly to help the
serpents finish the two. He failed and cursed again. Looking up,
he saw Jesus moved by compassion coming down to save the
unfaithful two. With the angels assisting, Jesus reached down and
pulled up the two men, one on either side. Then Jesus said to
Carpos:
So your hand is raised up and I now am the one you must hit. Here I am, ready
once again to suffer for the salvation of man and I would very gladly endure it
if in this way I could keep men from sin. Look to yourself. Maybe you should be
living with the serpents in the pit rather than with God and with the good angels
who are the friends of man. 42

This dramatic vision of Christ coming down, in the Dionysian
letter most concerned about hierarchy, should give cause for

40 Ep. 8 (PG 3:1096C;

Luibheid, trans., 277).
Luibheid, trans., 278).
42 Ep. 8 (PG 3:1100C-1100D; Luibheid, trans., 280).
41 Ep. 8 (PG 3:1096C;

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421

revision to those who construe Dionysian hierarchy in a way that
removes Christ's tender love for individual sinners.
Ill. AN OVERVIEW OF AQUINAS'S USE OF DIONYSIUS
INSTHIIl,QQ.1-59

It should be better known that Aquinas draws abundantly from
Dionysius in some key areas of his Christology. 43 In the next
section I will give ample treatment to one Dionysian element;
here I will give an overview of how Dionysius appears in
Aquinas's treatise on the Savior in the Summa Theologiae. Aquinas
explicitly cites Dionysius 46 times in questions 1-59 of the Tertia
pars. 44 Sixteen of these citations appear in the objections,
indicating some ambiguity that Aquinas must clarify. As a point of
contrast, Aquinas is commonly regarded as Cyrillian in his
Christology. 45 He appeals to Cyril 21 times in these questions, 4
times in objections. Dionysius thus appears about twice as often
as Cyril.
I do not intend to recast Aquinas's Christology as resolutely
Dionysian. A greater material presence does not necessarily mean
43 For what remains a standard reference, see Ignaz Backes, Die Christologie des hl. Thomas
v. Aquin und die griechischen Kirchenvater (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh Verlag, 1931).
Backes sketches the place of Dionysius in Aquinas's Christo logy relatively briefly (108-14) and
relies heavily upon Dionysius for the relationship between Christ and the angels in Aquinas's
thought (307-14). For a study that treats Dionysius's influence on Aquinas precisely as
Neoplatonist, see Pierre Faucon, Aspects neoplatoniciens de la doctrine de saint Thomas
d'Aquin, (Lille: Atelier reproduction des theses universite Lille III, 1975). Faucon presented
his 714-page thesis in 1970 at the University of Strasbourg. Most pertinent for the present
study, Faucon considers Dionysius's influence on Aquinas's Christology and soteriology on
pages 504-75 of his work. For a work on Aquinas's Christology with careful, but not
sustained, attention to Dionysius, see Edouard-Henri Weber, O.P., Le Christ selon saint
Thomas d'Aquin, Collection "Jesus et Jesus-Christ" (Paris: Desclee, 1988).
44 Backes notes that in the Christological parts of the Scriptum Dionysius is quoted about
30 times and in the Summa Theologiae about 44 times (Backes, Die Christologie des hl.
Thomas v. Aquin, 41).
45 Like Cyril, Aquinas came to understand with particular forcefulness how Nestorianism
poses grave errors in recounting the mystery of the incarnation. In his "A Note on St. Thomas
and the Eastern Fathers," Gilles Emery directs our attention to Ciriaco Scanzillo, "Influssi di
S. Cirillo d'Alessandria nella cristologia di s. Tommaso," in Tommaso d'Aquino nel suo
settimo centenario, vol. 4: Problemi di teologia (Naples: Edizioni Domenicane Italiane, 197 6),
187-220.

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a deeper influence. Cyril's teaching on Christ does in fact
profoundly shape Aquinas's anti-Nestorian Christology, and one
must never forget the enormously influential model of John
Damascene's eighth-century work for Aquinas's Christology. 46
Indeed, Aquinas's profoundly scriptural teaching on the Savior
draws abundantly from many sources, such as his varied patristic
research for the Catena aurea, the unprecedented Western use of
the conciliar acta, and his Scholastic predecessors. Acknowledging
this much broader field of sources, I will treat select aspects that
Aquinas appropriates from Dionysius for his own project as well
as select points that Aquinas has to handle as Dionysian objections
or that he avoids in the sacred teaching on Christ.
Our first point of inquiry can be the first article of the Tertia
pars, mentioned in this essay's introduction, "whether it was
fitting that God should become incarnate." After the sed contra
from John Damascene' s On the Orthodox Faith (De fide orth. 3 .1,
itself seemingly inspired by Gregory of Nyssa's Catechetical
Oration 24 ), Aquinas speaks in the corpus about things being
suited to distinctive natures, as reasoning is fitting to the human
being due to our rational nature. "But the very nature of God is
goodness, as is clear through Dionysius. Therefore, whatever
pertains to the meaning of the good," Aquinas says, "is fitting for
God." 47
Those attentive to Aquinas's debate with Dionysius about the
nature of God in the Prima pars might be a bit perplexed by his
reasoning as he begins the Tertia pars. In question 5, article 2 of
the Prima pars, Aquinas asks, "which is prior according to reason,
the good [bonum] or being [ens]." The first and second objections
come from Dionysius. "Good" is before "being" among the names
of God, and "good" has a more extensive application than
"being. " 48 Aquinas prefers the Liber de causis for his sed contra:
"the first of all created things is existing [esse]." 49 The corpus
See note 14 above.
SI'h III, q. 1, a. 1: "Ipsa autem natura Dei est bonitas, ut pater per Dionysum. Uncle
quidquid pertinet ad rationem boni, conveniens est Deo."
48 Dionysius, On the Divine Names 3.1 and 5.1.
49 Liber de causis 4: "prima rerum creatarum est esse."
46

47

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423

unfolds Aquinas's reasoning, supported by Aristotle's authority,
that being is prior to the good. 50 Yet, Aquinas does not say at the
beginning of the Tertia pars that God's very nature is to exist (as
he makes clear in STh I, q. 3, a. 4). 51 Rather, he repeats a
subsequent (and dependent) notion of God as good. 52
As O'Rourke has shown, Aquinas agrees with Dionysius by
reinterpreting him through the primacy of God's title as "Qui
est. "53 Replying to the Dionysian objection that "the good" is the
principal name of God, Aquinas says that "the good" is the
principal name of God insofar as he is a cause, but is nevertheless
not his principal name simply speaking. 54 Aquinas repeatedly
describes this causality of God as good in terms of the desire for
the good arising from final causality. 55 This can point us to the
movement toward God that is the very purpose of the Tertia pars.
Aquinas's next mention of Dionysius at the beginning of the
Tertia pars elaborates on this meaning of the good. "But it
pertains to the meaning of good," he says, "so as to communicate
itself to others, as is clear through Dionysius. "56 Aquinas here
points to chapter 4 of On the Divine Names. His wording is
similar to the axiom, "bonum diffusivum sui," a phrase used in the
tradition but not explicitly found in the Areopagite. 57
Commenting on Aquinas's use of Dionysius in this first article, R.
J. Hennessy accurately notes, "The principle expresses, first of all,
the final causality of the good as attracting things towards a share
in it. "58 The significance of this appears if we recall the intention
so See Aristotle, Metaphys. 9.9.1051a31.
STh I, q. 3, a. 4: "Sua igitur essentia suum esse."
52 Cf. STh I, q. 6, "de bonitate Dei."
53 See O'Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas, 109-10.
54 STh I, q. 13, a. 11, ad 2.
55 For Aquinas's discussion of God's goodness, see esp. STh I, q. 6.
56 STh III, q. 1, a. 1: "Pertinet autem ad rationem boni ut se aliis communicet, ut patet per
51

Dionysium."
57 Among the dozens of uses in Aquinas, see esp. STh I, q. 5, a. 4, ad 2; I, q. 73, a. 3, obj.
2; I-II, q. 1, a. 4, obj. 1. See also Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, 168 and 176 n. 11; and Julien
Peghaire, "L'axiome 'Bonum est diffusivum sui' clans le neo-platonisme et le thomisme,''
Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa 1, section speciale (1932): 5-30.
58 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol 48 (3a. 1-6), The Incarnate Word, trans. R. J.
Hennessy, O.P. (New York: McGraw-Hill Co., 1975), 7 n. a.

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in the Tertia pars to treat "Christ, who as human is the way for us
to take in going to God." 59 The way, as communicating or
manifesting the goodness of God, attracts humans. This attraction
to divine goodness, which is found preeminently in the
incarnation, then prepares for the second article's consideration
of "whether it was necessary that the Word of God be incarnated
for the restoration of the human race. " 60
Before turning to that second article, we should first refer to
an insight found in the remarkable work of Henk Schoot. 61 In
propounding Aquinas's teaching as a negative Christo logy, Schoot
makes use of the conclusion to the corpus of the first article of De
unione. 62 There, Aquinas borrows from Dionysian apophaticism:
"And Dionysius says in On the Divine Names 2, 'Jesus for us is a
divine composition, that is union, ineffable for every word,
unknown to the mind, and even so to the very first of the most
noble of angels'. " 63
Aquinas gives another example of negative Christology in
question 1, article 2 of the Tertia pars (though this seems not to
be adduced by Schoot for his argument). After providing ten
reasons for the fittingness of the incarnation-five reasons
pertaining to furtherance in the good and five pertaining to withdrawal from evil-Aquinas concludes, "But there are many other
advantages which follow, above the comprehension of the human
mind. " 64 This last statement compares favorably with "ineffable
for every word, unknown to the mind," cited in De unione. The
beauty of ten tightly ordered advantages, a work of cataphatic
59

STh I, pro!.: "tertio de Christo, qui secundum quad homo via est nobis tendendi in

Deum."
60 See also STh III, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2. Replying to an objection that God and flesh are
infinitely distant, Aquinas answers with the fittingness of God to unite himself to flesh for
human salvation according to the infinite excellence of his goodness.
61 Henk Schoot, Christ the 'Name' of God: Thomas Aquinas on Naming Christ, Thomas
Instituut te Utrecht, new series, vol. 1 (Leuven: Peeters, 1993).
62 Ibid., 98-99.
63 De unione a. 5: "Et Dionysius <licit in cap. II de Divin. Norn.: Jesus secundum nos divina
compositio, id est unio, et ineffabilis est verbo omni, et ignota menti; tamen et ipsi primo
dignissimorum Angelorum."
64 STh III, q. 1, a. 2: "Sunt autem et aliae plurimae utilitates quae consecutae sunt, supra
comprehensionem sensus humani."

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theology, must be situated within a broader apophatic approach
to the incarnation. Other reasons could be given, but they exceed
human comprehension. This is only right because when we speak
of Christ, we speak of the incomprehensible God among us.
Given this article's prominent placement, perhaps Aquinas reveals
a Dionysian presumption that he expects the reader to understand
in the rest of his questions on Christ.
We can also hear in the subsequent article an echo of a favorite
Dionysian passage used by Aquinas and already seen above. One
should not dare say anything about God that has not been
revealed in the Scriptures. 65 Aquinas holds that things which flow
from God's will beyond all that is due to creatures can come to be
known by us only insofar as they are handed down in Sacred
Scripture. Because Aquinas reads in the Scriptures that the reason
for the incarnation was Adam's sin, he thinks it preferable to see
the incarnation as God's remedy for sin-but divine power is not
limited to this (pointing again to the apophatic). Moreover, we
saw in Epistle 8 how Dionysius finds in our sin the motive for
Christ's descent among us. It is worth repeating that Jesus says in
Epistle 8: "Here I am, ready once again to suffer for the salvation
of man and I would very gladly endure it if in this way I could
keep men from sin." 66 Thus, question 1, article 3 of the Tertia
pars displays a twin Dionysian emphasis-a reservation to speak
only according to the Scriptures and a belief that Christ came on
account of our need arising from sin.
We have seen that philanthropia gives a key to Dionysian
Christology and that Aquinas begins the Summa's Christology in
light of the Dionysian attention to divine goodness for our
salvation. Is there a connection? It is true that goodness and
philanthropia are distinct terms for Dionysius, and Aquinas uses
benignitas, the Latin translation of philanthropia, only when
65 See note 5 above.
66 Also in this letter Dionysius sarcastically asks, "Have we ourselves been so perfected to
complete holiness that we do not need that divine love for humanity shown to us [tes theias
eph' heautois philanthropias] ?" (Ep. 8.4 [PG 3: 1093D; Luibheid, trans., The Complete Works,
276 (translation modified)]). If one already has complete holiness, the incarnation is not
needed.

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quoting authorities in the Christology of the Tertia pars.67 One
might think that Aquinas sidesteps this most significant of
Dionysian contributions to Christology-but such is not at all the
case. In his perceptive book Le Christ selon saint Thomas d'Aquin,
Edouard-Henri weber writes that the fundamental explication of
Aquinas on the theme of the Word's incarnation remains strictly
biblical: the love of God for the human person. 68 To be sure, the
word philanthropia in Latin translation appears only rarely, but its
meaning forms the heart of Aquinas's understanding of what is
revealed about God's goodness in the incarnation. 69
Such an interpretation can lead the reader to pertinent sections
on God's love in the Summa Theologiae. For example, in question
20 of the Prima pars Aquinas writes on God's love. Asking
whether God loves all things, Aquinas presents the first objection
with the authority of Dionysius. According to the Areopagite,
"Love places the lover outside of himself, and in a sense
transports him into the beloved. " 70 This would be unfitting for
God, continues the objection. Aquinas answers by returning to
Dionysius:
To the first it must be said that the lover thus becomes outside of himself,
transported into the beloved, insofar as he wills the good for the beloved, and
works through his providence for the beloved just as he does for himself.
Whereupon Dionysius says, It must be dared to speak the truth about this, that

67 In reference to Dionysius, see STh III, q. 19, a. 1, obj. 1 and ad 1; III, q. 30, a. 2. In
reference to Ambrose, see STh III, q. 55, a. 3, ad 4.
68 Cf. Weber, Le Christ selon Saint Thomas d'Aquin, 18. Weber cites In Eph. c. 1, lect. 3
(Mariett ed., 25) and c. 3, lect. 5 (Marietti ed., 178) for his textual support.
69 In distinguishing (and ultimately uniting) kinds of love as names applied to God,
Dionysius says, "In my opinion, it would be unreasonable and silly to look at words rather
than at the power of the meanings. Anyone seeking to understand the divine things should
never do this, for this is the procedure followed by those who do not allow empty sounds to
pass beyond their ears, who shut them out because they do not wish to know what a particular
phrase means or how to convey its sense through equivalent but more effective phrases" (On
the Divine Names 4 [Luibheid, trans., The Complete Works, 80]). For Aquinas's comments on
the lengthy passage of which this is an excerpt, see his In Librum beati Dionysii de Divinis
Nominibus Expositio, c. 4, lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 410-25).
70 STh I, q. 20, a. 2, obj. 1. "amor amantem extra se ponit; et eum quodammodo in
amatum transfert" (quoting On the Divine Names 4).

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even he who is the cause of all becomes through the abundance of his loving
goodness outside of himself by providence for all things existing. 71

This interpretation can also make the reader more attentive to
Aquinas's emphasis on love in his Christological treatise. For
example, Aquinas cites John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world
... ") as the sed contra in question 1, article 2, and in the corpus
of the same article quotes Augustine: "What greater cause is there
for the coming of the Lord except so that God would show his
love for us?" 72 Again, the nature of love's friendship answers the
objection in question 1, article 5 that God should have become
incarnate at the beginning of the human race. 73 In the sed contra
of question 4, article 1, Aquinas quotes Proverbs 8:31: "we hear
from the mouth of Wisdom begotten, 'My delights were with the
children of men. "' 74 In treating the mysteries of Christ's life, when
Aquinas comes to the fittingness of the liberation of the human
race by Christ's passion, the first reason he gives is so that we
would be able to see how much God loves us. 75 Although not in
the questions on Christ's passion, Aquinas does in fact explicitly
link Christ's passion with benignitas elsewhere in the Summa. In
the Secunda secundae (STh 11-11, q. 82, a. 4, ad 1) Aquinas says
that in Christ's passion God's benignitas (which we can certainly
understand as the Greek philanthropia) enkindles our joy.
But what would Aquinas think about the story concerning
Christ's philanthropia from Dionysius's Epistle 8? Given his
theological method for handling sources, Aquinas probably would
not have approved featuring a private revelation so prominently. 76
71 STh I, q. 20, a. 2, ad 1 "Ad primum ergo dicendum quod amans sic fit extra se in
amatum translatus inquantum vult amato bonum, et operator per suam providentiam, sicut
et sibi. Under <licit Dionysius, Audendum est autem et hoc pro veritate dicere, quad et ipse
omnium causa per abundantiam amativae bonitatis extra se ipsum fit ad omnia existentia
providentiis" (quoting On the Divine Names 4). Cf. STh I, q. 20, a. 4.
72 STh III, q. 1, a. 2: "Quae major causa est adventus Domini, nisi ut ostenderet Deus
dilectionem suam in nobis?" The quotation is from De catechizandis rudibus 4.
73 STh III, q. 1, a. 5, ad 1.
74 "Deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum."
75 STh III, q. 46, a. 3, where Aquinas quotes Rom 5:8 concerning God's love for us.
76 See STh I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2: "For our faith rests upon revelation made to the apostles and
prophets, who wrote the canonical books, but not upon revelation, if there was such, made
to other teachers" ("Innititur enim fides nostra revelationi apostolis et prophetis factae qui

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

Elsewhere he does make mention of Carpo from Epistle 8
concerning a private revelation, but not in direct reference to the
vision of Christ's rescue of the sinners. 77 Moreover, in the Summa
Theologiae he refers to the alleged eyewitness account offered by
Dionysius of the miracle worked on creation at the time of Jesus'
death. 78
One final example can serve to illustrate Aquinas's appropriation of Dionysius in the Christology of the Tertia pars. We
saw above that Andrew Louth admires Aquinas's fidelity in
interpreting Dionysius, but the two disagree on an important
aspect of Dionysian Christology. Although he knows that
Dionysius considers the incarnate Son of God to be the "source
and perfection of all hierarchies" (Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 1.2),
Louth asserts, "[I]t is made quite clear that during his earthly life,
Jesus was subject to angelic ministrations and like us had no
direct, unmediated communion with God. ,,n What prompts both
Aquinas and Louth to investigate Dionysius on this point comes
from Celestial Hierarchy 4. Aquinas gives the controversial
passage as the second objection in the article on "Whether Christ
received knowledge from the angels" (STh III, q. 12, a. 4):
Moreover, Dionysius says, For I see that even Jesus himself, the supersubstantial
substance of supercelestial substances, in coming to our substance without
changing, was obediently subject to the instructions of his Father and God
through the angels. Therefore, it seems that Christ himself willed to be subjected
to the ordination of divine law, through which humans, with angels mediating,
are instructed. 80
canonicos libros scripserunt, non autem revelationi, si qua fuit, aliis doctoribus factae")
77 IV Sent., d. 8 q. 1 a. 4, qcla. 3, ad 1. The reference is to Carpo never beginning to
celebrate the Mass except having first received a divine revelation. Writing within the context
of fasting and other Mass preparations, Aquinas comments that the Church now has a
contrary custom.
78 STh III, q. 19, a. 2, ad 2. Aquinas quotes Dionysius also in the article's first objection and
corpus.
79 Louth, Denys theAreopagite, 4 2. One excellent Thomistic explanation of what is at stake
in the tradition of affirming Christ's immediate knowledge of God is Thomas Joseph White,
"The Voluntary Action of the Earthly Christ and the Necessity of the Beatific Vision," The
Thomist 69 (2005): 497-534.
80 STh III, q. 12, a. 4, obj. 2: "Praeterea, Dionysius <licit, Video enim quod et ipse Jesus,
supercaelestium substantiarum supersubstantialis substantia, ad nostrum intransmutabiliter
veniens, obedienter subjicitur Patris et Dei per angelos formationibus. Videtur igitur quod ipse

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Aquinas does not abandon Dionysius as the great authority in this
respect. Rather, Aquinas quotes him both in the sed contra and in
the reply to the second objection. In the former, Aquinas cites
Celestial Hierarchy 7 that the highest angels "make their question
to Jesus himself, and learn the knowledge of his divine operation
for our sake; and Jesus himself teaches them without mediation. It
does not belong to the same one to teach and to be taught.
Therefore Christ did not receive knowledge from angels." 81
Answering the second objection, Aquinas explains that Dionysius
says that Christ was subject to the angelic instructions, not for
himself, but simply for the events surrounding his infancy.
Aquinas concludes, "Therefore, in the same place, he [Dionysius]
adds, the flight of Jesus to Egypt, prepared by the Father, is
announced to Joseph through mediating angels, and the same
occurs for the return again to Judea from Egypt. " 82 Aquinas thus
makes a case both for Christ not receiving knowledge from angels
and for Dionysius as an authority whose ambiguity must be
sufficiently cleared. In this case, Aquinas has Dionysius interpret
Dionysius to explicate the gospel.
For further appreciation of the broad Dionysian influence on
Aquinas's mature Christology, one should look beyond questions
1-59 of the Tertia pars. For example, Aquinas appeals to Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 3 for Dionysius's authority that the sacrament
of the Eucharist contains Christ himself; other sacraments
culminate in it; and "it does not happen that anyone is perfected
with hierarchical perfection except through the most divine
Eucharist. " 83 It would be interesting to compare the link between
Christ and the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, found in both
Christus ordinationi legis divinae subjici voluerit, per quam homines, mediantes angelis,
erudiuntur."
81 STh III, q. 12, a. 4, sc: "Sed contra est quod Dionysius <licit, quod supremi angeli ad
ipsum Jesum quaestionem faciunt, et ipsius divinae operationis pro nobis scientiam discunt; et
eas ipse Jesus sine media docet. Non est autem ejusdem docere et doceri. Ergo Christus non
accepit scientiam ab angelis."
82 STh III, q. 12, a. 4, ad 2: "Uncle ibidem subdit quod per medias angelos nuntiatur Joseph
a Patre dispensata Jesu ad Aegyptum recessio, et rursum ad Judeam de Aegypto traductio."
83 STh III, q. 65, a. 3; STh III, q. 75, a. 1; STh III, q. 65, a. 3, sc: "Dionysius <licit, quod
non contigit aliquem perfici per(ectione hierarchica nisi per divinissimum Eucharistiam."

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Dionysius and Aquinas. But such is beyond the scope of this
present study.
IV. A DIONYSIAN ELEMENT IN AQUINAS:
CHRIST'S THEANDRIC OPERATION

When describing the three parts of the Summa Theologiae,
Gerald Vann commented that the Prima pars considers divine
activity, the Secunda pars human activity, and the Tertia pars
theandric activity. 84 Such a characterization stretches the importance of the term "theandric" for Aquinas's theology, as in the
Tertia pars he uses the word only in one objection and a reply to
that objection. 85 However, Vann's description does hold a
suggestive power that deserves closer examination. By exploring
all the uses of "theandric" in Aquinas's works, we can achieve a
more detailed knowledge of Dionysius as an authority in
Aquinas's Christology. 86 Moreover, because Aquinas continues
Maximus the Confessor's legacy inherited by John Damascene in
this regard, this study can assist ecumenism today to re-examine
the ancient controversies concerning Christ's acts and see what is
at stake in terminological differences. 87 In what follows I will treat
Gerald Vann, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1940), 142.
III, q. 19, a. 1, obj. 1 and ad 1.
86 Among the studies that have treated the question of Aquinas's use of the Dionysian term,
Backes gives little comment more than that the term is found in the Scriptum and the Summa
theologiae, besides being already present in Albert. He also compares and the different Latin
translations available: "dei-humanum" (John Scotus Eriugena); "dei et hominis operatio" (the
Saracen); and "deivirilis" (the acts of Constantinople III and the Burgundian's translation of
John Damascene). For questions on translations, one should consult Philippe Chevallier,
Dionysiaca: Recueil donnant l' ensemble des traditions latines des ouvrages attribues au Denys
de l'Areopage, 2 vols. (Paris: 1937). Also, Bernard Catao discusses the term in the Scriptum
and contrasts its appearance there with the "sens restraint et precis" in efficient instrumental
causality found in the Summa contra Gentiles, Summa theologiae, and today. See his Salut et
redemption chez s. Thomas d'Aquin: L'acte sauveurdu Christ (Paris: Aubier, 1964), pp. 10811. Pierre Faucon concentrates on the term's appearance in STh III, q. 19, a. 1. See his Aspects
Neoplatoniciens de la doctrine de saint Thomas d'Aquin, 1970 dissertation at the University
of Strasbourg (Lille: Atelier, 1975), pp. 518-25.
87 For Maxim us the Confessor's synthesis concerning Christ's theandric operation, see esp.
hisAmbiguum 5. Aquinas was heavily indebted to John Damascene's On the Orthodox Faith,
which transmitted Maximus's teachings on how to interpret Dionysius. See esp. On the
84

85 STh

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Aquinas's treatments of theandric activity in chronological order
of composition: the Scriptum super Sententiis (1252-56); the
Summa contra Gentiles (IV, ca. 1264); Compendium theologiae
(I, ca. 1265-67); De unione Verbi Incarnati (ca. 1272); and
Summa Theologiae (Tertia pars, 1272-73).
Aquinas's earliest treatment of the theandric operation occurs
in the commentary on book 3 of Lombard's Sentences. He first
considers it as a reply to the objection as to whether Christ's grace
is infinite. 88 This objection takes for granted that Christ's merit is
infinite, as it suffices for the redemption of the whole human race.
But a finite cause cannot produce an infinite effect. Since grace is
the cause of merit, the grace too must be infinite. Aquinas answers
that infinity of efficacy in merit occurs because the divine person
concurs in this action. He then says, "It is not only an action of a
human, but of God and of a human. On this account, Dionysius
calls Christ's action 'deivirile."' 89 This is the only place in his
opera omnia that Aquinas calls upon the Dionysian principle
without giving the Greek term and without noting a problem in
its use. It simply serves to reply to an objection.
A fuller consideration is given in the following distinction,
which addresses Christ's merit. Aquinas begins his treatment of
merit here (III Sent., d. 18, q. 1, a. 1) by asking if Christ has two
actions-a move that demonstrates Aquinas's care to distinguish
within his treatments of grace and merit. 90 His first objection is
from the authority of Dionysius. The objection says, "It seems that
in Christ there is only one action. For Dionysius calls the action
of Christ 'theandric,' that is 'deivirile.' But this signifies one
action, not different actions. Therefore in Christ there is only one

Orthodox Faith 3.13-3.19.
88 III Sent., d. 13, q. 1, a. 2, qcla. 2, ad 4.
89 Ibid.: "non est tantum hominis actio, sed Dei et hominis; secundum quod Dionysius
actionem Christi nominat deivirilem." Cf. STh III, q. 7, a. 11, where Aquinas no longer
mentions Dionysius in the question on the infinity of Christ's grace.
9 For an analysis of Christ's merit, see Catao, Salut et Redemption, esp. 65-77; for Christ's
merit in Aquinas's mature teaching, see Joseph P. Wawrykow, God's Grace and Human
Action: 'Merit' in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1995), 238-47.

°

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action of divinity and humanity." 91 At the time of this writing,
Aquinas had not yet read the acts of Constantinople III, but he did
know John Damascene, whom he quotes repeatedly as an
authority on this question. 92 In reply to the first objection,
Aquinas gives three reasons to support the Dionysian term
"theandric."
Dionysius calls Christ's action "theandric," not because it is simply one action of
deity and humanity in Christ, but because the actions of the two natures are
united as to three things. First, as to the supposit doing a divine and human
action, which is one thing. Second, as to the one effect, which is called the work
having been worked, or apotelesma according to Damascene, such as the healing
of a leper. Third, as to this that the human action of Christ himself shares in
something from the perfection of the divine nature, just as his intellect more
eminently than others understood from the power of the divine intellect
conjoined to it in the person; although the divine action in no way was
weakened by consort with the human nature. 93

In taking the trouble to give these three reasons, Aquinas
underscores the unity at work in the actions that flow from the
incarnate Word, while he still preserves the sense of Christ having
both human and divine actions.
Aquinas's careful treatment of the term "theandric" should be
compared with that of his teacher Albert the Great. Corey Barnes
finds in Albert's early work De Incarnatione what may be the first

91 III Sent., d. 18, q. 1, a. 1, obj. 1: "Videtur quod in Christo sit tantum una actio.
Dionysius enim actionem Christi nominat theandricam, idest deivirilem. Hoc autem non
diversas actiones, sed unam significant. Ergo in Christo est tantum una action divinitatis et
humanitatis."
92 For Aquinas on Constantinople III, see Martin Morard, "Thomas d'Aquin lecteur des
conciles," Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 98 (2005): 211-365, at 305-16.
93 III Sent., d. 18, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1: "Ad primum ergo dicendum, quod actionem Christi dicit
Dionysius deivirilem, non quia sit simpliciter una actio deitatis et humanitatis in Christo; sed
quia actiones duarum naturarum quantum ad tria uniuntur. Primo quantum ad ipsum
suppositum agens actionem divinam et humanam, quod est unum. Secundo quantum ad unum
effectum, qui dicitur opus operatum, vel apotelesma secundum Damascenum, sicut mundatio
leprosi. Tertio quantum ad hoc quod humana actio ipsius Christi participabat aliquid de
perfectione divinae naturae, sicut intellectus ejus aliis eminentius intelligebat ex virtute divini
intellectus sibi in persona conjuncti; quamvis divina actio in nullo infirmaretur ex consortio

humanae."

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Scholastic use of Dionysius on the theandric operation. 94
However, Barnes comments, "Albert provides no indication that
this reference requires reverential interpretation but rather takes
it as naturally supportive of the orthodox position of two powers
in Christ, divine and human. " 95 Indeed, in his commentary on
Dionysius's Epistle 4 Albert does not suggest that the term
"theandric" may hold difficulties for the doctrine of Christ's two
operations. 96 Moreover, in his commentary on the Sentences,
Albert introduces "theandric" to support the view that Christ's
acts are many and not one, although the actor is but one. 97 Within
this context, and with his knowledge of John Damascene, Albert
says, "every action of Christ was saving for us. " 98
Aquinas continues Albert's use of "theandric" as investing
saving significance in all of Christ's deeds in the Summa contra
Gentiles. The significance of the theandric operation on Aquinas's
understanding of the incarnation appears in startling fashion in
book 4. Aquinas in this work rarely quotes the authorities of the
Fathers and the councils when doing his own scriptural work of
refuting Trinitarian and Christo logical heresies. Yet he adduces
Dionysius, his most frequent ecclesiastical authority (exceeding
even Augustine) in the Summa contra Gentiles, in a moment of
great significance. While upholding the Church's teaching of two
operations and two wills, Aquinas concedes that one must speak
94 De Incarnatione, q. 2, a. 1; see Corey Ladd Barnes, "Christ's Two Wills in Scholastic
Theology: Thirteenth-Century Debates and the Christology of Thomas Aquinas" (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Notre Dame, 2006), 57.
95 Barnes, "Christ's Two Wills in Scholastic Theology," 57.
96 Albert writes on Epistle 4 that Christ "acted in human things by a divine power above
human nature. This is why his operation is called 'theandric,' as if divine-manly, just as
Dionysius often says in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy" ("[Q]uod in humanis operatus est super
naturam humanam virtute divina. Uncle operatio sua dicitur theandrica, quasi divina-virilis,
sicut saepe dicit Dionysius in Ecclesiastica Hierarchia" [SuperDionysiiMysticam Theologiam
et Epistulas (Opera Omnia, tomus 37 pars 2, ed. Paulus Simon [Cologne: Monasterii
Westfalorum in Aedibus Aschendorff, 1978), 491))). But Dionysius does not "often" use the
word theandric in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. In fact, that term appears only within the
Dionysian corpus in Epistle 4, although its sense can admittedly be found elsewhere-such as
On the Divine Names 2.
97 Albert the Great, III Sent., d. 17, a. 5, ad 4.
98 Ibid.: "omnem Christi actionem nobis salutarem." See Barnes, "Christ's Two Wills in
Scholastic Theology," 73.

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of a kind of oneness when discussing Christ's activities-but with
a distinction lacking in Macarius's heresy. 99 He observes the
following concerning those who posit one operation:
It seems that this position arose because its authors did not know how to
distinguish between that which is one simply and that which is one in order
[simpliciter unum et ordine unum]. For they saw the human will in Christ to be
completely ordered under the divine will so that Christ willed nothing by his
human will except that which the divine will disposed him to want. Similarly,
also, Christ did nothing according to his human nature, either by acting or by
undergoing, except what the divine will disposed, according to John 8:29: "I
always do the things pleasing to him." For the human operation of Christ
conveys a certain divine efficacy from the union of the divinity, just as an action
of a secondary agent conveys a certain efficacy from a primary agent. On this
account, it happens that his every action or undergoing was saving. For this
reason, Dionysius calls the human operation of Christ "theandric," i.e.
"deivirile," and also because it is of God and of a human. Therefore seeing the
human will and operation of Christ to be ordained under the divine infallible
order, they judged there to be only one will and operation in Christ. However,
as was said, one of order and one simply are not the same thing [quamvis non sit

idem, ut dictum est, ordinis unum et simpliciter unum] .100

Aquinas thus affirms a certain "oneness" in Christ's action,
while making a vital distinction. Moreover, he is clear that the
term "theandric" applies to what he calls the human operation of
Christ. With this in mind, he gives a twofold explication of the
99 Morard, following Gauthier, does not believe that Aquinas had read and appropriated
Constantinople III at this stage of his writing. See Morard, "Thomas d'Aquin lecteur des
conciles," 305-16.
100 ScG IV, c. 36: "Videtur autem haec positio ortum habuisse ex hoc quod eius auctores
nescierunt distinguere inter id quod est simpliciter unum, et ordine unum. Viderunt enim
voluntatem humanam in Christo omnino sub voluntate divina ordinatam fuisse, ita quod nihil
voluntate humana Christus voluit nisi quod eum velle voluntas divina disposuit. Similiter etiam
nihil Christus secundum humanam naturam operatus est, vel agendo vel patiendo, nisi quod
voluntas divina disposuit: secundum illud loan. 8-29: quae placita sunt ei, facio semper.
Humana etiam operatio Christi quandam efficaciam divinam ex unione divinitatis
consequebatur, sicut actio secundarii agentis consequitur efficaciam quandam ex principali
agente: et ex hoc contigit quod quaelibet eius actio vel passio fuit salubris. Propter quod
Dionysius humanam Christi operationem vocat theandricam, idest dei-virilem; et etiam quia
est Dei et hominis. Videntes igitur humanam voluntatem et operationem Christi sub divina
ordinari infallibili ordine, iudicaverunt in Christo esse tantum voluntatem et operationem
unam; quamvis non sit idem, ut dictum est, ordinis unum et simpliciter unum."

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term's significance. While the second one succinctly points to
Christ as the God-man, the first one has more elaboration and
points to the salvation bestowed in Christ's life. Dionysius's
formula summarily expresses how everything the Lord did or
underwent in the flesh conveys divine and saving power. This
significance for our salvation can be related to what Aquinas
repeatedly says, "Every action of Christ is our instruction. " 101
Although the Summa contra Gentiles lacks a detailed presentation
of Christ's life, Aquinas's understanding of the importance of
Christ's actions and passions appear with great detail in the
Summa Theologiae (STh III, qq. 27-59).
Aquinas wrote the Compendium Theologiae not long after
finishing the Summa contra Gentiles. In book 1, chapter 212, he
treats those things which are said in Christ to be one or many.
Much of the brief treatment deals with the question of operations.
Aquinas first explores the faulty reasoning process of those who
think because in Christ there is only one subject there must also
be only one operation. This need not be so, as operations proceed
from principles of operations, which may be plural in an agent.
For example, a human being has the operations of understanding
and of sensing. Likewise, fire has one operation to heat and
another to rise. Then, Aquinas asserts, "But nature is compared to
operation as its principle." 102 Such a statement admittedly may
pose a difficulty for the previous examples, as the human being
with different faculties is not said to have different natures. But
these prior examples may be meant simply to introduce the reader
to think about the fact that one agent can have multiple actions.
Now, Aquinas becomes more exact. Relying upon the doctrine of
two natures, he says, "Therefore, there is not one operation in
Christ according to the one supposit, but there are two according
to the two natures, just as the converse in the Holy Trinity there
101 Aquinas quotes this phrase at least seventeen times. For an insightful essay that puts this
into a greater theological context, particularly with regard to grace, see Richard Schenk, O.P.,
"Omnis Christi Actio Nostra est Instructio," in La doctrine de la revelation divine de saint
Thomas d'Aquin, Studi Tomisitici, no. 37, ed. Leo Elders, S.V.D. (Vatican City: Libreria
Editrice Vaticana, 1990), 104-31.
102 Comp. theol. I, c. 212: "Natura autem comparatur ad operationem ut eius principium."

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

is one operation of the three persons according to the one
nature. " 103 Aquinas maneuvers his Christological teaching to
conform to the principles already known in Trinitarian doctrine.
The better-known converse argument in this respect is that the
Trinity is one nature, but multiple persons; Christ is one person,
but multiple natures. Here, Aquinas applies it to show how the
one Trinitarian operation, because of oneness of nature, supports
the twoness of Christ's operations, because of the twoness of
natures.
Aquinas continues with a profound, brief reflection upon
instrumentality, heavily indebted to John Damascene.
Nevertheless, the operation of humanity participates in Christ with something
from the operation of the divine power. For of all these which are fitting in one
supposit, to that which is more principal other things are subject instrumentally,
just as other parts of a human are instruments of the intellect. Thus, therefore,
Christ's humanity is considered as a certain organ of divinity. Moreover, it is
clear that an instrument acts in the power of the principal agent. For this reason,
one finds in the instrument's action not only the instrument's power, but also
that of the principal agent, just as through the action of an axe comes a box,
insofar as the craftsman handles the axe. Therefore, so also the operation of the
human nature in Christ was having a certain force from the deity above the
human power. For that which touched a leper was the action of humanity, but
that touch which healed him from leprosy proceeded from the divine power.
And through this way all his human actions and things endured were saving from
the power of his divinity. And therefore, Dionysius calls the human operation of
Christ "theandric," i.e. "deivirile," because namely it thus proceeds from his
humanity but nevertheless the divinity's power was active in it. 104
103 Ibid.: "Non ergo est una operatio in Christo propter unum suppositum, sed duae
propter duas naturas, sicut e converso in sancta Trinitate est una operatio trium personarum
propter unam naturam."
104 Ibid.: "Participat tamen operatio humanitatis in Christo aliquid de operatione virtutis
divinae. Omni um enim eorum quae conveniunt in unum suppositum, ei quod principalius est,
cetera instrumentaliter deserviunt, sicut ceterae partes hominis sunt instrumenta intellectus.
Sic igitur in Christo humanitas quasi quoddam organum divinitatis censetur. Patet autem quod
instrumentum agit in virtute principalis agentis. Uncle in actione instrumenti non solum
invenitur virtus instrumenti, sed etiam principalis agentis, sicut per actionem securis fit area,
inquantum securis dirigitur ab artifice. Ita ergo et operatio humanae naturae in Christo
quandam vim ex deitate habebat supra virtutem humanam. Quod enim tangeret leprosum,
humanitatis actio fuit, sed quod tactus ille curaret a lepra, ex virtute divinitatis procedebat. Et
per hunc modum omnes eius actiones et passiones humanae virtute divinitatis salutares

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The Compendium thus demonstrates an increased use of the
language of instrumentality when explicating the meaning of
Christ's theandric operation. 105
Aquinas continued to refine his response to the Monenergist
argument. Most notably, by the time he wrote De unione Verbi
Incarnati, he had studied the acts of Constantinople III. Perhaps
that is why he features the question of whether in Christ there is
only one operation as the fifth and last article of this disputed
question. In this treatise, discussion of the union of the incarnate
Word culminates in articulating the operations of Christ. The
immediately preceding article (whether in Christ there is only one
being [esse]) has received considerable scholarly attention as some
see it as differing from Aquinas's other treatments of the topic. 106
Here, in article, 5 we find that he begins the dispute with an
argument from Dionysius: "With God having become man, he
moved about with a certain new operation of God and of man.
Moreover, there would not be a new operation of God and of
man, unless there were one and the same operation of both.

fuerunt: et ideo Dionysius vocat humanam Christi operationem theandricam, idest deivirilem,
quia scilicet sic procedebat ex humanitate, quod tamen in ea vigebat divinitatis virtus."
105 For the most thorough analysis of instrument in Aquinas's Christology, see the 1939
study of Theophil Tschipke, L'humanite du Christ comme instrument de salut de la divinite,
Studia Friburgensia 94, trans. Philibert Secretan (Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2003 ),
esp. 111-12 and 124-35 for discussion of the theandric operation. Philip L. Reynolds does not
engage Tschipke's argument directly but distances his research from other scholars concerning
Aquinas's mature position on instrumental causality. Reynolds writes, "His [Aquinas'sJ mature
account is so spare as to be consistent with any theory as to how Christ's humanity is the
instrument of his divinity" (Philip L. Reynolds, "Philosophy as the Handmaid of Theology:
Aquinas on Christ's Causality," in Contemplating Aquinas: On the Varieties of Interpretation,
ed. Fergus Kerr, O.P., Faith in Reason Philosophical Enquiries [London: SCM Press, 2003],
217-46, at 243).
106 However, for an interesting argument that Aquinas's De unione holds no contradiction
in the treatment of a single esse, see Victor Salas, Jr., "Thomas Aquinas on Christ's Esse: A
Metaphysics of the Incarnation" The Thomist 70 (2006): 577-603. Perhaps a reading of how
Aquinas treats whether Christ has only one operation in article 5 can shed some additional
light on reading Aquinas's nuanced answer in article 4. Similarly, Aquinas arranges together
the questions of the unity of Christ's existence, the unity of his will, and the unity of his
operation in STh III, qq. 17-19.

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Therefore in Christ there is one operation of God and of man. " 107
Aquinas answers:
It must be said that Christ's operation according to his humanity is called
"theandric," i.e. "deivirile," insofar as Christ's humanity was acting in divine
power. And from this, the action of his humanity was saving, just as an
instrument acts in the agent's power. And because of this, it is said that a new
action has occurred, because it has newly happened that the humanity of Christ
is the conjoined instrument of the divinity in the unity of the person. But it is not
that there is one composition from two actions. 108

Aquinas here gives evidence of interpreting the Dionysian
theandric operation with a greater refinement of his own
instrumental-causality language. Theandric operation serves to
point, in Aquinas's interpretation, to Christ's humanity,
significantly described as "the conjoined instrument of the divinity
in the unity of the person."
In the Summa Theologiae, we find yet another expression of
Christ's operations. Aquinas says that an action which is moved by
another is "twofold: one indeed which it has according to its
proper form and the other which it has according to which it is
moved by another. " 109 His overall argument has not substantially
changed; yet its accent seems to have shifted. Most importantly,
Aquinas takes into even greater account the authority of
Constantinople III, while Dionysius appears in this article only in
the first objection and its response. As such, "theandric operation"
admittedly holds little prominence in the Summa's teaching on
Christ. Aquinas clearly has become more adept in the language of
De unione a. 5, obj. 1. "Dicit enim Dionysius: Dea homine facto, nova quadam Dei et
hominis operatione conversatus est. Non autem esset nova operatio Dei et hominis, nisi esset
una et eadem operatio utriusque. Ergo in Christo est una operatio Dei et hominis."
108 De unione a. 5, ad 1: "Ad primum ergo dicendum estquod operatio Christi secundum
humanitatem dicitur theandrica, id est deivirilis, in quantum humanitas Christi agebat in
virtute divina. Et ex hoc actio humanitatis erat salutaris, sicut instrumentum agit in virtute
agentis. Et pro tan to dicitur nova actio facta, quia de novo factum est quod humanitas Christi
est instrumentum divinitati coniunctum in unitate personae; non autem ita quod ex duabus
actionibus sit una compositio."
109 STh III, q. 19, a. 1: "duplex; una quidem quam habet secundum propriam formam, alia
autem quam habet secundum quod movetur ab alio."
107

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the councils and found his own voice in emphasizing other aspects
important for understanding the saving acts and passions of
Christ, such as the grace of Christ as head and the subtleties of
instrumental causality, and in an unprecedented attention to the
mysteries of Christ's life. 110
With this said, Aquinas in the Summa still finds the Dionysian
term "theandric operation" useful-if properly understood. The
first objection of question 19, article 1 proceeds on the authority
of On the Divine Names 2, which includes the phrase, "he did and
underwent whatever things were fitting to his human and divine
operation." Aquinas then comments, "he names this one
operation human and divine, which in Greek is called 'theandric,'
i.e. 'deivirile.' Therefore, it seems that there is one composite
operation in Christ." 111 In reply Aquinas gives a two-part argument which deserves close attention.
The first argument concerns the operations of the Word as
incarnate with both divine and human natures as sources of
operation: the divine operation uses the human, while the human
operation participates in the power of the divine operation. This
is the same language that Aquinas uses in the corpus to interpret
Pope Leo the Great's teaching through instrumental causality. 112
Aquinas gives for this argument the authority of Dionysius's
no Catao, Salut et Redemption, 138 argues for a shift from the theandric operation, as in
the Scriptum, and the infinite dignity of the divine person, as in De Veritate or the
Compendium, to the capital grace as Aquinas writes in the Summa Theologiae. Catao assures
the reader that the previous two considerations stay valuable, but they are no longer premier.
His point of the theandric operation receding in prominence is correct; however, his
formulation does not take adequate account of Aquinas's refinement on instrumental causality,
elucidated by Tschipke. For another reservation, see Barnes, "Christ's Two Wills in Scholastic
Theology," 327 n. 705.
111 STh III, q. 19, a. 1, obj. 1: "operari et pati, quaecumque humanae ejus divinaeque
operationi congruent: ubi unam operationem nominat humanam et divinam, quae in graeco
dicitur 'theandrica' idest Dei-virilis. Videtur igitur esse una operatio composita in Christo."
ni Leo's Tome to Flavian was cited at Constantinople III. In STh III, q. 19, a. 1, Aquinas
gives this from Leo: "Each form does, namely both the divine and the human nature in Christ,
with the communion of the other, what is proper to it: the Word acting what is proper to the
Word, and the flesh carrying out what is proper to the flesh" ("Agit utraque forma, scilicet tam
natura divina quam humana in Christo, cum alterius communione, quad proprium est: Verba
scilicet operante quad Verbi est, et came exsequente quad carnis est").

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Epistle 4: "he was doing these things of a human superhumanly,
which the Virgin conceiving supernaturally shows, and fluid water
sustaining the weight of his earthly feet. " 113 Aquinas comments
that to be conceived and to walk are things of a human nature,
but both are in Christ supernaturally. Likewise, he continues,
Christ "did divine things humanly, just as when he healed the
leper by touching him. Thereupon in the same letter Dionysius
adds, But God having been made human, with a certain new
operation of God and of human." 114
The second argument also proceeds from the establishment of
the divine and human natures, but it has a Trinitarian reference.
Aquinas says that the distinction of the two operations is
implicitly presupposed in Dionysius's writings, as made clear in
the Areopagite's Trinitarian reflections on the distinction of
operations. Aquinas again quotes On the Divine Names 2:
where Dionysius says that in these, which pertain to his human operation, the
Father and the Holy Spirit share in no way, unless one were to speak according
to the most kind and merciful will, insofar namely the Father and the Holy Spirit
willed Christ from their mercy to act and to undergo human things. Moreover,
he adds, and every most sublime and ineffable operation of God which he did
although having been made in accordance with us, yet was unchanging by that
which he was God and the Word of God. 115

w STh III, q. 19, a. 1, ad 1: "super hominem operabatur ea quae sunt hominis, quad
monstrat Virgo supernaturaliter concipiens, et aqua instabilis terrenorum pedum sustinens
gravitatem."
114 STh III, q. 19, a. 1, ad 1: "Et similiter divina operabatur humanitus, sicut cum sanavit
leprosum tangendo. Uncle in eadem epistola subdit, Sed Deo homine facto, nova quadam Dei
et hominis operatione."
IL< Ibid.: "ubi <licit quod his, quae pertinent ad humanam ejus operationem, Pater et
Spiritus Sanctus nu/la ratione communicant, nisi quis dixerit secundum benignissimam et
misericordem voluntatem; inquantum scilicet Pater et Spiritus Sanctus ex sua misericordia
voluerunt Christum agere et pati humana. Addit autem, et omnem sublimissimam et
ineff abilem Dei operationem quam operatus est secundum nos factus incommutabilis eo quad
Deus et Dei Verbum." Aquinas paraphrases Dionysius in writing, "quae pertinent ad humanam
ejus operationem." In the original text of On the Divine Names 2.6 Dionysius does not exactly
say "human operation." Rather, he gives the expression tes anthropikes autou theourgias ("his
divine work proper to humanity" or "his properly human divine work"). Luibheid translates
it as "his divinely human activity" (The Complete Works, 63).

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Put slightly differently, the Word who was made incarnate did not
cease doing the operations of his divine nature, together with the
Father and the Holy Spirit, when he undertook a human nature.
Aquinas thus finds that Dionysius himself provides the distinction
of the two operations on this Trinitarian basis. One is what
Aquinas calls the "human operation," in which the Father and the
Holy Spirit do not share except according to their common
philanthropia expressed in the incarnation of Christ alone. The
other is Christ's divine operation done as the Word in God, in
which the Father and the Holy Spirit do share.
CONCLUSION

What significance does Aquinas's repeated attention to Christ's
theandric operation have for today? To mention just one benefit,
Aquinas's work on this difficult Dionysian element through the
course of his career has relevance in ecumenism for understanding
the truth of the common faith believed by Christians who
historically have been divided on the question of Chalcedon's
authority. In 1984, Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Mar Ignatius
Zakka of Antioch signed a joint declaration stating, inter alia:
He who is God eternal and indivisible, became visible in the flesh and took the
form of a servant. In him are united, in a real, perfect, indivisible, and
inseparable way, divinity and humanity, and in Him all their properties are
present and active. 116

In studying Aquinas on Christ's theandric operation, we find a
position consistently supportive of the teaching of two operations,
but one that is nuanced to allow for multiple reasons that the
operations flowing from the incarnate Word could be called one
or are really united. The different interpretations that Aquinas
gives to Christ's theandric operation can help distinguish today

116 "Common Declaration of Pope John Paul II and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Antioch
His Holiness Moran Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas," 4 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
1984; translation modified).

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ANDREW HOFER, O.P.

what is at stake in saying that the operations of divinity and
humanity, united in Christ, are present and active in him.
Indeed, Dionysius's authority and ambiguity brought Aquinas
many opportunities for further development of his own thought
in Christology. As an acutely perceptive theologian, Aquinas
gladly borrows much from Dionysius in constructing his teaching
on Christ, but uses him with great care so as to clarify both the
sacred teaching itself and Dionysius as an authority. Moreover,
Aquinas in his mature Christology seems most indebted to
Dionysius for something other than the term "theandric
operation." When writing his treatise on Christ in the Summa
Theologiae, Aquinas tellingly begins with a quotation from
Dionysius on divine goodness because it is precisely in Christ that
one comes to know the infinite goodness and philanthropia .
drawing sinners on the way back to the most loving God. Aquinas
thus wholeheartedly agrees with the central principle of divine
love that guides Dionysian Christology, a principle well worth
stressing in their times and ours. 117

117 I am grateful to Austin G. Murphy, O.S.B., Joseph Wawrykow, Thomas Joseph White,
O.P., Joshua G. Lollar, and The Thomist's anonymous referees for their helpful comments on
earlier forms of this essay.

The Thomist 72 (2008): 443-85

WHAT IS LEGALISM? ENGELHARDT AND GRISEZ ON
THE MISUSE OF LAW IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS

M. CATHLEEN KAVENY
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

I

T SEEMS INCONCEIVABLE that any contemporary Christian
moralist in his or her right mind, or at least in his or her
enlightened heart, would admit to being a "legalist" or
uncomplainingly accede to a description of his or her moral
theological framework as "legalistic." Those terms are often used
as rhetorical weapons, in order simultaneously to express disdain
for a moral theory or argument and to justify a decision to refrain
from engaging that theory or argument further. Just as the term
"fundamentalism" is freely used in some secular academic
discussions to gesture to an object of polemic and scorn, so too is
the term "legalism" used in Christian theological discussions.
But what, exactly, does it mean to call a Christian moral theory
"legalistic"? The general consensus that legalism is unhelpful in a
Christian moral framework a is not matched by a corresponding
consensus about either the exact definition of legalism or the
precise impediments it poses to sound moral analysis. Perhaps this
is to be expected. From its very beginnings, Christianity expressed
a complicated and ambivalent attitude toward the law, as its early
leaders struggled to define its relationship with both Judaism and
Greek philosophy. Chapter 3 of St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians
furnishes us with a compact example. On the one hand, St. Paul
tells us that "all who depend on works of the law are under a

443

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

curse. " 1 On the other hand, after raising the rhetorical question
"Is the law then opposed to the promises [of God]?" he
emphatically responds "Of course not!" 2 Distinguishing proper
respect for the law, especially the moral law, from improper use
of it or reliance upon it, especially with regard to salvation, has
occupied the attention of many a Christian theologian from
apostolic times until the present day. 3
My aims in this article are modest. I do not hope to resolve
here the great questions about the role of law in Christian life, the
relationship of the eternal law to the natural law, the influence of
natural law on positive law, or the relationship of law and grace.
I do hope to shed some light on the meaning and use of the
charge of "legalism." In order to do so, I will use St. Thomas
Aquinas's definition of law 4 to structure a close comparison of the
thought of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., an Eastern Orthodox
thinker, and Germain Grisez, a Roman Catholic, on the role of
law in the moral life.
Why Aquinas's definition of law? The charge of "legalism"
cannot be fully understood without a clear understanding of the
meaning of "law." Roughly speaking, to charge a moralist with
"legalism" is to charge that he or she allows law, legal concepts,
and characteristically legal ways of thinking unduly to influence
his or her moral theory. What, then, does the concept of "law"
entail? Manifesting his characteristic precision and nuance,
Aquinas's definition offers a response to this question, and
therefore a base for gaining more precision about what the charge
of "legalism" entails.

1 Gal 3:10 (Catholic Study Bible, gen. ed. Donald Senior [New York: Oxford University
Press, 1990]).
2 Gal 3:21.
3 After the Reformation, St. Paul tended to be pervasively misread as a proto-Lutheran.
Recent scholarship has corrected this misreading by situating him in his own historical and
social context of late Second Temple Judaism. See, e.g., E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the
Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983); and Markus Bockmuehl,]ewish Law in
Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the Beginning of Christian Public Ethics (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Baker Academic, 2000).
4 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 90, a. 4.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

445

Why Engelhardt and Grisez? First, both are rigorous thinkers
who have produced significant, lengthy, and wide-ranging
articulations of their respective position on the relationship of
Christianity and the moral life. Engelhardt, Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Medicine at Rice University, has written
Foundations of Christian Bioethics,5 which situates biomedical
questions within a broad articulation of an Orthodox Christian
approach to the meaning and purpose of human life. Grisez, the
Flynn Professor of Christian Ethics at Mount St. Mary's Seminary,
has produced a magisterial three-volume work entitled The Way
of the Lord Jesus.6 Within this work he not only develops his
Roman Catholic moral theory in great detail, he also applies it to
a number of concrete questions, including questions of bioethics
and sexual ethics addressed by Engelhardt as well.
Second, while Grisez and Engelhardt operate out of different
traditions within Christianity, their positions are not difficult to
bring into conversation with each other. Engelhardt, a former
Roman Catholic, develops his argument for a "noetic" approach
to theological ethics that emphasizes mystical union with God as
the ultimate ground of moral knowledge, in critical conversation
with Western Christian moral thought, particularly Roman
Catholic moral casuistry. Grisez, in contrast, attempts to retrieve,
reform, and refurbish the very tradition that Engelhardt has
rejected. Both theorists situate their account of moral norms, even
moral norms applied to concrete cases, within a broader context
of humanity's relationship with God, mediated by Christ Jesus.
Third, and most importantly, both are contemporary moralists
who combine in their writings serious respect for the role of
moral discernment and moral norms in Christian life with a
strong antipathy to legalism. It is possible, of course, to find
Christian thinkers who will condemn as "legalistic" anyone who
believes that Christianity ought to encompass disciplined moral
5 H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., The Foundations of Christian Bioethics (Lisse: Swets &
Zeitlinger, 2000).
6 Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 1, Christian Moral Principles (Quincy,
Ill.: Franciscan Press, 1983); vol. 2, Living a Christian Life (Quincy, Ill.: Franciscan Press,
1993); vol. 3, Difficult Moral Questions (Quincy, Ill.: Franciscan Press, 1997).

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

reflection, settled commitment to moral norms, and sustained
reflection upon what it means to follow God's law. There is an
"antinomian" strand in Christianity that is deeply suspicious of
any effort to integrate respect for the law, including the moral
law, into an account of a good Christian life. 7 Opposition to
legalism, however, does not necessarily make one an antinomian.
Abusus non tollit usum. Consequently, one purpose of this article
is to help illuminate what it means to respect moral norms and to
honor God's law while at the same time opposing legalism.
My plan for this essay is as follows. In section I, I will briefly
set forth the five components of the definition of law offered by
Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae to serve as a framework for my
comparative analysis. In section II, I will attempt to flesh out
precisely what Engelhardt and Grisez mean by "legalism" by
analyzing their thought in light of Aquinas's definition of law. In
section III, I will examine some of the deleterious consequences
that Engelhardt and Grisez believe a legalistic approach to
morality entails for moral life and pastoral practice. In section IV,
the Conclusion, I will offer some brief reflections on the
usefulness of the term "legalism" in contemporary discussions
regarding the methodology and content of Christian ethics.
I. AQUINAS'S DEFINITION OF LAW

In the first question of his treatise on law, question 90 of the
Prima Secundae, entitled, "Of the Essence of Law," Aquinas offers
a multifaceted definition of law. It is "nothing else than an
ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has
care of the community, and promulgated. "8 In the four articles of
that question, Aquinas systematically considers each element of
that definition. Note, however, that the first element actually
7 I do not mean to deny, of course, that the charge of "antinomianism" has been bandied
about with nearly as much laxity as the charge of "legalism." But that is the subject of another
essay.
8 STh I-II, q. 90, a. 4 (trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province [Westminster,
Md.: Christian Classics, 1981]).

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

447

encompasses two components, not one: Aquinas tells us that law
is an ordinance of reason. He takes it for granted that a law is
fundamentally an ordinance; it is not simply a statement, it makes
a normative claim upon an agent subject to its jurisdiction. While
Aquinas does not devote a separate article to an examination of
this element of the definition of law, he does indicate what it
involves in the course of explicating the other four elements.
Since all five elements are relevant to my analysis of legalism, I
will briefly describe Aquinas's treatment of each of them.
A) An Ordinance
By its very nature, law has a normative, directive thrust. In
article 1 of question 90, which discusses "whether law is
something pertaining to reason," Aquinas clearly recognizes that
"[i]t belongs to law to command or forbid. " 9 Noting that the word
"lex" (law) is derived from the word "ligare" (to bind), he writes
that "law binds one to act. " 10 Law operates as a constraint on
human activity, either by mandating or prohibiting certain
particular actions. The same recognition permeates article 2,
"whether the law is always something directed to the common
good." Aquinas here assumes that law "directs man in his
actions" 11 and goes on to consider the ultimate purpose of these
directions. Article 3, "whether the reason of any man is
competent to make laws," grapples not only with the directive
power of law, but also with its more specifically "coercive
power." 12 Article 4, "whether promulgation is essential to a law,"
considers what is necessary "in order that a law obtain the binding
force which is proper to a law. " 13 In short, Aquinas takes it for
granted that law orders human activity through its ordinances; on

9

STh I-II, q. 90, a. 1.

10 Ibid.

STh I-II, q. 90, a. 2, obj. 1.
STh I-II, q. 90, a. 3 , ad 2.
13 STh I-II, q. 90, a. 4.
11

12

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

this basis, he goes on to ask what else must be true about law if it
is to order human activity well and properly.

B) Of Reason
The first and fundamental move that Aquinas makes is to
shape, define, and qualify the type of ordinance that law is. It is
not an ordinance of whimsy. It is not an demand based in pure
desire, on the one hand, or pure fear on the other. It is not an
arbitrary expression of power. Ordered as well as ordering, law
is an ordinance of reason. Law is a "rule and measure" of human
acts. 14 The ultimate rule and measure of human acts, however, is
reason. Consequently, law must correspond to reason. 15 For
Aquinas, therefore, it is necessary, but not sufficient, that law
entails an ordinance or a command. He tells us that "in order that
the volition of what is commanded may have the nature of law, it
needs to be in accord with some rule of reason." 16

C) For the Common Good
Practical reason is oriented toward achieving an end or a goal;
that end or goal is in fact the starting point and first principle in
its deliberations. To say, therefore, that law must be guided by
practical reason is immediately to raise the question, what is the
end or goal of the law? Aquinas tells us that the end of the law is
"universal happiness," the flourishing not only of an individual,
but of a perfect or complete community of individuals. The
purpose of law is to direct individual actions with a view to the
good of that community-the common good. "[S]ince the law is
chiefly ordained to the common good, any other precept in regard
to some individual work, must needs be devoid of the nature of
a law, save in so far as at regards the common good. " 17
I-II, q. 90, a. 1.
Ibid.
16 Ibid., ad 3.
17 STh I-II, q. 90, a. 2.
14 STh
15

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

449

D) Competent Authority
If law is an ordinance of reason, whose reason counts? Can any
reasonable person make law? Aquinas says no. Precisely because
law pertains to the common good, only those responsible for the
common good can make law. "Now to order anything to the
common good, belongs either to the whole people, or to someone
who is the viceregent of the whole people. " 18 Consequently,
making law "belongs either to the whole people or to a public
personage who has care of the whole people." 19 Moreover,
Aquinas does not forget that law entails the coercive imposition
of the lawgiver's will. "[C]oercive power is vested in the whole
people, or in some public personage, to whom it belongs to inflict
penalties. " 20
E) Promulgation
Finally, Aquinas maintains that law must be promulgated.
Because "law is imposed on others by way of a rule and
measure," 21 those who are subject to the rule and measure must
be given notice of its existence and application. "Wherefore
promulgation is necessary for the law to obtain its force. " 22 This
requirement, while seemingly obvious, is in fact quite significant.
It strongly suggests, for example, that ex post facto laws, which
apply to actions that took place before they were promulgated,
are not "laws" properly speaking.
In view of Aquinas's multifaceted definition of law, what, then,
is legalism? My hypothesis is that moralists will label as "legalist"
any view of moral norms that they believe gives disproportionate
or otherwise inappropriate stress to one of the five elements of
STh I-II, q. 90, a. 3.
Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 STh I-II, q. 90, a. 4.
22 Ibid.
18
19

450

M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

the definition of law given to us by Aquinas. As one might suspect,
the label functions more as a broad, negative judgment about a
rival moral system than as a nuanced, positive statement about
one's own view of the moral life. Furthermore, in using the label,
the user objects to a perceived distortion in a rival way of
understanding morality, but is not committed to adopting a
mirror-image distortion. For example, by saying, negatively, that
one objects to an overemphasis on God's will in understanding the
eternal law at the expense of his reasonableness, one is not
asserting positively that God's will plays no role whatsoever in the
legitimate meaning of the eternal law.
This way of understanding "legalism" has several advantages.
First, it makes it clear that one's definition of legalism is (a)
dependent upon one's understanding of the nature and function
of law and (b) integrally related to one's understanding of the way
in which the norms of the moral life can helpfully be understood
as laws. Second, it gives us a way to account for the fact that the
various people who make the charge of legalism, and those who
respond to it, frequently seem to be talking past one another, even
while they seem to be loosely talking about the same thing-the
moral law. This definition allows us to see how they are indeed
talking about the same thing, but about different facets or aspects
of it. There are several components to the definition of law, and
one or more of them may be the central focus of a charge of
"legalism." Third, this definition makes clear that in some
cases-perhaps in many cases-the charge of "legalism" within a
Christian context can be more helpfully understood as a charge
that a particular thinker or school of thought has incorporated
one or more distorted elements into a proffered articulation or
application of the moral law, rather than a charge that a thinker
has wrongly extended the moral law into a sphere where it does
not belong.
We are now in a position to test the explanatory power of my
hypothesis about legalism by considering the work of H. Tristram
Engelhardt and Germain Grisez.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

451

II. ENGELHARDT AND GRISEZ: Two DEFINITIONS OF LEGALISM
The title of Engelhardt's book, Foundations of Christian
Bioethics, needs some interpretation. It is not a book about
biomedical ethical questions-or their foundations-narrowly
construed; it is rather a book that situates biomedical questions
within a broad articulation of an Orthodox Christian approach to
the meaning and purpose of human life. Engelhardt clearly frames
his objectives in the preface to his work:
The cardinal philosophical and theological puzzle is: can one break through
immanence to truth? And if so, how? By addressing this puzzle, this volume
invites the reader to the Christianity of the first millennium, a Christianity
rooted in mysticism, or better stated, a noetic theology. It is here that the puzzle
is solved and the door is found in the horizon of immanence: Christianity's
disclosure of an immediate experience of the uncreated energies of a radically
transcendent, personal God. 23

Engelhardt objects to the Christianity of the West on both
political philosophical and religious grounds. Following Alasdair
Macintyre, he argues that the Western tradition in political
philosophy has failed in its objective of identifying foundations for
a common morality in a religiously pluralistic world. 24 Second, he
maintains that Western Christianity has not even succeed in
providing a coherent, content-full morality that is uncontroversially acknowledged to be true by its own adherents. 25
What approach does Engelhardt adopt in this situation?
Because all attempts to formulate a substantive, rich common
morality have failed, he argues that the attempt to do so must be
given up as impossible. He maintains that in a secular society
whose members do not agree on the nature and purpose of human
life, the only justifiable morality is based on autonomy, consent,
and contract; in his terms, the only justifiable public morality is a
libertarian cosmopolitan morality of strangers. Such a morality
will, he admits, allow practices deeply offensive to many
Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, xiii.
Ibid., xi-xii.
25 Ibid., 127.
23

24

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

Christians (e.g., abortion and assisted suicide) to proceed without
legal impediment. It will also tolerate a great deal more disparity
in the distribution of health-care resources than most Christian
theorists of social justice would deem permissible.
Engelhardt objects to the theological and liturgical commitments of Western Christianity no less than to its political
morality. For him, the problem with Western Christianity is that
it never moves beyond an immanent understanding of reality to
touch the transcendent. Roman Catholic thought emphasizes the
priority of discursive reason, which remains trapped within the
immanent; it therefore cannot find itself a secure foundation in
unchanging, transcendent Truth. Protestant thought, with its
emphasis on private study of Scripture, apart from the liturgical
life of the worshiping community, generates a historical-critical
approach to sacred writings that obscures their value as a gateway
to transcendence. "If God is available to us only through
arguments, texts, and oral traditions, God is obscured by the
immanent, the finite, the contingent, and the historically
conditioned. " 26
Engelhardt maintains that traditional Christianity, in contrast,
is enabled, by the grace of God, to reach beyond the immanent in
order truly to touch the transcendent-to touch the energies of
God himself through a type of noetic experience. The marks of a
life formed by such an experience do not change with the passage
of time throughout the ages. He writes:
Orthodox Christianity interweaves theological experience and reflection through
liturgical texts and ascetical practices that have firm roots in the work and the
sentiments of the Fathers, thus making the Fathers of the Church and their lives
present to the contemporary community of believers. By sustaining religious life
in the spirit of the first millennium, a framework for moral theology is engaged
so that the contemporary believer can engage the moral reflections of early
Christians with little conceptual opacity or distance. 27

Ibid.
Ibid., 160. Obviously, this claim is susceptible to vigorous challenge by sociologists of
knowledge who view the appropriation of texts as conditioned by the presuppositions of the
reader.
26
27

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

453

Engelhardt maintains that one virtue of his "traditional
Christian" approach, which is rooted in the theological and liturgical traditions of Eastern Christianity, is that it avoids legalism.
According to Engelhardt, Western Christian moral thought,
particularly Roman Catholic moral thought, has long been
plagued by legalistic modes of analysis. More specifically, his
prototype of legalistic thinking seems to be the "manualist" model
of moral theology that predominated in the Catholic Church from
the time of the Council of Trent until the mid-twentieth century,
and which was designed to allow confessors to evaluate the
seriousness of the sins confessed by members of their flock and to
set an appropriate penance.
Of coures, as Engelhardt repeatedly observes, Catholic moral
theology underwent a sea-change after the Second Vatican
Council. The moral manuals have all but disappeared from the
scene. Are there any intellectually respectable, card-carrying
legalists left within mainstream Roman Catholic thought? Or is
Engelhardt's polemic against legalism nothing more than a
quixotic battle with authoritarian ghosts of the past? It is hard to
say, because Engelhardt does not support his accusations of
Catholic legalism with citations of any contemporary Roman
Catholic thinkers.
Germain Grisez seems to be an eminently plausible candidate
for the role of an intelligent, contemporary, card-carrying legalist.
Strongly supportive of the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican
Council, he nonetheless has also been concerned to promote and
defend aspects of Catholic moral and spiritual life that have fallen
into desuetude in its wake: the desirability of frequent use of the
sacrament of penance, the importance of penitential practices, and
even the usefulness of indulgences in deepening one's spiritual
life. Moreover, for nearly thirty years, Grisez has been a tireless
defender of the Roman Catholic magisterium's affirmation of the
existence of exceptionless moral rules, including an absolute
prohibition against the use of drugs, devices, or surgical
procedures for the purpose of preventing conception. At first
glance, therefore, Grisez seems as likely as any post-Vatican II

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

Catholic moralist to defend an explicitly and self-avowedly
legalistic approach to moral theology. Nonetheless, he does not
do so. In fact, in The Way of the Lord Jesus he devotes a great deal
of explicit attention to combating what he defines as legalism and
the abuses and distortions it introduces into the moral life of
Christians.
Both Englhardt and Grisez have reason to distance themselves
from legalism, because the nature of their writings renders their
work casually susceptible to that very charge. Both maintain that
moral theological reflection ought not to remain at the level of
abstraction; it should provide sufficient detail to help people
address the issues that arise in their day-to-day lives. 28 The
writings of both men, therefore, include finely nuanced analyses
of particular classes of cases, which achieve definite conclusions
regarding acceptable and nonacceptable courses of action. As
Engelhardt and Grisez surely know, the refusal to limit one's
moral theology to the articulation of abstract ideals or principles
can render a theorist vulnerable to the charge of legalism by those
inclined to think that any effort to reach a definite judgment on
specific questions threatens to constrain Christian freedom.
Despite the fact that Engelhardt is Orthodox and Grisez is
Roman Catholic, they share a significant number of basic judgments regarding the shape of the Christian moral life. For
example, although Grisez is a natural-law thinker (and therefore
believes that a significant amount of moral truth is accessible in
principle to both believers and nonbelievers), he and Engelhardt
would agree that Christian revelation affects both the accessibility
and the substantive content of moral norms. Engelhardt and
Grisez also both maintain that prayer and spiritual guidance can
significantly contribute to moral discernment. Neither man
believes that the Christian moral life can be lived without
participation in the liturgical practices that have marked the
Christian community from its beginnings.
This is not to deny that Engelhardt wants to distance himself from the practice of
casuistry, at least as it is usually understood. See Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian
Bioethics, 209.
28

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455

As we shall see below, however, their commonalities are
punctuated by important differences. While they are equally
adamant in their condemnation of "legalism," Engelhardt and
Grisez in fact mean significantly different things by the term. By
exploring their differences within the broader context of their
respective theological commitments, I hope to shed some light on
the more general question of when and how it is appropriate to
understand Christian morality as a type of "law." The fivepronged definition of law offered by Aquinas offers us a way to
organize and compare what the two thinkers mean by the term
"legalism."
A) An Ordinance
To focus on the aspect of law as an ordinance is to focus on its
nature as a command or an order given by the lawgiver to those
subject to the law. To someone who concentrates on this aspect
of the law, the content of the order is less decisive; it is the fact
that it is valid order that is crucial for recognizing its binding legal
character. Some Christian theologians have placed almost
exclusive emphasis on God's role as lawgiver, conceiving of the
moral life largely as obedience to a series of divine commands.
Their heavy emphasis on the sovereignty of the divine will
logically leads to the position that even a divine command to
perform an evil action must be obeyed. 29 In one sense, such an
approach is not different from that taken by theorists such as
Aquinas, who also maintained that all divine commands should be
obeyed. Aquinas took pains, however, to show that an apparently
a wrongful act (e.g., taking someone else's life) might not in fact
be evil (because God is in command of life and death already). 30
Viewed narrowly, this endeavor may seem like an attempt at
special pleading, an attempt to escape a difficult moral problem
with a clever distinction. When viewed more broadly, however,
29 For an overview, see Janine Marie Idziak, Divine Command Morality: Historical and
Contemporary Readings, (New York: E Mellen Press, 1979); and Paul Helm, ed., Divine
Commands and Morality (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).
30 STh II-II, q. 64, a. 6, ad 1.

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

Aquinas's goal is to ensure that the divine knowledge and the
divine will are not set against one another.
For Grisez, the core mistake of legalism is placing too great an
emphasis on the aspect of the moral law as a product of the will
of God, rather than as something intelligible in itself, as an aspect
of the divine intellect. He writes:
In thus tracing the practical force of moral obligation back to God as lawmaker,
classical moral theology tended toward voluntarism. Voluntarism in general is
a theory which assigns primacy to the will over reason. Classical moral theology
assigned primacy in the genesis of moral obligation to God's will, although it left
a subordinate place for human reason. This limited voluntarism, together with
the isolation of moral from dogmatic theology, led classical moralists to pay less
and less attention to intrinsic reasons for accepting Christian moral norms as
true. Instead, they increasingly tended to treat moral norms as laws which
members of the Church must obey because the Church insists upon them with
divine authority. 31

Grisez identifies four basic consequences of this voluntaristic
legalism for the moral life. First, it concentrated too much on the
"detailed specification of duties," without clarifying "the meaning
of good and bad in terms of the total Christian vocation." Second,
it meant that Catholic moral theology is primarily concerned with
"the minimum required to avoid mortal sin." Third, it largely
avoided addressing the responsibilities of personal vocation,
because "it tended to suggest that what is not forbidden is thereby
permitted, in the sense that one is free to do as one pleases in
regard to it; thus it tended to ignore the responsibilities of
personal vocation." Fourth, classical moral theology "tended to
liken moral truths to Church laws," leading to the "suggestion
that the Church might or should change its moral teaching, as if
it were changeable law rather than unchangeable truth. " 32
Engelhardt would agree with Grisez about the undesirabilityand the danger-of most of the consequences that the latter
attributes to legalism. He would not, however, be likely to trace
their source to an overemphasis on the moral law as an aspect of
31

32

Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 12-13.
Ibid., 13.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

457

God's will, or of human willing in response to the will of God.
According to Engelhardt, the basic move toward God is one of the
will, rather than one of reason. "The impact of the Fall is not so
much on man's will as often supposed in the West, but upon his
intellect, his noetic capacity for non-discursive knowledge. " 33 The
knowledge of God's moral law follows upon, rather than leads to,
an experience of God himself, what Engelhardt refers to as a
"noetic" experience of God, which begins with a grace-inspired
turning to God. He writes:
Natural law properly understood compasses the precepts taught us by God
through our being and through the world around us, rendering nature a window
to God. To see that law, one must take on the faith that turns us from
agnosticism to an encounter with God. God then allows us through His energies
to grow in knowledge of His commandments. 34

According to Engelhardt, our fundamental mistake is to attempt
to come to know God through discursive reason before we will to
join ourselves with him by grace. Consequently, as discussed
below, for Engelhardt the key problem of legalism is a distorted
emphasis on the powers of human reason to reach the mind of
God by proceeding in a discursive manner.
B) Of Reason

For Aquinas, law is an ordinance of reason; it is not an
arbitrary imposition expressing the whim of the lawgiver. In his
account of morality, Grisez follows Aquinas in emphasizing the
reasonableness of the moral law. In fact, it is in this emphasis on
the reasonableness of the requirements of morality, and the
reasonableness of expecting Christians to follow them, that Grisez
locates the antidote to legalism. For example, he charges the "new
moral theology" developed after Vatican II with remaining "as
legalistic as the old," because "[i]t provides no account in Christian terms of why one should seek human fulfillment in this life,
33

Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 174.

34 Ibid., 176.

M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

458

what the specifically Christian way of life is, and how living as a
Christian in this life is intrinsically related to fulfillment in
everlasting life. " 35
In this situation, Grisez aims to provide an adequate treatise on
Christian moral principles, which
clarify what a Christian is and how Christian life can be at once and entirely both
human and divine. It must explain how human goods determine Christian moral
norms and show why a life in accord with the Christian norms is the only life
which is really humanly good, while also showing how to live such a life. It
should be oriented toward preaching, teaching, and counseling, while providing
an adequate basis for studies leading to the formation of confessors. Finally, it
must explain the authority of the Church's teaching. 36

For Engelhardt, in sharp contrast, reason is not the solution, it
is the problem. He believes that legalism results from distorted
emphasis on the rational accessibility of divine law. As noted
above, the key for Engelhardt is the noetic experience of the
uncreated energies of God, which is only made possible by union
with God. The goal of the Christian life is "an intimate knowing
between persons, most particularly an illumination of the creature
by the Creator. It is only through this illumination that true
knowledge becomes possible. " 37 It is only by repenting of one's
sins, joining with God, and living in accordance with God's will
that one will be in a position to discern the requirements of the
moral life.
Engelhardt contrasts "noetic knowledge," the intimate, immediate, nondiscursive knowledge of the transcendent God made
possible through this union with God, with "discursive knowledge," his name for human reasoning as it proceeds more or less
autonomously. Discursive reason is helpful in dealing with the
world of immanence, but absolutely useless in reaching the
transcendent. In fact, by relying exclusively on discursive reason,
human beings will move away from God, rather than toward him.
The sad history of Western debates over the establishment of
35 Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 15.
36
37

Ibid., 22.
Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 163.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

459

rational foundations for morality demonstrates that discursive
reason is not sufficient to produce a morality certain enough to
provide a basis for living one's life. Relatedly, and perhaps more
importantly, discursive reason remains trapped within the realm
of immanence, according to Engelhardt. He would reject the
effort to clarify and systematize moral norms that constitutes the
heart of Grisez's project. He reflects:
This is not to deny a place in Christian bioethics for moral rules,
commandments, or precepts: properly understood, they indicate real boundaries
beyond which one will go very wrong rather than enter into union with God.
But they cannot be systematized in terms of conceptual foundations. So, too, one
should resist the temptation to ground prohibitions against murder or abortion
in supposed general principles such as the principle of the sanctity of life, rather
than in the pursuit of God. Murder and abortion are wrong first and foremost
because they lead us away from union with God. Nor can there be a legalistic
rule for dealing with particular cases.38

1. The Principle of Double Effect
A flash point revealing the difference in the approaches of the
two theologians is their attitude toward the principle of double
effect. At its core, the principle states that agents are responsible
for the intended effects of their actions (whether they intend those
effects as ends in themselves or merely as means to other intended
ends) in a way different from their responsibility for the foreseenbut-unintended side effects of their actions.
What is the difference? In mainline Roman Catholic thought,
one is never permitted to intend to cause certain effects in one's
acting (e.g., the death of an innocent human being), but under
certain circumstances one may permit such a result as the
foreseen-but-unintended side effect of one's action. This is not to
say that agents are not responsible for the foreseen-butunintended effects of their action. They are required to consider
whether permitting such effects conforms to the norms of
proportionality and fairness. For example, a doctor may not
perform an abortion intending to bring about the death of a child,
38

Ibid., 209.

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

even to save the life of the mother, but may perform another
action (e.g., removing the cancerous uterus of a pregnant woman)
foreseeing but not intending the death of the baby, provided it is
proportionate and fair to cause that result in that particular case.
According to Grisez, this distinction between intended consequences and consequences that are merely foreseen is an essential
tool of practical reason. Fundamentally, one constitutes one's
character differently with respect to the intended effects of one's
action (even those intended as means to other ends) than with
respect to effects that are foreseen-but-unintended side effects of
one's intentions. Consequently, Grisez believes that it is extremely
important for deliberating agents to identify precisely which
effects they are intending in their actions, and which effects they
are merely permitting as foreseen-but-unintended side effects.
This process of clarification requires reflecting upon the path of
action proposed by one's own practical reason, which chooses
means in order to achieve ends. For example, an agent may
mistakenly believe that a contemplated action is ruled out by the
prohibition against intentional killing, when a proper understanding of the situation and the norm at issue reveals that the
action in question will involve permitting, but not intending, the
death in question. 39 Once an agent has reached this understanding
of his or her action, he or she is not required to rule it out ab
initio, but is permitted to go on to consider whether it is proportionate and fair to cause such a side effect in the case at hand.
Engelhardt rejects the principle of double effect, and its basic
distinction between intended effects and side effects that are
foreseen-but-unintended by the agent, as the tool of a legalistic,
rationalist mentality. First, he believes that by exonerating certain
types of unintentional killing, the distinction ignores the need for
spiritual treatment in this type of case. He notes that in the
Church of the first millennium, even involuntary homicide
required penance and purification. "One can become involved in

39 Grisez, Christian

Moral Principles, 295-300.

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461

an evil such as the death of a person, which even against one's will
can have an effect on one's heart. " 40
Second, he argues that the distinction is wrongly used to draw
absolute distinctions between cases that should be treated as
different in degree, not in kind.
One must fully recognize how far a choice to kill in order to save life falls short
of the mark and that this is the case whether the abortion is undertaken
"indirectly" (i.e., the abortion as a side effect of another intervention), as when
one removes a cancerous uterus containing a child, or when one performs a
"direct" abortion (i.e., acts to abort) for a woman with severe congestive heart
failure. 41

Engelhardt notes that according to traditional double effect
analysis, the indirect abortion should be justified and the direct
abortion should be prohibited. In his view, both abortions can be
permitted and both must be repented, in the sense that the
spiritual harm they inflict upon both the physician and the mother
should be recognized and treated in the context of spiritual
direction.
From one perspective, the difference between Engelhardt and
Grisez on double effect may not be as great as it initially appears.
Like Grisez, Engelhardt acknowledges that "differences in willing
make a difference to the human heart," 42 although obviously for
him the difference is not as decisive as it is for Grisez. Moreover,
although Engelhardt's approach might seem to be more permissive
in theory, in practice, the only cases of abortion that Engelhardt
seems willing to allow are those designed to save the life of the
mother. He categorically rules out other abortions, including in
the stereotypical "hard cases" of rape and incest, although this
position does not seem to be required by his theological
commitments. For his part, Grisez's reformulation of the principle
of double effect in order to focus on the purpose of the acting
agent would likely permit the narrow range of actions permitted
by Engelhardt but prohibited by the Catholic manualists (e.g.,
Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 278.
Ibid., 279-80.
42 Ibid., 2 79.
40
41

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

early delivery of a nonviable baby in the case of the mother's
congestive heart failure). 43
Yet significant divergences in opinion do remain. At bottom,
Grisez believes that the distinction between intended effects and
effects that are merely foreseen by the agent is an illuminating
tool of moral discernment, separating unjustified actions from
those that may, other things being equal, be justified for an agent
to perform. For Engelhardt, this distinction, the core of the
principle of double effect, functions to obscure more than it
reveals. More specifically, it threatens to occlude the spiritual
harm to an agent that can result from foreseeably causing certain
effects, in particular the death of another human being.
2. The Role of Reason in Identifying Moral Norms
In identifying similarities and differences between Engelhardt
and Grisez on the place of reason, it is important to avoid creating
the impression that the two thinkers are as far apart as one might
initially judge them to be on the basis of their rhetoric. Engelhardt, for his part, does not deny the usefulness of reason-it
would be foolish for him to do so, given the analysis and
argument that is the backbone of his four-hundred-page book. In
fact, he emphatically denies that "a Christian bioethics should
eschew clear expression, analytic explication, or systematic
reflection in favor of contradictory statements and deliberately
ambiguous claims. "44 His overriding goal is to downgrade the
importance of discursive reason relative to the moral wisdom that
stems from the noetic experience of God, which is a property
more properly of the holy than of the analytically brilliant. More
generally, he wants to affirm that the recognition and appreciation
of moral norms are only possible within a life shaped by the
liturgical and ascetic practices of the orthodox Church.
43 Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 299. The manualists tended to describe the object of
the agent's action from a purely external perspective. They also considered the timing of the
two effects to be significant; if the undesired effect precedes the desired effect, they
considered it to be a means to the desired effect.
44 Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 180.

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463

Grisez too is sensitive to the need to situate morality within a
well-lived Christian life. Moreover, he explicitly describes the
moral life as leading to union with God, as God's decision to offer
us divine life within the divine unity. 45 He notes, as well, that his
position on this point "is very similar to the view of some theologians of the Eastern Church. "46 Furthermore, like Engelhardt,
Grisez recognizes both that Christian morality is true morality,
appropriate for all persons, and that a full account of that
morality is only accessible with the help of the grace divinely
provided to the Church. He also acknowledges, like Engelhardt,
that Christian commitment generates additional, specific norms
binding only upon Christians. 47
Nonetheless, there are significant differences in their
understanding of the role of reason in identifying moral norms.
Grisez certainly has more confidence than Engelhardt does in the
power of a reasoning person, working with all the resources that
the Church has to offer, to identify moral norms and courses of
action that correspond to them. It is not possible, with the texts
at hand, to be more specific. However, it is not difficult to
identify the point at which further conversation would need to
begin. In describing his methodological approach, Grisez cites a
passage from the First Vatican Council about the role of reason in
the context of faith:
It is, nevertheless, true that if human reason, with faith as its guiding light,
inquires earnestly, devoutly, and circumspectly, it does reach, by God's
generosity, some understanding of mysteries, and that a most profitable one. It
achieves this by the similarity [analogia] with truths which it knows naturally and
also from the interrelationship of mysteries with one another and with the final
end of man. 48

Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 580-86.
Ibid., 597 n. 24.
47 Ibid., 606-9.
48 Ibid., 31, citing Henricus Denzinger and Adolfus Sch6nmetzer, S.I., Enchiridion
symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum (34d ed.; Freiburg in
Breisgau: Herder, 1967) 3016/1796.
45

46

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

Grisez maintains that Vatican I should be understood here as
implying that the appropriate method for theology is "dialectic,"
in Plato's sense of the term. "By this method, one considers truths
of faith by comparison (anologia) with truths of reason, with one
another, and with the ultimate fulfillment to which God calls us
in the Lord Jesus. "49 In broad terms, this method is advocated by
nearly all post-Vatican II Roman Catholic moral theologians, both
liberal and conservative. Does Grisez's dialectical method qualify
as "discursive reason" in the sense condemned by Engelhardt? I
am not sure.
On the one hand, Engelhardt never gives a clear account of
what he means by "discursive reason." At times, he seems to mean
a process that stresses conceptual analysis as opposed to reflection
on experience, an excessive concern for logical consistency, a
desire for immediate certitude as opposed to dynamic progress in
understanding eternal truths, and a total prioritization of
unchanging human nature rather than the changing conditions of
history. His account of discursive reason, in short, significantly
resembles the "rationalism" of the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church
that Grisez criticizes. 50 Moreover, admittedly with some glossing,
49 Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 31.

so Ibid., 27-31. See especially p. 29: "A rationalist philosophy, even if it need not
contradict essential truths of faith, has a number of limitations and tendencies which render
it less than ideally suited for the work of theology. The rationalist stresses certitude as an
objective: this objective does not fit well with the ideal of theology as a work faith seeking
Also, the rationalist
constantly growing-but only gradually growing-understanding.
emphasis on clear and distinct ideas tends to distract users of the method from the complexity
and richness of human cognition, and thus leads them to overlook the many ways in which
linguistic expressions have meaning. As a result, rationalists almost inevitably misunderstand
the relational character of the language used to talk about God. Moreover, rationalists often
overlook the need for careful interpretation of the witness of faith. They generally
oversimplify the problem of interpretation even when they realize the need for it.
"Rationalist philosophers focus on the intellectual knowing subject; they tend to identify
the human person with the mind, the thinking self. Bodiliness and other dimensions of the
person are insufficiently appreciated. A theologian using rationalism tends for this reason to
ignore many aspects of revelation and to stress almost exclusively the communication of
propositional truths. At its extreme, this tendency leads to a conception of faith as acceptance
of a certain amount of correct information rather than as a personal relationship of hearing
and adhering to God revealing himself.
"Rationalist philosophy also makes a very sharp distinction between the knowing subject
and the thing known. It tends to be unsuited to practical reflection, in which one thinks about

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465

Engelhardt's account of the practice of noetic theology, within the
context of the ecclesial community of Orthodox Christians, could
be encapsulated in Grisez's summary of the use of the dialectic
method in Catholic thought. The use of that method "means that,
accepting the truth of Catholic faith present in the living Church
of which one is a member, one seeks a better understanding of
this truth in which one already lives. " 51
On the other hand, Engelhardt might argue that the method
that Grisez actually practices in The Way of the Lord Jesus not infrequently seems more akin to discursive reason-or rationalismthan to dialectical reason. For example, he might suggest that the
rhetorical tone, together with the exhaustively pursued questionand-answer format of Christian Moral Principles, overwhelmingly
conveys the impression of the author's certitude with regard to
the answers he provides, rather than an invitation to the reader to
engage in a dialogical pursuit of truth. One wag gave the title
"Germain Grisez Explains it All (Well, Almost)" to a largely
sympathetic review of Difficult Moral Questions. 52 In addition,
Grisez's work bears more than a trace of the rationalist concern
with true propositions. His most extensive and explicit discussion
of truth in Scripture in Christian Moral Principles, for example,
focuses largely on Scripture's? role in transmitting true moral
propositions to the faithful. 53

oneself and shapes one's becoming by one's thought. A rationalist approach tends rather to
look at what is known as if it were a detached object. Any practical problem tends to be
looked at on the model of the application of mathematics in engineering.
"This approach also takes insufficient account of history, which can hardly be so easily
ignored when one begins practical reflection about the lives of real, bodily person who have
diverse abilities and opportunities, and who exist in actual relationships with one another.
This aspect of rationalism had the result that the more it became accepted as a method for
Catholic theology, the less Christian life could be treated integrally by the same theological
inquiry which considered the central truths of faith. The latter were considered much more
as dogmas or theoretical truths to be proved from the witness of faith than as normative truths
shaping Christian life."
51 Ibid., 7.
52 Mark Brumley, "Germain Grisez Explains It All (Well, Almost)," The Catholic Faith
(Mar-Apr 1999).
53 Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 831-35, 861-63.

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

C) For the Common Good
According to Aquinas, the purpose of law is to advance the
common good. But what, exactly, is the "common good"? This is
a notoriously elusive question. In Gaudium et spes, the Second
Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World, the common good is defined as "the sum of those
conditions of social life which allow social groups and their
individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their
own fulfillment. "54
In defining the common good, the precise relationship of the
good of the individual person and the good of the community is
a key issue. Christian thought has generally resisted the
temptation to choose between the two, asserting that the common
good is the good of all persons, who are by nature social creatures
designed to flourish in community.
According to Jacques Maritain, the common good "is
therefore common to the whole and to the parts, which are
themselves wholes, since the very notion of person means totality;
it is common to the whole and to the parts, over which it flows
back and must all benefit from it. " 55 On this basis, mainstream
Christianity has rejected, for example, the idea that the
community can sacrifice one innocent person to save many; any
community that did so would actually be undermining its own
common good, not merely the good of the sacrificed individual. 56
Nonetheless, many of the debates within Christian ethics can
GS 26.
Jacques Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1943), 8-9.
56 Aquinas does come disturbingly close to the notion of sacrificing one to save many in
the case of a guilty person. He justifies the killing of wicked individuals by analogy to the
situation in which one cuts off a gangrenous limb in order to save the body as a whole (STh
II-II, q. 64, a. 3). In my view, the "body politic" analogy Aquinas uses is dangerous, precisely
because it would not be hard to extend it to encompass killing an innocent person who is
perceived to be a drain on society. By analogy, a rock climber in extremis could legitimately
decide to cut off a healthy limb hopelessly entangled in a rope, if doing so was the only way
to save his life. That Aquinas himself would oppose this extension of the analogy is evident
when he says that "it is in no way lawful to slay the innocent," apart from the extraordinary
case in which God has commanded one to do so (noted above; STh II-II, q.64, a. 6).
54
55

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

467

fruitfully be understood as rooted in a disagreement about the
appropriate balance between protecting the good of the individual
and safeguarding the good of the many in promoting the common
good.
In his articulation of the requirements of Christian morality,
Engelhardt tends to emphasize the good of the individual over the
broader concerns of the community. This emphasis appears first
and foremost in his understanding of the point of the moral law:
it is therapy for diseased souls, a way of preparing us to
experience God. The moral law is intimately connected to a
regime of personal asceticism, quelling our passions and enabling
us to make life-giving contact with the energies of the divine
being. For Engelhardt, "the moral law is thus a means for the
growth of an intimate connection between the creature and the
creator." In his view, "[m]orality must be lived so as to cure our
souls from passions, to make us whole, and to unite us with
God." 57 Like medicine, like therapy, the application of the moral
law must be intensely personal, applied with discretion and
judgment to each patient, taking into account his or her own
particular strengths and weaknesses.
Engelhardt contrasts the notion of the moral law as therapy
with a more "legalistic notion" of morality, one that concerned
not with promoting the well-being of the individual, but with
enforcing the requirements of "an impersonal codebook of divine
law. " 58 While he does not expand systematically on this contrast,
it seems to me to include the following three components.
First, according to Engelhardt, the moral law should be applied
and interpreted with the mindset of a healer-a spiritual
physician, if you will. In contrast, he seems to believe that a
legalistic conception of morality is applied and interpreted with
the mindset of a judge. The healer is first and foremost concerned
with the well-being of the individual patient, while the judge is
more concerned with protecting the well-being of the community

57

58

Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 171.
Ibid., 169.

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

as a whole by maintaining the structure and authority of the rule
of law.
Second, of crucial importance for Engelhardt is his understanding of morality as intensely personal-grounded in and
facilitating the relationship of a personal God with the persons
created in his image and likeness. To subordinate the well-being
of particular persons to the inexorable requirements of law is an
aspect of what he means by "legalism. " 59
Third, by combining his notion of the purpose of morality as
being a type of healing with his understanding of morality's
ground as a relationship between persons, Engelhardt develops a
pastoral approach that gives great discretion to spiritual advisors
to tailor moral advice to particular situations. "The appropriate
response will not be found in a casuistic literature, or at least in a
formalized casuistical approach. In each particular case, the
appropriate response must be drawn from prayer and grace. A
formal casuistry that provides recipes for responses to particular
cases would confront the Spirit with our dead letters. " 60
Grisez tends to focus more than Engelhardt does on morality's
role in contributing to the well-being of the community as a
whole, by providing a basis on which human beings can rightly
structure their interactions with one another. In this vein, a
striking difference between the two theorists is the way they
conceptualize paradise and the human path to it. Engelhardt
emphasizes the personal relationship between God and the
believer, characterized by the communication of the divine
energies to the human person. The social dimension of paradise
is not developed in his analysis, which concentrates on the
individual believer's union with God. In contrast, Grisez's notion
of heaven, and our path to it, is much more essentially
social-one could even say political, in the sense of having to do
with a polis. He sees the task of earthly life as nothing less than
building up the kingdom of God. Quoting the Second Vatican
59 "Persons are central. Moral principles are at best chapter headings and rules of thumb.
Too much attention to general principles can even divert attention from the personal character
of the communion with God to which all theology and all bioethics should lead" (ibid., 209).
60 Ibid.

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469

Council, he writes "after we have obeyed the Lord, and in his
Spirit nurtured on earth the values of human dignity, brotherhood
and freedom, and indeed all the good fruits of our nature and
enterprise, we will find them again, but freed of stain, burnished
and transfigured. " 61 Although the kingdom can only be brought
to fruition with the second coming of Jesus Christ, Grisez
maintains that believers are contributing to its construction here
and now. In fact each and every one of our morally acceptable
actions contributes to the building up of the kingdom of God. 62
A theory that sees morality as identifying the actions that
contribute to the construction of the kingdom of God will have a
significantly different understanding of the role of moral
principles and rules than does a theory of morality that sees it as
a type of therapy for sick souls. Grisez emphasizes that free
choices are constitutive of both self and community. 63 His act
analysis focuses on principles and rules, which pick out not the
unique circumstances of agents and their lives, but the
generalizable features of action that are repeatable in a number of
cases. Furthermore, he expresses far more concern than does
Engelhardt for the maintenance of social practices in which large
numbers of people may find their flourishing. For example, in
analyzing the prohibition against divorce and remarriage in the
Catholic Church, he stresses the importance of being able to make
an absolute commitment for the creative unfolding of the lives of
many Christians.
In responding to proportionalists-those
who would make
exceptions to some moral prohibitions (e.g., prohibitions against
contraception, adultery, and divorce) in difficult circumstances for
proportionate reason-Grisez is concerned with the impact of
such exception-making upon moral and social practices in general.
61 Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 1 (quoting GS 39).
62 "We can do this by respecting and defending the human goods of the kingdom insofar
as they are goods of our nature, and pursuing and promoting them insofar as they can be good
fruits of our work. It is God's wish that our daily contribution to the building up of Christ,
made in obedience to him and in the power of his Spirit, have eternal worth. Every morally
good act of Christian living though the grace of the Spirit is therefore an act of cooperation
in the work of the Trinity" (ibid., 1-2).
63 Ibid., 56-57.

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

Proportionalism also undermines unconditional commitments, which are
essential to Christian personal vocation. Those who have lived in any state for
a few years have a very different awareness of its good and bad points than they
had upon entering it. Marital and religious vows often are set aside today with
the encouragement of proportionalist theologians, who suggest that in some
cases the choice to set them aside is a lesser evil than continuing fidelity without
any apparent benefits. 64

This is not to say that Grisez is insensitive to the needs of
human beings who experience themselves constrained by moral
rules and principles. A bedrock assumption of his approach is the
ultimate compatibility of the flourishing of the individual with
compliance with exceptionless moral rules, even in difficult
situations. First, he emphasizes that such situations provide
tremendous opportunities for evangelization. He notes that a
woman who refuses a potentially life-saving abortion "can bear
outstanding witness to her faith and hope in God: faith if her
refusal is based on her willingness to live by the Church's teaching
and to leave in God's hands the risk of the disaster which might
occur; hope if her choice shows her confidence that disaster
accepted in Jesus is not final." 65 Second, he emphasizes the selfconstituting character of actions. "Human action is soul-making.
Moral acts are ultimately most important insofar as they make a
difference to the self one is constituting by doing the act.
Ultimately, it would profit nothing if one saved the mortal lives
of everyone in the world by committing one mortal sin. " 66 Third,
he believes that every Christian, by grace, has the power of
avoiding mortal sin. Grisez rejects as incoherent the idea that
there might be some circumstance under which one is required to
commit a mortal sin. Fourth, and most generally, he believes that
complying with the Church's moral teaching is the only way to
achieve genuine human fulfillment. "To sin is not to break a law
(taking 'law' in any ordinary sense); to be punished for sin is not
to experience the sanction imposed upon lawbreakers. Rather, to

64 Ibid., 155-56.
65
66

Ibid., 155.
Ibid.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

471

sin is to limit oneself unnecessarily, to damage one's true self and
block one's real fulfillment." 67
Nonetheless, Engelhardt, in my view, would consider this
analysis as verging dangerously close to his understanding of
legalism. First, he would not accept the Roman Catholic
tradition's clear division of sins into the categories of mortal and
venial; he would argue that the failures of the human heart are
deeper and murkier than that division permits. We all sin; in his
terms, we all "fall short of the mark" and stand in need of some
form of spiritual therapy. Engelhardt would likely consider any
attempt to distinguish so sharply between fatal and nonfatal
"falling short of the mark" to exemplify the rationalism he
associates with legalism. Second, he would argue that it is simply
unjustified to say that every human being is strong enough not to
be morally or spiritually destroyed by bearing the burdens
associated with acting in a morally courageous way. Third, he
would contend that the Orthodox tradition allows for the
possibility of maintaining the ideal, while allowing for merciful
exceptions to be made individual instances. He could point, for
example, to the Orthodox practice of allowing for divorce and
remarriage in cases where it is simply impossible for the two
parties to the first marriage to carry on in it. These exceptions do
not endorse the less-than-optimal course of action tout court.
They simply constitute a merciful recognition that the agents
involved are not capable of doing more at the present time. 68
Grisez would likely respond that Engelhardt's view of morality
is a logical muddle, particularly in its attempt to recognize that
there some acts which are both permissible and morally
forbidden. Engelhardt in turn would argue that Grisez's approach
places too much emphasis on logical coherence. At some point,
theological sources would become an issue. Grisez would likely
observe that Engelhardt's view of morality is inconsistent with the
teaching of the Roman Catholic magisterium, which is divinely
assisted in its identification and proclamation of moral norms,
67

Ibid., 3 29.

68 I am extrapolating

from Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 23 7.

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

including the acceptance of negative moral norms (such as the
norm against adultery) which bind absolutely. 69 Engelhardt would
obviously not find this a telling point, given his own view of
ecclesiastical teaching authority as a member of the Eastern
Church. This response, of course, would lead to a discussion of
the next two elements in Aquinas's definition of law: it must be
made by one who has care of the community, and promulgated.

D) Competent Authority
Engelhardt and Grisez are in agreement that the source of the
moral law is ultimately God, who has care of the universe. Bothof
them are worried, in some sense, that the moral law will be
wrongly perceived as independent of the divine lawgiver. But the
shape of that worry is very different in the two cases, which
difference reflects back to other differences in their views of
morality.
Engelhardt worries that the Roman Catholic tradition depicts
the moral law as a constraint independent of God, and therefore
as binding upon God in a way analogous to the way it binds
human beings. 7 °For him, the basic problem with this approach is
that it will lead to an application of the moral law that does not
take into account God's overriding purpose for it as a type of
therapy for sinful and diseased souls. In contrast, Grisez worries
that people will think of the law as independent of the divine law
giver for a different reason. If it is merely a product of divine will,
then God, or divinely authorized representatives, can simply
change the law, or discount it as an arbitrary imposition by a
divine bully. For Grisez, the basic separation at issue is the
separation of divine will from divine intellect. The moral law is
not an arbitrary imposition, but a constitutive element of God's
rational plan for building the kingdom of God with the
cooperation of human beings.
69 To my knowledge, Grisez has never addressed the question whether the mode of moral
thought associated with the Eastern tradition is also subject to the charges he makes against
proportionalism.
70 Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 173.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

473

E) Promulgation
Finally, of course, the different ecclesial commitments of
Engelhardt and Grisez affect their assessment of legitimate and
illegitimate moral law. For Engelhardt, as an Orthodox Christian,
God's moral law is revealed preeminently in the theological
reflections, liturgical practices, and ascetic disciplines that have
been handed down by the Fathers of the Church. 71 The true
meaning of that law in difficult cases is revealed primarily to the
holy, not primarily those skilled in discursive reasoning. The
application of the law to one's own difficult case is to be done by
engaging in prayer and appropriate liturgical and ascetic practices,
and by consulting one's spiritual father or mother. For
Engelhardt, therefore, the moral law of God is not definitively
promulgated through the magisterium of the Roman Catholic
Church. In fact, he argues that the widely secular culture which
we have now has its roots in the rationalist understanding of the
natural law perpetuated by the Catholic Church. 72 To Engelhardt's mind, the Roman Catholic moral tradition before the
Second Vatican Council at least had the advantage of being
coherent. Now, much of it simply follows the latest intellectual
fashions, dictated by the concerns for liberal equality animating
secular Western culture. It is posttraditional Christianity, which
is nothing short of blasphemy to the traditional Christian. 73
In contrast, for Grisez, the mind of Christ is closely identified,
and at points virtually equated, with the authoritative teaching of
the Catholic Church: "One ought to proceed with personal
obedience of faith; one must submit one's experiences, insights,
and wishes to the judgment of the Church's teaching, prepared to
reform oneself according to the mind of Christ. " 74 While the
Catholic tradition includes the possibility of the development of
doctrine, and the revision of noninfallible Church teaching, it is
not a possibility upon which Grisez dwells. Instead, he emphasizes
Ibid., 159.
Ibid., 6.
73 Ibid., 144-48.
74 Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 18-19.
71
72

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

the need to bide one's time while living in a spirit of docility with
respect to Church teaching:
Catholics who wish to be faithful and consistent will attempt to conform their
consciences exactly to the Church's moral teaching. There is a substantial body
of received moral teaching which deserves recognition as infallibly accepted and
handed on by the Church. Moreover, even teachings which are not proposed
infallibly must be accepted with religious assent; this obligation admits of
exception only if there is some superior theological source for a contrary
judgment. 75

Consequently, for Grisez, when the Church teaches authoritatively it is not legalistically imposing an arbitrary norm on the
faithful; instead, it is communicating the will of God, which is
ultimately inseparable from the mind of God. The point of the
norm will therefore be accessible, in principle, to the mind of the
believing Catholic "thinking" with the mind of the Church.
III. LEGALISM AND THE MORAL LIFE

The charge of legalism is not a solely theoretical charge, lodged
against the plausibility or internal consistency of a moral theory
in the abstract. It is a charge with a fierce practical bite; it is made
with deep concern about the ramification that the legalism
identified will have for the moral life of Christians. What are the
consequences of legalism for the moral life? It is helpful to look
at this question from two angles: how people apply the moral law
to themselves in a legalistic framework, and how people m
authority apply the moral law to others in such a framework.

A) How People Apply the Moral Law to Themselves
One concrete problem often identified with legalism is the
equation of the contents of the moral life with the application and
extension of a discrete set of rules or principles-moral "laws," so

75

Ibid., 871.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

475

to speak. This equation can have one of two consequences: moral
minimalism and/ or laxism, or moral maximalism and/ or rigorism.
One could fear that a view of the moral life as a collection of
rules or principles illegitimately reduces it to a small set of moral
rules. Those who worry about this consequence focus on two
aspects of legalism's effect on moral agents. First, a legalistic
account of morality will create the impression that there are no
moral norms applicable to situations that fall outside these rules;
if an agent follows the rules, then all other aspects of his or her
life are matters of unfettered freedom. Second, such an account
of morality will create the impression that the more difficult rules
can be changed, provided enough pressure is exerted on the rule
maker. Conjoined with the factual judgment that the most
dangerous temptation in the contemporary world is to minimize
the requirements of morality, a moralist could come to the
conclusion that these two features of legalism will generate moral
minimalism and/or laxism. 76
In fact, this reasoning process encapsulates Grisez's most
pressing worries about the practical consequences of legalism for
moral life today. 77 At the end of his most extensive section
76 Grisez would no doubt acknowledge that in other circumstances, of course, these
features of legalism could generate rigorism: the web of rules fixing the moral life could
conceivably be large, not small; changes in the teaching of the Church could be more
restrictive, not less restrictive. Yet his discussion of "how can the requirement that Christians
live according to the modes of Christian response escape rigorism" (Christian Moral Principles,
695££.) would no doubt be deeply unsatisfactory to Engelhardt. Grisez's first point is that
many people are not subjectively culpable for living according to the modes of responsibility.
His second point is that" [r]igorism is relative" (ibid., 697)-the moral framework he outlines
does not ask too much of God's adopted children, although it may ask too much of fallen
human beings. His third point is that love, the gift of the Holy Spirit, makes all things
possible, and even "easy and joyous" (ibid.) (although he does recognize the concrete need for
the Catholic community to provide support for those facing difficult situations). In my view,
Engelhardt would likely respond that Grisez is simply defining the problem away, by failing
to recognize the degree to which God's adopted children are still marred by sin.
77 On the idea that legalism leads to the idea that the basic question is whether the person
is bound by law or free to do as he or she pleases, see, e.g., ibid., 13, 86-87, 293-94, 304-5,
370, 375, 514. See also, Grisez, Living a Christian Life, 9, 34, 250, 251, 514, 535, 544, 672,
876. In Grisez, Difficult Moral Questions, see xvii, xxv, 44, 250, 452, 607, 645. On the idea
that legalism leads to the idea that moral rules are changeable laws rather than unchangeable
truths, see, e.g., Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 13, 21-22, 74, 85, 101, 107, 154, 283,
382. See also Grisez, Living a Christian Life, 249.

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M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

discussing legalism at the beginning of ChristianMoral Principles,
he summarizes his concerns:
Legalism often causes the faithful to view the Church's moral teaching as an
imposition. The suspicion grows that the Christian life itself is a kind of arbitrary
test for which different rules could well be devised if only the test maker chose.
In these circumstances, the desire increases to do as one pleases as much as one
can. Thus, while setting stringent requirement concerning a few matters, classical
moral theology offers little or no helpful guidance for much of Christian life.
The temptation to rebel against received teaching is nourished by its seeming
arbitrariness, as well as by interests cultivated without reference to Christian
faith. 78

In oppos1t10n to legalism, Grisez's major concern is to
emphasize that every decision we make, every path we choose, is
fraught with moral implications. We are never free to do as we
choose in the sense that there are aspects of our lives that are
unrelated to our overarching task to building up the kingdom of
God by following "the way of the Lord Jesus." But we are
generally free to do as we choose in the sense that every choice we
make is an opportunity freely to constitute ourselves as the
children of God that we are called to be. In his view, the purpose
of his book is to provide guidance to Catholics who realize, as
adults and as believers, that "[i]n this passing world we make the
selves and relationships which will endure forever." 79
Like Grisez, Engelhardt wants to emphasize the radical, allencompassing claim of Christianity on the lives of those who
profess their faith on it. The goal is nothing short of holiness,
which he repeatedly emphasizes cannot be achieved within the
framework of a legalistic account of morality. For example, in
Grisez believes that many people today pick and choose from a legalistic world view, in
order further to minimize their moral responsibilities. "It is ironic although not surprising that
in the present new, and still transitional, situation many-among theologians, priests, teachers,
and the ordinary faithful-both gladly reject legalism insofar as it is restrictive and cling to it
insofar as it limits responsibility" (Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 307). By contrast, I have
found only two places where Grisez interprets legalism as the use of authority to impose a
morally unjustified burden: Christian Moral Principles, 535 (discussingJesus's interaction with
the Pharisees); and Difficult Moral Questions, 64-68 (tithing).
78 Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 13.
79 Ibid., xxix.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

477

articulating how a Christian should approach beginning-of-life
ethics, he writes: "This focus on holiness transforms the question
of how correctly to make reproductive choices from a merely
legalistic engagement to the ascetic task of finding spiritual
wholeness in a morally broken world. " 80
In contrast with Grisez, however, Engelhardt seems to be more
worried about the maximalist rather than the minimalist tendencies of legalism. It is important to remember that Engelhardt's
fundamental definition of legalism concentrates on an excessive
rationalism, rather than on an excessive voluntarism. If we expand
the sphere of operation of moral principles and rules and the
demand for rational discernment to cover the whole of our lives,
we will, in his view, lose the forest for the trees. More specifically,
we will begin to think that holiness is virtually identical to, if not
actually constituted by, the requirements of discursive rationality.
Engelhardt would say that a rationalist approach, even one as
nuanced as Grisez's (or perhaps, especially one so nuanced),
simply expands the requirements of immanence, when what is
required is a turn to the transcendent. An analogy may be helpful
here. The requirements of practical reasonableness are like a map.
One can continue to mark landmarks, to fill in details, to add
color and some texture to the map. Nonetheless, no matter how
elaborate it becomes, the map remains two-dimensional. Finding
the transcendent in life is fundamentally a matter of breaking the
confines of the map itself; it requires a new movement into a third
dimension, which transcends the map entirely. 81
While rational argumentation has its place for Engelhardt, as
do rules and principles, it is not fundamental. Instead, as I noted
above, the fundamental source of knowledge is grace-filled
participation in the liturgical rites and the way of life of
traditional Christianity. The moral life, and its rational regulation,

The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 6.
See, e.g., ibid., 170: "Only if truth veridically communicates with us can we break out
of the horizon of immanence."
80 Engelhardt,
81

478

M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

are preparatory means for the noetic experience of God. 82 Indeed,
Engelhardt's major complaint against Roman Catholic thought is
precisely that it has lost the forest for the trees: "In this century
of intellectual energy [the 13th century, which saw the rise of the
medieval university], theology came no longer to be regarded
primarily as the fruit of holiness. Theology came instead to be
understood more centrally as the fruit of scholarship. " 83
B) How People Apply the Moral Law to Others
We apply the moral law not only to our own actions, both
prospectively and retrospectively, we also apply it to the actions
of others. Often we do so informally, with respect to friends and
acquaintances who seek our advice, with respect to the actions of
public figures whose activities are reported by the media, and with
respect to the actions of strangers who cross our paths. Some
situations, however, present more formal occasions for evaluating
the past acts of other persons, or of giving counsel to them with
respect to future acts. In Roman Catholicism, these occasions are
most frequently associated with the priest-penitent relationship in
the sacrament of penance; in Orthodoxy, they are found in the
relationship between a spiritual father or mother and his or her
spiritual children.
What special concerns arise in contexts where people apply the
moral law to the lives and choices of other people? Here, John
Noonan's Persons and Masks of the Law provides a good
perspective on the problem, although he discusses law as it is
treated in the legal system, not the moral law per se. Standing at
the heart of any system of law are two entities: rules and persons.
For Noonan, the legal "process is rightly understood only if rules
82 See, e.g., ibid., 179-80: "Because the goal par excellence of human life is holiness, union
with God, then the moral life, the keeping of the commandments, the acquisition of virtue,
along with the articulation of a Christian bioethics, are not ends in themselves. They are
means to carry us to the other side of natural knowledge." Grisez would not deny that these
things are means to that end; he would emphasize that they are constitutive means, and not
instrumental means. Consequently, we cannot legitimately decide to follow them or depart
from them on a case-by-case basis.
83 Ibid., 203.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

479

and persons are seen as equally essential components, every rule
depending on persons to frame, apply, and undergo it, every
person using rules. " 84 Grave dangers arise from letting go of either
component. On the one hand, the subsumption of persons into
the inexorable impersonality of rule can be ruthless, creating
masks ("personae") that obscure the faces of persons. On the
other, the abandonment of impartially formulated rules can
produce "monsters" that strangle justice with favoritism and
arbitrariness. 85
Not surprisingly, Engelhardt is very concerned about the former possibility. His core concern is rooted in his conception of
morality (and spiritual direction regarding moral concerns) as
being a kind of therapy, designed to heal the soul and enable
union with God. The task of the spiritual father or mother is
always to keep this ultimate purpose of the moral law in sight
when dealing with individual spiritual children. 86 Consequently,
the spiritual parent has a significant amount of discretion in
dealing with individual cases-dealing with them as a guide and
a healer, not as a judge. Fulfilling this role entails refusing to
constrain one's evaluation of a spiritual child's actions within the
law-oriented framework of "justified" or "unjustified," "innocent"
or "guilty."
Sometimes, a spiritual father or mother must identify
problematic aspects of situations that would not raise any question
from the perspective of a more law-oriented framework focused
on the culpability of the agent. Engelhardt recognizes, along with
the Eastern tradition, the possibility of "involuntary sins," a
manifestation of the brokenness of original sin in our lives. An
example would be a woman who suffers a miscarriage, and who
may face feelings of guilt, hopelessness, and despair because of it.
If we recognize that repentance and spiritual therapy can be called
84 John T. Noonan, Jr., Persons and Masks of the Law (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 1976), 18.
85 See M. Cathleen Kaveny, "Listening for the Future in the Voices of the Past: John T.
Noonan, Jr. On Love and Power in Human History," The Journal of Law and Religion 11:1
(1994-95): 203-28.
86 See, e.g., Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 283-84.

480

M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

for outside the narrow context of individual moral responsibility,
then the Orthodox practice of providing for purification in such
cases can be seen as a humane way of dealing with a situation that
manifests human brokenness on an bodily level. 87 Furthermore,
Engelhardt argues that some actions that may be morally justified
from a legalist point of view (e.g., abortion to save the life of the
mother) 88 are nonetheless fraught with spiritual danger. Persons
who engage in these actions are at risk of spiritual harm, for
which they should receive spiritual treatment. 89
In other situations, Engelhardt believes that the strict
requirements of the law should be modified to take into account
the exigencies of the particular situation. Sometimes those
modifications are designed to recognize that the application of the
moral law in its full force will break a morally weak person,
causing them to turn their backs on the Christian message, or will
cause harm to innocent third parties. 90 In some instances, a
gradualist approach to Christian holiness is possible. For example,
Engelhardt contends that prophylactics (and contraceptives) might
be provided to unmarried persons "with regret, admonition, but
without impropriety. " 91
Sometimes those modifications involve tailoring general moral
concerns to specific situations. While Engelhardt recognizes the
validity of many of the concerns identified in Humanae vitae
about the consequences of widely available contraception, 92 he
does not believe that these concerns justify an absolute prohibition
Ibid., 277.
Grisez would say that no action taken with the intent of destroying the baby is ever
justified, even to save the mother. However, some actions which foreseeably result in the
death of the baby are allowable for this purpose, if the purpose is not to kill the baby, under
the principle of double effect. Grisez, Living a Christian Life, 499-507. As noted above,
Engelhardt rejects the principle of double effect as a legalistic strategy used to evade
responsibility.
89 Engelhardt, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics, 278, 325-26.
90 "The Church is uncompromising in her demand that we open our hearts to God, that
we become perfect, that we become saints. She is therapeutic in her approach to making us
perfect. She recognizes that she must begin by treating us where she finds us in our sins" (ibid.,
284).
91 Ibid., 274.
92 Ibid., 267.
87
88

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

481

against its use, even by married couples. 93 In these situations, the
Orthodox tradition assigns the responsibility to spiritual fathers
or mothers to help married persons make decisions in this regard
in a way that will facilitate their journey to holiness. In some
cases, that may mean abstaining from artificial contraception. In
other cases, it may not. 94 Engelhardt writes: "The differences
between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic views regarding
contraception lie in the first being primarily articulated in terms
of an asceticism directed toward approaching holiness and the
second being directed to conforming to impersonal norms,
including those rooted in a highly biological interpretation of
natural law. " 95 He notes as well that the Orthodox Church has a
highly developed notion of married asceticism, 96 which requires
married persons regularly to abstain from sex at certain points in
the liturgical calendar. In his view, this integration of moral norms
with liturgical practices is the key to understanding the holistic
aim of Christian ethics: to enable a life of holiness in union with
God. 97
Engelhardt's general position on these matters is encapsulated
in his discussion of the Orthodox understanding of canon law as
it bears on moral discernment:
The result is a collage of canons without systematic order, making their legalistic
application nigh unto impossible. The canons are not a set of laws to be applied,
for example, to bioethical issues. The canons have not given rise to a systematic
casuistry, but to an invitation to approach each case guided by the relevant
canons and the Holy Spirit. This is surely one of the great strengths of the
canons. The canons must be understood not as a law that must be applied
following its letter, but as a set of very important spiritual signposts directing
Christians toward salvation. 98

93 Ibid., 267 -68.

Ibid., 299 n. 101.
See ibid., 300 n. 102.
96 Ibid., 244.
97 See esp. ibid., 292 n. 43.
98 Ibid., 224 n. 112.
94

95

482

M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

Particularly important to him is the difference between the notion
of "economia" in the Orthodox Church and the notion of
"dispensation" in the Western Church.
A dispensation lifts the law for a particular person or class of persons. An
economia recognizes that the purpose of the law, namely, to bring salvation, is
best achieved by something other than the strict application of the law. An
economia thus should not violate the spirit of the law; rather, it should focus
better on the goal of the law by setting aside its letter. It is important to note that
the notion of economia includes not only applying a canon less rigorously, but
also applying it more rigorously, thus achieving the true purpose of the canon.
At times, the spirit of the law is best served by acrivia, the strict application of
the law. 99

Grisez's concerns, in contrast, seem to be clustered more at the
other end of Noonan' s polarity: he is primarily worried about the
monsters that strangle justice with arbitrariness and favoritism.
Because he does not conceive of his approach to the moral life as
the imposition of an arbitrary set of norms, but as the fruits of the
deliberation of practical reason (aided by the magisterium) about
acts to be done and to be avoided, he would not share the worries
about the impersonal application of the moral law expressed by
Engelhardt. The idea that the requirements of practical reason
should be bent to conform to the exigencies of particular
situations would likely strike him as a deeply misguided claim.
Within his framework, the danger that looms largest in our time
with respect to the application of the moral law to others is
precisely the temptation to distort the requirements of the moral
law for irrational reasons (e.. g., sympathy with the plight of a
particular person).
Like Engelhardt, Grisez believes that Christians and the
Christian community are called to perfect holiness, an ideal that
is not possible immediately to achieve. At the same time, he firmly
rejects any interpretation of Christian morality as an ideal that
would reduce the claim that binding moral norms have upon us
99 Ibid., 224 n. 112. Engelhardt clearly thinks that some moral prohibitions function as
"real moral boundaries," while others are more flexible. Grisez would no doubt press him to
articulate more fully the distinction between the two categories.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

483

here and now. 100 While acknowledging that complying with some
of those norms is difficult, he does not believe it is ever
impossible, in congruence with Catholic belief that it is never
impossible to refrain from sinning mortally. Consequently, moral
gradualism, in the sense of only gradually bringing oneself to
comply with difficult moral teaching (e.g., the teaching that using
contraception is always wrong) is not acceptable to Grisez.
Unlike Engelhardt, Grisez struggles hard to demonstrate that
there are no true moral dilemmas (situations in which one has no
choice but to commit a wrongful act), at least for the morally
upright, and sometimes even for those who have sinned. He
emphasizes the possibility of always complying with the negative
absolute norms, which by definition trump positive norms. He is
less concerned about the specific effect of compliance with moral
norms upon individuals, and more concerned with upholding the
validity of the norm. In arguing that there are fewer moral
conflicts than initially appears to be the case, Grisez writes:
In many cases, apparent conflicts are removed when the morally right course,
previously ignored because it is unappealing, is accepted as a practical possibility.
For example, persons who have divorced and remarried need not really choose
between committing adultery and renouncing their responsibilities to their
second family. They can choose instead to live together in celibacy, in accord
with the moral truth that they have no marital rights but do have familial
responsibilities. 101

In Engelhardt's view, this response would likely epitomize an
"impersonal" concern for the preservation of the moral law,
rather than a "personal" concern for the well-being of the two
parties. In some cases, a celibate marriage is likely to suffer
immense strain, leading to a second divorce. In line with the
Orthodox view, second marriages are permitted (regrettably) as
a concession to the lingering effects of sin in human life. For
Grisez, however, for a confessor to distort the requirements of
practical reason by inappropriately responding to the emotionally
appealing aspects of a particular situation would be triply wrong.
100 Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, 684-85.
101 Ibid., 297.

M. CATHLEEN KAVENY

484

First, the priest would be conveying only illusory comfort to the
penitent. Because the moral principles and rules at issue are
rooted in reason, not in arbitrary will, they cannot be set aside in
individual cases. Second, the priest would be weakening the social
and religious fabric that allowed the faithful to recognize the
truth. Third, he would be weakening his own moral character, by
choosing in a way that reflected and confirmed a distorted
perception of the goods at stake. 102
IV. CONCLUSION

In this essay, I hope to have demonstrated that "legalism" is
not a straightforward concept. Tristram Engelhardt and Germain
Grisez both condemn legalism, but mean significantly different
things by the condemnation. I have argued that the concept of
legalism is a derivative concept, drawing its meaning from a
theolgian's conception of the nature and proper function of the
moral law in the Christian life. "Legalism" is a pejorative term,
with which theologians gesture to what they believe are distorted
elements in a competing understanding of the nature and function
of the moral law for Christians. As defined by Aquinas, the
concept of law includes a number of components. Consequently,
there are a number of trigger points, tracking these components,
each of which can attract a charge of legalism from one critic or
another.
These trigger points touch on basic issues in Christian ethics,
such as whether morality is more appropriately seen as an aspect
of God's will or God's reason; what relationship obtains among
the individual, the community and the common good; and what
role various ecclesiastical authorities and theologians play in
interpreting Christian moral teaching. Moreover, they have
significant practical implications for how one addresses questions
such as whether true moral dilemmas occur in the Christian life,
and whether some moral norms can be tailored to the exigencies
of particular circumstances.
102

Ibid., 154.

WHAT IS LEGALISM?

485

What does this mean for future conversation among Christian
ethicists? In my view, it suggests that the charge of "legalism"
generates more heat than light. To understand what precisely is
meant by the charge, one has to understand the fundamental
moral framework used by the theologian making it, in comparison
to the framework of the theory against which the charge is being
lodged. Once one understands the relevant frameworks, the
charge itself loses its sting; it becomes situated within broader and
more fundamental disagreements about the nature and purpose of
Christian life, and the role of the moral law within it.
Speaking more broadly, it is not surprising that Christians
would have different views of the use and misuse of the law,
including the moral law, in the way of discipleship. After all,
Christ himself expressed different attitudes toward the law on
different occasions in the Gospels. On the one hand, in the
Gospel of Mark, he chastises the Pharisees, with the admonition
that "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath"
(Mark 2:27). On the other, in the Gospel of Matthew, he says,
"Think not that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets:
I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you,
until heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matt 5: 17-18).
From the earliest times, beginning with James and Paul, there
have been disputes among faithful followers of Christ about the
proper way to reconcile the seemingly conflicting attitudes toward
divine law that these statements reflect. It is not surprising that
the debates continue to this day, whether we give primacy with
Engelhardt to the first millennium of the Church's witness in the
East, or honor with Grisez its continued development in the West
under the headship of the bishop of Rome.

BOOK REVIEWS
Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good. By MARY M. KEYS.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 255 pp. $26.99 (paper).
ISBN 978-0-521-72238-4.
Mary Keys sets out to excavate and explicate St. Thomas's understanding of
the common good, especially the political common good. She skillfully distinguishes multiple levels of this project. Given the fact that Thomas left the
Sententia libri Politicorum incomplete, how should we weigh it in comparison
to what seems to be a richer account of social and political theory in the Secunda
pars of the Summa theologiae? There is also the bevy of distinctions deployed by
Thomas, which tend to recur in subtly different ways, depending upon the issue
at hand. As Keys shows, some of the most acute and interesting work in social
and political theory will crop up where least expected in the Summa. Finally,
there is what can be called the big picture. How is Thomas's philosophy of the
common good situated within his work as a whole, including anthropology,
morals, and theology?
"A central aim of this book," writes Keys, "is to help reinsert Aquinas into
contemporary debates in political theory, to explore various ways we might
enrich our political-philosophical discourse with conceptual resources drawn
from his works" (8). In the first part, she briefly examines how the problem of
the common good emerges in contemporary liberal political theory. Here, she
treats John Rawls, Michael Sandel, and William Galston. Her treatment of Rawls
is notable for the fact that she regards him-in my view, correctly-as
maintaining, even in his later work, the position that political order cannot be
reduced to an atomistic aggregation held together by mere procedures. This
allows some room for dialogue between Rawls and a more traditional proponent
of political union as a common good. But her survey of this sector of
contemporary debate remains rather sketchy. Keys moves along quickly to
another debate-among, and between, Aristotelians and Thomists. The chief
question, which harbors a number of subsidiary questions, is how to make sense
ofThomas's penchant to move well beyond the boundaries set by Aristotle. Does
Thomas's doctrine of human inclination, virtue, and participation in the eternal
law deepen or distort Aristotle's account of political phenomena? Once Keys
situates herself within this debate, her exposition of Thomas finds its feet. It is
a challenging piece of work.

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One lesson that can be drawn from the famous exchange in the 1940s
between Charles De Koninck and Ignatius Eschmann about the primacy of the
common good is that the terminology of "common good" is porous and evershifting. Keys right away reminds the reader that for both Aristotle and Thomas
the social and political common good stand between the two poles of unity of
substance and the unity of aggregation. What is the "common" in an
intersubjective collectivity? When two or more persons hold themselves out as
one-in a marriage, a club, a labor union, a church, or a polity-there does not
come into existence a new natural kind, if by natural kind one means a
substance. Nor is their unity a mental fiction imposed upon otherwise unrelated
constituent bits. Indeed, if we were to refuse to recognize the union of spouses
as something more than the sum of the parts, they would be the first to remind
us that we are not regarding them justly. The "common" of a society is neither
substantial nor aggregational. Members of a society are not "parts" in either of
these senses. Rather, they enjoy what Aristotle and Thomas call a unity of order.
Every part is a whole-an acting individual who retains his own proper acts and
operations. At the same time, when two or more individuals pursue a common
end, and intend to have it brought about through united action, there exists a
distinct kind of unity. Lawyers call it a persona moralis in order to indicate that
the locus of rights and responsibilities-the personhood-consists in a shared
end and structure of action. In Aristotelian parlance, such entity has a "form,"
which is nothing other than the unity of order. For a political unity of order, the
form is called the regimen. Therefore, unless it is used in a metaphorical sense,
a "common good" is a shared order of action. It is "common" because it cannot
be distributed into private portions, but only participated by each of its members
in the manner of usufruct. So, for example, a court can issue a writ of divorce
and divide the property, but it is quite impossible to send each of the former
spouses away with his or her private share of the marriage. Such is true, by
analogy, of any society. In sum, the common good is not opposed to the
individual (member) but to the private. When the common is ordered to the
private good of the ruler, it is called tyranny; when it is ordered to the good of
a particular group, faction, or party it is called schism or sedition. About these
fundaments and terms, Aristotle and Thomas differ only in minor ways.
The first two books of Aristotle's Politics are a mother-lode of this social
ontology. Thomas commented upon it carefully, up through 3.6-8. Why did he
leave it incomplete? Keys's hypothesis is that Thomas found the movement from
the anthropological and social foundations in the first two books to the regimespecific analysis in the third book to be disquieting. "Perhaps Aquinas declines
or delays indefinitely giving further attention to this text because he judges that
it concedes too much too quickly to the partial goals of particular regimes, and
that the Philosopher focuses on their particularities to such an extent as to
obscure or at least to gloss over the universally human, normative foundations
and purposes of politics" (19). We can restate the hypothesis as a problem. Given
that man is naturally social and political, and that the achievement of political
order has a finality not instantiated by other modes of society, how can human

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flourishing be parceled-out into admittedly partial regime-arrangements which
introduce a gap or tension between what is good for man and what is good for
the citizen?
The problem can be formulated more sharply in terms of legal or general
justice, which Aristotle treats in book 5 of the Nicomachaean Ethics (and Keys,
173-99). In the case of justice as fairness, virtue consists either in exchange or in
distribution according to merit. For legal or general justice, however, the virtue
consists in a right ordering of other actions and virtues to the common good. It
resides principally in the ruler, whose jurisprudence orders all of the members;
it resides by participation in all of the ordered members, who exercise civic
prudence irt preserving in their own acts the unity of order. While legal justice
does not cancel out the justice of commutation or distribution, it does introduce
a new object(ive) and therefore a distinct habit. It has as its object not a person
equalized, but members sharing a common order-sub specie societatis. Because
it directs all virtues to a common good, Thomas placed legal justice alongside
charity as a "general" virtue. The problem, therefore, is how such a general
virtue can mobilize the other virtues when the object(ive) is participation in a
particular and partial regime. It is important to notice that this question is related
to, but not the same as asking: Is man, in the order of substance, subordinated
in all that he is to a unity of order? If we accept Aristotle's and Thomas's
understanding of the common good as unity of order, the answer to this last
question is immediately apparent. We do not need to introduce complications
of theology and the afterlife in order to see that in the order of substance no
individual can be completely subordinated or reduced to any society, no matter
how large or small. Every member retains his own acts and operations, and
therefore perfections which are properly his own. Rather, the main question is
whether there is a common good worthy of the finality suggested by legal or
general justice.
Whether or not this proved to be the stumbling block for Thomas as he
approached Politics 3.8 is hard to say. Keys readily admits that there is no firm
evidence in the historical record. Her provocative hypothesis is interesting
enough, but her analysis of the philosophical issues does not depend upon it. It
is quite enough for her to show that in several other works, particularly the
Summa theologiae, which makes extensive use of both the Politics and the Ethics,
Thomas reworks the fundamental ontology of books 1 and 2 of the Politics. He
posits, for example, the habit of synderesis whereby every human agent has not
merely a capacity for, but is actively inclined to know, the first, universal precepts of action; he defines the common as participation in the eternal law. The
acquired virtues are given new depth and scope, including legal justice. Regimetranscending principles of sociability are more firmly built into the foundations.
To posit a universal participation in eternal law in the first stirrings of practical
intellection is to guarantee, for good or for ill, that this account of the
"common" will not track Aristotle's in every respect. Keys demonstrates rather
well that in introducing more universal requirements of moral and political

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order, Thomas draws upon Aristotle but philosophizes in his own name. "In this
important respect, Aquinas is not building on anyone else's foundations" (23).
Keys writes: "Aquinas does not equal Aristotle, but neither does he simply
blur or oversimplify the Philosopher's pristine thought, as some scholars [e.g.
Jaffa and Strauss] have argued. At times and in important ways, he improves
upon it. To study only Aristotle on the problem of virtue, law, and the common
good is to clarify some crucial theoretic possibilities but to miss out on others"
(20-21). Whether Thomas "improves" Aristotle, and whether he provides "new
possibilities for harmonizing human and civic excellence" are disputed questions.
The virtue of Keys's work is that she meets this issue head on, without trying to
explain away the Thomistic difference as a result of misunderstanding Aristotle
or confusing revealed theology with philosophical analysis. By the same token,
she does not shrink from the theology. Thomas often reworks and clarifies the
philosophical issues in tandem with a theological problem, but this is not the
same as confusing the two-or worse yet, of importing the deposit of revealed
truth under philosophical cover.
This book can be profitably read along side Douglas Kries's The Problem of
Natural Law (Lexington Books, 2007). Kries asks many of the same questions,
but takes a different tack. He contends that the doctrine of synderesis claims too
much, that it creates a crippling expectation of consensus in moral matters, and
that it obscures the need for acquired moral virtues necessary for agents
adequately to participate in a common political order. Thomists, if not Thomas
himself, inadvertently laid premises exploited by modern rationalists and
precipitous universalists; and by front-loading a knowledge of first precepts, he
also exposed the tradition to skeptics, who use social sciences to show the
profound dissensus that obtains within and across societies. Consequently, moral
debates in the public sphere are chronically pulled in opposite directions,
aggressive universalism countered by skepticism and an equally aggressive claim
about so-called epistemic deficits. Kries offers an alternative picture of naturallaw foundations of moral and political order, without the Thomistic
"improvements." On balance, Keys makes a very fine and challenging
contribution to the ongoing debate about Aristotelian and Thomistic accounts
of the foundations of social and political order. She is much more patient than
Kries with the complex coherence of Thomas's philosophy. That two scholars
so similarly trained within ancient and Scholastic political philosophy can take
such diverse positions alerts us to the live nature of this debate.
There is one other area of controversy that Keys touches upon but does not
adequately develop. For centuries, Catholics used the term doctrina civilis:
teaching(s) about political order. The chief virtue of justice, holding sway over
all other species of justice, was called iustitia legalis, legal or general justice,
which took its name from what is most characteristic of polity, the ordering of
law. After the pontificate of Leo XIII (1878-1903), doctrina civilis became
doctrina socialis; for its part, iustitia legalis became iustitia socialis. Here, we
have a concrete instance of Keys's observation that Thomas emphasizes the social
ontology in order to orient the regime-specific issues of polity. In the late

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491

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was clear that human persons are
citizens, but less clear how they are members of societies other than the state.
Thomas's rendition of legal justice was apt to be confused with mere obedience
to the positive law of the state. Accordingly, the name was changed from legal
justice to social justice. This terminological "improvement" of Thomas (not to
mention Aristotle) had the unintended effect of conflating distributive and
general justice. As social justice came to mean the more adequate distribution of
a "common stock" to individuals or groups, it became increasingly less clear what
constitutes a common good in contrast to public utilities. A society, of whatever
magnitude, will distribute common utilities. In this sense, even the traditional
understanding of general justice will involve distribution. Even so, when a state
makes available free legal counsel to the indigent, we do not say that the rule of
law is distributed to private persons. When the international order distributes
resources for the development of peoples, the resources are distributed, not the
international order itself. In short, we have a new notion of solidarity without
the precise notion of common good. If common good becomes something
inherently divisible rather than participated, the ancient rubric is lost. Moreover,
insofar as every polity accepts, or seems to accept, the higher norm of social
justice, the regime-specific character of distribution is inevitably flattened. There
are many troubles and perplexities lurking under the rather serene account of
common good provided by Keys. Some of these problems have arisen from
within "the tradition." But for a full-orbed and challenging account of Thomas's
philosophy Keys's book is a major contribution.
RUSSELL HITIINGER

University of Tulsa
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Das Ende des Neuthomismus: Die 68er, das Konzil und die Dominikaner. By
EDUARD HABSBURG-LOTHRINGEN.Bonn: Nova & Vetera, 2007. Pp. 292
38 €(paper). ISBN 978-3-936741-43-8
In his recent review of Roman us Cessario's A Short History of Thomism (The
Thomist 72 [2008]: 147-54), Alfred Freddoso writes about "many encouraging
signs for the future." On a mere quantitative level, one could add the first
volume of a new yearbook, published in 2007 (Thomistica 2006: An International Yearbook of Thomistic Bibliography by the same publisher as the book
under review), that intends to continue the tradition of Bulletin Thomiste and
Rassegna di Letteratura Tomistica and reviews more than 1400 titles on the
thought of St. Thomas. It is in this context that it becomes all the more urgent
to reflect on the reasons for the decline of Thomism in the recent past. Rather

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than engaging in general remarks on the theological and philosophical climate
of the 1960s and 1970s, it is intellectually more satisfying to undertake a
historical study of individual persons, journals, institutions, etc., in order to
obtain first-hand knowledge of that period. While such studies on, for instance,
the journals Revue Thomiste and Divus Thomas and the Pontifical Academy of
St. Thomas have already been written, a comprehensive study of the Dominican
Order has been lacking.
The book under review promises to accomplish this from the particular
perspective of the Dominican Thomist philosophers at the University of Fribourg
(Switzerland) between 1960 and 1980. Originally a doctoral dissertation
defended at the University of Erfurt (Germany) in 1999, its publication was
postponed at the request of the Order. As the author explains in his foreword,
the "delicate" nature of some of the information being used in the dissertation
at a time when negotiations were taking place between the Swiss state and the
theological faculty caused publication to be delayed. Besides archived material,
the dissertation incorporates the results of a series of interviews with twenty-two
key witnesses, dating back to 1993, including the Dominicans Chr. Schonborn,
M.-D. Philippe, J.-H. Nicolas, G. Cottier, Th. Mehrle, and Fr. Utz as well as
Josef Pieper, Cornelio Fabro, and cardinals Mayer and Ratzinger.
The author takes an original approach to the philosophy of neo-Thomism by
applying in part 1 (13-58) Thomas Kuhn's theory on the history of science.
Aware of the difficulty of defining neo-Thomism, the author makes a helpful
distinction between those who from a historical or linguistic viewpoint converse
about St. Thomas (in German referred to by the adjective 'thomasisch') and
those who converse with St. Thomas, meaning that they have taken over the
structures of his thought (in German, 'thomistisch'). He refers to the TwentyFour Theses as the principal content of philosophical neo-Thomism. When
arguing that neo-Thomism constituted a paradigm as a "normal science" and that
the phases of the disappearance of neo-Thomism resemble Kuhn's theory, he
refers to the discussion between R. Cessario and R. Lauder/G. McCool in this
journal (see The Thomist 56 [1992]: 701-10) as an example of what Kuhn called
historical misconstructions of previous paradigms in the new scientific textbooks.
According to the author, neo-Thomism had two separate functions within the
same paradigm. The ecclesiastical function ("innerkirchliche Funktion") regarded
neo-Thomistic philosophy as a preparation for doing theology, while the
academic function ("universitiire Funktion") tried to bring neo-Thomism as an
academic philosophy into dialogue with other philosophical systems. This
distinction partly explains why adherents of the paradigm's first function went
different ways and were unable to engage in a true dialogue. In the course of the
book the author argues that the disappearance of philosophical neo-Thomism in
its ecclesiastical function was caused not so much by anomalies such as the
modern mindset or historical research but more so by a change in the theological
paradigm. Contrary to Kuhn's theory, however, a new philosophical paradigm
did not arise; the previous one just became "obsolete" (271).

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The historical parts of the study (parts 2 and 3) give credence to Max Planck's
observation, quoted in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (151), that
sometimes "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents
and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die,
and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
Part 2 ("Thomas, Weltkirche und Dominikanerorden" [59-158]) studies the
directives of the Church, divided into four periods (Leo XIII-Pius IX; Pius
XII-John XXIII; the time of the council; Paul VI-John Paul II), regarding
Thomistic philosophy, and also studies with respect to each period the reaction
of the Dominican Order. On the basis of a careful study of the acts of the
General Chapters and the rationes studiorum, the author, extensively quoting
from the sources, traces the firm adherence to the papal directives under Master
General Friihwirth, the origin of the oath De tenenda S. Thomae doctrina, but
also the new tone of voice under Master General Gillet, exemplified by the
Constitutions of 1932 which state that the study of St. Thomas should not
occupy itself with "minutis et obsoletis controversiis" but should show
"quomodo ex principiis S. Thomae huius temporis problemata solvi possunt."
The author points out (correctly, in my opinion) that these wordings reflect
already the approach Pius XII will undertake. Regarding the General Chapter of
1946, the author notes that the positiones modernae "for the first time in a
document of the Order regarding study" do not receive a negative connotation.
At the same time the acts mention (no. 89, not 39 as the author writes) that
"doctrina Divi Thomae vel imperite tradatur aut aperte impugnetur." The author
considers such phrases as "the first heralds of a rupture that will reach its peak
twenty years later." The balanced view of Pius XII is expressed by Alphonso
D'Amato, provincial of Lombardy to the General Chapter in Bologna
(misattributed by the author to Master General Brown in a speech to the
provincial council ofBoulogne) in 1961 when he affirms that fidelity to the spirit
of Holy Father Dominic and St. Thomas "minime excludit opportunam, immo
et necessariam accommodationem." The Ratio of 1965, prepared at the General
Chapter of 1962 at Toulouse, retains St. Thomas's teaching "at the center" of
philosophical and theological studies. The author concludes for the period 194662 that the texts of the Chapters are marked by a continuity with tradition
although the Order is seeking "a new language" to transmit St. Thomas's
teachings to modern man.
In order to understand the "full rupture" regarding neo-Thomism, the author
traces in detail the events at the council. As a prelude he discusses the
developments in France regarding the nouvelle theologie, the discussion
instigated by Labourdette (on this see A. Nichols's article in The Thomist 64
[2000]: 1-19), the condemnation of Chenu and Congar, but also the contested
priest-worker movement in which one can "perhaps" see a practical application
of the evolutionism of the much-admired Teilhard de Chardin. Rome's reaction
to this caused such negative feelings in France as a nation that the French journal
Le Figaro could write "To take on the sons of father Lacordaire in France is as
much as to blast our cathedrals in the sky." Tracing the textual history of

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Optatam totius 15-16 and De educatione Christiana 10 (94-104), the author
notes with Cardinal Mayer "an antithomistic mood of many Fathers" and sees
a partial explanation of the energy and efficiency of the "anti-Thomas lobby" in
the bad experiences with Rome which leading theologians such as Chenu,
Congar, Rahner, and de Lubac (listed by Schillebeeckx) had over the years. The
German theologian J. Neuner in his 1966 commentary, published in LThK 2 ,
summarizes this mood very well when he juxtaposes a "closed scholastic system"
which separates the priest from the world with "the actual problems and
questions of life which interiorly motivate students." Let me add a few
observations. We now possess a thorough book-length study on the textual
history of Optatam totius, which, while written from the perspective of a
hermeneutic of discontinuity, nonetheless gives a wealth of material regarding
the discussions on Thomas during the Council: A. Greiler, Das Konzil und die
Seminare: Die Ausbildung der Priester in der Dynamik des Zweiten Vatikanums,
Peeters, Louvain, 2003. Based upon my own research (see "Die heutige Autoritat
des hl. Thomas von Aquin im Lichte der Tradition," Doctor Angelicus 5 [2005):
7-5 4 ), I would suggest giving more weight to the explanation by the preparatory
commission "De studiis et seminariis" Guly 1965) statement ("ceterum in
patrimonio philosophico perenniter valido ipsa S. Thomae principia significare
commissio intellexit"), especially in the light of the hermeneutic model offered
by Paul VI in various speeches during and after the council and in his letter
Lumen ecclesiae. I would also argue that the opposing council fathers worked
with the dichotomy of exclusivity versus inclusivity regarding Aquinas which did
not reflect correctly the magisterium, at least since Pius XII. I would however
agree with the author that the Ratio fundamental is of 1970 on priestly formation
further weakens Aquinas's position and-I would add-seems to give credence
to Master General Fernandez's fear at the council that the role of St. Thomas
would be reduced "ad vagam imitationem figurae exemplaris Angelici Doctoris
et non ad eius doctrinam" (Acta Synodalia III, 8, p. 285).
The author continues with the "ideological crisis" within the French provinces
of the Order which was, according to B. Ashley, "exemplary" for the Order
worldwide. Schonborn recalls that, beginning in the 1950s in Le Saulchoir, the
younger generation was introduced to a variety of subjects (Marxism,
psychology, sociology). By 1968 it became apparent that this generation was
somehow dispersed into every possible subject without covering its "corebusiness" (Kernbereich). Chenu signs an appeal in May 1968 "to introduce
revolution in the Church" and "to not suffer anymore in the Church the limits
which have been imposed." Father Paissac recalls that "the majority position
within the Order was a revolutionary movement." The effect on Le Saulchoir
meant, in the words of Schonborn, "a collapse." Returning to Le Saulchoir after
the events of May 1968, Schonborn notes: "What upset me was that many older
friars just dropped forms in which they lived for decades as if one changes of
clothing .... I think it was like in the French Revolution, only the guillotine was
missing." In May 1969 an anonymous document on the formation of the friars
was circulating. Within the overall frame of "solidarity with the modern world,"

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philosophy was defined as the consciousness one has of the culture of an era. A
thorough study of philosophy is not encouraged; however, it permits that some
friars engage themselves with the "technicality" of academic studies in order to
obtain an official diploma. The author judges this text to be "in a certain sense
a travesty, pushed to the extremes, of Optatam totius" (p. 120) because it
ignores Thomism, discards any plan of studies and calls for the instrumentalization of philosophy according to the "solidarity" of the individual. The
provincial chapter of 1969 reflects this document when it proposes a three-year
cycle of theology at the start of the formation after which friars follow a twoyear cycle in which they can choose philosophy "or another discipline which is
more fitting to their potential." Reference to Aquinas is entirely absent. In his
interview with the author, Schonborn gives three reasons for the "elimination"
of Thomas. First, there was a sense of shame for the identity of Thomism, which
was considered to be out of date. Second, the historicism of Le Saulchoir
emptied to a large extent the commitment to Thomas. Third, and most
important, there was a mental rupture with his way of thinking: one had become
alienated from the mentality (Geistigkeit) Aquinas represented. After the closure
of Le Saulchoir in 1971, the provincial chapters of 1972 and 1975 continue to
express the need to promote social activism and endorse studies with a minimum
of philosophical preparation.
The fourth period under review (Paul VI-John Paul II) and especially the
letter Lumen ecclesiae and John Paul II's "distinct commitment" to Aquinas
marks "a distance from the battles and quarrels of the time of the Council"
(132). By way of a document of the permanent commission for studies of 1966,
the author informs us of the different voices regarding the Thomas oath. We also
learn of the dramatic appeals of Paul VI at the General Chapters of 1965, 1968,
and 1971 to safeguard the Order's commitment to Aquinas although the
corresponding acts hardly mention him. The author however finds "a lack of
interest" in Aquinas and philosophy in general and notes the marked difference
between the latest edition of the constitutions of 1954 and those of 1969 where
Aquinas's doctrine is reduced to a "good influence." According to the author, the
activities of Master General de Cuesnongle (1974-83) mark a new era in
promoting Aquinas, as becomes clear from a comparison of the role of Aquinas
in the Ratio of 1975 with the constitutions of 1969. Following a forceful speech
by de Cuesnongle at the General Chapter of 1980 on the importance of the
study of philosophy and Aquinas in particular, the permanent commission for
studies was commissioned to look for ways to study and teach Aquinas
effectively and a Thomistic institute was founded at the Angelicum. On the basis
of the acts of the General Chapters of 1986 and 1989, the author concludes that
de Cuesnongle's successor did not seem to be overly eager to encourage the friars
to study Aquinas in depth. Based on the 1993 Ratio, in which Aquinas played
again a more prominent role, the author concludes part 2: "Today [1998] the
relation to Thomas Aquinas seems overall to be more relaxed. A new generation,
unaffected by the traumatic events of the 1960s and 1970s, discovers Aquinas
and his philosophy anew" (151).

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Part 3 (159-258) focuses on the particular situation of the chairs of
philosophy (three at the philosophical and two at the theological faculty) at the
university of Fribourg (Switzerland) between 1890 and 1982. Until 1972 the
Dominicans occupied all the chairs; in 1982 M.-D. Philippe (1912-2006) retired
as the last Dominican on the faculty. After sketching the history up to 1960, the
author provides the reader with an impressive account of the life and work of the
"last generation" of professors and especially the "last five" holders of a chair:
N. Luyten, M.-D. Philippe, L.-B. Geiger, A. F. Utz, and I. M. Bochenski. He next
reconstructs by way of interviews with three alumni (now professors) the study
and teaching methods during the 1950s and 1960s. From these interviews we
learn that the Dominicans were largely perceived as a group who "somehow
belonged to the same school but had entirely different personalities. They were
individually great, but as a group, somehow even greater." This would suggest
that at that time Thomism was, in Kuhn's words, perceived as the "normal
science."
Chapters 4 and 5 of part 3 chronicle the "disappearance of Thomism." The
author discusses the disappearance of Latin in 1966 in favor of bilingual courses,
which caused difficulties for the professors in translating their courses and which
doubled the number of chairs at the theology faculty. It would also make it more
difficult for the Order to find suitable successors. A reform of the plan of studies
in line with what was perceived as a consequence of Optatam totius de facto
eliminated the two-year mandatory philosophical program. In 1969 a new
nomination procedure was approved that weakened the position of the
Dominicans. The author chronicles the "early retirement" of five theology
professors under the pressure of students. Most prominent at the time was the
case of Fr. Mehrle, dean of the theology faculty between 1966 and 1968, who
was forced to suspend his courses because he was charged with "judging the new
theological orientations from the perspective of Thomism." The author judges
these cases to be symptomatic of the "birth pains" of a scientific revolution. As
the chairs between 1972 and 1982 were gradually being handed over to lay
professors, Belgian father Norbertus Luyten, prior of the Albertinum, came to
have a central role. Largely based on archived material, the author depicts in
chapter 5 the dramatic story of Luyten's many initiatives to ensure a Dominican
philosophical presence at Fribourg. Quoting extensively from his correspondence
with de Cuesnongle, the author allows us to become witnesses of Luyten's
concern that some circles are seeking a "dedominicanisation" (231) at Fribourg.
We also witness the powerlessness of the Master General to find suitable
successors from within the Order.
The concluding part 4 (259-77) places the results within Kuhn's model. The
author notes that the philosophical chairs, contrary to the theological chairs, did
not suffer from such anomalies as a perceived unscientific character in the light
of modern questions or a perceived inability to address modern problems. On
the contrary, the Dominican philosophers kept their research and teaching up to
date and their courses were well attended by students. The author argues that the
ressentiment towards Thomistic theology and the diminishing role of philosophy

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as a preparation for the study of theology made it more and more insignificant
what kind of philosophy professors were teaching. This would explain why the
neo-Thomistic paradigm silently disappeared.
As the author himself admits in the preface of the book, the years after
finishing the dissertation in 1999 give reason for drawing a more hopeful picture
of the current status of Thomism. However, it seems to me that at least in
Europe the exclusively historical approach is still predominating and that, while
one can witness a renewed interest in Aquinas's theology, this renewal is not
matched by a renewed interest in his philosophy; a situation which, from a
Thomistic viewpoint, can only be a contradictio in terminis.
Although the references to Kuhn's model could be criticized as being
somewhat too artificial, those interested in the history of Thomism and
especially the Dominican Order are in the author's debt for writing a detailed
and intriguing story on the Order's commitment to Aquinas and the way this
commitment has been applied in the case of Fribourg.
J6RGEN VIJGEN

Theological-Philosophical Institute St. Willibrord
Vogelenzang, The Netherlands

The Passions of Christ in High-Medieval Thought: An Essay on Christological
Development. By KEVIN MADIGAN. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007. Pp. 158. $65 (paper). ISBN 978-0-19-532274-3.
Beauty is proportion. According to Aristotle's standard, Kevin Madigan's
study is an achievement, due to its remarkable proportions: concise in length,
sharp in thinking, well-contained in its scholarship, and as clear-cut in its
statements. The argument is made in a manner as meticulous as straight. There
are two arguments, as the specific topic the author sets forth turns out to be a
fallibility test for a more general theological principle. In the author's words:
"Most historians of medieval thought have perceived profound continuity
between scholastic theological and exegetical thought and the patristic
authorities with which such thought characteristically began. I argue here that
high-medieval thinkers on the passible aspects of Christ's human nature-fear,
sorrow, apparent ignorance and so forth-more often rupture such putative
conceptual links and erase much or all dogmatic continuity with the very figures
whose thought they seem to want to preserve or, in many cases, to rehabilitate.
This argument has implications for the much larger theme of continuity and
discontinuity in the history of Christian thought" (3). One would immediately
spare a thought for Cardinal Newman and his Essay on the Development of
Christian Doctrine, which is exactly what Madigan has in mind. Newman indeed

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asserted that, between the earliest expression of a dogma and its developed form,
there exists a prima facie dissimilitude which conceals the deeper fact of
development (cf. 91). As a balance, Madigan intends to prove that, at least in one
case, the rule fails: "the history of relations between ancient and medieval
thought on the passions of Christ is a history of correction and improvement. It
is therefore, remorselessly, a history of fissure and discontinuity" (92).
The body of evidence provided by Madigan is sifted step-by-step, convincingly, from chapter 2 to chapter 7. Chapter 2 sets the scenery by bringing us
back to the fourth century's Christological controversies. At that time, Arians
were in the forefront; they were setting terms and questions. And since one of
their first concerns was the rejection of Christ's divinity and equality with the
Father, it is not surprising that they turned their attention to all the defects of
Christ acknowledged in the Gospels, defects at odds with divine nature. Thanks
to recent scholarship, summarized by Madigan, we are now more aware of the
fact that this main tenet had a soteriological counterpart: being a creature, Christ
was able to suffer and die in order to obtain redemption for humankind. In the
Arians' view, it was specifically because Christ was neither real God nor real man
that he carried out a task unfit for both God and man. Orthodox theologians, in
their answer, had to prioritize. Trinitarian faith was at stake. They therefore
concentrated their efforts on setting the boundary straight between God and
creatures, and, in a way, making clear that the Son as God was definitely on the
first side of this boundary. This Trinitarian belief was to combine with the belief
that Christ was truly human, but this was another matter for which each Father
developed a theory of his own-a pluralism that would eventually lead to
Chalcedon. In this respect, a wide spectrum of possibilities was asserted, each
one involving a variant interpretation of Christ's passions. Even among the most
prominent authors there is a notable difference between Athanasius's exemplarism, Hilary's divinization of Christ's spiritual powers, and Ambrose's strict
compartmentalization of natures.
This diversity was to embarrass Scholastic mediaeval theologians: attempting
to summarize Tradition into clear statements, magistri were reluctant to choose
between authorities, to say nothing about correcting them. Chapters 3 to 7
scrutinize the way in which the magistri negotiated their common understanding
of reverence toward ancient authorities-yet without boasting about it as
innovators-concerning particular defects of Christ: the possibility of progress
in Wisdom (chap. 3), the possibility of ignorance (chap. 4), the pain in the
Passion (chap. 5), the fear and sorrow in Gethsemane (chap. 6) and, finally,
Christ's prayer (chap. 7). For each chapter, Madigan presents the Church
Fathers' texts, and then turns to their mediaeval appraisal in Peter Lombard,
Bonaventure, and Aquinas. There is nothing really new in these core pages, but
even for the specialist these short, clear thematic summaries in the history of
doctrine will be useful. One would perhaps deplore that the brisk prose style
changes here and there into journalistic simplicity (see, for example, pp. 6, 61,
63, 70), though an overall genuine sense of synthesis is to be acknowledged.

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Now, taken for granted that mediaeval theologians substantially amended
their patristic predecessors, two questions arise: do those amendments account
for a shift in the theological tradition between the Fathers and their mediaeval
appraisal? This question will be addressed later. Second, can one thereby
conclude that this is "at least an initial announcement of gross defects in the
tradition" (61), which means that at least in this case, and contrary to Newman's
view, "in no way is the early visible in inchoate or implicit form in the latter"
(92)? The answer to this question is no, because two important theological
principles are missing in the reasoning. First, theologians are in the Christian
tradition, but they are not the Christian Tradition. There have indeed been many
conflicting theological traditions in the history of the Church; this does not
necessarily mean that there is no such thing as unity in the Christian Tradition,
or that some proposals were within and others without. (It might appear to be
the case, even afterwards, yet it is not necessarily so.) But second, and more
simply: the Christian Tradition is unified by and in faith, not by and in
theologians. In other words, in order to show defects in the Tradition it is not
enough to display prominent disagreements; one has also to prove that the
disagreements affect the transmission of the Church's faith as such. This leads us
to the second step missing in Madigan's argument: the development that
attracted Newman's attention and eventually drew him into the Catholic Church
is not the chaotic development of theological doctrines but the homogeneous
development of Christian faith. Madigan is right to point out discrepancies
among theologians about Christ's passions, but he should have brought this fact
together with this other fact: that the Church never adjudicated the faith on the
subject of Christ's passions. And the most obvious reason for the latter fact is the
former, that is, the still-in-progress work of theologians. Even today, the place
of Christ's passions in the organon of faith remains somewhat unclear.
Albeit unwillingly, Madigan's book offers a pertinent example of this
doctrinal indetermination, as early as in its title and subtitle: The Passions of
Christ in High-Medieval Thought: An Essay on Christo logical Development. First,
there is a shift between the intentions expressed in the subtitle and the final
result. As we have just seen Madigan does not clarify in what way a development
might have occurred within the Church's formulation of faith about Christ,
because he concentrates exclusively on discontinuities in the understanding of
faith about Christ by theologians. Second, the title is misleading concerning the
book's content, in that pain, fear, and sorrow are passions while knowledge and
prayer are not. Is there, then, any reason to bring all these elements together,
and to place them under the common heading of "passions"? The reason
presented by Madigan (6) is that Arians did so and thereby shaped the issue for
centuries to come. But he himself appears quite at ease with their approach, even
if it is, of course, for a different motive. Arians were on the track of every little
indication of Christ's inferiority to the Father. Madigan is uncomfortable with
everything that would suggest that Christ experienced life in a different manner
than we do, because it would suggest that Christ possessed a diminished
humanity. In other words, the latter's concern is the equality of Christ with us,

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while the farmer's was the inequality of Christ with the Father. As a result, the
Arians as well as Madigan think that the defects or passible dimensions of Christ
mentioned in the gospel have to be read literally: any gesture of pain for
example, must echo and thus reveal the inner subjectivity or nature of Christ.
Even if Madigan remains evasive about how far his own position goes, oftrepeated sharp remarks clearly indicate that herein lies his main preoccupation.
His introduction is quite clear: relying on a hypothetical exegetical theory
complementary to his own, he maintains that the dissimilarities between the
Gospels about Christ's defects are the result of a progressive erasure by the first
generations of Christians who felt ill at ease with those "all-too-human" (63)
traits of Christ (cf. 4-6). John is even accused of "outright denial" for having not
mentioned the fear and grief in Gethsemane (5). This betrays another feature
common with Arians, which is a tendency to favor certain pericopes, the ones
that fit with one's theory, and to rewrite the Gospels according to these. Therein
lies a presumption about what an incarnate divine subject or a divine nature
consists of. Arians considered it obvious that divine nature is of a kind that
cannot be communicated; similarly, Madigan seems to consider that the question
of what it meant for the divine Word to experience passions and defects he
voluntarily assumed is quite a trivial one. Finally, Arians and Madigan ascribe to
Christ's passions the same purpose: passions are of interest not in themselves,
but because their literal existence in Christ is the key condition of something
else. All these similarities suggest that, as Arians have nothing in common with
Madigan regarding doctrine, they must partake in the same theological method.
Enough material has been gathered to see that at the heart of this method is
a knotty, mixed-up perception of what pertains to nature and what pertains to
person. To put it briefly, any essential property is proper to a nature but it exists
in a certain hypostasis; and conversely any hypostatic property is distinctive of
a hypostasis but it exists according to a certain nature. To apply this principle in
Christology: passions are in themselves relative to a particular nature, that is, a
sensible and rational nature. This is why they offer the best evidence that Christ
was truly human, as Chalcedon made clear and declared conclusively. But by
themselves they are unable to make us understand how they exist in this
particular person, the Word incarnate. In other words, true human passions are
in Christ because Christ truly has a human nature, but they are in Christ
according to the way Christ is a person, that is the Son of God. Christ had
human passions but it must be added that they were Christ's passions, which
makes a difference. To halt at the first part of the reflection and to be forgetful
of the second one seems to suggest, first, that Christ's passions and defects as a
whole are of interest only insofar as they underscore the Chalcedonian doctrine;
second, that any attempt to outline passions according to their particular mode
of existence in Christ is mistakenly construed as a denial or a diminishment of
the true humanity of Christ; and third, that passions and defects in Christ remain
understood as common, unspecific passions and defects, for they never come to
be fathomed as Christ's. In this impersonal perspective, the causality of salvation
divides according to the two natures and is no more unified in Christ's person.

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Christ's passions and defects are deprived of any soteriological significance
except exemplarity. This implies that exemplarity has to be literal: Christ must
experience life in absolutely the same way as we do; otherwise his example
would be insincere. Then a final step comes: the parting of soteriology from
Christo logy.
All said and done, did the mediaeval theologians sever from their patristic
predecessors as Madigan asserts? Did a shift occur in the doctrinal history of
Christianity? I think that the so-called shift is merely a kind of optical illusion
created by the use of flawed theological lenses. Madigan has assembled texts and
organized them in a clever thematic synthesis. Needless to say, he must have
spent a lot of time becoming familiar with them. In spite of all this effort, it is
amazing that something of great importance remained unperceived by him: in
their attempt to organize the many quaestiones fueled by their biblical teaching,
twelfth-century theologians were relying on patristic anti-Arian material, but
they were no longer tied down to the Arians' agenda. For many reasons the
passions and defects were to be studied in medieval treatises for their own sake,
each one in particular, and were related to both the Incarnation and the Passion.
This shift from the vantage point of the Fathers allowed for a clarification of the
distinction between the natural reality of passions and defects in Christ and their
soteriological significance (in more or less satisfying ways, but this is another
matter). Through rewriting and reverent exegesis, this makes for continuity with
the patristic period and constitutes a development. Madigan knows the texts: he
quotes them; he comments upon them, and shows that he understands them; but
something prevents him from grasping their thrust and the continuous line they
were drawing. It is as if he was a still prisoner of the Arians' perspective. His
inability to integrate the consideration of nature in a consideration of the person
of Christ keeps him from perceiving one of the most fascinating progressions in
the history of Christology. Beauty can deceive.
EMMANUEL PERRIER, 0.P.

Dominican Studium
Toulouse, France

Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition. Edited by MATTHEW L. LAMB and
MATTHEW LEVERING. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
2008. Pp. xxiv + 462. $29.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-19-533267-9.
This collection of essays answers to the call of Pope Benedict XVI for a
reading of the texts of the Second Vatican Council within a "hermeneutic of
continuity," for which, as a matter of course, conciliar documents are interpreted
by way of anamnesis (i.e., against their de facto doctrinal background in the

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tradition) and not by way of prognosis (i.e., in terms of their possible
contribution to a speculatively constructed future). The address of the pope to
the Roman curia on 22 December 2005, which suggested this desideratum, is
printed here as a kind of preface to the whole work. The task the editors have
set themselves is certainly both desirable and necessary. Firstly, it is desirable
because too many versions of what the council said or intended have assumed
the alternative-a hermeneutic of rupture, with consequences often unfortunate
for the life of the faithful. Secondly, it is also necessary because what Benedict
XVI requested is simply the normal way to proceed when handling such texts in
an intellectually responsible manner. No historical theologian, or Church
historian, should treat Vatican II as a sketch for a hypothetical Vatican III. What
should we make of a student who decided to interpret, say, the two-wills
doctrine of Constantinople III, not against the background of Chalcedon and
Constantinople II, but in terms of a proleptic account of Trent on justification,
or even, for that matter, of Nicaea II (the council immediately following) on the
portrayable character of the hypostasis of the Word incarnate? At least Nicaea
II and Trent have a measurable reality quotient, which is more than can be said
for Vatican III.
A substantial introduction by the editors ascribes the lacunae of much commentary on the council texts not only to Church politics but also-and more
profoundly-to the loss of a sapiential culture, whereby all such documents
would be approached in a manner reflecting the holism of genuine Tradition.
They also offer a key to reading the essays that follow, signaling key features of
each contribution. This is useful because, in their entirety, these articles on,
respectively, the constitutions, decrees, and declarations of the Council, occupy
well over four hundred pages of text. Contributors are overwhelmingly
American, at any rate by domicile. The exceptions are all Dominicans (one
Nigerian, one French, one Swiss). Painting with broad brush-strokes:
contributors can be described as chiefly belonging to either the Thomist or the
Communio schools.
An inevitable commonplace of reviewing multiauthor works is to notice that
not all essays are equally successful. Here the problem is compounded by the
variable quality or at any rate the importance of the conciliar texts on which
particular authors were commissioned to write. Plainly, it was much easier for
Avery Cardinal Dulles to produce something theologically meaty on the
ecclesiology of the first four chapters of Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church, than it was for Richard John Neuhaus to extract
ecclesially nutritious elements from Inter mirifica, the Decree on the Instruments
of Social Communication. Accordingly, this review will concentrate on those
essays where (a) somewhat surprising points of particular importance are made,
while (b) comment is being offered on the four principal documents of the
council, its constitutions. In effect, I shall concentrate on essays that are striking
in that they flout commonly received Church opinion, especially when the latter
is shaped by the hermeneutic of rupture. At the risk of misrepresenting the ethos
of the text, which is more likely to point to precedents in the Church Fathers,

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St. Thomas, or the papal magisterium than to stir up the nests of hornets, the rest
of this review concerns this "shock criterion."
I have already mentioned Cardinal Dulles. Massive experience of theological
writing and an increasingly focused theological mind makes his essay, relatively
short though it be, as memorable as it is trenchant. A summary might run as
follows: despite the wider range of images for the Church it sanctioned, Lumen
gentium's teaching on the structure of the Church is basically the kind of
doctrine the First Vatican Council would have produced had it remained in
session. A point Dulles underlines-and I have to admit it had passed me by
though its significance leaps to the eye-is that the celebrated phrase subsistit in,
whereby the Church of Christ is said to "subsist in" the Catholic Church, was
not proposed (as is widely alleged) as a minimizing alternative to esse-to be that
Church. Rather, it was voted into the text as a maximalising alternative to the
formula adest in-to be present in that Church (which makes, as they say, a
whole load of difference). Almost at a stroke, the "revolution in ecclesiology"
beloved of liberal commentators evaporates. Something remains behind,
however, like the smile on the face of the Cheshire cat. And that is the
impression careless talk has left on plain persons-in-the-pew that "all the
Churches are the same now" (i.e., after Vatican II).
Abbot Denis Farkasfalvy tackles the topics of biblical inspiration and
interpretation in Dei verbum. Though in part he is seeking elegant solutions to
aporiae in the council texts, or the filling in of lacunae in the thinking of the
council fathers, he also meets the "shock criterion" in two respects. Firstly, he
considers that "standard" (my term) Old Testament exegesis as now practiced by
Catholics as by others in the academy fails to correspond to the provisions of the
conciliar constitution, which sought rather to foster for the Elder Covenant a
neo-patristic typological exegesis centered on the mystery of Christ. Secondly,
the account of the origins of the four Gospels commonly taken for granted in
median historical-critical study cannot be squared with Dei verbum's affirmation
that they stem from the apostles and/or their collaborators.
In an account of the theology of the liturgy in Sacrosanctum concilium Pamela
Jackson shows that by "pastoral" efficacy the bishops at Vatican II did not mean
a liturgy that was "less demanding, more interesting and enjoyable, and perhaps
even entertaining" (116), but one that draws the faithful along the way of
holiness by joining them more deeply to Christ in his high priestly worship of the
Father. Some might think that this hardly needed stating. They should recall the
pit into which the beautiful word 'pastoral' has fallen when used in this context.
Finally, when tackling Gaudium et spes, ]. Brian Benestad finds that the
invocation of the distinctive experience and expertise of the laity in the
document's forty-third section was never intended as an invitation to reformulate
Church teaching on "certain moral matters." Rather, the bishops sought to
release the initiative of the laity in making "prudent application of Catholic
social principles to public policy" (162). When we read in a correspondence
column that the "official Church" must cease to reject the "relevance of lay

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experience," it is not, I think, this modest (yet crucial) task letter-writers
generally have in mind.
I have singled out four neuralgic points. My selectiveness should not be
misinterpreted as lack of enthusiasm for the project of this book as a whole, or
want of admiration for the competence with which its project has been brought
to completion. Many essays are of value simply by being sober and workmanlike
(e.g., Francis Martin on revelation and its transmission in Dei verbum, or
Matthew Levering on the closing chapters of Gaudium et spes). What I have been
terming the "shock criterion" is inadequate to portray the riches of this
collection. But is the best reason why this book is needed. Fortunately, owing to
the distinction of the publishing house which produced it (wisely, the editors
eschewed the more obvious choice of conservative Catholic publishers), it is
likely to be widely read by those who would profit from hearing its message.
AIDAN NICHOLS, 0.P.

Blackfriars
Cambridge, England

John Paul II and St. Thomas Aquinas. Edited by MICHAEL DAUPHINAIS and
MATTHEW LEVERING. Naples, Fla.: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria
University, 2006. Pp. 259. $29.95 (paper). ISBN 978-1-932589-28-3.
There have been many studies of John Paul's thought and certainly even
more of Thomas Aquinas. But those that compare them one to another are few
and far between. This collection fills an important lacunae in this regard. Many
of the essays are well done and generate some significant insights.
In their introduction, the editors point to what Aidan Nichols has described
as "a new Thomistic renaissance" that has begun to emerge within (and in part
to be shaped by) the pontificate of John Paul II. This renaissance was a
correction of the neo-Scholastic theology that flourished prior to the Second
Vatican Council, which neglected biblical and patristic sources in favor of an arid
rationalism. John Paul II, particularly in Crossing the Threshold of Hope and in
his encyclicals Veritatis splendor and Fides et ratio, appropriated Aquinas as a
contemplative spiritual theologian whose thought was profoundly immersed in
biblical and patristic sources, even while articulating with great clarity the
metaphysical basis of the relationship between creatures and God as both
Creator and Redeemer.
The first of these essays is the one which is perhaps the most out of place. It
is not really a scholarly essay like the book's other chapters. It is rather a homily
given at the Dominican Priory of Ibadan, Nigeria on 6 April 2005 by Anthony
Akinwale, O.P., in a Mass offered for the repose of the soul of the late pope .. It

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does, nonetheless, offer a brief biographical overview of the life of Karol
Wojtyla/John Paul II and some of the events and influences that formed him.
The collection immediately takes on a more substantive tone with an essay by
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., which deals with the late pope and the renewal of
Thomism, reprising a theme sounded by the editors in the volume's introduction.
Unlike the editors, however, Cardinal Dulles declares himself to be interested in
whether the late pope was a Thomist and more specifically a Thomist of what
stripe in light of the classifications of species of students of Aquinas offered by
Gerald McCool and others. Surveying Wojtyla's intellectual development
through the prism of biography (student, professor, pastor), the cardinal
concludes that John Paul II was a metaphysical realist (as are Thomists of any
kind), existentialist as opposed to essentialist (like Gilson), and personalist
(integrating modern attention to human experience with the metaphysical
bedrock of the dignity of the person). Based on this assessment Dulles offers
guidance to students of Aquinas who want to emulate Wojtyla/John Paul II: they
must be metaphysically grounded, focused on the primacy of the act of existence
and the dignity of persons, yet conversant with contemporary philosophies,
ideologies, and science.
Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt's essay then turns the focus of the collection
from questions of method to those of Christology and soteriology, offering an
interesting comparison between Aquinas, Scotus, and John Paul II. Bauerschmidt
sees contemporary Catholic thought as tilting toward Scotus's view of the
necessity of the Incarnation (in, e.g., Rahner, or Gaudium et spes 22). He asserts
that Aquinas's argument for the Incarnation's fittingness is not simply the starkly
negative rejoinder to the question of whether the Son of God would have
become man had humanity not sinned. Nonetheless, the Incarnation is colored
by the reality of redemption. Bauerschmidt finds the same basic position in the
thought of John Paul IL Yet the late pope's emphasis on divine mercy and the
hermeneutical lens of GS 22 enriches the Thomistic understanding of the
Incarnation: "as fully divine and fully human, Christ accomplishes at the same
time the revelation of God and the revelation of true humanity" (43).
Moving through the classical topics of systematic theology, the compendium
next enters the arena of ecclesiology, in an essay by Charles Morerod, O.P. More
than many of the authors in this collection Morerod shows a real awareness of
many of the historical and methodological difficulties faced in this comparison
across centuries and genres-the lack of self-consciously ecclesiological texts in
Aquinas's time, the nuances of comparing the work of a private theologian
(however great) with the Church's universal pastor, and the varying degrees of
authority and various kinds of authorship involved in papal writings. Through
a rich and detailed engagement with primary texts, Morerod highlights the
visibility of an "ecclesiology" in Aquinas's work by highlighting God's selfcommunication to us in divine and human terms-particularly in the Incarnation.
In one of the strongest essays of the collection, Guy Mansini, O.S.B., takes on
the theme of mercy in the late pope's thought. He begins with an overview of
John Paul II's notion of mercy as described in Dives in miseriocordia. From an

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engagement with the late pontiff's utilization of select OT and NT texts, he
easily finds the epitome of Christian notions of mercy in the paschal mystery
itself. But the essay then undertakes a surprising and ultimately fruitful shift. The
Judeo-Christian concept of mercy is deftly contrasted with Aristotle's understanding of pity which is dominated by conceptions of justice as fairness as
opposed to the Judeo-Christian understanding of mercy as justice. Saint Thomas
then provides the bridge in showing that (contrary to his Greek philosophical
mentor) mercy for sinners is itself a virtue-in fact, the very chief of the virtues
(cf. STh II-II, q. 30, a. 4, ad 3). In even more surprising turns, Mansini moves on
to offer brilliant contrasts between the Christian conception and Rousseau's
concept of pity and Nietzsche's attack on it as respectively marking the beginning
and the end of modernity. In our resultant postmodern position, the late pope
perhaps goes beyond Aquinas as he himself surpassed Aristotle. He does so by
anchoring his anthropology and his concept of mercy Christologically in the
cross and resurrection of Jesus.
In something of an unintended and indirect sed contra to the preceding essay,
Robert Barron then deals with the Christian humanism of the volume's two
principal subjects. He highlights their strong convergence in divine and human
self-gift-the diffusive self-gift of the Incarnation which in turn enables human
freedom in self-surrender. For Aquinas this self-surrender is ordered primarily
to God, while for Wojtyla it is to the truth who is ultimately God. Hence for
both, albeit with different emphases, the converging self-gift of these two
freedoms converges on the idea that "authentic humanism is Jesus Christ" (114 ).
Michael Sherwin, O.P., continues the analysis of freedom and truth sounded
in Barron's essay. He offers an extended and substantive overview of the late
pontiff's notion(s) of freedom-as ordered to God, to Christ, to graced humanity, and to the truth of the gospel proclamation. He then notes (as have
others) the utter dependence of these forms of freedom on truth in the thought
of John Paul IL While the interdependence of truth and freedom may appear
circular, Sherwin argues that they need not be seen as such if located within the
broadly Thomistic anthropology of the late pope. Sherwin then insightfully
highlights the politically "dissident" character of this anthropology for
Wojtyla/John Paul II in the face of the totalitarianisms he confronted throughout
his life in Central and Eastern Europe. This vision can serve to ground the
reflections on truth and freedom offered by other Central and Eastern European
dissidents such as Vaclav Havel. Yet Sherwin acknowledges that further work
needs to be done in renewing Thomistic anthropology by attending more closely
to the communal character of moral development, the impact of human
animality on practical reasoning, a deeper grasp of the mystery of sin, and an
account of nature that separates itself from the deficiencies of Aristotelian
science.
Michael Waldstein moves the discussion on to the concept of the common
good in the two thinkers. He begins by noting the apparent problem: while both
treat issues of communion and community, Aquinas gives an architectonic role
to "common good," while John Paul II appears to do the same with the idea of

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"gift of self" (cf. 141). Waldstein finds a solution to this conundrum in the
interrelation of the two concepts in the Letter to Families, nos. 10 and 11. The
key to harmonizing the two concepts lies in the principle of Pseudo-Dionysius
utilized frequently by Aquinas, bonum est diffusivum sui. Both Aquinas and the
late pontiff see this manifested in the love of friendship and within Trinitarian
communion. For John Paul II, in marriage as a reflection of the Trinitarian
communio the couple's mutual self-gift is ordered to the common good of the
family and society especially in the gift of a child. To put it in Thomistic terms
"[t]he intrinsic common good of marriage, which is the unity of love between
husband and wife on the basis of the marriage vow, is ordered to the child,
which is the extrinsic common good of marriage" (14 7).
The anthropological focus continues in Reinhold Hiitter's essay on the
intellect and will in Fides et ratio. He notes that while the encyclical focuses on
faith and reason it seems to pay little attention to the will. This is compounded
by the Augustinian insistence on the "incurvature" of the will due to sin. Hutter
proposes to attend to this "problem" by turning to Aquinas. He gives a detailed
overview of "intellect" (distinguishing it from "reasoning") and will in the
thought of the Angelic Doctor, examining humanity's creation in the image of
God, the operations of intellect and will (noting a growing voluntarism over the
course of the Dominican's career), and the impact of sin on the human person.
He then leads the reader through a rather wandering contrast between the virtue
of studiousness and the vice of curiosity as an example of the interplay of reason
and will faced with the realities of sin and grace. This, he holds, sheds some light
on the problem of the will in the encyclical.
Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M.Cap., continues the analysis of the same theme
with a compact and substantial essay. He seeks to highlight the way in which the
interconnection of faith and reason in Fides et ratio is pervaded by a "Thomistic
spirit" (175). He shows very clearly how reason and faith support and affirm one
another. Reason serves as both the guide and the servant of faith, enabling the
person to come to faith (reason itself being transformed by conversion) but also
properly to understand its mysteries. He then turns to the anthropology
necessary to support such an interplay. At the same time W einandy faults the late
pope for not providing a proper philosophical and theological basis for the
ability to seek truth in seeing humanity as both imago dei and imago trinitiatis.
The volume then takes an unexpected turn with the essay of Fergus Kerr,
0.P., which bridges the apparently disparate worlds of Fides et ratio, Thomistic
metaphysics, and analytical philosophy. Kerr faults the late pope and those who
advised him for not seriously engaging the analytic tradition (seeing it instead as
a form of logical positivism), while admitting that tradition's aversion to
postmodern and religious concerns. Instead of seeing it as a philosophical
impulse that deals only with "piecemeal analysis of manageable topics" (190), he
argues that it has '"become the natural ally of Thomism and Catholic philosophy"' (192). Kerr then provides a very detailed history of Anglo-American
analytic philosophy, arguing that it need not be construed, as it often is, as antimetaphysical. Indeed, he holds that it can find common ground with Aquinas

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and John Paul II in the area of ethics. He confirms this assertion with brief
overviews of three female analytic philosophers: Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth
Anscombe, and Phillipa Foot. The Aristotelian naturalism of the last of these
reconnects her (albeit without Anscombe's Catholic faith) to the thought of
Aquinas and hence indirectly to the realism of Fides et ratio.
One of the volume's editors-Matthew Levering-weighs in with an essay on
the Eucharist in the understanding of the study's two principal subjects. The
essay begins with a somewhat polemical contrast between the thought of the late
pope and David Power, O.M.I., on the nature of the Eucharist as sacrifice and
communion. Unsurprisingly, Levering finds the late pope to be in harmony with
Aquinas, opposed to Power's "strikingly Protestant" language of seeing the
Eucharist as merely an inclusive meal which celebrates God's gracious gifts (cf.
214). Levering then offers the Gospel of]ohn,Aquinas, and John Paul II, as well
as other sources in the tradition, as indicators that the Eucharist is rightly
understood as a participation in the sacrificial character of the cross of Christ.
Sacrifice and communion are therefore inseparably connected
The final essay offers a reading of John Paul II and Aquinas through the lens
of Balthasarian theological aesthetics. Francesca Murphy accentuates the theme
of beauty in the thought of Aquinas and John Paul II. While the "ugly duckling"
of the transcendantals for Thomists, beauty is, in fact, fully displayed in the
cross-a fact appreciated by both thinkers. She then points to many of the
invocations of this transcendental in the tradition and in Wojtyla/John Paul II's
writings, from the Augustinian meditation on amor pondus in The jeweler's Shop
to his appreciation of St. Francis, naming him patron saint of those who promote
ecology.
Collections of essays tend to be of uneven quality and this present work is no
exception. Anthony Akinwale's homily is a bit out of place in a volume of
scholarly essays. Reinhard Hiitter's piece is rather wandering and disjointed,
while Fergus Kerr's treatment of analytic philosophy comes across as highly
defensive though perhaps understandably so given the way it stands out in the
volume. The essays vary widely in their length and level of documentation,
making it difficult to offer even comparisons. And while Fides et ratio offers a
good deal of material for purposes of comparison, devoting three out of thirteen
essays to it seems a bit like overkill.
In spite of the range of subjects covered, there are areas comparison and
contrast between Aquinas and John Paul II that go unexplored. Even with the
heavy anthropological (and particularly epistemological) focus of many of the
essays, the differing concepts of the human person as embodied in the two
thinkers is relatively undeveloped, especially Aquinas's Augustinian location of
the imago dei in the powers of the soul as opposed to John Paul II's insistence
that the person becomes the image of God in communion. Indeed the whole of
the late pope's theology of the body catecheses are relatively unexplored. It
would be interesting to ponder the Thomistic roots of these addresses. Michael
Waldstein, who has recently offered a outstanding critical translation and edition
of them, would have been uniquely qualified to take on this subject. However,

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509

his essay, while compact and insightful, deals with a very focused exegesis of two
sections of the Letter to Families on the interconnection of self-gift and the
common good, leaving the theology of the body catecheses unmined. Finally,
apart from Levering's fruitful comparison of John Paul II and Aquinas on the
Eucharist there are no studies on their approach to the sacraments. It might have
been especially interesting to contrast their thought on the marriage since, unlike
Aquinas, John Paul II agrees with St. Bonaventure in seeing marriage as a
sacrament "from the beginning."
In spite of the uneven nature of some of the essays and the fact that some
potentially fruitful topics of comparison are left untreated, this is a very
worthwhile volume. The essays by Dulles, Mansini, Morerod, and Sherwin are
genuinely outstanding. Virtually all of the essays are interesting and substantive
in their own right. With the exception of the debate over whether Wojtyla was
a phenomenologist, a Thomist, or (if possible) both, on his elevation to the
papacy, there has not been sufficient attention paid to the Thomistic roots of the
twentieth century's most prolific and visible pope. This collection goes some
distance in filling that gap in scholarly reflection. I recommend this study for
advanced students of Aquinas and of Wojtyla/J ohn Paul II. Both will profit from
this fruitful interchange.
JOHNS. GRABOWSKI

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

Pico delta Mirando/a: New Essays. Edited by M. V. DOUGHERTY. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press: 2008. Pp. 240. $80 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-52184736-0.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola died at 31, none of his writings became part
of institutional Christian study, and his was the first printed book to be banned
by the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, his writings have been a major focus for
discussion about the relations of philosophy, religion, and humanism in the
Renaissance. His citation of Hermetic, magical, kabbalistic and Zoroastrian
writings, from Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic has frustrated scholarly
efforts to identify his opinions within any particular school of thought. He
declared an intention of learning from all teachers, instead of following any
single master; some scholars have interpreted this to mean that he believed that
all teachings contain an element of truth. Such an interpretation does not explain
letters to his nephew that expressed earnest Christian piety, his resolute defense
against the papal commission of his condemned theses, his affinity to Savonarola,
or his exhaustive denunciation of judicial astrology. Now, at a time when earlier

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interpretations of Pico's thought have crumbled and new evidence has become
available, the articles in this volume ask whether and how it is possible to
reconcile the contradictions in his major works.
After briefly surveying the current state of Pico studies, Michael V. Dougherty
announces that the collection is intended "to assess the philosophical merit" of
Pico's writings, to guide English-speaking readers through the wide range of
topics in his diverse corpus, to make scholarship about him comprehensible, and
to point out directions for future investigation. Each of these articles confronts
a clear problem and proceeds, through lucid discussion of the textual evidence,
to break important scholarly ground, without the professional jargon that might
leave students behind.
Jill Kraye ("Pico on the Relationship of Rhetoric and Philosophy") explains
Pico's surprising defense of Scholasticism in a letter of 1485 to Ermolao Barbaro.
Pico defended the Scholastics against humanist complaints that their Latin was
a barbarous distortion of the classical language. Barbaro advocated uniting
wisdom with eloquence and studying ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle
instead of the Latin Scholastics who did not know Greek. Pico replied, using the
rhetorical device of prosopopoeia, by impersonating an imagined Scholastic
philosopher saying that the Scholastics' awkward, technical Latin was a tactic for
concealing deep secrets from unqualified readers. The Scholastics applied their
subtlety and intellectual penetration to investigating deep questions, not to
adorning their writing to please the crowd. "They have Mercury in their hearts,
not on their tongues." In this letter, as in his famous Oration, Kraye asserts, Pico
endorsed Scholastic philosophy as a discipline intended to discover the truth,
whereas humanist rhetoric could, at best, suggest the truth to nonphilosophers.
Paul Richard Blum ("Pico, Theology, and the Church") investigates why the
papal commission in 1487 condemned thirteen of Pico's nine hundred theses,
but not others that appear no less offensive. He explains the implications of
some theses by examining the ways Pico first defended them, in the Apology, and
then restated and extended them in the Heptaplus (1489). The commission
either did not want to recognize or did not want to accept that "Pico stretches
the mode of disputation to its limits in showing that the exercise of the mind,
not petrified conclusions, is the aim of such debates."
The most difficult to explain are Pico's cabbalistic theses "in my own
opinion." Blum earns our admiration and gratitude for deciphering them and
explaining their significance to Pico. Unlike some interpreters of Pico's
kabbalism, Blum evidently thinks that it did not merely provide another range
of exotic metaphors for what Pico already thought, but taught him new things
that affected the structure of his thought. For example, he adapted an enigmatic
text by the thirteenth-century visionary kabbalist Abraham Abulafia to redefine
the relations among the disciplines of philosophy and theology. Later he used
Abulafian letter-reordering and numerical values to bring the Heptaplus to the
conclusion that Christ was implied in Genesis from the first word. Even though
we and the papal commission may not understand, Pico appears to have
demonstrated there his "wrong, erroneous, superstitious and heretical" thesis,

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511

"There is no science that assures us more of the divinity of Christ than magic and
Cabala."
Several of the articles here mention that Pico's wide range of reference and
nonconformity to any established school of thought tempt moderns to conceive
of his thought as a "grand syncretistic project" among all traditions. Michael
Sudduth ("Pico della Mirandola's Philosophy of Religion") deftly distinguishes
Pico from such an anachronistic conception by contrasting his writings about
Christianity and philosophy with John Hick's and Keith Ward's conceptions of
comparative religion. Careful survey of the writings shows a subordination of
philosophy to Christian theology, the decipherment of contradictory surfacemeaning of texts from many schools and religions to discover a hidden, shared
Christianity. Not an attempt to stand above all teachings to formulate a new
synthesis, "Pica's syncretism presupposes perspectival diversity and the rational
accessibility of the one truth contained in all." Pico does not doubt what that
truth is. As he writes in the Heptaplus, "Surely if all things agree with the truth,
as Aristotle says, all things ought to agree with Christ, who is the truth itself."
Michael J. B. Allen ("The Birth Day of Venus: Pico as Platonic Exegete in the
Commento and the Heptaplus") shows Pico commenting on the first chapter of
Genesis in the Heptaplus with an interpretive method he first developed in 1486
in his Commento on the Platonic canzone by Girolamo Benivieni. Allen's
expertise in Marsilio Ficino's commentaries on Plato, a necessary perspective on
Pica's efforts at Platonic exegesis, informs lucid, considerate explanations of a
dizzying range of references. When Pico applied Platonic, Plotinian, and Ficinian
conceptions and exegetical choices to it, "Genesis became in effect the most
profound of Platonic texts and enabled him to look beyond the Timaeus,
Symposium, Phaedrus and other Platonic dialogues." Allen points out the
contrasts between Ficino's emphasis on Soul and a greater whole and Pica's
emphasis on the uniqueness of man, "of man in Christ and of Christ as the Idea
of Man." The discussion encourages a nonspecialist to recognize the need to
return to studying the complex of texts that the revived Platonism of Ficino and
his disciples, into the sixteenth century, made into a coherent body of
philosophical myth.
The modest title of the article by M. V. Dougherty ("Three Precursors to Pico
della Mirandola's Roman Disputation and the Question of.Human Nature in the
Oratio") hides a surprisingly far-reaching reinterpretation of Pica's Oration and
900 Theses. He shows that Pico intended the 900 Theses to combine three
familiar academic exercises: (1) a discussion of disputed questions-not a quodlibet debate on any suggested topic; (2) a collection of authoritative statements,
sententiae, like those that university students collected from their studies, but not
philosophically proven conclusions; (3) the discussion that would proceed, in
accord with Aristotle's Dialectics, by examining apparent verbal conflicts in
order to find underlying agreed truths. Pico did not, then, propose for Rome a
grandiose argument with everyone about everything, nor an attempt to prove
harmony among all opinions, but a new agenda of important topics for
philosophy to consider and refine. The Oration defines those topics as the

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progressive deification of man, through the arts and sciences up to theology and
the apprehension of God. Pico was not proposing a "grand syncretistic project"
among all traditions, but confirmation of the essential Christian beliefs-the
Trinity, the Incarnation, and the divinity of Christ-from the most diverse
sources. Confirmation that Pico's near-contemporaries understood the Oration
to be an important statement about human potential comes from four sermons,
delivered before popes in the decades after the papal condemnation, that quote
the Oration. Dougherty's interpretation may well attract criticism from those
scholars who hold previously stated positions, but it sounds plausible and the
effort deserves admiration.
To trace notable statements from the 900 Theses to Pico's posthumous longest
work, the Disputations about Divinatory Astrology, Sheila J. Rabin discusses
"Pico on Magic and Astrology," two disciplines from the margins of university
studies. Kabbalah needed to be discussed with the other two because Pico
connected it to them in the Conclusions ("There is no science that assures us
more of the divinity of Christ than magic and Cabala") and, in the final thesis
given as his own opinion, he declared, "Just as true astrology teaches us to read
in the book of God, so the Cabala teaches us to read in the book of the Law."
The Disputations, in contrast, forcefully repudiate astrology and distinguish
natural magic, as mere natural science, from black magic. Kabbalah remains
outside the Disputations, for reasons that are unclear. The condemnation of
astrology, however, had immediate and long-term influence in scientific thought.
Rabin's survey of the book, which is still not translated into English, fills out the
range of Pico's thought about humanity in the universe.
Carl N. Still ("Pico's Quest for All Knowledge") tests the success of Pico's
attempt to harmonize Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of body, mind, and
intellect by examining his statements about epistemology in the Commento,
Oration, and Conclusions (all 1486), the Heptaplus (1489) and De Ente et uno
(1491). Situating Pico's thought between characterizations that "minimize" his
efforts on theory of knowledge into medieval realism and those that "maximize"
it into an anticipation of modern thought, Still shows how Pico tried to
harmonize the three-level soul of Latin Aristotelians (vegetative, sensitive, and
rational) with the Platonic four-level soul (vegetative, sensitive, rational [human]
and intellectual [angelic]). The incomplete correspondence of these levels of the
human soul to the universe, in the Heptaplus, and the incomplete explanation
for simultaneously claiming individual immortality and endorsing the Averroistic
intellective soul that is common to all humans, require Pico's system to be
examined from other angles, through metaphors from other texts. Still concludes
that, in Pico's vision of human ascent, "there is a grand design, but the details are
not provided."
Francesco Borghesi ("A Life in Works") begins by asking what value there is
to any life of a philosopher, especially since the thirty-one years of Pico's life
(1463-94) might seem to be too short a time to allow much development. On the
other hand, the diversity of his writings and their unusual circumstances make
us feel that the gaps between writings may be more explicable by events than by

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513

the author's intentions. Because he was a nobleman, Pico's life was well
documented from before his birth, and immediately after his death his nephew
Giovanni Francesco made him the subject of one of the first biographies of a
contemporary. Borghesi's survey of the life, mentioning essential articles as it
proceeds, opens the way to understanding Pico's career and writings without
reducing the thinker to his life.
Although announced as an invitation to studying Pico, this volume is not
elementary in the usual sense. Unlike many introductions, it does not treat the
intended audience as distractible groundlings who need to be flattered and
tricked into reading philosophy. Instead, the authors address the intellectual
ambition of their readers to understand problems in Pico's writings for which
there is no professional consensus and then guide readers through evidence in
the original texts, including Latin. Who is the intended audience, ready for
philosophical arguments that they recognize to be inherently important? The
academic affiliations of many of the contributors suggest that, besides other
scholars, it is undergraduate and graduate students at Catholic colleges and
universities who have the curiosity and preparation in classical and later
philosophy and in Latin to follow the solutions of problems posed by a thinker
about whom experts have not made up their minds. Pico is an excellent subject
for such an approach, because he formulated challenging questions that provoke
contemporary interest.
ARTHUR M. LESLEY

Baltimore Hebrew University
Baltimore, Maryland

Becoming God: The Doctrine of Theosis in Nicholas of Cusa. By NANCY ].
HUDSON. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
Pp. 218. $59.85 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-8132-1472-6.
Becoming God is, in a sense, a search for the true identity of the fifteenthcentury writer Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64). Is he at root a neo-Platonist
philosopher or an orthodox Christian theologian? Is he properly cast as a
medieval thinker or is he really an early modern figure? Can his philosophy of
God be rescued from the charge of monism or is it irredeemably pantheist? Is he
best depicted as a nominalist, a realist or something in between? Can his
intensely paradoxical language be folded into the scholastic concept of the
analogy between God and humanity? Nancy]. Hudson attempts to "untangle
these and other questions raised by the ideas of this enigmatic figure" (8) by
addressing the topic of theosis in Nicholas, convinced that "an examination of
theosis, or becoming God, will help in the effort to correctly place Nicholas of

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Cusa and his understanding of the creation-creature relationship" (1). In the end
she concludes that Nicholas is an orthodox Christian thinker whose ideas are
best evaluated against the backdrop of the Eastern theological tradition of
Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor and (preeminently) Pseudo-Dionysius.
In a series of running skirmishes along the way, she also argues that Nicholas is
fundamentally a medieval thinker (not an early modern) who adapted neoPlatonic categories in the service of a Christian theology. Though in dialogue
with the Scholastics and sharing some features of the nominalists, he does not fit
into either camp. For Hudson, Nicholas's Christocentric account of reality charts
a unique course between the Scholastic and nominalist options, and offers us
important insights into the deification of both the world and humanity.
The study begins (chap. 1) with a brief survey of three Eastern theologians,
Gregory, Maximus and Pseudo-Dionysius, in order to display the characteristics
of an Eastern account of deification that Hudson will later use to contextualize
Cusa's own account. Nicholas's direct dependence on Pseudo-Dionysius is well
established. Hudson suggests that (whether directly or indirectly) the influence
of both Gregory and Maximus is also important for understanding Nicholas.
Maximus's influence on Cusa's idea of the deification of the cosmos, and of the
human being as microcosm, is quite plausible, and the link between Cusa's idea
of "infinite progress" and Gregory of Nyssa is persuasive-this is plainly a view
that can be traced back to him, though it could have been channeled to Nicholas
through Maximus.
With the Eastern Fathers as a backdrop, Hudson unfolds Nicholas's account
of theosis in three steps. The first step (chap. 2) is an account of divine
immanence in Nicholas under the rubric of "theophany as self-communication."
The second step (chap. 3) is the balancing side of the equation, Nicholas's views
on divine transcendence as the "distance between knower and known." The third
step (chap. 4) is synthetic, drawing together Nicholas's paradoxical thought into
his mature understanding of a Christologically-based doctrine of theosis.
Hudson is insistent throughout that we recognize Nicholas's distance from the
Scholastic idea of analogy and the hierarchy of being. Rather than grounding an
epistemology on the analogy of being as the Scholastics do, Nicholas employs the
coincidence of opposites in God to ground an epistemology of "learned
ignorance." There is no getting away from the fact that Nicholas's metaphysics
and epistemology are difficult, marked as they are by a peculiar philosophical
terminology and strained to the breaking point by the frequency of extreme
paradoxical language. For example, Nicholas's summary term for the Triune
God is "Not-other," indicating not simply self-referentiality, but also that God
is "Not-other than his creation" (51). Hudson deflects the charge of monism
here, arguing that by this term Nicholas asserts that "God is not the cause merely
of the actual being of things, nor is he merely an efficient cause. Rather, he
underlies the very possibility of all things, including nothingness" (55). To put
this in other words, "it is not merely that all things exist in God, but that
enfolded in God, all things are God" (60). The influence of Pseudo-Dionysius
can be seen in this kind of statement, though the terms are distinctly Cusan. But

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515

it may be asked whether Hudson's use of the terms "identity" and "identical" to
describe God's relation to the world, when summing up Cusa's teaching, can be
justified. Is it meaningful to assert that, for Nicholas, "the divine presence to and
in the created order is so intense that it is an identity" (55), or that "the One
God who is absolutely identical to each and every thing is contracted actually in
difference" (75)?
Hudson herself raises hard questions about Nicholas's views of God's
immanence and transcendence. Does his metaphysics of transcendence destroy
his epistemology of knowledge through union? If we cannot have real knowledge
of God, what kind of real union with God in theosis remains? (90) Picking her
way carefully through the nuances of Nicholas's thought, Hudson leads the
reader out of this apparent dead-end, showing that Nicholas's distinction
between "reason" and "intellect" offers a way forward. "Nicholas's understanding of the mystical union that culminates in theosis is not obviated by his
insistence on the absolute distance of God .... It is precisely the manifestation
of the transcendent God in the intellect that allows for a unique divinization of
humanity and its centrality in the theotic movement of the entire universe" (91).
The crucial conceptual piece for understanding Nicholas is his theory of the
four unities. These explain "the relation among the sensible world, the
conceptual world, the world of contemplation, and the divine" (125). The fourth
unity is the corporeal world grasped through the senses. The third is what
enables us to grasp the sensible data through the activity of ratio or rationality.
This is the plane of logic, discursive reasoning and the domain of the law of noncontradiction. But the limitations of ratio lead to the necessary use of negative
language to talk about God. The second unity is the world of the intellect, and
here God is to be grasped by the "coincidence of opposites." Paradoxical
language must be used at this level and the law of noncontradiction is
transcended. Here the intellect is primarily passive, allowing God (the first unity)
to illuminate the intellect through grace (126-27). To speak of God, the first
unity, Nicholas moves to the language of supereminence, beyond the coincidence
of opposites, following the lead of Pseudo-Dionysius. Hudson concludes that
Nicholas's account of theosis through the intellect, in tension with "his everpresent denial of the capacity of human knowledge to reach God," is the "central
paradox" of his thought (129).
Becoming God culminates in a treatment of "theosis" in Nicholas, displaying
his Christological account of theosis as "divine filiation" and highlighting the
unusual dominance of the intellect in deification. Hudson concedes that Cusa's
Christology "arises out of philosophical theology rather than biblical theology,''
and that he does not "aim at discovering the historical Jesus through exegesis of
biblical texts, but at coming to a philosophical understanding of the significance
of God's becoming other than himself" (139). In a kind of Anselmian move,
Nicholas posits Christ as the necessary "Absolute Contracted Maximum," that
is, as the one who in a contracted manner unites all that God is uncontractedly
with creation itself. He is a kind of metaphysical bridge or meeting point. Here
Hudson argues that Nicholas wends his way between the realist and nominalist

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alternatives of his day. By means of a Christological exemplarism Christ becomes
"the Form of forms, the Maximum Exemplar in whom all universals are united"
(148). Conveying a certain grace and beauty in Nicholas's depiction of Christ,
Hudson concludes: "In the hypostatic union, the Word that is equality of being
all things is contracted. In flesh and blood, time and space, the Form of forms,
the Exemplar of all things is made concrete" (150).
In the closing chapter on "The Problem of Intellectual Salvation" and in her
conclusions, Hudson marshals her arguments in a summary explanation and
defense of Nicholas. She begins with remarkably frank admissions of certain
theological shortcomings in Nicholas. She grants that Nicholas neglects a
doctrine of sin as moral wrongdoing, favoring instead a conception of sin rooted
in human finitude (180). She admits that Nicholas portrays Jesus, not as "the
suffering savior who takes on the sins of the world," but as the "bridge of the
ontological divide between God and man" (200). She concurs that he does not
adequately address the problem of evil, and that for Nicholas Christ's humanity
is viewed less in terms of sacrifice than of revelation (182). Strikingly, she
acknowledges that Nicholas's view of deification is really linked to creation (not
to the order of redemption), and that his Christ is "not the Christ whose story
is told by the gospel narrative of suffering and death on a cross" (188). Hudson
mitigates the force of these admissions to a modest extent, but she allows that
from the perspective of the Western theological tradition, Nicholas supplies an
inadequate Christology and soteriology (194-95). How then can Nicholas be
judged an orthodox Christian thinker? By similarity to and association with the
Eastern theological tradition. Hudson proposes that Nicholas be given the same
latitude that those in the West give, for example, to Maxim us and PseudoDionysius. She contrasts an Eastern view of the Cosmic Christ and an intellectual
doctrine of theosis, concerned primarily with "the transhistorical relationship
between Creator and creation" (195) to a Western view that centers on the story
of God in history and the soteriological role of the cross to deal with sin. Thus,
the logic of her argument is that if we absolve Pseudo-Dionysius and other
esteemed Eastern writers from the charges of neo-Platonism, intellectualism and
monism, then we should grant the same absolution to Nicholas of Cusa.
Hudson's alignment of Nicholas with Eastern theology is illuminating and
seems undeniable. Many of his concerns and orientations can be perceived
especially in Pseudo-Dionysius. And so to a certain extent the argument has
merit. But the argument runs into trouble with Hudson's characterization of
Eastern theology more generally. Her survey of Gregory, Maximus, and PseudoDionysius, and her final summaries, while they show certain characteristic
features of Eastern theology that have connection to Nicholas, do not present an
adequate summary of the breadth of Eastern theology. For instance, in all three
of her chosen Eastern figures the language of deification is densely concentrated
in sacramental contexts. While the Eastern Fathers use cosmic categories and
accent the role of the intellect in deification, they retain a biblical idiom and the
notion that deification is fundamentally begun and refreshed through
sacramental grace. We see none of this in Hudson's account of theosis in

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Nicholas of Cusa. Further, the key piece missing in Nicholas's doctrine of theosis
from the Eastern point of view is the person and activity of the Holy Spirit. In
the Eastern accounts (especially in Gregory and Maximus) the Holy Spirit is a
crucial agent in theosis. Nicholas plainly accepts the Trinity, but the Holy Spirit
is notably absent from his account of how Christ is the "Absolute Contracted
Maximum" in whom we participate. Finally, it is inaccurate to characterize the
Eastern approach as not concerned with sin as moral wrongdoing, or with the
cross, or with Christ in history. Maximus for one explains his doctrine of theosis
by constant reference to the moral wrongdoing of Adam and the renovation of
our nature through the grace of Christ in redemption. Theosis in Maximus is
grounded, not in creation as such, but in the new creation inaugurated in Christ.
If Nicholas does indeed adopt and develop largely Eastern categories of thought
and theology, it would appear that he leaves out (or at the least treats very
thinly) crucial aspects of Eastern theology that are grounded solidly in a biblical
narrative of salvation and a sacramental context for the life of grace. As Hudson
herself observes, "a complete study" of Nicholas of Cusa's relationship to the
theological tradition of the East is still needed (195). Until that study is
accomplished, the issue of the adequacy of Nicholas's theology, at least gauged
by his similarities to the East, remains an open question.
DANIEL A. KEATING

Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Detroit, Michigan

The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. 10, The Final Step,
November 1843-0ctober 1845. Edited at the Birmingham Oratory.
Notes and introduction by FRANCIS J. MCGRATH, F.M.S. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xlvi + 1010. $325.00 (cloth). ISBN
978-0-19-925459-0.
The masterful effort begun in 1961 to publish Cardinal Newman's personal
correspondence and diaries in thirty-one volumes has come full circle with the
appearance of volume 10-almost. Fr. Charles Stephen Dessain (1908-76) of
Newman's own Birmingham Oratory began with Newman's Catholic period
(1845-90), and the ten volumes of the Anglican period conclude with the present
volume. (See my reviews in The Thomist 61 [1997]: 325-28; 67 [2003]: 655-62;
71 [2007]: 147-53.) Dessain himself, at the end of volume 31, included 98 pages
of Catholic-period letters that had surfaced by 1975. But many more letters have
turned up subsequently, and Francis McGrath is producing a thirty-second
volume for them, followed by a thirty-third volume that will function as a
general index. So the circle, as I said, is almost completed.

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On late Wednesday evening, 8 October 1845, Italian missioner Dominic
Barberi arrived in a cold drenching rain at Littlemore, where Newman and a few
friends had been living in quiet retreat three miles from Oxford. He was drying
off by a fire when Newman came into the room, dropped to his knees, and
began making his general confession. Newman continued his confession the
following day, followed by his profession of faith in the Roman Catholic Church.
Volume 10 of The Letters and Diaries relates the complex unfolding that led to
Newman's devout and straightforward action on 9 October. It fleshes out
Newman's 1864 comment in his Apologia pro vita sua (Uniform Edition
[London: Longmans, Green & Co.] p. 185) that his "last Sermon was in
September, 1843; th,en I remained at Littlemore in quiet for two years. But it was
made a subject of reproach to me at that time, and is at this day, that I did not
leave the Anglican Church sooner."
Were the editor's extensive footnotes, his nine appendices, the
correspondence addressed to Newman, and the letters between other principal
figures printed in the same normal font size as Newman's own letters, this
volume would reach easily over 1500 pages. Given this wealth of material, a
review must be selective, and I have selected three areas: the final stages of
Newman's conversion process that display acutely its theological and
psychological aspects; the writing of the famous Essay on Development which
happened during 1845; and the contentious events unfolding within Oxford
University.
To follow in Newman's own words his discernment toward 9 October 1845
is to be struck by his holiness and integrity of character (see, e.g., his journaling
for Advent 1843 [LD 10:64-68]). One is struck by how intemperate is the recent
book from Harvard historian Frank M. Turner, John Henry Newman: The
Challenge to Evangelical Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002),
which asserts that Newman's conversion was merely his choice for the next best
thing after his project for a Catholic enclave within Anglicanism under his selfaggrandizing leadership failed to materialize. Unfortunately for Turner's thesis,
there is no common measure between his construed Newman and the actual
Newman of the Letters and Diaries.
Newman had two sisters, both married to Mozley brothers. Harriett severed
contact with him in 1843. To Jemima, who maintained life-long contact,
Newman shared in March 1845 how painful was the prospect that he might
leave the Anglican Church (see LD 10:595-98). Another poignancy (that his
perplexed religious state was unnerving many who looked to him as a spiritual
guide) must be mentioned because Newman noted it frequently to friends, as, for
example, to Charles Marriott two months earlier. "No one, I suppose, has a
notion of the extreme anguish it gives me ... to be unsettling the minds of
others; this is what consumes me. I should not mind it, so I think, did I see my
way more clearly-but to have to act as if in the dark, without a certainty that
one is not under a judicial delusion in having the convictions I have, and, while
acting, to be unsettling others, the thing of all others which it is abhorrent to my

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519

nature to do, is a trial so great that I may claim your prayers and those of any
other friend who knows it" (LD 10:500-501).
Many have thought that Newman's decision to become Roman Catholic was
akin to the conclusion of a syllogism. Rome's Tridentine dogmas seemed to be
novelties. However, they met the tests for genuine doctrinal developments.
Therefore, this last obstacle to becoming Catholic was now been removed by
Newman's just-completed essay proving the minor premise. The present volume
casts matters in a different light. The larger context is well known from the
Apologia and is oft-repeated in these letters. Simply put, Newman's 1838 studies
of the Arian and Monophysite heresies vis-a-vis the papal position suggested that
the extreme and moderate heretical positions, the Arian and semi-Arian for
instance, corresponded to the Protestant and Anglican Via Media positions
today, with Rome being where she was in patristic times. Then came Fr.
Nicholas Wiseman's 1839 Dublin Review article on the Donatists that, as
Newman later noted to Edward Pusey, "completed my unsettlement" (about the
viability of the Via Media theory). Newman tried to salvage matters with "three
separate attempts ... my article on the Catholic English Church [,] that on
Private Judgment [,] and my Four Sermons" (LD 10:592 with elaborating
footnotes. Newman reprinted the "Catholicity" essay in Essays Critical and
Historical II, pp. 1-73 of the Uniform Edition).
Newman's Anglicanism, though shaken, remained stabilized by his rebuttals
until the Tract 90 condemnations began in 1841. Newman withdrew
increasingly from the affairs of university and church because his thinking was
judged unsuitable by their authorities. Although retaining his fellowship to Oriel,
Newman and like-minded clergymen "retired" to a rustic property he had
purchased in Littlemore. They were humorously called "inmates" or "recluses"
of the "Do mus BVM" by their friends (passim in LD 10), while their enemies
thought them crypto-papist monks. The present volume prints many inquiries to
Newman during these months he was "on the shelf" as to whether the rumor was
true that he had already "conformed" to Rome. His answers attempted to walk
the razor's edge, needing in truth to deny the rumor, yet needing to avoid
revealing how tenuous his situation was fast becoming.
It had become ever clearer to Newman that the English Church was in schism
from the one divinely constituted Roman Church. It was more probable, he
noted frequently to friends, that Christianity in England veered into schism than
that recent Roman doctrines veered from the apostolic teachings. "As to the
Fathers ... I do now think, far more than I did, that their study leads to Rome.
It has thus wrought in me," he wrote Pusey just before Christmas 1843 (LD
10:63). But was he deluding himself in so thinking? Why did not other leading
lights of the "movement" see what he was seeing, he wondered? Writing to
Henry Edward Manning almost a year later, he says that his salvation depends
on joining the Church of Rome, but "what keeps me yet, is what has kept me
here long-a fear that I am under a delusion." In this same letter, he tells
Manning that he does not see greener grass on the other side; in fact, "I have no
existing sympathies with Roman Catholics. I hardly ever, even abroad, was at

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one of their services-I know none of them. I do not like what I hear of them"
(LD 10:412). He had a constant conviction he was in schism. He had an
apprehension he did not want to die in a state of schism. But was it all a
delusion? This is what held him back from Rome. His Essay on Development of
Doctrine reflected resolutions he had already come to accept intellectually, as
will be seen. Fear of delusion, not doctrinal issues, held him an Anglican.
How was the fear of delusion whisked away? By patience and by obedience
to conscience! "Time alone can show whether a view will hold-but then there
is this consolation, that, if time has shown the untenableness of one, it will do
the like service to another, if it be untenable. Time alone can turn a view into a
conviction-It is most unsatisfactory to be acting on a syllogism, or a solitary,
naked, external, logical process. But surely it is possible in process of time to
have a proposition so wrought into the mind, both ethically and by numberless
fine conspiring and ever-recurring considerations as to become part of our mind,
to be inseparable from us, and to command our obedience" (LD 10:53). As for
obedience to one's conscience, "I have always contended that obedience even to
an erring conscience was the way to gain light, and that it mattered not where
a man began, so that he began on what came to hand and in faith-that any
thing might become a divine method of Truth, that to the pure all things are
pure, and have a self-correcting virtue and a power of germinating" (LD 10: 190).
Readers who know Newman's famous 1869 Grammar of Assent will detect here
the very twin principles, patience and conscience, that galvanize what Newman
came to call the "illative sense" in making judgments in concrete matters. It is the
hard-to-describe mental process that unerringly tells someone within a
discernment process that "enough is enough" and "now is the time to decide and
to act." This is what happened to Newman by late summer, 1845, and his letters
then begin to forewarn friends of an imminent move. That Newman's final two
years at Littlemore are a sort of existential commentary on the later Grammar
of Assent is an insight I owe to editor Francis McGrath. McGrath perceptibly
notes in his introduction (xxii) the harbingers of later Grammar of Assent
thematics that appearing in this volume.
The second focus of this review, the composition of Newman's celebrated
Essay on Development of Doctrine, may be presented more briefly. At the outset
of 1845 he began writing it (see Apologia, 234). On 21 September he wrote John
Keble's parish curate Robert Wilson that "my book has just gone to press,
though I do not wish it mentioned till I have resigned my fellowship" (LD
10:765). One is struck by how little mention the book's composition receives in
Newman's intervening letters. Its earliest notice is a casual comment to lifelong
confident Maria Giberne on March 30: "My present intention is to give up my
fellowship in October-and to publish some work or treatise between that and
Christmas" (LD 10:610). Without ever mentioning the subject matter, Newman
writes Catherine Froude on 1 June of a "new work ... that I have ... consumed
several months this Spring, in working upon it in ways which will not turn to any
direct account. I have had to remodel my plan, and what it will be at last I
cannot yet foretell" (LD 10:686). To his sister Jemima on 17 August: "I am still

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521

more fidgetted [sic] about my book. I cannot arrange the last and most important
chapter. I have written it several times in vain; and till I settle it, I shall be in
something of a worry" (LD 10:748).
Nowhere in his letters does Newman mention that his book is a work-up of
criteria for genuine doctrinal developments. Were it not for McGrath's footnotes
passim showing Newman's notebooks, we would have no indicators of
Newman's unfolding thoughts on what is likely his most famous theological
book. For example, in a footnote to the last referenced letter to Jemina,
McGrath furnishes scholars with Newman's valuable study notes attempting to
craft a final chapter to the book. I note but two: "enough in antiquity to bear out
the Church after, if its infallibility be supposed"; and "what conserves what is
cannot be its corruption. The worship of St. Mary conserves the Incarnation."
(See other informative journal or diary entries at LD 10: 134, 3 73, and 696 n. 2.)
Because Newman kept secret the subject of his book does not mean his
correspondence leaves the theme unmentioned. After all, he preached a famous
sermon about doctrinal development on the Feast of the Purification 1843 (see
Uniform Edition, University Sermons, pp. 312-51). Readers interested in
background material to the 1845 Essay should look at the series of letters
Newman wrote Catherine Holdsworth Froude, who had married William
Froude, brother of Newman's influential Oxford friend Richard Hurrell Froude.
All letters to her can be identified in McGrath's index (but see especially LD
10:247 ff., 264 ff., and 297-98). The last-referenced letter mentions what I
consider the linchpin of the famous Essay: "Granting that the Roman (special)
doctrines are not found drawn out in the early Church, yet I think there is
sufficient trace of them in it, to recommend and prove them, on the hypothesis
of the Church having a divine guidance, though not sufficient to prove them by
itself. So that the question simply turns on the nature of the promise of the Spirit
to the Church." (This married couple is curious. Mrs. Froude and her children
became Catholics soon after Newman. William Froude's scientific training led
him toward agnosticism. Newman's fondness for him underpinned a lifelong
correspondence between them on topics concerning faith and reason. Readers
interested in Grammar of Assent topics ought to follow this correspondence,
utilizing the indices of all the LD volumes.)
A final observation on the development-of-doctrine aspect. Newman makes
a lapidary statement in the Apologia (p. 198): "There [is] no medium, in true
philosophy, between Atheism and Catholicity." (In Newman's scheme,
"philosophy" means religious reflection.) The present volume makes clear what
he means. Human life unaided by a divine revelation drifts into some or other
variant of atheism. But if a revelation is given, it must needs develop. He writes
to Pusey: "The theory of development has increasingly pressed upon me ....
One age corrects the expressions . . . of the foregoing. Infant Baptism and
Confession, Monachism and Roman Supremacy, Original Sin and Purgatory,
seem to me equally developments .... Why should I believe the most sacred and
fundamental doctrines of our faith, if you cut me off from the ground of
development? But if that ground is given me, I must go further .... I must go

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forward or backward-else I sinkinto a dead skepticism" (LD 10: 5 9 2-9 3). Going
backward, shaving off doctrinal developments, as happened at the Protestant
Reformation, because doctrines such as infant baptism were not explicitly in
Scripture made no sense to Newman. And accepting in an official manner postscriptural developments, such as the dogmas of Nicea and Chalcedon, but then
stopping, shunning later councils, was equally nonsensical to him. Therefore,
there are only two logical conclusions. If there is a God but he has never revealed
himself, one must be atheist. If a divine revelation has been given (and Newman
means given to a church), the ineluctable trajectory of developments of this
revelation can only be found in that church which alone in his day claimed to
have them, Roman Catholicism.
Events within Oxford University are this review's final focus, and only one is
selected. It makes riveting reading indeed in this volume. William George Ward,
fellow of Balliol, was a younger member of the Tractarian movement. His
position on Anglicanism's 39 Articles of Religion went well beyond Newman's
Tract 90 interpretation. Ward maintained that all Roman Catholic doctrines
were fully consonant with the 39 Articles. Because many in the university and
especially its authorities (the heads of the constituent colleges known as the
Hebdomadal Board) were hostile to Tractarian principles, Ward provided the
"perfect storm" when his book, The Ideal of a Christian Church, appeared in the
summer of 1844. It gave criteria for being a church, said that Rome had them
fully, and Anglicanism not at all. A process was initiated against him, culminating
in three proposals (condemnation of the book, withdrawing Ward's B.A and
M.A. degrees, and holding Articles' subscribers to an interpretation the
Hebdomadal Board gave to them) to be voted by Convocation. (Convocation
was composed of all M.A.s of the university, both those resident in Oxford-the
fellows-and those following careers elsewhere such as the London lawyers and
the parish clergy. Convocation was the highest authority of Oxford University.)
The first and second proposals would have easily passed Convocation but not
the third, and McGrath provides fascinating letters and footnotes on behind-thescene machinations. Prior to the scheduled Convocation on 13 February 1845,
the third proposal was withdrawn (LD 10:505 n. 2). Throughout this university
turmoil, Newman was on the sidelines; as he wrote to W. E. Gladstone, the later
prime minister, "I live so much out of the world" [at Littlemore] (LD 10:503).
But his enemies were not to leave him undisturbed. Another proposal was made
to the university's authorities, in lieu of the abandoned third petition, to have
Newman's Tract 90 condemned, which they duly accepted and promulgated (LD
10:520). The day of Convocation arrived, the Sheldonian Theatre packed with
fellows-Newman was not present-and the voting began. Censure of Ward's
book carried 776 to 368. His degradation carried less so, 568 to 511. Then came
the moment for the censure of Newman's Tract 90. In Convocation there are
two elected fellows, the proctors, who have the power to veto the proceedings.
In 1845 the proctors, Henry Peter Guillemard and Richard William Church,
were friends of Newman, especially Church who later became dean of St. Paul's
Cathedral and whom Newman visited into old age. When the Tract 90 censure

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was introduced, senior proctor Guillemard stood up and said "nobis
procuratoribus non placet," and Convocation ended abruptly. Interested readers,
especially those connected with universities today, will find these pages of this
volume surrounding 13 February engaging because of the background material
McGrath supplies.
With another academic year and new proctors it was possible the university
authorities would go after Tract 90 again. But William Gladstone, Tractarian
lawyer James Robert Hope, and Henry Edward Manning, who was to become
a Roman Catholic cardinal years later, engineered a "Declaration of Thanks to
the Proctors" that garnered so many signatures, whose many names the editor
supplies (LD 10:551-55), that Tract 90 and Newman were to be forever left
alone. McGrath puts it perfectly in his Introduction: "What nobody realized at
the time was that the curtain had just come down on the final act of the Oxford
Movement" (xxviii). As one might expect, Newman remained unruffled
throughout.
On 3 October 1845, Newman resigned his fellowship. "Mr Provost, I hope
you will find the inclosed form correct. I shall be obliged to you if you will
remove my name from the books of the College and University" (LD 10:771).
The curtain had fallen on Newman's Anglican life.
The editor's many footnotes aid both Newman scholarship and historical
curiosity. An example that assists the former is the dating of Newman's sermons
(see LD 10:147 n. 3). Apropos the latter, the 1843 visit of Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert to the neighborhood of Newman's relatives in Derby led the editor
to track down a newspaper account of it (see LD 10:42 n. 1). The nine
appendices support Newman scholarship in various ways. Appendix 3, for
example, prints Newman's three contributions to the Lives of English Saints
series. The "lives" occupy much of the correspondence in LD 10.
Oxford University Press is to be commended for standing behind this vast
publishing project. In my opinion, OUP has also associated itself with the finest
edition of an eminent person's correspondence, an edition that is likely to be a
benchmark for similar projects. Kudos, then, to Oxford University Press and to
Charles Stephen Dessain and his successors.
Because the present volume connects to Newman's Catholic letters (Dessain's
volumes 11-31), now long in print, readers of his Catholic period will recognize
the prophetic words Newman wrote to his Aunt Elizabeth on 25 July 1844: "I
really do think I love peace, yet I am destined to be a 'man of strife"' (LD
10:304). Only when he became cardinal in 1879 did the peace he wanted
become an everyday thing.
EDWARD JEREMY MILLER

Gwynedd-Mercy College
Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania