The Thomist 73 (2009): 169-239

CONSCIENCE, FREEDOM, RIGHTS:
IDOLS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT RELIGION
JOHN R. T. LAMONT
Catholic Institute of Sydney
Strathfield, NSW, Australia

T

HE UNDERLYING THEME of this article is the teaching
of the Catholic Church on religious liberty. In order to
address this much-contested subject one must first consider
other subjects that are at least as important: the concepts of
conscience, freedom, and rights. In this article, I will contrast St.
Thomas's understanding of these concepts with the understandings of the Counter-Reformation and the Enlightenment,
and will argue that St. Thomas's understanding is the one that
should be adopted. In addition to providing a necessary preliminary to an examination of Catholic teaching on religious
liberty, this discussion will put us in a position to understand the
state of the Church as a whole, and the crisis she has been
undergoing not simply since the Second Vatican Council, but
since the Enlightenment.
Examination of these concepts will have to be carried out at
some length. This is because I will be arguing for theses in the line
of the nouvelle theologie, claiming that the nominalist and
Counter-Reformation understandings of these concepts are wrong
and damaging, and that St. Thomas's understanding of them
should be accepted instead. Because St. Thomas's views on these
subjects are still often misunderstood, and the opposing views
remain well entrenched, the arguments for St. Thomas's position
need to be substantial.

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I. CONSCIENCE VS. PRUDENCE

A) Conscience in St. Thomas
Discussions of conscience usually proceed on the assumption
that its basic features are known and not controverted, or at least
not controverted by morally decent and sincere people. Frequent
rhetorical appeals to the rights of conscience and the inviolability
of conscience rest on this assumption. In fact, however, this
assumption is mistaken. The understanding of conscience to
which such rhetoric appeals is not an evident notion that arises
from universal human experience, but is rather the product of a
particular philosophical and theological development. This
development, together with the notion of human freedom with
which it is connected, began to be elaborated in the Middle Ages,
and was brought to completion by the theologians of the CounterReformation. It is radically different from the notion of
conscience held by St. Thomas, and the understanding of freedom
that it involves is radically different from St. Thomas's
understanding of freedom. To attain the degree of clarity that we
require about St. Thomas's understanding and the CounterReformation understanding, it will be necessary to put them in the
contexts of the accounts of human action of which they are parts.
This is particularly necessary in St. Thomas's case, in order to
remove the layers of misinterpretation that have been imposed on
his views by commentators trying to force his thought into the
mold of Counter-Reformation moral theology.
Conscience, according to St. Thomas, is not a power or a
habitus, but an act (STh I, q. 79, a. 13; De Verit., q. 17, a. 1}; it is
the act of making a speculative judgment about the goodness or
badness of a particular act of the will. The making of this
speculative judgment need not occur in the course of deliberating
about whether or not to do the act to which the judgment applies;
it can be made about actions in the past. This understanding of
conscience is at odds with the notions that conscience is an

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authority, is "the most immediate giver of moral imperatives," 1 or
is the proximate rule of human acts, with the divine law being the
remote rule. 2 The act of making a judgment of conscience does
not as such give rise to moral permission or a moral imperative to
act, nor does it contain the power to motivate an action. It is the
reasons assented to in the judgment that perform these functions,
rather than the act of making the judgment. As Herbert McCabe
says, "it is not the strength and sincerity of my conviction that the
use of nuclear weapons must always be evil, but rather the
grounds for this conviction, that make it morally right for me to
refuse cooperation with any such use. " 3 On St. Thomas's view
there is nothing that makes a judgment of conscience closer to an
action than the divine law. It is misleading to think of conscience
in his sense as authoritative or imperative, because the basic act of
conscience is a passive one, in the sense that all judgments about
reality are passive: they are formed in response to reasons and
evidence. Moreover, when the content of a judgment of conscience is known to be true, it is misleading to speak of the
reasons contained in such a judgment being the motivation for
action, rather than the realities this judgment is about being the
motivation. Saint Thomas holds that our knowledge of propositions does not stop short at the propositions known, but attains
the realities themselves that the propositions are about. For such
judgments, it is thus the good itself that is known that ultimately
motivates action.
This passivity exists even in the case of an erroneous judgment
of conscience. Saint Thomas holds that such a judgment must be
obeyed, but this is not (contrary to what many of his interpreters
say) simply because there is something about conscience as such
that demands obedience. It is instead because built in to the
notion of making a judgment of conscience-whether erroneous
or not-is the fact that the person believes something about the
act being judged that makes it a good or bad act, even if the belief
1 Karl Rahner, "The Appeal to Conscience," in idem, Nature and Grace, trans. Dinah
Wharton (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1964), 49.
2 St. Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia Moralis, new ed. (Lyon, 1829), lib. 1, tract. 1, p. 2.
3 Herbert McCabe, "Aquinas and Good Sense," New Blackfriars 67 (1986): 421-22.

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is something as general as "this act is commanded by God." It is
this reason, as believed to be true, that confers authority on the
judgment of an erroneous conscience. Ascribing moral authority
to the judgment of conscience as such is like giving the act of
calculating the answer to a statistical problem a probabilistic value
in itself, which raises the probability of the conclusion arrived at
in the calculation beyond the probability conferred on the
conclusion by the other evidence that the act of calculation takes
into account.
Because there are no limits in principle to the kinds of
knowledge that may be needed to establish that particular actions
are good or bad-a doctor will need scientific knowledge, a civil
engineer will need mathematical knowledge, and so onconscience in St. Thomas's sense is not the product of any
particular cognitive power. This was denied by some later theologians, who distinguished between actual conscience-conscience
as St. Thomas defines it-and habitual conscience, which they
conceived of as the power to form judgments of conscience. They
situated this habitual conscience in St. Thomas's system by
identifying it with his notion of synderesis. 4
This glaring misinterpretation is an interesting example of the
force of preconceived ideas. 5 Saint Thomas makes it clear that
synderesis is the grasp of the first principles of practical reason.6
This identification is explicitly made by Philippe Delhaye, who speaks of "habitual
conscience or synderesis" (P. Delhaye, La conscience morale du chretien [Tournai: Desclee,
1964], 96). A similar identification is made in M. Zalba, Theologiae Moralis Compendium I
(Madrid: Biblioteca de Autories Cristianos, 1958), 356.
5 It should be acknowledged that the identification of the principles grasped by synderesis
with moral principles is suggested by St. Jerome's account of the term in his commentary on
Ezekiel (translated in Timothy C. Potts, Conscience in medieval philosophy [Cambridge:
Cambridge Univeresity Press, 1980], 79-80) and by the account in Peter Lombard (see ibid.,
93), and is explicitly advanced by Philip the Chancellor (ibid., 100), St. Bonaventure (ibid.,
116), Albert the Great (see Eric D' Arey, Conscience and Its Right to Freedom [London: Sheed
and Ward, 1961], 31-33), and others. This fact makes St. Thomas's departure from this
consensus a striking innovation.
6 See STh I, q. 79, a. 12. Although the accounts of practical reason given by Germain
Grisez and John Finnis differ radically from that of St. Thomas, they do underline that the
first principles of practical reason in St. Thomas are not moral principles. This was a
fundamental advance.
4

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These principles are made up of the very first principle of
practical reason, which is that good is to be done and evil to be
avoided (STh 1-11, q. 94, a. 2), and the principles that specify basic
goods to which humans have a natural inclination, such as life,
reproduction, knowledge, and social existence (cf. ibid.). But
these principles are not only the principles of right action, or even
of action that is believed (whether innocently or culpably) to be
right, but of all rational action whatsoever, whether or not it is
good or approved by the judgment of conscience. That is what it
means to say that they are the first principles of practical reason.
What makes them the principles of all rational action is that all
such action is motivated by the good as understood by the reason
("omne enim agens agit propter finem, qui habet ratione bani"). 7
The subsidiary principles of synderesis specify in a basic way what
the forms of good for humans are, and the first principle conveys
what good as such is. Without a grasp of these principles, there
could be no rational action. The subsidiary principles determine
what morally bad actions are, because such actions are simply
actions that are not good in every respect, and the principles
determine what it is to be a good human action. These principles
are not proscriptions of such actions.
This explains why St. Thomas holds that no one errs
concerning these subsidiary principles (STh I, q. 79, a. 12, ad 3).
If these principles were basic moral principles like "do not steal,"
"do not murder," and so on, it would be obviously false to claim
that no one disbelieves them. But in St. Thomas's conception, a
person who fails to grasp one of the subsidiary principles would
not be a person who would fail to understand that acts that violate
the good referred to in them would be wrong. He would be a
person who could not do an act that is motivated by the good
referred to in that principle-whether it be life, or reproduction,
or social existence-because he would not understand that these
features of human life are worth pursuing. The inability to grasp
any of these basic forms of good as motivations for action would
make someone irrational, and it is thus true that any rational
7 STh I-II, q. 94, a. 2 (Madrid ed., 610).

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person will grasp these principles. (This grasp, because it is a
feature of practical rather than theoretical reason, need not
involve philosophical acceptance of these principles as principles
of action-Kant and Mill were not practically irrational as a result
of holding views on action and morality that were incompatible
with St. Thomas's account of synderesis. But it does require the
ability to act in pursuit of these goods as such.)
The idea that synderesis in St. Thomas can be equated with
habitual conscience is an erroneous assimilation of his views to the
position of later theologians-to the position of moralities of
conscience, a school of thought that is more fully discussed below.
One mistake in this assimilation is the one just noted, that of
holding that only morally good actions can be motivated by the
principles grasped by synderesis. This mistake necessarily follows
from a further one, which is a wrong understanding of what St.
Thomas conceives these principles to be. In moralities of
conscience, the principles grasped by synderesis are understood in
a way that conforms to the definition of synderesis as "habitual
conscience." They possess two features that distinguish them from
these principles as St. Thomas understands them: they have
imperative force, and the fact that an action is done out of
obedience to them makes that action morally good.
For St. Thomas, however, it is only the very first principle of
practical reason-"good is to be done and evil is to be avoided"that moves the will, because it is this principle that commands the
pursuit of the ultimate end of man, which is in turn the motive for
all rational action (cf. STh 1-11, q. 1, aa. 3 and 6). All other goods
are sought for the sake of the ultimate end, which is specified by
the goal of human nature as such. This notion can be illustrated
by an analogy with a car. It might be good for a car of a given
make to operate at between 1500 and 4500 rpms. This way of
operating will, however, only be good on account of the ultimate
end of the car. If the car had a different end, such as emitting a
certain amount of heat or producing a certain amount of C0 2, it
could be the case that only operating above 4500 rpms would be
good. Without the end of the car being given, it is impossible to

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say whether or not such operation would be good. The same
applies for the goods grasped by synderesis, in St. Thomas's
understanding. Since the ultimate end is the criterion for good
action, the fact that an action is motivated by one of the particular
goods grasped by synderesis cannot suffice to make it a good
action. A good action is one that pursues the particular good in
such a way as to attain the ultimate good. This requirement to
reach the ultimate good, a good not referred to by the principles
grasped by synderesis, means that these principles cannot function
as imperatives, obedience to which makes an action good as such.
A further misinterpretation of St. Thomas's account of conscience lies in the way it has been connected to prudence. Later
members of the Thomist school, beginning with Billuart, 8
described true judgments of conscience as being acts of the virtue
of prudence. Identifying the error in this position is very helpful
in illuminating St. Thomas's account of conscience.
Billuart confines acts of prudence to true judgments of
conscience because he is aware that prudence, being a virtue, only
produces good acts. He wrongly identifies such true judgments
with exercises of prudence, because he fails to understand that
prudence-as St. Thomas understands it-is a virtue that is
exercised in acts. Prudence is what supplies the intellectual
component of good actions (cf. STh 11-11, q. 47, a. 8). The assent
to a true judgment of conscience will form a component of an
exercise of prudence, but it cannot itself be an exercise of
prudence, because an exercise of that virtue goes all the way
through to the act. One can make a true judgment of conscience
without acting upon it, and a person who does not act well is not
prudent, even if all his beliefs about how he should act are true.
8 "An upright conscience coincides with the act of prudence that is termed judgment"
("Conscientia tamen recta coincidit cum actu prudentiae qui dicitur judicium"; Charles
Billuart, Summa Sancti Thomae, vol. N, new ed. [Paris: Meillier Freres, 1828], 187). I owe
this observation to M.-M. Labourdette's lecture notes on the Summa, Cours de theologie
morale: Les actes humains, 2a2ae, 6-48 (Toulouse, 1959-60); see esp. p. 150. The discussion
of conscience and prudence in this paper is largely based on these notes. I have not been able
to obtain the revised version of this course published by Parole et Silence in 1999, and have
used the original notes.

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But a true judgment of conscience is not an act, and need not be
acted upon.
Saint Thomas's conception of prudence and conscience
explains why he gives an extensive discussion of prudence, but no
discussion of formation of conscience, and not much discussion of
conscience itself. According to St. Thomas's understanding of
prudence, identifying the formation of conscience as the way to
moral improvement is a mistake, if such formation is understood
as first an attempt to improve one's capacity for arriving at true
speculative judgments about the rightness or wrongness of actions,
in order then to be able to act upon this improved knowledge. On
St. Thomas's view, this will not work. The natural way to get
better at knowing what it is good to do is principally by doing
what is good (the qualifier "natural" here is meant to take into
account the possibility of divine grace producing knowledge of
what it is good to do). One can acquire knowledge about the
goodness or badness of actions through speculative investigation
rather than through practice, but only in a subsidiary and
introductory way. Such speculative investigation will primarily
yield information about kinds of action that are intrinsically
wrong, and the learning of such information belongs to the first
stages of moral development. Apart from such intrinsically wrong
actions, the goodness or badness of most actions cannot be
deduced from an easily accessible description of them. It is part of
the task of prudence to discern the relevant descriptions under
which actions should be evaluated; and the capacity to make this
discernment is developed through developing one's prudence,
which is done through doing good acts. It is thus prudence, rather
than conscience, that plays the central role in moral discernment
for St. Thomas.
The notion of formation of conscience not only obscures the
central role of good action in developing one's power to form
true judgments of conscience, but also conveys a mistakenly
individualistic picture of how this power is developed. The chief
way in which prudence is developed is not by reasoning out moral
judgments on one's own-"forming one's conscience"-and then

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acting on them, but by accepting moral principles on trust from
the persons charged with one's education, and then learning the
truth of these principles for one's self by acting on them. This is
indeed the kind of way one acquires practical skills in general. It
applies not only to the overarching virtue of prudence, but to
subsidiary practical skills such as those of a doctor, a lawyer, or an
airplane pilot.
B) Moralities of Conscience

Counter-Reformation moral theologies are what Michel
Labourdette disparagingly calls "moralities of conscience." The
central role of conscience rather than prudence in these theologies
emerges from an overall structure that is radically different from
that of the theology of St. Thomas (one should not say "from the
moral theology" of St. Thomas, because the very term and
concept of "moral theology" belongs to moralities of conscience,
not to St. Thomas's thought). Servais Pinckaers has rightly
identified the notion of liberty of indifference as the fundamental
source of the divergence between St. Thomas and CounterReformation thought. 9 Originally inherited from nominalists and
Scotists, and preserved from criticism in part because of its
perceived usefulness in combating Protestants and Jansenists, 10 the
notion of liberty of indifference is defined by its rejection of St.
Thomas's claim that there is something the will wills of necessity,
and by its assertion that freedom consists purely in the power to
choose between alternatives.
Pinckaers's term for St. Thomas's conception of liberty,
"liberte de qualite," has been rather uninspiringly translated as
"freedom for excellence," which sounds like the motto for an
earnest service club--and misleadingly suggests that such freedom
is directed especially towards excellence, rather than to any
9 See Servais Pinckaers, Ce qu'on ne peut jamais faire (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1986), 4346; and idem, Les sources de la morale chretienne, 2d ed. (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1990),
chap. 10, esp. pp. 259-61.
10 On liberty of indifference as a weapon against Jansenism, see Pinckaers on Billuart, in
Pinckaers, Les sources, 357-58.

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goodness whatsoever. The term that will be used for this conception here is "teleological liberty." This term is intended to
signify that all voluntary action, according to St. Thomas, is done
for the sake of some good that is understood by the intellect as
good; that the ultimate good sought is happiness; and that
happiness is determined by human nature, whose teleology
specifies the goal of human beings as such, achievement of which
goal constitutes happiness. Possession of teleological liberty is a
result of the possession of intellect and will, and its exercise is an
exercise of those faculties. The source of moral obligation, on this
view, is the fact that some actions are not good in every respect,
and hence ought not to be done; it is not that they lack some
specific kind of goodness that can be called "moral goodness."
The source of the capacity to sin is the fact that actions, although
seen as evil when adequately considered, can nonetheless fall
under more general descriptions that refer to good sorts of action,
and hence can motivate the will to pursue them. Freedom to
choose between alternatives arises from the fact that more than
one possible action can be good in some respect. Hence, the
blessed in heaven, who, because of their direct apprehension of
the divine essence, are unable to conceive of sin as good, are
unable to choose to sin; but this is not a limitation on their
freedom. The law of nature that specifies the goodness of the will
is given by the goods to which human teleology is directed. This
law, whose basic features are grasped in synderesis, does not
specify kinds of good action, but features of reality that human
actions are to realize, features that provide the measure by which
to evaluate actions. A law is nothing other than a certain plan and
rule of acting ("lex nihil aliud sit quam quaedam ratio et regula
operandi"). 11
If liberty is conceived of as liberty of indifference, however,
this conception of the ultimate motivation for human action has
to be abandoned, because liberty of indifference must retain the
power to reject any good at all presented to it by the intellect. The
11 ScG III, c. 114 (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles [Rome: Leonine
Commission, 1934], 366).

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notion of such a power is incompatible with St. Thomas's very
first principle of practical reason. It also denies the teleology of
human nature, as St. Thomas understands it. For him, this
teleology consists in the fact that voluntary action, and the human
will itself, it directed towards the good as understood by the
reason. If this direction does not exist, the end of man, as he
conceives it, is removed. Liberty of indifference thus removes the
basis of his account of the nature of the human good, of practical
reason in general, and of good action.
A replacement for this basis is required for the purpose of
moral theology, and it is furnished by the notion of the command
of a superior as the ultimate motivation for doing what is good.
For Ockham, the content of what is good is furnished by the
divine command, as well as the obligation to do it. 12 For
Suarez-a characteristic representative of Counter-Reformation
theology, as the official theologian of the Society of Jesus-the
content of what is good is given by the nature of things, and this
goodness can provide a motivation for action. It cannot, however,
make an action obligatory, and thus cannot furnish a basis for
morality and for law. The command of God adds the extra
ingredient needed to achieve this. Law, in the mind of the
legislator, consists in a just and right act of will by which a
superior wills to oblige an inferior to do this or that thing ("addo
... legem mentalem [ut sic dicam] in ipso legislatore esse actum
voluntatis justae et rectae, quo superior vult inferiorem obligare
ad hoc vel illud faciendum") 13 In order for this act to apply to the
inferior it must be promulgated, but this happens, in the case of
the natural law, through rational beings inferring that God, as
perfectly good, wills that the natural good be done by us (De
Legibus, bk. 2, ch. 6, para. 8). In St. Thomas, by contrast, it is the
12 This account of Ockham's views is contested-see

Thomas M. Osborne, "William of
Ockham as a Divine Command Theorist," Religious Studies 41 (2005): 1-22, for a description
of this debate-but it will be accepted here, as providing one of the main theoretical
possibilities for describing how the divine command determines moral obligation.
13 Suarez, De Legibus, bk. 1, ch. 5, para. 24, in Franciscus Suarez, S. ]., Opera Omnia, vol.
5 (Paris: Vives, 1851), 22. This definition, radically different from the definition of law given
by St. Thomas and cited above, is repeated in substance as late as the manual of Zalba,
Theologiae Moralis Compendium I (1958), 173.

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grasp of the first principles of practical reason itself, rather than
any inference to conclusions about God's will for us, that
constitutes the promulgation of the law of nature (STh 1-11, q. 90,
a. 4, ad 1). Suarez, in proposing a morality of obligation rather
than a morality of virtue, was characteristic of a general outlook
that had become common in the Middle Ages, and later became
universal. Elements and causes of this outlook were the replacement of the virtues by the Ten Commandments as the basis of
moral catechesis, the revival of Roman law in the Middle Ages,
and the power and influence of canonists; St. Thomas in fact
stood out against this movement, which was already strong in his
day.14
The idea that the law of nature consists in commands is a
reversal of St. Thomas's idea. The law of nature for St. Thomas
works from the inside; the will moves towards the ultimate end,
via the particular goods that participate in it. For Suarez, the force
of the law of nature comes from the outside: the divine command
replaces the first principle of practical reasoning as the ultimate
source of obligation, and gives an imperative force to the law.
Because this law has to govern individual actions, its imperative
force has to reach all the way to commands, prohibitions, and
permissions of specific actions, these being the categories of
imperative that Suarez assigns to the law (De Legibus, bk. 1, ch.
15).
Because it is impractical to have a distinct divine command for
every possible situation, the description of the kinds of action that
are commanded, prohibited, or permitted is always rather general.
Their application to particular cases is thus not straightforward.
This is where conscience enters into the picture. Conscience, in
the conception of Suarez and of other moralists of conscience, is
the intermediary between divine commands and particular
actions. Conscience is an active power-it has the task of
discerning how the application of a command to a particular
action is to be done. Since it is only by conscience that the divine
14 On this see Thomas Gilby, "Appendix 1; Prudence and Laws," in St. Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologiae, vol. 36 (2a2ae 47-56) (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1974).

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commands are applied to action, conscience becomes an authority. It is not simply the reasons upon which conscience judges that
have authority; conscience inevitably possesses an authority of its
own, since it carries out the selection and evaluation of reasons
for judging an action. In this capacity, conscience becomes central
to Counter-Reformation moral theology-in contrast to its very
minor role in St. Thomas.

C) Conscience as Authority
This notion of conscience as an authority gives rise to a crucial
difference between St. Thomas's notion of conscience and that of
Counter-Reformation theologies. For St. Thomas, and for
moralities of conscience, an erring conscience binds; if one falsely
believes that a given act is good or bad, one is morally required to
act in accordance with that false belief. An erring conscience does
not necessarily excuse, however; if one's false belief is the result
of previous bad actions, acting in accordance with it remains a sin.
Only when a mistaken judgment of conscience is arrived at
inculpably is acting in accordance with it not sinful. Thus far, St.
Thomas and moralities of conscience agree. Where they disagree
is over the question whether an action that follows an inculpably
erring judgment of conscience is a good action or not. Saint
Thomas denies that such actions are good. He asserts that the
ignorance in question removes the character of voluntariness from
the act, thus making it neither good nor bad (STh I-II, q. 19, aa.
5-6; see also De Verit., q. 17, a. 4).
For moralities of conscience, however, an action done in
accord with an inculpably ignorant judgment of conscience is not
only not sinful, but good. 15 Such an action is put on the same
moral level as an action based on a judgment that is actually true.
This follows from the conception of conscience as an authority,
and of good action as consisting in obedience to that authority.
15 This is stated in Suarez, De bonitate et militia humanorum actum, <lisp. 12, sect. 4, 7-9,
in Opera omnia, vol. 4 (Paris: Vives, 1856), p. 445. He is preceded in this by Ockham; for
discussion see Michael G. Baylor,Action and Person: Conscience in Late Scholasticism and the
Young Luther(Leiden: Brill, 1977), 87.

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That is not to say that moralists of conscience do not argue for
this position. Eric D' Arey makes a case for it:
The will has only one way of recognizing good or evil: the picture presented to
it by reason. If reason presents a false picture, the will cannot be blamed; there
is only one standard for judging it: the good as apprehended. If it fails to live up
to that, its only standard, its performance is bad. But if it is faithful to its only
standard, its performance is surely good. What else is a standard for? 16

This line of argument is offered by D' Arey as the basis for the
position that conscience has rights, and is a clear and
characteristic statement of the case for this position. It is not
controversial that someone has the right to act according to a true
judgment of conscience; but it is not apparent that this right has
anything to do with conscience as such. The right, in such a case,
could more plausibly be based on the true moral facts that such a
judgment of conscience correctly apprehends. For conscience as
such to have rights, there need to be cases where it is the
judgment of conscience as such that confers the right to act. A
culpably erroneous judgment of conscience will not be a suitable
case, so this leaves inculpably erroneous judgments of conscience
as the only plausible basis for rights of conscience as such. D' Arey
gives a typical argument for the existence of such a right. He
claims that such rights exist in the case where a judgment of
conscience, to the effect that one has a moral duty to act in a
certain way, is erroneous, but where this error is blameless as
being due to invincible ignorance. His argument is that a
condition for attaining the sovereign end of the human person is
substantial fidelity to moral duty, and that such fidelity consists in
following one's conscience. The sovereign end of the human
person is not subordinate to the good of the state; instead, the
state exists in order to promote the ultimate good of persons. The
state thus has a duty to respect actions that are done out of fidelity
16 D' Arey, Conscience and Its Right to Freedom, 117-18. This argument resembles the one
given in Suarez, De bonitate et militia humanorum actuum, disp. 12, sect. 4, para. 8 (Vives
ed., 445). We can take it that D'Arcy is assuming that such conformity exists not just for the
action itself, but for any other actions that influence the judgment that is made about the good
of that action.

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to moral duty, even when this fidelity is based on an erroneous
judgment of conscience-a fidelity that will exist in cases where
the error of such a judgment is inculpable.
The falsity of this conclusion is readily established. For one
thing, human stupidity does not have narrow limits; as a result, in
the case of almost any just law it is possible that someone could,
as a result of stupidity and/or bad epistemic opportunities,
inculpably come to believe that we ought not to obey it, and
inculpably be unable to figure out that this belief is wrong. Some
suicide bombers, for example, may fall into this category with
respect to laws that proscribe suicide bombing. But it cannot be
claimed that stupid people of this kind have a right to act in
accordance with their consciences. Moreover, a culpably erring
conscience cannot as such ground a right; and the difference
between a culpably and an inculpably erring conscience is not
discernible to outside observers (and is not always discernible to
the agent himself at the time of action). The distinction between
a culpably and inculpably erring conscience is thus not something
that a legal system can take into account. Possession of an
inculpably erring conscience hence cannot be the basis of a legal
right. Nor, obviously, can a claim to be inculpably acting in
accordance with one's conscience form the basis of a right. Such
a claim is an observable fact, but it is one that anyone can make
about any action at all without fear of being shown to be wrong.
To allow that an inculpably erring conscience confers a legal right
would thus lead to the total undermining of the legal order.
D'Arcy is however right in holding that such a right follows from
the premises of the morality of conscience. Seeing where the
argument goes wrong casts light on how that morality is mistaken.
The fact that D'Arcy's views sound very convincing, if we do
not consider their unworkable implications, indicates the
influence of moralities of conscience on our moral assumptions.
The flaw in his argument is its assumption that St. Thomas is

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wrong in denying that an action done in accordance with an
inculpably ignorant judgment of conscience is morally good. 17
We can see through the appeal of the argument, however, if we
construct an analogous argument about belief, along the following
lines: We can only believe in accordance with the grounds for
belief our reason presents us with; if our reason gets these
grounds wrong, our act of belief cannot be blamed, because there
is only one standard for judging it: its conformity to the grounds
presented to it by reason; but if it is faithful to its only standard,
our act of belief is surely good. The problem is that there is not
only one standard for judging belief. In addition to the standard
of conforming belief to the grounds for belief present to the
reason, there is the standard of actually being true. This latter
standard is the fundamental one, because truth is what beliefs aim
at.
A similar point can be made about action. Action aims, not
simply at conforming to the judgment about the good made by the
reason, but at conforming to what actually is good. The latter
standard is the fundamental one; we conform to the judgments
about the good made by reason for the sake of doing what is
actually good. It is not true that conforming to the good as
apprehended is the only standard for the will. It is a subsidiary
standard, but it is not the prime standard, the attainment of which
makes an action good. We tend to lose sight of the distinction
between these standards because the influence of moralities of
conscience has made us lose sight of the fact that actions have the
purpose of really achieving some human good.
In St. Thomas's view the ultimate motivation of action, in true
judgments of conscience, is the good itself that is judged to exist.
This view in turn is based on his view that when true propositions
are known, the ultimate object of knowledge is not those
propositions, but rather the things that the propositions are about
(cf. STh 11-11, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2). This fact makes it possible for the
17 D'Arcy is aware that St. Thomas's views differ from his own, but dismisses St. Thomas's
positions in a rather hubristic manner, remarking that "one cannot but feel again the
disappointment occasioned by some of the views of St. Thomas studied in the third part of
this book" (D'Arcy, Conscience and Its Right to Freedom, 216-17).

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185

will, responding to knowledge of some good, to have as its proper
object not the mind's knowledge of that good, but the good itself
existing in extramental reality. As a result, if this object is absent,
the good to the knowledge of which conscience is ordered is
absent. In moralities of conscience, however, the good to the
knowledge of which conscience is ordered is simply obedience to
the divine command, when that command is apprehended by the
reason. This collapses doing good into doing what one inculpably
believes to be good.
This collapse explains the different approaches taken to erring
judgments of conscience in medieval theologians and in moralities
of conscience. The medieval approach is that if one's judgment of
conscience errs, one should correct the error. The possibility of
making a correction is generally taken for granted by them. For
one thing, proposed actions believed to be good are confronted
with reality when they are actually performed, and this
confrontation casts light on whether actions of this sort are truly
good or not. Such a light, if carefully attended to, enables the
agent to develop the capacity to bring the judgments of his
conscience in line with the truth. For another thing,
Catholics-who after all made up the audience for medieval
theologians-have access to the teachings and the means of grace
provided to them by the Church. These aids to action cannot fail
to enlighten the consciences of those who sincerely avail
themselves of them.
For moralities of conscience, however, a judgment of conscience is produced by factors internal to the agent: understanding
of the divine commands, and the conscience's application of those
commands to a particular situation. Any other influences on
judgments of conscience-practical experience, or grace-must be
mediated through these internal factors. In a case where the
conscience errs, it is therefore hard to explain how such error can
be readily corrected. The medieval approach cannot be applied,
and the focus is moved to moral evaluation of the errmg
conscience, rather than to the task of putting it right.

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D) Disastrous Results of Moralities of Conscience
This error of moralities of conscience about inculpably erring
consciences has an important implication for the moral life. The
fact that acting on an inculpably erring conscience is not morally
good means that such actions do nothing to develop virtue in the
agent. This gives a reason for correcting such a conscience that is
recognized by St. Thomas, but not by moralities of conscience.
Much of the importance of conscience in moralities of conscience arises from the fact that the task assigned to it by these
moralities-deducing from general commands the action that is
appropriate to a particular situation-cannot actually be carried
out, except in the case of applying exceptionless moral norms that
forbid intrinsically evil actions. No such deduction can occur,
because these commands, being more general in their content than
typical descriptions of particular situations, cannot logically
determine the rightness or wrongness of such situations. In real
life, what happens in the case of good action is that prudence
discerns from the realities of the situation what it is that is good
to do (just as St. Thomas says). This discernment is possible
because an account of realities, unlike a command to perform
certain actions, can be developed through investigation to the
point of containing enough content to be able to specify what it
is good to do in a given situation. Accounts of realities can thus be
suited to each individual situation, whereas commands cannot,
since a command cannot be provided for each one of the (infinite)
number of possible situations that may arise. This problem was
addressed in the world of moralities of conscience, however, by
developing casuistry to bridge the gap between commands and
actions, producing numerous ready-made solutions to possible
moral dilemmas (about twenty thousand in the Resolutiones
morales of Antonino Diana). 18
The difference between the law of nature for St. Thomas and
the law of nature for moralities of conscience can be illuminated
18 Diana, a laxist, was nicknamed "agnus Dei," on the grounds that he took away the sins
of the world.

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by an analogy. The law of nature for moralities of conscience is
like a book of instructions for repairing a car. Such books are
incapable of being complete guides to car repair. They provide
norms for action in repairing cars, but they can never settle every
question about what should be done to the car. What is more, the
norms that they do provide always presume some basic (or not so
basic) prudence on the part of the mechanic. The law of nature
for St. Thomas is like the car itself. The car itself does always
furnish enough information about how it should be repaired, if it
is investigated carefully enough. Exceptionless moral norms, for
St. Thomas, are like facts about how the car can never be made to
work (e.g., by rearranging it to inject water rather than fuel into
the pistons). Increasing one's knowledge about how to repair a car
cannot effectively be done by learning the contents of more and
more detailed repair manuals, either. It can only be done by
actually practicing car repair, and moving from easier repairs to
more difficult ones-a process analogous to the acquisition of
moral knowledge by the exercise of prudence.
Since humans, unlike cars, have more than one activity to carry
out, it would help to give a more complex analogy. The goodness
of human actions for St. Thomas is like the goodness of the
actions of a battleship (where "battleship" is meant to include
crew as well as vessel). The good functioning of a battleship
involves such things as navigating, signalling, firing accurately at
the right targets, and keeping station with other ships-all of
which are evaluated by the ultimate function of a battleship,
which is to engage and def eat the enemy in pursuance of orders.
Saint Thomas's assertion that an action is good absolutely
speaking only if it is good in every respect, and bad absolutely
speaking if it is not good in any one respect, has a parallel in the
performance of a battleship; if the ship is firing accurately but at
the wrong target, or moving at the right speed and time but in the
wrong direction, its performance is bad absolutely speaking.
There are rules that are absolutely true for the performance of a
battleship (e.g., it is always a bad thing to capsize) and that are
true as a rule (e.g., the admiral's orders should be obeyed

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[justified exceptions like Nelson at Copenhagen being rare]). But
no amount of knowledge of rules will suffice for good
performance, which results principally from skill learned through
practice.
The substitution of rules for reality by moralities of conscience
helped to undermine morality, by disguising what is at stake in the
moral life. Saint Thomas makes it clear that bad actions are bad
because they are calamitous for the person who does them. If
their badness is supposed to consist in breaking a divine command
transmitted by the conscience, however, their calamitous character for the person who does them is obscured. Since it is this
calamity that in reality constitutes the action's moral badness,
obscuring it is a form of moral de-education-a de-education that
substitutes for the actual basis of morality a sort of Freudian
super-ego, an internalization of the wishes of a father figure. As
well as undermining morality, this fostered infantilization. The
internalization of the commands of parents is necessary for the
moral education of children, who are not capable of formulating
accurate moral rules on their own, and who lack the psychological
resources to follow such rules without the aid of parental
pressure. Development of moral maturity however requires
leaving behind these aids to right action, and doing what is good
because it is understood to be good. Moralities of conscience
discouraged this maturing process, because they presented moral
action as something resembling childish obedience.
The elaboration of moralities of conscience during the
Counter-Reformation was accompanied by an emphasis on the
confessional as a means, even the means, of spiritual formation.
This meant that the outlook of these moralities was inculcated
into Catholics in a most serious and intimate manner. The
standard classification of kinds of consciences in moralities of
conscience-as perplexed, scrupulous, or lax-were described in
manuals of moral theology as offering a classification of natural
forms of human character. However, these categories were in fact
psychological tendencies or malfunctions produced by the
inculcation of moralities of conscience. This is apparent from the

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fact that the problem of scrupulosity did not exist as a serious and
widespread disorder in the Middle Ages or antiquity, but became
one of the gravest and most common spiritual problems for
Catholics after the Counter-Reformation. Philippe Delhaye
remarked in 1964 that at least half of the discussions in moral
theology concerning problems of conscience dealt with
scrupulosity. 19
These disorders are connected to the fact that the law of nature
in moralities of conscience has a radically different scope from the
law of nature in St. Thomas. For moralities of conscience, there
are possible motivations for human action that do not come under
the law of nature, an idea that has no place in St. Thomas's
thought. Such motives are allowed for in the notion of permissive
laws, a notion that accepts that acting on motivations that are
independent of the law of nature is possible, and can even be
good. This divides up the terrain of actions between conscience
and freedom, and presents conscience as a constraint on freedom.
For St. Thomas, on the other hand, a true judgment of conscience
can constrain freedom in the sense of ruling out certain actions,
but it cannot constrain the will in the sense of denying it what it
is ultimately directed towards. True judgments of conscience by
definition direct the will towards what it will find satisfying.
Moralities of conscience, however, present God as denying us
what we will actually find satisfying, thus giving us a ready-made
inducement to rebel against him. They thus gave a psychological
boost to Enlightenment atheism.
More recently, the division of actions between conscience and
freedom has resulted in a tendency to give unrealistically positive
evaluations of people's actions. It has fostered a usually unexamined assumption to the effect that if someone is motivated to
perform an action by some form of will for the good, that action
19 Delhaye, La conscience morale du chretien, 103-4. Delhaye gives an insight into how
tiresome scrupulous penitents are for confessors: "they can describe their case for five hours
and return the next day . . . they change confessors in order to have the pleasure of repeating
their story" (ibid., 106-7); this tiresomeness may have been an important factor in the virtually
complete abandonment of moralities of conscience by confessors between the 1950s and the
1970s

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can be supposed to belong to the sphere of conscience rather than
freedom, since the former is the proper home of the pursuit of the
good, as opposed to the pursuit of simple gratification. This is
probably a motivation for theologies of religious pluralism that
argue, or even begin by assuming, that religions other than
Catholicism ought to be considered as alternative ways to salvation. For St. Thomas, however, doing an action for the sake of
some form of the good is simply equivalent to doing a voluntary
action, and does not constitute a recommendation for it.
The separation of moral and spiritual theology that emerged in
the Counter-Reformation period was an important result of
moralities of conscience. In St. Thomas's view, we develop the
capacity to make true judgments of conscience by developing the
virtue of prudence, and we develop the virtue of prudence by
doing good deeds. The way to improve the accuracy of our
judgments of conscience is thus by reducing or eliminating the evil
that we do, and increasing the good that we do. Spiritual theology
is the discipline that studies how to increase our capacity to do
good. It is by putting spiritual theology into practice that we
improve the accuracy of our judgments of conscience, and the
subject matter of spiritual theology-grace, virtues, gifts, prayer,
sacraments, and other means of sanctification-describes
the
principal causes of accurate judgments of conscience.
For moralities of conscience, as we have seen, the conscience
is an independent faculty of the theoretical intellect. Its
development need not as such result from growth in holiness, and
the study of growth in holiness is not the study of the means for
improving judgments of conscience; the manuals of casuistry do
not command acquisition of holiness as a preliminary to understanding the truth of the solutions they propose. In keeping with
the imperative basis of moral law in moralities of conscience, the
study of growth in holiness comes to be thought of as principally
the preserve of those who have undertaken an obligation to
attempt such growth, by vowing themselves to the religious life.
This consequence of moralities of conscience for the study of
good actions had an equivalent result on attitudes to the

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performance of good actions. Saint Thomas's position is that the
pursuit of perfection is a matter of precept for all Christians,
and follows from the two great commandments of love of
God and love of neighbor (STh 11-11 q. 184 a. 3: cf. Deut 6:5;
Lev 19:18; Matt 22:40). Perfection thus does not, in his view,
consist in the following of the evangelical counsels; these counsels
indicate ways to remove impediments to the attainment of the end
of perfection that all Christians must seek, but they are not
necessary for the attainment of this end. This position cannot
however be accommodated to moralities of conscience, which
conceive of the law that Christians are required to obey as
consisting in imperatives that require performance of or
abstention from specific kinds of actions. If a command to seek
perfection is understood in this way, rather than as a command to
pursue a particular end (which is how St. Thomas understands it),
there must be specific actions that the command mandates. These
actions could not fail to include the actions indicated by the evangelical counsels-voluntary poverty, chastity, and obediencewhich are indicated in the Scriptures as the best path to
perfection. But the evangelical counsels are counsels and not
commands. Since a command to seek perfection, in the
framework of moralities of conscience, would thus have to
command performance of the evangelical counsels, these
moralities cannot admit such a command-a command that, in
addition, is quite opposed in spirit to probabilism's claim that
minimizing the scope of moral obligation is a positive good.
The acceptance of moralities of conscience within the Church
thus led Catholics to believe that the pursuit of perfection,
identified with the following of the evangelical counsels, was the
goal of religious, while the requirement for the laity was simply
to save their souls by keeping the Decalogue. This view is
exemplified in the (in many ways excellent) textbook of
Tanquerey:
for the faithful in the world there is no other obligation than that of preserving
the state of grace. However, the question is precisely whether they can preserve
the state of grace for a long time without growing in holiness .... in the state of

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fallen nature, one cannot for a long time remain in the state of grace without
striving at the same time to make progress in the spiritual life and to exercise
oneself from time to time in the practice of some of the evangelical counsels. It
is only in this restricted sense that we maintain the obligation of perfection for
ordinary Christians .... To strike the target, we must aim above it. 20

In addition to the principles of moralities of conscience, there is
a line of argument that usually underlies this view. It takes this
form: (i) the obligation for all Christians is to seek salvation; (ii)
those Christians who do not commit mortal sins, or repent for the
mortal sins they have committed, will be saved; (iii) therefore, the
obligation for all Christians is to avoid mortal sin and repent for
mortal sins committed. This argument is superficially plausible,
but is not in fact valid, because the second premise refers to what
Christians actually do, but the conclusion refers to what
Christians pursue as their obligation. Telling the laity that they are
not obliged to follow the divine command to seek perfection is
obviously a very serious deviation from the truth, with crippling
spiritual results for lay Catholics. 21
The problem of scrupulosity is part of the explanation for the
emergence of probabilism. Medieval thinkers held that if one had
objectively serious reasons for doubting about whether or not an
action was a sin, it was sinful to do it; thus, for example, if one
were not sure that a sum of money belonged to one, it was sinful
to take it (they of course did not hold that this was true for
situations where every possible alternative might be sinful). The
framework of moralities of conscience does not permit the general
application of this sensible and correct principle. Since such
moralities conceive of the law of nature as a set of imperatives
governing kinds of action, and since these imperatives are not in
fact sufficient to specify what should be done, the scope of doubt
about the sinfulness of actions is extremely wide. If the medieval
principle were adopted, such doubt would rule out all the actions
20 Adolphe Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology,
2"d rev. ed., tr. Herman Branderis (Tournai: Desclee & Co., 1930), 176-77, 180.
21 For defence of the claim that the pursuit of perfection is required of all Christians, see
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Perfection chretienne et contemplation selon s. Thomas d'Aquin
et s. Jean de la Croix (Montreal: Milicia, 1952), vol. 1, ch. 3, art. 5, 215.

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whose moral status is not adequately settled by moralities of
conscience-which would impose an intolerable burden.
To avoid imposing such a burden, the probabilists made use of
the division of actions between conscience and freedom that is
central to moralities of conscience. Suarez argued that in a case of
doubt, it should be assumed that the condition which is in
possession should have the burden of proof in its favor; and hence
that freedom, as being a good possessed by men, deserves that
favor. But law is doubtful when it has not been sufficiently
promulgated, and a doubt on the part of the reason about an
action's being commanded by a law means that that law has not
been sufficiently promulgated (De bon. et mal. hum. act., <lisp.
13, sect. 5). Doubt about a law thus leaves freedom in possession.
The basic structure of probabilism is completed when to this view
is added the idea that a doubt is justified by a probable opinion in
favor of the doubt, and that an opinion counts as probable not
only when good reasons can be given for it, but also when a
recognized authority rules in favor of it. The former kind of
probability was described as intrinsic probability and the latter as
extrinsic probability. Extrinsic probability soon came to play a
larger role than intrinsic probability in questions of doubt, which
contributed greatly to the Catholic identification of good behavior
with obedience to authority. The basic structure of probabilism
became complicated by various modifications and exceptions
designed to answer objections or accommodate condemnations by
Church authorities, but this structure persisted, and remained
influential as long as moralities of conscience dominated the
scene. 22 Its usefulness in dealing with scrupulosity contributed to
its appeal. 23 The premise used by Suarez should be noted, as it is
extremely important. It claims that freedom of choice is a good as
such, rather than being good on account of its making possible the
22 The best account of probabilism is still Th. Deman, "Probabilisme," in Dictionnaire de
theologie catholique. Henry Davis, S.J., wrote in 1941 that "the tendency of the great majority
of modern theologians is towards the gentler and more liberal system," i.e. probabilism
(Henry Davis, S.J., Moral and Pastoral Theology, vol. 1, Human Acts, Law, Sin, Virtue
(London: Sheed and Ward, 1941), 86.
23 See Davis, Moral and Pastoral Theology, 1 :94.

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choice of what is good. The notion of autonomy as an intrinsic
good can thus be partly traced back to probabilism.
In an earlier article, 24 I criticized the probabilist approach to
faith for presenting as a positive good the opportunity to avoid
acquiring important knowledge. It is apparent that this criticism
can be generalized to the probabilist approach as a whole.
Probabilism describes the natural law as making us worse off in
some respect, through infringing our freedom. It is however
absurd to claim that the natural law can make us worse off in any
way at all, because the natural law indicates how we are to attain
our good. Thus, the Psalms describe the law of the Lord as
delightful (Ps 1:2), and sweeter than honey (Ps 19:10), which is
scarcely compatible with the probabilistic view. The exposition of
probabilism given here indicates why probabilism leads to this
absurd conclusion: that is, because it incorporates false
conceptions of law, conscience, and freedom.

E) Moralities of Conscience and Reforms
Probabilist assumptions explain much of the approach to
Church reform of the nouvels theologiens. The keystone of this
approach was the supposition that the Church had failed to
evangelize her secular opponents in European society because she
had put them off by her intransigence, her following a "logic of
confrontation that opposed truth to truths, faith to beliefs. " 25 The
course that needed to be followed was therefore to reduce as far
as possible any such confrontation, in order to reduce prejudice
and animosity and to make people open to hearing the Catholic
message. Contrary to history, common observation, and
sociology, 26 this approach stemmed from the probabilist assump24 See John R. T. Lamont, "Determining the Authority and Level of Church Teaching,"
The Thomist 72 (2008): 376-77.
25 Etienne Fouilloux, Une Eglise en quete de liberte (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1998), 215;
Fouilloux gives a useful description of this approach and its supporters.
26 For the sociological evidence against it see the work of Rodney Stark, particularly
Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers
in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005). This evidence
is not Stark's debatable market analysis of the success and failure of religious groups and

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tions of its adherents. If an obligation is stubbornly resisted, and
resisted for a long time by an increasing number of people, that
gives some grounds for thinking that it is too strict and needs to
be relaxed. A probabilist approach will then suggest relaxation as
the ideal option to take-indeed, it will treat the attempt to resist
such relaxation as blameworthy and an act of oppression. In
general, it will see any form of confrontation and command as at
best a necessary evil. The notion of externally probable opinions
also had the effect of creating an attitude according to which the
permitting of an opinion that denied the existence of some
obligation would in itself remove the obligation, without taking
into account the intrinsic reasons in favor of the obligation. This
dispensed reformers from any need to give serious consideration
to the reasons given for a "logic of confrontation," once they had
succeeded in banishing that logic.
It should be underlined however that the reformers were
attempting to answer an important question that was not being
adequately addressed. Why is it that the Church since the
Enlightenment has been steadily in retreat, and that all her
attempts to recover lost ground have ultimately ended in failure?
This question is all the more pointed because the disasters that
resulted from the Enlightenment project-the crimes of the
French Revolution and of Communism-should have put the
Church in a position to regain ground. Explaining this retreat as
simply due to a general increase in human sinfulness is not
satisfactory. The Church has the mission and the power to
sanctify, and a general long-term increase in sinfulness suggests
some interference with the exercise of that power. The fact that
the reformers misunderstood the nature of that interference does
not mean that there is no interference to be understood and
removed. This discussion of moralities of conscience, together
with the discussion of subjective rights in the next section, will put
us in a position to answer this question.
religion itself, but his well-established claim that a religious group must differentiate its
members from its nonmembers in important ways, and make significant demands on its
members, if it is to thrive and expand.

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This wholesale dismissal of four hundred years of Catholic
moral theology perhaps requires some defence. One might ask the
general question why, if moralities of conscience are as bad as all
that, it was possible for the Church, guided as she is by the Holy
Spirit, to go so far wrong for so long? And one may ask the
particular question how the Church could have canonized St.
Alphonsus Liguori, declared him a Doctor, and officially taught
that his solutions to moral questions were safe to follow? Saint
Alphonsus, after all, worked within the framework of moralities
of conscience. If such moralities are wrong, his approach must be
wrong, and he should not have been given this endorsement.
The answer to the question about St. Alphonsus is that his
approach of equiprobabilism, by requiring that one begin by
determining whether command or freedom should be treated as
in possession, allowed reasoning about the actual moral issue to
return to moral reflection through the back door. Partly as a
result, his personal solutions to moral dilemmas were
distinguished by good judgment. The answer to the question
about moralities of conscience in general is that a key component
of them, the casuistic method, could in fact be made to serve some
useful purposes. If the general population are to be practicing
Catholics, the spiritual life of the majority of that population will
inevitably consist in a struggle to keep the Ten Commandments.
The emphasis on the confessional as a means of spiritual
formation was a realistic and necessary approach to this situation.
And for the narrow task of training confessors-as opposed to the
broader task of indicating how Christians should live-casuistry,
the practical fruit of moralities of conscience, was useful. The one
task that casuistry performs more or less adequately, that of
judging whether or not actions are intrinsically wrong, is the
principal task that confessors must undertake.
This emphasis on the confessional was a result of one of the
postive features of the Counter-Reformation period: its attempt
to develop a serious commitment to the Christian life in the whole
Catholic population. This attempt was the ultimate fruit of the
decisive step made by the Fourth Lateran Council, of requiring

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every Christian to go to confession at least once a year. James
Franklin remarks that
The decree requiring confession was soon obeyed almost everywhere, and the
effect on the European soul was profound. The mere effort to classify a year's
sins was a greater demand for abstract thought than the common man or woman
had experienced before. Guilt flourished, though without as much diminution
as might have been hoped in things to be guilty about. Sin and conscience
became prominent topics of study. 27

There is an obvious connection between this decree and the
eventual replacement of the virtues by the commandments as the
basis for moral catechesis during the Middle Ages. This
replacement was part of the struggle to move away from the
situation in the early Middle Ages, when the Church was content
to leave most of the population in a barely catechized, semi-pagan
state. The development of moralities of conscience, and the
eclipse of the virtues and of St. Thomas's theology of them, was
thus partly an unfortunate side effect of a basically correct policy.

F) Influence of Moralities of Conscience outside the Church
Having set forth the conception of conscience in moralities of
conscience, we may easily describe the secular idea of conscience
in European culture that grew out of these moralities of conscience. Emancipated from the Church, this idea preserves the
notion of conscience as an authority whose endorsement of an
action makes it a good thing to do, but drops the notion of
submission to a confessor or to external probability, and eventually drops the notion of submission to God. The limited use
made by moralities of conscience of goodness founded in natural
teleology is rejected as well. The importance of this development

James Franklin, The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 66.
27

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

has been underlined by Alasdair Macintyre. 28 Oliver O'Donovan
describes the evolution that followed:
Moralists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries simply gloried in the
absolute authority with which conscience, displaying, as they thought, its rational
character as well as its divine institution, presided over the vacillations of the will
and the ambiguities of judgment .... The tribute that had too often to be paid
to the categorical authority of subjective moral reason was the paralysis of reason
or the frenzy of exaggerated scruple.
The eighteenth-century reaction to this, anticipating the emergence of
voluntarism as the dominant force in modern moral philosophy, was to deny the
competence of reason to pass moral judgments, and to attribute them instead to
'affection' or 'sentiment'. 29

The notion of conscience, in this situation, naturally passed into
subjectivism and egotism-as it did with Rousseau, a central figure
of the Enlightenment. 30 By helping to deceive Rousseau about his
own moral character, this notion also made an important
contribution to his belief in the natural goodness of humanity,
another keystone of the Enlightenment.
II. SUBJECTIVE RIGHTS VS. OBJECTIVE RIGHT

A) The Aristotelian Conception of Objective Right
The essential work on the notion of human rights is that of the
French scholar of jurisprudence Michel Villey, one of the most
important Catholic thinkers of the twentieth century. Knowledge
of Villey's thought has suffered from the fact that his taking up
28 Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). Scientific rejection of Aristotelian physics has been
given as a justification for rejecting natural teleology. For criticism of the view that rejection
of Aristotle's physics requires rejection of broadly Aristotelian metaphysics, see John Lamont,
"Fall and Rise of Aristotelianism in the Philosophy of Science," Science and Education 18
(2009): 861-84.
29 Oliver O'Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1994), 118. O'Donovan himself advocates a view similar to St. Thomas's: "the authority
attributed to reason is more properly understood to belong to reality" (ibid., 120).
30 On Rousseau and conscience, see the remarks of Servais Pinckaers in "Suivre sa
conscience," in Servais Pinckaers, L'Evangile et la morale (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1990).

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199

the cause of St. Thomas's understanding of rights got fully
underway in the 1960s, a time when the notion of ressourcement
was being buried in ecclesiastical circles, and when the Catholic
intellectual world was generally following this ecclesiastical trend.
As a result his work remains largely untranslated into English, 31
and is not widely known outside the French-speaking world. 32
Although there are modifications and additions that can be made
to his position, its essential structure is correct, and is indeed
susceptible of expansion in ways that illuminate the situation of
the Church today and of the world she finds herself in.
It has become commonplace to observe that the notion of
human rights is unknown in many non-European cultures. Villey's
work both reveals the limitations of this observation and indicates
the truth that lies behind it by drawing a distinction it does not
draw, namely, that between objective right and subjective rights. 33
It is subjective rights that are the product of a peculiarly European
development, that have come to dominate legal and political
thought and practice about rights, and that have been faced with
a few dissenting voices who have attacked that dominance.
Because the idea of a right to religious liberty developed after this
dominance was established, the notion of subjective right is crucial
to the question of religious liberty.
The basic difference between objective right and subjective
right is that an objective right is a relation, obtaining between
specified individuals and/or groups and/or things; a subjective
31 A few of Villey's works are accessible in English; see "Epitome of Classical Natural
Law," Griffith Law Review 9 (2000):74-97; "Epitome of Classical Natural Law (part II),"
Griffith Law Review 10 (2001): 153-78; "Law in Things," in Controversies about Law's
Ontology, ed. Paul Amselek and Neil McCormick (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
1991), 2-12.
32 The power of his scholarship and thought has compelled some response to his views
from Francophone opponents of his ideas. See, e.g., Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, Philosophie
politique 3: Des droits de l'homme a l'idee republicaine (Paris: Quadrige/PUF, 1984), 47ff.
Ferry is the grandson of the anticlerical and imperialist minister of the Third Republic Jules
Ferry, and was as Minister of Education from 2002 to 2004 charged with implementing the
policy of banning the wearing of religious symbols in French state schools. I defend Villey
against such criticisms in "In Defence of Villey on Objective Right," forthcoming.
33 Villey uses the plural for subjective rights and the singular for objective right, a useful
device that will be adopted in this article.

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right is a monadic property of an individual, a property that
serves as a basis for determining just relations into which the
individual can enter. A description of the development of these
two conceptions of rights will cast light on their relative merits,
as well as their content.
The concept of objective right was elaborated briefly, but fairly
completely as to its essentials, by Aristotle in book 5 of the
Nicomachean Ethics. In developing his views on this topic,
Aristotle built on reflection on politics in Greek philosophy
generally, a reflection that held a central place in Greek philosophical thought, and on his own considerable involvement and
research in political questions. His thought is the culmination of
ancient Greek political thought, which makes it a central part of
the culmination of ancient Greek thought as a whole. The first step
in its elaboration is the distinction that Aristotle draws between
general and particular justice. General justice is simply the virtue
of an individual in so far as that virtue has any bearing on the
common good. Because being virtuous in one's behaviour towards
others is the most difficult form of virtue, possession of general
justice is simply possession of complete virtue (Nie. Ethic.
5.2.1130b18). General justice is the object of the law, which has
as its function the promotion of the common good, and thus of
virtue as a whole (Nie. Ethic. 5.1.1129b15-20).
Aristotle asserts that there is a further kind of justice, the
pursuit of which will fall under the pursuit of general justice, but
which is not the same as general justice. This is particular justice.
Its object is not virtue as a whole, but to dikaion, "that which is
just." This neuter expression, to dikaion, is distinguished from the
masculine ho dikaios, which refers to the just man, and from
dikaiosyne, which refers to the virtue of justice. To dikaion is not
a person or an action, but an external object, a relation; it consists
in a distribution of goods or burdens, or a rectification of
injuries. 34 The just distribution is a distribution that is equal, but
not one that is equal in the sense of every individual receiving the
34 Cf. Sarah Broadie, "Philosophical Introduction," in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans.
Christopher Rowe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 36.

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201

same thing. It is determined by a proportional equality. This
entails, for distribution, that the ratio between the good contributed and received by one person will correspond to the ratios
of goods contributed and received by others (Nie. Ethic.
5.3.1131a30-b24). For rectification, it entails that the imbalance
between injured and injurer created by an injury is restored by a
balancing removal of good from the injurer and conferring of
good on the injured. This notion of proportion (analogia) is what
is common to the various forms of just relation, whether found in
distribution, in compensation, or in exchange. What the virtue of
particular justice demands is that such relations be brought into
being.
These relations are not in Aristotle's view things that are or can
be the object of philosophical discovery-merely of philosophical
clarification. The proportions that determine them simply make
precise our prephilosophical notion of what is just and fair. This
notion is something that all people in practice assume and appeal
to-at least where their own interests are concerned-and it must
govern the settlement of disputes if societies are to function
properly.
The bringing into being of such relations through the doing of
a just act is clearly distinguished by Aristotle from the relation that
is actualized (Nie. Ethic. 5.7.1135a8-11). This distinction is
explicated by Aristotle's explanation of the difference between a
just thing and a just act: a just act occurs when a just thing is
brought into being voluntarily (Nie. Ethic. 5.8.1135a17-1136a9).
This explanation should not be understood in terms of the later
distinction between an action with a materially but not formally
good object, and an action with a formally good object. This later
distinction applies solely to actions, not to actions and the
relations they bring into being. The sort of goodness that
characterizes an action with a materially but not a formally good
object cannot be described as the kind of goodness that a formally
good action aims to bring about, but the goodness of a just thing
is the goodness that a just action aims to bring about.

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To dikaion can be either natural or legal. Despite the existence
of natural justice, however, justice in the strict sense exists only
between members of the same political community (Nie. Ethic.
5.6.1134a25-34); between members of different political communities only a certain likeness of justice can exist (Nie. Ethic.
5 .6.1134a28-30). There is natural justice in a political community
because the political community exists by nature, and is in fact
prior to the family and the individual (Politics 1.2.125 3a2, 19),
something that is proven by the fact that the individual cannot
exist independently of a political community (Politics
1.2.1253a25). There is not however a single just structur.e that
such a community should take. Aristotle provides a survey of the
possible forms in his Politics. Although he believes that there is a
best possible form of society considered in itself-best in that it
has the greatest capacity to realise the goods that the city exists
for-he thinks that the form that is the best for a given set of
circumstances varies with the circumstances. The nature of to
dikaion is dependent on the particular form that community takes.
It is not like fire, which burns in the same way in Greece and in
Persia. The fact that to dikaion emerges from a natural structure
embeds it in the order of the cosmos as a whole.
Fred Miller has made a strenuous attempt to argue that for
Aristotle the central meaning of to dikaion is one of the forms of
'right' delimited by W. H. Hohfeld, namely, the form in which X
has a right in the sense of having a claim to A against Y. 35 It is
obvious that to dikaion, understood as a relation, forms the basis
for a just claim. But it is quite impossible that to dikaion,
considered as the object of the particular justice that is being
discussed in chapters 2 to 8 of book 5 of the Nicomachaean
Ethics, should be such a claim. To dikaion is a relation between
several terms, as Aristotle explains at length, whereas a just claim
is not the relation itself, but a given individual's standing in that
relation . Miller himself does not stick to the Hohfeldian notion
35 See Fred D. Miller, Jr., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995), 106; idem, "Aristotle and the Origins of Natural Rights," The Review
of Metaphysics 49 (1996): 882. Miller's claim is criticized in Malcolm Schofield, "Sharing in
the Constitution," The Review of Metaphysics 49 (1996): 831-58.

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203

in his exposition of Aristotle, remarking that in the context of
disputation (amphisbetesis) "just things are the things which one
party claims justly against another party"; 36 clearly a thing, and
the claim that one has to that thing, are distinct.
Aristotle's conception of objective right, Villey claims, became
central to Roman law, where it constituted the chief meaning of
the term ius. 37 It did not however become integrated into patristic
theology, which took little note of Aristotle, and which
experienced its first great flourishing at a time when the Roman
law was moribund. The Seripture-centered thought of the Fathers
produced, in the Latin world, an Augustinian view of law that saw
it as deriving ultimately from the Scriptures-a view whose appeal
to theologians derived partly from the support it gave to clerical
supremacy. 38
B) Saint Thomas on Objective Right and Natural Law

Saint Thomas, after encountering Aristotle's conception of
objective right, rejected this Augustinian position, and gave a place
in Christian thought to Aristotle's understanding of justice-a task
that he only undertook fully in the Summa Theologiae. In addition
to Aristotle, he was influenced by Roman law, with which he was
familiar, and to whose revival he contributed. 39 Both his
acceptance of the value of a legal system of pagan origin, and his
assertion that the juridical precepts of the Old Covenant were
abrogated by Christ without being replaced by new ones (STh 1-11,
q. 104, a. 3), struck at the root of the Augustinian system. They
Miller, Nature, Justice, and Rights, 882.
Villey's work on the whole question of objective and subjective rights began with his
arguing that subjective rights did not exist in Roman law. Natale Rampazzo gives an overview
of scholarly reaction to Villey's claim about Aristotle's conception of objective right being
central to Roman law in "Critique de la lecture villeyenne du droit romain: Le droit subjectif,"
in Michel Villey: Le juste partage, ed. Chantal Delsol and Stephane Bauzon (Paris: Dalloz,
2007). He concludes that the reaction is generally favorable.
38 See Michel Villey, La formation de la pensee juridique moderne (Paris: Quadrige/PUF,
2003), 133-38.
39 See Michel Villey, "St. Thomas et l'immobilisme," in Michel Villey, Seize essais de
philosophie du droit (Paris: Dalloz, 1969), 97-100; and Jean-Marie Aubert, Le droit romain
dans /'oeuvre de Saint Thomas (Paris: Vrin, 1955).
36

37

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

constituted a rehabilitation of nature and natural reason as the
deciding factors in the determining and identification of justice.
Saint Thomas, unlike Aristotle, inherited an account of
morality characterized in terms of the divine law. This enabled
him to make a clearer and more elaborate distinction between
morality and law than is to be found in Aristotle-a distinction in
which his fidelity to the Aristotelian conception of particular
justice emerges sharply. Saint Thomas discusses law, lex, in the
Prima Secundae. There he situates the natural law in the context
of a discussion of the essence of law, and of the eternal law, which
is the divine wisdom moving all things to their due end. The
principles of the natural law are the principles that are grasped by
synderesis (STh 1-11, q. 94, a. 1, ad 2). They bear upon the actions
of an individual who exercises practical reason, and govern the
goodness of individual actions and of the persons who perform
those actions. They are the principles of morality.
Saint Thomas discusses justice and its object-ius-in a
completely different part of the Summa, the Secunda Secundae. It
is in the discussion of ius in the Secunda Secundae, not in the
discussion of lex in the Prima Secundae, that St. Thomas considers
those topics that are the concern of legal systems, topics such as
theft, murder, justice in exchange, and justice in the distribution
of goods. Following Roman law, he uses ius to express the
content of Aristotle's expression to dikaion. He defines ius as a
relation that involves a certain kind of equality, as for example the
giving of a just reward for a service rendered (STh 11-11, q. 57, a.
1). Ius is a principle of moral conduct, in that it is the object of
the virtue of justice, but it differs from the objects of other virtues
in that it is an external object: "as the object of justice is an
equality in external things, so the object of injustice is an
inequality" ("sicut obiectum iustitiae est aliquid aequale in rebus
exterioris, ita etiam obiectum iniustitiae est aliquid inaequale"
[STh 11-11, q. 59, a. 2]). 40 The character of ius as an external object
is argued for in question 58, article 10 of the Secunda Secundae.
40 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, vol. III (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores
Cristianos, 1956), 403.

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This relation of equality in external things is the proper matter of
the virtue of justice (STh 11-11, q. 58, aa. 1, 10).
The objects of the other virtues are described in relation to the
agent, but since ius, the object of justice, is an external object, it
is defined independently of the intentions of the agent in bringing
it about (STh 11-11, q. 57, a. 1). To get the moral attribute which
is the virtue of justice, we must add to the notion of bringing
about just relations in external objects the intention of bringing
them about because they are just, and the constant disposition to
bring about such just relations because they are just. This is
expressed in the definition that St. Thomas offers for the virtue of
justice: "justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to
each person his due" ("iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas
ius suum unicuique tribuens" [STh 11-11, q. 58, a. 1])41-a
definition taken from the Digest of Justinian (lib. 1, tit. 1, leg. 10).
The connection between ius and moral obligation for St. Thomas
can be illustrated by an analogy. A good parent will provide for
the health of his child; this is a moral obligation. But this moral
obligation does not as such determine what a child's health
consists in, or what will promote it. The nature of health is an
external reality that provides the object for virtue, but is not
derivable from moral principles alone (cf. STh 1-11, q. 94, a. 3).
The character of ius as an external object provides the answer
to a question that on examination is deeply puzzling: Why should
there be four cardinal virtues? Prudence gives knowledge of what
it is good to do; fortitude prevents the agent from being deterred
by pain from doing what is good; temperance prevents the agent
from being allured by pleasure away from what is good. These
three virtues, it seems, ought to suffice to produce good action,
since the action of the three of them together provide knowledge
of what is good and leave the agent with no motivation, and thus
no capacity, to do anything except what is good. A fourth cardinal
virtue ought not to be needed. The point of postulating justice as
a fourth virtue is to acknowledge the existence of a good whose
nature cannot be determined from the first principles of practical
• 1 Ibid., 388.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

reason alone, because it depends not just on the end of the
individual agent but also on the end of the society that the agent
belongs to. That the end of society is a good to be pursued by the
individual is of course given by these first principles; but these
principles do not specify what this good is in the way they do for
the other goods.
Saint Thomas connects ius to law, lex, in several ways. The
relation of ius to the eternal law stems from the fact that God is
the creator, and that he has brought into being a creation whose
end is for the sake of his glory, and whose parts all have ends that
concur for the good of the whole creation. The moral law, which
governs the individual, stems from the end, the telos, of the
individual. Objective right, ius, is given not by the nature of
individuals as such, but by the nature of the human societies in
which individuals find themselves. Human societies are natural
entities in their own right, not simply products of the wills of
their members, and as such possess an end that stems from their
nature. This end is related to the ends of the individuals who
compose the societies, since man is the most social of all animals, 42 and is also connected to the end of the universe as a
whole, and the ends of the other parts of the universe to which it
is related. 43 The eternal law is thus expressed by ius, because ius
is the good of the things that are human societies-things that are
created by God with the purpose of making their distinct
contribution to the glory of his creation. Although these things are
distinct from the individuals that make up societies, the social
nature of these individuals means that the good of these things is
an aspect of the good of their individual members.

C) Objective Right and Human Law

!us falls in its entirety under the divine law, but ius and human
law are not coextensive. Human law necessarily falls short of ius.
42 See, e.g., St. Thomas, I Polit., lect. 1 (36-37) (St. Thomas Aquinas, In libros Politicorum
expositio, ed. R. Spiazzi [Rome: Marietti, 1951], 11).
43 On the metaphysical picture underlying objective right, see Michel Villey, "Historique
de la nature des choses," Archives de philosophie du droit 10 (1965): 267-83.

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207

It is not possible for human laws to be so framed as to cover all
cases, because of the limitations of human wisdom. Even if it were
possible, it would be inadvisable, because the resulting laws would
be too unwieldy (STh I-II, q. 96, a. 6, ad 3). Laws are suitably
framed when they command what is for the common good in the
majority of cases; in exceptional cases, where the common good
is incompatible with the law, the law should not be followed. In
such exceptional cases departing from the law should not be
considered as breaking it, since such departure is acting in
accordance with the will of the lawmaker, as Aristotle asserted
(Nie. Ethic. 5.10.1137b11-35; see also STh 11-11, q. 120).
It follows from this conclusion that the office of the judge is
not simply to apply the human law. The law is one factor that the
judge is to take into account in determining what is just, but it is
not the only one. He must consider both positive ius, which is
created by being contained in human written law, and natural ius,
which may be enshrined in human law, but is not created by it
(STh 11-11, q. 60, a. 6), together with other factors such as custom
(STh I-II, q. 97, a. 3)-both because of the possible need to depart
from the letter of the law, and because of the fact that human law
in itself cannot provide a decision-making procedure for settling
even those nonexceptional cases where it need not be departed
from. These other factors are what provide the additional material
that enables the judge to come to a decision. The object of
iudicium, the judge's act, is not to command, as is the case with
law (STh I-II, q. 90, a. 1, ad 3), but to declare what the right
relation is. The imperative and compulsive actions of a legal
system follow from this act, but are not identical with it. The role
of the judge is another indication of the way in which ius is
distinct from morality in St. Thomas's view. The moral virtue of
justice belongs to everyone, but the office of declaring what is just
pertains to the judge (ibid., ad 3). This declaration is not a moral
judgment, because it bears upon the exterior object, the relation
that is ius ("justice concerns certain exterior operations" ["iustitia
est circa quasdam operationes exteriores"]) 44 independently of a
44

Madrid ed.,417; STh 11-11, q. 61, a. 3.

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moral evaluation of the people who enter in to that relation.
Villey illustrates this with an example;
It may be unjust, on my part, to profit from the clause of article 1341 of the Civil
Code, and to refuse to pay my debt on the grounds of my creditor's not having
a written title to it. But it is just for the judge to refuse to use the force of law to
enforce this debt, because the judge has to take into account not only my interest
(very unworthy, in these circumstances, of being protected), but also the interest
of third parties; and the interest of third parties requires a uniform method of
proof. 45

Villey acknowledges 46 that St. Thomas uses the words ius and lex
interchangeably on some occasions (e.g., STh I-II, q. 91, a. 3; I-II,
q. 94, aa. 4-5; I-II, q. 95, a. 4), but he points out that these are
cases where he is referring to recognized authorities who use these
terms interchangeably-St. Isidore of Seville, Gratian, or Cicero.
This is in line with St. Thomas's approach of respecting as far as
possible not only the thought but the language of such authorities,
and of not making use of uniform terminology himself. Saint
Thomas uses terms carefully, but he contents himself with making
their meaning clear in the particular contexts in which he uses
them, without trying always to use them in the same way. It is
clear from the definition of ius that he gives in the context of his
discussion of the virtue of justice that the meaning of ius, in this
context, differs from that of lex.
Villey points out that although St. Thomas distinguishes
between ius and morality insofar as morality, unlike ius, has for
its proper object the good of individuals, he does not hold that the
two are independent. In addition to the fact that acts of virtues
other than justice, such as temperance or fortitude, can be
commanded by justice on account of the common good-a
command that demands exercise of the virtue of general
justice-St. Thomas insists on a regulatory function for morality
with regard to law. Any law that contradicts the Decalogue, for
Let;onsd'histoire de la philosophie
du droit (Paris: Dalloz, 1962), 126.
46 Michel Villey, "Bible et philosophie greco-romaine: De saint Thomas au droit
moderne," Archives de philosophiedu droit 18 (1973): 31-32.
41 Michel Villey, "Abrege du droit nature! classique," in

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209

example, such as a law commanding idolatry, is an act of violence
rather than a law, and must not be observed (STh 1-11, q. 96, a. 4).
This seems initially puzzling. How is it, given this position, that
St. Thomas can insist not only that every just law has exceptions,
but also that there can be no universally just laws, due to the
changeability of human nature and the consequent variations
among human societies? "A rule ought to be enduring in so far as
possible. But in changeable things there cannot be anything that
is wholly lasting, and therefore human laws cannot be entirely
unchanging" ("Mensura debet esse permanens quantum est
possible. Sed in rebus mutabilibus non potest esse aliquid omnino
immutabiliter permanens. Et ideo lex humana non potest esse
omnino immutabilis" [STh 1-11, q. 97, a. 2, ad 2]) But if, as St.
Thomas holds, 47 there are actions that can never rightly be done,
why can there not be laws that are unchangeable and universally
applicable because they forbid the doing of such acts?
The solution of this puzzle is that when he talks about laws as
mutable, he has in mind their function of contributing to the
determination of ius. This function cannot be performed by universal rules, because the external relations that are iura inevitably
vary according to circumstances. As Villey remarks, in response to
criticism of his agreeing with St. Thomas on the mutability of law:
Ius, in the strict sense, is the proportion of "exterior" goods and obligations
divided between the citizens of a given political group. . . . It is in fact on the
exact content of the share of each person in these goods and obligations, and on
the foundation of the division between them, that legal cases are brought, and
that the system of justice works to establish. . . . Is it not evident that the
divisions of goods, offices, or obligations in a social group changes according to

47 See e.g., De Malo, q. 15, a. 1, ad 5. There have been unconvincing attempts to show that
St. Thomas does not hold this. For criticism of these attempts, see Patrick Lee, "The
Permanence of the Ten Commandments: St. Thomas and His Modern Commentators,"
Theological Studies 42 (1981); John Finnis, Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and the
Truth (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989); Servais Pinckaers,
Ce qu'on ne peut jamais faire: la question des actes intrinsequement mauvais: Histoire et
discussion (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1986).

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changes in modes of life, economic conditions, political structures? Is this a
problem? Are we really dealing with a difference of opinion on this point? 48

The Decalogue does indeed give universal principles that tell us
that certain things are not just. But this does not contribute to the
positive task of determining iura, what is just; it simply tells us
that any ordinance that violates the Decalogue is not a law.
D) Eclipse of Objective Right

Saint Thomas's understanding of ius (henceforth "objective
right," to mark the distinction with subjective rights) did not meet
with general acceptance, running counter as it did to a very strong
Augustinian tradition. His notion of objective right eventually
passed from being controversial to being almost totally eclipsed,
as a result of two developments: (1) the return to an identification
of justice and individual morality, and (2) the development of
subjective rights rather than objective right as the theoretical basis
for justice. ("Individual morality" here refers to the moral
principles that follow from the goods of a human being considered as an individual-the goods whose essences are grasped in
synderesis, and that do not as such involve reference to the nature
of human society. The virtue of temperance, and the
incompatibility of drunkenness with temperance, are examples of
such principles of individual morality.) Villey sees these
developments as forming part of the foundation for the modern
world-and also as being disastrous mistakes.
The identification of justice and individual morality was a
return to the medieval view prior to St. Thomas, a view which can
be found in theologians and in Decretists such as Rufinus and
Huguccio. All of these treat justice as falling under the natural
48 Georges Kalinowski and Michel Villey, "La mobilite du droit nature! chez Aristote et
Thomas d'Aquin," Archives de philosophie du droit 29 (1984): 196 (my translation). Villey
usually talks of ius in terms of a division of goods, but he is aware that it involves a division
of punishments as well; he discusses punishment in "Des delits et peines dans la philosophie
du droit nature! classique," Archives de philosophie du droit 28 (1983): 181-203. He points
out that the ius of a parricide, in Roman law, was to be sewn up in a sack with a dog, a cock,
a viper, and an ape, and thrown into the sea.

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law, and the natural law as having the function of directing
personal morality. 49 A first step in this return is the work of
Scotus, who defends the traditional Augustinian claims that
earthly sovereignty and private property are a result of the Fall
rather than of human nature as such, and bases their postlapsarian
authority on divine positive law. 50 The return is completed in the
work of the baroque Scholastics, whose eclectic selection from the
positions of their predecessors ended up being dominated by
nominalist ideas.
One element of this work is the change in meaning of the term
"ius," in the sense of "id quod iustum est," in baroque commentaries on the Secunda Secundae. "Id quod iustum est" is
misrepresented by commentators such as Vitoria and de Soto as
meaning a just act, rather than the object that a just act aims to
bring about. With the disappearance of objective right as the
measure for the justice of the just act, another measure is needed,
and this is provided by conformity to the commands of the law. 51
This change makes possible another element in the work of
subsuming justice under morality. Justice is defined by the law,
and as a result justice as well as law are discussed, in the
commentaries on the Summa that become the standard
theological instruments of baroque Scholasticism, not under the
heading of the discussion of ius and iustitia in the Secunda
Secundae, but under the heading of the discussion of lex in the
Prima Secundae. The baroque Scholastics recognized that basing
human law on the Scriptures, as the earlier Augustinians
attempted to do, is not feasible. They therefore attempted to base
it ultimately on the first principles of practical reason that are
given as the source of the natural law by St. Thomas in the Prima
Secundae. Since these principles are understood by St. Thomas as
49 Michel Villey, "Torah-Dikaion I," in Critique de la pensee juridique moderne: Douze
autres essais (Paris: Dalloz, 1976), 33-34. Villey refers the reader to the useful texts on the
natural law from Gratian to St. Thomas collected by Dom Odon Lottin in Psychologie et
morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siecles, vol. 2 (Louvain: Abbaye du Mont Cesar, 1948), but warns
against Dom Lottin's commentary.
50 See Villey, La fonnation de la pensee juridique moderne, 209-12.
51 Villey, "Bible et philosophie greco-romaine," 43, 46-48.

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212

the principles for morality, this gives a full philosophical
expression to the subsumption of justice and law under morality.
Villey identifies a clericalist motivation for this change. 52 Since
law emerges from morality, and theologians are the experts on
morality, it follows that theologians are the experts on law. In
Roman law, lay judges were the experts on ius. This change was
decisive for subsequent modern accounts of natural law, which
can be classified according to which of the basic inclinations
mentioned by St. Thomas in the Prima Secundae they give priority
to-for example, self-preservation in Hobbes and Spinoza, or
social life in Grotius and Pufendorf. 53 Lay jurisprudence, which
had become the predominant influence on law in the seventeenth
century, also moved towards a basing of law and justice on moral
principles. An important factor in this change was the revulsion
against Aristotle that characterized this epoch, and the preference
for Platonic or Hellenistic philosophy. Both of these philosophical
influences favored the subordination of law to morality, with
Cicero's influence being particularly significant in this regard. 54
The second development that led to the replacement of
objective right, the emergence of subjective rights, is often denied
by scholars-simply because they are unable to understand rights
as being anything other than subjective rights, and they cannot
believe that there was a period when no conception of rights
existed at all. Miller's interpretation of Aristotle on to dikaion,
criticized above, is an example of this outlook. This obtuseness
among intelligent researchers is evidence of the fundamental place
that subjective rights hold in the contemporary mind. The
difference between objective right and subjective rights is not in
itself difficult to grasp. Subjective rights are not relations, like
objective right, but monadic properties of individuals. As
originally formulated, they consisted in a power possessed by an
individual to act freely in some sphere. This power flows from the
human nature of the individual possessing the right, and gives to
52 Ibid., 42.
53

Ibid., 42-43, 50.

54 See Villey, La fonnation

philosophies hellenistiques."

de la pensee juridique modeme, p. 3, c. 1, "La renaissance des

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213

that individual an entitlement to act within that sphere, an
entitlement upon which no one can justly infringe. Subjective
rights are called natural rights because they are thought to be
conferred solely by the possession of human nature. Although
they are natural, they have consequences for legal systems. They
can be expressed in human law just as they are, without needing
significant interpretation, and human legal systems have an
obligation in justice to respect them. Although legislation should
recognize subjective rights, it does not create them. They do not,
like objective right, emerge from the structure of society as a
whole considered as a natural entity. Indeed, the strongest
theories of subjective rights hold that these rights are the basis for
political life. Like the electron shells of ions, which make it
possible for atoms to be connected into molecules and determine
how those molecules are structured, subjective rights are the
binding factors that join individuals together into political
communities, and that determine the just structure for political
communities. This is the claim of the Declaration of the Rights of
Man of 1789, asserting, as it does, that "the purpose of every
political association is the preservation of the natural and
imprescriptible rights of man" (article 2). This description of
subjective right is not an idiosyncratic notion of Villey's. It is the
conception of rights that is found in the principal seventeenthcentury theorists of rights, such as Hobbes and Locke, and that
our culture has inherited from them.
Villey holds that some general notion of subjective rights is
probably as old as egoism itself. An egotistic outlook makes it
natural to conceive of justice in one's relations to others in terms
of the free exercise of one's will.
It is natural to conceive of everything in terms of one's self, to press into the
service of one's self everything that pertains to the common good, and
accommodate it to the needs of one's egoism. And thus it is probable that the
notion of subjective right has had some existence in all times. 55

55

Michel Villey, "Droit subjectif I," in Villey, Seize essais de philosophie du droit, 140.

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An embryonic conception of subjective rights can also be found in
ancient philosophies that take the individual as their sole starting
point. 56 The use of subjective rights as the basis for a full-fledged
political philosophy, however, was chiefly the fruit of two
developments: the elaboration of an explicit definition of
subjective rights by William of Ockham, and the elaboration by
Thomas Hobbes of a theory of human society to replace the
Aristotelian one.

E) Genesis of a Philosophical Account of Subjective Rights
The debate over Franciscan poverty was the occasion, and to
some extent the inspiration, of Ockham's theory of subjective
right. 57 To obey their founder's injunction that they not possess
any property, and at the same time to provide for their practical
needs, the Franciscans had arranged with the Holy See that the
pope should own all Franciscan priories and other things used by
the order, while conceding to the Franciscans the right of using
these things. This arrangement was codified by Nicholas III, a
friend of the order, in the bull Exiit qui seminat, which accepted
the proprietas of these things while conceding to the Franciscans
only the simplex usus facti of them-a use which was not a right,
a ius utendi, and thus could not be a form of property. The
arrangement fell apart as a result of John XXII's disputes with the
Spiritual Franciscans over their claim that the way of life of Christ
and the apostles involved the ownership of no property at all. In
his bull Quia vir reprobus of 1329, he argued that the use of
things consumed in their use (such as food) was either just or
unjust, and that just use of such things constituted ownership of
them. From this it follows that both Christ and the apostles, and
the Franciscans, owned property. Turning from his previous pur-

Michel Villey, "Droit subjectif II," in Villey, Seize essais de philosophie du droit, 183-85.
A good discussion of this debate is Virpi Makinen, Property Rights in the Late Medieval
Discussion on Franciscan Poverty, Recherches de theologie et philosophie
medievales-Bibliotheca 3 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001).
56

57

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215

suits in philosophy and logic, Ockham wrote his Opus nonaginta
dierum to attack this bull.
The debate prior to Ockham's intervention had thus already
considered one of the components of the notion of subjective
right, the idea of a power to use a thing as one chooses. Villey,
and following him Annabel Brett, have identified Ockham as
offering a full-fledged conception of subjective rights in the Opus
nonaginta dierum, a conception expressed in his definition of ius
utendi: "A right to use [ius utendi] is a licit power to make use of
some external thing, a power of which one should not be
unwillingly deprived without rational cause unless one has
committed some crime, and the deprival of which can be
contested at law" ("ius utendi est potestas licita utendi re aliqua
extrinseca, qua quis sine culpa sua et absque causa rationabili
privari non debet invitus; et si privatus fuerit, privantem poterit
in iudicio conveniri"). 58 Ius utendi, according to Ockham, is the
property that Christ and his followers renounced. Brett asserts:
The ius utendi is, then, as Villey rightly stressed in his early articles, a subjective
power of action. It is not a relation of control over things, as was ius for the
earlier Franciscans. Moreover, the category of a licit power directed towards
action gives Ockham the genus for his two definitions of dominium. Ockham
replaces dominium with right as the axial analytic category ... 'dominium is the
principal human power of vindicating a temporal thing in court, and of treating
it in every way which is not prohibited by natural law'. 59

This definition is not yet a definition of natural subjective rights,
since, as Villey notes, 60 ius utendi is described by Ockham as
stemming from positive human law. The crucial step that is made
here is not the definition of ius as a power rather than a
relation-definitions
of this sort predated Ockham-but the
basing of all legal claims on such powers, and thus the elimination
ss William of Ockham, Opus nonaginta dierum, in Opera politica, ed. J. G. Sikes and H.
S. Offler (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1963), vol. 2, p. 302; quoted in Annabel
Brett, Liberty, Right and Nature: Individual Rights in !Ater Scholastic Thought (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), 63; and by Villey in "Droit subjectif I," 166.
59 Brett, Liberty, Right and Nature, 63; the quoted passage is from Sikes and Offler, eds.,
Opera politica, 2:320-21.
60 Villey, "Droit subjectif I," 167.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

of objective right. Villey links Ockham's development of a
conception of subjective right with his nominalism. 61 By rejecting
the existence of relations and of entities other than individual
substances, Ockham's nominalist ontology rules out the existence
of objective right and of the natural human societies that found it.
This philosophical stance would seem important not so much for
the development of the idea of ius as a power to act-a concept
that might be used to supplement, rather than replace, the concept
of objective right-as for the banishing of objective right and its
replacement by subjective right.
Villey's identification of Ockham as the father of subjective
right is generally thought to have been refuted by the work of
Brian Tierney. 62 Tierney attempts to establish that the notion of
subjective right can be found in twelfth-century canonists prior to
Ockham; furthermore, he argues that Ockham's nominalism is
independent of his notion of subjective right.
It is not evident why Tierney's assertions about the existence
of a notion of subjective rights in the twelfth century would be
important if they were true. The main conclusions that Villey's
work seeks to establish are that Aristotle, Roman law, and St.
Thomas all postulate objective rather than subjective rights, and
that their understanding of objective right is basically correct,
while theories of subjective right are false and pernicious. If
Tierney's claim about the emergence of subjective right in the
twelfth century were true, Villey's case for these conclusions
would actually be strengthened from the point of view of
followers of St. Thomas. His exclusive adherence to objective
right would then appear as a deliberate rejection of wellelaborated views of subjective rights.
However, the evidence that Tierney himself produces shows
that this claim is not true. His argument rests on the assumption
61 See e.g. Villey, La formation de la pensee juridique modeme,
223££.; it is a frequent
theme in his work.
62 An example of this attitude is this statement by Martin Rhonheimer: "Tierney
convincingly challenges the view of Michel Villey, for whom the idea of 'rights' (as subjective
rights) is specifically modern" (Martin Rhonheimer, "The Political Ethos of Constitutional
Democracy and the Place of Natural Law in Public Reason: Rawls' 'Political Liberalism'
Revisited," American Journal of Jurisprudence 50 [2005]: 5).

CONSCIENCE, FREEDOM, RIGHTS

217

that any sort of identification of a ius with a potestas is a notion
of subjective right-as he himself indicates, in a summary
description of his alleged refutation of Villey, "subsequent
research has shown that the association of 'right' and 'power' was
quite common in earlier medieval jurisprudence. " 63 But it is
obvious that not every association between right and power is a
subjective right. Objective right itself, as noted above, provides a
basis for some kinds of powers. For example, a debt legally owed
to me gives me the power to enforce the payment of this debt at
law. Such powers are not however subjective rights, and none of
the associations between ius and potestas that Tierney identifies
in the early canonists can be described as subjective rights. This is
obviously the case in the definitions of ius naturale given by Odo
of Dover (c. 1170; "natural ius is a certain force divinely inspired
in man by which he is led to what is just and right and
equitable"), 64 Simon of Bisignano ("natural ius is said to be a force
of the mind of the superior part of the soul, namely reason which
is called synderesis"), 65 and the canonist Huguccio ("natural ius is
called reason, namely a natural force of the soul" ["ius ergo
naturale dicitur ratio, scilicet naturalis uis animi ex qua homo
discernit inter bonum et malum"]). 66 The definition of Rufinus in
about 1160 says:
Natural ius is a certain force instilled in every human creature by nature to do
good and avoid the opposite. Natural ius consists in three things, commands,
prohibitions, and demonstrations. . . . It cannot be detracted from at all as
regards the commands and prohibitions . . . but it can as regards the
demonstrations, which nature does not command or forbid but shows to be
good. 67

Commands and prohibitions are obviously not subjective rights,
and demonstrations in general cannot be subjective rights, since
63 Brian Tierney, "Religious Rights: An Historical Perspective," in Religious Rights in
Global Perspective, ed. John Witte andJ. D. van der Vyver (London: Martin us Nijhoff, 1996),
27.
64 Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 63.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid., 64.
67 Ibid., 62.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

Rufinus explicitly states that they can be detracted from. All of
these definitions of forms of ius cited by Tierney are distinct from
subjective rights, and are often concerned with entirely different
subject matters.
The legal powers identified by Charles J. Reid in twelfth- and
thirteenth-century canon law are closer to subjective rights, but
they are not identical with such rights. Reid, like Tierney, conceives of any identification of a ius with a potestas as a subjective
right. 68 None of the powers mentioned by Reid are subjective
rights, because all of them either contain some reference to
specified individuals or groups, or do not constitute fundamental
juridical principles, or both. This is the case with the right of the
poor in extreme necessity to take from the rich what is needed for
their subsistence, 69 the right of a cathedral canon to vote in the
election of a bishop, 70 the faculty to contract marriage, 71 the right
of married people to claim sexual intercourse from their
spouses, 72 and the right of parents to be honored by their children
on the basis of the fourth commandment. 73 All of these rights
presuppose the existence of individuals or groups aside from the
holder of the right (the rich, a person it is possible to marry, a
spouse, a diocese, children), and bear on those specified
individuals or groups rather than on anyone at all; they are thus
not monadic properties of individuals. The multiplication of legal
powers in the early Middle Ages described by Reid is in fact
something that Villey draws attention to, and identifies as an
influence on the development of subjective rights. 74 However,
these powers are not themselves subjective rights.
68 See Charles J. Reid, "The Canonistic Contribution to the Western Rights Tradition,"
Boston College Law Review 33 (1991): 37-92; "Thirteenth-Century Canon Law and Rights:
The Word ius and Its Range of Subjective Meanings," Studia Canonica 30 (1996): 295-342.
69 Reid, "The Canonistic Contribution to the Western Rights Tradition," 66.
70 Ibid., 67; Reid, "Thirteenth-Century Canon Law and Rights," 321.
71 Reid, "The Canonistic Contribution to the Western Rights Tradition," 73.
72 Ibid., 80.
73 Ibid., 57.
74 Villey, "Droit subjectif I," 156-58. Villey remarks here that "the shift in meaning of the
word ius towards a notion of power characterizes the language of practice in the Middle Ages"
(ibid., 157).

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219

It may be that the importance of the claim that subjective rights
predate Ockham lies for Tierney in the resulting separation of
subjective rights from nominalism. If these rights were postulated
prior to the development of nominalism, that would show that
they are independent of nominalist ontology. Tierney has argued
that there is no connection between Ockham's nominalism and his
views on rights. However, his arguments entirely miss the point
of Villey's position. The element of Ockham's nominalism that
Tierney discusses is his position on the problem of universals. 75
Villey, in referring to Ockham's nominalism, is not simply
alluding to Ockham's position on the problem of universals, but
to Ockham's ontology as a whole. The aspect of this ontology that
Villey singles out as essential to his postulation of subjective rights
and rejection of objective right is Ockham's rejection of the
existence of relations and of subsisting entities aside from
individual substances. 76 If there are no relations, there can be no
objective right. If human societies are not natural entities that are
irreducible to a mere collection of individuals, there is no basis for
objective right. 77
The importance of Ockham's nominalism does not lie simply
in the need for coherence between one's metaphysical account of
the world and one's philosophical account of law and rights. As
75 Some scholars have connected Ockham's political philosophy with his views on
universals, a fact that may have misled Tierney in his approach to Villey; they are criticized
in Charles Zuckerman, "The Relationship of Theories of Universals to Theories of Church
Government in the Middle Ages: A Critique of Previous Views," Journal of the History of
Ideas 36 (1975): 579-94. A. S. McGrade, in "Ockham on the Birth of Individual Rights," in
Authority and Power, ed. Brian Tierney and Peter Linehah (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1980), has defended the claim that Ockham's views on universals had some impact on
his conception of rights. This debate, while interesting, is not relevant to Villey's argument.
76 Paul Vincent Spade remarks, "Ockham removes all need for entities in seven of the
traditional Aristotelian ten categories; all that remain are entities in the categories of substance
and quality, and a few entities in the category of relation, which Ockham thinks are required
for theological reasons pertaining to the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Eucharist, even
though our natural cognitive powers would see no reason for them at all" (The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy [Fall 2006 edition], s.v. "William of Ockham" [available at
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2006/entries/ockham/> ]).
77 See, e.g., Villey's review of Richard Tuck's Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and
Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), in "Travaux recents sur !es
droits de l'homme, I," Archives de philosophe du droit 26 (1981): 411-18.

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

Villey points out, objective right is a real feature of the world,
which inevitably obtrudes itself into daily life and legal decisions.
Accounts of natural subjective rights, together with positive
legislation, are in practice insufficient for juridical purposes. 78 The
real activity of judges, when investigated, turns out to involve
acknowledgment of the existence of objective right. An account
of justice and law with no place for objective right therefore needs
an understanding of the world that can motivate people to deny
the existence of objective right, and to reject or reinterpret the
judicial activity that depends on the existence of objective right.
Ockham's nominalist ontology performs this essential function for
a theory of subjective rights.

F) Full Development of Subjective Rights
Villey's account of the origin of philosophical accounts of
subjective rights thus stands up to examination. Although he
identifies Ockham as the originator of subjective rights, he holds
that the full-fledged subjective rights position took time to
develop. An important step in that development was the baroque
Scholastic account of ius as a power rather than a relation, 79 but
the final steps were taken by Hobbes. These steps were the
definition of subjective rights as natural rights and the elaboration
of a conception of the nature of individuals and human society
that would replace the Aristotelian conception that underlies
objective right. Hobbes offers this definition of right:
The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each
man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his
own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing any thing,
which in his own judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means
thereunto .... Right, consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbear; whereas law,

See, e.g., Michel Villey, Reflexions sur la philosophie et le droit: Les carnets de Michel
Villey, ed. Marie-Anne Frison-Roche and Christophe Jamin (Paris: PUF, 1995), 305.
79 For ius as a power in Vitoria and Suarez, see Villey, La fonnation de la pensee juridique
moderne, 344-45, 356-57.
78

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221

determineth, and bindeth to one of them: so that law, and right, differ as much
as obligation, and liberty; which in one and the same matter are inconsistent. 80

Inspired by the scientific practice of the day, 81 Hobbes attempted
to describe the properties of human societies as functions of the
properties of the individuals that compose them. This is the
rationale for the hypothesis (or perhaps merely the thought
experiment) of the state of nature, a state where the attributes of
individuals who are joined by no social bonds can be considered.
These attributes then serve as the basis for the construction of all
social bonds, much as the electron shells of atoms serve as the
basis for the construction of all molecules. This conception of the
nature of society is fundamentally opposed to that of Aristotle and
St. Thomas, and rules out the possibility of objective right. The
only attributes of individuals in a state of nature are those that
flow from the bare human nature found in each one of them,
since every historical circumstance or personal relation has been
thought away. Political structures are derived from these attributes
from the drive to self-preservation, together with the law of
nature that requires individuals to keep their promises. This gives
rise to a situation in which the rights possessed in the state of
nature are ceded by contract to the ruler, in order to achieve the
goal of self-preservation for individuals. Since these rights are
absolute spheres of freedom in which to act, they confer absolute
power on the ruler when transferred to him. The ruler becomes,
for Hobbes, a "mortal God" upon which his subjects can make no
claim.
This absolutism, favored by Hobbes partly as a result of his
experiences of the English Civil War, did not go down well in
England. The flexibility of the notion of subjective right was
demonstrated by Locke's use of it to limit the powers of the ruler,
through the simple expedient of postulating more subjective rights
in the state of nature than Hobbes's solitary right to selfp. I, c. 14, in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, vol.
3, ed. Sir William Molesworth (London: John Bohn, 1839; repr. Darmstadt: Scientia Verlag
Aalen, 1966), 116-17.
81 Villey, La formation de la pensee juridique modeme, 574-75.
80 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan,

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JOHN R. T. LAMONT

preservation. This expedient, together with the postulation of a
more comprehensive law of nature that binds men in the state of
nature, transformed the state of nature from a misery to be
escaped into the foundation upon which society is built. The
principal additional natural right postulated by Locke is that of
property (Two Treatises on Government, b. 2, c. 5). The natural
law commands us to respect the natural rights of others. Because
they are natural, these rights are absolute, and cannot be infringed
on by the state against the will of their possessors. The powers of
the state are those natural rights that have supposedly been ceded
to it by the free consent of its citizens.
The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and
putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property ...
. in the state of nature, to omit the liberty he has of innocent delights, a man has
two powers. The first is to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the preservation of
himself and others within the permission of the law of nature .... the other
power a man has in the state of nature, is the power to punish the crimes
committed against that law. Both these he gives up when he joins in a ...
particular politic society .... the first power ... he gives up to be regulated by
laws made by the society .... the power of punishing he wholly gives up. 82

The obligation to keep one's promises is also a part of the natural
law, thus giving a moral basis to the power of the state. The result
of this social contract is a night-watchman state, with no authority
over religious belief (which is taken to be a purely private matter),
no authority to punish immoral behavior as such, and no
authority to suppress the free expression of opinion, except in so
far as any of these things violate the rights of others or the public
peace (these positions are all developed by Locke in A Letter
concerning Toleration). Its function is to protect individual rights
against internal and external aggressors-a function that
emphatically cannot include any kind of redistribution of
property, which would be an infringement on natural rights.
Locke's political philosophy is the theoretical rationale, and a
82 John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, book 2, Essay on Civil Government, c. 9, in
The Works of John Locke, vol. 5 (London: Thomas Tegg, 1823; repr. Germany: Scientia
Verlag Aalen, 1963), 412-14.

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223

historical cause, for the "Anglo-American" conception of the
religiously neutral state, which is often favorably contrasted by
Catholic thinkers with the more determinedly secular
understanding of the state that emerged from the French
Revolution.
Villey's account of the development and eventual supremacy
of the concept of subjective rights is not limited to the ideas of
philosophers. It also contains descriptions of the important contribution of jurists. The baroque Scholastics, especially Suarez, fell
to some extent into both these categories (and had an underestimated influence on the development of legal thought), but in
the seventeenth century the work of men whose scholarly activity
was concerned primarily with the law began to play an important
role in this process. The chief figure in this development was
Grotius. Villey points out that the innovation usually credited to
him, that of separating law from religious belief, was not in fact
novel. It is a basic feature of the thought of St. Thomas on ius,
grounded as it is on the pagan Aristotle; and Grotius's formula of
the natural law obtaining even if it is assumed that God does not
exist ("etiamsi daremus ... non esse Deum") is in fact found in
substance in a number of Scholastics. 83 Nor was Grotius's
definition of rights as subjective rights a novelty. Villey identifies
Grotius's originality as consisting in his attempt to base the law on
principles of morality. Grotius's ambition was to found the law on
a rational basis that was as independent of empirical facts as the
work of mathematicians. 84 He sought to achieve this by merging
law with morality-"law is a rule of moral actions obliging one to
do what is right" ("ius est ... regula actuum moralium obligans
ad id quod rectum est") 85-and basing law on the first principles
of morality inscribed in the human conscience. These principles
are founded on the inclination to live in human society, and are
taken from Stoic morality as passed on by Cicero. They are the
83 Villey, La fonnation de la pensee juridique modeme, 539; he instances Suarez, De
legibus, bk. 2, ch. 6, para. 17; Vasquez, Commentari ac disputationes in Primam Secundae S.
Thomae (Lyons, 1631), <lisp. 150, c. 3, n. 23; Gabriel Biel, Super Sentent. II, d. 3, a. 2.
84 Villey, La fonnation de la pensee juridique modeme, 541.
85 Ibid., 542.

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duties to respect the property of others, to keep one's word, and
to repair the damage one has caused by one's own fault, and the
justice of punishment being inflicted for any violation of these
duties. 86 From these, Grotius claims to derive the whole content
of the law. 87
In basing law and subjective rights on one of the basic
inclinations that St. Thomas identifies as the first principles of
practical reason, Grotius exemplifies what is now thought of as
natural-law theory. Samuel Pufendorf and Christian Wolff were
to follow along the same lines, as were many of the jurists of
eighteenth-century France. Grotius's approach of basing legal
obligation on principles that ignored empirical facts adapted to
the law a method that is not adequate even for morality itself, as
we have seen in our discussion of moralities of conscience. As a
result, the alleged deductions in his system, like the deductions in
casuistry, are full of holes. 88 This lack of logic was not a hindrance
to the success of Grotius's thought, because the main appeal of
that thought lay in its convenience for early modern capitalism
and the class that benefited from that capitalism. The myth of a
natural right to property based on original possession gave
complete security to the property of the well off. Basing contracts
on an absolute duty to keep one's promises-a notion in contradiction to the Roman law of property-meant that oppressive
86 Ibid., 543, 547. Villey points out that Grotius, following Cicero, puts these Stoic
principles to a use for which they were not originally intended, since they were meant by the
Stoics purely as a guide to individual conduct, not as a basis for law.
87 It is worth mentioning that by unifying law and morality, the baroque Scholastics and
the seventeenth century jurists injured morality as well as law. As we have seen, the human law
and the rulings of human judges can only bear upon exterior realities, which are not defined
in terms of the intentions or moral responsibilities of the agents involved in these realities. If
the law becomes thought of in terms of morality, morality as a result tends to be understood
on the model of the law. Moral principles come to be thought of as bearing on actions
described from the exterior; as Pinckaers notes of moralities of conscience, "the distinction
between exterior act and interior act is blurred" (Pinckaers, L'Evangile et la morale, 277).
Pinckaers also discusses the damage done by the notion of subjective rights to a grasp of the
virtue of justice (ibid., 49-50).
88 Villey, La formation de la pensee juridique modeme, 551-2, points out the flaws in
Grotius's reasoning, and explicitly makes the comparison with casuistry; see also Michel
Villey,"Morale et droit (sur un texte de Grotius)," in Villey, Seize essais de philosophie du
droit, 107ff.

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225

contracts exacted by the economic power of one of the
contractees were necessarily binding in morality and law. The
whole search for distributive justice in the law, in this approach,
is conjured away. In dealings between nations, Grotius's system
comes down on the side of the powerful, and especially on the
side of European colonialists against indigenous peoples. As Villey
remarks,
[Grotius's] system of subjective rights is perfectly suited to ensuring the security
of established property, the reliability of fiscal transactions, the tranquillity
necessary for economic development, and the restriction of violence; but at the
price of justice. He responded to the need for order that political and economic
circumstances had given rise to. He was the product of a pragmatic cast of mind,
that, in order to promote the temporal goals pursued by the society of his time,
proved itself capable of an inspired exploitation of a ruling ideology. 89

Villey makes the same observation about Locke, and notes that
Marx had already pointed out that subjective rights, as expressed
in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, had been crafted to serve
the political and economic interests of the bourgeoisie-an
assertion with which Villey agrees. 90
The irksome and unjust aspects of this ideology helped to
produce the final significant evolution of the notion of subjective
rights. As originally conceived, subjective rights were spheres of
immunity from coercion, as appears in the definition given by
Hobbes above. When the notion of subjective rights had
monopolized the domain of justice, however, aggrieved parties
who suffered from the injustices of the capitalist system found no
other way of demanding better treatment than the language of
such rights. This gave birth to the notion of subjective claimrights: rights to some good, or to the necessary conditions for the
achievement of some good, that attached to invidivuals in virtue
of their human nature, and that entitled them to claim these goods
from others. The goods in question are typically the basic goods
identified by the first principles of practical reason, or by the
dignity of the human person. The problems with subjective claim89
90

Villey, La fonnation de la pensee juridique moderne, p. 557.
Michel Villey, Le droit et /es droits de l'homme (Paris: PUF, 1983), 152.

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rights are obvious. One person's claim to a good is liable to
interfere with another person's claim, and the concept of
subjective rights provides no means of determining whose claim
is to prevail; the notion that one's own claim should prevail over
others just is an expression of the idea of a subjective claim-right.
As for the dignity of the human person, worthy notion as it is,
Villey's comment is apt: the attempt to settle juridical disagreements between persons by appeal to the dignity of the
human person is like trying to calculate the age of the captain
from the dimensions of the boat.
Villey's disparaging comment about the usefulness of the
notion of human dignity is liable to raise hackles among Catholics,
who are accustomed to frequent appeals to human dignity in
ecclesiastical rhetoric. However, a look at the origins of this
rhetoric indicates the justice of Villey's stand. Its principal source
is the personalism of Emmanuel Meunier, a figure who had an
immense influence on progressive Catholic thought. 91 The
popularity of Mounier's views in the 1940s and 1950s was one
basis for later ecclesiastical rhetoric about a growth in
understanding of the dignity of the person in contemporary
society. Meunier however scorned any idea of giving
philosophical or metaphysical precision to the notion of the
dignity of the human person, an anti-intellectual stand that was
helpful in evading awkward questions about his sympathies with
fascism and Nazism before the Second World War, his qualified
enthusiasm for Vichy and contempt for the French Resistance,
and his zealous support for Stalin after the war. 92 If philosophical
91 Mounier's influence was not limited to clerical circles. To give one example, Pierre
Elliott Trudeau, a self-described follower of Mounier, launched his public career by founding
a journal, Cite libre, which was intended to be a Canadian version of Mounier's journal Esprit;
Canadian Catholics will be able to judge how much Trudeau's thought and actions did to
promote human dignity in Canadian society.
92 For Mounier's life, thought, and influence, see John Hellman, Emmanuel Mounier and
the New Catholic Left 1930-1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981). Hellman's
The Knight-monks of Vichy France: Uriage, 1940-1945, 2d ed. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's
University Press, 1997) is helpful on Mounier's connections with figures of the nouvelle
theologie such as Chenu, Congar and de Lubac. Mounier's prewar interest in fascism and
Nazism is described in Zeev Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche: l'ideologie fasciste en France, rev.
ed. (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1987). Debates over Sternhell's overall thesis do not

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227

precision is supplied for the notion of the dignity of the person,
however, it becomes apparent that this dignity is Villey's main
theme. It is precisely the order of justice that he defends that
specifies what the natural dignity of the human person consists in;
and it is the order of charity described by St. Thomas (STh 11-11,
qq. 23-27) that specifies the dignity conferred on the human
person by grace.
G) Subjective Rights as a Harmful Myth

The failure of modern natural-law theories is apparent in one
of their more recent versions, that of Mounier's mentor Jacques
Maritain. Maritain takes the nature of the individual human as the
foundation for natural law, following the standard modern
natural-law approach. 93 However, warned by the example of his
predecessors, he does not attempt logically to deduce the
principles of the natural law, or natural rights, from this nature.
He denies that the natural law can be known by reason, 94 and
asserts that it is grasped by the nonconceptual inclinations of the
person, which are the song produced in the subject by the

undermine his documentation of Mounier's views. Mounier mocked Georges Bernanos for
broadcasting on the BBC in favor of the Resistance (see Michel Winock, Histoire politique de
la revue 'Esprit' [Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975], 209), and denounced the D-day landings as
a "myth ofliberation" (Mounier, Oeuvres [Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1961-63], 4:766; see Seth
D. Armus, "The Eternal Enemy: Emmanuel Mounier's Esprit and French Anti-Americanism,"
French Historical Studies 24 [Spring 2001]: 271-304). After the war, Mounier defended the
Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia and the show trial of the left-wing democratic
Bulgarian politician Nikola Petkov, "one of the most dreadful of eastern Europe's show trials"
(R. J. Crampton, Bulgaria [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997], 322). Petkov was shot.
Mounier attacked Frarn;;ois Mauriac for showing a concern for "individual justice" in the
Petkov case (see Tony Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956 [Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1992], 86-97); a line of argument parallel to that of Charles
Maurras in the Dreyfus case, although Maurras did not accompany his position with extensive
reflections on the dignity of the human person. Mounier's eventual rejection of Christianity
in favor of Nietzsche did not much affect his influence in Catholic circles.
93 Jacques Maritain, L'homme et l'etat, in Jacques et Raissa Maritain: Oeuvres completes,
vol. 9 (Paris: Editions Saint-Paul, 1990), 578-79.
94 Ibid., 585.

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"vibrations" of his interior tendencies. 95 In postulating a
nonconceptual grasp of reality, Maritain, a disciple of John of St.
Thomas, follows M.-D. Chenu in assuming that concepts are signs
of reality, and that these signs can be circumvented by a superior,
nonconceptual intuition. 96
For the natural law to be recognized in a society, its members
must agree about the directions of their inner vibrations. This
agreement is brought about by the operation of a general law of
history, which asserts that human societies progress over time.
Maritain identified this law in 1942. He addressed any possible
doubts about the existence of such progress by pointing out that
the general law in fact predicts two developments, in which
human societies progress in some ways while simultaneously
worsening in others. 97 The improvements necessary for his theory
are brought about by the positive side of the law, while the
disasters that provoke skepticism about progress result from the
negative side.
The nonconceptual nature of knowledge of the natural law
does not prevent Maritain from describing this law, and the rights
to which it gives rise. From the basic inclinations known by
vibrations (which turn out to be the basic goods described by St.
Thomas) arise rights to the possession of the goods sought by
these inclinations. Such rights exist not only to the goods sought
by fundamental inclinations, such as life, but also to more specific
ways of realizing these inclinations, such as unemployment
insurance. 98 Maritain is aware that these rights will need to be
reconciled with one another, and to achieve this reconciliation he
introduces the idea of the common good. 99 This notion is not
properly explained, and it does not seem to correspond to the
understanding of the common good that St. Thomas uses to found
95 "L'intellect, pour former un jugement, ecoute et consulte l'espece de chant produit clans
le sujet par la vibration de ses tendences interieures" (ibid., 586).
96 On this, see Lamont, "Determining the Authority and Level of Church Teaching," 38790.
97 Jacques Maritain, Les droits de l'homme et la loi naturelle, in Jacques et Raissa Maritain:
Oeuvres completes, vol. 7 (Paris: Editions Saint-Paul, 1988), 638.
98 Maritain, L'homme et l'etat, 604.
99 Ibid., 597.

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229

objective right; Maritain does not grasp St. Thomas's view, simply
remarking that in antiquity and the Middle Ages the natural law
was focused on obligations rather than rights. 100 In the absence of
criteria for determining their scope, the rights postulated by
Maritain are in effect no more than a list of desirable objectives
to be pursued. Maritain distinguishes between rights that can be
limited by the demands of the common good, and those that are
inalienable. He does not offer criteria for distinguishing between
the two, and the examples of inalienable rights that he
gives-those of life and the pursuit of happiness-do not have any
evident characteristics that identify them as being inalienable,
except for their having been so described in the American
Declaration of Independence (no doubt a reflection of Maritain's
sojourn in America).
One need not labor the point that this account of natural law
and natural rights does not stand up to examination. In addition
to its influence on Vatican H's Dignitatis humanae, its interest lies
in its illustrating the full flowering of the tendency, already noted
by Villey in the baroque Scholastics, to substitute a concern with
arriving at the right answer for a concern with answering
rightly-with the content of the right answer having been
provided by the goals, interests, and presuppositions of the
time. 101
The above survey of objective and subjective rights puts us in
a position to consider Villey's case for the abandonment of
subjective rights, and for the acceptance of objective right. The
historical element of this survey provides an answer to the
objection that Villey's position is a form of archaism. Villey's idea
is that by accepting objective right and rejecting subjective rights
we should accept the views of the thirteenth century rather than
the views of the fourteenth century. At this distance of time, there
is no longer much to choose between these alternatives when it
100 Ibid., 589.

Archivesde philosophiedu droit 19 (1974):
444, Villey comments on the negative influence of baroque Scholasticism on Maritain, and
notes that "following the example of most contemporary philosophers and theologians, he
was distinguished by an almost total absence of knowledge of economics and law."
101 In "Sur la politique de Jacques Maritain,"

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comes to archaism. In the fifteenth century it would have been
different; but in the twenty-first, we can be content to examine
these alternatives on their merits, without having to worry about
which is more contemporary.
Villey's case against subjective rights is that they are nonexistent, and that the belief that they exist is damaging. His
argument for their nonexistence overlaps with that expressed by
Alasdair Macintyre;
By 'rights' ... I mean those rights which are alleged to belong to human beings
as such and which are cited as a reason for holding that people ought not to be
interfered with in their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. They are the rights
which were spoken of in the eighteenth century as natural rights or as the rights
of man .... There are no such rights, and belief in them is one with belief in
witches or unicorns. The best reason for asserting so bluntly that there are no
such rights is indeed of precisely the same type as the best reason which we
possess for asserting that there are no witches ... every attempt to give good
reasons for believing that there are such rights has failed. 102

The history of the development of subjective rights that is given
by Villey substantiates Maclntyre's claim that no good reason for
believing in their existence has been offered. To this can be added
reasons for believing in their nonexistence: the contradictions between different accounts of subjective rights, the illogical features
of every proposed account of subjective rights, the mythological
character of the state of nature that is essential for the historically
foundational theories of subjective rights, and the fact that such
rights were unknown to very many cultures, despite their
supposedly flowing from the essence of human nature and being
the basis for just social relations.
The evils caused by belief in subjective rights are multifarious.
Their postulation as the basis of justice and law renders invisible
the actual justice of objective right. Attempts to make the law
conform to the structure of subjective rights have a damaging
effect, and the nonexistence of such rights permits accounts of
them to be turned to all kinds of dubious ends. Their claims to be
102 Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue, 2d ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985), 68-69. I do not
know whether or to what extent Macintyre was influenced by Villey.

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231

complete and universal rules of justice rule out consideration of
the particular circumstances of culture and history that are in fact
essential to the determination of justice in the particular case. As
a result, they are powerful tools for cultural and political
imperialism. We have seen how theories of subjective right were
used to protect the interests of the rich and defend the injustices
of early capitalism. In the hands of Hobbes, such a theory was
used to justify absolutism; if the power of the ruler is conceived
of as a subjective right, it admits of no limitations, since the
essence of such a right is to confer an entirely free sphere of
action. (This advocacy of complete surrender of subjective rights
to the ruler both arose from and fostered the development of
absolutism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.) In the area
of familial relations and family law, the model of subjective rights
had deleterious consequences that were similar to its
consequences in politics. Forms of authority within the family
were conceived of as analogous to subjective property rights over
things, imposing a tyranny that produced a reaction against the
notion of the family as a natural unit. The proposed remedy for
that tyranny, which was to consider relations within the family as
contractual agreements between autonomous individuals-on the
model of the social contract by which subjective rights are given
up to political authorities-meant denying that there is such a
thing as the family at all. 103 Subjective rights eliminated the
Aristotelian connection between good human societies and the
good of the universe as a whole, removing any grounds for
obligations towards nonhuman animals or the rest of creation in
general. On St. Thomas's view, the claim that there is no justice
between humans and animals does not remove any sort of
obligations towards animals. After all, there is no justice between
citizens of different states, on his theory, but that does not
eliminate all moral obligations towards noncitizens. If justice is
understood in terms of subjective rights, however, the denial of
any justice between humans and animals leaves animals with no
103 On subjective rights and the family see Michel Villey, "Droit familial et philosophies
du droit nature!," Revista chilena de derecho 7 (1980): 621-32.

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moral standing. Indulging in the rhetoric of subjective rights
produces a delusory self-righteousness, because it makes people
feel that they are doing something about the crying injustices in
the world, without demanding actual sacrifices from them.
Promises of subjective rights-such as awarding rights to
education or employment in bills of rights-are used as an opiate,
as empty promises that are a substitute for actually benefitting
people. 104 The claim version of subjective rights can give grounds
for demanding the satisfaction of any kind of selfish interest.
Subjective rights are, in short, a solvent for all the essential bonds
of human society.
The case against subjective rights as set out above is conclusive,
and we can therefore endorse Villey's claim that they should be
rejected. His presentation of objective right as the alternative to
accept in their place will meet philosophical opposition from
consequentialists, whose position is the only substantial alternative
to both objective and subjective rights. The philosophical case
against consequentialism is familiar, and cannot be rehearsed here.
From our discussion of objective and subjective rights we can
however extract objections to consequentialism that supplement
this philosophical case. One relevant consideration is that much
of the appeal of consequentialism stems from the disadvantages of
subjective rights together with the oblivion into which objective
right has fallen. This oblivion has meant that consequentialism has
appeared as the only alternative to subjective rights and their
disadvantages. Rediscovery of objective right and its long tradition
thus takes much of the wind out of the sails of consequentialism.
Another consideration is the stubborn persistence, noted by
Villey, of objective right in juridical and moral practice-a
persistence that is difficult to explain except by the actual
existence of objective right. These considerations tip the balance
in favor of objective right-and together with the endorsement of
objective right by St. Thomas, they imply that from a Catholic
standpoint objective right should certainly be accepted.

104

See Villey, Le droit et /es droits de l'homme, 156-57.

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H) Human Rights and Catholic Teaching
This last remark about the Catholic standpoint will raise a
question. Has not the Church, at least since Mater et magistra,
explicitly endorsed and insisted on respect for human rights? And
was not this endorsement of human rights meant to be an
endorsement of the Enlightenment conception of natural rights,
which-as we have seen-were subjective rights? Is not Villey's
position thus incompatible with Catholic teaching?
Villey certainly knew about and disapproved of the Church's
misleading endorsement of the notion of human rights (he
ironically dedicated his last main attack on subjective rights, Le
droit et les droits de l'homme, to John Paul II, as being reflections
provoked by the pontiff's teaching on the rights of man). He did
not trouble to defend himself against the accusation of dissent, no
doubt because he realized that the inference from the Church's
defending human rights to her defending subjective rights could
only be warranted if Church teachings explicitly identified human
rights with subjective rights-which they do not. He also knew
that defending the position of St. Thomas, as he did, is permissible
for any Catholic thinker, unless the view defended has been
explicitly condemned by the Church.
A Catholic cannot however simply refuse to accept that Church
teaching on human rights imposes an obligation to believe in
subjective rights, but give no account of what this teaching does
oblige us to believe. Some positive account of this teaching must
be given in a Catholic account of human rights. The resources for
such a positive account can be found in St. Thomas. One resource
is his claim, underlined by Villey, that the Decalogue sets limits on
what laws can be just (STh II-II, q. 57, a. 2, ad 2). We can
translate this simply into rights language by saying that a law that
allows some people to treat others in a way that is contrary to the
natural law, or that requires people to act in a way that is contrary
to the natural law, is a violation of their natural rights. The
commandment of the Decalogue that asserts "thou shalt not kill"
is precisely the grounds upon which John Paul II, invoking his

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apostolic authority, teaches a right to life that forbids the
deliberate killing of the innocent (Evangelium vitae 57). Absolute
moral norms thus provide a basis for exceptionless natural rights.
Another resource is the assertion by St. Thomas that there are
rules of natural equity that bind as a general rule, but that are
subject to exceptions. The example he gives is returning a deposit
to a depositor, something that is required by natural equity but
that ought not to be done if the deposit is a sword that the
depositor will use to commit murder. Such rules of natural equity
form the basis for rights that are natural, although not exceptionless. A further resource is what might be called "Maritainian"
rights-that is, statements of goods that a society ought to pursue,
such as health and education. Much of the Church's teaching that
is couched in terms of human rights is simply enunciations of
general rules of equity and desirable goods to be pursued, applied
to particular situations where these rules and goods are being
neglected. These three categories of rights together cover the area
of Catholic teachings in human rights. Villey is right to say that
the terminology of human rights is a misleading way of framing
these teachings, but that does not mean that the teachings
themselves are not important and true. Villey indeed acknowledges this. He does not criticize the substance of Church
teachings on rights and justice. He only objects to their expression
in the language of human rights, and to the theological accounts
that have been built upon these teachings-accounts that wrongly
attempt to derive a blueprint for a just society from them, in the
fashion of the blueprint for a just society found in modern
natural-law theories. 105
105 See Villey's discussion in 'Une enquete sur la nature des doctrines sociales chretiennes',
Archives de philosophie du droit 9 (1964). Villey's objection is confirmed by an examination
of the thought of Luigi Taparelli d'Azeglio, the 19th century Jesuit and co-founder of Civilta
Cattolica who coined the term 'social justice'. Taparelli taught the future Leo XIII and was
a principal influence on Rerum Novarum, and was quoted by Pius XI in Divini illius magistri
50, which described his Saggio Teoretico di Diretto Naturale as 'a work never sufficiently
praised and recommended to university students'. His thought was largely a version of
baroque scholastic natural law theory, with eclectic borrowings from Locke and other nonCatholic thinkers. John C. Rao's enthusiasm for Taparelli as having provided an alternative
to Enlightenment thought is thus misplaced. The failure of Catholic social thought to be

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235

We can conclude this discussion of objective and subjective
rights by briefly indicating the light it casts on the flaws of the
conflicting positions in the debate over Dignitatis humanae at the
Second Vatican Council. The progressives believed that religious
liberty was a natural subjective right flowing from the nature of
the individual human. The conservatives believed that it could not
be a right of any kind, because it would be a right to do what was
morally wrong, namely, to practice a false religion. They believed
such a right to be impossible, because they accepted the identity
of justice and morality, an identity that rules out not only a
natural subjective right to the practice of religion, but any kind of
just claim-any objective right-to any form of practice of any
false religion.
Ill. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION SYSTEM AND THE
ENLIGHTENMENT RELIGION

The above discussion of moralities of conscience and subjective
rights has been an exercise in ressourcement, arguing that
nominalists and their baroque Scholastic heirs adopted gravely
mistaken views, and that these views should be rejected in favor
of the superior positions of St. Thomas. In an earlier article I
pointed out the flaws in the baroque Scholastic conceptions of
faith and theology. 106 These two arguments yield more than
philosophical and theological conclusions. In describing the
baroque Scholastic views that have been argued against, the main
outlines of a system have been delineated: a system that can be
called the Counter-Reformation system. The intellectual foundations of this system are liberty of indifference, moralities of
conscience, faith conceived of as obedience, and authority
understood as the exercise of subjective rights. The system itself
is the embodiment of these foundations in the intellectual,
spiritual, psychological, and institutional life of Catholics and the
Church. This embodiment involved holiness conceived of as the
widely accepted and practiced - a failure Rao finds mysterious - is in fact due to a large extent
to the weaknesses that result from its being framed in modern natural law terms.
106 See also Lamont, "Determining the Authority and Level of Church Teaching."

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prerogative of clergy and religious; clerical, and ultimately papal,
authority conceived of in parental or even despotic terms, rather
than as analogous to a form of political leadership over citizens;
and faith conceived of, and inculcated, primarily as obedience to
orders rather than as attainment of truth. It is termed the
Counter-Reformation system, because it was during the CounterReformation that it came to shape the life of the Church and
decisively influence her strategies for dealing with the world. It
does not correspond to the Counter-Reformation itself, which had
many features that were independent of and even at odds with it.
The Counter-Reformation system was however a chief aspect of
the Counter-Reformation, that persisted after the energy and
achievements of the Counter-Reformation itself were largely
exhausted. It was the source of the evils in the Church that have
been discussed in this article and the previous one: clericalism,
authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism, aversion to philosophical
thinking, and spiritual immaturity and lack of ambition on the
part of the laity.
Understanding the Counter-Reformation system is one of two
tasks that are required to answer the question asked above, the
question of why the Church has been steadily in retreat since the
Enlightenment. The other task can be carried out by developing
some insights of Villey's. The above defence of Villey's views on
objective and subjective rights is concerned with the work of his
academic career. This work, the life work of a great scholar, 107
emerges vindicated from its defence, but it is not the only
important contribution made by Villey to the question of
subjective rights. In addition to this work, there is also an insight
that Villey the Christian and Catholic drew from it. This is the
insight that natural subjective rights are an idol; and that they are
connected to another idolatry, that of the self. 108

107 On Villey's learning, see Stephane Rials, 'Presentation', in Villey, La formation de la
pensee juridique moderne, 13-16.
108 For Villey on the rights of man as idols, see e.g. Villey, Reflexions sur la philosophie et
le droit, 243, 257; on the self as an idol, see ibid., 159. Villey's view on idols is discussed in
Stephane Rials, Villey et /es idoles: Essai (Paris: PUF/Quadrige, 2000).

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237

This development of these insights of Villey's points out that
conscience (as understood by moralities of conscience), liberty of
indifference, and subjective rights assign to human beings
properties that belong to God alone, which is idolatry. Moralities
of conscience ascribe a real, and in practice a decisive, moral
authority to conscience as such. But moral authority belongs to
God alone. Attributing it even partially to the human conscience
is thus a form of idolatry. The same is true of liberty of
indifference. To possess liberty of indifference is to possess the
power to determine one's actions in a way that results solely from
one's own will-from one's own self. In reality this power belongs
only to God, whose actions are determined by his own goodness.
In addition, according to the notion of liberty of indifference the
fact of any action occurring at all, independently of what choice
that action involves, is at least to some extent caused only by the
agent. This means that the agent (as Robert George has
approvingly(!) noted) 109 is to that extent an uncaused cause. But
to be an uncaused cause to any extent at all is an attribute that
belongs only to the divine nature. Subjective rights add to the
notion of being an uncaused cause an entitlement to do whatever
one wants, simply because one chooses it. This extends the
idolatrous aspect of liberty of indifference. It means that one not
only can act as God does, but one can rightly act only for the sake
of one's self.
Put together, these three anthropological notions constitute in
a strict philosophical and theological sense a deification of the
self. They are the unholy trinity of what can be called the
Enlightenment religion. This religion, whose fundamental tenet
is this conception of the deified self, has provided the ultimate
motivation and the strength of the Enlightenment, and has
explained its success in converting people. This success does not
109 Robert George remarks that "whether or not one recognizes Biblical authority or
believes in a personal God, it is true that human beings possess a power traditionally ascribed
to divinity-namely, the power to be an uncaused causing" ("Natural Law and Human Rights:
A Conversation with Robert P. George," in Does Human Rights Need God? [sic], ed. Elizabeth
M. Bucar and Barbra Barnett [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005], 138). Unsurprisingly, this
statement occurs in the course of a defense of subjective rights.

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rest upon the utopian promises of progress that the various
Enlightenment movements have made-which is why the failure
of these promises, and the appalling miseries that attempts to
implement them have brought, have scarcely disillusioned people
with the Enlightenment in the least. Instead, its success rests on
the fact that the Enlightenment offers a religious goal, in the form
of an ultimate authority and good to be sought; that making the
self that goal has a powerful appeal to human nature in its fallen
state; and that the depth of sin involved in choosing this goal
produces an extreme form of bondage and spiritual blindness,
which is very hard to break.
This goal has presented itself in different guises-as communism, Nazism, or consumerism-but the fundamental concept
and its appeal remains the same. It is the driving force behind the
vulgar and base consumerism and sexual depravity that characterizes modern society. Previous non-Christian societies would
have found these practices shameful and embarrassing. This
natural human reaction is overridden, and even made use of, by
the Enlightenment religion. This religion gives these forms of
decadence a deeper meaning, the meaning of adoration of the
deified self. The natural guilt and shame they provoke are
transmuted into a proclamation of this self, which by rejecting the
moral law is declaring its total supremacy. The deep and sincere
belief in the human right to have an abortion gets its strength
from being the ultimate expression of the Enlightenment religion.
Its supporters understand that abortion is the murder of an
innocent child, although they may not publicly proclaim this fact
or even consciously admit it to themselves. It is precisely its status
as murder of the most innocent that makes abortion the triumph
of the deified self as ultimate end. (One may speculate that the
emergence of the Enlightenment religion was the end stage of a
pattern of decline that civilizations tend to follow; being focused
first on God in the Christian epoch, then on the created world in
the Renaissance, and finally on the self in the Enlightenmentwith some overlap between the stages, obviously.)

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239

This understanding of the Enlightenment religion explains the
steady defeat that the Church has experienced at its hands. The
anti-intellectualism of the counter-Reformation system left the
Church unable to deal with the intellectual attacks of the Enlightenment, and the spiritual weakness fostered by this system
made Catholics vulnerable to the spiritual temptations the Enlightenment offered. But the most important reason for this defeat
was that the unholy trinity of the Enlightenment religion was
taken from Catholic theologians, and the Counter-Reformation
system not only did not condemn, but actually taught, this trinity.
This fact was completely overlooked by Catholics, who usually
saw Protestantism as the original source of Enlightenment
thought-failing to realize that the Reformation was instead one
of the results of the ideas behind the Enlightenment religion, ideas
which had already been developed by nominalists. It is true that
at the same time the Church was teaching the Catholic faith that
contradicted the Enlightenment religion, and that the teaching of
the elements of the Enlightenment religion was done by
theologians rather than officially by the Church, but the theological teaching was so pervasive that its nonofficial character did
not undo its effects. Thus, in addition to the spiritual and
intellectual weakening caused by the drawbacks of the CounterReformation system that have been emphasized above, the system,
to the extent that it was inculcating belief in liberty of
indifference, the authority of conscience, and subjective rights,
was helping to train devotees of the Enlightenment. The
philosophical elements of the Counter-Reformation system, and
the accumulated victories of the Enlightenment over the Church,
were in turn key influences on the debates over religious liberty
within the Church. The content and outcome of these debates
cannot be understood without grasping the nature of these
influences, whose effects were not limited to the progressive side
in these debates. 110

110 I am grateful to Rachael Briggs, Fr. Gerald Gleeson, Geraldine Pace, and an anonymous
review for The Thomist for helpful comments on this paper.

The Thomist 73 (2009): 241-77

GOD, THE UNIVERSITY, AND THE MISSING LINKWISDOM: REFLECTIONS ON TWO UNTIMELY BOOKS
REINHARD HUTIER
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
Without the Creator the creature would disappear .... But when God is
forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible. 1

POPE BENEDICT XVI, in his famous lecture at the University of
Regensburg on 12 September 2006, "Faith, Reason, and the
University: Memories and Reflections," makes this programmatic
statement about reason and the modern university:
The scientific ethos, moreover, is ... the will to be obedient to the truth, and,
as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the
Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative
criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we
rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising
from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them.
We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way,
if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically
falsifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology
rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of
sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but
precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith. 2

1 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, no. 36, as
cited in Pope John Paul H's encyclical letter Evangelium vitae, no. 22.
2 Available on the Vatican web site (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/
spe eches/2 0 06/ s ep tern be r I documents/hf_ ben-xvi _ spe _ 2 0 0 6 0 912 _universityregensburg_ en.html).

241

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Quite obviously, and not unlike his predecessor Pope John Paul
II,3 Pope Benedict has a keen interest in the modern university. In
an equally important speech composed for the university "La
Sapienza"-once the pope's own university in Rome, today a
secular Roman university-a speech that was, however, never to
be delivered, because the invitation to the Holy Father was
withdrawn at the last moment, the pope points even more
explicitly to a danger facing reason and consequently also the
university in the Western world:
The danger for the Western world-to speak only of this-is that today,
precisely because of the greatness of his knowledge and power, man will fail to
face up to the question of the truth. This would mean at the same time that
reason would ultimately bow to the pressure of interests and the attraction of
utility, constrained to recognize this as the ultimate criterion. To put it from the
point of view of the structure of the university: there is a danger that philosophy,
no longer considering itself capable of its true task, will degenerate into
positivism; and that theology, with its message addressed to reason, will be
limited to the private sphere of a more or less numerous group. Yet if reason, out
of concern for its alleged purity, becomes deaf to the great message that comes
to it from Christian faith and wisdom, then it withers like a tree whose roots can
no longer reach the waters that give it life. It loses the courage for truth and thus
becomes not greater but smaller. 4

In his Regensburg lecture, Pope Benedict makes a case for
theology belonging to the very heart of what a university is about;
in his lecture for "La Sapenzia" he makes a similar case for
philosophy. Only if theology and philosophy occupy an indispensable central role in the structure of the university will the
3 See The Whole Truth about Man: John Paul II to University Faculties and Students, ed.
James V. Schall, S.J. (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1981).
4 Available on the Vatican web site: (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/
speeches/2008/january/documents/hf _ben-xvi_spe _20080117 _la-sapienza_en.html). Itis not
just popes who come to rather drastic judgments of this kind. The president of Viadrina
European University in Frankfurt (Oder), Prof. Dr. Gesine Schwan, a political scientist and
highly respected public figure of German cultural and political life (she has been twice
candidate for the office of president of the German Federal Republic) anticipated many of
Pope Benedict XVI's concerns and formulated even more stringent criticisms of late modern
science: "Das zerstorte Tahu. Ohne ein religioses Fundament und ohne die Sehnsucht nach
Wahrheit verrat die Wissenschaft ihre eigenen Ideale und verkommt zum Erfiillungsgehilfen
der Wissenschaft," Siiddeutsche Zeitung, 4 January 2003.

GOD, THE UNIVERSITY, AND WISDOM

243

university as an institution maintain the courage for truth, realize
reason's inherent orientation toward transcendence, and thus be
able to resist "the pressures of interest and the attraction of
utility," in short, the familiar instrumentalization of the modern
university for tangible ends in the material order. The modern
research university prepares for its own disintegration by
embracing a reductive notion of truth, by degrading philosophy
from its original status as integrative metascience (viz.,
metaphysics) to the status of one academic discipline among
many-and more marginal than most-and by, at best, preserving
theology in the semi-exiled reservation of a professional school of
Christian ministry, a divinity school, or, at worst, simply banning
it from its walls.
Pope Benedict XVI's assessment of the modern research
university is echoed by one of the most highly respected and
widely read philosophers presently teaching in the United States:
To whom ... in such a university falls the task of integrating the various
disciplines, of considering the bearing of each on the others, and of asking how
each contributes to the overall understanding of the nature and order of things?
The answer is "No one," but even this answer is misleading. For there is no sense
in the contemporary American university that there is such a task, that something
that matters is being left undone. And so the very notion of the nature and order
of things, of a single universe, different aspects of which are objects of enquiry
for the various disciplines, but in such a way that each aspect needs to be related
to every other, this notion no longer informs the enterprise of the contemporary
American university. It has become an irrelevant concept. It makes little
difference in this respect whether a university is professedly secular or
professedly Catholic. 5

This statement is taken from the first of two books to be discussed
in this essay, Alasdair Maclntyre's God, Philosophy, Universities.
Macintyre is one of two Catholic philosophers who have recently
undertaken a most central but also most unfashionable task,
namely, to rethink the unity of all academic disciplines by way of
the integrative role of philosophy. Macintyre pursues this task by
unfolding a selective narrative account of the complex history of
5 Alasdair Macintyre, God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic
Philosophical Tradition (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 16.

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REINHARD HUTTER

Catholic philosophy in relationship to the emergence of the
university. Benedict Ashley, 0.P., in The Way toward Wisdom: An
Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics, 6
pursues this task in dialogue with the sciences, especially the
natural sciences, by way of an Aristotelian Thomist reconstruction
of metaphysics as meta-science.
Macintyre and Ashley share the concern for the integrative role
of philosophy in the university: the first argues for it by way of a
narrative account, the latter by displaying concretely how this
integrative role of philosophy as meta-science actually works.
Moreover, Macintyre and Ashley share a fundamental normative
presupposition, namely, that the enterprise of the university
should be essentially informed by "the very notion of the nature
and order of things, of a single universe, different aspects of
which are objects of enquiry for the various disciplines, but in
such a way that each aspect needs to be related to every other. " 7
The pursuit of such a substantive interdiscipinarity, such a
"connected view or grasp of things," as John Henry Newman puts
it in The Idea of a University, 8 is nothing but the pursuit of
wisdom, and such a pursuit entails an ever-widening horizon of
reason, indeed, the inherent openness of reason to transcendence.
It is by way of teaching such a "connected view or grasp of
things"-or "teaching universal knowledge" 9-that the whole of
reality in its essential interconnectedness is attended to. For it is
first and foremost the coherence of the curriculum of a particular
science and the interrelationship between the university curricula
that reflects best the "nature and order of things." This is the
reason why for Macintyre, as well as for Ashley, the extension of
knowledge by way of teaching (as integral to education in a
comprehensive sense) is the first and foremost task of the
6 Bendiet M. Ashley, O.P., The Way toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural
Introduction to Metaphysics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).
7 Macintyre, God, Philosophy, Universities, 16; cf. Ashley, The Way toward Wisdom, 20.
8 John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea of a University (The New Edition of the Works
of John Henry Newman), ed. Charles Frederick Harrold (New York: Longmans, Green and
Co., 1947), xxv.
9 Ibid., xxvii.

GOD, THE UNIVERSITY, AND WISDOM

245

university. By attending primarily to this task, the university
realizes and maintains best the unity and coherence between all
academic disciplines.
The advancement of knowledge by way of research is, by
contrast, not absolutely essential to the normative understanding
of the university defended by Macintyre and Ashley. Highly
advanced research can just as well be undertaken by globally
networked academies, think tanks, and laboratories sponsored by
corporations and governments. Such research institutes and
laboratories are not essentially directed toward the extension of
knowledge by way of teaching and hence are also not in any need
whatsoever of students. Consequently, a university that focuses
primarily on research and only secondarily upon teaching-in
short, the modern research university-will eventually become a
victim of the systemic forces unleashed by making research, and
hence knowledge production, its dominant purpose and end. 10
Both Macintyre and Ashley hold that an increasing transmutation
of universities into such conglomerates of advanced and evermore-specialized knowledge production will necessarily increase
those centrifugal, purely research-oriented forces that will lead to
10 In the following I understand modern research universities to be institutions geared
primarily to producing knowledge by way of highly specialized research {primarily in the
natural and medical sciences) that is meant to serve interests that almost exclusively arise from
the practical and technical demands of the modern world. Newman rightly anticipated what
eventually would become the modern research university by way of Francis Bacon's method:
"I cannot deny he has abundantly achieved what he proposed. His is simply a Method
whereby bodily discomforts and temporal wants are to be most effectually removed from the
greatest number; and already, before it has shown any signs of exhaustion, the gifts of nature,
in their most artificial shapes and luxurious profusion and diversity, from all quarters of the
earth, are, it is undeniable, by its means brought even to our doors, and we rejoice in them"
(ibid., 106). Immanuel Kant's intensely ironic and passive-aggressive opuscule, Der Streit der
Fakultaten, anticipates the present de facto hierarchy of university sciences in late
modernity-a secular modernity that has now lost its optimistic elan and instead has become
tired and cynical. In the agonistic world of irresistibly corruptible, interminably quarreling,
and tirelessly consuming bodies, hence a world in which the greatest dangers are disease,
litigation, and the inability to consume, the hierarchy of university sciences stands in service
of the avoidance of these evils: at the top is the medical school supported by all the auxiliary
bio-sciences, followed by the law school and the business school supported by their respective
auxiliary sciences-first and foremost computer science and mathematics, but also any useful
remnants of the liberal arts. However, since it has been discovered that religious practices
might contribute to health and longevity, the gods are making a comeback-of sorts!

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REINHARD HUTTER

the all-too-familiar fragmentation of the university as a whole and
of the field-specific curricula in particular. Consequently, for both
authors the very nature and vitality of the university depend on
the role philosophy as a meta-science plays in ensuring a
"connected view or grasp of things." For a university cannot be "a
place of teaching universal knowledge" 11 and hence of pursuing
wisdom if it lacks interdisciplinary integrity and fails to reflect
reason's openness to transcendence.
There is, however, a subtle difference between Macintyre and
Ashley in that the latter, possibly because of his extensive dialogue
with the natural sciences, is more open than Macintyre seems to
be to regarding the university also as a legitimate place for the
advancement of knowledge by way of research. While profoundly
dedicated to a program of education in a Thomistic sense, 12
Ashley appears also to allow space in the university for a modern
extension of Aristotle's comprehensive program of research.
Possibly because of the central role Newman's understanding of
the university plays for him, Macintyre has a deeper and more
exclusive commitment to the university as a place of the extension
of knowledge by way of teaching. I shall revisit this notaltogether-unimportant difference later, but at this point I shall
turn to the ways Macintyre and Ashley make their respective
cases.
I. GOD, PHILOSOPHY, UNNERSITIES 13

God, Philosophy, Universities grew out of an undergraduate
course of the same title that Macintyre taught for many years at
the University of Notre Dame. The book is remarkable in at least
three respects. First, it is-as far as I can see-the only book in
which Macintyre, by way of explicit philosophical discourse,
Newman, The Idea of a University, xxvii.
See Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., The Arts of Learning and Communication: A Handbook
of the Liberal Arts (Chicago: Priory Press, 1957); Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., and Pierre
Conway, O.P ., The Liberal Arts in St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D. C.: The Tho mist Press,
1959).
u Parenthetical page numbers in this section refer to this book.
11

12

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247

attends to God. Second, it is the book in which Macintyre offers
his, so far, most ambitious and comprehensive philosophical
narrative about philosophy. Stretching across a spectrum of oneand-a-half millennia on 180 compact and elegantly written pages,
from Augustine to the late Pope John Paul H's encyclical Fides et
ratio, the narrative pursues an intricate pattern made of three
distinct but tightly interwoven strands: the philosophical
contemplation of God, the tradition of Catholic philosophy, and
the development of universities. Third, among Maclntyre's rich
corpus, and especially in comparison with After Virtue and Three
Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, this book is his most disquieting,
if not despairing, pace the invocation of hope in the book's very
last line. The book's profoundly disquieting character does not
pertain to the theistic discourse about God (though some
theologians might wish for an explicit Trinitarian identification of
and discourse about God). Nor does it pertain to the tradition of
Catholic philosophy per se (though Macintyre prescribes to its
contemporary practitioners a disquietingly ambitious and
comprehensive agenda). Rather, God, Philosophy, Universities is
most disquieting in its evident disdain for the present modern
research university. More than twenty-five years ago, in one of
those rare but important conversations that go to the very core of
things, a German university professor of theology, who eventually
became my Doktorvater, made the following remark to me: "It is
only the students who still believe in the university as a corporate
reality with an overarching, coherent telos. The professors have
long ago ceased to do so." As a motivated student with not
untypically high ideals, I was markedly disturbed by what struck
me then as a rather alarming statement. Ten years into teaching
at a leading, Berlin-type, American research university, I now
know all too well what my Doktorvater then observed about his
and my Berlin-type, German research university. In Maclntyre's
words the observation sounds thus:
Research universities in the early twenty-first century are wonderfully successful
business corporations subsidized by tax exemptions and exhibiting all the
acquisitive ambitions of such corporations.

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REINHARD HOTTER

What disappears from view in such universities, and what significantly
differentiates them from many of their predecessors, is twofold: first, any large
sense of and concern for enquiry into the relationships between the disciplines
and, second, any conception of the disciplines as each contributing to a single
shared enterprise, one whose principal aim is neither to benefit the economy nor
to advance the careers of its students, but rather to achieve for teachers and
students alike a certain kind of shared understanding. Universities have become,
perhaps irremediably, fragmented and partitioned institutions, better renamed
"multiversities," as Clark Kerr suggested almost fifty years ago. (174)

Is Macintyre chasing the memories of a long bygone past or is
he musing over the contours of a utopia that never existed and
never will exist? Should he, having himself been a professor at
numerous distinguished modern research universities, better
acknowledge the unavoidable or, even better, praise and defend
the achievements of these "multiversities"? While it might arguably be inadvisable for persons sitting in a glass house to throw
stones, it is very advisable, if not mandatory, for professors
teaching in these kinds of institutions to raise overarching normative questions (of precisely the kind Macintyre does) in order to
critique the modern university. For who should raise such
questions with greater legitimacy (and even a necessity internal to
his or her very academic discipline) than a philosopher-or for
that matter, a theologian? 14 The question of the relationship
between all disciplines, and of the overall shared end of the
university, must be raised inside the university if there is to be
even the smallest indication of a genuine life of the intellect and
hence of the capacity for a critical self-examination and selfreflexivity left in such an institution.
Such questions, moreover, are asked best in a proper scientific
way, and this means in the context of a meta-science that deals
with the nature, the mutual relationships, and the overall ordering
of all academic disciplines, and hence with the nature and scope
of the university as such. Were such a meta-science to occupy a
14 For two recent instructive theological engagements of these matters, see Gavin D'Costa,
Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy, and Nation (Malden, Mass.; Blackwell,
2005); and Stanley Hauerwas, The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the
Knowledge of God (Malden, Mass., and Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).

GOD, THE UNIVERSITY, AND WISDOM

249

central role in a university it could indeed achieve the kind of
intrinsic coherence that not even the most advanced and
sophisticated extrinsic managerial strategies and administrative
tactics could ever hope to achieve. 15 What is so disquieting about
Maclntyre's book is that even a cursory consideration of its
narrative by any member of an average contemporary "multiversity" makes it plain how utterly removed these fundamental
concerns are from the day-to-day business of such institutions,
and hence in turn how utterly removed these activities are from
what pertains to the essence of a university properly conceived.
Might the application of the term "university" to such institutions
have become just a craftily camouflaged case of equivocation?
A summary of the book's narrative is both easy and difficult to
compose. Macintyre has written this book with an educated
Catholic lay audience in mind: persons of largely Catholic
convictions, broadly educated in a variety of current matters, but
not particularly informed by the Catholic philosophical tradition
and hence unequipped to situate and assess in a constructive and
meaningful way. By way of a broadly accessible, and hence
necessarily selective narrative, Macintyre intends to offer a map
that will allow educated Catholics to negotiate a better path
through the complexities and ambiguities of late modern thought
and life by evaluating the underlying philosophical theses and
claims and effectively distinguishing between the truth of some
philosophical theses and the falsity of others. As in his earlier
works, Macintyre is interested in reclaiming the central role of
philosophy for a wider, nonspecialized public. He thus conceives
philosophy as the systematic development of questions that plain
persons might raise, especially but not exclusively in light of their
broadly theistic or concretely Catholic beliefs. The narrative
Macintyre unfolds, with an exemplary erudition, is indeed largely
accessible to a nonspecialized readership. The prose is attractive
and transparent; the narrative flows with an admirable ease and
coherence, yet with subtle nuance.
15 Might the ludicrously inflated role of sports as a rallying, unifying, and motivating factor
on American college and university campuses be directly proportional to the loss of the proper
formal coherence of the modern research university?

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REINHARD HUTTER

According to Macintyre, broadly theistic and specifically
Catholic beliefs have historically given rise to three pre-eminent
philosophical questions: first, the question of the compatibility
between the existence of God and the scope of evil-natural,
social, and moral-in a universe of finite beings; second, the
question of the compatibility between divine transcendent causality and genuine secondary causality (i.e., between divine omnipotence and human freedom); and third, the question of true
knowledge of and hence meaningful discourse about God.
Catholic philosophy has had to consider these issues again and
again. And because the engagement of these profound and
difficult questions has occurred in socially, culturally, and
institutionally embodied forms, the university has to be part of the
narrative of Catholic philosophy.
Not altogether unpredictably, the narrative commences with
Augustine. The eminent imperial rhetor and later even more
eminent bishop of Hippo turns out to be also the first Catholic
philosopher-offering
consistent, frequent, and extensive
philosophical argumentation in defense of the Catholic faith. The
lucid treatment of Augustine's ontology forms part of a patristic
prologue that includes Boethius and the Pseudo-Dionysius and
that ends in Anselm of Canterbury, who is presented as the first
fully refined Catholic philosopher in the Augustinian tradition-a
monastic thinker, however, in an eleventh century Christian
French kingdom devoid of any university. Before the university,
or, at least, the studium generale enters the stage for Catholic
philosophy, another prologue has to be told: the pivotal role for
Catholic philosophy of Muslim philosophy, especially the first
encounter of Catholic philosophers with most of the Corpus
Aristotelicum by way of its Muslim commentators. The encounter
between the Augustinian tradition (having adopted and
successfully adapted large neo-Platonic strands of thought with
select Aristotelian moments by way of Boethius) and a massive
Corpus Aristotelicum (interpreted by highly sophisticated Muslim
philosophers) created the critical mass that gave rise to the genesis
of a Catholic philosophical tradition in the proper sense.

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251

Macintyre himself regards the convergence of three dynamic
events as the birth hour of Catholic philosophy in its full sense: a
large set of intellectually challenging new texts, a pool of
profound thinkers, and the emergence of new institutions of
higher learning-a studium generale at Paris, Oxford, Bologna,
and Naples. The hero of this part of Maclntyre's narrative is
Thomas Aquinas (his most crucial forerunner, Albert the Great,
and his role in founding the Dominican studium at Cologne-the
seed of its later university-is regrettably absent). For it is with
Aquinas that a separate, proper philosophical discourse is
assumed, not parallel with and indifferent to Catholic convictions,
but as a mode of inquiry informing these convictions while being
informed by them. The marked decline Macintyre observes in the
decades after Aquinas's death must not be understood, he stresses,
as a willful departure by these thinkers from the position of the
doctor communis, but rather as a proliferation of philosophical
difficulties and rival philosophical conceptualities that could no
longer be successfully resolved in one coherent and
comprehensive philosophical discourse. The result of this failure
was the formation of particular schools and traditions of Catholic
philosophical enquiry (Thomism, Scotism, Ockhamism, Augustinianism), schools that allegedly marked themselves off from each
other by way of increasingly arcane and protracted lines of
argumentation.
With the rise of and in light of the challenges of Renaissance
humanism, modern natural science, and early modern skepticism,
the Catholic philosophical tradition underwent a series of
transformations. The discovery and political subjugation of the
Americas presented profound intellectual challenges to key
representatives of the Catholic philosophical tradition in Spain in
the sixteenth century. However, this tradition was not able to
achieve a coherent and compelling position on these novel and
conceptually challenging, as well as politically pressing matters.
Rather, the formation of particular schools of thought with
complex speculative positions continued (Suarezianism forming
a new school). The fact that these highly developed positions were

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in what seemed to the sharpest minds of the time to be an
irresolvable and hence interminable conceptual conflict with each
other gave rise to a Catholic version of skepticism. Descartes,
Pascal, and Arnauld reacted to this in varying complex ways.
Thus, having reached the threshold of modernity, the narrative
continues to unfold according to the following basic pattern: after
an ever-increasing Baroque Scholastic self-isolation, Catholic
philosophy eventually distinguishes itself by its complete absence.
"Where philosophy flourished, Catholic faith was absent. Where
the Catholic faith was sustained, philosophy failed to flourish"
(133).
When does Catholic philosophy proper re-emerge in the
modern context? Parallel to the emergence of Catholic philosophy
in the patristic era with Augustine and its medieval flourishing
with Aquinas, Macintyre identifies a forerunner and a subsequent
hero in the modern era: the forerunner is Antonio RosminiSerbati, and the hero is John Henry Newman. Rosmini-Serbati,
having intellectually confronted Kant and German idealism, was
the first seriously to attempt to address modern philosophical
problems as a Catholic thinker; and only Newman, having
intellectually confronted British empiricism, was able to define the
tasks confronting Catholic philosophy in modernity. However,
Rosmini's engagement was not altogether successful, and even
Newman did not fully identify, let alone muster, the resources
necessary to address these daunting tasks. Only with Pope Leo
XIII's coordinated effort-encapsulated
in his famous 1879
encyclical letter Aeterni Patris and in the launching of the Leonine
edition of the works of Thomas Aquinas-does the situation
change. In one crucial regard, namely, the way Christian faith
actually enables true rational enquiry, Macintyre makes the link
between Newman and Aeterni Patris explicit:
Part of the gift of Christian faith is to enable us to identify accurately where the
line between faith and reason is to be drawn, something that cannot be done
from the standpoint of reason, but only from that of faith. Reason therefore
needs Christian faith, if it is to do its own work well. Reason without Christian

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253

faith is always reason informed by some other faith, characteristically an
unacknowledged faith, one that renders its adherents liable to error. (152f.)

Next to new ventures in personalism (Marcel et al.) and
phenomenology (Hildebrand, Scheler, Stein, Marion), and quite
a bit later in post-Wittgensteinian analytic philosophy (Anscombe,
Geach, Dummett), Macintyre identifies inside the ecclesiastically
encouraged and endorsed neo-Scholastic form of Catholic
philosophy various strands of neo-Thomism. The strand with the
most lasting success and impact is the one that led to an
increasingly sophisticated recovery of the full breadth and depth
of Aquinas's thought in its own medieval context. Macintyre also
discusses Transcendental Thomism and Aristotelian Thomism
briefly. He keeps at a distance, subtly but firmly, all strands of
Thomism that understand themselves as instantiations of a shared
philosophia perennis. This is not because he would disagree with
such an effort in principle, but rather because he seems to regard
the performance of modern Thomist metaphysics as not quite true
to the highest standards of the Catholic philosophical enterprise,
standards presumably set by Augustine and Aquinas. In other
words, he seems to be most rigorous in his expectations where the
performance comes close to, but still falls somewhat short of,
these highest standards.
Where is the journey of Catholic philosophy going? Macintyre
turns to the twentieth-century Catholic philosopher who became
pope in 1978. He understands Pope John Paul II, in his 1998
encyclical letter Fides et ratio, as doing nothing short of
reconceiving the Catholic philosophical tradition according to the
highest possible standards: "It is within the Catholic philosophical
enterprise, when it is true to its own highest standards, that
philosophy is carried on as it needs to be carried on" (165).
Macintyre reads Fides et ratio as a most urgent invitation to
Catholic philosophers to refocus on the deepest human concerns
and what it is to be human, and thereby to carry on philosophy as
it needs to be carried on. Such an account of what it is to be a
human being will explain why human beings are capable of
relevant self-knowledge. In other words, the integrative function

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of philosophy in the Catholic tradition will best be recovered by
way of a comprehensively anthropological focus. For
such an account will have to integrate what we can learn about the nature and
constitution of human beings from physicists, chemists, and biologists, historians,
economists, and sociologists, with the kind of understanding of human beings
that only theology can afford. (177)

According to Macintyre such an account would presuppose the
theology of Augustine and would otherwise be largely Thomist (in
questions of truth and of God as the first and final cause of all
reality), but would draw upon seminal non-Catholic thinkers such
as Kierkegaard, Husserl, and Wittgenstein, while making the best
of insights of key Catholic thinkers as different as Anselm, Scotus,
Suarez, Pascal, Stein, and Anscombe. Maclntyre's adumbration of
such an account culminates in the following programmatic
remarks:
If such an account were to accomplish its philosophical purposes, it would have
to confront and overcome more than one kind of difficulty. It would have to
enable Catholic philosophers to engage with the contentions of the whole range
of contemporary major philosophical positions incompatible with and
antagonistic to the Catholic faith, including the whole range of versions of
naturalism, reductive and nonreductive, the Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian
romantic rejections of the ontology presupposed by the Catholic faith,
pragmatist reconceptions and postmodern rejections of truth, and that so often
taken for granted thin desiccated Neokantianism that is so fashionable in
contemporary philosophy. (178)

I think he is exactly right. Needless to say, this program would
be greatly helped by a contemporary recovery of the Thomist
philosophical tradition according to Aquinas's own highest standards (as, arguably, adumbrated in Three Rival Versions of Moral
Enquiry), a program that would require the sustained cooperation
of numerous Catholic thinkers in various fields of enquiry across
a prolonged period of time. Moreover, such a program would
require a well-functioning Catholic university roughly along the
lines Newman conceived of in his Idea of a University, a university
in which philosophy occupies a central, integrative position,

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255

essentially open toward theology (natural theology as well as sacra
doctrina) on the one hand and, on the other hand, equally open
to the human and natural sciences. The reality of contemporary
Catholic universities, let alone secular universities, in America
(and Europe, I venture to claim) is, however, strikingly hostile to
such possibilities. For
what in fact we find is that the most prestigious Catholic universities often mimic
the structures and goals of the most prestigious secular universities and do so
with little sense of something having gone seriously amiss. To the extent that this
is so, the institutional prospects for the future history of the Catholic
philosophical tradition are not encouraging, quite apart from the daunting
character of its intellectual needs and ambitions. (179) 16
16 In his important article "The End of Education: The Fragmentation of the American
University," Macintyre speaks his mind with less constraint: "What should be the distinctive
calling of the American Catholic university or college here and now? It should be to challenge
its secular counterparts by recovering both for them and for itself a less fragmented
conception of what an education beyond high school should be, by identifying what has gone
badly wrong with even the best of secular universities. From a Catholic point of view the
contemporary secular university is not at fault because it is not Catholic. It is at fault insofar
as it is not a university. Yet the major Catholic universities seem unlikely to accept this calling,
if only because their administrative leaders are for the most part hell-bent on imitating their
prestigious secular counterparts, which already imitate one another. So we find Notre Dame
glancing nervously at Duke, only to catch Duke in the act of glancing nervously at Princeton.
What is it that makes this attitude so corrupting? What has gone wrong with the secular
university?" (Commonweal [20 October 2006], 10). I think Macintyre is exactly right.
However, some might want to ask themselves why he only cared to mention, among Catholic
universities, the University of Notre Dame. Are the others completely beyond repair? Or is
so much at stake with the University of Notre Dame, because, being the flagship of all
Catholic universities in America, it matters greatly for the outcome of the battle whether she
goes under or survives the internal and external attacks of what Ashley has identified as the
ideology of "Secular Humanism." One also might wonder to what degree Macintyre's
scathing analysis of the present situation of the American Catholic university represents an
indirect assessment of the undesirable but foreseeable consequences of the 1967 "Land O'
Lakes Statement" by which Catholic college leaders declared independence from the Catholic
Church. More than forty years after this statement was issued it might be the time to take
stock. A stimulant for such a re-assessment can be found in "Discourse IX: Duties of the
Church toward Knowledge" of Newman's The Idea of the University: "If the Catholic Faith
is true, a University cannot exist externally to the Catholic pale, for it cannot teach Universal
Knowledge if it does not teach Catholic theology. This is certain; but still, though it had ever
so many theological Chairs, that would not suffice to make it a Catholic University; for
theology would be included in its teaching only as a branch of knowledge, only as one out of
many constituent portions, however important a one, of what I have called Philosophy.
Hence a direct and active jurisdiction of the Church over it and in it is necessary lest it should

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Again the question of the university emerges forcefully. But before
I return to this topic, I shall address, first, the overall narrative;
second, strands one and two, God and Catholic philosophy, combined. Finally, I shall return to the third strand, the university.
A) Maclntyre's Narrative

In the preface to his book, Macintyre anticipates that the
selection underlying his narrative will be a likely point of
contention with many a reader of the book. And indeed, admirers
of late medieval philosophy in general and of the thought of
Scotus and Ockham in particular will be quick to observe that
Maclntyre's narrative depends too much on Gilson's classic, but
by now broadly challenged, account of the rise, progress, and
decline of medieval Catholic philosophy from Augustine to the
Renaissance. Admirers of Catholic thought in the early modern
period, especially the Thomist tradition, might be quick to
observe that the narrative in its modern period depends too much
on an ever so subtle self-congratulatory attitude underlying
virtually all of modern philosophy interpreting itself as a decisive
break with previous traditions of philosophizing, arriving at
insights to which Catholic philosophy has little or nothing to say
in response. Such admirers of Catholic thought in the modern
period would most likely want to question the following strong
claim: "Where philosophy flourished, Catholic faith was absent.
Where Catholic faith was sustained, philosophy failed to flourish"
(133). They would also most likely regret that Macintyre did not
explicitly consider the possibility that if indeed his judgment were
true it might simply be because modern post-Cartesian
philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau, Diderot, and Robespierre
regarded themselves as quasi-theologians intent on displacing
theology first and foremost as sacra doctrina and eventually also
as natural theology, integral to metaphysics (see 134). Wherever
Catholic faith and its theological and philosophical reflection was
become the rival of the Church with the community at large in those theological matters
which to the Church are exclusively committed-acting as the representative of the intellect,
as the Church is the representative of the religious principle" (190).

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257

sustained, there indeed was no need for nor interest in a philosophical discourse indifferent or inimical to the truth of revelation, and intent on setting up (a)theistic agendas, let alone in the
advancement of philosophical claims that were per se untenable
in the considered judgment of the best of Catholic philosophers.
Moreover, some might want to point to not a few noteworthy
instantiations of a Catholic engagement with and reception of
Enlightenment philosophy, as soon as Catholic intellectual life
had somewhat recovered from its persecution and repression in
the French Revolution and its Central European aftermath. One
thinks of the Dillinger circle, the Landshuter circle, and the
Tiibingen School. There are later names of intellectual
significance and influence as well, such as, in Germany, Franz von
Baader, Friedrich Schlegel, Joseph Gorres, Anton Gunther, Carl
Werner, Hermann Schell, and Franz Brentano, or, on the French
de
side, Louis de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre,
Chateaubriand, and Felicite-Robert de Lamennais, et al.
Finally, since the French Revolution has already been
mentioned, some might wonder why Macintyre did not pay more
attention to the oppressive and destructive effects of the French
Revolution on the state of Catholic philosophy and the
subsequent secularization and state confiscation of Church
property, the suppression of monasteries and Catholic institutions
of education, and the fundamental reconfiguration of what once
were Catholic universities. In short, they might wonder whether
Catholic philosophy was absent from a range of new intellectual
developments, possibly not because it had nothing to say in
response to them, but rather because the institutional basis for its
flourishing had been willfully destroyed by state violence. If one
consults the first of the three eight-hundred-page volumes of
Christliche Philosophie im katholischen Denken des 19. und 20.
]ahrhunderts, 17 a much more nuanced picture emerges, a picture
that indicates quite an intense and substantive engagement of
modern secular thought antedating Antonio Rosmini-Serbati's and
17 Christliche Philosophie im katholischen Denken des 19. und 20. fahrhunderts, ed.
Emerich Coreth, S.J., Walter M. Neid!, and Georg Pfligersdorfer (Graz: Styra, 1987-90).

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REINHARD HUITER

John Henry Newman's respective engagements-not to mention
Pope Leo XIII's 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris-by a generation,
if not more.
Others might wonder about the significance of Maclntyre's
complete silence about the impact of the reception of Vatican II
on the curriculum of Catholic philosophy, as well as, and even
more importantly, on the curriculum of Catholic theology in most
Catholic universities and seminaries. In light of Maclntyre's
narrative it is hard if not simply impossible to regard the impact
of this reception as anything other than an overzealous and
underreflected, wholesale dismissal of increasingly sophisticated
preconciliar efforts to recover Catholic philosophy, with a
devastating result on Catholic philosophical formation in colleges
and universities and a consequent weakening of the conceptual
backbone and intellectual strength of Catholic theology.
Still others might wonder what ever happened to that fourth
strand without which the narrative of Catholic philosophy in its
relevant social and institutional embeddedness cannot possibly be
told-the Church as visible institution and especially the
relationship between episcopal authority and universities in
Catholic countries. They might wonder whether indeed the
relationship between Catholic philosophy, the Catholic
universities, and the Catholic Church from the emergence of the
universities in the Middle Ages to the French Revolution and even
afterwards is purely extrinsic and contingent, so that the Church's
magisterial role might indeed be negligible for such a narrative.

B) God and Catholic Philosophy
I shall turn now to the first and second elements of
Maclntyre's narrative: God and Catholic philosophy. The most
important, albeit elusive strand of Maclntyre's narrative is clearly
his restrained but persistent philosophical reflection upon God.
From his brief and brilliant opening adumbration of a theistic
grammar of God to his concluding insistence that human beings
can only comprehend themselves in even an approximately

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259

adequate way if they understand themselves as fundamentally
directed towards God (an ever-so-careful allusion to the long and
hotly debated desiderium naturale visionis Dei), his focus is
evident. However, in Maclntyre's discourse, God-talk remains
very distinctly and precisely that of philosophers-theistic philosophers, that is, of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim varietyand never crosses over into the explicitly Christian discourse
governed by the Trinitarian grammar of Scripture and tradition.
Macintyre states explicitly that Catholic philosophers qua
Catholic are committed to the revealed truths of the Catholic
faith. That is, the God of theistic philosophical enquiry is none
other than the One who has revealed himself as the essentially and
eternally triune God of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The
revealed truths of the Catholic faith, however, are not the subject
matter of Catholic philosophy properly conceived, but are rather
the subject matter of sacra doctrina, the science of revealed truth.
Maclntyre's precision at this point is greatly to be welcomed.
It identifies him not only as an astute student of Thomas Aquinas
but indeed as a Thomist. Any imprecision about and subsequent
confusion between doctrina fidei Christianae (Summa contra
Gentiles) or sacra doctrina (Summa Theologiae) as the science of
divinely revealed truth, on the one hand, and philosophia humana
(Summa contra Gentiles), on the other, will be detrimental for
both disciplines. Macintyre seems to have a clearer sense than
many contemporary theologians about the importance of this
distinction, an importance not so much for the sake of philosophy, which as metaphysical enquiry has its proper completion
in a natural theology, an enquiry into the first cause, but rather
for the sake of sacra doctrina. The distinction is not simply
between two kinds of enquiry, but between two orders of
discourse. Sacra doctrina considers everything in light of an
essentially supernatural principle, that is, divine revelation. The
theistic discourse that Macintyre affords is not at all the discourse
of sacra doctrina proper, but rather a contemporary application
of an important distinction Aquinas introduces in the Summa
contra Gentiles (ScG II, cc. 3-4). What he observes about

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REINHARD HUTTER

Aquinas's distinction between theology (doctrina fidei Christianae)
and philosophy (philosophia humana) there holds true for the way
he himself maintains the distinction between these two orders of
discourse:
Philosophy begins from finite things as they are and from what belongs to them
by nature. It leads us from them through an enquiry into their proper causes to
knowledge of God. Theology by contrast begins from God and considers finite
beings only in their relationship to God. So, although there are matters of which
theology treats and philosophy does not and vice versa, they also have a common
subject matter. (74-75) 18

It is this common subject matter, God, as first cause of all finite
things, that opens the space for a theistic discourse proper to the
philosophical order.
One reason Aquinas and Newman occupy such an eminent role
in Maclntyre's account-not unlike the two foci of an ellipse-is
that both serve as strategic signposts for how Macintyre wants to
understand the proper distinction, as well as the relationship,
between nature and grace, reason and faith, and consequently
between (Catholic) philosophy and theology (sacra doctrina).
Most importantly, and most offensively for postmodern instincts,
neither Aquinas nor Newman evacuates nature and reason, and
hence philosophy has an essentially unproblematic access to
18 What Macintyre describes here in a possibly too epigrammatic manner must be spelled
out along the lines provided by Aquinas in ScG II, c. 3. Ralph Mclnerny offers a more detailed
and precise rendition of Aquinas's distinction, a distinction that applies to Maclntyre's, as well
as to Ashley's, modus operandi of a theistic discourse proper to the philosophical order: "1.
The theologian treats God for himself and all other things with reference to God; the
philosopher treats nature and man for themselves and of God only as their cause. Call this a
matter of the object, the material object of the two. 2. The theologian treats the properties of
things that refer them to God, the philosopher treats the properties of things in themselves
and as they are. Call this a difference of formal object, but of the formal object quod; still the
formal object quo, the ratio sub qua, the matter of principles, is also involved. Thus if the
theologian and the philosopher should study the same things, they do so in the light of
different principles; the philosopher, through their proper causes, the theologian with
recourse to the first cause. 3. In terms of method, the philosopher first studies nature and man,
and then through knowledge of them comes to knowledge of the first cause. But theology
begins with God, who is both its first object and its light, and then goes on to creatures that
emanate from God and are related to him" (Praeambula fidei: Thomism and the God of the
Philosophers [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006], 103).

GOD, THE UNIVERSITY, AND WISDOM

261

reality. Aquinas puts it in characteristically brief terms: "The
philosopher considers such things as belong to them by nature"
(ScG II, c. 4 ). 19 The nature of a thing is that by which its essential
operation is characterized. All those characteristics together as
they are accessible to human natural powers form "nature" in a
comprehensive sense, the sense to which Newman appeals in one
important passage in The Idea of a University:
By nature is meant, I suppose, that vast system of things, taken as a whole, of
which we are cognizant by means of our natural powers. By the supernatural
world is meant that still more marvellous and awful universe, of which the
Creator Himself is the fulness [sic], and which becomes known to us, not
through our natural faculties, but by superadded and direct communication from
Him. These two great circles of knowledge . . . intersect; first as far as
supernatural knowledge includes truths and facts of the natural world, and
secondly, as far as truths and facts of the natural world are on the other hand
data for inferences about the supernatural. Still, allowing this interference to the
full, it will be found, on the whole, that the two worlds and the two kinds of
knowledge respectively are separated off from each other; and that, therefore,
as being separate, they cannot on the whole contradict each other. 20

Maclntyre's tangible reticence to trespass onto a discourse of an
essentially supernatural order displays an awareness lost to many
post-Vatican II Catholic theologians in Catholic colleges and
universities in America, and to Catholic university faculties in
from magisterial
Europe for whom theology-emancipated
tutelage-has ceased to be understood as sacra doctrina. Theology
has become intelligible only as a form of practical "training" for
a specific profession. The individual disciplines entailed in this
"training" constitute "fields of enquiry" of essentially the same
order as all the other academic pursuits of the modern research
university. Catholic theology in this naturalized state has become
as unspectacular as irrelevant, indeed largely superfluous. The
19 "Philosophus ... considerat ilia quae eis secundum naturam propriam conveniunt
[please give translation" (translation in St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles. Book 2:
Creation, trans. with introduction and notes by James F. Anderson [Notre Dame, Ind.:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1975], 3).
20 Newman, The Idea of a University, 310 (from the lecture "Christianity and Physical
Science: A Lecture in the School of Medicine").

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REINHARD H0TIER

setting is one in which philologists, linguists, historians,
archaeologists, psychologists, and philosophers can do equally
superb if not better research on the same "material" of which this
kind of naturalized theology treats. This comes with the
predictable consequence that typically theologians in the modern
research university want to be nothing but excellent philologists,
linguists, historians, archaeologists, and philosophers. In such a
desolate situation, Maclntyre's discursive performance is a
remarkable witness to a proper awareness of these categorically
different orders of discourse.
C) Meta-science and the Nature and Task of the University

What connects the narrative's first strand with its second (viz.,
the tradition of Catholic philosophy) and eventually with its third
(viz., the nature and task of a university), is Aquinas's fundamental
operative assumption-following
Aristotle-that there is a
philosophical enquiry that integrates and orders all other scientific
enquiries: metaphysics in the broad sense of the term or, in
Benedict Ashley's apt terminology, "meta-science," the acme of
which meta-science is nothing but an enquiry into the first cause
of all being. Macintyre seems to be in agreement with Aquinas on
this fundamental operative assumption, and it is significant that
John Henry Newman in The Idea of a University entertains a
similar operative assumption-only that he does not do it along
Thomist lines and that he calls it more broadly "philosophy." 21
Aquinas and Newman constitute the normative points of
reference around which Maclntyre's narrative is ordered. Both
assume the inner coherence of each science and the overall
coherence between all sciences. This intra- and inter-disciplinary
coherence is for them constitutive of what makes a university a
21 "And further, the comprehension of the bearings of one science on another, and the use
of each to each, and the location and limitation and adjustment and due appreciation of them
all, one with the another, this belongs, I conceive, to a sort of science distinct from all of them,
and in some sense a science of sciences, which is my own conception of what is meant by
Philosophy, in the true sense of the word, and of a philosophical habit of mind, and which in
these Discourses I shall call by that name" (Newman, The Idea of a University, 46).

GOD, THE UNIVERSITY, AND WISDOM

263

university. To remove this double coherence is to lose the
university. Hence the disintegration of the curriculum and the
internal disintegration of academic fields go hand in hand.
The normative thrust of the argument underlying Maclntyre's
narrative entails an ambitious agenda for Catholic philosophy.
Arguably, Benedict Ashley's The Way toward Wisdom can be
received most fruitfully as an equally ambitious implementation
of Maclntyre's agenda avant la lettre.
II. THE WAY TOWARD WISDOM 22

There are at least three good reasons why Ashley's The Way
toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics, though published three years previously,
offers itself as a fit sequel to Maclntyre's God, Philosophy,
Universities.
First, the school of modern Thomism that conversed most
intensely with the modern natural sciences, that attended most
extensively to Aquinas's commentaries on Aristotle's works, and
that reflected more than any other strand of modern Thomism on
the proper ordering of all the sciences for a genuine liberal arts
education, finds no mention in Maclntyre's brief sketch of the
various strands of neo-Thomism that developed after Leo XIII's
encyclical Aeterni Patris. Next to the Canadian Charles de
Koninck, 23 the American Ralph Mclnerny, 24 and the Dutch Leo
Elders, 25 who all stand in a certain proximity to this strand, it is
the River Forest School of Aristotelian Thomism (William H.
Kane, O.P., James A. Weisheipl, O.P., William Wallace, O.P.,

22 Parenthetical page numbers in this section refer to this book.
23 See most recently the first two volumes of a projected three-volume edition, The
Writings of Charles de Koninck, trans. and ed. Ralph Mclnerny (Notre Dame, Ind.: University
of Notre Dame Press, 2008-2009).
24 See most recently his Praeambula fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006).
25 From among his many works, see most recently his essay "St. Thomas Aquinas on
Education and Instruction," Nova et vetera, English Edition 7 (2009): 107-24, which offers
instructive resonances with Ashley's The Way toward Wisdom.

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REINHARD HUTTER

Benedict Ashley, O.P., et al.) that has now found its late fruit in
Ashley's magnum opus.
Second, The Way toward Wisdom throws more penetrating and
consistent light onto the question of what Macintyre might mean
by "nature" in his selective history of the Catholic philosophical
tradition. The overlapping common ground between the
understandings of "nature" in Aquinas and Newman is none other
than Aristotle. And Ashley offers a most instructive argument for
the ongoing relevance of Aristotle's natural philosophy with more
comprehensive and far-reaching implications than even Macintyre
entertains in Dependent Rational Animals.
Third, The Way toward Wisdom offers a most comprehensive
and accurate account of how the sciences are to be ordered
according to Aquinas. This ordering is far from a matter of purely
antiquarian interest for specialists in medieval thought or only
relevant for a small band of disciples of Thomas Aquinas. Rather,
Ashley makes a compelling, 530-page case showing in detail how
Aquinas's ordering of the sciences is the result of a remarkably
successful meta-science in operation.
No one serious about meta-science and a vision that integrates
the natural sciences and the humanities into a universe of
knowledge ordered toward wisdom (universal knowledge in
Newman's terms) can afford to ignore Ashley's remarkable
achievement. Following Thomas, Ashley displays an encyclopedic
knowledge of the natural sciences as well as the humanities-not
in the extrinsic alphabetical ordering of an encyclopedia, but
ordered, engaged, and evaluated by a way of a meta-scientific
enqmry.
In his Commonweal article (cited above), Macintyre points out
a pervasive problem haunting most nonspecialized but
interdisciplinary conversation inside the modern research
university and even more so beyond its borders in the wider
public:
Ours is a culture in which there is the sharpest of contrasts between the rigor and
integrity with which issues of detail are discussed within each specialized
discipline and the self-indulgent shoddiness of so much of public debate on large

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265

and general issues of great import .... One reason for this contrast is the absence
of a large educated public, a public with shared standards of argument and
inquiry and some shared conception of the central questions that we need to
address. 26

Ashley's work does nothing less than outline the program of a
liberal arts education that would help to eliminate this problem
from its very roots up. That such a suggestion sounds all too
utopian in light of the present state of colleges and universities
only displays the lack of vision that plagues the imagination, the
lack of understanding of the depth of the crisis of university
education that plagues the intellect, and the lack of courage that
plagues the will. Ashley, who wrote his magnum opus as an
octogenarian, displays more intellectual vision, understanding,
breadth, and courage than many a younger and, by contemporary
academic standards, successful and recognized university
scholar. 27
Ashley intends this book "for the general reader as a sustained
critical argument to show why metaphysics is still a valid
intellectual endeavor, and what kind of metaphysics can justifiably
claim to be true and useful today" (xix). Like Macintyre, he is also
profoundly concerned with "the fragmentation of knowledge that
prevails in our modern colleges and universities" (xx} and hence
intends this extensive introduction into metaphysics as metascience primarily for the undergraduate student reader who is in
need of a uniform fund of information. What Newman in The
Idea of a University called "genuine philosophical knowledge" as
the end of a true university education, Ashley names "wisdom,"
and the path to reaching this end he names "interdisciplinarity."
[H]ow is a modern university, or any of our "think tanks," to engage in or
promote multicultural dialogue unless it has reflected on the foundations of its
Macintyre, "The End of Education," 14.
One fascinating aspect of Ashley's book I cannot pursue here is its rather obvious
indebtedness to the kind of undergraduate education he received at the University of Chicago
in the 1930s when there occurred a university-wide, meta-scientific debate about the hierarchy
and coherence of all academic disciplines, a debate shaped by Richard P. McKeon's Aristotle
Renaissance and Mortimer J. Adler's Great Ideas project.
26

27

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REINHARD HUTTER

own unity as an institution?
interdisciplinarity. (20)

To do this

it must

achieve genuine

In order to pursue the goal of genuine interdisciplinarity, the
meta-science he unfolds must be essentially dialogical, not in
order to achieve conversion or refutation, but in order to achieve
reconciliation. The mode of this dialogic approach is analytic,
"since it aims to formulate basic assumptions held by the dialogue
partners so that what is true in both positions may be recognized"
(19). It is the aim to achieve a genuine interdisciplinarity that
drives Ashley's book and also accounts for the extraordinary
scope of its discussion, from the religions and the wisdom of
ancient cultures to modern astrophysics, from Aristotelian logic
to contemporary mathematics. This book is the fruit of a life-long
intellectual effort to achieve a comprehensive understanding of
reality, and thus represents a precious gift to the university-a
gift, however, I am not sure the contemporary university is
capable of receiving:
The very term "uni-versity" means many-looking-toward-one, and is related to
the term "universe," the whole of reality. Thus, the name no longer seems
appropriate to such a fragmented modern institution whose unity is provided
only by a financial administration and perhaps a sports team. The fragmented
academy is, of course the result of the energetic exploration of all kinds of
knowledge, but how can it meet the fundamental yearning for wisdom on which
each culture is based? (20)

In part 1, "Metaphysics: Nonsense or Wisdom?" (93-169),
Ashley offers an astute and informative survey of the varieties of
metaphysics in Western culture. Most helpful are his lucid
characterizations of the varieties of twentieth-century Thomism.
The subsequent discussion of part 1 represents a rigorous
unfolding of the Aristotelian Thomism of the River Forest
School's philosophy of nature. By way of Aristotle's Posterior
Analytics and Physics (following Aquinas's interpretation of both
works), Ashley argues forcefully that (1) natural science is
epistemologically first; (2) that the basics of Aristotle's Physics are
still in harmony with modern science; and (3) that natural science

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establishes the ground for first philosophy or metaphysics-not
the ground for its possibility, but indeed the ground for its
necessity (and here his running disagreement with such Thomists
as Clarke, Dewan, Knasas, Wippel, et al. becomes manifest).
In part 2, "The Properties of all Reality" (173-381), Ashley
unfolds a comprehensive consideration of all branches of
knowledge ordered and guided by the properties of all being, the
transcendentals one, true, good (unum, verum, bonum),
correlated to efficient, formal, and final causality. This approach
allows for a concise and always solid consideration of the
constitutive aspects of all central academic disciplines, from
natural science and mathematics to the practical sciences and
history. I know of no other contemporary philosopher who,
between the covers of one book, so concisely discusses the unity
of physical bodies, atoms, and particles, as well as the unity of
contingent spiritual substances (that is, the unity of the embodied
human spirit and the unity of the pure spirit, the angel). This part
of the book strikes me as a paradigmatic instantiation of Pope
Benedict XVI's mandate from his Regensburg Lecture (cited
above) to broaden our concept of reason and its application and
thereby disclose reason's vast horizons.
In part 3, "The First Cause or Absolute Principle of Reality"
(385-430),Ashley's The Way toward Wisdom ascends finally to an
enquiry into the First Cause, a discussion that can be read as an
extended treatment of what Macintyre condenses in the opening
four pages of his book and presupposes for the rest of his
discussion. Macintyre follows the ordo doctrinae proper to
unfolding a philosophical narrative while Ashley adopts the ordo
inventionis proper to an immediate metaphysical enquiry. It is
important to realize that Ashley follows Aquinas in holding that
the First Cause is not included in the proper subject of
metaphysics, which is ens commune. Rather, the First Cause is but
the goal of metaphysics, a goal that this science can never claim to
comprehend. Unsurprisingly, Ashley emphasizes the crucial
difference between this understanding of metaphysics (arguably
the proper Aristotelian understanding as adopted by Aquinas) and

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the one advanced by Scotus, adopted by Suarez, popularized by
Wolff, rejected by Kant, and rightly submitted to the charge of
"onto-theology" by Martin Heidegger, a charge echoed by JeanLuc Marion and held as conventional wisdom by those who
announce the postmetaphysical epoch in philosophy and theology.
Ashley simply invites a closer and better philosophical rereading
of Aristotle. At stake in this part is nothing less than the truth of
monotheistic belief:
In trying to achieve some understanding of the nature of the First Cause, the first
question must be whether the world of human experience is really distinct from
a First Cause who has freely created it out of nothing, or whether this world of
experience is really identified with its First Cause. (385)

Ashley offers an astute discussion and withering cnt1que of
materialistic or nature monism, the panentheism of Whitehead,
and the spiritual monisms of Neoplatonism and Idealism.
The subsequent chapter, "The One Creating First Cause" (40330), would make an excellent study for those theologians,
especially Protestant, who all too quickly might want to dismiss
the deity of Aristotle's Metaphysics 12 (Lambda) as final causality
elevated to the supreme level of "world nous" in charge of
moving the outermost sphere of an eternal universe and otherwise
simply contemplating itself-hence intrinsically unfit for any form
of adoption by Christian theology. Ashley makes a convincing
case to the contrary by arguing that, in principle, final causality
can only be understood in light of efficient causality. Hence:
[i]t is utterly contrary to Aristotle's whole thought to suppose that there could
be a final cause that does not require a proportionate efficient cause. Final
causality ... is the predetermination of an efficient cause and could not exist
without such a proportionate efficient cause. Since the total series of moved
movers cannot move itself, how could the First Cause be the final cause of the
motion of all things unless, by implication at least, it was the first efficient cause
of their motion? (404)

Consequently, the discussion of the final cause in Metaphysics 12
(Lambda) must be read in light of the antecedent proof of the

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existence of the Unmoved Mover in Physics 7 and 8. The final
cause of the universe is first and foremost the efficient first cause
of the world. And as Aquinas maintains, the efficient causality of
the first cause not only pertains to the causality of motion, but the
very causality of substance itself. 28
The subsequent enquiry into the perfection of the First Cause
follows closely the first book of Aquinas's Summa contra Gentiles
and questions 3-25 of the Prima Pars, arguing "why and how the
First Cause is one and why and how the First Cause is personal"
(409). It is in this section that Ashley offers a compelling contemporary Thomistic answer to the three preeminent philosophical questions which, as Macintyre claims, arose historically
from broadly theistic and specifically Catholic beliefs: first, the
question of the compatibility between the existence of God and
the scope of evil-natural, social, and moral-in a universe of
finite beings; second, the question of the compatibility between
divine transcendent causality and genuine secondary causality
(i.e., between divine omnipotence and human freedom); and
third, the question of true knowledge of and hence meaningful
discourse about God.
In part 4, "Wisdom, Human and Divine" (433-51), Ashley
returns to the book's fundamental concern that strongly echoes
Newman's The Idea of the University and his concern about liberal
education. However, there are two differences to be noted
between Newman and Ashley's Aristotelian Thomism, differences
that remain unresolved in the way Aquinas and Newman form the
two foci of Maclntyre's narrative. First, following Aquinas, Ashley

28 "Hence there are causes of beings as beings, which are investigated in first philosophy .
. . . And from this it is quite evident that the opinion of those who claimed that Aristotle
thought that God is not the cause of the substance of the heavens, but only of their motion,
is false" ("Uncle sunt causae entium secundum quod sunt entia, quae inquiruntur in prima
philosophia ..... Ex hoc autem apparet manifeste falsitas opinionis illorum, qui posuerunt
Aristotelem sensisse, quod Deus non sit causa substantiae caeli, sed solum motus eius";
Aquinas, In Metaphys. 6.l[Rome: Marietti, 1950], 1164, regarding Aristotle, Metaphysics
6.1026a 11-18; translation in St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics,
trans. Richard J. Blackwell, Richard J. Spaeth, and W. Edmund Thirkel [Notre Dame, Ind.:
Dumb Ox Books, 1995], 402).

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REINHARD HUTTER

affirms that the study of nature is basic to all disciplines; 29 second,
also following Aquinas, he affirms the fundamental connectedness
of the intellectual and the moral virtues, and especially the preeminent role of prudence in uniting the virtues (228; 355) such
that a proper liberal arts education along Thomistic lines should
lead to an integral excellence of mind and character. Newman, on
the contrary, stresses a principled disconnection between the
intellectual and the moral virtues. For Newman, the existence of
"gentlemen" who are intellectually brilliant and socially refined,
but who are also scoundrels, is something that in principle even
the best liberal arts education cannot avoid. 30 Ashley would most
likely agree that even the best liberal arts education along
Thomistic lines can never completely exclude the possibility of
such an undesirable outcome. However, with respect to such cases
of gentlemanly scoundrels as Newman has in mind, Ashley would
maintain that we must diagnose not only an obvious failure of
moral formation but also some consequent deficiency in the
comprehensive formation of the intellectual virtues. In short, the
disagreement comes down to the question of whether a genuine
liberal arts education is supposed to form the intellectual virtue of

29 "[T]he basis of a liberal higher education for all students must be the natural sciences.
Only then will the present need of all of us to live in a modern, scientifically oriented culture
be adequately met. The division between the 'Two Cultures' of the sciences and the humanities can be overcome only by rooting the humanities in the objective truth of the 'hard'
sciences" (439). In order to appreciate this recommendation fully one needs to remember that
Ashley maintains the inherent unity of natural philosophy (as paradigmatically executed in
Aristotle's Physics) and natural science, and their full integration in a liberal arts curriculum
that is ultimately directed toward the search of wisdom.
30 "Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is
not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened,
however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying
principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman .
. . . Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may
you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to
contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man .... Liberal Education, viewed
in itself, is simply the cultivation of the intellect, as such, and its object is nothing more or less
than intellectual excellence" (Newman, The Idea of the University, 106f.).

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prudence and whether this virtue is integral to the overall pursuit
of wisdom. 31
Ashley demonstrates persuasively how the pursuit of wisdom
along the lines of a recovery and expansion of the AristotelianThomist trajectory of a meta-science is a nontrivial contribution
to the proper flourishing of theology (sacra doctrina). Much of
contemporary "post-metaphysical" theology, especially in the
dialogue between theology and science, naively adopts the
deliveries of the sciences, adapting its own construals to them
without fully employing the critical mediation afforded by metascientific reflection. It frequently follows that philosophically
erroneous entailments of naturalism, materialism, and programmatically atheistic versions of evolution theory tend to find
their way into theology and contribute to deficient understandings
of God, what it is to be human, and the world as creation "all the
way down." Here theologians can learn fruitful lessons from
Ashley's nondefensive, meta-scientific reflection on all branches
of knowledge, which gives priority to the natural sciences and at
the same time remains a nonreductive exercise of a consistent
31 The subtle but important difference that seems to me to obtain between Newman's
position and that of the Thomist tradition deserves a more extensive and nuanced discussion
than I am able to afford in the scope of this essay. I shall mention for a starter, however, that
in Aquinas's doctrine of the cardinal virtues prudence holds a principal position insofar as this
intellectual virtue constitutes the unifying link between the moral and the intellectual virtues.
And while the other intellectual virtues indeed can be without moral virtue, prudence cannot
(STh I, q. 58, a. 5). Hence, Aquinas can account for the brilliant scoundrel. Prudence does not
belong to those intellectual virtues that perfect the speculative intellect for the consideration
of truth-and it is on the formation of those that, according to Newman, a university
education exclusively concentrates. However, the pursuit of wisdom, which is the proper end
of a liberal arts education along Thomistic lines, entails the refinement of habits of thought,
as well as of action, for both pertain to the end of the human being. And since prudence is an
intellectual virtue, its formation and refinement falls under the competency of a liberal arts
education along Thomistic lines. Furthermore, since prudence is the intellectual virtue that
perfects reason pertaining to things to be done (STh I, q. 57, a. 5), the formation of prudence
is integral to a university education that is directed to the pursuit of wisdom as its ultimate
end. For it is the case that for this pursuit to reach its end, many actions as means to advance
best toward this end will need to be decided upon-and the habituation into such actions
presupposes the virtue of prudence. For an instructive introduction into this topic, see Pierre
H. Conway, O.P., Principlesof Education: A Thomistic Approach (Washington, D.C.: The
Thomist Press, 1960). Though much harder to find than Newman's The Idea of the University,
it deserves no less serious a reconsideration.

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expansion of the horizons of reason. (This performance would
have driven the Kant of the Critique of Pure Reason insane, but
then again, Ashley makes a persuasive case that Aristotle was right
and Kant was wrong-in matters of epistemology, as well as in
matters pertaining to the validity of the proof from motion that
a first immaterial efficient cause exits.) In short, The Way toward
Wisdom represents a paradigmatic exemplification of Pope
Benedict XVl's call in his Regensburg Lecture to overcome the
self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically falsifiable, and
once more to disclose reason's vast horizons.
A book of such vast scope and ambition makes itself vulnerable, of course, to all kinds of shortcomings, weaknesses, and
failures of nuance in multiple respects-though, from my own
limited perspective, I encountered only a few. Because Ashley
approaches the unity and order of all sciences by way of natural
philosophy and natural science, the practical sciences, as well as
history, in short, the "humanities," do not receive quite as
extensive and nuanced a consideration as they deserve. Some
Thomist metaphysicians (Clarke, Dewan, Knasas, Wippel, et al.)
will want to challenge Ashley on the philosophical necessity of
accessing the subject matter of metaphysics by way of natural
philosophy and natural science. Additionally, students of Maritain
will wonder whether, in light of the very nature of modern
physics, the integral unity of natural philosophy and natural
science that Ashley def ends can still be maintained or whether
some greater distinction between natural philosophy and modern
physics is necessary-with the entailed acknowledgment that a
direct passing from modern physics to meta-science is impossible.
While such objections and reservations represent some of the inhouse debates among Thomists, other philosophers will raise quite
predictably more fundamental objections and disagreements,
many of which are anticipated and quite forcefully addressed in
Ashley's work.
There is, however, a much simpler and at the same time much
deeper problem as a result of which Ashley's accomplishment will
go largely unnoticed. It is the problem to which Macintyre points

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to both at the beginning and at the end of God, Philosophy,
Universities. The single most serious, if not insuperable obstacle
to any substantive reception of Ashley's book outside a narrow
circle of Aristotelian and Thomist philosophers rests on the fact
that most, if not all, contemporary university teachers and
scholars have never been introduced to and habituated into any
sustained intellectual practice of meta-scientific reflection, let
alone the search for wisdom, and consequently do not
comprehend that their particular fields of enquiry can only
flourish as part of a larger search for wisdom. In short, the
predicament of secular universities simply reflects the necessary
outcome of abandoning any commitment to reason as a comprehensive operation in search of a shared, integral understanding.
But for this to be the predicament also of Catholic universities
amounts for Macintyre to grave error in the intellectual order and
to grave fault in the moral order. As mentioned already above, in
contrast to Macintyre, Ashley puts the challenge in slightly more
positive terms and directs it especially to theologians and
philosophers-not in Catholic universities in particular, but in
Christian universities in general:
Christian universities represent a great international culture that is inevitably a
major player in any multicultural dialogue at the sapiential level. Christian
culture has played a leading role in the historical development of the university,
yet because its theologians and philosophers in the post-Galilean epoch withdrew
from active dialogue with developing natural science, it remains isolated.
Christians must now accept the laborious and even painful tasks of rethinking
the foundations of natural science and of achieving a Metascience grounded in
such a revised natural science. It will then be effective in a mediating, ecumenical
role between Secular Humanism (which threatens to reduce all cultures to its
own ideological perspectives) and the cultures of the world that recognize
spiritual reality.
In this task, a Christian university must not only promote dialogue with its
monotheist partners-the Jews and the Muslims-but it must also learn to
dialogue with the naturalist and spiritualist monism of most other cultures. (443)

As it turns out, the agenda Ashley prescribes for philosophers
and theologians in contemporary Christian universities is no less
ambitious than the one Macintyre prescribes to contemporary

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REINHARD HUTTER

Catholic philosophers. However, Ashley's approach and agenda
seems more capable to accommodate the modern, Berlin-type
research university with its ideal of an integral unity between
research and teaching. Ashley's agenda, while admittedly not very
likely to be adopted by any present research university, Christian
or Catholic, let alone secular, still betrays more hope in the
potential redeemability of such universities than Maclntyre's
narrative does. For Ashley can acknowledge the modern research
university as the great-grandchild of Aristotle's comprehensive
program of research, from whence Ashley also sees arising the
very potential for its internal reform. In the case of the
Aristotelian research program (and its modern adaptation by the
River Forest School of Aristotelian Thomism), the advancement
of knowledge by way of research always remains integral to a
comprehensive program of education for which the teaching of
universal knowledge holds primacy. Macintyre, more deeply
committed to Newman's exclusive vision of the university as "a
place of teachinguniversal knowledge," will keep high the critical
bar on the hopes Ashley entertains for Christian universities. Not
only would theology and philosophy have to reoccupy a long-lost
central position (and in consequence reinvent themselves) in these
Christian universities, but these Christian universities, in order to
be in a position of adopting Ashley's agenda, would have to
become again primarilyplaces of teachinguniversal knowledge on
the basis of curricula that would facilitate, indeed mandate, the
interface between theology and philosophy with the natural
sciences. These schools would only secondarily be places in which
research agendas are also maintained for the sake of the expansion
of knowledge.
A fundamental question remains: From where would come the
faculty who themselves had received the kind of integrated
interdisciplinary education that would enable them to appreciate,
adopt, and pursue Ashley's agenda? to questions of this kind,
Macintyre, has a rather blunt response:
We do possess the intellectual resources to bring about the kind of change I
propose. What we lack, in Catholic and in secular universities, is the will to

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change, and that absence of will is a symptom of a quite unwarranted
complacency concerning our present state and our present direction. 32

Should we entertain any reasonable hope for Christian universities
in general and Catholic universities in particular? I should say that
any undergraduate curriculum that approximates the normative
vision of the university shared by John Henry Newman, Alasdair
Macintyre, and Benedict Ashley-and for that matter, by the late
Pope John Paul II and by Pope Benedict XVI, two former university professors-should be applauded. For resigning oneself to
increasing curricula fragmentation, to acceleration of centrifugal
forces of knowledge production-with its accompanying tendency
to instrumentalize and commodify-and to dismissing philosophers like Macintyre and Ashley as incurable romantics will
only cement an already emerging reality: that the label
"university" held by these late modern institutions is an
illegitimate claim at best and quite simply an equivocation at
worst.
Maclnyre's and Ashley's books have indeed the touch of
untimeliness to them. They are written for generations of
university professors and students still to come, generations ready
to receive the profundity of Macintyre' s and Ashley's insights and
proposals as the gifts they are. For these future generations will
eventually become disillusioned with the present celebration of
knowledge production without end and will thirst again for a
"connected view or grasp of things," in short, for wisdom, let
alone, for God.
When this is going to happen, though, will depend largely on
when it is that the first part of the conditional clause of Pope
Benedict XVI's speech for "La Sapenzia" ceases to obtain:
If our culture seeks only to build itself on the basis of the circle of its own
argumentation, on what convinces it at the time, and if-anxious to preserve its

32 Alasdair Macintyre, "The End of Education: The Fragmentation of the American
University," 14.

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REINHARD HUTTER

secularism-it detaches itself from its life-giving roots, then it will not become
more reasonable or purer, but will fall apart and disintegrate. 33

Are there presently any signs of hope, any instantiations of an
institutional awareness of and concern for Pope Benedict XVI's
sobering analysis and grave warning? That there are at least some
liberal arts institutions that seem both aware of the pope's somber
analysis and capable of acknowledging Maclntyre's and Ashley's
proposals can perhaps be gathered from the remarks of the late
Dr. Thomas E. Dillon (1946-2009), president of Thomas Aquinas
College:
Our fundamental endeavor at Thomas Aquinas College is a modest one: to help
you make a good beginning on the ascent to wisdom .... These four years at the
College are a precious opportunity to develop your minds and refine your habits
of thought and action. You will be reading and discussing the greatest works ever
written; works that have defined eras and shaped civilizations. In a community
of friends, and under the guidance of tutors who care deeply about your good,
you will seek to make reasoned judgments about the nature of reality. You will
be aided in your inquiries by the rich intellectual tradition of the Church as you
study Her wisest teachers-wise especially because of their own docility to Christ
and His Church. Liberal education concerns not what is servile and transient, but
what is intrinsically worthwhile and permanent. By coming to Thomas Aquinas
College, by devoting yourselves to four years of a liberal arts education, you are
standing with Socrates and opting not for the life of convenience and trivial
pleasure, but rather for the life rooted in the love of wisdom and ordered to

33 While the pope applies this conditional to the European culture, it arguably also
obtains-mutatis mutandis-for the United States and Canada. In his meeting with the French
intellectual, cultural, and political elite on 12 September 2008 at the College des Bernardins
in Paris, Pope Benedict XVI stressed that what he has to say about the foundations of
European culture does indeed pertain today to the basis of any genuine culture: "Quaerere
Deum-to seek God and to let oneself be found by him, that is today no less necessary than
in former times. A purely positivistic culture which tried to drive the question concerning God
into the subjective realm, as being unscientific, would be the capitulation of reason, the
renunciation of its highest possibilities, and hence a disaster for humanity, with very grave
consequences. What gave Europe's culture its foundation-the search for God and the
readiness to listen to him-remains today the basis of any genuine culture" (available on the
vatican
web site:
http ://www.vatican.va/holy _fa ther/benedict_xvi/
speeches/2008/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080912_parigi-cultura_en.html).

GOD, THE UNIVERSITY, AND WISDOM

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virtue. Such a life is not easy, for it demands discipline and self-denial, but it is
a life of genuine freedom and happiness. 34

An institution of higher education shaped in its core curriculum
by such a vision provides the proximate context for an intelligent
and fruitful reception of Ashley's The Way toward Wisdom and
offers some warrant for the hope Macintyre expresses at the very
end of God, Philosophy, Universities. It is to liberal arts
institutions shaped by a vision like the one expressed by Dr.
Dillon that the modern research university will eventually have to
turn in order to find the medicine that will cure it from the
ruinous disease that has befallen it. 35 Neither an ivy-covered neogothic architecture, nor a top placement in international
university rankings, nor the desperate acceleration of research
production, nor the foundation of another research institute of
bio-engineering will prevent the fatal consequences of the disease
unless the medicine be taken from marginal and often belittled
and ridiculed Christian, and especially Catholic, liberal arts
institutions as Thomas Aquinas College. Considering such
medicine to be vital is the first step for resuscitating the heart of
the modern university and restoring the pursuit of wisdom.

34 Communio 35 (2008): 672f. In the 2010 edition of the popular college guidebook, the
Princeton Review: The Best 3 71 Colleges (New York: Random House, 2009), Thomas Aquinas

College received a rating of 99 (out of 100) for its academics and is included in the "Top 50"
Colleges in the country.
35 In order to find the proper cure it might often suffice for modern research universities
simply to reform themselves along the lines of their founding charters. Here is Duke
University's: "The aims of Duke University are to assert a faith in the eternal union of
knowledge and religion set forth in the teachings and character of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, to advance learning in all lines of truth, to defend scholarship against all false notions
and ideals, to develop a Christian love of freedom and truth, to promote a sincere spirit of
tolerance, to discourage all partisan and sectarian strife, and to render the largest permanent
service to the individual, the state, the nation, and the church. Unto these ends shall the affairs
of this university always be administered."

The Thomist 73 (2009): 279-312

THE LORD'S PRAYER AND AN ETHICS OF VIRTUE:
CONTINUING A HISTORY OF COMMENTARY
WILLIAM C. MATIISON III
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

M

ORAL THEOLOGY HAS SEEN an explosion of interest
in virtue over the past several decades. This trend is
generally presented as a return to a traditional focus on
virtue that has been lost in modernity. The prominence of virtue
in classical ethics and patristic and medieval moral theology is
obvious. Despite the relatively infrequent appearance of the term
"virtue" or lists of virtues in Scripture, 1 one concern among those
contributing to the recent resurgence of virtue ethics has been
establishing how themes central to an ethics of virtue are indeed
at the heart of Scripture. 2 This essay is part of the larger endeavor
to demonstrate how the virtues and the concerns prompting the
recent turn to an ethics of virtue are indeed prominent in
Scripture, and in particular the Sermon on the Mount, which has
1 There are well-known passages which do indeed use the term, or provide a list of virtues,
such as Phil 4:8; 1Cor13:13; 1Thess5:8; and Wis 8:7.
2 One theologian who has written on this topic, perhaps more than any other
contemporary theologian, is Fr. Servais Pinckaers, O.P. See especially his Sources of Christian
Ethics (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), esp. 104-67;
"Scripture and the Renewal of Moral Theology," in John Berkman and Craig Steven Titus,
eds., The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 46-63; "The Sources of the Ethics of St. Thomas
Aquinas," pp. 17-29 in Stephen J. Pope, ed., The Ethics of Aquinas (Washington, D.C.:
Georgetown University Press, 2002), 17-29, esp. 16-17. Pope John Paul II's encyclical
Veritatis splendor is a perfect example of approaching moral theology from the starting point
of a primary concern of virtue ethics, namely, happiness. See especially the reflection on Mark
10: 17-31 in the first part of the encyclical.

279

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

been called "the charter of the Christian life" and the written text
of the new law in Christ. 3
Right at the center of the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus'
instruction to his disciples on how to pray, the Lord's Prayer
(Matt 6:9-13). 4 This prayer is absolutely foundational in the
history of Christian life, in liturgy, commentary, sacramental
preparation and catechesis, preaching, etc. T ertullian famously
called the prayer a "summary of the whole gospel. " 5 Augustine
audaciously claimed that "if you go over all the words of holy
prayers, you will, I believe, find nothing which cannot be comprised and summed up in the petitions of the Lord's Prayer." 6
Aquinas called it "the most perfect of prayers," 7 and Bonaventure
said that despite its brevity it "contains in itself all prayer and
everything to be asked for. " 8 The Catechism of the Catholic
Church calls it the quintessential prayer of the Church, and uses
it to structure the fourth pillar on prayer. 9
Due to its importance, there is an immense tradition of
interpretation of the Lord's Prayer. The central claim of this paper
is that the Lord's Prayer can be accurately understood as a request
3 The former description is from Augustine, De sermone domini in monte (CCSL 35:1):
"perfectum uitae christianae modum." See also the English translation The Lord's Sermon on
the Mount (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1965), 1.1. Augustine's recognition of the
importance of the Sermon is evidenced by his being the only one of the Fathers to compose
a commentary on it alone (distinct from a commentary on Matthew's Gospel). For the second
description see Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 108, a. 3; Catechism of the
Catholic Church (CCC) 1965-66. See also Servais Pinckaers, O.P., Sources of Christian Ethics,
134-35, 142, and 144-45.
4 For an example from contemporary Biblical scholarship of the centrality of the Lord's
Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, see IBrich Luz, Matthew 1-7: A Commentary
(Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1989), 212.
5 Tertullian, De oratione 1 (CCSL 1:258): "in oratione breuiarium totius Euangelii
comprehendatur" (translation in Alistair Stewart-Sykes, trans., Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen on
the Lord's Prayer (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladmimir's Seminary Press, 2004), 42.
6 See Augustine's Letter 130 (to Proba), 12 (CSEL 44:64-66): "et si per omnia precationum
sanctarum uerba discurras, quantum existimo, nihil inuenies, quod non ista dominica contineat
et concludat oratio."
7 STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9. See also CCC 2763.
8 Bonaventure, Commentarius in evangelium sancti Lucae 11.8 (Bonaventure, Opera
omnia.[Quarrachi: Typographia Collegii Sancti Bonaventurae, 1882-1902], 7:279):
"Quamquam sit brevissima, continet in se omnem orationem et omnia postulanda."
9 CCC 2776.

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for the seven foundational virtues of the Christian life, the three
theological virtues and the four cardinal virtues. 10 The first half of
the paper contextualizes this claim within the Christian tradition
by surveying how Christians for millennia have understood the
Lord's Prayer, particularly with regard to questions that are
central to the constructive contribution of this essay. The first
section will make it clear in what ways the findings of the second
half are seamless continuations of a long tradition, and in what
ways they are more innovative. The second half then offers a
constructive interpretation of the Lord's Prayer on the basis of
virtue, and more broadly explores how the prayer contributes to
certain common questions and concerns of virtue ethics.
Before proceeding one caveat is in order. I am certainly not
claiming that one only understands the Lord's Prayer truthfully
through the lens of virtue employed here. As commentators have
consistently stated, the Lord's Prayer invites a plentitude of
interpretation. My more modest claim is that given the centrality
of the Lord's Prayer (and the Sermon on the Mount) in the
Christian life, it is not surprising that there would be important
parallels between the prayer and the virtues if it is the case (as
virtue ethicists would avow) that virtue offers a lens through
which to see and understand the life of Christian discipleship.
I. FOUR CONSISTENCIES (AND A LACUNA) IN THE HISTORY OF
COMMENTARY ON THE LORD'S PRAYER

Commentaries on the Lord's Prayer begin less than two
centuries after Christ, and now number in hundreds if not
thousands. 11 The purpose of this first section of the paper is to
10 Given the importance of the Sermon in general and the Lord's Prayer in particular, this
claim is important for the larger task of demonstrating the scriptural foundations of an ethics
of virtue.
11 Nowhere have I found an attempt to number these commentaries. For evidence of the
sheer number of commentaries on the Lord's Prayer, see Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues
and Vices 1100 A.D. - 1500 A.D. (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1979),
which lists the opening lines of texts (known in 1979) simply from these four centuries.
Though it does include some repetition, it lists over 1200 such incipits. There are well over
a hundred works on the Lord's Prayer treated in some level of detail in the research of

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WILLIAM C. MATIISON III

identify some important commonalities of these commentaries,
which will place the more constructive work of the second section
in historical context. Four commonalities will be presented here:
a focus on the prayer's petitions, the number of the petitions, the
groupings of the petitions, and alignment of the petitions with
other groupings relevant to living the Christian life in order to
better understand both the prayer and a life of discipleship. I will
conclude the section by identifying a surprising omission in the
history of interpretation of the Lord's Prayer.

A) Commenting on the Petitions
All commentaries on the Lord's Prayer speak of the different
petitions in the prayer. That the prayer is making requests is more
evident to English speakers in the later petitions which use the
imperative ("Give us ... ," "Forgive us .. ," "Lead us not .. ,"and
"Deliver us ... "). But commentators have universally noted that
the three clauses dealing with God's name, God's kingdom, and
God's will are also petitions, a fact easily missed in English (and
in Latin as well as in Romance languages) where the imperative is
not used and where the grammatical construction indicating a
request is less evident. Nonetheless, the petitionary character of
these clauses is evident if one attends carefully to their grammatical construction. The verbal mood of the first three petitions
is not indicative, as might be assumed in the absence of the
imperative. We are not stating that God's name is hallowed, His
kingdom comes, and His will is done. We are praying that it be
the case-hence the use of the subjunctive in languages such as

Kenneth W. Stevenson and Jean Carmignac, both of whose books proved invaluable for this
study. See Kenneth W. Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer: A Text in Tradition (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2004); and Jean Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre Pere» (Paris: Editions
Letouzey & Ane, 1969). Tertullian's commentary, written approximately 200-206, is widely
regarded as the earliest such commentary. See Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 30. For the
Lord's Prayer in North Africa in the early Church, see Michael Joseph Brown's The Lord's
Prayer through North African Eyes (New York: T & T Clark International, 2004).

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French, Latin, and even English. 12 All of the verbs in Greek are
aorist imperative, revealing that the first three petitions are indeed
petitions. 13 The verb forms in the original Aramaic can only be
surmised. 14 In sum, the Lord's Prayer consists of petitions, and
commentators have universally examined the prayer accordingly.

B) Numbering the Petitions
It is widely recognized that there are seven pet1t10ns in the
Lord's Prayer. This observation is far from universal. 15 In the
earliest Latin commentaries (Tertullian [ca. 200] and Cyprian [ca.
252]), 16 in Greek commentaries in the Eastern traditions (from
Origen's commentary [ca. 234] 17 onward), and in Protestant
discussions of the Lord's Prayer (beginning with John Calvin), 18
the last two petitions are treated together as one, giving a total of
12 That the English is in the subjunctive is seen in the use of "be" in the first and third
petitions. This may be commonly assumed to be an archaic form of the verb form "is," akin
to the continued use of "art" and "thou." But it is actually a necessary grammatical
formulation, as the subjunctive of the verb "to be." As for Latin, the Vulgate text reads: Pater
noster qui in caelis es sanctificetur nomen tuum veniat reg11um tuum fiat voluntas tua sicut in
caelo et in terra panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie et dimitte nobis debita
nostra sicut et nos dimisimus debitoribus nostris et ne inducas nos in temptationem sed libera
nos a malo. As in English and French, the first three petitions in Latin express the sense of
petition through the use of (in this case, jussive) subjunctive, while the last four employ the
imperative.
13 For a helpful treatment of the grammar of the petitions, see Raymond E. Brown, "The
Pater Noster as Eschatological Prayer," in Raymond E. Brown, New Testament Essays
(Milwaukee, Wis.: Bruce Publishing Co., 1965), 217-53.
14 For an example of such speculation see Ernst Lohmeyer, The Lord's Prayer (London:
Collins Publishing, 1965), 27-29.
15 Stevenson's historical overview continually attends to the number of petitions identified
by authors of commentaries. See his helpful summary in Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 222.
See also Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre I'ere», 312-19 for a specific discussion of this
issue.
16 For Cyprian's commentary, see De dominica oratione (CCSL 3A:87-113; translation in
Stewart-Sykes, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen on the Lord's Prayer, 65-93). On its dating, see
Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 32.
17 See Origen, On Prayer, in Stewart-Sykes, trans., Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen on the
Lord's Prayer, 95-214. On the dating see Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 35.
18 See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.20.35 (Institutes of the Christian
Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdman's, 1981], 183-84). Luther
maintains there are seven petitions; see Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 160.

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six petitions. But in a long tradition beginning with Augustine,
followed by hundreds of medieval commentaries, and continuing
today particularly in Catholic circles, seven petitions are
recognized in the prayer. 19
The variance in the number of petitions is more complicated
than even this divergence suggests. Authors such as T ertullian and
Cyprian saw what are called here the sixth and seventh petitions
as distinct, even while treating them as one petition. 20 And
Augustine, the apparent origin of the seven-petitions tradition,
seems to have equivocated on the number of petitions. 21 Catholics
after the Reformation have generally maintained there are seven
petitions, though Jean Carmignac claims that more and more
twentieth-century Catholics numbered the petitions as six. 22 There
is a thorny Greek grammatical question at the root of this
variance, concerning the conjunction at.I.a. Carmignac claims
there is little hope of definitive resolution of the number on
grammatical grounds. But he reveals his own affirmation of the
seven-petition tradition when he claims that given the symbolism
of the number seven and how scripturally based the Lord's Prayer
is, it would be surprising for the prayer to be divided into only six
and not seven petitions. 23 Perhaps this is what led some authors
who number six petitions to treat the prayer in seven parts by
counting the opening invocation, "Our Father who art in
heaven. " 24 The point for the purposes of this essay is that there is
19 For contemporary examples, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2803-54;
Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 155-58; Servais Pinckaers, O.P.,Au coeurde l'Evangile:
Notre Pere (Saint-Maur: Editions Parole et Silence, 1999), 39-40; Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus
of Nazareth (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 128-68.
20 See Tertullian, De oratione 8 (CCSL 1:262); Cyprian, De dominica oratione 25-27
(CCSL 3A: 106-7). See Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre Pere», 312 for how others authors
treat the sixth and seventh petitions.
21 In sermons thought to be written ca. 410-412, Augustine treats the sixth and seventh
petitions together. See Augustine, Sermons 57.10 (CCSL 41Aa:l87) and 56.18-19 (CCSL
41Aa:l70-71), in Sermons III (51-94), trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (New York: New City Press,
1991), 114 and 105.
22 Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre Pere», 314. He also notes one Catholic from 1572,
Jansenius, who counts six petitions.
23 Ibid., 315.
24 For an example of treating the prayer in seven parts, but with the invocation and seven
petitions, see Tertullian De oratione 2-8 (CCSL 1:258-62).

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a long and prominent tradition of numbering seven petitions in
the Lord's Prayer. Indeed, the variance over the relationship
between the last two petitions may further substantiate the
interpretation offered here, for reasons explained below.

C) Grouping the Petitions
Commentators have consistently divided the pet1t10ns into
subgroups. The oldest and perhaps most common subdivision is
found in T ertullian and Augustine, who distinguished the first
three petitions from the remaining ones. 25 Both of these Latin
Fathers saw the first three petitions as concerning heavenly or
eternal things, and the remaining petitions as concerning earthly
or temporal things. Both note the division is not hard and fast, as
if the two groups had nothing to do with each other. Yet authors
such as these, and later ones such as Bonaventure, 26 notice that the
first three directly concern God ("Thy name," "Thy kingdom,"
Thy will"), while the later petitions concern worldly matters
(bread, trespasses, temptation, evil). 27 There are other variations
on these subgroupings. For instance, Luther understands the first
three petitions as spiritual, the fourth as material, and the last
three as concerned with deliverance form evil.28 Interestingly,
25 See Tertullian, De oratione 6 (CCSL 1:260-61): "Sed quam eleganter diuina sapientia
ordinem orationis instruxit, ut post caelestia, id est post Dei nomen, Dei uoluntatem et Dei
regnum, terrenis quoque necessitatibus petitioni locum faceret!" ("But how gracefully did
divine wisdom draw up the order of the prayer that, after heavenly petitions on the name of
God, the will of God, and the Kingdom of God, it should also provide a place for earthly
needs"; Stewart-Sykes, trans., 46 [modified]). Augustine, Enchiridion 115 (CCSL 46:110):
"Proinde apud euangelistam Matthaeum septem petitiones continere dominica videtur oratio,
quarum in tribus aeterna poscuntur, in reliquis quattuor temporalia" ("in the evangelist
Matthew the Lord's Prayer seems to embrace seven petitions, three of which ask for eternal
blessings and the four remaining for temporal").
26 See Bonaventure, Expositio super regulam fratrum minorum 3 .3 (Quarrachi ed., 8 :407).
27 This division is also evident in those contemporary commentators who distinguish (in
both Matthew's and Luke petitions) between the "you" or "thou" petitions on the one hand,
and the "we" petitions on the other. See Brown, "The Pater Noster as Eschatological Prayer,"
238. See also Joachim Jeremais, The Prayers of Jesus (Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, Inc.:
1967), 98-104.
28 There is precedent for this claim in Anselm of Laon; see Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer,

124

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WILLIAM C. MATIISON III

although Aquinas consistently affirms Augustine's three-eternal I
four-temporal grouping, he never uses it as his own primary
principle of grouping the petitions in the various groupings he
employs throughout his works. Nonetheless, the point stands that
subgroupings are common and a division between the first three
and the remaining petitions has extensive historical precedence. 29

D) Aligning the Petitions with Other Groupings
Following in a tradition inaugurated by Augustine, many
commentators on the Lord's Prayer have aligned the different
petitions with some other organizing structure. The most famous
example is Augustine's alignment of the petitions with the seven
gifts of the Holy Spirit as well as the beatitudes. Carmignac 30 and
Kenneth Stevenson offer examples of commentators who have
aligned the petitions with one or even more of the following: the
gifts of the Spirit, the beatitudes, the seven deadly sins (to which
the petitions would be antidotes), orders of Church ministry,
Jesus' seven last words from the cross, stages in spiritual growth,
and even the seven days of the week. 31 There are often changes in
the orderings of groupings, as when Amalar of Metz in the early
ninth century initiates a tradition of inverting Augustine's
alignment of petitions and gifts of the Holy Spirit, an ordering
continued with authors such as Anselm of Laon and Hugh of
Ami ens. 32 In sum, there is ample precedent in the tradition for
aligning the petitions with other groupings important to life in the
Spirit.

29 For a contemporary example of this, see Leonardo Boff, The Lord's Prayer: Prayer of
Integral Liberation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1983)
30 See Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre nre», 387
31 For an example of several of these at once, consider not only Augustine on gifts and
beatitudes but Hugh of Amiens on gifts, beatitudes, and orders of Church ministry. See
Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 126.
32 See ibid.,124-36. This inversion (or, more accurately, this undoing of Augustine's
inversion of the order of gifts in Isaiah 11) is not adopted by all after Amalar, as seen in the
case of Thomas Aquinas who follows Augustine's ordering.

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E) A Lacuna: Aligning the Petitions with Virtues
Of particular interest to this study are alignments of the
petitions with the seven virtues of the Christian life. In his list of
different groupings historically aligned with the petitions,
Carmignac mentions virtues, but (unlike in the case of each of the
other alignments) offers no substantiating footnote. 33 Stevenson
mentions five commentators from the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries who draw parallels between the seven petitions of the
Lord's Prayer and the virtues. The Allegories on the New
Testament attributed to Hugh of St. Victor (likely composed by
his colleague Richard of St. Victor) treats several different virtues
in its discussion of the petitions, but offers no specific alignment. 34
The remaining four Scholastics do indeed align the seven petitions
with seven virtues. But in each case, the virtues are actually the
beatitudes, or rather, the qualities of people described in the first
half of each beatitude: poverty of spirit (i.e., humility), meekness,
mourning, thirst for justice, mercy, cleanness of heart, and
peacefulness. In none of these cases where an author intends to
align the seven petitions with the seven virtues are the virtues the
three theological and four cardinal virtues. 35
One text that comes close to aligning the seven petitions of the
Lord's Prayer with the theological and cardinal virtues is the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, which simply mentions faith,
hope, and love with regard to the first three petitions but never
33 Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre Pere», 387. When he mentions seven virtues he
even specifies "the theological and cardinal virtues," which mirrors the interpretation offered
in the second section here. But again, he cites no historical example of this.
34 Stevenson mentions this text (Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 123). The text, Allegoriae
Novum Testamentum - Liber Secundus, is found at PL 175 :763-89. For an example of the
more fluid associations of virtues and petitions, see how the opening invocation "Our Father"
is aligned with benevolence and reverence (PL 175:768).
35 See Bonaventure, Expositio orationis dominicae 5 (Quaracchi ed., 7:653). See William
Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4.4 7.10 (Corpus Christianorum Continuatio
Mediaeualis 140:504-79, at 508). For dating see Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 123-38. See
Gunther the Cistercian, De oratione, jejunio, et eleemosyna (PL 212: 171-205 at 172), where
he does not list the seven all together but notes their connection to the beatitudes. (References
to each of the seven are given during successive treatments of each petition.) See Stephen of
Auten, Tractatus de sacramento altaris (PL 172:1303-8, at 1304).

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explicitly aligns them with particular petitions or mentions the
cardinal virtues. 36 J.-F. Bonnefoy, in Le saint-esprit et ses dons
selon saint Bonaventure, explicitly aligns the seven petitions with
the three theological and four cardinal virtues (along with gifts
and capital sins, among others) in a manner reflective of St.
Bonaventure's thought. 37 However, as is clear from Bonnefoy's
chart, Bonaventure never offers this alignment himself; Bonnefoy
presents his own constructive alignment as compatible with
Bonaventure's thought. 38 Furthermore, the alignment between
petitions and virtues offered by Bonnefoy is different from that
offered here. 39
In conclusion, the number of occasions in the commentary
tradition where specific virtues are mentioned in the context of
the petitions of the Lord's Prayer is miniscule, especially
considering the breadth of that tradition of commentary. On the
basis of this research I cautiously conclude that that there is no
prominent example in the tradition of aligning the seven petitions
with seven virtues in the manner outlined here.
This is rather surprising. It is not only surprising due to the
massive amount of commentary on the Lord's Prayer and various
ways authors have aligned the petitions with other groupings. It
is also particularly surprising that Thomas Aquinas does not adopt
such an alignment, given that Thomas organizes his entire treatise
on specific moral theology according to the seven virtues. Indeed,
within that work Thomas consistently aligns virtues with the gifts
36 See CCC 2806. In fact, in CCC 2803 and 2805 different bases of alignment are
suggested.
37 I am grateful to Gregory LaNave for pointing this text out to me. Bonnefoy refers to two
more texts, which seem by their titles to do something of the sort that Bonnefoy does: Le P.
Louis-Th., Les operations du Saint-Esprit dans /es ames (1896), and Mgr. Amedee Cure,
L 'oraison dominicale: Ses rapports avec /es sept dons du Saint-Esprit, /es sept peches capitaux,
/es vertus theologales et cardinales et !es beatitudes, 4 vols. (1895-1906). I have been unable
to obtain either text.
38 In fact, Bonnefoy seems to do with Bonaventure something of the sort that has been
attempted with Aquinas (see below). Namely, Bonnefoy seems to constructively suggest a
Bonaventurian alignment of petitions and virtues based on texts where Bonaventure aligns
each grouping with a third group.
39 Bonnefoy's alignment of the virtues and petitions, in order of the petitions, is:
temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude, hope, faith, and charity. As will be seen below, this
is different from the alignment offered here.

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of the Holy Spirit, and with the beatitudes. In that same work he
acknowledges and affirms Augustine's alignment of the petitions
on the one hand, and the gifts and beatitudes on the other. 40 The
transitive property would seem to dictate that Thomas would
make the connection between the seven virtues and the petitions.
But nowhere in his work does he do this. 41 The same may be said
of contemporary Tho mists, including Servais Pinckaers, O.P., who
wrote extensively on Thomas' alignments and who even wrote a
book on the Lord's Prayer. 42
There is no obvious explanation for why Thomas, and his
contemporary disciples such as Fr. Pinckaers, have not aligned the
petitions with the virtues. One possibility is that the use of the
transitive property to align the virtues and the petitions on the
basis of how Thomas himself aligned the gifts with each of these
groups simply does not work, for two reasons. First, Thomas
assigns two gifts to the virtue of faith, and none to the virtue of
temperance, thus preventing a neat alignment. Second, while both
of his alignments, between the petitions and gifts/beatitudes on
the one hand 43 and between the virtues and gifts/beatitudes on the
other, seem to "work" in terms of the content of each of the
groups aligned, connecting the petitions and virtues using the
See STh I-II, q. 83, a. 9.
The closest he comes to aligning the virtues with the petitions is in his commentary on
Matthew, where he mentions the three theological virtues, but all in conjunction with the
salutary "Our Father in heaven" rather than with any particular petitions. See Super
Evangelium S. Matthaei lectura (Turin: Marietti, 1951) (584). Parenthetical numbers in
references to this text refer to paragraph numbers in the Marietti edition.
42 Pinckaers writes extensively on the virtues, gifts, beatitudes, and petitions. But like the
Angelic Doctor, he connects the petitions with the gifts and beatitudes, and virtues with the
gifts and beatitudes, but never the virtues with the petitions. See Sources of Christian Ethics,
155-58. Pinckaers claims that "The order of the petitions follows the structure of the prima
secundae: the relation between God's ultimate end and all that is ordered thereto .... The
Lord's Prayer expresses the desire that impels us toward the divine beatitude as our ultimate
end. It dominates our entire moral life" (ibid., 158). Here Pinckaers affirms that the Lord's
Prayer "dominates our entire moral life" and is thus unsurprisingly reflected in the structure
of the Prima Secundae. Yet he never aligns sections of the latter with petitions of the former.
Furthermore, Pinckaers does not mention the parallel of the seven petitions with the seven
virtues used to structure the Secunda Secundae, even in his Au coeur de I'evangile: Notre PCre,
cited above.
43 Here Thomas follows Augustine directly, without the inversion of order that had
become common in the twelfth century. See STh 11-11, q. 83, a. 9, ad 3.
40

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transitive property results in an alignment in which the meaning
of the virtue aligned with each petition does not appear reflective
of the content of that petition. 44 Since presumably Thomas would
respect the order of the petitions as given in the Lord's Prayer
given their source, an alignment of the petitions to the virtues
"though" the gifts, ordered by the petitions, would look like this:
Hallowed be thy name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
Give us this day ...
Forgive us our trespasses ...
Lead us not into temptation
Deliver us from evil

Fear of the Lord
Piety
Knowledge
Fortitude
Counsel
Understanding
Wisdom

Hope
Justice
Faith
Fortitude
Prudence
Faith
Charity 45

In this schema, the meaning of each virtue is not at all obviously
reflective of the meaning of the petition to which it supposedly
corresponds. Furthermore, Thomas at times indicates the
importance of the order of theological and cardinal virtues, an
ordering that is wrecked in the above alignment. 46 Therefore, the
above alignment is not the alignment I endorse here.
To sum up: There is an extensive history of commentary on
the Lord's Prayer. In this tradition the prayer is always regarded
according to its petitions, which commonly (though not
universally) number seven. The petitions are also commonly
subdivided, and there is strong precedent for grouping them into
the first three and latter four. Furthermore, alignment of seven
petitions with another group of seven is also common, though it
44 The transitive property states that "if A= Band B = C then A = C." One reason using
this property on the petitions, gifts, and virtue may not "work" is that the relationships
between each pair are not relationships of equality, but rather ones of correspondence in some
ways. So it is quite possible that the ways different pairs correspond will not be reflected in
new pairings set up by the transitive property.
45 It is just such an alignment of two groupings "through" another that Bonnefoy may be
doing with Bonaventure's work. He arrives at a different alignment, with the petitions
corresponding to temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude, hope, faith, and charity,
respectively (220-221).
46 For the significance of the order of the theological virtues, see STh I-II, q. 62,a. 4. For
the cardinal virtues, see STh I-II, q. 61, aa. 2-4. Discrepancies in Thomas's work as to the
order of the cardinal virtues are treated below.

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has been done in many different ways. Finally, despite the
commonalities in the tradition noted here, there is a surprising
lacuna regarding a possible alignment of the seven petitions to the
three theological and four cardinal virtues, an omission that is
particularly surprising in the Thomistic tradition. These
conclusions serve to contextualize the second section, and more
constructive contribution, of the essay. With these conclusions in
mind it should be clear in what ways the claims below are a
natural continuation of a long tradition, and in what ways they
are without precedent.
II. INTERPRETING THE LORD'S PRAYER
THROUGH THE LENS OF VIRTUE

The thesis of this essay is that the Lord's Prayer is fruitfully
interpreted by aligning its seven petitions with the seven
foundational virtues of the Christian life, namely, the three
theological and the four cardinal virtues. This second section
proceeds in two parts. First, how can the seven petitions of the
Lord's Prayer be aligned with these seven virtues in such a way
that the alignment helps further illuminate both the virtues and
petitions? Second, how does this alignment reveal that the Lord's
Prayer both addresses and helps to answer questions about the
moral life from the perspective of virtue ethics?
A) The Seven Petitions of the Lord's Prayer
The goal of this section to examine each of the pet1t1ons
individually, and explore how the particular petition reflects and
further illuminates one of the seven main virtues of the Christian
tradition. Again, the claim here is neither that each petition offers
an exhaustive understanding of one of the virtues, nor that each
petition only makes sense in reference to its corresponding virtue.
The more modest claim here is that in most cases there is a
strikingly clear correspondence between each petition and a
virtue, and that we can better understand both the prayer and the

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virtues by looking at them in relation to each other. 47 Given the
genre of this essay, the task here is briefly to state why each
petition is aligned with a specific virtue, and then to offer a
couple of examples of how that interpretation reflects claims
made by commentators in the tradition (even if these latter do not
explicitly align the petitions with virtues). In order to provide
some practical limitation on the vast amount of material available
in commentaries on the Lord's Prayer, and to reflect the
Thomistic approach to the virtues presented here, the
commentaries referenced here are limited to those written by
Thomas, or those coming from patristic sources to which Thomas
explicitly refers in his work. 48 Many other commentaries could be
gleaned here, and it is hoped they will be by others. 49
47 Thomas himself offers some reflection of how aligning two groups can illuminate them,
but should not be taken as a reduction of one to the other, or as a claim that a member of one
group is related only to a single member of the group with which it is aligned. See III Sent.,
d. 24, q. 1, a. 6 (Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lombardi, vol. 3, ed. Maria Fabianus
Moos [Paris: Lethielleux, 1929-47]).
48 Thomas examines the Lord's Prayer extensively in five texts in his corpus. They are
given here in chronological order, according to Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas
Aquinas, vol 1: The Person and His Work (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1996), 332-58 (there will be closer attention to dating, with years provided,
below): III Sent., d. 34, q. 1, a. 6; Super Matt., lect. 18 (583-602); STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9;In
orationem dominicam videlicet "Pater noster" expositio, (in Opuscula Theologica, vol. 2
[Turin: Marietti, 1954]); Comp. Theo/. II (Opera Omnia, vol. 42). The question of the
authenticity of Thomas's commentary on Matthew is treated below. Note that the
Compendium Theologiae remains unfinished, as Thomas died before completing it. It is
structured in three sections, each corresponding to a theological virtue, akin to Augustine's
Enchiridion. Reminiscent of the latter, Thomas's book 2, on hope, treats that theological
virtue through an examination of the Lord's Prayer. Thomas died after finishing only his
discussions of the first two petitions. There is no mention in this text of any alignment of the
seven petitions with the seven virtues, even though what we have of his commentary seems
to warrant such alignment (see below). As for Thomas's patristic sources on the Lord's Prayer,
the works explicitly mentioned in the above Thomistic texts and referenced here are:
Augustine, On the Sermon on the Mount; Augustine, Enchiridion; Augustine Letter 130 (to
Proba); Gregory of Nyssa, On the Lord's Prayer; Cyprian, On the Lord' Prayer; John
Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew; Jerome, Commentary on Matthew. In his Catena Aurea
on Matt 6:9-13, the sources Thomas cites that are used here (and not already listed) are:
Augustine's On the Gift of Perseverance; and Cassian's Collections. (Citations to critical
editions of Thomas's source texts are given as they are referenced.)
49 I have found particularly helpful the patristic commentaries of Origen and Tertullian
available in English in the Stewart-Sykes translation cited above, as well as contemporary
commentaries such as those of Fr. Pinckaers and Pope Benedict XVI (cited above).

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Faith

Thy Kingdom come,

Hope

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Love

Give us this day our daily bread,

Prudence

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who
trespass against us.

Justice

Lead us not into temptation,

Temperance

But deliver us from evil.

Fortitude

1. Faith
After the opening invocation "Our Father who art in heaven,"
the first petition reads "hallowed by thy name." God's name
reveals who God is,50 or as Thomas says, a reference to "God in
Himself." 51 What is being asked for here? Commentators
consistently claim it is not that God's name be holy, since this is
clearly already the case. It is that what is holy in itself be
recognized as such by us.52 This first petition is asking that who
50 The fact that God's name is a representation of who God is is a point not emphasized
by Thomas (with the exception of his words in the following note), nor by his sources which
are used here. But it is a point made consistently in the tradition of commentary. For an
extensive treatment of this point, see Origen On Prayer, 24. He offers several Old Testament
examples of where God's "name" stands for the reality of who God is. Tertullian offers
several Johannine examples of this point in On Prayer 3, to which could be added the end of
Paul's Christological hymn at Phil 2: 10. For a contemporary example of this point see Pope
Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, 142-44.
51 See STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9: "Deum in seipso." The next word in this passage is diligimus.
Thomas treats this petition as an example of loving God in Himself, which is different from
the point made here about the priority of faith. Yet Thomas is well aware of the ways faith is
a prerequisite of love. See STh I-II, q. 62, a. 4; also Michael Sherwin, O.P., By Knowledge and
by Love (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), esp. 152-63.
Thomas also insists that one's final end is best possessed primarily through an act of the
speculative intellect, which faith is in its essence (STh I-II, q. 3, a. 5; STh II-II, q. 4, a. 2, ad
3). Indeed, in his In orationem dominicam expositio he mentions the virtue of faith in his
treatment of the invocation "God dwells in the saints by faith."
52 Super Matth. 587: "Sanctificetur, idest quod in se sanctum est manifestetur in nobis"
("Let [your name] be hallowed, that is, let what is holy in itself be known to be holy by us").
See also In orationem dominicam expositio, a. 1 where the claim is made twice. This point is

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God is, as represented by God's name, be "hallowed," or
reverenced by us. This is exactly what the virtue of faith enables
us to do: to know who God is in a manner inaccessible without
God's gift of grace. 53 Far from being simple knowledge of who
God is, the virtue of faith is a reverential knowledge, involving
not only an intellectual grasp of what is true about God (though
it is primarily this) but also a loving desire of that "object" as
good. 54 The knowledge of the virtue faith is thus a "hallowing,"
as opposed to the knowledge of the demons who "believe and yet
shudder" Games 2:19). 55 Furthermore, as the first word of the
Lord's Prayer reminds us, the virtue of faith is not simply an
individual endeavor but is rather a communal, an ecclesial,
endeavor. 56 The first petition is thus aptly understood as a prayer
for the virtue of faith, or an increase in faith, in us.

ubiquitous in the history of commentary, and recognized by Thomas as such. In his
Commentary on Matthew he attributes it to both Cyprian and John Chrysostom. See John
Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 19.7 {translation in Jaroslav Pelikan, The Preaching of
Chrysostom [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967], 139-40); Cyprian, On the Lord's Prayer 12
(CCSL 3A:96-97). Augustine, in De dona perseverentiae 4 (PL 45:996-97; cited in Aquinas,
Catena aurea) makes the same claim. See also two works referenced by Thomas concerning
the Lord's Prayer, though not on this particular point: Augustine, De sermone in monte 2.5 .19
(CCSL 35 :109): "This [first petition] is not asked as if the name of God is not holy, but so that
it may be held as holy by men."); and Gregory of Nyssa, On the Lord's Prayer 2 (Hilda Graef,
trans., St. Gregory of Nyssa: "The Lord's Prayer" and "The Beatitudes," Ancient Christian
Writers 18 (Westminister, Md.: The Newman Press, 1954), 49.
53 In the unfinished Compendium Theologiae, the entire treatment of the first petition
concerns knowledge of God, which is very imperfectly attained through reason and which
God has revealed through salvation history, most perfectly through Christ. Yet the word
"faith" never appears in the chapter (8) on the first petition, even though it seems most
relevant to Thomas's point. This is perhaps due to the overall structure of the work, since the
treatment of the Lord's Prayer falls within the second section, which is on hope, rather than
the first section, which is on faith.
54 See STh 11-11, q. 2, a. l; 11-11, q. 4, aa. 1-4. For God as the "object" of the theological
virtues, including faith, see STh I-II, q. 62,aa. 1 and 2.
55 See STh 11-11, q. 5, a. 2 for Thomas's treatment of this passage in the context of the
theological virtue of faith.
56 Thomas makes this point in Comp. Theo!. 2.5. There he cites Cyprian, On the Lord's
Prayer 8 (CCSL 3A:93-94), and John Chrysostom as making the same point. His citation of
Chrysostom is actually to the Opus Imperfectum (14) of Pseudo-Chrysostom, though the same
point is made in John Chrysostom's Homilies on Matthew 19.6.

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2. Hope
The second petition reads, "thy kingdom come." The kingdom
of heaven, according to Thomas, describes that state of affairs
where all happens according to God's will. 57 It is a state of perfect
justice, 58 or as Chrysostom notes, the redemption for which all
creation groans (Rom 8 :22-23 ). 59 In the second petition one prays
that this come to pass.
What does this have to do with hope? As with the previous
petition, commentators consistently observe that the petitioner is
not simply praying that God reign (since this is clearly already the
case), or even that the fullness of God's reign arrive. This reign is
not simply a state of affairs in which people ("hopefully") one day
find themselves. It is a state of affairs in which people
participate. 60 Thomas calls the kingdom of heaven "the happiness
of the saints. " 61 Thus the prayer is that God's kingdom come in
us.62 The person with the virtue of hope, equipped with the
knowledge of faith, longs to possess that ultimate happiness that
is God's kingdom. This person yearns to participate in the
kingdom primarily by one day entering into it, but also by longing

57 See In orationem dominicam expositio, petitio 2: "The best rule is where nothing occurs
against the will of the ruler."
58 Ibid.: "indeed that reign is greatly desired for three reasons, and first according to the
complete justice that is found in it."
59 See John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 19.7.
60 See In orationem dominicam expositio, p. 2: "When therefore we pray 'Thy kingdom
come," we pray that we may participate in the Kingdom of Heaven and glory of Paradise."
See also Super Matt., lect. 18, where, in the transition from the second to third petition,
Thomas claims "'Thy kingdom come,' that is, let it reign in us .... But one is not able to come
into the Kingdom of heaven unless he be made heavenly."
61 See Comp. Theo!. 2.9: "Sic igitur et beatitudo sanctorum regnum caelorum dicitur." This
chapter of Thomas's Compendium is an oft-overlooked jewel on ultimate happiness, and a
perfect companion to STh I-II, qq. 1-5. See also Augustine, De sermone in monte 2.6.20
(CCSL 35:110): "Then the happy life will be wholly complete in the saints in eternity."
62 See Cyprian, On the Lord's Prayer 13 (CCSL 3A:97}: "Just as we desire that his name
be hallowed among us, we ask that the Kingdom of God be made known to us." See also
Augustine, De sermone in monte 2.6.20, where he claims that "come" must refer to the
kingdom being "recognized by men" (CCSL 35:110).

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for it virtuously in this life, before it is fully possessed. 63 That
virtuous longing for God as one's ultimate happiness-and the
only possible way we achieve that happiness-is hope. 64 Thomas
comes closest to naming it as hope when he claims that the second
petition is a willing to enjoy God's glory. 65
3. Love
The final petition of the group of three that represents the
theological virtues is "thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven." What is God's will? Commentators consistently claim
that the petition is referring to God's will that all are saved, often
citing 1 Timothy 2:4. 66 Once again, this is not something that simply happens to us, but something in which we participate. As Cyprian says quite clearly, "'Let your will be done in heaven and on
earth."' We say this not so that God might do what he wishes, but
that we should be able to do what God wishes. For who stands in
the way of God to prevent him from performing his will?"
Therefore the real question is, How is God's will fulfilled in us?
Here Augustine is very clear. "Thus 'they will be done' is rightly
understood as 'let obedience be given to your precepts ... .' For
63 Thomas claims that the final good of ultimate happiness can be possessed, albeit
imperfectly, even in this life through hope. See STh I-II, q. 5, a. 3, ad 1 (where he cites Rom
8:24, "by hope we are saved"); and I-II, q. 11, a. 4, ad 1and2.
64 For more from Thomas on hope, and in particular its twofold object, see STh II-II, q.
17 (esp. a. 4). See also STh II-II, q. 19, a. 1; and Thomas's Quaestio Disputata De Spe 1.
65 See STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9. Thomas's language here strongly evokes his thought on hope.
Reminiscent of his distinction between charity and hope (STh I-II, q. 62, a. 4; II-II, q. 17, a.
6), he claims in STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9 that the second petition pertains not to love of God
simply, but to the love by which we love ourselves in God ("secundum vero pertinet ad
dilectionem qua diligimus nos in Deo").
The treatment of the second petition in the Compendium Theologiae, which is precisely
where Thomas's death ended his work on the treatise, is particularly apt for a discussion of
hope as it is a depiction of the ultimate happiness for which people long. However, Thomas
never calls attention to a special affinity between the second petition and the virtue of hope
in either the Summa Theologiae or the Compendium Theologiae.
66 See In orationem dominicam expositio, p. 3: "the Lord wills that man has eternal life."
Thomas cites John 6:10 rather than 1 Tim 2:4. Cassian, whose work on the Lord's Prayer
Thomas cites in his Catena aurea, cites 1 Tim 2:4 in the context of the third petition and
claims that God wills that all are saved. See Cassian, Collationes 9.20 (CSEL 13:268-269). See
also Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord's Prayer, 59.

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the will of God is being done when His precepts are being
obeyed." 67 From here it is but a small step to see how the third
petition represents the virtue of charity. Particularly in the
Johannine tradition, charity is identified with keeping God's
commandments.
Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.
Gohn 14:21)

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love. Gohn 15: 10; cf. 1
John 3:24)
In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and
obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we keep his
commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. (1John5:2-3)

In this petition we are asking God to infuse us with charity so that
we may live the commandments, which Christ himself repeatedly
summarizes as agape or caritas (Matt 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34;
Luke 10:25-28). Loving God and our neighbor in God is precisely
what the infused theological virtue of charity enables us to do. 68
It is most fitting that this is the final petition of those
representing the theological virtues. It accords with Thomas's
general understanding of the order of those virtues. But more
germane to charity is the phrase "on earth as it is in heaven." This
phrase may seem to be simply a climactic conclusion to the
previous lines, but it is actually most properly a reference to love,
and therefore appropriately placed in the third petition. 69 As
important as faith and hope are in this life, they "pass away" in
67 Augustine, De sermone in monte 2.6.21 (CCSL 35:111). See also In orationem
dominicam expositio, p. 3: "The will of God for us is that we observe his commands" and
"Thus when we say 'Thy will be done,' we pray that God's commandments be fulfilled."
68 Gregory of Nyssa actually mentions charity in conjunction with this petition. In
discussing how the will of God dispels all in man that is contrary to that will, he claims "the
supreme good of charity will expel a whole catalogue of opposing evils from the soul" and
"the whole host of such evils is wiped out by a charitable disposition" (Gregory of Nyssa, The
Lord's Prayer, 59).
69 See Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 223 where he claims that despite noteworthy
exceptions (such as Origen, Meister Eckhart, and the Catechism of the Council of Trent) the
"overwhelming" consensus in the commentary tradition is that this phrase refers solely to the
third petition.

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the next life as we see God "face to face" and experience full
union with him. Then there is no need for faith or hope; but love
remains. 70 Love is the very meaning of existence "on earth as it is
in heaven." Hence despite the enormous importance of all three
theological virtues, "the greatest of these is love" (1Cor13:13).
4. Prudence
One of the dangers of aligning two groups together and
grafting them on to each other as related and mutually
illuminating is that the effort is always in danger of being
"forced," driven more by the desire to align two groups (in this
case of seven) neatly than by the actual relation of their content.
Thus far, the alignment I have presented here is not forced.
Connecting the fourth petition, "Give us this day our daily
bread," with prudence presents a greater challenge. Yet a look at
the tradition of interpretation of this verse reveals that seeing a
connection with prudence is not so foreign an imposition after all.
First we must ask what is meant by bread, a prominent issue in
the commentary tradition. 71 Does "bread" refer to literal, material
bread, or does it have a spiritual meaning? 72 Thomas is
representative of the broad current of the tradition in affirming
both meanings. 73 Citing Augustine's Letter 130 (to Proba), he
claims that in a material sense "bread" refers not only to actual
bread but also to all necessary sustenance for bodily life. 74 The
most obvious spiritual meaning is a reference to the Eucharist, an
interpretation Thomas recognizes and even holds as paradigmatic
70 See STh I-II, q. 67, aa. 3-4 and 6.
71 There are of course others, most notably the meaning of what St. Jerome translated in
the Vulgate as supersubstantialem. That question is not addressed here. For a helpful
overview, see Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre Pere», 121-43 for an (inconclusive) survey
of the tradition as to the meaning of the Greek word epiousios.
72 See Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre Pere», 143-91 for an historical overview of this
question.
73 See STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9: For another example of this claim in the tradition, see Cyprian,
On the Lord's Prayer 18 (CCSL 3A:101), where he claims, '"Give us this day our daily bread.'
This may be understood both spiritually and literally." See also Augustine, De sermone in
monte 2.7.25-27.
74 STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9. See also Gregory of Nyssa, On the Lord's Prayer, 70

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for all spiritual interpretations of "bread. " 75 Yet it also has other
spiritual meanings. In his Homilies on the Lord's Prayer, Thomas
claims that bread also refers to the Word of God, citing Matthew
4:4, "man does not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God."
In his Commentary on Matthew, Thomas claims that the word can
be taken to mean "the bread of wisdom. " 76 Is it unreasonable to
understand this as practical wisdom, or prudence? Not at all,
according to Thomas and Augustine, for two reasons. First, both
saints affirm that bread in this sense refers to observing God's
commandments, or precepts. Thomas claims that "the one who
eats the bread of wisdom is the one who seeks guidance toward
salvation, who observes the divine precepts. " 77 Augustine, after
acknowledging that bread can mean material bread or the
Eucharist, reveals his preference for interpreting bread in this
third sense, as "meditating on and living the divine precepts." 78
Second, both affirm that "this day" (hodie) is a reference to this
life. 79 Thomas repeatedly uses the phrase "in this life" in this
section of his Commentary on Matthew, 80 and Augustine does the
same, even starkly claiming that "this food is now called daily
since it is finished during this temporal life, during its passing,
waning days." 81
75 See STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9; In orationem dominicam expositio, p. 4. Thomas is far from
alone in understanding "bread" as the Eucharist. For instance, see also Cyprian, On the Lord's
Prayer 18 (CCSL 3A:101-2); Augustine, De sermone in monte 2.7.25-27 (CCSL 35:113-16).
John 6 is consistently cited in these passages.
76 Super Matt., lect. 18 (594): "Item aliter potest exponi de pane sapientiae."
77 Ibid.: "Ille enim comedit panem sapientiae, qui inquirit documenta salutis, qui facit
divina praecepta."
78 Augustine, De sermone in monte 2.7.27 (CCSL 35:115): "Restat igitur ut cotidianum
panem accipiamus spiritalem, praecepta scilicet diuina, quae cotidie oportet meditari et
operari. Nam de ipsis dominus dicit: Operamini escam quae non corrumpitur." The reference
to both meditating and observing is evocative of prudence, which is not simply a knowledge
of how to act well but rather a putting of such knowledge into action. For helpful overviews
of prudence see Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1966); Daniel Westberg, Right Practical Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1994).
79 I am grateful to Daniel Westberg for helping me to see this point more clearly.
80 Super Matt., lect. 18 (592) for repeated phrase "in hac vita."
81 See Augustine, De sermone in monte 2. 7.27 (CCSL 35 :115-16): "Cotidianus autem iste
cibus nunc dicitur, quam diu ista uita temporalis per dies decedentes succedentesque
peragitur." Augustine also uses the phrase "in hac temporali uita" in this section.

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It is now clearer how this fourth petition can be understand as
a prayer for prudence. Prudence is the virtue that enables one to
see things truly so as to act well in worldly matters. Commentators like Augustine and Aquinas have understood "bread"
to refer to the wisdom needed to act well in daily life. 82 In this
petition one thus asks for that quality, or virtue, by which one
possesses precisely such practical wisdom. Finally, the prevalence
of references to John 6 in these commentaries reminds us that this
practical wisdom is found most perfectly through Christ, the
Word made flesh and Bread of Life, who identifies himself as the
way, the truth, and the life.
5. Justice
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass
against us" is simultaneously an enormously important, and yet
perhaps the least commented upon, petition in the Lord's Prayer.
As evidence of the latter, it is covered in thirteen pages in
Carmignac's magisterial survey of writing on the Lord's Prayer,
less than any other petition. 83 As evidence of the former, it is the
only petition that Christ in effect "repeats" at the conclusion of
the prayer (Matt 6: 14-15). Here is a perfect example of how the
quantity of discussion of a matter need not reflect its importance.
The more fitting explanation for the briefer treatments in the
tradition is that the meaning of the petition is straightforward. It
is also quite obviously about justice.
Justice is the virtue that inclines one to right relations with
others, to give others their due. 84 The forgiveness sought in the
fifth petition is the re-establishment of right relations after some
disruption. Therefore, in this petition we are praying that the
order of justice (ius) be restored, that right relationship be reestablished between us and God, and between us and other
82 Indeed, even when Thomas is examining "bread" in a material sense, he refers to it as
aiding a person to act well and as instrumental in service to virtue. See III Sent., d. 34, q. 1,
a. 6.
83 See Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre Nre», 222-35.
84 For more on the nature of justice for Thomas see STh 11-11, q. 58.

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people. 85 Thomas discusses the petition in the context of
remission of sin, certainly a matter of justice. 86 Augustine makes
the connection to justice even clearer when, in his commentary on
this petition, he points his reader back to his examination of the
nature of punishment in the context of the fifth antithesis (Matt
5 :38-42). 87 Of course, as in the case of the theological virtues
above, we are not simply praying that something happen to us,
but also that we participate in that re-establishing of right
relations. It is the possession of the virtue of justice that enables
exactly that.
6. Temperance
The last two petitions are treated similarly in the tradition of
commentary, whether the commentator sees them as one (twopart) petition or as two distinct petitions. When examining the
sixth petition, "Lead us not into temptation," Thomas and those
whose work he draws upon are concerned primarily with one
point. They emphasize that the petition cannot be taken to mean
that we never be tempted-not primarily because this would be
unrealistic, but mainly because it is clear from the Scriptures that
God allows us to be tempted. 88 As Thomas says, "To be tempted
is human, but to consent to it is diabolical. " 89 The strategy
85 There is a consistent question in the tradition as to the strength of the conjunction "as."
Stevenson (The Lord's Prayer, 15) notes the different approaches to this question among
Gregory of Nyssa, Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvin. Related to this is the common appeal
by commentators to the story of the "unforgiving servant" from Matt 18:21-35. For examples
of this see Cyprian, On the Lord's Prayer 23 (CCSL 3A:104-5) and John Chrysostom,
Homilies on Matthew 19.9.
86 See STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9; and Super Matt., lect. 18 (596).
87 See Augustine, De sermone in monte 2.8.29 (CCSL 35:118-19), where he refers the
reader back to 1.19.56-1.20.68.
88 See In orationem dominicam expositio, p. 6 for Thomas's treattnent of the ways God
does try us (in accordance with Deut 13:3), and yet does not tempt us (in accordance withJas
1:13). Though he does use the term "prove" or "try" (probat) for the former, he also uses
"tempt" ("Sic tentavit Deus Abraham"), and so the question is not resolved simply by appeal
to the use of different terminology.
89 See In orationem dominicam expositio, p. 6: "Nam tentari humanum est, sed consentire
diabolicum est."

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generally employed to make this point is to note that the prayer
says "lead us not into temptation," rather than "let us not be
tempted." Thomas claims, "we do not ask not to be tempted, but
not to be conquered by temptation, which is to be led into
temptation. " 90 He does not use the language of "consent to
temptation" here as he does in his work on the Lord's Prayer, but
the basic sense is the same. Thomas cites Augustine to specify
more precisely the different ways we may be "led into"
temptation (rather than simply tempted) when he says that we
pray here for three things: not to be without divine help in
resisting temptation, not to consent to its deception, and not to
give in to its affliction. 91
What has any of this to do with temperance? Temperance for
Thomas is the cardinal virtue whereby our desires are moderated
reasonably, specifically with regard to sensual pleasures (of
touch), but more generally including all desires. 92 Though the
petition refers to all "temptations," the sensual temptations which
are proper to temperance particularly come to mind. This
connection to sensual pleasures was particularly clear to Augustine
who, though he does not use the term "temperance," says, "What
else does one say who says, 'Remove from me the desires of the
belly, and let not the desire for intercourse lay hold of me' (Sir
23:6), but, 'Lead us not into temptation'?" 93 Still, both temptation
and temperance can be taken more generally to refer to
90 See STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9. In Evangelium S. Matthaei Lectura 601, Thomas cites Cyprian
as making such a point: "As Cyprian explains '"and [lead] us not ... ,' that is, you do not let
us be lost in temptation. For temptation is useful, but te one led into temptation is the one
who succumbs to temptation." The Marietti text does not offer a citation from Cyprian, and
this quote could not be found in either Cyprian's On the Lord's Prayer, or Thomas's list of
Cyprian quotations on the sixth petition in his Catena Aurea.
91 See III Sent., d. 34, q. 1, a. 6: '"et ne nos inducas, etc.'; in qua, secundum Augustinum
petimus ne deserti divino auxilio alicui tentationi vel consentiamus decepti vel cedamus
afflicti." There is no reference to a text of Augustine in this text, but this basic quotation is
found in Thomas's Catena aurea on Matt 6:13, attributed to Augustine's Letter 130 (CSEL
44:64): "Augustinus ad Probam. Cum ergo dicimus ne nos inducas in tentationem, nos
admonemur hoc petere, ne deserti eius adiutorio, alicui tentationi vel consentiamus decepti
vel cedamus afflicti."
92 See STh II-II, q. 141, aa. 2 and 4.
93 See Letter 130 (to Proba) 12.22 (CSEL 44:64-66).

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temptations other than those which are properly sensual. Furthermore, the claim that this petition is a request for temperance fits
perfectly into the commentators' concern that the petition means
not that we be not tempted, but that we not be led into
temptation. Possessing the virtue of temperance does not mean
that one never encounters temptation. Rather, it enables one to
encounter and even at times enjoy pleasing entities in a moderate
and reasonable manner in accord with one's station in life. The
temperate person is indeed not "led into temptation" even when
faced with tempting situations.
7. Fortitude
Thomas and his sources consistently make two points about the
nature of the evil from which we pray to be delivered in the
seventh petition. 94 First, it is evil that is already present. 95 Second,
it refers to both punishment and afflictions in general. In his work
on the Lord's Prayer, Thomas says that since the previous two
petitions concern sin and temptation, he speaks here of other
evils, such as adversity and afflictions of this world. 96 How are we
to be delivered from such evil? In this same work Thomas claims
that God "delivers" us from evil only rarely by preventing evil
from happening to us. Far more common are other ways God
delivers us, which include consoling us in affliction, bestowing
good things on those afflicted, and directing the evils of our trials
and temptations toward our own good. 97
94 For a discussion of the historical and linguistic issue of whether this petition should read
"evil" or "the evil one," see Carmignac, Recherches sur le «Notre Pere», 306-12.
95 This is especially evident in III Sent., d. 34, q. 1, a. 6 where the last three petitions are
grouped together as removing impediments to the active life. The seventh petition refers to
present evils, while the fifth petition refers to past evils and the sixth petition to future ones.
Even though Thomas adopts this grouping of the last three petitions in no other work, he still
recognizes that this seventh petition is about present evil. See his Catena aurea on Matt 6: 13
where he cites Augustine's De sermone in monte 2.9.35 (CCSL 35:125). In his commentary
on Matthew he claims that the petition refers to evil present and future: "'Sed libera nos a
malo', praesenti vel futuro, poenae, vel culpae" (Super Matt., lect. 18 [602]).
96 See In orationem dominicam expositio, p. 7: "Sed quia de peccato et tentatione dictum
est, dicendum est de aliis malis, scilicet adversitatibus et afflictionibus omnibus huius mundi."
97 See ibid.

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

Fortitude for Thomas is the cardinal virtue by which we are
able to endure or resist obstacles that impede us from living in
accordance with reason. 98 The brave person is able to face
afflictions and adversities well. Reminiscent of Thomas's claims
about how God grants deliverance, this is quite often achieved not
by removing the difficulty at hand, but by enduring it. 99 One is
brave, and has been delivered from evil, when evils experienced
are overcome, or at least one is not overcome by them. Hence in
the seventh petition as one prays for deliverance from evil, one is
indeed praying for fortitude.
This is the alignment I propose between the seven petitions of
the Lord's Prayer and the seven foundational virtues of the
Christian life. In most contexts it would be appropriate to
examine in much greater detail the richness evoked by these
petitions and the virtues they suggest. But given the more analytic
setting of this essay, and the larger concern to substantiate the
scriptural foundations for an ethics of virtue, I turn now in the
second part of this section to note how the alignment presented
here addresses and helps answer classic questions in virtue
approaches to ethics.

B) Reading the Lord's Prayer in the Light of the Virtues:
Implications for Virtue and the Christian Life
The task I undertake here is very limited: it is simply to note
the ways that the alignment between the virtues and petitions
presented above informs certain issues central to virtue ethics. I
offer here four observations in line with this task.

1. Ordering of the Petitions and Virtues
The order of the petitions generally corroborates how the
virtues have been ordered in the Christian, and especially the
See STh II-II, q. 122, aa. 1 and 2.
See STh II-II, q. 122, a. 6 on endurance as the chief act of fortitude. For more on this
point see also Josef Pieper, The Four CardinalVirtues, 126-33.
98

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305

Thomistic, tradition. The foundations of the life of Christian
virtue are the three theological virtues, which are fittingly placed
at the opening of the prayer. Faith has been affirmed as importantly prior among the three, as it is through faith that we
know the God in whom we hope and whom we love. 100 But of
course love has also been consistently affirmed as both the form
of the virtues and the one theological virtue that endures in the
next life. And so it is fittingly given a climactic place at the
conclusion of the first three petitions, including the decisive "on
earth as it is in heaven." 101 The wording of the Lord's Prayer not
only reflects primacy of and proper ordering among the
theological virtues in the tradition, but also ascribes a climactic
place to the virtue of love. 102
The Christian tradition shows more variation in the ordering
of the cardinal virtues. 103 But the Thomistic tradition follows
strains of Greek thought in consistently affirming the following
order: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Prudence is
fittingly placed first since it is a virtue of the intellect, and directs
the moral virtues. Justice is fittingly next, since it is a virtue of the
appetite, but the rational appetite or will. Thomas generally lists
fortitude next, and then temperance. This is reflected in his
ordering of the cardinal virtues in the Secunda Secundae, and
explained in passages where he describes the irascible appetite
(governed by fortitude) as participating more in human reason
than the concupiscible appetite (governed by temperance). 104 Yet
the differences between the capacities governed by temperance
and fortitude are far fewer than those between the sensitive
appetite on the one hand (temperance and fortitude) and the
intellect (prudence) or the intellectual appetite (justice) on the
other. Indeed, at times in his work Thomas switches the order of
temperance and fortitude, something he does not do with the
other two cardinal virtues either in relation to each other or in
100 See

STh I-II, q. 62, a. 4.

STh II-II, q. 23, a. 8.
STh II-II, q. 17, aa. 7 and 8.
103 The crucial scriptural mention of the cardinal virtues is Wisdom 8:7, where the order
given is temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude.
104 See STh I-II, q. 46, a. 5; De virtutibus cardinalibus,a. 2.
101 For love as form of the virtues, see

102 For the place of hope in between faith and love, see

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

relation to temperance and fortitude. 105 In sum, the ordering of
the virtues presented here as aligned with the petitions of the
Lord's Prayer (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude)
largely respects the ordering of the cardinal virtues in the
Thomistic tradition. Indeed, the fact that the virtues of
temperance and fortitude both govern the passions explains not
only why their ordering in relation to each other is variable, but
also why they could quite fittingly be treated together under one
pet1t1on, as represented by the six-petition tradition of
commentary since Tertullian.
2. Grouping the Petitions
The Lord's Prayer is consistently divided in the tradition into
two groups of petitions: the first three and the remaining four (or
three, depending on the author). 106 This division is suggested in
the very grammar of the petitions, as noted above. In explaining
this difference, Thomas and his sources consistently differentiate
the two groups in the manner described by Augustine:
Accordingly, in the Evangelist Matthew the Lord's Prayer seems to embrace
seven petitions, three of which ask for eternal blessings, and the remaining four
for temporal; these latter, however being necessary antecedents to the former.
For when we say, "Hallowed be thy name: Thy Kingdom come: They will be
done in earth, as it is in heaven ... " we ask for blessings that are to be enjoyed
for ever; which are indeed begun in this world, and grow in us as we grow in
grace, but in their perfect state, which is to be looked for in another life, shall be
a possession for evermore. But when we say, "Give us this day our daily bread:
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors: and lead us not into
temptation, but deliver is from evil," who does not see that we ask for blessings
that have reference to the wants to this present life?107
See examples of this at Summa Theologiae I-II 61, 2 & 3 & 4.
Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer, 221 notes that despite different groupings offered
throughout history, "they all distinguish between the opening petitions (addressed to God)
and later petitions (about our needs)." That this is somewhat overstated is revealed just by
looking at Thomas Aquinas' differing ways of dividing the petitions, presented below. But
cases like his are exceptions that prove the rule.
107 See Augustine, Enchiridion 115 (CCSL 46:110-11) (translated in The Enchiridion on
Faith, Hope and Love, trans. J.B. Shaw [Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1961], 13233). Augustine makes basically the same claim in De sermone in monte 2.10.36-37: "The
accomplishment of the first three petitions, it is true, begins with the present life, the life that
105

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307

Thomas recognizes and affirms this grouping in the Summa
Theologiae when he explicitly refers to Augustine's Enchiridion
and claims in reference to the first three petitions that "these three
petitions will be perfectly fulfilled in the life to come; while the
other four, according to Augustine, belong to the needs of the
present life." 108 Interestingly enough, despite recogmzmg
Augustine's eternal/temporal distinction here and in other texts, 109
Thomas frequently groups the seven petitions otherwise, in fact
in varying ways that seem to display a clear trajectory of
development. 110 Nevertheless, the point for our purposes is that
is spent in this world .... Yet all three are to continue for eternity" [CCSL 35:126-27]).
108 STh II-II, q. 83, a. 9, ad 1.
10 ' See In orationem dominicam expositio, p. 4. Thomas again affirms the distinction
between the first three petitions from what follows. See also Super Matt., lect. 18 (591) for
a similar claim. It is not clear in this text if what Thomas refers to as "necessary in this life"
is a reference simply to the fourth petition, or to all four remaining petitions.
110 In III Sent., d. 34, q. 1, a. 6 (dated by Torrell [Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:332] in the
1250s), Thomas claims that the first two petitions concern the contemplative life, and the final
five the active life. The latter group is further divided into two petitions (3 and 4) requesting
what assists the active life, and three petitions (5, 6, and 7) seeking the removal of what
impedes the active life. Thus there is a clear 2-2-3 grouping. In the Secunda Secundae (dated
by Torrell [Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:333] in 1271-72), Thomas no longer employs the
contemplative/active distinction. But his grouping is still best described in STh II-II, q. 83, a.
9, as it is in the Sentences commentary, as 2-5 and more specifically as 2-2-3. The first two
petitions concern humanity's end itself, who is God. The rest concern what is directed to that
end. Petitions 3 and 4 direct humanity to that end by their nature, since they concern what is
useful to that end. Petitions 5, 6, and 7 direct us to the end accidentally by removing
impediments to the good. It is clear how the middle group of two petitions could easily be
grouped with the first two rather than the last three. This is exactly what happens in In
orationem dominicam expositio, a. 7 (dated by Torrell, [Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:358] in
1273). There Thomas employsa4-3 grouping, or more specifically 1-3-3. The prayer contains
all we ought to desire, which for Thomas always means both what we ought to desire and
what we ought to avoid. There are four things we desire, the glory of God (1) and things from
God as they concern ourselves (2, 3, and 4). Then there are three things to be avoided
{petitions 5, 6, and 7), and these are correlated to petitions 2, 3, and 4 as impediments
thereto. Thomas claims there is no contrary to the glory of God (1). The unfinished
Compendium Theologiae contains no grouping of the petitions.
The Commentary on Matthew presents an issue of authenticity and perhaps even dating.
As for the former, Torrell notes that the 1951 Marietti edition contains inauthentic passages
interpolated throughout. He cites the commentary on the Sermon on the Mount as one such
example. However, he says "the interpolated passages extend in Matthew from 5:11to6:8
and from 6:14 to 6:19 {lects. 13-17 and 19), nos. 444-582 and 603-610 in the Marietti
edition" (Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:339). The fact that Torrell conspicuously omits
from his list of interpolated passages Thomas's commentary on Mt 6:9-13 (the text of the

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

the petitions themselves, in their grammar and in their content,
exhibit a ready division between the first three and next four with
the first three concerning eternity (although begun in this life) and
the last four concerning the needs of this life. This grouping is
evident in the tradition of commentary.
This division perfectly reflects the distinction between the
theological and cardinal virtues in Thomas's thought, not simply
in the numbers of each (three theological and four cardinal) but
also in the content of the two different categories of virtue. For
Thomas, the theological virtues have God's very self as their
object. 111 They govern activities which concern God directly
(believing in God, hoping for God, loving God and one's
neighbors in God) which are begun in this life but are brought to
perfection in eternity. The four cardinal virtues concern temporal
activities accessible to unaided human reason: practical decisionmaking, relations with others, facing difficulties, and engaging in
sensual pleasures. 112 The claim that the petitions concern both
eternal (heavenly) and temporal (earthly) matters is directly
reflective of Thomas' s distinction between the theological and the
cardinal virtues. Of course, all commentators want to maintain
that there is no dichotomy between these two groups. As
Augustine's says, what is requested in the first three is begun in
this life, and the temporal necessities of the final four prepare one
for eternity.

Lord's Prayer), which consists of nos. 583-602, I take as an affirmation of the authenticity of
that part of the commentary. Thus I treat it here as such.
As for dating and the immediately relevant issue of grouping petitions, Torrell dates this
commentary "with high probability" (Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:339) in 1269-70. However,
Thomas's grouping of petitions in this text (Super Matt., lect. 18 [586]) follows the In
orationem dominicam expositio treatment exactly. The texts on the groupings of petitions thus
show clear development from the Sentences through the Secunda Secundae as a sort of middle
ground, ending in the Commentary on Matthew and In orationem dominicam expositio. Yet
Torrell's dating of the Commentary on Matthew does not match this development. I can offer
no explanation of this fact.
111 See STh I-II, q. 62, aa. 1 and 2. See also De virtutibus in communi, a. 12.
112 See STh I-11, q. 62, a. 2: "The object of the moral and intellectual virtues is something
comprehensible to human reason." See STh I-II, q. 61, a. 1 where Thomas explains how the
four cardinal virtues "cover" the moral and intellectual virtues that engage the human will.

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309

3. The Primacy of Infused Virtue
Despite the neat division between the first three and last four
petitions, the Lord's Prayer importantly affirms the unity of the
Christian life, a life that is both directed toward (and indeed is
even a foretaste of) a supernatural destiny of union with God, and
yet firmly embedded in worldly existence in time and space. That
this is the case with the first three petitions and their corresponding theological virtues is readily apparent. What is sought
in the first three petitions, and is made possible for humanity in
the three theological virtues, is only perfectly possible in the next
life, but it is begun in this one. 113 Yet the same is true of both the
last four petitions and the four cardinal virtues. In a simple sense,
as Augustine notes, these four are needed in order to attain
eternity. But while the cardinal virtues directly concern temporal
activities accessible to unaided human reason, they are only
perfectly possible with God's grace. In praying the Lord's Prayer,
one simultaneously recognizes that God does help people with
their temporal activities, and that such grace is needed in order to
perform them perfectly. 114 In the Commentary on Matthew,
Thomas repeatedly observes that what is sought requires human
action (once even specifying liberum arbitrium) but also the help
of God. 115 Furthermore, Augustine's claim regarding the necessity
113 Readers of Thomas will immediately protest, with appeal to STh I-II, q. 67, aa. 3 and
4, that faith and hope do not remain after this life. This is true. However, though the
theological virtues of faith and hope do not endure, the knowledge and possession toward
which they incline a person are achieved. This renders the knowledge no longer faith and
longing for possession no longer hope, but by reason of completion or achievement rather
than removal or failure. And of course charity does remain (STh I-II, q. 67, a. 6), a distinction
signified in the prayer by "on earth as it is in heaven."
114 For more on this claim, see STh I-II, q. 63, a. 3 on the need for the infused moral (or
cardinal) virtues.
115 Thomas makes this point most succinctly while examining the first petition, and
explaining why we say "Hallowed be thy name" in the passive rather than "Let us hallow your
name." He claims the latter would imply that we do this only through our own free will,
rather than with God's help. Super Matt., lect. 18 (590): "Et nota quod dicitur, Sanctificetur
nomen tuum, et non Sanctificemus. Et hoc est, quia ad salutem requiritur persona Dei, et
liberum arbitrium. Sed si in prima persona peteretur, iam videretur quod solum ad liberum
arbitrium pertineret." For another example of the need for God's grace, see the treatment of
the third petition in Super Matt., lect. 18 (589): "Whence we pray that God's will be fulfilled

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WILLIAM C. MATIISON III

of these petitions (and by extension their corresponding virtues)
for eternal life reveals that their activities are ultimately directed
toward supernatural happiness in union with God. Indeed, there
is a sense in which the cardinal virtues remain, even in eternal
life. 116 These two characteristics-God as efficient cause and final
end-are what characterize the infused virtues in the Thomistic
tradition. 117 In the Lord's Prayer, not only the first three but also
the final four petitions are made possible by God's grace and
direct one ultimately toward one's supernatural destiny. Thus the
very format of the Lord's Prayer is both an "argument" for the
existence of the infused cardinal (or moral) virtues, and indeed
the primacy of the infused (rather than acquired) cardinal
virtues. 118
4. Happiness and Its Relationship to Virtue
The Lord's Prayer takes a stand on an age-old question in
virtue ethics concerning the ultimate good for humanity. Is the
ultimate good, and thus happiness from attaining it, achieved simply by the possession of virtues (as the Stoics claimed), such that
the attainment of happiness is not subject to the capriciousness of
through us, and this would be in vain unless it were done by God."
116 See STh I-II, q. 67, a. 1 for how these virtues remain in patria, though differently. This
question is a staple in medieval discussions of virtue due to Peter Lombard's discussion in the
Sentences (III Sent., d. 33, c. 1) of Augustine's claim inDe Trinitate (14.9.12) that the cardinal
virtues do indeed remain in patria.
117 For more on Thomistic categorizations of virtue, see William C. Mattison III,
"Thomas's Categorizations of Virtue: His Synthesis of His Predecessors' Work and Its Impact
on Contemporary Debates," forthcoming.
118 For more on the common neglect of the infused cardinal (or moral) virtues, see Michael
S. Sherwin, O.P., "Infused Virtue and the Effects of Acquired Vice: A Test Case for the
Thomistic Theory of Infused Cardinal Virtues," The Thomist 73 (2009): 29-52. See also
Romanus Cessario, O.P., The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics, 2d ed. (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), 165-72; idem, Introduction to Moral Theology
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 200ff.; Servais
Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
of America Press, 1995), 178-81; Michael Sherwin, O.P, By Knowledge and by Love
(Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 170-7 5; Angela McKay,
"Prudence and Acquired Moral Virtue," The Thomist 69 (2005): 535-55; Robert Miner,
"Non-Aristotelian Prudence in the Prima Secundae," The Thomist 64 (2000): 401-22.

THE LORD'S PRAYER AND AN ETHICS OF VIRTUE

311

luck or other factors beyond the wise person's control? Or is
genuine happiness something that in important ways happens to
us, in a manner not achieved by possessing the virtues, or the
well-developed capacities of the wise person? Aristotle wrestled
with this thorny question, 119 and Augustine famously categorized
the multitude of possible answers to it in the opening pages of
book 19 of the City of God. It is clear from the Lord's Prayer that
the answer is both/and. 12°Full happiness does not simply happen
to us, given the capacities we possess as creatures in the image and
likeness of God. Reminiscent of the Thomistic (and Aristotelian)
claim that happiness is an activity, the happiness for which we
pray in the Lord's Prayer is something in which we participate. 121
Hence in the Lord's Prayer we pray not simply that certain things
happen (to us), but that we become people who are equipped to
enjoy true happiness, namely, persons with the theological and
cardinal virtues.
While the Lord's Prayer reveals that happiness requires a
change in the petitioners (i.e., the possession of the virtues), it is
also evident from the prayer that the yearning for happiness from
which the supplicants' words are born is not satiated on their own
power. The petitioners are asking through God's grace to be
granted the virtues. Furthermore, though the words of the
petitions do request changes in those who utter the prayer
(changes represented by the virtues), those who pray also ask God
that certain things happen not only in them but in the world
outside of them: that the kingdom come, God's will be done, that
their bread is given, their trespasses be forgiven, and that they be
delivered from evil. Hence the possession of the virtues alone,
even the infused virtues, is not constitutive of the full happiness
sought in the Lord's Prayer. This full happiness is the redemption
for which all creation groans (Rom 8:22-23). For humanity it is
a participation in the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4) requiring, but not

See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.8-11.
The extent to which the stand suggested by the Lord's Prayer is in line with the claims
of Aristotle or Augustine is beyond the scope of this essay.
121 See STh I-II, q. 3, a. 2; Thomas here cites Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.13.
119

120

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

constituted by, the possession of the theological and cardinal
virtues.
III. CONCLUSION

Given the fact that Christians have depicted the fullness of life
in Christ by reflecting both on the petitions of the Lord's Prayer
and on the seven virtues, it should not be surprising that one may
find an alignment between those groupings. The historical survey
of the first section of this essay has delineated how the
constructive work of the second section is both historically
grounded and yet new. Much work remains to be done in drawing
out how specific claims in the Lord's Prayer (and in the Scriptures
more generally) ground and inform an ethics of virtue. But more
importantly, the rudimentary reflections here on the petitions in
light of the virtues are meant to nourish the lives of discipleship
of the faithful who utter this prayer and endeavor to live out the
virtues, both to know and enjoy the happiness to which all are
called and which is constituted by union with the God of Jesus
Christ. 122

122 I would like to thank Frank Matera and Craig Steven Titus for their helpful suggestions

on an earlier draft of this article, and Benjamin Safranski, whose research assistance was
invaluable for completing this project.

BOOK REVIEWS
Seeing the Word: Refocusing New Testament Study. By MARKUS BOCKMUEHL.
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006. Pp. 297. $27.00 (paper). ISBN
978-0-8010-2761-1.
Prophecy and Discernment. By R. W. L. MOBERLY. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi+ 281. $39.99 (paper). ISBN 978-0-52185992-9.
The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
By SIMON J. GATHERCOLE. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 2006. Pp. xi + 344. $34.00 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8028-2901-6.
Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets. By
CHRISTOPHERR. SEITZ. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007. Pp. 264.
$23.00 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8010-3258-5.
Reading Scripture with the Church: Toward a Hermeneutic for Theological
Interpretation. By A. K. M. ADAM, STEPHEN E. FOWL, KEVIN J.
VANHOOZER, and FRANCIS WATSON. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,
2006. Pp. 155. $30.00 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8010-3173-1.
Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith. By FRANCIS WATSON. New York: T. & T.
Clark International, 2004. Pp. xv + 584. $66.00 (paper). ISBN 0-56708232-6.
Markus Bockmuehl's Seeing the Word begins with C. H. Dodd's 1936
inaugural lecture at the University of Cambridge, in which Dodd sets forth his
understanding of the five steps of critical exegetical methodology, beginning with
text criticism and ending with biblical theology. Whereas Dodd exudes
confidence in the enduring value of the text-critical, higher-critical, and linguistic
research of his predecessors, Bockmuehl shows that contemporary New
Testament scholarship lacks a consensual basis upon which to conduct its
inquiry. This fragmentation has been accentuated by such factors as the growth
of subspecialties, the vast quantity of publications, the dismissal of scholarship
done prior to the past three decades, and the growing inability to read foreign
languages. Even so, like Dodd, Bockmuehl holds that "most of the major
historical-critical questions one might wish to ask of the New Testament have
now indeed seen a pretty good airing of the available options" (44), in part
thanks to the recent work of N. T. Wright and Martin Hengel.

313

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Arguing that questions of theological meaning now are at the forefront,
Bockmuehl cautions against approaches that ignore the text's own historical
setting/intention. He encourages efforts to unify New Testament research
through "forums of shared inquiry ... where a common concern for truth makes
it possible both to articulate and to question inherited certainties, to assess one's
own and the other's deep-seated ideological commitments without immediate
disqualification" (61). This vision of inquiry as a common project, requiring
concern for truth and attentiveness to the other, characterizes Bockmuehl's two
major recommendations for advancing New Testament study: to include the
"effective history" or "historical footprint" (65-66) within the task of
understanding the meanings of the New Testament texts, and to attend to the
standpoint of the implied reader of the texts. Both proposals open up New
Testament scholarship to the Church, and especially to the Church of the
apostolic period, but neither proposal excludes non-Christian scholars or
represses historical/theological disagreements.
Bockmuehl first takes up the significance of the texts' implied reader. He
observes that "the historic significance of the ancient biblical texts is inseparable
from the space they have inhabited, and continue to inhabit, as the canonical
Scripture of the Christian church" (77). While secular readers can contribute to
New Testament interpretation, they cannot fully apprehend the "ecclesial
dynamic of life and worship" (ibid.) that provides the matrix of the New
Testament texts. The New Testament texts emphasize that non believing readers
require the transformation of their minds (wisdom) before they will be able to
understand. Does this claim underestimate the tensions intrinsic to the New
Testament texts themselves? Critiquing Rowan Williams's "conflict-driven
hermeneutics" (84), Bockmuehl argues that theology has its coherence in and
through the exegesis of Scripture. Far from primarily revealing conflict, Scripture
reveals God's wisdom addressed to the ecclesial implied reader in "the
hermeneutic of the Spirit" (91). Yet as Bockmuehl indicates through a reading
of Genesis 3 and Matthew 4, the New Testament's implied reader learns from
Jesus not to claim power to control the meaning of God's word; instead Jesus'
receptivity to God's word, a receptivity enacted in his Pasch, undergirds the
standpoint of the texts' implied reader.
If the implied reader calls for the biblical texts to be read as God's wisdom for
the Church, does this undercut Bockmuehl's earlier warning that theological
readings of Scripture must be fully appreciative of, and engaged with, the
historical setting and intention of the text? Bockmuehl surveys the increasing
fragmentation of Scripture in scholarship since the eighteenth century, and
concludes that today one finds "a virtually normative assumption that New
Testament theology is possible only as a serial compilation of its authors' diverse
theologies" (105). He points out that, as with the four Gospels, the canon itself
recognizes (and gives shape to) a diversity that supports unity. Despite their
differences in emphasis, the New Testament authors do not envision themselves
as being at odds with each other. Rather the texts, while diverse, presuppose an
ecclesial unity around one gospel, "a unified core of theological conviction"

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(115). As regards the historical setting and intention of the text, "the New
Testament does not create the church but rather presupposesand confirms it at
every turn" (113). In this regard, it is readings that presuppose fragmentation,
rather than readings that presuppose canon and creed, that are fundamentally
ahistorical. If this is so, Bockmuehl suggests, then the New Testament's meaning
cannot be limited to the Second Temple period, but rather receives legitimate
interpretation in the "rule of faith" that is to be found in the New Testament's
"effective history."
On this basis Bockmuehl turns to his second major recommendation, namely,
that scholars should attend to the texts' effective history. The New Testament
texts intend to shape their (ecclesial) readers in accord with the pattern of the
gospel, and so the texts' effective history cannot be rigidly separated from their
own historical settings and intentions. At this point, Bockmuehl takes up the
question of whether he has overestimated the unity of the first-century Church.
Were not Paul and Peter/James at loggerheads regarding the status of Jews and
Gentiles in the Church (Galatians 2)? Critiquing F. C. Baur's influential
reconstruction of a split between Hellenizers and Judaizers, Bockmuehl finds in
1 Corinthians 1-4 and Galatians 2, as well as in Mark, Matthew, and 2 Peter,
evidence that Paul and Peter understand themselves to be in communion with
each other, proclaiming the same gospel. Likewise Bockmuehl remarks upon "the
effect of canonizing Paul's relationship with Peter" (132). The differences
between Paul and Peter were not, either for them or for the Church,
nonnegotiable.
In a similar vein, Bockmuehl retrieves as an exemplar the mid-twentiethcentury New Testament scholarship of E. C. Hoskyns, who argued for "a
unifying christological kerygma of the New Testament" (141). Hoskyns
recognized that the New Testament presents itself as "the place of an arresting
encounter with the living God" (14 7) and therefore envisions its own effective
history. For Hoskyns, and for Bockmuehl as well, the Church's continual
exegetical labor opens the Church to receive correction and renewal from God's
word. Such biblical interpretation must be fully historical, attentive both to the
original settings and to the effective history of the texts. Following Hoskyns,
Bockmuehl recognizes that Christological/pneumatological claims change one's
understanding of history and thus of "historical" biblical interpretation.
Bockmuehl thus calls for "an integrated historical-critical reading of Scripture
that is at once keenly theological and concerned for the organic lines of
continuity connecting Jesus with the church" (156). It would be historically
deficient to envision the New Testament texts in isolation from the "church that
for all its division, diversity, and change maintained-and maintains-a defining
loyalty to the same apostolic gospel" (157).
The task of fidelity to the apostolic gospel defines the Church's exegeticaltheological labor: for Bockmuehl theologians must be trained biblical exegetes
(evangelical) while at the same time valuing the ecclesial/creedal effective history
of the texts (Catholic)-a "mediating position" (ibid.) that Bockmuehl finds in
Hoskyns's Anglican approach.

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Regarding the effective history of the New Testament, Bockmuehl draws
particular attention to "the early Christian emphasis on living memory of the
apostolic age" (161). While historical events cannot be separated from interpretation, historical events are not pure interpretation; moreover, the particular
historical events of Scripture interpret the interpreters-the events resist efforts
to restrict them to the past. How then to interpret the New Testament with due
attention both to historical-critical analysis of the texts' original settings/
intentions and to their effective history? Discussing Ulrich Luz's effort to achieve
such an integration in his recent Matthew commentary, Bockmuehl inquires into
what happens "in cases where the effects conflict with each other or even with
the plain sense of the text itself" (165). He proposes that the "effective history"
of the first 170 years after Christ deserves a place in historical-critical
interpretation, because of the "living memory" possessed by people who knew
the apostles or who were taught by others who knew the apostles. Following
other recent scholars who have accentuated the role of memory in the New
Testament and in the early Christian writers, he suggests that valuable effective
history for biblical interpretation is largely limited to the first two centuries:
"After 200, the chain of tradition might be expected to take on a different
shape" (179).
Given this positive evaluation of the New Testament's effective history in the
apostolic period, Bockmuehl expresses deep concern that the Church got away
from Jesus' Jewish identity, to the point that the Church's Jesus, theologically
identified by "universalizing abstractions" rather than by Jewish practices (194),
became unrecognizable as Israel's Messiah. Bockmuehl particularly has in mind
the parting of ways in the first century: "Jews and Christians came to agree on
the tragic conclusion that one could not both follow Jesus and practice Judaism"
(193). By choosing the Twelve and giving his own life for the restoration of
Israel, Jesus reconstituted Israel around himself in a messianic/eschatological
action, which Bockmuehl interprets in accord with the parable of the vineyard
(Matthew 21/Luke 20). Jesus' commitment to the salvation of Israel, however,
was in Bockmuehl's view obscured by the Church Fathers, beginning especially
with Origen. As a result Paul's mission, after the fact, turned out to contradict
Peter's: "The apostolic church had embodied the Abrahamic mission and the
command of Jesus by pioneering at great personal cost a Jewish welcome of
Noahide Gentiles as Gentiles. Subsequent Gentile Christianity generally failed
to return the compliment" (224 ). Bockmuehl suggests that the solution may arise
from the emerging communities of Messianic Jews, who, like many first-century
Jewish Christians, confess Jesus as Messiah while continuing to observe Torah.
How might we evaluate Bockmuehl's position? He holds that a fully historical
interpretation of the New Testament must include, in addition to the standard
historical-critical approaches, attention to the implied reader and the effective
history of the texts. The implicit suggestion seems to be that at issue is what kind
of validity the Church's development of doctrine and sacramental structure
possess.

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Repeatedly, Bockmuehl raises the question of whether systematic theology
can in fact be distinct from biblical interpretation (inclusive of its historicalcritical tools). Against "historically oblivious models of doctrinal and ecclesial
assertion" (232), he holds that when the Church (or the theologian) affirms
doctrinal truth, such affirmations must rest on (inevitably contested) historicalcritical analysis, broadened theologically by the implied reader and
ecclesiologically by the texts' effective history, especially the apostolic period.
Nonetheless, the question remains, how should one understand the development
of doctrine and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the (sacramentally structured)
Church? As a test case, Bockmuehl surveys the first-century division between
Rabbinic Jews and Christian Jews/Gentiles, and argues that contemporary
Messianic Judaism holds out the hope of overcoming this split. The number of
theological issues here is staggering, and one wonders whether the test case
actually reveals the need for systematic theology grounded on something more
than theologically erudite historical-critical scholarship that privileges the first
two centuries of reception history. Bockmuehl would probably agree, but his
position might be made more clear in his otherwise rich and valuable book.
By examining how the Bible presents the discernment of true prophetic
discourse, R. W. L. Moberly's Prophecyand Discernment seeks to strengthen the
ability of contemporary Christians to present "divine revelation as a matter of
public, albeit contested, truth" (1). How do believers know when God is truly
speaking through human beings? Unless Christians can defend the possibility of
"divine communication through human mediation" (12), Christian faith and
preaching disintegrate. Contemporary biblical scholarship, however, generally
denies that Old Testament prophecy can be discussed in terms of its truth or
falsity. Instead, prophets succeed when the word that they speak is timely and
adaptable to different situations. In explaining the motives of ancient prophets,
scholars tend to appeal to unusual psychological experiences. Due to the
presumption that God could only be an intruder in the world, God appears as
a threat to the full humanity of the prophetic voice. For these reasons, Moberly
fears that "legitimate difficulties in speaking appropriately of God seem to be
threatening to remove issues of faith and transcendence out of the realm of
rational discourse altogether, and to make them into an arbitrary a priori" (30).
He proposes that a renewed account of prophetic mediation of God's word,
employing "conceptual assumptions appropriate to a classic and renewed 'rule
of faith"' (38), is in order.
Moberly undertakes this task by first turning to Jeremiah's contested
prophetic mission. In Jeremiah 1, God gives Jeremiah a mission to proclaim
God's powerful word despite Jeremiah's own professed weakness and
vulnerability. In Jeremiah 18, God through Jeremiah compares himself to the
potter (powerful), and Israel to the clay (dependent). Yet Jeremiah 18 also
includes God's promise that if nations repent and obey him, then he will bless
rather than curse them. The potter, in other words, is not arbitrarily powerful,
but instead responds to the clay. God (the potter) seeks a response from the

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nations (the clay) to his powerful word, spoken by the prophet. God also warns
through Jeremiah that he has a plan for Israel (the clay), namely, to refashion it
disastrously unless Israel repents. The clay must become malleable to God's
word, or else it will be broken and refashioned by the God who is malleable to
the clay (insofar as his curse will not come about if Israel hears and obeys his
word through the prophet). In light of this understanding of God's word as
"response-seeking speech" (52), Moberly reflects upon the signs of truly
repentant "response": not solely performing a ritual, but internalizing the ritual
so that it becomes an embrace of God. The Temple alone cannot protect
Jerusalem and Judah; ''YHWH's presence in the temple does not guarantee
protection for the corrupt" (61), but rather portends the opposite. Compared
with the holiness of God's word, the self-serving words of the false prophets,
which suggest that God supports injustice, rend Jeremiah to the core.
On this basis Moberly proposes that true prophetic speech can be discerned
by the conduct, moral seriousness, and divine vocation of the prophet. But how
is one to discern whether the divine vocation is real? Moberly notes that John
Calvin presented divine vocation in terms of whether the prophet knows Torah
and interprets it rightly. If this is so, however, then every good interpreter of
God's word is a prophet, and this seems to underestimate the distinctiveness of
the prophetic vocation. Is prophetic authority then entirely subjective (as Walter
Brueggemann and, in a different way, Patrick Miller suggest)?
In response to such a question, Moberly argues that a true prophetic vocation
is revealed in the congruity between what we know of God's "character and
priorities" and the content and priorities of the prophetic speech: "genuine
prophetic speech ... should be such as to confront sinful people with their need
to turn to God" (88). Responding to Robert Carroll, Moberly returns again to
the image of the potter and the clay, and examines the balance between
Jeremiah's "strong portrayal of divine initiative" and "strong portrayal of divine
and human responsiveness" (99). Judgment and restoration are combined in
Jeremiah's prophetic word. As Moberly concludes, prophetic speech involves
"concern both with human self-will which cannot bring itself to live rightly and
respond to God's will and also with God's refusal to be bound by that failure"
(ibid.).
Having identified these criteria for discerning prophetic authenticity, Moberly
explores Jeremiah 28 and 1 Kings 22. While scholars generally find Jeremiah 28
to be particularly important for prophetic discernment-it describes Jeremiah's
conflict with the false prophet Hananiah-Moberly points out that there is never
any doubt that Hananiah is a false prophet. He suggests that the conflict between
Micaiah hen Imlah and the four hundred prophets in 1 Kings 22 offers a better
test case. The four hundred court prophets promise victory for King Jehoshepahat of Judah and King Ahab of Israel against the king of Aram; only Micaiah
hen Imlah, an outsider to the court, prophesies defeat. Moberly shows how the
message of divine compassion, a message that requires repentance and humility
on the part of the king, does not evoke the necessary response in the king-in
part due to the self-serving false prophecy of Zedekiah, the leader of the court

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prophets, but largely due to the king's pride. The central contrast is between the
four hundred court prophets' sycophantic accommodation to power and
Micaiah's vulnerability and critique of the king's pride. Micaiah's integrity stands
against the king's refusal "to relinquish self-will and admit error" (126). The
authentic prophet speaks on behalf of the God who compassionately challenges
disastrous human pride. Moberly asks whether God reveals to Micaiah
something beyond the capacity of unaided human reason. On the one hand, God
reveals that Ahab will die if he chooses to fight the battle; on the other hand,
Micaiah's prophetic knowledge has to do with ordinary life rather than esoteric
information.
Next Moberly turns to the cases of Elisha (2 Kgs 2) and Balaam (Num 22), so
as "to argue that what enables, or disables, prophetic vision of God is not
different in kind, but only in degree, from what enables, or disables, anyone's
vision; and that the discernment of God in Himself does not take place on a basis
different from the discernment of God in a human person" (131). For Moberly,
the key is purity of heart. Why does Elisha three times disobey Elijah's command
to stay behind? Unlike the company of prophets, Elisha has the purity of heart
required to follow Elijah and to see the divine power in Elijah's assumption into
heaven. AB for Balaam, once he agrees to come to Balak, God teaches him that
mortal danger "awaits him if he continues to take the path he has embarked on,
and it becomes more inescapable the further he proceeds" (144 ). Even an ass can
see that self-seeking pride will lead not to discernment of God's will, but to
disaster. Balaam's repentance, prompted by God, enables him to continue in his
prophetic vocation.
Moberly finds that the New Testament, in its understanding of prophetic
discernment, accepts the pattern found in the Old Testament but transforms this
pattern so as to make it "Christ-centred and cruciform" (151). In the Sermon on
the Mount (Matt 7:15-16), Jesus warns against "false prophets," who can be
known "by their fruits." True prophets must live in accord with God's will by
loving God and their neighbor. The First Letter of John, with its admonition to
"test the spirits" (1 John 4: 1), argues that we must learn (in Christ Jesus and the
Holy Spirit) to know and love God in order to know whether others know and
speak for him. If we do not love our neighbor, then we do not know and love
God. Although John reformulates prophetic discernment around Christ and the
Holy Spirit, he agrees with Jeremiah that "self-giving concern for the well-being
of others is that form of moral practice which most displays the character of
God" (167) and which therefore marks true prophetic speech.
In examining Paul, Moberly focuses his attention largely upon the Second
Letter to the Corinthians. Paul confronts a challenge to his authority; the
Corinthians have received another apostle who teaches "a different gospel" (2
Cor 11:4) from Paul's. Paul therefore has to provide "criteria whereby the
Corinthians can evaluate his ministry" (183), and in so doing he emphasizes his
self-giving service to others. The pattern of Jesus' life and death provides the
model for testing the authenticity of Paul's vocation; if Paul's vocation is
authentic, then believers will be able to see in him God's reconciling work in

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Christ. It is not evidence of spiritual power, but evidence of cruciform love, that
reveals apostolic authenticity. Moberly observes, "As elsewhere, a particular kind
of (moral) human reality is the necessary corollary for (spiritual) claims to speak
on God's behalf to be valid" (208). In this light he critiques Elizabeth Castelli's
postmodern reading of Paul's letters in terms of power, as well as similar
readings of Paul as power hungry by Graham Shaw and David Brown.
Sympathetic reading of Paul, he points out, requires accepting Paul's premise that
"life-giving truth is at stake" (218) and "trusting the historic decision of the
Church to include Paul's writings within Scripture as a true revelation of the
mind of Christ" (220). As Moberly demonstrates, Paul attempts to give criteria,
rooted in Christ, for the discernment of whether his words merit such trust.
Such criteria remain important, Moberly notes, because for believers
prophetic speech is not merely "an interesting phenomenon of the past" (222).
Far from being outside the bounds of rational discourse, "claims to speak for
God can be meaningfully tested both in terms of the moral character, disposition,
and behaviour of the speaker and in terms of the moral and theological content
of the message" (225). Committed to self-giving rather than self-seeking, the
speaker of God's word becomes more, not less, human; psychological
disturbances or narrow moralism cannot account for prophecy. Nor does the
validity of prophecy depend upon the miraculous. But can persons speak God's
word while engaged in grave sins? Moberly explores Martin Luther King, Jr. as
a contemporary example of a truthteller who also committed, at least for a time,
serial adultery. Moberly also surveys the case of Osama bin Laden, arguing that
the content of bin Laden's message rules out accepting it as prophetic speech.
Can God speak through nonbelievers? Citing John 3:19-21, Moberly holds that
the movement of grace is present in nonbelievers who "do what is true,"
although their lives would nonetheless be transformed by grace. Lastly, taking
up the issue of homosexual actions, he remarks that prophetic discernment, by
itself, cannot suffice for the difficult "formation of that wisdom which the
churches need in their decision-making" (251 ).
In short, Moberly suggests that beginning with contemporary theological
concerns about truth is a good way to enter into Scripture itself, which is deeply
concerned with the questions of whom to trust and how to live. For Moberly,
it would be a mistake to trust the religious community as being so guided by the
Holy Spirit that it is able to avoid teaching errors. Although Christian
communities down the centuries have made a number of discernments in the
name of God about doctrinal and moral truth, "fresh challenges often rightly
lead to reassessment of the continuing appropriateness of past decisions" (18).
This is a theological claim about the Holy Spirit's presence within the
sacramental structure of Christ's Mystical Body, a claim that exegesis cannot by
itself resolve. Moberly's contribution is to show the unity of love and truth in the
discernment of prophetic speech, but he has trouble identifying how God's
communication through human speech goes beyond, in its authority and in its
claims upon the world, what a wise and humble human being might prudently

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know. This lacuna in Moberly's book is filled, I think, by the work of
Christopher Seitz reviewed below.
Do the Synoptic Gospels (like the Gospel of John) teach a preexistent
Messiah? Since the mid-twentieth century, historical-critical scholars have
generally agreed that the answer is no. In the past decade, however, studies by
Ludger Schenke, Richard Bauckham, and Larry Hurtado either defend
preexistence in the Synoptic Gospels or, at the least, argue for the Synoptic Jesus
being "in some sense, 'divine' and 'transcendent"' (16). Simon Gathercole's The
Preexistent Son builds upon this recent research to offer a robust account of the
Synoptic Gospels' witness to the Messiah's preexistence.
By way of prolegomena, Gathercole treats Paul's letters, Hebrews, and Jude
on the preexistence of Christ and the Synoptic Gospels on the transcendence of
Christ. In the case of Paul and Hebrews, Gathercole has wide support from other
contemporary scholars, with the exception of J. D. G. Dunn. Gathercole's
discussion of Jude relies heavily upon Bauckham's commentary. With regard to
the transcendence of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels, Gathercole demonstrates,
again with widespread support from other scholars, that Jesus "has heavenly
identity throughout his ministry" (53). He treats such topics as the recognition
of Jesus by the demons, Jesus' identity in the transfiguration, his authority to
forgive sins, his miracles, his name (especially the baptismal formula in Matt
28:19), his supernatural knowledge, and his ability to give commandments. As
Gathercole shows, "a heavenly christology is not a distinctively Johannine
phenomenon: there are plenty of thunderbolts throughout Matthew, Mark, and
Luke as well" (79). On the basis of this research, he notes that the presumption
should be that the Synoptic Gospels contain the doctrine of preexistence rather
than that they do not.
Gathercole begins his discussion of preexistence in the Synoptics with a
lengthy analysis of Jesus' "I have come" sayings. In these sayings, Jesus summarizes his mission. While scholars generally hold that these sayings do not
indicate preexistence, Gathercole points out that "because the sayings talk of
coming with a purpose, they imply that the coming is a deliberate act. A
deliberate act requires a before-and-after, and, in the case of a 'coming,' an origin
from which the speaker has come" (86-87). He argues that preexistence is not
merely a plausible explanation of these sayings, but the correct one. Thus,
against the view of Rudolph Bultmann and Otto Michel, he makes the case that
the "I have come" sayings are not an instance of the "Hellenistic mode of
prophetic self-presentation" (95). Likewise, he shows that it does not suffice to
interpret "I have come" on the basis of "hypothetical Aramaic idiom" (100). In
his view, the key consists in appreciating the statement of purpose and the
"heavenly" implications that accompany the "I have come" sayings.
In this regard he compares Jesus' "I have come" sayings with similar sayings
on the part of angels in the Old Testament and in extrabiblical Jewish and
Christian literature. He argues that the only two real alternatives with respect to
whence Jesus comes are heaven or Nazareth, and that exegesis of each of the

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passages indicates that heaven is the proper interpretation-in which case Jesus
in some sense preexists. He shows that this conclusion also makes sense of many
of the parables, and he adds that later New Testament texts (Hebrews, John, 1
Timothy) explicitly connect "I have come" sayings with preexistence. Throughout this treatment, his exegesis often accords with the perspectives of prominent
mid-twentieth-century scholars, and he finds support in the work of some
contemporary scholars as well.
Gathercole takes a similar approach to the passages in the Synoptic Gospels
that depict Jesus as the one "sent" (including the parables' indirect affirmations
of this sending). On the one hand, he grants that "preexistence cannot be seen
in statements about sending per se" on the grounds that "God also 'sends' other
non-heavenly figures, in particular, the prophets" (177). Yet he argues that the
"sending" passages in the Synoptic Gospels do not have in view Jesus as merely
a prophetic figure. Instead he observes "a close formal correspondence between
the 'coming' and the 'sending' sayings" (179). Although he recognizes the
ambiguity of the "sending" sayings in themselves, he suggests that these sayings
make most sense within the preexistence framework of the "coming" sayings. At
the same time, he argues against earlier pro-preexistence interpretations of the
"sending" sayings (generally by mid-twentieth-century scholars), on the grounds
that these earlier interpretations claimed too much for the "sending" sayings
taken in themselves.
Granting that the Christology of the Synoptic Gospels draws significantly
upon the Old Testament/Second Temple figure of Lady Wisdom, Gathercole asks
whether this indebtedness shows that "Jesus, like Wisdom, has come from a
preexistence in heaven" (193). Against the view of numerous scholars up to the
1970s, he argues that the Synoptic Gospels, while indebted to Wisdom motifs,
do not identify Jesus "with preexistent Wisdom in any strong sense" (199). He
also points out, following G. B. Caird, that Second Temple Judaism generally
regarded Wisdom not "as a preexistent entity distinct from or independent of
God, but rather as an attribute of God and a way of speaking about his purpose:
in short, a personification rather than a person" (209). Even if the Synoptics had
identified Jesus with Wisdom in a strong sense, therefore, this would not entail
personal preexistence.
Gathercole devotes special attention to Matthew 23:37, which provides the
best case for preexistent-Wisdom Christology. Although he disputes the notion
that Matthew here identifies Jesus with preexistent Wisdom, he finds that "the
depiction of Jesus here is clearly as one longing for Israel's repentance through
successive generations within history" (214). Does Matthew 23:37 also
presuppose that Jesus transcends history (preexists)? Gathercole argues that the
context and content of Matthew 23:37 "indicate Jesus' preincarnate longing for
Israel's repentance in continuity with his present desire" (219). While the passage
affirms that Jesus transcends history, so as to be active throughout Israel's
generations, Gathercole points out that it is "only a single reference and so
should not be overemphasized" (221).

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Gathercole also discusses favorably E. C. Hoskyns's argument (whose main
lines are found in various other scholars) that Luke 1:2 involves a "logos
christology" comparable to John's (222). In light of various passages in Acts, he
finds that Hoskyns's interpretation is a plausible one, even if not demonstrable.
Yet Luke-Acts need not thereby be fully affirming preexistence in the fashion of
John's Logos Christology. Gathercole finds that "it is quite possible that Luke
regards Jesus as the embodiment (not necessarily incarnation in the full sense) of
the Word of God which came upon the prophets in the OT" (227).
Gathercole next takes up the meaning of four titles applied to Jesus in the
Synoptic Gospels: "Christ," "Lord," "Son of Man," and "Son of God." With
regard to "Christ," he comments briefly on the debate regarding the extent to
which Second Temple texts envision a preexistent Messiah, and then he explores
the thirty-seven uses of "Christ" in the Synoptics. Evaluating the purpose of this
title in the Synoptics, he finds that Mark 12:35-37 (with its parallels in Matthew
and Luke) suggests the preexistence of the "Christ," who is not merely the son
of David. He also argues that Zechariah's prophetic reference to the coming
avarnt. 1' (Luke 1: 78) probably implies preexistence. Regarding the Synoptics' use
of "Lord" (Kuptoc;),Gathercole did not have the benefit of Kavin Rowe's recent
study of KUptoc; in Luke, but he does observe how passages in Mark, Matthew,
and Luke draw together Jesus and YHWH through the title Kuptoc;. He does not,
however, find that the title clearly denotes preexistence. Drawing upon the
research of D. R. Burkett, Gathercole notes that the scholarly consensus through
the 1960s was that the title "Son of Man" in the Synoptics indicates preexistence, and that even more recent research defends this view in connection
with the interpretation of Daniel 7. As Gathercole shows, in the Synoptic
Gospels "there is an association (which is nevertheless not emphasized) of the
Son of Man with coming from heaven and consequent preexistence" (270).
Lastly, he briefly takes up "Son of God" and "Son." As with "Son of Man," he
notes that contemporary scholarship on "Son of God" and "Son" in the
Synoptics is generally favorable to preexistence, and he emphasizes the connection of "Son of God" and "Son" with the "sending" sayings that play such an
important role in his argument.
As a final step, Gathercole treats certain contemporary theological concerns.
Responding to Bultmann and Pannenberg, he points out that preexistence does
not rule out the virgin birth: "One would expect a supernatural being to enter
the human realm in a supernatural way; if one begins with the Son's
preexistence, then his humanity must have started somewhere" (285).
Responding to John Macquarrie's concern that preexistence would destroy Jesus'
full humanity, Gathercole notes that Hebrews and 4 Ezra both present the
Messiah as preexistent and fully human. Responding to R. Hamerton-Kelly's
view that Jesus' preexistence is only in the mind or plan of God, he observes that
confining preexistence to God's foreknowledge would deprive it of significance,
because first-century Christians and Jews generally believed that God foreknows
everything. Responding to Karl-Josef Kuschel's view that "preexistence is a
marginal feature of the NT" (287) and to Robert Jenson's somewhat similar

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relativizing of preexistence, Gathercole argues that, on the contrary, preexistence
has a significant place throughout the New Testament. The fact that the New
Testament emphasizes Christ's saving work rather than his preexistence does not
mean that preexistence is insignificant: "it is precisely the heavenly Son of God
who is crucified" (292).
This point is underscored by the Gospel of John, and so Gathercole observes
in conclusion that "the ditch often assumed between the Synoptic Gospels and
the Fourth Gospel is not as ugly as many think. References to Jesus' coming have
much the same sense in all four Gospels, although John does of course make
explicit what is only implicit in the other three: it is a coming 'down from
heaven' 'into the world"' (295). Gathercole grants that the Synoptic Gospels,
unlike John, do not contain a doctrine of the Son's participation in the divine act
of creation. Yet all four Gospels make clear that Jesus' coming into the world is
his own purposeful action, which "presupposes a prior co-ordination of the Son's
will with that of the Father, because of the parallelism between the Father's
sending and the Son's coming" (296). It is therefore not inappropriate to speak,
even as regards the Synoptic Gospels, of a relationship of the Father and the Son
(however implicit in the Synoptics) prior to the Son's coming into the world.
Even though "the focus is on the actual purposes of the coming" (ibid.), Jesus'
preexistence has important ramifications for how one understands the purposes
accomplished by his Cross and Resurrection.
The effect of Gathercole's arguments is to undermine the biblical basis of the
standard theological distinctions between "low Christology" and "high
Christology," or Christology "from below" and "from above." By examining
Christo logy in terms of the "I have come" sayings and the "sending" sayings, and
by showing that the construction of these sayings in the Synoptic Gospels rules
out the supposition that they refer solely to a this-worldly movement, Gathercole
succeeds in exhibiting the role of incarnational theology in the Synoptic
Gospels-a role that is never isolated from Jesus' soteriological purpose.
Likewise, Gathercole's attention to the titles of Jesus provides further evidence
that the "I have come" and "sending" sayings do not pertain simply to a prophet
or angel-like figure, as does Gathercole's careful distinction of Jesus' personal
preexistence from Wisdom Christology. Gathercole helpfully builds his
discussion of preexistence upon a survey of evidence of Jesus' transcendence
according to the Synoptic Gospels. The result is a beautifully developed
cumulative case.
In describing the purpose of his Prophecy and Hermeneutics, Christopher
Seitz remarks that "the very definition of what we mean by 'history' is at stake.
At the heart of history lies a figure, Jesus Christ. Understanding his place in
time-our time right now-requires a full appreciation of the way he is
prefigured in God's life with and witness within Israel" (7). Seitz argues that the
biblical canon, as an inspired interpretation of history, exposes "configural"
relationships between biblical texts that reveal how "God is acting consistently
and comprehensibly across time" (8). God does not solely inspire the original

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prophetic content and context; he also inspires how that original content will be
heard, applied, and reconfigured in new contexts. It follows that fully historical
research should primarily ask how God has been configuring prophetic speech
into the witness that we find in the canonical form of the prophets. Seitz
approvingly quotes Karl Barth: '"[T]he history in question is a 'history' which
not only happened but happens and will happen in all times as the same history .
. . . We are always at one with the prophets of the Old Testament"' (13).
Seitz's book emerges from his reflections upon the current condition of the
genre of the "introduction to the prophets." Historical-critical research has
enhanced scholarly understanding of when various books (and parts of books)
in the prophetic corpus were written, and so the standard contemporary
"introduction to the prophets" discusses the prophetic material in a historically
reconstructed order rather than in the canonical order. Thus when Gerhard von
Rad takes up the prophetic literature, his question is whether the historically
reconstructed ordering can be shown to be theologically significant as a
"tradition-historical movement" (22). In dialogue with von Rad, Seitz asks the
opposite question, whether the canonical ordering can be shown to be
theologically (and historically, once "history" includes God's providence)
significant. As Seitz puts it, "The author of time has seen to the construction of
a prophetic witness, whose very form tells us how to understand both history
and the character of the one directing it" (24).
What might it mean to "introduce" the prophets? Seitz notes three options:
first, a historical-sociological survey of Israel's "prophetic" literature as an
ancient Near-Eastern phenomenon; second, a textbook for seminary instruction
in Scripture; third, "an account of the way the prophets had been read in the
church and synagogue-a history of the interpretation of the prophets" (28). In
light of these three options, Seitz points out that new research into the canonical
form of the prophets, without calling into question the historical-critical account
of the gradual formation of the books, is showing that "the Twelve is a single
coordinated work as well as a composite collection-now no longer random or
requiring a basic historical retrofitting-of twelve coordinated witnesses" (30).
If this is so, then the third option, the Church's and Synagogue's canonical
interpretations of the prophets, gains importance. In addition, the isolation of
the "introduction to the prophets" from other portions of the canonical
literature needs to be questioned.
Turning to the origins of contemporary historical-critical scholarship, Seitz
highlights the split between biblical and dogmatic theology advocated in the late
eighteenth century by J. P. Gabler. In Gabler, biblical theology receives its organizing principle not from theology but from history understood as the linear
progression of time: biblical theology focuses on "understanding the biblical
authors and the writings associated with them as belonging to discrete and
particularized periods" (35). The relationship of history to God, on the other
hand, is the domain of dogmatic theology. As Seitz recognizes, the problem
consists in the separation of linear time (now the domain of biblical exegesis)
from what Seitz calls "figural" time (now the domain of dogmatic theology). The

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separation undermines Scripture's way of attesting to its unity as God's
revelation. As Seitz states, "Time was previously understood according to not just
economic but also immanent and ontological considerations, and these were seen
as subsisting together in, and then revealed by, a complex network of scriptural
senses. Figural linkages assured that temporally discrete periods were
coordinated through time" (35). As a result of the separation, biblical scholarship
constructs an increasingly fragmented account of biblical authors/texts in their
historical contexts. Even were it possible to master all the specializations, the
separation produces "the disintegration of overarching theological, historical,
literary, and curricular rationale for a common theological enterprise" (43).
On the one hand the study of the prophets benefits from this situation,
because the prophetic literature seems well suited to reconstruction along a
timeline. On the other hand "the prophets are also that portion of Christian
Scripture most affiliated with the rest of the canon-by virtue of their own claim
to speak through time and by the claim of a second canonical witness that they
have done that well and truthfully" (ibid.). In other words, the separation
produced by limiting biblical exegesis to linear history undermines the very
claims that make the prophets intelligible as prophets. In response to this
situation, theologically inclined Christian biblical scholars in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries generally moved in one of two directions: either emphasizing
(as Edward Pusey did) the prophets' miraculous capacity to predict later realities,
or emphasizing (as von Rad did) "a reconstructed tradition-history of constant
adaptation, dynamically transforming the former witness in radical ways until the
witness of the New Testament culminates in one final fulfillment and dramatic
external appropriation" (43; cf. 163). In both cases the prophets appear only as
steps on the way to something further. For Seitz, by contrast, the prophets do
not only predict or make way for something to come on a strictly linear timeline;
rather, in the light of "figural" exegesis, they share with us (without losing their
linear historicity) in the providential fulfillment.
Having made these programmatic points, Seitz undertakes an analysis of von
Rad's approach. According to von Rad, the prophets had available to them the
traditions of ancient "Jahwism" (in his view the substrate of the present
Pentateuch). In making this affirmation, von Rad seeks to go beyond the
tendency of some nineteenth-century interpreters to identify the prophets as
"religious founders and geniuses at the ground floor of Old Testament theology,
soon to be cramped by the legalism of postexilic Judaism, en route to a New
Testament rescue operation" (63). While von Rad's prophets are not "religious
founders," nonetheless their true significance can be known only through
historical-critical reconstruction; von Rad has to provide an entirely new
"understanding of inspiration, time, and providentiality" (68). He does this
through his "tradition-historical" model, but since this new understanding
depends upon his historical reconstruction, it lacks stability. Seitz suggests that
the key deficiency in von Rad's approach-which he praises for "granting a
positive theological value to the entire history of tradition" (192)-is that von
Rad failed to ask whether the canonical form of the prophets might bear witness

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to tradition-history in a more stable and theologically satisfying fashion than
does von Rad's "tradition-historical" model.
For Seitz, the New Testament does not provide merely the final moment in
the tradition-historical dynamic found in the prophets (as von Rad thinks). The
newness proclaimed by the New Testament figurally accords with the canonical
witness of the prophets. In order to place this position in context, Seitz describes
more fully nineteenth-century scholarship on the prophets. Heinrich Hiivernick
and Gustav Oehler, among others, sought to retain a link to Moses and the
Pentateuch, but this link came under increasing strain as scholars such as
Heinrich Ewald and W. Robertson Smith began to call into question not only
Moses and the Pentateuch but also the historical setting of the prophets
themselves. Seitz attends in particular detail to E. B. Pusey's 1860 commentary
on the Twelve. While he commends Pusey for avoiding emphasis on "the genius
of the prophetic spirit" (101) and for appreciating the internal connections
within the prophetic corpus, he finds that Pusey overemphasizes both the
predictive aspect of prophecy and the historical accuracy of the canonical
ordering. By making the linear timeline into the hermeneutical key, Pusey
reduces his ability to attend to the canonical prophets' own account of
providence and fulfillment.
By contrast, Seitz notes that contemporary research on the canonical unity of
the Twelve, indebted to the work of Brevard Childs, suggests that the lack of
dating in some prophetic books is purposeful: the corpus is (providentially)
arranged so that the books bear upon each other, and upon all of Scripture, in
a figural fashion without losing their historical particularity. Likewise, attention
to the canonical form-at once a "single and twelvefold testimony" (149)avoids placing all theological weight upon the historical reconstruction of the
individual contribution of each prophet in the timeline, which mars the work not
only of von Rad but also of scholars such as George Adam Smith (1928) and
Joseph Blenkinsopp (1996), otherwise far removed from each other in time and
perspective (as Seitz shows through a detailed discussion of Smith).
Seitz sums up his thesis regarding canonical reading of the Twelve: "The
canonical form of the twelve Minor Prophets is concerned both to protect the
original witness and to comprehend how that witness is meant to speak
meaningfully across the ages, through time" (150). In this way both aspects of
history are preserved: the original speech and the providentially arranged
(canonical) speaking, the one always caught up in the other. Indeed, Seitz points
out that although von Rad "does not regard the final form as theologically
significant" (168) in the case of the prophets, he does consider (albeit in a
tentative fashion) the canonical form of Genesis to be of theological interest. In
von Rad's work on Genesis, Seitz finds passages "where von Rad saw quite
clearly that it was in the combination of the sources that real theological
interpretation of history came into sharpest profile" (193 ). Seitz thus emphasizes
that the link between the Old Testament and the New cannot be located in
historical reconstructions of the original sources, but requires attentiveness to the
Old Testament in the form that it was providentially received by Christ Jesus.

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This canonical form contains its own pattern of affiliation between the books,
so that historical reconstruction need not take on the task of constructing a
different pattern.
However, what about differences that one finds among ancient manuscripts
as regards the ordering of the prophets? Did a standard ordering of the prophets
exist in Jesus' time? Seitz proposes that "the Septuagint is best seen as an effort
to recast a strange Masoretic Text order" (204), but he also explores the
Masoretic ordering of the Twelve with the same goal of appreciating its
intelligibility. Even if the earliest collections differ in their ordering of the
Twelve's undated books, Seitz's basic point remains accurate: "historicality is
more than just pulling prophetic witnesses apart, determining what is authentic
and secondary, and placing this all within a reconstructed history of traditions
or history-of-religion" (218; cf. 232). Grasping "how the Bible relates to itself
in its own system of cross-reference" (228) is required by a historical reading of
the Bible, and is fundamental to the Bible's own theology of history. As Seitz
remarks, "The very notion of a canonical process assumes a doctrine of
inspiration that spills out from the prophetic word once delivered, as God
superintends that word toward his own accomplishing end" (240; cf. 250).
By attending to the formation of the prophetic witness within a canonical
process, Seitz enables us to understand prophecy and fulfillment in a manner that
appreciates the working of God's (Trinitarian) providence in and through the
linear unfolding of history. The figural accordance of this prophetic witness with
the gospel instructs us about the God who is acting: "Because the word is God's,
he undertakes to carry it through time and outfit it to do what he purposes: to
show that it is his word, that he did what he promised, and that inside of every
one of his promises there is a providentially overseen surprise as well" (252).
Seitz's book is a major contribution to our understanding of what it means to do
fully historical research from a critical, and Christian, perspective. The
discernment of true prophecy cannot be separated from God's providential
arrangement of the canon. History is not neutral terrain. Recognizing that the
account we give of history is inevitably a theological account, Seitz inaugurates
a deeper exploration of the prophetic canon as witness to God's activity in
history and in the Church.
In Reading Scripture with the Church, four leading exponents of theological
exegesis-A. K. M. Adam, Stephen E. Fowl, Kevin]. Vanhoozer, and Francis
Watson-engage in constructive dialogue, each author providing two essays. In
their preface, the authors note that they agree on four principles: first, "the
church's teaching traditions complement the truth that comes to expression in
the theological interpretation of Scripture" (9); second, interpretation of the
Bible requires theological judgments throughout interpretative labor; third, the
"postmodern" critique of modern philosophy has value; fourth, how one
interprets the Bible is inseparable from how one lives one's life.
A. K. M. Adam provides the first essay, "Poaching on Zion: Biblical Theology
as Signifying Practice." Adam proposes that biblical theology should be weighted

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in favor of an abundance of possible meanings rather than begin with the
inevitably polemical and exclusionary assumption that the goal of exegesis is to
search for the one correct meaning. When we flatten "discourse into polarities"
(20), we tend to limit biblical interpretation to our favorite group of experts,
whose interpretations become "a fortified outpost isolated from the teeming flux
of signification outside its secure walls" (23). Adam does not reject "criteria for
evaluating interpretations" (25), but the effort to identify such criteria should not
privilege words over the nonverbal meanings of "images, sounds, and gestures"
(28). As a "signifying practice" that includes nonverbal meanings, biblical
theology should be attuned to the embodied dimension of interpreting Scripture,
including ethics, homiletics, and liturgics.
On this view, biblical interpretation is like an improvisational performance,
in which interpreters undertake to perform "the shared scriptural score" (31).
Scripture informs how we interpret the "waves of signification" (30) that we
receive from our surroundings, and Scripture guides us in the "signifying
practice" by which we attempt to communicate Scripture's meanings to others.
No performance can claim to be the fulfillment of the "biblical score," and no
performance can use one aspect of the biblical score for negating another aspect.
Rather, the biblical canon, read in light of the saints and within our communal
labors of exegesis (preeminently worship), should be expected to unveil its own
richness and harmony. Adam calls for a theocentric exegesis that directs
"attention away from us, away from our ingenuity, away from the urgent
messages we need to convey, away from our resourcefulness, and toward the
God whom we praise" (33 ). By imitating and trusting "reliable friends" (34) who
teach us how to imitate Christ in communities of worship, we learn how to be
"better biblical theologians" who need not confine the Bible to "splendid
disciplinary isolation" (ibid.), but who instead rejoice in "the abundant flux of
meaning that surrounds and suffuses us, practicing at every turn the harmony,
the diligence, and the gratitude by which our biblical theology testifies to the
grace of Christ" (ibid.).
The second essay, Stephen E. Fowl's "The Importance of a Multivoiced
Literal Sense of Scripture: The Example of Thomas Aquinas," begins by noting
that recent theological arguments among Episcopalians (most notably over the
moral status of homosexual acts) are in fact arguments about the literal sense of
Scripture. In Fowl's view, however, both sides have too narrow a notion of what
the literal sense includes. Fowl suggests that Thomas Aquinas provides a broader
notion of Scripture's literal sense, and that Aquinas's approach has clear benefits
as regards the theology of God, the communion of saints, the dignity and place
of Scripture, and the growth of our friendship with God.
For Aquinas, Fowl shows, Scripture has the foremost place within sacra
doctrina, "holy teaching" that guides human beings to holiness. Scripture has
both a spiritual sense and a literal sense. The spiritual sense, which is threefold,
flows from the Holy Spirit's ability to use human deeds and words to signify
something further: "spiritual senses depend on one's ability to discern similarities
between things mentioned in the Old Testament and things mentioned in the

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New Testament, between Jesus's deeds and our own, between our final end and
our present situation, and so on" (39). Scripture's literal sense provides the norm
for discerning the spiritual sense. The literal sense is the meaning intended by the
human author and the divine author of Scripture. The literal sense intended by
the divine author may go beyond the literal sense intended by the human author,
and so there may be more than one literal sense of a passage.
As an example, Fowl discusses Aquinas's commentary on John 1:1, where
Aquinas assents to three patristic suggestions as regards the literal sense of
"principium" on the grounds that each suggestion contains a truth about
"principium." Likewise, in the face of different patristic interpretations of
Genesis 1 :2, Aquinas affirms that each can be the literal sense, and warns against
constricting "'the meaning of a text of Scripture in such a way as to preclude
other truthful meanings that can, without destroying the context, be fitted to
Scripture'" (44, citing Aquinas's De Potentia). How then can one discern a true
literal sense from a false one? In his engagement with Aquinas, Fowl points to
the canonical Scripture, read in light of the "rule of faith" (49), as normative. He
also argues that a true literal sense is one that "enhance[s] believers' friendship
with God" (48), since the purpose of Scripture-and of the exploration of its
possible literal senses-is "drawing us into deeper love of God" (49) as reflected
in our doctrine and practice.
The third essay is Kevin Vanhoozer's "Imprisoned or Free? Text, Status, and
Theological Interpretation in the Master/Slave Discourse of Philemon."
Vanhoozer is concerned that the theological interpreter, including the Church,
sometimes becomes deaf to the biblical text. He also recognizes, however, that
imagining biblical interpretation as a power struggle between the text and the
interpreter is inadequate. He therefore inquires into the nature of true
"interpretive freedom" (53), in critical dialogue with Hegel's master/slave
paradigm. If the interpreter (master) constitutes the meaning of the text (slave),
then the text/author is radically dependent upon the interpreter. But if the text
is master and the interpreter slave, then the interpreter's intelligence has no role.
As Vanhoozer observes, the problem is with the master/slave dichotomy: the
author/text's "right to be heard" (59) need not be in conflict with the
interpreter's intelligent freedom. Granting that "[t]he church is not an error-free
zone" (61), interpreting the Bible requires reading "in order to hear what God
is saying to the church-to discern the divine discourse in the canonical work"
(62). As "God's word written" (ibid.), the biblical text speaks to and in the
Church. The Bible and the Church need not be at odds. God inspires prophets
and apostles who teach the gospel of Christ in a manner that bears spiritual fruit
in the Church.
After surveying various contemporary means of accounting for the canonical
unity of the Bible, Vanhoozer follows Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse,
which interprets "Scripture as a divine work-a unified discourse made up of
diverse human discourses" (69). Vanhoozer concentrates here on the question
of what the divine and human authors are doing with their words; since the
divine author is the author of the whole, what he is doing can be known only

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canonically, with Jesus Christ at the center. For Vanhoozer, therefore, "Theological interpretation is not a matter of breaking some code ('this means that')
but of grasping everything that God is doing in and with the various strata of
biblical discourse" (71 ). Biblical interpretation includes "right reception and right
response" (72) guided by the Holy Spirit, and so God speaks not only in
Scripture, but also through Scripture.
Vanhoozer concludes that Scripture, as God's speech and action in the
"servant form of human language and literature" (74), is like a dramatic script:
Scripture not only sets forth the theo-drama, but also calls upon its interpreters
to participate in the theo-drama. Not only the author (the triune God), but also
the interpreters (the Church) are present and active in the "theodramatic action"
(75) of Scripture. The result is not a power struggle between text/author and
interpreter, but rather a rich "intersubjectivity (dialogue, communicative
interaction): both the interpersonal interaction of the Spirit of God with the
human authors of the Bible (inspiration) and the interpersonal interaction of the
Spirit of God with the human readers of the Bible (illumination)" (76). Sanctified
by God for evangelization, Scripture has a unique and primary place as God's
speech and action in human words-but to say this is also to affirm the efficacy
of the Spirit's work through Scripture, "in the church's reception of the gospel
over the centuries and across cultures" (77).
Theological interpretation thus has as its goal ecclesial participation in the
theodrama, a participation or wise performance whose guidelines are laid down
by doctrine. Vanhoozer gives an example of such theological interpretation as
regards Paul's Letter to Philemon. Paul suggests that status in Christ is based
upon "free obedience" (89). In terms of exegesis, this means that the
interpreter's free obedience to the text/author liberates the interpreter, by means
of "hermeneutic hospitality" (91) through the Spirit. Theological exegesis, in
short, bears fruit through humbling itself, in imitation of Christ, to serve the
biblical texts and to embody them in "free improvisation" (93).
Francis Watson provides the fourth essay, "Are There Still Four Gospels? A
Study in Theological Hermeneutics." Watson notes that Jesus is mediated to
Christians through texts; the biblical texts specify even the nontextual
encounters with Jesus, such as the Eucharist. Without the four Gospels, the
Church could not exist. Yet what sets these four Gospels apart from other texts
about Jesus? Does the canonizing of only four Gospels serve to silence other
voices with respect to Jesus?
Critiquing the notion that "the church's leaders successfully concealed the
original revelation, substituting a religion that expressed their own will to
power" (98), Watson examines Irenaeus's theological rationale for the fourfold
gospel, which Irenaeus (followed in slightly different ways by Augustine and
Jerome) links with the four faces of "the four mysterious figures who uphold the
divine throne" (103) in Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4. Irenaeus suggests that these
figures "attest the four-dimensional mission of the Son of God: his regal
authority, his sacrificial self-giving, his true humanity, and his bestowal of the
Spirit" (106). Watson finds here "a via media between pure singularity and

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limitless plurality" so that the Gospels reveal "a Christ who evades our attempts
to grasp his being as a whole, yet whose person and work are subject to the
constraints of definite form" (107). Theologically, the fourfold witness shows
that Christ exceeds our grasp without thereby being unintelligible. Diversity does
not negate coherence.
Watson also looks at Justin Martyr's account of the role of the Gospels, or
"'memoirs of the apostles"' (110, citing Justin's First Apology), in the Eucharistic
liturgy. In describing the celebration of the Eucharist, Justin draws upon all four
Gospels, which provide a fourfold attestation to the Eucharist (also confirmed
for Justin by Malachi 1:11). By contrast, the apocryphal gospels do not attest to
the Eucharist. In the "eucharistic life of the church," as in the four Gospels,
diversity and unity come together.
Each of the four authors then briefly responds to the three others, in reverse
order. Interested by his colleagues' focus on the relationship of author/text and
reader, Watson points out that "[a]t least two of these authors were also readers"
(120), namely Matthew and Luke. Pace Vanhoozer and Adam, Matthew's and
Luke's "[r]eading seems to conform neither to the model of self-subjection to the
prior canonical authors nor to the model of unlimited semantic abundance"
(121). Furthermore, the earliest readers invested heavily in the harmonization
of the Gospels with each other and of the Old Testament with the New. As the
basis for contemporary hermeneutics, Watson proposes Augustine's On Christian
Doctrine, which balances theological, linguistic, literary, and historical elements.
Fowl emphasizes that "the key to interpreting theologically lies in keeping
theological concerns primary to all others" (126), and he too cites On Christian
Doctrine for its awareness that exegesis aims at attaining to union with God, not
at any lesser goal. In a "fractured church" (127), Fowl argues that local
congregations need to be places of formation in the "rule of faith" and in
"Christ-focused practical reasoning" (129), whose success is known by the
"fittingness" of its display of cruciformity.
Vanhoozer argues that biblical interpretation is an opportunity not for
proposing an abundance of creative meanings, but rather for humbly listening to
the texts of Scripture. Rather than scorning hermeneutical theory, interpreters
should seek a theory of interpretation rooted in "apprenticeship to Jesus' own
reading practice" (134). Vanhoozer also light-heartedly associates each of the
book's four approaches with one of the four faces of Ezekiel 1. Pace Fowl, he
argues for a "multifaceted" literal sense rather than literal senses, and he insists
upon interpretation of the historical Greek text rather than the Latin
"principium." He also suggests that Adam does not sufficiently appreciate the
fact that there has "always been a certain polarization between God's people and
'not-my-people"' (138), which envisions biblical norms for truthful witness.
Adam finds that the essays show "both an increase in the degree to which our
positions converge and an increase in the nuance of our disagreements" (143).
Both aspects, he suggests, indicate that theological exegesis has come of age; no
longer can historical-critical methodology claim sole legitimacy. Adam calls for
further attention to "ambiguity, presuppositions, context, and power" (145) so

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as to clarify the significance of interpretive difference, given its inevitability. He
appreciates Watson's exploration of how the fourfold gospel affirms both
diversity and unity, Vanhoozer's emphasis on "dramatic improvisation between
the close of the canon and the consummation foretold in Revelation" (146), and
Fowl's point that the literal sense does not dispel all ambiguity but rather can
contain many true meanings. For Adam, the book's project of exegetical
convergence is ultimately an eschatological one, "reaching toward a resolution
yet to be revealed" and awaiting "the eventual recapitulation that will bring our
efforts into harmony with one another and the truth" (148).
At the center of the book's dialogue, it seems to me, is the question of how
to read Scripture with the Church if the (teaching) Church cannot be trusted to
read Scripture adequately. For Adam the answer awaits an eschatological
resolution; for Fowl the Church can be instructed by Scripture's own openness
to multiple literal meanings; for Vanhoozer the answer consists in how one
conceives the "theodramatic action" in which the Church participates through
the faithfulness of her members to Scripture's Word; for Watson the answer may
well be the Anglican "via media" between Catholic and evangelical. Vanhoozer's
work here strikes me as particularly impressive, but I would connect his emphasis
on the humble receptivity of interpreters to the embodied sacramental receptivity
fostered by the apostolic constitution of the Church.
Francis Watson's Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith has four parts. The first
part introduces his thesis, which is that Paul reads the Torah as containing two
antithetical affirmations: the unconditional blessing of Genesis 15 :6 ("And he
[Abraham] believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness") and
the conditional blessing of Leviticus 18 :5 ("You shall therefore keep my statutes
and my ordinances, by doing which a man shall live: I am the Lord"). Watson
argues that Paul's interpretation of the Torah critiques Leviticus 18:5 in favor of
Genesis 15 :6. The second, third, and fourth parts defend this position by
comparing Paul's exegesis of texts from the five books of the Torah with exegesis
of the same texts by roughly contemporaneous Jewish interpreters. Paul reads
the Torah in light of Christ; the other Jewish interpreters (arriving at the
opposite conclusion from that of Paul) also appeal to "some kind of revelatory
hermeneutical event" (532). Watson thus aims to show that, despite Paul's
disagreement with other Jewish exegetes, Paul's exegesis and that of his Jewish
contemporaries belong within a continuum of possibilities open to Jewish
readers of Paul's time. This conclusion does not "erase the difference between
Pauline Christian Judaism (for want of a better expression) and non-Christian
Judaisms" (ibid.)-a Christological difference. Rather, Watson holds, his analysis
provides "a possible non-reductionistic way of negotiating that difference" (533 ).
Watson begins by placing his argument within the context of the "new
perspective on Paul" put forward by E. P. Sanders and others (including Watson
himself in his 1986 Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles). Sanders holds that Jews of
Paul's day practiced a "covenantal nomism" in which covenant had priority to
Torah observance. By contrast, Watson notes that although Paul strongly

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prioritizes covenant, other contemporaneous Jews exhibit "broad agreement that
Israel's observance or non-observance of the law is fundamental to the covenant
itself" (9). The result is that "[i]n Sanders no less than in Bultmann, 'Judaism' is
subjected to a generalized Pauline norm" (12). Watson suggests that a richer
understanding of Judaism in Paul's day would make clearer that Paul's
disagreements with his fellow Jews flowed not solely from his profession of
Christ, but also from his exegesis of Torah. As Watson proposes in dialogue with
Richard Hays's Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, "In Paul, scripture is
not overwhelmed by the light of an autonomous Christ-event needing no
scriptural mediation. It is scripture that shapes the contours of the Christ-event,
and to discern how it does so is to uncover the true meaning of scripture itself"
(17). Reading Torah in light of Christ (soteriologically), Paul locates the Torah's
true meaning in its own internal fractures: "the tension between the
unconditional promise and the Sinai legislation, and the tension between the
law's offer of life and its curse" (23). The Torah contains an internal critique of
the Law, a critique that is illumined and resolved in Christ.
Watson recognizes the similarity of his reading to that of Martin Luther, who
likewise appreciated the "distinction between a reading of the Torah that lays all
possible emphasis on the promise to Abraham of unconditional divine saving
action, worldwide in its scope, and a reading centred upon the demand
emanating from Sinai for specific forms of human action and abstention" (29).
In Watson's view, critiques of Luther's reading of Paul (among which Watson
most values Albert Schweitzer's) have not adequately understood how Paul's
"doctrine of righteousness by faith is an exercise in scriptural interpretation and
hermeneutics" (39). For this reason, Watson undertakes a careful exposition of
the place and function of scriptural citations in Paul, with a focus on the meaning
of the citation in the Letter to the Romans of Habakkuk 2:4. In Romans 1-3,
Paul shows that Scripture both denies that anyone is righteous and affirms a
righteousness by faith. For Paul the Torah reveals human sin and guilt (the
curse), but it also reveals the unconditional divine blessing. As Watson puts it,
Paul holds that "[t]he law declares that 'works of law'-its own works, the
observance of its commandments-are not the way to righteousness. But the
observance of its commandments is precisely what the law enjoins from
beginning to end, from the Decalogue in Exodus 20 to the eloquent exhortations
of the book of Deuteronomy" (68). By revealing its own failure as a path of
blessing, the Torah leads the attentive reader back to the Torah's promise of
unconditional blessing through divine saving action.
Watson adds a lengthy discussion of Habakkuk 2:4 in the context of the Book
of the Twelve, with particular attention to how the Qumran pesherist interprets
Habakkuk 2:4. For the Qumran pesherist, as opposed to Paul, "The righteous
will live not 'by faith alone' but by virtue of their practice of the law as well as
their faith in the Teacher" (123), and so the Qumran persherist Habakkuk 2:4
lacks "the Pauline emphasis on faith's universal scope" (124). Addressing the
question of whether Habakkuk 2:4 can plausibly be read to mean what Paul
thinks it means, Watson shows that within its canonical context in the Twelve,

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Habakkuk 2: 1-4 stands as a privileged expression of the "canonical hermeneutic
of hope in the face of non-fulfilment" (138). In this regard, Watson concludes,
both "Paul and the pesherist draw on the semantic potential of the scriptural text
itself-while not allowing themselves to be confined self-effacingly within its
limits, as though they had nothing of their own to contribute" (163).
Watson next examines Paul's exegesis of specific passages from Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Describing Paul's overall outlook, Watson comments that Paul views Scripture as revealing that humans are
so entangled in sin that only divine action can extricate them: "Despairing of all
human capacity, we must place our hope in God alone: that for Paul is the sum
of the law and the prophets" (169). As Watson points out, the narrator in the
Abraham story attributes numerous good works to Abraham, and so the
interpretation found in Jubilees, which presents "an image of a Torah-observant
Abraham" (237), is not far-fetched. Paul, however, holds that God's unilateral
blessing in Genesis 15 :6 provides the key to interpreting everything else about
Abraham. Watson shows that this position fits with the commencement of the
Abraham narrative (Genesis 12: 1-3), where God unconditionally gives Abraham
the promise of divine blessing. Citing Genesis 12:3 and 15 :6, Paul argues in
Galatians 3 that Abraham's blessing consists in his righteousness by faith, which
"is identical to the blessing that God will bestow on the Gentiles" (189). The
point, Watson notes, is that "salvation is wholly God's act" (196); God gives a
"unilateral, unalterable covenant of pure promise which cannot be emended even
by the law" (198). Watson also examines Romans 4: 13-16 for its similar exegesis
of Genesis 15.
Along the same lines, Watson explores Galatians 4 and Romans 9, which
discuss the theological significance of Ishmael (law) and Isaac (promise). Ishmael
symbolizes the Law because Abraham's intercourse with Hagar represents "the
possibility that human initiative is a necessary precondition for the fulfilment of
the promise" (207), whereas God unconditionally promises Isaac's miraculous
conception. Watson also notes that Abraham is not circumcised until Genesis 17,
and so (as Paul argues in Romans 4) the unconditional promises (to a Gentile)
precede the conditional relationship. After discussing]ubilees' Torah-observant
Abraham, Watson compares Paul's account to Philo of Alexandria's depiction of
Abraham as an exemplar of virtuous living in accordance with natural law. As
Watson observes, neither Jubilees nor Philo fully appreciates the (theocentric)
unilateral divine promise that has such a central place in the Abraham narrative.
In Philo, Watson states, the divine promise means simply that "God comes out
to meet the soul that is already journeying towards him" (246) via natural gifts.
Josephus, for his part, argues that God's promise in Genesis 15:6 comes about
because of Abraham's good action in refusing to take more than his share of the
spoil in Genesis 14; Josephus also presents Abraham as spreading "Chaldean
science and culture" to Egypt (258).
Regarding Exodus, Paul generally focuses on the law given at Mount Sinai.
In 2 Corinthians 3: 7, Paul refe_rs to the giving of the two stone tablets as "the
dispensation of death." Watson connects this with the slaughter that occurs after

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Moses' first descent from Mount Sinai (Exod 32). When Moses descends from
the mountain a second time, he face shines with dazzling glory; after talking with
the people, Moses veils his face in order (Paul reasons) to conceal the departing
of the glory. Watson suggests that according to Paul, the Torah thus reveals its
own inadequacy: "In the allegorical figure of the veiled Moses, the Law of Moses
secretly acknowledges that it does not speak with complete openness, that it
conceals the fact of its own transitoriness, and that its glory is destined to be
eclipsed by a surpassing glory that endures for ever" (295). By contrast, Watson
notes, Philo does not describe the first descent's violent result and instead
focuses on the glory of the second descent.
Regarding Leviticus, Watson brings Paul's critical reading of Leviticus 18:5
into dialogue with Josephus's use of this text. While Paul affirms the unconditional promise, "Leviticus assumes that everything that preceded the Sinai
disclosure comes to fruition in it" (325). Josephus accepts Leviticus's view that
salvation flows from observance of God's law, and he "paints an idealized picture
of the law and the benefits it has to offer to the human race" (347). Similarly,
Watson compares Paul's understanding of Numbers with that of Wisdom of
Solomon. Whereas Paul emphasizes the destruction of the sinful and rebellious
people on their journeying, Wisdom of Solomon grants that sinners undergo
judgment but underscores more broadly the "antithesis between the divine
judgment inflicted on Egypt and the saving goodness experienced by Israel"
(383). In Wisdom of Solomon, the figure of Wisdom is active in creation
(Genesis) so as to establish the basis for salvation and judgment (Exodus and
Numbers). In its rewriting of the stories of Numbers, Wisdom of Solomon
ignores or minimizes the destruction of the Israelites. As Watson puts it, "Paul
exploits the fact that the history of Israel in the aftermath of Sinai is a history of
disaster, whereas the author of Wisdom does his utmost to conceal this fact"
(404). Even where Paul deliberately echoes Wisdom, as in Romans 1, Paul turns
the tables by emphasizing that Israel "is itself deeply complicit in the idolatry and
ungodliness that it prefers to ascribe to the Gentiles" (411 ).
Watson identifies five Pauline citations and allusions from Deuteronomy 526, and eight from Deuteronomy 27-34. The citations and allusions from
Deuteronomy 5-26 appear almost entirely in the Corinthian correspondence,
and generally describe "laws or commandments with direct practical applications
within the Christian community" (416), such as the commandments to love God
and to expel evildoers. The citations and allusions from Deuteronomy 27-34
show that life under the Law is defined by the covenantal curse. While Paul
knows that "according to Deuteronomy 30, the predicament created by the law's
curse is to be resolved by way of the law" (427), Paul argues on the basis of
Deuteronomy 27-29 that the curse is inescapable because of human sinful
inability to follow the Law. Deuteronomy 30 makes obeying the Law sound easy,
but the entire history of Israel stands against this. For Paul the true way forward
is found in the prophetic Song of Moses (Deut 32), regarding which Paul
emphasizes two texts: "the jealousy text, and the exhortation to Gentiles (Deut.
32.21, 43)" (449). Watson argues that for Paul the Song gives indications of an

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"unconditional divine saving act" that will achieve "a final comprehensive mercy,
encompassing a recalcitrant Israel and the 'non-nation' of the Gentiles alike"
(453). Paul thus contrasts Moses the lawgiver, whose anthropocentric path will
fail, with Moses the prophet, whose theocentric path will succeed.
Watson compares Paul's reading of Deuteronomy with two roughly contemporaneous alternative readings, Baruch and 4 Ezra. Baruch first confesses the
people's sins that have brought upon them the just judgment of God. He then
praises the gift of the law as the path of wisdom and life, and looks forward to
Israel's future glory, with a focus on Deuteronomy 30 as the source of hope.
Watson contrasts this view with Paul's perspective: "In one case, the turningpoint between the old and new is a matter of appropriate human action,
beginning with confession and determined by the law. In the other case, the
turning-point is a matter of definitive, unsurpassable divine saving action, which
reorients human action towards itself and so represents a breach with the law"
(464).
Turning to 4 Ezra, Watson finds that it contains the same concerns that one
finds in Paul. 4 Ezra contains a passionate dialogue with God's representative,
the angel Uriel, in which the figure of Ezra challenges God's goodness vis-a-vis
Israel. Since Israel has tried to observe God's law, Ezra suggests that the curse
may be too harsh. As Watson puts it, "On the grounds both of Israel's conduct
and of the electing divine love, present suffering is incomprehensible" (479).
When Ezra learns that only a tiny fragment of the people of Israel will be
saved-namely, the tiny fragment that has observed the Law in accord with
Deuteronomy 30-he pleads on behalf of all Israel, but to no avail. Watson puts
his finger on the problem: "The Gentiles subject Israel to temporal suffering in
this world, but Moses condemns the majority in Israel to eternal suffering in the
next" (493). By contrast, Watson holds that Paul, in Romans 11, "has reached
a position that goes far beyond even Ezra in its absolutizing of the divine mercy"
(504). Paul's portrait of God's mercy, Watson suggests, fits better exegetically
with the character of the God who makes himself known in Israel's Scripture. In
this regard Watson argues that "Genesis as a whole gives little occasion for the
lament, 'O Adam, what have you done?' Sin and death only become serious later,
with the coming of the law" (513 ).
Watson concludes by summarizing once again the key passages in Galatians
and Romans where Paul offers a "construal of the Torah as a whole" (519), with
particular attention to Genesis 15:6, Leviticus 18:5, Exodus 32 and 34, and
Deuteronomy 27:26. The question is whether Watson might extend Paul's
"construal of the Torah as a whole" to include the question of whether Paul
envisions Christ, and Christians, as fulfilling the Mosaic law. Or does Paul
conceive Christ as simply the embodiment of God's universal and unconditional
promise of salvation? What does Paul mean when he says, "For our sake he made
him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21)? One thinks likewise of Romans 8:3-4, "For
God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

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in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk
not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Watson's account of
Paul's exegesis will greatly enrich future consideration of Christ's relationship,
as revealed by the New Testament, to the Mosaic law-as well as of Christians'
relationship to the "law of Christ."
How does Christ Jesus communicate to us? How do we learn who he is and
what he has to teach us about the divine life and our lives? How can we live out
the reconciliation that he has achieved? All six books reviewed here return us to
these fundamental questions and remind us that the visible Church embodies
answers to these questions (without negating their eschatological dimension).
Exegetes and theologians ponder, in different ways, the mystery of what God,
in Christ and the Holy Spirit, has brought forth in the world.
MATTHEW LEVERING

University of Dayton
Dayton, Ohio

Reason with Piety: Garrigou-Lagrangein the Service of Catholic Thought. By
AIDAN NICHOLS, O.P. Naples, Fla.: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria
University, 2008. Pp. viii + 152 (paper). ISBN 978-1-932589-49-8.
R. R. Reno has written recently that Catholic theology "after the
revolution"-after the labors of Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von
Balthasar, Marie-Dominique Chenu, and the other greats, that is-suffers from
terminal idiosyncraticity. The achievements of the giants could be speculatively
profound and historically incisive, sometimes in one and the same work, and
were always brilliantly original as measured against the common foil of Leonine
neo-Scholasticism. Because of this last point, alas, that is, because they were
brilliant in unique ways, we of the next generation (or two), their heirs, have no
theological lingua franca with which to speak among ourselves, no common
theological discourse in which to educate our own successors, and no easy way
to introduce a would-be student even into the thought of the great
revolutionaries themselves, since the common foil against which they worked
and which is necessary for understanding them, Leonine neo-Scholasticism, has
largely vanished, dismantled by their common effort. Along comes Aidan
Nichols, a man in the resurrection business, inviting us to look at an exemplar
of theology very much before the revolution, namely Reginald GarrigouLagrange, O.P. (1877-1964).
Nichol's characterization of Garrigou as a Thomist of the "Strict Observance"
is important for understanding the inventory of his work that makes up the bulk

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of this book. Such a Thomist holds that the philosophy and theology of St.
Thomas alone provide the only wholly adequate instruments for the defense, for
the most truthful expression, and for the exploration of revelation. Moreover,
such a Thomist is confident that the commentatorial tradition, from Capreolus
to Cajetan to John of St. Thomas and beyond, provides a reliable interpretive
guide to and authentic development of the thought of St. Thomas. There is no
need to get behind the tradition of commentators and scholiasts in order to find
the "true" Thomas; the tradition in question, like the larger Tradition of the
Church, is a window and even a magnifying glass, not an encrustation or opaque
film obscuring our vision of what has been handed down. A Thomist of the Strict
Observance in the first part of the twentieth century, furthermore, was especially
concerned to defend Catholic teaching from Modernism, which destroyed the
objective reference of dogma as the expression of a revelation spoken from
outside of us and made of it rather a token of interior religious experience and
subjective aspiration.
This takes us to Garrigou's intervention in the previous century's first great
clash of theological arms, his brief contra Modernism. Nichols, in his discussion
of Le Sens commun, la philosophie de l'etre et !es formules dogmatiques (1909),
points us to the foundational philosophical commitments informing all of
Garrigou's writing. Furthermore, with his usual conciseness and lucidity, he
inventories the contents of Garrigou's theological oeuvre, from his theology of
revelation to the great treatises on God and his attributes, through Christology
and on to the theology of grace, predestination, and the mystical life. Nichols
ends with an evocation of Garrigou's political commitments, a reality affecting
the reception of his theology especially after the Second World War.
Along the way there are dazzling glimpses of speculative brilliance and
theological profundity: Garrigou's elaborate deployment of the Fourth Way, his
demonstration of the confluence of all the Ways to esse subsistens, the ordered
ensemble of the divine attributes, Trinitarian fecundity, and the structure of
providence. All this makes us want to read or re-read. Along the way, as well, we
see that Garrigou gives us a great example of confidence in the Church,
confidence in the continuity of the life and the life of the mind of the Church.
This goes hand in hand with Thomism of the Strict Observance.
Nichols's conciseness and modesty can sometimes seem to be pressed to a
fault. He does not tell us enough to let us make up our minds on the question of
Garrigou's reduction of the principle of causality to the principle of identity, or
on that of his alleged theological determinism, nor is any critical question raised
about his attempt to prove the fact of revelation prior to the act of faith. On the
other hand, there is a good evocation of the importance of getting the relation
between ascetical and mystical theology right, and of Garrigou's role in the
Second Vatican Council's teaching of the universal call to holiness.
Can we just go back to Garrigou? Reno laments the impossibility of giving the
works of the great revolutionaries to beginning students of Catholic theology.
Can we give them the books of Garrigou? Certainly, he speaks a theological
discourse common to his time and place, and is an example of how to build

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within such a commonly shared framework. But the framework itself supposes
a greater culture of Catholic thought and letters, hardly any of which finds
cultivation today. So, no, we can't give them Garrigou's books, either.
Moreover, there are two issues intrinsic to the oeuvre that need to be
addressed before we recommend Garrigou even to the student who is acquainted
with the Posterior Analytics, knows something of the doctrine of the predicables,
has a more developed capacity to follow an argument than is usual with students
today, and is appreciative of the careful, hierarchical, and brook-nocontradiction deployment of authorities that structure such thinking as
Garrigou's.
The first issue is that of the soundness of Garrigou's theory of common sense,
which alleges both the universality of the basic concepts of the philosophy of
being and the Church's adoption of just these concepts for the expression of its
doctrines. The second issue is Garrigou's indifference to the historical-critical
location of texts. In fact, however, these are not two issues but one and the same
thing, since the theory of common sense is Garrigou's philosophical warrant for
why it is safe-intellectually safe-to avoid the kind of historical studies,
especially including that of St. Thomas, undertaken or appreciated by almost all
his adversaries, from the Modernists to the exponents of the nouvelle theologie.
Garrigou is to be honored for the tenaciousness with which he defended the
objectivity and truth of dogma throughout the course of his career, and for the
accuracy of his discernment of neo-Modernist currents within the nouvelle
theologie. But he found himself, I think, in the position of the master of St.
Thomas's fourth Quodlibet who, while he correctly determines the truth of some
question, sends the student away unsatisfied because he has not illumined him
with an understanding as to how the truth is true. And this is so for the reason
that part of our understanding of any truth today, however necessary and
timeless and eternal it may be, consists of an awareness of the concrete
contingency of its appearance, of how it came to be manifest, and in that sense
of its history. Just in order to defend the objectivity and truth of, say, fourth- and
fifth-century Christological dogma, we have to assure ourselves of how and
under what concrete conditions of thought and imagination the gospel
appeared-truly!-to the blessed 318, to the Cappadocians, to Cyril, to Leo, and
this in order that we may behold it appearing truly to us in the very terms and
relations worked out by the saints. To be sure, such historical inquiry could not
be merely extrinsically related to dogmatics. Still, dogmatics cannot replace such
inquiry or pretend that it has no role to play. Nichols writes that for Garrigou,
"What mattered was what was true not who said it." There is, of course, a sense
in which this indicates the praiseworthy avoidance of ad hominem. But it can
also conceal an unwillingness to recognize the necessity of history.
By speaking of a contemporary requirement of the knowledge of the
conditions of the historical manifestation of dogmatic truth, I mean very much
to evoke what Robert Sokolowski calls "the theology of disclosure." What
Sokolowski would have us as theologians pay attention to is not only what is
disclosed by revelation, but how it is disclosed, which can include also at certain

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crucial points some of the historical circumstances of its disclosure. For instance,
we need to see such things as how a concern both for the transcendence of God
and for human nature as an integral object of salvation come together in the
Cappadocian rejection of Apollinarianism. Or again, we need to see how the
Cappadocian distinction between hypostasis and nature, just by itself, was an
open invitation to Nestorianism. It is this sort of analysis-in-history (which of
course cannot be conveyed in any convincing form in a book review) that gives
us to understand why the Church's doctrinal formulae had to be articulated as
they were and why such articulation remains meaningful and true, and not an
antecedently constructed "conceptual realist theory of common sense."
Saying as much on behalf of historical-critical inquiry, which is also to be
deployed in reading St. Thomas, is not by any means to endorse the twentiethcentury depreciation and even vilification of the Thomist commentatorial
tradition undertaken by Gilson, Chenu, and de Lubac. There are likely
rehabilitations to be made there, too, and such work is already apace. I think of
Romanus Cessario and Lawrence Feingold. What I want to say is that we can
have it all; we can have everything-the objectivity and stability of dogma,
defended in metaphysical depth as it of course needs to be today; knowledge of
the historical conditions of the manifestation and expression of dogmatic truth
and so of the fatedness of its appearance; and appreciation of the traditions, both
magisterial and theological, that have preserved and deepened our hold on
dogma and the understanding of dogma. It's not just that we can have
everything, however; today, we need to have everything.
The remarks in the last half of this review are not meant to be critical of
Nichols, but I hope are an example of the kind of engagement his book will
provoke, since he has in every way shown himself to be once again "in the
service of Catholic thought."
GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

Saint Meinrad Archabbey
Saint Meinrad, Indiana

Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. By
DAVID BENTLEY HART. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Pp. xiv
+ 253. $28.00 (cloth). ISBN 9780300111903.
In his Pensees, the seventeenth-century mathematician Blaise Pascal
admonishes his readers to avoid any untoward atheist-bashing: "Pity the atheists
who are searching. Aren't they unhappy enough already? Revile those who boast
about it." In his latest book, Atheist Delusions, David Bentley Hart never
mentions Pascal in his brilliant dissection and diagnosis of the atheist soul; but

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the spirit of this great apologist for Christianity pervades Hart's brilliant tour de
force, a sober and deeply pessimistic depiction of the dreariness infecting our
post-Christian civilization.
Like Pascal, Hart admires some enemies of Christianity, above all the pagan
emperor Julian the Apostate (331-63), who was raised a Christian but abandoned
the religion of his childhood and tried to restore paganism in the Roman empire;
and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who also abandoned the Christianity of
his childhood for a belief in a godless universe bereft of meaning. "Of all the
emperors in the Constantinian line," says Hart, "Julian alone stands free of any
suspicion of bad faith." And Nietzsche, whom Hart calls "the most prescient
philosopher of nihilism," correctly foresaw a post-Christian world dominated by
what he called the Last Men: a race of self-absorbed narcissists sunk in banality
and self-congratulation. As Hart observes, Nietzsche was entirely accurate in his
predictions: "Contemporary culture does after all seem to excel at depressing
mediocrity and comfortable conventionality, egoistic precocity and mass idiocy."
On the other side of the ledger, there are those braggart atheists whose books
now crowd the bestseller lists. On them Hart is withering. Richard Dawkins, for
example, concludes his most important book, The Blind Watchmaker, with this
philosophical whopper: "Natural selection is the ultimate explanation for our
existence." To which Hart deftly replies: "Even the simplest of things, and even
the most basic of principles, must first of all be, and nothing within the universe
of contingent things (not even the universe itself, even if it were somehow
'eternal') can be intelligibly conceived of as the source or explanation of its own
being."
On Christopher Hitchens's God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons
Everything Hart is especially devastating. After first noting the petulance of the
title and subtitle, he skewers Hitchens's "heads-I-win, tails-you-lose" trickery:
For Hitchens, when atheists commit crimes, that is only because they belong to
a "political religion," but when believers succor the poor, they are merely being
"enlightened" despite their religion. "By the same token," Hart says, "every
injustice that seems to follow from a secularist principle is obviously an abuse of
that principle, while any evil that comes wrapped in a cassock is unquestionably
an undiluted expression of religion's very essence." Even in strictly Darwinian
terms, this thesis will never work. For it is a fact, often airbrushed away by the
keepers of Darwin's flame, that Charles Darwin was the first Social Darwinist.
In The Descent of Man he asserted, "At some future period, not very distant as
measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly
exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races." Moreover, the
idea is simply risible that humans were once born super-nice and only became
violent because of this excrescence called "religion," which, suddenly and
without provocation, was foisted on innocent primitive societies by scheming
shamans.
It would be far more accurate to say that every injustice flowing from a
secularist principle is an expression of the essence of its fondness for Social
Darwinism (on right and left), whereas religiously motivated violence by

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Christians represents a departure from the teachings of Jesus. For that reason,
one must stress that Hart's book in no way attempts a brief for Christianity (an
apologia, in the traditional sense of that word), for he is just as harsh on such
"Christian" emperors as Constantine and Justinian, and on the Inquisition and
the Thirty Years War, as any modern-day Voltaire.
But there is a crucial difference between Christian crimes and modern, secular
ones. For one thing, the ethical perspective that allows one to see atrocities as
crimes against humans of equal worth and dignity, endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights, comes from the revolution in human outlook
brought about alone by the religion of the God-man. In one telling passage, Hart
mentions that some Arians in the ancient world claimed that Jesus could not be
fully God because St. Paul had said that Christ took on the form of a slave, and
what kind of God would do that? To which one Church Father, Gregory of
Nyssa, indignantly replied: such was the whole point of Christianity. So
Nietzsche was right after all: Christianity really is a "slave revolt in morality," a
"transvaluation of all values," a total revolution of how human beings
understood themselves and their place in the cosmos:
[f]he term "post-Christian" must be given its full weight here:
modernity is not simply a "postreligious" condition; it is the state of
a society that has been specifically a Christian society but has "lost
the faith." The ethical presuppositions intrinsic to modernity, for
instance, are palliated fragments and haunting echoes of Christian
moral theology. Even the most ardent secularists among us generally
cling to notions of human rights, economic and social justice,
providence for the indigent, legal equality, or basic human dignity
that pre-Christian Western culture would have found not so much
foolish as unintelligible. It is simply the case that we distant children
of the pagans would not be able to believe in any of these
things-they would never have occurred to us-had our ancestors
not once believed that God is love, that charity is the foundation of
all virtues, that all of us are equal before the eyes of God, that to fail
to feed the hungry or care for the suffering is to sin against Christ,
and that Christ laid down his life for the least of his brethren. (32-33)

For that reason, as Nietzsche rightly saw (again), any attempt to cling to an
ethics founded on the universal dignity of man while jettisoning the religion that
bequeathed to us that ethic will never work. "In England," he sarcastically noted
of the prim but unbelieving novelist George Eliot, "one must rehabilitate oneself
after every little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably aweinspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is. That is the penance they pay over
there." But there was to be no penance in Nietzsche's Dionysian religion: "If we
cast a look a century ahead and assume that my assassination of two thousand
years of opposition to nature and of dishonoring man succeeds, then that new
party of life [!] will take in hand the greatest of all tasks-the higher breeding of
humans, including the unsparing destruction of all degenerates and parasites."

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We do not need Nietzsche's foresight to see the connection between the
Christian worldview and the metaphysical equality of all human beings, or to
foretell the violence that will inevitably follow in the wake of the abandonment
of that worldview-all we need is history. In one of the most eloquent passages
in the book, and which bears quoting in full, Hart comes to this conclusion:
The savageryof triumphant Jacobinism, the clinical heartlessnessof
classicalsocialeugenics,the Nazi movement, Stalinism-all the grand
utopian projects of the modern age that have directly or indirectly
spilled such oceans of human blood-are no less results of the
Enlightenment myth of liberation than are the liberal democratic
state or the vulgarity of late capitalist consumerism or the pettiness
of bourgeois individualism. The most piteously and self-righteously
violent regimes of modern history-in the West or in those other
quarters of the world contaminated by our worst ideas-have been
those that have most explicitly cast off the Christian vision of reality
and sought to replace it with a more "human" set of values. No cause
in history-no religion or imperial ambition or military
adventure-has destroyed more liveswith more confident enthusiasm
than the cause of the "brotherhood of man," the postreligious utopia,
or the progress of the race. (107-8)

In the fifth century, St. Augustine's City of God helped Christians come to
terms with the collapse of the Roman Empire. In that same tradition of offering
a vigorous defense of the Christian religion in dolorous times, Hart's Atheist
Delusions has given Christians who are now trying to negotiate the shoals of
post-Christian civilization just the book they need.
EDWARD T. OAKES, S.J.

University of St. Mary of the Lake
Mundelein, Illinois

The Hermeneutics of Doctrine. By ANTHONY C. THJSELTON. Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007. Pp. 649 $46.00 (cloth}. ISBN:
978-0-8028-2681-7.
Starting with The Two Horizons in 1980, and later with New Horizons in
Hermeneutics (1997) and Thiselton on Hermeneutics (2006), Anthony Thiselton
has established himself as a master in cataloguing various interpretative theories,
particularly as applied to biblical exegesis. As the title indicates, the present work
is concerned with establishing a proper hermeneutics for doctrinal claims. The
book is sweeping in its scope, as its length attests, because the author seeks not

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only to provide general interpretative guidelines, but also to offer examples of
a hermeneutically sensitive approach to virtually the entire realm of Christian
doctrine: the person and work of Christ; the meaning of the cross, expiation and
substitution; the significance of the Trinity; the nature of the Church; and the
sacraments and eschatology.
Although the book offers many themes worthy of discussion-such as the
author's distaste for easy condemnations of foundationalism or for similarly
of his minor digressions are
facile invocations of "incommensurability"-all
ultimately in service to his central claim: Christian doctrines can never be
understood as jejune abstractions because they arise from the performative,
dramatic, embodied life of the Church. As such, doctrines are lived out publicly
in communal settings and "invite and ... deserve belief" (21). Markedly
accented here is the Wittgensteinian claim that the utterance "I believe" is
necessarily incarnated in patterns of action and commitment which surround the
believer's assertions (20). Doctrine, therefore, is "indissolubly interwoven with
practices and a form of life" (97). Thiselton intends to obviate, then, any
understanding of dogma as a brittle thing, severed from its living meaning in
Scripture and in the practices and rituals of the Christian community. His
approach is to examine biblical teachings by means of the historical-critical
method, to discuss how such claims have been read in the later tradition and,
finally, to make such teachings-by a hermeneutically perceptive readingintelligible for today. Although this methodology may have the scent of varying
correlational approaches, Thiselton strongly rejects any tendency to collapse
biblical teaching into contemporary experience. And he emphatically wishes to
overcome the kind of thinking which holds that the New Testament needs an
emptying of its traditional content in order to become acceptable to present-day
sensibilities. On the contrary, he champions the continuing relevance of New
Testament teachings for the Church's later history.
Thiselton has little use, then, for Harnack's attempt to juxtapose adversely the
claims of Christ and the New Testament with the teachings of the apostolic
Fathers. In the first place, the New Testament itself clearly includes doctrine; in
the second place, it is not the case that "the theological formulations of the early
Church Fathers are 'hellenized' abstractions or metaphysical speculations that
have little in common with the New Testament" (37). One can fully agree with
these affirmations, although the second will, unfortunately, undergo some
modification later in the volume. In general, however, Thiselton insists that there
is an "evident continuity" between the confessions of faith in the New Testament
and later Christian declarations. Such continuity is, indeed, the general thesis and
driving idea of the book, an idea which one can warmly endorse as it develops
in Thiselton's artful hands. He is concerned that only with a sophisticated
hermeneutics (equally sensitive to the two horizons of biblical text and
contemporary intelligibility) can we remain faithful to the New Testament even
while extrapolating biblical meaning for the sake of addressing issues of our own
times (215).

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Despite my agreement with Thiselton's fundamental intentions and my
admiration for his erudite and comprehensive work, I find several problems that
weaken his attempt to establish a fully adequate hermeneutics of Christian
doctrine.
First, Thiselton indicates, early in the volume, that he will resist any attempt
to drive a wedge between the claims of the New Testament and the later, alleged
philosophical domination of Christian formulations. This is a narrative, of
course, that has its roots in the Reformation but which was given new force by
Karl Barth with his dyslogistic comments about philosophy, particularly
metaphysics and the language of being. This critique has found resonance in
some contemporary Catholic thinkers as well, such as the early Jean-Luc Marion,
who thought that the language of "being" constituted an unnecessarily
predeterminative boundary for Christian revelation-an affront, therefore, both
to a proper understanding of phenomenology and to the appearance of
revelation in its fullness. Elements of this narrative find their way into
Thiselton's account, unsurprisingly so considering how deeply he leans on
Moltmann's work. For example, the author argues that speaking of God as
immutable and impassible clearly indicates the later mindset of "Hellenistic
metaphysics" rather than of the biblical narrative (40, 478)-although the case
is scarcely proven with a few scattered references to Moltmann's reflections upon
a loving and suffering God. Further, while strongly defending the importance of
theological reasoning, Thiselton nods in assent to Pannenberg's claim that Luther
had to disagree with Aquinas because "the contents of the Christian faith could
not be derived from these [Aquinas's Aristotelian] a priori principles" (228).
Needless to say, Aquinas would vigorously refute the assertion that he was
educing Christian doctrine from predetermined philosophical positions.
Similarly, Thiselton eulogistically cites Colin Gunton's claim that Augustine and
his Western successors "allowed the insidious return of a Hellenism in which
being is not communion" but nonrelational substantia (467-68). This, of course,
is a now-familiar story-perhaps traceable as far back as Joachim da Fiore's
attack on Lombard-which has been successfully rebutted by Gilles Emery and
others. There is, then, in this volume an underlying, though modest, adherence
to aspects of the narrative that an overweening Hellenism imposed a foreign
metaphysics on Christian doctrine to detrimental effect. It would have been
better to point out that the Reformation insightfully saw that the gospel of grace
could not be obscured by any alien account even while underestimating the
extent to which philosophy and metaphysics have been traditionally understood
as conjunctive with, but necessarily subordinate to, the claims of Christian truth.
The Catholic Church's invocation of philosophy is hardly for the sake of
establishing a conceptual foundation for theology outside of Scripture. As Pope
Benedict again repeated in the Regensburg Address of 2006, the convergence of
faith and reason is essential because reason offers support, in the philosophical
order, for faith's claims.
Second, in a book devoted to defending the continuity of doctrine, one wishes
that Thiselton had given a richer account of the material identity of Christian

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truth over the course of time. How does one explain the universal validity and
stability of doctrine, the claim that the same perduring meanings are held by all
peoples despite deep socio-cultural-linguistic differences and the profound effects
of historicity? How does one offer theoretical reinforcement, in other words, for
the universal, transcultural, and transgenerational claims of the Christian faith?
Is such continuity only a matter of grace or of long-standing rituals and
practices? Does not the issue of stability within change, unity within multiplicity,
and perdurance within temporality, inevitably raise questions concerning the
metaphysical and ontological dimensions of reality? This invocation of
metaphysics has traditionally helped the Church find support, in the
philosophical order, for what she holds by grace and faith.
John Caputo has stated that the appeal to hermeneutics means the inevitable
death of metaphysics. But while this is surely true for the Gadamerian approach,
it is not at all inexorably the case. In fact, a metaphysical dimension within
hermeneutical theory is the only interpretative approach that can ultimately offer
support for the determinate claims of Christian doctrine and, indeed, for the
stability of textual meaning of any kind. It is just here that one wishes Thiselton
were more pointedly aware of precisely how metaphysical thought, properly
used, can illuminate faith's claims. Failing to discuss this issue weakens his
attempt to establish the material continuity of the Christian faith from biblical
times to our own day.
Third, Thiselton is rightly known for his interest and expertise in Gadamerian
thought. In this volume, Gadamer is not at all uncritically followed, and is
usually invoked (as, to the author's enduring credit, Emilio Betti is as well) in
order to accent the marked "otherness" of the "form" that one is interpreting.
Thiselton's legitimate point is that when one interprets the biblical text-for
example, when speaking about "expiation" or "substitution"--one must be
hermeneutically sensitive to the way these terms have been traditionally used,
particularly if one hopes to make them intelligible to contemporary society. He
even endorses Schleiermacher's claim (often a whipping post for au courant
theories) that one must enter into the frame of mind of the author, of the
"other" (183). My concern here is that while Betti and Gadamer both stress the
"alterity" of the interpreted form, the manner in which they seek to protect its
otherness is very different indeed, a difference not averted to at any length--even
though the author does note that Pannenberg cautiously approved of Betti's
more profound accent on objectivity in interpretation (158). Although Gadamer
has certainly made contributions to theological hermeneutics (one thinks of his
marked emphasis on the constitutive importance of tradition), Gadamerian
thought, with its deeply Heideggerian abjuration of metaphysics (and with its
consequent abandonment of recoverable textual meaning inasmuch as there
exists no ontological warrant for it) can only be adopted by theologians in a
qualified way precisely because Gadamer, dismissing recoverable meaning as
founded on the allegedly "Romantic" notion of a common human nature, tries
to re-establish historical continuity on the "fusion of horizons," a construct
which cannot support the material identity of meaning in and through

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temporality. But Thiselton does not here discuss the deep difference between
Gadamerian and Bettian approaches or the extent to which each is or is not able
to offer support for the substantial continuity of Christian teaching. This issue
is especially important to Catholicism with the claim of Vatican II (and
afterwards) that one may make a (careful) distinction between perduring
meaning and mutable conceptual expression, thereby allowing for a theological
reconceptualization which protects a fundamental affirmation throughout the
irrepressible "differences" of historicity, culture, and language. The pressing
question remains: how is this carefully wrought distinction (which echoes
Vincent of Lerins's famous fifth-century dictum "dicas nove non dicas nova")
philosophically supported? Precisely here is where crucial problems in
Gadamerian thought may be discerned. In my judgment, Betti's hermeneutics are
more clearly congruent with the author's project of recovering biblical meaning
through exegetical methods and making it "speak newly" in the contemporary
world. Unfortunately, Thiselton never presses the hermeneutical question down
to its underlying and unavoidable metaphysical roots.
Fourth, in his admirable desire to be comprehensive, the author occasionally
does a bit too much. Offering summaries of various positions can buttress
arguments, to be sure. But it can also give the sense of a montage of thinkers,
distracting from the main point. In the space of fifteen pages (293-308), we are
given summaries of the hermeneutics of sin found in Schleiermacher, Ritschl, F.
R. Tennant, Barth, Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr, Tillich, Berkouwer, Rahner,
Kiing, Zizioulas, and Pannenberg. Undoubtedly, Thiselton retrieves valuable
points in each thinker, but such a rapid review has a numbing effect which blocks
the flow of the argument.
Despite these criticisms, I willingly endorse Thiselton's substantive book for
its significant and undeniable merits: the author's vast learning on biblical and
theological themes, his steadfast and skillful defense of the continuity existing
between biblical teaching and the later theological tradition, and his insistence
that, with the proper use of hermeneutics, one may ably defend the full
intelligibility of Christian faith and doctrine.
THOMASG.GUARINO

Seton Hall University
South Orange, New Jersey