The Thomist 74 (2010): 165-88

THOMAS AND SCOTUS ON PRUDENCE WITHOUT ALL
THE MAJOR VIRTUES:
IMPERFECT OR MERELY PARTIAL?
THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.
University of St. Thomas
Houston, Texas

T

HE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN Thomas Aquinas and John
Duns Scotus on the connection of the acquired moral
virtues is in large part a disagreement over the unity of
prudence. 1 Thomas thinks that the moral virtues are connected
through one prudence which commands actions that belong to all
of the virtues. 2 A deficiency in moral virtue is always also a
deficiency in prudence. Scotus rejects this position in two ways.3
First, he holds that there is a particular or partial prudence which

1 For the context and background, see especially Odon Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux
xii' et xiii' siecles, 6 vols., (Louvain: Abbaye du Mont Cesar; Gembloux: Duculot, 1942-60),
3.1:197-252; 4.2: 551-663.
2 See especially Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 3.1:247-51; Fridolino M. Utz, De
connectione virtutum moralium inter se secundum doctrinam St. Thomae Aquinatis
(Oldenberg: Albertus Magnus, 1937), 97-126; Renee Mirkes, "Aquinas on the Unity of Perfect
Moral Virtue," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 71 (1998): 589-605; Bonnie Kent,
"Habits and Virtues," in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Stephen J. Pope (Washington, D.C.:
Georgetown University Press, 2002), 122-24; James F. Keenan, "The Virtue of Prudence,"in
Pope, ed., The Ethics of Aquinas, 265-67.
3 Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 4.2:655-60; Parthenius Minges, Ioannis Duns Scoti
Doctrina philosphica et theologica, 2 vols (Rome: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1930), 2:46970, 472-74; Marilyn McCord Adams, "Scotus and Ockham on the Connection of the
Virtues," in John Duns Scotus: Metaphysics and Ethics, ed. Ludger Honnefelder, Rega Wood,
and Mechtild Dreyer (Leiden: Brill 1996), 505-9; Bonnie Kent, "Rethinking Moral
Dispositions: Scotus on the Virtues," in The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus, ed.
Thomas Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 369-74.

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belongs to each moral virtue. 4 Consequently, the perfection of one
part of prudence is independent from that of another. For
instance, a defect in that part of prudence which is concerned
with temperate actions does not entail a defect in that part of
prudence which belongs to justice or courage. Second, he states
that even this particular or partial prudence is to some extent
independent of a particular moral virtue. Prudence issues
judgments which the agent is free to accept or reject. The second
claim has been discussed in recent scholarship and sheds light on
the relationship between the intellect and the will. The first claim
is about prudence's unity. I shall attempt to give a more precise
description of this first issue by looking more carefully at the
arguments which are given by Thomas and Scotus, and
considering the ways in which their views were developed by their
followers.
A few introductory remarks need to be made about the
difference between imperfect and partial prudence. Thomas,
Scotus, and their contemporaries reject the Stoic understanding of
the connection of the virtues, according to which someone either
possesses all the acquired moral virtues in the highest degree or
none of these virtues at all. 5 Both Thomas and Scotus accept the
Aristotelian view that a perfectly good person lacks vice, and that
his virtues are connected through prudence. But they differ over
whether this prudence is itself a lowest species or whether it is a
genus which includes different species of prudence. This
disagreement over prudence is connected to different accounts of
how someone may have a true virtue even though he lacks one or
more of the principal acquired virtues.

4 Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 4.2:643-55, argues that for Scotus particular prudence
depends on virtue. It seems to me that this view is successfully challenged in Stephen D.
Dumont, "The Necessary Connection of Moral Virtue to Prudence according to John Duns
Scotus," Recherches de theologie ancienne et medievale 55 (1988): 184-206. See also Adams,
"Scotus and Ockham," 507 n. 28; Mary Elizabeth Ingham, "Practical Wisdom: Scotus's
Presentation of Prudence," in Honnefelder et al, eds., John Duns Scotus: Metaphysics and
Ethics, 562-69.
5 For the earlier, widespread thirteenth-century rejection of Stoic unity, see Lattin,
Psychologie et morale, 3.1:219-31.

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For Thomas, someone who lacks a principal moral virtue has
at best "imperfect" prudence. 6 Thomas thinks that the perfectly
virtuous person possesses the intellectual virtue of prudence in
such a way that he can judge and command about the matter of
any virtue. This prudence has as its object everything the agent
can do (agibilia). This habit is a simple quality. Someone who
lacks a moral virtue has imperfect prudence, since this simple
habit will be undeveloped in one area. For Thomas, perfect
prudence requires an order to the good life as a whole, whereas
imperfect prudence directs only some good actions.
Instead of distinguishing between imperfect and perfect
prudence, Scotus distinguishes between whole and partial
prudence. According to Scotus, a perfectly virtuous person has
whole prudence, which is a genus that contains the different
species of prudence which concern the matter of each different
virtue. 7 Although whole prudence needs several distinct species,
these species themselves can exist independently of each other.
For example, a just but unchaste person has that partial prudence
which is connected with justice but may lack that partial prudence
which is connected with charity.
How do Thomas and Scotus differ? Both think that there are
cases in which someone can possess one moral virtue without
another. For example, someone might be just but lack
6 Aquinas, STh II-II, q. 47, a. 13. The discussion of Thomas in this essay is mostly on the
distinction between perfect and imperfect acquired moral virtue. Prudence can be counted
among the moral virtues, even though it is essentially an intellectual virtue (STh I-II, q. 58, a.
3, ad 1). "Acquired" virtue arises through repeated human acts, whereas "infused" virtue is
efficiently caused by God (STh I-II, q. 55, a. 4). Although the relevant infused and acquired
moral virtues do not differ on account of their matter, they differ specifically on account of
their formal objects and ends (STh I-II, q. 63, a. 4). Notice the connection between acquired
moral virtue and the common good of the human city, which is also mentioned in other texts,
such as STh I-II, q. 61, a. 5, co. and ad 4. For relevant background on civic virtue in Albert
the Great, see Thomas M. Osborne, Jr., Love of Self and Love of God in Thirteenth-Century
Ethics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 61-68. For the distinctions
between imperfect acquired, perfect acquired, and perfect I infused prudence, see idem,
"Perfect and Imperfect Virtues in Aquinas," The Thomist 71 (2007): 57-62. Scotus and
Scotists are among those who reject the position that there are infused moral virtues.
7 John Duns Scotus, Ord. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 99-100, in Opera Omnia (Vatican City:
Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950-), 10:260-61; Leet. 3, d. 36, q. un., n. 108 (Vat. ed.,
21:340).

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

temperance. Thomas would describe such a person as having
justice and prudence which are themselves both true and
imperfect. These virtues are connected in such a way that the
perfection of one depends on another. In contrast, Scotus would
say that such a person might be entirely just and prudent with
respect to justice even if he lack temperance and its accompanying
species of prudence.
What is at stake? It can be hard to identify further the extent
of their disagreement. Scotus does not address Thomas's texts at
length. Although Scotus knew of Thomas's writings, his account
of the connection of the moral virtues is developed mostly
through contrast with that of Henry of Ghent. 8 Moreover, his
rejection of the unity of prudence focuses more on Godfrey of
Fontaines than it does on Thomas Aquinas. 9 The texts themselves
do not address the exact nature of the disagreement between
Thomas and Scotus. Later Thomists and Scotists had to develop
their own accounts.
This paper has three parts. First, I shall consider the reasons
Thomas and Scotus give for their different opinions. At first
glance their difference might seem to be merely terminological. It
is not clear how Thomas's "imperfect prudence" differs from
Scotus' "partial prudence." Second, I shall look at how the
Thomist Thomas de Vio Cajetan (d. 1534) and the Scotist
Johannes Poncius (d. 1661) develop and defend the positions of
their schools. Poncius is particularly interesting because he
responds directly to Cajetan's arguments. Both figures shed light
on the difference between Thomas and Scotus. Third, I shall
consider the way in which the Carmelites of Salamanca (ca. 1631)
develop and extend the ideas of both Thomas and Cajetan. Their
8 John Duns Scotus, Leet. 3, d. 36, q. un, nn. 86-90 (Vat. ed., 21:335-36); see also the
briefer remarks of Ord. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 94-95 (Vat. ed., 10:228). For further discussion,
see Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 4.2:644, 655.
9 I thank Stephen Dumont for drawing my attention to this point. See Godfrey of
Fontaines, Quaestiones Ordinariae 3, in Odon Lottin, ed., Le quodlibet XV et trois Questions
ordinaries, Les Philosophes Beiges 14 (Louvain: Institut Superieur de Philosophie, 193 7), 11937, esp. 129-32. Although Godfrey is drawing on Eustratius, his position also seems close to
that of Aquinas. If Scotus has Godfrey in mind, he is focusing on those areas in which Thomas
and Godfrey agree.

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approach clarifies the original Thomistic view and makes it easier
to see why it might be preferable to the Scotistic position.
I. AQUINAS AND SCOTUS

Thomas was among the first in his century to argue that the
moral virtues are connected through prudence. He consistently
appeals to the role of prudence in at least one of his arguments
for the position that the moral virtues are connected with each
other. 10 This argument is based on Aristotle's discussion of
prudence in (the then-newly available) book 6 of the
Nicomachean Ethics. In his commentary on this passage, Thomas
rejects the Socratic understanding of the unity of virtue, which is
the identification of each virtue with knowledge. 11 In contrast, on
Aristotle's view, moral virtues are not completely rational, even
though they require and act with reason. Moral virtues are
consequently distinct from prudence. In the Summa Theologiae,
Thomas uses this Aristotelian understanding of the relationship of
prudence to the moral virtues in his argument that prudence is
one even though the moral virtues are many. 12 Moral virtue has
a desirable good as its object. Since there are different appetites,
there are different desirable goods and consequently distinct
moral virtues. In contrast, the object of reason is truth.
Consequently, the one intellectual virtue of prudence is concerned
with truth in all moral matters. Through prudence the agent
determines the mean of virtue and the means to the end set by
virtue, and the subsequent choice depends on understanding not
only the matter of one virtue but the interrelationship between the
matters of different virtues.
10 Aquinas, III Sent., d. 36., a. 1 (Scriptum super libros sententiarum, ed. Pierre Mandonnet
and M. F. Moos, 4 vols. [Paris: Lethielleux, 1929-47], 3:1214-18); VI Ethic., lect. 11
(Leonine ed., 47.2:370-73); STh 1-11, q. 65, a. 1; Quad/. 12, q. 14, a. un. [23] (Leonine ed.,
25.2:416-18); De virtutibus, q. 5, a. 2 (Quaestiones Disputatae, 2 vols. [Turin: Marietti,
1965], 2:817-21). For the development of Thomas's different arguments and the consistency
of his argument from prudence, see Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 3:232-35, 247-49.
11 Aquinas, VI Ethic., 6, lect. 3 (Leonine ed., 47.2:376-77).
12 Aquinas, STh I-11, q. 60, a. 1, resp. and ad 1; 11-11, q. 47, a. 5, ad 3. For an earlier
treatment, see III Sent., d. 36., a. 1 in corp., ad 2, ad 3 (Mandonnet-Moos, eds., 3:1214-17).

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

Why does Thomas think that the acquired moral virtues are
connected to each other through this one prudence? Thomas
mentions that the more common moral virtues are connected
through prudence because the matters of the different virtues are
mutually ordered. In the Summa Theologiae and in De virtutibus
cardinalibus he uses this order in his replies to objections against
the connection of the virtues. Similar objections and replies
appear in both works. One objection is based on the separation of
one science from another: 13 since the intellect can have one
science without another, it follows that there can be one moral
virtue without another. Another objection is based on the
separation of the different crafts (artes).14 Thomas responds to
both objections in part by noting that the matter of the different
virtues is ordered in a way that is not found in either sciences or
crafts. 15 Among sciences, the matter is so different that someone
can know one object without knowing another. Similarly, an error
in one craft does not entail error in another craft. But in human
actions a defect concerning one kind of act might cause a defect
in others, on account of the way in which the matter of the
different virtues falls under one order.
Scotus addresses the unity of prudence both in his discussion
of the connection between the virtues in his Ordinatio (3, dist.
36), his earlier Lectura on the same distinction, and in his Collatio
prima, which is the most substantial account. In the Collatio
prima, Scotus responds to three reasons in favor of the position
that prudence is one, namely, (1) that prudence is concerned with
the whole human good, (2) that its principles extend to all
activities, and (3) that there is a unity of attribution towards one
end. His response to the first and third arguments is partially
based on the similarity between prudence and the different crafts

13 Aquinas, STh 1-11, q. 65, a. 1, obj. 3, resp., and ad 3; De virtutibus cardinalibus, a. 2, obj.
8 and ad 8 (Marietti ed., 2:817, 820).
14 Aquinas, STh 1-11, q. 65, a. 1, obj. 4 and ad 4; De virtutibus cardinalibus, a. 2, obj. 4 and
ad 4 (Marietti ed., 2:817, 819-20).
15 For an earlier discussion, see Aquinas, III Sent., d. 36, a. 1, ad 2 (Mandonnet, ed.,
3:1217).

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and sciences. 16 Scotus thinks that he is following Aristotle in
comparing prudence to craft and science. Just as the precepts of
crafts and sciences differ on account of their formal objects, so do
the precepts of prudence differ in respect to those things which
should be done. Moreover, just as sciences are diversified
according to the diversity of their conclusions, so are the parts of
prudence diversified according to their conclusions. Scotus argues
that prudence's unity is the same as that of a science which has
many parts. He admits that prudence is one in a sense, but this
unity is that of a genus.
Although he may not have Thomas in mind, Scotus presents a
clear alternative to Thomas's understanding of the way in which
prudence is contrasted with the crafts and sciences. Thomas and
those who follow him stress the difference between prudence and
the sciences or crafts by arguing that the respective matters of the
moral virtues are connected whereas the matters of sciences and
crafts are not so connected to each other. In contrast, Scotus and
Scotists argue that prudence is more like a science in that it can be
developed in one area and not in another.
Scotus uses a similar argument in his response to the second
reason for the unity of prudence, which is that its principles
extend to all actions. He responds that if there were one prudence
with respect to all human action, then there would similarly be
only one science with respect to everything that can be known. 17
The independence among prudence's various principles can be
seen in the way that partial prudence is acquired. 18 Someone
acquires that prudence which accompanies temperance by
reasoning from that principle which corresponds to the end of
temperance. The possession of other parts of prudence is
unnecessary for the acquisition of that prudence which
accompanies temperance, and the acquisition of this particular
16 John Duns Scotus, Collatio Prima, nn. 3-4, 19 (Opera Omnia, 12 vols., ed. Luke
Wadding [Lyons: Laurentius Durandus, 1639; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968], 3:34546, 349). For similar argumentation, see Scotus, Ord. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 96-100 (Vat. ed.,
10:259-61); Leet. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 91-108 (Vat. ed., 21:336-40).
17 Scotus, Collatio Prima, n. 6 (Wadding, ed., 3:346).
18 Scotus, Collatio Prima, n. 7 (Wadding, ed., 3:347).

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

prudence is insufficient for the acquisition of prudence's other
parts.
Scotus's view of prudence is rooted in his understanding of the
relationship between a habit and its formal object. 19 Under certain
conditions, different habits can have the same formal object, but
one habit cannot have distinct formal objects. Scotus considers an
argument that the partial prudence of temperance depends on
other partial prudences because its formal object involves not just
the end of temperance, but this end insofar as it includes the
nature of the good in accordance with reason (ratio bani
secundum rationem). According to this argument, this rational
characteristic connects the end of temperance with ends that
belong to the other moral virtues. Scotus replies by stating that
either the good according to reason is the object of each moral
virtue, or each moral virtue has its own formal object. 20 If the first
alternative were true, then there would be no way to distinguish
one moral virtue from another. Consequently, the second
alternative must be true. If the formal objects of the different
virtues are distinct even though they all include the nature of the
good in accordance with reason, then the ends and principles
which belong to prudence are also independent from each other.
Therefore, the corresponding parts of prudence are distinct and
can be acquired independently. However, since the moral virtues
have distinct formal objects, each principle that is taken from the
end of one virtue belongs to a prudence that is distinct from the
species of prudence that include the principles that belong to the
other virtues.
The formal object of each virtue is the same as that of its
corresponding partial prudence. For instance, that act which is the
formal object of temperance belongs as the very same formal
object to that part of prudence which is concerned with temperate
acts. The objects of partial prudences are distinct formally just as
the objects of the different virtues are distinct. Consequently, the
19 See especially John Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis,
q. 6, a. 1, nn. 41-65, 67-72 (Opera Philosophica, 5 vols. [St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan
Institute, 1997-2006], 4:17-28).
20 Scotus, Collatio Prima, n. 8 (Wadding, ed., 3:347).

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distinction between the different kinds of virtues is accompanied
by a distinction between the different species of prudence.
Scotus and Thomas clearly disagree over whether we should
say that someone who lacks prudence in one area but possesses it
in another has imperfect or impartial prudence. Is this difference
merely terminological? According to Scotus, the just but unchaste
agent has that particular prudence which judges the matter of
justice but may lack that particular prudence which judges the
matter of chastity. Such a person can possess justice and its
corresponding partial prudence even in its most perfect state.
Such a statement is incompatible with what Thomas says, but it is
difficult to determine the exact nature of the disagreement or how
it might be resolved. A proponent of Thomas's position needs to
address the following questions: What kind of argument supports
the thesis that the matter of the virtues is connected? Supposing
that the matter is so connected, why should we conclude that
prudence is one in such a way that it contains no perfect parts?
II. THOMAS DE VIO CAJETAN AND JOHANNES PONCIUS

Later Thomists and Scotists developed their views on prudence
and the virtues in large part through argument with each other.
The issues become more clearly delineated by Thomas de Vio
Cajetan's early sixteenth-century commentary on Thomas's
Summa Theologiae. 21 Although previous Thomists had addressed
Scotus's position, Cajetan gives clearer counter-examples and
develops an analogy between common sense and the particular
interior senses. Cajetan's criticism of Scotus is both intrinsically
interesting and historically important, since it was addressed at
length by Johannes Poncius Oohn Punch), one of the most
significant seventeenth-century Scotists. 22 Poncius wrote the
21 For an early Thomistic response to Scotistic arguments, see John Capreolus, III Sent.,
d. 36, q. un. (Defensiones Theologiae Divi Thomae Aquinatis, 7 vols., ed. C. Paban and T
Pegues [fours: Cattier, 1900-1908; repr. Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1967], 5:439-45).
22 For Poncius's life and influence, see Maurice Grajewski, "John Ponce, Scotist,"
Franciscan Studies 6 (1946): 54-92; Benignus Millett, "Irish Scotists at St. Isidore's College,
Rome, in the Seventeenth Century," in De doctrina Ioannis Duns Scoti, Acta Congressus

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

commentaries on Luke Wadding's edition of books 3 and 4 of
Scotus's Opus Oxoniense (Ordinatio), and discusses Cajetan at
length in distinction 36 of book 3, which is one of the key
passages for Scotus's understanding of prudence.
Cajetan discusses Scotus's position on the unity of prudence in
his commentary on the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae,
primarily in article 1 of question 60, and article 1 of question 65.
In his commentary on the first text, Cajetan introduces his
comparison between prudence and the power of the common
sense. In the second text he uses examples to illustrate Thomas's
doctrine of the connection of the virtues through prudence.
In article 1 of question 60, Thomas discusses the question of
whether there is only one virtue. The first objection uses the unity
of prudence to argue for the unity of the moral virtues. In his
response to this objection, Thomas draws attention to the
difference between the unity of reason's object, which is the true,
and the variety of objects that can be desired. The multiplicity of
appetible objects explains the diversity of the moral virtues.
Cajetan introduces in his commentary Scotus's views that
prudence has diverse species, and that it is related to human
action in the way that crafts are related to human makings. 23
Cajetan notes that prudence must judge concerning actions that
belong to all the different virtues. He states that the argument for
the conclusion that prudence is one is similar to the argument for
the thesis that the common sense is distinct from particular senses.
The need to judge between different objects shows that the habit
or power must have a higher object which is unified and includes
the objects of the particular powers or habits concerning which it
judges. 24 In order to judge the objects of sight and hearing, the
power of common sense must be one power which has one object
which includes sound and color. If it were merely a collection of
the particular powers, then it would not be able to judge between
them. Similarly, in order for prudence to judge between moral
Scotistici Internationalis 11-17 sept. 1966, Studia Scholastico-Scotistica 4, vol. 4, Scotismus
decursu saeculorum (Rome, 1968), 404-6.
23 Cajetan, In STh I-II, q. 60, a. 1, n. 7 (Leonine, ed., 6:386).
24 Ibid. (Leonine, ed., 6:386-87). He refers to Aristotle, De anima 3.2.

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objects that belong to the different moral virtues, it must have as
its object all of the different virtues. If prudence were merely a
collection of different species of prudence, then it would not be
able to judge between the members of the different species.
Cajetan's comparison of prudence with the common sense is
interesting not only because it applies to the way in which
prudence can be deficient, but also because it focuses on how
prudence orders the different virtues. Whereas each moral virtue
is concerned with some particular matter, prudence is concerned
with what moral virtue should be exercised here and now. Just as
the common sense judges between the particular senses, so does
prudence judge between the matter of the different virtues. Since
prudence makes such judgments, it must be one.
Cajetan develops several cases that he thinks cannot be
accounted for by Scotus's understanding of partial prudence. He
uses these cases to show how the matter of moral virtue is
connected by responding to an argument that the possibility of
prudence is included in Aristotle's very definition of virtue (Eth.
Nich. 2.6), namely, "an elective habit existing in a mean
[mediatas] determined by reason with respect to ourselves, as the
wise man will determine. " 25 Someone who holds that the virtues
are unconnected through prudence would also need to hold that
the mean of one moral virtue can be established in complete
isolation from that of the other moral virtues.
Cajetan shows the connection between the means which are
established by different virtues by developing the examples of a
brave soldier who is induced by intemperance to perform a
cowardly act and a chaste woman who is induced by fear to
perform an unchaste act. 26 An imperfectly brave soldier might be
quite willing to face death, and yet love for pleasure might
interfere with his action. We can imagine that he might
inadequately prepare for battle or be misled during battle. The
25 "Quaelibet virtus moralis est 'habitus electivus in medietate consistens determinata
ratione, prout sapiens determinabit,' absque determinatione et electione medii in alia materia"
(Cajetan, In STh I-II, q. 65, a. 1, n. 4 [Leonine ed., 6:420]).
26 Cajetan, In STh I-II, q. 65, a. 1, n. 9 (Leonine ed., 6:421); In STh I-II, q. 65, a. 2, n. 13
(Leonine ed., 6:422).

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point is that he quite easily avoids the excesses of rashness and
cowardice, but nevertheless misses the mean on account of his
love for pleasure. Similarly, a lack of courage can lead to a failure
in temperance. Lucretia was ordinarily able to act chastely by
avoiding the excess of bodily pleasure. But she did not have
courage. Consequently, when faced with the threat of death she
gave in to the excess, because her fear caused her to miss the
mean of temperance. Her lack of courage led to an error of
prudence even concerning the matter of temperance. In both
cases, the excess of one virtue interferes with the mean of
another.
These examples help explain why, unlike craft, prudence does
not have different species. Cajetan mentions two ways in which
prudence differs from craft: 27
The first is, because craft considers things to be made [factibilia]only in one way,
namely, as matter: but prudence considers things to be done [actibilia] in two
ways, namely, as matter, and as principles. The second is that ... things to be
made are not connected, such that an error in one overflows to an error in the
other: but things to be done are ordered, such that an error in one leads to an
error in another, as is clear from what has been said.

The first point highlights the fact that prudence receives its end
from all of the moral virtues. With respect to the second point, in
his commentary on article 1 of question 60 Cajetan gives
examples to show that an error in one craft need not lead to an
error in another. For example, a bad shoemaker may be a good
sailor. 28 Shoemaking and sailing are both different species of
human craft. A mistake in one craft does not necessarily lead to a
mistake in the other. In contrast, Cajetan's examples of Lucretia
and the ordinarily brave soldier show that a mistake in one part
of the moral life leads to a mistake in other parts.
27 Cajetan, In STh I-II, q. 65, a. 1, n. 16 (Leonine ed., 6:423): "Prima est, quia ars respicit
factibilia uno modo tantum, scilicet ut materiam: prudentia vero respicit agibilia dupliciter,
scilicet ut materiam, et ut principia. - Secunda est quod ... factibilia non sunt connexa, ut
error in uno redundet in aliud: agibilia autem sic sunt ordinata, quod error in uno errorem
induceret in alio, ut ex praedictis patet."
28 Cajetan, In STh I-II, q. 60, a. 1, n. 9 (Leonine ed., 6:387).

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These different examples and points are all relevant to
Cajetan's appeal to the definition of moral virtue, and most
especially to two of its parts, namely, choosing the mean and
determining it by right reason. 29 According to Cajetan, the choice
of the mean should be understood not only secundum quid, which
would be only with respect to the particular moral virtue's own
matter, but simpliciter, which is with respect to anything that
could lead away from the mean. Similarly, the determination of
reason should not be understood only secundum quid, which
would be according to some part, but simpliciter, which is what
is reasonable with everything taken into account. It is the
intellectual virtue of prudence that so determines the mean. Since
the mean can be missed on account of the matter which belongs
to any virtue, it follows that in order to determine the mean
perfectly with respect to the matter of one virtue, the agent must
have prudence with respect to any possible matter.
According to Cajetan, if prudence were absent in one area,
then it would not be perfect prudence. The chaste but cowardly
or avaricious person lacks prudence even with respect to chastity
or, more broadly, temperance. She cannot judge correctly concerning the mean of temperance when it is threatened by fear or
monetary gain. Consequently, she cannot perfectly have that part
of prudence which is associated with temperance if she lacks that
part of prudence which is associated with courage or liberality.
In his commentary on distinction 36 of book 3 of Scotus's
Ordinatio, Johannes Poncius particularly focuses on defending
Scotus from these arguments of Cajetan. First, Poncius addresses
Cajetan's comparison of prudence with common sense. 30 According to Poncius, the common sense is needed to distinguish
between the objects of the external senses precisely because there
is no other power that can perform the task. In contrast, there is
a power that can distinguish between the different objects of
prudence, namely, the intellect. Just as the will tends to certain
objects on account of the different moral virtues, so does the
29

30

Cajetan, In STh I-II, q. 65, a. 1, nn. 6-8, 11 (Leonine ed., 6:420-21, 422).
Poncius, In Ox. 3, d. 36, nn. 179-180 (Wadding, ed., 7.2:826-27).

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

intellect judge between different objects by means of specifically
distinct habits of prudence. There is no sufficient difference
between prudence and the other moral virtues that would allow
for an argument to be made for the unity of prudence and not
also for the unity of the moral virtues.
Poncius's second response is that there is no one habit of
prudence that judges any act which might be done here and
now. 31 He admits that one species of prudence may need to judge
concerning matters that belong to another species of prudence.
For example, someone who is chaste might be able to act justly in
those situations in which chastity requires a just action. The
prudence that concerns chaste actions in this case will also issue
a judgment about a just action. Nevertheless, the partial prudence
that works is that which is most proximate to the action, which in
this case is the partial prudence that accompanies chastity. Poncius
also suggests that there may be another third species of prudence
which judges between the different virtues. This suggestion is
based on the way in which habits develop from acts. The
following three judgments differ: (1) that the temperate act be
done here and now, (2) that the just act be done here and now,
and (3) that the moral value of the just act is greater than that of
the temperate act. The first kind of act gives rise to that prudence
which belongs to temperance, whereas the second gives rise to
that prudence which belongs to justice. Consequently, there may
be a distinct third species of partial prudence which arises from
the third act. It seems to me unlikely that Scotus would draw this
conclusion, as it concedes to Cajetan that there could be one habit
that concerns the matter of the different virtues, if even only
remotely. Nevertheless, Poncius states that this conclusion is
probable enough (sequitursatis probabiliter).
Poncius not only gives these two arguments against Cajetan's
comparison of prudence with common sense, but in another part
of his commentary he responds to Cajetan's examples that purport
to show how someone fails in one virtue because he lacks

31 Poncius, In Ox. 3, d. 36, n. 181 (Wadding, ed., 7.2:827).

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179

another. 32 We have seen how Cajetan uses such examples to argue
for the unity of prudence by noting how the excess in relation to
one virtue can interfere with prudence's determination of that
mean which belongs to another virtue. Poncius mentions that
others have used Cajetan's examples in order to attack the
Scotistic position. He responds in part by repeating Scotus's
argument that if the matter of temperance were so connected with
that of the other virtues, then temperance would not be a distinct
virtue. Poncius's first argument for this position is that one moral
virtue is distinct from the other virtues insofar as it inclines
someone to act in accordance with a determinate object in all
circumstances. If temperance needs justice in order to act
temperately in certain circumstances, then its object does not
sufficiently distinguish it from justice.
Poncius thinks that there is a more efficacious second argument
which relies on the distinction between an imperfect and a perfect
virtue. He states that avarice can interfere with imperfect
temperance but not with perfect temperance. According to
Poncius, a virtue's perfection requires only an inclination to the
morally good act in every set of circumstances and situations.
Consequently, a temperate person is inclined to act temperately
even if an intemperate act would enable him to satisfy some vice
such as avarice. The woman who acts unchastely for money is not
only avaricious but also intemperate. If she were perfectly temperate, she would act chastely in every circumstance. This perfect
temperance could exist alongside avarice, since the avarice could
still produce avaricious acts so long as they are not contrary to
temperance.
Poncius uses these descriptions in order to provide an
alternative explanation of how a normally chaste woman can
perform unchaste acts on account of her avarice. First he argues
that this example is incorrectly described. Since such a woman is
not motivated by the love of pleasure but by avarice, she would be
only materially and not formally intemperate. 33 This response to
32
33

Poncius, In Ox.3, d.36, q. un., n. 16 (Wadding, ed., 7.2:789).
Poncius, In Ox. 3, d.36, q. un., n. 19 (Wadding, ed., 7.2:789-90).

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

me seems weak in that it concedes that the matter of the two
virtues is connected in such a way that one virtue requires the
others. Nevertheless, Poncius does draw out an important
distinction, which is that the woman is more avaricious than
unchaste. But Thomas would admit this point. 34 The issue is the
way in which the exercise of a virtue such as chastity depends on
another moral virtue such as justice.
Poncius also draws support for his position from the fact that
a woman who is intemperate for the sake of avarice can perform
an unchaste act or even acts without developing a habit of
unchastity. He draws attention to the Aristotelian view that the
existence of a virtue is compatible with a single act against it. 35
According to Poncius, chastity gives the woman the ability to act
well without difficulty, and easily to avoid sins against chastity,
but it does not limit her freedom to perform unchaste actions.
Poncius does not address the case in which the woman were to
commit many unchaste acts out of avarice. It seems strange to say
that these multiple unchaste acts would be compatible with
chastity. Moreover, his statement does not on its own distinguish
his view from that of Thomas, who also holds that singular vicious
acts do not destroy virtue, and that a virtuous person is free to
perform bad acts. 36
Poncius's second response invokes the distinction between
perfect and imperfect temperance. If the woman is perfectly
temperate, then it is impossible for her to act intemperately out of
avarice. 37 If the woman is unchaste for love of money or out of
fear, then it follows that she only imperfectly possesses temperance. The difference between imperfect and perfect prudence
is not between different species of the same virtue. 38 Poncius
focuses on the woman's regard for the moral worth of chastity. By
performing chaste acts such a woman is willing to develop an
34 Aquinas, STh I-II, q. 18, a. 6. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean

Ethics 5.2.1130a24-28.
In Ox. 3, d. 36, q. un., n. 21 (Wadding, ed., 7.2:790).
36 Aquinas, STh I-II, q. 71, a. 4.
37 Poncius, In Ox.3, d. 36, q. un., n. 20 (Wadding, ed., 7.2:790).
38 Poncius, In Ox. 3, d. 36, q. un., nn. 10-11 (Wadding, ed., 7.2:786-87). For different
Thomist views, see Utz, De connectione virtutum moralium, 127-235.
35 Poncius,

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181

ability to act chastely not only in opposition to pleasure, but also
in opposition to any threat against the good of chastity, even if it
comes from another vice. Consequently, a woman who is
perfectly chaste but cowardly is able to undergo death rather than
surrender her chastity. She exposes herself to death not out of
courage but out of chastity. Poncius's argument is significant
because of the way it connects the particular prudence to the
morally worthy good which is the object of the agent's choice. If
the agent perfectly knows and loves the good of one virtue, then
he will know and love it under every circumstance.
How does Poncius differ from Cajetan over the unity of
prudence in this case? As a Scotist, Poncius believes that an
ordinarily temperate woman can commit a sin against chastity
either by acting against the dictates of prudence or through an
(ultimately culpable) failure of prudence. If the woman sins
against chastity by following an imprudent judgment, then this
imprudence shows an imperfection in that species of prudence
which accompanies temperance. The perfect development of this
prudence concerning temperance may depend on other virtues
materially speaking, but formally it is independent. Indeed,
Poncius emphasizes that there are three ways in which such a
woman might be preserved from the interference of a vice such as
avarice. 39 First, she might be just and not avaricious. However, in
such a case justice does not play a formal role in the acquisition
and exercise of either temperance or its accompanying prudence.
Second, she may have a morally indifferent attitude towards
money. In such a case, even though she lacks justice, she also lacks
the avarice that would interfere with chastity. Third, she may have
a natural nonmoral inclination to justice. In such a case, she lacks
the virtue of justice and yet is inclined to act justly. In the latter
two cases, the virtue of chastity develops on its own and even
materially independently from the exercise of another virtue.
As a Thomist, Cajetan does not so separate the cognitive
judgments of prudence from its command of an action.
Nevertheless, he also thinks that an ordinarily temperate woman
39

Poncius, In Ox. 3, d. 36, q. un., n. 22 (Wadding, ed., 7.2:790).

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

could make a false judgment about a temperate act on account of
a vice such as avarice. For Cajetan, this case shows that the same
prudence makes judgments about and commands acts of
temperance and of justice. The matter is not separate in a way that
would allow a formal or even material independence between
species of prudence.
The dispute between Poncius and Cajetan seems to be in part
over the way in which prudence is acquired. Can a particular
species of prudence be acquired (at least formally) on its own and
without the other species of prudence, or must prudence be
developed alongside all of the principal moral virtues? According
to Thomists, moral virtues ensure rectitude towards the end, but
prudence, which is concerned with the means to the end and how
the end should be attained, determines the mean of virtue. 40 How
is prudence acquired if the moral virtues require prudence, and in
turn prudence requires a rectitude to the end that depends on
moral virtue? Against Scotus, Cajetan emphasizes that the end is
originally known through natural reason, and prudence is
concerned with those acts which are means to the end that is
naturally known. 41 Consequently, prudence is concerned with any
relevant act that might threaten the determination of these means.
The growth of prudence in one area depends upon the natural
knowledge of the ends and rectitude concerning the all of the
appropriate subsidiary ends and means to these ends. In contrast,
Scotists focus on the way in which the virtues develop through the
choice of the end that belongs to a particular virtue. It is from the
choice of the end that each virtue generates its own partial
prudence. Therefore, the chaste person's prudence is generated
from that virtue alone. 42
Although this disagreement over the acquisition of prudence
involves a number of related disagreements, it well clarifies the
40 See especially Aquinas, STh II-II, q. 47, aa. 6-7; I-II, q. 66, a. 3, ad 3; III Sent., d. 33, q.
2, a. 3 (Mandonnet-Moos, eds., 3:1056-59).
41 Cajetan, In STh II-II, q. 27, a. 6, nn. 2-4 (Leonine ed., 8:354). For Cajetan's more
general account of how prudence and the moral virtues are acquired, see In STh I-II, q. 66,
a. 3, n. 13 (Leonine ed., 6:433-34).
42 Scotus, Ord. 3, d. 36, q. un., n. 87 (Vat. ed., 10:256).

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way m which the matter of different virtues can affect the
determination of the mean that belongs to one virtue. Cajetan
shows that the underlying disagreement between the Scotists and
the Thomists on the acquisition of prudence is probably in this
understanding of the way in which different morally virtuous
actions are interrelated and ordered.
III. THE SALMANTICENSES

Although Cajetan and Poncius contribute to the development
of the debate over the unity of prudence, it seems to me that the
Carmelites of Salamanca (hereafter Salmanticenses) present the
clearest development of the Thomist response to the Scotist
position. In large part they follow Cajetan, but they improve his
arguments in three ways. First, their examples better illustrate the
points at stake. Second, they focus not on the somewhat
cumbersome analogy between prudence and the common sense,
but on those texts in which Thomas distinguishes between perfect
and imperfect prudence. Third, they develop the point about the
interrelationship of the virtues by emphasizing the importance of
the end to which all acts are ordered.
The Salmanticenses give more developed examples in order to
illustrate Cajetan's argument that there must be one prudence to
choose among incompatible good acts. 43 For instance, they state
that someone might use money to pay a creditor out of
distributive justice, or feed his parents out of piety, or sacrifice to
God out of religion, or help the poor out of mercy. Each of these
actions is good and belongs to a different virtue. Unlike in
Cajetan's examples, the conflict here is not between vices but
between virtues. Nevertheless, in certain circumstances one act
will be good and the other bad. If the agent has prudence only
with respect to one of these virtues, he will often err because he
cannot grasp which circumstances are relevant. For example,
someone without filial piety might help the poor when he should
43 Salamanticenses, Cursus Theologicus, trac.t 12, disp. 4, dub. 1 (20 vols. [Paris: Palme,
1870-83], 6:378).

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

use the money to support his parents. This example shows how
prudence must be able not only to recognize one kind of morally
good action, but also some sort of order between different kinds
of goods. The mean with respect to a particular virtue is
threatened not only by other vices, but even by circumstances that
might call for the exercise of another virtue.
In order to strengthen their argument, the Salmanticenses state
that prudence could issue two types of command for a virtuous
action. 44 First, the command could be for the virtuous action
regardless of any circumstance which might vitiate it. In such a
case the command would touch on the matter of all of the virtues,
since the command would hold regardless of whatever matter
belonging to another virtue could interfere with it. Second, the
command could be for the virtuous action but not cover all of the
different circumstances that could vitiate it. In such a case, the
command would be imprudent because it would allow for an act
that would be contrary to right reason. The difference between
the two different commands shows that the matter of the virtues
is connected, and that someone who commands a virtuous act as
virtuous is concerned not only with the matter of one virtue, but
with the virtuous act as a whole. The description of the second
command as "imprudent" rather than "imperfectly prudent"
makes an important point which is at least undeveloped if not
neglected by Cajetan.
The existence of many diverse circumstances that could vitiate
the action indicates that prudence must have as its object the
matter of each major virtue. The Salmanticenses only briefly
repeat Cajetan's analogy of prudence with the common sense. 45
They do so to argue that in order to judge between different
objects of lower powers there must be some higher power which
has the various objects of the lower powers as its one object.
Prudence must include the objects of the moral virtues if it is to
judge between them. The prudence that is concerned about the
virtuous act under all circumstances can be described as "whole
44 Salmanticenses, Cursus Theo/., tract. 12, <lisp. 4., dub. 1, n. 6 (Paris ed., 6:378). See also
Cursus Theo/., tract. 11, <lisp. 6, dub. 1, n. 5 (Paris ed., 6:123-24).
45 Salmanticenses, Cursus Theo/., tract. 12, <lisp. 4., dub. 1, n. 7 (Paris ed., 6:378-79).

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185

prudence" (prudentia totalis) since it is concerned with all the
matter. The Salmanticenses' description of this prudence brings to
mind Poncius's statement that perhaps there could be a further
prudence which judges between the different partial prudences.
But they argue that such prudence makes unnecessary Scotus's
contrast between whole and partial prudence:
... it therefore should be held that there is one simple habit whose object is
every possible act for the common end of human life, which is whole prudence.
Having now posited a whole prudence of this sort, the partial prudences which
Scotus distinguishes are superfluous. 46

The contrast between imperfect and perfect prudence is
connected with the position of perfect prudence as being
concerned not merely with particular ends, but with the ultimate
end. The language here resembles Thomas's description of perfect
prudence as being concerned with the good end of a whole life,
in the Secunda Secundae (q. 47, a. 13). The distinction between
such prudence and prudence with respect to a limited matter is
not the distinction between a genus and a species, but between a
perfect and an imperfect virtue. The Salmanticenses therefore
seem to connect Thomas's description of prudence as connecting
the virtues in the Prima Secundae (q. 65, aa. 1-2), with the
distinction between perfect and imperfect prudence in this article
of the Secunda Secundae. The prudence that connects the virtues
is the same as that perfect prudence which is concerned not only
with particular ends but with the ultimate end.
The Salmanticenses' arguments are both interesting and
troublesome in that they bring out an aspect of the connection of
the virtues which Thomas explicitly discusses in his Sentences
commentary and then later does not so clearly address. In the
early Scriptum, Thomas gives three reasons for the connection of
the virtues. 47 The first two he repeats throughout his later
46 " ••• ponendus est igitur unus simplex habitus cujus objectum sit omne agibile ad finem
communem humanae vitae, quae est prudentia totalis. Posita vero hujusmodi prudentia totali,
superfluunt illae partiales quae Scotus distinguit" (Salmanticenses, Cursus Theo/., tract. 12,
<lisp. 4, dub. 1, n. 7 [Paris ed., 6:379]).
47 Aquinas, III Sent., d. 36, q. 1, a. 1, in corp. (Moos, ed., 3:1215-17).

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

writings, namely, that they are connected through prudence and
also by the fact that each can be considered as a general condition
of the virtues. His third argument is that the virtues are connected
insofar as they are ordered to the good of virtue. Although this
order to the good of virtue is not listed as a distinct argument in
his later treatments, it seems to me that it may be implicit in his
later discussions of prudence's unity. For example, in De
virtutibus cardinalibus (a. 2, ad 8), Thomas does state that the
moral virtues are unlike the intellectual virtues in that the moral
virtues are ordered to the ultimate end through charity. This
particular argument therefore rests on the connection between
particular goods of virtue and the one ultimate end. Likewise in
the Summa Theologiae, although Thomas lists only the first two
arguments for the connection of the virtues, his discussion of
prudence's unity may implicitly contain elements of the earlier
argument which bases the connection on their order to an end. 48
He also states in the Summa Theologiae that perfect prudence
requires a correct order not only to particular ends but to the
ultimate end. 49 Therefore, although Thomas no longer uses it as
a distinct argument for the connection of the virtues, in both De
virtutibus cardinalibus and the Summa Theologiae, he restates his
view that the interrelationship of the matter of different virtues is
made necessary by the unity of the ultimate end. The underlying
position is that there is an order among the goods which requires
prudence in all areas for its establishment and preservation. The
Salmanticenses' argument relies on and draws out the implication
that prudence is necessary for this ordering to the ultimate end.
CONCLUSION

The difference between Scotus and Thomas on the connection
of the virtues and the unity of prudence is hard to resolve in part
because it is difficult to understand. Many seemingly decisive
cases on closer examination are found to be compatible with both
Aquinas, STh 1-11, q. 65, a. 1, ad 3 and 4.
See, for example, Aquinas, STh 1-11, q. 65, a. 2; 11-11, q. 47, a. 13.

48 For instance,
49

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187

views. As the case of the intemperate woman shows, there is real
difference in the description of agents who commit acts contrary
to a virtue for the sake of some vicious end which does not belong
to that virtue's corresponding vice. But why would we decide for
one description rather than another? This difference is in part
related to alternative understandings of prudence and the mean.
The response of later Thomists to the Scotist position explains
and develops Thomas's theory and helps to delineate the
difference between the two thinkers. According to Thomists, the
virtue of prudence determines the instruments to or particular
instantiations of an end, whereas for Scotists it recognizes the
morally worthy end. The Thomist focus on the instruments or
instantiations makes it possible for the virtues to be connected
through one virtue of prudence. This connection is brought out
through two examples. First, there is the example in which a vice
interferes with the exercise of another moral virtue, as when
someone acts against chastity out of avarice. Correct judgment
concerning the mean belonging to the matter of one virtue often
depends on correct judgment concerning the matter of other
virtues. Second, there is the example of how the prudent agent
must determine which act is good here and now. This judgment
also requires prudence with respect not only to one virtue but to
an entire life. The cases in which diverse virtues must collaborate
to choose among different seemingly good actions perhaps
illustrates this point better that do cases in which one of the
virtues is missing.
Although it is hard to know how Scotus would respond to the
way in which Thomists develop the arguments, Poncius provides
some indication of how it is possible to respond in accordance
with Scotus's principles. Whether we judge his response to be
successful or not, Poncius as well as the Thomists helps us to see
that the two different approaches to prudence are perhaps
ultimately based on diverse understandings of how the matters of
the various virtues are interrelated. Cajetan's response to the
Scotist position originally focused on the way in which the matter
of one vice can interfere with another. But Poncius points out that

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THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR.

someone who truly has one vice might not allow such
interference. This example might not seem to allow us to discover
more than a merely terminological difference between Thomas
and Scotus.
The more difficult issue is whether the virtuous person needs
to consider not merely the object of one virtue, but rather the
good life as a whole. Poncius suggests that perhaps there could be
a further kind of prudence which helps to order the partial
prudences. It seems to me that this response is necessary to defend
Scotus's doctrine of partial prudence, but ultimately it concedes
to the Thomists that there is a need for some prudence that is
concerned with the good life as a whole. As the Salmanticenses
point out, if there is such prudence, it would best be identified
with what Thomas Aquinas describes as perfect prudence, and it
would seem to make partial prudences unnecessary. Their
position develops the Thomistic position in such a way that they
are able both to respond to the new arguments of the Scotists and
also to explain how Thomas's understanding of the connections
of the virtues through prudence is related to the distinction
between perfect and imperfect prudence. Their position is not
only historically significant; it also shows the way in which
contemporary Thomists should explain and defend the connection
between the virtues. 50

so A previous version of this paper was given at the session "Aquinas on Prudence,"
sponsored by the Center for Thomistic Studies (Houston), at the 41" International Congress
of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 2006. I would like to thank the organizer, R.
Edward Houser, the participants, and especially David Gallagher for their comments.

The Thomist 74 (2010): 189-235

THOMAS'S CATEGORIZATIONS OF VIRTUE:
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND CONTEMPORARY
SIGNIFICANCE
WILLIAM C. MATIISON III
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

T

HOMAS AQUINAS IDENTIFIES groups of virtues
according to a variety of distinctions. 1 Three are examined
here, namely, those concerning efficient cause, ultimate
end, and object of virtue. Thomas distinguishes acquired virtues
from infused virtues based upon how they are obtained (efficient
cause). He distinguishes natural from supernatural virtues based
upon the type of happiness toward which they direct a person
(ultimate end). And he distinguishes theological from cardinal
virtues based upon a difference between what he calls the
"objects" of these different groups of virtues. 2 Each of these
distinctions engenders two different categories of virtue, or what
is called here a single categorization of virtue. Each categorization
of virtue (e.g., acquired vs. infused virtue), therefore, includes a
pair of categories of virtues (e.g., acquired virtues and infused
virtues), which are distinguished on some basis or rationale (e.g.,
efficient cause) that Thomas explicitly supplies.
Though each of these distinctions and categories is well
known, there is a certain amount of confusion as to how different
The author would like to express his gratitude to several people who read and offered
comments on earlier drafts of this essay: Angela McKay, Joseph Capizzi, Michael Gorman,
David Cloutier, and R.E. Houser. Thanks also to Benjamin Safranski, who provided valuable
research and editing assistance.
2 At times Thomas distinguishes theological virtue from "moral and intellectual virtue,"
and the relation of this latter to "cardinal virtue" is explained below.
1

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

categorizations relate to one another. For instance, in a recent
publication, a renowned Thomist remarks, in passing, while
discussing synderesis, that "discerning and judging action in light
of the natural law need to be perfected and stabilized by the
cardinal virtues (acquired habits) and infused virtues (faith, hope
and charity). " 3 This remark implies that all cardinal virtues are
acquired virtues and suggests that the bases for the categorizations
"acquired vs. infused" and "cardinal vs. theological" are one and
the same. Neither of these is the case. As will be seen below,
certain categorizations, though made on different bases, do indeed
graft onto each other. However others (including those in this
quotation) do not. Examples of such confusion are not infrequent,
as will be seen more fully in the final section of this essay.4 The
confusion is particularly evident in historical and contemporary
discussions of the relationship between grace and virtue (and the
related classic question of pagan virtue), since scholars have
commonly approached these questions by offering different
categorizations of virtue. In such discussions, precision is
especially important, given the nuance required in describing the
relationship between nature and grace.
The purpose of this essay is to help dispel such common
confusion by explaining how Thomas's different categorizations

3 See Russsell Hittinger's review (of Douglas Kries' The Problem of Natural Law) entitled
"Examination of Conscience" in First Things 189 Oanuary 2009): 59-61 (at 60). So careful
a reader of Thomas as Hittinger knows of course that not all cardinal virtues are not acquired,
and that the terms "cardinal" and "infused" refer to different bases of categorization. Yet the
quotation, in itself, obscures these facts.
4 For another example by a renowned Thomist, see Herbert McCabe, O.P., The Good Life
(London: Continuum, 2005), where he says "Aquinas sets this within the context of what he
calls the end of man, blessedness (beatitudo), and he seeks to show that the political virtues,
the cardinal virtues, take their place in the deepest meaning of human life, which is our
vocation to the heavenly polis, the divine life" (52; emphasis in original). While actually trying
to make a point consonant with a main concern of this essay, namely, that cardinal virtues can
be directed to one's supernatural happiness, McCabe along the way equates the categories
"political" and "cardinal." While cardinal virtues may often be political virtues in Thomas'
categorizations of virtue, these two terms do not rely on the same basis of categorization and
thus should not be identified with one another.

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of virtue are related to one another. 5 The first section presents the
ways in which thinkers in the century and a half leading up to
Thomas Aquinas explained the bases for different categorizations
of virtue. For a variety of reasons, the period of High
Scholasticism saw an explosion in attention to categorizations of
virtue. The Scholastics of course affirmed established groups of
virtues. But they also increasingly tried to explain the bases for
categorizations of virtue. For example, faith, hope, and charity
have been at the center of the Christian tradition since the
beginning, and have been understood as virtues for nearly as long.
But explaining what these three virtues have in common that
makes them members of one category of virtue, and identifying
what virtues not in this category have in common that places them
outside this category, was a topic of great interest for many
Scholastics. 6 Their work is surveyed here in the first section
through the lens of Thomas's synthesis of three categorizations of
virtue (on the basis of efficient cause, ultimate end, and object),
for two reasons. First, examining the work of Thomas's
predecessors reveals that every one of these three bases of
5 There is a growing and important body of scholarship explaining the nature of, and toooften neglected importance of, a category of virtues called "infused moral (or cardinal)
virtues." This is not the purpose of this essay. Neglect of the infused cardinal virtues is indeed
one manifestation of the confusion addressed in this essay. But it is not the only one. For more
on this topic see 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, "Infused Virtue and the Effects of
Acquired Vice: A Test Case for the Thomistic Theory of the Infused Cardinal Virtues," The
Thomist 73 (2009): 29-52; idem, By Knowledge and By Love (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 170-75; Angela McKay, "Prudence and Acquired
Moral Virtue," The Thomist 69 (2005): 5 35-5 5; Robert Miner, "Non-Aristotelian Prudence,"
The Thomist 64 (2000): 401-22.
6 For an example of the difference between employing a known grouping of virtue and
explaining the basis of categorization for said grouping, consider Augustine's Enchiridion on
Faith, Hope and Love. In hindsight it is easy to think that Augustine wrote this treatise on the
three theological virtues, and of course in a sense he did. But he never labels them as such in
that work; nor does he explain any commonality of the three that explains why they are
grouped together; nor does he contrast these three virtues as members of one grouping with
another grouping of virtues that are not "theological." He simply calls them "three graces" (vi,
vii) and is concerned to differentiate them from each other by their "objects" (iii, vi).

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

categorization was developed prior to Thomas. We can better
understand how Thomas understood each one by tracing its origin
in his predecessors. Second, none of these thinkers offers the
synthesis found in Thomas' work, either because they do not
attend to all the needed bases of categorization, or because they
are unable to offer a satisfactory account of how the different
categorizations were related to one another.
The second section traces these three bases for categorization
in Thomas's work. The terms found in this section are very
familiar to readers of Thomas. What is new is a presentation of
these three categorizations in light of their historical development,
in a manner that directly explains how Thomas's understanding
of the relationship between them avoids some of the problems
that persisted in his predecessors' work.
The third section offers several examples of recent work on
virtue which evince confusion as to how Thomas's categorizations
of virtue are related to one another. Many of the problematic
contemporary claims about virtue adduced here (including the
ones mentioned briefly above) replicate exactly the problems that
beset Thomas's predecessors, problems that can be resolved with
the help of the careful reading of Thomas's synthesis offered in
section II.
I. THOMAS'S PREDECESSORS, AND THEIR CATEGORIZATIONS OF
VIRTUE

The point of this historical survey is to examine how Thomas's
twelfth- and thirteenth-century predecessors categorized the
virtues, and in particular how they understood different
categorizations of virtue to be related to one another. Much like
today, thinkers of this period were interested on the one hand in
explaining the ways in which the virtues are accessible to or found
in non-Christians, and on the other hand in what ways the grace
of the Christian life perfects the virtues. Also like today, they
commonly approached this problem by categorizing the virtues.
To anticipate the conclusions of this section, the thinkers

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examined below categorized virtues based on three things: the
object of virtues, the end of virtues, and/or the cause of virtues. In
these authors there is growing sophistication in naming the bases
of different categorizations of virtue, and in describing the
relationships between these different categorizations. Nonetheless,
in each of these thinkers' categorizations there remains at least
one problem or lacuna which will be addressed in Thomas's
synthesis.
A) Hugh of St. Victor

This historical survey and inquiry begins in the first half of the
twelfth century,7 with Hugh of St. Victor. 8 In the scattered
treatments of virtue in his masterpiece De sacramentis christianae
fidei (c. 1134), Hugh nowhere lists or distinguishes the cardinal
virtues. And though he examines both faith and charity, he
nowhere lists what are commonly called the theological virtues. 9
Yet Hugh's work on virtue is enormously helpful in clearly
addressing one categorization of virtue, based upon what later
7 The groundbreaking study for the questions of this essay remains Odon Lottin's
Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIII e siecles, 6 vols. (Louvain: Abbaye du Mont Cesar,
1948-60), esp. vol. 3.2:99-194. Lattin begins his survey with brief mention of Hugh of St.
Victor before turning in more detail to Peter Lombard and then especially Abelard and his
school of thought (see ibid., 3.2:100). See also Istvan Bejcvy, "The Problem of Natural
Virtue," in Istvan Bejcvy and Richard Newhauser, eds., Virtue and Ethics in the Twelfth
Century (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 133-54. Bejcvy searches writings of the first half of the twelfth
century for references to "natural virtue" and concludes "by 1150 some ground-breaking work
for the acceptance of natural virtues had been done. Although scholars agreed that virtue in
its truest sense required grace, the Christian monopoly on virtue had been broken .... A much
fuller recognition of natural virtue was achieved during the second half of the twelfth century"
(ibid., 144). As noted below, Bejcvy himself makes some problematic omissions about
categorizations of virtue that blemish his otherwise enormously helpful research.
8 For a basic introduction to Hugh of St. Victor and the role of this work in his corpus, see
Roy J. Deferrari's "Introduction" to his translation Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of
the Christian Faith (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1951), ix-x.
9 Hugh's only list of virtues in this work is found during his treatment of Gregory the
Great's famous list of seven capital vices. He identifies the following antidotes to those seven
vices: humility, clemency, remorse of mind, desire of justice, mercy, cleanness of heart, and
internal peace of mind (Deferrari, trans., Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the
Christian Faith, 376). As was common in the Middle Ages, this list of virtues is a direct
reflection of the seven beatitudes from Matt 5 :3-9.

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WILLIAM C. MATHSON III

thinkers will call the cause of virtue. Hugh distinguishes virtues
possessed "according to nature and according to grace," 10 or again
what he calls natural virtues and virtues "formed by restoring
grace superadded to nature. " 11 Such a distinction will become
standard in the tradition. Hugh's treatment is noted here both
because he is an early Scholastic who makes the distinction, and
because he makes the distinction in a manner that explains the
different ways grace is present in both categories of virtue.
The context of this treatment is important. Hugh is examining
the "virtue of man before sin," and in doing so finds it necessary
to cite the distinction between creating and saving grace.
By creating grace are made those things that were not, by saving grace are
restored those which had perished. Creating grace first implants certain goods
in founded nature, saving grace both restores the good which nature when first
corrupted lost and inspires those goods which nature being imperfect has not yet
received .... In the first goods God operates in man, in the second goods God
cooperates with man. 12

This distinction immediately leads Hugh to the topic of merit, as
he claims that "when the will of man moves according to nature
only, it does not merit outside of nature, but when it moves
according to God, it merits above nature, since it deserves Him
through whom and for the sake of whom it moves." 13 In the latter
case man merits, since "for the sake of God one wills what he
wills, and for the sake of God he does what he does. " 14
Hugh immediately connects these two types of grace to two
categories of virtue. He claims that "the goods of nature and the
10 Ibid., 105. See Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis l.6 (PL 176:273).

11 Deferrari, trans., Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 106
(Hugh, De sacramentis l.6 [PL 176:274]).
12 Deferrari, trans., Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 105
(emphasis added) (Hugh, De sacramentis l.6 [PL 176:273]). We see here in the use of term
"imperfect" with regard to natural human capacities a foreshadow of one of Thomas's uses
of that term to describe virtues that direct humanity to genuine goods which are nonetheless
not humanity's supernatural, or perfect, end. See, e.g., STh I-II, q. 65, a. 2.
13 Deferrari, trans., Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 105
(Hugh, De sacramentis l.6 [PL 176:273]).
14 Deferrari, trans., Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 106
(Hugh, De sacramentis l.6 [PL 176:274]).

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195

affections ordered according to nature are natural virtues. " 15
These are indeed good and praiseworthy, though they do not
merit anything beyond the "goods which were founded for the
sake of nature. " 16 He distinguishes these natural virtues from the
following:
But the virtues which are formed by restoring grace superadded to nature, since
in merit they receive something above nature, are worthy in being requited in
reward also above nature, so that for those to whom love of God is the cause in
work, the presence of God is reward in requital. 17

Hence from Hugh's work we can discern one categorization based
upon the cause of the virtue, which is either natural goods or
"grace superadded to nature."
Two observations are pertinent to this study. First, it is already
evident in Hugh's work that the cause of virtue is closely aligned
with the ultimate end of virtue, since Hugh claims that when one
"moves according to God," it is done "for the sake of God" and
"merits above nature." This alignment between categorizations
based upon cause and upon ultimate end will be corroborated in
later thinkers. Second, Hugh explains lucidly that even when
natural virtues are distinguished from virtues "according to
grace," neither category is wholly outside the realm of grace, since
both rely on creating grace. Hugh's assumption, which may be
attributed to all Scholastics treated here, is that it is nonsensical to
speak of any virtue with no connection to creating grace. Yet only
"virtues which are formed by restoring grace superadded to
nature" require saving grace, are done for the sake of God, and
are meritorious. Though his methods of categorizing virtues are
rudimentary, Hugh's description of the ways grace is and is not
present in "natural" virtues applies even in later Scholastic
thinkers who will use terms like "acquired" and "infused."
15 Deferrari, trans., Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 106
(Hugh, De sacramentis l.6 [PL 176:274]).
16 Deferrari, trans., Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 106
(Hugh, De sacramentis l.6 [PL 176:274]).
17 Deferrari, trans., Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 106
(Hugh, De sacramentis l.6 [PL 176:274]).

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B) Peter Lombard
Despite the fact that commentaries on Peter Lombard's N Libri
Sententiae-and in particular distinction 33 of book 3-contain
some of the most important work on the categorization of virtue
provided by Lombard's successors, Lombard himself offers no
explicit explanation for any categorization of virtues. He does
group the virtues. He clearly examines faith, hope, and charity on
the one hand and prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance on
the other hand. In his discussion of virtue he spends ten distinctions successively examining faith, hope, and charity
(primarily pertaining to their presence in Christ). 18 Yet nowhere
does he define a category (such as "theological virtue") that would
include these three virtues. He then spends a single distinction on
the four "principal, or cardinal" virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. 19 Once again, no explanation is offered as
to what these four virtues have in common. Lombard notes only
that we find this list in the Book of Wisdom (8: 7), and that
according to Jerome, those virtues are called cardinal "by which
one lives well in this mortal state and afterwards is led to eternal
life. " 20
However, though Lombard devotes no explicit attention to
explaining the bases for categorizations of virtues, his treatment
of the cardinal virtues does offer an implicit rationale for what the
four cardinal virtues have in common. The majority of this brief,
two-page distinction is spent on the question of whether or not
the cardinal virtues remain in eternity. Lombard relies almost
exclusively on Augustine's De Trinitate to argue that these four
virtues do remain in eternal life, but with important differences.
This is interesting for two reasons. First, it demonstrates that, for
Lombard, the cardinal virtues certainly pertain to humanity's
destiny in eternity, a claim which Thomas also affirms, but upon
18 Peter Lombard,

III Sent., dd. 23-32.
Peter Lombard, III Sent., d. 33, c. 1.
20 Ibid.: " ... quibus in hac mortalitate bene vivitur, et post ad aetemam vitam pervenitur."
This is a reference to Augustine, De Trinitate 14.9.12.
19

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197

which there is some vacillation in the tradition in the time
between Lombard and Thomas. Second, because the cardinal
virtues are initially described as virtues "by which one lives well
in this mortal state" and because their presence in the next life
requires further discussion, it seems that their activities are primarily associated with temporal life. This is a foreshadowing of
how certain thirteenth-century thinkers, including Thomas, will
distinguish the cardinal virtues as a category.
Yet this is still far from a precise categorization, and likely
what leads Odon Lottin to observe that neither Peter Lombard
nor his student Peter of Poitiers is much concerned with categorizations of the virtues. 21 At one point Lottin even recalls how
Peter of Poitiers claims that people variously distinguish virtues as
the four cardinal virtues, the three theological virtues, or the
seven gifts of the Spirit. 22 Lottin claims that the implication is that
these are three ways of speaking about the same grace that we call
virtue, rather than distinct categorizations of the entity called
virtue, or different sorts of habits. 23 In sum, we can say that
Lombard examines faith, hope, and charity, as well as the cardinal
virtues, and that his treatment of the latter suggests they are
concerned with temporal affairs; yet there is no formal
21 Lattin reports Lombard's famous claim that grace is virtue (Lattin, Psychologie et
morale, 3.2:101 n. 1). The implication seems to be that for Lombard there is no virtue
without grace, which would leave no place for "natural virtue," or "pagan virtue." However,
for this claim in Peter Lombard, Lattin references Lombard, II Sent., d. 27, cc. 5 and 6 and
11. Lattin neglects to note that in each of these three citations, virtue is equated with
operative, or prevenient, grace. This suggests that Lombard's treatment of grace and virtue
may not be as divergent from that of Hugh of St. Victor as implied by simply noting that for
Lombard, virtue and grace are identified. Those references from Lombard given by Lattin
state: "gratiam praevenientiem vel operantem esse virtutem" (c. 5); "Et ilia gratia [referring
to secundum quad dicitur operans] virtus non incongrue nominatur" (c. 6); "Illa autem gratia
praeveniens, quae et virtus est" (c. 11). A closer examination of grace and virtue in Lombard
is beyond the scope of this essay.
22 Lattin, Psychologie et morale, 3.2:102.
23 Though
Lattin is correct that Lombard's categorizations of virtue are very
underdeveloped, one should not underestimate the importance of his transmission of
Augustine's discussion of the presence or absence of the cardinal virtues "in patria," as
standard treatments of this question both associate the cardinal virtues with worldly matters
and yet affirm their connection to humanity's supernatural destiny of union with God.

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categorization of either group akin to that found in later medieval
authors. 24

CJ Peter Abelard and the Porretans
Peter Abelard's work on virtue contains little that is useful for
the present study. In his Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew,
and a Christian, he discusses what we term the cardinal virtues
(without using that exact term) and even the relationship of
charity to other virtues. 25 He clearly has in mind the grouping
faith, hope, and charity, though he never offers a label such as
"theological" for this type of virtue. 26 He cites Socrates'
distinctions between prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude,
but neither labels these virtues "cardinal" or "principal" as
Lombard did, nor ever explains or even intimates why these
virtues are grouped together. 27
The unknown authors of Sententie Parisienses and Ysagoge in
Theologiam, two roughly contemporaneous texts in the Abelardian school of thought, largely mimic Abelard's work with
regard to categorizations of virtue. 28
24 See also Marcia Colish, Peter Lombard (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 2:505-7 for Lombard's
treatment of the cardinal virtues. Colish claims "Peter offers no suggestions as to how, or
whether, the cardinal virtues are related to the theological virtues .... This is clearly an area
for further reflection" (507).
25 See Dialogus inter Philosophum, ]udaeum, et Christianum (PL 178: 1611-84, esp 165158).
26 See ibid. (PL 178:1648-52).
27 See ibid. (PL 178: 1651-58). Abelard does offer some interesting arguments as to why
prudence is not properly a virtue, even though it is requisite for the exercise of virtue (ibid.
[PL 178:1652]). See the subsequent (of uncertain authorship) Ysagoge in Theologiam (in
Arthur Landgraf, ed., Ecrits theologiques de l'ecole d'Abelard [Louvain: Spicilegium Scarum
Louvaniese, 1934], 61-289, esp. 74), for development of this tradition. Abelard does at one
point mention, but does not explicate in any detail, "political virtue" from the Neoplatonic
tradition's fourfold division of virtutes politicas, purgatorias, purgati animi, et exemplares
(Dialogus [PL 178: 1649]). The category "political" is important for this study, and is treated
below starting with Abelard's disciples.
28 The Sententie Parisienses is also found in Landgraf, ed., Ecrits theologiques de /'ecole
d'Abelard, l-60. Two observations about these works' discussions of virtues warrant mention
here. First, though both extensively examine faith, hope, and charity (the Sententie Parisienses
treating hope within the context of faith), neither examines those three primarily through the
lens of virtue, or even describes them as members of one category of virtues. Second, while

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199

However, two disciples of Abelard, described by Lottin as
representing the Porretan school of thought, warrant extended
mention: Alan of Lille and Simon of Tournai. 29 The cardinal
virtues feature prominently for both of them. Indeed, Alan claims
that these four virtues are the principles, or sources, of all virtue. 30
This claim is substantiated by the fact that even the virtues of
faith, hope, and charity are treated as parts of the virtue of
religion, which is itself a part of justice. 31 Though never defined
as a category (likely since they seem to cover all virtues,
suggesting there is no other category against which to distinguish
them), the cardinal virtues are enormously important in this
school of thought.
Despite their lack of a complementary category for "cardinal"
virtue, Alan and Simon do offer a categorization that is very
important for this study. Both rely heavily on the distinction
"political" vs. "catholic" virtue. The descriptor "political" was
commonly attributed by medieval thinkers to Macrobius, and is
the first part of a fourfold division of virtue. 32 Though the term
"political" virtue is well-entrenched in the tradition (even if the
faith, hope, and charity are not treated as a category of virtue, they are clearly related to the
virtues. In the Sententie Parisienses, prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude are treated
within the section on charity. Seemingly following Augustine, the author claims that indeed
"all virtue is charity." (See Sententie Parisienses [Landgraf, ed., 51]. This claim is never
expanded upon.) In the Ysagoge in Theologiam, these four virtues are treated first, leading into
a section on faith, hope, and charity. Though the explanatory usefulness of the concept of
virtue is all but left behind in the latter section, the author's transition between these two
sections is the direct claim that he will now proceed on to the "three greatest virtues: faith,
hope, and charity." (See Landgraf, ed., 78.)
29 Alan of Lille's entire De virtutibus et de vitiis et de donis spiritus sancti is printed in a
later volume of Lottin's magisterial study. See Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 6:45-92. The
page and line numbers cited here to reference this text are from Lottin's volume. Texts from
Simon used here are scattered manuscripts found in Lottin. See Lottin, Psychologie et morale,
3.2:105-18.
30 Alan of Lille, De virtutibus et de vitiis, c. 1, a. 1 (Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 6:50).
31 Alan of Lille, De virtutibus et de vitiis, c. 1, a. 2 (Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 6:53-54).
32 For the origin of this Neoplatonic fourfold division of virtue, see Joshua Hochschild,
"Porphyry, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas: A Neo-Platonic Hierarchy of Virtues, and
Two Christian Appropriations," in John Inglis, ed., Medieval Philosophy and the Classical
Tradition (Richmond, Surrey: Vurzon Press, 2002), 245-59. Hochschild observes that
Macrobius attributes the categorization to Plotinus, but it seems instead to come from
Porphyry (ibid., 245).

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same may not be said for the Porretan school's meaning for the
term), according to Lottin the term "catholic" virtue is a creation
of the Porretan school. 33
Both Alan and Simon are explicitly concerned with the
question of the status of virtue in Jews, infidels, and Gentiles. 34
They affirm the presence of virtue in these people, and yet claim
that infidels, Jews, and Gentiles have different virtues. Describing
this difference is the function of the "political" vs. "catholic"
distinction. The following text from Simon is indicative of
Porretan thought:
What are the species of virtue? The species of virtue are twofold, and
distinguished by duty and end. If a quality fixes the mind toward attainment of
a political duty for a political end, it is called a political virtue. In such a way
citizens, even including infidels such as Jews or gentiles, are said to have virtues,
if they have their minds firmly set on the pursuit of necessary civic duties
according to the decrees of their land, for establishing or preserving the common
good. Political virtue is thus named for the polis, which is the multitude or
citizenry, because it is approved by the judgment of the multitude or citizenry,
although it is insufficient for salvation. However, a virtue is catholic which fixes
the mind in firm resolution toward the pursuit of a catholic duty to a catholic
end. In this way the faithful have virtues, according to the decrees of the
Catholic religion, ultimately for the sake of God as he [alone] is enjoyed. 35
See Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 3.2: 106 n. 1.
Alan and Simon repeatedly speak of virtue outside the Catholic faith. Comments like
these prompt Bejcvy to claim that the second half of the twelfth century sees a "much fuller
recognition of pagan virtue" ("The Problem of Natural Virtue," 144). As is evident in Lottin,
a primary concern of Simon and Alan, following Abelard, is distinguishing natural capacities
and particular acts from more established qualities of a person, such as virtues. Given this
concern, it is not surprising they are willing to affirm the presence of virtues in people without
charity. Nonetheless the claim is noteworthy for this study, especially given its juxtaposition
with Lottin's claim about the basic equation of virtue and grace in Lombard and his followers.
This important difference prompts Lottin to distinguish what he calls a theological and a
philosophical school of thought on defining virtue in the era (see Lottin, Psychologie et
morale, 3.2:100-106, 142-50), though his claim that the theological school "wins out" may
rest on inadequate assumptions about the possibility of simultaneously affirming the presence
of virtue in those without charity, and its perfection in those with charity.
35 The text from a manuscript of Simon of Tournai is found in Lottin, Psychologie et
morale, 3.2:107: "Que sint species uirtutis. Due sunt species uirtutis, que his officiis et finibus
distinguuntur. Si enim qualitas mentem constituat ad exsequendum officium politico fine
politico, dicitur uirtus politica; quo modo ciues,licet infideles ut iudei uel gentiles, dicuntur
habere uirtutes, si mentes habeant firmo proposito constitutas ad exsequendum debita officia
secundum instituae patrie propter rem publicam conseruandam uel confederandam.
l3

34

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201

Therefore, the primary distinguishing factor between political
and catholic virtue, according to Alan and Simon, is the ultimate
end of the activity of the virtue, which always entails a corresponding duty. 36 This raises the question of how a difference of
ultimate end changes the acts of political and catholic virtues.
According to Lottin, Alan and Simon seem to think that the only
difference between the acts of these two categories of virtue is the
merit associated with catholic virtues. He asks, "Why couldn't one
who commits an act with an eye toward a natural end commit the
same act toward a supernatural end?" 37 Lottin summarizes Alan's
answer to the question by saying, "God gives a great gift to
humanity when, by his grace and the charity he inspires, he
renders meritorious for eternal life acts which beforehand would
only be natural. " 38 A common question at the time, whether or
Diciturautem uirtus politica a polis, que est pluralitas uel ciuitas, quia iudicio pluralitatis uel
ciuitatis approbatur, licet sit insufficiens ad salutem. Virtus autem catholica que constanti
proposito mentem constituit ad exsequendum officium catholicum fine catholico: quo modo
dicuntur fideles habere uirtutes, si mentes habeant constitutas ad exsequenda officiasecundum
catholice religionis instituta, finaliter propter Deum ut eo fruantur." For a comparable
quotation from Alan of Lille see his De virtutibus et de vitiis, c. 1, a. 1 (Lottin, Psychologie et
morale, 6:49-50). Alan accentuates the difference in scope in the meaning of the words
"political" (as civic) and "catholic" (as universal).
36 Though Alan and Simon claim that virtues may be distinguished by duty and end, in
reality these two descriptors always function in parallel fashion, such that they yield two, not
four, categories of virtue. In other words, never does either Scholastic describe an occasion
where the end of virtue is catholic, and duty is political (or, for that matter, where the end of
virtue is political and duty is catholic). For instance, even the virtuous Jew who clearly carries
out duties not in accord with the Catholic faith but nonetheless for the sake of God is
described as having political virtue. For a helpful explanation of the meanings of end and
duty, see Alan of Lille, De virtutibus et de vitiis, c. 1, a. 1 (Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 6:4849). See also a helpful text from a manuscript Lottin attributes to Alan, at Lottin, Psychologie
et morale, 3.2:120. For an attempt by Alan to explain the virtue of the Jews in a system that
conflates end with the duties of the Catholic religion, see his De virtutibus et de vitiis, c. 1, a.
1 (Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 6:50).
37 "Si la vertu est politique ou catholique, naturelle ou surnaturelle, en partie du moins
selon les fins poursuivies, pourquoi celui qui pose un acte en vue d'une fin naturelle ne
pourrait-il pas exercer ce meme acte pour un fin surnaturelle?" (Lottin, Psychologie et morale,
3.2:115, emphasis added). Though the descriptors are accurate, neither Alan nor Simon uses
"natural" and "supernatural" as technical terms synonymously with "political" and "catholic"
in describing virtues.
38 For an example of this claim in Alan, see De virtutibus et de vitiis, c. 1, a. 3 (Lottin,
Psychologie et morale, 6:59): "Deus homini conferre, cum per ea que prius habebat facit eum
dignum uita eternal, informans ea debito fine et debito officio." This description makes it seem

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not political virtues can become catholic, thus receives a
resounding yes. 39 Lattin summarizes Simon's answer to this
question by saying, "Thanks to the virtues of faith, hope, and
especially charity, a political virtue becomes a catholic virtue, that
is, meritorious of eternal recompense. "40
There are several problems with Alan's and Simon's use of the
"political vs. catholic" distinction. First, differentiating virtues
according to only one distinction-in
this case ultimate
end-conflates some virtues which are helpfully distinguished at
other points in the tradition. For instance, when Simon claims
that faith, hope, and charity can make political virtues catholic, he
fails to explain what differentiates faith, hope, and charity from
the political virtues made catholic. Once a virtue such as
temperance becomes catholic, what differentiates it from faith,
hope, and charity? 41 Furthermore, what is it that political
temperance and catholic temperance share that renders them both
to be properly described as "temperance"? Surely Alan and Simon
would reply that in both cases the virtue concerns, say, eating
moderately. But by failing to offer a category that includes all of
the cardinal virtues, and yet is distinct somehow from faith, hope,
and charity, Alan and Simon end up both conflating virtues that
have important differences, and failing to account for
commonalities in virtues that are in other ways importantly
that it is the same acts one previously performed that become meritorious. In another place
Alan claims that acts of political and catholic virtue differ only in their "mode of use" (ibid.).
As seen below, Aquinas offers a more satisfactory account of how meritorious action directed
toward one's supernatural end is transformed. For more on merit and grace, see Joseph
Wawrykow's God's Grace and Human Action: Merit in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996).
39 See Alan's De virtutibus et de vitiis, c. 1, a. 3 (Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 6:57). For
Simon's treatment of the same issue, see Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 3.2:118 n. 1.
40 Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 3.2:118. This is a noteworthy difference between Simon
and Alan, as Alan nowhere claims that it is faith, hope, and charity that elevate the political
virtues to become catholic.
41 This is one reason why it is inadequate to speak of faith, hope, and charity-rather than
God's grace-as elevating virtues such as temperance to be directed toward one's supernatural
end. Alan addresses the objection that it is the grace of the Holy Spirit that engenders catholic
virtues, but does not incorporate it into his own response. See Lottin's citation of a manuscript
from Alan (Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 3.2:120).

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different. 42 In hindsight it is clear that what is required here is an
additional categorization on the basis of object.
The second problem with Alan's and Simon's categorization
solely by ultimate end is that it fails adequately to describe how a
change in ultimate end of a virtue changes the acts of that virtue.
These thinkers of course claim that merit is only attached to
catholic virtue. However, armed with only one categorization and
thus unable to describe any other way to name the similarities that
exist between, for example, political chastity and catholic chastity,
they end up claiming that God makes what was already possessed
worthy of eternal life through the assignment of merit. This makes
the assignment of merit appear arbitrary, and fails adequately to
describe the difference between acts that have different ultimate
ends.
Both of these issues will be resolved in Thomas's work, largely
through the availability of additional bases of categorization. In
sum, Alan and Simon helpfully distinguish virtues based upon
different ultimate ends, and yet their categorization reveals the
deficiencies of utilizing only one basis of categorization.

D) William of Auxerre
William of Auxerre moves in important ways beyond the
categorizations of the twelfth century. William is the first of those
surveyed here to identify the category "theological virtue" (which
includes faith, hope, and charity) and to attempt to explain the
basis of that category. 43 In his opening treatment of distinctions
42 For instance, Alan adduces chastity as an example of an action that may be political or
catholic. If one is chaste in service to the common good, the virtue is political. If one is chaste
is service to God, it is catholic. Hence in this categorization, charity and faith on the one hand,
and holy chastity and Lenten abstinence on the other, are all catholic virtues. Alan and Simon
oppose these to virtues such as political chastity and political temperance. In sum, by offering
only one basis for categorizing, according to ultimate end, the Porretans are unable to
delineate differences between virtues with the same ultimate end, and similarities between
virtues with different ultimate ends.
43 See William of Auxerre, Summa aurea III, tracts 11-29 (ed. Jean Ribailler [Paris:
Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1980-87], 170-584). In my research
for this essay William of Auxerre is the first person I encountered in the Christian tradition
to name and explain the basis of the category "theological virtue."

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between virtues, William distinguishes theological from political
virtues: "this is the difference between political virtues and
theological virtues, that political virtues are engendered by
frequent good acts, while theological virtues are generated by God
alone. "44 Here he seems to focus on the cause of virtue, but in his
discussion of the theological virtues he also attends to what
Thomas eventually understands to be the basis of this
categorization, namely, their object. In William's words, "Faith,
hope, and charity are called theological virtues because through
them we are moved into God [in Deum] immediately. "45
This lack of clarity of a basis for the category of theological
virtue is revealed when William attempts to names those virtues
from which the theological virtues are distinguished. As noted, he
opposes theological virtue to political virtue on the basis of the
cause of virtue (what Thomas will call acquired vs. infused virtue),
with political virtues being caused by frequent good acts. At times
he also claims that political virtues do not concern salvation, and
that they do not exceed the capacity of human nature. 46 This
latter claim would appear to be an ultimate end distinction, akin
to Alan's and Simon's "political vs. catholic" distinction. It seems
that William can reliably graft the ultimate end and cause
distinctions onto one another, such that, in his categorization of
theological and political virtue, theological virtues are always
William of Auxerre, Summa aurea III, tract. 11, cap. 1 (Ribailler, ed., 172 and 174).
William of Auxerre, Summa aurea III, tract. 11, c. 3, q. 5 (Ribailler, ed., 193). See also
ibid. III, tract. 11, cap. 2 (Ribailler, ed., 181) for God as the immediate end of the theological
virtues. Also in this chapter, In a clear reference to Augustine's De doctrina christiana, William
claims that by theological virtues we desire to enjoy God (Ribailler, ed., 179). (See also
Summa aurea III, tract. 36, cap. 1 [Ribailler, ed., 684-85] for the link in the theological virtues
between "enjoying" God and having God as one's immediate end.) The use of Augustine's
classic distinction is treated below under Philip. Note also that William actually uses the term
"end," not "object" as Thomas does. But William qualifies this by saying that he means not
ultimate end-since all virtues have one ultimate end, namely, God-but rather principal end.
46 William of Auxerre, Summa aurea III, tract. 11, c. 2 (Ribailler, ed., 772): "quod politica
virtus dicitur, que non excedit metas nature" and "quoniam secundum hoc virtutes politice non
excedunt fines nature." There William also claims, "quoniam opera virtutum politicorum non
valent ad salutem, nisi adsit caritas" (ibid. [Ribailler, ed., 773). It is noteworthy that William
adds "nisi adsit caritas"; it is not clear from that text in what way the political virtues could
still be called political with the presence of charity.
44

45

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infused and concern salvation, while political virtues are always
acquired by frequent acts and do not concern salvation. But the
problem lies in trying to explain where the cardinal virtues fit into
this picture.
At times, William clearly equates the political virtues and
cardinal virtues; indeed, his whole question on political virtue
assumes a reference to the four cardinal virtues. 47 Yet already in
this very question the problems with conflating "political" and
"cardinal" are evident when William (citing Wis 8:7) claims that
nothing is more useful in life than these four cardinal virtues
when they are informed by charity and merit eternal life. 48 Given
the above claims about political virtue, the equation of cardinal
virtue and political virtue would mean that the cardinal virtues are
also always acquired by frequent acts and do not concern
salvation. Yet how can this be when the cardinal virtues are also
said to be informed by charity and merit eternal life? William
seems to recognize this tension in a later question on the
connection between the virtues when he opposes theological
virtues to political virtues, and says that political virtues are of
two sorts: the sort described by Aristotle (which can be possessed
in mortal sin and are not necessarily connected with each other)
on the one hand and the four cardinal virtues from Wisdom 8: 7
(which are dispelled by mortal sin and connected with each other
as well as faith, hope, and love) on the other hand. 49 Here the
cardinal virtues in one sense are a subset of the political virtues,
and in another sense both refer to humanity's supernatural end
and are infused. 50
The possibility of resolving these claims by saying that there
are political virtues that-unlike the cardinal virtues-are not
47 See William of Auxerre, Summa aurea III, tract. 19, on the political virtues. Here he
repeatedly refers to "these four" virtues (e.g., "Iste enim quatuor virtutes") and cites Wisdom
8:7 to say that nothing is more useful in life than these four (Ribailler, ed., 385).
48 See William of Auxerre, Summa aurea III, tract. 19 (Ribailler, ed., 385): "Ve/ potestdici
quod hiis virtutibus nichil est utilius in vita, secundum quod sunt informat<e> caritate."
49 See William of Auxerre, Summa aurea III, tract. 11, c. 2 (Ribailler, ed., 770).
so Interestingly enough for contemporary debates on "perfect vs. imperfect" virtue,
William uses this terminology in this question, which is a helpful context within which to read
Thomas's STh I-II, q. 65, aa. 1-2.

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

infused and do not concern salvation runs aground, for William
elsewhere equates the cardinal virtues and the political virtues. 51
Indeed, he grants that the cardinal virtues are, at times, not
directed toward humanity's eternal destiny. For instance, he
distinguishes political justice, which is acquired and available to
humanity through the use of reason, from theological justice,
which is infused by God alone and through which one earns
eternal life. 52
The solution to William's confusion appears obvious to readers
well acquainted with Thomas's categorizations of virtue: positing
a category of virtue (such as cardinal virtue) that is opposed to
theological virtue in terms of object (i.e., having an object that is
not God immediately). Despite William's description of theological virtue as moving us to God immediately, he never
articulates a corresponding category of virtue that directs us in
activities that do not concern God immediately. As was the case
with Alan and Simon, employing only one categorization of virtue
impedes William from being able to distinguish all that requires
distinguishing. Despite William's superb work on defining
theological virtue, a description of the different ways other virtues
are opposed to these, particularly with regard to object, 53 awaits
further development in the tradition.
E) Philip the Chancellor and Other Mid-Thirteenth-Century Work
on Virtue
In his survey of Thomas's predecessors, Lottin ends one
chapter with William of Auxerre, and starts the next with Philip
William of Auxerre, Summa aurea III, tract 19.
to refer to end, but defies his earlier claim
that "theological" means related to God immediately, which is clearly not the case with justice.
See Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 3.2:145-46.
53 William is not unaware of distinctions according to object, as is evident in his claim
about theological virtues concerning God immediately. He also associates different virtues
with different powers of the soul (though not in nearly the detail found in Philip [see below])
(Summa aurea III, tract. 11, c. 3 [Ribailler, ed., 183-96]). But he never articulates an umbrella
category of virtue such as "moral" or "cardinal" that may be opposed to "theological" on the
basis of object.
51

52 Here William rightly relies on "theological"

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the Chancellor. Just a decade separates William's Summa aurea
(1220-25) from Philip's De bona (1232), but the division between
their categorizations of virtue is as significant as Lottin's
organization of the history suggests. 54 To be sure, there are both
important commonalities between William and Philip and
developments between Philip and Thomas. 55 Nonetheless, it is in
Philip that we finally see the articulation of the category that is
missing in William and yet that is crucial to explaining the best
instincts of William's own thought. Philip explains perfectly the
distinction between theological and cardinal virtues.
Like William of Auxerre in echoing Augustine's distinction
betweenfrui and uti, Philip claims that the theological virtues take
us all the way "into" our ultimate end, who is God, while the
cardinal virtues concern those things directed "toward" our
ultimate end. 56 Without using the term "object," as Thomas does,
Philip distinguishes theological virtues from cardinal virtues, not
according to their ultimate end, but according to the types of

54 It also explains why R. E. Houser puts Philip first (with Albert and Thomas) in his book
on cardinal virtues (The Cardinal Virtues: Aquinas, Albert, and Philip the Chancellor [f oronto:
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2004]). For more on the influence of Phillip (and esp.
his support of, and appreciation by, the Dominicans), see ibid., 3-4 and 56. See also Hauser's
introduction to Philip's thought in "Philip the Chancellor," in Jorge J.E. Gracia and Timothy
B. Noone, eds., Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell,
Publishing, 2003), 534-35. Philip's advances in categorizing virtues are not to be explained
by the introduction of Aristotle's thought, for historical reasons and conceptual ones. For
historical analysis, see Brother Azarias, "Aristotle and the Christian Church: An Essay" (New
York: Sadlier, 1888 [posted on Notre Dame's Maritain Center's webpage
(http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/aatcc.htm)]),
which argues for the
incorporation of Aristotle's thought by William. As for the conceptual consideration, a main
purpose of this study is examining how thinkers have understood the cardinal virtues in
relation to a life of grace, a topic obviously not addressed by Aristotle.
55 For example, Philip places justice with prudence in human reason without explaining
(as Thomas does) that justice is in the rational appetite or will. Philip also orders the cardinal
virtues as follows: prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice. See Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 6473 on these matters.
56 Philip the Chancellor, Summa De bonoIII, 2, C, 1 (ed. Nicolai Wicki [Berne: Editiones
A. Francke SA, 1985], 756): "iste [the cardinal virtues] sint circa ea que sunt ad finem et non
in finem, scilicet Deum." See also Houser, The Cardinal Virtues, 49.

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activities each category concerns. 57 The cardinal virtues concern
temporal things, the theological virtues eternal things. 58
Philip is quite aware that the cardinal virtues also "concern"
eternal things, and may be ultimately directed toward one's
supernatural destiny of union with God. As R. E. Houser puts it,
they concern temporal things but "with God in sight. "59 In one
passage Philip grants an objector's observation that the cardinal
virtues may be infused by God. 60 Yet that relation does not define
the category. Thus we see more clearly in Philip than in anyone
else yet the simultaneous recogmt10n of the bases of
categorization which will be called by Thomas the ultimate end
and the object of activity. 61 What marks a development in Philip's
work over William's is that Philip offers a clearer explanation of
how cardinal and theological virtues differ in object, all the while
noting how the two types of virtue can share the same ultimate
end in God.
Yet even in Philip, we see lingering confusion over the
relationship between the categorizations based upon object and
those based upon ultimate end. As in previous authors such as
William, the confusion comes while explaining the relationship
between the categories "political" virtue and "cardinal" virtue,
and in the author's treatment of the connection between the

57 Houser notes that Philip does share Thomas's understanding of object, even if he does
not use the term on certain occasions where Thomas does (Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 44).
Philip also correlates this understanding of object with the superior and inferior parts of
reason. See Summa De bono III, 2, C, q. 1 (Wicki, ed., 746).
58 Philip the Chancellor, Summa De bono III, 2, C, q. 1 (Wicki, ed., 746): "quia secundum
tres virtutes theologicas ordinatur anuima ad eternal contemplanda, secundum quatourvirtutes
cardinals et humanas dirigitur ad temporalia et corporalia dispensanda." Note here that Philip
seems to use the descriptor "human" in reference to the object of virtue. The problems with
variable usage of "human" in reference to a category of virtue are treated below.
59 Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 49.
60 Philip the Chancellor, Summa De bono III, 2, C, 1 (Wicki, ed., 756): "cum [virtutes
cardinales] sint infuse ad differtiam I politicarum ... ."
61 Thomas at times says "object" (STh I-II, q. 62, aa. 1and2) and at other times "material
object" (STh I-II, q. 63, a. 4), the latter to distinguish it from formal object, as is discussed
below. Also, what Thomas calls "object" Philip at times labels "end," meaning not ultimate
end but rather proximate end. See Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 44.

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virtues. 62 In asking whether or not the virtues are connected,
Philip says the question is twofold, concerning virtues from grace
on the one hand and moral virtues on the other. 63 By virtues from
grace it becomes clear he means the theological virtues. As to
what he calls "moral virtues," he claims he will first discuss the
political virtues, and then the cardinal virtues. 64 William had
equated the cardinal virtues and the political virtues, and so his
placing the cardinal virtues as a subset of political virtues in this
discussion was problematic. Philip examines first moral virtue,
and then theological virtue. He divides moral virtue into political
and cardinal virtue. Though this is a clear advancement over
William's work, one serious problem remains. When explaining
his treatment of the moral virtues, then the theological virtues,
Philip says he will treat first the moral virtues, and then virtues
from grace, clearly implying that the moral virtues are not infused
by God's grace, which is incommensurate with the claims noted
above about the cardinal virtues concerning God and being
infused. This confusion leads Houser to remark that Philip
"backed away" from his prior position that the cardinal virtues
could be infused. 65 This otherwise inexplicable (and ultimately
inadequate) claim by Philip is more understandable given the
precedence in William's treatment, upon which Philip actually
62 See Philip the Chancellor, Summa De bona III, 2, C, cont., q. 1 (Wicl<i, ed., 1069-84).
This discussion parallels other authors' treatments of Lombard's III Sent., d. 36. It also
parallels William's Summa aurea III, tract. 40. Interestingly enough, it is precisely in the
context of examining Thomas mature treatment of this question at STh I-II, q. 65, aa. 1-2 that
certain contemporary commentators have evinced confusion as to the relationship between
categorizations of virtue (see below).
63 See Philip the Chancellor, Summa De bona III, 2, C, cont., q. 1 (Wicki, ed., 1069):
"Questio est utrum habet unam virtutem habeat omnes, et hec question bipartite est, tum
quantum ad gratuitas tum quantum ad morales. Et queratur primo de moralibus, quia de illis
minus videtur." Philip's following treatment of the moral virtues focuses on the cardinal
virtues.
64 See Philip the Chancellor, Summa De bona III, 2, C, cont., q. 1 (Wicki, ed., 1071).
65 Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 50. Characteristic of his study, which offers a superb analysis
of how different scholastics treat the "parts" of the cardinal virtues, Houser notes how the
cardinal virtues are "complicated" to address since they may refer to general or specific
virtues. That claim is not denied here. What is further claimed here is that confusion is
engendered in thinkers who preceded Thomas by their failure to explain how different
categorizations of virtue are related to one another.

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made improvements. Despite recognizing the importance of
categorizations of virtue by object, Philip still falters by at times
distinguishing theological virtue and cardinal virtue on the basis
of object (a categorization adopted by Thomas), and at other
times assuming that because theological virtues are infused by
grace (cause) and concern humanity's supernatural end (end), the
cardinal virtues must therefore differ from theological virtues on
these bases as well, when in fact they need not.

F) A Word on Albert the Great and Bonaventure
Before turning to Thomas, it should be noted that, for the
purposes of the questions driving this essay, Albert the Great
offers no significant development over Philip. Philip's distinction
between the theological and the cardinal virtues is found in
Albert's work, but it plays no significant role. 66 In fact, he offers
little treatment of the theological virtues, prompting Houser to
claim, "Content with Philip's work on the theological virtues,
Albert could then confine his De bona to the four cardinal
virtues. " 67 Albert does have a clear understanding of the
distinction and relationship between the end and efficient cause
of different categories of virtue, as when he claims that political
virtues and virtues from grace differ according to the intention of
the agent, since the former are done for the civic good while the
latter are done for the sake of God. 68 Here he correctly notes that
the cause and the ultimate end of virtue may be conflated. He also

66 See Albert, III Sent., d. 33, a. 1, where he affirms the objector's distinction between our
end (finis) and what leads to our end (ad finem), and claims that the theological virtues
concern the former and the cardinal virtues the latter. Albert's ad finem echoes Philip's
distinction, though Albert does not oppose it to the exact phrase in finem as Philip does. See
Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 128 and 131.
67 Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 57. Houser claims that Albert's main contribution in Summa
De bona is his expansion of Philip's work on the parts of the cardinal virtues.
68 See Albert the Great, De bona, tract. 5, q. 4, a. 2 (Geyer et al, eds., Opera Omnia 28
[Cologne: Aschendorff, 1951], 301): "Non enim differunt virtutes politicae a gratuitis
secundum actus, sed secundum intentionem agentiis, quia operatio virtutis politicae est propter
bonum civile, operatio gratuitorum est propter Deum."

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claims that the cardinal virtues can be infused. 69 Yet despite these
affirmations, the main thrust of Albert's work equates political
virtue and cardinal virtue, and he repeatedly claims without
qualification that the cardinal virtues are obtained by repeated
action. 70
Bonaventure's work is of minor importance for the purposes
of this study, though two points should be noted. First, he also
offers a clear distinction between theological and cardinal virtue
according to object: the theological virtues regulate our actions
toward God while the cardinal virtues regulate those activities
that concern other persons and ourselves. 71 Second, his thought
on the political virtues seems inconsistent at times. In his
Commentary on the Sentences he distinguishes political virtues
from cardinal virtues by saying that the former concern life among
men, while the latter concern our entry into heaven. 72 Yet at
another point in that text he makes political virtues one subset of
cardinal virtues by saying that political virtues are cardinal virtues
that are acquired and concern civic life, while other cardinal
virtues are infused, meritorious and concern our eternal home. 73
Yet again in his Collationes in Hexaemeron, which one
commentator claims best represents his own thought on virtue,
69 See his Commentary on the Sentences III, d. 33, a. 2, where Albert claims that when
cardinal virtues are infused and thus well-formed, they are called cardinal in relation to other
(unlabeled) virtues. See Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 134.
7°For the equation of political and cardinal virtue, see De bona, tract. 1, q. 4, "on the good
of the political virtues," which is about the cardinal virtues without distinction. De bona, tract.
1, q. 6, a. 2 asks, "Quare dicitur cardinals vel politicae?", and III Sent., dd. 33 and 36,
similarly equates those terms. This is somewhat odd since it is in his commentary on
distinction 33 that Albert mentions that the cardinal virtues can be infused. Citations such as
these prompt Houser to claim that Albert "was more consistent than Philip the Chancellor
about the fact that the cardinal virtues are acquired virtues" (Cardinal Virtues, 63) and "both
[i.e., cardinal and political virtues] are acquired" (ibid., 57). Though Houser is right that this
problematic assumption that cardinal virtue is acquired is consistently found in Albert's work,
there are exceptions as noted above. See also Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 3.1: 183 for a view
of Albert as more consistent with Philip than Houser implies with respect to the cardinal
virtues being infused and directed toward our ultimate end of God.
71 See Bonaventure, III Sent., d. 33, a. 1, q. 1. See also Lottin, Psychologie et morale,
3.1:173.
72 See Bonaventure, III Sent., d. 33, dub. 5. See also Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 3.1:179.
73 Bonaventure, III Sent., d. 33, q. 5.

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Bonaventure addresses the fourfold Neoplatonic division of virtue
and clearly understands all four divisions-including "political"
virtue-as directing one toward God. 74 Again we see a Scholastic
thinker struggling to explain the relationship between cardinal
and political virtue. Bonaventure's work thus contains material of
interest regarding the categorization of virtue, but no further
advances toward the Thomistic synthesis.

G) Concluding Observations
Numerous advances in explaining the bases for categorizing
different groups of virtue are evident in the survey carried out in
this section. Two groups of virtues can be distinguished: one
caused by God's grace, and the other caused by repetitious actions
arising from the "goods of nature," to use Hugh's term. The latter
do not involve saving grace, though of course they are rooted in
creating grace. Two groups of virtues can also be distinguished on
the basis of the "end" to which they direct the person: this is
either the political good or the higher end of a supernatural
destiny. Alan and Simon's "political vs. catholic" distinction is a
fine example of this basis of categorization, even though the term
"catholic" will not be used in this way by later Scholastics. It
should also be noted that the categorizations based on cause and
end appear correlated, such that "political" (to use the Porretans'
term) virtues are obtained by repeated acts of one's natural
endowments, while virtues "above nature" (to use Hugh's term)
are caused by God's grace. This is seen particularly clearly in
Hugh's work.

74 For a discussion of Bonaventure on the cardinal virtues (and the claim that the
Hexaiimeron represents his most mature thought), see Edward Synan, "Cardinal Virtue in the
Cosmos of Saint Bonaventure," in S. Bonaventura 1274-1974, vol. 3 (Roma: Collegio S.
Bonaventura, 1973), 21-38. For another helpful look at Bonaventure on the virtues, see Jean
Chiitillon, "Le primat de la vertu de charite dans la thfologie de Saint Bonaventure," in San
Bonaventura: Maestro Di Vita Francescana e di Sapienza Cristiana, vol. 3 (Roma: Pontificia
Facolta Teologica «San Bonaventura» 1976), 217-38. Also see Hochschild, "Porphyry,
Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas," 248-50 for Bonaventure's claim that all four levels are
stages of a purification and ascent toward God, including the political virtues.

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213

We also see growing clarity in the tradition on another basis of
categorization, which Thomas calls "object." Two groups of
virtues may be distinguished on the basis of whether their
activities concern God directly (in finem), or things leading to
God (ad finem). This is best seen in Philip's distinction between
the theological and cardinal virtues. The recognition of this basis
for categorization is an achievement, hinted at in William and
seen most clearly in Philip. Problems remain, however. For
instance, neither of these authors were able adequately to explain
the relationship between what Philip calls the "theological vs.
cardinal virtue" categorization on the one hand, and the other
categorizations based on end and cause on the other hand. Thus,
we see Philip alternately claiming that the cardinal virtues may be
infused and that they are only caused by repeated acts. There is
also vacillation, noted above, on whether or not these virtues
concern our eternal destiny. These problems appear most
evidently when the Scholastics try to explain the relationship
between cardinal and political virtue. Thus, though all the basic
distinctions employed by Thomas appear in his predecessors, what
remained to be achieved was a synthesis of the categorizations of
virtue that would explain how the different bases for
categorization related to one another.
II. ST. THOMAS'S CATEGORIZATIONS OF VIRTUE

Saint Thomas's work on virtue leads Houser to claim, "At long
last, someone had finally achieved a fully integrated treatment of
the general nature of the seven fundamental moral virtues. " 75 The
75 Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 66. Houser unfortunately uses the term "moral" here in a
nontechnical sense, presumably meaning the more general "morally important," which
certainly faith, hope, and charity are even if they are not technically "moral" virtues for St.
Thomas. Houser's work on the cardinal virtues in the thirteenth century is the closest English
equivalent to Lottin's magisterial work in Psychologie et morale, 3.2. However, particularly
in his work on Thomas, Houser focuses more on Thomas's ingenuity in explaining the general
and specific meanings of virtue, and the parts of each virtue. Houser's work is helpful for the
topic of this study, though this study's topic is not his direct focus. As for the primary
Thomistic texts used here, for the Summa Theologiae see Opera omnia iussa edita leonis xiii
p.m. (Rome: Typographia polyglotta, 18 8 8-1904 }, vols. 4-12. Translations of the Summa are

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task of this section is to explain how Thomas employed three
distinct categorizations of virtue and how he understood the
relationships between those categorizations, in light of his
predecessors' work. The contention of this section is that
Thomas's categorizations of virtue on the bases of object, ultimate
end, and efficient cause glean the best insights from his
predecessors' work, and yet achieve a synthesis absent from any
of their presentations. Explaining his understanding of these three
types of categorization, and in particular how the cardinal (as
distinguished from the theological) virtues are related to the other
two categorizations of virtue, will reveal Thomas's contribution
to contemporary discussions of the relationship between virtue
and grace. In short, while Thomas recognizes that the
categorizations of virtues by end and cause may be aligned with
one another, he also demonstrates why it is importantly not the
case that categorizations of virtue on the basis of object can be
grafted onto the other two categorizations.
As seen above, William of Auxerre offered a developed vision
of the theological virtues, but struggled in naming and explaining
which virtues are defined in opposition to the theological virtues
and on what bases. Thus it is helpful to begin here with Thomas's
understanding of the key characteristics of the theological virtues
in order to determine the ways in which different categories of
virtues are distinct from the theological virtues. In the opening
article of question 62 of the Prima Secundae, on the theological
virtues, Thomas lists three characteristics of these virtues that
parallel the three bases of categorization examined in this essay:
(a) "their object is God, inasmuch as they direct us aright to
God"; (b) "they are infused in us by God alone"; and, (c) they
direct humanity to its "supernatural happiness," a "happiness
from Summa Theologica, trans. English Dominican Fathers (New York: Benziger Bros., 1948),
unless otherwise noted. For Thomas's On the Virtues in General, On the Cardinal Virtues, and
the Commentary on the Sentences the Latin text used here is the Parma edition, found in
Opera Omnia (New York: Musurga Publishers, 1948), vols. 7-8. Houser's English translation
of On the Cardinal Virtues is particularly helpful since he used the Marietti text but was able
to correct it with manuscripts provided by Fr. Deronne of the Leonine Commission (see
Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 2).

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surpassing man's nature, and which man can obtain by the power
of God alone, by a kind of participation of the Godhead. " 76

A) Categorization by Object: Theological Virtues and Cardinal
Virtues
The first claim concerns the "object" of the theological virtues.
Here Philip's contribution to Thomas's work is evident. Like the
Chancellor, Thomas claims that "the object of the theological
virtues is God himself. " 77 Like Philip echoing Augustine's
distinction between frui and uti, Thomas claims, "The theological
virtues direct us to ... God himself immediately," who alone is
to be enjoyed. 78 Unsurprisingly, the theological virtues are then
distinguished from virtues that concern not God immediately but
things in relation to God (ad finem). Thomas says that the moral
and intellectual virtues perfect one with regard to "other things,
yet in relation to God," that is, those things Augustine would
describe as to be used. 79 All moral and intellectual virtues share a
commonality as regards their proper activities, or objects: "the
object of the moral and intellectual virtues is something
comprehensible to human reason." 80 The objects of the moral and
intellectual virtues are manifold, but they are all activities that are
76 From STh 1-11, q. 62, a. 1, respectively: "tum quia habent Deum pro objecto, inquantum
per eas recte ordinamur in Deum"; "tum quia a solo Deo nobis infunduntur"; and, "Alia
autem est beatitudo naturam hominis excedens, ad quam homo sola divina virtute pervenire
potest, secundum quandam divinitatis participationem." Note the three claims pulled out of
this respondeo for the purposes of this article are not the same as Thomas's list of three claims
that concludes that article.
77 STh 1-11, q. 62, a. 2. See also On the Virtues in General, a. 12: "Whence they are called
theological, since they have God not only for their end, but also for their object." In STh 1-11,
q. 62, a. 1, cited above, Thomas employs Philip's in finem.
78 See STh 1-11, q. 63, a. 3, ad 2.
79 See ibid.: "Sed oportet quod per alias virtutes infusas perficiatur anima circa alias res,
in ordine tamen ad Deum." Thomas's language echoes the tradition here, both in the general
influence of Augustine's De doctrina christiana and in the technical phrase ad Deum to refer
to the objects of cardinal virtues. See also On the Virtues in General, a. 12, ad 12. Finally, see
On the Cardinal Virtues, a. 2 where Thomas describes charity as concerned with the ultimate
end (cum sit circa finem ultimum) and commanding those (moral) virtues which concern
things for the sake of the end (his quae sunt circa finem).
80 STh 1-11, q. 62, a. 2.

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WILLIAM C. MA TIISON III

accessible to unaided human reason. In this way, the category of
moral and intellectual virtue (which contains a large number of
particular virtues) is distinguished from another category of
virtues (which contains far fewer virtues), namely, the three
theological virtues.
Why has the term "cardinal" not appeared in the preceding
paragraph? Thomas sorts through the multitude of virtues that
concern activities accessible to unaided reason. There are
distinctions within this broad class of virtues, such as the
distinction between moral and intellectual virtues. 81 Yet Thomas
understands this entire range of virtues to be "summed up" by the
four cardinal virtues. He most explicitly aligns "moral" virtues
with "cardinal" virtues in article 1 of question 61 of the Prima
Secundae, where he responds affirmatively to the article's question
"whether the moral virtues should be called principal or cardinal
virtues. " 82 In On the Virtues in General, when explaining the
distinctions among virtues, he explains how the moral and
intellectual virtues differ from the theological virtues, and in
several replies to objections he uses the four cardinal virtues to
exemplify the former category. 83 Indeed, when explaining the
different ways the types of virtues are obtained (addressed below),
Thomas's favorite example of the different sources of moral virtue
is temperance. 84 Finally, Thomas organizes his Secunda Secundae
according to the three theological and four cardinal virtues. In
short, for Thomas, the moral and intellectual virtues concern the
same sort of "innerworldly" activities, or objects, as the cardinal
virtues. 85 This fact, combined with the fact that Thomas uses the
term "moral" sometimes in opposition to theological virtue and
sometimes in opposition to intellectual virtue, prompts the
81

See STh 1-11, q. 58.

82 This is already a significant development from Philip, who as noted above called cardinal

virtues one of the two subsets of moral virtues. See Philip, Summa De bono III, 2, C, cont.,
q. 1 (Wicl<i, ed., 1071).
83 See On the Virtues in General, a. 12, ad 23-27.
84 See STh 1-11, q. 63, a. 4; and On the Virtues in General, a. 10, ad 11.
85 The term "innerworldly," from Veritatis Splendor 65, is employed here to refer to those
activities that are, as Thomas says, "accessible to [unaided] human reason."

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labeling of Thomas's categorization of virtues by object as
"theological vs. cardinal. " 86
Thomas's categorization "theological vs. cardinal" is the
culmination of several questions on different types of virtue. A
quick comparison of the questions on virtue with those on habit
and sin reveals an interesting structural difference. In those other
two "treatises," Thomas moves immediately from their subjects to
their causes. But in the set of questions on virtue, this inquiry is
delayed for six questions. Part of the reason is the greater
attention required to distinguish certain categories of virtue (such
as moral and intellectual virtue, and the different virtues in each
of those categories). But a further reason is that examination of
the different causes of virtue would be more accessible after an
explanation not only of the differences of object among different
moral and intellectual virtues, but also of the difference in types
of object between the moral virtues on the one hand (typified by
the cardinal virtues), and the theological virtues on the other.
Furthermore, Thomas must also attend to a distinction between
the different "ends" of virtue, which he does in questions 61 and
62, before turning to the cause of virtue in question 63.

B) Categorization by Ultimate End: Supernatural Virtues and
Natural (i.e., Political) Virtues
As noted above, Thomas claims that the theological virtues
concern "supernatural happiness." His explanation of humanity's
twofold happiness is as follows:
86 Though this move is based on distinctions found in Philip's work, this is a development
of Philip's work. The Chancellor's vacillation on whether the cardinal virtues are infused led
him at times to associate moral and cardinal virtues (e.g., Summa De bona III, 2, C, cont., q.
1 [Wicl<i, ed., 1069]) and at times to claim that the cardinal virtues are infused and thus
distinct from the moral virtues. As seen below, when Thomas aligns these categories it is under
the assumption that the cardinal virtues are not always infused but certainly may be.
There are other arguments Thomas offers for summing up the intellectual and moral
virtues with the cardinal virtues, such as the latter's correspondence with four human
capacities (intellect, will, irascible passions, and concupiscible passions). For more on this
point, which is less important for the purposes of this study, see Houser, Cardinal Virtues, 69-

70.

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

One is proportionate to human nature, which man can obtain by means of his
natural principles. The other is a happiness surpassing man's nature, and which
man can obtain by the power of God alone, by a kind of participation of the
Godhead. 87

Thomas immediately aligns the twofold human happiness with
two types of virtues. He claims the cardinal virtues "perfect man's
intellect and appetite according to the capacity of human nature;
the theological virtues supernaturally. " 88 The reader of the
Summa now realizes that up until this point in the questions on
virtue, two distinctions have been operative: categorizations of
virtues according to object and categorizations according to "end"
(supernatural vs. natural). Which virtues has Thomas been
discussing? Looking back at the seven questions preceding
question 62, we unsurprisingly see that Thomas has been very
precise in nearly uniformly discussing only "natural" virtues, or
those virtues concerning humanity's happiness as accessible to
human reason. He says as much in the last article before question
62. In defining "political" virtues as those which "are in man
according to his nature" and enable him to "behave well in the
conduct of human affairs," Thomas states, "It is in this sense that
we have been speaking of these virtues until now. "89
87 STh 1-11, q. 62, a. 1. Close examination of the nature of, and relationship between, the
two types of human happiness is beyond the scope of this essay, although the conclusions of
this essay may contribute to that discussion. See Denis J.M. Bradley, Aquinas on the Twofold
Human Good (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997) for several
lines of debate and the various Thomistic texts on the types of happiness (esp. 395-404, 43139). For another perspective on this issue see Steven A. Long, "On the Possibility of a Purely
Natural End for Man," The Thomist 64 (2000): 211-37.
88 STh 1-11, q. 62, a. 2, ad 1. For an even more extended treatment of the two types of
happiness toward which humanity is directed, see On the Virtues in General, aa. 9 and 10
where Thomas distinguishes virtues gained by repeated action from those infused by God
primarily by distinguishing the two types of happiness toward which humanity is destined.
89 STh 1-11, q. 61, a. 5 (emphasis added). On this point, see Miner, "Non-Aristotelian
Prudence in the Prima Secundae," 401-22. Looking back on the questions on virtue up until
STh I-II, q. 61, a. 5, we see Thomas occasionally explicitly say "human virtues," as at STh I-II,
q. 58, a. 3; and I-II, q. 61, a. 1. The obvious exception is of course STh I-II, q. 55, a. 4, where
Thomas uses Lombard's formulation of Augustine's definition of virtue with its closing phrase,
"which God works in us without us." Even there Thomas says that the definition applies to
all virtue if we omit that phrase, and it is noteworthy that the title questions in each of the
three articles preceding this one explicitly say "human virtue." This question of natural vs.

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It is Thomas' characteristic attempt to synthesize traditions in
article 5 of question 61 (on the cardinal virtues) that forces him
to address explicitly the two types of happiness in the following
question (on the theological virtues). In article 5, Thomas asks
whether the cardinal virtues can be fittingly divided into political,
perfecting, perfect, and exemplar. 90 In this question, we see
Thomas not only further illuminate his categorization based upon
the end of virtue, but also address a type of virtue that disrupted
the categorizations of virtue in many of his predecessors. He
affirms the fourfold categorization which includes political virtue.
Exemplar virtues pre-exist in God. Political virtues concern
natural activities in the realm of "human affairs," and by them
man acts well in such affairs. 91 To borrow terminology from the
following article (STh I-II, q. 62, a. 1), with the political virtues,
we are dearly speaking of those which concern natural
happiness. 92 Or, as Thomas says in On the Cardinal Virtues, "The
political virtues . . . are ordered only to the civic good of the
present life. " 93 Thomas goes on to claim, "But because it pertains
to man, as he is able, to strive toward divine things ... it is
necessary to posit some virtues between political virtues, which
are human virtues, and exemplar virtues, which are divine
virtues. " 94 The exemplar virtues are in God. The political virtues
supernatural virtues reminds the reader of Thomas's discussion of the different types of
happiness (see STh I-II, q. 3, a. 8; and I-II, q. 5, a. 5), but discussion of the impact of the two
types of happiness on virtue is not fully clear until STh I-II, q. 62, a. 1.
90 The Latin terms for the four in the tradition are consistently politcas, purgatorias, purgati
animi and exemplars. English translations (such as that of the English Dominicans) that use
"social" for the first type can mask the reference here to the tradition on politicas virtutes.
91 STh I-II, q. 61, a. 5.
92 That Thomas claims the political virtues concern civic life is particularly apparent in On
the Cardinal Virtues, a. 4, on whether or not the cardinal virtues exist in heaven. Though he
does not explicitly refer to these four Neoplatonic types of virtue by name, that division
clearly structures his respondeo. (He treats the four in a slightly different order than in STh
I-II, q. 61, a. 5: exemplar, perfect, political, and perfecting.) In the respondeo he uses the term
"acquired" rather than political, thus equating the two (a point examined below).
93 See On the Cardinal Virtues, a. 4, ad 7: "sed virtutes politicae de quibus ipse loquitur,
ordinantur tantum ad bonum civile praesentis vitae."
94 STh I-11, q. 61, a. 5: "Sed quia ad hominem pertinetutetiam ad divina se trahat quantum
potest, ut etiam philosophus <licit, in X Ethic.; et hoc nobis in sacra Scriptura multipliciter
commendatur, ut est illud Matth. V, estate perfecti, sicut et Pater vester caelestis perfectus est,

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are in humanity concerning natural human activities. But what of
human activities that direct persons toward the supernatural
happiness of union with God? Though he only explicitly describes
the two types of happiness as they concern virtue in the next
article, Thomas claims that perfecting virtues are those which tend
toward divine similitude, and perfect virtues are possessed by
those who have attained divine similitude. 95 In other words, the
perfecting virtues are possessed by those living graced lives in the
status viatoris, and the perfect by those in the status
comprehensoris. 96
The fact that Thomas does not consistently rely in the Prima
Secundae on Macrobius's fourfold division could suggest that
article 5 of question 61 is a simple acknowledgement of a
respected authority, but substantively unimportant. Yet Thomas's
claims in this article are actually crucial for this essay for two
reasons. First, given Thomas's interpretation of the Neoplatonic
categories, he is forced to attend explicitly to virtues that concern
humanity's supernatural happiness of divine similitude, something
he had been putting on hold "until now." How he categorizes
virtues by object, end, and cause in questions 62-63, while relating
those categorizations to each other, is addressed below. Second,
Thomas subtly yet brilliantly subverts an entire tradition of a
problematic category of virtue in this article. The category
"political" was firmly entrenched in medieval writing on virtue,
doing important (but different and at times confusing) work in
people such as Alan of Lille, Simon of T ournai, William of
Auxerre, and Philip the Chancellor. True to his modus operandi,
Thomas does not simply reject such a prominent feature of the
necesse est ponere quasdam virtutes medias inter politicas, quae sunt virtutes humanae, et
exemplares, quae sunt virtutes divinae" (my translation). Deftly handling the nature/grace
issue, Thomas in the ellipsis cites both Aristotle and the Sermon on the Mount to claim that
humanity is directed beyond its nature to divine things.
95 For further description of the perfecting and perfect, albeit without the use of those
terms, see the respondeo of On the Cardinal Virtues, a. 4.
96 For a helpful overview of Thomas's thought on these states, particularly as they pertain
to hope, see Josef Pieper, Faith, Hope, and Love, trans. Sr. Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D.,
and Richard and Clara Winston (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), esp. 91-98. Pieper
develops Thomas's terms from STh III, q. 15, a. 10.

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tradition. He rather delineates an exact and proper use of the
term, thus explaining how that meaning is referenced in a
respected authority's thought. "Political virtue" in article 5 refers
to humanity's natural end. This is why Thomas places an
important dividing line between this and the other three types of
virtue in the fourfold division. In nearly all of his responses to
objections, Thomas confirms that the political virtues are "human
virtues" concerning "human affairs. " 97
Yet the term "political virtue," as we have seen in Alan and
William, lends itself to confusion. This may be why Thomas does
not often use it. 98 In the remainder of his work on virtue in the
Summa Theologiae, he more commonly uses the terms "human"
and "natural" to refer to virtues directed to natural human
happiness-which is, in principle, accessible to unaided human
capacities-as ultimate end. 99 Having seen the confusion engendered by the use of that term by figures such as Alan and
William, Thomas's decision is not surprising. When Thomas does
use the term, however, he gives it a precise and consistent
meaning, that is, concerning humanity's natural end. He thus
avoids the common error of alternating between meanings which
would have the term sometimes referring to end and sometimes
referring

to object, since Thomas knows those two bases of

categorization cannot be conflated.

97 See STh I-II, q. 61, a. 5, ad 1 (quad sunt circa res humanas), ad 3 (res humanas), or
slightly shifting to language of common good in ad 4 (pertinet non so/um bene operari ad
commune).
98 After this treatment at STh I-II, q. 61, a. 5, Thomas uses the term "political virtue" only
two more times in the Summa Theologiae: II-II, q. 26, a. 3; and II-II, q. 136, a. 3, ad 2. Both
passages affirm that political virtue concerns humanity's happiness in a manner commensurate
with human nature ("bonum politicae virtutis est commensuratum naturae humanae" [STh III!, q. 136, a. 3, ad 2).
99 These terms are not without problems of their own. For instance, the theological virtues
should not be regarded as "unnatural" but rather as "super-natural." More problematically,
labeling certain virtues "human" can imply that virtues such as the theological virtues are not
human, or better, not truly one's own. This recalls the classic Lombard position that virtue
simply is grace. Again, the counterpart of human here is not inhuman but rather "superhuman," a term only occasionally employed by Thomas (see STh I-II, q. 61, a. 1, ad 2).

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C) Categorization by Cause: Infused Virtues and Acquired Virtues
In questions 61-62 of the Prima Secundae, Thomas explains
two categorizations of virtue: by object (theological and cardinal)
and by end (supernatural and natural). There remains one
important distinction to address: that of cause, which is taken up
in question 63. To this point, this categorization has only received
brief mention (e.g., STh 1-11, q. 55, a. 4; 1-11, q. 62, a. 1). In the
course of explaining it, however, Thomas also attends to a
potential misreading of the relationships between categorizations
he has already offered.
In article 2 of question 62, Thomas spoke of both the object
and the end of the theological virtues in distinction to those of the
cardinal virtues. He claimed that the theological virtues have for
their object "God himself," while the objects of the moral and
intellectual virtues are things "comprehensible to human reason."
He went on to distinguish them according to their ends: the cardinal virtues perfect human activity "according to the capacity of
human nature," whereas the theological virtues do so "supernaturally." A reader of these lines could easily misinterpret Thomas to
be conflating categorizations by object and end, in effect claiming
that all theological virtues concern humanity's supernatural
happiness (true), and all cardinal virtues concern humanity's
natural happiness (false). Of course, given the fact that in article
5 of question 61 he addresses whether the cardinal virtues are
fittingly categorized by Macro bi us, and that his affirmative answer
clearly places perfecting and perfected cardinal virtues in
reference to humanity's supernatural end, Thomas has already
offered resources to head off such an erroneous interpretation. 100
But in question 63 he makes his point even more clearly.
100 In doing so Thomas assumes that the category "cardinal virtue" is a larger category than
political virtue in that it includes "political virtue" but also cardinal virtues that (unlike
political virtues) are directed to humanity's supernatural end. This avoids William's mistake
of at times equating cardinal and political virtue, while at other times making cardinal virtue
a subset of political virtue (rather than vice versa). It also avoids Philip's mistake of making
cardinal virtues and political virtues both subsets of "moral virtue," while at the same time
affirming both that moral virtues are not caused by grace and that cardinal virtues can direct
one to one's supernatural end.

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Thomas's third categorization addressed here is rather
straightforward. He claims that virtues may be obtained by
repeated activity (in which case they are called "acquired") or
given by God's grace (in which case they are called "infused").
It follows that human virtue directed to the good which is defined according to
the rule of human reason can be caused by human acts [i.e., acquired]: inasmuch
as such acts proceed from reason, by whose power and rule the aforesaid good
is established. On the other hand, virtue which directs man to good as defined
by Divine Law, and not by human reason, cannot be caused by human acts, the
principle of which is reason, but is produced in us by divine operation alone. 101

Thomas not only claims that the efficient cause of virtues may be
infusion or repeated activity, he also explains that distinction by
saying that virtue directing us to our supernatural good which
surpasses human reason cannot be caused by human acts, and thus
must be infused. Thomas in effect aligns two categorizations here:
end and cause. 102 Infused virtues direct us ultimately to our
supernatural end, whereas acquired virtues direct us ultimately
only to our natural end. 103 In fact, acquired virtues cannot direct
us to our supernatural end. In terms of their end, infused virtues
are always supernatural and acquired virtues are always natural.
Two comments are warranted on this distinction between
acquired virtue and infused virtue. First, what is essential to
infused virtue is that it directs us to the supernatural good which
surpasses human understanding and achievement, and therefore
must be provided by God. Despite the connotations of the English
word "infused," it is not necessarily the case that such virtues
involve no repeated acts or human effort and involvement. 104 Yet
STh I-II, q. 63, a. 2 (emphasis added). See also On the Virtues in General, a. 10.
See also On the Virtues in General, aa. 9 and 10, where acquired virtue is claimed to
direct humanity to natural happiness, and infused virtue to a happiness that exceeds the
capacity of unaided human nature.
103 For reaffirmation of this point see On the Cardinal Virtues, a. 4, ad 3: "the civil good
is not the ultimate end of the infused cardinal virtues, of which we speak, but of the acquired
virtue of which philosophers spoke" ("bonum civile non est finis ultimus virtutum cardinalium
infusarum de quibus loquimur, sed virtutum acquisitarum de quibus philosophi sunt locuti").
104 For a less technical examination of this point, see William C. Mattison III, "Moral
Virtue, the Grace of God, and Discipleship," in David Matzko McCarthy and M. Therese
Lysaught, eds., Gathered for the Journey: Moral Theology in Catholic Perspective (Grand
101

102

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

even where there is such participation of the person, God's grace
is still the efficient cause of the virtue since one is directed to an
end not accessible (let alone attainable) by unaided human
powers. Conversely, it is not the case that acquired virtues have
nothing to do with God. We recall here Hugh of St. Victor's
superb explanation of natural virtue and virtues superadded by
grace (despite the fact that he never uses the terms "acquired" and
"infused"), as it was quite clear in Hugh's thought in what way
creating grace is indeed present in natural (or, here, acquired)
virtues. Second, saying that infused virtues always direct one to
one's supernatural end does not at all mean that they ignore or
obliterate the natural end of one's activities. 105 Thomas's claim is
simply that the natural or "civic" good is not the ultimate end of
the infused virtues.

D) Relating Thomas's Three Categorizations to One Another
At this point it is clear that two of Thomas's three
categorizations graft neatly onto one another. All supernatural
virtues are infused, and all natural (or human) virtues are
acquired. Thus a pair of categorizations yields two, not four, total
types of virtue, namely, supernatural infused virtue and natural
acquired virtue. Yet how are these two categorizations related to
the categorization of theological and cardinal virtues? One of the
main sources of confusion in the tradition leading up to Thomas
concerns the relationship between categorizations of virtue by end
and by efficient cause on the one hand, and by object on the
other. We saw above the problem with the Porretans' attending
only to end and neglecting object. We saw William grasp the way
that "theological" virtue refers to both a supernatural object and
a supernatural end, but fail to distinguish how other virtues may
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdman's Publishing Co., 2007), 198-215.
105 We run into the classic Scholastic dictum that "grace does not take away but rather
perfects nature." See STh I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2: "cum enim gratia non tollat naturam, sed
perficiat." For examples of how graced life respects the integrity of human nature even while
surpassing that nature, see Jean Porter, Nature as Reason (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdman's
Publishing Co., 2005), esp. 394-98.

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be differentiated from the theological virtues in these distinct
ways. In the face of the error, common among Thomas' s
predecessors, of grafting a categorization by object onto categorizations by end and efficient cause, Thomas clarifies and
advances that tradition of categorizing virtues by explaining not
only that, but how, this conflation is inaccurate.
In article 3 of question 63, Thomas asks "whether any moral
virtues are in us by infusion." It is important that he says moral
virtues. 106 He has already affirmed that theological virtue is in us
by infusion and only by infusion. He has also affirmed that moral,
or cardinal, virtues are in us by repeated activity. But to deny the
conflation of categories noted above, Thomas here affirms that
moral virtues can be infused in us by God. Why? In the respondeo
Thomas describes a parallel between the natural principles of
virtue and acquired cardinal virtues on the other hand, and the
theological virtues and infused cardinal virtues on the other. In
the reply to the second objection he succinctly explains that
The theological virtues direct us sufficiently to our supernatural end,
inchoatively: i.e., to God himself immediately. But the soul needs further to be
perfected by infused virtues in regard to other things, yet in relation to God. 107

Reminiscent of Philip the Chancellor and others who have at least
implicitly relied on Augustine's frui and uti distinction, Thomas
recognizes that activities that are accessible to unaided human
reason can be done for the sake of one's supernatural happiness,
and that this requires the grace that renders the virtues governing
such activities "infused." When activities of the cardinal virtues
are done for one's supernatural end, we must call those cardinal
virtues infused.
The activities of infused cardinal virtues are also performed
differently than their counterparts among the acquired cardinal
106 Here is another example of confusing use of the term "moral." As is clear from the
respondeo, Thomas here means "moral" to include intellectual virtue (rather than being
distinct from it), and as opposed to theological virtue. This is another reason why this essay
employs "cardinal" virtue rather than "moral" and "intellectual" virtue to refer to those
virtues whose objects are accessible to unaided human reasoning.
107 STh 1-11, q. 63, a. 3, ad 2.

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virtue, a point affirmed by Thomas in the last article of question
63. In that article Thomas asks, "whether virtue obtained by
repeated activity belongs to the same species as infused virtues."
He replies in the negative, and uses his stock example of
temperance to exemplify his point, noting that the person with
acquired temperance eats differently from the (fasting) person
with infused temperance. Directly refuting the Porretan claim that
the acts of virtues differing in end (for the Porretans, "catholic vs.
political" virtue) are still the same acts, Thomas claims that,
although acquired and infused temperance both share the same
material object (hence their both being fittingly labeled
"temperance"), they differ as to their formal object. Although acts
of all cardinal virtues observe the mean, 108 in the case of the
acquired cardinal virtues the mean is determined by the rule of
human reason, while in the case of the infused cardinal virtues the
mean is determined according to divine rule. 109 Hence Thomas
concludes that "infused and acquired temperance differ in species;
and the same applies to the other [cardinal] virtues. " 110 In the next
lines Thomas correlates this difference of "rule" for infused and
acquired cardinal virtue with a difference in what he calls
"ultimate end." 111 Acquired cardinal virtues dispose one to behave
well with regard to human affairs, while the infused cardinal
virtues regulate one's behavior with regard to the ultimate goal of
citizenship in the heavenly kingdom. 112

108 STh I-11, q. 64, a. 1.
109 STh I-11, q. 63, a. 4. Note that we are clearly talking only of cardinal (i.e., moral) virtues
since there is a mean, which does not hold for theological virtues. This article anticipates
Thomas' claim in STh I-II, q. 64, a. 4 that there is no mean regarding the theological virtues.
This claim is true not because the theological virtues concern one's supernatural happiness,
for this is true of the infused cardinal virtues which do observe a mean. Rather, it is true
because God is the "object of theological virtue," which is not true of infused cardinal virtue.
110 STh I-II, q. 63, a. 4.
111 Ibid., ad 1: "Infused and acquired virtues differ not only in relation to the ultimate end

112 STh I-II, q. 63, a. 4: "Et per hunc etiam modum differunt specie virtutes morales
infusae, per quas homines bene se habent in ordine ad hoc quod sint cives sanctorum et
domestici Dei; et aliae virtutes acquisitae, secundum quas homo se bene habet in ordine ad res
humanas." See also On the Cardinal Virtues, a. 4 on the cardinal virtues remaining in heaven.

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227

Thus we have in this final article on the cause of the virtues an
explanation of how the cause of virtue (acquired vs. infused),
which is correlated with the ultimate end of virtue (natural or
human vs. supernatural), renders virtuous activities of the same
material object formally distinct. Even though infused and
acquired cardinal virtues may regulate the same sorts of activities,
the very meanings of those actions differ, since they are done "for
different reasons"-that is, with an eye toward different ultimate
ends. 113 Two conclusions may be drawn from Thomas's work
outlined here.
First, it is not accurate according to Thomas's thought to graft
the categorization of (supernatural) infused and (natural) acquired
virtues directly onto the categorization (by object) between
theological and cardinal virtues, a mistake commonly made in the
century leading up to Thomas. Though it is the case that theological virtues are always (supernatural) infused virtues, it is not
the case that cardinal virtues are always (natural) acquired virtues,
and Thomas explains quite clearly how cardinal virtues may be
infused and directed to our supernatural happiness.
Second, it is not the case, as affirmed in the Porretan school
and reported by Lottin, that the same act can be done for either
a natural or a supernatural end. Thomas explicitly denies this
claim (STh 1-11, q. 63, a. 4). We therefore have in Thomas's set of
categorizations by object, end, and cause a way to explain how
"worldly" activities differ from activities that concern God
immediately, namely, by object. We also have a way to distinguish
how activities that share the same (material) object (i.e., those of
the cardinal virtues) may be importantly different in species, or
meaning, depending on whether they are ultimately directed to
natural or supernatural happiness, a distinction that also correlates
113 STh I-II, q. 63, a. 4, ad 2: "Both acquired and infused temperance moderate desires for
pleasures of touch, but for different reasons." Note this is true even when the actions of these
two sorts of virtue appear similar "from the outside," such as when a person of faith eats
temperately while not fasting, and thus performs the same material act as the person with
acquired temperance. Even here the "meaning" is different since the eating is done with an
eye toward one's supernatural happiness (caring for the body as an act of worship in
recognition of it as a gift from God), and not simply for the natural end of bodily health.

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

with the cause of virtue as acquired or infused, respectively. The
resulting tripartite vision of virtue in Thomas-acquired (natural)
cardinal virtue, infused (supernatural) theological virtue, and
infused (supernatural) cardinal virtue 114-enables Thomas more
easily to address questions such as whether one can have moral
virtue without charity (STh 1-11, q. 65, a. 2; STh 11-11, q. 23, a. 7),
and whether the moral virtues remain in the next life (STh 1-11, q.
67, a. 1).
Thomas's vision of virtue solves the problems identified in the
previous section's survey of the categorizations of virtue offered
by thinkers such as Alan of Lille, William of Auxerre, and Philip
the Chancellor. Unlike the Porretans, Thomas is able to account
for the difference between cardinal and theological virtues by
attending to more than the ultimate end of virtue. Whereas the
Porretans cannot explain the difference between "catholic" virtues
such as faith and charity on the one hand and temperance and
justice on the other, Thomas can, thanks to his distinction by
object (theological vs. cardinal). Unlike William of Auxerre, he is
able to explain in what distinct ways a variety of categories of
virtue differ from the theological virtues. William was correct that
the theological virtues are infused (cause) and concern God
directly (object). But he tried to use only one grouping of virtue
to describe how virtues can differ from theological virtues, even
though there are two ways in which this is possible (i.e., by object,
as in the cardinal virtues, and by cause, as in the acquired virtues).
And these two ways cannot always be identified with each other;
in other words, they require distinct categorizations. Unlike Philip
the Chancellor, Thomas is able to explain exactly how the
cardinal virtues may be at times acquired and at other times
infused. Finally, again unlike the Porretans, Thomas is able to
explain how, despite important commonalities between the
acquired cardinal virtues and infused cardinal virtues (enabling
both rightly to be called cardinal), there is a difference of species
114 Since "natural" and "supernatural" correlate with "acquired" and "infused," these terms
are actually redundant. Hence they are inserted parenthetically here simply for additional
clarity, but will not be included below. For another mention of Thomas' three categories of
virtue, see Miner, "Non-Aristotelian Prudence in the Prima Secundae," 419.

THOMAS'S CATEGORIZATIONS OF VIRTUE

229

between acts of, for example, infused temperance and acquired
temperance (which the Porretans would call "catholic
temperance" and "political temperance").
III. CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSIONS OF VIRTUE AND GRACE

The purpose of this final section is not to engage in any great
depth the arguments of the texts adduced below. Its far more
modest task is to demonstrate how contemporary work that
employs categorizations of virtue to describe the relationship
between virtue and grace could be clarified by more careful
attention to Thomas's categorizations of virtue, and to the
relationships between these different categorizations. Recall from
the beginning of this essay the following quotation: "Discerning
and judging action in light of the natural law need to be perfected
and stabilized by the cardinal virtues (acquired habits) and infused
virtues (faith, hope and charity)." It should be clear that while the
cardinal virtues certainly may be acquired, they may also be
infused (and thus should not be parenthetically identified as
acquired habits). Furthermore, the statement implies that the two
groups of virtue share a common basis of categorization, when, in
fact, "cardinal virtue" is a distinction

by object and "infused

virtue" is a distinction by cause.
Another example of possible confusion engendered by a lack
of careful attention to the relationships between the categorizations of virtue is found in no less authoritative a source than
the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In the Catechism, the
material on virtue is divided primarily into two sections: one on
"human virtue" and one on "theological virtue. " 115 From the
perspective of the Thomistic tradition, this categorization is a
problem, since, for Thomas, "human virtue" refers to ultimate
end (and, accordingly, cause), while "theological" refers to the
object of virtue. Indeed, the category "theological virtue" is
defined in the Catechism by object: "the theological virtues relate
115 See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1804-11and1812-29,
respectively. See also the
introductory material at 1803, and the brief section on the gifts (and fruits) of the Holy Spirit
at 1830-32.

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

directly to God. " 116 The material under "human virtue" is subdivided into the four cardinal virtues, suggesting also a reference
to object rather than end. This in itself could simply mean that
"human virtue" is here a reference not to ultimate end, but rather
to object, akin to "moral" or "cardinal" virtue in the Thomistic
tradition. Indeed, while the first half of the opening paragraph on
human virtue uses the term "human," the second half shifts to
"moral virtue," seemingly equating those terms. 117 In that case,
"human" would be synonymous with Thomas's own phrase
"accessible to human reasoning," and would refer to object.
This picture, however, is complicated by references to the
cause of the virtues, particularly in the section on the human
virtues. Assuming that "human" refers to object rather than
ultimate end, the most problematic line is found in the second half
of the opening paragraph on human virtue: "the moral virtues are
acquired by human effort. " 118 Despite the next line's claim that
they dispose us to communion with God (ultimate end), and the
previous claim that they "guide our conduct according to reason
and faith," the directness of the claim about the cause of moral
virtue being repeated activity is not only problematic in itself, but
distorts the seeming parallel of human and theological virtue
according to object by introducing the efficient cause of virtue,
which is aligned with ultimate end instead of object.
Despite this problematic line, in the closing lines of the section
on human virtue, under the subtitle, "The virtues and grace," the
Catechism clearly affirms that moral or cardinal virtues may be
infused. There we read that "human virtues acquired by . . .
repeated efforts are purified and elevated by divine grace." 119
With this claim in mind, the only possible consistent explanation
of the problematic line above is that it must mean that the moral
See Catechism, 1812.
Catechism, 1804.
118 Ibid.
119 Catechism, 1810. See also 1812-13, where we read that "the human virtues are rooted
in the theological virtues" (1812), and that the theological virtues "inform and give life to all
the moral virtues" (1813). This is actually a very helpful affirmation of the compatibility of
infused virtue and human effort, a point made above.
116

117

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OF VIRTUE

231

virtues may be acquired by human effort, a claim completely
consistent with the Thomistic tradition. 120 In sum, we see in the
Catechism itself how claims about the object, cause, and end of
virtue may be presented in a manner that fails to explain clearly
the relationship between these different categorizations of virtue.
Though everything important and true about virtue is present in
the section on virtue, the obfuscation of the categorizations
examined in section 2 of this article impedes the pedagogical
intent of the Catechism.
Another example of confusion engendered by failing to attend
accurately to the categorizations of virtue noted above occurs in
the fine historical scholarship of Istvan Bejcvy, in his recent article
"The Problem of Natural Virtue." Bejcvy rightly assumes that
"natural virtue" refers not to natural dispositions or capacities but
to virtue obtained without God's cooperative grace. He thus
implicitly attends to both the ultimate end and cause of virtue, but
does not name them and never correlates them in any way with
the object of virtue. This prevents him from adequately replying
to the claim that
If Abelard should really have sustained the idea that human beings could acquire
virtue by natural means ... this would imply that he was something worse than
a Pelagian: Christians as well as non-Christians would have the possibility of
bringing about their own salvation. 121

It must be stressed that Bejcvy strenuously denies that Abelard
held a strongly Pelagian position. But his defense of Abelard is
obstructed by his failing to note the obvious non sequitur in the
charge, which attention to the relationship between the categorizations of virtue outlined here would make clear: "natural"
virtue does not concern salvation. Bejcvy goes on to examine the
cardinal virtues, but his failure to attend either to what is
distinctive about their objects, or to the natural end toward which
120 Of course, one could interpret this section as referring only to humanity's supernatural
end of union with God. But this would not only betray the consistent Thomistic meaning of
the descriptor "human" as a modifier of virtue, but also fail to explain the direct claim that
such virtues are "acquired" (a technical term) by human effort.
121 Bejcvy, "The Problem of Natural Virtue," 138.

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WILLIAM C. MATTISON III

they may be directed, impedes not only his discussion of Abelard,
but the later (otherwise accurate) discussion of problems within
the Porretan school of thought. 122
A final example of confusion regarding Thomas's
categorizations of virtue can be found in a recent contribution to
an ongoing debate in The Thomist over the possibility of pagan
virtue. 123 In the first of his two contributions to this debate,
Thomas Osborne sets out to examine how "the distinction
between the moral and theological virtues was worked out in the
late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries." 124 Osborne
immediately turns to the Porretan school's "catholic vs. political"
distinction without explaining that this distinction (based on
ultimate end) is not made on the same basis as Thomas's "moral
vs. theological" distinction (based on object) which Osborne states
he is investigating. 125
He then turns back to moral virtue and claims, "As Shanley
observes, Thomas does describe acquired moral virtue as political
virtue, and he states that political virtue is concerned with the
political common good." As noted above, it is correct to say that
Thomas "describes" acquired moral virtue as political virtue, since
all acquired virtue directs one toward the natural end of humanity
("the political common good"), which is precisely what Thomas
means by political virtue. However, Osborne goes on to say "the
identification of moral virtues as political virtues is standard for

122 Ibid., 149.
123 The Thomist thread of the debate begins with Brian Shanley, O.P, "Aquinas on Pagan
Virtue" The Thomist 63 (1999): 553-77. Shanley responds there to Bonnie Kent's "Moral
Provincialism," Religious Studies 30 (1994): 269-85, which is itself a response to the work of
Alasdair Macintyre on virtue in Thomas and Augustine, esp. his Whose Justice? Which
Rationality? (Notre Danie, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988). Shanley in turn is
responded to by Thomas Osborne, Jr., "The Augustinianism of Thomas Aquinas's Moral
Theory," The Thomist 67 (2003): 279-305. Osborne is responded to by Angela McKay,
"Prudence and Acquired Mortal Virtue," The Thomist 69 (2005): 535-55, to which Osborne
replies again in "Perfect and Imperfect Virtues," The Thomist 71 (2007):39-64.
124 Osborne, "The Augustinianism of Thomas Aquinas's Moral Theory," 290.
125 Alan and Simon base their distinction on finis et officium, but as seen above this is
actually what Thomas refers to as ultimate end. Recall the treatment of "catholic vs. political"
chastity in Alan (both of which would be "moral" and not theological for Thomas).

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233

medieval thinkers. Thomas is merely repeating common usage." 126
There are two problems with this statement. First, as explained
above, there is not a consistent usage of the term "political" in
Thomas's predecessors. Though it commonly refers to humanity's
natural end as distinguished from one's supernatural (for the
Porretans "catholic," for William "theological") end, "political"
is also used at times to refer to the object of virtue and is
contrasted with "theological" (as in the case of William), or even
at times to refer to virtues obtained by repeated action rather than
infused (as in Philip's problematic passage). The problem with
such vacillation in the tradition is that it implies that one can
reliably graft the final-end and efficient-cause distinctions onto the
object distinction, which holds true with the virtues faith, hope,
and charity, but not the virtues prudence, justice, fortitude, and
temperance. By affirming an identification of political with
acquired moral virtue, Osborne not only mixes up different bases
of categorization but also implies that they are interchangeable
when they are not.
Second, Thomas does not use the term "political" in a manner
that "repeats common usage," nor does he identify "moral virtue
as political virtue." The term "moral" (or as used above,
"cardinal") refers to a distinct basis for categorizing virtues,
namely, object. For Thomas, "political" refers to the ultimate end
of the virtuous activity, in this case as the natural civic good.
Political virtues governing activities directed toward the natural
good may indeed be "described" as acquired moral virtues, since
they are always caused by repeated human acts and concern thisworldly activities. But political virtue may not be "identified" with
moral virtue, since not all moral virtues are political virtues.
"Political" refers to a different basis of categorization than
"moral." The problem with Osborne's claim is not only that it is
untrue of Thomas; it also conflates categorizations that are
importantly distinct. Therefore, "identifying" political and moral
virtue as Osborne suggests would lead to exactly the same
126 Osborne, "The Augustinianism of Thomas Aquinas' Moral Theory," 291 (emphasis
added).

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problems as were found in Thomas's predecessors, problems
which Thomas so strenuously avoids in his own presentation of
the various categorizations of virtue and the relationships between
them.
One last example of confusion in Osborne's use of the
categorizations of virtue and the relationships between them is his
claim, central for his second contribution to this debate in The
Thomist, that "someone cannot possess the perfect acquired moral
virtues and perfect acquired prudence without the help of
grace." 127 The cogency of Osborne's argument, and the reasons
for positing this category, are beyond the scope of this essay.
Suffice it to say that Osborne is trying to reconcile Thomas's claim
that there can be prudence without charity (e.g., STh 1-11, q. 65,
a. 2) with Osborne's own claim that perfect (in the sense of
connected to the other virtues) prudence requires grace. 128 Despite
my sympathy with Osborne's attempt to refute the existence of
any "purely natural" ethic in Thomas, positing a category of
perfect acquired virtue that requires grace is oxymoronic. The
problem is not the "perfect," which for Osborne here means
connected with other virtues. The problem is positing a category
of "acquired" virtue that requires grace. 129 The requirement of
grace is exactly what renders a virtue "infused" instead of
acquired. According to Thomas, acquired virtue is obtained by
repeated activity and directs people to the human good as
apportioned by the rule of human reason. 130 Infused virtue,
however, directs people to the good as defined by Divine Law, a
Osborne, "Perfect and Imperfect Virtues," 63.
As Osborne's contributions to this ongoing debate helpfully demonstrate, Thomas does
use the distinction "perfect vs. imperfect" in varying ways. One of those ways is the sense
referred to by Hugh of St. Victor (supra, n. 7), namely, as referring to humanity's supernatural
vs. natural end, respectively. See, e.g., STh I-II, q. 65, a. 2. Osborne uses "perfect vs.
imperfect" to mean connected or not, respectively, to other moral virtues. See, e.g., STh I-II,
q. 65, a. 1.
129 Osborne's claim about the necessity of grace for perfect acquired virtue is never made
in the language of operative, or creative, grace. He must be making a stronger claim about the
necessity of cooperative, or saving, grace to justify his debate with McKay. Here Hugh's
distinctions regarding grace are most helpful.
130 STh I-II, q. 63, a. 2.
127
128

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235

good that exceeds and thus cannot be caused by human acts. 131 It
therefore requires God's grace, which is what is meant by
"infused." 132 Osborne's claim about the necessity of grace for
perfect acquired virtue thus represents a categorization mistake.
These examples of confusion in contemporary categorizations
of virtue at times replicate confusion found in the century and a
half of tradition leading up to the Thomistic synthesis on different
categorizations of virtue. The purpose of this essay has been to
outline those developments, both to illuminate Thomas's thought
and to demonstrate how it solves certain problems found in his
predecessors, problems which at times appear in contemporary
discussions of virtue. It is hoped that this presentation of
Thomas's categorizations in light of his predecessors will
illuminate ongoing debates on the different categorizations of
virtues, especially as they concern the relationship between virtue
and grace.

and STh I-II, q. 62, a. 1.
is not here addressing the long-standing debate in the Thomistic tradition (and
even before) over whether the person with infused virtues continues to possess acquired
(cardinal) virtues. In his own five-level interpretation of Thomas's work on virtue, Osborne
is speaking at level four of people who do not have the infused virtues. He is actually trying
to establish that the presence or absence of grace distinguishes the disconnected moral virtue
of level three and the connected acquired moral of level four. He is doing this in order to
support his larger concern that even "natural" virtue requires grace. But his refusal to use the
category "natural vs. supernatural" leads him to have to describe the graced virtue of level four
as acquired, which engenders the problems addressed here.
131 Ibid.;

112 Osborne

The Thomist 74 (2010): 237-82

THE MORAL ACT IN ST. THOMAS: A FRESH LOOK
KEVIN F. KEISER
Aquinas College
Nashville, Tennessee

Even a child makes himself known by his acts, whether what he does is pure and
right. (Prov 20:11)

D

ESPITE ALL PROTESTATIONS for and attempts at
renewal, moral theology today is lacking in clarity, thus
serving to confuse souls more than guide them. While
human acts are very contingent things that never come close to
permitting the certitude of other disciplines, 1 it" would be a
mistake to use this as an excuse for not expecting clarity from the
specialists in moral matters. We should not repeat Descartes's
mistake of confounding absolute certitude (which moral matters
cannot always have) with clarity. Nor should we shrink from
seeking what certitude can be had. 2
One area that seems to be suffering from such a lack of clarity
has to do with the so-called three sources of morality, and in
particular how these are presented in the doctrine of St. Thomas
Aquinas. Much has been said, for instan"ce, about the "moral
object" by many who would consider themselves to be faithful
commentators of St. Thomas on this point. And yet the conclusions reach no consensus, and cover a spectrum that certainly
pushes the limits of Catholic orthopraxis. For example, various
conceptions of the moral object by self-professed commentators
St. Thomas Aquinas, I Ethic.,lect. 3 (Marietti ed., 32).
the well-disciplined student must neither seek
greater certitude, nor be content with lesser certitude than may be fitting to the thing which
is being treated."
1

2 Ibid. (Marietti ed., 36): "And therefore

237

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KEVIN F. KEISER

on St. Thomas have aided the conclusion that masturbation may
be permissible if it is done to procure semen for a fertility test 3
(even though pollution for medicinal purposes has been
specifically forbidden by the Holy Office); 4 infantile craniotomies
are possibly licit; 5 speech signifying the false is not considered
lying if we can safely assume that "the communicative
community" has broken down; 6 and last but not least, the sin
against nature is seen as legitimate if it is done to prevent AIDS,
not children 7 (also despite magisterial statements declaring the use
of a condom an intrinsic evil). 8 How are such views purportedly
based in St. Thomas? What is the source of the confusion?
Every Catholic who has had any interest in moral matters is
familiar with the teaching that "the object, the intention, and the
circumstances make up the 'sources,' or constitutive elements, of
the morality of human acts." 9 Yet when one goes to questions 18
to 20 of the Prima Secundae, often matters seem to be quite
complicated and confusing. Is the moral object a thing or an act?
Is the specification from the object most important, or is it the
specification from the end? Do circumstances change the species
or do they not? Do circumstances and intention factor in at all, or
is it the object alone that specifies the will? A first reading of these
3 Martin Rhonheimer, "Intentional Actions and the Meaning of the Object: A Reply to
Richard McCormick," The Thomist 59 (1995): 296.
4 DS 3684. On fertility testing, see also Pope Pius XII, Address Vous nous avez to
participants of the Second World Congress on fertility and sterility (19 May 1956), available
on the Vatican website (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius _ xii/speeches/1956/documents/
hf_p-xii_spe_19560519 _vous-nous-avez_it.html [accessed 1May2009]).
5 John Finnis, Germain Grisez, and Joseph Boyle, '"Direct' and 'Indirect': A Reply to
Critics of Our Action Theory," The Thomist 65 (2001): 21-33.
6 Benedict Guevin, "When a Lie Is Not a Lie: The Importance of Ethical Context," The
Thomist 66 (2002): 273; for a different argument with practically the same conclusion, see
Alexander Pruss, "Lying and Speaking Your Interlocutor's Language," The Thomist 63 (1999):
445.
7 Martin Rhonheimer, "The Truth About Condoms," The Tablet (10 July 2004): 10-11;
Benedict Guevin, O.S.B., and Martin Rhonheimer, "On the Use of Condoms to Prevent
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome," National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 5 (2005): 4048.
8 DS 2795.
9 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2d ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
1997), par. 1750.

THE MORAL ACT IN ST. THOMAS

239

cardinal questions in St. Thomas's treatment of morals may leave
the impression that his thought was not quite coherent, or if it
was, he simply was not writing very clearly. 10 What seems so
simple in the Catechism appears to be very complicated in moral
theology.
My view is that St. Thomas is fundamentally coherent, and
that, secundum se, he is not particularly complex or confusing on
the sources of morality. Rather, the undeniable confusion that
readers suffer should be regarded as an unintelligibility quoad nos.
Admittedly, equivocations or apparent equivocations abound in
questions 18-20 and in the parallel loci. But they are
equivocations or applications of broad terms that St. Thomas
himself understood and presumed his readers would understand.
It is only when we look back on them today, with our firmly
entrenched, univocal understanding of the three sources of
morality, that we end up being confused when we try to go to St.
Thomas for light-as Veritatis Splendor encourages us to do with
regard to this very topic. 11 The confusion is aggravated because,
in going to St. Thomas, many put the greatest emphasis on
question 18, since it is there that he treats of all three "sources"
ex professo. My own opinion, which I shall elucidate in section II
below, is that everything becomes clearer if we place the
interpretative key for these three questions in question 20, article
3 ("Whether the goodness and badness of the interior and exterior
act is the same"), assuming what is said in question 18, article 6
("Whether the act has the species of good or bad from the end"),
rather than in the whole of question 18. This is a better approach
quoad nos. Such a reading would, so to speak, "subsume" the
consideration of the moral act from its "three sources" into a
consideration of the one act that is composed of the exterior act

10 Cf. William F. Murphy, Jr., "Aquinas on the Object and Evaluation of the Moral Act:
Rhonheimer's Approach and Some Recent Interlocutors," Josephinumjournal of Theology 15
(2008): 208: " ... the complex, insufficiently clear and perhaps underdeveloped character of
Aquinas's teaching on the moral object."

11

vs78.

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KEVIN F. KEISER

and the interior act, an approach that, I would propose, is more
helpful, even if it comes to the same thing.
The goal of this article, then, will be to lay out my proposal for
a clearer understanding of St. Thomas's "moral action theory." To
this end, I will begin (section I) by defining and distinguishing the
often equivocal or at least broad terms that St. Thomas uses. Then
I will lay out my proposal for the understanding of the
specification of the moral act according to St. Thomas (section II).
Lastly, I will take up and respond to some objections to my own
view (section III), objections that lie at the root of many of the
misunderstandings that afflict moral theology today with regard
to St. Thomas's "action theory." I will principally be making use
of the texts of St. Thomas, 12 particularly the Summa Theologiae,
the Scriptum on Peter Lombard's Sentences, and the disputed
questions De Malo. 13
I. CLARIFICATION OF TERMS
As many admit, part of the confusion regarding St. Thomas's
"moral action theory" is due to the evident fluidity of the terms
he uses. This is especially so with the very three terms that make
up the three sources of morality, namely, "object," "intention,"
and "circumstance." It may seem an impossible task to specify
precisely the different ways in which these terms are used.
Nevertheless, my proposal here is to lay out those meanings that
may be helpful to our particular inquiry. Such an attempt will be
helped by first recalling the basic definition of each one of these
terms, the quid nominis, based on which the terms find their
various legitimate applications in distinct contexts.

12 Translations

of St. Thomas are by the author.

13 For accounts of the moral act similar to the view I argue for here, see Steven Jensen, "Do

Circumstances Give Species," The Thomist 70 (2006): 1-26; idem, "A Long Discussion
regarding Steven A Long's Interpretation of the Moral Species," The Thomist 67 (2003): 62343; Fr. Stephen Brock, "Veritatis Splendor 78, St. Thomas, and (Not Merely) Physical Objects
of Moral Acts," Nova et Vetera 6 (2008): 1-62; and Lawrence Dewan, O.P., "St. Thomas,
Rhonheimer, and the Object of the Human Act," Nova et Vetera 6 (2008): 63-112.

THE MORAL ACT IN ST. THOMAS

241

A) "Object"
The basic meaning of the term "object" is "that which is borne
upon." 14 It is a relational term, implying something that does the
"bearing upon." This is in a certain way the acting subject, or the
agent, but only by means of an act by which the agent and the
object are united or mediated to each other in some way. 15 Such
acts are always the acts of powers possessed by the agent. 16 In fact,
for St. Thomas, "power" and "object" are correlative terms. 17 In
the case of the act of an active power, the object is its term. In the
case of the act of a passive power, the object is its principle. 18
Furthermore, since a power is a principle of many actions,
(whether in number, or even in kind for powers that are not
"determined to one"), 19 the ratio, or formal aspect, of the object
of the power will have a relation of universality to the ratio of the
object of the action or passion. For example, the will of a rational
creature has the universal good as its object, and any particular act
of willing bears upon its object only insofar as it is perceived as a
good, however else the object of that particular act of willing may
be defined. The same can be said for various habits and powers
that are arranged in an order. Thus, the sensus communis bears
upon the sensible as such, whereas sight, one of the particular five

senses, bears upon the visible; and a particular "passion" of
seeing 20 will bear upon a particular colored thing insofar as it is
visible. 21 Likewise, charity, which perfects the will, bears upon
God himself as a good, whereas an act of mercy imperated by
14 See for example STh I-II, q. 88, a. 2; q. 19, aa. 8 and 10; q. 29, a. 6; q. 72, a. 8; a. 10;
II-II, q. 25, a. 1; De Verit., q. 10, a. 9; q. 15, a. 1, ad 3; q. 15, a. 3, ad 5; q. 18, a. 6, ad 2; De
Malo, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4; q. 2, a. 1; q. 8, a. 3; q. 8, a. 3, ad 4; Quodl. VIII, q. 9, a. 1; Quodl. III,
q. 12, a. 2; III Ethic., lect. 3, n. 2; etc.
15 Cf. STh I-II, q. 13, a. 4.
16 STh I, q. 77, a. 1.
17 De Caritate, q. 2, a. 4.
18 STh I, q. 77, a. 3.
19 STh I-II, q. 50, a. 3; q. 72, a. 3.
20 Sense powers are passive (STh I, q. 79, a. 3, ad 1), though we legitimately speak about
their "acts." Cf. II De Anima, lect. 10, n. 7.
21 STh I, q. 1, a. 3, ad 2.

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charity will bear upon someone in need insofar as he is also able
to participate in God's beatitude, and a concrete act of almsgiving
will bear upon someone perceived to be in need.
This is important for our inquiry, since in the consideration of
the moral act, there are principally two objects to be considered. 22

1. The Object of the Exterior Act
As the name indicates, the exterior act is that act which is
commanded, or imperated, by the will, 23 carrying out the
command of reason, 24 but executed by the other powers of the
soul and our bodily members. 25 The object of this exterior act is
the nonaction upon which it bears. Saint Thomas refers to this
object as the materia circa quam, 26 or sometimes simply as the
matter. 27 This is not to say that the object of the exterior act is
necessarily material, or physical in the sense of a material
substance. It is simply to say that the exterior act bears upon
something that is not identical with itself or the powers that
execute it, although the materia circa quam must have some ratio
that contains it within the common object of these executing
powers (e.g., an exterior act of our sexual powers will be an
object that by definition has to do with venerea and not nutrition).
But that is not all; for, since this exterior act is imperated by the
will, its own object must somehow also be contained under the
object of the will as a power, as we shall see further below. That
is, the object of the exterior act is the object of such an act
immediately, but it is also the object of the will insofar as such an
object is perceived as a good to which the subject must be united

22 STh I-II, q. 18, a. 6: "But in the voluntary act, there is found a twofold act, namely, the
interior act and the exterior act, and each of these has its object."
23 STh I-II, q. 6, a. 4; De Malo, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1.
24 STh I-II, q. 17, a. 3, ad 1.
25 STh I-II, q. 16, a. 1; q . .16, a. 4, co. and ad 1. Cf. I-II, q. 6, a. 4; q. 1, a. 1, ad 2; De
Malo, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1. Such an execution by the powers other than the will is distinct in ratio
from the acts of the will themselves. Cf. I-II, q. 11, a. 2; q. 16, a. 4, ad 1.
26 STh I-II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 2; II Sent., d. 36, q. 1, a. 5, co. and ad 4.
27 STh I-II, q. 20, aa. 1-4; and q. 20, a. 4, ad 2.

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by means of the action of the bodily members and/or the powers
of the soul that are imperated by the will.
2. The Object of the Interior Act of the Will
The interior act of the will is an act that is elicited (not
imperated) from the will, 28 an act of willing as such. The object of
this act is simply the volitum, the thing willed. 29 Since the will as
a power has the good in general as its object, any object of the act
of willing must be something that reason has proposed as good.
And since the good has the character of an end, 30 such an object
is also an end. That is, for the will, object and end come to the
same thing. However, since man's action always involves a series
of many ordered ends, many so-called ends of the will also have
the character of being means to other ends. All are goods of the
will, and all thus have the notion of an end; but that which is
considered as a means only bears its notion of good by
participating in the goodness of the end to which it is ordered.
That is, it is a useful good. 31 Thus, if we consider the order of
things willed to each other, we can also distinguish the elicited
(interior) act of the will into two different aspects, each of which
has its own object:
(1) The interior act of choice or election, 32 which bears upon
that which is perceived as a good insofar as it ordered to another
end. 33 As I will make clear below, the object of the act of choice
is precisely the exterior act itself in those actions that involve the
bodily members. 34 This object of choice (the exterior act) is what
people usually mean when they refer to "the moral object" as
distinct from "intention."
STh I-II, q. 6, a. 4.
Cf. for example STh I-II, q. 20, a. 2; II Sent., d. 38, exp . textus.
30 "Bonum habet rationem finis." See, e.g., De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 10.
31 STh I-II, q. 16, a. 3; De Verit., q. 22, a. 15.
32 Throughout this article, I take the terms "choice" and "election" to be equivalent, as
properly an elicited act of the will that has as its object a means insofar as it is ordered to an
end.
33 STh I-II, q. 12, a. 4, ad 3; q. 13, a. 3.
34 STh I-II, q. 17, a. 3, ad 1; q. 16, a. 4.
28

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(2) The act of intention, which bears upon that which is
perceived as good in a more perfect way, insofar as it is an end to
be acquired through a means. 35 The object of this action is some
further end beyond the immediate exterior action to be
performed, an end for the sake of which the exterior action is
performed. This further end is also a moral object, 36 since it is an
object of the will, the principle of moral acts. 37
This introduces us to the term "intention," which needs to be
explained as well. 38

B) "Intention"
The basic meaning of "intention" is "an act of tending, or
stretching out toward something. " 39 It implies a kind of pursuit. 40
Of course, everything that has an admixture of potency pursues
something, in the sense that it is inclined to its proper act. In a
particular way, intention is proper to cognitive beings, that is,
those with sense or intellectual knowledge, since their cognitive
faculties permit them to "proceed outside themselves," 41 and
possess the form of another as other. In this sense, intendere in
Latin has the sense of "attend to," "direct oneself to," "apply
one's vision to." 42 But even more properly, it is said of appetitive
powers, since inclination and pursuit are appetitive movements. 43
More properly still, it applies to the appetitive movements of the
35 STh I-II, q. 12, a. 2; q. 12, a. 4, co. and ad

3.
18, a. 6; De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 10.
37 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 1.
38 These different uses of the term "object" are not analogous, but properly univocal, since
in each case, the thing designated by the term retains the same definition, with the difference
being only the action to which the object refers. While Murphy may be bothered that this puts
the moral object on par with other objects (see "Aquinas on the Object," 222 n. 52), if the
moral object does not retain this definition, it is simply not an object. Cf. De Malo, q. 2, a. 6,
ad 2: "just as an act in general receives it species from the object, so the moral act receives its
species from the moral object."
39 STh I-II, q. 12, a. 1.
40 De Verit., q. 22, a. 13, s.c. 2; II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 3.
41 De Verit., q. 1, a. 9.
42 II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3; De Verit., q. 22, a. 13, ad 10.
43 II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 3, co. and ad 2; De Malo, q. 16, a. 11, ad 3 and ad 4.
36 STh I-II, q.

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will, since irrational beings are more moved than movers in their
pursuit of particular goods, and hence their intentions are not
really their own acts; that is, although they have their own
inclinations, such inclinations are not based on their own ordering
of themselves to an end. This is the case, however, with the will
of a rational creature, which is both the mover of the other
powers of the agent, and is cojoined to reason itself, by which the
rational agent is able to order itself to its end. 44 Finally, the word
"intention" implies a distance from the the thing toward which
one tends. Hence, it does not properly apply to an immediate end
that is before one. This, rather, would be the object of choice, as
I suggested above.
In the end, then, there are six analogous meanings of intention.
(1) The application of one's cognitive powers to the act of
knowing something. 45 (2) The product of such an act, such as, for
example, the first and second intentions in intellectual knowledge.
(3) The motion of any appetite towards a good. (4) The motion
of the will towards a good/end. This is a very common use of the
word "intention," though more properly this is called the voluntas
finis, or simply voluntas. 46 It is what we mean when we say that
our act was "intentional": that we meant to do it, that we did it
knowingly and willingly. In this sense, it can even apply to things
that are properly the object of choice. 47 (5) The motion of the will
II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 3.
Cf. De Pot., q. 7, a. 9; STh I, q. 79, a. 10, ad 3.
46 II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 5; STh I-II, q. 12, a. 1, ad 4; De Verit., q. 22, a. 12. Cf. also Brock,
"(Not Merely) Physical Objects," 47, and n. 105.
47 De Malo, q. 2, a. 2, ad 8: "If nevertheless under intention be included not only the
intention of the end, but the will of the deed, thus it is true in good and evil that as much as
someone intends, so much does he do." Cf. also I-II, q. 12, a. 3; Super Matt., c. 7, lect. 2. This
wide meaning of intention is also noted by Murphy, "Aquinas on the Object," 233: "we must
also mention the important distinction between two senses of intention. The first (i.e., I-II, 12)
and narrower sense of 'intention' is an act of the will regarding the end, which is distinguished
from the act of the will regarding the means to the end, namely the choice or 'election' of the
means. The second and broader sense of intending, in the sense of 'tending towards,' belongs
to all acts of the will"; cf. Martin Rhonheimer, '"Intrinsically Evil Acts' and the Moral
Viewpoint: Clarifying a Central Teaching ofVeritatis Splendor," The Thomist 58 (1994): 19
n. 20; Finnis, Grisez, and Boyle, '"Direct' and 'Indirect'," 16-19, and nn. 4 and 22; Lawrence
Dewan, "St. Thomas, Steven Long, and Private Self-Defense," Nova et Vetera 8 (2010): 19295; Steven Jensen, "A Long Discussion," 625, 631-33; and Steven Long, "A Brief Disquisition
44

45

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towards a good specifically insofar as it is an end to be acquired
through a means. This is the most proper notion of "intention, " 48
the one by which it is distinguished in ratio from choice. 49 ( 6) The
intended end itself, that is, the object of an act of intention. 50 This
is a very common use of the word today, especially when
discussing the three sources of morality. In this context,
"intention" usually refers to the end intended, rather than to the
act of intention.
For our inquiry, elements (4) and (5) of the above division will
be the most important.

C) "Circumstance"
The etymological meaning of "circumstance" is simply "that
which stands around." We tend to use the word only in reference
to actions. In this consideration, the basic idea of circumstance is
the nondefining conditions under which the act is done. 51 Thus,
it stands in relation to the act as accidents stand in relation to a
substance.
However, one must be careful, since one act can bear diverse
considerations of reason. Therefore, what may stand as a
circumstance in one consideration of the act may actually be a
defining characteristic in another consideration. 52 This is certainly
regarding the Nature of the Object of the Moral Act according to St. Thomas Aquinas," The
Thomist 67 (2003): 50, 62-65; idem, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act (Naples,
Fla.: Sapientia Press, 2007), 28-29, although Long has a very different emphasis from all these
other authors, particularly when it comes to STh II-II, q. 64, a. 7. Cf. also G. E. M. Anscombe,
Contraception and Chastity (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1975) repr. in Why Humanae
Vitae Was Right: A Reader, ed. Janet Smith (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1991), 135: "The reason why people are confused about intention ... is this:
They don't notice the difference between 'intention' when it means the intentionalness of the
thing you're doing-that you're doing this on purpose-and when it means a further or
accompanying intention with which you do the thing."
48 STh I-II, q. 12, a. 4; De Verit., q. 22, a. 15; II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 5.
49 STh I-II, q. 12, a. 4, ad 3; De Verit., q. 22, a. 13, ad 16; II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 2.
50 II Sent., d. 38, exp. textus.
51 STh I-II, q. 7, a. l; De Malo, q. 2, a. 6; IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 1.
52 STh I-II, q. 18, a. 10. Cf. also STh I-II, q. 18, a. 5, ad 4; De Malo, q. 2, a. 6, ad 1 and 7;
q. 2, a. 7, ad 8; IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 3, ad 1.

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the case when one considers the act in its natural species as
opposed to when one considers the act in its moral species. To
consider the act in its natural species is simply to consider the
substance of the act absolutely, 53 as it proceeds from a natural
active power, 54 along with its natural effects. From these, the
natural species can be known, since "nature is determined to
one. " 55 To consider the act in its moral species, on the other hand,
is to consider the act as it relates to reason, the principle of moral
acts. 56 For example, as far as nature goes, completed sexual
intercourse of higher animals is simply a male and a female of the
species joining their genital organs in such a way that their
generative matters may meet each other. The act is known from
the powers that produce the act. Any other relation between the
individuals of either sex that engage in it, the place where it is
done, the time when it is done, the presence of others-none of
these define the natural act of sexual intercourse. Nevertheless,
they all either have or might have some import for reason's
consideration of the act when the agents are human beings,
endowed with reason and free will. Conditions that appear to be
circumstantial in one instance may not be so circumstantial in the
other, such as the two persons being unmarried. 57 Saint Thomas
gives another example: to kill the innocent and to kill the guilty
are two acts that are the same in their natural species (proceeding
from our motive powers with the effect of the death of another
human being), but are quite different morally, since one belongs
to murder, the other belongs to justice. 58 Even the selfsame act of
IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 2, ad 2: "However, although that from which the act is
found to be in such a genus may be from its substance insofar as it is belongs to its moral
genus, it is nevertheless outside its substance according as the substance itself of the act is
considered absolutely; wherefore, some acts are the same in the species of nature which are
different in the species of morals, such as fornication and the matrimonial act." Cf. also
Quad/. IX, q. 7, a. 2.
54 ScG III, c. 8: "Wherefore, moral things are allotted their species from the end, just as
natural actions from the form of their active principle, as heating from heat."
55 STh I-II, q. 72, a. 3
56 STh I-II, q. 19, a. 3.
57 Saint Thomas uses this very example in De Malo, q. 2, a. 4; cf. also De Malo, q. 2, a. 4,
ad 6.
58 III Sent., d. 23, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 3.
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killing the guilty, which is by definition the same act naturally
speaking, can belong to different species of morals depending on
other relations of reason, for example, whether one does it out of
justice or out of anger. 59 Finally, acts that are distinct in natural
species can be generically the same in moral species. Saint Thomas
gives the example of killing a thief and of freeing an innocent
person: these are acts of our motive powers that have different
natural effects and are in different natural species, but both belong
to the virtue of justice. 60 In each of these examples, that which
makes for the substance of the act considered morally is
circumstantial to its natural species, and that which makes for the
substance of the act considered its natural species may be
circumstantial to its moral consideration. This diversity of
consideration, and the ensuing diverse interpretations of what
qualifies as circumstantial, can cause no little confusion.
As for the circumstances themselves, St. Thomas adopts his list
from the discipline of rhetoric. 61 They are who, what, when,
where, why, how, and by what assistance. Among these, what and
why seem to merit special consideration. Are not these the object
and the intention? And are not these precisely distinguished from
circumstance in the traditional enumeration of the three sources
of morality? Saint Thomas gives different answers to these
questions in different places. For example, he explains that the
remote reason why somebody does something is in reality a
circumstance of the immediate moral act. 62 This understanding of
why refers to the object of the strict meaning of intention (number
[5] in my division above). Nevertheless, if why means the
59 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3.
60 III Sent., d. 23, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 3.

STh I-II, q. 7, a. 3 (where St. Thomas also refers to the third book of Aristotle's
Nicomachean Ethics); IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 2.
62 De Malo, q. 2, a. 7, ad 8: "Moreover, the remote end is placed as a circumstance." Cf.
also STh I-II, q. 18, a. 9: "And it is necessary that any individual act have some circumstance
through which it is drawn to good or evil, at least on the part of the intention of the end"; IV
Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 2: "[the circumstance] 'why' regards the intention of the one
acting interiorly"; ibid., ad 3: "But it is one thing to speak of the end of the agent, who
sometimes intends good from a bad act, or vice-versa; and this end is called this circumstance
'why'."
61

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immediate end itself, not any further end of the agent, then it is,
strictly speaking, not a circumstance, considering the act
morally. 63 A similar interpretation is given with respect to what.
What can include the object of the exterior act and the effect of
the act, and even these can be called circumstances. 64 What can
also refer to the act itself considered morally, and in this sense it
may not be considered a circumstance morally speaking, though
naturally speaking it may be (e.g., the unmarried condition of
one's sexual partner is not a mere circumstance morally, though
it may be considered so naturally). 65
The crucial point is that certain conditions are identified as
circumstantial in relation to what is being considered. Thus, if a
certain condition is considered insofar as it gives species to the
act, it will be considered no longer as a circumstance, but rather
as a "principal condition of the object. " 66 This obtains not only in
considering natural species as opposed to moral species, but also
when considering different moral species related to each other as
more universal to less universal. For example, that a certain
amount of money belongs to someone else is circumstantial to the
act of "taking up some money," but not circumstantial to theft;
and that the money is in the Church's poor box is circumstantial

63 STh I-II, q. 7, a. 3, ad 3; De Malo, q. 2, a. 7, ad 8: "Likewise it must be said about the
end that the proximate end is the same as the object, and matters hold similarly for it as they
do for the object"; IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 2, ad 3: "there is a certain [end] which is
the end of the deed, according as the Philosopher says in the second book of the Ethics, that
certain things are cojoined to a bad end; and this end gives species to the act; wherefore, it is
either not a circumstance, if only the genus of morals be considered; or it is included in this
circumstance 'what' by referring to the very substance of the act."
64 De Malo, q. 2, a. 6: "Nevertheless ['what' is counted as a circumstance] in such a way
that within 'what' we should include not only the effect, but also the object, so that it should
be understood as both 'what' and 'concerning what'"; IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 2: "For
the act not to be proportionate to the end, this circumstance 'what' is pertinent, through
which the notion of evil is implicated in the act; and for that reason, all things which can give
the species to a sin are introduced in this circumstance."
65 IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 2, ad 2. Cf. also STh I-II, q. 7, a. 3, ad 3; De Malo, q. 2,
a. 6, s.c. 2.
66 STh I-II, q. 18, a. 10: "as a principal condition of the objectthat is repugnantto reason";
Cf. also De Malo, q. 2, a. 6, ad 1 and ad 7; IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 3, ad 1 and ad 2.

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to theft, but not circumstantial to sacrilege. 67 It is important to
recognize this latitude for the application of the term
"circumstance," since there are some conditions that are
considered as circumstances from one point of view that can
nevertheless make an act objectively evil. Thus, in response to the
following objection:
But it should be said that that which is a circumstance to the act in its species of
nature gives the species to the act insofar as it is moral. But on the contrary, as
the object is related to the act in its genus, so the moral object is related to the
moral act. But the object gives species to the act. Therefore, the moral object
gives species to the moral act; a circumstance, therefore, does not. 68

Saint Thomas explains:
To the second, it must be said that just as an act in general receives its species
from the object, so the moral act receives its species from the moral object;
nevertheless, this does not exclude that it may receive a species through the
circumstances; since from a circumstance, there can be considered some new
condition in the object through which it gives species to the act. 69

Are any circumstances just circumstances, always? Certainly:
those that do not imply primo and per se a special fittingness or
repugnance to reason's order. 7° For example, to take a lot of
money or a little bit of money are not two new species of evil;
they only aggravate or diminish guilt already presupposing the
disorder that would be there if the money was not one's own. The
condition of "not one's own" constitutes a new disorder, but the
condition of "how much" only implies greater or lesser disorder
67 De Malo, q. 2, a. 6; cf. also ibid., ad 2 and ad 3; STh I-II, q. 18, a. 10; IV Sent., d. 16,
q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 3.
68 De Malo, q. 2, a. 5, arg. 2.
69 De Malo, q. 2, a. 5, ad 2; cf. also STh I-II, q. 18, a. 5, ad 4; q. 18, a. 10, ad 1 and ad 2;
IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 3, ad 2.
70 De Malo, q. 2, a. 7: "But if it has some difference in relation to reason, it either implies
something repugnant to reason primo and per se, and then it gives species to the sin, such as
to take someone else's thing; or it does not imply something repugnant to reason primo and
per se; but by comparison to that which is repugnant to reason primo and per se, it does have
some repugnance to reason, as to take someone else's thing in great quantity betokens a
greater repugnance to reason."

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on the supposition of a previous disorder. 71 Contrariwise, any
circumstance that does entail a special fittingness or repugnance
primo and per se (i.e., on the supposition of no other disorder) is,
as it were, the specific difference establishing another kind of
willing, all the way down to the speciesspecialissima.And as such,
it is no longer considered as a circumstance, but as an object
specifying the will. For example, the fact that a stolen object is a
consecrated vessel may be circumstantial in relation to an act
considered as the act of taking something (i.e., the natural
species), and circumstantial even to the act considered as the act
of taking something that is not one's own (i.e., the moral species
of theft). Indeed, a thief most probably did not care one way or
the other about its consecration. 72 But his will still bore upon it,
at least consequentially,7 3 in that, knowing that the item was
71 N Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 3: "However, one circumstance of sin alone removes the
rectitude of virtue; wherefore, if the other circumstances give no other obliqueness to the sin
except from the supposition of a preceding one, they will not change the species of sin, but
perhaps they will aggravate the quantity of that sin."
72 De Malo, q. 2, a. 6, arg. 6: "Furthermore, every sin is voluntary, as Augustine says. But
the will is not borne upon some circumstance, as when someone steals a consecrated golden
vessel, he does not care about the consecrated thing, but only about the gold. Therefore, this
circumstance does not give species to the sin, and for a like reason, neither do any of the
others."
73 De Malo, q. 2, a. 6, ad 6: "To the sixth it must be said that although the will of the one
stealing is not principally borne upon the sacred thing, but upon the gold, nevertheless, it is
borne upon a sacred thing consequentially; for he wills more to take a sacred thing than to be
without the gold"; see also IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3. a. 2, qcla. 3.
In my estimation, a clear enunciation of the will bearing upon circumstances beyond the
principal intention is what is lacking in the synthesis of Finnis, Grisez, and Boyle. These
authors certainly do not deny that a person can be responsible for effects or concomitants of
their act that go beyond the principal intention. But when it comes to ascertaining which are
morally significant and which are not, their analysis is not satisfactory. In the examples they
give in '"Direct' and 'Indirect'," 3-8, there is no manifest criterion for the judgments they
render. For example, it is not evident why their farmer should not be said to employ
sterilization as a means to fattening his bulls, and yet their spy cannot be said not to have
employed murder as a means to silencing someone who knows too much. Certainly the
authors are persuaded that they have such a criterion: " ... the theory of action discussed in
this paper is sound, and is applicable across the whole range of choices and actions, quite
independently of moral judgments about their goodness or badness, rightness or wrongness."
This is a weighty and, I think, impossible claim. In fact, in my reading of "'Direct' and
'Indirect'," it seems the authors are trying to propose a theory that requires little or no moral
content for it to solve most or all moral questions. It is a purely formal moral theory, reflexive

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consecrated, he proceeded to the act anyway, against another
order of reason dictating that sacred things should be respected. 74
This example highlights a distinction in the consideration of
circumstances that will be useful to our inquiry. 75
(1) Circumstances with regard to the the natural act, or any
more generic consideration of the act. For example, in the case of
sacrilege by theft, the circumstances to the natural act would be
those conditions not included in the consideration of the physical
act of "taking a vessel. " 76 This is usually what people are referring
to when they say that a certain condition is "just a circumstance"
of the act. That is, we tend to think of circumstances at first in
relation to the genus of the act, and not always in relation to its
most specific nature, as understood by reason. Hence, the fact that
a chalice does not belong to the one taking it might be called a
circumstance of the act. Or, if one is more honest and even admits
that this is part of the object, the fact that the chalice was
consecrated might be called a mere circumstance, even though this
also would give a new species to the act. Calling both of these
of the trends of contemporary philosophy. Perhaps motivated by a zeal to make the natural
law relevant in a pluralistic society, they certainly have the semblance of ruling out unwanted
side effects from moral specification solely by the intensity of the directedness of one's act of
reason and will. In this way, there is no need to undertake the question of which one of these
side effects is just or unjust, right or wrong, good or bad when tolerated or not (for example,
it never comes up to have to weigh whether the killing of another human being might
sometimes be a legitimate or illegitimate chosen action, since by their analysis, it can simply
be removed from the realm of moral responsibility; seep. 43). St. Thomas does not proceed
this way, as I shall show below (n. 114).
74 IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 3: "However, the fact that he takes someone else's
consecrated thing implies another deformity: since any irreverence shown to sacred things has
a special notion of sin; and for that reason, such a circumstance is said to change the species";
cf. also De Malo, q. 2, a. 6, ad 2; STh I-II, q. 18, a. 10.
75 As with the term "object," these differences of the term "circumstance" are yet uni vocal,
since in every case, the term signifies a relation of not belonging to whatever is being
considered as the substance of the act in one's present consideration.
76 De Malo, q. 2, a. 6: "just as if we consider this act which is taking money, it does not
belong to its notion that the money be someone else's; wherefore, it is related to the act
considered in this way as a circumstance; but it does belong to the notion of theft that it be
someone else's; hence, this is not a circumstance of theft"; see also ibid., s.c. 2 for the same
consideration of adultery: "Furthermore, if someone knows a married woman, he commits
adultery, which is a certain species of sin. But to be a single or a married woman is a certain
circumstance of the act. Therefore, a circumstance gives species to a sin."

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"circumstances" is legitimate in a sense, since, under one
consideration, they are circumstances. 77
(2) Circumstances with regard to the exterior act considered
morally, that is, as chosen by the will. 78 Such circumstances would
be those conditions that do not have a special fittingness or
repugnance to reason, since it is reason that proposes the exterior
act to the will, and the will consents to it and chooses it, with all
the orders or disorders that might be entailed in it. In our
example, any condition not included in "taking someone else's
possession" and "profaning a consecrated thing" would be
circumstantial, even if they might aggravate guilt (e.g., if two
chalices were stolen; the amount is still only a circumstance, not
a new object, though it aggravates the guilt). These are the
circumstances that remain circumstances in any moral
consideration. They may either aggravate or diminish guilt, or
they may be completely irrelevant from a moral point of view.
They cannot change the species of the act, since any circumstances
that would change the species of the act are already included in
the specification of the exterior act as it is chosen by the will, and
hence, by this point, they would no longer be considered as
circumstances.
One might think that if we can speak of the circumstances of
the exterior act, we should also speak about the circumstances of
the interior act. The interior act of the will, however, does not
have any circumstances that modify it, since the act of willing is
simple and within the agent himself. When the will chooses or
intends something, no circumstances of its act of willing will
modify its goodness or badness. The interior act of the will is
specified by its object alone. 79 Saint Thomas explains:
Therefore, when it is said that someone wills some good when he must not or
where he must not, it can be understood in two ways: in one way, so that this
circumstance be referred to the thing willed [i.e., the exterior act]. And thus, the
willing would not be the willing of a good thing, since to will to do something
q. 2, a. 6.
Cf. De Verit., q. 22, a. 15, ad 3; De Malo, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1; II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 2, ad

77 De Malo,
78

2.
79 STh I-II, q. 19, a. 2.

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when it must not be done is not to will the good. In another way, so that it be
referred to the act of willing [i.e., the interior act]. And thus it is impossible that
someone should will the good when he must not, since a man must always will
the good, except perhaps per accidens, insofar as, by willing this good, someone
is hindered from willing at that moment some due good. And then the evil does
not come in from the fact that someone wills the good, but from the fact that he
does not will some other good. And the same is to be said for all the other
circumstances. 80

The will's own act can only be modified by circumstances as
regards its object (the exterior act), not as regards its own simple
act of willing. Said in another way, morally significant
circumstances regard what is willed, not the willing itself; and yet,
the will is evil if it chooses an object that is disordered, even if
that disorder accrues because of what seemed to be a mere
circumstance of the exterior act upon first glance (but which in
actual fact is sufficient by itself to entail a new disorder with
respect to reason).
I have tried to give the basic notions of the three terms that
signify the three sources of morality, with the hope of thereby
manifesting the reason for the apparent latitude in St. Thomas's
usage of them. This latitude, in my opinion, is not a sign of
confusion or sloppiness. It is simply due to the fact that these are
very general terms, with a variety of applications. And St. Thomas
is quite faithful to common usage when he uses them. One cannot
accuse him of an esoteric redefinition of common terms or a
gratuitous coining of new ones.
II. THE SPECIFICATION OF THE MORAL ACT ACCORDING TO ST.
THOMAS

Having laid out the basic meanings of the terms that designate
what has come to be called the "three sources of morality," I will
now attempt to explain why I think a consideration of these three
concepts needs to be subsumed into an examination of the moral
act as the one voluntary act composed of the exterior and interior

80

Ibid., ad 2.

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255

act 81 for a fuller understanding of St. Thomas's "moral action
theory." It is easier to understand the specification of moral acts
through such an examination rather than in a direct consideration
of the three sources of morality (though it may be easily seen how
these are related to the exterior act and the interior act). This is
in part precisely because of the latitude of the three terms defined
above, which seems to cause no little confusion. For example, if
we are to speak of the three sources of morality-object,
intention, and circumstance-as determining the morality of a
given concrete act, these terms must mean: (1) the object of the
exterior act (which is a nonaction; the first definition of object
above); (2) the intended end for the sake of which the exterior act
is done (the sixth definition above); and (3) either one of the
definitions of circumstance (i.e., conditions that either do enter
into the object, or that merely aggravate or diminish guilt, or that
have no moral bearing whatsoever). This seems to be the correct
way of looking at these three terms if they are to be used all
together. However, when we speak of "the moral object" so as to
distinguish it from further intentions, the word "object" in that
context refers to something completely different, namely, the
exterior act itself, considered as it is chosen by the will (i.e., along
with its own object [a nonaction] and circumstances). This would
correspond to the second definition of object above. These are
two very different meanings of the word "object"; much of the
debate about the moral object stems from the fact that the word
has these two principal meanings. 82
My thesis is that the exterior act performed is specified by its
own object, that is, the nonaction upon which it bears. It is so
specified not only by this object in its natural consideration, but
along with any "circumstances" that reason sees as entailing a
certain fittingness or disorder, primo and per se. This exterior act
as it is consideredby reason, and thus specified by its object and
rationally significant circumstances (which, strictly speaking, are
no longer just circumstances), and along with any pure
81 Cf. STh I-II, q. 20, a. 3.
82

Saint Thomas says the same in STh 1-11, q. 18, a. 6.

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circumstances that merely aggravate or diminish guilt, is
altogether the object of the will, that is, of the interior act of
choice. This is normally what we mean by "the moral object."
And since the will chooses it for some ulterior end (the object of
intention) which the agent intends to obtain through the exterior
act, the exterior act as it is performed by the agent also bears
within it a relation to that end, which also modifies its goodness
or badness.
The first step to explaining this thesis is to explain how all the
determinants of morality are only determinants because they are
objects of the will in one way or another.

A) The Primacy of Object
One reason that it is insufficient to consider the three sources
of morality alone can be seen in the fact that, even though we
speak of "the morality of human acts [as depending] on: the
object chosen; the end in view or the intention; [and] the
circumstances of the action," 83 nevertheless, when it comes to the
species of the moral act, that is, the voluntary act, 84 each one of
these three sources (discussed in STh 1-11, q. 18, aa. 2-4) only
specifies the will insofar as it is somehow a good willed, that is,
insofar as it becomes the object of the will. Put more bluntly, for
something to be morally relevant, it must be the object of the will
in some way. For example, with regard to circumstance, St.
Thomas says: "The circumstance is sometimes taken as an
essential difference of the object, according as it is compared to
reason, and then it can give species to the moral act" (STh 1-11, q.
18, a. 5, ad 4) The same is said in reference to both circumstances
and intention in De Malo (q. 2, a. 6, ad 2):
It can be understood that the circumstance gives the species ... according as that
circumstance is considered as the object of another adjacent act; for example, if
someone commits adultery so that he may steal, there is added another species
of sin because of the act of intention tending to a bad end, which is the object of
83

84

CCC1750.
Cf. STh I-II, q. 19, a. 6.

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the intention; and likewise, if someone does something unfitting in a holy
season, the holy season that is considered as a circumstance with respect to the
unfitting act which is done in it, can be considered as an object with respect to
the adjacent act, which is "to disdain a holy season."

The reason for this we have already seen: as far as the interior
act of the will goes, specification is from the object alone. 85 Even
the intention of an ulterior end only bestows a separate ratio of
good or evil upon the exterior act (viz., the act which is the object
of choice) 86 insofar as the object of choice (i.e., the exterior act)
bears an order within it (due to reason) to the object of intention
(i.e., the end cuius gratia); for example, the fact that I choose
almsgiving for vainglory adds a ratio of vainglory to this act of
almsgiving. 87 Both the act and the end to which it is related are
objects of the will (in its act of choice and in its act of intention).
That morality only comes into play insofar as the will bears
upon things or actions as objects is manifested well by St. Thomas
when he first introduces the exterior and interior act in questions
18-20 (viz., in q. 18, a. 6):
I respond it must be said that certain acts are called human insofar as they are
voluntary, as was said above. In the voluntary act, however, there is found a
twofold act, namely, the interior act of the will, and the exterior act, and each
of these acts has its own object. The end, however, is properly the object of the
interior voluntary act, but that which the exterior act is about, is its object.
Therefore, just as the exterior act receives its species from the object that it is
about, so the interior act of the will receives its species from the end as from a
proper object; in such a way, however, that that which is on the part of the will
is related as formal to that which is on the part of the exterior act, since the will
uses the members for acting, as instruments; nor do exterior acts have the ratio of
morality, except insofar as they are voluntary [i.e., insofar as they are objects of
the will, by the act of choice]. And therefore, the species of the human act are
considered formally according to the end, but materially according to the object
of the exterior act. Wherefore, the Philosopher says in the fifth book of the
------85 STh I-II, q. 19, a. 2. Stephen Brock explains this well: "Now, in ST I-II, q. 19, a. 2,
Thomas tells us that the goodness or badness of the interior act is solely from its object. This
is because the object of the interior act includes circumstances and end. So an act whose
circumstances and end add to the object must be an exterior act" ("[Not Merely] Physical
Objects," 35 n. 81).
86 Cf. II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 2; d. 38, q. 1, a. 5.
87 STh I-II, q. 19, a. 7. See also ibid., ad 1 and ad 2.

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Ethics that "he who steals that he might commit adultery is, per se speaking,
more of an adulterer than a thief." (Emphasis added)

B) The Exterior Act, the Interior Act, and Intrinsic Evils
Article 6 of question 18 introduces us to the consideration of
the exterior and interior act. The exterior act has its object, which
is that which it is about, or as St. Thomas says elsewhere, the
materia circa quam. 88 But the interior act also has its object, which
actually gives human and moral formality to the exterior act (since
the exterior act is only moral insofar as it is chosen by the will).
The object of that interior act is the end. This is not surprising,
since the will's object is the good in general, and the good always
has the character of an end. 89 But, of course, in any human action,
there are many ordered ends, until we are face-to-face with our
ultimate end itself. And each successive end may itself be a means
with regard to another end. In this successive order, it is the most
proximate end that gives the species to the act that is immediately
being done. As St. Thomas puts it, "the same act in number,
according as it goes out from the agent once, is only ordered to
one proximate end, from which it has its species; but it can be
ordered to many remote ends, of which one is the end of
another. " 90
In this ordered succession of ends of the will, with each end
specifying the interior act of the will that bears upon it (i.e., the
proximate end specifying choice, and the remote ends specifying
intention), 91 how does the exterior act fit in? It is precisely the
object of choice:
To the first therefore it must be said that the will is midway between the intellect
and the exterior operation, for the intellect proposes to the will its object, and

I-II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 2.
See for example De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 10.
90 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3. See also De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 9; q. 2, a. 6, ad 9; q. 2, a. 7, ad
8; II Sent., d. 36, q. 1, a. 5, ad 5; d. 38, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3.
91 See De Verit., q. 22, a. 15; STh I-II, q. 12, a. 4, ad 3; q. 13, a. 3; cf. II Sent., d. 38, q. 1,
a. 3.
88 STh

89

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259

the will itself causes the exterior action .... Election, however, names the act of
the will already determined to that which is to be done by this man. 92

And thus the exterior act, as the object of choice, is also the
proximate end of the will:
for the goodness of a thing, there is not only required the goodness of the
ultimate end which the intending will regards, but also the goodness of the
proximate end, which the choosing will regards; and therefore it does not follow
that the goodness of the intending will may suffice for the goodness of the act. 93

Hence, the exterior act itself is an object of the will, its first
end, specifying the act of the will. It does this along with all of its
circumstances, as has been mentioned above. 94 It is even chosen
along with any further rationes of goodness or badness that it has
from its ordering to further ends, as has also been mentioned
above. 95 But does it have any other moral import apart from
these?
To answer that question, St. Thomas begins by making a
distinction:
Certain exterior acts can be called good or bad in two ways. In one way,
according to their genus, and according to the circumstances considered in them,
as to give alms, with the due circumstances being observed, is said to be good.
In another way, something is said to be good or bad from the order to the end,
as to give alms for the sake of vainglory, is said to be bad. 96

In the next article, St. Thomas explains what the specification of
the exterior act "according to its genus and according to the
circumstances considered in it" means: such a consideration of the
act is the same as considering it "according to its matter and
STh I-II, q. 13, a. 5, ad 1. See also II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2: "To the second it must
be said that the exterioract is calledgood or bad accordingto the will; but not only according
to the will intending, but accordingto the will electing."
93 II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3 (emphasisadded). STh I-II, q. 20, a. 1, ad 1; q. 20, a. 4;
II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 3; De Malo, q. 2, a. 3; q. 2, a. 4, ad 9.
94 STh 1-11, q. 19, a. 2, co. and ad 2.
95 STh 1-11, q. 19, a. 7.
96 STh I-II, q. 20, a. 1.
92

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circumstances. " 97 This matter is nothing other than the object of
the exterior act, which St. Thomas calls the materia circa quam
(STh 1-11, q. 18, a. 2, ad 2), and which he says specifies acts
according to their genus (STh 1-11, q. 18, a. 2). 98 Thus, St. Thomas
considers the exterior act, that is, the act executed by the bodily
members, 99 according to what that act bears upon and the other
significant circumstances under which the act is performed, all as
considered by reason. This is a consideration, nevertheless, that
abstracts from the further intentions of the will to which that act
is ordered. An exterior human act is never performed without
ulterior intentions; 100 but the exterior act can be considered
abstracting from such an ordering to further ends.
It is just such an abstraction that sometimes yields the judgment
that an act is intrinsically evil. Saint Thomas explains this in
article 3 of question 20, an article that I would suggest is very
important:
However, it sometimes happens that, in those things which are ordered to
something else, something is good from the fact alone that that it is ordered to
97 STh I-II, q. 20, a. 2: "just as was already said, in the exterior act, there can be considered
a twofold goodness or badness: one according to the due matter and circumstances; another
according to the order to the end."
98 STh I-II, q. 18, a. 2: "so the first evil in moral actions is that which is from the object,
such as to take someone else's things. And this is called evil from the genus, with genus being
understood as the species, after that manner of speaking by which we call the human species
the human race !genus]."
Stephen Brock has already pointed out the identification of the "matter" in STh I-II, q. 20,
a. 2 with the "materia circa quam/object" of I-II, q. 18, a. 2 in "(Not Merely) Physical
Objects," 33: "In saying that the exterior act's intrinsic morality, the morality that it has in
itself, derives 'from reason,' is Thomas opposing this to 'from its materia circa quam'? If we
still want to say that the exterior act has its intrinsic goodness or badness from its 'object' (a
term Thomas does not use here), should we understand its 'object' to be something other than
its materia circa quam; say, some further 'significance' conferred upon it by reason, this being
what gives it its true moral 'form'? I do not think so. Indeed I think the text is quite clear
about this: The goodness or badness that an exterior act has from reason is 'the goodness or
badness that an exterior act has in itself, on account of {propter) its due matter and due
circumstances"'; and ibid., n. 79: "In any case, the mention of an act's goodness 'secundum
genus suum' in a. 1 is a clear allusion to q. 18, a. 2, where the genus is said to a be a function
of the object."
99 STh I-II, q. 6, a. 4; q. 1, a. 1, ad 2; q. 16 a. 1; q. 17, a. 9; q. 18, a. 6; De Malo, q. 2, a.
2, ad 1.
100 STh I-II, q. 18, a. 9.

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something else, just as bitter potion is good from the fact alone that it is healing.
Wherefore, the goodness of the health and the potion are not two different
goodnesses, but one and the same. But sometimes that which is ordered to
something else has in itself some notion of the good, even besides its order to
another good, as tasty medicine has the notion of the delightful good aside from
the fact that it is healing. Thus, therefore, it must be said that when the exterior
act is good or bad only from its order to the end, then the goodness or badness
of the act of the will, which per se regards the end, is completely the same as the
goodness or badness of the exterior act, which regards the end by the mediation
of the act of the will. But when the exterior act has goodness or badness
according to itself, namely, according to its matter or circumstances, then the
goodness of the exterior act is one goodness, and the goodness of the will that
is from the end is another, nevertheless, in such a way that both the goodness of
the end from the will redounds to the exterior act, and the goodness of the
matter and circumstances redounds to the act of the will, as was already said.

The point of this article is that the exterior act can sometimes
have its own measurability according to reason as ordered or
disordered, independent of any ends beyond itself. It can do this
precisely because it is itself the will's own first end/object. 101 That
is, insofar as a will chooses it-sometimes by that fact alone-the
will becomes bad or good, because the exterior act gives a species
to the will's choosing. 102
Of course, St. Thomas says that the exterior act may have no
ratio of goodness or badness apart from its further ordering to an
end. This is the case with acts that are morally indifferent in
kind. 103 But not all exterior acts are indifferent. Some entail an
order for or against reason simply by a consideration of their
object and circumstances. 104 This is precisely the definition of
intrinsically evil acts, acts that no intention or circumstances can
render good, as Aristotle points out:
But not every action nor every passion admits of a mean; for some have names
that already imply badness, e.g., spite, shamelessness, envy; and in the case of
actions, adultery, theft, murder; for all of these and suchlike things imply by
their names that they are themselves bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies of
them. It is not possible, then, ever to be right with regard to them; one must
101 See nn. 92 and 93 above.
102 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3.

103 STh I-II, q.

18, a. 8.

104 Cf. De Malo,

q. 2, a. 3; q. 2, a. 5; II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 3; d. 40, q. 1, a. 5.

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always be wrong. Nor does goodness or badness with regard to such things
depend on committing adultery with the right woman, at the right time, and in
the right way, but simply to do any of them is to go wrong. 105

Other examples not on Aristotle's list are the sin against nature 106
and lying. In reference to the latter, St. Thomas gives one of his
clearest texts on acts that are per se evil.
It must be said that whenever some act has some disorder inseparably annexed
to it, it can never be done well, since the very disorder is something too much or
too little, and thus the mean-in which virtue consists, according to the
Philosopher in book 6 of the Ethics-cannot be understood in such an act.
However, a lie is such an act. For words or vocal sounds were invented so that
they may be signs of concepts, as is said in the first book of the Peri Hermeneias;
and therefore, when someone enunciates by his voice what he does not have in
mind, which is implied by the word "lie," there is there a disorder through the
abuse of voice. And therefore we concede that a lie is always a sin. 107

There are other sins that, for their very definition, require
some ordering to an end in order to entail a disorder of reason.
For example, detraction is not defined simply as an act that
diminishes another's good name; rather, this must be intended as
an end (i.e., under the proper sense of intention, bearing on a
remote end to be obtained through a means). 108 Scandal is not
simply performing an act that our neighbor then takes as an
occasion of sin; rather, inducing our neighbor to sin must be part
of the intention. 109 Even killing a fellow human being is not an
exterior act that necessarily implies a disorder to reason, 110 as St.
105 Nicomachean Ethics 2.6.1107a9-17 (The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKean
[New York: Modern Library, 2001], 959).
106 De Malo, q. 15, a. 1.
107 Quodl. VIII, q. 6, a. 4.
108 STh 11-11, q. 73, a. 2.
109 STh 11-11, q. 43, a. 3.
110 Although for St. Thomas, there is kind of presumption against it due to its natural
badness, Quad. IX, q. 7, a. 2: "But there are certain actions which, absolutely considered [i.e.,
in their natural species; see above, nt. 53] imply a certain deformity or disorder, which
nevertheless are made good with the arrival of some circumstances; such as to kill a man or
to strike him in themselves imply a certain deformity, but if it be added, to kill a man for the
sake of justice, or to strike a delinquent for the sake of discipline, it will not be a sin, but

virtuous."

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Thomas says (in response to an objection posed to the article just
quoted above):
To the first therefore it must be said that homicide is always a sin, since it has a
disorder inseparably annexed to it. For homicide implies more than the slaying
of a man; for composite names frequently imply more than their component
parts; for homicide implies the undue slaying of a man. And therefore, homicide
is never licit, although to slay a man may sometimes be licit. 111
111 Quodl. VIII, q. 6, a. 4, ad 1. On the topic of the licit killing of another man,
Rhonheimer confuses the distinction in elective will between self-defense and capital
punishment. See "Intrinsically Evil Acts," 19 n. 20: "This affirmation, as is obvious,
presupposes that killing as the execution of capital punishment (pronounced by the competent
judicial authority) and taking into account the fact that the punished is really guilty according
to the standards of penal law, cannot be described as a choice of the death of a person ... in
an objective-intentional sense it is 'punishment' and therefore an act intentionally and
objectively belonging to the virtue of justice, and not the choice that a person not be, whether
as a means or as an end." This leads him to make the strange claim that capital punishment
is different from the unjust slaughter of Jews not only because the latter is unjust, but also
because the former is not a choice to kill. See "Intentional Actions", 299: "Paul Touvier had
no power to decide what would be his basic intention in killing seven innocent people. To
describe his action properly, one must include the purpose or the intention, 'wanting them to
be dead' (even if he would regret it; that is only a motivational side-feature, but not the very
intention of his acting). Touvier clearly wanted the seven to be killed; he chose their deaths
for the sake of some greater benefit"; and ibid., n. 41, "This is precisely what does not occur
in the case of capital punishment (the argument applies also if one is for other reasons
opposed to capital punishment), nor in that of legitimate self-defense, nor in that of killing in
a just war (which must always have a defensive, anti-aggression character)."
This is not true. Despite Rhonheimer's use of STh II-II, q. 64, a. 7 in explaining the former
assertion, capital punishment is not self-defense, and neither is just war. In both cases, the
ministers of the state are intending to kill. That is their prerogative as custodians of the
common good, which is more universal, more far-reaching than the private good (STh II-II,
q. 64, aa. 2-3). Thus, the private person never has the power to intend killing, not even in selfdefense (II-II, q. 64, a. 7). But in the very same article, St. Thomas is clear that the ministers
of the state do intend the death of the one they kill: "But since to slay a man is not licit except
by public authority for the sake of the common good, as is clear from the things said above,
it is illicit that a man should intend to kill a man so that he might defend himself, except to
him who has public authority, who, intending to slay a man for his own defense, refers this
to the public good, as is clear in the soldier fighting against the enemy, and in the minister of
the judge fighting against thieves" (emphasis added). See also STh I, q. 19, a. 6, ad 1: "the just
judge simply wills that the murderer be hanged." Rhonheimer comments, "In my view, St.
Thomas would never say that the death of the criminal is chosen as a means to restore justice
or to preserve the common good!" (Vital Conflicts in Medical Ethics: A Virtue Approach to
Craniotomy and Tubal Pregnancies, ed. William F. Murphy, Jr. [Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2009], 71). But St. Thomas does indeed say so, in rather
blunt terms: "man by sinning withdraws from the order of reason; and therefore ... in a

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Nevertheless, some sins are defined by the exterior act alone,
considered by reason according to its matter and circumstances,
even apart from intention in the proper sense 112 (though not apart
from intention in the sense of being done on purpose). 113 In the
case of such acts, for a person to choose them is enough to make
the will bad.
C) Judging Voluntary Acts
How is all this helpful in trying to understand the specification
of moral acts? Saint Thomas gives a good example in De Malo,
question 2, article 6:
Thus, having considered how sins may differ in species, it must be considered
what a circumstance is. Now, a circumstance names that which stands around the
act, as if considered extrinsically outside the substance of the act. And, indeed,
this is in one way on the part of final cause, when we consider why he did it; or
on the part of the principal agent cause, when we consider who did it; or on the
part of the instrument, when we consider by what instrument or by what
assistances. In another way, it stands around the act on the part of a measure, for
example, when we consider where or when he did it. In the third way, on the
part of the act itself, whether we consider the mode of acting, for example,
whether he struck slowly or strongly, frequently or once; or we may consider the
object or matter of the act, for example, whether he struck his father or a
foreigner; or also the effect which the agent induced by acting, for example,
whether by striking he wounded, or even killed him; 114 all of which are
certain way he falls into the slavery of beasts, namely, so that it may be ordered about him
according as he is useful to others ... and therefore ... to slay a sinful man can be good, just
as to slay a beast, for a sinful man is worse than a beast and more harmful" (STh II-II, q. 67,
a. 2, ad 3).
112 I.e., the sense in which it is a movement of the will toward the end as opposed to the
choice of the means--my fifth definition above.
!Ll I.e., my fourth definition above: intention in the sense of any movement of the will.
114 It is this point about the effect of an action that separates Finnis, Grisez, and Boyle from
St. Thomas. The New Natural Law authors write: "Considering the behavior and its results
as an event, or sequence of events, or set of causes and effects in the natural world, observers
can readily see craniotomy to be killing the baby and rightly describe it as doing so directly.
But Veritatis splendor teaches that it is wrong to consider behavior and its results that way
when carrying out moral reflection and seeking to determine what kind of human act is or was
being deliberated about, chosen, and done" (Finnis, Grisez, and Boyle, '"Direct' and
'Indirect'," 22). I doubt that this interpretation of Veritatis splendor is correct; it is certainly
not the thought of St. Thomas. Saint Thomas uses precisely the terms "effect," as he does

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contained in this verse: who, what, where, by what assistance, why, how, when.
Nevertheless, in such a way that in what is included not only the effect, but also
the object, so that it may be understood as both what and about what.

Using the case in this text as a guide, we can come to
understand how to evaluate what is morally relevant in a human
act. If one would find out what the person is intending or
choosing in a particular act, a good algorithm to follow is first to
simply identify the act, even if only in its natural species. If this
seems difficult, one can refer to the powers that executed it. This
is perfectly legitimate, since although acts have their specification
from their objects, a reference to the powers that executed them
can at least provide the genus. For although in agents whose
action is not determined to one 115 the specification of the act is
from the object, the power's object is also universal in relation to
the object of the act. 116 Once one has a basic act, designated by a
verb, it might be helpful to consider first what is the proper object
of this exterior act in relation to reason. Does the object upon
which the agent is actually bearing correspond to this reasonable
object? If it does not, the act is sinful, from the object of the
exterior act, which is included in the object of the will, insofar as
the exterior act itself is chosen by the will. If it does, then the next
question is whether there are any other circumstances of the act
thus far named that have a special repugnance to reason primo
and per se (that is, not assuming another disorder of reason upon
here, and "event," as he does in STh I-II, q. 20, a. 5; and in De Malo, q. 3, a. 10, ad 5. To
these texts may be added STh I-II, q. 73, a. 8 (though this one is rejected as irrelevant by
Finnis, Grisez, and Boyle because it deals with aggravation of already sinful action ["'Direct'
and 'Indirect'," n. 38]); and De Malo, q. 1, a. 3, ad 15: "Sometimes an accident of some effect
is cojoined to it as in the fewer cases and rarely; and then the agent, while he intends the per
se effect, it is not necessary that he intend in any way the per accidens effect. But sometimes
such an accident is concomitant to the effect principally intended always, or as in the more
numerous cases, and then the accident is not separated from the intention of the agent"
(emphasis added). The same doctrine is found in all of these texts: if the effect or event is
foreseen or one that follows per se and ut in pluribus, it does not wholly escape the
intentionality of the agent; and if it bears a special repugnance or fittingness to reason, it will
specify the act. But this goes well beyond the bounds of intentional analysis (seen. 73 above).
115 See STh I-II, q. 50, a. 3; q. 72, a. 3, co. and ad 3.
116 See STh I-II, q. 54, a. 1, co. and ad 2; II Sent., d. 36, q. 1, a. 5; STh I, q. 77, a. 3, co.
and ad 4; I-II, q. 72, a. 3, co. and ad 1; De Verit., q. 10, a. 3, s.c. 3.

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which the disorder from the circumstance depends). 117 If so, then
the act is sinful, though not properly from a circumstance, but
from the object of the interior act of the will, which chose the
exterior act even under such circumstances. But if there are no
circumstances of the exterior act according to which it has a
special repugnance to reason primo and per se, then the final
question is, Why is one performing this act? And if the object of
one's intention is bad, then this also bestows a notion of badness
on the exterior act, not considered as to its genus, but considered
as it is chosen for such an end. 118
An example will be helpful. John is having sexual intercourse.
What is the act in its natural species? It is generative, for John is
using his generative powers. 119 What does reason say is the
rational object of the use of one's generative powers? One with
whom offspring may be produced and educated properly, which
implies an already made long-term commitment. What is the
object of John's action? If it is an animal of another species, then
his act is clearly disordered, according to reason's consideration
of the object of the exterior act. If it is another man, or if another
party is altogether lacking, the same is true. But if it is a woman,
reason still asks, "Which woman?" If it is one married to John,
then the act is good; if not, the act is bad. Whether one considers
"married" or "unmarried" as a circumstance or as part of reason's
consideration of the object does not really matter, since reason
must consider both, and wherever the special disorder falls, that
will always be the object of the will. Assuming that John is having
intercourse with his wife, are there any other circumstances that
might make the act repugnant to reason? One can run through the
list of circumstances. Who (which refers not to the person as
agent, but to conditions of the person): 120 Does John know he has
AIDS and has not told his wife? When: Did they give up sexual
intercourse for Lent, for instance? Where: Are they doing it in
public? How: Are they keeping the natural mode? By what
q. 2, a. 7; IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 3. See nn. 70 and 71 above.
STh I-II, q. 20, a. 3; q. 19, a. 7, ad 2.

117 De Malo,
118
119

For the sake of clarity, I will only consider the act as the moral act of John.
d. 16, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 2, ad 1.

120 IV Sent.,

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assistance: Is John using a condom? If any of these is the case,
then it is only a circumstance in one's initial consideration, that is,
a consideration of the natural act or of some more general moral
species of the act (according to my first definition of "circumstance" above). Since they all imply a special repugnance to reason
that does not depend on a former disorder, they are objects of the
will, at least consequentially. 121 Finally, reason asks Why: Is John
having intercourse with his wife only so that he may deceive her
so that he can continue an affair with another woman? If so, then
the act of sexual intercourse is bad as it is performed by John,
since he has ordered it to an evil end, and his disordered intention
informs his proximate act. This intended end is both an object of
the act of intention (i.e., the intention of the end that is opposed
to the choice of the means-my fifth definition above), and it
endows a ratio of disorder upon the object of choice. 122
Or we can consider St. Thomas's example. What is the natural
act? It is one of my motive powers. I am "striking." What does
reason say is the rational object of striking? Something that may
harm my own bodily integrity, something subject to me that
requires discipline, something over which I have the authority to
do violence for punishment of moral guilt, or any number of
irrational objects. What am I striking? My father. Is that against
reason? Normally, it would seem so, but even for this, there is not
enough data. What are the other circumstances? What (as to
effect): Did I wound him or kill him? If the latter, was that against
reason? Most probably, but even now, we must refer to other
circumstances, such as who (do I have the proper authority), and
most importantly, why: Is he a criminal brought before me for a
capital crime? Most likely, the answer to these latter two will be
"no," of course, which is why in most cases reason can perceive
disorder as soon as it considers "father" and "killing." Such
"circumstances," in fact, place the object of the will in patricide,
not just violence, not just murder. 123
q. 2, a. 6, ad 6. See nn. 72 and 73 above.
I-II, q. 19, a. 7.
123 For a similar, very helpful explanation, see Brock's analysis of Macbeth's stabbing of
Duncan ("[Not Merely] Physical Objects," 50-55).
121 De Malo,
122 STh

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I have tried to give a basic account of my own understanding
of the moral act according to St. Thomas. In order to further
clarify this account, it will be be helpful to answer briefly some
possible objections.
III. REPLIES TO COMMON OBJECTIONS

In this section, I would like to consider the following five
observations that seem to go against my understanding of St.
Thomas: (A) the moral object is never a thing, but an act; (B) the
moral act cannot be defined without a basic intentionality; (C)
moral acts are specified by what is intended, not by what is praeter
intentionem; (D) the object of the interior act is related to the
object of the exterior act as form to matter; (E) the physical act as
such cannot even belong to morality, since an act is moral insofar
as it proceeds from reason.

A) The Moral Object Is Never a Thing, but an Act
I made the claim above that the object of the exterior act is a
nonaction. But morality is about human actions. Mere things
belong to another genus of science completely. Therefore, it
would seem that the moral object is always an action.
Nevertheless, the statement, "the moral object is never a thing,
but an act," is, simply speaking, false. It is true that a thing, in the
sense of a nonaction, is not in the realm of morality insofar as it
is a thing. But insofar as it is an object of a human act (i.e., a
moral act) 124 it can be a moral object, just as medicinal substance
is not healthy except insofar as it causes health in an animal. 125
The numerous texts of St. Thomas that manifest that he clearly
had no problem with referring to things as moral objects have

124 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 3; q. 6, pr.; q. 18, a. 8; q. 19, a. 1, ad 3; q. 20, a. 6, ad 2.
125 Stephen Brock already mentions this example in "(Not Merely) Physical Objects," 3031, where he cites STh I, q. 16, a. 1, ad 3 and, applying the analogy to the relation of interior
act-exterior act, STh I-II, q. 20, a. 3, ad 3.

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269

already been pointed out. 126 The fact is that, metaphysically
speaking, at some point the object of a moral act must be a thing.
This is for at least two reasons.
(1) Moral acts are acts that proceed from the will. They are
voluntary. 127 But the will's object is the good. The good, however,
is not like the true. For the good is in things, whereas the true is
in the mind. 128 That which most properly has the notion of the
good is the thing outside of the subject by union to which the
subject is perfected. This makes it desirable or "appetible" to the
subject. Indeed, the nominal definition of the good is "that which
is appetible. " 129 All beings having any admixture of potency seek
to obtain their perfect act by somehow being united to those
things capable of bestowing a perfection on them. 130 The moral
act is no different. 131 Eventually, at the term of the many steps of
the human act, there has to be some kind of uniting with a
nonaction that is exterior to us. Nevertheless, in the intention of
the agent, the action is sought· more than just the thing, since the
agent cannot be united to the thing except by some operation. But
the goodness that it seeks, even in the action, accrues to it from
the thing. 132
126 See Brock, "(Not Merely) Physical Objects," 23; Dewan, "St. Thomas, Rhonheimer,
and the Object," 73-78.
127 See STh I-II q. 18, a. 6; q. 19, a. 6; etc.
128 See De Verit., q. 1, a. 2; q. 21, a. 1; VI Metaphys., lect. 4 (Marietti ed., 1240); XII
Metaphys., lect. 7 (Marietti ed., 2526); STh I, q. 16, a. 4, ad 2.
129 STh I, q. 5, a. 1.
130 De Verit., q. 21, a. 1; q. 21, a. 6: "Moreover, the relation implied in the name 'good'
is a relation of something perfective, according as something naturally perfects"; see also De
Verit., q. 21, a. 3, ad 2; STh I, q. 5, aa. 1, 3-5; II Sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 1.
131 Since metaphysics is the science that has being as such for its subject, its conclusions
apply to all things that are, including moral matters. Not even the moralists can escape
metaphysics.
132 See for instance STh I-II, q. 16, a. 3: "But it must be considered that the ultimate end
is said in two ways: in one way, simply, and in another way, as far as concerns someone. For
as was said above, since the end sometimes names the thing itself, but sometimes the obtaining
of the thing or its possession-just as for the avaricious man, the end is either money or the
possession of money-it is manifest that, simply speaking, the ultimate end is the thing itself,
for the possession of money is only good because of the good of money. But as far as concerns
this man, the obtaining of money is the ultimate end: for the avaricious man would not seek
money except that he might have it." See also Brock's treatment and his many supporting texts

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(2) Everyone admits that acts are specified by their objects.
And while it is true that an action can have another action as its
object, and thus be specified by it, that latter action in turn
requires an object for its specification. There is no such thing as
an action without an object. And at some point, this series will
have to be terminated to a nonaction, for there cannot be an
infinite regress. 133
According to my view, the object of the exterior act is an
exterior thing, not necessarily a physical thing, but certainly a
nonaction. This exterior thing can even be called an object of the
interior act, but not immediately speaking. The interior act of the
will, namely, choice or intention, can only bear upon the exterior
thing by the mediation of some action executed by the bodily
members and powers of the soul. 134 Certainly, there are some
choices or intentions that do not bear upon exterior things. This
is particularly so in the case of acts of temperance. 135 But even in
that case, the act of choice bears upon another action that at some
point has for its object a nonaction, namely, the venerea, by the
mediation of the· moderation of the movements of the concupiscible appetite. 136 But where exterior things are involved, the
immediate object of choice is the exterior action by which one is
united to the thing. 137 And the immediate object of intention is
another action by which one is united to another thing. 138 Indeed,
this even obtains with regard to our ultimate end. God, as such,
is the thing to which we and all creatures of the universe are
drawn. He is the object of our beatific vision, even if in our
intention, our desire for the ultimate end is a desire for that
operation by which we are united to God. 139

in "(Not Merely) Physical Objects," 24-27.
133 This has also already been pointed out by Brock, "(Not Merely) Physical Objects," 23.
134 STh I-II, q. 13, a. 4; q. 16, a. 4, co. and ad 1; q. 17, a. 3, co. and ad 1.
135 IV Sent., d. 33, q. 3, a. 2, ad 5.
136 III Sent., d. 33, q. 2, a. 2, qcla. 2, ad 2.
137 See nn. 92 and 132 above.
138 STh I-II, q. 13, a. 4.
139 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 8; q. 2, a. 7.

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B) The Moral Act Cannot Be Defined without
Intentionality

271

a Basic

I claimed above that reason can consider the exterior act with
its object and circumstances apart from any consideration of any
further intended ends to which it may be ordered by the will. But
if an action performed by our powers or bodily members has no
intentionality behind it, this means it is not commanded by the
will, which always acts for an end. Hence, it would seem that we
cannot define the moral act without a basic intentionality.
This statement, "the moral act cannot be defined without a
basic intentionality," requires a distinction. If it refers to "moral
act" as a genus of actions, then it is true. The moral act is an act
that proceeds from the deliberate will. Thus, the properly moral
act is one that is done by an agent sciens et eligens. And in this
sense, it is by definition intentional in the sense that it is done on
purpose (my fourth definition above). It is even intentional in the
sense that the moral act is performed for the sake of an end to be
obtained through a means (my fifth definition of intention above),
since the moral act proceeds from reason, and reason always
orders the immediate act to further ends, and this means that
there is a further intention behind every moral act. 140 This is
nothing other than to consider the moral act from "the
perspective of the acting person." 141
However, if "the moral act" means a species of moral act, then
the statement is false. If "intentionality" is taken to mean a
specific intentionality, that is, the specific intended end (my sixth
definition above) then it is false, since some moral acts do not
require a reference to further intention for their definition. This
is the case for those acts that are intrinsically evil, in which the
exterior act by itself already carries in it a disorder. The "what"

140
141

STh I-II, q. 18, a. 9.
John Paul II, Veritatis splendor 78.

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KEVIN F. KEISER

does not always need the "why. " 142 Can the statement be true if
intentionality in general is all that is meant, that is, that we cannot
ascertain the moral species without intentionality as such? Strictly
speaking, no; for although the moral act in general requires
intentionality just to be the moral act, nevertheless, the species of
some moral acts can be determined by the exterior act alone,
apart from the consideration of the intentionality that is a
property of all moral acts. It is a matter of abstraction, just as one
can specify a circle by a definition that never mentions the fact
that mathematical beings can only have their actual existence in
matter. 143
For example, the moral act of "stealing" can be specified
merely by the exterior act of "taking someone else's thing,"
without any inclusion of a specific intention, 144 or any mentioning
of the fact that this act must proceed from an ordering reason that
cannot but order this act to ulterior ends; for this is already
assumed in the genus, in the fact that we are specifying human
acts.
Of course, St. Thomas says it better, and multiple times,
usually responding to an objection like the following:
Furthermore, since the good is convertible with being, something will have it
that it be good from the same thing that it has being. But the act has moral being
from the will; for if it is not voluntary, it is not a moral act. Therefore also it has
moral goodness and badness from the will. Therefore, according to itself, it is
neither good, nor bad, but indifferent.
But it may be said that, although the act may have it that it is moral insofar
as it is voluntary, which is a certain common characteristic; nevertheless, this
special characteristic that it is good or that it is bad it has according to itself-But
on the contrary, good and bad are differences of moral acts. But differences per
se divide the genus; and thus it is necessary that the differences not be referred
to something other than the genus. If, therefore, the act has this common

142 Cf. for the contrary view Rhonheimer, "Intrinsically Evil Acts," 30; idem, "Intentional
Actions," 297; Martin Rhonheimer, "The Perspective of the Acting Person and the Nature of
Practical Reason: The 'Object of the Human Act' in Thomistic Anthropology of Action," Nova
et Vetera 2 (2004): 499.
143 I Phys., lect. 1 (Marietti ed., 3 ).
144 See Dewan, "St. Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Object," 84-92.

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characteristic which is to be moral from the will, it will also have from the same
will that it be good or bad, and thus, according to itself, it is indifferent. 145

He replies:
To the third it must be said that to be voluntary pertains to the ratio of the
human act insofar as it is a human act; wherefore, what is in it insofar as it is
voluntary, whether according to its genus, or according to its difference, is not
in it per accidens but per se. 146

And as St. Thomas points out in the article, "according to its
difference" refers to the moral act judged from the relation of its
object to right reason. 147 Though the the genus of the act is from
its ordering by the will, its species does not come from the will,
but from the judgment of right reason concerning its object. Yet
since the will has taken up the act for its own ends, this is enough
to render the act voluntary and imputable, as to both genus and
species. To say that the species also comes from the will is to
confuse the generic nature of the moral act with its specification.
Saint Thomas identifies this problem very well in his commentary
on the Sentences.
Who say all acts are indifferent. These men considered acts only according to the
ratio of their genus; since insofar as the act is taken generally, it is indifferent to
moral goodness or badness, although it may have natural goodness. Nevertheless,
if they understood it of the act taken in the particular, thus that opinon was
simply false. But they seem to not have understood this, since they said that the
action taken in the particular is cojoined to a certain end, from which it has its
goodness or badness, such as stealing or some such thing. 148

Sometimes the exact same misunderstaning is found today: it is
assumed that the an exterior act can only be good or evil by
reference to some intended end. 149
De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, arg. 3 and 4.
De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 3.
147 De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, co. and ad 5.
148 II Sent., d. 40, exp. textus.
149 Cf. Rhonheimer, "The Perspective of the Acting Person," 499: "we cannot understand
and define the object of a human act without including in this definition an intentional
element that expresses the 'why' one does what one (externally) does. Without such a 'why'
145

146

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C) Moral Acts Are Specified by What Is Intended, Not by What Is
"praeter intentionem"

I claimed above that the exterior act as a moral object is
specified by its own object (a nonaction) and its species-changing
circumstances. But in many moral actions, circumstances, and in
some cases even the object of the exterior act itself, are not
intended, but materially cojoined to what is intended by the agent.
Indeed, no one is able to intend evil as such. 150 And yet, there is
the Aristotelian axiom that what is praeter intentionem is per
accidens. Thus, moral actions must be specified by what is
secundum intentionem.
This statement, "moral acts are specified by what is intended,
not by what is praeter intentionem," requires a distinction.
According to the strict meaning of intention, namely, the act of
the will that has as its object an end to be acquired through a
means (my fifth definition above) it is false. For in that case, the
immediate moral act is specified not by what is intended, but by
what is chosen, that is, the proximate end, the first object of the
will which is the exterior act. 151
Nevertheless, it is, of course, true that St. Thomas says
precisely that "moral acts receive their species according to that
which is intended, not, however, from that which is outside the
intention, since it is per accidens. " 152 Such statements and others
like it, such as the Gloss's "As much as you intend, so much do
you do, " 153 are to be understood in the wider sense of intention
(my fourth above) which includes as its object whatever one does
on purpose, that is, knowingly and willingly. In this sense, it
includes objects of choice. This is a very common use of the term
of which St. Thomas is quite aware, as he explains when he
manifests how the statement "As much as you intend, so much do
you do" can be true:
(a basic intentionality is configured by reason) we would be left with only the material
elements of the action, not yet ordered by reason."
150 STh 11-11, q. 78, a. 1, ad 2; I, q. 19, a. 9; 1-11, q. 8, a. 1.
151 See n. 93 above.
152 STh 11-11, q. 64, a. 7.
153 Cf. De Malo, q. 2, a. 2, ad 8; II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 3, ad 1.

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If nevertheless under intention be included not only the intention of the end, but
the will of the work, thus it is true in both good and evil that as much as
someone intends, so much does he do. For he who wills to slay the saints that he
may lend a service to God, or he who wills theft that he may give alms, seems
indeed to have a good intention, but a bad will. And because of this, if under
intention, the will also be included, so that the whole thing is named "intention,"
his intention will also be bad. 154

Thus, "as much as you intend, so much do you do" is true if
intention simply refers to what one bears upon as an object of his
will, which is always what makes an act to be moral in the first
place. But if intention refers only to a further end (my fifth
defintion above), then the statement is false. Nevertheless, it has
been the source of no little confusion, since many morally good
or bad acts in fact do require some intentional content for their
definition. 155 One often makes general statements regarding
specification from intention since this is what makes the will good
or bad ut in pluribus, as Peter Lombard hints, echoing St.
Augustine: 156 "Therefore, all the works of man are judged good or
bad according to intention and cause, except those which are per
se bad, that is, which cannot be done without transgression." 157
Be that as it may, if intention is understood in the wider sense,
as including election, such statements are true without
exception. 158
D) The Object of the Interior Act Is Related to the Object of the
Exterior Act as Form to Matter
I claimed above that the exterior act is specified by its own
object and any of its circumstances that imply a primo and per se
fittingness or repugnance to reason. These together finally place
De Malo, q. 2, a. 2, ad 8.
See the examples of detraction, scandal, and murder above.
156 Augustine, Contra Mendacium, c. vii.
157 Peter Lombard, II Sent., d. 40.
158 Thus, St. Thomas comments on the words of St. Ambrose: "'Your desire places the
name upon your deed.' If it is understood univerally, it must be expounded about electing
desire, and not only intending desire" (II Sent., d. 40, exp. textus). For current authors who
have made the same judgment, seen. 47 above.
154

155

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KEVIN F. KEISER

the concrete exterior act in a species, apart from any end to which
it is ordered. Yet St. Thomas says that the object of the interior act
is formal with respect to the object of the exterior act. But form
is what makes a thing to be what it is. Hence, although the object
of the exterior act may put the act in one species, nevertheless,
when the interior act takes this exterior act up, it would seem that
it endows its own species upon it.
The basic statement, "the object of the interior act is related to
the object of the exterior act as form to matter," is true. Saint
Thomas makes the analogy in Prima Secundae, question 18, article

6:
Therefore, just as the exterior act receives its species from the object that it is
about, so the interior act of the will receives its species from the end as from a
proper object; in such a way, however, that that which is on the part of the will
is related as formal to that which is on the part of the exterior act, since the will
uses the members for acting, as instruments; nor do exterior acts have the ratio
of morality, except insofar as they are voluntary. And therefore, the species of
the human act are considered formally according to the end, but materially
according to the object of the exterior act. Wherefore, the Philosopher says in
the fifth book of the Ethics that "he who steals that he might commit adultery
is, per se speaking, more of an adulterer than a thief."

However, if one were to interpret this to mean that the species of
the one moral act is set exclusively by the interior act, such an
understanding would be false. Saint Thomas makes it clear in the
very next article that the species comes more from the object than
from the end (and in this particular context, following as it does
article 6, the word "end" refers to the object of the interior act,
whereas the word "object" refers to that of the exterior act):
the specific difference which is from the end is more general; and the difference
which is from the object per se ordered to such an end is specific with respect to
it. For the will, whose proper object is the end, is a universal mover with respect
to all the powers of the soul, whose proper objects are the objects of particular
acts. 159
159 STh I-II, q. 18, a. 7. See also IV Sent., d. 16, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 2, ad 3: "But the end of the
agent is different, since sometimes he intends good from a bad, or vice-versa; and this end is
called the circumstance 'why.' But from this the act does not receive its proper species, but as
it were its common species.''

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277

Even more enlightening is the reply to the third objection. The
objection itself runs as follows:
Furthermore, the more formal some difference is, the more specific it is, since
the difference is compared to the genus as form to matter. But the species which
is from the end is more formal than that which is from the object, as was said.
Therefore, the species which is from the end is contained under the species
which is from the object, as the species specialissimaunder a subalternate genus.

Saint Thomas's reply shows just how one is to understand "form"
as it applies to either the interior or the exterior act.
To the third it must be said that the difference is compared to the genus as form
to matter insofar as it makes the genus to be in act. But the genus is also
considered as more formal than the species according as it is more separated and
less contracted. Wherefore also the parts of a definition are reduced to the genus
of formal cause, as is said in the Physics. And according to this, the genus is a
formal cause of the species, and it will be the more formal the more general it is.

This is very significant, since it makes clear that in St. Thomas's
own judgment the fact that the end is formal with respect to the
object of the exterior act does not mean that the end sets the
species specialissima, but only the genus. 160 "More formal" here
160 I must mention here my strong disagreement with Steven A. Long. Long makes his
entire moral synthesis rest on his reading of STh I-II, q. 18, a. 7 ("Response to Jensen on the
Moral Object," Nova et Vetera 3 [2005]: 103). He does recognize that the genus comes from
the end and the specific difference comes from the object ("A Brief Disquisition regarding the
Nature of the Object of the Moral Act according to St. Thomas Aquinas," The Thomist 67
[2003]: 58) but, in his words, "if, and only if, the object is naturally (per se) ordered to the
end, will the moral species derived from the end be most formal and most containing and
defining, such that the moral species derived from the object is merely a specific difference of
that species" (Teleological Grammar, 25-26).
This is speech that fails to signify. To be both the most containing and the most defining
at the same time is to be both the most general and the most specific at the same time. And
to be the specific difference and not be the most defining is to be the most defining and not
the most defining. Man is not most defined by the genus of "animal" that contains him, but
by the "rational" that is his specific difference. It would be absurd to answer the question,
"What most defines man?" with the response, "His animality." The specific difference is that
which signifies how a thing is what it is.
This claim is the very bedrock of Long's moral synthesis, repeated frequently throughout
his works (Telelogical Grammar, 25, 25-26, 48, 50, 51, 84 [twice], 84-85, 86; "A Brief
Disquisition," 58, 59 [twice], 61; "Response to Jensen," 102 [three times], 103, 105, 107,
107-8, 108; "Veritatis Splendor§ 78 and the Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act," Nova

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KEVIN F. KEISER

means more general, more universal, less restricted, less defined.
This is not just a one-time exception to how we understand
"form." In fact, whenever we are dealing with ordered powers,
that which is material is actually that which supplies the substance
of the act produced. 161 Even more importantly, whenever we are
speaking about "form" in relation to the objects of powers, we are
not designating the speciesspecialissima,but that which makes the
object relatable to the power in question. 162 This is precisely why
charity is known as the "form of the virtues," although each of the
virtues remains essentially distinct from charity: charity imposes
its own form on the virtues 163 in that it is by charity that the other

et Vetera 6 [2008]: 146 [twice]; "An Argument for the Embryonic Intactness of Marriage,"
The Thomist 70 [2006]: 276-77). In all of these places, it stands as a major premise.
It is possible that Long is incautious about the meaning of "specific difference" or
"defining." See Teleological Grammar, 51, 84, where he replaces the term "specific
difference" with "accidental specification," even though accident is precisely distinguished
against specific difference among the predicables.
Long's other general point about the need for attention to "natural teleology" is well taken,
and with it I agree (see nn. 73 and 115 above). But he uses the wrong article: he should have
focused on the loci where St. Thomas actually discusses the moral import of effects and
outcomes of actions (STh I-II, q. 20, a. 5; q. 73, a. 8; De Malo, q. 1, a. 3, ad 15; q. 3, a. 10,
ad 5). The primary goal of STh I-II, q. 18, a. 7 is threefold. First, it is to establish that only
certain acts, namely, those per se ordered to the end, can have the formality of their end
endowed upon them (e.g., only reasonable acts, per se ordered to the ultimate end, can be
informed by charity [STh II-II, q. 23, aa. 7-8; cf. also II-II, q. 58, a. 6; V Ethic., lect. 2, where
the identification is essential, not just in final or efficient cause]), and this Long grants. Second,
it is to establish that when the act is not so per se ordered to the end, the exterior act sets its
own species from its own object and there is no further determination needed; this, too, Long
grants. Third, it is to establish that when the act is so per se ordered, the species specialissima
(i.e., that which most of all accounts for what the act is) is still set by the exterior act's object
(e.g., even if an act of fortitude is informed by an act of charity, it still remains essentially and
substantially an act of fortitude [STh I-II, q. 13, a. l]). In other words, no matter what, the
definition of the act done is set by the exterior act's object. In this, the doctrine of STh I-II,
q. 18, a. 7 is no different from St. Thomas's doctrine elsewhere: the exterior act as chosen,
that is, the proximate end, sets the species (cf. STh II-II, q. 11, a. 1, ad 2, which apparently
refers back to I-II, q. 18, a. 7; cf. also the numerous texts cited inn. 169 below; and Jensen's
treatment in "A Long Discussion," 634-36). This Long denies, saying the exact opposite.
161 See STh I-II, q. 13, a. 1.
162 De Caritate, a. 4: "That is formal in an object according to which the object is referred
to a power or habit"; cf. also III Sent., d. 27, q. 2, a. 4, qcla. 1, ad 3.
163 STh II-II, q. 23, a. 8, ad 1.

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279

virtues are truly virtuous, ordered to the ultimate end. 164 But each
of the virtues still obtains its species from its own proper object.
Saint Thomas's common analogy of light and color being
related as form to matter, often used in his treatments of
morals, 165 should make the proportion clear. Although light is that
by which colors are rendered visible, 166 nevertheless, the species
are still from color. 167 So the interior act of the will, as it tends to
an end, is that by which acts are moral. 168 But its determination is
still from the object of the exterior act. 169 The man who commits
theft so that he may commit adultery may be more of an adulterer
than a thief, "but he is also a thief," 170 and, more importantly, his
proximate act is more theft than adultery.
E) The Physical Act as Such Cannot Even Belong to Morality, since
an Act Is Moral Insofar as It Proceeds from Reason and Will

I claimed above that a will can be judged as bad solely from the
fact that it chose an exterior act with undue matter and/or
circumstances. And the exterior act is defined as an act executed
by man's lower powers or bodily members, bearing upon a
nonaction as its object. This seems to make the will's specification
depend on a physical action. But that is impossible, since morality
is precisely about actions that have reason and will as their
principle, and are thus beyond the physical.
The statement, "The physical act as such cannot even belong
to morality," requires a distinction. If "physical act as such" means
164

Ibid., co.

q. 2, a. 2, ad 5 and ad 11; De Caritate, a. 3, ad 11; II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 4,
ad 1. Cf. Murphy, "Aquinas on the Object," 224.
166 De Verit., q. 22, a. 14, s.c. 2: "just as light is the ratio of visibility to color, so the end
is the ratio of appetibility for that which is toward the end"; De Caritate, a. 3, ad 11; De
Malo, q. 2, a. 2, ad 5.
167 De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 7; q. 2, a. 6, ad 16; ; Quod. III,, q. 12, a. 2.
168 STh II-II, q. 23, a. 8; De Caritate, a. 3; III Sent., d. 23, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 1; II Sent., d. 26,
q. 1, a. 4, ad 5.
169 III Sent., d. 23, q. 3, a. 1, qcla. 1, co. and ad 2; d. 27, q. 2, a. 4, qcla. 3, ad 5; De
Caritate, a. 3, ad 9 and ad 10; III Sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 1, ad 2; IV Sent., d. 15, q. 1, a. 1,
qc. 1, ad 3; II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3.
170 Brock, "(Not Merely) Physical Objects," 50.
165 De Malo,

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that the act is simply an action that is only natural, that is, that
does not proceed from reason and will, then of course it could not
belong to morality. Even if it proceeded from other interior
principles, if these in turn were not imperated by reason and will,
the act would not be moral.
But no one says this. 171 When we speak of the exterior act in
the context of morals, we are talking about the exterior act
insofar as it is a human act, proceeding from a deliberate will. 172
And while it must always be acknowledged that such an act must
actually proceed from reason and will, nevertheless, when it
comes to determining the species of the moral act, one can
abstract from the fact that the act proceeds from an individual's
reason and will, and simply consider the exterior act according to
its matter and circumstances in their relation to right reason. 173
Such an abstract consideration takes for granted that the exterior
act is chosen by a will based on a proposal by reason. Again, St.
Thomas addresses this many times:
But those who considered in sin only that from which it has the notion of fault
said that sin only consists in the will. But it is necessary to consider not only the
171 Cf. Brock, "(Not Merely) Physical Objects," 12: '"It is therefore wrong to understand,
as object of a given moral act, a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be
assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world'
[VS 78]. This is the sentence that bears most directly on the main question of this paper:
whether physical or bodily entities can be objects of moral acts. Taken by itself, the sentence
does seem to answer negatively. Nevertheless I think it would be a mistake to read it in this
way, because I do not believe that it is meant to answer that question at all. The question that
it is meant to answer is whether an object of choice can be something 'premoral,' or 'ontic,'
or 'merely physical'-something that is not in itself a moral object. To this the answer is no.
But this is not to say that the object of choice cannot be something physical. It is only to say
that the object cannot be merely physical. Whatever else an object of choice is, it must be
moral too ... no one is saying that what is merely premoral can itself be a moral object." See
also Brock's treatement of "as such" in ibid., 49 n. 109. The reasoning to which Brock is
responding is a classic ignoratio elenchi, which is an ignorance of what it is to refute (Aristotle,
Sophistic Refutations 5.167a21-23). A refutation is produced when the conclusion of an
argument is the contradictory of the statement which the opponent is claiming as true. In the
case at hand, the refutation of "physical acts can imply a disorder of reason in themselves" can
only be "physical acts cannot imply a disorder of reason in themselves." To counter with the
conclusion that "physical acts as physical have no relation to reason" is not a refutation.
172 STh I-II, q. 1, a. 1.
173 De Malo, q. 2, a. 4 (seen. 147 above).

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281

deformity itself, but also the act that underlies the deformity, since sin is not the
deformity, but a deformed act. The deformity of the act, however, is by the fact
that it is discordant from the due rule of reason or the law of God. And this
deformity, indeed, is found not only in the interior act, but also in the exterior
act. But nevertheless, the very fact that the deformed exterior act is imputed to
man for fault is from the will. And thus it is clear that if we wish to consider
everything that is in a sin, sin not only consists in a privation, nor in an interior
act alone, but also in the exterior act. 174

It is not a particularly difficult distinction. It only requires the
ability to abstract.
CONCLUSION

The reason it was necessary to mention and reply to some of
these objections is because they are not merely theoretical. They
are being taught, and I would argue that they are contributing to
the confusion in Moral Theology today. I also think that they are
rather shocking, since most of these problems were resolved long
ago. The dangers of putting the definition of all moral acts in
intention, even just one basic intention, were evident to St.
Augustine:
For of what most heinous deed, what most foul crime, what most impious
sacrilege, may it not be said that it is possible for it to be done rightly and justly;
and not only with impunity, but even gloriously, that in perpetrating thereof not
only no punishments should be feared, but there should be hope even of
rewards: if once we shall concede in all evil works of men, that not what is done,
but wherefore done, must be the question; and this, to the end that whatever are
found to have been done for good causes, not even they should be judged to be
evil?17s

While almost no Catholic theologian would like to say that his
system does away with objective morality, it sometimes becomes
174 De Malo, q. 2, a. 2; see also ibid., ad 13; II Sent., d. 35, q, 1, a 4, co. and ad 1; IV Sent.,
d. 15, q. 1, a. 1, qcla. 1, ad 3; STh I-II, q. 20, a. 4, ad 2.
175 Augustine, Against Lying, trans. H. Browne, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first
Series, vol. 3, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, N.Y.: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887); rev.
and ed. for Kevin Knight, http://www.newadvent.org!fathers/1313.htm (accessed 1 May
2009).

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difficult to see how any claims to the contrary are not anything
more than mere assertions. Indeed, the position that the exterior
act, even apart from intention, is not enough to specify moral acts
manifests its dangers and absurdities in the conclusions that some
reach, some of which have already been mentioned at the
beginning of this article. At a certain point, it becomes clear that
those moral systems that give primacy to intention in the
specification of moral acts retain objective morality only in name.
Nevertheless, even if such a moral theory could retain its place
in theological speculation, one thing is certain: it is not the
thought of St. Thomas. The fact that such views are being
entertained as his thought comes from a misunderstanding of St.
Thomas' texts, a misunderstanding which can, I think, be avoided
if one understands the terms "object," "intention," and
"circumstance" within the schema of the one moral act composed
of the exterior act and the interior act, where the former is the
object of the latter, and yet has its own constitution by its own
object and species-changing circumstances.

The Thomist 74 (2010): 283-310

THREE THEMES IN PR'.ZYWARA'S EARLY THEOLOGY
KENNETH R. OAKES
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen, Scotland
« Furcht und Liebe >>, wohinein man den Inbegriff
des religiosen Verhaltnisses legen kann, ist eben nichts
anderes als der religiose Ausdruck der analogia entis:
Gott in den Geschopfen und darum Liebe,
Gott iiber den Geschopfen und darum Furcht:
« Liebende Furcht und filrchtende Liebe »
(Augustinus, In Ps 118 s. 22, 6). 1

T

HE EARLY THOUGHT of the Upper Silesian Erich
Przywara (18 8 9-1972) constitutes a rich and largely untilled
field of inquiry within English-language scholarship. 2
Within the period from the 1917 "Eucharist und Arbeit" to the
seminal 1932 Analogia Entis, the basic orientations of Przywara's
later thought both were established and underwent several
significant shifts. In the early to mid-1920s Przywara elaborated
his "philosophy of polarity" that (1) allowed God to be God and
creatures to be creatures made in the likeness of God, and (2)
accounted for the perpetual rhythms between subject and object,
being and becoming, and personality and form within creaturely
1 Erich Przywara, "Weg zu Gott" in idem, Schriften, vol. 2, Religionsphilosophische
Schriften (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1962), 3-120. Also in Ringen der Gegenwart.
Gesammelte Aufsiitze 1922-192 7 [hereafter Ringen der Gegenwart], vol. 1 (Augsburg: Filser
Verlag, 1929), 389-539. "'Fear and love,' the quintessence of religious relationships, is
nothing other than the religious expression of the analogia entis: God in creation and
therefore love, God over creation and therefore fear: a loving fear and a fearing love."
2 I am classifying Przywara's "earlier theology" as the period up until the 1932Analogia
Entis (Analogia Entis: Metaphysik. vol. 1, Prinzip [Miinchen: Kosel & Pustet Verlag, 1932];
the locution should be taken in a chronological and heuristic sense, with material issues being
bracketed for present purposes.

283

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KENNETH R. OAKES

existence. As the 1920s marched on, this philosophy of polarity
was gradually replaced by and absorbed into the analogia entis. It
was also during this time period that Przywara wrote some of his
more devotional and poetic works on the parables, the ecclesial
calendar, love, and lgnatian spirituality, works that Berhard Gertz
argues were essential for his later theological and philosophical
formation 3 and that prefigured his later interactions with
Scripture and the lgnatian Exercises. 4 Przywara also began to engage the works of Scheler, Simmel, Kierkegaard, Kant, Aquinas,
and Newman, formed a friendship with Edith Stein, and offered
one of the earliest Roman Catholic responses to the new
theologians of crisis.
Within the fairly diverse genres exhibited by Przywara's fruhe
Werke, there are three interrelated themes that constantly
reappear and that can already be seen in this article's epigraph:
the God who is in creation and beyond creation, the analogia
entis, and a loving fear and a fearing love. This article is a
descriptive analysis of these three motifs within Przywara's early
thought.
I. THE GOD WHO Is IN Us AND BEYOND Us
He is ... both interior to every single thing, because in him are all things, and
exterior to every single thing, because he is beyond all things. 5

In some sense, the doctrine of God beyond and in us was
Przywara's preliminary answer to a question he raised in his 1915
work Unsere Kirche: "to understand the 'ultimate' religious
relationship between God and creation. " 6 Przywara's primary
3 Berhard Gertz, Glaubenswelt als Analogie. Die theologische Analogie-Lehre Erich
Przywaras und ihr Ort in der Auseindersetzung um die analogia fidei (Diisseldorf: Patmos
Verlag, 1969), 122-23, 131-32. Throughout this article I am heavily indebted to Gertz's
magnificent work.
4 Erich Przywara, Evangelium. Christentum gemap Johannes (Niirnberg: Glock und Lutz,
1954); idem, Alter und Neuer Bund. Theologie der Stunde (Vienna: Herold, 195 6); and idem,
Logos-Abendland-Reich-Commercium (Diisseldorf: Patmos, 1964).
5 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim, 8.26.48.
6 Erich Przywara, Unsere Kirche: Neue religiose Volkslieder (Regensburg: Habbel, 1915),
quotd in Przywara, Analogia Entis, vii.

PRZ¥WARA'S EARLIER THEOLOGY

285

response to this question is to identify and then avoid the
interrelated errors of "theopanism" 7 and pantheism. Following
Franz Kiefl and Ernst Troeltsch, the Przywara of the 1920s traced
theopanism, or "God alone," back to the Reformation,
particularly to Luther and his doctrine of God's Alleinwirksamkeit, or sole-causality. 8 Such a doctrine was, for Przywara, nothing
less than disastrous for theology and philosophy. On the one
hand, it negated the reality of creation. On the other hand, it
rendered the concept of God unstable, as such a doctrine could
readily become inverted into a philosophy of pure immanence, or
"creation alone," as witnessed within the diverse philosophies of
modernity. Luther's God lived on in the twentieth century in the
guises of the. "Eschatologismus" 9 of the "Barth-ThurneysenGogarten Schule," 10 as well as the philosophies of Scheler and
Simmel. If Barth attempted to steer a course between liberal
Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, then Przywara navigated
a course between Protestantism (basically theopanism) and
modern philosophy (effectively pantheism); 11 both, then, offered
theologies with polemic edges.
Given his assessment of where Protestant theology and modern
philosophy erred, Przywara's primary battlefields at this time were
accounts of transcendence and immanence within the doctrine of
God, and modern epistemologies and metaphysics. Both fronts
were necessary inasmuch Przywara believed that misconstrued
accounts of transcendence and immanence, whether theological
or philosophical, have deleterious effects upon metaphysics of
7

Przywara picked up this term from a letter of Rudolf Otto to Franz Heiler. See Przywara,

Schriften, 2:265, 352, and 395.
8 Important for Przywara's interpretations of Luther at this time were articles by Franz
Xavier Kief!, "Martin Luthers religiiise Psyche als Wurzel eines neuen philosophischen
Weltbildes," Hoch/and 15 (1917/18): 7-28; and Ernst Troeltsch, "Luther und der
Protestantismus," Die neue Rundschau 28 (1917/18): 1297-1325. Both alleged that the core
of Luther's theology is God's sole-causality. See Przywara, "Gott in uns und iiber uns," in
idem, Ringen der Gegenwart, 2:548.
9 Przywara, "Neue Religiositiit," in Ringen der Gegenwart, 1:48-77, at 49.
10 Erich Przywara, "Gott in uns oder iiber uns? (lmmanenz und Transzendenz im heutigen
Geistesleben)," Stimmen der Zeit 105 (1923): 343-62. A modified version of this essay can be
found under the title "Gott in uns und iiber uns," in Ringen der Gegenwart, 2:543-78.
11 Przywara, Schriften 2:87.

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KENNETH R. OAKES

creation and epistemologies. Przywara rehabilitates Augustine's
Deus interior et exterior, "God in us and beyond us," as a doctrine
that is able to retain a Roman Catholic "unity of tension" (Spannungseinheit), "polarity," or "doctrine of opposition" (Gegensatzlehre). It is this polarity or unity of tension that is able to affirm
that God is in and beyond us while not inverting or reducing one
into the other. 12 The counterpart to this doctrine of God is a
doctrine of creation that allows creatures to be creatures, and that
will exclude any thrashing between the poles of creation as
nothing and creation as everything. Przywara also begins to
elaborate a "philosophy of polarity" or what he will soon call a
"creaturely metaphysics," 13 that will describe the inherent unsettledness and fleetingness of creaturely existence without sublimating creation into a mist or inflating it into the divine.
Two representative works from this period in which Przywara
attempted to reformulate the doctrines of God and creation are
his Gottgeheimnis der Welt 14 and Gott. 15 The former is more
oriented towards the working-out of a philosophy of polarity,
while the latter focuses primarily on showing how God is beyond
and in us (and beyond and in us both in Christ and in the
Church), but both exhibit a similar structure. In each of these
works Przywara examines current cultural and intellectual
phenomena before offering his own positive theology and
philosophy. In Gottgeheimnis, for instance, he initially interacts
with three of his main cultural interests at the time: phenomen12 For the earlier discussions of how this differs from dialectic see Erich Przywara,
"Religionsphilosophie katholischer Theologie," in Schriften, 2:373-511, at 405-6; and the
discussions in idem, Analogia Entis, 67-69.
13 Przywara, Analogia Entis, 7, 13, 31-33, 37, 42.
14 Erich Przywara, "Gottgeheimnis der Welt. Drei Vortrage iiber die geistige Krisis der
Gegenwart," in Przywara, Schriften, 2:121-242. This work was originally a series of lectures
delivered at IBm in 1923 and published that same year. The title of Eberhard Jiingel's work
Gott als Geheimnis der Welt: Zur Begriindung der Theologie des Gekreuzigten im Streit
zwischen Theismus undAtheismus (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001) bear a striking similarity
to this piece. Although Jiingel was familiar with Przywara's work, I am unaware of any
intended connection.
15 Erich Przywara, "Gott. Fiinf Vortrage iiber das religionsphilosophie Problem," in
Przywara, Schriften, 2:243-3 72. This work comes from a series of lectures delivered at Leipzig
in 1922.

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ology, the liturgical movement, and the youth movement. 16 Each
movement, he argues, contains inarticulate metaphysical, ethical,
and theological concerns and presuppositions that deserve
theological reflection. Phenomenology, by which Przywara means
Husserl but most especially Scheler, raises the aporiae of the
relationships between subject and object (i.e., epistemology), being
and becoming (metaphysics), while the liturgical and youth
movements raise questions of personality and form (ethics). These
movements also inevitably pose the question of God within the
context of these earlier relationships, for "consciously or
unconsciously, every worldview depends upon its understanding
of the mystery of God." 17 The first sections of Gott, by contrast,
deal with the fashionable philosophy of religion texts being
published by Scheler, Hartmann, and Wobbermin, after which
Przywara offers a typology of doctrines of God within antiquity
and modernity. This pattern of beginning by analyzing various
historical and contemporary philosophies and theology is repeated
in the slightly later Religionsphilosophie katholischer Theologie
and in the second half of the Analogia Entis.
Przywara's positive response in Gottgeheimnis to the polarities
of subject and object, being and becoming, personality and form,
and even God and creation, is nicely summarized in this
statement:
The philosophy of polarity grows out of our religiosity of polarity because we
can only know him [God] as the incomprehensible unity of object and subject,
life and the now of eternity, person and form, as a unity that we can only grasp
in a questioning and limited manner, with the posture of a perpetual movement
between two poles of thought, as a unity that is in him alone, while creation can
only strive constantly towards this unity, becoming a unity, never being a

16 By the Liturgical Movement, Przywara usually means the texts and work of Romano
Guardini. On the various youth movements within Germany from the 1890s until the 1940s,
see Walter Laqueur, Young Gennany: A History of the Gennan Youth Movement (New
Brunswick: Transaction, 1984). For the Catholic youth movements in particular, see Mark
Edward Ruff, The Wayward Flock: Catholic Youth in Postwar West Gennany, 1945-1965
(Chapel Hill, N.C., and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), which, despite
its title, also deals with the 1920s.
17 Przywara, "Gottgeheimnis," 214.

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KENNETH R. OAKES

unity-because in the innermost depths of our souls, in the depths of our solus
cum Solo, we inhabit a polarity of knowing and of living. 18

What follows in the text is an account of the absolute identity of
object and subject, being and becoming, personality and form
within God, their ceaseless difference within creation, and the
movement of thought required within theology so that God is not
reified into one pole of experience or thought. 19 The subtle yet
sweeping premise of Przywara's method is that the doctrine of
God beyond and in us works to guide theological and
philosophical accounts of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics.
Two moves repeatedly appear as Przywara progresses through
these polarities. First of all, he uses the "God beyond us" half of
his couplet to demarcate Creator and creation, hence the repeated
admittance of "Tu So/us" at the beginning of each reflection. For
example, it is only in the God who is beyond us, the Deus-Veritas
of Augustine and the ipsum intelligere of Aquinas, that subject and
object, the act of knowing and the object known, are utterly
identical. Creaturely knowledge, by contrast, consists of an
unceasing movement between subject and object. Any attempt to
absolutize either by a transcendental idealism of the knower or the
known "empties and devalues the proper fullness of the world. " 20
Przywara's second move is to employ the "God in us" half of his
couplet to argue that the very difference between subject and
object within creation is a sign that God is within all of the
distinctions and dualisms of our created reality. He writes,
God beyond us and therefore he alone the identity of subject and object; but
God in us, in the ultimate depths of the created dualism between subject and
object and their being directed towards one another, the polarity, the unity in
opposition and tension of subject and object. 21

Ibid., 216.
In terms of the proper movement of theological thinking, Przywara's argument squarely
lines up with that of Karl Barth in his "Fate and Idea within Theology" (in The Way of
Theology in Karl Barth: Essays and Comments, ed. H. Martin Rumscheidt (Allison Park,
Penn.: Pickwick Publications, 1986).
20 An argument most poignantly expressed in the first half of the Analogia Entis (3-61).
21 Przywara, "Gottgeheimnis," 221.
18
19

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God's being both beyond and in us, and our own knowing as
creatures of this God, are thus the bases of an epistemology of
polarity.
This same pattern of differentiation without separation occurs
within the sections on being and becoming, and person and form.
It is again Tu So/us, the God who is beyond us, Augustine's
operando requiescit et requiescendo operatur and Aquinas's actus
purus, in whom being and becoming are identical in infinite life.
Within creatures,
conversely, there is an irreducible
difference-Aquinas would call it a real distinction-between
being and becoming, essentia and existentia. Przywara again
concludes by stating,
God beyond us and thus he alone the identity of flowing life and unchanging
eternity; but God in us, in the ultimate depths of the created dualism of being
and becoming and their being directed towards one another, the polarity, the
unity in opposition and tension of becoming and being. 22

God in us and beyond us, and our own existing as creatures of
this God, are thus the bases of a metaphysics of polarity. Finally,
there is the Tu Salus of God as person and form, which is perhaps
the most obscure of the pairs. Przywara writes, "you alone in
whom person and form, life and law coincide,"
absolute form as absolute personality and absolute personality as absolute form,
absolute ideal as life and life as absolute ideal, the absolute law as personal reality
and personal reality as absolute law: Tu Solus, only he, the God beyond us. 23

In creation, by contrast, the ideal rules over the personal, form
over life, law over actuality. These contrasts are cast in an ethical
register, specifically in terms of maturation towards personhood.
The God beyond and in us, and our own dialectic between
personhood and form, form the bases of an ethics of polarity.
The God in us and beyond us is also the main character in the
work Gott, yet here Przywara is less interested in articulating an
epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics of polarity than in the
Christological and ecclesiological effects of this doctrine of God.
22 Ibid., 226.
23 Ibid., 235.

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KENNETH R. OAKES

What, then, is the relationship between the God in and beyond us
and God in Jesus Christ? Several interesting shifts occur as
Przywara explains his answer. The simplest connection he makes
to his earlier arguments is that theopanism inevitably denies
Christ's human nature, while pantheism inevitably dissolves
Christ's divine nature. As for the immanence-transcendence
discussion, Przywara notes that the supposed tensions between the
two are exacerbated in Jesus Christ. In Christ, God's immanence
to creation "is heightened until the point of being identical, the
man Christ is God," but so is God's transcendence, for "humanity
and divinity are not identical in Christ, but Christ, the visible,
created man, is God, who essentially and unmixedly remains the
invisible God beyond all creation. " 24 Even so, Przywara is aware
of the limitations of the transcendence-immanence conjunction
when it comes to narrating the person and work of Jesus Christ.
In the man Jesus Christ we encounter the "God, who is not
merely 'beyond us' while remaining 'in us,' transcendendo
immanet et immanendo transcendit, but who now is even 'God'
while remaining 'one of us."' 25 Or again, what is at stake in Jesus
Christ is "not merely God in-beyond creation, but God, remaining
God, as creation. " 26 Hence the strategy of positing the God
beyond and in us is modified, but what does remain is the
affirmation and union of apparent contradictions: "the form of
Christ as the great incomprehensible paradox: the infinity of God
entered into the tensions and oppositions of the world. God in
Christ is himself the tension between God and creation. " 27
As the point of the exercise is not to shirk from the affirmation
of Jesus Christ as the fullness of God and as fullness of humanity,
regardless of the metaphysical or historical conundrums incurred,
Przywara plays up the contrasts he sees inhert>nt to any account of
Christ's person and Christ's work. Regarding what we might call
the metaphysics of Christ's person, Przywara briefly expounds on
Przywara, "Gott," 282.
Ibid., 287.
26 Ibid., 288.
27 Ibid. Here Christ is also the "anakephalaiosis panton," or the recapitulation of all things.
Przywara understands by this phrase that Jesus Christ is "the personal unity of the infinity of
the Creator and the fullness of the oppositions within creation" (ibid., 293).
24
25

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the tensions between (1) the absoluteness of God and the relativity
of one person, (2) the invisibility of God and the visibility of one
person, and (3) the nature of God as Spirit and the irreducible
bodiliness of one person. To these correspond the historical
paradoxes of Christ: (1) that the necessary God assumes
creaturely contingency inasmuch as Christ comes from the Jews,
(2) that the invisible God assumes creaturely visibility, and (3) that
the free and majestic God assumes the weakness of creaturely
flesh. 28 The resolution of these apparent contradictions is none
other than the mystery of the person of Jesus Christ, the Godman. There is neither sharp conceptual delineation of how these
tensions coinhere within Christ nor is there extensive description
of how this is so. Przywara merely presents them as part of the
paradoxes of Christ's person and work without recourse to
traditional concepts such as the anhyposton/enhyposton
distinction, the various genera of the communicatio idiomatum,
or an account of krypsis or kenosis. The God beyond and in us
thus simply becomes this particular, visible, historical, and weak
man while not ceasing to be God. Przywara can, therefore,
happily quote Newman to the effect that
if we only confess God as the Almighty One then we have known only half of
him. He is the omnipotent one who can at the same time commit himself to the
swaddling clothes of powerlessness, the captive of his own creatures. He has, so
to say, the incomprehensible power to make himself weak. 29

The usefulness of the in-beyond and immanent-transcendence
couplets returns when Przywara articulates the relationship
between Jesus Christ and believers, for Christ is "the fullness that
fills all" (Eph 1:23) of the God who is "all in all" (1Cor15:28).
Thus is "Christ in me" (Gal 2:20), "Christ living in me," and
"Christ our life" (Col 3:4). Yet for all "mysticisms of Christ," or
"Christ in me" or Christ as "one of us," it is also necessary to
recognize Jesus Christ as the one who lies before and beyond us.
Ibid., 290-92.
John Henry Cardinal Newman, Sermons Preached on Various Occasions (London:
Longmans, Green & Co., 1921), 87f. I have translated the Newman quotation directly from
the German.
28
29

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KENNETH R. OAKES

Przywara has no difficulty with speaking of the participation of
believers in Christ's reconciling work (particularly in the form of
believers filling up in their bodies the sufferings Christ lacks [Col
1:24]), and yet this is just one beat in the overall rhythm of Christ
both in and beyond us. So, for instance, Przywara regularly makes
usage of Augustine's totus Christus, "caput et corpus unus est
Christus, "30 and yet he still speaks of the irreducible difference of
the head from the members. As he argues in the essay "Mystik
und Distanz," "Christ in me" cannot mean "an incorporation of
Christ into Christians" but is instead "the incorporation of
Christians into Christ." There is only the unceasing movement of
Christ into Christians and yet this same Christ is eternally at the right hand of
God, beyond the Christian and Christianity: Tu Salus Daminus, Tu Salus
Altissimus,fesu Christie-that is the fundamental law for a genuine mysticism of
Christ. 31

Equally, that God in Christ is in and beyond us entails that any
righteous within us comes from without:
"God's righteousness ... which is from God and not from me," as St. Augustine
says in the same place. "Not my own righteousness within me ... but the
righteousness of God that is in me is not from me, but is from God. "32

The final application of "God in and beyond us" occurs when
Przywara discusses the tensions and polarities of the Church. The
primary doctrine that he employs to harness these contrasts of the
Church fruitfully is again Jesus Christ as the fullness of divinity
and humanity and the Church as the living and breathing
continuation (Fortleben) of that fullness. Przywara begins by
detailing the problems that arise in ecclesiology when either a
one-sided God beyond us or a one-sided God in us functions as
30 Augustine, De Trinitate 4.9 .12. Two other of Przywara's central refrains regarding Christ
and the Church from this time are "God in Christ in the Church," and "God, who [is]
illuminated the face of Jesus Christ, whose body is the Church" (2 Cor 4:6).
31 Przywara, "Mystik und Distanz," in Schriften, 2:66-90, at 71 (also in Ringen der
Gegenwart, 1:469-501).
32 Przywara, "Natur und Obernatur, "in Schriften, 2:33; from Augustine, Enarrationes in
Psalmos 118, serm. 25.6; for an English translation, see Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms
99-120, trans. Maria Boulding (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2003), 464.

PR:lYWARA'S EARLIER THEOLOGY

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the dominant motif. The former can lead to an individualistic
"Christ in me" (Gal 2:20) while the latter can lead to a collectivist
"head and body, one Christ" (Eph 5 :23-25). Przywara details
three tensions that arise between "Christ in me" and "head and
body, one Christ": (1) individualism and collectivism, (2) a
religiosity of interiority or of outward cult, and (3) the invisibility
of God and the human visibility of the Church. He attempts to
render these polarities as signs of the harmonious fullness of life
within the Church and not a tragic set of dangers for the Church's
life. With respect to the first apparent contradiction, Przywara
states,
because the church is the visibility of God, it therefore shares in the final
transcendence of God beyond the tension of I and community, it is truly the
continuing "anakephlaiosis panton" of the incarnate one: the moving fullness of
all types as the visibility of the God all in all. 33

With respect to the second, there is a perpetual back and forth
within the Christian life between interiority and exteriority,
between praying in secret (Matt 6:5-7) and petitioning the Father
"in spirit and in truth" Oohn 4:23), and an objective cult of
baptism, bread and wine, between the salvation of the individual
and the promise of the renewal of the whole of humanity and the
cosmos. The third tension is actually a recapitulation of the earlier
ones. Przywara attempts to balance the invisibility of the Church's
source in the invisible God and an "all too human" visibility of the
Church, which participates in the scandal and folly of Christ
("scandalum ecclesiae scandalum Christi"). 34
Several words about Przywara's Christology are in order given
the central place most interpreters and critics of Przywara lend to
the analogy of being (at the expense of other material). First,
while Przywara's Christological reflections no doubt seem crude
and simplistic, it is worth noting both their presence within his
theology and their prominent use within the ecclesiology
Przywara, "Gott," 318.
Ibid., 327. For Przywara, the riddle of the Church is none other than the riddle of
Christ, who is the riddle of God; and through the problem of the Church shines the problem
of Christ, which recasts the problem of God (ibid., 329).
33

34

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KENNETH R. OAKES

discussed above. Second, Przywara is careful to temper and
modify his account of the God beyond and in us in order to
describe the utterly unique and irreducible mission and person of
the incarnate Son. The theme of "God beyond us and in us" is
supposed to be useful across a range of doctrines (although its
natural task seems to be explicating God's creative and providential care for his creatures) but clearly in the case of the person
and work of Christ other conceptual materials need to be
employed. Third, the disruptive and paradoxical accents within
Przywara's Christology will only be heightened in his later work.
This is especially the case with his adopting and furthering of the
0 admirabile commercium tradition, which first appears in his
commentary on the Gospel of John. 35
Given the central place afforded to developing an account of
God in and beyond us in both Gottgeheimnis and Gott, it is
interesting that the central motif of Przywara's next main work
from this time period, the 1926 Religionsphilosophie katholischer
Theologie, is the analogia entis. It will be well worth the effort,
then, to consider the beginnings and development of Przywara's
account of the analogia entis.
II. EARLY ACCOUNTS OF THEANALOGIA ENTIS
Just as real things of any kind require proper active principles, even though God
is the first and universal agent ... 36

Przywara began to develop the idea of the analogia entis as a
response to the work of Max Scheler in late 1922. 37 The phrase
first surfaced in Przywara's writings in the 1923 article
"Gotteserfahrung und Gottesbeweis, " 38 and gained momentum
during the mid-1920s. Although the phrase does not appear in the
main text of Gott and only a couple of times in Gottgeheimnis der
35 Erich Przywara, Evangelium. Christentum gemaµ Johannes (Nurnberg:
Glock &
Lutz, 1954).
36 Thomas Aquinas, Quaestio Disputata de Anima, a. 4, ad 7.
37 Przywara, Analogia Entis, vii.
38 Erich Przywara, "Gotteserfahrung und Gottesbeweis, "Stimmen der Zeit 104 (1923):
12-19. This article was later collected into his "Weg zu Gott," and is reprinted in Schriften,
2:3-13, and Ringen der Gegenwart, 1 :389-402.

PR'.ZYWARA'S EARLIER THEOLOGY

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Welt, it became the central theme of the 1926 Religionsphilosophie katholischer Theologie and, to state the obvious, of the
first edition of Analogia Entis. One of the primarily reasons for
this rapid development of the analogia entis is due to the fact that
it is meant to be a reiteration of the "God in us and beyond us"
formulations, albeit with a different emphasis. Overall, the
analogy of being is supposed to serve the same causes of banishing
both theopanism and pantheism, and allowing God to be God and
creatures to be creatures of this God. 39 Przywara himself states
that the doctrine of the analogia entis expresses nothing other
than the doctrine of God beyond and in us. 40
The earliest definitions of the analogia entis are rather simple.
In "Gotteserfahrung und Gottesbeweis," Przywara states that the
analogia entis is
the knowledge of a basis of the changing and the finite in an unchanging and
infinite that is essentially different from it, such that every perfection of creation
is a likeness of the infinite perfection of the Creator, and on this basis the
Creator announces himself in the created. 41

This definition of the analogy of being as the "metaphysical" or
"essential" "basis of the being and reality of the changeable and
the finite in the unchangeable and infinite" reappears two more
times in this essay. One could view this definition as an abstract
elaboration of Augustine's contrast between the "was" and "will
be" of creation and the sheer "Is" of God, a key concept for
Przywara at this time. 42 It is important to note that the above
definitions refer to both the differences between and the
39 "Thus it is clear how the analogia entis forms the fundamental structure of the Catholic
solution. For in it lies the decisive direction between the two extremes described above. As
God can never cease being God, and the creature being the creature, such that every yet so
great a condescension of God into the creature and every yet so high an elevation of the
creature towards God always and necessarily remains in the limits of the final likenessunlikeness tension between God and the creature as it is based in the analogia entis"
(Przywara, "Religionsphilosophie," 452). This fact is as true in the doctrine of creation as it
is in the doctrines of reconciliation and redemption.
40 Ibid., 404 and 461.
41 Przywara, "Gotteserfahrung und Gottesbeweis," 7.
42 Przywara, Schriften, 2: 133. The source here is Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. 101, serm. 2.10
(Boulding, trans., 70-71).

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KENNETH R. OAKES

likenesses of the perfections of creation and the perfections of the
Creator, upon whom the former are based. During this phase of
his thought, Przywara even called the analogy of being the
"likeness-difference polarity" between "the God who according
to the Apostle 'is all in all' and 'works all in all,' indeed who
according to the wise Sirach 'is all' (To m:lv), and the proper being
and reality of creation. "43 This is why Przywara could still argue
that the analogia entis is none other than the God in us and God
beyond us: "The content of this announcement [the analogia
entis], however, is the concept of God that radiates from
Augustine's writings: God in all and yet over all." 44
Furthermore, as is often the case with Przywara, a Church
council stands not too far behind his material decisions. In this
particular instance, the language of the perfections of creation
manifesting the Creator comes directly from the First Vatican
Council's rationale for God's willing of creation as not from
necessity or lack but "ad manifestandam perfectionem Suam. " 45
Hence all of creation, and each creature in its sheer particularity,
is a likeness of the God who created in order to shed ad extra his
perfections and gifts. Equally, the council's affirmation of the
possibility of knowing with certainty God as "the beginning and
end of all things" 46 serves as the inspiration for his linking the
analogy of being with the knowledge of God's self-revelation in
creation, 47 as when Przywara states that the analogy of being
contains the "origin, basis of truth, content and beginning of our
natural knowledge of God. " 48
It is, of course, one thing to say that the possibility of knowing
God as principiumet finis omnium rerum aligns with the doctrines
43 Przywara, "Gottgeheimnis," 213. Gertz reports that the similar-dissimilar ("iihnlichuniihnlich") couplet, so characteristic of Przywara's later thought, is first found in the 1923
Religionsbegrnndung. Max Scheler - J.H. Newman (Freiburg: Herder, 1923) (Gertz,
Glaubenswelt als Analogie, 23 7).
44 Przywara, "Gotteserfahrung und Gottesbeweis," 7.
45 Heinrich Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, trans. Roy J. Deferrari (London: B.
Herder Book Co.), §1783 (p. 443). This point is also emphasized in Przywara,
"Religionsphilosophie," 400-402, 416-20.
46 Denzinger, Sources, §1785 (p. 443).
47 See also Przywara, Analogia Entis, 4 2-4 7.
48 Przywara, "Gotteserfahrung und Gottesbeweis," 10 (emphasis in original removed).

PRZ¥W ARA'S EARLIER THEOLOGY

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of God and creation as expressed by the analogy of being, and
quite another thing to say that the analogy of being itself
constitutes a form of "natural theology." As we have seen,
Przywara used the analogy of being at this time as a synthetic
recasting and reinterpretation of Augustine's God beyond and in
us; its primary pedigree was theological. Yet Przywara had no
scruples about employing the analogy of being in the service of
what the Fathers of Vatican I promulgated regarding the natural
knowledge of God, a knowledge he identifies as practical
knowledge concerning the duty and service owed to God. 49
Understood in this way, claims about the analogy of being and
claims about the possibility of natural knowledge of God are
conceptually and historically distinct. Furthermore, it should be
noted that when Przywara develops these interconnections
between the council and the analogia en tis more fully in Analogia
Entis, the knowledge of God, even only the knowledge of God as
the beginning and end of all things, does not signify a positive
epistemological achievement or capture, or the mere addition of
one fact to an already lengthy catalogue of facts. Instead, the
knowledge of God as principium et finis presents more of a
deprivation, rendering the whole of creation more mysterious,
upsetting any notions of metaphysical progress or certitude, and
opening up epistemologies to new and unfamiliar realms. 50
The initial definitions of the analogia entis are rather thin, but
they quickly begin to acquire a variety of expressions. Przywara
can use, for instance, the more causal language of the Schools to
state,
the analogia entis points to God as ipsa forma of formae rerum (causa
exemplaris),but as the analogiaentis to God as principium (causa efficiens)and
finis (causa finis). In this way the three relationships between God and the world
(causa exemplaris, efficiens, finalis) are bound together in the one analogia
entis.51

49 Ibid., 12-13. Przywara also points out here that the council never characterizes in what
way this knowledge is reached.
50 Przywara,Analogia Entis, 42-61.
51 Ibid., 7.

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KENNETH R. OAKES

He can also speak more theologically of the "law of the analogia
entis" as "the positive yes of the omni-causal Creator, Savior, and
Sanctifier to the active creatures and children of God. " 52 The
analogy of being, then, functions as a synthetic concept. It
represents, for instance, a common basis for both the more
"psychological" experience of God found in Augustine and
Newman and the more "logical" proofs for God's existence found
in Aquinas. 53 This tactic of conjoining differing theological styles
within the bounds of the analogy of being reaches full expression
within Religionsphilosophie katholischer Theologie. 54 Yet the fact
that Przywara uses the analogia entis to house a whole family of
doctrines is readily seen in this passage from the 1925 article
"Zwischen Religion und Kultur":
The primal metaphysical fact is the tension of the analogia entis, or otherwise
said, the tension between God in us and God beyond us, expressed otherwise yet
again, the tension between creation's own reality and causality and God's omnireality and omni-causality of God, between the whole of creation as the visibility
of God and the invisibility of this same God over the whole of creation. God is
not the final, formal rhythm of the reality of creation; God is the content and the
reality that is before all content and all reality. 55

Przywara is clearly linking the God beyond and in us and the
analogy of being within this passage, but we can also see one of
the most decisive components of the analogia entis: Aquinas's
teaching regarding secondary causes. 56
52 Erich Przywara, "Zwischen

Religion und Kultur," in Schriften 2:99 n. 4.
Przywara, "Gotteserfahrung und Gottesbeweis," 8-9.
54 In this Przywara believes himself to be following the katholische Geist. When he points
approvingly to "Fr. v. Hiigel's definition of Catholicism as 'essentially balance, inclusiveness,
richness' and as 'universal' because God is 'universal,"' it is difficult not to see his own vision
of Catholicism also present (Przywara, Schriften, 2:370, referring to Friedrich [Baron] von
Hugel, Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion [London: J. M. Dent & Sons,
1921], 227-41, 252f.).
55 Przywara, "Zwischen Religion und Kultur," 93.
56 There are several items from Aquinas that the early Przywara found helpful. One of
them is Aquinas's potentia oboedentialis, which is first used in Przywara'sReligionsphilosophie
katholischer Theologie, and expanded inAnalogia Entis. Also important for Przywara at this
time was Aquinas's maxim on the relationship between nature and grace, the real distinction
of essence and existence within creation, and his teaching on the relationship between soul
and body. Regarding individuation within Aquinas's thought, however, Przywara consistently
53

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Przywara interprets Aquinas's account of divine and creaturely
causes as positing that "the meaning and goal of the divine omnicausality is creation's own genuine causality. "57 Przywara is not
arguing for God's own proper causality (Eigentatigkeit) alongside
creation's own proper causality (Eigentatigkeit), which would
merely reduce God to another finite cause that would need to be
coordinated with other finite causes. Instead he is arguing that
God's omni-causality (All-Tatigkeit) can and does include
creation's causality (Eigentatigkeit), and hence the existence of
independent creatures is actually a sign of the goodness and
power of the Creator. 58 This concept functions very similarly to
the "God beyond and in us," for here too God is working within
creation to create and preserve its relative independence, but as
the Ursache God perpetually remains beyond creation. Interestingly, Przywara believes that secondary causes help overcome
a constant temptation for Augustinianism: the dissolution of the
creaturely into the divine. Przywara maintains that Aquinas's
account of secondary causes stresses the difference between
Creator and creation as opposed to the immediacy of Augustine. 59
Thus, "the fundamental overcoming of eschatologism is precisely
Aquinas' doctrine of secondary causes, for it uproots the eternally
fruitful seed of all eschatologism: the Platonic and Augustinian
devaluation of creation's own actuality and law. " 60 Positively
stated, Przywara sees Aquinas's elaboration of secondary causes as
an affirmation of all "creaturely activity and culture against all
fanatical eschatologism and hatred of the world and of life," and
followed Scotus, Cardinal Cajetan, and Suarez and thought them to be developing or
improving Aquinas and not contradicting him, as he also believed the case to be with Molina
and the scientia media. The clearest presentation of Przywara's appreciation of Aquinas's
theological and philosophical achievements is found in "Thomas von Aquin," in Ringen der
Gegenwart, 2:906-29.
57 Przywara, "Katholizismus der Kirche und Katholizismus der Stunde," in Ringen der
Gegenwart, 1:97.
58 Erich Przywara, "Neue Religiositat," 57. For the background to this argument, see
Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate,q. ll, a. 1.
59 Cf. Przywara, Schriften, 2:98, 189-93. This contrast between Augustine and Aquinas is
maintained throughout Religionsphilosophie katholischer Theologie, and plays an important
role in the analogia entis as a synthesis of positions in tension (Przywara,
"Religionsphilosophie," 468-70, 481-511).
60 Przywara, "Neue Religiositat," 64.

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KENNETH R. OAKES

thus it is Aquinas and not Luther who should be identified as the
pioneer of the "holiness of vocation. " 61
If we phrase Przywara's concerns in another key, we might
identify what he is after as a Catholic doctrine of concursus.
While unafraid of the more technical discussions and debates
between Thomists and Jesuits and the Reformed and Lutheran
divines on issues like praemotio versus praevisio, scientia de
individualibus versus scientia de universalibus, Przywara tends not
to spend a great deal of time exploring them or deciding between
them. In Religionsphilosophie katholischer Theologie, he argues
that both Aquinas and the accent on God alone and Molina and
the accent on creation's integrity together express the analogy of
being, the simultaneous and fruitful holding of these unities in
tension. 62 Indeed, inasmuch as there has never been a conciliar
decision regarding Thomism or Molinism on the interrelationship
between election and faith, Przywara believes himself to be
following the tenor of the Catholic Church (or at least Paul V),
when he includes both within the analogy of being. 63 It is
unsurprising, then, that these tensive accents also appear in his
doctrine of salvation. Przywara argues that "the Church does not
reduce creation's own actuality to God's omni-causality (in an
extreme supernaturalism) nor the divine omni-causality (in an
extreme rationalism or naturalism) to creation's own causality. " 64
Erich Przywara, "Tragische Seele," in Ringen der Gegenwart, 2:880-905, at 897.
Barth's affirmation of both the Reformed and Lutheran
emphases in Church Dogmatics 3/3, trans. G. W. Bromiley and R. J. Ehrlich (London: T. &
T. Clark, 2004), 115-17, 133-34, 145-46, even if he finally sides with the Reformed.
63 That being said, Przywara exhibits a decided sympathy towards Molina, and views
Molinism as the result of Aquinas's own theology when its unsatisfactory (at least to Przywara)
account of individuation through matter is supplemented with the Scotist haecceitas or with
Suarez's account of individuation through form; see Przywara, "Gottgeheimnis," 191-94. For
a treatment of the nuances within Aquinas's thought regarding individuation, see John F.
Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of American Press, 2000), 351-75. Yet these
Molinist sympathies are counterbalanced by Przywara's continual insistence that Catholicism
must be fundamentally theocentric and not anthropocentric, which he believes is a danger for
Molinism taken in itself. See Przywara, "Theozentrische und anthropozentrische
Friimmigkeit," in Schriften, 2:46-65.
64 Przywara, "Katholizismus der Kirche und Katholizismus der Stunde," 98.
61

62 Such a move is similar to

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301

Any perceived tension is the result of these two positive claims,
which must be upheld regardless of any conceptual dissonance
produced. Invoking the Council of Trent, Przywara notes that the
Catholic understanding of salvation
remains in reverent adoration before this mystery: when "Holy Scripture says
'turn to me, and I will turn to you' [Zech 1:3], we remember our freedom; then
we answer 'turn us, Lord, to you, and we shall turn' [Lam 5 :21 ], we confess that
we are anticipated by the grace of God. "65

As can be seen from the descriptions of the analogy of being
above, these earliest accounts do not yet include one of the most
significant elements of Przywara's later thought: the Fourth
Lateran Council's formula of an ever-greater dissimilarity within
every similarity between Creator and creation. 66 Przywara began
to adopt this definition for his analogy of being in late 1925, 67 and
it would prove to be immensely productive for his later thought.
Even so, just as the analogia entis attains greater sophistication in
the Religionsphilosophie katholischer Theologie and the Analogia
Entis, this resource is not quite exploited to its fullest potential,
as it later would be, for instance, in the article, "Reichweite der
Analogie als katholischer Grundform. " 68 Far more prevalent and
fruitful at this stage was Przywara's creative integration of
Aquinas's real distinction and the potentia oboedentialis into the
analogy of being. 69 In the preface to the Ana logia En tis, Przywara
reports that a period of intensely studying Aquinas's Quaestiones
Disputatae and De Ente et Essentia in 1912/13 proved crucial to
Ibid. The interior quotation can be found in Denzinger, Sources, §797 (p. 250).
It is curious that this central element of Przywara's thought never appears in Hans Urs
von Balthasar's accounts of Przywara in his The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and
Interpretation, trans. Edward T. Oakes S.J. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 255-57, 32829, 360-61.
67 Gertz, Glaubenswelt alsAnalogie, 238. The Lateran formulation first appears in a speech
delivered in Munich on 12 January 1925, "Die religiiise Krisis in der Gegenwart und der
Katholizismus," which was eventually published under the same title in Das Neue Reich 8:32
(1926): 657-58; and Das Neue Reich 8:34 (1926): 702-4.
68 Erich Przywara, "Die Reichweite der Analogie als katholischer Grundform," inSchriften,
vol. 3, Analogia Entis. Metaphysik, Ur-Struktur und All-Rhythmus (Einsiedeln: Johannes
Verlag, 1962), 247-301.
69 See Przywara, "Religionsphilosophie," 404-5.
65

66

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KENNETH R. OAKES

his subsequent thought. 70 He certainly develops the tension
between existentia and essentia in his earlier works, but it is in
Religionsphilosophie katholischer Theologie that these ideas gain
traction and undergo elaboration. Thus the analogy of being is
now an account of the distinction between essence and existence
within creatures and their identity in God. It is also in this work
that the potentia oboedientialis makes its first appearance, and at
this time it means "creation's readiness before God," 71 and
creation's openness to God from God's perspective, claims that
flow naturally from Przywara's insistence that God works all in
all, even working within a rebellious humanity. 72 These two ideas
are also put to far greater use in Analogia Entis, despite
Przywara's growing reliance upon the Fourth Lateran Council and
an increasing emphasis on the "ever beyond" nature of God. How
easily this formula of "ever-greater dissimilarity" could settle in
with Przywara's earlier "philosophy of polarity" is an important
question. On the one hand, it fits in smoothly with the lgnatian
"ever greater" and "ever more," 73 and the rhythms of the "in and
beyond," "similar and dissimilar" already encountered. On the
other hand, the ever-greater dissimilarity could equally upset the
balance or equilibrium that Przywara was working to maintain,
especially between Creator and creation. 74 There is, however, one
more aspect of Przywara's early thought that requires elucidation
in order to round out this presentation: the polarity of love and
fear.
70

Przywara, Analogia Entis, v.

71 Przywara, "Religionsphilosophie,"

448.
For an account of Aquinas's potentia oboedentialis, see Denis J. M. Bradley, Aquinas on
the Twofold Good: Reason and Human Happiness in Aquinas's Moral Science (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 448-55.
73 Even in "Eucharistie und Arbeit" (1917), Przywara notes that one's heart must yearn
"more, ever more" for Christ (Erich Przywara, "Eucharistie und Arbeit," in Przywara,
Schriften, vol. 1, Friihe Religiose Schriften [Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1962], 10). See also
the important section in Gott in which Przywara describes God's "ever greater-ness," itself a
gloss of Sirach 43:32-34, not in the terms of a negative theology, but as an all-too-positive
interaction with the sheer strangeness of God as given in Scripture, whose ways are
fundamentally not our ways (Isa 55:8} (Przywara, "Gott," 327-28).
74 Gertz argues, "thus the 'likeness-unlikeness polarity' is overcome" with the introduction
of this aspect (Gertz, Glaubenswelt als Analogie, 238).
72

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303

Ill. LOVE AND FEAR
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom; till you see Him to be a consuming
fire, and approach Him with reverence and godly fear, as being sinners, you are
not even in sight of the strait gate. I do not wish you to be able to point to any
particular time when you renounced the world (as it is called), and were
converted; this is a deceit. Fear and love must go together; always fear, always
love, to your dying day. 75

The first two sections of this essay have dealt with what
Przywara might call the "theological" outworking of the
confession that God is in and beyond us and its "metaphysical"
implications in the analogia entis of the omni-working and
causing of the Creator and creation's own relative working and
causing. Przywara's pattern of offering us paired contrasts,
polarities and rhythms continues as we consider the "religious"
backdrop to both of these concepts: a life of fearing love and
loving fear before the God who is beyond us and in us and who
works all in all.
This paired contrast appears in the initial salvo Przywara
leveled at the dialectical theologians. In the course of his
argument for the Catholic unity of mysticism and distance,
Przywara states that
in this way we know Augustine's basis for the soul in a mysticism that becomes
distance and a distance that rests upon mysticism. Love, according to him, is the
root, but a love that is united with holy fear. "You are more inside of me than
my innermost," and therefore his profoundest prayer runs, "you have placed
your law on my heart though your Spirit, which is your finger, so that I do not
tremble before you like a slave without love, but as a son loving in chaste fear
and fearing in chaste love. " 76

The origin of this tensive couplet, like so many other phrases used
by Przywara at this time, is Augustine's commentary on the

75 John Henry Newman, Parochialand Plain Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Longmans, Green,
and Co., 1907), 322. This passage is from Sermon 24, "The Religion of the Day" (ibid., 30924), whose epigraph is Heb 12:28-29: "Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God
acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire."
76 Przywara, "Gott in uns und iiber uns," 545.

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KENNETH R. OAKES

Psalms. 77 Augustine, as Przywara relates, initiated a line of
reflection concerning the God beyond and in us, and a fearing
love and loving fear, that runs to Aquinas and finally to
Newman,7 8 whose "opposite virtues" aptly encapsulate the matter.
Indeed, Przywara actually commented on these contrasts within
Newman during the course of editing the German translation of
Newman's writings. 79
The posture of humanity before the God who is beyond all and
so in all, and who wills and works so that creatures can move and
live, as also expressed in the analogia entis, is one of love (Liebe)
and fear (Furcht) or reverence (Ehrfurcht). More specifically, love
is the response to God's being and working in us while fear is the
response to God being and working beyond us. This religiosity is,
then, specific to this particular God. When Przywara charts the
differences between ancient and Christian philosophy in
Gottgeheimnis, he notes
that wonderful pairing of the nearness of love and the distance of reverence, as
Augustine's antithesis formulates it, that deepest ethos of Christianity is now
changed at its most decisive point: in God himself. As the distance of reverence
is an adumbrated glimmer of the God beyond me, so is the nearness of love the
expression of the God in us. 80

Przywara's ideas of opposite virtues, polarity, and the forms of
Christian life shine out most brightly from his so-called "early
religious writings." 81 In the 1923 Kirchenjahr, 82 a commentary on
Augustine, Enar. in Ps. 118, serm. 22.6: "Tu interior intimis meis, tu intus in corde
legem posuisti mihi spiritu tuo, tamquam digito tuo; ut earn non tamquam servus sine amore
metuerem, sed casto timore ut filius diligerem, et dilectione casta timerem" (see Boulding,
trans., 448).
78 Przywara, "Gott," 364. See also Erich Przywara, "Der Newmansche Seelentypus in der
Kontinuitat katholischer Aszese und Mystik," 857-61 in Ringen der Gegenwart, 2:845-71.
79 Przywara comments, "Newman always and again brings authentic Christian life to the
foundation of opposite virtues" (Erich Przywara, ed.,J. H. Kardinal Newman, Christentum
[Freiburg, 1922], vol. 4, 79; quoted in Gertz, Glaubenswelt als Analogie, 119).
80 Przywara, "Gottgeheimnis," 193.
81 These are collected in volume 1 of Przywara's Schriften. Although usually overlooked
in Przywara scholarship, Przywara himself repeatedly stressed their importance for
understanding his work. These writings are also important inasmuch as they contain far
greater use of Scripture and liturgical materials, and thus stand as a helpful supplement to the
more abstract doctrines of God in his other works, for when reading these works there can
77

PR'.ZYWARA'S EARLIER THEOLOGY

305

the feast cycles appropriately subtitled, "Die christliche Spannungseinheit" ("The Christian Unity of Tension"), Przywara
spends his time reveling in the rhythms of the liturgical year.
There he writes, "one life with and in God, for he is the one who
is simultaneously beyond us and in us, so that there can be no
genuine union of love with him without the interval of reverence
and the humble knees of worship. " 83 This line of thought
continues in the 1924 Liebe, 84 a glowing series of reflections on
love within the Christian life replete with selections from
Scripture and Augustine. Przywara again notes,
there is a God, eternally living beyond you and yet mysteriously living in you, in
whom you live, move and are-the infinite personality of Father, Son and Spirit
beyond you and yet the final, mysterious depths of your very personality within
you; the puzzling depths of the personal unity of God and man beyond you and
yet your I says 'no more I but Christ in me. " 85

Yet is this a love that "blots out fear," or "that matures in fear"? 86
Is fear "the foundation of love" or "love the root of fear"? 87
Przywara's response is to call it "as St. Augustine puts it, a fearing
love and a loving fear. " 88 This polarity reappears in the 1925
Wandlung, 89 a "Textmosaik" comprised almost entirely of biblical
and patristic texts with sparse editorial interjections and which
Balthasar identifies as the key book of Przywara's early period. 90
be no doubt that the identity of this God beyond and in us is none other than the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit.
82 Erich Przywara, Kirchenjahr: Die christliche Spannungseinheit (Freiburg, 1924; also in
Schriften, 1:273-321).
83 Przywara, "Kirchenjahr, "310.
84 Erich Przywara, Liebe: Der christliche Wesensgrund (Freiburg, 1924; also in Schriften,
1:323-77).
85 Przywara, "Liebe," 332.
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid., 333.
88 Ibid.
89 Erich Przywara, Wandlung: Ein Christenweg (Augsburg, 1925; also in Przywara,
Schriften, 1:379-472).
90 Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Einfiihrung," in Leopold Zimny, ed., Erich Przywara: Sein
Schrifttum 1912-1962 (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1963), 6. Given the book's genre, this
judgment no doubt appears surprising. The initial disbelief wears off, however, when one
considers that is an exposition of God, Christ, and Church, Przywara's favorite commonplaces

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KENNETH R. OAKES

There Przywara observes, "yet still, in the children's love of the
Father, and in the indwelling of life within life: maintain a gentle
separation and a reverential distance. " 91 In the 1925 Majestas
Divina, 92 a collection of passages from the lgnatian Exercises that
anticipate Przywara's later 1938 commentary on them, Deus
Semper Maior, 93 he discusses the lgnatian virtues of loneliness,
service, sacrifice, and love. The lgnatian background to the
polarity of love and fear is especially evident when he quotes the
Exercises: "man is created to love God, to show him reverence
and to serve him, that is your salvation. " 94 "Your happiness,"
Przywara contends, "is that 'the God beyond you' is in you" filling
your life and your love, "but this can only occur when he is the
divine majesty to which loving fear and fearing love, serving love
and loving service is your corresponding disposition." 95
As the analogia entis begins to assume some of the work
previously allotted to the concept of God beyond and in us, fear
and love become and inform the religiosity of the analogia entis.
In an earlier essay Przywara argued that humility, as the
appropriate form of religiosity in the analogia entis, is the
Christian response to tragedy, inasmuch as it means that even in
salvation "man always knows himself as man, not as God. " 96 Or
as he says elsewhere, the analogia entis inspires "a religiosity of
trust versus the religiosity of eschatologism, " 97 by which Przywara
primarily means Barth or Hegel. Yet it is in Religionsphilosophie
katholischer Theologie that Przywara most extensively details how
fearing love and loving fear form the religious inspiration for the
analogia entis. Just as the analogia entis allows God to be God and
creatures to be his creatures, so too do fearing love and loving
fear ward off any confusion between Creator and creation. Thus
of the time.
91 Przywara, "Wandlung," 455.
92 Erich Przywara, Majestas Divina: Ignatiansiche Frommigkeit (Augsburg, 1925; also in
Przywara, Schriften, 1:471-518).
93 Erich Przywara, Deus Semper Maior: Theologie der Exerzitien (Freiburg, 1938f.); also
Deus Semper Maior: Theologie der Exerzitien, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1964).
94 Przywara, "Majestas Divina," 486, from the Spiritual Exercises, "Fundamentum."
95 Przywara, "Majestas Divina," 489-90.
96 Przywara, "Tragische Welt," in Ringen der Gegenwart, 1 :373.
97 Przywara, "Neue Religiositat," in Ringen der Gegenwart 1:67.

PR'.ZYWARA'S EARLIER THEOLOGY

307

Przywara distinguishes between the religiosity of Augustine and
Aquinas and a Kantian-Hegelian religiosity of the union of
contradiction and identity between the empirical ego (itself
tempted to become God) and the absolute distance of the pure
transcendental ego as God. The language of this religiosity is that
of being swallowed up in contradictions. In Augustine and
Aquinas, by contrast, there "is the 'unity of tension' of a revering
love and a loving reverence towards God, and it is in this posture
that God is experienced as in us but also as essentially beyond
us." 98 The language of this religiosity is that of prayer,
corresponding to "its original metaphysics of the analogia entis
between the unity of tension of the creaturely 'will be' (between
essence and existence) and the 'identity of nature' of the divine
'Is' (of essence and existence)." 99 Hence the love of the God who
is beyond and in us is "not a love of complete fusion with God,
but a love which is placed at a distance: fearing love and a loving
fear." 100 The relationship between metaphysics and the religious
life is the analogy of being, for "it is at the same time a 'practical
basis' and 'theoretical basis.' Its religious, practical form is that
original Augustinian 'love in fear and fear in love,' which is only
a short expression of the relationship between immanence and
transcendence. " 101
CONCLUSION

These descriptions have no doubt elicited a host of questions
and worries about Przywara's early thought. One might fault his
underdeveloped accounts of the Holy Spirit and sin, his lack of
"historical sense," his lingering romanticism, the potentially
distorting effects of his overarching philosophy of polarity upon
Christian doctrine, the wisdom of undertaking "responses" or
Przywara, "Religionsphilosophie," 406.
Ibid.
100 Ibid., 467.
101 Ibid., 417. In "Metaphysik und Religion," (Przywara, Schriften, 2:14- 26), Przywara
argues that any and every metaphysics, and even metaphysical reflection, both entails and
presupposes a religious disposition. The metaphysics of the analogiaentis works itself out in
the "basic religious relationship between 'fearing love and loving fear"' (ibid., 26).
98

99

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KENNETH R. OAKES

"solutions" to the antinomies of antiquity or modernity, his highly
conceptual and compact manner of presenting and resolving
theological and philosophical difficulties, and, perhaps most
disconcerting for some, his account of God's self-revelation within
creation. Some of these problems and deficiencies are corrected
in his later works, other are exacerbated.
Przywara's philosophy of polarity in particular elicits some
worries. Perhaps the most glaring problem is the potential
subsumption of God and creation under a more overarching
principle of polarity itself, as when in Gottgeheimnis Przywara
presents the Creator-creation polarity alongside the other metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical polarities under discussion.
This objection can be countered, however, by attending to the
role of the refrain Tu So/us throughout the discussion. Another
possible criticism of Przywara's philosophy of polarity is that God
merely becomes a projected placeholder for the reconciliation of
tensions within philosophy, an idealist coincidentia oppositorum
in which the differences between being and becoming, subject and
object, personality and form are virtually unified. Przywara
specifically dismisses this notion inasmuch as he denies that God
is absolutization of any piece of creation, including the experience
of oppositions and their reconciliation. 102 Even so, to deflect this
charge Przywara would need to specify further the dogmatic
backdrop and necessity of linking various lived and conceptual
tensions within creation to their unity in God.
One important genre of Przywara's early writings was not
covered in this article. I have not dealt with his studies of
individual theologians and philosophers, 103 as in his pairing of
Scheler with Newman in Religionsbegrundung, his readings of
Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Hartmann, and Heidegger in his twovolume Ringen der Gegenwart, or his book on Kierkegaard, in
which Przywara sees a movement, probably illusory, towards

102 Przywara, "Gott,"

279.
of Przywara's interactions with Augustine, Aquinas, Newman,
Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, see Martha Zechmeister, Gottes-Nacht: Erich Przywaras Weg
Negativer Theologie (Berlin, Hamburg, Munster: LIT Verlag, 1997), 94-283.
103 For the best account

PR'.ZYWARA'S EARLIER THEOLOGY

309

Roman Catholicism in Kierkegaard's criticisms of Lutheranism. 104
Furthermore, Przywara's three main influences at this time,
namely, Augustine, Aquinas, and Newman, have been dealt with,
but the predecessors to his own philosophy of polarity in Gorres,
Goethe or Deutinger have been left unexplored, along with the
influences of German romanticism and mysticism upon his
thought. 105
In the preface to the 1932 edition of the Analogia Entis,
Przywara offers a short account of the development of his thought
from his earlier writings. Briefly detailing the history of his
rehabilitation of the analogia entis, he notes, "in its objective form
it bore, above all in my religious writings, the Augustinian name
God in us and beyond us." 106 Analogia Entis itself should no
longer seem so bewildering given the multitude of resemblances
it bears to earlier works. Familiar moves are seen throughout the
first half of the work, in which Przywara begins with "metaphysics
generally." He first isolates and deconstructs opposing extremes
encountered in the history of epistemology and metaphysics and
shows the relationships of these extremes to theopanism and
pantheism. He next develops a dynamic distinction between
essence and existence and a doctrine of the God in and beyond
creation. Finally, he offers creative interpretations of Aquinas's
maxim on nature and grace and the documents of Vatican I in
order to coordinate the relationship between theology and
philosophy and to criticize Hegel. 107 In the second half of the
work, we again encounter historical studies dealing with analogy
and dialectic in Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and Heidegger, and
Parmenides and Heraclitus. Przywara offers a unique interpretation of the potentia oboedentialis, and longer accounts of
104 Erich

Przywara, Das Geheimnis Kierkegaards (Munich and Berlin: R. Oldenbourg,

1929).
105 Przywara, Analogia Entis, vi.

section of In und Gegen, Przywara traces back these
concerns with unity and tension to the cultural differences between his paternal and maternal
lines, and to the influence of a early music instructor, Oskar Meister (Erich Przywara, In und
Gegen: Stellungnahmen zur Zeit [Niirnberg: Glock und Lutz, 1955], 11-13).
' 07 An important precedent in this regard is the essay "Thomas und Hegel" in Ringen der
Gegenwart, 2:930-57. This work is also revealing inasmuch as Przywara distinguishes his own
theological and philosophical use of polarity and analogy from that of German Idealism.
106 Ibid., vii. In an autobiographical

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KENNETH R. OAKES

analogy in Augustine and Aquinas, with a short summary of the
results serving as the work's conclusion. Analogia Entis is, by all
means, a novel and creative advance on Przywara's earlier works,
but it nevertheless has precedents within them. 108

108 I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers from The Thomist for their very helpful
suggestions and comments on an earlier draft of this piece.

BOOK REVIEWS
The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. 32, Supplement. Edited at
the Birmingham Oratory. Notes and introduction by FRANCIS ].
MCGRATH, F.M.S. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pp. xvi+
731. $180.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-19-953270-4.
Unlike any of the previous thirty-one volumes in the masterful collection of
Cardinal Newman's Letters and Diaries, each of which covered about two or
three years, the present volume of 525 letters knows no fixed time parameters
(references below will include the page number and the year in which the letter
was written). These letters came to light after all 17,777 of Newman's previously
known letters had gone to press. This total-series tabulation does not include the
many Newman-composed memoranda, his diary and journal entries spanning a
half-century, and the thousands of letters written to Newman that the Letters
and Diaries series editors, from C. S. Dessain to Frank McGrath, have included
and that place Newman's own letters in context. The full collection is
monumental by any standard. My recent review of the tenth volume of the
Letters and Diaries (The Thomist 72 [2008]: 517-23) provides an overview of the
vast series and of the strategy governing when volumes appeared.
A ready criterion to bring to these recently discovered letters is to ask, "So
what's new?" Do we learn anything new about the Oxford Movement of 1833,
the Tract Ninety affair, Newman's 1845 conversion to Roman Catholicism, his
1859 article on the role of the laity that caused such consternation in
conservative circles, his acclaimed 18 64 autobiography entitled the Apologia Pro
Vita Sua, other seminal books such as the Grammar of Assent, the infallibility and
papal primacy issues swirling around the First Vatican Council, his emergence
from under a Vatican cloud when Leo XIII named him a cardinal in late life, and
so forth? We learn a few things, as I shall instance. But we gain much more from
the exhaustive scholarship of Francis McGrath, whose footnotes to the letters
and whose 150 pages of appendices make this concluding volume to the entire
series a bookshelf treasure trove.
Some very personal materials have surfaced, and Newman's letter of 26
November 1852 to Mrs. John Uemima) Mozley is noteworthy. Newman had
three sisters. Mary died suddenly in 1828, barely nineteen years old. Harriett
married Tom Mozley, blamed her brother for Tom's earlier Roman Catholic
sentiments, and then disowned her brother when he converted years later.

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Jemima married Tom's brother, John, and she remained close to her brother her
whole life long. To her Newman confided his thoughts about the libel trial he
was enduring. Newman had publically denounced an expelled Italian Dominican,
Giovanni Achilli, for his immoral behavior while a friar. The anti-Catholic
Evangelical Alliance had brought Achilli to England to deliver diatribes against
the Vatican. Newman sought to defang the defrocked cleric, and he was put on
trial for it. While McGrath's footnotes provide full background to the trial issues,
Newman's letter to Jemima (LD 32:61-66 [1852]) brings readers inside the heart
of the unjustly accused defendant.
To assist Newman scholarship concerning the establishment of a Catholic
university in Dublin in the 1850s, McGrath has brought to print, for the first
time, materials from the private journal Newman maintained from November
1853 to March 1856 describing his work in Dublin and labeled by Newman "My
University Journal, Private" (LD 32:73-144, passim). It complements known
materials. In 1873, in a fifteen-year retrospective view, Newman composed a
"Memorandum" on his involvement in founding the university (see
Autobiographical Writings, ed. Henry Tristram [New York: Sheed & Ward,
1957], 280-333), and especially on what he thought caused its failed initiatives.
In it, Newman occasionally quotes from this journal, which we can now access
in its completeness. These two sources, along with apposite correspondence
material in Letters and Diaries volumes15-18 and now 32, and the privately
printed material posthumously published as My Campaign in Ireland by
Newman's literary executor, William Neville (Aberdeen: King & Co., 1896),
provide scholars the full range of background material to the Dublin experiment
for English-speaking Catholic higher education. Newman's more theoretical
views on university education are found, of course, in his Uniform Edition
writings, Idea of a University and Historical Sketches. To give but two examples
from the newly published journal material: In a scene familiar to any dean or
provost today, Newman recorded on March 7 his negotiations with Prof. Denis
McCarthy over the salary for a lectorship (LD 32:79 [1854]). The journal entry
for June 21 (LD 32:90 [1854]) sketches the neuralgic topic of a professor's
nationality. Newman saw the need for scholarly appointments, whether Irish or
British or from the Continent, but the bishops, especially feisty John McHale of
Tuam, wished Irishmen only to be appointed professors.
The present volume adds nothing new concerning Newman's controversial
1859 Rambler article, "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine," for
which he was delated to Vatican authorities. It provides, however, Bishop
Ullathorne's 1862 letter to his Birmingham diocesan clergy rebuking the
Rambler's successor publication, The Home and Foreign Review that Richard
Simpson and John Acton continued to edit (LD 32:237 nn. 1 and 2). Regarding
questionable articles from them and the bishop's displeasure with the Review,
Newman sided quite clearly with the bishop. "The question is not whether
[Ullathorne] is right or wrong in his interpretation of these Articles; for he has
the right to interpret them, and it is useless to argue that the writers do not mean

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so an so. . . . There would be an end of all discipline, if the competent
ecclesiastical authority could not overrule all such private judgment" (LD
32:236). While Newman supports rightful theological freedoms, he also supports
the rights of church authorities. A certain balance was to rule matters, but
Newman never supported public dissent from the magisterium. On the other
hand, he feared the hegemony of a single theological viewpoint, as happened
later with the Ultramontane orientation of the Dublin Review and its editor, W.
G. Ward, who came to distrust Newman's more liberal views on Church matters.
How ironic, then, was Ward's letter to Newman in 1862, announcing that
Cardinal Wiseman had just appointed him editor. "I am very desirous to avoid
... all appearance of cliquiness, and my notion is when I go back to town to call
on as many different kinds of [writers} as I can .... I wish I could hope there
was any chance of persuading you to write" (LD 32:239 n. 1).
In the Apologia, Newman had referred favorably to the Anglican Church as
a "breakwater" against doctrinal errors afoot. When Edward Pusey, Newman's
old Tractarian colleague, had occasion in 1866 to publish that even Roman
Catholics (i.e., Newman) rejoiced in the Established Church's being a "bulwark"
against infidelity, Archbishop Edward Manning responded by denying that there
could be any Catholic appreciation of Anglicanism. Manning's target was really
not Pusey but Newman. Manning had a more jaundiced view than Newman of
the Church both men quit for Roman Catholicism, and the attack on Pusey from
British Catholicism's leading prelate caused Newman to backpedal somewhat for
the sake of public propriety. However, McGrath has provided a November 1864
letter from Newman to an unknown correspondent that has the advantage of
summarizing Newman's views of both Protestantism and the Established Church
in a calmer context than in the tempest Manning later created. (Mirabile dictu,
the letter's provenance was Lansdale [Pennsylvania] Catholic High School, a mile
distant from this reviewer's home.)
The unnamed correspondent asked Newman to square his contention that he
"owe[d] nothing to Protestantism" (Apologia pro vita sua [London: Penguin
Classics, 1994], 455) with the influential role accorded Thomas Scott, an early
Evangelical mentor in his life, in the Apologia (p. 5 of the Uniform Edition).
Newman responded:
By ProtestantismI mean that system of theologywhich came into the
world in the 16'h century-its characteristicsare such as these-the
doctrine of justification by faith only-the bible the sole rule of
faith-the denial of sacramental influence-assurance of personal
salvation-and, as regards Calvinism, the doctrine of reprobation.
Some of them I professed, from the writings of Protestant writers,
when I was young-some I never could stomach-but, at least
afterwards,I unlearned them all. The only doctrines of Thomas Scott
which stuck . . . are those [reflecting] Catholic truth from the
beginning-the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, of the Incarnation, of
grace. . . . I hold none of the distinguishing doctrines of

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Protestantism .... But I do owe much to Anglicanism. It was in the
divines of the Anglican Church, Laud, Hooker ... that I found
[Catholic] doctrines .... As to the second [point] ... I have said that
I have had milder thoughts of the Establishment more than I had as
an Anglican, because I consider it to be, to a certain extent, a
guardian of the true faith .... With a violent hand the State kept
down the multitude of sects that were laying England waste during
the Commonwealth. The State kept out Unitarianism, not to say
infidelity, at the era of the Revolution. It was the State which
prevented the religious enthusiasm of the Methodist revival from
destroying dogma .... I do not wish to weaken the Anglican Church,
while it sustains dogma (LD 32:261-62 [1864]).

One can sense that it is but quibbling whether bulwark or breakwater better
describes the value of the Anglican Church Establishment for Newman.
There is continuing theological debate today whether ordinations to
priesthood and episcopate in the Anglican Church are valid from a Roman
Catholic point of view. Newman's view in the Apologia (Uniform Edition, p.
341) is well known: He doubted the existence of apostolic succession in the
Anglican episcopate because "antiquarian arguments are altogether unequal to
the urgency of visible facts." By the latter Newman meant the Protestantizing
drift of the church's bishops that untied his own adherence to the Church of
England in the 1840s-for example, the Anglican-Lutheran agreement for a joint
bishopric in Jerusalem. Newman's letters here under review place the validity
question on a sounder theological footing than the apostolic succession criterion
in the Apologia. His principle is that valid orders spring from being the true
church, not that a church is to be considered true if its ordinations are valid.
As to the Catholic Church, there have been very many bad bishops
before now, but, as being the Catholic Church, it has a supernatural
providence, watching over it, and hindering bad bishops doing acts
to invalidate sacraments, just as a Providence watches over its bad
Popes to hinder them from erroneous decisions. It is the Catholic
Church, not because of its orders, but because it is the one visible
body from which the Apostles set off once for all, and from which
the Anglican Church split off, just as the present English nation is the
representative of the past English nation, and not the United States,
though they came out of it. The Catholic Church does not depend on
its orders, but its orders depend on it (LD 32:317 [1871]).

After the famous novelist and Cambridge church history professor Charles
Kingsley had attacked Newman's integrity in the January 1864 issue of
Macmillan's Magazine, and following an unresolved exchange between the two
men, Newman began publishing a weekly series of pamphlets that he later
compiled, reedited, and published as the Apologia (see LD 32:258 n. 2,
describing the installments). It is known that Newman wrote untiringly for each

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315

pamphlet, perhaps fifteen hours daily. What has not been fully appreciated is
how emotionally draining the writing of these installments was. Charles Furse,
who had reestablished friendship with Newman in the 1870s and visited him
occasionally at the Birmingham Oratory, recounted one such visit to his wife:
"But let me note this. [Newman] says in answer to my question, whether the
intense effort of the Apologia hurt his health-Mr William Monsell had told me
of the marvelous rapidity of it's [sic] composition-'Did William Monsell tell
you another thing? did he know it? I fancy not. I wrote the greater part of it,
crying all the time"' (LD 32:365 [1876]) Newman's heartache referred to the
loss of so many Anglican and Oxford friends that his 1845 departure for the
Church of Rome caused. The Apologia needed to retrace and explain why he left
the Anglican Church. The memory of those earlier days and friends was almost
too much for him. As he wrote to Furse himself, "For seventeen years, I do not
say by whose fault, if by any one's, my own or that of others, I was simply cut
off from my former friends. Many of them died in that estrangement; some of
that old generation still remain unforgiving" (LD 32:335 [1873]).
But God blessed Newman's tears. Former friends came forward to help him
with documentation as he retraced the Oxford Movement years. Others, their
hard feelings melted away after reading his weekly pamphlets, rekindled old
friendships. One such was with Henry Arthur Woodgate who had come running
to Newman's side when Newman's sister Mary died suddenly on 5 January
1828. To Woodgate, Newman dedicated his book Discussions and Arguments in
1874 and chose the fifth of January to do it (LD 32:320 [1872]). Another
resurrected friend, and a dear one indeed, was Richard William Church who
became dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1871 and with whom Newman, even
when a cardinal, preferred to stay when visiting London. Church wrote the mustread obituary in the Guardian when Newman died (LD 32:601). He called
Newman "the founder, we may almost say, of the Church of England as we see
it. What the Church of England would have become without the Tractarian
movement we can faintly guess, and of the Tractarian movement Newman was
the living soul and the inspiring genius."
Although the present volume does not shed new light on the dogmatic
definition of papal infallibility at Vatican I (18 July 1870), with respect to this
event it corroborates the vast difference in attitude between Archbishop
Manning and Newman regarding Pusey's High Church faction in the Anglican
Church. "As to the Anglican Church ... those of its members who are what is
called Evangelical, and those who are Liberals, cause a re-action in favor of
Catholicism, and those who take the high line of Pusey are but educating souls
for a communion holier and truer than their own" (LD 32:277 [1867]). In other
words, as the traditions of an older Anglicanism continue to wane under the
growing hegemony of Evangelical and Broad Church sentiments, the Puseyites
will drift more toward communion with Roman Catholicism. But the definition
of papal infallibility was an obstacle for them, at least momentarily, just as it was

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for many Roman Catholics when faced with Manning's insistent and severe
interpretation of the dogma.
As to Dr. Pusey, the one thing which was sure to throw him and his
friends back, was the definition of the Pope's Infallibility. Indeed, I
am not sure that it was not with this very object that some of the
most earnest supporters of the definition went to work-because they
considered persons who denied or doubted the infallibility worse
Catholics than infidels themselves. I almost think they have said so.
Any how, Dr Pusey has now finally given up any prospect of ever
being in communion with Rome. To me this is a great pain
(LD 32:311 [1870]).
Manning wished an all-or-nothing adoption of Catholicism by Anglicans.
Conversion was the story of moving from evil to good. Newman saw conversion
arising from a slower unfolding of convictions along with the retention from
one's past of whatever was good.
Throughout the many volumes of the Letters and Diaries there are
innumerable letters from Newman to potential converts, counseling them on
whatever troubles or perplexes them. The topics are as varied as the persons
writing the letters. A 4 September 1870 letter to an unknown correspondent
provides in a nutshell Newman's philosophy for approaching such letters and for
the fundamental issue at stake in deciding to convert to Roman Catholicism.
You will easily understand that the circumstance of my not knowing
you personally makes it impossible [to answer your question]. I ever
feel that religious questions are simply personal, and that the advice
and arguments suitable to one inquirer are not suitable to another. .
. . You have to consider therefore whether you have that conviction
that the Catholic Church is (as I firmly believe it to be) the one
communion to which the promises are attached, the one ark of
salvation, which will carry you through a great trial. You leave
friends and come to strangers, and our Lord bids us "count the
costs." A mere liking for Catholic devotions or opinions is no sure
ground for conversion. You have no call on you to leave your present
position unless you believe that such a step is necessary in order to
save your soul. ... However, if you have a clear view that the
Catholic Church is the true and only Fold of Christ [,]you are bound
at all hazard and suffering to join it, and God will give you strength
(LD 32:312 [1870]).
The advice, of course, is autobiographical, and my review of volume 10 of the
Letters and Diaries (noted supra) recounts Newman's movement toward this kind
of a decision for himself.
As with the previous volumes of Letters and Diaries, this volume includes
pastoral counseling letters that display a side of Newman as admirable as his

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317

theological abilities. I conclude my sampling of Newman's writings with a letter
he sent a Balliol College undergraduate who had written him concerning the
allure of atheism and whether the student was duty bound to quit his studies in
order to resolve matters. Recall that one needed to subscribe to Anglicanism's
Thirty-Nine Articles in order to stand for a degree.
I cannot see that it is your duty. Your direct duty is to go on with
your reading for your degree examination.... [Otherwise], you
would fall between two stools-you would not only lose your
honors, but you would get into greater confusion of mind as regards
religion than ever. Yours is no unusual case-it is the case of
intellectualyouth of this day generally-It is like an epidemic,which
one man may have in a severe form and another in a lighter.... You
cannot hasten what is a natural process, like the diseasesof children.
Put yourself in God's hands, and never mind, though you say to
yourself, "Perhaps there is no God." Our Lord praised the woman
who "did what she could." Let all your reading be done in His sight,
with a desire to please Him.... Go to God as a loving Father, and
ask Him to make you love Him. Write again, if you have any thing
to say.
Newman could discourse on theism vs. atheism with the brightest of minds, but
his savvy response to this undergraduate took a calmer approach lest it "only
make [matters] worse (LD 32:352 [1875)).
This concluding impression of the deeply spiritual side to Newman accords
well with the reason why the pope led his beatification ceremony in September
2010. Newman was a giant of the spiritual life. In lieu of describing the many
appendices with which McGrath has enhanced the present volume, I would
merely direct readers to the testimonies to Newman's character that appeared in
the newspapers all over the United Kingdom and elsewhere when he died in
1890. In Appendix 9, McGrath has unearthed and collated 93 of them! Newman
died so esteemed by so many.
So many letters-18,302 thus far. This is what editors, beginning with the
scholarly Charles Stephen Dessain in 1961 and ending with the equally scholarly
Francis]. McGrath today have provided Newman experts and Newman devotees
and Newman admirers over almost fifty years. Given all these letters, one still
must nod in agreement with the final words of McGrath's "Introductory Note":
"And the probability is that more Newman letters will continue to surface for
years to come" (LD 32:xvi).
EDWARD JEREMY MILLER

Gwynedd-Mercy College
Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania

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justification as Argued by Newman. By STANLEYL. ]AKI. New Hope, Ky.: Real
View Books, 2007. Pp. viii+ 286. $22.00 (paper). ISBN 978-0-97905774-8.
Fr. Stanley Jaki's monograph on BL John Henry Cardinal Newman's 1838
Lectures on justification is an impassioned, comprehensive, keen, and timely
treatment of Newman's classic. (Newman reissued the lectures as a Catholic in
1874; references will be to the edition by Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900.)
The recent beatification of Newman renders all of Jaki's commentaries on
Newman timely, but this monograph is especially so in light of recent ecumenical
dialogues. Growing is the number of those appreciative of the ecumenical intent
and import of Newman's classic. At the same time, Jaki's commentary is timely
as a well-researched and well-argued alternative to certain interpretations of the
Lectures which, though undertaken in search of the good of Christian unity, risk
false irenicism.
Always with one eye on this risk, which he confronts throughout with the
support of Newman's own pen, both directly and indirectly, Jaki intends chiefly
to usher the reader into the pith and marrow of Newman's text, tracing his
intention and method as well as expounding the book's contents. Under Jaki's
guidance, one hears Newman, in his literary mastery, logical acumen, and
genuine humanity, laud God the Father as he who pardons past offenses and
really cleanses the wretched, accomplishing both by the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit into hearts on account of the one sacrifice and many petitions of Christ.
Jaki's central thesis is that Newman aims above all, as the first and second
lectures make clear, to defend the ontologically real character of justification,
and, secondly, to denounce the doctrine of a sheer nonimputation of sin.
Helpfully, Jaki cautions Newman's reader, while wading into the Lecture's
speculations concerning a rapprochement between moderates on both sides, not
to forget the two opening lectures.
In literary style, theological acumen, and human solicitude, Jaki shows himself
a good student of his erudite master, competent to suggest where the teacher
may have wandered from the path. Still, in tone and focus, Jaki departs
somewhat from Newman's equanimity (relatively speaking) and vantage point.
Before discussing the strengths of the text, I wish to indicate these weaknesses.
First, Jaki's rhetoric is heated; one is reminded of Augustine against Pelagius
or Nazianzus against the Arians. It is to be lamented that the flares punctuating
Jaki's insights may deter from reading his fine work some who might benefit
from its theological solidity and scholarly breadth. What are these flares? Jaki
writes harshly at times, almost vilifying Luther and his recent advocates. To be
sure, Jaki anchors his remarks in textual evidence and is not without respectable
company. Among others, there comes to mind St. Thomas More, who judged
Luther's doctrine a cause of dissolute behavior: "As for the doctrine of this
unhappy sect, and the behavior, also, of the beginners of the same, they are such
that, as every sensible person well perceives, do teach and give rise to their evil
deeds" (Dialogue concerning Heresies, rendered in Modern English by Mary

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Gottschalk [New York: Scepter Publishers, Inc., 2006], §8, p. 424). Especially
on account of Luther's conception of divine predestination, not unrelated to his
thesis "iustificatio sofa fide," More pronounces Luther's doctrine "the very worst
and most harmful heresy that ever was thought up; and, on top of that, the most
insane" (ibid., §11, p. 453). In the hands of many whomJaki hopes to convince,
his adjectives for Luther, as used in the titles of thirteen chapters ("antirational,"
"unscriptural," "paradoxical," etc.), albeit tame in comparison with More's
slings, may betray him. Of course, one must not neglect to note that the sense of
these very slings was traced by Newman's own pen: "Surely it is a paradox to
maintain that the only safeguard of the doctrine of our being accepted freely and
without price, is that of our hearts being left odious and offensive to God"
(Lectures, III, sect. 8, n. 3 Uohn Henry Newman, Lectures on the Doctrine of
Justification (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900), 78f.]); this doctrine is
an "utter perversion of the truth" (Lectures, II, sect. 14 [Longmans ed., 60]). It
was on account of these that Ian Ker described the Lectures as "hardly eirenic in
intention or tone" (Newman the Theologian: A Reader [Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1990], 29). (In tone, especially with regard to today's
standards, yes. In intention? To the contrary, the set of Lectures has this
intention, even if it employs heated rhetoric in service of this aim. Newman
subdues his pen to his earnest prayer "Lead kindly".)
Second, due to his focus on rescuing Newman from the abuse of false
irenicism, Jaki's gaze materially diverges from Newman's. Their compass-settings
are identical-veritas et amor-but their situations opposed. Really buffeted,
Newman labors patiently to unite the diverging; Jaki, engulfed by what he
considers an overly facile consensus, strives to distinguish the confused. Newman
begins and ends his treatise, punctuating it throughout, with his central
thesis-namely, that at the core of moderate Protestant and moderate Catholic
doctrine lies a via media, acceptable in principle to the absolute strictures of both
parties: There are two partial so-called formal causes of justification, the Holy
Spirit indwelling and the genuine albeit inchoate, insufficient renewal that
attends that indwelling (Lectures, Appendix, par. 1 [Longmans ed., 343 n. 1).
This thesis, remarkably akin to a number of recent proposals for an ecumenical
rapprochement (esp. that of the Finnish school of Luther research), is prescient.
Jaki has his sites so trained on the insinuation into Catholic discourse of errors
grounded in Luther-the "basic target" of the Lectures (24 ), which are
"profoundly anti-Lutheran throughout" (17)-that he does not do full justice to
what Newman took to be the purport of the Lectures. (Of course, one might
note that Alister McGrath also observes Luther to be the "primary target" of the
Lectures: ["Newman on Justification: An Evangelical Anglican Evaluation," in
Newman and the Word, ed. T. Merrigan and I. Ker (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2000), 97].) Notwithstanding,Jaki knows and states (e.g., 16, 30, and
7 4) that numerous outstanding Lutherans variously parted ways with Luther, and
rather soon (e.g., Melanchthon, Chemnitz, Gherard). These Lutherans, Jaki
notes, pressed in Catholic directions in various ways. (But again, on this point,
the Lutheran scholarship is mixed, some claiming that Luther was closer to the

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Catholic view, others claiming that official Lutheran statements mollify some
harsh elements in Luther's doctrine.)
Jaki does recognize that Newman is trying to "put the best light on the
difference of Protestant and Catholic discourse" (80). So, Jaki gives us a
corrective to his own excesses: He points out that, in his reading of these and
also of the Reformed divines, Newman is not being anti-Lutheran but rather
"anti-" a certain exclusive, or "paradoxical," thesis-that justification is but the
imputation of Christ's righteousness, and that, correlatively, renewal and works,
albeit always concomitant, are not really a condition of final salvation. Jaki
would have us note, also, that Newman does not hesitate to credit this
paradoxical thesis to Luther (see, e.g., Lectures, I, sect. 4 [Longmans ed., 9 n. 1)
as well as to a swath of his nineteenth-century contemporaries. Jaki is quite lucid
regarding Newman's central, conciliating thesis.
A supporting reason for Jaki's divergent gaze is that, according to him,
Newman claims to accomplish too much and thus unwittingly cloaks outstanding
differences between the absolute strictures of Protestant and Catholic positions
(see, e.g., 81-83 and 146-49). These claims seem to me warranted. For this
reason, Jaki's angle, which at first glance appears a weakness, makes the
publication of his book opportune, while his rhetoric may curtail the longevity
the strengths of his commentary merit. It is to these I now turn.
Among the many strengths of the book that render it a must read for the
serious ecumenist and scholar and an enjoyable read for others the following can
be indicated. First, Jaki is attuned to the Lectures' modality: Newman wrote the
lectures neither as a merely scholastic exercise nor as a merely homiletic exhortation (22). Weaving two genres together, he challenges readers of all stripes.
This synthetic approach is not uncharacteristic: "One has to use more than one's
brains in approaching almost anything Newman wrote" (24). This coupling of
genres manifests Newman's concern for souls, whether intellectual or simple,
each one of whom is confronted by personal sin and offered grace throughout
life. As Jaki shows, the stuff of which Newman's classic is woven is Scripture.
Yet, in attending to the remedy of souls, Newman does not shrink from certain
theological precisions, which Jaki accurately deems as "Scholastic" in tenor and
"ontological" in sense. These precisions are conveyed with conventional terms,
for Newman's audience as he well knew was determined to attend to biblical
phrases (249f.). Still, Newman occasionally employs even technical terms.
Second, the monograph is thoroughly researched. Extensive is Jaki's
command of the secondary literature, knowledge of the history of disputes over
justification, and grasp of Newman's corpus (including the different stages of the
drafting, delivery, and preparation for publication of the Lectures). Jaki thus
bursts asunder the myth that speculative thinkers cannot competently remark on
historical figures. On the contrary, historians not philosophically adept are unfit
to read the history of ideas.
Third, and most importantly, is Jaki's profound grasp and love of the full
scope of Catholic teaching on justification. He was trained in a rigorous
theological methodology and availed himself of twentieth- and twenty-first-

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century scholarship on the teachings of Trent. Reading Newman with
methodological precision and scholarly acumen, Jaki is able to indicate
shortcomings in Newman's masterful synthesis.
This brings me to a fourth strength: Jaki's remarkable capacity for
sympathetic criticism. He does not dispense with Newman's great work on
account of certain rhythmic drawbacks, as might a less patient and appreciative
reader. On the contrary, Jaki defends it as a "masterpiece." Still, he observes
therein a tragic flaw: Newman never fully appreciated the precision of the
Catholic doctrine on justification and its distinction from the novel theory of
"double justice." Consequently, Jaki claims, Newman at times did not trace the
full scope of the Catholic position and at times conceded too much to the
moderate Protestant position. Jaki points out again and again the corrective
notes that Newman added to the 1874 reprinting. In these notes, Newman
enters retractions that, if thought through, are no mean admissions of error.
Nevertheless, Newman issued the reprint on the judgment that he still held in
substance in 1874 what he wrote in 1838. Despite Jaki's incisive remarks on the
weaknesses of the 1838 text, he candidly admits that, if it is acceptable,
Newman's notion of divine indwelling as the (major) formal cause "would soften
the doctrine of the 'unica causa formalis'" (190). Implicit, however, in Jaki's
sustained criticism of Newman's failure adequately to ground that indwelling in
a created corollary (sanctifying grace) is a contrary suggestion, that Newman's
hypothesized via media is likely too tenuous. (More viable, perhaps, is Matthias
Scheeben's reading of the indwelling, for Scheeben both accounts for the
indwelling of an immutable divine person and steers far away from the theory
of double justice.)
Fifth, connected with this last point, Jaki's major contention, noted above,
that Newman's central insight concerns the thoroughly ontological character of
justification in the concrete (157-62) is wholly accurate. Jaki's monograph
sustains this claim with evidence culled from throughout the text of the Lectures.
Jaki also drives the point home with numerous very helpful references to
Newman's corrective notes, which appear more substantial than Newman's
Preface avows.
Collectively, the strengths of Jaki's monograph are unmatched by those of
recent works on Newman's Lectures. (It should be noted, as Jaki does, that
several dissertations on the Lectures were written in the middle of the twentieth
century.) Ian Ker (Newman the Theologian) and Avery Cardinal Dulles (chap. 2
of his John Henry Newman [New York: Continuum, 2002]) offer balanced
presentations of Newman's central thesis, but both treatments are of necessity
brief. Thomas Sheridan wrote a monograph on Newman's development up to
his mature position in the Lectures but features the Lectures only in a concluding
chapter (Newman on Justification [New York: Alba House, 1967]). More
recently, Sheridan (in sync with the Finnish school) has shown that Luther
resonates with the Lectures' stress on divine indwelling ("Newman and Luther
on Justification," Journal of Ecumenical Studies 38 [2001]: 217-45). I would
recommend Sheridan's article as a companion piece to Jaki's monograph. One

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might also avail oneself of works of the Finnish school. Alister McGrath, more
trenchant the more he reflects on the Lectures, observes, as does Sheridan,
critical flaws in Newman's reading of Lutheran positions. Some elements are
"seriously inaccurate," demonstrating "a standard of intellectual integrity which
falls short of what one might have hoped to encounter" (McGrath, "Newman on
Justification," 94). John Perry concludes similarly Gohn F. Perry, "Newman's
Treatment of Luther in the Lectures on Justification," Journal of Ecumenical
Studies 36 [1999]: 303-17). One sympathizes with McGrath's and Perry's
criticisms of Newman's scholarship on Luther. To be clear, these criticisms cut
in two directions. They both mitigate some of Newman's accusations against
Luther (he did not wish to interpose faith, much less as some feeling, between
Christ and the soul) and distance Luther from Newman's occasional reading of
him in support of the Lectures' conciliating thesis: Luther indeed taught
justificatio sola fide, contrary to Newman's attempt to call him to his aid (against
sola fide) with a citation that omits by ellipsis Luther's most important precision
(Lectures, XII, n. 11 [Longmans ed., 300£.]; see McGrath, "Newman on
Justification," 101-5).
Essentially the first of its kind, Jaki's monograph is a helpful Catholic
complement to the scholarship of Perry, McGrath, and Sheridan. It is a
marvelous commentary on the Lectures from a leading disciple of Newman who
does not neglect a (once again, sympathetic) critique from the Catholic doctrinal
perspective. It may prove more substantiated than some Catholic efforts to wield
Newman without due regard for Tridentine doctrine. Most importantly, the
monograph's scholarly erudition, theological acumen, and literary-interpretative
skill make this work important reading for those involved or interested in
ecumenical dialogues on justification. It is to be hoped that Jaki's labor will be
given the attention it deserves and thereby direct even greater attention to
Newman's own Lectures.
CHRISTOPHER J. MALLOY

The University of Dallas
Irving, Texas

Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church. By MARK EDWARDS. Surrey, U.K.:
Ashgate Publishing Company, 2009. Pp. 201. $29.95 (paper). ISBN: 9780-7546-6297-6.
"The phenomenon, admitted on all hands," writes John Henry Newman, "is
this: That great portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, in its
rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in heathen philosophies and
religions" (Essays, vol. 2, as repeated in his Development of Doctrine 2.8.2.12).

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Newman's examples include the doctrine of the divine Word being Platonic and
the doctrine of the Incarnation being Indian. If much of Christian truth can be
found piecemeal outside of Christianity, would it be so disturbing to argue that
various elements of that same truth were in heresy prior to orthodoxy?
Mark Edwards, Lecturer in Patristics at Christ Church, Oxford, has written
a challenging book that seems meant to disturb. It re-examines the role of heresy
in the formation of early Christianity. Rather than simply being a catalyst for
future development, Edwards argues, heresy actually served a positive role in
formulating teachings that would be appropriated by future catholicity.
Conversely, some tenets proposed by catholic writers to counter heretical claims
would later be considered beyond orthodoxy's limits. It is a book, I think, that
Newman would have read with interest.
Contrasting his own approach with that found in the Essay on the
Development of Doctrine, Edwards faults Newman for preferring the notes of
preservation of type and continuity of principle. For Edwards, neither one is
satisfactory "since there is no early Christian movement which is demonstrably
unfaithful to the type laid down by Jesus, and there is no hermeneutic or
philosophic principle which yielded only heterodox logomachies without
enlarging the catholic proclamation" (2). In place of Newman's preference,
Edwards argues for the test of the assimilation of teachings "which to Newman
himself seemed aberrant and unworthy of the name 'Christian"' (ibid.). Edwards
does not explain himself more on this point, which is a pity as Newman offers
the power of assimilation as the third note of true development. Writing on
assimilation, Newman himself borrows an image from Jerome: "The Church, like
Aaron's rod, devours the serpents of the magicians" (Essays, vol. 2, as repeated
in Development of Doctrine 2.8.2.12). Perhaps Newman and Edwards do not
mean the same thing by assimilation. Newman's interest is to investigate how the
Church has a genuine development of doctrine without undergoing
corruption-even unifying through assimilation the scattered seeds of truth
found outside the bounds of the Church. Edwards, on the other hand, has the
consistent aim "to dismantle the antithetical constructions which obscure the
diversity of Christian thought in our modern patrologies" (142). The ultimate
antithetical construction seems to be expressed in the first part of the book's very
title: Catholicity and Heresy. The title further suggests a unity beyond the
diversity of Christian thought: in the Early Church. Orthodoxy, for Edwards, is
"whatever is taught in any epoch by the majority of bishops, and to be catholic
is to concur with this majority" (7). The provisional aspect should not be
overlooked. Edwards closes his introduction with this statement on assimilation
which surely would have irritated Newman:
The present study suggeststhat it [the church] was catholicin a sense
that it might have preferred to disown, since, notwithstanding its
fanciful claim to preserve the one truth handed down to the heirs of
the apostles,it was the church that lent its countenancemost readily
to the mingling of the old and the new, as liberal in receiving the

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chastened form of an idea that it had once declared unlawful as in
taking back the excommunicate who abjured his sin. (9)

Edwards's argument, laid out in the Introduction and reprised in the
Epilogue, unfolds over the course of six engaging chapters. The first is
provocatively entitled "The Gnostic Beginnings of Orthodoxy." It argues that
those reckoned to be some of the first heretics, such as Valentinus, Basilides, and
Marcion, contributed key ideas to the formation of catholicity. The second
chapter tackles the catholicity of Irenaeus, showing how he is in various ways
indebted to his heretical enemies and not influential in certain ways that he
diverged from them. The third chapter presses the argument further by
examining figures after Irenaeus, such as Theodotus, Clement, Origen,
Hippolytus, and Tertullian. The fourth chapter studies "Origen and Orthodoxy,"
especially through the Apology for Origen by Pamphilus of Caesarea. Chapters
5 and 6 deal with the first four ecumenical councils. Chapter 5 argues that
Eusebius of Caesarea and the homoiousians should be credited with the real
victory of asserting the Son's metaphysical equality with the Father; chapter 6
positions the heresiarch Apollinarius of Laodicea as the champion leading
Christians to Chalcedon's definition on the Incarnation.
What might be the contemporary significance for theology from this
reconfiguration of early Christianity? In the book's Epilogue, Edwards assures
his reader that his goal is not to confuse what is right with error: "Not only the
Curia but the academy requires its theologians to decide that this is false because
that is true" (17 5). But his plea follows what he calls the "emollient
recommendations" of Hans Kiing, quoted as writing:
The one essential thing is understanding: the 'unmasking and
refutation' of heretical doctrines, which from the time of Irenaeus
was always regarded as the main aim of the Christian heresiologists,
generally makes true understanding impossible .... Heresy should be
seen, not primarily as a challenge to the unity of Church fellowship,
but as a challenge to the Church to discover a new, purer and deeper
unity. (Ibid.)

Edwards wants that deeper unity to press beyond any strict division between
catholicity and heresy, and to find that catholicity has within itself building
blocks borrowed from heresy. In the end, the label of "heresy" is itself
questionable: "it would not have been impossible for the same church to
accommodate contradictory inferences from the same text without deeming any
of them heretical" (ibid.).
While space prevents a full engagement of the theology that Edwards
expresses in his writing (and I do think Newman's Development of Doctrine
would be a handy resource in such a dialogue), I would like to concentrate on
just one historical figure that Edwards adduces so as both to display his
interesting inquiry and to respond to it. Either Origen or Apollinarius would be
an obvious choice given their prominence in the book, but I will select someone

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325

from the first half of the second century to make the task more manageable. I
turn to how Edwards handles the case of Marcion.
In concentrating on early heretics like Valentinus, Basilides, and Marcion,
Edwards seems too quick to dismiss the likes of Ignatius of Antioch and Justin
Martyr as formative for subsequent theology. He writes, "[I]t has seldom been
profitable to look for intimations of a future orthodoxy in the writings of the
apostolic fathers or the apologists, as the latter wrote primarily to deflect false
accusations while the former touch on doctrine only so far as is necessary to arm
the faithful against temptation or distress" (7). Edwards turns to those early
heretics, such as Marcion, to show how they "can be associated with the first
expression of a principle which has become an axiom of catholic doctrine" (11).
Because Marcion sets himself as an interpreter of Paul, it is important to see
what Edwards thinks of Marcion's version of the Apostle. Edwards writes,
"Matter is irredeemable, and Christ came not in the flesh but (as Paul discloses
at Romans 8.3) in the phantasmal likeness of flesh" (29). This parenthetical
comment seems partial to Marcion's construal. The Apostle says: "For what the
law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, he condemned
sin in the flesh" (Rom 8:3). The Son did not have sinful flesh, but he was sent in
that likeness for the reason of God condemning sin in the flesh. Moreover,
Edwards is quite generous toward Marcion in interpreting Paul's understanding
of the resurrection. Marci on denied the Incarnation, saying that Christ came only
in spirit-and so it should not surprise that Marcion believed that the
resurrection is only of a spirit. Edwards says that there is nothing in Paul's
testimonies to imply that Paul saw a body. Edwards chastises Tertullian for
quoting Luke 24:40 "a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me having"
when he writes: "But his [Marcion's] true preceptor is Paul, not Luke, and the
strength of his position is revealed by the strange constructions that his
adversaries put on Paul's exclusion of flesh and blood from the kingdom of
heaven" (32). What should not be overlooked in this analysis is that Marcion, by
clinging to a selective reading of Paul, fails Edwards's own test of assimilation for
catholicity. Marcion cannot represent catholicity, but how did the Church
assimilate Marcion's teaching?
Edwards gives three considerations of Marcion's legacy for catholicity: "his
choice of Paul as a privileged amanuensis of the mind of Christ, his perception
that any theory of obligation to the Law involves a theory of human nature, and
his insistence that when Paul hailed Christ as the end of the Law he did not mean
simply that Christ fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament and left us an
example of righteous works" (33). In each case, Edwards has touched upon
something significant, but perhaps some further distinction is required. Yes,
Marcion may have brought Paul to greater prominence in the tradition, but no
one in the mainstream after Marcion-not even John Chrysostom-would have
concurred with Marcion's way of privileging Paul. As for the second, yes again.
But does not Paul himself give in his Letter to the Romans an implicit theory of
human nature? The third aspect of Marcion's legacy is oddly expressed. What

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is the significance of saying that Marcion's version of Paul did "not mean simply
that Christ fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament"? The word "simply"
is a problem. Marcion seems more to say that Christ was the antithesis, rather
than the fulfillment, of Israel's Scriptures. The Church had considerable work to
show, both against Marcion and against Jews who did not accept Jesus as the
Messiah, that Jesus fulfills the Law for our salvation. Furthermore on this third
point, did the Church need Marcion to say that Jesus was not simply giving an
example of righteous works, or was that already imbedded within the apostolic
tradition of understanding the person of Christ?
Edwards has done a great service in writing this book, and its power is
demonstrated in its ability to provoke reconsiderations of what is too facilely
believed about the fascinating world of early Christianity. Theologically, the
book succeeds in disturbing even those who accept Newman's note of
assimilation. It will prove especially valuable to those dealing with accounts of
who is "in" and who is "out" in the first five Christian centuries, and should also
be read by ecclesiologists, ecumenists, and others interested in broad questions
pertaining to the nature of Tradition, Church teaching, and the theological
enterprise.
Readers should be alerted that the book suffers from some poor proofreading.
I was frequently distracted by errors, as many as three or four on a single page
(e.g., pp. 41, 155, 168, 171, and 175). Some mistakes are howlers, such as this
Christological affirmation: "there is one Sin and not two" (8). Others require a
theological eye. Genesis 1:3 does not say "Let us make man in our image" (15),
and it is misleading to speak of the Council of Ephesus occurring in 433 (6
and136). The back cover even misrepresents the prodigious work by Edwards.
He has a very useful translation of Optatus, Against the Donatists, not Optatus,
Against the Gnostics.
ANDREW HOFER, 0.P.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

Thomistenlexikon. Edited by DAVID BERGERandJ6RGENVIJGEN.Bonn: Nova &
Vetera, 2006. Pp. viii+ 374. 98.00€ (cloth). ISBN 978-3-936741-37-7.
In the third edition (1993-2001) of the prestigious eleven-volume German
Catholic theological encyclopedia, Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche, edited by
Walter Cardinal Kasper in cooperation with a group of leading German Catholic
theologians, the competent entry in volume 9 on "Thomism" (pp. 1517-22) by
Klaus Obenauer ends with the following noteworthy statement: "Although
currently Thomism has lost its significance to a large degree, it still contains a

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rich reservoir of metaphysical insights that could be reactivated, if one only were
to think beyond certain narrow hyper-concentrations [Engfuhrungen] of
Thomism in particular and scholastic philosophy in general" (p. 1521). Attracted
by the promise of this rich reservoir of metaphysical insights and guided by the
entries on "Thomism" and "Neoscholasticism/Neothomism," the student of
Thomism in search of further and deeper orientation will most likely turn to
various entries on individual representatives of this veritable intellectual tradition
and school of thought-to not much avail, alas. While Thomas de Vio Cajetan
is covered in one full column and while Domingo Soto receives thirty-four and
Gustav Siewerth twenty-four lines of one column, Ambroise Gardeil and Josef
Pieper have to content themselves with seventeen lines of one column each,
Francisco Marin-Sola with fourteen, Antonin Sertillanges with thirteen,
Hermann Plassmann and Franz Diekamp with eleven, John Capreolus, Ceslaus
Maria Schneider, and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange with eight lines each. One
searches in vain for entries on the Belgian Charles de Koninck, the French
Thomas Deman, or the American Joseph Owens. In order to get the larger
picture right, one needs to understand that in this most recent edition of the
Lexikon fur Theologieund Kirche, St. Dominic, Matthias Josef Scheeben, and the
early nineteenth-century German Catholic rationalist Anton Gunther each
receive forty lines of one column-while the other early nineteenth-century
German Catholic rationalist, Georg Hermes, receives sixty-four lines! Needless
to say, with very few exceptions, the entries on most Thomists across the
centuries offer very little beyond the bare bones of the biographical and
historical data.
Fortunately, the student who wishes to tap the rich reservoir of the
metaphysical, let alone the theological, insights still hidden in Thomism is not
left without help. On behalf of the German and Dutch Thomas societies, David
Berger and Jorgen Vijgen gathered an impressive international group of scholars
to produce what according to my knowledge is a singularity-a lexicon that
introduces the life, works, and thought of over 230 Thomists in 738 columns.
The entries range from Aegidius of Rome and Juan Arintero to Karol Wojtyla
and Francisco Zumel, from 1272 (the death of Hannibaldus de Hannibaldis, a
student of Thomas Aquinas) to 2005 (the death of Joseph Owens, one of the
leading figures at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto). All
entries are of a consistently high scholarly quality and offer extensive
bibliographic resources for further study. In many cases, this bibliographic
information pertains to works that are preciously rare and exceedingly hard to
come by. To the persistent reader of this lexicon, the richly varied, but
profoundly coherent picture of an intellectual tradition stretching over more
than eight centuries will emerge in front of the mind's eye. Such a reader will
quickly reach a much more nuanced understanding of the richness, rigor, and
ongoing relevance of the Tho mist and-yes, indeed-even neo-Thomist thought
stretching well into the twentieth century and will discover (next to some justly
forgotten figures) a range of important and currently quite unjustly neglected or
forgotten thinkers, especially of the nineteenth century.

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Some of the entries are small masterpieces. Among the many worthy
candidates I would like to highlight from the earlier periods the entries on John
Capreolus (Cessario/White), Cajetan (Klueting), Sylvester of Ferrara (Elders),
Banez (Martinez), John of St. Thomas (Stohr), and Vitoria (Spindelbock); from
the nineteenth century the entries on Benoit Henri Merkelbach (Hauke),
Norberto de! Prado (Berger), Matthias Joseph Scheeben (Berger), and Ceslaus
Maria Schneider (Berger); and from the twentieth century the entries on
Cornelio Fabro (Ferraro), Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (Berger), Etienne Gilson
(Stickelbroeck), Marie-Michel Labourdette (Vijgen), Bernard Lonergan (Sala),
Gallus Manser (Braun), and Jacques Maritain (Ritzier). One finds rich entries on
the Salzburg Benedictine Thomists (Vijgen) and on the Salmanticenses (Berger),
and in addition, entries on Catherine of Siena, Dante, Savonarola, Edith Stein,
and Popes John XXII, Pius V, and Leo XIII. Being myself German, I admittedly
was especially pleased to find entries on lesser known and barely remembered
figures like Ernst Commer (Berger), Franz von Paula Morgott (Peitz), and
Hermann Ernst Plassmann (Peitz), or figures which are mainly (and arguably,
quite unjustly) seen in a negative light as Friedrich Heinrich Suso Denifle
(Klueting) and Franz Diekamp (Hauke).
For the student of Thomism, the Thomistenlexikon is an indispensable tool.
It not only offers reliable and in many cases fecund entries (together with
commendably comprehensive bibliographies of primary and secondary resources)
for virtually every important philosopher and theologian from the distant to the
most recent past who could reasonably be identified as a Thomist. For students
of theology and philosophy in general, the consistent consultation of this lexicon
will irreversibly undermine the currently conventional wisdom that Thomism is
a monolithic, sterile, and therefore rightly bygone intellectual tradition and will
provide all the necessary markers to guide them sooner or later to the rich
reservoir of metaphysical and theological insights still hidden in Thomism.
In conclusion, I would mention one criticism and two desiderata. As for the
criticism: the lexicon could have profited from one more round of careful proofreading. The first desideratum is the inclusion as an entry, in a future second
edition, of an entry by Jorgen Vijgen on Bernhard of Trilia and another entry by
M. Hauke on Alexis-Henri-Marie Lepicier that appeared as a separate essay in
Doctor angelicus 7 (2007): 189-97. Such a second edition should also include
entries on Josef Kleutgen, Jean-Pierre Torrell, and Servais Pinckaers, Ferdinand
Ulrich, and Carl Werner. The second desideratum is an English translation of this
important lexicon, appropriately supplemented and updated, though, with
entries on Benedict Ashley, W. Norris Clarke, Fergus Kerr, Alasdair Macintyre,
Ralph Mdnerny, and William A. Wallace. After all, as with all living traditions,
the story of Thomism goes on. And this lexicon is the best reminder of it.
REINHARD Hi'rITER

Duke University Divinity School
Durham, North Carolina

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He Became Poor: The Poverty of Christ and Aquinas's Economic Teachings. By
CHRISTOPHERA. FRANKS. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 2009. Pp. 207 $27.00 (paper) ISBN: 978-0-80283748-6.
This is an interesting book with an underdeveloped argument. A significant
part of the book's interest is that Franks turns the light on a crucial topic, the
moral standing of credit. As the West ponders the guiding principles of its
banking system, the topic could not be more timely. To show that Thomas might
have much to say on this topic is, of course, very welcome. The point is crucial
to the book. Catholic social thought has Thomas's ideas at its moral center and
He Became Poor wants to show why Thomas remains a touchstone for the
Church's continuing engagement with the social arena.
The reasons for the West's 2008 credit problems are multiple and still not
well understood. One of many unsavory parts of the story, however, is usury:
Some lenders only released credit at exorbitant interest rates. Franks makes the
interesting claim that Thomas's arguments about lending at interest are a central
front in the persuasiveness of his natural-law reasoning in toto. Natural law's
deep teaching is that humans are from the outset placed in a moral order. It is
also, says Franks, an order of provision, wherein God has lovingly crafted a
natural fecundity to meet our "natural human needs."
Some might wonder at this dual construction of natural law but Franks
cleverly puts it to use in the matter of lending at interest. Franks argues that
usury is unjust because it is a sin of presumption. Contracting the borrower to
pay interest even when the foreseen benefits of the loan are swallowed up by
adverse circumstances is an injustice to the borrower; the entire exchange relies
on the presumption of security in God's continuing material beneficence.
Contrasting investing and usury, Franks writes: "While the investor entrusts his
money at his own risk, the usurer transfers risk to the borrower .... The usurer
thus claims a title to a return that neglects any attempt to conform to God's
actual provision" (81 ).
This strikes me as Franks's deeper argument but he has another on which he
relies. He wants to argue against a consensus that Thomas's comments on usury
lack power because they mischaracterize the nature of money (77). Thomas's
image is well-known: The use of money is like drinking wine. Renting a house
is permissible because the rent is the sale of the use of the house; after the rental
period the house is returned. Renting money is not comparable, however.
Money's use is its consumption; I spend the money and it is gone. It is just like
when I pay for the wine, use it, and it is gone. Who would pay both for the wine
and, separately, for its use? If the use of something is its very consumption, to
charge for the use and to also expect the borrowed original returned is unjust:
one thing has been charged twice and this is thus stealing from the borrower.
When I borrow money at interest, and must return the original money and also
pay interest, then I have been charged twice for the same thing; so the lender has
stolen from me.

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To the modern mind, something seems wrong with Thomas's analogy:
borrow money at interest to put it to work on my behalf; I borrow money, and
pay to do so, because money's function isn't consumption, but generation.
Money has a genuine use value, therefore: I pay back the loan, I pay the interest,
and I keep what the money generated. This is the role of a mortgage, for
example, or a business loan. Of course, not everyone relies on credit with its
generative capacity in mind, and there is risk all around, but the main point is
that the money borrowed isn't simply like wine. Franks thinks this typical
response to Thomas-that he assumes money's sterility-misses his real point.
The standard critical account is wrong because, "Thomas's point is that insofar
as money is nothing more than that convention-nothing but pure exchange
value-there is no way to exchange the use of it without exchanging it. It has no
separable use such that the potential uses of a sum of money could accumulate
with time" (79). So far as I can tell, this is Franks's counterclaim, and I do not
see that it is expanded upon elsewhere. The point is too condensed. I wish
Franks had expanded upon the argument, perhaps by explaining why a mortgage
is illicit, as many in the Islamic world think. Perhaps I am missing something but
a mortgage does seem like a counterexample to his construction of Thomas's
argument, a construction that does not itself seem to escape the basic charge
against Thomas, his sterility assumption. My basic fear is that Franks "thins out"
the reality, institutional character, and variety, of money.
The way Franks embeds the question of usury in the general topic of
consumerism is interesting, however. Part of the problem attending credit in
recent years is not reducible to poor regulation or exploitative sales agents
foisting mortgages on the unsuspecting, but a general cultural drift to an inflation
of self and choice. Most needful, insists Franks, is a new sensibility of deference
to God's providential order, a humble grasp that God has so ordered the natural
world that our central needs are met. Franks spells this out with reflections of
what he terms our "ontological poverty." Pointing towards our vulnerability as
the proper context in which to examine economic and business policy seems
exactly right to me, and Franks's work is a useful reminder about the deeper
meanings in play if anyone wants to give an adequate account of banking and
business.
Like his previous argument, this one is never really made, however. The
argument is undeveloped both in terms of Thomas and in terms of Thomism.
Thomism seeks to take the arguments of Thomas out onto the contested field of
modern ideas. For example, Franks would have us take comfort that Malthus's
vision of nature is wrong and that a gentler providential order reigns. Thomists
agree but few other intellectuals do. Franks needs to argue against Malthus:
Where did his powerful analytical mind go wrong? Moreover, where did Darwin
go wrong? As early as his Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin was overwhelmed by the
pervasive evidence that large-scale extinction is the normal run of nature. Rare
is the species that survives; death, not life, is the history of Earth. Later, of
course, in The Origin of Species, Darwin harnesses Malthus's analytics of
population as a central explanation for this observation. Thomism cannot ignore

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the Darwin-Malthus alliance when making the claim that there is a sufficient
providential order writ large in nature.
A not dissimilar problem is misidentifying the target of one's arguments. A
surprising number of Christian critics of commercial civilization think that ours
is a culture of narcissistic egoism (187). To say this is to fail to engage seriously
the Whig architects of our civilization. Smith, for example, is explicit that
commercial life is a sacrificial life, devoted to satisfying the rigors of an aesthetic
imagination. Beauty is an exhausting mistress but as she uses up our lives nature
is made fertile in new ways and poverty overcome. Hume and Burke agree.
Thomism cannot ignore their arguments: To contest the Whig consensus that
now sits at the heart of the West, and increasingly much of the world, a first
necessary start is to identify its animating logic.
These two examples combine in the sense that this reader at least has that the
book is a bit one-dimensional. It is a heartfelt book but gives the sense of
preaching to the choir. There is much in the book for students of Thomas to
think about, but the choir might also start raising questions.
Two dramatic claims are made. Thomas's natural law is intimately tied to his
arguments on usury and if the latter fail then the overall persuasiveness of
Thomas's natural-law reasoning crumbles. On the face of it, this seems wrong.
Relatively little attention has been paid Thomas's arguments about credit for
hundreds of years yet reflection of his natural-law thinking has never abated.
Earlier I specified the exact contours of Franks's claim and here I only add why
his tight running together of Thomas on credit and Thomas on law is wrong. It
seems to me that Thomas is just wrong about credit because he is wrong about
the nature of money. Thomas, ever alert to all the other places throughout
creation where fertility abounds, appears not to have seen that money too could
be fecund. Thomists do not need to be defensive about this. There is nothing
wrong in simply acknowledging that things like bond markets hadn't been
invented when Thomas was alive and so he didn't understand money very well.
Norris Clarke often spoke about the "creative completion" of Thomas and this
is a case in point. Thomists should be pluralists, I believe, and harness good
arguments where we find them in order to make Thomas's broader points.
Ultimately, it does Catholic social thought little good if we make Thomas do
work he cannot really manage.
Perhaps there are Tho mist purists who would reject this suggestion but Franks
will certainly have a problem with them, too. His second audacious claim comes
in the third chapter where he argues that the counsels have priority over the
precepts. He argues there that in Thomas the poverty of the crucified Christ is
a norm of faithful Christian life. This is true but it does not have the implication
he thinks. He thinks that Christians who go to the mall on Saturday and church
on Sunday are confused: The whole tenor of Christian life respecting material
needs and property ought to be governed by the poverty of the Cross. Yet this
claim in itself confuses the diverse requirements of our spiritual and moral lives.
Of course, my saying this is precisely what Franks wants to reject. My comment
assumes a two-tier mentality to nature and grace that de Lubac is presumed to

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have overcome. This is not the place to engage what is a great debate in the
Church today but any variety of Tho mist is likely to suspect that Franks goes too
far when arguing that living the poverty of the Cross requires the gift of fear: "As
we sense our lowliness and God's greatness, we also recognize the extent of our
dependence. So the gift of fear shores us up for the arduous task of trusting God
for all our needs .... The fear of the Lord is not only a stumbling block for
modern thought; it also evokes a sense of our ontological poverty" (111). It goes
too far, because Franks believes a sense of ontological poverty sits at the heart
of natural law. Franks's position seems to collapse into the idea that our moral
sensibility relies heavily on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and this does seem like a
sin of presumption. One wonders whether Franks's-in my opinion-incautious
formulations, running too closely together the natural law and the virtues of
spiritual perfection, point to a troubling lust for perfection immanent to a de
Lubacian outlook. Despite my wanting to see the argument of the book clarified
and tightened, I enjoyed this book and found it genuinely thoughtful.
G. ]. MCALEER
Loyola University of Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

Aesthetic Perception: A Thomistic Perspective. By KEVIN E. O'REILLY. Dublin:
Four Courts Press, 2007. Pp. 131. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-84682027-4.
The study of Aquinas's aesthetics is inevitably hampered by the fact that he
wrote no sustained discussion of the topic. He devoted neither a question nor a
single article to the nature of beauty. This is not to suggest the topic is unworthy
of scholarly attention. Though Aquinas did not pursue the topic directly, he did
bequeath ample resources by which his students might do so themselves. As a
number of recent studies have indicated, such an undertaking more than
compensates for the labors required, leading to a deeper and broader
appreciation of Aquinas's philosophical achievements. Not only do we stand to
gain deeper insights into his understanding of beauty, we might also appraise this
in relation to other aspects of his thought.
The expectation that we might find an aesthetic theory in Aquinas is perhaps
due to developments of post-Enlightenment thought. With the dissatisfaction of
rationalism, an explicit consideration of beauty and our experience of it assumed
much greater importance than it had before. After the publication of Kant's
Critique of Judgment the topic came to be highly appreciated, if not as the locus
of metaphysical speculation, then as that which readily engages our speculative
attention in our more common experiences. It is within this modern context that

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the study of Aquinas's aesthetics acquires an added significance. It offers
Thomists the possibility of introducing his thought to a wider audience which
might not understand or appreciate his relevance, not only as a representative of
the Middle Ages, but also as a thinker who affords us a thoroughgoing
understanding of our own experience.
Kevin O'Reilly's Aesthetic Perception: A Thomistic Perspective is a welcome
addition to this topic, not only for its study of Aquinas's aesthetics but also as it
leads us to appraise the importance of that aesthetics within a broader
philosophical spectrum. O'Reilly provides a penetrating and expansive treatment
of this field. Beyond his thoughtful review of the psychological and metaphysical
moorings of Aquinas's aesthetics, he also considers its moral significance, which
has received scant attention in other studies. Moreover, he proposes Aquinas's
thought as a response to some more recent developments, thus encouraging
Tho mists to consider how the Angelic Doctor might be introduced into quarters
where he might have been previously unknown.
Though an insightful study, one of the disappointments of this volume is that
it does not always pursue the implications of its findings, some of which are
quite significant, to the degree they deserve. Another unfortunate aspect of the
project is the degree to which the author allows his insightful analysis of Aquinas
to be unduly indebted to debates among relatively recent Thomists. One of
O'Reilly's principal aims is to establish the superiority of Jacques Maritain's
reading of Aquinas to that of Umberto Eco. His preference stems from his belief
that Eco's interpretation obscures Aquinas's presentation of the unity of the
human person, which he believes Maritain's reading preserves. However viable
this assessment, it does not serve O'Reilly as well as it might. He cannot always
maintain it: he must occasionally acknowledge his debt to Eco's more astute
analysis. Moreover, it is not clear how much Maritain helps bolster O'Reilly's
discussion of the ethical implications of this topic. Although O'Reilly indicts
Eco's rationalist approach, he hardly considers the fact that it is possible to
underemphasize reason. To be sure, one does not wish to engage in an endless
debate over the relative merit of reason in Aquinas's aesthetics, but we might
more profitably gauge a balanced adjudication between the alternatives if we
base our approach in Aquinas's deep metaphysical and anthropological roots. We
might further appropriate him as a reply to the claims of the post-Enlightenment
as well as the Enlightenment.
O'Reilly's first chapter introduces competing interpretations of Aquinas's
aesthetics. His complaint is that Eco's preoccupation with the role of reason
leads him to ignore such key elements as human emotions. Maritain's
interpretation is "supremely integrated and is sensitive to the dynamic interplay
between reason, the emotions, and our bodies" (16). Yet O'Reilly still has to
concede his debt to Eco (33 and 51). Reason must be given its proper emphasis,
and one must also determine its role relative to all the other factors that O'Reilly
himself so thoroughly enumerates.
The second chapter summarizes what Aquinas counts as the formal
constitutive elements of beauty: (1) proper proportion of the various ontological

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factors of a object, which include the relation between its form and matter,
between its essence and existence, etc.; (2) integrity: the adequacy of an
individual object to its nature, that is, that it lacks nothing it ought to have; (3)
clarity: how well the object manifests its form. Recent literature has devoted a
fair amount of attention to these elements and their interrelations-rightfully so,
as they are the objective constituents of beauty. While O'Reilly recognizes their
importance, his concern to avoid overemphasizing reason allows these objective
elements to recede into the background. This has the unfortunate consequence
of leading us to weigh one set of subjective factors (reason) against another
(emotion), to the point that we nearly lose sight of what are the objective
grounds of both.
Chapter 3 reviews the various moments wherein concepts are produced in the
intellect thorough the interplay of the external and internal senses. O'Reilly
concedes Eco's insight that aesthetic experience necessarily occurs after we
abstract concepts from experience, not, as Maritain supposes, through intuition
alone. As he notes, only as "a subject actualizes his aesthetic visio in relation to
an aesthetic artifact by means of a series of judgments ... will he be able to
encounter and experience the artifact's aesthetic quality" (37). He then describes
the relative contributions of the cognitive factors limned by Eco with those
identified by Maritain. This allows him to develop his insights in terms of the
contribution of the will.
One of the more noteworthy parts of O'Reilly's study is his reading of De
Veritate, which describes reason's progression toward understanding. Reason,
through its discursive engagement with multiple truths, eventually arrives at
simple and uniform insight (understanding). Although most interpreters read this
in relation to the abstract truths of science, O'Reilly proposes that this also
pertains to aesthetic experience: we come to a deeper appreciation of beauty
through a series of judgments. In this way, he advances his argument against
Enlightenment allegations that Aquinas's aesthetics is unduly static. He then
develops this possibility along the ethical axis of his analysis: as our appreciation
of beauty deepens, so does our capacity for moral reflection. This dynamic was
also considered by a number of post-Enlightenment authors (e.g., Kant and
Schiller), but one factor that differentiates Aquinas from his post-Enlightenment
counterparts is that he gives much greater emphasis to the ontological basis of
our aesthetic engagement: that which we are drawn to is what we find in given
patterns of existence (creation), not merely in ourselves-a possibility O'Reilly
tentatively introduces but does not actively pursue.
Oddly, O'Reilly continues to base his analysis on Maritain's interpretation,
even after he concedes its deficiencies. Essentially, he appeals to Maritain's
theory of poetic intuition as a paradigm for what he identifies as "judgment by
inclination." Such poetic knowledge, while it arises preconsciously, emerges in
our consciousness through our emotional and intellectual engagements (5 5). This
helps counter the various readings of Aquinas that restrict our consideration of
beauty to a cognitive engagement alone. Because beauty is related to the true and

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335

the good, it necessarily elicits a response from the mind and the will. As O'Reilly
makes clear, the agent's response must be fully informed, that is, it must occur
at the level of judgment, rather than that of intuition or emotion. Whatever our
debt to Maritain, it need not obscure what we learn from Eco.
In what is the strongest and most helpful part of the text, chapter 5 calls our
attention to Aquinas's distinction between judgment by cognition alone, as in the
exercise of moral science, and judgment by inclination which includes cognition
and will, that is, a more complete and personal engagement with the exigencies
of one's own life. O'Reilly underscores the role of habitus, the "definite ability
for growth through activity" (65), as the means by which we learn to form
judgments by inclination. Presumably this means that as we become more
familiar with beauty our moral acuity increases, not merely because we know
more about the world, but because we are increasingly inclined to restore it to
its proper order. Citing Aquinas's De Potentia, O'Reilly invites us to consider the
circular exchange between cognition and will: the more we know of the
beautiful, the more we seek to draw near to it, which, in turn, increases our
knowledge of it, etc. This, along with the dynamic between reason and
understanding, highlights O'Reilly's articulation of a more integrated Thomistic
view of the human person than that which the Enlightenment offered. Yet by
what he has invited us to consider, we might continue his lead further than he
advances it. Not only is Aquinas's view of the human person anthropologically
integrated-a desideratum of Kant and Schelling-it is ontologically grounded:
not only does our engagement with beauty bring about a personal integration,
it also brings about an integration with the world, or, more specifically with
God's creation. Here again, we encounter a possibility that O'Reilly does not
pursue.
Chapter 6 draws our attention to the possibility of integrating the individual
into the community through aesthetic education. By schooling the young in the
proper standards of taste and morality, the community can lay the psychological
groundwork by which they learn to appraise the goodness, and thus the moral
significance, that they find in beauty. As O'Reilly observes, this was a theme
common to the German Idealists. For example, Kant sought to articulate a
synthesis of individual subjective experience that was yet universal because of the
same interplay of subjective faculties in all humans. O'Reilly reminds us that
Aquinas secures such an assurance by the claim that we know things as they are
(89), rather than in their mere appearance, the implication being that not only
is there a commonality in how we know but also in what we know. This suggests
that our aesthetic engagements may bring us closer to objective reality even in
our individual encounters with it. This is the closest O'Reilly comes to proposing
Aquinas as a counterweight to both the post-Enlightenment and the
Enlightenment, but here again, he declines to provide further development.
Chapter 7 reviews Aquinas's treatment of the transcendentals. Conceding that
Aquinas does not include beauty in this list, O'Reilly argues that it is only a
transcendental in a secondary sense, that is, in its relation to truth and goodness.
This insight effectively undergirds the entire sweep of his analysis: beauty is not

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merely what we know of being, it is also that toward which we are drawn. A
thoughtful inclusion of the latter is one of the more powerful endorsements of
O'Reilly's approach. Had he presented this assertion toward the beginning of his
discussion, it might have served as a powerful guiding theme.
In his final chapter O'Reilly characterizes his study as a "humble effort in the
direction of what one might call a virtue aesthetic" (119). Though humble in its
length, it is certainly thorough in its survey of the relevant elements of the
subject. If it does not completely synthesize these elements to the degree that it
might, it leaves subsequent attempts ample means by which to begin and to
proceed.
BRIAN CHRZASTEK, 0.P.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.