The Thomist 74 (2010): 337-68

AQUINAS ON BATTLEFIELD COURAGE
GREGORY M. REICHBERG
Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Oslo, Norway

O

VER THECOURSEofhiscareer, ThomasAquinaspaused
only once to reflect on battlefield courage-question 123,
article 5 of the Secunda Secundae of the Summa Theologiae: "Whether fortitude is properly about the dangers of death
which arise in war." 1 In light of his robust teaching on just war, 2
one would have expected him to elaborate on the special nobility
of the military profession, or to detail the moral challenges faced
by its practitioners. Instead, the article explains how "death in
war" is an analogous term that applies to soldiers certainly, but
also to civic heroes and even to martyrs for the faith.
The theme of martyrdom occupies central stage 3 in Aquinas's
overall discussion of courage. Some commentators have concluded that his main purpose in writing question 123 was to
substitute the ancient Greco-Roman admiration for military
heroism with a Christian focus on martyrdom. 4 In what follows,
1 The theme of battlefield courage is however announced earlier in question 50 on
prudence. Having noted that generalship requires a special form of prudence, Aquinas adds
that those who do the actual fighting (rank-and-file soldiers) stand in need of fortitude (STh
11-11, q. 50, a. 4, ad 3). For a treatment of the former virtue, see Gregory M. Reichberg,
"Thomas Aquinas on Military Prudence," Journal of Military Ethics 9 (2010): 261-74.
2 STh 11-11, q. 40, "De hello." See Gregory M. Reichberg, "Thomas Aquinas between Just
War and Pacifism," Journal of Religious Ethics 38 (2010): 219-41.
3 Among the acts of fortitude, martyrdom alone receives special treatment in a full quaestio
(STh II-II, q. 124).
4 A particularly emphatic formulation of this reading has been advanced by Rebecca
Konyndyk de Young, "Power Made Perfect in Weakness: Aquinas's Transformation of the
Virtue of Courage," Medieval Philosophy and Theology 11(2003):147-80. To a lesser extent

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I argue that the substitution account is misleading. Despite
Aquinas's obvious interest in highlighting martyrdom as the
highest instantiation of fortitude, he does not discredit the value
of battlefield courage within the Christian life of virtue. On the
contrary, he elaborates a two-stage theory in which military
heroism is put forward as the exemplar of acquired fortitude,
while martyrdom is praised as the paradigm of infused fortitude.
Having embraced the principle "grace perfects nature," Aquinas
is attentive to the various relations that can exist between these
two modalities-acquired and infused-of fortitude. 5 On the one
hand, the heroism of soldiers provides him with a natural basis for
understanding the supernatural fortitude of holy martyrs. On the
other hand, he recognizes how infused fortitude can find
expression in military deeds, such that death on the battlefield will
sometimes count as martyrdom.
The argument will proceed in six stages. In a first section I
examine why Aquinas brings the theme of martyrdom into his
account of battlefield courage in question 123, article 5. To this
end, a comparison with his earlier discussion of prudence 6 will
prove instructive. Whereas prudence is differentiated into five
separate kinds, including a military kind, on the Aristotelian
typology followed by Aquinas, courage is a unitary virtue. Unlike
many contemporary Christian authors, who typically frame
martyrdom as a category sui generis that would stand wholly apart
from the soldier's active engagement on the battlefield, Aquinas
is intent on encompassing the two sorts of death within a single
account. 7
this viewpoint is briefly developed by Michel Labourdette, O.P., Force et temperance (IIa-IIae,
123-170) in Cours de theologie morale, Toulouse, annee scolaire 1961-62, unpublished
manuscript. (Copies of Labourdette's typed course manuscript, which follows the order of the
Secunda Pars, have circulated widely). Labourdette's treatment does have the merit of
emphasizing the importance, in Aquinas's eyes, of acquired courage, while Konyndyk De
Young's analysis is framed almost exclusively in terms of infused courage.
5 I thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this formulation.
6 In particular, STh 11-11, qq. 48 and. 50.
7 This is especially salient in STh 11-11, q. 124, a. 5, ad 3, where, after reproducing the
objection that "it is not consistent with Church observance" that those who die fighting in a
just war are celebrated as martyrs, he responds that "any human good insofar as it is referred
to God may be the cause of martyrdom," with the discreet implication that even a soldier's

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In a second section, moving more deeply into the specific
characteristics of military courage, I explore how Aquinas goes
well beyond the letter of Aristotle's treatment of this virtue.
Whereas the Stagirite had simply stated that the courageous man
faces death in the most noble of circumstances, namely, in war,
Aquinas innovates by establishing a necessary link between
courage and just cause (protection of the common good from
external threats). He accordingly rules out any possible exercise
of courage in unjust wars.
Having delineated what goods are to be upheld by fortitude,
Aquinas then explains how two passions in particular stand in
need of regulation by this virtue: fear and daring. How these
passions arise with particular vehemence in the military setting is
the topic of this article's third section. But since in this connection
Aquinas says little explicitly about war, my account of battlefield
courage is supplemented by an analysis of the dispositions which,
on his understanding, reinforce courage, namely, hope, anger,
perseverance, and the like (sections 4 and 5). This analysis shows
how Aquinas provides a nuanced set of principles for discerning
the special emotive challenges that arise within the military
profession, challenges that St. Augustine had highlighted but
which commentators often assume Aquinas had neglected in favor
of a more deontological approach.
By emphasizing so strongly the military dimensions of courage,
it would seem, however, that my interpretation of Aquinas is
vulnerable to an objection. While the expectation of a future
beatitude to be conferred by God provides a motivational
grounding for infused martyrdom, no such premise comes to the
support of acquired military courage. Why should soldiers be
willing to give their all if the temporal city is in no way able to
death in combat, undergone with the requisite intention, may fall under this heading. He is
not thereby affirming that every death in a just war would count as martyrdom, nor that the
battlefield is a typical setting for martyrdom, but only how, on his understanding, there exists
sufficient commonality between the two sorts of death-the soldier's and the martyr's-that
the same virtue can be predicated of each without equivocation. This commonality of meaning
is assured by the nonmetaphorical extension of the predicate "in war" beyond its standard
battlefield connotation (public war), to a violent conflict of individuals (private war).

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return the favor? Section 6 elucidates Aquinas's response to this
question.
I. COURAGE IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE WAR

In line with his earlier treatment of prudentia militaris, Aquinas
devotes a single article to battlefield courage (STh 11-11, q. 123, a.
5). The approach adopted in this article is however markedly
different from his antecedent analysis of prudence. In light of its
wide scope (the sound practical judgment needed for upright
choice), Aquinas subdivides prudentia into several distinct and
full-fledged virtues, each with responsibility over a different
sphere of human action-personal, familial, civil, or military.
Fortitudo,8 by contrast, he describes as prima facie of quite narrow
scope. Its task, as indicated by the article's title, is to regulate the
most acute of fears, namely, those arising from an imminent risk
of violent death. Its subject matter thus construed, courage, taken
precisely as a special virtue, is deemed indivisible into multiple
kinds. 9 Aquinas thereby faces the challenge of explaining how the
single species of this virtue, which Aristotle had discussed
exclusively in function of soldiers contending on a battlefield,
could be applied to other settings as well.
Aquinas is especially intent on enlarging the scope of courage
to cover the special case of martyrdom, a case of little or no
concern to Aristotle-despite the example of Socrates-but
traditionally lauded by Christian authors as the preeminent
exemplification of fortitude. Aquinas extends courage to martyr8 Fortitudo was the term used by William of Moeberke in his translation of the
Nicomachean Ethics for civ&pda, which is ordinarily rendered into English as "bravery" or
"courage." Aquinas quotes from this translation in his Sententia Libri Ethicorum, as well as
in the Secunda Pars of the Summa Theologiae. In the present article, "fortitude," "bravery,"
and "courage" are accordingly employed as interchangeable terms.
9 See STh 11-11, q. 128, "The parts of courage." Aquinas does acknowledge that, taken
broadly as an equivalent for resoluteness (firmitas), courage is a disposition that is needed for
every other virtue. This general variant of the virtue stands in contrast to the special virtue
Aristotle had discussed in the Nicomachean Ethics. For a good overview of Aquinas's teaching
on courage, including the contrast between general and special courage, see R. E. Houser,
"The Virtue of Courage (Ila Ilae, qq. 123-140)," in Stephen J. Pope, ed., The Ethics of
Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002), 304-20.

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dom not by modifying the essentials of this virtue as they are
presented in the Nicomachean Ethics, an account he adheres to
closely, but rather by finding a foundation in Scripture that
enables him to widen the ordinary meaning of helium. This
foundation he finds in the Church's Office of Martyrs, which,
reproducing Hebrews 11:34, praises those "whose weakness was
turned to strength, who became valiant in war and routed foreign
armies." Aquinas is thus able to maintain that "sustaining personal
attacks, for the sake of the highest good which is God ... is not
alien to the genus of acts that concern war, for which reason
martyrs are called courageous in war." 10
Beyond its standard active connotation of an army "fighting on
a line of battle," helium may also signify, for Aquinas, a
confrontation whereby an individual, risking a violent death at the
hands of his opponent, holds firm to his purpose. This he names
"particular war" (helium particulare), in contrast to the "general
war" (helium generale) of an army engaged on a battlefield. 11 The
first is a functional equivalent of helium privatum, a term Aquinas
uses earlier in the Secunda Secundae,12 while the latter represents
an early formulation of what medieval civil lawyers later termed
helium puhlicum. 13 Since in each there is truly found a "danger of
death in war," Aquinas is able to conclude that both military
combat and martyrdom meet the strict standard set by Aristotle's
definition of courage.
Having found a scriptural basis for including martyrdom
within the scope of courage, Aquinas can, in his general treatment
of the virtue, remain faithful to the argumentation of book 3 of
the Nicomachean Ethics. This has been called into question by
STh II-II, q. 123, a. 5, ad 1.
u The same terms, with slight variation, also appear in the plural, particularia bella and
communia bella (STh II-II, q. 123, a. 5, ad 2).
12 STh II-II, q. 41, a. 1, where the sin of brawling (rixa) is called a "kind of private war"
(quoddam privatum bellum).
13 See, for instance, Bartol us of Saxoferrato (1313-57), Secunda super Digesto nova (Lyon:
Gryphius, 1533, folio 236r-v), commentary on Ulpian's definition of enemies (Digest, bk. 49,
chap. 15, §24); translation in Gregory M. Reichberg, Henrik Syse, and Endre Begby, The
Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 2059.
10

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some commentators. Michel Labourdette, 14 for instance, judges
that Aquinas, by adhering too closely to Aristotle's terminology,
attempts to synthesize a Christian conception of fortitudemodeled on the ideal of martyrdom-around the alien Greek
ideal of a "beautiful death" on the battlefield. While admitting
that the difference between the two approaches was somewhat
obscured for Aquinas-where Aristotle wrote that the courageous
man confronts "dangers that are not only great, but also beautiful"
(Ev µEytaTW Kat KtvMvw KaAAtcrTw, the last word was rendered
in the Latin translation of Moerbeke as "best" (optima)Labourdette nevertheless finds Aquinas's description of martyrdom under the equivocal concept of a "particular war" to be
contrived.
In the medieval context, the term helium enjoyed a range of
application considerably broader than obtains for "war" or its
equivalents today. 15 Policing could be described under this term,
as in Gratian's Decretum, 16 as could acts of private self-defense,
as in the influential gloss Qui repel/ere possunt (ca. 1200). 17
Aquinas himself characterized

a condemned prisoner's forcible

resistance against a just sentence of capital punishment as an
"unjust war" (helium iniustum). 18 The extension of helium to
interpersonal violence may be found as late as Grotius, who wrote
(ca. 1625) that "[w]ar may be waged by private persons against
private persons, as by a traveler against a highwayman. " 19
Operating within the medieval notion of "private war," there
could be an easy transition from the causative meaning of helium
to the receptive connotation of someone suffering violence, yet
firmly by strength of soul. This more passive signification of
helium represents an innovation on Aquinas's part, since in his era
Labourdette, Force et temperance, 14-16.
medieval usage of helium or guerra, see Peter Haggenmacher, Grotius et la
doctrine de la guerre juste (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983), 95.
16 See for instance the opening paragraph in Gratian's Decretum II, causa 13; translation
in Reichberg et al., The Ethics of War, 109.
17 Translation in Reichberg, et al., The Ethics of War, 109-11, left column.
18 STh II-II, q. 69, a. 4.
19 Hugo Grotius, De iure belli ac pacis fiber tres, (ed. B. J. A. Kanter-van Hettinga Tromp
[Leiden: Brill, 1939]), bk. I, chap. IV, sect. I, § < 1 >; translation in Reichberg, et al., The
Ethics of War, 398.
14

15 On the

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bellum privatum typically signified a resort to violence. In order
to explain how martyrdom might represent an authentic
instantiation of courage, precisely under the Aristotelian definition
of the term, Aquinas is accordingly compelled to shift the meaning
of bellum from causing violence to receiving violence. The result
is an analogous usage that preserves reference to actual bloody
confrontation, yet that eschews the active connotation of resorting
to force. In place of the latter it substitutes the kindred ideas of
determination and endurance.
Finally, in yet a further extension, Aquinas contrasts physical
fighting (pugnare corporaliter) to fighting in a metaphorical sense,
as when he says that the saints wage a "spiritual combat"
(spiritualiter certando) against their own wayward desires to gain
eternal life. 20
The different senses of war that figure in Aquinas's treatment
of courage are listed below. These are susceptible of further
subdivision into "just" and "unjust," except divine martyrdom and
spiritual combat, which designate good acts only. 21
Primary analogate: one army 22 confronting another on a battlefield-public war
Secondary analogate: one individual interacting violently with another-private

war
Signified actively: resorting to force defensively or for other motives
Signified passively: suffering violent attack with firm endurance; selfsacrifice, for God (martyrdom) or one's country
Metaphorical analogate: resisting concupiscence-spiritual war

11-11, q. 140, a. 1, ad 1.
instance STh 11-11, q. 124, a. 2, ad 2, where Aquinas explains how divine
martyrdom is inseparable from charity, the primary source of good action. The same
reasoning would apply to spiritual combat. Concerning the latter, in De civitate Dei 19.4
Augustine speaks of our "unceasing warfare with vices, not those external but internal, not
other people's vices but clearly one's own." This metaphorical sense of combat is akin to what
is termed the "greater jihad" by Muslims ("striving in the way of God") while "physical
fighting" corresponds to the "lesser jihad."
22 In the text (STh II-II, q. 42, a. 1) that comes closest to defining helium, Aquinas writes
that it consists in one multitude contending against another (multitudinis ad multitudinem),
each considering the other its external enemy. "Multitude" signifiesthe fighting force (army)
of an independent polity.
20 STh

21 See for

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

Corresponding to these different senses of helium, Aquinas
recognizes several analogous predications of courage. Public war
(helium universale) he views as the chief arena for the exercise of
acquired fortitude, because in this instance death is risked for the
sake of a worthy good, namely, to preserve the polity from
outward attack. Yet courage, properly speaking, may also be
exercised in private war (helium particulare), as when an individual defends himself or others against the ambush of thieves,
or a policeman gives chase to an armed criminal. 23 Still related,
but nonetheless markedly different-as in this case violence is
undergone, not applied-is the courage exhibited by those who
bear witness to God in the face of persecution. But alongside this
infused courage (fortitudo gratuita) that the Church celebrates in
its martyrs, Aquinas recognizes that there is also an acquired
courage of civic sacrifice (fortitudo civilis), as when individuals
risk their lives for the sake of the common good. 24 The example
of a "judge who does not refrain from giving a just judgement
despite fear of an impending sword" is cited as an instance of
someone who undergoes a just private war. 25 At this juncture it
can be noted that Aquinas applies the term "martyrdom" only to
the first form of endurance (divine, infused), but not to the second
(civic, acquired).
Finally, in a broader sense, Aquinas is able to admit that
courage may be exercised even in settings apart from violence,
provided that death is faced "on account of virtue." Attending to
a sick friend despite the risk of deadly infection, or undertaking
an unsafe journey for a worthy purpose, are the two examples
cited. 26 Beyond this, on all the manifold occasions when inner
strength is needed to confront nonlethal risks, Aquinas speaks not
23 In STh II-II, q. 123, a. 5, ad 2, Aquinas makes clear that a willingness to confront death
in "personal or civil affairs," is an instantiation of "fortitude" in the proper sense of the term,
precisely because this is an arena of war, albeit of the private sort. No examples of private
resort to force are given in the text, but, from his comments elsewhere (especially STh II-II,
q. 64, a. 7) we can surmise that he has in mind acts of self-defense or law enforcement.
24 STh II-II, q. 124, a. 2, ad 1. Gratuitous and civic courage are described by reference to
these two ends for the sake of which courage may be exercised.
25 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 5.
26 Ibid.

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of courage proper, but of magnanimity, patience, and other
"potential parts" 27 of the virtue. Bearing a resemblance to
courage, the primary or cardinal virtue, these secondary virtues
extend its reach into the myriad challenges of daily life. 28
Aquinas on occasion also speaks metaphorically about bellum,
using this term to designate the spiritual combat of the faithful
against the attractions of concupiscence. Discussing the reward
due to holy virgins, he notes how they win "a signal victory over
the flesh, against which a continuous war is waged" (continue
bellum geritur). 29 War waged in this metaphorical sense against
disorderly internal passions is contrasted to the victory won by
martyrs, "who fight against passions exteriorly caused" (pugna
contra passionem exterius illatas).30
II. COURAGE, A VIRTUE IN }UST WARS ONLY

Aquinas's analysis of battlefield courage is two pronged. He
describes, in thick normative terms, what might count as the
appropriate setting for the exercise of this form of courage. Then,
adopting the perspective of moral psychology, he considers what

27 In contrast to "integral parts" which are subordinate skills needed for the exercise of a
single virtue, "potential parts" are separate virtues that bear a resemblance to (although lacking
a key feature of) the main, cardinal virtue. For this reason they differ from "subjective parts,"
which are distinct and complete instantiations (species) of one and the same (genus of) virtue.
For Aquinas's explanation of the distinction between integral, subjective, and potential parts,
see his analysis of the parts of prudentia in STh 11-11, q. 48, a. 1. In its application to fortitude,
this categorization is further complicated by the fact that the same names, e.g., patience and
magnanimity, serve to designate both integral and potential parts (cf. STh 11-11, q. 128, a. 1,
where magnanimitas names an integral part of fortitude proper, and the following q. 129,
where it names a separate virtue (i.e., a potential part).
28 In highlighting martyrdom as the paradigm of courage, Konyndyk de Young ("Power
Made Perfect in Weakness") is motivated by a concern that emphasizing military heroism
would result in an elitist conception of the virtue. However, she leaves out of consideration
Aquinas's designation of analogous instantiations ("potential parts") of the virtue. In my
opinion, this, and not the infused virtue of martyrs, was Aquinas's preferred strategy for
broadening the scope of courage so that it would be readily applicable by ordinary people in
their day-to-day lives.
29 IV Sent., d. 49, q. 5, a. 3, qcla. 1; reproduced in STh suppl., q. 96, a. 5.
30 IV Sent., d. 49, q. 5, a. 3, qcla. 2 (STh suppl., q. 96, a. 6).

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emotional reactions are characteristic of warriors who virtuously
confront death in war.
Regarding the first line of inquiry-which today would come
under the heading of ius ad bellum or reasons for resorting to
war-it is striking that Aquinas does not speak simply of war to
protect the city or nation, as did his eminent predecessor. Instead
he innovates by adopting the normative phraseology of just war:
"The dangers of death which occur in battle," he writes, "come to
man directly on account of some good, namely because he is
defending the common good by a just war. " 31 The key notions
invoked here-" defense," "common good," and "just war" -have
no parallel in book 3 of the Nicomachean Ethics, where,
concerning the object of courage, Aristotle had simply stated that
the brave man faces death in the most noble of circumstances,
namely, in war. He thereby excluded from the scope of the virtue
those lethal dangers that human beings expose themselves to in
other settings, sailors at sea, for instance, or physicians fighting
disease. 32
While acknowledging that the temporal peace of one's country
(pax republicae) is certainly worth dying for, as it represents an
inherent good, 33 Aquinas is nonetheless keen to narrow the scope
of courage to just wars (both public and private), with the result
that the normative status of this virtue is considerably heightened.
On his view, fully virtuous courage will arise only in those battles
that are fought, not for any civic purpose whatsoever, but only
such as are consistent with defense of the common good.
Excluded from the scope of courage would be wars fought out of
II-II, q. 123, a. 5.
Ethic. 3.1115a28-31: "[The brave man] would not seem to be concerned with
death in all circumstances, e.g. at sea or in disease. In what circumstances, then? Surely in the
best [optimis]. Now such deaths are those in war; for these take place in the greatest and best
[optima] danger." This translation follows the Latin version of William Moerbeke as it
appears in Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Libri Ethicorum (Rome: Ad Sanctae Sabinae, 1969), bk.
III, sect. 14, lines 30-31 (p. 159). In his commentary (ibid., 162), where Aristotle had spoken
of "such deaths as are in war," Aquinas adds "for the defense of one's country" (propter
patriae defensione), and, several lines later he may be found using the alternative expression
"for the common good" (pro bono communi). He does not however employ the expression
"helium iustum."
33 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 5, ad 3.
31 STh

32 Nie.

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private interest, say for the mere aggrandizement of the prince, or
for reasons other than protection of the polity from external or
internal threat. Willingness to face death on the battlefield must
be conditioned, in other words, by the justice of the cause for
which one is fighting. 34 This represents a considerably more
stringent conception of the virtue than had been originally
advanced by Aristotle (although a case could be made that
Aquinas's linkage of courage to just cause is consistent with the
overall tenor of Aristotle's moral teaching on war). 35
Regarding the second line of inquiry (in be/lo), where Aquinas
outlines the emotional dispositions that should be cultivated to
ensure virtuous participation in war, he begins by noting how
courage exercises an auxiliary role; its function is to ensure that
the pursuit of justice, as ordained by right reason, is not
abandoned under peril of death. 36 When justice requires forcible
action in defense of the polity, courage will necessarily be at the
service of prudentia militaris, the virtue by which right reason is
applied to the conduct of war. Chiefly a virtue of commanders,
this prudence should also in some fashion be acquired by rankand-file soldiers, in parallel with Aquinas's teaching that there is
a form of prudence (politica) by which citizens share in the
prudential governance (regnativa) of their civic leaders. 37
On this understanding, solders, like citizens, are not expected
to obey their superiors slavishly, with no reflection whatsoever.
Personal judgment is called for even in the exercise of the most
virtuous obedience. In at least one passage Aquinas may thus be
found asserting that "soldiers are not bound to obey in an unjust

34 In this way, Aquinas discreetly joins his account of courage to the earlier discussion of
just cause in STh II-II, q. 40, a. 1. The dependency of courage on just cause has been wellnoted by Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1966), 125.
35 See for instance Politics 7.2.1324b2-5a10.
36 Fortitude shares this auxiliary role with temperance; the function of both is to remove
obstacles (occasioned by fear of death or the attraction of pleasure) that hinder the exercise
of prudence and justice (STh II-II, q. 123, a. 12).
37 STh II-II, q. 50, a. 2.

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war. " 38 Courage is thus derivative upon right reason, a reason that
must be liberated not only from undue passion, but also from
attachment to interests that stand in opposition to the common
good. In this connection, courage is also at the service of justice.
Aquinas sums this up negatively with a quotation from St.
Ambrose (De Offic. 1. 35): "fortitude without justice is an occasion
for iniquity. " 39
This strongly normative conception of bravery would appear
to rule out any possible exercise of the virtue in unjust wars.
Soldiers fighting for a patently wrongful cause, or prosecuting war
in an illicit manner, could not be designated "courageous" even if
they exhibit much endurance and daring. 40
III. FEAR AND DARING

Having delineated what goods are to be upheld by fortitudeprotection of the common good from external threats, or
internally from grave untruth or injustice-Aquinas proceeds to
explain how two passions in particular stand in need of regulation

by this virtue: fear (timor) and daring (audacia}.41 In this
connection, his comments on war (in the narrow sense) are extremely brief. His broader account is designed to apply throughout the range of acts where courage is called for-in war
certainly, but in martyrdom also, and indeed in any sort of setting
where one's life can voluntarily be placed at risk for the sake of
the good.
38 In Titus, c. 3, lect. 1. I thank my colleague Henrik

Syse for bringing this passage to my
attention. Although the specific case of military service is not mentioned, in his general
discussion of obedience in STh II-II, q. 104, Aquinas similarly states that "a subordinate is not
held to obey an unjust command" (a. 6, ad 3).
39 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 12, ad 3.
40 Although they do not possess courage simpliciter, these unjust warriors are, in Aquinas's
view, courageous in a limited fashion (secundum quid). See STh I-II, 65, a. 1, where he
explains how between "complete" and "incomplete" virtue, there is a thin resemblance only.
Aquinas does not take up the case, later explored by Vitoria, of soldiers who, by invincible
ignorance, fight for a de facto unjust cause that they nonetheless sincerely believe to be just.
Whether their courage should be deemed complete or incomplete is an issue that cannot be
explored here.
41 STh II-II, q. 126, a. 2.

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Fear and daring are emotional reactions that arise in us at the
prospect of future harm. 42 In this respect they differ from the
related passions of sorrow and anger-the first looks to a present
harm for which there is no immediate remedy, while the latter
pursues retribution for past wrongs. 43 Fear is the impulse of flight
in the face of an evil that seems superior to our power, while
daring is the contrary impulse 44 of attack, by which we thrust
forward to eradicate the threatening object, confident in our
ability to prevail over it. 45
Vis-a-vis fear, courage prompts endurance (sustinere).Indeed,
the tendency of our animal nature is to flee the approach of
bodily harm. Yet, as animals possessed of reason, we are able to
recognize that the fulfillment of our nature is not found in the
body alone. Above it are goods of the soul. 46 For their
preservation we must sometimes "stand immovable in the midst
of dangers," 47 willingly enduring harm even to the point of death.
On other occasions the emotion that dominates is not fear but
daring. Feeling superior to the threat, we go on the attack
(aggredi),offensively seeking victory over it. 48 While this reaction
can be morally appropriate, it can also happen that we act without
due reflection, thereby underestimating the danger at hand to the
detriment of the goods we wish to defend. Worse yet, this
passion, left unchecked, can lead the warrior into a tunnel of

42 STh I-II, q. 41, a. 1 "fear involves future evil"; cf. STh II-II q. 123, a. 3, where Aquinas
explains how daring sets out to dispel threatening evils, so as "to free oneself from them for
the future."
43 STh I-II, q. 48, a. 1: "The movement of anger arises from a wrong done that causes

sorrow."

In STh I-II, q. 45, a. 1, Aquinas explains how daring and fear are related according to
an opposition of approach and withdrawal, hence they are formally contraries. Fear also
stands opposed to security (ibid., ad 3 ), its privation (he who feels secure experiences an
absence of fear}, and in this sense the two stand opposed as contradictories.
45 STh I-II, q. 45, a. 1.
46 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 4.
47 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 6.
48 STh II-II, q. 127, a. 2, ad 3; Aquinas mentions "victory" in STh I-II, q. 45, a. 3: "the
hope that leads to daring is roused by those things that make us reckon victory is possible."
44

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violence, wherein atrocities can readily be committed. 49 For this
reason, Aquinas emphasizes how in relation to daring fortitude is
mainly about restraint or moderation, while vis-a-vis fear it mainly
prompts resistance. In each case, however, virtue consists in
achieving the mean of excellence, so that where attack is called
for, courage will stimulate daring; inversely, should a man be
inclined to endure harm needlessly, holding his own life cheap,
courage validates fear so that he flees from a harm the endurance
of which will bear no fruit. Aquinas sums this up by noting how
"the act of fortitude consists in enduring fear [of death] and going
on the attack, not anyhow, but according to reason. " 50
In the military setting these two acts, endurance and attack, are
complementary. Depending on the challenges proper to each
concrete situation, one or the other will predominate. Warriors
must accordingly be trained in such a way that they are able to
elicit both reactions, 51 each of which is integral to the virtue.
Aquinas acknowledges, however, that soldiers often believe they
can bypass fear in favor of daring alone. Confident in their
military prowess, "through practice in the use of arms," they
"think little of the dangers of battle. "52 But this evacuation of fear,
49 Aquinas does not himself draw out this implication, but it is in line with the logic of his
analysis. For a description of excessive daring as a causal factor in the commission of
battlefield atrocities, see Randall Collins, Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2008), 83-133. This analysis is focused on the notion of "forward
panic," which the author describes as "a sudden rush of frenzied overkill in an atmosphere of
hysterical entrainment" (ibid., 100). Collins likewise employs the image of a "tunnel" of
violence: "persons who have fallen ... into a forward panic situation have gone down into
a tunnel and cannot stop their momentum" (ibid., 94 ). To emphasize how this emotional state
is indeed rooted in our sentient nature, he recounts how it may be found even among
nonhuman animals, for instance elephants (ibid., 109).
so STh II-II, q. 126, a. 2, ad 1.
51 Konyndyk de Young ("Power Made Perfect in Weakness") misidentifies Aquinas's
position when she defines military courage by reference solely to daring (aggression), under
the assumption that endurance is proper to the courage of martyrs (see in particular ibid.,
163). In fact, for Aquinas military courage results from the appropriate balancing of both
passions (not only daring but also endurance), while the other sort of courage consists in
endurance alone.
52 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 1, ad 2. At this juncture Aquinas quotes the Roman military author
Vegetius (De rei militaris,1.1): "No man fears to do what he is confident of having learned to
do well." In rejecting this viewpoint as an adequate account of courage, Aquinas is clearly
dependent on Aristotle's disparaging comments about professional soldiers (mercenaries) in

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by an overabundance of self-confidence, truncates the true nature
of courage. These "men of daring" (audaces) fly headlong into
danger, but once in its midst they retreat, suddenly aware how the
difficulty is far greater than what they had imagined. By contrast,
"men of courage" (fortes), listen to their fear, hence they attend
more carefully to what lies ahead, and seek counsel, when
needed. 53
Aquinas recognizes, however, that the Christian conception of
martyrdom, exemplified by Jesus' voluntary acceptance of death
at the hands of his persecutors, requires an adjustment to this
teaching that courage results from a regulation of both fear and
daring. The evangelists make clear that Jesus could have gone on
the attack had he so wished, calling down the omnipotent
intervention of God, and he instructed Peter to desist from
forcible defense on his behalf (Matt 26:52-53). The courage thus
shown by Jesus-imitated later by St. Stephen and the long line of
Christian martyrs-consisted in endurance only. To show how
authentic courage can subsist without preparedness for attack
requires a modification of the military model of courage that
Aquinas inherited from Aristotle.
To effect this modification Aquinas explains 54 how between the
two acts characteristic of courage, endurance and attack, there is
an order of priority, the former taking precedence over the latter.
This basis for this reasoning is a comment by Aristotle-"it is
more difficult to endure affliction ... than to abstain from what
is pleasant," 55 which Aquinas alters in view of the special case of
courage: "To repress fear is more difficult than to moderate
daring. " 56 Although daring becomes virtuous when it is tempered
by reason and choice, the very propensity of our sentient nature
supports this office of moderation, for "to lash out against that
Nie. Ethic. 3.8.1116b5-23.
53 For the contrast between fortes and audaces, see STh I-II, q. 45, a. 4. On the benefits of
moderate fear, see STh I-II, q. 44, a. 3, where Aquinas notes how this passion causes us to be
more careful, attentive, and prone to seeking counsel.
s• STh II-II, q. 123, a. 6; q. 124, a. 2, ad 3.
ss Nie. Ethic. 3.9.1117a32; reference in STh II-II, q. 123, a. 6.
s• STh II-II, q. 123, a. 6

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which promises harm" is spontaneously curbed by the contrary
"fear of receiving harm from that source. " 57 Endurance enjoys no
such support from our sentient nature. To the contrary, instinctively we flee an aggressor who appears superior to ourselves,
so that if we are to hold fast in the face of onslaught this will be
the fruit solely of a mental determination founded on inward
choice.
The above argument should not be taken to imply that
moderating daring is in every instance easier than voluntarily
enduring harm. Recent empirical research on the emotional
dynamics of violent interactions has shown how the arousal of
daring, and the resulting forward thrust of attack, can at times
become almost irresistible. 58 This is especially likely to happen
when after a period of acute confrontational stress soldiers
suddenly find themselves secure in a position of dominance vis-avis their adversaries. The passion of daring then flows with full
vigor, as it is no longer tempered by the countervailing pull of
fear. Exercising moderation under such circumstances requires
much inward discipline. A moral approach to military training
will prepare soldiers for this eventuality.
Beyond the issue of restraint, Aquinas maintains, more
generally, that sustaining hardship is more difficult than going on
the attack, for three reasons: 59 (1) daring implies a perceived
STh II-II, q. 128, a. 2, ad 3.
Again, see the description of "forward panic" in Collins, Violence: A Micro-Sociological
Theory: "It resembles a panic, and indeed the physiological components are similar; instead
of running away ... the fighters rush forward, toward the enemy. Running forward or
backward, in either case they are in an overpowering emotional rhythm, carrying them on to
actions that they would normally not approve of in calm, reflective moments" (ibid., 85). "It
is like an altered state of consciousness, from which the perpetrators often emerge at the end
as if returning from an alien self" (ibid., 100). This typically occurs when, due to a reversal
or battlefield denouement, the sudden release of fear issues into a frenzy of attack: "It comes
on with a rush, explosively; and it takes time to calm down .... Individuals in the throes of
a forward panic keep repeating their aggressive actions" (ibid., 93). Collins usefully employs
this concept of "forward panic" to explain the dynamics at work in some famous wartime
incidents, including My Lai and Nanking.
59 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 6, ad 1. In his commentary on this passage, Cajetan notes that this
comparison holds only with respect to one and the same threat. Should we compare two very
different threats, attacking the one may well present a greater challenge than enduring the
other (cited in Labourdette, Force et temperance, 17).
57

58

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superiority of the attacker vis-a-vis the target of his hostility, while
the relation is inverted with respect to endurance; (2) daring
views the danger as still future, while endurance experiences it as
already present; (3) daring is usually carried out in sudden and
quick movements, while endurance stretches out in time. The
conclusion thereby follows: voluntarily to sustain hardship, not
out of passive resignation or a fear-induced paralysis, but with
active endurance, is the "primary act" of courage, hence martyrs
can truly be said to possess this virtue even though they have
renounced any resort to attack.
The argument that endurance is the primary act of courage
should not be taken to imply a depreciation of daring, as though
Aquinas was subtly advancing the Christian ideal of nonviolence
(exemplified by the martyrs), as a normative substitute for just war
and other forms of licit violence. That he did not intend to
exclude daring from the virtues is made abundantly clear in
question 127, article 1 of the Secunda Secundae ("whether daring
denotes a sin") where he quite emphatically agrees (ad 1-3) with
each of the objections that assert the praiseworthiness of this
disposition. Moreover, Aquinas takes care to show how even the
martyrs, who have renounced resort to violence, nonetheless
cultivate dispositions analogous to daring. Possessed of
magnanimity and magnificence, the "enterprising virtues," they
willingly take bold risks, including confrontations with evil, in
pursuance of the good. 60
IV. PREPAREDNESS FOR ATIACK

Fortitude is supported in performing its office by several
subordinate dispositions, which Aquinas terms "integral parts" of
the virtue, or "things the concurrence of which are requisite" 61 for
its full actuation. These dispositions are briefly discussed
according to the support each gives to the two acts characteristic
60 See STh 11-11, q. 128, a. 1, ad 3: "To venture on anything great seems to involve danger,
since to fail in such things is very disastrous." The expression "enterprising virtues" is from
Labourdette, Force et temperance, 24-26.
61 STh 11-11, q. 128, a. un.

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of this virtue: attack and endurance. Regarding the first, a soldier
will be inwardly prepared to mount an attack when he trusts the
ability of himself 62 and his comrades to prevail over the adversary.
This disposition of hope is strengthened by military exercises that
foster the soldier's self-confidence in his fighting abilities, and that
enhance the cohesiveness of the fighting unit of which he is a part.
Virtuous soldiers will likewise evince a readiness to execute in
full the noble action they have confidently begun (magnanimitas).
The movement of attack (Aquinas remarks elsewhere against the
Stoics) 63 is reinforced by the physiological changes arising from
the passion of anger. 64 Aquinas would thus countenance a combat
readiness that is reinforced by anger: "it belongs to anger to strike
at the cause of sorrow [i.e., a wrong done against oneself or one's
friends], so that it directly cooperates with fortitude in
attacking. " 65 He cautions however that this anger must remain
"moderate," in the sense that it is governed by reason, correctly
identifying (and not merely imagining) an actual wrong.
This teaching is well summarized in a parallel text 66 where
Aquinas explains how the Stoics were mistaken when they
assumed that anger, understood precisely as an emotional reaction
(a passion), necessarily leads a man astray. This happens, he
concedes, whenever the movement of anger is antecedent to
reasoned judgment. But the Stoics failed to understand that anger
can also be consequent upon reason. In this instance, the emotion
does not impede, but rather fortifies the action that flows from
correct practical judgment. By thus assuring a prompt and
efficacious execution of rational decision, the passion of anger,
with its attendant physiological changes, serves as an instrument
of virtue.
62 See ibid., ad 2, where apropos

the confidence which is a part of fortitude Aquinas notes
how this proceeds from "hope in self [spem in seipso], albeit under God."
63 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 10.
64 STh I-II, q. 48, a. 2: "[A]nger consists not in recoil, which corresponds to the action of
cold, but in prosecution, which corresponds to the action of heat; hence from anger there
results fervor of the blood and vital spirits around the heart."
65 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 10, ad 3.
66 De Malo, q. 12, a. 1.

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Anger calls for virtuous exercise in two quite different ways,
according as it requires (1) an objective judgment on the nature
and degree of punishment due, and (2) an appropriate emotive
stance vis-a-vis the person of the offender. 67 In line with the first,
the judgment in question will be regulated either by (a)
commutative justice, when it is imposed by public authority in
accordance with the relevant legal statute; 68 or (b) by the virtue
named vindicatio (vengeance), 69 when the judgment is rendered
by a private individual in accordance with a correct moral
assessment of the wrong done. But beyond this concern with the
measure of retribution due, according to (2) the virtue also assures
an upright attitude of the avenger vis-a-vis the person who did
him wrong. Clemency prompts compassion for his sinful
condition and concern for his spiritual betterment, while
mansuetude moderates the pleasure taken in seeing him justly
suffer for his misdeeds. 70
Although the function of virtuous anger is to penalize
wrongdoing, it never aims purely and simply at harming the
evildoer, who, despite his offense, remains a worthy target of
charitable concern. 71 Aquinas does not explicitly draw out the
implications of this teaching for the ethics of war, but it certainly
provides a remote foundation for the insight, embodied in
modern laws of war, that enemy combatants should never be
treated with hatred and cruelty, even when we are convinced that
they fight at the service of a patently unjust cause.
Despite Aquinas's strong show of interest in problems related
to anger and punishment, it must be noted that, apart from his
brief mention of anger in the context of courage (STh 11-11, q. 123,
a. 10), he nowhere dwells expressly on this affect in relation
specifically to war. The Dominican master's silence in this
67 Labourdette provides a systematic overview of Aquinas's teaching on the virtuous
dispositions related to anger (Force et temperance, 81-84).
68 See for instance the treatment of capital punishment in STh II-II, q. 64, aa. 2-3, and of
incarceration in II-II, q. 65, a. 3.
69 STh II-II, q. 108.
70 STh II-II, q. 157. See also the discussion of the opposing sin cruelty (II-II, q. 159).
71 See De Malo, q. 12, a. 1.

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connection should give us pause: one must be careful not to
overstate the centrality of punishment in reconstructing his
general theory of just war. 72
V. PREPAREDNESS FOR ENDURANCE

Turning to endurance, the other act essential to courage,
Aquinas explains how it is supported by four auxiliary
dispositions-patience,
perseverance, longanimity, and constancy.73This multiplicity is a reflection of the special difficulties
inherent in endurance. While virtuous attack is supported by
underlying passions-the
impulse of aggression and the
restraining influence of fear-virtuous endurance benefits little
from our sentient nature. Moreover, endurance must contend not
only with sufferings that are still future, but also with those that
have already begun. Aquinas identifies the obstacles to endurance
as four in kind, and to each there corresponds a disposition
enabling the agent to mount a firm response. 74
The first and most basic obstacle to endurance is sorrow, the

passion that arises in the sensitive appetite from a corrosive evil
that is actually present. This harm may afflict the body, giving rise
to "outward pain," or it may impact the mind, thus resulting in
"inward pain." 75 In either case the obstacle is overcome by
patience, the virtue by which we hold fast to an arduous good.
But suffering need not be momentary; it can also stretch out in
time. When an agent perceives his suffering as renewable, a
foretaste of still more to come, his will to hold out erodes. This
obstacle is overcome by perseverance, the virtue by which we
persist in activity that promotes the good.
72 This has been well noted

by Haggenmacher, Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste,

124.
73 In his overview of "the parts of fortitude" in STh II-II, q. 128, a. 1, Aquinas lists only
patience and perseverance as dispositions supporting endurance. Later, in II-II, q. 136, a. 5,
he adds longanimity to the list, and finally, in II-II, q. 127, a. 3, he includes constancy.
74 My account here benefits from Labourdette's careful analysis of endurance and its
supporting virtues in Force et temperance, 40-47.
75 STh I-II, q. 35, a. 7.

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When suffering is present, and renewable, the desired
good-the object of one's hope and the reason for endurancecan appear to be far off in the future. Discouragement follows.
This obstacle is overcome by longanimity, the virtue by which we
know how to wait, holding out for the accomplishment of a
future good.
When endurance continues over a long time, new and
unfamiliar evils often supervene, aggravating the weight of those
already present. This obstacle is overcome by constancy, the virtue
by which we keep loyal to our path, despite the unexpected
obstacles arising on the way.
This fourfold distinction of challenges and corresponding
dispositions rests on a dialectic of the passions. Courage, we have
seen, is concerned first and foremost with regulating fear. Yet
rarely does fear operate in isolation from its kindred passion,
sorrow. It often happens that evils anticipated (feared) become
present (causing pain), giving rise, in turn, to the anticipation of
still more pain, thereby intensifying the fear. The courageous man
must accordingly know how to handle sorrow, not by expunging
it altogether, but by guarding against an immersion so intense that
it hinders the use of reason. 76 Courage likewise feeds upon
hope-"a movement of the appetitive power ensuing from
cognition of a future good, difficult but possible to attain" 77-and
through longanimity it guards against the opposing passions of
discouragement and despair.
Ultimately, however, courage depends upon the root passion,
love. 78 Only attachment to some good perceived as primordial can
explain why other goods-including bodily integrity and even life
itself-can willingly be put at risk: "the good for the sake of
which one is willing to endure evils, is more desired and loved
than the good the privation of which causes the sorrow that we
bear patiently." 79 Why love of the temporal city might warrant
such a sacrifice will be addressed in the next section.
STh II-II, q. 136, a. 5.
STh I-II, q. 40, a. 2.
78 See STh I-II, q. 26, a. 2.
79 STh II-II, q. 136, a. 3.

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Aquinas says little explicitly about the battlefield in his
discussion of virtuous endurance. That he intends his account to
apply to the military setting is however suggested by two
comments. First, to the objection that patience is incompatible
with the conduct expected of a warrior, since the brave man does
not endure evils patiently but instead goes on the attack, Aquinas
responds that "it is not contrary to the proper understanding of
patience that someone should rise up against those who do evil,
when this is required of him. " 80
The other passage even more explicitly links endurance with
soldierly conduct on the battlefield. Discussing perseverance,
Aquinas notes how, like every other virtue, it is a habit that directs
us to do something well. Doing well can take on two forms.
Sometimes it relates to the end of life as a whole (finis humanae
vitae), as when Christians are expected to persevere in the faith
every single day, up until the moment of death. In addition, they
are called to complete tasks of more limited duration, in which
case the perseverance is ordered to a temporally specified good
work (finis operis). Thus "a soldier," Aquinas writes, is virtuous
when he "perseveres to the conclusion of the battle." 81
It might seem that Aquinas's distinction between the end of the
work and the end of human life is identical with the contrast he
draws earlier 82 between art and prudence. If this were the case, a
soldier's virtuous perseverance unto death would describe a
morally neutral act, after the fashion of a work produced by art,
such that his ability to hold firm on the battlefield could in fact be
ordered to a good or to a bad end. But at this juncture Aquinas is
in fact making a rather different point. His intent is to establish a
division within the genus of complete virtue. Some virtues, termed
"principal" are exercised throughout the whole of life; chief
among them are faith, hope, and charity. Other virtues are of a
conditional character, being exercised only when the requisite
occasions arise-although the disposition to perform such acts
should be permanently with us. Magnificence, the right use of
q. 136, a. 4, ad 3.
STh II-II, q. 137, a. 1, ad 2.
82 See in particular STh II-II, q. 47, a. 4, ad 2.

80 STh II-II,
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great wealth, is mentioned in this connection alongside battlefield
perseverance. Aquinas clearly intends to affirm that these
"secondary" virtues are full-fledged moral dispositions; they
presuppose rectitude of the will, and are connected with the other
moral virtues.
Apart from these two comments, Aquinas does not elaborate
on the special modalities of battlefield endurance. Had he
explored this domain in greater detail he would have found much
to say about the peculiar effects of fear on the psyche of soldiers
in battle. The effects of sorrow, likewise, would have opened up
a large vista for exploration. He certainly would have made use
of the distinction, mentioned above, between the suffering
occasioned by physical harm to oneself, and the inner pain, in
some measure even more intense, 83 occasioned by the
psychological impact of seeing others suffer. True enough,
virtuous warriors would not be burdened by the recollection of
their own misdeeds-having abstained from improper conduct in
war. 84 But they would sorrow at the harm suffered, not only by
their comrades in arms, but even by enemy combatants, with
whom they remain united as fellow children of God. Above all,
they would sorrow at the harm inflicted on bystanders to war,
who by no fault of their own are pressed into the line of fire. This
sorrow will be most acute when the virtuous warrior recognizes
his own role in causing this harm, not intentionally of course-as
this would be morally reprehensible-but as a side-effect, whether
accidental or foreseeable, of proportionate military action. 85

On the greater intensity of inner, psychological pain, see STh I-II, q. 35, a. 7.
Naturally, those who act wrongly in war should appropriately experience the sorrow of
shame, and seek repentance for what they have done or failed to do. See STh I-II, q. 35, a. 8,
on the various species of sorrow, and ibid., ad 2 on repentance. In this article Aquinas
expressly discusses the sorrow that rightly arises in us when we witness the suffering of others;
this sorrow he terms "mercy" (misericordia).
85 For an application of Aquinas's teaching on side-effect harm to the military sphere, see
Gregory M. Reichberg and Henrik Syse "The Idea of Double Effect-In War and Business,"
in Responsibility in World Business: Managing Harmful Side-Effects of Corporate Activity," ed.
Lene Bomann-Larsen and Oddny Wiggen (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2004), 1738.
83

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Aquinas's doctrine of just war thus does not entail a stance of
insensitivity vis-a-vis the horrors unleashed by war. To the
contrary, "[i]t is a sign of moral goodness," he writes, "when a
man sorrows on account of an evil that is actually present; for
should he fail to experience sorrow or pain, this could be only
because he feels it not, or does not deem it repugnant; both
[attitudes] are manifest evils. " 86
VI. DYING FOR ONE'S COUNTRY

Courage is called for whenever the risk of serious bodily harm
or death is consciously assumed in pursuit of a worthy good.
Falling outside the scope of this virtue are situations in which such
risks are incurred unwittingly, 87 for reasons incommensurate with
the potential harm, or for ends incompatible with moral goodness. Moreover, the possessor of courage will recognize that the
risks in question represent real and not merely illusory evils. "Of
all the goods of the present life, man loves life itself most, and
consequently he hates death more than anything, especially when
it is accompanied by pains of bodily torment. " 88 Aquinas thereby
acknowledges the evilness of death even though he simultaneously
holds that the human soul, by reason of its immateriality,
necessarily continues in existence after its separation from the
body. The two assertions are compatible because on his
understanding body and soul enjoy much more than an accidental
union. The soul is, in his words, "naturally united to the body, for
in its essence it is the form of the body." 89 He is thus able to
conclude, quite emphatically, that "it is contrary to the nature of
the soul to be without the body. " 90 This metaphysical truth leaves
a trace in human consciousness, since we spontaneously anticipate
STh I-II, q. 39, a. 1.
Death arising from illness, storms at sea, or the attacks of robbers, are cited by Aquinas
as kinds of risk not directly assumed in connection with the pursuit of an inherent good (STh
11-11, q. 123, a. 5).
88 STh 11-11, q. 124, a. 3.
89 ScG IV, c. 79.
' 0 Ibid.
86

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death with dread; we assume, instinctively, that it is a form of
violence. Death for us is accordingly an unnatural state that cries
out for a remedy. Aquinas would accordingly take issue with
accounts of courage that trivialize death, as were expressed, for
instance, during the 1930s by exponents of militant ("imperialway") Zen Buddhism. 91
Aquinas adheres to Christian teaching in maintaining that a
remedy for death is found in the resurrection of Christ. By the
divine efficacy of his rising, we too, after dying, will recover our
bodies, though in our case this happens not immediately but at the
end of time. On this premise-which Aquinas connects with the
related doctrine of the separated soul's enjoyment of the beatific
vision immediately after death-it is understandable how some
might be willing to undergo a martyr's death, witnessing to their
love of God and in hope of a future bliss with him. But, prima
facie, it would seem that no such premise comes to the support of
civic courage. Why should soldiers be willing to give their all if
the temporal city is in no way able to return the favor?
Aquinas responds to this query with two different lines of
argument, one of which places the soldier's death under the
category of martyrdom, while the other focuses on the special
character of acquired courage.
The first line of argument is framed as a response to an
objection which holds that fallen soldiers do not merit the
heavenly reward of martyrs. 92 While acknowledging with Aristotle
that the common good of the nation (gentes) is indeed higher than
private good of the individual, and likewise that service to one's
country in a just war bears an inherent value, the objection asserts
nonetheless that only those who have suffered a violent death in
witness to God, the uncreated good, can be venerated in the
91 "I believe that if one is called upon to die, one should not be the least bit agitated. On

the contrary, one should be in a realm where something called 'oneself' does not even intrude
slightly. Such a realm is no different from the practice of Zen." This passage, quoted in Brian
Daizen Victoria, Zen at War (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 103, is taken from an
article published in 1937 by a Zen priest, Ishihara Shummyo, who sought to explain why Zen
Buddhism could make a vital contribution to the development of a martial spirit in Japan.
92 STh II-II, q. 124, a. 5, ad 3.

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Church as martyrs. Tacitly agreeing with this conclusion, in his
response Aquinas notes however that any human good-including
presumably a willingness to die in a just war defending one's
homeland 93 -can become a cause of martyrdom if it is sought for
a divine end. 94 No example is given in this passage from the
Secunda Secundae. But in his youthful commentary on the
Sentences of Peter Lombard, Aquinas gives a more elaborate
explanation for this same point: 95
When a person dies for the common good, but does not relate this to Christ, he
will not merit the aureole [of a martyr]. But should this be referred to Christ he
will merit the aureole and will be a martyr, as happens, for instance, when
against the attack of an enemy who seeks to corrupt the faith of Christ, someone
defends his country, suffering death as a consequence.

Two different scenarios are entertained in this text. On the one
hand, someone can willingly die for his country, taken precisely
as the highest of all temporal goods, yet prescinding from any
ulterior ordination to the transcendent divine good. This may very
with the faith and
well be a virtuous death-compatible
charity-but it falls short of the special honor signified by the
ecclesial title "martyr," since in this instance death is undergone
for a temporal, not a transcendent end. On the other hand, one's
country can bear reference to a transcendent end insofar as the
temporal common good includes the public practice of religion.
By thus protecting the worship of God from those who would
violently impede it, armed defense assumes a religious character.
"Christ's faithful frequently go to war [bellum movent] against
unbelievers," Aquinas writes, "not indeed for the purpose of
forcing them to believe ... but to prevent them from hindering
The reply does not refer to dying in a just war; but since this was the very example given
in the objection, we can safely assume that military martyrdom is the implied referent in ad
3.
94 STh 11-11, q. 124, a. 2, ad 1: "Martyrdom is related to faith as the end in which one is
strengthened"; cf. ibid.,ad 2: "charity inclines one to martyrdom as its first motive cause."
95 IV Sent., d. 49, q. 5, a. 3, qcla. 2; reproduced in STh Suppl., q. 96, a. 6, ad 11. The
corresponding objection contains what is most likely the very first mention of helium iustum
in Aquinas's corpus of writings.
93

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363

the faith of Christ." 96 Should one die in the process, this death
will count as martyrdom. It is in this manner that Aquinas
describes the military efforts of those religious orders-for
instance, the Knights Templar-that had assumed arms to defend
the Holy Land. 97 To underscore how military martyrdom involves
ordination to transtemporal spiritual goods, Aquinas states that it
is the fruit not of civic, but of infused virtue. 98
In thus allowing for military martyrdom, Aquinas seems to
have contradicted his other claim, discussed above, that the
martyr's courage, consisting as it does solely in endurance,
excludes a stance of attack. 99 On this basis the very notion of a
"military martyrdom" (a term admittedly not employed by
Aquinas himself) would seem to be an oxymoron. This problem
is not addressed by Aquinas directly, perhaps because he assumed
that military martyrdom would apply only to soldiers who die in
a purely defensive posture, such as those who are captured and
executed, or who are otherwise unable to mount a forcible
resistance. 100 Thomas's older brother Renaud, a knight in the
service of pope Innocent IV, underwent a death of this sort. 101
96 STh II-II, q. 10, a. 8. Konyndyk de Young ("Power Made Perfect in Weakness")
overlooks this and related passages when she writes that "Aquinas never mentions the
possibility of an act of aggression being ordered to a divine good" (167 n. 88).
97 See STh II-II, q. 188, a. 3, ad 3 ("ut militant in subsidium Terra Sanctae").
98 IV Sent., d. 49, q. 5, a. 3, qcla. 2 (reproduced in STh Suppl., q. 96, a. 6, ad 9).
Concerning the infused virtues, see STh I-II, q. 51, a. 4, where Aquinas explains how "these
are habits by which a person is disposed to an end which exceeds the proportion of human
nature."
99 The exclusion of attack from the sphere of martyrdom is clearly stated in STh II-II, q.
124, a. 2, ad 3. And only three short articles later (II-II, q. 124, a. 5, ad 3), Aquinas posits a
form of military martyrdom.
100 Jacques Maritain alludes to such a death, passively sustained on the battlefield, "the
sustinere of one who offers his body to immediate death," apropos his friend Ernest Psichari,
who died in the First World War (Freedom in the Modern World, in The Collected Works of
Jacques Maritain, vol. 11 [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996], 92-93 n. 14).
This essay contains nuanced discussion of the two acts of courage, endurance and attack.
101 Renaud had originally been in the service of the emperor, but after Frederick II was
deposed by Innocent IV, Renaud joined the pope's army. Renauld was executed after being
captured by Frederick's troops. See Jean-Pierre Torrell, Initiation a saint Thomas d'Aquin
(Fribourg, Switzerland: Editions Universitaires, 1993), 4-5, who notes how Thomas's family
considered Renaud a martyr for the Church. Thomas seems to have believed this himself, as
he was persuaded that Renaud's execution was gravely unjust, and furthermore he had had

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

Thus, even if Aquinas did allow for military martyrdom of this
limited sort, he would not employ this expression to designate a
willing acceptance of death by someone initiating an attack-even
under the hypothesis that the attack was mounted for a religious
purpose and in due observance of noncombatant immunity and
other fundamental norms of war. "Martyrdom-seeking operations," as the term is used in some Islamic writings today, would
thus not find acceptance within Aquinas's more restrictive frame
of discourse.
Alongside military martyrdom-whereby death is willingly
undergone for a religious purpose-Aquinas acknowledges that
courage may also be exercised directly for the common good of
the temporal city. His most explicit treatment of this theme
appears in his commentary on Matthew 5: 3 9, "do not resist evil,"
where he reasons that the individual person stands in relation to
the common good of his polity (respublica), as does a part to a
whole. However, unlike the parallel passages where the partswhole formula is advanced as justification for capital and other
forms of corporeal punishment, 102 in the present case it is
employed to explain why an individual might voluntarily risk his
life for the welfare of the body politic. After noting that we
instinctively recoil at the approach of harm, Aquinas observes that
we are nevertheless naturally inclined to expose ourselves
individually to harm so as to protect the whole from a harm even
greater, for every part naturally loves the whole more than itself.
Just as a man would permit his diseased limb to be severed in
order to save his life, by extension he would be naturally inclined
to sustain evil when necessary for the public good. This
willingness to confront danger pertains to fortitude and related
political virtues. 103 And from the related assertion that "each man,
a dream in which his sister, recently deceased, told him that their brother was among the elect
in heaven.
102 For instance STh II-II, q. 62, a. 2; and II-II, q. 65, a. 1.
103 For the Latin text of this passage, see J.-P. Renard, ed., "La Lectura super Matthaeum
V, 20--48 de Thomas d'Aquin (Edition d'apres le ms. Bale, Univ. Bibi. B. V. 12)," Recherches
de theologie ancienne et medievale 50 (1983): 145-90: "[D]icendum quod naturalis inclinatio
est quod quelibit res exponat se ad proprium detrimentum ut uitet detrimentum comune, sicut
man us exponit se periculo propter corpus et quelibet pars pro suo toto. Vnde natural est quod

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365

in all that he is and has belongs to the community," 104 Aquinas
makes clear the confrontation with evil can require of us even the
ultimate sacrifice, death.
The parts-whole analogy is of limited applicability, however.
Human beings-having God for ultimate end-possess an intrinsic
value that cannot be reduced to the service they might render to
the temporal common good. Counterbalancing his affirmation
that "each individual person is related to the entire community as
the part to the whole," 105 Aquinas also writes that "man is not
ordained to the political community according to all that he is and
has." 106 While we can be called on to sacrifice our corporeal
existence for this whole, this mode of our being does not exhaust
all that is in us, certainly not the full dimensions of our soul.
In this vein, Aquinas explains how the brave man, who risks
death for the good of the city, does so also out of a love of his
own virtue and perfection. The loss of one's body can willingly be
sustained because it is subordinate to the soul's exercise of virtue.
The body is loved both because it is a natural good and also
because of its instrumentality in performing acts of virtue. When
a worthy cause is at stake, the second rationale takes precedence
over the former. Subordinating the one to the other is in line with
our human self-love: the body exists for the higher good of the
soul, and the soul itself comes to perfection through exercise of
the virtues, including courage.
Paradoxically, then, the brave person's confrontation with
death can be a source of delight. 107 Taken in itself, death is an evil
and the prospect of dying naturally fills us with dread (an
admixture of sorrow and fear). Yet courageous acts are nonetheless pleasurable, insofar as they are an expression of virtue
homo sustineat malum pro bono rei publice et ad hoc pertinent uirtus pollitica sicut fortitude
et huiusmodi" (179, II. 736-43).
104 STh I-II, q. 96, a. 4.
105 STh II-II, q. 64, a. 2.
106 STh I-II, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3. On the compatibility of Aquinas's two assertions, see Jacques
Maritain, The Person and the Common Good, trans. J. J. Fitzgerald (Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1947), 70-76.
107 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 8, ad 3: "In the brave man spiritual sorrow is overcome by the
pleasure of virtue."

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

whereby the soul finds its natural completion. Enabling its
possessor to remain steadfast in the good despite the presence of
evil, while contemplating the triumph of good in the future,
courage brings with it a distinctive pleasure, a sense of
accomplishment at dying in a moment of excellence and for a
great purpose. 108
Aquinas does however add an important caveat to this
reasoning. Only when sorrow takes the form of a spiritual affect
can courage stand a reasonable chance of prevailing over it, for in
this case one spiritual affect-the pleasure arising from awareness
of oneself as the performer of a virtuous deed-overcomes the
other affect that is formally speaking its contrary-the sorrow that
arises from the mental perception of imminent death. But if
physical pain supervenes there will be no contrary affect to chase
the attendant sorrow away. And should this pain be intense, the
spiritual pleasure of virtue cannot be sustained. On this basis,
Aquinas concludes that the habit of acquired fortitude is more
effective in enabling a person to hold fast in the face of death than
in resisting acute bodily pain. By contrast, infused fortitude is
effective even in the latter respect, since "by a copious assistance
of God's grace," enabling the martyr to "delight in divine
things," 109 the pleasure of virtue is reinforced to the point where
it can overcome extreme corporeal pain.
In the preceding analysis of military courage, we have focused
on situations where there is a risk, but not a certainty, of death.
Soldiers going into battle know they may die, yet they typically
carry with them a hope of survival. Military annals do however
tell of self-sacrificing missions that are undertaken with little or
no hope of survival, such as the kamikaze bombing raids of World
War IL 110 Did Aquinas envision these self-sacrificing missions
within his treatment of acquired courage?

108 STh II-II, q. 123, a. 8: "The brave man ... [experiences] spiritual pleasure, namely in
the act itself of virtue and the end thereof."
109 Ibid.
110 See the essays in Diego Gambetta, ed., Making Sense of Suicide Missions (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2005).

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367

The question is addressed obliquely apropos of the biblical
figure Samson Qudg 16). Taken prisoner by the Philistines, who
tied him to a temple column, and after invoking God to regain his
strength, Samson managed to pull down the column, collapsing
the temple, killing three thousand of his enemies who were
celebrating his capture on the roof above. In this manner he
knowingly went to his own death in order to fulfill a mission of
revenge. Was Samson's action condemnable on moral grounds as
a suicide? This is the question posed by Aquinas (STh 11-11, q. 64,
a. 5, ad 4). Setting up a contrast with Razias (2 Mace 14:42), who
unjustifiably killed himself in order to avoid capture ("this was not
true fortitude but rather weakness of soul unable to bear penal
evils" [ibid., ad 5]), he quotes Augustine (De civitate Dei 1.26) to
the effect that Samson's act was allowable because it resulted from
an inner prompting of the Holy Spirit. No further explanation is
given, although the point is reinforced by a parallel drawn to the
case of the holy virgins [of Aquileia], celebrated by the Church,
who took their own lives to avoid rape. Acknowledging the praise
of St. Paul (Heb 11:32), who numbered Samson among the elect,
Aquinas understands his fortitude to be an expression of infused
virtue, whereby the ordinary rules prohibiting suicide could be
lifted due to a special dispensation of God, the Master of life and
death. 111
Significantly, however, a supplementary explanation was
advanced by Aquinas's commentator Vitoria. 112 Samson's act
cannot be described as a suicide, precisely because he never
intended to take his own life; rather, he wished to kill his
enemies, in the wake of which his own death followed as a
foreseeable side-effect. Citing the related story of Eleazar (1 Mace
6:43-47), who was crushed after stabbing the underbelly of an
elephant in order to bring down the enemy commander, whom he
111 In the next article (STh 11-11, q. 64, a. 6), Aquinas likewise states that an innocent person
may be put to death (despite the strict prohibition against the same) if such has been
commanded by God (with reference to the story of Abraham's call to sacrifice his son Isaac).
112 See Francisco de Vitoria, On Homicide & Commentary on Summa theologiae Ila-Ilae
Q. 64 (Thomas Aquinas), trans. with an introduction and notes by Joseph P. Doyle
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1997), 107 and 183-85.

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GREGORY M. REICHBERG

believed was sitting above, Vitoria applies double-effect reasoning
in order to demonstrate how even without divine inspiration the
actions of Eleazar, and by extension Samson, were conceivably
licit: "for who doubts that someone in a battle, or defending a
city, would undertake an action for the welfare of his homeland
and for the great detriment of its enemies, even though it would
involve his own certain death?" 113 To this question Vitoria
emphatically responds in the affirmative, concluding that "Eleazar
and ... anyone else who has killed himself [unintentionally yet
foreseeably] for the republic ... should be excused. " 114 Vitoria's
reasoning seems compatible with Aquinas's principles, but why
the latter did not propose it himself cannot readily be ascertained.
CONCLUSION

Despite the marginal place battlefield courage occupies vis-avis the chief purpose of the Secunda Pars-how human beings
advance toward union with God-Aquinas does accord it a special
role within his typology of the virtues. This role is of a piece with
his conviction that the temporal common good, while not
constituting the ultimate goal for human beings, is still an inherent
good that merits the formation of the relevant moral virtues,
among them military courage. In this connection, he demonstrates
an awareness of the distinctive moral challenges of the military
life, a setting wherein its participants struggle to find the mean of
virtue amid the darker passions-fear, aggression, sorrow, and
anger. By situating just war in this emotive context, Aquinas
balances out the more principled approach of the question "De
hello" (STh 11-11, q. 40) and in so doing he provides a virtueethical blueprint for the revival of just war thought in our own
day.

Vitoria, On Homicide, p. 107.
Commentary on Summa theologiae IIa-IIae Q. 64 [a. 5], p. 185. Maritain,
likewise, argues that these "special missions" can be licit, provided they are carried out by
volunteers (The Person and the Common Good, 68-69).
113

114 Vitoria,

The Thomist 74 (2010): 369-405

THEOLOGICAL FAITH ENLIGHTENING SACRED
THEOLOGY:
RENEWING THEOLOGY BY RECOVERING ITS UNITY AS
SACRA DOCTRINA 1
REINHARD HOTTER
Duke University Divinity School
Durham, North Carolina

Es ist mit der Wissenschaft iiber Gott die Gefahr verbunden, daR sie unser
tiefstes Innere Gott entfremde, anstatt es Ihm zu niihern. 2
Ceslaus Maria Schneider
Nihil est pauperius et miserius mente quae caret Deo et de Deo philosophatur
et disputat. 3
John Climacus

T

HE FOLLOWING considerations arise from an indisputable, albeit regrettable fact: the pervasive fragmentation
of contemporary Catholic theology and the consequent
urgent need of renewal. Such renewal will have to come about by
way of recovering theology's inner unity. And the latter requires
nothing less than allowing theology's soul- supernatural, divine
faith-to inform again the whole body of theology. The authority
of America's foremost Catholic theologian, the late Avery
1 An earlier version of this essay was presented on 17 October 2009, at the first "Thomistic
Circles" Conference on "Thomism and the Renewal of Theology" at the new Academic
Center of the Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C.
2 "The science of God is accompanied by the danger that its pursuit estranges our
innermost self from God instead of bringing it closer to Him."
3 "There is nothing more miserable and desolate than a mind bereft of God that speaks of
and philosophizes about God."

369

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REINHARD HUTTER

Cardinal Dulles, S.J., shall suffice as a warrant for the way I
characterize the present state of Catholic theology. In his
important essay, "Wisdom as the Source of Unity for Theology,"
published shortly before his death, he observes:
Over the past fifty years we have all heard the repeated complaint, amounting
sometimes to a lamentation, that theology has lost its unity. Like Humpty
Dumpty it has suffered a great fall, and all the pope's theologians have not
succeeded in putting it together again. Theology is splintered into subdisciplines
that insist on their own autonomy without regard for one another. Biblical
studies go in one direction, historical scholarship goes in another, ethics in a
third, and spirituality in a fourth.
In addition to this fragmentation of disciplines, there is a growing breach
between past and present. The classic statements of the faith are studied
historically, in relation to the circumstances in which they arose. If their
contemporary relevance is not denied, they are reinterpreted for today in ways
that preserve little if anything of their original content. The Magisterium, which
has traditionally been the guardian of theological orthodoxy, is simply ignored
by some theologians and bitterly criticized by others. Dogmatic theology, which
seeks to ground itself in official Catholic teaching, is shunned as being servile and
unprogressive .... Each theologian is expected to be creative and is encouraged
to say something novel and surprising. A theologian who reaffirms the tradition
and fails to challenge the received doctrine is considered timid and retrograde. 4

Cardinal Dulles' analysis is true in every respect. Furthermore,
his constructive proposal is as salient as it is salutary in retrieving
Thomas's three kinds of wisdom as the source of unity for
theology: philosophical wisdom, theological wisdom, and infused
wisdom. While philosophical wisdom arises from the natural
capacity of the human intellect to investigate the structures of
reality, infused wisdom, the immediate gift of the Holy Spirit,
enables the believer to form right judgments by means of a
divinely given connaturality. Theological wisdom, finally,
considers all reality in light of revelation and is thus constitutive

4 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., "Wisdom as the Source of Unity in Theology," in Michael
Dauphinais and Matthew Levering, eds., Wisdom and Holiness, Science and Scholarship:
Essays in Honor of Matthew L. Lamb (Naples, Fl.: Sapientia Press, 2007), 59-71, at 59£.

FAITH ENLIGHTENING SACRED THEOLOGY

371

of theology as sacra doctrina. 5 In the following, I wish to build
upon Dulles's proposal by expanding it in one important regard:
the crucial connection between theological wisdom and the
infused, supernatural virtue of faith. Such an attempt is not as farfetched as it might at first seem. The most recent magisterial
teaching-Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Spe salvi-encourages
a genuine recovery of the supernatural character of the faith. By
drawing out the implications of such a recovery for Catholic
theology as a unified sapiential theology, the internal unity of
which arises from its essential correlation to supernatural faith, I
intend to receive this magisterial teaching as an impulse for a
genuinely Thomist contribution to the renewal of contemporary
Catholic theology.
It is worthwhile to quote at length the pertinent passage from
Spe salvi:
In the eleventh chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews (v. 1) we find a kind of
definition of faith which closely links this virtue with hope .... "Faith is the
hypostasis of things hoped for; the proof of things not seen." For the Fathers and
for the theologians of the Middle Ages, it was clear that the Greek word
hypostasis was to be rendered in Latin with the term substantia. The Latin
translation of the text produced at the time of the early Church therefore reads:

Est autem {ides sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non
apparentium-faith is the "substance" of things hoped for; the proof of things
not seen. Saint Thomas Aquinas, using the terminology of the philosophical
tradition to which he belonged, explains it as follows: faith is a habitus, that is,
a stable disposition of the spirit, through which eternal life takes root in us and
reason is led to consent to what it does not see .... [T]hrough faith, in a
tentative way, or as we might say "in embryo"-and thus according to the
"substance"-there are already present in us the things that are hoped for: a
whole, true life. And precisely because the thing itself is already present, this
5 Thomas never discusses the three kinds of wisdom together in one single place of his vast
oeuvre. For a discussion of philosophical wisdom, see IMetaph., lect. 1-2; for a discussion of
theological wisdom, see STh I, q. 1, a. 6; and for a discussion of infused wisdom, see STh II-II,
q. 45. In the twentieth century, French Thomists took Thomas's teaching on the three kinds
of wisdom to offer the best possible access to the intricate interplay of sacred theology and
metaphysics in Thomas's thought. See Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Le sens du mystere
et le clair-obscur intellectual: Nature et surnaturel (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1934); and
Marie-Dominique Philippe, Les trois sagesses: Entretiens avec Frederic Lenoir (Paris: Fayard,
1994).

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REINHARD HUrrER

presence of what is to come also creates certainty: this "thing" which must come
is not yet visible in the external world (it does not "appear"), but because of the
fact that, as an initial and dynamic reality, we carry it within us, a certain
perception of it has even now come into existence .... Faith is not merely a
personal reaching out towards things to come that are still totally absent: it gives
us something. It gives us even now something of the reality we are waiting for,
and this present reality constitutes for us a "proof" of the things that are still
unseen. Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a
"not yet." (§7)6

In this crucial passage, the source for the renewal of contemporary Catholic theology is as plainly stated as is the name of
the doctor communis who in his theology offers the very resources
for such a renewal. To put the encyclical's teaching on faith into
Thomas's somewhat more technical language: Faith is an infused
habitus, that is, a stable supernatural disposition of the human
spirit, indeed, the effect of the "new being" of sanctifying grace in
believers, through which eternal life takes root in us such that
reason is led to assent to what it does not see, and in consequence
of which the human person is enabled to attain the transcendent
God who is the First Truth.7 It is this attaining of the transcendent
God who is the First Truth that makes supernatural faith
"theological" in the proper sense of the word. For in virtue of the
infused habitus of faith, "'in embryo'-and thus according to the
'substance' -there are already present in us the things that are
hoped for: a whole, true life." This is what the Thomist tradition
calls the "theological life," "la vie theologale. " 8
When Catholic theology becomes again intrinsically ordered to
and informed by the supernatural dynamic and content of
theological faith, it will recover its unity as sacra doctrina and
thereby will undergo a salutary renewal. In this regard, I would
like to submit, Thomism-which constantly teaches the essential
correlation between theological faith and the sapiential character
6 This as well as all further quotations from Spe salvi are taken from the Vatican website:
http://www. vatican. va/hol y _fa ther/benedict _xvi/ encyclicals/documents/hf_ benxvi_enc_ 20071130 _spe-salvi_en.html (accessed 12 May 2010).
7 STh 11-11, q. 4, a. 1.
8 See M.-M. Labourdette, O.P., "La vie theologale selon saint Thomas," Revue Thomiste
58 (1958): 597-622.

FAITH ENLIGHTENING SACRED THEOLOGY

373

of theology, between the simple understanding of faith and the
discursive and contemplative operation of theological wisdom-is
in an advantageous position to make a salient contribution to such
a contemporary renewal of Catholic theology. 9
In order to avoid the danger of vague and largely unsupported
generalizations about contemporary Catholic theology, however,
I shall build upon and advance Dulles's proposal by way of
examining two paradigmatic sketches of the nature and task of
Catholic theology. I shall first consider a programmatic postVatican II revision of the nature of Catholic dogmatic theology.
The author is the already-then-noted German Catholic dogmatic
theologian Walter Kasper, now cardinal and former president of
the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Kasper's
treatise originated in a lecture he presented at the first
postconciliar Conference of German Dogmatic Theologians,
which met in Munich, 2-5 January 1967. The German original
was published the same year under the title "Die Methoden der
Dogmatik-Einheit und Vielheit" ("The Methods of Dogmatic
Theology-Unity and Plurality"). 10 In 1969 an English translation
appeared, although its title omitted what is most indicative of
9 Instantiations of such Thomistic contributions to a renewal of Catholic theology indeed
already exist. Arguably, one of chem is Jean-Herve Nicolas, O.P., Synthese dogmatique: De
la Trinite a la Trinite (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires; Paris: Editions Beauchesne, 1985),
with a preface by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Romanus Cessario, O.P., aptly characterizes
Nicolas's magnum opus as taking the proper course between the reductive alternatives of
theological rationalism and theological positivism: "Theology, after all, according to the
Thomisc viewpoint, develops out of faith's seeking to deepen its understanding of revealed
truth. Rationalism reduces theology to a purely human enterprise. Practitioners of chis kind
of theology perceive themselves either as peers of secular professors in academic circles or the
religious counterparts of other learned professions, like social work or psychology. Whatever
are the merits of the science of religious studies, theology in service of the Church requires
more than academic credentials to communicate a revealed doctrine. Theological positivism,
on the other hand, which relies on authoritarian pronouncements to support Church doctrine,
closes off the theological project by replacing demonstration with the weakest form of
argument, authority. Its practitioners find satisfaction with repetition of what the Church
teaches, but recoil from the hard work of making that teaching intelligible to contemporary
hearers. Father Nicolas offers the theologian a model to avoid these unfortunate and
disserviceable alternatives" ("Theology at Fribourg," The Thomist 51 [1987]: 325-66, at 339).
10 Walter Kasper, Die Methoden der Dogmatik-Einheit
und Vielheit (Munich: Kosel,
1967).

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REINHARD HUTTER

Kasper's program: "Unity and Plurality. " 11 This elimination was
unfortunate, because Kasper is quite explicitly concerned with
recovering the inner unity of dogmatic theology and thereby
contributing to the integration of all branches of Catholic
theology. 12
In the foreword to his treatise, Kasper emphasizes that this
work claims to be nothing more than "a preliminary probe." 13 Yet
precisely because of its experimental and preliminary character,
Kasper's opuscule represents an instructive and indeed
paradigmatic example of what, in the years immediately following
the Second Vatican Council, was widely regarded as an overdue
fresh theological venture. 14
In a second step, I shall turn to an equally brief programmatic
treatise, "The Work of Theology," 15 of the Spanish Dominican
Francisco P. Muniz, who taught at the Angelicum in Rome.
11 Walter Kasper, The Methods of Dogmatic Theology, trans.John

Drury (Glen Rock, N.J.:
Paulist Press, 1969).
12 "There is a growing splintering of methods within one and the same discipline and by
one and the same theologian. At one point the dogmatic theologian may utilize exegetical,
historical and philosophical arguments; at another point he may adopt a pastoral, an
anthropological, or a sociological approach. But if dogmatic theology is to avoid dilettantism,
if it is to remain a scientific discipline, then it must look for the one dogmatic method"
(Kasper, The Methods of Dogmatic Theology, lf.). Kasper's express goal of his treatise is "to
arrive at a single, unified epistemological process that is proper to theology" (ibid., 21).
13 Ibid., vii.
14 I do not know how forty years later Cardinal Kasper would assess this brief work. (For
a complete bibliography of Walter Cardinal Kasper's very impressive opera, see the Festschrift
in honor of his seventy-fifth birthday, introduced with a personal salutation by Pope Benedict
XVI, Gott denken und bezeugen, ed. George Augustine and Klaus Kramer [Freiburg: Herder,
2008].) While there are tangible influences of Kasper's important earlier scholarly work upon
this treatise, in the following I will be unable to do full justice to the complex ways in which
Kasper's opuscule depends on and departs from his doctoral dissertation on the concept of
tradition in the nineteenth-century Roman school and his Tiibingen Habilitationsschrift on
the philosophy and theology of history in the later period of Schelling's thought: Walter
Kasper, Die Lehre von der Tradition in der Romischen Schule (Giovanni Perrone, Carlo
Passaglia, Clemens Schrader), Die Uberlieferung in der neueren Theologie 5 (Freiburg:
Herder, 1962); idem, Das Absolute in der Geschichte. Philosophie und Theologie der
Geschichte in der Spiitphilosophie Schellings (Mainz: Grunewald, 1965). See also his important
early essay, "Grundlinien einer Theologie der Geschichte," Theologische Quartalschrift 144
(1964): 129-69.
15 Francisco P. Muniz, O.P., The Work of Theology, trans. John P. Reid, O.P. (Washington,
D.C.: The Thomist Press, 1953).

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Translated by the American Dominican John Reid, Mufiiz's
humbly titled "Work" was published in English in 1953, during
those theologically and ecclesiastically complicated years leading
up to the Second Vatican Council. Thus fifteen years before
Kasper's treatise appeared in English and about ten years before
the council, Mufiiz's preoccupation with the unity of theology,
with theology as a proper whole (totum), and his creative use of
Thomas's metaphysics of the totum potestativum, was made
available to an English-speaking theological readership.
One could hardly imagine two treatises on the renewal of
Catholic theology more different in rhetorical posture, intellectual
orientation, and theological patrimony. Each bears the traces of
the particular intellectual moment in which it was conceived in
the history of Catholic theology. Mufiiz's treatise embodies in an
unencumbered way the conceptual rigor of Scholastic discourse,
to which we have largely grown unaccustomed in the last fifty
years. Kasper's treatise embraces in an equally unencumbered way
the later Heidegger's consistent historicizing of being and
Gadamer's version of a tradition-dependent universal hermeneutics, two philosophical interventions of undoubted importance that, however, forty years later-and especially outside of
the confines of the German intellectual context-convey an
indisputable datedness. Moreover, the all-too-conventional postVatican II hermeneutics of discontinuity, which is as superficial as
it is erroneous, would most likely dismiss Muniz's approach as a
typical instantiation of a static, unhistorical metaphysical and
theological framework and embrace Kasper's program as a
properly dynamic and historically sensitive stance. Among other
things, I hope to show that such a contrastive reading of pre- and
post-Vatican II accounts of the nature of theology misses the real
issues at stake, robs itself of a most salutary theological patrimony,
and does justice neither to Kasper nor to Muniz.
In what follows, I examine what Kasper and Muniz have to say
about (a) the nature and task of theology; (b) the nature of faith;
(c) the relationship between faith and theology; (d) the impact of
their variant understandings of the nature of faith on their

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respective accounts of theology; and finally (e) whether and, if so,
how each programmatic proposal can be received in light of Spe
salvi's teaching on supernatural, divine faith.
I

Walter Kasper's Methods of Dogmatic Theology is divided into
five sections: (I) "The Present Crisis," (II) "The Historical
Background," (III) "Theology's Starting Point," (IV) "History and
Theology," and (V) "The Goal of Methodology." In the first
section, "The Present Crisis," Kasper characterizes the intellectual
situation of the 1960s as a "crisis of faith" in which "the
fundamental principles of faith itself and the possibility of saying
anything about God" (1) 16 have been called into question. He
understands Vatican II as addressing this critical situation with a
call for "a new theology, a dogmatic methodology that was more
biblically and pastorally oriented" (2). This new theology is to be
fueled by "the new spirit which pervades [the Second Vatican
Council's] statements and declarations. Dogmatic theology as a
whole is presented as being more dynamic, more catholic, more
oriented to this world and the future; moreover, in many respects,
it is portrayed as something possessing less certainty than
heretofore" (3 ).
According to Kasper, there is an urgent need for such a new
theology, for he sees a real crisis threatening the foundations of
theology, a crisis caused primarily by rapidly accelerating new
developments: "Justifiable criticism of the a-worldliness of
theology in the past now threatens to drive us to the other
extreme, to give rise to a secular theology which has no real
tradition" (ibid.). In order to check the move to this extreme,
Kasper explicitly recalls the traditional, sapiential understanding
of theology:
Theology belongs to the realm which tradition sums up under the word sapientia
(wisdom). Through it we savor (sapere), we come to know, "the glory of God
Parenthetical Arabic page numbers in this section refer to pages in Kasper, Methods of
Dogmatic Theology.
16

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377

shining on the face of Christ Jesus" (2 Cor 4, 6). This is the type of experience
which is proper to theology, and the modern-day emphasis on truth requires that
this experience be given a new, more intensive form of methodological selfverification. For even though theology cannot simply appropriate one or other
of the secular methods, it is not a purely whimsical process either. Theology, too,
must be rigorous and serious. It, too, must draw reasonable conclusions. It, too,
must use exactness in posing and answering questions. Theology, too, has its
methods. (5)

Hence, in contrast to the newly emerging "secular theology,"
Kasper very much regards theology as a methodical inquiry into
the truth, an inquiry in which tradition is an essential ingredient.
To put it into Maclntyrean terms, for Kasper theology is
irreversibly tradition-constituted: "Only tradition, dominated as
it is by the quest for truth, can put us on the road where the
search for truth is made" (6-7). The concept of ecclesial-doctrinal
tradition that Kasper introduces and consistently applies throughout his treatise is deeply shaped by his interpretation of the
doctrine of tradition held by the nineteenth-century Roman
school. 17 More importantly, however, Kasper normatively contextualizes and thus interprets his understanding of ecclesialdoctrinal tradition further by way of a more comprehensive and
indeed foundational philosophical-hermeneutical understanding
of tradition that is explicitly indebted to Heidegger's late
philosophy:

17 We might not go completely wrong in finding echoes of Kasper's interpretation of
Passaglia's and Schrader's interpretation of tradition in his own programmatic and
eschatologically determined vision: "Die Tradition 'ist' nicht, sie geschieht, sie ereignet sich.
Die Tradition ist der Akt, der von Christus im Heiligen Geist getragen ist, der <lurch den
Dienst der Kirche geschieht, in dem und <lurch den allein das einmal gesprochene Wort aktuell
wird, Da-sein besitzt fiir uns und aufsteht fiir unseren Glauben [Tradition 'is' not; it occurs,
it takes place. Tradition is the act which is sustained by Christ in the Holy Spirit, which takes
place through the Church's ministry, and in and by which alone the Word, after it has been
spoken, becomes real, has existence for us, and supports our faith]" (Kasper, Die Lehre von
der Tradition in der Romischen Schute, 331). In short, objective tradition exists in the Church
always only in the traditioning act as it occurs again and again-carried out by Christ and the
Holy Spirit by way of the Church's ministry. The most recent and comprehensively normative
event of this kind was for Kasper the Second Vatican Council. All previous tradition has
existence only insofar as it is integral to this Spirit-suffused traditioning event.

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Tradition discloses the truth and touches off the quest for it, but at the same time
it also hides the truth. The answers of tradition can never fully handle the
questions to which tradition gives rise; indeed, they often obstruct these
questions and maintain a stranglehold on them. Historical reflection on the
questions of the past leads inevitably to further exploration of the new and more
radical possibilities of comprehending truth. Tradition sets us on the road to seek
truth and, in so doing, it opens up new pathways for future theology. (7-8) 18

This passage demonstrates as well as any other the fundamental,
ontological historicity Kasper assumes to obtain in regard to the
human act of understanding in general. 19
18 Kasper explicitly acknowledges the profound influence of Heidegger's late philosophy
in several places in his treatise. At the time of its composition, Heidegger's late philosophy
held German intellectuals under a spell that retrospectively is as instructive as it is
disconcerting. Few Catholic philosophers, among them most notably Robert Spaemann and
Ferdinand IBrich, resisted this bewitchment from the outset. It was only with the ascendancy
of the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas) that a spell-breaking, though no
less problematic, intellectual alternative developed in the post-WWII intellectual discourse in
Germany. While the generation of Catholic theologians to which Kasper (as well as Karl
Cardinal Lehmann) belong shows a tangible indebtedness to Heidegger's thought (the Catholic
philosophical reception of Heidegger is associated with the names of Bernhard Welte; Max
Millier; Karl Rahner, S.J.; and Johannes B. Lotz, S.J.), the subsequent generation of Catholic
theologians in Germany (Kasper refers to this development in his treatise as "secular
theology") fell to an even greater degree under the spell of the Frankfurt School and adopted
as the philosophical point of reference for Catholic theology a Marx-inspired critical theory
instead of a Heidegger-inspired history of being. In short, what happened was the (in)famous
transition out of the frying pan into the fire. The abandonment of the philosophia perennis
upon which Catholic theology had drawn prior to Vatican II had as a consequence the evermore rapid replacement of one philosophical point of reference or framework with another.
So the journey went from Heidegger and Gadamer to Adorno, Horkheimer, and Habermas,
and from there in more recent years to Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, and Irigaray. Pope John
Paul II's encyclical Fides et ratio has encouraged a more sober and penetrating reflection
pertaining to the question of what kind of philosophy indeed meets best the exigencies of
inquiring in essentially nonreductive ways into the truth of the human being and the world as
a whole and thus best serves Catholic theology.
19 "The notion of historicity posited here involves more than the purely subjective
historicity of man himself; it embraces reality as a whole and being as such. Thus it includes
society, institutions, and the world" (7 n. 6). "[N]ature and being only become real within the
all-embracing cloak of history" (55). This comprehensive philosophical claim aptly puts into
a nutshell Heidegger's late philosophy, his ontological historicism which can be usefully
encountered in his Der Satz vom Grund (Pfullingen: Neske, 1957) and Nietzsche, vol. 2
(Pfullingen: Neske, 1961). For an instructive introduction to the later Heidegger's thinking,
see Julian Young, Heidegger's Later Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002). In order to offer some background and backing to the notion of the history of being
that he endorses, Kasper refers to the standard Heideggerian introduction to Heidegger's

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Thus it is that a philosophical hermeneutics inspired by
Heidegger and Gadamer, in conjunction with what the German
biblical exegesis of the 1950s and 1960s regarded as the newly
recovered biblical notion of truth, provides the warrant for
holding truth to be a fundamentally historical phenomenon and
ultimately an eschatological promise:
Truth and fidelity are closely tied together. A thing is true if it actually turns out
to be what it purports to be. A thing is true if it has permanence and stability, if
it stands the test of time. Thus the biblical notion of truth is characterized by its
temporal orientation. It is concerned with things that have happened or will
happen, not with things that are what they are by nature. In the biblical view,
truth is an historical phenomenon and, ultimately, an eschatological promise.
(53)

This authentic biblical notion of truth, purportedly retrieved just
recently by the efforts of historical-critical exegesis, gives rise to
a profound questioning of the received central concepts of
theology:
In these revolutionary days we simply must probe all our theological concepts in
depth, asking how relevant and how meaningful they are for our concrete
practice of the faith. Even the central concepts of theology-grace, salvation, sin,
God-have become empty words to a large extent. They do not say anything to
men, and they have no foundation in the realm of experience. They often seem
to represent a set of values which cannot be discovered experientially in the
Christian's life of faith in history. (52) 20

It is important to note that Kasper in no way intends to
endorse relativism or skepticism. He rather argues exclusively in
favor of substituting what he calls a "static framework" with a
historical framework of metaphysical structures. 21 He has no
thought by Otto Poggeler, Der Denkweg Martin Heideggers (Pfullingen: Neske, 1963) and to
works of two eminent representatives of what has been called the "Catholic Heideggerschool": Max Millier and Bernhard Welte.
20 In which remedy does Kasper put his hope? "If all our theological statements are viewed
as historical explications and interpretations of Christ's salvific promise, then men will be able
to comprehend and assimilate the truths of faith once again" (54).
21 "Theology views everything within the framework of a universal, eschatological promise.
Thus, from the start, it is historical through and through" (58).

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interest in theology being dissolved into a "historical soup" (5 6)
which he regards as the inevitable result of any radical attempt to
historicize existence to such a degree that all perduring
metaphysical norms would prove illusory. Rather, he very much
wants to understand the "end of metaphysics" along the lines of
the later Schelling and the later Heidegger: "The end of
metaphysics can only mean that we are salvaging the intrinsic
historicity of metaphysical thought from the false trap of a
philosophia perennis and a theologia perennis" (57).
A genuinely historical outlook, Kasper emphasizes, cannot,
after all, afford to jettison metaphysical categories in toto. And
while theology is embedded in the same comprehensive historicity
of being and thinking as fully as philosophy, "theology cannot
dispense with universally valid metaphysical categories any more
than philosophy can" (58). If one wonders how, according to
Kasper's comprehensive historical-hermeneutical program, theology comes by such universally valid metaphysical categories, one
might have recourse to the universality of the eschatological
promise as the normative transhistorical point of reference for a
theology that is "historical through and through" (ibid.). In order
for theology not to fall into the trap of fideism ("apodictically
propounding a particular truth as a universally valid truth"
[ibid.]), the universality of this promise must be preserved in the
concrete engagement of theology with all other ways and kinds of
thinking: "If theology is not to retire into freely chosen isolation,
then it must be able to show that its statements concretize,
outstrip and fulfill the elements of anticipation and longing that
stand out in the basic structures of every history" (58-59).
It is far from clear how such an illustration could show that the
metaphysical categories entailed in theology are indeed true 22 and
22 To be fair to Kasper's comprehensive historical-hermeneutical framework, this would
not be a valid concern for him, for he regards the relationship itself of theology to philosophy
as a historical process. Hence, "however much theology may need metaphysical categories,
it cannot tie itself to a specific metaphysics if it is to remain true to itself" (60). It is clear that
according to Kasper metaphysics is itself nothing but· concrete historical thought. And
therefore, "the use of hellenic [lowercased in original?] notions was a necessary hermeneutic
process at that point in history" (ibid.). Because of the genuinely historical character of
metaphysics, Kasper's program seems to entail that the central truths promulgated in the

FAITH ENLIGHTENING SACRED THEOLOGY

381

how such an illustration would protect theology from ending up
in the very "historical soup" Kasper is rightly concerned about. It
is, however, patent what the overarching goal of such a
philosophical theology of history is: "to show that Christ is truly
the concretum universale . . . the unique and irreducible
concretization of history's universal essence" (59, 61). 23 This
concretum universale constitutes the irreducible normative aspect
of dogmatic theology that keeps it from becoming an exclusively
historical enterprise. Consequently, "[t]he historical and
speculative methods of dogmatic theology are two aspects of a
single historical-hermeneutical process" (63). If we ask which of
the two aspects governs the other, Kasper does not hesitate to
draw a not-altogether-unproblematic, albeit perfectly consistent
conclusion from his programmatic approach: there indeed is a
speculative aspect of dogmatic theology, but "[s]peculative
thought must be viewed as concrete, historical thought" (ibid.).
The reason for this is that "dogma can only be regarded as a
relative, historical reality of pure functional significance" (25).
The two poles or terms in relation to which dogma is relative are,
on the one hand, "the pristine Word of God" and, on the other
hand, "the questioning process of a given era" (ibid.). Kasper
Trinitarian and Christological dogmas (and configured comprehensively in "hellenic notions")
can only be retrieved in an hermeneutical process that is essentially extrinsic to these
hellenistically conceived dogmas themselves. For the hellenic notions do not seem to be
reflective of human "ratio" per se, and in principle and per se intelligible to human beings at
all times an in all places, but are rather reflective of a particular historical instantiation of
human "ratio" in specific time-bound philosophical tenets.
23 The inspiration behind this claim is quite obviously Schelling's late philosophy of
history. In Kasper's reading, this philosophy of history acquires a distinctly Christological
character: "Die Dialektik wird so in der Spatphilosophie Schellings zur Dialogik, und dieser
geschichtliche Dialog bleibt off en, weist auf eine Zukunft hin, die nur in hoffendem Glauben
vorweggenommen werden kann; nicht das Wissen des Wissens ist das Letzte fiir den
Menschen, sondern docta ignorantia im Akt eines sich in die Zukunft hinausstreckenden
Glaubens. Vermittelt und getragen wird die Geschichte van Christus, in dem alles Bestand hat
und auf den alles hin erschaffen ist (Kol 1,16f) [Thus in Schelling's late philosophy dialectics
turns into dialogics, and this historical dialogue remains open and points to a future that can
be anticipated only by a faith that hopes; the ultimate goal of the human being is not selfreflective knowledge, but rather the docta ignorantia of a faith that stretches itself out toward
the future. History is mediated and sustained by Christ, in whom all things hold together and
with respect to whom all things were created]" (Das Absolute in der Geschichte, 22).

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stresses that "Dogma itself, and the speculative reflection of
dogmatic theology, must be viewed in terms of these two
overriding considerations which go beyond them" (ibid.).
Consequently, dogmatic theology is a hermeneutical activity that
stands between the poles of "the Word of revelation in Scripture
and the present-day realities of Christian proclamation" (ibid.). 24
Hence, "[t]he aim of speculative theology is to comprehend faith's
universal claim in a concrete intellectual situation" (62). With
explicit reference to Johann Sebastian Drey, Kasper conceives
dogmatic theology as the "transmission of the faith to an ever
enduring present" (64 ). 25
The point has arrived where it is apposite to ask how Kasper
conceives of "faith." Analogous to theology, faith for Kasper has
an historical as well as a normative aspect. The normative aspect
24 By advancing this understanding of dogmatic theology, Kasper seems to approximate,
if not to adopt, Karl Barth's understanding of the place and role of dogmatic theology, most
exhaustively developed in his prolegomena to the monumental Church Dogmatics, in the
opening sections of vol. 1/1 and the concluding sections of vol. 1/2. See Karl Barth, Kirchliche
Dogmatik, vol. 1/1, 10th ed. (Zurich: TVZ, 1981), §§ 1-2; and vol. 1/2, 7th ed. (Zurich:
TVZ, 1983), §§ 22-24. With respect to the precise role and understanding of dogma itself
Kasper differs slightly, but importantly, from Barth's understanding. While Barth understands
dogma in an exclusively eschatological sense (Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/1 :284 ), Kasper stresses
that "dogma shares the eschatological-definitive character of Christian revelation, and its
historical cast. Dogma exemplifies the trait of 'already here' and 'yet to come' which
characterize the whole existence of the Church in this world" (25 n. 6).
25 Johann Sebastian Drey (1777-1853) was an influential Catholic theologian who held a
professorship of dogmatic theology and the history of dogma on the Catholic faculty of the
University of Tiibingen from 1817 to 1846. Drey was one of the most important
representatives of a Catholic Enlightenment in conversation with Lessing, Schelling, and
Schleiermacher. He is regarded as the founder of modern Catholic apologetics and
fundamental theology, and as the intellectual initiator of the Catholic "Tiibingen School." For
an introduction to Drey's thought, see Max Seckler's informative essay, "Ein Tiibinger
Entwurf: Johann Sebastian Drey und die Theologie," in idem, Im Spannungsfeld von
Wissenschaft und Kirche: Theologie als schopferische Auslegung der Wirklichkeit (Freiburg:
Herder, 1980), 178-98. Kasper understands his own program very much as a continuation of
this tradition, which represents to him the best of Catholic theology of its day: "In the first
half of the nineteenth century, theologians in Tiibingen, Munster, Munich and Vienna strove
to develop a theology that was both ecclesial (in the best sense of the word) and imbued with
a sound theological liberalism. It was a theology produced by original minds who were at ease
in the intellectual currents of their time. Men like Mohler and Dollinger championed the
cause of the Church, but they were open-minded men who were recognized and respected by
other contemporary scholars" (19).

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of faith, the ultimate Christological and eschatological mystery of
God, pertains to faith's existential certitudo super omnia. The
historical aspect of the faith pertains to the concrete, historically
configured articles of faith by way of which faith's universal claim
takes concrete historical shape. 26 It is faith's normative aspect, its
unshakable existential certitude in relationship to the concretum
universale, Jesus Christ, that sets the theologian free to engage in
an unrestrained questioning process of (ides quaerens intellectum
"beyond the ready-made concepts to the underlying reality"
(ibid.). 27 Therefore, "[s]trong in the faith and supported by the
Church, the theologian is free to ask whatever he will. ... [H]e
can savor the delight of questioning everything" (64-65). "The
wonder of faith is that its certitudo super omnia permits and even
calls for such a questioning process" (64). In Kasper's own words,
as already quoted above, "[e]ven the central concepts of
theology-grace, salvation, sin, God-have become empty words
to a large extent" (52). Such provocative formulations make it
difficult not to wonder whether such an unrestrained interrogative
process should not indeed include a radical questioning of the
very concept itself of the "articles of faith." But on these very
articles seems to depend-according to Kasper-faith's universal
claim in a concrete intellectual situation. One wonders: Might not
such a radical comprehensive questioning of all central concepts
for which faith's certitude seems to liberate the dogmatic
theologian undo the last traces of any propositional content of the
26 Kasper offers an instructive clarification of the nature of the articles of faith by
interpreting some central assertions of the Vatican I Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius "in an
historical perspective" (62): "1. The articles of faith prove to be the universal, concrete
embodiment and fulfillment of history's questions. They are comprehended 'ex eorum quae
naturaliter cognoscit analogia.' 2. The articles of faith prove to be capable of protecting man's
freedom and of answering his questions about the meaning of human life; they are
comprehended 'e nexu cum fine hominis ultimo.' 3. Faith becomes intrinsically
comprehensible through a reductio in mysterium. All its individual statements are resolved,
christologically and eschatologically, into the unique mystery of God. Faith is comprehended
'e mysteriorum nexu inter se' (DS 3016)" (63).
27 The only possible candidates for the "ready-made concepts" that stand in the way of the
underlying reality that come to mind are the allegedly now outdated metaphysical concepts
by way of which the articles of faith themselves are configured.

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faith itself (which depends upon revealed principles and their
correlative concepts that essentially transcend history: God,
salvation, grace, and sin) and thereby lay bare the very nature of
the concept of faith on which Kasper's account seems to rely?
The only notion of faith that seems to be essentially
invulnerable to such a radical questioning process is faith as an
existential relation (in the form of a conviction) to a singular
transhistorical datum in history-the kerygma of Jesus Christ.
Because of the strong substantive resonances between Kasper's
concept of faith and a peculiar Lutheran, existentialhermeneutical understanding of faith dominant in the Germany
of the 1950s and 1960s (Fuchs, Bultmann, Ebeling-all of whom
Kasper refers to at various places in his treatise), it might not only
be permissible but indeed salient at this point to recall the
continuation of the crucial passage from Spe salvi cited above:
To Luther, who was not particularly fond of the Letter to the Hebrews, the
concept of "substance," in the context of his view of faith, meant nothing. For
this reason he understood the term hypostasis/substance not in the objective
sense (of a reality present within us), but in the subjective sense, as an expression
of an interior attitude, and so, naturally, he also had to understand the term
argumentum as a disposition of the subject. In the twentieth century this
interpretation became prevalent-at least in Germany-in Catholic exegesis too,
so that the ecumenical translation into German of the New Testament, approved
by the Bishops, reads as follows: Glaube aber ist: Feststehen in dem, was man
erhofft, Uberzeugtsein van dem, was man nicht sieht (faith is: standing firm in
what one hopes, being convinced of what one does not see.) This in itself is not
incorrect, but it is not the meaning of the text, because the Greek term used
(elenchos) does not have the subjective sense of "conviction" but the objective
sense of "proof." (§7)

One might wonder to what degree the notion of faith Kasper
advances in his programmatic sketch on the nature and task of
dogmatic theology is adversely affected by conceiving faith
primarily as the subjective conviction of an essentially future truth
that broke into history in the death and resurrection of Christ.
Due to his pervasive emphasis on the "not yet" (while
acknowledging marginally [i.e., in a footnote] an "already now"),

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385

it seems Kasper's predominantly existential-eschatological understanding of faith lacks the specific supernatural character that
according to Spe salvi is essential to the faith:
Faith is not merely a personal reaching out towards things to come that are still
totally absent: it gives us something. It gives us even now something of the
reality we are waiting for, and this present reality constitutes for us a "proof" of
the things that are still unseen. Faith draws the future into the present, so that
it is no longer simply a "not yet." The fact that this future exists changes the
present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the
future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of
the future. (Ibid.)

While Kasper clearly does not want to jettison completely this
"already" of the faith, he seems to be unable to account for it fully
inside his pervasive historical-eschatological framework, which is
governed by "the one eschatological mystery of God which
unfolds in history" (54). 28 Faith is for Kasper first and foremost
the conviction of the kerygma's truth as an eschatological
promise; in such a notion of faith there obtains necessarily a
foregrounding if not privileging of the "not yet." A faith thus
conceived seeking understanding must unceasingly give rise to
historically contingent and contextually situated explications and
interpretations of the kerygma. The radical questioning in turn of
earlier explications and interpretations by the selfsame faith
seeking understanding seems to come at little cost because faith's
existential certitude remains unaffected by any of these timecontingent and context-dependent construals of meaning. All that
the questioning undertaken by this faith seeking understanding
can deconstruct and, in turn, construct anew are historically
contingent interpretations of revelation-never the normative,
eschatological core of faith itself. Hence, for Kasper there is no
necessary intrinsic transhistorical correlation between the faith
and its object on the one side and, on the other side, the
propositions of the articles of the faith as conveyed in the creeds
28 This understanding of faith seems to correspond rather well to what Kasper calls "our
newly won realization that the Church is an eschatological entity, a reality in the making, a
promise as yet unfulfilled, an instrument of service, not an end in itself" (24 ).

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and in dogma. Faith is the "convictio" of a kerygma that seems to
transcend any propositionality because it rests solely in a person
and his story, the concretum universale, Jesus Christ. The prima
veritas is God's future eschatological mystery, to which the
kerygma points; and tradition is the historically concrete
application of the kerygma. Therefore, dogma is always relative
to its particular time. All propositions are functions of the promise
of a future that is not yet at hand, hence historically conditioned
by this future and therefore to be interpreted in light of it.
Because there is no perennial supernatural given of the faith, there
can be no contemplation of the faith that rises above the flux of
history toward God. Consequently, theology cannot per se
acquire a sapiential character that views all historical change in
light of God's transcendent, eternal wisdom. The gift of truth has
been promised, but not yet given.
It is hard, if not impossible, to see how a theological program
of this kind could account for and accommodate the following
statement from Spe salvi:
"[I]n embryo" -and thus according to the "substance" -there are already present
in us the things that are hoped for: a whole, true life. And precisely because the
thing itself is already present, this presence of what is to come also creates
certainty: this "thing" which must come is not yet visible in the external world
(it does not "appear"), but because of the fact that, as an initial and dynamic
reality, we carry it within us, a certain perception of it has even now come into
existence. (§7)

Because for Kasper faith is not a supernaturally given, objective
disposition of the intellect (and hence essentially incapable of a
contemplation that would transcend the vagaries of historical
reception, interpretation, reinterpretation, and renewed radical
questioning of received construals), the theological enterprise
cannot be correlated to the deliveries of the faith that essentially
transcend the vagaries of historically conditioned understanding.
Hence, the single historical-hermeneutical process becomes
inevitably a comprehensive teleological process and theology
consequently a comprehensive historical-hermeneutical enterprise

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387

in service of the common heritage of human thought. Precisely by
losing itself in this process, Kasper claims, theology will truly find
itself-by showing "how its faith overcomes the world. " 29
The unifying impact of dogmatic theology on the other
theological disciplines rests on its historical-hermeneutical
function (within the eschatological horizon of univeral history) of
bringing the normativity of the kerygma to bear on the present. It
is the correlation between the kerygmatic center of "a positive,
historical revelation" 30 and the contemporary existential questions
of life's meaning that keeps this historical-hermeneutical dynamic
alive. The gift of truth has its root in the kerygma and its
fulfillment in the eschatological mystery of God. 31 However, "in
between" kerygma and eschaton, the hermeutically gleaned and
doctrinally affirmed truth of the kerygma is always relative to the
particular historical situation of its reception.
Kasper's way of correlating history and truth in the wake of
the later Schelling and the later Heidegger constitutes a novum in
the history of theology. This fact can easily be illustrated by
contrasting Kasper with the theologian who first brought the
development of doctrine into explicit conceptual form: John
Henry Newman. Kasper counts Newman among those theologians
who "were viewed with suspicion and censured to a greater or
lesser degree" in the aftermath of the "tragic controversy over
Modernism" (20). However, contrary to the well-known tenets of
theological Modernism, the catholic Newman clearly states in The
Idea of a University:

29 "Theology can preserve its identity only if it has the courage to immerse itself in the
alien realm of philosophy-not to commit suicide there or to degenerate into a philosophy
of religion, but to truly find itself. In losing itself, theology will be able to show how its faith
overcomes the world (1Jn5, 4). In other words, theology cannot be reflected in the common
heritage of human thought unless it moves this heritage beyond itself" (60).
'° "Theology is grounded on a positive, historical revelation which is accessible to us only
through the historical testimonies of the apostolic and (in a different way) the post-apostolic
Church. Thus the historical argument from authority is constitutive for theology" (33).
31 "Kerygma, which theology serves, is essentially recollection and eschatological,
prognostic promise also" (43).

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REINHARD HUTTER

Induction is the instrument of Physics, and deduction only is the instrument of
Theology. There the simple question is, What is revealed? all doctrinal
knowledge flows from one fountain head. If we are able to enlarge our view and
multiply our propositions, it must be merely by the comparison and adjustment
of the original truths; if we would solve new questions, it must be by consulting
old answers. The notion of doctrinal knowledge absolutely novel, and of simple
addition from without, is intolerable to Catholic ears, and never was entertained
by any one who was even approaching to an understanding of our creed.
Revelation is all in all in doctrine; the Apostles its sole depository, the inferential
method its sole instrument, and ecclesiastical authority its sole sanction. The
Divine Voice has spoken once and for all, and the only question is about its
meaning .... Christian Truth is purely of revelation; that revelation we can but
explain, we cannot increase, except relatively to our own apprehension. 12

Kasper would have to reject Newman's understanding of Catholic
theology as an all-too-typical expression of an outdated, because
metaphysically erroneous, theologia perennis. However, if faith is
indeed an infused disposition by way of which "we carry . . .
within us [a whole true life], a certain perception of [which] has
even now come into existence" (Spe salvi §7), then the light of
faith corresponds to the gift of revelation in such a way that by
way of the contemplation of the given of revelation the light of
faith does indeed lead deeper and deeper into what revelation has
given to faith. 33 What would a conception of theology look like
that-instead of being united by the synthetic, hermeneuticalspeculative exertions of dogmatic theology and practiced in
correlation to an existential-eschatological faith-was theological
wisdom that in each of its parts (biblical, historical, dogmatic,
liturgical, spiritual) was informed by the theological faith, the
"whole true life in us," the supernatural life of grace in the
faithful?
32 John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea of a University, The New Edition of the Works
of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Frederick Harrold (New York: Longmans, Green and
Co., 1947), 197f.
33 The "given of revelation" is a central, but unfortunately somewhat forgotten, concept
of the Dominican Thomist tradition (building directly upon Thomas's discussion of the virtue
of faith in STh II-II, q. 1, aa. 4 and 6): certain principles have been given in the supernaturally
infused faith as definitive starting points and sign posts for sacra doctrina. See Ambroise
Gardeil, O.P., Ledonne revele et la theologie, 2d ed. (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1932).

FAITH ENLIGHTENING SACRED THEOLOGY

389

II

One specific instantiation of an answer to the above question
is The Work of Theology, by Francisco P. Muniz, O.P. This
opuscule, as dense as it is carefully organized and argued, must be
understood as one of the smaller fruits of a genuine revival of
Thomist theology around the middle of the last century. As such
it belongs to the labor of at least two generations of Thomists who
were sifting out, after Leo XIII's 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris,
the kernel of Thomist theology and philosophy from the husks of
a philosophically quite varied neo-Scholasticism. It is important
to remember that this neo-Scholasticism was dominated by Jesuit
institutions and publications that were not directly inspired by
Thomas. Instead, Thomas was filtered through the philosophical
and theological frameworks of Suarez, Vasquez, Molina, and
others, who interpreted his thought in a philosophically
heterogeneous milieu. Mufiiz's treatise is an intentional recovery
of Thomas's own understanding of the nature and task of
theology. However, the treatise is not organized along the via
inventionis, culminating in a primarily historical reconstruction of
Thomas's genuine account. Rather, Muniz follows the via
doctrinae from principles to conclusions. His treatise falls into
two main sections of unequal length.
In the first, rather brief section, "Theology as a Kind of
Potential Whole," Muniz puts to a new constructive use Thomas's
metaphysical distinction between three types of whole (totum}:
universal whole (totum universale), integral whole (totum
integrale), and potential whole (totum potestativum). 34 Muniz
34 On the role of the distinction between totum universale, totum integrale, and totum
potestativum in Thomas's metaphysics, see Ludger Oeing-Hanhoff, Ens et unum convertuntur:
Ste/lung und Gehalt des Grundsatzes in der Philosophie des hi. Thomas van Aquin, Beitriigezur
Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 37/3 (Munster: Aschendorff,
1953), 156-78. For an astute application of Mufiiz's treatise in the context of ecumenism, see
Richard Schenk, O.P., "Eine Okumene des Einspruchs. Systematische Oberlegungen zum
heutigen okumenischen Prozell aus einer romisch-katholischen Sicht," in Hans Otte and
Richard Schenk, eds., Die Reunionsgesprache im Niedersachsen des 17. ]ahrhunderts: Rayas
y Spinola -Molan -Leibniz, Studien zur Kirchengeschichte Niedersachsens 37 (Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 225-50, at 237, 246.

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REINHARD HUTTER

considers these types of wholes in order to identify the type that
allows a genuine retrieval of Thomas's proper understanding of
the unity of sacred theology in all of its parts:
We call a universal whole one which enters into each and every one of its parts
with its complete nature and with all its power; so, for example, animal is a
universal whole in relation to horse and to man, because the entire essence of
animality as well as all of its force or perfection are found both in horse and in
man. Horse and man are said to be and in fact are subjective parts of animal.
The integral whole is found to occupy the opposite extreme, since it enters
into each and every one of its parts, neither in its nature nor in its power, but
rather results from all the parts taken together. This is evident in a house or in
the human organism, the essence and power of which are merely in actual
contact with all of the parts, and not in any way one or several parts taken by
themselves ....
Between these two types stands the totum potestativum or potential whole,
which enters into its individual parts with its complete nature-wherein it agrees
with the universal whole-but not with its total power-wherein it resembles the
integral whole. (1-2) 35

Thomas's favorite example for the potential whole is the
human soul, which has three functions: vegetative, sensitive, and
intellective. Consider Mufiiz's succinct explanation:
It is the same human soul and the whole human soul which vegetates, which
senses, and which enjoys intellectual knowledge. Thus the whole human soul is
active in each of its functions. But its complete power is not active in each
function, for in the function of vegetating, the sense and intellective powers play
no part; and in the function of sensing the vegetative and intellective powers
remain inactive, and so on .... It is clear from this illustration that a potential
whole, from part of the essence, bears a strong and necessary similarity to the
universal whole, but on the part of power, it approaches the terms of the integral
whole. Therefore, it is properly designated by St. Thomas as a mean between the
other two. (2-3)

As the human soul "includes within its powers a multiplicity and
variety of operations" (3), so does sacred theology in virtue of its
various potential parts. There is a further crucial characteristic,
though, of the totum potestativum: potential parts participate
35 Parenthetical page numbers in this section refer to pages in Muftiz's The Work of
Theology.

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391

more or less in the power of the whole. Consequently there must
obtain among these potential parts an order of super- and
subordination that reflects the degree to which the potential parts
participate in the power of the whole. To put it differently, every
potential whole entails a specific hierarchical order of its potential
parts. Where this order of super- and subordination among the
parts does not obtain, we are not dealing with a potential whole,
but either another type of whole (universal or integral) or simply
an agglomeration of heterogeneous elements.
If sacred theology were a totum universale, the whole would
enter each and every one of its parts-that is, each of the
subdisciplines-with theology's complete nature and power. The
consequence would be a compartmentalization of sacred theology
into independent subdisciplines that are all fully and sufficiently
theological on their own.
If, on the contrary, theology were a totum integrate, the whole
would result from all the parts, that is, from all subdisciplines of
sacred theology taken together. Consequently, all subdisciplines
would essentially remain pretheological academic disciplines until
they are brought together in a grand theological synthesis. The
practitioners of these subdisciplines would not have to hold
themselves accountable theologically, but would defer such
accountability to the eventual grand theological synthesis for
which they provide strictly pretheological building blocks. The
consequence would be a compartmentalization of theology into
subdisciplines that remain essentially pretheological academic
displines.
Hence, only as a totum potestativum can sacred theology avoid
these two undesirable and indeed detrimental alternatives, both
extant in contemporary Catholic theology. In the case of the
totum potestativum the whole enters each and every part, each
subdiscipline, but not with its total power. Consequently, while all
subdisciplines are genuinely theological, they are not
independently theological as would be the case if theology were
a totum universale. Rather, the parts of the totum potestativum
are essentially ordered and correlated parts. All subdisciplines

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REINHARD HUTTER

have the whole potentially in them to different degrees and so
contribute to the realization of the whole in different ways:
[T]he potential parts of Theology are the various activities, functions, or offices
which it exercises with regard to its object. In each of these parts the complete
nature of Theology must be preserved not, however, all of its force (tota ejus
virtus). The whole essence of Theology must be retained, since it is entirely one
and the same habit which elicits each and every one of the several activities, but
not the complete power of Theology, because this complete power is not
actuated in each activity. (7)

Sacred theology being a totum potestativum entails an order of
super- and subordination between its various subdisciplines and
consequently a mutual but asymmetrical theological accountability
among them.
In the second, larger section of the work, "The Potential Parts
of Theology," Mufiiz sketches first the nature of theology
according to modern authors, then the nature of theology
according to Thomas, and finally the potential parts of theology
according to Thomas. This modus procedendi serves the purpose
of distinguishing Thomas's superior account from what Mufiiz
regards as the overly restrictive understanding of theology
developed by "modern theologians"-theologians who comprise
a range of representatives from Baroque to neo-Scholasticism.
What distinguishes them collectively from Thomas and the
Dominican Thomist commentatorial tradition is that they regard
theology exclusively as a science which deduces conclusions.
According to Mufiiz, these modern theologians correlate faith and
theology by way of the following analogy: faith is to theology as
understanding is to science. Faith is a simple assent that embraces
truths explicitly revealed, while theology is a discourse that
focuses exclusively on truths implicitly and virtually revealed
(revelabilia).36 Contrary to these modern Scholastic theologians,
36 It is worth observing at this point that both Kasper and Muniz critically distance
themselves from this increasingly narrow rationalistic performance of Scholastic theology in
the modern period: Kasper in order to reconceptualize the constitutive framework of
theology, Muniz in order to find in Thomas a wider and more nuanced understanding of
theology that would allow to correct and improve the tradition of sacred theology from
within.

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393

Muniz argues-rightly, I think-that according to Thomas the
relationship between faith and theology is to be conceived by way
of the relationship between understanding and wisdom (instead of
understanding and science): as understanding is to wisdom, so
faith is to theology. 37 In consequence, theology's total and
adequate object is every explicitly as well as implicitly revealed
truth. Theology's scientific deductive component, the concern
with truths implicitly and virtually revealed (revelabilia), has its
proper and rightful place within a larger revelatory and sapiential
whole.
The introduction of the concept of wisdom (sapientia) is
crucial in Mufiiz's recovery of Thomas and in many ways
anticipates Dulles's constructive proposal briefly adumbrated
above. 38
Wisdom ... has two distinct functions: first, that of explaining and defending
principles; and secondly, that of inferring conclusions. In the exercise of the first
function, wisdom attains the object which is proper to understanding, namely,
principles or truths which are per se and immediately evident. In the exercise of
its other function, wisdom attains the object which is proper to science, namely,
truths that are known mediately or by demonstration. Therefore, the object of
wisdom is broader (amplius) than the objects both of understanding and of
science taken separately. It is broader than the object of understanding because
it extends to conclusions, which the habit of first principles does not touch; it is
equally wider than the object of science, because it embraces principles, which
science does not attain. (19) ...
Understanding grasps principles by simple assent, without any discourse;
wisdom, however, is concerned with the same principles, but in a discursive and
argumentative mode. . .. Now, then, if Theology be conceived as wisdom in
relation to faith, by this very fact it must be admitted that the theological habit
should not only draw conclusions from the truths of faith, but also should
explain and defend these very truths .... From this it follows that the total or
adequate material object of Theology is not truth which is only virtually
revealed, but every revealed truth whatsoever, whether formally and explicitly or
mediately and virtually revealed. In a word, it embraces both principles and
conclusions. Therefore, the object of Theology is broader in scope than is the
object of faith. (20)
37 On this matter there is a deep agreement between Muniz and Kasper, for the latter
observes: "Faith is never simply an affirmation of belief. As a human act, it is something
understood and accepted; it is incipient theology" (The Methods of Dogmatic Theology, 12).
38 Dulles, "Wisdom as the Source of Unity for Theology," 61-68.

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REINHARD HUTTER

Therefore, according to Thomas, "Theology is at once an
explication, a defense, and an unfolding of faith itself, objectively
considered" (21). Explication and unfolding of the faith, objectively considered, are the two discursive operations of theology
that identify its essential correlation to the supernatural faith.
Faith and theology differ only in that faith as understanding is
concerned with what has been immediately and explicitly revealed, while theology as discursive operation of the mind is
concerned with truths that have been revealed immediately and
formally as well as those that have been revealed mediately and
virtually. 39
Yet how is theology as discursive wisdom guided, or,
technically put, what is the light sub quo of theology? Muniz puts
it succinctly: "The light sub quo of Theology in its total extension
is the natural light of reason, exercised under the light of divine
revelation, or under the positive direction of the faith; it is 'reason
guided by faith"' (23). 40 And so Mufiiz arrives at the following
definition of theology: "Discursive wisdom, exercised under the
light of divine revelation, on every truth revealed by God either
immediately and formally or mediately and virtually" (28). First,
theology is called wisdom because it both concerns itself with
principles and deduces conclusions. It is a form of contemplation
that learns to see all things in light of the first principles. Second,
theology is discursive wisdom, because it thereby distinguishes
itself from faith on the one side and the infused gift of wisdom on
the other. Third, theology is exercised under the light of divine
revelation which essentially distinguishes it from purely human

39 "The true distinction between faith and Theology lies in this, that faith is concerned only
with what has been immediately and explicitly revealed, and Theology is concerned with
truths which have been revealed both immediately and formally as well as mediately and
virtually" (ibid.).
40 "Sacred Theology is a habit which stands mid-way between faith and natural Theology,
which is a part of philosophy. Therefore, it will have a light which is a mean between the light
of faith and that of natural Theology. Now the light of faith is the supernatural light of divine
revelation; while the light of natural Theology is that of pure reason. Therefore, the
intermediate light is one which partakes both of revelation and of reason: it is the natural light
of reason exercised under the light of divine revelation" (22).

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395

wisdom, which is metaphysics in its highest mode, that is, natural
theology. 41
Muniz draws directly on Thomas's teaching when he states the
three things that are believed in every act of theological faith:
(1) an objective or ontological supernatural truth, a certain Divine mystery; (2)
this truth has been revealed by God, for we assent to it in virtue of this divine
revelation; (3) the fact or existence of Divine Revelation manifesting the
aforesaid truth. (32)

What then is the precise nature of the correlation of sapiential
theology to supernatural faith? Mufiiz specifies: The truths
believed by the habit of supernatural faith are the very principles
of theology:
Therefore, Sacred Theology-in its sapiential function-should undertake to
explain and defend those three things, which are believed as principles in every
act of faith: (1) the fact of divine revelation, (2) the connection between God's
revelation and the truth which is believed to have been revealed, and (3) the
revealed truth itself. (32)

Hence, by way of its principles, theology participates in a certain
way in supernatural faith itself, and therefore faith is the
indispensable and supernatural foundation of theology as sacra
doctrina.42 Conceived in this way, sapiential theology is essentially
one single whole, but it has what Mufiiz calls potential parts:
apologetics, positive theology (biblical, symbolic, patristic), and
Scholastic speculation.
The difference between the subdisciplines of contemporary
theology forty-five years after Vatican II (and also after the integrative hermeneutical function of dogmatic theology has arguably
41 For a recent compelling argument for the auxiliary indispensability of philosophical
wisdom for the theological task, see Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Wisdom in the Face of
Modernity: A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology (Naples, Fl.: Sapientia Press, 2009).
42 Profoundly faithful to Thomas's understanding of sacra doctrina, Muniz in fact adopts
the explicit defense by John of St. Thomas against Vasquez of the position that theological
faith is indeed the indispensable supernatural foundation of sacred theology. See John of St.
Thomas, Cursus Theologicus I, <lisp. 2 (ed. the monks of Solesmes [Paris, Tournai; Rome:
Desclee, 1931], vol. 1, 350ff.).

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REINHARD HOTTER

disappeared into thin air) and Mufiiz's Thomistically conceived
sapiential theology is the difference between on the one hand a
totum integrate,that is, a practically oriented gathering of various
extrinsically related and essentially pretheological subdisciplines,
none of which are ordered to and informed by the supernatural
faith in an actual, let alone intrinsic way, and on the other hand
a totum potestativum, a single discursive wisdom, the potential
parts of which are integrally ordered in relation to each other and
the whole of which is intrinsically ordered to and informed by
supernatural faith. The crucial difference between a largely
disintegrated and compartmentalized contemporary Catholic
theology and a Thomistically conceived sapiential theology is the
difference between a totum integrate that remains formally
unaffected by supernatural faith and a totum potestativum that is
intrinsically informed by supernatural faith.
There is another important difference between Kasper's and
Mufiiz's proposals. By enclosing all theological disciplines under
the historical-hermeneutical category of interpretive science,
Kasper de facto isolates theology. As an essentially historicalhermeneutical science, theology is by definition prevented from
any substantive interaction with the natural sciences, let alone
with philosophy. Kasper does not perceive this to be a problem,
since according to the ontologically conceived historicism he
advances all sciences (including philosophy and the natural
sciences) are essentially historical sciences. There would indeed
not be much of a problem with this part of the proposal if the
natural sciences and philosophy had indeed adopted such an
understanding of themselves, which, however, seems hardly to be
the case.43
Following Thomas, Mufiiz, in contrast to Kasper, insists on
three different functions of sacred theology in respect to all other
sciences. First, theology judges all human sciences, both as regards
43 The only discipline in which Kasper's historical-hermeneutical paradigm seems to have
taken a hold for good is Catholic dogmatic theology-which by now, though, has quite
obviously lost to a surprisingly large degree its integrative hermeneutical, let alone normative
function, and-as Dulles has so aptly described-operates as just one increasingly specialized
subdiscipline parallel to all the other compartmentalized subdisciplines of theology.

FAITH ENLIGHTENING SACRED THEOLOGY

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their principles and as regards their conclusions. Second, theology
orders or directs all the philosophical sciences. Third, theology
uses all of them. To contemporary ears such a notion of theology
sounds most likely presumptuous, as well as utopian. However, if
properly correlated to supernatural faith and thus understood first
and foremost as surpassing wisdom, the three functions of
theology sound neither presumptuous nor utopian, but simply
appropriate. Wisdom judges all human sciences, both as regards
their principles and as regards their conclusions. Wisdom orders
or directs all the philosophical sciences. Wisdom uses all of them.
Since, in the Thomist understanding, theology is most truly
wisdom 44 -clearly more so than metaphysics-the three functions
mentioned above must indeed all be attributed to sapiential
theology. Hence it is only on the basis of the gift of divine faith
and theology's most thorough and consistent illumination by this
supernatural gift that one can conceive it at all possible that sacred
theology might indeed fulfill the task that, according to Muniz,
Thomas envisions for it:
Sacred Theology considers God as He is the first existing Truth (prima veritas in
essendo), the cause and norm of all created truth. Hence it belongs to Theology
to judge all created truth. "Whatever is found in other sciences contrary to a
truth of this science must be condemned as entirely false." (37) 45
44 STh I, q. 1, a. 6: "This doctrine is wisdom above all human wisdom; not merely in any
one order, but absolutely. For since it is the part of a wise man to arrange and to judge, and
since lesser matters should be judged in the light of some higher principle, he is said to be wise
in any one order who considers the highest principle in that order: thus in the order of
building, he who plans the form of the house is called wise and architect, in opposition to the
inferior laborers who trim the wood and make ready the stones: 'As a wise architect, I have
laid the foundation' (1Corinthians3:10). Again, in the order of all human life, the prudent
man is called wise, inasmuch as he directs his acts to a fitting end: 'Wisdom is prudence to a
man' (Proverbs 10:23). Therefore he who considers absolutely the highest cause of the whole
universe, namely God, is most of all called wise. Hence wisdom is said to be the knowledge
of divine things, as Augustine says (De Trin. xii, 14). But sacred doctrine essentially treats of
God viewed as the highest cause-not only so far as He can be known through creatures just
as philosophers knew Him ... but also as far as He is known to Himself alone and revealed
to others. Hence sacred doctrine is especially called wisdom" (translations of the Summa
Theologiae are taken from the translation of the Fathers of the English Dominican Province
[New York: Benziger, 1911)).
45 The internal quotation is from STh I, q. 1, a. 6, ad 2.

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REINHARD HUTTER

It is obvious that Mufiiz's understanding of sacred theology ad
mentem sancti Thomae cannot simply be adopted as if nothing
had happened theologically in the last fifty-five years, a time
during which much of Catholic theology has placed itself on one
of two horns of the dilemma between conceiving of its unity as
that of a totum universale and conceiving it as that of a totum
integrate. However, it is arguably apposite to the present state of
a pervasive fragmentation, compartmentalization, and overhistoricization of Catholic theology to remember that Mufi.iz's
genuinely Thomist proposal offers a compellingly coherent
account of the integral unity of sacred theology that is not only
fully compatible with the understanding of theological faith taught
explicitly in Spe salvi, but indeed allows for a comprehensive
theological reception of this teaching in the service of renewing
Catholic theology by recovering its unity as sacra doctrina-to be
precise, its unity as a totum potestativum.
III

These reflections on the essential correlation of sacred
theology to supernatural faith build upon and advance Avery
Cardinal Dulles's retrieval of the sapiential dimension of Catholic
theology in order to overcome its pervasive fragmentation. The
first crucial point of reference that invites, indeed urges, this
further step to be taken is Pope Benedict XVI's teaching on
supernatural faith in Spe salvi:
Faith is a habitus, that is, a stable disposition of the spirit, through which eternal
life takes root in us and reason is led to consent to what it does not see....
[T]hrough faith, in a tentative way, or as we might say "in embryo"-and thus
according to the "substance"-there are already present in us the things that are
hoped for: a whole, true life. (§7)

The second crucial point of reference for this further step to be
taken is a well-known teaching of Thomas Aquinas that has been
essential for Dominican spirituality and central to the Thomist
doctrine of supernatural faith and of sacra doctrina. In his

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discussion of the missions of the divine persons m the Summa
Theologiae, Thomas famously states:
There is one special mode belonging to the rational creature wherein God is said
to be present as the object known is in the knower, and the beloved in the lover.
And since the rational creature by its operation of knowledge and love attains to
God Himself, according to this special mode God is said not only to exist in the
rational creature, but also to dwell therein as in His own temple. (STh I, q. 43,
a. 3)46

Because of the simultaneously supernatural infusion of the
theological virtues of faith, hope, and love the Christian is able to
achieve an initial, intentional union with the triune God, which
indeed is a "pati divina," a "suffering of divine things. " 47 God as
46 STh I, q. 43, a. 3: "Super istum modum autem communem, est unus specialis, qui
convenit creaturae rationali, in qua Deus dicitur esse sicut cognitum in cognoscente et amatum
in amante. Et quia, cognoscendo et amando, creatura rationalis sua operatione attingit ad
ipsum Deum, secundum istum specialem modum Deus non solum dicitur esse in creatura
rationali, sed etiam habitare in ea sicut in templo suo."
47 I am here primarily concerned with the fact of the divine indwelling. Pertaining to the
question of how precisely Thomas understood the nature and mode of this divine indwelling
similarly to as well as differently from his Scholastic predecessors, see the instructive study by
Francis L.B. Cunningham, O.P., The Indwelling of the Trinity: A Historico-Doctrinal Study
of the Theory of St. Thomas Aquinas (Dubuque, Iowa: Priory Press, 1955); and pertaining to
the defense and development of Thomas's doctrine in the Thomist commentatorial tradition,
see Ambrose Gardeil, O.P., La structure de l'ame et /'experience mystique, vol. 2 (Paris:
Libraire Victor Lecoffre, 1927), 6-60; Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Love of God
and the Cross ofJesus, ttans. Sr. Jean Marie, vol. 1 (St. Louis, Ill.: Herder, 1947 [repr. 1957)),
136-73; and idem, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, ttans. Sr. M. Timothea Doyle, O.P.,
vol. 1 (St. Louis and London: Herder, 1947), 101-5.The particular way I put the matter in the
text follows John of St. Thomas's interpretation in Cursus Theologicus I, q. 43, disp. 17, a.
3 (the monks of Solesmes, eds., vol. 4, 364-376, esp. 370ff.). Noteworthy is John of St.
Thomas's beautiful interpretation of Thomas's reference to the Dionysian rendition of
"patiens divina" (De Divinis nom., ch. 2) in STh 11-11, q. 45, a. 2: "Pati autem divina, et
experimentalem cognitionem de Deo habere, non solum pertinet ad statum gloriae, ubi
intuitive Deus videtur, sed etiam ad statum viae: ubi adhuc Hierotheus erat, et ubi Deus, etsi
obscure et per fidem cognitus, tamen quasi experimentali quodam tactu cognoscitur, etsi non
visu. Sicut animam nostram non videmus, et tamen experimentia animationis sentimus quasi
objectum praesens, quia et informat nos realiter, et informationis indicia nobis praesentat: sic
Deus suae intimae presentiae, quam habet ut agens et principium totius esse per immensitatem,
nobis specialiter per gratiam demonstrat tamquam objectum intime et experimentaliter
cognoscibile, hie occulte et per indicia, in patria per visionem, sed tamen jam nobis specialiter
et realiter praesens, et quasi stans post parietem [However, to suffer divine things and to have
experiential knowledge of God, does not only pertain to the state of glory, where God is seen

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First Truth constitutes both the medium (the mediating formal
object or formal object quo) and the distinct subject (the
terminative formal object or formal object quad) of theological
faith. 48 Simultaneously, faith as human understanding, by way of
acts of judgment, operates with the indispensable help of the
instrument of propositions (secondary material objects), that is, a
divinely received doctrina the ultimate source and center of which
is Christ. 49 Through the instrumentality of the propositions
(enuntiabile), faith truly attains God as First Truth. Wisdom is
nothing but the analogical extension of faith's own understanding
by way of a discursive reasoning that arises from and returns back
to contemplation.
There are at least three distinct salient strengths of sapiential
theology as retrieved by Mufi.iz ad mentem sancti Thomae.
First, because the beginning and end of sapiential theology are
essentially transhistorical (because essentially correlated to the
intentional union of the believer with God), this theology can
afford to accommodate all the genuine concerns of Kasper's
proposal without having to adopt its comprehensive historicalintuitively, but also to the state of pilgrimage; where Hierotheus was, there also was God,
even if perceived obscurely and by faith, nevertheless, so to speak, known experientially by
a kind of touch, although not by sight. Just as we do not perceive our soul, we, nevertheless,
through the very experience of being animated by it, sense it like an object at hand, for the
soul really forms us and presents to us the signs of us being thus formed. Likewise, in a special
way by grace, God shows to us his innermost presence (which he himself possesses as the
agent and principle of all esse in his immensity) like an object that can be intimately and
experientially known, on earth obscurely and by way of signs, in the fatherland by way of
vision; but even now God is present to us in a particular way, just as if standing behind a
partition wall]" (the monks of Solesmes, eds., 370).
48 For an astute discussion of this important distinction between the formal object quad
and the formal object quo of theological faith (a distinction introduced by the Dominican
Thomist commentatorial tradition based on STh II-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 2), see M.-M. Labourdette,
O.P., "La vie theologale selon saint Thomas," Revue Thomiste 58 (1958): 597-622, esp. 60713.
49 Cessario offers the important reminder that for Thomas, " [o]f course, Christ himself
stands at the center of this entire process. For it is Christ who teaches both angels and men,
and who alone fully communicates divine Truth to the world. The articles of faith serve as
instruments of this universal outpouring of doctrine from God, which culminates in the offer
of truth and friendship that Jesus extends as a free gift" (Romanus Cessario, O.P., Christian
Faith and the Theological Life [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
1996], 69).

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401

hermeneutical approach and its correlative constrained concept of
faith. Kasper introduces the kerygma as the normative point of
reference and the eschaton as the normative frame of reference in
order to check the inherently historicizing and thus relativizing
tendency of a comprehensively historical-hermeneutical approach.
However, these twin transhistorical points of reference, kerygma
and eschaton, remain too weak to fulfill the assigned function of
a normative integration because neither one of them informs faith
"already now" in a substantively transhistorical way. Faith is not
conceived of as essentially supernatural and infused, with the
consequence that faith does not directly and objectively attend to
the First Truth by way of the revealed transhistorical
principles-the beginning of the divine life in us-which would
inform it substantively and to which all of theology is essentially
correlated in what amounts to a categorically transhistorical
relation. 50
Second, by understanding the unity of theology as that of a
totum potestativum, Muniz is able (1) to conceive each branch of
theology as a distinct actualization of the totum of sacra doctrina,
(2) to regard each particular discursive actualization in essential
correlation to theological faith, (3) to suppose a distinct order of
super- and subordination
and hence of theological
interdependence and accountability between the branches of
theology, and (4) to anchor the essentially transhistorical
character of sacra doctrina in the principles of theological faith
itself. The genuinely historical character of biblical exegesis and
historical theology is far from being suffocated or suppressed by
being informed by the transhistorical principles of theological
faith. Sapiential theology or sacra doctrina conceived of as a
totum potestativum allows the various parts of sacred theology to

°

5 Kasper is aware of and writes about the "analysis fidei" in his earlier work (Die Lehre
von der Tradition in der Romischen Schute, 64, 398), but in this treatise, the reference point
for faith is not the "already now" ("'[I]n embryo'-and thus according to the
'substance' -there are already present in us the things that are hoped for: a whole, true life"
[Spe salvi §7]), but rather the future "yet to come." The essentially eschatological orientation
of the faith allows it to be correlated to the historicizing of being as reflected in different but
analogous ways in the later Schelling and the later Heidegger.

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REINHARD HUTTER

do their genuine work and to contribute to the whole. Each part,
in virtue of being part of the whole, is essentially correlated to
supernatural faith and therefore essentially contemplative, that is,
sapiential. Each part, however, will be sapiential in a different way
that is ordered in relation to the other parts and thereby realizes
the whole to a different degree. Unlike Kasper, Muniz does not
need to rely on dogmatic or systematic theology to integrate into
a theological synthesis various pretheological parts of theology
that have long ceased to understand themselves as informed by
supernatural faith and hence as sapiential. 51
Instantiations of sacred theology that remain essentially
correlated to supernatural faith are not completely absent from
the Catholic theology of the last forty-five years, nor are they
necessarily instantiations of Thomistic theology. Dominican
theologians, however, are prime candidates for examples of this
theology, be it in biblical theology (Adrian Schenker, Ceslaus
Spicq, and Pierre Benoit), historical theology Oean-Pierre Torrell,
Guy Bedouelle), dogmatic theology Oean-Herve Nicolas, Gilles
Emery, Benoit-Dominique de la Soujeole, Charles Morerod, and
Serge-Thomas Bonino), or moral theology (Servais Pinckaers).
What makes these Dominican (and in most cases Thomist)
instantiations unique is that the correlation of sacred theology to
the supernatural faith is always noticeable, if not explicitly
reflected. If we were to allow simply an implicit correlation, a
much wider field of instantiations would open up. But in such
cases the correlation is connatural and not carried and passed on
by an explicit reflective theological awareness, as is the case in the
various Dominican Thomist schools. Where such an explicit
reflective theological awareness is missing the correlation remains
51 Dulles offers an apt characterization of the burden contemporary Catholic systematic
theology is not able bear, the burden of attempting a theological integration and synthesis that
cannot be achieved as long as the parts are essentially pretheological and therefore
heterogeneous: "In many Catholic faculties dogmatic theology has been replaced by the
traditional Protestant discipline of 'systematic theology'-a discipline that seeks to synthesize
the results of religious experience and positive historical research in the light of some freely
chosen philosophical system, be it idealist, existentialist, phenomenologist, pragmatist, or
whatever" (Dulles, "Wisdom as the Source of Unity for Theology," 60).

FAITH ENLIGHTENING SACRED THEOLOGY

403

at best fragile because it depends solely on a particular
theologian's de facto correlation. 52
Third, wherever in contemporary Catholic theology faith is not
regarded as a supernatural, infused habit, the loss of access to the
theological substance of patristic biblical exegesis, as well as to a
proper theological interpretation of the sacra pagina itself,
becomes a tangibly disconcerting reality. For the analogy of faith,
which is a requisite for such a proper theological interpretation of
the Sacred Scriptures, presupposes the light of faith, which is the
supernatural quality of the disposition of faith. Mufiiz's retrieval
of Thomas's concept of sacra doctrina stands in remarkable
proximity to the explicit teaching of the Second Vatican Council's
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) about
the essential correlation between the light of faith, the study of
the sacred page, and the inner unity of sacred theology:
Sacred theology rests on the written word of God, together with sacred tradition,
as its primary and perpetual foundation. By scrutinizing in the light offaith all
truth stored up in the mystery of Christ, theology is most powerfully
strengthened and constantly rejuvenated by that word. For the Sacred Scriptures
contain the word of God and since they are inspired really are the word of God;
and so the study of the sacred page is, as it were, the soul of sacred theology. (DY
24 [emphasis added]) 53
52 What has not been addressed in this essay at all, but what is an indispensible component
of a revival of the unity of Catholic theology by way of a recovery of its character as sacra
doctrina is, first, the question of an overall coherent curriculum that would reflect the unity
of sacred theology as a totum potestativum; second, the role a coherent philosophical
formation would play in such a curriculum; and third, the institutional setting in which such
a curriculum could be realized. (Regarding the latter-the institutions by way of which such
curricula are carried out and sustained-see my essay "God, the University, and the Missing
Link-Wisdom" [The Thomist 73 [2009): 241-77), in which I consider the important recent
interventions by two eminent Thomist philosophers, Alasdair Macintyre and Benedict Ashley,
O.P.). One place that not only has great potential in addressing all three components
successfully but also has indeed a mandate to do so is the Dominican studium.
53 The translation is taken from the Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va/archive/
hist_ councils/ii_ vatican _council/documents/vat-ii_ const_ 19651118 _dei-verbum _en.html
(accessed 12 May 2010). ("Sacra theologia in verbo Dei scripto, una cum sacra traditione,
tamquam in perenni fundamento innititur, in eoque ipsa firmissime roboratur semperque
iuvenescit, omnem veritatem in mysterio Christi conditam sub lumine fidei perscrutando.
Sacrae autem scripturae verbum Dei continent et, quia inspiratae, vere verbum Dei sunt;
ideoque sacrae paginae studium sit veluti anima sacrae theologiae" [Decreesof the Ecumenical

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REINHARD HUTTER

The sacred page can only be received and hence read as such-as
sacred page-in the light of faith, that is, by way of theological
faith. Consequently, in the study of the sacred page the essential
correlation of sacred theology to theological faith becomes most
obvious, and is most fundamentally at stake. No supernatural
faith, no lumen fidei; no lumen fidei, no analogy of faith; no
analogy of faith, no theological study of the sacred page; no
theological study of the sacred page, no sacra doctrina. 54 In short,
the sapiential character of theology, which is essentially correlated
to supernatural faith, guarantees the permanent rootedness of all
parts of theology in the written word of God and in sacred
tradition.
Finally, if anything, it is sapiential theology that liberates the
theologian for a genuine engagement of all kinds of intellectual
disciplines of enquiry-historical, hermeneutical, or empirical.
Wisdom, after all, uses all human sciences. Sapiential theology
thus reconceived would look remarkably different from the
present accommodation of Catholic theology to the liberal
nineteenth-century model of the modern Berlin-type research
university, with its Procrustean bed cutting the body of theology
into four heterogeneous parts (exegetical, historical, normative
[systematics and ethics], and practical). But since this Procrustean
bed has turned out to be the tomb of theology, a Thomistic effort
at renewing the unity of sacred theology by retrieving its essential
Councils. Vol. II: Trent - Vatican II, ed. Norman P. Tanner, S.J. (London: Sheed & Ward
Ltd.; Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 980]). Above I have called
supernatural, infused faith "theology's soul." In the quoted passage from Dei Verbum,
however, the study of the sacred page is suggested to be-veluti-the very soul of theology.
Do these two designations contradict each other? I do not think so. They rather imply each
other. The word of God that is contained in the Sacred Scriptures can only be rightly received
and understood in the light of faith, the lumen fidei. If we hold the rational soul (and what
else could be the proper analogue for thinking about theology's soul?) to be a composite of
esse and essence, would it go too far to understand the composition of theology's soul in such
a way that the light of faith designates its esse and the study of the sacred page its essence?
54 It is for this very reason that articles 9 ("Whether Holy Scripture should use
metaphors?") and 10 ("Whether in Holy Scripture a word may have several senses?") are
absolutely indispensible components of the first question of the Summa Theologiae, where
Thomas discusses the nature and extent of sacra doctrina. Take away articles 9 and 10 and
sacra doctrina has received a mortal blow.

FAITH ENLIGHTENING SACRED THEOLOGY

405

correlation to the supernatural faith would be nothing less than a
proper Thomistic participation in the raising of the Lazarus of
theology to the integral unity of a new and authentic sapiential
life. 55

55 I would like to thank two anonymous peer reviewers of a previous version of this essay
for their helpful comments, criticisms, and suggestions.

The Thomist 74 (2010): 407-35

ARE THE PRINCIPLES OF SACRA DOCTRINA
PERSENOTA?
GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B.
Saint Meinrad Archabbey
Saint Meinrad, Indiana

A

CCORDING TO THE first question of the Summa
Theologiae, theology is a science (a. 2), and the articles of
the creed are its first principles (aa. 7 and 8). These
principles are not evident to us, but are received in faith from the
God who reveals them. A science that receives its principles from
a higher one is, for Aristotle, a subalternated science. So, for
instance, music receives principles from arithmetic, and perspective receives principles from geometry (a. 2). Saint Thomas
does not call theology a subalternated science in the Summa, but
the idea is there and he employs the language elsewhere, notably
in his commentary on Boethius' De Trinitate.
Characterizing theology as a science is a part of the meeting of
the gospel and Aristotle, of faith and philosophy. It has the
advantage of locating revelation and sacred doctrine relative to
reason and philosophy as understood by Aristotle. On the other
hand, since it is revelation itself that founds the scientific
character of theology, as supplying its first principles, there is no
subordination of the gospel to philosophy. In fact, since the
certitude of the principles of theology is greater than that of any
other science just because received from God, since as speculative
its subject matter is of greater dignity than any other science, and
since as practical its end is that to which all other practical ends
are ordered, Christian doctrine is above all other sciences (a. 5),
and judges them sapientially (a. 6). Christian doctrine is brought
407

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GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

into relation with the achievement of Aristotle not by some
deformation of its nature, therefore, but by being true to itself as
a wisdom received by faith. This has been brilliantly meditated on
and shown by Michel Corbin. 1
Maintaining that theology is a subalternated science is not
without difficulty. Such a science not only receives some of its
principles by faith, but ordinarily also has a different subject
matter than the subalternating science. This is not true of theology
relative to the divine knowledge, however, since they are both of
God and of all things in relation to God. 2 Saint Thomas himself
points to this departure from the pure theory of subalternation in
a text later interpolated into his first commentary on the
Sentences of Peter Lombard. 3 The only similarity of theology to,
for example, perspective that remains is that they both take
principles on some kind of faith, and even here the similarity is
not perfect. For while an expert in perspective could, if he
wished, become an expert also in geometry, we cannot in this life
come to the knowledge of the articles of faith such as God has of
1 Michel Corbin, Le chemin de la theologie chez Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Beauchesne,
1974). Other important studies of question 1 of the Summa are to be found in Jean-Pierre
Torrell, "Le savoir theologique chez saint Thomas," in his Recherches Thomasiennes (Paris:
Vrin, 2000), 121-57; John I. Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), but see Brian Shanley's review in The Thomist 63 (1999):
315-19; Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: Sacred Doctrine and the
Natural Knowledge of God (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), part
1; T. C. O'Brien, "'Sacra Doctrina' Revisited: The Context of Medieval Education," The
Thomist 41 (1977): 475-509; James Weisheipl, "The Meaning of Sacra Doctrina in Summa
Theologiae I, q. l," TheThomist 38 (1974): 49-80; M.-D. Chenu,La theologiecommescience
au XIIIe siecle, 3d ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1957), chap. 5, "La science theologique"; and Tharcisse
Tshibangu, Theologie positive et theologie speculative (Louvain: Publications Un. de Louvain,
1965), 67-96.
2 By contrast, a visual line has an intelligibility unto itself that a line considered just in itself
does not. Perspective and geometry thus have really different subject matters in a way that
God's science of God and sacred doctrine do not. Chenu's exposition of this is very good (La
theologie comme science, 80-82), and see Corbin, Le chemin, 381, 727. For this issue
subsequent to St. Thomas, see Jean-Pierre Torrell, "Le savoir theologique chez !es premiers
thomistes," in Torrell, Recherches Thomasiennes, 158-76, at 173-75.
3 I Sent., pro!., q. 1, a. 3, qcla. 2, sol. For the latest critical establishment of the text of the
Prologue to the Sentences commentary, see Adriano Oliva, Les debuts de l'enseignement de
Thomas d'Aquin et sa conception de la sacra doctrina, avec /'edition du Prologue de son
Commentaire des Sentences (Paris: Vrin, 2006).

ARE THE PRINCIPLES OF SACRA DOCTRINA PER SE NOTA?

409

them. We can hope to attain to seeing the articles of faith as God
sees them only eschatologically. 4 It is presumably precisely
because of these differences that in the text interpolated into the
Sentences commentary St. Thomas calls theology a quasisubalternated science.
There is another old and obvious objection to St. Thomas's
teaching on the scientific status of theology. It has not received
any sustained attention in recent years that I can find, perhaps
because St. Thomas himself does not address it. According to
Aristotle, science is of the necessary. It proceeds from necessary
and per se nota first principles; in its perfect form, it concludes by
demonstrative reasoning to equally necessary conclusions. The
articles of the creed, however, are at least some of them
contingent. For instance, the Son of God became man freely. Nor
does God necessarily create the world. 5 Nor, once again, are we
necessarily called to everlasting life with God. This call is a grace
freely given by God. How, then, can sacred doctrine in any sense
be a science, if its principles are not necessary truths? 6
This issue is of interest for two additional reasons. First, some
scholars simply assume that the principles of sacra doctrina in the
4 Saint Thomas recognizes this, too, in the commentary on Boethius; see Super Boet. De
Trin., q. 2, a. 2, ad 7 (Sancti Thomae de Aquino Expositio super librum Boethii De trinitate,
ed. Bruno Decker [Leiden: Brill, 1955]). The commentary on Boethius comes between the
original Sentences commentary and the text later interpolated into it.
5 Jenkins, in chapter 2 of Knowledge and Faith, indeed recognizes the problem of the
contingency of the truth of the articles of the creed for the scientific status of theology, and
solves the problem as do Cajetan and Capreolus (see below). He does not draw any
consequences from this problem for the per se nota character of the articles, which is what I
hope to do here.
6 Saint Thomas does not deal with this issue expressly in any of his ex professo treatments
of sacred doctrine. He seems to countenance the idea that in some sense sacred doctrine bears
on the necessary, since he entertains the objection that sacred doctrine is not a science on the
ground that it deals with singulars, material individuals, while science is presumably of the
universal, because only universal truths about the essences of material things can be necessary.
This presumption is not spelled out in the Summa, but it is in the commentary on the
Sentences (and the objection does not come up in the commentary on Boethius'sDe Trinitate).
Brian P. Gaybba canvasses the thirteenth-century responses to this issue in his Aspects of the
Mediaeval History of Theology: 12'h to 14',, Centuries (Pretoria: University of South Africa,
1988), 155-65. I will return to this objection as the end of this article. The objection I am
immediately interested in, however, is different, and concerns the nexus of the subject and
predicate in the articles of the creed.

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GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

Summa are per se nota, when in fact St. Thomas does not
characterize them as such there. 7 It is one of the chief objects of
this article to point that out. Second, there is the substantive issue,
which has a very genuine echo in contemporary theology. Some
modern theologians would by no means be horrified at the
implication that, if science proceeds from necessary principles,
and if the principles of theology are the articles of the creed, then
indeed such things as creation, the Incarnation, and man's call to
participation in divine beatitude are necessary. Rather, some
would willingly find in theology taken as science an implication
that things are so. We must be concerned to think out the
dimensions, not so much of theologie comme science au XIIIe
siecle, but of theologie comme science au XXIe siecle, which is post
Hegel, post Bulgakov, post de Lubac, post Milbank.
In what follows, I first visit some older responses to the
objection that the articles of the creed state contingent and not
necessary truths. Capreolus, Cajetan, and John of St. Thomas will
give us a sense of how the objection was addressed in the Thomist
tradition. Without rejecting what this tradition has to offer, I then
propose what I think is a more satisfying solution, with respect to
both the texts of St. Thomas and contemporary theological
interests. This proposal will proceed by way of reprising St.
Thomas's treatment of theology as science from the commentary
on the Sentences to the Summa.
I. THREE COMMENTATORS FROM THREE CENTURIES OF
THOMIST TRADITION

The objection to regarding theology as a subalternated science
is old. 8 Capreolus ( + 1444) reports the objection of Peter Aureolus
(+ 1322) as follows.
Every science whether subalternating or subalternated is about things that cannot
be otherwise and not about contingent things, as is evident from the first book
For instance, Gaybba, Some Aspects, 13 7, 179.
See Tshibangu, Theologie positive, 149-50, who reports Scotus's raising of the issue.
Gaybba does not raise the issue in his treatment of the per se nota in Some Aspects, 177-81.
7

8

ARE THE PRINCIPLES OF SACRA DOCTRINA PER SE NOTA?

411

of the Posterior Analytics (c. 5) and the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics (c.
6). But it is certain that in our theology there are treated many contingent truths,
as that Christ was incarnate, and the world created, and like things, that depend
on the divine goodness alone. Therefore, the habit [of mind] that regards these
things is not a subalternated science. 9

Cardinal Cajetan ( + 15 34) reports the same objection in his
commentary on article 2 of question 1 of the Summa: "science is
about necessary things: this [doctrine] is about contingent things,
for instance the Incarnation, predestination, glorification, etc." 10
Both Capreolus and Cajetan answer the objection handily by
an appeal to the divine scientia, which knows what it knows,
which is all things, necessarily and immutably. Capreolus sends us
to St. Thomas's discussion of prophecy, where St. Thomas tells us
that prophetic knowledge is a sign of divine foreknowledge, and
therefore like that foreknowledge cannot be false, and sees things
in their presentiality. 11 Faith, however, has the same relation to
the divine knowledge as does prophecy. 12 The prophetically
revealed, the believed, and what is concluded from faith in
theology have therefore the same necessity as what is foreknown
by God. Capreolus finishes by referring us to his subsequent
discussion of the divine foreknowledge. 13
Cajetan answers the objection as follows.

9 Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones theologiae divi Thomae Aquinatis, vol. 1, ed. C. Paban
and T. Pegues (Turin: Alfred Cattier, 1900), In primo Sententiarum, prol., q. 1, a. 2, obj., 2,
I, secondo modo, 5 (p. 7b): "Omnis scientia sive subalternans sive subalternata est de
impossibilibus aliter se habere et non de contingentibus, ut patet primo Posteriorum (t. c. 5)
et sexto Ethicorum (c. 6). Sed certum est quod in theologia nostra tractantur multae veritates
contingentes, ut quod Christus fuit incarnatus, et mundus creatus, et similia, quae pendent ex
mera divina bonitate. Ergo habitus ista respiciens non est scientia subalternata."
10 Commentaria Thomae de vio Caietani, in Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera Omnia, vol.
4 (Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1888), at STh I, q. 1, a. 2, 6:
"scientia est de necessariis: ista est de contingentibus, puta Incarnatione, praedestinatione,
glorificatione, etc."
11 STh II-II, q. 171, a. 6.
12 Capreolus gives De Verit., q. 14, a. 8; and STh II-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 2.
'-' Capreolus, Defensiones, In primo Sententiarum, pro!., q. 1, a. 2, sol., 2, I, ad quintam
(p. 14a-b).

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GUY MANSINI, O.S.B.

the Incarnation and other things of this kind are in themselves contingent, but
according as they fall under this science, they are necessary, in the way that
things known by God are necessary, as will appear in question 14. 14

Article 13 of question 14 of the Prima Pars shows that nothing
known by God can be other than it is because he knows all things
in one eternal moment, one moment in which all things are
present to him.
For both Capreolus and Cajetan, therefore, the divine science,
to which the first principles of sacred doctrine are "led back," is
a necessary knowledge, and in this way the requirement of the
Posterior Analytics can be seen to be met. 15 Some may not be
moved by this defense. It will be pointed out that the necessity
that Aristotle requires for science is de re necessity, and the reply
of Capreolus and Cajetan seems to offer us nothing more than de
dicta necessity, or the necessity of the consequent: if Socrates is
sitting, he is sitting. So also, if God knows that the Second Person
of the Trinity is incarnate, he is incarnate. It does not follow from
the nature of the Second Person, or from his personal property,
however, that he be incarnate, the way it follows from the nature
of the earth that it be spherical.
John of St. Thomas ( + 1644) reports the objection succinctly:
theology treats of singular things and contingent things, as of vocation,
justification, etc. But science is of necessary and universal things. 16

He does not answer in the way Capreolus and Cajetan do.
In the first place it is said that theology does not treat of singulars formally, as
singulars, [but] of the quiddity of a singular, which on account of its excellence,
14 Commentaria, at STh I, q. 1, a. 2 (12): "Incarnatio, et alia huismodi secundum se
contingentia, ut subsunt huic scientiae, sunt necessaria; quemadmodum ut scita a Deo sunt
necessaria, ut in questione xiv patebit."
15 This is how Jenkins, too, meets the issue of contingent truths in sacred doctrine,
(Knowledge and Faith, 64-66). He also emphasizes the causal character of the divine
knowledge.
16 Joannes a S. Thoma, Cursus Theologicus in Summam Theologicam d. Thomae, vol. 1
(Paris: Vives, 1883), Isagoge ad Div. Thomae Theologiam, q. 1, disp. 2, a. 3, no. 11 (p. 454a):
"theologia tractat de singularibus, et de contingentibus, ut de vocatione, justificatione, etc.
Scientia autem est de necessariis, et de universalibus."

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413

however, is realized in only one individual, as the incarnation of Christ, the
dignity of the Virgin Mother, and like things. This is the way in which
philosophy and astronomy treat of the sun and planets, which are singular. And
likewise theology treats of vocation or of justification as to its excellence, not
according as it is realized in this contingent individual, as singular .... Nor does
the objection of [Gabriel] Vasquez stand, that theology treats of some singulars
as of its principal subject, as of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, etc. For we say that
theology treats of these not formally according as they are singulars, but of their
quiddity in itself, for there are many things that are treated about the quiddity
of that union, and about what follows from it in general, and not by determining
only this, that it has taken place in an individual, although in fact it is found only
in one singular, just as philosophy treats of the sun. Last, it can be said that ...
it is not unfitting that this science, which depends on divine revelation to which
even singulars are infallibly known, deal with some singulars insofar as they fall
under divine knowledge and are revealed. 17

There are two solutions here. In the last lines, we have that of
Capreolus and Cajetan. It is an appeal to the necessity and
infallibility of the divine knowledge. But the first has us think
rather of the intelligibility of such things as the Incarnation. That
is, there is a "quiddity" of the union of natures, of the
Incarnation, within the contemplation of which we can say certain
highly intelligible things following, as it were, from its
"nature" -for instance, that the union must be according to the
hypostasis and in the hypostasis, and not in the natures. Or to take

another example, we can say many highly intelligible things about
the nature of justification, as for instance that it involves a stable,
17 Ibid., no 12 (pp. 454b-455a):
"dicitur in primis quod theologia non tractat de
singularibus formaliter, ut singularia sunt, de quidditate eorum secundum se, quae tamen
propter suam excellentiam in uno solo individuo facta sunt, sicut incarnatio Christi, dignitas
Mattis Virginis, et similia: qua etiam ratione philosphia, et astrologia tractant de sole et
planetis, quae singularia sunt. Et similiter tractat de vocatione, et justificatione, quantum ad
suam quidditatem, non secundum exercitium in hoc individuo contingens, et singulare ....
Nee obstat instantia patris Velasquez quod de aliquibus singularibus tractat theologia tamquam
de subjecto principali, ut de Christo, et Beata Virgine, etc. Dicimus enim, quod de his tractat
theologia non formaliter, ut singularia sunt, sed de eorum quidditatem secundum se, multa
enim tractantur de quidditate illius unionis, et consecutis ad illam in communi, et non
determinando solum hanc, ut facta est in individuo, licet de facto solum in uno singulari
inveniatur sicut philosophia tractat de sole. Denique, dici potest, quod ... scientia, quae
descendit ex revelatione divina, cui etiam singularia infallibiliter sunt nota, non est
inconveniens, quod de aliquibus singularibus agat prout divinae cognitioni subsunt, et ea
revelantur."

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created grace-habitual grace-and cannot consist simply in the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Neither is this solution perfectly satisfactory. If it is true that
there are intelligibilities to be contemplated in the mysteries,
necessities to be discerned, this does not pertain to the original
target of the objection, which is the articles of the creed. The
objection is that "who for us men and for our salvation became
man" does not state a necessary proposition, but a contingent one.
If it is true, many things may necessarily follow from it. But as
true, it can itself follow from no set of necessary propositions, but
is rather purely and wholly a result of the divine pleasure.
In trying to find a more satisfying way of solving the objection,
I will deny that, for the Summa, such first principles of theology
as creation, Incarnation, and man's call to a supernatural are per
se nota for any intellect, divine or human. It should nonetheless
be maintained that sacred doctrine is rightly called a science.
It will be most expeditious to proceed historically, from the
commentary on the Sentences to In Boethii de Trinitate to the
Summa. In the first, St. Thomas holds that the articles of faith are
per se nota quoad nos Christifideles; in the second, that they are
per se nota quoad Deum; in the third, he avoids speaking of them
as per se nota.

II. THE SCRIPTUM SUPER LIBROS SENTENTIARUM

( 125 2-5 6)

In the first question of the prologue to book 1, after addressing
the necessity and unity of the sacra doctrina treated in Peter
Lombard's Sentences, St. Thomas asks whether it is scientia. The
solution does nothing except address the three arguments to the
contrary, the second of which is that sciences proceed from
principles that are per se nota, but that sacred doctrine proceeds
from credibilia, which are not universally conceded. St. Thomas
replies:
it must be said that this doctrine has the articles of faith for its first principles,
which articles are per se known by the light of infused faith for one having faith,
just as are principles naturally implanted in us by the light of the agent intellect.
Nor is it surprising if they are not known to unbelievers, who do not have the

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415

light of faith, since not even principles naturally implanted in us would be known
without the light of the agent intellect. And this doctrine proceeds from these
principles (not excluding common principles). Nor is there any way to prove
them but only to defend them from those contradicting them, just as no expert
can prove his principles. 18

We are to understand that there is a perfect correspondence
between an Aristotelian science, a natural science that proceeds
from naturally known principles, and sacred doctrine. The
principles of an ordinary science are per se nota, known through
themselves, by the light of the agent intellect. They are not known
per alia, through other and prior and previously known principles.
Rather-to take the example of a common principle-once we
know what "whole" and "part" mean, we know immediately by
the natural light that "the whole is greater than the part." In the
same way, we are given to believe, the light of faith gives us
immediately to assent to the articles of the creed once we hear
them. They are not made known to us by argument, by other
propositions, but are taken in themselves, given the light of faith.
The illustration, the analogy, may not be perspicuous. The
natural light, the light of the agent intellect, is our ability to
question things in the light of being. It is the capacity to make
what is potentially intelligible actually intelligible, by considering
it in relation to being. This "light" is the efficient complement to
the natural openness and orientation of the mind to being. If mind
in its natural openness to become all things is "possible intellect,"
then intellect in its capacity to make all things intelligible, to bring
them into the light of being, is "agent intellect."
What, however, is the light of faith? Saint Thomas does not
undertake the analysis of faith until much later in the Sentences
commentary (III Sent., dd. 23-25). This will be his earliest
I Sent., pro!., q. 1, a. 3, qcla. 2, sol. (In I Librum Sententiarum, ed. P. Mandonnet [Paris:
Lethielleux, 1929]}: "dieendum, quod ista doetrina habet pro prineipiis primis artieulos fidei,
qui per lumen fidei infusum per se noti sunt habenti fidem, sicut et prineipia naturaliter nobis
insita per lumen intelleetus agentis. Nee est mirum, si infidelibus nota non sunt, qui lumen
fidei non habent: quia nee etiam prineipia naturaliter insita nota essent sine lumine intelleetus
agentis. Et ex istis prineipiis, non respuens eommunia prineipia, proeedit ista seientia; nee
habet viam ad ea probanda, sed solum ad defendendum a contradieentibus, sieut nee aliquis
artifex potest probare sua prineipia."
18

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treatment of faith, the one most proximate to the commentary on
the prologue. 19
In distinction 23, the first article of question two asks what
faith is, and the fourth argument contests the characterization of
faith of the Letter to the Hebrews as an argumentum of things
that do not appear (11:1). This gives St. Thomas occasion to
repeat more or less what he has said above.
Faith can be called an argumentum . .. insofar as the infused light which is the
habit of faith manifests the articles, just as the light of the agent intellect
manifests naturally known principles. 20

In distinction 24, the first article deals with the object of faith,
and the first quaestiuncula with the formal object-is the
uncreated truth an object of faith?
It must be said that ... there are three things to consider in the object of any
power: namely, what is formal in the object and what is material and what is
accidental, just as is plain in the object of sight, since what is formal in it is the
light that makes color visible in act, but what is material is color itself which is
visible in potency, and what is accidental are things like quantity and other things
of that kind that are concomitant with color. ... And these three are found in the
object of faith. For since faith does not assent to anything except on account of
the credibility of the First Truth, it does not possess anything credible in act
except from the First Truth, just as color is visible from the light. And therefore
the First Truth is what is formal in the object of faith ... but whatever there is
that is to be believed of God, as that he suffered or something of that sort, is
what is material in the object of faith, and those things that follow from these
credible things are as it were accidents. 21
19 De Verit., q. 14 is later than

the commentary on the Sentences.
d. 23, q. 2, a. 1, ad 4: "[Fides potest dici argumentum] inquantum lumen
infusum, quad est habitus fidei, manifestat articulos, sicut lumen intellctus agentis manifestat
principia naturaliter cognita."
21 III Sent., d. 24, a. 1, qcla. 1, sol.: "Dicendum ... quad in objecto alicujus potentiae
contingit tria considerare: scilcet id quad est formale in objecto et id quad est materiale et id
quad est accidentale; sicut pater in objecto visus, quia formale in ipso est lumen quad facit
colorem actu visibilem, materiale vero ipse color qui est potentia visibilis, accidentale vero,
sicut quantitas et alia hujusmodi quae colorem concomitantur .... Et haec tria est invenire in
objecto fidei. Cum enim fides not assentiat alicui nisi propter veritatem primam credibilem,
non habet quad sit actu credibile nisi ex veritate prima, sicut color est visibilis ex luce. Et idea
veritas prima est formale in objecto fidei et a qua est tota ratio objecti. Quidquid autem est
illud quad de Deo creditur, sicut est passum esse vel si quid hujusmodi, hoc est materiale in
objecto fidei. Ea autem quae ex istis credibilibus consequuntur, sunt quasi accentalia."
20 III Sent.,

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417

Saint Thomas does not exactly call the First Truth the light of
faith, but the analogy invites that identification; it is that in virtue
of which the articles come to be believed. The light of faith,
therefore, might be specified more particularly as the habit of
faith insofar as its object is the First Truth. As soon as we grasp
some article of faith as being proposed by the First Truth, then
without need of any further argument we know this article is true.
In this sense, it is known immediately.
This understanding is supported, moreover, by the Summa
Aurea of William of Auxerre ( + 1231), from which St. Thomas
seems to have borrowed his teaching in the Sentences commentary
on the first principles of theology.
Faith is called an argumentum of what does not appear on account of the articles
of faith, which are the per se nota principles of faith. Whence faith or the faithful
Christian rejects proofs of them. For faith, because it relies on the Truth alone,
finds in these article the reason why it believes them, namely God, just as in
another faculty the intellect finds in this principle, "Every whole is greater than
its part," a reason through which it knows it, since if there were no principles in
theology, it would not be an art or science. Therefore, it has principles, namely
the articles, which however are principles to the faithful alone, but to which
faithful they are principles per se nota, and not from something outside them,
not needing any proof. 22

The First Truth is for William explicitly "light."
Faith ... relies on the First Truth on account of itself and above all things.
Whence the knowledge of God, which is faith, is as it were the knowledge of
first principles. For just as there is found the reason of its knowledge in this
William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea III, tract. 12, c. 1, sol. (ed. Jean Ribaillier,
Spicilegium Bonaventurianum ISA [Rome: Ad Claras Aquas, 1986], p. 199): "dicitur fides
argumentum non apparentium propter articulos fidei, qui sunt principia fidei per se nota.
Uncle fides sive fidelis respuit eorum probationes. Fides enim, quia soli veritati innititur, in
ipsis articulis invenit causam quare credat eis, scilicent Deum, sicut in alia facultate intellectus
in hoc principio: "Omne totum est maius sua parte," causam invenit per quam cognoscit illud,
quoniam si in theologia non essent principia, non esset ars vel scientia. Habet ergo principia,
scilicet articulos, qui tamen solis fidelibus sunt principia; quibus fidelibus sunt principia per
se nota, non extrinsecus aliqua probatione indigentia." And see Summa Aurea IV, tract. 5, c.
4, q. 3, sed contra (Ribaillier, ed., 115): "... sicut alie scientie habent sua principia et
conclusiones suas, ita theologia habet sua principia et conclusiones suas. Et principia theologie
sunt articuli fidei .... Sed differentia est, quia principia aliarium scientiarum omnibus sunt per
se nota; sed principia theologie non sunt per se nota nisi fidelibus."
22

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principle, "every whole is greater than its part," nor is another reason looked for,
so also the faithful soul finds the cause of faith in the First Truth itself, which is
believed, nor does it ask for another reason. 23

William is not necessarily claiming that we see the nexus of
subject and predicate in the articles, as we do when we understand
that a whole is greater than its part. But once they are illumined
by the First Truth, we do not go outside the articles to know their
truth; we do not look for other reasons, demonstrating the articles
from other propositions. In that sense, since they are not known
per alia, they can be characterized as being known per se, even if
we do not see the nexus of subject and predicate. Indeed, William
very strongly invokes the analogy of sight and light in speaking of
faith.
The third kind of knowledge of God that comes to us is gratuitous and occurs
through illumination, when the True Light illumines the soul so that it can see
itself, the Light, and other spiritual things; and such knowledge is gratuitous
faith, which says in the heart of man "I believe," not on account of natural
reason, but on account of what I see, since once such knowledge comes, the soul
assents to the First Truth on its own account and above all things. 24

Just here, however, St. Thomas leaves William. William asks
whether a thing can be both known and believed, as does St.
Thomas. Saint Thomas, however, asks also whether the same
thing can be believed and seen, where "seeing," by transference
from bodily seeing, indicates that "an intellectual form comes to
be in our intellect through intellectual light," whether the light be

23 William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea III, tract. 34, c. 1 (Ribaillier, ed., 650): "Fides ...
innititur prime veritati propter se et super omnia; unde cognitio Dei, que est fides, est quasi
cognitio principiorum, sicut enim in hoc principio: omne totum maius est sua parte, invenitur
causa sue cognitionis nee alia causa queritur, ita anima fidelis in ipsa prima veritate, que
creditur, invenit causam fidei, nee aliam causam querit."
24 William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea III, tract. 12, c. 4, sol. (Ribaillier, ed., 208): "Tertia
[accidentalis cognitio Dei] est gratuita, que fit per illuminationem, quando lux vera illuminat
animam ad videndum se et alia spiritualia; et talis cognitio est fides gratuita, que <licitin corde
hominis iam non propter rationem naturalem credo, sed propter illud quod video, quoniam
tali cognitione adveniente, assentit anima prime veritati propter se et super omnia."

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419

natural or supernatural. 25 And in this way, St. Thomas denies that
faith is of things seen. The reply to the second objection directly
addresses the issue of the articles of faith.
The terms of principles that are naturally known are comprehensible to our
intellect; therefore, the knowledge that arises concerning these principles is
vision. But it is not so with the terms of the articles. Whence in the future, when
God will be seen through his essence, the articles will be known through
themselves and seen just as the principles of demonstration are now. 26

Here St. Thomas draws attention to the difference that William
skipped over. The First Truth revealing makes us to grasp the
articles immediately, but not because we comprehend their terms,
seeing that they are necessarily connected with one another.
When the light of the agent intellect illumines "whole" and
"part," that is just what we see; we understand the mutual and
necessary relations of whole and part. No such thing happens,
however, when we consider the articles, even when they are
beheld in the light of God revealing.
Thus, St. Thomas's response to the question of whether faith
is of things seen amounts to a simple denial of what he says in the
commentary on the Prologue. There, the articles are per se known
even now, and seen, just as are the first principles of an
Aristotelian science, and in that way they function as the
principles of sacred doctrine. Here, in the commentary on the
third book, they are not so known, and they are not therefore said
to be seen. Such a state of affairs is rather eschatological. The
articles will be known through themselves when we see God face
to face.
According to Albert Lang, the thirteenth century deployed two
strategies for dealing with the question of whether sacred doctrine
III Sent., d. 24, a. 2, qcla. 1, sol.: "transferendo nomen visonis ad intellectum, proprie
intelligendo videmus, quando per lumen intellectuale ipsa forma intellectualis fit in intellectu
25

nostro."

Ibid., ad 2: "termini principiorum naturaliter notorum sunt comprehsibiles nostro
intellectui; ideo cognitio quae consurgit de illis principiis, est visio. Sed non est ita de terminis
articulorum. Uncle in futuro, quando Deus per essentiam videbitur, articuli erunt ita per se noti
et visi, sicut modo principia demonstrationis."
26

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is a science, on the supposition that its first principles are the
articles of faith. 27 One could hold that these first principles are
somehow rightly described as per se nota because of the light of
faith. Or one could invoke the theory of subalternation. Saint
Thomas seems to have abandoned the first strategy before
finishing the commentary on the Sentences. It is certain that he
takes up the second in the commentary on Boethius's De Trinitate.
Ill. THE EXPOS/TIO SUPER LIBRUM BOETHII DE TRINITATE (125758, OR 1259) 28 AND THE INTERPOLATION IN THE SCRIPTUM
Saint Thomas's first attempt to make sacred doctrine a science,
that of the beginning of his Sentences commentary, has thus been
found wanting and is implicitly abandoned before the commentary is finished. If sacred doctrine is a science, another way must
be found to understand the scientific status of its principles. A
second attempt is made in the commentary on Boethius's On the
Trinity, where the relation of subalternation between sciences is
introduced. Commenting of the Prologue, St. Thomas explains in

the corpus of article 2 of question 2 that by faith we come to a
scientia of divine things in this life by adhering to the First Truth,
in virtue of which we are able to conclude from what we hold in
this way as principles to conclusions. 29 The reply to the fifth
objection, which observes that all men do not assent to the articles
of faith as they do to the first principles of a science, deploys the
apparatus of subalternation.

27 Albert Lang, Die theologische Prinzipienlehre der mittelalterlichen Scholastik (Freiburg:
Herder, 1964), 156-57.
28 This is the dating Jean-Pierre Torrell gives in Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1: The Person
and His Work, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1996), 345. For studies of the relevant part of theExpositio, see Martin Grabmann, Die
theologische Erkenntnis- und Einleitungslehre des hi. Thomas von Aquin auf Grund seiner
Schrift "In Boethium de Trinitate" (Freiburg in die Schweiz: Paulus Verlag, 1948), 138-39,
141-45; and Douglas Hall, The Trinity: An Analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas' Expositio of the
De Trinitate of Boethius (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), 73-77.
29 The emphasis on the syllogistic motion from principles to conclusions in virtue of which
theology is like science is later abandoned; Corbin, Le chemin, 350-53, 717.

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Even in the sciences that are humanly passed down there are some principles in
some of them that are not known to all, but one has to take them from superior
sciences, just as in subalternated sciences there are supposed and believed some
things from the superior sciences; and such things are not per se nota except by
those who know the superior sciences. And in this way, the articles of faith,
which are the principles of this science, are related to the divine knowledge,
because the things that are per se nota in the science that God has of himself are
supposed in our science; and we believe him who indicates these things to us
through his messengers, just as the physician believes the natural scientist that
there are four elements. 30

Both human sciences and divine science are put within the
framework of things handed down, the traditional. Some human
sciences are handed down in such a way that their principles are
not seen to be true, but are simply received from a higher science
in which they are seen to be true. So, also, divine science is
handed down, and in such a way that its principles are not seen by
us to be true, but are taken on faith. Because of faith, adhering to
the First Truth, divine science is a "participation and assimilation
to the knowledge of God." 31 Above, we noted the dissimilarities
that remain. Here, what is important to see is a similarity
expressly asserted: the principles of sacred doctrine, though not
per se nota to us, are indeed per se nota relative to the superior
science, which in this case is the divine knowledge. The principles
are per se nota to God.
The passage interpolated into the text of the commentary on
the Sentences also embraces this view. Corbin argues that it is later
than the commentary on Boethius (125 6) because of its greater
technical precision. 32 The interpolated text has it that sacred
doctrine is not a subalternated science pure and clear but is rather
30 Super Boet. De Trin., q. 2, a. 2, ad 5: "etiam in scientiis humanitus traditis sunt quaedam
principia in quibusdam earum quae non sunt omnibus nota, sed oportet ea supponere a
superioribus scientiis, sicut in scientiis subalternatis supponuntur et creduntur aliqua a scientiis
superioribus, et ilia non sunt per se nota nisi superioribus scientibus. Et hoc modo se habent
articuli fidei, qui sunt principia huius scientiae, ad cognitionem divinam, quia ea quae sunt per
se nota in scientia, quam deus habet de seipso, supponuntur in scientia nostra et creduntur ei
nobis haec indicanti per suos nuntios, sicut medicus credit physico quatuor esse elementa."
31 Super Boet. De Trin., q. 2, a. 2: "participatio et asssimilatio ad cognitionem divinam."
32 Corbin, Le chemin, 204. See also Oliva, Les debuts de l'enseignement, 152-58, for
internal criticism of the interpolated text.

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"quasi-subalternated. " 33 The interpolation also distinguishes, as
the commentary on Boethius does not, the two ways in which one
science may be superior to another, either by way of subject
matter or by the way in which it knows what it does. Most
important for our purposes, the text explicitly notes the requirement of necessary principles for a science, for that is the
ground of its certitude.
There are two things to consider in science, namely certitude, since not every
knowledge but only certain knowledge is called science ... from which first
thing it follows that science is from necessary [principles]: for from contingent
things certitude cannot be caused. 34

Further, this text too speaks of "principles" as being known to the
divine science.
For we know imperfectly what God knows most perfectly, and just as a
subalternated science takes some things from the superior science, and proceeds
by those things as by principles, thus theology takes the articles of faith, which
are infallibly proved in the science of God, and believes them, and through that
proceeds further to prove those things that follow from the articles. 35

In the commentary on Boethius, the principles of sacred doctrine
are themselves per se nota relative to the divine science. Here,
they are something proved-probati-in the science of God. As
it were, from principles per se nota the divine science concludes
to, proves, the articles of faith. The incongruence of such
language for the knowledge of God is more apparent in the latter
than in the former instance. But in either case, there is floated the
33 Chenu, La theologie comme science au XIIIe siecle, 82-84, takes the "quasi" in the sense
of "not strictly," "sort of," and so does Corbin, Le chemin, 723-27. Jenkins, Knowledge and
Faith, 70, takes the "quasi" as equivalent to "qua," and so sees no disparagement in the status
of sacra doctrina as a subalternated science. It seems better to follow Chenu and Corbin here.
34 I Sent., prol., q. 1, a. 3, qcla. 2, sol.: "In scientia duo est considerare, scilicet
certitudinem, quia non quaelibet cognitio, sed certitudinalis tantum dicitur scientia .... Ex
primo habet quad est ex necessariis: ex contingentibus enim not potest causari certitudo."
35 Ibid.: "Nos enim imperfecte cognoscimus id quad ipse [Deus] perfectissime cognoscit,
et sicut scientia subalternata a superiori supponit aliqua, et per ilia tanquam per principia
procedit; sic theologia articuos fidei quae infallibiliter sunt probati in scientia Dei supponit,
et eis credit, et per istud procedit ad probandum ulterius ilia quae ex articulis sequuntur."

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423

idea that certain propos1t10ns, doubtless known nonpropositionally, 36 would be per se nota relative to the divine mind.

IV. THE PER SE NOTA
We must recall what the per se nota is for Aristotle. What is the
nature of a proposition, a first principle, in an Aristotelian science
that it is known through itself, and not through other propositions, other principles? The nature of such a proposition is that
it is about natures.
This is perfectly clear in St. Thomas's mature understanding of
Aristotle's doctrine of science. 37 The full expression of this view
is certainly late, since the commentary on the PosteriorAnalytics
is one of the last things St. Thomas worked on (1269-72). It is
subsequent to the composition of the Prima Pars (1266-68). As
will appear, however, I believe this mature view to have been
anticipated in the way St. Thomas expresses himself in the first
question of the Summa.
The first principles of a demonstrative science, Aristotle says
and St. Thomas repeats in his commentary, are necessary. 38 Of the
contingent, there is no science. This takes us back to the beginning
of the PosteriorAnalytics.
We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing, as
opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which the sophist knows, when
we think that we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that
fact and of no other, and further, that the fact could not be other than it is....
Consequently the proper object of unqualified scientific knowledge is something
which cannot be other than it is. 39
36 STh I, q. 14, aa. 7 and 14; Rogers, Thomas Aquinas, 41. There is a parallel to article 14
in the Sentences commentary.
37 For the per se nota in St. Thomas, see Luca F. Tuninetti, "Per se notum": Die logische
Beschaff enheit des Selbstverstandlichen in Denken des Thomas von Aquin (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1996); and M. V. Dougherty, "Thomas Aquinas on the Manifold Senses of Self-Evidence,"
The Review of Metaphysics 59 (2006): 601-30.
38 I Post. Anal., lect. 13 (In Aristotelis Libras Peri Hermeneias et Posteriorum Analyticorum
Expositio, ed. R. Spiazzi [Turin: Marietti, 1955], no. 109).
39 Posterior Analytics, trans. G. R. G. Mure, The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard
McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941 ), 1.2.71 b8-15. The Latin St. Thomas commented
on is as follows: "Scire autem opinamur unumquodque simpliciter, sed non sophistico modo,

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Such knowledge is given by demonstration-and, as the rest of the
chapter explains, demonstration that proceeds from premises that
are true, primary and immediately known (that is, per se nota) and
so indemonstrable, causes of the conclusion, prior to the conclusion as grasping the cause whence what the conclusion says it
true, and better known than the conclusion. Here is how Alasdair
Macintyre puts it.
A perfected science is one which enables us to understand the phenomena of
which it treats as necessarily being what they are, will be, and have been, because
of the variety of agencies which have brought it about that form of specific kinds
has informed the relevant matter in such a way as to achieve some specific end
state. All understanding is thus in terms of the essential properties of specific
kinds. 40

The premises of such demonstrative syllogisms are examined
in book 1, chapter 6. In the first place, they must be necessary. As
St. Thomas explains:
If it is a demonstrative science, that is, if it a science acquired through
demonstration, then it must be from necessary principles. The necessity of this
inference is evident since it is impossible for what is known to be otherwise than
it is, as is had in the definition of what it is to know. 41

The definition he refers to is the definition of book 1, chapter 2,
quoted above. But the necessary premises called for are premises
per se nota. Per se nota premises are premises whose predicate is
said per se of the subject. This is explained in the commentary on
chapter 4, where Aristotle takes up the per se (see I Post.
Anal., lect. 10). The first two modes of per se predication render
quod est secundum accidens, cum causam arbitramur cognoscere propter quam res est: et
quoniam illius causa est, et non est contingere hoc aliter se habere .... Quare cuius simpliciter
est scientia, hoc impossibile est aliter se habere" (I Post. Anal., lect. 4).
40 Alasdair Macintyre, "First Principles, Final Ends, and Contemporary Philosophical
Issues," in idem, The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 143-78, at 157.
41 I Post. Anal., lect. 13 (Spiazzi, ed., no. 109): "Si est demonstrativa scientia, idest si
scientia per demonstrationem acquiritur, oportet quod sit ex necessariis principiis. Cuius
illationis necessitas ex hoc apparet, quia quod scitur impossibile est aliter se habere, ut habitum
est in definitione eius quad est scire."

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propositions that are the premises of scientific syllogism. In the
first mode, something belonging to the definition is predicated of
the subject, which is to say, something belonging to the form of
the thing is predicated of the thing. 42 So, we have premises that
employ two of the five predicable relations: we may predicate the
genus of the species, or the specific difference of the species. Man
is an animal, and man is rational. In the second mode of per se
predication, we predicate of some attribute its proper subject, as
in "snubness is nasal"-snubness subsists always and only in the
nose. Further, we may predicate a property of the species, where
"property" keeps its strict sense, and is what belongs not only
always to the species, but necessarily. 43 This is the fourth mode of
the per se. Man is grammatical, risible, etc. It is the point of
perfect science to demonstrate, via middle terms that state the
definition, properties of the subject. Perfect science shows the
properties that follow upon the nature. Macintyre again:
What the substantive first principles which provide the initial premises of any
perfected science achieve then is a statement of those necessary truths which
furnish the relevant set of demonstrative arguments with their first premises, but
also exhibit how if something is of a certain kind, it essentially and necessarily
has certain properties. The de re necessity of essential property possession is
represented in and through the analytic form of the judgments which give
expression to such principles. It is their analyticity which make it the case that
such principles are evident per se ... 44

Now let us check up. Can the articles of the creed be thought to
be like such premises? Or be thought to be derived from such
premises? Of course not. That would require us to think that,
when we say that God creates the world, we are saying that his
being creator is something that follows necessarily from what he
42 The first mode of the per se depends on form. The second mode depends on matter,
when the proper subject of an attribute is predicated of it. And the fourth mode bespeaks the
relation of an efficient or other cause. See Jan Aertsen, Nature and Creature: Thomas
Aquinas's Way of Thought (Leiden: E. ]. Brill, 1988), chapter 2 for some discussion of per se
predication in St. Thomas.
43 Topics, Book I, chapters 4 & 5. For a contemporary appreciation of the predicables, see
Robert Sokolowski, Phenomenology of the Human Person (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2008), chapter 8.
44 Macintyre, "First Principles," 158.

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is. It would require us to think that, when we say the Son of God
is man, the Incarnation follows necessarily from either the essence
or the personal property of the Son. It would require us to think
that, when we say we believe in life everlasting, it belongs to the
essence of man that he be ordered to the enjoyment of divine
beatitude.
Therefore, if there is any point to speaking of sacred doctrine
as a science, there can be no point to speaking of its principles as
per se nota. They are not so known either to us, or to the blessed,
or to God. Nor, in his last treatment of this issue, in the Summa,
does St. Thomas speak of them in that way. He avoids-I want to
say, sedulously avoids-characterizing the articles of the creed as
premises that are per se nota or probati, evident as proved from
per se nota principles, or following along from Realities whose
intelligibility could be expressed in per se nota principles.
V. SUMMA THEOLOGIAE, PRIMA PARS (1265-68) 45
This is what we have in the Summa.
The genus of the sciences is twofold. For there are certain ones that proceed
from principles known by the natural light of the intellect, like arithmetic,
geometry, and that kind of science. But there are certain other ones that proceed
from principles known by the light of a superior science: as perspective proceeds
from principles known by geometry ... And in this way sacred doctrine is a
science, because it proceeds from principles known by a superior science,
namely, the science of God and the blessed. 46

The principles of theology are not per se nota to us, but neither
are they said to be so to God. They are simply "known," "known
by the light of a superior science." Neither are the principles
known by the natural light said to be per se nota. They are,
Saint Thomas, 333.
STh I, q. 1, a. 2: ... duplex est scientiarum genus. Quaedam enim sunt, quae procedunt
ex principiis notis lumine naturali intellectus, sicut arithmetica, geometeria, et huiusmodi.
Quaedam vero sunt, quae procedunt ex principiis notis lumine superioris scientiae: sicut
perspectiva procedit ex principiis notificatis per geometriam ... Et hoc modo sacra doctrina
est scientia: quia procedit ex principiis notis lumine superioris scientiae, quae scilicet est
scientia Dei et beatorum.
45 Torrell,
46

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427

doubtless. And the principles that perspective receives necessarily
follow from per se nota principles. But the principles of the higher
science are not characterized as per se nota, because that does not
enter into the analogy with sacred doctrine. The principles of
sacred doctrine are not per se nota.
The first argument of the article does mention per se nota
principles, to deny that sacred doctrine proceeds from such. The
reply repays careful reading. "Principia cuiuslibet scientiae vel
sunt nota per se, vel reducuntur ad notitiam superioris scientia"
(The principles of any science are either per se nota or are
reduced to the knowledge of a superior science). He does not say
they are either per se nota or reduced to principles per se nota.
They may be reduced to per se nota principles, like the principles
of perspective are. It is enough merely that they be reduced to
some notitia, some knowledge of a higher science. And such is
theology.
The first question of the Summa thus completes the
development in St. Thomas's understanding of the first principles
of theology, and does so by carefully avoiding imputing to them
the quality of self-evidence in any sense. There are two texts,
however, where it can be alleged that St. Thomas once again
imputes self-evidence to the principles of theology.
The first is in the Prima secundae, where in the fourth article
of question 100, St. Thomas asks whether the precepts of the
Decalogue are fitly distinguished. The first objection argues that
the first precept in fact contains two precepts, one, "you shall not
have strange gods," pertaining to faith, and another, "you shall
not make a graven image," belonging to worship. The first,
moreover, is out of place, since the precept should deal solely
with worship, and not faith. St. Thomas replies that worship,
latreia, is nothing but the protestation of faith, and so the first
precept is not really double. He explains further that "to believe
in God is a first and per se nota principle to someone who has
faith," in just the way "the first common precepts of the natural
law are per se nota to one who has natural reason." The parallel
with moral science, with the express designation of the principles

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as both first and self-evident, invites us to think that he is also
conceiving the first principles of theology, the articles of the
creed, the first of which is to believe in God, as also self-evident.
It is to be noted that, in fact, St. Thomas does not say here that
the first principles of theology are self-evident. That is an
inference. It is, furthermore, a faulty inference. We see better
what he is driving at when we observe that it is a question about
precepts that he is sorting out, not a question about the articles of
the creed. He tells us the "precept of faith is presupposed to the
precepts of the Decalogue." When he says "to believe in God is
first and per se no ta," he means the precept to believe in God is
first and per se nota: it is prior to the precepts of worship,
something first in respect to them, and is self-evident to one who
has faith. We see also what he driving at when we see how he
supports the dictum that "to believe in God is a first and per se
nota principle to someone who has faith." He supports it by
adducing Hebrews 11: 6: "he who comes near to God must believe
that he is." "Must believe" --the point is that one cannot come
near to God in worship without believing that He exists. The
precept of faith, "believe in God," is therefore presupposed to the
precept of worship, "you shall have no strange gods before me."
And St. Thomas concludes that the precept of faith therefore
needs no promulgation except that of the infusion of faith itself.
What is at issue, therefore, is the relation of the precepts, one
of faith, the other of worship. The precept of faith is presupposed
to the precept of worship, or in other words, obeying the first
precept of the Decalogue includes as something presupposed
obeying the precept to believe in God. But then, it is one precept
that is presupposed to another. The precept to believe in God,
however, is not the first article of the creed. The first article of the
creed is that God is the Father almighty, the maker of heaven and
earth. The first article of the creed is a proposition, not a precept.
If one recites the first article with faith, then to be sure one is
obeying the precept to believe, self-evident to one who has faith.
But one is not necessarily enunciating a self-evident proposition.

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429

This first text is by no means a revocation of what I claim is St.
Thomas's mature position on the principles of theology. A second
text is no more difficult to square with the development I allege.
The Super Epistolam ad Titum Lectura are contemporaneous
with the Prima pars of the Summa. At 3:9, Paul is telling Titus
what his teaching is to avoid, and in the first place, he is not to
entertain "foolish questions. " 47 These are questions, St. Thomas
says, that are "contrary to the intentions of the teaching." Such
questions are, for instance, ones that raise doubts about "what one
ought to hold as per se in a science." And the things that are to be
held as per se in the science at hand "are the things that regard
instruction in the faith and training in morals." 48 Once again, St.
Thomas does not directly say that the first principles of sacred
doctrine are per se nota. But it could be that what he means by the
per se are the first principles of sacred doctrine, and that is how
Michael Sirilla takes the text. 49
For this interpretation to be certain, however, every proposition containing a per se predication has to be a first principles of
the relevant science. If this is so, then St. Thomas is characterizing
the first principles of sacred doctrine as self-evident. It is not the
case, however, that every proposition containing a per se
predication is a first principle. Per se propositions are not
necessarily primitive propositions, where the subject and predicate
are convertible (all Ss are Ps, and all Ps are Ss), a requirement for
first principles. And this means that not all propositions
containing a per se predication are first principles. 5°Further, first
principles must be immediate. But not every proposition whose
predicate is predicated per se of the subject is immediate. 51 It
47 Super Epistolas S. Pauli Lectura, vol. II, ed. R. Cai (Turin: Marietti, 1953), no. 99.
Torrell, Saint Thomas, 340, gives a probable date of 1265-1268. Torrell notes that this text
is a reportatio.
48 Here, one asks a question against the intentions of the doctrine "quando manifestum
proponitur ut dubium, scilicet quaecumque debet aliquis per se tenere in scientia. Et haec sunt
quae spectant ad instructionem fidei et eruditionem morum."
49 In a study of St. Thomas's commentary on the Pastorals soon to be published by The
Catholic University of America Press.
50 See In Post. Anal. I, lect. 9, no. 78. See also Jenkins, Faith and Knowledge, 21-27, on this
point.
51 In Post. Anal., lect. 4, no. 41. See Tuninetti, "Per se notum," 172-176.

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should be remembered, moreover, that the ideal form of the
scientific syllogism is to conclude to a proposition that contains a
per se predication of the second or fourth mode, where the proper
subject of an attribute is included in the predicate, or a proper
accident is predicated of the subject. 52 Such conclusions,
obviously, are not first principles.
So it by no means follows from the text that St. Thomas is
repeating the teaching of the Sentences commentary. What he
would be referring to are the many propositions in theology that
contain per se predications and yet are not first principles, which
is to say, not articles of the creed. For instance, that the divine
punishment is just is a necessary proposition. The predicate is a
necessary property of the subject. But it is not a primitive
proposition, since not all the just acts of God are punishments.
And although that God will judge the living and the dead is an
article of the creed, the justness of his judgment is not. Again,
there are many per se predications that follow from the doctrine
of transubstantiation, for instance that the presence of the true
Body of the Lord in the sacrament is not a spatial presence. But
such things are not first principles of sacred doctrine.
VI. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEVELOPMENT

With the Summa, then, St. Thomas speaks in such a way that
there is no necessity for the question to arise of how theology can
be a science if its principles are contingent. We do not have to ask
this question, since there is no necessary implication from the text
that the articles of the creed are necessary propositions.
This is a better way to speak for two reasons. First, it is better
because it respects the issues of the certainty of science and the
necessity of science as two distinct issues. They may be inseparable
issues for human science, but not for science just as such. Science
is certain knowledge. And for us this means that science is not of
the individual, for we have no causal knowledge of material
individuals. Science for us must be of the necessary, for only that
52 In Post. Anal., I, lect. 10, no. 8 9.

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431

knowledge, the knowledge of the quiddity of material things,
what is universally true of all the individuals of a species, will for
us be certain. But if there were a cause embracing singularity as
such, the very materiality of the material individual, and if this
cause could be known, then there could be a science of the
individual. The First Cause is such a cause, and, moreover, knows
itself and what it causes. So, the divine science is of singulars. 53
This science, the certain knowledge of things according to their
causes, will extend to the contingent, 54 and what to us must
remain enigmatic fate is for God the sweet order of his
providence.
This brings us to the second reason why the way of the Summa
is a better way. It is a better way to speak because it respects the
transcendence of the divine scientia, which is one with the divine
being. That is, it is a better way to speak because it respects the
status of created necessity and contingence relative to God, which
is all that Aristotle spoke of in the Posterior Analytics. So, in
asking whether the will of God imposes necessity on things, St.
Thomas says that the divine will is "most efficacious," and
therefore "it not only follows that those things occur that God
wants to occur, but that they occur in the way he wants them to
occur," some by necessity and some contingently. 55 But the divine
will follows the divine wisdom, and the divine knowledge is itself
the cause of things, "according as the divine will is conjoined to
it. "56 Like the divine will, it is anterior to the distinction of
created necessity and contingency.
With this in mind, it is fruitful to compare the principles of
ordinary sciences to the principles of sacred doctrine. For the
STh I, q. 14, a. 11.
I, q. 14, a. 13.
55 STh I, q. 19, a. 8. See also St. Thomas, In Duodecim Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis
Expositio, ed. M.R. Catha! and R. Spiazzi (Turin: Marietti, 1950), no. 1220: "Just as being
itself is subject to divine providence, so also are all the accidents of being, insofar as it is being,
among which are the necessary and the contingent. Therefore, it belongs to divine providence
not only that it make this being, but that it give it contingency or necessity. For according as
he wants to give to each and every thing contingency or necessity, he has prepared
intermediate causes for it, from which it follows necessarily or contingently."
56 STh I, q. 14, a. 8.
53

54 STh

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human sciences, God establishes those principles that are per se
nota in establishing the natures of things of which there can be
scientific knowledge. What is per se nota to us is led back to a
divine knowledge that is prior to and causal with respect even to
these natures, and so also therefore to the sciences they found.
The principles of sacred doctrine are likewise led back to the same
higher science, God's. Thus, in the first place, the principles of all
the sciences, theology among them, are led back to the same
science, the divine knowledge that is beyond necessity and
contingency.
Second, it is noteworthy that neither the principles of theology
nor the principles of the physical sciences, both of which are to be
led back to the divine knowledge, are led back to a necessity. The
principles of the physical and speculative sciences are per se
nota-that is, they report the interior intelligibility of the nature
the science is about. But they are not led back to the divine
science as to some necessity therein. For while it be true that each
created nature expresses and imitates some part of the
intelligibility of God, and so is no arbitrary construction of a
voluntarist God, nevertheless, it need not have been that these
natures exist at all.
Third, notwithstanding the first thing, there is nonetheless a
difference between the principles of the sciences of things within
the world and the principles of theology. Once established,
created natures ground principles that, in their own terms, are
necessary. But the articles of theology, once established by the
infallible knowledge and immutable will of God are still not
rightly characterized as necessary. Should we say then that they
are contingent? Yes, but Robert Sokolowski points out that the
contingency of the first article of the creed is not the same as
contingency within the world.
These are two different kinds of contingency. In both cases, contingency means
that the beings that exist could have been otherwise; but the way in which they
could have been otherwise is different. Within the world, contingency is
explained by the indeterminacy of the causes on which the contingent beings
depend .... But the created world as a whole does not have a wider context of

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433

created causes that intervene in its contingency. The created world as whole
depends only on the freedom, wisdom, and holiness of God and nothing else.57

That God create the world is contingent. And God creates the
world freely. But that does not make him a "contingent cause."
On what, indeed could he be contingent, on what depend? 58 He
cannot be coerced. He wills no other end than himself in
creating. 59 Nor yet does he will the world arbitrarily. 60 But this
means that, in contrast to the per se nota principles of the worldly
sciences, this first article of the creed is, as it were, closer to the
divine wisdom and freedom than they are, since the principles of
the worldly sciences concern parts within the world, parts that just
as such could have been different, imitating some other aspect of
the inexhaustible divine being. 61 By contrast, the first article
engages the generosity of the divine will and the wisdom of the
divine knowledge more immediately. And so, while not per se
nota, it is as it were a principle of greater power than any per se
nota principle of worldly science; it is a more principial principle.
So also are the second and third articles. 62 The third article
speaks to the fact that we are called to share the divine life, to be
consors divinae naturae (2 Peter 1:4). This principle does not
merely determine the end of a created nature, ours, but engages
the divine nature itself. Like creation, it engages the divine
knowledge more immediately than any principle of a natural
science, because more completely; it means that the creature is to
share the divine science in whose wisdom all things are disposed
sweetly and in order (Wisdom 8: 1).
The second article likewise involves both natures, divine and
human, in one principle. It makes the divine Word-who in
himself contains "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"
(Colossians 2:3; sapientiae et scientiae in the Vulgate) in a
57 Robert Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 50.
58 Ibid., 48.
59 STh I, q. 19, aa. 2 & 5.
60 STh I, q. 19, a. 2. It is fitting that God communicate his goodness.
61 STh I, q. 25, aa. 5 & 6.
62 For St. Thomas's count of the articles, see STh II-II, q. 1, aa. 6 & 8.

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knowledge prior to the created distinction of the necessary and
contingent-subject as incarnate to both these created modalities
of ens commune. The Word is that by which the Father speaks
both himself and all created things, and as the subsistent art by
which the world is made, and so by which their forms come to be,
the Word manifests all things. 63 Thus, the second article is in itself
a principle closer to the divine mind than any principle of any
natural science because it involves the subsistent expression of that
mind, according to which all things are made, in one of the things
that is made (i.e., the humanity of Christ), and the perfect
reflection of that mind in the human mind of Christ, than which
no greater reflection can be conceived. 64
Taking the articles in this way, we are led back to the Trinity
of Persons, not as to something whence they necessarily follow,
but to a sort of final necessity, a final horizon beyond which there
is nothing to see or say. 65
CONCLUSION

Capreolus and Cajetan are right to point out the special status
of divine knowing. But noting that the articles are known in their
presentiality does not indicate to us their quite peculiar status, for
in this way, all things are necessary. Rather, we should attend to
the transcendence of divine knowing as causal of what is
contingent and necessary.
For his part, John of St. Thomas is right to point out the
necessities interior to the mysteries of faith. But that does not
immediately indicate to us that the principles of sacred doctrine
proceed from prior non-contingent principles, and in fact proceed
from a knowledge above contingency and necessity.
Is there still any point to speaking of sacra doctrina as a
science, once we see it does not conform to the Aristotelian
63 Super Evangelium S. Ioannis Lectura, ed. Raphael Cai (Rome: Marietti, 1952), cap. 1,
lectio 4, no. 118.
64 STh III, q. 10, aa. 2 & 4.
65 See STh I, q. 41, a. 2, ad 5, according to which the notional act by which the Father
generates the Son is "in itself" necessary.

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435

pattern either of having per se nota principles or principles that
derive from per se nota principles? Yes. Just in itself, scientia as
described by Aristotle names a perfection, the certain knowledge
of something according to its causes. When we human beings have
such knowledge the certitude is a function of the necessity of the
causal relation. But certitude can be had otherwise by the divine
mind, This was pointed out by Cajetan and Capreolus. Moreover,
the divine mind can have certain knowledge of singulars, knowing
their causes, and knowing infallibly the causes of all things,
whether contingent or necessary. 66
The idea of scientia is therefore realized in a surpassing way in
God. And sacred doctrine is a participation in this, the supreme
realization of science. Because of this, Corbin notes, St. Thomas
drops the characterization of sacred doctrine as a "quasisubalternated science." The "quasi" means that the exemplar of
science is taken to be what Aristotle describes in the Posterior
Analytics. Dropping it means that the exemplar of science is God's
science. 67 Once we do this, however, we must abandon the
attempt to locate per se nota principles of this science. The
principle of the science is the unlimited understanding and
intelligibility of God, whose understanding, as whose being, is
prior to our first and worldly experience of what is necessary and
what is not.

66 That we cannot is due simply to the nature of human knowing. This does not mean that
theology is not concerned with the "singularity" of Christ, but only that, like any singular
whose principle is signate matter, Christ in his humanity can be known by us only indirectly
and via phantasm. See STh I, q. 86, a. 1. What we have is insight into the "nature" of the
mysteries-for instance, things in the "quiddity," as John of St. Thomas says, of the union of
natures in Christ.
67 Corbin, Le Chemin, 723-727.

The Thomist 74 (2010): 437-59

WHY HOLINESS IS NECESSARY FOR THEOLOGY:
SOME THOMISTIC DISTINCTIONS 1
GREGORY F. LANAVE
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

I

N 1989, THE CARMELITE theologian
Lethel
published a book on what he called "The Theology of the
Saints." The book was the dissertation he had written at
Fribourg under the direction of the Dominican Christoph
Schonborn. Its opening line is a succinct and bold claim regarding
the nature of theology: "All saints are theologians, and only saints
are theologians. " 2
Lethel is one of many modern Catholic theologians who have
talked about the importance of integrating theology and holiness. 3
1 An earlier version of this article was presented on 17 October 2009, at the "Thomistic
Circles" Conference on "Thomism and the Renewal of Theology."
2 Frarn;;ois-MarieLethe!, Connaftre /'amour du Christ qui surpasse toute connaissance: La
theologie des saints (Venasque: Editions du Carmel, 1989), 3: "Tous !es saints sont
theologiens, seuls Jes saints sont theologiens."
3 Best known is perhaps Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Theology and Sanctity," in Explorations
in Theology, vol. 1, The Word Made Flesh, trans. A. V. Littledale and Alexander Dru (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 181-209. See also Harvey D. Egan, "Theology and
Spirituality," in Declan Marmion and Mary E. Hines, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Karl
Rahner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 13-28; Bernard Lonergan, Method
in Theology (New York: The Seabury Press, 1972), esp. 237-45 ("Conversions and
Breakdowns"); William M. Thompson, Fire and Light: The Saints and Theology (New York
and Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987); Jon Sobrino, Spirituality of Liberation: Toward Political
Holiness, trans. Robert R. Barr (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1988}; Nicholas Lash,
Holiness, Speech, and Silence: Reflections on the Question of God (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004 );
James Keating, ed., Seminary Theology: Teaching in a Contemplative Way (Omaha, Neb.: The
Institute for Priestly Formation, 2010). Some Thomists have taken up the topic specifically:
see, e.g., Jean-Pierre Torrell, "Theologie et saintete," Revue Thomiste 71 (1971): 205-21;
idem, "Theology and Spirituality," in Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, Spiritual Master, trans.

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Such efforts are hardly uniform; neither are the various diagnoses
they offer regarding the situation that prompts their call. This is
perhaps inevitable, given the ambiguity surrounding the terms
"theology" and "holiness": for recent decades have seen the rise
of many and varied definitions of "theology," and "holiness" has
no fixed, commonly recognized definition. Moreover, if the task
of integration is posed as a question, it admits of two very
different types of answer. That is, if we ask, "How are theology
and holiness to be integrated?" the answer could focus on the way
in which theology fosters the achievement of holiness, or the way
in which holiness fosters the achievement of theology. 4
The present article attempts to contribute some clarity and
content to the conversation by delineating various ways in which
holiness is necessary for theology as understood in a Thomistic
sense. The definition of theology is assumed, based largely on
Aquinas's prologue to his Scriptum on the Sentences and the first
question of the Summa Theologiae. 5 For the sake of a systematic
approach I will delineate this definition according to the four
Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 1-21;
F:iinche Ryan, Formation in Holiness: Thomas Aquinas on "Sacra Doctrina" (Leuven: Peeters,
2007).
An echo of the same is found in certain magisterial teaching on the formation of priests,
including Vatican Il's Optatam totius (a. 16) and John Paul II's apostolic exhortation Pastores
dabo vobis (a. 53). Both texts quote the famous admonition of St. Bonaventure: let no one
think that "mere reading will suffice without unction, speculation without devotion,
investigation without admiration, observation without exultation, industry without piety,
knowledge without love, understanding without humility, study without divine grace, the
mirror without divinely inspired wisdom" (Itinerarium, pro.4 [Bonaventure, Itinerarium
mentis in Deum, trans. Philotheus Boehner, Works of Saint Bonaventure 2 (Saint Bonaventure,
N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 1956), 33]). See also Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, Donum veritatis, esp. nn. 8 and 9.
4 For a contrast along these lines, see Charles Carpenter, Theology as the Road to Holiness
in St. Bonaventure (New York and Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1999), for an example of the
former; and Gregory LaNave, Through Holiness to Wisdom: The Nature of Theology
according to St. Bonaventure, Bibliotheca Seraphico-Capuccina 76 (Rome: Istituto storico <lei
Cappuccini, 2005), for an example of the latter.
5 The Roman commentary on the Sentences, which Leonard Boyle and John F. Boyle date
at 1265-66, adds little on these points to the Parisian Scriptum and the Summa Theologiae.
See Thomas Aquinas, Lectura romana in primum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, ed. L. E. Boyle
and J. F. Boyle, Studies and Texts, 152 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
2006).

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causes of theology: in order, the material cause (what theology is
about), the formal cause (how theology goes about its business),
the final cause (the perfection of theology), and the efficient cause
(who the theologian is).6 For each cause, I shall elaborate on what,
if anything, holiness has to do with it.
For the moment, I shall leave "holiness" undefined. This may
seem to be an odd choice, for Thomists know that Aquinas is
distinctive among his contemporaries in actually giving a
definition of "holiness": It is the virtue by which "the human
mind applies itself and its acts to God." It differs from religion
(which is part of the virtue of justice) only logically, not really.
And in a more general sense, it encompasses all the virtues insofar
as they are directed to the divine good. 7 The discussion of
theology and holiness often might be said to take its cue from
Aquinas in that "holiness" is often supposed to refer to a virtue or
set of virtues-at any rate, qualities of the theologian that are
necessary for theology. But "holiness" can reasonably be
understood as having a wider ambit. The Christian dispensation
is unintelligible without the communion of those who are in
Christ: is there not an ecclesiological dimension to holiness-that
is, a sense of particular persons being ordained by God to be
theologians for the Church? 8 Again, theology in its sapiential
aspect involves a view of the whole, creation and revelation,
reproducing "God's wisdom in our frail minds": might not
holiness be understood as recapitulating that ontological order,
manifesting and testifying to this view of the whole? 9 Moreover,
there is the famous saying of Evagrius Ponticus: "If you pray truly,
6 Aquinas does not delineate the nature of theology in quite this way, although his
distinctions do match up well with the four causes. This particular division is more explicit
in Bonaventure (his four questions in the prologue to book 1 of his commentary on the
Sentences). My choice here reflects my own methodological predilection: to gain insight into
Aquinas by asking Bonaventurean questions of him.
7 STh 11-11, q. 81, a. 8; ibid., ad 1.
8 Thus one might, inspired by the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius (Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
5.3-7) talk about the bishop as bishop being a theologian, or the celebration of the Eucharist
being the site of theology.
9 This is a central theme in Balthasar: "The proportions of revelation should be those of
theology" ("Theology and Holiness," 196).

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you will be a theologian. " 10 As we will see, Aquinas himself, in
laying out what is necessary for theology to be what it is appeals
to things other than human habits that can be seen as pertinent to
holiness.
My conclusions will therefore follow the template "holiness is
important, or influential, or necessary for theology insofar as
holiness encompasses the notion of X." My concern is with the
intrinsic perfection of theology, that is, what is necessary for it to
fulfill its nature. If we take holiness to mean purity of life, the
question is in what way does theology require purity of life? If we
take holiness to mean the practice of pious devotion, the question
is in what way does theology require pious devotion? Let the net
be cast as wide as we please; we will find many features of
Christian life that seem to be relevant to the practice of theology.
The question is, does theology intrinsically demand any of these
things? And to answer this, we need to know what it is that
theology demands.
I. HOLINESS AND THE SUBJECT OF THEOLOGY

The material cause of theology is the subject, or "what
theology is about." There are three senses in which one can speak
of the subject. 11 In one sense, the subject of a science is everything
that is considered within that science. This is the subject
considered in a material sense, and in theology it encompasses
what can rightly be called res et signa, Christus totus, or the opera
restaurationis. 12 In another sense, the subject is that which is
10 Evagrius Ponticus, De oratione 60 (PL 79: 1180).
11 See I Sent., pro., q. 1, a. 4; STh I, q. 1, aa. 3 and 7. For the text of the Parisian Scriptum,

see Adriano Oliva, Les debuts de l'enseignement de Thomas d'Aquin et sa conception de la
"sacra doctrina, "avec /'edition du prologue de son commentaire des Sentences (Paris: Librairie
philosophique J. Vrin, 2006). Because Oliva's edition does not name the parts of articles, I
have kept the standard divisions of the Paris edition edited by Pierre Mandonnet (1929).
12 For a helpful analysis of the relevant texts in Aquinas, see Willam A. Wallace, O.P., The
Role of Demonstration in Moral Theology: A Study of Methodology in St. Thomas Aquinas
(Washington, D.C.: The Thomist Press, 1962), 23-35.
Wallace calls this first sense of "subject" the genus subiectum: the genus of those things that
the knower comes to know more and more in the attainment of the science. Aquinas simply
speaks of what is "contained" (Sent.) or "treated" (STh) in the science.

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primarily considered-or, as Aquinas puts it in the Scriptum, the
subject the knowledge of which is "principally intended" in the
science. This "intention" signifies not only that thing at which the
science aims, but all other things that are, as it were, drawn into
the science by their relation to that principal thing. The customary
term for this is the obiectum formate quad, which blends both
material and formal elements. 13 The subject of theology in this
sense is God, for it is the knowledge of God at which we
principally aim in theology, and everything else that belongs to
the material subject of theology is related to God as its principle
and end. This subject is material, in the sense that it is the "that"
which is considered, but formal in the sense that it signifies that
all things other than God are considered in the science "sub
ratione Dei." Finally, the subject of a science may be said to be
that by which one science is distinguished from another. This is
the formal consideration of the subject, pure and simple. The
same material can be considered by various sciences, as for
example both philosophy and theology treat of God. The sciences
are distinguished by the formal aspect under which they consider
that material, and this is what Aquinas calls the subject in the
sense of the "ratio formalis obiecti," or what is commonly called
the obiectum formate quo. 14 In theology, this formal subject is the
credibite (Sent.) or omnia quaecumque sunt divinitus revetabitia
(STh). 15
In the Scriptum, the opera restaurationis is listed as one description of the third sense of
the subject listed below, namely, the obiectum formate quo. In the Summa, it is listed with "the
whole Christ" and "things and signs" as one description of the subject in a material sense.
13 Wallace calls this the subiectum attributionis, that which is considered principally and
to which all other things considered will be referred. The subject proper is an extramental
reality variously described as that which is principally intended and that of which predications
are made.
14 STh I, q. 1, a. 3. Wallace refers to this as the genus scibilis: that is, the genus subiectum
considered under the ratio formalis of the science.
15 A noteworthy difference between the treatments of this point in the Scriptum and the
Summa Theologiae is that what the former encompasses in one question, the latter divides
between two. In the Scriptum, Aquinas identifies the three senses of "subject" altogether. In
question 1 of the Summa Theologiae, he distinguishes between the first and third senses in
article 3 (which deals with the unity of the discipline), and between the first and second senses
in article 7 (which deals with the subject proper). In other words, Aquinas recognizes different

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The difference between the material object and the formal
object quo is easiest to understand. We can see here what
distinguishes theology from other disciplines, as well as what they
have in common. Metaphysics and theology both treat of God,
but they are formally distinct, for metaphysics considers God as
the cause of being, while theology considers God as he is revealed.
Insofar as theology depends upon revelation, therefore, it requires
the reception of revelation in faith. 16 Thus we come to our first
conclusion regarding holiness: insofar as holiness encompasses the
infused virtue of faith, it is necessary for theology.
A more difficult distinction is between the material object and
the formal object quad. For the Thomist, the principal subject of
theology is God. God is also, as one of the things we talk about in
theology, one of the material objects of theology. But when we
say that God is the subject we are speaking about the formal
aspect of the science. It is not that God is the most important
thing we talk about in theology, or that theology says more things
about God than about any of the other things that constitute its
material object. It is that anything spoken of in theology belongs

to theology only by virtue of its relation to God.
A right consideration of the subject means that theology cannot
pursue its rightful activity without being oriented to and guided
by that subject. This is the meaning of Aquinas's dictum that
formal aspects of the subject in the Scriptum, but regards them as mutually illuminating ways
to identify the subject. In the Summa Theologiae, by contrast, he sees these formal aspects as
doing essentially different work: namely, assuring the unity of the discipline, and focusing the
primary consideration of the discipline.
16 Torrell comments that no one really thinks that Christian theology is possible without
faith, except in a sort of hypothetical way (Torrell, "Theologie et saintete," 207 and n. 14).
One might argue that so long as one considers the material of revelation as if it were true, one
is practicing theology-regardless of whether one actually believes that revelation. I would say
that this suffices for the definition of an academic discipline-that is, theology so understood
could be properly distinguished from other disciplines that treat of the same material (e.g.,
philosophy, religious studies, history of theology). But it does not suffice for the definition of
the science of theology as subalternated to the knowledge of God and the blessed (STh I, q.
1, a. 2). Subalternation requires taking as principles the conclusions of a higher science. If the
"higher science" of God and the blessed is a fiction, then there is no real subalternation, and
the "science" would not actually produce scientia. Aquinas would have little interest in a
theology so defined.

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everything in theology is treated sub ratione Dei. Jean-Pierre
Torrell has made this a strong theme in his discussion of the
nature of theology in Aquinas and the connection between
theology and spirituality. As Torrell says, it was a fateful day for
theology when theologians began to think that theology was about
multiplying the things we say about God, rather than knowing
him. 17 Theology is not solely or even principally the deduction of
new truths, but rather the relating of all truths to what we know
of God as revealed. 18 For example, the philosopher knows that
the world is not necessary, that it is entirely dependent upon a
cause that transcends it. But when we in faith know the full
satisfaction of the divine love among the persons of the Trinity,
we see and understand better the utter non-necessity of creation,
and we acquire a sense of how creation is related to the love of
God for us. 19
Holiness is therefore necessary for theology insofar as one
means by "holiness" a right and abiding relationship to God as the
subject of theology, and a recognition that the things about which
one speaks gain their theological intelligibility from their
17 Jean-Pierre Torrell, "Le savoir theologique chez saint Thomas," Revue Thomiste 96
(1996): 355-96, esp. 381-85.
In broaching this topic, one always has to begin with a terminological clarification. In
Scholastic terminology, the subject of a science is the extramental reality that is known in the
science, while the object of the science is the knowledge that is the terminus of our intellectual
activity. In theology, God is the subject, for he is the reality beyond our minds that we seek
to know, and to whom all of our knowledge in theology is ordered; the things we say about
God are the object, the immediate terminus of our reasoning about him and his revelation.
This is almost the reverse of our contemporary terminology, according to which the subject
is the knower and the object is the thing outside the knower that is known.
18 "Through sacra doctrina, then, we possess the point of view of God himself, and look
over his shoulder, as it were, upon all things" (Mark F. Johnson, "The Sapiential Character
of the First Article of the Summa theologiae," in R. James Long, ed., Philosophy and the God
of Abraham: Essays in Memory of fames A. Weisheipl, O.P., Papers in Medieval Studies 12
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1991), 87-98, at 91. See also Mark F.
Johnson, "God's Knowledge in Our Frail Mind: The Thomistic Model of Theology,"
Angelicum 76 (1999): 25-46.
19 For a helpful treatment of this subject, see Francis Martin, "Revelation as Disclosure:
Creation," in Wisdom and Holiness, Science and Scholarship: Essays in Honor of Matthew L.
Lamb, ed. Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering (Naples, Fla.: Sapientia Press of Ave
Maria University, 2007), 205-47.

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relationship to God. A definition of theology that misses these
elements falsifies the nature of theology.
It is worth noting a classic dispute regarding the formal object
quad. In Aquinas's own day, some theologians taught that the
subject of theology is not God but rather the whole Christ.
Similarly, one occasionally hears today a plea that theology be less
theocentric and more Christocentric. It is not difficult to imagine
why such an option would seem desirable. To define the subject
of theology as God opens the way to considering theology almost
entirely as a philosophical discipline. There are many things we
can know about God on the basis of philosophy (e.g., his existence, his perfections, his creation), and theology might be drawn
to take its measure from these, rather than from the revelation of
God, his actual dispensation with respect to us. Moreover, a focus
on Christ as the subject of theology makes more apparent how
theology is to be Christian, that is, Christocentric.
Aquinas considers the possibility that the whole Christ is the
subject of theology. He rejects it, saying that while it is true that
"the whole Christ" encompasses the matter of theology, it is not
the principal subject. His objection is most telling. Aquinas wants
a subject that formally defines the science, not a mere list of the
things we talk about in it. To talk about the whole Christ is to talk
about divinity, humanity, the source of grace and the life of grace.
This is all well and good, but where is the formal unity? How are
these things related to each other ?20 They are related, of course.
The medieval Franciscans who talked about "the whole Christ"
were not interested in bits and pieces of the whole Christ, as if
one could talk about humanity or creation in separation from the
creating God. But this simply proves Aquinas's point. Positing
Christ as the subject of theology, producing a Christocentric
theology, is possible if one can show the principle of order that
coalesces the whole Christ into a unity. 21 For example, St.
20 This is the criticism levied by Henry

Donneaud, Theologie et intelligence de la foi au
XIII'"" siecle, Bibliotheque de la Revue Thomiste (Paris: Parole et silence, 2006), 757-58.
21 This is precisely why Emile Mersch argued that one can define God as the ultimate
object of theology and the whole Christ as the integral object of theology (Emile Mersch, S.J.,
The Theology of the Mystical Body, trans. Cyril Vollert, S.J. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co.,

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Bonaventure defines the subject of theology as both the whole
Christ and God, and it is possible that he would unite these by
regarding God as the principle to which the whole Christ is
reduced. 22 To ask whether Aquinas might accept this formulation
is beyond my scope here. But at least such a formulation would
highlight precisely the same thing Aquinas does when he speaks
of the subject of theology: it points to a simple extramental reality
to which everything the theologian wishes to speak about is
ordered and to which he must be in right relation in order to
fulfill the demands of the science.
II. HOLINESS AND THE MODE OF PROCEEDING IN THEOLOGY

The formal cause of theology has to do with its "mode of
proceeding" -that is, how theology goes about its business. Does
it proceed by way of authority, or by way of reason? Is its mode
exhortative, argumentative, or something else? For the Thomist,
theology is both a science and a wisdom, based in revelation,
reasoning to conclusions, and judging the principles of all other
sciences. Various modes of proceeding are appropriate, depending
on what aspect of theology is being considered, especially whether
one is considering its reception of its principles or the use that is
made of it. In the reception of its principles the mode of theology
can be reuelatiuus (insofar as the principles are given through God
speaking forth through a human instrument), oratiuus (the spirit
in which the principles are received), narratiuus signorum (the
signs confirming the authority of the ones who make the
principles known), or metaphoricum, siue symbolicum, uel
parabolicum (insofar as the things revealed are too high for us,
and so can be made known only by creaturely similitudes). Again,
theology has a threefold purpose: when it is being used for the
destruction of error or for the contemplation of truth, its mode is
argumentatiuum; when it is being used for moral instruction, its

1951), esp. chap. 3, "Unity in Theology: The Whole Christ."
22 Bonaventure, I Sent., proe., q. 1. See LaNave, Through Holiness to Wisdom, 42-43.

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mode can be preceptiuus, comminatorius et promissiuus, or
narratiuus exemplorum. 23
For those who are accustomed to think of Thomistic theology
as simply scientific, the above catalogue must broaden the
outlook. Indeed, a common objection to a scientific conception of
theology-an objection both modern and medieval-is that this
mode of proceeding is inadequate to the subject and end of
theology. Are not the things of God too high for our sight? And
are they not to be believed rather than known? The objections
have some merit. One cannot approach theology in an uninvolved
way, as one might approach, say, geometry or physics. But this is
true for a reason that is intrinsic to the scientific nature of
theology. The first principles of theology are not hypothetical
postulates. They must be both true and known to be true, by the
assent of faith in the theologian, by his attention to the authority
of the teacher, by his prayer, etc. Someone who lacks these
qualities can practice the science of theology only in a very
attenuated way.
When we recognize this aspect of theology we see the key
question with respect to holiness and the formal cause of
theology: what are the habits that are necessary, or at least
important, for theology to be theology?
Faith is obviously a sine qua non for theology, for without faith
one does not have the first principles from which the science of
theology proceeds. Charity is likewise necessary, though not so
absolutely as faith. Insofar as there can be faith without charity,
so there can be theology without charity. But this is not the norm,
nor is it possible for theology to begin without charity-for since
the infusion of faith is always accompanied by the infusion of
charity, if the latter has never been present, theology is missing its
condition sine qua non.
23 In the Scriptum, Aquinas addresses the topic of theology as science and as wisdom in I
Sent., pro., q. 1, a. 3, qcla. 2 and 3, respectively; and he treats of the various modes of
proceeding in I Sent., pro., q. 1, a. 5. In the Summa, theology as science is treated in STh I,
q. 1, a. 2; theology as wisdom in I, q. 1, a. 6; and various modes of proceeding in I, q. 1, aa.
8-10.

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Morever, charity is necessary for theology to achieve its end.
It is important to be precise here. The temptation is to make a
separation between theology and the theologian, and to say that,
while charity is certainly necessary for the theologian-that is, as
a Christian who cannot be in communion with God without
charity-it is not necessary for theology as such, which is a purely
intellectual act of reasoning applied to the things of faith. In fact,
for Aquinas at least the distinction is not so neat. He says that "the
end of this doctrine [sacra doctrina] is the contemplation of the
first truth in heaven" 24 -not the end of the theologian, but the
end of the activity of knowing the divine things, that is, the end
of theology. To be sure, this is an intellectual end; but without
charity, it is impossible for theology to be directed toward that
end. 25
There are other habits that are intrinsic to the correct "mode
of proceeding" in theology as well. There are those moral and
intellectual virtues that are a necessary part of any intellectual
discipline, notably studiousness (the virtue of moderating the
pursuit of knowledge [which is part of the virtue of temperance])
and docility (the virtue of being ready to be taught [which is part
of the virtue of prudence]). 26 There are also the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, most notably the gifts of knowledge and understanding. 27
The contribution of these intellectual gifts is not the infusion
of special species into the human mind, as if they were a version
of prophecy. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are the habits that
I Sent., pro., q. 1, a. 3, sol. 1.
See Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., "Chronique de thfologie fondamentale," Revue Thomiste
66 (1966): 267. See also below, on the end of theology.
26 See, e.g., Thomas M. MacLellan, "The Moral Virtues and the Speculative Life," Laval
theologique et philosophique 12 (1956): 175-232. See also How to Study: Being the Letter of
St. Thomas Aquinas to Brother john "De modo studendi," trans. and exposition by Victor
White, O.P. (London: Blackfriars, 1951). The latter is significant not so much for the text,
which is generally believed now not to be an authentic work of Aquinas, but for White's very
helpful exposition of the virtue of studiousness.
27 See STh I-II, q. 68; II-II, qq. 8-9; John of St. Thomas, The Gifts of the Holy Spirit, trans.
Dominic Hughes, O.P. (London and New York: Sheed and Ward, 1951), chaps. 3-4;
Romanus Cessario, O.P., Christian Faith and the Theological Life (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1996), chap. 5, "The Impartings of the Holy Spirit."
24

25

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GREGORY F. LANAVE

dispose the natural powers of the mind to be moved by the Holy
Spirit. Their distinctive quality may be read off of the natural
capacity they modify. To appreciate the gifts of knowledge and
understanding, therefore, one should begin with the natural
virtues of knowledge and understanding.
Knowledge is the virtue that has to do with the conclusions
drawn from sure principles. This is the goal of much of our
theological activity: discerning what follows from the sure
principles of our theology. The gift of knowledge likewise has to
do with conclusions: it gives us the capacity to see the implications of and connections between the things of faith insofar
as we are moved to do so by the Holy Spirit. In no way does it
replace theological reasoning itself, which proceeds in a natural
mode and whose conclusions are judged in light of the rigor of the
reasoning process. But the gift of knowledge can and should guide
theological reasoning, for it is the capacity that allows one to see
the conclusions in a divine mode, following the causal chain that
leads from anything that can be known of creatures to what is
known of God. 28 As the gift of knowledge influences theology,
theological conclusions are seen to matter-that is, not to be
merely the interesting fruit of speculation. For example, in
theology one rightly proceeds on the basis of a judgment about
the contingency of creation-God would not be less God if he did
not create. However, it is also the case that the principle of
creation is in some way the procession of the persons within the
Trinity. 29 Theological reasoning, knowing this principle, tries to
discover what one can say about the connection between the
procession of the Son and the Spirit and the creation of the world.
28 "Therefore, there is such a thing as a judgment from the motion of the Holy Ghost with
an ordered love of God and creatures, which distinguishes between God and creatures through
a right estimate of the latter .... The gift of knowledge ... considers divine truths by arising
from creatures to God or by making a comparison between God and creatures" Uohn of St.
Thomas, The Gifts of the Holy Spirit, 152-53).
29 STh I, q. 45, a. 6, co. and ad 2. For commentary, see Gilles Emery, O.P., "Trinity and
Creation: The Trinitarian Principle of the Creation in the Commentaries of Albert the Great,
Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas on the Sentences," in idem, Trinity in Aquinas, trans.
Matthew Levering et al. (Ypsilanti, Mich.: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2003), 3370.

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The gift of knowledge gives one a sense for the connection. In the
proper order of things, then, the gift of knowledge orders
theological reasoning in harmony with what it senses is the case.
As for understanding: the virtue of understanding involves the
apprehension of the principles of knowledge. So too by the gift of
understanding we have a graced apprehension of the principles of
the things of faith. By the virtue of faith we believe that which is
revealed; by the gift of understanding we penetrate more deeply
the reality of that which is revealed, for a connaturality is
established between it and us. The gift of understanding therefore
assists theology in two ways: first, it enhances the theologian's
adherence to the things revealed; second, it can give the
theologian a more expansive grasp of what is revealed. Romanus
Cessario comments that we often look to the saints, those who
"manifest special clarity in their understanding of the economy of
salvation ... [as] those who model the gift of understanding. " 30
He gives an example: "think of St. Francis of Assisi and his
intuitive grasp that all creation reflects the glory of the Lord."
This does not mean that the theologian, by the Holy Spirit
through the gift of understanding, receives distinct principlesthings that he knows that are other than the things known in faith.
The gifts do not grant a new object. But it is possible that because
of the gift of understanding the theologian will apprehend the
reality of the thing believed in a way that will grant a distinctive
guidance to his theology.
The Thomistic teaching on the habits necessary for theology
may therefore be summed up as follows. Certain moral and
intellectual virtues are important aids to theology, as they are to
any speculative discipline. The infused virtues of faith and charity
are simply necessary. And the gifts of the Holy Spirit have a
formative role; theology is possible without them, but
impoverished. Insofar as holiness is associated with any or all of
these habits, its role within theology may thereby be distinguished.

°Cessario, Christian Faith and the Theological Life, 174.

3

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GREGORY F. LANAVE

Ill. HOLINESS AND THE END OF THEOLOGY

The end of theology might be considered as its purpose. Why
do we engage in theology? Many answers could be given, but they
will generally be clustered around the same thought: that engaging
in theology helps one to achieve the goal of Christian life. This is
the sense that often underlies discussions of theology and holiness,
or theology and spirituality. The real Christian good is identified
with holiness, or spirituality (viz., union with God), and theology
is regarded as necessarily governed by this purpose-whether by
having precisely the same telos, or by materially contributing to
the achievement of that telos.
The problem with this line of thought is that if theology is
defined as a science, it must be judged by the canons of a science.
It may be that an intellectual activity is undertaken for the sake of
a nonintellectual goal, but such a goal would be extrinsic to the
activity, and thus not an essential part of the understanding of the
activity. To be more precise, one needs to speak not about the
purpose but about the "end" of the activity, that which perfects it
in its own right. A science is identified as speculative or practical
with respect to its end. Insofar as theology is understood as a
speculative science, its end is properly speculative. 31
Yet it is not enough to say this, for here we run up against the
concern expressed by both the Magisterium 32 and the Tradition.
Common in the tradition was the view of theology as a kind of
knowledge that is not purely speculative, for it was supposed to
pertain to more than just the speculative intellect. Aquinas himself
notes several passages from Scripture that suggest a practical end
to theology. 33 And if there was after the time of the High
Scholastics a separation between theological knowledge and the
spiritual or mystical life of the Christian, there were also attempts
to overcome this divide-most famously, in Thomistic circles, in
the description of theology as an affective science in the
31

I Sent., q. 1, a. 3, qcla. 1; STh I, q. 1, aa. 4-5.

32 See above, n. 2.
33 Jas 1:22 (cited in STh I, q. 1, a. 4, obj. 1); Jas 2:26; Ps 110:10 (cited in I Sent., pro., q.
1, a. 3, obj. 1).

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seventeenth-century French Thomism of Vincent Contenson,
Louis Bail, and Louis Chardon. 34
What then can we say about the definition of theology as a
speculative science? In what way does Aquinas's understanding on
this point satisfy the concern of the Magisterium and of the
Tradition for a theology that is not "merely" speculative, but
includes the practical and the affective as well?
The first element of the answer is that Aquinas does in fact see
a perfection of the human being that is first and foremost
speculative: the highest end of man is the contemplation of God.
There is no derogation of the practical here. A practical science
has to do with human acts. However much these can and must be
ordered to the divine things, one has to say that dealing with the
divine things themselves is intrinsically a higher, and more final,
activity. The speculative is to the practical here as the higher is to
the lower: to be sure, the good works of the will are necessary for
man to achieve that end, but the end itself supercedes them, and
thus it cannot be described as truly practical.
A second element lies in the fact that theology is not separated
from the realm of the practical. Aquinas speaks of theology as
containing the perfection of all practical knowledge as well as of
all speculative knowledge. 35 Since the formal object of theology is
relation to divine revelation, and since divine revelation pertains
not only to human knowledge but also to the perfection of man
in virtue, there is no difficulty in saying that the same science
perfects all practical as well as all speculative knowledge.
It is not only the encompassing character of divine revelation
that guarantees this. Revelation must be received with the human
habit of faith, and faith itself consists of both speculative and
practical elements-that is, the intellect and the will. Faith lies in
the intellect, but because the evidentiary power of the object of
faith is not enough to move the intellect to knowledge, the will is
34 See, e.g., Vincent Contenson, Theologia mentis et cordis, lib. 1, prae. 1, appendix 2,
"Commercium theologiae et pietatis." See also Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P., A History of
Theology, trans. Hunter Guthrie, S.J. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc.,
1968), 166-68.
35 I Sent., q. 1, a. 3, qcla. 1, ad 1; STh I, q. 1, a. 4.

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GREGORY F. LANAVE

always in play as well. Hence the classic definition of belief as "to
think with assent," the will moving the intellect to assent.
Supernatural charity is the most obvious companion to faith in
this respect, for it is this that makes faith living, saving faith. And
charity of course belongs to the perfection of the will. But charity
is not the only volitional component related to faith. In charity
faith finds its perfection, but the order of these virtues must be
that faith comes first-for the simple reason that it is only in faith
that the intellect is so related to God (its object, the one it knows)
that the will can be moved to love with charity. Aquinas also
recognizes a movement of the will prior to the act of charity that
forms part of the act of faith: what the Tradition comes to call the
"pius credulitatis affectus." This is not the adhesion of the will to
the Beloved; it is rather the recognition, moved by grace, of the
goodness and appropriateness of that which one is called to
believe, which brings with it both a desire and confidence. 36
Recognizing this element of faith we avoid the difficulties
associated with a pure speculation in faith. That which is believed
in can never be a matter of indifference to the believer, for if it is
there is no act of faith, no movement of the will inclining the will
to assent. To this extent, theology is properly practical as well as
speculative.
A third element has to do with the distinction between a
speculative and an affective science. There is an advantage to
describing theology as an affective science-that is, a science that
is completed in fostering and perfecting our affective relationship
to God-in that it accords well with some of the characteristics of
theology we have already seen in Aquinas, such as attention to the
subject rather than the multiplication of things known about the
subject, or the kind of apprehension associated with the gifts of
the Holy Spirit. One could then describe the perfection of
theology as something like, as Bonaventure puts it, a pious
knowledge of the things that are believed. 37 A connection to
holiness would be self-evident.
36 See M.-M. Labourdette, O.P., "La vie theologale selon saint Thomas: L'affection clans
la foi," Revue Thomiste 60 (1960): 375.
37 Bonaventure, De septem donis Spiritus sancti 4.5.

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Aquinas does not take this route, nor does he even explicitly
consider it. 38 For Aquinas, our affections properly speaking do not
have the capacity to attain God. I may have joy (gaudium,
pleasure in the satisfaction of the rational appetite) in knowing
God as the source of all Truth. I may so delight in God that I
yearn for him more and more. But what is really happening is
either that my affection arises from a cognitive or appetitive act,
which is able to be directed toward God; or, that my affection
prompts my spiritual capacities of knowledge and will to attend
to God. 39 For Aquinas, there is no special affective capacity that
brings theology to its completion. To speak about the perfection
of theology is to speak about the kind of act in which theology is
completed. To say that it is in an affective act is to mis-locate
affection. The confusion arises because we long to see theology as
a loving knowledge of God. This is all well and good. But we have
to distinguish between love as part of the intellectual appetite,
which does importantly direct us to the proper knowledge of
God, and love as an affection that arises from our perception of
God as our good. The way Aquinas sees it, the knowledge of God
inevitably has an appetitive component; but this is not enough to
warrant calling theology an affective science.
We must not be deceived by Aquinas's description of theology
as a speculative science. It is indeed speculative: it is perfected in
knowing rather than in doing or in loving. But doing and loving
follow inevitably in its train, and insofar as they are capable of
producing acts that direct the speculative intellect they can have
a directive influence on theology. What Aquinas excludes is the
38 This may be due in part to a departure from the Augustinian framework (which does,
in its notion of wisdom, give some room to an affective dimension of thought) in favor of an
Aristotelian framework (which distinguishes simply between the speculative and the practical).
See Frarn;;ois-Xavier Putallaz, Figure francescane al/a fine de/ XIII secolo, trans. Costante
Marabelli (Milan: Jaca Book, 1996), 79-81.
39 I may say that the first is a natural joy and the second is a supernatural joy. But what I
really mean is that the first is joy in a natural object and the second is joy in a supernatural
object. Nothing has transformed the joy itself. This is different from the influence of grace on
the intellect and the will. Faith not only allows me to know God, it allows me to know him
in a new way. Charity not only allows me to love God; it allows me to love him in a new way.
The same cannot be said of the affections. When they follow from our proper orientation to
God, they are not transformed affections, but the same affections differently directed.

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possibility that a holy, loving affection is in fact a capacity outside
of the speculative intellect that is itself capable of apprehending
God. One finds such a possibility elsewhere in the Christian
tradition, in the doctrine of "the spiritual senses." Aquinas marks
a decisive turn from this doctrine-again, not because he wishes
to uproot affection from theology, but because he simply gives it
a different place in his anthropology. 40
Given this description of the kind of speculative science that
theology is, there are several things to say about the relationship
between theology and holiness, depending on whether one defines
holiness in relation to the intellect, the will, or the affections.
Holiness is implicated in theology insofar as one can describe the
speculative end of theology as itself a holy knowledge. The
beatific vision is, after all, beatifying. Furthermore, holiness is
necessary for theology insofar as it encompasses the acts of the
will that are the necessary concomitants of faith, namely, the pius
credulitatis affectus and charity. Finally, holiness is related to the
end of theology insofar as it connotes either the loving response
to God prompted by the theological apprehension of him or,
more strongly, that loving quality that directs the attention of the
theologian toward God.
IV. HOLINESS AND THE THEOLOGIAN

It remains to speak about holiness and the efficient cause of
theology, that is, the theologian. Who is the theologian? Is the
saint, as saint, a theologian, as Lethel would have it? What of the
bishop-the theologian par excellence in the Dionysian system of
hierarchy, of which Aquinas is an heir? 41 Or should one say,

40 On this point, see Richard Cross's essay on Aquinas in Paul L. Gavrilyuk and Sarah
Coakley, eds., Spiritual Senses: The Perception of God in the History of Western Christian
Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
41 Brought to prominence again in recent years through the work of Jean-Luc Marion; see
"Of the Eucharistic Site of Theology," in idem, God without Being, trans. Thomas A. Carlson
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 139-58.

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following an ancient Augustinian motif, that Christ is the
theologian? 42
To be clear, I am not talking here about the habitual qualities
the theologian must possess; I have already treated of these under
the formal cause of theology, or the "mode of proceeding." The
question is rather whether there is something else about the state
of the person that is a definitive element in his being called a
theologian.
In the simplest sense, the theologian for Aquinas is the
individual who has acquired the habitus of theology. Thus Cajetan
is certainly a theologian, while Joan of Arc is not (pace Lethel).
We properly call Avery Dulles a theologian, but we do not extend
the term to Blessed Theresa of Calcutta. The state of a particular
Christian may demand of him an attention to theology (e.g., the
bishop, who must reflect on Sacred Scripture and the articles of
faith so as to be able to teach his people), 43 but in this view there
is nothing about any Christian state that by itself makes the person
in that state a theologian.
Such is the view in which theology is understood as the private
activity of an individual Christian (i.e., his attempt to move from
faith to understanding). But theology may also be considered as
part of the teaching role of the Church. This requires some
explanation. It is common in Catholic theology to say that it is the
work of the Magisterium to define what is revealed, and it is the
work of the theologian to draw out the things that follow from
revelation, as part of understanding it better. The realm of the
Magisterium is that of faith, while the realm of the theologian is
theology. On such an account we cannot speak of the Church
This topic is not dealt with as a distinct question in either the Scriptum or the Summa.
On this responsibility of the bishop in Aquinas's view, see Michael G. Sirilla, "Status
Perfectionis: The Bishop as Spiritual Perfector in Thomas Aquinas's Commentaries on the
Pastoral Epistles" (Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, 2009), passim; for
example, "In correlating the episcopal duties mentioned in Titus 1:9 with Aristotle's
description of the task of the wise, Aquinas portrays the bishop as a 'philosopher' in the
broadest sense: one who lovingly adheres to his science-a lover of wisdom. The prelate ought
to possess the divine science, meditating on the divinely revealed first principles, the articles
of faith; but his meditation is for the sake of others, to teach them the truth and to refute the
errors of those who oppose sound doctrine" (189-90).
42
43

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GREGORY F. LANAVE

having a magisterial theology. Yet is this the case? On the
contrary, the Magisterium has the authority not only to define the
deposit of faith, but also to teach definitively regarding those
things that are necessary for us to hold the deposit of faith. 44 At
times the Magisterium has made a point of identifying philosophical theses that fall into this category. 45 Also included could
be certain ways of ordering and understanding that deposit, which
is a properly theological activity. In this sense, we can speak of a
magisterial theology: the definition of elements of theology
necessary for holding what we know in faith to be true. 46 As the
Magisterium knows these things, so it is engaged in theology.
Moreover, theology pertains not only to knowing, but in a
distinctive way to teaching. One knows the Dominican ideal:
"contemplata aliis tradere." In this life, it is a greater thing to
teach what one knows than simply to know it. This is not only the
fruit of charity. Aquinas maintains, following Dionysius, that God
44 The "secondary object of infallibility"; see Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Mysterium ecclesiae 3; John Paul II, Ad tuendam (idem 3; Vatican Council II, Lumen
gentium 25.
45 The nineteenth and twentieth centuries are rife with such pronouncements,
most
famously the encyclicals Aetemi patris (Leo XIII, 1879), Pascendi (Pius X, 1907), Humani
generis (Pius XII, 1950), and Fides et ratio Uohn Paul II, 1998); see also the condemnations
related to, e.g., Georg Hermes (1835), Louis Bautain (1840), Augustine Bonnetty (1855),
Anton Gunther (1857), and Antonio Rosmini-Serbati (18 8 7); Pius X, mo tu proprio "Doctoris
Angelici" (1914); Sacred Congregation of Studies, "Twenty-Four Thomistic Theses" (1914),
Pius XI, encyclical Studiorem ducem (1923).
46 We should not expect the Church to define the work of one theologian as known
infallibly to be true. Here John Paul Il's warning in Fides et ratio 49 is appropriate: "The
Church has no philosophy of her own, nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy
in preference to others"-the same could well be said of theology. But in various
pronouncements, such as the naming of a Doctor of the Church (see, e.g., John Paul II,
apostolic letter Divini amoris scientia) or the mandating of particular studies in seminaries, the
Church does give approbation to particular figures. The best candidate for a normative
theologian for the Church is certainly Aquinas; see Santiago Ramirez, O.P., "The Authority
of St. Thomas Aquinas," The Thomist 15 (1952): 1-109. It is too much to say that the Church
knows infallibly that the whole of the theological theses or system of Aquinas is ttue. But the
Church's approbation of Aquinas is such that the theologian must ponder, what are the
elements of Aquinas's thought that cannot be doubted if one is to hold the deposit of faith?
(See, e.g., John Paul II, Fides et ratio 43-44; see also Gregory F. LaNave, "Bonaventure's
Arguments for the Existence of God and an 'Independent' De Deo uno," The Thomist 74
[2010]: 62 n. 14.)

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ordains that "the gifts of his providence should come to the lowest
through intermediaries." 47 This includes sacred doctrine. The
preeminent theologian is therefore the one from whom all
theological knowledge begins-namely, Christ. Included in his
theological activity is the work of those through whom his
teaching comes. This obviously pertains to the Magisterium, for
it was given to the apostles and their successors the bishops to
pass on, define, and defend the teaching of Christ. Thus the
Magisterium as teacher participates in a theological activity.
Moreover, individual theologians may enter the ranks of the
intermediaries of sacred doctrine as well, insofar as their theology
can be conceived as a part of the divine ordering through which
the teaching of Christ is spread to all. As Kevin White comments:
"The unwritten doctrina Christi [that is, the oral teaching of
Christ] ... is transmitted through the doctrina Christiana of
which the Summa Theologiae is meant to be an exemplary case. "48
The Doctors of the Church are the most notable members of this
group. But the work of any theologian, insofar as it is attempting
this passing on of doctrina Christiana, and as it is received and
given approbation by the Magisterium, can fall into this category.
Finally, one may wonder if individual saints who are not
obviously theologians may be included as well. This is a theme
one finds in Hans Urs van Balthasar: the idea that God uses
specific saints as a way of communicating a distinctive way of
living out the truth of the gospel that is normative for a specific
age.49 Thus some would speak of the theology of a saint enshrined
47 Aquinas, "Rigan montes," proe. The text is the inaugural lecture for Aquinas's inception
as regent master in Paris. For English translations see Albert and Thomas: Selected Writings,
trans. Simon Tugwell, O.P., The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press,
1988), 355-60; also Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings, trans. and ed. with introduction and
notes by Ralph Mclnerny (London: Penguin Classics, 1998), 13-17.
48 Kevin White, "Aquinas on Oral Teaching," The Thomist 71 (2007): 528. See also
Aquinas, Lectura Romana, pro., q. 4, a. 3, where Aquinas calls the articles of faith principles
per se nota for "this science," which produce demonstrative arguments, and the writings of
the saints probabiles rationes, which are the principles of probable arguments.
49 Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Introduction," in idem, Two Sisters in the Spirit: Therese of
Lisieux and Elizabeth of the Trinity, trans. Donald Nichols, Anne Elizabeth Englund, and
Dennis Martin (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992); cf. Lethe!, Connaitre /'amour du Christ,
31-54.

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GREGORY F. LANAVE

in his vocation and mission (one thinks of Francis of Assisi, Joan
of Arc, or Therese of Lisieux). Again, the point is that insofar as
a person is part of the divine ordering through which the teaching
of Christ is transmitted to all, he may be part of a theological
activity. Thus is opened the possibility of some theologians being
defined as such by their holiness, insofar as holiness encompasses
the distinctive gift from God that enables a person to participate
in this mission. (Holiness thus understood is associated withgratia
gratis data rather than gratia gratum faciens.)
There is a hint of this same idea in Aquinas's discussion of the
"states of perfection." There are two such states: that of the
bishop and that of religious. Following Dionysius, Aquinas says
that the bishop is in the position of a perfecter, while religious are
in the position of being perfected. 50 Either one can be seen as
relevant to theological activity. A religious, because of the form of
his life, is singularly equipped with the aids to contemplation that
make for a good theologian. 51 A bishop, on the other hand, is in
a state in which it is incumbent upon him to practice theology,
insofar as this pertains to his perfective pastoral duty.
In summary, although it makes sense to say for St. Thomas that
the theologian is the person with acquired theological habitus, it
also makes sense to say that the person marked by holiness in a
distinctive way-whether the bishop, an individual teacher, or a
paradigmatic saint-can as such be called a theologian.
CONCLUSION

I have presented a variety of ways in which holiness, depending
on how one defines it, can be seen as intrinsic to theology. I will
close simply by emphasizing the following point. One can
conceive, on Thomistic grounds, of a theologian who is both a
genuine, even a fine theologian, while he is also a wretched
Christian. But this does not mean that theology should be
regarded as an intellectual activity that has nothing to do with
so STh 11-11, q. 184, a. 7.
51 See, e.g., STh 11-11, q. 188,

a. 5.

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holiness, or that has only an extrinsic relationship thereto. The
question is, as I stated at the beginning, how is holiness intrinsic
to theology? How is it impossible for theology to be what it is
truly meant to be in isolation from holiness? St. Thomas gives us
much to think about here. Foremost in his consideration are
perhaps the habits necessary for the theologian, which would
accord well with his attention to holiness as a virtue. But his
carefully delineated treatment of the various elements of theology,
with his explicit and implicit teaching on the kind of knowledge
theology is, the role of the will in theology, the connection of
theology with different states of Christian life, etc., open up a
wide field for exploration. To recover this is to recover the
integrity of Christian thought and life, and the most robust sense
of the nature of theology.

BOOK REVIEWS
The Natural Desire to See God according to St. Thomas Aquinas and His
Interpreters. By LAWRENCE FEINGOLD. Second edition. Ave Maria, Fla.:
Sapientia Press, 2010. Pp. 528. $34.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-1-932589-54-

2.
Few people would have the historical learning and speculative acumen to
undertake a comprehensive re-evaluation of the complex issues raised by Henri
de Lubac's famous work from 1946, Surnaturel. De Lubac's controversial
treatment of the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas concerning the final end of man
and the natural desire to see God is challenging not only because it appeals (or
sometimes leaves unexamined) a broad swath of texts in Aquinas, but also
because it makes ambitious claims about a variety of subsequent interpreters
whose speculative thoughts are themselves quite involved and subtle-from
Scotus and Cajetan to Suarez and Baius-and whose works are often composed
in reaction to one another. Lawrence Feingold has produced a work that
attempts to revisit the question of Aquinas's doctrine on this contested topic in
such a way as to provide criteria for evaluating subsequent interpretations of St.
Thomas's doctrine-from Cajetan to De Lubac-through both historical analysis
and speculative comparison.
The book is composed of sixteen chapters and a lengthy conclusion. The
opening chapters (1-3) treat Aquinas's analysis of natural desire (appetite,
inclination, objects of the will, conditional desires), and many of his texts
concerning the natural desire to see God. From the beginning of the book,
Feingold establishes a distinction that is central to his interpretation not only of
St. Thomas but also of the subsequent debate: an innate inclination or appetite
of a nature (which precedes any conscious reflection) versus an elicited desire
that arises consciously as a result of knowledge, proceeding out of the natural
desire for knowledge of causes. The distinction is not proper to Aquinas, but is
one employed commonly by theologians on both sides of the debate, from Scotus
to Suarez and including De Lubac. (Thus there is no escape from terminological
anachronism.) Throughout his work, Feingold is at pains to show that the
distinction has a basis in Aquinas's own texts and that without it his various
461

462

BOOK REVIEWS

statements on the natural desire cannot be treated adequately. Classically,
interpreters of Aquinas from Soto and Toledo down to De Lubac have argued
that the natural desire to see God in Aquinas is rooted in the first element of the
distinction: an innate tendency naturally inscribed in the inclinations or appetites
of created spirit as such for the supernatural. Meanwhile, the mainstream
Dominican and Jesuit commentary tradition (Sylvester of Ferrara, Banez, John
of St. Thomas, Vazquez, Suarez) has argued for the latter interpretation: the
natural desire to know God in himself pertains to a natural appetite for human
knowledge, elicited by the knowledge that there exists a first cause of all things,
and by the natural desire to see or know immediately this first cause. The two
interpretations differ on substantive issues: Is the natural inclination of created
spirit capable by its own powers of tending formally toward the supernatural?
Is the human desire for immediate knowledge of God demonstrable by reason
or known only by way of revelation? Is this desire conditional (based on the idea
of a possibility nature cannot realize itself but which would be wonderful were
it possible) or something inscribed in the spirit in such a way that its absence
would imply natural failure for the creature, considered precisely with respect
to its natural orientation toward an end? Ultimately the answers one gives to
these various questions affect deeply how one understands the structural
relations of grace and nature in spiritual creatures.
Chapters 4 and 5 treat the doctrines of Scotus and of Denis the Carthusian
respectively on the natural desire for God. The contrast elaborated between the
two is instructive. The Subtle Doctor held to the presence of an innate
inclination in created spirits toward the beatific vision, yet based on a potency
for what is not due to the creature. Thus Scotus holds that the souls of infants
who die without baptism do not suffer from the privation of the vision of God
in limbo, and that their nature is not "due" this grace in view of its fulfillment
(48-56). Denis the Carthusian, meanwhile, reacts against Scotus's views on the
innate tendency toward the supernatural by affirming that the natural end of the
human being must be proportionate to a nature's capacities, so that there cannot
be a natural desire to see God. Such a desire is made possible only in grace and
is made known only through divine revelation. It cannot be demonstrated as a
truth available to natural reason concerning the final end of man (69-72).
Chapters 6-8 amount to a 100-page historical and analytical defense of
Cajetan's interpretations of Aquinas, with respect to De Lubac's often textually
inaccurate and metaphysically confused treatment of this figure. (This was in fact
long overdue, and Dr. Feingold is to be commended for his courage in defying
the politically correct certitudes of those who continually rehearse De Lubac's
metanarrative in a wholesale and uncritical fashion.) Chapter 6 shows how
Cajetan in his De potentia neutra responded to Scotus's arguments concerning
the natural desire by recourse to Aquinas's arguments that there cannot exist in

BOOK REVIEWS

463

human nature a natural inclination toward the supernatural as such, and that, for
this, new principles of supernatural grace (faith, hope, and charity in particular)
are required. (Aquinas's view is analyzed synchronically in multiple texts: 85-97.)
From this point on in the book a number of things begin to emerge clearly: that
Aquinas's treatment of the natural desire cannot accord completely with that of
De Lubac; that De Lubac has in some respects taken a Scotist reading of the
question and projected it back onto Aquinas without distinguishing their views
sufficiently; that De Lubac misunderstood in part what Cajetan was doing
theologically (in maintaining a Thomistic distinction of the natural and
supernatural against what he rightly perceived to be an ambiguous distinction in
Scotus); and that the Thomistic commentary tradition did not always rush to
project alien categories onto Aquinas in this dispute, but, at least in this case,
appealed to Aquinas's own terminology concerning natural inclinatio in order
to fend off a potential misreading that would itself be anachronistic.
Chapter 7 compounds this sense of the shaking of the foundations, as
Feingold examines Cajetan's treatment of "obediential potency." Famously,
Gilson, Laporta, and De Lubac claimed that this notion in Aquinas appeals above
all to the miraculous as such, and therefore was misapplied by Cajetan in his
polemic against Scotism to the arena of the soul's elevation to grace. Feingold
demonstrates conclusively through an examination of multiple texts of Aquinas
that Cajetan interpreted his thought in largely accurate ways. The notion of
"obediential potency" is employed by Aquinas to speak of the passive potency
of human nature for elevation in grace to the exercise of the theological virtues,
the infused virtues, beatification, and the hypostatic union (136-54). Here
especially the book seems to show that a widespread assumption of modern
theology is in need of re-evaluation.
Chapter 8 argues (to my mind accurately) that Cajetan misinterpreted Aquinas
on the natural desire to see God, particularly in his commentary on question 12,
article 1 of the Prima pars, precisely by claiming that the desire was supernatural
only, as related to a supernatural object. The subsequent Dominican
commentatorial tradition commonly criticized this reading, insisting precisely
against Scotus and others. that the natural desire to see God that Aquinas speaks
of always pertains to an elicited desire, based on the desire to know the hidden
cause of manifest effects. Therefore it is properly natural in both its formal
constitution and its end or object, and not supernatural as such. Feingold argues,
however (175-79), that in his commentary on question 3, article 8 of the Prima
secundae, Cajetan does begin to pursue the solution that the Dominicans after
him will understand to be textually and metaphysically compelling.
Chapters 9-12 detail the formation of the mature Scholastic synthesis on this
topic, in figures such as Sylvester of Ferrara, Medina, Banez and Suarez, against
the counterinterpretations of Aquinas by Soto and Toledo. Feingold returns to

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the texts of Aquinas on multiple related topics to attempt to demonstrate the
bases for the later interpreters' readings. The chapter on Sylvester presents the
interpretation of Aquinas that Feingold himself ultimately upholds: The natural
desire to see God is an elicited desire, a movement of the will that follows on
knowledge. It is necessarily aroused whenever a given good is considered (the
good of immediate knowledge of God). The desire is related to the consideration
of God as the primary cause who can be known to exist through the medium of
creatures, but who remains unknown in himself and who the intellect would
naturally wish to see in himself. This desire stems, then, from the natural desire
to know rooted in the innate appetite for knowledge (189). It is evidently not
specified or ordered immediately to the grace of the beatific vision, but is rather
the structural natural precondition for the latter grace, so that the intellect is
susceptible (in obediential potency) to elevation to the supernatural order.
In chapters 11 and 12 Feingold argues that Medina, Banez and Suarez built
up a set of reflections complementary to those of Sylvester: Aquinas affirms a
twofold end of man, one natural and one supernatural. The former is
"proportional" to nature's intrinsic powers and inclinations while the latter is
not (236-55). While human beings were created in a state of grace, it is possible
for the formal structure of the human nature that we now possess in this
economy to have been created in a state of pure nature, with a proportionate
natural end alone (223-35). The natural desire to see God is a conditional desire,
something that permits man to open up naturally to the grace of the vision of
God, not something ordering our nature toward divinization such that the vision
is due to nature or necessary in order to complete its intrinsic structure qua
natural spirit (261-67). Aquinas's arguments from reason for the possibility of
the grace of the beatific vision are not demonstrative arguments, but arguments
from fittingness (269-76).
On these various subjects, Feingold's arguments are accompanied by analysis
of a dense array of texts of Aquinas, as well as a coherent thread of narrative,
explaining the gradual development of a doctrine by later interpreters who made
appeal to these texts. The argument is accompanied by helpful analysis of the
contrary views of Laporta, De Lubac, and several other influential modern
interpreters.
In chapter 13 Feingold notes how Jansenius challenged this Scholastic consensus and returned to the notion of an innate natural tendency or appetite for
the supernatural. He then presents at length the views of De Lubac and compares
these views with those of Aquinas in chapters 14 and 15. The treatment of De
Lubac is insightful and certainly respectful in tone. It is in fact possible that those
who are sympathetic to De Lubac's overall interpretation of Aquinas will find the
identification of the fundamental points of controversy helpful in various ways.
Among other things, Feingold does an excellent job of showing how those who

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do uphold the doctrine of an innate natural tendency or appetite for the
supernatural (Scotus, Soto, Toledo, Bellarmine,Jansenius, De Lubac) disagree on
many important specific issues and therefore articulate the doctrine in a diversity
of ways. Such topics include: the possibility of a state of pure nature; the
possibility of a painless limbo for nonbaptized, sinless souls deprived of the
beatific vision; the sense in which the final end of grace is due to nature; the way
in which the desire to see God might be conditional or "absolute"; the way such
a desire might be rationally demonstrable or not. In short, Feingold shows that
De Lubac's own position is not really marked by a return-behind 700 years of
monolithic commentary to the contrary-to the true Aquinas who should be read
in light of the Fathers; it is rather a reading of Aquinas that has many precedents
in more recent centuries, itself marked by ways of thinking that are irreducibly
neo-Scholastic. Furthermore, De Lubac's own interpretation of the problem
tends to understate (or ignore?) that this tradition of interpretation is itself
marked by contrasting subdifferences that are subtle but quite theologically
significant in consequence.
Feingold underscores some of the acute originality of De Lubac's own
position, vis-ii-vis Scotus, Soto, or Jansenius. The Jesuit takes the natural desire
to see God to be an absolute desire. The intellect and will develop dynamically
toward the reception of the vision as their unique ultimate object. This object
characterizes radically what they are as natural inclinations because they are
constituted by a calling to the supernatural (297-305). Therefore, while God
might make a spiritual creature in some possible world in a state of pure nature,
the spiritual creatures that exist in our world (ourselves and angels) could
not-given our natural structure-have possibly existed without a corresponding
offer of grace. The gratuity of grace is safeguarded by De Lubac principally by
underscoring the gratuity of creation as such of spiritual creatures in grace (30914 ).
Feingold's final chapter and conclusion offer a thorough critique of De
Lubac's position in light of the preceding study of Aquinas's own texts and of the
commentary tradition that treated the desire as an elicited desire for knowledge
of the primary cause. It seems to this reader that the historical and speculative
arguments offered in defense of the classical position are utterly compelling and
that the critique of De Lubac's interpretation of Aquinas is quite convincing.
Others, of course, will be reticent to assent. Cardinal De Lubac's disciples will
find a loyal engagement with the book very helpful, however, for it aids one
greatly to circumscribe better the shape of this multisided and complex debate.
Feingold identifies a host of important and subtle theological and historical
questions, and his interpretation of the controversy suggests important
consequences for our rethinking of the themes of nature and grace.

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One aspect in the study that is underemphasized or that could be considered
an important addendum is a consideration of the effects of sin upon the
attainment of the natural ends of the human person (natural knowledge and
natural love of God). Aquinas is quite adamant about the absence of a capacity
in fallen human nature to love God above all things even naturally-in the
absence of grace (STh I-II, q. 109, a. 3). He also in various places minimizes the
natural capacities of the intellect to contemplate God in most men in virtue of
the consequences of sin, ignorance, and cultural limitations. Consequently, if the
final natural end of man (the imperfect beatitude of natural knowledge and love
of God) is preserved in the economy of redemption, it is also in some real sense
restored therein. This means that even if Feingold is right in identifying a more
nuanced account of the structure of nature and grace in Aquinas than De Lubac
sees, existentially even the natural order is only obtainable in its relative integrity
under and in grace. The unity of the two orders (of nature and grace) in the
exercise of the economy suggests a unified destiny: the natural ordering of the
person toward God cannot function rightly except within and by grace. To say
this is not to agree with De Lubac's reading of Aquinas on the final end (to the
contrary), but it does show that there is a point of irenic contact between him
and a thinker like Sylvester of Ferrara: Ultimately it is only in the calling by grace
to the beatific vision that we recover fully even our own natural self and its
theocentric tendencies.
Henri de Lubac's Surnaturel thesis was influential, but it is not true to say that
his argument (or perhaps more accurately, his constellation of intuitions) was
universally compelling. It was and continues to be irreducibly controversial, and
this for reasons that are speculative or metaphysical, but also textual and
historical. Part of the power and beauty of De Lubac's writing stems from his
capacity synthetically to present a host of historical and literary sources. But he
almost never presents a complete historical analysis of those sources themselves,
sufficiently cited and analyzed in their respective contexts, and arranged
diachronically and in relation to subsequent authors and controversies. Even less
does he seek systematically to disclose the speculative presuppositions of the
thinkers whose ideas he cites, while arranging these speculative views in relation
to one another and in refutation of the true and false propositions of the
speculative arguments of his adversaries. This is why Feingold's book is
important and why it challenges the thesis of Surnaturel so effectively. Feingold
returns to the sources De Lubac so often merely alludes to, from Aquinas to
Jansenius, and presents a coherent, clear historical and speculative analysis of
their various treatments of the problem of the "natural desire to see God." Of
course, the controversy surrounding Surnaturel stemmed not only from the
content of the theological argument advanced, but also from the form of the
method employed (historical ressourcement, as opposed to neo-Scholastic

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presentation). Feingold's work is an interesting reflection of this background: the
theological issue being touched upon is treated by recourse to a highly ambitious
synthesis of Scholastic and historical methodologies. Interestingly, Feingold has
produced what is simultaneously an historical ressourcement of the Thomist
Scholastic commentary tradition and a veritable contemporary exercise of the
Scholastic speculation which that tradition embodies. Whatever the
imperfections of his work, it represents a highly respectable achievement.
THOMAS JOSEPH WHITE, 0.P.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

In Defense of Common Sense: Lorenzo Valla's Humanist Critique of Scholastic
Philosophy. By LODINAUTA.I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History.
Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 2009. Pp. 401
+xiii. $39.95 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-674-03269-1.
From its inception with Georg Voigt's Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen
Alterthums oder, das erste jahrhundert des Humanismus (1859) and Jacob
Burckhardt's Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (1860), the modern study of
Italian humanism has labored under a curious burden. Straining to find men who
were emancipated from traditional religious authorities, the first students of the
Italian Renaissance made their subjects into good liberal Protestants. Although
scholars as diverse as Giuseppe Toffanin, Paul Oskar Kristeller, Henri de Lubac,
and Edgar Wind have repeatedly challenged such prejudices since the 1950s,
historians of philosophy have largely ignored their valiant efforts to return the
humanists to their native soil. Such historians, like Wilhelm Dilthey and Ernst
Cassirer before them, still imagine the chief moral values of the Renaissance to
be individualism and secularism. Lodi Nauta's study of Lorenzo Valla's The
Pruning of Dialectic and Philosophy (Repastinatio dialectice et philosophie) is a
wonderful response to this ongoing prejudice about the philosophical
significance of Italian humanism. Drawing upon but surpassing the previous
studies of Gianni Zippe!, Charles Trinkaus, Riccardo Fubini, and Scott
Blanchard, In Defense of Common Sense is a welcome contribution to our
understanding of medieval, Renaissance, and modern philosophy alike.
This is no mean feat. Lorenzo Valla (1406-57), perhaps best known as the
man who showed the Donation of Constantine to be a forgery, is a bit of a

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chameleon, having been linked to a motley crew of philosophers including
Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Martin Heidegger, and the late
anti-essentialist Wittgenstein. One need not ponder long to understand why
historians of philosophy have placed Valla in such mixed company: they have
defined the humanist less by his arguments and more by their shared prejudice
against the alleged "essentialism" of Scholasticism. Nauta's work is a healthy
corrective to this trend. As he drily remarks, "one must be familiar with the
scholastic tradition to evaluate Valla's program, and this understandably is not
the forte ofNeo-Latinists and literary historians" (3). Nauta does note, however,
that any study of Lorenzo Valla "will likely be viewed with suspicion by not a
few of my colleagues in medieval philosophy" (ix). Such scholars-as myself for
example-might see Valla's attempted demolition of Aristotelian metaphysics as
misguided at best; indeed, they might wish that such a book not be published at
all. At the same time, Nauta imagines that many of his colleagues in the field of
Renaissance humanism might be similarly suspicious, but for very different
reasons. Enamored of the supposed modernity of the Renaissance humanists,
they might very well be angered by a book that places Valla "on the
philosophical rack"-as Nauta often does. Steering a fine course between these
two extremes, In Defense of Common Sense steadfastly refuses to divorce Valla
from his historical context and place him "on the road of modern rationalist
empiricism" (144). In doing so, it subjects Valla to a strong but fair criticism, a
task that has often been ignored by humanists who possess only a nodding
acquaintance with Scholasticism.
Nauta's study is composed of eight chapters in three parts. The first part
introduces the reader to Valla's attack on Aristotelian-Scholastic metaphysics in
three chapters that explore Valla's sometimes enlightening, but often frustrating,
criticisms of the Tree of Porphyry, the Scholastic doctrine of transcendental
terms, and the Aristotelian categories. The second part introduces Valla's
anthropology, with chapters devoted to his assault on Aristotelian psychology
and natural philosophy, his account of the virtues, and his analysis of Scholastic
Trinitarian theologies. The third part concerns what we might call the more
methodological aspects of Valla's philosophy, namely, his understanding of
propositions, demonstration, dialectic, and argumentation. In Defense of
Common Sense concludes with a particularly interesting investigation of claims
that Valla anticipated the "ordinary language philosophy" of Ludwig
Wittgenstein,]. L. Austin, and Gilbert Ryle (269-91).
Nauta's stated aim is to offer a "comprehensive discussion" of Valla's
attempted reform of Aristotelian Scholasticism based on a "philosophicallyinformed analysis" of the entire text of the Repastinatio in its several versions,
with appropriate forays into other works such as Valla's dialogue on the highest
good, De vero bona. In this respect, Nauta does not hesitate to admit that the

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outcome of his analysis is "not always flattering for Valla" and that the
arguments that he levels against Aristotle and the Scholastics are "often poor,
inconsistent, and unfair" (4). Nauta's second aim is to evaluate existing
interpretations of Valla, especially the claim that Valla's project was inspired by
William of Ockham's own attempts to rethink Aristotle's Organon. This,
incidentally, is one of the few things upon which Valla's many supporters seem
to agree, so Nauta's argument that Valla's program "differs significantly in aim,
approach, and argument" from Ockham's own is welcome. The final aim of In
Defense of Common Sense is to offer a genuinely philosophical assessment of
Valla's project: "Just as the assessment of the historical significance of Valla's
program depends on one's wider views on the relationship between scholasticism
and humanism, so an evaluation of its philosophical significance depends of [sic]
one's view of philosophy" (7). In other words, even if Valla is presented as an
anti-philosopher, his work is still shot through with philosophical assumptions.
If Nauta believes that Valla's diatribe against the excesses of theoretical jargon
is "vitally important," he also believes that the controversy between Scholasticism and humanism "goes to the heart of philosophy itself" (xi).
It is impossible to summarize the varied topics in Nauta's study; in addition
to those I have already mentioned, it contains enlightening discussions of the
predicables, universals, privation, negation, the nature of definitions and
propositions, abstract and concrete terms, the origin of language, the immortality
of the soul, sensation, the differences between animal and vegetative souls, the
relative merits of Stoicism and Epicureanism, the nature of virtue, and the formal
rules for induction. Not surprisingly, a work of such richness contains much to
interest readers of The Thomist. Most provocatively, Nauta in his spirited
attempt to distance Valla from William of Ockham suggests that Valla's
treatment of the categories as modes of predication is compatible with Aquinas's
own approach to the analogous predication of esse as described in his expositio
of Aristotle's Metaphysics (lect. 9 [Marietti ed., 890] [18-19]). In fact, Nauta
often compares Valla to Aquinas, even noting the possibility of influence at one
point (68-70), but usually showing how Valla differs from the Angelic Doctor
(79, 117, 132). Historians of late medieval Scholasticism might also be interested
to learn that Valla's admittedly strained attempt to reduce the ten categories and
six transcendental terms of Scholastic philosophy to three categories of
substance, quality, and action unified by the single transcendental term res
harkens back to the great importance of that term in the metaphysics of Henry
of Ghent (298 n. 4). Despite these tantalizing suggestions, the general impression
one gets from Nauta's exploration of the Repastinatio is that Valla gained the
larger part of his knowledge of Scholasticism by hearsay. Even the authors that
he cites, such as Peter of Spain and Paul of Venice, do little to impede-or even
affect-the forward march of his anti-Scholastic rhetoric. Their relationship to

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Valla's arguments seems tangential at best. One also gathers from reading
Nauta's study that Valla willfully ignored some rather straightforward objections
to his views, as when the humanist denies the analogical predication of the term
unum (cf. 65-67) necessitated by the Aristotelian understanding that one is the
principle of number, or when he offers some rather obtuse reasons for denying
that plants have souls (133) or, perhaps best of all, when he remains unaware
that his account of the Trinity is Sabellian (194-95).
Of course, one can always quibble with the details when an author has
included so much in a single book. I would have preferred that Nauta turn to the
more recent studies of Jos Decorte, Carlos Steel, or Juan Carlos Flores for his
understanding of Henry of Ghent, or to the work of Armand Maurer for his
knowledge of William of Ockham, but the older secondary sources that he
uses-such as Henri Paulus and William Courtenay-are still very solid and, in
any event, do not alter the substance of his argument. I would have also liked to
see him qualify his occasional remarks that Valla preferred an Augustinian
account of the soul to the Aristotelian one (129, 149). Still, three themes emerge
from Nauta's study with particular clarity, and make the book well worth
studying even for those without a professional interest in Italian humanism. In
the first place, Nauta skillfully illustrates how polemical conceptions of
Scholasticism have unduly influenced scholars of the Renaissance. He
consistently shows, for example, how the claim that a thinker "loathes
metaphysical speculation" conceals a number of metaphysical assumptions.
Nauta's frequent exposure of Valla's vitriol should also give pause to anyone
who imagines that humanism was somehow permissive and tolerant, while
Scholasticism was rigidly dogmatic. Conversely, Nauta's study of Valla implicitly
raises a question of great importance for contemporary Scholasticism, namely,
the normative value of Aristotle for philosophy. If Valla's attempt to demolish
the foundations of Aristotelian-Scholastic metaphysics, ethics, and natural
philosophy must be judged a failure, his attempt to transform Aristotelian logic
into a rhetorically and grammatically sensitive dialectic tailored to the practical
needs of public debate is certainly intriguing, especially when we notice that
many of the features that Nauta valorizes in Valla--especially his great
attentiveness to linguistic usage-can be found among the greatest Scholastics.
Taken together, these two themes allow for the emergence of a third, namely,
the possibility of a stronger connection between the humanist attention to
rhetoric and traditional metaphysics than has yet been acknowledged, especially
by historians of humanism. In this respect, the Scholastic philosopher might wish
to expand the influence of the old masters by returning to their own analyses of
the canons of Ciceronian or Quintilian rhetoric, or even create new syntheses
based on modern concepts of ordinary language philosophy, as can be seen in the
recent emergence of Analytic Thomism.

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These are issues of no small concern for contemporary Scholastic
philosophers. If studies of the Renaissance have labored to cast off the yoke of
past prejudices, it is all the more amazing how easily Catholic theologians and
philosophers indulge in these very prejudices. Many Aristotelians have long
imagined that Scholasticism is a worldview entirely sufficient for understanding
all aspects of human society, while many humanists have just as easily imagined
that thinkers of the caliber of Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, John Duns
Scotus, or Francisco Suarez have nothing to offer the modern Catholic
philosopher. But restorationist and progressive alike share a myth of the socalled "waning" of the Middle Ages; indeed, the only thing that separates the
one from the other is that they have reversed the terms of an otherwise identical
genealogy. For the one, Thomas Aquinas is the summit from which all fall away;
for the other, he is the nadir from which all struggle to escape. With such an
aggressive rhetoric overdetermining both side of the contemporary debate about
Scholasticism, a sensible book on its interaction with humanism during the
Renaissance is a welcome balm.
TRENT POMPLUN

Loyola University Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

Nouvelle theologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery. By HANS
BOERSMA. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. xvi + 336.
$120.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-19-922964-2.
In this book, Hans Boersma argues that various currents of twentieth-century
thought encompassed by the term nouvelle theologie can all be understood as
attempts to argue for a "sacramental ontology." What is at issue is not the
theology of sacraments, but the sacramentality of ontology, that is, the capacity
of all of reality to contain and lead to the divine. The author's thesis, expressed
in clear and penetrating prose, is that the nouvelle theologians (in particular,
Henri Bouillard, Marie-Dominique Chenu, Yves Congar, Jean Danielou, Henri
de Lubac, and Hans Urs von Balthasar) all wanted "to recover a sacramental
ontology" and so to promote a "return to mystery" (viii). This sacramental
pattern is found in a number of different fields of theology and is expressed in
a variety of ways: the literal meaning of Scripture sacramentally contains the
figurative; secular history sacramentally contains the sacred; nature sacramentally

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contains the supernatural. Boersma holds that these nouvelle theologians were
promoting this sacramental ontology in opposition to what they regarded as neoThomist "extrinsicism," which included a theology of grace that builds on nature
while remaining extrinsic to it, instead of elevating and perfecting it from within.
This group of theologians, in their methodological return to classic patristic and
medieval sources (ressourcement), held that with this extrinsicism, neo-Thomism
(unlike St. Thomas's own work) had unwittingly conceded to the Enlightenment
the notion of an independent realm of nature (5). This in turn made belief in
God difficult for people in the modern world by relegating him to a remote
realm that is irrelevant to life in the world. For Boersma, the nouvelle theologie
wanted to save the faith from rationalism, at times by saving St. Thomas from
neo-Thomism.
Although the author does not present his book primarily as an exposition of
his own theological opinions, he clearly has sympathy for the overall outlook of
the nouvelle theologians and for many of their views (though he critiques some
of them). In particular, the ideas of Henri de Lubac seem to be particularly
favored, providing the leitmotif of the book. De Lubac is discussed in every
chapter (unlike any of the other five figures), and is spared even mild or oblique
criticism, unlike Bouillard (113), Chenu (116, 144-48), or Danielou (180, 190).
Viewpoints opposed to the movement are presented soberly and fairly, albeit
rather briefly. Boersma's aim is to explain the nouvelle theologie, including the
contexts of the disputes surrounding it, not to offer full coverage of all sides of
those disputes.
The book has eight chapters. The first and introductory one, "The Rupture
between Faith and Life," presents the main concerns of the nouvelle theologie as
well as a concise account of the principal controversies surrounding it. Among
the insightful analyses that the author offers is the contrast he notes between the
nouvelle theologie and modernism. He points out that ressourcement was
indispensable for the nouvelle theologie, but foreign to modernism; he also
shows that, unlike such modernists as Loisy and Tyrrell, the nouvelle theologians
saw God at work in history and in human discourse. One of the controversies
covered is the dispute provoked by de Lubac's Surnaturel over the natural desire
for God, which is presented briefly but incisively.
Chapter 2, "Precursors to a Sacramental Ontology," presents four chief
influences for the later proponents of the nouvelle theologie: the earlynineteenth-century theologian of the Catholic Tiibingen school, Johann Adam
Mohler; and the late-nineteenth-/early-twentieth-century
figures Maurice
Blonde!, Joseph Marechal, and Pierre Rousse lot. Boersma shows that their ideas
led the nouvelle theologie movement to see historical categories and the human
subject as central, and to critique rationalistic truth-claims in favor of more
mystical ways of knowing.

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Chapters 3 through 7 are each organized around a theme present in the work
of two or more of the featured theologians. The third and fourth chapters
concentrate on the relation between nature and the supernatural. Chapter 3
engages de Lubac and Bouillard, beginning with De Lubac's seminal efforts, in
Sumaturel and in other writings, to show how theology should favor the idea
that humans are naturally ordered to a supernatural end. Boersma explains that
for de Lubac, humans are never (in the world as it actually exists) without the
desire for God; but they cannot actually attain God without his help. De Lubac
opposed the idea that humans have ever existed in a state of "pure nature" with
their own natural end, apart from the natural desire for God. He saw the idea of
"pure nature" as a neo-Thomist corruption, in that it isolates man from the God
who created him. Boersma goes on to discuss Bouillard's ideas, particularly on
the development of doctrine, showing how the historical process plays its own
role in leading doctrine toward an ever-closer analogical knowledge of God.
Boersma's treatment includes a somewhat sympathetic discussion of some
objections to these ideas, including the charge that Bouillard's teaching leads to
relativism.
Whereas the third chapter deals with an ascent of the natural to the
supernatural according to de Lubac and Bouillard, the fourth chapter explores
how both Balthasar and Chenu speak of the divine descent upon creatures, the
coming of the supernatural to the natural. Both Balthasar and Chenu (like de
Lubac and Bouillard) see the supernatural within creation, and oppose the neoScholastic separation of grace and nature. Boersma shows how Balthasar,
influenced by de Lubac's ressourcement of the Fathers and his "approach to the
nature-supernatural relationship" (118), rejected the factual existence of any
"pure nature" apart from grace, seeing in the creature an analogous, sacramental
participation in the divine. Boersma then describes Chenu's own recovery of
older theological insights, chiefly from the tradition of high Scholasticism. Chenu
saw theology as a connatural participation in God's own knowledge, making
faith an essential component of theology, and making the practice of theology
a kind of spirituality. This led him to seek to recover a kind of mysticism that
goes beyond the ordinary grace of the theological virtues, without being the
reserve of a gifted elite. Boersma shows that despite promoting this recovery of
mysticism, Chenu maintained a fundamental optimism about modernity. Indeed,
he approved of the medieval emphasis on the autonomy of the created order, the
'"desacralizing' of a previously 'sacramentalized' world" that Chenu believed
simply becomes more pronounced with modernism. Boersma finds it "difficult
to reconcile this interest of Chenu to his more sacramental Dionysian analogical
approach" (145); Chenu's commitment to a sacramental ontology remains
somewhat ambiguous.

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The fifth chapter explores the attempts by de Lubac and Danielou to revive
a spiritual interpretation of Scripture for the present day. Boersma characterizes
De Lubac's recovery of patristic and medieval interpretation, including the
multivalent and spiritual interpretation of the Bible, as a "sacramental
hermeneutic," in which the spiritual meaning presupposes the historical,
countering both the "positivist mindset behind historicist exegesis" (152) and the
neo-Thomist exclusion of such multivalence. Boersma then presents Danielou's
own retrieval of an older style of biblical interpretation. Whereas de Lubac had
sought a recovery of the patristic and medieval four-fold sense of scripture,
Danielou focused on typological exegesis, in which the Old Testament points
toward the New. In Boersma's view, though Danielou and de Lubac differed in
their appropriation of older forms of interpretation, they both sought to
highlight God's action in the world, employing a sacramental reading of reality.
The sixth chapter deals with the efforts of several theologians to show how
history informs theology while having God as its origin, center, and goal (191).
Three main topics are covered: Danielou's attempt to connect "cosmic and
Christian revelation"; theological accounts of the development of doctrine by
Chenu, Louis Charlier, and de Lubac; and Congar's influential work on
tradition. The seventh chapter concerns the ecclesiology of de Lubac and
Congar. Boersma shows that both of them, while at odds in some ways (e.g., de
Lubac's break from the Concilium group, including Congar, to help found
Communio ), in fact uphold the sacramentality of the Church and of all creation.
Boersma's concluding chapter, "The Future of Ressourcement," summarizes
his own insights into the nouvelle theologie movement, showing its place in the
history of doctrine and proposing how its concerns may be further developed,
including a reflection on its ecumenical implications (Boersma himself coming
from the Reformed tradition). This wrap-up (seven pages) is very brief, and does
not include any extensive analysis of the movement; indeed, the author admits
that the "scope of the book was not to evaluate the import of nouvelle theologie,
but to describe" its "shared theological sensibility" (289). The conclusion may
leave the reader wishing that the author had undertaken a more comprehensive
evaluation of the merits of this sacramental ontology for theology today.
Without attempting such an evaluation here, we can suggest that there are three
difficulties in particular-touched upon in Boersma's work-that will need more
thorough attention if one wishes to develop this theological outlook further
today.
First, in each form of sacramental ontology described, the supernatural and
nature become more closely linked; if the emphasis remains on how tightly
interlinked they are, does it become more difficult to distinguish them from each
other? Does it thereby become impossible to account for the transcendent at
work in the world? Boersma himself notes that some of the nouvelle theologians
began to discern these kinds of problems in theology after Vatican II. In the

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early- and mid-twentieth century, they had focused on rejecting "extrinsicism."
However, the opposite problem of "immanentism" (the denial of "any
transcendent impact on historical cause and effect" [11]) increasingly became a
concern at least to de Lubac (254, 257, 262-65). Similarly, Danielou (180) and
Balthasar (11) both expressed a concern over post-Vatican-II "historicism," in
contrast to their earlier emphasis on making sure that history would be taken
seriously in theology.
A second, related question concerns sin. How do the various forms of
sacramental ontology allow for the possibility and reality of sin? After all, do not
aspects of created existence point decidedly away from God? Boersma shows
how de Lubac, in a late work, saw the need to account for "human sinfulness"
in the consideration of the grace/nature relation (263), emphasizing this to a
degree not present in his earlier work. This is one of the few places that the issue
makes an appearance in Boersma's text.
The third issue regards how St. Thomas's work should be interpreted. In
particular, how is the Thomistic commentatorial tradition to be received?
Boersma notes that the nouvelle theologie either bypassed the commentators in
their interpretation of the Common Doctor, or used that tradition in a new way.
The author's treatment is more than adequate for the kind of book he has
written, offering resources for further investigation where needed (see, e.g., 95
n. 31); still, more analysis and reflection is required regarding how a fuller
ressourcement might include the way Thomas's work has been received by the
Church through the commentators.
In the end, Boersma's achievement is to draw together a number of related
strands of twentieth-century Catholic theology, synthesizing them under the
rubric of a "sacramental ontology." In so doing, he clarifies a recent pivotal turn
in theology, suggesting a trajectory for future reflection. However, the merit of
Boersma's book is not limited to its broad-brush insights. It provides enough
background and references related to the ideas and disputes surrounding the
nouvelle theologie that the interested reader can easily pursue a given issue more
deeply. This should make the work useful as a part of graduate (or advanced
undergraduate) courses in the theology of grace, theological anthropology, or the
history of doctrine. Specialists as well as those with a more general interest in
theology should find the author's insights and overarching thesis worth engaging.
Let us hope that an edition priced for a broader audience will soon become
available.
BRYAN KROMHOLTZ,

Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
Berkeley, California

0.P.

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Le Pere, Alpha et Omega de la vie trinitaire. By EMMANUELDURAND, O.P. Paris:
Cerf, 2008. Pp. 300. 33.25 € (paper). ISBN 978-2-204-08622-6.
Emmanuel Durand's Le Pere Alpha et Omega de la vie trinitaire, a tour de
force of profound and original theological investigation, will be of particular
interest to Thomists for its groundbreaking research on Bonaventure's and
Aquinas' contrasting accounts of God the Father.
Durand joins an astute reading of Scripture with a penetrating analysis of
Aquinas's and Bonaventure's views of the Father, in order to develop his own
portrait of the Father as the Alpha and Omega of the life of the Trinity and the
created economy. He proposes adhering to a Thomistically inclined "doubly
relational" conception (based on paternity and spiration) of the person of the
Father, which resituates Bonaventure's guiding intuition in the created order, by
taking note of the fact that innascibility and primacy overlap an unfathomable
plenitude (244). In this work, Durand describes an eschatological tension that
the Father exerts on the whole created order, as soon as he is revealed by Christ,
the Son (11-12, 51-148). He shows that the Father is the Alpha and Omega of
creation and of our divinization and that he polarizes the whole economy of
salvation, because the first initiative and ultimate finality belong to him (18-19,
44-45, 85, 142-44,147-48, 245). In Durand's words, the ultimate end of
spiritual creatures properly designates the very person of the Father, and our
participation in divine life is revealed to be a father-to-son relationship (35, 14041).
Another theme highlighted in this book is the transparency of the Son in
revealing the Father. Pointing to the parable of the prodigal son, Durand (277)
observes that the charity that Jesus showed to sinners manifests the Father's
charity, for "he who has seen Uesus] has seen the Father" Qohn 14:9). Durand
also offers a compelling insight concerning an abiding hiddenness of the Father,
despite his being revealed by Christ (14-15). He concludes that a theology of the
Father must remain incomplete in a certain way, in patient expectation and
suspense; without this appreciation, Christian Christocentrism is sometimes
accompanied by a uni vocal resituation of eschatology in the present that does not
respect the importance of the yet unrealized eschatology, consequently leaving
the Father in an ambiguous indifference (45-46, 103-4).
This work proposes a fresh look at the theology of God the Father by moving
from "the Father's final role in Christian eschatology to the theology of the
Father in his Trinitarian mystery, viewed from the angle both of his primacy and
of his relations" (11). Durand notes that the anthropological approach, the
model most commonly adopted today, has been called into question on account
of the collapse of the father's place in the family and in society (9). Another
approach particularly common today, arising from interreligious dialogue and

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thus aiming to escape the limits of a twentieth-century Christocentrism, results
in an "undetermined" theocentrism, where God is not attached to any particular
historical revelation. In place of exaggerated Christocentrism and agnostic
indeterminism, Durand proposes a Trinitarian theocentrism that resituates
Christocentrism in its proper place (9-10). He offers an original approach in
clarifying the Father's primacy in the Trinity by examining his place as the final
end of all creatures. Accordingly, this work is divided into two parts: (1) "The
Revelation of the Father and the Eschatological Tension Toward Him" and (2)
"The Father in His Mystery, Alpha and Omega of the Immanent Trinity."
Durand introduces these two parts in a single chapter (ch. 1) in which he lays out
the theological issues at stake in a theology of God the Father, as well as
possibilities and limits of its lines of development.
In the first part, Durand offers a reflection on the revelation of the Father and
the eschatological pull that this revelation exerts on those who receive the
revelation. He begins, in chapter 2, with the manifestation of the Father through
the only-begotten Son, especially as recorded in St. John's Gospel, in order to
grasp the Son's eternal relation to the Father in the Trinity. Durand then
examines the significance of the movement in the prologue of John's Gospel
from the relative pair "Word-God" to the relative pair "Only Begotten-Father."
He proceeds, in chapter 3, to a consideration of our filial communion with the
Father, where he ponders our inclusion in the Son, the Church in communion
with the Father, and the eschatological gathering of the children of God. This
leads into a reflection, in chapter 4, on the Father's eschatological sovereignty.
Here Durand engages in a rich meditation on the Paschal Lamb and the Father
on his throne in the book of Revelation, and develops a Christocentrism
reordered according to its finality in God the Father. Durand includes a critique
of Rahner and Balthasar regarding the axiom "the economic Trinity is the
immanent Trinity and vice versa," which can lead to Christocentrism that lacks
the paternal finality of the whole order of salvation. He explains that there must
be an "eschatological hiatus" between the Trinity and its historical engagement,
that is, between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity; the identity is
not pure and simple (111-13). Chapter 5, which completes the first part of the
book, treats of the eschatological vision of the Father- specifically: the glory of
the Father in the Word in John's Gospel, Irenaeus' account of man's growing
capacity to see God as the Father as he is gradually revealed in the Word,
Gregory of Nyssa's understanding of God's incomprehensibility and the eternal
newness of desire all the way to union, the complementary images of beatitude
in word and Eucharist, and the Father as the final end of the beatific vision.
The second part of this work, building on the first, pursues a speculative
examination of the Father in the immanent Trinity. In chapter 6, Durand traces
the development of the notion of the Father's innascibility, that is, his being

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without origin. He reports on Peter Lombard's reading of Sts. Augustine and
Hilary on innascibility, and the creative interpretations of Lombard's dossier by
William of Auxerre and Alexander of Hales. Although Lombard reads Augustine
and Hilary as convergent, by the time of Alexander of Hales's commentary on
Lombard's Sentences, there are already two camps as regards innascibility: the
Augustinian camp which maintains that innascibility is strictly a negation (i.e.,
the denial that the Father proceeds from any principle), and the Hilarian camp
which holds that innascibility bears the positive meaning of primacy or authority
(i.e., being the principle of other divine persons).
Chapter 7 undertakes a detailed investigation of Bonaventure's theology of
God the Father. In this original research, Durand exposits Bonaventure's
understanding of the Father's primacy, where innascibility receives strong
emphasis and looms over (surplombe) the Father's relations of paternity and
spiration (213). Bonaventure is thus a representative of the Hilarian camp par
excellence, and he is squarely in the Franciscan school that views the divine
hypostasis as constituted by emanation rather than by relation. In chapter 8,
Durand examines Aquinas's theology of God the Father. He shows that for
Aquinas the concept of relation is the key to a coherent account of the Trinity,
and God the Father's hypostasis must be constituted by the relation of paternity,
that is, by his relation to the Son. Innascibility, by contrast, must be a sheer
negation and does not include in its meaning the idea of being the principle of
another divine person. Aquinas rejects the notion that the Father has primacy or
is constituted in some way by his innascibility. This places him unequivocally in
the Augustinian camp as regards the Father's innascibility.
In chapter 9, the final chapter of the book, Durand sketches out his own
theology of God the Father. His approach might be described as based on
Aquinas, with the integration of elements of Bonaventure's paternal primacy, all
taken from an eschatological perspective. Durand intends to avoid certain
weaknesses he finds in both of these great masters. On one hand, "it is not
possible to maintain with Bonaventure that the hypostasis of the Father is
'posited' by virtue of his mere primacy or that his fontal plenitude 'outclasses'
the two divine processions of the Son and the Spirit" (272). After all, "this God
does not correspond to the God revealed in Jesus Christ, and his primacy
looming over all actual fecundity would only be a vague conceptual projection,
without name or personal identity" (272-73). On the other hand, it is not fitting
to maintain with Aquinas "that the hypostasis of the Father is 'constituted' by his
lone relation to the Son" (273). Durand is concerned that Aquinas's insistence
on the Father's being constituted only by his relation of paternity, which follows
from his understanding of a divine person as a subsistent relation, might reduce
the Father's identity to his paternity with respect to the Son. This, observes
Durand, is unacceptable because God's incomprehensibility remains normative

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479

in the background of the whole New Testament (247-48), and the Father is
determined not only by his relation to the Son but also by his relation to the
Holy Spirit (271). Paternity does not suffice to describe the Father because "the
mysterious identity of the Spirit manifests that the original plenitude of the
Father is not exhausted in the lone generation of the Son" (ibid.).
Durand embraces the Thomistic centrality of the concept of relation, which
offers a coherent account of the unity and distinction of the divine persons, and
he develops an understanding of divine paternal primacy from the divine
missions, which lead us back to the Father. At the heart of the Trinity, all begins
and ends in the Father, who is the unfathomable and inexhaustible source of the
whole Trinitarian life; in every divine act the first initiative belongs to the Father
(244, 249). Therefore, "to envisage the Father's primacy, we need simply to
trace back from the missions of the Son and the Spirit up to the origin of their
being sent into the world, namely, to the Father's initiative" (249). With respect
to the eschatological role of the other divine persons, "the return to the Father
is constitutive of the persons themselves of the Son and the Spirit" (256-58).
Durand rules out "all undue subordination within the Trinity" in taking the
attraction of the Son and the Holy Spirit in the return to the Father to be "a
finality without unrealized potentiality just as their origin from the Father is an
origin without becoming" (258). As Durand has it, the Son and Holy Spirit are
revealed not only to be originated but also "truly to be persons that 'assume' and
'ratify' their relation of origin" (ibid.). That is, "by their eternal response to the
Father, the Son and the Spirit freely assume their relation of origin to the
Father" (263). Even a certain "gratuity" comes into play in the life of the Trinity
in order to manifest that "throughout the entire necessary unfolding of the intradivine life, the Father retains his personal primacy and eternal 'initiative' of gift
with respect to the Son and the Spirit" (266-67).
Also, in this last chapter, Durand proposes but does not develop two
provocative conceptual advances in Trinitarian theology, namely, an
understanding of person that, while grounded in substance, extends to "a much
broader existential basis," and the expression of the interpersonal plenitude of
divine life as "the gift of love according to multiform relations included within
the strict relations of origin" (259).
The strict Thomist might be reluctant to welcome the author's assertions that
the Son consents to his generation or responds to his generation with gratitude
toward the Father (39, 257-58, 263, 266-67) or that the return to the Father is
constitutive of the persons themselves of the Son and Holy Spirit (256-58). For
if the Son makes some kind of response, it would seem to suggest that the Son
is not active in being generated and must therefore respond "afterwards." Fully
aware of this, Durand quotes (262 n. 2) Aquinas's explanation that for the Son,
to be generated is an action: "by one and the same operation, the Father

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generates and the Son is born; but this operation is in the Father and the Son
according to different relations" (I Sent., d. 20, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1). And Durand
does not take this filial response to be in the notional act of the Son's being
generated but rather in the essential act of concomitant love (258). However,
this raises questions as to how the return to the Father could then be constitutive
of the Son and the Holy Spirit. For Aquinas clarifies that the Father's reception
of the Son's essential concomitant love is not a reception of anything in the real
order, just as there is no reception of anything in the real order when the Father
loves himself (I Sent., d. 10, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3). For the strict Thomist, what is
common must not be confused with what is proper and constitutive of distinct
persons.
Since Aquinas was anxious to reject the attribution of primacy or fontal
plenitude to the Father, the strict Thomist might also hesitate to embrace
Durand's integration of this Bonaventurian element into his theology of the
Father. We might note two small points of emphasis in this regard. First, Durand
emphasizes incomprehensibility as a characteristic of the Father in particular (17,
20-21). While this is by no means incompatible with Aquinas's view, wherever
Aquinas discusses the incomprehensibility of a divine person we find him
affirming that the Son is just as incomprehensible as the Father (I Sent., d. 9, q.
1, pro!. [the Son's generation]; In loan. 1:18 [lect. 11] [the Son's invisibility]; in
In ad Heb. 1:4 [lect. 3] [the Son's name]; De Rationibus Fidei, ch. 6 [the
Incarnation]; and In ad Eph. 3: 19 [lect. 5] [Christ's charity]). It is characteristic
of Aquinas's theology strongly to underscore the Son's equality.
Second, in order to avoid the reduction of the Father to his paternity, Durand
maintains that "the mysterious identity of the Spirit manifests that the original
plenitude of the Father is not exhausted in the lone generation of the Son" (271).
While little effort is required to give this a favorable interpretation, if we accept
the kenotically suggestive term "exhaust," it would be important to affirm that
generation does exhaust the Father's plenitude so that the Son can be understood
truly to be equal to the Father; the Holy Spirit would not somehow use up the
rest of the Father's plenitude but rather would again exhaust the Father's
plenitude according to the order of processions in a knowing and loving being
where the communication of being is perfect. Here we can see that one might be
forced to choose between Bonaventure's preference for fontal plenitude and
Aquinas's central placement of relation, which though perhaps less romantic and
dashing is brilliantly coherent and ordered. For the strict Thomist, the
connection between generation and spiration should be developed by unpacking
the fact that spiration is virtually included in generation.
Le Pere Alpha et Omega de la vie trinitaire offers an important contribution
in articulating the eschatological dimension of the economy of salvation as
revelatory of the Trinitarian mystery in itself: the innascible Father in the Trinity

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is the Alpha and Omega of creation and of our divinization, and he polarizes the
whole economy of salvation, because the first initiative and ultimate finality
belong to him. Well founded on Scripture and patristic and medieval sources,
this work takes up relevant modern questions, such as the relation between the
economic and immanent Trinity; Christocentrism versus theocentrism; the
Father's relation to the Holy Spirit; and the concepts of person, substance, and
relation. The author's exposition of God the Father in the thought of
Bonaventure and Aquinas is superior and original. For that reason alone, Le Pere
Alpha et Omega de la vie trinitaire is an indispensable resource for any scholar
interested in the theology of God the Father.
JOHN BAPTIST Ku, 0.P.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

Thomas Aquinas on the Passions. By ROBERT MINER. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009. Pp.328. $90.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-521-89748-

8.
In Thomas Aquinas on the Passions, Robert Miner offers his readers three
reasons for studying questions 22 through 48 of the Prima Secundae of the
Summa Theologiae. First, reading Thomas on the passions increases our
understanding of the historical pedigree of contemporary philosophical
reflections on emotions and how these stand in continuity (or discontinuity) with
classical traditions. Second, reading Thomas on the passions can help us enter
into a constructive conversation with the sciences on the study of human
emotions while avoiding "scientistic" reductionism. Finally, Miner adduces a
more important reason for taking the time to study Thomas's "treatise" on the
passions: It helps us better to understand Thomas's account of the virtues and
happiness. Miner's book amply substantiates these reasons, to which this
reviewer would like to add yet another reason: Reading Thomas on the passions
(with the aid of Miner's study) helps us better understand the role of the passions
in our sanctification.
The structure of Miner's study cleaves closely to Thomas's questions on the
passions in the Summa Theologiae. The study is divided in three parts: the
passions in general, the concupiscible passions, and the irascible passions. In the
first part of his study, Miner considers the passions in general, their nature, their

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relation to sensitive apprehension, and their moral significance. In the Summa,
Thomas does not offer a strict definition of passion. Instead the angelic doctor
leads his readers to greater conceptual penetration by means of carefully sifting
through a range of authorities on the subject. Miner too engages a variety of
interlocutors in this section (as he seeks to place Thomas's account of the
passions in the context of the philosophical debates of his day and ours).
Miner begins his study of Thomas's account of the passions by attending to
the sensitive appetite. The passions are acts of the sensitive appetite requiring
bodily organs for their operation. Every passion involves some kind of bodily
alteration. However, the embodiedness of the passions does not make them
exclusively material realities without any relation to the spirit. The subject of the
passions is not the body or the soul but the whole person, body and soul.
Correlatively, since God and the angels lack bodies, they lack passions. As Miner
explains, "Thomas consistently reserves passiones for acts of the sensitive
appetite. He uses affectiones (and, less frequently, affectus) for acts that may or
may not belong to the sensitive appetite" (35). The joy attributed to God and the
angels is a pseudopassion, a simple act of the will that bears a resemblance in its
effect to the act of the sensitive appetite. Hence, "it is clear that while Thomas
restricts passions, in the proper sense of the term, to acts of the sensitive
appetite, he neither overlooks nor denies affections that belong to the rational
appetite (pseudopassions). He simply does not label them as passiones" (36).
A thread that runs through Miner's study of Thomas on the passions is the
ontological priority of good over evil. Given the structure of the appetite, evil
is never sought for its own sake as evil. As Miner avers: "Inclination toward a
perceived good is the cause of repugnance from evil, but the converse is not true.
Repulsion from evil occurs solely as a reflex of the more basic attraction toward
some good, of which the shunned evil is the privation" (26). The affirmation of
the ontological priority of good entails the priority of love among the passions,
the priority of the concupiscible passions to the irascible ones, and the order
among the various passions.
In the second part of his study, Miner considers particular concupiscible
passions: love, hatred, pleasure, and sorrow. In his treatment of particular
concupiscible and irascible passions, he benefits from his study of Santiago
Ramirez's De passionibus animae. While at times disagreeing with particular
points of the Spanish Dominican's study of Thomas, he adopts Ramirez's method
of paying close attention to the ordo articulorum of the questions on the
passions.
On the passion of love, Miner draws underscores the importance of sensitive
love. One might expect that a teacher like Thomas who asserts so strongly the
centrality of charity in the perfection of the human might minimize or even reject
the significance of sensitive love. However, Thomas does not follow this path.

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As Miner explains: "Love in its most proper sense is sensitive love, because
sensitive love is most passive. Allowing oneself to be passively helped by God is
the precondition of dilectio, of inclining oneself toward God by rational means.
Amor sensitivus turns out to be the seed out of which the highest amor rational is
grows" (121). In other words, the cultivation of sensitive love is essential for the
rational creature's journey into God. "Lacking the energy of the sensitive
appetite, the amor intellectualis Dei will be weak" (122). Surprisingly, on
Miner's reading of Thomas, love for others needs to be grounded in love for self.
The extension of amor amicitiae to others presupposes that we love ourselves
with amor amicitiae. For Thomas, friendship is an image of self-love and not the
other way around. "Love for others, proceeding from the unio similitudinis, is
modeled on the love of self which proceeds from the unio substantialis" (133).
Miner's close attention to the ordo articulorum pays dividends in his
examination of the question of hatred. In his treatment on love, Thomas inquires
into the passion itself, before treating its cause, and finally its effects. This
tripartite structure is employed time and again throughout the study of the
particular passions, but not in question 29 on hatred. Some commentators (like
Ramirez) have forced the treatment of hatred into the essence, cause, and effect
schema. But Miner convincingly argues that the absence of a de ipso odio is not
an accidental omission on Thomas's part but revelatory of something about the
"essence" of hatred. Hatred exists in a parasitic relation to reality. The
ontological priority of good over evil is reaffirmed. "Hatred is a loathing that
cannot exist except in a being that loves the contrary of what is loathed" (141).
The relationship between love and hatred is asymmetrical. Hatred presupposes
love, but love does not presuppose hatred. Things are loved in so far as they
exist, but nothing can be hated simply on account of its existence. By
implication, self-hatred is a metaphysical impossibility. "If human beings expend
a large amount of energy avoiding evils, they do so in the name of goods which
they care about. The intensity with which a person avoids an evil is a function
of the intensity with which that person loves the contrary good" (195). Most
Christians assume that there is no place for hatred in Christianity, but for
Thomas, hatred is a corollary of love. Love for someone entails the rejection of
things that threaten the existence or thriving of that someone. Nevertheless,
Miner offers an important caution: "hatred should not be cultivated as a good
in itself" (149).
In the third part of his study, Miner considers the irascible passions: hope,
despair, fear, daring, and anger. Throughout this part of the book the ontological
priority of the good and the salutary significance of the passions is frequently
reasserted. Love is the dispositional cause of fear. "Amor not only inclines a
person toward the bonum conveniens, but also inclines him away from what he
perceives as contrary to the suitable good" (244 ). On anger, Miner suggests that

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Thomas offers a sort of apologia pro ira: "In itself anger is natural and promotes
the flourishing of the human person " (269). This positive valuation of anger is
a minority opinion in the Christian tradition.
Perhaps the most significant contribution of Miner's study of Thomas on the
passions is the elucidation of the role of the passions in the perfection of the
human. Happiness requires the perfection of all the powers and appetites of the
person. "Right reason is required to perfect the acts of the sensitive appetite.
One implication is that reason must know the passions, in order to direct them,
just as those who govern must understand the nature of the governed" (296).
Kantian approaches that reduce morality to reason's conquest of the passions are
incomplete in this regard. "To suppose that humans can attain their full good
without attending to the totality of their acts, including those shared with other
animals, is to commit the mortal sin of angelism" (92). The passions are a
fundamental part of our humanity. As such, the passions are to be cultivated not
uprooted. Of course, the cultivation of the passions is not by itself enough for
humans to attain the goal of eternal beatitude with God. Humans are in need of
grace. But as Miner warns, "to scorn this enterprise, presuming that divine grace
magically relieves human beings of any need to order their passions, is
dangerous" (229). Granted that God can infuse virtues in souls that have not
prepared themselves in any way, still this is not God's usual way of acting. "Souls
indifferent to the achievement of human things cannot be expected to assert
themselves in divine things" (228).
One area that I think Miner could have profitably explored further is that of
Christ's passions. The subject hovers along the margins of the book. In his
discussion on sorrow, Miner remarks that "Thomas regards the capacity to feel
sorrow as a condition of being human. This explains, at least, in part, why Christ
assumes the 'defect of soul' constituted by tristitia"(l96). In his study on anger,
Miner suggests that "If Christ's assumption of the passion of ira were better
known, the popular images of Jesus as Mister Rogers (or some other version of
the world's nicest guy) might lose their grip on us" (285 n. 9). Miner's remarks
on Jesus' assumption of the passions are suggestive but brief. Granted, he is not
writing on the passions of Christ as considered in the Tertia Pars. However, it
seems to this reader that in the same way in which the final chapter places the
questions on the passions within the framework of the Secunda Pars and
Thomas's reflections on happiness and virtue, Miner could have used the
epilogue to engage in some fruitful consideration of the role of the passions in
the life of Christ as viator. Moreover, attending to the Tertia Pars would also
offer an opportunity to reflect on the role of the sacraments in the perfection of
the passions. In any case, Miner's study lays the groundwork for future
exploration of these topics.

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In sum, Miner's study of Thomas helps us better understand how the passions
in general and each passion in particular contribute to human flourishing and
prepare the way for a felicity that transcends (but does not leave behind) the
passions. Readers who work their way through this lovingly and carefully
nuanced exposition of Thomas will find their efforts richly rewarded.
EDGARDO COLON-EMERIC

Duke Divinity School
Durham, North Carolina

Logos and Revelation: Ibn 'Arabi, Meister Eckhart, and Mystical Hermeneutics.
By ROBERTJ. DOBIE. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University America
Press, 2009. Pp. xii+ 313. $39.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8132-1677-5.
This inquiry proposes and sustains the thesis that both Ibn 'Arabi and Eckhart
were steeped in their respective revelational traditions, and from that vantage
point engaged in a mode of philosophical theology using reason to order and
clarify the revelational sources, as well as using those sources to expand standard
philosophical categories to negotiate the known perils of discourse regarding
divinity. Moreover, both of these thinkers, while working in disparate traditions,
proceed dialectically to allow reason and revelation to illuminate each other
fruitfully. They accomplish this in four areas-revelation itself, existence,
intellect, and the ideal human paradigm-in such a way as to allow each
tradition to illuminate the other, yet never eliding difference, especially where
difference itself may further illuminate the comparative inquiry.
But let us first position the respective authors. Ibn 'Arabi represents what I
like to call the "second phase" of Islamic philosophy, wherein the center of
gravity retuned east from Andalusia, while a fresh set of protagonists sought
ways to relate revelation with reason rather than contrasting one to another (see
my "Islamic Philosophical Theology and the West," Islamochristiana 33 [2007]:
75-90). That would explain why students of philosophy in the West might not
recognize Ibn 'Arabi as a philosopher, habituated as they have become to the
story that al-Ghazali's critique of Averroes effectively terminated any hope of
philosophical inquiry in Islam. That judgment reflects modernist assessments of
properly philosophical inquiry, however, rather than attending to the contours
of philosophical theology in the wider Muslim world, comprising Shi'ite as well
as Sunni perspectives. On a more accurate reading, al-Ghazali's critique

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represents a dialectical moment in Islamic philosophical inquiry, not an end to
it, much as recent scholarship finds Averroes to be less a "rationalist" than one
who seeks ways to reconcile faith with reason (see Avita! Wohlman: Al-Ghazali,
Averroes and the Interpretation of the Qur'an: Common Sense and Philosophy in
Islam [London: Routledge, 2009]). A trio of Eastern thinkers form the vanguard
of this "second phase" of Islamic philosophy, introducing a properly
philosophical theology: Suhrawardi, Ibn 'Arabi, and Mulla Sadra. (For leads to
them, see Oliver Leaman and Sayyed Hossain Nasr, eds., History of Islamic
Philosophy [New York: Routledge, 1996]. For Ibn 'Arabi, the most
comprehensive treatment can be found in William Chittick's trilogy: The Sufi
Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-'Arabf's Metaphysics of Imagination [Albany, N.Y.:
SUNY Press, 1989]; The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-'Arabf's
Cosmology [Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1997]; and Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al'Arabf and the Problem of Religious Diversity [Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1995];
see also Salman Bashier, Ibn al-'Arabi's Barzakh: Concept of the Limit and the
Relationship between God and the World (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2004).
These secondary sources converge to help readers discover the philosophical
acumen of Ibn 'Arabi. Though he is often dubbed a "mystic" (or even a
"pantheist"), his work is better appreciated when read as a sustained attempt to
articulate what Robert Sokolowski has identified as the crucial "distinction"
between creator and creatures in a universe founded on free creation (The God
of Faith and Reason [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1996]).
Now we begin to suspect why Dobie sought to compare Ibn 'Arabi with
Meister Eckhart, who has been saddled with similar incomprehension. Yet
applying the Sokolowski test allows us to capture Eckhart's intent as well: to
show how a focus on Aquinas's masterful account of creation as "the emanation
of all of being from the universal cause of being"-existence itself [ipsum
esse]-culminates in a "distinction" which eludes proper articulation, since
creator and creatures can never be "two" as two creatures are. Let us take their
respective treatment of existence, which Aquinas introduces as the only "feature"
common to creatures and creator, precisely because it cannot properly be a
feature: "only in so far as things are beings can they be similar to God, as the first
and universal principle of all existence [esse]" (STh I, q. 4, a. 3), and this only
when we recognize that "God alone is being essentially, while all other beings are
so by participation" (ibid., ad 3). In employing the Platonic scheme of essentially
I by participation, Aquinas introduces what Sokolowski dubs "the distinction."
As Dobie puts it, comparatively:
What is important to appreciate in lbn 'Arabi and Eckhart is the
logical rigor or necessity of this understanding of God's nature as

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dialectical. The absolute transcendence of God necessarily demands
his immanence in all things, for what makes God transcendent is
God's existence and sustenance of all that is. Likewise, God's true
and utter immanence implies transcendence because what is inmost
in all things is precisely that which escapes limitation and
objectification into a "this" or a "that." Again the logic here is clear:
as Ibn 'Arabi puts it, to assert only the transcendence of God without
his immanence is, in effect, to limit him, because you are marking
him off from creatures. And to assert his immanence without
asserting his transcendence is to limit him to the sum of finite
creatures. Similarly for Eckhart, God's distinction from creatures, his
transcendence, lies precisely in his indistinction from all things, i.e.,
in his immanence in all things as their existence, oneness, truth, and
goodness-in short, the transcendental properties that "run through"
all the categories of existence and that all creatures have insofar as
they exist. (95)

This nicely expresses "the distinction" Sokolowski identifies as lying "at the
intersection of faith and reason."
Let us explore another of Dobie's four areas, that of revelation. Here
especially the very differences will prove illuminating. Ibn 'Arabi's great
commentator, Dawud al-Qaysari, notes how, in effect:
The meaning of revelation is found in the faculty of imagination, the
ability to strike similitudes for what transcends reason (27).... Thus,
in a proper hermeneutics of the Qur'an, understanding is becoming
what one ultimately is in the real; ... uncovering what the divine
Word means for me and my life, which is to say what it means for me
insofar as I exist only in and through God and am what I am in God.
It follows that, for Ibn 'Arabi, the imagery of the Qur'an is not a
drawback for the rational seeker but an advantage, for through the
"imaginal world" (i.e., the interlocking symbolic logic) of the Qur'an
and the Prophet (in the hadith traditions), the inner meaning of
creation manifests itself in and through a creative appropriation of
that imaginal world by the believer (28). [Here lies a clear point of
contrast between "first" and "second" phases of Islamic philosophy.]
To recognize creation as an act of divine imagination, then, is to
recognize, to be sure, the ambiguity of creation. But it is also to see
all creation as rooted in the divine reality (34).... The Qur'an
provides the key: ... creation as an act of imagination is crucial to
understanding the relation between the "book of nature"' and the
"divine book of revelation" (40).... It is in the Qur'an that the
voyage is made that leads man back to his original status, to his
divine similitude (54).... The goal is the complete assimilation of
the self to the Word of God as revealed in the Qur'an. (55)

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Fascinating for both its similarity and its difference is the way "the birth of the
Son in the soul ... is central to Eckhart's interpretation of scripture:
all interpretive activity aims at cracking the "outer shell" of the text
to reveal its "hidden marrow," which is precisely the process of inner
birth. Eckhart thus argues that the Christian life is not one of mere
rational assent to the divine Word of Scripture but an actual giving
birth to this Word in the innermost ground of the soul, which then
bears fruit in a life of detached freedom and love. (59)

Yet "human reason is structurally unable to grasp God's oneness or the oneness
of creation's source," so
the only way to overcome this alienating effect of reason is to present
reason's truths under the cover of parables or myths, so that it will
stimulate the hearer to the activity of interpretation and thus to an
inward penetration of the divine mystery and the indwelling of
transcendent truth. (65)

This comparison leads Dobie to delineate "the difference in the ways in which
Ibn 'Arabi and Eckhart interpret their respective scriptures, which follows that
of their respective religious traditions":
for Eckhart, it is to have the Word of Scripture reborn in the very
ground of a fallen and corrupted soul so that the soul may become a
true Nobleman [edele Mensch]; for lbn 'Arabi, it is to understand the
inner meaning of the Law or shar'ia that restores the Muslim to the
state of perfect vice-regency as the Universal Man [al-insanal-kamfl],
which is itself a return to the pure, original nature of humanity [fitra]
in which the human being was a perfect mirror of God's essential
attributes. (88)

I have quoted extensively to give a flavor of the author's approach and
mastery of each figure. No book-length comparative work on these two axial
figures matches this one for thorough grasp of each figure and for clarity of
presentation. Dobie has mastered the texts of each, as well as the relevant
secondary literature, with a teacher's touch for expressing recondite matters with
admirable clarity. From a scholarly viewpoint, all is in order, yet presented in a
reader-friendly manner that will offer a model for the work of others, as the area
of comparative philosophical theology is currently exploding with a growing
number of younger scholars equipped with the tools needed to do the work.
Dobie has a special way, however, of combining interpretive skills with stunning

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theological and philosophical sophistication, all in a remarkably modest manner
which accounts for his clarity of expression. Finally, his manner of comparing
Islamic with Christian philosophical theology highlights the crucial parallel
between the Qur'an and Jesus: where Christians believe that Jesus is the word
of God made human, Muslims believe the Qur'an is the Word of God made
book. Since this strictly parallel presentation displays substantial differences as
well, it allows him to proceed by highlighting similarity-in-difference. His
concluding chapter on the venture of comparative study is nothing short of
brilliant, with a sustained argument against context-less approaches to "mystical"
literature, which he has effectively countered in the work itself by grounding
each author's substantive philosophical reflection in his respective revelational
tradition.
DAVID BURRELL, C.S.C.

Uganda Martyrs University
Nkozi, Uganda
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

Ethics of Procreation and the Defense of Human Life: Contraception, Artificial
Fertilization and Abortion. By MARTIN RHONHEIMER.Edited by WILLIAM
F. MURPHY, Jr. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2010. Pp 309. $39.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8132-1722-2.
Martin Rhonheimer has been a key voice in the revival of natural law
theorizing and casuistry in recent decades. His work is triply important for this
revival. First, Rhonheimer has gone beyond the stereotype of natural law as
concerned primarily, in his words, with "nature" and "command" to focus
instead on "reason" and "good," as the critical terms of a natural law theory.
Second, he has distanced his approach from third-person objective accounts of
the human act, in favor of a methodological approach that focuses on the
"perspective of the acting agent," that is, the perspective a practical agent adopts
in considering, choosing, and carrying out an action. And third, he has developed
his natural law approach with a view to concrete application to disputed issues,
particularly those surrounding the taking, the preventing, and the creating of
human life.

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It is the third of these contributions that is the focus of this book. Rhonheimer
begins with a discussion of his approach to natural law theory, and his action
theory, but his sights are set on a defense of three key theses prominently
asserted in recent magisterial documents: the teaching of Humanae vitae on the
morality of contraception; the teaching of Donum vitae on the morality of
procreation apart from the marital act; and the teaching of Evangelium vitae on
the morality of abortion. The discussion of the first and third theses also involve
a defense of two further claims: first, that the use of contraceptives as a defense
against rape is morally permissible; and second, that the moral teaching on
abortion has political consequences.
Rhonheimer's discussion of the natural law corrects a number of important
errors. The natural law is not "natural" because it illicitly reads off norms from
a naturally given structure, such as the structure of our biological desires. Rather,
it is natural because it is "intrinsic to man as a rational creature" (5). Accordingly,
the natural law is itself "the ordering act of human reason itself in the sphere of
good and evil" (ibid.). Rhonheimer sounds here much like proponents of the socalled "new" natural law theory, such as Germain Grisez and John Finnis, and
I will return to this comparison. And, like the new natural law theorists,
Rhonheimer argues that natural inclinations are important to our knowledge of
the natural law, even though they are not themselves the natural law. He
describes the natural inclinations as a "point of departure" for our understanding
of goods, such as the good of marriage and marital sexuality, which need to be
integrated into the horizon of reason. But the full moral relevance of a natural
inclination such as that towards sexuality is only to be found in reason's grasp
of the "flowering of marital chastity, of which the inclination is the seed" (9).
From this quotation, one begins to see something that is an important focus
of this book, namely, its emphasis on virtue-here, chastity-as central to the
norms of the natural law. The picture appears to be this: natural inclinations set
us on the road to certain goods which can only be understood and enjoyed
insofar as reason recognizes the full meaning of that towards which an
inclination directs us. That full meaning is, typically, a virtue: the virtue of
marital chastity, for example, or the virtue of justice; and immorality is to be
judged as a departure from action in accordance with these virtues. As we will
see, the use of contraception is a failure, on Rhonheimer's account, to even
pursue, let alone succeed in pursuing, the virtue of marital chastity; abortion and
extrasexual means of procreation are failures of the virtue of justice, which
fundamentally orients us towards an equal treatment of all human beings.
The heart of Rhonheimer's book consists in an extended argument about the
two sides of what Rhonheimer calls the "Inseparability Principle," articulated in
Humanae vitae, and a cornerstone of Church teaching on sexual and reproductive ethics. According to Humanae vitae human sexuality has two meanings,

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unitive and procreative, which must never be separated. Contraception is widely
understood to do this in one way, by pursuing the unitive without the
procreative; and extrasexual modes of reproduction, such as in vitro fertilization,
are understood to do this in a different way, by disjoining procreation from
sexual union. But these claims are in need of considerable argument, and it is this
that Rhonheimer endeavors to provide throughout chapters 2-5.
Rhonheimer takes the Inseparability Principle to be basic; it is incapable of
defense by deeper principles, although it may be explicated. He articulates the
meaning of the Inseparability Principle as a truth about our body-spirit nature as
that nature is manifest in the sexual act. Insofar as that act is bodily, it is
procreative in nature; insofar as that act is an act of rational persons, it is a free
gift of self to the other. But normatively, these two aspects of the sexual act
cannot be disjoined without alienation from one or another side of our bodyspirit unity; nor can they be disjoined without, in reality, diminishing the reality
of both meanings of the sexual act: "The bodily reality of procreation receives
its fully human specification from spiritual love; the spiritual love of the married
persons receives its specification as a determinate sort of love from the
procreative function of the body" (77). As this passage indicates, the bodily
meaning of the sexual act possesses the entirety of its meaning only in the
context of a full communion of persons, namely, the communion appropriate to
specifically marital love. Thus, not only must the two meanings, unitive and
procreative, not be disjoined, but they must be pursued only in the context of
marriage.
So the Inseparability Principle grounds a normative principle: that the unitive
and the procreative must not be divided. This raises for Rhonheimer the question
of whether contracepted marital sexual acts always do, in fact, divide that unity.
He defends an affirmative answer by way of an account of what he calls
"procreative responsibility," the task given to spouses to fully integrate their
sexual drives "into the dominion of reason and will." As integrated, such desires
will not simply be suppressed; as under the dominion of reason, such desires will
be directed to the common good of the couple; and as desires of a unified
person, a rational animal, such desires will be experienced as by a subject, and
not allowed, as it were, a life of their own to which the human person is
subjected.
A married couple for whom sexual desires are thus integrated into their lives
as rational animals will have occasional need to avoid conception in service of
the common good of their marriage. Rhonheimer argues that the only way in
which they could pursue this common good, and meet the conditions above for
integrated sexuality, is by choosing a "willing renouncement to engage here and
now in sexual intercourse" (97). This act of renouncement denies in no way the
procreative reality of sexual intercourse, nor does it deny the mutual giving of

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self that characterizes marital love. Rhonheimer thus characterizes this
renunciation as an act of the virtue of marital chastity.
By contrast, a couple who contracept renounce, in a sense, the need for
procreative responsibility and, hence, chastity, by subjecting the procreative
dimension of their lives to their technical dominion; but this subjecting is itself
a result of their allowing their sexual desires a veto power over the need for
reason's rule. Rhonheimer writes, "Contraception is problematic precisely
because of the fact that it renders needlessa specificsexual behavior informed by

procreativeresponsibility;it also involves a choice against virtuous self-control by
continence" (100, emphasis in original). In this choice, Rhonheimer argues,
spouses act against the virtue of chastity, and also treat their bodies as objects to
be regulated in service of desire, rather than treating their desires as aspects of
the person to be integrated into the spiritual aspects of the person's nature.
This terse description of Rhonheimer's argument cannot do full justice to his
discussion, which is rich with insight. But, in its contrast with the discussion of
abortion in the last part of the book, it illustrates an interesting point about
contemporary Catholic thought on the two issues of contraception and abortion.
The book has two long essays on the topic of abortion. The first contains an
extended critique of Norbert Heorster, a German thinker who has argued for a
significant liberalization of German law regarding the unborn. While
philosophically sound, this chapter concentrates perhaps too much on a figure
who is not essential to the debates of the English-speaking world. Nevertheless,
the crucial point is this: Rhonheimer argues that science shows (and Hoerster
does not deny) that the human conceptus is a human being, a member of the
species Homo sapiens.
Rhonheimer further argues that this means that human embryos and fetuses
have, as part of their nature, certain potentialities which, when actualized,
manifest themselves in recognizably personal acts. But the actualization of these
potentialities does not change the nature or the species of the individual. Thus,
rather than a potential person, the unborn human being is what Rhonheimer
calls "a person 'in potential'" (203). Embryos and fetuses should thus be treated,
morally, with the respect owed to persons, and, as Rhonheimer argues in the
final chapter, they should be given the protection of the law if the law is to serve
the true common good of political society.
I would suggest that Rhonheimer's arguments here represent the settled
consensus of Catholic philosophers and moral theologians who are working
within, not just the Catholic intellectual tradition, as it is sometimes called, but
the magisterial tradition of the Church. That is, such thinkers have converged
both on the view that human beings exist from conception, and on the view that
all human beings are persons. There is no tentativeness based on questions of

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ensoulment or development, nor are there any substantially different ways of
approaching the crucial questions.
The case is very different where contraception is concerned. Even among
those working within the magisterial tradition, there is a great deal of divergence
concerning the question of why contraception is morally impermissible. The
divergence has both theoretical and practical consequences, as can be seen in the
differences between Rhonheimer's treatment and that of the new natural law
theorists, which Rhonheimer critiques.
New natural law theorists diverge in at least two ways from Rhonheimer.
First, they do not take the Inseparability Principle to be basic. Rather, they see
it as summarizing the results of two arguments, an argument against
contraception based on its contra-life character, and an argument against
extrasexual creation of human beings because of the implicit treatment of all
such created entities as "things" (Rhonheimer too argues for this position, in
chapter 5). This is a considerable theoretical difference, as is the "contra-life"
argument itself. But that argument has a further consequence, that the wrong of
contraception is not exhausted by its relationship to the good of marriage or
marital chastity, and can be committed by someone who otherwise does no
wrong to those goods, for example, someone who is a victim of rape. So, where
Rhonheimer's defense of the (permissible) use of contraceptives for rape victims
asserts that the aim of this use is, precisely, to prevent conception, the new
natural law approach holds that the aim (when legitimate) is, precisely, to
prevent the further invasion of the rapist's sperm into the woman's body. This
difference is encapsulated in Rhonheimer's definition of contraception: "To
impede, as an alternative to an act of continence, the procreative consequences
of one's freely chosen sexual acts" (148). By contrast, the new natural law
theorists hold that contraception can take place-and is wrong-even in the
context of unchosen sexual acts.
A book review is a forum only for identifying, nor for negotiating such
differences. But the differences indicate one direction that future research in the
Catholic magisterial tradition must go: towards dialectical exchange amongst
defenders of Catholic teaching on sexual and reproductive ethics, where the
accounts given by such defenders diverge. Martin Rhonheimer has established
himself as one of the thinkers who must be engaged in that dialectical exchange;
this important and rewarding book provides a helpful starting point for that
conversation.
CHRISTOPHER TOLLEFSEN

University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina

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Knowledge and the Transcendent: An Inquiry into the Mind's Relationship to
God. By PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2009. Pp. 306. $69.95 (cloth). ISBN 978-08132-1577-8.
Macdonald's book demands the attention of philosophers and theologians
alike. Philosophically, Macdonald engages skepticism, subjectivism, philosophy
of the mind, analytical philosophy, epistemology, realism, and Thomism.
Theologically, Macdonald discusses the relation of faith and reason, the role of
the intellect and the will in faith, apophatic theology, eschatology, and the
significance of theological realism. These twin trajectories inform his answer to
the question: "How can God transcend the mind but still remain known to the
mind?" Critical of the overwhelmingly negative responses to this question since
Kant, Macdonald affirmatively proposes, "Having knowledge of God thus seems
to require that our conceptions of God bear on or are directed on God's
transcendent reality" (xiii). The aim of the book, therefore, is to offer an
epistemology that permits objective knowledge of God that does not diminish
God's transcendence. Macdonald accomplishes this by arguing for an
epistemology of direct realism and then shows how direct realism is compatible
with natural knowledge of God, knowledge gained by faith, and even knowledge
in the beatific vision. This last aspect is particularly intriguing since the beatific
vision functions as the primary or quintessential instance of direct realism.
Knowledge and the Transcendent is divided into three parts. The first part
outlines how subjectivism and skepticism proffer a problematic conception of the
mind's relation to God, and traces the influence of this problematic through
various philosophical and theological thinkers since Descartes and especially
Kant. The second part addresses this problematic by offering an alternative,
direct realism, argued for on the basis of a close reading of Aquinas's
epistemology (STh I, qq. 78-85) and supported by its consistency with the
knowledge of God by reason, faith, and beatitude. Macdonald argues that direct
realism ensures objective knowledge of things and correspondingly of
God-even if, in the case of the latter, this knowledge is partial,
noncomprehensive, and nonabsolute. The third part applies direct realism to
contemporary discourses on faith and reason on one hand and theological
realism on the other. In this manner, Macdonald orients direct realism and its
implications by critically engaging the works of John McDowell, Victor Preller,
Norman Kretzmann, Denys Turner, and Peter Byrne.
Modern discussions about knowing the transcendent God have often been
falsely construed on the basis of a misconception of the relation between the
mind and the world and, derivatively, the mind and God. Modern
epistemologies conceive a disjunctive dualism between subject and object, the

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mind and the world, which limits reason to dealing with mere appearances and
not things-in-themselves. This restrictive narrowing of reason and objective
knowledge by skepticism and subjectivism consequently creates a divide or
boundary between the mind and God so that one must either overcome the
divide by reducing God to the subject (anthropomorphism) or accentuate it so
that God ultimately remains entirely unknown (agnosticism). Macdonald
explains the consequences of many modern epistemologies, worth quoting at
length,
In short, the problem can be specified as follows: once God is placed
outside or beyond a cognitiveboundary (given that God is pictured
as transcending a cognitive boundary), then there can be no
objectivityin what human persons believe and say about God. The
beliefs and assertionswe hold and make about God ... can have no
bearing on who God objectivelyis. This leads to skepticismregarding
our knowledge of God. The alternative to the skeptical position,
which in fact turns out to be an extension of skepticism, is
subjectivism.Accordingto this position, we can think and talk about
God in terms of our religious symbols and experience; or we can
think and talk about God in terms of our individual or collective
religiousresponsesand practices;but again, we cannot think and talk
about God "in God's self." (3)
As one may expect, Macdonald outlines the genesis of this problematic in
Descartes, Hume, and Kant. Their epistemologies result in "theological antirealism," whether in its anthropomorphic or agnostic forms, indicative of
Ludwig Feuerbach, Paul Tillich, Gordon Kaufmann, John Hick, Don Cupitt, and
Merold Westphal. Macdonald also discusses the influence of theological antirealism among analytical thinkers such as D. Z. Phillips and George Lindbeck.
In response Macdonald argues for direct realism, which is intended to abolish
the fallacious boundary between the mind and God along with its corresponding
subject-object dualism. Macdonald relies on Aquinas by acknowledging,
"Aquinas is a direct realist in the following sense: in case of veridical sensation
and apprehension, we as cognitive subjects enjoy direct sensory and intellective
access to objective aspects or features of empirical reality. This means that the
world is directly accessible in sense experience as well as thought, such that in
sense experience and thought we are in direct sensory and intellective contact
with extra-sensory and extra-mental objects and states of affairs" (82). By
"direct," then, Macdonald means the absence of mediation or representation.
The senses do not mediate the world-there is no disjunction to be
overcome-they conjoin us to the world spontaneously and immediately. It
should be noted that Macdonald conceives direct realism and metaphysical

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realism together. "The shorthand of this is that epistemological realism and
metaphysical realism go hand-in-hand .... what grounds realism in epistemology
is realism in metaphysics (or ontology)" (96). This is the case because direct
realism necessarily requires formal causality to ensure the immediate conformity
between our mind and the world, maintaining "direct cognitive contact with
objective, external states of affairs" (89). Having secured direct realism,
Macdonald has his basis for theological realism.
Macdonald appeals to the beatific vision as a "paradigm case of direct realism
in cognition" (135). As is the case with direct realism, formal causality has a
definitive role in the beatific vision. Just as sensible forms are directly accessible
to the mind by means of formal causality, so also God is directly and objectively
knowable "as God is" because God is the intelligible form of the intellect in
beatitude. That God is the form of the intellect in the beatific vision is a fantastic,
bold assertion by Aquinas that Macdonald puts to good use, explicating how
direct knowledge of God in the beatific vision does not result in those pitfalls
that worry modern epistemologies. First, this heightened, graced state does not
compromise human subjectivity but rather fulfills it. Second, direct knowledge
of God in the beatific vision is not comprehensive knowledge, thus preserving
God's transcendence. In contrast to modern epistemologies that posit a boundary
between the mind and God, the immediate knowledge of God in the beatific
vision shows that God's transcendence need not be conceived in opposition to
the knowing mind or vice versa. Theologians will especially find this section
insightful and informative.
Can one have objective knowledge of God in this life when God is not the
form of the intellect? Following Aquinas, Macdonald argues that in this life we
can objectively know God by reason and by faith though God remains
"unknown": that is, we do not have knowledge of God's essence in itself.
Concerning natural knowledge, Macdonald explains that by means of the via
triplexwe are capable of arriving at true beliefs about what God is and what God
is not. For this to be possible there must be a "requisite ontological relation
between creatures and God" (186). Referring to John Wippel, Macdonald
specifies this ontological relation as a participated likeness of effects to their
uncreated Cause. On the basis of this relation, we can speak truly about God
even if names fail to completely convey God's preeminence. In light of
Macdonald's appeal to participation metaphysics, one may wish for a more
robust account of reason's knowledge of God, especially after remarking on the
profundity of Aquinas's doctrine of substantive names. Further elaboration of
being, goodness, truth, and unity could have strengthened Macdonald's
argument since these provide the first principles not only of nature but of
cognition as well, and thus specify precisely how the mind is open and oriented
to God. Admittedly, Macdonald limits his argument to securing the "positive

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epistemic status" of our knowledge of God, whether by reason or by faith. To
this end he draws upon William Alston's "truth conducive desiderata" and Alvin
Plantinga's "doxastic evidence" to show that one does not need to prove that
such knowledge is indeed true but only that such knowledge is not unreasonable.
Knowledge of God can be shown to have "adequate grounds" or "sufficient
warrant" supporting a high probability to be true. Macdonald modestly
concludes, "while I have not definitively established that there is, in fact,
knowledge of God by way of reason and faith, I have certainly offered good
reasons for thinking that reason and faith, properly interpreted, furnish
knowledge of God" (224). By bringing Aquinas's natural theology and account
of faith into dialogue with contemporary discourses on the epistemology of
religious belief, Macdonald applies Aquinas in ways that will certainly interest
Thomists, including his description of analogy as a theological epistemology and
his account of the will with regard to faith.
By way of conclusion, it may be helpful to briefly consider Macdonald's work
with respect to analytical Thomism-the tradition in which he locates his work
(xxi). Macdonald adopts many of its major tenets and yet there are other aspects
in his work not typically associated with this tradition. For instance, at crucial
considered
points Macdonald relies on Thomistic metaphysics-typically
underdeveloped by analytical Thomists. One may wish to press Macdonald for
a further explanation of how he conceives the relation between these two
traditions. Furthermore, it has been a growing concern that analytical accounts
of the doctrine of analogy, like those by David B. Burrell and Victor Preller, tend
to be more apophatic in their construal of the doctrine of analogy than other
formulations, such as those of John Wippel or Bernard Montagnes, where
ontological concepts of relation provide a basis for the way in which names can
be appropriately and substantively predicated of God. It seems more than just
coincidence that in his quest to secure objective knowledge of God, Macdonald
relies on Wippel's metaphysics of participation. In many ways, then, Knowledge
and the Transcendent will be integral to the ongoing debate about the nature of
analytical Thomism compared to traditional Thomism.
NATHAN R. STRUNK

Boston University
Boston, Massachusetts