The Thomist 82 (2018): 1-35

GROUNDING HUMAN DIGNITY AND RIGHTS:
A THOMISTIC RESPONSE TO WOLTERSTORFF
PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.
United States Air Force Academy
Colorado Springs, Colorado

T

HE CATHOLIC CHURCH has taught consistently that
there are basic human rights, such as the right to life, the
right to the material means necessary properly to develop
one’s life, the right to be respected, the right to pursue truth
freely, the right to worship God in accordance with the right
dictates of one’s conscience, and the right to be given the
opportunity to work.1 Moreover, the Church has taught that
the ground of these rights is the dignity and worth that all
human beings inherently possess. For example, the Catechism of
the Catholic Church says that “Being in the image of God the
human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not
just something, but someone.” 2 And as a person—a possessor of
a nature “endowed with intelligence and free will,” in the words
of Pacem in Terris—the human individual “has rights and
duties, which together flow as a direct consequence from his
nature.”3 The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church
puts the point this way: “the roots of human rights are to be
found in the dignity that belongs to each human being” and that
“the ultimate source of human rights is not found in the mere

1

See, for example, Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris, in particular 11-17,
available online at http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/
hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.html.
2
Catechism of the Catholic Church (2d ed.; Washington, D.C.: United States
Catholic Conference, Inc.; Vatican City, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 357.
3
Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, 9.
1

2

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

will of human beings, in the reality of the State, in public
powers, but in man himself and in God his Creator.”4
The overall goal of this article is to defend the Church’s
teaching on human dignity and rights, and specifically the
Church’s claim that human dignity, as the ground of human
rights and duties, derives from our being persons created in
God’s image. My defense unfolds in two main stages. First, in
section I, I summarize Nicholas Wolterstorff’s recent, important
answer to the question of what grounds human dignity and
rights, and specifically those rights that Wolterstorff calls natural human rights: legitimate claims against others to be treated
in a certain way, which we retain not on account of the actions
of others (conferring rights on us) but rather because qua
human we possess great dignity and worth.5 Consistent with
Catholic teaching, Wolterstorff holds that human beings possess
great dignity and worth in virtue of standing in a certain
relation to God. However, Wolterstorff denies that it is possible
to ground human dignity and rights in either personhood or the
imago dei. Instead, he argues that it is only because all human
beings bear the property of being loved by God, with what he
calls “attachment” love, that they possess great dignity and
worth, in which human rights inhere.
In the second, more extensive stage of my defense, drawing
heavily on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, I reflect on and
challenge Wolterstorff’s claim that personhood and the imago
dei cannot account for the dignity that grounds human rights. In
section II, I show how, according to Wolterstorff’s own criteria
for what constitutes a dignity-based ground of human rights,

4

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 153, available online at
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justp
eace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html.
5
According to Wolterstorff, “A right is a normative relation, specifically, a legitimate
claim against someone to be treated in a certain way” (Nicholas Wolterstorff, “On
Secular and Theistic Groundings of Human Rights,” Understanding Liberal Democracy:
Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. Terence Cuneo [Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012], 180). For Wolterstorff on natural rights, see Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice:
Rights and Wrongs (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008), in particular
10-11.

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

3

human beings possess rights- and duty-grounding dignity and
worth as persons. In section III, I show how human beings
possess rights- and duty-grounding dignity and worth as divine
creations and image-bearers. Of course, from the Church’s
perspective, these claims speak to the same truth or reality: as
divine creations and image-bearers, we are also persons
(“endowed with intelligence and free will”) who possess rightsand duty-grounding dignity and worth. What I argue, though,
in an effort both to clarify and to bolster Church teaching, is
that fully grounding human dignity and rights, or giving a complete account of human dignity and rights, requires affirming
that human beings qua persons are divine creations and imagebearers, because it is only by affirming that we are divine
creations and image-bearers that we can give a complete
account for why we are also persons who possess dignity and
rights.
My main goal here is not to develop a Thomistic theory of
rights or to ground a full theory of rights in Aquinas.6 Nor is it
to defend the very idea of rights, or the existence of rights, since
I take the teaching of the Church to entail that human rights,
grounded in human dignity and worth, do in fact exist.7 Rather,
6
According to Anthony Lisska, while jus for Aquinas is an objective, relational state
of affairs—“what is right”—rather than a subjective natural right—“a right”—Aquinas’s
theory of objective natural rights provides a metaphysical foundation in human nature
for developing a robust theory of subjective natural rights (see Anthony J. Lisska,
“Human Rights Theory Rooted in the Writings of Thomas Aquinas,” Diametros 38
[2013]: 134-52). For a critique of subjective rights as a “harmful myth” and idols, see
John R. T. Lamont, “Conscience, Freedom, Rights: Idols of the Enlightenment
Religion,” The Thomist 73 (2009): 169-239, in particular 227-32 and 235-39. Lamont
locates a concept of objective right in Aquinas, but claims that it was eventually eclipsed
by the development of subjective rights, so construed as “monadic properties of
individuals” (212) in late medieval and early modern thought. I certainly am opposed to
a concept of rights divorced from an objective moral order, and so also divorcing rights
from a concept of the human good. Thus, it is essential to ground rights not in
something subjective, like the will of individuals or the state, but in an objective moral
and metaphysical foundation.
7
Lamont does not dismiss the substance of the Church’s teaching on rights and
justice, but he does think that the terminology of rights in Church teaching is still

4

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

my main goal and more circumscribed aim is to draw on
Aquinas (and some contemporary Thomists) in order to ground
human dignity and rights in both personhood and the imago
dei, thereby defending what I take to be the explicit teaching of
the Church on human dignity and rights.
I. WOLTERSTORFF ON
GROUNDING HUMAN DIGNITY AND RIGHTS
Wolterstorff says that to ground a right “is to account for it,
to explain why those who have it do have it.”8 One prominent
way (arguably the most prominent way) of grounding a right,
which Wolterstorff endorses, is by affirming the dignity and
worth of the being in which that right in turn inheres. However,
Wolterstorff recognizes that “worth, dignity, excellence, does
not settle on things willy-nilly; always there’s something about
the thing that gives it worth, something that accounts for its
worth, something on which its worth supervenes.”9 As such, he
claims that “the big challenge facing the theorist who believes
that there are human rights and that they are grounded in
human dignity is thus to identify that feature of human beings
(or combination of features) on which that dignity supervenes.”10 In order to help us identify that feature, Wolterstorff
claims the following: it must be ineradicable from human
beings, “a feature that no human being can lack so long as he or

misleading. See in particular, “Conscience, Freedom, Rights,” 233-35. I am taking the
Church’s teaching at face value, as affirming the existence of subjective rights, which I
simply will refer to in the article as rights.
8
Wolterstorff, Justice, 319.
9
Wolterstorff, “On Secular and Theistic Groundings of Human Rights,” 182.
Wolterstorff does not define supervenience, but the general idea is this. Supervenience is
“a dependence relation between properties or facts of one type, and properties or facts
of another type. . . . The idea [in ethics] is that if something instantiates a moral
property, then it does so in virtue of, i.e., as a (non-causal) consequence of, instantiating
some lower-level property on which the moral property supervenes” (Terence E.
Horgan, “Supervenience,” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Robert Audi
[New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995], 778).
10
Wolterstorff, “On Secular and Theistic Groundings of Human Rights,” 182.

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

5

she exists”;11 and unique to human beings, something that no
nonhuman animal possesses. The feature must be ineradicable
because rights inhere in a dignity and worth that we all possess
simply by virtue of being human. Were the feature eradicable,
there would be some human beings who would lack rightsgrounding dignity and worth and thus also the rights that they
are supposed to possess just by virtue of being human. The
feature must be unique to human beings since the total package
of human rights is possessed by human beings alone, and so not
shared with any nonhuman animals.12
In addition, Wolterstorff notes that it is often assumed that
the feature (or combination of features) on which human
dignity and worth supervene has two additional properties.
First, the feature gives to human beings an animal-transcending
dignity and worth, such that “no matter how far down in the
scale of excellence a human being may drop, she will still be of
greater excellence than any animal.”13 Second, the feature gives
to human beings an equal dignity and worth. While Wolterstorff does not think that the feature we are looking for must
have these properties, he does think it worth pointing out
whether it does in fact have them.
Finally, Wolterstorff claims that we are looking for a feature
(or combination of features) “that illuminates our intuitions
concerning dignity and rights.”14 In other words, the feature we
are looking for should enable us to make sense of our basic
intuitions that human beings have certain rights by virtue of

11

Ibid., 183.
Wolterstorff affirms that animals have rights, but denies that they possess all of the
rights that humans have: “Human rights go beyond animal rights, in that there are ways
of treating an animal that are permissible if the animal is non-human but not permissible
if the animal is human” (Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice in Love [Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2011], 146]). In discussing human rights in this article, I also will be
referring to the total package of human rights (while not denying that animals also have
rights).
13
Wolterstorff, “On Secular and Theistic Groundings of Human Rights,” 184.
14
Ibid., 189.
12

6

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

possessing great dignity and worth. Or, put another way,
identifying this feature should enable us to answer the question:
why do we human beings possess the rights-grounding dignity
and worth that we intuitively think that we have? Therefore, it
is not enough to identify a feature that is ineradicable from us as
human beings and unique to us as human beings. We must also
identify a feature that properly illuminates our intuitions that all
human beings possess human dignity and worth, and also
certain rights that inhere in that dignity and worth.
With these criteria or conditions in mind, Wolterstorff
evaluates what he thinks is the main secular (or nontheistic)
account on offer for grounding human dignity and rights: what
he calls a capacity account. According to this account, rightsgrounding dignity and worth supervene on “the capacity for
rational agency in general or some specific form of that
capacity, such as the capacity for acting out of duty, the capacity
for acting on an apprehension of the good, or the capacity for
forming, implementing, and revising a plan of life.”15 While he
agrees that the capacity for rational agency, however it is
variously described, affords those who possess it a great dignity
and worth, and so illuminates our intuitions concerning human
dignity and worth, he disagrees that this capacity is—per the
requirements he has laid out—ineradicable from our humanity
and unique to our humanity. It is not unique to us since it
appears that “some of the higher primates, such as porpoises
and chimpanzees, also have [it].”16And not only is it possible to
possess this feature to varying degrees (some human beings have
more of a capacity for rational agency than others), resulting in
unequal dignity and worth, but it is also possible not to possess
this feature at all: there are some human beings—“infants and
those sunk into dementia”—for example, who do not have it.17
It is true, says Wolterstorff, that (most) infants bear the promise
of having this capacity, and that those who have sunk into
dementia once had it. But there are still those severely impaired
15

Ibid., 186.
Ibid., 187.
17
Ibid., 189.
16

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

7

human beings who do not now have it, never had it, and never
will have it: they fail to possess the feature or property of
having the capacity for rational agency or going to have it or
once having had it. And Wolterstorff doubts that by identifying
this diminished feature or property we illuminate our intuitions
concerning human dignity and rights.
Wolterstorff rejects the claim that personhood can account
for rights-grounding dignity and worth on similar grounds,
since the concept of personhood includes the capacity for
rational agency but also goes well beyond it. Most notably, he
says that “full-fledged” persons also possess the capacity for
supraperceptual knowledge (for example, of necessary truths, or
of goodness, or rightness), normative agency, stewardship of the
earth, self-ascription, self-esteem (a sense of one’s worth), along
with the capacity for having second-order desires, having an
inner life, and forming a “valorized identity” (about what is
important to one).18 On Wolterstorff’s view, then, while some
human beings function as persons, not all do: infants bear the
promise of functioning of persons; human beings who are sunk
into dementia once functioned as persons but now do not. And
there are some human beings who never function as persons:
they do not have, never will have, and never have had the
feature or property of being a person. So this, too, cannot be the
feature or property on which rights-grounding dignity and
worth supervene.
Wolterstorff also recognizes that one could seek to provide a
secular ground of human dignity and rights in another way. All
human beings, regardless of age or condition, possess a human
nature: it is ineradicable. And it is obviously something that
human beings, amongst all animals, alone possess, also to the
same degree. But does this feature or property, having a human
nature, which Wolterstorff says is “truly noble” in mature and
properly formed exemplars of it, illuminate our intuitions that
18

See Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Grounding the Rights We Have as Persons,” in
Cuneo, ed., Understanding Liberal Democracy, 217-20.

8

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

all human beings—even those who possess a deeply impaired
human nature—possess rights-grounding dignity and worth?19
Wolterstorff thinks not, for the following reason. Think of our
nature as a design-plan. Then, think of other sorts of designplans, which, in their particular instantiations, can be both wellformed and malformed. Wolterstorff offers the following
analogy:
Suppose that my neighbors to the east and to the west both own examples of
the same model of automobile; both own Jaguars, let us say. The example that
my neighbor to the east owns runs like a top, and I admire it enormously. The
example that my neighbor to the west owns has been in a serious crash. It has
been, as they say, “totaled.” The repair shops all tell my neighbor that the
repair is impossible. Sell it for scrap, they say.20

Wolterstorff claims that his neighbor to the west should follow
the repair shops’ advice and scrap the totaled Jaguar: it is far
less admirable and of far less worth than the well-functioning
car to the east. Analogously, well-formed exemplifications of
human nature possess much greater dignity and worth than
malformed exemplifications of human nature: the latter human
beings possess some dignity and worth but not nearly enough,
Wolterstorff thinks, to ground human rights, and specifically
illuminate our intuitions regarding human dignity and rights.
Even well-formed animals like chimpanzees and porpoises seem
to have more worth than those human beings who retain
severely impaired natures. So having a human nature cannot be
the feature or property on which rights-grounding dignity and
worth supervene.
Highly doubtful that it is possible to provide a secular
grounding for human dignity and rights, Wolterstorff then
considers whether it is possible to provide a theistic grounding
for human dignity and rights. “The most common suggestion
for a theistic grounding of human rights is that such rights are
grounded in our being in the image of God.”21 On this theistic

19

Wolterstorff, Justice in Love, 152.
Ibid.
21
Wolterstorff, Justice, 342.
20

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

9

view, the specific feature or property on which dignity
supervenes is being a divine creation and image-bearer. But what
does it mean, more precisely, to be a divine image-bearer?
According to a “capacities-resemblance” account, human beings
resemble God with respect to possessing and exercising certain
capacities, such as the capacity for rational agency and the
capacity to exercise dominion over the rest of creation.
According to a “nature-resemblance” account, we resemble God
by virtue of having a nature like the divine nature. It is because
we resemble the divine in our nature “that mature, properly
functioning specimens of human nature possess God-resembling
functions and capacities.”22
However, Wolterstorff thinks that neither of these accounts
of the imago dei provides an adequate ground for human
dignity and rights. Once again, he thinks that “whatever
capacities one might single out, some human beings do not have
those capacities.”23 For example, infants do not have the
capacity to exercise dominion over the rest of creation, nor do
human beings who have been severely impaired mentally from
their birth, and nor do human beings who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. This means (on this account) that some human
beings do not even have the imago dei, and, as a result, there are
some human beings who lack the dignity and worth in which
human rights need to inhere. It is true that, according to the
nature-resemblance account, unlike the capacities-resemblance
account, all human beings uniquely resemble God by virtue of
possessing a human nature, regardless of age or condition—that
is, no matter how impaired their nature may be. Yet Wolterstorff reminds us that human beings with severely malformed
natures do not, on his view, or according to his intuitions,
possess the requisite dignity and worth in which rights need to
inhere. Thus, the fact that these human beings still resemble
God with respect to their nature does not change anything. “If
22
23

Wolterstorff, “On Secular and Theistic Groundings of Human Rights,” 195.
Wolterstorff, Justice in Love, 151.

10

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

possessing human nature does not itself impart to one the
requisite dignity,” Wolterstorff writes, “I fail to see how
resembling God with respect to possessing such a nature does
so.”24
Thus, according to Wolterstorff, appealing to the imago dei
does not enable us to ground human dignity and rights. But he
does think that it is possible to provide another theistic account
of human dignity and rights. Here, drawing on the resources of
(particularly Christian) theism, he claims that the relational
property of being loved by God is the requisite feature on which
rights-grounding dignity and worth supervene. Not just any
form of love will do. Love as “attraction” is drawn to the worth
of the beloved (whatever or whoever it may be), but it does not
bestow worth. Love as “benevolence” enhances the worth of the
beloved, but there are other ways one’s worth can be enhanced
even if one is not loved. Moreover, Wolterstorff thinks that
“what we are looking for is not a form of love that causes or
brings about enhancement of worth but one that as such bestows worth on its object.”25 Love as “attachment” does bestow
the requisite worth: just as a good monarch who befriends
certain subjects in his kingdom—and so becomes attached to
them—bestows worth on those subjects, so God’s permanently
choosing all human beings as the creatures with whom he wants
to be friends, or to be attached, bestows worth on all human
beings. Thus, in the end, Wolterstorff claims to have identified a
feature of human beings—the relation to God of being loved by
God (as someone with whom God wants to be a friend)—that
not only illuminates our intuitions about human dignity and
worth, but also possesses the requisite properties. It is ineradicable, since God’s love for us is permanent, and unique,
since God uniquely (and equally) loves human beings as those
with whom he wants to be friends. So Wolterstorff concludes:
“if God loves, in the mode of attachment, each and every
human being equally and permanently, then natural human
rights inhere in the worth bestowed on human beings by that
24
25

Ibid., 152.
Ibid., 153.

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

11

love. Natural human rights are what respect for that worth
requires.”26
Before moving on to the next section of the article, it is
important to highlight one further, important feature of
Wolterstorff’s theistic attempt to ground human dignity and
rights. According to Wolterstorff, God’s choice to love human
beings and thereby bestow rights-grounding dignity and worth
on them is not wholly arbitrary. Since human beings do possess
the imago dei, we also by nature uniquely possess the potential
for friendship with God. This is because all human beings have
the potential to be persons who can and do enter into
friendship with God. “Of all the animals,” Wolterstorff writes,
“it’s only human animals that can function as persons and can
thus be friends with God.”27 But God does not choose to be
friends with us because we have the potential to be friends with
God. Wolterstorff concludes:
The explanation for God’s wanting to be friends with us is presumably much
like the explanation for why we want to be friends with some fellow human
being. We desire to become friends with someone not because we think she
merits it or because we think her worth requires it but because we anticipate
that our friendship will be a significant good in the lives of both of us. So too
for God’s desire to be friends with us.28

II. GROUNDING HUMAN DIGNITY AND RIGHTS IN PERSONHOOD
In this section I show how, according to Wolterstorff’s own
standards, it is possible to ground human dignity and rights in
human personhood, per the explicit teaching of the Church.
More specifically, I show how, according to Wolterstorff’s own
standards, rights- and duty-grounding dignity and worth
supervene on the feature or property of personhood, or being a
person, which is both ineradicable from human beings and
26

Wolterstorff, Justice, 360.
Wolterstorff, “On Secular and Theistic Groundings of Human Rights,” 199.
28
Ibid., 200.
27

12

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

unique to human beings (qua animals). In the next section of the
article, I show how affirming our status as divine image-bearers
further illuminates why human persons possess rights- and dutygrounding dignity and worth. In this sense, giving a complete
account of human dignity and rights requires affirming the
whole of Catholic teaching on human beings as persons and
divine image-bearers.
Noticeably absent from Wolterstorff’s treatment of personhood (and human beings, for that matter) are any distinctly
metaphysical claims about persons, or, what it means, on a
distinctly metaphysical level, to be a person. Wolterstorff
discusses what it means to function as a (“full-fledged”) person:
possessing and also exercising capacities for rational agency,
normative agency, self-ascription, self-awareness, and so on.
Thus, in his view, since there are certain human beings, like
infants or those sunk deep into dementia, who cannot function
as persons, personhood cannot account for universal human
dignity and rights. But again, the primary question—
unanswered by Wolterstorff—still remains: what does it mean
to be a person? Arguably, the most enduring, classical definition
of personhood, which Aquinas also accepts, comes from
Boethius: a person is an individual substance of a rational
nature (rationalis naturae individua substantia).29 There is also a
conceptual equivalent of the Boethian definition, cited by Pope
John XXIII in Pacem in Terris, and quoted above: a person
possesses a nature “endowed with intelligence and free will.”30
“As such,” Pope John XXIII continues, the individual human
being as a person “has rights and duties, which together flow as
a direct consequence from his nature. These rights and duties
are universal and inviolable, and therefore altogether
inalienable.”31
To see more clearly how rights and duties “flow as a direct
consequence from [our] nature” as persons, it is worth delving

29
See Boethius, De persona et duabus naturis 2; Aquinas, STh I, q. 29, a. 1. Aquinas’s
Latin is taken from the corpus thomisticum (http://www.corpusthomisticum.org).
30
Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, 9.
31
Ibid.

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

13

deeper into a specifically Thomistic (and Aristotelian) metaphysics. According to this metaphysical worldview, while all
living things have souls, human beings as living, embodied
beings are persons because we possess a rational soul—the
rational soul being the substantial form that, on the most
fundamental of metaphysical levels, determines us (and our
matter) to be the kind of being or substance that we are, with
distinctly rational powers of intellect and will. Thus, the
rational soul as the substantial form of a human being determines what the human being is, by nature. Being an individual
substance of a rational nature, then, is not an accidental feature
or property that a human being can gain at a certain point in his
or her physical development, and then can lose, like a tree that
grows leaves in the spring only to shed them again in the fall. As
Patrick Lee succinctly puts it, “Being a certain kind of
substantial entity is an either / or matter—a thing either is or is
not a human being (even though things can be similar to human
beings in varying degrees).”32 So, one may say, once a human
being, and so once a person—a rational being—always a human
being, and so always a person. A human being is (and remains) a
person, an individual substance of a rational nature, distinct
from individual substances of other, nonrational natures, from
the beginning of his or her existence until the end of his or her
(physical) existence, regardless of what stage in his or her
physical development he or she may be in (no matter how
physically immature or mature), or what physical condition he
or she may be in at any given time in his or her life. Being a
person is therefore an ineradicable and unique (as well as, I
think, essential) feature or property of human beings on which
rights- and duty-grounding dignity and worth supervene.33
32

Patrick Lee, Abortion and Unborn Human Life (2d ed.; Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 54.
33
“A property is essential to an entity if, necessarily, the entity cannot exist without
being an instance of the property” (George Bealer, “Property,” in The Cambridge
Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Robert Audi [New York: Cambridge University Press,
1995], 658). Although I do think that being a person is an essential property of human

14

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

In order to defend this claim further, we may begin by
investigating in more detail why we should think that the
feature or property of being a person is ineradicable from
human beings. Wolterstorff claims that there are certain human
beings who never function as persons, who never possess the
capacity to exercise rational agency or any of the other associated capacities that he says that persons possess (which
arguably are included within or are at least related to
rationality). So if these human beings cannot and never will
function as persons, exercising the capacities that persons
possess, why should we think that they are persons?
Much of the confusion here surrounds what a “capacity” is.
As Lee observes, human embryos and fetuses clearly do not have
“an immediately exercisable capacity to engage in higher mental
functions.”34 However, unlike members of other animal species,
“they are members of a natural kind—a biological species—
whose members, if not prevented by some extrinsic cause, in
due course develop the immediately exercisable capacity for
such mental functions.”35 Thus, we human beings, just by virtue
of being the kind of beings that we are, possess the active
potentiality or dispositional structure to develop and then to
exercise the capacity for engaging in higher mental functions, or
the capacity for rational agency, along with all of the other
capacities that fully developed human persons possess.36

beings—we cannot exist without being an instance of this property—I will not defend
this particular claim further here, since it is not necessary to do so in order to defend my
main claim, contra Wolterstorff, that personhood is an ineradicable and unique dignityconferring feature or property of human beings.
34
Lee, Abortion and Unborn Human Life, 52.
35
Ibid., 51-52.
36
Lee uses the term “active potentiality,” and it is also important to note that
Aquinas makes the distinction between a passive and active potentiality in II De anima,
lect. 2 (Marietti ed., 240). Lisska uses the term “dispositional structure” to pick out the
dispositional properties that a thing has by virtue of having a substantial form. For
Lisska, “A disposition is a structured causal set of properties that leads towards the
development of the property in a specific way” (“Human Rights Theory,” 144). Lisska
(following other contemporary philosophers) in turn contends that it is possible to
ground subjective natural rights in these dispositional properties rooted in human
nature: human rights are what protect the proper and continued development of our

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

15

Furthermore, we know that we possess this active potentiality,
because if we did not then we would not, from the moment we
begin to exist—at conception, when modern biology tells us
that a distinctly human organism begins to exist—be able to
develop internally the capacities that all members of our species
do, in fact, eventually come to possess and exercise unless they
are prevented from doing so by some countervailing, particularly physical cause that impinges on that internal, self-directed
process of development.37 This further means that even if some
human beings never develop and exercise these capacities, they
still possess the active potentiality for developing and exercising
them, given that, counterfactually, they would have done so,
had some countervailing, physical cause (including a physical
deficiency) not prevented them from doing so. In response to
Wolterstorff, then, while it is true that some human beings do
not, in one sense, possess the capacity for rational agency and
the other capacities that persons possess, it is also true that all
human beings have the active potentiality to acquire and
exercise those capacities.
living, sensitive, and rational dispositions. Interestingly and importantly, though, Lisska
does not discuss why we should think that these dispositional properties are
ineradicable, unique, and dignity-conferring.
37
As Lee points out, “In the embryo’s case there is ample evidence that its
development is intrinsically directed or guided, from fertilization onwards” (Abortion
and Unborn Human Life, 87). Thus, had Aquinas (who actually held that ensoulment
does not at occur at conception) known what we know now (that embryonic
development is intrinsically rather than extrinsically directed), he also would have held
that a human soul must be present from fertilization onward to cause the organized but
still complex process of embryonic development, or the development of a human
embryo into a fully mature and functioning human person. And he would have
recognized, based on what we know now, that there is sufficient material organization
(epigenetic primordia of organs) present from fertilization onward to be the subject of a
distinctly rational soul. For more on Aquinas on ensoulment and the beginning of life,
see John Haldane and Patrick Lee, “Aquinas on Human Ensoulment, Abortion and the
Value of Life,” Philosophy 78 (2003): 255-78; John Haldane and Patrick Lee, “Rational
Souls and the Beginning of Life (A Reply to Robert Pasnau),” Philosophy 78 (2003):
532-40; and Stephen J. Heaney, “Aquinas on the Presence of the Human Rational Soul
in the Early Embryo,” The Thomist 56 (1992): 19-48.

16

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

Given that all human beings possess this active potentiality to
develop and exercise distinctly rational capacities, we also have
distinct reason to affirm that we are all rationally ensouled, and
so are persons. On a distinctly—and explanatory—metaphysical
level, it is because all human beings possess a rational soul, as
the unitary metaphysical principle responsible for all of our vital
functions,38 that we not only possess certain powers (intellect
and will) but also possess the active potentiality to develop
internally, from the beginning of our existence, and over the
course of a complex but also unified biological process, to the
point where we are able to employ those powers. Again, for
whatever reason, some human beings never actualize that
potentiality. Moreover, some human beings actualize that
potentiality, and so come to possess the immediately exercisable
capacity for rational functions (thinking and willing), but then,
for whatever reason, become unable to exercise it, and perhaps
cease to possess it altogether. However, while all of these
human beings “lack the use of reason accidentally,” as Aquinas
puts it—say, due to an underdeveloped brain in the case of
infants, or damage to the brain in the case of severely mentally
impaired human beings—they do not, like nonhuman animals,
lack the use of reason essentially.39 In all of these cases, the
human being’s rational soul, and so his or her active potentiality
to realize fully all dimensions of his or her rationality, remains,
which means that human rationality, and so personhood, is
ineradicable.
We can further defend the claim that human rationality and
so personhood is ineradicable from another angle. The objects
of human intellection are not particular material things (qua
particulars) but rather the intelligible natures of those things: as
Aquinas readily recognizes, not only can we perceive the world
38

I am drawing on Haldane and Lee, who say that “the soul is a unitary principle
responsible for all the vital functions of an organism” (“Rational Souls and the
Beginning of Life,” 536).
39
In defense of the claim that the insane and imbecilic should be baptized, Aquinas
says in STh III, q. 68, a. 12, ad 2 that these human beings, unlike nonrational animals
(who are not baptized), lack the use of reason only accidentally, because of a bodily
impediment.

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

17

with our senses but we also can think about it with our minds.
For example, the intellect “knows a stone insofar as the stone is
a stone taken absolutely speaking. Therefore, it has the form of
a stone taken absolutely speaking, i.e., according to its proper
formal notion [secundum propriam rationem formalem], that
exists in the intellective soul.”40 Unlike our sensory cognitive
powers, which operate via materially constituted sense organs,
our intellectual cognitive power, operating independently of
any sense organ, represents the world, and so in its operations
enables us to grasp the intelligible features of the world—the
“stoneness” of a stone (and actually all stones)—in terms of
abstract, universal concepts free from any material constraints.
But why is our intellect able to do this—engage in immaterial
cognitive operations, or produce immaterial thoughts?
Aquinas’s answer is that the intellect itself, and so the soul as
the source of that power, is immaterial.41 As Aquinas also
contends, if the soul in human beings were not immaterial, but
were instead a composite of matter and form, then while we
could cognize individual things—having received and thereby
represented them under the material conditions of the
intellect—we could not cognize the natures of things as such, as
we evidently do.42 Therefore, the human, rational soul, as pure
40

STh I, q. 75, a. 5 (translation modified slightly). This translation and all
subsequent translations of the STh are taken from Alfred J. Freddoso, “New English
Translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (Summa Theologica),” available
online at https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm.
41
See ibid. Robert Pasnau questions this inference: “One might instead think that
there is no straightforward connection to be drawn from the content of what a cognitive
system represents to the intrinsic character of that system” (“Philosophy of Mind and
Human Nature,” The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, ed. Brian Davies and Eleonore
Stump [New York: Oxford University Press, 2012], 356-57). But here we need to pay
attention to the particular kind of representation that is occurring in thought: it is
cognition without material conditions, which a cognitive system that is not independent
of matter—like our sensory cognitive system—seems unable to produce. At the very
least, I think that the inference that Pasnau questions here, even if it is not required, is
eminently reasonable.
42
See STh I, q. 75, a. 5.

18

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

form, is distinct from the matter, or body, that it informs, and
does not depend for its existence or nature on the matter, or
body, that it informs. And so no matter how physically immature or injured a human being may be, he or she remains a
rational being, and so a person (even if his or her physical
condition prevents him or her from performing distinctly
intellectual acts).
We are now in a position to affirm and defend the uniqueness of human rationality: no other nonhuman animal possesses
it. This is not to say that animals cannot engage in sophisticated,
even very sophisticated, cognitive activity. Aquinas readily
admits that “brutes have a certain semblance [similitudinem] of
reason”43 insofar as they can and do make judgments about
objects in their environment as beneficial or harmful, useful or
disadvantageous. And similarly there is in animals “a certain
semblance [similitudo] of free choice inasmuch as they can,
according to their judgment, do or do not do one and the same
thing.”44 However, once more, we human beings are ontologically unique in this regard: we are able (or at least have the
active potentiality) to engage in pure intellection, independently
of the senses, performing cognitive acts that conjoin us to the
intelligible natures of things, or as John Haldane says, “nature
as such.”45 As a result, we are (or have the active potentiality to
be) genuinely free, capable of distinctly rational choice. It is
because we can think abstractly that we can contemplate and
compare different courses of action to attain those ends that we
not only grasp as ends but also judge to be good, employing the
concept of goodness. Animals cannot think abstractly, and so
cannot deliberate: while they can act freely, in a sense, based on
the judgments that they make, their actions are still constrained

43

De Verit., q. 24, a. 2. All translations of De veritate are taken from Truth, vol. 3,
trans. Robert W. Schmidt (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1994), 146.
44
Ibid.
45
John Haldane, “Rational and Other Animals,” in “Verstehen” and Humane
Understanding, ed. Anthony O’Hear (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996),
20.

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

19

or determined by those judgments, like a sheep “under the
necessity of fearing and fleeing at the sight of a wolf.”46
To be clear, these claims are not stipulative (or speciesist).
We begin with what Haldane calls “an old Aristotelian principle,” which Aquinas also adopts, “according to which acts are
distinguished by their respective objects, powers are known by
their acts, and substances are defined by their powers.”47 In the
case of animals, although they may engage in very impressive
cognitive activity, and thereby demonstrate, in Aquinas’s words,
that they “have a certain semblance of reason,” they do not, for
all we can tell, direct their cognitive activity on the intelligible
natures of things, or think abstractly about the world that they
inhabit. “On the contrary,” Haldane continues, “our best
interpretations of their behavior find no place for the
attribution of abstract reflection.”48 Nor, for that matter, do our
best interpretations of animal behavior give us reason to
attribute to animals what Robert Pasnau (who at least admits
that Aquinas’s reasoning on behalf of the independence of the
intellect’s operations is “suggestive”) calls “a remarkable
feature” of the human mind, namely, its ability to “range so
widely—in a seemingly unlimited fashion—over the whole of
the world around us, readily grasping entirely new concepts of
all kinds.”49 Thus, following the specification principle: if we
lack sufficient reason to think that even the highest mammals
(such as porpoises or chimpanzees), even if they engage in
impressive cognitive activity (and so possess “knowledge” in a
broad sense), can think abstractly and widely about themselves
and the world that they inhabit—and so also can act with
genuine freedom—then we lack sufficient reason to think that
46

De Verit., q. 24, a. 2.
Haldane, “Rational and Other Animals,” 19. Perhaps some philosophers will
dispute the veridicality of this principle, but it certainly is intelligible, and arguably also
compelling insofar as it enables us to distinguish ourselves from other living things in
the world.
48
Ibid., 20.
49
Pasnau, “Philosophy of Mind and Human Nature,” 355.
47

20

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

they perform purely intellectual acts.50 And if we lack sufficient
reason to think that they perform purely intellectual acts, then
we lack sufficient reason to think that they possess purely
intellectual powers, and so would be distinctly rational beings,
or persons.
Here it is also necessary to point out that within the natural
order, human beings qua rational beings or persons are unique
insofar as we uniquely stand under or are bound by natural law,
and therefore possess moral duties that all other animals lack.
As Aquinas observes, while human beings are naturally inclined
to pursue goods that other animals (and more broadly, all
substances) pursue, we possess a unique inclination towards a
good that is proper to us as rational beings, and includes, for
example, knowing the truth about God and living together in
society.51 Moreover, it is by using reason that we are able to
apprehend all of these goods as ends that we ought to pursue
(and their contraries as evils that we ought to avoid) through
50
David Foster readily admits that modern science reveals that some animals are
“smart” and knowledgeable in a broad, qualified sense—facts that the Thomist readily
can and should embrace, especially given what Aquinas says about all of the powers of
outer and inner sense that human beings share with animals (see David Ruel Foster,
“Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Intellect,” The Thomist 55 [1991]: 415-38, esp.
431-36). In fact, since animals are capable of forming specific judgments, using the
estimative power, about one another and the environment that they inhabit, it is
perhaps not misleading to say, with Alasdair MacIntyre, that animals like “the wolf and
the sheep have reasons for acting as they do, even although they do not have the power
of reason” (Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues [Peru,
Ill.: Open Court, 1999], 55). What it is harder to justify, though, is MacIntyre’s further
claim that certain animals, like dolphins, therefore “possess certain concepts and know
how to apply them” (ibid., 27). Robert C. Roberts suggests that very many animals have
the capacity to have a concept but not the capacity to have a thought, the latter of which
involves “the ability to detach a concept from its role in perception and consider it
reflectively, apply it intentionally, and compare it with and relate it to other thoughts”
(“The Sophistication of Non-Human Emotion,” in The Philosophy of Animal Minds, ed.
Robert W. Lurz [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009], 220). I certainly think
animals lack the power of thought, so understood, since they also lack the power of
reason. Whether they also possess concepts and can use them even in a sharply limited
or localized way is, again, a controversial matter, but something that I admit is easier to
justify given that animals do possess cognitive powers that Aquinas rightly notes
resemble reason in human beings.
51
See STh I-II, q. 94, a. 2.

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

21

our free choices and actions. Therefore, for human beings,
natural law is a moral law that we are uniquely bound to follow
so that that we may attain or realize our distinctly human good,
or the good of reason, both as individuals and as a human
society. This is why the Church also recognizes what Wolterstorff fails to recognize: we possess both “rights and duties,
which together flow as a direct consequence from [our] nature”
as rational beings or persons. In other words, the very same law,
imprinted on human nature, which obligates others to promote
our own good, and so recognize our own rights, also obligates
us to promote our own good as well as others’ good, and so to
recognize their rights. As such, we stand alone in the natural
order as both rights-bearing and duty-bound beings.
There is real reason to think, then, pace Wolterstorff, that
the feature or property of being a person is both ineradicable
and unique to human beings (as animals). But does it also meet
Wolterstorff’s third main criterion: does it illuminate our
intuitions concerning human dignity and rights? It does,
certainly to a significant degree, since it is by virtue of being
persons that we transcend the rest of the natural order. John
Finnis offers the following reasoning:
For dignity connotes both superiority (e.g. in power, excellence, status) and
intrinsic, non-dependent worth. The radical capacity and act(uality) which
each human being has by virtue of his or her individual rational soul makes
each of us superior in the straightforward sense that we thereby have and
instantiate every level of being—the physical solidity and dynamisms of a star
or a galaxy, the chemical and biological complexity and self-directedness of a
tree or lion, and more: the capacity to understand all these other realities, to
reason about them and about reasoning itself, to replicate and transform other
beings on all those levels of reality, and with self-mastery’s freedom choose
how to live. In their inherent worth, our living, knowing, playing, and loving
are indeed paradigms of worth, as is the worth we grasp in our friend’s (and
thus in every human person’s) very being.52

52

John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998), 179.

22

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

Since all human beings, as rationally ensouled, “have and
instantiate every level of being . . . and more,” we are all
superior to, and so outrank (ontologically speaking), all other
beings in the natural order.53 Given this elevated (and not just
unique) ontological status, we also possess and demonstrate to
one another in our “living, knowing, playing, and loving”—and
I would emphasize, especially our intellectual and moral
activity—our “inherent worth,” and specifically rights- and
duty-grounding dignity and worth.
In more specifically metaphysical terms, since human beings,
by virtue of being rationally ensouled, possess being to the
highest degree within the natural order, we also possess goodness to the highest degree within the natural order, since (at
least according to Thomistic metaphysics and value theory)
being is convertible with goodness. The more being is realized
in a thing, the more perfect or complete that thing is; and the
more perfect or complete it is, the more desirable that it is, and
so the more goodness that it possesses (since “the nature of the
good consists in something’s being desirable”).54 In this sense,
goodness, or value, supervenes on being, which means that,
within the natural order, dignity and worth supervene on
human beings qua persons to the highest degree.55
53

As Thomas D. Williams claims, reflecting on the meaning of the Latin word
dignitas, “a person of high rank or position is said to possess a dignity, an excellence
that merits special regard. In the case of rank, dignity is superadded to the notion of
personhood and distinguishes one person from another. There is, however, a dignity
proper to the human person as such. It results from the excellence of his very
personhood and makes all people worthy of a particular respect not due to nonpersonal
creatures” (Who Is My Neighbor? Personalism and the Foundations of Human Rights
[Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005], 150). Aquinas, of
course, recognizes this as well: it is because persons as possessors of a rational nature—
the most excellent nature—possess great dignity that the word “person” applies
especially to God, whose dignity “surpasses every dignity” (STh I, q. 29, a. 3, ad 2).
54
STh I, q. 5, a. 1.
55
As Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann point out, while the terms “being”
and “goodness” are coextensive, in the sense that “both terms refer to the actualization
of the potentialities that specify [a] thing’s nature,” goodness cannot be strictly
identified with or reduced to any particular specifying potentiality, which varies from
one species of things to another. In this sense, goodness supervenes on being the way
fragility supervenes on but is not identical with or reducible to certain natural properties

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

23

It is also important to note that since every human being is
rationally ensouled and so is a person at every point in his or
her existence, therefore every human being also possesses equal,
animal-transcending dignity and worth at every point in his or
her existence. No matter how physically immature any human
being is, or how physically damaged any human being is or may
become, the fundamental “design-plan”—to use Wolterstorff’s
terminology again—that all human beings each possess remains
profoundly dignifying. Even the most radically physically
immature or impaired human beings possess rational souls with
inbuilt powers of intellect and will, and so the inbuilt, active
potentiality—or in Finnis’s terms, the “radical capacity”—to
exercise rationality, along with all of the other capacities that
fully functioning persons exercise, which in turn means that
even these human beings “have and instantiate every level of
being . . . and more.” Consequently, since all human beings are
persons, no human being ever can be “totaled” in the way a car
can be; and so no matter how physically underdeveloped or
impaired some human beings may be, we all possess a nature or
design-plan of far greater dignity and worth than even the best
examples of the natures or design-plans that nonhuman animals
possess. It is by virtue of possessing a rational soul, and so an
intellectual nature or design-plan, that all human beings possess
an animal-transcending dignity and worth more than sufficient
to ground the full package of human rights. Moreover, this
equal, animal-transcending dignity and worth are more than

(distinct chemical bondings) in distinct objects. (See Eleonore Stump and Norman
Kretzmann, “Being and Goodness,” in Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in
Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology, ed. Scott MacDonald [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1991], 101; see also 105-7). Moreover, since goodness supervenes on
being, an increase in potentiality results in an increase in being, and increase in being
results in an increase in goodness. Thus, Aquinas provides “a method for ranking at least
some natural kinds relative to one another” that also helps us elucidate and support
intuitions such as the following: “other things being equal, we value a human being
more than a dog (or a colony of bacteria) because there’s more to a human being than
there is to a dog (or a colony of bacteria)” (ibid., 111).

24

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

sufficient to ground the full package of human duties, both to
ourselves and to others, as specified by natural law. Since all
human beings as rational beings and so persons possess a
profound dignity and worth, we are all bound to act in accordance with that dignity and worth, protecting and promoting
our own and others’ dignity and worth as we live out our moral
vocation as rational beings and so persons.
In sum, given this defensible metaphysical conception of the
human being as a person, Wolterstorff is simply wrong to deny
that personhood can account for rights-grounding dignity and
worth. The feature or property of being a person is “a feature
that no human being can lack so long as he or she exists,”56 and
it is a feature or property that that no nonhuman animal
possesses, since no animal has even the potential to do what we
human beings can do with our rational powers of intellect and
will. As such, this feature gives to human beings a dignity or
“worth greater than that which any non-human animal has,”57
and the dignity and worth we have on account of possessing this
feature is equal: qua persons, “we are equal in dignity.”58
Finally, identifying this feature—our ineradicable, unique, and
elevated ontological status as persons—enables us to shed
significant light on “the intuitive sense that every human being
has dignity just by virtue of being human.”59 All of
Wolterstorff’s criteria are therefore met: it is on the feature or
property of being a person that rights- and duty-grounding
dignity and worth supervene.
III. GROUNDING HUMAN DIGNITY AND RIGHTS
IN THE IMAGO DEI
Having given a defensible account of the dignity that
grounds human rights, is it possible to say anything more about
what grounds human dignity and rights (as well as duties)? Put

56

Wolterstorff, “On Secular and Theistic Groundings of Human Rights,” 183.
Ibid., 184.
58
Ibid.
59
Ibid., 185.
57

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

25

even more pointedly, is it necessary to say more? It is one thing
to offer a defensible account of the dignity and worth that
grounds human rights, but it is another thing to offer a
complete and so fully defensible account of the dignity and
worth that ground human rights. The account I have offered, as
it stands, remains incomplete in some important respects. Even
though I have identified personhood as the requisite ground of
human dignity and rights, there is more I can and should say
about why personhood is the requisite ground of human dignity
and rights.
Here, I claim once again to follow Church teaching. “Being
in the image of God,” the Catechism states, “the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just
something, but someone.”60 I take this claim to mean not only
that human beings as persons are made in the image of God, but
also that it is because we are created in the image of God that
we are persons, who in turn possess ineradicable and unique
rights- and duty-grounding dignity and worth. If this claim, so
interpreted, is true, then fully accounting for the dignity and
worth that ground human rights as well as duties requires
making specifically theistic claims about human persons and the
dignity and worth that we all possess as persons. In this sense, I
remain in broad agreement with Wolterstorff, insofar as I think
that it is not possible to give a complete account of the dignity
that grounds human rights in purely secular terms. And yet,
contra Wolterstorff, and consistent with Church teaching, I
think that fully accounting for rights- and duty-grounding
dignity and worth requires affirming that we are created in the
image of God. To be clear, none of what I argue in this section
contradicts what I argued above, because in human beings the
feature or property of being a divine creation and image-bearer
is the same feature or property as being a person: to be a human
person is to be created in the image of God. However, again, it
is only by identifying the feature or property of being a person
60

CCC 357.

26

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

with the feature or property of being a divine creation and
image-bearer that we are fully able to account for rights- and
duty-grounding dignity and worth.
My main reasons for thinking this are as follows. First of all,
if there is no God, then there is no (or at least little) reason to
think that human persons, as rationally and immaterially ensouled beings, would exist. We may begin with what I take to be
a basic, defensible metaphysical principle, as Aquinas enunciates
it: “It is impossible for an active power that exists in matter to
extend its action to the production of an immaterial effect.”61
Or, as Aquinas also says, “the operation of no active power
exceeds the genus to which that power belongs.”62 This means
that no active power that exists in matter, or in the genus of
material things, can produce the rational soul as an immaterial,
and so materially transcendent, effect. Certainly, this pertains
most immediately to the production of individual human
beings: the material causes and processes involved in
reproduction do not possess sufficient power to produce an
immaterial soul (or to infuse the soul into the body). But the
argument may be extended even further: if the sole causal
forces and processes responsible for producing human beings
within evolutionary history were material or natural (physical,
chemical, and biological), then, while they could produce very
sophisticated animals, who remain strictly material beings, they
could not produce material beings animated or formed by an
immaterial soul. Thus, the first human beings qua persons could
not exclusively have been put together by strictly material
causes and processes either. The souls of the first human
beings—like the souls of all human beings—therefore come
from nothing and so, in order to exist, require an additional,
specifically creative cause, namely, God.63
61

STh I, q. 118, a. 2.
ScG II, c. 86 (translation in Summa contra Gentiles: Book Two, Creation, trans.
James F. Anderson [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975], 292).
63
Aquinas argues in ScG II, c. 87, that since the human soul is immaterial, and so
“does not have matter as part of itself, it cannot be made from something as from
matter,” and so “is made from nothing” in each human being by the creative power of
God (since “creation is the proper work of God” alone) (Anderson, trans., 294).
62

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

27

However, even if we grant that human beings could become
ensouled, and so come to possess the feature or property of
being a person, through strictly material or natural causes and
processes, there remains the problem of explaining how value
could come to supervene on that feature or property. In a
universe that lacks any ultimate source or cause of value, it
remains a mystery how value could come into existence in the
first place, via causes and processes that are strictly material or
natural (physical, chemical, and biological) and so presumably
value-free.64 So, if there is no ultimate, creative source and cause
of value in the universe, then there is no reason to think that
value exists, and so supervenes on the feature or property of
being a person, let alone any other property or thing. Even if we
grant, for the sake of argument, that value (presuming it is not
uncreated) could or did come to exist on its own at some point
within (or at the beginning of) the history of the cosmos, it still
remains a mystery why value supervenes on the specific things
that it does and in the ways that it does: why, for example,
living things possess value but nonliving things do not; or,
presuming nonliving things also have value, why living things
possess more value than nonliving things, and amongst living
things, why human beings possess the most value of all. Trees
64

One could hold that value always has existed, as long as the universe has existed:
its existence is just a brute fact about the universe, like the existence of the universe
itself. But presuming value did not have to be, like the universe itself, then the question
why it exists—why something rather than nothing?—still needs to be answered. The
assertion that value, like the universe itself, has to be requires even more explanation.
Ronald Dworkin, however, disagrees: he claims that we cannot sensibly ask why a
value-laden universe has to be the way that it is (or as he says, is “inevitable”), just as we
cannot sensibly ask for an external explanation of necessity in mathematics. Here,
explanation simply runs out; see Ronald Dworkin, Religion without God (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013), in particular 82-97. However, inquiring into
what ultimately accounts for the existence of a value-laden universe seems completely
sensible. In fact, it seems necessary: there must be something or someone which or who
ultimately accounts for the existence of a value-laden universe and its being the way that
it is, as intrinsically valuable. Otherwise, rational inquiry into ultimate explanations and
causes remains completely unfulfilled.

28

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

certainly can do more than stones, horses can do more than
trees, and human beings, within the natural order, can do more
than any other being, but, especially in a Godless universe, why
think that these functional differences also track axiological
differences? And even if functional differences are reflective of
ontological differences, why should we equate ontological
difference with axiological difference? What we need is an ultimate metaphysical explanation for why these beings have the
value that they do, or why value supervenes on them in the
ways that it does.
I argued above that if goodness is convertible with being,
then the more being a thing has, the more goodness it has;
which means that human beings, as rational beings, possess
being and so goodness to the fullest degree within the natural
order. I think this metaphysical claim is true: the more elevated
the ontological status a thing has, given the nature and powers it
possesses, the more goodness and so value it possesses.
However, we now need to ask: how can there be instances of
more or less being and so goodness in the world unless there is
also an ultimate standard of being and goodness—someone or
something with maximal being and goodness—against which all
of these instances of being and goodness are and can be
measured, or which they approximate to varying degrees, and
which accounts for the degree of being and goodness that they
possess?65 In a world without such a standard—again, something or someone with maximal being and goodness which or
who causes things to have the degree of being and goodness that
they have—while there could (perhaps) be varying kinds of
65

Here, I am drawing on Jacques Maritain’s understanding of Aquinas’s Fourth
Way, as summarized by Joseph Bobik in “Aquinas’s Fourth Way and the Approximating
Relation,” The Thomist 51 (1987): 17-36, in particular 22-24. As Bobik puts it, “what
exists as approximating (i.e., the more and the less) cannot exist unless there exists an
unapproximating approximated (i.e., a most) which it approximates” (ibid., 24). What
exists as approximating needs an exemplary cause, as that on which the approximating
effect depends “in the way in which a copy or instance depends on a pattern (design,
blueprint, standard)” (ibid., 34). As Aquinas also recognizes, what exists as
approximating also needs an agent or efficient cause, to account for the grade of being
and goodness that it does in fact possess (and which, as an approximating thing, it
cannot account for on its own).

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

29

things that possess the same grade of being and goodness, there
could not be varying levels of things that in turn possess varying
grades of being and goodness. Thus, as Aquinas argues, insofar
as “in the world some things are found to be more and less
good, more and less true, more and less noble, etc.,” we are led
to affirm the existence of “something that is maximally true,
maximally good, and maximally noble, and, as a result, is a
maximal being,” that is, God, who is the cause of all being and
so goodness in things.66 The ultimate reason, therefore, that
human beings possess the highest level of being, goodness, and
so value in the natural order is that we have been created by a
God who is perfect in being and goodness: an ultimate, creative
source and cause of all instances of value within the natural
order.
Actually, we need to be even more specific here. The
ultimate reason that human beings possess the highest level of
being, goodness, and thus value in the natural order is that we
are divine creations who image God in our nature, as rational
beings capable of knowing and willing. In his reflection in the
Summa on what it means to possess the image of God, Aquinas
claims that although “some things are like God insofar as they
exist” and, second, “as they are alive,” among embodied creatures, only human beings are like God in a third way, and so
image God properly speaking by virtue of possessing “knowledge or intellective understanding [sapiunt vel intelligent],” and
so an intellectual nature or a rational soul, with its powers of
intellect and will.67 Accordingly, not only does man image God
by virtue of possessing an intellectual nature, but “he is made to
God’s image to the highest degree to the extent that his
66

STh I, q. 2, a. 3.
STh I, q. 93, a. 2. I say that human beings uniquely image God amongst embodied
creatures because on Aquinas’s view (see STh I, q. 93, a. 3) the angels also image God in
their intellectual nature, even more perfectly than do human beings. On my view, this
also means that angels possess a baseline dignity and worth that is even higher than
baseline human dignity and worth, but I won’t explore this idea (or what rights inhere
in angelic dignity and worth) more here.
67

30

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

intellectual nature is able to imitate God to the highest
degree.”68 Thus, Aquinas says that there are actually three
different ways that we image God: first, insofar as we possess “a
natural aptitude” (aptitudinem naturalem) for knowing and
loving God; second, insofar as we “actually or habitually” know
and love God, via “the conformity of grace” (conformitatem
gratiae); and third, insofar as we know and love God perfectly,
via “the likeness of glory” (similitudinem gloriae).69 While all
human beings possess the imago dei in the first sense, only
“justified” human beings possess it in the second sense (a “recreated” image), and only the blessed in heaven possess it in the
third sense (a “likeness” or perfection of the imago dei in us).
What these theological claims fully illuminate, then, is why
human beings possess rights- and duty-grounding dignity and
worth. Insofar as God is a being of infinite dignity and worth,
the more a finite being resembles God, the more dignity and
worth it possesses. In the natural order, nonliving things
resemble God to the least degree, living things resemble God
even more closely than nonliving things, animals further
resemble God by virtue of possessing “a certain semblance of
reason” and will, and human beings resemble God most closely
by virtue of possessing an intellectual nature like God’s. In fact,
we human beings can resemble God ever more closely, and
thereby ascend an increasing scale of human excellence, insofar
as we know and love God to ever-increasing degrees, and so
increasingly fulfill our specifically human vocation—and so, we
also should say, our specifically human, moral and spiritual
duties—as divine image-bearers.70 However, regardless of
68

STh I, q. 93, a. 4.
Ibid. I have modified the translation slightly, since “natural aptitude” (which the
Fathers of the English Dominican Province use) is better than “natural capacity” (which
Freddoso uses). As Matthew Levering points out, “the intellect and will are never
neutral vis-à-vis God, even when we do not consciously know and love God” (“The
Imago Dei in David Novak and Thomas Aquinas: A Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” The
Thomist 72 [2008]: 305).
70
In this sense, the property of being a divine creation and image-bearer seems to be
what Wolterstorff calls “a degreed property of such a sort, that, the higher the degree,
the greater the contribution that possession of that property makes to the human being’s
excellence” (Justice, 322).
69

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

31

whether we fulfill this vocation or not, all human beings possess
a distinctly intellectual nature like God’s. In this sense, as I
began to argue at the beginning of this section, in human beings
the feature or property of being a divine creation and imagebearer is the same feature or property as being a person: as
divine creations and image-bearers we also are persons who
possess rights- and duty-grounding dignity and worth. Once
more, it is only by explicitly identifying the feature or property
of being a person with the feature or property of being a divine
creation and image-bearer that we are able fully to ground
human dignity and rights.
As we press towards conclusion, it is worth pointing out how
this theistic (and Thomistic) account of human dignity and
rights I am proffering surpasses Wolterstorff’s theistic account
in some key respects. First, Wolterstorff’s account suffers from a
crucial ambiguity that this imago dei account does not. Wolterstorff claims that while possessing the potential for friendship
with God is a necessary condition for friendship with God, it
does not explain God’s decision to choose every human being
“as someone with whom God wants to be friends”—an act that
bestows on all human beings rights-grounding dignity and
worth.71 However, Wolterstorff also makes it clear, drawing on
the nature-resemblance account of the imago dei, that the
potential for divine friendship is intrinsic to human nature, and
that those who have suffered the sort of deep malformation of
their nature that renders them currently unable to enter into
friendship with the divine can “be healed, in this life or the
next.”72 But if this is true, then no malformation of human
nature is so serious that it destroys the potential for divine
friendship altogether. If that potential were destroyed, then
there would be nothing in our nature for God to heal. Thus, at
least some baseline potential for friendship with God exists in
every human being. The question thus becomes whether that
71
72

Wolterstorff, Justice in Love, 155.
Wolterstorff, “On Secular and Theistic Groundings of Human Rights,” 199.

32

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

potential affords dignity and worth of the sort in which human
rights can inhere. Perhaps Wolterstorff would argue that it does
not, at least in cases of deep malformation. This, however, is a
highly disputable and suspect claim. Based on what I have
argued here, drawing on Aquinas, there seems to be a definitive
reason to hold that every human being does possess an ineradicable and unique (as well as equal and animaltranscending) dignity and worth since all human beings are
divine creations, image-bearers, and so persons capable of
knowing and loving God, or becoming God’s friends by the
power of God’s grace.
Like Wolterstorff, Aquinas thinks that God desires to be
friends with human beings. But unlike Wolterstorff, he does not
think that God only can befriend those human beings who are
persons, for he thinks that all human beings are persons. In
Aquinas’s view, God makes human beings his friends when he
infuses virtue (particularly charity) in the soul, and thereby
establishes the bond of friendship between himself and human
beings. And all human beings as divine creations, image-bearers,
and so persons are by nature capable of being made God’s
friends through the power of God’s grace, even if, again
(because of some sort of accidental bodily impediment), they
are incapable of exercising their rational powers and so growing
in virtue (as long as the bodily impediment remains). Moreover,
unlike Wolterstorff, Aquinas thinks that God befriends human
beings not because he anticipates benefitting from that
friendship—since he does not need anything from human beings
in order to be good or happy—but solely because he wills or
desires to benefit those human beings he befriends, in order to
make them fully good and happy. For Aquinas, divine love is
not moved by the goodness in things but is itself the cause of the
goodness in things.73 Thus, Wolterstorff is stuck having to
explain why God’s love is necessary to bestow worth if human

73

See STh I, q. 20, a. 2.

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

33

beings already possess the imago dei.74 Those who follow
Aquinas (as I am interpreting him) do not have this problem.
Second, the imago dei account I have exposited and
defended recognizes that love is both the source of our being
created in the image of God and the proper response to our
being created in that image. Divine love does not bestow dignity
and worth, in the way that Wolterstorff contends; nonetheless,
it is the ultimate source or ground as well as cause of the dignity
and worth that we possess as divine image-bearers. In the act of
creation, out of the love he has of his own goodness,75 God
imparts the imago dei to every human being when he creates the
rational soul and unites it to a body, thereby creating a physical
being with a distinctly intellectual nature: that is, a person. And
it is because each and every human being resembles God with
respect to his or her nature that each and every human being is
a person who possesses rights- and duty-grounding dignity and
worth. So, moreover, it is because we bear the image of God,
and possess profound dignity and worth as divine image-bearers
(and so persons) that we also possess the duty to live out our
vocation as divine image-bearers (and so persons), in a manner
befitting the profound dignity and worth that we each possess:
the duty, that is, to love God and our fellow human beings (as
ourselves), just as God loves us.76 This is why the Church

74
Other commentators have reached a similar conclusion. See, for example, Jordan
Wessling, “A Dilemma for Wolterstorff’s Theistic Grounding of Human Dignity and
Rights,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 76 (2014): 277-95, in
particular 287-89.
75
As Aquinas notes, as a Trinity of persons, “God produced creatures not because of
any need on His part or because of any other extrinsic cause, but because of the love of
His own goodness” (STh I, q. 32, a. 1, ad 3).
76
Importantly, Aquinas says in STh I-II, q. 100, a. 3, ad 1 that the duties to love God
and neighbor are self-evidently known to reason “either by nature or by faith,” which
means that one does not need to know that human beings are divine image-bearers in
order to know that one has a duty to love them. It is enough to know that they are
persons. For more on the love precepts as the basis of the natural law and so the moral
life for human beings, see R. Mary Hayden Lemmons, “Are the Love Precepts Really

34

PAUL A. MACDONALD, JR.

affirms, “The dignity of the human person is rooted in his
creation in the image and likeness of God; it is fulfilled in his
vocation to divine beatitude.”77 In Thomistic terms, we fulfill
this vocation by imaging God to ever-greater degrees, and so
exercising our natural aptitude for knowing and loving God—as
well as loving our fellow human beings (as ourselves)—by living
the Christian life. This vocation is ultimately fulfilled when we
come to image God perfectly in heavenly glory, and so love
God and our neighbor perfectly and without end. As we were
created in love, so do we attain ultimate flourishing or fulfillment by fully carrying out our duty to love.
CONCLUSION
I have argued that it is because human begins are created in
the image of God that we are persons who possess rights- and
duty-grounding dignity and worth. Thus, while being a divine
creation and image-bearer and being a person are the same
feature or property in human beings, it is by explicitly
identifying the feature or property of being a person with the
feature or property of being a divine creation and image-bearer
that we fully can explain why all human beings possess rightsand duty-grounding dignity and worth.
This means that Wolterstorff is wrong on two counts. First,
once we understand who the human person is, as a rationally
ensouled material being, or material substance of a rational
nature, we are able to show how all human beings are
ineradicably and (within the natural order) uniquely personal
beings, who also possess an elevated ontological status on which
rights- and duty-grounding dignity and worth supervene.
Second, once we understand that we are persons by virtue of
being created in God’s image, we can explain fully why we exist
as persons in the first place and possess the highest level of
dignity and worth within the natural order. In the end, fully
Natural Law’s Primary Precepts?” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical
Association 66 (1992): 45-71, especially 55-59.
77
CCC 1700.

GROUNDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY

35

affirming Catholic teaching enables us fully to ground human
dignity and rights, and so provide a full philosophical and
theological explanation for why human beings possess dignity
and rights.78

78
I am thankful for the feedback provided by several reviewers for The Thomist on
previous drafts of this article. Also, the views expressed in this article are solely my own,
and do not represent an official position of the U.S. Air Force or the Department of
Defense.

The Thomist 82 (2018): 37-57

AQUINAS AND RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS
ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

I

T IS WELL KNOWN that Aquinas does not use “right” in
its modern sense. He makes many references to jus, or “the
right.” But claims about “jus,” the object of the virtue of
justice, do not capture the content of modern claims about
“rights.” On this much, scholars agree. They disagree as to
whether a defense of modern rights claims can be rooted in
Aquinas. Some scholars find the notion of human rights entirely
consistent with and even implicit in Aquinas’s moral theory.1
Others insist that such notions are not only foreign to Aquinas,
but also antithetical to it: one cannot, they argue, attribute a
theory of human rights to Aquinas without also attributing to
him an Enlightenment view of man.2
1
See, e.g., Thomas Williams, Who Is My Neighbor? Personalism and the Foundations
of Human Rights (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005).
In more than one place, Jean Porter argues that at least some elements of the modern
notion of rights can be found in Aquinas. See Jean Porter, Nature as Reason: A
Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005); Natural
and Divine Law (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999); and Ministers of the Law: A
Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdamans, 2010). John
Finnis finds a more explicit theory of rights in Aquinas. See John Finnis, Aquinas:
Moral, Political and Legal Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998).
2
See for instance Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, “The Concept of Right in Christian
Moral Discourse,” in Michael Cromartie, ed., A Preserving Grace: Protestants, Catholics
and the Natural Law (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997); Alasdair MacIntyre, After
Virtue (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981); and Ernest L. Fortin,
“The New Rights Theory and the Natural Law,” The Review of Politics 44 (1982): 591.
In a review of Williams’s Who Is My Neighbor?, Russell Hittenger describes what he
refers to as a “moderate” view of rights, namely, the view that rights language, while

37

38

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

In this paper I will be concerned with a much narrower
question which has arisen within the broader discussion,
namely, whether Aquinas would recognize that there are rights
that properly inhere in the individual as such, independently of
and prior to the society of which he is a part. Jean Porter has
defined such rights as a “moral property possessed by an
individual . . . that exists prior to social arrangements,”3 and has
repeatedly argued that Aquinas would have recognized such
rights.4 Scholars such as Ernest Fortin and Joan Lockwood
O’Donovan, by contrast, argue that the assertion of such rights
presupposes an Enlightenment view of man and that they are
therefore incompatible with Thomist and Aristotelian moral
theories.5 In this paper I will argue that the texts Porter uses to
establish that Aquinas recognizes such rights are insufficient. At
the same time, however, I will argue that it is also inaccurate to
claim, with Fortin and Lockwood, that the very recognition of
such rights presupposes an Enlightenment view of man. I will
argue that the foundation for a very narrow version of the
rights that Porter is interested in defending can indeed be found
in Aquinas, but that this foundation must be sought in a place
different from those she cites. I will call the kind of individual
rights that can be grounded in Aquinas “rights as constraints.”6
philosophically unclear, might be a useful way to “summon minds to some of the tasks
of justice.” Even this moderate view, though, still implies that everything in the topic of
rights that genuinely merits examination can be exhausted via examination of the virtue
of justice. See Russell Hittenger, “Persons and Rights,” First Things, December 2005.
3
Jean Porter, who thinks that Aquinas does recognize such rights, refers to them as
“subjective” rights. However, since the distinction between subjective and objective right
is itself often unclear, I will not use that language in this article.
4
Porter’s lengthiest treatment of this question is found in her book Natural and
Divine Law (270). She makes similar arguments in Nature as Reason (352-53) and
Ministers of the Law (337).
5
O’Donovan also makes this claim (“The Concept of Rights in Christian Moral
Discourse,” 143-57). I have chosen to focus on Fortin’s claim because he develops the
contention I am interested in examining here, namely, that to recognize rights that
belong to the individual per se is to place the good of the individual prior to the good of
society. For an extensive discussion of Lockwood’s position, see Williams, Who Is My
Neighbor? 65-81.
6
Robert Nozick argues for a type of right that he calls right as “side-constraint.”
Nozick’s definition of a “side-constraint,” however, is rather different from the account

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

39

This paper will have three parts. In the first part, I will
articulate and unpack what I take to be the central point of
dispute between Porter on the one hand and scholars such as
Fortin and O’Donovan on the other. In the second part, I will
argue that there are weaknesses in the arguments offered by
both sides. In the third and final section, I will propose a
resolution. Although Aquinas maintains that man properly
pursues his good in and through society, he also both
acknowledges that man can pursue his good apart from society
and insists that there cannot be any contradiction between the
individual and the social good. The seeming consequence is that
something inherently opposed to the individual good could
never conduce to the political common good. This leaves room,
I will argue, for a theory of at least some human rights, rights
which act as “constraints” in any other pursuit.
I. DEFINING THE QUESTION
The rights I am interested in examining in this paper are best
articulated via a distinction that Porter makes in her book
Natural and Divine Law. Porter distinguishes two different
ways of defining “rights.”7 At the first, most general level, rights
can be defined as “expressions of the claims and duties that
persons have over against one another by virtue of their mutual
participation in an objective moral order.”8 I will call anything
that fits this very general definition an R1 right. But, Porter
notes, there is also a much more specific way of defining a right,
namely, as a “moral property possessed by an individual . . .
that exists prior to social arrangements.”9 Though Porter does
not elaborate on it, her stipulation “prior to social arrangements” is important. The claim that man possesses moral
I propose here. See Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books,
1974).
7
Porter offers a similar definition in Nature as Reason, 349-58, and Ministers of the
Law, 322-37. I have chosen to focus on her earlier Natural and Divine Law because her
discussion in the earlier text is more detailed.
8
Porter, Natural and Divine Law, 270.
9
Ibid., 271.

40

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

properties prior to social arrangements is not a denial of man’s
social nature, and it is not a denial that man properly pursues
his good in and through society. It is merely the claim that man
possesses some moral properties even considered apart from the
society of which he is a part. I would add the further stipulation
that these moral properties not only exist prior to social
arrangements, but are also left untouched by them; no social
consideration will annul or override these particular moral
properties. I will refer to anything that fits this more specific
definition as an R2 right. An R2 right, then, will be a moral
property possessed by an individual that exists prior to and
remains unaltered by social arrangements. Distinguishing between R1 and R2 rights requires some attention.10
R1 rights are rather straightforward, and can be derived
simply by unpacking the objective moral order. If the objective
moral order prohibits stealing, then—by the very fact of that
prohibition—participants in that moral order will have
corresponding duties to and claims on each other. In
prohibiting theft, the objective moral order of which I am a part
imposes on me a duty, conferred by the mere fact of my
membership in that objective moral order, not to take things
that are not mine. The mere fact that I have such a duty to
others implies that they in turn have a “claim” against me: they
can justifiably demand that I not take what is theirs. To put the
same point in different words, they have an R1 “right” not to
have their possessions taken by me, a right which corresponds
to my duty not to take their things. The question of what R1
rights we have can be decided relatively easily. We need only
look at what the objective moral order requires of us.
One can derive R1 rights from any moral theory that
recognizes the existence of an objective moral order. But, if all
assertions about rights are assertions about R1 rights, then

10
The subsequent examination will thus move beyond Porter. Porter, after
introducing this distinction, moves relatively quickly to the conclusion that Aquinas can
accommodate the stricter sense of right. A central contention of this paper is that that
conclusion, while not entirely incorrect, is also hasty. I will return to some of Porter’s
conclusions later in this paper.

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

41

rights are also not particularly interesting.11 Anything captured
by the notion of a right could equally be expressed via the
notion of the duties that correspond to them, or—better still—
by exploring how the objective moral order requires us to treat
others. It is likewise worth pointing out that acknowledging R1
rights implies acknowledging an objective moral order, but it
does not imply acknowledging any particular moral order. An
ethic of divine command, a natural-law ethic, and a Kantian
duty-based ethic could all equally generate R1 rights. To put the
point differently, acknowledging that R1 rights exist does not
commit one to any particular theory of why those rights exist.
The most important thing to notice about the R1 definition
of “rights,” though, is that many of those who assert a “right”
to something seem to intend to assert something more specific
than an R1 right. Consider what opponents of abortion mean
when they say that the fetus has a right to life. If the objective
moral order prohibits the deliberate killing of innocent people,
and if it can be shown that the fetus is an innocent person, then
the objective moral order will indeed impose a duty on us: that
we not deliberately kill the fetus, and fetuses will have a
corresponding claim on us: that we not deliberately kill them.
This corresponding duty/right pair is potentially consistent with
any number of accounts of why the deliberate killing of the
innocent is objectively wrong. But this does not seem to capture
what opponents of abortion mean when they insist that the
fetus has a right to life.
Many of those who believe the fetus has a right not to be
killed seem to believe something more specific than merely that
the objective moral order prohibits the deliberate killing of the
innocent. They believe that the deliberate killing of the innocent
wrongs the person who is killed, that it deprives him of
something he as an individual has a right to, a right that exists
apart from and is left untouched by any other consideration,
including considerations of social arrangements. To put the
point differently, they believe that individual human beings are
owed certain considerations from other human beings merely in
11

Porter also makes this point. See Porter, Nature as Reason, 349.

42

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

virtue of their humanity. In addition to all the other wrongs the
deliberate killing of the innocent might involve, then, those who
believe in the fetus’s right to life believe that abortion is also a
wrong against the fetus as a person, an offense against the way it
as an individual deserves to be treated. Even if man is a social
animal who pursues his good in and through society, we do not
need to look to any existing social arrangement to understand
the wrongness of killing an innocent person, and no conceivable
social arrangement will ever override that wrongness. This is
what it means to assert an R2 right, and it is this that opponents
of abortion seem to have in mind when they claim that the fetus
has a “right” to life.
R2 rights are not, as I have already noted, incompatible with
the view that rights are “expressions of claims and duties that
persons have over against one another by virtue of their mutual
participation in an objective moral order.” The assertion of an
R2 right is, though, a precision of that claim. It is the assertion
that at least some of the claims and duties generated by mutual
participation in an objective moral order originate in considerations about what individuals themselves are owed, independently of any obligations generated by the political common
good.
I have noted that R2 rights are a specific kind of R1 rights.
The mere existence of some objective moral order necessitates
R1 rights but not R2 rights: whether it necessitates the latter
depends on how the objective moral order conceives of the
individual, that is, whether it recognizes that the individual
possesses moral properties that exist prior to and are left
untouched by any social arrangement. But if it does recognize
this, then fully articulating the objective moral order will entail
articulating those R2 rights. To summarize, consider the difference in how R1 and R2 might account for an innocent person’s
“right” not to be deliberately killed:
R1: The objective moral order (for whatever reason) prohibits the deliberate
killing of the innocent. Thus, I have a duty, imposed on me by that objective
moral order, not deliberately to kill innocent people. Innocent people have a
corresponding claim against me, namely, that I not deliberately kill them.

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

43

R2: The wrongness of deliberately killing the innocent is rooted in the value
of innocent life as such, independently of any social arrangement, and no
social arrangement can ever override the wrongness of deliberately killing the
innocent. Something about innocent human life as such commands that it be
respected, and part of that respect involves not deliberately taking it.

Especially because some scholars find the notion of R2 rights
dangerous, it is worth thinking through what the recognition of
them does and does not commit us to. Specifically, I want to
distinguish two different ways of prioritizing R2 rights.
One way that a moral theory can recognize R2 rights is to
make them the sole consideration in moral matters. On this
view, any moral matter is to be addressed solely by appeal to
the moral properties that an individual possesses prior to and
apart from social arrangements. Moral theorizing, on such a
view, would consist primarily of compiling a comprehensive list
of an individual’s R2 rights and then evaluating any and all
proposed actions in light of that list. This would imply that R2
rights are really all there is to morality.
A different way that a moral theory might include a notion
of R2 rights, though, is by way of constraint. On this view, not
all moral matters can be addressed simply by considering the
moral properties possessed by human beings as such, prior to
and apart from social arrangements, but such properties do
exist, and they constrain our other moral deliberations. One
might think, for instance, that human beings are fundamentally
social beings, and thus that one cannot deliberate well about
how man should live or best pursue his good solely via the
consideration of isolated individuals. One might also think that
the common good of society is higher than and takes
precedence over the individual good. There is no obvious
contradiction, though, between the views that (a) man is a social
animal who pursues his good in and through society, that (b)
the common good is higher than the individual good, and that
(c) there are at least some R2 rights, and that respect for these
must constrain even man’s pursuit of the political common
good. These views would all harmonize if, for instance, disregard for R2 rights would render it impossible properly to
pursue the common good of society.

44

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

II. TWO ARGUMENTS ABOUT RIGHTS
Distinguishing both R1 and R2 rights and two different ways
in which one might think R2 rights matter helps us to
reformulate our initial question. Aquinas clearly recognizes an
objective moral order, so he clearly recognizes R1 rights. A
fuller accounting of those R1 rights can be obtained via an
examination of Aquinas’s account of the virtue of justice, that is,
by his consideration of what is jus or “right” in our relationships with others. The real question we need to consider is
whether Aquinas can sustain an account of R2 rights. This is a
controversial question. While some insist that the answer is
clearly “yes,” others are as insistent that the answer is clearly
“no.” In this section I will examine a representative of each
response and argue that both are problematic.
A) Fortin’s Argument against Rights
One scholar who argues against attributing a theory of R2
rights to Aquinas is Ernest Fortin. While Fortin offers an
important corrective, of which any attempt to ground R2 rights
in Aquinas must be mindful, I will argue that his case against
locating R2 rights in Aquinas is ultimately unsuccessful. All
Fortin ultimately shows is that a certain understanding of R2
rights is incompatible with the thought of Aquinas.
Fortin notes that in recent decades ethical arguments against
abortion, particularly those put forward by the Catholic
Church, have undergone an important shift. While the position
on the immorality of abortion remains the same, the arguments
have changed. For instance, although the Catholic Church has
always held abortion to be a gravely immoral act, traditional
arguments against it, says Fortin, focused on “what abortion
does to the person who performs it or allows it to be
performed.”12 Now, by contrast, the church focuses on the (R2)

12

Fortin, “New Rights Theory,” 591.

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

45

rights of the fetus.13 Against the “mainstream” view, namely,
that the two arguments are more or less the same, and that both
are equally rooted in Aquinas’s moral theory, Fortin argues not
only that these two arguments are different, but that the latter is
incompatible with the thought of Aquinas.
Why on earth would someone who opposes abortion object
to focusing on the rights of the fetus? The answer is not that
Fortin thinks the fetus lacks moral value. What he seems to
object to is the prioritization of individual rights (R2 rights), to
making these the starting point of moral discourse, and (as we
shall see) perhaps to the very notion that there are R2 rights at
all. Why would one object to making R2 rights the starting
point of moral discourse? The short answer is that Fortin thinks
that to do so is to presuppose an Enlightenment view of man.
Aquinas and Aristotle held that man is a social animal: he
pursues his good in and through the society of which he is a
part. An account of man’s good and how he ought to pursue it,
then, cannot be coherently given by focusing on man as an
isolated individual, because doing so ignores a key component
of what man is.14 Enlightenment thinkers, by contrast, focused
on man as individual and on his pursuit of his own individual
good. For Enlightenment thinkers, man has by nature certain
fundamental rights, which exist prior to his participation in
society and which must be protected if he is to pursue his good.
A man might well form social contracts with others that they
might better pursue that good, but those social contracts are still
established so that each can better pursue his own private
good.15 The contrast between focusing on one’s own individual
good and focusing on the common good is at the heart of
Fortin’s criticism of the contemporary focus on R2 rights.
Fortin insists that there is a fundamental difference between
taking one’s own individual good as basic and taking society’s
good as basic, between focusing primarily on achieving one’s
own individual good and focusing primarily on achieving
13
Ibid. Fortin (obviously) does not use the precise formulation of R2 that I have
defined, but as will become clear in what follows, it is this notion that he objects to.
14
Ibid., 595.
15
Ibid.

46

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

society’s good. He also describes the move from the former to
the latter as a “conversion.”16 This is an important point. After
the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Pat Tillman left a successful and
lucrative career as an NFL football player to enlist in the
military, where he died just two years later. The events of that
day moved many other young people to make similar life
changes, and it is easy to see elements of a conversion experience in these life changes. There is a genuine “conversion”
in the recognition that the good of one’s country is higher than
and must take priority over any selfish preoccupations—so
important, indeed, that it is worth risking one’s life. Fortin’s
point is that there is an unbridgeable gap between the two: he
thinks we can never have the conversion experience of putting
our country’s common good above our own if we focus on our
own inherent, prepolitical R2 rights. Consideration of R2 rights
might move us to go to war, but it will be for selfish reasons
rather than selfless ones. How do we get from our own inherent
right to life or our own fundamental right to life or to be
treated with dignity to laying down our lives for our country? It
is not clear that we can, except via the “conversion experience”
of recognizing that the common good takes precedence to any
personal interests we might have.
Fortin’s point is valuable, and well worth our careful
consideration. He is certainly right about this much: if the
recognition of R2 rights means discarding our understanding of
man as a social animal, if it unambiguously prioritizes the
individual good over the common good, then—no matter how
lofty we make those rights out to be—such a moral theory will
presuppose an Enlightenment view of man. But at this point I
want to return to the distinction I raised at the end of the
previous section, namely, the distinction between (1) making R2
rights the sole consideration of a moral theory and (2) making
R2 rights a constraint on a moral theory. So far, Fortin has
offered reasons against (1) but not (2).
Fortin is right to worry that a focus on the moral properties
that individual human beings possess apart from and prior to
16

Ibid., 596.

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

47

their participation in society necessarily ignores a fundamental
aspect of what man is, namely, a social being, one who pursues
his good in and through the common good of the society of
which he is a part. He is also right to think that there is a
conversion experience in the recognition that the common good
of one’s society is higher than and takes priority over the
individual good. I think he is even right to worry that treating
all moral questions via a consideration of R2 rights will prevent
that conversion experience from ever taking place. But while
these concerns imply problems with treating R2 rights as the
sole determinant of any and all moral questions, nothing so far
would rule out recognizing that there are R2 rights or
recognizing that an individual’s R2 rights must constrain even
our pursuit of our higher, political common good.
For Pat Tillman, would the sole consideration of his and
others’ R2 rights to life, freedom, and dignity have moved him
to give up his lucrative NFL career in order to defend his
country? Possibly. He might have concluded, for instance, that
that was the only way to preserve those R2 rights. But Fortin is
right to think that such a calculus is rather different from the
recognition that the common good of one’s country takes
precedence to any personal interests one has. The former type
of decision still seems a lot like the pursuit of one’s individual
good. The latter does not. It has a selflessness the former lacks:
fair enough. But even if we suppose that Pat Tillman has that
conversion experience, can he not still recognize that there are
R2 rights and be constrained by them?
Suppose that Pat Tillman’s conversion experience is genuine
and far reaching: he realizes that the common good is far more
important than his own life and his own interests—more
important, indeed, than any one person’s life or interests. So,
knowingly risking his own life, he joins the army. But suppose
that—while fully believing individual lives and interests to be
subordinate to his country’s good—he still feels that there are
some things he cannot do, even for his country. Suppose, for
instance, he feels that, no matter how vital to the common good
it might seem, he cannot deliberately kill civilians or torture
captives? Or that he must respect his own life enough not to

48

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

take it, even if he is captured and tortured? Considerations like
these imply a belief in the existence of at least some R2 rights:
not a belief that they are the sole consideration, but a belief that
those rights necessarily constrain what one may do, even in the
service of the political common good. Fortin’s argument thus
far—that Aquinas does not share the Enlightenment view of
man—does not rule out the possibility that R2 rights, while not
the sole consideration, nonetheless both exist and constrain our
pursuit of the political common good.
But Fortin seems willing to entertain the possibility that not
only ought R2 rights not be the sole consideration, they ought
not even be a constraining consideration. Consider, for instance,
what he has to say about torture. A prohibition on torture, says
Fortin, is “well and good,” given the abuses such practices
clearly lend themselves to. But the effort to make a right not to
be tortured irreducibly basic, he finds misguided: “a world
where terrorism of the most brutal sort has become a fact of
daily life may not be able to afford the luxury of showing the
same respect for assassins as anyone else.”17 Ruling out torture
in advance is attractive, because it spares one the making of
tough, complicated, and messy decisions: the sort of decisions
that cannot be made correctly without the virtue of prudence.
Fortin does not go so far as to argue that torture is justifiable
(though he certainly seems willing to go that far); his point
seems to be rather that grounding the wrongness of torture on
an appeal to an absolute human right to be treated with dignity
exhibits shallow thinking.
Since Fortin presents this view not merely as his own but
also as the view reflective of the tradition he wishes to defend,
this would seem to imply that a theory of R2 rights, even
considered as constraints, cannot be rooted in Aquinas.
Although I will argue in what follows that this is incorrect, I
also wish to argue that finding R2 rights in Aquinas is no easy
task. In order to illustrate this, I will examine one strategy for
locating R2 rights in Aquinas and argue that it is not as
successful as it might at first appear.
17

Ibid., 604.

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

49

B) An Argument in Favor of R2 Rights in Aquinas
Thus far, I have argued that while the fact that Aquinas
understands man to be a social being might rule out some
accounts of R2 rights, it need not rule out all of them. At the
same time, however, it is important to understand that
Aquinas’s understanding of man as a social being does make it
more difficult to find and articulate a Thomistic theory of R2
rights. In this section I will examine one strategy for finding R2
rights in Aquinas, namely, the argument that since Aquinas
prohibits or allows certain actions compatible with modern
views about rights, he must recognize at least some R2 rights. I
will argue that such a strategy does not go as far as it might at
first seem, precisely because it does not attend to how
considerations of man’s social roles might inform Aquinas’s
account.
Some of those who argue that a theory of R2 rights can be
found in Aquinas focus on specific actions that he prohibits or
allows.18 He says, for instance, that when it comes to the
decision to marry or to remain celibate, children are not bound
to obey their parents, and slaves are not bound to obey their
masters. He also says that no marriage is valid unless both
parties consent. But is this the same as asserting that human
beings have an R2 right to decide who they marry?
Given our previous analysis, to claim that individuals have an
R2 right to decide who they marry would be to claim that
respect for human beings as such, prior to any social
arrangement, demands that they be allowed to make their own
decisions about marriage, decisions which no further social
consideration could trump. In other words, it is the claim that
the decision of whether and whom to marry is a decision no one
else has the right to make for someone—that even aside from
any other considerations, the person himself is wronged when
this choice is taken away from him. It would also mean that no
social arrangement could nullify that right: no matter how
conducive a certain marriage choice might be to the good of
18

Porter, Natural and Divine Law, 272.

50

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

one’s family or society, the decision of whom to marry is still
one that no one has a right to make for someone else.
It is not clear to me that this is what Aquinas means when he
says that children are not bound to obey their parents when it
comes to the decision to marry or not marry. For one thing,
Aquinas’s claim on this point occurs in the context of his
discussion of obedience, and specifically in the context of the
claim that when it comes to such decisions one is bound to obey
God rather than man.19 So marrying or not marrying is not
one’s own decision after all, but God’s. Second, Aquinas is
describing a very general decision, that is, the decision for
marriage or celibacy, not the decision to marry person X versus
Y.20 It would be entirely consistent for Aquinas to claim that,
given that one has decided to marry, one should marry the
spouse one’s parents have chosen. Nor, again, is the fact that
Aquinas holds there is no marriage where there is no consent
particularly telling. Given what the sacrament of marriage
entails, there is no sacrament if there is no consent. But that
does not preclude the possibility that Aquinas would think that
one does something morally wrong by refusing to consent to
one’s parents’ choice of spouse. Finally, when Aquinas defends
virginity, he explicitly addresses the question of the relationship
between the individual good and the common good, affirms the
priority of the common good over the individual good, and
denies that a choice for virginity reverses that order. It is simply
that virginity and marriage are not ordered to the same good.
Virginity is ordered to a higher good than marriage.21
For all of these reasons, I do not think the mere fact that
Aquinas says that children are not bound to obey their parents
when it comes to the choice of marriage or celibacy—in and of
itself—indicates an affirmation of an R2 right to marriage on
19

STh II-II, q. 104, a. 5: “Unde non tenetur nec servi dominis, nec filii parentibus
obedire de matrimonio contrahendo vel virginatate servanda aut aliquo alio hujusmodi.”
20
This is borne out by the text quoted in the preceding footnote, which contrasts
two broad choices of life, rather than the decision to marry X rather than Y.
21
STh II-II, q. 152, a. 4, ad 3: “bonum commune potius est bono privato si sit
eiusdem generis, sed potest esse quod bonum privatum sit melius secundum suum genus.
Et hoc modo virginitas Deo dicata praefertur fecunditati carnali.”

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

51

Aquinas’s part. Something similar could be said of Aquinas’s
other apparently “enlightened” positions, such as his claim that
unbelievers cannot be forced to convert, that it is no theft for a
starving man to steal food, and so on. I say this not because I
think that Aquinas cannot ground R2 rights but merely because
I think his permissions and prohibitions can be explained
without any reference to R2 rights.
III. GROUNDING A THEORY OF R2 RIGHTS
The question that both of the above arguments inadequately
address—and the question on which the possibility of R2 rights
hinges—is how Aquinas understands the relationship between
the individual good and the political common good. That
Aquinas believes that the common good of society is higher than
the individual good is beyond dispute. But if it can be shown
that the individual good is not entirely subsumed by the
political common good, then it may be possible to speak of the
sort of R2 constraining rights described above. The seeds of
such a theory can be found in Aquinas’s description of the
relationship between political and individual prudence. In what
follows, I will argue that Aquinas’s account of this relationship
indicates the following points. First, since political prudence
“commands and directs” individual prudence, it is clear that
Aquinas believes that the individual most properly seeks his
good in and through society. This means that many of the
decisions an individual might make on his own will necessarily
be altered by what we have been calling “social arrangements”
and consequently that a theory of R2 rights as sole consideration is altogether incompatible with Aquinas. At the same
time, however, it is also clear that (a) Aquinas does not believe
the political common good to be the highest good there is, that
(b) he believes there can be no conflict between the individual
common good and the political common good, and that (c) it is
indeed possible to consider the individual’s good apart from
society. These further points, I will argue, leave room for
locating a theory of R2 rights as constraints in Aquinas.

52

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

Aquinas’s main discussion of political prudence occurs in
articles 10 to 12 of question 47 and article 2 of question 50 of
the Secunda secundae. In these articles, Aquinas describes what
political prudence is, why it comprises a species of virtue
different from that of other forms of prudence, and who can
possess it. Prudence in general deliberates, judges, and commands rightly about fitting means to a due end. But the “due
ends” that prudence finds means to are not all of the same sort.
The individual good (bonum proprium), for instance, can be
distinguished from the good of the household and the good of
the city.22 Corresponding to all three distinct goods are distinct
forms of prudence. The ability to find fitting means to one’s
own good (bonum proprium), says Aquinas, is prudence simply
so called. This is how prudence is typically understood, and
what the word is typically taken to mean.23 The ability to find
fitting means to the domestic good is called economic prudence,
while the ability to find fitting means to “the common good of
the city or kingdom” is called political prudence.24 In what
follows, I will argue that Aquinas’s view of the relationship
between prudence simpliciter and political prudence illuminates
his understanding of the relationship between the individual
good and the political common good.
Political prudence in its purest form belongs to the ruler or
rulers of a just regime, but it also belongs in a derivative sense
to the citizens of a just regime. Prudence in any form finds
fitting means to a due end; political prudence finds fitting
means to the due end that is the common good of the city. Since
it is the business of the ruler to direct the city to its good,
political prudence properly belongs to the ruler.25 But the
citizens, even if they do not make the city’s laws, nonetheless
have a share in them. For they, while acted on by the commands
22

STh II-II, q. 47, a. 11: “Diversi autem fines sunt bonum proprium unius, et bonum
familiae, et bonum civitatis et regni. Unde necesse est quod et prudentiae differant
specie secundum differentiam horum finium.”
23
Ibid.: “una sit prudentia simpliciter dicta, quae ordinatur ad bonum proprium.”
24
Ibid.: “alia autem oeconomica, quae ordinatur ad bonum commune domus vel
familiae; et tertia politica, quae ordinatur ad bonum commune civitatis vel regni.”
25
STh II-II, q. 47, a. 12.

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

53

of others, nonetheless also possess free will. Thus, says Aquinas,
“this much is required of them, that they possess in themselves a
certain rightfulness of governance whereby they direct themselves in obeying their rulers.”26 That they do this, says Aquinas,
“pertains to the species of prudence which is called political.”27
Aquinas further argues that political prudence guides and
directs prudence simpliciter dicta.
Although prudence simpliciter dicta is specifically different
from political prudence, Aquinas is clear that when an
individual possesses both virtues, the former is subordinate to
and commanded by the latter. Prudence simpliciter dicta has its
own distinct concern: the individual good. But even pursuits
with their own distinct aims can nonetheless serve a higher
pursuit: horsemanship, the military art, and statesmanship are
all concerned with distinct pursuits, but they are nonetheless
hierarchically ordered. The aim of horsemanship is to serve the
military art, while military arts in turn serve statesmanship.28
Aquinas argues that the same sort of relationship obtains
between prudence simpliciter dicta and political prudence. Each
type of prudence is concerned with specifically different things
(the individual good on the one hand and the common good of
the city on the other). Nonetheless, the virtue concerned with
the higher end is the superior virtue, and it commands the
other.29 Thus political prudence, which is concerned with a
higher good than the lesser forms of prudence, is superior to
and commands the lesser forms of prudence. Prudence
simplicter dicta, conversely, serves political prudence.
Aquinas’s clear insistence that political prudence “guides and
directs” prudence simpliciter dicta indicates that he believes that
26

Ibid.: “Sed homines servi, vel quicumque subditi, ita aguntur ab aliis per
praeceptum quod tamen agunt seipsos per liberum arbitrium. Et ideo requiritur in eis
quaedam rectitudo regiminis per quam seipsos dirigant in obediendo principatibus.”
27
Ibid.: “Et ad hoc pertinet species prudentiae quae politica vocatur.”
28
STh II-II, q. 47, a. 11, ad 3: “etiam diversi fines quorum unus ordinatur ad alium
diversificant speciem habitus, sicut equestris et militaris et civilis differunt specie, licet
finis unius ordinetur ad finem alterius.”
29
Ibid.: “Et similiter, licet bonum unius ordinetur ad bonum multitudinis, tamen hoc
non impedit quin talis diversitas faciat habitus differre specie. Sed ex hoc sequitur quod
habitus qui ordinatur ad finem ultimum sit principalior, et imperet aliis habitibus.”

54

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

accurate deliberation about the pursuit of one’s individual good
will necessarily be shaped by considerations about the common
good of society. However I might choose to build a house
outside of society, within society that deliberation must be
shaped by considerations about how best to live as a citizen:
among other things, by the need to obey building and zoning
codes. Social considerations will indeed affect my deliberation
about how best to pursue my individual good. At the same time,
however, it is clear that Aquinas does not think that the political
common good entirely subsumes the individual good. Three
points in particular are relevant here.
First, Aquinas clearly holds that both prudence simpliciter
dicta and political prudence are ordered to a further end. Both
prudence simpliciter dicta and political prudence are ultimately
ordered to the common good of the universe as governed by
eternal law. For a citizen or ruler of a just regime, deliberation
about one’s bonum proprium must be guided by prudential
deliberation about the common good of the society in which
one lives, but even that latter deliberation, when rightly
ordered, still ultimately seeks the common good of the universe
governed by eternal law. The importance of this cannot be
understated, because it provides a distinct rationale for
Aquinas’s claim that political prudence and prudence simpliciter
dicta do not contradict each other. The individual good is most
properly pursued, not in isolation, but in the context of a
community, and both of these goods, when properly pursued,
are ordered to the common good of the universe.
The second important point is that prudence simpliciter
dicta, while ordered to and shaped by political prudence, is not
identical to it. In the first place, prudence simpliciter dicta exists
even where political prudence does not. Political prudence is a
virtue possessed by rulers and subjects of just regimes, and—in
citizens—has to do with the citizen’s rightful order to the laws
of his society. Where the regime is unjust, or where there is no
regime at all, there will be no political prudence. But in such
situations there will of course still be individual prudence.
Moreover, even in a just regime in which political prudence
shapes individual prudence, the latter does not simply collapse

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

55

into the former. Deliberation about how to pursue my
individual good still differs from deliberation about rightful
obedience to society’s laws. It is merely the case that—in a just
regime—the latter consideration must shape and inform the
former.
The final and perhaps most important point, though, is this:
Aquinas denies that political prudence and individual prudence
will ever contradict each other. This is because the common
good and the individual good are linked: to pursue (properly)
the common good of the city is de facto to pursue the individual
good. Aquinas makes this latter point quite clearly in article 10
of question 47, in his response to the second objection. The
objector argues that prudence is not concerned with the
governance of people because to be prudent is to be adept at
pursuing one’s own good. But many of those who pursue the
common good neglect their own, and therefore cannot be called
prudent.30 Aquinas responds that anyone who pursues the
political common good thereby pursues his own good.31 This is
the case, says Aquinas, for two reasons. First, the individual
good cannot be achieved without the common good.32 Second,
the individual is part of the larger community. As such, he
should consider whatever is good for the community to be good
for himself as well.33
Taken together, I believe these three points could provide
the basis for a minimal theory of R2 rights in Aquinas, namely,
a theory of R2 rights as constraints. We have seen that
Aquinas’s account of individual prudence indicates that it is
possible to speak of the individual good apart from social
30

STh II-II, q. 47, a. 10, obj. 2: “ille videtur esse prudens qui sibi ipsi bonum quaerit
et operatur. Sed frequenter illi qui quaerunt bona communia negligunt sua. Ergo non
sunt prudentes.”
31
STh II-II, q. 47, a. 10, ad 2: “dicendum quod ille qui quaerit bonum commune
multitudinis ex consequenti etiam quaerit bonum suum, propter duo.”
32
Ibid.: “Primo quidem, quia bonum proprium non potest esse sine bono communi
vel familiae vel civitatis aut regni.”
33
Ibid.: “Secundo quia, cum homo sit pars domus et civitatis, oportet quod homo
consideret quid sit sibi bonum ex hoc quod est prudens circa bonum multitudinis, bona
enim dispositio partis accipitur secundum habitudinem ad totum.”

56

ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL

arrangements. Outside a just regime, rightful deliberation about
one’s individual good (i.e., exercising prudence simpliciter
dicta) will mean pursuing one’s individual good in a manner
commensurate with the common good of the universe as
governed by eternal law. Inside a just regime, that deliberation
will be shaped by considerations about the political common
good which, for a citizen, means considerations about rightful
obedience to the city’s laws. This means that some of the ways
in which it would be prudent to pursue one’s good outside of
society will be imprudent in society and vice versa. The
flexibility comes in because the choiceworthiness of many things
is circumstantial. It is impossible to say in advance, for instance,
whether risking one’s life is or is not commensurate with the
common good of the universe as governed by eternal law. Much
depends on the details, and one’s social and political nature is a
relevant detail. But suppose there were something about a given
action that was inherently opposed to the individual good?
Even if individual prudence can be shaped by political
prudence, both must still ultimately be ordered to the common
good of the universe. If there are some actions that are
inherently incompatible with ordering the individual to this
highest good, then it would seem that neither individual or
political prudence could ever require them. If we assume that
Aquinas would agree that suicide, for instance, can never be
done in such a way as to be ordered to the common good of the
universe as governed by eternal law, then this would be an
example of something inherently incompatible with the
individual good. No further consideration of social arrangements will make suicide politically prudent, because suicide is
by its very nature not orderable to the common good of the
universe: it is inherently opposed to the individual good.
Another example would be torture. If it is true that some
extreme forms of torture (like waterboarding) so overstrain the
will as to make any rational resistance impossible, then torture
would seem to consist in overriding an individual’s capacity for
rational choice. This seems to be a good candidate for something inherently opposed to the individual good of the victim:

RIGHTS AS CONSTRAINTS

57

no individual’s good is furthered by removing his capacity for
free choice.
Considerations like these, I propose, open the possibility for
a theory of R2 rights as constraints in Aquinas. Those things
inherently incompatible with the individual good will never
become so, no matter what the social arrangement, because
there is no way that such actions can be ordered to the common
good of the universe as governed by eternal law. R2 rights,
then, will guard against those things which can never be done to
an individual in the service of any end. They will be few in
number: for Aquinas they will not include, for instance, the
deliberate killing of noninnocents, or complete freedom of
speech, or a right to privacy. But the R2 rights they will include,
though few in number, will also be the most essential ones.

The Thomist 82 (2018): 59-88

THE FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE
IN PETER LEDESMA, JOHN OF ST. THOMAS, AND
VINCENT CONTENSON
BRIAN T. CARL
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, D.C.

T

HROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, St. Thomas Aquinas
appeals to Zechariah 14:9 in order to contrast the
knowledge of God’s essence in statu viae with the
knowledge of that essence enjoyed by the blessed: “In that day,
the Lord will be one, and His name will be one.”1 For Aquinas,
the multiplicity of the divine names is a necessary feature of
human knowledge of God in this life, to be contrasted with the
unified vision of the divine essence in the life to come. God is
named as he is known, and he is known to us in this life
through the created perfections that are his effects. Likeness of
the simple, infinite divine perfection cannot be communicated
to finite creatures except in multiplicity, and so to the
multiplicity of created perfections there corresponds a necessary
multiplicity of divine names.
And yet, among the names given to God in this life, Aquinas
privileges the name revealed in Exodus 3:14, identifying qui est
as the most proper name of God. The propriety of qui est as a
divine name within Aquinas’s theology is linked to the centrality
of esse within his metaphysics: qui est is the most proper divine
name, Aquinas explains, because it signifies existence, and in

1
I Sent., d. 2, q. 1, a. 3; ScG I, c. 31; Comp. Theol. I, c. 24; Super Rom. I, lect. 6; De
Pot., q. 7, a. 6. Cf. Lectura romana d. 2, q. 1, a. 1.

59

60

BRIAN T. CARL

God alone essence and existence are identical.2 But what is the
relationship between qui est (or ipsum esse) and other divine
names, which are all in some way less proper?
Among Thomists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, there is a frequently held position about how to
understand the centrality of being in our conception of the
divine essence. Many Thomists of this period hold that there is
a single “formal constituent of the divine essence in our
understanding” or “metaphysical essence of God.” By this, these
Thomists mean that there is a single notion that functions, in
our understanding of the divine essence, in the way that a
specific difference functions in our understanding of a created
essence: this notion both (1) distinguishes God from all other
things and (2) serves as the root (radix) from which all of his
other attributes are derived, as properties are derived from a
specific difference. There is, according to this view, some single
notion or concept that radically unifies our knowledge of God
in this life, in the way that a difference or definition radically
unifies the knowledge of a created essence. There is general
agreement among Thomists of this period that this formal constituent or metaphysical essence of God is ens a se (sometimes
formulated negatively only as aseitas), ipsum esse subsistens,
actus purus, or some similar notion associated with being or
act.3 The general consensus on this point was reflected and
reinforced by the twenty-third of the Twenty-Four Thomistic
2

STh I, q. 13, a. 11.
See Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. A. Vacant, E. Mangenot, É. Amann
(Paris: 1931) vol. 1, pt. 2, 2228-30 for a standard summary of the range of views about
this question. For an earlier summary along these lines, see Gotti, Theologia ScholasticoDogmatica, tom. 2, q. 3, dub. 3. For some well-known Thomistic authors who set up
the question of the formal constituent and answer this question in what I am describing
as the standard view of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see, e.g.,
Zigliara, Summa philosophica: Theologia Naturalis, lib. 2, c. 2, a. 1; Joseph Pohle, God:
His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes, trans. Arthur Preuss (St. Louis: B. Herder
Books Co., 1911), 160-64; Franz Diekamp, Theologiae dogmaticae manuale quod
secundum principia S. Thomae Aquinatis, 6th ed. (Paris: Desclée, 1933), vol. 1, 147-53;
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Dieu: Son existence et sa nature (Paris: Beauchesne, 1914),
349-52.
3

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

61

Theses promulgated by the Sacred Congregation of Studies in
1914.4
The doctrine and the terminology of a formal constituent or
metaphysical essence of God has its origins in sixteenth and
seventeenth-century Scholasticism. A full historical account of
the development of this notion is beyond the scope of the
present inquiry. This study primarily concerns the theories of
the formal constituent of the divine essence or nature articulated by three Dominicans: Peter Ledesma (1544-1616), John of
St. Thomas (1589-1644), and Vincent Contenson (1641-74).
With respect to the many other authors who contribute to the
development of this topic, I will limit myself to offering some
comparative references, without advancing definite claims about
lines of influence or originality.
Although I cannot claim that he is the originator of this view,
Contenson is the earliest Thomist I have discovered who
explicitly holds the position adopted by many late nineteenthand early twentieth-century Thomists that ipsum esse or ens a se
is the single notion (i) that distinguishes God from all things, (ii)
from which all the divine attributes can be derived.5
4
Theses quaedam, in doctrina Sancti Thomae Aquinatis contentae, et a philosophiae
magistris propositae, adprobantur, Sacred Congregation of Studies, 27 July 1914, AAS 6
(1914), 386: “Divina Essentia, per hoc quod exercitae actualitati ipsius esse
identificatur, seu per hoc quod est ipsum esse subsistens, in sua veluti metaphysica
ratione bene nobis constituta proponitur, et per hoc idem rationem nobis exhibet suae
infinitatis in perfectione.” This thesis asserts that the divine essence is rightly proposed
to be “constituted in its metaphysical notion [ratio]” insofar as it is identified with the
actual exercise of its esse or as subsistent esse itself. The concluding emphasis upon the
priority of ipsum esse to infinite perfection, in our understanding of the divine essence,
is anti-Scotist in orientation. Thomists from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth
century regard it as the Scotistic position that the formal constituent or metaphysical
essence of God is infinity (or the radical exigency of all perfections that attends infinity).
For a seventeenth-century Scotist who explicitly adopts this view, see Claudius Frassen,
Scotus academicus seu Theologia Scoti (Rome: Sallustiana, 1900), tom. 1, tract. 1, disp.
1, art. 3 (pp. 164ff.).
5
There are some authors prior to Contenson who approach this position by
explicitly identifying the formal constituent of the divine nature as ipsum esse, but their

62

BRIAN T. CARL

Contenson’s position on the formal constituent of the divine
essence represents a great simplification relative to the complex
discussions of this topic in the preceding decades of the
seventeenth century. Since Contenson does not explicitly name
any earlier Thomist as a target of his criticisms, I will provide
some context for his position by presenting the views of Peter
Ledesma and John of St. Thomas concerning the formal
constituent of the divine nature. John represents well the
position that Contenson criticizes in articulating his own view.
Ledesma’s position, in turn, provides background for appreciating John’s account. Ledesma is also the earliest Dominican I
have identified who employs the terminology of a formal
constituent of the divine nature. In sum, these three figures
exemplify the diversity of views over a seventy-year period,
even among Dominicans, concerning the formal constituent of
the divine nature.
Although both Ledesma and John of St. Thomas discuss the
notion of a formal constituent of the divine nature, neither of
these Thomists posits a single notion that both distinguishes
God from all things and serves as the root from which all the
divine attributes are derived. Both Ledesma and John assert the
relative priority of esse and of intelligere/intellectus, in different
respects, in our understanding of God. In Contenson, however,
we find a response to the position of John that posits ipsum esse
subsistens as the single formal constituent of the divine essence,
in that this notion both distinguishes God from all things and
serves as the root from which all the attributes are derived. In
this way, for Contenson, human knowledge of the divine
essence in this life possesses a radical unity comparable to that
involved in the quidditative knowledge of any essence—and, as
accounts of what it means for something to count as the formal constituent of the divine
nature vary, and they are different in this respect from Contenson and from what would
become a common view in later Thomism. See for example Francis Amicus, S.J., Cursus
theologicus scholasticus et moralis (Antwerp: 1650), tom. 1, disp. 3, sec. 4 (p. 32), who
says that formal constituent of deity is ipsum esse secundum totam latitudinem essendi,
but who provides a somewhat different three-part account of what the formal
constituent of a nature is.

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

63

we shall see, comparable to the knowledge of God pertaining to
the beatific vision.
The position that ipsum esse or ens a se formally constitutes
our understanding of God’s nature has continued to have an
impact into the present, even if few recent scholars have
discussed the question with the same terminology. The question
of what constitutes our understanding of God’s essence has
been taken up recently by Walter Cardinal Kasper, who both
criticizes and adapts what he takes to be the common view
among Thomists, arguing that mercy should be identified as
what constitutes God’s essence.6 Although few Thomists have
explicitly taken up this issue in the past few decades,7 some have
discussed the priority of ipsum esse, ens a se, or aseitas in a
manner that calls to mind the notion of a formal constituent in
our understanding.8 This being said, there are a variety of ways
6

In his Barmherzigkeit: Grundbegriff des Evangeliums, Kasper advocates for the
absolute centrality of mercy within the Christian gospel. For Kasper, the revelation of
God’s mercy is not just one feature of the gospel among others: mercy is rather the
fundamental concept according to which the entire message of the gospel is to be
understood. Beyond this, Kasper contends that the centrality of mercy must extend to
our theological understanding of God himself. Kasper refers to mercy as “God’s
defining attribute,” “the fundamental attribute of God,” and “the constitution of
[God’s] essence,” urging that all other divine attributes must be understood in light of
and as subordinated to mercy (Walter Kasper, Mercy: the Essence of the Gospel and the
Key to Christian Life, trans. William Madges [New York: Paulist Press, 2014], 51, 83,
88-89). In articulating this thesis, Kasper contrasts his view with what he characterizes
as the traditional metaphysical understanding of God, the Thomistic position that God’s
fundamental attribute is ipsum esse subsistens. In support of the claim that ipsum esse
subsistens is traditionally understood as God’s “metaphysical essence,” Kasper cites
Franz Diekamp (1864-1943), Theologiae dogmaticae manuale quod secundum principia
S. Thomae Aquinatis.
7
For one such treatment, see Stephen Theron, “The Divine Attributes in Aquinas,”
The Thomist 51 (1987): 37-50.
8
See, for example, David Twetten, “Clearing a ‘Way’ for Aquinas: How the Proof
from Motion Concludes to God,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical
Association 70 (1996): 267: “According to Aquinas’s account of existential arguments
based on the Analytics, a proof of God begins only with a nominal definition of God,
which cannot contain the divine quiddity and need not contain even what for us will

64

BRIAN T. CARL

in which recent Thomists have explained the centrality of ipsum
esse and its relation to the other divine attributes within our
understanding of God in this life.9

ultimately stand for the divine quiddity, namely, subsistent existence.” Anthony Kenny,
Aquinas on Being (Oxford: Clarendon, 2002), ix: “For the same reason, it is difficult to
evaluate well-known systematic theses, such as the real distinction between essence and
existence and the definition of God as self-subsistent being.” Rudi te Velde, Aquinas on
God (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006), 171: “God is understood as the ultimate
explanatory principle of the common being of all things, and, as such, He is Being-itself.
It is, thus, through the notion of being, as the ontological principle of actuality and
perfection in all things, that God acquires a determinate intelligible form in relation to
human understanding. It is a matter of finding an intelligible form under which the
reality of God, as presupposed by the religious belief in God, can be affirmed and by
means of which the statements of faith concerning God can be interpreted in their
truth.” Gaven Kerr, “Aquinas, Stump, and the Nature of a Simple God,” American
Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2016): 446-47: “Not only is the understanding of
God as pure esse central to Aquinas’s whole philosophical approach to God, but it is
also essential to the derivation of a number of divine attributes. What this highlights is
that for Thomas God’s being pure esse is not just another divine attribute, but it is most
proper to God and hence foundational for our knowledge of various other divine
attributes.” Cf. Gaven Kerr, Aquinas’s Way to God (New York: Oxford University Press,
2015), 164-65. See also Jeffrey E. Brower, “Simplicity and Aseity,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Philosophical Theology, ed. Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009), 107: “Here again, there are disagreements to be noted
among traditional theists. Some, influenced by the philosophical theology of Aristotle,
regard divine aseity as among the most basic or fundamental features of our conception
of God. Aquinas’s famous ‘five ways,’ for example, are specifically designed to establish
the existence of a being who is primary in just the sense described above—a being
which, he says, ‘everyone calls God.’ Others, influenced more by Neoplatonic
considerations, take divine goodness or perfection to be God’s most basic feature,
arguing that divine aseity follows directly from it.”
9
In addition to the sources cited in the previous note, cf. Joseph Owens, An
Elementary Christian Metaphysics (Houston: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1985), 94:
“The nature of the first cause, as knowable by unaided human reason, is found in one
characteristic only, that of being. According to the above considerations, however,
subsistent being is understood to have a number of attributes.” Cf. ibid., 81-83. Owens
does not compare ipsum esse to a specific difference or a definition from which the
attributes are derived. He does advance the view, however, that God is esse tantum in
the sense that God is being/existence and “nothing else” (ibid., 81), in a way that
renders every other positive divine perfection secondary as an attribute of ipsum esse
subsistens.

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

65

I will conclude this essay by indicating some of the questions
that would need to be addressed concerning Aquinas’s own
thought in order to evaluate its consistency with the positions
taken by Ledesma, John of St. Thomas, and Contenson
concerning the formal constituent of the divine nature.
I. PETER LEDESMA
A junior colleague of Dominic Bañez (1528-1604) at
Salamanca, Peter Ledesma published in 1596 a treatise De
divina perfectione, infinitate et magnitudine, circa illa verba
“Ego sum, qui sum, etc.,” to which there is annexed a treatise
De perfectione actus essendi creati.10 At the end of this latter
treatise, having already established the supreme perfection of
the actus essendi among created perfections, Ledesma raises
questions about whether esse is more perfect than essence in our
understanding of God and whether the divine essence consists,
in our understanding, in esse or in intellectuality. At various
points throughout his discussion of these questions, Ledesma
reflects the influence of Bañez, who famously emphasized the
supreme perfection of esse (against Thomists such as Soncinas
who “do not wish to hear” of it)11 and who posed similar
questions about the relationship between esse and intelligere in
our understanding of God in his commentary on question 14 of
the Prima pars.12 In brief, for Bañez, the understanding of God
10

For Ledesma, I have used Tractatus de Divina perfectione, infinitate et
magnitudine (Naples, 1639). Page numbers in brackets refer to this edition.
11
Dominic Bañez, In I, q. 3, a. 4 [Scholastica commentaria in primam partem
Summae Theologicae S. Thomae Aquinatis, ed. Luis Urbano (Valencia, 1934; repr.
Dubuque, 1964), 141]: “Et hoc est quod saepissime D[ivus] Tho[mas] clamat et
Thomistae nolunt audire: quod esse est actualitas omnis formae vel naturae.” For recent
discussion of Bañez on esse, see Thomas Osborne, “Continuity and Innovation in
Dominic Bañez’s Understanding of Esse: Bañez’s Relationship to John Capreolus, Paul
Soncinas, and Thomas de Vio Cajetan,” The Thomist 77 (2013): 367-94.
12
Bañez, In I, q. 14, a. 4.

66

BRIAN T. CARL

as infinite pure act and as ipsum esse subsistens entails his
intellectuality and his pure actuality in the order of intelligible
being.13 As we will see below, John of St. Thomas will criticize
Bañez for identifying divine intellectuality as an attribute that is
secondary and consequent in our understanding to the grasp of
the divine essence as ipsum esse. We find in Ledesma a
development of Bañez’s views, employing the language of the
formal constituent of the divine nature.
Ledesma’s discussion depends throughout upon a distinction
between two different senses of the term esse. In the first sense,
esse denotes the ratio entitatis, insofar “as it comprehends every
possible perfection that can fall under the concept of being
without any limitation.” As Ledesma elsewhere puts it, this is
the nature of being, completed or consummated by its
perfection, the act of existence.14 In the second sense, esse
designates existence as such without any limit or determination.
Ledesma depends upon Cajetan’s distinction between total and
13

Bañez, In I, q. 14, a. 4 (Urbano, ed., 334): “Et sicut divina essentia, prout est
forma entitativa, includit seipsam formaliter prout est forma intelligibilis, ita esse
entitativum divinae essentiae formaliter includit intelligere” (“And just as the divine
essence, as an entitative form, includes itself formally as an intelligible form, so the
entitative esse of the divine essence formally includes understanding”). Cf. Bañez, In I,
q. 14, a. 8 (Urbano, ed., 342): “At intelligere habet se quasi proprietas divini esse
entitativi: nam sicut immutabilitas in Deo est ratio aeternitatis, et ita, nostro modo
intelligendi, aeternitas comparatur ad immutabilitatem, sicut ejus proprietas; ita divinum
esse entitativum est ratio in Deo divini esse intelligibilis; et ita nostro modo intelligendi,
totum genus entis intelligibilis in Deo est quasi proprietas generis entis entitativi.” Here
Bañez indicates that the divine intelligere is related as a property to the divine esse,
because the former follows from the latter in our understanding, just as divine eternity is
a property relative to divine immutability, from which it follows.
14
This formulation first appears in his discussion of whether esse is more perfect
than essence in creatures in q. 12, but he employs it later in q. 12, a. 14 and in q. 12, a.
14, subart. 1. Ledesma, De divina perfectione, q. 12 (Naples ed., 479): “Primo
notandum est, quod esse apud Theologos dupliciter potest accipi. Primo modo ut
designet ipsam naturam et essentiam cum suo ultimo complemento et actualitate: ita
quod esse importet naturam entis actu existentis consummate et perfecte. . . . Secundo
modo potest accipi esse, ut designet ipsam actualitatem quam praesefert praecise
loquendo, ita ut tantum denotet actualitatem existentiae.” Ledesma then notes that esse
in the first sense can be understood either according to total abstraction or according to
formal abstraction.

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

67

formal abstraction in his articulation of these different meanings
of esse.
Ledesma poses first the question of whether esse is more
perfect than essence in God, according to our mode of
understanding. He begins by noting that if we take esse as
comprehending every perfection that falls under the concept of
being, then the question is simply inept, since in this sense esse
“is, most formally, the essence of God.”15 He repeats and
develops this claim later. But if we take esse in the second sense
as existence—distinguished from other perfections such as
vivere, intelligere, or justice—then it is a reasonable question
whether divine esse is the most formal and excellent perfection
in God, as compared to all others. Ledesma indicates repeatedly
that the assertion of the supreme perfection of esse (as
existence) in God goes hand in hand with the assertion that
esse, in the sense of existence, is the most formal and perfect of
all perfections found in creatures.16 Because esse is most perfect,
15
Here Ledesma echoes Bañez’s claim that the divine essence is, most formally,
totum ens, comprising both “entitative being” and “intelligible being.” See Bañez, In I,
q. 14, a. 8 (Urbano, ed., 342): “Ratio est: quoniam justitia et misericordia et alia
attributa Dei pertinent ad divinam essentiam, tanquam particularia quaedam praedicata
quidditativa. Intelligere vero importat quamdam rationem entis, nempe, totum genus
entis intelligibilis, quae ratio immediate pertinet ad divinam essentiam. Etenim divina
essentia cum sit formalissime totum ens, quasi integratur immediate ex hac duplici
ratione entis, scilicet entitativi, et entis intelligibilis” (“This is because justice and mercy
and the other attributes of God pertain to the divine essence as certain particular
quidditative predicates. But understanding [intelligere] indicates a certain type [ratio] of
being, indeed, the entire genus of intelligible being, which immediately pertains to the
divine essence. For the divine essence, as it is most formally total being [totum ens], is as
it were immediately composed [integrator] from this twofold notion [ratio] of being,
namely of entitative and intelligible being”).
16
Ledesma, De divina perfectione, q. 12, a. 14 (Naples ed., 546): “Certissimum
videtur mihi, quod nostro modo intelligendi, esse in Deo sit aliquid perfectius quam
essentia. Hanc conclusionem debent tenere omnes authores citati in hac quaestione
principali, qui affirmant, quod esse in creaturis est aliquid perfectius quam essentia,
simpliciter et absolute loquendo” (“It seems most certain to me that, in our mode of
understanding, esse in God is something more perfect than essence. All the authors cited

68

BRIAN T. CARL

formal, and actual relative to essence in creatures, and because
in our mode of understanding we can only conceive of God by
relation and in proportion to created things, “we thus conceive
the divine essence in a potential and material mode: but the
divine esse in an actual and formal mode.”17 Ledesma also notes
that qui est is the most proper name of God, because a thing’s
proper name is taken from what is most perfect within it.18
Having asserted this superior status of esse (in the sense of
existence) in God according to our mode of understanding—
and in doing so, having asserted without elaboration that esse
(as denoting the ratio entitatis and comprehending all perfections) is most formally the divine essence—Ledesma next poses
his second question, in a subarticle:
Whether the essence and quiddity of God most formally consists in the grade
of intellectuality, such that intellectuality, according to our mode of
conceiving ([albeit] founded in the thing itself), is the most formal and
supreme perfection of all which are found in the divine nature; or whether
this is esse as this denotes the ratio entitatis?19

Ledesma’s answer to this complex question is multifaceted.
He first distinguishes between two types among the notions
(rationes) predicated of God: some are said to be “particular,”
while others are said to be “universal.” By “particular” notions
in this context, Ledesma means notions
in the principal question [of this article], who affirm that esse is something more perfect
than essence in creatures, simply and absolutely speaking, ought to hold this
conclusion”).
17
Ibid.: “Illis enim argumentis evidenter convincitur quod nostro modo intelligendi
esse sit aliquid perfectius quam essentia in Deo; nam nos concipimus res divinas per
ordinem et proportionem ad res creatas, et ita concipimus divinam essentiam per
modum potentialis et materialis: esse vero divinum per modum actus et formalis.”
18
Ibid.: “Tertio probatur conclusio. Nam proprium nomen cuiuscumque rei sumitur
ab eo, quod est perfectissimum in ipsa essentia rei, sed (ut dicemus statim) proprium
nomen Dei est illud complexum (qui est) ergo esse est perfectissimum in Deo.”
19
Ibid., subart. 1 (Naples ed., 546): “Utrum essentia Dei, et quidditas illius
formalissime consistat in gradu intellectualitatis, ita quod intellectualitas secundum
nostrum modum concipiendi fundatum in re ipsa sit formalissima et suprema perfectio
omnium, quae reperiuntur in divina natura; an vero esse, ut denotat rationem entitatis.”

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

69

which taken in their formality are not adequate to the entire perfection and
nature of God, but are as it were certain particular quidditative [terms]
predicated of God, e.g., wisdom, mercy, etc. For the quiddity of God is not
adequately posited in this, that he is wise [or] merciful.20

Other notions are “universal” just in the sense that they do
adequately posit the whole/entire divine essence.21 Ledesma
identifies esse, vivere, intelligere, unity, truth, and goodness as
such “universal” notions.22 He thus combines in one list the
20

Ibid. (Naples ed., 547), quoted in n. 22, below. Here Ledesma echoes Bañez, who
also speaks of certain divine attributes as “particular quidditative predicates” of the
divine essence. See Bañez, In I, q. 14, a. 8 (Urbano, ed., 342): “Ratio est: quoniam
justitia et misericordia et alia attributa Dei pertinent ad divinam essentiam, tanquam
particularia quaedam praedicata quidditativa. Intelligere vero importat quamdam
rationem entis, nempe, totum genus entis intelligibilis, quae ratio immediate pertinet ad
divinam essentiam. Etenim divina essentia cum sit formalissime totum ens, quasi
integratur immediate ex hac duplici ratione entis, scilicet entitativi, et entis intelligibilis.”
In defending this claim about these “particular” quidditative divine predicates,
Ledesma appeals to a text from question 13, article 5, of the Prima pars, in which
Aquinas notes that a name such as “wise,” when predicated of a man, “circumscribes
and comprehends the reality signified,” but when said of God, “leaves the reality
signified as uncomprehended and exceeding the signification of the name.” Ledesma
takes this claim (which Aquinas uses in order to argue that names cannot be said
univocally of God and creatures) to apply to wisdom and to other “particular” notions
(such as justice or mercy) but not to what Ledesma calls the “universal” notions
(rationes) that enter into our understanding of God.
21
Cf. Aquinas, De Pot., q. 7, a. 5, ad 6: “Deus non potest nominari nomine
substantiam ipsius definiente vel comprehendente vel adaequante: sic enim de Deo
ignoramus quid est” (“God cannot be named with a name defining, comprehending, or
adequate to his substance: for we are thus ignorant, concerning God, of what he is”).
Aquinas does not seem to distinguish between positive divine names that do and do not
adequately posit the whole divine essence.
22
Ledesma, De divina perfectione, q. 12, a. 14 (Naples ed., 547): “In divina natura
quaedam sunt rationes particulares quae in sua formalitate sumptae non adaequant
totam Dei perfectionem et naturam, sed sunt veluti quaedam particularia praedicata Dei
quidditativa, v.g. sapientia, misericordia, etc. Nam quidditas Dei adaequate non est
posita in hoc, quod sit sapiens, misericors, etc. . . . Aliae rationes sunt in Deo
universaliores, quae ex propria sui formalitate adaequant totam Dei quidditatem, ut
vivere, intelligere, esse, unitas, veritas, bonitas” (“In the divine nature there are certain

70

BRIAN T. CARL

famous triad of esse, vivere, and intelligere with the transcendentals. According to Ledesma, we do not conceive of any of
these divine perfections as “parts” of the divine essence.23
Among these “universal” notions, however, Ledesma asserts
that esse, vivere, and intelligere are prior and radical, since they
cannot be reduced to anything prior to them. Divine unity,
truth, and goodness are consequent to these three prior notions,
just as these transcendentals are “certain properties and char-

particular notions [rationes] which taken in their formality are not adequate to the
entire perfection and nature of God, but are as it were certain particular quidditative
[terms] predicated of God, e.g., wisdom, mercy, etc. For the quiddity of God is not
adequately posited in this, that He is wise, merciful, etc. . . . There are other universal
notions [rationes] in God, which by the character of their formalities are adequate to the
entire quiddity of God, such as living [vivere], understanding [intelligere], being [esse)],
unity, truth, goodness”). To be clear, what Ledesma means by calling these notions
“universal” in this context is just that they posit the whole divine essence, not that vivere
and intelligere are maximally common predicates among creatures. He adds, however,
that the qualification “taken in their formality” is necessary for explaining why the
former set of divine names do not adequately posit the divine quiddity. He depends
upon a distinction drawn by Cajetan between signifying something as distinct formaliter
(which is to signify something distinct with its distinction from others) and signifying
something as distinct fundamentaliter (which is to signify something only as founding its
distinction from other things, without including that distinction within one’s
signification). Consequent to this distinction, Cajetan also distinguishes between taking
positive divine names such as wisdom and justice formally and taking them insofar as
they are “elevated in one thing of a superior order,” namely, in deity. In the latter case,
wisdom and justice are identical. Ledesma employs this language in order to explain
why it is only when they are taken formally that these positive divine names do not
adequately posit the entire perfection of God. See Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 13,
a. 5 (Leonine ed., 4:148).
23
Cf. I Sent., d. 35, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2: “Cum enim in aliis creaturis inveniatur esse,
vivere, et intelligere, et omnia hujusmodi secundum diversa in eis existentia; in Deo
tamen unum suum simplex esse habet omnium horum virtutem et perfectionem. Unde
cum Deus nominatur ens, non exprimitur aliquid nisi quod pertinet ad perfectionem
ejus et non tota perfectio ipsius; et similiter cum dicitur sciens, et volens, et hujusmodi”
(emphasis added). Because such perfections as esse, vivere, and intelligere are diverse and
multiplied in creatures, but unified in the simple divine esse, it follows that when we
name God from such perfections, we indicate only something that pertains to his
perfection, but not his entire perfection.

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

71

acteristics [passiones] of being.”24 Having distinguished particular notions, prior universal notions, and consequent universal
notions, Ledesma concludes that the divine essence or quiddity
formally consists, in our understanding, neither in the particular
notions nor in the consequent universal notions; this leaves only
esse, vivere, and intelligere as candidates for that in which the
divine essence formally consists in our understanding.25
Ledesma’s next step is to conclude that the divine essence
formally consists, in our understanding, in esse, insofar as this
signifies the ratio entitatis and comprehends every perfection
falling under the concept of being. Esse, by its formal ratio,
includes every mode of being, both entitative and intelligible.
Esse understood in this way thus includes vivere and intelligere,
but intelligere does not include or imply every mode of
entitative esse. In this respect, although Ledesma insists that
esse, vivere, and intelligere are all equally “universal” in our
understanding of the divine essence—each posits the entire
divine essence rather than what we conceive as one part
thereof—nevertheless, formally speaking, “they are related [to
one another] as superior and inferior,” insofar as vivere

24

Ledesma, De divina perfectione, q. 12, a. 14, subart. 1 (Naples ed., 547). Ledesma
then extends his distinction between the two senses of the term esse to vivere and
intelligere, noting that each of these terms can designate either the actuality alone—
existence, vital motion, or the action of understanding, respectively—or they can
designate “the natures with their ultimate actualities, so that esse indicates the nature of
being completed by the act of existence, vivere designates a [vital] nature completed by
its vital act, and intelligere designates an intellectual nature with its ultimate actuality of
understanding” (I have here read vitalem for intellectualem). Ledesma indicates that it is
in the latter way that these terms are to be taken with respect to the question at hand.
He then defends the claim that all three of these are equally “universal” notions when
predicated of God, where, again, a “universal” notion is one that is adequate to the
entire essence of God, as opposed to the “particular” quidditative predicates that do not
posit the entire divine quiddity.
25
Ibid. (Naples ed., 548).

72

BRIAN T. CARL

designates a certain mode of being, and intelligere designates a
certain mode of living.26
Ledesma goes on, however, to offer arguments for the
further conclusion that intellectuality functions as something
like a specific or differential ratio in our understanding of the
divine nature.27 It is at this point that he introduces the
terminology of a “formal constituent of the divine nature.” His

26
Ibid. (Naples ed., 549). As background for the claim that vivere is a certain mode
of esse, see Aquinas’s use of the axiomatic claim that vivere viventibus est esse in, e.g.,
STh III, q. 2, a. 5, ad 3. As background for the claim that intelligere is a certain mode of
vivere, see Aristotle, De anima 2.2. Although the parallel axiom intelligere intelligentibus
est esse is often attributed to Aquinas, he does not offer it explicitly anywhere. The
explicit phrasing of intelligere intelligentibus est esse is found in Albert, Ethica 9.3 and
De quindecim problematibus 7. Aquinas likely avoids the explicit phrasing of this
parallel axiom, even though it can technically be justified, because it is potentially
misleading. In brief, whereas vivere primarily signifies the esse of a living thing but can
stand for the operations of a living thing, intelligere by contrast primarily signifies
intellectual operation but can stand for the esse of an intellectual nature. To assert
intelligere intelligentibus est esse without qualification can for this reason cause
confusion: if intelligere stands for a thing’s operation, it is false that this is its substantial
esse. See Quaestio disputata De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 11, ad 14 for Aquinas’s claim
that intelligere can be taken either pro operatione or pro ipso esse intellectualis naturae.
See STh I, q. 18, a. 2, ad 1 for the claims that vivere can stand for vital operation and
that intelligere (like sentire) can stand either for operation or for the esse of the
substance that operates. For an example of a text in which Aquinas could easily offer the
parallel axiom explicitly but refrains, see De substantiis separatis, c. 11: “Sed in
immaterialibus substantiis id ipsum esse eorum est ipsum vivere eorum. Nec est in eis
aliud vivere quam intellectivum esse” (“But in immaterial substances, their very
existence [esse] is their very life [vivere]. Nor in them is life [vivere] other than
intellectual existence [esse]”). For an attempt to justify attribution of this axiom to
Aquinas, see James H. Robb, “Intelligere intelligentibus est esse,” in An Etienne Gilson
Tribute, ed. Charles J. O’Neil (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1959), 209-27.
Robb succeeds in showing that the axiom can be justified from Aquinas’s texts, but not
that Aquinas explicitly endorses it.
27
The thesis that intellectuality and providence (from which the name Deus is taken)
function something like a difference in our understanding of the divine essence appears
in Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 13, a. 11 (Leonine ed, 4:164): “[D]eitas importat
illam naturam quasi secundum differentiam specificam, ly vero Qui est importat eandem
quasi secundum genus.” The name “deity” signifies the divine nature as it were
according to a specific difference, whereas qui est signifies it according to, as it were, a
genus.

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

73

comparison to humanity and rationality as notions signifying
the essence of man is quite exact. “Humanity” and “rationality”
both signify man’s essence as a whole, but humanity is the total
ratio, while rationality is the differential ratio formally
constituting one’s understanding of humanity, as it is from
rationality that one derives man’s various properties. In a
similar way, Ledesma holds that esse (as signifying the ratio
entitatis) is as it were the total ratio in which the divine essence
consists, in our understanding; and intellectuality is, as it were,
the specific or differential ratio that formally constitutes our
understanding of the divine nature, from which we derive the
divine attributes.28
As for esse in the sense of existence, Ledesma holds that it is,
in both creatures and in God as we understand him, the
supreme and most actual perfection. In a human being, for
example, esse in the sense of existence is the supreme
perfection, as the act and perfection of humanity (the total
ratio) and of rationality (the differential ratio). But this most
actual and formal perfection—esse in the sense of existence—is
for Ledesma neither that in which essence consists nor what
formally constitutes our understanding of an essence, either in
the case of a creature or in the case of God.29 When Ledesma
says that the divine essence formally consists in esse, he means
this in the sense of the ratio entitatis that comprehends all
possible perfections under the concept of being, not in the sense
of the act of existence.
Finally, as for the relationship between intellectuality and the
divine attributes, Ledesma regards all of the divine attributes as
belonging to God “not only insofar as he has infinite entitative
esse, but also insofar as he has intelligible esse,” just as man’s
properties belong to man by reason of humanity, the understanding of which is formally constituted by the difference,
28
29

Ledesma, De divina perfectione, q. 12, a. 14, subart. 1 (Naples ed., 550).
Ibid.

74

BRIAN T. CARL

rationality, from which one can derive the properties of a
human being. In support of this, Ledesma argues that “all the
divine attributes pertain to the intellect or to the will, as follows
by induction in [considering] the attribute of wisdom, justice,
mercy, etc.”30 He thus understands the term “attribute” narrowly, in a way that does not include, for example, God’s
goodness, infinity, or eternity. As we will see below, John of St.
Thomas uses the term “attribute” in a different fashion.
There is a great deal of technical precision involved in
Ledesma’s views, particularly in his careful but often atypical
use of terminology. Ledesma distinguishes between (a) that “in
which the divine essence formally consists” and (b) that which
“formally constitutes the divine nature,” where the divine
nature is distinguished from the divine essence. For Ledesma,
the divine essence formally consists in esse in the sense of the
ratio entitatis, comprehending all perfections. The divine nature
is formally constituted by intellectuality, which as it were
“specifies” the mode of divine esse from which we derive the
divine attributes. And again, esse in the sense of existence is the
supreme, most actual, most formal perfection in God according
to our mode of understanding; but esse in this sense is not that
in which God’s essence formally consists.
II. JOHN OF ST. THOMAS
In disputation 16, article 2 of his Cursus theologicus,
commenting on question 14 of the Prima pars, John of St.
Thomas raises the question, “whether actual intellection is the
formal constituent of the divine nature.” He takes it that
Capreolus, Bañez, and Ledesma are all of the view that the
divine nature is constituted by ipsum esse or by substantia a se,
such that all three of these figures regard intellectuality (as first
act) or intelligere (as second act) as an attribute or property of
the divine nature rather than as constitutive of it. He does
observe that Ledesma “ultimately confesses that intellectuality
30

Ibid. (Naples ed, 551).

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

75

in God has as it were the character of an ultimate difference,”
but otherwise he takes Ledesma’s position to be that esse (as
expressing the nature of being completed by its ultimate
perfection) is what formally constitutes the divine nature.31 As
we shall see below, John distinguishes between the question of
what constitutes the divine essence and the question of what
constitutes the divine nature; he reads his predecessors,
including Ledesma, as being concerned with the latter when
they discuss the priority or centrality of ipsum esse or ens a se in
our understanding of God.
Later Thomists, in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, typically identify John’s position, that actual
understanding (intelligere) is what formally constitutes the
divine nature, as a minority view among Thomists. This was in
fact a fairly common position among early- to mid-seventeenthcentury Dominican Thomists, when their primary interlocutors
were certain Jesuits who regarded divine intelligere as an
attribute consequent, in our understanding, to the divine
nature.32 John names Molina, Vazquez, Granado, and Torres as
holding to the view that “the entire essence of God is
constituted in an antecedent fashion to intellectuality,” such
that the divine intellect, whether regarded as in first act or in
second act, is understood as an attribute of the divine nature.33
31
John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus tom. 2, disp. 16, a. 2 (Paris: Desclée,
1934; p. 337).
32
John of St. Thomas cites two post-Bañezian Dominicans as advocates for the view
that second-act intelligere formally constitutes the divine nature in our understanding:
Juan Gonzalez de Albeda and Giovanni Paolo Nazario. He also cites what would
become known as the Cursus theologicus of the Salmanticenses, referring to this as the
work of the Carmelitani. See ibid.
33
Ibid. Although John of St. Thomas does not call attention to this point, there is
perhaps some connection between the dispute about the formal constituent of the divine
nature and the famous dispute about the supposed scientia media, to which he devotes
lengthy attention later in the Cursus. All things being equal, if divine intellectuality is
regarded as an attribute consequent to the divine nature, it would seem to be easier to
carve out space for scientia media. There is a close connection between these questions

76

BRIAN T. CARL

He distinguishes from this position the view of Peter Arrubal
(1559-1608), who holds that first-act intellectuality constitutes
the divine nature in our understanding, where second-act
intelligere is regarded as an attribute consequent to this nature.34
John begins his treatment of the question by noting that he is
not concerned with what is constitutive of the divine entity,
essence, or substance; he is concerned rather with what
constitutes the divine nature, namely, “the concept of divinity
insofar as it is the root of operations and of those things which
are conceived as properties of God.”35 Taking it that “nature”
signifies a thing’s essence understood as the principle of its
operation, he clarifies that he is concerned with “what is the
formal constituent of that special concept in which the divine
nature, as nature, is set apart from the concepts of the attributes
and of the persons, and is taken as distinct from them in our
mode of understanding.”36 I noted above that Ledesma employs
the term “attribute” in a distinctive fashion, identifying as
attributes only those perfections of God that follow from and
include within their meaning his intellectuality. John, by
contrast, uses the term “attribute” broadly, so as to include
God’s simplicity, perfection, goodness, infinity, and so on (the
divine names treated by Aquinas in STh I, qq. 3-11) in addition
to will, life, justice, and mercy (those treated subsequent to STh
I, q. 14). The formal constituent of the divine nature is, for
John, not precisely the root from which all of the attributes are
in Valentinum de Herice, Quatuor tractatus in primam partem S. Thomae distincti
disputationibus (Pamplona, 1623).
34
John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus tom. 2, disp. 16, a. 2 (Paris ed., 337). See
Peter Arrubal, In primam partem D. Thomae, tom. 1, disp. 28.
35
John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus tom. 2, disp. 16, a. 2 (Paris ed., 336):
“Nomine divinae naturae non solum intelligimus constitutivum entitatis divinae, ut
praecise entitas increata est, quod magis explicatur nomine essentiae vel substantiae seu
entis increati: sed intelligimus conceptum divinitatis, ut est radix operationum et eorum
quae concipiuntur ut propriae passiones Dei.”
36
Ibid.: “Et ideo non est praesens quaestio de consitutivo hujus entitatis et
substantiae sub conceptu isto transcendentali: sed quid sit formale constitutivum illius
specialis conceptus, in quo natura divina, ut natura, secernitur a conceptu attributorum
et Personarum, et sumitur ut ab illis condistincta nostro modo intelligendi.”

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

77

demonstrated. It is, rather, the concept according to which the
divine nature, as the source of God’s operations and properties,
is distinguished from the attributes and the persons.
The question about the formal constituent of the divine
nature is thus closely connected to questions about the
distinction of the divine attributes, both among themselves and
from the divine nature. The Trinitarian aspect of the question is
also of central importance, as many of John’s arguments in
favor of his position appeal to its implications for Trinitarian
theology. These two aspects of the question run together, and
his position concerning the formal constituent of the divine
nature should be understood in part as an attempt to overcome
an apparent tension, in our understanding, between divine
simplicity and the assertion of the Trinity. This tension arises
because, on the one hand, whatever is in God is God and is
identical with the divine essence, so that the personal relations
must be identical with the divine essence; but, on the other
hand, the identity of the personal relations with the divine
essence does not imply that the personal relations themselves
are communicated in the Trinitarian processions.37 This tension
prompts a distinction between what belongs to the divine
37

For an earlier presentation of this difficulty, see Suarez, Disp. meta. 30.5 and 30.6,
De essentia et attributis Dei in communi, c. 11. In the debates about the formal
constituent of the divine nature in the seventeenth century, authors tend to disagree
with each another about Suarez’s views, which are complex. Suarez does use the
language of formal constitution in discussing the relationship between certain divine
names and the divine essence. He frames the question as whether all of the attributes are
of the divine essence, answering in the affirmative. In Disp. meta. 30.15, he asserts that
divine scientia “is formally of the very essence of God and as it were ultimately
constitutes it as the ratio of such a nature or essence.” He goes on in 30.16, however, to
assert that the divine willing (velle or actus volendi) is also formally of the divine
essence, although it is in a way secondary to divine intelligere in our understanding,
because intelligere constitutes the divine nature. Suarez thus uses the verb constituere,
without directly thematizing the question about what formally constitutes the divine
nature, where in the debates in the following decades authors begin to use the term
constitutivum and to ask directly what the formal constituent of the divine nature is.

78

BRIAN T. CARL

essence or nature “in the formal sense”—where this is
understood as what is common to the divine persons—and what
is identical with the divine essence “in the [merely] identical
sense.”38 Granted that there is some need to distinguish what
belongs formally to the divine essence/nature, and given that the
processions are distinguished with respect to the divine
operations of understanding and loving, John seeks to identify
the notion that distinguishes the divine nature, in our
understanding, as the source of the divine operations, and thus
also as the basis for distinguishing the divine nature from the
persons.
Having set up the question in this way, John proceeds to
argue that the divine nature is formally constituted by secondact intelligere rather than by first-act intellectuality (Arrubal’s
view) or by ipsum esse a se (the view of various other Jesuits
and of Bañez and Ledesma, as John reads them). With respect
to the former alternative, John argues that not even according
to our mode of understanding can we conceive of God’s nature
in terms of first-act intellectuality, because this contradicts the
notion of pure act and the exclusion of all potency from God.39
With respect to the latter alternative, John grants that if the
question were what formally constitutes our notion of
uncreated or divine being—the divine essence or substance—
then this is indeed ipsum esse a se or substantia a se, “as they
express the notion of pure act.”40 He characterizes this as a
concept that is, as it were, transcendental and common to the
divine nature, attributes, and persons; by virtue of divine
simplicity, all of these are pure act and ipsum esse a se. It is also
from such a notion of the divine essence that attributes such as
38

For John of St. Thomas’s use of this language, see Cursus theologicus tom. 2, disp.
16, a. 2 (Paris ed., 340).
39
Ibid. (Paris ed., 342): “In Deo excluditur omnis ratio et umbra actus primi
respectu actus secundi, propter rationem actus puri et exclusionem omnis potentialitas.”
Although John of St. Thomas doesn’t bring up this point, this same line of argument
would seem to be effective against Ledesma’s view that esse, in the sense of existence, is
more perfect than essence in our understanding of God.
40
Ibid. (Paris ed., 338).

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

79

infinity, goodness, and eternity follow. John also grants that it is
by the notion of ipsum esse a se or substantia a se that God is
distinguished from all created things. He makes clear, however,
that it is not one and the same notion by which God is
distinguished from all things and by which the divine nature is
distinguished from the divine attributes and persons. For John,
ipsum esse a se, expressive of the notion of pure act, cannot
accomplish the latter, because it stands as transcendental and
common to the attributes and persons: pure act distinguishes
God from creatures, but it is not the basis for distinguishing
between the divine nature and anything else that is in God.
As mentioned above, many of John’s arguments concern the
implications of his view for Trinitarian theology. In brief, his
central argument along these lines is that we must regard actual
intellection as what formally constitutes the divine nature in
order to account for the claim that the procession of the divine
Word is a generation, whereas the procession of the Holy Spirit
is not. He points out that when Aquinas argues that the
procession of the Word is a generation, he appeals to the claim
that intelligere is identical with esse in God.41 John asserts that
Aquinas must be speaking in the formal sense when he says that
in God esse and intelligere are the same: he must be indicating
that intelligere formally constitutes the divine nature. Generation, as the formal ratio of a divine procession, requires that the
41
Ibid. (Paris ed., 339). See STh I, q. 27, a. 2 (Leonine ed., 4:309): “Sic igitur
processio verbi in divinis habet rationem generationis. Procedit enim per modum
intelligibilis actionis, quae est operatio vitae: et a principio coniuncto, ut supra iam
dictum est: et secundum rationem similitudinis, quia conceptio intellectus est similitudo
rei intellectae: et in eadem natura existens, quia in Deo idem est intelligere et esse, ut
supra ostensum est” (“Therefore the procession of the Word in God has the character
[ratio] of a generation. For [the Word] proceeds in the mode of intelligible action,
which is a vital operation: and [he proceeds] from a conjoined principle, as was already
said above; and according to the character [ratio] of likeness, since the intellect’s
conception is a likeness of the thing understood; and [as] existing in the same nature,
since in God understanding [intelligere] is the same as being [esse], as was shown
above”).

80

BRIAN T. CARL

one that proceeds be “similar to [his] generator in nature, and
not only by identity.” The Holy Spirit is identical with the
divine nature, but his procession is not a generation, because
divine will and love, according to which the Spirit proceeds, are
consequent to the divine nature in our understanding. John
argues that the same would be true of the Son—his procession
according to intelligible emanation would not be a generation—
if intelligere were something consequent to the divine nature in
our understanding.42
42

John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus tom. 2, disp. 16, a. 2 (Paris ed., 339-40):
“Quod autem ibi loquatur in sensu formali probatur: quia Filius in quantum Filius non
procedit ut similis suo generanti solum identice, sed formaliter; nec procedit ut similis
Patri in proprietate characteristica Patris (in hac enim dissimilis ei est, et oppositus
relative), sed in natura; et sic cum ex formali ratione processionis debeat exprimere esse
similem generanti in natura, et non solum per identitatem (alias non salvatur ratio
generationis: ut manifeste patet in Spiritu Sancto, qui formaliter procedit ut amor qui
identificatur cum natura divina, et tamen non procedit ut Filius, nec per generationem,
quia procedit solum secundum communicationem impulsus et amoris formaliter,
identice autem accipit communicationem naturae; ergo similiter si intelligere seu
intellectualitas se habet ut proprietas, et aliquid antecedens ipsam ut natura, si Filius ex
vi suae processionis formaliter procedit secundum intelligere, non procedit formaliter ut
similis in natura, sed identice: formaliter autem ut similis in intelligere, quod est
consecutum ad naturam): ergo ut D. Thomas probet efficaciter quod processio Verbi est
generatio substantialis, et in eadem natura exsistens, quia in Deo idem est intelligere et
esse, oportet quod ipsum intelligere sumat pro esse, quod formaliter est esse naturae, et
non solum identice” (“But that [St. Thomas] speaks there in the formal sense is proved:
since the Son, insofar as he is a Son, does not proceed as similar to his generator only
identically, but [also] formally; nor does he proceed as similar to the Father in the
property characteristic of the Father (for in this he is unlike him and relatively opposed
to him), but [as similar] in nature; and so because the formal character [ratio] of the
procession should express [the Word] to be similar to [his] generator in nature, and not
only by identity (otherwise the character [ratio] of generation would not be preserved:
as manifestly occurs in [the case of] the Holy Spirit, who formally proceeds as a love
which is identified with the divine nature, and nevertheless does not proceed as a Son or
by generation, since he proceeds only according to the communication of an impulse
and of love, formally, although he receives identically the communication of the nature;
therefore in a similar way, if understanding or intellectuality were a property, and [if]
something were antecedent to it as nature, then if the Son, by virtue of his procession,
formally proceeded according to understanding, he would not proceed as similar
formally in nature, but [only] identically: but [he would proceed] formally as similar in
understanding, which is consequent to the nature): therefore so that Thomas may prove

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

81

The later Thomistic tradition, from the end of the
seventeenth century through the early twentieth century, does
not, as far as I have seen, acknowledge that John distinguishes
between the question of what constitutes the divine essence and
the question of what constitutes the divine nature, answering
the former question with ipsum esse a se and the latter with
second-act intelligere. As we saw above, Ledesma draws a
distinction between “that in which the divine essence formally
consists” (esse in the sense of the ratio entitatis) and “that which
formally constitutes the divine nature” (intellectuality). Although John criticizes Ledesma, there is more similarity
between their views than one might suppose, in that they both
regard ipsum esse and intellectuality/intelligere as fundamental
in our understanding of God, in different respects.
As indicated, the question of the formal constituent of the
divine nature is intimately tied to the issue of the distinction of
the divine attributes, both among themselves and from the
divine essence or nature. John’s understanding of the question
and his answer to it depend upon the distinction, in our
understanding, between the divine nature and the divine
essence. His position prompts the question: What sort of
distinction is being drawn between the divine essence and the
divine nature, such that different notions formally constitute the
one and the other in our understanding?43 It is on this front that
efficaciously that the procession of the Word is a substantial generation, and [as]
existing in the same nature, because in God understanding and being are the same, it is
necessary that understanding be taken [here] for the being [esse] that is formally the
being [esse] of the nature, and not merely identically.”) For an earlier version of the part
of this argument concerned with the ratio of generation, see John Gonzalez de Albeda
(d. 1621), Commentatorium et disputationum In primam partem Angelici Doctoris Divi
Thomae, tom. 1, q. 14, a. 4, disp. 36 (Naples, 1637; p. 353).
43
Furthermore, is this conceptual distinction between the divine essence and the
divine nature a purely conceptual distinction without a foundation in reality (a distinctio
rationis ratiocinantis) or a distinction having some foundation in God (a distinctio
rationis ratiocinatae)? For a defense of John of St. Thomas’s view about the formal
constituent of the divine nature that explicitly discusses (and rejects) a virtual distinction

82

BRIAN T. CARL

Vincent Contenson criticizes John’s position, albeit without
naming him, and advocates for a single formal constituent of
the divine essence.44
III. VINCENT CONTENSON
Vincent Contenson discusses the question of what constitutes
God’s nature in book 1, dissertation 2, chapter 2 of his Theologia mentis et cordis, the first volume of which was published in
1668.45 After indicating that he is seeking “that as it were fontal
and primordial notion from which the other perfections of God
flow in our mode of understanding,” Contenson observes that
some have mistakenly distinguished between the divine essence
and nature and assigned diverse notions as the constituent of
each. He counters that he finds this to be a superfluous
distinction, since in other cases, such as when we investigate
what man is, we do not entertain the suggestion that different
notions might constitute the essence and the nature of a thing.
The entire question, Contenson asserts, is to identify “which is
the first perfection, in our mode of conceiving, through which
God is constituted and distinguished from every other being,
whether created or creatable, and from which other perfections
result as properties.” In “one word,” Contenson says, his
question is: “What is God, and what is constitutive of him?”46
between the divine essence and the divine nature, see John Baptist Gonet, Clypeus
theologiae Thomisticae, tom. 1, disp. 2, a. 1 (Paris, 1669; pp. 50-51).
44
Contenson is not the first to criticize the distinction between the divine essence
and the divine nature in the context of determining the formal constituent of the divine
essence. This move is anticipated by the treatise De scientia Dei, disp. 4, dub. 1, which
would become tract. 3 of the Cursus theologicus of the Salmanticenses.
45
I cite Vincent Contenson, Theologia mentis et cordis (Lyons, 1675). This edition of
tom. 1 was published posthumously.
46
Contenson, Theologia mentis et cordis tom. 1, dissert. 2, cap. 2 (Lyon ed., 82-83):
“Adverte aliquos distinguere in Deo essentiam a natura, diversumque utrique
constitutivum assignare. Sed in hoc immorandum esse non arbitror, quia totum
difficultatis momentum in hoc situm est, quaenam sit perfectio nostro modo concipiendi
prima, per quam Deus constituatur et distinguatur a quocumque alio ente creato vel
creabili, et ex qua aliae perfectiones veluti proprietates resultent. Uno verbo quaerimus,

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

83

Contenson offers several different formulae to express his
answer to this question. The one he repeats most frequently is
ratio entis a se seu per essentiam, but he also speaks of God as
esse a se and ipsum esse subsistens. Furthermore, he takes qui est
and ego sum qui sum as God’s explicit indication of what is
constitutive of his essence.47
Contenson’s philosophical argument for his conclusion is
brief. He explains that in order for some notion (ratio) to be
constitutive of something, it is necessary and sufficient
(requiritur et sufficit) (1) that it should be the perfection in the
thing which is understood first, in our mode of conceiving, and
(2) that it should be the source of other perfections. He asserts
that both of these conditions characterize the notion of ens a se
in our understanding of the divine essence. As for the first
condition, his claim is simply that nothing which we conceive to
be in God could be prior, in our understanding, to the notion of
ens a se. As for the second condition, it is evident that other
perfections predicated of God are deduced from ipsum esse, as
from “the fontal plenitude of being.”48

quid sit Deus, quodnam sit constitutivum ejus: sicut cum quaerimus, quid est homo, et
per quid constituatur, non involvimur, nec implicamur in his distinctionibus superfluis:
Homo est hoc secundum essentiam, est aliud secundum naturam; sed plane et
resolutorie dicimus, homo est animal rationale. An vero essentia et natura identificentur,
vel distinguantur, tunc non expenditur.”
47
Ibid., spec. 1 (Lyon ed., 83-84): “Hanc assertionem tradit ipsemet Deus, qui sicut
seipsum perfecte cognoscit, ita et essentiam suam explicare solus potest: interrogatus
autem a Moyse quidnam esset, ait Exod. 3 suum veluti declarans constitutivum, Ego sum
qui sum; eique injungit, ut dicat Pharaoni, Qui est misit me ad vos. . . . Et inde infert
ibidem S. Thom. quod nomen qui est est maxime Deo proprium. Ergo ex scriptura et
patribus nomen qui est exprimit Dei constitutivum, cum significet rationem, quam nihil
magis proprium, quae principalior, imo quae maxime propria est.” God, who perfectly
knows himself, hands on to Moses the names qui est and ego sum qui sum, and from this
St. Thomas infers that the name qui est is the supremely proper name of God.
Contenson concludes from this that this name expresses the constituent of God, because
it signifies the notion (ratio) more proper and primary than any other.
48
Ibid. (Lyon ed., 84-85).

84

BRIAN T. CARL

At this point, a possible objection arises. If Contenson’s first
condition is satisfied simply because no notion could be prior to
the notion of ens a se, then why is being not the formal
constituent of every created essence? After all, being is what is
first known by the human intellect, the first notion in the order
of resolution and implicit in all of the intellect’s apprehensions.
Contenson does not raise this objection directly, but he raises a
related objection: substance, body, and living are prior to the
notion of rationality, and they are all predicated to indicate
what man is, and yet we say it is rationality that formally constitutes man’s nature. He clarifies that by a constitutive notion
he means nothing but the notion by which a thing is first
distinguished from all other things. Notions such as substance
and body do not accomplish this, with respect to man, because
they are common to man and other things. Ens a se distinguishes God from all creatures, since every creature has esse ab
alio. Because ens a se is prior among all the notions that belong
exclusively to God, it must be the notion constitutive of his
essence, in our understanding.49
As for the relationship between esse and intelligere in our
understanding of God, Contenson contends that the divine
nature, understood as ens a se, indicates God’s intellectuality,
not formally and explicitly, but implicitly and radically.50 The
49

Contenson offers an interesting hypothetical. He opines that if the only possible
creatures were human beings and accidents, then “man would be constituted by the
notion of subsistence per se, by which [man] would first differ from accidents; nor
would there need be recourse to the notion of living, or of body, or of rational” (“[Ratio
entis a se] est Deo propria, et caracteristica; ergo illa ratio est constitutiva; sicut si ex
creaturis solus homo et accidentia essent possibilia, homo constitueretur per rationem
per se subsistendi, qua primo differet ab accidentibus, nec recurrendum esset ad
rationem viventis, corporis, vel rationalis” [ibid. (Lyon ed., 86)]). This hypothetical
perhaps raises more questions than it answers, but it makes clear that, for Contenson, a
constitutive notion is just what is analytically first among the notions belonging
exclusively to a given nature. Cf. the treatment of this difficulty in Gonet’s Manuale
Thomistarum seu totius theologiae brevis cursus, tom. 1, tract. 1, cap. 3 (Lyon, 1690;
pp. 45-46).
50
Contenson, Theologia mentis et cordis tom. 1, dissert. 2, cap. 2, spec. 2 (Lyon ed.,
91): “Respondeo, naturam divinam in constitutione sua importare gradum
intellectivum, non formaliter, expresse, et explicite, sed implicite et veluti in radice.”

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

85

ratio entis a se is also implicitly included in all of the divine
attributes, although it is not formally and explicitly signified by
the names of the attributes. Contenson makes clear that he
regards divine intellect as an attribute, alongside wisdom and
justice.51
As we have seen, Contenson is comfortable posing the
question quid sit Deus, even while denying that we attain to a
strict quidditative knowledge of what God is in himself in this
life. Contenson explains that God infinitely exceeds the human
intellect and is therefore incomprehensible to us, emphasizing
that the incomprehensibility of God in fact follows, in our
understanding, upon the notion of ens a se: ipsum esse a se must
possess the infinite plenitudo essendi, which can never be
comprehended by a finite mind.52 It is noteworthy, however,
how far Contenson goes to compare positively the knowledge
of God as ipsum esse a se in this life to the direct vision of
God’s essence in the life to come. He claims that the knowledge
of God as ens a se in this life “approaches most closely to the
perfection of the beatific vision,” in which the blessed “see God
quidditatively and yet are amazed at his incomprehensibility.”
These two characteristics are imitated by the knowledge of God
through the ratio entis a se, since (a) the name qui est
“represents the quiddity of God” and (b) through the knowledge of God as esse a se we understand that he is
incomprehensible.53

51
Ibid. (Lyon ed., 94): “Ratio autem entis a se et per essentiam, quantumvis implicite
includatur in omnibus attributis, non tamen explicatur in illis; nam intellectus, sapientia,
justitia in Deo sunt quidem ens a se, sed non explicant formaliter existentiam.”
Contenson lists intellect, wisdom, and justice alongside one another as attributes, none
of which formally or explicitly indicates ens a se, which is only implicitly included in the
notions of these attributes.
52
Contenson, Theologia mentis et cordis tom. 1, dissert. 2, cap. 2, spec. 3 (Lyon ed.,
98-99).
53
Ibid. (Lyon ed., 99-100).

86

BRIAN T. CARL

In a manner consistent with the general approach of the
Theologia cordis et mentis, Contenson’s position concerning the
formal constituent of the divine nature represents a simplification, relative to the complexity found in the discussions of
this question in the previous decades of the seventeenth
century.54 The orientation of John of St. Thomas’s treatment of
the question towards speculative Trinitarian theology almost
entirely disappears in Contenson’s discussion. The Theologia
cordis et mentis possesses, as its title suggests, a spiritual and
moral orientation, exhibited by the alternation between sections
dedicated to speculatio and reflexio throughout the work.
Contenson’s attention to the spiritual and moral implications of
his position—in the three reflexiones found in the section we
are discussing—and his positive comparison between the
knowledge of God as ipsum esse subsistens and the beatific
vision invite the reader to contemplation founded upon the
philosophical recognition that this one notion distinguishes God
from all things and radically unifies all of God’s perfections in
our understanding.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Among the Dominican authors we have examined, it is only
in Contenson that we find what would become a common view
among Thomists in later centuries. He both poses the same
question and offers the same answer as later Thomists: ens a se
or ipsum esse subsistens constitutes our understanding of the
divine essence, because this notion both distinguishes God from
all creatures and serves as the source from which all his other
perfections are derived. This constitutive notion plays a role in
our understanding of the divine essence similar to that played
by a difference in our understanding of a created essence.

54

For an overview of Contenson’s theological approach in the Theologia mentis et
cordis, see Thomas F. O’Meara, “French Baroque Thomism: The Theological System of
Vincent de Contenson, O.P.,” Science et esprit 58 (2006): 23-41, esp. 27-32.

FORMAL CONSTITUENT OF THE DIVINE NATURE

87

That the terminology of a “formal constituent of the divine
essence” or a “metaphysical essence of God” emerges at such a
late point among the Thomistic commentators does not prove,
by itself, that the notion signified by this terminology is foreign
to or inconsistent with Aquinas’s own views. A simplified
account of how we understand the divine essence might be
thought better to reflect the absolute simplicity of that essence. I
would suggest that study of the development of this doctrine
among Thomists prompts the following questions for an
examination of Aquinas’s thought and of the philosophical issue
in its own right:
(1) How does Aquinas, or how ought we, account for the
distinction of God from creatures, and what role do the notions
of ipsum esse subsistens and/or aseity play within the task of
distinguishing God from creatures? Are these notions first
(either in the order of resolution or in the order of discovery)
among those that serve to distinguish God from creatures in our
understanding?
(2) How does Aquinas, or how ought we, to understand the
relationship between ipsum esse subsistens and the other divine
attributes? Should we accept the distinction, drawn by Bañez
and Ledesma, between positive divine names that posit the
“whole” divine essence and those that function as “particular”
quidditative predicates? Is ipsum esse subsistens indeed the
source from which all of the other attributes are derived?
(3) What is the relationship, in our understanding, between
the divine essence/nature and the multiplicity of the divine
attributes? Does something only count as a divine attribute if it
is secondary to and consequent upon a grasp of the divine
essence already “formally constituted” by some other notion?
(4) How does Aquinas, or how might we, explain the
supreme propriety of qui est as a divine name? Is this the most
proper divine name because it signifies what distinguishes God
from all creatures, because all the divine attributes can be
derived from it, or for other reasons?

88

BRIAN T. CARL

The view that there is a radical conceptual unity in our
knowledge of God—paralleling the conceptual unity achieved
in our knowledge of a created essence through a difference—is
a late development within the Thomistic tradition. Whether this
view is nevertheless an authentic development or a recovery of
Aquinas’s own position requires further study.
Concerning Contenson’s position in particular, however, I
would observe that his comfort with posing the question quid
Deus sit and his positive comparison between a philosophical
grasp of God as ipsum esse subsistens and the knowledge
enjoyed in the beatific vision strike a note rather different from
what we find in Aquinas. Aquinas insists that we must limit
ourselves philosophically to the question quomodo Deus non sit,
and he emphasizes the tremendous gap between the unified
character of the beatific vision and the multiplicity and
complexity that attend the wayfarer’s knowledge of God.
Where Contenson suggests that the radically unified knowledge
of God as ipsum esse a se positively anticipates the quidditative
vision and endless admiration of the blessed before the
incomprehensible God, I would suggest instead that, for
Aquinas, the necessity of knowing God through many names in
this life falls incomparably short of the day when the Lord’s
name will be one.55

55
I offer my gratitude to Philip Neri Reese, O.P., Domenic D’Ettore, Thomas
Osborne, Jacob Wood, and an anonymous reviewer for The Thomist for comments on
drafts of this article. I also wish to thank Domenic D’Ettore and Thomas Osborne for
organizing a session of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Thomism, at which I
presented an earlier draft of this article.

The Thomist 82 (2018): 89-111

ONE IS IN THE DEFINITION OF ALL:
THE RENAISSANCE THOMIST CONTROVERSY OVER A
“RULE” FOR NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY
DOMENIC D’ETTORE
Marian University
Indianapolis, Indiana

T

HOMAS AQUINAS writes in question 13, article 6 of
the Prima pars that “in all names which are said about
many analogously, it is necessary that all are said with
respect to one, and therefore it is necessary that this one is
placed in the definition of all.”1 Aquinas’s readers have disagreed over whether “all names” here includes the names of
pure perfections as said analogously about God and creatures.2
1
STh I, q. 13, a. 6: “Respondeo dicendum quod in omnibus nominibus quae de
pluribus analogice dicuntur, necesse est quod omnia dicantur per respectum unum: et
ideo illud unum oportet quod ponatur in definitione omnium.”
2
Notable monographs in English featuring competing interpretations of Thomas
Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy include James F. Anderson, The Bond of Being: An Essay
on Analogy and Existence (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1949); George Klubertanz,
St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy: A Textual Analysis and Systematic Synthesis (Chicago:
Loyola University Press, 1960); Ralph McInerny, The Logic of Analogy: An
Interpretation of St. Thomas (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961); idem, Aquinas and
Analogy (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996); and
Steven Long, Analogia entis: On the Analogy of Being, Metaphysics, and the Act of Faith
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011). The primary point of dispute
running through these works is the significance of what Aquinas calls “proportionality”
in De Verit., q. 2, a. 11. Thomas de Vio Cajetan’s De nominum analogia (1498)
famously affirms unique significance in metaphysics and natural theology for
“proportionality” as opposed to “analogy of attribution.” Anderson puts forward a
position in the tradition of Cajetan. Klubertanz criticizes both Cajetan and Cajetan’s
contemporary critic Francis Silvestri of Ferrara (St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy, 7-11,
120-23) for misidentifying the different categories of analogy laid out by Aquinas,
especially proportionality. McInerny has a similar line of criticism against Cajetan (Logic

89

90

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

One cause of the disagreement is that Aquinas at least
appears to take opposed positions in different places. George
Klubertanz presents a list of nine passages from diverse periods
of Aquinas’s life which address the notion that “one is in the
definition of the other” in analogy.3 According to Klubertanz,
four of these texts reject the idea,4 four of them accept it,5 and
one both accepts it and rejects it.6 The most influential of the
passages that reject the idea is in the disputed questions De
veritate, question 2, article 11, response to the sixth objection,
where Aquinas says that a particular line of objection to naming
God from creatures is effective against the kind of analogy in
which there is “a determinate relation of one to another. For
then it is necessary that one is placed in the definition of the
other.”7 In the body of the article, Aquinas distinguishes the
analogy of proportion, which involves determinate relations
between the analogates, from analogy of proportionality, which
does not involve determinate relations, adding that names are
said analogously of God and creatures according to analogy of

of Analogy, 3-23; Aquinas on Analogy, 3-29), although he is more favorable towards
Francis Silvestri (Logic of Analogy, 23-31, 164-65). One variation between Klubertanz
and McInerny’s criticisms of Cajetan is that Klubertanz regards Cajetan as having
overlooked the metaphysics of analogy due to his excessive focus on the logic of
analogy, and McInerny considers Cajetan to have made the opposite error. Breaking
with both Klubertanz and McInerny, Long defends the special role of proportionality in
Aquinas’s metaphysics and natural theology. For a useful overview of Aquinas’s disputed
passages on analogy in natural theology, see Joshua P. Hochschild, “Proportionality and
Divine Naming: Did St. Thomas Change His Mind about Analogy,” The Thomist 77
(2013): 531-58.
3
Klubertanz, St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy, 32-34.
4
The texts that reject the idea are De Verit., q. 2, a. 11, ad 6; De Pot., q. 3, a. 5,
ad 1; STh I, q. 44, a. 1, ad 1; and Quodl. II, q. 2, a. 3.
5
The texts that accept the idea are ScG I, c. 32; STh I, q. 13, a. 6; STh I, q. 13, a. 10;
and De natura accidentis 1 (a work of doubtful authenticity).
6
The text in question here is VII Metaphys., lect. 4 (n. 1352) (In Duodecem libros
Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Expositio, ed. R. M. Spiazzi [Turin: Marietti, 1950], 33334). The number in parenthesis refers to the paragraph number in the Marietti edition.
7
See De Verit., q. 2, a. 11, ad 6 (Sancti Thomae de Aquino opera omnia [Rome:
Leonine Commission, 1882-], 22/1:80): “Ad sextum dicendum, quod ratio illa procedit
de communitate analogiae quae accipitur secundum determinatam habitudinem unius ad
alterum: tunc enim oportet quod unum in definitione alterius ponatur.”

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

91

proportionality.8 Aquinas’s remarks here have been taken to
indicate that “one is . . . in the definition of all” only applies to
the kinds of analogy that involve determinate relations between
the analogates and does not apply to the indeterminate analogy
of proportionality suited to the divine names.
Although Klubertanz considered the variations between De
veritate and the Summa to be merely a “confusing” “terminological shift,” not a “doctrinal development,” James Anderson
has argued on the basis of the text from De veritate that “one is
. . . in the definition of all” applies to only one kind of analogy,9
and Ralph McInerny has argued from the above-quoted text
from the Summa that “one is . . . in the definition of all” applies
universally.10 This disagreement between prominent twentiethand twenty-first-century interpreters of Aquinas recapitulates a
dispute between members of the Dominican schola at Bologna
in the later part of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
century. In what follows, I will consider the opinions of
Dominic of Flanders (Flandrensis), Thomas de Vio Cajetan,
Silvestro Mazzolini da Prierio (Prierias), and Francis Silvestri of
Ferrara (Ferrariensis). The first three figures embrace the
conclusion defended by Anderson, and the last opposes them, as
McInerny opposes Anderson. This article attempts to discover
what light these earlier Dominicans can shed on what is at the
very least a “confusing terminological shift” in the writings of
Aquinas.

8

De Verit., q. 2, a. 11.
Anderson, Bond of Being, 101. Elsewhere Anderson acknowledges that “reference,
whether explicit or implicit, to one term” is a common feature of all forms of analogy.
He does not see reference to one, however, as entailing that one is in the definition of
all (ibid., 244).
10
McInerny, Logic of Analogy, 78.
9

92

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

I. FLANDRENSIS (1425-79)11
The issues arises within Flandrensis’s Summa divinae
philosophiae [=SDP] in the context of an argument over
whether the whole universe is ordered towards God. By one
argument, the whole universe is not ordered towards God,
because there has to be some similitude between something and
that to which it is ordered, and there is an infinite distance
between the whole universe and God.12
In his reply, Flandrensis draws from the passage from De
veritate and distinguishes two modes of similitude:
[S]imilitude is twofold. For certain things, [similitude] is derived from the fact
that any two things participate in one thing, or from the fact that one thing
has a determinate relation to the other thing such that one can be comprehended by the intellect from its relation to the other. And [similitude] of
this kind diminishes distance [between the similar things]. The other [kind] is
the similitude which is derived from the agreement of the proportions of any
proportionality. And this kind of similitude does not diminish distance
[between the similar things], because it is found similarly in distances great
and small. There is not, however, greater similitude of proportionality
between two to one, and six to three, than between two and one, and one
hundred and fifty. And therefore, the infinite distance of a creature to God
does not take away the aforementioned similitude.13
11

On Flandrensis, see Michael Tavuzzi, “Some Renaissance Divisions of Analogy,”
Angelicum 70 (1993): 96-97. For a monograph on Flandrensis, see L. Mahieu,
Dominique de Flandre (XVe siècle) sa métaphysique (Paris: J. Vrin, 1942). All references
to Flandrensis are taken from Dominic of Flanders and Cosmas Morelles, In duodecim
libros Metaphysicae Aristotelis, secundum expositionem eiusdem Angelici Doctoris,
lucidissimae atque utilissimae quaestiones [hereafter, SDP for its alternative title Summa
divinae philosophiae] (Cologne, 1621). The first publication of the text was in Venice in
1499.
12
Flandrensis, SDP 12.9.1, arg. 3 (Cologne ed., 778b). Mahieu also cites this passage
(Dominique de Flandre [XVe siècle] sa métaphysique, 99). Another passage where
Flandrensis addresses the point is in SDP 12.8.4, ad 3 (Cologne ed., 778a-b). There the
context is divine knowledge.
13
Flandrensis, SDP 12.9.1, ad 3 (Cologne ed., 779b-780b): “Ad tertium vero
dicendum, secundum Doctor Sanctus in De Veritate, q. 2, a. 11, ad 4 quod duplex est
similitudo. Nam quaedam, quae attenditur ex eo, quod aliqua duo participant unum, vel
ex eo, quod unum habet habitudinem determinatam, ad aliud, ex qua, scilicet de uno ad
alterum, per intellectum comprehendi possit. Et talis, diminuit distantiam. Alia est
similitudo, quae attenditur secundum conuenientiam proportionum alicuius

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

93

Flandrensis’ss po
point is that similitude as such does not requiree a
determinate dist
distance or relation between the similar things.
gs.
There is a lesse
sser distance between one and two than there is
between fifty an
and one hundred. Yet the proportions between
en
one and two an
and between fifty and one hundred are the same.
e.
By the same line
ine of reasoning, the infinite distance between God
od
and creature do
does not prevent there from being proportional
nal
similitude (tha
that is, proportionality) between God and
14
creatures.
Chart 1: Modes of SSimilitude
De
Determinate
rel
relation to one
thing

Two things participate in one thing.
E.g. Human and horse in animal.

Similitude
In
Indeterminate
ag
agreement of
pr
proportions.
E.
E.g. 2:1 :: 6:3

One thing has a determinate relation to
another thing.
E.g. Healthiness of medicine to the
health of an animal.

Flandrensis
is n
next considers an objection to his solution:
For if there were
re ssimilitude of a creature to God, most of all it would be
similitude of analogy
alogy, according to the school of the Holy Doctor. But there is
not able to be anal
analogy of God and creature. For it is characteristic of every
ery
analogy that one is placed in the definition of the other, as substance in the
definition of accide
ident, or one of them is placed in the definition of each one,
ne,
as substance in the definition of quantity, and of quality, according to the

proportionalitatis. Et talis similitudo, non diminuit distantiam: quia similiter inuenitur
tur
in multum, et parum
m distantibus. Non autem maior est similitudo proportionabilitatis,
tis,
inter duo, ad unum
um, et sex, ad tria, quam inter duo, et unum, et centum, et
quinquaginta: Et ideo
deo infinita distantia creaturae ad Deum, similitudinem praedictam
tam
non tollit.”
14
See also Flandre
drensis’s direct treatment of the modes of similitude in SDP 5.10.1
0.1
(Cologne ed., 274b-27
275a).

94

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

Holy Doctor in Prima Pars 13.6 and 10; [etc.]. . . . But God is not placed in
the definition of the creature, because then the definition would not be
through the more known. Nor is the creature placed in the definition of God,
since God is not defined. Similarly, there is not something which is placed in
the definition of each one. Therefore, there is not able to be a similitude of
analogy, or a similitude of the proportions of some proportionality in God
and creatures.15

The objection affirms that analogy is the only kind of similitude
that could in principle line up with a proportionality, and that
Aquinas repeatedly claims that, in every case of names said by
analogy, one analogate is in the definition of the other or
others. The objection proceeds to exclude God from the
definition of a name as said of a creature on the grounds that a
definition is through what is more known to us, and to exclude
the creature from the definition of a name as said of God on the
grounds that God cannot be defined. The conclusion follows
that there can be no similitude at all between God and
creatures.
Against this argument, Flandrensis cites and repeats
Aquinas’s account of the modes of analogy in the passage from
De veritate, including the conclusion that analogy of
proportionality, not analogy of proportion, is suited to naming
God and creatures.16 Flandrensis explains his use of this passage
as a service to those who rarely see Aquinas’s doctrine due to a
lack of books (penuriam librorum).17 He thereby presents this

15

Ibid. (Cologne ed., 780a): “Nam si esset similitudo creaturae ad Deum, maxime
esset similitudo analogiae, secundum scholam Doctoris Sancti: Sed non potest esse
analogia Dei, et creaturae. Nam in omni analogia hoc accidit quod unum ponitur in
diffinitione alterius, sicut substantia in diffinitione accidentiae, vel unum eorum ponitur
in diffinitione utriusque, ut substantia in diffinitione quantitatis, et qualitatis, secundum
Doctorem Sanctam, in prima parte, quaestione decima tertia, articulo sexto et articulo
decimo, in corpore. Et in tertio sententiarum, distinctio 33 quaestione prima, articulo
primo, quaestiuncula secunda, ad primum. Et primo contra gentiles caput 32 ad sextum,
sed Deus non ponitur in diffinitione creaturae: quia sic diffinitio non esset, per notius,
nec creatura ponitur in diffinitione Dei: cum Deus non diffiniatur. Similiter nec aliquid
est, quod ponatur in diffinitione utriusque. Ergo nulla potest esse similitudo analogiae,
siue similitudo, proportionum alicuius proportionalitatis, in Deum, et creaturas.”
16
See ibid. (Cologne ed., 780a-b).
17
Ibid.

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

95

text as the corrective lens through which to read Aquinas’s
remarks elsewhere that when a name is said by analogy “one is
. . . in the definition of all.” This alleged rule for analogous
names is not only problematic for reconciling Thomas’s texts
with one another, but also for naming God and creatures
analogously at all. Indeed, it shows that for there to be
analogous similitude between God and creatures (and,
consequently, for the whole universe to be ordered towards
God), there must be at least one kind of analogy which is an
exception to this rule.
II. CAJETAN (1469-1534)18
Flandrensis’s much younger Dominican contemporary,
Thomas de Vio Cajetan, discusses the rule that “one is . . . in the
definition of all” in both his De nominum analogia and his
Commentary on the Summa theologiae of St. Thomas
(commentary on STh I, q. 13, a. 6). For the purposes of this
article, I will focus only on the latter (and later written) text.19
Cajetan writes:

18
On the life and works of Cajetan, see the entry in Charles H. Lohr, “Renaissance
Latin Aristotle Commentaries: Authors C,” Renaissance Quarterly 28 (1975): 692-95.
Citations of Cajetan’s work are taken from Thomas de Vio Cajetan, Commentaria in
Summam theologiae St. Thomae (Sancti Thomae de Aquino opera omnia [Rome:
Leonine Commission, 1882-], vol. 4 [hereafter, In STh]); Commentaria in De ente et
essentia (Thomae de Vio Caietani Cardinalis Titulis Sixti, In Praedicabilia Porphyrij,
Praedicamenta, Postpraedicamenta, et libros Posteriorum Analyticorum Aristotelis
castigatissima Commentaria accesserunt praeterea eiusdem R. Cardinalis doctissima in D.
Thomae Aquinatis librum De ente, et essentia [Lyon, 1578] [hereafter, In De Ente]; and
De nominum analogia (Scripta philosophica, ed. P. N. Zammit [Rome: Angelicum,
1934] [hereafter, De nom. analog.]). Cajetan’s Commentary on the Summa theologiae of
St. Thomas dates from 1507 to 1522, his Commentary on De ente et essentia dates from
1495, and his De nominum analogia from 1498.
19
For Cajetan’s early treatment of the issue, see De nom. analog. 7 (Zammit, ed.,
59-65). His later treatment of whether “one is . . . in the definition of all” in In STh I,
q. 13, a. 6 is consistent with his early discussion in De nom. analog. 7.

96

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

The analogue [i.e. the name that is said of many by analogy] is said prior
about that which is placed in the definition of the others, to [its being said]
about the others. This [statement] is proven [as follows]. In every analogous
name, there is one relative to the rest. Therefore, that one is placed in the
definition of the others. Therefore, that one is prior to the rest according to
the ratio of that analogue. And this is explained exemplarily in the analogue
“healthy.”20

Note that Cajetan treats the rule as no more than an indicator
of priority in the order of naming, and not as something which
follows necessarily from the nature of analogous names. If a
name as said of one thing appears in the definition of the same
name as said of another thing, then that one thing is prior to the
other thing in the order of the definition of the name, and,
consequently, the name is said by priority of the one that
appears in the definition of the other.
Cajetan’s next paragraph directly calls into question whether
Aquinas himself holds that the rule applies universally to names
said of many by analogy:
A doubt occurs which must not be denied. First, [there is an argument] ad
hominem, because St. Thomas himself in Quaestiones Disputate de Veritate,
q. 2, a. 11 says that it is not universally true that the first analogate must be
placed in the rationes of the other analogates. Second, simpliciter. In this case
[the doubt occurs] because, from what has been said, it is clear that “wisdom”
is said analogously about God and others, and yet the creature is not called
wise in order to God, nor the reverse, as is clear, but both are called wise
absolutely. And this [is clear] because the wisdom of God is not hidden in the
ratio of a human as wise, nor is the wisdom of a human hidden in the ratio of
God as wise.21

20

Cajetan, In STh I, q. 13, a. 6, sect. 2 (Leonine ed., 4:151a): “Analogum prius
dicitur de eo quod ponitur in aliorum definitione, quam de aliis. - Probatur. In omni
nomine analogo est unum respectum a ceteris: ergo illud unum ponitur in definitione
aliorum: ergo illud unum est prius ceteris secundum rationem illius analogi.
Declaraturque hoc exemplariter in hoc analogo quod est sanum.”
21
Ibid., sect. 3 (Leonine ed., 4:151a): “dubium non dissimulandum occurrit. Primo,
ad hominem: quia ipsemet S. Thomas in Qu. de Ver., qu. ii, art. xi, dicit non esse verum
universaliter quod primum analogatum poni debeat in rationibus aliorum
analogatorum.- Secundo, simpliciter. Tum quia ex dictis patet sapientiam analogice dici
de Deo et aliis: et tamen creatura non dicitur sapiens in ordine ad Deum, nec e
converso, ut patet, sed uterque dicitur sapiens absolute. Tum quia in ratione hominis ut

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

97

This passage provides two distinct lines of objection to the
universality of the rule that in names said by analogy “one is . . .
in the definition of all.” The first line of objection is, as Cajetan
puts it, ad hominem. Aquinas himself appears to deny outright
in De veritate what he seems to affirm in the Summa. The
second line of objection concerns the broader discussion of the
names that Aquinas has identified as able to be predicated
absolutely about God. When they are said absolutely (but not
metaphorically) of God, then the creature is not in the ratio of
the name as said of God. Moreover, before the names are said
absolutely of God, they are said absolutely of the creature, and,
consequently, God is not in the ratio of the name as said of the
creature. Cajetan leaves it to his reader to draw the inference
that there are significant problems with attributing to Aquinas
(without qualification) the doctrine that in all names said by
analogy, one is in the definition of all.
Cajetan proceeds to give his own interpretation of the
extension of the rule:
[Names said by analogy] are found in two modes. For certain ones signify the
very relations to the first analogate, as is clear in the case of “healthy.” But
other ones signify the foundations alone of those relations. . . . Hence, the
sense is that in all names which are said about many analogously, that is
according to diverse relations, one is placed necessarily. But in the question in
De Veritate, he said the opposite about the second mode [of analogy].22

sapiens, non clauditur sapientia Dei; nec in ratione Dei ut sapiens est, clauditur sapientia
hominis.”
22
Ibid., sect. 4 (Leonine ed., 4:151a): “Ad hoc breviter dicitur, quod analoga
inveniuntur duobus modis. Quaedam enim significant ipsos respectus ad primum
analogatum, ut patet de sano. Quaedam vero significant fundamenta tantum illorum
respectuum; ut communiter invenitur in omnibus vere analogis, proprie et formaliter
salvatis in omnibus analogatis. Propositio ergo illa universalis in antecedente assumpta,
intelligenda est universaliter in primo modo analogiae: ita quod sensus est, quod in
omnibus nominibus quae de pluribus analogice, idest secundum diversos respectus,
dicuntur, oportet poni unum. In quaestione autem de Veritate, de secondo modo
analogiae dixit oppositum.”

98

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

Cajetan’s solution to the difficulty, which he cannot ignore, is to
distinguish the properties of two distinct modes of analogy. The
reader of the earlier works—In De ente et essentia and De
nominum analogia—will recognize the first mode of analogy as
the one Cajetan calls “analogy of attribution” and the second
mode of analogy as the one he calls “analogy of proper
proportionality.”23 Now according to Cajetan, the analogy of
attribution—illustrated by Aquinas with examples involving the
name “healthy”—entails signifying a relation to a primary
analogate. By contrast, in analogy of proper proportionality—
illustrated by Aquinas with examples of “seeing”—the names
signify the foundations for the relation between the analogates.
Since the relation to one is part of the very signification of the
name in analogy of attribution, Cajetan affirms that in this
mode of analogy the “rule” that “one is . . . in the definition of
all” applies necessarily. However, since the names are said of
the diverse analogates absolutely in analogy of proportionality,
it is not evident to Cajetan how this mode of analogy permits
one analogate to be present in the definition of the name as said
of the other. Indeed, for the reasons mentioned in the previous
quotation (from In STh I, q. 13, a. 6, sect. 3), one cannot be in
the definition of the other when the name is said of both
absolutely. Cajetan concludes that the “rule” only applies to

23
See In De Ente 3 (Lyon ed., 43), where Cajetan specifically distinguishes analogy
of attribution from analogy of proportionality by whether one analogate is defined by
reference to another. He gives more detailed explanations of analogy of attribution and
analogy of proportionality in De nom. analog., cc. 2 and 4. He defines “analoga . . .
secundum attributionem” as “quorum nomen commune est, ratio autem secundum illud
nomen est eadem secundum terminum, et diversa secundum habitudines ad illum: ut
sanum commune nomen est medicinae, urinae et animali” (“the name of which is
common, however, the ratio according to that name is the same according to a term, but
diverse according to relations to that term, as ‘healthy’ is a common name of medicine,
urine, and an animal”) (De nom. analog., 2.8 [Zammit ed., 11]) and “analoga secundum
proportionalitatem” as “quorum nomen commune est, et ratio secundum illud nomen
est similis secundum proportionem: ut videre corporali visione, et videre intellectualiter,
communi nomine vocantur videre” (“the name of which is common, and the ratio
according to that name is similar according to proportion, as seeing by bodily vision and
seeing intellectually are called by the common name ‘seeing’”) (ibid., 3.23 [Zammit ed.,
24]).

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

99

analogy of attribution. Hence, the “rule” does not apply to the
names said analogously of God and creatures.
III. PRIERIAS (1456-1527)24
Cajetan’s argument is challenged by his contemporary
Silvestro Prierias within the latter’s own commentary on the
Prima pars, known as the Conflatum. Prierias points out that
Cajetan’s distinction between names signifying the very relation
to the primary analogate and names signifying the foundations
of relations between analogates does not match the examples
Aquinas gives in the text. Prierias points first to the example of
“being” said of substance and accident. According to Aquinas,
this is an example in which one (viz., substance) falls in the
definition of the name said by analogy of the other (viz.,
accident). Prierias claims that the name “being” is not said of an
accident as signifying the very relation to a substance, but rather
as signifying the foundation of its relation to a substance. The
same follows for names said metaphorically about God and
creatures. These names are not said of God as signifying God’s
relation to creatures. Rather, they signify the foundations. Yet,
names said metaphorically of God and creatures appear in
question 13 of the Prima pars as examples of instances where
one falls in the definition of the other.25
24

For biographical and bibliographical information, see Michael M. Tavuzzi,
Prierias: The Life and Works of Silvestro Mazzolini Da Prierio, 1456-1527, Duke
Monographs in Medieval and Reniassance Studies 16 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 1997). Citations below of Prierias’s Commentary on the Summa theologiae of St.
Thomas Aquinas are taken from Silvestro Mazzolini, Conflatum ex S. Thomae (Perugia,
1519). Silvestro began composing this text in 1507, as a response to the publication of
Cajetan’s commentary on the Prima pars (see Tavuzzi, Prierias, 92). On the direction of
the Conflatum against Cajetan, see especially: “criticisms of Cajetan are so preponderant
a part of the Conflatum that it is evident that Silvestro’s primary motive behind his
composition of that work was the rebuttal of Cajetan’s peculiar interpretation of
Aquinas” (ibid., 96). The published portions of the Conflatum cover material up to
question 45 of the Prima pars (ibid., 93).
25
Silvestro Mazzolini, Conflatum (Perugia ed., 88v).

100

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

As a critique of Cajetan, Prierias’s remarks would benefit
from more elaboration than he gives. His claim that “being” is
not said only relatively of accidents overlooks the fact that
Cajetan himself made the same point.26 Prierias’s critique based
on metaphor has more promise, insofar as Cajetan’s discussion
of metaphor in his commentary on question 13 lacks the
distinctions that Cajetan has made regarding names said across
the categories.27 Moreover, although Cajetan claims in his
commentary on question 13, article 6 that “one is . . . in the
definition of all” applies to names said metaphorically because
the name said metaphorically signifies a relation to the primary
analogate rather than to the very foundations for the relation,
Cajetan does not explain why he thinks that this is the case.28
Since Prierias himself does not elaborate on his counterassertion, neither Cajetan’s nor Prierias’s arguments are
completely satisfying.
Passing from the critique of Cajetan to Prierias’s own
positive interpretation of question 13, the reader finds that
26

Cajetan himself explains that “being” is predicated through both modes of analogy
about substance and accident. See Cajetan, In de Ente 3 (Lyon ed., 44). For a modern
edition in English translation, see Cajetan, Commentary on Being and Essence, c. 2, q. 3,
(trans. L. H. Kendzierski and F.C. Wade, Medieval Philosophical Texts in Translation
14 [Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1964], 80-81).
27
For Cajetan’s treatment of metaphor, see De nom. analog. 4.25 (Zammit, ed.,
25-26). For a broader discussion of metaphor which includes a very brief treatment of
Cajetan, see E. J. Ashworth, “Metaphor and the Logicians from Aristotle to Cajetan,”
Vivarium 45 (2007): 311-27. Ashworth notes that Cajetan treats metaphor as a
subdivision of proportionality (ibid., 326).
28
Cajetan, In STh I, q. 13, a. 6, sect. 4 (Leonine ed., 4:151a). Cajetan discusses why
one analogate belongs in the definition of the other in cases of analogy of metaphorical
proportionality but not in cases of analogy of proper proportionality in De nom. analog.
7.75-77 (Zammit, ed., 60-61). There he argues that, in metaphorical proportionality,
the name can only be understood about the one receiving the name metaphorically by
relation to the meaning of the name as said about something else properly. It is not clear
to me that this completely addresses Prierias’s objection, insofar as Prierias could still
press that it is something within the metaphorical recipient of the name that serves as a
foundation for the metaphorical predication of the name, and, consequently, if the rule
applies to metaphorical proportionality, then it should also apply to proper
proportionality. Still, Cajetan’s more detailed discussion of metaphor in De nom.
analog. 7 does provide a starting point for answering Prierias that is lacking from In STh
I, q. 13, a. 6.

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

101

Prierias does not so much disagree with Cajetan’s conclusion as
with his grounds for the conclusion that “one is . . . in the
definition of all” is not a universal rule for analogy. Prierias
expresses his own position as follows:
And therefore, I say that the proposition, “the first of the analogates is placed
in the definition of the others,” is understood [to apply] when the first
[analogate] is comprehensible and the others are definable. Otherwise, [the
first analogate] is not able to be part of a definition which is comprehensible.
But if [the definition of the first analogate] is not comprehensible or the others
are not definable, [then the first analogate] does not belong to the definition
of the others.29

These remarks distinguish comprehensible from incomprehensible subjects of definitions. In cases of analogy in which a
name is said first through a ratio of something comprehensible
about a second thing that is comprehensible, then the rule
applies that “the first is placed in the definition of the others.”
The challenge with applying the rule to the names of pure
perfections said of God and creatures analogously is that at least
one of the analogates is incomprehensible. Prierias goes on to
say that the names “wisdom” and “wise” signify God and
creature absolutely, rather than order to God. Consequently,
the ratio of God is not hidden in the ratio of a human as wise,
nor is the ratio of human wisdom hidden in the ratio of God as
wise.30 Prierias concludes that analogous names of this kind do
not signify relatively, but they do signify something in order to

29
Silvestro Mazzolini, Conflatum (Perugia ed., 88v): “Et ideo dico quod illa
propositio: primum analogatorum ponitur in diffinitione aliorum intelligitur quando
primum est comprehensibile et alia sunt diffinibilia: alias non potest esse pars
diffinitionis quae comprehensibilis est: si vero non est comprehensibile vel alia non sunt
diffinibilia, non est de aliorum diffinitione.”
30
See ibid.: “Nam sapientia dicitur analogice de creata et increata: et sapiens de deo
et homine: et tamen li sapientia aut li sapiens non significat in ordine a deum, sed
absolute: nec in ratione hominis ut sapiens, clauditur ratio dei aut ex converso.”

102

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

a first insofar as the creature relies on the Creator for its
possession of the ratio signified through the name.31
The above has shown that Prierias is critical of Cajetan’s way
of reconciling question 13, article 6 of the Prima pars with the
passage from De veritate, but both Prierias and Cajetan have
reservations about the rule that “one is . . . in the definition of
all.”32 Specifically, Prierias joins Cajetan in denying that the
creaturely analogate appears in the definition of the name of a
pure perfection as said of God, or that God appears in the
definition of the name as said of the creature. That said,
Prierias’s argument grants greater extension for the rule than
Cajetan’s. Within Cajetan’s account, even nontheological names
said by analogy of proper proportionality are exempt from the
rule that one is in the definition of the other(s). Prierias (who
does not follow Cajetan’s threefold division of analogy),33
however, only exempts cases where one analogate is incomprehensible and, therefore, indefinable. Hence, he seems to
make names said analogously of God and creatures the only
exceptions to the rule.34 The younger Dominican contemporary
of both Cajetan and Prierias, Francis Silvestri of Ferrara, takes
the next step, and extends the rule even to names said by
analogy of God and creatures.

31
See ibid.: “dicit alicubi S. Thoma hujusmodi nomina analoga significare aliquid in
ordine ad primum cum dicuntur de deo et creatura: sed quod dicuntur de creatura in
ordine ad deum aut ex converso: cuius sensus non est quod significent relative: sed quod
ratio significata per nomen puta per li sapientia, non conveniret creatae nisi illa haberet
ordinem ad increatam, sicut exemplum ad exemplar et participatio ad id quod
participatur.”
32
I note here that my interpretation of Prierias parts from Tavuzzi’s at least in
emphasis, when he writes, in “Some Renaissance Divisions of Analogy” (110-11), that
Prierias defends the universality of the rule in STh I, q. 13, a. 6 that “illud unum oportet
quod ponatur in definitione omnium” against Cajetan. I grant that Prierias criticizes
Cajetan’s arguments. It seems to me, however, that Prierias still denies the universality
of the rule. I hope that others will examine the passage and either correct or confirm my
interpretation.
33
On Prierias’s divisions of analogy in contrast to Cajetan’s, see Tavuzzi, “Some
Renaissance Divisions of Analogy,” 106-11.
34
I thank Joshua P. Hochschild for pointing out to me the difference between
Cajetan and Prierias on this point.

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

103

IV. FERRAIENSIS (1474-1528)35
Unlike the other authors considered in this article,
Ferrariensis unequivocally defends the universality of the rule
that “one is . . . in the definition of all.” Moreover, he directly
engages the passages from De veritate and attempts to show
how they are consistent with the rule.
In his commentary on the Summa contra Gentiles, book 1,
section 34, Ferrariensis says:
Nor does it matter that St. Thomas says in Quaestiones de Veritate that the
proposition in question has truth only in analogy of *[determinate]*
proportion. For the sense in which that proposition [i.e. the first to which the
name is imposed absolutely is placed in the definition of the others] applies
only to analogy of *[determinate]* proportion is that, due to the first’s
determinate distance and relation to the others, [knowledge of the first] can
lead to perfect knowledge of the others insofar as they are signified by that
name. It is not true universally, however, in analogy of proportionality. [This
is] because the first to which the name is imposed, as such, does not have a
determinate relation to the others, but only by proportionality. And so, it is
not necessary that it always leads into perfect and quidditative knowledge of
the others.36

35
On Francis Silvestri, see Michael Tavuzzi, “Silvestri, Francesco (1474-1528),”
in Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2000; eBook
Collection [EBSCOhost]). Citations of Francis Silvestri’s Commentary on the Summa
Contra Gentiles of St. Thomas Aquinas are taken from Francis Silvestri of Ferrara,
Commentaria Ferrariensis, in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia (Rome: Leonine
Commission, 1882-), vol. 13.
36
Francis Silvestri, In ScG I, c. 34, sect. IX (Leonine ed., 13:107a): “Nec obstat quod
inquit Sanctus Thomas in Quaestionibus de Veritate, illam propositionem habere
veritatem in analogia proportionis tantum. Sensus enim ipsius est quod in analogia
tantum proportionis primum cui absolute nomen imponitur, in definitione aliorum
ponitur, quia propter determinatam distantiam et habitudinem ipsius ad alia, potest
ducere in perfectam notitiam aliorum inquantum illo nomine significantur. Non est
autem verum universaliter in analogia proportionalitatis: quia primum cui imponitur
nomen, cum, ut sic, non habeat determinatam habitudinem ad alia sed tantum
proportionalitatem, non oportet ut ducat semper in perfectam et quidditativam
cognitionem aliorum.”

104

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

This reconciliation of De veritate and the Prima pars begins by
pointing to a feature of what De veritate refers to as analogy of
proportion or of determinate proportion. In analogies of this
kind, whether they involve a relation of one to another or the
relations of many to one, the name is said absolutely of only
one. The meaning of the name as said of the others is only
grasped at all—and its meaning is fully grasped—by recognizing
the relation that the one analogate named relatively has to the
one analogate named absolutely. In the standard example of the
different senses of “healthy” based on the different ways of
relating to the health of an animal, the name is imposed on the
animal’s health absolutely. To understand what it is for
medicine or urine to be healthy is to understand how they relate
to the health of the animal. According to Ferrariensis, it is this
aspect of achieving perfect or adequate knowledge of the others
by understanding their relation to the one which first receives
the name absolutely that makes analogy of determinate
proportion unsuited for naming God and creatures. By contrast,
the lack of the determinate relation in analogy of proportionality permits knowing the relation between the
analogates without knowing both or each of the analogates
quidditatively. Ferrariensis leaves it implied, then, that (as
discussed by Aquinas in De Verit., q. 2, a. 11) an analogy of
determinate proportion would grant to the human intellect a
more perfect knowledge of God from creatures than the infinite
distance between God and creatures permits.
Ferrariensis’s analysis continues as follows:
Nevertheless, this is consistent with [the proposition that] in all analogates,
insofar as they are analogates, one is always placed in the definition of the
others, whether [the one is], namely, that to which the name is first imposed
absolutely, or [the one is] that to which the name is imposed secondarily. For
in divine names, the first according to thing, but the posterior according to the
imposition of the name, is placed in the definition of the others insofar as they
are analogates. For a human is called “wise” analogously because he has a
perfection according to which he imitates divine wisdom; and [it is] likewise
about the other [names said by analogy about God and creatures].37
37

Ibid.: “Cum hoc tamen stat quod in analogis omnibus, inquantum analoga sunt,
semper unum ponitur in definitione aliorum: aut scilicet illud cui primo imponitur

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

105

A key phrase of this passage is “insofar as they are
analogates.” Ferrariensis insists that the rule that “one is . . . in
the definition of all” applies universally precisely insofar as a
name is said analogously. However, one is not necessarily in the
definition of the others when the name is not being said of them
analogously.
To justify his interpretation, Ferrariensis distinguishes three
impositions of the names said of God and creatures. The first
imposition of the name predicates the name absolutely of
creatures. The second imposition predicates the name absolutely
of God. The third imposition predicates the name relatively of a
creature as derivative from the perfection in God. Names are
only said analogously of God and creatures through the third
imposition.38 Restricting analogous naming to a third and
directly referential application of a name, which was previously
twice imposed absolutely, enables Ferrariensis to apply the rule
that “one is . . . in the definition of all” where his Dominican
predecessors could see no place for it.
Chart 2: Ferrariensis’s Three Impositions of a Name
1st Imposition
2nd Imposition
3rd Imposition

Signifies a creature absolutely
Signifies God absolutely
Signifies a creature by relation to
God

Non-analogous
Non-analogous
Analogous

nomen absolute; aut id cui secundario nomen imponitur. In nominibus enim divinis
primum secundum rem, posterius autem secundum impositionem nominis, ponitur in
definitione aliorum inquantum analoga sunt: nam homo analogice dicitur sapiens, quia
habet perfectionem secundum quam divinam sapientiam imitatur; et sic de aliis.”
38
Ibid.: “Sic est de omnibus divinis nominibus quae proprie et analogice de ipso et
creaturis dicuntur. Nam hoc nomen sapientia primo attributum est ad significandum
sapientiam humanam absolute, sicut et primo absolute cognita est; deinde, cognito
ipsam esse a sapientia divina exemplatam, impositum est ad significandum divinam
sapientiam; tum postremo impositum est ad significandum sapientiam humanam in
ordine ad sapientiam divinam tanquam ad causam et exemplar, et acceptum est tanquam
nomen analogum et proportionale. Et simile est de aliis divinis nominibus.”

106

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

Ferrariensis’s overall interpretation of Aquinas’s remarks in
De veritate proposes that, although one is in the definition of
the others whenever a name is said by analogy, one is not in the
definition of the other in the same way in an analogy of
proportionality as in an analogy of proportion. In an analogy of
proportion, the presence of one in the definition of the other
allows for fully grasping the signification of the name whenever
it is said of the other because the name is only said absolutely of
one. By contrast, in an analogy of proportionality, the name can
be said absolutely of both analogates. When it is said of them
absolutely, one is not in the definition of the other, and, when it
is said absolutely of both, it is not being said by analogy. It is
said by analogy only when one receives the name by reference
to the other. Hence, when a name is said by analogy, one is in
the definition of the name as said of the other irrespective of
whether the relation between the analogates is determinate or
indeterminate.
Chart 3: Rival Scholastic Thomist Interpretations
Author
Dominic of
Flanders
(Flandrensis)
Thomas de
Vio Cajetan

Silvestro
Mazzolini da
Prierio
(Prierias)
Francis
Silvestri of
Ferrara
(Ferrariensis)

One is in the definition of all analogates . . .
only in analogy of determinate proportion
not in analogy of indeterminate proportion/
proportionality
only in analogy of attribution and metaphor—because the
name signifies a relation to a primary analogate
not in analogy of proper proportionality—because the
name signifies the foundations for a relation between the
analogates
only when the first analogate is comprehensible and the
others are definable
not when the names signify the analogates absolutely,
rather than relatively
in all forms of analogy. A name is not being said
analogously when it is being said absolutely

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

107

V. ANALYSIS
The above has shown that distinguished Thomists disagree
on what to make of passages which appear to offer different
stances on whether “in all names said of many by analogy . . .
one is . . . in the definition of all.” The differences between
these scholars are partly textual, because Aquinas says different
things in different passages. But even setting aside the
differences between the texts, the rule itself still appears
problematic to some when considering the case of names that
are said properly (but not metaphorically) both of God and of
creatures.
What does it mean for an analogate to appear in the definition of another analogate? Aquinas’s instructions on the point
consist only of examples, several of which appear in question 13
of the Prima pars. Speaking of “good” said of God causally in
relation to creatures, Aquinas says that the sense of “God is
good” is “God is the cause of goodness in things.”39 Speaking of
“healthy” said of an animal, medicine, and urine, he says,
“healthy” which is said about an animal falls in the definition of “healthy”
which is said about medicine, which is called “healthy” in as much as it causes
health in an animal; and [“health” said of an animal falls in] the definition of
“healthy” which is said of urine, which is called “healthy” inasmuch as [it is] a
sign of the health of an animal.40

Addressing names said metaphorically, he says,
For just as “laughing,” said about a field, signifies nothing other than that a
field relates similarly in beauty when it flourishes as a human does when
laughing, according to a similitude of proportion; so too the name “lion,” said

39

STh I, q. 13, a. 2: “Deus est bonus, sit est, Deus est causa bonitatis in rebus.”
STh I, q. 13, a. 6: “sanum quod dicitur de animali, cadit in definitione sani quod
dicitur de medicina, quae dicitur sana inquantum causat sanitatem in animali; et in
definitione sani quod dicitur de urina, quae dicitur sana inquantum signum sanitatis
animalis.”
40

108

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

about God, signifies nothing other than that God relates similarly as he works
strongly upon his works, as a lion upon its works.41

Judging by these examples, when one thing falls in the definition of another, the former serves as the term of the relation
which is being signified about the latter through the name. The
animal’s health is what the medicine causes or the urine
signifies. The goodness in creatures is what God causes. The
laughing human’s beauty is that to which the flourishing field’s
beauty is similar, and the lion’s mighty actions are what have
similarity to God’s actions. In all of these cases, when one
recipient of a name appears in the definition of the same name
as said of another, the one relativizes the signification of the
name as said of the other.
It is precisely this relativizing which seems to make
generalizing the rule across names said by analogy problematic
for the consistency of Aquinas’s position. Aquinas denies that
God is called “good” exclusively to mean “God causes goodness
in things.” For then God could be called “stone” just as well as
he is called “good.”42 Nor do Aquinas’s remarks permit “God is
good” to mean only that “God is similar to Mother Teresa,”
even if there is proportional likeness between the goodness of
God and the goodness of Mother Teresa. Aquinas holds that
God is called “good” to signify God in his own right, and the
same is true of the name “good” said of creatures.
Seen in this way, one can appreciate the difficulty that Flandrensis, Cajetan, Prierias, and others have with taking “one is . .
. in the definition of all” as a general rule for names said by
analogy, as this rule appears to rule out using the same name
both analogously and absolutely about two or more things.
Ferrariensis provides what is at least a model for a solution that
preserves the rule’s universality. Any successful solution would,
like Ferrariensis’s, distinguish absolute and relative applications
41
Ibid.: “Sicut enim ridere, dictum de prato, nihil aliud significat quam quod pratam
similiter se habet in decore cum floret, sicut homo cum ridet, secundum similitudinem
proportionis; sic nomen leonis, dictum de Deo, nihil aliud significat quam quod Deus
similiter se habet ut fortiter operetur in suis operibus, sicut leo in suis.”
42
See STh I, q. 13, a. 2.

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

109

of the same name about the same thing. Still, Ferrariensis’s
remarks leave a number of textual questions unresolved.
For example, although Ferrariensis says that God is in the
definition of the name as said analogously of the creature, he
does not address the question of whether the reverse could also
hold. By the logic of his account, it seems as though the creature
could also be in the definition of the name said of God,
provided that one is speaking of the name as said of God
relatively rather than absolutely. In this case, the name would
signify God qua cause of the perfection in the creature.
A further question concerns whether, in fact, Ferrariensis’s
interpretation is ad mentem (or at least ad litteram) S. Thomae
in De veritate. The letter of the passage is not definitive—which
is, perhaps, the most that Ferrariensis could hope to establish.
The distinction between predicating relatively and predicating
absolutely is absent from the passage. But one could take it to
be the case that, when Aquinas says that God is not in the
definition of the name said of the creature or vice versa, he is
referring to the definition of the name as said absolutely of God
and as said absolutely of the creature. Analogy of proportionality would be understood, then, to be uniquely suited to
the divine names, because it permits these two distinct absolute
impositions of the name. Presumably, it is the perfections
signified by the two different absolute impositions of the name
that are similar by proportionality.
Such a defense of Ferrariensis’s interpretation raises a
difficulty, which can be expressed in the question: In what way
is a name such as “wise” said of God absolutely and of creatures
absolutely, as in the proposition: “Plato and God are wise”? If
one is not in the definition of the other, then the name “wise” is
not said analogously. Would it then be said equivocally? That
seems counter-intuitive. I suspect an answer to this difficulty
would require qualifying the question. However, Ferrariensis
(or a defender of his doctrine) may simply accept the
consequence that this would be a case of equivocation, which

110

DOMENIC D’ETTORE

could transition to analogy by introducing a third imposition of
the name which signifies one in relation to the other.
It should also be considered how Ferrariensis arrived at a
position contrary to his distinguished Thomist predecessors who
were no less familiar with the texts of Aquinas. As far as
Flandrensis, Cajetan, and Prierias were concerned, Aquinas
himself presents analogy of proportionality (at least the cases
wherein God is one of the analogates) as the exception to the
rule that one must be in the definition of all analogates. It is
possible that Ferrariensis saw something in these texts which the
others missed. The burden of Ferrariensis’s interpretation
clearly rests on his unique doctrine of the three impositions of
the common name. I am not aware of any treatment which
Ferrariensis gives of the three impositions outside of this
context. So the doctrine could be open to the criticism of being
a merely ad hoc invention for resolving the particular problem
of maintaining the universality of the rule that “one is . . . in the
definition of all.”
CONCLUSION
The Renaissance Bologna Dominicans faced much the same
difficulty as twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholars
puzzling over the apparent conflict between passages in which
Thomas Aquinas affirms that it is necessary for one analogate to
appear in the definition of the others, and passages in which he
seems to deny it. Flandrensis, Cajetan, and Prierias all regard
question 2, article 11 of De veritate to provide the more
complete account of Aquinas’s thought on this point and,
therefore, as being the corrective lens for reading question 13,
article 6 of the Prima pars. By their lights, De veritate offers
both an explicit exception to the rule laid out in the latter text
and a rationale for finding the rule that “one is . . . in the
definition of all” problematic even within the account offered of
names of pure perfections said of God and creatures
analogously in question 13 of the Prima pars. Ferrariensis
reverses his predecessors’ approach, and introduces distinctions
for extending the rule beyond the boundaries that De veritate

NAMES SAID BY ANALOGY

111

seemed to have established and for reinterpreting De veritate in
the light of the Summa.43

43

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2017 meeting of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association in the session sponsored by the Society for
Medieval and Renaissance Thomism. I would like to thank the participants in the
session for the opportunity to present and for their feedback, especially Joshua P.
Hochschild for his response and Thomas Osborne, Jr. for organizing and chairing the
session.

The Thomist 82 (2018): 113-32

THE ROLE OF THE VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN ST. THOMAS
AQUINAS’S ACCOUNT OF EMBRYOGENESIS
CARL A. VATER
St. John Vianney Seminary
Denver, Colorado

D

ELAYED HOMINIZATION, as a way to defend the
legitimacy of at least early-term abortions, has been
defended in three ways. The first way, the fitting-matter
argument, attempts to defend the legitimacy of a succession of
forms in generation. According to this argument, the matter of
the fetus is not fit to receive the rational soul (and so is not
human) until it is sufficiently complex. Until the fetus becomes
human by the reception of the rational soul, abortion is not
morally different from killing a vegetable or an animal. The
second way, the twinning argument, argues that because the
embryo can twin in the first fourteen days of development, the
embryo is not yet an individual substance and so cannot be
accorded the moral status granted to all persons. The third way,
the internal organization argument, argues that the embryo
lacks the cellular differentiation to be a single, organized
substance.1
All three arguments focus on the classical definition of the
person as an individual substance of a rational nature, and they
find the embryo lacking. The fitting-matter argument finds the
embryo lacking a rational nature. The twinning argument finds

1

The seminal text in which this argument is made from an Aristotelian perspective is
Norman M. Ford, When Did I Begin? Conception of the Human Individual in History,
Philosophy and Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Ford also
examines the twinning argument.
113

114

CARL VATER

the embryo lacking individuality because one embryo can
become two embryos. The internal organization argument finds
the embryo lacking individuality because its cells seem to
operate independently of each other.
This article will focus exclusively on the fitting-matter
argument. Defenders of this argument often root their claim in
the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, saying that his account of
embryogenesis provides the philosophical basis for defending
their claims. They maintain that the philosophical principles he
uses are valid despite his faulty biology and that Thomas would
endorse their position.2 Rooting their arguments in his teachings
is possible, they say, because the philosophical principles do not
depend on the false biological data.
This article challenges the claim that Thomas’s false biological claims can be separated from his philosophical claims. In
what follows I will attempt to show that holding a truly Thomistic theory of fitting-matter delayed hominization demands
accepting aspects of Thomas’s biology as well, particularly the
formative power (virtus formativa). To accomplish this goal, I
will first give a brief outline of the fitting-matter argument for
delayed hominization. Second, I will outline Thomas’s account
of embryonic development. Third, I will examine his uses of
virtus formativa to determine its exact role and function in his
account of embryogenesis. Finally, I will show that the virtus
formativa plays an inextricable role in Thomas’s account of
embryogenesis.

2
“To my mind, these statements of St. Thomas contain a mixture of erroneous
biological information and sound philosophy” (Fr. Joseph Donceel, S.J., “Immediate
Animation and Delayed Hominization,” Theological Studies 31 [1970]: 79). In order to
engage these authors most fully, this article will assume that they are correct when they
say that Thomas’s theory of hylomorphism necessarily entails his theory of delayed
hominization. This involves accepting their understandings of efficient and formal
causality and that “having a capacity” requires that the capacity can be actualized
immediately.

VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS

115

I. THE FITTING-MATTER ARGUMENT FOR DELAYED
HOMINIZATION
It is indisputable that Thomas argues that the rational soul is
not given to an embryo at conception and so teaches that the
embryo is not legitimately human until some point during the
pregnancy.3 It must also be admitted that he had no access to
contemporary biological data and so also teaches that the semen
becomes blood after conception.4 On the face of it, the
connection between these two teachings is unclear. While some
have argued that if Thomas had access to contemporary biology
he would have abandoned his delayed hominization, others
have claimed that this philosophical principle of delayed
hominization remains valid today in spite of the faulty biology
that Thomas unites with it.5 Hylomorphism, it is argued,
demands subscription to a system of delayed hominization
because the rational soul, which is the substantial form of the
body, cannot be joined to the fetus’s body until the body has
become fit to receive a rational soul.6 The body has to be fit to
receive the rational soul because, as Aristotle says, “the soul is
the act of a physical organic body having life potentially.”7 God
could not put a human soul in a rock, or a tulip, or even a
kitten, because their bodies are not properly disposed to

3

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 89 (Sancti Thomae de Aquino
opera omnia [Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1882-], vol. 13, Summa contra Gentiles,
543a12-14).
4
See ibid. (Leonine ed., 13:542a10-13). Cf. De Pot., q. 3, a. 9, ad 9 (Quaestiones
Disputatae, ed. M. Pession, vol. 2 [Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1953], 68a).
5
Donceel, “Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominization,” 79; Robert Pasnau,
Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa Theologiae Ia
75-89 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 103-4.
6
STh I, q. 76, a. 5 (Leonine ed., 5:228a). Cf. ibid., ad 1 (Leonine ed., 5:228b); Q. D.
De Anima, a. 8 (Leonine ed., 24/1:63-74); ScG II, c. 90 (Leonine ed., 13:549-50); De
Malo, q. 5, a. 5 (Leonine ed., 23:139-43).
7
Aristotle, De anima 2.1.412b4-5 (The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 1, ed.
Jonathan Barnes, trans, J. A. Smith [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991], 656).
Cf. STh I, q. 76, a. 5, s.c. (Leonine ed., 5:227b).

116

CARL VATER

intellection.8 Thus, these scholars hold with Thomas that the
fetus undergoes a succession of generations and corruptions.
The fetus first has a vegetative soul. Then, when the senses have
sufficiently developed, the vegetative soul passes away and the
sensitive soul is generated. Then when the body has developed
further, God creates the intellective soul and the sensitive soul
passes away. Moreover, they claim, this succession of souls does
not depend on Thomas’s biology, but is purely a philosophical
description of human generation.
In order to make this position palatable to contemporary
readers, however, advocates of delayed hominization cannot use
Thomas’s account as to why the body develops into a body fit
to receive its final form. The body develops, Thomas says, because of a power in the semen, which power he calls the virtus
formativa: “For the body is not formed as to its first and
principal parts by a power of the soul of the generated [i.e., the
fetus itself], but by a power of the soul of the generating [i.e.,
the father].”9 Contemporary scholars are correctly wary of
saying that a power of the semen is the cause of this succession
of forms, and so all modify the understanding of the virtus
formativa. Joseph Donceel, S.J., rejects the power as “erroneous
information about the semen” that “does not follow from
hylomorphism.”10 Robert Pasnau, while noting important
dissimilarities, suggests that the virtus formativa may be
understood as the DNA present in the fetus.11 There is an
important difference between these two approaches, because
while both place the virtus formativa in the category of false
biological data, Pasnau’s attempt to translate it into something
compatible with contemporary biology reveals that it still has
philosophical importance for him, whereas Donceel rejects such
a claim outright.
8

“It was required that the body united to the rational soul be optimally disposed to
serve the soul in those things that are necessary for understanding” (Q. D. De Anima,
a. 8, ad 15 [Leonine ed., 24/1:73]). All translations are mine.
9
ScG II, c. 89 (Leonine ed., 13:543b8-11).
10
Donceel, “Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominization,” 84.
11
Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 104.

VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS

117

Thus, the questions must be asked: Is the virtus formativa
necessary for a fitting-matter account of delayed hominization,
or can it be discarded as false biology? If it is necessary, is there
a category in contemporary biology that can fill the role? If
there is no category that can fill the role of the virtus formativa,
then this version of delayed hominization is rendered incoherent for failing to account for the continued development
of the embryo’s body. Scholars have already questioned the
ability of DNA to take the place of the virtus formativa, but as
yet there has been no close study of Thomas’s understanding of
the power itself and whether it is necessary for his account of
embryogenesis.12
II. AQUINAS’S ACCOUNT OF EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT
Before delving into the Thomas’s account of the virtus
formativa, a brief review of his account of embryonic development should help situate his use of the concept. Following
Aristotle, Thomas says that conception comes about from the
combination of the man’s sperm and the woman’s menstrual
blood.13 New life begins at the moment of conception, but this
life cannot yet be called human life because body of the embryo
is not yet organized enough to perform the tasks of a rational,
or even sentient, being. Yet, Thomas maintains that the embryo
actively performs the acts of nutrition from the beginning and
therefore has a nutritive or vegetative soul.14 From this point,
the virtus formativa forms the embryo’s body so that the body
begins to develop sense organs. Once these organs develop, a
sentient soul is drawn out of the matter, which soul replaces the
vegetative soul. It is necessary that the sentient soul replace the
vegetative soul because, for Thomas, the soul is the form of the
12

Jason Eberl, “Aquinas’s Account of Human Embryogenesis and Recent
Interpretations,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 30 (2005): 379-94.
13
II Sent., d. 18, q. 1, a. 2, ad 4 (Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, vol. 2, ed. P.
Mandonnet [Paris, 1929], 454).
14
“That which is conceived first participates the works of nutritive life and is said to
live the life of a plant at that time” (II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 3 [Mandonnet, ed., 2:470]).

118

CARL VATER

body, and there can only be one form. If there were two forms,
as a Platonic separate-forms theory suggests, they would need a
third unitary form above them, and since this unifying form is
not to be found in a Platonic system, there would be nothing to
make things one.15 Having become an animal, the body of the
fetus continues to develop, and when it has been properly
organized by the virtus formativa God immediately infuses the
rational soul into it. Only God can infuse the rational soul
because of the immateriality of the soul. Prior to the infusion of
the rational soul, all of the development has been able to
happen naturally as in the animals, but since this development
has been worked by a material power it cannot reach to the
level of immateriality,16 because no effect can be more immaterial than its cause.17 Thomas concludes that “the generation
of an animal is not simply one generation only, but many
generations and corruptions succeed one another.”18
Having explained the general process of embryonic development, we may examine Thomas’s understanding of the virtus
formativa to see whether it is necessitated by his incorrect
biology only or whether it is philosophically necessary as well.
III. VIRTUS FORMATIVA
Thomas uses the term virtus formativa fifty-nine times in his
corpus.19 For the most part, the term appears in places where he
15

Q. D. De Anima, a. 11 (Leonine ed., 24/1:98-99]. Cf. STh I, q. 76, a. 3 (Leonine
ed., 5:223-24); II De Anima, lect. 1 (Leonine ed., 45/1:70-71). For a detailed account of
Thomas’s position on the unicity of substantial form, see John F. Wippel, The
Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
Press, 2000), 327-51.
16
II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 3, ad 4 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:471).
17
“An effect cannot be more immaterial than its cause; consequently, since the
generative power [virtus generativa] is a material power, its action cannot terminate in
an immaterial form” (II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 1 [Mandonnet, ed., 2:459-60]).
18
Q. D. De Anima, a. 11, ad 1 (Leonine ed., 24/1:102).
19
It might be objected that Thomas sometimes speaks of the virtus formativa
generically as “a power of the semen [vis seminis]” (STh I, q. 118, a. 1, ad 3 [Leonine
ed., 5:567b]), and on occasion will expand the definition of the virtus generativa to

VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS

119

is discussing procreation and the nutrition of the fetus. It also
occurs in the related theological questions of original sin and
Christ’s sinless Incarnation. Although it occurs primarily in his
Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the term virtus
formativa appears in all of Thomas’s major works. Since he does
not change his position regarding the virtus formativa over the
course of his career, I have chosen to give a systematic account
of his theory, rather than examine each text individually.
The first thing to note about Thomas’s account of the virtus
formativa is that it is bad biology. The virtus formativa is a
power (virtus) in the semen of the father.20 Thomas insists upon
this point no fewer than twenty-five times in his corpus. The
virtus formativa is not the soul of the fetus, nor is it the soul of
the father. It is a power coming from the father in the semen.
Moreover, this power is usually necessary for the generation of
animals, but not always for the generation of plants. Plants do
not need the virtus formativa for pollination because the
celestial powers take the place of the father and the powers of

include the powers proper to the virtus formativa (cf. for example, STh I, q. 118, a. 1,
ad 2 [Leonine ed., 5:566-67]). However, with the exception of STh I, q. 118, a. 1, ad 3,
where he specifies that the power of the semen works as an instrument of spiritual
power (especially God), these uses do not add anything which is not discovered in
examining explicit occurrences of virtus formativa itself.
20
II Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 4, qcla. 2 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:210); d. 18, q. 1, a. 2
(Mandonnet, ed., 2:453); d. 18, q. 1, a. 3, ad 6 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:457); d. 18, q. 2,
a. 3 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:470); d. 18, q. 2, a 3, ad 4 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:471); d. 18,
q. 2, a. 3, ad 5 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:472); d. 30, q. 2, a. 2 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:791); De
Verit., q. 13, a. 1 (Leonine ed., 22/2:417); q. 23, a. 2 (Leonine ed., 22/3:656); q. 23,
a. 5 (Leonine ed., 22/3:666); ScG II, c. 89 (Leonine ed., 13:541a); STh I, q. 71, a. un.,
ad 1 (Leonine ed., 5:182); q. 118, a. 2, ad 2 (Leonine ed., 5:566); STh II-II, q. 26, a. 10,
ad 1 (Leonine ed., 8:220); De Pot., q. 3, a. 9, ad 9 (Pession, ed., 2:68a); q. 3, a. 9,
arg. 11 and ad 11 (Pession, ed., 2:64a and 68b); q. 3, a. 9, ad 16 (Pession, ed., 2:69a);
q. 3, a. 11, ad 16 (Pession, ed., 2:76a); De spir. creat., a. 6, ad 11 (Leonine ed.,
24/2:72); Quodl. VIII, q. 3 (Leonine ed., 25/1:65); VII Metaphys., lect. 6 (In duodecim
libros Metaphysicam Aristotelis expositio, ed. R. M. Spiazzi [2d ed.; Turin-Rome:
Marietti, 1971] 334a); lect. 7 (Spiazzi, ed., 350a); lect. 8 (Spiazzi, ed., 353a); lect. 8
(Spiazzi, ed., 354b); Super Matt., c. 1, lect. 4.

120

CARL VATER

earth take the place of the mother.21 In animals, however, the
virtus formativa is almost always required for the development
of the fetus.22
There are only two exceptions to this requirement in animals. The first exception is animals that develop by means of
putrefaction. Following Averroës, Thomas says that “a power of
heaven takes the place of the virtus formativa in the semen
because these sorts of animals, because of their imperfection, do
not require as much for their generation as more perfect
animals.”23 The second exception is Christ. Since Christ was
conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and not by any
man’s semen, “the virtus formativa of his body was not derived
from his first parent, but was the power of the Holy Spirit.”24 It
is worth nothing that Thomas thinks that Christ still would have
been conceived without original sin if he had a human virtus
formativa because the act of generation, not the virtus
formativa, is the cause of original sin.25
Thomas says that the virtus formativa works from the soul of
the father. As its name suggests, the virtus formativa is a formal
principle, which means that its ability to act must come from
form, not matter. The formal principle in generation is semen,
and semen is produced from the work of the formal power of
the father.26 The formal power of the father is his soul.
Therefore, the formation of the fetus’s body, especially with
21

II Sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 5, ad 6 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:360). Cf. III Sent., d. 8, q. 1,
a. 1, ad 7 (Moos, ed., 3:284); STh I, q. 71, a. un., ad 1 (Leonine ed., 5:182); De Pot., q.
3, a. 11, arg. 13 and ad 13 (Pession, ed., 2:73 and 75b).
22
II Sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 5, ad 6 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:360).
23
II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 3, ad 5 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:472). Cf. Averroes, Aristotelis
Opera cum Averrois Commentariis, vol. 8, Aristotelis Metaphysicorum Libri XIIII cum
Averrois Cordubensis in eosdem commentariis et epitome (Venice: Apud Iunctas, 1574),
lib. VII, com. 31, fols. 85va68-b9.
24
ScG IV, c. 52 (Leonine ed., 13:164b). Cf. STh III, q. 14, a. 4 (Leonine ed.,
11:183); q. 31, a. 1, ad 1 (Leonine ed., 11:321); Super Matt., c. 1, lect. 4; Super Ioan.,
c. 3, lect. 2; c. 6, lect. 7.
25
STh III, q. 14, a. 4 (Leonine ed., 11:183). Cf. Super Rom., c. 5, lect. 3.
26
II Sent., d. 30, q. 2, a. 2 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:791). Cf. De Pot., q. 3, a. 11, ad 16
(Pession, ed., 2:69a); Q. D. De Anima, a. 11, ad 1 (Leonine ed., 24/1:101-2).

VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS

121

regard to its first and principal parts, cannot be from the soul of
the fetus, nor from the virtus formativa acting from its own
power, but from the virtus formativa acting out of the power of
the father’s soul.27 The virtus formativa is thus called a power of
the soul because it is from the soul of the one generating.28
Having determined that the virtus formativa is a power in
the semen of the father that is required for animals to develop,
we can look more closely at what sort of power it is and how it
functions in Thomas’s theory of embryogenesis. The virtus
formativa is a material power. Thomas does not offer an
explicit reason for this claim, but presumably he thinks that the
virtus formativa is a material power because it is in the semen.
Since it is in something material and, as we will see, performs its
action on that which is material, it is a material power. Since it
is a material power, the virtus formativa is sufficient to educe a
sensitive soul in an animal. The intellective soul, however,
cannot arise by the mediation of the virtus formativa. An effect
cannot be more immaterial than its cause. Since the virtus
formativa is a material power, its action cannot yield an immaterial form.29 At most it can provide for the fetus’s
development of the fitting material conditions for the infusion
of the rational soul. As a result, the rational soul must be
infused immediately by God.
In distinction 18 of book 2 of the Sentences commentary, an
objector argues that it is impossible for diverse agents to work
for one effect such that the action of one terminates at the
subject of the form and the action of the other terminates at the
form. The action of an agent does not terminate at the subject
of the form unless the effect receives the form; otherwise, the
subject of the form and form would be two distinct things, not
one. But the organic body is the subject of the rational soul as
its form. Therefore, since the body is organized through the
27

ScG II, c. 89 (Leonine ed., 13:541b-542a).
De Pot., q. 3, a. 9 (Pession, ed., 2:61b-62a).
29
II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 1 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:459-60); d. 18, q. 2, a. 3, ad 4
(Mandonnet, ed., 2:471); ScG II, c. 89 (Leonine ed., 13:541a); STh I, q. 71, a. un., ad 1
(Leonine ed., 5:182); STh II-II, q. 26, a. 10, ad 1 (Leonine ed., 8:220).
28

122

CARL VATER

action of the virtus formativa, it seems as if the action of the
virtus formativa should terminate at the rational soul.30 Thomas
responds that God’s immediate infusion of the rational soul
does make two agents work on the same work, but God works
in the very operation of nature, so there is nothing problematic
about God’s action reaching an end that exceeds the action of
the virtus formativa.31
In De Potentia, question 3, article 9, Thomas adds that the
virtus formativa remains after the body of the fetus is fully
formed. An objector argues that if the virtus formativa remains
after the advent of the rational soul, then it will be useless
(otiosa). But this seems unfitting because there is nothing useless
in nature.32 Thomas responds that this power, which was
initially formative of the body, becomes regulative of the body.
It remains just as heat, which disposes to the form of fire,
remains even after the form of fire arrives. It remains as an
instrument of the form in act.33 The virtus formativa initially
forms the body, and once that task is complete, it remains to
regulate the body. But what exactly is it regulating? Thomas
specifies that it is regulating the three heats: the heat of fire, the
heat of the heavens, and the heat of the soul.34 It initially
regulates these three heats to form the body, and then it remains
to ensure that these heats stay in their proper proportions in the
body.
Thomas consistently denies that the virtus formativa
performs any of the embryo’s vital functions. There are those
who might argue that at the beginning of generation the embryo
cannot yet digest meat itself. As a result, the virtus formativa

30

II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 1, arg 5 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:458).
II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 1, ad 5 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:461).
32
De Pot., q. 3, a. 9, arg. 16 (Pession, ed., 2:64a).
33
De Pot., q. 3, a. 9, ad 16 (Pession, ed., 2:68b). Cf. STh I, q. 118, a. 1, ad 4
(Leonine ed., 5:564).
34
ScG II, c. 89 (Leonine ed., 13:541a). Cf. II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 3 (Mandonnet,
ed., 2:467-70); De spir. creat., a. 6, ad 11 (Leonine ed., 24/2:72).
31

VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS

123

performs that task for it.35 Thomas consistently denies this
claim. Rather, at the moment of conception the embryo has a
vegetative soul and so is able to perform these tasks on its own.
If vital operations were performed by the virtus formativa, then
they would be performed, as it were, by an extrinsic principle.36
But these vital operations cannot be outsourced. They must be
performed by the embryo itself.
To this point, it might be possible to write off the virtus
formativa as bad biology. A material power in the semen coming from the soul of the father that regulates the three heats is
certainly a product of an outdated view of biology. The fact that
putrefaction is the only natural animal exception to the
necessity of the virtus formativa would seem to be further
evidence that the power is just outdated biology. Decay is
simply not a cause of reproduction, regardless of the influence
of the sun. However, not all that Thomas says about the virtus
formativa has been said at this point. What follows is
philosophically necessary for his account of embryogenesis.
The virtus formativa has a natural intention. A natural
intention is a nonconscious inclination to a certain end that
follows upon a form. Thomas uses the example of fire, which is
inclined upward and makes something like itself because of its
form.37 Fire does not intend to move upwards or to generate
more fire because of any conscious intention. Rather, it does so
merely because it is fire. Thomas uses two related analogies to
explain the virtus formativa’s natural intention. The more
general analogy relates to art. In De potentia, question 3,
Thomas says “just as the artifact preexists in art as in an active
power, so too the living thing to be generated preexists in the
virtus formativa.”38 The child preexists in the virtus formativa as
35
II Sent., d. 30, q. 2, a. 1 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:783); cf. ibid., ad 5 (Mandonnet, ed.,
2:785-86).
36
STh I, q. 118, a. 2, ad 2 (Leonine ed., 5:566-67); De Pot., q. 3, a. 9, arg. 13 and
ad 13 (Pession, ed., 2:64a and 68b);
37
STh I, q. 59, a. 1 (Leonine ed., 5:92); q. 80, a. 1 (Leonine ed., 5:282); STh I-II,
q. 26, a. 1 (Leonine ed., 6:188).
38
De Pot., q. 3, a. 12, ad 4 (Pession, ed., 2:77b).

124

CARL VATER

in an active power. The “plan” for the development of the fetus
is in that material power, which power brings about the
development of the child. The virtus formativa is not acting
blindly, but rather, acts with a certain intention. In his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Thomas reaffirms that the
virtus formativa is like art because it “arrives at the form that it
intends through determinate means.”39 The power in the sperm
does not work haphazardly or with just anything. It works
through determinate means. It works on a particular sort of
matter, and develops it according to a particular plan.
The more specific analogy that Thomas uses for the natural
intention of the virtus formativa is that of a builder. In the
Sentences commentary, Thomas, speaking of the generation of
horses, says that the virtus formativa is not a passive power in
the semen of the male like we say that wood and stones are
potentially a house, but it is an active potency, as we say that
the form of the house in the mind of the builder is potentially a
house.40 The virtus formativa is likened to the exemplar and
efficient cause of the product. It foreknows, as it were, the plan
for the development of the fetus, and it is the one who executes
the plan. Like the builder, it is an active power. It acts upon the
material cause. The analogy to the builder is strengthened by
the fact that Thomas says that the virtus formativa acts “more
through the manner of a mover than through the manner of a
form.”41 Just as the builder imparts a form different from the
form that he has, so too the virtus formativa imparts a form that
it is not. The virtus formativa is not a soul, or a body; rather, it
is a material power that comes from a soul, yet it forms the
body of the fetus such that the body is fit to receive an intellectual soul, through successive generations and corruptions.
Thomas adds in book 7 of his commentary on the
Metaphysics that both the form in the mind of the builder and
the virtus formativa are not their products in act, but only in

39

VII Metaphys., lect. 6 (Spiazzi, ed., 334a).
II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 3 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:469).
41
Ibid. Cf. De spir. creat., a. 6, ad 11 (Leonine ed., 24/2:72).
40

VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS

125

power.42 Just as the form in the mind of the builder is not yet a
house in act, so too the virtus formativa in the sperm is not yet
an animal, nor does it have the soul of an animal except in
potency. Only once the matter is completely developed will the
form be complete. Until the last nail is in place, the form of
house is still on the way. So too, the soul of the animal only
arrives once the sense organs are developed. The analogies fall
short insofar as art and the builder are intellectual causes and
the virtus formativa is not. The virtus formativa is not cognitive
and does not think up the form that it imposes upon the matter.
Its plan is given to it from the soul of the father.
Thus, the virtus formativa has a natural intention analogous
to the intellectual intention of the builder: but what is that
intention? The intention is that the son be like the father. As
Thomas says in question 23, article 5 of De veritate, “because of
the strength of the virtus formativa in the semen the son is
assimilated to the father not only in the nature of the species,
but also in many accidents.”43 At work here is the Thomistic
principle that every agent makes something like itself (omne
agens agit sibi simile).44 Since the virtus formativa is the active
potency in the development of the fetus, and the virtus
formativa is from the father, it will act to make the child like
the father. Thomas says this explicitly in his commentary on the
Metaphysics: “the virtus formativa, which is in the male’s sperm,
is naturally ordered to produce something entirely like that
from which the sperm was taken.”45 Since the form of the child
42

VII Metaphys., lect. 8 (Spiazzi, ed., 354b).
De Verit., q. 23, a. 5 (Leonine ed., 22/3:666). Cf. ScG II, c. 89 (Leonine ed.,
13:541b-542a).
44
For more on this principle, see John F. Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas
Aquinas II (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007),
152-71.
45
VII Metaphys., lect. 7 (Spiazzi, ed., 350a). Cf. II Sent., d. 30, q. 2, a. 2
(Mandonnet, ed., 2:791). Thomas considers three opinions about digestion in II Sent.,
d. 30, q. 2, a. 2. The point about the virtus formativa occurs in the first opinion, which
Thomas does not accept, but the third position, which he does accept, is based on the
principle “every agent makes the patient like itself as much as it can.” As a result, I think
this text confirms the point I am trying to make.
43

126

CARL VATER

is from the father, it is expected that the child will be like the
father in all things, which explains why children were expected
to be male. If the father is generating something like himself,
then the child should be like the father in all things, including
sex.
Although the natural intention of the virtus formativa is to
form a son that looks like the father, it is obvious that this
natural intention is not always achieved. This failure is
especially evident in the case of severe deformities, which
Thomas calls monstrosities.46 It is necessary that the patient be
assimilated to the agent, so if the agent is strong enough, the
effect will be a perfect likeness of the cause. But if the agent is
weak, the likeness will be imperfect.47 Such deformities are beyond the intention of the virtus formativa, but they can still be
reducible to some natural causes.48 The existence of deformities
is evidence that the virtus formativa is not an infallible power.
In some cases, fathers beget sons who bear a strong resemblance
to them, but in other cases, fathers beget children that fall short
of such a resemblance.
For the most part, Thomas does not comment on this
fallibility other than to say that it is evidence of the weakness of
the virtus formativa. In his commentary on the Letter to the
Romans, however, he points out that children are like their
parents not only in bodily defects, but also in defects of the
soul. Not only do leprous parents generate leprous children and
gouty parents generate gouty children, but we also see that
irascible parents generate irascible children, and insane parents
beget insane children.49 In such cases, the deficiency of the

46

See, for example, De Verit., q. 13, a. 1 (Leonine ed., 22/2:417).
De Verit., q. 23, a. 5 (Leonine ed., 22/3:666).
48
II Sent., d 18, q. 1, a. 3, ad 6 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:457). In the case of females,
Thomas argues that although the generation of a female is beyond the intention of
particular nature, it is from the intention of universal nature, which requires both sexes
for the perfection of the human species. See IV Sent., d. 44, q. 1, a. 3, qcla. 3, arg. 3 and
ad 3 (Mandonnet, ed., 4:309a and 310b). For the case of blindness, see STh I-II, q. 63,
a. 4 (Leonine ed., 6:410-11).
49
Super Rom., c. 5, lect. 3.
47

VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS

127

virtus formativa could be attributed to a deficiency in the
parents. No one gives what he does not have, so parents with
certain physical or psychic deficiencies cannot help but pass on
their deficiencies.50
Having seen that the virtus formativa has a natural intention
to form a child like the father, which intention is not always
achieved, we can see the vital role that the power plays in
Thomas’s theory of embryogenesis. The virtus formativa
accounts for the development of the fetus’s organs so that it
may receive the rational soul: “the virtus formativa is in the
semen, through which power the sensible soul is induced in
other animals, and the body is organized in man, and prepared
to receive the rational soul.”51 The virtus formativa works to
perfect the organs so that the soul may be more and more in
act.52 It disposes the bodily matter so that it may receive the
form, that is, the soul.53 It does so as the instrumental efficient
cause of the fetus.54 The virtus formativa acts on the body of the
fetus, but it does so without an organ.55 It is like the intellect in
that it does not require an organ for its work.56 This is a crucial
50
It could be disputed whether this point is important for Thomas’s account of the
virtus formativa. On one hand, we do say that children whose parents are addicted to
alcohol have a greater proclivity to develop the same addiction. See, for instance,
William M. Muir and others, “High Resolution Genomic Scans Reveal Genetic
Architecture Controlling Alcohol Preference in Bidirectionally Selected Rat Model,”
PLOS Genetics, August 4, 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006178. On
the other hand, it is easy to imagine that children of irascible parents might be irascible
because of the bad example of their parents, not because of any defect in their
formation in utero. A firm judgment on this point does not affect the conclusions of this
article and is beyond its scope.
51
II Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 2, ad 4 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:810-11). Cf. De Pot., q. 3, a. 9,
ad 16 (Pession, ed., 2:69a); Q. D. De Anima, a. 11, ad 1 (Leonine ed., 24/1:101-2).
52
II Sent., d. 18, q. 2, a. 3 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:469-70); De Verit., q. 23, a. 2
(Leonine ed., 22/3:666); Comp. Theol., I, c. 161 (Leonine ed., 42:145).
53
STh II-II, q. 26, a. 10, ad 1 (Leonine ed., 8:220); Super Rom., c. 5, lect. 3.
54
STh I, q. 118, a. 1, ad 4 (Leonine ed., 5:564b): “this power is not the principal
agent, but an instrumental one.”
55
De 30 articulis, a. 20 (Leonine ed., 42:321 and 323); De 36 articulis, a. 26
(Leonine ed., 42:344).
56
De 43 articulis, a. 34 (Leonine ed., 42:333).

128

CARL VATER

point for Thomas because the embryo does not have any organs
initially. Its organs only come about because of the work of the
virtus formativa. So, if the virtus formativa required an organ to
perform its action, generation would never occur. It is only
because the virtus formativa can work on the fetus’s body
without using an organ that the body develops.
IV. THE ROLE OF THE VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS
At conception, the embryo is a merely vegetative organism.
That vegetative organism begins to develop sense organs
because of the virtus formativa. Once those sense organs are
sufficiently developed, the vegetative soul corrupts and the
sensitive soul arrives. From that point, the fetus is an animal.
That animal’s body continues to develop because of the virtus
formativa so that it can receive a rational soul. Once it is
sufficiently developed, the sensitive soul corrupts and God
infuses a rational soul.
There is something quite strange about this process. It
involves the seemingly outrageous claim that a plant develops
sense organs. Having sense organs is contrary to the essence of
any plant. It brings to mind the image of a mad scientist
attaching eyeballs to a tree to see if the tree will begin to
exercise the power of sight. By this action the mad scientist is
doing violence to the tree. Thomas argues that the virtus
formativa is not like the mad scientist because it does not act on
the fetus violently. Rather, the virtus formativa is an intrinsic
power.57 Here we see how seriously we must take Thomas when
he says that the virtus formativa is a power in the semen. It is a
power, existing in the matter of the semen, which disposes the
matter to cooperate with the form such that it is not moved
violently as its end is completed. If it were not intrinsic, then
the virtus formativa could only guide the formation of the body

57

VII Metaphys., lect. 8 (Spiazzi, ed., 353a).

VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS

129

violently. Matter in itself is purely passive,58 but “matter assists
in generation not by acting, but in as much as it is apt [habilis]
to receive such action: which aptitude [habilitas] is even called
an appetite of matter, and a beginning of form.”59 It is precisely
this aptitude that the virtus formativa brings about. If it were an
extrinsic cause, like the form in the builder’s mind, it would
only be able to form the body in the same way that builder
makes the stones and wood into a house. In this case, the
formation of the body would do a certain violence to the
natural place of the matter. In the same way that the stacking of
stones involves doing violence to the natural location to which
each of those bricks naturally tends (i.e., down), so the embryo
would have violence done to it in its development of sense
organs.
Thomas posits a theory of multiple generations and
corruptions in the development of embryos to account for the
fact that, at the earliest stages, the soul cannot exercise certain
acts characteristic of an intellective or sensitive soul. Since “the
power of the soul gives the form,” a body which is not formed
to sense or to reason cannot be said to have such souls.60
However, if Thomas is going to posit a succession of souls, he
needs a way to account for the fact that the body of the embryo
continues to develop from a plant to an animal, and finally to a
rational animal. This task certainly cannot be accomplished by
the form (i.e., the soul) of the fetus itself because such
development is not natural for a vegetative or sentient soul.
Tulips and their vegetative souls are not in potency to develop
the organs for touch and taste, never mind locomotion.61 The
vegetative soul is complete in performing the nutritive act.
While it is correct to say that plants do not participate being in
58
“Although the form draws out the potency of matter, nevertheless that potency of
matter is not an active potency, but merely a passive potency” (II Sent., d. 18, q. 1, a. 2
[Mandonnet, ed., 2:452]).
59
Ibid. (Mandonnet, ed., 2:453): “matter helps in generation not by acting, but
insofar as it is apt to receive such action.”
60
STh I, q. 118, a. 2, ad 3 (Leonine ed., 5:567b).
61
ScG II, c. 89 (Leonine ed., 13:541b-542a).

130

CARL VATER

the fullest manner possible, it would be false to say that they are
not complete in themselves, since they actualize the potencies
they do have. Given this understanding, if a plant were given a
sensitive soul, this could only come about from violence.
Giving a tulip a sensitive soul would be violence because the
body of the plant would not be organized to receive such a
form, and therefore it would possess potencies for sensitive
activity that it could not immediately actualize. It is in this
context that Thomas posits the virtus formativa as a power in
the semen. This power forms the body of the embryo so that it
might be apt to receive the form. The development of sense
organs, though foreign to anything living a plant life in itself, is
nonetheless naturally brought about by the virtus formativa so
that the sensitive soul can be, in a sense, drawn out of the
matter without violence.62 This is also why the virtus formativa
has to be derived from the soul of the father.63 If it were a
power of the soul of the embryo, there is nothing to account for
its forming sense organs in the body of the vegetative embryo.
The vegetative soul lacks the power to use them, and it would
seem that nature would have done something in vain, an idea
that Thomas staunchly opposes.
V. CONCLUSION
In light of this analysis, it can be concluded that the virtus
formativa is not merely a false biological theory. It is
philosophically indispensable. Without the virtus formativa,
Thomas’s system of successive generations and corruptions of
souls in the embryo cannot account for the continued
development of the body that leads to the successive generations
and corruptions. The vegetative soul of the embryo will not
cause the embryo to develop sense organs. If the embryo does
not already have a rational soul at conception, then some power

62
STh I, q. 118, a. 1, ad 2: “The more perfect the soul of the one generating was, the
more its generative power [virtus generativa] is ordered to a perfect effect.”
63
See ScG II, c. 89 (Leonine ed., 13:543).

VIRTUS FORMATIVA IN EMBRYOGENESIS

131

must be present to guide its development beyond what is
necessary for vegetative life. Thomas sums this up well in the
Summa theologiae: “man generates a thing similar to himself
inasmuch as the matter is disposed to the reception of such a
form through the power of the semen.”64 Thus, any philosopher
wishing to hold a Thomistic account of delayed hominization
today must find room in the account for the virtus formativa.
Therefore, I cannot agree with Donceel in his simple dismissal
of the virtus formativa as merely “connected with Thomas’
erroneous information about the semen, reproduction and so
on.”65 There is no doubt that the virtus formativa is a result of
an erroneous biology, but it nonetheless plays a philosophically
necessary role. Donceel tacitly admits the importance of the
virtus formativa when he asks, “If neither the soul of the father
nor the embryo itself explains embryonic development, where
are we to look for the cause of the process?”66
Some have attempted to answer this question by saying that
this power can be equated to the DNA of the embryo. Initially,
this seems a good solution, but, as even its supporters will
admit, “[one] crucial difference between Aquinas’s virtus
formativa and DNA is that DNA is present within each cell”
rather than being a single power for the whole. Moreover, on
the DNA model, “the formative power results from the
embryo’s own genetic identity which is constituted from but is
not identical to, the genetic contribution of the gametes from
which the embryo was formed.”67 DNA is not a power coming
from the father; it is the embryo’s own power. Thus, the
supporter of the DNA model must hold that the embryo is the
efficient cause of its own development, which eliminates the
need to posit delayed hominization in the first place.68
64

STh I, q. 118, a. 2, ad 4 (Leonine ed., 5:567).
Donceel, “Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominization,” 84.
66
Ibid.
67
Eberl, “Aquinas’s Account of Human Embryogenesis,” 389.
68
“For a process to count as generation, in the technical Aristotelian sense, it must
involve a transformation of existing material in such a way that a different substance is
produced. . . . ‘Strictly, forms are not made, but are brought out from the potential of
65

132

CARL VATER

While it is beyond the scope of this article to solve this
problem for defenders of the fitting-matter argument, it seems
that the problem of fetal development is created by a
questionable interpretation of Thomas’s text. The fitting-matter
argument seems to be based on a questionable reading of efficient and formal causality and a failure to distinguish between
the soul and its powers. However, if the fitting-matter reading
of Thomas is correct, then the philosophical necessity of the
virtus formativa forces adherents of the fitting-matter argument
to accept a faulty account of biology.
It might be suggested that the solution would be to give up
on a succession of forms to avoid the problem of the virtus
formativa, but this approach would amount to rejecting the
fitting-matter argument entirely. If there is not a succession in
forms in the embryo, then its form must be human from the
beginning; otherwise, the embryo would never be human. It
could not be argued that there was no form, and then at some
point the rational soul would be imparted, because that would
mean that the embryo would be prime matter before its rational
ensoulment. Not only does prime matter not exist in reality, but
it is quite impossible to see how prime matter itself could ever
be fitting matter for the rational soul. Proponents of this view
would either have to slip into a form of delayed hominization
based on twinning or a view that says that not all men are
persons, basing personhood on an accidental quality such as
ready rationality. Either way, proponents of giving up on
succession of forms must admit the truth of this analysis. The
faulty biology cannot be separated from the philosophy.
Accepting St. Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of immediate
animation but delayed hominization demands accepting faulty
biological principles.

the matter’ (InMet. VII.7.1423). Generation consists in the production neither of the
matter nor of the form, but of the matter-form composite (the whole animal, for
example). ‘Strictly, only the composite is generated’ (De principiis 2.96-97 [347])”
(Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 101).

BOOK REVIEWS
Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective. By FRANCIS WATSON. Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Eerdmans, 2013. Pp. xiii + 665. $48.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-08028-4054-7.
Very few New Testament scholars today could have produced a book of
the same scope, competence, and creativity as Francis Watson’s Gospel
Writing. It is an achievement of truly imposing force and richness and certainly
ranks among the most ambitious and important contributions to the field of
Gospel studies in the post-Bultmannian age. The irony is that the ghost of
Rudolf Bultmann haunts the text, without ever being named, so that it
becomes hard to say precisely where the discipline is going. The question for
exegetes and theologians will thus be how to measure Watson’s proposed
paradigm shift against the no less significant (if less expansive and erudite)
projects of Martin Hengel, Richard Burridge, and Richard Bauckham, whose
ideas push in a different direction and harbor no theological nostalgia for the
era of midcentury Formgeschichte.
The stated aim of Watson’s tome is to reconfigure the standard model of
Gospel origins. By this he means, in the first place, dislodging the regnant
Two-Document Hypothesis, whereby Matthew and Luke independently
rewrote and merged Mark and a lost sayings source (Q)—with John coming
up the rear in some uncertain relation to his three canonical predecessors. By
setting Q in the crosshairs, the book builds openly upon Mark Goodacre’s
more pioneering and pointed oeuvre. Indeed, as a senior scholar of some
standing and as the present editor of New Testament Studies, Watson easily
represents the most noteworthy “establishment” advocate to throw his full
weight behind Goodacre’s theory. If Watson thus offers his own extended
arguments meant to undermine the credibility of Q (chap. 3, “The
Coincidences of Q”) and to buttress the theory that Luke, in fact, wrote with
direct knowledge of Matthew’s Gospel (chap. 4, “Luke the Interpreter”), this
is not the real site of innovation. Admittedly, the detailed discussion of order
in Luke’s sayings material is a meaningful and needed element in the mounting
“L/M theory,” as Watson designates it (e.g., 118-19). His handling of the
Lucan preface is also of interest. Still, Goodacre remains the most eloquent
and convincing spokesmen for the L/M view. The real innovation and

133

134

BOOK REVIEWS

significance, rather, is in the way that Watson has (as Goodacre has not) so
vigorously thought through the implications of “life without Q.”
The two opening chapters of the book put the whole project in its
historical context and together comprise part 1, “The Eclipse of the Fourfold
Gospel.” The narrative arc sketched in this superbly engaging account serves
to expose a pair of faulty but foundational assumptions that Watson sees as
constitutive of the present perspective: (1) the perception of plurality/
disharmony as a problem, and (2) the effort to reverse the flow of reception to
recover a form of the Gospel prior to the act of interpretation.
It all begins with “Augustine’s Ambiguous Legacy” (chap. 1). Here Watson
offers the first of multiple displays of his remarkable, masterful range. The
essential point of the argument, which focuses upon De consensu
evangelistarum, is to challenge the supposedly dominant assumption, inherited
in some way from Augustine (Origen purportedly represents a different
legacy), that disharmony among the Gospels represents a theological problem.
Watson accordingly highlights a double tendency in Augustine’s work. On the
one hand, he innovatively proposes a literary, source-critical explanation for
the similarities and differences between the Gospels—rather than simply
assuming the direct access of each evangelist to apostolic preaching, as earlier
tradition did. “For the tradition, Mark is Peter’s son; for Augustine, he is
Matthew’s” (20). While the so-called Augustinian Hypothesis that results—
that is, the suggestion that the evangelists wrote their Gospels in the canonical
order and in dependence upon one another—is not highly regarded today, in
the course of his work Augustine gives hints of revising his own view, as
Watson interestingly shows. In any case, neither Augustine’s later, revised
view nor his rudimentary insight into the utility of a source-critical, researchbased approach represents the final account of his influence. His broad project
of harmonization must above all be identified, rather, with the dangerous (for
Watson) “assumption that correspondence with factual occurrence is the
appropriate criterion for assessing gospel truth” (14). Although Augustine
himself never reduced the fourfold Gospel to a single, univocal text-form in
the manner of Tatian’s Diatessaron, his systematic study of the diverging
points of the Gospels nevertheless effectively functioned as a handbook for
such projects, displaying an anxiety about plurality and having its final, logical
effect in the construction of Gospel editions like the seventeenth-century
harmonies of Jean Leclerc and Bernard Lamy. While on the one hand such
harmonies are the immediate precursors of Johann Jakob Griesbach’s
groundbreaking Synopsis of 1776 and thus heirs of Augustine’s source-critical
patrimony, on the other hand, as decadent reflexes of his advertised
discomfort with diversity, they likewise had a more unfortunate effect. The
harmonies not only disfigured and leveled the fourfold canonical form; their
absurdities were the aberration that laid the ground for our present paradigm
of Gospel origins.

BOOK REVIEWS

135

Following this abrupt jump of several centuries, from the patristic era
straight to the Enlightenment, Watson’s second chapter picks up the thread
directly, with a discussion of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Hermann Samuel
Reimarus. Again, the adept handling of the history of research inspires
admiration, and one of the capital contributions of the chapter is to pry
Reimarus free from his reception by Albert Schweitzer. Here the “Historical
Jesus” (no less than the “Historical Reimarus”) first comes in view, offering a
skeptical answer to the failed effort of the harmonizers. The key lesson that
Watson draws from the famous Fragmentenstreit is thus the existence of a
shared assumption binding Augustine and the Enlightenment: the presence or
absence of “contradictions” determines the credibility of the Gospels.
Incommensurate plurality, in other words, represents a theological threat. It is
this assumption that, according to Watson, must be steadfastly rejected if
Gospel study is to take a positive new course.
Without descending into anything resembling polemics, Watson finds the
“Quest for the Historical Jesus,” first occasioned by Reimarus, to be quite
simply a catastrophic error. Lessing’s part in this is not only to have served as
Reimarus’s clever patron, but to have responded to the harmonistic collapse of
the (conflicting) canonical accounts by appealing to a precanonical Ur-Gospel.
The historical, that is, the univocal, pre-ecclesial Jesus, who stands blissfully
prior to all interpretative accretions, is thus for him to be located behind the
canonical sources in the lost Gospel according to the Hebrews. This appeal, an
early precursor of the Q theory, only vaguely gestured to in Lessing’s neverfinished tract New Hypothesis on the Evangelists Considered as Purely Human
Historians, moreover functions within a broader theological program. The
Urevangelium is ultimately an ersatz for John’s Gospel, meant to marginalize
the doctrine of Jesus’ divinity. The irony of this is that the successful effort to
break apart the Gospels’ canonical theological structure remains still trapped
within the old and arbitrary fourfold, ecclesial, canonical form. “Q” (in the
guise of a lost apocryphal Gospel) has simply slipped into the vacated slot
prepared for it by John.
In the face of this confused and arbitrary configuration, as Watson reads it,
the five intricate, exegetically oriented chapters comprising part 2 tackle the
project of “reframing Gospel origins.” Definitively sidelining Q as an
improbable construct is the first and central step in chapters 3 and 4, as
already mentioned. A positive alternative already begins to emerge in Watson’s discussion of Luke’s redaction of Matthew (chap. 4). “Interpretation” is
the name given to Luke’s reworking of the Matthean tradition, and this word
holds huge significance in Watson’s vision. It confers, firstly, a slightly
different nuance upon the long familiar work of “redaction” criticism. More
importantly, however, it holds the theological place of Bultmann’s kerygma,
that is, it somehow mediates Jesus directly and simultaneously renders him
historically inaccessible.

136

BOOK REVIEWS

The true paradigm shift gets in gear with chapter 5, the book’s longest
chapter, “Thomas versus Q.” Here Watson helpfully points to the formal,
generic difference distancing the Gospel of Thomas (GT) from Q. Namely,
whereas GT is strictly a collection of logia, Q incorporates narrative material
and has a plotted structure. From this, Watson develops a theory of primitive
Sayings Collections (SC), finding evidence in texts like 2 Clement and Mark 4,
as well as GT. The great difference between Q and Watson’s SC proposal—for
one might imagine that he is simply swapping letters—is that the latter remain
vague, ad hoc documents that cannot be comprehensively reconstructed and
that serve no essential explanatory role in accounting for the whole bulk of
the Double Tradition logia. This signifies a major adjustment, toward a
piecemeal source-critical paradigm.
At the same time, the importance of GT in Watson’s new paradigm is
theological. This is evident from his studied effort at normalization. Thus, by
demonstrating that the text is not as mythologically supercharged as the wild,
Gnostic Apocryphon of John, Watson seeks to push GT into the orbit of the
Synoptic Gospels. One may ask whether this comparison is not a straw man—
other Nag Hammadi texts like the Dialogue of the Savior might arguably cast a
very different comparative light on GT. In any case, it serves Watson to
minimize the differences with the Synoptic tradition, for it is a first principle
and refrain of his new perspective that all distinctions between apocryphal and
canonical Gospels are anachronistic and arbitrary.
In chapter 6, Watson further advances his valorization of noncanonical
traditions and piecemeal source criticism. Specifically, he attempts to update
and reargue the old position of Helmut Koester (Bultmann’s Schüler) that
Egerton Papyrus 2 (GEger) preserves a lost source of John’s Gospel. At stake
here is a shibboleth that Watson intends to topple: the marginalization of
extracanonical material on the assumption that it must always be secondary
(i.e., dependent) and late. The involved discussion is brilliantly prosecuted,
and Watson has certainly strengthened our understanding of how GEger
thematically holds together. Nevertheless, his insistence on the priority of
GEger to the canonical text largely hangs upon the disputed reading of an
upsilon as an eta in a very poorly preserved corner of a fragmentary papyrus.
Stanley Porter has already offered a riposte to Watson, reversing his argument
for the direction of dependence.
Chapter 7 is somewhat less bold but again hopes to bring noncanonical
Gospels into the center of the discussion. In this case, it is the Gospel of Peter
and GT that hold Watson’s attention. His interest in discovering sources cedes
place, however, to the dynamic of “reinterpretation,” and here he lays out his
sevenfold process of reception: datum → recollection → tradition →
inscription → interpretation → reinterpretation → normativization. The line
between the fifth and sixth of these stages (i.e., interpretation and
reinterpretation) is one of degree only. The essential difference is that
“reinterpretation highlights . . . the disruptive element in the reception

BOOK REVIEWS

137

process” and implies “a more or less radical reworking of an earlier
interpretation” (355, 367). To illustrate, Watson is able to show in some
illuminating ways the very different directions distinct Gospels might take
shared material. Thus, for example, the way “seeking-and-finding” logia are
hermeneutically deployed in GT is compared to their very different
significance in John and elsewhere; just as the handling of the titulus of the
cross is contrasted in the Gospel of Peter and John.
Without a doubt, Watson’s signaling of this “disruptive element” in the
reception process is apropos; and one is happy to hear him confess that “there
is such a thing as misinterpretation,” for “where interpretations and
reinterpretations proliferate, so too does the possibility of misinterpretation,
with potentially disastrous consequences” (406). It is less satisfying, however,
when this admission is coupled with his theorem about the inherent
indistinguishability of canonical and noncanonical texts. Who is to say that the
reinterpreted kingship of Jesus in the Gospel of Peter is wrong, while the
alternative vision of John’s Gospel is right? For Watson, this question occurs
at the end of the process and can only be resolved through an arbitrary,
juridical stipulation by the Church. The Church has this right, and no one may
it take it from her. But that is the essence of the creation of the fourfold
canon, as he sees it.
The final four chapters make up part 3, “The Canonical Construct,” and
turn naturally to the process of normativization. The basic thesis of the first
movement, stretching across two chapters, is that an ecumenical compromise
had to be reached between the East, where a welter of Gospels was in
accepted circulation (chap. 8: “The East: Limiting Plurality”), and the more
restrictive West, where the protocanon had to be supplemented by the suspect
Gospel of John (chap. 9: “The West: Towards Consensus”). Watson
successfully measures the distance between Clement of Alexandria’s and
Eusebius’s respective views on the fourfold Gospel. Still, he manifestly
underplays Clement’s own massively pregnant, passing mention of “the four
Gospels handed down to us” (ejn toi~" paradedomevnoi" hJmi~n tevttarsin
eujaggelivo" [Stromateis 3.13.93.1]). A similar inattention to signs of an early
fourfold construct comes in the familiar depiction of Irenaeus as the effective
creator of the canon. The creative plotting of Watson’s discussion of an
accord between the Churches of East and West is convincing, if also facilely
deployed. Yet it is startling, above all, that Watson never engages the work of
Denis Farkasfalvy, who already argued the same basic idea but who finds
Irenaeus to be quoting a Roman source in Adversus Haereses 3.1.1, which
pushes the canon question back some thirty years earlier, to the meeting of
Polycarp and Pope Anicetus around 153 A.D.
There is a still greater problem with the handling of Irenaeus, however, and
I take this to be the real Achilles’ heel of Watson’s whole program, namely, his
utter insensitivity to the role of apostolic tradition. This is evident already
from the anemic position of “tradition” in his sevenfold process. In effect, by

138

BOOK REVIEWS

throwing all emphasis upon the later stages of interpretation-reinterpretationnormativization, the whole, classical project of Formgeschichte, that is, the
analysis of Gospel formation from datum to inscription (in Watson’s
language), is simply missing. In its place is found an undifferentied and busy
overgrowth of “gospel writing” (the title, we learn late in the book, has more
than just the canonical Gospels in mind). The irony is that this primordial
soup of Gospel traditions cashes out in the end like Bultmann’s form-critical
model of anonymous communal production. It is against this that the research
of Hengel and Bauckham is largely directed. Watson indeed pays lip service to
the role of memory and eyewitness (351). He still feels free to assert, however,
that no essential, demonstrable difference separates the pseudepigraphic reach
for apostolic credentials characteristic of texts like GT and the Gospel of Peter
from the tradition-borne claims of the canonical Gospels (413-15). A more
misleading representation can hardly be imagined. It amounts, in any case, to
an open rebuttal of the testimony and theology of Irenaeus.
Watson’s sympathies are obviously in the more indulgent East. As a
pendant to the opening Augustine chapter, where Gospel harmonies were
theologically skewered, Watson thus returns to Origen here at the end. The
opposition is glib, however. It is true that Origen speaks in his Commentary
on John (3.10-14) of resolving irreconcilable difficulties on the spiritual rather
than the “fleshly” or “literal” plane (ejn toi~" nohtoi~" . . . oujk ejn toi~"
swmatikoi~" carakth~). At the same time, it is perfectly evident that Origen
indulges precisely the same sort of harmonistic solutions that Augustine also
pursues. The Commentary on Matthew 16.12, for instance, determines that
three distinct trips to Jericho with healings of four different blind men are
indeed required to avoid unacceptable conflicts among the inspired
evangelists. This does not exclude, however, a more profound reading
(βαθυτέραν) of all three Synoptics as relating one same event in diverse ways.
On my reading, then, Origin permits and promotes both orders of meaning
simultaneously. Ironically, for Watson’s position, it is precisely the
harmonization that allows each Gospel narrative to affirm its independent
logic and preserve its proper place. It is the spiritual reading that imposes a
flattening unity by fusing all the details into a single, abstract event. In the
end, the project of Gospel harmonies is not corrupt to the core, toward
whatever extravagances it may be tempted. Watson’s inclination to celebrate
irreducible plurality, on the other hand, does little to honor the Gospels’
fourfold form—which, he so rightly and so often repeats, represents a
distinctive, new interpretative object beyond the individual texts themselves.
The book closes with a riveting tour through the early iconography of the
four creatures, keyed to online images with commentary. Watson’s essential
interest is to trace in its various permutations the migration of the man, lion,
ox, and eagle from being angelic figures in the heavenly liturgy to being
symbols of the evangelists and written Gospels.

BOOK REVIEWS

139

In the end, what should be made of Watson’s vision of life without Q? It is
invigorating, without a doubt—yet also quite disappointing. Above all, the
conception of the canon in this self-advertised “canonical perspective” appears
profoundly inadequate. Watson rightly seeks to reorient Gospel scholarship
around a model of living tradition, that is, “reception,” yet evacuates its
historical rootedness in Jesus’s authorization of those who became the
Gospels’ authors.
Regarding the seductive insinuation that Q is an antitheological surrogate
for John, it seems worth noting that Friedrich Schleiermacher—more justly
recognized as the father of the modern Q hypothesis than Lessing—was also a
determined partisan of John’s Gospel. Moreover, historically speaking, John
was dropped from the study of the Historical Jesus in favor of the Synoptics
quite independently from and prior to the triumph of Q. The supposed
irreconcilability of this or that source theory with Christological dogma
should thus not be overstated. Whether a piecemeal, L/M theory of Gospel
sources deserves to supplant Q is another question that may be debated. As far
as GT goes, Watson is at odds with and weaker than both Simon Gathercole
and Goodacre. On GEger, he is unconvincing.
It was not a mistake to highlight Lessing. Nonetheless, his importance in
my opinion has much more to do with the theologically disastrous onset of
historicism than with the theory of Q. And here, I think Watson himself falls
victim. Confronted by the “broad, ugly ditch” of history, a theology of contact
with the living words of Jesus becomes Watson’s solution. This explains his
focused interest in the sayings traditions, from Luke to GT, SC, and GEger, as
well as his appreciation for Clement of Alexandria’s Christian gnosticism and
Koester’s Bultmannian analyses. The narrative element, by contrast, and the
Gospels’ character as Greco-Roman bioi (Burridge) somehow fail to register in
Watson’s perspective. In the balanced view of the Second Vatican Council’s
Dei Verbum, however, the relational character of the Word of God, the living
“colloquium inter Deum et hominem” (DV 25), must not obscure the ephapax,
historical character of God’s climatic action in Christ.
Watson’s magnificent book has managed to forge an idiom at once
historical, hermeneutical, and theological—but as history, hermeneutics, and
theology it comes up short. Still, bringing such energy into the field of Gospel
studies is a welcome return to earlier times. Here, even I confess nostalgia for
the heady days of Bultmann.
ANTHONY GIAMBRONE, O.P.
École biblique et archéologique française
Jerusalem, Israel

140

BOOK REVIEWS

Master Thomas Aquinas and the Fullness of Life. By JOHN F. BOYLE. South
Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2014. Pp. xv + 85. $14.00 (cloth).
ISBN: 978-1-58731-493-3.
This short, pocket-size book is a publication of the annual Aquinas Lecture
that the author delivered at the University of Dallas in 2013. As noted in the
acknowledgments, he presents “the connecting tissues that unify [his]
seemingly disparate scholarly work on St. Thomas Aquinas” (xii). In point of
fact, given that this scholarly work has spanned the author’s entire
professional career, this book, I would suggest, offers not only consideration
of “connecting tissues” of academic labor but also the ruminations of the
author’s life-long conversations—even friendship—with “Master Thomas.”
What the author gives the reader, in other words, are his mature reflections
“on Master Thomas precisely as a master, as a teacher” (xv).
To this end, the author fittingly enough presents to us a master of both
philosophical and theological wisdom. The wise man, the author notes in an
opening section entitled “Master Thomas,” sees things in relation to their
causes and thereby orders them according to their ends. This upshot is clear:
“this drive to order things . . . characterizes Thomas’s teaching” (13). The
“connecting tissues” of the author’s research that he chooses to substantiate
this, and to which the core of the book is dedicated, are Aquinas’s position on
life (specifically, its natural degrees and its moral and supernatural aspects)
and his biblical exegesis.
We turn, then, to the degrees of natural life. Here the author cites the
classic Aristotelian-Thomistic view that what defines life is the ability for selfmovement. Generically speaking, we find three distinct types of things that
move themselves: plants, “which move themselves in a very limited way” (20);
animals, which “move themselves . . . according to the instrumentality of
bodily organs and parts” and which “apprehend the forms of other things”
through the senses (21); and man, who moves himself like animals do but
whose self-movement, as expressive of his intellectual nature, is also
“immediately consequent upon an end not simply given in nature” (23-24).
The author then explains that the source and first cause of life is of course
God, “whose nature is [his] very act of understanding” and who “is [his] own
end,” as he is “always in act” (26). In this way, life reaches “its ultimate
perfection in God” (28).
Moving to consideration of the moral life, that is, of the “good life” for the
human being, the author notes how the definition of life—the ability for selfmovement—still holds, since the moral life concerns the way the human being
moves himself in the way intended by his nature as through certain “habits,”
thereby acquiring “a kind of second nature” (30). The foundational principle
here is that we are ordered to the good as to our proper end and perfection:
“the good perceived draws us to itself; it is part of our self-movement, a part
of our living, that we move ourselves to the good” (34). And since God, who

BOOK REVIEWS

141

has revealed himself as a Trinity of persons, is himself the First Good, the
human being’s ultimate end and perfection is properly supernatural, not
simply natural.
This leads the author to conclude the section on life with consideration of
the supernatural life. Here he places the focus on two supernatural virtues:
faith and charity. As regards the former, “a habit that makes the intellect
assent to things that appear not” (41) and which “is not a mere feeling . . .
[nor] a mere confidence” . . . [but a] knowing [of] the truth” (43), the author
stresses how Aquinas’s teaching on the supernatural virtue of faith “reminds us
with his exquisite clarity that man knows and assents to the truth [both natural
and revealed] with only one power, the intellect. The life of the mind is one
and unified” (44). Also key to Aquinas’s presentation of faith is the fact that
“with faith, man begins eternal life here on earth” (46). Concerning charity, a
virtue that presupposes faith, since “man cannot love what he does not
know,” and “if he does not know God as his final end, the highest good, he
cannot so love him” (49), the author reminds us that we are dealing of course
with that virtue that “is the love of God, who is the highest and most perfect
good” (48). Furthermore, charity, on St. Thomas’s reading, signifies “a
particular species of love,” namely, friendship, and is “the form of all the
virtues,” since by loving “the ultimate end, charity orders all the other virtues
and their acts to that ultimate end” (48-50).
This short book then concludes with consideration of Aquinas’s biblical
exegesis (“The Master of the Sacred Page”). Acknowledging that he has “spent
much of [his] scholarly life trying to figure out what Thomas is up to in those
[Scripture] commentaries,” the author contends that Aquinas’s “work as a
teacher reaches its apex” in his Scripture commentaries, as the Dominican
Master “never taught Aristotle or even his own summae” but only the Bible
(55). To elucidate the place of the Scripture commentaries in Aquinas’s opera,
the author employs a helpful analogy, a biologist’s fieldwork: “As the biologist
in the field studies living things in their dynamic and complex relations to
another, so Thomas views Sacred Scripture as a place to study the living
realities of revelation in their dynamic and complex relationships” (58-59).
The “field” into which he proposes that we venture briefly is Aquinas’s
Commentary on the Gospel of John. This marks a pedagogically crafty choice,
as it recapitulates the topic of the first half of the book, that of life: “one can
consider the whole of St. John’s Gospel to be about belief in Jesus Christ
precisely so that one might have life” (62). The author proceeds to walk his
reader through Aquinas’s division of the text of John’s Gospel, as “the division
of the text is a remarkable scholastic technique for the interpretation and
teaching of texts” (64). On the author’s account, “Thomas is one of the great
masters of the division of the text, and we see it in his commentary on John
. . . [as] it lays bare the landscape of the Gospel. It is a kind of topographical
map in which the many elements may be seen in relation to a whole” (72-73).
Another way of putting the matter might be that, in his employment of the

142

BOOK REVIEWS

division of the text, Aquinas proves that he is the master of seeing the forest
for the trees. In this way, the role that the division of the text serves for the
Scripture commentaries corresponds to the role the prologues play in the
Summa theologiae.
Whether a beginner or an advanced student of Aquinas, the reader can cull
much from this compact gem of a book. Foundational to the thought of
Aquinas, the concepts to which the author has devoted his scholarly life can
serve as a gateway to the overarching vision of the Dominican Master. We get
a taste of this vision in the book. Such is the fruit of spending one’s entire
scholarly career ruminating upon the thought of Aquinas, as our author has
done. For my part, I found the section on Aquinas’s biblical exegesis to be
especially illuminating and instructive. As most readers of this journal are
aware, Aquinas’s Scripture commentaries, even if they have recently begun to
receive the scholarly attention that is undeniably their due, remain largely
unexplored territory. In that our author is one of those scholars who has
helped chart the course into this territory, he is himself a “master and teacher”
in his own right when it comes to Aquinas’s biblical theology. He has done a
valuable service to the field of Aquinas studies with this short book.
PAUL GONDREAU
Providence College
Providence, Rhode Island

Thomas Aquinas on War and Peace. By GREGORY M. REICHBERG. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. xxi + 302. $99.00 (hardback).
ISBN: 978-1-107-01990-4.
The author has spent the majority of his prolific scholarly life writing on
the topics treated in this book: war and peace, just war tradition, and Aquinas.
This book is a collection of his previously published essays—some considerably revised for this text—on classical just war theory. They offer a close
reading of Aquinas’s texts on warfare within the conversation that begins with
Gratian and extends through Grotius.
The text’s eleven chapters are divided into two parts. Chapters 1 through 5
examine topics related to Aquinas’s decision to situate his principal account of
just war within a section of the Summa theologiae devoted to vices against
charity. Why did Aquinas choose to organize his treatise under this negative
rubric? Why not follow the example of his predecessor Innocent IV and
organize it within the positive framework of justifiable violence? Or why not
treat just war within a section dedicated to the cardinal virtue of justice? The

BOOK REVIEWS

143

author argues it is because Aquinas wanted to link just war with peace. In
Aquinas’s schema, peace is an effect of charity, and bellum (or unjust war) is a
vice opposed to peace.
The author insists, however, that in linking war to charity, Aquinas did not
mean that charity is the minimum condition necessary for temporal peace.
The point may sound minor, but the author means for it to do considerable
work in demonstrating a thesis that he states at the outset of his text formed
the seed from which his book “germinated” (vii). The U.S. bishops in their
1983 pastoral letter on war and peace claim that “Catholic teaching begins in
every case with a presumption against war and for peaceful settlement of
disputes” (I, A, 1; emphasis added). The presumption claim was criticized by
James Turner Johnson in the 1990s and later, prominently, by George Weigel
in his defense of the 2003 Iraq War. Sympathetic to Johnson’s criticism, the
author argues that if charity is the bar that needs to be met to engage in licit
acts of war, then pacifism would seem to hold a privileged place in Aquinas’s
account, which it does not. But if peace is the bar, and natural justice is
adequate for establishing peace, and just war is a means for its establishment,
then if any presumption is to be found in Aquinas, it should be for peace and
not against war.
The second and third chapters continue this line of argument. The first
examines Aquinas’s introductory question in his famous article on war (STh IIII, q. 40, a. 1): whether it is always sinful to wage war. The second considers
how the idea of just war squares with the “precepts of patience” taught by
Jesus in the New Testament. Do we find in either any hint of disparagement
against just war? The author argues that we do not. After all, Aquinas frames
other discussions about an act’s permissibility in the context of some particular
sin but has no intention of establishing a presumption against the act in
question, for example, his discussion of private property in the context of his
treatment of theft. Moreover, Jesus’s teaching on nonviolence (the “precepts
of patience”) has been interpreted in Catholic tradition, as it is in Aquinas, as
binding on clerics in their service of the spiritual aims of the Church. But for
civil authority, whose business it is to defend the temporal tranquility of the
community, engaging in war in the fulfillment of its duties is sometimes
morally required.
Chapters 4 and 5 consider the virtues Aquinas sees as necessary for
commanders and soldiers respectively to prosecute a just war. The first he calls
“military prudence” and the second “battlefield courage.” By constituting
virtuous military command as a species of prudence, Aquinas means clearly to
say that generalship is not merely an art, but rather a moral virtue. As having
an essential orientation to the common good, excellence in military command
requires more than carefully devised schemes aimed at achieving maximum
efficiency of results. It requires service to the common good. Military
commanders therefore “are expected to be comprehensively good people”
(79). Likewise, soldierly courage is not merely the capacity to stand firm in the

144

BOOK REVIEWS

face of danger of death on the battlefield, but being capable of doing so in a
just war. Soldiers who fight to defend an unjust cause are at best courageous
“in a qualified sense” (secundum quid), and do not possess the true moral
virtue of courage.
Given the prominence in part 1 of the “presumption against war” polemic,
readers would have benefited from a working definition of the term. The
common understanding is that peaceful means should be exhausted before
coercive means are adopted. And presumption in this sense seems to
characterize the Catholic theological tradition and Aquinas’s account very
clearly. Theorists from Augustine forward have expressed their condemnation
of the savagery of war, their lament that it leaves in its wake a trail of
resentment and hatred, making long-term just solutions to social conflicts
more difficult. And therefore they have argued for the condition of necessity
before recourse to war is licit (see, e.g., Augustine, De civitate Dei 19.7; Letter
189).
Part 2—chapters 6 through 11—takes up disparate topics in Aquinas’s just
war theory. Chapter 6 considers two main reasons why Aquinas includes
legitimate authority as the first condition for just war. The first is to ensure
that, before war is waged, all prior reasonable appeals to authority have been
exhausted. Thus, not just any legitimate authority is permitted to wage war,
but only authorities who themselves have no temporal superiors. For if they
had a superior, then he would be the one to appeal to in order to resolve
disputes. The second reason requiring legitimate authority has to do with the
chief duty of public authority, which is to defend the common good under its
charge. This implies the authority to summon the community to arms if
necessary in defense of itself.
What about rogue princes? Aquinas argues that if one acquires princely
authority through usurpation, or if a legitimate prince begins to subordinate
the welfare of the community to his private interests, then he cannot claim to
represent legitimate authority. It passes to those whose interests indeed are the
common good. And these may forcibly remove him from office. In this case, it
is the tyrant rather than the tyrannicide that is guilty of sedition.
Chapter 7 considers just cause. Aquinas famously writes, “those who are
attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault”
(STh II-II, q. 40, a. 1). The language of culpability draws an analogy between
war and punishment. This would seem to privilege retribution among the aims
of waging a just war, but the author argues that there is reason to doubt this
reading. If Aquinas wanted to say that just war is first and foremost a kind of
punishment upon an enemy state for its culpable crimes, he would have used
terms such as vindicta, punitio, or poena. Rather he emphasizes actions such as
“rescuing the poor” and “delivering the needy,” which are protective actions.
Moreover, although Aquinas’s argument for legitimate authority and just
cause implies that offensive wars can be licit, his principal arguments concern
authorizing defensive wars. The author concludes that Aquinas’s account,

BOOK REVIEWS

145

rather than focusing on the dual concepts of culpability and desert, privileges
the ideas of injury done and reestablishing a right, deemphasizing the notion
of fault and punishment. Cajetan would go on to a more deliberate
retributionist account of just war, whereas Suarez, Vitoria, Molina, and
Grotius would develop a liabilist tradition, which the author argues is more
faithful to Aquinas.
The purpose of chapter 8 is not to elucidate any part of Aquinas’s theory of
just war but rather to argue against a common reading of his account of the
killing of aggressors by private persons in self-defense. When Aquinas argues
that that killing must be unintentional (praeter intentionem), he means, the
author claims, only to exclude killing intended as an end, not killing intended
as a means. The argument is not new. It has been formulated in recent years
by Thomas Cavanaugh, Gareth Matthews, and Steven A. Long. The author
puts forward several arguments for his conclusion. In one, he uses “defensive
killing” and “defensive striking” as parallels. He says that since Aquinas only
argues against sinful striking by private persons and not all intentional
striking, it would seem to follow that Aquinas does not exclude all intentional
killing, only sinful intentional killing. If he meant to exclude all intentional
killing, he would, following the parallel, have to have excluded all intentional
striking. But if he excluded all intentional striking, then no instances of selfdefensive killing would be licit because one must at least strike the aggressor
to kill him. Therefore, some intentional striking and some intentional killing
must be licit.
The beginning of a reply is that striking is not parallel with killing in
Aquinas. Striking is a kind of chosen behavior, but killing is the effect of
chosen behavior. The proper parallel with killing is harming, and Aquinas is
quite clear (in STh II-II, q. 65, a. 2) that private persons may never rightly
intend to harm another whether as an end or as a means. The author’s
remaining arguments require interpreting Aquinas’s account of double-effect
reasoning along the lines of Glanville Williams’s “doctrine of oblique intent,”
holding that an effect foreseen as certain is an intended effect; in other words,
that intent should be conflated with a species of foreseeability. The author’s
attempt to demonstrate that Aquinas’s famous article on killing in self-defense
should be interpreted this way is unpersuasive.
Chapter 9 takes up the vexed question of preemptive war. The author’s
reading of Aquinas is admirably cautious. From the definition that just cause
requires that a party deserves to be attacked on account of “some fault,” it
would seem to follow that attacking somebody for what he might do is
excluded. The author reads into Aquinas’s account of the distinctions of sins
what he calls “inchoate” wrongdoing, which seems to me a misreading of the
article. He could have appealed—but did not—to the notion of conditional
intentions to find grounds in Aquinas for a just cause for preemptive action.
He would then have had to argue that assessing the existence of conditional
intent requires more than assessing whether an unjust attack is already

146

BOOK REVIEWS

underway, since intent to attack unjustly can be factually verified by observing
present behavior, whereas a conditional intention must be established
inferentially, which may be difficult or impossible to determine with moral
certainty. (Recall the aerial photos of “mobile” biological weapons labs before
the 2003 Iraq War that turned out to be empty trailers.)
Chapter 10 asks whether combatants on both sides of a dispute should be
understood to be morally equal in the sense that they are bound by the same
set of moral norms and possess the same rights. The author says that since
Aquinas has a unilateral notion of justice in going to war, he should be read as
holding that combatants on the unjust side do not possess moral equality with
those on the just side.
The final chapter considers just war thinking in contemporary Catholic
moral teaching. The author argues that the Church’s formal turn to a more
exclusively defensive justification for war does not necessarily rule out every
expression of what the Scholastics referred to as bellum offensivum and so
does not represent the degree of discontinuity with the tradition that some
scholars allege.
And yet, just war is now increasingly assessed in terms traditionally used to
assess the lawfulness of killing in self-defense. Vatican II even refers to the
war-waging prerogative of public authority as “the right of lawful selfdefense” (Gaudium et Spes 79). To some, this reviewer included, this looks
less like a reemphasis than it does a reconceiving of the tradition.
E. CHRISTIAN BRUGGER
The Culture of Life Foundation
Washington, D.C.

The Status of Eucharistic Accidents “sine subiecto”: An Historical Survey up to
Thomas Aquinas and Selected Reactions. By JÖRGEN VIJGEN. Berlin:
Akademie Verlag, 2013. Pp. xii + 412. $168.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-305-006084-2.
The Eucharist is a particularly Christian phenomenon, one whose practice
requires a high acceptance of Christologically revealed material. As such, the
Eucharist is a locus for theological reflection, but seemingly not one that
would garner the attention of philosophers. The latter would be attracted to
what is most common in nature and human experience, eschewing the
specifically religious and revealed. The unique methodological tolerance—or
better, openness—of Christian philosophy, however, has historically been on
display in the intense interest that the Eucharist has garnered among both

BOOK REVIEWS

147

theologians and philosophers. The Eucharist is the highest sacrament, and its
right understanding has demanded the highest of efforts from the two highest
sciences.
Vijgen’s monograph is the revision of a doctoral dissertation in philosophy
defended at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (the
Angelicum). Secular philosophers and some heretical theologians treated in
this book would claim that philosophical truth clashes with or contradicts one
key aspect of orthodox Eucharistic belief and theology, namely, the twofold
reality that the Eucharist is Christ and appears to be bread and wine. Vijgen’s
efforts illustrate how all the resources of theology and philosophy (and for this
latter, both Christian and secular) have been brought to bear on this
Eucharistic mystery and have enriched each other in a harmonious fashion.
After a short, mostly methodological introduction, the book’s first part
presents the philosophy of Aristotle on being, essence, substance, and
accidents. While this “Aristotelian background” can be independently helpful
to the modern reader, its importance for understanding Vijgen’s presentation
of the later Scholastic Eucharistic debates is muted by several factors. First, the
reception of these texts (e.g., the Categories, the Posterior Analytics, the
Metaphysics) occurred at different times in the Middle Ages as Latin
translations became available. Second, medieval philosophers and theologians
working on understanding the Eucharist’s composition also drew upon other
ancient thinkers (e.g., Boethius, St. Basil the Great). Third, even when the
medievals were trying to be Aristotelian, they sometimes felt free to adapt
Aristotle. Last, Vijgen often does not make clear how the Aristotelian data was
appropriated or abandoned by specific Scholastic thinkers.
The remaining four parts of the book march chronologically through all
major texts (and many minor ones) that deal with Eucharistic accidents,
starting with Berengarius of Tours in the eleventh century and ending with
John of Stergassen, O.P., in the fourteenth. To a certain extent, the medieval
debate about Eucharistic accidents began with and resolved the controversies
surrounding Ratramnus of Corbie (not discussed in the book, which deals
with a later era) and especially Berengarius. “According to Berengarius it is a
token of madness to hold what is unreasonable to hold, i.e., that something
exists after it has undergone a change through destruction of the subject
(bread), on the basis that another thing, which for the first time begins to exist
(body of Christ) through generation of the subject, has accidents similar to the
accidents of the thing that was destroyed through destruction of the subject”
(33). Berengarius set some of the terms and themes of the debate: “accident,”
“subject,” and the importance of noncontradiction. His language drew upon
“Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s Categories in Boethius’ Latin translation”
(ibid.). In contrast, the use of “substance” would occur after Berengarius (32
n. 9).
Several analogies for explaining the Eucharistic accidents were tried during
the earlier centuries. Reference was made to the turning of Lot’s wife into a

148

BOOK REVIEWS

pillar of salt and Christ’s changing of water into wine at Cana (e.g., 56). One
analogy compared transubstantiation to the merely apparent, visual change of
a stick’s straightness when inserted into water (e.g., 55-58, 78). Questions
were asked about what happens when the consecrated host is broken at the
pre-Communion fraction rite (e.g., 54-55, 58) or when a mouse gets into the
tabernacle and eats the reserved Eucharist (e.g., 68-69). A recurrent problem
throughout this history was the lack of shared definitions among theologians
with respect to the philosophy of nature and the natural elements involved in
transubstantiation, for instance, matter, form, essence, and substance.
The difference between the two great Peters among medieval theologian—
that is, Peter Abelard and Peter Lombard—was present in this sacramental
affair. To Peter Abelard “is attributed” (by his theological foes, at least) the
two troublesome ideas that the consecration involves annihilation and that the
postconsecration accidents of bread and wine exist in the air (42-45). Some
exasperated thinkers in succeeding generations would adopt either notion
with greater or lesser confidence. Abelard seemed tame, however, compared
to the author of the Sententiae divinitatis, who denied that the accidents even
exist after the consecration (55-56)! This unknown scribe basically held for a
miraculous, mystical vision, an extreme way to account for the mystery but
one that others would follow in their perplexity (56-60). Peter Lombard,
influential as always, adopted a more moderate position and set the
theological tone for his successors, holding that the “accidents [exist] without
a subject . . . rather than in a subject” (48).
The thirteenth century would explain Lombard’s twelfth-century
determination. Often, theologians were trying to understand the Eucharistic
data according to specific philosophical principles or statements uttered by
theological and philosophical authorities. For instance, the statement “every
mutation occurs through something common” was attributed to Boethius (79;
see also 89, 95-97, 100, and 112). Is there, then, a substantial substratum
between the pre- and postconsecration realities? No, the accidents are
“common,” yet there is a change of substantial presences. But then, how does
this accord with “the six kinds of changes enumerated by Aristotle: the
substantial changes (‘generatio’ and ‘corruptio’), the qualitative change
(‘alteratio’), the quantitative changes (‘augmentum’ and ‘diminutio’) and local
change (‘motio’)” (95-96)? Of great help was the statement by Basil the Great
that “what can rationally be separated by the [human] intellect can actually be
separated by God,” which theologians used to justify how the accidents of
bread and wine are truly separated from their source substances (85; see also
104, 155, 163-64, 168, 343). What proved immensely troublesome was “the
Aristotelian dictum ‘accidentis esse est inesse’” (the being of an accident is to
be in [something else]; 110; see also 65, 119, 156). That definition proved a
stumbling block and a real point of division.
It is enlightening to see via Vijgen how much of the Eucharistic synthesis
that nowadays is often attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas was already

BOOK REVIEWS

149

discovered by or has roots in his predecessors. This attests to a growing
consensus. “William [of Auxerre (after 1160 to d. 1231) introduced] a
distinction between two kinds of accidents: . . . between accidents which
inhere immediately in a subject and accidents which inhere in a subject
through the intermediary of another accident” (81). Going one step further,
the English Dominican Richard Fishacre, in the first-ever commentary on
Peter Lombard’s Sentences, elaborated how accidents other than quantity
inhere in the accident quantity, which can act like substance (105-8).
Fishacre’s teaching about this property of quantity was reproduced more or
less verbatim by William of Melitona, the Franciscan regent master under
whom St. Bonaventure incepted. It was William’s lengthy treatment of this
question, drawing also upon the earlier Franciscan Alexander of Hales, that
helped to create a particularly vigorous discussion in Paris, one to be taken up
by Albert the Great, Bonaventure, and Thomas (87-94).
The intensity of the times can be seen by the twenty-five objections in the
article on this subject in Albert’s Sentences commentary (118). Vijgen spends
much time evaluating De corpore Domini, which has been attributed to Albert
but which seriously conflicts with earlier authentically Albertine texts on the
question of Eucharistic accidents (127-51). De corpore Domini holds for the
merely “intentional being of the Eucharistic accidents,” not real being (150).
Vijgen is therefore doubtful of the work’s authenticity.
Both Bonaventure and Thomas abandoned, in slightly different ways, a
strict adherence to the Aristotelian axiom that “the being of an accident is to
be in [something else].” Bonaventure seemingly invented the distinction
between “actual inherence” (secundum actum) and “aptitudinal inherence”
(secundum aptitudinem [156-57]). According to the first, an accident, by
definition, must inhere in a substance. According to the second, an accident
only tends to such inherence, the Eucharist being the exception. This
distinction would be “explicitly defended by . . . Petrus de Tarentasia,
Hannibaldus de Hannibaldis and others and implicitly by Aquinas” (271).
Vijgen’s text builds up to and focuses on Aquinas. The Angelic Doctor
emphasized how a primary cause (e.g., God) can work a secondary cause’s
effects (e.g., accidents) even when the secondary cause (e.g., a created
substance) is absent (178). By contrasting the “esse” and the “modus essendi,”
Aquinas showed how an accident could remain an accident even if its
supporting cause were changed. Most importantly, Aquinas gave a new
definition of an accident: “‘esse in subjecto’ is not the definition of an accident
but [the correct definition] is rather ‘a thing to which it belongs to be in
something else’ (‘res cui debetur esse in alio’)” (184). The “ought” (debetur)
here suggests what normally should happen—the inhering of accidents in
substantial subjects—but allows for the Eucharistic exception. From the
radicality of the divine primary cause, the postconsecration accidents continue
really to exist, rooted in the accident of quantity.

150

BOOK REVIEWS

Much of Aquinas’s thought on this Eucharistic subject he worked out as a
theological bachelor. The only area where the young Aquinas seems to have
hesitated or stumbled was in his explanation as to how Eucharistic accidents
can be the locus for the generation of other substances, such as mold on old
hosts (190-92). Indeed, over the course of his career, the most difficult
question with respect to Eucharistic accidents was “generation and
corruption” (236). Perhaps because of this, Aquinas’s Sentences commentary
was not simply accepted on the Eucharist. Fellow Dominican Peter of
Tarentaise fused Aquinas’s teaching on Eucharistic accidents with that of
Bonaventure (194-202). The later Aquinas would adopt Peter’s affirmation of
the substantial generativity possible with Eucharistic accidents (203).
The issue’s contemporary interest was signified by the fact that a
quodlibetal question on the subject was posed to Aquinas (208). But even his
later insights and those of his cooperative predecessors were not quickly
accepted and adopted. The subject of accidents without subjects appeared in
the 1277 Paris condemnation (261-89). On this matter, the censured
individuals were radical Aristotelians, not Aquinas. Some radical Aristotelians
adhered to the old definition of accidents and gave “an explicit rejection of
aptitudinal inherence” (271). Siger of Brabant, as such an Aristotelian, denied
any definition that does not require an accident to inhere in a substance. But
while claiming to uphold Eucharistic theological orthodoxy, Siger seemed to
allow for contradictory truths between philosophy and theology (276-77).
The anti-Thomist Dominican Dietrich of Freiberg flatly refused the possibility,
in any situation, that accidents could exist without a subject (318). These
thinkers put Aristotle’s and philosophy’s definitions first, while protesting that
they did not want to disagree with revelation or theology. For these men, it
was a matter of upholding the definition of accidents and insisting that God
does not contradict his own creation.
Vijgen’s book is for the advanced reader, one already initiated into the
language and thought patterns of Scholastic philosophy and theology. The
prose’s tendency toward historical-critical detail is intense, reminiscent of the
great continental European encyclopedists of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Source genealogies are determined through the use of
textual comparison charts (I counted seventeen). The employment of critical
editions has been matched with further manuscript research. The book’s
annexes 1-4 are transcriptions of manuscripts. Almost all quotations in the
main text are left untranslated in the original Latin, French, German, Italian,
or Greek. The footnotes are numerous and extensive, typically providing
further quotations from the source texts. The book would probably only find
sustained use among advanced graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.
(The less sophisticated student would be well served with respect to this
fascinating topic if Vijgen should find time to summarize his findings in a
journal article.)

BOOK REVIEWS

151

Given the level of detail that Vijgen provides, it would have been helpful if
he had given more commentary about what is new and developing between
each author and text. The individual treatments can be too discrete, focusing
on textual details but light on discerning the big conceptual trends. For
instance, after dozens of pages spent going through the texts of Aquinas (17393, 208-58), a half-page “conclusion” of one paragraph could very profitably
have been expanded (259).
The particular focus of the book throws light on the main developments in
Eucharistic theology during a key moment in sacramental theology. Vijgen’s
research could be used to demonstrate connections with the period’s more
precise understanding of sacramentality in general and sacramental dynamism,
specifically with respect to the distinction between a sacrament’s sacramentum
tantum and a res et sacramentum. Concerning the magisterial definition of
transubstantiation, one can notice reading Vijgen how this term (or some
version of it) was truly current in the mindset of nonmagisterial theologians
before the Fourth Lateran Council (e.g., 46, 54, 58-60, 62-63, 72). The
council simply used what was long-established parlance. Of further interest is
how rarely—if ever—Aristotle was invoked by these same theologians (e.g.,
31-64). The development of the theory of transubstantiation antedated the
Aristotelian revolution.
Vijgen has done a service to the communities of medievalists and
sacramental theologians by bringing together these texts in a systematic
fashion. In contrast to the exuberance of those theologians who sought to
ground Eucharistic accidents on the substance of air, the hard-won truths of
this period’s sacramental history should not be allowed to vanish into thin air.
Vijgen’s work provides a solid foundation for their study.
DOMINIC M. LANGEVIN, O.P.
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, D.C.

Catholic Witness in Health Care: Practicing Medicine in Truth and Love.
Edited by JOHN M. TRAVALINE and LOUISE A. MITCHELL. Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2017. Pp. xviii + 513.
$45.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8132-2983-6.
This work of twenty-seven authors, among whom are philosophers,
theologians, and medical personnel, is a creative interdisciplinary effort
covering practical health issues in the medical field, looking at the challenges
through the lens of Catholic bioethical principles, and identifying how

152

BOOK REVIEWS

treatments have a moral teleology about them. The book uses at least two
hundred different medical terms describing on-site problems of the human
body, which can make the nonmedical reader feel somewhat inadequate.
However, these descriptions of certain illnesses and their ensuing medicalmoral problems can be understood by someone who knows the teachings of
the Church regarding authentic health care.
Differing kinds of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and teachers will find in
this book a plethora of wise advice. For medical schools in need of a book to
train future professionals, this work is an excellent resource in this field of
cure and care. Bioethics (medical moral theology) is a branch of the social
teaching of the Church that depends upon the key concept of the dignity of
the human person, here applied in the physical way of treating the body and
soul. A type of bridge exists here between anthropology and eschatology.
Human beings are, in a unique way, transcendent creatures on this planet and,
after the resurrection of the body, will exist forever as spiritual embodied
persons. Furthermore, bioethics is part of the Church’s social teaching because
health care deals with the common good of a society, and evil moral practices
in this area can corrupt a county’s sense of right and wrong, as has become
evident in the ethos supporting contraception, abortion, and euthanasia in
many countries, which consider these practices health care rather than health
destruction. Wading through problems of proportionate or disproportionate
cure and care requires the utmost prudence on the part of the practitioner.
This book provides a profound introduction to the sound, multidisciplinary
thinking that a good doctor, psychologist (see esp. chap. 11), or pharmacist
(see esp. chap. 12) must possess in the secular world of medicine.
The book is divided into three parts: basic principles of health care (the
three beginning chapters), the “clinical context” (nine chapters of practical onsite issues and their resolution), and spiritual theology (the three concluding
chapters). The text contains a plethora of endnotes and several appendices for
further research. Spiritual advice is found throughout. Moral dilemmas are
faced with sound solutions, always keeping in mind that absolute certitude in
this field must often yield to moral certitude. Future doctors and medical
persons are reminded from time to time of the importance of the priest or
minister in their encounters with patients. The spiritual problems that need to
be faced often help patients either to be healed or to accept the consequences
of their illness with peace. Nevertheless, medical persons need to develop a
“pastoral” side in their work, similar to the priest’s approach, knowing how to
ask the right questions to prompt patients to think about either their potential
demise or the difficult consequences of treatment. Machines alone never tell
the whole story of the cause of chronic or even intractable pain and suffering;
they cannot replace interaction with a wise human being. Indeed, feelings of
fear and anxiety often mask medical problems.
Future and beginning priests can profit in a special way by beginning with
chapter 3 since it deals with the pastoral care of the sick and dying, an integral

BOOK REVIEWS

153

part of a parish priest’s ministry. This can motivate such a reader to dive into
the other sections of the book, which at first blush may appear daunting.
Bringing the sacrament of the sick is not the only gift that the priest brings to
those with serious illnesses: he must learn how, when possible, to prepare for
worthy reception of the sacrament those so debilitated. Philip G. Bochanski
explains what is expected of the “good shepherd” to the ill as well as the
shepherd’s consolation of the family of those in serious illness. Discouragement, fear, and confusion may often be in the heart of the elderly, the young
married, the teenager, or the child, amid a sense of doubt concerning God’s
love for them. The pastor must learn something about approaching the “why
me?” attitude of many patients, and bring personal consolation and strength
of faith and hope through his demeanor and words.
Chapter 1 sets the intellectual rigor and tone for the entire book through
the expertise of J. Brian Benestad, who gives the theological background to
true medical care. Weaving Scripture, Church teaching, and virtue theory
together with the role of suffering and pain, he gives a synopsis of the
meaning of suffering under the light of the “good Samaritan.” He reminds
bioethicists that the principles used by non-Catholic hospitals—autonomy,
beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice—are often too vague to provide a
truly deep understanding of health-care decision making because these
notions, being purely subjective, often are subject to dispute. He recalls for his
readers the truth that one’s way of life often, though not exclusively, is the
cause of health problems. Moreover, the doctor, in addition to bringing about
healing or comfort through his expertise, should also be a teacher of his or her
patients on how to sustain health (proper sleep, eating habits, and the like).
Nevertheless, health issues can come from marital and family tensions, causing
anxiety and fears, in turn affecting the body’s equilibrium away from good
health. Benestad’s insights segue into chapters 2 and 3, on what it means to be
a person and not an object, and on how this affects good doctoring in both
diagnosis and proper moral decision making.
Chapters 4 through 12 deal with different fields of medical care:
reproductive health, fertility care, pediatrics, gerontology, the critically ill,
perplexing problems for surgeons, rehabilitation doctors and their assistants,
psychologists, and pharmacists. This material covers over three hundred
pages. Many of these chapters present perplexing medical problems that also
entail significant moral consequences in the application of any solution. I find
their solutions in keeping with official Church teaching. Throughout these
chapters, one finds ample use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and
papal teaching applied to the many “hard cases” that are interspersed for
analysis. The professor and student of medical moral theology will find
concrete examples of benefit-and-burden issues, “do not resuscitate” orders,
feeding and hydration, the use and withdrawal of breathing apparatuses, and
when or how to apply (or not to apply) the principles of double effect, totality
(therapeuticity), and proportionate and disproportionate means. When a

154

BOOK REVIEWS

patient is incompetent to make decisions, it is essential that someone possess
durable power of attorney. If not, the next of kin should be consulted in
complex decisions without negating the conscience of the doctor.
All the chapters in their own way emphasize the importance for all healthcare persons to learn how to communicate with a patient who, while reciting
his aches and pains, holds back what bothers him. Health-care workers need
to discern other, more psychological or emotional issues that may go along
with pain, such as loneliness or despair. It is an important art for medical
personnel that they learn how to speak and at times cope with family members
or the person(s) responsible for a patient’s health when he is unable to
communicate. It is easier to be brusque with them and so not treat the patient
in his true needs as a person. Patients and family can become very difficult to
deal with, often requiring heroic patience and kindness when they desire the
impossible or unreasonable solutions to illness.
The last three chapters conclude with reflections on spirituality, prayer,
and the importance of holistic medicine. Chapter 14 contains guidelines for
prudent experimentation, based in part on the 1979 Belmont Report and
many other protocols from various statements issued in Helsinki. This chapter
includes five appendices, four with material from Helsinki and one from the
Catholic Medical Association and the National Catholic Bioethics Center in
Philadelphia. In the final chapter, the reader will find an interesting example
of the Catholic hospital St. Pio of Pietrelcina founded near its namesake’s
Capuchin monastery under the title “The Casa.” Today, a similar one is being
developed in the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, and is called “Casa USA.”
The Casa’s holistic approach to care based on prayer is a reminder of what the
gold standard of Catholic health care should be in a secular culture unhooked
from Christian moral principles.
BASIL B. COLE, O.P.
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, D.C.

Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric. By
JEFFREY MACIEJEWSKI. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2014. Pp. vii +
111. $70.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-7391-7128-8.
Aristotle defined man as a rational and political animal. In this creative
appropriation of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, Jeffrey Maciejewski
argues that man is also a rhetorical animal. There is in each one of us a natural
inclination to use persuasive modes of thought and speech, and this moves us

BOOK REVIEWS

155

to reason about ends and to act in pursuit of them. More pointedly (and
radically), Maciejewski argues that all discursive reasoning is, by its very
nature, rhetorical.
To understand how radical this thesis is, it is important to understand that
ancient thinkers limited rhetoric to the social dimension of human
discourse. On this view, “if our nature, as social animals, is defined by a
coming together to form cities, to establish laws, and to discover arts, it is a
coming together made possible by a rhetorically motivated faculty of
discourse, a seemingly innate power of persuading each other, a power that is
necessary to bring about social cohesion” (1-2). Maciejewski has no objection
to this view as far as it goes. But this standard perspective is problematic: it
does not go far enough. For on Maciejewski’s view, the very essence of
discursive thought is teleological, directed towards action. This by itself is
enough to make all discursive thought (practical and speculative: see chap. 2)
rhetorical, since as Maciejewski puts it, “the proximate end of rhetoric is to
precipitate action” (16).
From ancient times, thinkers such as the Greek Isocrates and the Roman
Cicero have noted the necessity of rhetoric for the maintenance and
flourishing of human society. As Cicero put it, “many cities have been
established, many wars extinguished, many most enduring alliances and most
holy friendships have been cemented by deliberate wisdom much assisted and
facilitated by eloquence” (2, quoting De inventione). Nature, it seems, has
outfitted us with the ability to engage in persuasive discourse.
If asked how nature has done this, Maciejewski claims that none of the
ancients has an answer. It is in attempting to answer this question himself ,
through creative appropriation of Aquinas’s views, that he arrives at the
conclusion that “the discourse Aquinas refers to [in his discussion of the
discursive movement of the intellect] . . . is persuasive; that is, it is rhetorical
insofar as it is a form of discourse that precipitates movement” (8).
Underlining its essential rootedness in human nature, Maciejewski gives this
“discursive action of the intellect” the name “natural rhetoric” (ibid.).
At the risk of oversimplification, Maciejewski seems to be saying that the
social use of rhetoric is an end (the end) that determines the nature of human
discourse at every level. All of our thinking is social in this respect because all
of it is directed toward persuading ourselves or others to act: “So it is that the
good for man—as it is constituted individually and as it is apprehended
socially—what enables us to live with one other [sic] well, is dependent on a
form of naturally occurring rhetorical abilities, a form of persuasion that is
characteristically human, that is natural in the richest sense, that is natural
rhetoric” (106-7).
Maciejewski’s argument spans four chapters. In the first, he develops the
notion of a natural rhetoric, making use of Aristotelian essentialism and
Thomistic action theory to conclude that we have, by nature, the ability to
develop “the basic goods of prudence, justice, and sociability” thanks to “a

156

BOOK REVIEWS

mechanism [i.e., natural rhetoric] by which action is constituted” and directed
to these goods as to their natural ends (28). In the remaining chapters,
Maciejewski elaborates the notion of natural rhetoric by applying it to the
study of the act of understanding, defective action, and the formation of the
moral virtues, all with a view to explaining “why it is we have been given [the]
uniquely human capacity” of persuasion (104).
In attempting to assess the success of Maciejewski’s argument, I have found
myself frustrated by a certain lack of clarity at both the conceptual and
expository levels. We are never told exactly what is meant by the term
“rhetoric,” although Maciejewski has much to say about it. What he means by
“natural rhetoric” is also unclear, receiving as it does many distinct
formulations, none of which he identifies as definitive. From what he says, it
might be possible to piece together what precisely he means by these terms,
but in a work that already asks much of the reader, this is an effort that it
would have been wise to spare him. There is also a lack of clarity at the level
of exposition. The argumentation is dense and often begs for further
elaboration.
Even with the addition of greater clarity, it is uncertain whether the
argument would succeed. For Maciejewski spends very little time considering
less radical, and therefore more plausible, alternatives to his thesis. To give the
most obvious example, could we not say that our ability to persuade others is
rooted not in a natural rhetoric but rather in our natural tendency as rational
animals to seek fulfillment in community with others? Being rational, we are
naturally free, and being free, we can exercise personal and communal
freedom only through the giving of reasons that are persuasive. But the
tendency to give persuasive reasons itself need not be an essential feature of
human nature. It might, rather, be an ability that follows from our being
rational animals, a secondary potential, akin to the ability to acquire language.
Also problematic is his apparent prioritization of the practical over the
speculative. If all human reasoning is directed toward action (see, e.g., 39),
where even the act of understanding is an activity we must be persuaded to
undertake, then it is difficult to see how contemplation of the divine could
constitute our ultimate end.
Notwithstanding these problems, Maciejewski deserves credit for having
attempted to provide a Thomistic answer to a question Thomas may not have
asked, but one I think he would have found worth asking.
GIUSEPPE BUTERA
Providence College,
Providence, Rhode Island