The Thomist 82 (2018): 321-52

HOW TO BE AN ANALYTIC EXISTENTIAL THOMIST
TURNER C. NEVITT
University of San Diego
San Diego, California

S

AINT THOMAS AQUINAS’S metaphysics of existence
was a central focus of the twentieth-century Thomistic
revival and remains a defining interest of the school of
Existential Thomism.1 The Thomistic revival flourished mostly
among Catholic intellectuals outside the mainstream of
contemporary analytic philosophy. But just as the revival began
to wane among Catholic intellectuals, analytic philosophers
1
For some representative work, see Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 2d
ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1952); idem, Thomism: The
Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, 6th ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 2002); Jacques Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics (New York: Sheed & Ward,
1939); idem, Existence and the Existent (New York: Pantheon Books, 1948); Gerald B.
Phelan, Collected Papers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1967);
George Klubertanz, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Being (New York: Meredith
Publishing Company, 1963); Joseph Owens, St. Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of
God, ed. John R. Catan (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1980); idem,
An Elementary Christian Metaphysics (Houston, Tex.: Center for Thomistic Studies,
1985); idem, An Interpretation of Existence (Houston, Tex.: Center for Thomistic
Studies, 1985); Leo Sweeney, A Metaphysics of Authentic Existentialism (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1965); Leo Sweeney, William Carroll, and John Furlong,
Authentic Metaphysics in an Age of Unreality, 2d ed. (New York: Peter Lang, 1993);
John F. X. Knasas, Being and Some Twentieth-Century Thomists (New York: Fordham
University Press, 2003); John Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995); idem, The
Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
of America Press, 2000); idem, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007).

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started taking more interest in Aquinas. That interest has
continued to grow over the past fifty years, giving rise more
recently to the school of Analytic Thomism.2 Yet in spite of an
enthusiasm for other aspects of Aquinas’s thought, interested
analytic philosophers have been hesitant about his view of
existence; indeed, some of them have been positively scornful of
it. Anthony Kenny, for example, calls Aquinas’s view of existence “sophistry and illusion”3 and “thoroughly confused.”4
This negative assessment of Aquinas’s view of existence is
due in large part to a positive assessment of the rival view of
existence developed by Frege, Russell, and Quine.5 That positive assessment is near universal among contemporary analytic
philosophers. But a growing number of analytic philosophers
have come to question this mainstream consensus, and to
propose alternative views of existence more like Aquinas’s
2

For some representative work, see The Monist 80, no. 4 (1997); John Haldane, ed.,
Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2002); Craig Paterson and Matthew Pugh, eds.,
Analytical Thomism: Traditions in Dialogue (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate Publishing
Limited, 2006).
3
Anthony Kenny, Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 60.
4
Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), v. For
critical responses to Kenny, see Gyula Klima, “On Kenny on Aquinas on Being,”
International Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2004): 567-80; Brian Davies, “Kenny on
Aquinas on Being,” The Modern Schoolman 82 (2005): 111-29; Lawrence Dewan, “On
Anthony Kenny’s Aquinas on Being,” Nova et vetera (English ed.) 3 (2005): 335-400.
5
Some interpreters of Aquinas have found his view of existence compatible with this
rival view, especially in the form developed by Frege. For such interpretations of
Aquinas, see G. E. M. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, Three Philosophers (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1961), 88-100; Peter Geach, “Form and Existence,”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 55 (1969): 251-72; Christopher F. J. Martin,
Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997),
65-73; Brian Davies, “Aquinas, God, and Being,” The Monist 80 (1997): 500-520. For a
critical response to Geach, see John F. X. Knasas, “Haldane’s Analytical Thomism and
Aquinas’s actus essendi,” in Paterson and Pugh, eds., Analytical Thomism, 233-52. For
critical responses to Davies, see Brian Shanley, “Analytic Thomism,” The Thomist 63
(1999): 125-37; Knasas, Being and Some Twentieth-Century Thomists, 203-7. Davies,
however, has since changed his mind about Aquinas on existence. For his more recent
thoughts, see Brian Davies, “The Action of God,” in Mind, Method, and Morality:
Essays in Honor of Anthony Kenny, ed. John Cottingham and Peter Hacker (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010), 165-84.

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own. 6 This recent development suggests the possibility of a
Thomism that is both analytic and existential. Some Existential
Thomists have been pessimistic about such a possibility, suggesting that Continental philosophy (especially phenomenology)
would be a better partner. 7 But there is reason to be more
optimistic: analytic philosophers have already shown their
openness to views of existence like that of Aquinas.
This article explores the strategies available for defending
Aquinas’s view of existence in the context of contemporary
analytic philosophy. Not all of these strategies can be accepted
by Thomists, but some of them certainly can be, and those that
6

For some noteworthy examples, see G. E. Moore, “Is Existence a Predicate?,”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volumes 15 (1936): 175-88;
Geach, “Form and Existence,” 251-72; Milton Munitz, Existence and Logic (New York:
New York University Press, 1974); J. L. Mackie, “The Riddle of Existence,” Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volumes 50 (1976): 247-65; Gareth Evans,
The Varieties of Reference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 343-72; Richard
Routley, Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond: An Investigation of Noneism and the
Theory of Items (Canberra, Australia: Research School of the Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1980); Barry Miller, “In Defence of the Predicate ‘Exists’,” Mind
84 (1975): 338-54; idem, “‘Exists’ and Existence,” Review of Metaphysics 40 (1986):
237-70; idem, The Fullness of Being: A New Paradigm for Existence (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2002); Colin McGinn, Logical Properties: Identity,
Existence, Predication, Necessity, Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
15-51; William Vallicella, A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated
(Dordrechet: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002); idem, “Existence: Two Dogmas of
Analysis,” in Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics, ed. Daniel D. Novotny and
Lukas Novak (New York: Routledge, 2014), 45-75; Graham Priest, Towards Non-Being:
The Logic and Metaphysics of Intentionality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005); idem,
“The Closing of the Mind: How the Particular Quantifier Became Existentially Loaded
behind Our Backs,” Review of Symbolic Logic 1 (2008): 42-55; Richard Mendelsohn,
The Philosophy of Gottlob Frege (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005),
100-124; David Oderberg, Real Essentialism (New York: Routledge, 2007), 121-25;
Howard Robinson, “Can We Make Sense of the Idea That God’s Existence Is Identical
to His Essence?,” in Reason, Faith, and History: Philosophical Essays for Paul Helm, ed.
Martin W. F. Stone (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2008), 127-44; Tim
Crane, “Existence and Quantification Reconsidered,” in Contemporary Aristotelian
Metaphysics, ed. Tuomas E. Tahko (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012),
44-65; idem, “What Is the Problem of Non-Existence?,” Philosophia 40 (2012): 417-34;
idem, The Objects of Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
7
See Knasas, “Haldane’s Analytical Thomism”; and Gaven Kerr, O.P., “Thomist esse
and Analytical Philosophy,” International Philosophical Quarterly 55 (2015): 25-48.

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are unacceptable can be supplemented by other acceptable
strategies. The article unfolds as follows. Section I traces the
basic outlines of the mainstream view of existence prevalent
among contemporary analytic philosophers. Section II summarizes some of the best reasons to question that view. Section
III traces the basic outlines of Aquinas’s alternative view of
existence. Sections IV and V address the main contemporary
analytic objections to Aquinas’s view. Section VI considers
strategies for defending the meaningfulness of Aquinas’s view of
existence. Section VII considers one strategy for defending the
truth of his view, and section VIII proposes a better strategy. By
the end of the article I hope to have allayed at least some of the
doubts about the possibility of developing an Analytic
Existential Thomism.
I. THE FREGE-RUSSELL-QUINE VIEW OF EXISTENCE
The mainstream view of existence among contemporary
analytic philosophers was developed and defended in different
forms by Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and W. V. Quine.8
8
Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1953), §53; idem, Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob
Frege, ed. Peter Geach and Max Black (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960), 48-50; Bertrand
Russell, “On Denoting,” Mind 14 (1905): 479-93; idem, “The Philosophy of Logical
Atomism,” The Monist 29 (1919): 190-222; W. V. Quine, “On What There Is,” The
Review of Metaphysics 2, no. 5 (1948): 21-38; idem, Word and Object (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 1960), §§37-38; idem, “Existence and Quantification,” in
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969),
91-113. For the best recent defenses of the Frege-Russell-Quine view of existence, see
C. J. F. Williams, What Is Existence? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); idem,
Being, Identity, and Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); David Wiggins,
“The Kant-Frege-Russell View of Existence: Toward the Rehabilitation of the SecondOrder View,” in Modality, Morality, and Belief: Essays in Honor of Ruth Barcan Marcus,
ed. Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, Dianna Raffman, and Nicholas Asher (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), 93-113; Peter Van Inwagen, “Existence,
Ontological Commitment, and Fictional Entities,” in The Oxford Handbook to
Metaphysics, ed. Michael Loux and Dean Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003), 131-60; idem, “Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment,” in
Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, ed. David Chalmers,
David Manly, and Ryan Wasserman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 472-506.

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325

Their view can be explained most easily by contrasting it with
what Colin McGinn calls the “naïve view,”9 which I prefer to
call the commonsense view. According to the commonsense
view, existence is similar to other properties we ascribe to
individuals or objects. 10 Given this similarity, statements of
existence (both singular and plural) are similar to other
statements that ascribe properties to individuals or objects.
“Socrates is wise,” for example, ascribes a property to a single
individual, that is, wisdom to Socrates. “Tame tigers are
harmless” ascribes a property to multiple individuals, that is,
harmlessness to tame tigers. According to the commonsense
view, statements of existence are similar. “Socrates exists”
ascribes a property to a single individual, that is, existence to
Socrates. “Tame tigers exist” ascribes a property to multiple
individuals, that is, existence to tame tigers. That is the
commonsense view of existence.
According to the Frege-Russell-Quine view, however, existence is not similar to other properties we ascribe to individuals
or objects. Indeed, existence is not a property of individuals or
objects at all. Accordingly, statements of existence (both
singular and plural) are not similar to other statements that
ascribe properties to individuals or objects. Instead, existence is
a property of properties, namely, the second-order property of
having an instance or being instantiated. Thus statements of
existence ascribe this second-order property to properties
themselves; they do not ascribe any properties to individuals or
objects. “Socrates exists” does not say that Socrates has the
property of existence, since there is no such property. Rather, it
says that a certain property (other than existence) has an
9

McGinn, Logical Properties, 17.
Throughout the article I use the term “property” in the standard way that
contemporary analytic philosophers do. A property in this sense is just something
ascribable to a thing, as being round is ascribable to a ball, or something had by a thing,
as redness is had by a rose. I am not using the term for what Aquinas calls an accidens or
proprietas or proprium. For more information on the contemporary analytic use of the
term “property,” see Chris Swoyer and Francesco Orilia, “Properties,” The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/properties/.
10

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instance or is instantiated. Just what it says will depend upon
just what properties (if any) are expressed by the name
“Socrates.” But what it definitely does not say is that Socrates
has the property of existence. “Tame tigers exist” does not say
that tame tigers have the property of existence. Rather, it says
that the property of being a tame tiger has one or more
instances. That is the Frege-Russell-Quine view of existence.
This view of existence is often stated thus: existence is what
is expressed by the existential quantifier, “ ∃x ,” interpreted as
meaning, “There is an x such that . . .” or “For some x . . .”.
According to the Frege-Russell-Quine view, every sensible use
of the word “exist(s)” can be paraphrased without any loss of
meaning in terms of the existential quantifier, and since the
existential quantifier is incomplete without a first-order
predicate, this means that every sensible use of the word
“exist(s)” can be paraphrased in terms of the existential
quantifier and a first-order predicate (other than “exist(s),” of
course). So, according to their view, existential statements are
all equivalent to statements of the form, “ ∃xFx ,” interpreted as
meaning, “There is an x such that x is F” or “For some x, x is
F.” The precise interpretation of the existential quantifier is not
important here. What matters most for the Frege-Russell-Quine
view is that the quantifier not be interpreted as involving any
first-order use of “exist(s).” Any such use of “exist(s)” to ascribe
a property to individuals or objects is merely apparent, and
must disappear in the appropriate paraphrase in terms of the
existential quantifier and a first-order predicate.
II. QUESTIONING THE FREGE-RUSSELL-QUINE VIEW
Despite its status as established orthodoxy, the Frege-RussellQuine view of existence has been called into question by a

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growing number of contemporary analytic philosophers. 11 As
McGinn says, the view is riddled with problems.12
The first problem with the Frege-Russell-Quine view is that
its analysis of existence in terms of property instantiation presupposes existence, since an individual or object must exist in
order to instantiate any properties. McGinn gives the following
example. Take the statement “Planets exist,” and now consider
Vulcan (the mistakenly posited inter-Mercurial planet). Does
Vulcan instantiate the property of being a planet? If so, then the
analysis of existence in terms of property instantiation is
mistaken. Since Vulcan does not in fact exist, its instantiating
the property of being a planet does not show that planets exist.
But if Vulcan does not instantiate the property of being a
planet, of course that can only be because it does not in fact
exist, which shows that existence is presupposed by property
instantiation, rather than being explained by it. This suggests
that the existential quantifier can be interpreted as meaning,
“For some x, x exists and x is . . .” where “exists” is used as a
first-order predicate. 13 Of course no defender of the FregeRussell-Quine view of existence would allow such an interpretation of the quantifier. But the point is that even if it were
always possible to replace the predicate “exist(s)” with the
existential quantifier, that alone would not show that existence
is not a property of individuals or objects, since existential
quantification presupposes existence. This undermines the
standard way of defending the Frege-Russell-Quine view of
existence by conceptual analysis and paraphrase.
The second problem with the Frege-Russell-Quine view is
that it cannot serve as a general theory of existence, since it
does not apply to all cases of existence. In particular, it does not
apply to the existence of properties themselves. Properties must
exist, presumably, if they are to have instances or be instantiated. But what shall we say about their existence? On the
11

See above, n. 6.
For the following three problems and others, see McGinn, Logical Properties,
21-28. For a critical response to McGinn on existence, see Peter Van Inwagen,
“McGinn on Existence,” Philosophical Quarterly 58 (2008): 36-58.
13
Cf. Evans, Varieties of Reference, 346-47; Priest, “The Closing of the Mind.”
12

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Frege-Russell-Quine view, the existence of everything consists
in its instantiating a property. So the existence of a property
itself will consist in its instantiating another property. But we
can ask the same question about this other property, whose
existence will then consist in its instantiating yet another
property, whose existence will consist in its instantiating still
another property, and so on to infinity. The regress appears to
be vicious since no property will exist unless the other property
it instantiates exists, which will not exist unless the other
property it instantiates exists, and so on to infinity. In other
words, the existence of any property is put off indefinitely, thus
vitiating the explanation of the existence of properties
themselves in terms of the instantiation of properties. So the
analysis of existence in terms of property instantiation does not
apply to the existence of properties themselves, and thus does
not cover all cases of existence.
The third problem with the Frege-Russell-Quine view is that
not all uses of the predicate “exist(s)” can be paraphrased in
terms of property instantiation. Consider singular existential
statements with proper names such as “Socrates exists.” According to the Frege-Russell-Quine view, this statement can be
paraphrased into the claim that some property (other than
existence) is instantiated or has an instance. In order for such a
paraphrase to be adequate, however, it is not enough for there
to be some property (or properties) necessarily and uniquely
instantiated by Socrates. Rather, the name “Socrates” has to
mean that very property (or properties). In other words, the
Frege-Russell-Quine view must endorse the theory of proper
names as abbreviated definite descriptions.14 But Saul Kripke is
supposed to have shown that the description theory of names is
false.15 If Kripke is right, as he is very widely taken to be, then

14

Cf. Michael Nelson, “Existence,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter
2012 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/
entries/existence; Robinson, “Can We Make Sense of the Idea,” 132.
15
Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980);
idem, Reference and Existence: The John Locke Lectures (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013).

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329

the Frege-Russell-Quine view will not do for singular existential
statements with proper names.
The same problem applies to singular existential statements
with demonstratives and indexicals such as “That exists” and “I
exist.” Indeed, a description theory of demonstratives and indexicals is even less plausible than a description theory of
names.16 Yet things look even worse for the statement “Something exists.” At least demonstratives and indexicals refer to
individuals or objects, which always instantiate some properties.
The word “something” does not even refer. So even though
“Something exists” is perfectly meaningful and obviously true,
there is no hope of paraphrasing it in terms of the instantiation
of a property (other than existence), since the word “something” does not suggest any properties at all. Russell tried to
analyze “Something exists” as “There is an x such that x is
identical to x,” 17 but it is very doubtful that this is what the
statement actually means. This third problem extends to a host
of common predicates such as “began to exist,” “ceased to
exist,” “no longer exists,” “might not have existed,” and so
on.18 It is very hard to see how a first-order use of “exist(s)”
could plausibly be eliminated from all of them. 19 The best
attempts to paraphrase away these uses of “exist(s)” face the
same problem as Russell’s analysis of “Something exists.” It is
simply very doubtful that the proposed analyses (which are all
quite sophisticated) are actually what these common predicates
mean.
These three problems show that the Frege-Russell-Quine
view is not an adequate account of existence; it only appears
adequate for a limited set of cases because the notion of instantiating properties presupposes existence. Given these and
other such problems, a growing number of contemporary
analytic philosophers have abandoned the Frege-Russell-Quine
16

For some reasons why, see McGinn, Logical Properties, 45-47 and nn. 46-47.
Russell, “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” 204-5.
18
Cf. Moore, “Is Existence a Predicate?”; Miller, Fullness of Being, 28; Robinson,
“Can We Make Sense of the Idea,” 132.
19
The best attempt to eliminate a first-order use of “exist(s)” from such predicates is
Williams, What is Existence?, 81-152.
17

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view in favor of the commonsense view. These philosophers
agree that existence is something had by individuals or objects,
and can be sensibly ascribed to them with a first-order
predicate. In that sense they all agree that existence is a property of individuals or objects.20 Yet such agreement leaves room
for a wide range of substantive disagreements about the precise
nature of the property of existence and of our talk about it.
There is still a real question about which version of the
commonsense view is the best.
III. AQUINAS’S COMMONSENSE VIEW OF EXISTENCE
Aquinas’s view of existence is a version of the commonsense
view. He has a number of standard ways of talking about the
existence of individuals or objects. Most often he uses the
infinitive of the verb “to be” (esse) as a noun for the purpose.
So, for example, he often says, “the word ‘existent’ is imposed
from existence [esse],”21 and “the word ‘existent’ means sort of
having existence [habens esse].”22 Again he often says that it is
“because a thing has existence [esse] that it becomes an actual
existent [ens].” 23 Other phrases Aquinas uses to refer to the
existence of individuals or objects include “that by which a
thing exists [quo est]” and “the act of existing [actus essendi].”
So he says, for example, “that by which a thing exists [quo est]
is the very act of existing [actus essendi], namely, existence
[esse].”24 And he says that the word “‘existence’ [esse] signifies
20
David Oderberg prefers not to call existence a property, since he uses the term
“property” for what Aquinas calls a proprietas or proprium. See Oderberg, Real
Essentialism, 124-25. Yet Oderberg insists that existence is something true of existing
individuals, which is what contemporary analytic philosophers mean by the term
“property.” For more information on the contemporary analytic use of the term
“property,” see the article cited above, n. 10.
21
I Sent., d. 19, q. 5, a. 1; De Pot., q. 7, a. 2, ad 9; ScG I, c. 25; ScG II, c. 54; IV
Metaphys., lect. 2. References to the works of Aquinas are to the Busa-Alarcon edition
online at www.corpusthomisticum.org. English translations are my own.
22
XII Metaphys., lect. 1. Cf. Quodl. II, q. 2, a. 1.
23
De Pot., q. 7, a. 2, ad 9. Cf. Quodl. IX, q. 2, a. 2; Quodl. XII, q. 5, a. 1; ScG I,
c. 22; STh I, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3.
24
I Sent., d. 8, q. 5, a. 2.

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the act of existing [actus essendi].” 25 Again he says that “the
word ‘existent’ [ens] is imposed from the act of existing [actus
essendi].”26
The English word “act” is not a perfect translation for the
Latin term “actus,” since the English word is ambiguous,
encompassing more abstract and static notions like actuality and
more concrete and dynamic notions like action.27 But “act” is
probably the best compromise, since the Latin term “actus”
expresses a notion at once abstract and dynamic. The dyamism
comes out most clearly in the analogies that Aquinas commonly
uses to illustrate his view of existence. He says, for example, “as
change is the act [actus] of a changeable thing insofar as it is
changeable, so existence [esse] is the act [actus] of an existent
[ens] insofar as it is an existent [ens].”28 Or again he says, “that
by which a thing exists [quo est] is the very act of existing [actus
essendi], namely, existence [esse], as that by which a thing runs
is the act [actus] of running.”29 Or again he compares “existence
[esse],” which he calls “the act [actus] of an existent [ens],” to
“shining,” that is, “the act [actus] of a shining thing.”30
Such analogies show that Aquinas regards existence as
something had by individuals or objects. Indeed, he says explicitly that he thinks the terms “existent” (ens) and “existence”
(esse) are conceptually and grammatically on a par with the
terms “runner” and “running.”31 He also thinks that existence is
expressible by a first-order predicate attributable to individuals
or objects. He says explicitly, “This word ‘exists’ [est] signifies
in the first place that which occurs to the mind in the sense of
actuality absolutely. For ‘exists,’ predicated by itself, signifies

25

STh I, q. 3, a. 4, ad 2.
I Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 1; IV Metaphys., lect. 2; De Verit. q. 1, a. 1, corp. and ad
s.c. 3.
27
Cf. John O’Callaghan, “The Identity of Knower and Known: Sellars’s and
McDowell’s Thomisms,” Aristotle Then and Now: Proceedings of the American Catholic
Philosophical Association 87 (2013): 15.
28
I Sent., d. 19, q. 2, a. 2.
29
I Sent., d. 8, q. 5, a. 2. Cf. Quodl. IX, q. 4, a. 1.
30
III Sent., d. 6, q. 2, a. 2.
31
Cf. In Boet. De Hebdomad., c. 2.
26

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actual existence [esse]. Thus it signifies as a verb.” 32 And he
says: “This word ‘exists’ [est] is sometimes used in a sentence by
itself, as when we say ‘Socrates exists,’ by which we just mean to
signify that Socrates exists in reality.”33 So Aquinas holds that
existence is something really had by individuals or objects and
sensibly expressible by a first-order predicate attributed to
them. In that sense he thinks that existence is a property of
individuals or objects,34 which is the commonsense view.
There is much more to Aquinas’s unique version of the
commonsense view, which I can only hint at here. 35 Aquinas
sees existence as the most basic and fundamental source of
actuality in things, since everything else about a thing, and the
thing itself, depends upon existence for its actuality: without
existence it is all literally nothing. 36 He sees existence as
accidental to things, since he thinks it is not included in their
essence, understood in the Aristotelian sense of what things
are. 37 Yet he denies that existence is an accident in the
Aristotelian sense. 38 At the same time he sees existence as
essential to things,39 not only because he thinks that things are
nothing at all without existence, but more because he thinks
that the essences of things specify and determine their specific
kind of existence. 40 Thus he sees things and their existence
32

I Peryherm., lect. 5. Cf. II Post. Anal., lect. 1.
II Peryherm., lect. 2.
34
On my use of the term “property,” see above, n. 10.
35
For much more, see the works referenced above, n. 1.
36
Cf. II Sent., d. 1, q. 1 , a. 3; d. 1, q. 1, a. 4; ScG II, c. 21; ScG III, c. 66; STh I,
q. 5, a. 2, s.c.; q. 8, a. 1; q. 45, a. 4, ad 1; q. 105, a. 5; Comp. Theol. I, c. 68; c. 130;
De Pot., q. 3, a. 4; q. 3, a. 5 ad 2; q. 3, a. 7; De Anima, a. 9; I Liber de Causis, lect. 4.
37
Cf. I Sent., d. 8, exp.; d. 19, q. 2, a. 2; De Verit., q. 28, a. 1, ad 8; Quodl. II, q. 2,
a.1, corp. and ad 2; Quodl. II, q. 2, a. 2, corp. and ad 1; Quodl. X, q. 2, ad 4; In Boet.
De Hebdomad., lect. 2; IV Metaphys., lect. 2.
38
Cf. De Pot., q. 5, a. 4, ad 3; Quodl. II, q. 2, a.1, ad 2; Quodl. XII, q. 5, a. 1; IV
Metaphys., lect. 2.
39
On Aquinas’s view of the essential character of existence, see Joseph Owens, “The
Accidental and Essential Character of Being in the Doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas,”
Mediaeval Studies 20 (1958): 1-40.
40
Cf. I Sent., d. 8, exp.; d. 8, q. 4, a. 1, s.c. 2; d. 38, q. 1, a. 3; III Sent., d. 6, q. 2,
a. 2; IV Sent., d. 44, q. 2, a. 2, qcla. 3; ScG II, c. 54; c. 68; STh I, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3; q. 7,
a. 2; De ente, c. 1; De Verit. q. 1, a. 1; De Pot., q. 5, a. 4, ad 3; q. 7, a. 2, ad 5 and ad 9;
33

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related as potentiality and actuality in the Aristotelian sense,
which is why he considers existence the most formal, actual,
and perfect source of all a thing’s actual forms and perfections.41
All of this makes Aquinas’s version of the commonsense view of
existence unique.
IV. DEFENDING AQUINAS’S VIEW: ACCUSATIONS OF NONSENSE
Yet Aquinas’s unique version of the commonsense view
cannot even be proposed in the context of contemporary
analytic philosophy without first defending the commonsense
view as the right general approach to existence. After all, most
contemporary analytic philosophers still reject the commonsense view in favor of the Frege-Russell-Quine view. Moreover,
it is not enough to defend the commonsense view by raising
objections to the Frege-Russell-Quine view, for the commonsense view faces objections of its own. A defense of Aquinas’s
commonsense view of existence must therefore first address the
main contemporary objections to that view.42 I shall begin with
objections that accuse the commonsense view of being
nonsensical, all of which can be shown to beg the question.
On the Frege-Russell-Quine view, the predicate “exist(s)” is
a second-order predicate ascribing the second-order property of
being instantiated to a property itself. “Men exist” says that the
property of being a man has instances, and is thus equivalent to
the statement “There are men.” But it would be a category
mistake and therefore nonsense to apply such a second-order
Quodl. II, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2; Quodl. XII, q. 5, a. 1; In Boet. De Trin., q. 5, a. 3; In Boet.
De Hebdomad. I, lect. 2; IV Metaphys., lect. 2; V Metaphys., lect. 9; IV Metaphys.,
lect. 2.
41
Cf. ScG I, c. 22; ScG II, c. 54; STh I, q. 4, a. 1, corp. and ad 3; q. 4, a. 2; q. 7,
a. 1; q. 8, a. 1; De Pot., q. 7, a. 2, ad 9; q. 7, a. 9; Quodl. XII, q. 5, a. 1.
42
Many contemporary objections to the commonsense view of existence have been
addressed by Barry Miller. See Miller, “In Defence of the Predicate ‘Exists’”; idem,
“‘Exists’ and Existence”; idem, Fullness of Being, 23-56; idem, “Negative Existential
Propositions,” Analysis 42 (1982): 181-88; idem, From Existence to God: A Contemporary Philosophical Argument (London: Routledge, 1992), 64-78. For a helpful guide
to Miller’s thought, see Elmar Kremer, Analysis of Existing: Barry Miller’s Approach to
God (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).

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predicate to an individual or object. “There is a Socrates” is
clearly nonsense. “Socrates exists” must then be nonsense too.
We are only tempted to think that “Socrates exists” makes sense
because “Men exist” and “Socrates is a man” make sense. But
this is a mistake. Compare: “Men are numerous. Socrates is a
man. Therefore, Socrates is numerous.” Just as it is nonsense to
ascribe the second-order property of being numerous (having
many instances) to Socrates, so it is nonsense to ascribe the
second-order property of existence (having an instance) to
Socrates. But this is just what the commonsense view of
existence appears to do. Thus, the commonsense view appears
to be nonsense.
This is Russell’s objection, 43 and it begs the question. The
statement “Socrates exists” is only shown to be nonsense by
assuming that the only sensible talk of existence is second-order
talk. But of course whether there is any sensible first-order talk
of the existence of individuals or objects is just what is in
question. When Russell was pressed in discussion about the
possibility of a distinct first-order concept of existence, he fell
back on another standard objection to such a concept, which I
shall discuss in the next section.44 For now the important point
to note is that it is possible to agree with Russell’s second-order
analysis of general existential statements such as “Men exist”
while still accepting the commonsense first-order analysis of
particular existential statements such as “Socrates exists.” Indeed, a number of contemporary analytic philosophers espouse
just such a “two-sense view” of existence. Other philosophers
doubt the adequacy of a second-order analysis of general
existential statements. But either way a first-order analysis of
singular existential statements remains so far possible.
A couple of related objections to Aquinas’s commonsense
view beg the question in a similar way. Sometimes a first-order
use of “exist(s)” is objected to on the grounds that the role

43
Russell, “Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” 195-97. Cf. Bertrand Russell,
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: George Allen & Unwen, Ltd.,
1919), 164-65.
44
Russell, “Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” 206.

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played by “exist(s)” in statements like “Tame tigers exist” is the
same as the role played by “some” in supposedly equivalent
statements like “Some tigers are tame.” Since “some” obviously
does not ascribe a property to an individual or object, neither
does “exist(s).”45 Now it seems doubtful that the role played by
“some” is the same as the role played by “exist(s).” Expressions
of quantity (“some,” “all,” “few,” etc.) are one thing;
expressions of existence (“is/are,” “exist(s),” etc.) are another.46
The phrase “Some Greek gods” does not assert the existence of
any Greek gods. It does not assert anything at all: it is an incomplete sentence. The same cannot be said for “Greek gods
exist.” But even if “some” and “exist(s)” did play the same role
in statements like “Some tigers are tame” and “Tame tigers
exist,” that would not prove anything about the role played by
“exist(s)” in other kinds of statements such as “Socrates exists.”
Again a two-sense view of existence remains so far possible.
The same goes for the related objection that statements of
existence are equivalent to statements of number. Statements of
number obviously do not ascribe a property to individuals or
objects. The statement “The king’s carriage is drawn by four
horses” cannot mean that each individual horse is four, since
that is nonsense. So if “exist(s)” is just a way of saying “There is
one,” then it cannot mean anything about an individual or
object either. To suppose otherwise is equally nonsense. This is
Frege’s objection,47 and it begs the question too. Equating statements of existence with statements of number is even plausible
only for statements like “Fs exist,” “An F exists,” “There is an
F,” and “There are Fs.” Yet the adequacy of a second-order
analysis of “is/are” or “exist(s)” as a number ascription in such
statements obviously cannot be used as proof against a firstorder analysis of “is/are” or “exist(s)” as a property ascription to
an individual or object in other kinds of statements like
“Socrates exists,” “Socrates began to exist,” “Socrates no longer

45

Cf. Williams, Being, Identity, and Truth, 8-19.
Cf. Munitz, Existence and Logic, 73-104.
47
Frege, Foundations of Arithmetic, §53; idem, Translations from the Philosophical
Writings, 48-50. Cf. Williams, What Is Existence?, 54-55.
46

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exists,” and so on. Defenders of the second-order analysis of
existence have gone to great lengths to give a sense to such
statements. 48 Russell and Quine even tried to reduce proper
names like “Socrates” to supposedly equivalent predicates
(“Socratizes,” for example) in order to apply their second-order
analysis of existence to such statements.49 But all this appears
unnecessary without independent reasons to think that firstorder ascriptions of existence to individuals or objects are
meaningless in the first place. Yet there are no such reasons.
V. DEFENDING AQUINAS’S VIEW:
ACCUSATIONS OF PARADOX AND ABSURDITY
The other main contemporary objections to Aquinas’s
commonsense view accuse it of being paradoxical and absurd. I
shall begin with the accusation of paradox, which is the
objection Russell fell back on when he was pressed about the
possibility of a first-order concept of existence.50
If “exist(s)” can be predicated of individuals or objects, then
all affirmative statements of existence seem to be necessarily
true tautologies, while all negative statements of existence seem
to be necessarily false contradictions. For in order to affirm or
deny anything of an individual or object, we first have to
identify an individual or object, either by naming it or by
pointing it out in some other way. But once we have
successfully identified an individual or object, what more could
we possibly mean by affirming existence of it? When we affirm
existence of an individual or object, we only seem to say what is
already presupposed by successfully identifying the individual or
object in the first place. So affirming existence of such an
individual seems tautological. And if existence is presupposed
48

See, for example, Williams, What Is Existence?, 42-152.
Russell, “On Denoting”; idem, “Philosophy of Logical Atomism”; idem,
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, 178-79; Quine, “On What There Is”; idem,
Word and Object, §§37-38.
50
Russell, “Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” 206. Cf. A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth,
and Logic, 2d ed. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1952), 42-43; Williams, Being,
Identity, and Truth, 5-6.
49

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by successfully identifying an individual or object, then denying
existence of such an individual or object seems contradictory.
That is the paradox.
Barry Miller and others point out that this objection wrongly
conflates the bearer of a name with the referent of a name.51 A
name can have a reference now without its bearer existing now,
otherwise it would be impossible to say things like, “Mr. N. N.
is dead,” as Wittgenstein pointed out. 52 Miller thinks that a
name can only have reference if its bearer exists or has existed,
but others doubt even this restriction on reference. For it seems
absurd to suppose that I can think about, want, fear, love, or
hate what has not, does not, and will not exist—which I
obviously can do—but that I still cannot sufficiently identify it
in order to refer to it.53 But whether or not reference should be
restricted to what has or does exist, the above objection still
fails, since we can refer to individuals that existed but no longer
exist. So it is not the case that we can only affirm or deny
“exist(s)” of what does exist, as the objection supposes.
Moreover, as Howard Robinson points out, even if the
objection’s supposition were true, and reference were in fact
restricted to what exists, that alone would not show that there is
anything wrong with the predicate “exist(s)” in itself.54 Granted,
sheer affirmations of existence would be tautological and sheer
negations of existence would be contradictory, but that would
only be a matter of those linguistic contexts. There would still
be nonredundant and noncontradictory uses of “exist(s)” in
other contexts, like those embedded within the predicates
“ceased to exist,” “might not have existed,” and so on. The
same is true (to use Robinson’s example) of the predicate “is a
thinking thing.” This predicate is perfectly sensible in itself, and
yet in the first-person context it leads to the same kind of
paradox: “I am a thinking thing” seems tautological and “I am
51

Anscombe and Geach, Three Philosophers, 91; Geach, “Form and Existence,”
58-59; Miller, Fullness of Being, 32.
52
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 4th rev. ed. (Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2009), I, §40.
53
Cf. Robinson, “Can We Make Sense of the Idea,” 132.
54
Ibid.

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not a thinking thing” seems contradictory. Such a paradox casts
no doubt on the predicate “is a thinking thing.” The same goes
for the predicate “exist(s).”
A related objection to the commonsense view accuses it of
absurdity. The view seems to imply that one is “obliged to
examine several specimens of blue buttercup before concluding
that none of them exist,” 55 which is absurd. But in fact the
commonsense view involves no such obligation. One might as
well be obliged to examine everything that exists before
concluding that blue buttercups do not exist. Or one might not
be obliged to examine anything. Perhaps one concludes that
blue buttercups do not exist after realizing that they are made
up. Or perhaps one does so for other reasons entirely. The
point is that nothing about a first-order use of “exist(s)”
requires a particular way of discovering the truth of its negation. So this objection can be set aside. Miller adds that the
absurdity objection seems to assume that if affirmations of
existence ascribe a property of existence, then negations of
existence must ascribe a property of nonexistence. 56 First get
ahold of blue buttercups, and then see whether nonexistence is
among their properties—which seems absurd. Miller thinks that
the assumption of this property of nonexistence is what leads to
the absurdity, and expends much effort refuting this
assumption.57
Miller begins by noting that the statement “Socrates does not
exist” can be taken either to mean “It is not the case that
(Socrates exists)” or “Socrates (does-not-exist).” The former is a
case of external or propositional negation, while the latter is a
case of internal or predicate negation. Miller then argues for the
distinction between these two kinds of negation in order to take
the external negation as the logically basic form of the above
statement, since it avoids absurdly predicating nonexistence of
Socrates. Miller defends the distinction between internal and
external negation with the example “a is not moral,” which can
55

Williams, Being, Identity, and Truth, 1.
Miller, Fullness of Being, 24.
57
Ibid., 32ff.
56

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be taken either to mean “It is not the case that (a is moral)” or
“a (is not-moral).” If there were no distinction between internal
and external negation then the latter two statements would be
equivalent, but they are not. For the second means “a is immoral,” whereas the first means “a is either immoral or
amoral.” Aquinas uses the same example in his most extended
discussion of these two kinds of negation.58 Since the distinction
between internal and external negation is a substantive one, and
since the reading of “Socrates does not exist” as an internal
negation leads to the absurd commitment to the property of
nonexistence, the reading of the statement as an external
negation is preferable.59 But then we can recognize existence as
a property without recognizing nonexistence as one.
VI. DEFENDING THE MEANINGFULNESS OF AQUINAS’S VIEW
Even if the main contemporary analytic objections to
Aquinas’s commonsense view of existence can be shown to fail,
that still does not mean that the view makes sense. We need
further reasons to think it does so.
Peter Geach and Barry Miller both point to the prima facie
evidence already present in our language. 60 Ordinary English
usage is full of existence ascriptions to individuals and objects:
“Socrates exists.” “Socrates is no more.” “Socrates might never
have existed.” “John does not know that this beach exists.”
“Joseph is not and Simeon is not.” “Before Abraham was, I am.”
The last two examples are taken from the King James Version
of the Bible—hardly to be dismissed as bad English. The
widespread use of “is/are” and “exist(s)” to ascribe existence to
individuals and objects provides good prima facie reason to
think that doing so in fact makes sense. Once all the main
objections to such first-order existence ascriptions have been
addressed, it seems acceptable to take this prima facie evidence

58

II Peryherm., lect. 2.
Cf. Mendelsohn, Philosophy of Gottlob Frege, 107.
60
Geach, “Form and Existence,” 266-67; Miller, Fullness of Being, 23.
59

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at face value. This is Miller’s whole strategy for defending the
meaningfulness of the commonsense view.
Geach offers further reasons for taking this evidence at face
value.61 He claims that in the case of living things “is/are” and
“live(s)” have the same reference. As Aquinas often says, “for
living things living is existing” (vivere viventibus est esse). It
obviously makes sense to say, “Poor Fred was alive and is
dead.” What difference does it make to say instead, “Poor Fred
was, and is not”? In other words, Geach paraphrases “is/are” or
“exist(s)” as “live(s).” If “live(s)” is an adequate paraphrase of
“is/are” or “exist(s),” then given that “live(s)” is sensibly
predicable of individuals, “is/are” or “exist(s)” is sensibly
predicable of individuals as well. It must be said, however, that
“live(s)” is not really an adequate paraphrase of “is/are” or
“exist(s).” After all, not everything that exists is alive; not
everything that does not exist is dead. Geach explicitly limits his
paraphrase to living things. At least in their case, he thinks,
“is/are” and “live(s)” do mean the same thing. He suggests that
Aquinas agrees with him by referencing his use of the popular
Aristotelian tag about the existence of living things. Aquinas
certainly uses this tag a lot, but his own understanding of it
shows that his view of existence cannot consistently be
defended with the paraphrase that Geach offers.62
Throughout his career Aquinas consistently makes an
important distinction between two different senses of “living”
(vivere) or “life” (vita).63 As he himself says:
In one sense living [vivere] refers to a living thing’s existence [esse viventis];
and living [vivere] in this sense is not caused by the soul’s powers, but by its
essence. In another sense living [vivere] refers to a living thing’s activity

61

Geach, “Form and Existence,” 267-68.
On Aquinas’s understanding of the tag, especially as it differs from Aristotle’s own,
see Albert Wingell, “Vivere viventibus est esse in Aristotle and St. Thomas,” The Modern
Schoolman 38 (1961): 85-120.
63
Both “living” (vivere) and “life” (vita) signify the same thing, Aquinas thinks, but
the one does so abstractly and the other concretely. Cf. ScG I, c. 98; STh I, q. 18, a. 2.
62

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[operatio viventis]; and in this sense living [vivere] is caused by the soul’s
powers, which are the sources of its life activities [operationes vitae].64

By “a living thing’s activity” and “its life activities” Aquinas is
referring to the activities that, following Aristotle, he takes to be
properly characteristic of living things, such as nourishing oneself, growing, reproducing, moving oneself, and so on.65 All of
these activities are performed by individuals, hence the terms
for them are sensibly predicable of individuals as well. Aquinas
thinks that “Socrates lives” can be taken to mean that Socrates
performs these activities. That is the second sense of “living”
that he distinguishes above. So if Aquinas thinks that “Socrates
exists” only means “Socrates lives” in this second sense, then his
view of existence could be defended with such a paraphrase.
But in fact no life activities are included in what Aquinas thinks
is meant by “living” in the Aristotelian tag “for living things
living is existing.”
Aquinas consistently applies the above distinction to his
understanding of the Aristotelian tag. He says that it is only true
in the first sense of “living,” and not in the second.66 In other
words, in the case of living things Aquinas just uses the term
“living” to refer to their existence.67 His reasons for doing so
need not concern us here. 68 For now the important point to
note is that whether “live(s)” in this first sense is sensibly
predicable of individuals is surely as doubtful as whether
“exist(s)” itself is, for this first sense of “live(s)” does not refer
64
III Sent., d. 33, q. 2, a. 4, sol. 1, ad 3. Cf. I Sent., d. 33, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1; II Sent.,
d. 38, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3; STh I, q. 18, a. 2; De Verit., q. 13, a. 4, ad 2; STh I-II, q. 3, a. 2,
ad 1; STh I-II, q. 56, a. 1, ad 1; STh II-II, q. 179, a. 1, obj. 1.
65
I De Anima, lect. 14; II De Anima, lect. 3; II De Anima, lect. 5-6. On Aristotle’s
understanding of life in reference to life activities, see Gareth Matthews, “De Anima 2.
2-4 and the Meaning of Life,” in Essays on Aristotle’s “De Anima,” ed. Martha C.
Nussbaum and Amelie O. Rorty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 185-93.
66
I De Anima, lect. 14. Cf. I Sent., d. 8, q. 5, a. 3, ad 3; d. 33, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1;
II Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 2, ad 8; d. 38, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3; STh I, q. 18, a. 2; STh I-II, q. 56,
a. 1, ad 1; I Metaphys., lect. 1; I Nic. Ethic., lect. 10.
67
Cf. Knasas, “Haldane’s Analytical Thomism,” 239.
68
But see, for example, IV Sent., d. 49, q. 1, a. 2, qcla. 3; and STh II-II, q. 179, a. 1,
ad 1.

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to anything but a living thing’s existence. That is why the sense
of predicating “exist(s)” of individuals cannot be established by
appealing to the sense of predicating “live(s)” of living things.
There is no independent way of establishing a meaning for
“live(s)” in the sense in which Aquinas thinks that it can serve as
proxy for “exist(s).” The meaningfulness of this use of “live(s)”
depends upon the meaningfulness of Aquinas’s first-order use of
“exist(s),” and so cannot be used to establish it.
I have belabored this point about Geach’s paraphrase for two
reasons. First, because this is a popular strategy for defending
Aquinas’s view of existence among some Thomists. But second,
and more importantly, because any attempt to show the
meaningfulness of Aquinas’s view by the method of paraphrase
will likely run the same risk. Such paraphrases could only lend
meaning to the use of “exist(s)” by robbing it of its own
meaning. Of course Aquinas has other ways of talking about
existence: “act,” “actuality,” “act of an essence,” and so on. But
these are elements of his theory of the nature of existence; they
are not attempts to say what “exist(s)” means. When he
attempts to say what “exist(s)” means, Aquinas usually says that
it means existence. That is just what one would expect, given
that he takes existence to be basic and fundamental to things:
talk of something basic and fundamental cannot be replaced by
talk of something else. Instead of paraphrases, Aquinas uses
analogies to illustrate his view of the nature of existence and the
meaning of our talk about it. Since such analogies do not run
the same risk as paraphrases, they are a better strategy for
defending the meaningfulness of his commonsense view of
existence.
VII. DEFENDING THE TRUTH OF AQUINAS’S VIEW:
AN UNTENABLE STRATEGY
Even if it can be shown that Aquinas’s commonsense view of
existence makes sense, that does not mean that it is true. We
need further reason to think that existence is a real property of
individuals or objects. Miller recognizes this need, but his
strategy for defending the truth of the commonsense view is not

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one that a Thomist can accept. Identifying the problem with
Miller’s strategy suggests a better way of defending the truth of
Aquinas’s view.
Miller’s defense of the reality of existence as a property of
individuals or objects is based upon a view of the relationship
between language and ontology that Aquinas does not accept.
Indeed, it is just the opposite of Aquinas’s view. Miller is
helpfully explicit about his view of this relationship. He says:
In seeking to describe something of the actual categorial structure of the
world, I shall be following Frege in maintaining the priority of linguistic
categories over ontological ones. This is simply the claim that the categories of
the things we talk about are to be determined by the linguistic categories of
the language we employ to speak about them. In other words, the way in
which the world is sliced up mirrors the way in which our language is sliced
up by logical analysis.69

Miller’s defense of the reality of existence follows this approach
to ontology through language. He first defines a property as the
ontological correlate of a predicate, 70 and then defends the
property of existence by defending the predicate “is/are” or
“exist(s).” First he answers all the objections to taking “is/are”
or “exist(s)” as a predicate of individuals or objects, then, given
the evidence of such predications of existence in our language,
he concludes that existence is a property of individuals and
objects. He then argues that existence is a real property rather
than a Cambridge one (i.e., a nonrelational property rather than
a relational one). Yet this entire way of defending the reality of
existence would only convince someone who thinks that ontology can be read off of language, which Aquinas does not.
It might look as if Aquinas agrees with Miller about the
relationship between language and ontology. Aquinas thinks
that Aristotle’s ten categories—the ten different kinds of things
there are—can be established by attending to ten different kinds
of predications.71 But he adopts this procedure for deriving the
69

Miller, Fullness of Being, 67-68.
Ibid., 63.
71
Cf. V Metaphys., lect. 9; III Phys., lect. 5. On Aquinas’s derivations of the ten
categories, see John Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas’s Derivation of the Aristotelian
70

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ten categories because he thinks that “diverse modes of
predicating . . . follow diverse modes of existing.” 72 John
Wippel explains the reasoning behind this procedure of
Aquinas. He says:
As Thomas sees things, supreme and diverse modes of predication (as
expressed in the predicaments) ultimately follow from and depend upon
supreme and diverse modes of being. It is for this very reason that Thomas
thinks we can discover these supreme modes of being by proceeding in the
opposite direction, as it were, that is, by beginning with diversity in the order
of predication.73

Yet this is the very view of the relationship between language
and ontology that Miller himself rejects, namely, “the view that
linguistic categories reflect ontological ones.”74 Even if Aquinas
thought that ontology could be read off of language, it would
not be for the reason that underlies Miller’s defense of the
reality of existence as a property of individuals and objects.
But in fact Aquinas does not think that ontology can be read
off of language. He thinks, for example, that we cannot do
without abstract terms like “whiteness” and “humanity,” since
he thinks they are our only way of referring to the forms
signified by the corresponding concrete terms like “white” and
“human.” Yet he thinks that the presence of such abstract terms
in our language should not lead us to posit any corresponding
abstract entities in reality. He makes this point clearly in a
Categories (Predicaments),” Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (1987): 13-34;
Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 208-28; John Tomarchio,
“Aquinas’s Division of Being according to Modes of Existing,” Review of Metaphysics
54 (2001): 585-613. For a compelling contemporary attempt at such a derivation, see
Herbert McCabe, “Categories,” in Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Anthony
Kenny (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1969), 54-92. For a helpful introduction to
the medieval context of such derivations, see William McMahon, “The Medieval
Sufficientiae: Attempts at a Definitive Division of the Categories,” in Categories and
What Is Beyond: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics, vol. 2,
ed. Gyula Klima and Alex Hall (Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2011), 19-36.
72
V Metaphys., lect. 9 (emphasis added). Cf. III Phys., lect. 5.
73
Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas’s Derivation of the Aristotelian Categories,” 18.
74
Miller, Fullness of Being, 68.

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discussion of the signification of abstract terms in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. 75 The structure of reality
cannot be read off of the structure of language, he explains,
because language only reflects reality indirectly: “For the way
that words signify does not follow the way that things exist
directly, but via our ways of thinking. For thoughts are likeness
of things, and words of thoughts.”76 He then notes that we can
distinguish things in thought that are not distinguished in
reality. This is how he thinks we get the abstract concepts
signified by our abstract terms. It was precisely the failure to
realize this difference between how we can think of things and
how things are in themselves that Aquinas thinks led Plato and
his followers into the mistake of positing really existing
universals. Aquinas opts for Aristotle’s conceptualism over
Plato’s realism about universals because he thinks that our
abstract way of thinking is enough to account for the
signification of our abstract terms without having to posit any
corresponding abstract entities in reality.
Since Aquinas does not think that ontology can be read off of
language, Miller’s strategy for defending the truth of the
commonsense view cannot be used by a Thomist to defend
Aquinas. But Aquinas’s approach to language and ontology, and
his criticisms of Plato, suggest a better strategy for defending his
view of existence.
VIII. DEFENDING THE TRUTH OF AQUINAS’S VIEW:
A TENABLE STRATEGY
As explained above (section III), Aquinas thinks that the
predicate “exist(s)” signifies existence, which he considers a
property of individuals or objects.77 But why? What reason is
there to think that existence is a real property of individuals or
objects? Aquinas himself never quite considers this question.
The closest he comes to doing so is his defense of the real
75

VII Metaphys., lect. 1.
Ibid. (emphasis added).
77
On my use of the term “property,” see above, n. 10.
76

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TURNER C. NEVITT

distinction between essence and existence in creatures. 78 But
most of his arguments for the real distinction would beg the
question if they were presented as a defense of his commonsense view of existence, since they assume too much of that
view. 79 Nevertheless, his approach to language and ontology,
and his criticisms of Plato, suggest another way of defending his
view of existence as a real property of individuals or objects.
Aquinas’s criticisms of Plato show that he takes what
contemporary analytic philosophers call a sparse rather than an
abundant view of properties.80 On the abundant view, there are
as many properties as there are predicates. On the sparse view,
there are fewer properties than there are predicates. The sparse
view is based on a principle of parsimony like Ockham’s razor,
and thus only admits properties that do some work, such as
explaining the resemblance of their possessors, or the causal
powers of their possessors, and so on. Some people think that
properties explain the meaning of predicates, and so they adopt
an abundant view of properties. Yet Aquinas does not take this
view, as his criticisms of Platonic forms make clear.
Aquinas rejects Platonic forms for a host of reasons, all of
which derive from Aristotle. 81 The most important of these
reasons, at least for our present purposes, are based upon a

78
For an overview of Aquinas’s arguments for the real distinction between essence
and existence in creatures, see Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas,
132-76.
79
To see how each argument would beg the question, see David Twetten, “Really
Distinguishing Essence from Esse,” in Wisdom’s Apprentice: Essays in Honor of
Lawrence Dewan, OP, ed. Peter Kwasniewski (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2007), 40-84.
80
For helpful overviews of the contemporary analytic debate about properties, see
David Armstrong, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction (Boulder, Co.: Westview
Press, 1989); D. H. Mellor and Alex Oliver, eds., Properties (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997), 1-33; Douglas Edwards, Properties (Cambridge: Polity Press,
2014).
81
See, for example, I Metaphys., lect. 14-17; and VII Metaphys., lect. 13-16. For a
fuller treatment of Aquinas’s criticisms of Platonic forms, see Turner C. Nevitt, “What
Has Aquinas Got against Platonic Forms?,” in Hylomorphism and Mereology:
Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics, vol. 15, ed. Gyula Klima
and Alex Hall (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018), 67-79.

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347

principle of parsimony.82 Aquinas argues at length that Platonic
forms should be rejected because they do not explain any of the
things that Plato posited them to explain.83 The details of these
objections are not important here. The important point to note
is that Aquinas thinks these are the strongest kinds of objections
against Platonic forms. He says so explicitly when he first
introduces them: “Of all the difficulties that stand against Plato,
this is the greatest: the forms that Plato posited do not seem to
confer anything on sensible things.”84 In other words, Platonic
forms do not do any descriptive or explanatory work, and so
Aquinas rejects them. This shows that he takes a sparse
approach to ontology, and thus a sparse approach to properties.
This sparse approach to properties suggests that one can
defend Aquinas’s view of existence by appealing to its
descriptive and explanatory usefulness. The successful use of his
view of existence would give us good reason to think it is true,
and thus that existence is in fact a real property of individuals
or objects. Moreover, Aquinas puts his view of existence to a lot
of use. It informs his approach to a wide range of issues in
metaphysics, such as the problem of the one and the many,
substance and accidents, change and causality, the analogy of
being, the metaphysics of creation and participation, the nature
of God and proofs for God’s existence, and much more.
To give one historical example: Aquinas’s view of existence
allows him to preserve the absolute uniqueness of divine
simplicity while rejecting universal hylomorphism. Universal
hylomorphism is the claim that all creatures, including incorporeal substances such as angels, are composed of matter and
form. Universal hylomorphism was a popular view in Aquinas’s
time partly because of how straightforwardly it preserves the
uniqueness of divine simplicity: God alone is simple because
God alone lacks the composition of matter and form. Nevertheless, Aquinas rejects universal hylomorphism because of what
he considers its absurd commitment to “spiritual matter” in
82

I Metaphys., lect. 14.
I Metaphys., lect. 15.
84
Ibid.
83

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TURNER C. NEVITT

incorporeal substances.85 Yet he can still preserve the uniqueness
of divine simplicity by appeal to the real distinction between
essence and existence in creatures, including incorporeal
substances. Thus, God alone is simple because God alone lacks
the composition of essence and existence; everything else is
composed of a distinct essence and existence. 86 But this
explanation of divine simplicity is only possible if existence is a
real property of created things.
To give another example: Aquinas’s theory of existence can
be used to account for the relationship between the primary
causality of God and the secondary causality of creatures.87 As
the creator of the universe, God is supposed to be the first cause
of everything that exists. But, of course, creatures cause things
to exist as well. This makes it look either as if such things are
over-determined by having more causes than they need, or as if
creatures are not really causes of such things at all. But
Aquinas’s theory of existence can explain how both God and
creatures can concur in producing the same effect without that
effect being over-determined: creatures cause the effect’s
essence—what it is—whereas God alone properly causes its
existence. 88 This solution only works if essence and existence
are really distinct in creatures, and if existence is a real property
of created things.
Geach discusses three other applications of Aquinas’s view of
existence.89 First, it allows Aquinas to explain increases and de85

I Sent., d. 8, q. 5, a. 2; II Sent., d. 3, q. 1, a. 1; De Ente, c. 4; Quodl. III, q. 8;
Quodl. IX, q. 4, a. 1; De Spirit. Creat., a. 1; De Sep. Sub., c. 8; STh I, q. 50, a. 2.
86
De Ente, cc. 4 and 5; ScG II, c. 52; Quodl. II, q. 2, a. 1; Quodl. III, q. 8; De Spirit.
Creat., a. 1; VIII Phys., lect. 21; De Sep. Sub., c. 8.
87
On Aquinas’s view of God’s concurrence with secondary causes, see Alfred
Freddoso, “Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case against Secondary Causation in
Nature,” in Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism, ed. Thomas
V. Morris (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988), 74-118; idem, “God’s General
Concurrence with Secondary Causes: Why Conservation Is Not Enough,” Philosophical
Perspectives 5 (1991): 553-85; idem, “God’s General Concurrence with Secondary
Causes: Pitfalls and Prospects, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 67 (1994):
131-56.
88
II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 4; De Pot., q. 3, a. 7; ScG III, c. 66.
89
Anscombe and Geach, Three Philosophers, 92-97.

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creases in the intensity of a quality such as whiteness. Such
changes in intensity can be explained as changes in the quality’s
existence (how it is) rather than as changes in its essence (what
it is). Thus existence is a real property of qualities that differ in
intensity. Second, Aquinas’s view of existence can explain the
distinction between members of a common genus. Since two
human beings are as human beings so far alike, the fact that
they are distinct cannot be explained by what it is to be a
human being, which the two have in common. Instead, the fact
that they are distinct can be explained by their distinct
existences, which are proper to each. Thus existence is a real
property of distinct members of the same genus. Third,
Aquinas’s view of existence can explain how the thought of an x
is indeed of an x: the form of an x exists with a “natural
existence” in reality, but with an “intentional existence” in
thought. Thus existence is a real feature of the real things that
we think about; indeed, it is what makes them real rather than
mere thoughts.
These uses for Aquinas’s view of existence are not all equally
persuasive, but together they represent an overall strategy for
defending his view of existence as a real property of individuals
or objects. Even if none of these particular uses would convince
contemporary analytic philosophers, there are likely other uses
of it that would. Thomists interested in defending Aquinas’s
view of existence in the context of contemporary analytic
philosophy should look for other uses of his view of existence
to present as evidence for it. If his view of existence can provide
the best description and explanation of the relevant phenomena
(whatever they may be), that would serve as good reason to
think that existence is really as Aquinas views it. Such inferences
to the best explanation are a standard way to defend even basic
metaphysical commitments in contemporary analytic philosophy,90 and they are in line with Aquinas’s own sparse approach
90
Here I disagree with Kerr, “Thomist Esse and Analytical Philosophy.” Kerr argues
that Aquinas’s view of existence cannot possibly be defended in the context of
contemporary analytic philosophy on the grounds that analytic philosophy by definition
proceeds only by means of conceptual analysis toward simpler principles, the most basic
of which must be either undeniable or explanatorily useless. Kerr’s definition of analytic

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to ontology. This strategy for defending the truth of his view of
existence is one that a Thomist could readily accept and deploy
in the context of contemporary analytic philosophy.
There are many areas in contemporary analytic metaphysics
where Aquinas’s view of existence could likely make a useful
descriptive and explanatory contribution. One is contemporary
essentialism, which is often understood in terms of existence: a
property F is essential to an object x if x cannot exist without
being F. As McGinn points out, it is hard to make sense of this
account of essentialism on the Frege-Russell-Quine view of
existence. 91 Aquinas’s commonsense view of existence could
probably serve better. A second area is substance-attribute ontology. The best contemporary attempts to give an account of
substances and attributes in terms of their relative independence
and dependence run into problems. 92 Aquinas’s view of
existence could probably improve on such accounts, since his
view makes it possible to recognize different kinds or modes of
existence—namely, independent and dependent—in terms of
which substances and attributes can be understood. A third area
is ontological pluralism, a recent movement to retrieve the
classic doctrine of the analogy of being.93 The recognition that
philosophy seems to me to exclude much of the work being done in contemporary
analytic metaphysics.
91
Cf. McGinn, Logical Properties, 47-48.
92
For some of the best attempts, see E. J. Lowe, The Possibility of Metaphysics:
Substance, Identity and Time (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998); Joshua Hoffman and
Gary Rosenkrans, Substance among Other Categories (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994); idem, Substance: Its Nature and Existence (London: Routledge,
1997). For a brief account of some of their problems, see Penelope Mackie, “Review of
Substance among Other Categories,” Mind 109 (2000): 149-52; Howard Robinson,
“Substance,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), ed.
Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/substance/.
93
See Kris McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” in Metametaphysics: New Essays on the
Foundations of Ontology, ed. David Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 290-319; idem, “Being and Almost
Nothingness,” Nous 44 (2010): 628-49; idem, “A Return to the Analogy of Being,”
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (2010): 688-717; idem, “Ontological
Pluralism and the Question of Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing,” in The
Philosophy of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?, ed. Tyron
Goldshmidt (New York: Routledge, 2013); idem, “Degrees of Being,” Philosophers

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351

our best descriptions of reality will have to appeal to distinct
modes or ways or degrees of being or existing cannot be made
on the Frege-Russell-Quine view of existence: instantiation does
not come in any modes or ways or degrees. Ontological pluralism requires a view of existence more like that of Aquinas.
SUMMARY
The fact that the analogy of being—the most maligned
Aristotelian-Thomistic doctrine—is being seriously discussed by
contemporary analytic philosophers should encourage Thomists
who are hesitant to engage such philosophers with Aquinas’s
view of existence. There are other reasons to be encouraged as
well. As I have shown, there are a number of strategies available
for defending Aquinas’s view of existence in the context of
contemporary analytic philosophy. The rival view of existence
prevalent among contemporary analytic philosophers is subject
to serious objections. At the same time, the main contemporary
analytic objections to Aquinas’s view of existence can be
answered. The widespread use of “exist(s)” to ascribe existence
to individuals and objects provides good reason to think that
such use makes sense. Even though its sense cannot be further
defended with paraphrases, analogies like those of Aquinas can
help to illustrate the commonsense meaning of “exist(s)” to
those who doubt it. And the truth of Aquinas’s view of existence as a real property of individuals or objects can be
defended at least in principle by appealing to its descriptive and
explanatory usefulness. In addition to Aquinas’s own uses of it,
there are a number of areas of contemporary analytic
metaphysics where his view of existence could likely be of use.
These various strategies may not be the only way to defend
Aquinas’s view of existence in the context of contemporary

Imprint 13 (2013), no. 19, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/phimp/3521354.0013.019/1;
idem, The Fragmentation of Being (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); Jason
Turner, “Ontological Pluralism,” Journal of Philosophy 107 (2010): 5-34; idem, “Logic
and Ontological Pluralism,” Journal of Philosophical Logic 41 (2012): 419-48; Joshua
Spencer, “Ways of Being,” Philosophy Compass 7 (2012): 910-18.

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TURNER C. NEVITT

analytic philosophy, but they still seem like a good way to try to
be an Analytic Existential Thomist.

The Thomist 82 (2018): 353-406

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE INFALLIBILITY OF
THE ORDINARY AND UNIVERSAL MAGISTERIUM
CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN
Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity
St. Paul, Minnesota

O

N AUGUST 1, 2018, Pope Francis approved a revision
of paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, ordering that three paragraphs be inserted to
replace the three paragraphs amended by Pope St. John Paul II
in 1997, five years after the Catechism’s initial release.1 This
magisterial intervention has raised questions about the status of
the Church’s teaching on capital punishment. Francis’s often
strong language concerning the death penalty has sometimes
been interpreted as condemning capital punishment as intrinsically evil. This article will argue that Pope Francis’s teaching is
better seen in the context of Catholic magisterial teaching as a
development of John Paul II’s “intervention in the prudential
order.”2 Moreover, this article will argue that the conditions
laid out in Lumen Gentium 25 for an exercise of the ordinary
and universal magisterium have been met for the Church’s
doctrine on capital punishment, and that it is impossible for the
magisterium to teach definitively that capital punishment is
intrinsically evil.

1

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Rescriptum ex Audientia SS.MI: On
the Death Penalty,” L'osservatore romano, English edition, August 3, 2018, 7.
Catechismus catholicae ecclesiae (Vatican City: Libreria editrice vaticana, 1997), 579.
Catéchisme de l'Eglise catholique (Paris: Mame/Plon, 1992), 464.
2
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum veritatis, 24
353

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

To this end, this article will first explain the Church’s
teaching on capital punishment, and what it does and does not
say. Second, this article will examine the teaching of sacred
Scripture on capital punishment. Third, this article will explain
the teaching of Lumen Gentium 25 on the ordinary and
universal magisterium. The article will then examine the various
sources for knowledge of the ordinary and universal magisterium, such as the papal magisterium, catechisms, canon law,
the Fathers of the Church, and the consensus of theologians, to
show that the conditions have indeed been met with respect to
capital punishment. Finally, this article will examine what
problems arise if one attempts to define capital punishment as
intrinsically evil, and whether such a declaration could ever be
said to constitute a development of doctrine.
I. THE CHURCH’S TEACHING ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Catholic theologians have described the Catholic doctrine on
capital punishment, as classically formulated, as a mean between
two extremes. The first extreme was held by groups such as the
Waldensians, Anabaptists, and Quakers, who taught that capital
punishment was contrary to the gospel and intrinsically evil.3
The second extreme was held by some Reformed theologians
who taught that sacred Scripture required that capital punishment be used by every state.4 These theonomists, as they are
3

Robert Bellarmine, Disputationes Roberti Bellarmini politiani societatis Jesu, de
Controversiis christianae fidei, adversus hujus temporis Haereticos (Paris:
Triadelphorum, 1613), 2:505 (hereafter De Controversiis); F. P. Kenrick, Theologia
moralis (Mechlin: Dessain, 1861), 1:76-78.
4
George Gillespie, Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty, or, The
True Resolution of a Present Controversie Concerning Liberty of Conscience: Here You
Have the Question Stated, the Middle Way betwixt Popish Tyrannie and Schismatizing
Liberty Approved and also Confirmed from Scripture and the Testimonies of Divines, Yea
of Whole Churches (London: Printed for Christopher Meredith, 1645), 6. Herbert
Palmer held “That whatsoever Law of GOD, or Command of His, we find recorded in
the Lawbooke, in either of the Volumnes of GODS Statute, the N. T. or the Old,
Remaines obligatory to us, unless we can prove it to be expired, or repealed” (Herbert
Palmer, The Glasse of Gods Providence Towards His Faithfvll Ones [London: Printed by
G.M. for Th. Vnderhill, 1644], 52). On theonomy, see Timothy R. Cunningham, How

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355

sometimes called, held that with Christ’s advent the Old Law
was to remain intact except where it was explicitly amended by
Christ. In between these two errors is the doctrine of the
Catholic Church. One moral manual states: “The traditional
doctrine of the church is that capital punishment is not opposed
to the divine law, nor is it required by this law as a necessary
thing; its necessity depends on circumstances.”5
According to this doctrine, the state by divine right may have
recourse to capital punishment, but it is not required to do so.
Thus, any particular society at any given point may conclude
that capital punishment is unnecessary, or may require that the
death penalty not be inflicted due to the circumstances of a
particular age or even a particular case. As we will see, popes
and bishops in different ages have held that capital punishment
was sometimes appropriate and sometimes not, given either the
intention or the circumstances. Thus, a few Fathers of the
Church counseled restraint in the use of capital punishment. By
contrast, St. Peter Damian, a Doctor of the Church, rebuked a
temporal lord for extending mercy to criminals instead of
executing some of them, to the harm of his subjects.6
Entailed in the magisterium’s acceptance of capital punishment is the idea that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil
(intrinsece malum). It is important to be precise about what an
intrinsically evil act is. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church
has it, “there are certain specific kinds of behavior that are
always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a
disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.”7 These acts are immoral simply on account of their moral object. Moreover, as
Firm a Foundation?: An Exegetical and Historical Critique of the “Ethical Perspective of
[Christian] Reconstructionism” Presented in Theonomy in Christian Ethics (Eugene,
Ore.: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2012).
5
Francesco Roberti, Pietro Palazzini, and Henry J. Yannone, Dictionary of Moral
Theology (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1962), 1009.
6
See n. 139 below.
7
CCC 1761. John F. Dedek, “Intrinsically Evil Acts: An Historical Study of the
Mind of St. Thomas,” The Thomist 43 (1979): 385-413.

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

John Paul II notes, neither circumstances nor intentions can
ever “transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object
into an act ‘subjectively’ good or defensible as a choice.”8 Thus,
if the act is intrinsically evil, it was, is, and always will be evil.
The Church has taught that among such intrinsically evil acts
are homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, voluntary suicide,
and prostitution.9
II. SACRED SCRIPTURE
The Second Vatican Council holds that the books of both the
Old and the New Testaments in their entirety, with all their
parts, are sacred and canonical because, written under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author
and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. While
the sacred authors “made use of their powers and abilities . . .
they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only
those things which He wanted.”10 Therefore, since everything
asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held
to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of
Scripture must be acknowledged as “teaching solidly, faithfully
and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred
writings for the sake of salvation.”11
The Old Testament is exceedingly clear that God killed
humans punitively either directly or indirectly. He killed a
number of individuals such as Lot’s wife, Er, Onan, King
Ahaziah, Jeroboam, and Jehoram.12 He killed Uzzah for touch-

8

John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 81.
Ibid., 80.
10
Dei Verbum, 11.
11
Ibid.
12
Gen 19:4-5; Gen 38:7; Gen 38:9-10; Exod 12:29; Exod 14:28; Lev 10:1-3; Num
11:1-3; Num 14:36-38; Num 16:27-32; Num 16:35; Num 21:4-9; Num 25:9; Josh
10:10-11; 1 Sam 6:19; 1 Sam 25:38; 2 Sam 12:14-18; 2 Sam 24:10-17; 1 Kgs
13:21-24; 1 Kgs 14:10-18; 1 Kgs 20:35-36; 1 Kgs 22:51; 2 Kgs 1:9-12; 2 Kgs
17:25-26; 2 Kgs 19:35; 2 Chr 13:20; and 2 Chr 21:14-19. All biblical citations are
from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Expanded Edition, Revised Standard Version
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).
9

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE MAGISTERIUM

357

ing the ark as it was beginning to tip over.13 He also repeatedly
killed various sized groups for sinning against him. For
example, he killed the entire human and animal populations of
the earth, saving only Noah, the seven other members of his
family, and two of each kind of animal.14 He also killed the
populations of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah except for
Lot and his family.15 In response to Pharaoh’s obstinacy, God
killed all the firstborn of Egypt. He personally takes responsibility for these actions, saying, “For I will pass through the
land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the
land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.”16 He killed forty-two
youths for mocking Elisha’s baldness,17 and he killed a number
of Israelites for complaining about him and for complaining
about food.18
God also frequently commanded that humans execute other
human beings for a whole series of infractions of his divine law.
After the Flood, for example, God made a covenant with Noah
that included the following law: “Whoever sheds the blood of
man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his
own image” (Gen 9:6). This command was essentially reissued
in the Mosaic period (Num 35:33). There are several things to
note about this Noahide law. First, contrary to the suggestion of
some contemporary theologians that the death penalty as such is
contrary to the dignity of man,19 God in Genesis makes exactly
the opposite claim. The divine command to execute those who
13

2 Sam 6:6-7.
Gen 6:7.
15
Gen 19:4-5; Ezek 16:46-50.
16
Exod 12:12.
17
2 Kgs 2:23-24.
18
Num 11:1-35.
19
E. Christian Brugger, Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition,
2d ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), 188. Rino Fischella,
“The Death Penalty Is Inadmissible,” L'osservatore romano, Eng. ed., August 3, 2018,
pp. 1, 6. James J. Megivern, The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey
(New York: Paulist Press, 1997), 488.
14

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

murder is based on man’s dignity as a creature made in God’s
image. Second, in the context of Genesis, Noah and his family
were the only humans left, and therefore this law was intended
to apply to all humans. Third, some theologians have suggested
that in evaluating these Noahide laws, we should have recourse
to Aquinas’s distinction between ceremonial, judicial, and moral
laws. One could argue that the command is merely part of the
judicial law, and therefore abrogated with the coming of the
New Covenant. Aquinas, however, does not see the moral
content of the Noahide law as part of judicial or ceremonial
law, but rather as part of the moral law.20 Moreover, if one
examines the other Noahide laws (e.g., “be fruitful and
multiply,” and the permission to eat animal flesh), they do not
appear to be part of the ceremonial law.21 Fourth, one could
argue that this could not possibly be a justification for capital
punishment since, according to the Church’s traditional doctrine, only the state has the authority to execute someone, and
Noah simply was not a state. However, in the context of
Genesis, Noah’s family were the only humans left, and so Noah
was both the head of the family and the head of the inchoate
state.
God also commanded others to kill as ministers of his justice.
God commanded the Israelites to kill everyone in the cities of
the Canaanites (Deut 20:16-18). God also sent an angel to kill
185,000 men in an Assyrian camp (2 Kgs 19:35). God also
ordered Saul and the Israelites to kill the Amalekites (1 Sam 15).
God gave another and more expansive series of laws in the
Mosaic Law, and this contains a number of religious practices
that require the death penalty: (i) sacrificing to false gods (Exod
22:20), (ii) violating the Sabbath (Exod 35:2; Num 15:32-36),
(iii) blaspheming (Lev 24:10-16, 23), (iv) being a false prophet

20

STh II-II, q. 64, a. 2. Aquinas, Collationes de decem praeceptis, a. 7.
One could argue that the law forbidding the eating of “meat that has its lifeblood
still in it” is an indication that Genesis 9:6 is part of the judicial or ceremonial law. This
is more likely a prohibition of eating flesh that was severed from a living animal. Even if
it is a ceremonial law, it is a ceremonial law that flows from the moral law just issued
granting permission to eat animal flesh.
21

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359

(Deut 13:1-11), (v) sacrificing humans (Lev 20:2), (vi)
divination (Exod 22:18; Lev 19:26, 31; 20:27; Deut 18:9-14).
In the Mosaic Law, God also mandated the death penalty for
a number of moral behaviors. Thus the following sins require
death: (i) murder (Exod 21:12-14, 22-23; Lev 24:17; Num
35:16-21), (ii) kidnapping (Exod 21:16; Deut 24:7), (iii)
striking or cursing one’s parents (Exod 21:15, 17; Lev 20:9),
(iv) persistent rebelliousness against the Lord’s priest or judge
(Deut 17:12), (v) adultery (Lev 20:10-21; Deut 22:22), (vi)
bestiality (Exod 22:19; Lev 20:15-16), (vii) incest (Lev 18:6-17;
20:11-14), (viii) sodomy (Lev 18:22; 20:13), (ix) fornication
(Lev 21:9; Deut 22:20-21), and (x) rape of an engaged or
married woman (Deut 22:25-27).
The New Testament repeatedly reaffirms that God inflicted
death upon all mankind as a punishment for Adam’s sin, death
and destruction for Sodom and Gomorrah, and the death of
mankind through a flood.22 The New Testament therefore does
not distance itself from the Old Testament claims about God’s
killing, although, of course, these are seen in a new light. Moreover, God in the New Testament both directly and indirectly
kills individuals for personal sin. Thus, God directly kills both
Ananias and Sapphira for withholding money from the
community.23 God also indirectly kills King Herod through the
ministry of an angel.24 In the book of Revelation, it is prophesied that God will command the angels to unleash seven plagues
upon mankind.25 It also states that God will kill those who are
part of the Devil’s last army and the dead will be as numerous as
“the sand of the sea.”26
Romans 13:1-4 was consistently cited across the ages as
supporting capital punishment. Paul writes:

22

2 Pet 2:6; 1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 2:5.
Acts 5:1-10.
24
Acts 12:23.
25
Rev 16:2-17.
26
Rev 20:8-9.
23

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no
authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
[2] Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed,
and those who resist will incur judgment. [3] For rulers are not a terror to
good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority?
Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, [4] for he is God’s
servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the
sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the
wrongdoer.

There are three things to note about this passage. First, the
entire passage hinges on what is meant by “bearing the sword.”
The word “sword” (mavcairan) in Romans 13 refers to the
sword typically carried by government officials.27 It was carried
by prison guards, as we see in Acts 16:27 where a guard, upon
realizing that Paul was free, attempted to take his life with his
own sword. We also see in Acts 12:2 that King Herod had
James put to death “with the sword” (mavcairan). Clearly, this
term was used in biblical Greek to signify not only capital
punishment but also an instrument to inflict death. Hebrews
11:37 speaks of those who “were killed with the sword”
(mavcairan). The Vulgate translates mavcairan as gladius, which
was the sword carried by soldiers. Gladius also was used in the
expression ius gladii, that is, “the right to try and punish capital
crimes.”28 Given all this testimony it cannot be said that the
term mavcairan was used in the New Testament to refer merely
to government authority in general and not to include capital
punishment. Second, Paul clearly affirms that the state is an
27
Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich, and G. W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of
the New Testament: Abridged in One Volume (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans,
1985), 572-73; William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter
Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian
Literature: A Translation and Adaptation of the Fourth Revised and Augmented Edition
of Walter Bauer's Griechisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des neuen
Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1979), 496.
28
P. G. W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002),
765; E. A. Andrews, William Freund, Charlton Thomas Lewis, and Charles Short, A
Latin Dictionary Founded on Andrews' Edition of Freund's Latin Dictionary (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1998), 816.

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361

instrumental means whereby God’s justice is executed, and that
God uses officers of the state “to execute his wrath on
evildoers.” Third, in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the death
penalty is a means to an end, and from this one should conclude
that human life does not have an absolute value. Fourth, the
text does not require the state to use the death penalty but
simply affirms that the ruler can wield the sword with justice.
III. ORDINARY AND UNIVERSAL MAGISTERIUM
The Second Vatican Council taught that “it is not from
Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty
about everything which has been revealed.”29 While the
privilege of authoritatively interpreting the Scriptures is limited
exclusively to the teaching office of the Church, this office is
not superior to God’s word but instead serves it, “teaching only
what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it
scrupulously and explaining it faithfully” (emphasis added).30
The Church, as the council notes,
has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the
Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers
to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s word and of
Christ’s body. She has always maintained them, and continues to do so,
together with sacred tradition, as the supreme rule of faith.31

There are two ways that the Church can teach infallibly.
First, the pope alone or with the college of bishops can
solemnly proclaim a matter of faith or morals to be held
definitively; this is the extraordinary magisterium. Second, a
doctrine can be defined as infallible by a series of acts of the

29

Dei Verbum, 9.
Ibid., 21.
31
Ibid.
30

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

ordinary and universal magisterium.32 In Lumen Gentium 25
the Second Vatican Council articulated the conditions under
which the ordinary and universal magisterium can teach in a
definitive way:
Although the bishops individually do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility,
they nevertheless proclaim the teaching of Christ infallibly, even when they
are dispersed throughout the world, provided that they remain in communion
with each other and with the successor of Peter and that in authoritatively
teaching on a matter of faith and morals they agree in one judgment as that to
be held definitively.33

The text presents four conditions to be met in determining
whether a teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium
should be understood as taught infallibly. The first condition is
that although dispersed throughout the world, the bishops are
in hierarchical communion with one another and with the
pope.34
The second condition is that the bishops teach authentically
on a matter of faith or morals. This means that each bishop
must intend to speak with the authority of his office and not
32
On the origin of the concept of the ordinary and universal magisterium, see John
P. Boyle, “The Ordinary Magisterium: Towards a History of the Concept,” Heythrop
Journal 20 (1979): 380-98; 21 (1980): 14-29. See also John P. Boyle, Church Teaching
Authority: Historical and Theological Studies (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1995), 10-29.
33
“Licet singuli praesules infallibilitatis praerogativa non polleant, quando tamen,
etiam per orbem dispersi, sed communionis nexum inter se et cum Successore Petri
servantes, authentice res fidei et morum docentes in unam sententiam tamquam
definitive tenendam conveniunt, doctrinam Christi infallibiliter enuntiant. Quod adhuc
manifestius habetur quando, in Concilio Oecumenico coadunati, pro universa Ecclesia
fidei et morum doctores et iudices sunt, quorum definitionibus fidei obsequio est
adhaerendum” (Lumen Gentium, 25 [Peter Hünermann, Helmut Hoping, Robert L.
Fastiggi, Anne Englund Nash, and Heinrich Denzinger, eds., Compendium of Creeds,
Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, 43rd ed. (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2012), 4149] [hereafter DH]). On the development of Lumen Gentium,
25, see Umberto Betti, La dottrina sull’ episcopato nel capitolo III della constituzione
dommatica Lumen gentium (Rome: Città Nuova, 1968).
34
Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 1, Christian Moral Principles
(Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), 843. Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., Magisterium:
Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 124.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE MAGISTERIUM

363

merely as a private theologian or as a believer. The phrase “faith
and morals” was customary by the sixteenth century but admitted a wide range of meanings.35 In contemporary theology,
the term “faith” refers to those matters of belief which pertain
to the deposit of faith. The term mores is slightly more difficult
to define. Historically, mores was often used by theologians and
the magisterium in very different ways, covering a range of
issues from moral principles to issues of ecclesiastical discipline.
In contemporary usage, however, the term “morals” refers to
those teachings which concern human acts, that is, that kind of
activity that proceeds, as Aquinas puts it, from a “deliberate
will.”36 For the Church to teach authentically on mores, these
must pertain to one’s salvation and they must be either per se
good or per se evil.37 Moreover, mores here does not concern
what is done per se but rather concerns the intellectual judgment on the goodness or badness of those actions.
The third condition is that the bishops agree in one
judgment. There are two things to be clear about here. First, as
Francis A. Sullivan points out, it is “not enough for [bishops] to
not contradict the pope”; they must act in their function of
“judges of faith and morals.”38 Second, it is not necessary that
every bishop agree with the proposed teaching nor that every
bishop think that the doctrine is definitively proposed. A simple
35

Piet Fransen, “A Short History of the Meaning of the Formula ‘Fides et mores,’”
in Hermeneutics of Councils and Other Studies, ed. H. E. Mertens and F. de Graeve
(Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press, 1985), 287-318; Maurice Bevenot, “Faith and Morals in
Vatican I and in the Council of Trent,” Heythrop Journal 3 (1962): 15-30; John
Mahoney, The Making of Moral Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 120-74; Johann
Beumer, “Res fidei et morum: Die Entwicklung eines theologischen Begriffes in den
Dekretem der drei letzten Okumenischen Konzilien,” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum
2 (1979): 112-34; Teodoro López Rodriguez, “‘Fides et mores’ en Trento,” Scripta
Theologica 5 (1973): 175-221; Marcelino Zalba, S.J., “‘Omnis et salutaris veritas et
morum disciplina’: Sentido de la expresión ‘mores’ en el Concilio de Trento,”
Gregorianum 54 (1973): 679-715.
36
STh I-II, q. 1, a. 1.
37
Bellarmine, De Controversiis, 3.4.5 (Paris ed., 1:804).
38
Sullivan, Magisterium, 125.

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

moral, not mathematical, unanimity is sufficient to show that
the bishops agree in one judgment.39
Lastly, bishops must propose the teaching as something “to
be held definitively by all the faithful.” This condition requires
that the teaching is not proposed as being something optional
and that the faithful have an obligation to accept it. As Germain
Grisez correctly notes, “in the case of moral teaching, however,
it is unlikely that those proposing the teaching will explicitly
present it as something to be intellectually accepted as true; it is
more likely that they will leave this demand implicit and will
propose it as a norm which followers of Jesus must try to observe in their lives.”40 It is also the case that the moral teaching
could be proposed simply as the express content of Scripture or
as part of the content of revelation, which would also be
sufficient for showing that it is proposed to be definitively held
(definitive tenenda). Thus, John Ford and Grisez rightly argue
that one does not necessarily find explicit language concerning
the definitive nature of the teaching; instead they note that
there are other ways in which the magisterium and theologians
can indicate that it is definitive. They write:
If one considers the explicit appeals made to Gen. 38:9-10 together with the
implicit appeals made to the same passage, to Rom. 1:26-27, and to the Ten
Commandments, one realizes that most who handed on the Catholic teaching
on contraception claimed the authority of Scripture, which they believed to be
the authority of divine revelation, in support of this teaching. Whether one
thinks this claim was valid or not—a question we are not considering here—
no one can deny that those who made it proposed the teaching on behalf of
which they made it as a moral norm to be held definitively.41

Thus, when the above conditions are met, appeals to Scripture
are sufficient for showing that a teaching is being proposed as
having to be held definitively.

39

Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, 1:843.
Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 2, Living a Christian Life (Quincy,
Ill.: Franciscan Press, 1993), 43.
41
John C. Ford and Germain Grisez, “Contraception and the Infallibility of the
Ordinary Magisterium,” Theological Studies 39 (1978): 284-85.
40

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365

Evidence of the ordinary and universal magisterium can be
either direct or indirect. In the case of the ordinary papal magisterium, for example, direct evidence of magisterial teaching is
found in such things as encyclical letters, apostolic constitutions,
decrees of the pontiffs, and decisions of the Roman congregations. Indirect evidence of the ordinary papal magisterium
may be found in, for example, canon law, approved liturgical
prayers, and the writings of the Doctors of the Church.42 There
is also evidence of direct magisterial teaching of bishops found
in such things as the writings of the Fathers of the Church and
in pastoral instructions of bishops. Often we only have indirect
evidence of episcopal teaching, found in such things as the
consensus of theologians, approved theological texts, and
approved catechisms.43 There are a number of steps in the
practical order that have to be taken to identify this evidence,
since the universality of the teaching must be established both
synchronically and diachronically.44 One must sift through the
various acts of the ordinary magisterium in order to determine
if there is an ordinary and universal teaching—a daunting
process, given the sheer volume of material to consider. For this
reason, some theologians have proposed shortcuts so that one
42
These things do not come from the papal magisterium as such, but are approved
by it. As we shall see, the consensus of theologians can be regarded as belonging to the
ordinary and universal magisterium insofar as the theologians are approved by the
magisterium. In the same way, insofar as the designation “Doctor of the Church” comes
from the pope, the testimony of the Doctors can be regarded as belonging to the
ordinary papal magisterium. This is most obvious when the pope, in making the
designation, says in what respect the specific Doctor’s teaching is of value for the
Church. But even in the absence of this, and especially considering those Doctors who
were not designated by a papal act (i.e., those from the patristic era), the consensus of
the Doctors receives special approbation, and therefore may be used as evidence of the
mind of the papal magisterium.
43
Timothy Zapelena, De Ecclesia Christi, 6th ed. (Rome: Gregorian University,
1954-55), 2:185-86. Christian Pesch, Praelectiones dogmaticae: Institutiones
propaedeuticae ad sacram theologiam, 6th ed. (Friburgi Brisgoviae: Herder, 1924),
1:326.
44
Francis A. Sullivan, Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the
Magisterium (New York: Paulist Press, 1996), 106.

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

need not go through two thousand years of acts of the ordinary
magisterium. Francis A. Sullivan, for example, has argued that
the consensus of theologians and the consensus fidelium are
signs that something has been proposed by the ordinary and
universal magisterium.45 Brian Ferme has proposed that one can
look for confirming acts of the papal magisterium.46
A) Ordinary Papal Magisterium
The ordinary papal magisterium is an important source for
the teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium, since
the pope teaches as “the supreme shepherd and teacher of all
the faithful.”47 From the early Church until modern times,
popes have preached and written on capital punishment. The
first known papal discussion of capital punishment occurred in
A.D. 405, when Pope St. Innocent I (d. 417) responded to a
question posed by Exsuperius, the bishop of Toulouse. Exsuperius had asked a question about whether baptized Christians
who were in positions of authority could participate in putting
others to death. Innocent answered:
You also inquired about those who, having been baptized, took on roles of
public administration and either carried out only torments or even issued a
death sentence. About these things we read nothing defined by the forefathers.
For they remembered that these powers had been granted by God, and that,
for the punishment of malefactors, the sword was permitted. They remembered that God is the minister given for vengeance upon such evildoers
(Rom. 13: 1, 4). How therefore would they reprove something which they see
was granted through the authority of God? About these matters therefore,
what has been observed hitherto, we hold to, lest we may seem either to
overturn sound order or to go against the authority of the Lord.48
45

Ibid., 104.
Brian Ferme, “The Response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to
the dubium Concerning the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: Authority and
Significance,” Periodica 85 (1996): 701-10.
47
Lumen Gentium, 25.
48
“Quaesitum etiam est super his, qui post baptismum administraverunt, et aut
tormenta sola exercuerunt, aut etiam capitalem protulerere sententiam; De his nihil
legimus a majoribus definitum. Meminerant enim a Deo potestates has fuisse concessas,
et propter vindictam noxiorum, gladium fuisse permissum, et Dei esse ministrum
46

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It is clear that, in this magisterial act, the pope recognized that
both he and the “forefathers” understood that it is not sinful to
participate in capital punishment since the state receives this
authority from God. In referencing Romans 13, the pope made
it clear that he considered this not only part of divine revelation, but also part of the New Law. Moreover, in proposing it
as part of the New Law, Innocent was proposing it as a doctrine
to be definitively held.
Gregory the Great (ca. 540-604), in a letter to a bishop,
made a passing reference to the death penalty, but he refrained
from commenting on its morality.49 In a letter to Passivus,
bishop of Fermo, however, Gregory noted that a certain Importunus should be ordained as long as he was not found guilty
of having committed any crime that “sacred law” (lex sacra) has
penalized with death.50 This is almost certainly a reference to a
Levitical order that homosexuals be killed (Lev 20:13). It is
clear that the pope viewed the death penalty as at least part of
the Old Law and therefore not intrinsically evil. Moreover,
while it is true that Gregory is not advocating the death of
homosexuals according to the New Law, he is willing to use the
moral content of the Old Law as reason for not ordaining
someone.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Church was
confronted with the Waldensian heresy. In 1208, Pope Innocent
III imposed a profession of faith upon those Waldensians who
wished to be reconciled to the Church. In 1209 and 1210 the
pope modified this profession to include the following:

vindicem in hujusmodi datum (Rom. 13:1, 4). Quemadmodum igitur reprehenderent
factum, quod auctore Deo viderent esse concessum? De his ergo ita, ut hactenus
servatum est , sic habemus, ne aut disciplinam evertere, aut contra auctoritatem Domini
venire videamur. Ipsis autem in ratione reddenda gesta sua omnia servabuntur”
(Innocent I, Epist. 6, C. 3. 8, ad Exsuperium, Episcopum Tolosanum, February 20, 405
[PL 20:499]).
49
Gregory the Great, Epistle XLVII, to Sabinianus (NPNF second series, 12:161).
50
Gregory the Great, lib. 12, ep. 12 (PL 77:1226–27).

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

With regard to the secular power, we affirm that it can exercise a judgment of
blood without mortal sin, provided that in carrying out the punishment it
proceeds, not out of hatred, but judiciously, not in a precipitous manner, but
with caution.51

While this is not a definitive declaration, acceptance of this
doctrine was required to re-establish ecclesial communion.
Early in his career as a revolutionary, Luther had repeatedly
denied that it was consistent with the gospel to kill heretics,52
although he would later retract this view, on the basis of
Romans 13.53 In any case, in 1520 Leo X issued the bull Exsurge
Domine, in which he identified forty-one errors and gave
Luther sixty days to repudiate these or be excommunicated.
Among the forty-one condemned propositions is the claim,
“that heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit” (prop.
33).54 Many theologians—e.g., Billot, Dublanchy, Fessler,
Franzelin, Gonzalez, and Journet—considered this document as
containing a series of infallible condemnations.55 The difficulty
51

Additum a. 1210: “De potestate saeculari asserimus, quod sine peccato mortali
potest iudicium sanguinis exercere, dummodo ad inferendam vindictam non odio, sed
iudicio, non incaute, sed consulte procedat” (DH 795).
52
Luther, Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute (1518) (WA
1:522-628).
53
Luther, Commentary on the 82nd Psalm (LW 13:39-72). See also John Stanley
Oyer, Lutheran Reformers against Anabaptists: Luther, Melanchthon, and Menius, and
the Anabaptists of Central Germany (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1964).
54
“33. Haereticos comburi est contra voluntatem Spiritus” (DH 1483).
55
Louis Billot, Tractatus de ecclesia Christi: sive continuatio theologiae de verbo
incarnato (Rome: Universitatis Gregorianae, 1927), 642-44; Edmond Dublanchy,
“Infaillibilité du pape,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, 7:1638-1717; Joseph
Fessler, The True and the False Infallibility of the Popes: A Controversial Reply to Dr.
Schulte (London: Burns and Oates, 1875), 107; J.-B. Franzelin, Tractaus de divina
traditione et scriptura (Rome: Propaganda Fide, 1870), 112-13; S. Gonzalez, “Immo
dubitari potest. Num bulla Leonis X contineat veram definitionem ex cathedra,” Sacrae
Theologiae Summa (Madrid: Biblioteca de autores cristianos, 1962), 517; Charles
Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate: An Essay in Speculative Theology (London:
Sheed and Ward, 1955), 446. A number of more recent theologians do not think this
document contains infallible definitions: Sullivan, Creative Fidelity, 84-86; Klaus Schatz,
Vaticanum I, 1869–1870, vol. 3, Unfehlbarkeitsdiskussion und Rezeption (Paderborn:
Ferdinand Schöningh, 1994), 331-39; Klaus Schatz, “Welche bisherigen päpstlichen
Lehrentscheidungen sind ‘ex cathedra’? Historische und theologische Überlegungen,” in

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is that the censured propositions were only globally condemned
as “heretical, or scandalous, or false, or offensive to pious ears,
or seductive to simple minds, and standing in the way of the
catholic faith.”56 It is impossible to conclude which of those
specific theological censures should attach to proposition 33.
Popes have also approved of the death penalty in the
practical order, and these approbations are often accompanied
by magisterial teaching. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX issued the
decretal Excommunicamus, in which he ordered that “those
condemned [as heretics] by the church may be relinquished to
the secular judgment, to be punished with the deserved
punishment [animadversio debita].”57 After Gregory IX the
phrase “deserved punishment” included the death penalty.58 In
1245 Innocent IV, in the bull Cum adversus haereticam
pravitatem, reaffirmed Gregory IX’s decretal.59 This was
repeated by Gregory’s successors for the next three centuries.
In the sixteenth century, several popes decreed the death
penalty for a number of offenses. Pope Paul III’s constitution
Licet ab initio (July 21, 1542) established the Supreme Sacred
Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, the
predecessor to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
(CDF). This congregation was established in order “to
Dogmengeschichte und katholische Theologie, ed. Werner Löser, Karl Lehmann, and
Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Würzburg, 1985), 404–22; Paul C. Empie, T. Austin
Murphy, and Joseph A. Burgess, eds., Teaching Authority and Infallibility in the Church,
The National Catholic Lutheran Dialogue (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House,
1980), 50.
56
“Praefatos omnes et singulos articulos seu errores tamquam, ut praemittitur,
respective haereticos, aut scandalosos, aut falsos, aut piarum aurium offensivos, vel
simplicium mentium seductivos, et veritati catholicae obviantes, damnamus,
reprobamus, atque omnino reicimus” (DH 1492).
57
Gregory IX, Excommunicamus (Mansi 23: col. 73-74).
58
Christine Caldwell Ames, Righteous Persecution: Inquisition, Dominicans, and
Christianity in the Middle Ages, Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 184; idem, Medieval Heresies: Christianity, Judaism, and
Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 217.
59
Innocent IV, Cum adversus haereticam pravitatem (Mansi 23: col. 586-87).

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investigate all and each who wander away from the Lord and
the Catholic faith, as well as those suspected of heresy, together
with their supporters and defenders, public and private, direct
and indirect.”60 The bull specified the punishments that could
be meted out to heretics, including imprisonment, confiscation
of goods, and execution.61 In the Roman Catechism, Pope St.
Pius V (r. 1566-72) asserted that punishing malefactors with
death is not only consistent with the divine law, but is part of
the divine law.62 He also issued a bull enacting the death penalty
for those who harbored murderers and bandits.63 In two
separate bulls, Cum primum (April 1, 1566) and Horrendum
illud scelus (August 30, 1568), St. Pius V ordered that sodomitic
clergy be handed over to the secular authorities to be
executed.64 These two bulls contain magisterial teaching on the
immorality of sodomy by recalling the punishments that God
inflicted on the sodomites at Sodom and Gomorrah. Pope
Sixtus V (r. 1585-90) issued three bulls decreeing the death
penalty for incest, public adultery, and abortion.65 These bulls
cannot be viewed as acts merely of the political head of the
Papal States without also being papal magisterial acts, for two
reasons. First, these bulls contain both juridical acts and
magisterial teaching. Second, they would be self-contradictory:
it is difficult to understand how Pope Paul III could set up in a
papal act the very body to guarantee orthodoxy and simul60

Paul III, Licet ab initio (Luigi Tomassetti, Charles Cocquelines, Francesco Gaude,
and Luigi Bilio, Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum romanorum
pontificum taurinensis [Augustae Taurinorum: Seb. Franco et Henrico Dalmazzo
editoribus, 1857], 6:344 [hereafter Bullarium Romanum]).
61
Ibid. (Bullarium Romanum 6:335).
62
Catechismus Romanus seu Catechismus ex decreto Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos
Pii Quinti Pont. Max. iussu editus, ed. Petrus Rodríguez et al. (Vatican City: Libreria
Editrice Vaticana/Ediciones Univ. de Navarra, 1989), 465-66.
63
Pius V, Indefessa pasloralis (Bullarium Romanum, 7:452f., 7:456f.).
64
Pius V, Cum primum (Bullarium Romanum, 7:437); Pius V, Horrendum illud
scelus (Bullarium Romanum, 7:702-3).
65
On incest: Sixtus V, De incestis (April 5, 1587) (Bullarium Romanum, 8:830-33);
on adultery: Sixtus V, Christiana pietas (November. 3, 1586) (Bullarium Romanum,
8:789-94); on abortion: Sixtus V, Contra abortum (October 29, 1588) (Bullarium
Romanum, 9:39-42).

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taneously decree that it should act in a way contrary to the
divine law. It is equally difficult to understand how Pope Sixtus
could issue a bull decrying abortion as murder and then in the
same decree order another form of murder.
In the nineteenth century, Pope Leo XIII affirmed that
“clearly, divine law, both that which is known by the light of
reason and that which is revealed in Sacred Scripture, strictly
forbids anyone, outside of public cause, to kill or wound a man
unless compelled to do so in self-defense.”66 One will note again
that the pope clearly recognized that this teaching is part of
“divine law.” In a recent book on capital punishment, Edward
Feser and Joseph Bessette repeatedly emphasize the fact that the
Papal States had its own executioner for hundreds of years.67
In the early twentieth century, Pope St. Pius X authorized
the publication of his catechism, which contained approbation
of the state’s right to kill.68 In Casti connubii (1930) Pope Pius
XI, while decrying abortion, approved of the states’ right to kill
malefactors.69 Pope Ven. Pius XII clearly affirmed both the
doctrine and its grounding in divine revelation in a series of
addresses.70
Pope St. John Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium vitae
(1995), approved of the permissibility of the death penalty but
added the following qualification:

66

Leo XIII, Pastoralis Officii (1891), 2.
Edward Feser and Joseph M. Bessette, By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic
Defense of Capital Punishment (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), 9-10, 128.
68
St. Pius X, Compendio della dottrina cristiana prescritto da sua santita papa Pio X
alle diocesi della provincia di Roma (Rome: Tipografia Vaticana, 1905), 164.
69
Pius XI, Casti connubii, 64.
70
Pius XII, Address to the First International Congress of Histopathology of the
Nervous System, September 14, 1952 (AAS 44 [1952]: 787); idem, “Discorso di sua di
Sua Santità Pio XII ai partecipanti al VI convegno nazionale di studio della unione dei
giuristi cattolici Italiani,” AAS 47 (1955), 81-82; idem, “Ai Parroci ed ai Quaresimalisti
Di Roma, Sulla Osservanza dei Commandamenti di Dio, (23 Feb. 1944),” in Discorsi e
radiomessaggi di sua santità Pio XII (Vatican: Tipografia Poligotta Vaticana, 1959),
5:197.
67

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

It is clear that, for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the
punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go
to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity:
in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society.
Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the
penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.71

There are three things to note about this paragraph. First, the
pope does not argue that capital punishment is intrinsically evil.
He instead argues that “as a consequence of the possibilities
which the State has for effectively preventing crime,” occasions
for using capital punishment “are very rare, if not practically
non-existent.” His argument is dependent on those circumstances actually existing in the modern world. John Paul’s
intervention is what the CDF calls an “intervention in the
prudential order.”72
In 1997, Pope John Paul II had the Catechism of the Catholic
Church amended so that it reflected his teaching in Evangelium
vitae. The one paragraph dedicated to capital punishment in the
1992 edition was expanded to three paragraphs. The new
paragraphs begin by reaffirming the traditional doctrine, stating
that “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude
recourse to the death penalty.”73 The text noted that if nonlethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety
from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means,
since these are more “in keeping with the concrete conditions of
71

John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, 56.
Donum veritatis, 24: “Finally, in order to serve the People of God as well as
possible, in particular, by warning them of dangerous opinions which could lead to
error, the Magisterium can intervene in questions under discussion which involve, in
addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements. . . . When it
comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could happen that
some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies. Bishops and their
advisors have not always taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire
complexity of a question.”
With respect to the pope’s argument, one could wonder about its accuracy as it
pertains to current civilizational and technological circumstances, and about its
relevance in the future as these circumstances change for the better or worse.
73
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2267. For the earlier version of this paragraph,
see Catéchisme de l’eglise catholique (Paris: Mame/Plon, 1992), 464.
72

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the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of
the human person.” The text concludes:
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for
effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense
incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the
possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the
offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”74

One should immediately note that the text is introduced by the
adverb “today,” emphasizing that this teaching is a magisterial
intervention in the prudential order.75 John Paul II then goes on
to give a practical reason why capital punishment is not an
absolute necessity today: the state’s ability to render the malefactor incapable of doing harm. This teaching was reaffirmed by
Pope Benedict XVI in the Compendium of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church.76
Pope Francis has taught on the subject of capital punishment
on at least five occasions, but three stand out.77 The first
74

“Revera nostris diebus, consequenter ad possibilitates quae Statui praesto sunt ut
crimen efficaciter reprimatur, illum qui hoc commisit, innoxium efficiendo, quin illi
definitive possibilitas substrahatur ut sese redimat, casus in quibus absolute necessarium
sit ut reus supprimatur, ‘admodum raro . . . intercidunt . . ., si qui omnino iam reapse
accidunt’” (CCC 2267).
75
CDF, Donum veritatis, 24.
76
“469. What kind of punishment may be imposed? The punishment imposed must
be proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Given the possibilities which the State
now has for effectively preventing crime by rendering one who has committed an
offense incapable of doing harm, the cases in which the execution of the offender is an
absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent” (Evangelium Vitae).
When non-lethal means are sufficient, authority should limit itself to such means
because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good, are
more in conformity with the dignity of the human person, and do not remove
definitively from the guilty party the possibility of reforming himself” (Compendium of
the Catechism of the Catholic Church [Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops, 2006], 137).
77
Pope Francis, “Pope Francis’ letter to two organizations dedicated to criminal law
and criminology,” L’osservatore romano, Eng. ed., June 13, 2014, 11. Pope Francis, “To

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

occasion occurred on March 20, 2015, when he called for the
abolition of capital punishment in a letter to the International
Commission against the Death Penalty. In this letter Pope
Francis states:
Today the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime
committed. It is an offense against the inviolability of life and the dignity of
the human person, one which contradicts God’s plan for man and society and
his merciful justice, and impedes the penalty from fulfilling any just objective.
It does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance.78

Pope Francis begins with the term “today,” thereby emphasizing, like St. John Paul II, that this teaching is a magisterial
intervention in the prudential order. The term “inadmissible”
(in Italian, “inammissibile”; in Latin, “non posse admitti”) simply means that a thing is not permitted, a far cry from being
intrinsically evil. One might argue that, in stating that “it is an
offense against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the
human person,” the pope is arguing that the death penalty is
intrinsically evil, but the pronoun “it” has as its antecedent the
death penalty today and not the death penalty simpliciter.
The second occasion occurred on October 11, 2017, when
the pope delivered an allocution to mark the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the apostolic constitution Fidei Depositum,
which promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In
this allocution Pope Francis states that “the death penalty is an
inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out,
abases human dignity. It is per se contrary to the Gospel.”79 The
the International Association of Criminal Law the Pope underlines the primacy of
human dignity,” L’osservatore romano, Eng. ed., October 31, 2014, 12. Pope Francis,
“The Pontiff to the International Commission against the Death Penalty: A failure of the
constitutional state,” L’osservatore romano, Eng. ed., March 27, 2015, 6. Pope Francis,
“On the 25th Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church,” L’osservatore romano, Eng. ed., October 13, 2017, 7. CDF, “Rescriptum ex
audientia SS.MI: On the Death Penalty,” L’osservatore romano, Eng. ed., August 3,
2018, 7.
78
Pope Francis, “The Pontiff to the International Commission against the Death
Penalty: A failure of the constitutional state,” 6.
79
Pope Francis, “On the 25th Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Catechism of
the Catholic Church,” 7.

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pope then calls for a modification of the Catechism. Later in his
allocution, however, the pope asserts that he is “not in any way
contradicting past teaching.”80 It is not immediately obvious
how these claims are reconcilable. This confusion is compounded by the fact that Francis’s claim that the death penalty
is “per se contrary to the Gospel” could be read in three very
different ways.
First, “per se contrary to the Gospel” could mean that the
death penalty is contrary to revelation and is intrinsically evil,
and indeed this is how it is read by many commentators. If it is
taken in this sense, then one must admit either that the magisterium is now proposing a doctrine contrary to the explicit
teaching of revelation (which, as shown above, clearly sanctions
and even prescribes capital punishment) or, if one wishes to
avoid that conclusion, that the Scriptures simply contain error
on this point. In either case, this interpretation is tantamount to
ascribing heresy to the papal teaching. Pope Francis asserted,
however, that he is “not in any way contradicting past
teaching.”81 Taking him at his word renders this first
interpretation impossible, since past popes, such as Innocent I
and St. Pius V, have taught that the death penalty is not
intrinsically evil and that this is part of revelation.
Second, “per se contrary to the Gospel” could mean that the
death penalty is contrary only to the New Law and not to the
Old Law. One might be inclined to read the pope this way,
since he appeals to the gospel and not to revelation simpliciter.
Even if it is the case that the death penalty is “per se contrary to
the Gospel,” this would not render the death penalty intrinsically evil. There are many things that are “per se contrary to
the Gospel” but are not intrinsically evil. Moreover, if the pope
is teaching that the death penalty is intrinsically evil, one ends
up right back at the consequences of the first reading, namely,
either that the magisterium is now teaching contrary to the
80
81

Ibid., 11.
Ibid.

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

explicit teaching of revelation, or that the Scriptures contain
error on this point. To escape these consequences, one could
argue that while the death penalty is not intrinsically evil, it was
abolished with the advent of the New Law, similar to circumcision.82 Again, Pope Francis asserts that he is “not in any way
contradicting past teaching.”83 Taking him at his word, then,
the death penalty cannot be inconsistent with the New Law,
since some popes, such as Innocent I, have taught not only that
the death penalty is not intrinsically evil, but that it is either
part of the New Law (Rom 13) or at least consistent with it.
Third, “per se contrary to the Gospel” could also be read as
meaning that “today” the death penalty is no longer permissible
on prudential grounds. This reading is supported by several
elements in the text. Pope Francis claims that he is not
contradicting previous Church teaching and that his teaching is
part of “the harmonious development of doctrine.”84 He would
then mean something like: the death penalty, as it is used in the
world today, is an offense against the dignity of the human
person as more fully revealed by Jesus Christ.
The pope goes on to say that “the harmonious development
of doctrine demands that we cease to defend arguments that
now appear clearly contrary to the new understanding of
Christian truth.”85 To interpret this as saying that Catholics
must reject the death penalty would ignore the fact that the
Church’s teaching that the death penalty is not intrinsically evil
is not an argument but rather part of the doctrinal content of
revelation. The text is probably better understood as claiming
that there are certain arguments once used in favor of the death

82

“Omnes ergo post illud tempus circumcisionis et sabbati reliquorumque legalium
observatores alienos a Christi fide denuntiat et salutis aeternae minime posse esse
participes, nisi aliquando ab iis erroribus resipiscant. Omnibus igitur, qui christiano
nomine gloriantur, praecipit omnino, quocumque tempore, vel ante vel post baptismum,
a circumcisione cessandum; quoniam sive quis in ea spem ponat, sive non, sine interitu
salutis aeternae observari omnino non potest” (DH 1348).
83
Pope Francis, “On the 25th Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Catechism of
the Catholic Church,” 11.
84
Ibid.
85
Ibid.

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penalty that should no longer be used. The text, however, does
not identify which arguments can no longer be used to defend
capital punishment; it is apparently left to theologians to discern which these might be.
The third occasion on which Pope Francis gave a teaching on
the death penalty occurred on August 1, 2018, when he
approved a revision of number 2267 of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church. The pope ordered that the following three
paragraphs be inserted:
2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority,
following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the
gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of
safeguarding the common good.
Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the
person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In
addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal
sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention
have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the
same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of
redemption.
Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the
death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and
dignity of the person,” and she works with determination for its abolition
worldwide.86

There are several things to note about this passage. First,
although the text cites Pope Francis’s October 11 allocution, it
does not contain the expression that the death penalty is “per se
contrary to the Gospel.” Instead, the new paragraphs return to
the term “inadmissible.” Second, the new paragraphs are not
proposed as contradicting the previous teaching of the magisterium. The first paragraph briefly restates the traditional doctrine, and the second paragraph does not even offer a criticism
of the traditional teaching as explained in the first paragraph.
Cardinal Ladaria, in the accompanying commentary, states
bluntly that “the new formulation of number 2267 of the
86

CDF, “Rescriptum ex Audientia SS.MI: On the Death Penalty,” 7.

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

Catechism expresses an authentic development of doctrine that
is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the
Magisterium.”87 If this is the case, we must conclude that the
new teaching does not contradict the previous two thousand
years of magisterial teaching on the death penalty. Third, and
most significant, this doctrine is not proposed as either the
teaching of revelation or as a dogmatic truth; rather, it is
proposed as a magisterial intervention in the prudential order.88
This is made clear in the second paragraph, which begins
“today,” as in John Paul II’s and Francis’s own previous statements, and it is reinforced by the “consequently” of the third
paragraph, ostensibly predicated on the judgment expressed in
the second. Therefore, this new teaching should be considered
as an authentic development of Pope St. John Paul II’s doctrine
which extends his prudential judgment concerning contemporary circumstances.
B) Catechisms
Catechisms are an important source for the faithful to know
those things taught by the ordinary magisterium.89 Catechisms
can reveal the teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium in two ways. First, a few catechisms were either
recommended, approved, or written by various popes. This is
perhaps most evident in a universal catechism such as the
Roman Catechism (1566) or the Catechism of the Catholic
87

Ibid.
CDF, Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei,
10. “When it comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could
happen that some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies.
Bishops and their advisors have not always taken into immediate consideration every
aspect or the entire complexity of a question. But it would be contrary to the truth, if,
proceeding from some particular cases, one were to conclude that the Church’s
Magisterium can be habitually mistaken in its prudential judgments, or that it does not
enjoy divine assistance in the integral exercise of its mission. In fact, the theologian, who
cannot pursue his discipline well without a certain competence in history, is aware of
the filtering which occurs with the passage of time. This is not to be understood in the
sense of a relativization of the tenets of the faith” (CDF, Donum veritatis, 24).
89
Pesch, Praelectiones dogmaticae, 1:326.
88

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Church (1992), but it is also true of other catechisms. Pope
Clement VIII, for example, ordered the use of Cardinal
Bellarmine’s catechisms in Rome and the surrounding area. In
1633, Pope Urban VIII recommended the use of the same
catechism in mission territory throughout the world. Pope
Benedict XIV recommended Bellarmine’s catechisms to be used
in every diocese of the world,90 and they were eventually
translated into at least sixty languages.91 Second, catechisms
were sometimes written by bishops in order to convey the faith
of the Church and as such can be considered authentic acts of
the magisterium. Third, most catechisms received approbation,
such as a foreword, recommendation, or an imprimatur, from
members of the magisterium.
Perhaps the most important catechism on the issue of capital
punishment is the Roman Catechism. The Roman Catechism of
1566, authorized by the Council of Trent and prepared under
Pope St. Pius V, treats of capital punishment when it discusses
the fifth commandment. It lists five exceptions to the commandment, including the following one on capital punishment:
The power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates because
theirs is the responsibility under law to punish the guilty and protect the
innocent. Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thou shall
not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For
the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is
fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the
guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives. In the Psalms we find a
vindication of this right: “Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in
the land, cutting off all evildoers from the city of the Lord” (Ps. 101:8).92
90
James Brodrick, The Life and Work of Blessed Robert Francis Cardinal Bellarmine,
S. J.: 1542-1621 (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, Ltd., 1928), 1:396.
91
Carlos Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Brussels: Schepens;
Paris: Picard, 1890), 2:1182-1204.
92
“Alterum permissum caedis genus est quod ad eos magistratus pertinet quibus data
est necis potestas, qua ex legum praescripto iudicioque in facinorosos homines
animadvertunt, et innocentes defendunt. Quo in munere dum iuste versantur, non modo
ii caedis non sunt rei, sed huic divinae legi qua caedes vetatur maxime oboediunt. Cum
enim legi huic finis is propositus sit, ut hominum vitae, salutique consulatur,

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

The Roman Catechism is clear that the Church’s teaching on
capital punishment is not contradictory to the fifth commandment, and, more important, it sees this right to punish the
guilty by death as part of the content of sacred Scripture. The
successors of Pope St. Pius V repeatedly either recommended
this text or praised it in the highest possible terms down to the
twentieth century.93 Pope Clement XIII, for example, said that
in this catechism was “compiled the teaching which is common
to the whole Church and which is far removed from every
danger of error.”94 Thus, Clement XIII did not think that this
teaching was one that was merely tolerated or could in some
way be incorrect.
After the Roman Catechism, a large number of catechisms
were produced, and these were entirely consistent with it on
this point. Bellarmine’s catechism taught that princes and
magistrates act as “ministers of God” when they kill evildoers,
citing Romans 13:4. Moreover, killing the evildoer is presented
as “an act of justice.”95 Other widely used catechisms were those
of St. Peter Canisius. These were so widely adopted in Germanspeaking lands that even into the twentieth century the
catechisms were called “the Canisius.”96 In his Summa doctrinae
christianae, Canisius taught that the “legitimate authority” can
use capital punishment, citing Genesis 9:6 and Matthew
magistratuum item, qui legitimi sunt scelerum vindices, animadversiones eodem
spectant, ut, audacia et iniuria suppliciis repressa, tuta sit hominum vita. Quare David:
In matutino, inquit, interficiebam omnes peccatores terrae, ut disperderem de civitate
Domini omnes operantes iniquitatem” (Catechismus Romanus seu Catechismus ex
decreto Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos Pii Quinti Pont. Max. iussu editus, ed. Petrus
Rodríguez et al. [Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana/Ediciones Univ. de Navarra,
1989], 465-66).
93
See Pope Benedict XIV, Etsi minime (February 7, 1742); Pope Leo XIII, Depuis le
jour (September 8, 1899), 23; Pope St. Pius X, Acerbo Nimis (April 15, 1905).
94
Clement XIII, In Dominico agro (June 14, 1761), in The Papal Encyclicals,
1939-58, ed. Claudia Carlen (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pierian Press, 1990), 1:130 (emphasis
added).
95
Robert Bellarmine, Dichiarazione più copiosa della dottrina Cristiana composta per
ordine della santa memoria di Papa Clemente VIII (Rome: A spese di Pietro Aureli
Librajo, 1824), 133-34.
96
Benedict XVI, Doctors of the Church (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor,
2011), 229.

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26:52.97 In France, Émond Auger’s Catechismus, id est
Catholica Christianae iuventutis institutio (1569) and Cardinal
Richelieu’s Instruction du chrestien (1635) proposed the same
teaching.98 In England a number of catechisms were used to
convey the faith to the persecuted faithful. Laurence Vaux
(1605) and William Warford (1616) taught this as revealed
doctrine.99 The Douay Catechism (1648), which served as the
standard catechism in England until it was replaced by The
Penny Catechism, also taught it as a revealed truth.100 In 1912
Pope Pius X published his Catechism of Christian Doctrine, in
which he reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on capital
punishment.101 One finds the same doctrine taught in various
explanations of catechisms.102
97

Petrus Canisius, S. Petri Canisii doctoris ecclesiae catechismi Latini et Germanici,
ed. Friedrich Streicher (Romae: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 1933), 164.
98
Émond Auger, Catechismus, id est Catholica Christianae iuventutis institutio
(Paris: Apud Sebastianum Nivellium, 1569), 101-2. Armand-Jean Duplessis Richelieu,
Instruction du chrestien (Rouen: Chez Jean Berthelin, 1635), 201.
99
Laurence Vaux, A catechisme or Christian doctrine, necessary for children and
ignorant people. With an other addition of instruction of the laudable ceremonies used in
the Catholike Church. Whereunto is adjoyned a briefe forme of confession (necessary for
all good Christians) according to the use of the Catholike Church (London: English
Secret Press, 1605), 60. William Warford, A Briefe Instruction by Way of a Dialogue,
Concerning the Principall Poynts of Christian Religion: Gathered Out of the Holy
Scriptures, Ancient Fathers, & Councells. By George Douley Priest (Saint-Omer: Printed
at the English College Press, Permissu superiorum, 1616), 116-17.
100
Henry Turberville, An Abridgment of Christian Doctrine: With Proofs of Scripture
for Points Controverted: Catechistically Explained by Way of Question and Answer
(Douay: n.p. 1648), 148.
101
St. Pius X, Compendio della dottrina cristiana prescritto da sua santita papa Pio X
alle diocesi della provincia di Roma (Rome: Tipografia Vaticana, 1905), 164.
102
Francis Spirago and Richard F. Clarke, The Catechism Explained; An Exhaustive
Exposition of the Christian Religion, with Special Reference to the Present State of
Society and the Spirit of the Age. A Practical Manual for the Use of the Preacher, the
Catechist, the Teacher, and the Family (New York: Benziger Bros., 1921), 388; Thomas
L. Kinkead, A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, No. 3 (New York: Benziger Bros.,
1885), 306; Louis La Ravoire Morrow, My Catholic Faith: A Catechism in Pictures
(Kenosha, Wis.: My Mission House, 1954), 215; Gilmore Henry Guyot, Scriptural
References for the Baltimore Catechism: The Biblical Basis for Catholic Beliefs (New

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More recent catechisms have reaffirmed the teaching of the
Church but do not mention the scriptural basis for the teaching.
Thus, the 1992 and 1997 editions of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, 103 the Compendium of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, and the United States Catholic Catechism for
Adults, issued by the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, reaffirm the traditional teaching although without
asserting that it is the teaching of Scripture.104
C) Canon Law
Canon law is another important source for discovering the
ordinary and universal magisterium. As Ford and Grisez have
rightly pointed out, canon law “functioned in moral formation
analogously to the way in which creeds function in the handing
on of the essentials of doctrine: as creeds summarize saving
truth, canon law from the Middle Ages until 1917 codified
moral formation.”105 Early treatments of the law recognized that
God had decreed the death of certain individuals. Both the Lex
Dei sive mosaicarum et romanarum legum collatio (ca. 392-95)
and medieval compilations, such as Burchard’s (ca. 1021),
taught that God in the Old Law required the death of
individuals for certain offenses or that he decreed its justness in
the New Law for certain offenses.106

York: J. F. Wagner, 1946), 72; Br. John Chrysostom, Manual of Christian Doctrine:
Comprising Dogma, Moral, and Worship (Philadelphia: J. J. McVey, 1926), 282; Br.
John Chrysostom, Exposition of Christian Doctrine: Intermediate Course, Part II
(Philadelphia: J. J. McVey, 1929), 418; R. P. Thomas Pegues, Catechism of the "Summa
Theologica” of Saint Thomas Aquinas; For the Use of the Faithful (Westminster, Md.:
Newman Press, 1950), 149.
103
CCC 2267.
104
United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, 394-95.
105
Ford and Grisez, “Contraception and the Infallibility of the Ordinary
Magisterium,” 279.
106
Lex Dei siue mosaicarum et romanarum legum collatio, in Theodor Mommsen,
Fragmenta Vaticana mosaicarum et romanorum legum collatio, Collectio librorum iuris
anteiustiniani 3 (Berolini: apud Weidmanos 1890), 154. On the dating of this work, see
Robert M. Frakes, Compiling the Collatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum in Late

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383

In the Concordia discordantium canonum (ca. 1140), Gratian
references Jerome’s commentary on the Book of Jeremiah,
expressly acknowledging the state’s right to inflict capital
punishment, clearly stating that “to punish murderers [with
death], those who violate the divine law, and poisoners is not
the effusion of blood, but is the ministry of law.”107 The text
goes on to read:
Therefore if those holy men and public powers while waging war were not
transgressors of that commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” although they
killed some criminals who deserved to die; if a soldier obeying his superior is
not accused of murder when at the superior’s command he kills a criminal; if
it is not the pouring out of blood to punish murderers and poisoners, but the
ministry of the laws; if the peace of the Church is the consolation over the
sadness of the lost; if those who, inflamed with the zeal of their Catholic
Mother, kill excommunicates are not judged murderers; it is evidence that it is
permissible not only to scourge malefactors, but also to kill them.108

For centuries, from 1234 until 1917, the Corpus iuris
canonici constituted the body of the canon law of the Church.
The Liber extra of Pope Gregory IX (1234), the Liber sextus of
Pope Boniface VIII (1298), and the Clementinae of Pope
Clement V (1314) and John XXII (1317) all received explicit
Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Burchard of Worms, Decretorum
libri viginti (PL 140:775).
107
“Homicidas, et sacrilegos, et venenarios punire non est effusio sanguinis, sed
legum ministerium” (C. 23, q. 5, c. 31 [in Amilius Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici
(Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1955), 1:939]). See also “Ex offitio non
est peccatum hominem occidere” (C. 23, q. 5, c. 8 [Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici,
1:932]).
108
“Si ergo uiri sancti et publicae potestates bella gerentes non fuerunt transgressores
illius mandati: ‘Non occides,’ quamuis quosque flagitiosos digna morte perimerent; si
miles suae potestati obediens non est reus homicidii, si eius inperio quemlibet
flagitiosum interfecerit; si homicidas, et uenenarios punire non est effusio sanguinis, sed
legum ministerium; si pax ecclesiae mesticiam consolatur perditorum; si illi, qui zelo
catholicae matris accensi excommunicatos interficiunt, homicidae non iudicantur: patet,
quod malos non solum flagellari, sed etiam interfici licet” (Gratian, Decretum or
Concordia discordantium canonum, C. 23, q. 5 [dict. post], c. 48 [Friedberg, Corpus
iuris canonici, 1:945]).

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

papal approbation and promulgation and should therefore be
considered part of the ordinary papal magisterium.
Moreover, canon law also acknowledged the state’s right to
inflict capital punishment for the crime of heresy. The Liber
Sextus, for example, officially sanctioned the observance of the
most severe ancient penal laws against heretics, laws that were
revived by the Holy Roman Emperors and made obligatory
during the 13th century by an entire succession of popes, including Boniface VIII.109
D) The Consensus of the Fathers of the Church
The binding character of the Fathers’ teaching on both doctrine and scriptural interpretation has a long history and has
been repeatedly affirmed by the magisterium. Thus, the Council
of Trent and the First Vatican Council are clear that “no one
. . . shall dare to interpret the . . . Sacred Scripture . . . contrary
to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.”110 The Fathers’
interpretation is a theological locus when certain conditions are
109
Boniface VIII, Sexti Decretal. Lib. V. Tit. II. De Haereticis, cap. 18; Ut
inquisitionis negotium (Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, 2:1076-77).
110
Both the Council of Trent (1545-63) and the First Vatican Council are clear
concerning the dogmatic content of the Fathers. Trent says: “Furthermore, in order to
curb impudent clever persons, the synod decrees that no one who relies on his own
judgment in matters of faith and morals, which pertain to the building up of Christian
doctrine, and that no one who distorts the Sacred Scripture according to his own
opinions, shall dare to interpret the said Sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which is
held by holy mother Church, whose duty it is to judge regarding the true sense and
interpretation of holy Scriptures, or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the
Fathers, even though interpretations of this kind were never intended to be brought to
light” (DS 786/1507). Vatican I likewise decreed: “But, since the rules which the holy
Synod of Trent salutarily decreed concerning the interpretation of Divine Scripture in
order to restrain impetuous minds, are wrongly explained by certain men, We, renewing
the same decree, declare this to be its intention: that, in matters of faith and morals
pertaining to the instruction of Christian Doctrine, that must be considered as the true
sense of Sacred Scripture which Holy Mother Church has held and holds, whose office
it is to judge concerning the true understanding and interpretation of the Sacred
Scriptures; and, for that reason, no one is permitted to interpret Sacred Scripture itself
contrary to this sense, or even contrary to the unanimous agreement of the Fathers” (DS
1788/3007). See Bellarmine, De Controversiis, 1.4.7 (Paris ed., 1:178).

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385

met.111 Thus, the Fathers’ agreement on a biblical interpretation
must be morally (not numerically) unanimous, the interpretation must concern a matter of faith or morals, and the Fathers
must consider the doctrine as divinely revealed.112 The Fathers
of the Church were not simply early Christian witnesses, but
were for the most part also members of the magisterium, and as
such their teaching has important dogmatic implications for the
theologian.113
There are two types of patristic texts concerning the death
penalty. First, the Fathers commented on the death penalty in
111

As to such conditions, Pope Leo XIII writes: “Because the defense of Holy
Scripture must be carried on vigorously, all the opinions which the individual Fathers or
the recent interpreters have set forth in explaining it need not be maintained equally.
For they, in interpreting passages where physical matters are concerned, have made
judgments according to the opinions of the age, and thus not always according to truth,
so that they have made statements which today are not approved. Therefore, we must
carefully discern what they hand down which really pertains to faith or is intimately
connected with it, and what they hand down with unanimous consent; for ‘in those
matters which are not under the obligation of faith, the saints were free to have
different opinions, just as we are,’ according to the opinion of St. Thomas” (DS 1948).
112
Franc. X. De Abarzuza, O.F.M.Cap., Manuale theologiae dogmaticae, 2d ed.
(Madrid: Ediciones Studium, 1956), 1:481-88; R. P. Hermann, Theologia generalis, vol.
1 of Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae, 7th ed. (Paris and Lyons: Emmanuelem Vitte,
1937), 539-40; J. M. Hervé, Manuale theologiae dogmaticae, 16th ed. (Westminster,
Md.: The Newman Bookshop, 1943), 1:565-75; H. Hurter, S.J., Theologiae dogmaticae
compendium, 12th ed. (Innsbruck: Libraria Academica Wagneriana, 1908), 1:155-57;
Ioachim Salaverri, Sacrae theologiae summa, 4th ed. (Madrid: Biblioteca De Autores
Cristianos, 1967), 1:765; Adolphe Tanquery, Manual of Dogmatic Theology, trans.
John J. Byrnes (New York: Desclée Co., 1959), 1:179 n. 1; Adolphe Tanquery, Synopsis
theologicae dogmaticae (Paris: Desclée et Socii, 1953), 1:739-48; G. Van Noort, The
Sources of Revelation and Divine Faith, vol. 3 of Dogmatic Theology, trans. John
Castelot and William Murphy (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1961), 174.
113
One needs to distinguish between the theological use of the term “Fathers” and
the merely historical use of the term. Theologically, Fathers are those who: (1) lived
between the first and sixth centuries, (2) lived holy lives, (3) were theologically
orthodox, and (4) meet ecclesiastical approval. Theologians such as Origen, Tertullian,
Lactantius, and Eusebius are considered merely ecclesiastical writers. A few Fathers, of
course, were not ordained bishops, and therefore are not part of the magisterium. See
Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Concept of Sacred Theology (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing
Co., 1941), 134; Salaverri, Sacrae theologiae summa, 4th ed., 1:768.

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

the New Law. In response to accusations against Christians,
both Justin Martyr and Athenagorus demanded that Christians
be investigated, and, if found guilty, punished as any guilty
person should be, even with death.114 This is hardly an
acceptable demand if the death penalty is intrinsically evil.
Irenaeus and Tertullian argued that God instituted political
power, including its power to wield the sword, and that such
punishments can be “just.”115 Origen added to this that God, in
demanding the death penalty in the Old Testament, “was acting
out of mercy.”116 Origen saw the imposition of the death
penalty as a purgation for the sins of the malefactor. Clement of
Alexandria held that when God in the Old Testament
demanded death for certain sins, he was acting justly.117 For
Clement, the state executed malefactors for the “health of all”
by cutting out a cancer and by inspiring fear of the Lord.
Moreover, by killing him and stopping him from future sin, the
state is a “benefit” of the malefactor.118 Lactantius also
recognized the right of the state to execute criminals for a just
reason.119 In the fourth century, Eusebius of Caesarea and John
Chrysostom recognized the emperor’s right to execute
malefactors “justly.”120 Ambrose, in a letter to a Christian judge
who had asked advice about the death penalty, explicitly
recognized that Romans 13:4 sanctions the death penalty.121 In
the fifth century, Innocent I, Gregory the Great, and Augustine
also saw the death penalty as divinely sanctioned. A number of
these Fathers, of course, counseled mercy, or did not think that
Christians should generally be involved in such activities for
114
Justin Martyr, First Apology, c. 3 (FOTC 6:34-35); Athenagoras, A Plea for the
Christians, c. 3 (ANF 2:130).
115
Tertullian, De anima, c. 56 (FOTC 10:302); Tertullian, De spectaculis, c. 19
(FOTC 40:90); Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, 5.24.2 (ANF 1:552).
116
Origen, In Leviticum Homilia XI (PG 12, col. 533a-b).
117
Clement of Alexandria, Paidagogos 1.8 (FOTC 23:62).
118
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 1.27.171 (FOTC 85:149); Stromateis
1.27.173 (FOTC 85:150).
119
Lactantius, De Ira, lib. 17 (CSEL 27:110-11, nos. 6-8; ANF 7:273).
120
Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine 2.18 (NPNF second series, 1:504);
John Chrysostom, Homily VI, 6 (NPNF first series, 9:383).
121
Ambrose, Epistola L (XXV) (CSEL 82.2:56).

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387

pastoral or prudential reasons, but not a single Father argued
that the death penalty is intrinsically evil.
Second, the Fathers clearly assert that divine revelation
taught that God killed individuals122 and that he also used or
ordered his ministers to kill others. Some contemporary
treatments of the opinions of the Fathers of the Church on
capital punishment ignore this second class of Patristic texts.123
Origen, Ambrose, Ephrem the Syrian all acknowledge that God
ordered Abraham to kill Isaac.124 Tertullian, Athanasius,
Ambrose, and John Chrysostom taught that God sent an angel
to kill 185,000 men in an Assyrian camp (2 Kgs 19:35).125
Chrysostom’s comment clearly reveals his attitude to God’s
activity. In commenting on Jesus’ command to Peter to put his
sword away, Chrysostom does not understand this passage as
Christ commanding a pacifistic response (Matt 26:52). Instead,
Chrysostom sees the scene as an affirmation of Christ’s power,
explaining that Christ invokes his power to deal with the
situation by calling forth more than twelve legions of angels
(Matt 26:53). In this assertion, Chrysostom interprets Christ as
saying, “Do you think that I cannot destroy them all?” Chrysostom goes on to assert that Christ’s intention was to inspire fear
in those around him: he who had sent one angel to destroy
185,000 Assyrians could now call forth more than twelve
legions who could do far more damage.126

122

Cyril of Alexandria, Critical Comments on Genesis 6 (PG 69:309).
Brugger, Capital Punishment, 74-95; Megivern, The Death Penalty, 9-50.
124
Origen, Homilia in Genesin 8.1 (SC 7:216.46-48); Ambrose, De Abraham 1.8.71
(CSEL 32.1:548-49); Ephrem the Syrian, On Genesis (FC 91:168).
125
Tertullian, De ieiunio adversus psychicos 7 (CCSL 2.2:1263); Athanasius, Vita
Antonii 28.10 (SC 400:214.46); Ambrose, Explanatio super psalmos XII, § 31 (CSEL
64:284.30).
126
John Chrysostom, Homiliae 1-90 in Matthaeum (PG 58: cols. 753-54).
123

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

E) The Consensus of Theologians
The consensus of theologians can be a sign that something
has been proposed infallibly by the ordinary and universal
magisterium.127 This is made clear in Pius X’s Tuas libenter,
which teaches that the universal and constant consensus of
Catholic theologians holding a point as pertaining to faith is
evidence that the matter is one handed on by the ordinary
magisterium of the Church dispersed throughout the world.128
Of course, most theologians are not members of the
magisterium, since they lack episcopal consecration, which
confers the office of teaching and of governing on the
ordinandi.129 The reason why the consensus of theologians can

127

Sullivan, Creative Fidelity, 104; Salaverri, Sacrae theologiae summa, 4th ed.,

1:775.
128

Ford and Grisez, “Contraception and the Infallibility of the Ordinary
Magisterium,” 272.
129
Lumen Gentium, 21 and Nota explicativa praevia. For some years after the
Second Vatican Council, some authors argued that theologians were members of a sort
of parallel magisterium based on the distinction (found for example in St. Thomas)
between the magisterium cathedrae pastoralis of the bishop and the magisterium
cathedrae magistralis of the university theologian. As the CDF’s instruction Donum
veritatis notes, “These texts do not give any support to this position, for St. Thomas was
absolutely certain that the right to judge in matters of doctrine was the sole
responsibility of the ‘officium praelationis’” (Donum veritatis, note 27). See also
Bellarmine, De Controversiis, I.III.X (Paris ed., 1:158). While theologians perform an
important function for the life of the Church and are often called upon to assist the
magisterium, they are not hierarchically authoritative teachers of the faith. Their
authority lies simply in the authority of their arguments. Bellarmine, De Controversiis,
IV.I.XVI (Paris ed., 2:33); St. Thomas Aquinas, Quodl. III, q. 4, a. l (Marietti ed., repr.
[1986], 46-47); Glenn W. Olsen, “The Theologian and the Magisterium: The Ancient
and Medieval Background of a Contemporary Controversy,” Communio 7 (1980):
292-319; Richard John Neuhaus, “In Response to Glenn W. Olsen and J. Brian
Benestad,” Communio 16 (1989): 552-57; Avery Dulles, “The Two Magisteria: An
Interim Reflection,” CTSA Proceedings 35 (1980): 155-69; Yves Congar, “A Semantic
History of the Term ‘Magisterium’,” in The Magisterium and Morality, Readings in
Moral Theology 3, ed. Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick (New York:
Paulist, 1982), 297-313; Yves Congar, “A Brief History of the Forms of the
Magisterium and Its Relations with Scholars,” Curran and McCormick, eds.,
Magisterium and Morality, 315; Avery Dulles, Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of
the Faith (Naples, Fla.: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2007), 36.

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389

be a sign that something has been proposed infallibly by the
ordinary and universal magisterium is because some theologians
are in effect “authorized instruments of the hierarchy.”130 This
is clear from the following considerations. First, the texts of
these theologians up through the middle of the twentieth
century received magisterial approbation through the granting
of some type of official recognition such as the nihil obstat or
imprimatur. Second, the appointment to a theological faculty or
seminary historically received local episcopal sanction. This is in
contrast to today when professors may be appointed to
theological faculties without episcopal sanction, and when many
theology professors actually refuse to obtain such sanction
through acquiring the mandatum, which is “an acknowledgment by church authority that a Catholic professor of a
theological discipline is teaching within the full communion of
the Catholic Church.”131
Sullivan argues that if at some point theologians no longer
have consensus, then “it would seem necessary to conclude that
this was not the kind of constant consensus that points to
infallible teaching.”132 Sullivan’s theory, if true, would
essentially mean that one could never determine whether
something has been taught by the ordinary and universal
130

Fenton, Concept of Sacred Theology, 139; Pesch, Praelectiones Dogmaticae,
417-21; Ioachim Salaverri, Sacrae theologiae summa, 5th ed. (Madrid: Biblioteca De
Autores Cristianos, 1962), 1:775-84. This is still the case today. Pope Francis in
Veritatis gaudium repeated what Pope John Paul II had written in Sapientia christiana,
namely, that “those who teach disciplines concerning faith or morals must receive, after
making their profession of faith, a canonical mission from the Chancellor or his
delegate, for they do not teach on their own authority but by virtue of the mission they
have received from the Church. The other teachers must receive permission to teach
from the Chancellor or his delegate” (Veritatis gaudium, general norms, article 27, n. 1;
Sapientia christiana, general norms, article 27, n. 1).
131
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Guidelines concerning the
Academic Mandatum,” 1.a (http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/
catholic-education/higher-education/guidelines-concerning-the-academicmandatum.cfm).
132
Sullivan, Creative Fidelity, 104.

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

magisterium. It is always possible that what was previously
taught could be questioned by a significant number of theologians sometime in the future. This is precisely what has
happened in almost every doctrinal controversy in the history of
the Church: a doctrine accepted by a consensus of theologians
was no longer accepted by a consensus of theologians.133
Moreover, Lawrence Welch is almost certainly correct that Pius
IX did not mean to say that the absence of such a consensus
entailed that the ordinary and universal magisterium had not
taught a particular doctrine definitively;134 rather, its presence is
a sign that a doctrine has been taught definitively.
This study has examined some forty theologians, writing
from the eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries to
determine whether there has been a consensus on the Church’s
doctrine on capital punishment. Twenty-nine of these authors
explicitly assert that the teaching is scriptural, while most of the
remaining appeal to natural law.135 These theologians often
133
Lawrence J. Welch, “The Infallibility of the Ordinary Universal Magisterium: A
Critique of Some Recent Observations,” Heythrop Journal 39 (1998): 18-36; idem,
“Quaestio disputata: Reply to Richard Gaillardetz on the Ordinary Universal
Magisterium and to Francis Sullivan,” Theological Studies 64 (2003): 598-609.
134
Welch, “Infallibility of the Ordinary Universal Magisterium,” 27.
135
In the following list, I preface each entry with the source cited by the author on
the topic (“NL” if the author argues on the basis of natural law). (Gen 9:6; Num 35) J.
Aertnys, C.Ss.R, and C. A. Damen, C.Ss.R, Theologia moralis, 18th ed. (Turin: Marietti,
1968), 2:141-42; (NL) A. M. Arregui, S.J., Summarium theologiae moralis, 13th ed.
(Bilbao: Mesajero del Corazón de Jesus, 1952), 144; (Exod 22; Rom 13) Antonio
Ballerini, Hermann Busembaum, and Domenico Palmieri, Opus theologicum morale in
Busembaum Medullam (Prati: Giachetti, 1892); (Exod 22) Aemilio Berardi, Theologia
moralis: theorico – practica (Faenza: Typ. Novelli & Castellani, 1904), 2:312-13; (NL,
Aquinas) Victor Cathrein, S.J., Philosophia moralis in usum scholarum, 5th ed.
(Freiburg: Herder, 1905), 467-72; (Revelation) Charles Coppens, S.J., A Brief Textbook
of Moral Philosophy (New York: Schwarz, 1920), 152; (NL) Francis L. B. Cunningham,
The Christian Life, a Basic Synthesis for the College (Dubuque, Iowa: The Priory Press,
1959), 508-9; (NL) H. Davis, S.J., Moral and Pastoral Theology, A Summary (New
York: Sheed and Ward, 1952), 56; (Exod 22; Rom 13) H. Davis, S.J., Moral and
Pastoral Theology, ed. L. W. Geddes, S.J., 7th ed. (London: Sheed & Ward, 1958),
2:151; (NL) Austin Fagothey, Right and Reason; Ethics in Theory and Practice (St.
Louis: Mosby, 1959), 299-300; (NL) Juan B. Ferreres, Compendium theologiae moralis
ad normam codicis canonici: dispositionibus iuris hispani, ac lusitani decretis concilii
plenarii Americae latinae necnon I conc. prov. manilani earundemque regionum legibus

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391

peculiaribus etiam civilibus accommodatum (Barcelona: Eugenius Subirana, 1925),
1:350; (Exod 22; Rom 13) E. Génicot and J. Salsmans, eds., Institutiones theologiae
moralis quas in collegio Lovaniensi Societatis Jesu, 2d ed. (Louvain: Typis et Suptibus
Polleunis et Ceuterick, 1898), 1:296; (Roman Catechism) Thomas Marie Joseph
Gousset, Théologie morale a l'usage des curés et des confesseurs, 5th ed. (Paris: J.
Lecoffre, 1848), 1:272; (Scripture) Joanne Petro Gury, S.J., Compendium theologiae
moralis, 5th ed. (Barcelona: Apud Jacobum Subirana, 1866), 1:167; (Aquinas, Alex. VII)
A. J. J. F. Haine, Theologiae moralis elementa ex S. Thoma aliisque probatis doctoribus
collegit ordineque disposuit A.J.J.F. Haine (Louvain: C. Fonteyn, 1900), 1:453; (NL)
Antonin Marcel Henry, The Virtues and States of Life (Chicago: Fides, 1957), 359-60;
(Gen 9; Exod 22; NL) Thomas J. Higgins, Man As Man; The Science and Art of Ethics
(Milwaukee: Bruce Pub. Co., 1949), 511; (Scripture) Tommaso Angelo Iorio and Jean
Pierre Gury, Theologia moralis (Naples: M. d'Auria, 1946), 1:321; (NL) H. Jone,
O.F.M.Cap., Moral Theology (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1945), 140-41;
(Waldensians; Rom 13) F. P. Kenrick, Theologia moralis (Mechlin: Dessain, 1861),
1:76-78; (Gen 9; John 19; Rom. 13) A. Koch, A Handbook of Moral Theology, ed. A.
Preuss (St. Louis: Herder, 1918-24), 2:88, 5:146-51; (Scripture, Universal consent) A.
Konings, C.Ss.R., Theologia moralis s. Alphonsi in compendium redacta, 4th ed.
(London: Benziger, 1834), 1:206; (Exod 22) Claude Lacroix, Theologia moralis: seu
ejusdem in H. Busembaum Medullam commentaria a Zacharia, S.J. elucidata atque
vindicata (Paris: Ludovicum Vivès, 1866), 2:51; (Rom 13) Aug. Lehmkuhl, Theologia
moralis (Friburgi Brisgoviae: Sumptibus Herder, 1902), 1:497; (Gen. 9; John 19; Rom
13) John Ambrose McHugh, O.P., and Charles Callan, O.P., Moral Theology: A
Complete Course (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1958), 2:100-102; (Gen 9; Rom
13) Benedict Merkelbach, O.P., Summa theologiae moralis (Paris: Desclée, 1932),
2:353-56; (Rom 13; Rev 13, Innocent III) Ernesto Müller, Theologia moralis (Vienna:
Mayer et soc., 1873), 370; (Scripture) H. Noldin, S.J., Summa theologiae moralis, ed. A.
Schmitt, S.J., and G. Heinzel, S.J., 35th ed. (Innsbruck: F. Rauch, 1956), 2:301-3;
(Exod 22; Rom. 13) D. M. Prümmer, O.P., Manuale theologiae moralis, ed. Ε. M.
Münch, O.P., 10th ed. (Barielem: Herder, 1945-46) 2:111; (NL) D. M. Prümmer,
Handbook of Moral Theology (New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1957), 126; (Old Testament) P.
Constantino Roncaglia, Universa moralis theologia: Ad Usum Confessariorum (Lucca: Ex
officina Josephi Justi, 1834), 4:231; (Rom 13; Innocent I) James W. Regan, John A.
Henry, and Thomas C. Donlan, A Primer of Theology (Dubuque, Iowa: Priory Press,
1954), 105-6; (Gen 9; Rom 13; Waldensians, Anabaptists, Quakers) Francesco Roberti,
Pietro Palazzini, and Henry J. Yannone, Dictionary of Moral Theology (Westminster,
Md.: Newman Press, 1962), 1009-10; (God) A. Sabetti, S.J., Compendium theologiae
moralis, ed. T. Barrett, S.J., 31st ed. of Gury (New York: Pustet, 1926), 250-51; (Exod
22; Rev 13) Pietro Scavini, Theologia moralis universa, 4th ed. (Novara: Excudebat
Miglio typog. Episcopalis ac Bibl., 1851), 2:404; (Rom 13) T. Slater, S.J., A Manual of
Moral Theology, 5th ed. (New York: Benziger, 1925), 1:196-97; (Gen 9; Rom 13)
Joseph Ambrosius Stapf, Theologia moralis in compendium redacta, 5th ed. (Innsbruck:

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appeal to Exodus 22 and Romans 13, but also to Genesis 9:6,
Numbers 35, John 19, Leviticus 24, or Revelation 13. Others
simply appeal to the “Old Testament” or “Scripture.” Moreover, not a single one of these theologians suggests in any way
that capital punishment is or was intrinsically evil. A number of
them identify the belief that capital punishment is per se evil as
an error associated with heretical groups such as Waldensians,
Anabaptists, or Quakers. Those who argue for the correctness
of capital punishment on the basis of natural law regard it,
precisely on that basis, as part of God’s law.
This unanimous consensus among theologians remained until
the mid-twentieth century, when a few theologians began to
question the morality of capital punishment.136 It was not until
the 1980s, however, that there arose any serious opposition to
Wagner, 1842), 3:98-99; (NL) Joseph Frederick Sullivan, Special Ethics: Embracing
Individual Ethics, Industrial Ethics, Ethics of the Family, Ethics of Civil Society,
International Ethics: A Digest of Lectures (Worcester, Mass.: Holy Cross College Press,
1945), 219; (NL) Adolphe Tanquerey, Brevior synopsis theologiæ moralis et pastoralis
(Paris: typis Societatis s. Joannis Evangel., Desclée & socii, 1933), 200; (Waldensians;
Gen 9; Exod 22; Lev 24) Adolphe Tanquerey, Synopsis theologiae moralis et pastoralis,
8th ed. (Rome: Desclée, 1927), 2:721-22, 3:135-37; (Exod 22; Rom 13; Innocent III)
Alphonso Van Kol, Theologia moralis (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1968), 1:682;
(Gen 9:6; Rom 13:4) Bernhard Häring, The Law of Christ; Moral Theology for Priests
and Laity, trans. Edwin G. Kaiser (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1961), 3:123-25;
(Waldensians; Exod 22) Giovanni Vincenzo Patuzzi, O.P., Ethica christiana, sive,
theologia moralis: Ex purioribus sacrae scripturae divinaequae traditionis fontibus
derivata, et s. Thomae Aquinatis doctrina continenter illustrata (Bassani; Prostant
Venetiis: Apud Remondini, 1770), 4:128-29; (Waldensians; Exod 22) Pietro Scavini,
Theologia moralis universa Pio IX pontifici (Paris: Apud Jacobum Lecoffre et Socios,
1855), 3:79-80; (Exod 22; Rom 13); Benjamin Elbel, Theologia moralis decalogalis, per
modum conferentiarum casibus practicis applicatae, et illustratae ad usum tum
curatorum, tum praesertim pro cura animarum examinandorum (Augustæ Vindelicorum:
Wolff, 1744), 4:35; (no authority cited) Arthur Vermeersch, S.J., Theologiae moralis, 3d
ed. (Rome: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 1937), 2:552; (no authority cited) Jose
Ubach, Compendium theologiae moralis: Codici iuris canonici et decretis concilii plenarii
Americae Latinae necnon iuribus civilibus Galliae, Hispaniae, Lusitaniae et in plerisque
nationibus Americae Latinae vigentibus accommodatum (Fribourg: Herder, 1926),
1:144-45; (Exod 22; Lev 24; Rom 13) M. Zalba, S.J., Theologiae moralis summa
(Madrid: B.A.C., 1958), 2:72.
136
See for example, Jean-Marie Aubert, Chrétiens et peine de mort (Paris: Desclée,
1978), 90-92.

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393

it. This opposition initially came from Germain Grisez and his
school of New Natural Law Theorists.137 These theologians and
philosophers opposed capital punishment not on the basis of
either Scripture or tradition, but on the basis of their new
natural law theory.138 These theorists have also argued that the
magisterium should declare capital punishment intrinsically evil
and that such a declaration would simply be a development of
the Church’s traditional doctrine on capital punishment. Other
theologians have also begun to question the morality of capital
punishment, while still others have regarded the movement to
declare capital punishment to be intrinsically evil as
impermissible, since such a teaching would contradict two
thousand years of consistent magisterial teaching.139

137
See Christian D. Washburn, “The New Natural Lawyers, Contraception, Capital
Punishment, and the Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium,” Logos: A Journal of
Catholic Thought and Culture 22 (2019): 17-49.
138
E. Christian Brugger, “To Kill or Not to Kill: The Catholic Church and the
Problem of the Death Penalty,” in Charles E. Curran, ed., Change in Official Catholic
Moral Teachings (New York: Paulist Press, 2003), 145-70, idem, “Catholic Moral
Teaching and the Problem of Capital Punishment,” The Thomist 68 (2004): 41-67;
idem, Capital Punishment; John Finnis, Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth,
Michael J. McGivney Lectures of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and
Family (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991), 56; idem,
Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998),
293. Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, 1:218-20; idem, The Way of the Lord Jesus,
2:474-75, 891-94; Megivern, Death Penalty; James J. Megivern, “Capital Punishment:
The Curious History of Its Privileged Place in Christendom,” Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society 147 (2003): 3-12.
139
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., “Catholicism & Capital Punishment,” First Things
112 (April 2001): 30-35 (reprinted as Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., “Catholicism &
Capital Punishment,” in Curran, ed., Change in Official Catholic Moral Teachings,
132-44); Feser and Bessette, By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed, 9-10, 128; Steven A.
Long, “‘Evangelium vitae’ and the Death Penalty,” in The Catholic Citizen: Debating the
Issues of Justice: Proceedings from the 26th Annual Conference of the Fellowship of
Catholic Scholars (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2004), 105-22; idem,
“Evangelium vitae, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Death Penalty,” The Thomist 63
(1999): 511-52.

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

F) The Consensus of the Doctors of the Church
The consensus of Doctors of the Church is a special category
of the consensus of theologians.140 The term “doctor” in Latin is
not primarily intended to convey that a person has either an
academic degree or a professional position in academy (i.e.,
Ph.D., S.T.D, D.Phil.) but here retains its simple Latin meaning
of “teacher,” from the Latin verb docere, “to teach.” The title
“Doctor of the Church” is conferred by the Church. When the
pope solemnly confers this title, he is indicating that the Doctor
is eminent in theological learning and orthodox in doctrine.
The title “Doctor” is incompatible with any presence of
“substantial error” concerning faith and morals.141 There are
currently thirty-six Doctors. The question for this article is not
principally whether they have approved of capital punishment,
but what they have taught concerning its doctrinal authority.
The majority of Doctors have explicitly taught that it is
morally licit for the state to use the death penalty in certain
circumstances. At least eighteen have explicitly affirmed that
capital punishment is approved. Not only do these authors hold
this view; nearly all teach that it is the express teaching of
Scripture. Moreover, none of the Doctors has rejected capital
punishment as intrinsically evil.
Thus Ambrose, who recommended mercy for those
condemned, was clear that the authority to execute was
sanctioned by Paul in Romans 13:4. Moreover, Ambrose stated
that he would not deny communion to a magistrate who had
justly put a man to death. In doing so he contrasted himself
with those outside the Church who would deny communion.142
In the City of God, Augustine, in referring to the fifth commandment, noted that there “are some exceptions made by the

140

There are four conditions for being a Doctor of the Church: (1) heroic holiness,
(2) orthodoxy of doctrine, (3) eminence of knowledge, (4) solemn conferral of the title.
See A. C. Cotter, Theologia fundamentalis (Weston, Mass.: Weston College, 1940),
518-19; Salaverri, Sacrae theologiae summa, 5th ed., 1:768
141
Fenton, Concept of Sacred Theology, 143-44.
142
Ambrose, Epistola L (XXV) (CSEL 82.2:56-59; PL 16: cols. 1039-42).

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395

divine authority to its own law.”143 John Chrysostom, Jerome,
and Ephrem the Syrian all upheld the death penalty’s use,
basing their teaching on Scripture.144 Isidore of Seville spoke of
it as a matter of fact.145
The great medieval Doctors also accepted the teaching of
Scripture and the Fathers on the moral goodness of the death
penalty in some circumstances. In his commentary on Genesis,
the Venerable Bede affirmed that in Genesis 9:6 God requires
the death penalty.146 Peter Damian, in two letters to Duke
Godfrey of Tuscany, rebuked him for his leniency in dealing
with criminals. This leniency, the saint argued, caused innocent
people to suffer at the criminals’ hands when they were
released. Peter also argued that not all members of the Church
have the same function. Leniency is proper to the priest.
Godfrey, however, is a ruler, whose function is to restrain the
wicked in order to protect the innocent. Peter plainly states that
“you do not buckle on your sword to stroke or caress the evil
deeds of violent men, but to prepare to cut them down with
your weapon’s flashing blow.” On this account, Godfrey is
“God’s minister” to administer the sword. Peter cites Romans
13:4 as support.147 In his next letter to the duke, he addressed
the issue of capital punishment, insisting that its use is
sanctioned by both sacred Scripture and the Fathers of the
Church.148 Moreover, Peter held that the Old Law required the
143

Augustine, De civitate Dei 1.21.
John Chrysostom, Homily 6 (NPNF first series, 9:381); Jerome,
Commentariorum in Jeremiam, 4.22 (PL 24:811); Ephrem the Syrian, Selected Prose
Works: Commentary on Genesis, Commentary on Exodus, Homily on Our Lord, Letter
to Publius, The Fathers of the Church 91 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
of America Press, 2010), 143.
145
Isidore of Seville, Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarvm sive originvm libri
XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford: E Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1911), 5.19.
146
Bede the Venerable, In Genesim II, 9.5-6 (CCSL 118A:133).
147
Peter Damian, Letter 67, in The Letters of Peter Damian, 61-90, trans. Owen J.
Blum, Fathers of the Church Mediaeval Continuation (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1989), 72.
148
Peter Damian, Letter 68.7 (Blum, trans., 82).
144

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

death penalty for those engaged in homosexual acts.149 Bernard
of Clairvaux also referenced Romans 13:4 in support of the
death of criminals.150
Bonaventure began his discussion of capital punishment with
a repudiation of the error of the Manicheans, who had rejected
the Old Testament on account of its contradiction between
Exodus 20 and Exodus 23.151 Bonaventure went on to ground
the ability to kill malefactors in Romans 13. Thomas Aquinas,
in the Summa contra Gentiles, squarely challenged the “error”
of those who say that Exodus 20:13 prohibits all killing, since
the very same book clearly teaches in Exodus 22:18 “that some
killing was possible.”152 Therefore, “thou shalt not kill” can only
mean that some types of killing are prohibited. In both the
Summa Theologiae and the Collationes in decem praeceptis,
Aquinas considered the death penalty to be part of a “mandate
of God” based on the divine law.153 He also saw it as part of the
natural law. Albert the Great (1200-1280), Aquinas’ teacher and
fellow Dominican, thought that capital punishment could be
applied justly.154
The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Doctors of the
Church were no less clear in their approbation of capital
punishment. Thus Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) called the
teaching a “decree and precept” of sacred Scripture. He
149

Peter Damian, Liber Gomorrhianus 3 (PL 145:162-63).
Bernard of Clairvaux, In Praise of the New Knighthood: A Treatise on the Knights
Templar and the Holy Places of Jerusalem, trans. M. Conrad Greenia (Kalamazoo,
Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 2000), 39.
151
Bonaventure, Collationes de decem praeceptis 6.6-7 (Doctoris seraphici S.
Bonaventurae ... Opera omnia [Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi): Ex Typographia Collegii
S. Bonaventurae, 1882-1902], 5:526-27). See also Bonaventure, Commentaria in quator
libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi IV, d. 44, p. 2, a. 1, q. 1 (Quaracchi ed.,
4:922); Bonaventure, Commentarius in evangelium s. Lucae 3.34 (Quaracchi ed., 7:78).
152
ScG III. c. 146.
153
STh II-II, q. 64, a. 2; q. 64, a. 3. “Est ergo licitum illis qui mandato Dei occidunt,
quia tunc Deus facit. Omnis enim lex mandatum Dei est” (Collationes in decem
praeceptis, a. 7).
154
Albert the Great, Super Ethica commentum et quaestiones II, lect. 7, ad 1
(Albertus Magnus, Opera omnia ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum edenda, ed.
Bernhard Geyer, Marc-Aeilko Aris, and Hannes Möhle [Monasterii Westfalorum: In
aedibus Aschendorff, 1951], 14.1:125).
150

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397

expressly referred to the rejection of capital punishment as
heretical.155 He found that in the natural law, the Law of Moses,
and the gospels we have both “precepts and examples” of
capital punishment. He also thought that it was the teaching of
the Fathers of the Church.156 In his catechism, he stated that
princes and magistrates are provided as “ministers of God” and
that God “willed and commended evildoers to be punished.
Princes and Magistrates since they are public authorities have
the authority to execute God’s justice.” As his source, he cites
Romans 13:4.157 Peter Canisius also accepted that capital
punishment is not a violation of the fifth commandment.158 The
Capuchin Doctor, Lawrence of Brindisi, held that capital
punishment was scriptural.159 His testimony is also noteworthy,
for it was based in part on Genesis 9:6 which he used as a locus
classicus for both capital punishment and the dignity of man.160
Perhaps most notable is Alphonsus Liguori’s testimony, because Pope St. Pius IX made him a Doctor of the Church in part
because of his moral theology.161 In answer to the question,
“Whether it is lawful for proper authority to kill a criminal?”
Liguori plainly stated, “Other than the case of necessary
defense, of which more below, no one except public authority

155

Bellarmine, De Controversiis (Paris ed., 2:505).
Ibid. (Paris ed., 2:524).
157
Bellarmine, Dichiarazione più copiosa della dottrina Cristiana composta per
ordine della santa memoria di Papa Clemente VIII, 133-34.
158
Petrus Canisius, S. Petri Canisii doctoris ecclesiae catechismi Latini et Germanici,
ed. Friedrich Streicher (Rome: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 1933), 164.
159
Lawrence of Brindisi, Lutheranismi Hypotyposis (S. Laurentii a Brundusio opera
omnia [Padua: Ex Officina typographica Seminarii, 1928], 2.2:368); idem, Alia Homilía
in feria quinta post Dominicam secundam Quadragesimae (Opera Omnia, 6:297-98);
idem, Explanatio in Genesim (Opera Omnia 6:392, 541-42).
160
Lawrence of Brindisi, Opera Omnia, 3:186, 228, 368, 392, 400, 429, 537-42;
4:23, 47, 145, 301, 314, 406, 472.
161
See Gregory XVI, Santitas et doctrina (Acta Gregorii Papae XVI: scilicet
constitutiones, bullae, litterae apostolicae, epistolae [Rome: S.C. de Propaganda Fide,
1901], 2:306); Pius IX, Inter eos (Pii IX Pontificis Maximi acta [Rome: Ex Typographia
Bonarum Artium, 1871], 296).
156

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

may lawfully do so, and then only if the order of the law has
been observed, as is made clear in Exodus 22 and Romans
13.”162 Moreover, in a letter to the archbishop of Besançon
(July 5, 1831), the Sacred Penitentiary stated that one can hold
any of Liguori’s views safely. Such counsel would be difficult to
understand if capital punishment were intrinsically evil.163
IV. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF
DOCTRINE
Some contemporary theologians argue that if the magisterium were now to teach that capital punishment is intrinsically
evil, it would be an instance of an authentic development of
doctrine.164 There are essentially three problems with this
argument. First, revelation is fundamentally binding on the
Church: whatever is taught by the magisterium must be in
conformity with the Word of God.165 According to the Second
Vatican Council, this authentic “Magisterium is not superior to
the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has
been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help
of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with
dedication, and expounds it faithfully.”166 Scripture plainly
teaches that God both killed individuals and ordered others to
do so as his ministers. If the magisterium were to declare that
162

“Resp. Extra causum necessariae defensionis, de quo infra, nulli id licet, nisi
auctoritate publica et juris ordine servato, ut patet Exod. 22 et Rom. 13” (Alphonsus
Liguori, Theologia moralis, Editio nova cum antiquis editionibus diligenter collata in
singulis auctorum allegationibus recognita notisque critics et commentariis illustrata;
cura et studio P. Leonardi Gaude [Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1954],
1:629).
163
DH 2727.
164
Brugger, Capital Punishment, 161; Fischella, “The Death Penalty Is
Inadmissible,” 6.
165
Pius XII admonished bishops that they “ought time and again to meditate on
what the Apostle Paul said of his preaching of the Gospel: ‘For I give you to understand,
brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not of man. For I did not receive
it from man, nor was I taught it; but I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Gal. 1.
11-12)” (Ad sinarum gentem, 19).
166
Dei Verbum, 5.

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399

capital punishment is intrinsically evil, it would necessarily
entail either that God had ordered that which is intrinsically evil
or that the sacred Scriptures contain errors about the actions of
God himself. Even if one were to argue that with the coming of
Christ and the new dispensation capital punishment was abrogated, it still could not be intrinsically evil, given the data of the
Old Testament.
Second, if the thesis of this article—that the Church’s
doctrine on capital punishment has been proposed infallibly by
the ordinary and universal magisterium—is correct, then this
teaching is “irreformable.”167 When speaking of definitions as
“irreformable,” both the First Vatican Council and the Second
Vatican Council simply mean that a doctrine cannot be
transformed or metamorphosed into a new doctrine with some
other meaning at some later point.168 Thus, the First Vatican
Council was clear that the “understanding of its sacred dogmas
must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church has
once declared; and there must never be recession from that
meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding.”169 The council then quoted Vincent of Lerins, who
taught that a dogma must always retain “the same sense and the

167

In the past, theologians tended to use the term “immutable” or “definitive” as
frequently as “irreformable” for infallible decisions. Bellarmine, De Controversiis, 4.2.13
(Paris ed., 2:90). Louis Billot, De immutabilitate traditionis contra modernam haeresim
evolutionismi (Rome: Universitatis Gregorianae, 1929), 38. Giuseppe Agostino Orsi, De
irreformabili Romani Pontificis: In definiendis fidei controversiis judicio (Rome: Typis
Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, 1739). Cardinal Manning stated that
irreformability means that “no future acts will retouch them. This is the meaning of
irreformable” (Petri Priviligium: Three Pastoral Letters, 40).
168
DH 3074; Lumen Gentium, 25. Proclaiming the Truth of Jesus Christ: Papers
from the Vallombrosa Meeting (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference,
2000), 61.
169
DH 3020. See also Dei Filius, canon 4.3: “If anyone says that, as science
progresses, at times a sense is to be given to dogmas proposed by the Church different
from the one that the Church has understood and understands, let him be anathema”
(DH 3043).

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

same understanding,”170 even when there is doctrinal development.171 Some contemporary theologians prefer the terms
“definitive” or “irreversible,”172 since “irreformable” seems to
suggest that no change is possible. But the use of terms such as
“irreformable” was never intended to suggest that no development could take place.173 Since irreformability is confined to the
doctrine’s meaning and not the terms in which it is presented, it
does not exclude reformulation.174 Some reformulation of a
170

DH 3020. Subsequent magisterial interventions were equally clear that the
meaning of an infallible doctrine is irreformable. In the midst of the Modernist crisis, St.
Pius X required an oath to be taken by all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers,
religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries, which
included: “I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and
change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held
previously” (DH 3541). The CDF’s instruction Mysterium fidei asserts that “there is no
doubt that, according to these texts of the Council, the meaning of dogmas which is
declared by the Church is determinate and unalterable” (CDF, Mysterium ecclesiae, 5).
171
One contemporary theologian argues that “Dogmatic statements are teachings
judged by the church to be faithful and trustworthy mediations of God’s offer of
salvation revealed to us in Christ by the power of the Spirit. Consequently, dogmatic
continuity may not reside in some eternal and immutable core of transient meaning but
in the saving praxis to which a dogma calls us. In this view, the central insight in the
Church’s claim regarding the irreversible and definitive nature of dogma would appear
to be that no dogma could so change or develop as to lead us away from the path to
salvation” (Richard R. Gaillardetz, Teaching with Authority: A Theology of the
Magisterium in the Church [Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1997], 108). The
language here is somewhat obscure: “eternal and immutable core of transient meaning.”
One is not quite sure how immutable and transient can be used simultaneously. Clearly,
both the First Vatican Council and Mysterium ecclesiae assert that dogmas of the
Church are immutable in meaning. It is Modernists who attempt to shift the significance
of dogmas from their intellectual meaning to being guides to action. Hence Pius X
condemned the following Modernist proposition: “The dogmas of the Faith are to be
held only according to their practical sense; that is to say, as perceptive norms of
conduct and not as norms of believing” (Lamentabili, 26 [DH 3426]).
172
Sullivan, Magisterium, 81; Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin,
Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011),
104.
173
In the sixteenth century, for example, Bellarmine commonly used the term
“immutable,” though he clearly recognized that in some cases the wording of an
infallible decree could have been better. Bellarmine, De Controversiis, 4.2.12 (Paris ed.,
2:87).
174
John XXIII, Opening Speech to the Vatican II Council, AAS 54 (1962): 791. See
also CDF, Mysterium Ecclesiae, 5.

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401

doctrine may be necessary precisely to preserve the meaning of
the doctrine. Reformulation, however, only pertains to the
mode of expression and not to the content or meaning of the
statements.175 Thus, any new reformulation of the Church’s
doctrine could not alter its essential content. If, therefore,
something was taught definitively, it remains irreformable today
and forever with respect to its meaning.
Third, a declaration of the intrinsically evil nature of capital
punishment cannot be said to be an authentic development of
catholic doctrine. The theories of development most cited and
approved by the magisterium are those of Vincent of Lerins and
John Henry Newman. On either theory, we see that it is
impossible to conclude that the Church’s teaching on capital
punishment could undergo a legitimate development from being
permissible to being intrinsically evil. The Vincentian position is
clear that there can be authentic developments, but Vincent
understood that these developments must be organic. He used
the analogy of a child growing into adulthood: while there is
growth in the stature and a change in outward form, nevertheless the youth retains the same number of joints and limbs.176
Vincent warned that in a development “the Church of Christ,
the careful and watchful guardian of the doctrines deposited in
her charge, never changes anything in them, never diminishes,
never adds.”177 For Vincent, then, one simply could not have a
development in one doctrine (e.g., the dignity of man) that
entailed the loss of another doctrine (e.g., permissibility of the

175
Avery Dulles, “Infallibility the Terminology,” in Paul C. Empie, T. Austin
Murphy, and Joseph A. Burgess, Teaching Authority and Infallibility in the Church
(Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1980), 75.
176
Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium 23.55 (ed. Roland Demeulenaere, Corpus
Christianorum: Series Latina 64 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1985]).
177
“Christi uero ecclesia, sedula et cauta depositorum apud se dogmatum custos,
nihil in his umquam permutat, nihil minuit, nihil addit; non amputat necessaria, non
adponit superflua; non amittit sua, non usurpat aliena” (Vincent of Lerins,
Commonitorium 23.59 [CCSL 64:179-80; NPNF second series, 11:148-49]).

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death penalty); to do so would in effect make the whole body
into a “monster.”178
Newman also understood development of doctrine in an
organic fashion, likening it to a body which will either grow in
perfection or be corrupted to the point of losing its identity.
Newman proposed seven “notes” or tests by which one can
distinguish an authentic development of doctrine from a
corruption or heresy.179 The first test is preservation of type,
which Newman likened to physical growth, an analogy he drew
explicitly from Vincent of Lerins. Thus, an authentic
development will “imitate the law of the body, which, as years
go on, develops indeed and opens out its due proportions, and
yet remains identically what it was. Small are a baby’s limbs, a
youth’s are larger, yet they are the same.”180 This body of
doctrine, like the human body, must be taken integrally, whole
and entire. As an example, Newman noted that Henry Hart
Milman (1791-1868) in his eight-volume History of Christianity, had argued that Constantine corrupted Catholicism
when “the meek and peaceful Jesus became a God of battle, and
the Cross, the holy sign of Christian redemption, a banner of
bloody strife.”181 Newman’s answer to Milman’s charge is
striking: “Our Lord Himself is represented in the prophets as a
combatant inflicting wounds while He received them, as coming
from Bozrah with dyed garments, sprinkled and red in His
apparel with the blood of His enemies.”182 The rejection of the
biblical teaching of a warrior Jesus as foretold by the prophets
would not merely be a rejection of that particular attribute of
178
Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium 23.55 (CCSL 64:178; NPNF second series,
11:148).
179
It is important to note that Newman thought that these notes are of “varying
cogency, independence, and applicability” (John Henry Newman, An Essay on the
Development of Christian Doctrine [London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1878], 171).
180
Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 172. By “type,”
Newman really meant the “idea” of Christianity—“not any particular idea but rather
that body of ideas that goes to make up the body of doctrines of Christianity”
(Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 322).
181
Ibid., 173. Citing Henry Hart Milman, History of Christianity to the Abolition of
Paganism in the Roman Empire (London: John Murray, 1840), 2:354.
182
Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 422.

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Jesus, but would be an alteration of the whole so that it was no
longer the same type. Contemporary proponents of the thesis
that capital punishment is intrinsically evil argue in much the
same way as Milman, seeing capital punishment as contrary to
the gospel. Yet the very Scriptures reveal a Christ who says, “it
will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of
Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town [that rejects the
disciples]” (Matt 10:15). Since every ad extra action of one
person of the Trinity is an action of all three persons, it is the
Logos who destroyed the original Sodom and Gomorrah.
Newman’s second test is the continuity of principles: “doctrines are developed by operation of principles, and develop
variously according to those principles.”183 For “a development
to be faithful, it must retain both the doctrine and the principle
with which it started.”184 One of these governing principles is
the objective content of revelation: this cannot and does not
change. Furthermore, for Newman “one aspect of Revelation
must not be allowed to exclude or to obscure another.”185
183

Ibid., 180.
Ibid., 181.
185
Ibid., 36. It must be remembered that for Newman, one of the principal tasks of
his life as a Christian was opposition to theological liberalism or what in Catholic circles
would later be called Modernism. Newman provided a clear definition of theological
liberalism: “by liberalism I meant the anti-dogmatic principle and its developments”
(John Henry Newman and Charles Kingsley, Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua, The Two
Versions of 1864 & 1865; Preceded by Newman's and Kingsley's Pamphlets [London: H.
Frowde, 1913], 150). “Now by Liberalism I mean false liberty of thought, or the
exercise of thought upon matters, in which, from the constitution of the human mind,
thought cannot be brought to any successful issue, and therefore is out of place. Among
such matters are first principles of whatever kind; and of these the most sacred and
momentous are especially to be reckoned the truths of Revelation. Liberalism then is the
mistake of subjecting to human judgment those revealed doctrines which are in their
nature beyond and independent of it, and of claiming to determine on intrinsic grounds
the truth and value of propositions which rest for their reception simply on the external
authority of the Divine Word” (Newman, Apologia pro vita sua, Note A, 493). Newman
was clear that he never repented of his opposition to Liberalism: “But here I have the
satisfaction of feeling that I have nothing to retract, and nothing to repent of. The main
principle of the Movement is as dear to me now, as it ever was. I have changed in many
184

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

Consequently, Newman would reject any notion of development that allowed the biblical doctrine of the mercy of God to
obscure or overturn the equally biblical doctrine of capital
punishment. One simply cannot appeal to one biblical doctrine
over another.
The application of Newman’s remaining tests yields similar
results. Thus, Newman’s fourth test of “logical sequence,”
whereby the rules of logic “must not be transgressed” does not
allow for a contradiction of doctrine.186 His fifth test is “early
anticipation of the future development,” which means that we
would find instances of the later development in “the first
centuries.”187 As evidenced above, there exists no early hint of
the idea that capital punishment is intrinsically evil. In fact, the
Fathers and Pope Innocent I explicitly affirm it is part of the
content of revelation. The sixth test is “conservative action
upon the past.” Newman noted that those teachings which “do
but contradict and reverse the course of doctrine . . . are
certainly corrupt.”188 The seventh test for an authentic development is “chronic vigor.” Corruptions and heresies are shortlived
while true developments have a chronic vigor.189 The Church’s
doctrine on capital punishment has lasted over two thousand
years, surviving challenges from the Waldensians, Anabaptists,
and Quakers.
Therefore, whether one uses Vincent’s or Newman’s theory
of development, one cannot conclude that the assertion that
capital punishment is intrinsically evil is an authentic development of doctrine. It is a corruption and a contradiction of
divine revelation. One might object that, from this perspective,
development of the teaching on capital punishment does not
even seem possible, an implication which flies in the very face
of Newman’s own principles: “the refusal to follow the course

things: in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental
principle of my religion” (ibid., 150).
186
Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 382, 189.
187
Ibid., 400.
188
Ibid., 199.
189
Ibid., 203.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE MAGISTERIUM

405

of doctrine as it moves on” is itself a cause of corruption.190 In
fact, development of the doctrine of capital punishment is
certainly possible and has in fact been occurring for some time
in two distinct ways. First, the magisterium has developed a
fuller moral doctrine concerning the relationship of capital
punishment to other moral considerations in its use. Thus,
Innocent I simply recognized that capital punishment is scriptural. Innocent III’s profession of faith for the Waldensians,
however, goes beyond this by adding certain conditions to the
exercise of capital punishment, requiring that it be carried out
“not out of hatred, but judiciously, not in a precipitous manner,
but with caution.”191 With this development, the magisterium
was making it clear that Christians could not simply engage in
capital punishment as it was used in non-Christian contexts and
that it could not proceed from hatred.
Second, the magisterium can, while not changing the doctrine, issue what Donum veritatis calls “interventions in the
prudential order” since, particularly in what constitutes mores,
there are “certain contingent and conjectural elements” that
come into play.192 Some of the Fathers, for example, while
accepting the legitimacy of capital punishment as part of the
objective content of revelation, have a sense that some cases
might require that it not be employed. We see this type of
intervention in St. John Paul II’s Evangelium vitae, where he
noted that as a “consequence of the possibilities which the State
has for effectively preventing crime” through incarceration,
instances of having to execute a criminal “are very rare, if not
practically nonexistent.” By contrast, when Pope Sixtus V
inherited the Papal States, they were overrun with brigands
terrorizing the population, and he initially was quite popular,
partly because of the peace he brought through the execution of

190

Ibid., 177.
DH 795.
192
CDF, Donum veritatis, 24.
191

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CHRISTIAN D. WASHBURN

these brigands.193 There are likely to be all sorts of new
situations in the future in which the Church will need to reflect
more deeply upon this doctrine. The introduction of new
technologies for executions, for example, will require new
reflection.
CONCLUSION
It is the constant and unbroken teaching of two thousand
years of the Church’s magisterium that the state has the right to
use capital punishment in a just manner. This teaching has
consistently been presented by the papal magisterium, the
Fathers of the Church, catechisms both universal and local, a
consensus of theologians, and Doctors of the Church as constituting part of the teaching of revelation. It is a solid
conclusion, therefore, that this teaching has been proposed
definitively by the ordinary and universal magisterium. Pope
Francis’s recent modification to the catechism is best seen in
both language and content as an authentic development of St.
John Paul II’s intervention in the prudential order. Given
Francis’s own statement that his teaching is “not in any way
[emphasis added] contradicting past teaching,” it is difficult to
see how his teaching could be interpreted as an affirmation that
capital punishment is intrinsically evil. Moreover, the assertion
that capital punishment is an intrinsically evil act cannot be a
true development of doctrine. In any true development, the
Church’s doctrine must be held in “the same sense, the same
understanding,” as Vatican I teaches. One simply cannot
develop the doctrine of the dignity of man at the expense of the
Church’s understanding of the doctrine of capital punishment.
Lastly, one must avoid asserting any proposition that necessarily
entails that either both the Old and New Testaments contain
numerous errors concerning God’s “deeds and words” or that
God intentionally and repeatedly commanded intrinsically evil
acts. Neither of these heretical conclusions is a happy one.
193

Ludwig von Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages
(London: Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1932), 21:72-127.

The Thomist 82 (2018): 407-46

WHY THE THOMISTIC DEFENSE OF “BRAIN DEATH”
IS NOT THOMISTIC: AN ANALYSIS FROM THE
PERSPECTIVES OF CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY AND
CONTEMPORARY BIOPHILOSOPHY
DOYEN NGUYEN
Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas
Rome, Italy

T

HE ONGOING DEBATE on “brain death” (BD)—
also known as the neurological standard for the
determination of death—reached its half-century
mark in 2018. In August 1968, the Ad Hoc Harvard
Committee introduced “irreversible coma as a new criterion
for death.”1 Despite intense controversy, and the lack of
both a conceptual rationale and scientific validation, the
Harvard BD criterion gained widespread medical and legal
acceptance, especially the endorsement by the 1981
President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in
Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research.2 The
1

Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School, “A Definition of
Irreversible Coma,” Journal of the American Medical Association 205, no. 6 (1968):
337. The opening paragraph of the Harvard report mentions two main reasons for
introducing the BD criterion: (1) to alleviate the burden which patients in irreversible coma pose to themselves, their families, and hospital resources, and (2)
to free up hospital beds occupied by these patients. The manuscript drafts of the
Harvard report, however, reveal a close link between the need for transplantable
organs and the introduction of BD. For instance, in the manuscript draft of June 3,
1968, it is written: “With increased experience and knowledge and development in
the field of transplantation, there is great need for the tissues and organs of the
hopelessly comatose in order to restore to health those who are still salvageable”
(cited in Mita Giacomini, “A Change of Heart and a Change of Mind? Technology
and the Redefinition of Death in 1968,” Social Science & Medicine 44, no. 10
[1997]: 1475).
2
President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and
Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Defining Death: A Report on the Medical,
Legal and Ethical Issues in the Determination of Death (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1981).
407

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DOYEN NGUYEN

Commission also gave BD its first conceptual justification,
which was essentially the thesis of James Bernat and his
colleagues,3 according to which: (1) the brain is the central
somatic integrator “necessary for the functioning of the
organism as a whole,” and (2) consequently, a brain-dead
(BD) patient on life support is merely a collection of artificially maintained, unintegrated organs and subsystems.4
Bernat’s emphasis on the centrality of the brain, especially
with respect to the vegetative functions of a human person,
is explicitly stated in the following passage:
It is primarily the brain that is responsible for the function of the
organism as a whole: the integration of organ and tissue subsystems by
neural and neuroendocrine control of temperature, fluids and electrolytes,
nutrition, breathing, circulation, appropriate responses to danger, among
others.5

The intervention of the President’s Commission did not
suppress the BD controversy, however. Instead, the controversy has expanded to involve the Catholic Church and
cause divisions among Catholics, especially following John
Paul II’s 2000 Address to the 18th International Congress of
the Transplantation Society.6 Since the mid-1980s, medical
evidence has repeatedly falsified the above thesis of Bernat
and the President’s Commission.7 As a result, in 2008, the
3
James L. Bernat, Charles M. Culver, and Bernard Gert, “On the Definition
and Criterion of Death,” Annals of Internal Medicine 94, no. 3 (1981): 389-94.
Bernat has remained one of the staunchest BD defenders ever since. Even when,
under the weight of irrefutable medical evidence, he has had to admit the many
serious flaws of the BD paradigm, he nevertheless continues to insist that BD
remains a sound concept and optimal public policy. See James L. Bernat, “The
Whole-Brain Concept of Death Remains Optimum Public Policy,” Journal of Law,
Medicine & Ethics 34, no. 1 (2006): 35-43; idem, “Whither Brain Death?,”
American Journal of Bioethics 14, no. 8 (2014): 3-8.
4
Bernat, Culver, and Gert, “On the Definition and Criterion of Death,” 391.
5
James L. Bernat, “The Definition, Criterion, and Statute of Death,” Seminars
in Neurology 4, no. 1 (1984): 48.
6
John Paul II, “Address to the 18th International Congress of the Transplantation Society (29 August 2000),” http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/
speeches/2000/jul-sep/documents/hf_jpii_spe_20000829_transplants_en.html;
Doyen Nguyen, “Pope John Paul II and the Neurological Standard for the
Determination of Death: A Critical Analysis of His Address to the Transplantation
Society,” Linacre Quarterly 84, no. 2 (2017): 155-56.
7
The best work in this regard is that of D. Alan Shewmon, showing the
untenability of BD, at both the empirical and conceptual levels. Shewmon collected

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President’s Council on Bioethics formally rejected “the false
assumption [of] the brain [as] the ‘integrator’ of vital
functions.”8 Nevertheless, the council sought to rescue BD
with another conceptual justification—the “fundamental
vital work” rationale,9 according to which a living human
organism is defined by its “self-preserving commerce with
the world,”10 that is, by the presence of spontaneous
breathing and/or consciousness.11
Because of its overt deficiencies, the “fundamental vital
work” rationale has not elicited much interest among BD
supporters.12 Moreover, from the Catholic perspective, to
accept the council’s rationale would also amount to saying
that embryos and fetuses in utero are not living human
beings since they lack both spontaneous breathing and

175 well-documented cases of brain-dead (BD) patients who, because they were not
taken for organ harvesting within 24-48 hours of admission, continued to survive
for weeks and months, or even years—a survival well beyond the maximum
possible “few days” claimed by BD proponents. The record survivor was declared
BD at age four but continued to live on with evidence of normal physical growth
for 19½ more years, despite a flat electroencephalogram, and no evidence of
intracranial blood flow by magnetic resonance angiography. See D. Alan Shewmon,
“‘Brainstem Death,’ ‘Brain Death’ and Death: A Critical Re-Evaluation of the
Purported Equivalence,” Issues in Law & Medicine 14, no. 2 (1998): 125-45; D.
Alan Shewmon, “The Brain and Somatic Integration: Insights into the Standard
Biological Rationale for Equating ‘Brain Death’ with Death,” Journal of Medicine
and Philosophy 26, no. 5 (2001): 457-78.
8
President's Council on Bioethics, ed., Controversies in the Determination of
Death (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008), 60.
9
Ibid., 60-65.
10
Ibid., 62.
11
As acknowledged by the council itself, there is a very close similarity between
the “fundamental vital work” rationale for the defense of whole BD and the
rationale of Christopher Pallis for the justification of the “brainstem death”
standard practiced in the United Kingdom and former British colonies. According
to Pallis, the “irreversible loss of the capacity for consciousness and irreversible loss
of the capacity to breathe [constitute] a valid definition of death.” See Christopher
Pallis, “On the Brainstem Criterion of Death,” in The Definition of Death:
Contemporary Controversies, ed. Stuart J. Youngner, Robert M. Arnold, and Renie
Schapiro (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 96; President's
Council on Bioethics, ed., Controversies in the Determination of Death, 65-67.
12
For details on the deficiencies of the “fundamental vital work” rationale, see
D. Alan Shewmon, “Brain Death: Can It Be Resuscitated?,” Hastings Center Report
39, no. 2 (2009): 20-22.

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DOYEN NGUYEN

consciousness.13 For this reason, pro-life, pro-BD Catholic
scholars have endeavored to develop new arguments to
justify the BD paradigm. The most recent rationales—the
only two currently in use within the Catholic tradition in
defense of BD—are (1) Patrick Lee and Germain Grisez’s
“substantial change” rationale, according to which BD
patients are no longer humans (and therefore dead) because
they have lost the radical capacity for sentience even though
they remain somatically integrated;14 and (2) the rationale
advocated by Melissa Moschella and Maureen Condic,
according to which BD patients are dead because they have
lost the root capacity for self-integration, as evidenced by
the loss of the capacity for spontaneous breathing and the
loss of the capacity for sentience.15
The point of this article is to determine whether these
rationales cohere with the Catholic Church’s understanding
of human nature based on Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism. My argument is that they do not, and that they
also contradict the contemporary holistic biophilosophical
understanding about life and organisms.
I. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF LEE AND GRISEZ’S RATIONALE
In a way similar to the 2008 President’s Council, Patrick
Lee and Germain Grisez also acknowledge that the medical
evidence presented by Shewmon has disproved the thesis of
the brain as central somatic integrator, and that BD patients
are living beings with somatic integration. Nevertheless, Lee
and Grisez argue that the BD standard remains valid because
“what is alive after total brain death is neither the individual
whose brain died nor a whole member of the human
13

In utero, the embryo/fetus is totally dependent on the placenta for its survival.
Among its many functions, the placenta plays a role analogous to the ventilator and
feeding tube.
14
Patrick Lee and Germain Grisez, “Total Brain Death: A Reply to Alan
Shewmon,” Bioethics 26, no. 5 (2012): 275-84; Patrick Lee, “Total Brain Death
and the Integration of the Body Required of a Human Being,” Journal of Medicine
and Philosophy 41, no. 3 (2016): 300-314.
15
Maureen L. Condic, “Determination of Death: A Scientific Perspective on
Biological Integration,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 41, no. 3 (2016):
257-78; Melissa Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain Death
Analogy and Clarifying the Rationale for the Neurological Criterion of Death,”
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 41, no. 3 (2016): 279-99.

BRAIN DEATH

411

species.”16 Lee reaffirms the same assertion, stating: “even if
some brain-dead bodies are organisms, or complex entities
of some sort, they are not human organisms.”17 Philosophically speaking, Lee and Grisez’s rationale takes its
starting point from the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic
concept of man as a rational animal. The core of their
argument reads as follows:
A human being is a rational animal. . . . To be a rational animal, an
organism must be an animal; [this means that] it must have either the
capacity for sentience, or the capacity to develop the capacity for sentience . . . [since] rational functions presuppose sensory functioning. . . . A
mammal’s sentience requires either a brain capable of functioning or the
capacity to develop a brain. But a totally brain-dead individual neither has
a brain capable of functioning nor the capacity to develop a brain. It
follows that any mammalian individual that undergoes brain death is no
longer a sentient being, and thus not an animal, and thus not a rational
animal. . . . [In other words,] a substantial change has occurred: the
human being has passed away, and although the remains include a large
living entity, that entity is not a human organism, and so it is not the
individual who suffered total brain death.18

Although Lee and Grisez’s insistence on sentience coheres
with the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding that
sensible images are the necessary starting point for human
abstract thinking and acquisition of knowledge,19 their
assertion that “the loss of the capacity for consciousness is
death”20 is problematic at both the empirical and conceptual
levels. Such emphasis on consciousness comes to the fore
when Lee refines the above argument by specifying that

16

Lee and Grisez, “Total Brain Death: A Reply to Alan Shewmon,” 277.
Lee, “Total Brain Death and the Integration of the Body,” 301.
18
Lee and Grisez, “Total Brain Death: A Reply to Alan Shewmon,” 278-79. The
same argument is reiterated by Lee, who says: “A human being is essentially a
rational animal, and so must have a radical capacity for rational operations. For
rational animals, conscious sensation is a pre-requisite for rational operation. But
total brain death results in the loss of the radical capacity for conscious sensation,
and so also for rational operations. Hence, total brain death constitutes a
substantial change—the ceasing to be of the human being” (Lee, “Total Brain
Death and the Integration of the Body,” 301).
19
See Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1.980a-982b (trans. Hugh Tredennick
[Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1933]); De Verit., q. 2, a. 3, arg. 19
(trans. Robert W. Mulligan [Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1952]).
20
Lee and Grisez, “Total Brain Death: A Reply to Alan Shewmon,” 283.
17

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DOYEN NGUYEN

sentience refers strictly to “conscious sensory awareness,”21
and that the “higher animal (rational) . . . [is] an animal that
has the capacity for conscious sensation.”22
Conscious “awareness is a deeply private matter,
inaccessible to observation by third parties,” however.23 If
this is true about consciousness itself, how much truer would
it be about the capacity for consciousness? “The fact that a
patient has lost the capacity for consciousness is extremely
difficult to establish beyond reasonable doubt.”24 Having
admitted this fact, Lee and Grisez nevertheless uphold their
thesis of substantial change: the BD patient has changed into
a nonhuman large living entity; such an entity may have a
soul, but “it is a vegetative soul, not a rational soul or animal
soul,” that is, not a soul that can be identified with the soul
of that patient prior to the BD diagnosis.25 Re-affirming
their thesis, they state: “Evidence of sentient functioning
after a mammalian organism underwent total brain death
would falsify our thesis.”26
The well-publicized case of Jahi McMath challenges
this.27 This complex case—the object of a protracted legal
21
Lee, “Total Brain Death and the Integration of the Body,” 304. In Lee and
Grisez’s earlier article, the adjective “conscious” occurs six times, but never paired
with the term “sentience,” which occurs twenty-two times; the expression
“conscious sensation” is absent. In contrast, in Lee’s article, “conscious sensation”
occurs forty-two times (in the abstract and text), and “conscious sentience” (or
“conscious sentient”) appears eight times.
22
Ibid., 302.
23
Adam Zeman, “What Do We Mean by ‘Conscious’ and ‘Aware’?,”
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation 16, no. 4 (2006): 371. That a comatose patient
does not respond to stimuli does not necessarily means that he or she lacks
consciousness; the patient may have perceptual awareness but is unable to produce
a motor response to the stimuli. For additional detailed critiques of Lee and
Grisez’s overarching emphasis on sentience, see Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco,
“The Brain Dead Patient Is Still Sentient: A Further Reply to Patrick Lee and
Germain Grisez,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 41, no. 3 (2016): 315-28;
Doyen Nguyen, The New Definitions of Death for Organ Donation: A
Multidisciplinary Analysis from the Perspective of Christian Ethics (Bern,
Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2018), 163-74.
24
Lee and Grisez, “Total Brain Death: A Reply to Alan Shewmon,” 283. See
also Lee, “Total Brain Death and the Integration of the Body,” 311.
25
Lee and Grisez, “Total Brain Death: A Reply to Alan Shewmon,” 282.
26
Ibid., 282-83.
27
The following synopsis is derived from the sworn declarations of the four
neurologists (Drs. Alan Shewmon, Calixto Machado, Charles Prestigiacomo, and
Ivan Mikolaenko) who reviewed Jahi McMath’s clinical and laboratory data

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battle—can be summarized succinctly as follows: Jahi, who
in December 2013 fulfilled all the criteria of BD diagnosis
and, as a result, was declared dead on the basis of the
neurological standard, had from Spring 2014 until June 22
2018 demonstrated intermittent periods of responsiveness
during which, as stated by Shewmon in his 2017 declaration,
she was “capable of understanding a verbal command and
barely capable of executing a simple motor response.”28 This
was not a case of misdiagnosis of BD, since at the time of the
around September 2014. Jahi was a teenage girl who, in December 2013 when she
was thirteen years old, met all the criteria for the determination of BD (according
to the widely accepted pediatric and adult guidelines for BD), including the absence
of brain electrical activity documented on four different encephalograms (EEGs)
and the absence of cerebral blood flow documented on a radionuclide scan and a
SPECT scan. She was declared dead in California according to the BD criteria by
three different neurologists, including the pediatric neurologist Paul Fisher from
Stanford University. From 2014, however, it had been documented that Jahi (who
was relocated to New Jersey where she was legally alive) could move (with great
effort) her hands and feet in response to her mother’s verbal requests, and that her
heart rate changed in response to the mother’s voice. Jahi had also undergone
sexual maturation, a physiological phenomenon which indicates a functioning
hypothalamus. In September 2014, laboratory tests demonstrated the following:
(1) low voltage true EEG activity, (2) intracranial blood flow on magnetic
resonance angiography, and (3) magnetic resonance imaging showing structurally
preserved cerebral cortex, cerebellum and basal ganglia, but major damage to the
corpus callosum and the brainstem. All four neurologists affirmed that Jahi did
indeed fulfill all the criteria for BD in December 2013, but that subsequently she
no longer fulfilled the criteria for BD, as proven by the above-mentioned clinical
and laboratory evidence in 2014. The sworn declarations are available at Thaddeus
Mason Pope, “Jahi McMath—A Dispute over Brain Death,” http://
thaddeuspope.com/jahimcmath.html. See also John M. Luce, “The Uncommon
Case of Jahi McMath,” Chest 147, no. 4 (2015): 1144-51; Celeste McGovern,
“Top Neurologist: Jahi McMath Is ‘No Longer’ Dead,” National Catholic Register,
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/top-neurologist-jahi-mcmath-is-no-longerdead; Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, “Videos Show Mom Coaxing, Jahi McMath
Moving,” http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Videos-show-Mom-coaxing-JahiMcMath-moving-5797622.php; Rachel Aviv, “What Does It Mean to Die,” The
New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/what-does-it-mean
-to-die; Wesley J. Smith, “Justice for Jahi,” First Things, https:// www.firstthings.
com/web-exclusives/2017/09/justice-for-jahi; Thaddeus Mason Pope, “Brain Death
Forsake: Growing Conflicts and New Legal Challenges,” Journal of Legal Medicine
37 (2017): 265-324, at 302-7. Jahi McMath died on June 22 due to excessive
hemorrhage following an abdominal surgery. See http://www.foxnews.com/health/
2018/06/28/jahi-mcmath-girl-at-center-brain-death-debate-has-died-after-surgeryfamily-says.html.
28
Declaration of D. Alan Shewmon 2017, http://www.thaddeuspope.com/
images/Shewmon_Decl._12-2017.pdf.

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DOYEN NGUYEN

original diagnosis the patient objectively met all the criteria
of BD.29 That post hoc philosophical rationales have been
put forth to defend BD, insisting that BD is death (in the full
sense of the term), necessarily rests on the assumption that
the BD paradigm provides adequate moral certainty in
determining that the patient has indeed truly died. The case
of Jahi challenges the validity of the BD paradigm,30 as well
as its associated post hoc philosophical rationales.
From the medical perspective, a major difficulty with Lee
and Grisez’s thesis that the BD individual is a nonhuman
large living entity and no longer a human organism is the
following: How is it possible “that the so-called non-human
organisms harbor organs composed of matter perfectly welldisposed for transplantation into humans,”31 or that these
nonhuman large living entities continue to perform vegetative activities in a human way, including pubertal
development or the gestation of a human baby to the stage
29
See note 27. According to the guidelines of the American Academy of
Neurology (AAN), the criteria for the determination of BD are: (1) unresponsiveness to noxious stimuli, (2) absence of brainstem reflexes and, (3) absence of a
breathing drive proven by the apnea test. In the United States, laboratory tests for
brain electrical activity (EEG) and cerebral blood flow are considered ancillary and
therefore optional. See Eelco F. M. Wijdicks et al., “Evidence-Based Guideline
Update: Determining Brain Death in Adults: Report of the Quality Standards
Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology,” Neurology 74, no. 23
(2010): 1915-16. Note, however, that according to the AAN guidelines the
presence of reflexes and spontaneous movements (including the complex
movements of the Lazarus sign) do not invalidate the diagnosis of BD. See Eelco F.
M. Wijdicks, “Determining Brain Death in Adults,” Neurology 45, no. 5 (1995):
1007. This particular guideline is problematic for Christian believers since it
contradicts the Christian understanding of death, in which it is impossible for an
inanimate lifeless corpse to produce movements or reflexes, since the presence of
any movement would indicate that the soul is still present in the body, and
therefore that the patient is still alive, however close to death he or she might be.
30
It is not within the scope of this article to discuss the adequacy of the “brain
death” paradigm as a criterion for the determination of death. For a treatment of
this topic, see, e.g., Nguyen, “Pope John Paul II and the Neurological Standard for
the Determination of Death,” 164-65; Mike Nair-Collins, “Death, Brain Death,
and the Limits of Science: Why the Whole-Brain Concept of Death Is a Flawed
Public Policy,” The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 38, no. 3 (2010): 667-83;
Baruch A. Brody, “How Much of the Brain Must Be Dead?,” in The Definition of
Death: Contemporary Controversies, ed. Stuart J. Youngner, Robert M. Arnold,
and Renie Schapiro (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 71-82.
31
Michel Accad, “Of Wholes and Parts: A Thomistic Refutation of ‘Brain
Death’,” Linacre Quarterly 82, no. 3 (2015): 228.

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when it can be delivered and survive after birth?32 This lack
of concordance between the factual biological reality and
Lee and Grisez’s “substantial change” rationale raises the
further question: is this thesis in accord with a substance
view of human nature taught by the Catholic Church,
founded on Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy?
A) Analysis in Light of the Notion of the Soul as Substantial
Form
In Lee and Grisez’s own words, BD brings about a
substantial change in which “the remains [of the once living
patient] include a large living entity, [but] that entity is not a
human organism.”33 In other words, the post-BD entity is a
“large living non-human organism.” The arguments that will
be presented below are directed at this thesis. 34
The notion of substantial change invoked by Lee and
Grisez necessarily entails a discussion of the soul. The
32
For a nonexhaustive list of the human operations performed by BD patients,
see Shewmon, “The Brain and Somatic Integration,” 467-69.
33
Lee and Grisez, “Total Brain Death: A Reply to Alan Shewmon,” 279
(emphasis added).
34
An anonymous reviewer of an earlier draft of this article suggested that these
arguments do not accurately reflect Lee and Grisez’s position, because Lee has
stated verbally to him that “in BD, you have . . . a non-rational human
organism . . . [informed by] a human non-rational soul,” i.e., an entity similar to
that which Aquinas posited in his (now archaic) theory of delayed hominization. If
Lee indeed currently holds this viewpoint, then either he has changed his mind or
he is contradicting his own writing, since a large living entity that is not a human
organism is certainly not the same as a “non-rational human organism.” (In schools
of thought in which the definition of personhood rests on consciousness and
rational or cognitive functions, a “non-rational human organism” is also known as
a “non-person human organism,” or “non-person human being.” Such beings are
not bearers of moral rights and their lives are considered dispensable.) If Lee has in
fact changed his mind he would have no need to appeal to the concept of
substantial change for his argument, since the post-BD entity (in this latter view) is
still of human nature. Moreover, his argument would fit squarely with the “higher
BD” view which holds that BD individuals are “non-person human organisms” and
which “accepts the irreversible loss of consciousness and every other mental
function as the criterion for determining our death” (John P. Lizza, “Defining
Death: Beyond Biology,” Diametros 55 [2018]: 3). Neither the Catholic Church
nor any state legislation has accepted the “higher BD” position, however. Since Lee
has not publicly confirmed in writing the thesis of a “non-rational human
organism,” the discussion presented below is about Lee and Grisez’s thesis of “large
living non-human organism” as formally recorded in their writing.

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classical hylomorphic account of the body-soul union rests
on the distinction between potency and act, and the
distinction between matter and form. As John Wippel points
out, Aquinas distinguishes two kinds of matter, which he
correlates to two kinds of existence and two kinds of
change.35 The first kind of matter (prime matter) is that
which “is in potency to substantial existence [esse simpliciter]”; it is the matter from which something comes into
being simpliciter when a substantial form is introduced.36 A
substantial change occurs in two instances: (1) introduction
of the substantial form, or (2) loss of the substantial form.
The second kind of matter is that which “is in potency to
accidental existence [i.e.,] the matter in which something
inheres.”37 As such, it is not matter properly speaking, but
the substantial subject (subiectum, a substance already
composed of matter and substantial form) which, during the
course of its existence, undergoes accidental changes with
the acquisition or loss of accidental forms. Thus, in terms of
actuality, the substantial form is prior to the subiectum, and
the latter is prior to accidental forms.38 The corollary to
Aquinas’s distinction is twofold: (1) the union of the soul
and body corresponds to that of the substantial form and
prime matter,39 and (2) “there cannot be more than one substantial form in any one thing. . . . It is one and the same
substantial form that makes a man a particular thing or
substance, and a bodily thing, and a living thing, and so

35

The discussion which follows is derived from John F. Wippel, “Thomas
Aquinas and the Unity of Substantial Form,” in Philosophy and Theology in the
Long Middle Ages: A Tribute to Stephen F. Brown, ed. Kent Emery, Russell L.
Friedman, and Andreas Speer (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 117-20; John F. Wippel, The
Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 296-320; De
Princip., http://dhspriory.org/thomas/DePrincNaturae.htm.
36
Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas and the Unity of Substantial Form,” 118. An
example is the substantial change from a nonhuman being (i.e., sperm and ovum)
into a human being (a zygote).
37
Ibid.
38
See STh I, q. 77, a. 6 (trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province [New
York: Benziger Bros, 1947]). The substantial form actualizes prime matter, thereby
giving existence to the subject, which in turn gives existence to accidents.
39
See Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas and the Unity of Substantial Form,” 117.
Because prime matter is pure potency, it can never exist by itself without a
substantial form. It can only exist in reality in a matter-form composite.

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on.”40 A living thing manifests a diversity of life activities
which Aristotle groups into three broad categories—
vegetative, sensitive, and intellective—each corresponding to
the respective generic category of “soul.”41 This does not
mean that in humans there are three souls, however. The
human soul is numerically one, the one substantial form by
which “we live, perceive and think.”42 Because the human
soul is named after its highest “part,” it is also referred to as
the “rational soul” or “intellectual soul.” Just as the
vegetative soul is subsumed into the sensitive soul of
animals, in man both the vegetative and sensitive souls are
subsumed into the human rational soul.43 This explains why
the vegetative and sensitive functions are performed in a
human way, and not in the way they are implemented in
animals or plants.44 Put differently, the one human soul
encompasses three fundamental powers—vegetative, sensitive, and intellective—which are hierarchically related to one
another in strict ontological order, in which the lower
powers are prerequisites for the existence of the higher
powers. Both the intellective and the sensitive need the
vegetative as a prerequisite, but not vice versa.
While hylomorphism has remained the most coherent
account for explaining stability and changes in living things,
one aspect of the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy of
nature which has become obsolete, when we correctly apply
Aquinas’s philosophical principles to modern embryology, is
the theory of delayed hominization. According to this
theory, the embryo is first animated only by the vegetative
soul, then by the sensitive soul until the body possesses the
required material structure to be disposed to receiving the

40

II De Anima, lect. 1 (trans. Kenelm Foster and Sylvester Humphries [New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1951]).
41
See Aristotle, De anima 2.413a20-414a13 (De Anima: Books II and III [with
Passages from Book I], trans. David W. Hamlyn [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002]).
42
Aristotle, De anima 2.414a13. See also STh I, q. 76, a. 1.
43
See Aristotle, De anima 2.414b28-32. See also STh I, q. 76, a. 3. Here,
Aquinas writes: “the intellectual soul contains virtually whatever belongs to the
sensitive soul of brute animals, and to the nutritive souls of plants.”
44
In other words, the vegetative and sensitive souls—which are more properly
called the vegetative and sensitive powers, respectively—are specific to the human
species. Thus, the human sensitive “soul” is different from the sensitive soul of a
dog or cat.

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rational soul infused by God.45 Delayed hominization thus
necessarily presupposes that the vegetative and sensitive
souls are of the human species. As Daniel Ols has pointed
out, if we adopt this archaic position, it is plausible to think
that in BD a symmetrical process takes place, whereby the
rational soul departs and is replaced by the sensitive soul
which, when it departs, is replaced by the vegetative soul—
and the departure of the rational soul is made manifest by
the cessation of the functioning of the brain, the material
basis for consciousness and cognitive functions.46 Such a
scenario is known as “early dehominization.” Could this
scenario, which is just as implausible as delayed hominization,47 correspond to Lee and Grisez’s thesis? There are
two reasons why this is unlikely. First, Lee and Grisez
advocate immediate hominization and not delayed hominization, since according to the latter the embryo is a
nonrational human being, and therefore early abortion, even
though a grave sin, is not considered a homicide. Thus, in
order not to be self-contradicting, Lee and Grisez cannot
hold “early dehominization.” Second, the vegetative and
sensitive souls in early dehominization must be of the human
species just as they are in delayed hominization. This would
indicate that no change in human nature (no substantial
change) has taken place in the individual who has suffered
BD.

45

See STh I, q. 118, a. 2, ad 2; ScG II, cc. 86-89 (trans. James F. Anderson
[Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975]). It does not lie within
the scope of this paper to discuss the untenability of the theory of delayed
hominization. For details on the issues of delayed hominization versus immediate
hominization, see, for instance, Benedict Ashley, A Critique of the Theory of
Delayed Hominization, in An Ethical Evaluation of Fetal Experimentation, ed.
Donald G. McCarthy and Albert S. Moraczewski, O.P. (St. Louis: Pope John XXIII
Center, 1976), 113-33; Nicanor Austriaco, “Immediate Hominization from the
Systems Perspective,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 4, no. 4 (2004):
719-38.
46
Daniel Ols, “Assertions dogmatiques que doit prendre en compte la réflexion
sur la transplantation d'organes,” in Working Group on the Determination of Brain
Death and Its Relationship to Human Death, 10-14 December 1989, ed. Robert J.
White, Heinz Angstwurm, and Ignacio Carrasco de Paula (Vatican City: Pontificia
Academia Scientiarum, 1992), 150.
47
For further detailed discussion see Nguyen, New Definitions of Death,
292-301.

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According to classical Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy,
a substantial change occurs at death when the substantial
form (the human soul) is no longer united to the body. Lee
and Grisez’s application of the concept of substantial change
to BD individuals necessarily implies that the human soul is
no longer in the BD body, but has been replaced by some
unknown type of substantial form, which transforms the
former human patient into a nonhuman large living entity of
an unknown species. What is puzzling, however, is that
although the human patient no longer exists, the very same
corporeal features which are characteristic of the human
species and specific to that particular patient perdure in the
new nonhuman entity, both structurally and functionally
(e.g., the identical organization of bodily organs working
together in an integrated human way). In Scholastic
language, this is a situation in which the original subiectum
has disappeared, yet its proper accidents still persist in
existence. In other words, in defense of their thesis of
substantial change, Lee and Grisez must provide a coherent
metaphysical account to explain how “certain accidents
might be kept in existence . . . even when their original and
proper subject no longer exists.”48 According to the
Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, such a phenomenon in the
natural order is metaphysically impossible. The one and
unique instance in which a substantial change occurs and yet
the original accidents remain belongs to the supernatural
order: the case of Eucharistic transubstantiation. In order to
explain transubstantiation without doing violence to the
nature of accidents, Aquinas had to appeal to divine
intervention.49
B) Analysis in Light of the Distinction between the Soul and
Its Capacities
Lee and Grisez’s terminology of “radical capacity”
corresponds to what Aristotle refers to as active potentiality.
48

Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 229.
See IV Sent., d. 12, q. 1, a. 1, http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/
snp2016.html; and STh III, q. 77, a. 1. Aquinas’s explanation comes down to the
fact that because God is the First Cause of all that exists, whereas the subiectum is
only the secondary cause of its proper accidents, God can maintain accidents in
existence without their proper subiectum.
49

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DOYEN NGUYEN

Active potencies include not only capacities that can be
readily exercised, but also those natural capacities that require further development before becoming fully actualized.50 The principle for such actualization is intrinsic to the
living being itself; it is none other than the soul. In De
anima, Aristotle speaks of the soul as the first entelechia
(actuality) of the body,51 that is, the principle that actualizes
matter to become the body of a living being of a particular
species, and the principle from which “flow” the capacities
for the different functions of that being. In other words, in
man, radical capacities (active potencies) are ontologically
grounded in human nature. Nature is thus distinct from
capacity (including radical capacity). Therefore, human
nature remains unchanged regardless of whether the
capacity for certain functions (such as perception and/or
consciousness) is not or cannot be actualized.52
The same issue can be looked at from a different angle.
That the soul is the substantial form of the body means that
the soul-body union is not mediated by any intermediary
element, be it power, function, disposition, or corporeal
organ.53 As Aquinas explains, this is because the soul, as
substantial form, “give[s prime] matter its act of existing
pure and simple [esse simpliciter].”54 This esse is “that which
most immediately and intimately belongs to [living]
things,”55 whereas “the powers of the soul are the qualities
by which it operates,” that is, intermediaries by which the
soul moves the body.56 In other words, the soul per se (the
soul’s essence as it were) is distinct from its powers
(capacities) because,
50

See Aristotle, Metaphys. 9.1049a. A paradigmatic example is the human
zygote that possesses already in itself the active potential of human personhood
(including sentience and rationality). In the absence of external hindrance, this
potentiality will progress to its fullness.
51
Aristotle, De anima 2.412a27. In classical language, the term “body” signifies
an ensouled (hence, living) body. A corpse is a body in the homonymous sense
only.
52
See Massimo Reichlin, “The Argument from Potential: A Reappraisal,”
Bioethics 11, no. 1 (1997): 14.
53
ScG II, c. 71; Q. D. De Anima a. 9 (trans. John Patrick Rowan [St. Louis: B.
Herder Book Company, 1949]); STh I, q. 76, aa. 6-7.
54
Q. D. De Anima, a. 9.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid., ad 1.

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just as the act of being (existence) itself is a kind of actuality of an essence,
so operating/acting is the actuality of an operative capacity/power.
Accordingly, each of these is an actuality: essence in terms of existence,
and capacity in terms of operation. Hence, since in no creature is its own
activity identified with its own existence, for this pertains to God alone, it
follows that in no creature is its capacity for operation identified with its
essence. To God alone is it proper that his essence is his power.57

In corporeal beings, essence (nature) consists of matter and
substantial form. As capacities are distinct from essence, they
are necessarily distinct from the soul. Put simply, capacities,
functions, and dispositions all belong to the category of accidents, which can only come into existence (in the subiectum)
once matter has received its esse simpliciter from the soul. In
this regard, Aquinas specifically states the following: (1) “all
the powers of the soul . . . flow from the essence of the
soul,”58 and (2) “it must be recognized that the powers of
the soul are its proper accidents and do not exist without the
soul.”59 It is self-evident that this statement of Aquinas regarding the powers of the soul also applies to what Lee and
Grisez refer to as radical capacities. Of the three powers of
the soul, the most fundamental is the vegetative power, since
it is “the first and most commonly possessed potentiality
[capacity] of the soul in virtue of which they [living things]
all have life.”60 Similarly, the presence of the sensitive and
intellective powers can be inferred from the manifestations
of their corresponding activities. But the loss of these,
however permanent or irreversible it might appear to be,
does not imply the absence or loss of their respective
powers.61

57

De Spir. Creat., a. 11 (my translation).
STh I, q. 77, a. 6.
59
Q. D. De Anima a. 9, ad 5. See also STh I, q. 77, a. 1, ad 5. Here Aquinas
writes: “as the power of the soul is not its essence, it must be an accident; and it
belongs to the second species of accident, that of quality.” Here, human knowledge
about the relationship between the soul and its power reaches its limits; it is not
possible to speculate regarding the particularities of this causal relationship because
the soul is immaterial. In other words, it is not possible for the human mind to
determine the intricacies of the interface between the immaterial soul and the
material body.
60
Aristotle, De anima 2.415a24-25.
61
A very common logical fallacy which has often entered in bioethical debates is
the inverse fallacy in which the argument has the form of “if P then Q; not P
58

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DOYEN NGUYEN

From the above classical Aristotelian-Thomistic account
flow the following conclusions: (1) the manifestation of
activities of at least one of the powers of the human soul
indicates that the same soul is still united to the body; and
(2) the loss of one power of the human soul, unless it is the
most foundational power (that which is common to all living
things, i.e., the vegetative), does not indicate that the soul
has left the body. This is precisely the case in BD patients. In
other words, the absence of any detectable activities indicative of conscious sentience cannot be taken as an indicator
that the human soul has left the BD patient. Moreover, the
presence of ongoing vegetative activities, carried out in a
human way, is a further confirmatory indicator that the
patient’s human soul is still present and, therefore, no
substantial change has occurred.
II. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF MOSCHELLA’S ARGUMENTS
In 2016, Melissa Moschella presented two different,
albeit interrelated philosophical arguments in defense of
BD.62
A) Analysis of Moschella’s First Rationale
In Moschella’s own words, her first rationale “rel[ies]
primarily on Hoffmann and Rosenkrantz’s account of
organismal unity” which she “consider[s] as one of the most
rigorous and plausible accounts available.”63 Without scrutinizing this account in great detail, suffice it to note that, as
Hoffmann and Rosenkrantz themselves state, it is a “reductionistic” account.64 Such an account, of its nature, omits
therefore not Q.” Moreover, it should be noted that irreversibility is not an
empirical concept.
62
Melissa Moschella, “Integrated but Not Whole? Applying an Ontological
Account of Human Organismal Unity to the Brain Death Debate,” Bioethics 30,
no. 8 (2016): 550-56; Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain
Death Analogy.” For the purposes of this article, Moschella’s rationale in the article
published in Bioethics is considered to be the first rationale.
63
Moschella, “Integrated but Not Whole?,” 551.
64
Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz, Substance: Its Nature and
Existence (Boston: Taylor & Francis, 1996), 98. On the same page, the authors
further stress this point by stating, “We do not accept the anti-reductionist and
anti-naturalistic theories about natural function listed above.” The phrase “natural

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both final and formal causes, and relies solely on efficient
and material causes as explanatory principles. The central
thesis made by Hoffmann and Rosenkrantz which is relevant
to the BD issue is the following: (1) every living “organism,
O,” must have a “master-part, i.e., a vital part which regulates O’s life processes, including the life-processes or
functional activities of O’s parts.”65 The causal relation
between the master-part and the other parts of the organism
is one of regulation and functional subordination.66 In brief,
the master part is responsible for the organismic unity of the
living being, such that without its master-part the organism
will die. According to Hoffmann and Rosenkrantz, in man,
the “central nervous system is [the] master-part . . . one
which is self-regulating [i.e.,] functionally subordinate to
itself.”67 Building on Hoffman and Rosenkrantz’s account,
Moschella argues as follows:
(1) After BD, “the body entirely lacks a master-part and is
therefore no longer an organism as a whole.”68 It has
become a dead body, that is, a corpse. Moschella thus concludes that the BD body has undergone a substantial
change.69 This part of her argument more or less reiterates
Bernat’s thesis.70
(2) The fact that organs, tissues, and cells of the BD body
can continue to manifest their natural functions, and
therefore produce some sort of functional unity, is simply
because “they continue to receive oxygenated blood.”71 For

function listed above” refers to “the natural function of the parts of organic life
forms.”
65
Ibid, 135; see also 126.
66
See ibid., 126-49. The discussion in these pages is devoted to the notion of
the “master-part” and the causal relationship of regulation and functional
subordination between the master part and all the other parts of the organism.
67
Ibid., 128. Hoffman and Rosenkrantz provide no medical/scientific reference
to support their claim about the centrality of the central nervous system.
Nevertheless, this could be traced to the work of Bernat in the 1980s (see above,
nn. 3-5) as well as that of Julius Korein who asserts that “in the human organisms,
the brain is the critical component.” See Julius Korein, “The Problem of Brain
Death: Development and History,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
315, no. 1 (1978): 19.
68
Moschella, “Integrated but Not Whole?,” 553.
69
Ibid., 550, 553, 554, 556.
70
See above, nn. 3-5.
71
Moschella, “Integrated but Not Whole?,” 552.

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Moschella, such a unity is not a “unity proper to a human
organism (or to any natural type),”72 but rather either a new
“unified organism [which is] a new entity [that] could perhaps best be described as a kind of organic artifact
[analogous to] cells and tissues in culture.”73 This signifies
that a substantial change has occurred, transforming the BD
patient into some sort of new organism of an unknown type.
Here, Moschella’s rationale converges with that of Lee and
Grisez.
There are two interrelated difficulties with the thesis of
the master-part, however. The first difficulty is that such a
thesis necessarily reduces a complex whole to its vital parts
and even all the way to one single critical part. It is then
postulated that the activity of the critical part is the causal
mechanism that accounts (directly and/or indirectly) for all
the activities manifested by the complex whole. This type of
strategy, ubiquitously applied in modern sciences, is paradigmatic of Cartesian mechanistic thinking.74 Since the last
century, however, contemporary biophilosophy has gradually moved away from a reductionistic-mechanistic view of
organisms to a more holistic approach, in which the focus is

72

Ibid., 556.
Ibid., 554. The assertion that the BD body is analogous to a cell culture is
often brought up by BD defenders; see for instance Condic, “Determination of
Death,” 258-59, 265. Such a claim does not square with scientific reality, however.
Cells in a culture only produce more cells to form an aggregate without any
organized structure or functionality. To maintain a steady-state environment
necessary for long term cell-culture also requires the use of technologically
sophisticated bioreactors. See John W. Haycock, “3D Cell Culture: A Review of
Current Approaches and Techniques,” in 3D Cell Culture: Methods and Protocols,
ed. John W. Haycock (New York: Humana Press, 2011), 4-10. In contrast, the BD
body is capable of maintaining its own internal steady state. This in itself is an
indicator that all the body parts, from the microscopic level to the macroscopic, are
still working together in unison for the maintenance of the body, which in turn
explains the phenomenon of long term “chronic BD” survivors (see above, n. 7). In
brief, cell cultures demonstrate no telos, but BD bodies do.
74
The second of the four rules in Descartes’s method is to reduce a complex
whole to its components. See René Descartes, Discours de la méthode (1637), 14,
http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/Descartes/discours_methode/Discours_method.p
df. Each component is then analyzed individually. Based on the results obtained
regarding the activities of the parts, it is postulated that the structure of the whole
is such and such, or that such and such a mechanism accounts for an observed
behavior (e.g., a life process) of the complex whole. See Ernan McMullin,
“Structural Explanation,” American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978): 139.
73

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not so much about “how organisms are put together
(reductionism) . . . [but rather] to understand why they are
put together in the way they are (systems; holism).”75 Along
with the rediscovery that nature has a final end is the
recognition that living organisms are complex, dynamic,
hierarchically organized,76 closed network-systems, in which
one of the key properties is “the reticular or circular
character of their organization.”77 In this reticular scheme of
organization, the parts are connected in a complex network
of functional co-dependencies such that, while some
processes or parts are more important than others, no
process or part can be considered as the causal control center to account for the organism’s life and its integration.78
Thus, in the holistic approach from the systems view
perspective,
the human organism [is seen] as a dynamic, complex, and seamlessly
integrated network not [only] of organs or cells but [also] of molecules,
including DNA, RNA, lipids, metabolites, and proteins, connected by
reaction pathways which generate shape, mass, energy, and information
75

Anthony Trewavas, “A Brief History of Systems Biology,” The Plant Cell 18,
no. 10 (2006): 21 (emphasis added). See also James A. Marcum, The Conceptual
Foundations of Systems Biology: An Introduction (New York: Nova Science
Publishers, 2009), 1-12. For a detailed discussion on the holistic vision of life,
death and organism, see Nguyen, New Definitions of Death, 359-425.
76
In very simple terms, hierarchical organization refers to the organization of
cells into tissues, of tissues into organs, of organs into organ systems, and of organ
systems into the organism as a whole. The term “hierarchical” does not imply a
control center determining the activities of the whole, however; see Leonardo Bich
and Luisa Damiano, “Life, Autonomy and Cognition: An Organizational Approach
to the Definition of the Universal Properties of Life,” Origins of Life and Evolution
of Biospheres 42, no. 5 (2012): 393.
77
Ibid., 392. The interdependencies between the organs (or organ systems) are
self-evident in the following simplified sketch: (1) every part in the body depends
on blood circulation to receive its required nutrients and oxygen and eliminate its
waste and carbon dioxide; (2) but the blood itself must be pumped, hence its
dependence on the heart; (3) the blood must also be properly oxygenated and
cleared of excess carbon dioxide, hence its dependence on the alveolar lining of the
lungs; (iv) the inflation of the lungs, in turn, needs the activity of the diaphragm
(and intercostal muscles); (v) the activity of the diaphragm requires the neural input
from the midbrain respiratory center; and (vi) the latter, in turn, needs to be
triggered by some increase of carbon dioxide in the blood. The functional codependencies between the parts thus follow a pattern of organizational circularity.
78
See ibid., 391-93; Luisa Damiano, “Co-Emergences in Life and Science: A
Double Proposal for Biological Emergentism,” Synthese 185, no. 2 (2012): 279-83;
Marcum, Conceptual Foundations of Systems Biology, 6.

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DOYEN NGUYEN

transfer over the course of a human lifetime. In contrast to the . . .
prevailing reductionistic and mechanistic views, the organism is seen here
as a single, unified whole, a complex and dynamic network of interacting
molecules that appear and then disappear in time. It is an embodied
process that has both spatial and temporal manifestations.79

The second difficulty raised by Moschella’s rationale, as
well as Hoffman and Rosenkrantz’s thesis, is about “whole
and parts.” The question is: in an organic whole, can a
part—be it the central nervous system, the brain, or any
other organ—account for its own unity (i.e., to be
“functionally subordinate to itself”), and moreover, account
for the unity (integration) of the complex whole? According
to both Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphic philosophy and
contemporary holistic biophilosophy, the answer to this
question is no. Both recognize that the organic whole is
ontologically prior to its parts. In Scholastic terminology,
the living whole, that is, an “organism as a whole,” is a
substance. A substance “derives its unity from its own
internal essence that serves as a principle of unity from
within.”80 “This principle is what accounts for the internal
relations among organs and body parts, and that between
the parts and the whole, such that all the organs and parts
are ordered to the whole and function together for the good
of the whole.”81 Likewise, holistically oriented scientists
recognize that “an organism is an organism from the start
. . . whereas a house is not a house until it is finished,”82 and
that “the activity of the whole cannot be fully explained in
terms of the activities of the parts isolated by analysis.”83
Furthermore, on the basis of efficient causality alone, a part
cannot be the cause of unity of the organic whole because
the material part causing the integration would have to be directly
controlling all other parts of the body to prevent them from being subject
to forces of nature pulling them away from the body. A question would
79

Austriaco, “Immediate Hominization from the Systems Perspective,” 722-23.
James Porter Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body & Soul: Human Nature & the
Crisis in Ethics (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 79.
81
Nguyen, New Definitions of Death, 283.
82
Joseph H. Woodger, Biological Principles: A Critical Study (London: K. Paul
Trench Trubner, 1929), 294.
83
Edward S. Russell, “From Mechanistic to Organismal Biology,” In Context
Newsletter, no. 30 (2013): 17, http://natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic30/russell-onholism.pdf.
80

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then arise: how does the integrator itself remain integrated? It cannot be
its own cause of integration, since an external agent is necessary for
efficient causality. Another part would have to integrate the integrator, in
which case this other part takes precedence as “central integrator,” setting
up an infinite regress.84

B) Analysis of Moschella’s Second Rationale
Moschella’s second rationale begins with her criterion for
differentiating an organism from a nonorganism. The criterion is as follows:
A putative organism is an organism if it possesses the root capacity for
self-integration. Possession of the root capacity for self-integration (of
which the soul is the principle) is evidenced by (1) possession of the
material basis of the capacity for self-integration—i.e., the capacity for
control of respiration and circulation—or (2) possession of the material
basis of the capacity for sentience.85

The emphasis on self-integration is appropriate since it
reflects the common knowledge that the principle for
organismic unity/integration is intrinsic to the organism.86
Solid research in contemporary biophilosophy has amply
shown that in organisms, ranging from unicellular to
complex multicellular organisms, self-integration involves a
whole host of interrelated vital vegetative functions, in
which no function or part can be considered as the starting
point or causal control center.87 Moschella’s argument
84

Accad, “Of Wholes and Parts,” 222.
Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain Death Analogy,”
289. The term “root capacity” is synonymous with the terms “radical capacity” and
“active potency.”
86
See above, nn. 79-82.
87
There is a wealth of literature in this regard in contemporary biophilosophy.
See for instance, Joseph H. Woodger, “The ‘Concept of Organism’ and the
Relation between Embryology and Genetics, Part II,” The Quarterly Review of
Biology 5, no. 4 (1930): 459; Matteo Mossio, Maël Montévil, and Giuseppe
Longo, “Theoretical Principles for Biology: Organization,” Progress in Biophysics
and Molecular Biology 122, no. 1 (2016): 26; Nicanor Austriaco, “The
Hylomorphic Structure of Thomistic Moral Theology from the Perspective of a
Systems Biology” (STD diss., University of Fribourg [Switzerland], 2015), 283; Pier
L. Luisi, “Autopoiesis: A Review and a Reappraisal,” Naturwissenschaften 90, no. 2
(2003): 49-59.; Edward S. Russell, “From Mechanistic to Organismal Biology,”
15-19; Marcum, Conceptual Foundations of Systems Biology, 6; Leonardo Bich
and Luisa Damiano, “Life, Autonomy and Cognition,” 391-93; Luisa Damiano,
“Co-Emergences in Life and Science,” 282-83.
85

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DOYEN NGUYEN

stands in direct contradiction to this holistic understanding,
however, as it proceeds through a series of reductive steps
(summarized below) which ends with the brain as the causal
control center:
(1) All the vital vegetative capacities of the soul are reduced to the
capacity for control of respiration and circulation; this in turn is reduced
to the capacity for spontaneous breathing;88
(2) The capacity for self-integration is thus reduced to the capacity to
breathe spontaneously and the capacity for sentience;
(3) The brain, besides being “the material basis of the root capacity for
sentience,”89 is also (via the brainstem) “the material basis of the capacity
for regulation of circulation and respiration.”90 Therefore, “the brain is
the material basis of the root capacity for autonomous organismal
integration.”91 By this, Moschella implies that the brain is “the material
basis for both vegetative and sentient functioning.”92

These reductive steps thus lead to the following corollary
to Moschella’s criterion for differentiating organism from
nonorganisms:
In conclusion, total brain death is death because total brain death marks
the loss of the material basis of the capacity for self-integration—
understood most essentially as the capacity to breathe spontaneously—as
well as the material basis of the capacity for sentience—and thus renders
the body inadequate for rational ensoulment.93

With its insistence on spontaneous breathing and sentience
(which implies conscious sentience), Moschella’s conclusion
strongly echoes the “fundamental work” rationale of the
2008 President’s Council on Bioethics.94 At the same time,
however, her insistence that “the brain, as controller of
circulation and respiration, is . . . the sine qua non of self-

88
See Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain Death
Analogy,” 291.
89
Ibid., 290.
90
Ibid., 292.
91
Ibid., 283.
92
Ibid., 291; Mossio et al., “Theoretical Principles for Biology: Organization.”
93
Mossio et al., “Theoretical Principles for Biology: Organization,” 293.
94
See above, n. 11.

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integration,”95 reiterates Bernat’s thesis of the brain as central somatic integrator.96
There are several difficulties with Moschella’s second
rationale. While both circulation and respiration are important elements of vegetative life, the assertion that the brain
(via the brainstem) is the material basis which “specifically . .
. controls these vital functions,”97 contradicts biological
reality. The discussion which follows is derived from
standard medical textbooks of anatomy and physiology,
which teach that respiration, properly understood, is more
than the act of breathing to move air in and out of the lungs,
because the more fundamental aspect of respiration is the
exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the lungs and
throughout the body.98 Whereas the moving of air in and
out of the lungs is a mechanical function (and as such can be
grossly replaced by the ventilator), the exchange of oxygen
and carbon dioxide is integral to the immanent and systemic
metabolic activity present throughout the human organism
(and as such it cannot be substituted by any conceivable
man-made device). At the core of the systemic metabolic
activity is the mitochondrial production of the high energy
molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) necessary for lifeconstitutive integration.99 While the brain (via the respiratory center in the brainstem) has a role to play in the
mechanical part of respiration, a role which is further shared
with other body parts, including “the phrenic nerves,
diaphragm and intercostal muscles,” no part of the brain is
involved in the most fundamental aspect of respiration,
which is the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.100
Similarly, with regard to circulation, the brainstem is involved only in the regulation of blood pressure, but this
regulation is not under the exclusive control of the

95

Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain Death Analogy,”

292.
96
97

See above, nn. 3-5.
Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain Death Analogy,”

292.
98
This is summarized in Shewmon, “The Brain and Somatic Integration,” 464.
See also the discussion on organizational circularity in n. 77, above.
99
See Nguyen, New Definitions of Death, 385-86, 415.
100
Shewmon, “The Brain and Somatic Integration,” 464.

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DOYEN NGUYEN

brainstem since it also involves the spinal cord.101 Moreover,
circulation entails the activities of other parts, including (1)
the heart, which has its own nervous system and can beat
independently of the brain; and (2) the blood, which consists of various cellular and noncellular elements. The bone
marrow production of the cellular elements of the blood, as
well as the complex interactions of these elements among
themselves and with other parts of the body—interactions
that are necessary for the maintenance of the internal steady
state—are not controlled by any part of the brain. In
addition, as amply demonstrated by Shewmon in his report
on “chronic BD” survivors, the brain is not involved in a
whole host of vegetative functions necessary for somatic
integration, in particular, such functions as the maintenance
of body temperature, homeostasis of the immune system,
and assimilation of nutrients and excretion of waste.102 In
other words, the irrefutable medical evidence which
constitutes the biological/physiological reality manifested by
“chronic BD” survivors” does not confirm Moschella’s claim
of the brain as the material basis of the root capacity for selfintegration.
There are also difficulties with Moschella’s rationale
from the perspective of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophical
anthropology. On the one hand, Moschella follows
Aquinas’s doctrine:

101
Control of blood pressure by the spinal cord accounts for hemodynamic
stability in “chronic BD” survivors as well as patients with high spinal cord injury,
once they get over the acute period of spinal shock. See D. Alan Shewmon, “Spinal
Shock and ‘Brain Death’: Somatic Pathophysiological Equivalence and Implications
for the Integrative-Unity Rationale,” Spinal Cord 37, no. 5 (1999): 313-24;
Nicanor Austriaco, “A Philosophical Assessment of TK’s Autopsy Report:
Implications for the Debate over the Brain Death Criteria,” Linacre Quarterly 83,
no. 2 (2016): 195-96.
102
Shewmon gives a nonexhaustive list of vital vegetative functions that are
crucial for somatic integration and yet not mediated by the brain. See Shewmon,
“The Brain and Somatic Integration,” 467-70. The one vegetative function which
involves the brain is the neuroendocrine function of the hypothalamus and
pituitary. BD proponents such as Bernat argue, however, that the presence of the
neuroendocrine function of the brain does not invalidate a diagnosis of BD. See
James L. Bernat, “Refinements in the Definition and Criterion of Death,” in The
Definition of Death: Contemporary Controversies, ed. Stuart J. Youngner, Robert
M. Arnold, and Renie Schapiro (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1999), 86.

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The soul is in every part of [the living] being. . . . Each human being has
one soul, a rational soul, that makes the body be a body . . . and be a
human body. The rational soul is the formal principle of the unity and
essential identity of the human person . . . and the source (as formal
principle) of all of the human being’s actions, operations, and capacities,
ranging from vegetative functions like metabolism and homeostasis to
rational activities.103

On the other hand, she also insists on the primacy of the
brain, namely, that it is “the primary organ through which
the soul acts to integrate the body in humans beyond a
certain stage of development.”104 Such an insistence echoes
Condic’s assertion that “at postnatal stages of human life,
integration is uniquely accomplished by the brain.”105 The
idea of the brain as primary organ in the postnatal stage is
much stressed by Moschella and Condic; it constitutes the
foundation of their accounts. There are two difficulties with
this kind of assertion, however. First, the data of modern
embryology have confirmed that in the human embryo many
vital processes, including the heart and vascular system,
appear and become fully functional well before the brain is
formed. Indeed, the neural groove, the earliest evidence of
the central nervous system, does not appear until the fourth
week of gestation. Such vital functions are thus brainindependent. Hence, the thesis of the brain as primary organ
in the postnatal stage must be accompanied by confirmatory
biological evidence to show how and when exactly the brain
becomes the primary organ to control all those vital
processes which are functioning well before the brain itself
even develops. Neither Moschella nor Condic provides this
evidence.
More problematic, however, is Moschella’s claim that it
is through the brain that the soul acts to integrate the body.
That the soul, as the substantial form of the body, gives esse
to the body and makes that human body what it is106
necessarily means that the soul is both the principle of life
103

Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain Death Analogy,”
284. Moschella reiterates this idea more than once in her essay, in addition to
emphasizing three times the postnatal primacy of the brain.
104
Ibid., 288 (emphasis added).
105
Condic, “Determination of Death,” 273. Condic emphasizes this point
repeatedly in her paper. The term “postnatal” appears nine times.
106
See Q. D. De Anima, a. 10.

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DOYEN NGUYEN

and the principle that integrates the body (a process which
begins at the moment of conception), and keeps it integrated
as it goes through continuous changes during the lifetime of
the human person.107 Like two sides of the same coin, life
and integration are inseparable. That “the whole soul is in
each part of the body by totality of perfection and of
essence” and with respect to the power corresponding to
that part108 means that it is the soul that gives life to that
part, keeping it integrated and functional as a part of the
living whole. According to Moschella’s assertion, however,
it seems that the soul, if it is to integrate the body or achieve
anything in any body part, can only do so via the brain. But
the brain is an organ of the body, which itself needs to be
integrated, and this integration is done by nothing other
than the soul. Thus, an astute reader will recognize the
incoherence in Moschella’s argument that the soul integrates
the body through the brain, even though the brain, by virtue
of being an organ, is part of the integrated body.
Does the soul, being itself the immanent cause of
integration of the body, need the brain as its primary organ
for integration? If this were the case, and since life and
integration are inseparable, it would mean that the soul also
needs the brain as its primary organ to give existence to the
body. But this is an impossibility since, in the embryo, the
neural groove does not appear till the fourth week of gestation. It is true that, in the context of the limited medical
knowledge of his time, Aquinas speaks of a primary organ,
but only as an instrument of motion and not as an instrument of integration. Therefore, Aquinas explicitly states:
The union of soul and body ceases at the cessation of breath, not because
this is the means of union, but because of the removal of that disposition
by which the body is disposed for such a union. Nevertheless the breath is
a means of moving, as the first instrument of motion.109
107

See above, n. 79.
STh I, q. 76, a. 8.
109
STh I, q. 76, a. 7, ad 2. Elsewhere, Aquinas speaks of the heart as the first
instrument of motion. See Q. D. De Anima a. 9, ad 13; Aquinas, De Motu Cordis
(trans. Gregory Froehlich, http://www4.desales.edu/~philtheo/loughlin/ATP/
De_Motu_Cordis/De_Motu_Cordis.html. The obvious question then is: which one,
the breath or the heart, is the first instrument of motion? A discussion on this issue
can be found in Nguyen, “Pope John Paul II and the Neurological Standard for the
Determination of Death,” 170-71. Moreover, the notion of the primary organ is
108

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That some organ of the body is the first instrument of
motion necessarily presupposes that the body, of which that
organ is a part, is a living body. In this light, what Aquinas is
saying in the above passage is simply this: the cessation of
breath indicates that the “body” is no longer disposed to the
soul-body union because it is now a dead “body” (a body in
the homonymous sense, i.e., a corpse).110 Furthermore, there
cannot be an instrument of integration precisely because the
soul, the principle of both integration and life, is united to
the body substantially. If there were an instrument of
integration, then such an organ would be mediating the
soul-body union, in which case the soul would be united to
the body merely as its motor (a Platonic dualistic view of
human nature) and not as its substantial form.
Difficulties with Moschella’s thesis become more
apparent in her philosophical account of high spinal cord
injury (HSCI), a condition “functionally equivalent to whole
brain death.”111 Because of this functional equivalence, any
argument in defense of BD must also be capable of
providing a logical and coherent account of the phenomena
observed in HSCI. Moschella’s account of HSCI cases,
which reflects her criterion for distinguishing organisms
from nonorganisms, reads as follows:
In the case of an SCI patient, the “organism as a whole” could be
constituted by the head alone, not the head and brain-disconnected body

not confirmed by contemporary embryology; the human organism begins at the
zygote (one cell-stage), well before the appearance of any organ. For details on the
question of the primary organ, see Nguyen, New Definitions of Death, 330-46, in
particular nn. 1047, 1048, and 1084.
110
See Michel Accad, “Letter to the Editor: A Rejoinder to Jason Eberl on Brain
Death,” Linacre Quarterly 83, no. 1 (2016): 1-2. Accad’s letter shows that
Aquinas’s teaching can be easily misinterpreted when one confuses or conflates the
notion of instrument of motion with that of instrument of integration.
111
Jason T. Eberl, “Ontological Status of Whole-Brain-Dead Individuals,” in
The Ethics of Organ Transplantation, ed. Steven J. Jensen (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 62. There are numerous somatic
similarities between patients who suffer BD and those who suffer HSCI (transection
of the spinal cord at the level of the second cervical vertebra) because in both cases
the spinal cord, and therefore, the body from the neck down, has lost its rostral
input from the brain. HSCI patients are ventilator-dependent. Essentially the only
difference between BD and HSCI is that BD patients are deeply comatose whereas
HSCI patients are not. For details on the close somatic similarities between BD and
HSCI, see Shewmon, “Spinal Shock and ‘Brain Death,’” 313-24.

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DOYEN NGUYEN

together, because the brain is the material basis of the root capacity for
autonomous organismal integration, and the brain continues to have
control over the rest of the head, while the body below the transection,
since it is disconnected from the brain, lacks the material basis of that root
capacity. . . . It [the body] is therefore strictly speaking neither a separate
independent organism nor a proper part of the patient’s overall organism,
but rather a collection of organs and tissues that are functionally
coordinated with each other and with the brain/head through external
agents (mechanical ventilation, pharmacological treatments, etc.). Conversely . . . a living brain, even if largely disconnected from what used to
be the rest of the body, does retain the material basis of the root capacity
for autonomous organismal integration, and is therefore itself an
“organism as a whole,” though a severely disabled one. . . . The fact that
neither BDB [brain-dead body] nor SCI patients can breathe on their own
due to the death of the brain (in the case of the BDB) or its disconnection
from the body (in the case of the SCI patient) may simply mean that
neither the BDB nor the “body” of the SCI patient below the point of
transection are integrated organisms as a whole (in the case of the BDB)
or proper parts of integrated organisms as a whole (in the case of the SCI
patient).112

The above passage contains two notable reductions. First, all
the vegetative capacities are reduced to the capacity for
spontaneous breathing, such that without it the body (from
the neck down, in HSCI patients) is no longer somatically
integrated. Here, Moschella’s claim echoes Condic’s assertion, that the HSCI patient “remains alive . . . but without
functioning as an organism” because of the lack of somatic
integration below the neck.113 Second, the human organism
as a whole is reduced to the head alone and, according to
Moschella, even to the brain alone:
I would argue that the “brain in a vat” is a human organism as a whole
both because it retains the material basis for organismal integration and
because it retains the material basis for sentience, thus indicating that the
soul as formal principle of those capacities is still present.114
112
Melissa Moschella, “Brain Death and Human Organismal Integration: A
Symposium on the Definition of Death,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 41,
no. 3 (2016): 283.
113
Condic, “Determination of Death,” 269. Condic’s statement is incoherent,
however, because the notions of life, organismic integration, and “organism as a
whole” (i.e., a living organism) go hand in hand.
114
Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain Death Analogy,”
295 n. 11. Moschella’s statement echoes a common idea held in secular philosophy, namely, that the identity of a person coincides with the identity of his or
her brain because it is with the brain (or head) that he or she thinks and
experiences: “where my brain goes, go I.” See Eberl, “Ontological Status of Whole-

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The above statement conveys the idea that somehow the
soul is strictly tied to the brain such that where the living
brain is, there the soul is. It is difficult to reconcile such an
idea to the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic doctrine which
specifically teaches that the soul is diffusely present in every
part of the body. This in turn raises the question: does
Moschella’s account of HSCI cohere with the classical
doctrine?
To claim that in HSCI patients the head or the brain
alone is the human organism as a whole amounts to saying
that only the head or the brain alone constitutes the
substance of which the human soul is the substantial form,
which then indicates that the soul is located in the head or
the brain alone. Meanwhile, the HSCI body below the neck
is nonintegrated, which means that it is a nonorganism, a
homonymous body, a thing in which the human soul is not
present. Hence, according to Moschella’s account, the HSCI
patient is a juxtaposition of an organism (the ensouled head
or brain) and a nonorganism (the nonensouled body). Such a
scenario evokes science fiction, however, especially since the
purported nonintegrated HSCI body continues to function
(vegetatively) much in the same way as the patient’s body
before the injury. Moreover, it is recognized that any nonintegrated organic entity, such as a corpse or an excised
body part, succumbs rapidly to disintegration and putrefaction.115 Why do HSCI bodies, in which the principle of
integration is purportedly absent, not undergo disintegration
for decades? Likewise, if indeed “brain death is death,”116
Brain-Dead Individuals,” 66; Michael B. Green and Daniel Wikler, “Brain Death
and Personal Identity,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 9, no. 2 (1980): 124.
115
The disintegration process begins within minutes after death. For details on
this process see Norman L. Cantor, After We Die: The Life and Times of the
Human Cadaver (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2010), 76-77.
The same is true when an organ is removed from the body. This is why in organ
transplantation, cooling is a critical element in preserving ex vivo organs.
Currently, under the best conditions of preservation, the tolerated in vitro duration
for to-be-transplanted organs is counted in terms of hours (24 hours for the kidney,
much shorter for other organs), not days or weeks. For further details, see Edgardo
E. Guibert et al., “Organ Preservation: Current Concepts and New Strategies for
the Next Decade,” Transfusion Medicine and Hemotherapy 38, no. 2 (2011):
125-42.
116
Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain Death Analogy,”
281, 293.

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DOYEN NGUYEN

then why do BD bodies not show the same signs of
disintegration as seen in normal corpses, and why do some
even remain intact and functional for months and years?
Moschella’s explanation is that
an external cause [the ventilator] can . . . trigger the internal capacities of
a multitude of living entities that used to be parts of a whole in such a way
that those entities can continue to exhibit some degree of functional
coordination, thus maintaining functional integration and successfully
opposing entropy, [but this] does not imply that genuine self-integration is
present.117

This passage reiterates the “masking death” argument made
by BD defenders, namely, that “artificial means of support
mask [the] loss of integration.”118 It contains two interrelated assertions: (1) the ventilator can “trigger” the unintegrated parts to perform their respective functions to
produce an anti-entropic effect, and (2) this is possible
because unintegrated parts, despite the fact that they are no
longer parts of the whole, retain their internal capacities.
Each of these claims deserves to be examined closely.
According to the principle of proportionate causality,
whatever is present in an effect must also be in some way in
its cause; hence, Moschella’s first claim necessarily implies
that the ventilator itself is capable of opposing the relentless
increase in entropy which sets in immediately upon death.
This is an impossibility, however, since the ventilator, by
virtue of its design, “does only two things: (1) expand the
lungs in lieu of the intercostal muscles and the diaphragm,
and (2) pump oxygenated air into the lungs.”119 As Accad
points out,
the ventilator has no power to control homeostasis, circulation, digestion,
growth, or any other such function, even for a millisecond. Insufflation of
air in and out of the chest—even if supplemented by intravenous infusions
of metabolically active drugs—cannot extend in time the myriad motions
which must occur to keep the body integrated and working as a unitary
whole.120
117

Ibid., 288.
President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and
Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Defining Death, 33.
119
Nguyen, “Pope John Paul II and the Neurological Standard for the
Determination of Death,” 161.
120
Accad, “Of Wholes and Parts,” 224.
118

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Moschella’s first claim also contradicts the second law of
thermodynamics. Scholars in contemporary biophilosophy
have recognized that a central characteristic of life is antientropy, that is, the phenomenon of life goes counter to the
second law of thermodynamics, which is the natural
tendency of things to move from order to disorder until they
reach “the state of thermodynamic equilibrium or maximum
entropy.”121 A paradigmatic example of this is a corpse or an
excised body part. In contrast, a living body, while it
continuously produces entropy, keeps itself in a dynamic
steady state by absorbing nutrients from and excreting waste
into its environment.122 This global activity of bilateral
exchange with the environment and self-maintenance is
designated by the umbrella term “metabolism,” which refers
to the totality of complex, orderly, and mutually interrelated
vital processes at all levels (from microscopic to macroscopic) within the organism.123 Metabolism (which in warmblooded animals, is oxygen dependent) is an indispensable,
constitutive, and immanent property of every living thing;
this fact is recognized not only by scientists but also by
contemporary philosophers (e.g., Hans Jonas).124 A paradigmatic example of this fundamental characteristic of
metabolism is the continuous mitochondrial production
(throughout the body) of the high-energy molecule ATP
which is necessary for every life activity. Upon death or the
excision of an organ, the production of ATP ceases in the
whole body or the excised part, respectively; this is then
121
Erwin Schrödinger, What Is Life? And Other Scientific Essays (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), 68.
122
See Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory: Foundations,
Development, Applications (New York: George Braziller, 1969), 43; Pietro
Ramellini, Life and Organisms (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2006), 81.
Nutrients include oxygen, and waste includes carbon dioxide. In warm-blooded
beings, the maintenance of body temperature is a sign of the organism’s dynamic
steady state. Note that BD patients are warm and pink, whereas a true corpse is
gray, with the same temperature as that of its surroundings.
123
See Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Modern Theories of Development: An
Introduction to Theoretical Biology, trans. Joseph Henry Woodger (London:
Oxford University Press, 1933), 48-49.
124
Hans Jonas thus expresses his understanding of the foundational role of
metabolism as follows: “metabolism, the basic level of all organic existence . . . is
itself the first form of freedom.” See Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life: Toward
a Philosophical Biology (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 3.

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followed by a series of phenomena known as disintegration.125 In summary, that metabolism is fundamental to
life (anti-entropy), and that it is a constitutive and immanent
property of living organisms, necessarily mean that no
external cause in the created order, be it the ventilator or
any other man-made device, can substitute for it. This
insight about metabolism strongly echoes Aristotle’s understanding that the nutritive soul (the vegetative power) is
foundational to life.126 This is why Shewmon, in his seminal
work on the philosophy of organismic integration, emphatically insists that
[life] constitutive integration is intrinsically and absolutely not
substitutable. Nor is it even partially substitutable. Unlike the therapeutic
replacement of a health-maintaining integrative function, which can
replace the natural function well or poorly, constitutive integration is all
or none, just as “unity” is all or none. Some or many cells might cease to
participate in an organism’s anti-entropic constitutive integration, for
example, but if the remaining ones suffice to maintain the organism’s
antientropy, the constitutive integration remains undiminished; indeed it
is undiminishable, only present or absent. No futuristic intensive care
technology can prevent the increase in entropy (i.e., biological decay) if it
is not endogenously opposed from the very life processes themselves of
the living organism.127

Put bluntly, life-support measures, as the term itself
indicates, only work as long as there still remains some life
in the patient, however minimal it might be as the person
approaches the moment of death.
In her second claim, Moschella speaks of the unintegrated parts in BD bodies (as well as HSCI bodies) as a
“multitude of living entities” which still retain their internal
125
There is a brief time-window of viability after the cessation of ATP
production. The more an organ requires an uninterrupted supply of oxygen and
nutrients, the shorter this window is. Efforts in organ preservation for transplant
purposes seek to stretch this window of viability, which nevertheless can only last
for hours and not days, weeks, or months.
126
See Aristotle, De anima 3.434a22-26. Here, Aristotle reiterates, “everything
then that lives and has a soul must have the nutritive soul, from birth until death;
for anything that has been born must have growth, maturity, and decline, and these
are impossible without nourishment. The potentiality for nutrition [i.e., the
vegetative power] must therefore be present in all things which grow and decline.”
127
D. Alan Shewmon, “You Only Die Once: Why Brain Death Is Not the Death
of a Human Being; A Reply to Nicholas Tonti-Filippini,” Communio 39 (2012):
440.

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439

capacities. At the same time, she holds that neither BD
bodies nor HSCI bodies can be the material basis for
ensoulment by the rational soul. How does one account,
philosophically, for the persistence of these two groups of
nonensouled bodies, since it is evident that they continue to
exhibit a whole host of vegetative functions that were
present in the patients prior to their diagnosis of BD or
HSCI? One must posit that in these cases, the body is
informed by at least one other substantial form, such as the
substantial form of corporeity. Moreover, one needs to
account for the presence of a “multitude of living entities” in
bodies which are not ensouled by the rational soul. According to Eberl, whose argument in defense of BD precedes
that of Moschella and is very similar to it, the organs and
body parts of the HSCI body are “each informed by a
vegetative soul.”128 Thus, according to this thesis, the body
of the HSCI patient is made up of different substances
(namely, the unintegrated body parts) that are only
accidentally working together as a whole. The question
arises, is such a thesis in accord with Aquinas’s account of
the unicity of the human soul?
A careful examination of the arguments of Eberl and
Moschella reveals that it is not. Both insist that in the HSCI
patient the organism as a whole is reduced to the head, and
therefore the rational soul only informs the head.129 It
follows, therefore, as mentioned earlier, that the HSCI
patient would be an entity in which an organism as a whole
(either the head or the brain alone) is connected to a nonorganism (a body composed of unintegrated parts). In
philosophical terms this means that the HSCI patient would
128
See Eberl, “Ontological Status of Whole-Brain-Dead Individuals,” 64. Eberl
writes: “the body of a patient with high cervical cord transection is no longer
informed by his rational soul below the point of the transection. . . . His soul now
informs only his head and those parts of his body which his brain can still control,
such as motor control over his facial muscles and other parts of his head. . . . [In
the body below the transection], the cells and independent organ systems
maintained with artificial assistance are each alive, each informed by a vegetative
soul; they just no longer constitute the person's life—that is, their vegetative
capacities are no longer those of the patient's rational soul” (ibid., 63-64).
129
See Moschella, “Deconstructing the Brain Disconnection–Brain Death
Analogy,” 289. Here we read: “the head of the high cervical SCI patient can itself
be understood to be an organism as a whole.” See also the block quotation at
n. 114, and the quotation in n. 128.

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DOYEN NGUYEN

be a juxtaposition of (1) the rational soul (associated with its
material basis, the brain) which informs only the head, (2) a
substantial form of corporeity to account for the persistence
of the HSCI body over decades, and (3) a multitude of
substantial forms, each informing its corresponding unintegrated body part. Similarly, the BD body would be the
combination of a substantial form of corporeity together
with a multitude of substantial forms of unintegrated parts
remaining in situ in the alleged dead body.
A plurality of substantial forms directly contradicts
Aquinas’s teaching of the unicity of the substantial form,
however. Such a thesis can be traced back to Plato, who
“located the rational soul in the brain, the nutritive in the
liver, and the appetitive in the heart.”130 The plurality of
forms is also a hallmark of Duns Scotus’s thought, which
radically diverges from Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy.
Most notably, Scotus holds that: (1) prime matter has
actuality and persists through substantial change,131 and (2)
animate composites consist of a plurality of substantial
forms. For Scotus, a form of corporeity must be posited in
order to explain why the body after death is in continuity
with the once-living body, and appears to be the “same” as
when it was alive.132 Scotus also maintains that organs and
body parts are substances—each informed by its corresponding substantial form—and these multiple disparate
substances somehow mysteriously become united and informed by the rational soul during prenatal development.133
In other words, according to Scotus, the organism as a
whole is posterior to the parts, because the form of the
organism as a whole is the last to come about, being
preceded by prime matter and the substantial forms of the
parts.134

130

ScG II, c. 58.
See John Duns Scotus, II Sent., d. 12, q. 1, n. 10 (John Duns Scotus: Opera
Omnia, Vol. 12, ed. Luke Wadding [Paris: Apud Ludovicum Vives, 1893]).
132
See John Duns Scotus, IV Sent., d. 11, q. 1, n. 7 (John Duns Scotus: Opera
Omnia, Vol. 17, ed. Luke Wadding [Paris: Apud Ludovicum Vives, 1894]); John
Duns Scotus, IV Reportata, d. 10, q. 3, n. 26 (John Duns Scotus: Opera Omnia,
Vol. 23, ed. Luke Wadding [Paris: Apud Ludovicum Vives, 1894]).
133
See Scotus, IV Sent., d. 11, q. 3, n. 41.
134
See Scotus, IV Sent., d. 11, q. 3, n. 46.
131

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Scotus’s theory raises a whole host of difficulties,
however. In particular, it is incoherent that the parts in an
organic whole could be prior to the whole itself. Moreover,
this theory cannot give a satisfactory account for the unity of
body and soul. With the plurality of forms, “the union of
the soul to the body is at best an accidental state of
affairs,”135 which is akin to Plato’s idea that “the soul is
united as a mover and not as a form to the body, [i.e.,] the
soul exists in the body as a sailor in a ship.”136 By contrast,
Aquinas repeatedly stresses that there cannot be a plurality
of substantial forms in any living being. For instance, he
writes:
There cannot be more than one substantial form in any one thing; the first
[substantial form] makes the thing an actual being; and if others are
added, they confer only accidental modifications, since they presuppose
the subject already in act of being. . . . [An individual man does not have]
one form that made him a substance, another that gave him a body,
another that gave him life, and so on.137

The plurality of forms which underlies Moschella’s argument to account for the persistence of life activities in HSCI
bodies is not an exact replica of Scotus’s plurality of forms,
however. As noted above, Scotus posits that multiple
substances (each informed by its own substantial form which
perdures and is not subsumed into the higher level “soul”)
are somehow brought together (during prenatal development) to be informed by the rational soul. This gives a
semblance of the unicity of the soul. According to Moschella’s thesis, however, in HSCI patient the rational soul
informs only the head. It would therefore have nothing to
do with the above-mentioned “multiple living entities,” that
is, the multiple different substances (organs and parts)
present in the HSCI body below the level of the cervical
injury. The result would be a side-by-side coexistence of the
rational soul and the substantial forms of the multiple living
entities in the HSCI body. Even if one posits a substantial
form of corporeity which unites in an accidental way the
different substances, the result would be a side-by-side
135

Richard Cross, Duns Scotus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 79.
Q. D. De Anima, a. 11.
137
II De Anima, lect. 1.
136

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DOYEN NGUYEN

coexistence of the rational soul and the substantial form of
corporeity. In sum, neither scenario would produce a semblance of the unicity of the human soul.
Moschella’s second claim raises an additional question:
can body parts which are unintegrated, that is, no longer
part of the whole, be alive? According to Aquinas,
bodily corruption . . . comes about from the fact that, when the principle
which holds the individual contrary parts together is removed, they tend
to whatever agrees with them individually according to their own natures,
and so the dissolution of the body takes place.138

Aquinas also teaches “that the soul, as it virtually contains
the sensitive and nutritive souls, [also] virtually contain[s] all
inferior forms,”139 all the way down to elemental forms. The
forms of the elements are in mixed bodies not in actuality
but virtually by power (virtute).140 It is thus safe to consider
that the inferior forms include the forms of individual
organs and body parts, and that these forms are present not
actually but virtually by their power. It is also conceivable
that under certain specific conditions such virtual forms can
become actualized—but only as a transient phenomenon—
which would be one of the steps during the initial phase of
the disintegration process, which sets in at death or at the
removal of an organ. Such a transient phenomenon would
explain why for a limited time the inert lifeless corpse
retains an appearance similar to that of a living body, and
that an inert lifeless ex vivo organ retains some degree of
viability while in transit to the recipient. In other words, life,
or to be alive, is radically different from viability or “to
remain viable.” This important distinction is already clearly
encapsulated in the Aristotelian-Thomistic concept of
homonymy, according to which unintegrated organs are
organs in the homonymous sense only. For instance, a
removed eye, while remaining viable, is an eye in name only;
it cannot see, no more than the eyes of a statue.141 Likewise,
a removed kidney from a living donor is a homonymous
138

De Verit., q. 25, a. 6 (trans. Robert W. Schmidt [Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company, 1954]).
139
STh I, q. 76, a. 4.
140
De Mixt. Elem., http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/opx.html.
141
See Aristotle, De anima 2.412b17-24.

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kidney, it cannot perform any activity proper to its nature in
the absence of that principle (the soul) which integrates it to
a living whole. Such unintegrated organs, whether they are
excised ex vivo or remain in situ in a human “body” which is
no longer informed by the rational soul, are merely
homonymous organs. As Aquinas indicates in the abovequoted passage, without the soul (the principle of integration), such homonymous organs succumb quickly to
corruption and dissolution. Thus, it is a self-contradiction to
assert that organs and body parts in the BD body or HSCI
body are unintegrated and, at the same time and under the
same aspect, that they are living entities.
A philosophical question unrelated to BD and HSCI, but
which is peripherally related to the notion of homonymy
may be posed at this point: what is the status of the transplanted organ (e.g., the kidney) in the recipient?142 From the
perspective of contemporary biophilosophy, it seems that
the modern scientific equivalent of the AristotelianThomistic concept of homonymy is the deprivation of the
dynamic spatio-temporal organizing relations between the
removed kidney and its in vivo conditions.143 This is why the
ex vivo kidney is inert and nonfunctional—a kidney in name
only. Once transplanted into the recipient, the transplanted
kidney becomes functional again, which implies the establishment of spatio-temporal organizing relations between the
kidney and its new in vivo conditions. Strictly speaking,
therefore, it is no longer a homonymous organ. The
functioning of the transplanted kidney in its new “home”
requires an uninterrupted suppression of the recipient’s
immune system, however. Moreover, despite immune
suppression, the recipient’s body will eventually reject the

142
This question was raised by one of the anonymous reviewers for The
Thomist.
143
“When a part is removed from a living body, that part becomes deprived
from the various relations which it had in vivo, including: (1) relations with the
upper level(s) of the organismic hierarchy, in particular the relations with the
‘local’ whole of which it was a part, (2) relations with other homologous and/or
heterologous parts belonging to the same hierarchical level, and (3) relations with
the non-cellular elements (including nutrients, and supportive matrix) which are
part of its natural organic environment” (Nguyen, New Definitions of Death, 376).
A discussion on dynamic spatio-temporal organizing relations can be found in ibid.,
367-78.

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DOYEN NGUYEN

grafted kidney even though, thanks to medical advances, this
may take many years. On the basis of this biological reality,
the most plausible hypothesis is that the grafted kidney is
not informed by the recipient’s soul.144 In other words, the
substantial form (the “vegetative soul”) of the donor’s kidney, even though it is of the human species, is not subsumed
into the rational soul of the recipient. Since the human soul
is created and infused by God at conception, the rational
soul of person A necessarily differs from that of person B. It
is thus not too far-fetched to hypothesize that the rational
soul of A confers certain specific particularities to the
sensitive and vegetative “souls” (powers) and, likewise, to all
the lower forms which are subsumed to it. Consequently,
although human beings all have the same kind of organs and
body parts proper to the human species, these organs and
body parts bear particularities specific to each human
person. One such particularity is the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) which manifests, in biological
terms, the uniqueness of each human person. The difference
in MHC between the donor and the recipient leads to the
eventual rejection of the donor’s organ. In other words, the
phenomenon of MHC brings into relief the philosophical
understanding of qualitative individuality within the human
species. To sum up, it would not be far-fetched to say that
the grafted organ in the recipient is in a rather unnatural
hybrid condition: it is not homonymous but it is also not
informed by the rational soul of the recipient. As such, it is
an unstable condition which progresses, gradually but
inexorably, toward the state of homonymy which occurs
when the graft is fully rejected by the recipient’s body.
CONCLUSION
Both the “substantial change” rationale of Lee (and
Grisez) and the “loss of integration” rationale of Moschella
(and Condic) contain serious difficulties, such that they are
both incompatible with the Aristotelian-Thomistic doctrine
on human nature. Each of the two rationales generates its
own distinct set of difficulties. Nevertheless, they share the
144

See Austriaco, “A Philosophical Assessment of TK's Autopsy Report,”
200-201.

BRAIN DEATH

445

same common underlying deficiency. In both arguments, the
overarching emphasis is on a functioning brain, hand-inhand with a similar emphasis on the radical capacity for
conscious sentience. Both rationales seem to overlook that
the human rational soul is first and foremost the first
entelechia of the body, that is, that which gives existence to
the body (and therefore, to the whole being) in such a way
that the organism is an individual of the human species.145
As a result, both fail to recognize that the human rational
soul still remains united to the body even when the patient is
unable to manifest observable operations of the rational
power (viz., consciousness) and of the sensori-motor power
(viz., the lack of response to the apnea test, i.e., lack of
spontaneous breathing). As Robert Barry points out in his
critique of BD, “the soul is the first or vivifying substantial
act of the body and its operations are its second act. It is the
first act of the body and is not an operative potency.”146
Hence, when the soul per se is confused or conflated with its
powers or operations, the inevitable result is the plurality of
souls or substantial forms. As demonstrated in this essay,
both Lee’s and Moschella’s rationales would make sense
only if we accept some version of the plurality of souls. This
would mean rejecting the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic
teaching on the unicity of soul, however. If historically this
occurred with Duns Scotus, today it has insidiously reappeared in the pro-BD arguments within Catholic circles.
A common problem in the BD controversy is the
advancement of philosophical arguments leading to
“conclusions that are counterintuitive from a biological
perspective.”147 A better approach would be one that closely
follows the realism of an Aristotelian-Thomistic approach,148
145

See Q. D. De Anima, a. 1. Here we read in the sed contra: “a thing receives
its species through its proper form [i.e., its substantial form].”
146
Robert Barry, “Ethics and Brain Death,” The New Scholasticism 61, no. 1
(1987): 88.
147
Eberl, “Ontological Status of Whole-Brain-Dead Individuals,” 45. Eberl
writes: “I argue that the philosophical concept of ‘living human animal’ may
require accepting conclusions that are counterintuitive from a biological
perspective—for example, that a decapitated head which is artificially sustained
such that consciousness persists composes a living human animal—if being a living
animal is essential to the existence of a human person, as . . . I contend. “
148
In particular, Aristotle’s study of human nature in De Anima shows a close
connection between biology and the philosophy of nature. Indeed, it was through

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DOYEN NGUYEN

in which philosophical arguments are confirmed by
biological reality.

deep reflections on the observable objective biological reality (and despite the
limited scientific advances of his time) that Aristotle came “to postulate final causes
in addition to the material, formal and efficient causes.” See Ernst Mayr, “Cause
and Effect in Biology: Kinds of Causes, Predictability, and Teleology Are Viewed
by a Practicing Biologist,” Science 134, no. 3489 (1961): 1503. Although the close
connection between the philosophical and biological aspects of human nature has
fallen by the wayside in modern studies, the philosophical community at large has
slowly come to recognize “the persisting conceptual importance . . . of Aristotle’s
biology and philosophy of life” (David Wiggins, Sameness and Substance Renewed
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001], xi).

The Thomist 82 (2018): 447-71

DESIGN ARGUMENTS AND AQUINAS’S FIFTH WAY
GAVEN KERR
Mary Immaculate College
Limerick, Ireland

D

ESIGN ARGUMENTS have traditionally focused on
some structured or ordered aspect of the universe and
have argued that such order requires the assistance of a
supernatural designer. These arguments seek to conclude that
order cannot be a product of merely natural processes. The
standard instance of this type of argument is William Paley’s
(in)famous watchmaker argument.1 The mechanical parts of a
watch coalesce to allow the watch to function for its designed
purpose, that is, telling the time. This purposeful functioning
points to a watchmaker who so organizes the parts of the watch
as to give them their purpose. The analogy with the created
universe is manifest and the argument is applied to infer a cause
of the universe. This cause so organizes things that the universe
comes about and functions for the purpose for which it, the
maker, ordained it.
The salient features of Paley’s argument are threefold: (i)
mechanistic functioning pointing to (ii) purposeful action which
signifies (iii) a designer. These features in turn form part of a
venerable tradition in the history of debate on this subject: (i) is
a standard presupposition of a modern scientific worldview, (ii)
is a presupposition of teleology in nature, and (iii) conceives of
the designer as a demiurgic maker who imposes form on the

1
William Paley, Natural Theology or Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the
Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature, ed. M. W. Eddy and D. Knight
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

447

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GAVEN KERR

constituents of the universe.2 Hence standard design arguments
are those that come under the aegis of Paley’s argument and in
particular make use of (i) – (iii) as their guiding principles.
In light of developments in the natural sciences, especially in
the theory of evolution, design arguments have somewhat
shifted their focus. Now they tend to the view that the probability of the conditions for the possibility of there being
anything at all is so slim that there must have been supernatural
intervention for it to occur. Nevertheless, such arguments still
maintain a focus on the mechanistic functioning of the universe
and the inference to a designer as the best explanation thereof.
Such recasting of design argumentation remains loyal to some
or all of (i) – (iii) in modified form.3
My contention in this article is that Aquinas’s fifth way does
not fall within the scope of the design argument so construed.
Undoubtedly many have thought that it does, since Aquinas’s
fundamental concern in that argument is to account for the
finality operative in unintelligent things, which ultimately rests
with God. It is assumed that Aquinas was making the same sort
of inference as Paley, namely, that the goal-directed behavior of
complex things is a result of the intricate design imposed on
them by some supernatural being. Moreover, Aquinas elsewhere
employs argumentation similar to that adduced by Paley. If one
assumes that the argument of the fifth way is not significantly
dissimilar to these other arguments, it is easy to infer that the
fifth way is a design argument of roughly the Paleyite variety.4
2
See Edward Oakes, S.J., “Dominican Darwinism: Evolution in Thomist Thought
after Darwin,” The Thomist 77 (2013): 361: “Paley . . . managed to fuse Plato’s
Demiurge, Aristotle’s teleology, and Newtonian mechanism into an entire natural
theology through his analogy of a watch discovered on an island, which the explorer
takes as an infallible sign of the presence (somewhere) of a watchmaker.”
3
See for instance Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1979), chap. 8; idem, Is There a God? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996),
chap. 4; and idem, “The Argument from Laws of Nature Reassessed,” in Reason, Faith
and History: Philosophical Essays for Paul Helm, ed. Martin Stone (Aldershot, U.K.:
Ashgate, 2008), 69-83, Swinburne notes that this article is based on chapter 8 of the
second edition of The Existence of God (2004).
4
I say “roughly” because of course the fifth way will display Aquinas’s own
characteristic metaphysics and philosophy of science which will justify his premises, and

DESIGN ARGUMENTS AND AQUINAS’S FIFTH WAY

449

In question 5, article 2 of the disputed questions De Veritate,
Aquinas writes:
We see that harmony and usefulness happen in the works of nature either
always or for the most part; hence they cannot occur by chance, and thus must
proceed through the intention of an end. But that which is without intellect or
knowledge is unable to tend directly to an end unless through another’s
knowledge of an end given to it and directing it to that end. Hence it must be
that since natural things are without knowledge, there pre-exists some intellect
that ordains natural things to an end; just as an archer gives a certain motion
to the arrow so that it tends to a determinate end.5

Similarly, in book 1, chapter 13 of the Summa contra Gentiles,
he attributes the following argument to John Damascene and
Averroës:
It is impossible for contrary and dissonant things always or almost always to
accord [concordare] in one order unless out of some government, by which
everything and every single thing are made to tend to a certain end. But in the
world we see things of diverse natures coming together [concordare] in one
order, and not rarely or by chance, but always or for the most part. It must be,
then, that there is something by whose providence the world is governed; and
this we call God.6

That which has to be explained in both arguments is the
harmony found in natural things. It is argued that this harmony
occurs not by chance but through natural things acting for an
end ordained by an intelligent agent (De Verit.) or through the
intervention of some intelligent agent who brings it about
(ScG). Thus, natural things are subject to the harmonizing
activity of an intelligent agent. There is thereby brought to mind
an agent who assembles into a certain order or harmony the
materials out of which he constructs the universe; this agent’s
activity is architectural, that of a designer. Given this, it is easy
the same is true for Paley’s watchmaker argument. But this does not preclude a
similarity in form sufficient for the two to be classified as the same type of argument.
5
Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate, q. 5, a. 2 (Turin: Marietti, 1927).
6
All translations, unless otherwise stated, are my own. When discussing the design
argument, Kwame Anthony Appiah (Thinking It Through [Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003], 324-25) classifies this argument (and not the fifth way) as Aquinas’s design
argument.

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GAVEN KERR

to see how these arguments fall squarely into the traditional
design argument classification.7
It is clear, then, that Aquinas was familiar with design-type
arguments and employed them in his writings. But what about
the fifth way? Is it of the Paleyite variety? If it is, then mutatis
mutandis it is subject to the typical weaknesses of standard
design arguments, especially those emanating from the philosophical fall-out from the theory of evolution. But if it is not,
then it cannot be dismissed along with other design arguments
that are mistakenly taken to be similar in kind to it. My goal in
what follows is to show that far from being similar in kind to
standard design arguments, the fifth way is in fact a causal proof
that depends on Aquinas’s own characteristic metaphysical
thought. Calling it a “teleological argument” is etymologically
accurate, but misleading, given the latter’s connection with
standard design arguments.
My purpose is not to defend Aquinas’s fifth way against
criticisms emanating from post-Darwinian biology, but to show
that it is a causal proof integrated with the metaphysics of
causality that Aquinas adopts, and hence is quite distinct from
arguments of the Paleyite variety. The question of whether such
differentiation absolves the fifth way of the evolutionary objections commonly presented to design arguments remains
open. At the very least, such objections will have to be
rethought if they are to be applied to the fifth way.
7

John Wippel disassociates the argument of De Veritate from that of the Summa
contra Gentiles by emphasizing the focus on finality, the acting for an end, evident in De
Veritate, which is not to be found in the argument from the Summa contra Gentiles.
Wippel sees the argument of De Veritate as anticipating the fifth way; see The
Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 410-13. However,
I think Wippel glosses over the focus on harmony, evident in the opening passage of the
argument in De Veritate, and the fact that both arguments seek to explain the harmony
of natural things, whether by focussing on finality or by focussing on orderly design.
The fifth way, by contrast, seeks to explain finality itself, and not to use finality in order
to explain harmony. Thus, while I grant that the focus on finality brings the argument in
De Veritate closer to the fifth way than does the argument in the Summa contra
Gentiles, the focus on finality in De Veritate serves a different purpose than it does in
the fifth way.

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451

I am not the first to point out the disconnection between the
fifth way and standard design arguments. John Wippel does so
in his treatment of the fifth way in The Metaphysical Thought of
Thomas Aquinas, and more recently Edward Feser has offered a
reading of the fifth way based on Aquinas’s metaphysics of
finality, thereby disassociating it from design-based arguments.8
By contrast, Marie George has taken issue with Feser’s reading
of the fifth way; she argues that Aquinas is not therein
concerned with causality, and that while finality is a consideration, what Aquinas is seeking to show is the existence of
an intelligent agent who orders all things in the universe.9 It
follows that, despite acute differences between Aquinas and
Paley in their metaphysical outlooks (differences which George
in fact plays down), there is enough similarity in respect of the
need for an intelligent designer for Aquinas’s fifth way to be
classified as an argument of the Paleyite variety. I think,
however, that George reads the fifth way too strictly. It is true
that Aquinas does not engage there in the fine-grained analyses
that Feser offers, or indeed that I offer here, but George seems
to conclude that those analyses and clarifications should not
play an interpretative role in reading the argument. In
particular, George dismisses the distinction between intrinsic
and extrinsic teleology as being a key factor in reading the fifth
way, nor does she permit a focus on intrinsic teleology in this
respect.10 Yet the notion of finality in things as a result of their
natural principles is to be found in Aquinas’s wider philosophical thought, and, given that Aquinas is quite a systematic
thinker, one must often incorporate what he says elsewhere into
the analysis of a given text. Just as we can interpret the earlier
viae in terms of his wider thinking on act/potency, essence/esse,

8

Edward Feser, “Between Aristotle and William Paley: Aquinas’s Fifth Way,” Nova
et Vetera (Eng. ed.) 11 (2013): 707-49.
9
Marie George, “A Thomistic Rebuttal of Some Common Objections to Paley’s
Argument from Design,” New Blackfriars 97, no. 1069 (2016): 266-88. The first section
is particularly worth noting for its engagement with Feser’s reading of the fifth way and
its presentation of George’s alternative reading.
10
Ibid., 268-70.

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GAVEN KERR

per se/per accidens series, so too are we permitted to approach
the fifth way with his wider thinking on teleology in mind.
It is of course the case that some intelligent agent is
responsible for the ordering of all created things; that is
orthodox Thomism, and indeed the fifth way points us to an
agent that intelligently orders such things. But this fact alone is
not enough to establish that what we have with the fifth way is
an intelligent designer of the Paleyite variety as opposed to an
intelligent creator of the Thomistic variety. The former plays an
architectural role, whereas the latter brings all things, including
their order, into being. By focusing on causality (and indeed the
causality of ordered series), we are able to move beyond a
Paleyite designer and towards a primary cause of all things.
I agree with those readers of Aquinas who interpret the fifth
way as a causal argument, and I think there is a strong case for
recognizing intrinsic teleology in Aquinas’s thought and reading
the fifth way in light of that. What I offer in this article that, to
my knowledge, has not been said elsewhere is an interpretation
of the fifth way in light of the metaphysics of essentially ordered
causal series; this is reasoning which Aquinas employs explicitly
in the first two ways and implicitly in the third and fourth.
Thus, I am offering an extension of the causal interpretation of
the fifth way into the metaphysics of essentially ordered series, a
metaphysics commonly thought to be confined to considerations of efficient causality.11
I. THE FIFTH WAY
The fifth way reads as follows:
The fifth way is taken from the governance of things. [1] We see that there are
things without knowledge, such as natural bodies, that operate for an end;
[1.1] and this is clear insofar as they always or more frequently operate in the
11

In “Essentially Ordered Series Reconsidered Once Again,” American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly 91 (2017): 155-74, I offer an account of how Aquinas’s
thinking on essentially ordered series can be interpreted in light of final causality and
how we can integrate such series with those that involve efficient causality. That paper
does not address the fifth way, though at the end I suggest that what I say there has
implications for interpreting the fifth way. This article draws out those implications.

DESIGN ARGUMENTS AND AQUINAS’S FIFTH WAY

453

same way so that what is best follows. [2] Hence it is apparent that it is not by
chance but by intention that they act for an end. [3] Those things that do not
have knowledge, do not tend to an end unless directed by something with
knowledge and intelligence, such as the arrow [directed by] the archer. [4]
Therefore, all natural things are ordered to an end by something intelligent,
and this we call God.12

Aquinas begins this argument by adverting to the goal-directed
behavior of unintelligent things [1], and adduces evidence for
this from the fact that such things often act in the same way so
as to produce the best result [1.1]. He claims that it is manifest
that in so acting these things are not acting by chance but by
intention [2], but those things without knowledge could not do
so unless directed by something that has knowledge and
intelligence [3], in which case all natural things are ordered to
their end by something intelligent, which is what we call God
[4].
Premise [1] is an expression of Aquinas’s views on finality,
and so asserts that natural things without intelligence act for an
end. This expression of finality is a springboard for the entire
argument: what is ultimately to be explained is the goal-directed
behavior, the finality, of naturally unintelligent things. In
contrast to some of his earlier argumentation, Aquinas is here
concerned with explaining finality itself; he is not making use of
finality in order to explain the harmony of things.
Given the fifth way’s starting point in finality, I will first
consider Aquinas’s thought on finality, then consider the
integration of that into the metaphysics of essentially ordered
series. Having done that I will be in a position to offer a conclusion as to why Aquinas’s fifth way is not a design argument.
II. TELEOLOGY
The teleology or goal-directed activity to which Aquinas
adverts in the fifth way is that found in natural bodies; hence it
is a teleology found in nature. This teleology can be considered
from two aspects: (i) from the point of view of the goal-directed
12

STh I, q. 2, a. 3 (Turin: Marietti, 1926).

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activity of living things and (ii) from the point of view of the
goal-directed activity of nonliving things.
In general, the advertence to goal-directed activity amounts
to recognition of the fact that natural things function in a
certain way, and that a description of their functioning will be a
description of their goal-directed activity. The very ratio of
finality for Aquinas is the “in order to” or the “for the sake of
which” (cuius causa fit) of the thing in question. In other words,
for Aquinas finality in natural things is signified by that for the
sake of which they act.13
Bearing this in mind, the idea that living things display goaldirected activity is quite straightforward, and, when freed from
misunderstanding, rather uncontroversial. When we think of
the functioning of living things, we often think of certain
physiological processes involving various bodily organs. Thus,
the eye functions for the sake of sight, the ear for hearing, the
heart for pumping blood, the lungs for extracting oxygen, and
so on. In each of these cases, when one inquires after the sake
for which each of these organs function, the response is their
end. Furthermore, not only can the individual organs listed
above have their own ends, but such ends can be subordinated
to some further end. There is thus a hierarchy of ends: the

13
For affirmations of this see II Phys., lect. 4 (In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis
expositio [Turin: Marietti, 1954], n. 173): “De ratione finis est quod sit cuius causa fit”
(“the nature of end is that for the sake of which something comes to be”); I Metaphys.,
lect. 4 (In Metaphysicam Aristotelis commentaria [Turin: Marietti, 1935], n. 70): “Nam
motus incipit a causa efficiente, et terminatur ad causam finalem. Et hoc est etiam cuius
causa fit aliquid, et quae est bonum uniuscuiusque naturae” (“For motion begins with
the efficient cause and is terminated in the final cause. And this latter is that for the sake
of which something comes to be, and it is the good of some particular nature”); II
Metaphys., lect. 4 (Marietti ed., n. 316): “Finis est id quod non est propter alia, sed alia
sunt propter ipsum” (“The end is that which is not for the sake of others, but others are
for the sake of it”); III Metaphys., lect. 4 (Marietti ed., n. 374): “Finis autem, et cuius
causa fit aliquid, videtur esse terminus alicuius actus” (“The end then is that for the sake
of which something comes to be, and it is seen to be the terminus of some act”);
V Metaphys., lect. 18 (Marietti ed., n. 1039): “Sed finis non solum habet quod sit
ultimum, sed etiam quod sit cuius causa fit aliquid” (“But the end is not only such that it
is the ultimate, but also that it is that for the sake of which something comes to be”).

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organs, which themselves act for an end, are subordinated to
the end of the body of which they are organs.14
Now a living thing can only function insofar as it is in act,
and for Aquinas a (nondivine) thing is in act insofar as it is a
composite unity of essence and esse.15 The essence itself, if that
of a material substance, is in turn a composite unity of matter
and form. The form of a material thing is that for the sake of
which its matter exists, such that the matter would not exist
unless its form is actuated as the matter of some particular
substance.16 Thus, the form of a material thing is its end; hence
form and end coincide in material things.17 A thing acts for an
end, that is, displays goal-directed behavior, in virtue of the
form that it has; and its specific end is determined by its specific
form. It follows from all this that finality or goal-directed
behavior is intrinsic to natural substances, something that they
exhibit in virtue of what they are.
Already this notion of finality serves to disassociate Aquinas’s
thinking from that of Paley, since for Paley the finality of the
watch is something extrinsic, imposed on the components of the
watch, whereas for Aquinas it is an intrinsic feature of the thing
signifying the tendencies it has on account of what it is.18 It
follows that, as their accounts of finality are different, their
14

STh I-II, q. 12, a. 2: “In motu autem potest accipi terminus dupliciter, uno modo,
ipse terminus ultimus, in quo quiescitur, qui est terminus totius motus; alio modo,
aliquod medium, quod est principium unius partis motus, et finis vel terminus alterius.
Sicut in motu quo itur de a in c per b, c est terminus ultimus, b autem est terminus, sed
non ultimus” (“The end in motion is able to be taken in a twofold manner: in one way
as the ultimate end itself, in which the motion rests which is the end of the whole
motion; in another way as a medium which is the principle of one part of motion and
the end or terminus of another. For instance in a motion whereby one moves from a to
c through b, c is the ultimate end and b indeed is an end but is not the ultimate”); for
affirmations of the same, see STh I-II, q. 21, a. 1, ad 2, II-II, q. 23, a. 7; q. 123, a. 7;
II Phys., lect. 5 (Marietti ed., n. 181); V Metaphys., lect. 2 (Marietti ed., n. 771).
15
De ente et essentia, c. 4 (Rome: Editori di San Tommaso, 1976).
16
II Phys., lect. 15 (Marietti ed., n. 273).
17
II Phys., lect. 11 (Marietti ed., nn. 246 and 242); VII Metaphys., lect. 6 (Marietti
ed., n. 1392); VIII Metaphys., lect. 4 (Marietti ed., n. 1737); De principiis naturae, c. 4
([Rome: Leonine, 1976], 45, ll. 114-16).
18
Feser emphasises this difference in “Between Aristotle and William Paley,” sect. 2;
George plays it down (see n. 9 above).

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GAVEN KERR

modes of accounting for that finality will be different. Paley’s
extrinsic finality requires a designer that molds and guides the
purposes of the thing it designs; Aquinas’s intrinsic finality
requires a creative cause which brings into existence some
formed substance, and this substance can act in the world in
ways that signify what it is.
Thus far I have focused solely on the finality prevalent
among living things. This is problematic because it is evident
that living things do act with some purpose (at the fundamental
level, the preservation of their being), whereas it is not so clear
that nonliving things act for any purpose—their being seems to
be purposeless. But the fifth way envisages nonliving things as
well as living things, and so finality must extend to them.
The teleology of nonliving things can be discerned in what
Aquinas says about the finality of natural bodies in the fifth way
and the example he uses. He states that the finality of natural
bodies is evident insofar as they operate always (or more
frequently) in the same way so that what is best follows; later he
gives as an example of this an arrow being shot by an archer.
What I want to draw out from this is that nonliving beings have
a kind of activity that is determined, such that unless the being
in question is subject to some divergent causal series, it acts
always in the same way. Such determined activity indicates
finality insofar as it is determined in view of an end; for if there
were no end, there would be no determination, and the activity
of a natural thing would not terminate in anything predictable.
For instance, a flame acts so as to produce heat; this is the
determination of its action. If it had no such determination, it
could produce heat on one occasion and then something else on
another. But this is not the case. Given the kind of thing that a
flame is, its activity is determined so as to produce heat, and the
production of heat is the flame’s end. Such ordered
determination is to be found in all nonliving things and it
reveals that such things act for an end. Yet since nonliving
things (as well as some living things) are unintelligent, Aquinas

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holds that they have this end not willfully but by a natural
inclination.19
Such determination need not be restricted to one determinate effect for it to have finality. Take the arrow example of
the fifth way, or, less grisly, a bride throwing her bouquet. An
archer can shoot his arrow, a bride can throw her bouquet, into
a crowd of people with no particular person being singled out.
Nevertheless, the motion of the arrow/bouquet still displays
finality insofar as it has a determinate aim and direction of
travel to reach a target. Thus, the action of the arrow/bouquet is
determined, even though the target is indeterminate.20 Of
course, this raises the question of what establishes the natural
inclinations of unintelligent things so that their action is
determined, a question that is the driving force behind the fifth

19

STh I-II, q. 1, a. 2: “Haec autem determinatio sicut in rationali natura per
rationalem fit appetitum, qui dicitur voluntas; ita in aliis fit per inclinationem
naturalem, quae dicitur appetitus naturalis” (“Just as in the rational nature this
determination is through the rational appetite which is called the will, so too in other
things it is through a natural inclination, which is called the natural appetite”). Paul
Hoffman comments on this: “In order to do anything an agent has to do something in
particular. But an agent can do something in particular only if it is determined to one
particular thing as opposed to some other particular thing. And to be determined to a
particular thing is to have that thing as an end” (Paul Hoffman, “Does Efficient
Causation Presuppose Final Causation? Aquinas vs Early Modern Mechanism,” in
Metaphysics and the Good: Themes from the Philosophy of Robert Merrihew Adams, ed.
Samuel Newlands and Larry M. Jorgensen [New York: Oxford University Press, 2009],
296).
20
The same goes, mutatis mutandis, for the activity of nonliving things not directed
by human intervention, e.g., hurricanes, tsunamis, and even when there is no target
involved, e.g., planetary motion. Hoffman holds that in cases of indeterministic motions
we have to weaken Aquinas’s view and hold that a cause can be aimed at a set of
incompatible effects, whereas he takes Aquinas to hold that a cause cannot be
indeterminate between two or more effects (Hoffman, “Does Efficient Causation
Presuppose Final Causation?,” 309); see ScG III, c. 2. Be that as it may, in the cases I
have mentioned, the cause is not indeterminate with respect to several incompatible
effects, but to compatible effects, since an arrow can pierce more than one person, a
bouquet can be (and often is) caught by more than one person, hurricanes and tsunamis
can simultaneously wreak havoc on more than one area. In such cases, conceptually
speaking, such things can be determined to all of the effects, and thus have a single
determination which is analysable in multiple aspects.

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way. But at this stage, at least, the fact of such goal-determined
activity is clear, even if the cause is not.
With this explanation of goal-directed activity in mind, we
may turn to the presence of such activity in nature, and in
particular to how it is to be explained. In accord with Aristotle,
Aquinas holds that the nature that the philosopher of nature
investigates is mobile being.21 The natural bodies to which
Aquinas refers in the fifth way must therefore be mobile bodies.
The finality that is the subject of the fifth way will be the goaldirected behavior of beings that are subject to motion.
The attentive reader of the five ways will have noticed that
in the first way Aquinas offers a succinct but profound analysis
of motion. In the prima via he holds that motion is fundamentally the movement from potency to act, and this motion is
governed by a principle of actuality such that the motion cannot
occur without that principle actuating some potency. Motion,
then, is neither act alone nor potency alone, but actualized
potency.22
As subject to motion, mobile beings are composites of
potency and act. They have a principle of potency that is able to
be actuated in some respect, and this actuation is brought about
by the principle of actuality that governs the motion. Keeping
all this in mind, finality is the in order to of the mobile being’s
motion; it specifies how such a being moves or acts. Thus,
finality is coordinate with actuality insofar as it signifies the
kind of activity in which the being engages. Any explanation of
a thing’s finality will have to be an explanation in terms of its
actuality; there must be some principle of actuality that
21

VI Metaphys., lect. 1 (Marietti ed., n. 1155): “Ens enim mobile est subjectum
naturalis philosophiae”; XI Metaphys., lect. 7 (Marietti ed., n. 2260).
22
For an affirmation of this outside of the context of demonstrating God’s existence,
see III Phys., lect. 2 (Marietti ed., n. 285): “Unde neque est potentia existentis in
potentia, neque est actus existentis in actu, sed est actus existentis in potentia: ut per id
quod dicitur actus, designetur ordo eius ad anteriorem potentiam, et per id quod dicitur
in potentia existentis, designetur ordo eius ad ulteriorem actum” (“Hence neither is
[motion] the potency of the thing existing in potency nor is it the act of the thing
existing in act, but it is the act of the thing existing in potency; so by means of the term
‘act’ its order to an anterior potency is designated, and by means of the phrase ‘of the
thing existing in potency’ its order to an ulterior act is designated”).

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determines a thing’s movement to its end. And this brings us to
final causality, since for Aquinas the end plays a causal role in
determining the being of mobile things.
Causality for Aquinas is aligned with the why of things, that
is to say, one offers a causal response when asked why things
are the way they are.23 Causality is a kind of derivation and
dependence of the effect on the cause, and such derivation and
dependence entails that the effect is in potency to the cause in
the required respect.24 Causality is thus able to be analyzed in
terms of act and potency.25 It follows that if there are specifically different contexts in which the act/potency relation can be
found, then there will be specifically different contexts in which
causality will be found. Hence causality is not a univocal notion
but an analogous one proportionate to the context in which it is
applied. As is well known, the four traditional causal contexts
that Aristotle enumerates and Aquinas adopts are (i) material,
(ii) formal, (iii) efficient, and (iv) final.26
In the causality of mobile beings, form actuates matter into
the matter of a particular kind of thing (e.g., a cat, dog, horse,
tree), but form does not act of itself; rather, it requires some
efficient cause to introduce it. The efficient cause introduces
form for the sake of some end, whether that end is foreseen and
willed by a rational creature or proceeds by way of a natural
inclination, as in the case of nonrational creatures. Therefore
the final cause, while not first in the causal process, is primary
insofar as the efficient cause would not act without the end, and
if the efficient cause did not act, the form (the formal cause)
23

II Phys., lect. 5 (Marietti ed., n. 176).
De potentia Dei, q. 5, a. 1 (Turin: Marietti, 1927): “Effectum enim a sua causa
dependere oportet. Hoc enim est de ratione effectus et causae.”
25
V Metaphys., lect. 1 (Marietti ed., n. 751): “Hoc nomen causa, importat influxum
quemdam ad esse causati” (“Potency and act distinguish the relation of cause to effect”);
and V Metaphys., lect. 3 (Marietti ed., n. 794): “Potentia et actus diversificant
habitudinem causae ad effectum” (“Potency and act distinguish the relation of cause and
effect”); II Phys., lect. 5 (Marietti ed., n. 183): “Omnia ista habent unam rationem
causae, prout dicitur causa id ex quo fit aliquid” (“All of these have a single nature of
cause, namely, that a cause is that from which something comes to be”).
26
V Metaphys., lect. 2 (Marietti ed., nn. 763-71); and V Metaphys., lect. 3 (Marietti
ed., nn. 777-82).
24

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would not actuate the matter.27 Without the final cause, then,
there can be no causality; it is the cause of causes.28
While anybody can observe and record the goal-directed
activity of mobile beings, only the metaphysician can offer an
explanation of it. This is because an explanation of such activity
will not be a recording that it took place; rather, it will
endeavor to offer an account as to why the efficient cause acted
in such a manner; that is, it will offer an explanation for the
causality of the efficient cause. Thus, an explanation of the goaldirected activity of a natural thing seeks to isolate the cause of
the efficient cause’s causality, and so will in turn be an
explanation of a kind of causality (efficient causality) by appeal
to a different type of cause (the final cause). Given that the
finality of the efficient cause is imparted to it by the final cause,
the presence of finality in a system requires a causal explanation
in terms of the final cause, so that advertence to finality as an
explanandum will require an appeal to causality. Clearly, as it is
concerned with finality, the fifth way must be interpreted
causally, and hence it seeks to conclude to a cause for the
finality of things, and not merely a designer. Having said this,
we can integrate such an interpretation of the fifth way deeper
27

STh I-II, q. 1, a. 4: “Prima autem inter omnes causas est causa finalis. Cuius ratio
est, quia materia non consequitur formam nisi secundum quod movetur ab agente, nihil
enim reducit se de potentia in actum. Agens autem non movet nisi ex intentione finis. Si
enim agens non esset determinatum ad aliquem effectum, non magis ageret hoc quam
illud, ad hoc ergo quod determinatum effectum producat, necesse est quod determinetur
ad aliquid certum, quod habet rationem finis. Haec autem determinatio, sicut in
rationali natura fit per rationalem appetitum, qui dicitur voluntas; ita in aliis fit per
inclinationem naturalem, quae dicitur appetitus naturalis” (“The first among all causes
then is the final cause, and the reason is this. Matter does not follow form unless it is
moved to do so by some agent; for nothing reduces itself from potency to act. The agent
does not move unless from the intention of an end; for if the agent were not determined
to some effect, it would no more do this than that. But in order for it to produce a
determinate effect, it is necessary that it is determined to something certain, which has
the nature of an end. Just as in the rational nature this determination is through the
rational appetite which is called the will, so too in other things it is through a natural
inclination, which is called the natural appetite”). See also De Verit., q. 28, a. 7; De
Princip. Natur., c. 4.
28
See I Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4; d. 45, q. 1, a. 3; II Sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1;
STh I, q. 5, a. 2, ad 1; De Verit., q. 28, a. 7; De Princip. Natur., c. 4.

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into the metaphysics of Aquinas by considering the relationship
between final and efficient causality in causal series.
III. THE EXPLANATION OF TELEOLOGY
We have noted that the explanation of finality is a
determining factor in the interpretation of the fifth way. We
have noted that the final cause is what motivates the efficient
cause to initiate a causal series, and so the causal series exhibits
the finality, the “in order to,” granted to it by the efficient
cause. To return to the example of the fifth way, the archer
shoots the arrow and the arrow exhibits finality, but the
motivation of the archer to shoot the arrow, thereby giving it
finality, is derived from the final cause, in this case something
like the archer’s intending to hit the target. In natural processes
the process is unconscious but subject to the same analysis. The
primary efficient cause of the natural process gets the process
going, and its action is for something, it does something which
something is its end. Hence each stage of the process exhibits
finality for that end and thereby participates in the finality
granted to the process by the efficient cause which is “motivated” to act by the final cause. We thus have a complex interweaving of efficient and final causal series.
In demonstrations of God’s existence, we can get a good
grasp of efficient causal series since we can easily visualize the
causal regress and see where the argument against the infinity of
such series is going. The case is different for final causal series
since, at least in the fifth way, Aquinas does not present us with
a model for explaining the causal series within which finality is
operative; he takes it for granted, and this is no doubt a contributing factor to misinterpreting the fifth way as a design argument. Arguments of the Paleyite variety do not incorporate the
finitude or nonfinitude of causal series, but focus more on
explaining certain features of things within the universe as the
result of some design; the finitude or nonfinitude of causal
series is often the consideration of those arguments for God that

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are lumped together as cosmological arguments.29 Given
Aquinas’s metaphysics of causality and the focus on finality in
the fifth way, we can read the fifth way as utilizing the
metaphysics of causal series, a metaphysics that is to be found
explicitly in the first two ways (and in my opinion implicitly in
the third and fourth ways). Accordingly, although Aquinas does
not explicate that metaphysics in the fifth way, it should
nevertheless be read as being in harmony with the metaphysics
of the causal series present in the earlier viae.
This metaphysics of causality that is present in all five ways is
the causality of ordered series. In the second way Aquinas
writes:
In all efficient causes following an order, the first is the cause of the
intermediate, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate, whether the
intermediate are many or only one. Therefore, if there were not a primary in
efficient causes there would be no ultimate or intermediate. So if one were to
proceed to infinity in efficient causes, there would be no primary efficient
cause, and thus there would be no ultimate effect, nor intermediate efficient
causes.30

What Aquinas is drawing upon here is his thought on what have
come to be called essentially ordered series (Aquinas himself
29

This is a characterization that is often made of Aquinas’s primary cause
arguments—unfairly so, in my opinion, because in such arguments Aquinas is intent on
showing that not only do things within the cosmos require a cause, but also things
outside the cosmos (e.g., angels).
30
See STh I, q. 2, a. 3. Aquinas exhibits the same kind of reasoning in the first way,
though he does not use the terminology of ordered causes. In the first way he writes:
“Hic autem non est procedere in infinitum, quia sic non esset aliquod primum movens;
et per consequens nec aliquod aliud movens, quia moventia secunda non movent nisi
per hoc quod sunt mota a primo movente, sicut baculus non movet nisi per hoc quod est
motus a manu. Ergo necesse est devenire ad aliquod primum movens, quod a nullo
movetur” (“This then cannot proceed to infinity, for then there would be no primary
mover and consequently no other mover, because secondary movers do not move unless
they are moved by a primary mover, just as the staff does not move unless moved by the
hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at some primary mover which is moved by no
other”). For an analysis of the second way, which focuses heavily on Aquinas’s
metaphysics of ordered series, see Gaven Kerr, “The Relevance of Aquinas’s Uncaused
Cause Argument,” in Revisiting Aquinas’ Proofs for the Existence of God, ed. Robert Arp
(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016), 71-87.

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uses the terminology of per se series). The members of such a
series do not possess the causality of the series essentially, and
so require a cause for their causality. By contrast, in an
accidentally ordered series the members do possess the causality
of the series essentially and so do not require a cause for their
causality.31
The typical examples that Aquinas offers of these two series
are:
(i) Per se: a stone (z) is moved by a stick (y) which is moved by a
hand (x) which is moved by the mind (w): w (x (y z)).
(ii) Per accidens: a son (z) is begotten by his father (y) who is
begotten by his father (x) who is begotten by his father (w) and
so on: (w x) (x y) (y z).32
I have explored the metaphysics of these series elsewhere in
some detail.33 Here I would like to summarize that metaphysics
and connect it with the metaphysics of finality, thereby drawing
the fifth way into the same argumentative framework as the
earlier ways.
In the per se series the posterior causal relata are causally
inefficacious without some cause for their causality; this is
because they do not possess the causality of the series essentially
(motion in the above example), and so they depend on
something which does possess that causality essentially (the
31

For an account of Aquinas’s thought on essentially ordered series, see Gaven Kerr,
“Essentially Ordered Series Reconsidered,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
86 (2012): 541-55; and idem, Aquinas’s Way to God: The Proof in “De ente et essentia”
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), chap. 5. For an application of the
metaphysics of essentially ordered series to Aquinas’s argumentation against infinite
causal regress in the first way in particular, see Caleb Cohoe, “There Must Be a First:
Why Thomas Aquinas Rejects Infinite, Essentially Ordered, Causal Series,” British
Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (2013): 838-56.
32
These examples are taken from STh I, q. 46, a. 2, ad 7, but in n. 29 above the
mind-hand-stick-stone example is found in the first way. Examples of nonconscious
causal series can also be provided: per se, the fire heats the pot which heats the contents
of the pot; per accidens, a domino knocks over its neighbor which knocks over its
neighbor, etc.
33
Kerr, “The Relevance of Aquinas’s Uncaused Cause Argument.”

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GAVEN KERR

mind or mental agent in this case; the fire in the nonconscious
case). That cause must be present to all members of the series
granting their causality such that, as the second way states,
“remove the cause and you remove the effect.” So in the mindhand-stick-stone example, if the mind is removed the motion of
the series collapses, for without the presence of the mind as
cause of the causality of the series there would be no causality in
the series. The causality of the posterior causal relata, therefore,
is a participation in the causality or causal efficacy that the mind
possesses of itself. This feature is drawn out in the symbolic
formulation above since therein w (signifying the mind) has the
greatest causal scope, and thereafter we have descending levels
of causal scope (and so greater restriction through bracketing in
the symbolic formulation), but all such causality is dependent on
that of w: if w is removed the causality is removed, and the
series collapses as a causal series. Accordingly, no posterior
member of the series would act unless it participated in the
actuality of the primary cause, w in this case.
By contrast, the causal relata in the accidentally ordered
series do indeed possess the causality of the series essentially,
and so they do not require a cause for their causality. The
causality of the cause is terminated in the immediate effect. So a
father can produce a son, and the son can produce his own son
(the father’s grandson); but the father is not the cause of the
son’s son (the grandson). The son does not need his father’s
help in producing his own offspring. So long as he is a
biologically capable male the son can exercise his own causal
efficacy in producing his own son. The father need not be
present for the latter act, whereas the mind must be present
throughout the hand-stick-stone series, or there is no motion in
the series. Hence, in the bracketing above, cause and effect in
the per accidens series relate only in a one-one relation, such
that the causality of the cause terminates in the immediate effect
(w x). This effect can go on to act as a cause in the same
manner (x y), but in so doing it does not require participation
in the causality of its prior cause w; hence, the symbolic
formulation must be bracketed off from the earlier causal
relation (w x) (x y).

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Since in the per se series the very causality of the posterior
causal relata must itself be caused, we may infer that the per se
series cannot be without a primary cause. If it were, the posterior causal relata, which are causally inefficacious in themselves, would have nothing on which to depend for their causal
efficacy, and so the causal series would collapse. Consequently,
per se series are necessarily finite. This recognition is key to
Aquinas’s procedure in the first and second ways (and, in my
opinion, the third and fourth ways) for establishing that there is
some primary cause for the particular causal property in
question, be it motion, efficient causality, necessity, or grades of
perfection. By contrast, the per accidens series need not have a
primary cause for the causality of the series, since each of the
members possesses the causality of the series essentially (though
of course Aquinas will argue, and I along with him, that such
series are embedded within one overall per se series, whose
causality is such that without it nothing would be).
Now where does finality fit into all of this? In drawing out
the nature of finality above, it was shown that for Aquinas an
efficient cause is causally inefficacious without some final cause.
That is to say, unless the efficient cause acts for some end,
unless it does something, it does not act. Every action of an
efficient cause is for an end, so that the end is the motivation by
which the efficient cause acts. The final cause, then, is the cause
of the causality of the efficient cause.34 Given this, and given the
fact that a per se series is one in which a cause of the causality of
the series is required, a final causal series, or a causal series in
which finality is operative, is a per se series. Any final causal
series is one in which there are effects (efficient causes), which
34

V Metaphys., lect. 2 (Marietti ed., n. 775): “Efficiens est causa finis quantum ad
esse quidem, quia movendo perducit efficiens ad hoc, quod sit finis. Finis autem est
causa efficientis non quantum ad esse, sed quantum ad rationem causalitatis. Nam
efficiens est causa inquantum agit: non agit nisi causa finis. Unde ex fine habet suam
causalitatem efficiens”; De Princip. Natur., c. 4 (Leonine ed., 4, ll. 16-19): “Efficiens
enim dicitur causa respectu finis, cum finis non sit in actu nisi per operationem agentis:
sed finis dicitur causa efficientis, cum non operetur nisi per intentionem finis” (“The
efficient cause is termed a cause in respect of the end, since the end is not in act unless
through the operation of an agent; but the end is a cause of the efficient cause since the
latter does not operate unless through the intention of the end”).

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GAVEN KERR

depend on some cause (the final cause) for their causality, and
that is a defining feature of per se series. Hence, an explanation
of finality will be a causal one which utilizes the metaphysics of
essentially ordered series, a metaphysics which, it will be recalled, eliminates the possibility of an infinite regress of causes
in the first and second ways.
All we have to do now is to modify the efficient essentially
ordered series outlined above so as to incorporate final causality, and with that we will have a causal model for interpreting
the fifth way.35
We may give an account of the mind-hand-stick-stone
example in terms of finality.36 We represented the series as
follows: w (x (y z)). Now, instead of a mind-hand-stickstone, we may imagine Dr. Smith going to the golf course to hit
balls: Dr. Smith (w) moves his hands (x) to swing the club (y) to
move the ball (z); considering the causal series in this way will
give us a plausible scenario by which we can introduce finality
(though the model for representing final causality is applicable
to both conscious and unconscious situations, given that finality
and hence final causality is applicable to both).
Why does Dr. Smith go to the golf course—for what reason
or purpose? Perhaps he works in a department whose dean is a
fan of golf and easily impressed by a skillful golfer. The
opportunity for promotion has come along and Dr. Smith wants
to impress the dean. So Dr. Smith goes to the golf course to hit
balls in order to improve his swing in order to impress the dean.
Here we have final causality at work. The overall final cause is
to impress the dean—that is what motivates Dr. Smith—but to
do that he must improve his swing. The goal of impressing the
dean by means of his golf skills exercises causality over Dr.
Smith, and hence the in order to of the series exhibits that
finality.
With ‘B’ standing for improving his swing and ‘A’ standing
for impressing the dean, we modify our formulation of the
35
Aquinas gives us an indication of how to think of final essentially ordered series in
STh I-II, q. 12, a. 2.
36
I first proposed this account of finality and essentially ordered series in my 2017
article, “Essentially Ordered Series Reconsidered Once Again.”

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essentially ordered series as follows: [[w (x (y z))]B]A.
The original efficient causal series, including the overall causal
scope of the primary cause (the mind, or Dr. Smith), is now
contained within the overarching (final) causal scope of A
(impressing the dean), whose causal scope requires a subordinate final cause B (improving the swing). A, and by
subordination B, motivates w to induce motion to the series of
x, y, z, in order to achieve that end. As primary efficient cause,
w would not impart causality to the series unless motivated to
do so by A, its final cause. Hence the causality of w is caused by
A, which is the final cause. We have now integrated finality into
our initial model of the essentially ordered series. Thus, we can
link efficient and final causality in essentially ordered series.
Elsewhere I have argued that if we can locate a causal feature
of (efficient) causal series without which there would be
nothing, and if we can locate that causality within essentially
ordered series, then we can establish that there is a primary
cause without which there would be nothing. In the case of
efficient causality, this causal feature is Thomist esse; whatever
does not have esse is nothing. Similarly, if we can isolate a kind
of final causality without which there would be no finality, and
if we can locate that within a suitable essentially ordered series,
then we must come to a primary final cause without which
there would be no finality and hence no efficient causality (and
certainly no primary efficient causality). Defending these claims
is not my goal here; I am concerned rather with how to read the
fifth way. This will be the focus of my concluding remarks.37
CONCLUDING REMARKS
In the five ways, as indeed in nearly all of his arguments for
the existence of God, Aquinas’s mode of procedure is to isolate
some feature of reality and argue that that feature requires some
absolute primary cause, otherwise it would not be; this is a key
37
For more detailed discussions of a primary efficient cause and a primary final
cause, see my works cited in this article: “Essentially Ordered Series Reconsidered”;
Aquinas’s Way to God; “The Relevance of Aquinas’s Uncaused Cause Argument”; and
“Essentially Ordered Series Reconsidered Once Again.”

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GAVEN KERR

strategic move in his inference from participated to
unparticipated being. In the first way, this is motion conceived
in terms of act and potency; in the second, it is efficient
causality; in the third, necessity and contingency; and in the
fourth, degrees of perfection. Most important for our purposes,
in the fifth way the relevant feature of reality is finality: “We
see that there are things without knowledge, such as natural
bodies, that operate for an end.” God’s existence is required to
account for the finality of things that do not determine their
own ends.
As pointed out above, arguments for the existence of God
that proceed from an advertence to finality or teleology, and
thence infer God as the governor of that finality, are often
classified as design arguments; this is precisely because in that
case God is simply an architect who arranges things in their
dispositions to act and to relate to one another in just the right
way. Aquinas may share the same starting point, but the
advertence to the goal-directed behavior of things means that
his mode of argumentation is not the same as that of design
arguments.
Aquinas seeks to explain the finality of things that do not
have minds but act with intention. Their acting with intention
entails that they are ordered to their end; and so the ordered
acting for an end requires explanation. This is evident when
Aquinas says that “it is apparent that it is not by chance but by
intention that they act for an end” and in his conclusion that
God is responsible for the ordering of the acting for an end:
“All natural things are ordered to an end by something
intelligent, and this we call God.” This ordering of natural
things to their ends calls for an interpretation not only in terms
of final causality, but also in terms of essentially ordered series,
as I have argued.
So how can we cast the fifth way?
We begin with unintelligent things acting for an end. Such
things act as efficient causes to bring something about, but they
do not bring something about by means of their own intentions;
their finality is caused from without. Just as the hand-stick-stone
in the mind-hand-stick-stone series do not possess the causality

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469

of the series themselves but require a primary cause which
originates their causality, so too unintelligent things do not
possess finality of themselves but require some cause of their
finality in which they participate. The argument thus takes place
within the context and indeed the metaphysics of per se ordered
series. Now in accord with the metaphysics of that series, unless
there is some primary cause which itself is capable of originating
the causality of the members of the series, there is no causal
series. If the causality is not originated, the members of the
series have no causality. Applying such metaphysics to the fifth
way, we must conclude that there is some primary cause which
originates the finality of all unintelligent things in creation,
without whose causality such things would not display finality.
Drawing out the metaphysics further, we can see that the
primary cause of finality for all unintelligent things must be
uncaused in respect of final causality, or it would not be the
primary cause of the series, but an effect within the series.
This interpretation thus far considers only unintelligent
things, things incapable of willing the end for themselves. This
works as an interpretation of the fifth way, since that is all the
fifth way envisages. But an interesting question is whether or
not all things, intelligent and unintelligent, require some
ultimate final cause in whose causality such things participate
for their own finality. I have argued elsewhere that we do need
such an ultimate final cause, and indeed that Aquinas’s
metaphysics of essentially ordered final series commits us to just
such a cause. All finality is ordered toward the good of those
participating in it. Finality guides the efficient cause to its end,
to what it is for; hence the final cause signifies the completion
or perfection of the efficient cause. The presence of finality in
all things, then, intelligent and unintelligent, guides such things
to their ends and hence their goods. The causality of finality
then is the causality of the good; goodness is the causal feature
of final causal series so that every final causal series is motivated
by the good in some way. Given the necessary finitude of
essentially ordered series, there must be in final essentially
ordered series some ultimate (or primary) final cause whose
goodness is not caused but which causes the goodness of others

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GAVEN KERR

(just as in other contexts Aquinas argues there must be some
primary efficient cause of esse whose esse is not caused). This
ultimate final cause would be the good itself, and as the cause of
the causality of final causal series it would be that which all
desire, and what ultimately motivates all efficient causality, such
as is found in the earlier viae.38
Intelligent things, no less than unintelligent things, are
subject to the causality of the good itself. The difference is that
intelligent things implement that finality through their willing
of some course of action, not through a natural propensity to
act in such a way. Consequently, while the fifth way explores
the finality only of unintelligent things, the metaphysics which
informs it can be extended to intelligent things as well.
It is not surprising that Aquinas’s fifth way can be interpreted
as a causal argument drawing on the metaphysics of essentially
ordered series. In more recognizable demonstrations of God’s
existence, such as we have in the earlier ways, we meet with
some form of causality and infer a primary cause without which
such causality would not be. Indeed, Aquinas conceives of God
as that on which all things depend for their being: the
participated yet unparticipating source of all that is. In coming
to the conclusion that the primary being in each of the five ways
is what we understand God to be, Aquinas maintains that the
particular mode of argumentation adopted in each way gets us
to that primary source, He Who Is, as the sed contra of question
2, article 3 conceives of him. It would be odd for Aquinas to
deliver us a primary being exercising causality over all beings in
the first four ways, and then in the fifth way conclude to a
primary being that is nothing more than a glorified architect.
The oddness disappears when we interpret the fifth way not as a
design argument but as a causal argument utilizing Aquinas’s
metaphysics of essentially ordered series. Once we have that in
place, we can say that the fifth way concludes to a primary
(final) cause of all that is (unintelligent). Interpreting the fifth

38

In “Essentially Ordered Series Reconsidered Once Again” I argue that the primary
final cause is identical with the primary cause of esse.

DESIGN ARGUMENTS AND AQUINAS’S FIFTH WAY

471

way in this way allows us to align it more closely with the
earlier viae and more intimately with Aquinas’s wider thought.39

39

I wish to thank the Editor and Staff of The Thomist for helping me in bringing this
article to publication. I also wish to thank two anonymous referees for their insightful
comments on an earlier version of this paper.

BOOK REVIEWS
Work of Love: A Theological Reconstruction of the Communion of Saints. By
LEONARD J. DELORENZO. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2017. Pp. xiii + 346. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-268-10093-3.
DeLorenzo’s new book covers a surprisingly wide range of topics, both
philosophical and theological, and of authors, old and new. Among the topics
dealt with are baptism, beatific life, charity, Christology, creation, death, desire,
ecclesiology, eschatology, Eucharist, freedom, holiness, the Holy Spirit,
Mariology, memory, original sin, purgatory, personhood, the resurrection of
the dead, the saints, salvation, and sin. Among the authors, some of whom are
considered in great detail, are Augustine, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dante
Alighieri, Henri de Lubac, Jacques Derrida, Dorothy Day, Romano Guardini,
Martin Heidegger, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Luc Marion, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl
Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger, Rainer M. Rilke, Teresa of Avila, and Thérèse of
Lisieux.
Surprisingly, the core notion that keeps all these topics and authors together
might well be considered as secondary in theology, occupying as it does a
relatively minor place in the Apostles’ Creed: the communio sanctorum, a term
that is usually translated as “the communion of saints” but also as “the
communion of holy things.” The author holds that the communio sanctorum is
at the very heart of the Christian economy. He does not consider it a static
reality that may be described in a simple, abstract way. Rather, “the communion
of saints” is a living reality that is in the process of being gradually developed,
purified, repaired, and constituted. The process is based on God’s work of
creation; it must take into account the fall of humanity (original sin), which has
had the effect of breaking up the original harmony and communion present in
creation; it requires the intervention of divine power through Christ, the
sacraments, and the exercise of Christian charity; and it is destined to beatific,
eschatological fullness.
The work deserves a careful read and provides fascinating insights into very
topical and challenging issues. In addition, the author provides a wide-ranging
bibliography and excellent indices.
I believe the key issue dealt with is the memory at the heart of the communio
sanctorum. In effect, DeLorenzo asks: “If the memory of Christ is the central
mystery of the Church in which the communio sanctorum is formed, then
whose memory is this? Who remembers Christ and his saints?” (183). In other
473

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words, who is the subjectum of the communio sanctorum? Toward the beginning of the book, the author argues that “death is creation’s absolute zero as
self-contradictory nonexistence. It is the collapse into nothing of that which was
created out of nothing; this is the full meaning of death with which Christianity
reckons” (ibid.). Death after all is the correlate of sin. He goes on to explain
“that the gift of life that overcomes this unmitigated catastrophe [of death] is
given in history but does not come from history—this gift is the Resurrection
of Jesus Christ. In him, the Word of God that entered into the solitary silence
of being dead speaks a new creation in the risen One, who embodies mercy as
the truth of creation and the gift of new life in the Holy Spirit” (ibid.). But
where does this new reality reside? What memory does liturgical celebration
refer to and live off?
After all, when people die, they do so “as whole persons—no powers or
potentialities remained in them, for them, or to them. If we can speak now of
their memory, then we must acknowledge that their memory is dependent on
that which does not, first of all, come from them” (183-84). Likewise, “if the
power of memory is attributed primarily to the community that gathers in the
liturgy, so too is this community made up of members who will, in time, die. . . .
The memory that any creature maintains is limited, faulty, and, in the end,
bound for erasure in death” (184).
The conclusion DeLorenzo takes from this reflection is as follows: “when
the Church venerates its saints, remembers the dead, and enacts the memory of
Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, it only ever does so within God’s own memory of
history” (ibid., emphasis added). This refers, of course, to the Eucharistic
anamnesis (or living memory): “the blessed Passion, the Resurrection from the
dead, and the glorious Ascension into heaven of Christ,” as the Roman Canon
describes it (ibid.). In effect, “in the Eucharistic liturgy, God’s own memory is
given to the Church so that the Church can make this sacred memory its own”
(ibid.). The author insists that the memory that constitutes the living heart of
the communio sanctorum does not belong to the creature but to the Creator:
“This memory does not come from the Church but is given to the Church so
that the Church may come to be. The Church discovers itself in this sacred
memory the more it desires to know and love itself and all creation through this
memory alone. . . . Without the memory that is given, creation is bound by the
nothing from which it comes and the death to which it goes” (ibid.). Thus,
“belief in the communio sanctorum absolutely depends on belief in the Triune
God, and conversely, belief in the Triune God blossoms into the communio
sanctorum as the Christian faith moves toward its consummate form” (ibid.). In
brief, “the communion of saints is the eschatological symbol of the Word of Life
spoken through the noncommunication zone of death” (185).
The book speaks frequently of God’s memory as the basis for constituting
the communion of saints (189, 196-97, 200-201, 223-24, 236-38), drawing on
Augustine’s reflections on human and divine memory in book 10 of his

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475

Confessions. “This drama of communion is God’s memory of creation—a
memory preserved at the heart of the Church’s liturgy” (223). “The absolute
priority of God’s memory is the heart of the communion of saints because the
conferral of the sacred memory illumines all of creation in the redemption
wrought in Christ” (237).
The author argues his position convincingly. He provides a well-integrated
view of many aspects of Catholic theology. It is interesting to note, however,
that he speaks frequently about death in parallel with creation. It would seem
that just as God created all things without presuppositions of any kind—ex
nihilo as the classic expression would have it—the death of humans will
constitute a return to nothing. “I have gone to great lengths . . . to argue that,
in the Christian view, human death is a definitive end. Due to sin, this end
approaches the total breakdown of communication from God, who is the source
of all life” (96). He often states that death is a correlate of sin (72ff., 80-81, 88,
103) and of noncommunication (e.g., 48, 62-63, 76-77, 80ff., 90). It would
seem, therefore, that the resurrection of the dead would be a kind of “recreation” of the human being. Thus he suggests that “the gift of the resurrection
of the body [is] comparable to but not identical with God’s original act of creatio
ex nihilo” (64). DeLorenzo writes further, “Seeing through the absolute gift of
the Resurrection illuminates the analogous relationship between the
resurrection of the body and the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo” (94-95).
Moreover, he says, “Life in the Spirit proclaims the deepest logic of the world
as created, so that those who are re-membered [resurrected] in the liberating
gift of God’s mercy in Christ come to embody caritas as a testament to the
ultimate truth about the world and the God who created it” (178).
Perhaps this view of death and the afterlife explains why DeLorenzo does
not deal with the question of the human soul throughout the work. In fact, he
speaks negatively of “the Platonic doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which
holds that the soul is freed from the body at death” (244 n. 1). He observes:
“From a Christian perspective, this doctrine is insufficient due to its disregard
for creation and history. . . . This view is not only inadequate for the fullness of
Christian hope, but also . . . it comes under attack from modern philosophy,
which often takes this view as standard for Western religions, especially
Christianity” (ibid.).
The classic view of death, of course, involves the “separation” of body and
soul induced by original sin and overcome at the moment of the resurrection of
the dead. Yet Aquinas’s view of the soul, understood as the forma corporis, the
form of the human body, and thus inspired by Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory,
is very different from Plato’s and fully respects the created and historical
character of man. It is interesting to note that the modern philosophical view
of the human spirit, dependent on Descartes, draws more on Platonic dualism
than on Thomistic and Aristotelian monism.
But a proper understanding of the soul is deeply related to the key issue
raised by the author, namely, that the divine memory alone reconstitutes the

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BOOK REVIEWS

communio sanctorum. Thomas holds that humans enjoy not only sensitive
memory (in this life), but also (against Avicenna) spiritual memory (STh I, q. 79,
aa. 6-7; ScG II, c. 74), which in principle will last forever on the basis of the
soul’s native incorruptibility. Of course, all living memory ultimately has its
roots in God the Creator, as the author rightly asserts. And a wide variety of
theologians understand the resurrection of the dead in terms of a raising up of
the human-life narrative through the power of God, as I explain in Christ our
Hope (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 10912. But does this make it necessary to sacrifice the enduring quality of all created
memory by death? Is the role God wished humans to occupy in their own
salvation fully respected? Perhaps the author attributes too much weight to the
destructive power of sin and death over the human subject. Interestingly, he
speaks of the value sin and death occupy in human life: “The very wounds of
the sins of many become the sites of the resurrection of the body, where new
relationships based in mercy are forged among those who previously stood in
enmity, suspicion, and hatred” (157).
All in all, the work provides a powerful and unitary reading of Christian
salvation centered on the communion of the saints. Yet a properly understood
incorporation of the concept of “soul,” God’s “work of love,” might have better
filled out the picture of our understanding of the communion of saints.
PAUL O’CALLAGHAN
Pontificia Università della Santa Croce
Rome, Italy

Exodus. By THOMAS JOSEPH WHITE, O.P. Brazos Theological Commentary on
the Bible. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2016. Pp. xx + 316. $32.99
(cloth). ISBN: 978-1-58743-346-7.
The goal of the series in which this learned, judicious, and accessible volume
appears is stated nicely by the editor, R. R. Reno, in his preface: to encourage
an “unashamedly dogmatic interpretation of scripture” (xv). The commentators
are thus “not biblical scholars in the conventional, modern sense of the term
[but rather] were chosen because of their knowledge of and expertise in using
the Christian doctrinal tradition” (xiii). Procedurally, the method is based on
the conviction, again in Reno’s words, that “philological precision and stability
is a consequence of, not a basis for, exegesis. Judgments about the meaning of
a text fix its literal sense, not the other way around” (xv). To the pressing
question of just how such a doctrinally determined exegetical method relates to

BOOK REVIEWS

477

what he calls “the now-old modern methods of historical-critical inquiry,” the
editor professes himself agnostic (xiv), but he underscores his determination to
pursue a more traditional and theologically focused alternative when he quotes
the old adage “War is too important to leave to the generals” (xiii).
Thomas Joseph White, O.P., the author of this commentary on Exodus,
meets these goals with outstanding success. To what extent succeeding in this
controversial task, however, involves taking liberties with the scriptural texts is
a more complicated question and one we shall explore anon.
In White’s case, “the interpretations offered . . . presuppose the perennial
truth of [Roman] Catholic doctrine” (17) and draw “special inspiration from
the theological insights of Thomas Aquinas” (8). In the Thomistic exegetical
mode, “the literal sense of the text of scripture pertains primarily to the realities
signified by the human author of the text, under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit” (ibid.), and “the spiritual sense . . . is always founded in the literal sense”
(9). Unlike a conventional, historical-critical commentary, White’s book is thus
focused on the spiritual meanings, giving attention to the moral, typological,
and anagogical senses, that is, to “things to be done,” “realities pertaining to
Christ and the Church,” and “the eschatological life of the world to come,”
respectively (ibid.).
Apart from the literal sense, however, it is the typological that receives the
most attention, and here the reader grounded in premodern Christian exegesis
will find the method familiar but the insights refreshing and edifying. Moses’s
intercession for the people Israel in the narrative of the Golden Calf is thus
interpreted “to denote literally a reality in Israel’s past” but also “typologically,
as a prefiguration of Christ, who prays for all of humanity on the Cross, or of
the Church, who prays for the salvation of human beings from sin and death.”
Similarly, White interprets the “crossing of the Red Sea” as a report that once
more “denotes literally an event in Israel’s past,” but, on the basis of Revelation
4:6, he also sees it anagogically “as an image of the blessed who stand on the
far side of the divide between heaven and earth” (10). Similarly, citing the
thirteenth-century Jewish commentator Nachmanides (Rabbi Moses ben
Nachman), he sees the descent into Egypt as a type of “the later exile of the
people of Israel into Babylon,” but he also connects it with “the voyage into
Egypt of Joseph and Mary with the child Jesus” in Matthew 2. Anagogically,
the same event “represents the souls of men who go down into the material
things of this world,” from which they must then be delivered (26).
White’s investment in the spiritual sense should not blind the reader to his
equally Thomistic conviction that “the teaching of the Old Testament has an
integral literal signification that must be explored for its own sake” (10). Unlike
many highly religiously traditional commentators in the Jewish or Protestant
traditions, he has recourse to historical-critical research and does not object to
the notion that Exodus shows ample evidence of a complex compositional
history involving the work of multiple authors and editors over the course of
several centuries. On balance, though, he is little interested in historical

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questions, inclines towards a conservative view of the historicity of the
narratives (at least in nuce), and does not dwell on the differences in theological
vision among the sources underlying the redacted text. To put matters more
affirmatively, he exhibits a salutary sense of the speculativeness of most
historical reconstructions and authorial attributions. It is devoutly to be wished
that more historical critics were possessed of the same awareness of the insecurity of their judgments.
The commentary displays impressive knowledge of the contents of both
testaments of the Christian Bible and of Roman Catholic tradition alike. It
includes apt citations of the Fathers and ample recourse to Aquinas. It is written
with admirable concision and pleasing fluency, despite the occasional Latinism
and an odd habit of monotonously repeating the word “God” where the
substitution of a pronoun would remove the awkwardness. Usually, this
disinclination to use pronouns is owing to a desire to avoid male-gendered
language, but White’s occasional employment of masculine forms where “God”
is the antecedent shows that this is not the motivation in his case.
The most formidable challenge in using typology is to identify the
appropriate set within which the correspondences can attain credibility and
avoid the charge of arbitrariness. In this book, the author sometimes invokes
those “realities pertaining to Christ and the Church” as if they are the contextual sense of the passage within the Hebrew Bible itself. He writes, for
example, that “within the larger context of the Torah, the robes of the priest
[in Exodus 28] should be understood against the backdrop of Gen. 3:21. . . . In
Israel, Adam is clothed in glory before God, or put another way, Israel is the
new Adam, particularly in the offering of sacrifice to God, which stands at the
heart of the covenant and the center of creation” (256–57). This notion of a
new Adam who reverses the effects brought about by the first Adam is familiar
from the New Testament (1 Cor 15:21-22; Rom 5:12-21). Given the venerable
status of the story Christians call “the Fall of Man” as a weight-bearing beam in
the edifice of Christian theology, Christians can have difficulty appreciating that
the story is much less consequential in the Torah. In fact, the little tale of Adam
and Eve is arguably never referred to again within the Hebrew Bible. In White’s
comment on the priestly robes, he imports Christian priorities into the text of
Exodus without labeling them as typological and dependent on the early
Christian reuse and revalorization of the Hebrew Bible. As for the claim that
“the offering of sacrifice to God . . . stands at the heart of the covenant and the
center of creation,” I can imagine a case for the centrality of sacrifice to
covenant, but the extension to creation is again an unwarranted extrapolation
from the Christian reading of Genesis 3 and, most likely, also from Roman
Catholic theological reflection on the Mass—unwarranted, I hasten to add,
“within the larger context of the Torah.”
This instance and many others in White’s commentary call into doubt Reno’s
conviction that “judgments about the meaning of a text fix its literal sense, not

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the other way around” (xv). A better approach would be a dialectical one that
acknowledges that there is a variety of contexts in terms of which a text yields
its sense and that the senses that different contexts produce are not easily
convertible or subsumable into each other. In such a hermeneutic, one can
privilege a given trajectory—Christian, Jewish, or whatever—on confessional
grounds, but one cannot assume that the “literal sense” (itself a complicated
concept) points unequivocally in the desired direction.
White’s eagerness to harmonize the Book of Exodus with Christian,
especially Roman Catholic, theology and practice leads him to a number of
misstatements, only a few of which I can mention here. In Exod 19:15, he finds
the seed of “the radical witness of consecrated celibacy on the part of some
prophets, like Elijah and Jeremiah” (149). But there really is no evidence for
such an institution in ancient Israel. Even the Nazirite is not forbidden to marry
(Num 6:2-8). In the case of Jeremiah, the prohibition on the prophet to do so
and to have children effects a sign of an impending judgment, one that will
result in the death of children and put an end to the joy of weddings (Jer 16:24, 9); it is not a spiritual ideal.
“On the Sabbath,” White writes in reference to the Decalogue of Exodus 20,
“the community is to refrain from unnecessary work . . . and the revelation of
God should be studied” (165). Here, the term “unnecessary” reflects nothing in
the commandment itself and betrays an underestimation of its scope. Studying
the sacred text is quite characteristic of the Sabbatarian observance in the Jewish
tradition but not in the Hebrew Bible itself and certainly not in the Decalogue.
As for the prohibition on false witness in Exod 20:16, White thinks this
“concerns the matter of truths spoken to another or about another” (185). One
might reasonably extend the range of the prohibition in that direction, but
surely the explicit forensic context of the verse should be acknowledged.
Although White affirms that the election of the Jewish people remains in
effect, and that there are thus “theological as well as humanitarian reasons to
support the existence of the modern state of Israel” (208), he tends to downplay
the role of election and covenant in the Hebrew Bible, preferring to stress,
sometimes unconvincingly, the universality of the community addressed and the
norms enjoined upon it. He holds, for example, that the Decalogue “refers
directly to the ‘natural law’ that is written implicitly on the hearts of all human
beings” (151). Within the specific context of the Book of Exodus, however, this
minimizes the preamble in which the LORD identifies himself as the one who
took Israel out of Egypt (Exod 20:2; in rabbinic tradition, this by itself
constitutes the first of the ten divine utterances). It also overlooks the import of
the second-person address and the particular identities of the divine and human
parties, all of which are key to the covenantal theology in evidence. It is also
not easy to derive from universally available law such commandments as the
ones that prohibit all visual representation or enjoin the Sabbath.
Similarly, in support of what he calls “the universality of the covenant”
(269), White cites Gen 17:4-5, in which God promises Abraham that he will

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become the father of a multitude of nations, as indeed he does in the Torah, but
White neglects v. 21, which explicitly restricts the covenant to Isaac’s line. As
early as Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (4:21-31), Christians have identified the
Church with Isaac alone among Abraham’s progeny and seen conversion to
Christianity as the means by which all humanity will eventually inherit the
promises to Abraham (3:6-8). Whereas White sees “the universality of the
covenant” as one of the “internal tensions or paradoxes that [the Torah] cannot
resolve itself and that call for resolution” (269), it would be more productive
for understanding the theology of the Hebrew Bible itself to note that
universalism in that set of books takes a different course and is not tethered to
membership in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Given the historicism and secularity of so much biblical scholarship today,
one can easily sympathize with Reno’s judgment that the Bible is too important
to be left to biblical scholars, and Thomas Joseph White’s new commentary on
Exodus shows the value of biblical work done by a nonspecialist with robust
faith, unshakeable doctrinal commitments, immense theological learning, and a
gift for lucid communication. But there is still a good reason to keep biblical
scholars in the conversation: to make sure that amidst so much theology and
doctrine, the distinctive voices of the biblical texts themselves, in all their variety
and ambiguity, are still heard.
JON D. LEVENSON
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Tolerance among the Virtues. By JOHN R. BOWLIN. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2016. Pp. 265. $39.50 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-69116997-2.
When Karl Popper said that we should “claim, in the name of tolerance, the
right not to tolerate the intolerant,” he illustrated well the confused and
confusing relationship that liberal society has with the very notion of tolerance.
On the one hand, we are inclined to think of tolerance as something
praiseworthy and admirable. On the other, there are a great many things that
even the most tolerant of us feel unable or unwilling to tolerate. In Tolerance
among the Virtues, John Bowlin examines the complicated notion of tolerance.
In spite of the many confusions that surround it and in spite of the many
criticisms leveled against it, Bowlin argues that tolerance, rightly understood, is

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not only a virtue but one that fits well into the landscape of virtue described by
Aquinas. The book consists of an introduction, six chapters, and an epilogue.
Any attempt to locate tolerance as a virtue must first address the vexed
question of what tolerance is (and is not). Aristotle does something similar when
he describes the virtue of courage: he takes care to distinguish the genuine
article from its several false forms or “semblances,” which resemble the real
thing but which fall short in crucial respects. Bowlin argues that many of
tolerance’s critics make a similar mistake: they are rightly critical of something,
but the object of their criticism is not tolerance itself but a false semblance of it.
Tolerance, Bowlin argues, is typically (wrongly) characterized as a kind selfrestraint, where we unwillingly stifle our opposition to what we despise in order
to achieve some other good. If this is what tolerance is, then it certainly is
problematic: we can only practice tolerance by going against what we desire, a
practice which can only lead to resentment. Bowlin proposes that we approach
tolerance from a different angle: that we assume that tolerance is a virtue and
that we attempt to give an account of it.
As one might expect, the meat of Bowlin’s book consists of an attempt to
offer a substantive account of tolerance as a natural virtue, one that, if not found
in Aquinas’s lengthy lists of virtues, is at least Thomistic in spirit. The
qualification “natural” merits attention. Bowlin uses the term in the first place
to refer to what makes a virtue a virtue in the first place. A virtue is “natural,”
he says, “whenever we locate an activity characteristic to our kind that cannot
be performed well and a pursuit that cannot succeed without the habitual
perfection it implies” (64). Tolerance will be a natural virtue, then, insofar as
there are human pursuits that cannot be performed well without it. But, as
becomes clear later in the book, Bowlin also uses the term “natural” for a
separate reason, namely, to distinguish the virtue he wishes to describe from
supernatural virtues: those virtues that are ordered to our supernatural
fulfillment and that are bestowed along with sanctifying grace. Bowlin will
ultimately argue that there is also a supernatural version of the natural virtue he
describes.
What then is the virtue of tolerance? Tolerance, Bowlin proposes, is a disposition to “endure the objectionable differences of others in order to maintain
the society they share, the peace that abides between them, and the autonomy
each enjoys with respect to differences in dispute” (118). Perhaps most
important, the tolerant person does these things not primarily for himself but
for the person he tolerates. He renders it to him as his due: “tolerance, like
justice, sets a relationship right, and the relationship set right is the end that the
tolerant hope to achieve, the common good they hope to secure and share with
the person they tolerate” (119). Why do we owe others tolerance of their
objectionable differences? Because, Bowlin argues, the society we share with
them and the respect their autonomy deserves demand it. We cannot live
peaceably in society with others or give them the autonomy they deserve unless
we tolerate some of the things we find objectionable about them. Truly to

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possess tolerance as a virtue, a lot is required. One must accurately recognize
which differences are objectionable and which are not. Bowlin argues, for
instance, that there can be no virtuous tolerance of “race, religion, ethnicity and
sexual orientation” (135) because these differences are not objectionable to
begin with. Furthermore, one must accurately recognize which genuinely
objectionable differences need to be tolerated in order to secure our shared
common good. Perhaps most important of all, once it is determined that an
objectionable difference ought to be tolerated, persons who possess the virtue
of tolerance will endure that difference virtuously: they will not endure it
grudgingly, but willingly, because they recognize that their patient endurance is
owed to the other.
Bowlin is by no means arguing that all things ought to be tolerated, let alone
that the virtue of tolerance requires one to tolerate all things. Indeed, just as the
virtue of courage sometimes requires one to flee rather than stand firm,
sometimes it will be appropriate for those who possess the virtue of tolerance
to be intolerant or even coercive. This will occur when the patient endurance
of objectionable differences cannot achieve the ends tolerance seeks to achieve.
Bowlin’s analysis of tolerance and his attempt to fit it into Aquinas’s schema
of virtue is representative of the best of modern Thomism. By applying
Aquinas’s categories to a topic of contemporary relevance, he brings Aquinas
into genuine conversation with contemporary culture in an admirable way. At
the same time, however, there are aspects of Bowlin’s account that I wish were
developed further. I will close by mentioning three of them.
First, I wish Bowlin offered more examples. He opens his book with an
extremely relevant example, an example he promises to return to: the story of
his visit to an Oklahoma cockfight. I waited the entire book for Bowlin to take
a stand: is cockfighting deserving of our patient endurance, or is it not? Yet
when he finally does revisit cockfighting at the end of the book, he says only
that some, himself included, find cockfighting intolerable and that others do
not. And while he is willing to describe what he believes should not be tolerated
(a list that contains no surprises), he offers hardly any examples of things he
believes ought to be tolerated. In all, the only example of tolerance he devotes
any time to is that of tolerating a teenager’s unpleasant taste in music. I would
find this book much stronger if it pushed the reader to tolerate something
outside her comfort zone. If the virtue of tolerance does not require us to do
anything we do not already do, then the need for cultivating it or for recognizing
it as a special virtue is unclear.
Second, I never fully understood what the “patient endurance of objectionable difference” would amount to in practice. What, for instance, would the
patient endurance of cockfighting amount to? Is it possible to “patiently
endure” cockfighting while simultaneously working to end it? While engaging
its advocates in debate? Or does patient endurance require that one refrain from
all attempts to eliminate it? Similar questions can be raised about “tolerating” a

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teenager’s taste in music. If I let my son play his music but debate with him
about what makes music good, am I still tolerant? If I let him play his music but
refuse to pay for songs I find objectionable, am I still tolerant? It seems to me
that these questions are not just important but all-important. They are crucially
related to the third point I wish to raise.
Bowlin describes the virtue of tolerance as a part of justice, something that
we owe others for the sake of their autonomy and for the sake of the society we
share. I cannot help but feel that there has to be something more to tolerance
than this. What makes a child feel that a parent genuinely tolerates his musical
taste? I suspect that it actually has very little to do with the specifics of what his
parent allows him to do or not do and a very great deal to do with whether the
child continues to feel genuinely that his parent loves him as a person in spite
of whatever differences they might have. I think the same is true of the political
differences we have with our friends and neighbors. Can we disagree with our
fellow citizens about deeply important issues, and perhaps even fight for
dramatically different social structures, while still showing the people with
whom we differ friendship and love? The ability to do so is rare and important
and would seem to me to constitute truly virtuous tolerance. I do not think
Bowlin is necessarily unsympathetic to this notion, but I wish this aspect were
addressed.
These few comments notwithstanding, I think this is an interesting and
important book, well worth the read for anyone interested in bringing Aquinas
into conversation with contemporary culture.
ANGELA MCKAY KNOBEL
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

The Prophetic Church: History and Doctrinal Development in John Henry
Newman and Yves Congar. By ANDREW MESZAROS. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2016. Pp. xvi + 268. $99.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-19878634-4.
Andrew Meszaros has given us a highly informative study of the relationship
between the thought of John Henry Newman and Yves Congar on the crucial
issue of doctrinal development. He rightly recognizes that reconciling the stable
content of divine revelation with the socio-historical contexts from which
doctrine emerges qualifies as one of the thorniest and most pressing theological
issues today. The book’s purpose is to show that doctrinal development, and so

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Christian doctrine itself, is “both thoroughly historical and thoroughly divine”
(12).
Meszaros is well aware that most theologians take careful account of the role
of history in the formulation of Christian teachings, but that not all are similarly
careful with protecting the normative and representational role of doctrine.
Meszaros states, for example, that “[Lieven] Boeve from a postmodern
hermeneutical point of view, [John] O’Malley from a historical point of view,
and [Terrence] Tilley from a pragmatic/philosophical point of view relativize
doctrine to the point that it becomes difficult to identify the basis for any
doctrinal normativity” (7).
What Meszaros admires in Newman and Congar is that they were fully alive
to historicity—and so to the historical conditioning of Christian doctrine—but
without betraying doctrine’s materially continuous and ostensive mediation of
divine revelation. Neither of these thinkers falls prey to the idea that doctrinal
formulations are “so historical, so contextually and linguistically dependent”
that they lose (invoking all the necessary qualifications) their representational
force (ibid.).
Of course, it is the issue of material continuity over time—despite the
challenging winds of history, culture, and language—that originally gave rise to
extended reflection about the development of Christian doctrine. The first
theologian to examine this issue ex professo was St. Vincent of Lérins, who
already in the early fifth century recognized that the Church had to account
theologically for the use of nonbiblical terms such as homoousios and
Theotokos. Did these linguistic innovations maintain the identity of biblical
meaning? Did they “guard the deposit” as St. Paul insistently writes to Timothy
(1 Tim 6:20)? If theological change does occur over time, as is clearly the case,
then how does one distinguish a legitimate development (profectus) from a
pernicious corruption (permutatio)? And which theological warrants allow one
to make that decision? All of these questions were discussed by Vincent in his
Commonitorium, written not long after the Council of Ephesus concluded in
431.
These ideas gained new force, of course, in the work of Newman. With crisp
and accessible prose, Meszaros guides us through the reception of Newman by
French thinkers—and Newman’s influence was considerable in France—and by
Congar specifically. By the time Congar was writing, Newman had been cleared
of any association with Modernist authors, such as George Tyrrell, who had
appropriated Newman for their own purposes. He had also been rescued from
the anti-intellectual cast that Henri Brémond, Newman’s translator, had given
to the Victorian by accenting his interest in imagination, intuition, and feeling
(35). These interests caused Thomists such as Ambroise Gardeil to be wary of
Newman. Meszaros points out that the effort to rescue Newman from
Modernist interpretations had been led by Erich Przywara (37). Another significant influence on Congar’s thought, Louis Bouyer’s biography of Newman,

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had asserted, “whereas Newman sought permanence amidst change, the French
Modernists sought a principle of change within tradition” (38).
I was surprised to learn that Congar never wrote an article solely on
Newman, but, as Meszaros points out, he incorporated the Victorian’s thought
into much of his work—on the material sufficiency of Scripture, on the
relationship between Scripture and Tradition, and, of course, on the role of the
laity and the sensus fidelium (51). With Newman’s help, Congar recognized that
modernity had posed two weighty challenges to Catholic theology: (1) the role
of the subject, that is, what the active subject brings to the noetic situation; and
(2) the irrepressible role of history in doctrinal development. Congar was
impressed with Newman’s assertion that the “persuasive efficacy of evidences
and arguments” depends on the subjective disposition of those addressed (22).
And he came to appreciate Newman’s conviction that an individual’s
“prejudices, presuppositions, and moral dispositions” shape his reasoning and
his eventual knowing (60). Congar also appropriated Newman’s emphasis on
Mary as one who not only accepted the Word of God, but who dwelled upon
it and so developed it (94). On all of these points, Newman helped Congar to
see the essential role of the subject in receiving and interpreting divine
revelation.
Congar was also deeply impressed by Newman’s approach to history. For
both men, history is an important locus theologiae, serving as one of the causes
behind doctrinal development (141). While both regarded history positively,
Newman tended to interpret history typologically—with the visible order
teaching us about the invisible—while Congar, more heavily influenced by St.
Albert the Great and St. Thomas, tended to see value in the natures of things
themselves (138). For Newman, this world “subserves” the next one, acting as
a veil or a sign. Congar, on the other hand, “gives more explanatory power to
created realities without thereby sidelining God” (221). Meszaros rightly
stresses the complementary aspects of these two approaches, which, of course,
ultimately reach down to the relationship between nature and grace.
A point uniting Newman and Congar is that “historical existence does not
preclude an enduring adhesion to fundamental principles” (161). In other
words, a concern for historicity is combined with an attachment to dogmatic
truth. Historical events may influence and prompt a definition, but what the
Church believes is never simply the product of history. For Congar, history both
demands doctrinal development and, often enough, provides the tools for it.
For example, the great discoveries of the fifteenth century demanded new
theological reflection on the time-honored axiom Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus
(172). But history also provides insofar as it offers concepts that help the
Church express her faith. Person, nature, substance, and accident are good
examples of concepts provided by “history” although transformed by the new
wine of the gospel. Ultimately, for Congar, history is never on an equal footing
with the donné révélé. The donné of the world is always “judged and clarified
by the donné of the gospel” (170).

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I found particularly helpful Meszaros’s discussion of how Congar’s
understanding of doctrinal development changed after Vatican II. He gradually
distanced himself from a naïve, linear theory of development that amounts, in
Congar’s own words, to “a simple unfolding of the implicit by a consistently
linear process” (184). But what does he put in its place? Congar holds for a “less
unified trajectory of doctrinal development” that takes account of plural
developments and discontinuities (ibid.). His fundamental insight is that
doctrines take circuitous paths throughout history—not simply linear ones—
and so theology must take account of “discontinuity, plurality, forgetting and
recovery of doctrine” (184-85). As an example, Congar cites the historical and
theological complexities attending the illicit ordinations of heretics. But we can
also turn to Vatican II—on topics such as religious freedom and ecumenism—
to see that there were conciliar discontinuities with the prior teaching of the
Church’s ordinary magisterium. The major point is this: development is not
simply linear and cumulative, but often takes a complicated, labyrinthine path
characterized by forgetting, recovery, and novelty. Congar does not proscribe
the words “homogeneous” or “unfolding”; at the same time, he wishes to make
clear that development should not be understood in an “excessively logical
manner” or in a way that is “too chronologically tight” (187).
Meszaros points out that Congar’s post-Vatican II theory of development
was deeply influenced by Jean-Pierre Jossua and Gregory Baum. The latter
argued that certain positions taken at Vatican II were not homogeneous
developments but represent “something like a quantum leap” (190). Congar is
more cautious, recognizing that the council breaks new ground but insisting
nonetheless on the enduring meanings of dogmas, which remain permanent
(191).
What all this indicates is that Congar, a master of positive theology, sought
to be true to history—acknowledging that doctrinal development occurs in fits
and starts—without spilling over into relativism. The stability of Christian
doctrine always remained a concern for him. As Meszaros states, “sensing what
is tantamount to a rehashed Modernism in the 1970s,” Congar warned against
allowing the “données du monde [to] take the place of the donné révélé” (195).
For all of Congar’s emphases on the circuitous path of development, there is
“nevertheless a deep continuity and progress on the dogmatic level,” and the
“truth of the faith that a formula communicates is permanent,” even if the
formula itself is contingent (ibid.). Dogma can never be reduced either to a
pragmatic statement or to a symbol of religious experience, leading Meszaros
to affirm that “Congar’s concurrence with Newman’s dogmatic principle is
indubitable” (99). For both men, doctrine is equally a product of history and an
instrument of divine revelation (240).
In my judgment, this excellent book does have one weakness. As earlier
noted, Vincent of Lérins is the first Christian thinker to have seriously wrestled
with the issue of doctrinal development. While Meszaros points out that “both

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Vincent and Newman admitted of development” (65), the book would have
been helped by a more extended treatment of Vincent’s enduring influence on
Newman’s understanding of development. Newman translated significant
sections of the Commonitorium (with commentary) into English while still a
young man. This volume was to have a profound effect on him for his entire
life, with Newman remarking in the Apologia pro vita sua that the principle of
development “is certainly recognized in the Treatise of Vincent of Lérins.”
Newman not only adopts Vincent’s primary metaphor for development—the
law of the body—but his first note for ensuring authentic development,
“identity of type,” the note on which the Victorian spends the greatest amount
of time, is deeply indebted to Vincent’s insistence on maintaining the idem
sensus over time (a position canonized by Vatican I and Ineffabilis Deus, as they
both cite in eodem sensu eademque sententia). Further, Newman closely follows
Vincent—even while expanding upon him—in his treatment of the theological
warrants inevitably invoked when making a judgment as to whether some
doctrinal change is a profectus or a permutatio (a distinction, once again, that
Newman explicitly borrowed from Vincent’s work).
Congar, on the other hand, who hit few false notes over the course of his
long and extraordinarily productive theological career, never fully understood
Vincent. He consistently misinterpreted the Lerinian’s famous canon, “id
teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est,” accusing
Vincent of a theology that is “excessively static” and has an “archaizing” quality,
a misunderstanding that can still be found in certain theologians. Tracing the
differences between Newman and Congar on this point might have yielded
fruitful results.
Despite this minor quibble, I found Meszaros’s volume to be a very solid
piece of research—well-written and deeply engaging. There is barely a Catholic
theologian alive who has not been influenced by Newman and Congar. This
book, which skillfully blends the contributions of both thinkers, will help
theologians to understand them more profoundly.
THOMAS G. GUARINO
Seton Hall University
South Orange, New Jersey

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Aquinas on Virtue: A Causal Reading. By NICHOLAS AUSTIN, S.J. Washington,
D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2017. Pp. xxiv + 233. $104.95
(cloth), $34.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-1-62616-472-7 (cloth), 978-162616-473-4 (paper).
Most recent works on virtue ethics, if they delve into the history of
philosophy at all, draw on classical Greek or Hellenistic thought as their
primary historical resource. Theologians sometimes, but philosophers rarely,
draw on Aquinas, despite his robust and sophisticated treatment of virtue.
Misinterpretations are distressingly common. The fault lies in part in contemporary philosophers’ impatience with Aquinas’s theological commitments
(even Philippa Foot, who admired Aquinas, disliked reading those parts of his
work that are explicitly theological), but in part with Aquinas scholars
themselves, who are apt to fall into opaque Thomistic jargon and often fail to
connect Aquinas’s concerns with those of contemporary scholars. Aquinas’s
world would seem so much less foreign and so much more fruitful if only there
were adequate bridges to take us there.
Aquinas on Virtue is just such a bridge: advanced undergraduates, graduate
students, and philosophers and theologians whose specialty is not Thomistic
ethics will find this work particularly helpful. Austin packs a lot into this little
book, designed to show the relevance of Aquinas’s theory of virtue for
contemporary ethics. To this end, he takes on some important objections, such
as that Aquinas’s ethics is prudish or patriarchal, that it fails to recognize the
decisive role of situations (rather than character) in determining what we do,
and that its reliance on intrinsic finality in nature is misguided (because it is
rendered obsolete by Darwin or because it is a mere projection of the human
mind onto nature). Austin offers brief and clear responses that, while hardly
decisive, nevertheless demonstrate that there is a fuller debate to be had.
Austin’s focus is Aquinas’s theory of virtue, which he distinguishes from a
virtue theory. Aquinas does not offer a virtue theory in the sense that his account
of virtue is more fundamental than, say, his account of natural law or his action
theory. In his more holistic approach, Aquinas intertwines these various
elements. The study of Aquinas’s theory of virtue therefore gives us one
important inroad into his ethical theory. What sets Austin’s study apart from
other studies of Aquinas on virtue is his embrace of a “causal approach.” For
Aquinas, a full account of something requires that we explore all its causes, not
just its formal cause but its final, efficient, and material causes as well; and so
we find him examining all four causes in treating any number of topics, such as
the human being, free choice, and virtue. Austin finds that by following
Aquinas’s lead in this way, not only will he be able to offer a full and systematic
account of Aquinas on virtue, but in the process he will be able to set up and
investigate key questions and problems, such as those concerning the distinction

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and increase of virtue. It also allows Austin to make clear the metaphysical bases
of Aquinas’s theory of virtue as well as its theological character.
The result is an admirable and well-researched systematic treatment of
Aquinas on virtue. Some scholars will object to Austin’s decision to reorganize
Aquinas’s ideas rather than to present them in the way and order in which
Aquinas did himself. However, Austin’s presentation hardly spoils Aquinas’s
pedagogy; instead, he enables the contemporary reader to take advantage of it.
Aquinas’s own students, approaching his texts with an impressive background
in Aristotelian scholarship, biblical exegesis, and Scholastic training, would
have—maybe—been able to follow his arguments as he wrote them. Not so the
contemporary student, who will inevitably miss, or misunderstand, a great deal
of what Aquinas writes in the Summa theologiae or the disputed questions De
malo. A careful, systematic book such as this one supplies contemporary readers
with adequate background to make their way through this unfamiliar territory,
understand it, and see why Aquinas’s problems and questions are still interesting
and important. Most of the time, Austin succeeds nicely. His treatment of habits
in chapter 3, for instance, is exceptionally clear and helpful. He contrasts
Aquinas’s conception of habitus with common contemporary conceptions of
habit, outlines the ways in which Aquinas relates law and virtue, and contrasts
Aquinas with casuists and particularists. Only rarely does Austin not expound
fully enough to give readers a good start at addressing Aquinas’s more puzzling
claims. In one such case, attempting to distinguish a cause from a principle or
mere necessary condition, Austin notes that a cause is an “influence” over a
thing. However, he says nothing to shed light on what this influence amounts
to. He also appeals to the doctrine of the Trinity as an example of principles
that are not causes, since the Father is a principle but not a cause of the Son.
While the example is apt, the use of one dark and mysterious teaching to
exemplify another dark and mysterious teaching is a questionable pedagogical
strategy.
One of the book’s most interesting chapters is also one of its most
problematic. Chapter 8, entitled “Passionate Virtue,” explores Aquinas’s treatments of the function of virtue in the will and in the sensory appetites. Austin
draws on a tension in Aquinas’s thought to question whether Aquinas gives
virtue in the will a large enough role. The will needs the perfection of virtue to
be rightly ordered to God and neighbor, but Aquinas asserts that the will’s
natural inclination is sufficient to order agents to their own proper good.
However, he also notes that the will suffers the effects of original sin, with the
result that agents express a disordered self-love. Do we not require virtue to
counter these baneful effects of original sin? Austin, unfortunately, does not
address this question further, but leaves it for us to ponder.
Aquinas’s second assertion, that virtue perfects the sensory appetites, was
controversial in his own day. If virtue is tied to choice, which is an act of the
rational appetite and not the nonrational appetites, how can our nonrational
appetites be subjects of virtue? Drawing on Aristotle, Aquinas responds that the

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nonrational appetites may participate in reason and become habituated to
respond rationally. What is less clear is how they express this rationality. Austin
cites two opposed interpretations. On the first, dubbed “the pure spontaneity
view,” our virtuous nonrational appetites may “bypass reason and will” (137)
and direct us to perform good actions by the springs of well-trained passion
alone. The second, which he calls “rationalist,” maintains that any passion
elicited before deliberation and judgment may be an obstacle to clear, accurate
moral reasoning and must therefore be eschewed (136). By contrast, passion
elicited subsequent to moral judgment may help us to execute our well-thoughtout determination more effectively. Austin rightly opts for an interpretation that
falls between these extremes, which he calls “the moderate spontaneity view,”
according to which virtuous passions elicited prior to judgment may help us to
deliberate well precisely because they are inclinations to objects that are
genuinely good. Presumably, Austin means that such inclinations help agents to
focus their deliberation on what is salient without the need for long reflection
about the fundamental principles of morality.
However, as far as I can tell, no one has ever held the pure spontaneity view.
Austin tells us (ibid.) that in Jean Porter’s early work she “tends to” this view.
However, nothing Porter writes implies pure spontaneity. Austin cites as
evidence her claim in The Recovery of Virtue (1990) that “the virtuous person’s
‘immediate responses will reliably direct him to act appropriately, at least in
normal circumstances’” (ibid., quoting The Recovery of Virtue, 103). However,
maintaining that we do not need to deliberate consciously and constantly about
our final end does not imply that we do not need to deliberate at all if we have
virtue. Instead, as Porter makes clear in Moral Action and Christian Ethics
(1999), virtue enables us to see certain courses of action as exemplifying or failing to exemplify values that constitute our commitments (Moral Action, 173).
As rich a source as Aquinas is for philosophers, Austin never fails to make
clear the ways in which this theory of virtue forms an essential part of Aquinas’s
larger theological project. In fact, some elements of Aquinas’s theory are
explicitly theological, such as his view that the exemplar causes of the virtues
(like the exemplar causes of all creatures) preexist in God. More striking for a
contemporary reader, however, is Aquinas’s insistence that human beings gain
some virtues not by a process of habituation but through God’s gift of grace.
These so-called “infused” virtues include not just the three theological virtues
of faith, hope, and charity, but a panoply of moral virtues as well, such as
infused temperance, courage, patience, and religion. These share the same
material object as their acquired cousins but differ in formal object: while
acquired moral virtues direct us to this-worldly happiness, infused moral virtues
direct us to other-worldly happiness. We could not acquire these virtues on our
own because the happiness of the next life, which consists in the vision and
enjoyment of God, is beyond the unaided power of human beings to attain.
Therefore, like the theological virtues, they must be divine gifts. In chapter 10,

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Austin offers a controversial but convincing argument that, once humans receive
infused virtues and aim at the beatific vision as their happiness, acquired virtue
still has a role to play. Drawing on Aquinas’s distinction between elicited and
commanded acts, Austin contends that someone with grace may command the
acts of the acquired virtues to contribute to meritorious acts, thereby making
use of those hard-earned habits in the service of Christian charity. While the
view that there are two temperances, two courages, and two generosities may
strike readers as odd, it is perfectly consistent with Aquinas’s psychological and
theological commitments.
Although Aquinas on Virtue does not treat any single problem in depth, it
never oversimplifies or offers easy answers, but leads readers to consider these
matters further on their own. Although it tackles thorny issues in Aquinas’s
ethics and its metaphysical basis, it never resorts to the Thomistic jargon that
drives students and potential Aquinas scholars to more welcoming studies. The
book is a positive pleasure to read: always clear, teacherly, and admirably
nonpartisan. Austin is as happy to draw on John Poinsot as on Robert Pasnau,
on Philippa Foot as on David Gallagher. This sophisticated introduction to
Aquinas’s theory of virtue moves Aquinas studies in just the right direction.
JEFFREY P. HAUSE
Creighton University
Omaha, Nebraska

Thomas Aquinas on Moral Wrongdoing. By COLLEEN MCCLUSKEY. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. xiii + 198. $99.99 (cloth). ISBN:
978-1-107-17527-3.
This book offers a lucid, thorough, and compelling account of Aquinas’s
moral psychology, particularly in relation to his theory of badness (malum).
While engaging both the theological and secular problem(s) of evil, McCluskey’s primary concern “is how to explain why agents engage in wrongdoing or
evildoing in the first place” (2). In this review, I begin with a brief synopsis of
her main points. Next, I consider a recurring theme throughout the text,
namely, the separability of Aquinas’s theological commitments from his moral
psychology. Finally, I conclude by drawing from the previous considerations in
order to engage with McCluskey’s intriguing proposal regarding the application
of Aquinas’s theory of wrongdoing to the problem of racism.
McCluskey begins by providing her own interpretation of Aquinas’s account
of human nature. After outlining the basic strata of the soul, she offers a detailed
and well-sourced analysis of both the passions and the intellective will in their
own right and in relation to each other as a kind of integrated singularity.

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Drawing from the work of Eleonore Stump, she next considers the problem of
the will specifically. Tying these strands together is her engagement with
Aquinas’s account of human action. While skillfully responding to common
objections to Aquinas’s general position, McCluskey also succeeds in presenting
Aquinas’s account in a manner that is both clear and complex:
To summarize, the production of action begins with the general desire
of the good found in the will, which moves the intellect to identify a
specific end that can be considered good. The intellect then presents a
particular end to the will, which intends the end. The will then moves
the intellect to deliberate over means for achieving the end. The intellect
presents the alternatives to the will, which consents to those identified
as good. (27)

At the same time, she recognizes that “Aquinas is arguing for a logical priority
here, not a temporal succession. Nothing prevents him from acknowledging that
this process takes place quickly or even simultaneously” (28). Citing STh I, q.
82, a. 4, ad 3 and several other texts, McCluskey maintains “a controversial interpretation of Aquinas” as arguing for “a priority of intellect over will in the
process of action” (29). She shows how this account is capable of responding to
the worry about necessitation (and how Aquinas himself responded to it) and
concludes the chapter with a concise and informative presentation of how
Aquinas’s theory of action is nested in his account of freedom.
The next chapter takes on the account of evil as a privation in order to raise
important points relevant to Aquinas’s moral psychology. After a brief examination of evil’s ontological status, McCluskey proceeds to consider the relationship between goodness and being. In her reading of Aquinas, “actuality and
perfection bridge the conceptual gap between being and goodness” (40). She
shows how in one sense existence is a range-point property for Aquinas—or as
she calls it, “an all-or-nothing affair”—while goodness is scalar in the sense that
it admits of degrees. Thus, “nothing in the world is completely devoid of goodness,” since such a being would not be. In another sense, evil is “a lack of goodness that ordinarily should be there” (41). Though McCluskey engages with
objections to the privation account, she ultimately concludes that, as far as the
chief purpose of her book is concerned (explaining why agents engage in wrongdoing), one may remain “agnostic” with regard to Aquinas’s view of the ontological status of evil, as his “discussion of the psychology of wrongdoing does
not rest on the privation account in any substantive way” (72-73; see 73 n. 92).
The next step in McCluskey’s sequence of arguments involves building upon
her thesis that “the foundation for voluntariness in Aquinas’s view is knowledge” through a consideration of the complex interactions between the intellect,
the will, and the passions. She is particularly concerned with delineating as
precisely as possible the lines that demarcate culpability from bad actions for
which the agent is not responsible. The presence of ignorance, a disordered will,

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and even very intense passions do not necessarily excuse an agent for her
actions. McCluskey’s chief point, however, concerns the primacy of the
intellective will in Aquinas’s moral psychology:
Should the passion bring about a complete breakdown of the cognitive
capacity, as is the case with insanity on Aquinas’s account, then even the
will cannot rescue the intellect. This suggests that the origin of the will’s
activity to release the intellect from the passion is the intellect itself. In
other words, the will is moved to defeat the influence of the passion at
the realization by the agent that takes place in virtue of her intellect that
doing so would be good. (105)

While wrongdoing can originate in the intellect, the will, or the passions, the
most comprehensive explanatory mesh point of the three is the intellective
relationality of the capacities.
McCluskey subsequently examines wrongdoing that originates in the will.
Of particular interest in this chapter is her discussion of Aquinas’s view of
deliberate wrongdoing—cases where the will “moves itself toward what is
wrong” (123, citing STh I-II, q. 78, a. 3). McCluskey regards Aquinas’s claims
regarding a disordered fear of hell (despair) and a counterfeit hope for eternal
life (presumption) as illustrative of the nonhabitual mechanism by which the
agent may be moved to wrongdoing. While despair and presumption are
sometimes vices linked to other vices, in which case they lead to “deliberate
wrongdoing on the basis of the habitual mechanism,” they may also be “sins in
their own right” (125). Emphasizing again the relational primacy of the
intellect, McCluskey points out that, for Aquinas, presumption and despair may
be understood as “appetitive movements in conformity with false views about
God’s program of salvation for sinners.” Keeping with her interpretation of
Aquinas’s view as maintaining that “all activity in the will is tied to prior activity
in the intellect,” she points out that in his discussion of presumption and
despair, “Aquinas directly ties the movement of the appetite to a belief in the
intellect” (ibid.). In her reading of Aquinas, then, “a particular act of
wrongdoing originates in ignorance or a passion of the sensory appetite or
primarily in the will even though what drives the process is fundamentally the
same for all action: the agent’s good as the agent perceives it” (128).
After a related but importantly distinct discussion of whether human beings
can “perform evil simply for the sake of evil,” McCluskey transitions to a
discussion of the vices (140). Revisiting questions regarding the nature of habits
and how they are attained, she provides a basic taxonomy of the vices in
Aquinas. Applying to the capital vices her previous discussion of deliberate
wrongdoing, McCluskey distinguishes between internal and external causes of
sin in order to show how Aquinas’s “basic moral psychology intersects with his
account of the vices” (170).
In recapitulating her argument, McCluskey emphasizes that understanding
the causes of wrongdoing is important in order to distinguish between more and

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less serious gradations of wrongdoing as well as to “develop strategies for
effectively addressing or preventing wrongdoing and the harm it generates”
(174). With these objectives in mind, she closes with an insightful application
of Aquinas’s account of wrongdoing to the problem of “racism in the United
States” (ibid.). Before analyzing that application, however, I wish to consider a
recurring theme in the book—the relation of Aquinas’s theological
commitments to his overall moral psychology—in the hopes that this may be
illuminative with regard to considering the moral valuation of racism (and
responses to racism) as informed by Aquinas.
McCluskey continually downplays the significance of Aquinas’s theological
commitments in relation to various aspects of his moral psychology. Broadly,
she claims that “nothing about the framework of [Aquinas’s] explanation of
wrongdoing depends upon his commitment to theism” and further that he
offers an “entirely . . . naturalistic explanation grounded in his account of
human psychology” (74). More specifically, she argues that Aquinas’s
commitment to the doctrine of original sin and his theology of grace can be
divorced from his account of wrongdoing since neither removes voluntariness
and, therefore, the blameworthiness or praiseworthiness of human actions (78).
These points, combined with the accounts of privation theory and the
treatments of presumption and despair mentioned earlier, allow us to see a
common theme throughout: Aquinas’s theism either “drops out” entirely or
serves a merely explanatory function for phenomena, a function that can be
substituted with an alternative without fundamentally altering the main lines of
Aquinas’s thought (51).
While the separation between Aquinas’s theology and his philosophy is by
no means the main point of the book, one may wonder whether in fact his faith
commitments offer something important in his account of wrongdoing and how
best to respond to it—as we can see if we examine McCluskey’s application of
this account to the problem of racism.
In McCluskey’s view, it would be “a blessing if Aquinas’s account could help
not only to explain why people engage in racist actions but also help point
toward effective solutions” (174). Drawing from her account of Aquinas,
McCluskey divides “people who engage in racist actions” into those who do so
on the basis of “a defect in the intellect, a defect in the will, or a defect in the
passions of the sensory appetite” (175). In the first category she places
“individuals (mainly white) who fail to recognize that racism remains a problem
in the United States.” In regard to this group, she states, “Given the ongoing
critique by people of color, one could argue that such individuals ought to know
better and are able to know better, so their ignorance is culpable.” She maintains
that ignorance of implicit bias, too, could be considered culpable “given that
implicit bias has been studied and documented, especially in the psychology
literature” (ibid.).

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The next category consists of “explicitly unrepentant racists.” This group
consists of individuals who in fact “recognize that racism is wrong but don’t
care.” McCluskey holds that “these individuals have a defect in their wills.”
They resist “self-scrutiny because on some level they know that if they do so,
they will have to reform their attitudes and actions” (ibid.). Because their
ignorance is willed, “it has its origin in a defect of the will” (176).
The third group is not ordinarily racist but may out of anger or fear do
something like “utter racial slurs.” They may do so, for example, if they are
angry or afraid “that their goodwill or good character has been questioned.”
McCluskey also notes that racism can be a kind of habit: “a common habit
among whites is to check that their car doors are locked whenever they see an
African-American walking on the street while they are driving.” She connects
this habit of “unacknowledged judgment” with racial profiling (ibid.).
McCluskey argues that Aquinas’s account can not only explain “a number of
racist actions, practices, and behaviors” but also help “determine appropriate
responses to the actions” (ibid.). Education may work for the ignorant. The
“willful racist” will need to be punished for violating “antiracist laws.” Finally,
“developing calm and safe environments where individuals can come together
to discuss their frustrations openly and constructively might be one effective
method for addressing wrongdoing that arises out of the passions” (177-78).
She does point out that “Aquinas would not give up hope because he belongs
to a religious tradition that believes in the possibility of repentance and
forgiveness” (177). I would argue that a theological commitment such as this,
whether explicitly held or simply enacted, leads to a moral valuation of both
racism and responses to it radically distinct from a view not so informed. Absent
such a commitment, one could hold, for example, that racism is so deeply
engrained in society and in some people that the idea of changing hearts and
minds should be relegated to the category of wishful thinking. On one level of
analysis, this may suggest that Aquinas’s moral psychology is nested in the
Christian story in such a way that the former is drastically altered when
prescinded from that context. However, that is a conversation for another time.
In sum, Thomas Aquinas on Moral Wrongdoing marks a significant
contribution to the scholarly literature. Drawing from Aquinas in order to
explore the question of “why agents engage in wrongdoing or evildoing in the
first place,” McCluskey skillfully guides the reader through the complex twists
and turns of Aquinas’s moral psychology in a manner that is both
understandable and not without practical application (2). She succeeds in
addressing perennial problems in a fresh, compelling, and valuable way.
ANDREW KIM
Marquette University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin