The Thomist 85 (2021): 1-55

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CAJETAN’S
PHILOSOPHY OF PURE NATURE AND ITS ORIGINS IN
THE THOUGHT OF JOHN CAPREOLUS
STEVEN WALDORF
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

E

VER SINCE the controversy concerning how to understand man’s desire for the beatific vision as his ultimate end
erupted following the publication of Henri de Lubac’s
Surnaturel in 1946, the issue of Cajetan’s conception of human
nature has been much debated. De Lubac’s work, continuing
from Surnaturel in the 1940s to his more mature Augustinisme et
théologie moderne in 1965, aimed at both the theological and the
historical deconstruction of what he termed the system of “pure
nature,” that is to say, the view that human nature must reach its
complete end or perfection strictly by natural principles. For de
Lubac, such a view, which entails the effective denial of a desire
for the vision of the divine essence as the complete perfection of
human nature as nature, is both theologically and historically
problematic. From a doctrinal perspective, it leads to a purely
natural end for man that effectively closes man in on himself,
severing his nature from any intrinsic connection to grace and the
supernatural. Moreover, historically speaking, it represents a rupture with a classical tradition of thought that runs from Augustine
to Thomas Aquinas and the other great Scholastics of the thirteenth century. In purporting to find a theory of pure nature in
Aquinas’s writings, later Scholastic thinkers betrayed and falsified
his thought.
In de Lubac’s narrative, the progenitor of this view of nature
was Tommaso de Vio (1469-1534), better known as Cardinal
Cajetan, who was a renowned Dominican theologian of the late
1

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STEVEN WALDORF

fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Often remembered by
historians for his disputation with Martin Luther at Augsburg in
1518, Cajetan was one of the leading theologians of his day,
producing a magisterial commentary on Aquinas’s Summa
theologiae that remained influential into the twentieth century,
in addition to dozens of smaller treatises.1 According to de Lubac,
Cajetan stands at the origin of the pure-nature theory that the
great majority of later Scholastics, including de Lubac’s own
twentieth-century interlocutors, would adopt.2 Crucially, he was
also the first to impute the view to Aquinas himself, passing off
his novel philosophy of nature as the latter’s own. Nearly all
subsequent scholarly discussion of the issues de Lubac raised has
addressed the question of whether Cajetan was an accurate
interpreter of Aquinas on the pure-nature question.
That the Dominican cardinal held a view of nature in which
nature must reach its proper perfection in a naturally attainable
end is generally not disputed, and the texts, as we shall see, are
clear on the point. However, lost in the scholarly debate is
sustained treatment of the question of the historical genesis of
Cajetan’s view. Indeed, contemporary scholars have devoted
comparatively little attention to the question of how Cajetan’s
philosophy of pure nature developed, focusing instead on the
question of his fidelity to Aquinas. When such scholars do advert
to the question of the origins of the Dominican cardinal’s view of
natura, they generally do so in passing, attributing it to concerns
about the gratuity of grace that supposedly arise from positing a
supernaturally attained end as the complete perfection of nature
qua nature. Indeed, scholars who find themselves on opposite
sides of the debate about Cajetan’s faithfulness to Aquinas, such

1
For a comprehensive list of Cajetan’s works, see Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P., “BioBibliographie de Cajétan,” Revue Thomiste 39* (1934-35): 36-44.
2
De Lubac notes that some earlier authors, such as Denis the Carthusian (1402-71),
shared the view that nature must be perfected strictly by natural agency, but he suggests
that Cajetan was likely unfamiliar with Denis’s writings and provides textual evidence
demonstrating that later proponents of the thesis referred back to the Dominican cardinal
as their ultimate source. See Henri de Lubac, Augustinisme et théologie moderne (1965;
repr., Paris: Cerf, 2008), 201-2.

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as Lawrence Feingold3 and Denis Bradley,4 generally concur in
attributing the Dominican commentator’s view of nature to
concerns about this or some other issue of theological orthodoxy.
Although theological concerns were foremost in the mind of
later proponents of the pure-nature theory, writing in the aftermath of the Baianist controversy, there is less evidence that they
preoccupied Cajetan, who was active decades before the
controversy erupted. The argument Feingold adduces as proof of
the fact that Cajetan’s view of nature was motivated by issues of
theological orthodoxy is based on a misinterpretation of Cajetan’s De potentia neutra, a text in which the Dominican
commentator argues against the claim that there can be a natural
potency or inclination for an end that is only attainable
supernaturally. Assessing Cajetan’s argument, Feingold writes:
Cajetan here implicitly states another very significant argument against the
position of Scotus which turns on the gratuitousness of grace. He says that if
one knew the existence of a natural potency for the vision of God (or for other
supernatural acts), one would not only know the possibility of such an act, but

3

Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God according to St. Thomas Aquinas
and His Interpreters, 2d ed. (Naples, Fla.: Sapientia Press, 2010), 132-33.
4
Denis Bradley, Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good: Reason and Human Happiness
in Aquinas’s Moral Science (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
1997), 460. “At the same time, the claim [that man has a natural desire for the vision of
God], as the anxious explanations of the traditional Thomist commentators reveal,
appears to offend orthodox Christian doctrine. If the vision of God is naturally desired,
how then is it supernatural in character? This is the question that Cajetan resolutely posed
and, as posed, answered negatively. . . . Yet the Aristotelian anxieties of Cajetan and
subsequent Thomist commentators deserve sympathetic consideration; their anxious
efforts to rescue Aquinas from the quasi-Aristotelian heterodoxy, that they themselves
formulated and feared, confirm that Aquinas’s own philosophical conception of nature is
novel.” See also ibid., 440: “For centuries Thomist theologians have pedantically
rehearsed whether the desire to see the divine essence may be legitimately called a natural
desire without thereby jeopardizing the supernatural character of that end. I shall look
briefly at the three Dominicans who are the most eminent of the classic Thomist
commentators: Thomas de Vio, O.P., known as Cajetan; Francis Sylvester of Ferrara,
O.P., known as Ferrariensis; and Domingo Báñez, O.P.”

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STEVEN WALDORF

one would also know the fact that at some time, in some subject, it must be
realized.5

He bases this assessment on Cajetan’s claim that
we certainly know the major [premise], that no natural potency is in vain;
therefore, if we know the minor [premise] that in matter or the soul, or in
anything else, there is a natural potency for a supernatural act, it is necessary to
concede that we know that there must be supernatural things. Thus, we would
know the future resurrection of the dead, the justifying grace of sinners,
etcetera, which is ridiculous.6

Cajetan does not explicitly mention concerns about the gratuity
of grace in this passage, unlike other, later Scholastics who
criticized the notion of a natural potency for a supernatural act.7
When the text says that it would be “necessary to concede” that
we would have knowledge of supernatural things, the absurdity
of this proposition is located primarily in its implication that
supernatural things can be known by natural things, not in a claim
about God being compelled to bestow the supernatural gifts
enumerated in the text.8 Indeed, the crucial sentence (the second)
5

Feingold, Natural Desire to See God, 132-33.
Tommaso de Vio Cajetan, De potentia neutra, et de natura potentiae receptivae in
duas quaestiones divisus, q. 2, quoad 4 (Opuscula omnia Thomae de Vio Caietani
cardinalis tituli sancti Sixti [Lyon, 1587; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1995],
207b52-57): “Et confirmatur: quia certe scimus hanc maiorem, quod nulla naturalis
potentia est frustra. Ergo, si scimus hanc minorem quod in materia vel anima, vel
quacumque alia re est naturalis potentia ad actum supernaturalem, oportet concedere
quod scimus supernaturalia illa debere esse, et sic sciemus resurrectionem mortuorum
futuram, et gratiam iustificantem impium, etcetera, quod est ridiculum.” All translations
are my own unless otherwise noted.
7
See, for instance, Francisco Suárez, Metaphysical Disputation XXX, sec. 11, 37
(Opera omnia, 28 vols., ed. D. M. André [Paris: Vivès, 1856-78], 26:154a). Though it is
possible that Cajetan saw in the Scotist assertion of a natural potency for supernatural
perfections a threat to the gratuity of grace, this is not the objection he levels in the text
of De potentia neutra. As I explain below, his objection is primarily epistemic, namely,
that the Scotist position would imply that we know supernatural realities on the basis of
natural knowledge. Thus, in examining the origins of Cajetan’s view of pure nature, we
must consider historical explanations other than the gratuity of grace.
8
When Cajetan says that it would be “ridiculous” to assert a natural potency for
supernatural acts because it would imply that we “know that there must be supernatural
things,” the word “must” (debere) should not be taken as suggesting that the absurdity
6

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5

states that it is “ridiculous” to claim that we “know” supernatural
things—not that it is ridiculous to claim that God must grant
supernatural things. For his part, Bradley does not provide any
specific texts from Cajetan to support his assertion that the
Dominican cardinal’s view of nature was the product of a desire
to uphold theological orthodoxy. Rather, he includes Cajetan
indiscriminately among Thomistic commentators, such as
Sylvester of Ferrara (ca. 1474-1528) and Domingo Báñez (15281604), whose concern about the implications of affirming a
natural inclination to a supernaturally attained end for the
gratuity of the supernatural order led them, Bradley claims, to
maintain that nature must reach its complete perfection by
natural agency.9
Some older scholarship, including that of de Lubac himself,
addressed the issue of the historical origins of Cajetan’s view of
nature, but again not in considerable depth. Indeed, de Lubac’s
brief description of the origins of the Dominican cardinal’s thesis
is better characterized as an aside rather than as a sustained
scholarly treatment. De Lubac gestures toward several different
explanations of the genesis of Cajetan’s pure-nature thesis. First,
would consist in the fact that God must grant supernatural things. There is no reference
to what God is or is not compelled to do, and consequently, the term “must be” in this
context has effectively the same signification as “are.” In other words, Cajetan’s statement
that if there were a natural potency for supernatural acts, “we [would] know that there
must be supernatural things,” is equivalent in meaning in this context to the statement
that if there were a natural potency for supernatural acts, “we [would] know that there
are supernatural things.”
9
Bradley, Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good, 447: “Still, the Thomist
commentators, whose exegesis [of Aquinas’s texts concerning the natural desire for the
supernatural vision of God] seems as much ruled by their theological anxieties as by the
texts of Aquinas, must be given their due. In their attenuated explanations of Aquinas,
more than Aristotle’s authority or the Aristotelian conception of ‘nature’ is at stake.
Something far more fundamental to Christian faith is at question. Does the concept of a
natural desire to see God compromise the supernatural character of man’s ultimate end?
Fearing that it does, Cajetan, Ferrariensis, and Báñez blunt Aquinas’s striking affirmation
of what men actually desire by nature.” Bradley only cites a text from Sylvester of Ferrara
in support of the claim that these Dominicans were concerned about the gratuity of the
supernatural order, assuming that it is representative of Cajetan and Báñez as well.

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STEVEN WALDORF

he suggests that it developed in reaction to Duns Scotus (12661308). Scotus had famously—and provocatively—argued that
man is “naturally” in potency to the beatific vision,10 a claim of
which Cajetan was aware. De Lubac notes that Cajetan, who
received his formative theological training at the University of
Padua in the early 1490s and served on the faculty there until
1496, was immersed in an intellectual environment polarized
between Scotists, such as Cajetan’s contemporary (and frequent
opponent) Antonio Trombetta (1436-1517), and thinkers
opposed to Scotus, including Dominican Thomists as well as
Averroists and humanists.11 Shaped by this milieu, Cajetan was
predisposed to reject anything resembling the Scotist conception
of nature, which is to say, any view that the supernatural perfects
nature as nature. In addition to his anti-Scotism, Cajetan’s understanding of natura pura was also profoundly influenced by the
Averroist and humanist professors of the arts faculty, such as
Nicoletto Vernia (ca. 1420-99) and Agostino Nifo (1473-1545).
These thinkers sought to consider man in abstraction from the
supernatural and hence embraced the view that human nature
must be perfected by its own intrinsic principles lest it be “vain”
or “frustrated,” a principle they attributed to Aristotle, whose
philosophy they regarded as true philosophy tout court.12 De
Lubac claims that Cajetan absorbed the Averroist tendency to
view nature in abstraction from the supernatural during his
Paduan years and that it is of central importance for
understanding the genesis of his conception of nature.13
10

John Duns Scotus, Ordinatio I, p. 1, q. 1, n. 57, 35 (Vatican City, 1950-2013).
De Lubac, Augustinisme, 158-61. Congar puts the point in even more dramatic
terms: “At Padua, whether in philosophy or theology, one necessarily thinks against
someone else. It was necessary to take a position in the Averroist battle, and, moreover,
to opt for St. Thomas or Scotus: for St. Thomas against Scotus, or for Scotus against St.
Thomas” (Congar, “Bio-Bibliographie de Cajétan,” 5).
12
As Charles Schmitt has aptly observed of Renaissance Paduan thinkers, “each in his
way wanted to shed new light on ‘true philosophy,’ which for all of them derived from
Aristotle” (Charles Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1983], 99).
13
“Cajetan reflects the formation that he received at Padua. A sincere believer, he does
not reject the supernatural. Rather, he relegates it among ‘miraculous’ things, that is to
say, among the arbitrary exceptions with which the philosopher, even within faith, hardly
11

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I fully agree with de Lubac’s view that Cajetan’s conception of
nature took shape during his time at Padua. It is, moreover,
certainly true that there were important debates between Scotists
and Thomists at Padua in the last decade of the fifteenth century,
including between Trombetta and Cajetan himself. Though we
will later have occasion to examine in more detail the claim that
anti-Scotism motivated Cajetan’s conception of nature, it is
important to note at the outset that recent historiography has
shown that the intellectual atmosphere of Cajetan’s Padua was
not as partisan as de Lubac’s work suggests. On the contrary,
there was meaningful, often amicable, intellectual exchange
among members of all the identifiable philosophical and
theological schools present there, and while disagreements
certainly existed, the milieu was not so defined by them as de
Lubac’s comments suggest.14 As for influence by Averroists and
humanists in the arts faculty, it is true that Cajetan shared their
reverence for Aristotle as well as their interpretation of the
Stagirite’s texts on the question of the nonvanity of nature. It is
also true that he knew and was on friendly terms with many of
them.15 He may, then, have been predisposed to accept the purenature theory by the general tenor of intellectual life at Padua set

has to occupy himself in his rational effort” (De Lubac, Augustinisme, 256-57). See also
ibid., 159-60, 202-3.
14
See Matthew Gaetano, “Renaissance Thomism at the University of Padua: 14651583” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2013), 112-63. Publicly Accessible Penn
Dissertations, 865. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/865.
15
Cajetan even dedicated the first edition of his commentary on Aquinas’s De ente et
essentia to Benedetto Tiriaca, a Mantuan arts student who received his doctorate at Padua
while Cajetan was on the faculty there and who subsequently taught mathematics and
astronomy: “to the most illustrious doctor of arts, lord Benedetto Tiriaca of Mantua, the
best of friends, who publicly professes logic and mathematics in the Paduan studium” (“ad
clarissimum artium doctorem dominum Benedictum tyriacum Mantuanum logicen
Mathematicamque publice in Patavino studio profitentem Amicorum optimum”). See
Tommaso de Vio Cajetan, Aureum opus de ente et essentia divi Thome aquinatis cum
commentariis fratris Thome Caietani sacre theologie doctoris et fratris Armandi eiusdem
ordinis doctoris clarissimi (Venice, 1496), sig.a1v. Cited in Gaetano, “Renaissance
Thomism,” 141.

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STEVEN WALDORF

by the Paduan arts faculty. Nevertheless, with regard to the
question of influence, I believe we must look at more proximate
sources. After all, Cajetan studied at Padua’s Dominican studium,
Sant’Agostino, and therefore a consideration of the sources
within his own tradition, the sources from which he learned his
theology, is of particular importance. Indeed, when we examine
these sources, I believe we find the most important origin of his
philosophy of pure nature. As I will explain, Cajetan’s conception
of nature as requiring completion by strictly natural agency is the
outcome of a particular understanding of the science of theology
that he developed at Padua, namely, an understanding of the
discipline as excluding from its proper purview all rationally
demonstrable truths. Once theology is defined as a science
encompassing only truths that must be revealed in order to be
known, philosophy is left to construct an account of man entirely
on its own, according to its own exigencies, with the consequence
that human nature must achieve its complete perfection by its
own endowments in order to retain its integrity as nature.
This understanding of theology, though present in Cajetan’s
mature 1507 commentary on the Prima pars, does not make its
debut in that text. In fact, it can be found in his earliest writing,
a commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences that he composed
while lecturing on the Lombard’s text in the course of his theological training at Padua in the 1493-94 academic year.16 This
work contains the key to understanding the origin of Cajetan’s
conception of theology and hence his view of nature. It elaborates
precisely the same understanding of the science of theology that
would appear substantively unchanged in his Summa commentary over a decade later, and the textual evidence suggests that
the source of the new understanding of theology was in fact a
16
The text, which exists only in manuscript form, is housed at the Bibliothèque
Nationale in Paris. It has been the subject of very few studies, the most recent of which
was published in 1966. See Armand Maurer, C.S.B., “Cajetan’s Notion of Being in His
Commentary on the Sentences,” Mediaeval Studies 28 (1966): 268-78; M. H. Laurent,
“La causalité sacramentaire d’après le commentaire de Cajétan sur les Sentences,” Revue
des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 20 (1931): 77-82; L.-B. Gillon, “La condition
des accidents eucharistiques selon Cajétan,” Revue thomiste 39* (1934-35): 319-42;
Georges Frénaud, “Les inédits de Cajétan,” Revue thomiste 41 (1936): 331-66.

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Dominican theologian, namely, John Capreolus (1380-1444),
the so-called princeps Thomistarum and arguably the most
important Thomistic thinker of the two centuries between
Cajetan and Aquinas himself. As we shall see, Cajetan’s conception of theology derives in the first instance from his Paduan
theological training, his experience of learning Thomism from
the greatest Thomistic commentator of his era.
I. PURE NATURE IN CAJETAN’S WRITINGS
Let us begin with an overview of the explicandum itself, that
is, Cajetan’s philosophy of human nature. The primary textual
locus for understanding the Dominican cardinal’s conception of
pure nature is found in his commentary on the Prima pars of the
Summa theologiae. Commenting on the first article of question
12, in which Aquinas argues that it is possible for the created
intellect to see the essence of God on the grounds that, since the
created intellect has a “natural desire” for knowing the essence
of the first cause, its nature would be frustrated or “in vain” if it
could not in principle obtain the object of this desire,17 Cajetan
raises a difficulty that is decisive for understanding his own
conception of nature. Posing the objection, Cajetan writes:
It does not seem true that the created intellect naturally desires to see God, for
nature does not bestow an inclination to anything which the whole power of
nature cannot bring about. The sign of this is that nature has given the organs
[necessary for actualizing] any potency which it has placed in the soul; and in

17

STh I, q. 12, a. 1 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis doctoris angelici Opera omnia [Rome:
Leonine Edition, 1882-], 4:115): “For there is in man a natural desire to know the cause,
when the effect is considered; and from this arises wonder in men. If, therefore, the
intellect of the rational creature cannot attain to the first cause of things, the desire of
nature will remain vain. Whence, it is simply to be conceded that the blessed see the
essence of God” (“Inest enim homini naturale desiderium cognoscendi causam, cum
intuetur effectum; et ex hoc admiratio in hominibus consurgit. Si igitur intellectus
rationalis creaturae pertingere non possit ad primam causam rerum, remanebit inane
desiderium naturae. Unde simpliciter concedendum est quod beati Dei essentiam
videant”).

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STEVEN WALDORF

Book II of De caelo it is said that if the stars had the power of progressive motion
[i.e., if nature had implanted an inclination in them for such motion], then
nature would have given them fitting organs [for this motion].18

Though Cajetan poses as an objection the principle that nature
does not bestow an inclination or desire for that which nature
cannot attain, his response concedes the premise. He attempts to
“defend” Aquinas by claiming that man “considered absolutely”
does not have a natural desire for the vision of the divine essence
precisely because human nature cannot desire a good, such as this
vision, which natural powers cannot bring about.19 However,
Cajetan continues, if man knows something of God’s
supernatural effects, such as grace and glory (something possible
only through revelation), then it follows that man would
“naturally” want to know God in himself.20 Cajetan’s “defense”
18
Tommaso de Vio Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 12, a. 1, IX (Leonine ed.,
4:116): “Non enim videtur verum quod intellectus creatus naturaliter desideret videre
Deum: quoniam natura non largitur inclinationem ad aliquid, ad quod tota vis naturae
perducere nequit. Cuius signum est, quod organa natura dedit cuilibet potentiae quam
intus in anima posuit. Et in II Caeli dicitur quod, si astra haberent vim progressivam,
natura dedisset eis organa opportuna.”
19
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 12, a. 1, X (Leonine ed., 4:116): “As evidence of
these things, note that the rational creature can be considered in two ways; in one way,
absolutely, and in another way, as ordered to felicity. If [the rational creature] is
considered in the first way, then its natural desire does not extend beyond the power of
nature [to fulfill]: and thus I concede that it does not naturally desire the vision of God
in himself absolutely” (“Ad evidentiam horum, scito quod creatura rationalis potest
dupliciter considerari: uno modo absolute, alio modo ut ordinata est ad felicitatem. Si
primo modo consideretur, sic naturale eius desiderium non se extendit ultra naturae
facultatem: et sic concedo quod non naturaliter desiderat visionem Dei in se absolute”)
(emphasis added).
20
Ibid.: “But if [the rational creature] is considered in the second way [that is, as
“ordered to felicity”], then he naturally desires the vision of God, because he has become
cognizant of certain effects, such as grace and glory, whose cause is God. . . . However,
with the effects known, it is natural to any intellectual being to desire knowledge of the
cause. And therefore desire for the divine vision, even if it is not natural to the created
intellect absolutely, is nevertheless natural to it, with the revelation of such effects
supposed” (“Si secundo modo consideretur, sic naturaliter desiderat visionem Dei: quia,
ut sic, novit quosdam effectus, puta gratiae et gloriae, quorum causa est Deus. . . . Notis
autem effectibus, naturale est cuilibet intellectuali desiderare notitiam causae. Et
propterea desiderium visionis divinae, etsi non sit naturale intellectui creato absolute, est
tamen naturale ei, supposita revelatione talium effectuum”).

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of Aquinas in his commentary on article 1 of this question, was
not, as an interpretation of the Angelic Doctor, convincing even
to contemporaries who subscribed to a similar understanding of
nature,21 and indeed even today it strikes readers sympathetic to
Cajetan’s view as a rather obvious example of eisegesis on the
part of the Dominican commentator.22 Of course, it leaves no
doubt as to where Cajetan stands on the question of nature.
Natura must be able to attain its end and perfection by its own
intrinsic principles lest it be in vain—a philosophical absurdity—
and thus it cannot naturally desire that which is beyond its power
to achieve.
The Dominican cardinal’s conception of nature was, however,
formulated long before he composed his commentary on the
Summa theologiae. In fact, he had already articulated it a decade
earlier in a small treatise he wrote while on the faculty of the
University of Padua entitled De potentia neutra. Published in
1496, the text addresses the question of “whether a potency
receptive of supernatural acts can be a natural potency.”23 In
other words, can a natural potency be actuated by supernatural
agency, or, in order to be a truly natural potency, must it be
actuated only by natural agency? Cajetan denies that it is possible
for a natural potency to be actuated supernaturally; rather, a
potency that could only be reduced to act supernaturally would
21

For example, Cajetan’s contemporary Sylvester of Ferrara criticized his Dominican
confrère on this point in his commentary on the Summa contra gentiles: “Some [he is
referring to Cajetan] respond that this desire is not natural to rational nature considered
absolutely, but insofar as it is ordered to beatitude, and with the supposition of the
revelation of effects, [such as] grace and glory, whose cause is God as he is in himself
absolutely rather than [God] as universal agent. But this does not seem to be the mind of
Saint Thomas” (“Respondent quidam quod hoc desiderium non est naturale naturae
rationali absolute consideratae, sed ut est ad beatitudinem ordinata; et supposita
revelatione effectuum gratiae et gloriae, quorum Deus est causa ut Deus est in se absolute,
non ut universale agens. Sed hoc non videtur esse ad mentem Sancti Thomae”). See Francis
Sylvester of Ferrara, commentary on ScG III, c. 51, iii (Leonine ed., 14:141).
22
Feingold, Natural Desire to See God, 172-73.
23
Cajetan, De potentia neutra, q. 2 (Lyon ed., 207a30-33): “Utrum potentia receptiva
actuum supernaturalium sit potentia naturalis.”

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be an “obediential” potency.24 The reason for this, as he
succinctly explains, is that “to every natural passive potency,
there corresponds some proximate active potency. Therefore, [to
every natural passive potency there must] correspond a natural
active potency.”25 Such a claim amounts to essentially the same
understanding of nature as articulated in the later Summa commentary. A being must have all of its natural potencies, which
Cajetan understands as its natural inclinations or desires, fulfilled
by strictly natural principles or endowments. In other words, for
Cajetan, a thing must be able to attain by natural agency the
proper acts, ends, and perfections that pertain to it in virtue of
its nature. On such a view, man cannot be in a condition of
natural potency to—that is, cannot possess a natural desire or
inclination for—the vision of the divine essence, but must rather
attain the complete end and perfection of his nature through
some naturally attainable good.
We are now faced with the task of explaining the origins of
the conception of nature that Cajetan articulates in these texts.
As I suggested at the outset, the ultimate source of the Dominican
cardinal’s understanding of natura is his conception of theology
as a science that excludes all rationally demonstrable truths, a
conception that leaves philosophy to construct its own account
of nature independent of the data of revelation, with the inevitable consequence that nature must be perfected by its own
intrinsic principles. Such an understanding of theology as consisting solely of truths that must be revealed in order to be known
emerges from consideration of Cajetan’s commentary on the first
question of the Summa theologiae, treating the “nature and extent of sacred doctrine [sacra doctrina],” which Cajetan identifies

24
Cajetan, De potentia neutra, q. 2, quoad 4 (Lyon ed., 207b13-15): “As to the fourth,
the conclusion responsive to the question is that the potency to supernatural acts is not
natural but obediential” (“Quoad quartum, conclusio responsiva quaesito est, quod
potentia ad actus supernaturales, non est naturalis, sed obedientialis”).
25
Ibid. (Lyon ed., 207b30-32): “Secundo, ex parte potentia sic: omni potentiae
passivae naturali, respondet aliqua potentia activa proxima. Ergo, respondet potentia
activa naturalis.”

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13

with theologia.26 Indeed, it is in this commentary that we find his
most mature articulation of the nature of theology, though, as we
will later see when we consider his 1493-94 Sentences commentary, he had already formulated the same understanding
during his time at Padua. The key to grasping the way in which
Cajetan defines theology along purely epistemic lines (as a science
that properly speaking excludes from its purview all rationally
demonstrable truths) is an examination of his treatment of the
question of what specifies theology as a science, that is, its
“formal object.” Aquinas himself addresses the issue of the formal
object of sacra doctrina in articles 3 and 7 of question 1 of the
Prima pars. While his treatment is sufficient to understand what,
for him, constitutes sacra doctrina as a particular discipline, it is
far less detailed than Cajetan’s treatment, which purports to
elaborate Aquinas’s view.
Beginning in his commentary on the third article, Cajetan
outlines a comprehensive theory of the specification of sciences,
including the science of theology. Every science, he claims, has a
twofold formal object which constitutes the science as the
particular science that it is. First, there is the very thing that the
science chiefly considers. This, Cajetan states, is the formal object
of the science “as a thing” (obiectum ut res), and it is also the
“subject” (subiectum) of the science.27 For example, the obiectum
ut res of metaphysics is being, that of mathematics is quantity,
and that of physics mobility.28 Second, there is the formal aspect
under which the science studies the given thing (obiectum ut res)
in question, which Cajetan labels interchangeably the “object as
object” (obiectum ut obiectum) and the “object as knowable”
(obiectum ut scibile).29 Continuing with the aforementioned
examples, metaphysics studies being considered in abstraction
26

Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, I (Leonine ed., 4:12). “In the title [of this
question] sacred doctrine is taken for the whole theological science” (“In titulo sacra
doctrina sumitur pro tota scientia theologica”).
27
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, III (Leonine ed., 4:12).
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid.

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STEVEN WALDORF

from all matter (which abstraction is its obiectum ut scibile),
while mathematics studies being as quantity abstracted from corporeal though not intelligible matter (its obiectum ut scibile), and
physics studies mobile being without abstraction from either kind
of matter (its obiectum ut scibile).30 Summarizing the contrast,
Cajetan claims that the object ut res is “what” (quae) is known in
the science, and the object ut scibile is the “aspect under which”
(sub qua) this “what” is known; both of these objects pertain to
a given science and make it what it is.31
These two formal objects, the ut res (or “subject”) and the ut
scibile, are not unrelated. In fact, Cajetan claims that they are
“convertible” with each other. This is because the latter formal
object is a property of the former.32 In other words, an object of
study implies a particular way of knowing it. Cajetan explains this
by referring to the twofold objects of powers, to which habits,
including the intellectual habit of science, are analogous. The
object ut res of the power of sight is color, the object ut scibile,
the aspect under which color is known, is “as visible” (visibile),
and hence the power of sight is formally the power that
apprehends “color as visible.” We can see from this specific
example, which is Cajetan’s, the way in which a particular
obiectum ut scibile is contained in a particular obiectum ut res.33
“Visible” is a predicate contained in the very notion of “color,”
and hence to say that the formal object of sight is color is one and
the same thing as to say that the formal object of sight is “the
visible.”

30

Ibid.
Ibid.: “The formal notion of the object in a science is twofold. One is the object as
a thing, and the other is the object as an object; or, [in other words,] [the object as] what,
[and the object] under which” (“Duplicem esse rationem formalem obiecti in scientia:
alteram obiecti ut res, alteram obiecti ut obiectum; vel alteram ut quae, alteram ut sub
qua”).
32
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, VII (Leonine ed., 4:13). As he states, the
object ut res is a subiectum of which the object ut scibile is a passio or property: “because
those two formal notions follow upon each other convertibly, as subject and property”
(“tum quia convertibiliter se consequuntur illae duae rationes formales, ut subiectum et
passio”).
33
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, IV (Leonine ed., 4:12).
31

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15

As Cajetan explains, the same convertibility that obtains
between the objects ut res and ut scibile in the case of a power
also obtains in the case of an intellectual habit, which is to say, in
the case of a particular science. Returning to the examples
mentioned above, it is of the very nature of the subject (or object
ut res) of metaphysics, being in general, to be studied “by
metaphysical light,” which is to say, by “abstraction from all
matter.”34 To say that being simpliciter is the specifying object of
the science is the same as to say that abstraction from all matter
is the specifying object, since the subject entails the latter as a
predicate pertaining to it in virtue of what it is. Likewise, to say,
in the case of mathematics, that the subject of the science is
quantitative being is to say that it is the science that studies being
as abstracted from sensible though not intelligible matter, since
knowability in this form is a predicate of quantitative being.
Moreover, that physics is the study of being as mobile is to say
that, formally speaking, it is the science that studies being as abstracted neither from sensible nor from intelligible matter
(though it does consider ens mobile in abstraction from any particular mobile being), since knowability in this mode is part of
what it is to be “mobile being.”35
Although the mode of knowability or object ut scibile follows
from the ut res as property from subject, to the point that the two
are even “convertible,” the formal object ut scibile is nonetheless
more proximate in determining the species of the scientia. As
Cajetan writes, “it necessarily follows that the specific unity and
diversity of the sciences follow from the unity and diversity of
the formal aspects of the objects as objects [ut obiecta, which is
equivalent to ut scibile], or, what is the same, of the formal

34

Ibid.: “first, the notion of being is divided into entity simply. . . . And from this
flows another knowable division, that which is knowable through metaphysical light, that
is, the medium illuminated by abstraction from all matter” (“primo dividitur ratio entis in
entitatem simpliciter. . . . Et ex hac fluit alia divisio scibilis, in scibile per lumen
metaphysicale, idest medium illustratum per abstractionem ab omni materia”).
35
Ibid.

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STEVEN WALDORF

aspects under which the things [res] are known.”36 So while the
object ut res is ultimately inseparable from the object ut scibile
(for the ut scibile implies and follows from the ut res),
nonetheless, in thinking about what makes the particular science
to be the science that it is, it is the mode of knowability, the light
or aspect under which the res are known, that is most properly
said to specify the science.37
In the text, Cajetan explicitly applies this twofold conception
of the formal object of a science to theology. The object ut res,
or subject, of theology is something Cajetan terms deitas, which,
in a definition we will consider later in more detail, he defines as
the divine quiddity itself, or God considered absolute in his
essence, apart from all attributes or properties.38 The object ut
scibile, that is, the way in which the proper res of the science is
known, is “through the divine light.”39 At this point in his
exposition, however, Cajetan adds a nuance to his explanation of
36
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, V (Leonine ed., 4:13): “de necessitate
sequitur quod unitas et diversitas specifica scientiarum attendantur penes unitatem et
diversitatem rationum formalium obiectorum ut obiecta sunt; vel, quod idem est,
rationum formalium sub quibus res sciuntur.” He reiterates this point later in the
commentary on question 1, stating that the science extends only as far as the proper light
under which the thing is known extends, which may not always be the same as the thing
taken absolutely: “Non est ergo secundum extensionem rationis formalis ut res est
absolute, sed ut stantis sub ratione formali obiecti ut obiectum est, mensuranda scientia”
(Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 7, V [Leonine ed., 4:20]).
37
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, V (Leonine ed., 4:13): “where there is one
most specific knowable species, it is necessary that there be only one species of science”
(“ubi est una species specialissima scibilis, ibi oportet esse unam tantum speciem
scientiae”).
38
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 7, I (Leonine ed., 4:19): “God can be
considered according to his proper quiddity . . . and we speak about this quiddity [using]
the name ‘deity’ . . . such that the quiddity of God is the formal notion of this subject as
it is a thing” (“Potest considerari Deus secundum suam propriam quidditatem . . . et hanc
quidditatem circumloquimur deitatis nomine . . . ita quod quidditas Dei sit ratio formalis
huius subiecti ut res est”). See also commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 2, XIII (Leonine ed.,
4:11): “although deity is one formal notion of the object . . . of theology as it is a thing”
(“quamvis deitas sit una ratio formalis obiecti . . . theologiae ut res est”).
39
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, IV (Leonine ed., 4:12). “through divine
light, that is, the medium shining with divine light, which constitutes the theological
knowable” (“per lumen divinum, idest medium divino lumine fulgens, quod scibile
theologicum constituit”).

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17

the formal object of theology that he does not apply to some of
the other scientiae he cites in his description of the twofold
specification of sciences. He adds this qualification in response to
an objection he addresses in his commentary on the third article.
If deitas is the object ut res of both the theology of the blessed,
those who have been rewarded in the afterlife with the vision of
the divine essence, and the theology possessed by those in the
present life, and if deitas is convertible with one particular mode
of knowability (such as the divine light), then how can we
differentiate between the theology possessed by the blessed and
that possessed by those who are still in via?40
Cajetan’s answer to this objection is to qualify the
convertibility of the objects ut res and ut scibile. Objects ut res
are only convertible with objects ut scibile that are “adequate” to
them, not those that are “inadequate.”41 In the case of theology,
deitas is fully convertible only in general with the “divine light”
through which it is manifested, that is, not directly with any
particular kind of divine light.42 What this means is that deitas
40

Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, VIII (Leonine ed., 4:13).
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, IX (Leonine ed., 4:13): “To this it is said
that that proposition, namely, the formal notion of the object as it is a thing, and the
notion of it as an object, are convertible, is most true, rightly understood; that is, [as
understood] of the formal notion of the object as adequate to the formal notion of the
thing. It is otherwise, however, with respect to the formal notion of the object as it is an
object inadequate to the formal notion of the object as a thing (if it is the case that some
object has an inadequate notion). For it is not required that the inadequate be converted
with the notion of the thing, but at least to entail it, and not necessarily to be entailed by
it” (“Ad hoc dicitur, quod illa propositio, scilicet: ratio formalis obiecti ut res, et ratio eius
ut obiectum, sunt convertibiles, verissima est, sane intellecta, scilicet de ratione formali
obiecti ut sic adaequata rationi formali rei. Secus autem est de ratione formali obiecti ut
obiectum inadaequata rationi formali obiecti ut res (si contingit aliquod obiectum habere
rationem inadaequatam): quoniam inadaequatam non oportet converti cum ratione rei;
sed inferre quidem illam, et non necessario inferri ab illa”).
42
Ibid.: “Because to deity there corresponds only one formal notion adequate to the
object as it is an object, and this is the divine light. But that formal notion is not one in
species, but in genus. It is divided into the evident divine light, the revealing divine light
(abstracting from evidence and inevidence), and the inevident divine light. And the first is
the notion under which of the theology of the blessed, the second is of our theology, the
41

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STEVEN WALDORF

does not imply one species of divine light43 more than any other,
for all species of lumen divinum belong to it by equal right; each
is a property of deitas, something pertaining to deitas in virtue of
what it is.44 Conveniently, this nuance allows Cajetan to differentiate specifically the theology possessed in heaven from that
possessed by those in the present life based on two distinct species
of divine light, while still maintaining his broader claim that the
formal subject of theology, by its very nature, admits of being
known in certain particular, determinate ways and that these
modes of knowability, rather than others, are properties of the
subject. The theology of the blessed in heaven is deitas as known
through a divine light that makes God’s essence “evident” and
fully seen, whereas our theology is deitas considered under the
divine light as “revealing” that essence to us (and hence not yet
making that essence fully evident to us). Both of these modes of
knowability are properties of deitas, for deitas includes them
equally in virtue of what it is.
“Our” theology is, of course, what Cajetan is examining in the
treatise, and accordingly he provides a more detailed description
of it. As he writes, (our) theology is the science that knows things
in the light of divine revelation, and knowing deitas in this light
is the formal object ut scibile or ut obiectum of the science: “The
third is of faith. . . . and therefore, although deity is converted with that adequate notion
[i.e., divine light], and they mutually entail one another, nevertheless it is not converted
with any species thereof” (“Quia deitati respondet una tantum ratio formalis adaequata
obiecti ut obiectum est, et haec est lumen divinum: sed illa ratio formalis non est una
specie, sed genere; et dividitur in lumen divinum evidens, et lumen divinum revelans
(abstrahendo ab evidentia et inevidentia), et lumen divinum inevidens. Et primum est ratio
sub qua theologiae beatorum, secundum nostrae, tertium fidei. . . . Et ideo, quamvis deitas
convertatur cum illa ratione adaequata, et mutuo se inferant, non tamen convertitur cum
aliqua specie illius”).
43
For instance, the divine light revealing God to us in this life and that making God
evident to the blessed in the next, to mention two examples from the text cited above
(n. 42).
44
As he says, deitas does not imply one species “determinately,” that is, one species
more than any other, but rather each individual species of divine light implies a relation
to deitas, being a property thereof: “And consequently, [deity] does not determinately
entail any [of the species], but it is entailed by each of them” (“Et consequenter, nullam
earum determinate infert, sed infertur a singulis”). See Cajetan, commentary on STh I,
q. 1, a. 3, IX (Leonine ed., 4:13).

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19

reason why theology is one science is taken from the unity of the
formal aspect under which [the science studies its subject], that is,
the light of divine revelation, for all things are said to be
considered in theology inasmuch as they are divinely revealable
[revelabilia].”45 What makes theology to be theology is the fact
that it is the science that considers or knows deitas in the light of
divine revelation, that is, in a word Cajetan borrows from
Aquinas, as revelabile.
With regard to our present inquiry, the crucial question is
what it means to know a res “in the light of divine revelation,”
that is, what it means for something to be revelabile. Prima facie,
the meaning might seem obvious. To be known in the light of
divine revelation, one might reasonably suspect, means nothing
more than to be included in the content of divine revelation. In
other words, anything that has in fact been divinely revealed,
including rationally demonstrable truths such as the existence
and attributes of God, would be part of the revelabile or object
ut scibile of theology and hence fall within the proper purview of
the science itself. This is not, however, what Cajetan means by
revelabile or knowability in the light of divine revelation. Rather,
“revealable,” or “knowable in the light of revelation,” is
equivalent to “knowable only in the light of divine revelation.”
In other words, something is revelabile or knowable through
revelation if the only way in which it can be known is through
revelation. What falls under the specifying object ut scibile of
theology, therefore, is only that which must be revealed in order
to be known, since this is what, for Cajetan, it means to be
“knowable in the light of divine revelation.”
Cajetan’s commentary on the first article, in which Aquinas
addresses the question of whether a doctrine beyond the
philosophical sciences is necessary for salvation, already makes

45
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, III (Leonine ed., 4:13): “Et hoc est quod
in littera dicitur, dum ratio quare theologia sit una scientia, assignatur ex unitate rationis
formalis sub qua, seu obiecti ut obiectum, idest luminis divinae revelationis: omnia enim
dicuntur considerari in theologia inquantum sunt divinitus revelabilia.”

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STEVEN WALDORF

this point. There, we find a text that clearly suggests that the
category of the revelabile (the “knowable through the light of
revelation”) encompasses only truths that must be revealed in
order to be known. The text in its entirety is as follows:
Before the conclusions [that Aquinas articulates] are proven . . . note two
distinctions. The first is from Summa contra gentiles I, chapter 3. There are two
kinds of knowable [truths] about God principally; some are demonstrable
[demonstrabilia], and others cannot be known except through revelation. The
latter include the Trinity of persons, the beatitude promised to us, and the
mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption. The former are [conclusions such
as] the unity of God, his immortality, and others of the sort. The first conclusion
[i.e., that it is necessary for salvation that there be a revealed doctrine containing
truths above human reason] is posited in the formal notion of the revealable
only [revelabilia], but the second conclusion [i.e., that it was necessary for God
to reveal certain truths that can in principle be known to human reason] is
posited in the formal notion of the demonstrable [demonstrabilia].46

In this text, Cajetan begins by invoking a Thomistic distinction
between two kinds of truth, namely, truths that are demonstrable
and truths that must be revealed in order to be known. That
Aquinas makes such a distinction is readily visible in the chapter
from the Summa contra gentiles that Cajetan cites and is not
disputed. However, unlike Aquinas, the Dominican cardinal goes
46

Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 1, III (Leonine ed., 4:7): “Antequam
probentur conclusiones, ad evidentiam distinctionis et sufficientiae conclusionum, nota
duas distinctiones. Prima est ex I Contra Gentiles, cap. III. Duo sunt genera
cognoscibilium de Deo principaliter: quaedam demonstrabilia; quaedam non nisi per
revelationem cognoscibilia. Ista sunt Trinitas Personarum, beatitudo nobis promissa,
Incarnationis et Redemptionis mysteria: illa vero sunt, Deum esse unum, immortalem,
etc. Ratione revelabile tantum, posita est prima conclusio: ratione vero demonstrabilium,
posita est secunda.” By the “positing” of the two conclusions in the notions of the
“revealable” or the “demonstrable,” Cajetan seems to mean that the truths referenced in
each of the two conclusions fall under, or constitute the scope of, these two formal
categories. For example, to say that Aquinas’s first conclusion in the article, i.e., that it is
necessary for salvation that certain truths above human reason be revealed, is “posited in
the formal notion” of the “revealable” is to say that the “truths above reason” referenced
in the first conclusion constitute the revelabile. Similarly, to say that Aquinas’s second
conclusion in the article, i.e, that it was necessary for God to reveal certain truths that can
in principle be known to human reason, is “posited” in the notion of the “demonstrable”
is to say that the truths “knowable to human reason” that are referenced in the conclusion
constitute the demonstrabile.

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on in the text quoted above to identify the latter sort of truth
with the revelabile (which constitutes the formal object ut scibile
of theology),47 excluding from its purview all that is demonstrabile.48 Such a position amounts to the claim that to be
revelabile, which as we have observed is for Cajetan the same as
“to be knowable in the light of revelation,” means to be knowable
47
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, V (Leonine ed., 4:13): “for all things are
said to be considered in theology insofar as they are divinely revealable” (“omnia enim
dicuntur considerari in theologia inquantum sunt divinitus revelabilia”). See also
commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, VII (Leonine ed., 4:13): “the formal notion of the object
as it is an object, namely, revealability” (“ratione formali obiecti ut obiectum est, scilicet
revelabilitate”).
48
Henry Donneaud has argued that, in the text cited above (n. 46), Cajetan does not
oppose the demonstrabile to the revelabile, as if the latter excluded from its purview all
truths included in the former, but rather opposes the demonstrabile to the revelabile
tantum. In other words, when Cajetan claims that truths knowable to human reason are
posited in the demonstrabile while those knowable strictly through revelation are posited
in the revelabile “only” (tantum), he contemplates that some truths in the demonstrabile
can be included in the revelabile (while those that are only revelabile are included solely
in that category). Donneaud’s argument is based on the inclusion of the word tantum in
Cajetan’s statement that certain truths belong to the revelabile tantum. Such an argument,
however, is problematic in several ways. Most importantly, Cajetan never explicitly states
that truths that are demonstrabile can be included in the revelabile. He never, for example,
states that certain truths belong to the “revelabile only” while others belong to both the
demonstrabile and the revelabile. One would fully expect that if he were asserting that
some truths are revelabile only while others are both demonstrabile and revelabile, he
would give some explicit confirmation of this both/and status, rather than limit himself
to saying that some truths are demonstrabile while others belong to the revelabile only.
Indeed, in the absence of such confirmation, it is more natural to interpret the text as
asserting simply that some truths are demonstrabile while others are revelabile. In other
words, it is more natural to read the statement that “some truths are demonstrabile while
others are revelabile only” in this context as equivalent in meaning to the statement that
“some truths are demonstrabile, and others are revelabile,” that is, as posing a binary
distinction which admits of no overlap. Donneaud’s argument, moreover, does not
address further textual evidence of the restriction of the scope of the revelabile to
indemonstrable truths that I will adduce below, particularly Cajetan’s suggestion that even
if certain demonstrable truths were included in revelation, the fact of their inclusion in
revelatio would not change the formal light or aspect under which they are known (i.e.,
would not render them revelabile, the formal aspect or light in which theological truths
are known). See Henry Donneaud, O.P., “Note sur le revelabile selon Étienne Gilson,”
Revue thomiste 96 (1996): 645-47.

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only in the light of revelation. Étienne Gilson put the significance
of this distinction well when he remarked that, in holding it,
Cajetan was “hesitating to equally include within theology
revealed truths that necessitate a divine revelation in order to be
known and revealed truths that, at least in theory, could be
known by all men solely by the resources of their natural
reason,”49 the effect of which hesitation was to “return [demonstrable truth] to philosophy, where for him it belongs by full
right.”50 The characteristic way in which a truth is known in
theology is in the light of revelation, which for Cajetan means
being knowable strictly in the light of revelation.
One further text in the commentary on the third article makes
the point even more clearly. There, the Dominican commentator
explicitly argues that it is not God’s act of revealing a particular
truth that makes it part of the formal object ut scibile of theology
but rather its character as being knowable only through revelation. Illustrating this distinction, Cajetan writes, “If God were to
reveal to me [the science of] geometry, revelation would not
therefore be the ‘formal object under which’ [the sub qua] of my
geometry, for I would still know the [revealed] geometric truths
under the same formal aspect under which others would know
geometric truths [that is, through rational demonstrations
originating in the axioms of geometry].”51 The clear implication
of this statement is that it is not sufficient simply to be included
in the divine act of revealing as part of the content thereof in
order to count as “knowable in the light of divine revelation.”
Although everything that falls under the purview of theology has
indeed been revealed, inclusion in an act of divine revelation is
not what makes it part of the sub qua under which theology
49
Étienne Gilson, “Note sur le revelabile selon Cajétan,” Mediaeval Studies 15 (1953):
200. In the article, Gilson proceeds to argue, convincingly, that Aquinas’s revelabile
encompasses both demonstrable and indemonstrable truths and that Cajetan’s innovation
is a clear departure from the teaching of his master.
50
Ibid., 204.
51
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, XIV (Leonine ed., 4:14): “Si enim Deus
revelaret mihi geometriam, non propterea revelatio esset ratio sub qua obiecti geometriae
meae: quoniam ego scirem geometricalia sub illamet ratione formali, qua alii geometrae
scirent.”

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23

knows things (and hence formally part of the science), but rather
a distinctive mode of knowing, namely, being knowable strictly
in the light of divine revelation.52 The way of knowing that
specifies theology as a science is cognoscibility in the light of
divine revelation, that is, revelabilitas, which for Cajetan means
cognoscibility only in the light of divine revelation.
The ground of this understanding of what it means to be
“knowable in the light of divine revelation” is the formal subject
of theology (its object ut res), since the object ut scibile, as we
have seen, is really a property of the former. Indeed, the object
ut scibile is what it is precisely because the object ut res is, in
virtue of its nature, knowable under some particular aspect. A
restriction of the scope of the revelabile to rationally indemonstrable truths should therefore suggest a similar restriction on the
scope of the object ut res. If we examine Cajetan’s conception of
the latter, this is exactly what we find. As Cajetan conceives it,
the formal subject of theology is also limited in scope to rationally
indemonstrable truths, and hence it is ultimately unsurprising
that the object ut scibile which it grounds is similarly restricted in
scope.
As we have observed, the formal subject of theology, or in the
Dominican cardinal’s phrase its object ut res, is deitas, the divine
quiddity. The way in which Cajetan goes on to characterize deitas
in his commentary on article 7 of question 1 of the Prima pars
suggests that the term excludes all truths about God that can be
known by natural reason. In the course of his remarks he argues
that a being can be considered in four ways: as a being with a
52

Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 3, XIV (Leonine ed., 4:14): “this science is
not had except by infusion, and the things known in it are attained and assented to as they
fall under the divine light in their mode of knowability. And therefore the unity of
theology is inferred in the text from the unity of the divine light, not as poured out, but
as it is the formal notion under which, in the way explained above” (“haec scientia non
nisi per infusionem habita est; et res scitae in ea omnes attinguntur, et eis assentitur, ut
subsunt divino lumini, ut modo cognoscibilitatis earum. Et propterea unitas theologiae
infertur in littera ex unitate divini luminis, non ut infundens est, sed ut est ratio formalis
sub qua, modo superius exposito”).

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STEVEN WALDORF

specific quiddity; as a substance; as something possessing certain
attributes, properties, or accidents; and in relation to other
beings.53 When, for instance, we consider man, we can consider
him as a rational animal (quidditatively), as a substantial being,
as gentle (a property or accident), and as the noblest of animals
(in relation to other beings).54 Cajetan applies this fourfold
scheme to God, and the manner in which he does so excludes
from the notion of deitas any truth that can be demonstrated by
reason. As he writes:
Proceeding in reverse order, God can be considered as the highest cause . . . and
thus he is considered in relation to beings outside himself. He can also be
considered as wise, good, just, and universally according to formal attributes,
and thus he is considered, as it were, through the accidents belonging to him.
He can further be considered as a being [ens], as act, etc.: and thus he is
considered in common [with other substances]. And to these three modes of
consideration, as if simple, are reduced composite considerations, such as pure
act, first being, etc. . . . Before all these modes, God can be considered according
to his proper quiddity . . . and this quiddity we speak about by the name of
“deity” [deitatis]. Thus, asking whether God, under the formal aspect of his
deity, as distinguished from the formal aspect of goodness, etc., is the subject of
this science [theology] is to ask whether God, under the formal aspect of his
proper quiddity, is the formal subject of this science, such that the quiddity of
God is the formal aspect of this subject as a thing [ut res].55

In his application of this fourfold framework to the consideration
of God in article 7, Cajetan excludes all demonstrable truths from
the scope of deitas. All discourse about God’s attributes (the
53

Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 7, I (Leonine ed., 4:19).
Ibid.
55
Ibid.: “Ita in proposito, ordine retrogrado procedendo, Deus potest considerari ut
altissima causa, et universaliter secundum quodcumque praedicatum respectivum ad
extra; et sic consideratur relative ad extra: potest etiam considerari ut sapiens, bonus,
iustus, et universaliter secundum rationes attributales; et sic consideratur quasi per
accidens: potest etiam considerari ut ens, ut actus, etc.; et sic consideratur in communi.
Et ad hos tres modos, quasi simplices, reducuntur considerationes compositae, puta ut
actus purus, ut ens primum, etc. . . . Ante omnes autem hos modos, potest considerari
Deus secundum suam propriam quidditatem . . . et hanc quidditatem circumloquimur
deitatis nomine. Et sic, quaerendo an Deus sub ratione deitatis, ut distinguitur contra
rationem bonitatis etc., sit subiectum huius scientiae, est quaerere utrum Deus sub ratione
suae propriae quidditatis, sit subiectum formale huius scientiae; ita quod quidditas Dei sit
ratio formalis huius subiecti ut res est, etc.”
54

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25

second way of considering God), many of which, such as his
goodness, are rationally demonstrable, is excluded from deitas.
Likewise, all consideration of God in common with other beings,
that is, qua being or substance (the third way of considering God)
also falls outside the scope of deitas, as does consideration of God
as the highest cause (the first mode of considering God, that is,
in relation to other beings). Between them, these categories,
which are excluded from deitas, encompass nearly all demonstrable truths about God which pertain to metaphysics. Indeed,
all conceivable demonstrable truths about God appear to be
exhausted by these three modes of considering him. Consequently, the fourth way of considering God, quidditatively or
in his essence (which is to say, according to his deitas), excludes
demonstrable truths, thus leaving only suprarational truths, such
as those concerning the persons of the Trinity.56

56

This conception of the formal object ut res of the science of theology is for Cajetan
broad enough to encompass truths that, although they are traditionally considered
theological, might at first seem to fall outside the scope of a consideration of the divine
essence in itself. For example, Cajetan stretches the notion of deitas to include not just
truths about the divine persons but also about the redemptive work of Christ. He argues
that the actions of Christ, insofar as they are considered actions belonging to the second
person of the divine Trinity, are part of deitas: “The human actions of Christ, namely,
loving God, voluntarily suffering, and things of this sort, have two conditions. One is that
they are certain created things, and thus they are finite beings simply speaking, for they
are not deity. The other is that they are things of the divine person. . . . Thus they are
infinite beings personally, and are of infinite efficacy in such a genus as merit or
satisfaction, from the fact that they are works of God as of the proper person doing those
works” (“Actiones Christi humanae, scilicet amare Deum, voluntarie pati, et huiusmodi,
habent duas conditiones. Altera est quod sunt res quaedam creatae. Et sic sunt finita entia
simpliciter: non enim sunt deitas. Altera est quod sunt res personae divinae. . . . Et sic
sunt infinita entia personaliter: et sunt infinitae efficaciae in tali genere, puta meriti seu
satisfactionis, ex hoc ipso quod sunt opera ipsius Dei ut propriae personae exercentis
opera illa”). In other words, Christ’s actions qua human are “finite” and for this reason
“are not deitas,” but insofar as they are the actions of the second person of the divine
Trinity they are “infinite” and hence, by implication, deitas. A science of deitas would
thus include a study of truths about the salvific work of Christ. See Cajetan, commentary
on STh III, q. 1, a. 3, XII (Leonine ed., 11:13).

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STEVEN WALDORF

Further proof of the exclusion of demonstrable truths from
the scope of theology’s object ut res comes in Cajetan’s commentary on article 6 of question 1. There, we find explicit
confirmation that of the four ways elaborated in article 7 in
which God can be known (i.e., in relation to others, in his attributes, in terms of things common both to him and to other
beings, and in his quiddity), the first three exhaust all metaphysical or demonstrable truths about God, leaving only
rationally indemonstrable truths included in a consideration of
God quidditatively, that is, a consideration of deitas. As Cajetan
writes, “all the notions that metaphysics has of God are either
common [to him and to other beings] if they are simple, such as
being, true, and good; or, if they belong to him alone, they are
composite notions drawn from things common [to him and to
other beings], such as pure act, first being, etc.”57 As this statement explicitly confirms, all truths about God belonging to
metaphysics fall into one of the three nonquidditative modes of
consideration outlined in article 7. Truths of metaphysics are
either about things common to God and other beings, in which
case they fall under consideration of God “in common” with
other beings and/or under consideration of God’s attributes (the
third and second modes, respectively, of considering God
outlined in article 7), as in the case of “good” and “true”; or, like
“pure act” and “first being,” they are composite notions reducible
to other notions that correspond to one of the three nonquidditative modes of considering God.58 With these three modes
thus exhausting all metaphysical, which is effectively to say all
demonstrable, truths about God,59 it follows that consideration
57
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 6, V (Leonine ed., 4:18): “Omnes enim
rationes quas de Deo metaphysica habet, aut sunt communes, si sunt simplices, ut ens,
verum, bonum; aut sunt ex communibus compositae, si sunt propriae Deo, ut actus purus,
primum ens, etc.”
58
For instance, “act” and “being” are notions that fall into the category “common to
God and other substances or beings.”
59
Even if one considered the demonstration of an unmoved mover part of the science
of physics, it would still involve a composite attribute that, although belonging to God
alone, is nonetheless reducible to something common to him and to others. Just as the
attribute “first being” belongs to God alone but is drawn from a simple notion (ens)
belonging to things besides God, so also “first cause” or “first mover,” though applicable

THE ORIGIN OF CAJETAN’S PHILOSOPHY OF PURE NATURE

27

of God secundum quidditatem or, equivalently, secundum deitatem, excludes all rationally demonstrable propositions about
God.
Cajetan himself seems to realize the implications of his
understanding of the formal object of theology for the question
of whether it includes demonstrable as well as indemonstrable
truths. Commenting on article 8, in which Aquinas addresses the
issue of whether theology is properly characterized as a discipline
that proceeds by arguments, Cajetan maintains that demonstrations which rely exclusively upon reason fall outside the scope
of theology. In his words, they are “extraneous”: “absolutely
speaking, theology proceeds from natural reason as from
something extraneous to itself and as from probable [arguments].”60 In response to the question of why, if it is indeed true
that all demonstrable propositions are strictly speaking extraneous to theology, so many illustrious doctors have devoted
so much labor to metaphysical speculation,61 Cajetan qualifies his
claim by arguing that the theologian does legitimately employ
demonstrative arguments, but only “ministerially,” that is, in
order to rebut philosophical arguments that purport to
demonstrate the impossibility of an article of faith or, more
generally, to strengthen the confidence of fallen human intellect
in the truths of faith.
Metaphysical and natural demonstrations that are adduced in [the science of]
sacred doctrine are, simply speaking, extraneous. But as ministers [ministrae] of
theology, that is, for rebutting positions opposed to theological principles or
conclusions, for resolving arguments made against theological [truths], or for
shoring up those things about which theology is secondarily [concerned], as that
God exists, that he is one, immortal, etc., [metaphysical and natural
demonstrations] are not extraneous. Rather, theology proceeds from them as
from something belonging to and sometimes necessary for it. Nevertheless, [it

to God alone, derives from an attribute (“cause” or “mover”) common to God and other
beings.
60
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 8, VI (Leonine ed., 4:23): “absolute
loquendo, ex ratione naturali procedit theologia ut ex extraneis et probabilibus.”
61
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 8, VII (Leonine ed., 4:23).

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STEVEN WALDORF

does so] ministerially [ministerialiter] and not by reason of itself, but on account
of the weakness of our intellect.62

Purely rational demonstrations are not adduced in theology “by
reason of itself,” that is, in virtue of the science’s own nature or
formal object, but rather as part of a secondary or auxiliary
enterprise in which the theologian can legitimately engage. That
enterprise is shoring up confidence in theological truths by
refuting arguments against them and by borrowing philosophical
arguments, rational arguments developed independently of the
data of revelation, in support of propositions that must be true if
the articles of faith are themselves true (such as the existence of
God) but which the human intellect, in virtue of its weakness, is
prone to doubt. In this ministerial function, rational argumentation is no longer “extraneous” but is rather something that
“belongs to” the theologian. But the ministerial function itself can
never be reduced to theology as such and always remains extraneous to its essence, as Cajetan states: “Although it is necessary
that purely theological [conclusions] flow from theological [i.e.,
revealed] principles, nevertheless it is not necessary that things
that are ministerially theological [flow from theological
principles]. Rather, it is enough that they serve these principles”
(emphasis added).63 Thus, for Cajetan, although it is proper for
the theologian, in an ancillary capacity, to rebut errors and
strengthen the intellect’s grip on the preambles of faith, this
ancillary or “ministerial” role does not, strictly speaking, belong
to theology but rather remains something extraneous to it. To
put the point succinctly, although rational demonstration may
62
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 8, VIII (Leonine ed., 4:23): “Ad hoc breviter
dicitur, quod demonstrationes metaphysicae et naturales quae afferuntur in sacra
doctrina, simpliciter sunt extraneae: sed ut ministrae theologiae, ad destruendas
positiones oppositas conclusionibus aut principiis theologalibus, aut ad solvendas rationes
contra theologalia factas, aut ad stabilienda ea de quibus theologia secundario est, ut
Deum esse, et unum esse, et immortalem, etc., non sunt extraneae; sed ex eis procedit
theologia ut ex propriis, et quandoque necessariis; ministerialiter tamen, et non ratione
sui, sed propter nostri intellectus infirmitatem.”
63
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 8, IV (Leonine ed., 4:23): “Et quamvis pura
theologalia oporteat ex principiis manare theologalibus; theologalia tamen ministerialiter,
non oportet, sed sat est eis servire.”

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29

belong to the essence of a defense of the praeambula fidei, this
defense itself does not belong to the essence of theological
science.
II. THE FORMAL OBJECT OF THEOLOGY IN THE SENTENCES
COMMENTARY OF 1493-94
Cajetan developed his understanding of theology as a science
consisting strictly of revealed truths long before he composed his
Summa commentary. As mentioned already, it dates to his time
at the University of Padua in the last decade of the fifteenth
century. Although Padua was not the only academic setting in
which Cajetan studied,64 it was the most formative, for it was at
Padua that Cajetan undertook his theological studies and subsequently began his academic career. Assigned as a studens
formalis to the Dominican studium of Sant’Agostino in Padua, he
was elevated to a bachelor of the Sentences in 1493 and remained
in teaching positions at Padua until 1495 or 1496, before leaving
for other northern Italian universities.65 During the 1493-94
academic year, he composed a commentary on Peter Lombard’s
Sentences, almost certainly in connection with his lecturing work
as bachelor of the Sentences that year.66 The text is his first known
work. Some scholars have suggested, based on the fragmentary
nature of this unpublished commentary, that it was likely not a
formal treatise but rather a copy of his lecture notes, or even a
copy of notes taken by a student who attended Cajetan’s

64

After entering the Dominican order in 1484, Cajetan was sent to the Order’s
studium generale in Bologna in April 1485. He did not remain in Bologna long, and
subsequently undertook philosophical studies at the studium of San Domenico Maggiore
in Naples. In June 1488, he returned to Bologna for further studies, but was sent back to
his native Gaeta in December of that year to recuperate from illness. It does not appear
that he resumed his studies until 1491, when he was sent to Padua. See Michael Tavuzzi,
“Valentino da Camerino, O.P. (1438-1515): Teacher and Critic of Cajetan,” Traditio 49
(1994): 295-96.
65
Ibid., 299; Congar, “Bio-Bibliographie de Cajétan,” 5.
66
Congar, “Bio-Bibliographie de Cajétan,” 5.

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STEVEN WALDORF

lectures.67 Given the numerous lacunae in the text and the laconic
style in which it is written, the lecture-notes hypothesis is
certainly possible. However, regardless of the precise nature of
the text, it provides unique insight into the early development of
Cajetan’s views and, in many instances, their historical sources.
This is particularly the case with regard to his conception of the
nature of theology. We find here a view of theology that is
substantively identical to that expressed in his later Summa
commentary. We also find a strong indication of its source in the
writings of John Capreolus.
As in the Sentences commentaries of many late medieval
Thomists, Cajetan’s treatment of the scope of theology is found
in a commentary on the Prologue, a section of the work dedicated
to the nature and extent of theologia. The Prologue commentary
is divided into four questions, and in the third we find an explicit
statement of one of the two aspects of the formal object of
theology presented in much the same terminology as is found in
the later Summa commentary. Addressing the question of
whether theology is one science, Cajetan begins by arguing that
the specifying object of an intellectual habit—that is to say, of a
given science—is the formal aspect under which its subject is
known:
I say that the specific unity of a habit is taken according to the specific unity of
the knowable thing [as] knowable, that is, the unity of the formal aspect of the
knowable thing insofar as it is knowable, which unity the habit respects in the
first instance, that is to say, which the habit respects adequately and through
itself.68

67
Maurer, “Cajetan’s Notion of Being,” 268; Frénaud, “Les inédits de Cajétan,”
335-37. Both Maurer and Frénaud conclude, however, that the evidence supports the
claim that Cajetan is ultimately responsible for the composition of the work and that it
therefore sheds valuable light on his early philosophical and theological views.
68
Tommaso de Vio Cajetan, Scriptum super quattuor libros Sententiarum, I, prol. (2
vols. [Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, ms. latin 3076], 1:23v): “Et sic penes unitatem
specificam scibilis formaliter inquam scibile sumitur unitas specifica habitus, id est unitas
rationis formalis scibilis inquantum scibile, quam primo, id est adaequate et per se, respicit
habitus.”

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31

In other words, one aspect of what formally makes theology to
be theology is the fact that it knows things in a characteristic way,
and this characteristic way is the object ut scibile—a term that, as
we have seen, Cajetan frequently employs in the Summa
commentary.
In his treatment of the next question of the Prologue, namely,
the question of whether God is the “subject” (subiectum) of
theology, he specifies what precisely this characteristic way of
knowing is in the case of theology, and he relates it to the second
aspect of the twofold formal object of the science: the obiectum
ut res, or subject—that which, formally speaking, theology
studies. According to the text, the object ut scibile is none other
than the revelabile, and the object ut res is deitas:
God is the object of theology, the formal notion of which as a thing [ratio
formalis ut res] is ‘deity’ [deitas], which is the what of the science. The formal
notion [of theology] as an object, that is to say, as knowable [seu ut scibile est],
is revealability [revelabilitas] to those who are apt for it, and this object is the
formal notion under which or the thing by which [theology is knowable] on the
part of the knower.69

The terms revelabile and deitas carry the same meaning in the
Sentences commentary as they do in the Summa commentary.
The latter refers to the divine quiddity or essence, as distinguished conceptually from the attributes of the divine being.
As Cajetan clearly establishes, the formal object ut res of a science
is an essence or quiddity, something from which attributes follow
but which is conceptually distinct from them: “the formal notion
on the part of the thing [ex parte rei] is that which is attained,

69

Cajetan, Super Sent. I, prol. (Paris ed., 1:25v): “Deus est obiectum Theologiae cuius
ratio formalis, ut res est, est Deitas, et [deitas] dicitur ut quod. Ratio autem formalis ut
obiectum, seu ut scibile est, est revelabilitas aptis, et [haec ratio dicitur] ut qua, ut quo, ut
ex parte scientis.” The interpolations here are mine and reflect my interpretation of
lacunae in the text of the manuscript.

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STEVEN WALDORF

from which the properties [passiones] flow.”70 In the case of
deitas, the quiddity in question is God. Thus, to identify the
object ut res of theology as deitas is to identify it as God in his
essence, rather than (that is, as conceptually distinguished from)
the attributes or properties that pertain to this essence in virtue
of what it is.71
This understanding of the formal object of theology ut res
grounds how Cajetan understands the object ut scibile. Speaking
of the way in which the science of theology knows deitas, he
writes that it knows deitas insofar as deitas is manifested through
the light of faith:
Note that to any object [ut res] an addition or contraction can be made in two
ways, first on the part of the thing, and second . . . on the part of the knower.
And in the second way, both our theology and that of the blessed [who see God
in the afterlife] contract God, [ours by] the light of faith, and [theirs by] the
light of glory.72

The formal way of knowing deitas in theology (the object ut
scibile and hence the revelabile)—which is to say, in the
terminology Cajetan employs here, the way in which the object
ut res is “contracted” in the science of theology so as to become
the object of our knowledge—is through the light of faith. In
70

Cajetan, Super Sent. I, prol. (Paris ed., 1:25v-26r). “Nota quod ratio formalis ex
parte rei est illa quae attingitur, ex qua fluunt passiones et [qua] probantur.” The
interpolation is mine.
71
When Cajetan identifies the formal object of theology as the divine quiddity
conceptually distinguished from its attributes or properties, it is important to keep in mind
that for him, as for most Scholastic thinkers, the divine essence is not distinct in reality
from these attributes or properties. Although one can consider God’s quiddity apart from
his attributes and hence distinguish them in thought or conceptually, there is no
distinction in re between them, since there is no composition in God. As Cajetan puts it,
there is “no formal distinction in actuality between the divine essence and the personal
properties and attributes” that pertain to God (“nulla est distinctio formalis actu inter
essentiam divinam et proprietates personales et attributa”). See Cajetan, commentary on
STh I, q. 24, a. 3, IX (Leonine ed., 4:311); Aquinas, STh I, q. 33, a. 1, ad 2 (Leonine ed.,
4:336).
72
Cajetan, Super Sent. I, prol. (Paris ed., 1:26r): “Adverte etiam quod obiecto alicui
dupliciter fit additio, seu contractio: uno modo ex parte ipsius ut res; secundo ut
obiectum, seu ex parte scientis. Et hoc secundo modo, tam Theologia nostra quam
beatorum contrahit Deum, haec lumen fidei, illa gloriae, creatum tamen quare finitum.”

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33

other words, deitas, in virtue of its nature, admits of being known
(“contracted”) in the light of faith. Since what is known in the
light of faith is that which is known in the light of revelation,73 it
follows that the revelabile, the formal aspect under which the
object ut res is known in theology, consists in the knowledge of
the subject or object ut res of theology that is had through the
light of revelation. As in the Summa commentary, the object ut
res thus grounds a particular object ut scibile; deitas, being what
it is, is knowable in the light of divine revelation, and this mode
of knowability (revelabilitas) is a property of deitas.74
Finally, and most importantly, the text of the Sentences
commentary suggests that the twofold formal object of theology
is restricted in scope so as to include only truths that must be
revealed in order to be known. That deitas is constricted in this
fashion follows from Cajetan’s remark that the object ut res is a
quiddity considered as abstracted from all attributes, the essence
from which they all flow but which can be conceptually distinguished from them. Now, for Cajetan, the only demonstrable
truths that we can know about God are attributes of him. God’s
essence is unknown in itself to reason, and hence cannot be the
subject of demonstration. Such an understanding is implicit in his
analysis of why the proposition “God exists” is not “known
through itself” (per se nota) to us. In order for the truth “God
73

In the second article of the commentary on the Prologue, Cajetan suggests that the
characteristic way of knowing in the science of theology is in the light of divine revelation,
describing theology as the “science revealed in divine light” (scientiam lumine divino
revelatam) and hence equating knowledge “in the light of faith” (which, as we have seen,
he also identifies as the formal way of knowing in theology) with knowledge “in the light
of divine revelation” (Cajetan, Super Sent. I, prol. [Paris ed., 1:22v]).
74
Cajetan reiterates this understanding of the twofold formal object of theology
elsewhere in the commentary. For example, in the context of discussing the object of the
infused virtue of faith, he writes, “The formal notion of the object as a thing is Divinity,
as of theology, for the same is the subject of the principles and of the conclusion. But the
formal notion of the object as an object . . . is revealability” (“Ratio formalis obiecti ut res
est Divinitas, sicut et theologiae: cum idem sit subiectum principiorum et conclusionis.
Ratio vero formalis obiecti ut obiectum . . . est revelabilitas”) (Cajetan, Super Sent. III,
d. 24 [Paris ed., 2:496r]).

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STEVEN WALDORF

exists” to be per se notum, we would have to understand the
predicate (existence) as contained in the essence of the subject
(God). However, for Cajetan, we do not grasp the essence of the
subject in which the predicate is supposedly contained, which,
being the divine essence, is entirely beyond reason’s capacity to
grasp; in the Dominican theologian’s technical language, we do
not have “proper adequate notions of the terms.”75 We can, of
course, demonstrate God’s existence based on reasoning from
created cause to effect, but the proposition is still not known “in
itself” to us on account of the fact that the divine essence
surpasses the capacity of the intellect to grasp. Given that God’s
essence is therefore unknown in itself to reason, it follows that it
is indemonstrable; demonstrable truths concern the attributes
belonging to God in virtue of his essence, but they do not touch
upon the essence itself, that is, they do not demonstrate what this
essence is in itself. Since, as the Sentences commentary suggests,
the formal object ut res of theology, deitas, consists precisely in
this essence, it follows that all demonstrable truths about God fall
outside its scope, being demonstrations not of the divine essence
itself but rather of its properties, just as Cajetan elaborates in
greater detail in the Summa commentary. Thus falling outside the
formal object ut res of theology, such demonstrable truths do not
fall under the proper purview of the science.
The fact that, for Cajetan, the subject of the science excludes
demonstrable truths from its purview implies a definition of the
formal object ut scibile, which is to say, the revelabile, along the
same epistemic lines. As we have seen, the text suggests that a
particular subject, in virtue of what it is, has a particular way (or
ways) of being “contracted” or known. Cajetan reiterates the
point elsewhere in the same article, writing, “The formal notion
on the part of the knower, or the object as it is an object, is that
which limits what can be considered about the first object [i.e.,

75
Cajetan, Super Sent. I, d. 2, q. 2 (Paris ed., 1:32r): “[The proposition that God
exists] is not known through itself to us, because we do not have proper adequate notions
of the terms, from which it would immediately be known” (“non est per se nota nobis,
quia non habemus rationes proprias adaequatas terminorum, ex quibus statim
cognoscitur”).

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35

the obiectum ut res].”76 If the way a thing is known corresponds
to and follows from the nature of a particular subject, as the text
implies, it follows that the way in which a subject is known does
not extend beyond the scope of the subject. Thus, if the thing or
subject known extends only to rationally indemonstrable truths,
then the characteristic way in which the thing is known also
extends only to rationally indemonstrable truths. The formal
object ut scibile or ut obiectum is, therefore, limited in scope no
less than the formal object ut res, only encompassing truths about
the divine essence or deitas and hence only truths that are
indemonstrable to reason. To be knowable in the light of faith or
in the light of divine revelation—that is to say, to be revelabile—
is for the Cajetan of the Sentences commentary, just as much as
for the Cajetan of the Summa commentary, to be knowable only
in the light of divine revelation.
III. JOHN CAPREOLUS: THE HISTORICAL SOURCE OF
CAJETAN’S UNDERSTANDING OF THEOLOGY
Having established that Cajetan’s conception of theology
developed in the course of his studies at Padua in the early 1490s,
the question of its historical source naturally arises. As stated at
the outset, the evidence suggests that Cajetan derived his
conception of the science of theology from the work of the
French Dominican John Capreolus. Like many other prominent
theologians of his time, Capreolus was connected with the
University of Paris early in his academic career, serving as a
bachelor there from 1407 to 1411, before taking up a position at
Toulouse and, ultimately, returning to his native city of Rodez.77
At Paris, Capreolus began his magisterial Defensiones theologiae

76

Cajetan, Super Sent. I, prol. (Paris ed., 1:26r): “Ratio autem formalis ex parte
scientis, sive obiecti ut obiectum, est illa quae considerabilia de obiecto primo limitat.”
77
Ruedi Imbach, “Le contexte intellectuelle de l’oeuvre de Capreolus,” in Jean
Capreolus et son temps, 1380-1444, ed. Guy Bedouelle, Romanus Cessario, and Kevin
White (Paris: Cerf, 1997), 13-22.

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STEVEN WALDORF

divi Thomae Aquinatis, completing the first part in 1409.78 The
remaining three parts were only completed between 1426 and
1432, after time spent teaching at the Dominican studium in
Toulouse.79 The Defensiones is presented as a commentary on the
Sentences, inasmuch as it follows the general order of topics
contained in Peter Lombard’s text, but in genre it is far more than
just a commentary. Rather, it is, as the name suggests, a comprehensive defense of Thomistic teaching against nearly the
whole spectrum of Aquinas’s thirteenth- and fourteenth-century
critics, including Scotus, Durandus (ca. 1270-1334), Peter Auriol
(ca. 1280-1322), Gregory of Rimini (ca. 1300-1358), and
numerous others. The work proceeds by first specifying
Thomistic theses on a given topic, supported by ample quotation
from Aquinas’s works. It then identifies a range of objections to
his view proposed by later Scholastic theologians, and concludes
with a refutation of these objections and a defense of the
putatively Thomistic theses articulated previously.
The Defensiones was, if not the very first, certainly the most
encyclopedic defense and compendium of Thomistic doctrine in
Cajetan’s day, and as such it was highly influential. 80 Many Italian
Thomists took their theological and philosophical principles
from this so-called princeps Thomistarum and relied on the
Defensiones for their knowledge of Aquinas’s critics.81 This
influence is even visible in Cajetan’s own teacher at Padua,
Valentino da Camerino (1438-1515), who borrowed his views
78

Romanus Cessario, A Short History of Thomism (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2003), 60.
79
Imbach, “Le contexte intellectuelle,” 13. See also Bernard Montagnes, O.P., “Le
midi dominicain au temps de Capreolus,” in Bedouelle, Cessario, and White, eds., Jean
Capreolus et son temps, 54.
80
André von Gunten, “Cajétan et Capreolus,” in Bedouelle, Cessario, and White, eds.,
Jean Capreolus et son temps, 230.
81
Denis Janz, Luther and Late Medieval Thomism (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier
University Press, 2009), 88; Cessario, Short History of Thomism, 68. In fact, Capreolus
was so important to Italian thinkers that the first printed edition of the work was
produced not in France, but rather in Venice, in 1483. See Romanus Cessario, O.P, and
Kevin White, “Translators’ Introduction,” in John Capreolus, On the Virtues, trans.
Romanus Cessario, O.P., and Kevin White (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
of America Press, 2001), xxxii.

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37

on important metaphysical questions, such as the nature of the
distinction between a predicamental relation and its fundament,
directly from Capreolus.82
The decisive evidence of Capreolus as the source of the
development of Cajetan’s view of theology at Padua, however,
comes from the texts themselves. The Defensiones and Cajetan’s
Sentences commentary present their treatments of theology in a
structurally identical manner. Both texts treat the nature of
theology in their respective prologues, and both divide these
prologues into the same four quaestiones: whether theology is a
science, whether theology is a practical science, whether theology
is one science, and whether God is the subject of theology.83
Moreover, these four identical questions also appear in the same
order in both texts, something which is not true of other
prominent Dominican theologians’ Sentences commentaries,
including those of James of Metz (fl. 1300),84 Hervé Nédellec
(ca. 1250/1260-1323),85 and Peter of Palud (ca. 1275-1342).86
Other noteworthy similarities also exist between the works.
For instance, both reference the same Thomistic text in the
context of discussing the subalternate status of the science of
theology in their respective questions on whether theology is one
science (viz., STh I-II, q. 8, a. 3).87 Furthermore, both make the
82

Tavuzzi, “Valentino da Camerino,” 301.
Cajetan Super Sent. I, prol., passim; John Capreolus, Defensiones theologiae divi
Thomae Aquinatis, 7 vols., ed. C. Paban and T. Pègues (Turin, 1900–1908), I, prol.,
passim.
84
James of Metz, Commentarius in Sententias: Prologus, passim (in Mikołaj Olszewski,
Dominican Theology at the Crossroads: A Critical Edition and Study of the Prologues to
the Commentaries on Peter Lombard’s Sentences by James of Metz and Hervaeus Natalis
[Münster: Aschendorff, 2010], 50-81).
85
Hervé Nédellec, Commentarius in Sententias: Prologus, passim (in Olszewski,
Dominican Theology at the Crossroads, 114-67).
86
Peter of Palud, In I Sententiarum: Prologus, passim (in Giuseppe Groppo, “La
teologia e il suo ‘subiectum’ secondo il Prologo del Commento alle Sentenze di Pietro Da
Palude, O.P.,” Salesianum 23 [1961]: 219-316).
87
Cajetan, Super Sent. I, prol. (Paris ed., 1:21r). Capreolus, Defensiones, I, prol., q. 3
(Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:43a).
83

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STEVEN WALDORF

claim—in quite similar language—that the notions of “practical”
and “speculative” do not formally differentiate the science of
theology.88 Cajetan’s Sentences commentary even references
Capreolus by name, including in a text examining the question of
whether God can be understood by us in this life that comes just
two distinctiones after his treatment of the subject of theology.89
The familiarity with Capreolus’s Defensiones that Cajetan
evinces in the Sentences commentary and the structural parallels
that exist between the two works suggest that the former was an
important influence on the latter, and these considerations, along
with the fact that the two texts articulate substantively the same
understanding of the nature of theology, allow us to identify with
a high degree of certainty Capreolus as Cajetan’s source.
Examining Capreolus’s work, we find the same twofold
understanding of the formal object of theology and the same
restriction of the scope of the discipline to strictly indemonstrable
truths that we have observed in Cajetan’s writings. Cajetan
develops these points in the context of a response to an objection
leveled by the fourteenth-century Franciscan theologian Peter
Auriol, one of the writers whom Capreolus most frequently
criticizes in the Defensiones. Auriol, as his Dominican critic
narrates, had leveled an important objection to Aquinas’s
statement in the Summa that the revelabile is the formal object of
theology. As Capreolus explains, Auriol criticized the Thomistic
claim on the grounds that a science can only have one formal
object, and since Thomists wish to posit God as the formal object
88
Articulating this point, Cajetan writes, “Note that practical and speculative
distinguish humanly discovered sciences, not, however, science revealed by divine light,
on account of the unity of the formal object” (“Nota quod dato quod practicum et
speculativum distinguant scientias humanitus inventas, non tamen scientiam lumine
divino revelatam, propter unitatem obiecti formalis”). Capreolus’s articulation of the
same point reads, “given that these differences, the speculative and the practical, are taken
as from the object of the habit, not from the end of the habit, they essentially divide
science brought forth by natural light, but not science revealed by divine light” (“dato
quod istae differentiae speculativum et practicum, prout sumuntur ex objecto habitus, non
ex fine habitus, dividerent essentialiter scientiam naturali lumine genitam, non tamen
scientiam divino lumine revelatam”). See Cajetan, Super Sent. I, prol. (Paris ed., 1:22v);
Capreolus, Defensiones, I, prol., q. 2 (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:30b).
89
Cajetan, Super Sent. I, d. 2, q. 1 (Paris ed., 1:30r).

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39

of theology (i.e., its formal object ut res, or subject), revelabilitas
cannot also be what formally defines the discipline.90
The French Dominican is clearly exasperated by Auriol’s
objection, writing that, “as I have often said before,”91 theology
is constituted by a twofold formal object, namely, the characteristic subject that the science studies (which like Cajetan he
terms the object ut res), and the way or light in which the science
studies this subject (which he calls the object ut scibile or ut
obiectum).92 Like Cajetan, he identifies the former, the object ut
res, with deitas, and the latter as the revelabile:
I say that the revealable [revelabile] is the formal notion of the object or subject
of theology as it is an object knowable by the theologian because, as such, it falls
into that species of knowable thing that [the term] “revealable” [revelabile]
names, [namely] that which is knowable through revelation. But God or deity
[deitas] is the formal notion of the subject of theology as it is a certain thing, to
which it falls to be the object or subject of theology.93

These terms, deitas and revelabile, carry the same meaning for
Capreolus as they do in the writings of Cajetan. Deitas refers to
“God insofar as he is God absolutely,”94 or that from which, if
known in itself, the attributes of God would be fully deduced—
effectively, the divine quiddity.95 Moreover, just as for Cajetan,
90

Capreolus, Defensiones, I, prol., q. 4 (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:51b).
Ibid. (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:57b-58a): “ut prius saepe recitavi.”
92
Ibid. (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:58a-b).
93
Ibid. (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:58a): “Tunc ad propositum dico quod revelabile est
ratio objecti vel subjecti Theologiae, ut est objectum scibile a theologo, quia, ut sic, cadit
in illam speciem scibilis quam nominat revelabile, vel cognoscibile per revelationem; sed
Deus aut Deitas est ratio subjecti Theologiae, ut est res quaedam, cui accidit esse objectum
aut subjectum Theologiae.” For further elaboration of Capreolus’s understanding of the
formal object of a science, see Charles Robertson, “Capreolus: Prince or Corrupter of
Thomism?” Nova et vetera (Eng. ed.) 12 (2014): 847-51.
94
Capreolus, Defensiones, I, prol., q. 4 (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:59b): “If theology
had for its subject God under the aspect of deity absolutely, that is, God insofar as He is
God absolutely” (“Si theologia haberet Deum pro subjecto sub ratione deitatis absolute,
id est Deum in quantum Deus absolute”).
95
Ibid. (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:60b): “If we knew the notion of the subject [deitas],
then the notion would have great evidence; to wit, our theology would consider all things
91

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STEVEN WALDORF

the statement that theology has the revelabile as its formal object
ut scibile means that what formally constitutes theology as a
particular science is its consideration of truths insofar as they are
“knowable through revelation.”96 In other words, to be revelabile
is to be knowable through divine revelation.
As with Cajetan, Capreolus restricts the scope of this formal
object in a way that excludes all rationally demonstrable truths
from theology. This becomes clear from his treatment of the
revelabile. As we have observed, for Capreolus, to be revelabile is
to be knowable in the light of divine revelation. To be knowable
in the light of divine revelation, however, is to be knowable
through the articles of faith. That is to say, it is to be
demonstrable through the use of an article of faith as the
demonstrative middle term, and as such revelabilitas denotes
knowability through the articles of faith as the medium of
demonstration. In Capreolus’s words:
The formal object by which something is considered in this science, that is, the
middle term through which all the conclusions of this science are known, is the
light of divine revelation, that is, the articles of faith, which we hold by the habit
of faith. . . . And this, which I call the divinely revealable [revelabile divinitus],
is the formal notion of Theology . . . as it is knowable [ut est scibile].97

that pertain to God according to the notion of deity. Now, however, it is not so” (“Si
enim rationem subjecti cognosceremus, ratio haberet magnam apparentiam, scilicet quod
omnia quae conveniunt Deo secundum rationem deitatis, theologia nostra consideraret;
nunc autem non ita est”).
96
Ibid. (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:58a): “I say that the revealable is the notion of the
object or subject of Theology as it is an object knowable by the theologian, because, as
such, it falls into that species of knowable thing which ‘revealable,’ or ‘knowable through
revelation,’ denotes” (“Tunc ad propositum dico quod revelabile est ratio objecti vel
subjecti Theologiae, ut est objectum scibile a theologo, quia, ut sic, cadit in illam speciem
scibilis quam nominat revelabile, vel cognoscibile per revelationem”).
97
Ibid.: “Formale objectum quo consideratur aliquid in hac scientia, hoc est, medium
per quod cognoscuntur omnes conclusiones hujus scientiae, est lumen divinae
revelationis, scilicet articuli fidei, quos habitu fidei tenemus. . . . Et hoc quod dico,
revelabile divinitus, est formalis ratio Theologiae . . . ut est scibile.” As Capreolus says
elsewhere, theology “takes the demonstrative middle terms through which it proves its
conclusions from the divine light” (“sumit media, per quae probat suas conclusiones, a
lumine divino”), and this divine light of revelation consists in “the articles of faith, from
which certain things about God can be proven” (“articuli fidei; ex quibus aliqua possunt

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41

Thus, the formal way in which something is known in theology
is as demonstrated through an article of faith, and hence to be
revelabile is to be knowable or deducible from an article of faith.
As such, only those things which are demonstrable through the
articles of faith can fall within the scope of the revelabile and
hence of the science of theology. It is precisely this identification
of revelabilitas with knowability through the articles of faith,
however, that limits revelabilitas to truths that are knowable to
us only through revelation. As Capreolus remarks in his
discussion of the virtue of faith further on in the Defensiones, to
be knowable through the articles of faith is to be knowable only
through revelation and hence to be rationally indemonstrable,
since the articles of faith and those propositions which can be
deduced from them do not admit of rational demonstration. The
articles of faith are “not about all things revealed by God, but
only about those things revealed by God to which one adheres
solely and precisely on the basis of divine revelation” (emphasis
added).98 Indeed, properly speaking, they exclude anything to
which one adheres “not only on account of divine revelation, but
rather on account of evident deduction from first principles
known through themselves.”99 Since the articles of faith and those
things deduced from them are thus by definition rationally
indemonstrable, to be knowable through these articles or,
equivalently, to be revelabile is to be knowable strictly through
the light of divine revelation, and hence the science of theology
probari de Deo”). See, respectively, Capreolus, Defensiones, I, prol., q. 3 (Paban and
Pègues, ed., 1:36b); ibid., q. 4 (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:60b).
98
Capreolus, Defensiones, III, d. 25, q. 1 (Paban and Pègues, ed., 5:330b-331a).
“Fides, proprie loquendo, non est de omnibus revelatis a Deo, sed solum de illis revelatis
a Deo, quibus adhaeret quis solum et praecise propter divinam revelationem.”
99
Ibid. (Paban and Pègues, ed., 5:331a): “Of those things, however, to which the
faithful person adheres not only on account of divine revelation, but rather on account of
evident deduction from first principles known through themselves, he has not faith, but
science” (“De illis autem quibus fidelis adhaeret non solum propter divinam revelationem,
immo propter evidentem deductionem ex primis principiis per se notis, non habet fidem,
sed scientiam”). See also Capreolus, Defensiones, I, prol., q. 1 (Paban and Pègues, ed.,
1:18a).

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STEVEN WALDORF

of which revelabilitas is the formal object extends only to those
truths that cannot be rationally demonstrated.
What ultimately grounds the definition of the revelabile as
excluding all demonstrable truths, however, is Capreolus’s understanding of the object ut res of theology, deitas. As the divine
quiddity, or God considered in himself absolute, deitas is
something “indefinable” and as such not known to us through
reason.100 The logical consequence of this position is that it is only
through the articles of faith that deitas can be known to man in
the present life, and for this reason the formal way of knowing
proper to theology—revelabilitas—must be identified with the
articles of faith and thereby restricted to rationally indemonstrable truths. In other words, it is because Capreolus posits
deitas, something unknown to reason, as the formal object ut res
of theology that the formal object ut scibile comes to be defined
in a way that excludes all truths that can be demonstrated
through reason, such as God’s simplicity or eternity (to name two
examples of rationally demonstrable truths cited by Capreolus as
excluded from theology in virtue of its formal object).101
The French Dominican’s treatment of the nature of theology
in the Defensiones is thus substantively the same as that of
Cajetan. For both thinkers, the discipline is defined by a twofold
formal object, an object ut res, the thing or subject that is formally
known in the science, and the object ut scibile, the formal way of
knowing proper to the discipline. The former is God considered
in himself or in his quiddity (deitas), while the latter is
knowability in the light of revelation (revelabilitas). Moreover,
for both Cajetan and Capreolus, theology so defined consists
strictly of rationally indemonstrable truths, and it is specifically
the identification of the object ut res with deitas that leads both
thinkers to the conclusion that to be revelabile is to be knowable
100
Capreolus, Defensiones, I, prol., q. 4 (Paban and Pègues, ed., 1:60b): “The subject
of this science is indefinable, for it has neither genus nor difference, since we do not know
what it is” (“Subjectum hujus scientiae sit indiffinibile, nec enim habet genus aut
differentiam, cum nesciamus quid sit”). Also ibid.: “the notion of deity, which is not
properly known to us in itself” (“rationem deitatis, quae non est nobis proprie cognita in
se”).
101
Ibid.

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43

only in the light of divine revelation. These theological parallels,
along with Capreolus’s prominence in late fifteenth-century
Italian Dominican theological circles and the identical structure
of the treatments of theology found in the Defensiones and
Cajetan’s Sentences commentary, strongly suggest that Cajetan
ultimately derived his conception of theology from his encounter
at the University of Padua with his predecessor’s work. As
Maurer aptly notes with regard to the similarity between
Cajetan’s conception of the relationship between existence and
essence in the Sentences commentary and that of Capreolus in the
Defensiones:
There can be no doubt that [Cajetan] had Capreolus’s article on the real
distinction in front of him when he composed his own notes on the subject.
Faced with the formidable assignment to teach this difficult matter for the first
time, he acted as most young teachers would do: he looked about for the best
textbook to help him prepare his lecture. Who could be a better guide than
Capreolus, the acknowledged Prince of the Thomists? His impressive
Commentary on the Sentences was at hand, and Cajetan used it for the
statement of the problem of essence and existence, for his understanding of the
terms of the problem, and for its solution. Thus from the beginning of his
teaching career Cajetan was indebted to Capreolus for his notion of being. 102

Substituting “formal object of theology” for “real distinction”
would yield no less accurate a description of Cajetan’s thought,
for it is equally clear that he arrived at his conception of the
science of theology on the basis of his engagement with the
writings of the princeps Thomistarum.
IV. THEOLOGY AND THE ORIGINS OF
CAJETAN’S DOCTRINE OF PURE NATURE
Granted that Capreolus is the source of Cajetan’s understanding of theology as a discipline that excludes all rationally
demonstrable truths, what relevance does this have for Cajetan’s
doctrine of pure nature? As I briefly noted at the outset but will
102

Maurer, “Cajetan’s Notion of Being,” 275.

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STEVEN WALDORF

now explain in greater depth, such a conception of theology is of
decisive importance for understanding the development of the
notion that nature must reach its proper end by its own agency
lest it be frustrated or “in vain”—in other words, the notion of
pure nature. This is not to say that other historical data are of no
import for Cajetan’s natura pura. Indeed, other facts are relevant.
For example, Cajetan attributes the claim that nature would be
in vain if it could not attain its end by natural agency to Aristotle.
In the Summa commentary, for example, the passage in which
the Dominican cardinal argues against a natural inclination for
the vision of the divine essence cites the locus classicus for debates
about Aristotle’s conception of the nonvanity of nature, namely,
a text in De caelo in which Aristotle states that if nature had given
stars the capacity for progressive motion, then it would have
given them the organs necessary to accomplish it.
That Cajetan was deeply influenced by Aristotle is not in
doubt. Indeed, in his Summa commentary, he describes himself
as having been raised on “peripatetic milk,” almost certainly a
reference to training he received during his formative years as a
student.103 The fact that he had so much reverence for the
Philosopher, along with the fact that he perceived the concept of
pure nature as Aristotelian in origin, certainly would have
confirmed his confidence in the thesis, yet this datum alone is not
sufficient to account for Cajetan’s view of nature. Historically
speaking, it is inadequate to argue that he picked up Aristotle’s
De caelo, found pure nature contained within its pages, and
adopted the theory as his own, precisely because the doctrine of
natura pura is not to be found there. To understand this, we must
consider what the Aristotelian text in question does—and, more
importantly, what it does not—say. When we do so, we find that
Cajetan’s interpretation of the passage as containing the doctrine
of pure nature rests on an extratextual assumption, for which
reason his Aristotelianism is not enough to explain his conception
of natura.
Let us first examine Aristotle’s argument:
103

Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 15, a. 1, VIII (Leonine ed., 4:200): “Ego autem,
peripatetico lacte educatus.” Quoted in De Lubac, Augustinisme, 160.

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Another argument is that it would be absurd for nature to have given [stars] no
organs of motion. Nature makes nothing in haphazard fashion, and she would
not look after the animals and neglect such superior beings as these. Rather she
seems to have purposely deprived them of every means of progressing by
themselves, and made them as different as possible from creatures which have
organs of motion. The assumption is therefore justified that both the heaven as
a whole and the separate stars are spherical, for the sphere is at once the most
useful shape for motion in the same place—since what is spherical can move
most swiftly and can most easily maintain its position unchanged—and the least
suited to progression.104

Aristotle argues here that if nature had ordered stars to
progressive motion, then it would have given them the organs or
endowments necessary to realize such motion. It has clearly not
given stars the ability to move progressively; therefore, we can
conclude that it did not intend for them to do so, which is to say,
that they do not have a natural inclination for such motion (and
hence we can also conclude that they are spherical in shape).
Now, Cajetan is not mistaken to think that a certain view of
nature is implied here. As the text suggests, if nature inclines a
being to the end of progressive motion, then it gives that being
what is necessary to realize such motion. But what kind of an end
is progressive motion? As all parties to the debate would concede,
it is a naturally attainable end, requiring no supernatural
assistance for its actualization. The only general conclusion about
nature that we can draw from the text, therefore, is that, for
Aristotle, if nature inclines a being to a naturally attainable end,
then it must give that being the necessary endowments to reach
its end.
Cajetan, however, goes well beyond this limit in his
interpretation of the passage. As we have observed, he interprets
the text as meaning that nature does not bestow an inclination to
something that the power of nature cannot attain.105 In other
104
Aristotle, De caelo 2.8.290a30-290b5 (On the Heavens, trans. W. K. C. Guthrie
[Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014], 189-91).
105
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 12, a. 1, IX (Leonine ed., 4:116). For the
quotation, see above, n. 18.

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STEVEN WALDORF

words, if nature inclines a being to an end (which is to say, to any
end), then it must give that being what is necessary to attain that
end. Aristotle, however, does not say that nature must give what
is necessary for any end to which it inclines but only for any
naturally attainable end to which it inclines. Now, if nature only
inclines to naturally attainable ends, then it is indeed true to say
that “any end” of natural inclination is a “naturally attainable”
end, and thus the text really would mean what Cajetan says it
means. On the contrary, however, if nature can in fact incline to
a supernatural end, it follows that “any end” of natural
inclination is not equivalent to “any naturally attainable end” of
natural inclination, and hence Cajetan’s view would contradict
Aristotle’s text.106
Whether Cajetan’s position is identical with that which Aristotle puts forward in De caelo is thus entirely determined by the
answer given to the question of whether nature can have an
inclination for a supernaturally attained end. Answered in the
negative, Aristotle’s claim that nature must give the means
necessary to attain a naturally attainable end to which it inclines
would indeed amount to Cajetan’s doctrine of pure nature in
which nature must give the means necessary to attain any end to
which it inclines. If, however, the question is answered in the
affirmative, Aristotle’s view would not equate to that of Cajetan.
The historical problem, however, is that either answer to the
question is an extratextual assumption that is not demonstrable
on the basis of the Stagirite’s writing. Aristotle is silent on the
question of whether nature can be inclined to an end that is above
its capacity to attain. All he says in De caelo is that nature must
give a being with a naturally attainable end the endowments
necessary to attain that end. Considered on its own terms, this
statement is entirely neutral with regard to the question of
106
Juxtaposing the two thinkers’ positions better illustrates their contrast. For Cajetan,
nature must give what is necessary for the attainment of any end to which it inclines. For
Aristotle, nature must give what is necessary for the attainment of any naturally attainable
end to which it inclines. If “any end” is equivalent to “any naturally attainable end,” the
two formulations are the same. However, this is only true if we assume that nature does
not incline to a supernatural end, for only on such an assumption is “any end” to which
nature inclines a naturally attainable end.

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47

whether nature can incline to a supernatural end, for one cannot
extrapolate an answer to this question from the statement
itself.107 On the contrary, the meaning of the statement is determined by the answer one gives to the question. If one assumes
that it is not possible for nature to incline to a supernatural end,
then Aristotle’s claim that nature must give all that is necessary
for the attainment of a naturally attainable end to which it
inclines really does mean that nature must give all that is
necessary for the attainment of any end to which it inclines108
(since any end of a natural inclination would be a naturally
attainable end). Yet, if one assumes that nature can give an
inclination to a supernatural end, then in fact Aristotle’s
statement is not equivalent in meaning to the claim that nature
must give all that is necessary for the attainment of any end to
which it inclines; indeed, the former statement would tell us
nothing about how nature stands in relation to the supernatural.
Cajetan’s claim that Aristotle’s text asserts that nature must
give the means to attain any end to which it inclines thus
necessarily presupposes a negative answer to the question of the
possibility of a natural inclination to a supernatural end, an
107

Some of Cajetan’s near contemporaries, such as the Spanish Dominican Domingo
de Soto (1494-1560), also maintained that the text from De caelo is neutral with regard
to the question of whether there can be a natural inclination to a supernatural end.
Commenting on the passage, Soto explains that, because Aristotle knew nothing of the
supernatural, he was not in a position to state that a thing can have an inclination to an
end without having the power necessary to attain that end. By implication, however, nor
was he in a position to state that a thing is not able to have an inclination to an end above
the power of nature to attain. Philosophizing in ignorance of the category of the
supernatural, the Stagirite’s claim that stars, which have a naturally attainable end, must
naturally possess the ability to attain their end cannot be taken as a pronouncement either
way on the question of whether a being such as man can have a natural inclination for an
end that cannot be attained by unaided nature. In other words, for Soto we cannot
extrapolate from Aristotle’s claim that nature must give a being with a naturally attainable
end the power to reach that end the claim that nature must give a being the endowments
necessary to attain any end to which it inclines. See Domingo de Soto, Commentarii in
quartum Sententiarum, d. 49, q. 2, a. 1 (2 vols. [Venice, 1584], 2:656b).
108
Or, equivalently, that nature does not bestow an inclination to an end that is above
the power of nature to attain.

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STEVEN WALDORF

answer that renders any end of natural inclination by definition
a naturally attainable end. The Dominican cardinal’s interpretation is therefore not an act of exegesis but rather of eisegesis—
in this case, the interpolation of the assumption that there can be
no such thing as a natural inclination to a supernatural end.
Rather than opening De caelo and appropriating the Philosopher’s understanding of nature, Cajetan opens the text and
discovers there his own preconceived idea of natura, and it is for
this reason that Cajetan’s Aristotelianism is ultimately insufficient
to account for the genesis of his doctrine of pure nature.109

109
Cajetan further claims that Aristotle’s argument for the existence of the agent
intellect in De anima 3.5 also represents an articulation of the pure-nature thesis. In De
anima 430a10-25, Aristotle argues that because “in every class of objects, just as in the
whole of nature, there is something which is their matter, i.e., which is potentially all the
individuals, and something else which is their cause or agent in that it makes them all,”
there must be an agent intellect which makes forms that are potentially understood to be
actually understood. Cajetan sees in this argument an admission that natural potencies
must always be capable of fulfillment by strictly natural agency, which would rule out the
possibility of a natural potency or desire for a supernatural end. However, as we have
observed, Aristotle lacked access to the category of the supernatural, and it is thus
implausible to attribute to him a conception of natural potency that, as in Cajetan’s case,
is defined in terms of its opposition to supernatural, obediential potency (indeed,
Cajetan’s term “natural potency” does not appear in the De anima text, precisely because
a “natural” potency is defined in reference to its being capable of actualization without
supernatural agency). Moreover, even if such an attribution could be made, it would still
be necessary to show that, for Aristotle, natural potency is equivalent to natural desire.
While Cajetan takes this identification for granted, not all Scholastics do. For instance,
the anonymous author of a treatise on beatitude housed in the Biblioteca de Santa Cruz
in Valladolid, whom scholars identify as a disciple of Suárez, maintains that man has a
natural desire or inclination for the vision of God as his highest good but not a natural
potency for it, since potency refers to a subject’s capacity to attain an object while desire
or inclination only refers to the object as good for or perfective of the subject. To prove
that Aristotle’s De anima text contains a theory of pure nature, one would thus have to
show that he equates natural desire with natural potency in the same way as does Cajetan.
For the Aristotelian text and Cajetan’s treatment of it, see Aristotle, On the Soul, 3.5.
430a10-25 (trans. W.S. Hett [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957], 171);
and Cajetan, De potentia neutra, q. 2 (Lyon ed., 207b, 32-42). For the manuscript, see
De beatitudine [Valladolid, Biblioteca de Santa Cruz, Ms. 404], 86v, in Jose Martin Palma,
“El manuscrito 404 del Colegio de Santa Cruz de Valladolid,” Archivo teológico
granadino 35 (1972): 126-29. The attribution of the manuscript to a disciple of Suárez
has been made by Elorduy. See Eleuterio Elorduy, “Cartas y manuscritos de Francisco

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49

The other explanation of the Dominican commentator’s
conception of nature sometimes advanced by historians such as
de Lubac—namely that it arose as part of a hostile reaction to
Scotism at Padua—is similarly inadequate. In the first place,
Cajetan does not always equate Scotus with his Scotist
interlocutors at Padua. It is certainly true that he criticized some
of Trombetta’s ideas,110 but in texts that are key for understanding Cajetan’s conception of nature, such as his criticism
of Scotus’s argument for a natural potency to the vision of God
in De potentia neutra,111 Trombetta’s name never appears. Indeed, the evidence does not support the claim that Cajetan’s
knowledge of Scotus’s thought was primarily mediated through
a contemporary Paduan Scotist, rather than coming from direct
engagement with the Subtle Doctor’s work.
Similarly, the claim that Cajetan’s view of nature developed as
part of a hostile reaction to Scotism understates the substantive
nature of the Dominican cardinal’s engagement with Scotus.
Rather than approaching Scotus’s text from a posture of
instinctive partisanship, Cajetan shows a meaningful engagement
with Scotus’s thought. Though he often disagrees with his
Franciscan predecessor, he is quite willing to cite him as an
authority in support of his own views. For example, in Cajetan’s
commentary on the first article of the Summa, he states his view
that sacred doctrine is necessary for man to attain his ultimate
end. He claims that he is in full agreement with Scotus on this
point, and his words are in fact quite sympathetic: “Concerning
this part, it should be noted that Scotus . . . is discordant neither
Suárez,” Miscelánea Comillas: Revista de ciencias humanas y sociales 20, no. 38 (1962):
272.
110
For example, he explicitly criticizes Trombetta’s understanding of what
individuates members of a species, a topic of great significance for medieval metaphysics.
Tommaso de Vio Cajetan, Super librum “De ente et essentia” sanctae Thomae Aquinatis,
in septem capita divisus, q. 5, quoad 2 (Opuscula omnia Thomae de Vio Caietani
Cardinalis tituli Sancti Sixti [Lyon, 1587; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1995],
233b6-15).
111
Cajetan, De potentia neutra, q. 2, passim (Lyon ed., 207a30-207b71).

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STEVEN WALDORF

with the conclusion nor with reason.”112 In other words, Cajetan
does not refrain from commending Scotus’s work when he
believes it merits commendation. To attribute Cajetan’s conception of natura pura primarily to a partisan animus toward
Scotism does not do justice to the nature of his engagement with
Scotus’s ideas.
Explanations such as Aristotelianism or a reaction to Scotism,
though they may provide insight into the context surrounding the
development of Cajetan’s theory of pure nature, cannot in
themselves account for the phenomenon. As I have suggested,
what ultimately explains his view is a certain understanding of
the nature of theology and its relationship to philosophy. As we
have seen, his understanding of the formal object of theology
entails that the science consists strictly of truths that must be
revealed in order to be known. When theology is understood as
excluding all demonstrable truths from its proper purview, the
result is that it has an entirely different sphere of competence
from philosophy. Theology exclusively considers matters such as
the persons of the Trinity and the redemptive work of Christ,
while philosophy considers matters such as the demonstration of
an uncaused cause; the nature of being, act, potency, and
movement; and the natural moral life of man. Insofar as a thinker
considers issues of the latter sort, he has properly speaking left
theology.113 With no overlap between the content formally
belonging to each science, neither has a role in shaping the
trajectory or conclusions reached by the other.114
112
Cajetan, commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 1, VII (Leonine ed., 4:7): “Circa hanc
partem, est advertendum quod Scotus, in 1 qu. Prologi Primi Sententiarum, nec a
conclusione nec a ratione discordat.” Moreover, the fact that he explicitly cites the precise
text in which Scotus outlines his views is further confirmation that he engaged directly
with Scotus himself rather than with Scotus as interpreted by Paduan Scotists such as
Trombetta.
113
Though, as we have observed, the theologian can, in a purely “ministerial” and
extrinsic capacity, make philosophical arguments concerning such issues in order to
strengthen the confidence of the intellect in the truths of faith.
114
Such an understanding of the effective independence of philosophy from theology
found expression in other aspects of Cajetan’s life and work, including his ecclesiastical
work. For example, he was one of only two delegates to the Fifth Lateran Council
(1512-17) to vote against the decree Apostolici regiminis (1513), which mandated that all

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51

The result of this state of affairs, in which theology exerts no
influence on the development of philosophical conclusions, is
that philosophical reason is left to construct an account of nature
strictly according to its own exigencies,115 with the inevitable
university professors “explain the principles of Christian doctrine and make [that
doctrine] clear, supporting it with persuasive arguments and refuting arguments to the
contrary,” notably with regard to the philosophical question of the immortality of the
soul. For Cajetan, such a mandate would have represented an encroachment of theology
on the proper prerogative of philosophy. See Leen Spruit, “The Pomponazzi Affair: The
Controversy over the Immortality of the Soul,” in The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth
Century Philosophy, ed. Henrik Lagerlund and Benjamin Hill (New York: Routledge,
2017), 230.
115
By contrast, when certain rationally intelligible truths about God belong by full
right to theology, this science can have a role in shaping the trajectory of philosophizing.
When theology properly contains rationally demonstrable truths about God and creation,
the believing philosopher who accepts the truth of Christian theology begins his
philosophical activity with these truths already in his possession, and he proceeds to
explicate them rationally and to unpack their implications. The result is a philosophy that,
although fully demonstrable by reason, is closely accommodated to—and, indeed, derives
its general orientation from—what revelation tells us about God and the world. It is, to
use Gilson’s terminology, “Christian philosophy,” that is, a philosophy in which
“supernatural [revelation] must descend as a constitutive element . . . into the work of its
construction” and which has the specific content that it has “only because a Christian
religion existed and because [philosophical reason was] ready to submit to its influence.”
This is what Gilson suggests occurred with Aquinas’s understanding of the identity of
God’s essence with his act of being. When God tells Moses in Exodus 3:14, “I Am Who
Am,” Aquinas believes that God is revealing the fact that what he is is his own act of being.
This is by full right a theological truth inasmuch as it is contained in revelation, but it is
also rationally intelligible. Possessing this truth in virtue of his theology (in advance, as it
were, of his philosophical activity), Aquinas can then explain it rationally (that is,
philosophically) and draw from it rationally demonstrable conclusions, such as the
createdness of the world. The result is a body of philosophical theses that, although
rationally demonstrable, closely conform to the message of Christian revelation.
However, if theology formally excluded rationally intelligible truths about God and the
world from its proper purview, a thinker would not be in possession of such truths in
virtue of his theology, and he would instead be left to build up an account of things strictly
according to the exigencies of philosophy, without taking into account the data of
revelation. For Gilson’s account of Christian philosophy, see Étienne Gilson, The Spirit
of Mediaeval Philosophy, trans. A. H. C. Downes (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame Press, 2009), 21-41. The quotation can be found on page 37. For Gilson’s
treatment of Aquinas’s understanding of God’s revelation of his essence as his act of being,

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outcome that nature must be perfected by natural powers. Such
a conclusion is precisely what philosophical reason operating
without recourse to revelation requires. If the end of man’s
natural inclination or desire is not in some way attainable, then it
does indeed follow that human nature is frustrated and absurd—
in Scholastic terminology, “in vain.” From the vantage point of a
philosophical reason that is building up an account of reality
without any knowledge of the data of revelation,116 this is
precisely what would appear to be the case with regard to an end
of human nature that can only be achieved by supernatural
agency, such as the vision of the divine essence. Unaided reason
can see no way to achieve such an end, since it knows nothing of
the possibility of supernatural elevation to this vision. Seeing no
way for a supernatural end to be attained, and seeing that nature
would thus be in vain if it were naturally inclined to such an end,
unaided reason has little choice but to conclude that it is
impossible for nature to have as its end something that cannot be
attained by natural powers. Were it otherwise, the integrity of
nature and of philosophy itself would be compromised. By
leaving philosophy to construct a theory of nature without taking
into account the data of revelation, a view of theology such as
Cajetan’s thus leads to an understanding of nature as having to
be perfected strictly by natural agency.117

see Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. L. K. Shook,
C.S.B. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 93-95.
116
For instance, without the revealed datum that God has in fact bestowed the grace
that elevates man to a supernatural end.
117
I have suggested that a view of theology as excluding rationally demonstrable truths
leads to the conclusion that nature must be able to attain its end by its own endowments.
However, the converse is not necessarily the case. Including rationally intelligible truths
within the formal scope of theology allows the data of revelation to shape the trajectory
of one’s philosophizing (as Gilson argues; see above, n. 115). However, thinkers may
diverge in their assessment of the content of revelation. Some might regard pure nature
as most responsive to the exigencies of theology, while others might regard a view of
nature as being perfected by a supernatural end as the most responsive. Therefore, it
would not be surprising if thinkers who shared a view of theology as including
demonstrable truths within its scope and hence as shaping the orientation of philosophy
came to divergent conclusions as to nature’s relation to the supernatural.

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53

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS:
THE CENTRALITY OF PURE NATURE IN CAJETAN’S THOUGHT
The significance of Cajetan’s view of nature, and of the view
of theology that underlies it, can hardly be overstated, for it
decisively shapes many other important aspects of his thought.
This is especially the case with regard to his ethics. In order to
illustrate the far-reaching significance of his understanding of
theology and its attendant view of nature, I will conclude by
considering the implications of Cajetan’s position for a crucial
issue in medieval moral science, namely, the question of the
relationship between the acquired, natural virtues of Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics and the infused virtues of Christian revelation. The consequences of the doctrine of nature’s perfection by
strictly natural principles, and of the conception of theology as
excluding all demonstrable truths which underlies it, are
particularly visible in the context of this question.
The primary text in which we see Cajetan working out the
implications of his view of pure nature for the relationship
between acquired and infused virtue is found in the Summa
commentary. Commenting on question 23, article 7 of the
Secunda secundae, in which Aquinas argues that, simply speaking,
there is no true virtue without charity inasmuch as only charity
orders man to the end that is ultimate simpliciter (that is, the
vision of God), Cajetan inserts the concept of a naturally
attainable end that is fully complete and perfect (the implication
of his doctrine of pure nature) to claim that acquired virtue itself
is perfect simpliciter:
Note here in the seventh article the distinction between what we are to think
about the matter in reality [in re], and what to think about the matter according
to a particular mode of speaking [sermonis ratione], so that you do not excite
laughter among philosophers and the wise of this world. In reality [secundum
rem], there can be, without charity, true virtues in man absolutely considered
[absolute], and [virtues] perfect with the perfection required for human virtue.
But because any artisan ought to judge according to the proper causes of the art
that pertains to him . . . [we must note that] there is a different way of speaking

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[ratio sermonis] characteristic of theologians as opposed to others. The
theologian, whose object is God, only locates man’s good in an ordering to what
is simply speaking [simpliciter] the ultimate end, which end is the object of
charity. By way of distinction he says that the perfection of virtue is twofold,
generic and simple, and that without charity and faith there are virtues perfect
according to genus but not simply. The philosopher, however, who locates the
good [of] man in an ordering to an ultimate natural end, does not know the
higher end and calls human virtues without faith and charity virtues simply
speaking. Nor therefore do the theologians and philosophers contradict each
other, but the imperfect knowledge of philosophy concerning the good of man
is the issue. For that which the philosopher calls perfect simply, because it is not
his [prerogative] to consider the higher end, the theologian calls perfect in a
genus and imperfect simply, because it is his [prerogative] to consider the higher
end. (Emphasis added)118

As we see in the text, Cajetan begins his analysis of the relationship of the acquired to the infused virtues by introducing a
distinction as to how we can consider them. We can, he says,
consider the acquired virtues as they are in reality—that is, in re
or secundum rem—or we can consider them from a particular
disciplinary vantage point, that is, secundum modum sermonis.
To speak about them in re is to speak about them in a neutral
fashion, to speak about them as they really are and as considered
absolutely (absolute). To speak about them secundum modum
sermonis is to speak about them from a particular perspective—
that is, to speak about them not as they really are in themselves,
118
Cajetan, commentary on STh II-II, q. 23, a. 7, I (Leonine ed., 8:172): “In articulo
septimo adverte hic discrete quid in re, et quid in sermonis ratione sentiendum sit, ne
apud philosophos et mundi huius sapientes risum excites. Secundum rem quidem absque
caritate esse possunt in homine absolute considerato verae virtutes, et perfectae
perfectione requisita ad virtutem humanam. Sed quoniam quilibet artifex iudicare debet
secundum proprias sui generis causas . . . inde diversa est ratio sermonis apud theologos
et alios. Theologus siquidem, cuius obiectum est Deus, et hominem bonum constituit
solum in ordine ad finem ultimum simpliciter, qui est obiectum caritatis, distinguendo
dicit quod perfectio virtutis est duplex, in genere et simpliciter; et quod sine caritate et
fide etiam sunt virtutes perfectae in genere, sed non simpliciter. Philosophus autem, qui
hominem bonum constituit in ordine ad ultimum finem naturalem, nec superiorem novit
finem, virtutes humanas sine fide et caritate veras et perfectas virtutes simpliciter dicit.
Nec propterea contradicunt: sed imperfecta notitia philosophiae de hominis bonitate in
causa est. Quod enim philosophus vocat perfectum simpliciter, quia non est eius altiorem
finem considerare, theologus vocat perfectum in genere et imperfectum simpliciter, quia
eius est altiorem finem considerare.”

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55

but rather in relation to the aims and methods of a particular
discipline. As he says, in re and absolute, the acquired virtues are
both true and perfect. This is tantamount to saying that,
considered objectively and in abstraction from any particular
disciplinary perspective, the acquired virtues are true and perfect
virtues, simply speaking. Only when we consider them from a
particular vantage point, that is, the vantage point of the
theologian who analyzes how these virtues stand in relation to
the beatific vision, can we conclude that they are somehow
imperfect, since they do not order us toward this end. The
acquired virtues are thus imperfect only in a relative sense, that
is, by comparison to another end. Absolutely speaking, they do
not lack anything, and in reality they are true and perfect virtues.
What ultimately grounds the claim that secundum rem the
acquired virtues are complete virtues simpliciter is that they direct
man to an “ultimate natural end.” The fact that an end in the
natural order is intrinsically complete and perfect, which is the
implication of the claim that nature must be able to reach its
complete, perfect end by natural agency, allows the virtues that
direct us to that end to be likewise intrinsically complete and
perfect virtues simpliciter. Of course, if we consider them in
relation to a higher, supernatural end, then they are relatively
incomplete in comparison with the preeminent goodness of that
end, but because the finis that human nature as nature achieves
naturally is complete and perfect (for a supernaturally attained
end could never, as we have seen, constitute for Cajetan the
complete end of nature qua nature), so are the virtues that direct
us to it.
As this example shows, the view of theology Cajetan
developed at Padua explains much more than his understanding
of human nature. Indeed, through that understanding of natura
pura, it reverberates across his ethics, establishing a conception
of the moral life as self-sufficient in the natural order, without
reference to the light that revelation shines on the nature and
destiny of the human person.

The Thomist 85 (2021): 57-85

DIVINE INNASCIBILITY IN THE THEOLOGY OF
SS. GREGORY NAZIANZEN AND THOMAS AQUINAS
JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, D.C.

G

OD THE FATHER can be known distinctly in three
ways: (1) insofar as he is unoriginate, or proceeds from
no one and has no principle—on account of which he is
said to have innascibility; (2) insofar as he is the principle of the
Son—on account of which he has paternity; and (3) insofar as he
is the principle of the Holy Spirit—on account of which he has
spiration. There is no way to tell the Father apart from the other
divine persons besides these three notions.1 This article will
consider the first of these three notions—the Father’s innascibility, or unbegottenness—in the thought of St. Gregory of
Nazianzus and St. Thomas Aquinas.2
It should come as no surprise that these two doctors agree on
key doctrinal points. Yet because they come from different times
and places, living in different cultures and writing in different
languages, it should similarly come as no surprise that they
articulate their doctrines in different ways. Even so, given the
1
One cannot distinguish the persons by any pure perfections in God, because the three
persons possess all pure perfections equally.
2
For more on the Father in the theology of Aquinas, see John Baptist Ku, God the
Father in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Peter Lang, 2013); and
Emmanuel Durand, Le Père, Alpha et Oméga de la vie trinitaire (Paris: Cerf, 2008). For
more on the Father in the theology of Nazianzen, see Domingo García Guillén, Padre es
nombre de relación: Dios Padre en la teología de Gregorio Nacianceno (Rome: Gregorian
and Biblical Press, 2010). For a comparison of Nazianzen and Aquinas, see John Baptist
Ku, “Divine Paternity in the Theology of Ss. Gregory Nazianzen and Thomas Aquinas,”
in Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers, ed. Michael Dauphinais, Roger Nutt, and
Andrew Hofer (Ave Maria, Fla.: Sapientia Press, 2019).

57

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

common doctrinal ethos in the Church, such as we find preserved
in creeds, and the fact that Aquinas was an inheritor of some of
Nazianzen’s work, many of the expressions they use are the
same.3
Recent scholarship has sought to manifest the harmony
between ancient Eastern theologians and Augustine and Aquinas,
while taking note of their differences.4 This article intends to
advance that fruitful line of inquiry. Although it is unremarkable
that Nazianzen and Aquinas would agree in their articulation of
Trinitarian theology, it is important to prove that we are not
harmonizing the two authors by force. For those who would
expect agreement, this article intends to provide clarifying
documentation; for those who would be suspicious of such
3
By 400, Rufinus had translated nine of Nazianzen’s orations (2, 6, 16, 17, 26, 27,
38, 39, and 41) into Latin; these could have been available to Aquinas in whole or part.
He mentions Nazianzen by name fifty-one times in his whole corpus—although twentyfive of these appear in the Catena aurea. Thus in the context of his own theological
argument, Aquinas refers to Nazianzen on twenty-six occasions. Three of these cases refer
to Nazianzen’s personal life (De sub. separ., c. 18; Contra impugn. II, c. 1; and Contra
impugn. IV, c. 2), leaving twenty-three occurrences where Aquinas invokes Nazianzen’s
theological opinion (on angels [I Sent., d. 37, q. 3, a. 1; II Sent., d. 2, q. 1, a. 3, corp. and
obj. 1; STh I, q. 61, a. 3; De Pot., q. 3, a. 18, obj. 1]; on Christ’s human nature [STh III,
q. 2, a. 1, obj. 3; q. 2, a. 3, ad 1; q. 16, a. 7, obj. 3; q. 17, a. 1, ad 2; q. 31, a. 2, ad 2]; on
genealogy in Scripture [STh III, q. 31, a. 3, ad 2]; on Christ’s baptism [STh III, q. 39, a. 1;
q. 39, a. 2; q. 39, a. 3, ad 1]; on Church law [STh III, q. 39, a. 3, ad 3]; on the six days
of creation [De sub. separ., c. 18]; on the Holy Spirit [Contra error. Graec. I, c. 8; I, c. 9;
II, c. 24; II, c. 27]; and on unleavened bread [Contra error. Graec. II, c. 39]). In eleven of
these cases, Aquinas quotes text verbatim and with reasonable accuracy. Three of these
eleven cases, all from the Contra errores Graecorum, concern the Trinity. Aquinas’s profound respect for Nazianzen is expressed in STh I, q. 61, a. 3, where, when he rules out
an opinion that Nazianzen held, he concludes that the rejected opinion “is not to be
judged erroneous, especially on account of the opinion of Gregory Nazianzen, whose
authority on Christian teaching is so great that no one has ever dared to raise an objection
to his words, as neither to the instruction of Athanasius, as Jerome says.”
4
See, for instance, Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2004); Dauphinais, Nutt, and Hofer, eds., Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers;
Orthodox Readings of Augustine, ed. George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou
(Yonkers, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008); Leo Elders, Thomas Aquinas and
His Predecessors: The Philosophers and the Church Fathers in His Works (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018); Ian Jones, “The Procession of the
Holy Spirit: Exploring Points of Contact and Divergence between Augustine and Eastern
Trinitarian Theologies,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 61 (2017): 273-300.

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59

agreement, this article hopes to offer some interesting
discoveries.
This article will examine three topics: (1) the identity and
distinction of the divine persons in terms of relations and
properties (the result of which will give us confidence that
Nazianzen and Aquinas are truly speaking the same language), (2)
the Father being unoriginate (our principal interest), and (3) the
Father’s action through the Son and the Holy Spirit in the created
order (a consequence of the Father not being from another).
We will verify a deep resonance between these two saints. We
will see that they are in agreement on the following formulations
of doctrine. Each divine person is the one identical divine
essence, and yet each is distinct from the others in the real order
by their properties, which are distinct on account of the relations
that each person has the others. The unoriginate Father is the
source of unity in the Trinity; and “unbegotten” properly applies
to the Father, not the divine essence—although “unbegotten” can
be taken in a more general sense to mean “uncreated.” The Son
and the Holy Spirit may be said in some sense to be led back to
the Father. The Father acts through the Word and the Spirit in
the created order; and thus, in grace, we are drawn by the Holy
Spirit to the Son and by the Son back to the Father, our ultimate
end.
There are differences. Whereas Aquinas places a strong emphasis on the Father’s identity as being rooted in his paternity,
Nazianzen manifests an inclination to think of the Father as the
Unoriginate One. We find in Aquinas a greater coherence and
consistency in articulation as well as some conceptual advances.
Yet the precision and clarity of Nazianzen’s assertions about the
persons being distinct by property on account of their mutual
relations could surprise disciples of Aquinas who might have
expected this understanding to be in its embryonic stage in this
period when, for instance, the definitive affirmation of the Holy
Spirit’s divinity was still being worked out.

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

I. THE EQUALITY AND DISTINCTION OF THE DIVINE PERSONS IN
TERMS OF RELATIONS AND PROPERTIES
In Oration 20, Nazianzen supplies us with a succinct
expression that identifies how the Father can be known
distinctly: “the individual properties will be maintained if, in the
case of the Father, we think and speak of him as being both source
and without source.”5 Aquinas adopts the expression “principle
not from a principle,” which appears in Augustine, and gives it
pride of place in his own theology regarding the Father’s
identity.6
In dealing with the Eunomian problem, Nazianzen sought a
way to understand how “Father” is neither simply the activity of
the Unbegotten nor simply the divine essence in a way that would
deny that the Son is also the divine essence.7 That is, if the essence
5

Oration 20.7 (PG 35:1073, ll. 11-14): “Αἱ δὲ ἰδιότητες, Πατρὸς μὲν, καὶ ἀνάρχου,
καὶ ἀρχῆς ἐπινοουμένου καὶ λεγομένου” (emphasis added). Translation in St. Gregory of
Nazianzus: Select Orations, trans. Martha Vinson, Fathers of the Church 107
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 111.
6
STh I, q. 33, a. 4 (Leonine ed., 4:362): “principium non de principio.” Augustine of
Hippo, Contra Maximinum 2.17.14. This idea predates Nazianzen in the Latin tradition,
for instance, in Marius Victorinus (d. ca. 364), who speaks of a “sine principio . . .
principium” in his Letter to Candidus (Liber de generatione divini Verbi), no. 16. See
Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, Fathers of the Church 69
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1981), 72.
All citations from the Summa theologiae and the Summa contra Gentiles are taken
from the Leonine edition. All citations from the disputed questions De potentia and De
veritate, as well as the commentaries on Matthew, John, and Dionysius’s De divinibus
nominibus, are taken from the Marietti edition.
7
Eunomius, a second-generation Arian, asserted that the Son is “not without an act of
begetting prior to his existence . . . [and] so not without beginning” in his Confession of
Faith (Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, vol. 1, ed. Jaroslav
Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003], 106). Eunomius
argued that since the divine essence is unoriginate, it cannot be communicated: “Being
unbegotten . . . God would never accept a begetting whereby he would share his proper
nature with the begotten, but rather he escapes all comparison and communion with the
begotten. For if one wanted to communicate this essence to something else or share it
with something else, one would do so either by separation and division or by comparison”
(Eunomius, Apology 9 [PG 30:844B, ll. 1-8; SC 305:250]). For Eunomius, even the name
“Father” does not signify the divine essence but rather an action of God, an energy
(energeia) that is distinct in the real order from God’s essence: “The name ‘Son’ shows his

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61

is not simply the Father, then how is the Father more than the
activity of the One who is the essence? Nazianzen succeeded in
articulating a solution through the concept of relation (σχέσις),8
making the Son simultaneous to the Father, who is the divine
essence. For Nazianzen, each divine person, who is indeed the
divine essence, is distinct by personal property (ἰδιότης), which
may also be described as what is around (περί) the essence.
Aquinas, for his part, makes relation the linchpin of his Trinitarian theology, understanding the divine person to be a subsisting relation. And properties are simply relations, or the denial
of a relation, by which the persons are distinguished from each
other.
In this section, we will briefly examine the basic Trinitarian
principles espoused by these two doctors with respect to equality
and distinction, mutual relative opposition, and properties of the
persons. As we will see, they make the same distinctions—albeit
in two different languages and notably different styles of prose—
in order to articulate as far as possible the mystery of three divine
persons distinct in the real order who are each one numerically
same divine essence and God. Aquinas is unmistakably more
precise than Nazianzen, but the important concepts are already
outlined by the latter.

essence, and that of ‘Father’ shows the activity (energeia) of him who begot him”
(Eunomius, Apology 24 [PG 30:860D-861A, ll. 29-31; SC 305:282]). If one were to insist
that “Father” signifies the essence, argues Eunomius, one may as well say the same for the
Son, and just say that the Father is the Son and the Son the Father (ibid. [PG 30:861A,
ll. 31-37; SC 305:282-84]). Translations of Eunomius are my own.
8
Guillén, Padre es nombre de relación, 344. Given Aquinas’s success with the concept
of relation, it can be tempting to overemphasize it in Nazianzen, especially if one reads
only the Theological Orations. This would be a distortion; for Nazianzen, relation is one
way among others to distinguish the persons. In his The Trinitarian Theology of
St. Thomas Aquinas ([New York: Oxford University Press, 2007], 80), Gilles Emery
maintains that Basil of Caesarea was the first to introduce the idea of the divine person as
a relation. Emery holds that the doctrine of subsistent relations is original to Aquinas
(ibid., 84). Others, like J. N. D. Kelly, believe that it is already in Augustine (J. N. D.
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 5th ed. [New York: Continuum, 1977], 274).

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

A) Equality and Distinction
Oration 6 makes clear that Nazianzen wishes to defend the
perfect identity of being as well as the real distinction of the
divine persons. He uses ἕν in the neuter (“one [thing]”) to refer
to the identity of being in the divine nature; and to designate
distinction in the real order he uses εἷς in the masculine gender
(“one [who]”) and ὑπόστατος (“with individual reality,” literally
“hypostasistic”). But he deploys the latter with a double
negative—the persons are not ἀν-υπόστατος. This, he teaches, is
not just a matter of our knowing and naming: it is a matter of
πρᾶγμα (“actual fact,” or “reality”):
Knowing the Father in the Son, the Son in the Holy Spirit . . . dividing them
before combining them and combining them before dividing them, and not
regarding the three as one ‘who’ [ἕνα] (for they are not without individual
reality [ἀνυπόστατα] nor do they comprise a single hypostasis [μιᾶς
ὑποστάσεως], as though our treasure lay in names and not in actual facts
[πράγμασι]), but rather believing the three to be one thing [ἕν]. For they are
one thing [ἕν] not in individual hypostasis [ὑποστάσει] but in divinity, a unity
worshipped in Trinity and a Trinity summed up into unity, venerable as one
whole, as one royal, sharing the same throne, sharing the same glory, above
space, above time, uncreated, invisible, impalpable, uncircumscribed.9

The more paradoxical language of Nazianzen—“dividing them
before combining them and combining them before dividing
them”—does not come across in Aquinas. In its place, Aquinas
establishes that immanent procession is the key to articulating the
both-and of perfect equality and real distinction: immanence
secures perfect identity of the divine essence since anything in
God is God, and procession secures real distinction since nothing
9
Oration 6.22 (PG 35:749, ll. 30-32, 33-42): “ἐν Υἱῷ τὸν Πατέρα, ἐν Πνεύματι τὸν
Υἱὸν γινώσκοντες, εἰς ἃ βεβαπτίσμεθα . . . πρὶν συνάψαι διαιροῦντες, καὶ πρὶν διαιρεῖν
συνάπτοντες, οὔτε τὰ τρία ὡς ἕνα (οὐ γὰρ ἀνυπόστατα, ἢ κατὰ μιᾶς ὑποστάσεως, ὡς
εἶναι τὸν πλοῦτον ἡμῖν ἐν ὀνόμασιν, ἀλλ’ οὐ πράγμασι), καὶ τὰ τρία ἕν. Ἓν γὰρ οὐχ
ὑποστάσει, ἀλλὰ θεότητι· μονὰς ἐν Τριάδι προσκυνουμένη, καὶ Τριὰς εἰς μονάδα
ἀνακεφαλαιουμένη, πᾶσα προσκυνητὴ, βασιλικὴ πᾶσα, ὁμόθρονος, ὁμόδοξος,
ὑπερκόσμιος, ὑπέρχρονος, ἄκτιστος, ἀόρατος, ἀναφὴς, ἀπερίληπτος” (Vinson, trans.,
20, slightly modified; emphasis added). Clear language about equality and distinction can
be found in other letters, such as Oration 20.6-10 (PG 35:1072ff.) and Oration 29.13.

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63

proceeds from itself.10 Aquinas structures his exposition in a more
logical way than Nazianzen does, as exemplified in the Prima pars
of his Summa theologiae. There he unfolds questions on
processions (q. 27), relations (q. 28), and persons (q. 29),
followed by considerations of person in general, each person
individually, and person in comparison to the essence, relations,
properties, and notions. This dominant synthesizing vision is
typical of Aquinas’s thought.
Despite this difference, there is perfect agreement between the
two doctors on the theological point and even in the formulation
that appeals to the neuter rather than the masculine. In his Letter
101 to Cledonius, Nazianzen observes that Christ, one person
with two natures, and the Trinity, three persons with one nature,
present opposite cases with respect to person and nature:
The Savior is one thing [ἄλλο] and another [ἄλλο] . . . yet he is not one “who”
[ἄλλος] and another [ἄλλος]. . . . It is the opposite of what is the case in the
Trinity. For there we acknowledge one “who” [ἄλλος] and another [ἄλλος] so
as not to confuse the persons, but not one thing [ἄλλο] and another [ἄλλο], for
the three are one and the same in Godhead.11

When discussing the Trinity in the Summa theologiae, Aquinas
adopts this very language of “one” and “another” in the
masculine and in the neuter:
And therefore, because in God distinction is according to persons and not
essence, we say that the Father is another [alius] than the Son but not other
[aliud], and conversely, we say that they are one thing [unum], not one “who”
[unus].12

10

STh I, q. 27, a. 1.
Letter 101 To Cledonius (P. Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze: Lettres théologiques,
SC 208 [Paris: Cerf, 1974], sect. 20, ll. 1-2, 3-4; sect. 21, ll. 3-6): “ἄλλο μὲν καὶ ἄλλο τὰ
ἐξ ὧν ὁ Σωτὴρ . . . οὐκ ἄλλος δὲ καὶ ἄλλος· μὴ γένοιτο. . . . ἔμπαλιν ἢ ἐπὶ τῆς Τριάδος
ἔχει. Ἐκεῖ μὲν γὰρ ἄλλος καὶ ἄλλος, ἵνα μὴ τὰς ὑποστάσεις συγχέωμεν· οὐκ ἄλλο δὲ καὶ
ἄλλο, ἓν γὰρ τὰ τρία καὶ ταὐτὸν τῇ θεότητι.”
12
STh I, q. 31, a. 2, ad 4 (Leonine ed., 4:345): “Et ideo, quia in divinis distinctio est
secundum personas, non autem secundum essentiam, dicimus quod pater est alius a filio,
sed non aliud, et e converso dicimus quod sunt unum, sed non unus.” Similar language
appears in III Sent., d. 6, q. 2, a. 1, ad 3; and In Matt., prol.
11

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

Later in the Summa, in his treatment of Christ’s two natures,
Aquinas quotes this passage from Nazianzen’s letter to Cledonius
explicitly:
Whence Gregory Nazianzen says in the Letter to Cledonius, “The Savior is one
thing and another, yet he is not one ‘who’ and another. But I say that one thing
and another is the opposite of what is found in the Trinity. For there we say
one ‘who’ and another so that we do not confuse two subsistences, but not one
thing and another.”13

There is no doubt for Aquinas that “the persons are really
distinguished from each other.”14 On this major theological
point, we see that these two doctors concur not only on substance
but even to a significant degree on its formulation.
B) Mutual Relative Opposition
Again with respect to mutual relative opposition, we see
agreement. In Oration 31, Nazianzen understands the divine
persons to be distinct by mutual relative opposition:
It is their difference in, so to say, “manifestation” or mutual relationship, which
has caused the difference in names. The Son does not fall short in some
particular of being Father. Sonship is no defect, yet that does not mean he is
Father.15

As we saw above, he firmly asserts the perfect identity of the
divine essence and the real distinction of persons; as we see here,
13
STh III, q. 2, a. 3, ad 1 (Leonine ed., 11:30): “Unde Gregorius Nazianzenus dicit, in
epistola ad Chelidonium, aliud et aliud sunt ea ex quibus salvator est, non alius autem et
alius. Dico vero aliud et aliud e contrario quam in Trinitate habet. Ibi enim alius et alius
dicimus, ut non subsistentias confundamus, non aliud autem et aliud.”
14
De Verit., q. 1, a. 1, ad s.c. 5 (Marietti ed., 1:4): “personae realiter ad invicem
distinguantur.”
15
Oration 31 (J. Barbel, ed., Gregor von Nazianz: Die fünf theologischen Reden
[Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1963], sect. 9, ll. 3-6): “τὸ δὲ τῆς ἐκφάνσεως, ἵν’ οὕτως
εἴπω, ἢ τῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα σχέσεως διάφορον, διάφορον αὐτῶν καὶ τὴν κλῆσιν πεποίηκεν.
οὐδὲ γὰρ τῷ υἱῷ λείπει τι πρὸς τὸ εἶναι πατέρα, οὐδὲ γὰρ ἔλλειψις ἡ υἱότης, ἀλλ’ οὐ παρὰ
τοῦτο πατήρ.” Translation in Frederick W. Norris, ed., Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning:
The Five Theological Orations of Gregory Nazianzen, trans. Lionel Wickham and
Frederick Williams (New York: E. J. Brill, 1991), 283.

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65

he understands mutual relations as the reason for personal
distinction.
Aquinas concurs completely:
Since in God there is relation in the real order, as was said [in article 1], it is
necessary that there be opposition in the real order here. But relative opposition
includes distinction in its meaning. Hence it is necessary that in God there be
real distinction, not according to what is absolute—which is the essence, in
which there is the highest unity and simplicity—but according to what is
relative.16

Nazianzen effectively equates manifestation and mutual relation;17 by Aquinas’s time a debate will have forced a distinction.
For Aquinas, relation not only manifests the distinction of a
person that is understood to be distinguished and constituted by
a person’s procession or even inchoately by innascibility; rather,
relation alone is sufficient to distinguish and constitute the
persons.18 Personal distinction on account of mutual relation
gains a conceptual centrality in the Trinitarian theology of
Aquinas. Aquinas’s treatment of relation is more extensive and
precise than Nazianzen’s, but these two doctors are in perfect
agreement concerning the heart of the issue.
In Oration 29, Nazianzen states clearly that “Father” is a
relation, not an essence or an action:
“‘Father’,” they say, “is the name either of the essence or the activity; is it not?”
They intend to impale us on a dilemma, for if we say that it names the essence
we shall then be agreeing that the Son is of a different essence, there being a
single essence of God and that one, according to them, preempted by the Father.
16
STh I, q. 28, a. 3 (Leonine ed., 4:324): “Cum igitur in Deo realiter sit relatio, ut
dictum est, oportet quod realiter sit ibi oppositio. Relativa autem oppositio in sui ratione
includit distinctionem. Unde oportet quod in Deo sit realis distinctio, non quidem
secundum rem absolutam, quae est essentia, in qua est summa unitas et simplicitas; sed
secundum rem relativam.”
17
It would be difficult to establish that Nazianzen and Aquinas mean exactly the same
thing by “manifestation,” but they both consider the idea of distinction among the divine
persons by manifestation. Nazianzen’s use of ἐκφάνσις (manifestation) here is the sole
instance of the term in his Trinitarian theology. Neither Basil of Caesarea nor Gregory of
Nyssa uses the term in any context. Thus, ἐκφάνσις comes nowhere near the importance
of σχέσις (relation) in the Cappadocians’ Trinitarian theology.
18
STh I, q. 40, a. 4.

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

But if we say that the term designates the activity, we shall clearly be admitting
that the Son is a creation not an offspring. If there is an active producer, there
must be a production and they will declare themselves surprised at the idea of
an identity between creator and created. I should have felt some awe myself at
your dilemma, had it been necessary to accept one of the alternatives and
impossible to avoid them by stating a third, and truer possibility. O wisest ones,
it is this: “Father” is neither the name of an essence nor of an activity, but is of
a relation [σχέσις], and about how the Father is toward the Son or the Son
toward the Father. Just as with us these names indicate kindred and affinity, so
here too they designate the sameness of stock, of parent and offspring.19

This is in perfect accord with Aquinas’s insistence that the way to
understand the real distinction of persons in the perfect identity
of the divine essence is through the concept of mutual relative
opposition, such as “how the Father stands with respect to the
Son or the Son to the Father,” as Nazianzen says. However,
Aquinas feels less restricted by the formulation of this dilemma,
as we shall see.
Regarding the essence, Aquinas is not afraid to concede that
“Father” signifies the essence, but he insists that “Father” also
signifies relation. Although they are the same in the real order,
“essence” and “Father” signify in different ways. Unlike
“essence,” “Father” is a relative term. Although the terms are at
risk of being crushed under the weight of the mystery, in order
to elucidate the faith and rule out error, Aquinas explains that
“person” signifies what is relative by way of substance; for
instance, “Father” signifies paternity insofar as paternity subsists

19
Oration 29 (Barbel, ed., sect. 16, ll. 2-15): “Ὁ πατήρ, φησιν, οὐσίας, ἢ ἐνεργείας
ὄνομα; ὡς ἀμφοτέρωθεν ἡμᾶς δήσοντες,—εἰ μὲν οὐσίας φήσομεν, συνθησομένους
ἑτεροούσιον εἶναι τὸν υἱόν, ἐπειδὴ μία μὲν οὐσία θεοῦ, ταύτην δέ, ὡς οὗτοι,
προκατείληφεν ὁ πατήρ· εἰ δὲ ἐνεργείας, ποίημα σαφῶς ὁμολογήσοντας, ἀλλ’ οὐ
γέννημα. οὗ γὰρ ὁ ἐνεργῶν, ἐκεῖ πάντως καὶ τὸ ἐνεργούμενον. καὶ πῶς τῷ πεποιηκότι
ταὐτὸν τὸ πεποιημένον, θαυμάζειν φήσουσι. σφόδρα ἂν ᾐδέσθην ὑμῶν καὶ αὐτὸς τὴν
διαίρεσιν, εἰ τῶν δύο τὸ ἕτερον δέξασθαι ἦν ἀναγκαῖον, ἀλλὰ μὴ τὰ δύο διαφυγόντα
τρίτον εἰπεῖν ἀληθέστερον· ὅτι οὔτε οὐσίας ὄνομα ὁ πατήρ, ὦ σοφώτατοι, οὔτε
ἐνεργείας, σχέσεως δὲ καὶ τοῦ πῶς ἔχει πρὸς τὸν υἱὸν ὁ πατήρ, ἢ ὁ υἱὸς πρὸς τὸν πατέρα.
ὡς γὰρ παρ’ ἡμῖν αἱ κλήσεις αὗται τὸ γνήσιον καὶ οἰκεῖον γνωρίζουσιν, οὕτω κἀκεῖ τὴν
τοῦ γεγεννημένου πρὸς τὸ γεγεννηκὸς ὁμοφυίαν σημαίνουσιν” (Wickham and Williams,
trans., 254-55, slightly modified).

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67

as the divine essence, not insofar as it signifies being toward the
Son.20
Concerning activity, Aquinas is comfortable with the
understanding that the Father is his act of generation, which is
his paternity but according to a different mode of signification.21
And as we shall see below, he readily accepts that the Father is an
active producer of the Son, which Nazianzen rejects in the quotation above, concluding that if there is “an active producer,”
then there must be a “production” that is “created.” However,
Aquinas agrees that the Father must be thought of as a person
who is the principle of activity and not simply an activity:
Whence the name “Father” signifies not only a property but also the hypostasis,
whereas the name “Begetter” or “Begetting” signifies only a property, because
the name “Father” signifies a relation, which is distinctive and constitutive of a
hypostasis, but the name “Begetting” or “Begotten” signifies an origin, [or
notional action], which is not distinctive and constitutive of a hypostasis.22

One of Nazianzen’s concerns is that the Father’s being an activity
would necessitate the Son’s inferiority by making him an effect
proceeding from an action. In view of defending the Son’s full
divinity, Nazianzen allows that the Father is a cause (αἰτία) of the
Son but not an activity (ἐνέργεια).23 Associating causality with the
Father in no way implies that the Son is an effect. With the same
20
STh I, q. 29, a. 4 (Leonine ed., 4:333): “Therefore a divine person signifies a relation
as subsisting. And this is to signify relation by way of substance, which is a hypostasis
subsisting in the divine nature.”
21
STh I, q. 41, a. 1, ad 2: “notional actions differ from the relations of the persons
only according to mode of signification and are completely the same in the order of
reality” (“actus notionales secundum modum significandi tantum differunt a relationibus
personarum; sed re sunt omnino idem” [Leonine ed., 4:421]).
22
STh I, q. 40, a. 2 (Leonine ed., 4:413): “Unde hoc nomen ‘Pater’ non solum significat
proprietatem, sed etiam hypostasim: sed hoc nomen ‘Genitor,’ vel ‘Generans,’ significat
tantum proprietatem. Quia hoc nomen ‘Pater’ significat relationem, quae est distinctiva
et constitutiva hypostasis: hoc autem nomen ‘Generans,’ vel ‘Genitus,’ significat originem,
quae non est distinctiva et constitutiva hypostasis.” For more on this point, see Ku, God
the Father, 173.
23
Nazianzen clearly refers to the Father as the cause (αἰτία) of the Son at least a dozen
times in his writings: Oration 20.6 and 7; Oration 23.6 and 7; Oration 25.15;
Oration 29.3 and 15; Oration 34.8 and 10. For more on Nazianzen’s usage, see Ku,
“Divine Paternity,” 115-18.

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

concerns, Aquinas ends up with the opposite assessment of these
terms, accepting that the Father is his act of generation but
eschewing the term “cause.”24
Nazianzen goes on in this same passage to assert, in a lesstechnical way than Aquinas, that the relations of paternity and
filiation are simultaneous: “But to please you, let it be granted
that ‘Father’ names an essence. That idea will bring in the Son
along with it, not alienate him, if we follow common sense and
the meaning of the terms.”25 In Aquinas’s words, “if one thing
includes another in its meaning, and conversely, then [the
relations] are simultaneous by nature, as double and half, father
and son, and the like.”26
C) Properties of the Persons
Nazianzen outlines his understanding of the divine persons’
properties, which name personal distinctions, in Oration 29.
There he speaks of the Father and the Son necessarily being the
same in nature (φύσις) or essence (οὐσία), where distinction is
rather according to property, which can be compared to separate
qualities of the essence or, more literally, what is marked out
around (περί) one same essence (οὐσία):
But if you are talking about begetter and begotten, this [assertion that the Father
and the Son have different natures] is a false statement—these must be the same;
it is in the nature of an offspring to have a nature identical with its parent’s.
Here is another objection: what do you mean by “the unbegotten” and “the
begotten”? If you mean unbegottenness and begottenness—no, these are not the
same thing; but if you mean the things which have these properties in them,
24

Aquinas rules out calling the Father the cause of the Son in both his early and late
works: see I Sent., d. 12, q. 1, a. 2, ad 1; I Sent., d. 29, q. 1, a. 1; I Sent., d. 29, q. 1, a. 1,
ad 2; Contra error. Graec. I, c. 1; De Pot., q. 10, a. 1, ad 8; STh I, q. 33, a. 1, ad 1.
However, he allows that the Father produces the Son by way of efficient causality. See
Ku, “Divine Paternity,” 118-23.
25
Oration 29 (Barbel, ed., sect. 16, ll. 15-17): “ἔστω δέ, ὑμῶν χάριν, καὶ οὐσίας τις ὁ
πατήρ· συνεισάξει τὸν υἱόν, οὐκ ἀλλοτριώσει, κατὰ τὰς κοινὰς ἐννοίας καὶ τὴν τῶν
κλήσεων τούτων δύναμιν.”
26
STh I, q. 13, a. 7, ad 6 (Leonine ed., 4:154): “Si enim unum in sui intellectu claudat
aliud et e converso, tunc sunt simul natura, sicut duplum et dimidium, pater et filius, et
similia.”

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69

why should they not be the same? Lack of intelligence and intelligence are not
identical, but they can be predicated of the same thing, a man. The property
does not mark out separate essences, but marks out around the same essence.27

Therefore “unbegotten” will have to apply to a person and not
the essence. This is a correction of the error of Eunomius, who
maintained that the essence is unbegotten and thus cannot belong
to the Son, who is begotten.28
Nazianzen appeals to this idea of being “around the essence”
in three other places within his corpus—once more in Oration
29, and also in Orations 31 and 41. In Oration 41, he repeats the
assertion quoted just above from Oration 29, but with a different
verb that similarly denotes cutting, dividing, or marking out
separately. In Oration 29, we read that a property “does not mark
out [τέμνω] separate essences but marks out [τέμνω] around the
same essence,”29 and in Oration 41 that a property “does not
mark out [ἀφορίζω] separate essences . . . but marks out
[ἀφορίζω] around the essence.”30 His intention here is to avoid
compromising the perfect simplicity of the divine essence while
uniting real personal distinction with perfect equality of divine
being, as closely as human understanding and speech will allow.
In the other two cases, Nazianzen invokes the distinction
between the essence and what is around it in order to resolve
Eunomian misconceptions. In the second instance of περὶ οὐσίαν
in Oration 29, Nazianzen agrees with his opponents that if
“unbegotten” and “begotten” apply to the divine essence, then
the Son would be, impossibly, the begotten-unbegotten, and then
27
Oration 29 (Barbel, ed., sect. 10, ll. 9-17): “εἰ δὲ τὸ γεγεννηκὸς καὶ τὸ γεγεννημένον
οὐ ταυτὸν λέγεις, οὐκ ὀρθῶς λέγεται. ταὐτὸν γὰρ εἶναι πᾶσα ἀνάγκη. αὕτη γὰρ φύσις
γεννήματος, ταὐτὸν εἶναι τῷ γεγεννηκότι κατὰ τὴν φύσιν. ἢ οὕτω πάλιν· πῶς λέγεις τὸ
ἀγέννητον καὶ τὸ γεννητόν; εἰ μὲν γὰρ τὴν ἀγεννησίαν αὐτὴν καὶ τὴν γέννησιν, οὐ ταὐτόν·
εἰ δὲ οἷς ὑπάρχει ταῦτα, πῶς οὐ ταὐτόν; ἐπεὶ καὶ τὸ ἄσοφον καὶ τὸ σοφὸν ἀλλήλοις μὲν
οὐ ταὐτά, περὶ ταὐτὸν δέ, τὸν ἄνθρωπον· καὶ οὐκ οὐσίας τέμνει, περὶ δὲ τὴν αὐτὴν
οὐσίαν τέμνεται.”
28
Eunomius, Apologia 14 (SC 305:260, ll. 7-11).
29
Oration 29 (Barbel, ed., sect. 10, ll. 16-17): “καὶ οὐκ οὐσίας τέμνει, περὶ δὲ τὴν
αὐτὴν οὐσίαν τέμνεται.”
30
Oration 41 (PG 36:441, ll. 40-42): “Ταῦτα δὲ οὐκ οὐσίας ἀφορίζει . . . περὶ οὐσίαν
δὲ ἀφορίζεται.”

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asks: “but if the distinctions [of properties] are around the
essence, how can you be so certain in speaking of this?”31 In
Oration 31, Nazianzen refutes the notion that the Holy Spirit is
a mere activity (ἐνέργεια) of the Father, which would make him
a mere accident (συμβεβηκός). If Scripture shows to the contrary
that the Holy Spirit has the characteristics of a substance
(οὐσία)—making him a person—then Nazianzen’s opponents
will have to decide whether the Spirit is a divine person or a
created person: “but if he is a substance, not [merely] of those
things around the essence, he will be understood either as a
creature or as God.”32 The point in three of these cases is that the
distinct properties of the persons (around the essence) cause no
division in the divine essence; the point in Oration 31 is that the
divine person is the divine essence, not merely an activity (around
the essence).33
Having established this distinction in Oration 29, Nazianzen
then deploys the key term ἰδιότης, arguing that since a property
(ἰδιότης), such as “unbegotten,” names a person distinctly, it

31
Oration 29 (Barbel, ed., sect. 12, ll. 3-4): “εἰ δὲ περὶ οὐσίαν ἡ διαφορά, τί τοῦτο ὡς
ἰσχυρὸν λέγεις.”
32
Oration 31 (Barbel, ed., sect. 6, l. 12): “εἰ δὲ οὐσία τις, οὐ τῶν περὶ τὴν οὐσίαν,
ἤτοι κτίσμα ὑποληφθήσεται, ἢ θεός.”
33
One can see how this case could be extended by Gregory Palamas, who held that
the energies (which we can know to some degree) are uncreated and eternal yet distinct
in the real order from the (unknowable) divine essence. However, as Alexis Torrance
notes, “Gregory of Nazianzus is rarely drawn upon in the discussion of Palamite
precedents” (Alexis Torrance, “Precedents for Palamas’ Essence-Energies Theology in the
Cappadocian Fathers,” Vigiliae Christianae 63 [2009]: 47-70, at 58). For a sympathetic
examination of Palamas, see Marcus Plested, “St. Gregory Palamas on the Divine
Simplicity,” Modern Theology 35 (2019): 508-21.
Yves Congar observes that, grammatically speaking, peri with the accusative means
“around” in a more ontological sense, and not simply “about” in the sense of our knowing
and predication. That is, grammatically, it seems that “peri ousian” makes a claim about
properties and the divine essence in themselves, and is not simply asserting that the
properties are “about the essence” in our understanding or that they lead our minds to
the essence. However, Congar cannot decide whether this grammatical usage should be
taken to reflect the Cappadocians’ theological intention. See Yves Congar, I Believe in the
Holy Spirit, vol. 3, The River of the Water of Life (Rev 22:1) Flows in the East and in the
West, trans. David Smith (New York: The Seabury Press, 1983), 64, 70.

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71

cannot apply to the “divine essence” or to “God,” which apply in
common to all three persons:
Surely it is clear that when we are looking, if look we can, for what God’s
essence consists in, personal property [ἰδιότης] must be left out of account. This
is the way to find out that “God” and “unbegottenness” are not identical. If they
were identical, the Unbegotten would have to be someone’s Unbegotten, since
God is someone’s God, seeing that logical equivalents can be used
interchangeably. But what is it the Unbegotten of? God is someone’s—he is God
of all. So how can “God” and “unbegotten” be identical?34

Here Nazianzen capitalizes on the negative signification of
“unbegottenness” in order to distinguish it from the divine
essence: whereas “God” implies a relation to creatures, “unbegotten” does not, since it does not signify the provident creator
but rather denies any relation to a principle. And if the modes of
signification of “God” and “unbegotten” are different, then the
terms themselves are not simply identical; and Eunomius’s
argument that if the unbegotten Father is God then the begotten
Son cannot be, does not follow. Thus, the Son may be the
provident creator without being the same person as the one who
has no principle.
Oration 29 (Barbel, ed., sect. 12, ll. 6-13): “ἢ δῆλον ὅτι, τῆς ἰδιότητος ἀκινήτου
μενούσης, ζητήσομεν οὐσίαν θεοῦ, ἥ τις ποτέ ἐστιν, εἴπερ ζητήσομεν; ὅτι δὲ οὐ ταὐτὸν
ἀγέννητον καὶ θεός, ὧδε ἂν μάθοις. εἰ ταὐτὸν ἦν, ἔδει πάντως, ἐπειδὴ τινῶν θεὸς ὁ θεός,
τινῶν εἶναι καὶ τὸ ἀγέννητον· ἢ ἐπεὶ μηδενὸς τὸ ἀγέννητον, μηδὲ τὸν θεὸν εἶναι τινῶν. τὰ
γὰρ πάντῃ ταὐτὰ καὶ ὁμοίως ἐκφέρεται. ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐ τινῶν τὸ ἀγέννητον, ταὐτὰ καὶ
ὁμοίως ἐκφέρεται. ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐ τινῶν τὸ ἀγέννητον, τίνων γάρ; καὶ τινῶν θεὸς ὁ θεός,
πάντων γάρ. πῶς οὖν ἂν εἴη ταὐτὸν θεὸς καὶ ἀγέννητον.”
In Oration 42.15 (PG 36:476, ll. 11-17), Nazianzen covers the same territory,
employing the same language to differentiate nature (φύσις) and distinguishing properties
like “unbegotten” (ἀγέννητον) or “principle” (ἀρχή) that “accompany” or are “external
to” (περί) the nature. There he similarly appeals to the negative character of
unbegottenness in order to distinguish it from the divine essence, arguing that “the nature
of that which is without source does not consist in being without source or being
unbegotten, for the nature of anything lies, not in what it is not but in what it is” (“Οὔτε
τοῦ ἀνάρχου τὸ ἄναρχον φύσις, ἢ τὸ ἀγέννητον· οὐδεμία γὰρ φύσις ὅ τι μὴ τόδε ἐστὶν,
ἀλλ’ ὅ τι τόδε”) (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 7, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry
Wace, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, rev. and ed. for New
Advent by Kevin Knight [Buffalo, N.Y.: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894], 390,
slightly modified).
34

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

Aquinas follows the same line of reasoning:
Since in God “begotten” signifies relation, “unbegotten” also pertains to
relation. And thus it does not follow that the unbegotten Father is distinguished
from the begotten Son according to substance, but only according to relation,
namely insofar as the relation of “son” is denied of the Father.35

Elsewhere he explains in greater detail that “unbegotten” as the
negation of a relation reduces to the genus of relation because
“every privation is known by something had and every removal
by something already posited.”36
Furthermore, Aquinas maintains that, although God is the
God of creatures, as Nazianzen notes, he is not related to
creatures in the real order.37 In fact, “God” is not a relational but
an absolute name, because it “signifies the divine essence”—even
though the source of the name “God” is his action of providence
over all—since we, unable to know the divine essence, name God
from his effects not his essence.38
Aquinas also argues that it is in the nature of an offspring to
have a nature identical with its parent’s, clarifying further that
the Son receives the whole nature not only specifically but
numerically.39
Regarding real distinction among the properties and their relation to the divine essence, Aquinas easily concludes (following
upon his carefully ordered exposition of procession, relation, and
person) that the persons are the same as the relations and the
properties in the real order. In other words, the Father is
paternity—paternity subsisting as the divine essence. Since “‘what
35
STh I, q. 33, a. 4, ad 3 (Leonine ed., 4:363): “Unde, cum genitum in divinis
relationem importet, ingenitum etiam ad relationem pertinet. Et sic non sequitur quod
Pater ingenitus distinguatur a Filio genito secundum substantiam; sed solum secundum
relationem, inquantum scilicet relatio Filii negatur de Patre.”
36
I Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3: “omnis privatio per habitum cognoscitur, et remotio
per positionem” (Mandonnet, ed, 674).
37
STh I, q. 13, a. 7.
38
I Sent., d. 18, q. un., a. 5, ad 6 (Mandonnet, ed., 446): “deus, quamvis significet
essentiam divinam quantum ad id cui imponitur, tamen quantum ad id a quo imponitur
nomen, significat operationem.” See also STh I, q. 13, a. 8.
39
I Sent., d. 7, q. 1, a. 1. He states this in numerous places, for example, STh I, q. 27,
a. 2, ad 2; ScG IV, c. 24; De Pot., q. 2, a. 1, ad 11; In Ioan., c. 15, lect. 5.

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73

is’ and ‘whereby it is’ are the same in God” in the real order, and
“the Father is Father by paternity,” therefore “the Father is the
same as paternity,” and “the other properties [filiation, procession, innascibility] are the same as the persons.” Since
“relation, insofar as it is a certain thing in God, is the divine
essence itself” and “essence is the same as the person . . . it is
necessary that relation be the same as person.”40
Aquinas recognizes that “relation” does not signify the
perfection of being a thing, but properly signifies being toward
another.41 By contrast, “person” does signify the perfection of
being something; it signifies someone or a “who.”42 Aquinas
understands the divine person to be a subsistent relation, namely,
a relation insofar as that relation subsists as the divine essence;
that is, he takes person to be a relation signified by way of
substance.43 Here we find an intuition similar to that of
Nazianzen, who argues, as we saw above, that the Holy Spirit is
not merely a property but the essence.
Thus Aquinas and Nazianzen agree on what must be affirmed
and denied according to true doctrine. Furthermore, even though
their descriptions of how personal properties are related to the
divine essence differ, they are driving at the same conclusion, and
they adopt the same strategy of distinguishing property from
40

STh I, q. 40, a. 4, sed contra and corp. (Leonine ed., 4:418): “Sed contra, in divinis
non differt quod est et quo est. . . . Sed pater paternitate est pater. Ergo pater idem est
quod paternitas. Et eadem ratione aliae proprietates idem sunt cum personis. . . . Sed quia
relatio, secundum quod est quaedam res in divinis, est ipsa essentia; essentia autem idem
est quod persona, ut ex dictis patet; oportet quod relatio sit idem quod persona.”
41
STh I, q. 28, a. 2, ad 3 (Leonine ed., 4:322): “If in divine perfection there were
contained nothing more than what a relative word signifies, it would follow that its being
would be imperfect, as being related to something else” (“si in perfectione divina nihil
plus contineretur quam quod significat nomen relativum, sequeretur quod esse eius esset
imperfectum, utpote ad aliquid aliud se habens”).
42
STh I, q. 29, a. 3 (Leonine ed., 4:331): “Person signifies what is perfect in all nature,
namely, subsisting in a rational nature” (“persona significat id quod est perfectissimum in
tota natura, scilicet subsistens in rationali natura”).
43
STh I, q. 29, a. 4 (Leonine ed., 4:333): “Therefore a divine person signifies a relation
as subsisting. And this is to signify relation by way of substance, which is a hypostasis
subsisting in the divine nature” (“Persona igitur divina significat relationem ut
subsistentem. Et hoc est significare relationem per modum substantiae quae est hypostasis
subsistens in natura divina”).

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essence. They must grapple with the mystery that each divine
person is the divine essence yet each person is distinct from the
other persons by property. To account for how the essence is
related to property, Nazianzen turns to a preposition, περί
(“around” or “outside of”), because he must affirm that the real
distinction signified by the properties does not touch the essence,
which would claim it for just one person. Aquinas, by contrast,
does not allow that the properties are related to the essence
according to any preposition. For him, they are the divine
essence: paternity is the divine essence in the real order—under
the aspect of being toward the Son.44 Aquinas’s explanation
avoids the insinuation that the properties either are merely
extrinsically attached to the essence—an opinion advanced in the
twelfth century that Aquinas explicitly critiques45—or else are
uncreated eternal energies distinct from the essence in the real
order, as suggested in the fourteenth century by Gregory
Palamas. If one does not see that the relation simply is the divine
essence in the real order—so that the subsistent relation is the
essence under the aspect of being-toward—then one is left with
a conception of the relations or properties as “around the
essence” or extrinsically attached. Such a view would be
necessary to avoid introducing composition into the divine
essence by positing relations in God as accidents, or personal
properties as really distinct qualities.
In summary, despite different manners of articulating the
doctrine, Nazianzen and Aquinas both understand the divine
persons as one thing but not one “who”; they both appeal to the
concept of relation in order to assert the identity of the divine
person with the divine essence and the distinction of the divine
persons from each other; and they both speak of the divine
persons as distinct in the real order on account of their personal
properties.

44
In Aquinas’s Trinitarian theology, relation does the heavy lifting. Regarding the
conceptual convergence of three and one in relation’s two aspects of esse ad and esse in,
respectively, see Emery, Trinitarian Theology, 89-96.
45
STh I, q. 28, a. 2. Aquinas mentions Gilbert of Poitiers (d. 1154) by name.

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II. UNBEGOTTENNESS: THE FATHER HAS NO SOURCE
Concerning unbegottenness, Nazianzen and Aquinas share the
same theological view, but one can discern a difference in their
instinctive emphases on unbegottenness versus paternity as
notions of the Father. Here we will (1) present their accounts of
the Father as the source of unity in the Trinity, (2) briefly compare their discussions of unbegottenness as applied to the divine
essence and to the Father, and (3) note Nazianzen’s stronger
inclination to speak of the Father as the Unoriginate as opposed
to Aquinas’s relentless emphasis on the Father’s identity as the
principle of the Son.
A) The Unoriginate Father Is the Source of Unity
In Oration 42, Nazianzen teaches that “the union [of the three
persons] is the Father from Whom and to Whom the order of
Persons runs its course.”46 In Oration 20, he affirms that “both
Son and Spirit come back to one cause.”47
These ideas are also present in Aquinas. He strongly
emphasizes the Father’s paternity as defining of his identity;
moreover, with respect to the Father’s being without origin,
Aquinas accords special dignity to the Father’s innascible paternity.48 Only the one who is without origin and is the sole principle
of another person can claim to be the source of unity in the
Trinity: “the Father is the principle of the whole Godhead.”49 For
Aquinas, in a certain way “principle” may even be said to be
46
Oration 42.15 (PG 36:476, ll. 22-23): “Ἕνωσις δὲ, ὁ Πατὴρ, ἐξ οὗ, καὶ πρὸς ὃν
ἀνάγεται τὰ ἑξῆς” (Browne and Swallow, trans., 390).
47
Oration 20.7 (PG 35:1073, l. 4): “εἰς ἓν αἴτιον καὶ Υἱοῦ καὶ Πνεύματος
ἀναφερομένων” (Vinson, 111; translation modified).
48
For more on Aquinas’s understanding of the Father’s innascibility, see Ku, God the
Father, chap. 2.
49
STh I, q. 33, a. 1, s.c. (Leonine ed., 4:358): “pater est principium totius deitatis.”
Aquinas repeats this quotation from Augustine’s De Trinitate in numerous places: I Sent.,
d. 15, exp. text.; I Sent., d. 29, q. 1, a. 1, s.c. 1; I Sent., d. 29, exp. text.; III Sent., d. 1,
q. 2, a. 2, ad 2; IV Sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 5, qcla. 3, ad 1; STh I, q. 33, a. 1, s.c.; STh I, q. 39,
a. 5, obj. 6; STh I, q. 39, a. 5, ad 6 (twice); De Verit., q. 7, a. 3; In De Div. Nom., c. 2,
lect. 4.

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

“proper to the Father.”50 The Father unites all ways of being a
principle: he is the unique principle of the Son, the principal
principle of the Holy Spirit, and, with the Son and the Holy
Spirit, the first principle of creatures.51
Aquinas, perhaps surprisingly, follows Nazianzen in suggesting that the Son and the Spirit are “led back” to the Father:
Those things that are of the essence are in the other persons from the Father.
And therefore there is a certain leading back by the other persons into the
Father, as is clear from what Hilary says. And on account of this, the Father is
even called the principle of the whole Godhead.52

It is not simply creatures who are led back through the Son and
the Spirit, for elsewhere Aquinas clarifies that “this leading back
does not place a [different] level of goodness in the Father and
the Son but only an order of nature; and therefore equality and
unity of joy are not taken away.”53
50
In Ioan., c. 8, lect. 3 (Marietti ed., no. 1183): “Dicitur etiam Pater principium. . . .
Alio modo est proprium Patris.”
51
In Ioan., c. 1, lect. 1. For more on this point, see Ku, God the Father, 146.
52
IV Sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 5, qcla. 3, ad 1 (Mandonnet/Moos, eds., 753): “Ad primum
ergo dicendum, quod ea quae sunt essentiae, a patre sunt in aliis personis; et ideo fit
quaedam reductio ab aliis personis in patrem, ut patet per Hilarium; et propter hoc etiam
dicitur pater principium totius deitatis.” As I note in God the Father (146), this leading
back seems to be a reference to Hilary’s discussion of all things being reconciled to the
Father through the Son. Hilary does not use the word “reductio” but “reconciliatio,” in
connection with which he cites 2 Cor 5:18-19: “All this is from God, who through Christ
reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God
was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and
entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” See Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate 8.51
(De Trinitate VIII-XII, ed. P. Smulders, Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina 62a
[Turnhout: Brepols, 1980], 362, ll. 1-20).
53
I Sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3 (Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri
Lombardi, vols. 1-4, ed. Mandonnet/Moos [Paris: Lethielleux, 1929-1947], 1:40): “illa
reductio non ponit gradum bonitatis in patre et filio, sed tantum ordinem naturae; et ideo
non tollitur aequalitas et unitas fruitionis.” Gilles Emery, “Le Père et l’oeuvre trinitaire de
création selon le Commentaire des Sentences de s. Thomas d’Aquin,” in Ordo sapientia et
amour: Hommage au professeur J.-P. Torrell, ed. C.-J. Pinto de Oliveira (Fribourg:
Éditions universitaires, 1993), 85-117, at 88 n. 14, identifies four passages where he
interprets Aquinas as suggesting that this order applies not only to creatures being led
back to the Son and the Holy Spirit but also to the Son and the Holy Spirit being led back
to the Father (I Sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3; I Sent., d. 10, q. un., a. 1; II Sent., d. 38, q. un.,

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Aquinas is more explicit than Nazianzen in noting that the
Father does not have the relationship of an end with respect to
the Son or Holy Spirit, as he does for creatures; the divine
persons have no end properly speaking, and each person is the
end of all creatures.54 The leading back by divine persons to the
Father refers only to the fact that the divine essence is in them
from the Father.55 It absolutely cannot be some distinct second
act; that is why one might not expect to find Aquinas embracing
this patristic idea. But keeping in mind that the divine processions
are immanent, so that each person remains within and interpenetrates each other person, one might envisage this leading
back in terms of a circular movement in the procession, or
perhaps a proceeding while facing back towards one’s principle.56
B) Is the Divine Essence Unbegotten?
Aquinas, and Nazianzen less straightforwardly, notes that
there are two senses of “unbegotten”: “without origin,” which
applies to the Father alone, and “uncreated,” which describes the
divine essence and the divine persons. The theological importance of this issue is that Eunomius’s key strategy was to conflate
these two senses, arguing that, because the essence is unbegotten,
the begotten Son could not possess it.
In Oration 28, Nazianzen allows that the essence may be
called “unbegotten” (ἀγέννητος) and “unoriginate” (ἄναρχος); but
in Oration 29, he clarifies in a more careful analysis that the
distinctions of unbegotten and begotten are “outside” (περί) the

a. 1, ad 2; IV Sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 5, qcla. 3, ad 1). Durand, Le Père, 258, avers that “the
return to the Father is constitutive of the persons themselves of the Son and the Spirit.”
54
STh I, q. 38, a. 8; II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2.
55
I Sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 2, ad 3; IV Sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 5, qcla. 3, ad 1.
56
It is noteworthy that Aquinas invokes the authority of Hilary concerning this ancient
patristic theme of the Son and the Spirit being led back to the Father. This debunks the
perception of Aquinas as a theological clone of Augustine, largely devoid of eastern
influence until much later in his career—as Hilary (ca. 310-67), who spent four significant
years of exile in the East, predates Augustine (354-430). Aquinas similarly enlists Hilary’s
authority for the Father’s being greater than the Son while the Son is not less than the
Father. See Ku, “Divine Paternity,” 127-28.

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essence. In Oration 28, Nazianzen is examining the term
“incorporeal,” and he uses “unbegotten” to mean “uncreated”:
But this term “incorporeal,” though granted, does not give an all-embracing
revelation of God’s essential being. The same is true of “unbegotten,”
“unoriginate,” “immutable,” and “immortal,” indeed of all attributes applied,
or referred, to God.57

In Oration 29, his focus is on the question of whether the essence
is unbegotten:
“But,” they say, “if the Son is the same in substance as the Father, and the Father
is unbegotten, then the Son must be unbegotten too.” True—provided that
unbegottenness constitutes God’s being. That would give us an outlandish mixup—an unbegotten-begotten. But supposing the difference lies outside the
essence of God, what validity has your argument got?58

Aquinas agrees that “unbegottenness” properly applies to the
Father and not the divine essence:
For it is fitting to the Father insofar as he is the principle of generation that he
follow generation in no way. Now, in our understanding, something follows
generation in three ways: either as the one generated, such as the Son; or as
what is received by generation, such as the divine essence; or as proceeding from
the one generated, such as the Holy Spirit. Hence “unbegotten,” according to
the aforesaid mode, is fitting to none of these.59

57
Oration 28 (Barbel ed., sect. 9, ll. 3-6): “ἀλλ’ εἰ ἀσώματον, οὔπω μὲν οὐδὲ τοῦτο
τῆς οὐσίας παραστατικόν τε καὶ περιεκτικόν, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ τὸ ἀγέννητον, καὶ τὸ ἄναρχον,
καὶ τὸ ἀναλλοίωτον, καὶ τὸ ἄφθαρτον, καὶ ὅσα περὶ θεοῦ ἢ περὶ θεὸν εἶναι λέγεται.” Using
slightly different vocabulary in Oration 30.2, ll. 12-13 and 17-19, Nazianzen allows that
the Godhead is unoriginate (ἀναίτιος).
58
Oration 29 (Barbel, ed., sect. 10, ll. 1-4): “Ἀλλ’ εἰ ταὐτὸν τῷ πατρί, φασιν, ὁ υἱὸς
κατ’ οὐσίαν, ἀγέννητος δὲ ὁ πατήρ, ἔσται τοῦτο καὶ ὁ υἱός. καλῶς, εἴπερ οὐσία θεοῦ τὸ
ἀγέννητον, ἵν’ ᾖ τις καινὴ μίξις, γεννητοαγέννητον. εἰ δὲ περὶ οὐσίαν ἡ διαφορά, τί τοῦτο
ὡς ἰσχυρὸν λέγεις;”
59
I Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4 (Mandonnet, ed., 438): “secunda est, quia per hoc
quod dicitur ‘ingenitus,’ secundum quod est notio Patris, tollitur omnis modus
consequendi generationem: hoc enim convenit Patri inquantum est principium
generationis, ut nullo modo generationem consequatur. Generationem autem consequitur
aliquid secundum intellectum tripliciter: vel sicut genitum, ut Filius; vel sicut per
generationem acceptum, ut essentia divina; vel sicut a generato procedens, ut Spiritus
sanctus. Unde nulli horum convenit ‘ingenitus’ secundum praedictum modum.”

DIVINE INNASCIBILITY

79

Aquinas furthermore explains that if “unbegotten” is taken to
mean “uncreated,” then it does apply to the divine essence:
According to Damascene, in one way “unbegotten” signifies the same thing as
uncreated and is thus said according to substance; for in this way created
substance differs from the uncreated. In another way it signifies what is not
begotten, and is thus said relatively in the sense that negation is reduced to the
genus of affirmation, as “not a man” is reduced to the genus of substance and
“not white” to the genus of quality. Hence since in God “begotten” signifies
relation, “unbegotten” also pertains to relation. And thus it does not follow that
the unbegotten Father is distinguished from the begotten Son according to
substance, but only according to relation, namely insofar as the relation of “son”
is denied of the Father.60

C) Emphasizing Unoriginateness versus Principiality
Because Aquinas intends to drive home the understanding of
the Father as the subsisting relation for which he is named—that
is, paternity—he rarely, if ever, employs “Unoriginate” or
“Unbegotten” in place of “Father” to designate the Father.
Nazianzen’s speech, on the other hand, displays a more even
balance of these two names of the Father—undoubtedly because
“unoriginate” and “unbegotten” are the key terms of Nazianzen’s
opponents.
Nazianzen manifests his emphasis on the Father’s innascibility
in Oration 25, where he asserts that the special characteristic
(ἴδιον) of the Father is his unbegottenness. In pressing toward this
conclusion, he mentions the Father’s true, unique, and eternal
paternity; he does not simply list the special characteristic of the
Father as unbegottenness, even though he simply gives the unique
properties of the Son and the Spirit in just two words. Thus he
instinctively maintains some balance between these two notions
60
STh I, q. 33, a. 4, ad 3 (Leonine ed., 4:363): “secundum Damascenum, ingenitum
uno modo significat idem quod increatum, et sic secundum substantiam dicitur; per hoc
enim differt substantia creata ab increata. Alio modo significat id quod non est genitum.
Et sic relative dicitur, eo modo quo negatio reducitur ad genus affirmationis, sicut non
homo ad genus substantiae, et non album ad genus qualitatis. Unde, cum genitum in
divinis relationem importet, ingenitum etiam ad relationem pertinet. Et sic non sequitur
quod Pater ingenitus distinguatur a Filio genito secundum substantiam; sed solum
secundum relationem, inquantum scilicet relatio Filii negatur de Patre.”

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

of the Father. However, his conclusion manifests a bias in favor
of innascibility:
The divinity of each will be defined in terms of the property that is unique to
each, in the case of the Son, his filiation, in the case of the Holy Spirit, his
procession and not filiation. We should believe that the Father is truly a father,
far more truly father in fact, than we humans are, in that he is uniquely, that is,
distinctively so, unlike corporal beings. . . . and that he is a Father only, not
formerly a son; and that he is wholly Father, and father of one wholly his son,
as cannot be affirmed of human beings; and that he has been Father from the
beginning and did not become Father in the course of things. . . . In turn, the
special characteristic of the Father is his unbegottenness, of the Son his
generation, and of the Holy Spirit his procession.61

This bias is also discernible where Nazianzen lists the three persons in order, referring to the Father by names like “WithoutOrigin,” “Uncaused,” or “Unbegotten.”62 Still, as a student of
Scripture, he affirms that “the personal name of the Unoriginate
is ‘Father’.”63
Aquinas insists rather that the Father’s fatherhood, not his
being without origin, is his special characteristic. Given that
Nazianzen was consumed with refuting Eunomius, it is not at all
difficult to imagine that the Cappadocian Father would have been
completely persuaded by Aquinas’s argument. Aquinas probes the
question of what constitutes the divine person, an issue that
Nazianzen did not consider. Aquinas’s understanding of the
61

Oration 25.16 (PG 35:1221, ll. 9-13,15-17, 29-31): “ἵνα καὶ τοῦτο θεϊκὸν ἔχωσι τὸ
μοναδικὸν, ὁ μὲν τῆς υἱότητος, τὸ δὲ τῆς προόδου, καὶ οὐχ υἱότητος. Ἀληθῶς πατέρα
τὸν Πατέρα, καὶ πολύ γε τῶν παρ’ ἡμῖν ἀληθέστερον, ὅτι μόνως, ἰδιοτρόπως γὰρ, καὶ
οὐχ ὡς τὰ σώματα. . . .· καὶ μόνον, οὐ γὰρ Υἱὸς πρότερον· καὶ ὅλον Πατὴρ, καὶ ὅλου, τὸ
γὰρ ἡμέτερον ἄδηλον· καὶ ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, οὐ γὰρ ὕστερον. . . . Ἴδιον δὲ Πατρὸς μὲν, ἡ
ἀγεννησία· Υἱοῦ δὲ, ἡ γέννησις· Πνεύματος δὲ, ἡ ἔκπεμψις” (Vinson, trans., 171-72;
translation modified, and emphasis added).
62
See, for instance, Carmina Moralia (PG 37:751, ll. 12-13): Ἄναρχον (WithoutOrigin), Ἀρχὴ (Origin), Πνεῦμα (Spirit), Τριὰς τιμία, Ἀναίτιον (Uncaused), γεννητὸν
(Begotten), ἐκπορεύσιμον (Proceeding); Oration 23 (PG 35:1161, l. 48): ἄναρχος
(Without-Source), γέννησις (Generation), πρόοδος (Procession); Oration 42 (PG 36:476,
ll. 19-21): Ὄνομα δὲ, τῷ μὲν ἀνάρχῳ (Without-Source), Πατήρ· τῇ δὲ ἀρχῇ (Source), Υἱός·
τῷ δὲ μετὰ τῆς ἀρχῆς (With the Source), Πνεῦμα ἅγιον.
63
Oration 30 (Barbel, ed., sect. 19, ll. 16-17: “ἴδιον δὲ τοῦ μὲν ἀνάρχου, πατήρ.” He
repeats this in Oration 42.15.

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81

Father as constituted by paternity, according to the view that the
divine person is a subsisting relation, precludes Eunomius’s lines
of argument immediately and definitively. Nazianzen is in fact
already on the way there in his recognition that the Father is
Father on account of his mutual relation to the Son.64 Thus, it
seems that there is a profound consonance in the thought of these
two doctors on innascibility but they weight this notion
differently over against paternity.
In summary, Nazianzen and Aquinas both recognize the
unoriginate Father as the source of unity in the Trinity; and they
both speak of unbegottenness as a unique property of the Father
that does not apply to the divine essence, unless it is taken merely
in the broad sense of meaning “uncreated”; however, whereas
Aquinas understands the Father’s identity to be determined by
paternity, Nazianzen thinks much more of the Father as the
Unoriginate One.
III. THE FATHER ACTS THROUGH THE WORD AND THE SPIRIT IN
THE CREATED ORDER
The Scriptures speak unequivocally of the Father working
through the Son in the created order: the Gospel of John and
Paul’s Letter to the Colossians reveal that “all things were made
through [διά] [the Word], and without him was not anything
made that was made” (John 1:3), “for in [ἐν] [the Son] all things
were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—
all things were created through [διά] him and for him” (Col 1:16).
Although Nazianzen does not discuss this principle at any
length, he does embrace it; and he even develops it with respect
to the Holy Spirit. Regarding the Father’s acting through the Son,
Nazianzen exclaims to the Father:
O God and Father and Pilot of men who are Yours! O Lord of life and death!
O Judge and Benefactor of our souls! O Maker and Transformer in due time of

64

See above, “Mutual Relative Opposition.”

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

all things by Your designing Word, according to the knowledge of the depth of
Your wisdom and providence!65

He also extends the principle, spelling out the distinct personal
manner of the Son and the Spirit acting in the economy:
But since this movement of self-contemplation alone could not satisfy
Goodness, but Good must be poured out and go forth beyond Itself to multiply
the objects of its beneficence, for this was essential to the highest Goodness, He
first conceived the Heavenly and Angelic Powers. And this conception was a
work fulfilled by His Word, and perfected by His Spirit.66

This association of the Spirit in particular with perfection is
precisely the direction in which Aquinas moves: the Spirit is not
born, proceeding by way of intellect, but is spirated, proceeding
by way of will, and is thus especially associated in his personal
distinction with love, goodness, and perfection, even bearing the
proper name “Love.” For Aquinas, following Aristotle, goodness
is being, considered from the perspective of perfection.
Aquinas is clear that because the divine persons have a distinct
mode of being, they have a distinct mode of action. The Father
creates through the Son and the Holy Spirit, who proceed as the
principle of creatures.67 Reflecting on John 1:3: “All things were
made through him,” Aquinas clarifies how “through” must be
understood:
If “through” denotes causality on the part of the thing done [operatum], then
when we say that the Father does [operari] all things through the Son, it is not
65
Oration 7 (F. Boulenger, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours funèbres en l’honneur de
son frère Césaire et de Basile de Césarée [Paris: Picard, 1908], chap. 24, sect. 3, ll. 2-6):
“ὦ Θεὲ τῶν σῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ πάτερ καὶ κυβερνῆτα, ὦ ζωῆς καὶ θανάτου κύριε, ὦ
ψυχῶν ἡμετέρων ταμία καὶ εὐεργέτα, ὦ ποιῶν τὰ πάντα καὶ μετασκευάζων τῷ τεχνίτῃ
Λόγῳ κατὰ καιρὸν καὶ ὡς αὐτὸς ἐπίστασαι τῷ βάθει τῆς σῆς σοφίας καὶ διοικήσεως.”
There is also a reference to the Father’s working through the Son in Oration 29.11, in
connection with the Son’s doing all that he sees the Father do (John 5:19).
66
Oration 38.9 (PG 36:320, ll. 36-42): “Ἐπεὶ δὲ οὐκ ἤρκει τῇ ἀγαθότητι τοῦτο, τὸ
κινεῖσθαι μόνον τῇ ἑαυτῆς θεωρίᾳ, ἀλλ’ ἔδει χεθῆναι τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ ὁδεῦσαι, ὡς πλείονα
εἶναι τὰ εὐεργετούμενα (τοῦτο γὰρ τῆς ἄκρας ἦν ἀγαθότητος), πρῶτον μὲν ἐννοεῖ τὰς
ἀγγελικὰς δυνάμεις καὶ οὐρανίους· καὶ τὸ ἐννόημα ἔργον ἦν, Λόγῳ συμπληρούμενον, καὶ
Πνεύματι τελειούμενον” (Browne, trans., 347; emphasis added).
67
For more on this question, see Ku, God the Father, chap. 6.

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83

appropriated to the Word but proper to him, because the fact that he is the
cause of creatures is from another, namely the Father, from whom he has
being.68

This explains how the Father is said to act through the Son
properly and not merely by appropriation. Aquinas offers the
example of the carpenter who makes a stool through an axe. The
axe “is not a cause to the carpenter,” moving him to act, but is
“the cause of the stool’s being made by the one acting
[operante].”69 Of course, “it does not follow on account of this
that he [the Son] is an instrument of the Father, although
everything that is moved by another to do something has the
nature of an instrument.”70
Hence, the Father is the principle of creation as the one who
has no principle but is the principle of the Son and the Holy
Spirit. The Son is the principle of creation as the Word that
proceeds in the Artist’s mind. The Holy Spirit is the principle of
creation as the Love by which all creatures are produced by the
Artist through his Word:
As the Father speaks himself and every creature by the Word that he generates,
insofar as the generated Word sufficiently represents the Father and every
creature, so does he love himself and every creature by the Holy Spirit insofar
as the Holy Spirit proceeds as Love of the first goodness, according to which
the Father loves himself and every creature.71

68

In Ioan., c. 1, lect. 2 (Marietti ed., no. 76): “Si vero ly ‘per’ denotet causalitatem ex
parte operati, tunc hoc quod dicimus ‘Patrem omnia operari per Filium’ non est
appropriatum Verbo, sed proprium eius, quia hoc quod est causa creaturarum, habet ab
alio, scilicet a Patre, a quo habet esse.”
69
Ibid.: “non est causa carpentario . . . causam quod scamnum fiat ab operante.” In
STh I, q. 39, a. 8, Aquinas alludes to the example of a carpenter using a hammer.
70
In Ioan., c. 1, lect. 2 (Marietti ed., no. 76): “Nec tamen propter hoc sequitur ipsum
esse instrumentum Patris, licet omne quod movetur ab alio ad aliquid operandum,
rationem instrumenti habeat.”
71
STh I, q. 37, a. 2, ad 3 (Leonine ed., 4:390): “Unde, sicut Pater dicit se et omnem
creaturam Verbo quod genuit, inquantum Verbum genitum sufficienter repraesentat
Patrem et omnem creaturam; ita diligit se et omnem creaturam Spiritu Sancto, inquantum
Spiritus Sanctus procedit ut amor bonitatis primae, secundum quam Pater amat se et
omnem creaturam.”

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JOHN BAPTIST KU, O.P.

What Aquinas says here goes beyond Nazianzen, but it is
consistent with the latter’s idea of the Father working through
the Son and the Spirit.
Finally, both Nazianzen and Aquinas understand adopted sons
and daughters to be led by the Spirit to the Son back to the
Father, our ultimate end. Nazianzen indicates this order in
Oration 6 in terms of knowledge, as each divine person sent
reveals the one who sent him: “Knowing the Father in the Son,
the Son in the Holy Spirit, in which names we have been baptized,
in which we believe, and under which we have been enlisted.”72
Aquinas repeats this idea, tying together more explicitly the order
in which the divine persons were sent with the order in which we
are led back to the Father:
Likewise, as the Son coming in the name of the Father subjected his faithful to
the Father . . . so the Holy Spirit has configured us to the Son insofar as he
adopts us as sons of God. . . . For as the effect of the Son’s mission was to lead
to the Father, so the effect of the Holy Spirit’s mission is to lead the faithful to
the Son.73

The assertion is admittedly subtle in Nazianzen; however, his
affirmation that the Son and the Spirit themselves are led back to
the Father74 clarifies his explanation that we find the Son in the
Spirit and the Father in the Son.
Thus we can see that both Nazianzen and Aquinas hold that
the Unoriginate Father works through the Son and the Spirit in
the created order, and that rational creatures are led back to the
Unoriginate Father, their ultimate end.

72
Oration 6.22 (PG 35:749, ll. 30-31): “ἐν Υἱῷ τὸν Πατέρα, ἐν Πνεύματι τὸν Υἱὸν
γινώσκοντες, εἰς ἃ βεβαπτίσμεθα, εἰς ἃ πεπιστεύκαμεν, οἷς συντετάγμεθα” (Vinson,
trans. 20).
73
In Ioan., c. 14, lect. 6 (Marietti ed., no. 1957-58): “Item sicut Filius veniens in
nomine Patris, fideles suos Patri subiecit . . . ita Spiritus sanctus configuravit nos Filio,
inquantum adoptat nos in filios Dei. . . . Nam, sicut effectus missionis Filii fuit ducere ad
Patrem, ita effectus missionis Spiritus sancti est ducere fideles ad Filium.”
74
See above, pp. 76-77.

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85

SUMMARY
Nazianzen and Aquinas are in agreement on the following
formulations of doctrine. Each divine person is the one identical
divine essence, and each is distinct from the others in the real
order by their properties, which are distinct on account of the
relations that each person has with another. The unoriginate
Father is the source of unity in the Trinity, and “unbegotten”
properly applies to the Father, not the divine essence—though it
can be taken in a more general sense to mean uncreated. Finally,
the Son and the Holy Spirit are led back to the Father, and the
Father acts in the created order through the Son and the Holy
Spirit to create and to draw creatures ultimately back to himself.
While Aquinas places a strong emphasis on the Father’s
identity as rooted in his paternity, Nazianzen manifests an inclination to think of the Father as the Unoriginate One. We find
in Aquinas a greater coherence and consistency in articulation as
well as some conceptual advances. Even so, he allows for some
risky ancient Eastern patristic formulations (if understood
correctly) through the influence of St. Hilary: namely, that the
Father is greater than the Son and that the Son and the Spirit are
led back to the Father.
The precision and clarity of Nazianzen’s assertions about the
persons’ distinction by property on account of mutual relations
is striking; Aquinas’s technical exposition depends and capitalizes
on the success of his predecessors like Nazianzen. Separated by
nine hundred years and two thousand miles, living in different
cultures and writing in different languages, naturally these two
holy men articulated their doctrines in diverse ways. But the
urgent necessity of refuting corruptions of divine revelation and
elucidating the faith reveal that these two theologians are servants
of the same confession regarding the Holy Trinity.

The Thomist 85 (2021): 87-125

ON THE SPECULATIVE, PRACTICAL, OR AFFECTIVE
NATURE OF THEOLOGY
GREGORY F. LANAVE
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, D.C.

I

S THEOLOGY a speculative or a practical science? The
question is familiar to students of St. Thomas Aquinas from
the first question of the Summa theologiae, and a glance at
any study of the nature of theology in the thirteenth century will
discover that it was a common question among Aquinas’s
contemporaries, who were thinking through the ramifications of
Aristotle for understanding revelation. Indeed, it is not uncommon to see this topic presented as emblematic of a fundamental difference between Dominican and Franciscan theology:
Dominicans regard theology as a speculative science, while
Franciscans regard it as a practical science.1
Such popular perceptions almost always have a legitimate
point. They are also almost always imprecise. Even more
importantly, they can obscure the significance of a question. Why
did the masters of the medieval universities begin to ask the
question of whether theology is speculative or practical, and what
did they regard as essential elements to be considered in coming
up with an answer?
The point of the present article is to address such questions by
looking at the period in the mid-thirteenth century when the
greatest early Franciscan and Dominican teachers were composing their theological syntheses. The authors I will consider are
1
For a more scholarly look at the late-thirteenth-century Franciscans on this point,
see François-Xavier Putallaz, Figure francescane alla fine del XIII secolo (Milan: Jaca
Book, 1996), 81-90.

87

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GREGORY F. LANAVE

the Franciscans Alexander of Hales, Odo Rigaldus, and Bonaventure, and the Dominicans Albertus Magnus and Aquinas.2
Thanks to the considerable scholarly attention devoted to the
nature of theology in the thirteenth century in recent decades,
many of the texts are already well known.3 The point here is not
to introduce them to the reader, but to focus on the distinctions
made by these authors in the course of answering the relevant
questions.
Any investigation of this topic runs immediately up against the
fact that the word theologia among these masters is not obviously
what we mean today by “theology.” Henry Donneaud, in his
magisterial study of the topic, notes that in the early Church
theologia most simply meant “the word of God,” that is, God’s
revelation in sacred Scripture, while by the sixteenth century the
word (along with its cognates, such as sacra doctrina) signified a
“rational investigation of the revealed given, in particular
through the deduction of conclusions virtually contained in the
revealed given.”4 The Middle Ages thus marks a time of
transition, requiring of the modern reader some precision. As
Donneaud says,
Even today, one does not know what precise reality the medievals are
designating by this word: the Word of God? Christian doctrine? biblical
exegesis? the reasoned investigation of the deposit of faith? The question is
important, for it serves nothing to explain how some master of the thirteenth
century was able to define theology as a science, as a practical or speculative

2
The texts I will be examining are well known to scholars, but the dating of some of
them is a little disputed. Although I will be presenting these authors in roughly
chronological order, I acknowledge that there might be reason to dispute exactly which
texts were written first, and therefore which ones might have influenced others.
3
The twentieth-century literature on the nature of theology is too vast to list here.
Two recent works are especially helpful in considering at this range of authors: Henry
Donneaud, Théologie et intelligence de la foi au XIIIème siècle (Paris: Parole et silence,
2006); and Christian Trottmann, Théologie et noétique au XIIIe siècle: A la recherche d’un
statut, Études de philosophie médiévale (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1999).
4
Donneaud, Théologie et intelligence de la foi, 8. A survey of the literature among
Thomistic commentators can be found in James A. Weisheipl, “The Meaning of sacra
doctrina in Summa theologiae I, q. 1,” The Thomist 38 (1974): 56-64.

THEOLOGY AS SPECULATIVE, PRACTICAL, OR AFFECTIVE

89

science, using such and such a procedure if one does not already know what
reality is encompassed under the term.5

Our investigation in this article will pay attention to this
distinction. In the interest of precision, theologia will hereafter
be used to name the knowledge revealed by God, while
“theology” will be used to name the intellectual, academic
discipline that is based on this. Yet, as we will see, even when our
authors ask whether theologia is speculative or practical, they are
also committed to the existence of theology, and their view of the
nature of the former affects their view of the nature of the latter.
In a preliminary way, one might say that the significance of
the question depends on whether one is talking about theologia
or theology. Insofar as theologia is equated with Scripture, it
seems dissatisfying to regard it as a speculative science (if it is a
science at all), for surely the reason divine truth is revealed to us
in Scripture is not simply for the satisfaction of our speculative
intellect. It is more satisfying to say that the point of this revelation is the rectification/salvation/sanctification of the whole person, and thus that theologia has a practical or perhaps an affective
end. If, on the other hand, one is talking about theology, the
discipline that forms part of the academy—or even that endeavor
described by Anselm as “faith seeking understanding”—the point
seems to be intellectual; while it is not perhaps divorced from the
practical or the affective, it is primarily a speculative enterprise.
The presentation of authors here follows a roughly chronological order, largely for the sake of convenience. I do not intend
to make any strong argument for development from one author
to another. I am not concerned, for example, to assert that Bonaventure should be regarded as the culmination of the previous
Franciscan tradition, or that Aquinas is deliberately setting
himself in opposition to the Franciscans. My purpose is rather to
5
Donneaud, Théologie et intelligence de la foi, 7. The modern reader may too easily
assume that when an author refers to scientia he must be talking about theology rather
than theologia. In fact, if an author asks whether theologia is a science he is not principally
wondering whether there can be an academic discipline of theology but whether the
revealed word of God bears the structure of an Aristotelian scientia.

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GREGORY F. LANAVE

identify the vision of each author, the way he reasons about the
question.6
There are, it must be admitted, problems in treating this
question in isolation. On the one hand, each of these authors
raises the question in the context of a fuller treatment of the
scientia of theologia, dealing also with such topics as the subject
of theologia, its unity, and its mode of proceeding. Naturally,
these topics bear on each other, and, it may be noted, the very
order of the questions can be significant.7 On the other hand, a
full sense of the ratio of the distinctions made by the different
authors would require a more detailed study of each author’s
anthropology, religious epistemology, etc. The rationale for the
present study is that there is, nonetheless, a value in focusing on
the specific answers to the question of whether theologia is
speculative or practical, highlighting what seem to each to be key
considerations that shape the answer of each author. With this in
hand, I will offer in the conclusion some assessment of the
differences between them and their perennial relevance for
theological discourse.8
6

There are enough questions about the dating of some of the texts to render
tendentious any claims about a strict chronological order. It is not certain whether the
passage I will discuss from the Summa halensis was composed before or after Odo’s
Lectura on the Sentences; likewise with Odo’s Disputed Question and Albert’s
commentary on the Sentences. Most tellingly, the two texts from Albert were composed
nearly thirty years apart, with all of the contributions of Bonaventure and Aquinas lying
in between. It is therefore interesting to consider how Albert is accepting or rejecting
Bonaventure and Aquinas in the later text, but I find it more telling to see the way his
perspective in the Sentences commentary perdures and alters in the Summa.
7
See especially the analysis below of Odo and Albert.
8
An earlier version of this article was given as a paper in a Thomistic Circles
conference on “Friendly Rivals: Franciscan and Dominican Intellectual Traditions”
(Washington, D.C., September 28-29, 2018). The title of the conference was interesting
for its implied perspective on the relation of these traditions. “Friendly” suggests that the
relationship need not be regarded as contentious, and that the adherents of the traditions
have something to learn from each other. Few, I think, would disagree with such a view.
But “rivals” suggests that the traditions are engaged in similar projects, that their views of
the nature, principles, methods, and ends of theology and philosophy may fruitfully be
compared to each other. This is a much more contentious claim. I happen to agree with
it, but examples abound in the past seventy years of scholars who regard such comparisons
as fundamentally misguided. An early example is Étienne Gilson, who closes his
Philosophy of Saint Bonaventure by insisting that Bonaventure and Aquinas cannot rightly

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I. SPECULATIVE OR PRACTICAL—OR AFFECTIVE?
I have named our topic “the speculative, practical, or affective
nature of theology.” The specific question that is usually posed
is, as we shall see, “whether theologia is a speculative or a
practical science.” The question follows the assumption of Aristotle’s model of scientia for theologia, and it stems specifically
from Aristotle’s division of the sciences, in the Nicomachaen
Ethics, into the speculative—ordered to knowledge—and the
practical—ordered to action, or “that we may become good.” In
other words, if one is going to regard theologia, or theology, as a
scientia, one of the inevitable questions is whether it is a
speculative or a practical scientia. It is often supposed, as I have
already said, that Franciscans regard theologia as practical, while
Dominicans regard it as speculative. However true this
supposition may be with respect to the later traditions, even a
quick glance at the texts reveals that it does not hold in the case
of our five authors. As Yves Congar notes, Odo holds a minority
position at the time in maintaining that theologia is practical,
while Aquinas is virtually unique in regarding it as speculative.
The majority position is instead that theologia transcends the
difference between speculative and practical, and is best
described as affective, which is the position of Alexander, Albert,
and Bonaventure.9
The difference between theologia and theology suggests a
value to the category of the affective. Insofar as one thinks that
theologia—that is, the knowledge revealed by God—is for the
sake of our intellectual apprehension, theologia can be said to be
be compared, but rather must be seen as two distinct pinnacles of Christian thought.
Perhaps a typical, and certainly striking, example of the same comes from J. A. Wayne
Hellmann, who says that as a student he could not understand Bonaventure until he
stopped reading him in the way he had been taught to read Aquinas (J. A. Wayne
Hellmann, “Author’s Preface,” in idem, Divine and Created Order in Bonaventure’s
Theology, trans. J. M. Hammond [St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 2001],
xv).
9
Yves M.-J. Congar, A History of Theology, trans. Hunter Guthrie, S.J. (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1968), 126-27.

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speculative; insofar as that knowledge is given for the sake of our
loving union with him, theologia will be better seen as affective.
The fact that Aristotle did not talk about the possibility of
affective scientia (and yet all of our authors are clearly informed
by Aristotle’s understanding of scientia), is sometimes glossed
over by commentators, who effectively identify the practical with
the affective. As we will see, whether this is a faithful interpretation of the authors in question is debatable.
On the other hand, if one cares to ask whether theology—the
intellectual discipline in the academy—is speculative or practical,
the answer will depend on whether it is more like geometry—
drawing speculative conclusions from a set of premises—or more
like house-building—laying down rules for a practical enterprise.
There does not seem to be any reason to evoke the category of
“affective” here.
II. ALEXANDER OF HALES
The first question of the Summa theologica attributed to
Alexander of Hales,10 “De doctrina theologiae,” sets out a clearly
Aristotelian-inspired set of questions (to which the Quaracchi
editors refer as “chapters”) on the nature of theologia that are
taken up by later thinkers.11 While Alexander asks here specifically whether theologia is a science, and what its subject and its
mode are, he does not devote a question specifically to whether
it is speculative or practical. Despite this limitation, Alexander
does make two points of interest to this study.

10
The question of the authorship of the Summa theologica attributed to Alexander
(a.k.a. the Summa halensis) need not concern us here. The scholarly consensus is that it
was composed in part by Alexander and in part by his students and collaborators. At any
rate, it unmistakably offers a description of theologia that is formed by an Aristotelian
concept of scientia, and is a fitting point of reference for a general discussion of the topic
at the time. For convenience, I will refer to the author as Alexander.
11
Alexander uses a variety of terms to describe what he is talking about; the most
common are doctrina theologiae, theologia, and scriptura sacra. Donneaud argues that the
terms seem to be freely convertible, and the only way to make sense of Alexander’s
argument is to read them all as referring to God’s revelation in Scripture. See Donneaud,
Théologie et intelligence de la foi, 107-78, esp. 117-21.

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The first point lies in his description of the difference between
various sciences. The very first chapter asks whether theologia is
a scientia, and Alexander’s response is twofold.
There is a science of causes and a science of things caused. . . . Theologia, which
is the science of God, who is the cause of causes, is sui gratia. The name of
“science” is applied to the sciences of caused things, but the name of “wisdom”
is applied to the sciences of the cause of causes. Wherefore the Philosopher says
that First Philosophy, which is sui gratia and of the cause of causes, ought to be
called wisdom. For the same reason theological doctrine, which transcends all
other sciences, ought to be called wisdom. . . .
Furthermore, there is a science perfecting knowledge according to truth,
and a science moving the affect to the good. The first is like a knowledge
according to sight, and therefore ought to be called science absolutely; the
second, like knowledge according to taste, and therefore ought to be called
wisdom, from “the taste of the affect” [sapore affectionis]. . . . Thus theologia,
which perfects the soul according to affect, in moving to the good through the
principles of fear and love, is properly and principally wisdom. First Philosophy,
which is the theology of the philosophers . . . perfecting knowledge according
to the way of art and reasoning, is less properly called wisdom. And other
sciences . . . ought not to be called wisdom, but sciences.12

On the one hand, science is the knowledge of caused things, while
the knowledge of causes is more properly called wisdom. Thus,
first philosophy is wisdom, while lesser disciplines are sciences;
and similarly theologia, which likewise deals with ultimate causes,
12

Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica I, tract. 1, q. 1, c. 1: “quod est scientia causae
et scientia causati. . . . Theologia, quae est scientia de Deo, qui est causa causarum, sui
gratia est. Nomen ergo scientiae appropriator scientiae causatorum, nomen vero
sapientiae scientiae causae causarum. Unde et ipse Philosophus dicit quod Philosophia
Prima, quae est sui gratia et de causa causarum, debet dici sapientia. Simili ratione doctrina
theologica, quae transcendit omnes alias scientias, debet dici sapientia. . . . Praeterea,
notandum quod est scientia perficiens cognitionem secundum veritatem; est etiam scientia
movens affectionem ad bonitatem. Prima est ut cognitio secundum visum, et ideo debet
dici scientia absoluta; secunda, ut cognitio secundum gustum, et ideo debet dici sapientia
a sapore affectionis. . . . Theologia igitur, quae perficit animam secundum affectionem,
movendo ad bonum per principia timoris et amoris, proprie et principaliter est sapientia.
Prima Philosophia, quae est theologia philosophorum . . . ut perficiens cognitionem
secundum viam artis et ratiocinationis, minus proprie dicitur sapientia. Ceterae vero
scientiae . . . non debent dici sapientiae, sed scientiae” ([Quaracchi, Florence: Collegium
S. Bonaventurae, 1924], 2). Throughout this article, translations are my own unless
otherwise noted.

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is wisdom. On the other hand, science perfects knowledge
according to truth, while wisdom perfects the affect by moving it
to the good. Theologia does the latter in a way no other discipline
does, for it “perfects the soul according to the affect, moving to
the good through the principles of fear and love.” The result,
which Alexander expresses rather pithily, is that “the doctrine of
theologia is wisdom [in the first sense] as wisdom [in the second
sense]; first philosophy . . . is wisdom [in the first sense] but as
science [in the second sense], while lesser sciences . . . are science
[in the first sense] as science [in the second sense].”13
Alexander’s second chapter asks about the distinction of
theologia from other sciences.14 In the single response to the four
objections, he makes the following delineation. Speculative
sciences have to do with the true as true, and even the good as
true. Practical sciences have to do with the true as good, that is,
as a moral good. Theologia, which is assimilated to the Holy
Spirit, has to do with the true as a graced good.15
Alexander thus adduces three perspectives on the kind of
thing that theologia is. One is from the perspective of the subject:
13

Ibid.: “doctrina Theologiae est sapientia ut sapientia; Philosophia vero Prima . . .
est sapientia, sed ut scientia; ceterae vero scientiae . . . sunt scientiae ut scientiae”
(Quaracchi ed., 2). Alexander’s responses to the objections in this chapter make it clear
that he is willing to call theologia a science in some sense, but the argument of the
conclusion emphasizes how theologia is distinct from what we would ordinarily call a
science.
14
The fact that Alexander has already determined that theologia is not properly
speaking a science yet continues to speak of it as one indicates that he is willing to use the
term scientia in a very general sense, as a kind of knowledge.
15
All sciences are from God, “yet other sciences are not said to be so in the same way
as sacred Scripture. For there is the true as true, and the true as good, and both are from
the Holy Spirit. But when the true is regarded as good, this good is either a moral good
or a graced good. . . . In other sciences, namely the speculative, the true is accepted as
true and the good as true; in practical moral sciences, the true is accepted as good, but
not as graced good, but moral: therefore these are not said to be brought out by the Holy
Spirit” (“quod convenit aliis scientiis, sed tamen non hoc modo convenit sacrae
Scripturae. Est enim verum ut verum, et est verum ut bonum; utrumque est a Spiritu
Sancto. Sed cum accipitur verum ut bonum, illud bonum aut est ut bonum orale aut ut
bonum gratuitum. . . . In aliis vero scientiis, speculativis scilicet, est acceptio veri ut veri
et etiam boni ut veri; in practicis autem moralibus, etsi sit acceptio veri ut boni, non tamen
ut boni gratuiti, sed moralis: unde non dicuntur editae a Spiritu Sancto” (Alexander of
Hales, STh I, tract. 1, q. 1, c. 2, ad 1-4 [Quaracchi ed., 5]).

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theologia is the kind of thing it is because of what it is talking
about. From that perspective, the only way theologia could
properly be called science rather than wisdom is insofar as what
it talks about is less than the highest things. For example, we
could say that theologia, insofar as it focuses on God, cannot be
anything except wisdom, but insofar as it has to do with human
action, it could instead be called a science.
A second perspective has to do with the aspect under which
the subject is considered. While speculative sciences regard both
the true and the good simply under the aspect of truth, theologia
is concerned with the true only insofar as it is a good, and a
graced good at that.
The third perspective has to do with the fulfillment or perfection of the theologian, that is, the one who receives theologia.
If what is going on in theologia is that the theologian acquires
knowledge about God, it can be called a science; but insofar as
what is going on is the movement of the theologian to a greater
affective adherence to God, it is not a science, but wisdom.
Again, what has been said so far indicates Alexander’s assessment of theologia, not theology in the sense of the rational
investigation of the faith. He does, however, suggest that
theology in the latter sense is a natural outcome of theologia. The
third objection in chapter 1 argues that theologia has to do with
things to be believed (credibilia), and therefore requires faith, not
science. In response, Alexander, following Augustine, distinguishes three kinds of credibilia, and one of these kinds has to do
with things which, when believed, dispose one to understanding.16 The fourth objection in the same chapter claims that
theologia generates only faith, not science; Alexander responds
that theologia “first generates faith, and then, in the purity of
heart brought about by faith through love, generates

16

“Some things believed dispose to understanding and science, as in the case of those
things pertaining to the divine” (“quaedam vero sunt quae disponunt ad intellectum et
scientiam, sicut est in divinis” [Quaracchi ed., 3]). Alexander bases his argument on
Augustine’s 83 Questions, q. 48.

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understanding.”17 It is evident from this that although it is God’s
revelation, theologia, that is at issue in this first question,
Alexander recognizes the validity of an intellectual enterprise that
follows from the reception of theologia—indeed, his language
here suggests that the dynamic of theologia leads directly to this
intellectual enterprise. This is not at all surprising; after all, the
remainder of the Summa theologica is nothing other than the
rational elaboration of the things of faith, motivated by the
reception of faith.
Alexander does not say here whether he thinks theology is a
science in the strict sense, but it is at least an intellectual endeavor
brought about by the reception of theologia. As this is not his
topic, he does not directly address whether theology is a
speculative or a practical science. What he does do is provide a
framework for thinking about different kinds of sciences. He has
suggested four options: theologia deals with God himself, it
understands its truth as graced, and it is most concerned to
achieve the love of God; first philosophy deals with God himself,
it understands its truth simply as true, and it is most concerned
to achieve knowledge; other speculative sciences deal with
created things, are concerned with their truth, and aim at the
acquisition of knowledge; other practical sciences deal with
created things, are concerned with their good, and aim at
achieving that good. The question is where theology, as the
rational investigation of the things of faith, fits with respect to
these four types. In terms of scope, it is nearest of all to theologia.
Moreover, it must be moved by faith and love. Whether its object
is the true or the good is debatable.18
17
“Haec scientia primo generat fidem, et postea, mundato corde per fidem operantem
per dilectionem, generat intellectum” (Quaracchi ed., 3).
18
For recent commentary on Alexander and the Summa halensis on this point, see
Lydia Schumacher, Early Franciscan Theology: Between Authority and Innovation
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 96-102. Schumacher summarizes: “The
authors of the Summa clearly wish to convey that the intellectual cogency of their
theological system has the power to inspire affection for its divine object, and the
cultivation of that affection, in turn, is the motivation for enquiry. While those who
pursue knowledge for its own sake attend to reality as from the outside, love for God who
is the source of all reality gives wisdom or insight into all things, not least God” (ibid.,
102).

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III. ODO RIGALDUS
Odo Rigaldus, sometime student of and collaborator with
Alexander, has two texts pertinent to our topic: the prologue to
his Lectura on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, and a disputed question on the science of theologia, composed some five years later.19
The topic of the first is, by and large, theology as it is contained
in Lombard’s Sentences—although, as we will see, he moves in
the last question to treat specifically of Scripture. The topic of the
second is theologia in the sense of God’s revelation, much as it
was in the text from Alexander. Indeed, Odo’s disputed question
bears a good deal of similarity to Alexander’s opening question.20
Bearing this difference in mind, we can nevertheless see that both
texts speak to our question.
In the Lectura Odo does not explicitly ask whether theology
is speculative or practical, but what he does say provides some
insight into his position. He begins the prologue by asking, is the
kind of thing that Peter Lombard is doing in the Sentences an
appropriate activity?21 If one concedes that it is appropriate—in
other words, that one can legitimately attempt “to reveal the
hidden depths of theological investigations”22—the immediate
question is whether one should go about doing this in an argumentative fashion23—and if so, what kind of habit is created in

19
For the texts of Odo see Leonardo Sileo, Teoria della scienza teologica: Quaestio de
scientia theologiae di Odo Rigaldi e altri testi inediti (1230-1250), 2 vols. (Rome:
Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, 1984). All citations of this edition will refer to the
second volume, which contains the edited texts. References to Sileo’s headings will be
cited by page number; references to Odo’s text will be cited by paragraph number.
20
One helpful difference is that Odo’s terminology is much more consistent. While
like Alexander he uses sacra Scriptura and theologia interchangeably, he uses the latter
nine times as often as the former. See Donneaud, Théologie et intelligence de la foi, 306.
21
Odo Rigaud, Lectura super quattuor libros Sententiarum, prol., q. 1: “Utrum
magister debuit aggredi hoc opus” (Sileo, ed., p. 83).
22
Peter Lombard, I Sent., prol.2 (trans. Giulio Silano [Toronto: PIMS, 2007], 3).
23
Odo Rigaud, Lectura, prol., q. 2, a. 1: “Utrum magister debuit aggredi hoc opus
modo disputatorio” (Sileo, ed., p. 86).

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the knower by it?24 This last is the closest in this text that Odo
comes to our question. The objections make clear the problems
with asserting that it creates either faith or scientia. Odo’s
solution is that this work creates the habit of intelligentia.25 He
differentiates this from scientia, saying that it is nobler than any
earthly scientia, both in terms of what it knows and the source
from which it comes.26 It begins by perfecting the intellect, but it
consequently perfects the affect.27 The knowledge achieved
through the Sentences is therefore intellectual, but not solely
intellectual in the way of certain philosophical sciences; it is a
knowledge that naturally leads to the perfection of the affect.28
Having established that this is the kind of habit that results,
Odo asks about the end of this endeavor.29 His specific question
is, what is the end of this science? This may seem odd: having just
denied that the work of the Sentences generates the habit of
scientia, why does he immediately ask, what is the end of this
scientia? He does not deny that the investigation proper to the
Sentences is a scientia, but he does deny that it can be understood
rightly as terminating in knowledge simply. The kind of thing
considered in the Sentences is typically and thoroughly informed
by the revealed knowledge of God, and so must be marked by the
end of that revelation, which is affective union with God.30
If the first two questions of the prologue are dealing with the
project of the Sentences, this question seems to deal rather with
theologia. All of the objections have to do with the end of
24

Odo Rigaud, Lectura, prol., q. 2, a. 2: “Quis habitus in casu generetur” (Sileo, ed.,
p. 87).
25
He cites both Bernard of Clairvaux and Richard of St. Victor in support.
26
Odo Rigaud, Lectura, prol., q. 2, a. 2 (Sileo, ed., no. 44): “[intelligentia] est nobilior
habitus quam scientia per demonstrationem habita: ‘nobilior’ dico, quia de nobiliore re et
quia a nobiliore dante sive faciente eam in nobis.”
27
Ibid. (Sileo, ed., no. 45): “etsi intelligentia primo perficiat intellectum, tamen
consequenter perficit et affectum.”
28
Note that Odo here does not distinguish between the speculative and the practical,
but between the perfection of the intellect and the perfection of the affect.
29
Odo Rigaud, Lectura, prol., q. 3: “Quis sit finis huius scientiae” (Sileo, ed., p. 90).
30
For Odo, the only part of the work of the Sentences that is purely a demonstrative
scientia is those things in book II (on creation) that can be known purely on natural
grounds.

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Scripture, not of the Sentences. In fact, Odo says, the ultimate
end is God, which is to say that Scripture has no other ultimate
end but to bring us to God. However, his previous answer—
about how the knowledge gained through the Sentences ultimately perfects the affect—suggests that what he is really asking
is what sort of affective habit is perfected by this endeavor. This
is the focus of his responses to the objections. Thus there are
several proximate ends, depending on one’s state. In beatitude
there is again a single proximate end, namely, created beatitude,
but in this life there are several. For the beginner, the proximate
end is fear (timor, the pious fear of God); for those who are
growing, the proximate end is justice; and for the perfect, the
proximate end is love.31 Again, there is no mention here of the
division of speculative and practical. But one can say that, for
Odo, theological investigation is an intellectual activity whose
ratio lies in leading the person to God by means of properly
ordered affections.32
In his disputed question on the science of theologia, Odo first
raises the distinction between speculative and practical in the
context of an article asking about how theologia is distinct from
other sciences.33 There are several reasons for its distinction. The
31
Odo Rigaud, Lectura, prol., q. 3 (Sileo, ed., nos. 52-53): “Proprie unicus est finis
ultimis, scilicet Deus. Sed sunt fines sive termini intermedii plures, sine quibus non est
devenire ad illum. Horum autem unus est in patria, scilicet beatitudo create. . . . Alii autem
sunt in via, et hoc quoad statum incipientium, et sic timor est finis, vel quoad statum
proficientium, et sic ipsa iustitia vel opera iustitiae sunt finis; vel quoad statum
perfectorum, et sic caritas est finis.”
32
It is arguable whether, when Odo refers to fear, justice, and love here, he means
affections or acts. That is, is the end of the understanding of the faith for beginners the
proper affection of timor or the acts informed by timor? When he refers to the state of
the proficientes, Odo does say “justice or the works of justice.” Donneaud claims that Odo
takes it as a given that supernatural knowledge is oriented toward an affective end, and
that the principal way to this end is the practice of the good (Donneaud, Théologie et
intelligence de la foi, 367). If this is true, then it is likely inappropriate to talk about the
understanding of the faith terminating proximately in an affection; there is a difference
between saying that the end of the knowledge of God is affective union with him and that
the intermediate end of that knowledge is a terminative affection.
33
Odo Rigaud, Quaestio de scientia theologiae, p. 1, q. 2: “Utrum theologia sit
distincta ab aliis scientiis” (Sileo, ed., p. 19).

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one that concerns us is when he says that “other sciences aim at
generating knowledge in us, concerning either things to be
known or things to be done. But theologia aims at generating fear
and love in us by faith in justice and mercy and by the
manifestation of the judgments and mercies of God in sacred
Scripture.”34 This, he says, is the end that distinguishes theologia,
for no other science has principles of fear and love.35 Here the
duo of speculative and practical sciences makes an appearance,
implicitly. The suggestion is that theologia is not strictly
speculative, for it does not aim at generating knowledge about
things to be known, which is proper to a speculative science. But
neither is it strictly practical, for it does not aim at generating
knowledge about things to be done, which is the point of a
practical science. Instead, theologia stems from the principles of
fear and love, and aims at generating those affections in us. As in
the Lectura on the Sentences, the role of the affections at both
the beginning and the end of theologia is paramount.
There is a shift later in the disputed question, when Odo asks
specifically whether theologia is speculative or practical.36 He is,
of all our authors, perhaps the most comprehensive in his
objections. One objection argues that theologia is speculative,
another that it is practical, and three others that it is partly
speculative and partly practical.37 It is this last position that
particularly draws Odo’s ire: he accepts the Aristotelian division
of sciences into speculative and practical, and argues that if
theologia is partly one and partly the other, then it is not one
science. (Having just devoted an article to arguing that theologia

34
Ibid. (Sileo, ed., no. 48): “aliae scientiae sunt ad generandam in nobis cognitionem
vel circa speculanda vel circa operanda. Sed theologia est ad generandum in nobis amorem
et timorem ex fide iustitiae et misericordiae et ostensione iudiciorum Dei et
misericordiarum in sacra Scriptura.”
35
Ibid.: “Ergo cum nulla aliarum scientiarum faciat hoc, manifestum quod differt ab
aliis.”
36
Odo Rigaud, Quaestio de scientia theologiae, p. 1, q. 6: “Utrum theologia sit
speculativa an practica” (Sileo, ed., p. 49).
37
Ibid. (Sileo, ed., nos. 112-16).

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is in fact one science, so clearly he does not want to adopt this
point of view.)38
The basis for his conclusion is that the division of speculative
and practical sciences is related to the end: “For the speculative
rests in the knowledge of the truth, but the practical, although it
does contain the knowledge of the truth, does not rest there, but
orders ultimately to the good, or to work through which one
comes to the good intended.” Since theologia ultimately orders
to work, it is practical.39 In the responses to the objections, his
terminology changes somewhat, as he reintroduces the language
of affect. So he says, “The intention of theologia does not rest in
the informing of the intellect alone, but beyond that is ordered
to the perfection of the affect.”40 He also says that theologia can
rightly be called wisdom, for it has to do with taste in the affect
(appealing to the etymology of wisdom, sapientia, as sapida
scientia, “tasted knowledge”).41 There does not, therefore, seem
to be in Odo a difference between knowledge as ordered to work
and knowledge as ordered to the affect.
In short, Odo is committed to Aristotle’s division of the
sciences into the speculative and the practical in terms of their
end, he understands the end of theologia to be the ordering of
the affections of the person so that he might come to his end in
God, and he concludes therefore that theologia is a practical
38

Ibid. (Sileo, ed., no. 117): “Haec scientia est una, sicut supra ostensum est; ergo cum
haec sit prima divisio philosophiae per ‘speculativam’ et ‘practicam’, et est divisio per
opposite, necesse sit theologiam sub altera harum differentiarum contineri, et nunquam
sub utraque,---alioquin non esset una, vel illa divisio non esset bona.”
39
Ibid. (Sileo, ed., no. 118): “Dicendum quod haec divisio scientiae per ‘speculativam’
et ‘practicam’ datur per comparationem ad finem: speculativa enim consistit in cognitione
veri,---practica autem, quamvis sit cognitio veri, tamen ibi non sistit, sed ulterius ordinat
ad bonum sive ad opus, per quod pervenitur ad bonum intentum. Quoniam theologia
secundum suum finem non sistit in cognitione, sed ulterius ordinat ad opus, ideo
dicendum est quod haec scientia sit practica.” See also ibid. (Sileo, ed., no. 120): “quia
non dicitur speculativa ‘quia docet scire’ sed ‘quia ibi sistit’” (“[a science] is not called
speculative ‘because it teaches to know’ but ‘because it remains there’”).
40
Ibid. (Sileo, ed., no. 120): “Theologiae autem intentio non sistit solum in
informatione intellectus; sed ulterius ordinatur ad perfectionem affectus.”
41
Ibid. (Sileo, ed., no. 122): “sapientiam, in qua est sapor et gustus in affectu.”

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science. Speculative sciences are things like metaphysics, which
are fulfilled simply in the possession of the knowledge acquired.
To be sure, theologia deals with things beyond human works
(such as the angels, or God), but even this is oriented to wisdom,
which is affective. We might say that Odo combines two authorities: Aristotle on the differences between the sciences, and
Scripture on the end of theological knowledge.
Everything said thus far about Odo’s disputed question refers
to theologia, not the theology of the theologians. However, what
he says here about the ordering of the speculative to the practical
applies also to theology. As we saw earlier, Odo regards the work
of theologians as an extension of theologia; it is therefore marked
by the same dynamic as theologia. Let us suppose that theology
is a properly speculative activity, a reasoning about the things of
faith that is supposed to perfect the intellect; even so, it is not
meant to stop there. Rather, anything that theology attains in the
speculative realm is understood as leading ultimately to the
practical, affective end of union with God.
A final point may be made concerning the significance of the
location of Odo’s treatment of this question, that is, the question
of whether this science is speculative or practical. It is the last of
his disputed questions on the matter of theologia, and
immediately follows the related questions of whether theologia is
one science and how it is distinguished from other sciences. He
has yet to treat of the form of theologia, that is, its argumentative
mode. In the Lectura, the whole question of the kind of
knowledge engendered by theological investigation occurs in the
context of talking about its proper mode. In the disputed
question, by contrast, Odo is not able to address the question of
whether theologia is speculative or practical in light of its mode.
The end of theologia is therefore not determined here from the
style in which it proceeds. Rather, Odo deals with the questions
of whether theologia is a science, how it is distinct, what its
subject is, and whether it is truly one. He has firmly located it
among the sciences. In light of an Aristotelian understanding of
science, therefore, he must identify it as speculative or practical.

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IV. ALBERTUS MAGNUS
Our next author is Albert the Great, whose commentary on
the Sentences is roughly contemporary with Odo’s disputed
question.42 Albert begins with a distinction containing four
articles concerning theologia or the scientia theologiae, including
what is its subject, whether it is one or several, whether it is
speculative or practical, and what is its mode. In only two places
in this distinction does Albert clearly refer to the theology that is
the work of Lombard: (1) in the divisio textus, where he says,
“the doctrine of this book, which proceeds by the mode of
disputation, and is ordered to the perfection of the intellect
according to the science of theologia . . .”;43 (2) in the solutio to
the last article, where, after distinguishing the various senses of
Scripture and adding that the defense of the faith further requires
an argumentative mode, he says, “this mode [i.e., of argument]
belongs to the science of this book, while the other modes are
observed in the Bible.”44 Other references to theologia in these
articles seem to concern sacra Scriptura.45 Therefore, when Albert
42

Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1 (Opera omnia, ed. Augusti Borgnet, vol. 25 [Paris:
Vivès, 1893]). Borgnet gives five initial articles on theology, but modern commentators
uniformly judge that the first “article” is actually part of the expositio textus. Nevertheless,
citations of this edition will follow the convention of using Borgnet’s numbering. See
Mikołaj Olszewski, “The Nature of Theology according to Albert the Great” in Irven M.
Resnick, ed., A Companion to Albert the Great: Theology, Philosophy, and the Sciences
(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013), 71 n. 5.
43
Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, divisio textus (Borgnet, ed., 14): “Doctrina istius libri
quae modo disputationis procedit, et ad perfectionem intellectus secundum scientiam
Theologiae est ordinata . . .”.
44
Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, a. 5 (Borgnet, ed., 20): “iste modus est scientiae istius
libri, alii autem modi sunt observati in Biblia.”
45
The very beginning of his treatment here reads as follows: “It is objected that he
[Lombard] says that sacred Scripture concerns things and signs. Four questions are thus
posed: the first is, what is the subject of Theology?” (“Sed objicitur de hoc quod dicit,
sacram Scripturam esse circa res et signa. Et quaeruntur quatuor: quorum primum est,
quid sit Theologiae subjectum” [Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, a. 2 (Borgnet, ed., 15)]).
While Albert does use the words theologia and sacra Scriptura in these articles, his clear
preference is for the simple haec (or ista, or ea) scientia; see Donneaud, Théologie et
intelligence de la foi, 391. Like Odo, Albert does not hesitate to call theologia a science.

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asks whether theologia is speculative or practical,46 it is Scripture,
not theology, that he has in mind. Nevertheless, his reasoning is
suggestive about the nature of theology.
On this question, Albert offers two objections in favor of
theologia being speculative, and two in favor of it being practical.
His own position reads as follows:
This science has to be determined from its end: now its end is set forth in Titus
1:1-2, where it is said, “Paul, servant of God, and apostle of Jesus Christ,
according to the knowledge of truth that is according to piety, in the hope of
eternal life.” . . . Now the truth that is according to piety has two elements: one
is the worship of God in himself and in his members, to which pertains
everything that promotes this worship. The other is the end of intention, which
is the union of the intellect and the affect and the substance with that which is
honored as the beatifying end. Therefore this science is properly affective, that
is, of truth that is not divided off from the ratio of the good, and therefore
perfects both the intellect and the affect. Such an end is not found in created
things; thus the philosophers have not treated of such kind of science, but
divided them into one according to the truth that is in things, and another
according to the good that is in them.47

There are two elements to be highlighted in this solutio. First,
and contrary to Odo, Albert does not regard Aristotle’s division
between speculative and practical sciences as determinative.48
46

Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, a. 4 (Borgnet, ed., 18): “an theologia sit scientia
speculativa vel practica.” It is not certain whether it was Albert or Odo who introduced
this question among the Parisian masters.
47
Ibid.: “ista scientia ex fine determinanda est: finis autem dicitur, ad Titum, I, 1 et 2,
ubi dicitur: Paulus, servus Dei, apostolus autem Jesu Christi, secundum agnitionem
veritatis quae secundum pietatem est in spem vitae aeternae. . . . Veritatis autem quae
secundum pietatem est, sunt duo: unum scilicet secundum pietatem cultus Dei in se et in
membris, ad quod pertinent omnia promoventia cultum illum. Alterum autem est finis
intentionis, et hic est conjungi intellectu et affectu et substantia cum eo quod colitur prout
est finis beatificans: et ideo ista scientia proprie est affective, id est, veritatis quae non
sequestratur a ratione boni, et ideo perficit et intellectum et affectum. Talis autem finis in
rebus creatis non invenitur: et ideo Philosophi non tractaverunt hujusmodi scientiam: sed
diviserunt unam ad verum quod est in rebus, aliam autem ad bonum quod est in ipsis.”
48
Christian Trottmann, “La théologie comme pieuse science visant la béatitude selon
Albert le Grand,” Revue thomiste 98 (1998): 394: “The philosophical duality between an
ethical science of human ends and a speculative metaphysics contemplating first being
seems surpassed by revealed theology, conceived as a science which leads to divine
beatitude.”

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The knowledge that is proper to theologia, knowledge “secundum pietatem,” transcends this difference, and is most properly
speaking affective. Theologia appears to be unique among the
sciences in this regard; the philosophers did not conceive of such
a possibility. Second, Albert understands theologia in light of its
end, which is beatitude. The end of theologia appears also in
Odo, as “God or Christ,” or “things useful to salvation,” or “the
good to be done.”49 The emphasis on beatitude is a distinctive
aspect of Albert’s doctrine. It is, in fact, laid down in the previous
article, which argues for the unity of theologia on the basis of its
end in beatitude.50 There is an intellectual component to this, and
an affective component, and a substantial one.
These two points are essential to Albert’s responses to the
objections. Why is theologia not to be regarded as a practical
science? Because all of the practical sciences, all of those moral
sciences discussed by the philosophers, are ordered to the end of
this knowledge, but they do not concern that end themselves.
That end is affective truth, which is beatifying.51 Why is it not a
speculative science? Because its concern with truth does not come
through the intellect alone, but through the affect as well. In this
case, “the intellect is ordered to the affect as to an end.”52 This is
because the end it attains is God, the knowledge of whom is
beatifying.53 Beatitude is not a work—it is not an opus—but it
49

Odo Rigaud, Quaestio de scientia theologiae, p. 1, qq. 5-6 (Sileo, ed., nos. 104, 111,

118).
50
In article 2, Albert argues that theologia is one not because of the unity of subject,
as in philosophy (where the subject is one and accidents are treated in their relation to
that subject), but because everything it treats of is related to its beatifying end (“haec
scientia una est proportione non ad unum quod subjectum sit aliorum, sicut substantia
subjectum est accidentium: sed proportione ad unum quod est finis beatificans” [Albertus
Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, a. 2 (Borgnet, ed., 17)]).
51
Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, a. 4, ad 3-4 (Borgnet, ed., 19): “Finis autem scientiae
duplex est, scilicet ultimus, et ordinatus ad illum. Qui a quibusdam finis vocatur ultimus,
veritas est affectiva beatificans: finis autem citra illum est, ut boni fiamus.”
52
Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, a. 4, ad 2 (Borgnet, ed., 19): “non quaeritur cognitio
ad veritatem per intellectum tantum, sed per affectum et substantiam: et ideo non est
intellectiva, sed affectiva: quia intellectus ordinatur ad affectum ut ad finem.”
53
Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, a. 4, ad 1 (Borgnet, ed., 19): “hoc autem praecipue
Deus est, quem omnes scire scientia beatificante desiderant.” Trottmann (“La théologie

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does immediately lead to something, namely, the affective and
substantial fulfillment of the knower. Theologia here below must
be of the same genus as the knowledge of God in heaven.54 Both
the perfect and the imperfect knowledge of God seek to know
him not only intellectually, but also affectively and substantially.
In short, affective knowledge forms an integral part of theologia,
and therefore theologia is not purely speculative.
The most direct point that Albert makes about theology in this
text is that—insofar as it is equated with Lombard’s doctrina—it
is ordered to the perfection of the intellect. Yet even there he says
that this happens “according to the science of theologia.” Clearly,
an activity like Lombard’s is predicated upon the reception of
theologia, which itself is ordered to the perfection of both the
intellect and the affect in beatitude. It remains a question whether
this quality of theologia leaves a mark upon theology. Albert does
not say anything one way or another about this. There are
indications that he does not consider theology to be a practical
science. In the very question we have been considering, the first
objection (appealing to Aristotle in the Metaphysics) says that
practical sciences are always for the sake of something else; that
is, the knowledge contained in the science is meant for undertaking some work.55 In the response Albert specifies that theo-

comme pieuse science, 393) distinguishes between faith (an intellectual adherence to the
first truth) as the source of theology, beatitude as its end, and piety as “a way according
to which theology is a science”; therefore “theology will necessarily be conceived, in these
conditions, as a practical science.”
54
This principle is established in objection 2, which argues that therefore theologia is
speculative, but it is fleshed out with the reference to the affective and substantial in the
solutio. See Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, a. 4, obj. 2 (Borgnet, ed., 18): “What is perfect
in a science and what is imperfect do not belong to different genera; but the perfection of
this science is the contemplation of God in heaven; therefore the science that is in via,
although more imperfect, is to the same end; now the contemplation of truth, principally
the first and highest truth, is the perfection of the speculative intellect” (“Perfectum in
scientia, et imperfectum non differunt genere: sed perfectio hujus scientiae est
contemplatio Dei in patria: ergo scientia quae est in via, licet imperfectius, est ad idem:
contemplatio autem veritatis praecipue primae veritatis et summae, est perfectio
speculativi”).
55
The point of the objection is that theologia is wisdom, and wisdom is not sought for
the sake of something else, as are the practical sciences.

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logia, being about God known in the highest way,56 is sought for
its own sake (gratia sui), for the knowledge of God is beatifying.
Theology, ordered to the perfection of the intellect, appears to
lie between the two: it is not practical, for it is not ordered to the
undertaking of some work, but neither is it directly concerned
with the beatifying end of man. The question is whether the
relationship between theology and theologia is such that the
former can be described as meaningfully ordered to the affective,
beatifying end of man. What is clear is that Odo’s firm insistence
on the polarity of speculative and practical is not echoed by
Albert.57
Albert takes up the topic again thirty years later, in his Summa
theologiae (the latest of the texts we have in view). The first tract
of the Summa concerns the science of theologia, and comprises
six questions. The third question, on the subject of theologia, is
divided into four chapters, the first three of which exactly mirror
the first three articles of the distinction from the Sentences
commentary.58 The most notable distinction between the Sentences commentary and the Summa is that the latter devotes
specific questions to defining theologia over against other
sciences.59 Albert continues to use theologia as convertible with
sacra Scriptura, but he also sees it as encompassing theology;
indeed, he is more concerned to differentiate theologia from
philosophical theology than from the theology of the

56
Albertus Magnus, I Sent., d. 1, a. 4, ad 1 (Borgnet, ed., 19): “ista scientia
principalissime dicitur sapientia, eo quod ipsa est de altissimis, et altissimo modo.”
57
As Olszewski puts it, “The Dominican theologian first clarifies Aristotle’s statements
and then demonstrates that they cannot be applied directly and strictly to theology. . . .
On the one hand, Albert denies any direct applicability of all of the Stagirite’s
epistemological theses to theology. On the other hand, the confrontation with Aristotle
helps him formulate remarkable insights into the nature of theology” (Olszewski, “Nature
of Theology according to Albert the Great,” 96).
58
The chapters concern, in order, the subject of the science of theologia, whether it is
one or many, and whether it is practical or theoretical/speculative.
59
E.g., question 2, on the definition of theologia; question 4, on whether it is separate
from other sciences; and question 6, on its end—that is, whether and in what way it is the
end of the other sciences.

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theologians.60 In the discussion of theologia as practical or
speculative (q. 3, c. 3), the term at least includes Scripture itself;
it also includes “God and his works,” and this formulation raises
the possibility that it might encompass theology.
The question posed is the same—whether theologia is a practical or theoretical science—but Albert explicitly states that the
answer has to be determined on the basis of the subject, whereas
in the Sentences commentary he says that it has to be determined
on the basis of the end. As in the Sentences commentary, the
objections he invokes argue either that theologia is practical
(three arguments) or that it is speculative (one argument). Two
of the arguments in favor of its being practical are virtually
identical to objections mentioned in the Sentences commentary.61
The third invokes “knowledge according to piety” (Titus 1:1) and
says, “theologia is not of truth as truth, but of truth insofar as it
is inclining to piety. . . . It seems then to be practical.”62 The one
objection he raises that argues that it is speculative (or theoretical)
says that it is about God and his works, not our works, and every
practical science is about our works.63 In his solution he says that
Scripture is practical, and the kind of truth it contains is not
60
See, e.g., Albertus Magnus, Summa Theologiae I, tract. 1, q. 5, c. 3 (Albertus
Magnus, Opera omnia 34/1, Cologne edition [Münster: Aschendorff, 1978], 18) which is
on whether theologia has a mode of argumentation. The third objection is that theologia
begins with faith, and faith is above reason, but argument deals with things that are under
reason, and therefore theologia cannot have a mode of argument. The response is that
theologia begins from faith as its principle, but faith looks to understand what is believed,
as Anselm says. It therefore includes theology.
61
Viz., theology pertains to work rather than speculation (quoting in both places James
1:25), and much of the content of Scripture has to do with moral matters (precepts, laws,
exhortations, etc.).
62
Albertus Magnus, STh I, tract. 1, q. 3, c. 3 (Cologne ed., 13): “theologia non est
veritatis ut veritatis, sed veritatis, prout est inclinativa ad pietatem. . . . videtur ergo, quod
practica est.”
63
Albertus Magnus, STh I, tract. 1, q. 3, c. 3, s.c. (Cologne ed., 13) Similar arguments
appear in Bonaventure (I Sent., pro., q. 3, s.c. 3) and Aquinas (STh I, q. 1, a. 4, s.c.).
According to Mikołaj Olszewski, “There is probably only one formal element that enables
us to recognize St. Thomas as the source of citation, namely Albert’s use of the term
doctrina sacra, which is typical of Aquinas’s language in Question 1 of Summa and is
exceptional for Albert” (Olszewski, “Nature of Theology according to Albert the Great,”
89 n. 84).

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purely speculative, but relates to the affect. It is through “the
affect or the affective intellect”64 that we enjoy in faith the highest
truth, in hope the highest blessedness, and in charity the highest
good. There are, to be sure, moral precepts and concerns in
Scripture, but the truth of God and his works that is sought is not
regarded as truth simply, but as the most beatifying truth. Albert
furthermore invokes Aristotle in book 10 of the Nicomachaean
Ethics, saying that contemplative happiness, as the end of the acts
of virtue (whether intellectual or moral or heroic), belongs to
practical or moral science. Theologia differs from the practical
sciences treated by philosophy, because they deal with the perfect
work of the acquired virtues, while theologia deals with the
perfect work of the virtues infused by grace.65 Thus theologia is
not simply speculative; Albert does call it practical, but he also
gives reasons to describe it as affective rather than simply as
practical.
Although thirty years separate the texts, and some of the
details of the argument have changed, there is great consistency
in Albert’s position. While in the Summa he does not call theologia an affective science, he still insists on the category of the
affective as a way of overcoming the simple dichotomy between
the speculative and the practical. Furthermore, he maintains that
the question is only adequately addressed by looking at both the
ultimate end and the subject of theological knowledge. The end
is determinative because the question has to do with the ultimate
goal of the science, but this ultimate goal involves a relation to
the subject—God and his works—a relation that is beatifying.
In brief, the highest knowledge, the knowledge proper to
theologia, rightly called “wisdom,” might be regarded as
speculative, in that it is sought for its own sake; or it might be
regarded as practical, in that it leads to something beyond mere
knowledge. The matter is resolved by recognizing that theologia
is affective, which we see when we look at the real quality of the
64

Albertus Magnus, STh I, tract. 1, q. 3, c. 3 (Cologne ed., 13): “per affectum vel
intellectum affectivum.”
65
See Olszewksi, “Nature of Theology according to Albert the Great,” 89.

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knowledge of God in heaven.66 Furthermore, while it is true that
the theology of the theologians is not necessarily the same as this
theologia, the former cannot help but be marked by the latter.
That is, because Albert frames theologia in light of beatitude, he
is saying that the one who receives theologia has no other end
than beatitude, and therefore even his practice of theology—
thoroughly speculative as it may be—is still subservient to his end
in beatitude. Theology may not be affective in its immediate
rationale, but it is ordered to an affective end.
V. BONAVENTURE
Our fourth author is Bonaventure, who treats of this topic in
two texts: first, the prologue to book 1 of his commentary on the
Sentences; second, the prologue and beginning of part 1 of his
Breviloquium. As the latter is less important for our purposes, we
will begin with a brief treatment of it.
The topic of the Breviloquium is variously called “sacra
doctrina,” “sacra Scriptura,” and “theologia.”67 In the prologue,
Bonaventure distinguishes the modus procedendi of Scripture and
the modus exponendi. The modus procedendi encompasses all the
various modes used in Scripture: narrative, commandment,
exhortation, etc.—in a word, the mode of authority. Bonaventure
states explicitly that the purpose of Scripture is that we may
become good, 68 and so the modes of Scripture are those suitable
not so much for rational argumentation as for the movement of
the will. The modus exponendi looks to the understanding of
Scripture. When he takes this up in the prologue, he cites
Augustine in De doctrina christiana on rules for interpreting
66

See Ralph McInerny, “Albert and Thomas on Theology,” in Albert der Grosse: Seine
Zeit, sein Werk, seine Wirkung (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1981), 56: “Is
Theology a science undertaken for knowledge (‘sciendi gratia’) or in order that we might
become good (‘ut boni fiamus’). If we consider the end of the science, it is doubtless truth
about God as ultimate beatifying end that is the end, but what the knower wants is not
only knowledge but that he may be enabled to engage in contemplation and ultimately
enjoy union with God.”
67
All these terms appear, and are clearly interchangeable, in Breviloquium 1.1.
68
Brev. prol.5 (Opera omnia 5 [Quaracchi, Florence: Collegium S. Bonaventurae,
1891], 206): “haec doctrina est, ut boni fiamus.”

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Scripture. When he returns to it at the beginning of part 1, he
says simply that Scripture deals with the credibile ut credibile,
while the “books of the expositors” (i.e., the Fathers) deal with
the credibile ut intelligibile. Thus understanding the truth of
Scripture requires a rational activity of elaborating the intelligibility of Scripture. Its goal could be described as speculative
insofar as it leads one to see how the truths of Scripture are an
ordered whole that is entirely related to God as its first principle
and final end, but it does not have a ratio other than that of
Scripture itself. If the end of Scripture is that we may become
good, so too is the end of understanding Scripture.
The prologue of the commentary on the Sentences includes
four questions concerning the four causes of hic liber, that is,
Lombard’s Sentences. We are therefore clearly dealing with the
rational exploration of the things of faith, and not revelation
itself. The word theologia occurs only three times in these
questions: once in a quotation from Lombard, and twice over and
against hic liber.69
While the specific question about whether this activity is
speculative or practical is raised with respect to the final cause,
Bonaventure’s treatment of the material and formal causes
already suggests an answer. In question 1 we read that the subject
(or materia) of this book is “the things of faith, insofar as they

69
Question 3, objection 2 says that theologia is of both faith and morals, whereas this
book deals with those things pertaining to faith, not to morals (“theologia sit de fide et
moribus, liber autem iste de his quae spectant ad fidem, non de his quae spectant ad
mores”). Question 1, objection 2 says that God cannot be the “matter” or subject of this
book, because the matter of something cannot coincide with its end, and “God is the end
of the whole of this work, because he is the end of the whole of theologia” (“Deus est
finis totius istius operis, quia finis totius theologiae”). Although the meaning of the latter
passage is not entirely clear until Bonaventure speaks about the relation of hic liber and
sacra Scriptura in question 2, it clearly means that iste opus and theologia are not identical,
although the end of the former is related to the end of the latter.
In the Quaracchi edition, the word theologia also appears in the heading of question
1 and question 3, where it is equated with hic liber (“Quae sit materia . . . huius libri vel
theologiae”; “Utrum hic liber sive theologia . . .”). These headings, however, do not
belong to Bonaventure’s text, but were inserted by the editors.

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pass over into intelligibility through the addition of reason.”70 In
question 2, Bonaventure affirms explicitly that the mode of
proceeding in hic liber is rational, and he sharply distinguishes
this from the mode that is proper to Scripture itself (namely, the
narrative mode). We are well on the way to the definition of hic
liber as a thoroughly speculative enterprise. Yet this is not what
he, in fact, concludes.
The conclusion of question 3, on the final cause, reads as
follows:
Our intellect can be perfected by scientia. Now we can consider the perfection
of the intellect in three ways: in itself, as it applies to the affect, and as it applies
to work, an application it achieves through giving orders and ruling.
Corresponding to these three modes of perfection, our intellect, because it is
subject to error, has three kinds of directive habits. If we consider the intellect
in itself, it is properly speculative and is perfected by a habit which exists for
the sake of contemplation. This habit is called speculative science. If we consider
the intellect as it applies to work, it is perfected by the habit which exists for
the sake of our becoming good. This habit is practical or moral science. If we
consider the intellect in a way falling between these two, as it applies to the
affect, it is perfected by a habit that lies between the purely speculative and the
purely practical, but one that embraces both. This habit is called wisdom, and
it involves knowledge and affection together. . . . Consequently, this habit is for
the sake of contemplation and also for our becoming good, but principally for
the sake of our becoming good.
Such is the kind of knowledge contained in this book. For this knowledge
aids faith, and faith resides in the intellect in such a way that, in accord with its
very nature, it moves our affect. This is clear: for this knowledge, that Christ
died for us, and other such truths, moves a man to love, unless he is a sinner
and hardened. But a truth like “the diameter is incommensurate with the side”
does not. Therefore we should grant that it [viz., the work of this book] is for
the sake of our becoming good.71
70
Bonaventure, I Sent., pro., q. 1 (Opera omnia 1 [Quaracchi, Florence: Collegium S.
Bonaventurae, 1884], 7): “sic est credibile, prout tamen credibile transit in rationem
intelligibilis, et hoc per additionem rationis; et hic modo, proprie loquendo, est subjectum
in loc libro.”
71
Bonaventure, I Sent., pro., q. 3 (Quaracchi ed., 11): “Perfectibile a scientia est
intellectus noster. Hunc autem contingit considerare tripliciter, scilicet in se, vel prout
extenditur ad affectum, vel prout extenditur ad opus. Extenditur autem intellectus per
modum dictantis et regulantis. Secundum hunc triplicem statum, quia errare potest, habet
triplicem habitum directivum. Nam si consideremus intellectum in se, sic est proprie
speculativus et perficitur ab habitu, qui est contemplationis gratia, qui dicitur scientia
speculativa. Si autem consideremus ipsum ut natum extendi ad opus, sic perficitur ab

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Some comparisons with our previous authors are immediately
apparent: Bonaventure is more concerned than Odo to
distinguish the affective and the practical, and he does not share
Odo’s commitment to the idea that a science must be either
simply speculative or simply practical. On both of these points,
Bonaventure is closer to Albert—although, unlike Albert, he does
not speak in terms of beatitude.72 On the other hand, it is possible
to read Bonaventure as very like Odo. Odo says that in Lombard’s
work, the truth that is known does not remain in itself but orders
to something else; Bonaventure repeats the same idea, almost
verbatim.73 Also, Bonaventure’s invocation of a habit that
habitu, qui est ut boni fiamus; et hic est scientia practica sive moralis. Si autem medio
modo consideretur ut natus extendi ad affectum, sic perficitur ab habitu medio inter pure
speculativam et practicum, qui complectitur utrumque; et hic habitus dicitur sapientia,
quae simul dicit cognitionem et affectum. . . . Unde hic est contemplationis gratia, et ut
boni fiamus, principaliter tamen ut boni fiamus. Talis est cognitio tradita in hoc libro.
Nam cognitio haec iuvat fidem, et fides sic est in intellectu, ut, quantum est de sui ratione,
nata sit movere affectum. Et hoc patet. Nam haec cognitio: quod Christus pro nobis
mortuus est, et consimiles, nisi sit homo peccator et durus, movet ad amorem; non sic
ista: quod diameter est asymeter costae. Concedendum ergo, quod est ut boni fiamus.” I
have lightly revised the translation in Bonaventure, Commentary on the Sentences:
Philosophy of God, trans. R. E. Houser and Timothy B. Noone, Works of St. Bonaventure
16 (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute 2013), 11-12.
72
Bonaventure does evoke beatitude in fund. 3, which argues that a teaching
concerning a part has the same end as teaching concerning the whole, and the end of
Scripture is not only that we may become good, but that we may become blessed. The
wording is different from Albert’s, but the point is essentially the same. It does not,
however, enter into Bonaventure’s reasoning in the respondeo.
73
In addition to the notion of the intellect applying to work or to affect, we find in
the response to the first objection the argument that although there is a speculative aspect
to the work of theology, it does not stay there—a point clearly found in Odo. This way
of reading Bonaventure can be found, e.g., in Donneaud (Théologie et intelligence de la
foi [Paris: Parole et silence, 2006], 483) and John Quinn (The Historical Constitution of
St. Bonaventure’s Philosophy [Toronto: PIMS, 1973], 684-85). Both read Bonaventure in
this passage as saying that theology has to be understood in light of its place within
Christian life, leading to beatitude. Its proper finality cannot be considered either just
within itself (as the understanding of revelation) or as directed to the ultimate end which
is the enjoyment of God in beatitude, but rather in terms of its place within the set of
activities whereby the Christian in this life moves on the path toward beatitude.
Therefore, its proper finality has to do with its place in achieving the practical end of the
Christian life—thus the speculative in service of the practical.

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encompasses the speculative and the practical is reminiscent of
Odo’s insistence on the habit of intelligentia which is likewise
speculative and practical. Perhaps Bonaventure has a more
refined understanding of the affect than does Odo, but it is
plausible to say that, in the end, he understands this work as
practical, much as Odo does.
These comparisons aside, it must be noted that the
expectation that hic liber is speculative is overturned by the
conclusion. Bonaventure clearly says that the habit in question
here is “principally that we may become good” and that “we
should grant that it is for the sake of our becoming good.” At the
same time, his choice of example may seem odd: “the knowledge
that Christ died for us, and other such truths.” Lombard, and
Bonaventure commenting on him, discuss these truths, but in
themselves they belong primarily to faith, not to hic liber. If
Bonaventure were to give instead an example of some truth that
is achieved precisely by Lombard, would that not be properly
speculative rather than practical?
Understanding Bonaventure’s contribution on this point
requires understanding his insistence on three distinct habits that
perfect the intellect, with wisdom—lying in between the
speculative and the practical—being the habit that pertains to hic
liber. We need to discern whether Bonaventure really considers
this affective habit as distinct from the speculative and the
practical, with its own proper intelligibility, or whether it is
simply a way of dealing with the limitations of dividing the
sciences into the purely speculative and the purely practical (as it
seems to be for Odo).74 In the latter case, the point would be to
highlight the ordering of the speculative and the practical, not to
identify a distinct capacity of the person.
74
This seems to be the way George Tavard reads Bonaventure: “To equate theology
with a speculative science would be tantamount to ignore its actual link with holiness and,
consequently, with man’s future beatitude. To identify it with a merely practical science
would amount to understate both the rôle pertaining to the intellect and its natural
inclination to ‘extend’ its contents to the affectus with a view to love and action. The
Bonaventurian position keeps the middle between two extremes” (George Tavard,
Transiency and Permanence: The Nature of Theology according to St. Bonaventure [St.
Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 1954], 192).

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If we confine our attention to this text, we cannot do more
than raise the question. A quick look at some other texts,
however, sheds some light on the matter. When Bonaventure
discusses wisdom as the gift of the Holy Spirit, he describes it as
beginning in knowledge and ending in the affect.75 If, then, the
wisdom at issue in the Sentences prologue is like or the same as
the wisdom that is the gift of the Holy Spirit, it is plausible to say
that its speculative aspect exists for the sake of moving to
something else (whether that be practical or affective). But there
are other texts that rather suggest a distinctive place for this
work, other than the speculative or the practical. For example, in
a discussion of sciences in book 3 of the commentary on the
Sentences,76 Bonaventure distinguishes (1) those that consist in
the purely speculative intellect, namely, the philosophical
sciences; (2) those that consist in the intellect inclined from the
affect, which is the science of sacred Scripture; and (3) those that
consist in the intellect insofar as it inclines the affect to work.77
Theologia, the science of sacred Scripture, thus holds a place
distinct from the speculative and the practical. Again, in various
discussions of wisdom Bonaventure does not advert to
75

See, e.g., III Sent., d. 35, a. un., q. 1.
The question raised is whether the principal act of the gift of knowledge lies in
action or in speculation. This distinction is therefore the lens through which the other
sciences are viewed in this question.
77
Bonaventure, III Sent., d. 35, a. un., q. 2 (Opera omnia 3 [Quaracchi, Florence:
Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1887], 776): “Scientiae quadruplex est differentia. Quaedam
est, quae consistit in intellectu pure speculativo; et haec est fundata super principia
rationis, et haec est scientia acquisita de quacumque creatura, sicut scientia humanae
philosophiae. Quaedam autem est, quae consistit in intellectu inclinato ab affectu; et haec
est fundata super principia fidei, quae quidem sunt articuli, et nihilominus acquisita; et
haec est scientia sacrae Scripturae, quam nullus habere potest, nisi saltem habeat fidem
informem. Quaedam autem est, qui consistit in intellectu sive ratione, in quantum inclinat
affectum ad operationem; et haec fundata est super principia iuris naturalis, quae
ordinatur ad rectitudinem et honestatem vitae; et huiusmodi est scientia prudentiaevirtutis.” The fourth science is the gift of knowledge of the Holy Spirit, which both is
inclined (by faith) and inclines (to good works). The intellect inclining the affect to work
is not practical science here, but prudence. This suggests a difference between knowing
the truth of the moral life (a practical science) and directing oneself to engage in the moral
life (a virtue).
76

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“theological wisdom,” but he clearly does advert to a kind of
wisdom that is different from a purely speculative wisdom and
the ultimate wisdom that is the gift of the Holy Spirit—whether
it be “wisdom properly so-called,”78 which is associated with the
relation to God one has by means of the theological virtues, or
“multiform wisdom” (in the mysteries of Scripture)79 or
“omniform wisdom” (in the reflection of God in the world).80
Bonaventure wants to talk about a condition of the human
knower different from the pure speculation of philosophy, the
practical knowledge proper to the work of virtue, and the higher
reaches of the experience and knowledge of God that one might
call mystical, or appropriate to the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is
the condition appropriate to the one who has the science of the
things of faith.
In this passage from book 3 of the commentary on the Sentences just mentioned, the science of Scripture is moved “ab
affectu,” whereas in the Sentences prologue, wisdom involves the
intellect moving “ad affectum.” There is no contradiction here.
In both cases Bonaventure is clearly distinguishing the science of
Scripture from that sort of activity in which the intellect produces
a kind of work, as well as from pure speculation. If the perfection
of this wisdom involves being moved “ad affectum,” this is
because it is moved from the beginning “ab affectu.” The kind of
thing that is given in faith demands that it be treated in a way in
keeping with that faith.
In short, Bonaventure wants to alert us to the fact that in hic
liber something is going on that is distinct from the speculative
or practical sciences. We are, as it were, in a noetic realm where
the point is not that we are trying to accomplish a good work, or
to acquire a virtue, but rather that we are penetrating the proper
meaning of revelation.
His example is telling: “The knowledge that Christ died for
us, and such like truths, moves to love, unless a man be hardened
and a sinner; not so the knowledge that ‘the diameter is incom78

III Sent., d. 35, a. un., a. 1.
Hex. 2.11.
80
Hex. 2.20.
79

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mensurate with the side.’” On an obvious level, this seems to
mean that the things we talk about in hic liber have a practical or
affective end, that the purpose for which we know them is not
purely speculative. But insofar as in hic liber the intellect is moved
by the affect, we must understand that “the knowledge that
Christ died for us” has an affective weight that moves the intellect
in what is a properly intellectual activity. Affect comes into the
picture not so much as the result of this reflection but a directive
force behind it that produces a knowledge in harmony with it.
In sum, the intellectual habit involved in hic liber should not
be called practical because it is not trying to accomplish a work—
its content is not purely practical. It should not be called
speculative because the speculative philosophical sciences deal
with a different capacity of the person. It is wisdom because its
consideration of all things lies within the affective realm, being
moved by the affect.
VI. AQUINAS
Our fifth and final author is Thomas Aquinas, who offers
three treatments of this topic, first in his Parisian commentary on
the Sentences, second in his Roman commentary on the
Sentences, and third in the Summa theologiae.
This science, although it is one, is yet perfect and sufficient to all human
perfection because of the efficacy of the divine light. . . . Wherefore it perfects
man both in right operation and as to the contemplation of truth, wherefore as
to this it is practical and yet speculative. But because every science is to be
considered from its end, and the ultimate end of this doctrine is the
contemplation of the first truth in heaven, therefore it is principally
speculative.81

81
I Sent., pro., a. 3 (Adriano Oliva, Les débuts de l’enseignement de Thomas d’Aquin
et sa conception de la “sacra doctrina,” avec l’édition du prologue de son commentaire des
Sentences [Paris: Librarie philosophique J. Vrin, 2006], 320-21): “Ista scientia, quamuis
sit una, tamen perfecta est et sufficiens ad omnem humanam perfectionem propter
efficaciam diuini luminis. . . . Vnde perficit hominem et in operatione recta et quantum
ad contemplationem ueritatis, unde quantum ad quid practica est et etiam speculatiua. Set

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This science is composed of each [i.e., the practical and the speculative]. For it
has in itself that which is speculative and that which is practical. The reason of
which is that the ultimate perfection of man is in the knowledge of God. . . .
Wherefore since the knowledge of God is both had in the present and hoped
for in the future, it is necessary that [this science] manifests to us how it is
possible for [God] to be known in the present, and so it is speculative, and
teaches how we may come to him through good works, and so is practical. Yet
it is more chiefly speculative, because our ultimate end is in speculation. For it
is undertaken so that we may be blessed; but beatitude consists in the knowledge
of God.82
Sacred doctrine, being one, extends to things which belong to different
philosophical sciences because it considers in each the same formal aspect,
namely, so far as they can be known through divine revelation. Hence, although
among the philosophical sciences one is speculative and another practical,
nevertheless sacred doctrine includes both; as God, by one and the same science,
knows both Himself and His works. Still, it is speculative rather than practical
because it is more concerned with divine things than with human acts; though
it does treat even of these latter, inasmuch as man is ordained by them to the
perfect knowledge of God in which consists eternal bliss.83

quia scientia omnis principaliter pensanda est ex fine, finis autem ultimus istius doctrine
est contemplatio prime ueritatis in patria, ideo principaliter speculatiua est.”
82
Lectura romana, pro., q. 3 (Thomas Aquinas, Lectura romana in primum
Sententiarum Petri Lombardii, ed. Leonard E. Boyle and John F. Boyle [Toronto: PIMS,
2006], 77): “Haec scientia utrumque complectitur. Habet enim in se id quod est
speculative et id quod est practice. Cuius ratio est quia ultima perfectio hominis est in
cognitione Dei. . . . Vnde cum cognitio Dei et habeatur in praesenti et expectetur in future,
oportet quod <haec scientia> manifested nobis qualiter sit possibilie <Deum> cognosci
in praesenti, et sic est speculativa, et doceat qualiter perveniamus ad eum per bonas
operations, et sic est practica. Principalius tamen est speculativa, name ultimus finis noster
est in speculatione. Operamur autem ut beati simus; beatitude autem in cognitione Dei
consistit.”
83
STh I, q. 1, a. 4 (Leonine ed., 1:14): “sacra doctrina, ut dictum est, una existens, se
extendit ad ea quae pertinent ad diversas scientias philosophicas, propter rationem
formalem quam in diversis attendit: scilicet prout sunt divino lumine cognoscibilia. Unde
licet in scientiis philosophicis alia sit speculativa et alia practica, sacra tamen doctrina
comprehendit sub se utramque; sicut et Deus eadem scientia se cognoscit, et ea quae facit.
Magis tamen est speculativa quam practica: quia principalius agit de rebus divinis quam
de actibus humanis; de quibus agit secundum quod per eos ordinatur homo ad perfectam
Dei cognitionem, in qua aeterna beatitudo consistit.” This translation is taken from
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province
(New York: Benziger Bros., 1947).

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The term that Aquinas consistently uses to describe this science is
sacra doctrina. The term theologia appears only rarely. At times,
sacra doctrina is described as freely convertible with sacra
Scriptura; at other times, it is clear that while Scripture supplies
the principles of sacra doctrina, the science itself extends much
further, to encompass everything that is knowable in light of
divine revelation. Indeed, there is a vast debate among commentators over whether sacra doctrina (especially in the first question
of the Summa) has an ambiguous or analogous meaning—
sometimes signifying revelation, sometimes Scholastic theology,
and sometimes Scripture.84 Here, we can do no better than to
analyze exactly what Aquinas says on our question. For our purposes, sacra doctrina means very much what our other authors
signify by theologia. Whether, strictly speaking, it encompasses
theology may be debated, but it is not difficult to see its
implications for theology.
The content of the treatments does not vary much. In each
text Aquinas says that sacra doctrina can rightly be said to
encompass both the speculative and the practical, but that it is
principally, or chiefly, speculative. The grounds of his argument
on this point differ. In both the Parisian and Roman Sentences
commentaries, he appeals to the end of the science, which is “the
contemplation of the first truth in heaven,” or “the knowledge of
God.” In the Summa, by contrast, he argues from the formal
unity of the science that it deals with all things insofar as they are
knowable through the divine light, and therefore that it
transcends the division of speculative and practical that is found
among the philosophical sciences. It is not on the basis of the end,
but on the basis of the formal unity of the subject that its
character is defined. If one insists on using the terms, however, it
is more speculative than practical because, materially, it is more
concerned with divine things than with human acts.

84

For helpful surveys, see Weisheipl, “The Meaning of sacra doctrina,” 56-64; Henry
Donneaud, “Insaississable sacra doctrina? À propos d’une réédition recente,” Revue
thomiste 98 (1998): esp. 183-90.

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In saying that sacra doctrina is both speculative and practical,
Aquinas falls on the same side as Albert and Bonaventure, and
against Odo. He makes no mention of the affective, and in this
clearly differs from each of our other authors. He does refer to
“being good” and beatitude, but does not appeal to the category
of the affective.85
A point on which Aquinas diverges from all of our other
authors is the place he gives to wisdom. For Alexander, Odo, and
Bonaventure, the introduction of wisdom is a way to highlight
the affective quality of the knowledge in question; for Albert, to
call theologia wisdom is to invoke the fact that it is about a subject
the knowledge of which is beatifying. Aquinas is well aware of
the etymology that derives “sapientia” from “sapida scientia”
(“tasted knowledge”),86 but he does not advert to it here—and
indeed, he does not use the category of wisdom to explain the
end of sacra doctrina at all. In the Summa, wisdom is the subject
of a distinct question, and Aquinas speaks of it in terms of the
architectonic knowledge of sacra doctrina.87 For Aquinas, wisdom does not, as it does for Bonaventure, suggest a different,
higher habit, but simply the perfection of the scientific reasoning
that runs throughout sacra doctrina.88
85
Nevertheless, Jean-Pierre Torrell argues that sacra doctrina in Aquinas could well
be described as affective—and cites Cajetan in support: “Shall we go so far as to speak of
theology as an ‘affective’ science? Saint Thomas does not. This does not mean, however,
that he is taking sides against the ‘Augustinian ideal’ of an affective science. . . . A Thomist
as influential as Cajetan was not afraid to maintain that sacra doctrina is the realization of
an affective science in the most formal (formaliter eminenter)—just as it is the realization
of speculative or practical science” (“Theology and Sanctity,” in Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P.,
Christ and Spirituality in St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P.
[Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011], 29). The reference
to Cajetan is to number 9 of his commentary on STh I, q. 1, a. 4.
86
See STh I, q. 43, a. 5, ad 2; STh II-II, q. 45, a. 2, obj. 2.
87
STh I, q. 1, a. 6, on whether sacra doctrina is wisdom. For an analysis of this article,
see Gregory F. LaNave, “How Theology Judges the Principles of Other Sciences,” The
Thomist 81 (2017): 567-93. In the Sentences commentary, Aquinas has much the same
concern. In the Lectura romana, he does not refer to sacra doctrina as wisdom at all.
88
See Trottmann, Théologie et noétique, 138: “Most of Thomas’s predecessors
associate the sapiential character [of theology] to its savorous pursuit of ultimate
happiness. It is rather as science, less of the final end than of the first cause, that Thomas
sees it as the highest wisdom.”

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Finally, Aquinas echoes the argument made by Albert that the
most noble science is for its own sake; practical sciences are not
for their own sake; this is the most noble science; and therefore
this is not a practical science.89 In the Summa, Aquinas associates
this, as Albert does, with the beatifying end of this science; in the
Sentences commentary, he simply refers to its being the most
noble of sciences.
In short, it is fair to say that among our authors Aquinas
presents the most thoroughgoing account of sacra doctrina as
speculative.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
What I have tried to do in the analyses of these five authors is
to point to the vision they have of theologia and theology that
governs their answer to our specific question. Now I would like
to step back, and consider what the question about the
speculative, or practical, or affective nature of theologia or of
theology might mean.
(1) The question might be taken to mean, what is the purpose
of theologia? God’s revelation is given so that we may come to
know and love God. There is no real disagreement among our
authors on this point. Aquinas is the only one not to advert to the
affective in his discussion, but this is easily explained in light of
89
I Sent., pro., q. 3, 1.2 (Oliva, ed., 318): “The Philosopher says that the noblest of
the sciences is sui gratia. But practical sciences are not sui gratia, but rather for the sake
of a work. Therefore since this is the noblest of the sciences, it is not practical” (“Dicit
Philosophus quod nobilissima scientiarum est sui gratia. Practice autem scientie non sunt
sui gratia, immo propter opus. Ergo cum ista sit nobilissima scientiarum, non erit
practica”). A similar argument is made in STh I, q. 1, a. 5 (Leonine ed., 1:16). In this
article, Aquinas establishes that sacra doctrina is nobler than both other speculative and
other practical sciences. Of practical sciences he says “that one is nobler which is ordained
to a further purpose. . . . But the purpose of this science [sacra doctrina] in so far as it is
practical, is eternal bliss; to which as to an ultimate end the purposes of every practical
science are directed” (“Practicarum vero scientiarum illa dignior est, quae ad ulteriorem
finem ordinatur. . . . Finis autem huius doctrinae inquantum est practica, est beatitudo
aeterna, ad quam sicut ad ultimum finem ordinantur omnes alii fines scientiarum
practicarum”).

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his view that the affections are better understood as a response to
what is apprehended. One could say that Odo’s argument that
intellection in theologia is not meant to end in itself but stretches
beyond to affection is accepted by all of our authors, although
Aquinas regards this fulfillment of the affections as a consequence
more than as a further end.
What, by extension, is the purpose of theology? Why do we
engage in this academic discipline? It is problematic to say in this
respect that theology is essentially speculative, for no one wishes
to say that the purpose of Christian life is to know things. It is
rather more compelling to say that Christian life has a goal to
achieve, namely, attaining beatitude. One could describe this as a
project or work, and theology—which leads to this end—as a
practical science. To say that theology is an affective science is
just to say that it is not only our attainment of the good that is
achieved here, but the full satisfaction of our affections.
Is there a fundamental disagreement between our authors on
this point? Aquinas appears to be the outlier, because he insists
that our fulfillment comes in beatitude in the contemplation of
God. But Thomistic scholarship of recent years, from Jean-Pierre
Torrell to Gilles Mongeau, seem to have made it its business to
warn against a purely intellectualistic reading of Aquinas.90 The
end of the theologian, one wants to insist, is not the mere
knowledge of a set of facts, but a knowledge of God that is at the
same time a pilgrimage, a way to achieve the fullness of beatitude.
(2) The question can also be understood in terms of the matter
of the science: does theologia deal with the kind of thing that is
treated in the speculative sciences, or the kind of thing that is
treated in the practical sciences? (Here there is no difference
between theologia and theology; the matter of both—the truth
revealed by God and known in faith—is identical.) All of our
authors will acknowledge that theologia deals with matter that
90

See, e.g., Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, Spiritual Master,
trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003),
esp. chap. 1, “Theology and Spirituality”; ibid., “Le savoir théologique chez saint
Thomas,” Revue thomiste 96 (1996): 355-97; Gilles Mongeau, Embracing Wisdom: The
“Summa theologiae” as Spiritual Pedagogy (Toronto: PIMS, 2015), esp. chap. 1, “A
Wisdom That Makes One Holy.”

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exceeds what Aristotle had in mind when he made the distinction
between the speculative and the practical sciences. For
Alexander, this is reason to call theologia wisdom, rather than
science. For Aquinas and Bonaventure, it is why “practical” is an
inadequate designation for theologia. For Albert, it is grounds for
saying that theologia transcends both the speculative and the
practical. Odo alone is still willing, even in the face of this, to
identify theologia as practical, though by means of equating the
practical and the affective.
Is there a fundamental difference between our authors? There
is some refinement in the apprehension of this aspect of the
question. Aquinas asserts that practical sciences deal with human
acts, and therefore theologia cannot be practical; none of his
contemporaries seems to disagree with him about that. But the
further claim, that insofar as theologia is about God it is
speculative, seems to be unique to Aquinas. Let us say this: insofar
as “speculative” and “practical” name sciences that fall under the
natural powers of the human mind, we have good reason to deny
that theologia is among them; all of our authors would agree with
that. If one is willing to talk about parts of theologia, then part of
theologia is practical, because it has to do with human acts;
another part is speculative, namely, that part that has to do with
suprasensible realities. Aquinas is clearly willing to regard
theologia this way, Odo seems to be inveterately opposed to it,
and the case is less clear for Albert and Bonaventure. If one insists
on talking about the whole of theologia, then its character as
speculative, or practical, or affective will have to do with the
formal unity of its content—a point to which Aquinas plainly
adverts.
(3) A final approach to the question would have to do with
the mode of proceeding. If a science is described as speculative,
that seems to be of a piece with the idea that it proceeds in a
speculative mode—that is to say, an argumentative, or
disputative, or ratiocinative mode. If, on the other hand, a science
is described as practical, then it would seem to proceed via modes
of discourse that are oriented to action: thus, exhortation,
admonition, counsel, and so on.

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Here we see an obvious difference between theologia and
theology. Theologia—the revealed word of God—has all of the
modes of proceeding that one finds in Scripture: occasionally
argumentative, but more often rhetorical, exhortative, etc.
Theology, on the other hand—whether one thinks of it
specifically as the work of Lombard, or commenting on it, or
more generally using the faculty of reason to come to an
understanding of the faith—properly has a demonstrative, or
argumentative, or rational mode. All of our authors would agree
with this. Even Alexander of Hales, the one of our authors who
explicitly denies that theologia is a science, does so in the context
of a series of questions that are derived from Aristotle’s analysis
of what constitutes a science. More tellingly, all of our authors
clearly appeal to rational argumentation in their pursuit of
theology. Theology exists so that we might understand; theologia
exists so that we might be saved. Odo’s position that theologia is
practical is more palatable in this light; whereas Aquinas’s dictum
that sacra doctrina is speculative is easily accepted if one takes
this to refer to theology, rather than describing theologia in its
entirety.
Where there is perhaps difference is in terms of what theology
looks like in its highest or most perfect state. If we are to take
Alexander at his word, the wisdom that is theologia is affective,
pure and simple. Odo would have us see that any truth rationally
arrived at in theology has a telos beyond that; it may look
rational, but its ultimate dynamism is to the affective. Albert
speaks of theology by analogy with the knowledge of God in
beatitude; what this might mean for the way that theology is
practiced here below would need further exploration.
Bonaventure points us to a distinct habit that is both intellectual
and affective, and suggests that theology properly practiced not
only leads to an affective result (à la Odo) but is itself thoroughly
affective. And Aquinas sees theology as mirroring in our frail
minds God’s own fully intellectual knowledge of himself and his
acts—a working-out in speculative ways of what is essentially a
contemplative foretaste of the divine.
***

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I have chosen not to frame these conclusions in terms of a
general difference between the Franciscan and Dominican
intellectual traditions, because it is obvious that the question
requires more precision than that. The authors studied here are,
indeed, rivals, for they are asking the same questions, and providing answers that can fruitfully be compared to each other. No
Thomist, or Albertinist, or Bonaventurean should think that he
must read each of these authors on a given theological point. But
I would suggest that a way forward that would be of benefit to
the whole of the theological tradition is that one ask, for example, Thomistic questions of Bonaventure, and Bonaventurean
questions of Aquinas. What we can see, with respect to the
specific question of this article, is the way in which theology
could be called speculative, and the way in which it could be
called practical, and the way in which it could be called affective.
Because the understanding of theology contained in these authors
is fundamentally simpatico, we may emerge with a consensus as
to the possible range of answers, which could inform the
conception of theology in any age.

The Thomist 85 (2021): 127-38

THE TEACHING OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL
IN CURRENT CATHOLIC THEOLOGY
J. AUGUSTINE DI NOIA, O.P.
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Vatican City

T

HE STATE OF THE CHURCH in the aftermath of the
Council of Nicaea famously reminded St. Basil the Great
of a nighttime naval battle: “The raucous shouting of
those who through disagreement rise up against one another, the
incomprehensible chatter, the confused din of uninterrupted
clamoring, has now filled almost the whole of the Church, falsifying through excess or failure the right doctrine of the faith.”1
1

St. Basil’s words (drawn from his De spiritu sancto 30.77) are cited in the first
footnote of Thomas Guarino’s book under review here (see below); he is quoting Pope
Benedict XVI’s Christmas address to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2005. Vivid is
the description in Basil’s previous paragraph (ibid. 30.76): “To what then shall I liken our
present condition? It may be compared, I think, to some naval battle which has arisen out
of time old quarrels, and is fought by men who cherish a deadly hate against one another,
of long experience in naval warfare, and eager for the fight. Look, I beg you, at the picture
thus raised before your eyes. See the rival fleets rushing in dread array to the attack. With
a burst of uncontrollable fury they engage and fight it out. Fancy, if you like, the ships
driven to and fro by a raging tempest, while thick darkness falls from the clouds and
blackens all the scenes so that watchwords are indistinguishable in the confusion, and all
distinction between friend and foe is lost. To fill up the details of the imaginary picture,
suppose the sea swollen with billows and whirled up from the deep, while a vehement
torrent of rain pours down from the clouds and the terrible waves rise high. From every
quarter of heaven the winds beat upon one point, where both the fleets are dashed one
against the other. Of the combatants some are turning traitors; some are deserting in the
very thick of the fight; some have at one and the same moment to urge on their boats, all
beaten by the gale, and to advance against their assailants. Jealousy of authority and the
lust of individual mastery splits the sailors into parties which deal mutual death to one
another. Think, besides all this, of the confused and unmeaning roar sounding over all
the sea, from howling winds, from crashing vessels, from boiling surf, from the yells of
127

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J. AUGUSTINE DI NOIA, O.P.

Many have found Basil’s vivid description of the aftermath of
Nicaea pertinent to our troubled post-Vatican II times.
The image of a naval battle seems a particularly apt one. No
less than the very first, the twenty-first ecumenical council was
launched into rough seas of doctrinal disagreement and left swells
of controversy in its wake. History suggests that it is the normal
state of affairs for ecumenical councils to settle some things and,
where the theological consensus has not taken shape, deliberately
to leave other matters unresolved. Not infrequently the very
resolutions pronounced by a council remain at the center of
contention long after the participants have gone home.2 The
animated theological debates of the sixty-year period leading to
the Second Vatican Council, momentarily put on hold during the
council itself, resumed afterward with a somewhat altered set of
protagonists and an agenda reset by the council itself.
In the midst of current turbulence, it is easy to forget the
rough seas of the 1950s and 1960s, not to mention those of the
1920s and 1930s. There is a general awareness but not always a
sufficiently profound understanding of the significance of these
years for the council’s agenda and output. The Modernist
controversy—suppressed perhaps prematurely—had left many
issues unresolved: the nature of revelation, the role of tradition,
the place of historical-critical methods in the study of the
Scriptures, the propositional force of doctrines, the possibilities
and limits of doctrinal development, and other issues as well. The
reform movements that shaped the participants at Vatican II—
biblical, liturgical, ecumenical, patristic—had begun twenty,
forty, or even sixty years before the council convened. These
movements challenged the hegemony of Neo-Scholasticism in

the combatants as they express their varying emotions in every kind of noise, so that not
a word from admiral or pilot can be heard. The disorder and confusion is tremendous,
for the extremity of misfortune, when life is despaired of, gives men license for every kind
of wickedness. Suppose, too, that the men are all smitten with the incurable plague of
mad love of glory, so that they do not cease from their struggle each to get the better of
the other, while their ship is actually settling down into the deep.”
2
The title of Philip Hughes’s classic, The Church in Crisis: A History of the General
Councils 325-1870 (New York: Doubleday, 1961), captures the dramatic quality of
conciliar history over the centuries.

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Catholic thought as well as settled patterns of law and practice in
Catholic life. When contextualized by the social and cultural
unrest caused by two catastrophic world wars, the pastoral and
doctrinal situation in which the council began its deliberations in
the early 1960s was plainly a stormy one. Council fathers, curial
officials, and theological experts were expected to assess a variety
of contending theological and pastoral proposals about how to
address the challenges posed by this new situation.
Jared Wicks succeeds in giving us some idea of how they went
about doing this. In the opening lines of Investigating Vatican II:
Its Theologians, Ecumenical Turn, and Biblical Commitment,3 he
announces that his book “presents the Second Vatican Council as
an event to which theologians contributed in major ways and
from which Catholic theology even today can gain enormously”
(1). With theologians in the spotlight of this highly informative
book, readers might well expect Wicks to examine something of
the prior theological debates in which some of the very
theologians he considers were prominent actors. But he sets his
sights elsewhere. In this collection of ten lively essays (originally
published between 2009 and 2015), Wicks shows, sometimes in
considerable detail, how the positions these theologians espoused
during earlier years shaped the eventual teaching of the council.
He writes about the contributions of many theologians—
including Karl Rahner, Yves Congar, Edward Schillebeeckx, and
Joseph Ratzinger—to the development primarily, but not only,
of conciliar teaching on ecumenical relations and biblical studies.
In his tantalizing first chapter concerning what he calls the
“Tridentine motivations” of Pope St. John XXIII, Wicks sets the
theological substance of the council’s final teaching in these areas
into the broader context of the previous history of doctrine and
theology. Marshalling Angelo Roncalli’s earlier writings, Wicks
shows the influence of prominent Tridentine figures (Cesare
Baronio, Charles Borromeo, and Gregory Barbarigo) on Pope
John’s aspirations for making the council he had summoned “a
comprehensive council” like Trent, by complementing the
“doctrinal formulations of its four constitutions with a broad
3

Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018.

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J. AUGUSTINE DI NOIA, O.P.

program of renewed practice in worship, ministerial service, and
the apostolate” (30). Few readers will have been aware of this
important aspect of what we might call the remote prehistory of
Vatican II.
The more proximate prehistory of the council comes into view
later in his book when Wicks reminds us, without much discussion, that, after the proposed schemas of the preparatory
commissions had been set aside by the council Fathers, “the
revised schemas made use of work by the Catholic pioneers—of
1930 to 1960—of biblical, liturgical, patristic, and ecumenical
thought.” “These movements,” whose proposals were not
reflected in the work of the preparatory commissions, “proved to
constitute the effective theological preparation for Vatican II”
(171-72). This comment suggests that it will always be impossible
to measure the full significance of the council documents if the
earlier theological developments have not been taken into
account—even if this is not the primary focus of this book.
Matthew Levering’s Introduction to Vatican II as an Ongoing
Theological Event4 takes us deep into four central teaching
documents of the council—Dei Verbum, Sacrosanctum Concilium, Lumen Gentium, and Gaudium et Spes—by studying the
proximate prehistory of the council in four areas: fundamental
theology, liturgical theology, ecclesiology, and theological anthropology. Levering’s method for doing this is ingenious. He
devotes each of the four main chapters of his book to one of these
topics as exemplified by an important work of a single notable
theologian: in fundamental theology, René Latourelle’s Theology
of Revelation (1963; ET 1966); in liturgical theology, Louis
Bouyer’s Liturgy and Architecture (1967); in ecclesiology, Yves
Congar’s True and False Reform in the Church (1950; ET 2011);
and, in theological anthropology, Henri de Lubac’s The Mystery
of the Supernatural (1965; ET 1967). Discussion of each of these
works allows Levering to range widely in the relevant literature
about each topic at the same time that he illumines the theological
debates of the first half of the twentieth century that engaged the
attention of these four theologians. Each of the four chapters
4

Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2017.

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concludes with a discussion of the specific conciliar constitution
under consideration therein.
To be sure, in this fine book, Levering is not interested simply
in uncovering the intricacies of theological controversy, and
much less in identifying the winners and the losers. The meaning
of the council cannot be reduced to “a mere struggle for power,
whether between neo-scholastics and the nouvelle théologie,
clergy and laity, traditionalists and progressives, conservatives
and liberals.” What counts for him is the Christological center of
the council, an interpretation that places the focus on “Jesus
Christ crucified and risen and upon how Christ wishes us to share
in his life today in the modern world and for the salvation of the
world” (176). One may be permitted to hear this argument as an
impassioned plea—a cri de cœur, as it were—on Levering’s part.
The council sought to address a range of issues that were in
urgent need of attention and, with sheer beauty and finely tuned
relevance, succeeded in teaching that Christ is at the center of
every aspect of the Church’s life.
But in the popular mind and sometimes even in expert analysis
of conciliar teaching, it seems as though the council invented a
series of controversial positions to upset traditionalists and to
cheer progressives. Levering recognizes the critical importance of
the understanding of the prehistory of the council—both proximate and remote—to account for the final shape of conciliar
teaching in the areas he studies. The presumption is that the
council was called to address serious theological and pastoral
issues—in liturgy, fundamental theology, ecclesiology, and theological anthropology—that could not simply be left to inquiry
and disputation by theologians but required deliberation and
direction on the part of the Church’s Magisterium.
A failure fully to grasp the complexity of the situation that the
council faced has, at least in part, led to challenges to the
legitimacy and authority of Vatican II. These challenges arose
very early on and eventually produced a “virtual” schism on the
part of traditionalists who are members and fellow travelers of
the Society of St. Pius X. Even after years of dialogue with the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about particular
conciliar teachings, the Society has refused repeated appeals to

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return to full communion with the Holy See and continues to
press a wholesale assault on the authority and legitimacy of the
council. While unprepared to offer a definitive historical
judgment on the matter, one may venture a guess that these
“irreconcilable differences” have created an unprecedented conversation in the case of this council. It is not just individual
teachings that are rejected, as often happened in the past, but the
council as such. Conciliar hermeneutics of Vatican II has thus
nearly become a theological specialization of its own: the entire
teaching of the council is subjected to a comprehensive interpretation (with usually negative results) to the neglect of the
specific ways in which conciliar documents open the way to theological developments that have already been received and appropriated by tradition-minded if not traditionalist theologians.
This reviewer was present in the Sala Clementina on that day
in 2005 when Pope Benedict XVI framed the question of the
hermeneutics of Vatican II in terms of two general approaches:
on the one hand, a hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture,
and, on the other, a hermeneutics of continuity and reform. It
was immediately clear that this formulation of the question
would define all future discussion of the matter. The terms
“continuity” and “discontinuity” refer to the standard represented by previous Catholic teaching. As Thomas Guarino poses
the issue in his book, The Disputed Teachings of Vatican II:
Continuity and Reversal in Catholic Doctrine:5 “Was the council
an authentic development and extension of the prior doctrinal
tradition, or was it in fact—at least in certain instances—an
unabashed corruption of it?” (2).
A more theologically sophisticated and rigorously argued case
for the substantial continuity of the teaching of Vatican II with
traditional Catholic teaching than Guarino’s would be hard to
find. Recognizing the interplay of continuity and discontinuity in
the conciliar teaching, he insists that discontinuities need not
entail departures from the tradition but can open the way to
legitimate development of doctrine. He deploys not only his
knowledge of Vincent of Lérins on doctrinal development in
5

Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2018.

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making this case,6 but also the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas on
participation and analogy. Readers of this journal will be
interested to know that, according to Guarino, “Thomist ideas
are more decidedly present at Vatican II than is usually assumed”
(200).7
Guarino convincingly shows, regarding a set of disputed
teachings—priesthood, Mariology, ecclesiology, ecumenism,
theology of religions, and theological anthropology—that
principles of participation and analogy were at work even when
unmentioned in the conciliar texts. In each of these cases, there
was development in Catholic teaching that was fully in accord
with the tradition. Regarding ecumenism, for example, the
council upheld “the unique status of the Catholic Church, but it
did so in a theologically sophisticated way, making it clear that
other churches truly, formally and intensively participated in the
church of Christ” (104). What is more, “analogical reasoning
allowed the council to achieve a new sense of unity with other
Christians” by affirming the Church’s “traditional self-understanding” but in a way that “does not exhaust the attribute or
perfection of the church of Christ” (106). Conciliar teaching on
primacy and collegiality, revelation, and religious freedom,
because they seem to involve real discontinuities with the
tradition, pose a greater challenge for Guarino’s methodology.
Relying heavily on Vincent of Lérins and a very careful analysis
of the issues, he largely succeeds in demonstrating that conciliar
teachings on these “disputed topics” are “homogeneous and
organic developments” of Catholic doctrine.
The continuity-versus-discontinuity paradigm is a rough
tool—much refined in Guarino’s skillful hands—that has been
helpful in confronting broad hermeneutical issues regarding the
council. But what is needed now is a better grasp of the path for
6
Guarino is also the author of Vincent of Lérins and the Development of Christian
Doctrine (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2013).
7
In support of this judgment, Guarino quotes Yves Congar’s remark in his article “La
théologie au Concile: Le ‘théologiser’ du Concile” (Situation et tâches présentes de la
théologie [Paris: Cerf, 1967], 53): “It could be shown . . . . that St. Thomas, the Doctor
communis, furnished the writers of the dogmatic texts of Vatican II with the bases and
structure of their thought” (quoted in Guarino, Disputed Questions of Vatican II, 200).

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theological inquiry as it has been affected by conciliar affirmations directed to addressing the situation the council faced in
liturgical theology, revelation, ecclesiology and church order,
theological anthropology, Catholic social teaching, and theology
of religions, to mention only the most prominent areas of
doctrine. Countless books and articles attest to the reality that
the reception and appropriation of the teaching of Vatican II
among Catholic theologians has been underway for years. While
debate about the hermeneutics of the council persists—rarely at
the level of sophistication on display in Guarino’s excellent
book—theologians get on with their work. Generally speaking,
theologians do not need to be persuaded that the teaching of
Vatican II is in continuity with Catholic teaching. They simply
work this out in the course of integrating conciliar teaching into
their theological arguments in their particular fields of
specialization or expertise.
The Reception of Vatican II8 exemplifies this healthy dynamic.
This book is a collection of sixteen essays on the constitutions,
decrees, and declarations of Vatican Council II, edited and introduced by Matthew Lamb and Matthew Levering, and complementing their earlier volume, Vatican II: Renewal within
Tradition.9 For the most part, the authors of these essays avoid
issues of broad interpretation of the council in order to identify
themes that invite theological research and appropriation.
Readers of The Thomist will be interested in a long and
marvelous essay in which Martin Morard, member of the
Leonine Commission, has catalogued and briefly analyzed the use
of the teaching of Church councils by St. Thomas Aquinas in his
works.10 Morard’s survey reflects what might be called the
normal state of affairs in the work of Christian theologians with
respect to conciliar teachings. They may express disagreements
with certain elements in these councils or examine the
interpretations of particular passages. But when Aquinas, Barth,
Rahner, or Balthasar—or, more recently, La Soujeole, Mansini,
8

New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
10
Martin Morard, “Thomas d’Aquin lecteur des conciles,” Archivium franciscanum
historicum 98 (2005): 211-365.
9

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Feingold, or D’Costa—write about a particular theological topic,
relevant conciliar teachings, especially those marked by a certain
definitive character, necessarily enter into their exposition.11
That is the way things work in theology. Conciliar teaching is
woven into the fabric of theological inquiry. There may be
controversy over particular conciliar affirmations, but eventually
a consensus is formed, on the basis of magisterial precedent and
theological argument. At the same time, by pointing toward areas
of further research and development, councils typically open new
pathways for theologians to pursue.
On display in the essays of the new Lamb-Levering volume is
a stream of recent work on liturgical theology, sacramental
theology, fundamental theology, ecclesiology, theology of holy
orders (especially of the episcopacy and diaconate), theology of
the laity, theological anthropology, and theology of religions that
reflects the steadily maturing assimilation of the teaching of
Vatican II in current theology. The overall intention of the
council to address modern challenges in a pastoral mode and to
avoid dogmatic definitions did not by any means preclude
doctrinal teachings in the actual outcomes of the conciliar
deliberations. The doctrinal constitutions contributed massively
to the Catholic understanding of—to mention just the most
prominent issues—the theology and celebration of the liturgy, all
aspects of the doctrine of revelation, and many areas of
ecclesiology. Normally, the Magisterium follows the theological
consensus, and the maturity of development in these areas was
affirmed by the council and enunciated in its teaching documents.
What is more, as we have remarked, such development both
follows and prompts expansion and progress in theological
thought. Even though Vatican II, unlike many other general
councils, was not intended to be a dogmatic council of dogmatic
11
Some recent works where the teaching of Vatican II figures prominently: BenoîtDominique de La Soujeole, O.P., Introduction to the Mystery of the Church (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005); Guy Mansini, O.S.B., Ecclesiology
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2021); Lawrence Feingold,
Faith Comes from What Is Heard: An Introduction to Fundamental Theology
(Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Academic, 2016); Gavin D’Costa, Christianity and World
Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009).

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statements, it advanced theological understanding in several areas
even in ways that were undeniably controversial. Much of this
has in fact already been absorbed into mainstream Catholic
theological inquiry, despite the presence of dissenting voices, and
even dissenting groups, opposed to one or another element of
conciliar teaching. This situation is hardly unique in the history
of the reception of the teaching of ecumenical councils.
Theology of religions, for example, has matured enough to
receive course corrections from the Magisterium. Nostra Aetate
occasioned a deepened understanding of the Catholic faith in the
universal salvific will of God that allowed, through analogical
reasoning (as Guarino would say), a recovery of implicit elements
in Christian doctrines about other religions. Again, in ecclesiology, Lumen Gentium hugely enriched Catholic teaching on the
doctrine of the Church and the relation of the Catholic Church
to other Christian communities. While theology in these areas
has largely proceeded along lines consistent with the Catholic
tradition, there have nonetheless been some deviations, and the
Magisterium through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith has been obliged to intervene to set theologians back on the
right course—in theology of religions through documents such as
Dominus Iesus (2000) and Placuit Deo (2018), and in ecclesiology through Responses and Commentary on Some Questions
Regarding the Doctrine of the Church (2007). This is normal.
Would it be amiss to hope that the literature of general conciliar
hermeneutics will diminish in quantity or at least become less
exigent as the normal state of affairs returns after fifty years of
controversy over the authority and legitimacy of Vatican II?
Stephen Bullivant does not try to answer this question. More
a sociological than a theological study, his sobering and
enlightening volume, Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in
Britain and America since Vatican II,12 falls into a genre altogether
different from the books we have been considering. One might
well give to this genre the title of one of its better know
specimens: What went wrong with Vatican II? There have been
many, many books in this genre that fault Vatican II for any
12

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

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number of disasters that occurred in the fifty years since the
council. Statistics show that declines occurred in church attendance and vocations among Catholics between 1955 and 1975.
What caused this shift? For some the answer is simple: Vatican
II. Bullivant offers a highly nuanced account of this history. As he
points out, Protestant church attendance also declined in that
same period. The sexual revolution, feminism, the gay-rights
movement, bad vernacular liturgy, religious relativism, abortion
and contraception, drug use, erosion of civil order, social unrest,
atheism, and so on: is it really plausible to imagine that a number
of bishops meeting in Rome caused all of these problems? Those
coming of age in the 1960s had been born during or just after the
worst world war in the history of the human race. The societal
and cultural changes we have experienced in the aftermath of
Vatican II did not develop overnight, but over the course of many
decades. The entire world underwent a series of revolutions over
a relatively short span of time that inevitably affected Catholics
everywhere, and thus church attendance, seminary enrollments,
and religious vocations, and so on. Knowledge of the proximate
prehistory of the council is essential in order to assess the
achievement of Vatican II as it struggled mightily to respond to
forces already massed at the Church’s doorstep. As Bullivant
points out, “Had there been no Council, scholars might now be
writing books arguing that if only the Church has less timidly
embraced the Liturgical Movement; if only Pope John had
realized his dream for a great Council . . .” (254)—and so on. It
may well be, as Bullivant and others have suggested, that the
council is one of the reasons why the situation is not much worse,
that it in fact anticipated later developments, and that it was thus
a powerful prophetic voice preparing the Church for the
challenges to come.
Like Bullivant, St. Basil wrote an “Exposition of the present
state of the churches.” It forms the final chapter of his work on
the Holy Spirit. In the very last section (30.79), he explains why,
despite the uproar that might drown out his words, he decided
to speak:

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Wherefore we too are undismayed at the cloud of our enemies, and, resting our
hope on the aid of the Spirit, have, with all boldness, proclaimed the truth. Had
I not so done, it would truly have been terrible that the blasphemers of the Spirit
should so easily be emboldened in their attack upon true religion . . . and that
we should shrink from the service of that doctrine, which by the tradition of
the Fathers has been preserved by an unbroken sequence of memory to our own
day.

Readers can be grateful to the authors of the books we have been
considering that, like St. Basil, they have not remained silent
amidst the surrounding din.

BOOK REVIEWS
Muhammad Reconsidered: A Christian Perspective on Islamic Prophecy. By
ANNA BONTA MORELAND. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2020. Pp. 192. $45.00 (hard). 978-0-268-10725-3.
Anna Bonta Moreland has written a short, yet bold, yet irenic book, arguing
that Christians may, in good theological conscience, name Muhammad a
prophet. Drawing upon Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of prophecy and the new
interreligious openness of Vatican II, they may, she contends, acknowledge him
as the recipient of real divine revelations. This cannot be understood in the same
way that it is understood by Muslims in the Shahada, the Muslim creed, we are
assured. Indeed, if it were, this would effectively be an act of submission and
make us Muslims. How then exactly might Christians, while remaining
Christians, correctly speak about Muhammad and so fill in a prominent lacuna
left by the council, which spoke in positive tones about the religion of Islam and
its adherence to the one, merciful God, but left its founder conspicuously,
entirely out of the picture? Moreland has landed upon a genuine quaestio
disputata.
Her thesis is provocative, but not entirely new. Hans Küng, among others,
has advanced the same basic claim. Küng’s adventuorous theological orientation
is well known, so it is important to add straightaway that Moreland brings
forward a new argument and articulation, more ecclesially and magisterially
centered (she repeats her interest to work ex corde ecclesiae) and she thus offers
a more restrained and even open-ended position. It is, nevertheless, easy to
detect a hope shared by both Moreland and Küng of “major positive
consequences” should Christians take this step of interreligious reverence
towards Islam and its founder. Readers of the book may, as I do, admire and
applaud Moreland’s conscientious attitude and effort, yet also wonder
ultimately whether all this is adequately justified—both the optimism and the
attempted theological defense.
The 132 pages of text (at its heart a fusion of a 13-page Modern Theology
article from 2013 and 16-page article published in 2015 in Theological Studies)
are easily read and summarized. The many questions these pages excite are
much more difficult to address, however. This is one of those rare cases where
an author has perhaps written too little, rather than too much. As in a medieval
quaestio, one must address quite a few subpoints and objections.
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The book is neatly divided into six chapters with a clear progression,
sometimes somewhat disjointed in practice. Chapter 1, entitled “Setting the
Stage,” makes a protreptic point in highlighting how the contemporary world’s
troubled engagement with Islam owes much to secular modernity’s problematic
(areligious) understanding of religion. In this scenario, Moreland agrees with
Pierre Manent that the Catholic Church offers unique resources for dialogue.
Developments at Vatican II appear of particular relevance here, and from this
perspective she proposes exploring Islam, through the sensitive theme of
Muhammad’s prophetic claims, from within a properly Catholic framework.
The following three chapters then work to plant the project within the
bounds of the Catholic tradition, in terms of both magisterial pronouncements
and theological reflection. Chapter 2 accordingly runs through a series of
relevant Church documents, while chapters 3 and 4 focus on Aquinas’s teaching
on prophecy.
Moreland, in her discussion of Church teaching, opts to lead with Dei
Verbum, not in view of any passage directly relevant to Islam or even pertinent
to prophecy as such, but rather under the conviction that we have moved to a
new hermeneutical phase in the interpretation of Vatican II. Quoting John
O’Malley, she agrees that, “Instead of examining the documents in isolation
from one another, we are now ready to examine them as interdependent” (19).
In practice, this means a certain return to “the spirit of Vatican II,” though
Moreland later more cautiously speaks of “the spirit and the letter.” If Dei
Verbum thus yields her the notion of a nonpropositional revelation, open to
ever-deepening understanding, she means to apply this to a theme nowhere
addressed in the dogmatic constitution itself. Lumen Gentium and Nostra
Aetate instead confront Catholics with the challenge of openness to Islam as the
religious Other, which Moreland takes as an occasion for exactly the deepened
understanding spoken of in Dei Verbum. In addition to several postconciliar
documents and consistorial instructions guiding Christian-Islamic dialogue,
Dominus Iesus is the other obvious magisterial landmark on the map. A
distinction made in the document between “theological faith” and “belief” is
highlighted as important and problematic, and Moreland seems intent on using
the distinction later, but, like several hints throughout, it remains in the end a
hanging analytical thread.
The two chapters on Aquinas represent Moreland’s effort to reach “deep
into the tradition” for resources to talk about Muhammad as a prophet. This
block of material represents the most significant expansion beyond her two
earlier articles and returns, in a way, to her original training, which was in
Thomistic theology rather than interreligious dialogue. Chapter 3 thus offers an
honest exposition of Aquinas’s teaching on the prophetic charism, based upon
his systematic works. This material, which is well known to students of the
theology of inspiration, is of use here for its attention to prophecy’s multiple
facets. To her credit, Moreland cites Aquinas’s open judgment of Muhammad,
in the Summa contra Gentiles, as a perverter of Christian revelation. This view,
which she recognizes as implicitly incompatible with Muhammad’s prophet-

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hood, is nevertheless reckoned by her to be occasioned by Aquinas’s deficient
medieval worldview, as deficient medieval biology and cosmology also impact
his thought. Whether such a simple dismissal can convince and bear the full
theological weight it must for Moreland’s purpose is a question that obviously
challenges the foundations of her project.
Chapter 4 concentrates on Aquinas’s biblical commentaries. Here are
brought forward a number of biblical cases of prophecy on the part of nonChristians, such as Caiaphas and Balaam’s donkey. These examples, and the
existence of ongoing postcanonical prophecy in the Church, are recurring
refrains throughout the book. Moreland shows how Aquinas stops short of
attributing to Caiaphas the dignity of being a prophet, admitting instead merely
that he prophesied under a supernatural impulse. Oddly, this distinction is
blurred in the closing chapter when Moreland again recalls Caiaphas’s case to
help defend her thesis that Muhammad might be recognized as a prophet—not
simply that he may have prophesied, as one might have anticipated based on
Aquinas’s discussion. The example of the Roman soldiers, very briefly handled,
is also curious, since it is merely their deeds in casting lots for Jesus’ garment
that has a prophetic significance. This paradigm, too, is later again evoked, but
not explored as one might have expected.
Chapter 5 moves to modern discussions and considers six different authors—
not all theologians—who have weighed in on the question of Muhammad’s
identity as a prophet. Four have made an affirmative claim, but generally with
some attenuated sense of the word “prophet.” Küng, who holds that it is only
“dogmatic prejudice” that keeps Christians from recognizing Muhammad as a
prophet, goes so far as to claim that a decision for Jesus is a decision for his
follower Muhammad, who preached the same God. In contrast to Küng, the
only other Catholic voices considered by Moreland, Christian Troll and Jacques
Jomier, each very well credentialed to speak on the subject, are both against
calling Muhammad a prophet. In Moreland’s estimation, however, the only
reason they offer amounts to the problem of misunderstanding on the part of
Muslims, who would take the claim as inimical to Christian beliefs.
The sixth and final chapter (“Closing Argument”) promises to tie the threads
together, yet turns in a curious direction, leaving the laboriously acquired
Thomistic taxonomy of prophecy aside, except as a “complex array of
encounters with God” (131), and instead arguing (drawing on David Burrell)
that an analogical approach to prophecy and the category of “private
revelation” represent the solution to the problem. Muhammad was not a
prophet in some equivocal or univocal sense (i.e., not simply a great political
leader), and not like the great biblical prophets either. He was perhaps instead
like those who receive Marian apparitions, special revelations which do not add
to the closed body of public revelation, but rather help to deepen our insight
into it and to direct human lives aright. In the end, we are encouraged to explore
calling Muhammad a prophet “in a limited and relative sense” (121): a vague
assertion that we should imagine as a “theoretical possibility” (132). The final
lines of the book are, ultimately, less than convicted doctrinally speaking, even

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suggesting that the Church should prudently avoid weighing in too definitively
on this question (which reticence was earlier critiqued in the case of Vatican II).
Moreland closes by warmly expressing the benefits of reading the Qur’an.
With so slippery a conclusion it can be a bit hard to know just what to fasten
upon in responding. It is best, perhaps, simply to address the fundamental
question: Can and should we call Muhammad a prophet?
Among the relevant literature not cited by Moreland is a recent article by
Wolfgang Pfüller (“Sollte Mohammed aus christlicher Sicht als Prophet
anerkannt werden? Eine veraltete Fragestellung,” MThZ 65 [2014]: 131-44),
where he makes a very pertinent point missing in Moreland’s treatment.
Muhammad not only does not preach certain essential Christian truths—which
is common enough, even in certain authentic prophetic revelations. Muhammad
also contradicts these truths directly and does this with the open claim to have
spoken the definitive and full revelation of God. The Qur’an’s charge against
Christians and Jews of catastrophically garbling the faithful transmission of the
real story of revelation (taḥrīf al-kitāb) also cannot be ignored, I might add. This
whole situation must be recognized as a very big problem. Hints here and there
throughout Moreland’s book suggest that a sifting, cafeteria-style selection of
Qur’anic verses would be necessary for Christians who accept Muhammad as a
prophet. Perhaps this is her way of quietly pocketing what Pfüller approaches
head-on.
Pfüller himself accepts a rigorously logical scenario. Either we reject outright
as “untrue” whatever contradicts the doctrine of councils like Nicaea and
Chalcedon, or we recognize instead that these doctrines themselves are wanting
in truth. Like a good modern German theologian, he prefers this latter option,
which then allows him to approach Muhammad in a generally positive light, if
not precisely as a prophet—an “outmoded” category that he rejects for many of
the same reasons that Moreland finally opts for an analogical meaning. Given
Moreland’s own clear desire to reason ex corde ecclesiae, she must grasp the
former horn of the dilemma. Her decision to maintain the language of
“prophet” as a meaningful category (pace Pfüller) is an additional sign of her
religious good faith—though it also puts her in a pretty pickle, given her thesis.
It is hard to avoid the suspicion—or, at the very least, it raises the question,
never acknowledged in her treatment—that if Catholics can and should call
Muhammad a prophet in some real sense, they should also in good conscience
promptly append a word such as “false” (or, following Pfüller in being as
generous as possible: “at least partly a false prophet”)—which would
presumably not be a great coup for interreligious good-feeling.
The risk here is worth a moment’s pause, for I think that the prudence
advised vis-à-vis official Church pronouncements, which Moreland happily
sneaks in at the last moment before the back cover of the book turns over, is
actually good counsel, not simply for the Catholic Church but for any goodwilled, truth-loving person. My instinct, in fact, is to question whether
positioning the Catholic Church in the role of the only viable interlocutor with
Islam, as Moreland in her first chapter proposes, is not perhaps a dangerous and

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premature conceit. On the one hand, the positive turn enunciated at Vatican II
is still remarkably fragile and in its earliest infancy. The West—and the Church
as a principle protagonist—is frankly so unfamiliar with viewing Islam in any
way other than in a polemical, apologetic, or missionary light (a task not made
easier in the present climate) that our most basic knowledge of the religious
phenomenon on its own terms must be acknowledged as close to nil. There
should accordingly be a time, it would seem, of simply getting acquainted on
neutral, humane, and humanistic terms, before jumping to enthusiastic religious
conclusions about the “mystery of Islam” or the prophethood of Muhammad.
Figures like Georges Anawati, it is well worth noting, one of the major architects
of the key paragraph in Nostra Aetate, were profoundly committed to the
primacy of scientific engagement, which had to struggle (and still does) to
displace the traditional framework of theological evaluations. On the other
hand, in just this connection, I entertain real hope for a project like that of
Angelika Neuwirth, doyenne of continental Islamic studies, who, applying
means long familiar in Christian and Jewish circles from critical biblical
scholarship, means to offer a kind of secular, methodologically grounded vision
of the emergence of the Islamic community and their book. Her extraordinary
introduction, Der Koran als Text der Spätantike: Ein europäscher Zugang
(2011), with the associated multivolume Qur’an commentary still forthcoming,
appears to me a monumental (very recent) first step in the right direction.
Jumping straight to religious categories like prophecy, by contrast, puts the cart
ahead of the horse. For my part, at least, I would prefer first to know historically
(that is, within the proper limits of historical science) where exactly the Qur’an
came from and what we can actually say about Muhammad. Only when Islam
is thus placed on a similar hermeneutical plane with the Jewish and Christian
traditions, with our sacred books and with our prophets, can we start to treat
these items on a level and debate bold theses like Moreland’s. Professional
readers of ancient religious literature will (like Neuwirth herself) recognize that
the bar set by the Bible is extraordinarily high and already perceive the Qur’an
in this light.
The value of all this may be illustrated by an article that Neuwirth wrote
nearly 30 years ago (“Der historische Muhammad im Spiegel des Koran:
Prophetentypus zwischen Seher und Dichter”), in which she highlighted the
issue of ecstatic speech and the figures of kāhin (seer/soothsayer) and šā‘ir (poet)
as they apply to the “historical Muhammad.” In 15 passages the Qur’an
forcefully rebuts the suggestion of Muhammad’s Meccan contemporaries that
he is possessed by djinns and demons, recording various protests that he is not
a mere kāhin or šā‘ir.
I swear by what you can see and by what you cannot see: this
[Qur’an] is the word [spoken by] an honored messenger [rasūlin
karīm], not the word of a poet—how little you believe!—nor the
word of a soothsayer—how little you reflect! This [Qur’an] is a
revelation sent down from the Lord of all worlds: if [the Prophet]

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had attributed some fabrication to Us, we would have certainly cut
off his lifeblood. (69.38-47)

Neuwirth observes that this rejected interpretation of Muhammad’s activity as
something less than the full-fledged Messenger he claims to be actually finds
some explanation and defense in the way certain literary patterns strikingly
liken various Qur’anic surahs to the literary behavior and style of a certain preIslamic kāhin. There is an art lurking behind the impressive interface of ecstatic
diction, like the work of the chresmologoi at Delphi.
So, was Muhammad a fake? That is not necessarily the conclusion, and
moving beyond the absurd travesties that plague crusader-era vitae Machometi
is obviously honorable and right. I am not sure that anyone today is actually
defending the story of the cow with the book in its horns, however, or
Muhammad’s trick of putting corn in his ear. Nevertheless, dismissing the
traditional Christian view of Muhammad as a surreptitious twister of Christian
doctrine as so much bad medieval biology appears, at least to me, to be a trifle
too easy. Indeed, I wonder if we are not here on much firmer ground than
speculating on theoretically possible religious experience. The acknowledgment
of deep interactions with both Christian and Jewish traditions is part and parcel
of the “text of late-antiquity” approach to the Qur’an. So too is the overdue
demythologization of the so-called djāhilyīya: the “time of ignorance,” which
construct wipes away all Arabian history before Muhammad, conveniently
blown away like the desert sands.
Is not Muhammad’s debt and ultimate relation to Christianity (and Judaism)
finally unavoidable in any genuine and open Christian-Islamic dialogue? It is, in
any case, a historical question. It is also, in this historical sense, the really
upsetting part of Benedict’s Regensburg lecture: “What that is new has
Muhammad brought to the world?” We might even ask what that is new he
brought to the Arabs; for it is no longer possible to suppose, as has long been
done, that belief in one God was nonexistent in the polytheistic world of the
pre-Islamic Arabian peninsula. The epigraphical evidence of the last fifty years
has plainly forced a radical revision of this picture, as Julien Christian Robin
and others have shown. The Himyarite Kingdom, for instance, in the southern
highlands of Yemen, converted from the South-Arabian pantheon, first to
Judaism in the fourth century, then to Christianity in the sixth, on the very eve
of Muhammad’s arrival. So, if his message to them about the one merciful God
was not entirely new, then perhaps, positively speaking, this great pan-Arab
leader brought renewal to a degraded state of belief and praxis. Is Jomier thus
right to evoke the figure of the guide réformiste—while being mindful of
Congar’s criteria of “true and false reform”?
For Moreland this is not enough. There is a supernatural claim to be staked.
It is a challenge, however, to know how precisely Muhammad’s charismatic
status as the recipient of “private revelation” would put him in a different class
from, say, Montanus, Emanuel Swedenborg, or Mary Baker Eddy—or how
many countless others like them—all more or less errant Christians, reformers

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and prophets, of various stripes. In contrast to being Lewis’s Lunatic, Liar, and
the Lord all at once, there is nothing impossible about being a Psychotic,
Pretender, and Prophet (i.e., beneficiary of real gratiae gratis datae) rolled into
one. This leaves perfectly open, of course, the “theoretical possibility” for which
Moreland is pleading. But it also leaves the damaging ambiguity equally open.
Balaam, to whom she repeatedly averts, was clearly both a pretender and
prophet. Something was also happening in second-century Phrygia and chances
are good it was not all a charade. The “New Prophecy”—a supposed further
stage of public revelation—with Montanus’s own claims to be a prophet
channeling the Paraclete, bear strong resemblances, moreover, to Muhammad
himself and his claims, especially if Qur’an 61:6 says what many Muslims
(plausibly) think it says about John 14:16. For the Church, however, which in
the second century plainly still had her own living prophets, this was a sort of
“new” postbiblical prophecy that went far too far.
Shall a sifted approach of throwing out the bad surahs like so many bad
apples thus bring balance to the situation? Or would this be an intolerable crime
against the integral character of Muhammad’s meaning, a blind perversion, in
its own way, like the travesties of the medieval vitae? If a new brand of “New
Prophecy” is ultimately the most honest and accurate response to Manuel II
Palaiologos concerning what here is actually new, it would seem that we have
our answer to Moreland’s question. The Church has already pronounced on
private revelation pretending to be public.
For the Greek apologists, prophecy and not only philosophy was a point of
common ground with their pagan dialogue “partners.” When it was not the
Sibyl, however, who attested to Christ, Greco-Roman prophecy was likely to be
reckoned as the work of demons. Maimonides seems to have granted
Muhammad unflattering status as the “mad” prophet of Hosea 9:7. Vatican II
makes a landmark invitation to recognize common ground with the religion of
Islam, but I dare say the council Fathers were shrewd to rest content with the
One Merciful God. This provides more than ample space for both religious and
secular exchange, before deciding whether the very particular claims of
prophetic inerrancy connected with Muhammad and the Qur’an can ever be
meshed with the Catholic doctrine of revelation.
ANTHONY GIAMBRONE, O.P.
École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem
Jerusalem, Israel

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The Oxford Handbook of Catholic Theology. Edited by LEWIS AYRES and MEDI
ANN VOLPE with the assistance of THOMAS L. HUMPHRIES. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 962. $145.00 (hard). ISBN 978-019-956627-3.
Lewis Ayres and Medi Ann Volpe have edited an elegant volume of 962
pages that is laudable for its clarity, thematic focus, and, surprisingly, succinctness. A charitable Thomist spectrum and diverse theologies of ressourcement
dominate, and the Latin-Rite worshipper is named as a primary, but not the sole
audience. Within this clearly delineated framework, some attention is also paid
to the emergence of non-Western and liberationist sources.
A glimpse of the whole is found under the subheading “Anxieties” (intended
as a self-interrogating companion to the stances of trust and wonder) in Ayres’s
otherwise architectonic essay, “What Is Catholic Theology?” (25-30). Having
surveyed the contemporary task of Catholic theology as both proclamatory and
speculative, Ayres worries about the risk that is inherent in all speculative
thought, a risk of losing sight of concrete realities in one’s very midst. Among
those realities named by Ayres as necessary and necessarily anxiety-ridden risks,
I will highlight three. He worries about: (a) the legitimate provocation of recent
contextual theologies to a unified sense of catholicity and to the formal unity of
theology itself (34-38), (b) the quickly fading memory of the Catholic tradition
in a younger generation and the attendant fear of “newness” on the part of their
elders (cf. 727-35 on Hans Urs von Balthasar’s bold attempt at confronting
Catholic amnesia), and (c) the dissipation of a positive (i.e., not socially constructed) understanding of human nature. Each of the fifty-six essays broaches
at least one of these three concerns. The guiding pattern, more positively stated,
is to proclaim the Christian message of salvation discovered within the
communion of triune love to critically reasoning but sinful creatures as that
message has been refracted among distinct loci over the course of centuries.
The first half moves mainly synchronically in describing Catholic teaching
(a) in a creedal or definitional sense (four foundational essays), (b) through the
lens of “God, Creation, and the History of Salvation” (nine essays), (c) in the
sacramental life of the Church (seven essays), and (d) in Catholic moral theology
(seven essays). The next half of the volume moves historically from Origen and
Augustine (again with a programmatic essay by Ayres) up to the present in
outlining the sources, trajectory, and problems of “Modern Catholic Theology”
(with a total of twenty-nine essays). It is noteworthy that Vatican II and its
innovations receive their due in a key essay by Gavin D’Costa and throughout
as an integral part of the stream of evolving tradition that includes Trent and
Vatican I (cf. Trent Pomplun, Christian Washburn). The rupture thesis is thus
intentionally set aside (799) in order to make ample room for such topics as the
postmedieval current of spirituality in Pierre de Bérulle and the French school
or the insights on renewal from Johann Adam Möhler (616-20), John Henry
Newman (620-6), and nineteenth-century Thomism (658-65). The mid-

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twentieth-century renewal that immediately preceded Vatican II is not ignored,
but it is not treated as the sole or even decisive pivot to modern Catholicism.
Given the overabundance on the banquet table, a selective scrutiny of
representative chapters and interesting arguments must suffice. On the
enterprise of Catholic theology, for example, William Desmond comments on
the philosophical doctrine of analogy. Though shackled by his didactically
excessive neologizing, Desmond charts a creatively modern (but not univocally
modern) vocation for reason in Catholic theology. He states, “the created is
given a share in, participates in this ultimate good of the ‘to be’” (91). Secular
modernity turns creation into a “project” brought into being by the
nonrelational self. Nurtured by analogy’s playful (or “plurivocal” in Desmond’s
jargon) joining of unity and difference, creation retains its dependence but not
as a mechanically caused determinate being. The being created by the Creator
for the dwelling of the creature is shrouded in mystery but also, paradoxically,
radically concrete. The creature exists “be-cause” of the creature’s originating
in divine self-exceeding generosity. What about freedom? “Christian freedom,”
Volpe clarifies several chapters later, “reflects God’s own freedom” (366, cf.
John McDade). Finite reason’s role in this interplay of freedoms, she continues,
is therefore not to snuff out desire but to direct it towards its true object: God
(367).
Regarding God, creation, and salvation history, Thomas Joseph White, O.P.,
offers an essay on “The Holy Spirit” that reworks a Thomistic theme in the
language of Charles Journet. After surveying biblical and patristic sources,
White argues that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son eternally
but is sent on a mission temporally into the world to save and divinize (188).
Nothing that arises in the economy adds to the divine identity of God. The
mission of the Spirit is an invitation to creatures to participate in the triune life
of God. After considering prospects for reunion with the anti-filioque East in
light of the prodding from recent Vatican statements, White turns to the analogy
between the created sacramental graces given through the divine love of the
Spirit and the “heart” (STh III, q. 8, a. 1, ad 3) or uncreated soul of the Church.
When the Church worships, it does so out of reciprocal love. The truth that is
manifest (cf. John 15:26) and the unity that is upheld (John 17:21) are gifts of
the Spirit. Both the mission of evangelizing in the name of Christ and openended dialogue with the non-Christian are tasks that fall to the members of the
Church with equal vehemence, but the Spirit of truth in both cases is the
animating principle of the Church.
Under sacramental life, David Fagerberg and Pamela Jackson speak with
characteristic eloquence of liturgy as a source of theology (following Lambert
Beauduin) and Martin Laird of the relationship of theology to prayer. Jackson
maintains that the liturgy is not just properly regulated ceremonial acts: “It is
the vehicle through which God extended his saving action accomplished in
Christ to each generation by the power of the Holy Spirit” (264). The entire
Trinity acts in the liturgy. Liturgy is not a museum piece or an occasion for
mystical ascent into the unknown but a concrete invitation to participate in a

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saving reality that derives from the mysteries of Christ’s own life. Laird likewise
highlights the Trinitarian and ecclesial dimensions of personal prayer as part
and parcel of the universal call to holiness. If we seek to contemplate the Father,
through the Son, in the Spirit, then prayer is itself “Sabbath rest in the Triune
mystery who rests in us” (356). Other essays treat specific sacraments such as
Eucharist, holy orders, and marriage and their historical genesis, but the mutual
recirculation in the ecclesial bloodstream of the Church’s liturgy and the
Church’s theology is the principal leitmotif of this section.
This handbook stands apart from similar companions of recent vintage in
that it highlights the positive contribution of diverse modern revivals of the
medieval Scholastic legacy. John T. Slotemaker and Ueli Zahnd, in their survey
of Thomism from the death of St. Thomas through high modernity, speak of a
gradual and lamentable isolation of Neo-Thomism within Catholic institutions
even after Aeterni Patris (547). Francesca Aran Murphy and Serge-Thomas
Bonino survey the developments from 1871 to the publication of the online
Index Thomisticus in 2005 in two separate and comprehensive chapters. Servais
Pinckaers’s revival of a more theological recovery of the Thomistic synthesis
concludes these surveys. Declan Marmion defends the transcendental turn
within the Thomism of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, and Gabriel Flynn
lays out the critique of the two-tiered theology of nature and grace pursued in
different ways by Maurice Blondel, Henri de Lubac, and Karl Rahner. Natural
law and virtue ethics are treated principally in Livio Melina’s “Virtue and
Catholic Moral Theology” and Kevin Flannery’s “The Natural Law in Catholic
Ethics” as well as in Ulrich Lehner’s essay on “Catholic Theology and the
Enlightenment.” The eighteenth-century rationalism that was initiated by
Nicholas Malebranche, Lehner notes, reconceptualized natural law and
promoted human rights but without the Thomistic framework. Kevin Flannery
notes that the New Natural Law theory of Germain Grisez and John Finnis is,
by contrast with Malebranche, more closely tied to Thomism but still fails to
appreciate the original account in St. Thomas of the intelligible structures of
exterior acts (401). In sum, the legacies of Scholasticism in modernity appear
almost as varied as the legacies of modernity itself. The thread that connects
them, perhaps most articulately voiced in Josef Pieper’s much-lauded synthesis,
is the aforementioned counterpoint to the dissolution of the idea of human
nature as such.
A welcome but somewhat unexpected development is seen in certain essays
with regard to the fluid relationship between the Thomist revival, the theology
of Karl Rahner, and liberation theology. Daniel A. Keating shows that human
liberation is affirmed, not denied, by Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi, even as
the Pope issues a clarion call for a new evangelization (336-38). Joseph
Wawrykow explains how Rahner employed the Scholastic distinction between
uncreated and created grace to counter the neo-Scholastic manuals (418-21).
Rahner’s explicit recourse to Scholastic sources, Aaron Canty rightly notes, was
sometimes more Bonaventurean than Thomistic. In any case, in both Rahner
and liberation theology, Wawrykow continues, this technical distinction

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regarding the overlapping order of the exigencies of nature and supernatural
grace can be placed at the service of the preferential option for the poor.
Roberto Goizueta likewise gives a sweeping justification of liberation theology
as a Catholic and ecclesial project but argues that its future is only valid in the
present context of postmodern nihilism if the theological grounding to the
project (such as has been made by the Peruvian Dominican Gustavo Gutiérrez)
is deepened and intensified (803-19). Not all the treatments of social questions
are equally open to recognizing the programmatic significance of an integral
theology of human liberation. While David Matzko McCarthy concludes his
overview of Catholic social teaching with the recognition of the complementarity of subsidiarity and solidarity and Chad Pecknold treats religious
liberty in a sophisticated neo-Augustinian fashion, the gradual evolution from
neo-Scholastic humanism to a modern theology of human liberation is not a
central theme in these two treatments of social questions.
The section on recent developments includes novel contributions on
Scripture, the ecclesial movements, and gender. Mary Healy charts an
ecumenical consensus on the return to a theological approach to Scripture, not
as a strict method that usurps the non-negotiable historical-critical advances,
but as a form of academic and ecclesial renewal that faces squarely the lagging
of Catholic preaching. Ian Ker makes a brilliant and novel argument that the
extended family ever-so-loosely organized under the banner of “ecclesial
movements” was never verbally convoked by Vatican II but is actually promoted
through the conciliar plea for the renewal of the organic communion of the
People of God. Danielle Nussberger joins the ecclesial programs of modern
North American Catholic feminism with John Paul II feminism synthetically and
with her characteristic finesse, while being fair to both sides of this debate. A
separate and equally lucid essay by José Granados examines John Paul II’s
theology of the body in its breadth and depth.
One can glean the budding Catholic theology of the World Church in Vimal
Tirimanna’s chapter on Asia and Anthony Akinwale’s chapter on Africa. Both
highlight Catholic versions of liberationist thought that are neither Latin
American nor the caricature rightly rejected in Vatican documents from the
1980s. Tirimanna outlines the Asian bishops’ response to the pluralism in Asia,
one that is more advanced than its North American variant, and Akinwale
addresses the Catholic response to the growth of African Pentecostalism, which
is likewise set in a different context from what is found in the Americas. Paul
Murray, in writing on “Catholicism and Ecumenism” provides a formal
framework (“receptive ecumenism”) that might shed light on these two globally
expanding realities, but his helpful article is still too focused on the dialogues
with the mainline traditions in their Euroamerican contexts to offer a concrete
way forward.
Although, with their elevated style, some essays demand a good deal from
the uninitiated reader, The Oxford Handbook is, as a volume, organized so as
to be easily digestible. It does not aim for the exhaustiveness (or exhaustingness)
that one finds in the older European encyclopedia. But the essays are also not

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abridged to the point of being mind-numbing flyovers. An advanced undergraduate or beginning master’s student will benefit enormously by having this
work on her shelf. The introductory notes on sources are valuable as are the
suggested readings, bibliographies, and the Catechism cross-references at each
chapter’s end. The multiple indices at the back of the book are likewise helpful.
As with all ambitious endeavors, updating will be needed with time, especially
as more work from the Global South and other marginalized communities finds
its way deeper into the mainstream.
This first edition of the Oxford Handbook is eminently recommendable for
anyone entering the field of Catholic theology today and will certainly be a
valuable reference work for anyone of any confession who is seeking to become
acquainted with the lay of the land.
PETER J. CASARELLA
The Divinity School at Duke University
Durham, North Carolina

The Fathers of the Church in Christian Theology. By MICHEL FÉDOU, S.J.
Foreword by BRIAN E. DALEY, S.J. Translated by PEGGY MANNING
MEYER. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
2019. Pp. xxviii + 399. $34.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8132-3171-6.
“This book . . . has no parallels that I know of in contemporary Catholic
theological scholarship,” says Brian Daley in his Foreword (xv). That is true for
historical scholarship too. There is no parallel historical work providing an
overview of the twentieth-century patristic revival, its impact in theology
beyond the boundaries of patristics, why this impact mattered, and, again to
quote Daley, “why a clear understanding of early Christianity is always of
crucial importance for the Church’s present freedom to act” (xiv)—and, I would
add, to think.
The implications of the book extend beyond Catholicism, since it takes up
the relevance and, indeed, exigence of patristic theology for contemporary reflection on such fundamental Christian doctrines as the Trinity, anthropology,
the Church, and revelation, as well as for biblical exegesis and for ecumenism
and interreligious dialogue. Along the way, challenges to the continuing
relevance of patristic theology coming from contextual theologies, antimetaphysical and deconstructionist worldviews, historico-critical exegetes, and
more, are all considered. It is true, then, that the book has no real parallels. For
this reason alone it repays the reader willing to accept the invitation to think
along with the author about issues that take many of us outside our disciplinary
comfort zones.

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Michel Fédou limits himself to the question, “what is the relationship
between patristics and theology” (3). The first chapter, “The Genesis and
History of ‘Patristics,’” answers by distinguishing “patristics” (as “a part of
Christian theology”) from “patrology” (as the “history of early Christian
literature”). The (modern) words “patristics” and “patrology” serve to focus our
attention on the word “Fathers,” a distinction that the Tradition, beginning in
antiquity, has considered essential. Even the secular discipline of “patrology”
(and its descendants) implicitly relies upon the distinction as an indication of
the significance of “early Christian studies.” Fédou features the phrase “Fathers
of the Church,” not least in his title, specifying four characteristics of a
“Father”: orthodoxy of doctrine, holiness of life, approval of the Church, and
antiquity (14, 156), all of which are qualified as actually applied. Interestingly,
neither sex nor ordination is on the list.
A “Father” is someone that Tradition accords a privileged, authoritative
status. Thus it is inconsistent with Tradition to dismiss the Fathers as irrelevant
for contemporary Catholic theology or to relativize them as one set of sources
among many (negating their status as “Fathers” in any but a trivial chronological
sense). Fédou proposes that “the metaphor of ‘paternity’ . . . be understood in
all its profundity,” invoking Malachi 3:24 (cf. Luke 1:17) where, before the
“day of the LORD,” Elijah will come to “turn the hearts of the fathers to their
children and the hearts of children to their fathers” (165). “And,” Fédou
continues, “just as the Old Testament expressed an exigency of reconciliation
between fathers and sons, similarly one can understand analogically, in
Christian history itself, an exigency of communion between the generation of
the Fathers and the following generations” (166). “Communion” does not mean
contemporary theologies will not be “original and new.” But it is necessary that
they be “in their very innovation, in communion with the witness of faith,” the
“heritage from the Fathers.” It is “at the point where contemporary theology
accepts this heritage” that there comes about an “engendering” moment that
“allows new generations in their turn to engender an understanding of the faith
according to newness of places and times” (ibid.). Fédou immediately adds that
“this engendering is the work of the Spirit” acting not independent of history
but in and through it:
The engendering of the faith is not immediate, it itself happens
through a relationship of paternity and filiation in the very history
of Christianity, and the relationship of the Fathers of the Church
precisely attests that this relationship of paternity and filiation is
found inscribed in the very constitution of Christian theology. (167)

Fédou allows no easy exit from the exigencies implied in the phrase “Fathers of
the Church,” especially for theology and even for secular study, but at the same
time this is not a proposal for a patristic fundamentalism. The metaphor of
paternity, as a metaphor of engendering, implies an originating continuity and
a newness. One can read the whole book from this perspective.

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Examples of this “engendering,” taken from the period of the ressourcement
and Vatican II, abound. Fédou is careful to span the theological spectrum,
demonstrating the “fecundity” of the study of patristic texts for both Karl
Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar (both undertook painstaking studies of
Origen). For them, as for Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou, and Yves Congar, the
patristic texts were “not simply considered as ‘subjects’ for study,” but were
taken up to help provide theology that will “nourish the faith of the Christian
people” (34-35), learning “from historical theology ‘the fragment, from our
past, that forms our future’” (76), as Rahner put it. I would say that Fédou
locates in the Fathers, precisely as Fathers, a dynamic that, if attended to
carefully, engenders a continuity that itself entails renewal. This was as true for
high Scholastic theology itself (16-20) as it was for nineteenth- and twentiethcentury theologians, from Johann Adam Möhler and John Henry Newman (2529) to those mentioned above and more. And it can also be true for the present.
Despite obstacles which would seem to delimit patristic “fruitfulness” to the
past, this very same dynamic promises a similar renewal-in-continuity when
applied to those very challenges that would seem to require leaving the
“Fathers” behind as relics of a hopelessly distant past.
One objection that cuts across many of the theological fields for which Fédou
demonstrates the fecundity, past and potential, of the Fathers is that of their
“Hellenization” of Christian doctrine. This “reproach” (151) implies distortion
of the gospel, along with a reliance on an “onto-theology” that in any event is
outmoded. Fédou concedes “there is a partial truth in the suspicion against the
‘Hellenization’ of Christianity,” since it “warns against the risk of deforming or
. . . forgetting . . . the biblical message in its original form” (152). Yet long
before the Fathers existed there was the Septuagint, not to mention the New
Testament—“in its original form” in Greek. In any event this “risk” is not
unique to the theology of the Fathers but is “inherent in what is required of
every presentation of the biblical mystery in a given cultural context” (153).
Further, the Fathers transformed the meaning of the philosophical concepts
they used “in the light of biblical revelation,” so that, according to Aloys
Grillmeier, the “‘Hellenization’ of the language [of revelation] has for its
counterpart a ‘de-Hellenization’ of its content.” Consequently, in the exact
words of Grillmeier, “‘Nicaea is not the Hellenization but the de-Hellenization,
or the liberation, of the Christian image of God from the dead-end divisions
into which Hellenism had landed it’” (154). The theological reader from a
different culture can and must make use of this dynamic of reception and
transformation of cultural categories.
But further, this first “inculturation” of the gospel message, thus stated
neutrally minus the reproach of “Hellenization,” has a special place in the
ongoing Tradition. It places all future theology in its debt. For one thing, the
charge of “onto-theological” metaphysics seems outdated now, given the work
of scholars like Jean-Luc Marion and Emmanuel Falque, since “the fact that
God is presented as ‘the One who is’ in no way amounts to, for Gregory of
Nyssa or for Augustine, considering him as a ‘being’ among others” (155).

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Even in the context of the challenges of inculturating the gospel in nonWestern societies, the original inculturation in Greek terms and concepts does
not lose its relevance. The dependence of patristic literature on “Greco-Latin
culture . . . ought not to be considered only from the point of . . . obstacles . . .
but also from the point of view of what, in itself, helps receiving and thinking
about the revelation of Christ—for example, the meaning of history . . . or even
the meaning of the human person and his dignity” (282). These are examples
of genuine “evangelical preparation,” and they can neither be taken for granted
nor left behind, especially when faced with philosophies or religions that deny
the reality of the finite person or meaning and direction in history.
Rather, as Thucydides says, such things are “a kind of ‘possession for all
time’” (282). Fédou has in mind both ideas directly inherited from GrecoRoman culture (he gives the example of the dignity of the human person as
represented in Homer and the Greek tragedies), and those doctrines, regarding
Jesus Christ and the Trinity, for example, that used Greek philosophical terms
and reconfigured their meaning to the revealed Mystery, such that “today the
writings of the Fathers still remain a reference and a source for all reflection on
Christ and the Trinity” (283). And, although Aloysius Pieris “contested the
‘models of Greco-Roman inculturation’” specifically because “the Fathers
consider that ‘only the culture of Rome and the philosophy of Greece were
worth being assumed,’” while ‘the patristic tradition was consistently negative
in its assessment of other religions’” (174), Fédou spends a chapter (“Theology
of Religions”) showing that this is an overstatement and instead proposes “the
fecundity of patristics for the theology of religions” (320), one that goes beyond
the paradigm of “exclusivism” versus “inclusivism” and therefore could
potentially revise the very structure of our thinking about this issue (325-26).
The chapter on the contribution to understanding the Bible afforded by the
study of patristic exegesis is vigorous and persuasive in its positive
recommendations. Yet it is here that the major weakness of this excellent
monograph shows through, namely, that it yields too much to modernity as
itself a positive good that must go unquestioned. Despite the highly nuanced
defense of patristic typology and allegory as representing what de Lubac called
a “‘polyvalence oriented to the symbol’” (145), we hear in various ways that
patristic exegesis “must never be substituted for the search for the literal
meaning as it can be established by critical exegesis” (146). Not only in this
chapter (e.g., 116, 137) but in subsequent chapters we are repeatedly reminded
“to stress . . . the irreversible knowledge that henceforth critical exegesis
produces” (269, here with regard to Bible and the Trinity). But these
contributions and this knowledge are never specified, even once, in the whole
book. It is never mentioned that, apart from a few noteworthy cases, so-called
critical exegesis begins from de facto atheistic or agnostic methodological
assumptions. Perhaps, as a secular discipline, it can establish the “literal sense”
of ancient texts, biblical books included, but whatever this sense is, it is not the
same as the literal sense of these texts considered as Scripture. In effect, the
book proposes that the literal sense be yielded to secular exegesis while the

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Fathers can contribute to the spirit. But that means the “literal” and the
“spiritual” come decisively unhinged, though in the Fathers the literal is always
in some way ordered towards the spiritual. Patristic exegesis is ultimately barred
from challenging the assumptions or the paradigm of “critical exegesis” itself.
Could it be that this overly optimistic view of the fruits of modernity is
related to a mysterious, virtual absence in this book: namely, that of St.
Augustine? True, he is present, but in vastly attenuated form. The most
sustained discussion of him is essentially an afterthought, his significance
relegated to the section on “spirituality” (346-52). The entire chapter on
anthropology (208-35) omits him almost entirely, as does the chapter on
Christian ethics (236-60). The contributions of Origen and the East are
valorized as “fecund” for today’s reflection, but one would never know that, in
a world which has witnessed genocide after genocide in the last century, the
doctrine of original sin (for example) would have anything to offer. It is as
though Augustine, the doctor of suspicion par excellence, is silenced, lest his
bold hermeneutic of cultural suspicion be applied to such untouchable projects
as “critical exegesis,” or to the sunny evaluations of human progress put forward
by modernity.
Nevertheless, considered from the point of view of what is offered, rather
than from the point of view of what is not offered, this book remains a
magnificent achievement and it places all of us in the author’s debt.
JOHN C. CAVADINI
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers. Edited by MICHAEL DAUPHINAIS,
ANDREW HOFER, O.P., and ROGER NUTT. Ave Maria, Fla.: Sapientia
Press of Ave Maria University, 2019. Pp. xviii + 360. $44.95 (paper).
ISBN: 978-1-932589-82-5.
This volume brings together an illustrious cast of contributors to offer studies
on an incredibly important theme. Its publication is thus a cause for celebration.
Comprised of twelve chapters (thirteen if one counts, as one should, Andrew
Hofer’s insightful and developed conclusion) and a short introduction, this
collection treats the reader to a feast of scholarship on the use and reception of
the Greek Fathers in Thomas Aquinas, as well as the broader implications of
Thomas’s deep interest in the Greek Fathers for the theological discipline as a
whole. In such a short review, I cannot do justice to the many and diverse riches
of each individual contribution. I will attempt to offer a succinct summary of
the contents. While some chapters will be discussed in more detail than others,

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this is not a reflection of uneven quality (happily, this is one of those rare edited
volumes with an evenly high quality) but rather simply betrays my own interests.
Dominic Legge, O.P., offers a discerning treatment of the episode of the
Transfiguration in Thomas’s work. It would be worth considering this chapter
along with Marcus Plested’s contribution to the volume, which likewise deals
with the Transfiguration. Both authors see important points of contact between
the Greek patristic tradition and Thomas, particularly via the latter’s use of John
of Damascus to discuss the light that shone from Christ upon the disciples. Their
conclusions, however, differ slightly. For Plested, there is no clear conflict
between Thomas’s understanding of the light of Tabor and that of Palamas, and
the attempt of Prochoros Kydones (a fourteenth-century Byzantine antiPalamite admirer and translator of Thomas) to drive a wedge between them on
this matter was wrongheaded and ultimately a failure: “the Byzantine Aquinas,”
Plested writes, “was indubitably a Palamite” (220). The possibility for this
position arises for Plested from Thomas’s mature works, where Plested
perceives a shift away from Thomas’s earlier explicit identification of the light
of the Transfiguration as something created to something more nuanced and
open to a Palamite reading.
I daresay that Legge would disagree with Plested’s reading on this point.
Although he seeks a rapprochement between Palamas and Thomas (27-28), he
insists on the traditional Thomist reading of the “claritas” that shines through
Christ’s humanity as having its most immediate cause in the created habitual
grace and charity that fills Christ’s human soul. The importance of Thomas’s
qualification of John of Damascus’s reading is emphasized by Legge: the glory
of the Transfiguration is not only “from the divinity [or Godhead]” (as the
Damascene writes) but also from Christ’s human soul (24). Plested downplays
this qualification, whereas Legge amplifies its significance. If the source or cause
of the light at the Transfiguration is only “indirectly” (as Legge argues) the
divine nature or the grace of hypostatic union, and its more direct and
immediate cause is in fact the created habitual grace in Christ’s human soul,
then a reconciliation between Palamas and Thomas on this point is a rather tall
order. It would repay further work.
Jörgen Vijgen’s chapter on Thomas’s reception of Origen is a gold mine of
information and, until Vijgen completes his ambitious project on the subject,
can be considered a basic point of reference for any future discussion of the
matter. Here, we learn in detail how Thomas considers Origen a theological
opponent but nonetheless someone trustworthy in biblical exegesis. We are
shown how, in certain contexts, Origen is “doctor” and “sanctus” for Thomas,
but in others (specifically doctrinal contexts), he is “deranged” (deliravit) (41,
87). Origen comes in for especial censure on the matter of the preexistence of
Christ’s human soul (which Thomas ardently rejects), but his Commentary on
John was deployed favorably and liberally by Thomas compared to others at the
time (77). Vijgen has performed a great service to scholarship in bringing
together and skillfully situating and delineating Thomas’s references to and
understanding of Origen.

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Khaled Anatolios offers us a refreshing and rewarding comparison of the
soteriological concerns of Athanasius of Alexandria and Thomas. His worthy
goal is to combat the tired binary that contrasts Western and Eastern
understandings of salvation in terms of ethics (West) versus ontology (East),
where the West sees salvation as the solution to the problem of sin and the East
sees it as the solution to the problem of death (89). Anatolios succeeds in
showing how “both Athanasius and Aquinas demonstrate the necessity,
fittingness, and intelligibility of seeing divine justice as integral” to a broader
ontological framework (109). Anatolios meditates beautifully, using texts from
Athanasius and Thomas, on the incorruptible death of Christ and on Christ’s
vicarious repentance for humanity. He calls for more work on the Christological
focus of soteriology, specifically “to extend our contemplation of Christ’s
salvific work into a consideration of how Christ’s thinking and feeling
contributed to the working out of human salvation” (109). He sees the
groundwork for this enterprise laid in Thomas’s focus on Christ’s two wills,
itself an integral part of the Greek patristic heritage.
John Baptist Ku, O.P., compares Gregory Nazianzen and Thomas on the
generation of the Son by the Father. He convincingly argues that although at
first blush their varying terminology might appear to imply a substantial
difference between them on the issue, these differences indicate slightly
different priorities. At root, their positions are the same.
Gerald P. Boersma offers a provocative treatment of the vision of the divine
essence in Thomas and the Greek Fathers, in which he argues that “a substratal
difference” on the understanding of beatitude exists between them, on the basis
that the Greek Fathers reject the language of seeing the divine essence (149).
Thomas is clearly the winner for Boersma on this issue, and he appears to think
that because the language of “vision of the divine essence” is excluded by the
Greek Fathers, they must therefore have an impoverished view of the state of
the beatified compared with that of Thomas. I learned much from Boersma
about the contours of Thomas’s thought on the matter, and I certainly commend
the article on that front. Unfortunately, however, on the side of the Greek
Fathers, little attention is paid to the fact that for them a “vision of the divine
essence” would be tantamount to positing human deification “by nature” rather
than by grace (Thomas attempts to circumvent this problem by distinguishing
the “vision of knowledge” from the “vision of comprehension,” but I am not
sure the Greek Fathers would be convinced on this point). From the perspective
of Greek patristic theology, two key questions from Boersma’s account of
Thomas need to be addressed: (1) Since the grace of the lumen gloriae is
presumably created for Thomas, how is he offering an allegedly better or fuller
picture of participation in the uncreated God than the Greek Fathers? (2) If, in
Thomas’s words, “the divine substance is not beyond the capacity of the created
intellect in such a way that it is altogether foreign to it” (144), and the created
intellect is closer to the divine intellect than to its own corporeal senses (145),
and thus attainment to the intellectual vision of the divine essence is not really
a “miracle” (147-48), do we not dangerously fray the edges of the absolute

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ontological gap between the natures of creature and Creator? Further, on this
view, how does the bodily resurrection function as anything more than an
awkward appendix to the understanding of beatification, rendered necessary by
the Gospels and the consequent espousal of hylomorphism, but functionally
superfluous for the beatific vision? We get the self-confident sense from
Boersma that Thomas has cleared away the deficiencies of the Greek patristic
approach to sanctification and deification in favor of a more satisfactory vision,
but how deeply satisfactory is this alternative? The fact that recent Thomistic
studies have highlighted Thomas as a proponent of deification and a champion
of the resurrection of the body points instead to recognized deficiencies in the
commonly received view of Thomas’s understanding of beatification. I am not
claiming to have a comprehensive grasp of that understanding myself, but I do
think that the Greek Fathers cannot be lightly dismissed as inferior on the
matter of beatification simply because they refuse to countenance language that,
to them, is equivalent to a form of natural deification (something usually
associated, for the Greek Fathers, with Messalianism).
Brian Dunkle, S.J., makes an important contribution by showing the manner
in which Thomas deploys one of his favorite Greek patristic sources, namely,
John Chrysostom. We learn that Chrysostom is important for Thomas on the
issue of Christ as our example, but not so much for doctrine. Furthermore,
Dunkle shows how “Thomas seems more willing to correct the statements of
Chrysostom than those of his other authorities” (162), pointing to the
importance of avoiding blanket statements about Thomas’s respect for this or
that author based only on bare numerical data (e.g., how many citations of a
given author are found in Thomas).
Stephen M. Fields, S.J., gives us a philosophically dense but rewarding look
at the need to balance apophatic and kataphatic theology through the use of the
category of analogy in Thomas and Dionysius (the latter with the help of Hans
Urs von Balthasar), attempting to forge “a middle ground between ontotheology
and fideism” (166).
Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., brings Thomas and Maximus the Confessor
into dialogue in a chapter that richly repays close study. At the heart of this
chapter is the theology of union with God, which Blankenhorn helpfully
configures Christocentrically for both authors. He identifies many points of
contact but also key differences. Of the latter, among the most interesting is
Thomas’s insistence that “even at the summit of divine cognition” the “human
intellect’s act still reaches completion by a return to phantasms” (187): that is
to say, there is an abiding function of mediations in the mind’s union with God
(188), an idea absent in Maximus (for whom the deified intellect is fully “caught
up” in the divine without created mediations). Blankenhorn, however, turns
against Maximian scholar Jean-Claude Larchet’s description of Maximus as
functionally “monoenergist” on the matter of deification, wishing to see an
ongoing created human operation (or cooperation) in the eschatological
experience of the saints (200-203), not just the energy or operation of God
(which for Maximus is uncreated). I think that to be true to Maximus and also

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perhaps to advance the discussion on these matters, one could usefully bring in
the idea of being an “instrument of God.” This is deployed by Thomas for the
humanity of Christ as an instrument of the divine, and yet Maximus also applies
this in Ambiguum 7 to the saints: they become an instrument of the divine
nature, receiving by grace what is Christ’s by hypostasis. Could Thomas allow
for such a radical position? It also helps account for the strong, apparent
“monoenergism” of Maximus’s view: the saints do not lose their natural,
created operation, but they are now operative, as creatures, with the uncreated
operation of God, being instruments of the divine nature.
John Sehorn makes an excellent contribution to our understanding of
Thomas’s approach to religious images, arguing that Thomas’s use of the
language of latreia for images of Christ should be viewed sympathetically and
contextually, but that ultimately the decisions of Nicaea II distinguishing types
of veneration (decisions unavailable to Thomas) take precedence on the matter.
Jane Sloan Peters offers us a wonderful chapter on the use of Theophylact of
Ohrid’s biblical commentaries by Thomas, building on the groundbreaking
work of C. G. Conticello and others to give us a glimpse of the exact ways in
which Theophylact was deployed by Thomas (mostly for the literal sense of
Scripture, as it happens). She has identified dozens more unattributed uses of
Theophylact in Thomas’s Lectura super Ioannem; her scholarship is certainly
one to watch.
Joseph Wawrykow’s study of Thomas’s and his four Greek interlocutors’
views on the Eucharist (Cyril of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Dionysius the
Areopagite, and John of Damascus) is a solid contribution to scholarship,
delivered in Wawrykow’s typical, crystal-clear manner. He demonstrates how
Thomas respects yet occasionally expands on his sources when articulating his
teaching on the Eucharist. For instance, Thomas adds to John of Damascus the
notion of the “instrumental causality” of the created power of the words of
institution for the confecting of the Eucharist (292-93). Wawrykow also takes
issue, on Thomas’s behalf, with Chrysostom’s line “He lets us feel Him, and eat
Him, and embrace Him” on the basis that “there is not, literally, a bodily
encounter, a touching of one body of another” in the reception of the Eucharist
(289). This reaction, I daresay, would go too far for the Greek patristic
tradition. It points to a tension between the rejection of transaccidentation, on
the one hand, and the affirmation of the presence of Christ’s bodily accidents
“in the mode of substance” by concomitance, on the other. The rejection of
transaccidentation must win out between these two if the Eucharist is
categorically not “a touching of one body of another.”
Finally, Hofer in his conclusion issues a spirited call for Thomas, Thomas,
and more Thomas. Thomas is not simply ad mentem patrum but ad mentem
Dei cum sanctis. A strong case is certainly made for the ongoing importance of
Thomas as well as the importance of incorporating the deep study of the Greek
Fathers into our appreciation of Thomas. The volume as a whole is an eloquent
testimony to this. However, if I were to add a methodological question for the
overall enterprise being undertaken here, it would be this: if Thomas views the

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authority of individual Fathers as intrinsic yet only probable, is the same not
true for Thomas himself? By Thomas’s own estimation, the chorus of Greek
patristic voices on a particular matter might in fact be more probable than
Thomas’s view taken alone. Yet in some of the included chapters, the tone
would suggest that the Greek Fathers are answerable to Thomas, but not vice
versa. Linked to this is an occasional tendency to set up the “playing field” of
theological discourse with strictly Thomistic categories such that the Greek
Fathers can only participate if they somehow play along with that nonnegotiable
superstructure and its particular rules. Such an approach, needless to say, will
not ultimately help future dialogue between East and West. Happily, even
where these tendencies sometimes emerge in the volume, the quality of
scholarship is consistently high and honest. This volume has a vast wealth of
insight to recommend it to anyone wishing to come to grips with the harmony
as well as ongoing notes of tension between the theology of the Greek Fathers
and that of Thomas Aquinas.
ALEXIS TORRANCE
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

Emergence: Towards a New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science. By MARIUSZ
TABACZEK. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019.
Pp. 418. $75.00 (hard). ISBN: 978-0-268-10497-9.
The concept of “emergence” is invoked in discussions of novel and robust
phenomena in complex physical systems that seem to be inexplicable in terms
of the properties of their parts, and in investigations of various kinds of
spontaneous organization observed to occur in biological systems, from
individual cells to ecological systems. While the philosophy of science has
traditionally concerned itself with epistemological questions, even defining
itself in opposition to metaphysics in the early twentieth century, the subsequent
revival in metaphysics in analytic philosophy—much of it inspired by
Aristotelian and Scholastic metaphysics—has encouraged philosophers to begin
honing and applying their metaphysical tools once again to scientific inquiry
and the philosophy of nature. Mariusz Tabaczek believes the concept of
emergence requires a serious metaphysic, and his book offers an impressive,
wide-ranging analysis of the challenges facing this undertaking.
Tabaczek’s analysis is shaped by a reading of the “major turning points” in
Western philosophy’s search for causal explanations that will be familiar to any
Thomist (1). It begins with the creation of Aristotle’s fourfold account of
causation in terms of “formal,” “material,” “efficient,” and “final” causes (2-

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17), which emerged from the primordial turmoil of ancient philosophy to attain
its clearest expression in the Middle Ages in the Aristotelian-Thomistic theory
of hylomorphism (17-20). His narrative includes a Fall in the modern era (2025), in which a reductionist and mathematics-based approach to nature
dispensed with formal and final causes in favor of a material world of efficient
causes. We learn little about how or why this descent into causal monism took
place, nor do we find any indications of possible weaknesses to which some
Scholastic appropriations of Aristotle might have been susceptible. While there
may be less nuance in this narrative than some would wish, however, Tabaczek
does not indulge in the overblown rhetoric against the “analytic philosophy” of
our era that characterizes (and ghettoizes) fashionable theology. He finds within
contemporary philosophy two movements that harbor promise of a
Restoration.
In the first place, the problem of emergence in the sciences has given rise to
the need for a concept of “downward causation,” in which the “higher levels”
of a system are permitted to act upon their lower-level parts (27-34). While
many attempts to articulate this concept are problematic, as Tabaczek argues, it
is ripe for analysis in terms of Aristotle’s fourfold conception of causation, in
which emergent behaviors find a stable footing in the substantial forms that
were banished from philosophy by the early mechanists. In the second place, a
“dispositionalist” account of causation in terms of an ontology of “causal
powers” has shaken itself free of the reductionist shackles of standard causal
theories (36-38). While this metaphysical breakthrough has not yet manifested
its full potential, in Tabaczek’s opinion, it provides a framework for a richer
account of causation that admits final causes. His project is to bring these two
movements together to produce a metaphysical account of downward causation
in terms of the Aristotelian-Thomistic doctrine of hylomorphism (part 2), in
which the world consists of various kinds of substances which are metaphysically composed of both matter and form. In these respects, he shares the
aspirations of a number of “neo-Aristotelian” analytic philosophers who are
drawing inspiration from Aristotle and Aquinas.
The first part of the book is focused on the necessity of providing an
adequate account of downward causation. Tabaczek complains that, on the one
hand, “it seems relatively easy to say what EM (emergence) is not—that is,
which tools of mathematical description commonly used in scientific research
are inadequate for describing the cases of global organization of entities and
dynamics,” but on the other hand, “attempts at a positive description of EM
(emergence) are usually methodologically troublesome and confusing” (64).
The nonreductive physicalism that dominated analytic philosophy in the last
century, which attempted to admit higher-level properties—such as those that
feature in the “special sciences”—without challenging the causal monism of
physicalism, has come under pressure from a variety of quarters. According to
Jaegwon Kim, such properties are excluded from having causal efficacy, so there
cannot be irreducible higher-level properties (78-80).

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Tabaczek considers a number of responses to Kim’s causal exclusion
argument (80-91), but finds none of them to be entirely satisfactory. He claims
that “the whole argument collapses,” however, once it is recognized that the
downward causation Kim seeks to exclude “is not an efficient cause and cannot
be understood in terms of this type of causality” (91). Tabaczek spends some
time discussing Terrance Deacon’s account of emergence, which purports to
restore teleology within nature while eschewing an ontology of substances (99133). What is problematic in Deacon’s account, according to Tabaczek, “is his
tendency to reduce formal causation to geometric properties of a probability
space” (130). It is not clear why the causal efficacy that he assigns to higherlevel “constraints” should not (globally) supervene upon a micro-physics that is
fundamentally free of teleology.
Tabaczek’s extended criticism of Deacon’s account in this book is incisive,
albeit somewhat repetitive. Yet a disciple of Deacon might press him, in turn,
to explain how formal and final causes are supposed to get a grip on the
microphysical level. Tabaczek shies away from taking any stance on quantum
mechanics, and wisely avoids claiming that the micro-entities of particle physics
can be treated straightforwardly as substances. His case for formal causation
might be strengthened, I would suggest, by drawing upon some recent work on
hylomorphism and quantum mechanics by neo-Aristotelian philosophers, and
by considering the contextual interpretation of quantum mechanics put forward
by George Ellis and Barbara Drossel, which endows thermal properties with
top-down causal powers.
The second part of this book is focused on the new dispositionalism in
philosophy, which has introduced an ontology of “powers” into contemporary
analytic metaphysics, and on the doctrine of hylomorphism, which carves the
world into substances that fall under different natural kinds. Tabaczek spends
some time expounding and critiquing a number of standard analyses of
causation in analytic philosophy, including the regularity view (139-46), the
counterfactual view (146-51), the probability view (151-55), the singularity
view (155-57), manipulability-based views (157-68), and the process view of
causation (168-74). This is good textbook material, which students will
appreciate, although the author has a taste for tortuous acronyms. All of these
theories share “the inherent shortcoming” of looking at causation “only in terms
of the efficient cause” (179), and none of them has succeeded in achieving
anything like a consensus.
Dispositionalism is to be lauded for admitting “real causal connections in
nature” (181) and reintroducing teleology by admitting an ontology of powers
which are directed toward their manifestations. According to Tabaczek, causal
powers “can be taken as universals which have their instantiation in substances”
(183), in which every event is “an effect of powers manifesting themselves in a
causal process” (189). The literature on powers is now complex and vast, and
it is not surprising that his summary overlooks some significant variations:
according to Anna Marmodoro, for example, we carve the world into different
substances according to our explanatory interests, but the basic building blocks

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are “power-tropes” which co-manifest in a wide variety of ways. There are good
grounds, however, for thinking that some type of dispositionalism could be
combined with some form of hylomorphism to allow nature to be carved by
biology as well as by physics.
The various neo-Aristotelian attempts to reclaim hylomorphism, however,
are given short shrift. Tabaczek discusses, all too briefly, the “mereological”
hylomorphisms of Kathrin Koslicki, Mark Johnston, Kit Fine, William
Jaworski, and Robert Koons (218-23); the account of “incomplete entities”
offered by Edward Jonathan Lowe (223-25); and the “mixed version” of
hylomorphism put forward by Gordon Barnes (225-28). Marmodoro is judged
to offer a more satisfactory account of form in terms of an “operation” that
strips the elements of a substance of their distinctness, but she is “not entirely
clear in her understanding of matter” (228). In fact, Marmodoro thinks of form
as a conceptual operation that we subjectively perform upon nature, rather than
being the cause of a substance being what it is, so she does not require prime
matter. Koons, for his part, is explicit in his rejection of any structural
conception of form, so it seems misleading to lump his account with Jaworski’s.
Still, Tabaczek makes a good case for the need for a more classical conception
of hylomorphism than the structuralist variety—one that requires the physical
parts of a substance to be transformed within the whole. (The more
fundamental issue underlying the debate about structural hylomorphism, I
would suggest, is the debate about the unicity of substantial form, which divided
the disciples of Aquinas from the followers of Scotus.) Given how many pages
are spent in summary and critique, however, it is a little disappointing how little
space is allocated to offering a positive account of a classical version of
hylomorphism that can commend itself to analytic philosophers. Many
questions are left unaddressed. For instance, how is matter as pure potentiality
one in all things, and how does it individuate them? What is the precise
ontological status of matter and form, and how do they compose something
that is metaphysically one? What is the mereology of virtual parts, and how do
they retain their powers in a substance without their substantial forms? What
does it mean for their forms to be “not entirely corrupted” in the process of
substantial change? These are questions that neo-Aristotelians might reasonably
expect Tabaczek to answer at greater length.
In summary: the principal challenge that faces Tabaczek’s project is how to
implement a full-fledged, classical hylomorphism within a contemporary
analytic idiom. This book is at its best in applying pressure to nonreductive
physicalism and promoting curiosity about the teachings of Aristotle and
Aquinas, but the positive account that it offers is too cursory to be entirely
convincing, and its engagement with analytic attempts to appropriate the
insights of Aristotle is uneven and sometimes lacking in depth. Nonetheless,
Tabaczek has managed to digest an impressively encyclopaedic quantity of
scholarship on metaphysics and science within a single volume which will be
useful for both teachers and researchers, and his challenge to reclaim a more
classical conception of hylomorphism is timely and apt to invigorate lively

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discussion. Here is an amusing irony. Among Catholic progressives, a
preoccupation with the “Aristotelian” metaphysics of Aquinas is the mark of a
recalcitrant theological conservatism which has turned its back on the modern
world. In the academy at large, however, “Aristotelianism” is the new
revolution among young philosophers seeking to overturn a hidebound
reductionism, in order to make better progress in understanding the
complexities of modern science. A wise man (C. S. Lewis) once observed: “If
you are on the wrong road . . . the man who turns back soonest is the most
progressive.” Tabaczek’s book may help truth-seekers to get their philosophical
bearings, but there is still a long road ahead.
WILLIAM M. R. SIMPSON
Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
Cambridge, United Kingdom

Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics. By REINHARD
HÜTTER. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
2019. Pp. xiv + 493. $65.00 (hard). ISBN: 978-0-8132-3181-5.
Consonant with its appearance in the “Thomistic Ressourcement Series,” this
book is an important exercise in retrieving Thomas Aquinas’s theology of
beatitude in today’s postmodern context, where teleology and the transcendent
have been excluded, as the author charges, from much contemporary
philosophy and theology. Not only does Reinhard Hütter offer a positive
assessment of Aquinas’s philosophical and theological approach with its
employment of teleology and openness to the transcendent, he also tackles a
number of influential objections to it with roots he locates in Protestantism,
modern philosophy, existentialism, and disability studies. In response to these
objections he concludes that, while none of them is successful in defeating
Aquinas’s project, all of them in fact manifest the same critical neglect of
teleology and the transcendent that haunts modernity. Aquinas’s account, in
contrast, enables us to view the crisis for what it is, while at the same time
offering us resources for overcoming it.
Hütter’s manifesto therefore is that today’s impoverished theology of
immanence requires for its enrichment the restoration of a transcendent
teleological orientation, which in turn demands that philosophical metaphysics
be theology’s privileged partner and instrument. While sensitive to the role of
narrative in theology, Hütter is determined to see philosophical argument
restored to the central place it had in the work of Aquinas. In this way the
author presents the overall argument of his book as a paradigmatic case study
in recovering from Aquinas a “sacred doctrine” (sacra doctrina) that “teaches

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God, is taught by God, and leads to God” (87), a truly metaphysical and
argumentative theology that can bring real benefits to the theological task today.
Hütter’s aim is to show that, in this particular case, the impoverishment of
contemporary theology can be met by the riches of a Thomistic theology of both
beatitude and the virtuous journey to that beatitude, which he draws especially
from Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. Hence the introduction includes helpful
commentary on the opening questions of the Second Part of the Summa, where
Aquinas outlines the final end of all creatures, including the human being, and
the objective and subjective dimensions of the essence of ultimate human
happiness. With a strong but subtle sense of Aquinas’s distinction between the
supernatural and the natural, as well as between perfect and imperfect
happiness, Hütter is well placed to explore the relationship between ultimate
human happiness and the journey of the “sojourner” (viator) to that end.
Hütter’s synthetic approach to beatitude and virtue is perhaps highlighted by
the appearance of the terms “eschatology” and “ethics” in his subtitle. At first
glance, one might say that Hütter deals with eschatology or beatitude itself in
his lengthy introduction and lengthy postscript, and with ethics—or the moral
journey to beatitude—in the chapters in the body of the book, with the first
chapter easing the reader from eschatology towards ethics. Thus, while chapter
1 presents the case for restoring the teleological principle of finality to the heart
of theology—since without it one cannot have the central tenets of Aquinas’s
theology of beatitude—it thereby treats the basic orientation of human nature
to happiness through the finality of the created intellect for beatitude and the
natural desire for the vision of God, and thus also humanity’s basic need for
making the moral journey there. Prolonging this metaphysical approach into
consideration of the good, chapter 2 explores how one is naturally equipped to
journey to beatitude through the natural law, prudence, and conscience, while
chapter 3 turns to supernatural salvation from the obstacle of sin, which stands
in the way of this journey’s taking place, an obstacle removed by the Cross of
Christ.
Since Hütter’s book is by no means an attempt at a complete moral theology,
his treatment of the virtues of the viator, theological and moral, is happily
selective, while at the same time avoiding too narrow a selection of examples of
virtuous action. Chapter 4 examines the theological virtue of faith as the
beginning of beatitude in us, and chapter 5 the theological virtue of charity as
the continuation of the journey through divinization and friendship with God.
Rather than attempt to cover even the four cardinal moral virtues in a standard
way, Hütter turns in chapter 6 to the virtue of religion as justice towards God,
which he notes is somewhat neglected in theology today, while chapter 7 treats
the virtue of courage as a reclaiming of martyrdom, and chapter 8 the virtue of
chastity through a very insightful examination of contemporary addiction to
pornography and the traditional notion of spiritual apathy (acedia).
What is notable, though—and why I say that the above division of the book
into eschatology and ethics is made at first glance—is how Hütter genuinely and
consistently highlights the link between the two throughout his work. This can

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be seen in a special way in his final chapter on the Blessed Virgin Mary, which
takes “The Exemplar of Beatitude” for its title. For Hütter, not only is she
exemplary for all sojourners in terms of such virtues as religion, courage and
chastity, but as assumed into heaven she is a beacon for sojourners by holding
out to them the hope for that beatitude which she already personally possesses.
In this way chapter 9 leads the reader once again firmly into the eschatological
realm of our final end, to which Hütter devotes his postscript.
It is worth noting that, by exposing the links between beatitude and the
natural and supernatural means required for the attainment of beatitude, Hütter
is constantly pursuing a theology that is not only metaphysical, but also at once
speculative, dogmatic, and moral. He states that it is beyond the scope of his
book to show how the biblical and historical are integral parts of theology, and
promises in this connection a future work based on that of Yves Congar. This
limitation in the present work is a significant admission, because the role of
history in theology and its relation to metaphysics are central problems in
theological methodology bequeathed to us by modernity. Nevertheless the
integration of the metaphysical, the dogmatic, and the moral is not without
crucial significance, and in this respect the overall integrative nature of Hütter’s
method in the present book shines through.
While he is in all this practising a genuine Thomistic ressourcement, Hütter
does so with an order that does not exactly match that of the Summa theologiae.
One can see this in the case of Christ, whom Aquinas treats formally only in the
Summa’s Third Part, where he appears specifically as our “way” to beatitude. It
is therefore only from the Third Part that Hütter can be sure of the “Christcentred and Christ-informed nature of the viator’s journey” (49) in Aquinas’s
thought. And so he also states that “admittedly, in his formal analysis of
beatitude in ST I-II, Aquinas is not quite as explicit about the Christocentric
nature of the journey to beatitude as he possibly could or should be” (48).
This “could” or “should” seems to align Hütter with those who harbor
reservations about how Aquinas introduces Christology only after the Second
Part has identified the content of beatitude and explored the virtuous journey
to it. It seems to me that Aquinas operates with his own criteria as to how far
Christ should be explicitly introduced prior to the Third Part, and it is not clear
whether Hütter’s comments put him at odds with Aquinas’s whole structure,
the criteria Aquinas uses for speaking of Christ in advance of the Third Part, or
his actual application of these criteria. But whatever Hütter’s position, it seems
to me that, since Aquinas himself tried out various orderings of the data of
theology throughout his career, a Thomistic ressourcement which is also
speculative must be free to some extent to try out other theological orderings
too. Thus, while the Summa presents Christology in the light of the foregoing
metaphysical examination of the moral end and journey found in the Second
Part, the Thomist is also free to present the metaphysics of morals and beatitude
in the light of Christology. Thus, such reservations as Hütter may have about
Aquinas’s order of material are perhaps reflected in the placing of Chapter 3 on
salvation from sin through Christ (Third Part material) ahead of Chapters 4 to

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8 on the virtues (Second Part material). But if this is the case, there are perhaps
missed opportunities for a greater explicit Christological dimension in the latter
run of chapters.
In light of this, I am left unsure whether Hütter’s division of eschatological
material between the introduction (and chapter 1) and the postscript enjoys a
methodological power equal to that employed by Aquinas in the ordering of the
Summa. By planning a treatise on eschatology for the conclusion of the
unfinished Third Part, Aquinas was evidently intending a properly Christological treatment of the beatitude that is merely outlined in the Second Part as
something to which God might have brought us in some way other than the
incarnation. Hütter, in contrast, more or less sets out the Second Part’s position
on beatitude in his introduction and the first chapter, and returns in the
postscript to various concerns arising about Aquinas’s account from modern
theologians, including the roles of the bodily and social aspects of our heavenly
humanity. One important point picked up from chapter 1 is the key failure of
Germain Grisez’s moral theology to issue in an eschatology where God himself
constitutes our ultimate goal, instead effectively leaving God as one among
many celestial ends. Hütter is able to offer, in contrast, a more convincing
Thomistic account of heaven which places the essence of our beatitude in the
vision of God—without claiming to give an exhaustive account of beatitude in
its every mode. It seems that Hütter is perhaps too easily dismissive, however,
of the usefulness of the traditional distinction between essential and accidental
beatitude found among Aquinas’s commentators, which he (not unreasonably)
finds open to misunderstanding.
Nevertheless, despite this split in the material, both the introduction and
postscript contain a wealth of useful information for the reader. For example,
Hütter gives a lengthy and helpful explanation of Aquinas’s account of the
workings of the beatific vision, which can do much to help the reader avoid
falling into confusion on a difficult topic. A slip does, however, seem to be made
when Hütter states that the habit of the light of glory “allows the active intellect
to do its proper job, to understand (intelligere) the essence of God – nothing
more and nothing less” (405). If knowledge of God’s essence is the “proper job”
of the active intellect, then the beatific vision would somehow render God’s
being actually intelligible (when he is in fact always supremely intelligible), since
it is precisely the job of the light of the active intellect to render objects that are
potentially intelligible actually intelligible. Moreover, would Aquinas have
argued in favor of Christ’s acquired knowledge on the basis that Christ’s active
intellect would otherwise have been left idle, as he did in the Third Part, if he
had held that Christ’s beatific vision had already engaged the active intellect?
Rather, Aquinas’s account seems to leave the active intellect without a role in
the act of beatific knowledge, and this was indeed a criticism made of him in
the Middle Ages. What happens in Aquinas’s account of beatitude is surely that
the possible intellect is brought into act—the intellect in act rather than the
active intellect. This, however, is only a quibble regarding an extensive and
otherwise accurate account of this beatific act, found within a rich volume of

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considerable learning, mature theological insight, and promise for the future of
theology.
SIMON FRANCIS GAINE, O.P.
Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas
Rome, Italy

The Voiding of Being: The Doing and Undoing of Metaphysics in Modernity. By
WILLIAM DESMOND. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2020. Pp. 312. $65.00 (hard). ISBN: 978-0-81323248-5.
In The Voiding of Being: The Doing and Undoing of Metaphysics in
Modernity, William Desmond reflects on our loss of the wonder of being, which
Plato asserted to be the beginning of all philosophy. Desmond traces this loss in
various areas of human concern, but the diagnosis is always the same, namely,
that this wonder is lost when we lose sight of the overdeterminateness of being
in favor of either univocal determination or equivocal indetermination. The
latter two tendencies can be seen at work mostly within modern and
postmodern philosophy, in response to which Desmond advocates for a
metaphysics of the between that is capable of thinking through such
overdeterminancy without losing sight of the wonder at being by which we
philosophize in the first place.
The first chapter shares its title with the book, “The Voiding of Being.” In
this chapter, Desmond looks at the modern project of philosophy and observes
how being is a concept that has been either dismissed or undermined, yet
continues to reemerge from the burial site of metaphysics. In typical fashion, he
resists the univocalizing tendencies that beset modernity, opting for a
metaphysics of the between wherein univocity sits hand-in-hand with
equivocity. He observes that in the ancient world there was a wonder at being.
This wonder is in reaction to the too-muchness of being; being is
overdeterminate, it exceeds our determinations. The challenge in philosophy is
to render the astonishment at this intelligible and thereby come to terms with
being; this is the classical project of metaphysics. Modern philosophers tend to
univocalize, to pin down what cannot be pinned down, resulting in loss of being,
or they equivocalize by thinking the overdeterminate as indeterminate and
thereby void of intelligibility. Desmond proposes a metaphysics of the between,
what he calls a “metaxological metaphysics” between univocal determination
and equivocal indetermination—a metaphysics that thinks through the
thereness of being as being other and its fullness in our midst.

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Chapter 2 is titled “Analogy and the Fate of Reason.” Herein Desmond
considers the analogical turn in contemporary philosophy as a fruitful way of
engaging with the overdeterminacy of being without replacing metaphysics with
phenomenology. If there is any tradition of thought that seeks to strike a balance
in the between of univocity and equivocity it is Aristotelian Scholasticism where
analogy is the all-important factor. This analogy of being betrays an analogical
reasoning which is at home with sameness in difference and does not tend to
univocalize the likeness between God and creatures, nor to equivocalize their
difference. Desmond traces the loss of this analogical thinking in modernity
only to see ciphers of its reappearance in various places—for example, in Kant
and Hegel. Desmond believes that in contemporary philosophy there is a space
for a transdialectical reason, which does not shuttle from univocity to equivocity
but, like analogical reason, is at home in and seeks to word the between; such a
metaxological reason can ponder the porosity of philosophy and religion which
has been closed by the unvocalizing tendencies of modernity.
Chapter 3, “The Dearth of Astonishment: On Curiosity, Scientism, and
Thinking as Negativity,” engages with the wonder that Plato and Aristotle took
to be the beginning of philosophy: a wonder in the face of being, of the toomuchness of being. Herein Desmond distinguishes between an astonishment in
the face of the overdeterminate, a perplexity in the face of the indeterminate,
and a curiosity for the determinate. We are initially astonished at the toomuchness of being, and this passes over into perplexity, seeing that the
overdeterminacy of being escapes our grasp. Very easily this perplexity passes
into a negative thinking by which we seek to render the indeterminate
determinate; this leads to a curiosity for greater and greater determination.
Desmond likens this curiosity for the determinate to the univocal thinking of
scientism, which takes natural science to be the measure of the being of things.
Scientism as an ideology is an all-encompassing, all-determining (allunivocalizing) worldview that loses the wonder of being. Wonder is in turn
replaced with an idle curiosity that pretends to seek more and more knowledge
but is, in fact, a self-enclosed immanence that never rests but only negates so as
to produce determinancy.
I had the privilege to be present when Desmond delivered the public lecture
whose material forms chapter 4, “Are we all Scholastics now? On Analytic,
Dialectical, and Transdialectical Thinking.” Continuing with the same themes
that have already emerged in the book, Desmond notes the richness in thinking
in the face of the overdetermination of being in the Scholastic tradition. But he
proceeds to draw out the moral that when determination of the overdeterminate
is sought, univocal ways of thinking become dominant. Scholasticism became
decadent through attempting to render determinate what cannot be determined,
and the analytic and continental traditions are inheritors in their own ways of
the univocal and equivocal elements held in fine balance within classical
Scholastic thought.
Chapter 5, “Between System and Poetics,” focuses on an issue close to
Desmond’s heart: the interaction of philosophy and poetry. Desmond is no

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doubt a philosopher, and a good one, but he also has the mind (or heart) of a
poet. In this chapter, Desmond looks at different practices of philosophy and
explores the possibility or the porosity in the interaction of philosophy and
poetry. One of the ways in which he explores this possibility is in the idea of
being systematic but without loyalty to a system. Such disloyal systematicity
requires an esprit de finesse—as opposed to the more geometrical and
univocalizing thinking of much modern thought—in order to think through and
into poetry as philosophy’s other.
In chapter 6, “Saturated Phenomena and the Hyperboles of Being: On
Marion’s Postmetaphysical Thought,” Desmond engages with Jean-Luc
Marion, and compares Marion’s thinking on the saturated phenomena with his
own hyperboles of being. As is well known, Marion is a thinker who seeks to
think beyond being, replacing metaphysics with phenomenology. In this
chapter, Desmond sees much that is common between his thinking and
Marion’s, and this precisely because Desmond is dissatisfied with the kind of
univocal metaphysical thinking about being beyond which Marion wishes to
think. Yet Desmond advocates a metaxological metaphysics that deals with what
he calls the hyperboles of being. These hyperboles are described as happenings
within immanence that cannot be determined in terms of immanence; this then
invites a going beyond of immanence and thus univocal determinancy to a
metaphysical mindfulness of the overdeterminancy of being rather than the
more phenomenological approach advocated by Marion.
We turn in chapter 7 to issues of a more epistemological nature. In “Being
True to Mystery and Metaxological Metaphysics,” Desmond engages with the
issue of being true in the face of mystery. He begins with an appreciation of
Lonergan’s highlighting of the desire to know as driving the cognitional process
forward in its determination of that desire. Desmond adopts and adapts this
approach by stressing the mystery of the overdeterminancy of being. As is made
clear throughout the book, the overdeterminancy of being is not a mere
indeterminancy from which one must flee into the arms of univocalizing
determinancy. Rather, the overdeterminancy is a richness or an overflow of
intelligibility which faces us or invites us to contemplate. This invites us to be
true in the face of that mystery, but such being true is not exhausted in the
univocal correctness found in factuality, but in being porous to the true; we
need to be faithful to the original relationship with the overdeterminancy of
being that invites our wonder and contemplation.
Desmond ends the book with a chapter on Heraclitus titled “Flux Gibberish:
For and against Heraclitus.” Here he notes the enigmatic figure of Heraclitus
who seems to have been the only Presocratic truly to appreciate the manifold
senses of being. One finds in his thought a delicate balance of unity and flux.
Aristotle’s impatient dismissal of the Heracliteans is seen to be somewhat hasty,
given the role that the logos plays in Heraclitus’s thinking. So too Desmond
argues there is a lack of appreciation of the Heraclitean logos in Hegel and
Nietzsche’s appreciation. Desmond wishes to stress the unity in being and the
becoming in unity that is characteristic of Heraclitus’s thinking.

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If there is one theme that I think can be seen throughout this book it is the
call to be sensitive to the original sense of being which induces the wonder that
is the beginning of all philosophy. In each chapter, Desmond seeks to advert to
this sense of being and its loss in modern and contemporary philosophy. Being
has been voided and with that voiding metaphysics has come undone. Either we
are left with overly determinate metaphysics (of the Neoscholastics or the analytics) or we have gone beyond metaphysics in the phenomenological turn. Desmond falls broadly within the metaphysical turn of postmodern contemporary
philosophy. In this respect he seeks to preserve the sensitivity to being that can
be found in classical thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and others, but
also to reintroduce this sensitivity in a postmodern context. For the latter alone,
Desmond’s work is a welcome addition for all of us who feel a certain poverty
in contemporary approaches to metaphysics or the rejection thereof.
As a Thomistic philosopher schooled in the analytic tradition but also
sympathetic to certain thinkers within the continental tradition, I found
Desmond’s book to be challenging. Desmond is well known for his idiosyncratic
thinking of the between, and it is often a struggle to come to terms with his
thought on this issue. However, the effort that it requires to think through his
work pays off, since it does indeed highlight the original sense of wonder at
being that invites the philosopher (as it invited a number of my philosophical
heroes) to think metaphysically in the first place. I would heartily recommend
this book for anyone who takes seriously metaphysics and the role that it plays
in contemporary philosophy.
GAVEN KERR
St. Patrick’s College Maynooth
Maynooth, Ireland

Thomas Aquinas’s Quodlibetal Questions. Translated and introduced by
TURNER NEVITT and BRIAN DAVIES. New York: Oxford University Press,
2020. Pp. 592. $49.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-19-006953-7.
The question whether the game is worth the candle is common in discussions
of Thomas Aquinas’s quodlibetal questions. Do they not, as Kevin White says,
“seem at first sight negligible in size, redundant in content, and inferior in
organization”? What can we get from these obscure exercises that is not
available better and cheaper elsewhere, since “90% of the 264 quodlibetal
articles are paralleled elsewhere in Thomas’s work” (White). Does Aquinas not
abandon a second round of commentary on the Sentences and embark on a
wholly independent venture, the Summa theologiae, so as not to be constrained
by the requirements of librorum expositio or derailed by an unpredictable

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occasio disputandi? And is not unpredictability, while present in all oral
disputation, the very soul of the quodlibet, where the questions can be posed by
anyone and about anything?
Any successful reply to these objections will need to begin with the stubborn
fact that Thomas Aquinas must have thought the quodlibetal questions
important since he conducted twelve of these nonobligatory exercises—not just
when beginning as a master (1256-59: Quodl. VII-XI), but “maxing out” the
occasions for conducting them in his second Paris regency (1268-72: Quodl. IIII, VI, IV-V, XII) when, in addition to his regular duties, he was writing the
Secunda secundae and commentaries on Aristotle. Indeed, it would be easier to
defend the position that Thomas Aquinas loved disputation than the contrary.
Despite his reservations about the current methods of legere et disputare for
instructing beginners in theology, he adopts the disputed-question format for
his Summa, and reimagines the book of Job as disputations on the nature of
divine providence.
Turner Nevitt and Brian Davies, who have produced a new and complete
English translation of Thomas Aquinas’s Quodlibetal Questions based on the
critical edition published by the Leonine Commission (1996), explain the
ubiquity of this genre in Aquinas and other medieval teachers as “arising from
respect for dialogue” (xxxiii). This is perhaps an anachronistic explanation—
Aquinas only once uses the term “dialogue” in his opera omnia—but it serves
to place the medieval disputation within the history of philosophical writings
with a similar goal: namely, that a conclusion should not be put forward without
a thorough vetting of the arguments for and against it. Whether it was through
his experiences with disputation in the Dominican houses he lived in, his
education at the University of Paris, or his role in defending the new mendicant
orders, Thomas Aquinas clearly trusted this relatively new method for solving
theoretical and practical problems.
The introduction to this well-designed volume contains brief but carefully
sourced sections on Aquinas’s life and writings, the concept of the quodlibetal
question, and its place in the writings. The authors “ roughly group” the topics
of the quodlibets into those on “(1) the divine nature, (2) God as triune and
incarnate, (3) angels, (4) blessedness, (5) damnation, (6) grace, (7) sin, (8)
human nature, (9) matters concerning clerics and members of religious orders,
(10) pastoral concerns, and (11) motley questions,” such as the famous “Is truth
stronger than wine, kings, and women.” They also provide “readers an
introductory and selective account” of these topics—one, however, which is
rich with representative texts.
Nevitt and Davies provide several useful tools for studying this unusual
work, which are more than usually welcome, since Aquinas himself provides
almost no help: no introductions, and minimal division of the text (e.g., “There
were three sorts of questions. The first about spiritual substances, the second
about the sacrament of the altar, and the third about the bodies of the
damned”). For each article of the quodlibets, a list of parallel passages from
Aquinas’s other writings is provided, allowing for careful comparison of his

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treatment of similar problems with regard to content, context, and
development, as well as to subtler variations arising from the propinquity of the
written text of the quodlibets to its spoken antecedents. There are some articles
that have no parallel treatment, for example, “If something were reduced to
nothing, could God bring the numerically same thing back into existence?”
(Quodl. IV, q. 3, a. 2). These have their own attractions.
Other features of this volume expand the availability of the text beyond those
familiar with medieval philosophy and theology. A glossary of terms, from the
relatively familiar (“the Virgin”) to the relatively obscure (“allegorical” and the
other senses of Scripture), brief descriptions of authors and works cited
explicitly in the quodlibets (e.g., “Avicenna” and the Decretals), and a robust
index, are all welcome features.
The translation achieves its twin goals of fidelity to Aquinas’s Latin and being
“intelligible to contemporary readers of English” (xxi). It has no whiff of neoScholasticism: for example, it avoids transliterations of technical terms and
limits the use of “man” as a translation of homo to biblical quotations, places
where the preferred “human being” or “people” would be awkward (e.g.,
“white man”), or where it is clearly the best translation (e.g., “this man is the
son of God”). It manages a felicitous rendering of terms that have no obvious
contemporary equivalent, like maleficium as “bewitchment” (Quodl. XI, q. 9,
aa. 1 and 2). This does not mean one could not quarrel with some of the
translators’ choices. An example would be the translation of liberum arbitrium
(or arbitrii libertatem) as “free choice” in three of four instances in an article on
predestination (Quodl. XI, q. 3). If “free choice” helps distinguish human
causality in predestination from that of the divine “will,” then why not use it in
all four instances? If the term is translated as “free-will” in an article on
preparation for grace (Quodl. I, q. 4, a. 2) because electio must be translated as
“choice,” why do so when discussing forced baptism of Jewish children, the
bonds of matrimony, or the entry of boys into religious orders (Quodl. II, q. 4,
a. 2; II, q. 5, a. 1), where “choice” would seem to be the issue? Since both “freewill” and “free choice” lend themselves to misinterpretation, given contemporary usage, it might be preferable to translate liberum arbitrium consistently
as “free choice” or “free decision” (as Jamie Spiering suggests) acknowledging
that it is a narrower power than free-will, namely, being-free-to-will any
available alternative. Translating it as “free-will” obscures Aquinas’s
understanding of the human being as possessing free will even before she can
freely choose or even when there are no “choices.”
Another example is translating duplex est preceptum legis nature as “natural
law makes two sorts of demands.” “Demand,” however, as compared with
“command” or “commandment,” implies power rather than authority, will
rather than reason, and hostage situations rather than law-giving. Nevertheless,
given the seventy-nine instances of some form of praeceptum in Quodl. VII, q.
7, one sympathizes with the translators’ task of achieving clarity among them.
An instance of no importance is translating pulchre vie as “a nice way” (Quodl.
XII, q. 21,a. 1). While technically doing violence to neither the Latin nor

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English language, “nice” is a word which has been emptied of meaning in
contemporary usage and so sounds strange in the mouth of Thomas Aquinas.
Such pitfalls as these, however, lie everywhere for those who choose to translate
as opposed to “render into English.” We should be very grateful to Nevitt and
Davies that they have translated Thomas Aquinas’s Quodlibetal Questions,
enabling us to assess each quodlibet as an individual performance in an exacting
genre, where truth is sought through combat.
MARY CATHERINE SOMMERS
University of St. Thomas
Houston, Texas