The Thomist 85 (2021): 175-226

THE DEBATE OVER DIGNITATIS HUMANAE
AT VATICAN II:
THE CONTRIBUTION OF CHARLES CARDINAL JOURNET
ROGER W. NUTT and MICHAEL R. DE SALVO
Ave Maria University
Ave Maria, Florida

I

N THE MORE THAN fifty years since the Second Vatican
Council, no part of the council’s interpretation or reception
has been more divisive or more complicated than the interpretation and reception of the Declaration on Religious
Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae.1 The primary point of conflict is
whether the declaration develops or contradicts previous magisterial teaching on the obligation of the state to defend the truth
of the Catholic faith and to restrict the practice of false
religion.2
1

See F. Russell Hittinger, “Political Pluralism and Religious Liberty: The Teaching
of Dignitatis Humanae,” in Universal Rights in a World of Diversity: The Case of
Religious Freedom, ed. Mary Ann Glendon and Hans F. Zacher (Vatican City: The
Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, 2012), 39-55; Nicholas J. Healy, Jr., “Dignitatis
Humanae,” in The Reception of Vatican II, ed. Matthew L. Lamb and Matthew Levering
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 367-92.
2
In addition to the “primary” conflict over whether Dignitatis Humanae develops or
contradicts previous papal teaching, numerous essays consider the declaration’s proper
application and continued relevance. For example, some such essays consider the extent
to which its notion of religious freedom is compatible with that embodied in American
jurisprudence: see Robert P. Hunt, “Two Concepts of Religious Liberty: Dignitatis
Humanae v. the U.S. Supreme Court,” in Catholicism and Religious Freedom:
Contemporary Reflections on Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, ed. Kenneth
L. Grasso and Robert P. Hunt (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 19-41;
William P. Mumma, “Continuing the Search for Religious Freedom: The American

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For example, Gregory XVI, in his 1832 encyclical letter,
Mirari Vos, identifies religious indifferentism as a source of “the
absurd and wrong view, or rather insanity, according to which
freedom of conscience must be asserted and vindicated for
everybody.”3 Such an error, Gregory warns, “paves the way of
that complete and unrestrained liberty of option which rages far
and wide to the ruin of sacred and civil communities, whereas
some still claim with the greatest imprudence that some
advantage is gained from it.”4
For its part, Dignitatis Humanae teaches:
This Vatican synod declares that the human person has a right to religious
freedom. Such freedom consists in this, that all men should have such
immunity from coercion by individuals, or by groups, or by any human
power, that no one should be forced to act against his conscience in religious
matters, whether in private or in public, whether alone or in association with
others, within due limits.5

Further, the council adds:
this right to non-interference persists even in those who do not carry out their
obligation of seeking the truth and standing by it; and the exercise of the right
should not be curtailed, as long as due public order is preserved.6

Perspective,” in Continuing the Search for Religious Freedom: Fifty Years after Vatican
II’s Dignitatis Humanae, ed. Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R. (Phoenix: Leonine Publishers,
2016), 17-32. Others consider the extent to which Dignitatis Humanae’s notion of
religious freedom may serve as the basis for ecumenical dialogue: see Thomas Heilke,
“The Promised Time of Dignitatis Humanae: A Radical Protestant Perspective,” in
Grasso and Hunt, eds., Catholicism and Religious Freedom, 87-113; David T. Koyzis,
“Persuaded, Not Commanded: Neo-Calvinism, Dignitatis Humanae, and Religious
Freedom,” in ibid., 115-33.
3
As quoted in Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and
Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, 43rd ed., ed. Peter Hünermann, Robert
Fastiggi, and Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), 561-62
(§§ 2730-32), at 561 (§ 2730).
4
Ibid., 561-62 (§ 2731).
5
DH 2 (Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner S.J., 2 vols.
[London: Sheed and Ward, 1990], 2:1001-11, at 1002).
6
Ibid. (Tanner, ed., Decrees 2:1003).

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Does the council uphold the obligation of the state to defend
the truth of the Catholic faith and to restrict the practice of
false religion? If it does, then in what way and to what extent
does it do so?7
At the heart of the dispute over Dignitatis Humanae lies the
negative assessment of one-time council Father and later Society
of St. Pius X founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.8 During and
7
Numerous authors hold that Dignitatis Humanae develops, not contradicts,
previous teaching—yet, as Healy outlines in “Dignitatis Humanae,” they do not
necessarily all do so in the same way. See, e.g., John Courtney Murray, S.J., “The
Declaration on Religious Freedom,” in Bridging the Sacred and the Secular: Selected
Writings of John Courtney Murray, S.J., ed. J. Leon Hooper, S.J. (Washington, D.C.:
Georgetown University Press, 1994), 187-99; Basile Valuet, La liberté religieuse et la
tradition catholique: Un cas de développement doctrinal homogène dans le magistère
authentique, 3 vols. (Le Barroux: Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine, 1998); Avery Dulles, “Dignitatis Humanae and the Development of Catholic Doctrine,” in Grasso and Hunt, eds.,
Catholicism and Religious Freedom, 43-67; Brian W. Harrison, Religious Liberty and
Contraception (Melbourne: John XXIII Fellowship, 1988), esp. 123-30; F. Russell
Hittinger, “The Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae,” in Vatican II:
Renewal within Tradition, ed. Matthew L. Lamb and Matthew Levering (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2008), 359-82; Martin Rhonheimer, “Benedict XVI’s
‘Hermeneutic of Reform’ and Religious Freedom,” Nova et Vetera (English ed.) 9
(2011): 1029-54; David L. Schindler, “Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: An Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae on the Right to Religious Freedom,” in Freedom,
Truth, and Human Dignity: The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious
Liberty, ed. David L. Schindler and Nicholas J. Healy Jr. (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2015), 39-209.
8
See Marcel Lefebvre, Religious Liberty Questioned, trans. Jamie Pazat de Lys
(Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2002). Those who likewise hold that Dignitatis Humanae
contradicts, not develops, previous papal teaching include Michael Davies, The Second
Vatican Council and Religious Liberty (Long Prairie, Minn.: Neumann Press, 1992);
Charles Curran, Catholic Moral Theology in Dialogue (Notre Dame, Ind.: Fides Pub.,
1976), 72-73, 146-47; Richard A. McCormick, The Critical Calling: Reflections on
Moral Dilemmas since Vatican II (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press,
2006), 21, 25-46, 339; John T. Noonan, A Church That Can and Cannot Change: The
Development of Catholic Moral Teaching (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2005), 154-58. As Healy puts it,

Despite their obvious differences, “traditionalist” theologians such as
Marcel Lefebvre and Michael Davies and “progressive” theologians

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after the council, Lefebvre and his followers opposed the
Declaration on Religious Freedom, and the latter continue to do
so. At the council, (despite voting in favor of the first document
promulgated by the council, the Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium) Lefebvre urged his fellow
Fathers to reject what was to become Dignitatis Humanae.
Initially, it was unclear whether there would be enough votes
to promulgate what became Dignitatis Humanae before the
close of the council. Numerous speeches were given both for
and against it. To help reduce ongoing tensions, the secretariat
therefore arranged for noted systematic theologian and Thomist
Archbishop Charles Cardinal Journet to speak from the floor of
St. Peter’s.
In the years following the council, Lefebvre issued an
ultimatum:
When the popes condemned liberty of thought, liberty of conscience, liberty
of religions, they explained why they condemned them. . . . [A]ll of this [was]
based on the Church’s fundamental principles, on the fact that the Church is
the truth, the only truth. This is the way it is; you either believe it or you
don’t, of course, but when you believe, then you have to draw the
consequences. That is why, personally, I do not believe that the declarations of
the Council on liberty of conscience, liberty of thought, and liberty of
religions can be compatible with what the popes taught in the past. Therefore
we have to choose.9

According to Lefebvre, “we have to choose” because the Church
is the only truth. As Nicholas Healy comments, “the right to
religious freedom cannot be reconciled with the traditional
doctrine of the Church” for Lefebvre because “error has no
such as Charles Curran, Richard McCormick, and John T. Noonan
share a common assumption: DH represents a break with or
contradiction of earlier papal teaching. The former argue that the
teaching of DH is erroneous, while revisionist theologians often adduce
the example of DH to support other possible changes in Catholic
doctrine. (Healy, “Dignitatis Humanae,” 374)
9
Marcel Lefebvre, press conference, September 15, 1976 (as cited in the
“Foreword” to Religious Liberty Questioned, xi).

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rights.” For Lefebvre, “civil authority may tolerate other forms
of worship as required by the common good.”10 However, such
authority “may never give positive approval of error.”11 Even
before its promulgation, Lefebvre opposed Dignitatis Humanae
on the grounds that it broke with previous papal teaching that
error has no rights.12
To date, almost no scholarly attention has been paid to
interpreting Dignitatis Humanae in light of Journet’s speech.13
In particular, none of those who have referenced Journet’s
thought on religious liberty have fully situated his conciliar address within his preconciliar theory of the Church and state as it
is found within his magnum opus L’Église du Verbe incarné.14
10

Healy, “Dignitatis Humanae,” 381.
Ibid.
12
Interestingly, Lefebvre’s name is listed among the signers of the decrees
promulgated on December 7, 1965 (see Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici
Vaticani II [Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970-1999], vol. 4, part 7, 809).
In other words, Lefebvre followed the pope in signing the declaration (once its
promulgation was no longer a matter of debate), even if he would later reject its
teaching.
13
A notable exception is Jacques Rime’s brief history of Journet’s address: Jacques
Rime, “L’intervention de Charles Journet dans l’élaboration du décret sur la liberté
religieuse,” in Liberté religieuse et Église catholique: Héritage et développements récents,
ed. Renata Latala and Jacques Rime, Studia Friburgensia 106 (Fribourg: Academic Press,
2009), 31-40.
14
Beyond Rime’s history of Journet’s address, Journet has been referenced vis-à-vis
Dignitatis Humanae in at least four recent articles.
Thomas Pink deploys part of Journet’s preconciliar theory of the Church and state
(as well as the thought of Suarez) to argue that Dignitatis Humanae amounts to a change
in Church policy, not a change in Church teaching (Thomas Pink, “The Interpretation
of Dignitatis Humanae: A Reply to Martin Rhonheimer,” Nova et vetera [English ed.]
11 [2013]: 77-121). He does not deal directly with Journet’s conciliar address, only
L’Église du Verbe incarné.
Martin Rhonheimer references Journet’s conciliar address against Pink, arguing that
Journet had abandoned his preconciliar theory of the Church and state (Martin
Rhonheimer, “Dignitatis Humanae—Not a Mere Question of Church Policy: A
Response to Thomas Pink,” Nova et vetera [English ed.] 12 [2014]: 445-70, at 459-62).
Rhonheimer does not deal with Journet’s preconciliar theory directly but seems to
assume that Pink had referenced it in its entirety.
11

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In his conciliar address on what became Dignitatis Humanae,
Journet offers a compelling interpretation in favor of its
promulgation on the premise that it maintains continuity with
past Church teaching. He reads the document as doing more
than simply changing Church policy15 but, contra Lefebvre, not
abrogating previous papal teaching on the duties of temporal
authority toward the truth. Journet argues that what became
Dignitatis Humanae applies the principle of the subordination
of the temporal to the spiritual order in a new, higher way.
Dignitatis Humanae helps make possible the existence of states
not just Christian but freely Christian.16
In an attempt to make a small but possibly decisive contribution to Vatican II studies and the ongoing debate over
Dignitatis Humanae, this essay recounts the near-unknown
position developed by Journet from the floor of St. Peter’s in
the latter days of the council. In order better to appreciate the
content of his intervention, part I considers who Charles
Cardinal Journet was, in particular his status at the council and
the expertise with which he spoke from the council floor. Part
Pink responds to Rhonheimer (Thomas Pink, “Jacques Maritain and the Problem of
Church and State,” The Thomist 79 [2015]: 1-42) as though Journet’s conciliar address
was an abandonment of previous papal teaching. Here Pink does not reference Journet’s
preconciliar theory of the Church and state at all.
Gregory Reichberg pits Journet against Pink for Pink’s reliance on Suarez in “The
Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” with whom Journet disagreed as to whether the
Church was directly responsible for the use of the death penalty against heresy (Gregory
M. Reichberg, “Scholastic Arguments for and against Religious Freedom,” The Thomist
84 [2020]: 1-50, at 5-6, 9, 45-48). Per Reichberg, Journet’s conciliar address represents
a “promising line of analysis” in continuity with his preconciliar theory and “merits
closer examination” (ibid., 48). Reichberg does not explicitly mention Pink’s reliance on
Journet in “The Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” only his reliance on Suarez.
In our opinion, Pink’s generic thesis that Dignitatis Humanae represents a change in
policy, not a change in doctrine or teaching, would have been strengthened had he
referenced Journet’s preconciliar theory more fully. Read within the context of his
preconciliar theory in full, Journet’s conciliar address confirms Pink’s theory. Journet
never abandoned his preconciliar theory.
15
That is, changing Church policy due to necessity alone.
16
That is, animated by the Church in a way more perfectly in accord with the
distinction between the temporal and spiritual realms.

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II reviews Journet’s theory of the Church and the state in his
preconciliar L’Église du Verbe incarné. Part III examines how
Thomas Pink’s work on Dignitatis Humanae in “The Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae: A Reply to Martin Rhonheimer” serves as an important point of reference for
appreciating how Journet’s conciliar address accords with his
earlier work. Part IV considers the importance of Journet’s
address within the context of the council’s proceedings. Part V
contains a translation of the cardinal’s speech (delivered
originally in Latin). Part VI indicates how Journet’s analysis
constitutes a way forward in continuity with his earlier work.
I. CHARLES CARDINAL JOURNET
Charles Journet was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1891.
He was ordained to the priesthood in 1917 and spent the
entirety of his forty-six-year academic career teaching dogmatic
theology at the major seminary of the Diocese of Fribourg in
Switzerland.17 Today he is perhaps best known for co-founding
the journal Nova et vetera in 1926 and for his multivolume
work on ecclesiology, L’Église du Verbe incarné.18 Among his
17
For a brief biographical outline of Journet’s life and principal accomplishments,
see Roger W. Nutt, “The Application of Christ’s One Oblation: Charles Journet on the
Mass, the Real Presence, and the Sacrifice of the Cross,” Nova et vetera (English ed.) 8
(2010): 665-81, at 666-68. For a more detailed biography of Journet’s life and works,
see Guy Boissard, Charles Journet: 1891-1975 (Paris: Salvator, 2008); Jacques Rime,
Charles Journet: Vocation et jeunesse d’un théologien (Fribourg: Press Fribourg/Editions
Saint-Paul Fribourg Suisse, 2010). For a treatment of the cardinal’s priestly vocation in
his life, work, and spirituality, see Guy Boissard, “Charles Journet, théologien, cardinal,
prêtre avant tout,” Nova et vetera 85 (2010): 21-29.
18
See Charles Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné: Essai de théologie speculative,
œuvres complètes de Charles Journet, vols. 1-5 (Saint-Maurice: Éditions Saint-Augustin,
1998-2005). An English translation of volume 1, La hiérarchie apostolique, was
published as Charles Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate: An Essay in
Speculative Theology, trans. A. H. C. Downes, vol. 1, The Apostolic Hierarchy (London:
Sheed and Ward, 1955). La hiérarchie apostolique (within which Journet’s theory of the
Church and state is located) was first published in 1941. In 1955, Journet published a

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peers, Journet was esteemed as a preeminent theologian and
Catholic intellectual.19
Pope Paul VI was an admirer of his theological work. It was
in part that Journet might have a greater influence on the work
of the council that, between the third and fourth sessions, Paul
VI elevated then Monsignor Journet to the rank of archbishop
on February 15, 1965, and to the rank of cardinal on February
22, 1965.
It is often forgotten by interpreters of the council that the
elevation of Journet to the episcopacy and cardinalate sets him
apart from other prominent theologians of the twentieth
century whose names are also associated with Vatican II. Unlike
Ratzinger, Chenu, Rahner, De Lubac, Bouyer, Congar, Vorgrimler, and Schillebeeckx, whose reflections, memoirs, and
journals from Vatican II are frequently cited and consulted,
Journet was a Father and voting member of the council who
played an active role at the fourth and final session, at which
the Fathers promulgated Dignitatis Humanae.20
second edition of La hiérarchie apostolique, with two added excurses (one within his
theory of the Church and state) and numerous minor additions and revisions. A third
and final edition appeared in 1962, demarked this time by the addition of two
appendices (one presenting the fragments of a couple of speeches of Pius XII, the first
regarding the Church and state and the second religious freedom). Downes’s 1955
translation includes both excurses as well as a number if not most of Journet’s revisions
from the second edition, but not the two appendices.
19
See Charles Journet: Un témoin du XXe siècle, ed. Marta Rossignotti Jaeggi and
Guy Boissard (Paris: Parole et silence, 2003). As an example of his influence in the
Catholic intellectual world, see his correspondence with Jacques Maritain from 1920 to
1964, which covers over four thousand pages (Charles Journet and Jacques Maritain,
Correspondance, 6 vols. [Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires; Paris: Éditions Saint-Paul,
1996-2008]).
20
For a full treatment of Journet’s presence at and influence on the council, see
Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., “Présence de Journet à Vatican II,” in Charles Journet (18911975): Un théologien en son siècle, ed. Philippe Chenaux, 2d ed. (Fribourg: Editions
Universitaires, 1994), 41-68. For a discussion of Journet’s contribution to the council’s
treatment of the indissolubility of marriage in Gaudium et Spes, see Roger W. Nutt,
“Gaudium et Spes and the Indissolubility of the Sacrament of Matrimony: The
Contribution of Charles Cardinal Journet,” Nova et vetera (English ed.) 11 (2013):
619-26. For a discussion of Journet’s contribution to the council’s teaching on Holy

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One of the factors that made Journet eminently fit for his
duties as archbishop and cardinal, including working often in
collaboration with Paul VI himself, was the trajectory of his
theological work prior to the council.21 Decades prior to the
council, Journet had already worked out a theory of the Church
and the state in L’Église du Verbe incarné with clear reference to
the respective powers of each,22 including powers that he terms
“coercive.”23 In support of his theory, Journet cites not only a
bevy of biblical, patristic, and medieval texts, but also
nineteenth-century papal authority, especially that of Leo XIII,
with whose teachings he deems his own analysis to be in full
continuity. As a council Father, Journet was uniquely capable of
analyzing what became Dignitatis Humanae in light of the full
breadth of Catholic tradition.
II. L’ÉGLISE DU VERBE INCARNÉ
Journet’s theory of the Church and the state in L’Église du
Verbe incarné anticipates his words at the council in several
ways. He did not think that what was to become Dignitatis
Humanae conflicted in any way with the theory of the Church
and the state that he had already articulated in the light of
previous papal teaching and the greater Catholic tradition.
In his treatment of the subject, Journet approaches the
Church and the state from the vantage point of reconciling “the
legitimacy of many measures taken by the medieval Popes in the

Orders, see Roger W. Nutt, “Sacerdotal Character and the Munera Christi: Reflections
on the Theology of Charles Journet in Relation to the Second Vatican Council,”
Gregorianum 90 (2009): 237-53.
21
For a first-hand account of Journet’s collaboration with Paul VI at key points
during the final session, see Antoine Wenger, Les trois Rome: L’Église des années
soixante (Paris: Desclée De Brouwer, 1991), 173-75, 184.
22
Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 193-381 (chap. 6: “The Relations of the
Canonical Power and the Political Power”).
23
Ibid., 194.

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name of their powers,”24 including “transference of Imperial
dignity, deposition of apostate princes, suppression of heresy,
organization of Crusades.”25 As he sees it, the question of the
Church and the state in the present can only be answered by
resolving the difficulties of the Church and the state in the past.
On the one hand, Journet confesses, “Popes have issued decrees for setting holy wars on foot, and for compelling princes
to hunt down heresy, and I believe that they did so legitimately.”26 On the other hand, he qualifies, “But what I propose
to dispute is that they did so in virtue only of their canonical
power, and of essential and permanent exigencies of the Kingdom of God.”27 The pope’s canonical power and the permanent
exigencies of the kingdom of God do not suffice to explain why
the beginning of holy wars and the suppression of heresy may
have been legitimate.28 Such decrees only could have been
legitimate by reason of additional, accidental exigencies, which
Journet describes as “conditions which we look upon today as
having passed away for ever.”29
In support of his thesis, Journet divides his analysis into four
sections. In the first, he considers “the analogical character of
the canonical jurisdiction [of the Church]”;30 in the second, he
describes “the essential claims of the Church in her relations
with the State”;31 in the third, he sets out “the normal rôle of
the Church in a secular Christendom”;32 and in the fourth he
discusses “the rôle of the Church in medieval Christendom.”33

24

Ibid., 193.
Ibid.
26
Ibid., 195.
27
Ibid.
28
Journet distinguishes the “canonical” from what he calls the pope’s extracanonical
power. In regard to the distinction of the two, see n. 53 below.
29
Ibid., 211.
30
Ibid., 193.
31
Ibid.
32
Ibid.
33
Ibid., 194.
25

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A) The Analogicity of the Church’s Authority
In the first section of his analysis, Journet argues that “the
resemblance of [the Church’s] canonical power to the political
power is . . . only analogical.”34 The Church and the state both
possess, he explains, “legislative, judiciary, and coercive
powers.”35 The Church “must be considered as an essentially
supernatural society through and through, having a simple
likeness of analogy and proportion to political society, not a
univocal likeness, even a generic one.”36 If the Church and the
state were two instances of the same species of authority, then
the Church would simply be another state. Likewise, if the
Church and the state were two species of the same genus of
authority, then the matters on which the legislative, judiciary,
and coercive powers of the Church could formally bear would
be no different from those on which the state can formally bear.
That is, the matters on which the Church would bring its power
to bear would still be fundamentally temporal.37 Thus, the
likeness between the Church and the state is only analogical.
B) The Essential Exigencies of the Church in Relation to the
State
In the second section of his analysis, Journet argues that,
given the analogical character of the canonical power of the
Church, the essential exigencies of the Church in her relation to
the state may be reduced either to two tasks or to two facts. The
two essential tasks of the Church in her relation to the state are
“to safeguard her own existence, and to Christianize civil life, to
defend the spiritual and to enlighten and inspire the
34

Ibid.
Ibid.
36
Ibid., 180-81.
37
As opposed to Israel being a type of the Church, the Church would, in a sense, be
a literal new Israel, Israel’s successor as opposed to Israel’s fulfillment. Journet talks
about the sense in which Israel was a theocracy in ibid., 258-60.
35

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temporal.”38 The two essential facts of the Church and the state
are that the Church and the state should not conflict and that
only the Church is capable of transfiguring the state.39
For Journet, the two facts of the Church’s relation to the
state are “both incontestable, but in union a seeming paradox.”40 Although it might seem like the duty of the Church to
Christianize civil life could put the Church and the state in
conflict with one another, it is the Church’s ability to Christianize civil life that manifests how she and the state need not
conflict. Likewise, although it might seem like the divine ends
of the Church so transcend the cultural ends of the state that
the Church and the state should have nothing to do with each
other, it is the analogical transcendence of her authority that
enables the Church to bequeath a sublimated Christian
existence upon the state.
For Journet, the heart of the paradox of the two facts of the
Church and the state is what it means for the state to be given a
“sublimated Christian existence.” In particular, for the Church

38
39

Ibid., 211.
Journet writes:
First, the Church is so profoundly differentiated from the state, and her
divine ends so completely transcend all merely cultural ends, that the
law ruling their relations can be but a law of distinction; of themselves
Church and state are not in competition and should not conflict. And
further, from the fact that all human activities without exception, each
in its own way, should help to bring about our return to God, the Last
End of the whole universe, it is clear that the activities whose
proximate end lies in terrestrial and temporal goods, have to be
ordered, rectified, enlightened and sustained by the activities whose
immediate end lies in heavenly and eternal goods; so that the spiritual,
far from smothering the temporal and impeding its development, will
alone be capable of bringing it to its full completeness; not indeed
giving it existence, “instituere ut sit,” but giving it a purified and
sublimated Christian existence, “instituere ut sit perfecte et Christiane.”
(Ibid.)

40

Ibid.

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to give the state a sublimated Christian existence is not the same
as for the state to become an “instrument” of the Church:
The distinction, subtle perhaps, but capital, between a lower principal cause
and a mere instrument, and the corresponding distinction between an
intermediate end and a pure means, should never here be lost sight of; the
lower principal cause acts by virtue of its form, of its nature, the motion it
receives being only the condition of its activity; whereas the pure instrument
does not act of itself at all, the motion it receives being the total cause of its
activity. Similarly, the intermediate end is, absolutely speaking, an end,
something desirable for its own sake; it is only in a certain sense that it is a
means, something desirable for the sake of something else; whereas the pure
means is desirable solely for the sake of something else.41

According to Journet, the cultural ends of the state are not pure
means but intermediate ends. When the state is given a sublimated Christian existence, it is a lower principal cause of that
existence. When the Church bestows a sublimated Christian
existence upon the state, she does so on the condition of the
state’s own proper activity. The Church does not always make
use of the temporal authority of the state as a pure means to her
own ends.
Conversely put, it is possible for the Church to authorize
temporal authority to assist her in her own proper activity.
However, it is not necessary for the state to be deputized by the
Church in order for it to be Christian.42 To be Christian, the
state must be elevated in its proper activity as such.
Similarly, Journet notices that the individual Christian
cannot just act as a Christian as such, at least not in this life:
Christians must also act in any number of temporal ways.
Christians may act in a properly human way yet “with a
Christian conscience and without even provisionally setting God
and Christ aside.”43 Just as the individual Christian may act as a
41

Ibid., 207.
If anything, the deputization of the state by the Church would seem to imply that
it were already Christian.
43
Ibid., 209-10.
42

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Christian yet in a number of temporal ways, so the state may
pursue its proper, temporal, cultural ends as true yet intermediate ends.44
C) Consecrational versus Secular Christendom
In the third section of his treatise, Journet distinguishes between two fundamental kinds of Christian state: consecrational
Christendom and secular Christendom. Given the essential
exigencies of the Church in relation to the state, citizenship can
be ordered toward juridical Church membership in a couple of
different ways. Consecrational Christendom refers to regimes in
which juridical Church membership is a requirement for full
citizenship. Secular Christendom refers to regimes in which
juridical Church membership designates the perfect way of
being a citizen but is not required for full legal citizenship.45
44

In particular, Journet clarifies that Christians both may act on the temporal order
and within the temporal order. By acting on the temporal order, such as “to safeguard
certain primordial and permanent temporal values . . . necessary to the normal exercise
of the spiritual life itself,” Christians are “capable of preparing the Christianization of
culture” (ibid., 209 [emphasis added]). Only by acting within the temporal order are
Christians capable “of setting a society on foot, of giving existence to a cultural whole
and bringing it to successful issue” (ibid.).
45
Ibid., 214-15:
[Regimes] of the first type—which are not to be dreamed of save in a
region populated exclusively or mainly by Christians, indeed by visible
members of the Church of Christ—seek to form a political unity of
Christians alone, or visible members of the Church alone, granting civic
rights to no others.
Those of the second type would try to weld into a political unity all
the inhabitants of a region, granting citizenship to all no matter what
their religion, but directing them to temporal and political ends which
Christianity would regard as legitimate and would not disavow.
In the first case, Christian values permeate the whole political order;
the notion of Christianity, of visible membership of the Church, enters
into the very definition of the citizen. . . . In the second case, Christian
values affect the political order from without, to sustain, enlighten, and
sublimate it; the notion of Christianity, of visible membership of the
Church, remains outside the definition of the citizen; it designates only

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Consecrational Christendom is prior in time, for the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal order initially
eclipses the distinction between the two.46 Secular Christendom
is nonetheless prior in idea because it affords greater respect
both for the originality of the temporal order and for the
originality of the spiritual order. Journet writes:
At the moment when temporal values, though still fully recognized as
essentially and intrinsically subordinate to spiritual, begin to be seen with a
clearer consciousness of their own specific nature and rôle[,] as such they will
be distinguished from spiritual realities, not in the least to be withdrawn from
their influence, but, on the contrary, to achieve a dependence that is to be
more conscious of itself, and more conformable to the respective natures of
either. 47

Journet anticipates that one might object to the possibility of
a secular Christendom on the grounds that “a common activity
supposes common principles.”48 In response, he distinguishes
between strict doctrinal identity and analogical doctrinal unity:
For answer let us recall (1) that men are fundamentally united as having a
common nature; (2) that the immediate end to be practically achieved is in the
natural order. That granted, we can go on to say that “the unity of the earthly
task and the temporal end pursued necessarily suppose a certain community of
principles and doctrine, but not necessarily—however desirable, however
evidently better and more effective it may be in itself—a strict and pure and

a perfect way of being a citizen, distinguishing a spiritual family of
citizens.
46

Ibid., 219: “at the moment when the supremacy of the spiritual order is publicly
recognized . . . spiritual values . . . inevitably begin to envelop, enwrap, and embrace all
values of the temporal order, so that these latter will seem in a way to be based on them,
or, more exactly, withdrawn behind them, hidden in them, renouncing all ambition for
the time being to assert their difference and emphasize their originality.”
47
Ibid., 219-20. Journet continues: “For the Church too will profit by this
differentiation. It will allow her to appear all the more clearly to the world as the Body
of Christ, as the Kingdom not of this world, but capable nevertheless of illuminating all
the kingdoms of this world with the light of heaven” (ibid., 220).
48
Ibid., 218.

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simple doctrinal identity: it suffices that the principles and doctrine should
have a unity of likeness or proportion, let us say in the technical sense of the
word, of analogy, regard being had to the practical end in question, which,
although referable to a higher end, is of itself in the natural order, and is
doubtless conceived by each party in the light of the principles proper to each,
but in its existential reality is extraposed to these conceptions.”49

Strict doctrinal identity among all a state’s citizens is not
required for the Church to bequeath a sublimated Christian
existence upon the state because revelation is not inherently
required for the state to achieve its immediate ends. Although
grace might practically be required in a postlapsarian world, the
proper, temporal, cultural ends of the state are natural, not
supernatural. As Journet goes on to say, “public acknowledgement of those Christian values on which all the sanctity of the
temporal order depends . . . such as the existence of God, the
sanctity of truth, the value and necessity of goodwill, the dignity
of the person, the spirituality and immortality of the soul,” will
be required.50 However, what results will be a participatory
49
Ibid. Journet quotes Maritain’s “Qui est mon prochain?” (ibid., 217, n. 2; see
Jacques Maritain, “Who Is My Neighbour?” in Ransoming the Time, trans. Harry Lorin
Binsse [New York: Gordian Press, 1972], 115-40, at 132).
50
Continuing to quote on and off from Maritain’s “Qui est mon prochain?” Journet
writes:

We know of course when we speak in this way that “a complete
doctrine, founded on Catholic teaching, can alone bring an entirely
true solution to the problems of civilization.” Thus the law of fraternal
love, “which either party understands with different theological and
metaphysical connotations, and which for Christians striving to fulfil a
radical—but terribly contradicted—tendency of our nature is the
second commandment like unto the first,” implies at least the practical
and implicit recognition of high spiritual values, such as the existence
of God, the sanctity of truth, the value and necessity of goodwill, the
dignity of the person, the spirituality and immortality of the soul, no
matter what theoretical doctrines may be explicitly professed on these
points. In this way, men with different religious convictions can
collaborate not only, as is evident, “in establishing a technique, in
putting out a fire, in helping the hungry and sick, in stopping an
aggression. But it is possible—if the analogical likeness between their
principles of action just mentioned really exists—that they should co-

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analogically Christian community, not necessarily a unity of
Christians tantamount to the unity of the Church itself.51
According to Journet, within such a community, Christian communion in the full sense of the term will be present, if not predominate.52 However, not every citizen will need to be in
communion with the Church in order for the state itself to be
Christian.53
operate at least and above all in procuring the primary goods of earthly
existence, in activities that bear on the good of the temporal city and
civilization and the moral values invested in them”. . . .
[Under the regime of a secular Christendom, the earthly city’s]
Christianity will be shown in the elevation of its temporal ends, the
purity of its chosen political means, its public acknowledgement of
those Christian values on which all the sanctity of the temporal order
depends, and the unfailing respect in which it holds the rights of the
Church. (Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 218-19; see Maritain,
“Who is My Neighbour?” 133 ff.)
51

While strict doctrinal identity is ideal, it need not be required.
For Journet, key for the acquisition and the maintenance of a unity of doctrinal
likeness, as opposed to strict doctrinal identity, is fraternal charity. For example, again
quoting Maritain’s “Qui est mon prochain?” Journet writes, “In the fraternal dialogue
envisaged there is a sort of forgiveness, of remission, not bearing on ideas—they deserve
none if they are false—but on the state of those who go along with us” (Journet, Church
of the Word Incarnate, 217; see Maritain, “Who is My Neighbour?” 123).
53
Because such a state’s Christianity will be participatory, “there will be no question
of falling into ‘dogmatic tolerance’, which regards all forms of belief or unbelief as
equally acceptable, or of seeking some doctrinal minimum common to all citizens,
believing or unbelieving” (Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 216). In particular,
Journet concludes with a quotation from Maritain’s True Humanism:
52

Hence, if by the very fact that it is a Christian work it supposes by
hypothesis that those who take the initiative will be Christians, with full
and total comprehension of the end to be attained, yet it calls to work
all men of goodwill, all those whom a grasp more or less partial and
defective—very defective it may be—of the truths which the Gospel
makes known in their plenitude, disposes to give their practical help
(which may not be the least devoted or the least generous) in the
achievement of their common task. It is here that the text has its fullest
force and application: he that is not against you is for you. (As quoted

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D) Medieval Consecrational Christendom
In the last section of his treatise, Journet argues that
medieval consecrational Christendom involved certain special
exigencies, which help to explain some of the extraordinary
measures taken by the medieval popes. This aspect of his treatment is important for understanding his intervention on
Dignitatis Humanae. There are two schemas according to which
the Church had recourse to a secular arm within medieval
consecrational Christendom. The Church might have recourse
to a secular arm according to the same two schemas even within
a secular Christendom. However, if she did so, the mode
according to which she had recourse to the state according to
each respective schema would be different. Within medieval
consecrational Christendom, the papacy had recourse to a
secular arm more frequently and, given the special exigencies
that medieval consecrational Christendom involved, in a way
unimaginable today.54
The medieval Church had greater general recourse to a
secular arm because, within medieval Christendom, the temporal and spiritual orders were commingled. Because citizenship
was restricted within medieval consecrational Christendom to
juridical Church members alone, threats to the good of the
Church that otherwise would not have been more than an
indirect threat to the state instead posed a direct threat to the
temporal common good.55
by Journet in ibid., n. 1; see Jacques Maritain, True Humanism, trans.
M.R. Adamson, 4th ed. [London: Geoffrey Bles, 1946], 200-201)
54
This, moreover, is not to mention the question of what Journet calls the pope’s
extracanonical powers, in regard to which see Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate,
249, 254-58, 275, 328.
55
Journet writes:

But a special phenomenon appeared in the Middle Ages. In virtue of
the principle that bases political unity on the unity of visible
communion with the Church, a spiritual element descended into the
civil order and became one of its components. Since this element, taken

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193

The two schemas according to which the Church had
recourse to a secular arm within medieval consecrational
Christendom were as follows. First, the Church had authority to
call upon the state as an instrument to aid her, in a spiritualized
way, in her own proper task. Second, the Church had authority
to call upon the state as an autonomous cause to fulfill its own
proper task in its own temporal way. In the first case, the
Church takes direct responsibility, as principal cause, for what
the secular arm does. In the second case, the state takes direct
responsibility (since it is no longer principal cause, the Church
only takes responsibility indirectly).56 In the first, the Church’s
power is “direct.” In the second, her power is “indirect.”57

in itself, was spiritual, it remained subject to the Church which had sole
authority to define and control it. However, from the fact of its
incorporation in the city it could and should be defended not only with
spiritual ends in view, for the sake of and by the spiritual means of the
church, but also with temporal ends in view, for the sake of the civil
order and by the temporal means at the disposal of states; it could and
ought to be defended not only as a value of Christianity but also as a
value of Christendom. To the degree in which the constitution of
medieval society recognized the faith as a value intrinsic to its common
good, it is clear that the Church could require the faith to be defended
with all the machinery used by cities in defence of their common good.
(Ibid., 250)
56

Journet writes:
We can imagine two ways in which the canonical power might call on
the secular power for its use, and two ways in which the secular power
might subordinate itself to the canonical.
Either the secular power consents for the moment to act for a
spiritual end, for the sake of the Church as such—by expelling, for
example, at the Church’s request, public sinners less noxious to itself
than to the Church, whose moral standards are stricter. In that case it
puts itself at the disposal of the canonical power as a pure instrument,
the latter taking the initiative and the direct responsibility, and merely
requiring the thing to be done with due regard to its spiritual nature
and with less than usual temporal severity. What is done thus by the

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In particular, Journet deploys his distinction between direct
and indirect power to explain why the medieval Church was not
responsible for bloodshed.58
I have said that by reason of the spiritual values invested in the temporal
common good in a consecrational regime, it was this temporal common good
itself which the Church required to be defended, by temporal means used in
accordance with their own laws. And if the order of agents always
corresponds to the order of ends, the principal agent who bears responsibility
for the defence of the temporal, can be only a temporal agent; subjected to the
Church as an autonomous cause of a lower order is subjected to a cause of a
higher order, but not as an instrument is subjected to its principal cause.59

secular arm is spiritualized by the Church and pertains to her own
kingdom.
Or else the canonical power, by reason of the spiritual element
interwoven into the very texture of the temporal and constituting its
supreme value, throws its influence over the temporal as a whole,
making it a pressing duty for the secular power to defend this supreme
value by its own proper means, and to oppose those who seek to
overturn it, in its own proper way.
In the first case, the Church asks the secular power to act as a pure
instrument for the Church’s ends and in the Church’s way. In the
second case she asks it to act as an autonomous temporal cause
fulfilling its proper temporal task (that she can do at all times) while
specifying (and this she can do only in a consecrational regime) that the
fulfilment of the temporal task involves the defence, by temporal means
and in a temporal way, of those spiritual values that are bound up with
the temporal. (Ibid., 250-51; see ibid., 260-61, 274-75, 300-301)
57
Ibid., 260-61. Journet emphasizes that he does not mean the same thing as Suarez
does when he ascribes both a “direct” and an “indirect” power to the Church. For
Suarez, the “direct” and “indirect” power of the Church are not two ways in which she
may have recourse to the state. Rather, the Church has a “direct” power over the
faithful and an “indirect” power to utilize the state as an instrument. For Reichberg’s
summary of the extent to which Suarez believed that the Church could wield the state as
an instrument, see Reichberg, “Scholastic Arguments,” 38-45; for Journet on the use of
the terms “direct” and “indirect power” in the Syllabus of Errors, see Journet, Church of
the Word Incarnate, 262.
58
At least, not by way of her canonical (as opposed to extracanonical) power.
59
Ibid., 254.

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When the state defends the temporal (common) good at the
bequest of the Church, she does so as an autonomous cause of a
lower order subject to a cause of a higher order. Even when the
state defends a spiritual value inasmuch as it has become a civic
value (the spiritual as temporal), what Journet elsewhere calls
“the formal motive of the intervention” is temporal.60 However,
because the formal motive is temporal, the state bears direct
responsibility for the intervention. The Church is only
responsible indirectly inasmuch as she lays a duty upon the state
to defend the (temporal) common good in its own temporal
way.61
For example, not only does Journet argue that the use of
capital punishment against heresy may have been legitimate
within the context of medieval consecrational Christendom
inasmuch as it had become anticonstitutional (because
citizenship had been restricted to juridical Church members
alone) and therefore posed a direct threat to the temporal
common good. He also argues that the Church was no more
than indirectly responsible for the suppression of heresy
inasmuch as its suppression was legitimate.62 His reason for this
is that the Church was directly responsible only for lesser
penalties inflicted directly on her behalf, in a spiritualized way,
for the sake of her own ends.63 By definition, the formal

60

Ibid., 301.
See ibid., 290. Journet emphasizes that it is because he disagrees with Suarez about
the Church’s responsibility for bloodshed that he does not use the terms “direct” and
“indirect power” in the same way as Suarez. He writes: “[The] chief weakness [of
Suarez’s line of thought] lies in too closely identifying the two societies, temporal and
spiritual, and in failing to notice that their likeness is merely analogical. It does not
distinguish with any precision between the privileges belonging to the clergy in virtue of
the jurisdictional power alone, and those that accrued to them accidentally owing to the
peculiar temporal organization of medieval times” (ibid., 254; see ibid., 292).
62
See ibid., 283-85, 302-3.
63
Journet makes clear that he is of the opinion that capital punishment can never be
used directly on the Church’s behalf (ibid., 270 n. 1).
61

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motivation for the use of capital punishment against heresy was
temporal, not spiritual.64
In regard to the Church’s authority to deputize the state to
inflict lesser temporal penalties directly on her behalf for the
sake of her own ends, not only does Journet specify that such
penalties must be spiritualizable (i.e., capable of being directed
to a purely spiritual end). He also specifies that the state must
benefit from such a course of action, if only indirectly.65 It
would be morally reprehensible for the Church to call upon the
state to aid her in her own proper task if there were not some
way in which the state would benefit from doing so.66
Within medieval Christendom, in which the temporal and
spiritual realms were commingled, it was often the case that
there was a sense in which the state benefited from being deputized by the Church. For example, even when states intervened
to punish an offence that broke “no law but the Church’s,” this
was to their advantage “because it [was] known that the Church
alone [could] speed the advent of a true humanism and a full

64

Journet points out that there may have been many clerics who abused their
authority over the extent to which a given heresy posed a danger to the (temporal)
common good. However, in such cases, the fault was personal. Per Journet, the Church
cannot be stained in se (see ibid., 271-72).
65
Journet writes:
When the Church wishes to deal with her rebellious subjects, can she
approach the State and not merely beg, but require it to punish them?
Yes: but only in certain circumstances. . . .
From the standpoint of the Church as calling for [such measures], it
suffices that the steps in question are really apt and effectual to achieve
the desired spiritual good. But that is not all. From the standpoint of
the State, on whom the Church calls, other conditions are required. I
shall attempt to define them. Since the proper end of the temporal
power is the temporal common good, the only acts that can be asked of
it will be those which in the long run will contribute to the
maintenance and advancement of the temporal common good. (Ibid.,
272-73)
66

See ibid., 274.

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political life.”67 Likewise, “even when a country sacrifices itself
to defend its fellows in Christendom, it is still a political good—
for heroism, fraternal friendship, fidelity are political goods—
the memory of which will be cherished among men.”68
Journet speculates that it might be the case that the Church
could have recourse to a secular arm even within a secular
Christendom. However, she would not do so within the schema
of direct power or within the schema of indirect power
according to the same mode. Journet writes:
Moreover, one fact is evident. In proportion as the temporal power becomes
more and more differentiated from the spiritual, in proportion as we pass
from a regime of the consecrational type, in which the temporal order is
exceptionally well adapted to serve as instrument of the spiritual, to a regime
of the secular type bringing together citizens of all confessions and beliefs, any
appeal to the secular arm, especially if it be asked to function as a pure
instrument of the spiritual, becomes much less frequent, more delicate, more
hypothetical. But the essential power, the radical right of the Church, is not
therefore modified. It is undeniable. And one can imagine that in a secular
Christendom of a pluralist type the Church might still exercise it under new
forms, and in connection with her own children alone.69

Within medieval Christendom, the Church was able to have
recourse to a secular arm in a way unimaginable today because
the entire body-politic was Christian. Within a secular
Christendom, however, the Church would not have recourse to
a secular arm in the same way.
In particular, the Church would not deputize the state to
inflict penalties directly on her behalf in regard to all citizens.
She would only deputize the state to inflict temporal penalties
in connection with her own children.70 Similarly, the Church
67

Ibid.
Ibid.
69
Ibid., 280.
70
Journet here references Maritain’s Man and the State, quoting: “In a pluralistic
society it is but normal that the particular regulations of an autonomous body may be
sanctioned by civil law, from the civil society’s own viewpoint, when the interests of the
common good are concerned” (as cited in ibid., 219 n. 2; see Jacques Maritain, Man
68

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would not admonish the state as though the “fulfillment of [its]
temporal task involve[d] the defence, by temporal means and in
a temporal way, of [certain]”—purely—“spiritual values that
[had been] bound up with the temporal.”71 She would only
admonish the state as though the fulfillment of its temporal task
involved the “public acknowledgement of those”—
analogically—“Christian values on which all the sanctity of [its]
temporal order depend[ed].”72
For example, the Church would not admonish the state as
though its temporal task involved the maintenance of explicit
belief in the supernatural mysteries of the Trinity or the
immaculate conception. However, she might impose upon the
state to foster at least implicit belief in God, the existence and
immortality of the soul, and the sanctity of human life.
***
In L’Église du Verbe incarné, Journet approaches the Church
and the state from the vantage point of the legitimacy of certain
extraordinary measures taken by the medieval papacy in the
name of its powers. Journet argues, first, that the similarity of
the Church to the state is only analogical; second, that the two
essential duties of the Church in relation to the state are to
safeguard herself and to Christianize the state; third, that a
secular Christendom is possible; and fourth, that many of the
extraordinary measures of the medieval papacy can be
explained by certain special exigencies of consecrational
Christendom. Having distinguished secular from consecrational
Christendom and having laid out the essential exigencies of the
Church in relation to the state, Journet characterizes the present
era as a period of difficult transition away from strict
consecrational Christendom, if not toward secular Christen-

and the State [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951], 161 n. 17)—not that the
Church would be regarded as would any other autonomous body.
71
Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 251.
72
Ibid., 219.

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dom, it being the case that “the passage from one form to the
other could hardly have been effected without a crisis.”73 In
regard to this crisis, Journet writes:
The crisis was in fact terrible. Instead of evolving normally towards a secular
Christendom, medieval Christendom was ravaged by the wars of religion, by
the disastrous error of theological liberalism, by the establishment of a regime
of separation between the Church and the State, and lastly by the ideologies of
Communism and Racism. It seems that a secular Christendom, however
extensive and precious its inheritance from the past, is destined to grow in the
midst of ruins. The evil is immeasurable. But thanks to the divine omnipotence
it may well, and all unwittingly, lend itself to the ultimate development of the
Church.74

According to Journet, the question of the Church and the state
in the present can only be addressed by answering the question
of the Church and the state in the past. While avoiding false
optimism, he identifies secular Christendom as the telos of the
crisis that the transition away from consecrational Christendom
involved. Secular Christendom is prior in idea and more
perfectly aligns with the essential exigencies of the Church and
state. Not only consecrational but secular Christendom is
possible.
III. THOMAS PINK
One of the few postconciliar scholars to recognize the
importance of Journet’s ecclesiology in accounting for the
continuity of Dignitatis Humanae with previous papal teaching
has been Thomas Pink. In his article “The Interpretation of
Dignitatis Humanae: A Reply to Martin Rhonheimer,” Pink
deploys Journet’s theory of the Church and the state to argue
that Dignitatis Humanae amounts to a change in policy, not a
change in teaching, much less a change in doctrine. Pink may
therefore serve as a point of departure for appreciating the
73
74

Ibid., 221.
Ibid.

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consistency of Journet’s approbation of what became Dignitatis
Humanae with his earlier work.75
In his article, Pink responds to Rhonheimer’s argument that,
although not a change in doctrine, Dignitatis Humanae reflects
a change in teaching at the level of the application of the
principles of natural law in regard to whether or not the state
may coerce in religious matters.76 Pink argues that Dignitatis
Humanae cannot reflect a change either in doctrine or in
teaching, for the Church has never thought that the state has
had authority to coerce in religious matters in and of itself.
In our opinion, while Pink has laudably moved the
conversation forward by means of his engagement with Journet,
his treatment of Journet’s theory of the Church and the state in
L’Église du Verbe incarné is underdeveloped. Concerns about
Pink’s engagement with the full implications of Journet’s
teaching have already been raised, in a way, by Gregory
Reichberg, who notes:
Arguing for the applicability today of “the underlying doctrinal basis for the
Church’s previous use of the coercive services of the state” as had been
theorized by Suarez, Pink focuses on measures of “soft” coercion
(excommunication, removal from office, restrictions on movement, etc.). By
the same token he downplays the harsher measures, including capital
punishment of heretics, forced exile, the placement of restrictions on public
worship by Judaism and other “practitioners of false religions,” the
punishment of “disrespect shown by non-Christians for Christ,” and war for
75
For a more concise version of Pink’s argument in “The Interpretation of Dignitatis
Humanae” that also makes use of Journet, see Thomas Pink, “Conscience and Coercion:
Vatican II’s Teaching on Religious Freedom Changed Policy, Not Doctrine,” First
Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life 225 (August/September 2012):
45-51. For Pink on Dignitatis Humanae but without explicit mention of Journet, see
Thomas Pink, “The Right to Religious Liberty and the Coercion of Belief: A Note on
Dignitatis Humanae,” in Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis, ed.
John Keown and Robert P. George (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 427-42;
idem, “Dignitatis Humanae: Continuity after Leo XIII,” in Dignitatis Humanae
Colloquium: Dialogos Institute Proceedings, ed. Thomas Crean, O.P., and Alan Fimister,
vol. 1 (Norcia: Dialogos Institute, 2017), 105-46. For an approach similar to Pink’s, see
Brian W. Harrison, O.S., “What Does Dignitatis Humanae Mean? A Reply to Arnold
Guminski,” Faith & Reason 30 (2005): 243-95.
76
Rhonheimer, “Benedict XVI’s ‘Hermeneutic of Reform,’” 1032.

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the protection of missionaries, all measures that, as we have seen, were
actively promoted by Suarez for the defense of faith. Pink mentions (some of)
these measures in passing as though they were regrettable exceptions of a
benign policy to “protect the public space of the Christian religion.” He
speaks as though these measures were only contingently related to Suarez’s
theory of Church-directed coercion but offers no explanation as to why this
might be so.77

As Reichberg points out, Pink remains ambiguous about
whether the medieval Church was directly responsible for the
use of capital punishment against heresy and other like, harsher
measures.78
In particular, Pink does not reference Journet’s development
of the possibility of a secular Christendom, how there may have
been two schemas according to which the Church had recourse
to a secular arm within medieval Christendom, or how it might
be the case that the Church could have recourse to a secular
arm even within a secular Christendom.79 Pink focuses almost
exclusively on Journet’s account of how the Church might
instrumentalize the state for penal and coercive ends. Nonetheless, Pink—inasmuch as he does take advantage of Journet’s
preconciliar theory of the Church and state—serves as a model
for appreciating why Journet himself would think that Dignitatis Humanae constitutes a change in policy, not a change in
doctrine or teaching.

77

Reichberg, “Scholastic Arguments,” 45-46.
In particular, Pink does not affirm that the Church was responsible for the use of
the death penalty against heresy in the Middle Ages. He also does not affirm that he
agrees with Suarez about whether the Church could deputize the state to punish heresy
with death directly on her behalf. He even references the fact that Journet does not
endorse “Suarez’s exegesis of the deaths of Ananias and Saphira or the blinding of
Elymas as actual cases of the ecclesial authorization of force without state assistance”
(Pink, “Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 90). However, Pink does not say why
Journet disagreed with Suarez.
79
In particular, Pink only references Suarez’s explanation of direct and indirect
ecclesial power (in ibid., 95), not that of Journet. (Seemingly for this reason, Reichberg
does not explicitly mention Pink’s reliance on Journet, only his reliance on Suarez.)
78

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Pink’s argument may be summarized by way of five points,
the last being his conclusion. (1) While the Declaration on
Religious Freedom concerns the authority of the state to coerce
in religious matters, it expressly limits itself to the authority of
the state or lack thereof, leaving untouched the traditional
doctrine of the authority of the Church to coerce in religious
matters and the extent to which the Church could deputize the
state to coerce those over whom the Church has authority. (2)
Albeit only over the baptized, the Church has authority to
coerce in religious matters in addition to the right to defend
against a threat to her mission. (3) In the exercise of her
coercive religious authority, the Church has at times had
recourse to a secular arm. However, in such cases the state acted
by dint of the Church’s authority. (4) The Church has never
thought that the state had authority to coerce in religious
matters in and of itself unless some “religious” sect should
contravene natural law. (5) It is true that the declaration calls
for the right to religious freedom—that is, the right to be free
from religious coercion by any merely human power—to be
enacted into civil law. However, such a call reflects a change in
continuity with nineteenth-century papal teaching at the level of
policy in regard to the extent to which the Church has decided
to deputize the state to coerce those over whom the Church has
authority, not a change in Church teaching. What follows
investigates the extent to which Pink takes advantage of
Journet’s preconciliar theory more particularly.
First, Pink argues that Dignitatis Humanae concerns the
authority of the state to coerce in religious matters, not the
authority of the Church. It is significant that he begins by
distinguishing between the temporal and spiritual orders, or the
respective authority of the Church and state. By religious
matters, he has in mind anything that falls outside the ken of
natural law, namely, anything that might be a matter of
supernatural revelation. He does not consider whether it may
have been the case that, within medieval Christendom, purely
spiritual values had become mingled with the (temporal)
common good. That is, he does not consider whether medieval
Christendom may have involved certain special exigencies.

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From the start, he considers whether the authority of the state
vis-à-vis the Church might change. In particular, Pink references
the declaration’s first section, which reads: “Indeed, since
people’s demand for religious liberty in carrying out their duty
to worship God concerns freedom from compulsion in civil
society, [the synod] leaves intact the traditional catholic
teaching on the moral obligation of individuals and societies
towards the true religion and the one church of Christ.”80 Since
religious liberty is said to concern freedom from compulsion
within the context of civil society, Pink comments: “far from
being expounded and addressed, the nature of the Church’s
authority and jurisdiction over the baptized, including her
authority and jurisdiction over Christian rulers, was very
carefully bypassed.”81 Pink is right that the declaration concerns
the authority of the state more than that of the Church.
However, because he does not consider whether what Journet
calls secular as opposed to consecrational Christendom might be
possible, he does not consider how the authority of the state visà-vis the Church might change in all the same ways as does
Journet.82
80

DH 1 (Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1002).
Pink, “Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 110.
82
Rhonheimer’s interpretation of the passage from Dignitatis Humanae at hand is
twofold. First, he argues that the passage implies that “[this duty ‘of the individual and
of society to the true religion and the one Church of Christ’]—as is stated immediately
prior . . .—presuppose[s] a ‘freedom from coercion in civil society’” (Rhonheimer,
“Benedict XVI’s ‘Hermeneutic of Reform,’” 1036)—in response to which it is necessary
to make at least two distinctions. (1) It is necessary to distinguish whether baptism can
be coerced. As Journet puts it, “the authentic coercive power of the Church has no
authority to force the faith on those outside” (Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate,
266). (2) It is necessary to distinguish in what sense the act of faith is forced even when
the Church applies temporal and spiritual penalties to the baptized. As Journet puts it,
“it is not to be supposed that any man can be made virtuous in spite of himself” (ibid.,
265). Second, Rhonheimer concludes that, as such, “it seems that, when the Declaration
speaks of the duty ‘of the individual and of society to the true religion and the one
Church of Christ,’ the old doctrine on the functions of states as the secular arm of the
Church has already been set aside” (Rhonheimer, “Benedict XVI’s ‘Hermeneutic of
Reform,’” 1036)—the question posed by Pink being whether or in precisely what sense
81

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Second, Pink makes clear that the Church’s religious
authority is coercive. To exhibit this, he references not only the
Council of Trent, Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors,
Immortale Dei, and the 1917 Code of Canon Law,83 but also
Journet’s exposition of the same.84 Following Journet, Pink
such a conclusion actually follows. (For Reichberg’s analysis of Aquinas himself on the
issues of forced baptism and the coercion of the baptized, see Reichberg, “Scholastic
Arguments,” 21-26.)
83
Pink also references the 1983 Code of Canon Law. See Council of Trent, Session
7, “Canons on the sacrament of baptism,” Canon 14 (March 3, 1547), in Tanner, ed.,
Decrees, 2:686; Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Letter Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, “The
Independence of Ecclesiastical from Civil Authority,” in Denzinger, Compendium of
Creeds, 589-90 (§§ 2893-96); Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864,
Section V, “Errors on the Church and her rights,” Proposition 24, in Denzinger,
Compendium of Creeds, 592 (§2924); Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Immortale Dei,
November 1, 1885, §§ 13-14 (http://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/
documents/hf_lxiii_enc_ 01111885_immortale-dei.html); Dr. Edward N. Peters,
curator, The 1917 or Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law: In English Translation with
Extensive Scholarly Apparatus (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2001), 701, can. 2214, § 1;
Code of Canon Law, Latin-English Edition, New English Translation (Washington,
D.C.: Canon Law Society of America, 1998), 409, can. 1311-12. In regard to Quanta
Cura and the Syllabus of Errors, Pink writes:
First, as far as the magisterial Quanta Cura and Syllabus are concerned,
the authority behind these temporal penalties is undoubtedly the
revealed authority of the Church, not the authority of the state under
natural law. It is, after all, decisive that the condemned proposition 24
(“The Church does not have the power of using force, nor any
temporal power whether direct or indirect”) occurs (unsurprisingly,
given its explicit content) in the section of the Syllabus—section V,
errors on the Church and her rights—dealing with the authority of the
Church, and not in the following section on the state, section VI, errors
on civil society both considered in itself and in its relations to the
Church—where, were Rhonheimer’s interpretation correct, it should
have been located. And in Quanta Cura the condemned proposition
that “the Church does not have the right to suppress violators of its
laws by temporal punishments” similarly occurs in a section not
asserting state authority over religion but rather defending the
authority of the Church against, in particular, the state. (Pink,
“Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 88)
84

Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 262-72.

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defends the Church as a “properly . . . coercive authority in her
own right.”85 According to Journet, “every legislative
institution—unlike a merely consultative one—carries with it a
judicial authority and a coercive authority.”86 If the Church
were not a coercive authority, she would not be a legislative
authority and vice versa. However, the Church is necessarily a
legislative and therefore a coercive authority.
Third, Pink sets out the Church’s authority to have recourse
to a secular arm. However, he makes no mention of whether
there might be two schemas according to which the Church
could have such recourse. It is because of this that he is forced,
in the words of Reichberg, to downplay the use of the death
penalty against heresy and other harsh measures taken within
medieval Christendom. Moreover, because Pink only references
the Church’s authority to instrumentalize the state, he is less
able to account for the extent to which the Church might have
recourse to a secular arm outside medieval consecrational
Christendom. As indicated above, the Church can only deputize
the state to inflict penalties directly on her behalf in certain
circumstances. Above all, she can only deputize the state in
connection with her own children. Pink does follow Journet in
limiting the Church’s authority to instrumentalize the state. Not
only does Pink reference the Council of Constance, the Council
of Trent, and the 1917 Code;87 he also references Journet’s
85

Pink, “Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 93.
Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 264.
87
In regard to the Council of Constance, Pink references its “condemnation of Hus
for denying the legitimacy of handing those subject to ecclesiastical censure over to the
state for punishment” (Pink, “Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 100; see Council
of Constance, session 15, “Condemned Articles of J. Hus,” a. 14 [July 6, 1415] in
Tanner, ed., Decrees, 1:430). In regard to the Council of Trent, Pink for example
references its “calling in the help of the secular arm to enforce Church law on monastic
enclosure, declaring the excommunication of any secular magistrates unwilling to assist”
(Pink, “The Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 100; see Council of Trent, Session
25, “Decree on regulars and nuns,” chapter 5, in Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:777-78). And,
in regard to the 1917 Code, Pink references Canon 2198, which reads: “A delict that
violates only a law of the Church can, by its nature, be pursued only by ecclesiastical
86

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exposition of the Council of Constance, Trent, and the 1917
Code, among other texts, in L’Église du Verbe incarné.88
Fourth, Pink exhibits the Church’s belief, even before
Vatican II, that the state has no authority to coerce in religious
matters in and of itself. He does not consider whether the state
might accidentally have authority to coerce in materially
spiritual or religious matters, if only within the context of a
kind of Christendom not to be seen again. Nonetheless, he is
right that the state would not have authority to coerce in
materially spiritual or religious matters outside of consecrational
Christendom. Likewise, he is right that the state has no
authority, in and of itself, to coerce in formally spiritual or
religious matters. In particular, he references Immortale Dei,
which states:
In very truth, Jesus Christ gave to His Apostles unrestrained authority in
regard to things sacred, together with the genuine and most true power of
making laws, as also with the twofold right of judging and of punishing, which
flow from that power. “All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth:
going therefore teach all nations . . . teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you.” And in another place: “If he will not
hear them, tell the Church.” And again: “In readiness to revenge all
disobedience.” And once more: “That . . . I may not deal more severely
according to the power which the Lord hath given me, unto edification and
not unto destruction.” Hence, it is the Church, and not the State, that is to be
man’s guide to heaven. It is to the Church that God has assigned the charge of
seeing to, and legislating for, all that concerns religion; of teaching all nations;
of spreading the Christian faith as widely as possible; in short, of
administering freely and without hindrance, in accordance with her own
judgment, all matters that fall within its competence.89

Because matters of revealed religion fall within the Church’s
competence, not that of the state, the state has no authority, in
and of itself, to coerce in formally religious matters. Likewise,

authority, which authority can call upon the arms of civil authority when it judges it
opportune and necessary” (Peters, curator, The 1917 or Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon
Law, 696).
88
Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 272-304.
89
Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, § 11.

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the state has no authority to coerce in materially spiritual
matters outside of consecrational Christendom. However, the
state may have had some authority in materially religious
matters inasmuch as purely spiritual values had become mingled
with the (temporal) common good.
Last, Pink concludes that Dignitatis Humanae reflects a
change in policy, not a change in teaching. As indicated above,
he does not necessarily consider how the authority of the state
vis-à-vis the Church might change in all the same ways as
Journet does. Pink does not consider how the authority of the
Church has changed inasmuch as purely spiritual values are no
longer mingled with the (temporal) common good. Moreover,
he does not consider how the Church might have recourse to
the state in a new mode. However, he is right that the authority
of the state vis-à-vis Church has changed. In his view, it has
changed inasmuch as the Church has now refused to deputize
the state to inflict penalties on her behalf: “The real novelty at
Vatican II is the Church’s refusal of further license for state
involvement in religious coercion under her own ecclesial
authority.”90 Pink is ambiguous about whether the Church can
deputize the state, in connection with her own children alone,
without rescinding its call for religious freedom. Moreover, he
does not consider how the Church might have recourse to the
state as an autonomous cause. Nonetheless, in support of his
position, Pink references how the declaration calls for a right to
religious freedom, as in freedom from compulsion in civil
society, to be enacted into civil law: “This right of the human
person to religious freedom should have recognition in the
regulation of society by law as to become a civil right.”91
Because he does not consider how the Church might have
recourse to the state in a new mode, primarily but not
necessarily exclusively according to the schema of what Journet
calls indirect power, Pink does not take as much advantage of
90
91

Pink, “Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 81.
DH 2 (Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1002).

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Journet’s preconciliar theory as he could have. However, he
acts as a standard for understanding why Journet would argue
that Dignitatis Humanae is “a reform at the level of policy and
from accompanying change in religious and political circumstance”92 in some way.
IV. THE CONTEXT OF JOURNET’S ADDRESS
It is important to contextualize Journet’s address at the
Second Vatican Council in favor of what became Dignitatis
Humanae because the development of the text was long and
drawn out. Before being brought to a formal vote, what became
Dignitatis Humanae passed through several distinct stages,
accompanied by multiple debates and numerous interventions
from the council Fathers.93
It was not until the second session of the council, when a
working document was “incorporated as Chapter V of the
decree on ecumenism,”94 that what was to become Dignitatis
Humanae first reached the council floor.95 However, during this
92

Pink, “Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae,” 79.
For a more complete treatment of the development of Dignitatis Humanae, see
Richard J. Regan, Conflict and Consensus: Religious Freedom and the Second Vatican
Council (New York: Macmillan Company, 1967); Nicholas J. Healy, Jr., “The Drafting
of Dignitatis Humanae,” in Schindler and Healy, eds., Freedom, Truth, and Human
Dignity, 211-42. For the texts of each of the five initial drafts—namely, chapter 5 of the
schema on ecumenism, the textus prior, the textus emendatus, the textus re-emendatus,
and the textus recognitus—in side-by-side English and Latin, see Patrick T Brannan, S.J.,
and Michael Camacho, trans., “The Five Conciliar Schemas,” in Schindler and Healy,
eds., Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity, 243-379.
94
Regan, Conflict and Consensus, 36.
95
Even before John XXIII’s December 25, 1961, apostolic constitution Humanae
Salutis, announcing that there would be a second Vatican council, the Secretariat for
Christian Unity had been meeting to draft “a text on religious freedom” (ibid., 13).
After the apostolic constitution was issued, both the Secretariat for Christian Unity and
the Theological Commission submitted a schema on religious freedom to the Central
Commission for presentation at the council (the latter as part of its schema on the
Church), after which an attempt was made to combine the two documents. What
became chapter 5 of the schema on ecumenism, however, was ultimately a revised
document from the Secretariat.
93

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session the Fathers never got around to discussing chapters 4-5
of the schema on ecumenism in particular and only brought
chapters 1-3 to a vote.96
At the beginning of the third session, the Fathers debated a
revised text (now an appendix to the schema on ecumenism) for
three days,97 after which it was sent back to committee with
interventions from the Fathers for further revision.98 Included
among those who stood up to speak during this time was
Lefebvre, who (already) protested “that freedom is not an
absolute value but ordered to what is good, that internal and
external acts in religious matters should be distinguished, that
external acts are subject to authority, [and] that grave
consequences follow from allowing a right to act externally
according to conscience.”99
At the end of the third session, after their interventions had
been taken into account, the Fathers received a third conciliar
text,100 now “a full-fledged declaration, no longer an awkward
appendix to the schema on ecumenism.”101 The Fathers received
the text on the fourth-to-last working day of the session, at the
beginning of which day the Secretary-General announced that a
vote would take place two days hence.102 This initial
96

The council Fathers discussed the schema on ecumenism from November 18,
1963, to December 2, 1963, the session’s last scheduled working day.
97
After the second session, the various council Fathers submitted 152 total
interventions concerning chapter 5 to the Secretary-General for the secretariat to
examine. The result, “presented to the Council at the beginning of the Third Session, on
September 23, 1964” (ibid., 65), is known as the “textus prior.”
98
After three days, one of the council moderators proposed a standing vote as to
whether to table the discussion. After the motion was carried, the Fathers then
proceeded to submit over 140 further oral and written interventions for the secretariat
to examine.
99
Ibid., 78. For the full text of Lefebvre’s speech, see Acta Synodalia, vol. 3, part 2,
490-92.
100
This is known as the “textus emendatus.”
101
Regan, Conflict and Consensus, 100.
102
Namely, on the session’s second-to-last working day, Thursday, November 19,
1964, labeled “Black Thursday” by Xavier Rynne (Xavier Rynne, Vatican Council II
[Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1999], 417).

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announcement notwithstanding, on the day of the vote, one of
the council presidents announced: “Several Fathers are of the
opinion that not enough time has been allowed for an
examination of the text on Religious Liberty, which appears to
be an essentially new document. Therefore it has seemed best to
the Council presidents, in conformity with the rules, not to
proceed to a vote as announced.”103 The third session then
ended without a vote.104
The Declaration on Religious Freedom was little closer to
juridical promulgation at the close of the third session than it
was at the start of the council. As Richard Regan puts it, “after
four years of preparation, three sessions of the Council, three
conciliar texts, and two public debates, the Declaration on
Religious Freedom had yet to be put to a vote by the
Council.”105
V. THE CARDINAL’S ADDRESS
When Cardinal Journet arrived at the final session of the
council in the fall of 1965, anxiety over the failure of the
Fathers to bring the Declaration on Religious Freedom to a vote
still characterized the state of their discussion of it, if not more
so. Between September 15 and 20, fifty-eight different Fathers
addressed the council concerning a now fourth draft of the
declaration.106 Among these was again Archbishop Lefebvre,
who addressed the Fathers on September 20, stating: “To me,
the principles of the declaration On Religious Freedom seem
able to be articulated briefly in the following way: ‘religious
103

Ibid., 418.
In Regan’s words, what followed was “the wildest episode of the Council”
(Regan, Conflict and Consensus, 111). According to Rynne, “a feeble burst of applause
. . . was at once drowned out by a wave of grumbling, protests, and commotion which
spread throughout the hall” (Rynne, Vatican Council II, 418).
105
Regan, Conflict and Consensus, 114.
106
After the failure to bring the Declaration on Religious Freedom to a vote at the
close of the third session, the Fathers again submitted written interventions, this time
218 of them. The resultant text was known as the “textus re-emendatus.”
104

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freedom founded in the dignity of the human person requires
an equality of rights for all cults in civil society. Wherefore civil
society must be neutral and must maintain the religions’
protection within the bounds of public order.’”107 As Regan puts
it, Lefebvre, in sum, “bitterly condemned the Declaration,”
warned that the concept of religious freedom “began to be
recognized only outside the Church, among philosophers such
as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire,” and concluded that
“only the Church has a right, properly speaking, to religious
freedom.”108
In an effort to rebut the charge that, if promulgated, the
declaration would indeed give rise to such indifferentism,109
Journet took the floor on the following day, September 21, as
one of four more Fathers to speak about religious freedom
before the debate finally came to a close.110 His speech reflects a
full harvest of the principles laid out in L’Église du Verbe
incarné. At that time,111 the declaration was finally put to a
formal vote, and, the motion in its favor passing, it was only a

107

Acta Synodalia, vol. 4, part 1, 409-11, at 409: “Breviter mihi videtur principia
declarationis de libertate religiosa sic exprimi posse: ‘Libertas religiosa fundata in
dignitate personae humanae exigit aequabilitatem iurium pro omnibus cultibus in
societate civili. Unde societas civilis neutra esse debet et protectionem religionum intra
limites ordinis publici praestare debet.’” By contrast, Yves Congar locates the continuity
of the Declaration on Religious Freedom with previous papal teaching precisely in its
emphasis on human dignity: “Since the pontificate of Leo XIII and Pius XII, the Popes
have frequently spoken of the dignity of the human person. There is a clear connection
between these earlier Popes’ way of thinking and the Council’s Declaration on Religious
Freedom which Paul VI valued so highly” (Yves Congar, O.P., “Moving Towards a
Pilgrim Church,” in Vatican II Revisited: By Those Who Were There, ed. Alberic
Stacpoole [Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1986], 129-52, at 147).
108
Regan, Conflict and Consensus, 147.
109
Rynne, Vatican Council II, 464.
110
When a standing vote was then taken as to whether to end the discussion, “[t]he
Fathers,” in the words of Regan, “rose almost to a man” (Regan, Conflict and
Consensus, 149).
111
That is, after the standing vote.

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matter of time before it was promulgated.112 In short, in what
ostensibly proved instrumental for what became Dignitatis
Humanae and in open disagreement with Lefebvre’s comments
the previous day,113 Journet addressed the council as follows:
Reverend Fathers,
On this question about religious liberty, there is a fundamental, doctrinal
unity among us and yet differences, which have principally arisen from the
pastoral preoccupations of the many fathers.
These differences, it seems, could be reduced in great measure if some of
the following themes—which are found in this very schema already—would be
underscored more, namely:
1. The human person is a member of two social orders: namely, the
temporal order and order of political society and the spiritual order or order
of the Gospel and the Church.
2. It is to be said in regard to the temporal order that the human person,
although he be a part of civil society in one regard, nonetheless transcends the
entire political order by having been ordered to an immutable good and to

112

The discussion having been ended by the standing vote, a formal vote was taken
in answer to the question: “Does it please the Fathers that the already amended text on
religious freedom should be taken as the basis for a definitive declaration after further
amendments in light of Catholic doctrine on the true religion and proposed
amendments which will be subsequently approved according to the norms of Council
procedure?” (ibid., 150). This motion passed 1,997 in favor to 224 against, with one
vote being invalid. No further changes (per the last clause of the question on which the
Fathers had voted) could affect the document’s substance (see Rynne, Vatican Council
II, 465-66).
After this, a special commission of the Secretariat revised the previous schema of the
Declaration according to the stipulations of the September 21 vote, the result being the
“textus recognitus.” After the Fathers approved the textus recognitus on October 26-27,
“only specific amendments to the approved text were permissible” (Regan, Conflict and
Consensus, 164).
A final version of the text, the “textus denuo recognitus,” was finally approved on
November 19. On the last working day of the council, after one more final, formal vote,
the textus denuo recognitus was then promulgated as Dignitatis Humanae.
113
According to Giuseppe Alberigo’s History of Vatican II, “the secretariat, probably
in the person of Father Hamer, had asked Journet to intervene” (Giuseppe Alberigo,
ed., History of Vatican II, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell, English version edited by Joseph
A Komonchak, 5 vols. [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995-2006], 5:102 n. 206). As
to how Journet, in turn, helped settle the minds of his fellow Fathers in favor of what
became the declaration, see Rime, “L’intervention de Charles Journet dans l’élaboration
du décret sur la liberté Religieuse,” 37-40.

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God his creator. In this second respect, therefore, the human person: a) is free
in regard to all political society but b) will need to render an account of all his
choices to God.
3. The person who strays or sins or whose conscience is wrong
nevertheless remains a human person, and it is necessary that he be regarded
as such by the political society in which he dwells. Unless in the case in which
he were outwardly acting to destroy society’s true public good, he will not be
able to be restrained [coerceri] by such society. It rather belongs to this person
to render an account before God out of the culpability or non-culpability of
his own conscience.
4. It is yet also the duty of civil society to manifest explicitly in what honor
one should hold God. Civil authority cannot therefore ignore the diverse
religious sects abounding in the body-politic. It rather belongs to its office to
have recourse to them in order that God may be praised by all fellow citizens
in a becoming manner.
5. These remarks may concern the rights of human persons. But Christians
know that, beyond this natural order, the Church, by the will itself of God and
Christ, has the inviolable and supernatural right to preach the Gospel freely to
every creature, and for this freedom the apostles and martyrs died.
6. The leaders of the Church, from the time of Constantine and beyond,
did not just once turn to a secular arm in order to defend the rights of the
faithful and to serve the political and temporal order of “Christianity” socalled. But, with the influx of the preaching itself of the Gospel, the
distinction of temporal realities and spiritual realities little by little became
clearer, and today it is plain to all.
Therefore, and this is of the greatest importance: the doctrinal principal
according to which temporal realities are subordinate of themselves to
spiritual realities is not abrogated in any way but rather is applied in another
way, namely, by attacking errors with arms of light, not with the weapons of a
fortress.
All these themes are encompassed, unless I am mistaken, in this very
schema of the Declaration On Religious Freedom, where perhaps they will be
able to be asserted in better light. And, for that reason, this Declaration seems
to me most worthy of approval. I have spoken. Thank you.114

114

Acta Synodalia, vol. 4, part 1, 424-25:
Venerabiles Patres,
In hac questione de libertate religiosa, adest inter nos fundamentalis
unitas doctrinalis et tamen diversitates, quae proveniunt praesertim ex
praeoccupationibus pastoralibus multorum Patrum.

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ROGER W. NUTT and MICHAEL R. DE SALVO

Hae diversitaties … videtur, possent pro magna parte reduci, si magis
sublinearentur aliqua sequentia themata, quae in ipso schemate iam
reperiuntur, scil.:
1. Persona humana est membrum duorum ordinum socialium: nempe
ordo temporalis et societatis politicae, et ordo spiritualis seu ordo
Evangelii et Ecclesiae.
2. Quantum ad ordinem temporalem, dicendum est quod persona
humana, quamvis sub uno aspectu sit pars societatis civilis, tamen
transcendit totum ordinem politicum per suam ordinationem ad bonum
incommutabile et ad Deum suum creatorem. Unde sub hoc secundo
respectu, persona humana: a) est libera erga totam societatem
politicam; sed b) debebit rationem Deo reddere omnium suarum
optionum.
3. Persona quae errat aut peccat, vel cuius conscientia erronea est,
remanet tamen persona humana, et debet ut talis considerari a societate
politica in qua conversatur. Non poterit ab ea societate coerceri nisi in
casu ubi ageret externe ad destruendum verum bonum publicum
societatis. Sed huic personae competet reddere rationem coram Deo de
culpabilitate vel non-culpabilitate suae ipsius conscientiae.
4. Officium est societatis etiam civilis, explicite manifestandi in quo
honore teneat Deum. Ergo potestas ipsa civilis non potest ignorare
diversas familias religiosas in civitate vigentes, sed officii eius est
recurrere ad eas ut digne ab omnibus civibus Deus laudentur.
5. Haec sint dicta de iuribus personarum humanarum. Sed christiani
sciunt quod praeter hunc ordinem naturalem, Ecclesia, ex ipsa voluntate
Dei et Christi, habet ius supernaturale et inviolabile, libere praedicandi
Evangelium omni creaturae, et pro hac libertate mortui sunt apostoli et
martyres.
6. Ecclesiae rectores, a tempore Constantini et ultra, conversi sunt
non semel ad brachium saeculare ut defenderent iura fidelium et ad
servandum ordinem temporalem et politicum sic dictae
“christianitatis.” Sed sub influxu ipsius praedicationis evangelicae,
distinctio rerum temporalium et rerum spiritualium paulatim magis
explicata est, et hodie omnibus patet.
Ergo, et hoc est maximi momenti: Principium doctrinale secundum
quod res temporales de se subordinandae sunt rebus spiritualibus nullo
modo tollitur, sed alio modo applicatur, scil. oppugnando errores armis
lucis, non armis castrorum.
Omnia haec themata continentur, nisi fallor, in ipso schemate
declarationis de libertate religiosa, ubi poterunt forsan in meliori luce
poni. Et idcirco haec declaratio mihi videtur maxime approbanda. Dixi.
Gratias.

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215

VI. “IN ANOTHER WAY”:
JOURNET’S ANALYSIS AS A WAY FORWARD
Journet’s address constitutes a way forward in regard to the
ongoing debate over Dignitatis Humanae because he identifies
secular Christendom as the telos of the change in policy that the
declaration represents. Although he does not use the term
“secular Christendom” within his conciliar address, Journet
argues that the declaration applies the principle of the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual order in a new,
higher way. Read within the context of L’Église du Verbe
incarné, Journet’s address reveals that he viewed the declaration
as a potential development in Church policy, a refusal to have
recourse to a secular arm according to the (medieval) mode of
consecrational Christendom, but not necessarily a refusal to
have recourse to the state at all. Journet implies that the
declaration represents a step toward the possibility of a secular
Christendom because he argues that the change in policy that it
represents accords with the distinction between the temporal
and spiritual orders more perfectly. Moreover, he supports his
claim that the declaration applies the principle of the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual order in a new, higher
way by underscoring six of the declaration’s main theological
themes. Within his exegesis of these themes, Journet lays out
the essential exigencies of the Church and the state. Rather than
indicating an alteration of his theory of the Church and state,
his exegesis of the declaration’s main theological themes
manifests that he finds the declaration in accord with the theory
of the Church and the state that he had derived from the
nineteenth-century magisterium in L’Église du Verbe incarné.
Because Journet identifies the telos and therefore the full
nature of the declaration’s change in policy, his interpretation
For a reedited version of his address (in which Journet no longer speaks of the
declaration as a schema) and accompanying French translation, see Journet and
Maritain, Correspondance, 6:73-76.

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helps bolster that of Pink in two ways. First, Journet’s
interpretation allows for greater appreciation of the positive
nature of the declaration’s approbation of religious freedom;
second, his interpretation affords greater insight into why the
declaration has been so easily misinterpreted by such figures as
Lefebvre and those sympathetic to his objections. In addition,
Journet’s interpretation helps in conjunction with that of Pink
to explain how the declaration does not follow modern, nonChristian political theory. Likewise, Journet’s interpretation
illumines how Dignitatis Humanae upholds Gregory XVI’s
teaching on the evils of religious indifferentism, to which
Lefebvre appeals, and does not abrogate that teaching.
Contra Lefebvre, Journet indicates that the declaration
represents a potential development in Church policy by
underscoring six of the declaration’s main theological themes.
First, he distinguishes the temporal and spiritual orders. Second,
he explains why the state lacks authority to coerce in formally
(if not materially) religious matters. Third, he distinguishes
formally religious matters from (formally) temporal matters.
Fourth, he identifies that in which civil society’s duty to God
consists (that is, what makes the state capable of receiving a
sublimated Christian existence). Fifth, he references the
Church’s right to preach the gospel (that is, what underlies the
Church’s two tasks in relation to the state). Sixth, he questions
whether the Church needs to have recourse to a secular arm in
order to preach the gospel.
It is significant that Journet begins his explanation of how
the declaration represents a potential development in policy by
pointing to the way in which the declaration distinguishes
between the temporal and spiritual realms.115 Just as he begins

115
For example, section 3 reads: “Furthermore, those private and public acts of
religion by which people relate themselves to God from the sincerity of their hearts, of
their nature transcend the earthly and temporal levels of reality” (Tanner, ed., Decrees,
2:1004). Likewise, the declaration references how Christ “recognized the civil power
and its laws, and ordered that tax be paid to Caesar, but clearly warned that the higher
laws of God should be kept: ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,

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217

his theory of the Church and state in L’Église du Verbe incarné
by positing an analogical likeness between the Church and state,
not a specific or generic likeness, so he begins here by noting
the difference between the order of the gospel and the order of
political society. It is this distinction that explains how the
matters over which the state has authority differ from the
matters over which the Church has authority. Because the
Church and state share an analogical likeness, not a specific or
generic likeness, both the Church and the state are coercive
authorities in their own, respective rights; however, the matters
on which the Church’s respective legislative, judiciary, and
coercive powers can formally bear and the matters on which the
state’s respective legislative, judiciary, and coercive powers can
formally bear differ.
Having made this distinction, Journet explains why the state
lacks authority to coerce in formally (if not materially) religious
matters.116 Although man must give an account of all his choices
to God, including all of his religious choices, he is not bound to
and to God the things that are God’s’ [Mt 22, 21]” (DH 11 [Tanner, ed., Decrees,
2:1007-8]).
116
In regard to this, the declaration states:
People grasp and acknowledge the precepts of the divine law by means
of their own consciences, which they are bound to follow faithfully in
all their activity, so as to come to God, their end. They must therefore
not be forced to act against their conscience. Nor must they be
prevented from acting according to it, especially in religious matters.
The practice of religion of its very nature consists principally in internal
acts that are voluntary and free, in which one relates oneself to God
directly; and these can neither be commanded nor prevented by any
merely human power. The social nature of human beings, however,
requires that they should express these interior religious acts externally,
share their religion with others, and witness to it communally.
Hence wrong is done to the human person and to the order
established for people by God, if they are denied the free and corporate
practice of their religion within the limits set by due public order. (DH
3 [Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1003)

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give an account of his religious choices to the state except,
perhaps, accidentally (inasmuch as purely spiritual values might
be mingled with the temporal common good). Because eternal
life is a matter of revelation, the state has no authority, in and
of itself, to legislate concerning eternal life properly speaking, to
judge concerning such legislation formally, or to coerce delinquents in a formally religious way.117 In fact, even the Church’s
authority to coerce in religious matters is restricted to the baptized.118 To put it another way, man has been ordered to God in
nature and in grace. Because man has been ordered to God in
grace, not just nature, he has been ordered to God in a way that
transcends the temporal order and political realm. Man’s
religious choices in the full sense of the term concern how he
has been ordered to God in a way that transcends the polis.
They do not necessarily pose a direct threat to the temporal
common good.
Journet goes on to distinguish formally religious matters
from (formally) temporal matters. Although the state lacks
authority in religious matters in the full sense of the term, it has
a duty to uphold natural law. Above all, the state has a duty to
maintain and foster the common good. Those who contravene
natural law, especially those who do so by setting themselves
over and against the common good, are answerable to the state,
even when they do so in the name of religion.119 In general, the

117
Even when a state recognizes the truth of the faith, it does not legislate
concerning the faith properly speaking. Even within medieval Christendom, the state
had no authority to determine what heresy is, what constitutes a valid baptism, etc.
118
See Journet on whom the Church’s coercive power reaches (Journet, Church of
the Word Incarnate, 266-68).
119
Similarly, Dignitatis Humanae 7 states:

The exercise of the right to religious freedom takes place in human
society and is therefore subject to certain modifying principles.
The moral maxim of personal and social responsibility must be
followed in the exercise of all liberties: in the use of their rights
individuals and social groups are bound by the moral law to have
regard to the rights of others, to their own duties towards others and to

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219

state has authority to legislate concerning the common good, to
judge such legislation, and to punish those who break it. Threats
to the common good perpetrated in the name of religion fall
within the compass of (formally) temporal matters, not formally
religious matters.
Civil society does, however, have a duty to God. The state’s
care for the common good includes within it the duty to manifest the honor in which its citizens should hold God.120 Again,
the common good of all. All should be treated with justice and
humanity.
Further, as society has the right to protect itself against the abuses
that can occur under the guise of religious liberty, it is chiefly for the
state to provide the relevant safeguards. This should be done neither
arbitrarily nor with inequitable discrimination, but by legal rules in
accord with the objective moral order. Such rules are required for the
effective protection and peaceful harmonising of the rights of all
citizens. They are required to make adequate provision for that general
peace and good order in which people live together in true justice.
They are required for the due protection of public morality. These
factors together constitute a fundamental part of the common good,
and are included in the idea of public order. Nevertheless, that
principle of full freedom is to be preserved in society according to
which people are given the maximum of liberty, and only restrained
when and in so far as is necessary. (Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1005-6)
120
Again, the declaration states: “[This synod] leaves intact the traditional catholic
teaching on the moral obligation of individuals and societies towards the true religion
and the one church of Christ” (DH 1 [Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1002]). Furthermore,
after stating that “those private and public acts of religion by which people relate
themselves to God from the sincerity of their hearts, of their nature transcend the
earthly and temporal levels of reality” (DH 3 [Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1004]) it
immediately proceeds to say, “So the state, whose proper purpose it is to provide for the
temporal common good, should certainly recognize and promote the religious life of its
citizens” (ibid.), while qualifying that “with equal certainty it exceeds the limits of its
authority, if it takes upon itself to direct or to prevent religious activity” (ibid.).
Similarly, section 6 reads:

It is an integral part of the duty of every civil authority to safeguard
and promote inviolable human rights. The state is therefore obliged to
give effective protection to the religious liberty of all citizens by just

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man is ordered to God in nature and grace. Even without
revelation, man can know that God exists. Likewise, the virtue
of religion is first a natural virtue falling within the compass of
natural law. Because man is ordered to God in nature, not just
grace, he is ordered to God within the temporal order, not just
beyond it. Whereas religious matters in the full sense of the
term concern the way in which man is ordered to God in grace,
the natural virtue of religion concerns the way in which man is
ordered to God in nature. The former does not negate the
latter; rather, it builds upon it. If the state did not possess the
duty to manifest the honor in which its citizens should hold
God, then not only would it have no duty to uphold natural
law, it also would not be capable of receiving a sublimated
Christian existence from the Church. Conversely, it is because
the state does have a duty to uphold natural law that it not only
has a duty to manifest the honor due to God within the
temporal order as creator but is capable of receiving a
sublimated Christian existence from the Church. It is true that
the state cannot legislate concerning eternal life as such.121
However, it can recognize the authority of the Church and heed
her counsel. Likewise, it is true that the state cannot strictly
outlaw any religion that does not contravene natural law.122
However, it can attest to the truth of the faith by ordering
citizenship, in some way, toward juridical Church membership.
In general, the Church can enable the state to refer its activity to
God as savior, not just creator. If the state did not possess an
obediential potency to receive a sublimated Christian existence
laws and other suitable means, and to ensure favorable conditions for
fostering religious life. By these means citizens will have the real
opportunity to exercise their religious rights and fulfil their duties, and
society will itself benefit from the fruits of justice and peace which
result from people’s fidelity to God and his holy will. (Tanner, ed.,
Decrees, 2:1005)
121

Such matters would be what constitutes a valid baptism, how often mass must be
attended, etc.
122
See Journet’s analysis of the juridical condition of the gentiles and of the Jews
within medieval Christendom (Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 224-40).

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221

from the Church, then the way in which man has been ordered
to God in grace would not build upon the way in which he has
been ordered to God in nature.
The Church has the right and duty to preach the gospel, and
it is this that underlies the Church’s two tasks in relation to the
state, namely, to Christianize the state and to safeguard her
existence from the state. The Church’s duty to preach the
gospel is not subordinate to the exigencies of the temporal
common good. Rather, the exigencies of the temporal common
good are subordinate to the mission of the Church.123 If the
Church’s mission were subordinate to the exigencies of the
state, then the Church would lack the capacity to transfigure the
state. Moreover, the Church’s right to safeguard her existence
would be violable, not inviolable. The Church’s mission is not
subordinate to the state; the exigencies of the state are
subordinate to the Church.
Journet finally considers whether the Church needs to have
recourse to a secular arm in order to preach the gospel. Given
the distinction between the temporal and spiritual realms, it is
123

In this regard, Dignitatis Humanae 13 reads:
Among the values which contribute most to the well-being of the
church, as of civil society itself, and which are always to be upheld and
safeguarded from all damage, the chief is unquestionably that the
church should enjoy all the freedom of action it needs to care for the
salvation of humanity. For this is a sacred liberty with which the onlybegotten Son of God endowed the church he obtained with his own
blood. It is so integral to the church that any who attack it are acting
against the will of God. This freedom of the church is a fundamental
principle in all relations between the church and both the state and the
whole social order.
In human society and in the presence of any civil power the church
claims freedom for itself as a spiritual authority, established by Christ
the lord, on whom lies the duty by divine command of going into the
whole world and preaching the gospel to the whole creation. The
church further claims freedom in that it is a human association enjoying
the right to live in civil society according to the requirements of
christian faith. (Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1009)

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not necessary for the Church to have recourse to the state
according to the (medieval) mode of consecrational Christendom.124 Within medieval Christendom, the Church had recourse
to a secular arm in a way unimaginable today because the
temporal and spiritual realms had been commingled. However,
it is not necessary for citizenship to be restricted to juridical
Church members alone in order for a state to be Christian. To
be Christian, a state must be elevated in its proper activity as
such: it must continue to pursue its proper, temporal, cultural

124
The declaration famously calls for a right to religious freedom to be enacted into
civil law (DH 2 [Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1002). Furthermore, section 10 reads:

One of the chief catholic teachings, found in the word of God and
repeatedly preached by the fathers of the church, is that the response of
people to God in faith should be voluntary; so no one must be forced
to embrace the faith against her or his will. Indeed, the act of faith is by
its very nature voluntary. Human beings, redeemed by Christ their
saviour and called to adoptive sonship through Jesus Christ, can only
respond to God as he reveals himself if, with the Father drawing them,
they give to God a free and rational allegiance of faith. It is therefore
entirely in accord with the nature of faith that every kind of human
coercion should be excluded from religion. And so the ideal of religious
freedom greatly helps to produce the conditions in which people can be
openly invited to christian faith, and can embrace it of their own
accord and witness to it in action in their whole manner of life.
(Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1006-7)
Likewise, the declaration notes:
Hence the church is being faithful to the truth of the gospel and is
following the way of Christ and the apostles, when it sees the principle
of religious freedom as in accord with human dignity and the revelation
of God, and when it promotes it. Throughout the centuries it has
guarded and handed on the teaching received from the master and
from the apostles. Although at times in the life of the people of God, as
it has pursued its pilgrimage through the twists and turns of human
history, there have been ways of acting hardly in tune with the spirit of
the gospel, indeed contrary to it, nevertheless the church’s teaching that
no one’s faith should be coerced has held firm. (DH 12 [Tanner, ed.,
Decrees, 2:1008-9])

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223

ends as true yet intermediate ends. In order for her to carry out
her mission in full, it is necessary for the Church to Christianize
the state. However, in addition to a political community of
juridical Church members alone, a participatory analogically
Christian community is possible.
Having laid out the essential exigencies of the Church in
relation to the state, Journet concludes that the declaration
applies the principle of the subordination of the temporal to the
spiritual order in a new, higher way. He implies that the declaration represents a refusal to have recourse to a secular arm
according to the (medieval) mode of consecrational Christendom because he argues that the change in policy it represents
accords with the distinction between the temporal and spiritual
orders more perfectly. Within a secular (as opposed to
consecrational) Christendom, the Church might have recourse
to the state; however, it would not do so according to the same
mode. If the Church would have recourse to the state within the
schema of what Journet calls indirect power, then she would
not do so as though purely spiritual values needed to be
defended in a temporal way. Likewise, if the Church would
have recourse to the state within the schema of what Journet
calls direct power, then she would not do so as though all
citizens would necessarily be subject to the penalties she
stipulated. According to Journet, the telos of the change in
policy that the declaration represents is none other than secular
Christendom.
Because Journet identifies the telos and therefore the full
nature of the declaration’s change in policy, his interpretation
helps bolster that of Pink in two ways. First, given that the
declaration represents a step toward the possibility of secular
Christendom, it rightly celebrates the possibility of religious
freedom being enacted into civil law as helping to make secular
Christendom possible. For example, section 10 reads: “And so
the ideal of religious freedom greatly helps to produce the
conditions in which people can be openly invited to christian

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ROGER W. NUTT and MICHAEL R. DE SALVO

faith, and can embrace it of their own accord and witness to it
in action in their whole manner of life.”125 In other words,
Journet’s interpretation helps to take greater account of the
positive nature of the declaration’s approbation of religious
freedom. Second, inasmuch as the declaration represents a
refusal to have recourse to a secular arm as it had within the
context of medieval Christendom, it would seem to denote an
end to consecrational Christendom. Lefebvre may have been
right that the declaration would mean an end to the kind of
Christendom he sought to defend (i.e., consecrational Christendom). Journet’s interpretation, in other words, affords greater
insight into why the declaration has been so easily
misinterpreted.
This interpretation, in conjunction with that of Pink, also
helps to explain how the declaration does not follow modern,
non-Christian political theory. As Pink and Journet point out,
the Church has authority in religious matters, including a right
to call upon the state (inasmuch as it is fitting) in the fulfillment
of her mission. Contra Lefebvre, the declaration is best
understood in regard to such teaching, not in regard to modern,
non-Christian political theory. Given nineteenth-century papal
teaching on the authority of the Church, Dignitatis Humanae
reflects a change in the authority of the state vis-à-vis the
Church (inasmuch as the Church will no longer have recourse
to the state as it did within medieval Christendom), not a
change in doctrine or teaching.
In particular, Journet helps explain how Dignitatis Humanae
upholds Gregory XVI’s teaching against indifferentism. Not
only was it never the case that the state had authority to coerce
in religious matters (except perhaps accidentally), but
citizenship can be ordered toward juridical Church membership
in two ways: either by confining citizenship to it or by
designating juridical Church membership as the best way of
being a citizen. Within secular Christendom, not only does the
Church still animate the state, it animates it all the more in its
125

Tanner, ed., Decrees, 2:1007.

CARDINAL JOURNET AND DIGNITATIS HUMANAE

225

own proper activity as such. Likewise, not only does the state
still acknowledge the truth of the faith; it acknowledges it all
the more freely.126 It is true that error is tolerated with respect
to the distinction between the temporal and spiritual realms;
however, it is not thereby endorsed. In the words of Journet,
error is “attack[ed] with arms of light, not with the weapons of
a fortress.”127
CONCLUSION
Given the tension over Dignitatis Humanae at the council,
and Journet’s role in dissipating it, the content of his speech
from the fourth session is worthy of much more consideration
than it has been given to date, especially in conjunction with
L’Église du Verbe incarné. Although the cardinal’s speech is not
indeed the voice of the council, it nonetheless manifests the
thinking of perhaps the most theologically sophisticated mind of
all of the Fathers of the final session. Furthermore, the issue
that Journet adjudicates is nothing less than the primary point
of contention among those who continue to debate the
document. In Journet’s mind, the declaration merited the
support of the council Fathers precisely because it stood in
continuity with the Catholic principles for the sake of whose
defense those opposed to the declaration (such as Lefebvre)
actively resisted it. As Journet elaborates between his conciliar
address and L’Église du Verbe incarné, these principles not only
include the Church’s ability to deputize the state; they also
include the Church’s ability to afford the state a sublimated,
Christian existence by way of an “‘indirect power . . .’ in which
a duty is laid on the temporal power to act as a second cause, by
its own means, for its own ends, and under its own

126

That is, in accord with the proper nature of faith.
To put it another way, within secular Christendom, it is realized that one kind of
error is religious in the full sense of the term whereas another is religious only in an
analogical sense of the term.
127

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responsibility.”128 As Journet puts it, not only a consecrational
but a secular Christendom is possible.
Understood in light of Journet’s intervention at the council,
Dignitatis Humanae does not reflect a change in doctrine or
teaching but a higher, alternate application of previous papal
doctrine and teaching. It is not just a change in policy but a
development of Church policy in its relation to the state.
Dignitatis Humanae does not abandon the idea of a Christian
state; it imposes a duty upon the world necessary for the
Christianization of the state in a new, higher way. In short, the
declaration properly understood is itself an exercise of what
Journet calls indirect ecclesial power.

128

Journet, Church of the Word Incarnate, 260.

The Thomist 85 (2021): 227-46

THE INTENTION AND UNITY OF ST. THOMAS
AQUINAS’S EXPOSITION OF BOETHIUS, ON THE TRINITY
JOSEPH HAGGARTY
Millis, Massachusetts

O

VER THE LAST several decades, St. Thomas Aquinas’s
Expositio super librum Boethii De trinitate1 has
attracted a degree of attention remarkable for a work of
its modest profile.2 It is brief by St. Thomas’s standards, and for
reasons unknown to us it was never finished:3 he set it aside

1
Although the Latin text here used is that of the Leonine edition (Opera omnia iussu
Leonis XIII P. M. edita, vol. 50, Super Boetium De Trinitate. Expositio Libri Boetii De
ebdomadibus [Rome: Commissio Leonina; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1992]), I have
chosen to refer to St. Thomas’s work not by the title used there (Super Boetium De
Trinitate), but by that used in Decker’s critical edition (Sancti Thomae de Aquino,
Expositio Super Librum Boethii De Trinitate, ed. Bruno Decker [Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1965]). This is because the use of the term expositio in Decker’s title predominates in
the manuscripts, as both Decker (43) and the Leonine editor note (P.-M. Gils,
“Introduction,” in Super Boetium De Trinitate, 5).
2
Martin Grabmann, Die theologische Erkenntniss- und Einleitungslehre des hl.
Thomas von Aquin auf Grund seiner Schrift “In Boethium de Trinitate” (Freiburg in der
Schweiz: Paulusverlag, 1948); M.-D. Chenu, Introduction a l’étude de Saint Thomas
d’Aquin (Montréal: Institut d’Études Médiévales; Paris: J. Vrin, 1950), 81-82, 226-40;
Leo Elders, Faith and Science: An Introduction to St. Thomas’ “Expositio in Boethii De
Trinitate” (Rome: Herder, 1974); Michel Corbin, Le chemin de la théologie chez
Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974), 291-474; Alfonso García Marqués,
“Introducción,” in Santo Tomas De Aquino, Exposición del “De Trinitate” de Boecio:
Introducción, traducción, y notas, trans. Alfonso García Marqués and José Antonia
Fernández (Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1986), 10-56; Armand
Maurer, St. Thomas Aquinas, Faith, Reason, and Theology: Questiones I-IV of his
Commentary on the “De Trinitate” of Boethius, trans. with introduction and notes
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1987), vii-xxxviii; Wolf-Ulrich
Klünker, “Einführung,” Thomas von Aquin, Über Die Trinität, Eine Auslegung der
Gleichnamigen Schrift Des Boethius, trans. and notes by Hans Lentz (Stuttgart: Verlag

227

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JOSEPH HAGGARTY

after completing what appears to be only the first fifth of the
projected work.4 In writing on Boethius’s theological opusculum, moreover, he was out of step with his age. While the
previous century, an aetas boetiana,5 produced several commentaries on De trinitate, none of St. Thomas’s contemporaries
shared his interest, absorbed as they were in the project of
assimilating the Aristotelian texts newly available.6
Freies Geistesleben, 1988), 9-24; Ralph McInerny, Boethius and Aquinas (Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990), 97-121; Douglas Hall, The
Trinity: An Analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Expositio of the “De Trinitate” of Boethius
(Leiden-New York-Cologne: Brill, 1992); Gils, “Introduction,” 5-9; Guido Mazzotta,
Tommaso d’Aquino, Forza e debolezza del pensiero. Commento al “De Trinitate” di
Boezio. Introduzione, traduzione, note e apparati (Messina: Rubbettino, 1996), 5*-100*;
Lawrence J. Donohoo, “The Nature and Grace of Sacra Doctrina in St. Thomas’s Super
Boetium De Trinitate,” The Thomist 63 (1999), 343-401; Jean-Pierre Torrell,
“Philosophie et théologie d’après le prologue de Thomas d’Aquin au Super Boetium De
Trinitate: Essai d’une lecture théologique,” Nouvelles recherches thomasiennes (Paris: J.
Vrin, 2008), 11-56.
3
Maurer, Faith, Reason, and Theology, 35; Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas
Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and His Work, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 67. In the Leonine edition, the Expositio is
ninety- seven pages long.
That he intended to write more than he did is proven by a remark in the body of
question 6, article 3: “God does not have any accidents, as will be shown below”
(Leonine ed., 168, ll. 153-54). This matter is not treated in the rest of the text (which
consists only of the following article of q. 6), and would naturally be considered in a
treatment of the second half of chapter 2 of De trinitate, where Boethius makes this
claim (Boethius, The Theological Tractates, Loeb Classical Series, ed. and trans. H. F.
Stewart and E. K. Rand (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: W.
Heinemann, 1968 reprint of the 1918 edition), 10, l. 42–13, l. 58). Also see Grabmann,
Die theologische Erkenntniss- und Einleitungslehre, 21; Gils, “Introduction,” 6.
4
Elders, Faith and Science, 16.
5
M.-D. Chenu, La theologie au XII siecle, Etudes de phil. medievale 45 (Paris: Vrin,
1957), chap. 6, “Aetas boetiana.” Cited in Torrell, “Philosophie et théologie,” 15 n. 6.
6
Grabmann does mention one other commentary on De trinitate which he dates to
the thirteenth century, but that he is not confident in the date is indicated by the fact
that he affirms in the same passage that St. Thomas’s work stands alone (Grabmann, Die
theologische Erkenntniss- und Einleitungslehre, 14-15). Reviewing the evidence, another
scholar has concluded that the commentary is a twelfth-century work instead (see
Elders, Faith and Science, 13 n. 15). The lack of commentaries should not be taken as a
sign that Boethius’s theology was not respected in the thirteenth century, however; his
authority remained considerable throughout the period, as Grabmann shows
(Grabmann, Die theologische Erkenntniss- und Einleitungslehre, 13-14). A discussion of

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229

Nevertheless, the work continues to engage us. This is to be
explained, I think, by two features of the quaestiones that accompany St. Thomas’s careful exposition of the content and
order of Boethius’s discourse: their exceptional clarity, detail,
and sophistication,7 on the one hand, and the range of fundamental problems they treat, on the other. Theologians8 are
drawn to the Expositio’s discussions of several topics, including
the nature of sacred theology as a scientific discipline and the
necessity of faith. Philosophers are drawn to the accounts of the
principle of individuation and the division of speculative
philosophy into distinct sciences. The articles on man’s natural
knowledge of God, furthermore, are of vital interest to both
theologians and philosophers.
Yet this very diversity of the Expositio, rich and marvelous as
it is, immediately presents the reader with a difficulty. As we
shall see, St. Thomas presents this work as a coherent whole,
just as one would expect from such a profoundly systematic
thinker; hence we are unlikely to achieve a clear understanding
of his doctrines without grasping them as parts of that whole.
But what unites the assorted topics considered in the quaestiones is far from clear. What is their common theme or subject?
More fundamentally, to what discipline does this consideration
the reasons why De trinitate received relatively little attention in the thirteenth century
is given in Elders, Faith and Science, 16-17.
7
See Grabmann, Die theologische Erkenntniss- und Einleitungslehre, 22-25; Corbin,
Le chemin de la théologie, 291; Elders, Faith and Science, 19; Marqués, “Introducción,”
22; Klünker, “Einführung,” 9; Hall, Trinity, 15, 38, 42-43; Torrell, Saint Thomas
Aquinas, 67. In fact, the impressive level of the treatment persuaded one scholar that the
Expositio must have been written at the very end of St. Thomas’s life, after the Summa
theologiae itself (J.-F. Bonnefoy, “La theologie comme science et l’explication de la foi
selon saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses 14 [1937]: 421-46).
Subsequent research has disproven this thesis, however, and produced a broad
consensus for an early date of 1257-59, after the commentary on the Sentences, before
the Summa contra gentiles, and contemporaneous with De veritate. See Grabmann, Die
theologische Erkenntniss- und Einleitungslehre, 19-20; Hall, Trinity, 38-41; Gils,
“Introduction,” 6.
8
For the sake of clarity, I restrict the use of the terms theology, theologian, and
theological to sacred theology, as opposed to all philosophical disciplines, including
metaphysics—even though St. Thomas, following Aristotle, does sometimes call
metaphysics “theology” or “divine science.”

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JOSEPH HAGGARTY

of theological and philosophical matters belong? And inasmuch
as both of these questions concern the unity of the whole work,
which includes the textual expositions as well as the quaestiones, they inevitably raise the question of the unity of these
two parts, and thus of the relationship which St. Thomas’s
“commentary,” as it is often called, bears to Boethius’s work.
There are three interrelated questions. The first concerns the
discipline to which the Expositio belongs, the second, its
subject, and the third, its relation to Boethius’s De trinitate.
These questions articulate the problem to be addressed in the
following—namely, the intention and unity of St. Thomas’s
work. After outlining the work in brief, I indicate three basic
reasons why, despite the scholarly attention it has lately
received, the problem remains without a satisfactory solution. I
then sketch an argument for a threefold thesis which proceeds
from an analysis of St. Thomas’s prologue to the work. First, I
maintain that the Expositio, taken as a whole, is a work of the
sapiential science of sacred theology, and hence a consideration
according to first principles; second, that the proper subject of
its scientific consideration is sacred theology itself, considered
precisely as a sapiential science; and third, that it studies this
subject not simpliciter or “in the abstract,” but as it is embodied
in an actually existing theological work—Boethius’s De
trinitate—which is therefore the matter considered by St.
Thomas under the form, or according to the proper subject, of
the sapiential science of sacred theology.
I. THE QUEST FOR UNITY
The quaestiones which provoke the question of the unity of
the Expositio do not appear in a vacuum, but within a work
structured as a continuous and clearly ordered whole, even
though the plan was not carried to completion. Commencing
with the prologue, which discusses De trinitate as a whole, St.
Thomas proceeds to consider the parts of Boethius’s treatise in
textual order, providing for each section a careful and detailed
literal exposition, structured by a divisio textus, of the author’s

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231

meaning or sententia.9 He then engages in the disputatio,10
which consists of two quaestiones, each divided into four
articles. This yields six quaestiones and twenty-four articles in
all, as the procedure is repeated three times: first, for the
proemium which begins Boethius’s work, then for De trinitate’s
first chapter, and finally for the first half of its second chapter.
Besides suggesting that St. Thomas planned to follow this
procedure through all six of Boethius’s brief chapters, this rigid
uniformity is a strong indication of the intended unity of the
work, and thus of the quaestiones, despite the variety of their
subjects. The quaestiones cover the knowledge of divine things
(q. 1) and the manifestation of them (q. 2);11 the things which
pertain to the communion12 of faith (q. 3) and those which
pertain to the cause of plurality (q. 4);13 and finally, the division
of the speculative part of philosophy proposed by Boethius (q.
5) and the modes that Boethius attributes to the parts of
speculative philosophy (q. 6).14
The admirably clear structure of the Expositio is doubtless
one reason why scholars have sought a principle that would
unify its various quaestiones. To this one could add its author’s
well-known habit of constructing even the grandest works
according to a sharply defined architectonic, as well as his
penchant for finding remarkably precise rational unity and
order in unpromising places, like the books of Aristotle’s
Metaphysics15 and the corpus of St. Paul’s epistles16—not to
9

Expositio c. 1 (105:185 in the Leonine text). All citations of the Expositio will
hereafter by given by the page and line numbers of this edition (separated by a colon),
except where noted.
10
Expositio c. 2 (135:121).
11
“Hic incidit duplex questio: prima est de diuinorum cognitione, secunda de eorum
manifestatione” (Expositio pro. [79:174-76]).
12
Decker reads commendatio instead of the communio of the Leonine text (Decker,
107:4-5).
13
“Hic est duplex questio: prima de his que pertinent ad fidei communionem,
secunda de his que pertinent ad causam pluralitatis” (Expositio c. 1 [105:186-88]).
14
“Hic est duplex questio: prima de diuisione speculatiue quam in littera ponit,
secunda de modis quos partibus speculatiue attribuit” (Expositio c. 2 [135:131-33]).
15
I Metaphys., lect. 4 (Marietti ed., 69); III Metaphys., lect. 1 (Marietti ed., 338); IV
Metaphys., lect. 1 (Marietti ed., 529); V Metaphys., lect. 1 (Marietti ed., 749); VI

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JOSEPH HAGGARTY

mention Boethius’s five frequently obscure theological opuscula,
as he does in the prologue of the Expositio itself.17 It would be
very odd, indeed, to find him here ignoring his constant principle, stated expressly at the same period in his career in De
veritate, that while a book transmits the knowledge of many
things, it does so more perfectly to the extent that it teaches all
of these things by means of “some one thing.”18
The “some one thing” unifying the Expositio has, however,
proven elusive. This is certainly not for a lack of candidates,
variously proposed as the philosophy of human knowledge,19

Metaphys., lect. 1 (Marietti ed., 1144); VII Metaphys., lect. 1 (Marietti ed., 1245); XII
Metaphys., lect. 1 (Marietti ed., 2416).
16
Super Rom., proemium.
17
76:69-96.
18
This statement comes from question 7 of De veritate, which inquires into the
meaning of the liber vitae of Revelation 20:12. Article 1 asks “Whether the book of life
is something created.” The argument and reply are as follows:
4. Furthermore, the word book, since it conveys the idea of a certain
collection, indicates distinction and difference. But in uncreated nature,
which is the simplest of all, there is no diversity; therefore the word
book cannot be used here.
4. In reply to the fourth argument, it must be said that it belongs to
the very notion of a book to convey a difference between those things
which are known through the book, and that this is because the
knowledge of many things is handed on through one book. But that
diversity within the book itself should be necessary constitutes a fault in
the book, since a book would be far more perfect if those matters
which it treats by means of many things were instead taught by means
of some one thing. Consequently, since the greatest perfection is to be
found in God, He himself is just such a book, which demonstrates
many things through that which is most truly one. (Opera omnia iussu
Leonis XIII P. M. edita, v. 22/1, Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate,
QQ. 1-7 [Rome: Ad Sanctae Sabinae/Editori di San Tommaso, 1970],
197:24-28; 200:196-206)
19
Marqués identifies this as the subject of the work in its incomplete state (as
opposed to the subject of the work as originally projected), and places it within the
philosophical discipline of dialectic, i.e., logic (Marqués, “Introducción,” 29-30,
including n. 39). Though Klünker does not state it as clearly, he seems to share this
opinion (Klünker, “Einführung,” 13).

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the nature of theology as a science,20 the Holy Trinity,21 all
human knowledge of God,22 and the nature of the theoretical
sciences.23 Despite this abundance, no commentator has successfully shown, for example, how St. Thomas’s treatments of the
principle of numerical individuation (q. 4, aa. 2-4)24 and of the
Catholic doctrine of the Trinity (q. 3, a. 4)25—the one manifestly philosophical and the other theological—fall under a
single discipline, let alone a particular subject within that
discipline.26
20

Corbin, Le chemin de la théologie, 296; Maurer, Faith, Reason, and Theology, viii;
Grabmann, Die theologische Erkenntniss- und Einleitungslehre, 30-31; Elders, Faith and
Science, 20. Maurer finds an emphasis on Trinitarian theology, while Grabmann and
Elders see the scientific nature of theology as one subject among several. Hall tentatively
takes up the closely related thesis that one of the two subjects is “the grounds of
theological methodology” (Hall, Trinity, 43, 120).
21
Elders, Faith and Science, 20; Hall, Trinity, 43, 120. Neither regards the Trinity as
the sole subject. Marqués takes it to be the sole subject of the work as originally
planned, but not as incomplete; see above, n. 19 (Marqués, “Introducción,” 29-30).
22
Mazzotta, Tommaso d’Aquino, 14. Although not as clearly or consistently,
Donohoo seems to take this stance as well (“Nature and Grace of Sacra Doctrina,”
343-44).
23
Grabmann, Die theologische Erkenntniss- und Einleitungslehre, 31; Elders, Faith
and Science, 20. Again, neither takes this to be the sole subject of the Expositio.
24
122:1-132:109. Article 3 (126:1-131:300) is not about the principle of individuation itself, but about an intimately related question also raised by Boethius’s text
(69:56-64)—namely, whether two bodies can occupy the same place. Saint Thomas’s
view of the connection is made clear in article 4 (131:1-132:109).
25
126:1-131:300.
26
Only three of the recent scholars mentioned here clearly maintain that the
quaestiones of the work in its actual (i.e., incomplete) state are unified by a single subject
within a single scientific discipline. Corbin takes this to be theology as a science (Corbin,
Le chemin de la théologie, 296); Maurer agrees, while putting an emphasis on
Trinitarian theology; while Marqués regards it as the philosophy of knowledge
(Marqués, “Introducción,” 29-30). Corbin’s thesis that the unifying subject is theology
as a science rests on the unsubstantiated assertion that question 4 is about “the problem
of human discursiveness, or more exactly, the abstraction of language” (Corbin, Le
chemin de la théologie, 293). This characterization, however, bears no discernible
relation to St. Thomas’s actual discussions in question 4, which treat of the principles of
plurality (a. 1), numerical individuation (aa. 2 and 4), and place (aa. 3 and 4). Indeed, it
is such a strange reading that one suspects a typographical error—namely, that Corbin
intended it as a description of question 6 instead, which both fits it tolerably well and is
wholly absent from his presentation of the work as a whole (Corbin, Le chemin de la
théologie, 293- 94). If this is correct, however, it means that he gives no account of

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More broadly, the relationship these quaestiones, taken
together, bear to Boethius’s text remains unclear. In consequence, since St. Thomas’s textual expositions stay faithful to
the letter of De trinitate, the unity of the quaestiones and the
expositions is also obscure. Most of the commentators reviewed
above, observing that the quaestiones are undoubtedly St.
Thomas’s own doctrine and are structured by his own concerns,
conclude that Boethius’s tractate is merely a point of departure
or pretext for his discussion,27 and by implication minimize the

question 4 at all, and thus no argument for the stance that it, like all of the quaestiones,
falls under the theological subject of theology as a science. The obvious and decisive
objection, then, remains unanswered. Maurer asserts that the principles of plurality and
individuation treated in question 4 are “themes . . . central for the theology of the
Trinity” (Maurer, Faith, Reason, and Theology, viii). In doing so, he echoes Elders
(Elders, Faith and Science, 66) and anticipates Marqués (Marqués, “Introducción,” 39)
and Mazzotta (Mazzotta, Tommaso d’Aquino, 43*). But neither Maurer nor any of the
others provides any evidence at all for this claim—which is not surprising, since it is
only half true at best. For while the principle of plurality, universally speaking, the
subject of article 1, might perhaps be important for St. Thomas’s Trinitarian theology,
the principle of the individuation of species, treated in articles 2 and 4, is most certainly
not. Nowhere in his works does he rely on this principle to discuss the Trinity, and it is
not difficult to see why: such individuation is grounded in matter considered in a certain
way, a principle of material substances of a common species, having nothing at all to do
with the wholly immaterial divine persons, who do not in any sense belong to a
common species. Hall, in fact, confesses himself unable to see how question 4 is
connected with Trinitarian theology at all (Hall, Trinity, 83-84). Marqués himself grants
that the establishment of the Trinity as authentic Catholic doctrine (in opposition to the
Arian heresy) in question 3, article 4 is simply a theological consideration, without any
epistemological analysis on philosophical principles. Instead of recognizing that this
evidence invalidates his reading, however, he maintains that the article corresponds to
the subject of the work as originally planned (i.e., the Holy Trinity), but “does not
correspond to the present state of the work” (Marqués, “Introducción,” 39). This is
faulty logic. The article is part of the work in its present state, and as such determines
the character of the work in its present state. What the article does not correspond to is
not the work, but Marqués’s thesis about it—or, more accurately, his thesis does not fit
the evidence.
27
Grabmann, Die theologische Erkenntniss- und Einleitungslehre, 39; Chenu,
Introduction, 82, 231-232, 239; Corbin, Le chemin de la théologie, 291-92; Marqués,
“Introducción,” 27-28; Hall, Trinity, 38; Torrell, “Philosophie et théologie,” 17. On
this reading, the Expositio belongs to the literary genre to which Chenu assigns the
“commentary” on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. The interpretation of the Expositio
proposed here, however, implies a different view; see below, n. 72.

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unity of the expositions and the quaestiones. Yet if De trinitate
stands outside of St. Thomas’s real concern, the evident effort
expended upon the literal commentary is altogether superfluous.28 A minority of commentators, gesturing towards the
obvious connections of the quaestiones to the preceding textual
expositions,29 insist that the former directly engage Boethius’s
thought,30 and even function to clarify its meaning more fully,31
28
The parallel to Super sententiis which has been drawn (see above, n. 27) provides
no argument against this claim. Since the university curriculum required St. Thomas to
comment on the Sentences, while the Expositio was by all indications an independent
project (Gils, “Introduction,” 6), the attention paid to the text would seem to tell us
relatively little about his intention in the former case, but speaks volumes in the latter.
29
While the authors in favor of this reading do not set out the evidence in any detail,
it is considerable, and may be summarized as follows. Saint Thomas explicitly identifies
Boethius’s sententia as the origin of his quaestiones at the end of his textual expositions
(79:174-76; 105:186-88; 135:131-33). Furthermore, the matters discussed in all
twenty-four articles clearly derive from his exposition of the text—not merely from
some stray phrase, but from a point which St. Thomas finds important enough to
explain. Thus in the exposition of Boethius’s proemium, 77:19-37 correspond to q. 1,
a. 1; 78:125-79:129 and 79:147-60 to q. 1, aa. 2 and 3; 77:19-40 to q. 1, a. 4;
77:41-52 to q. 2, aa. 1 and 2; 78:125-79:129 to q. 2, a. 3; and 78:79-87 to q. 2, a. 4. In
the exposition of chapter 1, 103:20-25, 42-45, 49-50, 54-56 correspond to q. 3, a. 1;
103:20-27 to q. 3, a. 2; 103:42-62 to q. 3, a. 3; 104:63-98 to q. 3, a. 4; 104:105-32 to
q. 4, a. 1; 105:144-67 to q. 4, a. 2; 105:168-82 to q. 4, a. 3; and 105:144-84 as a
whole to q. 4, a. 4. In the exposition of chapter 2, 134:69-74 correspond to q. 5, a. 1;
134:74-85 to q. 5, a. 2; 134:86-100 to q. 5, a. 3; 134:101-135:116 to q. 5, a. 4;
135:117-23 to q. 6, a. 1; 135:122-27 to q. 6, a. 2; 135:127-29 to q. 6, aa. 3 and 4.
Again, questions 4 through 6, fully half of the quaestiones, consist of straightforward
evaluations of Boethius’s doctrines, and questions 5 and 6 are explicitly framed in terms
of them. In fact, St. Thomas provides his explanation of the “modes” which Boethius
laconically assigns to the speculative philosophical sciences not in the exposition, but in
the body of the first article of question 6: compare 135:117-21 to 159:119-160:196;
160:224-31; and 162:327-59.
Finally, in at least one article of every question except the second, St. Thomas rather
pointedly refers his own account back to the Boethian doctrine already explained. See
q. 1, a. 1 (82:178-83); q. 3, a. 3 (113:93-94); q. 4, a. 1 (121:150-59); ibid., ad 5
(122:187-92); q. 4, a. 2 (123:77-80); q. 4, a. 4 (132:70-77); ibid., ad 5 (132:89-95);
q. 5, a. 1, ad 9 (141:379-81); q. 6, a. 3 (168:177-84).
30
McInerny, Boethius and Aquinas, 119-20. McInerny cites Chenu’s Introduction in
support of his reading, but the chapter to which he refers (pp. 173-96) concerns the
commentaries on the works of Aristotle and Pseudo-Dionysius, not Boethius. As for the
latter, Chenu’s position is unequivocally opposed to McInerny’s: “Like his contemporaries, Saint Thomas made only a simple expositio of Peter Lombard, which he took

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so that the two are intimately linked. Neither side, however,
provides a more detailed analysis.
The principal difficulty, I believe, is one of method. All of
these attempts seem to resolve to a consideration of the datum
which, as it happens, first brings the problem to our attention—
that is, the quaestiones. However, is this really the best place to
start? After all, the quaestiones form one of the two integral
parts of the body of the work. Surely it is more natural to
proceed from the whole to the parts, especially when what we
seek is precisely what makes those parts a whole. But how,
exactly, are we to do this?
II. THE SUBJECT OF THE EXPOSITIO
Although not devoted to our question, J.-P. Torrell’s recent
examination of theological and philosophical themes in St.
Thomas’s prologue points out a surer path. From a survey of
the role of the prologue in a number of St. Thomas’s works,
Torrell observes that the genre requires the author not only to
reveal his intention, which of course governs the work as a
whole, but also “to summarize everything which he has to
say”;32 this introductory part of the work is thus the whole writ
small. It is therefore not unreasonable to expect that the analysis
of the prologue to the Expositio will yield a more satisfactory
account of the unifying principle of the work than has been
proposed so far.
Yet while the prologue does indeed encapsulate the whole
Expositio, as we shall see, it provides no obvious statement of
St. Thomas’s authorial intention. To discern the latter as well as

as the text for his baccalaureate studies, and of Boethius (the opusculum De Trinitate).
Here he remains anchored in the text, which he analyzes (divisio textus) and of whose
literal sense he gives a summary account (expositio textus). Yet these are simply the
vestiges of the primitive genre, and in reality he puts all of his effort into the questions,
whose multiplicity and variety stand wholly outside of their textual point of departure”
(Chenu, Introduction, 82).
31
Gils, “Introduction,” 5.
32
Torrell, “Philosophie et théologie,” 13-15.

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the former, then, we will have to attend rather to what St.
Thomas does and how he does it.
The prologue is headed by an epigraph from the Wisdom of
Solomon: “From the beginning of her birth will I search, and I
will bring the science of her into the light.”33 Torrell notes that
such epigraphs (which appear in the prologues to most of St.
Thomas’s commentaries on Scripture and theological works) are
always chosen with care and applied with precision.34 Here, it
serves as the reference point for the whole discourse, which
takes the form of an argument that the words of King Solomon
the Wise may fittingly be placed on the lips of the author of De
trinitate.35 The reasons given, and thus the sections of the
prologue, are four. The first section36 maintains that the quotation as a whole corresponds to the character of Boethius’s
entire theological enterprise. Solomon, divinely inspired,
describes a pursuit of wisdom which commences “from the
beginning of her birth,” while the whole treatment of “the
things of faith” given in the five tractates is a consideration
whose principle is “the highest Origin of things Itself,” the
triune God.37 The remaining three sections apply the parts of
the verse to three principles of the particular opusculum at
hand: its “matter, mode, and end.”38 “The beginning of [Wisdom’s] birth,” understood as referring to the eternal generation
of divine Wisdom from the Father, designates the matter of De
33
“Ab initio natiuitatis inuestigabo et ponam in lucem scientiam illius, Sap. VI.,”
(75:1-2). According to the modern scheme, the scriptural verse is Wisdom 6:24.
34
Torrell, “Philosophie et théologie,” 17.
35
This feature is somewhat obscured in Maurer’s widely used English translation. In
two passages where St. Thomas alludes to the scriptural author, Maurer supplies the
word “Boethius,” thus giving the reader the false impression that St. Thomas attributes
the verse itself to Boethius, when he is only arguing that it is appropriately applied to
him. Compare Maurer, Faith, Reason, and Theology, 4 to 76:69-70; and Maurer, Faith,
Reason, and Theology, 6 to 76:117.
36
75:3-43.
37
“Boethius, reaching out through the treatise towards the things of faith, therefore
followed this order and laid down the beginning of his consideration in the highest
Origin of things Itself, namely in the Trinity of the one simple God. Whence the
foregoing words, ‘From the beginning of her birth, etc.’ apply to him” (75:39-43).
38
“Among which, in the present opusculum, composed for Symmachus, a patrician
of Rome, three things can be noted, namely, the matter, mode, and end” (75:44-46).

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JOSEPH HAGGARTY

trinitate,39 and the fact that Solomon describes his search as
“from” this birth corresponds to the fact that this work is only
the first part of the comprehensive Boethian treatment of the
various matters proper to theology.40 Solomon’s description of
himself as searching (investigabo) describes the manner or mode
in which Boethius conducts this study, inasmuch as, presupposing the truth of what is conveyed by theological authority,
he inquires per rationes.41 Finally, “I will bring the science of
her into the light,” describes the work’s end or purpose, which is
“that the hidden things of faith may be manifested as far as is
possible on our pilgrim way.”42
In demonstrating the aptness of the scriptural verse to the
author of De trinitate, then, the prologue resolves the work to
four principles: what St. Thomas refers to as “the principle of
[the] consideration” undertaken in the treatise,43 its matter, its
mode of proceeding, and its end. The first of these is actually
twofold, for the proximate principle of the opusculum, which
determines its character, is the kind of consideration contained
in it, while this, in turn, is here described as having its own
principle. In the first section of the prologue, St. Thomas
explains both of these by way of a consideration of three human
cognitions of “the First Truth.” The first of these,44 the fixing of
the mind’s gaze (intuitus) “in the light of the First Truth, from
which all things are easily knowable,” is a knowledge denied to
us because of the mind’s union with the corruptible body;45 the

39

75:47-76:68.
76:69-96.
41
76:97-113.
42
“Indeed, the end of this work is that the hidden things of faith may be manifested
as far as is possible on our pilgrim way: ‘Those who elucidate me will have eternal life’
(Ecclesiasticus XXIV). And for this reason he says, ‘I will bring the science of her into
the light’ as is seen from Job XXVIII, ‘He has probed the depths of rivers and brought
hidden things into the light’” (76:114-19).
43
See above, n. 37.
44
75:3-6.
45
“The natural gaze [intuitus] of the human mind, oppressed by the weight of the
corruptible body, cannot be fixed in the light of the First Truth, from which all things
are easily knowable” (75:3-6).
40

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239

second,46 reason’s knowledge of the Creator proceeding
discursively from the knowledge of creatures which arises from
sensation, frequently goes astray; the third47 is a “knowledge
given from above,” whose principle is “a discernment of the
First Truth infused by faith,”48 and which proceeds therefrom to
a consideration of creatures. It is this third sort of knowledge, a
science which is assigned to the theologian as opposed to the
philosopher,49 that according to St. Thomas constitutes Boethius’s consideration in the tractates; in other words, he regards
De trinitate as a work in which the science of theology is
realized. And in the fact that Boethius here begins with “the
highest Origin of things Itself,” St. Thomas discerns a principle
of the science of theology at work in the treatise50—namely,
“discernment of the First Truth infused by faith.”51 If we turn to
the three other principles identified in the prologue’s analysis of
De trinitate, we find that they, too, are principles of the science
of theology operative in this particular treatise: the Trinity as
the scientific subject matter treated, argument per rationes as
one of the modes in which the human intellect effects the
46

75:6-20.
75:20-38.
48
“Just as, therefore, the principle of the natural knowledge [of the Creator] is the
discernment of the creature received from sense, so also is the principle of the
knowledge given from above a discernment of the First Truth infused by faith”
(75:29-32).
49
“Whence it is that one proceeds by a different order from here to there: for the
philosopher, who follows the order of natural knowledge, places the science of creatures
prior to the divine science, namely natural metaphysics, but the procedure among
theologians is the converse, so that consideration of the Creator comes before
consideration of the creature” (75:32-38). The distinction drawn between philosophical
and theological cognitions of God and creatures, which differ insofar as they begin from
different sources and proceed in opposed orders, presupposes that they belong to a
common genus. But St. Thomas identifies the disciplines of the philosophers as
scientiae; by implication, then, theology too is a science. This notion of science is
explained in the account of the scientific character of theology given in q. 2, a. 2: “Since
the intelligible character of science consists in the fact that, from some known things,
others are concluded of necessity, and since this is the case with regard to divine things,
there is therefore a science of divine things” (95:54-57).
50
See above, n. 37.
51
See above, n. 48.
47

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JOSEPH HAGGARTY

science, and a partial manifestation of the truth apprehended by
faith as the end of the science. Under the sign of the Wisdom of
Solomon, then, St. Thomas is resolving De trinitate to its proper
principles qua specimen, or rather, model, of the science of
sacred theology.
In doing so, moreover, he combines in a single discourse two
distinct components: a description of the content of Boethius’s
treatise, on the one hand, and his own doctrine about the
principles of the science of theology, on the other. That is to
say, the elements of textual exposition and independent
doctrine, which are divided in the body of the Expositio, are
here united. Moreover, review of the content of the doctrine
presented in the prologue shows that it corresponds quite
closely to that of the quaestiones.52 Since the doctrine of the
prologue exclusively concerns the science of sacred theology
operative in De trinitate, then, can we say the same for the
quaestiones?
We should make this question more precise before attempting a preliminary answer, and may do so on the strength of the
correspondence between the prologue and the quaestiones,
which allows us to interpret the one in light of the other. In the
52
The account in the first part of the prologue of the natural knowledge of God
through a prior knowledge of creatures (75:6-14) clearly anticipates q. 1, aa. 2 and 3,
while its doctrine on the limitations of such knowledge (75.15-20) adumbrates q. 1,
a. 4, on the impossibility of knowing the Trinity by natural reason—a point sharpened
by q. 3, a. 4, in which St. Thomas characterizes Arianism as a bastardized Platonism
masquerading as Christian faith.
Furthermore, the grounding of the necessity of faith in these limitations, first
presented in the prologue (75:20-22), is developed in q. 3, a. 1. Again, while the first
section of the prologue touches on the natures of, and relation between, natural
philosophy and metaphysics (75:33-36), qq. 5 and 6 give a careful treatment of the
parts of speculative philosophy; its implicit claim that theology, too, is a science (see
above, n. 49) is the subject of q. 2, a. 2. The Holy Trinity, identified in the second part
of the prologue as the matter of De trinitate’s scientific consideration (75:47-48), is
treated in q. 3, a. 4. The specification given in the third and fourth parts of the mode
(76:97-113) and end (76:114-119) of the theological work, moreover, foreshadow q. 2,
aa. 1 and 3, on the permissibility of inquiring into divine things, and of using
philosophy to do so. In short, Torrell’s claim that the prologue contains everything that
St. Thomas will say in the quaestiones is almost literally true, at least in the work’s
incomplete state.

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241

study of sacred theology’s status as a science in question 2,
article 2, St. Thomas maintains in the reply to the first objection
that it is not only a science but a wisdom: besides being
concerned with the highest principles, it also proceeds from
them.53 This is precisely how theology is characterized in the
prologue. Like the (unattainable) intuitive knowledge of spiritual substances and the rational knowledge of the philosopher,
theology is an apprehension of the First Principle; yet unlike
philosophy (and like simple intuition), it has “the highest Origin
of things Itself” as its primary and proper object, in virtue of
knowing which, it knows all else. We also learn in question 2,
article 2 that sacred theology is wisdom insofar as it “orders and
rules” other sciences.54 This is realized in De trinitate’s mode of
arguing per rationes, which, as St. Thomas states in his exposition of the proemium, consists in Boethius’s use of philosophical
sciences such as metaphysics and logic.55 In view of these things,
the prologue’s attribution of the self-description of the Old
Testament’s paradigmatic sapiens to the Roman theologian
makes much more sense; we should therefore say that the
prologue concerns the sapiential science of sacred theology
operative in De trinitate.
III. THE THEOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF THE EXPOSITIO
Yet it is not only Boethius who exercises a knowledge of first
principles which takes its beginning from God and directs lower
sciences in doing so. The author of the prologue does not
merely uncover the theological principles at work in De
trinitate, but in each case considers the first principles involved.
Thus Boethius’s theological consideration, which informs his
written discourse, is in turn traced back to the knowledge of
God received in faith.56 Again, this latter is resolved to God, its
object57 and donor;58 to the human mind, its recipient59 and
53

Q. 2, a. 2, ad 1 (96:97-98).
Ibid. (96:98-103).
55
78:125-79:129.
56
See above, n. 37.
57
75:20-25, citing 1 Cor 2:11.
54

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JOSEPH HAGGARTY

beneficiary;60 and then to the human body, for it is in virtue of
the body’s sensory mode of knowing61 and, ultimately, its
corruptible condition62 that the mind united to it stands in need
of the gift. Similarly, the Holy Trinity is identified not simply as
the matter of the work, but as the first principle of the whole
matter of the science;63 the mode of theological investigation
per rationes is shown to rest on the prior mode of citing
authority;64 and in describing the proper end of the science as
the manifestation of the hidden things of faith “so far as is
possible on our pilgrim way,”65 St. Thomas gestures toward its
ultimate end, the complete manifestation of God granted in the
Beatific Vision. This consideration of De trinitate according to
first principles, moreover, derives from the First Principle itself,
for inspection shows66 that St. Thomas resolves every part of the
analysis to the knowledge of God which he himself has received
in faith. This is why the prologue is brimming with scriptural
citations and allusions, as Torrell so rightly emphasizes,67 and
why it is oriented toward and structured by the verse from the
Book of Wisdom. This mode of proceeding, of course, is per
auctoritates—that is, the primary mode of the science. But at
the same time, St. Thomas makes use of the rationes of
philosophy, not only in his general analysis of De trinitate,
whose debt to the doctrine of the four causes is unmistakable,
but also in the particulars. The account of natural knowledge,68
58

75:20-23, 25-28, citing 1 Cor 2:10 and 2 Cor 4:13.
See above, n. 58.
60
See above, n. 58.
61
75:6-10, 29-30, citing Rom 1:20 and Wis 13:5.
62
75:3-6, alluding to Wis 9:15 and St. Augustine, De trinitate 1.2 (PL 42:822; CCL
50:31). As Torrell points out, this reference to Wisdom implies a properly theological
understanding of the corruptibility of the human body: “God is not the author of death”
(Wis 1:13), rather, “God created man for immortality and made him an image of His
own eternity, but through the envy of the devil death entered the world” (Wis 2:23-24).
See Torrell, “Philosophie et théologie,” 20 n. 4.
63
75:47-76:96, citing Prov 8:24, Ps 2:7, Eph 3:15, Col 1:15, and Prov 8:22.
64
76:103-12, citing Sir 39:1 and the example of St. Augustine’s De trinitate.
65
76:114-17, citing Sir 24:31.
66
See scriptural citations provided above, nn. 57-63.
67
See Torrell, “Philosophie et théologie,” 18.
68
75:29-30.
59

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243

for example, is clearly informed by the Aristotelian thesis that
there is nothing in the intellect that is not first in the senses. In
thus ordering philosophy to the higher ends of sacred theology,
St. Thomas exhibits the third mark of theological wisdom, that
of ruling and directing the lower sciences. In every way, then,
St. Thomas himself speaks as the wise man in considering De
trinitate as a work of his own sapiential science. With this in
mind, if we reinterpret the divine wisdom to which it refers as
sacred theology, the epigraph to the prologue of the Expositio
emerges as a bold and concise declaration of St. Thomas’s own
intention: “From the beginning of her birth will I search, and I
will bring the science of her into the light.”69
IV. DE TRINITATE AS THEOLOGY INCARNATE
Such a study illustrates the doctrine stated plainly in question
5, article 4: “theology is principally about God as about a
subject, but it takes up many things about creatures according as
they are his effects or are in any way related to him.”70 Being an
expression of the exercise of the science of the self-revealing
God, Boethius’s De trinitate stands in a definite relation to the
principal or proper subject of that science, and, as such, is itself
an apt object for theological consideration.
The subject studied in the prologue is accordingly twofold.
Materially speaking, it is “the present opusculum, composed for
Symmachus, a patrician of Rome.”71 What constitutes this matter as a subject appropriate to sacred theology, however, is its
character as a theological work, since it is in virtue of this that
the opusculum relates to God as known by faith, the proper
subject of the science. Ultimately and universally, then, the
subject that defines St. Thomas’s consideration here as scientific
is God himself, and in this respect the Expositio is of a piece
with straightforwardly theological works such as the Summa
theologiae. Proximately and particularly, however, the formal
69

See above, n. 33.
Q. 5, a. 4, ad 8 (156:339-41).
71
75:44-46.
70

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JOSEPH HAGGARTY

component of the subject is the science of sacred theology—a
subtopic, one could say, of the science as a whole. From this
point of view, the Expositio is somewhat like a greatly expanded version of question 1 of the Summa, though it is
undertaken as a self-standing study. In the Summa, by contrast,
the examination of the nature of the science constitutes a
justification of the method presently to be employed in the
work’s consideration of the classic, “first-order” subtopics: the
existence and essence of God, the Holy Trinity, creation, man’s
ordination to God as his final end, sin, the Incarnation, the
Redemption, the sacraments, and so on.
V. UNITY EXPOSED
We can now return to our original concern: the unity of the
Expositio. If the prologue is the whole in microcosm, then the
textual expositions and quaestiones constitute complementary
parts of a single theological and sapiential consideration of a
single composite subject—namely, De trinitate, which is its
material component, and the sapiential science of theology,
which is its form. The expositions, then, are not a superfluous
pretext for the quaestiones, but an indispensable preparation for
them, in which the principles of theology are laid bare in their
nature as principles, and furthermore as principles of a groundbreaking theological masterpiece; thus St. Thomas demonstrates
the proper character of his own discussion of their truth.72 By
72
This reading of the Expositio invites a consideration of its relationship to Super
sententiis.
If one agrees with Chenu’s claim (see above, nn. 27 and 30) that St. Thomas has no
intrinsic interest in the Lombard’s text, but only uses it as an occasion for the
development of his own views, the foregoing account of the Expositio as a case study in
scientific theology implies that these two works belong to different genres. A striking
difference between the analyses of the works which St. Thomas gives in his respective
prologues would support this conclusion. In the prologue to book 1 of Super sententiis,
St. Thomas determines only the material cause of the work, that is, the subject treated
therein, both as a whole and in its parts. This fits with Chenu’s view that St. Thomas
regards the Sentences merely as a source from which he can extract the subjects which
he wishes to discuss in the quaestiones. Yet in the Expositio, as we have seen, he lays out
all four causes of the work—a procedure which he follows in the scriptural

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the same token, he is not simply explaining the Roman theologian’s teaching, or even, strictly speaking, engaging in a
dialogue with him. The doctrine and guiding concerns of the
quaestiones are St. Thomas’s own, and his proper interest lies
not in what Boethius is saying, but what he is doing in saying it.
The Expositio, in other words, is not a commentary in the
normal sense, but a “meta-commentary”—a master’s reflection
on principles of his own discipline exemplified in a masterwork
of an illustrious predecessor.
How the quaestiones constitute a unity among themselves on
the account offered here may be briefly indicated by a glance at
question 3, article 4 and question 4, articles 2-4, which have so
far defied all attempts to place them within a common science,
let alone under a particular subject within that science. The first,
it will be recalled, raises its eyes to the Catholic doctrine of the
Trinity, the acme of immaterial actuality, while the second
descends to the humblest principle of material substances. Yet
both are principles of Boethius’s discourse in chapter 1, as St.
Thomas’s exposition makes clear.73 The doctrine of the Trinity
is, of course, the material principle, the particular subject under
consideration. In treating of it, Boethius engages in the theological mode of argumentation per rationes described in the
prologue. His account of the article of faith rests on the
philosophical thesis that the principle of plurality is otherness,
and this in turn is grounded in his account of the principle of
individuation, one which involves the assertion that no two
commentaries as well (see Torrell, “Philosophie et théologie,” 14-15). This indicates
that St. Thomas is concerned with De trinitate in its own right; to this extent, the
Expositio would be a “commentary” more closely resembling those on the books of
Scripture than Super sententiis.
Alternatively, one might conclude from the quality of St. Thomas’s divisio and expositio of the Sentences that, contrary to Chenu’s claim, the Angelic Doctor is concerned
with that work in its own right as well. In this case, the relationship between the two
“commentaries” becomes more subtle: the Expositio might represent a refinement in the
theological method of a genre whose first instance in St. Thomas is Super sententiis. (For
this latter proposal I am indebted to a reader of this article for The Thomist.) A
thorough examination of the method followed in Super sententiis would determine
which of these lines of inquiry would be more fruitful.
73
103:9-12; 104:63-69, 99-132.

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JOSEPH HAGGARTY

bodies can occupy a single common place.74 By taking up these
subjects in question 4, St. Thomas is simply examining the
principles at work in the text before him; since they are
philosophical in nature, he, just as much the sapiential
theologian as Boethius, employs the services of philosophy.
Although it has the appearance of a strictly philosophical
discussion,75 then, the fourth quaestio, as conducted within the
context of the Expositio, also belongs to the sacred theologian’s
consideration of his own sapiential science as instanced in
Boethius’s work.
The view proposed here cannot be accepted with full
confidence until it is shown how it explains the unity of St.
Thomas’s work in every detail. But I hope that the foregoing
has succeeded in showing two things. First, the effort is
worthwhile. Second, a promising place to continue the search
for that “some one thing” without which the Expositio would
be an essentially defective book—and with which we can more
accurately understand the doctrine presented in it—is the
prologue’s sapiential theological treatment of Boethius’s work
as an outstanding embodiment of the science of sacred theology.

74

104:63-69; 104:99-105:184.
Even this is not quite true. The theological character of the discussion does shine
through in q. 4, a. 3, where the first objector appeals to the miracles of the Virgin Birth
and the risen Christ’s entry into the locked room in which his disciples were hiding in
order to argue that two bodies can indeed occupy the same place (126:1-15). Saint
Thomas addresses the principle of the theological difficulty in his reply to the objection
(129:208-130:230). These details, of course, strengthen the case for an ultimately
theological, as opposed to a merely philosophical, reading of this text.
75

The Thomist 85 (2021): 247-93

THOMISM AS A TRADITION OF UNDERSTANDING
JEREMY D. WILKINS
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

But in choosing or rejecting opinions, one ought not be led by love or hatred
for the one who introduces the opinion, but rather by the surety of the truth;
and therefore we ought to love both those whose opinion we follow and those
whose opinion we reject. Both have diligently inquired into the truth, and
helped us in this.1

S

CHOLASTIC THEOLOGIANS were wont to identify
themselves with schools. Despite their differences, the
schools shared a common set of questions and a common
procedure for establishing a question. Schools could be distinguished and related by their positions on these questions.
Thus, a century and a half ago, the renowned historian of
dogma Théodore de Régnon remarked that Thomism, in its
widest sense, indicates the doctrinal options proper to the
Dominican school, but, in a more restricted sense, means the
positions of Bañez over against those of Luis de Molina on the
efficacy of grace, predestination, and divine operation.2 As this

1

Thomas Aquinas, XII Metaphys., lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 2566, ad fin): “Sed, quia in
eligendis opinionibus vel repudiandis, non debet duci homo amore vel odio
introducentis opinionem, sed magis ex certitudine veritatis, ideo dicit quod oportet
amare utrosque, scilicet eos quorum opinionem sequimur, et eos quorum opinionem
repudiamus. Utrique enim studuerunt ad inquirendam veritatem, et nos in hoc
adiuverunt.” Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. The words taken here
in epigraph are quoted by John of St. Thomas at the conclusion of his article on the
marks of a Thomist (see below, section II).
2
Théodore de Régnon, Bañes et Molina: Histoire, doctrines, critique métaphysique
(Paris: Houdin, 1883), vi; cf. William Matthew Diem, “Why Not to Be a ‘Thomist’: A
247

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JEREMY D. WILKINS

example suggests, however, historical scholarship has troubled
our conception of the relationship between the schools and
their eponymous masters.3 More momentously, it has dissolved
the situation in which recognizable schools could flourish in
controversial relation to one another. Theologians disagree not
only in their evaluation of past achievement but also about what
the important questions are today. Scholarship has become
more sophisticated, but also more difficult to integrate systematically and coordinate methodically. The range of discourses
now trading as “theological” is riotously diverse. The deprecation of Scholastic theology and philosophy may be one point
on which almost everyone agrees. School loyalty seems otiose.
Thomism, however, continues to inspire a following. The
nature of the Thomist tradition has been the object of explicit
reflection among professing Thomists ever since the provocation of William de la Mare’s Correctorium fratris Thomae in
the thirteenth century, and continues to be so today.4 Still, as
Critique of the Bañezian Reconciliation of Divine Foreknowledge and Human
Freedom,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 22 (2020): 191-218.
3
See Géry Prouvost, Thomas d’Aquin et les thomismes: Essai sur l’histoire des
thomismes, Cogitatio fidei 195 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1996), 14-17. The difference
between the thought of Aquinas and the school that he inspired has been widely
recognized, both as an historical fact and, as we shall see presently, as an aspiration.
Jean-Pierre Torrell distinguishes “Thomasian” thought from the tradition of his school,
Bernard Lonergan used “Thomist” and “Thomistic” to the same effect, and German
theologians commonly distinguish “Thomanism” from “Thomism.” See Jean-Pierre
Torrell, Recherches thomasiennes: Études revues et augumentées (Paris: Librairie
philosophique J. Vrin, 2000); Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Verbum: Word and Idea in
Aquinas, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, Collected Works 2 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1997), 153 n. 5; Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, “Systematic
Theology: Task and Methods,” in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives,
ed. Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991),
18.
4
See Michael Demkovich, “Meister Eckhart and the Controversial Corrections of
Aquinas,” New Blackfriars 91, no. 1033 (2010): 335-44; Elizabeth Lowe, The Contested
Theological Authority of Thomas Aquinas: The Controversies between Hervaeus Natalis
and Durandus of St. Pourçain, Studies in Medieval History and Culture 17 (New York:
Routledge, 2003); but see also Thomas Prügl's review of this same book in Speculum 80
(2005): 627-28. For a brief, accessible history, see Romanus Cessario and Cajetan
Cuddy, Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of Thomas Aquinas and His
Interpreters, Mapping the Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017).

THOMISM AS A TRADITION OF UNDERSTANDING

249

more recent reflections attest, the exemption of Thomists from
the sociological and intellectual transformations of the field has
been, if anything, only partial. A Thomist receives something
from Thomas Aquinas, but what?
“Thomism” may designate the thought or perhaps the system
of Aquinas. In this sense, Thomism can be neither more nor less
perfect than the thought of its originator; only Aquinas is the
ideal Thomist, and the best we can do is internalize his lessons
and defend them as the need of the hour suggests. Alternatively,
“Thomism” can name a set of positions on recognized questions. These positions can be identified in retrospect. But
retrospect does not settle the present, the possibility of a living
Thomism, open to dialectical purification and development in
relation to new questions.
Here, I take up the question of a living Thomism, but what I
have to say is germane, I believe, to larger questions about the
development and authority of theological traditions. First, I distinguish traditions of belief from traditions of understanding,
and suggest that a tradition like Thomism ought to be understood primarily as a tradition of understanding. However, the
matter is not quite so simple, especially in the case of Aquinas,
who came to occupy a place of unique privilege in the firmament of Catholic thought. A second section, accordingly,
considers how the authority of Aquinas has been construed, and
a third examines his enduring value. Besides Aquinas, there is
the matter of Thomism. It once seemed possible to define
Thomism by a set of theses on common Scholastic questions,
but the introduction of new questions, the re-evaluation of
some old ones, and historical criticism of the Thomist tradition
has complicated matters. What, then, is it? At the very least,
Thomism is a complex of intellectual and social relations among
thinkers whose positions are shaped, in fundamental ways, by
an apprenticeship to Aquinas, as I argue in a fourth section.
What it might yet be, in our very different, post-Scholastic
context, I suggest in a fifth part by the example of Bernard
Lonergan.

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I. BELIEF AND UNDERSTANDING
In a famous little quodlibet, Aquinas was asked whether a
teacher ought to respond to questions by giving reasons or authorities.5 He answered by distinguishing two sorts of question.
If the student is asking what ought to be believed, the teacher
should reply with trusted authorities. But if the student is asking
how to understand what is believed, the teacher is bound to give
reasons, however imperfect, lest the hearers go away empty.
The two questions move on different levels, corresponding to
different acts of the mind: assent and understanding.
In a broad and improper sense, we are said to “know”
whatever enters our experience. Properly speaking, however,
knowledge is achieved through true judgment. Judgment is a
rational act that proceeds from a grasp of the evidence on a
question as sufficient grounds for a (certain or more or less
probable) yes or no. One must distinguish, however, the
judgments that arise through immanently generated knowledge
from the judgments that are acts of believing others. Immanently generated knowledge designates what is known
through one’s own understanding and judgment: because I
understand, I am able to work out the conditions for judgment;
because I grasp those conditions to be fulfilled in fact, I can
affirm thus and so to be true.6
Belief is collaborative knowledge rather than immanently
generated knowledge. Belief is assent that rests on a decision,
and the decision in turn rests on the (often tacit) judgments that
someone can and should be trusted. To believe, in other words,
is to take another’s word for what I myself do not (properly)
understand and, therefore, cannot competently judge.7 To believe, then, is to know by collaboration, by deciding to accept
5

Quodl. IV, q. 9, a. 3. Cf. STh I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2.
Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, ed. Frederick E.
Crowe and Robert M. Doran, Collected Works 3 (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1992), 296-340.
7
Lonergan, Insight, 725-40. By thus contrasting belief with immanently generated
knowledge, I am using the word “belief” differently from those epistemologies that
define knowledge as “justified true belief” or the like.
6

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what others know and understand as part of my own
knowledge though I do not understand their knowledge.
Believing is fundamental to collaboration and to learning, and
therefore to the human good as historical project.8
Both the judgment of belief and the judgment regarding
immanently generated understanding are eminently reasonable,
but their reasonableness differs. In the case of immanently
generated knowledge, assent concludes a process that regards a
possibly relevant understanding of some matter and asks for
evidence to affirm it. But in the case of belief, assent concludes a
process that begins with asking whether someone can and ought
to be trusted. Because the judgments of credibility (fact) and
credentity (value) are reasonable, belief is reasonable, even if the
objects believed are hardly understood.
In short, the vector of belief is from above, so to speak,
downwards: from trust in someone’s competence and honesty,
to the decision to assent though one has not fully understood,
to the gradual development, perhaps, of some (proper or analogous) understanding of one’s own: crede ut intelligas. The vector of immanently generated knowledge, conversely, is from
below upwards: from the schematic representation of problems
in phantasm, to insight and formulation, to a reflective construal and appraisal of the evidence grounding a reasonable and
measured judgment on a matter one has personally understood.
The difference between the transmission of knowledge
through belief and the transmission of knowledge through the
development of understanding gives us two senses of tradition.
Because to believe is to hold in trust what only another
understands and knows to be true, traditions of belief rest on
authority. What is handed on is received insofar as it is believed.
A tradition of understanding, by contrast, is successfully handed
on and received just insofar as its fundamental insights and skills
are assimilated. One becomes a believer by accepting the word,
8

Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Method in Theology, ed. John D. Dadosky and Robert M.
Doran, Collected Works 14 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 42-47.

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but one becomes a scientist or a mathematician only by
developing one’s own understanding.
Nevertheless, our formulation of this difference so far is only
a first approximation. Concretely, belief and understanding are
so interdependent as to be inseparable, though perhaps not
indistinguishable, in practice. This is so not only in a static sense
(the current inventory of one’s knowledge) but also in a
dynamic sense, in the coming-to-be of one’s knowledge of the
world. Learning and teaching are an identity; where there is no
learning, there may be words and deeds, but there is no
teaching. But learning, and therefore teaching, is a gradual
process. At the outset it is a matter of successive approximations
in the learner to the understanding possessed by the teacher.
Almost of necessity, therefore, the teacher of beginners is initially involved in what she knows to be vast oversimplifications,
and the beginning pupil is involved in misunderstandings quite
beyond his competence to measure. But gradually the
simplifications are complicated, corrected, and qualified; gradually and almost imperceptibly, the pupil acquires the coalescence of insights and the familiarity with the matter that will
eventually make him a competent judge in his own right.
Because learning is such a process, even a tradition of
understanding may begin with the trust a pupil reposes in a
teacher and a consequent belief in her teachings. Belief comes
first and understanding follows; crede ut intelligas holds, in its
way, for education generally.9 Still, the goal of an educational
tradition, it seems to me, is more properly the development of
understanding than the communication of truths, and the giving
(traditio) and receiving are an identity. If a proportionate
development of understanding does not occur, the tradition is
not, properly speaking, handed down. Perhaps it is even
radically betrayed.10

9
See De Verit., q. 10, a. 14; In Boet. de Trin., q. 3, a. 1. Discussion in Oliva
Blanchette, “Philosophy and Theology in Aquinas: On Being a Disciple in Our Day,”
Science et esprit 28 (1976): 34-35.
10
See Alasdair C. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3d ed. (Notre
Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 1-5.

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Any modern science, furthermore, involves a vast collaboration. No scientist wastes her time trying to prove everything that has already been established or master every skill
pertinent to her field; she takes the competence and honesty of
her colleagues more or less for granted, confident that
methodical procedures will eventually expose experimental
errors and theoretical defects to yield more complete, verified
understanding. Scientific collaboration, accordingly, involves a
good deal of belief, whatever the conceits of “scientism.”11
Nevertheless, the collaboration is methodical precisely because
it rests on the development of complementary competencies,
that is, interlaced and overlapping capacities for experimentation, understanding, and judgment. A scientific tradition could
not be scientific in any meaningful sense apart from the
proportionate development of the relevant and complementary
competencies in those who receive it.
Now, both these circumstances have their parallels in theology, for theology is an educational tradition and it is also a
collaborative inquiry. But theology involves a further element of
belief, insofar as it regards the mysteries of faith. For the mysteries are hidden in God and accepted by us only through divine
revelation. Where the natural sciences begin with data, Aquinas’s sacra doctrina—I shall speak of the systematic or speculative function of theology—begins with truths.12 Systematic
11

By “scientism” I mean, roughly, the conceit that scientific knowledge is the only
valid form of knowledge and that it is appropriately contrasted to belief as the rational
to the irrational.
12
I leave aside disputed questions about how exactly Aquinas conceived sacra
doctrina, or how we might best render the term in English. We do not have to
determine the whole content of Aquinas’s concept of sacra doctrina to say that it is a
subalternated science presupposing revealed truths. I shall speak rather of systematic
theology, not because I wish to determine the meaning of sacra doctrina but because I
would transpose Aquinas’s quest for an intelligentia fidei into the larger context of a
functionally differentiated theology in which systematics is but a single function. See
Lonergan, Method (CWL 14), 121-38; discussion in Jeremy D. Wilkins, Before Truth:
Lonergan, Aquinas, and the Problem of Wisdom (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2018), 180-230.

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theology, that is to say, is a subalternated science. As
subalternated, it presupposes the articles of faith as true. As a
science, it develops explanatory understanding. But theological
understanding is never proportionate to the mysteries held in
faith; it is analogical, imperfect, obscure, developing, and
nevertheless highly fruitful. Analogical understanding is analogical precisely because our insight is not directly into the
mystery, which exceeds the proportion of our understanding,
but rather into the analogue proportionate to our understanding; in this life we know what God is not and what God is
like, but not what God is. Systematic theology, then, begins
with a prior assent to the mysteries and proceeds to the
development of an imperfect and analogical understanding as its
proper task; theological theory is scientific only on the basis of
assumed truths. Of course, theologians make consequent
judgments about the relative adequacy of this or that theological
account of the mysteries, but these judgments never achieve the
certitude antecedently proper to the mysteries themselves,
which a believer is bound to regard as most certain.13
This conception might suggest that the relationship of belief
to understanding is a one-way street in theology. In fact, they
are interdependent in theology as in life and, as we already
noted, in education. In life, this is because what is not at least
minimally understood is all the easier to reject, forget, or doubt.
In theology their interdependence is cumulative and ongoing,
for advances in theological understanding ripen the conditions
for doctrinal judgments, and doctrinal judgments open the way
to, and set the problems for, the further development of
theological understanding.
Though interdependent, doctrine and theory are distinct.
One does not assent to the Trinity because one grasps the possibility of subsistent relations or, still less, because one has an
elegant hypothesis of intelligible emanations in God. We do not

13
For a valuable discussion of this question, see Bernard J. F. Lonergan, The Triune
God: Systematics, ed. Robert M. Doran and H. Daniel Monsour, trans. Michael G.
Shields, Collected Works 12 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 30-58 (Latin
with interleaf translation).

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expect to improve upon revealed truths, though perhaps we
may grasp and state their meaning more clearly. We know that
in the matter of revelation, we are believers possessed of
mystery, and not judges except in a very qualified sense.
We ought, however, to expect a continuous development of
theological understanding, or at least we might if contemporary
theology approximated a scientific discipline whose practitioners could agree about its present problems and past achievements, rather than being a welter of uncoordinated activities
and results. This development will also have the character of
successive transpositions to fuller and richer scientific contexts,
a topic to which we shall return below. The mysteries of faith
are permanent; but theological contexts are relative to scientific
and popular cultures, which are not permanent.
When, therefore, theology is conceived of as an ongoing and
collaborative enterprise, one has to trust others and rely on
their results. The collaborative believing I have in mind, however, is not a condition of coming to understand what is
believed, but a condition of coming to understand other questions. If, for instance, I include within a Christology seminar a
unit on the New Testament testimony, I incorporate the
scholarly findings of others whose work I have neither the
intention nor the capacity to reproduce. I can, of course, follow
and critique an argument; but the premises in an historical
argument are themselves judgments, and at some point my competence to reoriginate those judgments ends. A collaborative
interdependence of this kind is not quite the same as believing a
teacher as a preliminary step in coming to understand for
oneself what the teacher understands, but it illustrates one
source of the novelty of our situation. If one considers theology
in its full sweep of activities—of which the systematic function
is but one—it seems quite impossible to conceive it as a habit in
a single mind.

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II. THE THOMIST TRADITION
What kind of tradition is Thomism, and what kind of
tradition ought it to be? On the question of fact, we shall
presently hear from representative Thomists. On the question of
value, an answer is at least implicit in the doctrine and practice
of Aquinas himself. The apostles and the prophets attest the
truth of revelation; the theologians manifest its meaning by
adducing probable reasons.14 Hence our distinction between
traditions of belief and traditions of understanding would seem
to run parallel to Aquinas’s distinction between the chair of the
pastors, whose doctrine is the proclamation of the Gospel
(doctrina praedicationis), and the chair of the theologians,
whose doctrine is theological science (doctrina scholastica), a
wisdom acquired through study and imparted to others on the
basis of acquired competence.15 As he understood himself to
exercise the theological chair (magisterium cathedrae
magistralis), it seems indubitable he would wish us to take him
as a mentor in the acquisition of wisdom through study. As a
practical matter, this matches his stated aim in composing the
Summa theologiae as a textbook suitable to beginners, not in
faith but in theological science.16
Thomism, then, is, or should be, more a tradition of
understanding than a tradition of belief. For the sake of
convenience, and not to argue over words, let us distinguish an
apprentice from a disciple. A disciple belongs permanently to
the tutelage of a master. An apprentice acquires the master’s
craft to become a master in her own right. We are, then, disciples in relation to Christ, and we believe him unconditionally
because in this life we do not and cannot grasp the truth of the
mysteries intrinsically. In relation to Aquinas, however, we are
14

STh 1, q. 8, a. 2.
See Quodl. III, q. 4, a. 1; Contra impugn., p. 2, c. 1, ad 2. Compare STh I, q. 1,
a. 6, ad 3. The neo-Scholastics commonly distinguished two magisteria, one (the
ecclesiastical) attestans, another (the theologians’) docens seu scientificum. See Avery
Dulles, A Church to Believe In: Discipleship and the Dynamics of Freedom (New York:
Crossroad, 1983), 109, 113-15, 118-19.
16
Blanchette, “Philosophy and Theology in Aquinas,” 34-43.
15

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apprentices. We believe him provisionally as a route to the
acquisition of wisdom, much as he himself learned from
Aristotle or Augustine.
That might be the end of the matter, were it not the case that
the name and the doctrine of Aquinas held, and to some extent
still hold, pride of place in the firmament of Catholic thought.
Indeed, so great has been the authority of Aquinas that he is
called Common Doctor, and one may find handbooks setting
forth his official bona fides.17 This authority is not that of an
original witness to revelation. It is not that proper to the chair
of the pastors, though it enjoys their endorsement. It would
seem to be like the authority of a grand master in the guild of
his craft. But how shall we understand this, if the craft itself
develops? And what is owed to the Church’s preference for
Aquinas, in view of the peculiar symbiosis of belief and
understanding in theology? These questions shall occupy us in
this section and the next.
Though he cannot be said to have envisioned the questions
just as we have put them, John of St. Thomas (Poinsot) at least
attempted an explicit statement on Thomas and Thomism. He
prefaced his commentary on the Summa theologiae with a
treatise, in two disputations, on the approbation and authority
of Aquinas.18 I shall summarize at length to convey something of
17

See J. J. Berthier, Sanctus Thomas Aquinas “doctor communis” ecclesiae (Rome:
Editrice Nazionale, 1914); Santiago Ramirez, De auctoritate doctrinali S. Thomae
Aquinatis (Salamanca: S. Stephanus, 1952), esp. 35-107; in English, “The Authority of
St. Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist 15 (1952): esp. 20-73. Ramirez appeared first in
English and soon after, with minor revisions and extensive supporting documentation in
appendices, in Latin. For his part, Berthier produced some six hundred pages of
testimonies gathered mainly from the Roman pontiffs, the general councils, and eminent
prelates. He tells us that Thomas is called common doctor, first, because of the way he
investigated and adhered to the common doctrine of the church, and second, because of
the solemn and frequent manner in which the Church has endorsed his theology
(lxi-lxii).
18
Page references in the text refer to two editions: John of St. Thomas [Poinsot],
Cursus theologici, vol. 1 (Complutum [Alcalá de Henares]: Antonio Vazquez, 1537),
www.prdl.org; John of St. Thomas [Poinsot], Cursus theologici, Solesmes, vol. 1 (Paris:

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Poinsot’s spirit. His object in the first disputation is to
determine the meaning of the church’s endorsement. There are
different levels of ecclesiastical approbation (disp. 1, a. 1
[187-90/225-28]). The Church’s commendation of Aquinas is a
positive and special preference, superior to the preference accorded other doctors of the Church, comparable to but wider
than that accorded St. Augustine on grace. This is proved from
the testimony of the universal Church, of the Roman pontiffs,
and of the Council of Trent (disp. 1, a. 2 [190-200/228-39]).
Contrary opinions are refuted (disp. 1, a. 4 [208-15/248-55]).
So high an endorsement could only be possible were Aquinas’s
doctrine certainly free from error (“sine ullo prorsus errore”
[219/261]), and not indefensible on any point (disp. 1, a. 3
[200-208/240-48]). Naturally it also means that the defense of
Thomas is likewise a defense of the Church’s judgment
(186/222).
The second disputation, accordingly, is largely devoted to
common imprecations of his teaching (disp. 2, aa. 1-4 [219-51/
262-97]), but its concluding article sets forth five marks (signa)
of the true and proper disciples of Aquinas.19 Thomism, as
Poinsot presents it, is a sociological fact, a community of
belonging and service, a tradition of devotion and of study. One
enters this community by devotion to Aquinas. It is not
necessary to have yet reached his mind; it is enough to seek it,
to promote it, to adhere to it as true and as Catholic (disp. 2,
a. 5 [251/297]). Nevertheless, the doctrine of Aquinas is and has
been understood differently by different readers, each perDesclée, 1931). The former is available at the Post-Reformation Digital Library. The
latter is the critical edition.
19
A summary and discussion of the five marks is provided by Jörgen Vijgen, “What
Is a Thomist? The Contribution of John of St. Thomas,” Thomistica.Net (blog),
December 10, 2018; https://thomistica.net/. Vijgen describes Poinsot’s approach as a
“moral or psychological” construal of what makes a Thomist, because rather than
foregrounding a set of doctrines or a methodological orientation, it foregrounds a suite
of intellectual and moral dispositions: “humility, honesty, affectus and love for the
truth, combined with a sense of realism regarding the human condition.” But, as Vijgen
explains, the moral, doctrinal, and methodological approaches are complementary and,
indeed, it seems that the moral alone, without reference to a concrete tradition of
thought, could hardly define a Thomist—neither Poinsot nor Vijgen suggests otherwise.

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suaded of the correctness of her own understanding, and
Poinsot proposes his five marks to discriminate the wheat from
the chaff in this history (251/297-98).
Thomism is a concrete tradition of interpretation. Just as a
Catholic understands Scripture in accord with the ecclesiastical
tradition, so the Thomist reads Aquinas through the authentic
and continuous tradition of his disciples. Though not unanimous on every point, the school is sufficiently agreed on the
major points to offer reliable guidance, wherever the mind of
Aquinas is unclear (mark 1° [251-52/298]). To belong to this
tradition is to promote its concord and unity; discord, though
inevitable, only serves to derogate from the authority of the
master (5° [254/300-301]).
Thomism is a tradition of ministerial, martial (militia), devotional service. Aquinas and his school are to be defended. They
are his worthy heirs who now enlist in the legitimate succession
of his disciples to fight under its banner. Intellectual penetration
is a form of care, and care begins with love. Thus, a special love
for Aquinas is to be carefully cultivated, and it is altogether
better to praise his doctrine, even where it is not understood,
than to wish to depart from it. Motivated by affection for the
saint himself and for his teaching, they are to defend his
doctrine and overcome difficulties rather than find excuses to
deviate from it, even if their own limitations, or his profundity,
prevent them from understanding or expressing it fully (2°
[252-53/298-99]). A disciple at heart and in truth is not
concerned for his own glory but for the glory of the teacher and
the propagation of his doctrine. A Thomist, accordingly, prefers
the teaching of Aquinas to her own opinion, to applause, or to
novelty, and regards herself as his minister (3° [253/299]).
The disciple of Aquinas not only accepts his conclusions but
wishes to expound and declare his reasons, lest the positions of
the master appear baseless. There is no science without reasons;
unless Aquinas’s reasons are understood, his science is not
possessed, and unless they are defended, he is not well served.
No one could venerate him and not wish to possess his scientific

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understanding. Doctrine (dogma) progresses, as St. Vincent of
Lerins explained, not by alteration but by deepening understanding, science, and wisdom, within the same kind, meaning,
and judgment (genus, sensus, dogma), always maintaining its
fullness, integrity, and property (plenitudo, integritas, proprietas). This applies also to the doctrine of Aquinas, and should be
the aim of his disciples. Apparent contradictions are to be
harmonized and obscure passages explained from clearer ones
(4° [253-54/299-300]). Poinsot admits, however, that Aquinas’s
thought developed, and gives pride of place to the Summa
theologiae as the work of his maturity (disp. 1, a. 5
[215-19/255-60]).
Poinsot’s five marks are a suite of dispositions linked directly
to a concrete tradition of interpretation and, obliquely, to the
positions staked out by that tradition. His overarching purpose
in laying them out seems twofold: first, to distinguish the
authentic tradition so that one may attach oneself to it, and
second, to encourage its ideals. The tenor, on balance, is
devotional: Thomism is a military service, a ministry, a devotion
to his person and his school, a care for his glory. The values of
identity, continuity, and certitude loom large. The school reads
Thomas in an authentic and continuous tradition, like the
Church reads Scripture: his doctrine is safe, probably safest, it
has a permanence and a development comparable to that of
dogma. A Thomist, then, is identified by his attachment to this
tradition; the marks are, as it were, conditions of belonging and
ideals of service; and the Thomistic school is identified both
sociologically, by an historical succession of interpreters—
Poinsot gives a list of names from Capreolus to Soto—and
doctrinally, by its positions on the major Scholastic questions.
Is Thomism, so construed, a tradition of belief or a tradition
of understanding, a discipleship or an apprenticeship? It seems
ambiguous. The extrinsic motivations—authority, especially
that of the Church, certitude or safety, and the continuity of the
school—are more proper to a tradition of belief. So too, it
might seem, are the antecedent commitments to defend and
propagate, hold and praise a teaching though one has not (yet)
fully understood it, to prefer the master’s opinions and be

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unwilling to deviate from them, to make oneself his minister
and soldier. Reliance on the recommendation of the Church
seems especially congruent, however, to the status of theology
as a subaltern science; we shall return to this below. These
motivations ground a commitment to personal development
that is obviously laudatory and essential to apprenticeship. The
presumption that one’s present failures of understanding are
more likely due to the limitations of the pupil than those of the
master has a sound basis in the provisional deference owed by a
student to a teacher, before the student has become a competent
judge in her own right.
It is easy for the student, who has benefitted from years of
apprenticeship to the extraordinary mind of Aquinas, to
appreciate Poinsot’s devotion. It is difficult, however, to find it
praiseworthy without qualification. Today, the Thomistic
commentators are often derided as epigones who aimed for
fidelity but betrayed the genius of their master. They failed to
reach up to his authentic ideas but more importantly failed to
realize his intellectual spirit. It would seem rather involved to
judge such a question, and I do not intend to do so here. It is
enough to point out that intellectual devotion is a two-edged
sword. It can be an operator of growth and learning, but also a
source of group-think, of a stifling fear of innovation, and of
party spirit. The formation of opposed schools almost inevitably
resulted in students learning to repeat and praise the “correct”
doctrines even if they did not understand them. It gave rise,
further, to the genre of textbooks ad mentem Thomae which, by
vastly simplifying and often impoverishing the thought of the
master, diminished the power of his thought to transform
minds.20
The aim of apprenticeship is personal mastery. Properly
speaking, the doctrine of Aquinas is not a mystery of faith but a
synthesis of understanding that can be given and taken only by
the proportionate development of one’s own mind. The
20

See Prouvost, Thomas d’Aquin et les thomismes, 43-48.

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decision to put one’s own gifts at the service of a better thinker
can be a responsible use of them. The methodical way of doing
so, however, is not to substitute another’s judgment for one’s
own, but carefully to distinguish direct discourse, speaking for
oneself, from indirect discourse, speaking of another. To explain a position is to speak of another, but to defend it is to
speak for oneself. In a tradition of understanding, a position
becomes one’s own by personal understanding, judgment, and
decision.
Finally, Poinsot’s commitment to the harmony of the texts
and the school is in tension with our commitment to historical
methods. The temptation to harmonize can be a font of
misreadings. It also inhibits our learning one of Aquinas’s most
important lessons: the continuous enlargement of one’s mind.
The history of the school is more complex than Poinsot lets on.
His theological context is also relatively static compared to our
own. It seems to suppose the essential principles for resolving
the essential questions for intelligence have been laid out once
for all. Such an attitude only seems possible when everyone
agrees what the important questions are, no one expects a scientific revolution, and confidence or certitude are the intellectual
priorities. There seems to be at least an ambiguity here about
the speculative or systematic function of theology, a tension
perhaps inherent in the conception of science derived from the
Posterior Analytics: is speculative theology a quest for certitude
(certa cognitio), or a quest for explanatory understanding (per
causas)?
Let us turn to a more recent example. Santiago Ramirez, one
of the more important neo-Thomists of the twentieth century,
framed the question of authority in terms of the virtue of
obedience to the Church, in a treatise first published in English
in The Thomist and, later that year, as a Latin booklet with
additional supporting appendices.21 Although most of Ramirez’s
21
Ramirez, “Authority of St. Thomas Aquinas”; Ramirez, De auctoritate doctrinali S.
Thomae Aquinatis. References in the text are to the English first, then the corresponding
Latin. No translator is named, and the Latin text seems more developed than the
English, so one imagines a Latin original, translated at an early stage for The Thomist,
and later expanded for independent publication. It bears noting that the English

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work is a selection and arrangement of official documents, his
basic question regards their force and obligation (2/10). Again, I
will summarize at length. Ramirez distinguishes the philosophical from the theological authority of Aquinas, and his
intrinsic, scientific authority from the extrinsic, canonical
authority conferred by the church (2-3/10-11). Brief discussions
of his intrinsic authority in philosophy (3-9/12-20) and theology
(9-20/20-34) preface a more fulsome treatment of Ramirez’s
real object, Aquinas’s canonical authority both in theology (2146/36-69) and in philosophy (46-73/70-107). “The weight of
this type of authority [viz., canonical] is wholly derived from
the authority of the Church” which, by its long and consistent
commendation, effectively “makes [his] doctrine its own, and
invests [Lat. communicat] it with its own authority” (21/35).
Aquinas is recommended not only in speculative but also in
positive theology and exegesis (29/46), not only in dogma and
morals but also in other departments of theology (34-35/53-55),
not only in theology but also, in a manner unique among
ecclesiastical writers, in philosophy (73/107). Taken all together, “there can be no doubt that the complete doctrinal
authority of Aquinas both intrinsic and extrinsic, by the approval
and commendation of the Church, is truly the greatest among all
ecclesiastical writers in philosophy as well as in theology”
(80/117, emphasis in original).
The deference owed to these ecclesiastical endorsements is
Ramirez’s concluding topic (80-109/118-79). It would be impious and disobedient to condemn, minimize, or deride Aquinas’s philosophical or theological doctrine (81-82/118-21), or
to neglect it, study it insincerely, or seek only its defects
(82-83/121-23). Nor is it sufficient to praise Aquinas as great in
his time but irrelevant to the questions of ours (83-84/123-24),
or to limit his philosophical relevance to a few points of natural
theology and dismiss the rest (Lat. only, 124-39), or to treat
sometimes imparts a force to the Latin that is stronger than necessary: compare, e.g., the
middle of page 100 of the English version to the corresponding Latin (p. 165, ll. 2-4).

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him as merely a representative figure, as if the Church meant to
praise Scholasticism in general not Aquinas in particular, or as if
all Scholastic authors were equally safe and Aquinas were not
the safest, soundest, and surest of them all (84-89/139-46). On
the other hand, it would be too much to deny doctrinal authority to all others (89-91/146-49), or to treat each and every
element of Aquinas’s thought as of equal scientific or canonical
authority (91-93/149-51). The greatest authority attaches to his
most fundamental principles, but even these are not each and all
“imposed upon the mind for belief and assent” (“omnia et
singula imposita . . . ad credendum vel assentiendum mente”),
and their free examination is permitted (93-94/151-53).
Besides, development is human, Aquinas himself developed, and
his system is not so perfect as to exclude further development
(94-96/154-56).
Indeed, Aquinas has nothing to fear from probing
examination or comparison to others, as long as truth is its
genuine aim (96-100/157-65). Still, given all that the Church
has said to approve, commend, and enjoin the study of Aquinas,
“no Catholic is free to deny the matchless doctrinal authority of
Aquinas, whose teaching in philosophy and theology, amidst all
that surround it, not only outside but also within the Church,
she prefers and praises over others” (100/163). Nor is novelty
desirable for its own sake (102-4/166-69), and while it is true
that his disciples ought to strive to do for our age “what the
Angelic Doctor did for his age and what he would do for our
age if he were living” (104/169), still this can hardly mean
substituting for Aristotle the philosophies of our own day, as if
Aquinas had been merely an Aristotelian. Indeed, with the help
of his Christian predecessors, Aquinas purified Aristotelian principles to develop the perennial philosophy, that is, “the philosophy without qualification” (107/172). The errors of modern
philosophy, however, run so deeply contrary to Christian faith
that they can hardly be purified, and, Ramirez ventures, we
must suppose Aquinas would treat them with the greatest
caution (104-8/169-73).
As for Poinsot, so for Ramirez, Thomism is at once a
devotional and an intellectual tradition, and the devotion is

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both to the saint and to the Church. As Ramirez puts it in
summary,
the true cultivation of St. Thomas, according to reality and the
recommendation of the Church, consists in holding sacred and inviolate his
method, principles and doctrine in philosophy and theology, and imitating at
the same time his scientific, intellectual and moral qualities, as well as
cultivating them, and manfully expressing them in the life of his disciples, so
that Thomas continues to live in them completely, especially according to the
spirit. (108)

Here Ramirez echoes the ambient language of his sources and
era, to which we shall return in the next section. The fact itself
of the Church’s approbation makes it all the easier to convert
Thomism into a tradition of belief. Ramirez concludes his survey of Aquinas’s endorsements with an approving quotation
from Joseph de Guibert:
“By the very fact [writes de Guibert] of anyone’s embracing the doctrine of St.
Thomas, he embraces the doctrine most commonly accepted in the Church,
safe and approved by the Church itself . . .; when there is no grave contrary
opinion, the authority of St. Thomas suffices to prefer his opinion.” This is
not only true [Ramirez adds] in theology to which [de Guibert] solely refers,
but in philosophy as well; for there is one and the same force and approbation
for both.22

The approval of the Church gives presumptive confidence in the
conclusions of Aquinas in both theology and philosophy. The
orientation of this confidence is to the truth of Aquinas’s
doctrine, whether or not one has understood it. But does one
authentically embrace the doctrine of Aquinas by holding his
conclusions, or in some other way? That doctrine can be
affirmed by one who barely understands, or by one who
understands badly, or by one who understands thoroughly and
22
Ramirez, “Authority of St. Thomas Aquinas,” 109, quoting de Guibert, De
Ecclesia Christi (Rome: Gregorian University, 1929). (Ramirez’s English gives the
reference to de Guibert as p. 386; his Latin, p. 177, gives it as p. 326. I did not consult
de Guibert to resolve the discrepancy.)

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does not progress beyond the questions faced by Aquinas, or by
one who does so progress. The temptation to identify Aquinas
with the truth rather than with understanding may also
discourage us from letting him enlarge our minds in ways that
might challenge our present convictions; he must mean what we
already know is true. It may generate a felt obligation, to which
Poinsot’s rebuttal of the imprecations against Aquinas gives
witness, to make him say what he “ought” to have meant.
Decidedly, the pastors prefer Aquinas. What does this preference mean? It is not adduced as the judgment of the most
scientifically learned. It is not adduced as the opinion of the
majority. It is adduced as the judgment of those whose office it
is to judge whatever touches upon the truth God has revealed.
Still, their judgment cannot mean Aquinas possesses the truths
of faith while others do not. Its object here is not divine
revelation but a theological and philosophical synthesis. A
comparative judgment presumes a correct understanding of
Aquinas, but even within the commentary tradition there is
more than one interpretation of Aquinas. A comparative judgment presumes a correct understanding of the (philosophical
and theological) alternatives to which Aquinas is preferred, and
those alternatives are legion. A comparative judgment refers to
some set of questions to which Aquinas’s principles ground
superior answers. The judgment is relevant to, and as durable
as, that context of questions, which may be thought of as fixed,
as developing without fundamental transformation, or as subject
to transformations without loss of validity. It would seem, then,
to regard especially his method and principles. Understanding
grasps principles, science works out their implications, but it is
the work of wisdom to select, order, and validate the principles
themselves. The selection, the order, the judgment of Aquinas is
deemed wisest and therefore most fruitful—but it can be fruitful
for us, only in the measure that we succeed in reaching up to
him.
On its own terms, there is something odd about Ramirez’s
project here. His distinction between intrinsic, scientific authority and extrinsic, canonical authority runs parallel to our
distinction between traditions of understanding and of belief.

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Extrinsic authority is an appeal to the will; hence, for Ramirez,
the virtue at stake is obedience. But the vices of defect Ramirez
names—neglect, hostility, historicism—are vices in the first
place not because they run counter to the preference of Church
authorities, but because they are intellectually unserious and
irresponsible (as he seems tacitly to admit [21/35]). His fusillade
of quotations cannot, properly, persuade us of Aquinas’s
scientific value; that is something each must judge for herself,
and in speculation, as distinct from dogma or doctrine in the
proper sense, the argument from authority has little value. It
might persuade us to wish never to depart from him, but what
does such a desire come to? Unless we first understand for
ourselves, we cannot know whether we have departed or not;
but once we do understand, we no longer have need to believe
that Aquinas is wise—it is something we know and measure for
ourselves. At best, Ramirez’s case for the canonical authority of
Aquinas is a contribution to the hermeneutical spiral of
believing to understand. We are bidden partly to believe and
partly to attend: to believe, by crediting the Church’s estimate
of Aquinas as the wisest and safest; to attend, on the strength of
that credit, by giving him a full and fair and trusting opportunity to persuade us, so that extrinsic authority might have its
ulterior finality in an appreciation of intrinsic authority. Even
so, many who believe and trust will never understand, and
many who understand will not first have believed.
Aquinas, as we saw, distinguished two inverse procedures in
theology, an appeal to authority to establish the credenda, and
an assignment of reasons to develop understanding. But these
reasons, the principles of theological understanding, are never
the intrinsic intelligibilities of the mysteries themselves, for the
intrinsic intelligibility of God is the divine essence, and the
intrinsic intelligibility of the economy of salvation lies in the
divine wisdom and goodness. In this life we do not have a positive understanding of God, but we can have a positive, subalternate understanding of revealed truth by way of principles
that are analogical, obscure, and developing. Natural theology

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at least demonstrates what it knows analogically of God, but
with regard to revealed mystery we cannot even do this. Hence
we ought to distinguish the antecedent truth of the credenda
from the consequent truth of theological understanding. The
antecedent truth, revealed by God and infallibly declared by the
Church, is most certain. But theological understanding of this
truth is hypothetical or theoretical. It is verified by its
compatibility with the truths of revelation, by the range of its
explanatory power, and by the exclusion of alternative
explanations. Verification is neither proof nor certitude.
I would not be misunderstood. By my lights the Church is
right to propose Aquinas as the wisest of theologians. The
question Ramirez brings into focus, however, is whether a
Catholic simply as such is bound to concur. And to this question
I would simply point out, first, that an intellectual synthesis
does not enjoy the certitude of the truths of faith; next, that it
falls under the Church’s magisterium only indirectly; third, that
the kind of authority proper to a tradition of understanding is
its intrinsic explanatory power; and, finally, that explanatory
power is relative to a scientific context.
III. A COMMON DOCTOR?
Official enthusiasm for the mastery of Aquinas is not fixed
for all time. From the late nineteenth century to the midtwentieth, Aquinas was practically the Church’s official thinker.
Leo XIII placed him at the heart of his program for the renewal
of Catholic thought and especially philosophy.23 Aquinas’s centrality to seminary curricula in both philosophy and theology
was obligated by the 1917 Code of Canon Law: both were to be
inculcated entirely (omnino) according to his method, doctrine,
and principles (ratio, doctrina, principia), and these were to be

23

Leo XIII, encyclical letter Aeterni Patris.

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269

held inviolably (sancte teneant).24 We saw this same language in
Ramirez’s summary judgment.
In the interval Catholic thought has entered a new context.
Vatican II enjoined Aquinas as the guide for the formation of
clerics in the penetration of the mysteries and their interconnections in speculative theology, but said nothing of his role
in philosophy, or the other parts of theology. The overall
orientation of theological formation is to be not systematic but
historical, emphasizing the study of Scripture, salvation history,
and the history of dogma and theology before instruction in
speculative theology.25 In these prior domains, Aquinas is not
proposed as master. Indeed, when John Paul II described
Aquinas as a “master of thought and model of the right way to
do theology,” he quoted Paul VI in praise not of Aquinas’s
doctrine so much as of his daring.26 The Church, he added, has
no official philosophy27—which is not quite the impression his
predecessors had managed to make.28
It is perhaps too obvious to point out that what is true of
official enthusiasm is truer still among Catholic theologians and
philosophers today, especially outside the seminaries. Aquinas
24

Codex Iuris Canonici (1917), can. 1366, § 2. Because I take it to be Aquinas’s
wisdom in the selection and arrangement of questions that is in view above all, I would
be inclined to read “doctrina” as order, in the sense of the ordo doctrinae.
25
Vatican Council II, “Decree on Priestly Formation Optatam Totius,” 16, in
Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner et al., 2 vols. (Washington,
D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 2:955-56. A nod is made to perrennial
philosophy, but no mention of Aquinas in this connection (§ 15). The language around
theology is echoed in Codex Iuris Canonici (1983), can. 252 §§ 2-3; there Aquinas
“especially” (praesertim) is to be the guide in speculative theology. See Prouvost,
Thomas d’Aquin et les thomismes, 18n.
26
John Paul II, encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (September 14, 1998), 43.
27
Fides et Ratio, 49.
28
See William L. Portier, “Thomist Resurgence,” Communio: International Catholic
Review 35 (2008): 494-504. Ramirez, expounding the teaching of Pius XI, says: “In a
word, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is the philosophy of the Catholic Church, i.e.,
‘a Christian, Catholic, Roman philosophy’” (“Authority of St. Thomas Aquinas,” 70; De
auctoritate doctrinali S. Thomae Aquinatis, 102). The English supplies a definite article
not present in the Latin.

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remains an important, even a central figure with whom
everyone ought to deal, but as a practical matter he is one
among many. To some, however, this displacement has seemed
to go a little too far. Reinhard Hütter welcomes the contemporary surge in historical scholarship on Aquinas for its valuable
contributions to our understanding of him. But he urges
something more, a ressourcement in Aquinas.29 For the scholar,
Aquinas is an eminent figure of thought, but not the common
doctor of the Church. Historical scholarship does “not
necessarily translate into a genuine, substantive, and normative
turning to Thomas’s philosophical and theological vision.”30
What is most significant here, I think, is the adjective
“normative.” Against Aquinas’s work, others are measured; they
“have lights of their own,” as John Senior puts it in a passage
Hütter quotes approvingly, but his is the light by which we are
to judge, for (quoting Senior again) “he holds the mean between
dogma and opinion.”31
Now, Hütter is perfectly aware that the religious, the
cultural, and especially the educational situation in which
Aquinas could be a teacher for beginners has ceased to exist, for
reasons he seems to attribute here solely to decline. The name
of the game now is “patiently and actively ‘waiting for
Thomas’.”32 Waiting for Thomas means, in part, reaching up to
him as best one can, and in the meantime insinuating his
insights into such openings as the late modern “supermarket of
ideas” presents. Since the “deconstruction of all objective
standards of judgment leaves the . . . mind tangibly dissatisfied,”
opportunities are bound to come.33 Actively waiting for Thomas
is not just waiting around.
With these objectives I am deeply sympathetic. Aquinas is a
reach, and the reaching is profoundly transformative. Aquinas is
29
Reinhard Hütter, Dust Bound for Heaven: Explorations in the Theology of Thomas
Aquinas (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2012), 4-7.
30
Ibid., 5.
31
Ibid., 6, quoting John Senior, The Restoration of Christian Culture (Norfold, Va.:
IHS Press, 2008), 80.
32
Hütter, Dust Bound for Heaven, 3.
33
Ibid., 4.

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271

a realist, and the normativity of truth and objectivity for
intelligence could stand reassertion. Aquinas is wise, and wisdom is in short supply. Becoming wise is difficult, and one
could do worse than to apprentice oneself to an epochal genius
whose achievement includes permanently valid and valuable
contributions to theology. Hütter is right to think Aquinas can
still orient us reliably to the permanent things. Hütter’s project
deserves a full and sympathetic hearing, which is impossible
here, so my remarks should not be mistaken for a judgment on
his work. I restrict myself to a single question raised by his
introduction: is a common doctor still possible?
It seems a fact that we are separated from Aquinas not only
by decline but also by progress.34 Both the progress and the
decline raise genuinely new theological problems. The scientific
revolution, the differentiation of philosophy from the sciences,
and a new awareness of historical and cultural relativity have
transformed our understanding of the world and ourselves.
Aquinas can help us, but it is we who must answer.
Theology mediates a tradition that is historical. That tradition, because it is historical, will not submit to an integration on
the level of logic or metaphysics or theory. Its wholeness is the
wholeness of development across time and space, and the
development is not a smooth linear unfolding from a single
principle but a dialectical process marked by decay and corruption as well as progress and purification, loss as well as
achievement, and notable shifts in intellectual and cultural context. Aquinas’s synthesis is a glorious achievement but it is also
somewhat innocent of the historical problems presented to us
now. A fundamental problem for contemporary theology is the
requirement to understand the history of theology, and there
Aquinas can help us only indirectly.

34
Hütter acknowledges progress in our historical understanding of Aquinas, but he
fears it could just as easily “bury even deeper Thomas’s teaching as that of the doctor
communis.”

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Hence, I do not think the attempt to recover Aquinas as the
common doctor does full justice to the differences between our
context and his. The very notion of a common doctor belongs
to a cultural and therefore a theological moment that has passed
away and will not return. One can have a common doctor if
theology is stable and its context is merely incidental. On the
other hand, it is more difficult to have a common doctor if
theology is an ongoing scientific collaboration and its context is
not merely incidental.
Among the more notable transitions separating our time
from that of Aquinas is the scientific revolution and the extension of analogous techniques into the domains of history and
hermeneutics. In the Scholastic context that produced the
Thomistic school, theology was conceived as a science, but the
model of science was drawn from Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics.
That model of science and so of theology stressed necessity and
permanence and, increasingly, in its fourteenth century,
Baroque, and neo-Scholastic manifestations, also certitude.35 It
defined each science by its formal object, which, for theology, is
God and all things as related to God. Because the scientific ideal
was permanence, theological science was conceived as a habit to
be reproduced in each theologian.
The ideal of modern science is not the necessity and
permanence of the (Aristotelian) scientific syllogism, but the
provisionally verified hypothesis. The verified hypothesis is a
waypoint. So far from being certain, it is virtually certain to be
revised, qualified, or transformed by integration into some more
comprehensive, more powerfully explanatory synthesis. Still,
this supersession is anything but arbitrary. The new hypothesis
does not discard the old data. It does not (if it is Catholic)
replace the truths of faith with some new and better invention
of reason. It does not repudiate what was valid in the old
explanation, but incorporates prior insights into a new synthesis

35
Prouvost, Thomas d’Aquin et les thomismes, 18n., distinguishes Scholasticism into
medieval, Baroque (“Renaissance”), and Leonine (neo-Scholastic) phases. On the turn to
certitude in Baroque Scholasticism, see Yves Congar, A History of Theology, trans.
Hunter Guthrie (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), 163-65.

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capable of providing a more thorough and more elegant
explanation for the known facts. In this context what unifies a
science is not its theories or its objects but its operations or
procedures. The operations are, in fact, cooperations. A contemporary science is not anyone’s habit; it resides in a complex
of coordinated skills and understandings across a scientific
community.
It seems to me that the notion of a common doctor
presupposes that what has to be learned does not develop more
than incidentally. It presupposes that theology can be a habit in
a single mind. It presupposes that a theoretical or cultural
synthesis can be permanent and, perhaps, normative. On the
other hand, when theology is an ongoing and collaborative
process, neither Aquinas nor anyone else can be its common
doctor by way of providing a permanently stable integration.
What is normative for an ongoing process of inquiry is the
methodical probity of integrating reason. A modern science is
held together by its coordinated procedures; and what can hold
theology together is likewise a framework for coordinating
activities, integrating results, and carefully sifting wheat from
chaff.
Further, theology, as a service to the Church, has as its finality the communication of the gospel. We have to help the
Church be all things to all people so that some might be won (1
Cor 9:22). There are vast differences between cultures and
between educated and uneducated persons within cultures. A
contemporary theology has to help the Church speak to the
questions of contemporary persons and not to the questions of
thirteenth-century persons, however much we may stand to
learn from them and however true it is that some questions
never lose their relevance. I do not mean that all of theology is
contextual, but large parts of theology, in both its mediation of
the past and its address to the present, are contextual in the
sense that they deal with the concrete and particular, past or
present; further, theology has to deal with the transitions of the
one faith from one context to another. Finally, in its speculative

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or systematic task, theology’s object is not to determine the
truths of faith but to develop an imperfect, analogical, fruitful
understanding of those truths, and to show how they can be
reconciled with the (still developing) conclusions of the
sciences, philosophy, and history.
Although the typical formulation of a question in the
writings of Aquinas suggests a question for judgment (utrum,
videtur quod), his most original contributions are explanatory
and, accordingly, hypothetical in the sense described. We have
already distinguished the antecedent truth of the mysteries from
the consequent truth of theological understanding. Nor was
Aquinas unaware of the difference, for he acknowledged a
twofold mode of divine truth and applied different methods to
the mysteries than to the preambles of faith.36 It remains the
case that Aquinas, and the Thomists generally, speak of his
object as truth, whereas I keep speaking of developing understanding. The reason for this difference is a transformation in
the notion of science. If science is conceived as certain
knowledge of causal necessity, its ideal is truth. But if science is
conceived as an ongoing process headed toward ever fuller,
verified explanation of all data or, in systematic theology, of
what God has revealed in its connections with what the human
mind can discover, then its remote goal is complete explanation
(which will be had only in the beatific vision) but its proximate
goal is verified approximations to complete explanation.37
Verification is not proof. Verification affirms the consequents of
explanatory hypotheses. But to affirm the consequent is not to
prove the antecedent. The possibility of a series of more powerful hypotheses is not excluded.38
None of this is to say that Aquinas’s theology is false. He
improved on Aristotle and Augustine without, by and large,
falsifying them. He could do so because their explanations were
incomplete and so capable of incorporation into a larger, more

36
ScG I, cc. 3, 8, 9; IV, c. 1. In general, the mysteries are illumined by reasons that
are analogical, fitting, and probable.
37
See Lonergan, Method (CWL 14), 90-93.
38
Lonergan, Insight, 324-29.

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rounded whole. He could hardly have thought otherwise about
his own achievement, for between the reality of divine wisdom
and any understanding of it we can have in this life, there is an
infinite difference to be explored. In his own context, Aquinas
was the “master capable of envisaging all the issues and of
treating them in their proper order.”39 He represents the best
achievement relative to the state of his questions. Still, the state
of his questions is not the state of ours, because of developments in science, philosophy, scholarship, and culture. How
these developments might be integrated with his achievement is
our problem, not his. What, in fact, his permanent achievements are, and just how they are relevant to the further
questions we are obliged to face, are to be worked out with
patience and care. What, then, is normative in the process of
evaluating and retrieving Aquinas today? It cannot be his
answers or even his questions, since they are part of what has to
be evaluated.
The reader may fear that I am relativizing Aquinas, and
indeed I am. Relativity, however, is not the same as relativism.
Our present crisis of normativity results (in large part) from the
discovery of cultural relativity. Ideological relativism is just the
mistaken conclusion that because cultures are not normative,
nothing is normative. The need of the hour is not for a common
doctor but for a common illumination of the real ground of
normativity, which is not in the systems intelligence produces,
but in the intelligence, the reason, the love that produces,
judges, refines, and transforms them.40
Thought progresses, and there are permanently valid contributions to its progression. Aquinas made permanently valid
contributions to the development of theology, just as Einstein or
Newton made permanently valid contributions to the development of physics or mathematics. Aquinas was not just any theologian, and Einstein was not just any physicist. All subsequent
39
40

Lonergan, Method (CWL 14), 345.
See Wilkins, Before Truth, 37-57.

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physics and mathematics, if they are serious, must incorporate
(in some form or another) quantum theory and the calculus. All
subsequent theology, if it is serious, must incorporate (in some
form or another) the theorems of divine transcendence and the
supernatural order, the hypothesis of intelligible emanations in
God, and other permanently valid contributions of Thomas
Aquinas; and these, in turn, rest on permanently valid contributions Aquinas absorbed from Aristotle and his other
teachers. But it would be quite another matter, and preposterous, to suggest that all subsequent physics is not just
enriched but measured by the light of Einstein. Though
theology is quite different from a natural science in many
important ways, it is nevertheless equally preposterous, I
submit, to claim that all subsequent theology is measured, not
just enriched, by the light of Aquinas. One may wish to say that
the permanently valid is normative, and in a derivative sense
perhaps it is; but attention and intelligence, reasonableness and
responsibility, and above all the love of God shed abroad in our
hearts—these are normative in a way that cannot be superseded
and form the real normative basis for all progress and restoration. The normative measure of theological achievement after
Aquinas as it was before is the light of reason illumined by
genuine faith in the mysteries handed on once and for all to the
saints.
Theologians are not original witnesses to revelation. They
are not infallible judges of its truth claims. But it is not only in
defining that the Church is the best judge of the things she does
and believes. In the light of that judgment, Aquinas stands out
as a witness to the Church’s reception and understanding of her
own life and message. He witnesses to an understanding of the
faith demanded by the problems and questions of his time. Insofar as those problems and questions endure, he is a reliable
guide to facing them. Insofar as they are transformed by the
later problems and questions presented by our time, his achievement cannot be the measure of our own responsibilities.
As Ramirez documents, there was a time when Aquinas was
recommended as a guide to practically every kind of question in
theology or philosophy. His more recent endorsements reflect a

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more sober but also a more accurate evaluation of his true
genius. Aquinas is a guide in theological speculation because
here, the wisest of theologians is worth more than the majority.
The function of wisdom is to order and to judge. The function
of speculative or systematic theology is the intelligible ordering
of the truths of faith. It is the penetration of the mysteries in
their interconnections to one another and their relation to our
final end, but also in their interconnections to all that we know
from the natural and human sciences and historical scholarship
of which Aquinas had the barest inkling. Today this function
presupposes a positive theology far more involved than his, a
positive theology that can ground an understanding of the history of the tradition itself in its genetic and dialectical unfolding. A development of wisdom is needed to order the tasks
of a theology on the level of our time.
Aquinas is not just any theologian. When the Christian world
of his day was unsettled by a new science, Aquinas sensed the
need of the hour and applied himself with great diligence and
creativity to development of a new theological and cultural synthesis. He did not wait for the return of cultural and intellectual
conditions that would not be coming back. He sought to foster
the new conditions under which Christianity could be
intellectually credible and culturally fruitful in his time. He is or
can be a common doctor in the sense that his contributions to
theology are durable advances, part of the common and permanent patrimony of theology. He also is or can be a common
doctor in the sense that his contributions and their reception
make him an exemplar of the progress the tradition of the
apostles makes in the Church. But he is not the common doctor
in the obsolete sense, the light by which other theologies are
judged.
IV. THOMISM TODAY
A Thomist, as we said in the introduction, receives something from Thomas, but what? If it seems too much to forever

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prefer his judgment to one’s own, correct interpretation alone
seems too little; surely the mere understanding of Aquinas,
however exact and complete, does not make a Thomist, as
Hütter rightly points out.41 Oliva Blanchette suggests that a
Thomist accepts not so much a “completed doctrine” as an
open but disciplined “system of questions” at once
philosophical and theological, theoretical and practical. But
perhaps we shall need a new dialectical approach “that would
focus more properly on the historical and the social as its
methodological starting point, the place or the event where God
reveals himself.”42 Géry Prouvost, for his part, has suggested as
a preliminary statement that a Thomist is one who accords
Aquinas a privileged place in his own reflection on theological
or philosophical questions. He adds, however, that the question
about Thomism implies another: should a Thomist be identified
by the adoption of certain essential theses or positions of the
master?43 Which?
Serge-Thomas Bonino observes that, historically, Thomists
have been identifiable by their institutional affiliations, but
more importantly through a genetic continuity of thought with
the master.44 Both he and Thomas Joseph White underscore
that Aquinas did his thinking in a tradition, and should likewise
be read within a tradition, both anterior and posterior to
himself. For Bonino, “a Scholastic form of thought,” developing
“in the laboratories of tradition,” is appropriate to the very
nature of human learning.45 White, too, emphasizes that
Thomism is “rooted in a larger conversation” and “does not
emerge from nowhere,” like a meteorite.46

41

Hütter, Dust Bound for Heaven, 4-6.
Blanchette, “Philosophy and Theology in Aquinas,” 52-53; see 27.
43
Prouvost, Thomas d’Aquin et les thomismes, 9.
44
Serge-Thomas Bonino, “The Thomist Tradition,” Nova et vetera (Eng. ed.) 8
(2010): 871-72. Similar considerations in Prouvost, Thomas d’Aquin et les thomismes,
9-18.
45
See Bonino, “Thomist Tradition,” 870; Serge-Thomas Bonino, “To Be a Thomist,”
Nova et vetera (Eng ed.) 8 (2010): 764.
46
Thomas Joseph White, “Thomism after Vatican II,” Nova et vetera (Eng. ed.) 12
(2014): 1052.
42

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Both Bonino and White seek not only an historical criterion
by which to determine the contours of the Thomist tradition,
but also an open and vital Thomism for today. Bonino’s ideal is
a “living fidelity to the teaching of Aquinas,” which he opposes
to both an ahistorical “fundamentalist Thomism,” and its
opposite, an historicizing “Thomism-by-inspiration.”47 A living
Thomism takes seriously “the historical dimension, not of truth,
but of the exercise of thought.”48 White’s concern is similar. He
would forge a middle path between what he regards as Chenu’s
historicism, on the one side, and Garrigou-Lagrange’s “idiosyncratic and methodologically arbitrary” anachronism, on the
other.49 A contemporary Thomism would combine Fabro’s
emphasis on integrity of principles with Congar’s concern for a
vital engagement with contemporary questions.50 It would also
continue to shape Dominican life.51 For both Bonino and
White, then, Thomism is not a timeless ichor, but a tradition of
thought expressing itself in quite different intellectual and social
contexts.
What Bonino calls “Thomism-by-inspiration” is, he thinks,
currently on the path to extinction, since it can really flourish only in a
context where it is “obligatory” to refer to St. Thomas, so that it has to seek
out ways of simulating the Master’s teaching and honoring him without
necessarily adhering to his doctrine.52

The result of this posture, too often, is exegetical contrivance53
(although one might add that ahistorical Thomism is differently
47

Bonino, “To Be a Thomist,” 770-71.
Ibid., 771.
49
Thomas Joseph White, “The Precarity of Wisdom,” in Ressourcement Thomism:
Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life. Essays in Honor of Romanus
Cessario, O.P., ed. Reinhard Hütter and Matthew Levering (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 93-97, quote at 96.
50
White, “Thomism after Vatican II,” 1046-48.
51
Ibid., 1060-61.
52
Bonino, “To Be a Thomist,” 769.
53
Ibid., 772.
48

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prone to the same vice). Plainly enough, Bonino does not feel
that “Thomism-by-inspiration” is really interested in Aquinas
the thinker but only in Aquinas the symbol. This kind of
Thomism, he feels, relativizes the doctrine of Aquinas in favor
of his “spirit” (it seems easy to hear the echo here of contests
over the reception of Vatican II). “Its main tenet is to repeat
today what St. Thomas is said to have done in the thirteenth
century, namely, expressing the Christian faith in contemporary
cultural categories,” which, he coyly suggests (echoing Ramirez), now means assimilating Freud, Heidegger, and Derrida
instead of Aristotle.54 With considerable justice, Bonino points
out that Aquinas’s involvement with Aristotle and neoPlatonism “is not primarily because they are ‘modern’ but
because he perceives them to be true.”55 This seems quite just,
though if there is progress as well as decline in thought, we
might expect the best state of the questions in the thirteenth
century to have been superseded in some ways since then.
For White, too, the aspiration to imitate Aquinas is a valid
but “painfully minimalistic” element of a contemporary Thomism.56 Although it will not do “to define Thomism merely by
reference to Aquinas’s most unique philosophical and theological theses,” nevertheless “Thomism has an essence” and
“constitutes an identifiable intellectual patrimony” discernible
in certain principles and patterns of thought.57 It is, in part, a
“Christian Aristotelianism” which, often in common with other
varieties of Scholasticism, “typically transmits core principles of
Aristotelian derivation” such as the division and methods of
philosophical sciences, the resolution of being into substance
and the predicaments, and so on.58
As an historical statement, this seems unimpeachable. As a
guide for what to do next, it leaves a great deal to be desired.
Aquinas did not accept Aristotle as presenting a ready-made
metaphysics. He discovered the validity of Aristotle’s program
54

Ibid., 769.
Ibid.
56
White, “Thomism after Vatican II,” 1048.
57
Ibid., 1054; see ibid., 1048-54.
58
Ibid., 1050; see ibid., 1049-51.
55

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and made it his own through his own reflection and judgment.
In doing so, he also developed it considerably and, as Blanchette
urges, we should not be afraid to do likewise.59
The supposition that for Aristotle we may simply substitute
the philosophers du jour is, indeed, historicist. The whole
difficulty comes down to a dialectical retrieval of the pertinent
principles, and what are the criteria for that? If, for example,
metaphysics is a science, it is (on Aristotelian grounds) knowledge through causes. The predicaments, however, are (mostly)
not causes but descriptions, and so they do not pertain to an
explanatory metaphysics.60 The proper sensibles are descriptive,
too, at least in their initial formulation; they would need transposition to an explanatory form to pertain to an explanatory
metaphysics.61 In any case, metaphysics is an integrative science
but no longer the basis of all science, at least in the sense of
providing the fundamental categories of all other sciences, as it
functioned in Scholastic thought. When the sciences were all
built on metaphysics and the histories on testimony, Aristotle
could be “master of those who know” (Dante, Inf. 4.131). But a
contemporary science is not a branch of philosophy, and does
not derive its fundamental notions from metaphysics; it has to
work them out autonomously.62
A fidelity that is living is open to development. Bonino does
not (in the articles examined here) spell out how Thomism
might develop, except to note that changes of cultural and
intellectual context will inevitably determine which positions of
Aquinas a Thomist will be called upon to defend.63 This might
seem a little minimalistic itself, if it suggests nothing more than
incidental adjustments within or additions to a fundamental
59

Blanchette, “Philosophy and Theology in Aquinas,” 29.
Lonergan, Insight, 420.
61
Ibid., 459-59.
62
See Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “The Future of Thomism,” in A Second Collection, ed.
John D. Dadosky and Robert M. Doran, Collected Works 13 (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2016), 39-47.
63
Bonino, “Thomist Tradition,” 874.
60

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framework, purified, perhaps, of certain antiquated assumptions. Can we envisage the possibility of transposing Aquinas’s
thought into a still more comprehensive framework, as he
himself did for Aristotle and Augustine? Here, I feel, a more
dialectical posture is called for. I would ask for a more adequately differentiated statement of our relation to Aquinas and
the differences separating our historic responsibilities from his.
“Theology,” Bonino writes, “does not primarily and
fundamentally seek to translate the faith into the language of an
era”; I think this is quite just as far as it goes. “But,” he adds,
it sets itself the task of disengaging the intelligible content from within the
Word of God and expressing it in a scientific way, seeking as much as possible
the organic and universal essence which allows a doctrinal system to transcend
its own era.64

This seems to be faithful to Aquinas’s conception of the matter,
and there is something right about it. Theology has universalizing functions. They establish the scientific context proper to
theology in its systematic moment. Still, Aquinas conceived that
scientific context on a model of science derived from the Posterior Analytics, certain knowledge through (analogically conceived) causes, subaltern to the truths of faith. As I have urged,
the contemporary problem for theology is history; it is understanding the dialectical unity of the Christian tradition. That
problem is not met by a doctrinal system, howsoever transcendent. A contemporary methodical theology will include
doctrinal and systematic functions, but it will have to include a
great deal more, if it is to meet the problem of development as
Newman identified it.
Bonino urges that the continuity of the Thomist tradition is
analogical. Inevitably, he adds, it suffers certain deformities by
defection from the true thought of Aquinas or, perhaps, an
insufficient leavening by it.65 But this seems an awkward way to
put it. Unless we identify Aquinas himself as the “ideal
Thomist,” Thomism as an historical reality is still under con64
65

Bonino, “To Be a Thomist,” 769.
Bonino, “Thomist Tradition,” 873.

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struction. It would seem more adequate, therefore, to say that
the continuity of the tradition is both dialectical and genetic. It
is subject to both progress and decline, and only a dialectical
method can tease them apart.
If the leading challenge for theology today is the (analogous)
extension of scientific techniques into the domain of history,
Aquinas, too, must be restored to his place in history. The
implementation of a functionally specialized theology, such as
Lonergan has proposed, restores Aquinas to his place in the history of theology without historicizing him.66 By distinguishing
and relating exegesis, history, dialectic, and theoretical systematization, it eliminates the need for exegetical contortions
“in defense of Thomas,” as well as the tendency to argue as if
getting Aquinas right and getting reality right were the same
task. By so doing, it may also increase the likelihood that we
will let Aquinas really challenge us without fearing that his
horizon may turn out to be quite different from the one we
presently occupy. It replaces the vague notion of “living fidelity” with precise questions of historical influence. It re-places
the problematic notion of an “essence” of Thomism with an
investigation of the precise similarities and differences among
thinkers, and the questions motivating the development of their
thought. This might seem “painfully minimalistic,” but it is a
method adequate to its object. “Thomism” is not a single thing
with a single essence but an historical complex of relations
among thinkers.
What is wanted, I suggest, is an apprenticeship to Aquinas
that is more explicitly open than the “living Thomism” of
Bonino and White but shares with it an appreciation for the
importance of a tradition in the development of understanding.
It would be more serious than “Thomism-by-inspiration,” in
part because it does not make Aquinas an authority (in the sense
of a tradition of belief) and therefore has no need to conceal its
real preoccupations under the mantle of Aquinas. It is
66

See Wilkins, Before Truth, 180-230.

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JEREMY D. WILKINS

concerned rather with what may be learned from him, and
therefore studies him with care. If Thomism is a tradition of
understanding, then what may be learned from Aquinas cannot
be adequately transmitted by belief but only by a development
of understanding.
If by Thomism we mean a tradition of understanding rather
than of authority, then the difference between the Thomist and
the student of Aquinas will be fundamentally a matter of
personal judgment. One is a Thomist who not only grasps but
also appropriates, as true, fundamental insights of Aquinas; in
this I agree with White, though I probably dissent from some of
his judgments about what those insights are. The principal
meaning of fidelity thus becomes standing by the genuine
insights one has learnt from Aquinas, not because they are his
but because they are correct.
Finally, the example of Aquinas is distinguishable, but not
separable, from the content of his theology. One reaches up to
both only through a careful and usually long apprenticeship. It
is always worthwhile to struggle with a great author, and
Aquinas is an uncommonly great author. Reaching up to his
thought involves a great enlargement of one’s understanding.
The reach may be helped by competent teachers, exegetes, and
commentators; but it can also be inhibited by them, perhaps all
the more when the commentary becomes its own tradition,
espouses an ideal of affective fidelity, and develops a penchant
for ahistorical systematization. Reaching up to Aquinas does not
require us to expect that everything he says will be true, and to
prepare ourselves to defend it. In fact, a responsible apprenticeship to Aquinas will also involve us in a dialectical disengagement of his valid contributions from such historical relics
as the cosmic system, the biology, and the very model of science
he inherited from Aristotle.

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V. THE FUTURE OF THOMISM
It has become fashionable to speak of Aquinas “the
Augustinian.”67 The title is piquant; Aquinas was hardly the
most obvious “Augustinian” of his generation; he was not
Augustinian in any conventional sense, and later polemics
typecast him as an “Aristotelian” over against the
“Augustinians.” To be sure, Aquinas was “one of [Augustine’s]
greatest medieval interpreters.”68 But that alone would not
make him an Augustinian, nor would even the adoption or
development of Augustinian positions on some incidental series
of questions. If indeed Aquinas is an Augustinian, it is because in
some way he made Augustine’s thought his own, not only on
select problems but after the manner of a leaven for his entire
work. It is because the encounter with Augustine was decisive
for Aquinas; his thought is unimaginable otherwise, not on this
or that point only, but in its whole texture.
Because Aquinas was not only an interpreter but also an
appropriator of Augustine, what he received both transformed
him and was transformed by him.69 To judge Aquinas an
Augustinian, then, one has to penetrate below the surface of
both thinkers, to grasp in a profound transformation an equally
profound form of fidelity. Aquinas’s sublation of Augustinian
thought was a better homage than its repetition could ever be.
67

See Michael Dauphinais, Barry David, and Matthew Levering, eds., Aquinas the
Augustinian (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), xixxiv. “Any overly facile application of the term ‘Augustinian’ to a theology whose roots
are as philosophically and theologically diverse as Aquinas’s must be rejected. We might
say rather that Aquinas is an ‘Augustinian’ in the sense that, like all of Augustine’s
greatest interpreters, he engages with and elaborates upon Augustine’s insights in a
manner that challenges us to think afresh about the realities known and loved by
Augustine” (ibid., xxiv). Poinsot had already described him as Augustine’s most faithful
follower and disciple (Cursus theologici, 219/261).
68
Dauphinais, David, and Levering, eds., Aquinas the Augustinian, xvii.
69
And not always to the better, some have thought: see John M. Rist, “Augustine,
Aristotelianism, and Aquinas: Three Varieties of Philosophical Adaptation,” in
Dauphinais, David, and Levering, eds., Aquinas the Augustinian, 79–99.

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But how many of the gatekeepers of Thomism would
recognize as “Thomist” any thinker who stood in so
transformative a relationship to the achievement of Aquinas as
Aquinas himself stood to the achievement of Augustine? Can we
reckon with the possibility that a certain kind of self-conscious
Thomism would, in all likelihood, greet a genuinely transformative sublation of Thomist thought with the same incomprehension that greeted Aquinas himself from the selfappointed guardians of Augustinian orthodoxy? Lonergan,
anyone?
Lonergan is usually counted, or rather discounted, as a
“transcendental Thomist,” which is to say, a “Thomist-byinspiration” whose more important debts were to Kant, or
Hegel, or Descartes.70 Though it is admitted his early writings
were deeply involved with Aquinas, his interpretations were
idiosyncratic, while his most personal work—especially Method
in Theology—seems like an excursion off the reservation.
Though by common consent Lonergan is one of the brighter
stars in the twentieth-century Catholic firmament, his project is
not so much a rejected as an unrecognizable option in the
contemporary conversation about what it could mean to be a
Thomist. He is as absent from it as Aquinas would have been
from any comparable debate on the meaning of Augustinianism
in the fourteenth century. His number will not be retired in a
Thomistic Cooperstown any time soon.
Yet Lonergan spent eleven years in apprenticeship to Aquinas, whose stamp is everywhere on his thought. In the epilogue
to Insight, he spoke of its importance:
After spending years reaching up to the mind of Aquinas, I came to a twofold
conclusion. On the one hand, that reaching had changed me profoundly. On
70
Lonergan did not reject the label “transcendental Thomist,” because he considered
his method transcendental in a sense analogous to both the Scholastic distinction
between the transcendental and the predicamental, and the Kantian question about the a
priori conditions of the possibility of knowledge. But he did not consider much light was
shed on his project by its association with those of others, like Karl Rahner and
Emmerich Coreth. What he was up to cannot be deduced from general comparisons.
See Method (CWL 14), 17 n. 11; or Method in Theology (New York: Herder and
Herder, 1972), 13 n. 4.

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the other hand, that change was the essential benefit. For not only did it make
me capable of grasping what, in the light of my conclusions, the vetera really
were, but also it opened challenging vistas on what the nova could be.71

I wonder whether Aquinas could have felt much differently
about his own struggle with Aristotle, or, for that matter,
Augustine. In relation to them, his ideal was not the kind of
fidelity proper to a tradition of belief. His ideal was getting
things right. His fidelity was only to the gospel and the truth.
He could not otherwise have been a leading architect in a great
shift in the paradigm of theology.
Lonergan certainly understood himself as some kind of
Thomist, even after the “hermeneutical turn” he took in Method
in Theology. In that book, his list of factors of continuity in
systematic theology includes human nature, grace, the permanence of dogma, and such past achievement as would
constitute permanently valid contributions to theological understanding. The last is illustrated by a single example: Thomas
Aquinas.
For Aquinas’s thought on grace and freedom and his thought on cognitional
theory and on the Trinity were genuine achievements of the human spirit.
Such achievement has a permanence of its own. It can be improved upon. It
can be inserted in larger and richer contexts. But unless its substance is
incorporated into subsequent work, the subsequent work will be a
substantially poorer affair.72

In effect, Lonergan tells us, his own project cannot be
understood, concretely, apart from something he discovered in
Aquinas.73
The real issue at hand, however, is not whether Lonergan
thought of himself as a Thomist, but whether we ought to think
of him that way, and, more to the point, whether his example
can helpfully enlarge our conception of Thomism.
71

Lonergan, Insight, 769.
Lonergan, Method, 325; or Method (1972), 352.
73
Wilkins, Before Truth, 96-130.

72

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Transposition was one of Lonergan’s favorite metaphors. It
is the kind of thing he found Aquinas doing for his own
masters: transposing Aristotelian thought into a Christian
universe, transposing Augustinian content into a scientifically
constructed theology. Generally, though not always, Lonergan
means by transposition the restatement of a position in a new
context.74 Sometimes the restatement is a lateral clarification, as,
for instance, when a proposition is transposed by enumerating
its necessary and sufficient ontological conditions. But often
enough, transposition means enriching restatement. For instance, Newtonian mechanics was transposed into the context
of Einsteinian relativity.75 Similarly, the twelfth-century problematic of habitual grace was transposed into the thirteenthcentury context shaped by the theoretical distinction of natural
and supernatural orders.76 A prominent recurring example in
Lonergan’s theology is his transposition from the Christological
structure, one person in two natures, to the parallel structure,
one subject of two consciousnesses. Here transposition is not
restatement but analogical extension.77 He saw a similar possibility in the isomorphism—the structural parallel—of Thomism
and modern science. Science is theory, contingently verified in
instances. As theory, it is parallel to form; as verified, to
contingent act; and as in instances, to potency.78

74
This working definition and many of the examples that follow are drawn from
Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “Horizons and Transpositions,” in Philosophical and
Theological Papers, 1965-1980, ed. Robert C. Croken and Robert M. Doran, Collected
Works 17 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 409-32.
75
Ibid., 410.
76
See Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought
of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, Collected Works
1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 3-20.
77
Note that a subject is a conscious person and a person a potential subject; a nature
is not identical to consciousness, even in an intellectual being, if that being is compound,
developing organically as well as consciously, and sometimes asleep. See Bernard J. F.
Lonergan, “Christ as Subject: A Reply,” in Collection, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and
Robert M. Doran, Collected Works 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988),
182-83.
78
Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “Isomorphism of Thomist and Scientific Thought,” in
Crowe and Doran, eds., Collection, 133-41.

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Lonergan conceived his Insight, in part, as a “transposition of
[Aquinas’s] position to meet the issues of our own day.”79
“Aquinas’s position,” of course, means a coordinated series of
positions. For instance, Lonergan affirmed that the Thomist
theorem that God applies all agents to their activity could be
disentangled from its accidental involvements in Aristotelian
cosmology.80 The result is a set of affirmations regarding the
conditions of all finite agency and its necessary instrumentality
to God, coupled with a repudiation of the universal causality of
the celestial spheres and the other limitations of prescientific
cosmology. Such disengagement of the valid from the invalid
terms and relations is dialectical. It develops what belongs properly to the position by integrating it with further discovery; it
reverses the incompatible or counterpositional elements.
Most sweeping are the transpositions resulting from entry
into a new stage in the control of meaning. Such stages, cumulative not supersessionary, are marked by the introductions of
writing, of logic and metaphysics, and of method, especially
method as controlled by self-appropriation.81 So the largely
narrative and symbolic witness of the New Testament raised
questions for judgment that were resolved through the
dialectical emergence of the logical and incipiently explanatory
context of ecclesiastical doctrine.82 Ecclesiastical doctrines in
their turn raised questions for understanding addressed by
dialectical procedures within the metaphysical and more fully
explanatory context of Scholastic theory. So Aquinas transposed
Augustine’s position on operative grace by setting it in a vastly
79
Lonergan, Verbum, 222; Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “The Scope of Renewal,” in
Croken and Doran, eds., Philosophical and Theological Papers, 1965-1980, 293-98.
80
Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 91-92. Compare the parallel formulation in
Insight, 686-87.
81
See Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “Philosophy and the Religious Phenomenon,” in
Croken and Doran, eds., Philosophical and Theological Papers, 1965-1980, 404-8.
82
Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “The Origins of Christian Realism (1972),” in Dadosky
and Doran, eds., Second Collection, 202-20; further discussion in Wilkins, Before Truth,
235-77.

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enriched theoretical context, while pruning the descriptive
exuberance of Augustinian vocabulary into a tighter set of
systematically interrelated concepts. A changed horizon might
entail the restatement of a whole range of coordinated positions. So the systematic perspective of Aristotle was incorporated into the Christian vision of Aquinas, and Aquinas’s
achievement was transposed in turn by Lonergan.83
In such cases the continuity is largely by analogy (as Bonino
put it) and isomorphism (as Lonergan might). The differences
are a function of specializations, shifting priorities, the explication of the implicit, and analogical and isomorphic extensions. We have already noticed examples of these last. By
specialization Lonergan understood not a narrowing of scope
but an intensification of capacities for differentiated investigations. So in the thirteenth century theology became scientific.
In later centuries natural sciences would emancipate themselves
from philosophy, analogous techniques would be extended into
historical scholarship, and philosophy itself would, in Lonergan’s opinion, find its proper focus on the general conditions of
all inquiry and method. Shifting priorities displace metaphysics.
A critique of the existential and inquiring subject becomes the
first office of philosophy. The empirical turn, initiated by the
concreteness of Aristotle and considerably deepened by the
experimental orientation of modern science, turns out to be
more durable than the scientific syllogism.84
As we see, transposition is an extremely general and
materially rather vague notion. It is not determined or assessed
by any rule, because it is realized differently in different cases. A
basic revision is not deductive but intelligent, “a series of leaps
from the logic of one position to the logic of the next.”85
Transposition can be methodical, but “method is not to be
confused with anything as pedestrian as a recipe, a prescription,
83

Lonergan, Insight, 765-70.
Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “Aquinas Today: Tradition and Innovation,” in A Third
Collection, ed. John D. Dadosky and Robert M. Doran, Collected Works 16 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2017), 34-51.
85
Lonergan, Insight, 502; see ibid., 190; “Philosophy and the Religious
Phenomenon,” 395.
84

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a set of directions.”86 If dialectical method has precepts, they are
“develop positions; reverse counterpositions.”87 Dialectical
purification of categories can be subject to no test, control, or
rule besides the careful judgment of the theologian who is
actually converted intellectually, morally, and religiously, who is
competent in the zone, and who thoroughly inhabits the new
horizon; for “there are no satisfactory methodical criteria that
prescind from the criteria of truth.”88
Transposition is not rupture. Theological continuity includes
the development of understanding. A commitment to the
development of understanding does not entail historicism or
modernism. Historicism is the mistaken conclusion that because
statements are meaningful in a context, their relevance is
restricted to that context. Modernism is the mistaken reduction
of Christian doctrines to symbolizations of interior religious
experience. For the modernist, the function of symbols lies in
their utility, so that as human needs change, new and more useful symbols ought to be devised. But the dogmas are not
symbolizations of religious experience; they are true judgments
about the meaning of the Christian message. These judgments
answer questions, and questions arise in contexts. From this it
follows that to understand the judgment, one has to figure out
the question. It does not follow that the question is of only
passing significance or that the truth of the judgment is
restricted to its original historical context.
Because the mysteries of faith are permanent, the dogmas
through which we affirm the mysteries also are permanently
meaningful.89 This permanence is not merely verbal; it is
permanence in the sense, the meaningfulness, intended by the
Church. To repeat the words and change the meaning is as
86

Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “A Post-Hegelian Philosophy of Religion,” in Dadosky
and Doran, eds., Third Collection, 196.
87
Lonergan, Method (1972), 249; Lonergan, Method (CWL 14), 234.
88
Lonergan, Method (1972), 292; Method (CWL 14), 273; cf. “Horizons and
Transpositions,” 410.
89
Lonergan, Method (CWL 14), 298-301.

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unacceptable as to change the words to change the meaning.
Besides continuity in the mysteries of faith, there is continuity in
the light of faith and in the subordinate light of reason. Further,
there are, as I have noted, permanently valid achievements in
theology. Because of them theology can be a tradition of
accumulating insights, although, as is plain enough, it can also
become a tradition of disintegrating synthesis and systematized
incomprehension, as seems to have happened, at least sometimes, in the Baroque schools.90
At the end of the day, however, a classification of Thomisms
is the question for history and dialectic, that is, for the
theological specialties that investigate how different thinkers are
related to one another. Outside of these specialties, asking
about a theologian’s fidelity to Aquinas tends to confusion.
Thomism is not a religion or a club. If Thomism means a
tradition of understanding, then it is inherently open and cannot be transmitted merely by belief. The important Thomism is
a tradition of understanding, and one enters it by an apprenticeship. One learns from Aquinas how to envisage all the issues,
put them in order, and get things right. That is the important
meaning in Blanchette’s “order of questions.”
CONCLUSION
The best wisdom of Aquinas is to prefer no wisdom to
Christ’s. But Christ’s wisdom is not a written wisdom. It cannot
be embodied in a permanent synthesis of thought. It is a living
docility to the prompting of the Spirit to face the need of the
hour. By his teaching on the new law of the Spirit, on the
superiority of the wisdom that flows from love to every form of
acquired wisdom, Aquinas has relativized himself.
Thomism at its best is a great tradition of understanding.
Deference to a great teacher has its place, but its meaning is that

90
On continuity within a methodical theology, see ibid., 324-26; on disintegrating
synthesis, see Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 143-49; on systematized incomprehension,
Jeremy D. Wilkins, “The Spiration of Love in God According to Aquinas and His
Interpreters,” The Thomist 83 (2019): 357-405.

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293

one expects to learn from Aquinas. There is an Aquinas to be
surpassed and an Aquinas to be emulated. The Aquinas to be
surpassed is a thirteenth-century man with thirteenth-century
questions, a thirteenth-century cosmos, operating on a
thirteenth-century paradigm of scientific theology. The Aquinas
to be emulated engaged his own teachers dialectically,
transposed their best ideas into the larger and richer context of
his own age, and made permanently valid contributions to
theology. If we want to measure up to Aquinas, these are among
his more important lessons.91

91

I am especially grateful to Ligita Ryliškytė, John Kern, and the editors and
anonymous referees for The Thomist for valuable suggestions that improved this article.

The Thomist 85 (2021): 295-328

COMMON BY CAUSALITY AND COMMON BY
PREDICATION: AVICENNA AND AQUINAS ON A
TWOFOLD DIVISION OF PRINCIPLES
CATHERINE PETERS
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, California

T

HE IMPORTANCE of Aristotle for Thomas Aquinas is
difficult to overstate, but to make him not just the predominant but the sole source for Thomas would be an
exaggeration. The initial transmission of much of Aristotelian
thought to the West depended on the Arabic tradition, and this
diffusion was often accompanied by interpretation. Increasing
interest in the philosophical practice of the medieval Arabic
tradition has called to attention the influence of, among others,
Avicenna.
The present study examines Avicenna as the source for a
distinction Thomas employed discretely but repeatedly in his
works: namely, a twofold division of common principles into
those that are common by causality and those that are common
by predication. While one might assume that Thomas found this
division in Aristotle—understandable, given the richness of
Aristotle’s account of causes and principles and his obvious
influence on Thomas’s works—it is, perhaps surprisingly, a
distinction drawn explicitly not by Aristotle but rather by
Avicenna. This distinction is not only important for Avicenna
and Thomas, but it is also an instance of the development of
Aristotelian thought before its reception and acceptance into the
Latin West.1 I do not mean to imply that this distinction is in no
1

Some studies of the relationship between Avicenna and Thomas of general
relevance to the present study include: Rahim Acar, Talking about God and Talking
295

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CATHERINE PETERS

way present in the Aristotelian corpus, but Aristotle does not
explicitly formulate it. Avicenna, by contrast, does draw this
distinction and uses it not only to clarify the kinds of principles
a given philosophical science must consider but also to distinguish between physical and metaphysical considerations of
causes. Thomas, for his part, adopts this distinction explicitly
from Avicenna and employs it in treating a variety of issues,
even while commenting on Aristotle.
This Avicennian distinction and the Thomistic implementation of it have already been noted in a pioneering treatment of
Thomas’s De principiis naturae.2 In the present study I seek to
consider them in greater detail. First, I will consider possible
Aristotelian roots for the distinction, focusing on the Physics
and the Metaphysics.3 Second, I will examine its presentation
and implementation in Avicenna’s Physics and Metaphysics of
about Creation: Avicenna’s and Thomas Aquinas’s Positions (Leiden and Boston: Brill,
2005); R. E. Houser, “The Friar and the Vizier on the Range of the Theoretical
Sciences,” Anuario filosófico 48 (2015): 19-54; idem, “Introducing the Principles of
Avicennian Metaphysics into sacra doctrina,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
88 (2014): 195-212; idem, “Why the Christian ‘Magistri’ Turned to Arabic and Jewish
‘Falasifa’: Aquinas and Avicenna,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical
Association 86 (2012): 33-51; Jon McGinnis, “The Avicennan Sources for Aquinas on
Being: Supplemental Remarks to Brian Davies’ ‘Kenny on Aquinas on Being’,” Modern
Schoolman 82 (2005): 131-42; idem, “Making Something of Nothing: Privation,
Possibility, and Potentiality in Avicenna and Aquinas,” The Thomist 76 (2012): 551-75;
Nathan Poage, “The Subject and Principle of Metaphysics in Avicenna and Aquinas,”
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 86 (2012): 231-43; John
Wippel, “The Latin Avicenna as a Source of Thomas Aquinas’s Metaphysics,” Freiburger
Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie (1990): 51-90.
2
I have in mind the study of R. E. Houser, “Avicenna and Aquinas’s De principiis
naturae, cc. 1-3,” The Thomist 76 (2012): 577-610. In this work, Houser references the
“non-Aristotelian” distinction between principles that are common by predication and
those that are common by causality (while showing how Thomas followed Avicennian
methodology and terminology in the De principiis) and notes other instances of this
distinction in Thomas’s works. See especially 585-586.
3
Because I am not making an argument from a particular point of translation, I will
employ the following translations of these works: Physics (trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K.
Gaye) and Metaphysics (trans. W. D. Ross). Both are found in Complete Works of
Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1984).

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297

The Healing.4 It will be necessary to see the distinction in
general and then to examine the specific commonality of each
of the four causes. Third, I will investigate the application of
this distinction in Thomas’s works, beginning with his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, turning to De
veritate, and ending with his commentaries on Boethius’s De
Trinitate and Aristotle’s Physics.
As a preliminary, one should have clearly in mind the importance of this distinction for both Avicenna and Thomas. The
goal of attaining knowledge in the sense of epistēmē (Arabic:
‘ilm; Latin: scientia) or knowledge of a thing in terms of its
causes, arrived at through demonstrations of some thing’s
essential attributes, was shared across the intellectual world of
the Middle Ages. Both Avicenna and Thomas, mindful of the
importance of causes for acquiring ‘ilm or scientia, are keenly
aware not just of the common fourfold division of causes into
material, formal, efficient, and final but also the various
modalities of any given cause. A necessary step toward attaining
knowledge, for both of these thinkers, is an identification of the
kind of causes and principles that can constitute it. Both maintain that knowledge, if it is to be true knowledge and not mere
opinion, needs to be common and not particular or merely incidental.5 Furthermore, if a given science is to achieve knowledge,
4
I will employ the following editions of Avicenna: The Physics of the Healing, trans.
Jon McGinnis (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2009); Metaphysics of the
Healing, trans. Michael E. Marmura (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press,
2005). Because this study focuses on the influence of Avicenna on Thomas, however, I
will provide the Latin translation of Avicenna’s text from Liber de philosophia prima
sive scientia divina, ed. S. Van Riet (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997); and Liber primus
naturalium: Tractatus primus de causes et principiis naturalium, ed. S. Van Riet (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1992).
5
The focus of the present study is on the two kinds of commonalities by which a
cause or principle is common, but discussion of these kinds of common causes leads to
questions about the two contraries to common causes: particular and proper. A
particular cause or principle, for Avicenna, is either the individual cause of an individual
effect (this physician for this cure or this builder of this building) or a cause matching its
effect in specificity (for example, doctors causing cures, builders causing buildings).
Avicenna contrasts this with a universal cause which is broader (for example, referring

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CATHERINE PETERS

it must employ principles that are appropriate to its subject of
investigation. The critical importance of common causes or
principles if one wishes to attain ‘ilm was surely a motivation
for Avicenna to distinguish the way a cause can be common. For
him, a cause or principle that is common by predication is one
predicate that can be truly said of many things. A cause or
principle that is common by causality, by contrast, is only said
of one thing, which is the cause of many different effects.6 Avicenna formulated this distinction to clarify the kind of common
efficient cause investigated by physics and metaphysics, and to
show how the principles of natural things (matter, form,
privation) are common to all natural things. Thomas, in
adopting this distinction, expanded its implementation, even
using it to clarify the concerns of theology.
Two terminological clarifications are needed at this point.
First is the distinction between “cause” and “principle.” Simply
put, both principles and causes are fundamental aspects or
elements of a given thing, which must be grasped if one is to
attain true knowledge of the thing. Avicenna provides a rough
definition of “principle” within his presentation of privation as
an element of change.7 A principle is a precondition for a thing
that exists, and may or may not exist simultaneously with this
thing.8 “Causes” are particular kinds of principles.9 In other
to the cause of a cure as a “professional” which, though true is broader than “physician”
and could include, say, “plumber” or “professor”) (Physics of the Healing 1.12.3)
Avicenna does not include a discussion of proper vs. incidental explicitly within his
outline of causal modalities, but one can detect the meanings of these within his
discussion of the kind of causes or principles with which the science of physics is
concerned (see Physics of the Healing 1.1.1-5) A proper cause for Avicenna is a cause
that is essentially connected with its effect, in opposition to a common incidental cause
that is only accidentally associated with the effect.
6
So, for example, one might predicate “mother” of my mother but also many other
women and, in this instance, “mother” is common by predication. One might also,
though, refer to my mother as the cause of many children (not just me, but my
individual siblings as well) and, in this instance “mother” is common by her causality.
7
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.2.14.
8
The challenge in understanding “privation” as a principle is that principles seem to
be existent, but a privation is, by definition, the lack or nonexistence of something.

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299

words, “principle” is a broad category while “cause” is more
specific. Despite this distinction, there is a certain looseness in
Avicenna’s terminology. For example, he uses “principle” when
drawing the distinction between “common by causality” and
“common by predication,” but then uses various causes as
examples.10 When explaining what kind of common agent is not
considered by natural philosophy he also begins by using the
term “principle” but then references the causality of this
principle.11 Later he continues to use “principle” but clearly
indicates that he intends the four causes.12 For the present
Therefore, Avicenna states that privation can be understood as a principle if a “principle
is whatever must exist, however it might exist, in order that something else exist, but
not conversely. If that is not sufficient for being a principle, and a principle is not
whatever must exist, however it might exist, but rather is whatever must exist
simultaneously with the thing whose principle it is without being prior or posterior,
then privation is not a principle” (ibid. 1.2.14).
9
Ibid. 1.3.12: “Having finished [the discussion] of those principles that most
properly are called principles—namely, those that are constitutive of what is subject to
generation or of the natural body—we should next focus on those principles that most
deserve the title causes.”
10
Ibid. 1.1.8: “Now, since our present discussion concerns the common principles,
the agent and end considered here are common to them. Now, what is common may be
understood in two ways. One is the way in which the agent is common as producing the
first actuality from which all other actualities follow. . . . The other way that something
is common is by way of generality, as the universal [predicate] agent is said of each of
the particular agents of particular things, and the universal [predicate] end is said of
each one of the particular ends of particular things.”
11
Ibid. 1.1.10: “The efficient principle common to all in the first sense (if natural
things have an efficient principle in this sense) would not be part of the natural order,
since everything that is part of the natural order is subsequent to this principle, and it is
related to all of them as their principle [precisely] because they are part of the natural
order. So, if that principle were part of the natural order, then either it would be a
principle of itself, which is absurd, or something else would be the first efficient
principle, which is a contradiction. Consequently, the natural philosopher has no
business discussing [such an efficient principle], since it has nothing to do with the
science of physics. Also, if there is such a thing, it may be a principle of things that are
part of the natural order as well as things that are not part of the natural order, in which
case its causality will be of a more general existence than [both] the causality of what
specifically causes natural things and the things that are specifically related to natural
things.”
12
Ibid. 1.1.11.

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CATHERINE PETERS

study, the distinction between “principle” and “cause” is irrelevant as neither Avicenna nor Thomas strongly or consistently distinguishes between them in the texts now under
consideration. Consequently, I will use them interchangeably.
A second terminological clarification concerns the terms used
to refer to these two kinds of commonalities. Avicenna himself
refers to them at times as principles or causes that are “common
by causality” and “common by generality.”13 A recent systematic
treatment of the Physics of the Healing uses instead “numerical
commonality” and “generic commonality.”14 The former corresponds with “common by causality” and the latter with
“common by predication,” as will be made clear in the course of
the present study. But, in this study, I will use the terms
“common by causality” and “common by predication.”
Attempting to offer an account of common principles in the
thought of either Avicenna or Thomas—to say nothing of
Aristotle, or other possible influences on them—would be
daunting, and an attempt to consider both might verge on the
audacious. Therefore, a few initial caveats must be made to set
the parameters of my study. First, it is not my intention to give
an exhaustive investigation of Aristotle, but consideration of his
works is appropriate when one claims that Thomas adopted this
distinction not from Aristotle but from Avicenna. Second, since
I am primarily interested in the Thomistic adoption of this
distinction, I will limit my consideration of Avicenna to the
Physics and Metaphysics of The Healing, the Avicennian texts to
which Thomas could have had access. The logical works of
Avicenna must await another study. Third, this study does not
encompass the broader philosophical context of Avicenna nor
does it consider where or how he derived this distinction.15 My
13

See ibid. 1.2 passim.
Andreas Lammer, The Elements of Avicenna’s Physics: Greek Sources and Arabic
Innovations (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 155ff.
15
For more extensive treatments of the relationship between Aristotle and Avicenna,
see Amos Bertolacci, The Reception of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in Avicenna’s Kitâb alShifâ’: A Milestone of Western Metaphysical Thought, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and
Science: Texts and Studies 63 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006); Lammer, Elements of
14

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301

purpose is to explore the sources of this distinction for Thomas,
who explicitly attributes it to Avicenna, not to any other
thinker.16 Fourth and finally, I will not attempt to argue for or
against the overall influence of Avicenna on Thomas’s philosophical system. The focus of the present study is strictly limited
to one division Thomas found in Avicenna which, though
singular, merits consideration.
I. ARISTOTELIAN BACKGROUND
The exposition of Aristotle here will be brief, but
indispensable for one seeking to understand the contribution of
Avicenna concerning this division of common causes.
A) The Physics
From the outset of the Physics, Aristotle makes clear the
importance of causes and principles:
When the objects of an inquiry, in any department, have principles, causes, or
elements, it is through acquaintance with these that knowledge and
understanding is attained. For we do not think that we know a thing until we
are acquainted with its primary causes or first principles, and have carried our
analysis as far as its elements. Plainly, therefore, in the science of nature too
our first task will be to try to determine what relates to its principles.17

Aristotle thus begins with a consideration and dialectical
defense of principles in book I (identifying matter, form, and
privation) before turning to the causes in book II. After defining
nature itself in the first chapter of book II, Aristotle defines each
Avicenna’s Physics; Paul Lettinck, “Aristotle’s ‘Physical’ Works and the Arabic
Tradition,” in Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition, ed. Ahmed Alwishah and Josh Hayes
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Jean Jolivet, “La répartition des causes
chez Aristote et Avicenne: Le sens d’un déplacement,” in Lectionum varietates:
Hommage à Paul Vignaux (1904-1987), ed. J. Jolivet, Z. Kaluza, and A. de Libera
(Paris: Vrin, 1991).
16
Thomas Aquinas, Super Boet. De Trin., q. 5, a. 4.
17
Aristotle, Phys. 1.1.184a10-15.

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CATHERINE PETERS

of the four causes (material, formal, efficient, final) in chapter 3
and outlines a variety of divisions applicable to each of the
causes. Among the six causal modes he delineates is the
distinction between particular and generic causes. Drawing this
distinction, he emphasizes the importance of matching the
generality or specificity of an effect with its cause: “generic
effects should be assigned to generic causes, particular effects to
particular causes, e.g. statue to sculptor, this statue to this
sculptor.”18 This division is not between two kinds of commonality but between the common and the particular. Thomas,
however, in commenting on the distinction between common
and particular glosses the text to include a distinction between
the different kinds of common causes, one which parallels
Avicenna’s distinction (as will be seen below).
While the account of nature and the causes in Aristotle’s
Physics is rich and extensive, one would search in vain for the
explicit distinction between causes that are common by predication and those that are common by causality. Nonetheless,
there are passages that bear some semblance of this distinction.
For example, Aristotle’s treatment of how “nature” can be said
of matter and form in chapter 1 of book II seems to be an
instance of “common by predication.”19 Here Aristotle is
showing how one term, “nature,” is a singular term that can be
predicated of many instances (not just matter and form, but
natural things in general, as well).20 Similarly, “common by
causality” can be discerned in his treatment of the Unmoved
Mover in books VII and VIII. This primary cause of natural
motion is a common cause of motion that is, itself, unmoved.
Aristotle’s argument for such an Unmoved Mover, one should
note, is an element of his physics that stands in stark contrast to

18
Ibid. 2.3.195b26-30. He makes this point because arriving at genuine causal
knowledge of a thing requires that one grasp its proper or appropriate cause.
19
Ibid. 2.1.193a10ff. See also Thomas, I Phys., c. 1, lect. 2 (Commentaria in octo
libros Physicorum Aristotelis [Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1882]).
20
See Aristotle, Phys. 2.1.192b9-193a3.

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303

the physics of Avicenna, which reserves consideration of such a
cause to metaphysics.21
B) The Metaphysics
Metaphysics is concerned with grasping the causes of its
subject, but the causes of concern to the metaphysician are the
causes not merely of motion or natural things, but of existence
itself. Aristotle’s concern with common causes and principles in
this work should be beyond debate. But what is at issue is
whether he makes the explicit distinction between different
kinds of common principles that the present study is investigating. Like the Physics, the Metaphysics contains a
delineation of four causes and an outline of various ways the
causes can be divided (particular/universal, proper/accidental,
composite/simple, which can each be either potential or actual,
bringing the total number of modalities to twelve).22 The
modality of particular/universal is not, importantly, the same as
the distinction between common by causality and common by
predication; again, this distinction is between two kinds of
commonality. Nonetheless, this modality has some similarity to
the distinction between common causes inasmuch as it concerns
the way a given cause can either be universal (and thereby
predicable of more individual things) or particular (and thereby
the proximate cause of a given thing). But nowhere in his
presentation of the causes does Aristotle draw the distinction
between a principle that is common by causality and a principle
that is common by predication.
Nonetheless, his discussion of the way “being” can be
predicated in book XII, chapter 5 is relevant to this distinction.
Aristotle begins by noting that a given term can be said in
21
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.2.10. McGinnis notes: “Here Avicenna is
anticipating his position put forth in book 1 of his Ilāhīyāt (1.1-2), that discussions of
the First Efficient and/or Final Cause—God—properly belong to the subject matter of
metaphysics, and that Aristotle and the tradition following him erred when they
discussed the deity in the science of physics” (McGinnis, trans., 16 n. 6).
22
See Aristotle, Metaphys. 5.2.1013b16-1014a25.

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CATHERINE PETERS

different ways of different things (that is, “analogically”).23 This
chapter offers a solution to the problem of using one term in
reference to many different kinds of things without falling prey
to fallacious equivocation. In other words, it explains how one
can use terms like “being” or “form” to describe or identify
many different kinds of beings and forms. Analogy allows a
focal meaning of a term which can then, mutatis mutandis, be
applied to other things. This is relevant to the present study
insofar as it concerns how one predicate or term can be applied
to many (not only how we can use “common” to refer to causes
or principles that are common by predication and common by
causality but also how a cause that is common by predication
can be accurately said of many). But this account of analogy
goes beyond the distinction of commonalities I am now
considering insofar as it gives an explanation for how a given
predicate can be accurately ascribed to many different kinds of
things. Simply distinguishing a principle that is common by
predication, in other words, does not thereby outline the
parameters for employing a given term. At the same time,
though, this account of analogy does not go as far as the
distinction of “common by predication” and “common by
causality” because analogy does not, for Aristotle, explicitly
divide physics from metaphysics or natural from metaphysical
causal investigations.
***
It would be a mistake to conclude from this cursory
exposition that there is no appearance of principles that are
common by causality and common by predication in Aristotle’s
works. Although Aristotle does not explicitly make the
distinction between them, he does treat the content of this
distinction, in ways such as I have noted above. 24 But it would
23

Aristotle, Metaphys. 12.5.1071a4ff.
For the purpose of the present study, the focus is on the physics and metaphysics
of Aristotle and Avicenna and not their logical works. Nonetheless, some brief remarks
24

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305

also be a mistake to ignore the clarifying move of uniting these
two discrete kinds of commonality as we find in Avicenna.
II. THE FOUR CAUSES IN THE PHYSICS OF THE HEALING
The causes are of central importance to the science of nature
for Avicenna, because ‘ilm is knowledge of a thing in terms of
its causes and principles.25 He launches physics by situating it in
relation to metaphysics and identifying its subject as “the
sensible body insofar as it is subject to change,” a whole and

can be made about the Posterior Analytics, which not only contains Aristotle’s account
of demonstration and episteme but also served as the structuring guide for Avicenna’s
Physics and Metaphysics of The Healing. In the Posterior Analytics Aristotle presents his
account of demonstration, a logical process by which one arrives at certain, causal
knowledge of a thing. In explaining how this process is possible, he presents an ordering
structure of a given area of investigation divided according to a proper subject (that is,
what the science considers), principles (which the science employs in demonstrations
about the subject), and conclusions (which yield certain causal knowledge about the
subject). The question of how a principle is common is critically important to this work,
both because Aristotle maintains that, strictly speaking, knowledge is universal while
also affirming that a given demonstration must proceed from proper principles, not
common. Aristotle’s primary concern when considering common principles is how they
feature in demonstrations and, consequently, how knowing some universal aspect of the
thing can yield scientific knowledge of it. Yet, as in the Physics, Aristotle does not explicitly draw the distinction between different kinds of commonalities. While elements
of the distinction between “common by causality” and “common by predication” can
assuredly be found in this work, this precise distinction and comparison is nowhere to
be found, neither in Aristotle’s text nor in Thomas’s commentary.
25
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.1.1: “Natural things have principles, reasons,
and causes without which the science of physics could not be attained,” and thus “the
only way to acquire genuine knowledge of those things possessing principles is, first, to
know their principles and, from their principles, to know them, for this is the way to
teach and learn that gives us access to the genuine knowledge of things that possess
principles” (Liber primus naturalium, p. 6, ll. 20-26: “Si res naturales habent principia
vel occasiones et causas, non certificatur scientia naturalis nisi ex illis, quia iam
expressum est in scientia probationis quod non est via ad certitudinem cognitionis rerum
quae habent principia nisi per comprehensionem suorum principiorum, et per
comprehensionem principiorum habetur cognitio earum, quia hoc genus doctrinae est
docere quomodo per illud perveniatur ad certitudinem cognitionis rerum quae habent
principia”).

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CATHERINE PETERS

composite being.26 The causes are necessary precursors for a
natural thing’s coming to exist and continuing in existence.
Some of them—matter and form—constitute the subject of this
science while others—agent and end—are needed to account for
motion. But the natural philosopher who wishes to attain
knowledge of the subject must grasp each of them.
The initial causes or principles that Avicenna presents are
matter and form, the causes that are constitutive of the natural
body, introduced via an analogy: “One of them is like the wood
of the bed, while the other is like the form or shape of the bed.
What is like the wood of the bed is called material . . . whereas
what is like the form of the bed is called form.”27 He returns to
matter a few paragraphs later and identifies it, more precisely,
as the principle of potentiality in the natural thing.28 Form, by
26
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.1.2 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 5, ll. 8-10: “Et
eius subiectum [quandoquidem scisti quod omnis scientia subiectum habet] est corpus
sensibile secundum hoc quod subiacet permutationi”).
27
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.2.3 (Liber primus naturalium, pp. 19-20, ll.
26-32): “Sed principia quibus apprehenditur eius corporeitas quaedam sunt partes esse
eius et intra essentiam eius et haec digniora sunt apud eos vocari principia. Haec autem
duo sunt, quorum unum sic est corpori sicut materies lecto, aliud vero sicut forma
lectitas abstracta a lecto. Et quod est in eo tamquam materies in lecto vocatur hyle,
subiectum, materia, origo et elementum, sed diversis respectibus, et quod est in eo sicut
forma lectitas in lecto vocatur forma.”
28
Avicenna outlines five related but distinct meanings that “matter” can convey,
moving from the more general to the more specific in Physics of the Healing 1.2.6. First,
matter in the sense of “material,” which is prime matter; second, matter in the sense of
“subject,” which is matter actually bearing some form; third, matter in the sense of
“stuff,” which is matter under the perspective of being common to all forms; fourth,
matter in the sense of “element,” which is matter taken as a simple part of a whole
composite, arrived at via an analysis of the whole, that is still receptive to form; fifth,
matter in the sense of “component,” which is also matter taken as the simplest part of a
component (and, as such, it is related to “element”) but arrived at via a process of
composition. Of these, Avicenna most often uses the term “elemental,” because this is
the meaning of “matter” as a principle arrived at through analysis, the methodology of
Physics of the Healing 1. In all of these differing terms, “matter” is understood as the
principle of potentiality intrinsic to the natural being and, thus, of receptivity to the
actuality of form. In the Metaphysics of the Healing, too, Avicenna lists synonymous
terms, each of which refers fundamentally to “the bearer of the potentiality of existence,
which has the potentiality of a thing’s existence” (4.2.26) The primary focus of this

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contrast, is the principle of actuality.29 As in his consideration of
matter, Avicenna also presents a variety of meanings that
“form” can convey before settling on the one of greatest interest
to the natural philosopher: the form that makes matter to
subsist (that is, the substantial form).30 Matter and form are the
two principles that directly enter into the composition of
sensible bodies. If one is to achieve knowledge of natural things,
one must comprehend material and formal causality.

metaphysical consideration is the division of matter into the matter that is part of a
thing (that is, a principle of the matter/form composite) and matter that is not part of a
thing, though it remains receptive to it (that is, prime matter, which must be rendered
subsistent through substantial form or at least the form of corporeality), for instance in
Metaphysics of the Healing 6.1.4. Because the precise differences in meaning between
these is irrelevant to the present study, I will not consider them in any greater detail.
29
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.10.9: “The form taken as one of the principles
is relative to what is composed of it and the matter—namely, that it is a part of it that
necessitates its being actual in its instance, whereas the matter is a part that does not
necessitate its being actual (for the existence of the matter is not sufficient for the actual
generation of something, but only for something’s potential generation). So, the thing is
not what it is through the matter; rather, it is through the existence of the form that
something becomes actual” (Liber primus naturalium, pp. 93-94, ll. 49-54: “Et forma
quae accipitur pro uno ex principiis est secundum comparationem eius quod est
compositum ex ipsa et materia, quia est pars eius quod ipsa constituit in actu,
qualecumque sit illud, et materia est pars quae non constituit in actu, quia esse materiae
non sufficit ut sit res in actu, sed ut sit in potentia. Ergo res non est id quod est ex sua
materia, sed ex esse formae fit res in actu”).
30
See ibid. 1.10.9. First, it can be said of the essence of something that allows a
species to subsist. Second, form can be said simply to be the shape of a thing (for
example, a bowl has a flat bottom and raised sides, so it can be set down and hold
things). Third, form can be said of a disposition of a thing or its order (some examples
Avicenna gives are the form of an army or the regulative order of the law). Fourth, form
can be said of the separate intelligibles (that is, forms existing separate from matter).
Making these distinctions, Avicenna considers each in passing but devotes his attention
to the precise meaning of “form” that concerns the natural philosopher: form that
makes matter to subsist or, more precisely, substantial form. While there are, of course,
accidental forms, Avicenna notes in Physics of the Healing 1.10.9 that “the form that
makes the matter subsist . . . stands above [any] other kind.” The explanation of form in
terms of actuality is echoed in the Metaphysics of the Healing 6.1.2 when Avicenna
initially defines form as the “cause which is part of the subsistence of the thing and in
terms of which the thing is what it is in actuality.”

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CATHERINE PETERS

Avicenna then turns to agent and end, introducing them—
like matter and form—in reference to the sensible body:
The body also has additional principles: an agent and an end. The agent is that
which impresses the form belonging to bodies into their matter, thereby
making the matter subsist through the form, and from [the matter and form]
making the composite subsist, where [the composite] acts by virtue of its form
and is acted upon by virtue of its matter. The end is that for the sake of which
these forms are impressed into the matters.31

Thus, he identifies the principles of physics via an analysis of
the subject, identifying in turn matter, form, agent, and end.
Each of these are per se principles, either entering directly into
the composition of the being or accounting for its change. To
these is added a fifth, privation, which is not a per se principle
but is nonetheless needed to account for change.32 The discussion of the causes here in chapter 7 is rather brief. Avicenna
returns to this topic in chapter 10 to offer a delineation, again
emphasizing the importance of identifying each cause in order
to attain knowledge of the natural thing.33 Before concluding his
account of causality, he turns in chapter 11 to consider the
relation between the causes and then outlines various causal
modalities in chapter 12.34

31

Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.2.7 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 22, ll. 74-78:
“Sed corpus habet alia principia: efficiens et finale. Efficiens autem est quod imprimit
formam quae est in corporibus in materia eorum et perficit materiam per formam, et ex
utrisque constituit compositum quod agit per formam et patitur per materiam. Finalis
est propter quam impressae sunt formae in materiis”).
32
Ibid. 1.2.14 (Liber primus naturalium, pp. 26-27, ll. 48-68).
33
Ibid. 1.10.1 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 86, ll. 3-7.
34
Besides the division of common principles which is the focus of my study,
Avicenna presents five paired causal divisions in Physics of the Healing 1.12.1 (this is a
parallel to Aristotle’s Physics 2.3, which Thomas comments on in II Phys., c. 3, lect. 6).
He devotes the entirety of Physics of the Healing 1.12 to these divisions, applying them
to efficient causality in par. 2-3, material causality in par. 4, formal causality in par. 5,
and final causality in par. 6-7. He expands on the division between potential and actual
causes in par. 8. These divisions are paired contraries such that a given cause can be a
combination of them (for example, a proximate particular cause or a complex universal
cause), a point Avicenna grants in Physics of the Healing 1.12.3 but does not dwell on.

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Turning briefly to the Metaphysics of the Healing, one finds
a similar fourfold division of the causes. The account in the
Metaphysics is, in some ways, a simpler and more streamlined
account than the earlier account in the Physics of the Healing.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the metaphysical account is focused
on the existential relevance of each cause, that is, how each
cause helps account for the existence of a thing. Book VI begins
with the standard fourfold division of the causes which relates
each cause to an existing thing. Avicenna divides the causes of a
thing into those which are “included in its subsistence and [are]
part of its existence [and those which are] not.”35 As in his
account in the Physics, two of the causes are included in the
subsistence of a thing (matter and form) while two are not (end
and agent).36 Here, however, this grouping of the causes centers
around subsistence (that is, a kind of existence), not natural
composition. This division accords with the account of matter
and form in the Physics of the Healing as those causes which
enter directly into the composition of the natural body.
Avicenna uses this general division of causes while giving brief
definitions of each:
By formal cause, we mean the cause which is part of the subsistence of the
thing and in terms of which the thing is what it is in actuality. By the
elemental [cause, we mean] the cause that is part of the subsistence of the
thing, through which the thing is what it is in potency and in which the
potentiality of its existence resides. By agent [we mean] the cause which

An additional classification, applicable both to all four lines of causality and also to each
of these pairs of subdivisions, is potential and actual (Physics of the Healing 1.12.3).
35
Avicenna, Metaphysics of the Healing 6.1.3 (Liber de philosophia prima, p. 292:
“Dico enim quod causa rei necessario vel est intra essentiam rei et pars esse eius vel
non.”
36
Another way of referring to this distinction is causes that are “immanent” or
“transcendent,” as is evident in Robert Wisnovsky’s work “Towards a History of
Avicenna’s Distinction between Immanent and Transcendent Causes,” in Before and
After Avicenna, ed. David C. Reisman and Ahamed H. al-Rahim (Leiden: Brill, 2003),
49-68. This distinction is also of concern to Jolivet (“La répartition des causes chez
Aristote et Avicenne”) who argues that this distinction is one that is innovative on
Avicenna’s part, something Wisnovsky directly critiques.

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CATHERINE PETERS

bestows an existence that is other than itself. . . . If it [the cause] is that for
whose sake it [an effect] is, then it is the purpose.37

In the course of Metaphysics of the Healing VI, Avicenna
elaborates somewhat on the meaning of each, but places particular emphasis on the efficient or agent cause. He does so
because, though he will trace each line of causality back to a
first, it is especially through the termination of efficient causes
that he will prove the existence of the Necessary Existent, God,
in book VIII. Here in book VI, Avicenna notes that the efficient
cause is not limited to causing motion but rather extends to
causing existence itself.38 This distinction traces the division of
commonalities which I have already introduced and on which I
will elaborate in the next section of this study. For our present
purposes, the general meaning we should ascribe to the agent
cause is that of bringing potentiality into actuality. Both motion
and existence are instances of a potency becoming actual (in the
former, the potential to move; in the latter, the potential to
exist at all). Avicenna touches on this critically important
distinction only briefly here. He is able to do this because he has
already presented and explained it in the Physics of the Healing,
to which I will turn shortly.
The formal cause is an intrinsic cause that is responsible for
rendering a being to be what it is in actuality, while the material
37
Avicenna, Metaphysics of the Healing 6.1.2-3 (Liber de philosophia prima, pp.
291-92: “Dico igitur quod nos non intelligimus esse causam formalem, nisi causam quae
est pars essentiae rei per quam est res id quod est in effectu. Materiam vero intelligimus
esse causam quae est pars essentiae rei in qua est id per quod res est in effectu et in qua
requiescit potentia esse eius. Agens vero est causa quae acquirit rei esse discretum a
seipso. . . . Finem vero intelligimus causam propter quam acquiritur esse rei discretum
ab ea. Et potest ostendi quod non est causa alia praeter has”).
38
See ibid. 6.1.2: “The metaphysical philosophers do not mean by ‘agent’ only the
principle of motion, as the naturalists mean, but the principle and giver of existence, as
in the case of God with respect to the world. As for the natural efficient cause, it does
not bestow existence other than motion in one of the forms of motion” (Liber de
philosophia prima, p. 292: “Divini philosophi non intelligunt per agentem principium
motionis tantum, sicut intelligunt naturales, sed principium essendi et datorem eius,
sicut creator mundi; causa vero agens naturalis non acquirit esse rei nisi motionem
aliquam ex modis motionum”).

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cause makes something to be what it is in potentiality.39 All
actuality that a given being has, then, is had on account of its
form. This much was shown in the Physics. In the Metaphysics,
Avicenna goes on to argue that form is a necessary but not sufficient principle for existence. The coming to be of the form,
though it is the principle of actuality within the composed
being, is itself in need of a cause. The form, then, can exert two
kinds of causality: considered in itself, it is a formal cause that
informs matter and makes the being to be what it is. Considered
as a proximate cause, it is a necessary but not sufficient
principle for a thing to come into and remain in existence,
though the ultimate cause of existence, as Avicenna will show, is
an agent that is fully actual.40 While form can function as a kind
of efficient cause in this way, its primary kind of causality is that
of being the formal aspect of a composite being: “form . . . is
only a formal cause for the thing composed of it and matter.”41
This is, furthermore, the aspect under which the natural
philosopher investigates it.42 For Avicenna, the efficient cause is
an extrinsic cause that bestows existence in some way, thereby
actualizing a potentiality. The end (or final cause) is the cause
on account of which some effect is brought about—a point on
which Avicenna does not elaborate here, though he will return
to show its finitude in Metaphysics of the Healing VIII, chapter
3 while arguing for the existence of a first metaphysical cause.43
To summarize, the central concern of the Metaphysics of the
Healing’s account of the causes is the existential relevance of
each. This streamlined account assumes many of the careful
39

Ibid. 8.4.8.
Ibid. 6.1.5 (Liber de philosophia prima, pp. 293-94).
41
Ibid. (Liber de philosophia prima, 294: “forma non est nisi forma materiae et non
est causa formalis materiae”).
42
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.3.11.
43
For Avicenna, there cannot be an infinity of ends (or an infinite line of ordered
goods) because, he explains, an agent is only actually effective when acting for a final
end. (Avicenna, Metaphysics of the Healing 8.3.1-3.) This cause is important, though,
because of its role in making the agent cause actually efficacious (see Robert Wisnovsky,
“Final and Efficient Causality in Avicenna’s Cosmology and Theology,” Quaestio 2
[2002]: 97-123).
40

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CATHERINE PETERS

distinctions drawn in the earlier Physics of the Healing. Indeed,
preceding the entire treatment of the causes in the Metaphysics
is the distinction from chapter 2 of the Physics between the
ways in which causes can be common by predication and the
ways in which they can be common by causality. The placement
of this distinction in the opening of the Physics indicates its
great importance, to Avicenna, for launching the science of
physics in a way that distinguishes physics from metaphysics
while affirming that both sciences are concerned with causes
that are common in some sense.44 Let us now return to the
Physics of the Healing to see this distinction.
III. THE TWOFOLD DIVISION OF COMMON PRINCIPLES IN THE
PHYSICS OF THE HEALING
While Avicenna is not uninterested in specific knowledge of
natural beings, his order of investigation begins with what is
common before moving to the more particular. As he puts it,
“the principles of common things must first be known in order
that common things be known, and the common things must

44

Obviously, this treatment of causality in the work of Avicenna is cursory. For some
more-extensive treatments of relevance to the present study, see Syamsuddin Arif,
“Causality in Islamic Philosophy: The Arguments of Ibn Sînâ,” Islam and Science 7
(2009): 51-68; Ahmad Hasnawi, “La physique du Shifâ’: Aperçus sur sa structure et son
contenu,” in Avicenna and His Heritage: Acts of the International Colloquium. Leuven
and Louvain-la-Neuve, 8th–11th Sept. 1999, ed. Jules Janssens and Daniel De Smet,
Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, De Wulf-Mansion Centre, Series 1, vol. 28 (Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 2002); Kara Richardson, “Avicenna and Aquinas on Form and
Generation,” in The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics, ed.
Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Amos Bertolacci, Scientia Graeco-Arabica 7 (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 2011); Kara Richardson, “Avicenna’s Conception of the Efficient
Cause,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (2013): 220-39; Michael E.
Marmura, “Avicenna on Causal Priority,” in Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism ed.
Parviz Morewedge (Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1981); Michael E. Marmura, “The
Metaphysics of Efficient Causality in Avicenna (Ibn Sina),” in Islamic Theology and
Philosophy, ed. M. E. Marmura (New York: State University of New York Press, 1984).

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first be known in order to know the specific things.”45 This is
because, again, the science of nature is concerned with showing
what is said truly of all natural beings, not just one particular
natural thing or what is incidental to natural things.
To reiterate, there are two ways, according to Avicenna, that
a cause can be common. In one way, it is common by causality.
This kind of common cause is a numerically distinct being with
multiple effects. This commonality is a commonality in reality,
then, as the cause exists as an individual with multiple effects. In
another way, a cause can be common by its generality or by
predication. This kind of common cause is not numerically
distinct but rather refers to a singular aspect that can be predicated of multiple individuals. This is a logical commonality,
then, as it concerns something that can be predicated of existent
things, but is not a thing itself. As Avicenna explains,
The difference between the two is that in the first sense, common denotes a
determinately existing entity that is numerically one [and] which the intellect
indicates that it cannot be said of many, whereas in the second sense, common
does not denote a single determinately existing entity in reality, but an object
of the intellect that applies to many that are common in the intellect in that
they are agents or ends, and so this common thing is predicated of many.46

Though applicable to other types of causality, this distinction is
most important for efficient causality, which allows for a clear
dividing line between physics and metaphysics: physics treats

45
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.1.3 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 8, ll. 50-52:
“Quia ergo sic est, debent cognosci principia rerum communium prius quam res
communes et res communes prius quam res minus communeso”).
46
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.2.9 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 23, ll. 93-99:
“Et differentia quae est inter duos modos haec est scilicet quod commune, secundum
primum intellectum, est in esse essentia una numero, et innuit intellectus quod ipsa est
et non competit ei ut dicatur de pluribus. Commune autem, secundo modo, non habet
in esse essentiam unam, immo est res intellecta complectens essentias multas
convenientes in intellectu secundum quod sunt efficientes aut finales; ergo hoc
commune dicetur de multis”).

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CATHERINE PETERS

causes that are common by predication, while metaphysics deals
with causes that are common by causality.47
Applying this distinction to agent and end, the agent can be
common in one way insofar as it is the cause that produces “the
first actuality from which all other actualities flow.”48 An end
can likewise be common in this way if there is one end toward
which all natural things tend. In these instances, there is an
individual being (agent or end) that is common by its causality
(efficient or final). In both cases there is a singular cause with
many effects: a commonality of causality. In another way both
agent and end can be said to be common by their generality. In
this case, there is not just one being that is an agent or end but
rather many particular beings of which “agent” or “end” can be
predicated. When speaking of natural agents and natural ends in
physics, then, what Avicenna has in mind are commonalities of
generality or predication (i.e., the way in which “end” and
“agent” can be said of all natural beings). The agent that is
common by causality is a singular being with multiple effects.
This most common agent is the concern of the metaphysician,
as it is the cause not only of material beings, but of all beings,
and thus its effects extend beyond the scope of natural
philosophy.49 Efficient causality is considered by both the
47
The investigation of such a common cause culminates in proof for the existence of
God, the Necessary Existent, the ultimate cause of the existence of all other things, in
Metaphysics of the Healing 8.1-4.
48
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.2.8 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 22, ll. 82-83:
“Uno enim modo, efficiens communis est ille qui facit primum opus ex quo cetera opera
habent ordinem”).
49
As he explains, “The efficient principle common to all in the first sense (if natural
things have an efficient principle in this sense) would not be part of the natural order,
since everything that is part of the natural order is subsequent to this principle, and it is
related to all of them as their principle [precisely] because they are part of the natural
order” (Physics of the Healing 1.2.10 [Liber primus naturalium, p. 23, ll. 1-5: “Sed
principium efficiens commune omni secundum modum primum, si res naturales habent
principium huiusmodi, non erit naturale, quia omne naturale est post hoc principium, et
ipsum habet ad omnia relationem eo quod est principium eorum, non quod sit naturale
quia, si principium esset naturale, tunc esset principium sui ipsius, quod est
impossibile”]). Thomas is clearly aware of this distinction, too, and uses it frequently in
his commentary on the Sentences (e.g. I Sent., d. 7, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3. See also I Sent.,

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natural philosopher and the metaphysician, but their interest in
this cause differ.50
While the division between a principle that is common by
causality and one that is common by predication is used
especially to treat efficient and final causes, it is applicable to all
the principles of nature. Avicenna therefore also utilizes it while
treating matter, form, and privation, emphasizing the importance of common principles to the science of physics. As he
maintains, “since our inquiry is about common principles only,
we should inquire into which of the two aforementioned ways
these three common principles [that is, matter, form, and
privation] are common.”51 Beginning with matter, he asserts
that material bodies can be either generable and corruptible or
not. The material of generable and corruptible bodies gains or
loses forms temporally, while the material of nongenerable and
noncorruptible bodies is eternally conjoined.52 Matter common
by causality would be a singular material cause of things, but
matter that is susceptible to noncorruptible forms is not
susceptible to corruptible forms. It is impossible, then, for there
to be one matter that is common by causality. Matter can,
though, be common by predication inasmuch as there are
aspects of matter truly predicable of all material things (e.g.,

d. 37, q. 1, a. 1; d. 42, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3; II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, ad 1; d. 15, q. 1, a. 2.
See also De Verit., q. 2, a. 3, ad 20.
50
The distinction between a metaphysical and natural efficient cause is referenced
and returned to in Metaphysics of the Healing 6.1.2.
51
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.3.1 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 35, ll. 2-4:
“Quoniam nostra speculatio fuit hic de communibus principiis, debemus considerare in
his principiis tria communia secundum quem duorum praedictorum modorum sint
communia”).
52
Ibid. 1.3.2: “It will become apparent to us later that some bodies are susceptible to
generation and corruption (namely, those whose material acquires a new form and loses
another), while others are not susceptible to generation and corruption and instead exist
as a result of an atemporal creation. If that is the case, then there is no common material
in the first of the two senses, since there is no single material that is sometimes
susceptible to the form of what undergoes generation and corruption and at other times
is susceptible to the form of what is naturally incorruptible and has no material
generation.”

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CATHERINE PETERS

potentiality).53 Matter as a principle of the thing that is
receptive to form and from which a natural thing is generated is
the common matter of concern to physics, a matter common by
predication. A consideration of matter that is common by
causality is, like the agent and end common by causality,
properly the concern of metaphysics.
Turning to form, Avicenna again begins by entertaining the
suggestion that natural beings have a form that is common by
causality. In such a case, this common form must be numerically
one and shared by all natural things. A possible candidate for
such a common form might be the “form of corporeality,” as
this is, for Avicenna, what makes a natural thing to be a body.54
Consequently, the “form of corporeality” is possessed in some
way by all natural things.55 But, if there is one common form for
all natural things, then one runs into the problem of how to
explain natural diversity and multiplicity and, further, the
problem of how this common form could remain even through
substantial changes.
Cognizant of these problems, Avicenna denies that the “form
of corporeality” is common in the first sense. If it were, then it
would have to be a numerically unique and subsistent form. But
such a view of form goes against his account of natural
hylomorphic unity, as Kara Richardson and Abraham Stone
have shown.56 For Avicenna, the “form of corporeality” is a way
to identify an aspect of natural things that actually exists in
tandem with their substantial forms and accidental features.
53

See ibid. 1.3.10.
There is no distinction between “form of corporality,” “form of corporeity,” and
“form of corporeality,” as each are translations of the same term.
55
See, e.g., ibid. 1.3.3 (Liber primus naturalium, pp. 36-37, ll. 32-45).
56
See Richardson, “Avicenna and Aquinas on Form and Generation,” 258.
Richardson’s solution to the issue of whether the form of corporality is a subsistent form
or not is to view it as “merely conceptually distinct from the species form” (258 n. 26).
In this, Richardson is in agreement with Abraham Stone, who maintains that the form of
corporeity cannot be an additional substantial form, given the relation between form,
subject, and accident. See Abraham Stone, “Simplicius and Avicenna on the Essential
Corporeity of Material Substance,” in Aspects of Avicenna, ed. Robert Wisnovsky
(Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2001), 100.
54

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This form is, then, neither a substantial form nor one that is
common by causality. There cannot be a numerically distinct
form, for Avicenna, that remains throughout substantial change
because substantial change is, precisely, a change in form. He
thus concludes that there cannot be a form that is common by
causality. Nonetheless, as in his treatment of matter, agent, and
end, there is a sense of form that is common by predication:
namely, a disposition acquired by matter that is a principle of
actuality within the natural thing.57
A final point of consideration in this discussion of commonality is privation. Avicenna quickly dismisses the suggestion
that it might be common in the first sense (that is, common by
causality).58 Privation is, by definition, the absence of something
and when this “something” comes about the privation is gone. It
is not an existing singular thing, nor is it even a cause in the per
se sense that matter and form are. Privation, furthermore, is not
simply an absence, but a lack of some form that the natural
thing has the potency to acquire. It cannot, then, be numerically
identical because privation is not something that multiple effects
share in common.59
Having considered the possible commonality of matter,
form, and privation, Avicenna presents a brief discussion in
chapter 3 of how they might be common by predication.60 Such
short shrift here assumes the presentation in chapter 2 of what

57

See Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.3.10.
See ibid. 1.3.4 (Liber primus naturalium, pp. 37-38, ll. 50-54.
59
For a study on the meaning of privation in the thought of Avicenna and Thomas,
see Jon McGinnis. “Making Something of Nothing: Privation, Possibility, and
Potentiality in Avicenna and Aquinas” The Thomist 76 (2012): 551-75.
60
Avicenna, Physics of the Healing 1.3.5: “As for that which is common in the
second of the two senses, the three principles are common to what is subject to
generation and change, since it is common to all [of those sorts of things] that they all
have matter, form, and privation” (Liber primus naturalium, p. 38, ll. 55-59: “Sed
commune, secundo modo ex duobus, potest inveniri in unaquaque maneria horum
principiorum secundum quod sit commune omnibus generatis et mutabilibus, quia
omnia conveniunt in hoc quod unumquodque eorum habet formam et materiam et
privationem”).
58

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CATHERINE PETERS

is meant by “common by predication.” Avicenna himself adverts
to his earlier discussion of this distinction, explaining that
our entire inquiry into and approach to form and its being a principle is
strictly limited to its being a principle in the sense that it is one of the two
parts of something that undergoes generation, not that it is an agent, even if it
is possible that a form be an agent. Also, we have already shown that the
natural philosopher does not deal with the efficient and final principles that
are common to all natural things in the first way [mentioned in the previous
chapter], and so we should concentrate our efforts on the second [way] that
the efficient principle is common to all natural things.61

Having eliminated matter and form as common by causality, he
is able quickly to conclude that the matter and form that the
natural philosopher is concerned with must be common by
predication. In other words, physics is not concerned with the
singular kind of matter that, say, metaphysics considers, nor
with any singularly existent form. What physics is concerned
with is how matter and form pertain to all natural things, both
as principles of natural composition and as indispensable
elements of natural change. While concerned with principles
that are common, physics does not consider all kinds of
common principles. As Avicenna explains, “our inquiry and
discussion are about the principles from this perspective
[common by predication] and not the first one [common by
causality].”62 Similarly, it is possible to speak of privation as
common by predication. Because “everything of which privation
61

Ibid. 1.3.11 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 42, ll. 40-51: “Et tota nostra speculatio
de forma et de eius principalitate ad id perducitur scilicet quod est principium ex
intellectu quod est una ex duabus partibus generati, non quod sit efficiens. Si autem
conceditur quod forma sit efficiens, <cum> iam declaravimus quod naturalis non habet
tractare de principio efficiente et principio finali communi secundum modum primum
omnibus naturalibus: ergo debemus tractare de principio efficiente communi naturalibus
quae sunt post eum. Quandoquidem iam explicavimus de principiis quae magis debent
vocari principia, idest constituentia generatum sive corpus naturale, debemus ergo
tractare de principiis quae magis digna sunt vocari causae, et ex illis notum faciemus
principium efficiens commune naturalibus, quod est natura.”
62
Ibid. 1.3.6 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 39, ll. 78-79: “Et nostra speculatio de
principiis est hic hoc modo. Non enim loquimur hic de primo modo”).

AVICENNA AND AQUINAS ON A DIVISION OF PRINCIPLES

319

is predicated is the nonexistence of some instance of what we
have called form in that which is capable of acquiring it [that is,
in the material].”63 The commonality of privation is thus bound
up with form, as privation is understood as the absence of some
form, and it can be commonly predicated of absences of forms.
In sum, while the distinction between agents that are
common by causality and those common by predication is of
particular importance to Avicenna—given his metaphysical
commitments—this is a distinction that is also applicable to
matter, form, and privation. The kind of common cause of
concern to natural philosophy is, in each instance, a
commonality of predication. The kind of common cause of
concern to metaphysics is the commonality of causality.
IV. THOMISTIC ADOPTION
Having presented the two ways a cause can be common for
Avicenna and its application to each of the causes, it is now
possible to see the adoption of this distinction in the works of
Thomas.
A) Scriptum super libros Sententiarum (ca. 1252-57)
Reference to the distinction between a cause that is common
by causality and one that is common by predication is found in
Thomas as early as his commentary on the Sentences of Peter
Lombard. Here, Thomas uses the distinction first within the
context of divine names, while asking whether “qui est” should
be accorded priority; he then uses it within a discussion of
beatitude as the ultimate end of human life. In treating divine
names, he raises an objection that “good” should be given
priority over “being” because there is a way in which “good”

63
Ibid. 1.3.10 (Liber primus naturalium, p. 42, ll. 38-39: “Et quicquid dicitur
privatio est non esse id quod vocamus formam in suo susceptibili”).

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CATHERINE PETERS

applies even to things that do not exist.64 In answering this
objection, he employs the two different ways a cause can be
common. He argues that “good” is more common not by predication but rather by causality. “Good” is common by causality
because the causality of an end extends even to things that do
not yet exist (such as when imperfect things desire further
actualization).65 In this way, “good” is more common inasmuch
as its causality extends even to not-yet-existent effects. “Qui
est” is still accorded priority, though, since this is more appropriate inasmuch as God is fully actual, lacking all nonexistence.
The second, somewhat more extended use of this distinction
in the Sentences commentary is in the context of presenting
beatitude as the ultimate end of life. An objection is raised that
beatitude, if it is a good, would have to be common, but life
includes other animals who have their own respective ends;
therefore, it seems impossible for there to be one common
beatitude.66 Thomas responds that a thing can be common in
two ways: “through predication” (in which case there are many
individual causes) and “through participation” (one thing taking
part in another, common thing). There are goods that are
common through predication but different in kind (the good of
a human vs. the good of a dog, for example) but beatitude is a
good that is common by participation. That is, beatitude is the
singular end that is shared, in different ways, by all. This
common good is, for Thomas, the way in which individuals

64
I Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 3, arg. 2: “Praeterea, illud quod est communius videtur esse
prius. Sed bonum est communius quam ens: quia divinum esse extendit se tantum ad
entia quae esse participant; bonum autem extendit se ad non entia, quae etiam in esse
vocat: dicitur enim bonum a boare, quod est vocare, ut Commentator dicit super Lib. de
Divin. Nominib. Ergo bonum est prius quam ens” (Parma ed. [1858]; ed. Roberto Busa).
65
I Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 3, ad 2.
66
IV Sent., d. 49, q. 1, a. 1, qcla. 4, arg. 3: “Praeterea, praesens vita hominis est
perfectior quam praesens vita alicujus alterius animalis. Sed vita praesens aliorum
animalium includit finem ultimum eorumdem. Ergo et vita praesens hominis
beatitudinem includit, qui est finis ejus” (Parma ed. [1858]; ed. Roberto Busa).

AVICENNA AND AQUINAS ON A DIVISION OF PRINCIPLES

321

“arrive at that which is the common good of all beings, namely,
God.”67
While the commonality of predication here clearly tracks the
distinction from the Physics of the Healing, the reference to
“common by participation” seems to differ from Avicenna’s
“common by causality.” But this difference, I suggest, is not
significant. “Participation” is itself used by Thomas to describe
the causal existential relation between God and creatures. Furthermore, like Avicenna’s identification of the cause common by
causality as being outside the natural order (ultimately, the
Necessary Existent), Thomas also identifies the end that is
“common through participation” as God.68 Thus, in the Commentary on the Sentences Thomas employs the division of
“common” into predication and causality, albeit with somewhat
different terminology.
B) Quaestiones disputatae De veritate (ca. 1256-59)
The distinction reappears in Thomas’s disputed questions on
truth within a discussion of the vita gloriae (that is, the end of a
life of grace). An objection is raised that whatever is more
common is more noble, but natural life seems to be more
common than the life of grace (inasmuch as natural life
continues even when one falls from grace); therefore, it seems
as if natural life is more noble than the vita gloriae. In

67
IV Sent., d. 49, q. 1, a. 1, qcla. 1, ad 3: “Dupliciter aliquid dicitur esse commune.
Uno modo per praedicationem; hujusmodi autem commune non est idem numero in
diversis repertum; et hoc modo habet bonum corporis, communitatem. Alio modo est
aliquid commune secundum participationem unius et ejusdem rei secundum numerum;
et haec communitas maxime potest in his quae ad animam pertinent, inveniri; quia per
ipsam attingitur ad id quod est commune bonum omnibus rebus, scilicet Deum; et ideo
ratio non procedit.”
68
See De Pot., q. 3, a. 5: “Unde oportet quod ab uno illo ente omnia alia sint,
quaecumque non sunt suum esse, sed habent esse per modum participationis. Haec est
ratio Avicennae. Sic ergo ratione demonstratur et fide tenetur quod omnia sint a Deo
creata” (Quaestiones Disputatae, ed. R. Spiazzi et al., vol. 2 [Turin: Marietti, 1949]).

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CATHERINE PETERS

responding, Thomas explains that a thing can be common in
two senses:
First, it is said to be common through effect or predication; that is, it is found
in many things according to one intelligible character. In this sense, that which
is more common is not more noble but more imperfect, as animal is, which is
more common than man. Now, it is in this sense that natural life is more
common than the life of glory. Second, a thing is said to be common after the
manner of a cause; that is, it resembles a cause which, while remaining
numerically one, extends to many effects. In this sense, what is more common
is more noble. . . . In this sense, natural life is not more common than the life
of glory.69

Things that are common “through effect or predication”
tracks Avicenna’s “common by predication.” Both of these
kinds of predicative commonalities refer not to a singular
existing thing but to an aspect of the thing that is common to it
and to many others. By contrast, a thing that is “common after
the manner of a cause” is precisely like Avicenna’s “common by
causality” inasmuch as this kind of common cause is numerically
one and related to multiple effects. The life of glory, for
Thomas, is common by causality and therefore it is “more
noble” than natural life. It is not common by predication,
though, because “life” can be said of more than just the vita
gloriae. This division, not used to distinguish the principles of a
science, is nonetheless in accord with the distinction outlined by
Avicenna and even follows the original terminology, transplanted here to another context.

69
De Verit., q. 7, a. 6, ad 7: “Dupliciter enim dicitur aliquid commune. Uno modo
per consecutionem vel praedicationem; quando, scilicet, aliquid unum invenitur in
multis secundum rationem unam; et sic illud quod est communius, non est nobilius, sed
imperfectius, sicut animal homine; et hoc modo vita naturae est communior quam vita
gloriae. Alio modo per modum causae, sicut causa quae, una numero manens, ad plures
effectus se extendit; et sic id quod est communius, est nobilius, ut conservatio civitatis
quam conservatio familiae. Hoc autem modo vita naturae non est communior quam vita
gloriae” (Quaestiones Disputatae, ed. R. Spiazzi et al., vol. 1 [Turin: Marietti, 1949];
English translation by Robert W. Mulligan, S.J. [Chicago: Henry Regnery Company,
1952]).

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323

C) Expositio super librum Boethii De trinitate (ca. 1257-59)
While there are other discrete invocations of this distinction
in Thomas’s works—such as in his scriptural commentary on
the Book of Romans70—perhaps the clearest use is found within
his commentary on Boethius’s De trinitate.71 Discussing the
division of sciences in question 5, Thomas considers in the
fourth article what divine science (metaphysics) considers. As
Avicenna himself did, Thomas explains that knowledge
(scientia) of a thing is acquired “through knowledge of principles.”72 But principles can be taken in two senses, either as
complete beings that are principles of others or as beings that
are incomplete in themselves.73 Principles are also divided (in a
way more relevant to the present study) according to whether
or not they are common to a particular genus or, as Thomas
puts it, are “the principles of all beings.” These principles
common to all beings can be said in two ways, he explains:
As Avicenna says, these principles can be called common in two ways, first, by
predication, as when I say that form is common to all forms because it is
predicated of all; second, by causality, as we say that the sun, which is
numerically one, is the principle of all things subject to generation.74

Thomas takes this distinction directly from Avicenna and
openly attributes it to him. Following Avicenna, the second kind
70

See Super Rom., c. 7, lect. 2.
For a more-extended treatment of the influence of Avicenna on this work, see
John Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna on the Relationship between First
Philosophy and the Other Theoretical Sciences: A Note on Thomas’s Commentary on
Boethius’s De Trinitate, Q. 5, art. 1, ad 9,” The Thomist 37 (1973): 133-54. See also
Houser, “The Friar and the Vizier.”
72
Super Boet. De Trin., q. 5 a. 4 (Expositio super librum Boethii De Trinitate, ed.
Bruno Decker [Leiden: Brill, 1959]; English translation by Armand Maurer [Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1953]).
73
Ibid.
74
Ibid.: “Quae quidem principia possunt dici communia dupliciter secundum
Avicennam in sua sufficientia: uno modo per praedicationem, sicut hoc quod dico:
forma est commune ad omnes formas, quia de qualibet praedicatur; alio modo per
causalitatem, sicut dicimus solem unum numero esse principium ad omnia generabilia.”
71

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CATHERINE PETERS

of common principle (that which is common by causality) is
numerically one, while the first (that which is common by
predication) allows multiple beings. While there can be multiple
causes that are common by causality (as explained already in the
Physics commentary), the principle of all beings must “be being
in the highest degree” such that it is “most perfect and
supremely in act” because “actuality is prior to, and more
excellent than potentiality.”75 Therefore, the existential cause
that is common by its causality must be God.
Expanding on Avicenna’s original delegation of common
causes to metaphysics, Thomas turns to how common causes
concern theology. A common cause can be studied inasmuch as
it is the principle of beings or insofar as it is a being in its own
right. The discipline of metaphysics considers this kind of
common cause inasmuch as it is the principle of existing things.
For Thomas, we come to knowledge of this common cause
through its effects. But to study this kind of common cause as
something in its own right properly belongs to theology, where
this common cause reveals itself:
Because these divine beings are the principles of all things and nevertheless
they are complete natures in themselves, they can be studied in two ways:
first, insofar as they are the common principles of all things, and second
insofar as they are beings in their own right. . . . We can reach them by the
light of natural reason only to the extent that their effects reveal them to us. It
was in this way that the philosophers came to know them as is clear from the
Epistle to the Romans: “The invisible things of God . . . are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made.” Philosophers, then, study these
divine beings only insofar as they are the principles of all things.
Consequently, they are the objects of the science that investigates what is
common to all beings, which has for its subject being as being. The
philosophers call this divine science.76

75

Ibid.
Ibid.: “Huiusmodi ergo res divinae, quia sunt principia omnium entium et sunt
nihilominus in se naturae completae, dupliciter tractari possunt: uno modo, prout sunt
principia communia omnium entium; alio modo, prout sunt in se res quaedam. Quia
autem huiusmodi prima principia quamvis sint in se maxime nota, tamen intellectus
noster se habet ad ea ut oculus noctuae ad lucem solis, ut dicitur in II metaphysicae, per
lumen naturalis rationis pervenire non possumus in ea nisi secundum quod per effectus
76

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325

Though Avicenna would agree that causes that are common by
causality are the concern of metaphysics, he does not make any
theological claim such as Thomas does. This expansion is,
instead, an advancement by Thomas, who never forgets the
superiority and uniqueness of theology. As he explains:
Accordingly, there are two kinds of theology or divine science. There is one
that treats of divine things, not as the subject of the science but as
the principles of the subject. This is the kind of theology pursued by the
philosophers and that is also called metaphysics. There is another theology,
however, that investigates divine things for their own sakes as the subject of
the science. This is the theology taught in Sacred Scripture.77

Thus, Thomas uses the distinction drawn by Avicenna in his
Physics of the Healing while commenting on De trinitate in
order to establish the subjects of metaphysics and theology. This
is an expansion of Avicenna’s distinction that remains consonant with its original intent and purpose.
D) Commentaria in octo libros Physicorum (1268-71)
Finally, Thomas returns once again to the question of
common principles while commenting on Aristotle’s natural
philosophy. In Physics II, chapter 3 Aristotle provides three
pairs of causal divisions and maintains that all six could be
either actual or potential, bringing the number of causal
divisions to four in total.78 He does not make the distinction
that Avicenna later does between causes common by predication
in ea ducimur; et hoc modo philosophi in ea pervenerunt, quod patet Rom. 1: invisibilia
Dei per ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur. Unde et huiusmodi res divinae non
tractantur a philosophis, nisi prout sunt rerum omnium principia. Et ideo pertractantur
in illa doctrina, in qua ponuntur ea quae sunt communia omnibus entibus, quae habet
subiectum ens in quantum est ens; et haec scientia apud eos scientia divina dicitur.”
77
Ibid.: “Sic ergo theologia sive scientia divina est duplex. Una, in qua considerantur
res divinae non tamquam subiectum scientiae, sed tamquam principia subiecti, et talis est
theologia, quam philosophi prosequuntur, quae alio nomine metaphysica dicitur. Alia
vero, quae ipsas res divinas considerat propter se ipsas ut subiectum scientiae et haec est
theologia, quae in sacra Scriptura traditur.”
78
See Aristotle, Phys. 2.3.195a28-b30.

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CATHERINE PETERS

and those common by causality. Thomas, however, does introduce this distinction while commenting on Aristotle’s text. As
Thomas explains,
It must be noted, however, that the universal cause and the proper cause, and
the prior cause and the posterior cause, can be taken either according to a
commonness in predication, as in the example given about the doctor and the
artisan, or according to a commonness in causality, as if we say the sun is a
universal cause of heating, whereas fire is a proper cause.79

Thomas takes “doctor” and “artisan” as examples of things
common by predication (because there are many individuals
about whom these can be said), while the example of causes
common by causality is the sun causing heat. Thomas uses the
terminology of Avicenna exactly, employing an Avicennian distinction to clarify the Aristotelian text. Of course, what Thomas
is applying this distinction to is somewhat different from the
original Avicennian application. Nonetheless, this is further
evidence of the expansion of this distinction by Thomas.
Interestingly, Thomas then shows how these two kinds of
common cause can correspond and relate to one another. For
him, causes that act by more universal forms (and are thereby
more commonly predicable) extend to more objects (and can
thus be more universally causative). As he explains, “Any power
extends to certain things insofar as they share in one ratio, and
the farther that that power extends, the more common that
ratio must be.”80 This correlation of causes common by predication and common by causality might seem, at first, to blur the
careful distinction that we have seen with Avicenna. But the
79
II Phys., c. 3, lect. 6: “Advertendum est autem quod causa universalis et propria,
vel prior et posterior, potest accipi aut secundum communitatem praedicationis,
secundum exempla hic posita de medico et artifice; vel secundum communitatem
causalitatis, ut si dicamus solem esse causam universalem calefactionis, ignem vero
causam propriam.” English translation from R. J. Blackwell, R. J. Spath, and W. E.
Thirlkel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963).
80
Ibid.: “Manifestum est enim quod quaelibet virtus extenditur ad aliqua secundum
quod communicant in una ratione obiecti; et quanto ad plura extenditur, tanto oportet
illam rationem esse communiorem.”

AVICENNA AND AQUINAS ON A DIVISION OF PRINCIPLES

327

distinction is still present even when applied to the same
existent cause. For example, an agent that is common by predication can be common by causality in some respect (such as
“doctor” being the cause of many effects, although “doctor” is
itself a term that is common by predication). The numerical
oneness of a cause common by causality and the numerical
multiplicity of a cause common by predication, central to Avicenna’s distinction, is still preserved.
The association of a cause common by causality with God is
likewise present. Several paragraphs later, Thomas notes,
It follows that just as inferior agents, which are causes of the coming to be of
things, must exist simultaneously with the things which come to be as long as
they are coming to be, so also the divine agent, which is the cause of existing
in act, is simultaneous with the existence of the thing in act. Hence if the
divine action were removed from things, things would fall into nothingness,
just as when the presence of the sun is removed, light ceases to be in the air.81

Once again using the sun as an example (just used, above, to
illustrate a cause common by causality) Thomas shows how God
is the prior, superior cause that is common by his existential
causality. While there can be causes that are common by
causality yet are not God (a doctor, for example), Thomas
recognizes that an existential common cause must ultimately be
God. In sum, while Thomas expands the usage of Avicenna’s
distinction and treats the way these two kinds of commonality
can relate to each other, the terminology and association (that
is, of a cause that is common by causality with God) remain
unchanged.

81
Ibid.: “Unde habetur quod sicut agentia inferiora, quae sunt causa rerum quantum
ad suum fieri, oportet simul esse cum iis quae fiunt quandiu fiunt; ita agens divinum,
quod est causa existendi in actu, simul est cum esse rei in actu. Unde subtracta divina
actione a rebus, res in nihilum deciderent, sicut remota praesentia solis lumen in aere
deficeret.”

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CATHERINE PETERS

SUMMATION
In the present study, I have explored a twofold division of
common principles in the thought of Avicenna and the subsequent adoption of this division by Thomas. While the content
of this distinction is not foreign to Aristotle, one searches his
works in vain for an explicit formulation of it. Such a formulation is, instead, an innovation of Avicenna. Here, then, one
sees a clear example of the development of Aristotelian thought
within the Islamic philosophical tradition. The distinction
between causes that are common by causality and those that are
common by predication is only one of many drawn by Avicenna, but it is a particularly important one. It leads Avicenna to
divide natural philosophy from metaphysics and to insist that
proof of the “First Mover,” a cause that is common by causality,
is proper only to metaphysics.
Seeing in this distinction a valuable tool, Thomas utilizes it in
a variety of contexts. His use of it in his commentary on De
trinitate stands out as particularly important because he expands
it to include not only the difference between physics and
metaphysics but also the difference between metaphysics and
theology. In this commentary, Thomas seeks to present
theology as a distinct discipline and consequently must offer an
account of what it properly considers. In applying Avicenna’s
distinction to a theological issue, Thomas is thus able to defend
metaphysical and theological investigations of common causes
while safeguarding the unique character of theology. The
twofold distinction of common principles is but one example of
concurrence between Avicenna and Thomas, but grasping this
distinction allows insight into the thought of both.82

82

My thanks to the peer reviewers of this work for their comments and criticism.

BOOK REVIEWS
Cooperation with Evil: Thomistic Tools of Analysis. By KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J.
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019.
Pp. 279. $34.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8132-3244-7.
Our world is increasingly interconnected. People in disparate regions across
the globe are working together in unprecedented ways. The power to accomplish great things emerges from our human collaboration (“if two of you agree
on earth about anything you request, it will be done for you by my Father in
heaven” [Matt 18:19]); but as we know from the tragic lessons of history, when
people collaborate for wrongful ends the impact of evil is proportionately
magnified.
Collaboration in evil is conceptually most unproblematic when several
people join in a project of deliberate wrongdoing, as when an organized band
of criminals conspire to rob a bank. But most such efforts also depend on other
individuals who, not directly part of the criminal purpose, nonetheless
contribute tacit support to the initiative, if only out of fear—say, a bank
employee who, having been blackmailed, hands over the combination of a
bank’s safe. Still others are unwittingly caught up in the crime’s wake; for
instance, a taxi driver who is asked to drive men to a bank and is told to wait
for their return, only finding out afterwards they were there to conduct a
robbery. Unlike the fellow conspirators who are clearly guilty, it is much harder
to parse the responsibility of the other actors mentioned; intuitively we think
the bank teller bears some attenuated guilt, and the taxi driver none.
The Catholic tradition has long sought to explain these different contributions to wrongdoing by appeal to the distinction, made famous by
Alphonsus de Liguori, between formal and material cooperation in evil. In
broadest terms, the former designates a contribution that (in one way or
another) is culpable, and the latter a contribution that is blameless. How to
parse the difference is where the rubber hits the road; here as elsewhere the
devil is in the details. The analytical challenge has become progressively greater
as human beings find themselves in ever larger and multiple groupings, such as
the employees in an international conglomerate with its multiple subsidiaries,
or the citizens of a large bureaucratic state.
The Latin cooperatio ad malum (literally “cooperation toward evil”—nicely
rendered in French by “la cooperation au mal”) is ordinarily translated into
329

330

BOOK REVIEWS

English using the prepositions “in” or “with.” While the latter is used in the
present volume, I prefer the former, because the issue is about cooperating with
others in deeds that are evil, not partnering with evil as when Faust made a pact
with the devil in Goethe’s famous play. Moreover, in Scholastic moral theory,
malum designates sins of potentially different degrees of gravity, not only those
that are grandiosely sinister. “Cooperation in wrongdoing” would accordingly
be the most suitable translation of the Latin phrase under discussion.
Is the “Catholic” distinction between formal and material wrongdoing
adequate to the task of differentiating culpable from nonculpable contributions
to wrongdoing? Answering this question is, fundamentally, the agenda that
Kevin Flannery sets for himself in this book. To simplify the gist of a complex
narrative, the answer he provides is basically “no.” His argument is chiefly
textual and historical. By tracing the origination of the distinction and its
opposing interpretations, he seeks to show how the binary formal/material
cannot provide a silver bullet for determining whose contribution to wrongdoing is culpable, and whose is not. For the principles that can guide discernment of the most relevant categories and their application to concrete cases, he
urges us to consult Thomas Aquinas. In offering this Thomistic analysis of
cooperation in evil and showing why it is superior to the approach later
formulated by Alphonsus and his successors, Flannery has succeeded well at his
task. As suggested by its subtitle, the book also aims to provide tools for sorting
out the complex issues of collaboration we confront today. In other words, the
author presents his project as of interest not only to historically minded
Thomists and specialists in Church casuistry, but to a wider readership of
philosophers and theologians reflecting on wrongful cooperative strategies
within a variety of domains. But in this regard he has succeeded less well.
The story begins with Alphonsus de Liguori; although not the first to
characterize wrongful cooperation as either formal or material (Flannery [25]
attributes the original appearance of the contrast to Hermann Busenbaum, S.J.,
whose Medulla theologiae moralis was the basis for Alphonsus’s Theologia
moralis), it was he nonetheless who introduced this nomenclature into the mainstream of Catholic moral discourse such that after him “the formal/material
distinction came to be associated in a special way with cooperation” (26).
For Alphonsus, in formal cooperation the cooperating agent contributes to
(literally “runs up to” [concurrit ad]) the bad will of the malefactor (31); in
material cooperation, by contrast, the cooperator’s action is linked with the
malefactor’s action, but not with his bad will. Morally speaking, in the first case
an intelligible whole emerges, while in the second case the malefactor’s and
cooperator’s wills are only coincidentally (per accidens) united. Alphonsus does
not equate the joined wills with a shared intention, namely, both parties
knowingly adopting the same project. This, for Alphonsus would set the bar for
formal cooperation too high, as it would exclude from the category situations
in which the cooperator lends her assistance out of fear (e.g., because of loss of
employment). To parse the difference between the two modes of cooperation,

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but without recourse to shared intention, Alphonsus instead relies on the
doctrine of indifferent acts. The material cooperator is engaged in an action that
has its own intelligibility apart from its linkage to the action undertaken by the
malefactor, and in se the former action is in no way wrongful. To use the
example given, should a servant hold a ladder and afterwards the thief (his
master) take goods, the servant is not responsible for the latter’s theft, as he
could have been holding the ladder for an entirely different purpose—say, to
repair a broken roof tile, an act that in kind is neither morally good nor bad
(35). “Afterwards” need not denote temporal succession; the ordering of
“before” and “after” are instead meant to designate the relative independence
of “separate intelligibilities,” namely, actions undertaken for two quite different
reasons (36-37). Alphonsus gets himself into conceptual trouble, however,
when he ends up using the same examples of “indifferent actions” (e.g., a
servant writing an amorous letter, breaking into a strongbox, or serving as a
lookout) to describe both material and formal cooperation, a discrepancy
noticed by his critics (37) and which Alphonsus sought to remedy by more
closely attending to Aquinas’s doctrine that although acts can be indifferent in
kind they are never such under their concrete circumstances (38).
Despite its internal difficulties, Alphonsus’s conceptualization of evil cooperation had the great merit of highlighting this as a distinct issue for moral
inquiry, something no one before had done, not even Aquinas. Over the next
hundred or so years, the Redemptorist’s treatment gave rise to competing
accounts, which may roughly be divided into minimalist and maximalist
theories of cooperation. On minimalist accounts (the author cites inter alia the
Jesuit Hieronymus Noldin, author of a manual in wide circulation up to the
Second Vatican Council), cooperation will be deemed formal solely when “the
cooperator shares the intention of the malefactor” (42). Along a similar line of
analysis, the Augustinian Nicola Cretoni held that even should a cooperator
engage in an act that is intrinsically evil, if his intention was not joined to that
of the principal agent, his cooperation must be deemed material only, despite
the fact that qua action it is sinful. On the other side of the coin are the
maximalist interpretations (the Redemptorist Joseph Aertnys is cited in this
connection [39]) which pick up on the doctrine of indifferent acts to explain
how both shared intention and exclusion of indifference (commission of
intrinsically evil acts that are part and parcel of the cooperation) will result in
formal cooperation. The scope for formal cooperation is thus significantly
wider on this account because the latter element is sufficient for its inclusion
even in the absence of shared intention. Thus, for Aertneys, “formal
cooperation is due either to the end of the act [ex fine operis] or to the end of
the agent [ex fine operantis]” (the words in brackets are Flannery’s), while for
Noldin “the only thing that that can bring an act into the category of formal
cooperation is the cooperator’s intention” (43).
Having thus set the scene through this close examination of the quandaries
faced by Alphonsus and his successors (up to page 52), in the remainder of his

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book Flannery details how Aquinas provides a more satisfactory treatment of
the attendant issues. The analysis is very rich. It covers not only the settings
where Aquinas deals expressly with problems of cooperation (or comes very
close to doing so, as in his treatment of scandal—“practically any situation in
which immoral cooperation is an issue is also a situation in which scandal is an
issue” [99]), but also in his wider discussion of circumstances, justice, charity,
force and ignorance in relation to voluntariness, omission, consent, restitution,
and side-effect harm. Concerning the last, and apropos of scandal, Flannery
very usefully explains (citing STh I-II, q. 73, a. 8) how some acts have per se a
propensity for determinate harmful effects; even should these effects occur
despite the agent’s intention, they are nonetheless attributable to him as a
circumstance that renders his action sinful and perhaps even gravely so
(112-13). Whatever speech an agent might make to himself regarding his dislike
of these effects and his intention to the contrary, his willingness to act regardless
will be sufficient to place his action within the category Alphonsus later termed
“formal cooperation”—unless his role, say a priest hearing a criminal’s confession “insulates him from immoral cooperation” (188). Here as in the
surrounding pages, the analysis of Aquinas’s principles is clear and precise; one
can learn much about his theory of human action from them, even apart from
the issue of cooperation that is the direct topic of study.
The book’s great virtue is its careful exegesis of Catholic authors (Alphonsus,
the manualists, and Aquinas), its disentangling of the various strands of debate
on material versus formal cooperation, and the balanced judgment shown in its
conclusions. Cooperation with Evil is sure to become the standard text for
future discussions on this topic.
Where I found the book wanting, however, is in its engagement with current
issues. Alongside the standard Scholastic examples of cooperation—servants
writing amorous letters for their masters, and the like—the book does make
some attempt at relating to the contemporary scene. But here the examples cited
are almost wholly from situations involving procured abortion. The reader can
come away with the impression that the Thomistic doctrine endorsed therein is
ready-made to support a conservative social agenda. Gratuitous jabs against
“political activists” and “rights rhetoric,” as well as against (unnamed) ecclesial
documents that purportedly display “complicity in incoherence” (210) reinforce
this impression. However, the principles invoked could have equal applicability
for a wide range of other issues that are usually associated with a progressive
agenda—inter alia, corporate social responsibility, the arms trade, nuclear
deterrence, systems of taxation, economic inequalities, and climate change.
In a concluding section, the author imagines “an ideal legislature” that “must
establish laws that prohibit certain ways of collaborating with evil” (213). It is
hard to know what exactly is being presented here: is it a complete moral
teaching on cooperation that would be made known to all citizens or a legal
code with sanctions attached? The imperfect overlap of law and morality—not
all bad acts should be punishable by law, nor all good acts commanded (to

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paraphrase from Aquinas)—is nowhere mentioned. This would surely be
relevant to the discussion. Nor is there any allusion to existing laws (in the U.S.
or U.K. jurisdictions, for instance) on complicity, despite the existence of several
books on the topic. During the last few years there has likewise been a spike of
philosophical interest in complicity, inducement, collusion, and related themes,
but none of the relevant works are referred to either. If Aquinas is to offer us
moral principles that can illumine our contemporary problems and concerns,
this potentiality will be actualized only if the Angelic Doctor’s teaching is placed
in dialogue with the cultural production of our present day.
GREGORY M. REICHBERG
Peace Research Institute Oslo
Oslo, Norway

Christ the Heart of Creation. By ROWAN WILLIAMS. London: Bloomsbury
Continuum, 2018. Pp. xvi + 279. $35.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-1-47294554-9.
Dense and occasionally opaque, this challenging book by the prolific former
Archbishop of Canterbury is rich in insight and learning, and is surely worth the
read. Offering a sustained meditation on Jesus Christ, Williams’s theological
acumen is on full display. The book might fairly be termed a celebration: of
Christ, of the traditional Christology that is incarnational and that insists on full
divinity and full humanity while seeing the two in their proper accord. As
presented by Williams, this Christ does stand at the heart of the faith, and holds
together and informs all that Christians believe (about God, creation, God’s
grace, Church) and practice.
Williams is methodical in the unfolding of this Christology. It is, and
crucially so, a single-subject Christology. “Single subject” speaks to unity. The
second nature is united to the first in the person of the Word or Son of God.
“Single subject” also speaks to identity. It is the second divine person who
becomes incarnate. As divine, the Word is absolutely free, unconditioned in
agency, the fully effective agent who in full intelligence and love is not limited
in causing in and through what God creates. And the Word who is one God
with the Father and the Holy Spirit, same in divinity, is a distinct divine person,
standing in intimate relation to the Father. The Son eternally receives from the
Father, and in eternally proper relation to the Father eternally offers to the
Father. In becoming incarnate, the personal property of the second person is
inscribed in the humanity taken up, instantiated, by the Word. And so Jesus, the
Word incarnate, is in correct relation to the Father and in his human actions—

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nicely summarized in terms of love—gives to the Father appropriately, unconditionally. Other humans are made in the image of God, but have fallen from
God, distorted the image, by sin. As the Word who is incarnate, Jesus can meet
the problem of their sin, can reconcile others to God; and as related to Jesus by
their faith and love, and in imitation of the Word, and of the Word as incarnate,
they will live in correct relation to God, giving to God what is God’s, and
offering themselves, as did Jesus, for others. In sum, this Christology is of
immense significance for a theological anthropology, and for an account of
ethics and the true flourishing of humans as humans (made by God, for God,
and able to live out of themselves by Christ).
The unfolding of this Christology is at once metaphysical and grammatical.
Williams is constantly alert to the difference between God and creation,
between what can be said of God and what said of the creature. There is a logic
of divinity and a logic of createdness, the one not to be confused with the other.
The creature and God cannot be two things alongside each other, as if falling
into the same category, as if they are subject to the same conditions. Rather,
they bespeak different planes of existence, different operations. Hence, what
holds of creatures does not hold of God; creaturely limitations, restriction, are
to be denied of God (and so there is an appropriate apophaticism in the
discourse about God). God is transcendent. Yet, creation and God do stand in
relation, and Williams rightly plays this up as well. The creature receives all that
it has from God: its nature and being, and even its acting. Creatureliness speaks
to dependence. God moves creatures to their act. But this is not at the expense
of the intrinsic capacity of a creature. Rather, God as agent respects the nature
of the creature, applying the creature to act in accordance with its God-given
nature. When it comes to creatures endowed with will, they are so applied to
act that they too act; they will and they do in accordance with their own
willing—as made possible, actualized, by God. Creaturely particularity and
causality are most decidedly not removed by divine agency; and God in God’s
effectiveness is shown through what creatures, including volitional beings,
effect. This last point, not incidentally, must be kept in mind when talk turns,
as it frequent does in the first part of the book, to “asymmetry.” The creature
is dependent on God, is what it is and acts as it does because of God. God does
not require the creation to be God; hence the asymmetry. Yet, God is present
in the world and known through the world. The Word is active in Jesus and
known in Jesus.
This general pattern—difference; a relation of dependence; noncompetitive—is observed in the Christology of the tradition. There is plenty of
“denial” in rendering Christ. Christ is neither merely man nor merely God.
Christ is both, and the affirmation of full divinity is not at the expense of full
humanity. Jesus is fully human—having, being, whatever is essential to being
human. The statements “Christ is God” and “Christ is human” do not play out
the same way. The Word is eternal God, eternally generated by the Father. In
becoming human, a potential (associated with the nature assumed) is realized,

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the Word as incarnate comes to exist (and act) in a new way, without loss to
itself as fully divine second person. As Williams nicely shows, the humanity of
the Word incarnate stands in the apt relation of dependence on the Word. To
use a term familiar to readers of Aquinas, we can think of instrumentality here,
of the humanity standing to the divinity as instrument (Williams himself can
refer to “vehicle” [e.g., 30] or “instrument” [e.g., 34, 39], although what follows
is taken by me from Aquinas, who can be even more instructive on the point).
“Instrument” nicely conveys subordination, dependence, as well as the actuality
of the one who is “instrument.” There is a noteworthy difference between Jesus
and, say, the saints (I have in mind ScG IV, c. 41). God works through both
saints and Jesus. The saints stand to God as animate, separate instruments. The
“animate” asserts that a saint is fully human, endowed with body and soul, and
so an agent. The humanity of Christ stands to the divinity as proper, conjoined,
animate instrument. Again, the “animate” signifies full humanness and human
agency. The “proper and conjoined” speaks to the intimacy of the relation between humanity and divinity in the case of Christ. The humanity that is taken
up and instantiated in incarnation is that of the Word; it belongs to the Word
as incarnate, is wielded by the Word in what the Word wills and does, and in
and through the Word’s assumed humanity, itself willing and doing and undergoing humanly. Divine willing does not eradicate or constrict the human willing
(to think that it must is to neglect the logics of divinity and of createdness); the
human willing, enabled by the Word, is real and meaningful. God achieves
(grace, salvation) through the human willing, doing, undergoing, of Jesus.
A particular strength of the book is the concern for history. Williams draws
out the metaphysics of incarnation, the grammar of incarnation, and the
implications of Christ so construed, in conversation with important authors in
the tradition, all of whom are committed to the fullness of Christ. The
organization of the book is in the main chronological, proceeding from earlier
to later. Part 1 of the book recounts the story from the New Testament (with
particular concern for Paul) through to the Middle Ages. The early ecumenical
councils receive their due, and Williams makes deeper dives into, for example,
the two Leontii (of Byzantium and of Jerusalem). Part 2 takes things up from
the dissolution of the medieval synthesis (meaning here the move away from
the teaching on Christ of Aquinas) in the later Middle Ages, through the
recovery of the classical Christology in the Reformation (with Calvin), and up
to the relatively recent past. Among those with whom Williams engages, along
with Calvin, are Bonhoeffer, who compellingly portrays the ethical upshot of
Christology, and Przywara (Williams even, in an appendix, brings in Wittgenstein, who however may not be contributing much to the overall argument).
The range of authors is considerable. Experts in a given author will likely
quibble with this or that in the treatment of their author (I will do something
of the sort shortly, when it comes to Aquinas). But, I think, Williams gets
everyone covered in the book mostly right; and his judgments ring true, even
his judgments of those who do not advance this Christology and depart from it

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in significant ways. Thus, for example, he can refer, when it comes to some later
medieval Western theologians who contributed to the “dissolution,” to their
“curious amnesia about many aspects of the earlier terminological refinements
that were designed to avoid major misunderstandings” (122); and elsewhere he
makes a point that is quite plausible, that the traditional Christology is difficult
to grasp by those lacking a participatory metaphysic (128; 135). The overall
effect of this engagement in the history of theology, in historical theology, is
staggering and convincing. There is a consistency in convictions about God,
about creation, about Christ, that carries through the tradition; Cyril, Aquinas,
Calvin, Bonhoeffer do indeed form part of the same Christological tradition,
and they get it right.
The only departure from the chronological ordering comes in the book’s first
chapter. Here two important authors, one modern, the other medieval, are
brought forth, setting the stage each in his own way for what will follow. The
first is the twentieth-century Anglican thinker Austin Farrer, whose reflections
on the infinite and the finite yield the basic metaphysical pattern at play in any
talk of God and world. Only in one respect does Williams veer from Farrer.
Farrer had first limned the metaphysical pattern and then followed that up by
forays into diverse Christian doctrines, including Christology. For Williams this
is to underplay the contribution of Christology, the sustained reflection through
the ages about Jesus Christ. In his opinion, it is in thinking about Christ, and
trying to do justice to the truth of Christ, that theologians worked towards the
fuller grasp of the ontology of divinity and of humanity, of what it means to be
human, seen in its integrity and in its dependence on God. Christology, in effect,
can in this sense be said to come first, in turn promoting keener insight into
creation, grace, Church, into the transcendent God’s work in the world. The
discussions of the early authors in part 1 of the book, not least the postChalcedonian, do in fact lend credence to Williams’s opinion.
Aquinas is the other important thinker treated in the first chapter. With
Aquinas, Williams is, as the title of this chapter puts it, “Beginning in the Middle
(Ages),” and Aquinas receives the bulk of the attention in the chapter. Williams
holds Aquinas in high esteem: Aquinas summarizes well the preceding Christological tradition, both East and West, and offers the most methodical examination of the issues important for this book (7). In presenting Aquinas, Williams
stays close for the most part to particular questions and articles. He considers
Aquinas on the mode of union, turning to select articles in STh III, q. 2; he looks
at the more speculative Christologies of STh III, q. 3 (e.g., aa. 6-7), to show
Aquinas’s concern for Christological grammar; and he does much with STh III,
q. 17, on the single esse of Christ. Williams’s discussion of the single esse
according to Aquinas is insightful and surely on the right track in playing up the
personal property of the Word. Affirming the single esse is a Thomistic way of
proclaiming hypostatic union, of insisting that there is a single subject in Christ,
the Word who actualizes a potential for a human form of life (takes up human

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nature) and as human, as incarnate, truly acts as human while remaining the
eternal Word, fully God and fully active.
The pages on hypostatic union and on single esse are made more difficult
than they might have been, however, by the engagement along the way with
Richard Cross. Cross’s The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (2002) is invoked to
help in the rendering of Christ’s unity according to Aquinas, but especially for
his Scotus-inflected critique of Aquinas on Christ (e.g., that the Christology is
ultimately Monophysite), and even for his own Christology (according, one
might say, to the mind of Scotus) that allegedly avoids the flaws of Aquinas’s.
Yet, as Williams can observe, Cross is not always fair in his reading of Aquinas
(31), and can miss Aquinas’s point (20), thus muddying the waters; the Scotistic
critique that he urges has been answered in detail along with a robust
restatement of Aquinas’s actual Christology (Williams mentions [16, n. 24],
Michael Gorman’s Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Incarnation [2017]); and
the Scotistic Christology that Cross advances is itself severely flawed. But, in the
end the decision to bring in Cross/Scotus may not have been misguided. To the
good, they provide an illuminating foil, to show, in distinction from the traditional Christology, what is involved in a Christology that is not as consistent in
distinguishing infinite and finite, and that verges on assimilating God to the
universe of created beings, and on positing what is very close to a two-subject
Christology. The virtues of the traditional Christology are thus put in finer
relief.
Williams concludes the first chapter with reflections on Aquinas’s ecclesiology. The ecclesiology follows on the Christology. Aquinas retains the teaching
of Paul on Church as mystical body, with Christ as head. Williams plays up the
Word in parsing headship; to be a member of the body is to be conformed to
Jesus, the Word incarnate, to have the personal property of the Word conveyed
to the assumed humanity in turn shared with those who belong to Christ. This
goes well with the theme of adoptive filiation as grounded in the natural filiation
of the second divine person. The stress on the Word in portraying the mystical
body, with Christ as the head, is an interesting take; and surely it does matter
that Jesus is the incarnate Word. But in these final pages of the opening chapter
the exegetical basis of the rendition is not at all obvious. One would have
expected that in an account of Church as mystical body and Christ as its head
STh III, q. 8 would be prominent. That question, however, is hardly mentioned
here, if at all. It is too important to ignore. Question 8 is on the capital grace of
Christ, and is to be read in tandem with question 7, on the personal grace (and
virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit) of Christ. It is the same grace, viewed from
different angles, the personal grace required for the successful human action of
the Word incarnate that is salvific, capital grace for the conveying of Christ’s
fruits to others. The location of these questions is significant; they open the
section of the treatise on Christ that is given over to the “co-assumed,” that is,
to those perfections and imperfections that qualify this human, give texture to
this particular human being. It is as human, perfected by this grace, that Christ

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is head of the Church; and it is from his fullness that others—that is, his
members—receive. Question 8 also gestures at the work of the Spirit, given by
Christ, in constructing and guiding the Church. The Holy Spirit (as stated in
STh III, q. 8, a.1, ad 3) is the “heart” of the Church, bringing members into
conformity with the Word made flesh, bringing them to the faith and charity
that unites Christ’s members to him as head and to each other. Elsewhere in the
book, with regard to other important figures in the tradition (see, e.g., 81ff.),
Williams is not shy about the role of the Spirit in the application of Christ’s
work and the formation of the Church. The present chapter marks a missed
opportunity when it comes to Aquinas’s like conviction.
Aquinas’s star turn comes in this chapter; but he returns later in the book
(chap. 2.1), this time in a supporting role. And with him comes Scotus again,
this time on his own, without Cross. To prepare for the discussion of Calvin,
Williams rehearses the views of Scotus and Aquinas on the infinite merit of
Christ. In Williams’s telling, the two take different approaches, Scotus looking
at the act (as the act of a human, can it be infinite in value?), Aquinas playing
up the person, that is, the Word become incarnate. The Word in the human acts
of Jesus merits reward; the Word does not need such reward, as eternally
possessed as natural Son of what God might give adoptive children; the Word
can thus pass on the reward to those who stand in need. The discussion of
Aquinas in this chapter marks a step forward from that at the end of the first
chapter: mention of grace is now made (see, e.g., 129-30 n. 7) and STh III, q. 8
can even be brought forward as part of the analysis. Yet, there is more to
Aquinas on grace, and more to Aquinas on the personal and capital grace of
Christ, than is here acknowledged. Moreover, the discussion of Christ’s merit
would have been enhanced by a treatment of condign merit. What establishes
the equality in value of what a human does and what God gives in reward? As
in STh I-II, q. 114, a. 3, it is the Holy Spirit, active in the good moral action of
any human correctly oriented to God. To recall the example of the saints and
Christ mentioned earlier: whether that of a separate or a proper, conjoined
instrument, the good moral action of God’s instrument is dependent on grace
(and adjacent gifts). The difference between Christ and saints in grace and merit
comes with their differing status in God’s saving plan. Christ is savior, Christ is
head of the Church, and he receives an abundance of grace suited to his calling,
to his work in willing, doing, undergoing, as human for others (e.g., STh III,
q. 7, aa. 9-11). The culmination of the chapter is the presentation of Calvin’s
Christology, a return to the traditional Christology of the Church. Calvin too
plays up the single subject, but also gives credit to the Holy Spirit, who is active
in Christ, guiding, leading, moving him to meritorious acts, and for the benefit
of others. Without claiming for Calvin a first-hand knowledge of Aquinas,
Williams does, rightly, stress the continuity in Christology when it comes to the
subject, to the Word. One can add, however, that the connection runs deeper,
in their common appreciation of the Holy Spirit, of grace, in the saving work
of Christ.

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Whatever its shortcomings, this is a most impressive book, the fruit of a
decades-long encounter with Christ and the Christological tradition by a
disciple of Christ endowed with a rare combination of philosophical, historical,
and theological skill. The book succeeds in teaching and stimulating, and should
inculcate a deepened appreciation of the abiding wisdom of the Church’s
proclamation and understanding of Christ.
JOSEPH WAWRYKOW
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

Dying and the Virtues. By MATTHEW LEVERING. Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2018. Pp. xi + 260. $45.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-80287548-8.
In Dying and the Virtues, Matthew Levering affirms that dying leaves
indifferent neither nihilists, who see death as a disaster, nor optimists, who
expect the afterlife to be familiar. Levering’s approach is a thoroughly Christian
response to the tragedy of death and its meaning. He draws from Hans Urs von
Balthasar (2-4), who offers three essential ways to find sense in dying. First,
there is the incomprehensibility and absurdity of death. It insults meaning, undermines the whole of life, and unsettles the very permanence of love. Second,
there is the New Testament affirmation that believers need not worry about
death. They have already died with Christ in baptism and will also be
resurrected and live forever with Christ (John 6:58). Third, union with Christ
and his redemptive suffering is the source of new life. For Levering, these three
angles—death as absurd, death as conquered, and union with Christ’s death as
the source of becoming a new creation—combine to illuminate the Christian
call to a virtue-informed preparation for dying.
Levering provides a compelling approach that pairs the virtues with themes
and exemplars: (1) love and Job’s challenge to God, (2) hope and meditation
on the nature of dying, (3) faith in Jesus and the fulfillment of desire, (4)
penitence and the witness of the protomartyr St. Stephen, (5) gratitude and St.
Macrina, (6) solidarity through divine mercy and redemptive suffering, (7)
humility as evidenced in Jesus’ dying and in our own, (8) surrender and the
sacrament of the sick, and (9) courage to say goodbye to the world as we know
it. His matching of the virtues with such themes and models, practices and goals
becomes enriched as throughout the book he draws out insights through careful
study of its sources.

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In the first five chapters, Levering addresses the three theological virtues and
their effects in a unique way. Chapter 1 employs the Book of Job to reveal the
urgency of the question about whether God loves Job, which is especially
pertinent in the face of Job’s loss of family and his anguish about the
annihilation of his personal existence. Levering’s interpretation of the narrative
of Job identifies the pattern of the encounter between God and Job: God’s
definitive response to the painful course of events opens up a silence through
which God responds with divine love to queries about life after death (27).
Chapter 2 offers narratives that demonstrate how to bolster hope by
meditating on dying (meditatio mortis) as a preparation for death. Christian
examples include Josef Pieper, Robert Bellarmine, Francis de Sales, and JeanPierre de Caussade, who contribute to a philosophy and theology of death, the
spiritual soul, and the existence of God. There is a vivid contrast to the Christian
approach in the way philosophical materialists, such as Susan Sonntag and
Oliver Sacks, suffer despair due to their denial of meaning in life and in death
(31). They suffer from an expectation that their desire for eternal interpersonal
communion will be met with everlasting nothingness. However, the believer’s
imagination is marked by the ultimate end of life (37). Christ offers a way to
die well, to be patient in suffering (Rom 12:12), and to hope on one’s deathbed.
Chapter 3 addresses the questions of what the greatest and most persistent
desire of people is when they are dying, and whether Jesus responds to this
desire. Levering compares a Christian perspective with interreligious and NewAge perspectives on the experience of dying. In particular, Kathleen Dowling
Singh (The Grace in Dying) and David Kuhl (What Dying Persons Want) identify
the main human desires in the face of death: eternal “existence, communion,
and unity” (59). Beyond these three desires, however, Levering rightly
recognizes the need for reconciliation with God. Although expressed through
self-giving love, reconciliation is not usually included in such non-Christian
approaches. Nonetheless in basic human experience, we do find that dying
persons often have a further need for the honesty, mercy, forgiveness, and union
that lead to the healing of shame and guilt and the mending of relationships.
While it is common to address the emotional side of these desires, there is a
need to respond to the whole person, including the existential and spiritual
facets, where the God of love alone both creates and fulfills these desires
through faith in Christ. Because his own death and resurrection affect the
human activities of true repentance, conversion, forgiveness, and reconciliation,
Christ can address our fear of dying and annihilation and our need for
reconciliation.
In chapter 4, Levering shows his exegetical skills in framing dying and the
virtue of penitence by using the stoning of Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles
(Acts 7). Defined as “sorrow for past sin” against God with the purpose of
making amends (64), penitence is combined with gratitude in Levering’s
exegesis. Scripture looks back in history to the condemnation of God’s people
Israel (Ezek 20) as well as to gratitude for them (Heb 11). Levering argues

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likewise that dying persons should look back on their communal and individual
past with gratitude for God’s redemptive work and with repentance for sins.
Looking back and looking forward elicit both gratitude and penitence.
Stephen’s death (Acts 7) offers an extended specificity to Christian dying: He
forgives those that stone him, and he looks forward as he witnesses the
manifestation of the glory of God and the resurrected Christ (76).
Chapter 5 focuses on the virtue of gratitude and the dying of Macrina, as
recounted by her brother Gregory of Nyssa (Life of Saint Macrina). This
Christian perspective is set in contrast to the atheistic and evolutionary effort
of the medical doctor Sherwin Nuland (How We Die), who believes the dying
person can be grateful in looking back and forward on life, for death, even if it
is painful and grotesque, is a simple continuance of the natural evolutionary
cycle. Since one is annihilated by death, in the perspective of the “death
awareness movement” (82) one achieves dignity by accepting the futureless
necessity of death. To counter this wasteland of hopelessness, Levering calls on
Joseph Ratzinger's assertion, “Man has been made so that he cannot live without
a future” (87). Levering goes on to employ the account of Macrina’s death to
explore how the Christian perspective involves also being grateful in looking
back and forward on one’s life. When rooted in Christ’s life and death, in a
journey toward resurrected life, human history is tied to hope for the afterlife.
Macrina’s example of living and dying intertwines with the gratitude and
penitence that is rooted in Christ’s community of sacrificial thanksgiving.
The last four chapters address several troubling and difficult questions that
a dying person often experiences. Chapter 6 offers responses to the problem of
suffering, especially how a merciful God uses suffering as a means to salvation,
“redemptive suffering” (100). Levering draws from sources such as Jon Sobrino,
Benedict XVI, Faustina Kowalska, and Henri Nouwen. Insights on the Christian
understanding of solidarity and suffering are found in Sobrino (Where Is God?),
who recognizes that there is a good and necessary form of voluntary suffering,
a “real solidarity (or co-suffering) with the poor in Christ” (103), bearing the
burdens of the involuntary poor (106), God’s “crucified people” (108). Benedict
XVI (Spe Salvi) affirms the sense of Christ’s suffering and our calling to be in
relationship with those who suffer physically and spiritually. Faustina Kowalska
offers deep insights into the results of participating voluntarily in the mystical,
redemptive power of Christ’s divine mercy. In her mortal illness, Faustina
experienced this suffering intertwined with consolation through her contact
with the Divine Mercy and through solidarity with Jesus and with others in
living and in dying. Finally, Nouwen (Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying
and Caring) affirms that it is only when we admit that we all will suffer and die
that we can be in solidarity with the poor and “let their dying help us to die
well” (117).
Chapter 7 involves a conversation of complementary insights drawn from
historical-critical biblical research (Brant Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the
End of Exile) and Aquinas about humility, Christ’s dying, and our own dying

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(Phil 2:8) (119). Levering makes a case for understanding humility as more than
a type of moderation operative in the virtue of temperance. He argues that God
has made suffering and dying a part of the plan for salvation, because humility
is efficacious in overcoming pride and related associated vices such as violence,
greed, lust, and oppression (ibid.). The importance of the virtue of humility for
Aquinas comes from the fact that the vice of pride is one of the most difficult
ones to avoid (ibid.). The centrality of humility comes from the centrality of the
Cross in the announcement of the kingdom of God. There is something about
suffering that can conform one to Christ and his glory (Rom 8:17) (127). Even
after the redemptive death of Christ, however, dying continues to be painful,
according to Aquinas (STh III, q. 45, a. 1) (129), because our suffering and dying
serve as spiritual training to face our own death. It is because of Christ’s
redemptive death, involving the New Passover, that discipleship will continue
to involve temporal and spiritual training, while his disciples are strengthened
and nourished by baptism and the Eucharist. Finally, Levering quotes Ratzinger
to depict graphically the work of being trained in holiness and the working of
the virtue of humility, through which God tears “away from us the selfish, selfseeking, egotistical existence so as to reshape us according to his image” (134).
Chapter 8 addresses other troubling and difficult questions that a dying
person often has, concerning surrender and the place of the sacraments. There
is a need for the grace of healing and for spiritual strength throughout life but
especially at the time of death. This can be seen when Richard John Neuhaus
(As I Lay Dying: Meditations upon Returning, 2002) identifies the difficulty of
surrendering oneself to God’s will as a “wrenchingly wonderful truth” (102).
Levering identifies how the sacrament of the sick enables suffering persons
intimately to surrender themselves in charity and to enter into union with the
suffering Christ and the Christian community (136). Levering identifies two
contemporary Catholic perspectives on the sacrament of the anointing of the
sick, which complement each other: as an anointing for healing (John C. Kasza,
“Anointing of the Sick,” 2015) and as an anointing for dying (Lizette LarsonMiller, The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, 2005). The Catechism of the
Catholic Church highlights the role of the Holy Spirit in this sacrament to heal
the soul (and possibly the body) and to grant a deeper union with Christ’s selfoffering to the Father (141). Levering argues for the retrieval of Aquinas’s
connection of the sacrament with Christian dying, mercy, and the spiritual
“healing of the remnants of sin that impede our full self-surrender to God”
(142).
Finally, chapter 9 addresses how the virtue of courage allows us to face the
difficulty of bidding goodbye to this world as we know it, to embrace a new
world that we do not know. Levering interprets both Old and New Testaments
in terms of the destruction of death and the creation of new life (148). God will
put an end to death forever and will make “all things new” (Rev 21:5; also Isa
65:17) through Christ’s death and resurrection. This re-creation elicits both joy
(1 Cor 2:9) and anticipation (Heb 10:31); the reason for the need for courage,

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though, is the radical nature of the change. To explore the radical transformation of death, Levering uses Greek thought (Plato), the Qur’an’s prophecies, and the Bible’s arguments (N. T. Wright, Richard Middleton, and
Griffiths) (152-58) about the continuity and discontinuity of the present and
the afterlife. Levering confirms that divinely given (infused) courage in dying
involves a participation in divine life (2 Pet 1:4) and a communion in God’s
Life, Wisdom, and Love (162). This new life requires courage and hope because
it is completely other and unfamiliar, a true greatness that is misunderstood if
we fail to consider our call to a divine liturgy of worship made possible because
of our deification. When dying, we must face human fear, trials, and weakness
while bidding goodbye, bolstered by divinely infused courage to suffer with
Christ in order to be glorified with him (Rom 8:17).
Although the virtues have shown themselves to be resilient through the
centuries, it is telling to set Levering’s book in the context of the renewal of
virtue. He contributes to this renewal by structuring his reflections on dying
according to the virtues, enriched thematically and narrated through a wide
variety of Christian and non-Christian sources.
There are many contemporary works on death. Levering addresses a great
many of them, which come from different approaches in sociology, philosophy,
and theology. However, Levering’s work is rather unique in the way that it
contributes to the renewal of virtue in theory and practice. For instance, it
parallels but goes beyond the approach of the positive psychology movement
(not mentioned by Levering). Although often maligned, positive psychology
(Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman, Character Strengths and
Virtues, 2004) is about more than mere optimism and emotion, or a happy
ending. The more synthetic, scholarly, and empirical treatments of positive
psychology’s selection of virtues and character strengths—wisdom and
knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence—bring
to light important aspects of the significance of meaning and of final ends.
There is a uniqueness to Levering’s book, which combines reflections on the
virtues of dying in the perspective of Christian thought, practice, and sources.
His numerous writings on themes related to Christian dying serve his present
reflections in their depth and breadth (see ix-xi). The work expresses Levering’s
expansive exposure to sources. The first of its sources is Scripture (see index of
biblical references), to which he attributes theological authority. But he also
employs patristic, medieval, and contemporary authors. His method engages
these sources to find meaning in an author and an argument. Then, he makes
the case for a stronger position that is sometimes contrastive, and often
synthetic, seeking to find the common ground of faith, reason, and science, with
an integrative purpose, fit for theological, spiritual, and pastoral applications.
Levering’s book is so well documented that the second half of the book is
academic apparatus, notes, and comments. The reader may, however, be
hesitant to turn to the back of the book for the numerous parallel conversations,
which might have been more easily followed if they had been presented as

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footnotes on the page or at the end of each chapter. Nonetheless, these notes
make great contributions to the arguments.
Levering’s book can serve many purposes, including the task of accompanying the silence needed when facing the fear of death and preparing for
actually dying. It offers compelling reflections on the virtues (Eph 6:11) and on
our need for Christ, merciful judge and redeemer (168). It makes a real
contribution to the renewal of virtue theory in the light of the Christian life and
Church. In sum, it affirms that we are called to prepare ourselves to die well,
by being docile to the Spirit and by obeying Jesus’ command to take up one’s
cross and follow him (Matt 10:38).
CRAIG STEVEN TITUS
Divine Mercy University
Sterling, Virginia

God in Himself: Scripture, Metaphysics, and the Task of Christian Theology. By
STEVEN J. DUBY. Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2019. Pp. 354.
$40.00 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8308-4884-3.
This book covers a breadth of topics related to the doctrine of God, natural
and supernatural revelation and the knowledge of God, the incarnation,
theology and metaphysics, and analogy. Given the range of available judgments
on these issues, and the extensive significance they have for the shape and
content of systematic theology, it is to Steven Duby’s credit that the presentation
and evaluation of these topics remain consistently insightful and balanced. Also
impressive and laudable is the sweep of Duby’s engagement with Scripture, and
with ancient, patristic, medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary
sources. Throughout the work, there is a deft interweaving of biblical exegesis,
historical theology, and systematic theology. In this way, the author both argues
for and performs the greater inclusion of patristic, medieval, and Reformed
orthodox theologians amongst modern and contemporary theologians as
sources for doctrinal reflection.
Materially speaking, the book’s main proposals regard the purpose, object,
nature, and limitations of theological knowledge and the importance of proper
speculation regarding God in se (chap. 1); the salutary place of the natural
knowledge of God within the divine economy of the blessing of and fellowship
with rational creatures (chap. 2); the formal and material relationship between
Christology and the doctrines of God and the Trinity (chap. 3); and the
necessity of the use of metaphysics and analogy within the doctrine of God
(chaps. 4 and 5 respectively). The brief conclusion summarizes the arguments

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of the chapters and begins by noting one of the threads that is sown throughout
the book: the importance and primacy of theologia, of the consideration and
description of God in se, “without primary reference to the economy” (193).
These chapters and this thread are offered as an extended correction to a
contemporary theological landscape which Duby views as bifurcating theologia
and economia and assuming that one must choose between a speculative
doctrine of God which employs natural theology and metaphysics (often illustrated in this book by Thomas Aquinas, but also the Reformed Scholastics)
and a doctrine of God centered upon Jesus Christ and the economy (often
illustrated by Karl Barth and other modern Protestant theologians). Duby argues
that this bifurcation is unnecessary and damaging to systematic theology, and
so he attempts to repair this disjunction through the rehabilitation of a variety
of theological prolegomena. In this repair, he especially marshals Reformed
Orthodoxy and Aquinas in an effort to ameliorate the influence of modern
Protestant theology, especially that of Barth and some of his followers, in
matters of speculation, the natural knowledge of God, metaphysics, analogy,
specifics regarding the incarnation of the eternal Son, and the debates surrounding Trinity and election. In terms of triangulation, then, it seems that
Duby would wish for contemporary theology to move beyond the overinvestment in economia and the underinvestment of theologia he finds in the
theologies of Barth, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jürgen Moltmann, and Robert
Jenson with the help of Reformed Orthodoxy, which he in turn would like to
become more permeated with insights from patristic and medieval sources, and
most especially the theology of Aquinas. In the Introduction, Duby mentions
Katherine Sonderegger and John Webster as contemporary theologians who
have sought to return theology’s attention to God in se and who have attempted
a provide a more classically inflected doctrine of God that includes but is not
materially exhausted by Christology. In what follows I will focus upon Duby’s
understanding and presentation of Barth―as he is the theologian with whom I
am most familiar and as Barth and some of those influenced by him appear to
be the main foils of the book―before raising some observations and questions
about some of the positive claims put forward in the book.
Duby is well aware of the structure and content of Barth’s Church Dogmatics,
and so much of his interpretation of Barth is his own. When reading, presenting,
and engaging with Barth, his primary interlocutor seems to be Bruce
McCormack, rather than Hans Urs von Balthasar, John Webster, George
Hunsinger, or Paul Molnar. It makes sense, then, that the dominant picture of
Barth in the book is that of a revisionist modern Protestant theologian. Barth
was indeed a distinctly modern theologian who felt at liberty to modify,
criticize, and revise his Reformed inheritance at several key junctures, and so
many aspects of this picture seem accurate to Barth’s theology. Finer granularity
might have been possible with increased attention to Barth’s own engagement
with and use of the Reformed and Lutheran Scholastics (controversial in
mainstream German and Swiss theology at the time); his retrieval and

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engagements with Anselm, Aquinas, and other medieval theologians; his own
dissatisfactions with nineteenth-century Protestant theology; and most especially his winding and frequent forays into the exegesis of Scripture. These
aspects of Barth’s theology seem to form common cause with Duby’s argument
that modern Protestant theology, and Reformed theology in particular, should
broaden its array and consideration of past sources.
The book also contains learned and measured discussions of complex topics
within Barth’s theology, such as the relationship between nature and grace, the
possibility and content of the natural knowledge of God, the content and
ordering of the divine decrees, the metaphysics of the incarnation, and the place
and function of analogy within theology. Monographs have been devoted to
each of these issues, and Duby handles each of them well, albeit quickly and in
broad strokes. As is the case with the interpretation of any figure, the works and
passages selected shape the result, as does the space afforded to their
consideration. One of the primary themes of the book is the nature and
importance of knowledge of God in se, and here Duby thinks that the Reformed
Orthodox are helpful inasmuch as they are “offering a Protestant approach to
the doctrine of God that is significantly different from that of Barth” (8). It
seems appropriate, then, that Duby himself notices and mentions Barth’s
presentation of the Trinity in se and pro nobis in Church Dogmatics I/1 (13334) as well as his consideration of each of the divine perfections in terms of God
both pro nobis and God in se in CD II/1 (46-47 inter alia), and his retrieval and
reformulation of God’s aseity (164-66). Duby is aware of this material, and
considers such themes and emphases salutary for theological reflection, yet one
wonders how and to what degree these discussions contribute to his overall
picture of Barth. Of particular note is how well and insightfully Duby handles
Barth’s various positions on the extra-Calvinisticum and how illuminating and
fair Duby’s responses and criticisms are (177-87). Nonetheless, I find myself in
less agreement with his presentation and evaluation of other aspects of Barth’s
theology. For instance, consideration of Barth’s account of Jesus Christ as the
“light of life” (CD IV/3.1, mentioned by Duby on 123) might have shifted the
book’s presentation of Barth on the possibility and content of natural
knowledge of God. Additionally, while there are a host of references to Barth’s
doctrine of creation (CD III), I would wonder whether they sufficiently affect
Duby’s presentation and concerns regarding: (1) the integrity and goodness of
the order of creation in Barth’s theology and (2) Barth’s understanding of the
necessary place of analogy within both theological ontology and epistemology
(272-79). Also of potential help in these matters might be Barth’s presentation
of Jesus Christ’s miracles as indicating God’s intention to enact the restoration
of nature (CD IV/2 [211-45]). I would imagine there might be some
disagreement even among Barth scholars in these matters, but there would
indeed be many passages within his doctrine of creation and some of the
secondary literature which might suggest that a different overall interpretation
of Barth is available and perhaps preferable.

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Another concern has to do with the balance and space in the array of presentations and responses that Duby offers. For instance, in chapter 2, Duby explores the topic of the natural knowledge of God—its origins, content, purpose,
and limitations—in terms of Scripture, the history of ideas, and conceptual
analysis. There are discussions of the Psalms, Acts 17, Romans 1-4, and other
Pauline passages. While he considers the views of Augustine, Aquinas, Scotus,
Ockham, and some of the Reformed Orthodox, he also considers Kant’s
objections to certain conceptions of knowledge of God, Heidegger’s criticisms
of ontotheology (as mediated through Merold Westphal), and some of Barth’s
worries. In view of such a wide array of texts, figures, concerns, and time
periods, it is understandable that Kant and Heidegger are handled briefly (although there is a long excursus detailing technical matters in Aquinas’s account
of analogy on pp. 78-85). The example of Kant may serve as an illustration of
what happens when so much material from different intellectual contexts is
presented with a particular question in mind and a particular end in sight. The
cogency of the presentation and the convincingness of Duby’s response might
have been increased with greater attention to the intellectual context of Kant’s
philosophy, to the problems Kant was attempting to resolve, and to the different
receptions of Kant within modern Protestant theology. Thinkers often have to
negotiate between the width and depth of their engagements with different
figures, and so I think it fitting to gauge the tenor and confidence of one’s
pronouncements with the level of attention devoted to a figure or theme.
Additionally, the conclusion to chapter 2 regarding natural theology and Christian theology (126-31) is constructive and measured in its constructive proposal.
In terms of space, these final points could have been expanded (particularly the
first and fourth points regarding the origin of natural knowledge of God and
the noetic effects of sin upon it), and some of the material handled in footnotes
could have been brought into the primary argument. It would have also been
interesting to hear how Duby’s arguments regarding natural theology and the
natural knowledge of God might differ from some of patristic, medieval, and
Reformed figures he is describing and evaluating.
These concerns and worries are, however, slight compared to the many
laudable aspects of the book: its range of constructive proposals, its originality
and clarity, its generally sympathetic engagement with other thinkers, and its
attempt to employ a host of biblical and theological sources in its reflections
and considerations. The book ably raises and handles a host of significant issues
within contemporary theology, delivers a strong case for the importance of
attention to God in se in fundamental and systematic theology, and adroitly
continues several perennial conversations in Christian reflection.
KENNETH OAKES
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana