The Thomist 86 (2022): 173-217

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE:
AQUINAS ON THE EFFECTS OF ORIGINAL SIN
JACOB W. WOOD
Franciscan University of Steubenville
Steubenville, Ohio

I

N HIS 1948 review of Henri de Lubac’s Surnaturel, Philip
Donnelly pointed out a remarkable deficit in the
“nature/grace debate” as it was then emerging:

Probably the most enlightening phase of future discussion will revolve around
the concept of nature, its historical development in relation to the evolution of
dogma, and particularly, the divergent viewpoints of many patristic writers
and of the Scholastics. The cardinal point here will be the integration of the
dogma of original sin into a complete synthesis of the supernatural order.1

Although de Lubac was aware of—and had read—Donnelly’s
critique, 2 he never did take Donnelly up on this challenge to
engage in a careful exposition of the theological tradition on the
relationship between original sin and nature, to complement his
work on the relationship between nature and grace. It is not
that de Lubac was unaware of the importance of unpacking the
extent to which nature, as we experience it, has been wounded
by original sin. Going back as far as Catholicism in 1938, he
had expressed a reticence over the teaching of his fellow Jesuit
and erstwhile cardinal, Louis Billot, which had guaranteed
1

Philip Donnelly, “Discussions on the Supernatural Order,” Theological Studies 9
(1948): 247.
2
See de Lubac’s response in Henri de Lubac, Le mystère du surnaturel (Paris:
Éditions Montaigne, 1965), 98.

173

174

JACOB W. WOOD

happiness apart from Christ for large swaths of the human race,
even adults. 3 De Lubac referred to Billot’s idea as “natural
salvation” (salut naturel).4 He saw it as the logical consequence
of Francisco Suárez’s idea that fallen nature is pure nature, with
a complete set of natural virtues oriented towards a completely
fulfilling natural happiness.5 The specter of such a natural salvation for such a perfectly natural man drove an immense
portion of de Lubac’s argument against the commentatorial
tradition’s understanding of nature in Surnaturel.6 The naïveté
of it, especially in light of the horrors of Nazi Germany, stood
behind the warnings of The Drama of Atheist Humanism.7 And
what de Lubac perceived as an attempt to revivify it after
Vatican II stood behind what he referred to as the postconciliar
“allergy to sin” (allergie au péché)—not that the members of the
Church stopped committing sin, but that we ceased to
acknowledge sin, to talk about it, and to seek personal healing
and forgiveness for it from Jesus Christ.8
De Lubac was not the only theologian of his day concerned
about a lack of attention to the wounds of original sin, or even
more specifically about Billot’s idea of natural salvation. As
unlikely an ally as Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange also devoted
significant attention to the subject. It hardly needs repeating
that Garrigou-Lagrange was among the fiercest critics of de

3
See Henri de Lubac, Catholicisme: Les aspects sociaux de dogme (Paris: Cerf,
1938), 180 n. 2. Unfortunately, de Lubac does not refer to a specific work of Billot
here.
4
Ibid., 180.
5
See de Lubac, Le mystère du surnaturel, 98 n. 2. For Suárez’s view on the effects of
original sin, see Francisco Suárez, De gratia Dei, prolegomena 4, no. 4, in Opera Omnia,
vol. 7 (Paris: Vivès, 1857), 214: “We should say that man, in [the state of] fallen nature,
is no less able to act, think, and form judgments about what is to be done well . . . than
he would be in a state of pure nature, had he been created in it” (“Dicendum est
hominem, in natura lapsa, non minus habilem esse ad bene operandum, cogitandum, et
judicandum de agendis . . . quam esset in statu purae naturae, si in eo conderetur”).
6
Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: Études historiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946).
7
Henri de Lubac, Le drame de l’humanisme athée (Paris: Éditions Spes, 1944).
8
Henri de Lubac, Petite catéchèse sur nature et grâce (Paris: Fayard, 1980), 94-95.

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

175

Lubac’s theology of nature and grace, 9 but on the subject of
nature’s wounding by original sin the two saw relatively eye to
eye. To be sure, Garrigou-Lagrange sets up his consideration of
original sin differently, rooting it in a firm distinction between
humanity’s natural and supernatural ends.10 But from that point
onwards, he speaks similarly to de Lubac. Fallen humanity’s
aversion from its final end, he argues, is caused by a “weak will,
inclined to a private good.” 11 That selfish orientation of the
will, in turn, prevents us from achieving without grace a variety
of perfections which humanity, created in a state of pure nature,
would have been able to achieve: for example, loving God
above all things with natural love,12 fulfilling the natural law,13
or forming virtues which are connected by prudence.14 Simply
put, “man has less power to do natural moral good in a state of
fallen nature than he would have had in a state of pure
nature,”15 a view with which Garrigou-Lagrange tells us “several
authors of the Society of Jesus disagree.”16

9

The most classic example of his criticism is Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “La
nouvelle théologie où va-t-elle?,” Angelicum 23 (1946): 126-45, though one may also
point to a series of articles that Garrigou-Lagrange published in the 1930s anticipating
the sorts of arguments he would eventually direct against de Lubac: Réginald GarrigouLagrange, “Le désir naturel de bonheur prouve-t-il l’existence de Dieu?,” Angelicum 8
(1931): 129-48; idem, “La possibilité de la vision béatifique peut-elle se démontrer?,”
Revue thomiste 38 (1933): 669-88; idem, “De demonstrabilitate possibilitatis
mysteriorum supernaturalium,” Angelicum 12 (1935): 217-22; idem, “An supernaturalia
possint naturaliter cognosci?,” Angelicum 13 (1936): 241-48; idem, “La possibilité de la
grâce est-elle rigoureusement démontrable?,” Revue thomiste 41 (1936): 194-218.
10
Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, De gratia: Commentarius in Summam theologicam
S. Thomae Iae IIae q. 109-114 (Turin: R. Berruti and Co., 1947), 49.
11
Ibid., 54: “Atqui homo in statu naturae lapsae habet voluntatem infirmam,
inclinatam ad bonum privatum.”
12
Ibid., 49.
13
Ibid., 52-54.
14
Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, De virtutibus theologicis: Commentarius in Summa
theologicam S. Thomae Ia IIae q. 62, 65, 68, et IIa IIae q. 1-46 (Turin: R. Berruti and
Co., 1949), 400.
15
Garrigou-Lagrange, De gratia, 51: “Minores vires habet homo in statu naturae
lapsae ad bonum morale naturale faciendum, quam habuisset in statu naturae purae.”

176

JACOB W. WOOD

Although Garrigou-Lagrange tends to lump his Jesuit
interlocutors together under the generic title of “Molinists,” he
does—like de Lubac—single out one: Louis Billot. He sees
Billot’s opinion that human beings can form natural virtues in
relation to supernatural objects as fundamentally destructive of
the Christian faith.17 If humanity could attain a natural parody
of supernatural virtue, it would lead to what Garrigou-Lagrange
describes as a kind of grace-extrinsicism (quasi ab exteriori applicatum): “as gold is layered over silver, for those who cannot
buy jewelry made of gold alone,” he breaks off into French:
‘why, it’s made of rolled [gold], it’s plated.’”18 To the contrary,
without the “special help of God” (speciale Dei auxilium) the
virtues which direct fallen man towards higher goods are
tainted by the desire “for fame or glory,” or similar worldly
ends.19 To be truly virtuous, fallen humanity needs the grace of
God, not only elevating us to supernatural life, but also and
especially healing us from the wounds of original sin.20
Notwithstanding the concerns of de Lubac and GarrigouLagrange alike, recent interpreters of Aquinas have argued that
he holds some version of Suarez’s thesis that fallen nature is
effectively pure nature.21 The support for this conclusion comes
See also idem, The Three Ages of the Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life, vol. 1, trans.
Timothea Doyle (St. Louis: Herder, 1947), 287-89.
16
Garrigou-Lagrange, De gratia, 51: “Contra plerosque auctores Societatis Jesus.”
17
Ibid., 43, citing Louis Billot, De virtutibus infusis: Commentarius in secundam
partem s. Thomae, vol. 1 (Rome: Universitatis Gregorianae, 1928] 71, 87, 88. GarrigouLagrange goes on to describe the two theses as stating that supernatural acts and habits,
respectively, are specified by their principle (i.e., grace) rather than their object.
18
Ibid., 51: “Sicut applicatur aurum supra argentum, pro illis qui non possunt emere
ornamenta ex solo auro confecta, ‘c’est du doublé, du plaqué.’”
19
Ibid., 54-55.
20
Ibid., 55.
21
See Robert Barry, “Original Sin and Pure Nature: What’s the Difference, and
What Difference Does It Make?,” Josephinum Journal of Theology 25 (2018): 1-28;
Daniel Houck, Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2020), esp. chaps. 2-4. For a response to Barry from a
perspective inspired by Garrigou-Lagrange, see Aaron Henderson, “Falsely Identifying
Original Sin and Pure Nature: Christological Implications,” New Blackfriars 102 (2021):
472-85.

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

177

largely from the work of historical scholars from the early
twentieth century such as Raymond Martin, 22 Jean Baptiste
Kors,23 and Odon Lottin.24 Lottin gives this historical approach
its classic synthesis. He orients us to Aquinas’s context by
distinguishing among three views of original sin in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries:25
1. An Augustinian view, originating with Anselm of Laon but given its
popularity in the thirteenth century through the reception of Peter Lombard,
according to which original sin is concupiscence. In this view, original sin has
as its primary effect the addition of a positive, habitual wound (vitium) to the
lower appetites in the soul, which in turn serves as the basis for our personal
liability to guilt (culpa) for the sin of Adam.26
2. An Abelardian view, which gained popularity among the Porretanians in
the twelfth century but had largely faded from view by the thirteenth century,
according to which original sin is the extrinsic imputation of the sin of Adam
to us by the divine will and has as its primary effect our liability to punishment
(poena) for Adam’s sin.27

22

Raymond Martin, “La doctrina sobre el pecado original en la Summa contra
Gentiles,” La ciencia tomista 10 (1915): 389-400, cited in Houck, Aquinas, Original
Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution, 57 n. 3. See also Raymond Martin, Le controverse
sur le péché originel au début du XIVe siècles: Textes inédits (Louvain: Spicilegium
Sacrum Lovaniense, 1930). Martin connects Aquinas with the theology of Anselm of
Canterbury (ibid., 45).
23
Jean Baptiste Kors, La justice primitive et le péché originel d'après St. Thomas: Les
sources; La doctrine (Paris: J. Vrin, 1930). On the effects of original sin, see esp.
162-63.
24
Odon Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux 12e et 13e siècles, 6 vols. (Gembloux:
J. Duculot, 1942-60). See vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 493-598 on the first movements of the
fallen appetites; and vol. 4, pt. 1, pp. 11-305 on original sin as a whole. Lottin’s view of
Aquinas will be discussed briefly below.
25
For an English-language overview of this material, see Houck, Aquinas, Original
Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution, 30-54. For a more focused and lengthy treatment
of these specific issues, see Charles Keating, “The Effects of Original Sin in the
Scholastic Tradition from St. Thomas Aquinas to William Ockham” (S.T.D. diss., The
Catholic University of America, 1959), 1-52.
26
On the origins of this view, see Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 4.1:15-27. He
discusses Peter Lombard on pp. 73-76.
27
On the origins of this view, see ibid., 4.1:27-29. He comments upon the fate of
this school on p. 167.

178

JACOB W. WOOD

3. An Anselmian view, which distinguishes in Adam between his personal
sin (the sin of Adam qua Adam; eating the forbidden fruit) and the sin of
human nature in Adam (the sin of Adam qua homo; losing original justice).
According to this view, only the sin of Adam qua homo is passed down to
posterity. The essence of original sin lies in the privation of original justice,
which is received into each person as culpa, while the loss of original justice
causes concupiscence as its primary effect, and is received into each person as
poena, alongside the liability to other effects, such as death, sickness, and
injury.28 Within this Anselmian tradition, most theologians of the thirteenth
century thought that all the movements of concupiscence are sins, at least
venially, because the will ought to have restrained them; when they occur, the
will’s silence implies consent.29

Connecting Aquinas with an Anselmian revival that began in the
second quarter of the thirteenth century, Lottin argues that
Aquinas consistently held that original sin is formally a pure privation, the loss of original justice, and only materially concupiscence.30 Within the Anselmian tradition, Aquinas differentiated
himself by a more rigorous insistence on the purely negative
aspects of original sin: the movements of the lower appetites in
themselves are not sins at all, not even interpretively; only those
movements of concupiscence to which the will gives positive
consent are sins.31
Although Lottin insists that the basic contours of Aquinas’s
Anselmian view of original sin remained consistent throughout
his career, he does reluctantly acknowledge a certain tension
between Aquinas’s earlier work, where he uses Anselmian language more exclusively, and his later work, where he begins to
sound increasingly Augustinian by speaking of original sin as a

28

On the origins of this view, see ibid., 4.1:13-14.
Among the theologians whom Lottin identifies as “Anselmian,” and to whom he
attributes the view that the first movements of concupiscence are venial sins because the
will ought to have suppressed them, are Jean de la Rochelle (ibid., 2:541), Alexander of
Hales (2:546), Albert the Great (2:549), and Bonaventure (2:570).
30
On the Anselmian revival, see ibid., 4.1:167-71. Lottin subsequently discusses the
influence of Anselm on both the Franciscans (171-229), and the Dominicans (230-71).
The discussion of Aquinas in particular can be found on pp. 245-71, and of the
continuity of his thought in relation to De malo and the Prima secundae on pp. 263-67.
31
Ibid., 2:582.
29

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

179

habitus, a sickness, and a negative disposition.32 In the absence
of evidence as to why this development appears, Lottin brushes
it aside: Aquinas must have just been paying deference to
Augustine’s widely acknowledged authority; Aquinas’s “hidden
sympathy” continued to lie with Anselm.33 Even Kors, who devotes more time to a careful explication of Aquinas’s later texts,
assumes that Aquinas simply could not possibly have meant to
say that fallen nature has any wound that could not be “equally
attributable to pure nature.”34
The purpose of this article is to explain how and in what
sense Aquinas’s teaching on the effects of original sin takes an
Augustinian turn in his mature work. By supplying information
about the sources and context for Aquinas’s teaching on the
effects of original sin in De veritate, De malo, and the Prima
secundae, which was lacking to the historical theologians of the
early twentieth century, I will show that Aquinas intended his
mature position as a synthesis of the Anselmian and Augustinian
traditions. With Anselm, he continued to hold throughout his
career that original sin is a privation. However, under the influence an anti-Pelagian treatise in the Summa halensis, Aquinas
came to accept in De veritate the Augustinian “fact” that fallen
persons cannot avoid all future mortal sins without grace. At
this early point, he explains this fact on the basis of the effects
of mortal sin rather than original sin: upon reaching the age of
reason, every person is bound to “do what lies within themselves” (facere quod in se est) by turning to God; those who turn
to God receive grace, while those who do not sin mortally, and
so incur a habitual inclination that explains their subsequent
32

Ibid., 4.1:265-66. For the dating of Aquinas’s works, I follow Jean-Pierre Torrell,
Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, 2d ed. (Paris: Cerf, 2015), 421-24.
33
Lottin, Psychologie et morale, 4.1:267: “Nous pensons donc que la sympathie
secrète de saint Thomas, l’orientation profonde de sa pensée, le portait vers la formule
pure et simple de saint Anselme de Cantorbéry, mais qu’il fut retenu dans cette voie par
le respect d’une autorité aussi vénérée que celle de saint Augustin.”
34
Kors, La justice primitive et le péché originel, 162: “Si donc il existe un désordre
dans la nature déchue, il doit avoir sa raison d’être dans la nature même, et par
conséquent être pareillement attribuable à nature pure.”

180

JACOB W. WOOD

inability not to sin. In De malo and the Prima secundae,
Aquinas’s increased knowledge of Augustine’s late works from
the semi-Pelagian controversy—a knowledge which Henri
Bouillard noted in 1944,35 but whose significance for Aquinas’s
teaching on the effects of original sin went largely unnoticed—
helped him to see that fallen humanity has no less need of grace
to avoid sin in the first moment of turning to God than in
subsequent moments; consequently, the tendency that makes us
unable not to sin must be an effect of original sin prior to any
mortal sin. Under the influence of the Franciscan Walter of
Bruges, Aquinas explained this tendency as a habitus in the
essence of the soul. Enriching what he found in Walter with
what he encountered in William of Moerbeke’s recent translation of Simplicius’s Commentary on the Categories, Aquinas
was able to formulate this habitus in terms of an incomplete
privation of rectitude, which confers upon the soul a positive
tendency towards the complete privation of rectitude in sin and
spiritual death. This way of explaining the effects of original sin
allowed Aquinas to combine the Anselmian idea of original sin
as privation with the medieval Augustinian idea that original sin
wounds human nature and causes within it a tendency inclining
towards sin and spiritual death. As a result, Aquinas could at
one and the same time say that original sin does not change the
principles of human nature, and also that fallen human nature
stands ever in need of the healing grace of Jesus Christ (gratia
sanans).
I. BACHELOR OF THE SENTENCES
AND FIRST PARISIAN REGENCY (1252-59)
A) Commentary on the Sentences
When Aquinas was in Paris as a bachelor of the Sentences
(1252-56) and then as a regent master in the faculty of theology
35
Henri Bouillard, Conversion et grâce chez saint Thomas d’Aquin: Étude historique
(Paris: Aubier, 1944).

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

181

(1256-59), it had been an open question as to what original sin
causes in the soul beyond the mere effects of “passibility,” such
as pain, sickness, and physical death. Some suggestions were
that it causes a positive vitium in the lower appetites (as in
Augustinian authors in the tradition of Peter Lombard), 36 a
positive habitus in the essence of the soul (as in Albert the
Great),37 or an habilitatio that passes from the powers of the
soul to its essence (as in Bonaventure).38 For his part, the early
Aquinas had been uncomfortable with embracing any one of
these ideas in its entirety.39 First of all, he agreed with Albert
that original sin resides in the essence of the soul.40 However, in
his early work, Aquinas does not recognize essences or natures
as susceptible of habits.41 Second, he thought that original sin
36

Peter Lombard, II Sent., d. 30, cap. 9-10 (Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, 3rd ed.,
vol. 1, ed. Ignatius Brady [Grottaferrata: Editiones collegii s. Bonaventurae ad claras
aquas, 1971], 500-502).
37
Albert the Great, II Sent., d. 30, a. 1 (Opera omnia, ed. Auguste Borgnet et al., 38
vols [Paris: Vivès, 1890-99], 27:495-99). Albert does not use the word habitus himself,
but he describes the corruptio vitii which constitutes original sin as “difficult to
dislodge” (difficile mobile). In the Boethian tradition, being difficile mobile is what
differentiates a habit from a disposition, which is facile mobile. See Boethius, Super
praedicamenta 8 (PL 67:242C-D).
38
Bonaventure, II Sent., d. 32, a. 1, q. 1 (Opera omnia, 10 vols. [Quaracchi:
Collegium s. Bonaventurae, 1882-1902], 2:760-61). On Aquinas’s opposition to
Bonaventure here, see Kors, La justice primitive et le péché originel, 103.
39
Kors, La justice primitive et le péché originel, 96: “Saint Thomas, as one can see,
attributes a privative character to concupiscence. In this [belief] he is at odds with all his
predecessors” (“Saint Thomas, on le voit, attribue à la concupiscence un caractère
privatif. En cela, il va à l’encontre de tous ses prédécesseurs”).
40
Thomas Aquinas, II Sent., d. 31, q. 2, a. 1 (Scriptum super libros Sententiarum,
4 vols., ed. Pierre Mandonnet and Fabien Moos [Paris: Lethielleux, 1929-47], 2:812).
References to Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences will be labeled with his name to
distinguish them from other commentaries on the Sentences. Other works of Aquinas
will be referred to solely by their title.
41
Aquinas, III Sent., d. 23, q. 1, a. 1 (Moos, ed., 3:698). Here Aquinas discusses the
various meanings of the word “habit” as a species of quality. Although he does not
envision the idea of a habit of an essence specifically, this idea is precluded by his
insistence that those things which are determined to one end do not have need of a
habit (“Patet ergo quod potentiae naturales, quia sunt ex seipsis determinatae ad unum,

182

JACOB W. WOOD

redounds from the essence of the soul to the will.42 In his early
work, Aquinas also insists that the natural desire of the will,
insofar as it participates in nature’s determination towards its
end, has no need of a habit.43 Third, all of the senses of the
words “habit” or “disposition” in Aquinas’s early work imply a
positive quality. 44 But at the beginning of his career, Aquinas
insists on the Anselmian idea that original sin is formally a
privation, not something positively infused or otherwise added
to human nature, because original sin does not change the
principles of nature.45
If original sin does not cause a positive habit, then what does
one call the quality of a nature resulting from the privation of
an until-recently-existing quality? Aquinas’s reply is admittedly
somewhat vague at this point:
There is a difference between saying “able” and “apt to”. That someone is able
to desire comes from his concupiscible power; but that someone is apt to
desire comes from a certain habit, or rather from that which behaves in the
manner of a habit. For it happens that there even exists a certain privation
which leaves behind a sort of aptness, inasmuch as something is taken away
which could put forth an impediment, and in this way habitual concupiscence
is said to be original sin; that is, not the concupiscible power, nor again some
habit which implies something positive, but the aptness itself which is left
among the inferior powers towards desiring inordinately; this comes from the
fact that the restraint of reason, by which they were being held back from
being able to tend towards their object unrestrainedly, is taken away from the
appetite.46

habitibus non indigent”), and that nature is such a thing (“Inde est quod habitus ad
unum inclinant, sicut et natura”).
42
Aquinas, II Sent., d. 30, q. 1, a. 3 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:774).
43
Aquinas, III Sent., d. 23, q. 1, a. 1 (Moos, ed., 3:699).
44
Ibid. (Moos, ed., 3:698).
45
Aquinas, II Sent., d. 30, q. 1, a. 3 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:774-75).
46
Ibid., ad 2 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:775). “Differt dicere potentem et habilem: quod
enim aliquis sit potens concupiscere, est ex potentia concupiscibili; sed quod sit habilis
ad concupiscendum, est ex aliquo habitu, vel ex eo quod per modum habitus se habet.
Contingit enim ut etiam privatio aliqua habilitatem quamdam relinquat, inquantum
privatur aliquid quod impedimentum praestare posset; et ita dicitur concupiscentia
habitualis esse peccatum originale, non quidem vis concupiscibilis, neque iterum aliquis
habitus qui aliquid positive dicat; sed ipsa habilitas quae relinquitur in inferioribus

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

183

Given the number of words and phrases that express indeterminacy, any scholar of Aquinas is forced to engage in a
level of interpretation to understand what Aquinas intends here.
Does Aquinas simply not know what to call this effect of
original sin, or is he grasping after something specific but
cannot yet find the words for it?
One way to answer the foregoing question is to look at what
Aquinas thinks that nature with this sort of habilitas can do, and
then to ask how that aligns with what the powers of human
nature, considered in relation to their ends, ought to be able to
achieve. When we do so, we find that the early Aquinas attributes a number of abilities to fallen human nature in the
absence of grace, which the mature Aquinas does not.47 Fallen
nature can, for example, avoid mortal sin consistently,48 albeit
with difficulty and a struggle;49 with Albert, Aquinas holds that
when Augustine speaks of fallen humanity being unable not to
sin (non posse non peccare), he is referring to rising from past
sins, not avoiding future ones.50 Aquinas also thinks at this stage
that fallen humanity can keep the precepts of the moral law,
albeit without the motive of charity.51 Finally, and most importantly, he thinks that fallen humanity can prepare itself for the
reception of grace by “doing what lies within itself” (faciens
quod in se est) to know God and to act virtuously. The natural
knowledge of God and acquired virtue dispose us towards faith
viribus ad inordinate concupiscendum, ex hoc quod ab appetitu subtrahitur retinaculum
rationis, quo detinebatur ne effrenate posset in sua obiecta tendere.”
47
It must be borne in mind here that “in the absence of grace” does not mean “in the
absence of God,” because without the motion which God communicates to the soul in
the order of nature by providence a person could do nothing whatsoever. Aquinas
explicitly makes this distinction in II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 4 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:728).
48
Aquinas, II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 2 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:723).
49
Ibid., ad 2 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:723).
50
Aquinas, II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 2 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:723), following Albert the
Great, II Sent., d. 25, a. 6 (Borgnet, ed., 27:433-34). Both texts are cited in Lonergan,
Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, Collected
Works of Bernard Lonergan 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 50.
51
Aquinas, II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 3 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:725-26).

184

JACOB W. WOOD

and the infused moral virtues respectively.52 In some sense, they
even congruently merit these gifts for us.53
In light of the foregoing, the most reasonable inference
concerning what Aquinas thinks of the effects of original sin at
this time is the one made by the historical scholars of the first
half of the twentieth century: that the quality of a nature resulting from the privation of an until-recently-existing quality is,
in effect, no quality at all. For if the habit which used to exist in
place of the privation was preternatural (praeter naturam), then
it is entirely “natural” for humanity to be deprived of it, as
Aquinas himself says.54 There is a sense in which fallen nature
can be described as defective secundum quid in relation to the
supernatural and preternatural gifts it used to enjoy, but
Aquinas insists that one must always bear in mind along with
this affirmation its relativity to an historical situation. Human
nature remains completely intact simpliciter.55
52

Aquinas, II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 4 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:728-29). On the idea of the
natural knowledge of God as a preparation for faith, see II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 3, ad 4
(Mandonnet, ed., 2:729); on the idea of acquired virtue as a preparation for infused
virtue, see II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 1, ad 5 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:720). Aquinas reiterates
these ideas in IV Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 2, qcla. 2 (Moos, ed., 4:833-34), where the
preparation envisioned is specifically a preparation on the part of adult converts for the
reception of sanctifying grace at baptism, as well as De Verit., q. 24, a. 1, ad 2
(Leonine ed., 22:681), where the focus is on the formation of acquired virtue.
53
As Joseph Wawrykow (God’s Grace and Human Action: ‘Merit’ in the Theology of
Thomas Aquinas [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995], 91),
observes, Aquinas is reluctant to speak of merit as applied to grace in his Commentary
on the Sentences, but his use of the facienti quod in se est principle suggests that this
reluctance has more to do with condign merit than congruous merit.
54
Aquinas, II Sent., d. 30, q. 1, a. 1 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:767). See Kors, La justice
primitive et le péché originel, 105-6.
55
Aquinas, II Sent., d. 30, q. 1, a 1 (Mandonnet, ed., 2:767). See Houck, Aquinas,
Original Sin, and the Challege of Evolution, 90-92. Jean-Pierre Torrell (“Nature and
Grace in Thomas Aquinas,” in Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of TwentiethCentury Thomistic Thought, ed. Serge-Thomas Bonino, trans. Robert Williams, trans.
rev. Matthew Levering (Ave Maria, Fla.: Sapientia Press, 2009), 169) distinguishes
Aquinas’s concept of man in puris naturalibus from the sixteenth-century concept of
natura pura. See Kors, La justice primitive et le péché originel, 139; and Houck,
Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challege of Evolution, 93 n. 13. Robert Barry (“Original
Sin and Pure Nature,” 3, 19-22), is more willing to identify the two with one another.

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

185

B) De veritate
As Bernard Lonergan and Joseph Wawrykow note, Aquinas’s
idea that fallen nature remains completely intact began to break
down during his first Parisian regency.56 The precise cause of
this breakdown is uncertain, but there is evidence that it may
have been occasioned by his reading (or re-reading) a short antiPelagian treatise in the Summa halensis.57 This treatise contains
nineteen extracts from Augustine’s anti-Pelagian works, specifically De gratia et libero arbitrio and De natura et gratia, to
which neither Peter Lombard’s Sentences nor Aquinas’s
Commentary on the Sentences make reference. 58 Of the texts
quoted in this treatise, three come to appear subsequently in
Aquinas’s work: two do not appear until the Prima secundae,59
but one appears in De veritate (De Verit., q. 22, a. 5, obj. 22). In
this last text, Aquinas rehearses his own opinion from the
Commentary on the Sentences as an insistence: he argues against
56

See Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 49-54; Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human
Action, 45-46.
57
The treatise can be found in Summa halensis IIIa, n. 607 (Summa theologica, 4
vols. [Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1924-48], 4:950-56).
58
Victorin Doucet (Prolegomena to vol. 3 of the Summa theologica, cccii), notes that
while the surrounding material is largely taken from the works of Jean de la Rochelle,
this particular treatise has no obvious contemporary source. In an attempt to provide
some guidance as to the potential origin of this text, the editors of the Quaracchi edition
point to Peter Lombard, II Sent., d. 28. However, although the opening sentence of
II Sent., d. 28, cap. 1, n. 1 (Quaracchi ed., 1:487) is similar to the proemium of Summa
halensis IIIa, n. 607 (Quaracchi ed., 4:944), the texts from authority cited by Peter
Lombard and the Summa halensis are different.
59
Summa halensis IIIa, n. 607, s.c. m (Quaracchi ed., 4:952) quotes a portion of
Augustine, gr. et lib. 17.33 (CSEL 105:154) that is distinct from the portion of that
same chapter that appears in Peter Lombard, II Sent., d. 2, cap. 26, n. 1 (Quaracchi ed.,
1:470); the text from the Summa halensis appears in STh I-II, q. 111, a. 2, s.c. (Leonine
ed., 7:318). Summa halensis IIIa, n. 607, s.c. s (Quaracchi ed., 4:952) quotes Augustine,
nat. et gr. 26 (CSEL 60:255), and the text appears in STh I-II, q. 109, a. 9, s.c.
(Leonine ed., 7:307). All abbreviations for the works of Augustine as well as the
editions in which they may be found follow the Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 4, ed. Robert
Dodaro, Cornelius Mayer, and Christo Müller (Basel: Schwabe AG, 2021-2018),
xi-xxvi.

186

JACOB W. WOOD

the objector that when Augustine says that fallen humanity
cannot avoid sin (non posse non peccare), it means that we
cannot rise from past sins without the help of grace, not that we
cannot avoid future sins. The objector responds with a quotation from Augustine’s De gratia et libero arbitrio 13.26 to the
effect that this is precisely the view that Augustine attributes to
the Pelagians:60 they are willing to pray in the Lord’s Prayer,
60
The text is De Verit., q. 24, a. 12, obj. 22 (Leonine ed., 22:714). Augustine, gr. et
lib. 13.26 (CSEL 105:148), has “sed si hoc uerum esset, utique in oratione dominica,
cum dixissemus, Dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris,
non adderemus: Et ne nos inferas in tentationem” (emphasis added). Summa halensis
IIIa, no. 607 obj. h (Quaracchi ed., 4:952), abbreviates the reference to the Lord’s
Prayer: “Sed, si hoc verum esset, utique in oratione dominica, cum dixissemus: Dimitte
nobis etc., non adderemus: Et ne nos inferas in tentationem” (emphasis added).
Aquinas’s text expands the abbreviation, but Aquinas does not appear to be aware of
how much the text had been abbreviated: “Sed si hoc verum esset, utique in Oratione
dominica cum dixissemus ‘Dimitte nobis debita nostra’ non adderemus ‘et ne nos inferas
in tentationem’” (emphasis added).
Lonergan (Grace and Freedom, 51) observes the importance of the Augustinian
quotation, but does not address how or where Aquinas encountered it. The incomplete
expansion of the abbreviation provides evidence that Aquinas encountered the
Augustinian text through an intermediary source, and that this intermediary source may
have been the Summa halensis. However, this possibility raises a variety of questions.
First, there is the question of the availability of this portion of the Summa halensis.
Doucet (Prolegomena, cccxxxix-ccclv) argues that books 1-3 of the Summa halensis
were complete “for the most part” (magna parte) by 1245, while acknowledging that the
entirety of book 4, as well as several passages in books 1 and 2, were added
subsequently. More recently, Riccardo Saccenti (“The Reception of the Summa halensis
in the Manuscript Tradition until 1450,” in The Legacy of Early Franciscan Thought, ed.
Lydia Schumacher [Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2021], 368), summarizing the work of
Giovanna Murano (Opere diffuse per exemplar et pecia [Turnhout: Brepols, 2005],
242), indicates that the third book of the Summa halensis was divided into four textual
units for the purpose of copying according to the pecia system at the Paris stationers,
and that the initial exemplar for the text was available by 1245. Since the text in
question is present in the first pecia of the third textual unit of the manuscripts that
descend from the exemplar, we may infer that it was part of the work in 1245 and that
Aquinas had access to it early in his career.
Second, there is the question of whether Aquinas drew on this text, a common
source, or some text that descends from this text. Above (n. 58) it was explained that
while the material on grace surrounding IIIa, n. 607, is largely taken from the works of
Jean de la Rochelle, this particular treatise is not, and that the connection drawn by the
editors of the Quaracchi edition with Peter Lombard, II Sent., d. 28, is in some sense

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

187

“forgive us our trespasses,” but they do not see a need to pray,
“and lead us not into temptation,” because they think that we
can avoid future sins without grace. 61 In responding to the
Augustinian objection, Aquinas signals a change of mind by
simply conceding the point:
This is why it is necessary for us to ask in the Lord’s Prayer not only that past
trespasses be forgiven, but also that we be freed from future ones, because
unless a man be freed by grace, it is necessary for him to fall into sin at some
point in the aforesaid way, although by striving against it he would be able to
avoid this or that one.62

misguided. One possible source is the Franciscan Odo Rigaldus. Doucet argues
(Prolegomena, ccxxxiii) that Rigaldus borrowed from the Summa halensis rather than
the reverse, which would seem to make Odo a possible source for Aquinas. However,
Odo’s Commentary on the relevant distinctions of the Sentences has been edited, and it
contains none of the three texts that Aquinas would ultimately utilize. See Jean Bouvy,
“Les questions sur la grâce dans le Commentaire des Sentences d’Odon Rigaud,”
Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 27 (1960): 290-343; idem, “La nécessité
de la grâce dans le Commentaire des Sentences d’Odon Rigaud,” Recherches de théologie
ancienne et médiévale 28 (1961): 59-96. It seems likely, therefore, that Aquinas drew
directly on the text of the Summa halensis.
Third, there is the question of Aquinas’s prior knowledge of this text of the Summa
halensis. If the text of IIIa, n. 607 was Aquinas’s source, as seems most likely, and if it
was available to Aquinas from the beginning of his academic career, why would he not
have interacted with it previously? There are at least two possible answers: (1) that he
had simply not read that part of the Summa halensis before; (2) that he had read that
part of the Summa halensis, but had not yet noticed its significance. Doucet
(Prolegomena, cclxxviii-cclxxix) shows in relation to the additions to book 2 of the
Summa halensis that the Summa halensis was a text to which Aquinas cycled back at
different points in his career. Doucet’s focus is on Aquinas’s use of the Summa halensis
in the Summa theologiae, but there is no reason the same phenomenon could not also
have taken place in De veritate with regard to a different text. Whatever the case may
be, the most important point for my present purpose is that considering (or
reconsidering) the Augustinian text served as an occasion for Aquinas to develop his
thought; the Summa halensis merely provides the most likely source for Aquinas’s
encounter with that text.
61
De Verit., q. 24, a. 12, obj. 22 (Leonine ed., 22:714).
62
De Verit., q. 24, a. 12, ad 22 (Leonine ed., 22:719): “Ideo necesse habemus in
Oratione dominica petere non solum ut peccata praeterita nobis dimittantur, sed etiam a
futuris liberemur, quia nisi homo per gratiam liberetur, necesse habet quandoque
incidere in peccatum per modum praedictum, quamvis hoc vel illud contra nitendo

188

JACOB W. WOOD

Aquinas confirms this new opinion twice more in De
veritate: once in his reply to the seventh objection of the same
article,63 and then again later in question 24, article 12.64 In the
former, Aquinas tells us that among his contemporaries there
are two views on what non posse non peccare means.65 The first
view is his own and Albert’s, that not being able not to sin
means not being able to rise from past sins without divine
forgiveness; the other is Bonaventure’s, that because of the
effects of original sin humanity can overcome each temptation
but not every temptation without grace, and so will inevitably
commit a future mortal sin.66 In this text, Aquinas declines to
choose between the two views. Later, in question 24, he
embraces a version of Bonaventure’s opinion, as he had done
earlier (q. 22, a. 5, ad 22).67
Accepting Bonaventure’s view that fallen humanity cannot
avoid all future mortal sins without grace did not mean that
Aquinas had to accept Bonaventure’s opinion as to why this is
so, but it did mean that Aquinas had to enter a conversation
about this topic that he had either avoided or overlooked in his
Commentary on the Sentences. That conversation centered
around the work of the Oxford Franciscan Richard Rufus.
Rufus commented upon the Sentences twice. His first commentary was given in Oxford around the years 1245-50.68 His
second commentary dates either to a sojourn in Paris from 1253
to 1256, or to his subsequent period in Oxford from 1256 to
vitare possit.” Lonergan (Grace and Freedom, 359-61) notices this shift, saying that “it
marks the beginning of St. Thomas’s integration of the theory of the supernatural with
the Augustinian tradition on the need of grace” (ibid., 361).
63
De Verit., q. 22, a. 5, obj. 7 (Leonine ed., 22:622).
64
De Verit., q. 24, a. 12 (Leonine ed., 22:712-20).
65
De Verit., q. 22, a. 5, ad 7 (Leonine ed., 22:625).
66
The Leonine editors point to Bonaventure, II Sent., d. 2, 2.2 (Quaracchi ed.,
2:685-87). The objection that Aquinas formulates appears to be based around
Bonaventure’s ad 6 (Quaracchi ed., 2:687). See Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 50.
67
De Verit., q. 24, a. 12 (Leonine ed., 22:712-20).
68
On the authenticity and dating of this commentary, see Peter Raedts, Richard
Rufus of Cornwall and the Tradition of Oxford Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1987), 20-39.

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

189

1259. 69 This second commentary takes the form of an abbreviatio of Bonaventure’s Commentary on the Sentences, albeit
one in which Rufus feels free to insert his own views
throughout, whether in the form of side comments, or at times
entire quaestiones disputatae.70
Rufus discusses his views of original sin most clearly in book
2, distinctions 24 and 30 of his first Commentary on the
Sentences. He formulates them in response to the Oxford
Dominican Richard Fishacre’s idea that original sin causes in us
a necessity of desiring with concupiscence (necessitas concupiscendi).71 Rufus asks: Since Aristotle says in Nicomachean Ethics
2.5 (1105b18-20) that there are three things in the soul—
passions, powers, and habits 72 —does the gerundive “concupiscendi” refer to an act (i.e., consent to a passion with the power
of the will) or a habit? Since the necessitas exists in children as
well as adults, and since children do not have enough use of
their reason to make a complete act of the will, Rufus thinks
that the term must refer in its most basic sense to a habit. 73
What, then, shall we say about the acts that arise in relation to
this habit? Rufus is not quite sure how to answer this question
with respect to children,74 but when it comes to adults he argues
that what differentiates mortal and venial sin is the moral
gravity of a concrete action. Since, then, the motions of
concupiscence are discreet actions, 75 how grave are they?
Deliberately referring to the Augustinianism of Peter Lombard,
and pushing it in an even more radical direction, Rufus states
bluntly: “This [Fishacre’s opinion] is not what the Master [Peter
69

On the authenticity and dating of this commentary, see ibid., 40-63.
Ibid., 47-48.
71
Richard Fishacre, II Sent., d. 30 (In Secundum librum Sententiarum, ed. R. James
Long [Munich: Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008], 186).
72
Richard Rufus, II Sent., d. 30 (Oxford, Balliol College, 62, f. 174rb): “Nam ipsa in
anima est, et tria sunt que sunt in anima. Ergo ipsa vel erit passio, vel potentia, vel
habitus aut privatio habitus [Ethic. 2.5]. Sed nec passio, nec potentia, ergo etc.”
73
Rufus, II Sent., d. 30 (Oxford, Balliol College, 62, f. 174vb-175ra).
74
Rufus, II Sent., d. 24 (Oxford, Balliol College, 62, f. 165vb).
75
Ibid.
70

190

JACOB W. WOOD

Lombard] intends, but that before grace, when a person sins, he
or she sins mortally.”76 As Rufus explains, that is because all the
motions of concupiscence are imputable to those who experience them through the will’s failure to suppress them.77
Bonaventure was aware of Rufus’s views and responded
directly to them in his Commentary on the Sentences.78 Referring to them as “awfully harsh” (valde durum),79 he develops a
more moderate view of the effects of original sin by drawing an
analogy with personal sin. In any personal sin, there is both
aversion from God and conversion towards creatures; so also in
original sin, there is the lack of original justice and the inclination of concupiscence.80 The inclination of concupiscence
does confer upon fallen humanity a necessity of experiencing the
movements of concupiscence, but it does not confer—as Rufus
thought—a necessity of consenting to them, any more than any
other vice causes a necessity of acting in the person who
possesses it.81 What then shall we make of Augustine’s non posse
non peccare? It is here that Bonaventure offers the reply from
which Aquinas will borrow in De veritate: fallen humanity can
avoid each mortal sin, but not every mortal sin, because of the
effort involved in looking out for and overcoming temptation.82
If Aquinas had adopted Bonaventure’s analogy between
original sin and personal sin at this time, the positive sense of
conversio it entailed would have forced him to abandon his
commitment to the Anselmian view of original sin as privation.
In order to avoid this consequence, Aquinas looked to other
Franciscans, Alexander of Hales and Jean de la Rochelle, whose
thought he also would have encountered in the Summa
76

Ibid.: “Nec hoc intendit Magister, sed quod ante gratiam, cum peccet quis,
mortaliter peccat.”
77
Rufus, II Sent., d. 24 (Oxford, Balliol College, 62, f. 166ra).
78
See Bonaventure, II Sent., d. 30, q. 2, a. 1 (Quaracchi ed., 2:721-24).
79
Bonaventure, II Sent., d. 28, q. 2, a. 2 (Quaracchi ed., 2:686).
80
Bonaventure, II Sent., d. 30, q. 2, a. 1 (Quaracchi ed., 2:722).
81
Ibid.
82
Bonaventure, II Sent., d. 28, q. 2, a. 2, corp. (Quaracchi ed., 2:686) and ad s.c. 6
(Quaracchi ed., 2:687).

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

191

halensis.83 At one point the Summist asks “Whether Augustine’s
definition of sin, ‘sin is aversion from an unchangeable good
and conversion to a changeable good,’ is suitable for original
sin?” 84 The Summist replies: not exactly, for in original sin,
there is neither habitual nor actual conversio, nor even an active
aversio. Active aversio and habitual or actual conversio all
require a free choice of the will, which only adults can make.85
To explain the fact that fallen man cannot avoid all future
mortal sins without grace, while maintaining that original sin is
a privation, Aquinas creatively applied the idea of original sin as
aversio to his understanding of what happens in the moment
that persons reach the age of reason. 86 In that moment, they
must deliberate about their end. But if God does not withhold
grace from those who do what lies within themselves, and all
that persons can do in that moment is to choose whether or not
they want to order their life towards God, then those who
choose to order their lives to God in that moment “will have
grace,” while for those who neglect to do so “the negligence
itself will be imputed to [them] as a mortal sin.”87 That being
the case, there is no such thing as an adult in original sin only.
Every adult not in a state of grace must also be in mortal sin,
and it is mortal sin—not original sin—that adds to the soul the
conversio towards created goods that Bonaventure had used to
explain Augustine’s non posse non peccare. 88 In this way,
83

On the identification of Alexander and Jean as sources for the passage upon which
Aquinas will draw, see Doucet, Prolegomena, cclxxxv-cclxxxvi.
84
Summa halensis IIa-IIae, n. 223 tit. (Quaracchi ed., 3:239): “Utrum illa definitio
peccati ‘peccatum est aversio ab incommutabili bono et conversio ad commutabile
bonum’ conveniat peccato originali.”
85
Summa halensis IIa-IIae, n. 223 (Quaracchi ed., 3:239).
86
For the first instance of this teaching, see Aquinas, II Sent., d. 42, q. 1, a. 5, ad 7
(Mandonnet, ed., 2:1065).
87
De Verit., q. 24, a. 12, ad 2 (Leonine ed., 22:718): “Si se ad gratiam praeparaverit,
gratiam habebit; alias ipsa negligentia ei imputabitur ad peccatum mortale.”
88
De Verit., q. 24, a. 12 (Leonine ed., 22:717). For the source of this view in the
Summa halensis, see Summa halensis, IIa-IIae, n. 223 (Quaracchi ed., 3:239), n. 253
(Quaracchi ed., 3:266-67).

192

JACOB W. WOOD

Aquinas was able to accept that fallen humanity cannot avoid all
future mortal sins without grace, while continuing to preserve
the Anselmian principle of original sin as privation.
II. SECOND PARISIAN REGENCY (1268-72)
While Aquinas was away in Italy from about 1259/61 to
1268, his views on sin and grace developed. According to
Bouillard, the reason for this development was that Aquinas
became gradually more familiar with the theological history of
the semi-Pelagian controversy. As far as the evidence suggests,
he never did come across the actual text of the Second Council
of Orange which condemned the idea that the first movement
towards God in faith lies within the unassisted power of the
human will.89 However, Bouillard argues convincingly that by
the time of the composition of the Summa contra gentiles
(Orvieto; 1259/61-65) Aquinas had at least learned the theoretical difference between Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism,90
and that by the time of the composition of the Prima pars
(Rome; 1265-68) he had not only become aware of the
historical difference between Pelagius and the semi-Pelagians,
but had also gained explicit access to the text, or at least a
generous florilegium, of Augustine’s late texts from the semiPelagian controversy, De praedestinatione sanctorum and De
dono perseverantiae.91
89

Bouillard, Conversion et grâce, 114-15. Wawrykow (God’s Grace and Human
Action, 273 n. 18) proposes that it may in fact be possible to account for Bouillard’s
observations by postulating that Aquinas came across the canons of the Second Council
of Orange instead of the late texts of Augustine, but acknowledges that this hypothesis
remains in the realm of pure speculation.
90
Ibid., 106.
91
Ibid., 112-14. As the editors of the critical edition of Augustine’s text make clear
(Augustinus, Späte Schriften zur Gnadenlehre, ed. Henning Drecoll, Christoph Scheerer,
and Benjamin Gleede, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 105 [Boston:
Walter de Gruyter, 2019], 60-63), it is now generally accepted that the two texts are
actually books one and two of the same work, although they had already begun to
circulate under separate titles by the sixth century. Wawrykow (God’s Grace and
Human Action, 271 n. 16) observes that there was some limited availability of both

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

193

Wawrykow observes that one important effect of Aquinas’s
increased knowledge of Augustine’s late work was that his
dependence on the facienti quod in se est principle to explain
humanity’s preparation for grace gave way to an increasing emphasis on the priority of divine grace in that preparation.92 This
development makes sense on the basis of the Augustinian texts
that Aquinas read. In De praedestinatione sanctorum, Augustine
argues that if the first movement of faith is not a gift of divine
grace, then faith is naturalized,93 grace is no longer gratuitous,94
the promises of God depend upon human initiative for their
fulfillment,95 and our understanding of the Incarnation—which
is the primary analogue for our understanding of the life of
grace—collapses into adoptionism.96 In De dono perseverantiae,
Augustine extends this line of reasoning beyond the beginning

titles in Paris in the final quarter of the thirteenth century, but limits the significance of
this fact. “These treatises were not widely known by medieval theologians and . . . even
when they were read, their import was not fully grasped. Thomas’s distinctiveness in
this regard seems assured.”
92
Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human Action, 85 n. 47, 210-11. See also Bouillard,
Conversion et grâce, 149-54. Wawrykow notes (40-41) that although Bouillard received
sharp criticism from Thomas Deman and Bernard Lonergan for not seeing in the term
auxilium the existence of a theology of actual grace in Aquinas, nevertheless “in terms
of the general development in Aquinas’s thought on grace, Bouillard is successful.”
93
praed. sanct. 5.10 (CSEL 105:189).
94
praed. sanct. 3.7 (CSEL 105:184), quoting retr. 1.23.2 (CCSL 57:69).
95
praed. sanct. 10.19 (CSEL 105:196-97).
96
praed. sanct. 15.30-31 (CSEL 105:205-6). On the Christological analogy, see
J. Patout Burns, “Human Agency in Augustine’s Doctrine of Predestination and
Perseverance,” Augustinian Studies 48 (2017): 68-69; Donato Ogliari, Gratia et
certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine
with the so-called Semi-Pelagians (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), 165-66;
Rebecca Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the SemiPelagian Controversy (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1998), 57. As an additional
argument against the semi-Pelagians, Augustine observes in praed. sanct. 12.24-13.25
(CSEL 105:199-202) that if the first movement of faith did not depend upon grace,
then the fate of unbaptized infants would depend upon God’s foreknowledge of what
they would have done had they lived past the age of discretion. But this argument,
resting as it does on Augustine’s theory of their ultimate fate, is hardly conclusive.

194

JACOB W. WOOD

of the life of faith to our perseverance in grace until our passing
from this life into eternal glory.97
As we shall see below, Aquinas, in appropriating Augustine’s
late work, not only drew on Augustine’s discussion of the
priority of grace in the first movement of turning towards God,
as well as the importance of an additional gift of perseverance
to carry a person from that first moment faithfully through to
the end of his or her life, but he also borrowed heavily from one
of Augustine’s secondary themes: the implications of Augustine’s late theology of grace for our understanding of the justice
and mercy of God. If the first movement towards God in faith
and our perseverance in grace until death are both due to God’s
gifts, to what extent does God’s choice to grant or to withhold
them reveal divine mercy and justice rather than a sheer
exercise of divine power and will? While the semi-Pelagians
believed that God’s justice and mercy can be perceived in
relation to our future merits, which God foresees,98 Augustine
argues that relying on foreseen merits subordinates God’s
activity to human initiative, even if that initiative is only

97
The gift of perseverance in Augustine’s thought has received significant attention
in recent scholarship. John Meinert (“‘Ne deficiat voluntas tua’: A Systematic Position
on Perseverance in the Mature Augustine,” Augustinian Studies 45 [2014]: 69-86)
argues that Augustine’s understanding of perseverance involves both interior and
exterior elements. Burns (“Human Agency in the Doctrine of Predestination and
Perseverance,” 67) spells out these elements in greater detail, seeing perseverance as a
“complex divine operation” that involves “conversion and faith, reception of baptism
and Eucharist in the unity of the church, good willing and working, prayer for
forgiveness of daily failures, repentance and reconciliation after major sins, and a timely
end to earthly life.” Other scholars take a different approach. Meinert (“Ne deficiat
voluntas tua,” 71 n. 17) points out that Harden Weaver (Divine Grace and Human
Agency, 30 n. 14) offers a definition of perseverance that is exclusively interior
(although one sees the seeds of exterior grace in her discussion of preaching [ibid., 66]),
while Burns (“Human Agency in Augustine’s Doctrine,” 46 n. 6) argues that Ogliari
(Gratia et certamen, 77-87, 166-71) oversimplifies Augustine’s thought, presumably for
seeming to describe perseverance intrinsically and more in terms of what the early
modern Scholastics would describe as “efficacious grace.”
98
perseu. 9.22 (CSEL 105:232), 12.31 (CSEL 105:240-41). See Ogliari, Gratia et
certamen, 103; Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency, 46.

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

195

hypothetical. 99 Instead, Augustine proposes that since original
sin creates of itself the condition under which all of fallen humanity deserves condemnation,100 we can see the mercy of God
in relation to the unmerited gifts of faith and of perseverance,
and we can see the justice of God in relation to the condemnation of those from whom he withholds these gifts.101
Augustine’s most important tactic for isolating the
consequences of original sin so as to submit them to theological
reflection is to appeal to the case of unbaptized infants, who
have original sin, but who cannot commit mortal sin because
they lack the use of their will.102 Though Augustine’s pessimistic
views on the fate of unbaptized infants were already beginning
to lose acceptance in Aquinas’s time (as Augustine’s “mitissima
poena” gave way to hypotheses that proposed increasing levels
of painlessness and happiness in the souls of unbaptized infants
after death), 103 Augustine’s broader intuition that reflecting
upon unbaptized infants could serve as a useful tactic for
99

praed. sanct. 6.11-7.12 (CSEL 105:189-91), 10.20-11.21 (CSEL 105:197-98);
Burns, “Human Agency in Augustine’s Doctrine,” 62.
100
praed. sanct. 8.16 (CSEL 105:194); perseu. 8.16 (CSEL 105:228), 9.22 (CSEL
105:232), 11.26 (CSEL 105:236). Over the course of perseu. 9.23-10.24 (CSEL
105:232-35), Augustine explains this with an extended exegesis of Matt 11:21.
101
praed. sanct. 6.11 (CSEL 105:189-90), 8.14 (CSEL 105:192-93), 14.29 (CSEL
105:205); perseu. 8.16-19 (CSEL 105:228-30), 9.23 (CSEL 105:234), 11.27-12.28
(CSEL 105:236-38). See Burns, “Human Agency in Augustine’s Doctrine,” 65; Harden
Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency, 62.
102
praed. sanct. 12.23-24 (CSEL 105:199-201), 14.29 (CSEL 105:205); Ogliari,
Gratia et certamen, 163-65; Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency, 55.
103
See the account of the medieval development on this issue given in Serge-Thomas
Bonino, “La théorie des limbes et le mystère du surnaturel chez saint Thomas d’Aquin,”
Revue thomiste 101 (2001): 131-66; English translation: “The Theory of Limbo and the
Mystery of the Supernatural in St. Thomas Aquinas,” in Bonino, ed., Surnaturel,
117-54. The classic reference in Augustine’s work for the idea that infants undergo
eternal punishment, albeit “the lightest of punishments” (mitissima poena) is pecc. Mer.
1.16.21 (CSEL 60:20), although the actual phrase is from ench. 23.93 (CCSL 46:99).
For a list of other pertinent passages in Augustine’s writing, see G. Dyer, “The Denial of
Limbo and the Jansenist Controversy” (S.T.D. diss., St. Mary of the Lake Seminary,
1955), 24 n. 164, cited in Christopher Beiting, “The Third Place: Augustine, Pelagius,
and the Theological Roots of the Idea of Limbo,” Augustiniana 48 (1998): 16 n. 40.

196

JACOB W. WOOD

isolating the effects of original sin in theological discourse
continued to exercise broad influence. Augustine argues that the
fact that infants are baptized for salvation shows that there is
something in original sin from which they need to be saved;104
since they cannot approach baptism for themselves, it is clear—
even more than in the case of adults—that they are not in
control of their first movement towards God in faith; 105 and
since—like adults—they cannot choose the moment of their
death, they are also not in control of their perseverance in grace
until they pass from this life into glory.106 Augustine confirms
this argument as well with a Christological analogy: as the
human nature of Christ is, without losing anything of its
humanity, completely assumed to his divinity without any prior
or foreseen merits, so are we—the members of Christ’s body—
made by grace to believe and to persevere without any prior or
foreseen merits of our own.107
The clearest illustration that the late Aquinas had been
influenced by the late Augustine’s thinking on the priority of
grace in turning to God can be found in Aquinas’s Quodlibet I,
which was held at Easter 1269, towards the end of his first
academic year after returning to Paris and after the developments which Bouillard documents had already taken place. In
question 4, article 3, Aquinas is asked about humanity’s ability
to prepare itself for grace. Previously, he had attributed that
ability to the initiative of fallen nature, as we saw above. Now,
he does not hesitate to state unequivocally that he attributes
that ability to grace: “man needs the help of grace not only to
merit, but also for preparing himself for grace.” 108 This insistence on fallen humanity’s need for grace to prepare for grace
allowed Aquinas—with the late Augustine—to maintain with
greater consistency the priority of divine action in the life of
104

praed. sanct. 13.25 (CSEL 105:201-2); perseu. 9.23 (CSEL 105:234).
praed. sanct. 13.25 (CSEL 105:201-2); perseu. 12.29 (CSEL 105:238-39).
106
perseu. 12.31 (CSEL 105:240-41).
107
perseu. 24.67 (CSEL 105:270-71).
108
Quodl. I, q. 4, a. 2 (Leonine ed., 25.1:196): “Homo indiget auxilio gracie non
solum ad merendum, sed etiam ad hoc quod se ad graciam preparet.”
105

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

197

grace, a priority whose consequences he subsequently unpacks
at length in the Prima secundae (1271). However, it spelled
trouble for his earlier explanation of Augustine’s non posse non
peccare in De veritate. Unlike Augustine, who isolates the effects
of original sin by theorizing about the case of unbaptized infants
who lack the use of their will, Aquinas’s hypothetical person on
the threshold of reason possesses both original sin and the use
of the will. Consequently, isolating the effects of original sin in
this person meant for Aquinas not only coming to grips with the
condemnation due original sin and human nature’s general
inability to raise itself to a supernatural end, but also providing
an explanation for Augustine’s non posse non peccare that does
not depend upon mortal sins committed during or after that
first moment. For if it is only because of grace that it “lies
within” a fallen person not only to turn to God in that first
moment but also to avoid the sin of turning to something else,
then there must be an effect of original sin, prior to the commission of any subsequent mortal sin, that is sufficient to
explain why. 109 In this way, Aquinas combined two questions
that had been in some sense distinct in Augustine’s work: the
question of the first grace, which Augustine treats in relation to
predestination, as well as the question of our ongoing need for
grace to avoid sin, which Augustine treats in relation to
perseverance.
In order to explain why people who reach the age of reason
need grace to avoid sin in that first moment, Aquinas had to
perform a difficult balancing act. On the one hand, he had to
find some way of identifying a habitual tendency towards sin
among the effects of original sin antecedent to the commission
of any mortal sin. This posed both metaphysical and theological
challenges. Metaphysically, it meant returning to the question of
what exactly is left behind in human nature after the removal of
original justice. Theologically, it meant threading the needle
109

On the idea that humanity requires grace to prepare for grace, see also STh I-II,
q. 109, a. 6 (Leonine ed., 7:299-300); q. 113, a. 3, corp. and ad 3 (Leonine ed., 7:332).

198

JACOB W. WOOD

between an Augustinian commitment to the existence of such an
effect, however articulated, and Rufus’s idea that such an effect
would cause every movement of concupiscence in the unbaptized to be a mortal sin. What is more, during the time that
Aquinas was away in Italy, a version of Rufus’s idea had
developed—and gained traction—at Paris through the work of
the secular master Gerard of Abbeville. 110 Rufus may have held
that motions of concupiscence prior to baptism are imputable as
sins through the will’s failure to restrain them, but Gerard held
more simply that original sin is a habit, which makes us worthy
of condemnation, and so individual motions of concupiscence
prior to baptism—as the acts of that habit—make us worthy of
a similar condemnation in the absence of grace.111 How could
Aquinas maintain with Augustine that fallen humanity’s inability
not to sin is rooted in original sin, without therefore embracing
the view that all motions of concupiscence prior to baptism are
mortal sins?
Aquinas was not the first theologian at Paris to attempt an
answer to this question by exploring the metaphysical consequences of original sin. More moderate Franciscans at Paris, like
Walter of Bruges (Franciscan regent master perhaps around the
mid-1260s) and Eustachius of Arras (Franciscan regent master
in 1268-69) entered into the debate before him such that by
1270 the situation had already ignited into a full-blown theological controversy. 112 Besides the writings of Gerard, Walter,
110

For the continuity of Rufus’s views on the effects of original sin in his second
Commentary on the Sentences, see Richard Rufus, Commentum in secundum librum
Sententiarum, d. 30 (Vatican City, Vat. Lat. 12993, f. 264ra-264rb). For an
introduction to the life and works of Gerard, see Stephen Metzger, Gerard of Abbeville,
Secular Master: On Knowledge, Wisdom, and Contemplation, 2 vols. (Boston: Brill,
2017).
111
See Palémon Glorieux, “Une question inédite de Gérard d’Abbeville sur
l’immaculée conception,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 2 (1930): 279.
For a similar but less developed view, see Gerard of Abbeville, III Sent., d. 3 (Paris, BnF
Lat. 15906, f. 41ra).
112
For the dates of these two figures, see Sophie Delmas, Un franciscain à Paris au
milieu du XIIIe siècle: Le maître en théologie Eustache d’Arras (Paris: Cerf, 2010),
67-68. Only some of Eustachius’s work has come down to us. On this subject, see

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

199

and Eustachius themselves, evidence for the existence of this
controversy can also be found in Aquinas’s own writings from
the period. Having never before disputed the question of
whether all the acts of concupiscence in the unbaptized are sins,
Aquinas included this question no fewer than four times in a
few short years in the works published after his return to Paris.
In the disputed questions De malo, question 7, article 8
(ca. 1270), it is formulated as a question about venial sin. 113
Subsequently, three texts frame it as a question about mortal
sin: Prima secundae, question 89, article 5 (ca. 1271); 114
Quodlibet IV, question 11, article 2 (Easter 1271);115 and in the
revised version of Aquinas’s Commentary on Romans, chapter
8, lectio 1 (ca. 1272-73). 116 The existence of the quodlibet is
particularly important, because it gives us reciprocal,
Eustachius of Arras, De peccato veniali, q. 4 (Dole, Bibliothèque Municipale 81, f. 96a).
By contrast, book 2 of Walter’s Commentary on the Sentences, which discusses original
sin in the customary places (dd. 24 and 30-32), survives in two manuscripts: Praha,
Archiv Prazského Hradu, Knihovna Metropolitní Kapituly C. XXIII (442) and Kraków,
Biblioteka Jagiellonska 1497, ff. 134r-255r. Other manuscripts of this book of Walter’s
Commentary contain only partial witnesses to the text: Paris, BnF Lat. 3085A contains
an abbreviated version of the first several questions of book 2 on ff. 168r-170v, while
Vatican City, Chig. B.VI.94 is reported to contain a brief fragment on ff. 98v-99, but I
have not been able to consult it.
113
De Malo, q. 7, a. 8, proem. (Leonine ed., 23:180): “Octauo queritur utrum primi
motus in infidelibus sint peccata uenialia.” Torrell (Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin,
261) observes that it is important to distinguish the date on which a question in De malo
was disputed, the period when it was edited, and the date when it was first published.
Owing to the familiarity with Parisian disputes, it seems likely that at least the editing of
q. 7, a. 8, not to mention its publication, should be dated to Paris, which accords with
Torrell’s general preference for a 1270 publication date for qq. 1-15 (see ibid., 262-64).
114
STh I-II, q. 89, a. 5, obj. 1 (Leonine ed., 7:145): “Videtur quod primi motus
sensualitatis in infidelibus sint peccata mortalia.”
115
Quodl. IV, q. 11, a. 2, proem. (Leonine ed., 25.2:343): “Videtur quod primi
motus in infidelibus sint peccata mortalia.”
116
Comm. in Rom. 8.1: “Ex hiis autem uerbis aliqui uolunt accipere quod in
infidelibus qui non sunt in Christo Ihesu etiam primi motus sint peccata mortalia,
quamuis eis non consentiant.” I am grateful to Adriano Oliva of the Leonine
Commission for allowing me to consult Gilles de Grandpré’s unpublished edition of this
text.

200

JACOB W. WOOD

confirmatory evidence within the writings of Aquinas that this
question was on the mind of his contemporaries as well.
A) De malo
When Aquinas attempted an initial explanation of the
priority of grace on the basis of original sin in De malo, he
could have relied upon Walter of Bruges’s earlier work on this
same topic in 1267-68, in which Walter himself drew upon
Aquinas’s prior work. 117 In responding to Rufus and perhaps
also to Gerard, Walter found a way forward not by rejecting the
idea that original sin is a habit, as Aquinas had earlier done, but
by developing the idea that there can be a habit in the essence of
the soul, as distinct from the habits in its powers. Interestingly,
even though Aquinas had previously denied that original sin is a
habit and had rejected the need for a habit in a creature’s
essence, Walter appears to have thought that Aquinas’s discussion of habits in Commentary on the Sentences, book 3,
distinction 23, could be adapted to make room for such an idea,
if it were supplemented with Averroes’s comments about habits
of nature in Long Commentary on the Metaphysics 5.
The first part of the corpus of Walter’s argument is as
follows:
Habit is said in three ways:
First and properly it is called “the perfection added to a potency by which
it is inclined to act when the time arrives,” as Augustine says in the book, On
the good of marriage.
Second, yet broadly, a habit is called “any sort of additional quality that is
difficult to dislodge,” even as Boethius says in his Commentary on the
Categories, that “habit is an affinity that is only able to be dislodged with
difficulty, whether it is towards what is good or what is evil.”

117

On the dating of Walter’s text, see Delmas, Un franciscain à Paris, 67. Delmas
arrives at this dating by triangulating Walter’s text in relation to the circulation of
Aquinas’s Prima pars, which began in 1267 (and of which Walter may have had one of
the first Parisian manuscripts), and Walter’s entrance into the administration of the
Franciscan Order in 1269.

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

201

Third, a habit of some nature, which is composed of many [parts] is called
a “disposition that is difficult to dislodge according as [the nature] is well or
poorly ordered for a while,” and in this way health and sickness are called
habits.118

The first definition, though credited to Augustine, appears to be
based on Albert the Great’s Commentary on the Categories,
which was written between 1254 and 1257; only the comment
about acting at the right time actually comes from Augustine,
and the exact wording has been borrowed from a sed contra in
Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences, book 3, distinction
23.119 The second definition does come from Boethius’s Commentary on the Categories,120 though notably Aquinas refers to

118

Walter of Bruges, II Sent., d. 30 (Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska 1497,
f. 215va-b): “Habitus dicitur tribus modis. [1] Primo et proprie dicitur perfectio addita
potentie qua inclinatur ad agendum cum tempus affuerit, ut dicit Augustinus, libro De
bono coniugali. [2] Secundo, sed large, dicitur habitus qualiscunque qualitas superducta
[P: superinducta] difficile mobilis, et sicut [P: sic] dicit Boethius Super predicamenta,
quod habitus est affectio difficile commutabilis, sive in bonum sit sive in malum. [3]
Tertio habitus dicitur alicuius nature ex multis composite dispositio difficile mobilis
secundum quam bene vel male se diu habet, et sic sanitas vel egritudo dicitur habitus.” I
have only noted significant divergences in the manuscripts.
119
For the definition of habit, see Albert the Great, De praedicamentis 5.2 (Opera
omnia, ed. Bernhard Geyer et al., 41 vols. [Münster: Aschendorff, 1951- ], 1.1B:247):
“A disposition is that which disposes towards doing something, and since a habit
perfects and inclines a power towards an act or operation, a habit is, according to this
[way of seeing things], a disposition” (“Dispositio enim est id quod disponit ad aliquod
agendum, et cum habitus perficiat et inclinet potentiam ad actum sive operationem, est
habitus secundum hoc dispositio”). For the comment about time, see Aquinas, III Sent.,
23, q. 1, a. 1, s.c. 1 (Moos, ed., 3:697): “Augustine says in the book On the Good of
Marriage (c. 21; l. 40, 390), ‘Habit is that by which someone acts when the time [for
acting] arrives’” (“Augustinus dicit in libro De bono conjugali (c. 21; L. 40, 390)
‘Habitus est qua quis agit cum tempus affuerit’”). For the actual text of Augustine, see
Augustine, b. coniug. 21.25 (CSEL 41:219): “What a habit is, is that by which
something is done when there is need [for it to be done]; however, when it is not done,
it can be done, it is just that there is no need” (“Ipse est enim habitus, quo aliquid agitur,
cum opus est; cum autem non agitur, potest agi, sed non opus est”).
120
Boethius, Super praedicamenta 8 (PL 67:242C-D). Walter offers a synthesis of
what is found in Boethius here; the text of Boethius is too long to quote in full.

202

JACOB W. WOOD

the corresponding text of Aristotle in the same context.121 Only
the third definition is unique to Walter. It comes from
Averroes’s Long Commentary on the Metaphysics 5, though
Walter has interpolated Boethius’s emphasis on habits being
difficult to dislodge into it.122
In the rest of the corpus, Walter uses this last idea of a habit
of nature to engage Aquinas’s understanding of original sin as a
privation in the essence of the soul, and to develop it into the
idea of a habit in the essence of the soul. 123 According to
Walter, such a habit deprives the soul of its proper ordering
towards its end, without therefore making every movement of
concupiscence a sin. The subsequent text of the corpus, along
with the response to the first objection, is as follows:
Original justice was a habit in this third way, because it was a disposition
arising from the obedience of the body to the soul, the right ordering of the
lower powers to the higher powers and of the higher powers to God, which
was difficult to dislodge, and which was bequeathed [to the soul] in the
manner of health from many [components]. But from a different perspective,

121

Aquinas, III Sent., d. 23, q. 1, a. 1 (Moos, ed., 3:698): “And that is why in
Categories 8 (9a8-10) ‘a disposition’ is said to be ‘easily dislodged,’ and a habit
‘dislodged with difficulty’; because what is natural cannot be easily changed” (“Et inde
est quod in Praedicamentis [c. 8. 9a, 8-10] dicitur dispositio facile mobilis, et habitus
difficile mobilis; quia quod naturale est non cito transmutatur”).
122
Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis Metaphysicorum, 5.20.25 (Opera
omnia, 12 vols. [Venice: Giunti, 1562], 8:133va.): “Then he says, ‘And disposition is
said in another way,’ etc., that is, the term ‘disposition’ is also applied in another way to
that which comes to be by composition. In this case a disposition is that from which the
composition of the thing becomes either good or bad, like health, which is a disposition
of these dispositions. For it is a disposition that arises from the composition of members
and humors” (“Deinde dicit ‘Et dicitur dispositio alio modo ’etc., id est et dicitur
dispositio alio modo de illo quod fit ex compositione, et est dispositio, ex qua
compositio rei est aut bona aut mala, sicut sanitas quae est dispositio istarum
dispositionum. Est enim dispositio facta ex compositione membrorum et humorum”). In
III Sent., d. 23, q. 1, a. 1 (Moos, ed., 3:699), Aquinas does refer to the discussion of
health as a habit in Aristotle’s text (Metaphysics 5.1020b.23-25), but not to the
corresponding commentary in Averroes. Moreover, he avoids speaking of habits of
nature in connection with the idea of health as a habit.
123
On original sin residing in the essence of the soul, see Walter of Bruges, II Sent.,
d. 31 (Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska 1497, ff. 221vb-222ra).

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

203

although sickness implies privation simply speaking with respect to its
beginning and with respect to health, nevertheless with respect to the body in
which it exists, the privation, which sickness is, and which bequeaths an
inequality or disparity of humors which is difficult to dislodge, is called a
habit, especially when it is turned into a disease. In this way, also, original
injustice (or [original] sin), although with respect to the original justice which
it takes away is a privation simply speaking, nevertheless with respect to the
soul in which it bequeaths disobedience or the disordering of powers as a
disposition which is difficult to dislodge—nay rather, will never be dislodged
in this life—is called a habit according to the common rule, after the mode of
sickness, paralysis, or disease. Wherefore it is more of a destructive habit than
an operative one.
By this [line of reasoning] the response to the first and second [objections]
is clear, because [original sin] is a privation simpliciter, nevertheless in a
certain respect it has the ratio of a habit. Ergo etc.124

In explaining how destructive this habit is in the response to
a subsequent objection, Walter carefully avoids the conclusion
that it inclines us directly towards acts of concupiscence. Rather
than inclining us towards any particular act, original sin “takes
away what stood in the way of an inclination to evil action (that
is, original justice).” For this reason, “original sin does not

124
Walter of Bruges, II Sent., d. 30 (Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska 1497,
f. 215vb): “Hic tertio [P: hoc tertio modo] iustitia originalis erat habitus, quia
dispositio ex obedientia corpus ad animam et recto ordine virium inferiorum ad
superiorem et superioris ad Deum difficile mobilis, quod [P: quia] ex multis derelicta ad
modum sanitatis. Econtrario vero, licet egritudo quoad sui inicium et respectu sanitatis
dicat privationem simpliciter, tamen respectu corporis in quo est [P om. est], hec
privatio que est egritudo derelinquitur [P: derelinquit] inequalitatem vel discrepantiam
[P: intemperantiam] humorum difficile mobilem, precipue quando vertitur in
languorem, dicitur habitus. Sic et originalis iniustitia vel peccatum, licet respectu iustitie
originalis quam privat sit [P: sic] simpliciter privatio, tamen respectu anime in qua
obedientiam [P: inobedientiam] vel deordinationem virium derelinquit ut dispositionem
difficile, ymmo nunquam in hac vita mobile, secundum legem communem dicitur
habitus ad modum egritudinis, vel paralysis, vel languidinis. Unde est potius habitus
defectivus quam operativus.
“Per hoc patet responsio ad primum et secundum, quia simpliciter est privatio,
tamen quoad quid habet rationem habitus. Ergo etc.”

204

JACOB W. WOOD

incline us towards evil action directly, but indirectly.”125 This
indirect inclination leaves room for Walter to say with Aquinas
that only those movements of concupiscence to which the will
gives consent are sins, because individual motions of concupiscence arise from the unregulated powers of the soul, not
the essence of the soul itself.
When Aquinas took up the question of the effects of original
sin in De Malo and the Prima secundae, he decided to follow
what he found in Walter theologically, but to enrich the
metaphysics of Walter’s habit of nature with insights he had
recently gained from William of Moerbeke’s translation of
Simplicius’s Commentary on the Categories. The translation of
Simplicius was finished in March 1266.126 As early as 1267 in
Rome, Aquinas had read and begun to refer to it, 127 but
A. Pattin and Vivian Boland have already established that it was
in De malo in 1270 and the Prima secundae in 1271 that he
made the most significant use of it.128
On the subject of original sin, there are two ideas that
Aquinas would borrow from Simplicius. The first is Simplicius’s
critique of Boethius’s idea that habits should be defined by their
being difficult to dislodge, something which forms the backbone
of Walter’s discussion of original sin as a habit of nature. When
applied to the specific case of the habituation of a nature by the
right ordering of its constituent parts, Simplicius does not think
that the idea of difficulty in dislodging applies. Health does not
become health only when it is stable and permanent; by nature,
125

Ibid.: “Originale vero non [P om. non] inclinat ad opus malum directe, sed
indirecte, quia tollit prohibens inclinationem ad malum opus, quod est iustitia
originalis.”
126
A. Pattin, “Introduction,” in Simplicius, Commentaire sur les Catégories
d’Aristote: Traduction de Guillaume de Moerbeke, ed. A. Pattin (Louvain: Publications
universitaires de Louvain, 1971), xi.
127
See De Spirit. Creat. 3 (Leonine ed., 24.2:40).
128
See Pattin, “Introduction,” xiii-xiv; Vivian Boland, “Aquinas and Simplicius on
Dispositions—A Question in Fundamental Moral Theory,” New Blackfriars 82 (2001):
467-78. Both Pattin and Boland focus on the use of Simplicius in Aquinas’s
understanding of habits, but neither observes his use of Simplicius in the doctrine of
original sin.

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

205

health can come and go, and we do not for that reason say that
the healthy person is not healthy, even if he or she is only
healthy for a short time. 129 Instead, Simplicius argues—not
unlike Averroes—that health and sickness should be evaluated
simply in terms of whether they are perfective or destructive of
the nature in which they occur, not in terms of their stability or
permanency. 130 The second feature of Simplicius’s text that
Aquinas would utilize is his development of a more precise way
of articulating the nature of a destructive habit like sickness.
Simplicius thinks that Aristotle’s discussion of privation is
incomplete, because it does not adequately account for the
distinction between complete privations (e.g., death as a
complete privation of life), and incomplete privations, which
cause a tendency in their subject towards a complete privation
(e.g., sickness as an incomplete privation of health, which tends
towards the complete privation of death as its terminal
development).131 The critique of Boethius in the case of habits
of nature would have its greatest significance in the Prima
secundae, but Simplicius’s “incomplete privations” had an
immediate and substantial impact on Aquinas’s discussion of the
effects of original sin in De malo.
In question 4, article 2 of De malo, Aquinas asks what
original sin is. In his response, he draws a parallel between
original sin and personal sin. Where previously he had used the
Summa halensis to argue that original sin entails only aversion,
now he answers more with Bonaventure. In any personal sin,
there is both aversion from God and inordinate conversion
129

Simplicius, In Cat. 8 (Pattin, ed., 2:326).
Ibid. (Pattin, ed., 2:329-30). For Aquinas’s adoption of this critique, see De Malo,
q. 7, a. 2, ad 4 (Leonine ed., 23:164).
131
Simplicius, In Cat. 11 (Pattin, ed., 2:571-74). Aquinas’s adoption of this
distinction can be found right at the beginning of his discussion of evil, in De Malo, q. 1,
a. 1, ad 2 (Leonine ed., 23:6), and his discussion of sin in De Malo, q. 2, a. 9 (Leonine
ed., 23:54-55). In the former text, Aquinas adopts Simplicius’s distinction uncritically,
naming his source explicitly, and responding that evil itself is a complete privation. In
the latter text, Aquinas draws the same distinction in more detail, borrowing words and
phrases from Simplicius verbatim, but this time leaving his source to be understood.
130

206

JACOB W. WOOD

towards some created good, as well as a residual habituation in
the powers of the soul resulting from the choice to use them
inordinately. Likewise in original sin, there is the loss of original
justice (which is the result of aversion, and is the formal
component of original sin), and there is also “habitual concupiscence.”132 Since all people were as one person in Adam,133
when Adam used his will to sin, the residual effect of that conversion was passed down to posterity as a habitual inclination of
the will, even though the concrete act of conversion was
imputed to him alone.134 As corruptive, that habitual inclination
is neither supernatural (supra naturam) nor preternatural
(praeter naturam). Rather, Aquinas explicitly says that it is
“unnatural” (innaturalis). 135 Since Aquinas repeatedly emphasizes at this point in his career that there is a level of
concupiscence which is natural (secundum naturam), 136 accor132

De Malo, q. 4, a. 2, ad 4 (Leonine ed., 23:112). Houck (Aquinas, Original Sin,
and the Challenge of Evolution, 107) adduces De Malo, q. 5, a. 2 (Leonine ed., 23:134)
as evidence against this view, but there Aquinas is speaking of what original sin causes in
act, not in habit.
133
De Malo, q. 4, a. 6 (Leonine ed., 23:120). In De Malo, q. 4, a. 1 (Leonine ed.,
23:105), Aquinas also tries to explain the same reality by arguing that Adam was the
head of a collegium. This view drew significant criticism from John Pecham in
Quaestiones disputatae de natura lapsa 2 (Quaestiones disputatae, ed. Girard Etzkorn
[Grottaferrata: Editiones collegii s. Bonaventurae ad claras aquas, 2002], 158-59).
134
De Malo, q. 4, a. 2 (Leonine ed., 23:111).
135
Ibid., ad 9 (Leonine ed., 23:112).
136
Houck (Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution, 100 n. 35) adduces
three texts from the Roman period (STh I, q. 95, a. 1 [Leonine ed., 5:420-21]; Comp.
Theol. I, c. 186 [Leonine ed., 42:153-54]; and Q. D. De Anima, a. 8, corp. and ad 7
[Leonine ed., 24.1:71]) as well as two texts from the second Parisian regency (STh I-II,
q. 17, a. 9, ad 3 [Leonine ed., 6:126]; De Malo, q. 5, a. 1 [Leonine ed., 23:131]), which
mention the existence of natural concupiscence, as evidence against the idea that
Aquinas developed his views on this question in his mature writings. For reasons of
space, I will have to reserve a discussion of the context and sources from the Roman
period for another time. Suffice to say that STh I, q. 95, a. 1; Comp. Theol. I, c. 186;
and De Malo, q. 5, a. 1 all speak of the existence of natural concupiscence without
commenting upon whether the Fall exacerbates it. By contrast, in Q. D. De Anima, a. 8,
ad 7, Aquinas actually affirms, against an objector speaking of fallen concupiscence, that
there is “also” (etiam) natural concupiscence. STh I-II, q. 17, a. 9, is slightly different.
Since Aquinas holds that original sin does not alter the principles of human nature, this

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

207

ding as humanity is composed of contrary principles, this
suggests that Aquinas sees the habitual inclination of the will he
is describing in De malo as somehow different from that which
pertains to nature as composed of contrary principles, even if he
leaves the details as to how much more severe it is to be sorted
out elsewhere.
In affirming that original sin of itself causes a corruptive
inclination in the soul, Aquinas is careful not to say that such a
corruptive inclination is a positive habitus.137 He will allow that
a person could use the word habitus to describe it, but he is
careful to explain that this is only in a negative sense, in that the
removal of original justice leaves in its wake a tendency
(pronitas) or aptness (habilitas) towards sin.138 This tendency, he
argues, has its origin in the essence of the soul.139 From there it
is passed to the will,140 which—as the motive power responsible
for communicating the inclination of human nature to the other
powers of the soul, and for coordinating them through
command and restraint so as to order them towards the good of
nature as a whole—communicates to the other powers the
effects of original sin.141 The will, wounded by malice, is thus
born with a tendency to command the other powers of the soul
towards acts of evil, or to refrain from stopping them when they
proceed there of their own accord.142 In this way, original sin
creates in human nature a tendency towards sin and spiritual
death. At this point, Aquinas does not address in detail the
concrete consequences of this tendency in terms of Augustine’s
non posse non peccare, but perhaps we can allow the text of
text explores a question of medieval biology concerning whether involuntary
movements of the reproductive organs are connected to the action of the heart, and
consequently whether those movements follow from the structure of the body as a
principle of nature or not.
137
De Malo, q. 4, a. 2, ad 4 (Leonine ed., 23:112).
138
De Malo, q. 4, a. 2, corp. and ad 4 (Leonine ed., 23:111-12).
139
De Malo, q. 4, a. 5 (Leonine ed., 23:117).
140
De Malo, q. 4, a. 2 (Leonine ed., 23:111).
141
De Malo, q. 4, a. 5 (Leonine ed., 23:117).
142
De Malo, q. 4, a. 2, ad 7 (Leonine ed., 23:112).

208

JACOB W. WOOD

Quodlibet I, question 4, article 2 to suffice: fallen humanity
cannot keep the law without grace, to say nothing of the fact
that it cannot merit eternal life.143
B) Prima secundae
In the Prima secundae, Aquinas expresses a view of original
sin similar to that in De malo. However, he explains even more
precisely what the habit of original sin is, and how it is passed
from nature to the will. In question 85, article 1, he asks
whether the good of nature is diminished by sin. In his
response, he outlines three goods of human nature: that of
nature itself and its properties (like the powers of the soul), that
of its natural inclination to virtue, and that of original justice
(which is natural in the sense of its having been given to human
nature). Nature and its powers, he says, remain intact; original
justice is taken away completely; but the inclination to virtue is
diminished. The diminishment of the inclination to virtue
happens through the introduction of a contrary inclination to
sin, and through this to spiritual death.144
If we want to understand what Aquinas means by the
diminishment of our inclination to virtue, we must look to what
he says about the natural inclination to virtue in question 63,
article 1. Here he explains that the natural inclination to virtue
is actually the result of a combination of two things in the soul:
the intellect’s natural knowledge of the first principles of
speculative and practical reasoning, and the will’s natural
143
Quodl. I, q. 4, a. 2 (Leonine ed., 25.2:186). Aquinas gives the opposite views as
the characteristic views of Pelagius, as distinct even from the (semi-)Pelagians.
144
STh I-II, q. 85, a. 1 (Leonine ed., 7:110). Houck (Aquinas, Original Sin, and the
Challenge of Evolution, 104-5) reads this text in light of STh I-II, q. 85, a. 3, where
Aquinas says that original sin diminishes the natural ordering of the powers of the soul
towards virtue, and so argues that when Aquinas says in q. 85, a. 1 that original sin
diminishes the natural inclination of the soul towards virtue, this does not imply any
positive effect upon the soul’s motion. However, in q. 85, a. 1 Aquinas is speaking of
the essence of the soul (from which natural inclination arises), whereas in q. 85, a. 3, he
is speaking of the powers of the soul (which flow from the essence and are ordered by
the natural inclination which proceeds from the essence through the will).

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

209

inclination towards the good.145 In the discussion of original sin,
it is this latter inclination that occupies Aquinas’s attention foremost. Not only does original sin unhinge, as it were, the powers
of the soul, but it also causes a particular privation in the will
through a distortion of its natural desire.
Aquinas explains the precise origin of the distortion of
natural desire in the will in question 82, article 1. Here he
addresses the same question as had Walter: whether original sin
is a habit. A comparison of Aquinas’s text with Walter’s suggests
that not only has Aquinas read Walter’s text, but he has also
used it as the base text for his own, and edited what Walter
wrote in light of what he had gained from Simplicius: he
carefully removes all the references to Boethius’s difficile
mobile; he consequently removes the related idea that a habit of
nature needs to remain for a long time; and, most importantly,
he introduces the idea of original sin as a corruptive habit along
the lines of Simplicius’s incomplete privation. The removal of
references to the difficile mobile criterion and the length of time
that a habit needs to remain occurs in the corpus, while the
introduction of the idea of original sin as a corruptive habit visà-vis Simplicius’s incomplete privations occurs in the response
to the first objection. In the corpus, the reader will note that
there are only two kinds of habits, instead of Walter’s three,
since the reference to Boethius has been removed, as has
Walter’s interpolation of Boethius’s difficile mobile from
Averroes’s definition of a habit. In the response to the first
objection, Aquinas’s description of corruptive habits is a new
composition, which adds to what was present in Walter.
Habit is twofold. There is one whereby a potency is inclined to act, just as
different forms of knowledge and the virtues are called habits. And in this way
original sin is not a habit. In another way, habit is called a disposition of some

145
STh I-II, q. 63, a. 1 (Leonine ed., 6:406-7). In De Virtut. in Comm., a. 8
(Quaestiones disputatae, vol. 2 [Turin: Marietti, 1965], 727-28), Aquinas reiterates
what he says in STh I-II, q. 63, a. 1, and also speaks more expansively about inclinations
to virtue in other powers of the soul.

210

JACOB W. WOOD

nature composed of many [components], according as it is well or poorly
disposed towards something, and especially when such a disposition concerns
nature, as is clear in the cases of sickness and health. And in this way original
sin is a habit. For it is an inordinate disposition arising from the dissolution of
the harmony in which the ratio of original justice used to consist, just as bodily
sickness is also an inordinate disposition of the body, according as the equality
in which the ratio of its health consists is dissolved. This is why original sin is
called a disease of nature.
Against the first objection, we should say that, just as bodily sickness has
something of privation, inasmuch as the equality of health is taken away, and
something of a positive [nature] (namely, the inordinately disposed humors
themselves), so also original sin has the privation of original justice, and with
this an inordinate disposition of the parts of the soul. That is why it is not a
pure privation, but is a kind of corrupt habit.146

By explicitly denying that original sin is a pure privation,
Aquinas uses the language of Simplicius to move significantly
beyond the conception of original sin in his early work. Where
in his early work Aquinas was insistent that original sin is a pure
privation, here he uses Simplicius’s understanding of incomplete
privations to endorse Walter’s view that original sin is in fact a
kind of habit, which results from the dissolution of regulating
order in the powers of the soul, and which causes a tendency in
nature towards sin and spiritual death. In fact, he even goes so
far as to say that the habit of original sin can be considered an
“acquired” habit in nature, in view of the fact that Adam’s
146
STh I-II, q. 82, a. 1 (Leonine ed., 7:94) (emphasis added): “Duplex est habitus.
Unus quidem quo inclinatur potentia ad agendum, sicut scientiae et virtutes habitus
dicuntur. Et hoc modo peccatum originale non est habitus. Alio modo dicitur habitus
dispositio alicuius naturae ex multis compositae, secundum quam bene se habet vel male
ad aliquid, et praecipue cum talis dispositio versa fuerit quasi in naturam, ut patet de
aegritudine et sanitate. Et hoc modo peccatum originale est habitus. Est enim quaedam
inordinata dispositio proveniens ex dissolutione illius harmoniae in qua consistebat ratio
originalis iustitiae, sicut etiam aegritudo corporalis est quaedam inordinata dispositio
corporis, secundum quam solvitur aequalitas in qua consistit ratio sanitatis. Unde
peccatum originale languor naturae dicitur.
“Ad primum ergo dicendum quod, sicut aegritudo corporalis habet aliquid de
privatione, inquantum tollitur aequalitas sanitatis; et aliquid habet positive, scilicet ipsos
humores inordinate dispositos, ita etiam peccatum originale habet privationem originalis
iustitiae, et cum hoc inordinatam dispositionem partium animae. Unde non est privatio
pura, sed est quidam habitus corruptus.”

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

211

choice acquired the habit for nature, parallel to the way in
which our own personal choices acquire personal habits for
ourselves. 147 This allows Aquinas to synthesize the Anselmian
and Augustinian traditions in a way that no theologian—
including Aquinas—had yet been able to do. He could maintain
vis-à-vis Anselm that original sin is a privation in the essence of
the soul more consistently than Walter, and yet affirm with
Augustine that it also confers a corruptive habit upon fallen
nature, which alone is sufficient to explain fallen humanity’s
inability not to sin.
Aquinas thinks that original sin, as a corruptive habit of
nature, has an effect on the way in which nature operates at
every level. In the Prima secundae, he teaches that the
operations of human nature have their ultimate origin in God,
who simultaneously confers—in every moment of the soul’s
existence—being and motion upon it. 148 The soul’s being is
contracted by its nature into human being; the soul’s motion is
directed by its nature into human natural desire.149 The soul’s
natural desire, in turn, is passed to the will, which—as a power
flowing from and subordinate to nature—seeks the good of
nature as a whole according to the character of the motion
which nature bestows upon it, 150 as well as the will’s own
particular good according to the character of the will’s
habituation.151 Since the will, in turn, has command of the free
acts of other powers of the soul, 152 the character of both its
natural inclination (which it receives from nature) and its
habituation (which is caused by its own choices) affects the way
that the other powers of the soul operate as well. In this
147

STh I-II, q. 82, a. 1, ad 3 (Leonine ed., 7:94).
STh I-II, q. 9, a. 6 (Leonine ed., 6:82). On the structure of natural desire in the
Prima secundae, see Jacob Wood, To Stir a Restless Heart: Thomas Aquinas and Henri de
Lubac on Nature, Grace, and the Desire for God (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2019), 326-31.
149
On this aspect of natural desire, see STh I-II, q. 10, a. 1, ad 1 (Leonine ed., 6:83).
150
STh I-II, q. 9, a. 3 (Leonine ed., 6:77-78).
151
STh I-II, q. 6, a. 4, ad 3 (Leonine ed., 6:60).
152
STh I-II, q. 17, aa. 6-7 (Leonine ed., 6:122-23).
148

212

JACOB W. WOOD

context, for Aquinas to say that original sin is a corruptive habit
in nature means that—without changing what human nature
is—it corrupts the pattern according to which motion is
received in the essence of the soul from God, the manner in
which that motion is mediated from nature to the will,153 and
the manner in which that motion passes from the will to the
other powers of the soul in their free actions. In question 85,
article 3 he names four wounds in the powers of the soul that
result from this corruption: ignorance in the intellect, malice in
the will, concupiscence in the concupiscible appetite, and irascibility in the irascible appetite. Each of these wounds can be
exacerbated by personal sin, but they are all caused by original
sin.154 As a result of them, the fallen person is—precisely as a
result of original sin—liable to the same kinds of consequences
as Aquinas attributed to mortal sin in De veritate: without
grace, he or she cannot avoid all future mortal sins,155 keep the
commandments consistently, 156 or prepare for grace. 157 Additionally, Aquinas emphasizes that, because of these effects of
original sin, both before and after the reception of the first
grace the fallen person possesses an ongoing need for divine
assistance to persevere in grace until his or her passing from this
life into eternal glory.158 This insight ultimately brings Aquinas
full circle regarding the idea expressed in Augustine’s De gratia
153

STh I-II, q. 85, a. 1, ad 2 (Leonine ed., 7:110).
STh I-II, q. 85, a. 3 (Leonine ed., 7:112-13).
155
STh I-II, q. 109, a. 8 (Leonine ed., 7:303).
156
STh I-II, q. 109, a. 4 (Leonine ed., 7:297).
157
STh I-II, q. 109, a. 6 (Leonine ed., 7:299-300). See also Aquinas’s denial that a
person can merit the first grace for himself or herself in STh I-II, q. 114, a. 5 (Leonine
ed., 7:350), where he refers directly to the portion of retr. quoted in praed. sanct. 3.7
(CSEL 105:184), concerning which see above, n. 94.
158
STh I-II, q. 109, aa. 8-9 (Leonine ed., 7:302-3, 307-8). See also STh I-II, q. 114,
a. 9 (Leonine ed., 7:353-54). For a discussion of the importance of these texts, see
Shawn Colberg, “Development in Aquinas’s Theology of Grace and the Role of Saint
Augustine,” Biblica et patristica thoruniensa 12 (2019): 271-87; Wawrykow, God’s
Grace and Human Action, 172, 227-28; Joseph Wawrykow, “‘Perseverance’ in 13th
Century Theology: The Augustinian Contribution,” Augustinian Studies 22 (1991):
125-40.
154

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

213

et libero arbitrio 13.26 that it is because of the wounds of
original sin that we need to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “And lead
us not into temptation.” The idea bookends Aquinas’s discussion of fallen humanity’s need for grace to avoid sin and to
persevere in STh I-II, question 109, articles 8 and 9: it serves
both as the basis of the sed contra of article 8, where another
anti-Pelagian text of Augustine is quoted to express the same
idea even more succinctly,159 and as the concluding thought in
the corpus of article 9, where by this time Aquinas has absorbed
the point to the extent that he expresses it as his own.160 In this
way, Aquinas completes his Anselmian-Augustinian synthesis in
the Prima secundae under the influence of Walter of Bruges and
Simplicius. The powers of the fallen soul are not merely
deprived of original grace and original justice, they are also
wounded by original sin through the introduction of a corrupttive habit which personal sins only make worse. This corruptive
habit is responsible prior to baptism for the fact that we need
grace to avoid sin even in the first moment of turning to God,
and it is responsible after baptism for the fact that we need an
additional gift of perseverance in order to depart this life in
grace and so be received into heavenly glory.
CONCLUSION
By recovering the context in which Aquinas developed his
mature thinking on the effects of original sin, it becomes
possible for us to see how he brought together two ideas which
most scholars—even in his own day—have considered to be
incompatible: the Anselmian idea that original sin is formally a
privation of original justice, and the Augustinian idea that
original sin is a habit, which confers upon human nature a
tendency towards sin and spiritual death. The idea of original
sin as a privation of original justice was with Aquinas from the
159
STh I-II, q. 109, a. 8, s.c. (Leonine ed., 7:303). The text is the very end of perf.
Iust.: perf. Iust. 21.44 (CSEL 42:48).
160
STh I-II, q. 109, a. 9 (Leonine ed., 7:308).

214

JACOB W. WOOD

beginning of his theological career through the influence of
Anselm. The idea that the wounds of original sin are alone
sufficient to explain humanity’s inability not to sin was
suggested to him by Augustine’s De praedestinatione sanctorum
and De dono perseverantiae during his Italian period. The
explanation of this inability not to sin on the basis of a habit of
nature was suggested to him by Walter of Bruges in his second
Parisian period. And the formulation of this habit of nature as
an incomplete privation which causes a tendency towards the
complete privation of sin and spiritual death was something he
creatively drew from Simplicius’s Commentary on the Categories during his second Parisian period as well. Taken together,
the move from original sin as privation to original sin as
privation and habit was prompted by Aquinas’s increasing
knowledge of the Pelagian and semi-Pelagian controversies, as
well as his use of contemporary sources to explain how fallen
humanity, in the first moment of turning to God as well as its
entire journey from grace in this life to glory in the next, needs
the assistance of divine grace.
The recovery of the context for Aquinas’s mature work on
the effects of original sin helps us to see how Aquinas ultimately
preserved two sets of important theological goods as his
career—and his theological contemplation—advanced. The first
set we may call the “humanistic” goods. These are the goods
rooted in the goodness of human nature as one of God’s
creatures, and especially as made in the image of God. Such
goods include the fact that original sin does not destroy the
primary principles of human nature (its soul, its body, or its
powers), that God does not add any negative quality to human
nature as a punishment for original sin, and that—even in fallen
nature—not every movement of concupiscence is a sin. The
second set of goods we may call the “Augustinian,” or perhaps
more properly, “anti-Pelagian” goods. Such goods include the
fact that original sin wounds human nature and its powers,
that—though a privation—it creates a tendency in wounded
nature towards sin and spiritual death, and that fallen nature’s
struggle with concupiscence creates in us a need for the healing
grace of Jesus Christ in order to live a life free of mortal sin,

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

215

and so to persevere to the point of arriving at heavenly glory.
On the one hand, “God saw all that he had made and behold it
was very good” (Gen 1:31); and on the other, “Those who are
well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Mark
2:17).
The preservation of both the humanistic and the antiPelagian goods in the doctrine of original sin will present some
challenges to contemporary scholarship. The idea that the
mature Aquinas thinks that fallen human persons exist in a state
of pure nature is difficult to maintain in light of the fact that the
mature Aquinas thinks that original sin introduces a corruptive
habit into human nature. We may add to this the observation
that, because of this corruptive habit, the mature Aquinas thinks
that fallen human nature cannot perform a variety of activities
which it would seem that the powers of human nature, unaided
by grace, ought to be able to accomplish, such as keeping the
natural law and avoiding all future mortal sins. In fact, there
was a contemporary of Aquinas who thought that human nature
was naturally subject to defects like this: his student, Giles of
Rome. Giles, and the Aegidian tradition which developed from
him, struggled for centuries to balance this more extreme, antiPelagian position with the humanistic goods mentioned above.
If humanity cannot avoid all future mortal sins without the gift
of original justice, is not God somehow bound to give that gift
to us, lest humanity have been made “not only avertible, but
already averse” from God?161
Of course, the purpose of inquiring into the wounds of
original sin is not to be pessimistic about human nature. It is, as
Augustine, Aquinas, de Lubac, and Garrigou-Lagrange all recognized, the other side of the good news of the Gospel. In the
Gospel of John, Christ proclaims, “I have said these things to
you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have
161
Giles of Rome, II Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 1 (Commentarius in Secundum
Sententiarum, 2 vols. [Venice, 1581], 2:443 Ad-Ba), quoted in Wood, To Stir a Restless
Heart, 371: “Si fuisset creatus in puris naturalibus, quia haberet necessitatem se
avertendi, deberet dici creatus non solum avertibilis, sed aversus.”

216

JACOB W. WOOD

tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John
16:33). And as Lumen Gentium, notes, that victory is not
something that Christ keeps to himself:
Christ, becoming obedient even unto death and because of this exalted by the
Father, entered into the glory of His kingdom. To Him all things are made
subject until He subjects Himself and all created things to the Father that God
may be all in all. Now Christ has communicated this royal power to His
disciples that they might be constituted in royal freedom and that by true
penance and a holy life they might conquer the reign of sin in themselves.
Further, He has shared this power so that serving Christ in their fellow men
they might by humility and patience lead their brethren to that King for whom
to serve is to reign.162

Aquinas anticipates Lumen Gentium in his discussion of why it
is that, if humanity has been wounded by original sin, baptism
does not take away that wound. His answer is twofold. First,
although baptism does not take away concupiscence, it does
reduce it.163 Second, although we cannot of ourselves overcome
concupiscence, the life of grace, the infused virtues, and the
gifts of the Holy Spirit strengthen and empower us so that, by
cooperating with Christ, whose grace precedes and establishes
our every merit, we may receive the “crown of victory” with
him.164 As Augustine taught all the members of the Thomistic
tradition, that crown is not something that fallen human
persons can win for ourselves, but it is something that Jesus
Christ wants to win in us. So we must follow Aquinas on the
journey of humility, which moves from thinking of fallen nature
as pure to thinking of fallen nature as wounded, so that in our
scholarship and in our actions we may be well disposed not only
to the reception of the elevating effects of Christ’s grace, but
also and especially to the much-needed healing effects of his
grace.165
162

Lumen Gentium 36.
STh III, q. 69, a. 4 (Leonine ed., 12:109).
164
STh III, q. 69, a. 3 (Leonine ed., 12:108).
165
This article would not have been possible without the gracious assistance of a
number of individuals and institutions. I would like to express particular gratitude to
163

FROM PURE NATURE TO WOUNDED NATURE

217

Franciscan University of Steubenville for support in acquiring manuscript reproductions
of the work of Walter of Bruges, as well as for the many helpful comments I received in
the development of this work from the members of our faculty seminar; to the archivists
at the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow and the Metropolitan Chapter in Prague; to
Adriano Oliva of the Leonine Commission for allowing me to consult Fr. Grandpré’s
unpublished edition of Aquinas’s Commentary on Romans; and to Brian Carl as well as
two anonymous reviewers, whose many helpful comments led to several important
improvements to the final manuscript. Of course, any remaining errors or infelicities are
my own.

The Thomist 86 (2022): 219-43

THOMAS AQUINAS ON THE RELATION
BETWEEN COGNITION AND EMOTION
CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER
St. Mary’s University of Minnesota
Winona, Minnesota

S

CHOLARLY interpretations of Thomas Aquinas on the
relation between cognition and emotion are divided along
cognitive and noncognitive lines.1 Some scholars think that
Thomistic emotions are noncognitive, purely conative impulses:
“Aquinas’s account of emotion,” William Lyons writes, is “in
terms of impulses or desires, and the accompanying physiological changes and feelings, rather than in terms of cognitive
evaluations.” 2 While cognitions cause and sustain emotions,

1
Two clarifications are in order. (1) Cognitio is the Latin term referring to both
higher-order and lower-order thoughts. It covers everything from beliefs and judgments
based on syllogistic reasoning to perception. (2) I translate passio animae as “emotion”
in large part because this is how many of the scholars I am engaging with choose to
translate it (e.g., Peter King, “Emotions,” in Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, ed. Brian
Davies and Eleonore Stump [New York: Oxford University Press, 2012]; Martin
Pickavé, “On the Intentionality of the Emotions (and of Other Appetitive Acts),”
Quaestio 10 [2010]: 45-63; Diana Fritz Cates, Aquinas on the Emotions: A ReligiousEthical Inquiry [Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009]; Mark Drost,
“Intentionality in Aquinas’s Theory of Emotions,” International Philosophical Quarterly
31 [1991]: 449-60; William Lyons, Emotion [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1980]). For a defense of this choice of translation, see Craig Steven Titus, “Passions in
Christ: Spontaneity, Development, and Virtue,” The Thomist 73 (2009): 53-87; and
Nicholas Lombardo, The Logic of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 224-29; for a dissenting perspective, see
John Dryden, “Passions, Affections, and Emotions: Methodological Difficulties in
Reconstructing Aquinas’s Philosophical Psychology,” Literature Compass 13 (2016):
343-50; and Stephen Chanderbhan, “The Shifting Prominence of Emotions in the
Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas,” Diametros 38 (2013): 62-85.
2
Lyons, Emotion, 36.

219

220

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

they are not constituent parts of emotions. I label any reading of
Aquinas that denies cognition a constituent part in Thomistic
emotions a noncognitive reading. Other scholars, by contrast,
argue that Thomistic emotions are, or essentially involve,
certain types of cognition. “Since emotions are attitudinal responses of the sensory orexis [i.e., sensory appetite] either to
objects intended as simple goods or evils or to objects intended
as complex goods or evils,” Mark Drost argues, “the emotions
have a cognitive component in them.” 3 On this reading, an
emotion has three parts: eliciting and sustaining cognition,
appetitive movement, and physiological change. I label any
reading that affords cognition a constituent role in Thomistic
emotions a cognitive reading.
Despite the profound difference between these two readings,
little has been done to bring them into conversation with one
another.4 This is surprising because the debate has ramifications
3

Drost, “Intentionality in Aquinas’s Theory of Emotions,” 453.
The book-length treatments of Aquinas’s account of the emotions by Robert Miner
(Thomas Aquinas on the Passions [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009]) and
Lombardo (The Logic of Desire) largely ignore the issue of cognition in Aquinas’s
account of emotion. Cates devotes one footnote to the issue in Aquinas on the
Emotions. Simo Knuuttila (Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy [New York:
Oxford University Press, 2004]), Paul Gondreau (The Passions of Christ’s Soul in the
Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas [Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2003]), and Susan James
(Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy [New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997]) all neglect this issue when discussing Aquinas. Articlelength discussions also tend to overlook the issue of cognitive versus noncognitive
readings (for example, Stewart Clem, “The Passions of Christ in the Moral Theology of
Thomas Aquinas: An Integrative Account,” New Blackfriars 99 [2018]: 458-80; Alexander Brungs, “Die passiones animae,” in Thomas von Aquin: Die Summa Theologiae,
ed. Andreas Speer [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005]: 198-222; Elisabeth UffenheimerLippens, “Rationalized Passion and Passionate Rationality: Thomas Aquinas on the
Relation between Reason and the Passions,” The Review of Metaphysics 56 [2003]:
525-58; Paul Gondreau, “The Passions and the Moral Life: Appreciating the Originality
of Aquinas,” The Thomist 71 [2007]: 419-50; and Michel Meyer, “Le problème des
passions chez saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue internationale de philosophie 48 [1994]:
363-74). I engage the relatively few explicit discussions of the issue below but it is
important to note that they often stand alone: neither Maria Carl (“St. Thomas
Aquinas: The Unity of the Person and the Passions,” Proceedings of the American
Catholic Philosophical Association 86 [2013]: 201-12) nor King (“Emotions”) engages
Pickavé, “On the Intentionality of the Emotions” at length; nor does Dominik Perler
4

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

221

for our understanding of how Thomistic emotions relate to
reason, rationality, and morality. Robert C. Roberts, for instance, argues that Aquinas’s position is that emotions do not
include a cognitive component—they are noncognitive
impulses—and that this in turn entails that Aquinas cannot do
justice to the rationality of emotions. 5 Maria Carl, in turn,
argues that Thomistic emotions are intrinsically cognitive and
that Roberts’s criticism is therefore misguided. 6 The cognitive
versus noncognitive debate also has ramifications for our
understanding of the applicability of Thomistic emotions to
present-day issues. For instance, Giuseppe Butera argues that
Aquinas’s philosophical psychology can “serve as a theoretical
framework” for cognitive therapy.7 A problem, Butera notes, is
that, “whereas CT makes a sharp distinction between emotions
and their eliciting cognitions, APP [Aquinas’s philosophical
psychology] does not.”8 If, however, Aquinas does distinguish
cognitions from emotions, then Butera’s point about the difference between CT and APP is not apt.
The aim of this article is thus twofold. First, I present the
case for endorsing both a cognitive and a noncognitive reading
of Aquinas’s account of emotion, highlighting the merits of each
position. My goal is to bring these competing interpretations
into discussion with one another, something that has been
largely neglected in recent studies. Second, I argue in favor of a
noncognitive reading, according to which Thomistic emotions
are caused by but distinct from eliciting cognitions.

(Feelings Transformed: Philosophical Theories of the Emotions, 1270-1670, trans. Tony
Crawford [New York: Oxford University Press, 2018]) discuss King, “Emotions.”
5
Robert C. Roberts, “Thomas Aquinas on the Morality of Emotions,” History of
Philosophy Quarterly 9 (1992): 287-305.
6
Carl, “Unity of the Person and the Passions.”
7
Giuseppe Butera, “Thomas Aquinas and Cognitive Therapy: An Exploration of the
Promise of Thomistic Psychology,” Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 17 (2011):
347-66, abstract.
8
Ibid., “Thomas Aquinas and Cognitive Therapy,” 355.

222

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

I. THE NONCOGNITIVE AND COGNITIVE READINGS
Aquinas identifies emotions as moved-responses of the sensory appetite (De Verit., q. 26, a. 3; STh I-II, q. 22). 9 These responses have both a passive and an active component. Emotions
are passive because they need to be actualized: the sensory
appetite needs to be presented with a particular good or evil
object in order for the emotion to occur. To be clear, that
which actualizes an emotion is not a material object. Aquinas
recognizes that while Attila experiences fear upon seeing a wolf,
Henrietta may experience delight. What actualizes a movement
of Attila’s and Henrietta’s sensory appetite is their sensory
cognition of the wolf as good or threatening. Aquinas refers to
these evaluative cognitions as “intentions.” Intentions are
evaluative judgments that enable one to cognize something
relative to one’s interests (STh I, q. 78, a. 4; I-II, q. 22, a. 2, ad
3; De Verit., q. 26, a. 4). A sheep judges that the wolf is dangerous and to be feared, not only on account of the wolf’s
perceptual qualities (e.g., color), but most essentially on account
of the evaluative judgment that the wolf is dangerous to it,
which judgment is reached by way of the perceptual qualities
(STh I, q. 78, a. 4). Once formed, an intention is then presented
to the sensory appetite, which responds with a movement either
toward or away from the object (De Verit., q. 26, a. 1; STh I-II,
9

References to Aquinas are in-text. Citations are from Sancti Thomae Aquinatis
Doctoris Angelici. Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII (Rome: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1882-);
all translations are my own. For in-depth work on Aquinas’s account of human
psychology, see Peter King, “The Inner Cathedral: Mental Architecture in High
Scholasticism,” Vivarium 46 (2008): 253-74; and Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on
Human Nature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). For in-depth work on
Aquinas’s account of the emotions or passions, see Perler, Feelings Transformed; Miner,
Thomas Aquinas on the Passions; Cates, Aquinas on the Emotions; Lombardo, The Logic
of Desire; Peter King, “Aquinas on the Passions,” in Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary
Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Brian Davies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002),
353-84; Meyer, “Le problème des passions”; and Marcos Manzanedo, “La classificación
de les pasiones o emociones,” Studium 23 (1983): 357-78. For historical focus, see
Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy; Barbara Rosenwein,
Generations of Feelings: A History of Emotions, 600-1700 (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2016); and Gondreau, Passions of Christ’s Soul.

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

223

q. 21, a. 1). The sheep’s fear of the wolf is a movement of the
sensory appetite away from the wolf. While Aquinas believes
that nonhuman animals form evaluative judgments by “natural
instinct,” he posits that humans form evaluative judgments
through their “cogitative power,” which involves the “coalition”
or “collation” of ideas (STh I, q. 78, a. 4).
Once an intention is presented to the sensory appetite, the
sensory appetite responds by moving either toward the object if
it is pleasant or away from the object if it is harmful. Because
the sensory appetite is a bodily power, emotion-movements
necessarily involve a bodily alteration: “Acts of the sensory
appetite,” Aquinas claims, “are always accompanied by some
bodily change” (STh I, q. 20, a. 1, ad 2). As Aquinas describes it,
every emotion involves a material change (bodily alteration) and
a formal change (movement of soul): “just as movement of the
appetitive power is the formal element, so also transmutation of
the body is the material element, of which one is proportioned
to the other” (STh I-II, q. 44, a. 1). Attila’s fear of the wolf
involves, formally, an alteration of her sensory appetite that
inclines it to move away from the wolf. Materially, there is an
increase in the flow of blood around her heart, resulting in a
higher heart rate, perspiration, and so on. Emotions, accordingly, are not movements of the sensory soul that cause bodily
alteration: they are movements of the sensory soul that are
mediated by bodily alteration. It is the creature—not the
creature’s soul—that experiences the emotion.
Much more can be said regarding Aquinas’s theory. What
matters for present purposes is the relation between the
intention (cognition) and the appetitive movement. Aquinas is
clear that emotions have an intentional structure—they are
directed to particular things represented under a certain aspect
(STh I-II, q. 41, a. 2). Emotions are not nonintentional, mere
bodily feelings. They are identified and classified by the type of
object that elicits them, and they are actualized so long as the
object is presented to the sensory appetite. The question becomes, does the intentionality of the emotions entail that
emotions are forms of cognition or have a cognitive element?

224

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

Aquinas does not say much about how exactly the emotions
are intentional and whether their intentionality entails that they
have a cognitive element. Advocates of what I call a noncognitive reading insist that Thomistic emotions are noncognitive movements that are caused by but distinct from
intentions of an object. Shawn Floyd, for instance, writes that
“for Aquinas the relationship between passion and cognition is a
causal one. Passion is caused by, but not a constitutive part of,
cognition.”10 More recently, Nicholas Lombardo writes:
A passion is nothing other than the movement of the sense appetite, a passive
power, from dormancy to act, in response to the apprehension of an object to
which the sense appetite is inclined . . . apprehension of an intention being a
necessary preconditions for a passion.11

We may consider the emotion of hope for an example. According to Aquinas, on this reading, hope is the movement of
the irascible power of the sensory appetite, which is the power
of the sensory appetite that regards arduous goods and evils,
that is caused and accompanied by the intention of a future
possible good that is arduous to attain (STh I-II, q. 40). It is
about or directed toward this object in virtue of being a movedresponse to that particular intention; however, hope is not
constituted by the intention nor does it involve the intention as
a constituent part. Apart from their causal relation, cognition is
separate from the nature of an emotion. Emotions, on this
reading, are directed toward or away from objects in virtue of
being moved so via intentions.12
10
Shawn Floyd, “Aquinas on Emotion: A Response to Some Recent Interpretations,”
History of Philosophy Quarterly 15 (1988): 161-75, at 165.
11
Lombardo, Logic of Desire, 34.
12
Claudia Eisen Murphy writes, “Aquinas makes sure to differentiate passions
explicitly from (1) cognitive states and events, and from (2) movements of the
intellective appetite. The first explicit distinction means that passions are not
themselves cognitive states, they are responses to cognitive states” (“Aquinas on Our
Responsibility for Our Emotions,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 8 (1999): 163205, at 167). Other proponents include Pickavé, “On the Intentionality of the
Emotions,” 48; Eleonore Stump, “The Non-Aristotelian Character of Aquinas’s Ethics:
Aquinas on the Passions,” Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian
Philosophers 28 (2011): 29-43; Stephen Loughlin, “Similarities and Differences between

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

225

The motivation for endorsing a noncognitive reading is twofold.13 First, Aquinas insists that emotions are movements of the
sensory appetite, which is a power distinct from the cognitive
powers of the soul that are responsible for knowledge,
perception, and belief. The function of the sensory appetite,
unlike the cognitive powers, is to move the creature about in
the world, whereas the function of the cognitive powers, in
which the cogitative and estimative powers responsible for
producing intentions are located, is to arrive at true beliefs
about the world. Appetite is outward going, while cognition is
inward going: the latter assimilates the known or believed in the
subject, while the former draws the soul out of itself toward or
away from an object (STh I-II, q. 22, a. 2). Aquinas approvingly
cites Damascene’s definition of emotion as “a movement of the
sensory appetitive power” (STh I-II, q. 22, a. 3, sc), and often
describes emotions as movements following upon cognitions:
“movement of the appetitive power follows [sequitur] an act of
the cognitive power” (STh I-II, q. 46, a. 2). He explains that
“the cognitive power moves [movet] the appetite by representing to the appetite its object” (STh I-II, q. 40, a. 2). The
relation between cognition and emotion appears to be causal,
not constitutive.
Second, and relatedly, the emotions necessarily involve a
bodily response, and it is because the emotions involve bodily
change that Aquinas posits them as being movements of the
sensory appetite. He reasons that no cognitive power is so
immediately linked with bodily change, while the sensory
appetite does involve the body; therefore, the emotions have to
be situated in the sensory appetite (STh I-II, q. 22, a. 2).
Emotions do not cause a somatic change; rather, they involve a
Human and Animal Emotion in Aquinas’s Thought,” The Thomist 65 (2001): 45-65;
Titus, “Passions in Christ,” 63; Dryden, “Passions,” 40; Patrick Gorevan, “Aquinas and
Emotional Theory Today: Mind-Body, Cognitivism and Connaturality,” Acta
philosophica 9 (2000): 141-51; Lyons, Emotions; and Roberts, “Thomas Aquinas on the
Morality of Emotions.”
13
See Pickavé, “On the Intentionality of the Emotions,” 47-48; Gorevan, “Aquinas
and Emotional Theory Today”; Roberts, “Thomas Aquinas on the Morality of
Emotions,” 293-94.

226

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

material change (bodily alteration) and a formal change (movement of soul), as noted above (STh I-II, q. 44, a. 1). It is for this
reason that Aquinas thinks that nonhuman animals experience
emotions, even though they do not have the rational, cognitive
powers that humans have, and that God and the angels,
properly speaking, do not experience emotions since they are
incorporeal (e.g., STh I-II, q. 22, a. 3, ad 3). Thus, since emotions involve bodily change and cognition is not so immediately
related to the body, it would seem to follow that Thomistic
emotions are noncognitive.
However, the noncognitive reading is not without textual
and conceptual problems. First, as Mark Drost observes, Aquinas claims that some emotions are not movements at all, but
rather a kind of appetitive rest. 14 Aquinas explains that in
“concupiscible emotions there is found something pertaining to
movements (e.g., desire) and something pertaining to repose
(e.g., joy and sorrow)” (STh I-II, q. 25, a. 1). Consider his
description of love’s relation to desire:
Thus, the first appetitive change by the appetible object is called love, which is
nothing other than a complacency of the appetite. From this complacency
arises a movement toward the appetible object, which is desire. (STh I-II,
q. 28, a. 2)

Love is a kind of affective resonance between the appetite and
the appetible object, while desire is an appetitive movement
toward the object as absent. If all emotions were movements,
Aquinas would lose the distinction between love and desire, for
instead of love being the springboard for “a person to desire
and seek the presence of the loved,” love itself would be an
inclination to the loved object (STh I-II, q. 28, a. 1). Although,
to be sure, showing that some emotions are not described as
movements does not thereby suggest a cognitive reading, it has
been used by some scholars to cast doubt on the plausibility of a
noncognitive reading, according to which emotions are movements of the sensory appetite brought about by but distinct
from cognitions.
14

Drost, “Intentionality in Aquinas’s Theory of Emotions,” 455.

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

227

A second worry for a noncognitive reading is that separating
cognition from emotion undermines Aquinas’s hylomorphic
theory of human nature. Judith Barad explains that, “For
Aquinas, the fact that we are composite beings precludes
ascribing emotion either solely to our rational element or solely
to our bodies.”15 Human beings are not souls joined to bodies;
they are embodied souls, with the body and soul acting as a
unified principle of operation. Maria Carl takes the unity of the
human being to be evidence of a cognitive position:
Even though an emotion is susceptible of analysis into constituent elements,
having an emotion is possible only through a collaboration of various powers.
It is, in this sense, a unified experience that depends upon the person as a
whole. The unity of the emotion itself is described on the hylomorphic model;
each emotion is a unified complex experience.16

As noted already, Aquinas describes emotions as having matter
(physical, material change) and form (alteration of the soul). It
is the agent that experiences emotions, and the agent is a unified
whole of thought, will, and emotion. Accordingly, distinguishing emotions from eliciting cognitions introduces a
division that Aquinas denies.
Finally, a more pressing objection is that the noncognitive
reading cannot accommodate the identity and intentionality of
the emotions: if emotions are in the sensory appetite, then there
is a problem with understanding how they have intentionality.
“The species and nature of an emotion,” Aquinas writes, “is
given by its object” because the sensory appetite is a passive
power that is brought to actuality via external causes, so its
movements are distinguished, sustained, and directed by
eliciting causes (STh I-II, q. 46, a. 6). Aquinas writes, “emotions
differ in accordance with their activators which, in the case of
the emotions, are their objects” (STh I-II, q. 23, a. 4). Thus, to
know the nature, structure, or (in Aristotelian terminology)

15
Judith Barad, “Aquinas on the Role of Emotion in Moral Judgment and Activity,”
The Thomist 55 (1991): 397-413, at 402.This is, strictly speaking, problematic because
nonhuman animals lack rationality but experience emotions.
16
Carl, “Unity of the Person and the Passions,” 206.

228

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

formal cause of a particular emotion is to know its intentional
object, which suggests that cognitions make emotions what they
are, as Peter King argues: “Aquinas is therefore a cognitivist
about emotion, since cognitive acts are not only causal preconditions of emotions, but contribute their formal cause as
well.”17 What makes fear an instance of fear and not some other
emotion is the intention, which is a cognitive element (STh I-II,
q. 42, a. 4, ad 1). Because the intentionality of the emotions
results from a power of the sensitive part of the intellective soul,
and because intentionality is a cognitive mental state for Aquinas, it would seem that emotions are partly cognitive: over and
above their causal role, intentions figure in the nature of the
emotions.
For these reasons, some scholars understand Thomistic
emotions to be partly constituted by evaluations of good or bad.
Diana Fritz Cates, along similar lines as King and Drost, takes
the role of intentions in identifying and defining emotions to be
evidence that emotions or passions are partly cognitive:
In my interpretation of Aquinas, passio is indeed a motion of the sensory
appetite, but it is inherently object-oriented. A situation is apprehended in a
certain way; this act of apprehension causes a passio; it also enters into the
composition of the passio because it defines the form of the passion, as long as
the passio persists.18

To be clear, Aquinas claims that the formal element of an
emotion is its appetitive movement and the material element is
its bodily change (STh I-II, q. 44, a. 1); he does not directly
claim that the intention itself is the form of the emotion.
Nevertheless, what Cates and others are claiming is that the
emotional movement is formed and sustained by an intention,
and thereby the emotions, qua movements, are partly composed
of a cognitive element. The intention—a cognitive act—makes
the emotion what it is, as Drost claims: “Since emotions are
attitudinal responses . . . [they] have a cognitive component.”19
17

King, “Emotions,” 215.
Cates, Aquinas on the Emotions, 75 n. 1.
19
Drost, “Intentionality in Aquinas’s Theory of Emotions,” 453.
18

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

229

A Thomistic emotion, on this view, contains three elements: a
conative urge or movement, physiological change, and a cognitive evaluation or intention that directs and sustains said
movement. Hope, for example, is the emotion that involves a
particular appetitive movement informed by an intention of a
particular object as a future possible arduous good.20
II. A DEFENSE OF THE NONCOGNITIVE READING
Despite the disagreement, I argue that a noncognitive
reading is more faithful to Aquinas’s thought. Aquinas is clear
that emotions are in the appetitive, noncognitive power of the
soul. He entertains the question of whether the emotions are
situated in the cognitive power or appetitive power, and argues
that they are found in the latter: “the nature of an emotion is
more suitably found in the appetitive part of the soul rather
than the intellective part,” he explains, because it is by the
appetite that creatures move about in the world (STh I-II, q. 22,
a. 2). The cognitive powers are not drawn to things themselves
while the appetitive powers are; thus, emotions are situated in
the latter power. Similarly, he situates the emotions in the
sensory appetite and not in the rational appetite, or will, because emotions involve bodily alteration (STh I-II, q. 22, a. 3);
nonrational animals experience emotions, while noncorporeal
angels do not, strictly speaking. He criticizes the Stoic view that
the emotions are false judgments and diseases of the soul by
claiming that the Stoics had an incorrect understanding of the
20
Carl writes, “Every passion (and indeed every appetitive act, including the acts of
both the sensitive and the rational appetite [the will]) presupposes and is informed by a
cognition” (“Unity of the Person and the Passions,” 204). Other proponents include
Barad, “Aquinas on the Role of Emotion”; Thomas Ryan, “Revisiting Affective
Knowledge and Connaturality in Aquinas,” Theological Studies 66 (2005): 49-68;
Carlos Leget, “Martha Nussbaum and Thomas Aquinas on the Emotions,” Theological
Studies 64 (2003): 558-81; Jorge Arregui, “Descartes and Wittgenstein on Emotions,”
International Philosophical Quarterly 36 (1996): 319-34; Stephen Chanderbhan, “‘That
Your Joy May Be Full’: Emotions in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Ph.D. dissertation,
Saint Louis University, 2012); King, “Emotions”; Drost, “Intentionality in Aquinas’s
Theory of Emotions”; Mark Drost, “In the Realm of the Senses: Saint Thomas Aquinas
on Sensory Love, Desire, and Delight,” The Thomist 59 (1995): 47-58.

230

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

soul’s powers, namely, they failed to locate the emotions in the
noncognitive sensory appetite.
There is also a conceptual point to be made here. Given
Aquinas’s psychology, according to which the powers of the
soul have distinct functions, it is difficult to know how to make
sense of the claim that an emotion, being situated in the noncognitive part of the soul, can be partly constituted by a
cognitive element. This point is worth emphasizing. Aquinas
posits a strong division of labor among the soul’s powers, and
insists on a sharp functional division between the cognitive and
appetitive powers (see STh I, q. 78, a. 1).21 Moreover, he regards the soul’s different powers as “really distinct,” such that
they could be separated from each other by an act of God.
While one can emphasize the unity of human beings and their
experience, this emphasis does not thereby show that cognition
figures in the nature of an emotion, qua movement of the
sensory appetite. At best, it only shows that emotional experiences, not emotions per se, involve cognition. To claim that
cognition “enters into the composition” (Cates) of an emotion
or that emotions are “attitudinal responses” (Drost) does not
illuminate how integration is possible, given Aquinas’s
psychology. How movements of a noncognitive power can have
a cognitive part is left unexplained and is in tension with
Aquinas’s psychology.
III. OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES
The challenge therefore is to respond to the objections to the
noncognitive reading in a way that explains (a) how Thomistic
emotions can be intentional but noncognitive, (b) how the unity
of the human being does not entail or support cognitivism, and
(c) how some emotions can be described as both rest and
movement.
21
See Peter King, “Late Scholastic Theories of the Passions,” in Emotions and Choice
from Boethius to Descartes, ed. Henri Lagerlund and Mikko Yrjönsuuri (The
Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press, 2002), 229-58; and Daniel De Haan, “Perception
and the Vis Cogitativa: A Thomistic Analysis of Aspectual, Actional, and Affectional
Percepts,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 88 (2014): 397-437.

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

231

A) Movement
The first problem for the noncognitive reading is that not
every emotion is described as a kind of movement, for some are
described as a kind of rest. Delight, sorrow, joy, and love are
described as kinds of appetitive rest or consonance, and so are
not clearly movements (see STh I-II, q. 35, a. 3). Partly for this
reason, scholars have been perplexed by Aquinas’s claim that
emotions are a kind of movement or motion (quidam motus).
Some of the confusion stems from thinking of emotional
movement as being akin to physical movement, something that
Aquinas himself says in one passage: “appetitive movement is
similar to natural movement” (STh I-II, q. 36, a. 2). Eric D’Arcy
claims that it is “physical movement, involving local motion in
the ordinary sense” that is meant. 22 If Aquinas understands
appetitive movement as akin to physical movement, then he
would be flatly contradicting himself in claiming that delight is
physical-like rest and that all emotions are physical-like movements, since rest is the opposite of movement. But if it is not
physical movement that is the model for appetitive movement,
then what is it?
It is instructive to note that Aquinas refers to Aristotle’s
account of movement when discussing appetitive movement
(STh I-II, q. 23). Aristotle defines motion in the Physics as the
actualization of a power or capacity, “moving” from passivity to
act: “the fulfillment of what exists potentially, insofar as it
exists potentially” (Phys. 3.1.201a10).23 Motion is grounded in
the nature or form of the creature or object. Suzy can raise her
arm or become sick because both are compatible with her
nature; Suzy cannot, however, fly unaided because this ability is
not consonant with her nature. Aristotle further distinguishes
three kinds of motion, or ways a power or capacity can be
22

Eric D’Arcy, Introduction and Notes to Summa Theologiae, Vol. 19, The Emotions
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967); see also Lyons, Emotion, 37; Roberts, “Thomas
Aquinas on the Morality of Emotions,” 291; James, Passion and Action, 62-63; and
Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, 248-53.
23
Citations are from Aristotle, Physics, in The Complete Works: Revised Oxford
Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).

232

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

actualized (Phys. 5.2.226a23-34). First, there is movement of
alteration, which occurs when an agent’s capacity to receive a
quality is actualized, that is, the agent receives one quality or
form and loses a contrary one. Water being heated in a kettle is
an alteration because the water’s capacity for being heated is
being actualized. It loses one quality (coldness) and acquires a
contrary quality (hotness). Likewise, a person going from health
to illness undergoes a movement of alteration because he goes
from one quality to its contrary. The second kind of movement
is movement of quantity or, as Aristotle claims, “increase or
decrease according as one or the other is designated” (Phys.
5.2.226a31). This movement occurs when an object goes from
an imperfect state to a perfect state (increase), or vice versa
(decrease). The movement from being an acorn to being a fullgrown oak tree is a movement from an imperfect state to a
perfect one. The movement from being a full-grown oak tree to
being a shriveled, diseased tree is a movement in the opposite
direction, from a perfect state to an imperfect state. The final
kind of movement is one of locomotion, or change of place.
This movement is the kind of movement with which we are
most familiar—for example, the movement of a dog from one
location to another.
Although D’Arcy assumes Aquinas has the third understanding of Aristotelian movement in mind, Aquinas claims that
the movement of emotions is the movement of alteration. He
writes in the Quaestiones disputatae De veritate that “passio in
this [proper] sense is found only in the movement of alteration,” when one quality or form is removed from a person and
its contrary is acquired (De Verit., q. 26, a. 1). He reiterates this
understanding in the Summa theologiae where he argues that
the most proper understanding of pati (suffering or undergoing)
and passio involves the loss of one quality and the reception of a
contrary: a person who goes from health to a state of sickness
(or vice versa) is said to suffer (STh I-II, q. 21). The movement
of an emotion, therefore, occurs when the sensory appetite’s
capacity to be altered from one qualitative state to its contrary
state is actualized, for example, from love to its contrary of
hate. Important for present purposes, pace D’Arcy and others, it

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

233

is not physical movement that is relevant to emotional
movement. Emotions are movements of alterations, and it is in
the sense of alteration that joy, sorrow, delight, and similar
emotions, which imply no physical movement, are still movements. Sorrow is the movement of alteration from one state
(nonsorrow) to another (sorrow).
Nevertheless, Aquinas does use another notion of movement
when describing emotions. In order to see these different uses
of the term, note that he himself considers the objection that
delight (delectatio), which is a rest of the appetite in an attained
good, is not an emotion because it is not evidently a movement:
“Delight does not consist in being moved, but in having been
moved since it is caused by a good already attained. Thus, it is
not an emotion” (STh I-II, q. 31, a. 1, obj. 2). Since the sensible
good is already possessed by the agent, delectatio does not
appear to involve occurrent movement of any kind. In reply,
Aquinas offers the following clarification:
Although delectatio is a certain rest of the appetite, considered as the presence
of the pleasurable good which satisfies the appetite, nevertheless there remains
an immutation of the appetite by the appetitible object, by reason of which
pleasure is a kind of motion. (STh I-II, q. 31, a. 1, ad 2)

Aquinas’s point is that delectatio is a movement, namely, the
movement of alteration by which the soul is altered from a state
of nonpleasure to a state of pleasure via an immutation. Thus,
when Aquinas describes delectatio as a kind of appetitive rest
and as a movement, he is using a different notion of
“movement.”24
What are the two notions of “movement”? On the one hand,
there is the movement of alteration which occurs when the
appetite is moved from one state to another. This is the sense in
which delectatio is a motion and the primary sense in which all
24

I owe this observation to Miner, Thomas Aquinas on the Passions, 40-42. A
reviewer offered an illuminating observation: Aquinas likens appetitive movement to
natural movement (STh I-II, q. 23, a. 4). Just as fire has inclination to go up, movement
up, and rest when it is up, so do the appetites have inclination (love), movement
(desire), and rest (pleasure). This is only an analogy, of course; the word “rest” should
not be taken literally to refer to the absence of change.

234

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

emotions are movements. On the other hand, Aquinas uses the
language of being drawn or inclined: “An appetitive act,” he
writes, “is a kind of inclination [inclinatio] to the thing itself”
(STh I-II, q. 15, a. 1). Things that are cognized as good cause “a
certain inclination, aptitude, or connaturalness” in the sensory
soul (STh I-II, q. 23, a. 4). This language of inclination, being
drawn, and rest is not to be understood exclusively in terms of
the movement of alteration. To understand this notion of
orientation or inclination, it is instructive to note that emotions
arise in response to intentions of things as good or bad for the
agent, and it is a basic tenet of Aquinas’s metaphysics that
everything seeks after what appears to be good and avoids what
appears to be harmful:
For the nature of a good thing consists in this, that it is something desirable;
hence the Philosopher says that good is what all things desire. But it is
manifest that everything is desirable inasmuch as it is perfect, for all things
desire their own perfection. (STh I, q. 5, a. 1; see also STh I-II, q. 26, a. 1, ad
3; q. 94, a. 2; De Verit., q. 25, a. 1; STh I, q. 19, a. 9)

God has constructed the sensory appetite in such a way that it
naturally seeks after what is good and flees what is harmful.
When an agent experiences an emotion, and her sensory
appetite is presented with a sensible good (or evil) via alteration,
she will be inclined to seek the good (or flee the bad). For
example, when a person experiences hope for a future good,
that person’s sensory appetite is altered from its previous
nonhope state—movement of alteration—and, since hope’s
object is good, the person’s appetite will naturally incline to the
good object—natural movement. Similarly, delight is a movement of alteration that, in virtue of the presence of its object,
quiets the appetite. Here, the movement is a movement from a
state of inclination to a state of quiescence, or rest.
In sum, all emotions are movements of alteration that, in
virtue of their object, incline the appetite to rest, seek, or flee.
Therefore, observing that some emotions are akin to rest does
not undermine the noncognitive reading of the emotions as all
being movements.

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

235

B) The Unity of the Human Being
The second argument offered against a noncognitivist
reading of Thomistic emotions is that it fails to do justice to
Aquinas’s account of our hylomorphic nature. Barad argues
that, despite Aquinas’s psychology, Aquinas affirms unity in
operations, and thus,
to hold that emotions are only physical sensations is to consider the matter of
the phenomenon without the form. And to identify emotions with judgments
would be to take the form without the matter. Both views run contrary to
Aquinas's hylomorphic theory of human nature.25

However, the unity of the person is not a problem for a
noncognitive reading. Aquinas explains that emotions involve a
material change (bodily alteration) and a formal change
(movement of soul) (STh I-II, q. 37, a. 4). It is the soul-body
composite, the creature, that experiences emotions. But the
important point is that the formal element is the movement of
the sensory appetite, not a cognition or judgment. Carl is wrong
to claim that “it is the person who is angry or who loves,
because Aquinas holds that an emotion is complex” of matter
and form involving cognition; 26 Aquinas nowhere—to my
knowledge—says that the form of an emotion is anything other
than a movement of the sensory appetite. There is a conceptual
gulf between a movement of the (noncognitive) sensory appetite
and cognition of the cognitive powers. According to the
noncognitive reading, emotions involve the whole creature,
body and soul; they do not involve cognition, however, as a
constituent part.27

25

Barad, “Aquinas on the Role of Emotion,” 402.
Carl, “Unity of the Person and the Passions,” 206.
27
To help clarify, consider abstract thought, which according to Aquinas is purely
intellectual and nonbodily. Aquinas thinks that such thought cannot occur without
phantasms derived from sense experience, but he reserves the label “thought” for the
nonsensory portion of this process. Likewise, even if a hylomorphic view of human
nature demands that the process involved in emotion includes an interrelation between
the various powers of the soul, Aquinas reserves the label “passio animae” for the
26

236

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

Although emotions are situated in the sensory appetite, a
proponent of a noncognitive reading can agree that emotional
experiences involve cognitions. In other words, given the hylomorphic unity of the person, a person experiences emotions
with their causally eliciting and sustaining judgments. Cognition
elicits emotional responses, and the person experiencing anger,
for example, experiences the complex of cognition, bodily
change, and movement of the sensory appetite. Noncognitivists
can thus separate the emotion from the emotional experience
and insist that cognition figures in the latter. Carl seems to
suggest something like this interpretation when she writes that,
“Even though an emotion is susceptible of analysis into
constituent elements, having an emotion is possible only
through a collaboration of various powers.” 28 Noncognitivists
agree with her that cognition figures in the having of an
emotion. Some noncognitivist scholars go so far as to
distinguish passion (passio animae) from emotion, claiming that
Thomistic passions, which I have been calling emotions, do not
include cognitions but Thomistic emotions, which I have been
calling emotional experiences, do. Murphy explains the
reasoning behind this view:
because it is a necessary condition for the occurrence of a passion that there be
evaluative cognition of an object, it turns out that Aquinas’s passions, taken
together with their proximate cognitive cause, make up a complex that could
match our understanding of ‘emotions’.29

According to Murphy, passio animae does not involve cognition
in its nature. If we combine passio animae with its eliciting
cognition, then we can call this complex state “emotion” if a
cognitivist so wishes. Regardless of how a noncognitivist decides
to capture the intimate relationship between cognition and
emotion, all agree that cognition is integral to emotional
experience. Noncognitivists just deny that cognition figures in
noncognitive part of the process. I would like to thank Joseph Dowd for this
observation.
28
Carl, “Unity of the Person and the Passions,” 206.
29
Murphy, “Aquinas on Our Responsibility for Our Emotions,” 168.

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

237

the nature of emotions as Aquinas uses the term “passio
animae.”
C) Intentions and Identifying Emotions
There are two challenges for a noncognitive reading of
Thomistic emotions, arising from their intentionality. The first
challenge is that emotions are identified and distinguished by
their formal object, which is provided by the intention (“the
species and nature of an emotion is given by its object” [STh III, q. 46, a. 6]) and this observation seems to suggest that
emotions are partly cognitive because intentions figure in their
identity. As Carl writes, a noncognitive reading “ignores the
intentionality of emotions” because every emotion “is articulated in terms both of cognition and physiology.”30 One cannot
know what hope is, say, without knowing the intentional object
of hope—a future possible good that is arduous to attain—and
the intentional object is a cognitive state.
This point about intentionality is not a damning problem for
a noncognitive reading, however. To see why, it is important to
recognize how passive powers are identified and actualized.
According to Aquinas, we recognize and distinguish among
passive powers by what actualizes them, that is, brings them
from a passive state to an active state: “the sensory appetite,” he
explains, is distinguished “by the different particular goods to
which it responds” (STh I, q. 82, a. 5). Emotions are actualized
by an intention being presented to the sensory appetite, and
they remain present so long as that intention—the object to
which the emotion is directed—is present. Nevertheless, that we
distinguish passive powers via their eliciting objects does not
entail that passive powers are identical to or constituted by
those objects. The ensuing appetitive movement is different
from the eliciting cause, even if the cause is the means by which
we identify the movement, and this is true even granting that
the object makes the ensuing movement the kind of movement
it is. In other words, just because the cognition supplies the
30

Carl, “Unity of the Person and the Passions,” 205.

238

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

form by which the movement arises, it does not thereby follow
that the ensuing movement is cognitive. Consider a potter
making a pot. The potter is the efficient cause from which the
pot receives its form, but this fact does not mean that the potter
himself is part of the pot’s form. Likewise, the emotions receive
their form from their objects, but this fact does not mean that
the objects are part of the emotions’ form. Thus, although
intentions account for the differences among the emotions, this
is not clear evidence that intentions figure in the nature of the
emotions.
D) Emotional Intentionality
Still, it might be objected that it is the fact that emotions are
intentional, that is, directed at objects, that is problematic. The
challenge here is that intentionality, being directed at or onto
the world, seems to be cognitive, since only cognitive states are
directed at or are about the world. 31 Bodily reflexes are
nonintentional, but my belief that today’s weather is fine is
intentional. It makes sense to ask people what or whom they are
mad at, while it does not make sense to ask who people are
sneezing at. This intentionality is grounded in the fact that
emotions are actualized by the inherence of an intention in the
sensory appetite, as King explains: “the actualization of Jones’s
potency for loathing requires some form’s inhering in the
sensitive appetite.” 32 Because intentions, which are cognitive
acts, contribute the formal cause to emotions, King concludes in

31

It is precisely this claim—that only cognitive states are intentional—that leads
Perler to claim that William Ockham endorses a cognitive account of the passions or
emotions: “In his [i.e., Ockham’s] explanation of various sensory passions, he makes it
clear that most of them are about something, and therefore have a cognitive content”
(Dominik Perler, “Emotions and Cognitions: Fourteenth-Century Discussions on the
Passions of the Soul,” Vivarium 43 [2005]: 250-74, at 260). Perler assumes that intentionality is cognitive, and so if the emotions are intentional, they are cognitive. This is in
stark contrast, however, to his account of Thomistic emotions, as will be seen clearly
later on.
32
King, “Aquinas on the Passions,” 359.

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

239

another article that “Aquinas is therefore a cognitivist about
emotion.”33
It is instructive, in reply, to ask whether it is anachronistic of
scholars to draw this inference. Aquinas himself draws a sharp
distinction between cognition and appetite, and nowhere to my
knowledge does he entertain the question, whether the
intentionality of the emotions entails that they are cognitive.
Marc Neuberg has argued that Descartes was the first clearly to
distinguish and to discuss the relation between cognition and
physiological change, and it was he who set the stage for later
debates regarding the relation between cognition and emotion.34
More recently, Martin Pickavé has argued that Walter Chatton,
writing in the fourteenth century, was among the first to ask
whether appetitive acts are themselves cognitions when addressing the question, “Whether the love of an angel is distinct
from the Angel’s cognition?” 35 While Chatton answers negatively, Pickavé focuses on the claim of Adam Wodeham,
Chatton’s contemporary, that love and other appetitive acts are
forms of cognition. Wodeham writes:
I say—not by way of expressing an assertion, but by way of expressing an
opinion—that every act of desiring and hating, and so enjoyment, is some sort
of cognition and some sort of apprehension, because every experience of some
object is also a cognition of the same object.36

Wodeham offers a series of arguments for this position, a position he recognizes is nontraditional. The traditional view, he
notes, is that appetitive acts are noncognitive.37 The important
point for our present purposes is that the question of the
33

King, “Emotions,” 215.
Marc Neuberg, “Le traité des passions de l’âme de Descartes et les théories
modernes de l’émotion,” Archives de philosophie 53 (1990): 479-508.
35
Pickavé, “On the Intentionality of the Emotions”; Martin Pickavé, “Emotion and
Cognition in later Medieval Philosophy: The Case of Adam Wodeham,” in Emotion and
Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Martin Pickavé and Lisa
Shapiro (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
36
Adam Wodeham, Lectura secunda, d. 1, q. 5, sect. 4; cited in Pickavé, “Emotion
and Cognition,” 99.
37
Pickavé, “Emotion and Cognition,” 99.
34

240

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

relation between cognition, intentionality, and the emotions
seems to be a nonissue for Aquinas. He appears content to claim
that the emotions have intentional objects and that they are
caused-movements of the noncognitive sensory appetite. Our
interests do not map on to Aquinas’s interests.
We still might ask how Aquinas would respond if he were
pressed with this issue. But the question is not whether the
emotions are intrinsically cognitive according to Aquinas. They
are not. Instead, the question is how Aquinas understands the
relation between cognition and emotions, one that preserves the
sharp distinction between the cognitive and appetitive powers
but still allows for the intentionality of the emotions. This is the
process of charitable historical reconstruction. 38 Dialectically,
then, all that is needed is for there to be a plausible story, one
that fits Aquinas’s theory, of how the emotions can be intentional, noncognitive movements. If scholars in the twentyfirst century cannot offer a plausible account, this inability does
not provide reason for thinking Aquinas is therefore a
cognitivist about the emotions. Instead, it provides reason for
thinking that our concerns and interests were not those of
Aquinas.
The goal is to offer an account of how to understand the
intentionality of the emotions while preserving the distinction
between intellect and sensory appetite. An account that has
drawn favor from some noncognitivist scholars, a view that I
endorse but make no claim to have originated, is the derivative
intentionality model, according to which the emotions are
intentional in virtue of their eliciting cognitions. Pickavé
explains the model succinctly:
It is also clear that on this account the intentionality of the emotion
piggybacks on the act of cognition, which provides the sensitive appetite with
its object. And since we tend to take sensory experience as intentional
experience we may want to say that emotions derive their intentionality from
the intentionality of the sensory cognitions immediately causing them.39

38
39

Pickavé, “On the Intentionality of the Emotions,” 48.
Pickavé, “On the Intentionality of the Emotions,” 50.

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

241

On this view, intentions are the cause of emotional experiences
that direct emotional experiences in virtue of their intentionality. Emotions are movements directed at particular objects
in virtue of the preceding cognition that actualizes and, thereby,
moves or inclines the sensory appetite a certain way. What
makes fear an instance of fear and not hope is that the intention
acting upon the sensory appetite is one that is directed at a
future arduous evil; what makes my fear about this snake, as
opposed to anything else, is that the eliciting intention is about
this snake. Fear, in itself, qua movement of the sensory appetite,
is just that—a movement with accompanying physiological
change. It is a directed movement away from some particular
object, however, because it was caused and sustained by a
particular intention regarding said object. Consider a person
throwing a dart at a target. In itself, the dart contains no mental
representation of the target. The person does, however, and the
dart is directed at the target, not just in the sense that it is
moving toward the target but also in the sense that the target is
the goal in virtue of the dart’s being directed to it by the person.
Likewise, a Thomistic emotion, in itself, contains no cognition
of its object, but it is directed at its object because the accompanying cognitive intention has directed it that way. Thus,
cognition is integral to experiencing an emotion, but it is not
constitutive of the emotion itself.
To clarify the derivative intentionality model, it is instructive
to compare it to King’s cognitivist reading. King seems to
endorse something like the derivative intentionality model when
he writes,
So much for the cognitive side of things. At this point there is a hand-off to
the sensitive appetite. . . . The sensitive appetite, as a passive power, is reduced
from potency to act when it ‘inherits’ objectual content from the evaluative
response-dependent concept.40

He defends his cognitivist reading by pointing out that, since
intentions make emotions what they are, intentions are their
formal cause; and since formal causes are part of the caused
40

King, “Emotions,” 214.

242

CHRISTOPHER A. BOBIER

object or event, intentions figure in the emotion. There are a
couple of problems with King’s inference. First, emotions are
situated in the sensory appetite and the sensory appetite is not a
cognitive power of the soul. Aquinas describes their relation in
terms of mover and moved: “movement of the appetitive power
follows [sequitur] an act of the cognitive power” (STh I-II,
q. 46, a. 2). How a movement of the noncognitive appetite can
be cognitive remains unanswered and in tension with Aquinas’s
psychology. Second, and more importantly, we do not need to
posit that emotions are intrinsically cognitive because the
derivative intentionality model can explain how intentions
direct, sustain, and make emotions what they are while
maintaining the integrity of Aquinas’s psychology. Emotions are
movements of the noncognitive appetite with accompanying
physiological alterations, and so are not intrinsic cognitive
states. However, emotions are not mere feelings, either. Lyons’s
description of Thomistic emotions as “impulses or desires” plus
“accompanying physiological changes” is misleading insofar as it
suggests that emotions lack intentionality, for Thomistic
emotions are moved-responses toward a good object or away
from a bad object with accompanying physiological changes. In
this way, a proponent of a noncognitive reading can agree with
King 41 who claims that Aquinas’s theory of emotions is
cognitivist in the sense that, following Robert Kraut, “cognitive
processes are somehow essential to emotion.” 42 Cognitive acts
are essential to bring about, direct, and sustain emotions, but
they are not constituent parts of emotions proper. On the
model defended here, cognitive acts figure in our emotional
experience without figuring in the emotion itself.
CONCLUSION
There is good textual evidence for reading Aquinas as a
noncognitivist about the emotions. Even though cognition is
41

King, “Aquinas on the Passions,” 341 n. 20.
Robert Kraut, “Feelings in Context,” The Journal of Philosophy 83 (1986):
642-52, at 643.
42

COGNITION AND EMOTION IN AQUINAS

243

essential to emotional experience, the emotions do not have a
cognitive element as a constituent part, and the reasons offered
to the contrary are not as convincing as the textual evidence
that posits emotions in the noncognitive part of the soul. The
derivative intentionality model explains the intentionality of
emotions without violating Aquinas’s psychology, and this is the
strongest reason why we should adopt it. This interpretation is
contentious, to be sure, and so I close with a challenge for
defender of a cognitivist reading, namely, to offer an account
that explains how appetitive movements can be intentional in a
way that is consonant with Aquinas’s sharp division between
appetite and cognition.43

43

I would like to thank Joseph Dowd, participants at the Society for Medieval and
Renaissance Philosophy Inaugural Conference at Notre Dame, and reviewers of The
Thomist for helpful suggestions and corrections.

The Thomist 86 (2022): 245-71

VERBA ET FACTA LUDICRA ET JOCOSA:
THOMAS AQUINAS ON THE MORAL LIMITS
OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT
ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel

P

LAY HAS BEEN STUDIED over the past decades by
scholars from various disciplines. Psychologists have
stressed its role in child development, animal play has
puzzled ethologists, and historians have understood play to be
the central element for understanding culture. Philosophers
have asked questions about its definition, its goal, its rationality.
As a source of relaxation, it has been opposed to work, to
seriousness, and to daily life.1
Thomas Aquinas wrote one explicit text on play—question
168 of the Secunda secundae2—in which he embeds his insights
about the human being as a homo ludens in a rich philosophical
1
Johan Huizinga, Homo ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1955); Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games, trans. M. Barash (Chicago:
University of Illinois Press: 2001 [reprint of 1961]); Hugo Rahner, Der spielende
Mensch (Einsiedeln, 1952); idem, “Eutrapelie: Eine vergessene Tugend,” Geist und
Leben 27 (1954): 346-53; Mihai I. Spariosu, Dionysus Reborn: Play and the Aesthetic
Dimension of Modern Philosophical and Scientific Discourse (New York: Cornell
University Press, 1989); Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play (Cambridge Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1997); Stuart Brown and Christopher Vaughn, Play: How It
Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul (New York: Penguin
Books, 2009); Emily Ryall, Wendy Russell, and Malcolm Maclean, The Philosophy of
Play (London: Routledge, 2014); John Morreall, The Philosophy of Laughter and
Humor (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1987).
2
Play is also found in Thomas’s commentary on the Ethica Nicomachea of Aristotle
(In decem libros ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomacheum expositio, ed. Raymundi M.
Spiazzi [Turin: Marietti, 1949]).

245

246

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

anthropology: we enjoy playing as rational, sensitive-emotional,
embodied, and social beings. A subcategory of play is humorous
words and deeds. In contrast to present-day studies on humor,
Thomas is interested in the morality of humor rather than in its
essence, thereby taking a fundamentally positive stance towards
humorous play. For him the human person is homo ridens, the
only creature that has the capacity to laugh and to make laugh.3
Throughout my analysis of Thomas’s texts, I shall argue for
the following claims. First, Thomas’s texts on play and humorous play show that he considers the human being to be a
homo ludens, homo delectans, and homo ridens. The capacity to
play and to enjoy, and the possession of a sense of humor are
undeniable and positive aspects of the make-up of the human
being. Second, play can best be understood against the background of two passions of the soul, tristitia and delectatio. This
point has not been stressed enough in the secondary literature
on this topic. Third, eutrapelia, the specific virtue of play,
concerns not only the mean between excess and lack of enjoyment, but is essentially a social virtue. Play contributes to our
well-being as individuals in so far as it includes respect for our
fellow human beings. As such it can help to express, sustain, and
maintain our ethical relationships with our social surroundings.4
In the light of the above, this article is divided into three
parts. Parts I and II will map out the philosophical anthropology
3
For studies of play and humor according to Thomas, see, for example, Carla
Casagrande and Silvana Vecchio, “Vizi e virtu del gioco: L’eutrapelia fra XIII e XIV
secolo,” in Giocare tra medioevo ed eta moderna, ed. F. Aceto and F. Lucioli (Treviso
and Rome: Fondazione Benetton-Viella, 2019), 21-36; M. Conrad Heyers, The Comic
Vision and the Christian Faith: A Celebration of Life and Laughter (New York: Pilgrim
Press, 1981); David L. Whidden III, “The Theology of Play and the Play of Theology,”
The Thomist 80 (2016): 273-84; Tobias Hoffman, “Eutrapelia: The Right Attitude
towards Amusement,” Mots medievaux offerts a Ruedi Imbach (Turnhout: Brepols,
2011): 267-77; C. De Marchi, “L’affabilitas nei rapport sociali: Studio comparativo
sulla socievolezza e il buonumore in Tommaso d'Aquino, Thomas More e Francesco di
Sales,” (Thesis ad doctoratum in theologia totaliter edita, Rome: Edusc, 2010), 151-59;
P. Roszak, “Anatomy of Ludic Pleasure in Thomas Aquinas,” Pensamiento y cultura 16,
no. 2 (2013): 50-71; Basil Cole, O.P., A Sense of Humour and Virtue: A Thomistic
Theological Perspective (Mumbai, India: The Bombay Saint Paul Society, 2011).
4
See for this point Mordechai Gordon, “Friendship, Intimacy and Humor,”
Educational Philosophy and Theory 46 (2014): 168.

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

247

behind the idea of homo ludens. Part II discusses the pivotal role
of the emotions in play. Part III will show that eutrapelia is
essentially also a social virtue by focusing on two specific kinds
of humorous play: derision and blasphemy. In the conclusion, I
will point briefly to the relevance of Thomas for the contemporary discussion about the moral limits of play in general and
of humorous play in particular.
I. HOMO LUDENS: PLAY AND REST
The Latin word for play (ludus) has different meanings: it
can be a game of some kind, public games, sport; it can be
spectacle, show, stage play, or social entertainment; it can be
pastime, diversion, having fun, amusing oneself with others; and
finally it can also be jest, joke, mockery, mimicry, banter, or
ridicule. In this last case play includes humor and can be verbal
or nonverbal. The different meanings of play show that one can
be actively or passively involved in play. The common denominator of these different meanings is that play provides diversion,
amusement, or enjoyment.5 Play is discussed by Thomas in his
questions on temperance, and more specifically in his analysis of
the annexed virtue of modesty, which concerns, among other
things, our bodily movements and actions.6 The words and
deeds of human social interaction can be either serious or
playful (ludus).7
The point of departure in our analysis of play according to
Thomas is that he emphasizes its beneficial consequences and
distinguishes between its social and its individual purpose. Presupposing that we have a social nature, Thomas writes that play
not only takes place in a social setting, but that it is necessary
for human interaction (ludus est necessarius ad conversationem
humanae vitae). It enhances community relations by bringing
5

Whidden (“The Theology of Play and the Play of Theology”) mentions the
different meanings of play in the very beginning of his article. The present article can be
considered complementary to that of Whidden.
6
STh II-II, q. 160. Modesty is a virtue annexed to temperance, and deals with
human actions which are less difficult to restrain.
7
STh II-II, q. 160, a. 2.

248

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

about cohesion in a group of people.8 In his commentary on the
Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle Thomas makes the even
stronger statement that play is needed as relaxation “from the
anxieties and cares of human living and social interaction” (ab
anxietate sollicitudinum in hac vita et in conversatione humana).9 Play may facilitate and sometimes even be necessary for
human functioning in life and in social interaction.
The second purpose of play receives more attention from
Thomas: play aims at the good of the player, as it is meant to
provide rest and relaxation after intellectual effort.10 The
amusement obtained by playing serves our mental health.11 As
will be shown in our discussion of the virtue of eutrapelia in
part III, the “individual” purpose of play can never be severed
from its social purpose.
The “individual” benefit of play can be explained by
Thomas’s concept of nature and its application to our physical
and mental powers. Teleology is intrinsic to the particular
essence of a being. It includes its specific goal and its specific
way to realize that goal, that is, the specific activity of a being
within proper limits.12
Applying this concept to our physical powers, Thomas can
state that they are “finite and equal to a certain fixed amount of
labor.”13 A physical power or faculty is limited in the quantity
of work it can do. While working, we use our physical strength,
but at a certain point it reaches a limit. We cannot do more than
our physical strength allows, and cannot work indefinitely in

8
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 3, ad 3. See also IV Sent., d. 16, q. 4, a. 2, qcla. 1 (Scriptum
super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lombardi, vol. 2, ed. Pierre F. Mandonnet [Paris:
Lethielleux, 1929]). See also Jacques Le Goff, “Une enquête sur le rire,” Annales:
Histoire, sciences sociales 52 (1997): 452.
9
IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 (Marietti ed., 851).
10
“Ad bonum ipsius ludentis, prout sunt delectantes vel requiem praestantes” (STh
I-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 1).
11
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2.
12
“Nothing can act beyond its species” (“Nulla res agere potest ultra suam speciem”
[STh I-II, q. 112, a. 1]).
13
“Habet finitam virtutem, quae determinatis laboribus proportionatur” (STh II-II,
q. 168, a. 2).

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

249

time or in intensity.14 These physical limits are partly individual,
but mainly species-determined. A human being and a horse have
different limits, while two individuals differ in their levels of
physical strength. However, even if we have reached the limits
of our physical activity, it is possible to restore and regain the
bodily strength needed to act again. The key to this is rest.15
A parallel situation exists in the powers of the soul, which
can also only perform a specific and fixed amount of work
(virtus finita ad determinata operationes proportionata).16 The
body regains strength from physical rest; in like manner, the
soul needs rest in order to recover from its effort. The comparison between physical and mental work rests on the assumption that mental activity is “work” (labor). The human being,
according to Thomas, has one intellectual faculty, with two
different modes of thinking. Whereas intellectus is our capacity
for an “immediate grasp” of the essence of things, ratio points
to our intellectual activity as discursive, as proceeding from
first, immediately grasped principles to conclusions, as a movement from one thought to another, as inquiry or demonstration.17 Given this, it is not difficult to understand why
Thomas thinks that intensive (rational) thinking can be a real
effort. He even mentions that one can go “beyond his measure”
(ultra suum modum) in one’s intellectual operations (STh II-II,
q. 168, a. 2). They become labor (hard work, toil) which leads
to weariness (fatigatio).
The background for this idea is Thomas’s hylomorphic
understanding of human nature. Intensive intellectual work
causes not only mental but also bodily fatigue, because mental
activity engages the body. As Thomas writes: “when the soul
14
“Oportet operibus laboriosis requiem interponere, eo quod impossibile est semper
agere” (IV Sent., d. 16, q. 4, a. 2, qcla. 1, arg. 2; X Nic. Ethic., lect. 9 [Marietti ed.,
2077]; STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2).
15
“Homo indiget corporali quietem ad corporis refocillationem” (STh II-II, q. 168,
a. 2 [refocillare: to revive]).
16
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2.
17
See STh I, q. 79, a. 8; De Verit., q. 15, a. 1 (Turin: Marietti, 1953); STh II-II,
q. 49, a. 5, ad 3; STh I, q. 14, a. 7. See Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture (South
Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 36ff.

250

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

works, the body is at work likewise, in so far as the intellective
soul employs forces that operate through bodily organs.”18 The
intellectual powers can “accidentally” become tired “after long
and intense study” (post longam vel vehementem meditationem
[ScG III, c. 62]), because they use sensible organs which undergo a real change when they are confronted with sensible
objects. But the cause of mental fatigue is not only physical. The
fact that human knowledge finds its origin in sense knowledge
can in itself be a reason for mental exhaustion, because practical
or speculative intellectual activity is less natural to us and
therefore an effort. Therefore, even when the first effect of
contemplative activity is pleasure and some kind of relief,
weariness may accompany it.19
Thomas also recognizes an intellectual effort that surpasses
our natural limit to such an extent that it not only leaves us
“oppressed and weary” but on the verge of a mental collapse.
This unusual mental exhaustion is described in strong terms: the
danger is imminent that the soul will “break.”20 Using an
example found in the Desert Fathers about Saint John the
Evangelist, he compares the state of an overworked soul to a
bow which, if always stretched, will finally snap.21
The natural limits of our intellectual activity which arise
from the very nature of human knowledge generate the need for
mental rest (quies animae). The words used for rest by Thomas
are quies (rest, repose, cessation) and requies (relaxation, intermission, recreation). He stresses that rest is not sought for itself,
but “on account of work” (propter operationem). Physical and
mental work require rest not only because one has reached the
limits of one’s possibilities, but also because one needs to regain
18
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2; see also ScG II. 79 (Summa contra Gentiles seu De veritate
catholicae fidei [Turin: Marietti, 1924]); cf. ScG III. 62; X Nic. Ethic., lect. 10 (Marietti
ed., 2089); STh I-II, q. 35, a. 5. See also IV Sent., d. 49, q. 3, a. 3, qcla. 2.
19
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2.
20
“In like manner man’s mind would break if its tension were never relaxed”
(“Animus hominis frangeretur, si numquam a sua intentione relaxaretur” [STh II-II,
q. 168, a. 2]).
21
See John Cassian, Conference 24 (“Conference of Abbot Abraham. On
Mortification”). 21. This chapter tells the story of the blessed John the Evangelist.

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

251

new strength and be ready for more work.22 Rest has a temporal
dimension: taking place in the present, it relates to the past and
the future.
II. HOMO DELECTANS: PLAY AND EMOTIONS
Mental fatigue and healing rest can best be understood
through a discussion of two passions: sorrow (tristitia) and
pleasure (delectatio). The importance of this point cannot be
stressed enough.23
A) Tristitia
In his treatise on the passions24 in the Summa theologiae,
Thomas writes about the effects of intensive activity, stressing
the role of the passions. Actions or operations are pleasant
(delectabiles) in so far as they are proportionate and connatural
to the agent, but become toilsome (laboriosae) and irksome
(attaedians) when a certain limit is exceeded. The agent feels
exhaustion and sorrow (tristitia).25
“Sorrow” (tristitia) is one of the eleven passions discussed by
Thomas in his questions on the passions.26 It differs from
physical pain (dolor) in that it is caused by an “interior
apprehension” (with no physical contact involved) of an “evil”
object. This is either an object that is judged and experienced by
22

X Nic. Ethic., lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 2077).
See J. Morreall, “Humor and Emotion,” American Philosophical Quarterly 20
(1983): 301. He states that amusement is not an emotion and not aimed at survival, as
are the emotions. Cf. Glenn A. Hartz and Ralph Hunt, “Humor: The Beauty and the
Beast,” American Philosophical Quarterly 28 (1991): 299-309.
24
STh I-II, qq. 22-48. Passions are psychosomatic actions-reactions to an object on
the level of the sensitive soul of both nonrational and rational beings. In the human
being the sensitive soul is in close contact with the rational soul. For more details see
Elisabeth Uffenheimer, “Rationalized Passion and Passionate Rationality: Thomas
Aquinas on the Relation between Reason and the Passions,” The Review of Metaphysics
56 (2003): 525-58; Robert Miner, Thomas Aquinas on the Passions (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009).
25
STh I-II, q. 32, a. 1, ad 3.
26
STh I-II, qq. 35-39.
23

252

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

the subject as incompatible with itself, as a threat, as contrary;27
or it is a good object that is absent.28 The absence can refer to
the past or to the future: the object was once present, but is
now absent; or the object is absent in the future, in the sense
that it is striven after or desired in a hopeless effort.29 As is true
of any passion, tristitia or sorrow is psychosomatic: it is a
change in the sensitive soul with bodily repercussions. Concerning the physical effect, Thomas writes that of all the
passions, sorrow most strongly counters the vital movement of a
person30 and can paralyze external bodily movements.31 It can
also affect the ability to carry out intellectual work.32
The effects of tristitia on the soul are metaphorically
described: there is heaviness (aggravatio), the soul is confined
(angustiatus) and constricted or contracted (constrictio), and the
sorrow consumes a person completely (absorbare).33 There is
fatigue or weariness.34 In some extreme cases sorrow can deprive a person of the use of reason and lead to melancholy and
mania (melancholia et mania).35
If we link this short analysis of sorrow to what was said in
part I, we can understand how intensive intellectual activity can
“accidentally” cause sorrow. Its dependence upon the sensible
organs36 as well as its origin in sense knowledge are the cause of
impediments and limitations.37 For example, the contemplation
of God can be experienced as a bonum absens in the future,
27

STh I-II, q. 35, a. 3, ad 1. Tristitia is “de praesentia contrarii” or about a “malum
conjunctum” (STh I-II, q. 36, a. 1).
28
STh I-II, q. 36, a. 1; q. 35, a. 3, ad 1; q. 37, a. 4, ad 3.
29
STh I-II, q. 35, a. 2, ad 2; q. 36, a. 2, corp. and ad 2 and ad 3.
30
STh I-II, q. 37, a. 4.
31
STh I-II, q. 37, a. 2.
32
STh I-II, q. 37, a. 1, ad 3 and ad 2; q. 37, a. 4, ad 3. See also STh I-II, q. 38, a. 4,
ad 1.
33
STh I-II, q. 37, a. 2, corp. and ad 2 and ad 3.
34
STh I-II, q. 38, a. 1.
35
STh I-II, q. 37, a. 4, ad 3.
36
STh I-II, q. 35, a. 5.
37
STh I-II, q. 36, a. 2; “‘He that addeth knowledge, addeth sorrow,’ either on
account of the difficulty and disappointment in the search for truth” (STh I-II, q. 38,
a. 4, ad 1); IV Sent., d. 49, q. 3, a. 2, ad 2.

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

253

something which one would like to reach, but cannot attain
now. This frustration of one’s natural desire leads to a loss of
hope of ever reaching the desired object and causes tristitia or
sorrow.38
B) Delectatio
The soul (or mind), as was said above, needs to rest after
intense intellectual work in order to recover its strength and
inner balance. Only then will it be able to continue its activity.39
According to Thomas, leisure (otium), play (ludus), or unspecified other activities (alia) can provide the rest needed.40 This
means that the relief of mental sorrow does not have to consist
in another intellectual activity or in pure physical-bodily
delights. There are a whole range of activities that can help to
overcome one’s weariness. We will limit ourselves to play
(ludus) as a possible cure against mental exhaustion (STh II-II,
q. 168).
An analysis of pleasure (delectatio) is crucial to understanding how play can lift sorrow. This point is almost completely overlooked in the secondary literature on the topic of
play.41 Its importance consists in the insight that it is not ludus
as such that is necessary for mental survival, but the experience
of pleasure which is at its center. The human person is a homo
ludens as a homo delectans.
In his treatise on the passions Thomas stresses that pleasure
(delectatio)42 involves the appetitive and the apprehensive
powers of the soul. It comprises three things: bonum delectans,

38

STh I-II, q. 36, a. 2, corp. and ad 2 and ad 3.
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2.
40
See for this list: STh I-II, q. 32, a. 1, ad 3. The text does not indicate if the rest is
physical or mental. “Alia” can be friends, baths, or sleep. See STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, ad 3
and STh I-II, q. 38 on the remedies of tristitia.
41
Casagrande and Vecchio (“Vizi e virtu del gioco”) point to the role of delectatio as
a third factor between play and rest.
42
Laetitia and gaudium are more specific kinds of delectatio. For the difference
between them, see STh I-II, q. 31, a. 3, corp. and ad 3; STh I, q. 20, a. 1. For the
morality of pleasure, see STh I-II, q. 34.
39

254

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

conjunctio delectabilis, and cognitio huius coniunctionis.43
Concerning the appetitive powers44 Thomas writes that what
precedes pleasure are two other passions, amor and desiderium:
the initial congruency (amor) of the subject with an object
judged to be fitting/suitable (conveniens), followed by the desire
(appetitus, desiderium) for the object.45 Delectatio comes about
when the subject actually obtains (conjunctio) this good object
(bonum delectans).46 As such, pleasure is the opposite of tristitia
(sorrow when united with an object judged to be bad or evil
[malum]). It is the coming to rest, the repose of a desire: quies
appetitus and quies in fine.47 Put differently, the attainment
(adeptio/conjunctio) of a suitable and desired object is experienced as a repose for the appetitive power of the soul.
Contrary to sorrow, which causes a metaphorical contraction or
depression, delectation causes an expansion (dilatatio) in the
soul.48 Therefore it can be a remedy against sorrow.49
Just as the appetitive powers take part in pleasure, so do the
apprehensive powers of the soul. Delectatio includes the
awareness of the attainment (perceptio/cognitio huiusmodi
coniunctionis) of a suitable object. As human beings, we not
only experience that we have been united with what we judge
and desire as right for us, but we know that we enjoy something
delightful.50 This awareness is reflexive knowledge (which in the

43

STh I-II, q. 32, a. 2.
Ibid.
45
STh I-II, q. 25, a. 2.
46
“Pleasure, in the emotions of the soul, is likened to natural repose in bodies:
because its object is something suitable and connatural so to speak” (“Quod delectatio se
habet in affectibus animae, sicut quies naturalis in corporibus, est enim in aliquo
convenienti et quasi connaturali” [STh I-II, q. 31, a. 8, ad 2]).
47
See STh I-II, q. 31, a. 1, ad 2; “delectatio est quaedam quies appetitus in bono
convenienti” (STh I-II, q. 38, a. 1); STh I-II, q. 33, a. 1.
48
See STh I-II, q. 33, a. 1, which describes expansion in the apprehensive and
appetitive power. See also STh I-II, q. 37, a. 2.
49
STh I-II, q. 38, a. 1. Thomas agrees with Aristotle that any enjoyment can take
away sorrow if it is intense enough (“omnis delectatio tristitiam mitiget”).
50
STh I-II, q. 33 a. 1; see also q. 31, a. 1; q. 32, a. 1, corp. and ad 1; q. 11, a. 1,
ad 3.
44

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

255

human being is a combination of sensitive and rational
awareness).
This short analysis of sorrow and pleasure allows us not only
to understand play, but also to discuss the seemingly contradictory goals of this activity. We started our discussion of
play according to Thomas by pointing out its beneficial
consequences, that is, its social and individual purpose. Play,
however, is often described as being an end in itself and as such
not serving a further (external) goal.51
A key insight of Thomas in this matter is the distinction
between the playful acts as acts and what is central to them: that
is, the pleasure or enjoyment they provide.52 When Thomas
writes that playful acts are ends in themselves, he does so on the
basis of his understanding that pleasure gives rest to the
appetite. One plays basketball or tennis, goes to the theater, or
tells jokes because one wants to do something enjoyable. And in
these activities one’s desire for pleasure comes to rest.53
Playful acts as such belong to a larger class (species) of acts
that are carried out for their own sake because they are
pleasurable in themselves. Thomas mentions that virtuous
actions, happiness, amusement,54 and contemplation55 are all
pleasurable in themselves and as such are ends in themselves.
51

STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, obj. 3 and corp.; X Nic. Ethic., lect. 9 (Marietti ed.,
2069-70); In Boet. De Hebdom., proe.
52
“Playful actions themselves considered in their species are not directed to an end:
but the pleasure derived from such actions is directed to the recreation and rest of the
soul” (“Ipsae operationes ludi secundum suam speciem non ordinantur ad aliquem
finem: sed delectatio, quae in talibus actibus habetur, ordinatur ad quandam animae
recreationem vel quietem” [STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, ad 3]). Cf. STh II-II, q. 138, a. 1 ad 3:
in play a distinction is made between quies, which is opposed to labor, and the
inordinate delectation which the relaxation brings, but which can be opposed to
eutrapelia.
53
“Delectatio non quaeritur propter aliud, quia est quies in fine” (STh I-II, q. 34,
a. 2, ad 2). Cf. STh I, q. 5, a. 6; and In Boet. De Hebdom., proe: “ludus est delectabilis.”
54
X Nic. Ethic., lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 2069-70). “But those activities are designated
as desirable in themselves, from which nothing further than the activity itself is sought,
inasmuch as they lack nothing to make them worthy of choice” (ibid. [Marietti ed.,
2069]). “He subdivides activities desirable in themselves. He says first that these seem to
be virtuous actions. . . . Second, even agreeable amusements seem to be desirable of
themselves. For it does not seem that men choose these pastimes for any utility, since

256

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

However, to return to what was said earlier, the central
experience of playful acts is pleasure, which is not only the rest
of a desire, but includes also the awareness of the attainment of
the enjoyable object.56 This awareness is present on a sensitive
and rational level. What is proper to rationality is that it can
organize means towards ends; it can “use” something.57 As such
it can relate to the central element in playful activities not only
as a final cause, but as a means towards a further goal, namely,
recovery from mental exhaustion, or social relaxation.58 This is
the formal or motive cause of pleasure.59 Playful activities can
be beneficial precisely in so far as they are a source of
enjoyment.60 Thomas goes even further: enjoyable play needs
occasionally to be used61 as a remedy for mental fatigue
(fatigatio). “Amusement has the aspect of useful good” (IV Nic.
Ethic., lect. 16 [Marietti ed., 851]). When playful acts are directed to an end outside themselves they become instrumental.
Parts I and II have shown that Thomas considers the human
being to be a homo ludens and thereby fully acknowledges that
the human person is a homo delectans, a creature capable of
enjoying itself, in a positive sense. Even when Thomas orders
pleasures hierarchically (bodily, spiritually, etc.) and condemns
certain kinds of enjoyment,62 he always acknowledges that the
possibility to enjoy constitutes an integral and necessary part of
human existence.

people are more often harmed than helped by such activities. In fact, because of
amusements men seem to neglect both their bodies, which are exposed to pains and
dangers, and their possessions by reason of the expenses they incur” (ibid. [Marietti ed.,
2070]).
55
In Boet. De Hebdom., proe. Here Thomas compares contemplation and play: both
activities do not serve a further goal and are enjoyable.
56
STh I-II, q. 32 a. 1, corp. and ad 1.
57
STh I-II, q. 16, a. 2; q. 16, a. 3, ad 1; q. 32, a. 1, ad 1.
58
For “relaxatio” see X Nic. Ethic., lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 2077); STh II-II, q. 168,
a. 2.
59
STh I-II, q. 2, a. 6, ad 3.
60
ScG III, c. 25; See also ScG III, c. 2.
61
“Et ideo necesse est talibus interdum uti, quasi ad quandam animae quietem” (STh
II-II, q. 168, a. 2); cf. X Nic. Ethic., lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 2077).
62
X Nic. Ethic., lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 2039ff.).

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

257

Playful, pleasurable acts are ends in themselves, but can be
used for the individual and social benefit of the rational human
being. The moral judgment will consider precisely the use of
pleasure in these acts and distinguish between a morally good
and morally unacceptable use. A moral virtue will guide and
guarantee that the amusement is morally acceptable.63 Rationality, use, and morality go hand in hand.64 The morality of
play will be treated in the following section.
III. HOMO RIDENS:
MORAL NORMS OF HUMOROUS AND NONHUMOROUS PLAY
So far, we have discussed play in terms of the general
meaning of amusement—verba et facta ludicra vel iocosa.
Although the meaning of ludicrus and iocosus partly overlap,
ludicrus is more closely connected to sports and theater,
whereas iocosus means humorous, full of jest, funny.65 Jocose
words and deeds, in which the enjoyment is obtained by humor,
can be considered to be a subcategory of the more general
category of playful acts. As John Morreall points out, Thomas is
one of the few philosophers who classified humorous words and
deeds as a kind of play.66 The importance of this should not be
underestimated: “Categorizing humor as playful activity goes a
63
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, corp. and ad 3. “But the pleasant depends on agreement
with the appetite, which tends sometimes to that which is discordant from reason.
Consequently not every object of pleasure is good in the moral order which depends on
the order of reason” (“Delectabile autem dicitur secundum appetitum, qui quandoque in
illud tendit quod non est conveniens rationi. Et ideo non omne delectabile est bonum
bonitate morali, quae attenditur secundum rationem” [STh I-II, q. 34, a. 2, ad 1]). On
the morality of pleasure, see STh I-II, q. 34 aa. 1-4.
64
IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 (Marietti ed., 850): “. . . if no aspect of good can be found
in amusement there will be no virtue connected with it”; ibid. (Marietti ed., 851): “But
amusement does have an aspect of good inasmuch as it is useful for human living.”
65
Huizinga (Homo ludens, 35) points out that the Latin language has one word to
cover the whole field of play, namely, ludus. Jocus and jocari mean joking and jesting,
and differ from play in the proper sense. The word ludus has disappeared but jocus
entered the Western languages. Morreall writes that humor in the current sense of
funniness has only been used since the eighteenth century (John Morreall, “Philosophy
of Humor,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [2020]: entry 1).
66
See Morreall, “Philosophy of Humor,” entry 5.

258

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

long way to defending it from many traditional accusations,
such as the charge of hostility.”67
The third part of this article will limit itself to play as verba
et facta iocosa (humorous words [jest, joke, ridicule, etc.] or
deeds [pantomime, mimicry, facial expressions]), because this
will enable us to come to an insight into the moral norms of
play in general.
A) Humorous Play and Rationality
The idea that the human person is a laughing/humorous
animal is not to be found in the Bible and does not belong to
the initial content of imago Dei. Thomas does not take this as a
reason to reject humor a priori or to connect it with the devil or
with original sin, as did some of his predecessors.68 On the
contrary, following Aristotle and Cicero69 he considers the
ability to laugh to be a quality proper to us (proprium accidens)
as rational beings, that is, a quality that does not belong to but
is nevertheless connected to our specific essence.70 We have seen
in part II that our experience of enjoyment in play involves
rational, reflexive awareness. This applies also to humorous
67

John Morreall, “Humor, Philosophy and Education,” Educational Philosophy and
Theory 46 (2014): 125.
68
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, obj. 1-2 and ad 1-2. Predecessors are Tertullian, Basil of
Caesarea, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory the Great. For
all these thinkers see George Minois, Histoire du rire et de la dérision (Paris: Fayard,
2000), 107ff. Minois also points out (ibid., 119ff.) that the Church gradually changed
its attitude about laughter: although originally considered diabolic and related to
original sin, its role in recreation and as a means against evil was eventually recognized.
69
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2. Aristotle’s texts are quoted in II Nic. Ethic., lect. 7; IV Nic.
Ethic., lect. 8; X Nic. Ethic., lect. 6; VIII Polit., lect. 3. See Cicero, De officiis 1.103-14.
For Aristotle and Cicero as a source for Thomas, see Conrad Hyers, The Comic Vision
and the Christian Faith: A Celebration of Life and Laughter (New York: Pilgrim Press,
1981), 12ff.
70
For the definition of proprium accidens see STh I, q. 77, a. 6, ad 3. For the human
person as risibile, see De Ente, c. 7. See also STh I, q. 3, a. 4; q. 3, a. 6; STh I-II, q. 2,
a. 6; De Pot., q. 10, a. 4, ad 7. Risibility is connected to our rational soul, but laughter
as a physical reaction itself may be caused by a bodily condition, for example, gula or
gluttony. Thomas discusses laughter in his treatise on the human emotions; see STh I-II,
q. 38, a. 2, ad 2 and ad 3.

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

259

words and deeds: they are rational acts and the enjoyment they
bring about is of a rational nature. The speaker, performer,
listener, and spectator of humorous words and acts know that
they enjoy something funny, know when a joke is a joke, realize
when humor is good and when it crosses a fine line and
becomes bad humor, which hurts and insults.
Thomas accepts but does not develop the link between
rationality and humor. Nor does he explicitly discuss the
creative aspect of rationality in humor by which the world is not
only observed but understood and interpreted.71 He hints,
nevertheless, at the presence of creative rationality in humor.
For example, when discussing morally bad humor, he states that
a person is capable of turning anything into an object of
humor.72 What is not comical/funny in itself becomes so
through one's perspective. Humor involves a creative disengagement from its object.73
Moreover, Thomas distinguishes (in STh II-II, q. 110, a. 2)
three kinds of lies, and making a joke is one of them
(mendacium iocosum). The intention of the humorous lie is
amusement and not deception and it can therefore never be a
mortal sin.74 The idea that the content of humor does not have
to correspond to reality may suggest some understanding of the
creative rationality at work in humor. And finally, Thomas’s
moral perspective on humor presupposes that humor can
conform or fail to conform to moral norms. This in itself
presupposes creativity.75

71
See Morreall, “Humor and Emotion,” 302-3. The creativity we find in humorous
play may be considered to be a particular instance of the creativity at work in play in
general. See John Morreall, “The Rejection of Humor in Western Thought,” Philosophy
East and West 39 (1989): 253 and 258.
72
IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 (Marietti ed., 852).
73
See Morreall, “The Rejection of Humor.”
74
The intention is “aliqua levis delectatio” (STh II-II, q. 110, a. 4); STh I-II, q. 88,
a. 5, ad 1; STh II-II, q. 110, a 2; “for a ‘jocose’ lie is told to make fun” (“mendiacum
iocosum est quod fit causa ludi” [STh II-II, q. 110, a. 2, obj. 1 and corp.]). See also De
Malo, q. 3, a. 12, arg. 9; q. 7, a. 1.
75
See John Morreall, Taking Laughter Seriously (Albany, N.Y.: State University of
New York Press, 1983), 99. See also Morreall, “Humor and Emotion,” 300.

260

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

B) The Morality of Humorous Play
“Tell me if you laugh, how you laugh, why you laugh, about
whom and what, with whom and against whom, and I will tell
you who you are.” 76
Playful humorous activities are susceptible of moral judgment and guidance because they are rational in nature.77 The
object of moral scrutiny is not the activities themselves, but the
pleasure present in them in so far as it is subjectively determined, desired, obtained, and used.78 That pleasure in play has
its own moral virtue, eutrapelia, means that it is not intrinsically
evil.79 Whereas Aristotle considers this virtue to be mostly
applicable to jokes in words and deeds,80 Thomas (in the text of
STh II-II, q. 168) expands the scope of eutrapelia to play in
general—without, however, making a clear distinction between
play in general and humorous play. In what follows, we will try
to understand what eutrapelia (as the virtue of play in general)
entails, by focusing on different kinds of humorous play (bad
humor, lack of humor, and good humor) and by analyzing two
kinds of bad humorous play (derision and blasphemy).
1. Bad Humor
Thomas never denies that morally bad humor can be a
source of relaxation or provide new mental strength. However,

76
“Dis-moi si tu ris, comment tu ris, pourquoi tu ris, de qui et de quoi, avec qui et
contre qui, et je te dirai qui tu es” (Le Goff, “Une enquête sur le rire,” 449).
77
STh II-II, q. 138, a. 1, ad 3; “dictum est autem quod ludicra sive iocosa verba vel
facta sunt dirigibilia secundum rationem” (STh II-II, q. 168, a. 3). Cf. Huizinga, Homo
ludens, 6, who says that play is outside the antithesis of wisdom and folly, truth and
falsehood.
78
STh I-II, q. 34, a. 2; q. 34, a. 1, ad 2 and ad 3; cf. STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, ad 3.
79
“There can be no corresponding virtue and vice concerned with what is
intrinsically evil and incapable of having an aspect of good. Consequently, if no aspect
of good can be found in amusement there will be no virtue connected with it” (IV Nic.
Ethic., lect. 16 [Marietti ed., 850]). Cf. STh I-II, q. 60, a. 5, obj. 4 and s.c.; II Nic.
Ethic., lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 353); II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 5, ad 8.
80
See Aristotle, Nic. Ethic. 4.8; and Thomas, IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16.

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

261

in his moral perspective, he characterizes it as excess81 and
distinguishes between different kinds of excess. A first kind concerns the topic of humor:82 pleasure is obtained by what is
morally shameful or hurtful (in aliquibus operationibus vel
verbis turpibus vel nocivis). The humorous words and deeds are
“discourteous, insolent, scandalous or obscene” (illiberale,
petulans, flagitiosum, obscoenum).83 Indecent objects or topics
produce a low kind of humorous enjoyment, whose content
expresses an attitude84 of exaggerated interest in the earthly, the
bodily,85 and therefore also a neglect of the divine. Thomas remarks that the morally deficient quality of acts or words are not
diminished by a humorous framework. Humor does not neutralize immorality; on the contrary, the humorous words and
deeds become obscene or shameful. For example, humor about
fornication does not reduce the grave sinfulness of this deed.86
A second case of excess occurs when the circumstances of the
humorous playful activities are not taken into account, such as
the position and rank of people who are the object of humor, or
time and place (for example, laughing when one should be
serious).87 This kind of excess shows the necessity of what
Aristotle calls “tact.”88 The reflexive rationality present in
humorous play should assess the amusement in the larger
context in which it takes place. Enjoyment is not an isolated
experience of an individual person. We should not make jokes
about overweight people when there are overweight people in
the audience—unless we are making jokes about ourselves.89

81

STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2; q. 168, a. 3.
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2.
83
Here Thomas quotes Cicero, De offic. 1.29.
84
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 1; q. 168, a. 3, ad 3 on the use of “illicitis verbis et factis.”
85
STh II-II, q. 153, a. 5, ad 4.
86
See STh II-II, q. 168, a. 3, ad 1.
87
“Sicut et in omnibus aliis humanis actionibus, ut congruat personae, tempori et
loco” (STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2). See also ibid., ad 1; q. 168, a. 3.
88
For tact (tactful, epidexios) see IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 (Marietti ed., 857, 863).
89
Ibid. (Marietti ed., 861): “It is indeterminate what may offend or please the
listener, because different things are odious or pleasant to different people.”
82

262

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

A third kind of excess occurs when the amusement is “out of
control,” in the sense that it becomes a goal in itself.90 In this
case of misuse of play (inordinate uti ludis) one is overly
interested in the pleasure it brings. Some are even willing to
disobey the commandments of God for the sake of play.91
Thomas does not deny that the experience of enjoyment is
central to play, but he is also concerned with the way in which
people relate to this experience, the way they desire it. Their
search for pleasure can become a primary goal, overriding the
beneficial use of play for mental rest and social interaction.92
Thomas considers laughter to be the physical expression of
enjoyment obtained by humorous play.93 He judges that it is not
morally wrong to burst easily into laughter (facilis or promptus
in risu)94 and notices that merriness is naturally augmented by
laughter.95 In some cases excessive or superfluous laughter will
therefore only be a venial sin.96 However, when discussing this
topic in the context of humilitas and its opposite, superbia, he
makes it clear that laughter can be disturbing for the laughing
person as well as for that person’s social surroundings, because
uncontrolled laughter can cause one to lose inner harmony and
self-mastery. When not tempered, the danger even exists of
losing one’s mental dignity altogether (ne totaliter gravitas

90

STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, ad 2; q. 168, a. 3.
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 3. Cf. q. 75, a. 5.
92
See Thomas’s discussion of happiness in STh I-II, q. 2, a. 6. He distinguishes
between the final and the formal cause of pleasure.
93
Thomas does not discuss the point that not every experience of humor (active or
passive) needs to express itself in laughter; and that not all laughter is occasioned by
humor. For an overview of the different words for laughter, see Michel-Marie Dufeil,
“Risus in Theologia Sancti Thome,” Le rire au moyen âge dans la literature et dans les
arts, Actes du colloque international 17-19 Novembre 1988, ed. T. Bouche and
H. Charpentier (1990): 147-63.
94
The idea of uncontrollable laughter is expressed in different ways: Thomas
mentions “senseless mirth” (“inepta laetitia”) (STh II-II, q. 168, a. 3, ad 2) or “easily
moved and disposed to laughter” (“facilis aut promptus in risu”) (STh II-II, q. 162, a. 4,
ad 4).
95
STh I-II, q. 38, a. 2, ad 2.
96
For risus superfluus as a venial sin, see STh I-II, q. 88, a. 2; see also II Sent., d. 42,
q. 1, a. 4.
91

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

263

animae resolvatur).97 In a social context it can lead to a situation
where it is impossible to control a group of people, which is
apparently the reason why monastic rules condemned excessive
laughter.98
2. Lack of Humor
Eutrapelia should moderate not only excess, but also lack of
enjoyment, which consists in the absence of any intention to be
amusing and a refusal to share in the fun of others.99 People
who are without humor are called duri et agrestes: harsh and
boorish/uncultured. Such serious people are burdensome to
others because they are neither a source of enjoyment for their
fellows, nor do they respond to their merriness.100 Using a line
from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics about friendship, Thomas
compares friends, sweetness, and salt. All three are necessary: a
few friends are necessary for the sake of pleasure, just as a little
bit of sweetness suffices to season life and a little salt suffices for
seasoning meat.101 Although considered to be a vice,102 the lack
of playful fun is less severe than its excess103 because it is close
to eutrapelia, which is a virtue of moderation.
The way in which Thomas discusses the lack of humor
emphasizes again that enjoyment is part of the human being as a
rational creature, and especially as a social creature. Enjoying
oneself by play is not only permitted, it is important and

97

STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2. Resolvere here means to untie, to loosen, relax, free.
See Jean Verdon, Rire au moyen âge (Paris: Perrin, 2001); J. Le Goff, “Le rire dans
les règles monastiques,” in Haut moyen-âge: Culture, éducation et société, etudes
offertes a Pierre Riche, ed. Michel Sot (Nanterre: Publidix, 1990), 92-103.
99
For the difference between excess and lack see II Nic. Ethic., lect. 9; IV Nic.
Ethic., lect. 16.
100
“Puta dum nihil delectabile exhibit et etiam aliorum delectationis impedit” (STh
II-II, q. 168, a. 4).
101
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 4, quoting Aristotle, Nic. Ethic. 9.10.
102
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 4.
103
Ibid., ad 3.
98

264

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

necessary. Social interaction needs to include playful interaction, whether humorous or not.104
The above discussion of bad humor and of lack of humor has
given us a first idea of what eutrapelia stands for. These insights
will now be completed by a discussion of derision and
humorous blasphemy, which will show that eutrapelia
guarantees more than keeping the mean between excess and
lack of playful enjoyment; it concerns also right intention and
social respect.
3. Derisio
Anything can in principle become the object of humor:105
lower forms of life (animals), other persons, and even God. The
human being is the only creature that can adopt a humorous
perspective on situations and other beings.106 Whereas lower
forms of life will not be affected by humor (although they could
be affected physically by acts), other people can effectively be
hurt by humorous words and deeds.107 Play in the sense of
humorous verbal or nonverbal social interaction may even be
most damaging and distressing.
One can engage humorously with another person by
imitation or by verbal teasing. As long as the goal of this kind of
humorous play is to please and to relax, it will be enjoyed. A
fine line is crossed, however, when the humorous interaction
turns into mockery (derisio). Because words and deeds are signs
of one’s internal disposition,108 they become hurtful (nocivus)
when nourished by a negative emotion, such as contempt,
hatred, or jealousy. The other person blushes with shame, fearful of the damage done to his or her social status and repute-

104

Cole, A Sense of Humour and Virtue, 82. Cole points out that playfulness as
humor is something we owe to others because we belong to society, we are social
creatures. It is not a debt strictly speaking, but belongs to affability.
105
IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 (Marietti ed., 852).
106
See IV Nic.Ethic., lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 353).
107
STh II-II, q. 75, a. 2; q. 168, a. 1, ad 3.
108
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 1, ad 3.

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

265

tion.109 The essential social function of enjoyable humorous
interaction disappears: instead of uniting people, humor
becomes a source of discord. Jokes of this kind are deadly
sins.110
Derision shows the human person to be humorous knowingly, willingly, and emotionally. Responsible self-reflection is
crucial, and as rational creatures we should know at any point
which emotions motivate our humorous play. We have to
temper “evil” emotions and be motivated by the intention to
entertain, to make it pleasant to be together.111
As is often the case in his writings, Thomas shows a subtle
awareness of the complexity of human interaction and warns us
to be careful when judging another person’s intentions. The
possibility exists of accidentally hurting somebody by unwillingly and even unconsciously expressing negative feelings in
words and deeds. If the primary intention of the joke is to
engage in fun or to please, the sinfulness of the humorous
words has to be reconsidered.112
The possibility that humorous words and deeds become
mockery brings our attention to the fact that the virtue of
eutrapelia includes more than keeping the mean between excess
and lack. As noted above, this virtue concerns not only the
individual person, because humorous enjoyment in play needs
to consider the circumstances in which humorous deeds and
words are done and said. Even when engaging in humorous play
for mental rest, we still must do so in a socially correct manner.
109

For derision and shame, see IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 (Marietti ed., 864).
STh II-II, q. 75, a. 2.
111
For discussions of the relationship between humor/laughter and the emotions, see
Moreall, Taking Laughter Seriously; idem, “Humor and Emotion”; Henry Bergson,
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (New York: Macmillan, 1911). Some
aspects of the relationship between emotions and humor are not discussed by Thomas,
for example, neutralizing emotions by humor. Somebody can tell a joke in a situation of
fear in order to block his or her feelings. A discussion of the fact that humorous words
and deeds need a public which is emotionally prepared is also absent. Thomas does,
however, mention how emotions can be wrongly expressed in humor and laughter—for
example, when one laughs at the wrong time and place (STh I-II, q. 38, a. 2, ad 3).
112
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 3; IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 (Marietti ed., 860); STh II-II, q. 72,
a. 2, corp. and ad 1.
110

266

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

Eutrapelia is also a virtue of social interaction, which requires
the right disposition towards other persons present and a
responsible reflection on the motives behind one’s words and
deeds. It is based on a universal and egalitarian concept of
respect.113
We can refer here to the distinction Thomas makes between
serious and playful social interaction.114 Serious interaction
should be guided by the virtue of friendliness (amicitia or
affabilitas), which guarantees that words and deeds directed
towards another person are pleasant and becoming, and truthfulness (veritas), which assures that one’s outward movements
express an upright inner condition. We should show ourselves
in word and deed as we are inwardly.115 Although playful
interactions have their own virtue they are and remain a kind of
social interaction. Therefore eutrapelia cannot be detached from
the virtues which apply to serious social interaction.116 Playful
humorous interaction which is aimed to bring rest for the
individual person and cohesion in a group of people should be
carried out by an upright mind which intends to be friendly
with others, and truthful with itself and with the other persons
(i.e., clear about one’s motivations).117 The moral norm for
113

See STh II-II, q. 75, a. 1, ad 2. For studies on “respect,” see Roberto Mordacci,
Rispetto (Milan: Cortina, 2012), in particular 67-69 (on the middle ages): he
distinguishes between an egalitarian-horizontal concept and a hierarchical-vertical
concept; C. Casagrande, “Entre justice et humilité: Les vertus du respect chez Thomas
d’Aquin,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 101, no. 2 (“Religion,
respect, blasphème: Actes de la journée thomiste du 2 décembre 2016”) (2017): 219-37.
114
STh I-II, q. 60, a. 5.
115
Ibid.; STh II-II, q. 168, a. 1, ad 3; q. 111, a. 1; q. 109, a. 3 ad 1. See also
K. White, “The Virtues of Man the Animal Sociale: Affabilitas and Veritas in Aquinas,”
The Thomist 57 (1993): 641-53.
116
STh II-II, q. 168 a. 1, ad 3. Moderatio (which belongs to the virtue of temperance)
concerns four topics, and one of them “regards bodily movements and actions which
require to be done becomingly and honestly, whether we act seriously or in play”
(“quod pertinent ad corporales motus et actiones, ut scilicet decenter et honeste fiant,
tam in his quae serio, quam in his quae ludo aguntur” [STh II-II, q. 160, a. 2]). Thomas
makes the connection between playful words and deeds and the virtues of affabilitas and
veritas in STh II-II, q. 168, a. 1, ad 3. For this point see also Casagrande and Vecchio,
“Vizi e virtu del gioco,” 21-36.
117
See also III Sent., d. 34, q. 1, a. 2; IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 (Marietti ed., 856).

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

267

amusement not only stands for moderation but includes social
awareness, responsibility, and respect. As such can eutrapelia
help to create, enhance, and sustain social relationships, and
promote ethical life.
4. Blasphemy
Words and deeds which make God their target of fun belong
to the category of blasphemy. Blasphemy is not always humorous, but whenever the human person makes fun of God,
this is blasphemy.118 This specific kind of humorous play with
words and deeds is rejected by Thomas119 because it either
denies what is befitting to God, or affirms what is unbefitting to
him.120 Thomas distinguishes intellectual blasphemy from the
much worse affective blasphemy,121 which is accompanied by
contempt for God.122 Further, blasphemy can be present in
one’s heart (in corde [cordis blasphemia]) or be pronounced
aloud (per locutionem [oris blasphemia]), and as such is opposed
to confessio fidei.123 Offensive verbal humor about God belongs
to this last category. Blasphemy is a very grave sin124 because it
“derogates God’s goodness” (derogat divinae bonitati), and fails
to give him the honor due to him. As an act against faith and
charity (dilectio Dei)125 it is an upheaval of the metaphysical
hierarchy, a profanation of the sacred.126 It is far worse than any
118

The general context for the discussion of blasphemy is the discussion of the vices
against confessio fidei (STh II-II, qq. 13ff).
119
STh II-II, q. 75, a. 2.
120
STh II-II, q. 13, a. 1, corp. and ad 3; “quaedam autem est blasphemia, quae est
impositio alicuius falsi in Deum, vel ei subtrahendo quod inest, vel attribuendo quod
non inest” (IV Sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 5, exp.).
121
STh II-II, q. 13, a. 1.
122
Ibid.; see also IV Sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 3, qcla. 3.
123
STh II-II, q. 13, a. 1; blasphemy can be “in ore et in corde et in opere” (STh II-II,
q. 14, a. 1, ad 1).
124
STh II-II, q. 75, a. 2.
125
Thomas uses the word derogatio (disparagement): STh II-II, q. 13, a. 2; De Malo,
q. 7, a. 1.
126
For the order-disturbing character of sin, see STh I-II, q. 87, a. 5. See STh I-II,
q. 88, a. 2, on “risus superfluus” as a venial sin.

268

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

injury done to another human being, because of both its object
(God) and its intention.127
The above seems to suggest that Thomas agrees with
Ambrose on the fundamental opposition between the humorous
and the sacred.128 However, he is aware of cases in which one is
suddenly overcome by a passion and uses blasphemous words.
In this case there is no actual sinful blasphemy.129 In addition,
he writes that Ambrose may reject humor about the sacred, but
does not completely ban humor from human interaction (a
conversatione humana).130 Thomas clearly shows respect for the
authority of Ambrose without giving up his own convictions
about the need for humor.
Blasphemous humor, as expressed in deeds and words, helps
us to understand another aspect of eutrapelia. It is proper to
humorous play to create a distance by changing one’s
perspective towards its object. However, this should never be
done by undermining existing hierarchies (ordines).131 In the
case of blasphemy this is a metaphysical hierarchy, but the
insight applies also to social hierarchies. Thomas combines in
eutrapelia a demand for universal (horizontal) respect for every
other human being with a demand for consideration (or
“vertical respect”) of existing hierarchies.132

127

See STh II-II, q. 13, a. 3, ad 1. In terms of the actual injury done, however,
homicide is clearly worse than blasphemy.
128
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, obj. 1.
129
STh II-II, q. 13, a. 2, ad 3.
130
“Ambrosius non excludit universaliter iocum a conversatione humana, sed a
doctrina sacra” (STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, ad 1).
131
STh I-II, q. 87, a. 5; and q. 88, a. 2 on the difference between mortal and venial
sins, and sin as inordinateness or disorder.
132
See Robert Mordacci, “A Short History and Theory of Respect,” International
Philosophical Quarterly 59 (2019): 121-36.

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

269

5. Good Jokes
From the above we may infer what the correct use of
humorous amusement entails: it is guided by eutrapelia133
(“wittiness” or “happy turn of mind”)134 which guarantees that
the mean between two vices is maintained: on the one hand
excess, on the other hand lack of enjoyment.135 It does not
intend to suppress enjoyment as such, but only the delectationes
superfluae et inordinatae.136 Eutrapelia will express itself in the
cautious choice of the object of humorous amusement; it will
take the circumstances of the situation into account, and will
not make the enjoyment a goal in itself. The humorous person
will not be influenced by negative emotions and show respect
for his fellow players and for given hierarchies.137 The above
can be extended to play in general.
The human being is a homo ludens, capable of, and in need
of, playful amusement. Such acts are searched after and
beneficial for a person’s own mental health, but their individual
purpose cannot be separated from their social purpose. Renewal
of personal mental strength and social cohesion are
intertwined,138 and eutrapelia, likewise, is both an individual
and a social virtue.
133

For the difference between temperance and modesty, and the relationship of the
latter to eutrapelia, see STh II-II, q. 160, aa. 1-2; STh I-II, q. 60, a. 5; II Sent., d. 44,
q. 2, a. 1, ad 3; III Sent., d. 33, q. 2, a. 1, qcla. 1; d. 33, q. 3, a. 2, qcla. 1, ad 3.
134
Thomas also uses the word “iucunditas”: STh II-II, q. 168, a. 4, ad 3; q. 168, a. 2,
s.c.
135
II Nic. Ethic., lect. 9 (Marietti ed., 353); IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 (Marietti ed.,
850).
136
STh I-II, q. 168, a. 4, ad 3; STh II-II, q. 138, a. 1, ad 3.
137
In this balanced context, it is not surprising that Thomas can accept the histriones,
whose task consists in causing fun and laughter. If they use humorous play in a
moderate way—without insulting anybody, without using low humor, without
exaggeration—there is no problem in hiring them and enjoying their humor. See STh
II-II, q.168, a. 3, ad 3. This view of Thomas is exceptional according to the French
historian Jacques Le Goff, in a world where the guardians of order are hostile towards
the disorder created by laughter. See Le Goff, “Une enquête sur le rire,” 454.
138
For the different kinds of enjoyment and the use of enjoyment, see STh II-II,
q. 168, a. 3, ad 3; and IV Sent., d. 16, q. 4, a. 2, qcla. 1. The connection between
eutrapelia and other social virtues is expressed in another way (IV Nic. Ethic., lect. 16

270

ELISABETH UFFENHEIMER

The acceptance of Aristotle’s eutrapelia by Thomas means
not only that there is a virtue pertaining to enjoyable play, but
that enjoyment (in humorous or other playful activities) even
belongs to being virtuous.139 The wise and virtuous (sapiens et
virtuosus) person will use (uti) play well140 and will not refuse to
participate in enjoyable amusement. The behavior of the
virtuous person will reflect the right attitude toward play,
enjoyment, and humor.141 However, more is at stake than the
temperate use of pleasurable play. The more one grows in
virtue, the less one needs ordinary play for relaxation.
Ultimately all the actions of the virtuous person will be
pleasurable in a deep, fulfilling sense (STh I-II, q. 34, a. 4: “est
enim bonum et virtuosus qui gaudet in operibus virtutum”). He
can be said to be a homo ludens (taking “play” in a broad
sense), delectans, and even ridens in whatever he does.142
Most of us will never reach the ideal state of mind of the
virtuous person (perhaps none of us will), but we can
nevertheless be certain that we are permitted to play, enjoy, and
laugh. According to Thomas playful pleasure is necessary for
human life and for life to be human. Thomas’s insights were
[Marietti ed., 857, 858, 863, 865]), when Thomas mentions eutrapelia and tact in one
breath. Eutrapelia is here explicitly connected to social awareness and sensitivity.
139
On this point see John Lippit, “Is a Sense of Humor a Virtue?”, The Monist 88
(2005): 72-92; Robert C. Roberts, “Humor and the Virtues,” Inquiry 31 (1988):
127-49.
140
STh II-II, q. 168, a. 2, s.c. “According, it belongs to the wise man to share his
pleasures with those among whom he dwells, not lustful pleasures, which virtue shuns,
but honest pleasures, according to Psalm 132:1, ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it
is for brethren to dwell together in unity” (STh II-II, q. 114, a. 1, ad 3). See also STh
I-II, q. 34, a. 1, corp. and ad 2; q. 34, a. 4.
141
Cf. STh I, q. 98, a. 2, ad 3: discussing sexual pleasure, Thomas writes that “By
‘immoderately’ I mean going beyond the bounds of reason, as a sober person does not
take less pleasure in food taken in moderation than the glutton, but his concupiscence
lingers less in such pleasures. This is what Augustine means by the words quoted, which
do not exclude intensity of pleasure from the state of innocence, but ardor of desire and
restlessness of the mind.”
142
See Cole, A Sense of Humour and Virtue, 72. See also the very interesting analysis
of Adorno’s Minima Moralia, 2:84 by Robert Miner, “Human Joy and the Subversion of
Work/Play Distinctions: A Note on Adorno’s Minima Moralia 2:84,” Telos 191 (2020):
163-68.

THE MORAL LIMITS OF PLAYFUL ENJOYMENT

271

rather unusual in his own time. It has been written that it was
Thomas who again gave “honest laughter” its rightful place.143
And, we would like to add, also honest play.
CONCLUSION
According to Thomas the human being is a homo ludens, a
homo delectans, and a homo ridens—a creature with a sense of
humor. Play, enjoyment, and humor are important in our
personal and social life, and are not primarily to be considered
something unruly and disordered that needs to be disciplined.
In contrast to modern philosophical discussions about play and
humor which have focused on the essence of the comical,
Thomas’s approach is a moral one. This makes his insights
highly relevant for dealing philosophically with the new ways of
communication and play which have developed in recent years.
Thomas’s insights about the purpose of play, about the subtle
presence of passions and intentions behind one’s acts and
words, his reflections about the limits of humorous amusement,
and about the moral responsibility we have for our playful
enjoyment—all these show once more the relevance of his
thought.144

143

Jeannine Horowitz and Sophia Menache, L’humour en chaire: Le rire dans l’église
médiévale (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1994), 35. See also C. Casagrande, “Affabilità,
verità, eutrapelia: Le virtù della communicatio in alcuni commenti all’Etica nicomachea
dei secoli XIII e XIV,” Philosophical Readings 12 (2020): 142; Le Goff, “Une enquête
sur le rire,” 454.
144
I would like to thank Dolores Steinberg for her invaluable assistance in editing
this article.

The Thomist 86 (2022): 273-97

MOVED BY THE SPIRIT:
PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS
IN AQUINAS
MONICA MARCELLI-CHU
Regis College, University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

W

HAT IS HIGHEST is grasped according to what is
lowest.1 It is fitting, St. Thomas Aquinas affirms, that
Scripture teaches spiritual matters by comparison to
what is bodily, for the human person “comes to what is
intelligible by means of those things that are sensible.”2 What is
“more removed from God” is a means by which we come to
know God, and so draw nearer to God: “for it is clearer to us
what is not of God, than what is.”3 Following this principle, I
present the movement of the Holy Spirit in the gifts according
to an analogical patterning on the movement of the passions,
which ground an understanding of receptivity in human agency.
This consideration of passion-movement discloses a mode of
activity that emphasizes external agency, and specifies the divine
wisdom that undergirds both natural and spiritual instinct.
In an essay on the gifts, re-visioning them as being at the center of Thomistic morality, Servais Pinckaers describes instinctus
1

STh I, q. 1, a. 9. All citations of Aquinas refer to the Opera omnia project (Lander,
Wyo.: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine). Translations are my
own.
2
Ibid. For Aquinas’s approach to material metaphors in Scripture, see Frederick
Christian Bauerschmidt, Thomas Aquinas: Faith, Reason, and Following Christ (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013), 63-68.
3
STh I, q. 1, a. 9, ad 3. See also Jean Pierre-Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2,
Spiritual Master, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2003), 40-45.
273

274

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

as needing “to undergo a major transformation” from its use in
the broader animal world for use in relation to the Spirit.4 He
also notes that spiritual spontaneity is “very different, in its
relationship to freedom, from the spontaneity of the senses or
of external nature”; and of the instinct of the Holy Spirit he
says, “there is obviously nothing blind about such an instinct.”5
The question is thus raised about the relationship between
natural and spiritual instinct: can a so-called “blind” instinct of
nature be analogically appropriated to spiritual movement? In
order to specify this relationship, I investigate passionmovement and its underlying receptivity as the paradigm for
being moved by the Spirit in the gifts.
This approach considers human activity in terms of movements that reflect the intellectual nature of the human person,
even if they are not “properly speaking” rational. “Properly
speaking” is a phrase Aquinas often uses to differentiate
properties that belong essentially to the nature of a thing or
power from those that belong in an extended or accidental
sense. In reading Aquinas on human action and virtue, it may be
tempting to rely on the former, namely, the essential attributes
indicated in a definition.6 Such an approach, however, limits
Aquinas’s thought to the realm of the “proper,” leaving aside all
other elements as questionable or conjectural.7 Strictly limiting
4
Servais Pinckaers, “Morality and the Movement of the Holy Spirit: Aquinas’s
Doctrine of Instinctus,” in The Pinckaers Reader, trans. Craig Steven Titus, ed. John
Berkman and Craig Steven Titus (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2005), 389.
5
Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Mary Thomas Noble
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 358.
6
See, for example, Andrew Pinsent, The Second-Person Perspective in Aquinas’s
Ethics: Virtues and Gifts (New York: Routledge, 2012), 13-14. Following Eleonore
Stump, he points to Aquinas’s definition of virtue in STh I-II, q. 55, a. 4 as confirmation
of the “falsity” of the acquired virtues. See Eleonore Stump, “The Non-Aristotelian
Character of Aquinas’s Ethics: Aquinas on the Passions,” Faith and Philosophy 28
(2011): 29-43. Aquinas, however, at STh II-II, q. 23, a. 7, affirms that if the particular
good being pursued in the acquired virtues is a true good (verum bonum), then it is true
but imperfect virtue (vera virtu, sed imperfecta); thus, “simply true virtue is not possible
without charity” (emphasis added).
7
In his study of judgment by inclination, Rafael-Tomas Caldera describes how
“judgment by science or demonstration” was assumed to comprise the whole meaning of

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

275

the meaning of a term in this way is inconsistent with Aquinas’s
multivalent use of terms, as well as the limits of particular terms
themselves which, in their own limited fashion, signal realities
that a term does not (and cannot) fully encapsulate.8 The movement toward precision in understanding the meaning of a term
is then also a movement toward grasping its limits.9 In grasping
the limits of a term for understanding a reality, the reader
grasps the divine mystery and agency that surpasses her
reasoned grasp, even as it governs and moves her seeking.
The term “human action,” properly speaking, refers to the
movement of will under reason’s deliberation of the end and of
means to the end; hence the definition of will as “rational
appetite.”10 “Passion,” on the other hand, refers to an appetitive
movement as “the effect of the agent on the patient,” or as the
result of “being drawn to the agent,” namely, the experience of
being moved by an agent-object, especially when it involves
bodily change; hence passion “properly speaking” belongs to
the sensitive appetite.11 While the term “human action” primarily describes the person as a self-mover and bears a direct
relation to reason, the term “passion,” as a movement of the
sensitive appetite, primarily describes the person as one who is
judgment: Rafael-Tomas Caldera, Le jugement par inclination chez saint Thomas
d’Aquin (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1980), 54-58. All translations of Caldera
are mine. See also Gilles Mongeau, “Mystery on the Move: Aquinas’s Theological
Method as Transforming Wisdom,” The Thomist 80 (2016): 285-300 (especially
289-92).
8
On the distinction between the “manner of signifying” (modus significandi), which
is diverse, and the “thing signified” (res significata), see David B. Burrell, Aquinas: God
and Action, 3rd ed., ed. Mary Budde Ragan (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2016), 10.
9
See Gilles Mongeau, Embracing Wisdom: The Summa theologiae as Spiritual
Pedagogy (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2015), 87-88: “Thomas
always seeks to determine the limits, to achieve greater precision. . . . This is not a
Promethean quest to contain revelation within a system but to constantly push human
thinking forward.” Notably, precision is ordered toward “the proper shaping of the
person by the mystery under investigation”; in other words, the understanding granted
by precision is ordered toward the formation of the person seeking to know God, which
always requires further discovery.
10
STh I-II, q. 1, aa. 1 and 2; q. 8, a. 2.
11
STh I-II, q. 26, a. 2: “passio est effectus agentis in patiente”; q. 22, a. 1: “nam pati
dicitur ex eo quod aliquid trahitur ad agentem.”

276

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

moved, and is considered a movement that is below reason.12 At
the same time, Aquinas uses the term “passion” to describe
human action; an extended meaning of the term “passion” is
needed to understand the fullness of the reality he calls “human
action.”13
The emphasis in Aquinas’s treatment of the virtues is on the
person as source of her actions; it deals with the acts that proceed from the powers of the human soul as informed by the
virtuous habits, whether acquired or infused.14 The gifts, on the
other hand, correspond to those acts that the person cannot
generate according to reason’s direction, even as informed by
the infused virtues.15 Thus, understanding the movement of the
gifts requires an attentiveness to the receptivity that underlies
human agency, and that is realized in concrete, intentional
movements wherein the person is drawn toward objects that
12

STh I, q. 80, a. 2; q. 81, a. 3.
STh I-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 1.
14
STh I-II, q. 55, a. 1.
15
Traditionally, interpreters of Aquinas have held a basic distinction between the
infused virtues and gifts, namely, that the gifts involve a higher mode of action. This is
said to be the case even by those who recognize a development in Aquinas’s thought on
the point. In the Sent., Aquinas uses the language of a “superhuman mode” to describe
the gifts in contrast to the “human mode” of the virtues (see III Sent., d. 34, qq. 1 and
2), whereas in his later treatments he uses motio and instinctus in describing the gifts
(see STh I-II, q. 68, a. 1, corp. and ad 4). The notion of a superior mode of operation in
the gifts does, however, remain (STh I-II, q. 68, a. 2, corp. and ad 1 and 2). As Edward
O’Connor describes it, “the two expositions are fundamentally compatible,” understanding the “superhuman mode” of the Sent. as specified as instinctus spiritus sancti in
the STh (Edward D. O’Connor, “Appendix 4: The Evolution of St. Thomas’s Thought
on the Gifts,” in Summa theologiae, vol. 24, The Gifts of the Spirit (1a2ae. 68-70)
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974], 118-19, 122-23). For further
discussion on this development, see Ulrich Horst, Die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes nach
Thomas von Aquin (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001); James W. Stroud, Thomas Aquinas’
Exposition of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Developments in His Thought and Rival
Interpretations (PhD diss., The Catholic University of America, 2012); Bernhard
Blankenhorn, The Mystery of Union with God (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2015), 270-73. In Marie-Michel Labourdette’s overview of the
history of interpretation, he follows Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange in asserting that the
two treatments are essentially the same: M.-Michel Labourdette, “Dons du Saint-Esprit:
Saint Thomas et la théologie thomiste,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, vol. 3 (Paris:
Dabert-Duvergier Beauchesne, 1957), 1617-18.
13

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

277

move her. While the virtues perfect the person to desire what is
actually good according to the light of reason, the gifts make
the person “readily movable by divine inspiration,” wherein the
person is moved beyond reason’s ability, and such movements
especially correspond to passion-movement.16
In this article, I first treat passion-movement of the sensitive
appetite “properly speaking,” and its extended meaning in the
will, highlighting how receptivity spans appetitive movement.
Second, I consider how passion-movement specifies the receptivity inherent in human action. This is seen especially in the
understanding of intention as that which proceeds toward the
end (as terminus), grounded by the passion and affection of
amor. In light of this significance of amor, in the third section I
turn to the gift of wisdom and Aquinas’s invocation of
connaturality with the divine. By comparing connaturality on
the levels of nature and supernature, I argue that passionmovement provides the matter for analogical appropriation
from natural to spiritual movement, thereby specifying the
transformation of the term instinctus. Finally, in the fourth
section, I compare natural instinct and the passions of the
sensitive appetite to the way in which the person is moved by
the Spirit. By emphasizing the agency of the Holy Spirit and the
fullness of human freedom in the gifts, a paradigm of receptivity
for human action, or action in the mode of passion, is revealed
in the gifts.
I. PASSION-MOVEMENT AND RECEPTIVITY
As Aquinas describes it, the term “passion” (passio) denotes
“undergoing” (pati), which Robert Miner articulates as “being
acted upon.”17 More particularly, pati is “properly” used “when
something is received while something else is taken away.”18
16

STh I-II, q. 68, a. 1: “homo disponitur ut efficiatur prompte mobilis ab
inspiratione divina.”
17
STh I-II, q. 22, a. 1; Robert C. Miner, Aquinas on the Passions: A Study of Summa
theologiae, Ia2ae 22-48 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 32.
18
STh I-II, q. 22, a. 1: “Alio modo dicitur pati proprie, quando aliquid recipitur cum
alterius abiectione.”

278

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

The passions of the soul “properly said” involve bodily change,
and when the change “is for the worse,” as in sorrow, then “it
has more properly the ratio of a passion.”19 “Properly
speaking,” passion belongs to the form and matter composite,
occurring in the soul only accidentally, namely, according to its
union with the body.20 Notably, however, Aquinas affirms that
“pati insofar as it solely indicates reception, need not be in
matter, but can be in anything that potentially exists.”21 So it is
that the soul “has something of potentiality, according as it
belongs to it to receive [recipere] and to undergo [pati].”22 In
this way, the soul’s act of understanding, which is not the act of
a bodily organ, is considered to be something “undergone.”23
Aquinas also notes that “to undergo” indicates external
agency: “a thing is said to undergo from its being drawn to the
agent.”24 This makes passion “properly speaking” appetitive
rather than apprehensive, because appetite bears a direct relation to the object that affects it:
the word passion indicates that the patient is drawn to the agent. Now the
soul is drawn to a thing more through the appetitive power than through the
apprehensive power. For through the appetitive power the soul is ordered to
the things themselves.25

In sensitive apprehension, spiritual transmutation occurs: the
subject receives (recipit) an intention by means of a bodily
organ, as in the way the eye receives color.26 But whether or not
the eye changes materially (i.e., undergoes a natural transmutation) is accidental and not essential to sensitive apprehension,

19

Ibid. Miner appeals to common experience to support this claim, namely, that one
experiences oneself “as acted upon” more when the outside force is against one’s will
(Miner, Aquinas on the Passions, 33).
20
STh I-II, q. 22, a. 1.
21
Ibid., ad 1: “Sed pati prout importat receptionem solam, non est necessarium quod
sit materiae, sed potest esse cuiuscumque existentis in potentia.”
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid. See also STh I, q. 85, a. 2, ad 3.
24
STh I-II, q. 22, a. 1.
25
STh I-II, q. 22, a. 2.
26
Ibid., ad 3.

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

279

as for instance when the eye becomes tired from careful
observation or the brightness of the object.27 Sensitive appetite,
on the other hand, involves natural transmutation as essential to
its act.28 In both cases, however, receptivity governs the relation
between the appetitive subject and the object, the experience of
which is mediated by the sensitive apparatus which attunes
subjects to certain objects, or qualities in objects, rather than
others.29 By receiving intention by means of a bodily organ,
sensitive apprehension shares to some degree in the appetitive
logic that orders the soul to the thing itself wherein the subject
is moved or affected by the object.
Further, the meaning of the term “passion” is not restricted
to sensitive nature. Rather, the relationship between sensitive
appetite and its object as that “toward which” one is drawn has
a consonance of meaning with the “movement toward an end”
in the will’s act of intention.30 Pertinent here are those movements of the will that Aquinas calls “affections.” While movements of the sensitive appetite include corporeal transmutation
and are passions “properly so called,” “affections” refer to
simple acts of will “with similar effects” to the passions of the
sensitive appetite, but without corporeal change, or at least no
felt or immediately noticeable corporeal change.31 In this way,
the meaning of “passion” is not restricted to sensitive appetite;
rather, “the ratio of passion is more properly found in the act of
the sensitive appetite than in the intellectual appetite.”32 The
passions of the sensitive appetite signal a kind of intending
27
Ibid. For discussion on spiritual or immaterial change in relation to physical
change, see Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval
Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 54-57.
28
STh I-II, q. 22, a. 2, ad 3.
29
STh I-II, q. 9, a. 2.
30
STh I-II, q. 12, a. 2, ad 3.
31
STh I-II, q. 22, a. 3 and ad 3; q. 31, a. 5. For an overview of the affections as
parallel to the concupiscible passions, see Nicholas E. Lombardo, The Logic of Desire:
Aquinas on Emotion (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
2011), 78. On the relation of emotion to the body, see Diana Fritz Cates, Aquinas on
the Emotions: A Religious-Ethical Inquiry (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University
Press, 2009), 84.
32
STh I-II, q. 22, a. 3 (emphasis added).

280

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

movement, where intentio (the aim at an object) indicates the
form of the act, and the somatic aspect comprises the matter.33
Affection, by comparison, takes the form or intentio of the
corresponding passion, but without the material element that is
constitutive of the passion. “Affection,” then, is a broader term
than “passion,” and describes the appetitive intention or aim
common to movements both of sensitive appetite and of will.
This exploration of passion-movement reveals that “reception,” which undergirds the logic of passion, involves both
potentiality and actuality: it is the power in act according as it
receives intention from an object. Receptivity, therefore, refers
to activity from the perspective of passivity, or of “undergoing,”
that is, from the perspective of the object of the act functioning
as agent, or as moving the subject. In this way, while receptivity
points to a basic passivity of power, it is not an inert or amoral
category. Rather, it posits a power in potentia to the acts to
which it is moved, signalling an agent-object or power that is
outside the subject. This bears important consequences for the
will, namely, the power of self-determination in the human
person. As Daniel Westberg puts it, the will (and intellect) as a
passive potency is moved by or attracted to some object, “but as
potencies reduced to act they become active and enable a person
to be an agent, that is to be free to think, desire, and do
things.”34 There is, in other words, no “pure” expression of
will’s passivity, just as there is no “pure” expression of will’s
activity. Any movement of will insofar as it is reduced to its act
by some object moving it involves both its passivity, according
to which it is rendered receptive to its object, “the good and the
end,” and its activity, according to its own inclination.35
A comparison to Caldera’s analysis of the three senses of
connaturality will assist our grasp of the receptivity central to
human action. First is connaturality considered from the object
that “possesses this [connatural] consonance with the natural

33

See also Miner, Aquinas on the Passions, 37.
Daniel Westberg, “Did Aquinas Change His Mind about the Will?,” The Thomist
58 (1994): 41-60 (especially 54).
35
STh I-II, q. 1, a. 3.
34

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

281

appetite or with the very nature of a thing”; this is parallel to
will’s passivity, according to which it is moved by objects that
are convenient or proper to it.36 Second is connaturality understood as the tending of the appetite to its connatural object,
namely, the appetitive subject inclining; this is parallel to will’s
activity, wherein it is reduced to act according to its own
inclination.37 Third, connaturality refers to all that “pertains to
the nature of a thing,” namely, the “consonance between the
natural appetite and its object”; this is parallel to the relation
that exists between will and all those objects to which it
potentially inclines.38 The third sense, as the broadest, grounds
the first two which emphasize either the object of love or the
subject who loves. Receptivity, then, on the one hand, describes
an underlying capacity, the potency of a power to be actualized;
and, on the other hand, it is a kind of intentional activity, the
actualization of a potency—in sensitive appetite, in will, and in
the order of grace. Finally, there is a dynamic set of relations
between the subject and those objects that are proper to it,
according to which the subject is by nature “amenable” (or
“readily movable”) to receiving from certain objects.
II. HUMAN ACTION IN THE MODE OF PASSION
The receptivity of the will in its intentional activity provides
a means of considering human action in the mode of passion. In
the human person, actus describes the activation of a potency
that intends, namely, that aims for some end. It is taken for
granted that human action, “properly speaking,” proceeds from
the will which relies on reason’s ordering of means to end, and
even more basically on knowing that one is acting for an end.39
36

Caldera, Le jugement par inclination, 64.
Ibid. See also STh I-II, q. 26, a. 1, corp. and ad 3.
38
Caldera, Le jugement par inclination, 64.
39
STh I-II, q. 1, a. 1; q. 12, a. 4; q. 6, a. 1. For an overview of the history of
interpretation of Aquinas’s “stages” of human action, see Daniel Westberg, Right
Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action, and Prudence in Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1994), 119-35. On the simultaneity of intellect and will in human action, see
Westberg, “Did Aquinas Change His Mind about the Will?,” 51-58; and Michael S.
37

282

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

Thus, a person with a “deliberated will” knows what she is
doing, and here the human person as self-mover is particularly
evident. Aquinas’s presentation of human action also relies
upon considerations of passion, and especially the intending of
amor which joins subject to object, wherein the human person
as moved is particularly evident. This provides a paradigm for
human action that de-centers reason’s deliberative function, and
this is especially reflected in the gifts of the Spirit.
The deliberating capacity of reason referred to in the first
article of Aquinas’s account of human action in the Prima
secundae introduces the kind of action that is proper to the
human person, namely, that which evokes the “deliberative”
mode of knowing proper to the human species, and therefore
informs human action.40 In the following article, Aquinas states
that rational nature properly “tends toward the end as if acting
[agens] or leading [ducens] itself to the end,” but nonrational
nature tends toward the end “as if by another acting or leading
[quasi ab alio acta vel ducta].”41 In this way, Aquinas affirms
that
man is master of his actions through reason and will; hence, free will is said to
be the faculty of will and reason. Therefore those actions which proceed from
a deliberated will are properly called human. If there are other actions which
belong to man, these can be called actions of a man, but not properly human,
since these are not of man insofar as he is man.42

In the third article, the emphasis shifts from the powers of
reason and will to the object of the will, namely, “the good and
the end. And hence it is clear that the principle of human acts,
Sherwin, By Knowledge and By Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology of
St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
2005), 18-24. In Sherwin’s presentation (ibid., 85-102), the act of choice, human action
“properly so called,” and moral action become synonymous: “When through an act of
will we choose the act, this act becomes a human act properly so called, and is thus
something for which we are morally responsible” (102). While he describes “a
fundamental receptivity in the will” (97), he uses the formal act of choice (of means) as
the paradigm for love to become “a principle of action” (93).
40
STh I-II, q. 1, a. 1.
41
STh I-II, q. 1, a. 2.
42
STh I-II, q. 1, a. 1.

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

283

insofar as they are human, is the end.”43 Aquinas then explains
that the end is also the terminus of human action: “where the
human act terminates is what the will intends as the end.”44 On
this basis, “moral acts properly receive species from the end, for
moral acts and human acts are the same.”45
Here, Aquinas aligns the notion of end as terminus with an
understanding of action as passion, namely, as being drawn
toward or moved by the end. The first objection states:
it seems that human acts do not receive species from the end. For the end is an
extrinsic cause. But each thing possesses species from some intrinsic principle.
Therefore human acts do not receive species from the end.46

Aquinas replies:
the end is not extrinsic to the act in every way, because it is considered in
relation to the act as principle or terminus; and this itself is of the ratio of an
act, namely that it is from something, considered as action, and that it is
toward something, considered as passion.47

Human action, then, is both active, according to the intrinsic
principle that is born of reason and will, and passive, according
to the exterior reality that moves or draws the person, including
that reality which is not yet actual, but also not merely
potential.48 The human act proceeds from the end as principle,
and toward the end as terminus.
In considering action as passion, the object of the act is
received more than it is conceived according to reason’s
deliberation. In other words, action as passion retains the
meaning of being drawn to the object according to basic
receptivity of power, and posits a mode of human action that

43

STh I-II, q. 1, a. 3.
Ibid.
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid., obj. 1.
47
Ibid., ad 1 (emphasis added).
48
Ibid., ad 2.
44

284

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

can also be described as being led or directed.49 At the same
time, the end of the act is received according to the proper
mode of will, namely, in the knowledge that one is acting for an
end with some cognitive grasp of that end; in this way, the end
is also principle of the act.50 On the one hand, all human action
reflects both aspects, namely, being a self-mover and being
moved; on the other hand, these two aspects provide two
paradigms for human activity, wherein the first emphasizes
interior powers of agency, and corresponds especially to virtueformation, and the second emphasizes exterior agency, and
corresponds especially to gift-formation. Each, importantly,
suggests that the other is needed for fuller realization of agential
potentia.
Especially significant in this regard is Aquinas’s notion of
“works” according to which the person knows what he intends,
but “not what will follow from his work.”51 In treating the gifts
of the Spirit, Aquinas relies on this understanding of “work”:
“wisdom is called an intellectual virtue, insofar as it proceeds
from the judgment of reason, but it is called a gift, insofar as it
works from divine instinct [operatur ex instinctu divino]. And
this is said similarly of the other gifts,” namely, those that share
the name of a virtue.52 I will return to the difference between
49

I am not attempting superficially to separate end as principle versus end as
terminus: insofar as intention is considered as principle, it becomes end as terminus in
moving toward it; conversely, intention considered as terminus is also end as principle
as it is interior, or grasped as end. The point is that end as principle versus end as
terminus provides different means of accounting for the different ways that intention
arises or originates. Intention as terminus, I am arguing, aligns more with an
understanding of action as passion, analogous to the way in which sensitive passions
respond to an object as that toward which one tends.
50
STh I-II, q. 6, a. 1: “Now in order that a thing be done for an end, some
knowledge of the end is required. Therefore, whatever acts or is moved by an intrinsic
principle in this way, namely, that it has some knowledge of the end, has within itself
the principle of its act so that it not only acts, but also acts for an end” (emphasis
added).
51
STh I-II, q. 12, a. 1, ad 2: “Intention is said to be a light because it is clear to the
one who intends. Therefore works are called darkness, because man knows what he
intends, but not what will follow from his work” (“opera dicuntur tenebrae, quia homo
scit quid intendit, sed nescit quid ex opere sequitur”).
52
STh I-II, q. 68, a. 1, ad 4.

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

285

the two kinds of judgment in the third section. Here, it is
important to note that the voluntariness of human action in the
gifts relies on the same reality that expresses freedom in human
action in general, namely, the intention that grasps some object
as present to and purposeful for the exercise of the person’s
agency.
This understanding of intention is especially illuminated by
Aquinas’s treatment of amor, for that which tends toward an
object first receives the form of its tending, intellectually or
sensibly. In treating the passion of amor, Aquinas says that “a
natural agent brings about a twofold effect in the patient: first it
gives form, and second it gives the motion that follows from the
form.”53 The desired object gives to the appetite “first, a certain
fittingness to itself, which is an appetible complacency,” namely,
the passion of amor, “from which follows movement toward the
desired object,” namely, the passion of desire.54 This movement
is circular: “because the desired object moves the appetite,
making itself in some way to be in the intention of the appetite;
and consequently the appetite really tends to the desired object,
such that the end of the motion is where the principle lies.”55
The end of the motion is the passion of joy, which is a resting in
the appetible object. Again, Aquinas equates the end of the
motion (parallel to the terminus of action) with the principle, or
intention, which was “made” according to amor, namely, as
complacency in the object that initially moved the appetite
toward itself. Thus, in tending toward and resting in the object
that is loved, intention evolves according to the relation of the
appetitive subject to the object, originating always from a
complacency in the object. In other words, amor causes the
object to exist in the appetitive subject’s horizon.
Aquinas concludes that amor, properly speaking, is
considered a passion since it is in the concupiscible power. He
affirms, however, that “in an extended sense” (et extenso
53

STh I-II, q. 26, a. 2.
Ibid.
55
Ibid.: “Nam appetitivus motus circulo agitur, ut dicitur in III de anima, appetibile
enim movet appetitum, faciens se quodammodo in eius intentione; et appetitus tendit in
appetibile realiter consequendum, ut sit ibi finis motus, ubi fuit principium.”
54

286

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

nomine), amor is in the will.56 In this way, amor is the sign of
will’s free exercise (viz., whether will inclines toward an object
brought into its horizon), and is integral to the meaning of
intention, for amor is “the principal movement tending toward
the end that is loved.”57 Notably, in comparing amor and
dilectio in Dionysius, Aquinas writes:
by amor man can tend toward God, in a certain manner passively attracted by
God himself, more than his own reason can lead him, which pertains to the
ratio of dilection. . . . And in this way amor is more divine than dilection.58

While intention presupposes “the ordination of reason ordering
something to the end,” the presence of amor in the will affirms
that intention can be “known” simply by the appetitive tending
toward an object, with varying degrees of knowledge being
present in the volition.59 We come to “know” something by

56

Ibid.
STh I-II, q. 26, a. 1: “In natural appetite, the principle of motion is its
connaturality to that toward which it tends, which can be called natural amor, just as the
connaturality of a heavy body toward the center is through weight, and can be
called natural amor. Similarly, the fittingness of the sensitive appetite, or of the will,
toward some good, namely, its complacency in the good, is called sensitive amor,
or intellectual or rational amor. Therefore, sensitive amor is in the sensitive appetite,
just as intellectual amor is in the intellectual appetite. And it pertains to the concupiscible, since it is said to regard the good absolutely, and not with difficulty, which is
the object of the irascible.”
58
STh I-II, q. 26, a. 3, ad 4: “Magis autem homo in Deum tendere potest per
amorem, passive quodammodo ab ipso Deo attractus, quam ad hoc eum propria ratio
ducere possit, quod pertinet ad rationem dilectionis, ut dictum est. Et propter hoc,
divinius est amor quam dilectio.” Aquinas is here responding to the position stated in
the sed contra (my thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out).
59
STh I-II, q. 12, a. 1, ad 3. See also STh I-II, q. 12, a. 1, for Aquinas’s use of the
term “intention” as “tending to something” (“intentio, sicut ipsum nomen sonat,
significat in aliquid tendere”). Westberg describes it as follows: “intention is usually
taken to refer to a state of mind, but Thomas defined it as a tending towards something.
This very simple definition obviously fits in well with his metaphysics of potency and
act, and also makes it possible, at a basic level, to include the movement of animals as
showing a kind of intention. More importantly, it is a realist account in that it stresses
the reality of the object as motive force and relates intention to that. Intention can be
defined, then, as the aiming of an action towards something” (Westberg, Right Practical
Reason, 136).
57

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

287

virtue of having been moved by it or drawn toward it. In human
action, “properly speaking,” reason presents will with the
object; in action as passion, will is affected by the object, which
affectivity includes intellectual grasp. In this way, the will’s
movements of amor posit an affective knowing that relies on the
will’s passivity, rendering it receptive to ends that are not of the
subject’s own making.
III. THE MATTER OF NATURE AND GRACE
IN CONNATURALITY AND INSTINCTUS
The role of amor in intention provides the matter for
conceiving human action according to the receptivity that
undergirds human agency. Beginning with the passions of the
sensitive appetite, and proceeding to the affections and
intentions of the will, receptivity enables and is expressed in
passion-movement. In this way, passion-movement is built into
Aquinas’s account of human action, which relies on ends that
move the person. The gifts of the Spirit provide the paradigm
for this receptivity inherent in human action, emphasizing the
agency of the Spirit who moves the person, directing and
leading her to the end of salvation, fulfilling human freedom
and transforming the relationships of nature.
The centrality of passion-movement for the gifts is especially
apparent in the gift of wisdom, which reveals in turn the
centrality of the instinctus Spiritus Sancti for all the gifts. The
judgment of the gift of wisdom occurs by way of connaturality
with things divine, which is the effect of charity, rather than
discursively by use of reason, as in the intellectual virtue of
wisdom.60 While nature prepares for, or grounds the movement
of, what is supernatural, the latter transforms nature from its
very roots. It does this not by negating the natural order of
instinctive action, but by fulfilling it in light of the divine
wisdom that is its source and end.
The way in which the judgment of the gift of wisdom occurs
reveals its nearness to nature, namely, as modelled on the ease
60

STh II-II, q. 45, a. 2.

288

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

of movement that occurs in connatural tending. In treating the
cause of love (causa amoris), Aquinas says that “amor indicates a
certain connaturality or complacency of the one who loves
toward the thing loved; moreover, that which is good for a
thing is what is connatural and proportionate to it.”61 The
virtue of charity causes connaturality with the divine, wherein
the act of loving God is performed with the ease and pleasure
that reflects the connatural tending of a natural power toward
its object.62 Charity, therefore, furnishes the person with an
affectivity attuned to the divine, which renders the person
receptive to the Spirit’s activity. Because connaturality, both on
the level of nature and in charity, implies an affinity with that
which is good, an apprehension of goodness is able to occur
without a discursive process of reasoning.63 There is no need to
compare one thing to another, or to move from something
understood to something new; rather, the intellect is able to
pronounce a judgment of goodness owing to the very presence
of the object.64 As love grounds the free movement of the
subject toward her natural good, so love grounds the free
movement of the subject toward her supernatural good.65
In treating sacred doctrine as wisdom in the Prima pars,
Aquinas articulates a twofold manner of judging on account of
which there is a twofold wisdom, which grounds the distinction
between wisdom’s act of judgment in the intellectual virtue and
in the gift.66 He distinguishes between judging through inclination, “as one who has the habit of a virtue judges rightly of
those things to be done according to the virtue, inasmuch as he
is inclined toward them,” and through knowledge, “as one
61

STh I-II, q. 27, a. 1.
STh II-II, q. 45, a. 2; q. 23, a. 2.
63
STh I-II, q. 27, a. 1; II-II, q. 45, a. 2.
64
Note STh I-II, q. 27, a. 2: “amor requires some apprehension of the good that is
loved. . . . Therefore knowledge is the cause of amor, by reason also of the good, that
nothing can be loved without being known” (emphasis added). See also STh I-II, q. 6,
a. 1.
65
See especially STh I-II, q. 27, a. 4, on amor and connaturality: “now every motion
toward something, or rest in something, proceeds from something connatural or fitting
to it, which pertains to the ratio of amor.”
66
STh I, q. 1, a. 6, ad 3.
62

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

289

instructed in moral science can judge about virtuous acts, even if
he does not have the virtue.”67 As Caldera notes, the judgment
by inclination of the virtuous person is used as a model for
understanding the judgment by inclination of the spiritual
person.68 As the virtuous person, assimilated to the rule of
reason, is the measure of human action, so the spiritual person,
“assimilated to the supreme rule,” which is God, makes
judgments in light of the divine rule by his very inclination
toward the object, rather than by the discursive use of his
reason.69 By his inclination, or his “affective reaction,” the
object appears to him “as it truly is”; in other words, “it is
experienced by him rightly.”70
In Aquinas’s treatment of the gifts, the Spirit is the agent that
moves, or affects, the person by giving her the object or
intention, such that the person is affectively moved by it
“rightly.”71 In the first question on the gifts in the Prima
secundae Aquinas uses the term inspiratio to express the text of
Isaiah
where the name is not gift but rather spirit, for thus it is said in Isaiah 11, “the
spirit of wisdom and understanding,” etc. “will rest upon him.” From these
words, we are clearly given to understand that these seven are there set down
as being in us by divine inspiration [inspiratione divina].72

67

Ibid.
Caldera, Le jugement par inclination, 68.
69
Ibid.
70
Ibid. Further describing the “affective reaction,” Caldera says that the present
object “touches a cord of our affective register,” causing “a sort of inclination of our
being” which adheres to or flees from the object. While it is a “non-intellectual”
reaction (i.e., the tending toward or away carries the judgment), there is an “intuitive
grasp of knowledge” that accompanies the affective reaction (69-70).
71
The nautical image used by John of St. Thomas communicates this connatural ease
of movement that reflects both “the stability of a habit” and the Spirit as “the source of
serenity”: John of St. Thomas, The Gifts of the Holy Spirit, trans. Dominic Hughes
(Providence, R.I.: Cluny Media, 2016), 63 (II, n. 10); 75 (n. 29); 79-80 (n. 35).
72
STh I-II, q. 68, a. 1. For the scriptural foundation of Aquinas’s teaching on the
gifts, see Edward D. O’Connor, “Appendix 1: The Scriptural Basis for the Doctrine of
the Gifts,” in Summa theologiae, vol. 24, The Gifts of the Spirit (1a2ae. 68-70)
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 80-87.
68

290

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

Having followed Scripture’s manner of speaking in setting down
what the gifts are, namely, spirits that are in us by divine
inspiration, Aquinas specifies that inspiratio “signifies a certain
motion from the exterior,” and then describes how this divine
activity occurs in us, namely, by following an interior instinct.73
Instinctus, therefore, signifies interior motion that proceeds
from an exterior source. This dynamic already coheres with the
movement of passion where, as we saw in the first section, an
interior motion responds to an exterior agent-object, namely, an
object that affects the subject. I will compare the gifts with
passion-movement more extensively in the fourth section. Here,
it is important to establish the primary agent of the gifts,
namely, the exterior source who moves the person interiorly,
since this is the basis on which Aquinas distinguishes the gifts,
and their mode of operation, from the virtues.74
In the first article on the gifts, Aquinas aligns the divine
instinct with an interior instinct, and affirms that the former is
“better” than human reason: “for those who are moved by
divine instinct do not prepare to take counsel according to
human reason, but follow interior instinct, because they are
moved by a principle better than human reason.”75 In the
second article, he aligns the instinctus principle with the person
of the Holy Spirit:

73
STh I-II, q. 68, a. 1: “debemus sequi modum loquendi Scripturae”; “inspiratio
autem significat quandam motionem ab exteriori.”
74
Ibid.; and q. 68, a. 2. Stroud argues that the gifts of the Spirit are “a necessary part
of every graced action” (Stroud, Aquinas’ Exposition of the Gifts, 211). Meinert further
argues that “the instinctus of the Holy Spirit and common actual grace (the auxilium of
ST I-II, 109, a. 9) are one and the same” (John M. Meinert, The Love of God Poured
Out: Grace and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in St. Thomas Aquinas [Steubenville, Ohio:
Emmaus Academic, 2018], 264). While these approaches strive to safeguard the
constancy of the gifts in the moral life, resisting a historically conjectural treatment of
the gifts, they fold the actualization of the gifts into the acts of the virtues. For an index
of historical treatments of “the special motion of the Holy Spirit” in the gifts as
compared to charity and common auxilium, see Dominic Legge, The Trinitarian
Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 204 n. 74.
See also Shawn M. Colberg, “Aquinas and the Grace of Auxilium,” Modern Theology 32
(2016): 187-210 (esp. 192-93).
75
STh I-II, q. 68, a. 1 (emphasis added).

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

291

But in the order to the ultimate supernatural end, to which reason moves, in a
manner and imperfectly, as it is formed by the theological virtues, the motion
of reason itself does not suffice, without the instinct and motion of the Holy
Spirit from above being near, according to Romans 8:14, 17, “those led by the
Spirit of God are the sons of God; and if sons, then heirs.” And in Psalm
142:10 it says, “your good Spirit leads me in the right path,” namely, because
no one can reach the inheritance of the land of the blessed unless moved and
led by the Holy Spirit. Therefore to reach this end, it is necessary that man have
the gift of the Holy Spirit.76

Aquinas affirms that the Holy Spirit, a source exterior to the
human person, is the author of the instinct and motion, and yet,
the instinct and motion of the Spirit is a sign of the Spirit’s
presence to the person.77 In other words, the presence of the
Spirit is marked by the Spirit’s moving and leading, an articulation that aligns with Aquinas’s description of nonrational
nature: “it is proper to rational nature that it tend toward the
end as if acting or leading itself to the end, but the irrational
nature, as if by another acting or leading.”78 Charity provides
the matrix of connaturality with the divine, wherein the person
“has compassion or connaturality toward divine things.”79 The
gifts take their place as habitus within this transformed
76
STh I-II, q. 68, a. 2 (emphasis added): “Sed in ordine ad finem ultimum
supernaturalem, ad quem ratio movet secundum quod est aliqualiter et imperfecte
formata per virtutes theologicas, non sufficit ipsa motio rationis, nisi desuper adsit
instinctus et motio spiritus sancti, secundum illud Rom. VIII, ‘qui spiritu Dei aguntur, hi
filii Dei sunt;’ ‘et si filii, et haeredes,’ et in Psalmo CXLII dicitur, ‘spiritus tuus bonus
deducet me in terram rectam;’ quia scilicet in haereditatem illius terrae beatorum nullus
potest pervenire, nisi moveatur et deducatur a spiritu sancto. Et ideo ad illum finem
consequendum, necessarium est homini habere donum spiritus sancti.” For discussion on
Aquinas’s commentary on Romans 8:14 and other texts as these pertain to how the
Spirit moves Christ, see Legge, Trinitarian Christology, 202-6.
77
For Aquinas’s affirmation of a created habit of charity, in contrast to Peter
Lombard’s identification of charity with the Holy Spirit, see Dominic Doyle, “Is Charity
the Holy Spirit? The Development of Aquinas’s Disagreement with Peter Lombard,” in
Questions on Love and Charity: Summa theologiae, Secunda secundae, Questions 23–46,
ed. Robert Miner (London: Yale University Press, 2016). The created habit of charity,
however, is not unaccompanied by the presence of the Spirit. See Gilles Emery, The
Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Francesca Aran Murphy (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007), 253-58, and 392-95.
78
STh I-II, q. 1, a. 2.
79
STh II-II, q. 45, a. 2.

292

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

connaturality, so that the person is “made readily movable by
divine inspiration.”80 In this way, the person easily and freely
follows the Spirit’s leading, reflecting an order of activity that
follows divine wisdom in natural instinct: “every agent whether
natural or free, as if of itself spontaneously reaches toward what
is divinely ordered. And in this way it is said that God disposes
all things sweetly.”81
IV. MOVED BY THE SPIRIT
In the gifts of the Spirit, Aquinas invokes an exterior agent
that moves the person interiorly, which parallels his description
of the movement of the passions. Further, connaturality with
the divine, which especially informs the gift of wisdom,
provides a paradigm for human activity in the order of grace
that reflects the divine wisdom of natural instinct. It remains
now to specify the comparison of the Spirit’s moving the person
in the gifts to the movement of the sensitive passions and of
natural instinct. This serves to demonstrate the freedom
inherent in gift-movement, and the fullness of human agency
contained therein, as relying on passion. The gifts of the Spirit
provide a paradigm for human activity that perfects the logic of
receptivity that undergirds passion-movement, in the sensitive
appetite and in the will.
The sed contra of the third article on the gifts again signals
the Spirit as the primary gift, who also gives the gifts as habits:
the Lord says to the disciples, speaking about the Holy Spirit (John 14:17):
“He shall abide with you, and shall be in you.” The Holy Spirit however is not
in men without his gifts. Therefore his gifts abide in men. Therefore they are
not only acts or passions, but also permanent habits.82

Aquinas’s response confirms the alignment of the instinctus
Spiritus Sancti with the Holy Spirit who indwells, and provides
an analogy by way of the moral virtues, which perfect the
80

STh I-II, q. 68, a. 1.
STh I, q. 103, a. 8. See also De Verit., q. 22, a. 1.
82
STh I-II, q. 68, a. 3, s.c.
81

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

293

appetite, for understanding the agency of the Spirit, who
perfects the person:
the gifts are certain perfections of man, by which he is disposed to follow well
the instinct of the Holy Spirit. Now it is evident from what has been said
above that the moral virtues perfect the appetitive power according as it
participates in a certain way in reason, namely, inasmuch as it is natural for it
to be moved by the command of reason. Thus, in this way, the mode in which
the gifts of the Holy Spirit are had by man in relation to the Holy Spirit is just
as the moral virtues are had by the appetitive power in relation to reason.
Now the moral virtues are a certain habit by which the appetitive powers are
disposed readily to obey reason. Hence also the gifts of the Holy Spirit are a
certain habit by which man is perfected readily to obey the Holy Spirit.83

At the outset, Aquinas invokes the instinct of the Holy Spirit,
and he concludes by invoking the Holy Spirit himself. The gifts
of the Spirit, like the moral virtues, are perfecting habits
possessed by the person; as the moral virtues perfect the
appetite to follow reason, the gifts perfect the person to follow
the Holy Spirit.84
Aquinas describes this activity as the Spirit “acting upon” the
person, yet not without the person also acting as principle of
the movement: “he is so acted upon by the Holy Spirit, that he
also acts, inasmuch as there is free will; hence, he needs a
habit.”85 As the appetitive power is moved by reason and retains
its nature as a power, so the person is moved by the Spirit and
retains her power of self-movement. Further, as the appetitive
83

Ibid., a. 3 (emphasis added): “dona sunt quaedam perfectiones hominis, quibus
disponitur ad hoc quod homo bene sequatur instinctum spiritus sancti. Manifestum est
autem ex supradictis quod virtutes morales perficiunt vim appetitivam secundum quod
participat aliqualiter rationem, inquantum scilicet nata est moveri per imperium rationis.
Hoc igitur modo dona spiritus sancti se habent ad hominem in comparatione ad
spiritum sanctum, sicut virtutes morales se habent ad vim appetitivam in comparatione
ad rationem. Virtutes autem morales habitus quidam sunt, quibus vires appetitivae
disponuntur ad prompte obediendum rationi. Unde et dona spiritus sancti sunt quidam
habitus, quibus homo perficitur ad prompte obediendum spiritui sancto.”
84
See also John of St. Thomas, Gifts of the Holy Spirit, 82-83 (II, n. 42-43), where
he says that the Spirit “regulates and delimits the objects of the gifts,” comparing them
to the virtues where “the reason . . . moves the will by presenting and delimiting its
object.”
85
STh I-II, q. 68, a. 3, ad 2.

294

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

power receives its proper fulfillment according to the order of
reason, so the person receives freedom from the Spirit moving
her. Finally, in treating the passions of the sensitive appetite,
Aquinas states that sorrow especially possesses the quality of
passion according to the outside force it manifests.86 In the gifts,
the logic of receptivity is especially revealed by the presence of
the Spirit; in this way it is unlike the absence of good in the evil
undergone (as in the case of sorrow). The person is moved, in
other words, by a divine abundance which “overwhelms” the
person.
In his commentary on chapter 8 of Romans, on what it
means for human persons to be “led by the Spirit of God,”
Aquinas makes the primary agency of the Spirit even more
explicit, while maintaining the freedom of the human agent. To
express this reality of spiritual freedom, Aquinas describes a
correspondence in movement between being led by the Holy
Spirit and moving according to natural instinct, affirming that
the “highest” movements resemble the “lowest.”87
Aquinas explains that to be led by the Spirit of God “is to be
ruled as by a certain leader and director, which indeed the Spirit
does in us, namely inasmuch as he illumines us interiorly about
what we must do.”88 There is a similar comparison in Aquinas’s
discussion of reason’s “rule” over the sensitive appetite, wherein
the sensitive appetite retains its power: “the intellect, or reason,
is said to rule the irascible and concupiscible by a political rule,
because the sensitive appetite has something of its own, such
that it can resist the command of reason.”89 On the one hand,
the sensitive appetite receives the perfection of virtue in order
86

See above, n. 19.
In his study on the gifts, Pinsent prefers to liken the movement of the gifts to
“joint attention” in order to avoid the use of the term “instinct,” which he describes as
“unhelpful, given the association of the word with the behavior of animals rather than
the union of persons” (Pinsent, Second-Person Perspective in Aquinas’s Ethics, 38). Yet
Aquinas himself draws on understanding of the natural world to grasp the spiritual
movements of the human person.
88
In Rom., c. 8 lect. 3 (Marietti ed., n. 635); my translation, although I have
consulted Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, trans. Fabian R.
Larcher (Lander, Wyo.: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012).
89
STh I, q. 81, a. 3, ad 2 (emphasis added). See also STh I-II, q. 56, a. 4, ad 3.
87

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

295

that its powers be well disposed to act according to reason, and
not resist.90 At the same time, insofar as moral virtue is
generated in the sensitive appetite, the latter is itself conformed
to reason: “inasmuch as they are truly conformed to reason,
then the good of moral virtue is generated in them.”91
Likewise, Aquinas affirms that the person who is led by the
Spirit acts also from herself, namely, “through will and free will
. . . because the Holy Spirit causes in them the very motion of
the will and free will, according to Philippians 2:13: ‘God is at
work in you both to will and to work.’”92 When the person is
moved by the Spirit, the movement itself is the expression of a
free act, and therefore contributes to the person’s moral growth
or gradual perfecting of her powers of agency. In this way, the
Spirit moves the person in keeping with her nature and its
virtuous perfection which, as Pinckaers has noted, provides the
basis for spiritual spontaneity.93
At the same time, Aquinas takes an analogy from natural
instinct to highlight the quality of being led:
Hence we say that animals do not act but are led, because they are moved to
their actions by nature and not from their own motion. Similarly, the spiritual
man is not moved from his own will principally, but from the instinct of the
Holy Spirit inclining him to act, as it says in Isaiah: “he will come like a
rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives” (Isa 59:19); and in Luke:
“Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1).94

90
STh I-II, q. 56, a. 4, ad 3. Aquinas says that the body obeys the soul as completely
disposed to it (ad nutem obedit), but this is not the case with the concupiscible and
irascible powers (non ad nutum obedient rationi), but rather these powers “have their
own proper movements [habent proprios motus suos] by which they sometimes oppose
reason.” Hence, the rule of reason over sensitive appetite is as a political rule in which
persons also exercise their own will, even when they follow political authority.
91
Ibid., ad 2.
92
In Rom., c. 8, lect. 3 (Marietti ed., n. 635).
93
Servais Pinckaers, “Ethics and the Image of God,” in Berkman and Titus, eds., The
Pinckaers Reader, 139.
94
In Rom., c. 8, lect. 3 (Marietti ed., n. 635): “Similiter autem homo spiritualis non
quasi ex motu propriae voluntatis principaliter sed ex instinctu Spiritus Sancti inclinatur
ad aliquid agendum.”

296

MONICA MARCELLI-CHU

While the nonhuman animal has an interior instinct that it
follows, it does so not according to its own will, but sensibly,
according to the ordering of divine wisdom.95 Intelligibility lies
in this sensible relation by way of natural instinct in the
creature. Further, the tending of the stream which occurs
naturally arises from an apprehension which exists in God, and
not in the stream.96 So “the spiritual person” is inclined, not
principally by his will in accord with reason which arises from
himself, but by the Holy Spirit who leads. In this way, following
the Spirit in the gifts is a human and intellectual experience of
the world and of the divine, and at the same time a reditus to
what is common to all of creation, namely, God as source and
end—that from which creation proceeds, and to which it
returns, via natural instinct for all creation, and the instinct of
the Holy Spirit for human creatures.
Lastly, the analogy of the “rushing” stream “driven” by the
Lord for the inclination that proceeds from the Spirit points to
the strength that signals the work of the Spirit, according to
which one is “led” by the Spirit wherever it leads, “as Jesus was
led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” This movement affirms
the fulfillment of human agency through following the wisdom
of an exterior source, provided by the example of Christ who
was also led by the Spirit. Notably, for the analogy with natural
instinct to perform this purpose, it cannot be “blind.” Rather,
spiritual spontaneity as modelled on natural instinct relies on
the relationality between a living creature and its object,
95
STh I, q. 78, a. 4. See also q. 81, a. 3, for the ordering of motive powers. On the
principle of Dionysius, followed by Aquinas, wherein “divine wisdom joins the end of
one thing to the beginning of the next,” and how this relates sensuality to will, see
Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. L. K. Shook
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1956), 238-41. On the universal
character of natural love and appetite, see STh I-II, q. 26, a. 1, ad 3; In Div. Nomin. 4,
lect. 9 (Marietti ed., n. 401); Caldera, Le jugement par inclination, 62-63; Cates,
Aquinas on the Emotions, 106-9.
96
STh I-II, q. 26, a. 1: “For there is a certain appetite that does not follow the
apprehension of the one desiring, but another, and this is said to be natural appetite.
For natural things desire what is fitting to them according to their nature, and not
through their own apprehension, but through the apprehension of the one who
establishes nature.”

PATTERNING THE GIFTS ON THE PASSIONS

297

namely, on the “connaturality” that exists between a nature and
that which is convenient to it. The ease of movement that
reflects divine wisdom in nature provides the matter for conceiving human experience of the Spirit, which in turn provides a
paradigm for human activity based on the receptivity expressed
in passion-movement.
CONCLUSION
That the human person can move herself to will the good
does not mean that she ceases first to be moved, in nature or in
grace.97 This creaturely quality of being moved as it pertains to
human persons is especially apparent in the passions, as well as
in the gifts of the Spirit—in other words, in the “lowest” and
“highest” movements of human agency. It is not simply a matter
of the sensitive or animal nature taking its seat below, or even
beside, the rational nature of the human soul. Rather, sensitive
nature is part of an integrated whole, such that a full
understanding of human action requires taking stock not only
of “formal” human action that proceeds from ends directed by
reason, but also of those ends that move the person from
without, as in the passions and in the gifts of the Spirit. Though
these ends move from without, they are experienced through
the interior faculties of human apprehension and appetite. In
this way, the gifts of the Spirit reflect the fullness of human
agency according to a paradigm of human action that relies on
passion.98

97

On the person as self-mover, see STh I-II, q. 1, a. 2; and on all beings as moved by
God, see q. 109, a. 1. See also Daniel Shields, “Aquinas on Will, Happiness, and God:
The Problem of Love and Aristotle’s Liber de bona fortuna,” American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly 91 (2017): 113-42 (esp. 138).
98
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer and the Editor of The Thomist for helpful
feedback and suggestions, and to John Berkman, Diana Fritz Cates, and Robert
Sweetman for constructive conversation in the development of ideas in this paper.

BOOK REVIEWS
Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas. By JUSTIN M. ANDERSON.
Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. 341. $99.99
(hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-108-48518-0.
Struck by the unique way he combines comprehensive genius and judicious
balance with an air of serene detachment, many regard St. Thomas Aquinas as
such a complete thinker that the idea of him repeatedly changing his mind can
seem outlandish. While it is not controversial to say that his thought developed
from his early to his later works, few could imagine him writing a book like
St. Augustine’s Retractations, or would suggest that Thomism would have taken
some radically different shape had he lived a decade longer. His mature works
come across not as brilliant detours but as fully ripened conclusions, making the
notion of an incessantly “evolving” Aquinas seem deeply eccentric.
At the same time, there were a few periods—such as his fruitful stay at
Orvieto and then Rome in the 1260s—where Aquinas made remarkable
discoveries and changed course in important ways. Recognition of this is
sometimes traced to the twentieth century, but already in the 1440s John
Capreolus (the “Prince of Thomists”) noted major shifts in Aquinas’s teaching
on grace after his earlier Scriptum on the Sentences, as did Cardinal Cajetan and
the Salamancan Dominic de Soto a century later. For Capreolus the Summa
theologiae was a kind of understated Retractations in that Aquinas fully “moved
back from the Pelagian error” which his contemporaries and his own earlier
Scriptum did not completely root out. On this view, it is to the late Aquinas that
we owe a fully adequate doctrine of grace from which the theological and
infused cardinal virtues flow.
In this excellent book, Justin Anderson takes up the role of a latter-day
Capreolus, pushing firmly against any current trends toward a “Thomistic
Pelagianism” (169). He argues that Aquinas’s theology of virtue and grace
underwent “titanic developments” that led him to stress themes such as the
moral necessity of grace and the damaging effects of sin in ever more refined
and emphatic ways. This argument is substantially correct and vast in its implications, but Anderson holds that these shifts have yet fully to impact
Thomistic moral theology, like a detonation that has flashed on the horizon but
whose fallout has yet to land. The book seeks to trace the fallout, showing how
Aquinas’s mature teaching on grace and sin pulled his virtue theory in ever more
Augustinian and Pauline directions, yet without forfeiting core Aristotelian
299

300

BOOK REVIEWS

commitments. The book also joins this stress on Christian particularity with a
quite different effort to affirm the category of “pagan virtue” on very generous
terms. It is by turns an in-depth exegesis of Aquinas’s texts, an historical
examination of the hundred years preceding, and an attempt to shift the
conversation in Thomistic virtue scholarship toward the moral consequences of
Aquinas’s later teaching on grace. It is an engaging story that in some ways could
have been better told, but there is no doubting its importance.
The first chapter gives a general outline of Thomistic virtues as habits perfective of human powers. Anderson distinguishes virtues based on their causes
and ends, and as bundled into cardinal and theological, acquired and infused,
and other familiar clusters. The second examines Aquinas’s exact vocabulary of
virtue to describe its many meanings and analogous senses. The most important
concern virtue simpliciter or “without qualification,” and virtue secundum quid
or in a “qualified sense.” Gratuitous or infused virtue, which directs us to our
ultimate end, is virtue simpliciter (61). By contrast, connatural or acquired
virtue falls short of that end, and yet its level of perfection does qualify it as
virtue secundum quid. It can be said that the full definition of virtue (simpliciter)
is theological while leaving space for “pagan virtue” in a secondary sense
(secundum quid).
But it is from the third chapter onward that the really significant achievement
of this book emerges. Anderson gives a detailed study of how the distinctions
between nature and grace were worked out with increasing precision in the
century before Aquinas, from the pioneering labors of the School of Chartres
to the full recovery of Aristotle. The crucial moment came when Philip the
Chancellor identified grace as an operating principle of human acts distinct
from nature, so that grace was seen not just as “healing” us from the effects of
sin but also “elevating” us to a supernatural level of action (79).
Aquinas adopts this view of habitual grace (gratia gratum faciens) but, as
chapters 3-5 show, his model crucially shifted. For instance, his early Scriptum
on Lombard’s Sentences taught that even without habitual grace one can avoid
mortal sin entirely, prepare oneself to receive habitual grace by doing one’s best
(facienti quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam: “to the one doing what lies
in him, God does not deny grace”), and persevere to the end without the help
of some further form of grace. The Summa theologiae overturns this earlier optimism and teaches that without habitual grace one can avoid each temptation
to mortal sin individually but not all cumulatively, and that we are disposed for
conversion not by our moral efforts but by unmerited “helping” graces (auxilia)
whose continual support we likewise require after conversion to persevere in
grace and not relapse into sin (87-90). Bernard Lonergan’s description of this
as a “low opinion of man” may be excessive, but we are still left asking what
caused such a dramatic shift.
Henri Bouillard made the influential proposal that during his stay in central
Italy in the 1260s Aquinas discovered works from Augustine’s later period on
what is anachronistically called the semi-Pelagian controversy, and that in light
of these he revised his teaching on grace. While leaving space for Aquinas’s own

BOOK REVIEWS

301

speculative advances, Anderson largely endorses this view (137-42, 148),
correctly noting the paper trail of manuscript evidence in its favor. Given its
more pessimistic moral anthropology, Aquinas’s mature work may seem more
influenced by Augustine than by Aristotle, but the story here is mixed, and
Anderson’s really brilliant point is that Aquinas uses Aristotle himself to shore
up his growing Augustinianism—for instance, by framing the operation of grace
as a “motion” construed in Aristotelian terms (148).
While the previous chapters examine virtue simpliciter at length, the remaining chapters turn to virtue secundum quid (“pagan virtue”). The seventh
affirms the reality of pagan or “graceless” virtue, describing Aquinas as
“optimistic” in this respect. But Anderson also insists that “authentic, pagan
virtue” is possible for Aquinas only with a “theological backstory” (219) since
it is dependent on divine motions even at the natural level. These may
concretely overlap with grace, and yet are distinct from it (287). The eighth
chapter states that it is not enough to ask if pagan virtue is possible since we
must also determine whether “graceless” virtue is likely to persevere. Of course,
the goods of nature are damaged but not destroyed by the Fall (“Aquinas is not
an early Calvinist” [233]). But if even those with the infused virtues are in
danger of moral atrophy, then the long-term prospects of pagan virtue
undefended by grace would seem to be “ominous” (240).
At this point the account begins to wobble between what the texts say and
the good-news story that Anderson would like to tell. Having followed the later
Aquinas to a rather Augustinian brink, Anderson shifts course and says there is
“a way back toward optimism” which lies in an appeal to “God’s active work
on the natural plane” enabling pagan virtue (244). He speculates as to how
exactly this “natural auxilium” (219) moves human agency to virtue at the
natural level through “divine application” working upon the intellect and will,
and concludes that this possibility is why Aquinas is “so pessimistic about a
fallen agent’s natural capacities” and yet “so optimistic about every moral
agent’s ability to live a life of virtue” (247).
But the missing point here is that “optimism” about what Aquinas thought
possible is fully compatible with pessimism about what he thought probable. As
István Bejczy notes (The Cardinal Virtues in the Middle Ages, 2011), Aquinas’s
views on this topic relative to other Scholastics were not especially “liberal”
(187). He affirms pagan virtue as a possibility but does not suggest that it will
occur with regularity: nor, indeed, did the pagan philosophers themselves. They
often describe the virtues as rare accomplishments attained only through the
best upbringing with the utmost exertion by a favored few. Aristotle’s
assumption that “the many” (hoi polloi) will not attain virtue (Nic. Ethic. 10.9)
seems to meet with sympathy from Aquinas, who viewed the human race
without divine law and grace as prone on the whole to fall “headlong into most
shameful vices” (STh I-II, q. 98, a. 6; see also STh I-II, q. 106, a. 3), and observed
that “it is difficult and the lot of the few to acquire true virtues” (enim difficile
est paucisque contingit veras virtutes assequi [De Regno I, c. 8]). These views
stem not from misanthropy but from complex treatments of habituation that

302

BOOK REVIEWS

take seriously the needs and challenges of virtuous formation in flawed societies.
This might seem depressing, but in the Middle Ages such pessimistic concerns
(if that is what they are) often served as an appeal for magnanimity: as calling
people to resist moral complacency and undertake urgent reforms, and as
diagnosing ills for the sake of stimulating people to greater exertion in justice
and charity.
The final chapter on the “end” of pagan virtue argues against Henri de Lubac
for a connatural end and examines the nature of this “pagan happiness” (287).
Pagan virtue is said to manifest divine goodness at the natural level (ibid.) and
to that extent it “serves the glory of God” (282). Though lacking in grace, such
virtue is a participation in connatural happiness involving natural contemplation (286) and as such is a “natural analog” of “heavenly beatitudo” (269).
The fact that Aquinas himself sees such “graceless” happiness as fully compatible
with eternal perdition does not interrupt the upbeat tone of this chapter. But a
more proximate concern is that Anderson does not discuss the virtue of religion
at the “pagan” level. Yet this is a crucial question: nested within justice, religion
is nothing less than “foremost among the cardinal virtues” (STh II-II, q. 81, a.
6). Any adequate account of pagan virtue—and this is especially pressing for a
very optimistic account such as Anderson’s—needs to address whether and how
acquired religion shorn of grace is a genuine but “uniquely imperfect virtue,” as
Reinhard Hütter put it (Bound for Beatitude [2019], 280), and what the
implications of this might be.
Overall this book is remarkable for its historical depth, and provocative in
some of its conclusions. Anderson argues that the “mature Aquinas” shifted to
a more pessimistic moral anthropology combined with a greater need for grace,
and in this he is undoubtedly correct. The most curious feature of the book is
the effort to combine this argument with a resolutely upbeat story for the overall
prospects of pagan virtue, and the tension between the two is never quite
resolved. Part of the reason is that unlike Aquinas and Aristotle Anderson offers
no philosophical account of habituation into virtue with its challenges, so that
“overall optimism” (244) about pagan virtue’s prospects comes across as not
having paid its way.
Much of the book examines the nature and relationship between infused and
acquired virtue. That fraught question and the need to resolve it is a good
synecdoche of the work as a whole. Because Anderson does not address other
recent attempts to do just this (such as David Decosimo’s Ethics as a Work of
Charity [2014]) or the last decade’s extensive debates over the exact
relationship between the acquired and infused virtues, the book is in some ways
downstream from the status questionis. Adding to this is a lack of clarity as to
the precise target of Anderson’s criticisms. He repeatedly attacks “Thomistic
Pelagianism” understood as any theory of virtue that neglects sin, grace, and
divine action. Yet actual passages of reproach tend to lack proper names and
citations, making it difficult to situate his critiques within the existing literature.
But the book’s results are impressive just the same, and in some ways far exceed
the status questionis: for example, by engaging the Thomist commentatorial

BOOK REVIEWS

303

tradition in far greater depth than is usual and showing its enduring value for
this subject.
Anderson succeeds in demonstrating that a “theological backstory” is crucial
to Aquinas’s full account of virtue, and in detailing the “titanic developments”
which his teachings on grace and virtue underwent. He shows us that Aquinas’s
late teaching on grace and perseverance has yet fully to impact how we construe
the reception and retention of the infused virtues, and presses home their vast
but neglected consequences for virtue theory and moral theology. I am unaware
of any recent author who has stated these important points with such
forcefulness or in such detail, and for this we are very much in his debt.
DAVID ELLIOT
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

Human Perfection in Byzantine Theology: Attaining the Fullness of Christ. By
ALEXIS TORRANCE. Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic
Theology. Oxford: Oxford University, 2020. Pp. xii + 289. $85.00.
ISBN 978-0-19-884529-4.
This book is the best anglophone book in Byzantine theology of the past
twenty years. It has a strong claim to being the most important book in
Byzantine theology in any Western language since Vladimir Lossky’s The
Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1944). Other studies, such as John
Meyendorff’s Introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas (1959) laid the
foundation for later research, but his book had a rather narrow focus.
Meyendorff also wrote more broad-ranging books, such as Christ in Eastern
Christian Thought (1969), Byzantine Theology (1974), and Imperial Unity and
Christian Divisions (1989), which either provided important surveys or
proposed theses that were not very bold. Jaroslav Pelikan’s works, too, tended
to be overviews. The German Jesuit Gerhard Podskalsky focused on particular
historical periods or again, like Meyendorff and Pelikan, provided important
surveys. I hope to explain in this review why Torrance’s book is so significant
as well as draw attention to places where the book is uneven.
Like Lossky in his Mystical Theology, Torrance does historical theology at
the highest level, propounding original if somewhat controversial theses, for the
sake of an intervention in what we might call systematic Orthodox theology
(vii, 6-7, and all of chapter 1). The motivation for Torrance’s study of the
Byzantine tradition of reflection on Christ’s humanity deified by the hypostatic
union (34) is that some important strands of modern Orthodox theology have
strayed from this center of theological anthropology and risk “theological

304

BOOK REVIEWS

shipwreck (1).” While the founders of the various schools of Orthodox thought
for the most part avoid this problem (with the important exception of Sergius
Bulgakov), their students stray into theological error.
Georges Florovsky is central to this book, both in his approach to historical
theology and in his Christocentric paradigm (3). Florovsky proposed his neopatristic synthesis in the mid-twentieth century and this name, if not its method,
has been taken up by a number of his students. These followers often repeat the
Fathers without engaging the contemporary world. This has led many Orthodox theologians to criticize Florovsky and his method as being inattentive to
the nuances of the various Fathers (because of his synthesis) or ignoring the
modern context (because of his attention to and attempt to be faithful to the
Fathers). Torrance, influenced especially by the work of Matthew Baker, puts
up a spirited defense of the neo-patristic synthesis, claiming the method is good,
but often poorly applied (7).
Torrance is sympathetic to those Orthodox theologians such as Norman
Russell and John Behr who call for a symphony (or harmony or polyphony) of
the Fathers rather than a synthesis, but he worries that there is a possibility of
dissonance in the metaphor of a symphony. On the other hand, Torrance thinks
that in their concern to address the modern world many contemporary
Orthodox theologians stray from the normative “quickening and guiding
presence of the Holy Spirit in Scripture . . . the experience of the saints . . .
[and] the living Body of Christ through history” (ibid.).
In the rest of his programmatic first chapter, Torrance examines contemporary strands of personalism in Orthodox theology. At times he strays far
afield, for instance in his examination of the British and Boston schools of
personalism in the early twentieth century. Here more attention to Florovsky
or the normative character of the saints would have been useful. Torrance’s
concern about modern Orthodoxy’s theological anthropology is that it sidesteps
Christ who must be the cornerstone of any Christian anthropology (8, 10, 13).
One can claim this about John Zizioulas who does not begin with Christ yet
retains a strong Christological element, but whose followers tend to forget
Christ altogether, or at least to subordinate him. Other Orthodox thinkers such
as Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergius Bulgakov, and Vladimir Solovyov stray from the
traditional Orthodox sources, for the tradition has Christ as its starting point
and center (23-25, 35-36). Defenders of Bulgakov will respond by saying that
he puts the Incarnation at the center of creation. Torrance could respond by
asking if he is attentive enough to the particulars of the Gospel accounts of
Jesus.
At this point a question must come up in the reader’s mind. Who, then, is to
guide theology? If Orthodoxy is a neo-patristic synthesis, isn’t the modern
theologian simply alone with his texts, an Orthodox soli patres instead of the
Protestant sola scriptura? Torrance does not, to my mind, give enough attention
to this question although he does give an answer indirectly. The modern
canonized Orthodox saints (St. Sophrony Sakharov and St. Justin Popović) are

BOOK REVIEWS

305

normative both in their approach to the tradition and the Christological center
to their anthropology (26, 35-37, 39, 45-46, 81, 215).
A Catholic wonders here, however, if this somewhat muted magisterium can
avoid the problem of soli patres. Isn’t the Catholic and scriptural concept of the
deposit (παραθήκη) of the faith helpful (1 Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:14)? The Catholic
approach is not merely a synthesis for which a theologian is responsible, but an
external reality, the deposit (really, Christ), to which the Fathers witness.
Furthermore, in Torrance’s Orthodox approach the bishops certainly have a
role in their decision, guided by the Holy Spirit, to canonize certain saints. But
is this enough? Is there not, as in the Catholic position, a need for an ordinary
magisterium to provide guidance to specific controversial questions as they
arise? Here we have a difference between the Catholic and Orthodox approaches to theology, both of which, of course, are grounded in the tradition.
Perhaps the Orthodox theologian has more liberty and the Catholic more
assurance. Still, Torrance is much closer to the Catholic position than many
contemporary Orthodox theologians, for he sees the modern canonized saints
as playing a role similar to the Catholic “Doctor of the Church.”
After the first chapter, four chapters on individual Byzantine saints follow
(Maximus the Confessor, Theodore the Studite, Symeon the New Theologian,
and Gregory Palamas). The two strongest chapters are those on Maximus and
Palamas. I will give attention to the chapter on Maximus because he is likely to
be more familiar to readers than Gregory Palamas and it is the most controversial chapter of the four.
Torrance’s chapter on Maximus focuses on deification, as all the chapters
do, but he gives especial attention to epektasis, or perpetual progress in the
union with God in the afterlife. Torrance sees, in both Maximus and Palamas,
a maximalist view of deification: Maximus’s “argument implies that in the age
to come, God does not live in one way and the saints in another way: they live
in exactly the same way, only one lives it as God by nature and the other as
human by nature” (59, cf. 76-78). His reading of Maximus on this point is in
strong contrast with those of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Paul Blowers, and
Norman Russell who are concerned to maintain that infinite gap between
creator and creature.
Torrance has a few criticisms of the notion of epektasis in Maximus and the
Greek theological tradition in general and takes his cue from St. Sophrony
Sakharov (45-46). Epektasis has become popular in Orthodox thought (John
McGuckin, Kallistos Ware, Christos Yannaras), but Torrance does not see it in
the tradition as others do. First, it is only to be found in a few passages,
including, famously, Maximus’s Ambiguum 7.27 (53, 69, although see
Torrance’s discussion of Maximus’s commentary on Ambiguum 7 in his late
Opusculum 1 on 67-68). Second, Torrance argues against the view of Jean
Daniélou and his followers who see in the Greek patristic tradition the pure
Gospel stripped of its Hellenism (44). For Daniélou the Greek philosophical
conception of resting in union with God must be excluded because of the
statements of Nyssa and Maximus that speak of movement in the afterlife. But

306

BOOK REVIEWS

Torrance argues that this misses the coincidence of opposites of both stasis and
movement in Nyssa and Maximus (45). Furthermore, Byzantines didn’t idealize
flux, and it is hard to have both epektasis and the “immovable [eschatological]
kingdom,” βασιλεία ἀσάλευτος (Heb 12:28) (48). Indeed, many cited
authorities for epektasis in the Greek Fathers are in fact texts about the spiritual
life here below.
In the end, Torrance’s commitment to a maximalist sense of deification contributes to his rejection (or at least muting) of epektasis. He suggests Maximus’s
“ever-moving rest” or ἀεικίνητος στάσις is the proper way to understand the
question (70). How, in the end, could there be a deification that connotes an
identity between God and the saint? Epektasis seems to deny this identity. One
of the strengths of epektasis is that it avoids the danger of pantheism. But
Torrance questions if it is faithful to Maximus’s texts, which speak of the
eschaton for the most part in terms of rest although not stasis (72). For
Torrance, Maximus proposes movement only in the infinite operation of God
in the saints (74). It is a dynamism without change, growth, or progress. Torrance’s reading on deification is preserved from pantheism, as Torrance affirms:
“there will always be that which saves (God) and that which is saved (the saints),
which in turn implies a difference of nature” (68). Here we see Torrance’s desire
to avoid the pantheism he sees in Sergius Bulgakov.
In the next three chapters Torrance considers various aspects of Christology.
In his chapter on Theodore the Studite he draws our attention to Theodore’s
defense of the created human identity of Christ. His chapter on Symeon the
New Theologian presents Symeon’s fight against mediocrity and his exhortation
to begin the process of deification in this life. Finally, and perhaps most
originally, Torrance sees in Palamas’s distinction between essence and energies
a Eucharistic aspect (184). In the Eucharist we are given an opportunity to
participate more fully in the divine life than we are in the light of Tabor.
Torrance concludes his book by considering two councils from the twelfth
century concerned with “my Father is greater than I” in John’s Gospel. The
conclusion of the councils is that this must apply to Christ’s humanity. Although
deified, this humanity remains human and not “consubstantial with God, in
which case the natural properties of creaturehood, of circumscription, and the
other properties contemplated in the human nature of Christ would be
abandoned and transformed into the nature of divinity” (199, translation of the
Synodikon of Orthodoxy).
From here Torrance proceeds to laud John Behr’s recent work which takes
Christ as central in theological anthropology (204), but he worries that Behr’s
interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:16 leads him to exclude “Christ’s historical
existence as a man. Christ perpetually disappears . . . (207).” This exclusion is
in part due to Behr’s postmodern-patristic view of history that is not concerned
with the modern view of what really happened (Leopold von Ranke), but rather
views everything “retrospectively from the Cross” (209, citing Behr). In the end,
Behr’s approach to theological anthropology, while praiseworthy for its focus
on Christ, is not faithful to the councils and tradition of the Orthodox Church.

BOOK REVIEWS

307

It should be noted by Catholic readers that Torrance repeatedly lapses into
criticisms of Catholic ideas that do not seem germane to the question at hand.
Thus, he argues against Christiaan Kappes’s 2014 claim for the Immaculate
Conception in the Byzantine tradition without engaging him (98). This is based,
Torrance claims, on the different ideas of original sin in the Catholic and
Orthodox theological traditions. Later in the book he sees a disjunction between
Aquinas and Palamas on created grace, mentioning his own disagreement with
Bruce Marshall and Norman Russell but not presenting or refuting their
arguments (180). But again, a book with as bold and original a claim as Torrance
makes must have some imperfections.
Torrance has attempted to reorient theological anthropology, the main
concern of Orthodox theology for the past century and a half, to the humanity
of Christ. He sees good in many of the main figures of the personalist
anthropology of the past sixty years, especially in their attention to Christ, but
is critical of their followers who lose the anchorage in Christ entirely. Torrance
argues that this approach is not faithful to the councils, to the tradition, and to
the recently canonized theologian saints. Torrance’s method is a retrieval of
Florovsky’s neo-patristic synthesis, and he defends it as more subtle than the
caricatures of its detractors and distortions of its defenders. His argument is
cogent, and it is hoped that this book will be a major intervention in Orthodox
theology. It has the potential to bring Orthodox theology both to its roots and,
with its retrieval of the sources, to a deeper critical but ecumenical engagement
with the modern world.
MATTHEW C. BRIEL
Assumption University
Worcester, Massachusetts

Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect. By ADAM WOOD.
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020.
Pp. 335. $75.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-0-8132-3256-0.
I was keen to review Adam Wood’s recent contribution to debates on
Aquinas’s arguments for the immateriality of the intellect. I immediately
discovered his book treats far more than my narrow interest had anticipated. In
six engaging chapters Wood explores an impressive array of disputed questions
on Aquinas’s views on the physical and metaphysical aspects of the human soul
and intellectual powers. The arguments for the immateriality of the intellect are
confined to the fifth chapter, but Wood does show—sometimes surprisingly—
how many different debates are directly relevant to understanding Aquinas’s

308

BOOK REVIEWS

contentions that the human soul is incorporeal, immaterial, incorruptible,
immortal, and compatible with the resurrection.
The questions driving each stage of Wood’s monograph are clearly signposted and typically are variations on two basic questions: What should we say
is Aquinas’s view on X, given rival readings of Aquinas’s view on X? and what
are the philosophical merits of holding such a view today? Most of the book is
dedicated to an accurate interpretation of Aquinas’s positions, which Wood
helpfully situates amongst the positions and objections of Avicenna, Roger
Mareston, Francisco Suárez, David Armstrong, Saul Kripke, William Jaworski,
and many other historical and contemporary thinkers. For these investigations
alone I heartily recommend Wood’s study to anyone interested in a critical
survey and contribution to the major disputes orbiting Aquinas on the intellect’s
immateriality. Before considering some challenges to Wood’s argument for the
intellect’s immateriality, I will give an overview of the book’s major theses.
Chapter 1, “Forms as Limiting Principles,” commences with Aquinas’s hylomorphism. The central challenge is squaring hylomorphism with Aquinas’s
contention that the intellectual soul is an immaterial form that can subsist apart
from the body. Wood shows why explicating matter and form as “stuff and
structure” or “referent and truthmaker” cannot meet this challenge, but the
analogy of being can. He explains how Aquinas’s sixfold division of being
illuminates an understanding of form as an immaterial mode of being and
limiting principle of esse which can be directly participated in without matter.
The human intellect “is an accidental form inhering directly in the human soul,
rather than in the human being as a whole. Consequently, the human intellect
has its act of being in an immaterial mode. This is what Aquinas primarily means
by asserting its immateriality” (39). Wood marshals these resources to defend
two theses of Aquinas. First, contrary to universal hylomorphism, the intellect
can directly inhere in the rational soul alone; it need not inhere in a composite
of form and spiritual matter. Second, that the rational soul both subsists in itself
and informs matter is philosophically justifiable and coherent.
Chapter 2, “Forms as Essences, Structures, Truthmakers, and Powers,”
clarifies that “form” can mean either the essence as a whole—including matter
and form—or the formal part of an essence, like souls and other substantial
forms. Because Aquinas rejects the plurality of substantial forms, he maintains
that the soul provides the single overarching structure for the essence of the
whole composite. Essences locate composites within a kind or species. “Yet
within the essence it is the form of the part that does the important identitydetermining work, because matter on its own, or prime matter, is pure
potentiality, and not actually anything at all. It takes some structuring or
‘perfecting’ by a form of the part for matter to exist in act as flesh, bones, or
anything else” (72). The soul also plays a “unifying role” as the “overarching
structure” that unites “material components into a single composite whole
synchronically, and maintains its unity diachronically even as it cycles bits of
matter in and out throughout its career” (73). Additionally, Wood identifies the

BOOK REVIEWS

309

roles substantial forms play as grounding powers and other properties of the
composite, and elucidates five points on forms as truthmakers (73-78).
Wood defends a trope-theory interpretation of Aquinas’s doctrine of
universals. “Because Thomas thinks the numerical distinctness of natures from
one another is derivative, he countenances a peculiar sort of trope—derivatively
distinct individuals—not typically recognized in disputes about universals. He
then analyzes the sameness of natures in terms of the lack of intrinsic differences
between numerically distinct nature-tropes” (57). Essences and forms are real
but are only universal when intellectually intentionalized and predicated. These
predications’ truthmakers for kind-membership are the natures or forms of real
things that are “internally the same” and “intrinsically non-individual.” Wood
succinctly locates Aquinas’s position with respect to Avicenna, Scotus, Ockham,
and contemporary debates between realists and nominalists.
Because forms or tropes are derivatively individual in virtue of some
additional principle of individuation, Wood is led to survey debates on
individuation in Aquinas with respect to angels, celestial bodies, sublunary
bodies, and rational souls. Wood suggests Aquinas’s view on the individuation
of composites is akin to Kripke’s “origins essentialism.” “Hence while matter
along with quantitative dimensions jointly explains a substance’s individual
identity at first, its substantial form assumes the explanatory role of preserving
its individual identity diachronically” (62). Even rational souls separated from
matter retain this individual identity. The chapter concludes with Aquinas’s
views on psychological powers, including vegetative and sentient powers that
are substructures of bodily tissues and organs, and intellectual powers that do
not inform any material components. Wood examines Aquinas’s major reasons
for refusing to identify souls and powers before expounding the ins and outs of
the levels of hylomorphic composition found within inanimate and animate
substances, parts, and powers. I found attractive his distinction between tissues
and organs, where organs are “the highest-level parts oriented toward systemslevel tasks” (88). I wholeheartedly agree with Wood that many powers can be
regarded as “substructures responsible for configuring the body such that it is
capable of carrying out or contributing to certain operations” (83). I wish this
insight had been developed more in later chapters in place of the attempts to
present Aquinas as a sort of emergentist and reductionist but not as either one
is typically defined.
Chapter 3, “From Incorporeality to Incorruptibility,” explains how establishing the incorporeality of intellectual operations and powers leads Aquinas
to the immateriality and so separability and incorruptibility of the human soul.
To get a handle on “incorporeality” Wood investigates the real definitions and
four causal explanations of incorporeal psychological operations; after rejecting
four inadequate definitions he defends the following formulation.
If a power X is ontologically dependent on some bodily feature Y,
then Y is part of X’s real definition. But for some Y to be part of a
power X’s real definition is for it to be involved in the explanation
of how X operates. Hence if a power X is ontologically dependent

310

BOOK REVIEWS
on a bodily feature Y, then X’s operation is explicable in terms of Y.
(139)

If the explanatory definitions of intellectual operations are not ontologically
dependent on corporeal features, then they are incorporeal. Wood then
endeavors to persuade us that nonreductive physicalists, substance dualists, and
emergentists should accept this account.
Chapter 4, “Aquinas’s Theory of Cognition,” reviews debates on whether
sensation is immaterial and without physiological processes—which would
leave obscure its distinction from intellect—and whether Aquinas’s criteria for
cognition and its intentional mode of being are so promiscuous as to make
inanimate media, like air, cognizers. These were important debates, but whereas
I hold that most of them have been sufficiently settled exegetically, I think
Wood treats too many of them as being unsettled, even when he takes sides.
Chapter 5 introduces Aquinas’s three major arguments for the immateriality
of the intellect, judiciously discloses their fatal flaws, and suggests another
strategy that might work. Chapter 6 concludes with interesting treatments of
disputed questions on why an incorruptible soul must be immortal, why
separated souls are not human persons, why Aquinas only acknowledged a weak
form of gappy existence that permits the cessation of humans between death
and resurrection, but not the cessation of the esse and form by virtue of which
the soul’s individual continuity is preserved. Wood lucidly demonstrates the
core arguments of Aquinas that proceed from the incorporeality of intellectual
acts—unexplained by corporeal phenomena—to their immateriality, which
entails the soul’s separability, incorruptibility, and immortality.
This is an impressive study of Aquinas, which merits critical engagement. If
I had more space I would raise issues with Wood’s information-processing
construal of cognition, his overly restrictive reading of animals’ cognitive
powers, the paradigm conflations in his comparisons of Aquinas’s positions with
views from philosophy of mind, and his reluctance to adjudicate on sufficiently
settled exegetical debates. I conclude with what sparked my initial interest:
Wood’s treatment of Aquinas’s arguments from scope, self-reflexivity, and
mode for the intellect’s immateriality.
The scope-argument’s problems are widely acknowledged, and Wood sums
up the conclusive case against this argument from the intellect’s purported scope
to know everything. Aquinas, critics, and defenders focus more on the modeargument from the intellect’s universal mode of cognition, which is contended
to be incompatible with being material, given that matter is the principle of
individuation. This argument’s fatal objection is its illicit shift from the
intentional mode by which some object is understood to the ontological features
of the operations and powers by virtue of which one understands some object.
What it fails to explain is how ontological conclusions can be drawn from the
intentional ways objects are cognized. Robert Pasnau dubbed this the “Content
Fallacy” and collated examples of Aquinas recognizing and falling victim to this
error. Wood recapitulates and amplifies examples where Aquinas claims the

BOOK REVIEWS

311

intentional mode by which something is cognized cannot disclose the
ontological nature of the cognizer or object cognized. So, animals cognize colors
without becoming colored, universals can be known by the intellect without
universals being denizens of reality, and God is immaterial and yet knows
individual material things.
Wood acknowledges the efforts of John O’Callaghan and Therese Cory to
defend Aquinas by objecting to Pasnau’s misleading ascription of “content.” But
Wood is certainly correct that their exegetical amendments do nothing to save
Aquinas’s argument from a redressed version of the same objection. For it is
“no less objectionable to move without further ado from claims about the
intellect’s mode of cognizing certain objects—that is, an absolute mode—to
claims about the intellect’s ontological status than to move from claims about
content to ontological status” (234). Rather than fallaciously trying to move
from intentional modes of cognizing objects to the intellect’s ontological status,
we instead need an argument for why any power that can intentionally cognize
universals must be an incorporeal power. Wood critically examines proposals
by Klima, Haldane, and Cory to explain this, and demonstrates why none of
them succeeds.
Wood spends less time on but is more optimistic about the self-reflexivity
argument: no corporeal thing can reflect upon itself, but the intellect is selfreflective, so it must be incorporeal. Unfortunately, the proposal he outlines
from Cory clearly runs into the same error that plagues the mode-argument, for
the intellect is only intentionally self-reflexive and first-personal.
I believe the most important conclusion of Wood’s careful investigation is
that none of Aquinas’s three major arguments for the immateriality of the
intellect is successful. Perhaps Aquinas’s arguments offer plausible reasons for
holding that the intellect is immaterial, but as Cajetan—whose assessment is
surprisingly not mentioned by Wood—also came to concede, they do not
demonstrate this conclusion. Any Thomist who thinks otherwise must now
contend with Wood’s meticulous study. Like Wood, I do not think this
evaluation should be a cause for either despair or skepticism. It should be a
catalyst for truly insightful and constructive Thomistic enquiry drawing on
phenomenology and metaphysics to arrive at properly neo-Aristotelian—not
neo-Cartesian—arguments for the immateriality of the intellect. What these
arguments should start with are features proprietary to rationality (enquiry,
definition, categoriality, truth, inference, reflexivity) and which require
ontological factors that are excluded by any hylomorphically embodied
psychological power.
The most ingenious recent proposal was sketched by James Ross, but
Antonio Ramos-Díaz has shown Ross’s argument has been misunderstood by its
most influential proponents, who conflate indeterminacy of formal operations
with indeterminacy of form. I believe this misunderstanding includes one of Ed
Feser’s construals and Wood’s efforts to give it a Thomistic reading (239-54).
Ross’s best argument concerns the formal or categorial determinacy of the very
intellectual operations of adding or quadding, not the determinacy of any form,

312

BOOK REVIEWS

content, or representation of addition, quaddition, triangles, trees, rabbits, or
pointing. Ross establishes why wholly physical systems are incapable of realizing
determinate formal operations as persons do. But the realization of determinate
forms is a different issue, and denying their hylomorphic realization, as Wood
does, is precariously “Platonic.” For no Aristotelian can hold that the forms of
all physical things are indeterminate and are only determinate if immaterial. It
seems to me that Wood’s attempt to develop Aquinas’s mode-argument in this
direction is vulnerable to this and related problems, such as, how can the
intellect abstract determinate forms from indeterminate hylomorphic things? I
would welcome being corrected on these fronts. I will say that it can be
disentangled from these worries, I think Wood proposes a more promising
avenue for establishing the intellect’s immateriality in his initial suggestion to
focus on the “fact that [intellects] cognize objects as members of kinds at all”
(240), rather than on the intellect’s abstracting away individual features. This
percipient suggestion merits further enquiry.
Despite my reservations and disagreements with some of Wood’s
interpretations and arguments, his book contains, to my knowledge, the best
critical survey of the recent fascinating and difficult disputed questions that
surround the immateriality of the intellect in Aquinas.
DANIEL D. DE HAAN
Blackfriars and Campion Hall, University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom

The Summa Halensis: Sources and Contexts. Edited by LYDIA SCHUMACHER.
Veröffentlichungen des Grabmann-Institutes zur Erforschung der
mittelalterlichen Theologie und Philosophie 65. Berlin: De Gruyter,
2020. Pp. x + 328. $114.99 (hardcover) and open access. ISBN 978-31106-8492-6.
The Summa Halensis: Sources and Contexts collects seventeen essays on this
important medieval text. The Summa Halensis was a collaborative effort of the
early Franciscan studium at Paris and is referred to by this title or others (e.g.
Summa fratris Alexandri) because one of the text’s chief contributors and
designers was the first Franciscan Master of Theology at Paris, Alexander of
Hales (d. 1245). The first three books of this enormous compendium reached
their current stage of completion in 1245. Pope Alexander IV asked the
Franciscans to continue work on the text in 1256. The result was an enormous
but unfinished fourth book, which still has not been published in a modern
critical edition.

BOOK REVIEWS

313

As the acknowledgment to this collection notes, the volume’s essays began
life as presentations at a series of conferences held at Oxford in 2018. Many of
the essays seem to have been augmented beyond their original form, since many
contain analysis and documentation that would exceed the scope of a
conference presentation. The volume’s essays fall into two parts: essays in part
1 address “The Sources of Early Franciscan Thought” and those in part 2
address “The Historical and Intellectual Content.” Most readers will reach for
the essays of most concern to them and so the organization of the volume is of
no importance. Naturally, in an edited collection, some essays hold up better to
a peer scholar’s criticism than others and some essays address the Summa
Halensis more directly than others. Experts can make their own judgments
about individual pieces. My concern here is for the student or scholar new to
the Summa Halensis, who may wish to approach the volume as an introduction
to this work. How should such a person read these essays? In what follows, I
will provide a strategy for using the volume as an introduction to the Summa
Halensis, though I note that Victorin Doucet’s original “Prolegomena” (1948)
to the critical edition of book 3 of the Summa Halensis (known as tome 4) is
still essential reading. Depending upon interest, there are also older, often
difficult to find, studies on the Summa Halensis that are still valuable.
A student or scholar new to this material should begin with Ayelet EvenEzra’s contribution, “The Summa Halensis: A Text in Context.” This essay
provides a broad tour of the texts and movements surrounding the Summa
Halensis and highlights the importance of the architecture or structure of the
Summa. Given the size of all summae of this period (and especially the
behemoth that is the Summa Halensis), the essay cannot be very detailed. This
should simply point the reader to the Summa Halensis itself and to other
summae produced during the same period.
Next the reader should turn to Sophie Delmas’s “Odo Rigaldi, Alexander of
Hales and the Summa Halensis.” This essay may be a reader’s first contact with
Odo, one of the most important Franciscans of the thirteenth century. It may
also be a reader’s first encounter with Delmas, who has contributed other
important studies, like her study of the Franciscan theologian Eustace of Arras,
Un franciscain à Paris: Le maître en théologie Eustache d’Arras (o.f.m.) au milieu
du XIIIe siècle. Delmas’s contribution in this volume gives a clear introduction
to Odo and his significance. Her essay also displays the need for a critical edition
of Odo’s works, most of which still exist only in manuscript. To this end,
Delmas provides a helpful list of Odo’s works and their manuscripts as well as
information on the partial editions that have been made of some of his work.
This is exactly the kind of help students and scholars often need to begin their
study but which is not often acknowledged. Odo himself occupies a unique
position in relationship to the Summa Halensis: he studied theology at Paris
while the Franciscans worked on the Summa and he became a Master of
Theology after the deaths of Alexander of Hales and John of La Rochelle
(another principal contributor to the Summa). Odo therefore knew and
certainly used the Summa Halensis. Delmas argues that Odo also contributed

314

BOOK REVIEWS

to individual elements of book 3 of the Summa (which covers issues in
Christology and begins but never finishes a treatment of the virtues) and “took
partial responsibility” (279) for the third book’s construction. She also shows
that Odo was critical of various positions in the third book of the Summa
Halensis. This point should be noted by those concerned to understand how
early Franciscans themselves utilized the Summa Halensis and formed a
potential school.
With Even-Ezra’s general introduction and Delmas’s handling of a specific
Franciscan user and contributor in view, the reader should turn to Neslihan
Şenocak’s essay, “Alexander’s Commentary on the Rule in Relation to the
Summa Halensis.” Şenocak is known to scholars of Franciscana for her
contributions to understanding Franciscan education, as in The Poor and the
Perfect: The Rise of Learning in the Franciscan Order, 1209-1310. Her essay in
this volume can further orientate readers to the group of Franciscans that
produced the Summa Halensis and their historical moment. The essay also
provides a helpful reading of the Commentary of the Four Masters on the
Franciscan Rule. If Şenocak’s analysis of the relationship between the
Commentary and the Summa Halensis holds, then she has shown that the
Summa Halensis is perhaps most “Franciscan” right where we might expect it
to be: when it is dealing with matters that intimately touch their Rule and how
to observe it, issues related above all to poverty.
With these three historical essays in view, the reader may now wish for a
more explicitly theological orientation to the Summa Halensis. Here I
recommend turning to the essays of Aaron Gies and Boyd Taylor Coolman. Gies
takes on the unenviable task of considering “the Summa Halensis as an exercise
in interpreting the Scriptures” (11). Coolman, as one would expect given his
prior work, deals with Hugh of St. Victor’s influence on the Summa Halensis,
focusing on the Summa’s opening discussions of theology itself. These two
essays helpfully orientate the reader at the foundation of the Summa’s
theological concerns.
From here it is less clear how the reader should proceed. One point made in
this volume that no student or scholar should miss is the influence of William
of Auxerre’s (d. 1231) Summa aurea on the Summa Halensis. At least four
essays demonstrate the dependence of the Summa Halensis on William of
Auxerre. The essays of Richard Cross and Johannes Zachhuber both study the
presence of John of Damascus in the Summa Halensis. Cross notes that at times
the Summa Halensis appropriates John by appropriating the Summa aurea
verbatim (77); Zachhuber notes the same phenomena (109, 111). Stephen
Brown’s essay displays the reliance of the Summa Halensis on William (and
Prepositinus of Cremona and Allan of Lille) for its doctrine of supposition, a
critical but poorly understood tool of medieval theology. Finally, Aaron Canty’s
essay, “The Influence of Anselm of Canterbury on the Summa Halensis’
Theology of the Divine Substance,” indicates William’s role in the Summa
Halensis’s reception of Anselm, even if the Summa Halensis went on to employ
Anselm to greater lengths. Beyond verifying the influence of William of

BOOK REVIEWS

315

Auxerre, Giles Gasper’s contribution, “Creation, Light, and Redemption:
Hexaemeral Thinking, Robert Grosseteste and the Summa Halensis,” cautiously
speculates on another influence: the Oxford theologian and Bishop of Lincoln,
Robert Grosseteste (d. 1253). The lesson from these five essays is that the
influence of William of Auxerre is so important, along with other late twelfth
and early thirteenth-century figures and texts, that students and scholars should
always look to these volumes to understand the Summa Halensis better.
Further, as Delmas’s essay displays, there are still many unedited works that one
would need to consult to scrutinize the Summa Halensis thoroughly. Scholars
that do not engage these other resources when studying the Summa run the risk
of asserting rather than demonstrating their claims.
Two other essays in this volume may be very useful to students and new
scholars even though they do not substantively touch on the Summa Halensis.
Lesley Smith’s “Slippers in Heaven: William of Auvergne Preaching to the
Brethren,” acknowledges immediately that the essay does not directly concern
the Summa Halensis (285). For some readers, however, William of Auvergne
(d. 1249) will be completely unknown and so Smith’s essay can provide an
orientation to another important thirteenth-century figure lurking in the
Summa Halensis’s context. In a similar way Catherine Kavanagh’s “The
Eriugenian Influence in the Summa Halensis: A Synthetic Tradition” only looks
at the Summa Halensis in its conclusion. The bulk of the essay presents “a
general historical overview of the fate of Eriugenian texts and ideas” (118). The
essay can therefore present a student with an orientation to another part of the
Summa Halensis’s context.
If a reader has followed my suggestions to this point, or chosen some other
path through the essays, a fairly consistent feature will have emerged. Most
essays, at some point, use the word “innovation.” Most of these do not,
however, make the term a substantial part of the argument. Other contributions
seem to show that the Summa Halensis is not “innovative,” though this
judgment depends on having a clear sense of what “innovation” means and how
it can be demonstrated. Here, Lydia Schumacher’s introduction to the volume
could have provided more methodological helps for the reader to understand
the volume’s view of “innovation,” how it can be demonstrated and why it is
important, outside of commonsense meanings of the term. As it stands, I found
Schumacher’s introduction and contributions to the volume difficult to assess,
since the broad claims made in them often have confusing justification or
documentation. I mention just two examples in order to caution the reader and
new scholar and hopefully to provide a useful corrective. First, Schumacher’s
introduction reports that Bernard Klumper oversaw the editorial production of
the first three volumes of the Summa Halensis (2-3). This is simply a misreading
of the title page of the edition of the Summa Halensis. Bernard Klumper was
the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor in the 1920s when the editors
began their work. Oddly, Schumacher references, on the very first page, a study
of Ignatius Brady that provides a history of how the twentieth-century edition
of the Summa Halensis came to be, which would have corrected this error.

316

BOOK REVIEWS

However, Schumacher references Brady’s study to substantiate that
Bonaventure and his forebears worked to systematize Augustine, something the
essay does not discuss. Second, Schumacher reports that Bonaventure credited
“everything he learned to his ‘master and father’ Alexander of Hales, which is
scarcely an exaggeration” (2). The reader is referred to Bonaventure’s own
works to substantiate this claim, with the following reference to book II of
Bonaventure’s commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences: “Prologue, Lib II, d
23, a 2 q e (II, 547)” (2 n. 5). The reference is misleading, since it probably
refers to two texts, one of them incorrectly. Turning to the page in the edition
Schumacher references, the reader will find Bonaventure describing Alexander
of Hales as patris et magistri nostri but nothing about his indebtedness to
Alexander. The reader will also not find any mention of a “prologue” at this
point. This is because the reference probably also means to send the reader to a
different text within Bonaventure’s corpus, the so-called “Praelocutio” to book
II of the Sentences—a text the editors placed before the “Prologue” to book II.
This text does mention Alexander in two places, again as “our Father and
Master” and adds bonae memoriae (II, 1 and 2). The text also indicates in two
places that Bonaventure wishes to stay close to (or not depart from) Alexander’s
vestigia, something different from learning everything from him. Regarding this
“Praelocutio,” students and scholars should consult Edward D. Synan, “A
Bonaventurian Enigma: ‘Praelocutio’ or ‘Epilogus’? A Third Hypothesis,” in
Bonaventuriana: Miscellanea in onore di Jacque Guy Bougerol, ed. Francisco de
Asís Chavero Blanco, vol. 2 (Roma, 1988), 493-505.
These problems and others like them should not detract from the useful
essays found in this volume. The work as a whole sounds a warning to all those
who would study a text like the Summa Halensis, whether to demonstrate its
“innovations” or to grapple with its positions: comparative work is essential.
This comes out clearest to me in Delmas’s piece on Odo and in the essays that
indicate William of Auxerre’s influence on the Summa Halensis. Comparative
work requires texts and we know that many texts and figures have not yet
received editions and still remain only in manuscripts. Thus, one of the most
essential tasks in the study of the Middle Ages is the production of new editions.
There are far too few laborers in this field. While I appreciate the scholarship
Schumacher has brought together here, we must always bear in mind how
contingent much of it (and indeed all our work) may prove to be. Like Dante,
we may see the mountain we wish to ascend early in the journey, only to find
that a deeper, longer way is demanded.
JOSHUA C. BENSON
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

BOOK REVIEWS

317

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics: Patristic
Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus. By
JOHANNES ZACHHUBER. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xii
+ 357. $105.00 (cloth). 978-0-19-885995-6.
This excellent book provides a thorough study—to my knowledge, the first
of its kind—of the philosophical dimension of Christian doctrine in late
antiquity. Like some recent scholars (e.g., Mark Edwards and George
Karamanolis), Zachhuber sees a “Christian philosophy” emerging in this period.
For him, the label denotes “a set of logical and ontological concepts underlying
the articulation of doctrinal statements” (3). These concepts coalesced into
theories which, while not themselves carrying doctrinal weight, were
nonetheless inseparable from the articulation of doctrine in late antiquity.
Zachhuber focuses on those ontological concepts—nature (physis), substance
(ousia), and hypostasis—which served this purpose within Greek and Syriac
Christianity starting with the pro-Nicene Trinitarianism of the Cappadocians
and running through miaphysite and Chalcedonian Christology in the fifth
through seventh centuries. Despite the singular in its title, the book spotlights
the tendency to plurality in the centuries after Chalcedon, even within the same
doctrinal camp, thereby avoiding the mistake of using Chalcedon’s normativity
to excuse the neglect of alternative traditions.
The argument, in a nutshell, is that in post-Chalcedonian traditions a new
philosophical perspective emerged, one that prioritized individual existence as
such. Different accounts were developed of the fundamental ontological
priority of the individual, and each represented a reworking of the philosophy
originally developed by the Cappadocians for Trinitarian purposes. According
to Zachhuber, the explanation for this philosophical innovation lies not in a
renewed Aristotelianism but in the demands of the Christological controversies
themselves.
This account therefore avoids reducing patristic philosophy to its nonChristian sources. It also corrects the claim made by Vladimir Lossky and John
Zizioulas that Cappadocian Trinitarianism marked a metaphysical revolution,
shifting attention from universal being to the particular being of persons.
Zachhuber argues that something like this revolution did occur, but much later,
especially in the writings of John Philoponus and John of Damascus.
Zachhuber’s revolution is only somewhat similar, since its result is an emphasis
on the ontological primacy of the individual rather than personalism per se—
though he sees hints of personalism in the Damascene. The Cappadocians are
aligned with the “ancient metaphysics” that, according to Zachhuber’s title, was
brought to an end by the turn to the individual. Post-Chalcedonian authors were
motivated to make this turn because they were trying to explicate the
“irreducible individuality” of Jesus Christ (181). They had to revise the earlier
ontology, which “was ultimately based on a vision of being as universal and
one” (308). There is an implication, which comes largely from the book’s title
rather than its contents, that this ontological turn was also a move from a less

318

BOOK REVIEWS

to a more genuinely Christian system. This claim would require more defense
than it receives, though fortunately it does not interfere with the book’s quite
successful historical argument, which readers can accept wholeheartedly even if
they do not view a more monistic ontology as eo ipso less properly Christian.
Likewise, while the title implies a certain supersessionism with respect to
“ancient metaphysics,” Zachhuber does not argue that the latter ended full-stop,
but only that within Christology the priority of universal class over individual
became marginalized.
In chapter 2, Zachhuber outlines the philosophy of the Cappadocians, which
he thereafter dubs the “classical theory.” The presentation of this theory will be
partially familiar to readers of his 1999 monograph Human Nature in Gregory
of Nyssa, but it is laid out here in clearer terms and its subsequent influence is
traced here for the first time. The classical theory originates in Basil’s stipulation
that, in the case of the Trinity, we ought to use ousia for what is common to
the persons and hypostasis for what is particular to each. This usage was
adopted more or less systematically by Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of
Nazianzus, and additionally the term physis (“nature”) came to be used
interchangeably with ousia. On the classical theory, ousia necessarily loses what
Aristotle in the Categories had called its primary sense, namely, denoting
concrete particulars. Instead, it is restricted to its secondary sense of naming
species and their genera.
Zachhuber argues that the theory has two dimensions, which he calls the
abstract and concrete accounts. In its abstract dimension, which was Basil’s
primary emphasis, the theory focuses on properties: those contained in the
common “formula of substance” (logos tēs ousias) and those that distinguish the
hypostases. Thus far, it is a “grammatical,” “logical,” “epistemic,” and
“subjective” theory aimed at classifying human language and concepts (66). In
its concrete dimension, we encounter the theory’s “physical,” “metaphysical,”
and “objective” side (ibid.). Here, the focus is on the instantiation of properties
in concrete particulars: the extension of a class rather than its intension.
Zachhuber credits Gregory of Nyssa for developing this side of the theory. For
Gregory, a universal, considered as a set of properties, only subsists in its
hypostases. According to Zachhuber, it is also an essential feature of Gregory’s
theory that the hypostases of any nature form a definite set. Universal natures
are thus wholes comprising exactly these particulars as parts; it is an ontology
“deeply grounded in prioritizing the one over the many” (61).
Chapter 3 traces the beginnings of Christological dispute in Cyril of
Alexandria, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and the Apollinarian debate. Despite Cyril’s
importance to later Christology, his interest here lies chiefly in providing
evidence for the establishment of Cappadocian language as a classical theory.
Next come three chapters on miaphysite theologians: Severus of Antioch (chap.
4), John Philoponus (chap. 5), and Damian of Alexandria and Peter of Callinicus
(chap. 6). Chapter 4 debunks Joseph Lebon’s influential claim that Severus and
his followers simply identified physis and hypostasis. The most interesting
miaphysite, and the book’s central character, is John Philoponus with his novel

BOOK REVIEWS

319

theory of particular natures. Zachhuber shows Philoponus breaking with
Severus’s endorsement of a collective, concrete universal. For Philoponus, the
universal nature, on its own and apart from its instantiations, is entirely abstract.
Yet the same nature exists in particulars as a particular nature—for example,
the animality in this horse, which is not in any other animal. Fascinatingly, then,
the same nature admits of contrary properties: in itself, it is indivisible and
single; in particulars, it is divided and becomes many—a direct contrast to
Gregory of Nyssa and a distinct foregrounding of individual existence.
Philoponus says that a particular nature and a hypostasis are “roughly the
same,” though not strictly identical since the latter also includes individuating
properties (154).
Zachhuber rebuts those who explain Philoponus’s originality by pointing to
his comments on universals in his Aristotelian commentaries. I do hear an echo
of Plotinus’s handling of the line in the Timaeus that soul, indivisible in itself,
“becomes divisible around bodies” (Tim. 35a2-3; Enn. 4.2.1, 6.4.4). A
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae search reveals about twenty references to this phrase
in Philoponus’s philosophical works, especially his Commentary on Aristotle’s
“De anima.” Perhaps future research could find a link between Philoponus’s
particular natures and his psychology. Regardless, Zachhuber is surely correct
that, even if Philoponus’s philosophical work prepared him to devise the doctrine of particular natures, the impetus for doing so came from Christology—
though he did later apply it to the Trinity, with famously controversial results
outlined by Zachhuber.
The final three chapters examine Chalcedonian theologians: John the
Grammarian and Leontius of Byzantium (chap. 7), a set of authors writing
between A.D. 553 and the outset of the monergist controversy (chap. 8), and
Maximus the Confessor and John Damascene (chap. 9). Zachhuber identifies
two strands, both of which evince increasing philosophical precision and an
awareness of Philoponus’s particular natures. One runs from Leontius of
Byzantium through Theodore of Raïthu and, with significant revisions, into
Maximus. Here, in a mirror image of the miaphysites, the emphasis is on the
abstract dimension of universal natures. There was a problem with affirming
two natures in the single hypostasis of the Word. After all, all these authors held
to the axiom, common at the time, that there can be “no nature without
hypostasis” (Zachhuber: NNWH). In miaphysite hands, NNWH became a
weapon against the Chalcedonian confession that Christ has a human nature
with no corresponding human hypostasis. Zachhuber finds Leontius of
Byzantium and his followers less than adequate in their reply to this objection.
Leontius speaks of two individual natures made to subsist in Christ, but is rather
vague on why this does not entail two hypostases. Better is the other strand of
Chalcedonianism, which runs from John the Grammarian through Leontius of
Jerusalem and culminating, with major revisions, in John of Damascus.
Zachhuber credits the Grammarian with developing a model in which Christ’s
human nature is present in his hypostasis somewhat as an accident is present in
a substance. Christ is one person in two natures, but only the divine nature is

320

BOOK REVIEWS

substantial and thus hypostatic. John’s “Substance/Accident” model had a long
Scholastic afterlife, as Richard Cross has shown.
The Damascene pushes this strand further. If Philoponus is not the book’s
hero, John of Damascus is. The latter effectively denies that the NNWH
principle holds at all. He conceives of the hypostasis as the ground of all of its
properties, substantial and accidental. The hypostasis or individual itself is thus
pure existence or, in modern parlance, a bare particular. An individual is not
the realization of a nature, but that in which natures inhere. John retains
universal natures, but they become features of individuals not entirely unlike
accidents. On their own, universals are merely abstract; they “inhere wholly in
each of their individuals” (302). It follows, perhaps shockingly, that “when one
of the hypostases suffers, the whole ousia, to which the hypostasis belonged, is
said to have suffered in one of its hypostases” (ibid., quoting John of Damascus,
Expositio fidei 50). This does not mean that all the individuals of that nature
suffer simultaneously. Rather, it means that because the nature’s abstract
properties are instantiated without remainder in this individual, the whole
nature suffers with its carrier. While this nature must be in some sense
repeatable, its subsistence depends upon individuals, and it is only by conceptual
collection that one can claim that the same nature is instantiated in others of
the class. Hypostases, the only independently subsistent items in John’s
universe, are “ontologically foundational” (291) and “the carrier of all other
being” (309).
This highly innovative move effectively separates existence from essence. To
be sure, the idea that hypostases alone do not inhere in other types of being
sounds like the definition of primary substance in Aristotle’s Categories.
However, Zachhuber finds this source insufficient. He is right. Consider a
passage not mentioned in the book. Porphyry, in his Commentary on Aristotle’s
“Categories,” entertains an objection to the notion that concrete beings like
Socrates are ontologically primary and universals secondary. He assumes that X
is prior to Y if Y cannot exist without X. Porphyry’s objection notes that “human
being” or “animal” went on existing when Socrates died. In reply, Porphyry
rightly notes that when Aristotle uses Socrates as an example of primary
substance, he is actually looking to the whole class-extension of “human being”
rather than to Socrates as an individual. It is true, he says, that when an
individual dies, the species goes on, but if all members of a species were to die,
the species would expire with it (Porphyry, in Cat. 90.10–91.12 [ed. Busse]).
This example lends contrast to John of Damascus’s claim that when an
individual dies, the nature dies too, and it adds confirmation to the insight
demonstrated brilliantly in Zachhuber’s book that the Damascene and his
contemporaries were consciously revising prior philosophical tradition.
This intellectual tour de force is necessary reading for patristic scholars and
will be of great interest to historians of late antique and medieval thought
generally. It is, I think, the most important book on early Christian doctrine in
the past decade or more. It is clearly written, though conceptually demanding,

BOOK REVIEWS

321

and thereby provides a needed model for how to study dogmatic theology’s
complex philosophical underpinnings.
ANDREW RADDE-GALLWITZ
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

Augustine on the Will: A Theological Account. By HAN-LUEN KANTZER KOMLINE.
Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2020. Pp. xv + 469. $135.00 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-19094880-1.
If the problem were in our intellects, a really good lecture or some classic
tome might cure all that ails us. But, as Augustine knew so well, this gnostic
diagnosis of locating fallen humanity’s resistance to the divine in the noetic is
far from true. The vileness is not in our knowing (as faulty as that may be), but
in our willing, in our very unwillingness to be loved and thus to love truly. In
this hefty and helpful work, Han-luen Kantzer Komline lays out Augustine’s
understanding of the process of our needed healing in a most beautiful manner.
Divided into eight chapters, the book is as doctrinally delightful as it is
spiritually strengthening. Kantzer Komline writes wonderfully, offering lengthy
excerpts from Augustine himself, providing both a scholarly context as well as
her own thoughtful analysis of what exactly the Doctor of Grace is doing, and
when and why.
The ultimate question Kantzer Komline seeks to answer is this: To what
extent can human goodness be ascribed to the human agent and to what extent
must it be ascribed to God himself? In addition, how does Augustine’s theology
of the will develop as he moves out of a mechanical Manichaeism into the
fullness of the Catholic faith as priest and bishop, and then into the Pelagian
controversies which set the essence and the power of the human will front and
center of the fifth-century Church’s concerns? Furthermore, how does the
incarnation of the New Adam undo and even ameliorate the will inherited by
children of the first Adam, and how do Jesus’ human and divine wills interact,
especially in the classic moment of Gethsemane?
Chapters 1-3 trace how Augustine laid the developing foundations for this
theology of the graced will. Who are we really and how are we constituted as
knowing and freely desiring persons? Early on, when he was a Manichean, the
will was not a question for Augustine. All was determined, set into motion by
the cosmic struggle between the summum malum and the summum bonum.
One’s response, one’s actions, were ultimately not really one’s own at all, but
instead extensions of this war between good and evil. Contrast this necessitated

322

BOOK REVIEWS

servitude with the Christian account of the will which would finally become
Augustine’s own. Kantzer Komline deals with this progression early on, clearly
showing how Augustine came to understand the Greek concept of akrasia
through the scriptural warrants of St. Paul—e.g., “For I do not do the good I
want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing” (Rom 7:19).
The divided because fallen will of Adam effected a weakening of all wills
issuing forth from our protoparents. Augustine is clear-sighted enough to
distinguish created natures which God has made ontologically good, “very
good” (Gen 1:31), from the fallen will of created persons whose defects come
not from the Creator but from our own perverse cupidity. In the “Fallen Will”
(chap. 2), then, Kantzer Komline traces Augustine’s line of thought over the
decades, increasingly emphasizing the solidarity of the children of Adam as well
as the utter insufficiency of the will to perform any virtuous action whatsoever
without divine assistance. “God’s calling precedes good will, not the other way
around, and though human will is still free subsequent to the fall, this freedom
is of little avail for turning to God” (116).
So, when Kantzer Komline does turn to “What Is in Our Power?” (chap. 3),
the answer is not good. The enigmatic self is a constant for Augustine, marred
and distorted through sin. In fact, he avers that we can know more about the
inscrutability of God than we can of our own selves, taking St. Peter as an
example. This so-called “Rock of the Church” knew that Jesus was “the
Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16), but had no idea that he
himself would be among the first to betray him, a moment of public apostasy
right along that of Judas the Iscariot on Holy Thursday Evening (cf. The Nature
and Origin of the Soul 4.7.11). Scriptural narratives such as this are used by
Kantzer Komline to show that as Augustine’s thought matured, it became more
and more biblically centered. Passages such as, “The will is prepared by the
Lord” (Prov 8:35 [LXX]) and, “After all, what do you have that you have not
received?” (1 Cor 4:7), formed his growing insistence that the will’s goodness
is ultimately the Lord’s doing. This is a development Kantzer Komline traces in
three periods throughout the “Anti-Pelagian” writings.
The first stage lasted from 411 to 417, when Augustine still found himself
leaning toward the view that a good will is within one’s own power. We might
not be able to perform the good always but we can at least desire it. In the
second phase, 417-26, Augustine began to see how the will cannot do anything
meritorious on its own and that even any good desire of the will is in fact God’s
moving the will toward a good it could not naturally desire apart from God. By
426, this radical dependency on the divine indwelling in the soul for it not only
to choose but to choose rightly is set in clear and unalterable relief.
Chapters 4-6 concentrate on the power of God to bring the will out of its
solipsistic demise into conformity with the liberation of Christ. Chapter 4,
“God’s Gardening” utilizes Augustine’s thoughts on the “Our Father” to explain
how prayer is essential in the uniting of wills. To do this, God begins to convert
the will to find him and his ways more and more attractive and delightful. In
chapter 5, “The Redeemed Will” and chapter 6, “Christ and the Will,” Kantzer

BOOK REVIEWS

323

Komline concentrates our attention on how this grace is nothing other than
caritas Dei. It is in this message of hope that she lays out the various images and
concepts Augustine employs to show the interconnectedness of our lives: the
created will acts as a hinge (cardo) in a long series of human wills forming a link
(ansula catenae) in the chain of human posterity. The Savior uproots and renews
these weakened links providing a wholly new root (radix) in conforming our
wills to his own through love alone (ex Deo). We can turn away from this love—
and that is wholly our own doing—or we can surrender to the Lord’s bidding,
allowing us to realize the bountiful goodness of both God and his creation. That
is, a bona uoluntas is not only God’s orienting us back to himself but also the
way he allows us to make this earthly pilgrimage with integrity and joy. Only in
God does the restless will find a stability, brought about by the incarnation of
the Son in whom the human and the divine coalesce. When that occurs in the
creature, the will is redeemed, “made possible by Christ’s life, death, and
resurrection on the cross. This redeemed will is different from both the created
will and the fallen will. Unlike the created will, it has a checkered history. Unlike
the fallen will it is free from sin” (328).
Chapter 7, “The Holy Spirit and the Will,” and chapter 8, “The Eschatological Will: Full Freedom at Last,” answer the question of how the Spirit of
God and the human will interact. The Holy Spirit shows and enables the will to
be what God intended it to be: docile to the divine and ever cooperative with
caritas. Now vivified by the Holy Spirit, the redeemed will finds the good
delightful and acts not out of duty or fear but out of caritas Dei. In this way, in
the Spirit, the virtuous life is the happy life, as the Father does not want his
children to find true blessedness difficult and onerous. Accordingly, despite all
the ways our fallen wills have reveled in some acid joy during moments apart
from their Creator, in heaven the Father mercifully weaves even those fallen
delights into a redeemed eternity. In heaven all of our lives become an eternal
act of praise to the Father. And as Kantzer Komline writes so poetically, such a
sanctified soul “includes an awareness of this history, and the occupation of the
saints in the heavenly city will be the endless singing of the story of the will’s
liberation to the praise of God. Thus free eschatological willing, exercised in
endless worship, will embrace and transmute into praise all previous stages of
human willing” (411). This is the Good News, that not only despite our sins but
precisely because of Adam’s fall, we have been elevated out of our original state
of no longer “being able not to die and being able to sin” (posse non peccare,
posse non mori), while in Christ we will actually be “no longer able to sin or
able to die” (non posse peccare, non posse mori). O felix culpa indeed!
What Kantzer Komline has done, she has done well, extremely well. This
work will prove to be a standard referent for future works on Augustine’s theory
of the will and the development of his thinking for a long time to come. There
are, however, perhaps two ways her reflections here might be expanded and
maybe even improved. First, as she wants to explain in the early chapters, God
is the agent in empowering the creature’s will to choose rightly without
rendering that will into an inert tool with no agency or character development

324

BOOK REVIEWS

of its own. Could this cooperative act be bolstered by drawing from Augustine’s
theology of deification? For in this key soteriological doctrine, these two truths
remain both real and active: it is God who provides the grace for me to choose
and to choose rightly, but he does it not only above me or in me, God does it
as me. “Let us rejoice then and give thanks that we have become not only
Christians, but Christ himself” (In Jo. eu 21.8 [PL 35:1568]), Augustine never
tires of exclaiming. In uniting the divine and the human in an act of divinization,
we might see even more brightly how God and his divinely adopted sons and
daughters are never in competition in the only-begotten Son. Our Creator never
acts in such a way that the human is rendered robotic or the divine runs
roughshod over it. Through grace I am empowered to act as Christ acts because
in his assumption of my humanity to himself he makes me an extension of his
own incarnate life.
Second, one wonders exactly how Augustine understands the practical means
by which the fallen will is transformed. How exactly, say, are the fruits of Jesus’
passion, crucifixion, and resurrection transmitted to us today? Here Kantzer
Komline might expand her next work on the rites and practices of Augustine’s
ecclesiology in order to answer what exactly must happen for God to rectify
and sanctify my will. She is right in that prayer is essential (she could have drawn
richly from Augustine’s commentary on the “Our Father,” epistle 130 to Proba,
who alongside Pelagius and Caelestius also fled to North Africa after the Fall of
Rome in 410), but is it sufficient? Certainly questions of Augustine’s practice as
priest and bishop and his rich theology of the Church as the Christus totus, the
celebration of the sacraments—especially baptism, chrismation, and Eucharist—
and the ascesis of various Christian disciplines will have to be examined in order
to show precisely how the incarnate Son of God enters my human condition
and, equally as important, exactly how the Spirit of Love is poured into one’s
heart.
DAVID VINCENT MECONI, S.J.
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, Missouri

Spiritual Traditions and the Virtues: Living between Heaven and Earth. By MARK
R. WYNN. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 254.
$85.00 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-19-886294-9.
In this book, Mark R. Wynn offers a richly integrative account of the
spiritual life. He notes that its practitioners are often as motivated by the
practical goods embedded in a way of life as by cool-headed intellectual assent
to a worldview’s propositional content (2). Philosophers of religion have good

BOOK REVIEWS

325

reason to consider the claims that spiritual goods make on our lives more
seriously and to evaluate those goods as defining features of lived and living
spiritual traditions (ibid.). Wynn develops an account of spiritual “hybrid”
goods, in which particular theoretical commitments find expression in
distinctive practices. He contrasts his approach with one that treats spiritual
practices as detachable from any determinate metaphysical worldview (e.g.,
Pierre Hadot), and one that focuses on metaphysical commitments abstracted
from their embodied practice and practical motivations (e.g., Richard
Swinburne). Wynn also expands what counts as spiritual practice beyond intentional virtuous acts, and likewise expands what counts as a rational
theoretical commitment beyond assessments of the probability of truth of
propositions. Wynn’s middle way is inspired by Aquinas’s account of the infused
moral virtues, which he takes to be a paradigm case of goods that are theoryand theology-laden and yet embodied within a mundane way of life (32).
Attending to such “thick” spiritual goods and practices better explains why
people are motivated to embrace the way of life characteristic of a given spiritual
tradition and how their choices are reasonable.
In chapter 1, Wynn argues for an integration of metaphysical and theological
views with spiritual practices and goods, against their mutual independence or
the priority of one over the other. (Those mistakes characterize Hadot’s view
of spiritual exercises in one way and analytic philosophy of religion’s view of
theoretical commitments in another.) Despite this mutual determination, some
categories of spiritual goods remain not only intelligible to those outside the
worldview but also appealing from that standpoint, for example, as
supererogatory goods or admirable cases of virtue (chap. 2). In chapters 3 and
4, Wynn broadens the concept of spiritual practice and the fruit it yields beyond
intentional virtuous actions. On his holistic view, one’s demeanor and one’s
perceptual awareness—including, notably, aesthetic experience—can be
freighted with theological content. Chapters 5 and 6 address further epistemic
and justificatory concerns, noting that practical experiences of spiritual goods
and encounters with attractive exemplars of a way of life can explain and
motivate adherence to a worldview. Such “data” from the side of practice also
gives theoreticians new material for reflection. Wynn argues that his account of
“hybrid goods” (85, 133, inter alia) offers a compelling explanation for each of
these features of the spiritual life. He also considers how even the most
theologically laden or revelation-dependent spiritual goods can lead nonbelievers to affirm a religious worldview if those goods are beautiful enough
(204). Wynn concludes that practitioners are attracted to a way of life as a
holistic “package” of beauty, goodness, and truth, and a tradition’s distinctive
confessional truths may be rationally affirmed as part of that package, even if
they are not independently probable enough to motivate adherence on their
own. Thus, “broad and deep congruence” between spiritual practice and a
particular theological narrative (chap. 7, p. 208 inter alia)—evident in a
worldview’s “spiritual fruitfulness”—is worth attending to when evaluating a
way of life (241).

326

BOOK REVIEWS

To say that theory and practice are mutually informing in the spiritual life is
too bland and oversimple a description for Wynn’s mature, creative, and
detailed exposition, which engages both historical and contemporary
philosophical and theological thinkers. On Wynn’s reading of Hadot, one’s
practice can stably and fruitfully anchor a way of a life regardless of supervening
theoretical commitments, which can be revised or even rejected. For example,
one might find practices yielding Epicurean virtuous tranquility worth
affirming, even if one comes to deny the atomism which supports one’s lack of
fear of death. In contrast, Wynn argues that, in significant cases of spiritual
goods and practices, particular truth commitments can and do shape the
contours of the practice itself. For example, Aquinas’s “beatific vision” specifies
who must and must not be loved as one’s “neighbor” and why. Aquinas’s view
of the infused moral virtues serves as an exemplar case of how views from
“heaven” (theological claims, based on revelation, about our supernatural telos)
bear on and are enfolded into mundane “earthly” practices, such as eating or
dealing with neighbors. Infused temperance includes the temporal goods
available to human reason (e.g., eating for bodily health—a good of reason), but
also extends them to new practices, such as abstinence, that are revealed to be
“congruent with” the soul’s eternal life with God, begun in a preparatory way
even now (41-42).
Whether and to what extent we embrace such spiritual practices depends on
our metaphysical commitments. But the opposite is also true: which theological
commitments we entertain may also depend on practices and experiences. Even
when fine-grained metaphysical claims characteristic of, say, Christianity are
not by themselves compelling or highly probable, an encounter with an
exemplar (a saint) might be enough to draw one into a certain life. The quiet
beauty of a nun’s demeanor toward a suffering patient might convey the truth
of the intrinsic dignity of every human being better than any theologian’s verbal
articulation. Witnessing the power of forgiveness or love extended even to
enemies might prompt one to think that Christianity, for all its peculiarity,
might have a view of reality worth inhabiting. According to Wynn, too many
philosophers of religion have treated theological claims as prior to such practical
encounters or as principally a matter of rational argument, ignoring these
crucial motivational moments embedded in practical experiences. So the second
major point Wynn advances is that access to a worldview and its appeal often
comes from the side of practice, rather than from rational assent to
propositional truths on their own.
Wynn also advocates a more expansive view of how we grasp spiritual goods,
beyond conceptual articulation to various forms of experiential engagement,
including immediate perceptual awareness (how the world “looks” and “feels”)
and embodied experiences (the way someone carries or comports herself). He
suggests this enriched account because, “the subjective feel of a given
philosophical ‘way of life’—for instance the felt quality of Epicurean
contentment—cannot be captured simply by reference to the ‘philosophical
discourse’ that supports the way of life” (66). A significant strength of Wynn’s

BOOK REVIEWS

327

account is his insistence that our awareness of and attraction to beauty counts
as a lived expression of and motivation to embrace the spiritual life—hence the
book’s recurring preoccupation with the aesthetic and its relationship to the
moral and spiritual features of a way of life. For Wynn, the allure of the spiritual
life within a spiritual tradition has at least as much to do with how it illuminates
certain goods, adds meaning and weight to human choices, opens us to
transcendence and mystery, and transforms our perspective of the world. These
features play an epistemic role in the rationality of faith commitments, but in a
richer, more holistic way than philosophical assessments of truth-claims and
theoretical commitments would typically attend to. Even theologically
determinate spiritual goods can, however, appear attractive and motivating to
those outside the supporting worldview, a thought reminiscent of the longing
Charles Taylor describes in A Secular Age for an “enchanted” world experienced
by those “haunted” by a sense of lost transcendence or meaning.
The project overall therefore yields a rich account of the spiritual ways of
life and the traditions of thought that shape them (and are in turn shaped by
them). Wynn’s approach functions as a commendable corrective to conversations that artificially divide traditional academic theological reflection from
spiritually formative practices, exemplary lives, and embodied experiences. His
incorporation of the aesthetic realm into the spiritual life is particularly
insightful and innovative. And examples both fictional and real help enliven his
carefully crafted academic prose.
Wynn showcases a controversial aspect of Aquinas’s thought—the infused
moral virtues (STh I-II, q. 63, a. 3)—to make his case. Is this a liability? Medieval
and contemporary thinkers alike have objected to this category of virtue as
superfluous and hard to integrate with acquired moral virtues. I think Wynn’s
argument stands independently of such criticisms. In fact, I appreciated his
overall thesis even though I found his exegesis of both Hadot and Aquinas
strained at several points. For example, one of Wynn’s paradigm cases early in
the argument is “neighbor-love,” which he calls “a theological virtue” (20).
While he is certainly referring to caritas, strictly speaking there is no distinct
virtue of “neighbor-love” in Aquinas. Charity is the love of friendship, a virtue
with a single species, directed principally at God and secondarily at neighbor
and self for God’s sake (STh II-II, q. 23, a. 5, ad 1). Wynn’s reading, which leans
toward conceptual categories like altruism and obligation, jars with the
eudaimonistic frame of Aquinas’s account of this theological virtue as a virtue
friendship. The conclusion Wynn draws, however, stands: Christian love of
neighbor is particularized in practice by theological details about the nature of
human beatitude, even if it can nonetheless appeal as a virtuous form of life to
those who do not share those theological assumptions.
The usual questions about the relationship of the acquired and infused
virtues arise in Wynn’s account. To mention a few: Wynn does not discuss
infant baptism, when infusion also happens (see STh III, q. 69, aa. 4 and 6). This
might complicate his developmental story, in which the infused virtues follow
the acquired (68-70), and which seems to track adult conversion better than

328

BOOK REVIEWS

faith development throughout childhood. Their integration is further complicated by the two sets’ different objects (species), ends, and causes (STh I-II,
q. 63, a. 4). Moreover, Wynn thinks that spiritual commitments to certain goods
are practically rational even under conditions of uncertainty in part because
there is something lost by foregoing a theistic perspective but not much earthly
good to lose if one’s heavenly commitments are false (176-85). I was less
convinced by Wynn’s general optimism about the outside-in rationality and
motivational appeal of a life marked by the infused moral virtues, precisely
because there does seem like much to lose: surely celibacy, martyrdom and the
role of suffering in spiritual growth, trustful surrender and obedience, and the
abstinence required by fasting generally involve fairly serious sacrifices of other
goods in ways that often make acts of infused virtue appear less attractive or
too costly (even for those inside it). Witness Augustine’s terrible struggle with
conversion, despite knowing the truth of Christianity. If nothing else, such
examples complicate the seamless-integration story of grace perfecting nature
(150). Lastly, Wynn’s reading of Hadot often felt tilted toward caricature,
especially since the only example he used from Hadot was Epicureanism. We
have evidence that most ancient schools (including early Christianity) embraced
similar forms of soul care such as prosochē or memento mori, regardless of
differences in views of reality. It would be a fascinating but complicated
question whether and how Stoic detachment might be a theory-laden hybrid
good distinct from the Platonic art of dying or a Christian taking up her cross
or the habit. I take Hadot’s main point to be that theoretical insight and
reflective endorsement come only from within a life of serious discipleship,
whose goal is not a perfected theory but a well-lived life. In such cases, the
priority leans toward the practical and the theory is judged acceptable insofar
as it is fleshed out in a fine and virtuous life—a point Wynn himself appreciates
(241) and Christians might also affirm (Matt 7:15-17; 25:31-46).
Wynn rightly concludes that we should “examine world views and ways of
life in combination” (205), because the spiritual goods involved are hybrids of
both. Only a holistic view that interweaves those elements will yield a full
picture of that life in all of its goodness, reasonableness, fruitfulness, and choiceworthiness.
REBECCA KONYNDYK DEYOUNG
Calvin University
Grand Rapids, Michigan

BOOK REVIEWS

329

The Light That Binds: A Study in Thomas Aquinas’s Metaphysics of Natural Law.
By STEPHEN L. BROCK. Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick Publications, 2020.
Pp. xv + 277. $35.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-1-5326-4729-1.
Although the subject of this superb book is Thomas’s doctrine of natural law,
it will greatly profit those interested in any area of his thought. The long history
of Thomism has passed through phases, and Stephen Brock’s book can serve to
mark the end of the “neoscholastic” period, which lasted most of the twentieth
century. Neoscholastics decided to counter the onslaught of the nineteenthcentury rationalists against the Roman Church by meeting them on their own
ground, separating Thomas’s philosophy from his theology. The motto of this
tactic can be seen in the English subtitle of the Vatican II document Gaudium
et spes, “The Church in the Modern World.” Unfortunately, as Catholics
reached out to the “modern” world, it became “postmodern.”
The era’s two most renowned Catholic philosophers, however, Jacques
Maritain and Etienne Gilson, eschewed the neoscholastic path. When Gilson
asked the positivist Lucien Levy-Bruhl to direct his dissertation, he was told he
“must undertake something positive, speculative philosophy just wouldn’t do.”
Gilson said he would “do the history of philosophy. That’s positive enough,
isn’t it?” And Jacques Maritain’s The Degrees of Knowledge ranges from
ordinary experience of the physical world, through modern science, natural
philosophy, metaphysics, and theology, all the way to mystical experience.
Brock’s book began life as a dissertation (xiii) structured in response to
neoscholastic views on Thomas’s natural law. Far from dating it, this structure
is what makes this book so important now. He begins by organizing
neoscholastic efforts (chap. 1), which opens up his lengthy response (chaps.
2-7), a detailed analysis of Thomas’s own texts and arguments, the only sure
way to capture Thomas’s genuine thought, combined with clear-headed critique
of selected neoscholastics. So Brock offers not just a superior interpretation of
Thomas, but also a tutorial on how to arrive at it.
Brock first divides neoscholastic views into two groups: (I) a natural law
completely autonomous from God and eternal law; and (II) natural law in some
way connected to God. Then he subdivides each, producing four types.
I.A. “Natural Law as Law in a Qualified Sense”: The neoscholastic view was
initiated by Odon Lottin, O.S.B., who demoted natural law to the status of an
“intrinsic morality,” a purely rational ethics which is not law in the full sense,
for it lacks a strong sense of “obligation” (debitum), command, and sanction.
Germain Grisez followed him, and Grisez’s collaborator, John Finnis, said
natural law is “only analogically law.”
I.B. “Self-Standing Law”: Natural law, considered in itself, is law in the full
sense of the word, so much so that Frederick Copleston, S.J., said “it is the
human reason which is the proximate or immediate promulgator of the natural
moral law.” Consequently, “we can speak of a certain autonomy of the practical
reason.”

330

BOOK REVIEWS

II.A. “A Not Quite Natural Law”: On this view, in order for natural law truly
to be law it must involve God. For Ernest Fortin and Harry Jaffa, however, this
connection cannot be established rationally; so rational natural law fails.
II.B. “Natural Law as a Natural Divine Law”: To be law, natural law needs
some necessary connection with God; but proponents split about whether we
can or need to know this connection. Francisco Suarez, S.J., said that this
connection is not self-evident, like the principles of the natural law themselves,
but it is proven rationally: “The natural law existing in us is a sign of some will
of God. . . . Therefore natural law includes this will of God”; a view also
embraced by Lawrence Dewan, O.P. Others, however, hold that while the
reality of natural law in us depends upon God, to be sure, it can function
without our knowing this. Peter Geach says “the rational recognition that a
practice is generally undesirable is . . . in fact a promulgation to a man of the
Divine law forbidding the practice, even if he does not realise this . . . even if
he does not believe there is a God.” And Elizabeth Anscombe adds that “a
special, peremptory ‘moral’ sense of the term ought, is simply meaningless
outside the perspective of an ethics somehow based on a divine law.” Here we
should note that both connect natural with divine law, which is revealed
through faith, not with eternal law in God, which Thomas thought is known
through reason.
After this preliminary survey, the rest of Brock’s book (chaps. 2-7) is devoted
to a detailed textual and philosophical analysis of Thomas’s presentation of
natural law in the Summa theologiae, not as isolated from the other types of law
in the neoscholastic way, but in its full context. The context is crucial because
Brock recognizes that Thomas offers a “scientific” argument for law. It begins
with the principle for all that follows, his causal and general definition of law,
established using the example of human law as the basis for inductive
generalization followed by “intellectual insight” (intellectus) into its truth: “a
certain ordinance of reason [matter], for the common good [end], promulgated
[form], by him who has care of the community [agent]” (STh I-II, q. 90, a. 4).
Thomas then distinguishes five types of laws (STh I-II, q. 91, aa. 1-6):
“eternal law” in God; “natural law” in all humans; “human law” devised by us;
revealed “divine law”; and even a “law of sin.” Brock keenly discerns that
Thomas not only distinguishes conceptually the essences of these specific kinds
of laws, but argues for their existence. Thomas’s question is not “what is the
natural law?’ but “whether there is in us some natural law?” an existential
question. These questions cannot be answered by definitions alone, but require
arguments addressing both the existence and the essence of these types of law.
This is the reason why chapter 2 is not called “On the Natural Law” but is
titled “The Relation of the Natural Law and the Eternal Law,” which is its cause.
About eternal law, Thomas says “granted that the world is ruled by divine
providence, as shown in the First Part, it is clear that the whole community of
the universe is governed by divine reason” or “eternal law.” The backward
reference is important, for it shows that Thomas’s argument is based on his
earlier philosophical arguments that God exists, his essence is “subsisting

BOOK REVIEWS

331

existence itself,” God is creator of the world, and so the exemplar cause of
creatures, whose perfections come from providential participation in divine
perfection. So the full argument for eternal law is a long set of philosophical
demonstrations, superbly arranged with this kind of deduction in mind.
The argument to prove the existence of natural law and reveal its definition
can be shorter because it simply takes the next step: As a “rule and measure law
can be in something in two ways,” in the ruler or in the thing ruled. Now “all
things participate in some way in the eternal law,” but humans in a special way,
as “ruler and thing ruled.” Consequently, “natural law is nothing other than the
rational creature’s participation in the eternal law” (STh I-II, q. 91, a. 2). We
might take this to be a mere definition, but Brock shows it is a definition of
natural law through its causes, which therefore demonstrates the existence of
natural law. This is why Brock calls this definition through participation
“formal.” And the sequence does not stop here; question 91 proceeds to
establish the existence of “human law,” a revealed “divine law,” and even a
“law” of sin.
Brock then turns to Thomas’s “material” definition of natural law (STh I-II,
q. 94), which reveals the contents or “specific properties of natural law.” While
promulgated by God, the natural law consists in our rational knowledge of its
precepts, which are “rules and measures” based “on the very notion of the
good” (chap. 3). Thomas explains those precepts (STh I-II, q. 94) by drawing
an analogy between speculative and practical reason. Speculative reason has
three levels of principles known to all. Topmost is the fundamental notion of
“being,” opposed to nonbeing. Second is the primary propositional principle:
noncontradiction. And third come more limited axioms, such as “the whole is
greater than the part,” and the equality axiom. Of course, falling under these
are even more specific principles as well as demonstrated conclusions. Practical
reason has three analogous levels of principles. First is the fundamental notion
of the “good,” opposed to the bad and defined teleologically as “what all things
seek.” Second comes the primary propositional precept: “the good should be
done and pursued, and the bad shunned.” Third, Thomas presents three more
limited precepts by correlating them with three levels of our “natural
inclinations.” The first we “have in common with all substances,” namely,
“preserving its own being.” Second are inclinations we have “in common with
other animals . . . sexual union and raising our young.” Third and peculiar to
humans are “knowing the truth about God and living in society.” And more
specific principles and practical actions follow (cf. Cicero, De officiis,
1.4.11-13).
It is the third level of precepts, based on our “natural inclinations,” to which
neoscholastic commentators objected vehemently. Germain Grisez asked
rhetorically: “Is reason merely an instrument in the service of nature, accepting
what nature indicates as good by moving us toward it? No . . . not because they
are given, but because reason’s good, which is intelligible, contains the aspect of
end” (115-16). John Finnis added: “by a simple act of non-inferential
understanding one grasps that the object of the inclination which one

332

BOOK REVIEWS

experiences is an instance of a general form of good. . . . The proper measure of
moral good and evil is thus reason, not nature” (116-17). What follows is not a
hierarchy of real goods but a democracy of “basic human goods” that are
“equally self-evidently good,” any one of which an individual mind can
determine to be “most important.” The problem they find is that “natural
inclinations” base the precepts of natural law on ontology and on features of
human nature that are less than rational, whereas natural law should function
at the purely rational level from beginning to end. This is why they drop
Thomas’s third-level precepts altogether, and use only “do good and avoid
bad.”
The problem with this interpretation of Thomas, which is really a critical
rejection, is that it wrongly assumes that “natural inclinations,” which Grisez
calls “felt inclinations” of “sense spontaneity” (115), are demoted to the
prerational level, inclinations that follow from mere physical attraction. But this
is not what Thomas means by human “nature” or “natural inclinations.” For
Thomas, “natural inclinations” are tendencies toward the good that follow the
“nature” of a thing, in this case human nature, which includes reason. The
“natural inclination” toward preserving our being, or sexual union and raising
young, or knowing truth, is a rational inclination, not a subrational one. This is
why Thomas can use the correlation between “natural inclinations” and moral
precepts to reason from the inclinations to the precepts, as in STh I-II, q. 94,
a. 2, but also to reason in the opposite direction, from the precepts to evaluate
inclinations as natural or unnatural, especially in arguments that actions are
immoral because done out of unnatural inclinations.
Consequently, Brock devotes the centerpiece of this superior book to a very
detailed explanation and defense of Thomas’s thought on God’s promulgation
of the natural law through “natural inclinations” (chap. 4) and through “nature
and human nature” (chap. 5), and on the issue of the legal “force of natural
law” (chap. 6).
The book is, as a whole, the best one I have read on Thomas’s natural law.
It has the feature that distinguishes the very best studies: it took me back to
Thomas’s texts, especially ones I have read and taught, to learn something new.
I would suggest the reader open the Summa next to Brock, who here takes us
into the next phase of Thomist thought on natural law, where ontology and
human nature have been returned to the study.
R. E. HOUSER
Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas
Houston, Texas

BOOK REVIEWS

333

The One Creator God in Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology. By
MICHAEL J. DODDS, O.P. Sacra Doctrina. Washington D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2020. Pp. 229. $29.95 (paper).
ISBN 978-0-8132-3287-4.
This book provides a treatise on the One and Creator God inspired by the
doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas. One of the strengths of the author, Michael J.
Dodds, O.P., is his ability to reveal the relevance of this theology in the concert
of contemporary theologies, while integrating some new questions into the
Thomistic synthesis. The book is classically constructed, with chapters on God’s
existence (chap. 1); divine attributes (chap. 2); our capacity to know and name
God (chap. 3); God’s knowledge (chap. 4); his will (chap. 5); his love, justice
and compassion (chap. 6); providence (chap. 7); power (chap. 8); beatitude
(chap. 9); and divine action as creation and government (chap. 10). The
presentation of each topic is pedagogical and informed, without excessive
technicality. I wish simply to point out some original features of the book,
conducive to discussion or further study.
Regarding the Tertia via, Dodds explains the thesis that what is contingent
cannot always exist by means of the presupposition—for the sake of argument—
that the world has existed for an infinite time (43). Given this assumption, if
contingency in existence is one of the essential properties of the realities
considered at the starting point of the Tertia via, they must not always exist.
One might object to Dodds that such an assumption belies the biblical belief in
creation, involving a temporal beginning of the world. It seems therefore
awkward that Thomas would make such an ad hoc assumption.
The explanation of the Quinta via includes a useful clarification. This path,
based on the observation of a finality in natural things that occur mostly in the
same way, is distinct from arguments about Intelligent Design. The latter start
from a basic configuration sought and found in the distant past and do not reach
a Designer who is both truly transcendent and truly immanent to the world
(53-54). The Quinta via, on the other hand, leads to a God who causes the
substantial form by which natural things are directed to a natural end.
The exposition of the divine attributes and the way of knowing God in this
life is classic, with three important clarifications in the contemporary context:
the correlation between transcendence and immanence in the face of the middle
term represented by panentheism (69-71), the type of analogy adjusted to name
God (87-92), and the doctrine of the mixed relation between God and creatures
(93-100). On this last point, a study by Gilles Emery ("Ad aliquid: Relation in
the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas," in Theology Needs Philosophy: Acting
against Reason Is Contrary to the Nature of God, ed. Matthew L. Lamb
[Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016], 175-201)
would provide interesting additions. While many biblical accounts present a
God who reacts (or seems to react) to the behaviors of his creatures, it would
also be relevant to show how such “metaphors” are meaningful and cannot be
reduced to merely secondary statements. For instance, most of the passions

334

BOOK REVIEWS

attributed to God in biblical narratives, such as sorrow, anger, regret, or envy,
are not to be understood as properly signified. It does not mean that they are
irrelevant, but that their mode of attribution is of a different kind. Improper
attributes might be highly valuable and revelatory, as well as proper attributes.
The explanations of God’s knowledge and his will have in common that they
argue for a compatibility between the transcendence of divine operations and
the necessity or contingency ordered by him in created causes or agents (104-7
and 114-17). God’s eternal operations do not impose necessity on contingent
things.
In discussing the compassion of the impassible God, Dodds argues that he
does not suffer at all in himself, but actually suffers as the incarnate Son, in his
humanity, and in the members of his body (124-25).
The following chapters on providence, predestination and evil, God’s power,
and his beatitude, hold no surprises for the reader informed about Thomas’s
doctrine. However, Dodds repeatedly offers keys to answer common objections
or erroneous presuppositions. On the act of creation and divine action, Dodds
further engages the debate between Thomism and contemporary perspectives,
especially those explored at Berkeley in the research programs of the Center for
Theology and Natural Sciences. While receptive to these new contributions,
Dodds criticizes the univocal notion of causality that leads one to look for
spaces—empty, free, or favorable—for God’s action in various theories—
quantum, chaos, emergence (171-73).
This pedagogically oriented book is equipped with two appendices: a brief
vocabulary of philosophical terms and a historical note on the emergence of
monotheism. Students thus have a very good handbook on the one God in the
theological tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas. The purpose of CUA Press’s Sacra
Doctrina series has been well served by Michael J. Dodds.
EMMANUEL DURAND, O.P.
University of Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland