BOOK REVIEWS

Theological Science. By Thomas F. Torrance. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. Pp. 363. $11.75

In a mod-colored drug culture where Roman Catholics argue publicly and desert in droves, it is a strange experience to open the covers of this book and to read that theology is " The science of God." (p. viii) In a day in which atheism is a sweeping tide Professor Torrance finds the presence and being of God bearing upon his experience and thought so powerfully that he " cannot but be convinced of God's overwhelming reality and rationality." (p. ix) Certainly we cannot deny that this may be true for the author; it is just that this is so counter to so much experience today that the reader quickly moves on to see if the book will make God this real for him.

Unfortunately (at least for this reader) so much is assumed about God and so little is said directly that no new insight into the divine nature is really forthcoming. Primarily this book is an epistemological study; that is, it is an elaborate discussion of many modes of knowledge, particularly logical and scientific, and an assertion that God can be known in a way comparable to these. One might have thought that the struggle to turn theology into a " science " had been abandoned, but certainly it has not on the pages of this volume. However, the real question is not whether theology might qualify as a " science " but how many readers will be able to make the assumptions which Torrance needs to make in order to pose his question in this way.

There is no doubt but that we are dealing with a major work. The author has amassed a vast amount of recent philosophical theory, and he deals with theology in relation to this in an attempt to show that it can be reconciled with contemporary theoretical sophistication. This is a masterful attempt at the integration of theories, and it is impressive on that score alone. However, its underlying tone is " dogmatic," that is, the author simply and flatly states, time and again, his most controversial and basic assumptions. Perhaps any attempt to understand this book should begin with a consideration of the acceptability of its major premises.

Torrance says: " How God can be known must be determined from first to last by the way in which He actually is known," (p. 9) and " Knowledge of God is essentially a rational event." (p. 11) But perhaps this statement is the most important: " Theological thinking . . . pivots upon the fact that God has made Himself known and continues to make Himself known, that He objectifies Himself for us, so that our knowledge

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is a fulfilled meeting with objective reality." (p. 29) If these various statements can be accepted, the greater part of Torrance's argument can be granted. If God did or does in fact act in this way, the theologian's task has been made easy. Yet, the real question is: Does God in fact present himself in this way? Is that really the way the controversial events surrounding Jesus' life and death are to be interpreted?

I suppose that any reader will have to concede that God might act in this way if he wanted to. He could have given us a firm basis for a science about him. It is possible for him to provide us with certainty; but, when we look at the founding events of Christianity and its history, does it really appear as if God " objectified " himself? There is nothing absurd in itself in saying that he aimed to provide us with this kind of certain knowledge about himself, except that that leaves the uncertainty and the puzzles which have surrounded Christianity unexplained. And it is equally possible to assume that God had no such intention to provide man with the basis for a science about himself.

Throughout the whole book the intentions of God are assumed as given and not really argued to as opposed to other theories which would not see science as God's aim at all. And it would seem that theology's first task is to argue in support of the view of God's nature and actions which it accepts. Torrance thinks, for instance, that theological thinking is " more like a listening than any other knowledge," (p. 30) but the real question is whether God did or did not intend to make it that easy for us. Torrance is right: " Unless we have a word from God . . . we are thrown back upon ourselves to authenticate His existence and to make Him talk by putting our own words into His mouth and by clothing Him with our own ideas." (p. 31)

It would be nice if God did act to remove our uncertainty and responsibility in that way, but the real issue is: Can we assume that this is what took place in Jesus' life and death? Did God really " utter Himself in His Word "? (p. 32) It is not at all clear that we can simply assume that he did, since the events recorded in the Gospels equally leave open the possibility that God remained hidden and not directly visible. We know that Jesus preached and healed and died, and Christians came to believe that God had intervened to reverse his death, although they did not see this event itself. Can we really say, then, that what God does is to give himself to our thinking, that " He objectifies Himself for us "? (p. 37)

What is the evidence that God's intention was to make himself so unavoidably plain and present as this? When Torrance says " God gives Himself to be known as personal subject," we have to ask whether these are God's words or Torrance's interpretation of certain events which in themselves never said quite that. It is not wrong to give our interpretation of God's actions: it is only questionable when we assume our theories to

be words spoken by God himself. Probably all Christians have asserted that God became " known " in Jesus Christ, (p. 45) but we must not assume that " to know " God in this instance means to be able to develop anything like scientific knowledge about him. God may have acted, but why do we assume that his intention was to produce " knowledge "?

As Torrance rehearses current scientific theory (Chap. II) we must ask him: Are we forced to become amateur physicists in order to do theology, and why? Our author wants us to engage in " scientific dialogue," (p. 105) but this assumes that theology should be " vigorous, disciplined, methodical and organized knowledge." (p. 116) Now, God might be a being subject to such precision, but, on the other hand, it could be that God is of such a nature that knowledge of this kind about him is simply not possible (as the mystics have always argued). Torrance goes into a long discussion of " truth " (Chap. IV), but most of the major issues are assumed. For instance, he simply asserts that theological statements have an " empirical relation " to the active, living, speaking God. (p. 175) But if God is that " empirical," how can we account for the widespread scepticism and apostasy?

It would appear that God has not left the matter quite as clearcut as Torrance would like to have it in order to construct his " science." He and we may have to learn to live with a great deal more uncertainty than that. This does not make faith impossible; it makes it necessary if any conclusion is to be reached. Torrance wants us to verify our statements by an " appeal to judgments of God Himself," (p. 195) but what if, for his own reasons, God decides to turn down our appeal for such assured confirmation? Thomas's desire for empirical verification was not denied by Jesus, but neither was it made the ideal of faith.

In an era which is used to uncertainty and probability Torrance's Chapter on " Logic " perhaps sounds the strangest to our ears. To call Jesus " the Logic of God " (p. 205) does not seem to fit the variable accounts given of him in the Gospels. As a figure he seems more indirect and hidden and not that clear, although how God acted upon him in death may have become clear to Christians after the fact. Is it to oversimplify the " incarnation " vastly and to intellectualize it impossibly to say that it evoked from us " organic forms of knowledge in conformity with it "? (p. 222). Certainly even a slight grasp of the vast history of discussion in theology fits into no such neat picture. This book is a work of vast sophistication and intricacy, but all of its major assumptions about God's nature and intention go unchallenged.

Can we really say that " what Jesus requires of each man is an objective apprehension of Himself "? (p. 302-3) Or, are the demands of Jesus more moral and religious and less intellectual than that? Yet, we reach what is perhaps Torrance's major assumption that needs to be challenged when we read: " We are confronted with a complex fact that includes

its own interpretation as part of its facticity." (p. 326) It would be convenient for men if this were true, but the New Testament does not report this crucial epistemological rule. And, it just may be that our difficulty is that God has confronted us with certain acts and yet has not provided us with their interpretation, but rather he has left that to us--as his demand and as his test.

Frederick Sontag

Pomona College

Claremont, California

God and Man. By E. Schillebeeckx, O. P. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1969. Pp. 308. $6.95.

This third volume of " Theological Soundings " is a collection of Fr. Schillebeeckx's essays and lectures during the period 1958-1967. As the title indicates, the subject matter encompasses a variety of problems, all of which are at least indirectly related to secularization and the counter-" ecclesial " tendency in the world. In this collection the purpose is " to clarify the fundamental principles which, in the opinion of the author, govern the practical problems involved " (p. vii) in these tendencies.

Difficult as it is to find an intrinsic unity to such a collection, it might be suggested that, save for the final essay on situation ethics, a unifying theme lies in Schillebeeckx's constant insistence on the correlation of man's natural and theologal communion with the personal God and the consequences of this communion on the individual person as well as on his interpersonal relations with others. In the opening chapter it is suggested that the erroneous concept of God which fractured this unity brought in its wake a cultural inertia and in turn gave rise to an atheistic rejection of such an error. Schillebeeckx sees in the secularizing process which has produced an awareness of the absence of God a plus factor in bringing man to " the point at which the question of personal communion with God arises . . . even though he is incapable of reaching it by his own resources." (p. 25) The lectures given to the philosophical faculty at Nijmegen, which constitute the third chapter, continue this theme by explaining that the very experience of our contingency compels surrender of self to the transcendent God.

Perhaps the most significant contribution of the volume is Section II of Chapter 4. After an extensive critique of Robinson's Honest to God in Section I, Schillebeeckx proceeds to attempt an answer to the question: " Can we and may we experience this Christianity in its evangelical purity and human authenticity in the spirit of radical ' horizontalism '? "

(p. 161) His response is directed to the believer who expressly accepts Christ and his Church.

The believer, according to the author, asserts that the secular transcendence of man, his capacity to determine himself and also to transcend this determination, is " only possible through man's so-called ' vertical ' transcendence, his constitutive dependence on the absolutely transcendent: God." (p. 163) Hence the believer must affirm that the ground of his being, God, is the transcendent Third in all human experiences, an affirmation which commits him to responsibility for the world. But, as Schillebeeckx notes, this interiority of God does not negate the affirmation of God as a transcendent personal God. Nor does the inability clearly to understand the divine personal existence negate this personal nature. The denial of the created modes of being as proper to him leads to some positive knowledge. From the natural affirmation of God as person a " demand for self-surrender, which is constitutive of man as such, breaks through the purely horizontally transcending of human existence in this world." (p. 171) This consequence of such a demand " shatters the vision of radical ' horizontalism '," for it is a prototype of the Christian surrender in faith. On a purely natural level trust in God is expressed by trust in fellow man. But is there a demand for an immediate personal intercourse with God beyond love of one's fellow man? To this question the author clearly affirms " that there is immediate intersubjectivity with God: we do have to do with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, of whom our experience of contingency gives not the faintest idea." (p. 181)

But it is at this point that I would take issue. Schillebeeckx writes: " In the final analysis we are able to experience only our own existence, which is personally addressed by God. We are personally united to God only in faith, i. e., in the surrender to the unseen and unexperienced." (p. 204, italics mine) He insists in Chapter 5 (written some five years previous to the contents of Chapter 4) that " man becomes himself only in moving outwards from his own centre of life towards God . . . more accurately, to experience personally God's presence within him." (p. 211) If we are to take the author at his word in Chapter 4 that God is an unexperienced person, then the major thesis of these essays will not stand. While it is true that the intersubjectivity of faith does not provide us with an intuitive encounter with the glorified Jesus, by charity we do attain his person directly. By the operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit there is granted a personal experience of the glorified Jesus. Lacking such an experienced personal encounter with Christ, the Christian person will never practically experience the shattering of his radical horizontalism. To limit the realization of our earthly intersubjectivity with the man Jesus to Scripture and to the Church is an invitation to the continuance of the formalism which has characterized so much of what we have called " spirituality." Schillebeeckx insists that the experience of Christ through

these signs must be called direct, but he fails to explain the reason for such instances.

This volume provides an enlightening view of a renowned theologian's response to the problems of secularity. Though his insights may appear outdated in the light of recent developments, taken in the context in which they were written, they give evidence of his theological acuity in dealing with the impact of secularity on traditional Christian teaching.

Reginald Masterson, O. P.

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

Beyond Trinity. The Aquinas Lecture, 1969. By Bernard Cooke, S. J. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1969. Pp. 73. $2.50.

Few areas in the on-going theological task of reconceptualizing the basic beliefs of Christianity have been as neglected as that which is most central and determinative of all the others--the specifically Christian theistic concept of God as Triune in Personality or as a Trinity. Fr. Bernard Cooke, in this Aquinas lecture for 1969 given at Marquette, draws attention to the present inadequacies of the traditional formulation of this mystery somewhat as Leslie Dewart has more graphically but in an overly facile way done in his Future of Belief. Still, few positive suggestions have been forthcoming which are not variations on Rahner's essay in the early fifties, " Theos in the New Testament." Fr. Cooke has given this approach as rich and updated expression as is currently available. In fairness, his own declared intention here is not to attempt creative theology but " to suggest the possibilities for more understanding of the God we love and worship." (p. 5) His own suggestion is that we look " beyond Trinity," by which he ostensibly means that the doctrinal formula stretching from Nicea to Florence, while not to be jettisoned, can no longer truly serve as a faith-symbolum. He argues strongly--with scholarly reserve and personal faith engagement--that man's sole cognitive approach to the identity of the Father, Son, and Spirit lies in the historical realities of Jesus' human life. This is achieved by living faith which from past historical faith-events encounters Jesus' present consciousness (one fully achieved only after the Resurrection and possession by the Spirit) of his precise relationship to the Father in and by their Spirit. Good! And well said by Fr. Cooke whose respect for tradition keeps him from a possible pitfall here, namely, an over-emphasis on the Trinity of the economy of salvation (the human experience of which is recorded in the New Testament) which runs the risk of suggesting a crypto-modalism. This accords with the insistence

of Tertullian and Origen that Jesus' earthly life was a revelation of the inner life of God himself, of the " immanent " Trinity. Primitive Christian worship, at any rate, was historical in an unprecedented way, and Fr. Cooke views " the present moment as continuing what had broken forth in history." (p. 47)

What this implies is that trinitarian theology should begin with the missions (as Scheeben suggested) rather than ending with them. This may well be the author's strongest point. But, surely some intellectual conceptualization of the unique divine Personhood of the Word and his real distinction from the Father and the Spirit is humanly unavoidable. The humanity of Jesus is a nature; even though it is God's own humanity, it should not be looked upon as a " surrogate God." It is the reality of God as revealed in Jesus Christ that faith seeks to know. What Fr. Cooke questions is " the extent to which the idea ' trinity ' corresponds [to this]." (p. 4) The troublesome concept for him is that of " person " as it stands over and against that of " nature." But, does his substitution of " community of persons " for " unity of nature " (pp. 59-60) really surmount the difficulty? Is it not itself a formulation fraught with overtones of at least a crypto-tritheism? While there is no juvenile disparagement of metaphysics here, there is a headlong flight from any engagement with that science in " doing " theology. The question that this raises is whether the shift of focus from the concerns of metaphysical anthropology to the social dimensions of man's existence can be as total as Fr. Cooke and so many others wish.

In some respect systematic trinitarian theology is set over against faith-experience rather than seen as originating from and being sustained by it. It can hardly be denied that the hiatus did exist in the past, and disastrously so. But I do not find justification for the stress that Fr. Cooke betrays when he writes that " systematic trinitarian theology tends to view God as One who in his creative work ' ad extra ' reveals nothing of his immanent life." (pp. 24-25) The real concern here is to understand the distinction of the divine Three as something far more mysterious than that which characterizes distinct essential perfections and to avoid misconstruing this as even analogous with the latter. Fr. Cooke interprets St. Thomas's insistence on the creative power pertaining to the divine nature as if the distinctiveness of the Persons is somehow lost in their common activity " ad extra." Actually St. Thomas is denying that creation is proper to any one Person (" proprium alicuius personae "), and he makes clear that each of them causes as the unique hypostasis he is. (cf. Ill, q. 45, a. 6) Moreover, he adopts St. Augustine's triad of " mode, species, and order " as an insight into the likeness of the Trinity that is impressed on every creature, even the infra-rational and the inanimate, (ibid., a. 7) And the theory of appropriation may not be as " thin a gruel " as Fr. Cooke thinks (p. 19), especially as taken formally wherein what is appropriated

to one Person cannot in the same way be appropriated to another, (cf. / Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3um) Contemporary investigations into the phenomenon of language tend to confirm the propriety of this sort of linguistic device in speaking of the divine.

All in all, a certain inadequacy of Fr. Cooke's attempt continues to force itself upon us. Contemporary theologians seem not to have ventured beyond the endeavor to seek a delicately balanced dialectical movement between preconceptual, lived theology and notional theology. The re-emphasis on existential faith-experience below the threshold of concepts has been a welcome corrective to a cerebral re-ifying of logical entities. But we have now reached a sort of halfway house; the real task remains. Here and now the theological tools to forge such concepts may be lacking, but there are such clues as Wittgenstein's notion of the person as not " the thinking, presenting subject . . . but the metaphysical subject, the limit-- not a part of the world." (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.631-5.641)

The question needs to be asked whether in such thinking insights are being newly discovered out of the perspective of today's intellectual milieu, insights that bear continuity with those of primitive Christian theology and their elaboration in the High Middle Ages but that will be differently rendered into concepts and hopefully somewhat deepened. At any rate, the theological task is still that of seeking to conceptualize what in reality lies beyond concepts but is affirmed by faith. Thus there remains the need to employ the metaphysical resources of human intelligence (either as reflective science or in a spontaneous, ordinary, " vulgar " way) to conceptualize the realities of faith simply because, if the perfective term of every cognitive act lies in the existential grasp of reality and union with it as it actually is, this is humanly possible only from that angle of insight and at that depth of intelligibility that comes to birth in the concept. This is not less true as regards our cognitive union with the Three Persons of God, where it is more a case of our being grasped by Ultimate Reality.

William J. Hill, O. P.

Dominican House of Studies

Washington, D. C.

Acta Congressus Internationalis de Theologia Concilii Vaticani II. Ed. by A. Schoenmetzer, S. J. Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1968. Pp. 881.

An international congress met in Rome from September 26th to October 1st, 1966, to discuss the theological implications of the Second Vatican Council. This volume presents the papers that were read, along with the

scientific apparatus to verify, expand, and elucidate the texts. The points made regarding institutional and doctrinal development offer a broad conspectus of thought among Roman Catholics at what historians will likely regard as a turning point in the life of the Christian churches.

The episcopal college and the origin of the office of bishop formed the subject matter of eleven conferences. Here an outstanding contribution is that of Dr. Jean Colson, who treats the period from the election of Matthias in the Acts of the Apostles to the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. What the author brings out most clearly is his conviction that an evolution was taking place within the New Testament regarding the special teaching role of certain Christians. This was continued, he maintains, in the period to which the Apostolic Fathers belong.

Dr. Colson's performance is of the quality Jaroslav Pelikan has indicated theologians must achieve if dogmatic development is not to be regarded as too important a topic to be left to them. He establishes what is a scientifically respectable case for a line of continuity in the New Testament. First, through the election of Matthias, the apostolic college that had been depleted by the loss of Judas is expanded. The role of apostle at the beginning of Acts is to be understood as the Christian analogue of the priestly paqid or mebaqqer of the Jewish sects. And the addition of Matthias completes the college of twelve in such wise that the eschatological state of Israel (symbolized by the 120 there present) had a representative of the Lord at the head of each of its twelve groups of ten. The addition of Paul enlarged the apostolic college so as to correspond to the new dimensions of an Israel extending itself to all the nations. As to his own view, Paul seems to vindicate for himself less the title of apostle (this is similarly a designation of Barnabas, Acts 14:14; Andronicus and Junias, Romans 16:7) than the directness with which that role was conferred on him by Jesus Christ. In other words, he is not the delegate of the twelve but has delegates as do they. Thus there was an extension of the apostolic office, which was conferred on others by Paul and the Twelve. Here Dr. Colson speaks of apostolic delegates in the case of Timothy and Titus. The term is not intended to convey the frequent Roman Catholic connotation of papal diplomats; indeed it is used in the same context by J. N. D. Kelly in his Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (New York, Harper-Row, 1963). It designates auxiliaries whose role assumes greater importance with the passage of time and the contemplated or actual death of the first apostles. Obviously, the distinction of having witnessed the glory of the risen Jesus could not be transmitted to others who had not in fact seen him. But the mission consequent thereupon, namely, that of leadership in preaching the Gospel, could be and was.

One notes with interest the similarity between this presentation and that of a contemporary American biblical scholar (cf. Myles Bourke, " The Catholic Priest: Man of God for Others," in Worship 43 (1969) 68-81).

But the systematic theologian interested in seeking an understanding of the human intermediary in all Christian Faith will likely proceed further in reflecting on the line of development here presented.

In his Quest of the Historical Jesus Albert Schweitzer saw the history of Christian dogma to be the result of disillusionment experienced first by Jesus and then his followers with regard to a delayed parousia. Others have seen a great apostasy as early as the Apostolic Fathers with regard to a reality as central to Christianity as is grace itself. More recently, Ernst Käsemann has given a most negative judgment with regard to church-life as described and commended in the Pastorals because of the nexus they establish between an ordained ministry and the action of the Spirit. It is obvious, therefore, that the notion of development within the New Testament is the object of considerable study. The question has been raised as to whether there are not implications in all of this for the normative character of those same Scriptures in relation to Christian Faith.

To put this concretely, Colson sees a line of development from the Acts to the monarchical episcopate of the Ignatian letters. To be sure, there are serious problems in this regard within the writings of the Apostolic Fathers; those he treats elsewhere (cf. Ministre de Jésus-Christ ou Le Sacerdoce de l'Évangile: étude sur la condition sacerdotale des ministres Chrétiens dans l'Église primitive, Paris, Beauchesne, 1966). But, all in all, he makes the assumption of such a continuity a responsible position historically and a credible religious stance as well. What he does is to show the gradual association of Gospel-preaching with particular Christians endowed with a special teaching function. Within the New Testament this is a fact.

One can ask, although Dr. Colson does not, what significance, if any, this has for church order and faith of later ages. Here Christian traditions since the Reform have not agreed. Is this development within the New Testament the work of the Spirit or a purely human (perhaps even sinful) phenomenon? This question regarding the normative character of that development must be faced squarely. It will not do to say there are many church orders represented in the New Testament. There are to be sure. But that does not lead necessarily to the conclusion that all present ones are equally founded or unfounded there. Nor does it preclude the fact that actual forms of existence at one period are not for that fact and without further ado permanently viable possibilities. Development to a definite term in the New Testament cannot be a priori ruled out as having normative consequences for subsequent faith and order in the Christian churches.

A similar notion regarding the normative character of development is suggested by the extraordinarily perceptive paper Pierre Benoit read at the same Congress. It has to do with the nature of truth in the Bible. That truth, he maintains, is concrete and not speculative; religious rather

than secular; expressed by way of adaptation and literary creation; proposed progressively and not all at once or in any one book, but after the close of revelation complete and decisive for the faith of subsequent ages. His point is that, in the gradual development present in the composition of the biblical canon, God makes corrections (e. g., regarding the nature of human survival after death) or, better, tolerates certain outward appearances of error which he little by little eliminates. This is divine pedagogy from which men are to learn. Is the divinely directed process of development itself (and not simply the final truth attained) intended to be instructive? An affirmative seems the warranted answer and does not keep the doctrine of life everlasting from being the truth for future ages. Perhaps the development with regard to the office of Christian teacher in the New Testament deserves to be considered in an analogous way.

Unless questions regarding the normative character of the direction development took in the New Testament are faced, Christians run the risk of needless ecumenical disillusionment. Projected unions of churches may be rejected for good as well as for ignoble reasons. If the good ones point at some future date to the fact that systematic theologians are not doing their homework now, the cause of Christian unity will not be well served. I may be mistaken on this but it is my view. It is also the reason why I consider the historical studies of Colson and Benoit so important for those concerned with the past and future development of Christian institutions and doctrines.

Carl J. Peter

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

Philosophy and the Future of Man: Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association [1968]. Edited by George F. McLean, O. M. I. Washington, D. C.: Catholic University, 1968. Pp. 245.

In recent years social thinkers mainly in France, the United States, and Great Britain have increasingly turned attention to the track of the future and especially the shape of the human city in the year 2000. According to Daniel Bell, Chairman of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on the Year 2000, a combination of the old and new may throw some light on the upsurge of futurism and the special fascination of the year 2000: the old, a residual strain of chiliasm; the new, an overweening technological optimism, complacently trustful that man will be able to create new mechanical miracles. A deeper reason seems at work; contemporary man, who, in the somewhat self-preening phrase, has " come of age," feels confident that techniques like linear programming, decision-making

theory, systems analysis, plus advances in social theory may bring within reach a conjectured prevision, if not control, of certain sectors of the future. For reflections and projections concerning things to come, various symposia have drawn on physicists, chemists, zoologists, social psychologists, psychiatrists, social theorists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists, communications experts, ethnologists, State Department professionals, military analysts, computer experts, and theologians. The lack of philosophers among participants in futuristic conversations seems glaring in the light of philosophies of history propounded by Vico, Spengler, Sorokin, Comte, Hegel, and Marx among others that have endeavored to foretell at least glimmers of what lies ahead and that, some hold, have remotely inspired futuristic ambitions. To remedy in part this deficiency " Philosophy and the Future of Man " was adopted as the 1968 ACPA convention theme. Considering how doubly hard it appears in an age adoring nonconformity to get philosophers (sometimes self-analyzed as a particularly ornery breed) to hew to any set intellectual policy, some may judge it a minor thematic triumph that all seven plenary session papers directly or indirectly ponder lines of the future and, of fifteen panel session papers, seven touch on the meaning of the future in some way. Because of the nature of the theme, roughly two-thirds of the papers are concerned with practical issues. Two other unlinked items may be noted. Thirteen papers are presented by thinkers not connected with church-related institutions. Curiously, little or nothing throughout bears on or derives from Teilhard de Chardin, a seer celebrated for his grand vision of the future.

Robert Kreyche's presidential address, given the same title as the convention theme, calls for a realistic metaphysics that pursues humanistic issues through analysis of the cognitive conditions of practical wisdom. Canonizing the linguistically trivial, he warns, has quietly garroted the quest for logos in the majority of American philosophy departments. Gently, at time wittily, he holds the mirror up to other current behavioral debits: a pathetic obsequiousness to the nonprofundities of foreigners (so pronounced, one may add, that in some circles delivery in broken English of itself assures utmost respect for a paper) and a distressing proclivity to acclaim any idea, no matter how grotesque, so long as it is supposed new. Also concerned with the state of philosophy is the address of Aquinas medalist Josef Pieper, accorded a handsomely appropriate introduction by Msgr. J. K. Ryan. Locating the core of modern philosophical malaise in the divorce of philosophy and theology, Pieper offers some reasons and directives for their cooperation. Without acquaintance with the science and philosophy of the day theology may stagnate and the theologian become unable to translate his interpretation of revealed data into contemporary idiom. For theology progresses, not as suggested by the feeble analogy of vegetative growth but under human conditions, with all the tensions due to mental conflict and moral stress. Encounter and rapport bring philosophical

gains also, the largest of which is immunity from all-explaining deductions of nature and history. Breakdown of communication with theology disposes philosophers to consecration to the nugatory and the elaboration of pseudo-salvific programs. We remain utterly in the dark about what ideas will hold the field in the generation or two ahead. Revelation de novissimis is silent about the state of philosophy in the penultimate hour of human history, but close to the stroke of doom, Pieper surmises, perhaps only believers will be genuinely philosophizing.

In " The Challenge to the Computer " Mortimer Adler poses the question whether it is in principle possible to construct a Turing machine capable of carrying on an open-ended conversation. Such a robot would not replicate but simulate intelligent behavior, for built into it would be " infant programming," i. e., not a knowledge of a particular natural language but a randomness of connections enabling it to learn a natural language. Apparently, Adler concludes, a Turing machine that worked would nullify arguments for an immaterial source of concepts. The literature Adler is familiar with, however, contains grounds for a more astringent skepticism than he evinces. As M. Taube has shown, no mechanical translation can be formalized (in other words, no MT machine can handle puns or simple homonyms), and for similar reasons a machine able to learn a natural language and converse open-endedly simply cannot be formalized. In this connection Gödel's proof, according to J. Lucas, cancels out all possibility of formalizing any language in a closed fashion. Aside from laboring under the fallacy of analogy (equivalent to calling an adding machine a young mathematician), the Turing proposal, moreover, doubly begs the question. Thinking is behavioristically assumed to be mere mechanical verbalization. And it is illicitly supposed that true language can occur in the absence of a central nervous system and a highly developed brain, neither of which is mechanically reproducible. Again, as the delightful incongruity of the well-known New Yorker cartoon indicates, no machine can say, Cogito, ergo sum, for an artifact has essentially no more subjectivity and self-awareness than a stone. Furthermore, the mathematician Euler, according to an old story, once nonplussed a mathematically ignorant Diderot by interweaving a few equations, then proclaiming, " Therefore God exists! " It seems most doubtful that anyone will build a Turing machine in the next fifty years. Instead, within a half century or century perhaps a generation less liable to be taken in by philosophical bizarreries of scientists will dismiss Turing's proof of a thinking machine as an unwitting quasi-McLuhanesque spoof of no more value than Euler's proof. Indeed, even today it seems questionable whether anyone really believes a machine can think any more than anyone really acts on the belief that Bertrand Russell and his disciples are nothing but Russellian bags of sense data.

Contemporary man is a bridge to Superman; so hypothesizes James

Feibleman's "The Human Future from Scientific Findings." Increasing control of the environment favors the expectation that man can actively make straight the path for his evolutionary superior--actively because we have it within our hands to decide the sort of Superman we want to emerge. This is, on the whole, a disappointing effort from an ordinarily fertile and sensitive spirit. In addition to being, as R. De George's commentary notes, practically devoid of consecutive argument, it musters no scientific findings at all in advocacy of a next evolutionary leap but simply keeps the neo-Darwinian faith in mutation, actually a retrogressive mechanism. Somewhat better control of scientific data marks William Pollard's " The Key to the Twentieth Century." Envisaging the earth as a spaceship (a figure originating with Adlai Stevenson and popularized by Barbara Ward) with limited energy and food to maintain its occupants, Pollard paints a grim picture of the social paroxysms, especially famine, that will convulse underdeveloped countries, mainly because of a population crisis, in the next decade or so. The means for increasing energy, expanding food production, and repossessing wastelands lie within technical grasp, but myopic national self-interest is thwarting formation of international organizations to apply these techniques. In his commentary P. Kuntz raises doubt about Pollard's extrapolations from current population figures and effectively questions the spaceship analogy in a paper almost bare of philosophical analysis.

Whereas most give short shrift to the philosophical implications of what lies beyond the horizon of the present, " Philosophy and the Futurists," by Paul Durbin, a promising young thinker, adventurously tries to pin down some of the philosophical tasks growing out of futurism. Borrowing his contextual frame from G. H. Mead, he deems the intellectual sphere a society of knowers, the most significant part of which is a scientific subculture; and within this subculture the most enterprising wing of social scientists consists of futurists like B. De Jouvenel, D. Bell, and H. Kahn who, armed with an assortment of predictive techniques, are striving to fashion a systematic mode of forecasting. Geared to the future, philosophical activity should aim at becoming an " integral part of human evolutionary adaptation," be radically open, give itself to teamwork, and initiate or identify itself with a social movement. The hypothesis of social evolution, however, seems largely discredited and, on the practical side, the pluralism which Durbin blesses clearly vetoes any pooling of resources among those of broadly diversified philosophic persuasions. In spite of some defects, Durbin's venture commends itself as a forceful exercise in the tentative thinking on fundamentals he believes best defines philosophizing.

In " Secular Man and his Religion," the most enthusiastically received address at the convention, Louis Dupré argues that because of an inescapable secularity religion can never more claim to be the only sovereign integrating factor in society but must reconcile itself to the fact of competing world views like terrenistic humanism and Marxism. Restriction

of religious hegemony flows from secular man's conception of religious faith as completely interiorized. Dupré, a thinker rising in prominence and influence, concludes to the absolute inwardness of faith from discerning analyses of the dialectic of the sacred vis-à-vis the secular and from modern alienation. The sacred assimilates the profane by negating it. Indeed, as transcendent, it is a coincidentia oppositorum. The modern loss of the sacred, on Dupré's reckoning, has estranged man from his own being. Yet, though inherently antagonistic to the sacred, alienation remains potentially religious. In the context of alienation modern man no longer directly experiences the sacred so that his faith becomes a strictly interior commitment, which carries implicit recognition that religion can no longer hold title to an all-embracing integrative power. This rich, acute paper is unfortunately somewhat marred by a forced polarization of sacred and profane. The two are not contrarily but relatively opposed, and far from being mutually cannibalistic, they are meant to harmonize in a dynamic, extrinsically finalistic pattern, the goal of the lower being ordered to, but not gobbled up by, the end of the sacred. In this connection a sacred order in which all opposites blur together looks suspiciously like either a nest of paradoxes or a night in which all cows are black. Again, an alienation entailing the loss of the sacred might be better called privatively instead of potentially religious. Dialectical shuffling also probably underlies the odd observation that sex libertinism among revolting youth must be countenanced as a novel epiphany of the religiously authentic. A purely interiorized faith, moreover, seems vulnerable to the devastating charge against Kierkegaard's dictum that truth is subjectivity: how is one to distinguish authentic faith from the no less inward vision of a lunatic? Finally, in predicting, " Religion will never again be the integrating factor of society," Dupré seems to fall victim to a twentieth-century parochialism besides, as H. Boers' commentary observes, contradicting an earlier contention that religion is the meaning-giving ingredient in society.

One of the most impressive of the afternoon panel session papers, " The Problem of Balance in the Philosophy of Religion," by Kevin O'Neill, a former student of Dupré's, penetratingly examines inconveniences arising when one unwarily essays to do full justice to the integrity of both philosophy and religion. Clearly both philosophy and religion, taken separately, must be guaranteed autonomy, else one or the other becomes paralyzed. Yet when taken together, as in some interpretations of the character of philosophy of religion, one or the other must surrender autonomy. If religion remains autonomous, philosophy must defer to extra-rational factors. On the other hand, conscientiousness about philosophic autonomy tends to stifle the independence of religion; religious data has to be chopped to fit prior philosophic assumption-structures. Though O'Neill does not explicitly draw the conclusion, the upshot, it would seem, is that philosophy of religion cannot lay claim to a disciplinary status equivalent

to that of philosophy of nature or philosophy of man. It is merely a curricular hybrid nonsystematically canvassing topics principally from natural theology and fundamental theology. O'Neill's remarkable paper trumpets a warning against a still virulent strain of Enlightenment rationalism that, in arbitrarily decreeing that reason sit in judgment on all religion, threatens to dereligionify religion and invites the destruction of Christianity. The companion piece in the philosophy of religion section, James King's " Is Relation to God Impossible? ", nicely and, for the most part, justly disentangles the multiple sense of man's relation of God. Absolutely speaking, it is logically impossible to become related to God; such a becoming implies alteration in or production of God himself. If there is a God, we are, strictly, already related to him. Striking and, for some, stinging corollaries spring from this fine distinction: all language about suddenly entering into relation with God is meaningless; since religion is synonymous with existence, all actions are religious; phenomenology is worthless for resolving the God-question. Still, King adds, we may legitimately speak of becoming related to God in a qualified manner, according to our dateable mode of awareness. It is not captious to wonder whether King's slighting of relations of reason has flawed some of his analysis. If only real relations obtain between man and God, God is modified by our being, apart from our becoming, related to him; and if the relation is one of reason on his side, our becoming absolutely related to him does not modify him one whit. Again, if all actions are labelled religious, trying to pinpoint the religious qualities in murder and cruelty may prove embarrassing.

Edward Rousseau's " Historical Causality and Civilization " furnishes one more sign of surging interest in the import of history. Though historical statements fall short of precise necessity and universality, they can attain, we are told, an artistic necessity and a sort of causative universality. Just as a plausible inevitability attends the denouement of a major Shakespearian tragedy, so a certain factual determinacy is laid bare in a perspicacious historical rendering of what might have been otherwise. The historian also concentrates on human analogates of what pre-Galilean physics named universals in causation (the sun in reference to the earth was one such universal) : the impacts of a George Washington or a Battle of Leipzig stretch far beyond their temporal span. Seeing the historian as quasi-dramatist, however, leaves the gap between history and assured knowledge as great as ever; the valuational standpoints of a new generation of historians may reverse or reject predecessors' conclusions. Disanalogous factors weigh heavily against the suggestive idea of a causative universality. For one thing, the nature of historical event remains woolly. More importantly, long-term " causal " sequences in history result from historians' reconstructions; long dead historical " causes " simply can not operate like natural causes. Not history but history of philosophy

is the concern of A. Robert Caponigri's " Reason and Death: The Idea of Wisdom in Seneca." A study marked by a measured style as well as shrewd analysis meditates on a theme to which latter-day Stoics, the existentialists, have given fresh urgency. For Seneca death has three analogous significations: physical dissolution itself; the slow wearing away of life temporally experienced as nausea or accidie; and, in the ultimate sense, the severance of human reason from cosmic reason. The main business of philosophy consists in wedding individual reason to the reason of nature so that this union spells the defeat of the other two deaths also. For the man of wisdom in tune with Reason's changeless life, death becomes a liberating gateway to life at its fullest. Because Caponigri cites no texts, it is not easy to determine whether he is reading out of or into Seneca certain Spinozistic and Heideggerian accents. Too, the parallel of the Senecan Sage's serenity with Paul's cry of triumph, " O death, where is thy victory? " seems more contrived than spontaneous.

The meaning of death also partly occupies Edward Ballard's " Toward a Phenomenology of Man." Biological birth and death, he maintains, are only metaphorically applied to their human correlates. Indeed the reverse of common opinion is the case: it is by human birth and death that we analogically come to understand their biological similars. Human birth is indirectly experienced in an awareness of one's capacity to solve problems and creatively to enjoy a concert or painting. Best exemplified in the passing of a Socrates, human death is a fruition to which the successful fulfillment of a plan approaches. It seems misguided, however, to speak seriously about a human birth and death in some literal, i. e., experienced, sense. Too, solving a problem in calculus does not evidence birth of mathematical capacity but brings awareness of an aptitude already there. Nor is death the crown of life; the tolling bell laments the termination but hardly the culmination of life. Coupled with Ballard in the section on phenomenology is Calvin Schrag's excellent paper, " Substance, Subject, and Existenz" according to which the notions of substance and subject have to be superseded by Existenz to achieve a rounded portrait of man. An irremediably cosmological Aristotelian substance, while admittedly dynamic, perforce neglects the historicity of man. The concept of subject also situates man in a totality of facts and splits private and public worlds. Existenz, " the center of concern projected against a background of natural and historic meanings," catches all that is opulent and many-splendored in individual lived-out experience. But, in selecting process or event as his prime category, Schrag turns man into a collection of events, which is tantamount to a photo-copy of the atomic dust of the Humeans. Again, lopsided stress on man the doer may tend to cut man off from his roots in nature and from the scientific side of culture.

Both Edward Manier and Desmond Fitzgerald wrestle with the problem of human mutability in an evolutionary framework. In " Genetics and the

Future of Man: Scientific and Ethical Possibilities" Manier discusses scientific means available for a limited genetic control of human evolution intended to check the alarming rise of potential mutations in the gene pool. The ethical possibilities are only skimpily explored, and considered moral judgments on the problem are postponed. Manier might well have allotted a line or two, one feels, to reprehending the terrible simplifications of the neo-Malthusian K. Davis and B. Eckland's almost weird theory that the family must be scrapped. Fitzgerald answers a characteristically thoroughly researched, convincing " yes " to the question in his title, " Is there an Unchanging Human Nature? " Man has probably undergone considerable physical modifications in passing from an australopithecine to homo sapiens, but his essentially rational nature has stayed unaltered. It is possible, he holds, that future physical traits such as size, musculature, and range of senses may further vary without substantially affecting the theorizing, good-captivated, and artistic animal. Some of the evolutionary sources, it may be remarked, merit a somewhat less reverential treatment. Among his colleagues, Leakey, sometimes disparaged as a bone hunter, does not enjoy the most envied of reputations for accuracy and reserve, and even the authority of E. Mayr cannot win assent for the classification of a skull with a capacity of only 500 cc. as truly human.

Adapting Scheler's triple division of life-community, formal organization, and person-community, Ernest Ranly, in " Ethics and Community," vibrantly searches for ways to ground the propositions of the natural law in person-community, " essentially a religious community," and thus, while retaining the universal scope of natural law principles, to apply general rules in an analogous and personalistic rather than a univocal and legalistic manner. Ranly, however, is not altogether successful in clarifying the character of person-community. In one respect his description sounds like a philosophic version of a nowhere-exemplified natural People of God. Too, a universality analogously applied may have trouble steering clear of the reefs on which situationists founder. Robert Ashmore's essay, " Situation Ethics and the Human Situation," tackles, apart from a communitarian context, some of the problems that engage Ranly. Absolute rules of behavior are not imperatives imposed from above but formulations expressing the necessity of certain means to satisfy needs like food, shelter, mating, and the welfare of larger social groups. Certain moral prohibitions are absolute, because the acts proscribed are unjustifiable by definition. Yet, because of infinitely varying circumstances, exceptions are at times permissible. Indeed because it is empirically grounded, the moral code itself can vary inasmuch as man in his total situation varies according to " evolutionary or technological process." The slightly veiled situationism making its entrance toward the close clashes sharply with Ashmore's earlier unmistakable espousal of absolute rules. Apart from this incongruous shift, Ashmore's hesitant relativism will fail to carry conviction so long as he neglects to

specify the " evolutionary and technological " conditions that will radically alter fundamental moral precepts and declines to instance cases in which absolute rules like that barring murder admit of unambiguous, honorable exception.

For Jesse Mann and Fr. Robert Roth, S. J., a beneficent pragmatism yields a general philosophic style and a sane social policy. Mann finds the basis for " The Role of the Tentative in John Dewey " in Dewey's picture of the nature as a continuum of ceaseless flux, in the ongoing cognition of which risk and incertitude preponderate. A hypothetically employed scientific intelligence narrows the band of the indeterminate and experimentally proffers solutions to moral problems. Mann's unqualifiedly admiring appraisal might have gained balance by a critical scrutiny of a notoriously amoral scientific intelligence so aptly manageable by Kremlin con men. Roth's " American Philosophy and the Future of Man " judiciously counts on pragmatism to hit the mean between pessimistic and optimistic readings of the present and future states of American civilization. Earlier L. Mumford chided older pragmatists for acquiescence in depersonalizing tendencies. Lately H. Marcuse has been summoning social thinkers to " the Great Refusal," an anathematizing of all evil in contemporary living. From pragmatistic resources, Roth believes, we can harvest a melioristic blending of valid acquiescence and refusal: acceptance of the sturdy, rejection of the sleazy in our institutions. The pragmatistic outlook applauds the healthy lineaments of science and technology but levels strictures on social forces that balk the freeing of the human spirit, particularly an individualism judged and found wanting in the light of Dewey's faith in ideals communally aspired to. This study, however, does not seem sufficiently alert to the perils, commonly associated with pragmatism, of social engineering and of total commitment to a social-minded naturalism that hallows expediency and genuflects before the status quo in the name of scientifically emancipated morality.

Papers on disparate topics by Charles Breslin and Ivan Boh are grouped under the rubric of logic, language, and epistemology. Breslin, in " The Logistic Interpretation of Aristotle's Categorical Syllogism," expertly surveys a number of modern logical systems and concludes that not one adequately duplicates Aristotle's categorical syllogistic. Frege's predicate calculus cannot handle subalternation, contrary and subcontrary opposition, and other laws. In general, the algebra of logic of Boole, Venn, and Schoeder provides no room for subalternation, since A is nonexistential and I existential. Even Lukasiewicz is unable to assimilate Aristotelian syllogistic to modern logical structures. Brentano-Hillebrand existence theory implies a logical formulation equivalent to an NI system, and this, too, is forced to exclude certain core features of Aristotle's formal logic. The reason why modern systems cannot be made coextensive with Aristotelian logic lies in their extreme existential neutrality, symbolized by

the null class. This stance widely diverges from the existential reference stamped on Aristotelian logic, which Breslin calls " a logic of Being." This last phrase, however, seems elliptical. It may be more accurate to esteem Aristotle's logic an instrument for ordering operations of the mind dealing with the nature of things; it is, in other words, a work of the mind concerning second intentions bearing on first intentions. On this alternative view, then, Aristotelian logic, though instrumentally existential, is a noetic structure that is in itself existentially neutral. Thus one basic error of modern logicians seems to be in part the reverse of what Breslin argues for: despite a drift to formalization for its own sake, modern logics tend to be over-existential in the sense that they focus on first intentions (according to H. Veatch) or treat second intentions as first intentions (according to F. Wade). But the absurdity of the null class, we may add, seems to be traceable to another mistake, an overstress on extensionality. Vienna-born Gustav Bergmann's swing from indoctrination in logical positivism to an investigation of problems not negotiable by logic, natural sciences, and mathematics captures Boh's interest in " Reflections on Bergmann's Ontology." To the question, why do we look upon two red spots as numerically different but qualitatively alike, Bergmann replies that the spots are bare particulars, ontological simples, somehow sharing in the universal red and joined to the universal by a nexus of exemplification. Existence continues to bedevil inquirers: " John exists " is not translatable into a propositional function, and existence resists inclusion in a thing-ontology. The problem of existence, in one reader's opinion, might look less formidable if, breaking free from Kant here and critically reviewing Frege's logic, we saw existence as a determinant able to be predicated of a subject.

Capitalizing with surprising success on elementary relations in modern logic, William Martin's " The Order of Teaching and Learning " deftly limns the structure of teaching. First, the relation is triadic: a teacher teaches knowledge to a student. Second, the relation is asymmetrical: no teacher as such learns from a learner as such. Third, the relation is transitive: without exaggeration, we may take Descartes to be the remote teacher of a student mastering analytic geometry. From the denial of their relations stem certain ills of educational theory. Dropping knowledge from the triad encourages schooling that virtually manipulates minds for social adjustment. Indifference to asymmetry robs the teacher of authority. Finally, out of suppression of transitivity are bred contempt for the past and a cult of the shallowly utilitarian.

Whitehead's view that great thinkers in science and philosophy are " ultimately the rulers of the world " seems to smack of a certain academic inbreeding that may afflict even the best. Too intellectualistic a perspective underplays the massive forces of passion, fantasy, deep-rooted loves and loyalties, not to speak of what lies in another realm altogether, the strength of the genuinely supernatural. Though it may be extravagant to

believe it is primarily ideas that make the world go round, reason cannot be denied its indispensable moiety to contribute to the building of a City of Man open to God. So (to indulge one more imaginative roving about the future), should a generous philosophic reader yet unborn stumble upon this volume thirty or one hundred years hence, he will probably be warmed by the retrospect of professionals dedicated to the hard work of thought, eschewing the spectacular and oracular, struggling for his sake as much as theirs to push back the edges of darkness a little bit.

John M. Quinn, O. S. A.

Biscayne College

Miami, Florida

Two Logics: The Conflict between Classical and Neo-Analytic Philosophy. By Henry B. Veatch. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1969. Pp. 288. $8.00.

What can be said of Prof. Veatch's Two Logics can be said of few other recent books in philosophy: it deals with issues that are at once topical and fundamental in a style that is free of abstruse or hypertechnical language. For what Veatch proposes to do in his latest book is no less than to explain how the present, often recognized conflict between our scientific and humanistic cultures arises out of a fundamental difference in their respective logics, i. e., in the way or method by which each of these opposed cultures achieves knowledge and understanding. Concretely, Veatch suggests that whereas the humanistic disciplines seek to understand things for what they are in fact and in reality, that is, seek to know things in their " whats " or natures, scientific disciplines seek to know things in their relations to other things. And so, the one uses a what-logic while the other uses a relating-logic.

Now Veatch's ultimate aim is to show that each of these two logics is quite legitimate for its own purposes, so that it is not and should not be a case simply of either the one logic or the other. Moreover, in his concluding chapter Veatch argues that, while they are distinct and equally justifiable cognitive instruments, our humanistic and scientific logics are not so independent of each other " as to exclude a possible ordering . . . one with respect to the other," in such a way that the relating logic of modern science is shown to be subordinate to the what-logic of the humanities.

To substantiate his ultimate thesis Veatch presents a detailed, lucid and really illuminating comparison of the character and function of both propositions

and arguments as the latter are construed in the context of a what-logic and a relating-logic respectively. The general point of the comparison is to show the inappropriateness of either saddling science with a theory of propositions and argumentation designed to meet the needs of humanistic knowledge or, vice versa, saddling humanistic knowledge with a doctrine of propositions and inference tailored to the specific purposes of scientific knowledge.

But Veatch's method is not merely expository but necessarily defensive and critical as well. For, as in centuries past some of the later Schoolmen tried to foist a what-logic on human beings in their role as scientists, explaining particular physical phenomena in terms of hidden essences or substantial forms, so today, according to Veatch, we find neo-analytic philosophy committing the opposite error of foisting a specialized relating-logic on all of us simply in our role as ordinary everyday human knowers.

The proximate cause of this contemporary error according to the author is the widespread, if uncritical, acceptance by neo-analytic philosophers of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy among propositions. For that distinction rules out in principle what is the very core of a what-logic, namely, the possibility of making statements that are at once necessary and about the world. But Veatch argues both that the common notion of an analytic truth amounts to a sheer impossibility and that the nominalistic presuppositions that originally gave rise to the analytic-synthetic distinction in Hume and Kant--presuppositions which go unquestioned or unseen by many neo-analytic philosophers--are unwarranted. In fact, Veatch maintains, it is this outright dismissal of real essences or natures by contemporary followers of Hume and Kant that constitutes the ultimate cause of the present-day eclipse of a what-logic in favor of a relating-logic. And lest anyone doubt that contemporary scientists as well as contemporary analytic philosophers owe much of their method to Hume and/or Kant, Prof. Veatch ably shows how the celebrated Kantian method of transcendental justification (according to which there is no such thing as necessary order in or experience of nature apart from the activity of human minds) has become " the very foundation stone of almost the entire edifice of contemporary philosophy of science." (p. 179)

Nevertheless, quite apart from the dubious logical and ontological grounds on which the present-day elimination of a what-logic rests, the error of abandoning a what-logic altogether may be seen more immediately according to Veatch by noting how, precisely because of their abandonment of a-what-logic, neo-analytic philosophers fall prey to a certain logical fallacy when it comes to analyzing certain prima facie what-statements. This fallacy Veatch calls " the fallacy of inverted intentionality."

Specifically, and according to the neo-analyst, a statement like " red and green cannot be in the same place at the same time " does not intend any real impossibility in the world but is rather a mere linguistic truth or a

" veiled grammatical rule " for the use of " red " and " green." But Veatch argues that, if this is not to commit the logical fallacy of confusing use with mention, it is surely to commit the logical fallacy of inverted intentionality or, in other words, the fallacy of ignoring the order of priority among the various levels of intention. For, clearly, it is only because of the real impossibility of red and green being at the same place at the same time that there is a grammatical rule governing the use of " red " and " green." Or, put more generally, it is only because of what words are used to signify in first intention (i. e., it is only in making what-statements) that we can in second intention utter certain linguistic or logical rules for the use of these same words. But, having removed all necessity and impossibility from the world, the neo-analyst must artificially construe a necessary statement in first intention as a necessary statement in second intention (i. e., as a linguistic truth, a veiled grammatical rule, etc.). And yet, the very condition of the second intentional statement is that the first intentional statement be taken at face value, i. e., taken as a first intentional or " what " statement.

The reviewer finds the author's criticism of neo-analytic philosophy very telling and his overall comparison of a what-logic with a relating-logic superb. And yet, the reviewer feels that by insisting on the fallibility as well as the necessity of the what-statements of traditional logic, the author falls into the very error he accuses the neo-analyst of making, namely, the error of construing necessary logical relations as entirely independent of any real necessity--relations that are in no way " dictated by reality." For, according to Veatch, a statement like " the whale is a fish " exemplifies the necessary logical relation of species to genus, even though the statement is in fact false.

Moreover, this fallibility thesis as regards what-statements seems (ironically) to lead Veatch himself to a form of the fallacy of inverted intentionality. For if the genus-species relation is not based on any real necessity, then it follows that the necessity of, say, the second intentional logical or grammatical rule: " ' animal ' is the genus of ' man ' " cannot be determined by what the words " animal " and " man " are used to signify in first intention. In other words, instead of the necessity of the logical rule in question being determined by some real necessity between being a man and being an animal, the necessity of that rule holds quite independently of what animals and men are in fact and in reality. To avoid this embarrassment, perhaps Veatch should have said that it is not what-statements themselves that are fallible, but rather that it is we human beings who are fallible in judging that a statement is or is not a what-statement.

John F. Peterson

University of Rhode Island

Kingston, R. I.

An Interpretation of Existence. By Joseph Owens. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1968. Pp. 160.

This interpretation of existence follows familiar Thomistic lines but is not mere repetition. It is set forth in the context of the historical background and the pluralistic currents of contemporary thought. The author remarks that genuine philosophy must be creative, not, indeed, a creation out of nothing but a creative evolution which is the continuing of a developmental process and the growth of insights marking the progress of human understanding. " A Thomism that is narrowly ' Thomistic ' cannot hope to be a genuine Thomism." (p. 147) The present work is refreshingly open to the interests of philosophers not only of the West but in this ecumenical age hopefully also of the East.

The problem of existence arises from the fact that, although the existence of things is admittedly known, the interpretation of this fact is by no means easily achieved or agreed upon. Is the existence of things a mere historical event which can be passed over as philosophically trivial, or is it pregnant with the most far-reaching and all-important of philosophical consequences? The answer, we are told, depends upon how existence is grasped and conceived.

Our original grasp of the existence of things is not attained in any concept, because concepts do not have existential content. Conceptually, one hundred dollars are the same, whether the dollars exist or not. By intellect we can consider the thing and the existence separately, and the concepts themselves even in combination, such as a real mountain of gold, do not express the fact that something exists. It is not in the act of mere conceiving but in the act of judging that we grasp the existence of things in such a way as to know that something exists. Conceptualization and judgment always accompany each other, but they are two different kinds of intellectual activity, each with its own object. Judgment is a dynamic and synthesizing activity, and it is conditioned by time. Existence as the object of judgment is also a synthesizing, dynamic and temporally conditioned actuality. There are two ways or levels of existence, real and cognitional, and these are known by different judgments.

Existence as first known by judgment is analyzed and interpreted so as to set forth the high points of realistic metaphysics in a way that is, for the most part, clear and convincing. This is a work which merits and will well repay careful study. In striking ways it brings out the cardinal position that our knowledge of existence is attained through judgment, not through mere apprehension. The analysis of existence as first grasped through judgment is pursued to the source of existence in an efficient cause which is itself subsistent existence, and from this principle synthetic consequences of vital importance are drawn concerning the imparting of existence to created things, particularly in regard to human freedom and the human soul.

Some reservations, however, must be made. In the first place, the author does not analyze or critically justify the realism which he assumes. He does not indicate the necessary order in our primitive concepts and judgments through which we know that something exists with its own real or natural being distinct from our knowledge of it. This analysis was made by St. Thomas both in the Summa Theologiae (I, q. 11, a. 2 ad 4) and elsewhere, and indeed was one of his great achievements. Moreover, one might object to the way in which the author contrasts the objects of conceptualization and of judgment and the way he relates these different acts. The intellect can conceive a thing and its existence separately, but this does not seem to be the usual way of conceiving. Ordinarily we must know that something exists before we can know what it is, and some primitive apprehensions must precede judgment, which is made by combining or dividing concepts in the light of the objects known. It would seem that apprehension must attain existence in some way, even if not distinctly or explicitly, and once explicitly known through judgment this knowledge can be included in the concept of the thing at least implicitly. In a word, to empty all concepts of existential import seems highly artificial, if indeed it is at all possible. Furthermore, the author does not interpret the main line of Aristotle's thought as does St. Thomas, who explained Aristotle's doctrine of form, not as a being or a whole but as a part and a cause of being, always dependent upon a first cause which imparts not only motion but also being even to eternal and incorruptible things.

William H. Kane, O. P.

Aquinas Institute, School of Philosophy

River Forest, III.

Moral Reasoning. By R. W. Beardsmore. New York: Schocken Books, 1969. Pp. 143. $4.95.

R. W. Beardsmore, of the University College of North Wales, Bangor, has provided us with an essay on moral reasoning and moral arguments that is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating. It is fascinating both because Beardsmore's critique of the positions taken by R. M. Hare and Mrs. Foot is so telling and instructive and because much that he has to say positively about the nature of moral reasoning makes such good sense. It is frustrating because, after one has finished and begun to reflect on Beardsmore's own position, one is suddenly aware that the position set forth, although plausible in many respects, is ultimately a linguistic game that simply fails to come to grips with the issues.

Beardsmore's essay is intended to show (I) that the two principal accounts today of the nature of moral reasoning--in his view those represented by R. M. Hare and Mrs. Patricia [Philippa?] Foot--are erroneous and (2) that an alternate account, one proposed in the course of the essay by the author, is more plausible.

Hare maintains that moral judgments have no subject-matter proper to themselves and that a moral judgment is such not because of what is said but because of the way it is said. According to Hare, a moral judgment makes sense if it follows as a logical conclusion from a syllogism whose major premise states a principle of conduct and whose minor premise is a statement of fact. On this view moral evaluations, although based on factual statements, are not reducible to facts but consist of facts plus an added ingredient--an evaluative judgment that can serve as the major premise in a moral argument. For instance, Hare argues as follows: One ought never to say what is false; but X is false; therefore one ought not to say X. Among the objections that Beardsmore poses to Hare's position is that it logically entails the absurd consequence that anything can count as a moral reason, provided that it is possible to devise an appropriate major premise. Thus, according to Beardsmore, one could legitimately argue, if Hare is correct in his evaluation of the nature of moral reasoning, as follows: One ought always to hit one's brother-in-law on Tuesdays; today is Tuesday; therefore you ought to hit your brother-in-law.

Mrs. Foot, on the other hand, holds that there are very strict limits as to what can count as a moral reason. In Beardsmore's view, the limits assigned by Mrs. Foot are too strict, too mechanical. For Mrs. Foot there is, in principle, no reason why agreement on moral questions cannot be reached on the same basis on which agreement is attained in scientific, empirical arguments, because for her there is no real difference between the two types of arguments. Consequently, on her view there is no real difference between moral judgments and factual judgments inasmuch as the former can be reduced to the latter by means of arguments based on considerations of function and utility. Although Beardsmore does not make this comparison, it would seem that Mrs. Foot's position is, on ultimate analysis, the same as that of the utilitarians. An act's rightness or wrongness depends on its utility as a means to achieve a certain end; if the end in question contributes to the well-being of men, then the act in question will be right. And the determination of the act's utility can ideally, be decided on empirically verifiable grounds. Beardsmore objects to Mrs. Foot's position chiefly because it is so rigid that it is impossible to see how it can allow room for legitimate disagreements in moral matters, disagreements that cannot be resolved in the same way that electricians, for example, can resolve disagreements over what is wrong with a given electrical system.

In the place of either of these two positions Beardsmore offers one

inspired in part by Wittgenstein, that is intended--contra Hare--to show that only certain kinds of things can count as moral reasons and--contra Foot--to allow room for serious conflict and disagreement over moral questions. Beardsmore maintains that " there is a range of concepts (murder, adultery, suicide, truth-telling, etc.) which are in some sense constitutive of a morality." (p. 44) These concepts, moreover, are bound up with factual states of affairs, so that all those who accept these fundamental concepts are bound " to the same conclusion " because " for them the facts already possess evaluative import. They are not just facts." (p. 74) These concepts, in short, determine what significance the facts can have for us, that is, they " determine our ideas of morality." (p. 79)

For Beardsmore such judgments as " murder is wrong " or " one ought to tell the truth " or " one ought not to commit adultery " are not, as both Hare and Foot and most other moralists maintain, " moral principles." Rather they are a web or network of evaluative judgments accepted as factual statements by those who adhere to a given way of life or who have been entrusted with a given tradition or heritage. As a result, all those who belong to a given way of life--for example, Catholics--assign a given meaning to certain types of activity (e. g., suicide) and within the framework of this fundamental moral code we can find the framework for agreement and disagreement, (cf. p. 121) Beardsmore holds, however, that by proposing the view that moral judgments make sense within a given way of life or basic moral code he is not joining those who say that morality is a matter of " convention " pure and simple. He claims that in his view the basic moral code or way of life provides the context for telling whether a particular reason can count as a moral reason but that it does not mean pure conventionalism. For one thing, he holds that this basic code or way of life, to be morally significant, cannot simply be accepted as something imposed from without but it must be interiorized. Although a particular individual within a given way of life does not decide what will count as a moral fact--this is simply a result of the cultural milieu in which he is immersed--still there is plenty of room for personal decision and responsible judgment. Yet he does hold that irreconcilable disagreements will arise when individuals with basically different moral codes engage in argument-- for example, when a Catholic argues about suicide with a Japanese Samurai. Although it is possible that one will be " converted " to the other way of life, this rarely happens, and when it does it means that a person has come " to see that in some important way his views are wrong." (p. 90) But as long as persons of radically diverse moral codes adhere to these codes, there is simply no way of reaching agreement, because they cannot agree on what will count as a moral argument.

This, in brief, is Beardsmore's position. As I said at the beginning, his essay is both fascinating and frustrating. He has done a real service, I

believe, in showing the inadequacies of the views of Hare and Foot; he is surely correct in arguing that not everything can count as a moral reason and that the intelligibility of a moral argument depends on agreement over certain fundamental concepts and ideas. He is also quite right in stressing the role that cultural background, heritage, traditions, and membership in a given political and/or religious community play in providing these concepts and in offering us a framework within which meaningful discussion can take place. Yet his position logically leads to moral relativism, for he is incapable of offering any reasons why any particular moral code should be preferred to any other. In final analysis, this means that there is ultimately no irrefutable reason why any type of human activity should be considered right or wrong. The ultimate criterion, consequently, of the rightness or wrongness of a human act, must be non-rational. Although Beardsmore's position illuminates many aspects of the rational character of moral discourse, it finally issues in the absurd.

William E. May

Corpus Instrumentorum

Washington, D. C.

The Nature of Moral Judgment: A Study in Contemporary Moral Philosophy. By Patrick McGrath. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969. Pp. 327. $6.50.

The decade of the 1960's may well be remembered by future historians of ethics as a period of stock-taking and consolidation. After nearly 50 years of unparalleled vitality and development, a growing number of moral philosophers in the Anglo-American world seem to be ready to slow the pace for a moment in order to assimilate and reevaluate the rapid steps of the recent past. The evidence for this is twofold: first, the rather surprising dearth of novel, groundbreaking work in ethics during the last ten years and, second, the near simultaneous appearance of a number of books devoted in large measure to the task of giving a critical, historical review of the development in Anglo-American ethical philosophy since G. E. Moore.

The Nature of Moral Judgment falls squarely into this latter category and as such will inevitably be compared with such excellent recent works as The Revolution in Ethical Theory by George Kerner and G. J. Warnock's Contemporary Moral Philosophy. Any such comparison, however, is bound to yield a favorable judgment of Father McGrath's work. His treatment of individual theorists is remarkably fresh, and his viewpoint

provides a valuable and much needed perspective on the issues under consideration.

All of the previous works of this genre have been written by philosophers who stand squarely in the tradition of linguistic-analytic philosophy itself. Warnock and Kerner, for example, are both students of the late J. L. Austin. And while their assessments of the fruitfulness of the direction which recent ethical thought has taken vary widely, they share many assumptions in common with the philosophers whose work they discuss. Father McGrath, by contrast, approaches the analytic tradition in ethics with the concerns of traditional moral philosophy uppermost in his mind. The result, however, is not an unsympathetic diatribe against " linguistic " philosophy of the sort which has been all too common in recent years. Instead, one finds a balanced and generally sympathetic presentation of the views of all the " classic " ethical theorists in the analytic tradition, along with constructive criticism of each.

McGrath's book is divided into four parts, the first three devoted to exposition and criticism and the fourth to a development of the author's own constructive views. Part One, " The Emotive Theory of Moral Judgment," presents sketches of Moore's refutation of naturalism and of the theories of meaning developed by Logical Atomism and Logical Positivism. It then goes on to probe the emotivist ethical theories of A. J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson, showing them to be a near inevitable response to Moore's work in view of the theory of meaning extant among the early analysts.

Part Two, " The Function of Ethical Statements," is devoted to a careful analysis of the ethical writings of J. O. Urmson, R. M. Hare and P. H. Nowell-Smith. What separates the work of these philosophers from that of the emotivists is a heightened appreciation of the subtlety and diversity of linguistic functioning. Here McGrath correctly notes that this new emphasis on looking at language at work in ethical contexts, as a means of clarifying the nature of moral judgment, is due largely to the theory of meaning implicit in the work of the " later " Wittgenstein.

In Part Three, " The Good Reasons Approach," McGrath considers the work of Stephen Toulmin and Kurt Baier as exemplifying an approach to ethics which, though Wittgensteinian in orientation, differs markedly from that of the men discussed in Part Two. Urmson, Hare and Nowell-Smith have been primarily interested in clarifying the use and significance of key ethical terms such a " good " and " ought." Toulmin and Baier are more concerned to lay bare the distinctive inferential patterns involved in giving reasons and formulating arguments in ethics.

The exposition in these first three sections of the book is uniformly excellent. Each theory is laid out simply, clearly and directly, with an economy of expression that belies the true level of sophistication involved. While this feature of the book recommends it highly to those seeking an

introduction to recent developments in ethics in the analytic tradition, the repository of evaluative criticism in these chapters will be of interest to all students of moral philosophy. Father McGrath obviously believes that a philosopher's views are no sounder than the arguments on which they rest. His method of criticism is thus the devastatingly effective one of taking crucial theses from each theorist, laying out the arguments which support them, and then challenging the arguments with counterexamples and counter arguments of his own. While his criticisms are not all of equal weight, many are novel and important and will have to be taken seriously by anyone convinced of the essential correctness of the theory in question. Indeed, anyone fascinated by sheer argumentative skill will find much to appreciate here.

In the fourth and concluding section of the book the author presents his own positive theory of moral judgment. The explicit rationale which is intended to tie together the first three critical sections with this fourth constructive part is that, while all traditional moral theorists presuppose a theory of moral judgment, " they seldom expound it and even less often provide any evidence to show that it is true." (p. ix) Thus it is important, from McGrath's point of view, to develop his own objective theory of moral judgment out of a dialectical confrontation with the explicit, non-objective theories of moral judgment put forward by ethicians in the analytic tradition.

While this intention is clear, its execution is less so. This is not to say that McGrath's own views are not stimulating and provocative. In a relatively brief space, Part Four presents not only a spirited defense of the objectivity of moral judgments but a definition of " good," an ultimate criterion for moral judgment, and an answer to the question of why we should be moral! The surprising thing is that, while echoes of the Greeks, Scholastics, Kant and Bradley are all clearly audible in this section, virtually no attempt is actually made to relate the views being expressed to those of the theorists whose work was the subject of the previous sections. The reader is left to his devices in sorting out and evaluating the areas of agreement and disagreement.

In sum, one is left with the impression that there are two distinct monographs between the covers of this book. Each is worthwhile in its own right, but they rest somewhat uneasily side by side. Had the author been able to weld them together more seamlessly, what is without a doubt a good book would have been an excellent one indeed.

Vaughn R. McKim

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame, Indiana

Il fondamento etico-religioso del diritto secondo S. Tommaso d'Aquino. By P. Reginaldo M. Pizzorni, O. P. Rome: Lateran University, 1968. Pp. 231.

Una discussione sul'etica della felicità. By Giovanni Blandino, S. J., Bernard Haring, C. SS. R., Gianfranco Morra, Paolo Valori, S. J. Bologna: Edizioni di Etica, 1968. Pp. 99. L.600.

II fondamento etico-religioso del diritto secondo S. Tommaso d'Aquino is an ample, thoroughly thomist and well-documented thesis on the necessary dependence of positive law on the natural law and of both on the eternal law of God. There are many conclusions to be drawn. One that is of interest in the changing world today is that law should not be changed for frivolous reasons. St. Thomas's warning is timely: " qui facile mutat legem, quantum est de se, debilitat legis virtutem." Much modem thought about the relativity of natural law is rooted in the false notion that it is something bound up with nature as we understand it and not as the Wisdom of God has designed it. What we call divine positive law, God's many personal interventions in our moral affairs, is a check on the tendency of man to be a subjectivist where morality is concerned. The growth of atheism has increased this danger so much that even believers think it is suitable to formulate the theory that there can be law or morality without reference to God. It is a theory that division among Christians has indirectly fostered; for this pluralism causes the State to shy at identifying itself with the truth as preached by one or other Christian denomination, and in its passion for secularism it ends by failing to give practical recognition in its lawmaking to the existence of God and his Wisdom.

This book has a vital message. Indeed, it is a recall to sanity, if only intelligent men have the patience to read through it slowly and thoughtfully.

With all the names l'Etica della felicità looks like a notice of a film coming shortly. Father Blandino the protagonist of the thesis that a system of Ethics could be suitably built on the intention in every action of contributing to one's own and other people's happiness. It is introduced by Gianfranco Morra of Bologna University, and the theory is discussed by Father Haring, C. SS. R., and Father Valori, S. J., of the Gregorian University.

The merits of the thesis are fairly appraised, but disagreement centers on two points--Father Blandino's idea that an Ethic can be established without reference to God and because felicity, pleasure or happiness are much too vague and indefinite concepts on which to base one's moral judgment.

It seemed to me that, in a discussion on morality, there was an absence

of realism. Morality remained very much an idea and reflected experience neither of God nor of people. However, now that discussion is so popular, many will find it interesting.

Jerome Toner, O. P.

St. Charles' Seminary

Nagpur, India

Participated Eternity in the Vision of God: A Study of the Opinion of Thomas Aquinas and his Commentators on the Duration of the Acts of Glory. By Carl J. Peter. Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1964. Pp. 308.

If one had to summarize Peter's lengthy doctoral dissertation in one sentence, one might say that the duration of acts of glory was for Thomas Aquinas participated eternity but for Duns Scotus aevum. If one were allowed two sentences, one could add that Thomists tended to side with Aquinas and Franciscans with Scotus but three Jesuits (de Toledo, Bellarmine, Vazquez) considered the two to be saying the same thing: Aquinas's participated eternity was Scotus's aevum (see " Conclusion," pp. 253-68). Of course, such a summary does not do justice to the nuances of doctrine within the thomistic or the scotist schools, nor to Peter's paleographical work (see " Appendices," pp. 281-88) or his careful textual exegesis (at times quite detailed) of at least thirty-nine theologians stretching from Aquinas (1223-1274) to John of St. Thomas (1589-1644).

As an exegetical instance let us outline his study of Aquinas, which forms Part One of his book. (pp. 5-71) The question raised, he begins, concerns " the duration of the beatific acts in intellectual creatures." More exactly, does " the very permanence itself of the acts of glory " involve " a true supernaturality "? (p. 5) There are two ways of answering, the first of which consists in comparing various durations. God's is eternity (pp. 7-12), and spiritual creatures' in their natural existence and operations is aevum. (pp. 12-20) But these latter in their supernatural and beatific operations of contemplating and loving God also enjoy what Aquinas calls a " participated eternity " (pp. 20-24) --namely, " the duration of an act that completely exhausts the potency of its subject for immediate knowledge and love of God; that is, its subject is open to no greater perfection." (p. 32) It is " the measure of the acts of glory in intellectual creatures. This vision introduces man into an immediate union with God Himself and His duration. It implies a share in what is properly divine and consequently excludes the possibility of change. The glorified subject is simply not open to greater perfection, to more perfect knowledge and love of God, as it was in its natural state." (p. 33)

The second way of deciding whether the permanence of the beatific vision is supernatural is to investigate that vision as a psychology state, especially in the immutability of mind and will which it entails (pp. 35-44), the cessation in it of hope (pp. 44-49), and the knowledge of contingent futures which a blessed attains. (pp. 49-67) From those three considerations the conclusion is again drawn (pp. 67-71) that spiritual existents in the beatific vision " participate in God's eternity." They attain " grades of interminability or immutability " because " there change is found neither in act nor in potency." Although the operations of beatific knowledge and love are not " absolutely unlimited perfections," still " through them the Blessed have the ultimate perfection of which their natures are capable. And if the latter be the case, there remains no potency in the nature for further perfection; and consequently, the acts in question have a duration characterized by the supreme degree of immobility possible in creatures and the closest approximation to that of God." (p. 68) They are, also, supernatural since they transcend the highest natural knowledge and love possible to angels and separated souls (namely, through God's image in their created natures; p. 69). They arise only through " God's communication of Himself in a finite mind and will, [and thereby] the creature participates in a perfection which is properly God's. By sharing in God's own beatitude, the creature is blessed by participation. By sharing God's nature, he is divinized or deified by participation. So too by sharing in the immutability of eternity, he is eternal by participation. And that participation in eternity is supernatural." (p. 70)

The topic Peter chose for his book is important (see pp. 268-71 for its relevance to current theology) and, obviously, difficult. His approach by cataloguing the answers which theologians subsequent to Aquinas gave to the problem is helpful. But his treatment of Thomas himself can, in my judgment, be improved. One improvement would be to trace (at least to some degree) the positions of Thomas's predecessors on the beatific vision and related matters. In justifying his inclusion of Scotus, Peter himself stated: " When the thought of one mind depends on that of another, the fair exposition of the former [here, Thomistic commentators] involves some familiarity with that of the latter [here, Scotus]." (p. 3) Surely that statement holds with equal force in reference to Aquinas and those preceding him. Especially is this true in the light of the controversy on the beatific vision which raged during the first four decades of the thirteenth century and which culminated in the condemnation in 1241 of anyone holding that in heaven neither men nor angels see the divine essence (" Primus [error], quod divina essentia in se nec ab homine nec ab angelo videbitur "; H. Denifle and E. Châtelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis [Paris, 1889-1897], I, 170). Peter should have used studies devoted to the condemnation, one of which he mentions but does not

pursue (that by H. F. Dondaine), but others he bypasses entirely (e. g., those by P. M. de Contenson, J. M. Alonso, V. Lossky). Again, he should have structured his exegesis of Aquinas according to a chronological order of writings. However much one may disagree with B. J. F. Lonergan's Neo-Kantianism in other writings, his series of articles running in the Theological Studies from 1941 to 1942 on " Saint Thomas and Gratia Operans " established firmly the necessity of such chronologically arranged investigations. In his " Preface " Peter admits receiving invaluable assistance from Lonergan " through the years " and, in fact, lists those Theological Studies articles in his bibliography. Unhappily, they seem not to have assisted him sufficiently.

Finally, what seems somewhat lacking in Peter's pages on Aquinas is what appears most essential to a dogmatic theologian: a genuine intellectus fidei and intellectus textuum Sancti Thomae. One looks in vain for an intrinsic understanding and explanation of what participated eternity itself consists in, an inner realization of what (so to speak) it does to and in the spiritual creature elevated to the beatifying contemplation and love of God by his direct presence. One thinks of the sort of theological reflection which grounded Maurice de la Taille's theory of the lumen glonae and which issued into his article, " Actuation créée par acte incréé," Recherches de Science Religieuse, 18 (1928), 253-68. I find little of that sort in Peter's book (in fact, de la Taille's article is not even listed in his bibliography). He does not discuss what " participation " might mean in Aquinas. On occasion he refers to Geiger and Fabro. In a footnote on the final page of his section on Aquinas (p. 71, n. 131) he refers to J. S. Dunne's article, " St. Thomas' Theology of Participation," Theological Studies, 17 (1957), 487-512, where (Peter reports) Dunne " notes that this use of the term participation by Aquinas refers to a reality that stands in opposition not merely to that which is being through essence but also to that which an intellectual creature is or can be, left to its own resources." There seems to be no other attempt to tie down definitely what participation of eternity might itself ontologically entail for Aquinas. I find this almost incredible in a book whose title is Participated Eternity in the Vision of God.

Leo Sweeney, S. J.

Creighton University

Omaha, Nebraska

The Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas Regarding Eviternity in the Rational Soul and Separated Substances. By Carl J. Peter. Gregorian University Press, Rome, 1964. Pp. 124.

This volume is the author's doctoral thesis which was submitted to the faculty of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) in Rome. Like many published doctoral dissertations it does not appear to have been sufficiently reworked prior to its appearance in book form.

What the author has attempted to do, and in this he has for the most part succeeded, is to give a careful account of St. Thomas's philosophical position on duration in separated substances (angels) and the human soul. The book is divided into three chapters of very unequal length. The first presents a brief general conspectus of the meaning of aevum in the writings of Aquinas. The second, comprising the bulk of the volume (76 out of 124 pages), presents a kaleidoscopic view of Aquinas's teaching on duration. The author examines all of Aquinas's works save his commentaries on Sacred Scripture. The concluding chapter presents a rather loose synthesis of the findings of chapter two.

The author draws four main conclusions from his investigation. 1) Only in God is duration eternal; 2) Duration in created persons may be eternal by participation; 3) The duration of contingent beings is inversely proportional to their mutability; and 4) Aevum, is used of separated substances and of the human soul in a fundamentally uniform manner, when the latter is viewed in its relation to its act of existence rather than to its temporal union with body. Thus, regardless of slight differences of emphasis and varying phraseology, the author finds that Aquinas does not refer aevum to the human soul and to angels in ways that are contradictory but complementary. While in his concluding remarks the author does state that the key to the understanding of Aquinas's whole teaching on the problem of duration is the degree to which he views each being as possessing its act of existence, it is regrettable that this point was not more fully exploited. It would have provided a more easily digestible synthesis and made a comparison between the teaching of Aquinas and twentieth-century thinkers on this point considerably more meaningful and more rewarding.

What, however, this reviewer found consistently irritating was the manner in which the author chose to present the findings of his research. In this instance it is difficult to see any advantage gained in analyzing each of the works of Aquinas separately and in chronological order. Granted that some questions might profitably be investigated in this way, the question of duration does not seem to be one of them. Here the end result of this approach is a needless proliferation of quoted passages from Aquinas and an obscuring of the latter's overall teaching on duration. Had the author learned from his study of Aquinas's works that there was indeed a genuine progression in his theory of duration, a chronological presentation of texts

would surely have had merit. But the reader can only ask whether such an approach was truly helpful when at the end of his study the author concludes that the Angelic Doctor's treatment of eviternity (aevum) in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and the Summa Theologiae, while differing perhaps verbally, is in effect, " really equivalent in the framework of his system." (p. 114)

Equally questionable is the manner in which the author has incorporated so many lengthy, untranslated texts into his main narrative. In numerous instances the author's purpose could just as easily have been served by synthesizing and/or incorporating parts of the texts themselves into his narrative and relegating the full Latin text to a convenient footnote.

The final synthesis, too, lacks satisfying sharpness and precision. Even here the reader is confronted with an additional ten pages whose narrative is often interrupted by fresh Latin texts. Yet, despite these shortcomings, all the more unfortunate since a thorough revision of the dissertation's original format could have eliminated most of them, this work is surely representative of thorough and sound scholarship, and should prove helpful to students of Aquinas wishing to explore in depth his teaching on duration in the separated substances and the human soul.

James B. Reichmann, S. J.

Seattle University

Seattle, Washington

The Concept of Order. Edited by Paul G. Kuntz. Seattle & London: The University of Washington Press, 1968. Pp. 518. $12.50.

The concept of order has always been one of the pivotal notions in philosophy. Throughout the centuries many attempts have been made to discuss order (or disorder) and the implications which it has for philosophy. Today any attempt to discuss order must begin not only with a philosophical analysis but with the way in which other disciplines rest upon a concept of order. Science, art, history and the social sciences as well as philosophy all demand a penetrating analysis of order.

This book is a collection of twenty-eight essays on order plus an introductory essay by the editor. The work is the fruit of a seminar on order held at Grinnell College in 1963-1964. The authors represent a wide variety of academic disciplines, and one of the important features of the collection is its interdisciplinary character. In the attempt to describe a basic concept from a variety of perspectives the authors bring into sharp focus the necessity of broadening one's point of view. The different approaches to order come to be seen as complementary and the richness of the notion of order emerges.

In certain ages the concept of order was regarded as a simple idea, and it was believed that by reason man could come to know the basic order of the universe. This unifying concept of order was thought to be one which would bring together the way in which the concept was employed in different disciplines. Thus, it was thought that there was a basic order at the foundation of the physical sciences whose laws could be expressed in relationship to this basic order. When interest was centered upon the philosophy of history, it was thought by some that man would uncover the basic order which was behind the process of history.

The authors who write in this collection do not represent one point of view, but they do agree on the need for a sophisticated understanding of order. Thus, for example, Eric Voegelin finds in history not a simple order but the co-existence of various movements and institutions which tend to be found together. These he calls configurations, and he is able to find some order in history in terms of recurring configurations. Arnold Toynbee appreciates the importance of Voegelin's analysis and attempts to find the foundations of order in history in the regularity and uniformity stemming from man's subconscious.

The order which is uncovered by the physical sciences is expressed in laws which indicate a statistical determinism. As John Greene indicates, however, the physical idea of order is by no means simple. The entropy of the laws of thermodynamics is not easily reconciled with an evolutionary understanding of order. In fact, the concept of order is employed by evolutionists who do not explain why random variation and natural selection should produce order.

The definition of order is itself a basic subject for discussion, and in these essays one can find many attempts to define or describe order. While the authors do not settle on one definition, it does become evident that the definition of order must take into account both a whole and its parts. The concept is relational, and in many instances it could be rooted in the unity and integrity which are dimensions of an ordered whole.

If one defines order in terms of harmony, balance, unity and integrity, however, it is equally necessary that provision be made for disorder, chance, accident and randomness. The essayists who write from the point of view of aesthetics are clear about the importance of both an order in an artifact and variations of order. Perfect order could be static, repetitive, or boring; and, on the other hand, disorder without order can be chaos.

Various authors underscore the importance of maintaining a tension within one's understanding of order. The biologist, Paul Weiss, shows how the discovery of order in the gross is paralleled by the discovery of disorder in the small; Monroe Beardsley speaks of the same phenomenon in aesthetics. Hartshorne shows how such concepts as purpose and causality demand chance and are not efforts to deny the reality of chance; he also reveals the tension between predictability and control of nature.

The final two sections of the book are perhaps the most engaging, for here the eight essays concern order in human society and order as a challenge to contemporary society. Talcott Parsons shows the importance of distinguishing values and norms, while Samuel Stumpf elaborates the distinction between law and morality. Present concern about Law and Order should not neglect the process of protest, which Stumpf finds is part of the very life of the law.

Iredell Jenkins and Hans Hofmann both indicate the order which man must establish in society. It is important that man's efforts to create order are truly creative; he does create order. The political order which he creates must be flexible enough to permit change and to allow the existence of divergent points of view. Yet the success of the order demands that it not only provides procedural safeguards for freedom but substantive principles on the basis of which such procedures have meaning.

The book does not contain a theological investigation of order; this omission is unfortunate and, given the wide scope of the title, strange. The final essay, by Joseph Wall, does bring the reader to the theological question. After showing that the most frightening concept of God which man can employ is that of a god who is absurd or mad, the author faces the disorder which man sees around him. He sees how modern men have inherited ever since the scholastics a belief in order and logic which today seems naive.

The collection of essays which Paul Kuntz has brought together deserves wide recognition. It is an introductory, not a definitive study of order. It is a significant study because of its cross-disciplinary character and because of the distinguished scholars who have contributed to it. The reader benefits both from the insights of the individual essays and the general perspective which emerges from reading the whole collection. Hopefully, the work will stimulate further research on the concept of order, especially on the concept as it is employed by theology.

Robert L. Stenger, O. P.

School of Religion

University of Iowa

Iowa City, Iowa

St. Augustine and Christian Platonism (The St. Augustine Lecture 1966). By A. Hilary Armstrong. Villanova University Press, 1967. Pp. 66. $2.25.

Augustine and the Greek Philosophers (The St. Augustine Lecture 1964). By John F. Callahan. Villanova University Press, 1967. Pp. 117. $3.50.

Great Thinkers on Plato. Ed. by Barry Gross. New York: Putnam, 1968. Pp.345. $6.95.

The series of annual St. Augustine lectures at Villanova University is designed to show the relevancy of aspects of St. Augustine's thought for our own time. Through the work of specialists, the lectures are in general aimed at a non-specialist public and, as such, two of them have fallen into the hands of a non-specialist reviewer.

The lecture by Professor Armstrong is the more immediately interesting of the two. Though overtly concerned with Augustine, it constitutes in fact a rather convincing plea for the re-introduction of Platonism as a vitalizing force in Christian theology. Students of Christian spirituality in particular should find it of absorbing interest. At a time when traditional approaches to spirituality are being called into question on the grounds that they are to a large extent tributaries of a Plotinian-Platonic world-view that is basically un-Christian, it is refreshing to find such an eminent Plotinian scholar as Professor Armstrong underlining the deep harmony that exists between many aspects of the Christian and the Platonic approach to the life of the spirit. He also stoutly maintains at times that, if there are certain narrownesses in the theology and spirituality of such great Christian Platonists as Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine, this, far from being the result of Platonic corruption, is due rather to an incomplete grasp and faulty assimilation of rich elements in the Platonic tradition. There are points, of course, on which the differences between Christianity and Platonism are irreducible; the merit of Professor Armstrong's little work is to emphasize how few in fact these are.

In the lecture of Professor Callahan we have a scholar speaking primarily to scholars, and the non-specialist will find the going somewhat heavier. The first section, which suggests that the ontological argument of St. Anselm be grand-fathered on St. Augustine, will be of interest to the theologian. The third and final section, which shows us Augustine wrestling with the problem of time and traces the genesis of his psychological approach to the question, is of more general interest. Over and above the detailed questions discussed, Professor Callahan 's lecture is of value in that it shows us how even a thinker as original as St. Augustine remains a man

with a history, and how such giants of the spirit are more aptly described as builders rather than creators.

The third volume under review is an anthology of critical comments on Plato by great philosophers from Aristotle to our own time. I would recommend it as an ideal bedside book for a Platonist. For those of us who feel more at home with Wodehouse, the volume, assuredly the result of painstaking research, serves at least to back up the contention of Whitehead that " the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."

Noel Molloy, O. P.

St. Charles' Seminary

Nagpur, India

Medieval Philosophy, from St. Augustine to Nicholas of Cusa. Ed. by John F. Wippel & Allan B. Wolter, O. F. M. New York: The Free Press; London: Collier-Macmillan Limited, 1969. Pp. 487. $3.95 paper.

For many years the only available collection of readings in medieval philosophy in English translation was Richard McKeon's Selections from Mediaeval Philosophers (1929). Today the student of medieval philosophy has a choice of several good volumes of translated texts, varying in range and interest. The latest of these, edited by Fathers Wippel and Wolter, is particularly suited for undergraduate students in medieval philosophy and the general reader who is looking for information about the subject. It covers a thousand years of philosophical speculation, from St. Augustine to Nicholas of Cusa. Selections have been made from twenty-four of the most important thinkers of this period. The volume has a competently written introduction of thirty pages, sketching the main outlines of philosophy in the Middle Ages. Each chapter is prefaced by a brief account of the man whose text is translated in it. The bibliography at the end of the book contains general histories of medieval philosophy, other volumes of translations, and specific bibliographies for each chapter. These bibliographies are up-to-date and generally well compiled.

A few comments are in order concerning the editors' selection of passages for translation. Any selection is bound to be somewhat arbitrary and dependent on the special interests of the translator. The texts in this volume are on the whole well-chosen. They are varied in subject matter and representative of the major figures in medieval philosophy. A few obvious lacunae should be mentioned. It is unfortunate that there is no

text from St. Albert the Great, who was surely one of the greatest of medieval thinkers. It is also regrettable that none of the Greeks who so profoundly influenced the philosophy of the Latin West are present, e. g., Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite, John Damascene, or Nemesius. The Arabs and Jews are represented by Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides, but the text selected from Avicenna, and two of those from Averroes, are from works unknown to the scholastics of the Middle Ages. In my opinion, it would have been preferable to have chosen texts from the Arabian philosophers that had a deep impact on medieval Christian thought. However, it is true that the Christian scholastics knew but a portion of Muslim philosophy through Latin translation and that it is necessary to correct their partial viewpoint by reading the other works of the Arabs.

The text from Honorius of Autun on the medieval picture of the world is of greater interest to the student of medieval science than of medieval philosophy, and Odo of Rigaud's question on theology as a science is directly theological and not philosophical. Ockham is represented by a text " On possibility and God " which, though important, is not best suited to introduce a reader to his thought. The interesting short treatise of Fridugis on " Nothing and Darkness " has been made available in English for the first time.

For the most part, the translations were made specially for this volume by the editors. A spot check reveals that they are usually accurate and well done. The English is clear and modern. In several cases the editors could have improved on the translation taken from other sources, e. g., Shapcotes' translation o