BOOK REVIEWS
Hugh of Saint-Cher's Theology of the Hypostatic Union: The Theology of the Hypostatic Union in the Early Thirteenth Century. Vol. III. By Walter Principe. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies. 1970. Pp. 265.
This work is the third in a series by Fr. Principe dealing with the theology of the Hypostatic Union in the early thirteenth century. Previous studies examined the doctrine of William of Auxerre and Alexander of Hales. An analysis of the theology of Philip the Chancellor is in preparation.
His work on Hugh, however, is perhaps the most important of the three thus far published. It is not that it evinces greater scholarship than the others but rather because of the place Hugh of Saint-Cher himself occupies in the history of theology. It was he who initiated the theological literary form of the Scriptum super Sententiis, a commentary on the Sententiae of Peter Lombard. The Glossae of his predecessors were limited in their scope, adhering closely for the most part to the text of the Lombard and explaining its difficulties. The purpose of Hugh in the Scriptum went far beyond this. Within the framework of the Sentences he introduced the questions of his day and the solutions proposed by his contemporaries. He was the master of the status quaestionis and with clarity and order presented a comprehensive view of the state of theology in the early thirteenth century. Because of his frequent use of the works of his predecessors and contemporaries, his Scriptum was undoubtedly a useful tool for theological students and for other masters in theology. In fact, the Scriptum must be considered one of the most popular theological works of the time.
It would be a mistake, however, to consider Hugh merely a compiler of opinions. He took a personal stand concerning the questions under discussion, and at times added significant and original insights of his own, insights which in some instances have become part of the heritage of later Catholic theology. As Fr. Principe notes, he was among the first, if not the first, to teach the simplicity of the human soul and to mention, while vehemently rejecting it, the thesis of the hylomorphic composition of the human soul from form and spiritual matter. In sacramental theology he was the first theologian to discern a matter and form in all the sacraments and to understand these principles in the Aristotelian sense of determinable and determining elements. He appears to have introduced the application of the concept of res et sacramentum into the theology of sacramental character. He was also the first theologian to achieve a complete assimilation of the Sacrament of Penance into the theology of the other sacraments of the New Law. Many of these original positions were the foundations for
further development and clarification by later theologians of the century, especially St. Thomas. Hugh then is to be numbered in a special way among those theologians who in the development of Scholastic theology were the major intellectual links between the Sentences of the Lombard and the Summa of Aquinas.
Fr. Principe's specific concern, however, is Hugh's doctrine on the Hypostatic Union. The Scriptum, of course, is the main source of his investigation of Hugh's doctrine. Written between 1230 and 1232 it represents the clearest and most comprehensive study of this mystery in the thirteenth century before the so-called Summa Fratris Alexandri. The author, however, does not limit himself to Book III of the Scriptum, wherein Hugh formally considers the Hypostatic Union. He gleans from the whole Scriptum the doctrine and thought of Hugh on whatever pertains to the question at hand. Furthermore, he also includes in his analysis Hugh's scriptural commentaries, as well as one of his theological questions. As the author points out, however, caution must be used in regard to the latter work, since there is some question as to its authenticity. The scope of this approach to the sources gives Fr. Principe's work a unique value for scholars, since no previous study on Hugh gives so comprehensive an analysis.
There is a further feature of Fr. Principe's study which is of immense value to the student of medieval theology. As an introduction to the study proper, he gives a survey of the various meanings of the philosophical terms employed by Hugh in his discussion of the Hypostatic Union, such as ens, esse, existere, essentia, nature, substance, hypostasis, the individual, and person. He also explains Hugh's understanding of the various kinds of composition in created being. In this way the reader, even one highly competent in Scholastic philosophy, is safeguarded from misunderstanding the thought of Hugh and reading into him the later refinements of the terminology of Aquinas and the other Scholastics. Hugh's understanding of esse should amply illustrate this. In some of his texts esse seems to be the equivalent of ens and to signify the being of a thing without any connotation other than that added to it by the qualifying word or idea linked with it, for example, esse gratiae, esse proprietatis, etc. In many other texts the term esse may include, together with the general notion of being, the idea of the fact of existence. But this added meaning is by no means always evident. In still other places the expression esse actuale appears to mean the real physical act of existence. This understanding of esse is indeed far from that of Aquinas!
Peter Lombard in his Sentences presented three opinions concerning the Hypostatic Union. According to Hugh, the Lombard in citing these opinions was merely presenting them as solutions of other theologians for two problems that Peter himself leaves unsolved, namely, whether God's becoming or being man meant that God became or was something (aliquid) and whether it is true to say that man became God as to say that God became
man. It is in the framework of the Lombard's three opinions that Hugh proceeds to answer these two problems.
He begins by describing each. He designates the first as the Homo assumptus-Theory, the second as the Subsistence-Theory, and the third as the Habitus-Theory. Commenting on each in a general way, he states that the first no longer has any convinced supporters but is maintained in the schools only for the sake of debate (non sustinetur in scholis nisi per petitionem). The third is recognized by all as heretical. The second opinion, on the other hand, is accepted by all as true. Thus by the year 1230 at least, the Subsistence Theory had gained the universal approval of the schools. This is an important fact for the historian of theology.
The analysis of the Subsistence Theory thus becomes the basis of Hugh's doctrine on the Hypostatic Union, as well as the key to answering the questions implicitly posed by the Lombard. Accordingly, he treats of the following questions, as well as the implications flowing from them: the mode of union, the divine participant of the union, the nature assumed in the union, and the communication of properties or idioms in the union. Fr. Principe deals with these questions and their implications in chapter III through VI. Space does not permit a detailed exposition of Hugh's doctrine on these points, nor of Fr. Principe's commentary. There are two points in chapter III, however, which deserve examination, at least in broad outline, because of the special interest of contemporary Christology on these very same topics. The first concerns Hugh's understanding of the meaning and constituent of person; the second deals with the problem of unity or plurality in Christ.
Although Hugh owes something to William of Auxerre for his doctrine on person, his teaching on this point does represent an original contribution to the theology of the period, inasmuch as he makes explicit and formal in his doctrine what was implicit in the doctrine of his predecessors.
As Fr. Principe notes, in three different places in the Scriptum Hugh explicitly states the requirements for the constitution of person: the distinctions of " singularity," natural incommunicability," and " excellence of dignity." Employing these distinctions, then, Hugh, can say that the substantial form, humanity, is the source of human personality, provided that the form is singular and that it is the noblest form in man. It is by the mere possession of a singular humanity as his own that each man is a person. There is no need for a new being or a positive entity to be added to the singular humanity to constitute a person. Only one requirement is necessary: this singular humanity is independent of any higher form. The perfection of personality, therefore, consists in privation; ". . . patet quod privatio perfectio est personae."
The application of this doctrine to the Hypostatic Union should be clear. There is no human person in Christ, therefore, but only that of the Word of God, because Christ as man, or in his singularity, lacks the distinction
of dignity and is joined to one more excellent, that is, to the person of the Word of God. One further note might help to clarify the above. Hugh seems to conceive the personal property of a divine person in terms of a form. It is this higher form of the Word which takes the substantial form of humanity to itself and makes it its own.
There are many difficulties in this position, but one must not let these difficulties obscure the profundity of Hugh's thought. This is a graphic example of fides quaerens intellectum. It must be realized that Hugh is a pioneer in the development of Scholastic theology. One of his tasks is to forge, create, and, at times, clarify a new philosophical vocabulary. This alone should explain and excuse any obscurities in his doctrine. But above all, Hugh is not interested in the meaning and the constituent of person as such. It is the truth of faith that engages his entire attention; Jesus Christ is true man, and yet he is not a human person. It is to defend this truth and to bring Christians to a richer appreciation of this mystery of faith that urges Hugh to investigate the secrets of being and personality.
Although Hugh depends again on William of Auxerre for his statement of the problem on the unity of Christ, as well as for some of the solutions, he shows considerable independence and personal originality in this question. For he is the first theologian, with the exception of Alexander of Hales, and apparently independent of him, to affirm the unity of Christ in terms of being (expressed as esse or essentia). Here Fr. Principe's discussion of Hugh's philosophical terminology has special value. Essentia has diverse meanings in the context of the Hypostatic Union. Thus he can speak of two essences in Christ, human and divine. But in other places, and specifically in this question, it has the meaning of physical, concrete being, the level of factual (if not metaphysical) existence. Esse has the same meaning in this context. Thus Hugh refuses to grant that Christ's created esse is other than his uncreated esse. Christ does not have two beings or two existences. Although a creaturely being and a divine being may be mentally distinguished in Christ, nevertheless, in actual existence they are not distinct from one another. Christ is only one. Hugh's teaching on the unity of Christ is a definite foreshadowing of some of the later masters of the thirteenth century, especially Aquinas.
Part II of Fr. Principe's study will be of most special interest to the professional scholars of medieval theology. He has prepared a new edition of Book III, distinctions 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 21, and 22, of the Scriptum. This edition is constructed from the critical study of all the available manuscripts. This is another unique contribution by Fr. Principe, since prior studies on Hugh's doctrine on the Hypostatic Union have not been based on such a comprehensive and all-inclusive examination of the sources. Dr. Breuning, for example, in his work on Hugh (Die hypostatische Union in der Theologie Wilhelms von Auxerre, Hugos von St. Cher und Rolands von
Cremona: Trier, 1962) constructs his edition on too limited a basis as far as the manuscripts are concerned. For the most part his text is based upon the Vatican manuscript text. In doubtful places he consulted three other manuscripts, namely, MS. Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 130 and 131, as well as MS. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Conv. Soppr. I. VI, 32. According to Fr. Principe, the Vatican and the Assisi texts belong to a family of manuscripts which represent the weakest text-tradition. In the author's study of Hugh, therefore, we have, if not a critical edition, a carefully constructed text representative of what is best in all the extant manuscripts of Hugh's Scriptum.
The renewal of theology consequent upon the teachings and inspiration of Vatican II has necessitated careful and scientific historical study of the past. This is not a surprising phenomenon. For, although theology must always concern itself with the task of discovering new insights in God's revelation, its progress must always rest on the solid foundation of authentic tradition. If this is not the case, then theology distorts and obscures God's revelation.
Fr. Principe's study on the work of the first Dominican Cardinal is not history for history's sake. It is history put to the service of theology and the faith. For many of the teachings of Hugh on the Hypostatic Union are reflective of the Church's understanding in faith of the person and mystery of Christ. And similarly, some of the problems concerning the mystery of Christ which Hugh so acutely analysed--for example, the unity of esse in Christ--are again problems, but in a different context, for contemporary theologians. Undoubtedly the argumentation of Hugh in this matter is one which no contemporary could accept, but is not his conclusion, long in theological tradition, one which should command their attention?
William A. Newman, O. P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.
Merton's Theology of Prayer. By John J. Higgins, S. J. Spencer, Mass.: Cistercian Publications, 1971. Pp. 183. $5.59.
We do not know how long a man will live until he dies; with a writer on the spiritual life the durability of his influence is discovered only after his death. Every indication is that Thomas Merton is here to stay. Since his tragic death on December 10, 1968, the impact of Merton on American thought has increased rather than slackened. Several of his works have been published posthumously and the avalanche of books on Merton himself and his ideas is just beginning.
Fr. Higgins has made a major contribution to Mertonology with his study of Merton's Theology of Prayer. The basic premise of his thesis is taken from a statement of Father Merton himself: "Whatever I may have written, I think it all can be reduced in the end to this one root truth: that God calls human persons to union with Himself and with one another in Christ." Four engaging chapters substantiate and document this assertion of Merton's. Two final chapters offer an evaluation. The point that Higgins wishes to make is that Merton is completely consistent in his theology of prayer. Although the author does not delay on the issue, one might add that Merton is also perfectly orthodox. Indeed, the very strength of Merton's contributions to spirituality is founded in his own deep and solid roots in the tradition of the Church. As Higgins notes, Merton's interest in Zen Buddhism was not a drifting away from orthodoxy but rather a search for truths in other religious forms as well as efforts to integrate what was assimilable into Christian practice.
A subtitle to this book might have been " The Necessity of Prayer." As Fr. Higgins unfolds the main lines of Merton's thoughts on union with God and union with neighbor in Christ, the importance of personal prayer becomes increasingly evident. Current popular but superficial theories on prayer and spirituality are deftly dismantled as the author cites text after text from Merton's writings to support and promote the role of prayer as the all-embracing means to holiness. Yet the book avoids polemics, concentrating on a positive exposition of Merton's theology.
Since Father Merton's passing, wild rumors about the cause of his death and stories that the famous monk was abandoning his Trappist ideal for some form of Buddhism have been circulating. Such speculations will no doubt continue for a while as the sensationalists milk the memory of a great man for all the cheap publicity they can derive from it. This book should help put to rest these foolish and groundless reports. That in itself would make the book worthwhile. However, Fr. Higgins has written a volume which not only clearly delineates Merton's theology of prayer; it also has the intrinsic value of being a tremendous study of the spiritual life. The author displays a solid grasp of the issues himself and one can hopefully anticipate his own contributions in this field. The book closes with an exhaustive bibliography of the works of Thomas Merton.
Raymond Smith, O. P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.
A reader is rightly apprehensive about any volume in which seven of the twelve Chapters are based on materials published previously in disparate journals of spirituality. Given the theological profundity and deep personal holiness of the author of this book, such apprehension is quickly dispelled. The themes of this book--worship, prayer, and spirituality--are woven into an integral unity which should prove both insightful and inspiring to the serious Christian. Macquarrie clearly establishes how the proper use of divinely established or inspired means of growing to maturity in Jesus Christ are perennially valuable despite the " slings and arrows " of the modern iconoclastic gnostics who would uproot these gifts of God from our Christian heritage.
As the author states in Chapter I, homo sapiens is also homo religiosus. True religion and sound devotion springing from it are always humanizing, though sinful man can always pervert them into an escape from reality. Given the humanizing character of true religion, true Christian spirituality can never be self-centered but self giving.
In the first half of this book, through Chapter VI, Macquarrie sets forth in detail the relation of worship, prayer, and spirituality. The central theme of this portion of the book is that worship is " the indispensable strand in the Christian religion, bringing together faith and action." (p. 24) Chapter III is a profound elaboration of the simple catechism response that prayer is " the lifting up our hearts and minds to God." Chapter IV dispels the stigma attached to the term " spirituality " by a scriptural analysis of " spirit ": " a kind of being that is somehow shared by man with the Spirit in God. Spirit is present in and constitutive of man as well as God." (pp. 23, 24) It is the capacity for openness and self-transcendence. Indeed, Macquarrie teaches us the true meaning of being a " man for others." The fulness of the human person as well as the Christian Community is realized through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit who endows both " with the capacity to go out from itself." (p. 62) One hears the echo of St. Thomas in the author's insistence in Chapter V that the transcendent God lies beyond objectivity and subjectivity, though theological thinking, absorbing the cultural milieu, tends to swing between the pendulum of objectivism and subjectivism, the latter being in vogue today among " popular " theologies. Macquarrie describes how the liturgy might well preserve the balance between these two polarities. Lex orandi is lex credendi. Macquarrie is not unaware, however, that liturgical reformers are under the same cultural pressures as the theologians. The final Chapter (VII) in this half of the book describes the consequences of separating the pursuit of the acquired human wisdom of theology from a profound personal spirituality--prayer, worship, discipline; one without the other
can only result in a deadly schizophrenia. With this premise Macquarrie proceeds to the second half of the book which is avowedly and necessarily autobiographical.
Continuing the theme of worship as unifying faith and action Macquarrie sees clearly the problem confronting liturgists, bringing together the transcendence and immanence of God in ritual. He is especially conscious of the pitfalls confronting the liturgists who attempt renewal without a true historical perspective. The great sadness of this volume is that in Chapter VIII, while confessing the unique presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, Macquarrie's own theological ambiguities about the true doctrine of transubstantiation leave him naked about the central mystery of worship, the Mass. Given his doctrinal uncertainty, one can readily understand the distortion of a volume which, while emphasizing the centrality of worship, devotes one entire Chapter to Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament (IX), but none to the Mass!
The final Chapters, X, XI, treat of the Office and Stations of the Cross.
All Christians are grateful to Macquarrie for sharing his faith and worship with others. As a Roman Catholic who has the profoundest respect for him, I shall earnestly pray that his evident openness to the Holy Spirit will guide him to a deeper understanding of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Reginald Masterson, O. P.
Director of Renewal
Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa
Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. by R. A. Markus. New York: Anchor Books. Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1972. Pp. 439. $2.50.
As the title suggests, this is a collection of critical essays on the thought of Augustine. Save for two exceptions, these essays are collected from articles appearing in publications on both sides of the Atlantic as far back as 1950. These authors of the English-speaking world, with some exceptions, consider insufficiently the continental Augustinian scholarship, whether French or German. Nor is there consideration given to the Quellenforschung into Augustine's thought, certainly a vast part of Augustinian research today.
Many of the articles, e. g., the three contributions of Gareth B. Matthews, the essay on foreknowledge and free will by William Rowe, and the essay on empiricism and time by Hugh M. Lacey, are written by linguistic analysts. Augustine's intricate and flowing terminology contrast rather sharply with the precise propositional forms of these men. Further, the spirit of
Augustine's works, open to the metaphysical, the mystical, and the theological as they are, largely eludes the grammatical analysts. Surprisingly, these linguistic analysts do not find it necessary to comment critically on Augustine's Latin. Though there is a certain contribution that these men have to offer philosophical and historical research, this reviewer cannot help but think that in these articles we learn more about the thought of the authors than about the thought of Augustine.
Needless to say, as in any collection of essays from various authors, the quality varies from piece to piece. There are, however, some excellent articles by some of the best Augustinian scholars in England and America. The reprinting of Armstrong's St. Augustine Lecture of 1966 from the Villanova Series, comparing Augustine with Christian and non-Christian Platonists previous to him on the questions of the divinity of the soul, attitudes toward the material universe, and the universal will to save all mankind, represents, by and large, the high quality of work that we have come to expect from him. Likewise, I found the article " The Theory of Signs in De Doctrina Christiana " by B. Darrell Jackson, reprinted from the Revue des Études Augustiniennes, to be good. Neither time nor space allows me to comment in detail on many of the articles which are worthy of critical comment in the sufficient depth that they deserve. However, the article of F. Edward Cranz, " The Development of Augustine's Ideas on Society before the Donatist Controversy," deserves special attention since it has raised issues which are still current in Augustinian research, although it was published some eighteen years ago. I will therefore spend the remainder of this review commenting on some issues raised by his article.
The purpose of Cranz's contribution is to follow the evolution of Augustine's social thought from 386-400 A.D. His work is divided into four sections: 1) The early ideas as stated in Greco-Roman philosophical terms; 2) the early ideas as stated in biblical and ecclesiastical language; 3) the development of Augustine's ideas from 393 A. D. to the Ad Simplicianum of 396 A.D.; 4) the elaboration from 396 A.D. to 400 A.D.1 In studying the development of Augustine's thought, Cranz follows the axiom that at any given period Augustine's thought must be studied as a coherent whole, not allowing evidently for development within each period.2 Such a principle would be denied by some modern critics who believe that Augustine's evolution, especially during his early years, must have been rapid indeed.3
1 P. 336.
2 P. 337.
3 For example, O. du Roy, L'intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon saint Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1966) passim presumes that there is a constant evolution in Augustine's thought concerning the Trinity from 386 A. D. to 391 A. D. R. J. O'Connell, St. Augustine's Early Theory of Man (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1969) passim would probably agree with him.
In his first two sections Cranz emphasizes what I believe to be an important point, that in his early period Augustine parallels the process of salvation in the individual man (in terms of the stages of the Neo-platonic ascent of the soul) with the salvation of the human race (in terms of the various stages of man) .4 Both man and mankind ascend to the fatherland in various stages. However, this identification goes beyond what Cranz himself imagines. In this regard the experiences which govern Augustine's early conception of salvation are his attempts at a mystical ascent of mind, inspired partially by Plotinus's Ennead on Beauty and recorded in Confessions VII, 10, 16; 17, 23; 20, 26. It is undeniable, it seems to me, that these accounts report historical experiences, attempts by Augustine to sustain a prolonged vision of God.5 The fact that he failed to do this only inspired in him a loving memory of his instantaneous vision and a desire to do it again, but this time to sustain the vision.6 Cranz disagrees with this opinion, thinking that such attempts left Augustine disillusioned and discouraged.7 Cranz cites only the vaguest textual evidence for this opinion.8 Cranz also makes a distinction in kind between the experiences at Milan and the experiences at Ostia.9 In this he is in disagreement with the latest textual study of Mandouze wherein he has shown, definitively I think, that these experiences were parallel.10 The over-riding belief of Augustine at this time is that man is able to reach a terminal vision of God in this life.11
4 The Neo-platonic ascent of the soul is found in many places in the early works, for example, Soliloquia I, 13, 23; De moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae VII, 11; De quantitate animae XXXIII, 70-76, De musica VI, passim; De libero Arbitrio II, passim. Augustine's views on the ages of man can be found in the De Genesi contra Manichaeos I, 23, 35-41 Sermo 259, for example.
5 Some, however, have denied the historicity of these accounts: For example, H. I. Marrou, " A Review of P. Courcelle's Recherches sur les Confessions," Revue des Études latines, XXIX, 1951, pp. 403-4; J. J. O'Meara, The Young Augustine (London: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1954), p. 140. The historicity of these events have been upheld by P. Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions (Paris: De Boccard, 1950), pp. 157 ff. and Les Confessions dans la tradition littéraires: Antécedents et postérité (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1963), pp. 43 ff.; du Roy, L'intelligence, pp. 72, 85, 88, 92, n. 4; A. Solignac, Les Confessions, Bibliothèque Augustinienne, vol. 13, p. 699.
6 Confessions VII, 17, 23 B. A. 13, 630: ". . . non mecum ferebam nisi amantem memoriam et quasi olefacta desiderantem, quae comedere nondum possem."
7 P. 361. In this he agrees with P. Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions, p. 165.
8 Cf. p. 396, n. 114.
9 P. 361.
10 A. Mandouze, Saint Augustin: L'aventure de la raison et de la grâce (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1967), pp. 686-714.
11 That Augustine believed at this time that man could reach the terminal vision of God in this life is shown in De ordine II, 19, 51; Soliloquia I, 13, 23; Retractationes I, 2.
Again and again, Augustine identifies the Neo-platonic return to the father land or the ascent of the soul with Christian salvation.12 In his earliest works he three times identifies the intelligible world with the kingdom of Christ.13 However, Cranz tends to overemphasize the unity that the early Augustine sees between Platonism and Christianity.14 Augustine's adherence to Plotinus even at Cassiciacum is provisional.15 At Cassiciacum there is a polemic against Porphyry for non-acceptance of the Incarnation.16 Also, there is evidence in the De moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae that Augustine believed in the resurrection.17 Nevertheless, Augustine tends to amalgamate the Neo-platonic ascent of the soul and the Christian notion of salvation, even to giving an intellectualist bent to the ascent toward mystical vision.
The importance of the identification can be seen in Cranz's observation that it is only as Augustine begins to realize that this ascent to God is the product of grace and that man cannot reach the vision of God except as a special gift of God that he begins to change his social ideas. Although there have been some attempts to date precisely this turn of events,18 there has been no definitive success yet. By the year 400 A. D., Augustine must have given up this notion. As this idea recedes into the background the emphasis on Neo-platonic philosophy diminishes, although Augustine's thought will always remain ascensional in a certain sense.
Cranz traces the origin of the motif of the two cities, which culminates in the De civitate Dei, to the De libero arbitrio.19 There Augustine refers to two classes of men, one which loves things temporal, the other which loves matters eternal.20 If this is to be considered the origin of the notion of the two cities, then certainly this is at least implicit in Augustine's writings since Cassiciacum where there are contained those who love things corporeal as contrasted with those who love things spiritual.21 However, such dualism, based as it is on Platonist philosophy, is a doubtful origin for the notion of the two cities, whose genesis is probably found in the scriptures.22
12 Contra Academicos III, 19, 42; De ordine II, 11, 30-19, 51; Soliloquia I, 13, 23; De moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae VII, 11; De musica VI, passim.
13 Contra Academicos III, 19, 42; De ordine I, 11, 32; Soliloquia I, 1, 3.
14 P. 338.
15 Contra Academicos III, 20, 43, Green's edition, p. 71: "Quod autem subtilissima ratione persequendum est--ita enim iam sum affectus, ut quid sit uerum non credendo solum sed etiam intellegendo apprehendere impatienter desidere apud Platonicos me interim, quod sacris nostris non repugnet, reperturum esse confido."
16 De ordine II, 5, 16; 9, 27.
17 De moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae XXII, 40.
18 Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1967), p. 147; cf. also De consensu evangelistarum IV, 10, 20.
19 P. 342.
20 De libero arbitrio I, 16, 34.
21 For example, De ordine I, 8, 23-4; 10, 29; Soliloquia I, 13, 23.
22 G. Bardy, Le Cité de Dieu, Bibliothèque Augustinienne, 33, 52-74.
It is of interest that Cranz places the Ad Simplicianum (a. d. 396) as a turning point in Augustine's career. According to Cranz, Augustine in this work first makes explicit tendencies previously present in his thought, that mankind is a massa peccati23 and that grace is absolutely necessary for man's salvation.24 In this same volume, Rist has come independently to the same conclusion in studying the question of free will and predestination in Augustine.25
Cranz's treatment of the Confessions also deserves some comment. He thinks that the division of the Confessions into Books I-IX and Books XI, XIII corresponds to the private and public aspects of divine providence.26 In the Confessions, he sees a definite movement away from the early works where man could use the created universe as a stepping stone to God to an emphasis on the grace of God. In this, Cranz is correct. Although it would be idle to deny that the Confessions was influenced by the theme of exitus-reditus, so common in Greco-Roman philosophy, nevertheless this motif is also influenced by the parable of the prodigal son.27 In general, I think that Verheijen's theory that the theme of the Confessions is probably to be found in the various meanings of confessio and in a contrast between the miseria of man and the misericordia of God is closer to the truth than Cranz's theory concerning divine providence.28
It should be clear by now that I consider certain essays in this volume to be worthwhile contributions to Augustinian scholarship. While those that are abreast of modern critical research can be found in other places, the presence of those four or five in one volume makes the purchase of this book, at the price, a bargain for the Augustinian scholar.
Frederick van Fleteren, O. S. A.
Tolentine College
Olympia Fields, Illinois
23 De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII, 68, 3.
24 Expositio quarundam propositionum ex Epistola Apostoli ad Romanos 44; 55.
25 Cf. John M. Rist, "Augustine on Free Will and Predestination," St. Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays," editor R. A. Markus (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1972), p. 240.
26 Cf. De vera religione XXV, 46.
27 Cf. P. Courcelle, Confessions dans la tradition, p. 74, n. 4; Confessions I, 18, 28; II, 10, 18; IV, 16, 30.
28 M. Verheijen, Eloquentia Pedisequa, Latinitas Christianorum primaeua (Nijmegen: Dekker and van de Vegt, 1949), pp. 1-83.
The Theology of Original Sin. By Edward Yarnold, S. J. Pp. 96. The Theology of Marriage. By Rosemary Haughton. Pp. 92. Theology Today Series 28 & 31. Notre Dame, Ind.: Fides, 1972. 95˘ each.
In The Theology of Original Sin we read: ". . . the biblical doctrine of corporate personality cannot be totally demythologized," (p. 81) and ". . . it is inconsistent to reject fundamentalism in the exegesis of the Bible while insisting on a fundamentalist interpretation of the Church's definition of dogma." (p. 88) These two crucial assertions give the key to the author's position on the highly topical doctrine of Original Sin: the Genesis Adam is to be thought of not as an individual but as a symbol for the whole human race; and neither St. Paul nor the Council of Trent may be cited as favoring monogenism rather than polygenism, since their interests lay elsewhere. But what about Humani Generis? Father Yarnold does not tell us how this Encyclical of Pius XII is to be understood, and, indeed, the extract from it which he quotes on page 72 states that Original Sin " proceeds from a sin truly committed by one man Adam. . . ." His silence on this point is unfortunate. One of the many excellent features of this little book is a remarkably detailed historical summary of the subject from Genesis to Humani Generis in which, for example, Didymus the Blind and Henry of Ghent are allotted, respectively, fifteen and five lines. It will be all the more surprising, therefore, to readers of The Thomist, that St. Thomas's quota for the entire book should be a meagre ten!
Mrs. Haughton in The Theology of Marriage attempts to discover for us God at work in a human union, disclosed first in Scripture, and then progressively unfolded, in spite of mistakes and failures and crimes, through the centuries. (p. 85) It is a very readable exposition. The fact that it has been written by a married person enhances its value, because, as Father Yarnold says in the Preface, the ideal person to write on the theology of marriage is one who has experienced it for himself. (p. 11) I found Mrs. Haughton's sources a bit too selective and exclusively confined to publications in English, which are by no means the best on the subject. On p. 75 we are told that " up to about the eighth century, at various times and in various places, re-marriage was allowed by the Church in cases of adultery." Mrs. Haughton is not the first of some contemporary writers to attempt to defend this claim in the case of the innocent husband of an adulterous wife, but, according to scholars of accuracy and reliability, it is a claim that has no solid support apart from Ambrosiaster and an Irish canon of St. Patrick. In the Greek world there is no worthwhile evidence for it in the first five centuries.
Louis M. Hughes, O.P.
Kilian Dwyer, O.P.
St. Charles Seminary
Nagpur, India
page 703
The Universal Treatise of Nicholas of Autrecourt. Translated by Leonard A. Kennedy, C. S. B., Richard E. Arnold, S. J., and Arthur E. Millward, with an introduction by Leonard A. Kennedy, C. S. B. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1971. Pp. 172. $3.00.
This is a translation of the only major work of Nicholas known to be extant and hitherto known to most scholars as the Exigit or Exigit ordo because of its incipit. It will fill an important gap in medieval philosophy for those who want to investigate the celebrated " medieval Hume " but are unable to deal with the Latin text.
This seems to me a very good translation. However like Hume Nicholas may be in epistemology, he is assuredly not to be compared for clarity of expression. Nicholas's way of expressing himself is often elliptical and very obscure, and it seems important that the resultant uncertainty as to his meaning be accurately preserved in a responsible translation. The present work meets that standard well. By unscrambling Nicholas's syntax and filling out his often incomplete way of expressing himself, the translators have maximized intelligibility, while restraining any impulse to force an interpretation on the text.
Father Kennedy's introduction is a brief summary of Nicholas's life and work, followed by a summary presentation of the main line of argument in the work. It is competent and accurate, though the orderly arrangement of the text and the use of subtitles largely obviates the need for such a review.
Using this edition, contemporary analytic philosophers with a penchant for resurrecting things medieval should have a field day, since the work is filled with controversial and somewhat unclear and ambiguous arguments. But, for the historian of philosophy, the primary value of the work is as a document in fourteenth-century thought. And as such it is an extremely difficult one to understand. In his introduction Father Kennedy writes that the treatise " has as its intention to call university professors, especially at Paris, to the study of Christianity and ethics. The means to achieve the end is the discrediting of Aristotle and his disciple Averroes (1126-1198), the study of whose writings occupied most of the time of these professors." As a statement of Nicholas's avowed intention, this is correct. But there still seems to me real doubt as to whether Nicholas is to be believed. Perhaps I can state briefly some of the sources of my confusion.
Nicholas claims to be calling for a return to the study of higher things by showing that there are metaphysical and epistemological positions that are more probable than those of Aristotle and Averroes. Of course, he tells us, many of these positions are in conflict with truths of the Faith, but he insists he wants only to argue that they are probable, not that they are true. First of all, on the face of it, this sounds very suspicious as a declaration of program. It seems at least odd to try to call men to a study of Christianity by establishing a host of heretical opinions as more probable than the
opinions of the Church. But there is another consideration that is even more perplexing. If we are to believe Nicholas's statement of intent, then we must take seriously his claim to be developing a philosophy that is highly probable, at least more plausible than Aristotle's. And yet it seems very clear that no such claim can be supported. Weinberg's study of Nicholas has shown that, while the metaphysics he develops is daring, it is markedly unconvincing. The entire structure rests on a principle of the maximal goodness of the world which is scarcely supported at all. His arguments for the eternity of things and for atomism both seem weak. His discussion of the continuum is confused; his argument rejecting motion is unsound. And so on.
On this basis alone it might be supposed that Nicholas is serious in his project but is simply unsuccessful. However, what gives pause before so concluding is that Nicholas's work in the theory of knowledge is extremely powerful and imaginative, in both its critical and positive aspects. In other words, we have good reason to suppose that Nicholas had an exceptionally clear, critical, and rigorous mind and was accustomed to applying very strict standards to knowledge claims. And recognizing this, it becomes more difficult to take seriously his claim to be debunking Aristotle and so recalling professors to matters of relevance.
But the above is simply a statement of confusion, not a firm conclusion, since I am unable to decide what other purposes Nicholas might have had. The development of " probable " argumentation was much in vogue at his time, and one might regard the treatise as no more than a kind of exercise in that way of arguing, but that seems not too likely. On the other hand, the work does not seem to lend much support to any of the better known schools or movements of the time. It cannot be regarded as Thomist or Scotist or Augustinian or Ockhamist. While some of the epistemological analyses seem fairly near Ockham in spirit, the conclusions reached are not Ockhamist. And while the rejection of motion may seem to support nominalism, Nicholas also develops a sort of extreme realism, though it is one based on his doctrine of eternity, which no standard realist could accept.
In short, it is a most perplexing work, an undoubtedly important document in the history of ideas, of considerable philosophical importance for the theory of knowledge and perhaps of some value as a stimulus to metaphysical analysis. But its appearance should also remind us how little we understand of the development of fourteenth-century philosophy.
T. K. Scott, Jr.
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana
Logical Analysis and Contemporary Theism. Ed. by John Donnelly. New York: Fordham University Press, 1972. Pp. 348. $12.50.
Professor John Donnelly's work is a collection of essays in philosophical analysis directed toward issues in the philosophy of religion. Most of the essays have been written by philosophers justly famous in analytic circles. In fact, essays by five of the seven members scheduled to participate in the 1973 Council for Philosophical Studies Conference in the Philosophy of Religion are included in Donnelly's anthology: Roderick Chisholm, Anthony Kenny, George Mavrodes, Nelson Pike, and Alvin Plantinga. Any student even vaguely familiar with analytic studies in contemporary philosophy of religion will immediately recognize nearly all of the authors whose essays are contained in this impressive anthology.
The collection contains twenty essays. Of these, fifteen were originally published in journals known for their exemplification of critical philosophical analysis. Of the remaining five, Kenny's article is from his quite good Doubleday anthology on Aquinas. The essay by John Hick, certainly a well-known philosopher of religion in analytic circles, first appeared in the Scottish Journal of Theology. Two articles are from the Proceedings of the 1970 Convention of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, whose general theme is the " Existence of God." Lastly, Donnelly has included a previously unpublished study of his own on Kierkegaard. Of these twenty essays, only two appeared prior to 1960, while eleven had originally been published during the last five years. Obviously, the accent of this anthology is on the contributions of contemporary logical analysis on theism.
In a very real sense the gist of Donnelly's collection is a definite attempt to show that much " natural theology " has been done in the circles of analytic philosophy since the publication of Flew and Maclntyre's New Essays in Philosophical Theology. The determined bent of New Essays to deal directly with the epistemological, ontological, and linguistic ramifications of logical positivism and its corresponding verification criterion of meaning on philosophical theology is well known. During the last fifteen years probably every graduate student concerned with the philosophy of religion has confronted New Essays at one time or another. Donnelly is anxious to show, nevertheless, that philosophical analysis need not accept nor has not accepted the negative conclusions of much of New Essays--and, a fortiori, of logical positivism--regarding the issues of philosophical theology. In his essay contained in the anthology Paul J. Dietl probably best sums up the general direction of the material contained in Logical Analysis and Contemporary Theism:
Some of the most remarkable turns in recent philosophical discussion have been the resurrection of issues original readers of Language, Truth and Logic would have thought forever dead. (p. 236)
It is manifestly evident from a reading of the essays contained in Donnelly's anthology that " God-talk " certainly has not passed into the realm of meaningless discourse as demanded by the logical positivists. Two important correlative implications of this series of essays are: (1) analytic philosophy has certainly not paid strict adherence to the verification criterion of meaning and its ramifications for ontology, epistemology, and theodicy; and (2) analytic philosophers have not been convinced that the non-cognitive conclusions of much of New Essays is the last word in the question of significance of religious language. In other words, the overall direction of Logical Analysis and Contemporary Theism seriously points to the claim that non-cognitivism, as demanded by the verification criterion of meaning in matters of philosophical theology, is false. This assertion, I believe, parallels Professor Henry Veatch's claim that an adequate ethical language demands cognitivity. To paraphrase Veatch, as non-cognitivism in ethical discourse leads one to a bankrupt meta-ethics, so too will non-cognitivism in religious discourse lead one to a bankrupt theodicy. The converse of the above claim, I would suggest, is that both meta-ethics and natural theology demand an adequate ontology. Although this demand for an ontology as well as an adequate epistemology is not expressly stated in all of the essays contained in Donnelly's collection, nevertheless there are strong structural indications in some of these essays--three of which I will consider in detail later in this review--that an ontology and epistemology beyond that deemed acceptable by radical empiricism are necessary conditions for a consistent philosophy of religion.
Donnelly's judicious choice of essays, furthermore, explicitly affirms that the methods utilized in analytic philosophy are not per se foreign to theological discussion. In fact, I believe it is quite fair to say, as both Donnelly indicates in his introductory remarks and James Ross illustrates in his essay, " On Proofs for the Existence of God," that the entire scholastic tradition, from its origins with Abelard, through its development in Aquinas and Scotus, its precision in the Renaissance commentators, and the eventual rise of Neo-Thomism in the late nineteenth century, has always been adroitly concerned with, as Oxford philosophy would put it, " conceptual analysis." I enthusiastically endorse this position. For too long a period too many scholastic philosophers have looked with askance at analytic philosophy and its linguistic methodology. If nothing else, Donnelly's anthology merits serious perusal by those philosophers and theologians not yet convinced that analytic philosophy has indeed gone beyond the superficial treatment of language found in Language, Truth and Logic and its much too sketchy treatment of problems in ontology and philosophical theology.
In a review such as this it is especially important to mention a few things about the method of linguistic analysis. I tend to regard analysis as just that--a " method " used in approaching philosophical problems
which is itself intrinsically neutral. It is merely a way of seriously " unpacking " very complex philosophical issues. I believe this was G. E. Moore's principal point when he first distinguished the " truth " of statements from their " analysis." Accordingly, such a method is itself quite neutral regarding subject matter. On the other hand, I will not deny that many practitioners of linguistic analysis have also brought along much excessive ontological baggage under the guise of presuppositions. Structurally, it indeed has been the case that the presuppositions of Hume's radical empiricism have often been accepted by analytic philosophers as established philosophical principles. Furthermore, it is certainly historically true that logical analysts, in the not too distant past, have been entrenched in logical positivism. Positivism and its corollary, " Philosophy of science is philosophy enough! ", have been quite moribund for some time. But analysis as a methodology used to seriously confront the basic issues of human existence, be these issues ontological, epistemological, meta-ethical, or religious, has continued successfully. It is philosophical analysis in this sense which I want to argue is of great use to theodicy. But this usefulness can only be appreciated if one distinguishes the analytic method and all of its linguistic devices from the epistemological and metaphysical trappings --usually of radical empiricism--sometimes identified with analytic philosophy. To put the matter differently, logical positivism and its negative ramifications to substantial ontology, epistemology, and meta-ethics, is incidental to the analytic method. I believe many of the essays contained in Donnelly's anthology admirably illustrate this philosophical claim.
In a much too brief introduction for this type of anthology Donnelly makes one serious claim which demands pondering by those of us interested in the philosophy of religion. Donnelly argues that philosophical analysis, although it obviously does concern itself with language and its implications, especially as related to the world--after all, that was the central claim of Wittgenstein's Tractatus--is in effect a serious search for wisdom and not a mere solving of linguistic conundrums. Historically, this is a claim similar to the division many historians of philosophy use in distinguishing the fourteenth-century nominalists from the thirteenth-century metaphysicians. That a sufficient analysis of philosophical issues demands an adequate ontology I would endorse; that such an analysis is explicitly accepted by all of the contributors to Donnelly's anthology I would question. I shall treat of these issues as related to some of the essays contained in Logical Analysis and Contemporary Theism shortly.
The central figure throughout this collection of essays, as well as of most analytic inquiry into the philosophy of religion, is David Hume. This is the case explicitly because of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and implicitly because of Hume's empiricist critique of metaphysics and epistemology. Fundamentally the Dialogues are nothing more than an application of Hume's radical empiricism to theodicy. That
Hume thought little of either ontology or theodicy is evident from the following passage:
If we take in our hand any volume--of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance--let us ask, " Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? " No. " Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of fact and existence? " No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. Inquiry, XII, iii.
Since the verification criterion of meaning as postulated by the Vienna Circle is nothing but an extension of the Humean distinction between matters of fact and matters of logic, logical positivism is structurally identical to Hume's critique. Accordingly, it is rather obvious why Humean radical empiricism is central to any group of essays crediting significance to statements of religious discourse and purporting to advance beyond the non-cognitivism of New Essays in Philosophical Theology.
I will presently treat three essays contained in Logical Analysis and Contemporary Theism. These essays indicate the demand for a reworking of metaphysical and epistemological theories as a necessary condition for a viable philosophical theology.
Regarding a structural criticism of Hume's radical empiricism as pertaining to perceptual intentionality, perhaps Roderick Chisholm's essay best illustrates the demand for an adequate epistemology as a necessary condition for a natural theology. Chisholm's essay, entitled " On the Observability of the Self," is an extremely enlightening analysis of the epistemological presuppositions found in both analytic philosophy and the phenomenological tradition. Chisholm begins his analysis with the premise that both these contemporary methodologies in philosophy assert that the " self " cannot be observed. Chisholm in turn claims that both traditions take their structural hints from Hume. Chisholm argues that, insofar as Hume is tremendously mistaken in elucidating his perceptual intentionality, so also are those metaphysical and epistemological positions mistaken whose fundamental principles are Humean. Behind this discussion involving Chisholm's essay is a crucial point once made by Frederick Copleston that if one is to adequately deal with the issues in the philosophy of religion, then one must " get on the metaphysical chessboard." Moreover, the only way I know to get a Humean philosopher on the " metaphysical chessboard " is to indicate the destructive inadequacies and internal inconsistencies of Hume's radical empiricism. I believe this is the crucially important ramification of Chisholm's article as far as the philosophy of religion is concerned.
Chisholm argues that the Humean account of perception as being nothing more than an awareness of a " bundle of sensations " is fundamentally mistaken. Chisholm's positive thesis should strike scholastic philosophers as structurally quite familiar. Chisholm's analysis of an awareness of
individuals as something other than a " bundle of sensations " is similar to the Aristotelian claim that the perceiver is aware of individuals--the incidental object of sense--and not just of collections of proper and common sensibles. Although I would demand more of an account of how this process occurs than is argued for by Chisholm--to be more specific, I would want to emphasize the role of inner sense, especially the vis cogitativa, in perception of the individual as an incidental object of sense-- nevertheless, structurally both Aquinas and Chisholm have argued against the " bundle theory " of perception so common in analytic philosophy of perception. The important point here is that, if one can philosophically undercut the Humean epistemology, then one is on the way towards avoiding Hume's trenchant criticisms of metaphysics and theodicy. This epistemological critique of Humean radical empiricism is, I would strongly suggest, the important ramification of Chisholm's study for philosophical theology.
The above analysis reminds me of a discussion I once had with George Tavard. The content of our discussion was the possibility of philosophical theology in light of the criticisms contained in Hume's Dialogues. The point Tavard and I agreed upon was that a radical criticism of Hume's epistemology is a necessary condition for admitting metaphysical language into one's philosophical system and, consequently, of " getting on " Copleston's " metaphysical chessboard." This radical criticism definitely has been initiated by Chisholm. Accordingly, in a very real sense, Chisholm's article can be looked upon as a necessary propaedeutical analysis towards establishing the ontological conditions for theodicy. Such fundamental analysis, moreover, is one purpose Donnelly gives for the publication of his anthology. One wishes Donnelly had further developed these points in a much longer and more scholarly introductory chapter than he in fact did.
A different view of the analysis of epistemology relating to religious claims is made by Jerry Gill in his essay, " The Tacit Structure of Religious Knowing." Gill develops what he calls " contextual epistemology " as part of a view towards establishing the possibility of religious knowledge. In the beginning of his essay Gill provides some very interesting and quite perceptive historical remarks which should be mandatory reading for anyone seriously involved with the philosophy of religion. Gill treats the fact-value dichotomy, especially as formulated by Kant and as consequently developed in both late modern and contemporary philosophy. This fact-value dichotomy, Gill argues, is both the undoing of much " religious knowledge " as well as the focus of divisiveness between the analytic philosophers and the existentialists.
Gill's positive account is to view religious knowledge as a form of " tacit knowledge." This concept of " tacit knowledge " is appropriated from Gill's understanding of the contextual epistemology already elucidated in the writings of Michael Polanyi. Gill is convinced that Polanyi is on the
right track as far as an epistemological analysis is concerned. In fact, Gill categorically affirms that Polanyi's epistemological treatment in terms of " explicit knowledge "--which is analyzed in terms of " focal awareness and conceptual activity "--and " tacit knowledge "--which is elucidated by " subsidiary awareness and bodily activity "--renders Ryle's much-accepted analytic distinction between " knowing how " and " knowing that " obsolete. To further support his analysis of the tacit structure of religious knowledge Gill judiciously utilizes the insights of John Hick, Ian Ramsey, and Max Black. Hick and Ramsey are concerned with " religious dimension " in human experience--what Ramsey refers to as " cosmic disclosure."
I must admit that I am not yet convinced of Polanyi's epistemology as elaborated by Gill. It seems to me that much more sophisticated analysis needs be done on this notion of tacit knowledge. At times I think both Polanyi and Gill have packed too many multi-faceted concepts into this one category. For instance, what Aristotelians might call an " innate epistemological disposition "--e. g., the ability to acquire language--and an " acquired epistemological disposition "--e. g., the ability to speak Polish--are both given equal status as types of tacit knowledge. It is not this blurring of categories, however, that really bothers me about tacit knowledge. Quite frankly, I am suspicious that a form of subjective idealism is creeping into Gill and Polanyi's analysis. The discussion, at times, seems structurally similar to Mannheim's " sociology of knowledge." Insofar as subjective idealism and its counterpart in sociology of knowledge have serious epistemological problems, so too would the concept of tacit knowledge. Gill does quote Ramsey in trying to provide a " realist " foundation. However, as is the case with some phenomenological discussions, I am quite concerned over a covert acceptance of subjective idealism. Nevertheless, Gill has provided an interesting bit of analysis in utilizing tacit knowledge as a way of elucidating the possibility for religious knowledge.
James Ross's scholarly and thought-provoking essay, " On Proofs for the Existence of God," indicates the role of metaphysics in an inquiry into theodicy. Ross claims he is providing an argument clothed in a " modernized-Scotist framework." This essay, in particular, is a good example of the intense structural similarities which exist between the best of scholastic philosophy and those philosophers using the methodology of linguistic analysis. For example, Ross provides a good discussion of the difference between a " necessary property " and a " constitutive property." A necessary property is what scholastic philosophers have called a proprium, while a constitutive property is an essential property belonging per se to the essence. Parenthetically, one interesting ramification of this distinction which Ross has brought to light, I would suggest, is that it seems to render it highly improbable that one could ever formulate an adequate definite description of God. In a definite description, how are the constitutive properties to
be distinguished from the necessary properties? Yet philosophers of religion continually talk as if such a definite description of God were possible. I will admit that possibly a perspicuous enough meta-language might be devised in order to account for this distinction. Yet such a logical device would mean much more for a definite description than ever envisaged by Russell when he devised the definite description in order to help solve some vexing problems of reference. Russell obviously would reject outrightly any type of " factual " necessity let alone ranking two types of " necessary properties " in a definite description.
Ross also provides an interesting account of a distinction rather important when discussing proofs for the existence of God. Ross distinguished between (1) the soundness of an argument and (2) the persuasive power of an argument. In Ross's article the conceptual consistency of an a priori argument for God's existence is the more important task for philosophical theology. It should be noted that Gill, in utilizing " contextual epistemology " with its emphasis on tacit knowledge, would probably reject such a distinction.
Ross's primary claim is that there can be a consistent a priori argument that God exists. Ross is convinced that by means of the concept of " heteroexplicability " a consistent proof can be given demonstrating that a being exists necessarily in virtue of what sort of being it is. The a priori structure of Ross's conceptual analysis is, I am inclined to believe, similar to the second form of the ontological argument as elucidated by Anselm in the Proslogium. " Heteroexplicability " is defined as an explanation by way of an independent state of affairs. Accordingly, an heteroexplicable explanation is one in terms of either producing a state of affairs or preventing a state of affairs. Ross claims that it is analytic that any state of affairs which is unproducible and unpreventable is heteroexplicable. He argues that it is not inconsistent to have a non-heteroexplicable event, which event is Anselm's " Necessary Being." Thus he is convinced that it is not inconsistent to talk about a necessary being, or, to use his language, a non-heteroexplicable state of affairs.
Although I found Ross's proof very interesting and subtly acute, I am not quite convinced of the ontological force of his argument. I still do not know how Ross gets from the conceptual order to the existential order. Even if one has an adequate and conceptually elucidated " intensional " apparatus (what Descartes referred to as " realitas objectiva "), still one must get from this " intensional " content to the " extensional " level (what Descartes referred to as the " realitas formalis "). My comment here is structurally similar to the reason given by St. Thomas in rejecting the validity of the ontological argument. At any length, I am not convinced at this time that Ross has indeed reached the extensional level of reality, even though his intensional structure is quite sophisticated, apparently consistent, and philosophically impressive.
Ross also provides some extremely interesting insights into the role of metaphysics in philosophical theology. Part III of his essay is entitled "Hoc est quod omnes vocant Deum." The original source for this quotation should indeed be familiar to readers of this journal in particular. Ross's important claim is that it very much depends upon one's metaphysical system as to how one is to generate all of the properties of the divine nature from the conclusion of the original proof--be it a necessary being, first cause, non-heteroexplicable event, or any other conclusion of an a priori proof for God's existence. To quote Ross:
Without a metaphysical system to allow me to pass from the narrow group of predicates used in the proof of existence to the wider group used in the identification with God, it is very difficult to justify claiming that one has proved the existence of God. . . . It is more nearly correct to say that one has established the existence of a being which may be God. . . . (p. 17)
Ross illustrates this point by using St. Thomas's ontology as an example:
The identificatory stage of a proof of the existence of God encounters difficulty in relation to the elaborateness of one's metaphysical system. For instance . . . it is very easy for St. Thomas to go from the assertion that there exists a being which is in pure act to the conclusion that there is a being which, without any limitation at all, exists, lives, thinks, loves, chooses, and is therefore simple, eternal, good, omniscient, omnipotent, etc. (pp. 16-17)
In this context, Ross is claiming that a metaphysical system is only necessary as to the identificatory stage in an a priori proof for God's existence. Such a claim probably applies equally to a posteriori proofs also. Ross is especially concerned with the metaphysics of " process " adopted by Charles Hartshorne in his contemporary revision of the ontological argument. That ontology is crucially important for this identificatory stage is affirmed by Ross. However, it might be the case, I wish to suggest, that a metaphysical system is also important in order to get any proof for God's existence beyond the intensional realm to the extensional level.
I have spent time discussing the essays by Chisholm, Ross, and Gill somewhat in detail because I think the ramifications of these analyses, in that they explicitly treat issues concerning ontology and epistemology, are crucial for any contemporary development in philosophical theology. Yet there are many excellent articles in Donnelly's anthology. Professor Donnelly is to be commended greatly for collecting such valuable source material and placing it together under one cover. Philosophers generally familiar with scholastic philosophy should be able to read and comprehend readily most of the articles in this collection. The only article which might prove difficult is the second article by James Ross in which Ross constructs a new theory of analogy. This ingenious essay requires at least an elementary familiarity with categories used in linguistic theory.
In order to provide a wider view of Donnelly's impressive anthology I will make the following brief comments about the remaining essays contained in this excellent collection. William Rowe has an interesting article dealing with the cosmological argument. Readers will be reminded of the issues argued in the famous Russell-Copleston BBC broadcast debate. In considering the argument from design R. G. Swinburne provides an intriguing analysis of two kinds of order. This essay contains a very nice critique of Chapter XI of Hume's Dialogues. As is the case with most analytic philosophers, however, Swinburne talks about analogy as if it is to be identified with the process of induction. It seems to me to be extremely difficult if not impossible to talk about God and analogy without considering the analogy of being. This use of analogy is different from the usual concept of analogy as induction as discussed by modern philosophers.
William Alston's article argues for the possibility of " God-Talk " as opposed to the claim that religious knowledge is the exclusive prerogative of the mystics. The implied refutation of Demea's mystical position in Hume's Dialogues is obvious. John Hick provides the usual acute conceptual analysis which has come to be expected from him. Hick analyzes the difference between "logical" and "factual" necessity. Such an analysis is crucial if philosophers are to get beyond Hume's argument that the only use of necessity acceptable to philosophers is that of logical necessity, which in turn applies only to analytic a priori statements and never to matters of fact.
Nelson Pike provides an intricate analysis of Hume's treatment of the problem of evil. Pike shows two things: (1) God and evil are not contradictory items, and (2) Evil does affect any a posteriori argument (à la Cleanthes of Hume's Dialogues) for God's existence. One important implication of Pike's analysis, I would suggest, is that one cannot give a proof for God's existence independently of ontology. This claim entails that there are two types of a posteriori arguments: (1) the ones intricately bound to a metaphysical system (e. g., the Quinta Via), and (2) Those not so bound (e. g., Paley's " Watch in the Desert " argument and the position of Cleanthes in Hume's Dialogues). I would further suggest that Pike's claim might just apply to the non-metaphysical a posteriori proofs. Pike's article should be read in conjunction with Hick's article discussed above. In addition, Pike's article brings to bear all of the metaphysical worries about an adequate theory of ontic analogy.
Alvin Plantinga and William Rowe (Rowe's second article) are analyzing the claim asserted by C. B. Martin that there is an inconsistency between the doctrine of God and the doctrine of Christ in orthodox theology. Both Plantinga and Rowe make use of some modal logic in elucidating their analyses. In the same pattern, George Mavrodes and C. Wade Savage analyze a paradox involved in God's omnipotence--can God create a stone so heavy that he himself cannot lift it. Mavrodes argues, I think successfully,
that the " stone example " differs in structure from the " square-circle example " familiar to readers of the Summa Theologiae. Savage, using the methods of symbolic logic, criticizes Mavrodes's account while providing his own solution to the paradox. R. F. Holland and Paul J. Dietl consider the problems involved with miracles. Holland's distinction between the " contingency " concept of the miraculous and the " violation " concept I found quite philosophically interesting. Again, quite obviously, the shadow of David Hume and his critique of miracles lies behind these discussions of miracles.
Anthony Kenny analyzes two aspects of the relation of divine foreknowledge as it applies to human freedom. Kenny distinguishes two aspects of the problem as found in the treatment by St. Thomas. In conjunction with Kenny's article, I would strongly suggest that R. W. Mulligan's criticism of Kenny, which appeared in the April, 1972 issue of The Thomist, be read. Mulligan criticizes Kenny's ascription of a temporal predicate to the event known rather than to God's manner of awareness. Mulligan's analysis is interesting, although I wonder if such an analysis demands an act-object distinction in the act of divine awareness.
Concerning the relation of philosophical analysis and questions of the divine nature Donnelly has included an essay by Daniel Bennet. Bennet provides an acute analysis of the concept of divine simplicity. In addition. H. J. N. Horsburgh analyzes the concept of religious experience and its relation to God's existence.
Donnelly includes two of his own articles. The first one is an in-depth analysis of the concept of " creatio ex nihilo," while the second provides a conceptual elucidation of the structure of Kierkegaard's suspension of the " Ethical " in the situation of divine commands. Both articles are good, although, apart from the intrinsic value of any good conceptual analysis, I am not sure that the Kierkegaard essay fits in well with the rest of the articles in the collection.
I have been greatly impressed with this collection of essays. Professor Donnelly is to be commended for collecting and editing some of the more important and conceptually illuminating articles written in philosophical theology since the publication of Flew and Maclntyre's New Essays in Philosophical Theology. I believe it ranks along with New Essays and Ronald Santani's Religious Language and the Problems of Religious Knowledge as a marvelous set of essays by philosophers engrossed in the methods of linguistic analysis. This is, in fact, a collection of essays for philosophers and is certainly not an elementary text. Obviously, as is the case with any anthology, there are additional essays I wish Donnelly had included. However, there is more than enough material in this collection to keep philosophers of religion busy for some time. Whether Logical Analysis and Contemporary Theism will replace New Essays as the standard set of essays for graduate seminars in the Philosophy of Religion I do not know. At
any length, it does indeed command a place along side of New Essays as an explicit indication that analytic philosophers have not rested assured with the conclusions of New Essays.
My only really negative comment, one which I have already indicated, is that such a collection demands more of an introduction than Donnelly's brief sketch in two and one-half pages. Such an introduction would indeed have been of value to graduate students confronting these essays for the first time. In addition, it would have been of assistance to all of us as we forge ahead in reconstructing a cognitively significant philosophical theology.
Anthony J. Lisska
Denison University
Granville, Ohio
The Philosophy of Wonder. An Introduction and Incitement to Philosophy. By Cornelis Verhoeven. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972. Pp. 204. $6.95.
Cornelis Verhoeven's book is a frivolous musing which proves nothing. The Philosophy of Wonder sports a finesse of language which will outrage the interpreters of all philosophical systems. Logical precision is sacrificed to poetry; paradox takes precedence over rigorous distinctions; gratuitous assertions disclaim the need for justification. The work comes to no conclusion, deferring all indefinitely. It is amazing that such writing still passes as philosophy.
By Verhoeven's own standard, the above paragraph is more accolade than diatribe. An author who praises Plato for his inventive frivolity must welcome such a characterization of his own work. When he argues that Philosophy is from beginning to end a radicalization of wonder, he refuses to confine himself to any system. A poet who could write " every realization is but a drop which condenses from the cloud of possibilities " naturally eschews the philosophical formalities. In a word, what are generally accepted as weaknesses in philosophical discourse are the strength of Verhoeven's book. It is an incitement to philosophize. His words are not addressed to the novice so much as they are directed to those inside and outside the philosophical profession who have grown complacent in their dogmatism, cynicism, or alienation.
Verhoeven acknowledges no special method for treating radical wonder, yet he does in fact approach his subject phenomenologically. His method is to prescind from all characteristics of the enduring philosophical experience until nothing is left but the primordial and persistent provocation in the face of being. He meticulously unravels the fabric of philosophy to
reveal its essential thread, variously called deferred identity, dwelling in deferment, bewilderment, panic, surprise, and wonder. The phenomenological method links him intimately with Heidegger, Sartre, and Marcel, whom he acknowledges generously throughout.
In one of the more imaginative and provocative passages of his work Verhoeven studies the central role of Socrates in the philosophy of wonder. He calls Socrates the " daemon meridianus, whose questions cause people to panic." By no mere play on words, he brings the radical meaning of panic back to the god, Pan, the daemon of mid-day who shepherds his flocks through the dangers of high noon. Most men sleep through midnight and siesta through mid-day because they can stand neither darkness nor hard light. Only Pan ventures across the surrealistic landscape of threatening light which exposes " the impossibility of man's possibilities." Socrates is the personification of honest panic at the possibility that everything is really quite different from what it appears to be. This is panic. This is wonder. Verhoeven's thesis is thus stated: " I wonder that a thing is so only because in this form it is different from what I expected or because it impinges upon my nonthinking self as a strange phenomenon and compels me to think. The realization that a thing is so is the shock that moves me." Wonder perceives the classic tension between reality and appearance. Identity of subject and of object are experienced as endlessly deferred, as unfinished business. " Nothing is identical of itself." Verhoeven sympathizes with the inventive frivolity and religious playfulness of Plato's assertion that beyond all appearance there lies the perfectly realized idea of everything, the only true identity. If Verhoeven does not accept Plato's conclusion, he does accept his beginning, namely, no individual thing is the last word in its or the whole of reality. Verhoeven embraces the Platonic challenge to disturb the tranquility of the cave by questioning the authenticity of shadows.
Heidegger's influence is strongly felt throughout The Philosophy of Wonder. He is seen as the philosopher of thought whose position Verhoeven interprets as: " being is granted in thought and thought is a grateful commemoration of the fact of being given." The author elaborates on the implications of being as a gift, suggesting that the relationship of thought to being is triad, i. e., the relationship of gift, giver, and recipient. The wonder of being and thought is that nothing stands alone unrelated to the whole. All identity is therefore deferred, drawing the thinker into a hazardous adventure full of ambiguity and uncertainty, but replete with rewards. Relying upon Heidegger, Verhoeven develops the conception of wonder as ritardando, i. e., as the deceleration which allows possibility to manifest itself, of being as a surprise, and of thought as the only ethical and religious expression of gratitude. At this juncture one is reminded of the sizable contributions the American philosophers, Peirce, Royce, and Whitehead have made to this issue. Peirce provides a particularly brilliant statement
of the essential triadic relationship that constitutes thought-reality. He acknowledges the triadic nature of gift but puts the greater stress upon the participation of man's mind in the " living entelechy of symbols " which encompasses all processes and meanings. It is Royce who emphasizes the distinctly religious and ethical implications of thought's participation in the whole of being.
In a work as idiosyncratic as Verhoeven's one cannot complain at his decision to concentrate on certain dimensions of wonder to the exclusion of others. If the book intended to be the last word, which it certainly does not, the author could be chided for not making more explicit several essential aspects of his subject. What follows therefore is intended, not as complaint, but as complementary and complimentary. Four such notions that would warrant fuller treatment than Verhoeven gives them are 1) analogy 2) God 3) passivity, and 4) chance. Some reflections on these dimensions of wonder should only enhance the appreciation of this fundamental philosophical concern.
Much of Verhoeven's writing touches but does not explicate the question of analogia entis. The endless deferment of identity is philosophically imperative because all beings are essentially interrelated. They participate in the same explosion of possibility. No nominalist could write about this as Verhoeven does. He clearly affirms the impact of being on thought and the symbolic nature of all marginal participants in the meaning of reality.
Verhoeven paraphrases Heidegger as saying that the thing " things " in the sense that it gathers together gods and men, earth and heaven. " The thing is not simply the thing: it is the object of endless contemplation, since it is itself a concrete infinity." This is actually the original sense of Pragmatism, namely, that the knowledge of a thing is a sharing in its way of behaving itself. The behavior of the mind is an ontological sharing in the ongoing realization of all possibility. Peirce claims that this view is essentially Aristotelian. There are a few places where Verhoeven almost grasps this point.
He consistently asserts the interconnectedness of everything with the whole of being. What he fails to do is to show the impact upon philosophy of the sameness as well as the differences in being. If deferred identity has a startling impact upon the open mind, so does the commonality. That things hang together, that they share and in fact participate in a reality greater than themselves provokes no less wonder. He is correct in suspecting those system builders who contrive unity where it does not exist, but he should recognize the wondrous fact that there is as much communion in being as there is. Analogy is not only a way of talking about things; it claims that things are in their innermost being analogous. Man's reality, for example, is an articulation of all of reality. He shares with all animals their common mode of being alive and sensitive. He shares in the total evolution of consciousness. He participates in the cohesiveness of all that is, still
retaining that illusive difference from all else which makes him as unlike as like. The continuity and discontinuity of being reveals itself simultaneously. " Dwelling in deferment " is dwelling within the walls of continuity. The windows and doors are discontinuity. Those traditions which share this view should find in Verhoeven's writing an important contemporary richness, although he does not care to acknowledge how subtly he exposes the analogous character of being.
A similar point might be made about the radically religious implications of wonder. Verhoeven complains against Aristotle's primum movens immobile, interpreting it as the goal of thought which explains everything away and puts an end to philosophy. He grants that, even if Aristotle has hit upon the truth, his conclusion is the last possible one for Philosophy, allowing for no further conclusions. For Verhoeven, such a conclusion is to be endlessly or infinitely deferred as long as wonder persists. He argues that " the contemplation of a causal series is in fact a perception of nonidentity. The fact that everything has a ground means that everything is different, that the ' other ' is revealed in the like and that they are radically connected." This near definition of analogia entis is much closer to what Aristotle might actually be saying. If one interprets Aristotle as maintaining that all being which is composed of act and potentiality moves under the entelechy of pure act, then it follows that all things are radically connected yet never themselves in perfect actuality. Aristotle's conclusion that the hierarchy of being ends in pure actuality and self-contained thought does not necessarily remove man from the temporal contemplation of being in potency to ultimate realization. This conclusion of metaphysics is a unique conclusion, arrived at, not once and for all, but only through the living experience of wonder. Aristotle's conclusion that all being leads to the infinite opens the mind to wonder. It does not close the mind in self-righteous complacency. What is the real difference between infinite deferment and deferring to the infinite possibilities of being? Wonder would indeed arbitrarily limit itself if man were to be content with his own limited being. Wonder is enhanced, if not uniquely realized, when man dares to give rein to " the divine dwelling in us " as Aristotle counsels. This is the particular burden of Anton-Hermann Chroust's study of wonder in Aristotle's writings. (Divus Thomas, Jan.-Mart, 1972, p. 56) It is worth noting that the Americans Peirce, James, and Royce, each in their respective ways, also struggled with the religious demands of endless enquiry. Whether the ultimate implication behind all fact is ever realized or not, all facts demand a pursuit to some final community of perfect information. In other words, wonder is infinitely serious and endlessly demanding. It seems to be Verhoeven's point that, within time, there can be no end to wonder. Aristotle's claim that outside time there is an end or perfection of being is no less astounding.
When Verhoeven writes of religion and of God he does so with reverent
understatement. He refuses to dismiss as a-religious or as a-theistic those philosophers who begin with nothingness, emptiness, and the absurd. For him, one who endures the uneasiness and panic of wonder is more pious and religious than the man who fabricates a god to explain the unexplainable. He says this especially in criticism of Descartes who mistakes methodical doubt for wonder and who destroys doubt by the invention of god. Wonder leads to a theology of deus absconditus, Verhoeven insists. If god is the giver of being and the answer to the question, " Why is there anything and not nothing? ", then his existence is best asserted by his absence and by his anonymity. Verhoeven's analysis of the nature of total giving, in which the giver always remains unselfish and hidden, echoes the demand of Plato that all things are the mere shadows of ultimate goodness and being. It also reflects the Aristotelian notion that pure act can never be contained or adequately manifested in being struggling with possibility. Verhoeven avoids saying that the hidden giver is known to be hidden, a wondrous possibility worth exploring.
A notion which Verhoeven constantly raises is the central significance of passivity. In a world of frenzied activity, compulsive doing and pragmatic overkill, his observations are telling, yet, unfortunately, are not fully developed. Thought is " playing with possibilities, creating space around things." With " defenseless passivity," thoughtful musing is " holy thought, because it is drawn into the whole which is holy." For him, being can only be accepted. Joy in the goodness of all that exists is the only ethical response. The ethical obligation is " an invitation that emanates from things." Wonder for Verhoeven is therefore salvation from total alienation, despair, and disgust. But man is not saved by his own activity alone. It is holy passivity which leads him on endlessly, which brings him hope. Henricus Rumke has developed the psychological and theological implications of passivity in a way that parallels and extends the suggestions found in Verhoeven.
One final observation will illustrate the kind of wonder Verhoeven's book is capable of stimulating. He suggests that " chaos is more self-evident than the cosmos," yet the cosmos requires the greater effort to be understood. This is true and profoundly provocative of wonder if it is realized that the cosmos and chaos, law and chance, are manifestations of each other. This is becoming more recognized in philosophical anthropology as the catalyst of primitive speculation. What reveals law as a real force is the chance variations of law. What reveals chance is the continuity of law. Law and chance together convinces man that the universe behaves itself. It does not behave man's mind. It has a way of working out its own unfinished destiny, which includes the orderly and chaotic functioning of the human mind itself. Verhoeven shows some recognition of the importance of this when he explains how history is the great event: it is being as happening and as recognized as happening. The same point is further developed by C. S.
Peirce when he cites the unidirectional movement of history as convincing evidence that reality is tychistic. Peirce argues that a perfectly mechanistic universe should function equally well in both directions, as for example, when heat causes increased pressure on a gas and vice versa. But infants grow into men, never in the reverse order. All of being moves in this way, in only one direction, which Peirce considers to be the universal marvel.
One might add to this wonder the experience of the finite mind reflecting upon itself. That the universe includes a kind of mind which is only provisionally capable of grasping a part of reality is itself an anomaly. In the experiences of error, doubt, and surprise, the mind discovers an inadequacy to its own task. In a perfectly determined universe the mind ought to be perfectly proportioned to its task, albeit limited. It should not even wonder at what lies beyond its capabilities. However, the human mind is constantly reminded by the impact of things that there is more to the stuff of meaning than meets the eye. In short, wonder is itself a revelation of chance. Any universe which includes the vagaries of human intelligence cannot be a finished product with a certain meaning. Looked at this way, wonder is provocative of wonder, surprise is the biggest philosophical surprise and error, paradoxically, provides overwhelming evidence of the amplitude of the truth. Again, much has been done by the Americans cited to elucidate this point. Verhoeven reflects the same unpretentious depth but does not go as far as one would like to see him go.
In conclusion, Verhoeven accomplishes his objective, to sow disquiet in the cave. Unfortunately, not too many cave dwellers are likely to read his subtle and at times brilliant reflections. Cave dwellers do not crave light. His book is not for the unsophisticated, although it is called an introduction, and the sophisticated do not always welcome this kind of prodding. Yet the work will achieve increased recognition as time passes and fixed dogmatic positions of right and left become unfixed. Its theoretical soundings are well balanced by occasional timely observations about the quality and pacing of today's intellectual life. It will prove valuable and exciting for any reader who can follow the author with ease from " the infinitely serious to the infinitely frivolous." A possible subtitle might have been Metaphysics with a Smile.
William P. Haas, O. P.
Providence College
Providence, Rhode Island
The Five Ways. St. Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of God's Existence. By Anthony Kenny. Studies in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion. General Editor, D. E. Phillips. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969. Pp. 139.
The Cosmological Argument. A Reassessment. By Bruce R. Reichenbach. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1972. Pp. 164. $8.75.
With the renewal of interest in natural theology prompted by the publication of Flew and Mclntyre's New Essays in Philosophical Theology (1955), attention has been directed once again to rational arguments for God's existence. The ontological argument was the first to benefit from this resurgence of interest, but in the two books under review cosmological argumentation and its various formulations come in for their share of attention. Kenny's work, which shows more the negative influence of Flew, stresses the difficulty involved in separating Aquinas's five ways from the medieval cosmology in which he sees them as imbedded. Reichenbach's work is more positive in spirit, the author's major concern being to reformulate St. Thomas's first three ways so as to meet the objections of Hume and Kant and contemporary critics in the analytical tradition. Both works merit a brief exposition and critique, if only because they consider much the same subject matter and yet come to contrary conclusions.
After a brief introduction wherein he allows that " the criticisms of Kant are certainly still the most effective obstacle any rational theism has to meet " (p. 3), Kenny devotes a chapter each to the five proofs for God's existence offered by Aquinas in Summa Theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 3. In the case of each via he attempts a rather complete exegesis of the text, supplementing this with St. Thomas's arguments in parallel places and with elucidations supplied by commentators, mainly recent, including Roberto Masi, Joseph Owens, and Peter Geach. In each instance Kenny raises objections drawn from modern science and from Humean, Kantian, and more recent philosophies to show not only that the ipsa verba of St. Thomas are unacceptable to the modern mind but also that " scholastic modernizations " must share the same fate (cf. p. 4).
With regards to the prima via Kenny experiences special difficulty with the principle " omne quod movetur ab alio movetur," and so sides with Suárez's evaluation of the proof that it is impotent " to prove that there is anything immaterial in reality, let alone that there is a first and uncreated substance " (p. 33). The chapter has some interesting material on the chains of movers involved in inertial and gravitational motion, particularly when the author attempts to explain these in terms of Newtonian and Einsteinian mechanics, but unfortunately his discussion here comes to no conclusive results. Kenny's examination of the secunda via focuses on the principle of efficient causation, which he formulates in mathematical logic
following Salamucha and others. His difficulty here is with essentially subordinated series of causes, which he sees as intelligible in terms of medieval astrology, as thus based on an " archaic fiction " (p. 44), and hence unacceptable in the light of modern science. The discussion of the tertia via, admittedly one of the most difficult proofs to make sense of, permits Kenny to range through contemporary discussions of possibility, necessity, and contingency. His evaluation is that the proof concludes as well to the " everlasting existence of matter with a natural indestructibility " (p. 69) as it does to God's eternal existence. In analyzing the quarta via the author dwells at some length on Platonic Forms, predicates, and existence, using Geach as a foil for much of the discussion; his own conclusion, predictably, is that " the notion of Ipsum Esse Subsistens, ... so far from being a profound metaphysical analysis of the divine nature, turns out to be the Platonic Idea of a predicate which is at best uninformative and at worst unintelligible " (p. 95). His critique of the quinta via, finally, allows Kenny to discourse on contemporary problems relating to ideological explanation and the philosophy of mind, again coming to the negative result that the argument from design has no more claim to validity than the other theistic arguments.
Kenny's book is clear and well written, and for advanced students is an excellent problem text against which to measure their understanding of Aquinas's arguments and their ability to cope with the agnosticism and skepticism that characterize so much of contemporary philosophy. This reviewer agrees with Kenny that substantial work is required to recast the traditional five ways in a terminology and conceptual setting that will make sense to the modern mind. To do this, however, requires a complete review and reconstruction of the concept of causality and how this relates to scientific explanation, and until this is forthcoming it would be fruitless to attempt a step-by-step refutation of the objectionable points in Kenny's treatment.1 In the interim, however, a counterbalancing assessment of the cosmological argument has become available, and this too deserves our attention.
Bruce R. Reichenbach's The Cosmological Argument takes off from the
1 A noticeable defect of Kenny's book is the lack of detailed historical scholarship, particularly of Aristotelian and Thomistic commentators in the centuries before our own. For example, Kenny dismisses rather summarily Aristotle's and St. Thomas's cosmological proof of the " omne quod movetur " principle (p. 19), while manifesting little or no acquaintance with substantial commentators such as Simplicius, Averroës, and Nifo, who have explained the proof in intelligible and convincing fashion. For details, see the reviewer's " The Cosmological Argument: A Reappraisal," to appear in the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association for 1972. For further background, see also the reviewer's Causality and Scientific Explanation, soon forthcoming in two volumes from the University of Michigan Press.
same point of departure as Kenny's book, viz., Flew and Mclntyre's New Essays, and covers much the same ground as does Kenny, though in somewhat more elementary fashion and coming, as already noted, to quite opposite results. Reichenbach restricts himself to Aquinas's first three ways and seeks a general form of cosmological argumentation that will serve to structure each of these. He hits upon the notion of contingency as the most plausible and arguable instance of St. Thomas's type of proof, and formulates his argument as follows:
A contingent being exists; this contingent being depends on something else for its existence; this something else, as a cause, is either another contingent being or is non-contingent (necessary) ; if contingent, it in turn cannot be caused by an infinite series of contingent beings; therefore, a necessary being exists.
The explanation and articulation of the various components of this general argument occupies the whole of Chapter 1.
Chapter 2 and 3 are concerned respectively with causation and with the principles of causation and of sufficient reason. Reichenbach's main target throughout these chapters is Hume's analysis of causation as constant conjunction and his critique of the causal principle; he argues also against Braithwaite's covering-law analysis of causation and against Camus's objection that the universe is absurd and thus it is vain to employ any principle of intelligibility such as that of sufficient reason. In Chapter 4 Reichenbach establishes that there is no repugnance in a proposition's being informative and necessary at the same time, distinguishing between logical and real necessity, and showing how the Kantian account of necessity can indeed lead to a regulative principle for unifying man's experience but not to knowledge of a real cause operative in the universe. Chapter 5 is addressed to Bertrand Russell's objection that the notion of causality cannot be applied to contingent beings considered as a totality, and it shows how this may be a valid criticism of the Scotistic way of conceiving causal series (used by Copleston in his famous debate with Russell), but that it has no force against the Thomistic way of so conceiving them. Chapter 6 takes up the problem of necessity in the conclusion of the proof and argues that this is not merely a logical necessity, as J. J. C. Smart and Paul Edwards have maintained, but is better characterized as a conditional necessity leading to knowledge of a being that is necessarily existent. In Chapter 7 Reichenbach returns to Kant to disprove the latter's thesis that the cosmological argument is dependent on the ontological argument. Then, in the eighth and final chapter, the author takes up the question of the identification of God with the necessary being that terminates the cosmological argument and explains why this being cannot be matter or a material universe necessarily existing. While maintaining that the identification with the divine is actually extrinsic to the argument itself, Reichenbach urges the plausibility of such an identification. He concludes with some reflections
suggested by this on the relationships between faith and reason, arguing contrary to Kierkegaard that a faith grounded in reason is superior to a commitment that is based on the improbable, the absurd, and the irrational. Reichenbach's book is not as scholarly as Kenny's and at times the author's use of rhetoric impedes rather than advances his argument. Also, he takes no notice whatever of Kenny's work, which seemingly is unknown to him; this is unfortunate, since his own exposition would have benefited by attempting to meet Kenny's objections, which are more pointed than those he actually considers. Again, Thomists will not be too happy with Reichenbach's attempt to reduce the prima and secunda viae to the tertia via, or with his implicit contention that the third way underlies and is more fundamental than the first two. These criticisms notwithstanding, however, Reichenbach's work is still an intelligent and worthwhile exposition of a difficult subject matter, and one that is more suited for beginning philosophy students than is Kenny's. The fact that these two books come to such disparate results, of course, is an indication that much serious work yet remains to be done on the cosmological argument.
William A. Wallace, O. P.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.
Value and Valuation: Axiological Studies in Honor of R. S. Hartman. Ed. by John William Davis. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1972. Pp. 358. $12.95.
Of the three summary names descriptive of contemporary value theory, the deontological, the teleological, and the axiological, Value and Valuation is a paradigmatic instance of the axiological. Central to this way of doing value inquiry is the integration of diverse bodies of science extending from economics to psychotherapy to linguistics. The axiological perspective takes a comprehensive attitude toward the field in that it does not exclude or limit the sources for human data from which it draws observations, principles, or conclusions. R. S. Hartman's The Structure of Value: Foundations of Scientific Axiology (1967) presented the background formalities within which the present work, a Festschrift in his honor, has been formulated. Although this supposition is not applicable exactly in each instance, one might read Value and Valuation as a commentary upon the theory of value proposed by Hartman, with the advantage of gaining fuller understanding of that subtle and profound work. On the other hand, though many of the papers advance the reader's attention toward that goal, one should not pick it up as containing a set of papers each working to that end. Value theory
in general is the object of their inquiry rather than the specific ideas of Hartman. Each of the twenty-five papers presents a statement independently of the others.
The table of contents, modeled upon Hartman's theory, seems to have been imposed by the editor upon the contributions after they were composed. It manifests Professor Davis's clear awareness and deep appreciation for Hartman's originality and genius and a subtle interpretation of the content in each contributed paper. That Hartman's terminology is being fleshed out can be intuited, although explicit reference to it is sporadic. The editor organized the papers under the rubrics: The Nature and Logic of Value, Problems of Methodology, and Types of Value (intrinsic, extrinsic and systemic). The first two overlap in meaning, with the result that it is difficult to estimate why, for example, Paul Weiss's " The Possibility of a Pure Phenomenology " was placed in the second part when it might as appropriately have been placed in the first. Or why Thomas E. Hill's " The Distinctiveness of the Concept of Good " is put into a different section from Wayne R. Leys's " Use and Abuse of Normative Definitions," since both papers focus on the prima facie difficulty of ambiguity in the word " good." Similarly, this can be observed in the case of Manfred Moritz's " The Naturalistic Fallacy and its Different Forms." These three papers, if not others, could have been grouped together without injustice to their content. This point creates the impression that the editor stretched the meanings of his categories in order to locate the contribution into his own presupposed formality whereby they could be related to R. S. Hartman's system. What is at issue in this item is the question: where does Value and Valuation fit in the extensive bibliography of axiological literature? and specifically, how should the contributions be conceived in relationship to the views of the honoree? Since the format appears forced, they should be recognized as pertaining to the general body of axiological literature rather than as an elucidation of Hartman's thought.
For Thomist interest, Bertram Morris's " Happiness: Intrinsic or Extrinsic " deserves explicit comment. His paper addresses the traditional problem of what constitutes the essence of happiness. It inquires into the question of subjective as distinct from objective beatitude, rejecting the latter by the categorical claim: " no namable object satisfies the demands of happiness." (p. 183) He takes the position that happiness consists in " activity of a certain kind." (p. 186) By rejecting pleasure as the identifying component in happiness, Morris takes issue with the utilitarian view which insists upon the very opposite. The article makes a strong case for virtue as an essential factor constitutive of happiness. This is a piece in the work to which a contemporary Thomist can make a qualified yes nod. This is not to imply, however, that Value and Valuation challenges the Thomistic synthesis. Quite the contrary is true. For the vision pervading this work, speaking generally, presents a value theory in which the moderate
realism, the epistemology, and the ontology, as well as other Thomistic suppositions are viable while proposing the desirable effect of updating Thomistic language and range of inquiry.
This is exemplified in the following fields: in political economy as present in Nicholas Rescher's " Welfare: Some Philosophical Issues "; in linguistics by Adam Schaff's: ' Language and Human Behavior " which argues that " Human behavior is often conditioned by mental suggestion owing to the orientation of the mind . . . by language " (p. 297) ; in legal philosophy by Luigi Bagolini's: " Time and the Concept of Ought in Legal Experience "; in Aesthetics by John William Davis's " A Defence of Unique as an Aesthetic and Value Predicate "; in History of Philosophy by Fritz-Joachim van Rintelen's: " Philosophy of the Living Spirit and the Crisis of Today." Incorporation of these insights into the Thomistic synthesis can benefit its contemporary intellectual pursuits. A caution should be indicated, however. Since the speculation being done by these authors requires time, criticism, and thorough reflection before it can be judged as " thoroughly convincing," Value and Valuation is far from being a definitive work or final statement. But this is what gives to the Thomist opportunity for development. The essays launch the ship of axiological science out of port, but the destinations frequently are being finalized during the expedition. Or to switch the image, the utility of the work can be expressed in the statement that it is a moderate advance in building the edifice of axiological science to which R. S. Hartman claims to have set the foundations.
The bibliographical list of Hartman's works updated to 1972, the index helping to unify disparate areas of inquiry in the articles and its overall content, lead to the recommendation that Value and Valuation is a necessary work on the book shelf of all those who are attempting axiological investigation in our day.
George L. Concordia, O. P.
Providence College
Providence, Rhode Island
Existence, Existenz and Transcendence: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Karl Jaspers. By Oswald O. Schrag. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1971. Pp. 240. $8.95.
It is only since the mid-fifties that English translations of Karl Jaspers' Vernunft und Existenz, Allgemeine Psychopathologie, and the three volume Philosophie have been deemed publishable. Yet the ambivalent character of much in Jaspers' thinking--blamed by some on his inability to dismiss once for all Cartesian dichotomies and Kantian inhibitions--is offset by the
key role it is possible to allot him, especially in the philosophical and psychological life of Germany in the pre-Second War period. True, his verbosity remains a problem, but it is difficult to see how his emphasis on description, on the various tonalities of human existence, could be conveyed otherwise. This situation gives rise to the need for commentaries to accompany the translations; Schrag's joins those of Wallraff (1970) and Samag (1971) in meeting the need.
Because he reflects the temper of his time and that of existentialist origins in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Jaspers is now emerging as a focus thinker along the existential-phenomenological axis in its German version. Although his is too synthetic a thought to grant him a pivotal position in Continental metaphysics, Jaspers still touched upon all strands of this development and thus provides us with a smoother entranceway to the trend as a whole than could a major figure such as Husserl or Heidegger. At the height of his achievement Jaspers was working in a verdant vineyard.
Schrag divides his study into three Parts, one each for the notions of existence, Existenz and transcendence; for each there is an introduction and the whole work is preceded by a generous historical orientation. Although we might wish for critique in addition to exposition, the author may have judged the latter as a more basic requirement at this stage of Anglo-American familiarity with Jaspers, and he cannot be scored for such a position.
In Jaspers' observation that ". . . solitude always became painful after I had indulged it a while " we have echoes of both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. However, the difference between these two thinkers, and that between Kant and Hegel, two other influences on Jaspers, might well account for the ambiguity mentioned above. In a 1959 study of Max Weber, Jaspers identified this figure as " the greatest German of our time." Perhaps it was Jaspers himself who brought all these orientations into a dialectical harmony when he remarked in an autobiographical note regarding his youthful attitude that something was " radically wrong not merely with humanity, but also with myself; at the same time, however, I felt the magnificence of that other world, namely, of nature, of art, of poetry and of science." Such tensions will be recognized as their own by the introductory students for whom Schrag has written. Indeed, it is Jaspers' work on psychopathology and also the creative process which aligns him with Continental developments apart from metaphysics.
Part Two of the book is devoted to the notion of Existenz, the idea most closely associated with Jaspers' thinking. This untranslatable term is traditionally retained to distinguish its notion from that of existence. The latter, in all its forms, is always orientation towards immanence; this remains true of existence albeit in manifestations of empirical existence, in consciousness-as-such, or in spirit. On the other hand, it is Existenz which is oriented
towards transcendence. It is Schrag's efforts in this Part that distinctly mark his contribution to Jasperian studies. It is here, too, that his attempt to paraphrase the elusive Jaspers is most successful, given the necessity to explain his idea of Existenz in the first person. Thus Schrag for Jaspers:
Existenz is the center from which I am aware of all the modes of the encompassing that I am. It is to be distinguished from all and yet cannot be severed from any. As possible Existenz I am a being which holds itself back in its possibility and therefore cannot exist for consciousness-as-such. Consciousness-as-such is the universal and impersonal selfhood, making it possible to substitute one selfhood for another; Existenz as my unconditional acting, freedom, historicity, as the unique source of self-being which is given to itself out of transcendence cannot be replaced or substituted for another.
Another theme associated uniquely with Jaspers is that of cipher. A discussion of this, culminating in the so-called last cipher, foundering, climaxes Part Three. Cipher is distinct from the more mundane symbol and is the authentic opening to transcendence. For Jaspers, cipher is the only way through which transcendence opens up for our existential consciousness; it is the sign that, for Existenz, transcendence is indeed veiled yet not unavailable. Valued ciphers of this dimension are the foundering (Scheitern) of empirical existence as a whole and also the foundering of what appears, and wrongly, to be self-sufficient Existenz. Foundering is encountered in every attempt to construct world views or systems for ethics, aesthetics, and religion. A new meaning for the notion of freedom emerges precisely in Existenz, as it dares to founder with courage, all the while resisting its inbuilt desire to do so. In this way the terror of the world and its abundant richness are both uncompromisingly revealed.
It must be said that the tensions experienced by the young medical student with regard to his world were in later years to know no alleviation. Still, the challenge of a mind such as Jaspers' upon these dark ramparts resulted in the end with the coming of a peculiar and special light, not unlike that experienced by Camus a decade or so later. Schrag has presented us with adequate resources to follow the assault.
John B. Davis, O. P.
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pa.