Summa Theologiae Research Articles

La autoridad del Romano Pontífice según Melchor Cano (En los comentarios inéditos a la II-II, q. 1, a. 10)

I. Introducción. 1. Fuentes manuscritas empleadas; 2. Estructura y contenido; 3. La cuestión crítica. II. Texto del Comentario In Secunda Secundae, q.1, a.10.

El Tratado sobre la Gracia en la «Summa contra Gentiles»

It is striking to find the treatise on supernatural grace in Book III of St. Thomas's Summa Contra Gentiles; he knew well that the supernatural realities can only be known with the light of Revelation but nevertheless, Book III of this work concerns truths attainable with the sole use of reason. If we look for a sufficient motive to explain this, we arrive at the conclusion that the apostolic and apalogetic purpose of this work can justify a treatment of grace that differs greatly from the treatise on grace of the Summa Theologica as regards the approach to many questions and the method of work. St. Thomas was confronted with those who denied the possibility of beatific vision. He makes them see -with a fact taken from the faith- that the last end of man consists in the vision of God. The apologetic character of the work obliges its author to underscore the continuity between the human spirit's openness to the Truth and the Good whose possession consists in a face to face vision. This standpoint can shed some light on the debated question regarding the desire to see God. The apologetic perspective leaves its mark in what St. Thomas wrote in Book III on grace. Book IV, on the other hand, deals with some questions concerning grace -starting openly from the faith- in its relation to the trinitarian mystery.

W. J. HANKEY, God in Himself. Aquinas' Doctrine of God as Expounded in The Summa Theologiae, Oxford University Press, New York 1987, 196 pp., 14 x 22.

W. J. HANKEY, God in Himself. Aquinas' Doctrine of God as Expounded in The Summa Theologiae, Oxford University Press, New York 1987, 196 pp., 14 x 22.

Theological Renewal after the Council of Trent? The Case of Jesuit Commentaries on the Summa Theologiae

As part of the Catholic reform after the Council of Trent, the Jesuits Francisco de Toledo, Gregorio de Valencia, and Gabriel Vázquez further developed the theological innovations of the School of Salamanca. Their commentaries on the Summa Theologiae (ca. 1563–1604) are marked by a creative retrieval of Aquinas and other theological sources as well as by openness toward current questions. This new method of theological argumentation related past authorities and articulations of the faith more effectively to the present, in order to better preserve the ecclesial community through time.

Reconsidering Tyranny and Tyrannicide in Aquinas's De Regno

ABSTRACTThis study challenges a prevalent view that Aquinas's political thought develops over time on the question of legitimate resistance to tyranny. Many scholars argue that Aquinas gradually restricts the scope of legitimate political resistance and morally permissible tyrannicide. On this view Aquinas defends tyrannicide in his early Commentary on the Sentences, adds strong qualifications in the Summa Theologiae, and finally repudiates tyrannicide in De Regno. This study finds the evidence for such a development lacking and seeks to rehabilitate a long and diverse Thomistic tradition of legitimate resistance including tyrannicide. Indeed, a close reading of De Regno shows that Aquinas upholds a doctrine of political resistance and defends the legitimacy of tyrannicide under certain circumstances. Moreover, Aquinas's doctrine of political resistance is wide open and underdeveloped. Later attempts to clarify and qualify Aquinas's doctrine of political resistance, therefore, are appropriate and even necessary.

Embracing Wisdom: The "Summa theologiae" as Spiritual Pedagogy by Gilles Mongeau

Reviewed by: Embracing Wisdom: The "Summa theologiae" as Spiritual Pedagogyby Gilles Mongeau Michael A. Dauphinais Embracing Wisdom: The "Summa theologiae" as Spiritual Pedagogy. By G illesM ongeau, S.J.Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2015. Pp. xi + 221. $30.00 (paper). ISBN:978-0-88844-422-6. Gilles Mongeau has written an illuminating book with many enjoyable insights. This is no small praise for a book that adds to the innumerable discussions of the structure and aims of Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae. According to the introduction, Mongeau's work draws upon various streams of Thomistic and medieval studies: Thomas Hibbs's attention to dialectic and narrative in the Summa contra Gentiles, Jean-Pierre Torrell's treatment of the spiritual theology of the Summa theologiae, and Mary Carruthers's retrieval of the rhetorical shape of medieval and Dominican life. Mongeau thus offers a reading of the Summa theologiaeas rhetorically constructed to lead its reader into deeper conformity with the wisdom it seeks to communicate. [End Page 303] He formulates the purpose of his work in his first chapter, "A Wisdom that Makes One Holy." The theme of wisdom as transformative plays a central role in this book. Mongeau thus seeks to overcome some of the separations that have occurred in scholarship on Aquinas. He helpfully summarizes the work of Mark Jordan, Guy-H. Allard, Peter Candler, and Fáinche Ryan and their distinct approaches to viewing the Summathrough the respective lenses of wisdom, rhetoric, deification, and sanctification. He seeks to add to their various emphases a more historical focus on thirteenth-century rhetorical practices. He then turns to a presentation of sacra doctrinaas both scientia(knowledge) and sapientia(wisdom). As scientia, sacra doctrinaconforms the mind to reality. As sapientia, sacra doctrinahelps the wise person order all things both theoretically and practically. Drawing upon the work of Pierre Hadot, Mongeau discerns in such wisdom a way of life, in particular, the way of life embodied in the Dominican friars whom Aquinas sought to instruct. Mongeau summarizes the goal of his book as follows: "I hope that my readers, having become aware of and open to the rhetorical dynamics present in the text, might allow the spiritual pedagogy of the Summa theologiaeto work in them as it did in Thomas' students, leading them to Wisdom's embrace" (17). The book has two major parts. The first part (chapters 2-4) examines the rhetorical order of the Summa theologiaeand presents the work as a ductus—a directed motion or a leading—into divine wisdom. Here the emphasis is on "the historical and methodological context for reading the Summa theologiaeas sacra doctrina" (16). The remainder of the book (chaps. 5-9) deploys that same context in the service of close readings of various parts of the Summa. In each instance, Aquinas's presentation of Christ as the Incarnate Word is revealed as the pattern for contemplating such divine wisdom and handing it on to others. Mongeau, in analyzing many sections of the Summa, "[brings] to the fore the rhetorical ductusthat unites Aquinas' systematic and spiritual concerns" (17). Chapters 2-4 present the heart of the book's thesis, namely, that the often-overlooked rhetorical element of the Summais easily demonstrated when Aquinas's writings and life are placed within their thirteenth-century Dominican context. Mongeau considers the interplay of meaning and culture as found in ancients such as Aristotle and Cicero as well as Philo, Augustine, and Boethius, along with their shared attention to rhetoric within philosophy and theology. Following Marshall McLuhan, Mongeau observes that the rhetorical dimension of meaning has been radically diminished in the post-Cartesian streams of philosophy and theology in the West. In contrast, he avers that rhetoric should be seen as "the art and science which allowed Christian thinkers, pastors, and poets to mediate the intersubjective, aesthetic, and dramatic power of meaning during the patristic and early-medieval period" (38). The recognition of the indispensable role of rhetoric and meaning within the search for truth as opposed to a sterile rationalism is certainly sound and welcome. Furthermore, Mongeau implicitly avoids any [End Page 304]reduction of...

The Arguments of Aquinas: A Philosophical View by J. J. MacIntosh

Reviewed by: The Arguments of Aquinas: A Philosophical View by J. J. MacIntosh Brian Davies J. J. MacIntosh. The Arguments of Aquinas: A Philosophical View. New York: Routledge, 2017. Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion 14. Pp. xiv + 208. Cloth, $140.00. Aquinas never describes himself as a ‘philosopher.’ He typically uses that word when referring to such “pagans” as Aristotle. Yet he often presents what we can now view as purely philosophical arguments. And it is some of these with which MacIntosh is concerned in this fine new book, which is divided into three parts, as is Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. MacIntosh has previously published two books on Robert Boyle (1627–1691), who features from time to time in the present volume. In part 1, “Natural Philosophy,” MacIntosh reports a number of things that Aquinas has to say about necessity and possibility, causality, time and motion, and time and infinity. Part 2, “Natural Theology,” deals with Aquinas under the headings “God’s existence,” “God’s attributes,” and “Foreknowledge and freedom.” Part 3, “Human Beings,” contains chapters titled “Epistemology and philosophy of mind,” “Souls and Immortality,” and “Morality and Method: Aquinas on lying and unnatural practices.” Part 1 is largely, though not exclusively, expository. In parts 2 and 3, which also contain a fair amount of exposition, MacIntosh seems more concerned to evaluate some of the arguments of Aquinas on which he reports. And he tends to evaluate them rather favorably, though he also raises objections to some of them. MacIntosh modestly tells us that he is not an Aquinas scholar. He describes himself as someone who admires Aquinas as a philosopher and who wishes to show contemporary philosophers unfamiliar with Aquinas that he is of philosophical importance (x). But MacIntosh clearly knows a lot about Aquinas, and his uniformly clear expositions display a serious grasp of Aquinas’s thinking. So, for instance, MacIntosh rightly notes how Aquinas, unlike Hume, takes cause and effect to be “two sides of the same coin” (34). He also well explains how causa, as Aquinas uses the word, might be best translated as ‘explanation’ (35–36). Again, MacIntosh is correct to say that “it is simultaneous causation that is primarily of interest to Thomas in the five ways” (41). I might add that I was particularly impressed by what MacIntosh says in chapter 4 concerning Aquinas on the eternity of the world. Contrary to some of his theological contemporaries, Aquinas argues that the universe could have existed without a beginning. A famous objection to this thesis holds that if the history of the world goes back to infinity, then the present could never have arrived. Yet MacIntosh neatly indicates the flaw in this objection while also noting how Aquinas put his finger on it. He also well explains how Aquinas’s view on the possibility of the universe’s never having begun to exist is compatible with what he says in Summa Theologiae, 1a,7 about the possibility of an actual infinite multitude. Some of MacIntosh’s expositions of Aquinas are brief, and, perhaps, too brief. For example, MacIntosh might have offered more than he does when turning to what he refers to as ‘God’s attributes.’ He provides two pages (101–2) on what Aquinas thought about God, univocity, and analogy. But he does not, I think, sufficiently clarify Aquinas’s claim that reflection on “God talk” needs to take account of res significata (thing signified) and modus significandi (way of signifying). Aquinas is clear that our talk of God always “signifies imperfectly” (see Summa Theologiae, 1a,13,4). Abstracting from what he says about metaphor, he also holds that our talk of God is always somehow equivocal. I suspect that readers of MacIntosh might fail to pick up on these important facts and their philosophical implications. [End Page 367] Again, consider what MacIntosh says about Aquinas on divine simplicity. In this he does not provide any systematic discussion of what Aquinas means when using the word esse. But if Aquinas is wrong on what he takes to be the distinction between essence (essentia) and existence (esse), then a lot that he says about God is also wrong. Yet readers of McIntosh...

The Theology of Sergius Bulgakov by Robert F. Slesinski

Reviewed by: The Theology of Sergius Bulgakov by Robert F. Slesinski Harry Moore Robert F. Slesinski. The Theology of Sergius Bulgakov. (New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2017. 280 pp. The past twenty years have witnessed a remarkable surge of interest in the theology of Fr. Sergei Bulgakov. Robert F. Slesinski's The Theology of Sergius Bulgakov is thus a timely addition to this particular inter-denominational renaissance. Slesinski has not only demonstrated an unmatched understanding of Orthodoxy's most eclectic and highly speculative theologian, but has brought a wealth of critique to the fore. Having already established himself as a specialist in Russian religious thought with his doctoral thesis on Pavel Florensky, Slesinski now turns to Florensky's more systematic yet controversial contemporary, delving deep into his elaborate and often perplexing theological reflections. After a short biographical outline of Bulgakov's development as a theologian, chapters 2 and 3 deal with his thoughts on Divine Wisdom and their key points of contention. Slesinski first outlines the historical development of Sophiology with reference to Florensky and Vladimir Solov'ev, before presenting Bulgakov's own original conception of Sophia as "a principle that engenders the transformation of society from within" (47). Sophia's multi-faceted existence is accurately distilled in these chapters; this includes Sophia as Divine–Human mediator, as natural beauty, as human creativity, as the "world-soul," and as the "proto-image of all creation" (53), with the latter idea receiving more detailed examination in chapter 10, "A Sophiological Conception of Creation." Some of the more traditional weaknesses in Bulgakov's thought are also discussed here, such as its determinism and impersonalism, along with the well-known accusation that Sophia is simply a "fourth hypostasis" (50). Specific attention is paid in the opening chapters to the notion of Sophia as an organic teleological principle in contrast to a mechanical, causal principle, one that Slesinski ascribes to Cartesian philosophy. Most importantly however, Slesinski launches a sustained attack on Bulgakov's "especially impoverished" view of causality (150). Contra Bulgakov, he maintains that the category of causality is not simply mechanical, but is in fact a "primary datum of experience," and eventually equates the sophianic creative act to a scholastic causa exemplaris (56). However, the decisive theoretical grounding for Bulgakov's rejection of causality, as established by Vladimir Solov'ev in his influential philosophical writings, is unfortunately not included in the debate. The following four chapters (4–8) examine Bulgakov's "Little Trilogy." The discussion here reveals the theologian's striking originality in the areas of Angelology, Mariology, and the study of John the Forerunner. In a similar vein to earlier treatments of these more devotional texts, the analysis is dominated by Catholic–Orthodox polemic. Slesinski's arguments here tend to focus on areas of confessional dispute such as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (85–104) and the veneration of Saint Joseph (80–84). On the whole, Slesinski is convinced that Bulgakov has deeply misunderstood Catholic teachings, specifically the work of Thomas Aquinas. He claims that the Russian theologian postulates a "gross caricature of Catholic theology" (126). However, the author does not dwell on this caricature and instead attempts a "catholicization" of Bulgakov, not only by drawing specific attention to his early "flirtations with Catholicism" (31), but by asserting that his theology actually aligns with areas of Aquinas' Summa Theologica, more specifically concerning the Creator as the principle of the world's being, and the Holy Spirit as the "bridge of Love" (200). Most interestingly, Slesinski rethinks the Immaculate Conception as itself [End Page 217] a sophianic dogma (172). However, in some places the susceptibility of Bulgakov's Orthodox theology to this "catholicization" is surely overstated. For example, Slesinski's assumption that "Catholics and Orthodox subscribe to the same ontological understanding of sanctification" (95) overlooks the specificities of the Orthodox understanding of Theosis, and the typically Orthodox disputes surrounding Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Seminara. Furthermore, the question as to whether the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception would reduce the significance of the incarnation is not addressed. The following three chapters (9–11), along with chapters 13 and 14, focus on the "Greater Trilogy," and introduce the reader to Bulgakov...

Beauty, Transcendence, and the Inclusive Hierarchy of Creation

Beauty, Transcendence, and the Inclusive Hierarchy of Creation1 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. Interpreters of Thomas Aquinas have long argued about whether he holds that beauty is a “transcendental,” a feature of reality coextensive with all that exists, like unity, goodness, and truthfulness.2 In the first part of this article, I will argue that Aquinas can [End Page 1215] be read to affirm in an implicit way that beauty is a transcendental. In the second part, I will consider what it might mean from a Thomistic point of view to speak of a transcendent divine beauty, given Aquinas’s metaphysical commitments, particularly with respect to his doctrine of divine simplicity. In the final part, I will treat the question of how the beauty of the creation both manifests and conceals divine beauty. Beauty as a Transcendental Feature of Reality Aquinas does not list beauty as a transcendental term in texts on transcendental notions. Perhaps, then, one should simply exclude it from a responsible account of his teaching on this subject. However, at least two well-known texts should give us reason to pause before reaching such a conclusion. One is found in his Commentary on Dionysius’ Divine Names, chapter 4, lectio 5. The other is in his discussion of the beauty of the eternal Son of God in a discussion of the Holy Trinity in the Summa theologiae I, q. 39, a. 8. In the first of these texts, Aquinas is commenting on Dionysius. The extended text is analytically dense. Aquinas is discussing ways in which one might say that God is beautiful and in what ways one might not say so. I will return to his topic below. Here, however, it is pertinent to consider Aquinas’s discussion of the presence of beauty in all that exists. He makes six main points.3 First, all beauty comes [End Page 1216] from God insofar as God is the cause of all that exists. Second, he gives a first definition of beauty: beauty can be defined ontologically as the splendor (claritas) that results from form; everything has a formal determination of some kind insofar as it has existence (esse); therefore, insofar as anything exists (and has some formal ontological content) it has some degree of beauty. Third, the splendor of the form in created things is a participation in the divine splendor from which it originates. The divine nature is the transcendent exemplar of beauty in diverse finite created realities. Fourth, then (and perhaps most importantly), “ex divina pulchritudine esse omnium derivatur”: literally, the existence of everything originates from divine beauty. Fifth, a second definition of beauty is considered: beauty can be defined ontologically as a property of being that emerges from proportion or harmony (consonantia). For example, authentic relationships of personal friendship imply spiritual harmony or concord and are beautiful and noble in this respect. Sixth, then, the concord or beautiful harmonies we find in the created order are expressive of the wisdom of God, who is the author of creation. Evidently, if the existence of everything derives from divine beauty, and if everything that has existence is in some way beautiful by virtue of its intrinsic form, then it would seem to follow logically that beauty, for Aquinas, is a characteristic of being that is coextensive with all that exists. We see a similar idea expressed in the aforementioned passage of ST. Here, however, Aquinas gives a more synthetic definition of beauty in things that combines both the definitions found in our previous discussion, claritas and proportio, but it also adds a third, integritas: ontological integrity or wholeness. Species or beauty has a likeness to the property of the Son. For beauty includes three conditions, “integrity” or “perfection,” [End Page 1217] since those things which are impaired are by the very fact ugly; due “proportion” or “harmony”; and lastly, “brightness” or “clarity,” whence things are called beautiful which have a bright color.4 The implication of this point of view is readily apparent. God is essentially beautiful, and God has created all that exists in light of the eternal Word and Wisdom of God, who is the Son. Consequently, all that exists and that...

Human Action in Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, & William of Ockham by Thomas M. Osborne, Jr.

Reviewed by: Human Action in Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, & William of Ockham by Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. Matthew R. McWhorter Human Action in Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, & William of Ockham by Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. (Washington DC: Catholic University of America, 2014), 250 pp. Thomas Osborne's Human Action in Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, & William of Ockham provides a helpful comparative analysis of three key medieval thinkers with respect to their distinct accounts of human action or theories of "moral psychology" (xvi). These thinkers, Osborne states, "are arguably the three most significant philosophers and theologians of the central period in the development of Scholastic thought" (xiii). His work is written in an accessible style that renders it useful not only as a resource for specialist researchers in [End Page 352] the medieval era but also as a supplemental text for course instruction at the graduate level. While the exact focus and content of this study is unique, it is comparable in approach to other recent volumes in medieval ethics and moral theology such as M. V. Dougherty's Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought: From Gratian to Aquinas (2013), or to the comparative medieval studies of Marilyn McCord Adams, Richard Cross, or Russell L. Friedman. Osborne states that his study aims to provide an overview of the issues with which medieval moral psychology grappled and that this, in turn, will serve to illuminate key philosophical questions in ethics, as well as to provide historical background for understanding Reformation and early modern thought (xvi). While Osborne states that his primary goal is to provide a systematic overview of the three thinkers under consideration, his study also illustrates a contextual historical understanding of the authors in question. For example, at times, he provides occasional contextual references to other important medieval ethicists such as Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Peter Lombard, and Albert the Great. Osborne is explicitly conscious of the methodological need to avoid conforming the authors under consideration to a superficial historical narrative in which Scotus is construed as reacting to Aquinas, and Ockham in turn to Scotus (see 222–23, where Osborne briefly critiques two common historio-graphical trends). On this point, Osborne recognizes that Aquinas in the era prior to his canonization did not have as significant an intellectual import for Franciscan thinkers as contemporary scholars might expect (xix). Overall, Osborne indicates that his comparative studies should serve to provide his reader both with basic familiarity with the moral psychology of each thinker and with a cognizance of the doctrinal currents that proved to be influential upon subsequent Western thought (xxv). In this respect, Osborne points to three main themes that he indicates establish a reliable historical narrative concerning the doctrinal developments in fundamental ethics from Aquinas to Ockham: "(1) a developing separation between nature and will, (2) an increased emphasis on the will's activity, and (3) a changing view of mental causation" with respect to elicited exterior acts (xxiv–xxv, cf. 227). These themes collectively provide a helpful orientation for continued study of these thinkers, a framework that other scholars will benefit from exploring and evaluating. Osborne's work is organized into five chapters enveloped by an introduction and a conclusion. Each of the five chapters is focused on [End Page 353] a particular ethical topic, such as the causes of a moral act (viz., an agent's intellect and will), the stages of a moral act, or the specification of a moral act. Regarding the structure of the book, Osborne states that it "develops thematically" (xxii). The topical arrangement of the study is intended generally to follow the ordo doctrinae found in questions 6–21 of the prima secundae of Aquinas's Summa theologiae, which Osborne maintains is the most complete and systematic treatment of moral psychology found among the works of the three thinkers under consideration (xvi). Each of Osborne's chapters is further divided into four parts. This schema for the most part follows a common pattern of first expositing Aquinas's position on the ethical topic at hand and then the positions of Scotus and Ockham and closing with a synopsis that compares and contrasts the main positions of...

Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa contra Gentiles”: A Guide and Commentary by Brian Davies

Reviewed by: Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa contra Gentiles”: A Guide and Commentary by Brian Davies Thomas S. Hibbs Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa contra Gentiles”: A Guide and Commentary. By Brian Davies, O.P. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xviii + 485. $105.00 (cloth), $45.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-19-045653-5 (cloth), 978-0-19-045654-2 (paper). In this Guide, Brian Davies aims to write a book that is “introductory, if also comprehensive.” In this, he has succeeded marvelously. Of all the books on Thomas that seek to be both expository and philosophical, this is among the most readable. It is grounded in a careful reading of Thomas’s own text, yet it brings to bear the most important debates in contemporary philosophy of religion as well as the best of contemporary philosophical writing on Aquinas. It moves with ease between exposition of the text and the raising of probing questions. It also provides illustrative examples in portions of the text where they are most useful, for example, in the notoriously forbidding argument from motion. This is the work of a masterful scholar and teacher who has spent years thinking deeply about the texts of Aquinas. Before turning to a lengthy and detailed exposition of the text itself, Davies supplies, in an opening chapter, background on Thomas’s life, work, and the setting of the Summa contra gentiles, a work whose purpose and structure have puzzled commentators for centuries. Davies notes that the structure and style of the Summa contra gentiles are distinct among Thomas’s texts. It is not a commentary, although it contains passages in which Thomas strives to show that his interpretation conforms to the text of Aristotle, nor is it organized according to the disputed-question model, although the listing of objections and responses occurs at important points in the text. The order of proceeding is quite different from that in the later Summa theologiae, in which Thomas adopts the method of theological scientia throughout and makes only a brief and passing reference to the philosophical sciences. By contrast, in the Summa contra gentiles he begins by dividing his treatment according to the “twofold mode of truth in what we confess about divine things,” with the first three books being devoted to that portion of divine truth accessible to reason, and the fourth to the segment that exceeds reason’s capacity. Davies speaks of the first three books as an “extended essay in natural theology” in which reason operates “without dependence on purportedly divine revelation” (7, 15). Like almost everyone now writing on the Summa contra gentiles, Davies dismisses the longstanding tradition that envisioned this work as Thomas’s response to the [End Page 643] request from Dominican superiors for a book able to be deployed by Dominican missionaries working in Spain and useful in countering Islam. Davies ends up calling it a “somewhat apologetic work” with three main purposes: “to reflect at length concerning what reason can tell us about God . . . to note ways in which what reason tells us about God harmonizes with what revelation teaches, and . . . to defend the articles of faith against charges of irrationality” (15, 13). That description works reasonably well, although it leaves out some of the peculiar structural features of the work, features that bear upon how we ought to understand Thomas’s own self-understanding: that is, how he understood his task in bringing together the two great sources of wisdom, philosophy and theology. I mentioned above that Davies not only provides a clear exposition of the arguments with consideration of some of the puzzles in the arguments themselves, but that he also takes up relevant contemporary literature. Especially helpful is his use of the writings of Peter Geach and Herbert McCabe, members of what might be called the Wittgensteinian school of Thomism, distinguished by its care with language—with its logical structure, of course, but especially with the grammatical subtlety of ordinary language. For example, in his consideration of the objection that natural theology should be avoided altogether, Davies examines a set of objections: that it offends against piety; that the very notion of God is incoherent (Hume); and that God is...

The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas by Dominic Legge

Reviewed by: The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinasby Dominic Legge Joseph Wawrykow The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas. By D ominicL egge, O.P. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xvii + 261. $95.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-19-879419-6. The author's main ambition is to show the profoundly Trinitarian cast of Aquinas's presentation of Christ; the title, then, is nicely descriptive of the contents of the book. Asecondary purpose is to call into question a modern [End Page 295]assessment, as in Karl Rahner (on the Catholic side), that Aquinas has separated talk of Christ from Trinitarian discourse, driven a wedge between the economic and the immanent Trinity—as if one could know the latter apart from the former—and failed to do justice to the Incarnation of, precisely, the second divine person. The book is divided into three main parts. The first is given over to Aquinas's Trinitarian teaching, focusing on the missions. The missions are patterned on the eternal processions and manifest them, extending them, as it were, into time and the created world. By mission, a divine person who is eternally from another (the second person from the first) or from others (the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Word) is sent and becomes present in a new way, in a temporal effect. Thus the Word, who is eternally spoken by the Father, becomes incarnate as sent by the Father and is the term of the taking up of human nature (the second person's visible mission). The Holy Spirit, the Love eternally breathed forth by the Father and the Word, is present to those who are marked by God's love, imparting the grace and infused virtues and gifts that make possible the return of rational creatures to God as their end (the Spirit's invisible mission). The second person also has an invisible mission, being present to the intellect in wisdom. The third person also has a visible mission, as in the appearance in the form of a dove at Jesus' baptism (see too the transfiguration). Here, and elsewhere in the book, Legge insists on the inseparability of the missions, mirroring the eternal generation and procession: the sending forth of the Word into the world is accompanied by the breathing forth of the Spirit into the world. Part 2 is on the Incarnation of the second divine person, who as incarnate is fully and truly human. Legge is adept in presenting Aquinas's version of the hypostatic union and is especially good at explaining why for Aquinas it was most fitting that the second person be the term of the assumption of human nature (when it could have been one of the other divine persons). The book's final part examines what Aquinas has to say about the incarnate Word in relation to the third person, the Holy Spirit. It looks at Christ as under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and as endowed with the Spirit's spiritual aids, which are essential to the salvific work of the Word become incarnate. Legge in this connection can legitimately refer—and does so repeatedly—to Aquinas's Christology as a "Spirit Christology." Indeed, part 3 of the book looks at Christ as the giver of the Spirit in the application of his spiritual benefits to those for whom the Word came, lived, suffered, died, and was raised. Legge is consistent and resolute in showing as the book proceeds how what is said of the Word incarnate vis-à-vis the Spirit echoes and is rooted in the inner life of the triune God and is patterned on the generation of the second divine person and the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father and the Son. The teaching on the Trinity and Christ as found in Aquinas's masterwork, the Summa theologiae(in the Primaand the Tertia pars), is highlighted and is [End Page 296]the consistent point of reference in the book. Question 43 of the Prima pars(on the missions); question 3, article 8 of the Tertia pars(on the especial fittingness of the second person as the term of the...

Veritatis Splendor and Amoris Laetitia: Neither Lamented nor Celebrated Discontinuity

Veritatis Splendor and Amoris Laetitia:Neither Lamented nor Celebrated Discontinuity Angel Perez-Lopez Introduction The year 2018 of our Lord is very noteworthy for Catholic moral theology. Providentially, we are celebrating the silver and golden anniversaries of two key magisterial documents: twenty-five years for Veritatis Splendor (VS) and fifty years for Humanae Vitae (HV).1 In light of these anniversaries, I propose to reflect on the contemporary debate around the correct interpretation of Amoris Laetitia (AL). The rival interpretations of the last document, AL, could be gathered into three major groups.2 The first group celebrates AL’s alleged [End Page 1183] discontinuity with previous moral magisterium, especially with VS and Familiaris Consortio (FC). Within this division, discontinuity is another word for rupture. It does not mean “organic evolution.” Insofar as it entails a direct opposition between these documents, it clearly proposes “a before and an after.” Thus, a strict follower of VS could not be, at the same time, a strict follower of AL. To this group belong those who have already dissented, not only from John Paul II, but also from Paul VI’s HV. In this way, the proportionalist moral theology condemned by VS seems to be making a “comeback.” Its “corpse,” as it were, is being “dug up.” It is being “resuscitated” by this whole controversy.3 The second group instead laments such an alleged discontinuity. Their lamentation is mainly motivated by their fidelity to the truth. But it is also due to their inability to reconcile AL’s texts with those from VS and FC. In this manner, discontinuity is not forcefully defended. It is only lamented, and reluctantly. The relationship of these two groups, nevertheless, is quite interesting. They feed on each other. The second group’s mourning and lament is fueled and augmented by those who celebrate discontinuity and cause confusion among the faithful. The second group laments the way AL was written, especially its openness to potential misinterpretation. Yet, their public lament defeats their own cause. It adds to the public celebration of the first group. It confirms the reason for their joy, discontinuity. Therefore, these two groups do not offer much of a way out of the quarrel. It would seem as if tertium non datur. However, against appearances, there is a de facto third option, another logical alternative that constitutes a third group that provides “a way out” unto the future, some light at the end of the tunnel. Indeed, some have emphatically taught that AL offers no revolution, no change in doctrine. It may offer some organic evolution, a certain novum in the pastoral realm, but without rupture or contradiction to the truth declared in the past. They argue that AL could and should [End Page 1184] be read in continuity with VS and FC.4 Cardinal Müller, when he was still the head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, took this third option, and he is not alone. Many other bishops have done the same. Just to name a few, we could speak of Spain’s Cardinal Cañizares and, in the United States, we have Philadelphia’s Archbishop Chaput, as well as the local ordinary in Denver, Archbishop Aquila. Considering the title for this article, it is quite clear that I am going to argue in favor of a version of this third option. The thesis that I will defend is this: both lamented and celebrated discontinuity are hermeneutically flawed interpretations of AL, inconsistent with the very letter of the document. I intend to reach my goal in three steps, resembling the way articles from Aquinas’s Summa theologiae [ST] proceed: first, the arguments against (or objections); second, the responsio (or the corpus); and only then, the reply to the arguments or objections proposed at the beginning.5 Accordingly, I will begin by going over the difficult texts that have caused the lamented or celebrated hermeneutics of discontinuity. Then, I will propose a correction to the way in which these texts were read. I will base that correction, above all, on Karol Wojtyła’s teachings regarding the correct interpretation of magisterial documents. Thereby, I will establish a parallelism between...

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter

Reviewed by: Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter J. Brian Benestad Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By Jean Porter. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2016. Pp. xiii + 286. $40.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8028-7325-5. Porter describes her book as "a study of the virtue of justice as Aquinas presents it in the Summa theologiae, developed in such a way as to bring out the contemporary significance of his account" (x). Porter does not attempt to summarize in any way what Aquinas says about justice in his other extensive writings. She thinks "that Aquinas's overall account of justice and the virtues is the true theory of morality" but will not attempt to prove this statement conclusively in her book (ibid.). She does make clear that she "will offer a constructive expansion of Aquinas's views on justice . . . developing Aquinas's theory in some way, rather than simply interpreting what he says" (6). In other words, readers should be aware that she may depart from Aquinas's account of justice or add new things to it. The remaining parts of chapter 1 focus on the basics of the Thomistic presentation of justice. Justice is a personal virtue of individuals rather than a characteristic of society's basic institutions. It is a perfection of the will, the most excellent of the moral virtues, but inferior to the supernatural virtue of charity. For Aquinas, "the will is perfected through right relations to others" (27). In order to understand justice as a virtue, we need to understand the fundamentals of Aquinas's understanding of virtue. Porter notes that Aquinas begins his analysis with Peter Lombard's definition of virtue, which was, in turn, drawn from Augustine's writings: "Virtue is a good quality of the mind, by which we live righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God [End Page 317] brings about in us, without us" (18, quoting STh I-II, q. 55, a. 4, which is quoting II Sent., d. 27, q. 5). The last part of the definition only applies to the infused virtues. The word "quality" in the definition refers to a habit or stable disposition inclining a person to do the right thing. Porter also makes her readers aware of the complexity of justice by distinguishing different kinds of justice: general, or legal, justice and particular justice, which is subdivided into distributive and commutative justice. To put justice into practice, a person will always need prudence, she adds with emphasis. More examples of these three kinds of justice and a more discernible order of the book's five chapters in relation to each other would have helped Porter's readers. Already in the second paragraph of chapter 1, Porter notes correctly that Aquinas's treatment of justice as a virtue and a perfection of the will is totally foreign to the theories of justice expounded by John Rawls and his interlocutors. Porter rightly sees that Rawls's "theory of justice . . . proposes an account of the ways in which institutions ought to operate, which kinds of structural arrangements are acceptable, and which kinds of outcomes are acceptable, given basic criteria of fairness and respect" (2). Although Porter says that "Aquinas gets justice right," she immediately adds that "he does not raise, much less address, questions pertaining to social and institutional structures that are central to most contemporary theories of justice" (5). Despite her great appreciation of Aquinas's thought on the virtue of justice, she never says that Rawls and his interlocutors should draw upon Aquinas in order to raise questions pertaining to the practice of the virtues by individuals responsible for the reform of institutions and structures. The constraints of a short review will not allow me to deal thoroughly with the main points of chapters 2 through 5. In the remainder of this review, after briefly mentioning a few insightful points made in these four chapters, I will focus on Porter's nonacceptance of Aquinas's way of evaluating the morality of the human act. In sum, she thinks that his analysis leads to more prohibitions than are acceptable today. In chapter 2, Porter directs...

Aquinas on Virtue: A Causal Reading by Nicholas Austin, S.J.

Reviewed by: Aquinas on Virtue: A Causal Reading by Nicholas Austin, S.J. Jeffrey P. Hause Aquinas on Virtue: A Causal Reading. By Nicholas Austin, S.J. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2017. Pp. xxiv + 233. $104.95(cloth), $34.95(paper). ISBN: 978-1-62616-472-7(cloth), 978-1-62616-473-4(paper). Most recent works on virtue ethics, if they delve into the history of philosophy at all, draw on classical Greek or Hellenistic thought as their primary historical resource. Theologians sometimes, but philosophers rarely, draw on Aquinas, despite his robust and sophisticated treatment of virtue. Misinterpretations are distressingly common. The fault lies in part in contemporary philosophers' impatience with Aquinas's theological commitments (even Philippa Foot, who admired Aquinas, disliked reading those parts of his work that are explicitly theological), but in part with Aquinas scholars themselves, who are apt to fall into opaque Thomistic jargon and often fail to connect Aquinas's concerns with those of contemporary scholars. Aquinas's world would seem so much less foreign and so much more fruitful if only there were adequate bridges to take us there. Aquinas on Virtue is just such a bridge: advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and philosophers and theologians whose specialty is not Thomistic ethics will find this work particularly helpful. Austin packs a lot into this little book, designed to show the relevance of Aquinas's theory of virtue for contemporary ethics. To this end, he takes on some important objections, such as that Aquinas's ethics is prudish or patriarchal, that it fails to recognize the decisive role of situations (rather than character) in determining what we do, and that its reliance on intrinsic finality in nature is misguided (because it is rendered obsolete by Darwin or because it is a mere projection of the human mind onto nature). Austin offers brief and clear responses that, while hardly decisive, nevertheless demonstrate that there is a fuller debate to be had. Austin's focus is Aquinas's theory of virtue, which he distinguishes from a virtue theory. Aquinas does not offer a virtue theory in the sense that his account of virtue is more fundamental than, say, his account of natural law or his action theory. In his more holistic approach, Aquinas intertwines these various elements. The study of Aquinas's theory of virtue therefore gives us one important inroad into his ethical theory. What sets Austin's study apart from other studies of Aquinas on virtue is his embrace of a "causal approach." For Aquinas, a full account of something requires that we explore all its causes, not just its formal cause but its final, efficient, and material causes as well; and so we find him examining all four causes in treating any number of topics, such as the human being, free choice, and virtue. Austin finds that by following Aquinas's lead in this way, not only will he be able to offer a full and systematic account of Aquinas on virtue, but in the process he will be able to set up and investigate key questions and problems, such as those concerning the distinction [End Page 488] and increase of virtue. It also allows Austin to make clear the metaphysical bases of Aquinas's theory of virtue as well as its theological character. The result is an admirable and well-researched systematic treatment of Aquinas on virtue. Some scholars will object to Austin's decision to reorganize Aquinas's ideas rather than to present them in the way and order in which Aquinas did himself. However, Austin's presentation hardly spoils Aquinas's pedagogy; instead, he enables the contemporary reader to take advantage of it. Aquinas's own students, approaching his texts with an impressive background in Aristotelian scholarship, biblical exegesis, and Scholastic training, would have—maybe—been able to follow his arguments as he wrote them. Not so the contemporary student, who will inevitably miss, or misunderstand, a great deal of what Aquinas writes in the Summa theologiae or the disputed questions De malo. A careful, systematic book such as this one supplies contemporary readers with adequate background to make their way through this unfamiliar territory, understand it...

Invincible Ignorance and the Americas: Why and How the Salamancan Theologians Made Use of a Medieval Notion

Invincible ignorance is defined as the state in which one cannot overcome his ignorance, despite one’s utmost diligence, and hence cannot be blamed for the acts resulting from that circumstance. It is particularly relevant with regard to law and principles that one is bound to know. The main problem with the admission that such a state may occur results from the difficulty of assessing the subjective element present in such a state: How can we know that one applied his diligence to the utmost extent? This notion emerged in the 12th century. But while medieval theologians elaborated such a notion, they nonetheless stressed that in reality no one could be guiltlessly ignorant of natural and divine law. The arrival of the Spaniards to the Americas triggered the awareness that entire nations could, in fact, be invincibly ignorant of Christianity. The Spanish theologians then started to use this notion, admitting the existence of invincible ignorance of some principles of divine and natural law. Their argumentative strategy rested on emphasising the subjective element of invincible ignorance. In this article, I examine Vitoria’s Relectio de Indis against the medieval doctrinal background. I also analyse Vitoria’s, Domingo de Soto’s and Juan Gil de Nava’s unedited lectures on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae as well as the works by Matias de Paz, Juan Lopez de Palacios Rubios, Juan de Celaya and Bartolome de Las Casas.

Sobre el conocimiento que el alma tiene de sí en santo Tomás de Aquino. Cierto paralelo con Edith Stein

 From the consideration of the importance that the thomist doctrine had in the development of the philosophical thought of Edith Stein The treatment that St. Thomas Aquinas makes of the knowledge that the soul has of itself seems to us intimately related to the theme: the ipseidad in Edith Stein. Our hypothesis is that although they differ in their treatment and in the expression of the elements in play, their main theses are, in our opinion, fundamentally coincidental. From the analysis of certain texts of the Angelic Doctor, mainly from his works De veritate and the Summa Theologica, we will try to highlight his fundamental elements, the distinctions that he uses to finally make a certain parallel with some of Edith's texts. Stein. And so, let's see that the notions of intelligence and its operations are central, self-consciousness, presence, act and power, existential or direct knowledge of the soul as existing versus habitual or indirect knowledge of the essence of the soul, degrees of depth in the experience

Spiritualis Uterus: The Question of Forced Baptism and Thomas Aquinas's Defense of Jewish Parental Rights

Spiritualis Uterus:The Question of Forced Baptism and Thomas Aquinas's Defense of Jewish Parental Rights Matthew A. Tapie1 On June 23, 1858, Pope Pius IX ordered police of the Papal States to remove a six-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, from his home, in Bologna. Edgardo had been secretly baptized by his Christian housekeeper after allegedly falling ill as an infant. Since the law of the Papal States required that a person baptized must be raised Catholic, Inquisition authorities forcibly removed Edgardo from his parents' home and transported him to Rome in order that he receive a Christian upbringing.2 'Worldwide protests followed. Thousands of people—from American protesters to the French emperor Napoleon III—demanded the child's return.'3 Along with assurances that the boy would be well taken care of, Pius IX insisted, Non possumus. Controversy over the Mortara affair in the United States emerged once more, in January 2018, with the publication of Dominican theologian Romanus Cessario's essay defending Pius IX's decision.4 In order to forestall anti-Catholic sentiment in reaction to an upcoming film based on David Kertzer's 1997 book on the Mortara case, Cessario argues that the separation of Edgardo from his Jewish parents is what the current Code of Canon Law, and Thomas Aquinas's theology of baptism, [End Page 289] required.5 If one accepts the Catholic Church's teaching on the efficacy of baptism, Pius IX's decision is not only just, it is an act of piety, and strength. In Cessario's view, one must look beyond the human pathos of the Mortara case to see that what was required by the law of the Church, and the Papal States, concerned the deeper realities of the power and permanence of baptism, and the logical, political consequences of receiving this sacrament. Cessario's argument is as follows:6 1. An infant in danger of death can be baptized licitly even against the will of non-Catholic parents. Cessario cites the 1983 Codex iuris canonici 868, and explains that § 2 affirms that 'an infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of their parents.' 2. Baptism seals a person with an indelible spiritual mark that configures a person to Christ. 3. The law of the Church and the civil law of the Papal States require that legitimately baptized children receive a Catholic education (expressed today in the Codex iuris canonici 868 § 2). 4. Therefore, Pius IX was right to relocate Edgardo from his family and raise him Catholic. Cessario appeals to Aquinas's theology of baptism in the second premise of his argument but does not cite to a text. He is likely referring to Aquinas's discussion of baptism in the Tertia Pars of the Summa theologiae. For Cessario, if one conceives of the Mortara case as a kidnapping, one has fallen victim to modern indifference to theological claims, and anti-Catholic prejudice.7 Outraged scholars and writers criticized Cessario's essay. Some charged that the essay damaged Catholic-Jewish relations.8 Others criticized theological aspects of Cessario's argument, and [End Page 290] a few of these authors cited Aquinas's teaching against forced baptism of Jewish children.9 Cessario and his critics appeal to Aquinas's teaching to argue for and against Pius IX's decision to remove Edgardo Mortara. However, this contemporary debate has overlooked the fact that the question of Aquinas's teaching on forced baptism was at the center of a rather extensive theological exchange between the Mortara family, and the Vatican's papal counsel, in 1858. Soon after Edgardo was abducted, the Mortara family, with the assistance of the Jewish community in Rome, submitted a formal document (referred to as Pro-memoria and Syllabus) that argued that the child must be returned because the Church, according to Aquinas, prohibits baptizing children of unbelievers without the consent of their parents. The Mortara family's document appealed to the same teachings in Aquinas cited by critics of Cessario. Yet the Vatican's refutation also appealed to Aquinas's teaching in order to defend the decision to separate...

The Infused Science of Christ

The Infused Science of Christ Thomas Joseph White O.P. Thomas Aquinas's theory of the knowledge of Christ may seem to have little relevance for modern historical-critical study of the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.1 In his mature work, represented emblematically by the third part of the Summa theologiae, Aquinas presents the knowledge of Christ in a fourfold descending perspective from the highest forms of knowledge to the most basic. He begins from the divine wisdom that Christ possesses as God and then examines three modes of human knowledge: the immediate vision of God that Christ possesses in his human soul, the infused science that Jesus possesses as the most perfect of the prophets, and the acquired knowledge that Christ possesses as man in virtue of the human nature that he shares with us.2 Aquinas's account stems originally from the Chalcedonian principles of Christological doctrine. The approach might be broadly characterized as a form of "descending Christology" insofar as the deity and divine wisdom of the Lord are presupposed and his human acquired knowledge is affirmed just insofar as he is essentially human. Meanwhile, the beatific vision and infused science of Christ are interpreted as graces given to his human nature in view of his human actions on behalf of our salvation. It is due to his beatific vision and his infused prophetic knowledge, for example, that Christ as man is able to [End Page 617] know perfectly who he is as the Son of God and who the Father and the Holy Spirit are so as to reveal them to us and to interpret Scripture authoritatively, foretelling of his own Passion and resurrection prophetically and instituting the Church and the sacraments effectively. In methodological contrast, the modern historical-critical study of the figure of Jesus of Nazareth makes use of a number of normative principles that stem from the Enlightenment era, among them a presupposition of the historical homogeneity of natural causes. That is to say, the causes of human experience and consciousness for all persons at the time of Jesus (including Jesus himself) should be understood against the backdrop of and in continuity with the language, concepts, and symbols of Second Temple Judaism.3 These in turn should be understood in continuity with the predictable natural occurrences and causes that we experience in the modern scientific era. So, for example, apocalyptic elements in the culture of the Judaism of the time of Jesus should be employed to explain Jesus's immanent expectation of the "kingdom of God," but this need not mean that there is any such thing as an eschatological occurrence in reality.4 Likewise, the New Testament portraits of the figure of Jesus should be understood as human literary artifacts and explained in light of their cultural setting, the theological vantage points of their editors, and their intended uses for historically situated human communities.5 This need not imply that they are inspired or that the portraits of Christ that they present must correspond to who Jesus of Nazareth really was ontologically. It follows from this that the portrait of Christ found in the Gospels might be very different from the "real" Jesus of history. We might notice the contrasts these two methodological approaches represent. If Aquinas's presentation of the infused science of Christ seems to bespeak a knowledge derived immediately from God, and [End Page 618] therefore from "outside of time," the modern study of Jesus tends to construe his consciousness by ascetic reference uniquely to the immanent and limited horizon of his age. Pressed toward extremes, one account readily emphasizes the divine origin of Christ's message and its universality for all ages but does so to the potential exclusion of his historical particularity as a first-century Jew, while the other account seeks to identify the historically particular and limited character of Jesus's aims and self-understanding within the context of Second Temple Judaism but does so to the exclusion of his divine origin and soteriological intensions, which are universal in scope. In this essay, however, I will argue that these two approaches, while really distinct, need not be construed in opposition to one another...

“He Fathers-Forth Whose Beauty Is Past Change,” but “Who Knows How?”: Evolution and Divine Exemplarity

“He Fathers-Forth Whose Beauty Is Past Change,” but “Who Knows How?”:Evolution and Divine Exemplarity Andrew Davison Writing rapidly in pencil in 1842, Charles Darwin produced a sketch of ideas that would grow to become his The Origin of Species.1 Much that would revolutionize our understanding of biology was already present, not least his conclusion that “specific forms are not immutable.”2 In this article, I consider how that mutability bears upon the theological conviction that every creature is related to God as a likeness to its exemplar, drawing particularly on the work of Thomas Aquinas. It is clear from a letter dated January 11 of 1844 that Darwin saw his insight as a disruptive one, writing to his friend Joseph Dalton Hooker that “I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.”3 Theologians before Darwin had little reason to doubt that species, or kinds, were fixed and stable, created by God alongside one another at the beginning. Aquinas expresses such assumptions, writing that, in nature, “like is produced from like,” proceeding right back to “the first production of corporeal creatures,” when “the corporeal forms [End Page 1067] that bodies had … came immediately from God.”4 In the same section of the Summa theologiae, however, we find the suggestion of a dynamism in relation to specific kinds that we should also consider.5 At the very least, Aquinas was willing to entertain that the earth was only gradually populated with living things, with God having first created the fixed forms of organisms as “seeds” that were later realized, not all at once.6 In his discussion of the work of the third day, Aquinas notes two contrasting Patristic perspectives without choosing one over the other. One looks more like what we might imagine as the classic pre-Darwinian view: “The first constitution of species belongs to the work of the six days, but the reproduction among them of like from like, [belongs] to the [subsequent] government of the universe.” The alternative perspective is of creatures having been produced only latently to start with, in their underlying causes: “The earth is said to have then produced plants and trees in their causes, that is, it received then the power to produce them…. They were not produced in act on the third day, but in their causes only.”7 Even according to that second perspective God ceased from making new sorts of things after the six days of creation,8 although even that rule admits partial exceptions, such as putrefaction and [End Page 1068] hybridization, of which Aquinas writes about “species, also, that are new, if any such appear.” He goes on to provide examples: “Animals, and perhaps even new species of animals, are produced by putrefaction,” and “animals of new kinds arise occasionally from the connection of individuals belonging to different species, as the mule is the offspring of an ass and a mare.”9 Here, effects (such as the mule) are manifested that nonetheless “existed previously” in causes produced “in the works of the six days.” Overall, then, we encounter a balance between some admission of novelty in later history and the sense of an unfolding of what was conferred “causally” beforehand. Both novelty and unfolding are found in a discussion in De potentia: “The universe in its beginning was perfect as regards the species of things, but not as regards all individuals: or [it was perfect] as regards nature’s causes from which afterwards other things could be propagated, but not as regards all their effects.”10 Approached in terms of species and individuals, the emphasis is on a fixed number of unchanging species, but analysis in terms of causes that unfold in their effects is considerably more open to an evolutionary interpretation and to developing species. In summary, the least evolutionary perspective in Aquinas aligns with his statement that “the first members of the species were immediately created by God, such as the first man, the first lion, and so forth.”11 Divine exemplarity would then come through the initial creation of the first examples: “[At] the first production of corporeal...