studies in Christian Ethics 19.

3 (2006) 339-356
DOI: 10.1177/0953946806071557
C / ^ "C* © 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks CA and New Delhi)
http: // SCE.sagepub.com

THE WAY OF AQUINAS:

ITS IMPORTANCE FOR
MORAL THEOLOGY
D. Stephen Long
Garrett Evangelical Seminary, 2121 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60201, USA
s-long(§garrettedu

Abstract
This essay argues that, for Thomas Aquinas, nature always points in the
direction of Christ. Therefore, moral theologies that proceed by way of
nature in order to move beyond the confines of confessional traditions fail
to read Aquinas well. Because Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity, the
exemplar in whom all things are made, nature cannot be a more universal
category than Christology. Karl Barth critiqued Roman Catholic moral
theology for failing to honour this essential theological point, wrongly
attributing the error to Aquinas. However, many contemporary Catholic
moral theologians have adopted the very understanding of nature Barth
critiques, and are using Thomas to do so. This loses the ecumenical
character of Aquinas's work.
Keywords
Anatogia entis, Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, ecumenism, moral
theology, natural theology, nature and grace

T homism continues to divide CathoUc from Protestant theology. This

is unfortunate, because it is unnecessary. Yet many contemporary
Catholic theologians use the work of Aquinas to differentiate their
understanding of the relation between nature (or reason) and grace
(or faith) from Protestantism. Catholicism supposedly begins with
nature rather than grace in thinking about philosophy, morals,
economics and polifics. Some Catholic thinkers find this an advantage
over Protestantism because it offers criteria external to the Chrisfian
tradition by which it makes alliances across traditional boundaries.
Such alliances are thought to be impossible if we cannot begin with a

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common understanding of being or nature. What confuses Protestants

about this position is how traditionally Roman Catholic it is, at least
traditional since the counter-Reformation when Catholicism defined
itself against Protestantism. In other words, traditional Catholic
thought is superior to Protestant thought because it has a higher view
of natural reason that does not depend upon traditional Catholicism.
This produces the odd consequence that 'nature' rather than 'faith'
divides us. We can agree on basic doctrinal matters, but still not find
unity because we Protestants have an insufficient ground for those
doctrinal matters in nature. Thomas Aquinas is the theologian used
to ground faith in nature in order to demonstrate Catholicism's
superiority. In this essay, I hope first to explain how Catholic
thought continues to use Thomas as a wedge against Protestantism's
Christocentrism. Then I will offer a Christological reading of Aquinas
that should make it more difficult, if not impossible, to draw upon
Aquinas in order to sustain a Catholic distinctiveness against
Protestantism by finding nature rather than Christ the source of moral,
philosophical and dogmatic theology.' Aquinas's understanding of
nature cannot be had without his Christology and this is evident in
how he relates natural reason and faith, the two natures of Christ, and
our use of language about God. I will conclude with some refiections
on the shape of moral theology after we have reformed a Tridentine
separafion of nature from Christology. This reform will include a more
robust account of nature among Protestants as well as a more thorough
rethinking of Thomas's Christo-logic for Catholic moral thought.

Wedge Thomism: Analogia entis as Nature Religion

If Catholicism sets forth its moral theology, its knowledge of God,
its epistemology and even doctrine in terms of an analogia entis that
prioritises nature over faith, then as Barth reminded us, no alliance can
be made between Protestant and Catholic theology. The only reason I
see for remaining Protestant is precisely the reason Karl Barth named
when he wrote,
I can see no third alternative between that exploitation of the analogia
entis which is legitimate only on the basis of Roman Catholicism,
between the greatness and misery of a so-called natural knowledge of
God in the sense of the Vaticanum, and a Protestant theology which
draws from its own source, which stands on its own feet, and which is
finally liberated from this secular misery. Hence I have no option but
to say No at this point. I regard the analogia entis as the invention of the
Antichrist, and I believe that because of it it is impossible ever to become
a Roman Catholic, all other reasons for not doing so being to my mind
short-sighted and trivial.^
' This reading of Aquinas is deeply indebted to Henri de Lubac.
^ Karl Barth, trans. G. W. Bromiley, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of Cod
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), p. xiii.

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Barth thought Catholicism proceeded by a formal analogy which

began with nature or being and then had to read the faith within it.
This leads to a Catholic legitimation of secularism because politics
and economics are grounded in a nature not construed under the
Lordship of Christ. Politics, economics and ethics proceed on the basis
of a nature understood outside the realm of Christ.
Barth saw the analogia entis not merely as a material matter — one
peculiar dogma — that easily could be otherwise in Roman Catholic
thought. If it were just a material dogma, it would not be church
dividing for then all of Catholicism would not depend upon it. But
it was more than this; it functioned as a formal principle affecting
the entirety of Catholicism.^ Nature (or being) rendered intelligible
Christology, and thus Catholicism 'laid hands' on God and made Him
conform to our standards. The problem with the analogia entis is a
Christological problem. Whenever Catholic theologians can claim to
begin with nature rather than grace, or when they find the category
of natural reason more universal than that of faith, they are making
tacit claims about Christ's two natures; claims that betray Christian
orthodoxy. Humanity and divinity are set in opposition to each other
such that one is had without the other. Rather than discovering both
in Christ, we already know 'nature' and use it to understand divinity.
Barth found this version of an analogia entis in Thomism, but here he
was wrong. Thomas never set nature and Christology in opposition,
although much of post-Tridentine Catholicism did, as does much of
contemporary Catholic theology.**
Much of Roman Catholic and Protestant theology after Barth sought
a way beyond the either-or he laid out in his 1932 preface to the Church
Dogmatics. Both sides attempted to show Barth misrepresented the
analogia entis and thus it need not be a church-dividing issue. We need
not choose between nature or being and Christology.^ But that version
of the analogia entis Barth critiqued has returned among significant
Catholic thinkers working today, even though they make unlikely
allies. We see it in a moral theologian like Jean Porter, as well as in the
theology of Romanus Cessario and in the Catholic philosopher Linda
Zagzebski. It can also be found in a nuanced and qualified way in the
work of Denys Turner.^ All suggest an account of nature or reason

^ Hans urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, trans. Edward T. Oakes sj (San
Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1992), p. 52.
•* As Barth rightly noted, this was (and is) the dominant motif in liberal Protestantism
as well.
' I think here of the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, David
Schindler, David Burrell, Gustavo Gutierrez, Victor Preller, George Lindbeck, Stanley
Hauerwas, Eugene Rogers, John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock as well as those
influenced by them and especially their interpretation of Aquinas.
^ If it were not for the fact that he so greatly distances his work from Barth, the
nouvelle theologie and John Milbank, it might be read as something other than what
Bath protested against. Here I think the problem is less with Turner's interesting

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that bears a striking resemblance to the 'greatness and misery of a

so-called natural knowledge of God in the sense of the Vaticanum'.
For it requires that we choose, as Porter seems to suggest, between
starting with nature or Christology. It assumes that if we start with
the latter we have limited the universal scope of our work and cannot
have an adequate doctrine of nature. Then we will not be able to have
conversation outside our tradition.
For Porter, Thomas provides ethics with the 'motif of the goodness
of the natural, broadly understood'.^ This allows for criteria 'external'
to the Christian tradition by which moral action can be assessed.*
Porter argues that such an account of the goodness of nature can
bring together diverse theological ethicists like Outka, Gustafson,
Grisez, Firmis and possibly even O'Donovan into a 'unified moral
theory'. But because Stanley Hauerwas begins theological ethics
with Jesus Christ, his work cannot participate in this unification. His
work is 'characterized by an uncompromising denial' of the need
for an 'interpretation of the Christian moral tradition' that 'include
some criteria that are external to that tradition'.' Such an approach
constrains moral options. For Porter, Aquinas provides a more
thorough understanding of moral action because his Christology
does not limit his moral teaching.
This criticism suggests that because Hauerwas begins Christian
ethics with Jesus, he cannot have an adequate account of nature, and
does not begin where Aquinas begins. This difference between Porter
and Hauerwas, as set forth by Porter, reflects a traditional Catholic/
Protestant division that runs from the Council of Trent to at least
Vatican II. As Leo XIII set forth in his encyclical 'On the Restoration of
Christian Philosophy According to the Mind of St Thomas Aquinas',
the 'wedge' theologian between Catholics and Protestants on the role
of nature is Thomas Aquinas. In that encyclical Leo never intended
to separate Christian doctrine from philosophy; in fact his call for the
recovery of Aquinas as the philosopher of reason stated that human
reason 'shows us the truth about the Church instituted by Christ'.^"
But Leonine Thomism became the impetus for an understanding of
Aquinas that made him the defender of natural reason against modem
scepticism."

development of Vatican I's anaiogia entis, and more with his interpretation of those
from whom he distances his work.
' Jean Porter, The Recovery of Virtue: The Reievance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics
(Philadelphia, PA: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), p. 27.
« Ibid., p. 28.
' Ibid.
'" Encyclical of Leo XIII in St Thomas Aquinas's Summa (Westminster, MD: Christian
Classics, 1948), p. xi.
" Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing,
2002), pp. 17-19, 37-39.

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Porter develops a similar Catholic theme when she states, 'Aquinas'

theory of morality is grounded in a theory of the human good that
gives content to the fundamental norms of love of neighbor and
nonmalificence and provides criteria by which to evaluate the
goodness both of actions and states of character'.'^ This means
that, unlike Hauerwas's Christ-centred ethics, Aquinas provides
criteria that can be used to assess moral actions of those outside the
Christian tradition without presuming the Christian tradition in
such an assessment.'^ Porter proceeds to offer us this more unified
theory of morality through a 'reconstruction of the more strictly
philosophical components of [Aquinas's] theory' that 'brackets' out
its 'more properly theological components'.'" For Porter, Aquinas's
philosophy can be distinguished from his theology. His philosophy
provides a unified basis for evaluating moral action inside and outside
Christian faith.
Tempting reasons exist for beginning with natural reason alone.
If we begin theology with Christology how will we be able to make
common cause with those outside our tradition? In a world where
sectarian differences issue forth in violent political contests, finding
common ground outside our traditions seems to be a pressing political
matter. This concern animates Denys Turner's defence of Vatican I's
claim for a natural knowledge of the existence of God, which he also
calls 'my Thomas of rational proof. He defends it for two reasons.
The first is that it provides the western Christian tradition with an
alternative to Augustinianism. He states his second reason as, 'I want
to be able to talk and debated without prejudice with Jews and Muslims
about God'.'^ Vatican I's recognition of a natural demonstration for
the existence of God allows for this kind of interfaith conversation
rather than the fideism of Barthiarusm, radical orthodoxy and the
nouvelle theologie.
Likewise, Linda Zagzebski assumes that much of modem Reformed
epistemology is a species of fideism that doesn't take adequately into
account natural reason. A version of the analogia entis separates her
Catholic epistemology from a Reformed one. The difference is not
so much that one has an account of 'natural reason' and the other
does not, but that it provides the 'foundation' upon which Catholic
philosophy and theology build. Thus Zagzebski writes:
A deep respect for natural theology is, of course, an important part of
the Catholic tradition, and the efficacy of natural reason in obtaining

'^ Porter, The Recovery of Virtue, p. 31.

" Hauerwas is more than willing to assess human actions outside the Christian
tradition, but he does so based on means intrinsic to the Christian faith.
" Porter, The Recovery of Virtue, p. 32.
'^ Denys Turner, Reason, Faith and the Existence of God (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), pp. xi-xii.

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religious knowledge has been forcefully and repeatedly stated in

official documents of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, Catholic
scholarship long accepted the idea that revealed theology rests on
natural theology, which is to say, the work of philosophers, and the
preeminent philosophy was that of Thomas Aquinas.'*"
Is this Catholic teaching? If it is, Barth did not caricature the
analogia entis. In seeking to avoid fideism, Zagzebski restates Barth's
understanding of the formal principle in Catholicism.
In his essay, 'Twofold Order of Knowledge', Romanus Cessario
does the same. He makes the same formal claim as Porter and, to
some extent. Turner and Zagzebski, but with different material
implications. Whereas for them the analogia entis provides the means
for alliances across confessional boundaries, for Cessario it provides
the means by which we can be assured that some of Catholicism's
more controversial teachings are not fideistic but grounded in the way
the world really is. He states, 'Realist philosophy and metaphysics
provide an absolutely indispensable foundation for the appropriation
of sacred truth and in the development of both systematic and moral
theology'."' Once again natural reason provides the foundation upon
which both moral and systematic theology can build. In fact, Cessario
suggests that we would not be able to make sense of the Incarnation
if we do not follow this analogy of being.
Often it is proposed that the fall has so undermined the epistemic
reliability of human reason as to vitiate the capacity to know absolutely.
It is thought that one may somehow 'bracket' the issue of metaphysical
objectivity and then continue to use reason within theological discourse
as though truth and logic were sufficiently addressed merely by
pointing to the data of revelation and subsequently interpreting it
according to any given categories whatsoever.... Frankly, what is it
that the Second Person of the Trinity assumed if not human nature?
And if human nature is unintelligible in its own right, what possible
sense can be given to the doctrine of the incarnation of the Word? If
being is unintelligible, then the revelation of God — who is perfect
being — will be perfectly unintelligible.'*
In other words, we know human nature absolutely without the
illumination of revelation. Because we know it, we can know Christ as
God. Cessario provides the most unreformed statement of a Catholic
analogia entis as a formal principle upon which all else depends.
Metaphysical objectivism allows us to understand Jesus and not vice

"• Linda Zagzebski, Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), p. 3.
" In Paul Griffith and Reinhard Hutter, Reason and the Reasons of Faith (London: T&T
Clark International, 2005), p. 328.
" Ibid., p. 330.

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versa. We know Jesus primarily because of what we know outside of

him, to which he conforms.
Contemporary Catholic theology sets forth moral theology (Porter),
knowledge of God (Turner), epistemology (Zagzebski) and even
doctrine (Cessario) based on what we first know via natural reason.
For some this provides the possibility of moral and political action
that makes common alliances outside of the Catholic tradition without
assuming that tradition. For others it means that a moral teaching
such as Catholicism's prohibition against artificial contraception is not
a peculiar Catholic practice of faith, but a universal norm of reason
based on what we know absolutely about what it means to be human
outside of the faith itself. Although the material uses differ, all these
positions assume the same formal principle of an analogia entis.
This version of an analogia entis leads Protestant theologians to be
suspicious that some teachings in Roman Catholic moral theology
have more to do with clinging to claims about nature outside of the
faith than they do with the unity of the faith we should share in Jesus.
The tenacity by which Catholic moral theology clings to its denial of
artificial contraception in its official teachings, as well as the denial
of the ordination of women, may have more to do with Catholic
theology's concern to maintain this analogia entis than with finding
unity in Christ. However, even those Catholic moral theologies that
would advocate the overturning of these teachings, such as some
proportionalists do, do so more because of a debate internal to the
Roman Catholic analogia entis than any attempt to move beyond it."
What Porter, Turner, Zagzebski and Cessario share in common is
an attachment to Aquinas as the philosopher of nature. But is this
the way of Aquinas? In the second part of this essay I want to offer
a different reading of Aquinas, one that would not allow for such a
moral theology that begins with a sharp distinction between nature
and Christology. Thomas cannot provide any basis for a bifurcation
between them. If this reading of Aquinas were correct, it would have
to qualify any account of Catholic theology that proceeds based on an
analogy of being as Barth understood it. Because Barth was wrong,
the work of Porter, Turner, Zagzebski and Cessario would have to be
qualified — at least inasmuch as they draw upon Aquinas to ground
theology and ethics in something other than Christology. If Barth was
correct, their work stands unqualified, but any possible unification
of Protestant and Catholic theology would remain jeopardised. This
would be a strange conclusion to a theological position that seeks to
make alliances outside of its own tradition.

" As I argued in The Goodness of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2001), I think
John Paul II's Veritatis splendor was an excellent articulation of a Roman Catholic moral
theology that did not bring Jesus into the overarching system of the analogia entis. I
also think that is true of his fides et ratio.

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The Ways of Aquinas, the Way of Christ

Does Thomas begin with nature and read Christology within it?
Can his philosophy be separated from his theology and the former
be made a foundation for the latter? Joseph Incandela recognises an
important hermeneutical principle in reading Thomas that challenges
any such interpretation of Aquinas. He relates Thomas's philosophical
reasoning on the five ways (viae) to the way {via) Jesus is as the truth
at key points in the Summa?" Much like Wittgenstein shows the limits
of philosophical speech so that our lives can address that which truly
matters, so Aquinas shows the limits of what philosophy (natural
reason) accomplishes in its way to God so that the five ways (quinque
viae) philosophy generates become read within the context of the
'way' (via) which Christ is. They only work when supplemented
by his Christology. If we do not read the prima pars in light of the
Christology in the tertia pars (as well as the implicit and explicit
Christology throughout the prima and secunda pars) we will have
failed to read Thomas well. T"homas himself explicitly laid out the
way of Jesus as that which renders his work intelligible when he laid
out the structure of the Summa.
In the prologue to question two in the prima pars Thomas sets forth
the basic structure of his Summa. He states that the 'principalis intentio'
(principal intention) of sacred doctrine is knowledge of C!od, not only
as God is in God's self, but also as God is the 'principium rerum et
finis earum' (the beginning and end of things), especially of rational
creatures. For this reason, the Summa is laid out in three parts. The
first part treats of God. The second part treats of the movement of
rational creatures to God and the third part treats of Christ who as
'homo' is our way of intending God. Thomas writes that this third
part is 'de christo, qui, secundum quod homo, via est nobis tendendi in
deum' (Of Christ who as man is the way of our tending to God). This
expression should not be lost when reading through the first part of
the Summa. The 'via,' which Christ is in our tending to God, frames
the discussion of the five 'viae' which follow upon this prologue. The
five 'viae' of the prima pars point to, and depend upon, the one 'via'
who is Christ. We can speak of both the five ways and the one way
without explicitly speaking of each at the same time, but ultimately,
they carmot be separated. For instance, the argument for God based
on degrees of perfection tacitly assumes the excess that Jesus himself
is as both truly homo and truly God. This provides warrant for using
creaturely means such as language to speak of that which always

™ He cites the prologue to question 2 of the prima pars and the prologue to the tertia
pars. See Joseph Incandela's 'An Augustinian Reading of Aquinas and Wittgenstein',
in Jeffrey Stout and Robert MacSwain (eds.). Grammar and Grace: Reformulations of
Aquinas and Wittgenstein (London: SCM Press, 2004), p. 32.

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exceeds speech — God. Or, to put it another way, the hypostatic union
makes possible a participation in God's simplicity by that which is
composite (i.e. creature). Only this could truly account for perfection.
Likewise, if we don't recall the discussion of the prima pars when we
read through the Christological questions in the tertia pars, they will
lose their poignancy. The Christological developments in the tertia
pars render intelligible the articles on God's 'attributes' in the prima
pars, and the language Thomas develops to speak of God in the prima
pars point to the climax of our tending toward God as it comes to us
in Christ who is the 'way' to God.

The Ways of Aquinas, the Way of Christ: Natural Reason and Faith
Thomas never divided 'nature' and Christology, philosophy and
theology or reason and faith such that they offered two sets of distinct
norms. This was not possible for him because as the Second Person
of the Trinity, Christ is the Wisdom in which, through which and
toward which all creation exists. He could not have countenanced
the possibility that begirming moral theology with Christology, as he
unquestionably did, meant any kind of limitation on speaking about
nature. Christ is the Image of God and all creation is made in and
toward that image. This means that all desire can ultimately be ordered
toward its true end, for this end is also the source and way of that
desire. For this reason, I Hnd uncompelling post-Tridentine Catholic
accounts of the relationship between nature and grace, or philosophy
and theology, which separate them too finely as we saw in Porter,
Turner, Zagzebski and Cessario. They give to natural reason a power
that requires philosophy to exceed its limits. It renders intelligible
theology rather than vice versa. As John Paul II taught, philosophy
must be open to receive something from outside itself if it is to be truly
natural reason.^' As long as philosophy must be open to this kind of
reception, it cannot be the foundation upon which revealed theology
works. This helps us imderstand why Thomas extolled the knowledge
of the 'milkmaid', who in knowing Jesus knew more than Aristotle. But
this does not entail fideism, for 'nature' does bear witness to the way
and destination Jesus is. Does this mean that Reformed epistemology
is correct that belief in God is 'properly basic' and does not need
legitimation by natural reason? Or is Catholic epistemology correct

^' In Fides et ratio, John Paul II wrote, 'It follows that faith and reason cannot be
separated without at the same time destroying the human capacity for gaining
an appropriate knowledge of the world, God and itself. And in explaining the
importance of Aquinas for setting forth the harmony between faith and reason, John
Paul II stated, 'Illumined by the light of faith, reason is rescued from the frailty and
limitation that arise from sin and inevitably discovers the courage which it needs to
life it up to the knowledge of the mystery of the One and Triune God'. Laurence Paul
Hemming and Susan Frank Parsons (eds.). Restoring Faith in Reason (London: SCM
Press, 2002), pp. 33 and 71.

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 STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS

that natural reason provides a foundation for revealed theology? Does

this mean Protestants who begin moral theology with Christology
more closely resemble the way of Aquinas than Catholics who start
with nature?
If we read Aquinas's five ways as well as his moral teaching within
the context of the way of Jesus, then this debate, at least when it
comes to Aquinas, would be altogether mistaken. The two realms of
nature and grace would be less like a ground and something added
to it and more like a palimpset where, depending upon the aspect by
which one looks, one can sometimes see nature, sometimes grace and
sometimes both nearly indistinguishable. A. N. Williams summarises
this nicely in explaining how the natural and supernatural virtues
work in Aquinas for our deification.
... the realms of nature and the supernatural are portrayed as quite
distinct in view of what is possible in each. Yet from the perspective
of how persons attain the ends of either, the two realms overlap
completely. Grace ... does not add to the human person by creating
new faculties and thus changing essentially the structure of the human
person but by extending the range of possibility of those faculties the
person already possesses. Grace is both foreign to us, in the sense that
its effect lies beyond the attainment of our nature itseif, and yet natural
to us in that it does not violate or alter the composition of our nature,
working instead through our nature.^
Grace presupposes, perfects, orders and corrects nature. We must keep
this in mind in order to read Aquinas well. Aquinas carmot be read
well by bracketing out his Christology. If we do that, we will not be
able to understand nature.
Aquinas begins his Christological development in the tertia pars,
as he began in the prima pars, by insisting on God's simplicity, unity
and perfection. These are less 'attributes' than 'divine names'."
Aquinas states that they can be known by natural reason. Would
this prove Cessario correct? Must we first know what it means to be
human before we can understand what it means for God to assume
human nature? But certainty about what it means to be human
would not help us understand the Incarnation for this immediately
raises a question about it. How can God become human and not be
composite, numerous, mutable and therefore imperfect, that is to say,
not be reduced to a creature? This could occur only if the union of
the incarnate Word so absorbed the humanity of Christ that it was a

" A. N. Williams, The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Paiamas (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 37.
^ Janet Martin Soskice, 'Naming God: A Study in Faith and Reason', in Griffith and
Hutter, Reason and the Reasons of Faith.

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union of nature. In other words, human nature would be changed

into divinity and one nature would result from the union with the
divine Word, which would be itself divine and thus incorporeal.^''
Thomas rejects this possibility. He sides with Chalcedon and argues
that we must confess one Person and two natures, but the two natures
must not be understood as attributing imperfection, corporeality or
composition to divinity.
In this first response to the problem he avoids any monophysitism.
But then the question arises how two natures can be united in one,
which is composite, mutable, imperfect and the other, which is not,
and the former not affect the latter? To take on this problem Aquinas
addresses Nestorianism. Perhaps there is no true union in the Person;
perhaps there is a division of persons? He rejects this option and
argues for a unity of the Person in terms of 'supposita' or 'hypostasis'.^^
The problem he confronts is this: if we have one nature, then we can
maintain God's simplicity and perfection, but at the expense of the
imion of the two natures in the one Person. We lose the ability to speak
of Christ in terms of Chalcedon's 'inconfuse' and 'immutabilite/. One of
the natures will become absorbed into the other and not maintain its
distinct nature; they will become confused with each other or the one
changed into the other. If we do not have a true union in the Person,
we can speak well of Chalcedon's 'inconfuse' and 'immutabiliter', but
we lose the ability to speak well its 'indivise' and 'inseparabiliter'. The
two natures will not be indivisible and inseparable in the union. The
theological issue is to think and speak such that we do not lose any
of Chalcedon's four significations.

The Ways of Aquinas, the Way of Christ: Two Natures in One Person
How can we use the Chalcedonian language, maintaining both the
unity of the two natures (undivided and inseparable) as well as the
distinction between them (unconfused and unchanged)? In other
words how can we continue to speak of Christ as the Second Person
of the Trinity who, as God, could only be 'simple' and at the same time
speak of him as united to humanity, which can only be 'composite'?
Our answer to this question will be at the same time our answer to
the question of the relationship between nature and the supernatural,
reason and faith, and philosophy and theology.
In the fourth question of the tertia pars, after rejecting that the union
is a union of nature and affirming that it is a union of two natures
in one Person, which is at the level of 'hypostasis', Thomas then asks
if this makes Christ composite? And if Christ is composite, then
the Second Person of the Trinity would become what creatures are
— finite, passable, mutable, composite, numerous — all those things

^'' Summa theoiogiae III.2.1.

^' Summa theoiogiae III.2.2-3.

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 STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS

Aquinas denied belonging to divinity in the opening questions to the

prima pars. Nature would provide the means to define divinity. He
begins the fourth question by stating what we might assume would
be the correct answer: 'it would seem that the person of Christ would
not be composite for the person of Christ is none other than the
hypostasis of the Word, and in the Word there is no other person and
nature'. Thomas allows for the truth in this, and also follows John of
Damascene, admitting a certain kind of 'composition' in Jesus Christ.
He states, 'the Person or hypostasis of Christ can be considered in two
ways'. The first is 'secundum id quod est in se' (according to that which
it is in itself.) The second is 'secundum rationem personae vel hypostasis,
ad quam pertinent subsistere in aliqua natura' (according to the 'ratio'
of the Person or hypostasis, to which it belongs to subsist in some
nature). He concludes that although there is only one subsistens, there
is yet 'one and another ratio substendi'. Only with respect to the latter
can we properly speak of a 'composite person'. And we can do this
'inasmuch as the unum subsists duobus'.^^ This Christo-logic provides
the answer as to how Thomas relates nature and the supernatural (and
thus also reason and faith, philosophy and theology).
As He is in Himself, in his esse, Christ's hypostasis is divine and the
relationship in only in the divine Word. This is his hypostasis in its esse.
But in its 'ratio' there is 'one and another substendi', which would be
the divine and the human. Only in the latter can we speak of Christ as
'composite'. This gives us the logic to Christianity because it assumes
that in terms of a 'ratio' we can begin with humanity, which is all we
can begin with as finite creatures (nature), and under the aspect of
the human in this unique hypostatic relation we can indeed make
'inference across incommensurables'; we can intend God, not because
we can make such inferences in general, but rather because in this unique
relationship of the two natures we can 'see' under the aspect of the human
what is invisible, the aspect of the divine. For these two aspects can only
be distinguished according to a 'ratio' and not according to the 'esse',
which is the One Person, Jesus Christ.
The logic of the Incarnation then does not assume the human must
be 'negated' for the divine to appear. The human does not occlude
a divine vision; it enables it in that we can see in the concretion of
the One Person both human and divine natures at the same time.
This would reform certain Barthian 'dialectical' readings of the two
natures. But neither could we ever consider that beginning with nature
somehow gives us a more universal starting point than beginning
with faith, for the human and divine are both always present in
the One Person. This will require a reform of the traditional post-
Tridentine Catholic construal of grace and nature along the lines of a
more orthodox Christology. This rules out beginning theology with

^' Summa theologiae IV.

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either nature or grace for in Christ we always have both at the same
time. All that is creature becomes a means toward a vision of God.
This makes possible absorption of the world into the Holy Scripture
and, even more importantly, a participation of creatureliness in God.
Jesus is first and foremost the 'way' (via), whose Risen flesh provides
the means for all that is created to participate in his body and thus be
renewed and restored in God. Creatures do not become something
other than creature to find their way to God; they do so precisely as
creatures. This is what allows Thomas to speak of God.

The Ways of Aquinas, the Way of Christ: Christology as the Basis for
Language about God
Based on this Christo-logic, Thomas develops a rich theological use
of language where what is signified differs from how it is signified,
but the how participates in the what in such a way that an excess is
present in the mode of signifying which allows that mode to do more
than it could otherwise do. The similarity between Thomas's use of
language and his understanding of the Incarnation bear too much
similarity to think this is more than coincidental. We do not know God
directly or immediately. We only know God through creatures. But,
as Thomas emphasises in the first few questions of the prima pars, this
creates a problem because the language we use of God — simplicity,
perfection, goodness, infinity, immutability, eternity and unity — tell
us what God is not; God is not creature. So how can 'creatures', which
is what language is, speak of that which is completely other than what
they are? How can that which is not God signify God?
To answer this question, we need to begin with Aristotle's semantic
triangle for Thomas develops it to set forth his understanding of
signification.^^ Aristotle wrote, 'Words spoken are symbols or signs of
affections or impressions of the soul (EV xfj ijJiJxti 3ta9r|[xdTcov avu^oXa);
written words are the signs of the words spoken. As writing, so also
is speech not the same for all races of men. But the mental affections
themselves (jta0r|[iaTa tfjg ip^xfis)/ of which these words are primarily
signs, are the same for the whole of mankind, as are also the objects
of which those affections are representations or likenesses, images,
copies'.^* As John O'Callaghan notes, Aristotle's semantic triangle
contains two kinds of significations among the three components
that make up language and meaning. Those components are words
(spoken or written), things or objects to which words refer and the
'passions of the soul'. The first form of signification is the 'relation of
a word to a res signified'. But for Aristotle, and for Aquinas, this is

" I am deeply indebted to lohn P. O'Callaghan's Thomist Realism and the Linguistic
Turn for my analysis (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002).
^ Aristotle, On Interpretation, trans. H. P. Cooke, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 16a 5-8, pp. 114-15.

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not the only form of signification. A second form of signification is

the relation of a word to the passion of the soul. While the first form
of signification is always contextual and therefore relative to time
and place, the second is not. But what kind of signification is this
second form?
Another way to put this question is to ask what the 'passions of
the soul', which Cooke translates as 'mental affections', are? Are these
'passions' mental ideas that are in the agent's head? This would be
the kind of Aristotelianism one finds in Locke and the designative
tradition where the semantic triangle is flattened out into a plane
of immanence that goes from simple ideas in the 'mind' to words
to things in the world.^' But once the semantic triangle has this
immanent structure, then it cannot escape scepticism or solipsism.
Scepticism arises because we can never be sure that the mental idea
coheres with the word that expresses it; in fact we seem to know a
priori that it cannot. Thus we know before we speak that all our speech
— given its contextual nature — fails with respect to expressing the
atemporal idea. This inevitably leads to solipsism and leads us into
an epistemological muddle from which there is no escape.^" More
importantly, such an understanding will require the failure of theology.
If this is how language works, we cannot speak reasonably about God.
We will be trapped in epistemology trying to discover how it is we can
speak of what we know we do in fact know, when we carmot account
for how we know what we know. One way out of this muddle is to do
away with the 'passions of the soul' altogether and just post a word-
thing relation as certain kinds of behaviourism, material reductionism
and empiricism tend to do. But these kinds of reductionism have been
unable to explain adequately our use of language.
Another possibility is to see the 'passions of the soul' as something
other than mental representations. Perhaps they are related to
Thomas's doctrine of the 'ideas'.'' The 'ideas' are the forms of things
that can exist apart from things themselves. Thus we have a 'thing'
and we have the 'form' within which the thing exists which is its
'idea'. These forms have two functions. They provide the 'exemplar' of
that which the thing is as well as the 'principium cognitionis' (principle

" For an account of the designative tradition see Charles Taylor's 'Language
and Human Nature', in idem. Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers 1
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) and 'The Importance of Herder', in
idem. Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
™ Once we have this understanding of theological language, the modern theological
options for speaking of God emerge. God either becomes the ineffable about which we
cannot truly speak or God is reduced to a creaturely status by denying God's eternity
and thus also God's immutability and impassibility. The former tells us we cannot
reasonably speak of God. The latter tells us we can, but only because God has been
reduced to a creature capable of being named by other creatures.
^' Such a suggestion differs from O'Callaghan's treatment of the passions of soul.

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of knowledge). The form is also an end for which action occurs, but
it only occurs if a 'similitude' of the form is in the agent. Without
this similitude, action could not occur because it would not be a
participation in the form.
Thomas renders this notion of form intelligible through his
Christology; the form does not make sense without Christ. Aquinas
states, 'As then the world was not made by chance, but by God acting
by His intellect, as will appear later, there must exist in the divine
mind a form to the likeness of which the world was made. And in
this the notion of an idea consists'.^^ Thomas takes up this theme of
God acting by God's intellect in question forty-six of the prima pars
and states.
For as the efficient principle [of creation] is appropriated to the Father
by reason of power, so the exemplar principle is appropriated to the
Son by reason of wisdom, in order that, as it is said (Ps. ciii. 24), Thou
hast made all things in wisdom, it may be understood that God made
all things in the beginning — that is, in the Son; according to the words
of the Apostle (Col. i. 16), In Him — viz. The Son — were created all
things.''
Thomas does not reduce Christ to an Aristotelian notion of form; he
uses this notion to explain both how all things are created in, through
and for Christ as the 'idea', 'image' or 'form' of God, and how creatures
can now intend God by their participation in Christ's creaturely form.
Such an explanation rules out the possibility of dividing nature or
being from Jesus Christ.

Toward a Catholic Re-formation of Moral Theology

For Thomas, nothing exists outside sacred doctrine. We do not have a
'nature' that is accessible without it. It is true that all our knowledge
of nature does not explicitly require faith, yet it alone allows us finally
to understand creation and therefore the moral life. The virtue of faith
presupposes specific teachings of the Church handed down to us in
Scripture and interpreted by tradition. First comes the teaching of
the Triune God, for this is God's essence and is known only by faith.
Directly related to this teaching is the dogma of the Incarnation.
Without it we would not know God is Triune; these two doctrines
reinforce each other, and without them we cannot understand creation,
ff we cannot understand creation, we fail to recognise the essence
of the moral life, which is pursuing and completing the purpose to
our creation. Aquinas explains this when he gives the reasons for the
knowledge of the Triune Persons given only in faith.

•'^ Summa theologiae 1.15.1 resp.

^^ Summa theologiae 1.46.3 resp.

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There are two reasons why the knowledge of the divine persons was
necessary for us. It was necessary for the right idea of creation. The fact
of saying that God made all things by His Word excludes the error of
those who say that God produced things by necessity. When we say
that in Him there is a procession of love, we show that God produced
creatures not because He needed them, nor because of any other extrinsic
reason, but on account of the love of His own goodness. So Moses, when
he had said, 'in the beginning God created heaven and earth, subjoined,
God said Let there be light, to manifest the divine Word; and then said,
God saw the light that it was good, to show the proof of the divine love.
The same is also found in the other works of creation. In another way,
and chiefly, that we may think rightly concerning the salvation of the
human race, accomplished by the incamate Son, and by the gift of the
Holy Spirit {Summa theologiae 1.32.1 ad 3).
Contained within this quote is the basic doctrinal structure of
Aquinas's moral theology. It renders impossible bracketing out his
Christology from his moral philosophy.
In finding that all human action tends toward some end, Aquinas
agrees with Aristotle's moral philosophy, which began by stating,
'Every art or applied science and every systematic investigation,
and similarly every action and choice, seem to aim at some good;
the good, therefore, has been well defined as that at which all things
aim' {Nicomachean Ethics 1094a). Everything, including humanity,
has an end toward which it naturally moves, and this end will be its
perfection. Moral theology inherits this teleological order. Aquinas
explains this, 'as to the aspect of the last end, all agree in desiring
the last end: since all desire the fulfillment of their perfection, and
it is precisely this fulfillment in which the last end consists' {Summa
theologiae I-IL1.7 resp.). This last end is the motive force that draws
creation into the Image of the Triune God.
Like Aristotle, Aquinas teaches that all creatures naturally desire
their perfection. However, Aquinas greatly differs from Aristotle as to
how this end is achieved. For Aquinas contra Aristotle, one naturally
desires perfection, but it cannot be naturally achieved. Thus our end
does not assume the natural capacity to achieve it. For this reason our
true end is not a created good.
It is impossible for any created good to constitute man's happiness. For
happiness is the perfect good, which lulls the appetite altogether; else
it would not be the last end, if something yet remained to be desired.
Now the object of the will, i.e. of man's appetite, is the universal good;
just as the object of the intellect is the universal true. Hence it is evident
that naught else can lull man's will, save the universal good. This is to
be found not in any creature, but in God alone; because every creature
has goodness by participation {Summa theologiae I-II.2.8 resp.).
The attainment of our perfection does not come about naturally,
for our true end, the vision of the Triune God, transcends our

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nature. ^ This renders impossible a 'Thomist' moral philosophy that

divides nature from Christ. With this vision we will be both holy and
happy because with this vision we cannot sin. This is how we know
Adam did not yet have this vision in the garden.
This helps us understand why Aquinas began his work on the
Summa with what we can know by natural reason — that God is and
not what God is. The latter only comes through faith.^^ The natural
desire to seek the cause of all things in God moves us toward God, but
only as God moves toward us can we see God as perfection requires.
The Christian moral life then is not accomplished without human
participation; nor is it accomplished solely by it. Human intention
and purpose are crucial. They allow for intrinsic principles of action
by which human creatures freely move themselves, but only when
they are graced can the human creature's movements participate in
his or her true end, the vision of God.
Moral theology does not assume a modern behaviourist account of
action based solely or primarily on an objectivist pattern of stimuli-
response. We are agents who freely move ourselves toward our last
end even while the last end draws us towards it. As human creatures
we possess passions that move us for which we are responsible. Those
passions are natural. They were traditionally divided between the
concupiscible and the irascible appetites, which distinguishes them
according to their intensity. The five passions of the concupiscible
appetite are love, hatred, concupiscence, delight and sorrow or pain.
The four passions of the irascible appetite are hope, fear, daring and
anger. These appetites were taken out of their theological context and
turned into a basis for morality in the eighteenth century by both the
sentimentalist and utilitarian moral philosophers. However, for the
tradition of moral theology they are natural movements that must be
ordered by the virtues and graced through the theological virtues and
gifts to direct us to true happiness.
The passions provide a certain natural movement of the human
creature. We may not all feel them with the same intensity, but all
creatures have these passions. It is the virtues that rightly order them
to their proper ends. The passions are movements of the sensitive
appetite but the virtues are the principles of those movements. The
cardinal or natural virtues, like a natural knowledge that God is, are
shared with all other creatures based on nature alone. These are the
virtues of justice, temperance, fortitude and prudence. But much as

** As Aquinas puts it, 'Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than
the vision of the Divine Essence' (Summa theologiae I-II.3.8 resp.)-
•'' Aquinas writes, 'If therefore the human intellect, knowing the essence of some
created effect, knows no more of God than that He is; the perfection of that intellect
does not yet reach simply the First Cause, but there remains in it the natural desire
to seek the cause. Wherefore it is not yet perfectly happy' {Summa theologiae 1-11.3.8
resp.).

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Aquinas will find a natural happiness imperfect because it is not

ordered toward its true end — the vision of God — he also finds these
virtues to be imperfect virtues because they do not direct us beyond
our nature to our true happiness. He states:
Man is perfected by virtue for those actions whereby he is directed to
happiness. Now man's happiness is twofold. One is proportionate to
human nature, a happiness, to wit, which man can obtain by means
of his natural principles. The other is a happiness surpassing man's
nature, and which man can obtain by the power of God alone, by
a kind of participation of the Godhead, about which it is written (2
Peter i.4) that by Christ we are made partakers of the Divine nature.
And because such happiness surpasses the capacity of human nature,
man's natural principles which enable him to act well according to his
capacity, do not suffice to direct man to this same happiness. Hence it
is necessary for man to receive from God some additional principles,
whereby he may be directed to supernatural happiness Such like
principles are the theological virtues {Summa theologiae I-II.62.1 resp.,
original emphasis).
To assume that we can divide out this natural and supernatural
happiness, set them against one another, and begin moral theology
based solely on the goodness of the natural would be to fail to see
Christ as the way in Thomas's Summa. It would be to side with
Nestorius. For this reason, a proper understanding of Aquinas should
make it more difficult to justify a 'divided house' between Protestants
and Catholics. But as long as the analogia entis is defined in these
Nestorian terms, the house will remain divided.

D. STEPHEN LONG is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at

Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois.

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