Pope Benedict XVI on Henri Cardinal de Lubac
It amazes me that there are some who actually label Henri de Lubac as a heterodox theologian. Bracketing out the debate between Rahner and de Lubac on the gratuity of grace, it would appear that such accusations could only come from someone who has either not read de Lubac or has read de Lubac but lacks a comprehensive view of the theological traditions of the Catholic Church. In anticipation of my next post on the Ressourcement movement, I thought I’d provide a couple of quotes from Pope Benedict XVI in an effort to assuage any concerns over de Lubac’s orthodoxy and catholicity.
This first quote comes from the Preface Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote for the 1988 edition of Henri de Lubac’s Catholicism. If you can get ahold of a copy, Ratzinger’s introduction is well worth the read.
(De Lubac) makes visible to us in a new way the fundamental intuition of Christian Faith so that from this inner core all the particular elements appear in a new light…Whoever reads de Lubac’s book will see how much more relevant theology is the more it returns to its center and draws from its deepest resources. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to the 1988 edition of Henri de Lubac’s Catholicism)
I was very surprised to see a direct reference to Henri de Lubac in Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Spe Salvi. It is rare, indeed, for a Catholic theologian to be directly quoted in a papal encyclical. It is rarer for a Catholic theologian to be quoted as an authority in a papal encyclical to argue a point.
Henri de Lubac, in the introduction to his seminal book Catholicisme. Aspects sociaux du dogme, assembled some characteristic articulations of this viewpoint, one of which is worth quoting: “Should I have found joy? No … only my joy, and that is something wildly different … The joy of Jesus can be personal. It can belong to a single man and he is saved. He is at peace … now and always, but he is alone. The isolation of this joy does not trouble him. On the contrary: he is the chosen one! In his blessedness he passes through the battlefields with a rose in his hand” (Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, no. 13)
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I would say that an element of the anti-Lubac criticism comes from people who themselves have criticized the Pope when he was doing his own theological writings. Of course, not all of them are this way; but many of the “traditionalists” who have helped inspire attacks on Lubac have influenced others who do not know the “traditionalists” ideological bent.
Speaking for myself, I think De Lubac is a great and orthodox theologian. He had an incredible breadth of knowledge and profound grasp of the faith. He just happened to be wrong in accurately representing Aquinas’ view on nature and grace, thats all. Nobody is perfect.
Br. Matthew
Yes, it is one thing to have criticism and disagreement with a theologian, it is another to find them a heretic. And many people understand this. The problem is that others do not, and many have taken the debate over grace and nature – and their own position on it — to read others automatically as heretics; and again this is not just on de Lubac, but to many others, including the present Pope.
Obviously there is a big difference between authentic debate and the “traditionalist” who thinks there is only one answer and anyone else is a heretic. The second is not Thomist, nor authentic Catholicism. But it is the kind one does see on the net.
Several years ago I met a reporter from The Wanderer who told me that de Lubac “was the next best thing to the anti-Christ.”
He wasn’t a fan of the then-CDF Prefect, either, although he was a bit more tempered in his remarks in that regard.
Chris
Yes, there have been more tempered remarks by some on Ratzinger (the Wanderer types would certainly have been that way); but when you move from The Wanderer to — say SSPX publications, they are clearer in their wholesale rejection and condemnation.
Brother Matthew, I have to disagree with you on the Aquinas interpretation. To the best of my knowledge, he does a pretty good job with Aquinas on nature and grace. Of course, I’m a Jesuit, so I don’t have the insight into Aquinas you do. What do you think of Milbank’s treatment of this issue in “The Suspended Middle?” I thought he was pretty provocative in how he took on De Lubac’s critics on this issue.
He just happened to be wrong in accurately representing Aquinas’ view on nature and grace, thats all. Nobody is perfect.
I would disagree. I think de Lubac pealed back the layers of a misinterpretation of de Lubac that originated in Denys the Carthusian and was more or less codified by Cajetan and Suarez. De Lubac’s project on the supernatural was not to specifically study Thomas, but to place Thomas back into a tradition that never knew of a hypothetical state of “pure nature.” Sure, Thomas deviates from many Fathers on his account of grace, but he most certainly did not advocate “pure nature” as the commentary tradition did.
Markel SJ,
Yes, Milbank was pretty provocative in this regard. He seems to think of himself as speaking for real De Lubac, who was otherwise, in the wake of Humani Generis, too belaugered and fearful to state his beliefs clearly and accurately, but only obliquely and through the voice of others. Ironically, he seems to share the assumption with Garrigou-Lagrange, and against De Lubac himself, that HG was an attack on his teaching. I think much of the controversy surrounding De Lubac has to do with one’s reading of HG. It would be helpful if someone would do some comprehesive academic work in this regard.
Also, if you want to read some recent (and sucessful, I believe) critques of De Lubac’s reading of Thomas, pick up Nova et Vetera, 5, no. 1 (2007). The authors there (Long, Hutter, Goring, etc) are commenting both upon Milbank’s Suspended Middle as well as a (currently) hard to find work by Lawrence Feingold.
Poli,
The problem is, there is a whole class of primary sources which de Lubac either overlooks or completely ignores and which seem to mitigate strongly against de Lubac’s reading and in favor of something more akin to the commentators’. Have you read that issue of Nova et Vetera yet? I would be interested in your reaction.
Policratus,
Have you read any of the writings of Servais Pincknaers, OP? If so, is it digestible for regular laymen?
Br. Matthew,
No, I have not yet read that issue. I certainly will on your recommendation. Contemporary perspectives on de Lubac’s theology of grace and its controversies with which I am acquainted are those of Duffy, Long, Milbank, Peddicord, Wood and Balthasar.
Greg,
I think so. He has a marvelous little book on the beatitudes that is quite accessible called The Pursuit of Happiness. His major work, The Sources of Christian Ethics, is a bit more advanced, but certainly not inaccessible to one who has done some theological reading beyond apologetics. Of course, one can always read Part III of the Catechism, which was largely drafted and prepared by Pinckaers.
Greg: Sources of Christian Ethics is not difficult, but there is always Morality: The Catholic View which is like a summary of Sources.
Poli,
Great. I hope you find it enriching, if not persuasive.
Greg, I’d second the recommendations of Poli and none… The Pursuit of Happiness and Morality: The Catholic View are both written with the average layman more in mind.
Br. Matthew, the articles in that essay of NeV I, too, found very interesting and enlightening… as I mentioned previously, I think you see people who have taken de Lubac’s intentions to heart, but propose another way, one more true to Thomas.
Apparently a couple of those authors are working independently on texts addressing the nature-grace problem from (what they would consider) a more authentically Thomistic perspective.
i would agree with br. matthew about aquinas. i can no longer hold the view that aquinas did not speak of the possibility of pure nature. there are so many passages from aquinas that it would be a stretch to say he didn’t hold to it. i also think that de lubac minimizes the importance of aquinas’ notion of duplex felicitas hominis. the better question is whether aquinas is right in holding this. but whether aquinas did hold to this view..well, it seems that we can say that to argue to the contrary is simply indefensible.
Regardless of who is right and wrong in their exegesis of Thomas, the very fact that there has been (and continues to be) such passion about what he said (and therefore whether or not he supports one position or the other) indicates why this 13th century Dominican friar is referred to as the Common Doctor of the Church. It seems that everyone (at least in this debate) wants them on his side!
Chris
Well, he is an authority, but I think of it as something else. There are two (possibly three) important questions 1) was Aquinas consistent in his position or did it evolve 2) what was Aquinas’ position (s) and 3) is he right?
Moreover, I think when looking at de Lubac, one can make the claim that he certainly read Thomas in a specific hermeneutic, but everyone does/did; the question is — why? Probably because at the time, Thomas was even more then than now seen as the authority you wanted to agree with (in general). I think that was, of course, a position Thomas himself would not have wanted. But I think de Lubac was really doing with Thomas as Thomas did with Augustine, and that changes how one looks at his work.
As for myself, an Eastern, I am quite interested in the position of Thomas and the Thomists, but I don’t find myself limited to one school of the schoolmen. If I did, I would be more Franciscan.
Chris and Apolo,
Yes, your are right with regard to a couple of the articles in question. I found a nice abstract of the articles concerned, which I will post. My apologies if it is a bit long, but I thought people would find it interesting. Apolo, yes, locating Aquinas take on the matter certainly doesn’t solve the nature-grace problem, its still up for debate if De Lubac is right about this, even if it doesn’t represent Thomas’ view. Here is the abstract:
Harm Goris, “Steering Clear of Charybdis: Some Directions for Avoiding ‘Grace Extrinsicism’ in Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera, 5, no. 1 (2007): 67-80. The debate over the relationship between nature and grace results from the need to balance the gratuity of grace with its organic or harmonious connection to nature. Since the 1970’s two approaches, Rahner’s “supernatural existential” and de Lubac’s supernaturalizing of human nature, have attempted to correct the supposed distortions by the commentators. This tradition supposedly yielded a two-layered “extrinsicist” model of nature and grace, treasonous both to Scripture and to Aquinas’s true position. Feingold, however, carefully presents the commentatorial notion that the natural desire to see God is elicited and antecedent (wished abstractly but not chosen concretely), which is not the pre-intentional pondus naturae and hence
not innate. This position is not necessarily extrinsicist, if we understand that because of the analogicity of being, desire for truth and goodness do not necessarily entail nor exclude desire for the First Truth and Highest Good (i.e., God). This doctrine of analogy assists maintenance of both the continuity and discontinuity between nature and grace.
Reinhard Hütter, “Desiderium Naturale Visionis Dei—Est autem Duplex Hominis Beatitudo sive
Felicitas: Some Observations about Lawrence Feingold’s and John Millbank’s Recent
Interventions in the Debate over the Natural Desire to See God,” Nova et Vetera, 5, no. 1 (2007):
81-132.
Theologians typically give one of two types of answers to the question “What is man?” Some argue that rest in God as man’s end entails a salvific economy in which all of God’s actions are merely gradations of intensity in grace under the rubric of universal salvation. Others argue for man’s limitation: there can be no innate unelicited desire for a salvation that is not owed. The controversy over la nouvelle théologie stems from the collision of these two position (the former influenced by Gregory of Nyssa and Origen, the latter by Aquinas and the late Augustine). Feingold revives a metaphysicalist form of discourse less influenced by historical-contextualist
considerations and so questions the nature of theological discourse. Milbank’s criticisms of Feingold, on the other hand, result from an implausibly Dionysian, Origenist, and Bulgakovian reading of Aquinas that ignores later texts of the Roman and second Parisian periods. In fact, Feingold’s presentation addresses the fundamental metaphysical issue: the contradiction in de Lubac between (1) the pre-grace imprinted form of supernatural finality and (2) the absence of ordination to the supernatural end without grace. In fact, form must entail ordination to the end.
Steven Long, “On the Loss, and the Recovery, of Nature as a Theonomic Principle: Reflections
on the Nature / Grace Controversy,” Nova et Vetera, 5, no. 1 (2007): 133-184.
The loss of nature as a theonomic principle within the modern world-view creates the situation out of which the controversy over nature and grace arose. The problem begins in reconciling two sets of Aquinas’s texts: one for knowledge of God as the end of intellectual substances and the other for distinguishing between angels and men through differing proximate natural ends. At stake in the collapsing of the nature-grace distinction is the conclusion that man is naturally deific; at issue is addressing the question metaphysically instead of merely historically. More specifically Gilson and de Lubac’s errors regarding Aquinas’s obediential potency, viz., that it is a mere susceptibility to miracle, precluded resolution of the problem–Aquinas’s second set of texts did not even receive consideration, in spite of the more historical perspectives of de Lubac and Gilson. Yet de Lubac’s mistake was born out of a desire to safeguard the theocentric character of reality in a modern age where nature was increasingly perceived as autonomous: the loss of nature as theonomic, as normative in theology. This loss defined human freedom in opposition to God rather than to proximate created causes.
Guy Mansini, OSB, “Lonergan on the Natural Desire in the Light of Feingold,” Nova et Vetera,
5, no. 1 (2007): 185-198.
Feingold’s book structures the debate over nature and grace in terms of three questions: whether the natural desire to see God is (1) innate or elicited, (2) conditional or unconditional, and (3)demonstrative of the possibility of seeing God or not. Lonergan, unlike Feingold, answers the first question with the answer “innate,” specifically an innate tendency of intellect. Knowing this tendency requires revelation of man’s supernatural end. Moreover, although the desire’s fulfillment is conditional, the desire itself is not–precisely because it is natural, “structural,” and “always on.” In the end, Lonergan, unlike Aquinas, breaks up the connections between natural inclination, natural passive potency, and the debt of its fulfillment. For Lonergan, the desire is natural, in an obediential potency, and not owed. Yet Lonergan’s position is also ambiguous: in some texts he characterizes it in a way that would make it elicited; in others he regards it as nothing other than the natural desire to understand the transcendentals, not God specifically. Lonergan, does however, reject the importance of the possibility of a state of pure nature. Yet it is hardly marginal: abandoning its possibility endangers the distinction between creature and creator, i.e., the divine transcendence.
I accidently referred to Goris as Goring above. Talk about an unkind typo!
I haven’t yet had a chance to get my hands on that issue of NetV (I wish I could find full-text articles from it online via the services to which our library subscribes). However, based on the abstracts – and on my reading of several earlier articles (elsewhere) by Long – I’m most skeptical that they’ve demonstrated that de L was wrong about Aquinas. First of all, a couple of them explicitly say that they’re prioritizing metaphysical considerations over historical ones. That can end up – as it clearly does in other stuff of Long’s – meaning that you aren’t interested in any serious analysis of the question of what Aquinas (or other authors) really meant. You’re doing eisegesis, not exegesis. (Some of us would say: Cajetan redux.) Not a promising way to begin a refutation of an exegesis. Second, a couple of them clearly haven’t read and/or understood de L. They’re “refuting” “claims” de L “makes” – about Aquinas and/or about reality – that aren’t the claims he actually makes. Third – related to both of the above – they’re clearly contradicting some of the things Aquinas explicitly says (and de L quotes) – e.g., when they assert that finality necessarily equals ordination. As de L points out (multiple times, I think), Aquinas explicitly denies that this (Aristotelian) principle applies to the human person. I’m sorry, but I’ve read de L carefully, and more than a little Aquinas too, and I have yet to see a refutation of de L (on Aquinas and/or on reality) that actually succeeds – inevitably, the stuff I’ve read that tries to do so gets Aquinas wrong or gets de L wrong or both – and I smell more of the same here. (I don’t normally get around to reading – let alone commenting – here, by the way, and I don’t know that I’ll have a chance to get back here to check for responses, so if anyone wants to discuss this with me, I can be emailed via the blog to which my name above should link.)
Let me echo K. Miller, Br. Matthew, and expand:
I’ve read these criticisms and I’m not convinced. Perhaps I am a bit more convinced that Thomas’s position is not SO black and white, but at the end of the day, his own arguments prove too strong. No one has been able to show me how Thomas’s position in S.C.Gentiles is wrong: that an intellectual nature can only be satisfied by the direct vision of the divine essence. (Book 3, part 1) Chapters 25 through 63 demonstrate this ad nauseum. THere is no other conceivable end for an intellectual nature: it is the very nature of the intellect to seek truth itself, the universal good. The only adequate object for the natural desire of the intellect is the transcenental “ens”. Full stop. I don’t have to ever know about the word “supernatural” to know this is beyond man’s natural abilities; but what is a contradiction for Aristotle is not for Thomas (see Lonergan below, about world-orders); ST 5.5.ad.2 “the nature that can attain perfect good, although it needs help from without in order to attain it, is of more noble condition than a nature which cannot attain perfect good, but attains some imperfect good, although it needs no help from without in order to attain it” As Lonergan points out, only a theologian can affirm a natural desire for a supernatural end; the philosopher has to be content with paradox. Long et al say, no paradox, there is a limited natural happiness available in this world order, and furthermore the fact that a supernatural beatitude is elicited but not innate ensures its gratuity. As Lonergan points out, this is a “closed conceptualism”; any finite wisdom must expect paradox; only infinite wisdom can understand and order everything perfectly.
How is this desire not innate? Man may not know that what this vision is, is in fact what is described in the book of Revelation; but Thomas’s argument in the Contra Gentiles is one of reason (philosophy). Thomas’s mentionings of “natural goods” or ends, or even natural beatitude, all seem clearly to me to fall in subordination to his overarching supernatural schema. (See B. Shanley’s Thomist article on Pagan Virtue) But even if they didn’t, that wouldn’t change things; at the end of the day, de Lubac is right because he presents the truth of Revelation: there is no diluting Ephesians and Colossians here. There is only one end for the universe. Scripture does not speak of dual ends, let alone “nature”. Long, et al, seem unable to me to admit the inadequacies of Aristotle in fully explaining this mystery. True, Thomas doesn’t speak of a natural desire for the Beat.Vision; it’s a transcendental desire, with a supernatural object. There is natural beatitude, but it is imperfect, and disproportionate to man’s nature. Could God have created an intellectual nature adequately ordered to a natural beatitude? Sure, Humani G. says as much, as did de Lubac in Surnatural. But we can’t fill that nature, whatever it would be, with any positive content. We certainly can’t just switch natural/supernatural ends and the nature looks the same–come on! But HG doesn’t require that; merely just the classical distinction between de potentia ordinata, and de potentia absoluta. Similarly, try to conceive of what natural religion would look like; hard to do, because all we know in this world-order is supernatural religion. (i.e. seeds of the Word)
Incidentally, Pinckaers defended de Lubac. And Fr. Brian Shanley, prez of Providence College, also agrees with his thesis (see his book, The Thomist Tradition. N.B. It’s expensive!) He has pointed out that the immortality of the soul raises serious problems in this regard: without a supernatural destiny, life after separation from the body is a dismal one in the Greek universe. Not a happy natural end there. He points to the work of Anton Pegis, who has shown that Thomas’s view of human nature is non-Aristotelian, in his view of the immortality of the soul and the natural endlessness of human nature. Furthermore, as Shanley points out, any genuine but non-ultimate good cannot be rightly pursued outside of its ordering to ultimate good. Of course, I suspect what Long et al. are ultimately at is arguing for the validity of a natural ethic in Thomas; there is no such natural ethic. Read the first five questions of the Prim-Sec; or as he says later on, “there can be no true virtue without charity”(ST 2-2, 23.8).
Let me quote Shanley:
“Because they wanted to safeguard the gratutiousness of grace, Cajetanian Thomists described human nature as only having an obediential potency to grace understood as a purely passive capacity to be transformed and elevated by the supernatural action of God. Yet careful study of Aquinas’s own texts have shown that he did not think the concept of obediential potency was apt to describe the relationship of human nature to grace. For Aquinas, an obediential potency describes the openness of a created nature to the miraculous action of God to something beyond its nature. The relationship of human nature to grace, however, is not like that. Grace is not a miracle, like stone becoming bread, but rather the fulfillment of our nature. So the human openness to the Divine is neither non-repugnance nor a naturally realizable capacity. We are created as open to, apt for, and indeed ordered to beatific vision because we are created in the image of God. The God who creates our nature is the very God who graciously intends to share his own life with us. In that sense, creation is ordered by God to find fulfillment in grace.”
Furthermore, Lonergan has pointed out that those who defend the commentators’s understanding understand nature in an essentialist manner. They fail to understand that for Thomas, world-order is prior to natures; finite natures do not determine world orders. As he points out, the possibility of a world-order without grace is a marginal theorem, which only ensures (as any possibility does that does not entail a contradiction in terms) God’s freedom to create this world-order versus that. But to extrapolate from concrete natures in this world-order a distinct finality prescinding from grace is fallacious: how could we know what that would look like? I’ll quote Lonergan here:
“To [those whom reject essentialist assumptions] it seems that a concrete possibility is constituted by the concrete and not by that splendid pair of abstractions, finite nature and the satisfaction of its exigencies. More pertinently, concrete possibility is constituted by a world order complete down to its last historical detail. Concrete possibility is not constituted but only participated by finite natures, by their exigences, and by the satisfaction of their exigences. Because certain parts of an undetermined and indeed unmentioned whole do not necessarily include grace, it does not follow that there must be cases in which the whole does not include grace. Further assumptions must be introduced, e.g. that the parts in question determine the whole, that finite natures are prior to and determine world order. On that assumption the argument becomes valid; but of course, it is precisely the assumption that is denied. Need I add that it is denied not by nominalists but by those who agree with Aquinas that the ordo universi is a whole and that the whole is prior to its parts.”
At the end of the day, proof-texting Thomas does not decide the issue. Its resolution is independent of what he said, of course; but I remain unconvinced that Thomas is a Cajetanian.
“Perhaps I am a bit more convinced that Thomas’s position is not SO black and white, but at the end of the day, his own arguments prove too strong.”
Matthew — being one who has only read Thomas but not in an extensive study, I would like to ask — would my point of a development within Thomas, or even an inconsistency in Thomas, be possible to pick up on? I think there is too much of a tendency to ignore this aspect in many great thinkers — and their works, as a whole, are treated as one “system” when they are not. And I tend to think some of the conflicts as to how people interpret Thomas end up being conflicts within the thought of Thomas. Depending upon one’s hermeneutical lens, that interpreter picks up one or another element more of his thought instead of others. And when there is a conflict, they try to smooth it out instead of allowing it to remain.
I do know my own theological thought has developed and continues to develop, so that while I do believe there are elements which tie it together and one can get a general framework from which I work within, I also know I contradict myself from time to time, and sometimes I am not certain which direction I should go on some issues and I think about them in several ways. Thomas, I think, was the same.
Henry:
more or less. But for my part, I’m inclined to think Thomas was incredibly consistent. Although certainly there are those angles of approach: how you interpret the differences from the de Veritate to the Summa T; how you read q.7 in the de Potentia; how you see Thomas’s use of Platonic texts; how you judge his commentaries on Aristotle and their value. Problematically, Thomas left no guide to his own work. So we will always have to guess.
Matthew,
Thanks for the comment. It may be awhile before I’m able to post a reply, so don’t think I’ve forgotten you.
I’m glad Prof. Miller is with us. I owe my entire initiation and interest in de Lubac on nature and grace to him. His seminar on de Lubac was pivotal in my theological formation.
No sweat Br. Matthew (by the way…did I mention one of my best friends is a Dominican and was just ordained a deacon for the Eastern prov.? Br. Jonah Pollock, OP)
matthewjfish,
I think the things you have raised do not really hurt those who believe in the possibility of state of pure nature. None of the passages from SCG you cited speak about beatific vision as the natural end. The supernatural is distinct from the end from which the human species is derived. In fact, there are a good amount of passages that clearly show the possibility of state of pure nature (De Malo q. 5, art. 1, ad 15, Quod. I, q. 4, a.3, resp, Sth.I.75.7.ad 1).
As for “natural ethic,” it is true that there can be no virtue without charity as you cited but that’s simply insufficient. Aquinas believes that there is a distinction between natural and supernatural love (ST I.II 1.9.3).
And citing those authorities does not interact with the issues involved.
matthew,
i also think that prooftexting aquinas does not resolve the issue. but don’t you think that it is very easy to argue for the *possibility* of state of pure nature in light of recent metaphysics of modality? it’s definitely easy to conceive of it. of course this gets to the whole issue of 2-dimensionalism and so on, and kripkean semantics, but i think it is safe to say that apart from Aquinas, we can clearly argue forit.
Kevin, you need to get the library to subscribe! :-)
Apolonio:
When Thomas says clearly in the SCG (as well as ST I-II 3.8) that only the vision of the Divine essence can be the adequate end of an intellectual creature, explain to me how you can squeeze an hypothesis of “pure nature” out? I’ll accept that as far as Aristotle can see, man’s happiness is an imperfect one, albeit in an imperfect universe (thanks to prime matter). Thomas does not generally speak of natural vs. supernatural ends at all; rather there is the proportionate object or end of man’s desire to know–material quiddity–and there is the adequate or formal object–ens. Man’s intellect desires to know being itself, ens universale; there is no substitute. Moreover, unless the soul is reunited with the body after death, there is no possibility of this. That’s why Aristotle doesn’t even touch it. And as I said early, the passages you mention touch on “pure nature” (not Thomas’s language) as a marginal theorem. Thomas speaks all the time of different orders of goods, loves, etc., according to the schema of nature and the supernatural. But if one reads the Prim.-Sec. all the way through (it’s a narrative, not a collection of distinct tracts), by the time you get to the questions on virtue, the gifts of the H.S., etc., it is clear that virtue in the proper sense can only be supernatural (precisely because of this world-order). This is not to say there cannot be analogously understood pagan virtues (see Shanley’s article in the Thomist), but if we are being precise here, man (as any other being) has one end, and one end only (contra Grisez, Finnis, et al); and a nature’s activity is determined by its end. And explain how I-II 5.5 (as I pointed to above) is not plainly clear: man’s end is beyond his ability to obtain i.e. man has a nature whose end is beyond the resources of that nature to obtain (well, sort of, man does have free will, which allows him to respond to the offer of grace if offered).
As for your second question: I do not know the metaphysics of modality, etc. If you mean, one can abstractly define what pure nature would be–sure, like we can abstractly define what an irrational number would be; but it is an abstraction, a theorem that follows from the definition of what is in fact real (integers, natural numbers, etc.).
Here’s SCG 3.48:
‘But it may be replied that whereas happiness is the good of an intelligent nature, true and perfect happiness belongs to those in whom intelligent nature is found in its perfection, that is, in pure spirits; but in man it is found imperfectly by way of a limited participation. And this seems to have been the mind of Aristotle: hence, enquiring whether misfortunes take away happiness, after showing that happiness lies in virtuous activities, which are the most permanent things in this life, he concludes that they who enjoy such perfection in this life are “happy for men,” meaning that they do not absolutely attain happiness, but only in a human way.
Now it is demonstrable that the aforesaid answer is not to the undoing of the arguments above alleged. For (a) though man is inferior in the order of nature to pure spirits, yet he is superior to irrational creatures; and therefore he must gain his final end in a more perfect way than they. But they gain their final end so perfectly as to seek nothing further. Thus the natural desire of dumb animals is at rest in the enjoyment of sensual delights. Much more must the natural desire of man be put to rest by his arrival at his last end. But that is impossible in this life: therefore it must be attained after this life.
(b) It is impossible for a natural desire to be empty and vain: for nature does nothing in vain. But the desire of nature (for happiness) would be empty and vain, if it never possibly could be fulfilled. Therefore this natural desire of man is fulfillable. But not in this life. Therefore it must be fulfilled after this life.’
Here is a bit of Balthasar’s quick analysis on pure nature from one of his lesser-known works (which I am going through right now):
“This is still the case with St. Thomas Aquinas. He attributes to human nature a single, supernatural goal. The natural goal of which he sometimes speaks, he regards as the best that a mortal man can achieve in this earthly life, but one which would never suffice to justify the existence and the particular nature of mankind. As an Aristotlean he does not even hesitate to ascribe an inner sense of direction to ‘nature’ which informs it about its own powers and possibilities in relation to something which is essentially unattainable by it. St. Thomas even sees in this apparent disproportion a mark of the dignity of man: ‘that nature is of a nobler kind which can attain the perfect good, even if it needs help from outside to do so, than that nature which cannot attain the perfect good but attains only to an imperfect good for the achievement of which its own powers are sufficient’ (Summa I-II, q 5, a 5, ad 2).”
Man in History: A Theological Study (Das Ganze Im Fragment) (London: Sheed and Ward 1968), 82.
Let me add one more thing:
beyond the semantics of the question, what did Thomas think, I do think the more important question is to incorporate this question within a greater theological (i.e. Biblical) framework. I do think a weakness of neo-scholasticism is the assumption that we can speak of nature, form, act, etc., and what Aristotle meant and what we understand is the same. This assumption must be denied. The Christian, biblical categories of creation, redemption, and Jesus Christ, do not fit into an Aristotelian universe (however much the neo-Scholastics want them to) so neatly.
The whole impetus and importance of the Ressourcement movement, I think, is demonstrating the truth of this; that the neo-Scholastic categories were insufficient. Not wrong, but incomplete. Thomas himself knew this: where does the distinction between essence and esse fit into the 10 categories? Is grace an accident? Is it merely matter that individuates, if the soul eternally known and predestined by God?
So, the more important question is: what is the nature and meaning of creation? How is the elevation of man into the life of the Trinity a part of this? Is it a later add-on; or is it part of the very nature of what creation entails? As Henry perhaps could elucidate, the Eastern tradition is much more sympathetc and used to this line of thinking, and I would add, offers a needed corrective to Western essentialism/conceptualism.
matthewjfish,
quickly before i go to school…most of the time when aquinas speaks, he is speaking of the present order or the actual state and not so much of hypothetical states. so no one is arguing for two final ends here. STI-II is clear that there are no two final ends. But that does not mean that the beatific vision is a natural end because if it was, then to take it away would be a punishment or a penalty. The sources I gave show that it is not a penalty if God took the beatific vision away from man in some hypothetical state. Again Aquinas does speak of man’s natural end different to that of an angel but both share supernatural end. This does not mean that there are two final ends. But it does show one can speak hypothetically of it, say, in a possible world X. Please see the sources I mentioned because it does reply to the things you are arguing.
On Aquinas and creation, cf. Lawrence Dewan. I posted a link on the ressourcement post by Michael.
Apol:
don’t you think the SCG passages make it clear that the vision of the Divine essence is man’s end?
Again I repeat: what other specific end can an intellectual nature have than the vision of the divine essence?
The argument in the SCG (and ST I-II 3.8) is airtight. I’m not using the language of “natural” or “supernatural”; let’s stick to Thomas here. What is the proper end of an intellectual nature? To know first principles? To know the sum of all created things? To know God by analogy and remotion? Thomas says no to all the above. Any other “end” makes man a walking contradiction; unlike all other things, he would have an end that is not proportionate to his activity (i.e. understanding being). Man’s end is to know the essence of the First Cause. This is what the mind always and everywhere desires.
This does not mean God is obligated to offer it; certainly he was not obligated to create this world-order; this is like saying the Jews cannot be promised a messiah, since this creates an obligation upon God. Only on a supposition, clearly. God could have created “intellects” whose formal objects are not being. This is an abstraction (a theorem) however; don’t make the mistake of letting imagination fill it with content. The only “intellectual” activity I can imagine is that which seeks to understand being itself.
Furthermore, you mention above that “no one is arguing for two final ends here. ST I-II is clear that there are no two final ends”, but then you add that “that does not mean that the beatific vision is a natural end”. Well, which is it? Obviously it is not a “natural end”; man’s end, as Thomas clearly points out, is naturally unobtainable. Naturally. Naturally then, we are left with paradox; man is incomplete. Revelation surprises us and tells us that this desire can in fact be perfectly fulfilled.
Man has one final end. I’ll admit of a legitimate natural happiness, natural goods (albeit imperfect), but not a “natural end”. I’ll admit the possibility (de potentia absoluta) of a universe where intellectual creatures do not have the end of the vision of the divine essence, but not in this universe, nor will I accept seeing intellectual natures in this universe as simply transferable to some other possible world. World-orders are prior to natures.
As for the texts you mention, could you quote the de Malo and Quodlibet. texts for me? As for the ST one, note Thomas says “proximate and natural end”. Look at the other contexts Thomas talks of proximate ends. That seems pretty clear to me.
Since we’re throwing texts around, here’s another:
“Although man is naturally inclined to this end, he cannot pursue it naturally, but only through grace: and this is because of the eminence of this end.” In Boet.de Trin.6.4.ad 5
As for Fr. Dewan, I studied under him in Austria; he’s a lovely guy, but a bit on the edge when it comes to interpreting Thomas (he argues that for Thomas truth is not a transcendental!!). Really more Aristotelian than Thomistic. While he was at our school, there was an epic battle of sorts between him and the Prior of the Dominican community in Vienna; they disagreed about how to understand Thomas in many ways. As for myself, I didn’t really side with either.
Authorities are like that. There’s one out there for whatever you may like. Me, as for Thomas and creation, I side with Fr. David Burrell. See his Knowing the Unknowable God, and Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions. Also see Rudi te Velde. This side would emphasize Thomas’s understanding of participation and esse, and God’s non-competitive transcendent instrumental application of all things. Also check out W. Norris Clarke’s classic article on the limitation of act by potency.
Matthew
David Burrell’s works are also classic in regards to the field of theology I love the most — comparative theology. I would like to second your recommendation there!
matthew,
i think we are talking past each other since i think i have already answered your questions. the passages you speak of is speaking of the actual order. in the actual order there is one final end. Im in school right now so I can’t quote the passages. But here is one:
For, if this vision exceeds the capacity of a created nature, as we have proved, then any created intellect may be understood to enjoy complete existence in the species proper to its nature, without seeing the substance of God. Hence, whether it begins to see God at the start of its existence, or later, something must be added to its nature. (SCG III 53)
since you already admit the possibility of a world where the end is not beatific vision, i think that’s pretty much the issue i was after. so it seems the debate ends. it would be best if these kinds of things were talked about in person anyway.
Apol:
I’m not sure how the passage you quoted from the SCG demonstrates the contrary to my argument; the point of that very chapter is to flesh out how can man attain his end if it is beyond his natural powers to obtain, and the answer is the Light of the Divine Intellect, which begins in Faith, but fully illuminates the mind in the Beatific Vision. Look at the context of the chapters leading up to 53.
We can end the debate, but I think either I didn’t make my point clear or else you missed it. It’s not a question of “actual order” versus another order (again, language Thomas does not use at all). Show me man. What is he in nature? A rational animal. What is the nature of rationality? To understand. To understand what? Not just any thing, but being itself. How can it understand being itself? It cannot. This would require man’s intellect being identical with ipsum esse.
There’s the problem (i.e. paradox). Describe to me an “order” where the problem does not remain.
The possibility I admit is a logical possibility (a world not destined to share in the divine life). My point is, we can’t force details of that possibility into what we actually know, concretely, in this world. Knowledge is of essences, and essences are known by abstraction from concrete reality. There is no other way. This possibility does not conclude to the position of “pure nature” as articulated by the commentators (Cajetan, etc.) To say, God could have made another world, therefore, man does have a legitimate natural final end; or that man is created for natural happiness, since the Beatific Vision is gratuitous, but then a supernatural destiny is added on top of this first one; these are faulty inferences of a most confused fashion.
Matthew,
Ok. You’ve thrown a lot information out there, so I’m going to have to be selective about what I tackle. My knowledge of Lonergan, for instance, is limited to a few chapters of Verbum, so while your comments regarding Lonergan, insofar as I’ve been able to understand them- which is not much- are fascinating, I don’t have the competence to deal with them, nor do I think this is really necessary for the purpose of uncovering what Aquinas actually asserted (which is a tall enough order as it is). So I’m going to try to be disciplined enough to keep our scope limited to what is reasonable within the context of a combox dialogue- we’re already pushing it as it stands. That said, I hope I can contribute to unraveling some of these conundrums. First of all, we need more clarity regarding what is not being claimed here: that in the actual order of things, man has a natural final end. In your last comment, when you say, “To say, God could have made another world, therefore, man does have a legitimate natural final end…” seems to indicate that this is the hypothesis you are objecting to, which is a valid objection, but nevertheless isn’t what is being claimed. Rather, what is being claimed is that, in the actual order of things-in the order of Providence in which man is created in sanctifying grace – man has a supernatural final end (which is beyond his natural capacities to attain, as you rightly point out) and a natural proximate end (which is proportional to his nature).
That said, I would like to explore further the idea of perfect knowledge and perfect happiness. You said that, “There is no other conceivable end for an intellectual nature: it is the very nature of the intellect to seek truth itself, the universal good. The only adequate object for the natural desire of the intellect is the transcenental “ens”. Full stop. I don’t have to ever know about the word “supernatural” to know this is beyond man’s natural abilities.” First of all, the admission that it is the nature of the intellect to have its end in truth itself, or the universal good, is an admission that man has a proximate natural end. God is not to be identified with “the universal good”, “truth itself”, or “ens”. Insofar as God is named after these, he is named as their cause (a cause which is infinitely greater than these known realities) not because he is identified with them. (See the chapter in the Summa on divine naming) However, in this you are correct- that ens is the proper object of the intellect. However, perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but you seem to suggest that knowing ens is beyond man’s natural abilities, which it is not. In fact, ens is what is first known by way of man’s natural faculties, though vaguely and imperfectly. All subsequent natural knowledge is the attempt to fully penetrate ens, the term of this quest being the knowledge of ens commune by way of separatio (metaphysics). The unassisted perfect attainment of this end is out of the question (given that the unassisted human intellect is limited to abstracting from matter and given our finite amount of time to penetrate the vastness of created being), though not in principle, since being, insofar as it is actual, is intelligible, and thus knowable by intellects. However, there is a point at which our unassisted natural ability to know reaches a limit in principle. That is, to know some effect perfectly is to know its cause. The natural intellect can establish that being has a cause (it can understand That God Is), but it cannot understand the essence of that cause (it cannot understand What God Is, i.e., the essence of God). The vision of the latter (God’s essence), of course, is the definition of man’s final supernatural end and ultimate beatitude. The knowledge ‘That God Is’ elicits a desire which Thomas calls ‘wonder’(the desire for the unknown), which in turn causes further investigation, but this desire is not for beatitude as such (since such a desire would imply knowledge of the object of beatitude-God’s essence) but for what is yet unknown. The natural desire for God is not God in his essence but God as he is the First (Unknown) Cause- a function of our natural desire to know causes. The knowledge that the vision of this First Cause-the beatific vision- is possible to attain is dependent divine revelation. Therefore you are correct in supposing, and quoting texts to that effect, that humans are the kind of beings whose perfect and ultimate happiness is beyond their natural powers. But that doesn’t preclude the existence of a proximate natural end, an end which, though perfect within its own order, nevertheless doesn’t proffer perfect happiness, which is a function of the greater supernatural order. Moreover, such a proximate natural end, as Apol pointed out, Thomas explicitly affirms. Besides the citiations he provided, I would add this: ST I q.62.2
I answer that, The angels stood in need of grace in order to turn to God, as the object of beatitude. For, as was observed above (60, 2) the natural movement of the will is the principle of all things that we will. But the will’s natural inclination is directed towards what is in keeping with its nature [it’s natural end]. Therefore, if there is anything which is above nature [supernatural end], the will cannot be inclined towards it, unless helped by some other supernatural principle. Thus it is clear that fire has a natural tendency to give forth heat, and to generate fire; whereas to generate flesh is beyond the natural power of fire; consequently, fire has no tendency thereto, except in so far as it is moved instrumentally by the nutritive soul.
Now it was shown above (12, 4,5), when we were treating of God’s knowledge, that to see God in His essence, wherein the ultimate beatitude of the rational creature consists, is beyond the nature of every created intellect. Consequently no rational creature can have the movement of the will directed towards such beatitude, except it be moved thereto by a supernatural agent. This is what we call the help of grace. Therefore it must be said that an angel could not of his own will be turned to such beatitude, except by the help of grace.
Br. Matthew:
thanks for the comments.
Principally I will try to show how your claim “God is not to be identified with “the universal good”” is not faithful to Thomas (and the same with, universal truth, being), and then why man’s natural desire is not to know God as first cause (in the philosophical sense, which is what I take you to mean, knowledge of the First Cause by its effects; I would say our natural desire is to know the First Cause in its substance, thoroughly) but God in his essence.
Two quotes which I will present, and then unpack:
1) “Therefore the desire to know, which is NATURALLY implanted in all intellectual substances, does not rest until, after they have come to know the substance of the effects, they also know the substance of the cause. The fact, then, that separate substances know that God is the cause of all things whose substances they see, does not mean that NATURAL desire comes to rest in them, unless they also see the substance of God himself.” SCG 3.50
2) “Wherefore nothing else can be the cause of the will, except God Himself, Who is the universal good” ST I-II 9.6
Ens universale is the proper object of the intellect, true, but ens universale is not a “natural” object. What I mean is, it is not an object that is naturally proportionate to man’s nature, nor naturally obtainable. Man does apprehend being in knowing anything, but always in a confused way, and always through an intelligible species. He does not know it as ens reale, but as intelligible being. But I think, as Thomas shows, that man desires to know being itself, without the mediation of an intelligible species. The same can be said for separate substances. They can only know God through their own substance; but what they desire is to know God as he knows himself. Even the knowledge of separate substances remains knowledge of what God is not. Look at SCG III. 48-49. Thomas is clear that the desire of the intellect is to know ens in a clear and direct way; “it is not possible for man’s ultimate happines to consist in the contemplation which depends on the understanding of principles.”(3.37) Man instead desires to know the perfection of all perfections, the actuality of all acts. He does know ens in knowing anything (although in an inchoate way), and yet he still desires. If ens as humanly known were enough, no further action in man’s life would be necessary, and he would be no homo viator. But he seeks because he desires to know being in an infinite fashion, in all the infinite ways it can be participated and shared in.
This is ens universale. Again, it has no natural being. EXCEPT, in the mind of God; in God’s mind it is intelligble being, (intelligible being to God, a natural being from our persepctive vis-a-vis God), the unity of the Divine intellect and the intelligible in act; these are the divine ideas. Universal being turns out to be none other than God’s knowledge of himself, of all the infinite ways he can be participated in. God knows all things not in themselves, but through himself. See CG 98.9: “the proper object of the intellect is intelligible being, which includes all possible differences and species of being.” This is what man desires, God, formally by desiring being in all its infinitude, which are the Divine Ideas. “The proper object of intellect is intelligible being, which includes all possible differences and species of being, since whatever can be, can be known. Now, since all knowledge is brought about by way of likeness, the intellect cannot know its object wholly unless it has in itself the likeness of all being and of all its differences. But such a likeness of all being, can be nothing other than an infinite nature: a nature not determined to some species or genus of being, but the universal principle of all being and the power productive of all being; and this…is the divine nature alone. Indeed, no other nature can be the universal likeness of all being, since every nature except God is limited to some genus and species of being.”(ibid.)
Man’s desire to know the fullness of being is a desire to know the infinite ocean of the divine substance. Now man can have no adequate knowledge of ens universale in his life. Only knowing God through the Divine Intellect as the intelligible species will fully satisfy. In the divine presentiality, God knows all possible participated perfections of being, all at once, in a single, unconfused, eternal act of knowledge, since this is nothing other than God knowing himself—that is, the divine substance itself—since any effect whatsoever, only is, insofar as it is a reflection, a participation of the actuality of all acts.
This is dense stuff, to be sure, and often ignored by neo-Scholastics, but critical to understanding Thomas in my mind (and incidentally, to understanding where Heidegger was right, and where he was wrong). If one really understands what Thomas is getting at in universal being, (Divine Ideas, unity of the intellect in act/intelligible in act, the Divine essence “returning to itself” as Thomas puts it), one can see how the narrative Thomas paints in the Contra Gentiles (which is, man–and angels–is the kind of creature whose end is to know the divine essence itself, as it is known by itself, and this end cannot be attained by man, except by the aid of the Divine intelligible species) illuminates the present discussion.
Thomas explictly says that our natural desire is NOT to know God as First Cause (contrary to what you claim above: “he natural desire for God is not God in his essence but God as he is the First (Unknown) Cause- a function of our natural desire to know causes.”) but to know the Divine essence itself; he says it over and over again in Book III of the Contra Gentiles:
“Moreover, the will rests its desire when it has attained the ultimate end. But the ultimate end of all human knowledge is happiness. So that knowledge of God which, when acquired, leaves no knowledge of a knowable object to be desired is essentially this happiness. But this is not the kind of knowledge about God that the philosophers were able to get through demonstrations, because, even when we acquire this knowledge, we still desire to know other things that are not known through this knowledge. Therefore, happiness is not found in such knowledge of God.”(3.39)
Note Thomas is talking about the happiness that is the end of human nature; not the various kinds of imperfect happiness man may have temporally but which cease to satisfy; but the happiness that moves his will to desire bonum universale at the core of his being. It is not enough to know God as cause by his effects–this is the burden of Thomas’s whole line of reasoning in Book III of the CG–but only the vision of the divine essence to know being itself, is proper to an intellectual nature. What we’re talking about, in simple Aristotelian terms, is the end that specifies the nature of man; the end that specifies his will, the end he desires in desiring anything, that drives him to desire the fullness of being.
As for your last quote, I think this is mitigated by other discussions Thomas has about the will. I take Thomas there to mean “inclined toward” as freedom of exercise, or a further specification of habits, not a universal specification. Man’s will is specified toward his supernatural end, but this is not a conscious specification; it indeed needs further specifications and acts and habits of faith, hope, love (hence angels’s “need of grace in order to turn to God”, turning to being an intentional, conscious act). “Beyond the nature” means, beyond the resources of the nature; therefore, grace is given as the help to attain the end, or it is given as a habit; but it is not given as an end. This seems clear to me. ST I-II 9.1.ad.3 “The will moves the intellect as to the exercise of its act; since even the true itself which is the perfection of the intellect, is included in the universal good, as a particular good. But as to the determination of the act, which the act derives from the object, the intellect moves the will; since the good itself is apprehended under a special aspect as contained in the universal true.”
A fortiori, ST I-II 9.6: “Now the cause of the will can be none other than God. And this is evident for two reasons. First, because the will is a power of the rational soul, which is caused by God alone, by creation, as was stated in the I, 90, 2. Secondly, it is evident from the fact that the will is ordained to the universal good. Wherefore nothing else can be the cause of the will, except God Himself, Who is the universal good: while every other good is good by participation, and is some particular good, and a particular cause does not give a universal inclination. Hence neither can primary matter, which is potentiality to all forms, be created by some particular agent.”
God himself, who is the universal good. Seems clear enough to me.
The last thing I’ll point to, which wraps it up pretty definitively I think, is the third response to the objection in that same article:
“God moves man’s will, as the Universal Mover, to the universal object of the will, which is good. And without this universal motion, man cannot will anything. But man determines himself by his reason to will this or that, which is true or apparent good. Nevertheless, sometimes God moves some specially to the willing of something determinate, which is good; as in the case of those whom He moves by grace, as we shall state later on (109, 2).”
Sometime God moves some by the willing of something determinate…referring of course to freedom of exercise, not freedom of specification. Man’s end cannot be further specified in this sense of the inclination of his will to the universal good. This seems to me to be the obvious answer to 62.2: man is helped by grace to something above nature, and so his will is directed to beatitude (he is given sanctifying grace); this is what turning toward beatitude means. It does not mean, turning toward a new end that newly specifies his will universally.
Ok, I can tell this conversation is going to be a drawn out one. Again, it may be awhile before I can respond. Peace.
BTW, I will try to be better about citing my claims in future posts. I appreciate your citations.
Brother: you the man. No sweat. Maybe for the sake of this blog we should move to e-mail?
Whatever way you would prefer, if you want to continue the discussion here that is no problem, assuming you don’t mind a day or two between posts. It might be nice to leave the discussion open to others, unless you think we are monopolizing the thread. Regardless, I’ll go with whatever you think is best.
I am enjoying the discussion, and I am sure others are — so if you left it in the open, I am sure people will not complain.
Sounds good! We’ll keep it here. After re-reading my post above though, I will try to remind myself in the future that brevity is a virtue.
Not to preclude your response to my post above, but shortly I will offer a post outlining in brief (as best I can) my opinion concerning the question of man’s desire to see God, whether this is a natural desire, whether it is the essential potency of the will, whether the formal object of the mind is to know God in himself, and whether if we say man’s natural desire is to know God, this is equivalent to saying man naturally desires the Beatific Vision. I have found Lonergan quite helpful in this regard, so I will base much of my argument on his reasoning. If you want to check out his treatment of the topic in the meantime, see his book Collection, and the article “The Natural Desire to See God”.
Matthew,
This is going to be a really long post. I apologize for its length, but I don’t think I could I could make it briefer, given the subject matter.
“It does not mean, turning toward a new end that newly specifies his will universally.”
Yes, this is undoubtedly true, and again I need to be clear what is not being argued. It is not being claimed that in ordering the intellect and will to God by creating them in grace, God simply reoriented these faculties to a higher end while leaving them, in themselves, unaffected. That is to say, our final beatific end conditions our nature and its faculties. That is why, at the fall of man, we became murderers, adulterers and idolaters, and not benevolent natural philosophers living a life of natural virtue and considering the First Cause through its created effects. Nature, which is conditioned through being oriented to God as its last end, is marred when it turns away from that end. Nor is it the case that we, at any point in our lives, have a new (supernatural) final end superadded to our natural final end. Quoting from the Harm Goris article: “First we have to keep in mind that for Aquinas “human nature” is a double abstraction. It is not only a universal concept, abstracted from concretely existent, individual human beings, but it also abstracts from the actual history of salvation of this world, in which all humans are gratuitously called by God to share in his life- a call that may or may not be answered. Every human being stands in a relation of grace- or its opposite, the broken relation of (original) sin- to God, and we cannot be in a neutral position toward God’s call to a supernatural end.” So, there is no question here about our final end: it is the vision of God by our intellects and our will’s rest in the summum bonum. The vast majority of your citations (especially from SCG Book III) deal with this final end. Rather, here is what I want to contest:
What we’re talking about, in simple Aristotelian terms, is the end that specifies the nature of man; the end that specifies his will, the end he desires in desiring anything, that drives him to desire the fullness of being.
This is true, but the end in question which specifies the nature of man is our proximate natural end and not our final supernatural end. All intellects are oriented to eternal happiness as their final end, so if it is the final end which specifies our nature, our nature is not distinct from the angels. This is the substance of the objection in ST I 75.7. ob 1:
Objection 1. It would seem that the soul is of the same species as an angel. For each thing is ordained to its proper end by the nature of its species, whence is derived its inclination for that end. But the end of the soul is the same as that of an angel–namely, eternal happiness. Therefore they are of the same species.
Subsequently Thomas points out that our nature is specified by our proximate natural end here ST I 75.7. ad 1:
Reply to Objection 1. This argument proceeds from the proximate and natural end. Eternal happiness is the ultimate and supernatural end.
Moving on to the next issue, you mention that,
“Thomas explictly says that our natural desire is NOT to know God as First Cause (contrary to what you claim above: “he natural desire for God is not God in his essence but God as he is the First (Unknown) Cause- a function of our natural desire to know causes.”) but to know the Divine essence itself.
That SCG III, 39 is not arguing against a natural desire for God as first cause is clear from SCG III, 25 (Not to mention ST I 12 a 1) which states explicitly:
[11] Besides, there is naturally present in all men the desire to know the causes of whatever things are observed. Hence, because of wondering about things that were seen but whose causes were hidden, men first began to think philosophically; when they found the cause, they were satisfied. But the search did not stop until it reached the first cause, for “then do we think that we know perfectly, when we know the first cause.” Therefore, man naturally desires, as his ultimate end, to know the first cause. But the first cause of all things is God. Therefore, the ultimate end of man is to know God.
[12] Moreover, for each effect that he knows, man naturally desires to know the cause. Now, the human intellect knows universal being. So, he naturally desires to know its cause, which is God alone, as we proved in Book Two [15]. Now, a person has not attained his ultimate end until natural desire comes to rest. Therefore, for human happiness which is the ultimate end it is not enough to have merely any kind of intelligible knowledge; there must be divine knowledge, as an ultimate end, to terminate the natural desire. So, the ultimate end of man is the knowledge of God.
A couple things: first, Thomas seems to contradict himself when he says, “But this is not the kind of knowledge about God that the philosophers were able to get through demonstrations” and “…men first began to think philosophically; when they found the cause, they were satisfied. But the search did not stop until it reached the first cause.” Also, both [10] and [11] state that the natural desire to know terminates in the ultimate end (beatitude-the vision of the divine essence). Does this mean that man naturally desires beatitude? No, the first reason this cannot be so has to do with the object of the will, which is not merely ‘the good’ but ‘the apprehended good’ as can be seen here (among other places):
Reply to Objection 3. Moral acts proceed from the will, whose object is the apprehended good. (ST II 98.1 ad 3)
And in the following passages from the SCG:
For, since the object of the will is the apprehended good, the will cannot aim at evil unless in some way it is proposed to it as a good. (SCG I 95.3)
For the will is moved to act as the result of some sort of apprehension; the apprehended good is indeed the object of will. (SCG II 24.2)
Now we see that in Book III of SCG, Thomas says that knowledge of the divine essence is beyond human capacity to apprehend (see Chapter 52, the entire chapter). How can we desire what we don’t apprehend? (I realize that De Lubac tries to circumvent this problem in Chapter 11 of The Mystery of the Supernatural, a beautiful chapter, in spite of its paucity of actual references to St. Thomas.) So we seem trapped on two horns of a dilemma: Either we (impossibly) naturally desire what we have not apprehended or Thomas is incoherent when he speaks of ‘the ultimate end’ terminating natural desire. There is a way out of the dilemma: when Thomas speaks of the ultimate end terminating natural desire, he means by this that God’s grace fulfills this natural desire (in a way that our nature alone could not). When the inclination of our will is further ordered through grace, our natural desires remain (and indeed are fulfilled at a higher lever). God’s revelation of our ultimate end in grace doesn’t erase our desire to know the first cause, but fulfills it in a way unattainable through nature. We can see in ST I-II 3.8 that this natural desire cannot be perfectly fulfilled short of grace:
First, that man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek: secondly, that the perfection of any power is determined by the nature of its object. Now the object of the intellect is “what a thing is,” i.e. the essence of a thing, according to De Anima iii, 6. Wherefore the intellect attains perfection, in so far as it knows the essence of a thing. If therefore an intellect knows the essence of some effect, whereby it is not possible to know the essence of the cause, i.e. to know of the cause “what it is”; that intellect cannot be said to reach that cause simply, although it may be able to gather from the effect the knowledge of that the cause is. Consequently, when man knows an effect, and knows that it has a cause, there naturally remains in the man the desire to know about the cause, “what it is.” And this desire is one of wonder, and causes inquiry, as is stated in the beginning of the Metaphysics (i, 2). For instance, if a man, knowing the eclipse of the sun, consider that it must be due to some cause, and know not what that cause is, he wonders about it, and from wondering proceeds to inquire. Nor does this inquiry cease until he arrive at a knowledge of the essence of the cause. 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. Consequently, for perfect happiness the intellect needs to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. And thus it will have its perfection through union with God as with that object, in which alone man’s happiness consists, as stated above (1,7; 2, 8)
All this seems to fit with what Book III of SCG says in ch. 150:
[5] Besides, everything is ordered to an end suitable to it by the rational character of its form, for there are different ends for different species. But the end to which man is directed by the help of divine grace is above human nature. Therefore, some supernatural form and perfection must be superadded to man whereby he may be ordered suitably to the aforesaid end.
[6] Moreover, man must reach his ultimate end by his own operations. Now, everything operates in accord with its own form. So in order that man may be brought to his ultimate end by his own operations, a form must be superadded to him from which his operations may get a certain efficacy in meriting his ultimate end.
This also fits perfectly with what Aquinas says in Super Sent., lib. 3, dist. 23, q.1 a.4, qc 3 co.:
To the third question it must be said that in all things which act for an end there must be an inclination to the end, a certain ‘inchoation’ of the end, otherwise, they would never do something for an end. But the end toward which the divine generosity has ordained and predestined man, namely, the fruition of Himself, is in every way elevated above the faculty of created nature, for “neither has the eye seen, nor the ear heard, nor has there arisen in the heart of man what things God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor 2:9). Therefore, by his natural powers alone, man does not have a sufficient inclination to this end, and thus it is necessary that something be superadded to man through which he would have the inclination to that end, as by his natural powers he does have an inclination to the end that is connatural to him. And those things which are superadded are called the theological virtues for three reasons. First, as to the object: For, since that end to which we are ordained is God himself, the inclination that is prerequisite consists in an operation that regards God himself. Second, as to the cause: for as that end is ordained for us by God not by our nature, so the inclination to the end is worked in us solely by God; thus it is that these virtues are called theological, as though created in us by God alone. Third, as to knowledge: the inclination to this end is not able to be known by natural reason but rather by divine revelation; therefore, the virtues are called theological since by the divine word they are manifest to us, for the philosophers knew nothing of them.
Finally, you are right to counter my suggestion that the term ‘universal good’ doesn’t apply to God. In Aquinas’ writings the ‘universal good’ can, and often does, refer to God, though usually qualified as bonum universale simpliciter. This is my mistake, as I thought you were equating God with the transcendentals. It is also typical for Thomas to speak of God’s goodness, via eminentiae, as summum bonum, which is what I have become accustomed to and which (I think) invites less confusion. Anyway, I probably didn’t hit all your points but this is the best I can do for now. Thanks for your patience.
Br. Matthew: I’m working this weekend, so it may take me a couple days to get a reply back.
Just so you know, I’m thinking, and I’ll get back here soon enough.
No problem. I know how that goes. The weekends are always busy for religous.
I’ve been assuming you are a Jesuit and it suddenly occured to me I may be wrong it that assumption. Either way, take you time and I’ll talk to you later.
Not a Jesuit. Went to a Jesuit prep school, a Franciscan college, and a Dominican-minded graduate school. But Dominicans have a special place in my heart, especially for running Blessed Sacrament, among so many other things. Should get back to you soon enough.
Matthew,
If you are in the Seattle area before August (when I head out), let me know. I’ll have you over for dinner at the priory. Or we can go to Dicks.