SAINT CHARLES BORROMEO SEMINARY

Metaphysical Participation and Sacramental Ontology

A Thomistic Conversation with Hans Boersma

A THESIS

Submitted to the Faculty of the

Theological Seminary

Of Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree

Master of Arts

By

Rev. Mr. Brendon M. Laroche

Overbrook, PA

2015

 

 

 

  iii  

Dedicated to my parents,

Dcn. Michael J. Laroche and

Mrs. Wilhelmina E. Laroche,

In thanks for their many years

Of love, support, and prayer.

 

  iv  

TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  

ABBREVIATIONS  .......................................................................................................................................................  v  INTRODUCTION  ........................................................................................................................................................  1  1.  Boersma  and  Aquinas  ...................................................................................................................................  2  2.  How  We  Will  Proceed  ...................................................................................................................................  3  

CHAPTER  1:  BOERSMA  ON  SACRAMENTAL  ONTOLOGY  .......................................................................  4  1.  Platonist-­‐Christian  Ontology  .....................................................................................................................  4  2.  The  Platonist-­‐Christian  Synthesis  in  the  Fathers  .............................................................................  7  3.  The  Erosion  of  the  Platonist-­‐Christian  Synthesis  ...........................................................................  10  4.  The  Dissolution  of  the  Platonist-­‐Christian  Synthesis  ...................................................................  14  

CHAPTER  2:  AQUINAS  ON  METAPHYSICAL  PARTICIPATION  ...........................................................  19  1.  Participation  ...................................................................................................................................................  19  2.  Analogy  .............................................................................................................................................................  23  3.  The  Primacy  of  Relation  in  Created  Beings  .......................................................................................  27  4.  Aquinas  and  the  Christological  Anchor  ...............................................................................................  29  5.  Aquinas  and  Secondary  Causality  .........................................................................................................  32  

CHAPTER  3:  AQUINAS  ON  SALVATION  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS  ....................................................  37  1.  Aquinas  and  Man’s  End  ..............................................................................................................................  37  2.  Aquinas  and  Grace  .......................................................................................................................................  41  3.  The  Sacramental  Economy  .......................................................................................................................  43  4.  Aquinas  and  the  Problem  of  the  Eucharistic  Controversies  ......................................................  48  5.  Aquinas  and  the  Juridicization  of  the  Church  ...................................................................................  51  

CONCLUSION  ............................................................................................................................................................  55  1.  Res  et  Sacramentum  .....................................................................................................................................  55  2.  The  Nature  of  Sacraments  ........................................................................................................................  56  3.  The  Importance  of  Metaphysics  .............................................................................................................  57  

WORKS  CITED  .........................................................................................................................................................  59  1.  Works  by  Hans  Boersma  ...........................................................................................................................  59  2.  Works  by  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  ................................................................................................................  59  3.  Secondary  Sources  .......................................................................................................................................  60  

 

  v  

ABBREVIATIONS

 

CG

Summa contra gentiles

DH Expositio libri Boetii De ebdomadibvs

DM Quaestiones disputatae De malo

DP

Quaestiones disputatae De potentia

DV

Quaestiones disputatae De veritate

ST Summa theologiae

 

  1  

INTRODUCTION

Hans Boersma is a Reformed theologian whose writings have focused especially on those

Catholic theologians who are grouped together as practitioners of what has come to be called

Nouvelle Théologie. These nouvelle theologians generally saw themselves as part of a movement

of ressourcement.1 They were attempting to go back to the sources of the Fathers and the

medieval doctors and retrieve aspects of the Church’s tradition that had been overlooked or

misinterpreted over the centuries.

Boersma’s work has led him to what could be called his own attempt at ressourcement.

He has come to champion what he calls a Platonist-Christian sacramental ontology. Boersma

defines ontology as “an understanding of reality.”2 He notes that everyone has one.3 He even

notes that a quest for a purely biblical theology is naïve, since we bring our understanding of

reality with us when we read and interpret Scripture.4

Boersma argues that there is no universally neutral ontology.5 Since our understanding of

reality will necessarily have an effect on our understanding of the Christian Faith, Boersma

believes that we should imitate the Fathers and seek an ontology centered on Christ.6

 

                                                                                                                1 For a brief explanation of the history behind Nouvelle Théologie and ressourcement, see Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2011), 11-16. For a more in-depth discussion see Hans Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1-34. 2 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 22. 3 Ibid., 20. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 21. 6 Ibid., 20-21.

 

 

2  

1. Boersma and Aquinas

This thesis will seek to explain and enter into conversation with Hans Boersma and his

understanding of sacramental ontology. It will use St. Thomas Aquinas as a dialogue partner

with Boersma. This choice has been made for three reasons.

The first reason is because the Catholic Church has continually recommended Aquinas as

a model on how to do theology well and how to fruitfully integrate faith and reason.7 In bringing

Aquinas into contemporary dialogue with Boersma, I seek to be guided by the mind of the

Church.

The second reason is that I am, by intellectual temperament, a Thomist. Aquinas has been

a great help to me in my growth as a Catholic, both with regard to personal holiness and with

regard to preparation to serve the Church as a priest. I generally believe that Aquinas and those

theologians who seek to authentically develop his thought provide the best and most truthful

answers to questions of theology.

The final reason is related. Boersma seems to find the beginning of the end of this

Platonist-Christian synthesis in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. While he shows himself to be

acquainted with the various Neo-Platonic influences on Aquinas’ thought, he seems to hold that

Aquinas’ introduction of Aristotelian thought into his theological synthesis lead to the eventual

breakdown of the Platonic-Christian synthesis that existed from the days of the Fathers.8

                                                                                                                7 Leo XIII, The Restoration of Christian Philosophy—Aeterni Patris (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, n.d.), 21: “…we exhort you, venerable brethren, in all earnestness to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas, and to spread it far and wide for the defense and beauty of the Catholic faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all the sciences.” John Paul II, Fides et Ratio—On the Relationship between Fatih and Reason (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998), 98, §78: “The Magisterium's intention has always been to show how Saint Thomas is an authentic model for all who seek the truth. In his thinking, the demands of reason and the power of faith found the most elevated synthesis ever attained by human thought, for he could defend the radical newness introduced by Revelation without ever demeaning the venture proper to reason.” 8 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 36-7; idem, Nouvelle Théologie, 92-3; idem, “Theology as Queen of Hospitality,” Evangelical Quarterly 78:4 (2007): 291-310.

 

 

3  

It is my view that this is mistaken. I believe that a person who grasps the thought of

Aquinas in its entirety will find him to be one of the best and most able defenders of this

tradition. I further believe that his introduction of Aristotelian thought will ultimately be seen as

a necessary correction against certain Platonic influences that are incompatible with Christianity.

2. How We Will Proceed

The first chapter will seek to give an overview of Boersma’s understanding of the

Platonist-Christian synthesis and its eventual dissolution. The second will examine the

metaphysical thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and attempt to show that it provides the best

foundation for the “sacramental ontology” that Boersma wants to restore. Finally, the third

chapter will seek to describe Aquinas’ understanding of the sacraments and how they effect our

salvation. It is my hope that his chapter will show how a proper understanding of Aquinas’

thought on sacramental theology is in harmony with his metaphysical thought and is able to

avoid a number of the historic problems Boersma sees as detrimental to a sacramental Christian

worldview.

While a single thesis cannot hope to do justice to everything Boersma has to say on the

topic of the Platonist-Christian sacramental ontology, I hope that it will at least be a useful entry

into the conversation within the Church. Like Boersma, I make these word of Yves Congar my

own: “It is permissible not to say all that can be said on a topic, but to deal with it from one

particular standpoint.”9 If I accomplish at least that, then this thesis will have been a worthy

pursuit.

                                                                                                                9 Yves Congar, The Mystery of the Temple, or, The Manner of God’s Presence to His creatures from Genesis to the Apocalypse, trans. Reginal F. Trevett (London: Burns & Oats, 1962), xi. Quoted in Hans Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie, 31.

  4  

CHAPTER 1

BOERSMA ON SACRAMENTAL ONTOLOGY

This chapter will seek to lay out Hans Boersma’s understanding of sacramental ontology

as he develops it through his study of the Fathers and of those early 20th Century theologians

who are generally grouped together under the category of Nouvelle Théologie. It will also seek to

shed light on those historical developments and controversies that Boersma believes lie at the

heart of modern theology’s loss of this sacramental vision of reality.

1. Platonist-Christian Ontology

Boersma argues that the Patristic and Medieval worldview was a “Platonist-Christian

synthesis of the Great Tradition.”1 In this view, the created word was a mystery in the sense that

there existed a reality behind the appearances.2 The senses were seen as having some access to

this reality, but they were unable to fully grasp it, to comprehend it.3 Thus, “the created world

cannot be reduced to measurable, manageable dimensions.”4

Boersma goes on to say that this view ultimately treats the created order as a sacrament,

in the sense that it is a sign of a mystery that is both present with and in it, yet that also

transcends it.5 A sacrament participates in the thing that it signifies, making the two present

together and giving access to the “real presence” of what it signifies.6

                                                                                                                1 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 21. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 22. 6 Ibid., 23.

 

 

5  

Boersma makes it clear that this understanding of the created world as a sacrament is not

simply a nominal or external one.7 It is not that the world merely points to the hidden reality

because of some understanding imposed on it from without, as the signals an umpire makes in a

baseball game have no meaning inherent in themselves but only within the context of the rules of

the game. Rather, it is that the world makes present through itself the very reality that lies behind

it and in which it participates.8

The transcendent reality that the created order participates in and makes present is God.

Boersma holds that it is theologically necessary to view God’s relationship to creation as real and

participatory rather than simply nominal and external. “The real connection that God has

graciously posited between himself and the created order forms the underlying ontological basis

that makes it possible for a covenant relationship to flourish.”9 In other words, if we do not

accept that created reality in some way participates in God and makes him present, then we have

no basis for any understanding of the things God has done throughout salvation history.

Boersma is quick to note, however, that the Platonist-Christian synthesis did not involve

an uncritical acceptance of classical and Neo-Platonic thought.10 The first difference is that

Christians held that God created the world freely. Creation was not a necessary emanation.11

Boersma notes that the nouvelle theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar was especially conscious of

the dangers of an overreliance on purely Platonic thought in this regard, something he saw within

                                                                                                                7 Ibid., 23-4. 8 Ibid., 24. 9 Ibid., 25. 10 Ibid., 35. 11 Ibid., 34.

 

 

6  

the theological thought that had its origins in Alexandria.12 Any failure to properly deal with the

problem of emanation could easily lead to pantheism.13

Second, Christianity had a higher regard for the material world. All of creation

participated in the divine goodness, including the material world. This is made explicit through

the Christian understanding of the Incarnation and the resurrection of the body.14

Finally, Christianity did not posit a descending hierarchy of divine beings through which

the created order came to be. Platonic thought viewed perfection and unified and thus saw

multiplicity as imperfection. In traditional Neo-Platonic cosmology, there is a perfect monad (the

Good or the One), from which flows the various Forms and Ideas, from which finally flowed the

material world of imperfection and change.15 Christianity believed that the created world and

revelation reflected the existence of hierarchy, but the doctrine of the Trinity counterbalanced the

unhealthy view of divine monarchy that saw all multiplicity as imperfection.16 “The one and the

many both went back to the heart of who God is.”17

Central to the Platonist-Christian synthesis of the Fathers was that the eternal Forms or

Ideas of the Platonists had real existence within the Eternal Word of God.18 This position leads to

two principles. The first principle is that the entire created order is anchored in the eternal Logos

through participation.19 The second is that the natural order of creation is not valued for itself.

The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of creation have only derivative existence, and thus they are

                                                                                                                12 Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie, 122; idem, “Nature and the Supernatural in la nouvelle théoligie: The Recovery of a Sacramental Mindset,” New Blackfriars 93:1043 (2011): 41. 13 Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie, 122. 14 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 34. 15 Ibid., 34. 16 Ibid., 34-5. 17 Ibid., 35. 18 Ibid., 52. 19 Ibid.

 

 

7  

not of ultimate value.20 Rather, ultimate value resides only in the source of Truth, Goodness, and

Beauty in which they all participate. The goodness of creation is a sacramental sharing in the

mystery of Christ.21

2. The Platonist-Christian Synthesis in the Fathers

To illustrate the existence of the Platonist-Christian synthesis and its explanatory power

in theology, Boersma provides a number of examples taken from the Fathers and from the

patristic works of the nouvelle theologians. We will briefly examine three of these writers now:

St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, and St. Gregory of Nyssa.

St. Irenaeus was an opponent of the Gnostics. In Boersma’s view, he can be seen as a

theologian of unity. He argues for the unity of the Trinity against Gnostic polytheism; for the

unity of the human and divine natures in Christ against Gnostic separation; for the unity of

salvation history against the Gnostic’s strict division between the Old and New Testaments; for

the unity of God’s revelation to all men and their duty to respond to it against the Gnostics

division of men along the lines of their ability to attain special, salvific knowledge; and for the

Incarnation’s elevation of the material world against the Gnostic view that salvation was an

escape from the material.22

Irenaeus centered his attack against Gnosticism in his idea of recapitulation. In the

Incarnation, the Son of God becomes the head of every human being by taking on human nature.

Recapitulation provides “a Christological anchor for the salvation of humanity.”23

                                                                                                                20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., 53. 22 Ibid., 41-2. 23 Ibid., 44.

 

 

8  

As Boersma points out, Hans Urs von Balthasar, in his own work on Irenaeus, stressed

the anti-Platonic elements of Irenaeus’ understanding of recapitulation.24 It was especially

important for Balthasar to stress that recapitulation in Christ was a recapitulation of the entire

Adam, body and soul.25 Thus, while recapitulation provides a participatory ground for God’s

salvation of mankind, it avoids any overly Platonic degradation of the material world as such,

quite unlike the Gnostic understanding of salvation.

St. Athanasius also grounds his understanding of salvation in the participatory nature of

the Incarnation. We are saved in Christ through the common humanity in which we all

participate.26 When he took on our human nature, Christ blessed all of humanity.27 The humanity

of Christ becomes the instrument through which the God heals man.28 By taking on corruptible

humanity, the Incarnate Word shares with it his own incorruptibility.29 Christ redeems humanity

through the shared humanity in which all men participate.30

St. Gregory of Nyssa used elements of Platonic thought to help explain the unity and

diversity of God as expressed in the doctrine of the Trinity. To do so, he draws on the Platonic

distinction between what is common to a group and what is unique to a particular subject.31

Gregory thus makes a distinction between what is common to God—the unity of nature or

ousia—and what is proper to each of the persons as a particular subject, namely their personhood

or hypostases.32

                                                                                                                24 Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie, 123-4. 25 Ibid., 124. 26 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 44. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid., 46. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., 47-8. 32 Ibid., 48.

 

 

9  

Against the argument that this distinction does not overcome the problem of three gods

anymore than the shared humanity of three men overcomes the fact that there are still three

distinct human beings, Gregory argues that there is a more profound unity among the divine

persons than can be found among men. The three divine persons participate in a shared divinity,

and therefore they participate in a common divine will. When acting externally to the divine

essence, all three of the divine persons thus act together in unison.33

Like Irenaeus and Athanasius, Gregory makes great use of the Platonic focus on the

importance of unity.34 And as with Irenaeus and Athanasius, it is Christ the Logos who anchors

his understanding of the unity of the created order. The universals that the Platonists understood

as Forms or Ideas have their grounding in the eternal Logos. All creation exists through

participation in the Logos.35

But, like Irenaeus, Gregory does not simply accept Platonism uncritically. In the Platonic

view, it is only the eternal and changeless that is truly good. The world of mutability is

considered imperfect and viewed with suspicion because it is only a shadow of the eternal and

immutable world of forms. But Gregory, armed with the Christian understanding that God

created the world and created it good, holds a different position. Gregory recognized that change

was a good thing when it was change for the better, a change towards the good. Thus Gregory

could view mutability as a good gift given by God to allow for this growth in goodness.36

As these examples show, the Fathers used Platonic thought to develop a Platonist-

Christian understanding of participation. Participation allows changeable created reality to

                                                                                                                33 Ibid., 49. 34 Ibid., 49-50. 35 Ibid., 50. 36 Ibid., 50-1.

 

 

10  

ground itself in a “Christological anchor” that is not caught up on the flow of history.37 “The

Platonic connection allowed Christians to say that the eternal Logos—infinitely transcending the

created order—provides the foundation and stability of the created order and of human

history.”38

Ultimately, the loss of the Platonist-Christian synthesis developed by the Fathers has

important consequences for both philosophy and theology, for both reason and faith. For

philosophy, the Platonist-Christian sacramental ontology entails that universals are real. They

have an existence outside of our minds. For theology, it entails that these universals find their

reality in the Logos, the eternal Word of God.39

3. The Erosion of the Platonist-Christian Synthesis

Drawing from the work of various nouvelle theologians, Boersma points to five historical

developments that gave rise to the erosion of the Platonist-Christian synthesis developed by the

Fathers. These developments took place during the period that stretched from the end of the

Patristic era through the High Middle Ages, and sometimes even beyond.

The first of these historical developments was the Gregorian reforms brought about by

the Investiture Controversy. Boersma notes that nouvelle theologian Yves Congar believed that

the way the Church began to use and understand her influence coming out of the Investiture

Controversy eroded the Platonist-Christian synthesis.40

                                                                                                                37 Ibid., 51. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid., 54.

 

 

11  

During this period, Congar thinks, the way that ecclesiastical and papal power was

asserted lead to an increased juridicizing of the Church.41 The expanding juridical role of the

Papacy lead people to begin for the first time to distinguish—and even to separate—what was

divine in the Church from what was human. This view was bolstered by philosophical

developments that distinguished between primary and secondary causality.42 “From the twelfth

century onward, secondary human causality began to take on a life of its own.”43 This growing

separation between God’s action in the Church and the juridical action of men caused a shift in

the general understanding of Church authority from something inherent in the Church to

something external and imposed from without.44

The second of these historical developments arises out of the Eucharistic controversies

begun by Berengar of Tours.45 Up until this point, the celebration of the Eucharist can be seen as

the fullest expression of the Platonist-Christian synthesis, the key moment in which created

realities give a participation in heavenly ones. Because of the controversy, this would change.

Following the work of Henri de Lubac, Boersma notes that Berengar’s denial of the real

presence was met with a “robust reasserting” of it.46 In de Lubac’s view, this is what leads to the

problem. In denying the real presence, Berengar is ignoring the sacramentum, the participation

of created reality in uncreated reality, and instead focusing entirely on the res, the thing or end

that the sacrament brings about, which in the case of the Eucharist is the unity of the Church.

But, according to de Lubac, Berengar’s opponents fall into the same trap. By focusing so

much on the real presence while not keeping in focus the unity of the Church as the end the real

                                                                                                                41 Ibid. 42 Ibid., 55. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid., 57. 46 Ibid.

 

 

12  

presence exists to bring about, they helped to create a sharp divide between sacramentum and

res. This growing divide between the sacrament and the reality it brought about led to a growing

divide between nature and the supernatural.47

The third historical development is what Boersma calls “the discovery of nature” brought

about by the rediscovery of the works of Aristotle in the High Middle Ages.48 Within the works

of Aristotle one finds a view that holds the inherent goodness of the created order. One also finds

a repudiation of the Platonic Forms or Ideas as existing in some way distinct from created

realities.49

These new views led to a new focus on things like natural law and human reason, and to

the idea that happiness could already be achieved in this life. All of this led to a drawing away

from sacramentalism and towards naturalism. This increasing naturalism led to a

“desacramentalizing” of the created order.50

The fourth historical development Boersma also draws from Congar. It is what appears to

be the growing opposition between the authority of Scripture and the authority of the Church.

Congar sees this as related to the increased juridicization of the Church.51

The increased centralization of the Church’s juridical authority led to the hierarchy

making more decisive and binding claims with regard to the interpretation of Scripture. In

defense of the Church’s authority to do this, arguments were increasingly made that such

decisions were needed because Scripture by itself was insufficient. This opposition of Scripture

to tradition led to a further divide between the natural and the supernatural because it led people

                                                                                                                47 Ibid., 57-8. 48 Ibid., 58. 49 Ibid.; Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie, 144-8. 50 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 58. 51 Ibid., 61.

 

 

13  

to view both as external authorities rather than realities through which God works

sacramentally.52

Finally, Boersma, following Henri de Lubac, sees all of these various developments

coming together in the separation between the natural and the supernatural. While this separation

was in play in the previous developments, it finally “became the direct object of controversy in

the sixteenth century.”53 Due to the influence of Aristotle and the “discovery of nature,” the

natural world began to be viewed as having its own autonomy apart from grace.54 “As the natural

world gained autonomy, the supernatural was forced into an inevitable retreat.”55 This led to two

developments in thought that brought the question of the relationship between nature and the

supernatural to the fore.

The first was the development of the idea of “pure nature,” meaning the hypothetical

state of unfallen human nature without the assistance of grace.56 Boersma notes that de Lubac

was willing to admit that such a concept might have a positive purpose insofar as it safeguards

the gratuity of grace.57 But he believed that the idea of pure nature ultimately made it too easy to

separate the natural from the supernatural.

The second development that brought the separation between nature and grace into direct

controversy surrounded man’s natural desire to see God or lack thereof. The denial of man’s

natural desire to see God led to a view that man had a twofold end, one by nature the other

through grace.58 Such a position further drives a wedge between the natural and the supernatural.

Boersma’s position, following de Lubac, seems to be that it is the natural desire to see God that                                                                                                                 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., 64. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid., 65. 57 Ibid.; Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie, 95. 58 Boersma, Novelle Théologie, 96; idem, “Nature and Supernatural in la nouvelle théologie,” 36; idem, “Theology as Queen of Hospitality,” 294-5.

 

 

14  

provides the link between the temporal and the eternal that is necessary for a sacramental

ontology.59

4. The Dissolution of the Platonist-Christian Synthesis

While these various historical developments weakened the Platonist-Christian synthesis

that undergirded the sacramental ontology Boersma finds in the Fathers, it would take three

further developments to change the face of theology and severe nature from the supernatural.

These developments are the univocity of being, voluntarism, and nominalism.

The understanding of being found with in the Platonist-Christian synthesis that existed

form the patristic period through the High Middle ages held that being was analogous. It was

predicated of different things in a way that was similar but not identical. And this was especially

true when one was speaking of both God and creatures.60 In fact, when speaking about God and

creatures, there was an infinite dissimilarity between the being of God and the being of other

things that stood behind the similarity. This infinite dissimilarity was actually understood as the

point of the doctrine of analogy.61

Boersma goes into Aquinas’ understanding of analogy as the paradigmatic example of

this understanding of being. For Aquinas, when one talks about God there is an infinite

difference that exists behind the words one uses versus the way ones uses them when one is

using them to talk about creatures.62 This is because the human mind cannot comprehend God.63

He is infinitely greater than our intellectual capacity.

                                                                                                                59 Boersma, “Nature and Supernatural in la nouvelle théologie,” 37. 60 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 70. 61 Ibid., 71. 62 Ibid., 73. 63 Ibid., 74.

 

 

15  

Following the understanding of Aquinas and analogy developed in the work of Henri

Bouillard, Boersma notes that the difference between speaking of God and speaking of creatures

comes down to a different way of signifying because what is signified properly belongs to God

and is thus beyond our grasp.64 Analogy of being ultimately allows us to try to put the

unchanging truth of God in human terms, but it will always fall short in some way.65

Univocity of being arises out of the philosophical and theological writings of John Duns

Scotus.66 When “being” is used univocally, God and creatures are said to exist in the same way.

“Being” becomes an objective, neutral category within which both God and creatures can be

placed.67 When one understands being this way, it follows that the being possessed by creatures

has no reference to God, as “being” becomes some “third thing” that both God and creatures take

part in. In this understanding it can no longer be said that creatures receive their reality from

God.68

Ultimately, univocity of being necessarily leads to idolatry.69 Speaking of “being” in this

way leaves God subordinated to it as to a higher concept. God becomes one among many

beings.70 This is very different form the thought of Aquinas. For him, God transcends every

category.71

Placing God as one among other things the category of “being” means that creation is

independent from God. Creation can now be said to exist in the same way that God exists. The

created order no longer has its being only by participation in the transcendent being of God.72

                                                                                                                64 Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie, 105. 65 Boersma, “Nature and Supernatural in la nouvelle théologie,” 40. 66 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 74; idem, “Theology as Queen of Hospitality,” 301. 67 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 74. 68 Ibid., 75. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid., 75-6. 72 Ibid., 76.

 

 

16  

Univocity of being gives rise to voluntarism. God and creation used to be linked together

by the latters participation in the former. But now that “being” is a category that contains both

the creature and the Creator, the link between them cannot be inherent, but must rather be

something imposed from without. The relationship between God and the world is now

guaranteed solely by the will of God.73

For Aquinas, God’s decisions are not simply a matter of his will. God wills whatever he

wills in accord with the eternal truth of the divine rationality.74 For Scotus, univocity leads to a

disjunction between the divine will and the divine intellect. Good and evil are now simply a

matter of God’s willing things to be that way.75

Voluntarism essentially reified an already understood distinction between God’s absolute

power and God’s ordained power.76 For men like Aquinas, this distinction existed to safeguard

God’s omnipotence by distinguishing everything he could have done from those things that he

has chosen to do. In other words, the distinction was simply a matter of looking at God’s

omnipotence from two different perspectives.77

But in Scotus and another late scholastic, William of Ockham, the distinction between

God’s absolute power and his ordained power began to be treated not as a matter of perspective,

but of reality. In such treatments it appears as if God could use his absolute power outside of his

ordained will.78

Voluntarism has three negative consequences. First, nature has been separated from

reason and has become fundamentally unintelligible. Second, the focus on God’s divine decrees

                                                                                                                73 Ibid. 74 Ibid., 76. 75 Ibid., 77. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid.

 

 

17  

severs the connection between the divine intellect and the divine will. And third, grace becomes

something arbitrarily and externally imposed upon nature. The supernatural order is now strictly

separated from the natural order.79

The final nail in the coffin of the Platonist-Christian synthesis was the advent of

nominalism. For the philosophical thinker within the Platonic-Christian tradition, the Forms or

Ideas had some kind of real existence. For Christian thinkers they are ultimately grounded in the

Logos. Universal natures exist in the Word of God.80

But in the thought of William of Ockham, developing out of the similar principles of

univocity and voluntarism as Scotus, there is no need for universals. They are superfluous

philosophical baggage. What we see as universals are just names that we apply to things that

look alike.81

For Ockham, the thing we see and the concept that forms in our minds are all we need to

explain our knowledge. There is no need to posit some “third thing” that grounds both the thing

and the concept in our minds.82 Things appear to be similar because God willed them to be that

way. There is no underlying connection to the Logos that gives them their intelligibility.83

The development of univocity of being, voluntarism, and nominalism all lead into the

Protestant Reformation. The Reformation was the decisive end of the unity that the Platonist-

Christian synthesis had attempted to preserve. It was the ultimate separation of the natural and

the supernatural in the life of the Church.84

                                                                                                                79 Ibid., 79; Boersma, “A Sacramental Journey to the Beatific Vision: The Intellectualism of Pierre Rousselot,” Heythrop Journal 49 (2008): 1017. 80 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 80. 81 Ibid.; Boersma, “Theology as Queen of Hospitality,” 301. 82 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 80-1. 83 Ibid., 81. 84 Ibid., 87.

 

 

18  

The Reformation severed the link between the sacrament of the Eucharist and the unity of

the Church.85 It severed the authority of Scripture from the authority of the Church.86 At its root

was nominalism. In the Platonist-Christian synthesis, all of humanity was joined together

through the Logos. This united believers in a way greater than anything could have divided them.

Now nominalism had done away with this inherent link between individuals.87

The results of the Reformation bear this out. In the thought of Luther one sees the

nominalist influence that influenced him to keep reason and faith as separate as possible,

showing a separation between the natural and the supernatural.88 In Calvin’s doctrine of double

predestination one sees the results of a voluntarism that opposes grace and nature, leaving no

room for a natural desire for God.89

One especially sees the effects of nominalism and voluntarism in the doctrines of

imputed righteousness and forensic justification that grow out of the Reformation. Here we see

the relationship between the divine and the human as something that is entirely extrinsic and

nominal.90 From nominalism comes schism, because “fragmentation lies at the heart of the

nominalist ontology.”91

                                                                                                                85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid., 88-9. 88 Ibid., 91. For the influence of nominalism on Luther’s understanding of the sacraments, see Roland Millare, "The Nominalist Justification for Luther's Sacramental Ontology," Antiphon 17.2 (2013): 168-90. 89 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 91-2. 90 Ibid., 92-3. 91 Ibid., 89.

  19  

CHAPTER 2

AQUINAS ON METAPHYSICAL PARTICIPATION

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Boersma seems to find the beginning of the end of

this Platonist-Christian synthesis in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. He appears to hold that

Aquinas’ introduction of Aristotelian thought into his theological synthesis lead to the eventual

breakdown of the Platonic-Christian synthesis that existed from the days of the Fathers. This

chapter will attempt to explicate various aspects of Aquinas’ metaphysical thought with a focus

on his understanding of participation in the hopes of demonstrating that Aquinas faithfully

maintains the Platonist-Christian Synthesis that Boersma seeks to restore.1

1. Participation

Aquinas offers a definition of participation in the second lecture of his Expositio libri

Boetii De ebdomadibvs. Here he says that “to participate” can be defined as “to take a part.”2 He

follows this etymological definition with a more philosophical one: “when something receives in

a particular way that which belongs to another in a universal way.”3

Aquinas follows this philosophical definition by giving examples of participation. These

include the participation of man in animal; of Socrates in man; of a subject in an accident; of

matter in form; and of an effect in its cause, especially if the effect is not equal to the power of

                                                                                                                1 For a discussion of the Platonic influences on Aquinas relating to his understanding of participation, one can reference the following works: W. Norris Clarke, “The Limitation of Act by Potency in St. Thomas: Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism?” in Explorations in Metaphysics: Being–God–Person (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 65-88; Adrian Pabst, Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy, Interventions (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012), 201-2; Rudi A. te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1995), 15; idem, Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae, Ashgate Studies in the History of Philosophical Theology (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 110. 2 DH, l. 2. All translations will be taken from Janice L. Schultz and Edward A. Synan, trans, An Exposition of the “On the Hebdomads” of Boethius (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2001). 3 Ibid.

 

 

20  

the cause.4 These examples demonstrate three types of participation. The first is the participation

of a species in its genus or of an individual in a species. The second is the participation of

something in form, whether it is the participation of matter in substantial form or the

participation of some substance in accidental form. The third type of participation is the

participation of an effect in its cause.5 It is the third type of participation—the participation of an

effect in its cause—that is of interest here, since we will see that this is the way in which Aquinas

understands created reality to participate in the existence from God.6

Aquinas does not define this third type of participation in the cited text from Expositio

libri Boetii De ebdomadibvs. But one can find texts that will shed light on this type of

participation in other works. Turning to the prima pars of the Summa theologiae, one finds such

a text in question 4, article 2. Here Aquinas states that effects preexist in their efficient causes.7

Moreover, he states that the effect must either exist in the same way, as it does in a univocal

cause—where like generates like—or it must exist in more eminent way, as it does in an

equivocal cause—where the effect generated does not express the full power of the cause

because the cause and the effect do not share the same species.8 How then does an effect

participate in its cause? The cause gives to the effect that which it already possesses in itself, and

if the cause is equivocal, it gives to the effect in a particular and limited way what it possesses in

a general and more universal way.

                                                                                                                4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. St. Thomas himself explicitly states this in the discussion that immediately follows, since he begins by setting aside the third way of participating and begins discussing the first two. 6 For more on the first two type of participation see John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, Monograph of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, no. 1 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 97-8; Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality, 11-14. 7 ST I, q. 4, a. 2c. All translations will be taken from the Fathers of the English Dominican province, trans., Summa Theologica, 5 vols. (New York: Benzinger Bros., 1954; Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1981). 8 Ibid.; Te Velde, Aquinas on God, 113.

 

 

21  

But what does it means for the source of the property to possess it in a more universal

way? It means that the source possesses the property in a more perfect way. “Whatever

participates in a thing is compared to the thing participated in as act to potentiality, since by that

which is participated the participator is actualized in such and such a way.”9 But Aquinas holds

that a thing is more perfect the more it is in act.10 It follows that the source of a property—which

possesses the property in a more universal way—must also possess the property in a more

perfect way. This is because the source of a property compares to that which receives the

property through participation as act compares to potency, which is the same as comparing the

more perfect to the less perfect.

Aquinas states, “To pre-exist virtually in the efficient cause is to pre-exist not in a more

imperfect, but in a more perfect way.”11 He compares the preexistence of an effect in the

efficient cause to the preexistence of an effect in the material cause to better explain this.

Something that preexists in potentiality in the material cause exists in a less perfect way, since

matter qua matter is imperfect. The efficient cause, on the other hand, is perfect, at least insofar

as it is an agent.12 That the agent is perfect qua agent follows from perfection accompanying

actuality. A thing is perfect insofar as it is in act because it is through act that its perfections exist

and are possessed by it.13 “Every agent acts forasmuch as it is in act.”14 And thus, “action must

                                                                                                                9 CG II, c. 53. All translations will be taken from Anton C. Pegis et al., trans., Summa Contra Gentiles, 5 vols. (Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1955; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). 10 ST I, q. 4, a. 1c: “A thing is perfect in proportion to its state of actuality, because we call that perfect which lacks nothing of the mode of its perfection.” 11 Ibid., a. 2c. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., a. 1c: “Hence, the first active principle must needs be most actual, and therefore most perfect; for a thing is perfect in proportion to its state of actuality, because we call that perfect which lacks nothing of the mode of its perfection.” 14 DP, q. 3, a. 1c. All translations will be taken from English Dominican Father, trans., On the Power of God (n.p.: Newman Press, 1932; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004.). See also DP, q. 3, a. 6c; CG III, c. 3.

 

 

22  

needs be attributed to an agent according to the measure of its actuality.”15 Any agent qua agent

is in act and thus any agent qua agent is perfect. Thus the effect preexists in a more perfect way

in the efficient cause. And thus an effect can be said to participate in its efficient cause.

Aquinas also states “whatever has some perfection by participation, is traced back, as to

its principle and cause, to what possesses that perfection essentially.”16 This final piece of

information makes it possible to lay down three essential elements of participation. Following

W. Norris Clarke, I would list these three elements are as follows: first, the source of the

property possesses it in a more universal, perfect and unrestricted way. Second, that which

participates in the property receives it in a more particular, imperfect and restricted way. Third,

the property received by the subject is dependent on the source for the property; what the subject

has by participation the source has essentially.17

There is one more important element of participation that must be mentioned. Those

things that participate in a property can be said to augment and increase the property when they

are considered together. For example, if one being that is good by participation is considered

together with another being that is good by participation, then it is possible to say that there

exists more goodness between these two beings considered together than exists in either being

considered separately. However, if a being that possesses a property by participation is

considered together with the source of the property—together with that which possesses the

property essentially—then it cannot be said that the participant augments or increases the

                                                                                                                15 DP, q. 3, a. 1c. 16 Thomas Aquinas, Compendium theologiae, I, c. 68. Translation taken from Cyril Vollert, trans., The Light of Faith: The Compendium of Theology (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947; Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1993). See also ST, I, q. 44, a. 1c. 17 W. Norris Clarke, “The Meaning of Participation in St. Thomas,” in Explorations in Metaphysics: Being—God—Person, 93.

 

 

23  

property in such a way as to make the two considered together greater than the source considered

alone.18

This is important to remember lest one be deceived into viewing creation as a good in

itself that can add anything to God. All created truth, goodness and beauty is derived from God

by participation. Thus the goodness of the created order cannot in any way be held in opposition

to or apart from the goodness of God.

Aquinas thus agrees with de Lubac and other nouvelle theologians in recognizing God as

“the ultimate ground of being.”19 Everything that is participates in God and thus in some way

reveals God.20 “All creatures, in there own distinct ways, exist in communion with the universal

source of being from which they receive their being.”21 In this regard Aquinas stands in

continuity with the Platonist-Christian synthesis that Boersma wishes to recover.

2. Analogy

Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy is founded upon his understanding of participation. Because

creatures are dependent on God for their being through participation, they possess in a limited

and less perfect way what God possesses in an unlimited and more perfect way. Participation

provides the grounds for the possibility of saying that creatures are in some way like God:

For that is called like something which possesses a quality or form of that thing. Since, then, that which is found in God perfectly is found in other things according to a certain diminished participation, the basis on which the likeness is

                                                                                                                18 DM, q. 5, a. 1 ad 4: “A created good added to an uncreated good does not make it a greater good nor cause greater happiness. The reason for this is that if two participants are conjoined, that of which they are participants can be augmented in them; but if a participant is added to that which is such essentially, it does not cause it to be greater…” All translations taken from John A. Oesterle and Jean T. Oesterle, trans., On Evil (. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995). 19 Christiane Alpers, “The Essence of a Christian in Henri de Lubac: Sacramental Ontology or Non-Ontology,” New Blackfriars 95:1058 (2014): 431. 20 Ibid. 21 Te Velde, Aquinas on God, 141.

 

 

24  

observed belongs to God absolutely, but not to the creature. Thus, the creature has what belongs to God and, consequently, is rightly said to be like God.22

Because of this likeness, it is possible to speak of God in a way that is both absolute and

affirmative.

God includes within Himself the perfections of all creatures in a simply, universal and

more perfect way because he is the source of their being in which they participate. The

perfections found in creatures thus bear some likeness to God. But because a participant only

possesses what it receives from its source in a more limited and imperfect way, creatures only

represent God in an imperfect way. To say that God is good is to say that whatever goodness

exists in creatures preexists in God in a more perfect way. And thus God is not called good, for

example, because He is the cause of goodness, but rather He is the cause of goodness because He

is good and the source of all participated goodness in creatures.23

Now, since the perfections found in creatures exist in God in a more perfect way, it

follows that they properly apply to God insofar as what they signify belongs primarily and more

perfectly to God than it does to creature. But insofar as the mode of signification of these

perfections is derived from creatures, the mode of signification properly belongs to creatures.

Thus, when predicating affirmative names of God, the names properly apply to God with regard

to the thing signified, but properly refer to creatures with regard to their mode of signification.24

It follows from this distinction between the thing signified and the mode of signification

that names said of both God and creatures are not said of God univocally. Because God is the

source of being and perfection in which all creaturely being participates, the perfections that                                                                                                                 22 CG, I, c. 29. 23 ST, I, q. 13, a. 2c: “Therefore the aforesaid names signify the divine substance, but in an imperfect manner, even as creatures represent it imperfectly. So when we say, ‘God is good,’ the meaning is not, ‘God is the cause of goodness,’ or ‘God is not evil’; but the meaning is, ‘Whatever good we attribute to creatures, pre-exists in God,’ and in a more excellent and higher way. Hence it does not follow that God is good, because He causes goodness; but rather, on the contrary, He causes goodness in things because He is good.” 24 ST, I, q. 13, a. 3c.

 

 

25  

exist in God simply and universally exist in creatures in diverse and particular ways. Our

knowledge of these predicates is not knowledge of them, as they exist in God in a perfect,

unlimited, and unified way. Rather, our knowledge is of them insofar as they exist in creatures,

i.e. in an imperfect, limited, and diverse way. As such, names said of both God and creatures are

not applied to both in the same way.25

This does not mean that names predicated of both God and creatures are predicated in a

purely equivocal way. Because creatures are in some way similar to God it is possible to reason

from creatures to true knowledge of God. But it would be fallacious to argue using purely

equivocal terms, so the names said of both God and creatures cannot be used in a purely

equivocal way.26

Aquinas holds that affirmative names are predicated of God analogously.27 What can be

said of both God and creatures is said of God in a more prefect and unified way, because God is

the source of those perfections in which created reality participates. Thus names predicated of

both God and creatures are said of creatures in some proportional manner, since any perfection

possessed by creatures relates back to God as its cause and source.28

Regarding analogous predication then, it can be said that any name analogously

predicated of both God and creatures refers primarily to God rather than to creature insofar as the

thing signified belongs primarily to God as the source from which the perfection flows.

However, since our knowledge of these perfections begins with our experiencing them in a

                                                                                                                25 ST, I, q. 13, a. 5c. 26 ST, I, q. 13, a. 5c; CG, I, c. 33. 27 ST, I, q. 13, a. 5c. 28 Ibid.

 

 

26  

limited and participatory way, insofar as any name is analogously predicated of both God and

creatures it primarily refers to creatures by its mode of signification.29

In the thought of Aquinas, God is held to be absolutely simple. This means that there

exists in God no real distinctions or compositions that would in any way limit him. Because of

this, any perfection analogously predicated of God ultimately signifies the absolutely simple and

perfect divine essence. Yet anything analogously predicated of God is also signified in a mode of

understanding derived from created reality, and is thus understood as diverse and divided rather

than simple and united. Thus analogy allows us to make true affirmative propositions about God.

But we must always remember that there is an infinite distance between our ability to grasp

truths about God and God as he is in himself.30

Aquinas’ understanding of the analogy of being and the analogous predication of the

divine names has its foundations in his understanding of participation. When predicating any

name of both God and creatures, the thing signified belongs essentially to God and to creatures

only through participation. However we come to know what we predicate of both God and

creatures through creatures, which only possess whatever perfections they possess in a limited

and derivative way. Thus the mode by which we signify what we predicate of both God and

creatures is understood not as something possessed essentially, but as something possessed by

                                                                                                                29 ST, I, q. 13, a. 6c: “Hence as regards what the name signifies, these names are applied primarily to God rather than to creatures, because these perfections flow from God to creatures; but as regards the imposition of the names, they are primarily applied by us to creatures which we know first. Hence they have a mode of signification which belongs to creatures.” 30 ST, I, q. 13, a. 12c: “God, however, as considered in Himself, is altogether one and simple, yet our intellect knows Him by different conceptions because it cannot see Him as He is in Himself. Nevertheless, although it understands Him under different conceptions, it knows that one and the same simple object corresponds to its conceptions.”

 

 

27  

participation. Thus we can say with Bernard Montagnes that, “analogical unity and unity of

participation merge.”31

This grounding of the doctrine of analogy in participation keeps Aquinas from falling

into the “idolatry” of the univocity of being. The type of analogy used when predicating names

of both God and creatures does not call for some common genus to exist between God and

creatures.32 There is not some “third thing” to which God and creatures are both compared and

measured against, as there is when Aquinas uses the example of analogously predicating

“healthy” to both food and urine in relation to health in the body.33 There is instead a direct

proportional relationship between the perfection in creatures as a participated effect and the

perfection in God as the cause in which it participates. To quote Cornelio Fabro, one of the

scholars whose work brought to the fore Aquinas’ understanding of participation in the first half

of the twentieth century: “Analogy of attribution accomplishes the ultimate ‘resolution’ of

metaphysical discourse by relating the many to the One, the diverse to the Identical, and the

composed to the Simple.”34

3. The Primacy of Relation in Created Beings

The participatory relationship between God and creation means that relation must be

given a certain primacy over substance with regard to created being.35 When discussing what

creation means for creatures, Aquinas argues that it is necessary for creatures to have a relation

directed towards God as there creator: “creation in the creature is only a certain relation to the                                                                                                                 31 Bernard Montagnes, The Doctrine of Analogy of Being according to Thomas Aquinas, trans. E. M. Macierowski (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2004), 34. 32 Te Velde, Aquinas on God, 112. 33 Ibid., 113. For Aquinas’ example see ST, I, q. 13, a. 5c. 34 Cornelio Fabro, “The Intensive Hermeneutics of Thomistic Philosophy: The Notion of Participation,” Review of Metaphysics 27:3 (1974): 483-84. 35 See Pabst, Metaphysics, 5-53; idem, “The Primacy of Relation over Substance and the Recovery of a Theological Metaphysics,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81:4 (2007): 553-578.

 

 

28  

Creator as to the principle of its being.”36 God, however, does not have a real relation to

creatures. God’s relationship to creatures is merely one of reason.37

This clearly follows from the nature of participation. What participates in something adds

nothing to what it participates in because the relationship between the two is the relationship of

potency to act, the relationship of imperfection to perfection. But the participant really does gain

something from the source in which it participates. Thus the source of the perfection has no

necessary reference to its derivative, while the participant necessarily references the source as the

ground through which it possesses the perfection.

Participation grants a certain primacy to relation over substance because it is only

through a participated relationship with God that created substances exist at all. As W. Norris

Clarke notes:

But in every finite (created) substance there is a more primordial relation of receptivity constitutive of its very being before it can pour over into action at all: namely that it has received its very act of existence from another, ultimately from God, the Source of all existence.38

The primacy of relation is thus the compliment of Aquinas’ doctrine of participation and

reminds us that created reality is dependent upon something greater than itself, helping us

from overemphasizing creation’s “autonomy” and placing too much emphasis on nature

as distinct from God.

A proper understanding of participation and the primacy of relation over

substance enable us to avoid falling into the trap of “desacralizing” nature to the extent

that we separate the created order from the God who is its source. “Just as God is the

source of all being and as such lacks any shared basis with everything else, so common

                                                                                                                36 ST I, q. 45, a. 3c. 37 Ibid. ad 1. 38 W. Norris Clarke, “To Be Is to Be Substance-in-Relation,” in Explorations in Metaphysics: Being—God—Person, 119.

 

 

29  

being is not an independent station in the cosmic order against which the Creator and

creation are measured.”39

4. Aquinas and the Christological Anchor

Boersma sees the final end to the Platonic-Christian synthesis arising from nominalism’s

denial that there are any Ideas or Forms that exist outside of the mind. The Fathers grounded

these Forms or Ideas in the Logos. According to Boersma, the Fathers insisted “the Platonic

Forms or Ideas had real existence in the eternal Word of God.”40 Does Aquinas’ own

understanding of participation allow for such a Christological anchor within the context of his

metaphysical thought?

Aquinas states, “It is necessary to suppose ideas in the divine mind.”41 By “ideas,”

Aquinas means the forms of things existing apart from the things themselves, either as an

exemplar cause or as a principle of knowledge.42 Why is it necessary to make such a

supposition?

Our discussion of participation has already shown us that God must be the first cause and

creator of all. Everything other than God exists through a limited participation in God’s own

infinite being. God is the ground for all created beings, and nothing can be outside or apart from

him.

                                                                                                                39 Pabst, Metaphysics, 248. 40 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 52. 41 ST I, q. 15, a. 1c. 42 ST I, q. 15, a. 1c. See ST I, q. 15, a. 3c. for the definition of “exemplar cause” in Aquinas. In article 1 Aquinas calls it a “type,” but an examination of the later definition shows that, at least in this case, “type” and “exemplar” have the same meaning.

 

 

30  

If God is the first cause and creator, then he must possess ideas. In any agent that acts

through intelligence, the form of the effect must preexist in the intellect of the agent, just as the

architect must first have the idea of a house before he works to bring it into existence.43

Now, since there are many created things, it follows that there must be many divine ideas.

But God is the ground of being and does not participate in anything. All created beings

participate in him. Thus God, unlike all created things, cannot be in any way composite and must

instead be absolutely simple.44

The multiplicity of ideas does not violate divine simplicity because they are not multiple

in themselves but by their relations to things.45 This relation is nothing other than the previously

discussed relation of a participant to its source, of an effect to its cause. God knows all things

simply because in knowing himself, he knows all the ways in which creatures can participate in

being. And since God is the infinite ground of being, there are an infinite number of ways that

finite creatures can participate in in being. But knowledge of this potential infinity is contained

within God’s own knowledge of his being as such.46

But Aquinas agues that all of these divine ideas can ultimately be reduced to one

exemplar cause as first principle: divine wisdom. This is because it is the job of wisdom to order

things, and the order of the universe comes about through the ordering of the many things God

created.47 “And therefore we must say that in the divine wisdom are the types of all things, which

types we have called ideas—i.e. exemplar forms existing in the divine mind.”48

                                                                                                                43 ST I, q. 15, a. 1c; DV, q. 3, a. 1c. All translations from De veritate will be taken from Robert W. Mulligan, James V. McGlynn, and R.W. Schmidt, trans., Truth, 3 vols (n.p.: Henry Regnery: 1952-1954; Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994). 44 For more on Aquinas’ arguments for God’s simplicity within their original contexts, see Wippel, 486-492. 45 Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality, 113. 46 ST I, q. 15, a. 2c; DV, q. 3, a. 2c. 47 ST I, q. 44, a. 3c. 48 Ibid.

 

 

31  

In Boersma’s discussion of St. Gregory of Nyssa as an example of the fruitfulness of the

Platonist-Christian synthesis, we saw that Gregory argued that the external acts of the Trinity

were common to all three persons. Aquinas follows that position, arguing that God’s causal

action in creation come from his infinite being, which is common to the whole Trinity.49 When

God creates, all three persons of the Trinity act in unison through the shared divine essence.

But while it is true that creation is not proper to any divine Person, the divine Persons do

have certain causality in the creation of things according to their processions.50 This is because

God is an intelligent agent who creates through His intellect and will.51

The term “Word” can be understood as an emanation of the intellect. But within the

Trinity, Word, when understood personally, is the proper name for the Person of the Son.52

Similarly, “Love” can be understood as an emanation of the will. But within the Trinity, Love,

when understood personally, is the proper name for the Person of the Holy Spirit.53 Therefore,

God the Father can be said to create through the Son and the Holy Spirit. 54

Now “Word” and “Love”—when used as personal names within the Trinity—do not

stand for the divine intellect and the divine will properly understood. Because God is absolutely

simple, the divine will and the divine intellect are not really distinct from the divine essence.

Since the divine essence is common to the entire Trinity, the Son is not the divine intellect and

the Holy Spirit is not the divine will. “Word” and “Love” must be understood, respectively, as

                                                                                                                49 ST I, q. 45, a. 6c. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 ST I, q. 34, a. 2c. 53 ST I, q. 37, a. 1c. 54 ST I, q. 45, a. 6c.

 

 

32  

the terms or likenesses that issue from the acts of knowing and loving of the divine intellect and

the divine will.55

But Aquinas goes on to say that it is fitting for certain attributes common to the three

persons to be appropriated to one to the persons themselves because it is fitting to use things

better known to us for the sake of making the Trinity better known.56 In discussing how to

fittingly make use of this appropriation, Aquinas states the following: “‘Wisdom’ has likeness to

the heavenly Son, as the Word, for a word is nothing but the concept of wisdom.”57

So in Aquinas we have the following: The Son of God proceeds from the Father in the

likeness of an emanation of the intellect. Because the Son proceeds like an emanation from the

intellect, it is especially fitting to appropriate to him the term “wisdom,” a term that is common

to all three divine persons. Divine wisdom is the ultimate exemplar cause of all created things

and the first principle of the divine ideas. Thus we find in Aquinas the same Christological

anchor for the divine ideas that Boersma found in the Fathers.

5. Aquinas and Secondary Causality

Boersma saw the growing distinction between primary and secondary causality as part of

the dissolution of the Platonist-Christian synthesis. This growing divide relates to what he termed

the “desacrilization” of nature and the growing perception of the created world as having its own

autonomy. These in term caused the supernatural to go into retreat, being seen as something

extrinsic to nature.

                                                                                                                55 See T. C. O’Brien, “The Divine Names,” in T. C. O’Brien, ed., Summa Theologiae, vol. 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 239-51 and “The Holy Spirit: Love,” in Summa Theologiae, vol. 7, 252-8. 56 ST I, q. 39, a. 7c. 57 ST I, q. 39, a. 8c.

 

 

33  

As previously mentioned, Boersma seems to find the beginnings of this dissolution in

Aquinas, and with the introduction of the Aristotelian thought into Aquinas’ theological

synthesis. As part of this use of Aristotelian thought, Aquinas defends an understanding of

secondary causality. We will not examine how that understanding integrates with his

participatory metaphysics.

Since we are dealing with questions of nature and its causality, we would do well to

begin by defining exactly what “nature” meant for Aquinas. According to Rudi te Velde,

“‘nature’ appeared to be the fundamental principle which underlies and dominates the process of

becoming and perishing within the sensible world.”58 But an examination of nature requires that

there exist something beyond nature because, while nature can explain its own mode of being, it

cannot explain the being of natural things as such.59

What does this mean? A study of biology would enable you to understand how animals

reproduce. An in depth study would enable you to understand how certain old species died out

and certain other new species came into being through evolution. But all this knowledge is about

the way that natural things came to be through preexisting matter and in accordance with form.60

It doesn’t explain being. It doesn’t explain why there are animals, why there is something rather

than nothing.

In seeking to explain the relationship between God’s primary causality and nature’s

secondary causality, Aquinas is seeking to avoid two extremes that were prevalent in his own

time. The first approach, favored by certain Muslim theologians, denied any secondary causality.

God was immediately and primarily responsible for all changes in the natural world, making the

daily course of nature present to our senses a matter of numerous miraculous interventions on the

                                                                                                                58 Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality, 160. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid.

 

 

34  

part of God.61 The second position Aquinas is trying to avoid is one found in some Neo-Platonic

thinkers. In this view, all actions of creatures are a participation in God’s own act of creation.62

Both of these positions arise from an overly univocal view of the relationship between

God and created nature.63 In both views, the causality of God and creatures are seen to operate

on the same level. They must either be in competition, one canceling the other out, or in

cooperation in such a way so that they add to each other.

Aquinas holds that God acts in and through nature because, “God works in every

worker.”64 But Aquinas holds that this must be understood to mean that, “God works in things in

such a manner that things have their proper operation.”65 How can this be?

Aquinas holds that nature is God’s instrument. “One thing causes the action of another, as

a principal agent causes the action of its instrument: and in this way again we must say that God

causes every action of natural things.”66 Instrumental causality preserves both the power of the

instrument and the power of the primary cause in a way that does not diminish either, or cause

them to compete with each other.

Aquinas uses two examples from basic human tools to explain the relationship between

the causality of the instrument and the causality of the primary cause. A knife cuts through its

own sharpness, but only if someone moves it to do so.67 But a person using an instrument to

complete a task gives the tool a participation in his own art as a craftsman causes an ax to

participate in his skill when he uses it to build something.68

                                                                                                                61 Ibid., 161, 163. 62 Ibid., 163. 63 Ibid. 64 ST I, q. 105, a. 5c. 65 ST I, q. 105, a. 5c; see also CG III, c. 67. 66 DP, q. 3, a. 7c. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid.

 

 

35  

This understanding of an instrumental cause participating in the causal power of the

primary cause is central to Aquinas’ understanding of nature’s causal power. As te Velde states,

“The operation proper to the instrument is raised by that of the principle cause to produce an

effect which the instrument’s power could not have achieved on its own.”69 Through

participation, God as first cause is imminent in the powers of created nature.70 “God and nature

represent two different dimensions of causality.”71

A further clarification is necessary here, lest one be misled into believing that Aquinas is

falling into a Neo-Platonic theory of emanation in which the primary cause gives being to its first

effect, which then gives being to its effect, etc. For Aquinas, only God can cause being, and

therefore anything that exists must have received its being directly from God.72 This is because

of participation. As seen in the discussion of participation, anything that has being by

participation must receive it from what has being essentially, and this can be nothing other than

God.

God thus acts both immediately and in a mediated way in producing natural effects. He

acts immediately with regard to being, directly granting being to anything that exists. Yet he also

acts through the mediation of nature, causing something to be the type of being that it is through

the instrument of created beings own causal powers. Or, to put it another way, “both causes, God

and nature, operate immediately with regard to the effect, though not independent from one

another.”73

                                                                                                                69 Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality, 166. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid., 166-7. 72 ST I, q. 44, a. 1c. 73 Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality, 175.

 

 

36  

From the point of view of the acting subject, created causes are immediately related to

their effects.74 Parents conceive a child. But in a different, transcendent way, God is also

immediately related to the effect. God gives the being to the new child.

In examining this example, we can see that God when God acts through the natural order,

he does for the sake of an immediate connection with the effect he brings about through nature.

God does not create nature to be without purpose.75 God “causes nature to operate and to make

its own effect by mediating the natural power of each thing with the being of that effect.”76

“The notion of participation enables Thomas to conceive of the relationship between the

divine agent (the transcendental causality of being) and the proper action of nature itself (the

categorical causality) in a non-excluding and non-competing manner.”77 He is able to grant a

certain amount of purpose, even autonomy, to created reality without severing it entirely from its

connection to God, avoiding the pitfalls of univocity and voluntarism.

                                                                                                                74 Ibid. 75 ST I, q. 105, a. 5c. 76 Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality, 175. 77 Te Velde, Aquinas on God, 141.

  37  

CHAPTER 3

AQUINAS ON SALVATION AND THE SACRAMENTS

In the previous chapter we examined how aspects of St. Thomas Aquinas’ metaphysical

thought, grounded in his understanding of participation, helped avoid certain problems that

Boersma saw as dangerous to the Platonist-Christian synthesis developed by the Fathers.

Participation grounds all of created reality in the Logos, safeguarding the reality of universals

and grounding all being in God. A proper understanding of participation also grounds all reality

in God, making it impossible to see created beings or secondary causes as separate and

independent from their Creator.

Now we will examine aspects of Aquinas’ understanding of man’s final end and the life

of grace. Harmony exists between Aquinas’ understanding of how all things participate in divine

being and how man participates in the divine life through grace and the sacraments. This chapter

seeks to make it clear that Aquinas’ thought avoids a number of the errors that Boersma sees as

leading to the downfall of the Platonist-Christian synthesis.

1. Aquinas and Man’s End

One of Boersma’s key concerns, following the thought of nouvelle theologian Henri de

Lubac, was the question of the concept of “pure nature” and the arguments over whether or not

man has a natural desire to see God. These debates were immediately related to the relationship

between the natural and the supernatural that lies at the heart of the Platonist-Christian synthesis.

The question of the natural desire for God is Aquinas and in his interpreters is one of the

great debates in modern theological discourse. Countless pages have been written from various

sides trying to come to terms with all the texts of Aquinas and how they have been interpreted

 

 

38  

down through the ages.1 Any attempt to do justice to the debate in the space allotted here would

be inadequate.

That beings said, I would briefly like to touch on one facet of this larger issue here. The

worry of de Lubac—one that Boersma seems to share—is that these developments make it

appear that man has two different ends: one supernatural and only obtainable through grace; the

other natural and obtainable through man’s own natural powers. This kind of thinking draws a

sharp wedge between the natural and the supernatural, something to which the Platonist-

Christian is sharply opposed.

Boersma seems to hold that Aquinas was open to this distinction between natural and

supernatural ends of man.2 And, in fairness, there are some texts from Aquinas that could be read

that way.3 But if one were to examine his more mature works, such as the Summa theologiae,

one would find something a little different.

In his discussion of man’s last end in I-II, q. 1, a. 7, Aquinas answers the question of

whether or not all men have the same last end. Aquinas begins by quoting St. Augustine to the

effect that all men desire the same last end: happiness.4 He then draws a distinction between the

aspect of last end and the thing in which the aspect is realized. He notes that the aspect of last

end is the same for all: all desire the last end because “all desire the fulfillment of their

                                                                                                                1 Some important works on this topic include Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatual (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967); idem, Augustinianism and Modern Theology (New York: Herder, 1969); John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concerning the Supernatural (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005); William R. O’Connor, The Natural Desire for God, Aquinas Lecture, 1948 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1948); Ralph McInerny, Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2006); Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters, 2nd ed., Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010); Steven A. Long, Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace, Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010). 2 Boersma, “Theology as Queen of Hospitality,” 295. 3 E.g. the quote from DV that Boersma cites in “Theology as Queen of Hospitality,” 295n12. 4 ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7 sed contra.

 

 

39  

perfection.”5 But according to the realization of the last end men seem to differ because they do

not agree on the nature of what perfect happiness consists.6

In I-II, q. 2, a. 8, Aquinas asks whether any created thing could make man happy.

Aquinas answers with a strict denial. No created thing can make man happy because only the

universal good can make man happy. Since created things are only good by participation, it is

impossible for them to be the universal good.7

In I-II, q. 3, a. 8, Aquinas argues that man’s happiness consists in the vision of God. Man

cannot be considered perfectly happy if there is still something that he desires left to seek. The

intellect seeks to know the essence and cause of things. Man can reason from the particular

goodness of creatures back to the universal goodness of God. But this reasoning only gets man to

that God is, not what he is in himself. God can be reasoned to as cause, but his essence will

remain hidden. Thus the vision of the God must be man’s happiness, for it is only in seeing God

that the intellect will finally be able to rest.8

Finally, in I-II q. 5, a. 3, Aquinas asks whether or not man can be happy in this life. He

answers that “man cannot be happy in this life.”9 He then draws a distinction between

participation in happiness and perfect happiness.10 Based upon Aquinas understanding of

participation, participated happiness must be happiness in a certain way, but lacking the fullness

of perfection that true happiness provides. And Aquinas makes this clear in his response to the

second objection.

                                                                                                                5 ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7c. 6 Ibid. 7 ST I-II, q. 2, a. 8c. 8 ST I-II, q. 3, a. 8c. 9 ST I-II q. 5, a. 3 sed contra. 10 ST I-II q. 5, a. 3c.

 

 

40  

Aquinas argues that participated happiness can be imperfect in two ways: on the part of

the subject and on the part of the object. It can be imperfect on the part of the subject because he

obtains the object imperfectly. Aquinas argues that this does not destroy the nature of happiness.

No created being can possess God in the same, perfect way that God possesses himself. God

possesses himself simply by being God. Man’s vision of the divine essence does not come

simply by being man. Thus man’s subjective possession of happiness can never rise to the same

level as God’s. If happiness depended on perfect subjective possession, then human happiness

would be impossible. However, since happiness is an activity, its nature comes from the object

possessed, not the subject possessing it.11

However imperfection on the part of the object does destroy the nature of happiness.

Happiness is nothing less than the vision of God in his essence. If God is not known in his

essence, then the object is not possessed and man does not possess happiness.12 True happiness,

immediate vision of God in himself, can only be possessed in the life to come.13

If we consider again Aquinas understanding of participation and analogy, we can see how

knowledge of God achieved through his effects of creation and revelation can be called

happiness in some way. Because there is a real though limited participation of created reality in

God, man can know God in some way. And since participated realities have a real relationship

back to their source, man can really know God as true, good, perfect, etc. The way in which man

knows these things is different than their reality in God himself. In the essence of God all of

these things are one and the same. But man knows them through created reality, where they exist

in varied ways.

                                                                                                                11 ST I-II q. 5, a. 3 ad 2 12 Ibid. 13 ST I-II q. 5, a. 3c.

 

 

41  

Thus man can be said to have a participation in happiness because he is capable of

knowing true things about the nature of God. He is capable of this because created reality

participates in God and thus in some way makes him known. But true happiness involves

knowing God perfectly through the vision of the divine essence. And since man cannot see the

divine essence in this life, happiness properly so called cannot be achieved in this life.

This discussion should clarify that, at least in his Summa theologiae, Aquinas does not

draw a distinction between the end of nature and the end of grace. Rather, he draws a distinction

between whether the end can be perfectly achieved or only achieved in some imperfect way.

Thus the distinction Aquinas draws is not one of two distinct ends, but one of the various

possible means of achieving the one end, the vision of God.

2. Aquinas and Grace

For Aquinas, the vision of God in his essence, while it is man’s perfect happiness, is an

end that is beyond his nature. Thus man cannot achieve it under his own power.14 “The vision of

God is proper to God alone, since it requires a specifically divine power.” 15

This follows from the fact that man is a creature. As a creature, man exists by

participation. Thus his knowledge of God is analogous, touching on truths of God only in an

imperfect and divided way. God knows himself simply because he is the source of all

participation who himself participates in nothing. A creature knowing God under its own power

would entail a creature that exists simply. But a creature cannot exist simply and still be a

creature, since being a creature entails existing by participation. For a creature to know God

                                                                                                                14 ST I, q. 12, a. 4; CG III, c. 52. 15 Te Velde, Aquinas on God, 160

 

 

42  

under its own power, it would have to be at once both a creature and not a creature, both existing

by participation and existing simply, which is a contradiction.16

If a man cannot achieve the vision of God under his own power, then he must achieve it

in some other way. There must be some way for man to acquire a divine power that allows him

to act in a divine way. And this is what grace is. Grace is a participation in the divine nature that

allows man to act with divine power so as to achieve a divine end.17

Aquinas seeks to answer in what way grace bestows this divine power on man. Grace

involves the granting of a power that allows man to achieve his perfection by achieving his

proper end. Thus it would seem logical that grace is received as some kind of virtue, since virtue

“empowers us to act rightly.”18

But Aquinas disagrees with this position. Following Aristotle, he argues that virtues

dispose a thing to be and act perfect according to its nature.19 Thus, everything, “has reference to

some pre-existing nature, from the fact that everything is disposed with reference to what befits

its nature.”20 Grace must precede virtue because nature must precede disposition.

Since grace is not virtue, it is not merely added to the powers of the soul, allowing man to

use them to act in a way beyond what he could have before.21 The powers of the soul are the

proper subjects of virtue, since virtues perfect the use of power. Since grace is not virtue, the

soul’s powers are not the subject of grace. And since the only thing prior to power is essence,

grace must give the essence of the human soul a participation in the divine nature.22 Man

                                                                                                                16 Ibid., 161. 17 Ibid. See ST I-II, q. 110, a. 3c: “…grace which is a participation of the Divine Nature…” 18 ST I-II, q. 110, a. 3c. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Te Velde, Aquinas on God, 160 22 ST I-II, q. 110, a. 4c.

 

 

43  

participates “in the Divine Nature, after the manner of a likeness, through a certain regeneration

or re-creation.”23

Aquinas is clear that only God can be the source of grace. Grace is participation by the

soul in the divine nature. But God’s nature is beyond the nature of all other things because God

exists in himself while all other things exist through participation. Just as no created nature can

attain the divine nature under its own power, neither can any created nature cause grace. Nothing

can give what it does not have.24 To the objections that grace is caused both by Christ, who is

human and divine, and by the sacraments of the Church, Aquinas answers that Christ’s human

nature and the Church’s sacraments are instrumental causes of grace.25 We will further examine

this instrumental causality now through a discussion of the sacramental economy.

3. The Sacramental Economy

What is a sacrament? Aquinas defines a sacrament as a “sign of a holy thing so far as it

makes men holy.”26 Aquinas is clear that sacraments are causes of grace.27 If the sacraments did

not cause grace, they would be no different than any other signs.28

How is this connection between sign and cause to be understood? What links the two

together? Coleman O’Neill reminds us that the sacraments exist within a Christological and

ecclesiological context.29 It is to this that we will now turn in hopes of coming to a clearer

understanding of the link between sign and cause.

                                                                                                                23 Ibid. 24 See ST I-II, q. 112, a. 1. 25 ST I-II, q. 112, a. 1 ad 1 & 2. 26 ST III, q. 60, a. 2c. 27 ST III, q. 62, a. 1c. 28 Ibid. 29 Coleman E. O’Neill, Sacramental Realism: A General Theory of the Sacraments (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1983; Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1998), 31.

 

 

44  

Christ himself can be seen as the “archetypical sacrament.” He is at the center of the

sacramental order. It is he who keeps the sacraments connected with each other, rather than

being a series of distinct, unconnected ritual actions.30

Christ’s humanity is the instrument through which God acts in the world.31 His bodily

actions give grace to man.32 This is made most manifest in the miracles Christ worked while on

earth.33 Aquinas’ understanding of the instrumental nature of Christ’s humanity is similar to the

understanding of St. Athanasius that Boersma sees as foundational to the Platonist-Christian

synthesis.34

Christ can thus be called the sacrament of the God.35 Through his Incarnation he makes

the Father known and visible by revealing his relationship to the Father, and he gives the effects

of the Father’s mercy to all mankind.36 He is a sign of the Father that makes men holy. But now

that Christ has ascended to heaven, how can his humanity mediate grace to mankind?

Some would say that Christ sitting at the Father’s right hand now acts as mediator and

intercessor in a merely spiritual way. But this does not seem fitting. It is neither in keeping with

the public life and ministry of Christ, which was something sensible, nor is it in keeping with

human nature. “Given the kind of creatures human beings are… without sensible sacraments,

communities of faith cannot sustain unity of communion.”37

If then fittingness requires that grace still come about through sensible means after

Christ’s ascent into heaven, where is it to be found? As Charles Journet writes:

                                                                                                                30 O’Neill, Sacramental Realism, 52. 31 Colman E. O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, rev. ed., rev. Romanus Cessario (New York: St. Pauls, 1991), 59. 32 Ibid., 59-60. 33 Ibid., 60. 34 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 46. 35 O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, 77. 36 O’Neill, Sacramental Realism, 55-6. 37 Matthew Levering, Christ and the Catholic Priesthood: Ecclesial Hierarchy and the Pattern of the Trinity (Chicago: HillenbrandBooks, 2010), 54. The emphasis is mine.

 

 

45  

If the Word became incarnate, it was in order that eternal Life might be manifested visibly in his flesh and pass to the world in greater abundance. If the Church as well possesses a body of flesh, it is in order that the Christic grace that is in her might shine forth in a sensible splendor and draw the attention of all.38

It is the Church that is the visible and sensible means by which the grace given through Christ

continues to be given to men. “She is more than an empty symbol; she is an efficacious sign of

salvation; she plays a part, in subordination to Christ, in realizing the salvation of the world.”39

The Church can thus be seen as the sacrament of Christ in the world. She makes visible

he who is no longer visible to us because he is seated at the Father’s right hand. “In fact, the

church is the background to sacrament, word, grace, and life where the Incarnation continues in

history after the Ascension of the risen Christ.”40

St. Paul tells us that Christ is the head of the Church (Eph 5:23; Col 1:18). Charles

Journet reminds us that, “the head and the body have the same life and same destiny.”41 That is

to say, they are animated by the same principle. Following Aquinas, we can use the Aristotelian

psychology to understand the relationship between the Spirit and the Church.42

In the human body it is the anima (soul) that animates a body as its principle of life,

making it an actual, living body rather than a corpse. The same holds true for the Church as the

Body of Christ: “It is fitting that the Church, intended for men and gathering them together, is,

like man, at the same time visible and invisible, composed of a spiritual soul and a visible

body.”43

In the Church it is the Holy Spirit who serves as this invisible, spiritual principle, forming

the Church into the unified Body of Christ rather than allowing it to be nothing more than a                                                                                                                 38 Charles Journet, Theology of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 247. 39 O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, 79. 40 Thomas F. O’Meara, “Theology of Church” in Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow, eds., The Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 305. 41 Journet, 5. 42 O’Meara, 307. 43 Journet, 10.

 

 

46  

collection of disparate individuals. 44 “The Church is the place on earth to which the Spirit is

sent; and because it is Christ in his humanity who sends the Spirit, Christ is active in the

Church.”45

The sacraments signify the Christ who has come and redeemed us, and whose humanity

is an instrument of his divinity.46 Christ’s human actions have two levels of causality: as God he

is the principle cause of grace; as man he is the instrumental cause of grace.47 Because Christ is

active in the Church, he continues to act in the Church in both modes of causality. The

sacraments are thus both signs and instruments of Christ.48

Normally, a sign is not a cause. But when an agent uses an instrument to bring about

some effect, the instrument can be considered both a sign and a cause because it participates in

both the cause and the effect.49 For example: “a swinging hammer may be a sign of nails being

driven into wood.”50

Christ’s humanity and the sacraments are instruments for God’s bestowing grace on the

soul in a manner similar to how created natures are instruments for God’s giving a participation

in being to things in the order of nature. As previously discussed, God acts both immediately and

instrumentally with regard to created realities. He acts immediately as the primary cause of

being. Only God can grant being to something and make it exist rather than not exist. Yet he still

uses the secondary causality of created nature as an instrument to cause a thing to be the kind of

thing that it is. Only man generates man.

                                                                                                                44 O’Meara, 305. 45 O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, 26. 46 Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole, “The Importance of the Definition of Sacraments as Signs” in Reinhard Hütter and Matthew Levering, eds., Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Romanus Cessario, O.P. (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 129. 47 Ibid. 48 O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, 56. 49 Ibid., 129-30. 50 Ibid., 130.

 

 

47  

We can find an analogous relationship in our understanding of the sacraments. There is a

classical tripartite schema used to understand the causality of the sacraments that will help make

this clear. It consists of the sacramentum tantum, the res et sacramentum, and the res tantum.

The sacramentum tantum is the visible symbol.51 The res et sacramentum is the signified

and abiding reality that serves as both a symbol for and the cause of the final effect.52 And the

res tantum is the gift of the sanctifying Spirit that serves as the ultimate reality the sacrament

brings about.53

Aquinas uses this schema in his analysis of the sacrament of baptism. The sacramentum

tantum of baptism is the water and its use, i.e. the matter and form. The res et sacramentum is

the baptismal character. And the res tantum is the grace that justifies.54

Similar application can be made with regard to the Eucharist. The sacramentum tantum

consists of the bread, the wine and the words of institution, i.e. the matter and form. The res et

sacramentum is the real presence of Christ. And the res tantum is the grace of Christ that unites

the mystical body, the Church, in charity.55

This schema allows us to complete our analogy between God’s instrumental causality in

the order of nature via secondary causality and God’s instrumental causality in the order of grace

via the sacraments. In the order of nature God acts immediately to give being and through the

mediation of secondary causes to give the mode of being. For example, when a new child is born

it is God’s immediate gift of being that allows the child to exist. But it is because of his parents

that the child exists as a human child.

                                                                                                                51 O’Neill, Sacramental Realism, 171. Cf. ST III, q. 66, a. 1c. 52 O’Neill, Sacramental Realism, 171; O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, 173. Cf. ST III, q. 66, a. 1c. 53 O’Neill, Sacramental Realism, 171; O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, 173. Cf. ST III, q. 66, a. 1c. 54 ST III, q. 66, a. 1c. 55 O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, 173. Cf. ST III, q. 73, a. 3c.

 

 

48  

We see something analogous in the order of grace. Only God can give Grace. Grace in

the soul is an immediate participation in the divine nature. But the mode by which grace is given

comes about through the mediation of the sacramental sign. The grace of baptism is for the

forgiveness of sin and the imprinting of a sacramental character. The grace of the Eucharist is for

the unity of the Church through charity. The grace of penance is for the forgiveness of post-

baptismal sins and the restoration of charity to the soul. Both secondary causality in the order of

nature and sacramental causality in the order of grace involve a participation grounded directly in

God that are given their specification via instrumental mediation.

This analogy between grace and nature is important because it demonstrates an intimate

relationship between the natural and the supernatural order. In preserving the kind of nuanced

understanding of sacramental causality that is in Aquinas and those who sought to develop his

thought the two orders are kept together rather than driven apart.

4. Aquinas and the Problem of the Eucharistic Controversies

In the last few pages of this thesis I would like to apply Aquinas’ thought on the

sacraments to two problems Boersma related that are grounded in particular historical

controversies. The first of these is related to Berengar of Tours and the Eucharistic controversies.

Berengar appeared to deny the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Boersma says that

in doing this Berengar ignored the sacramentum, the participation of created reality in uncreated

reality, and instead focusing entirely on the res, the thing or end that the sacrament brings about,

which in the case of the Eucharist is the unity of the Church. But Beregar’s opponents focused so

much on the real presence that they failed to keep in mind the unity of the Church as the end the

 

 

49  

real presence exists to bring about. This led to a growing divide between the sacrament and the

reality and led to a growing divide between nature and the supernatural.56

Aquinas is well known for his thorough presentation of the nature of the real presence of

Christ in the Eucharist.57 Indeed, his understanding of the change in the elements from the

substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ while the accident of bread and

wine are preserved is generally the one used by the Council of Trent in explaining the Catholic

faith with regard to the Eucharist. But this focus on the real presence does not cause Aquinas to

forget that the ultimate effect of the Eucharist is the unity of the Church,

It is the Eucharist that provides, “the visible, sacramental bond of all who belong to

Christ.”58 It is the sacrament of the unity of the mystical body, and it is the mystical body that is

the means of salvation.59 Aquinas agrees with Pseudo-Dionysius that the Eucharist is, “the end

and consummation of all the sacraments.”60 He also calls it, “the consummation of the spiritual

life, and the end of all the sacraments.”61 It is for this reason that Colman O’Neill writes, “the

other sacraments, even the profession of the community’s faith and worship and as prayers for

the Spirit, look to the Eucharist for their completion.”62

The link between the Eucharist and the unity of the Church as the mystical body of Christ

can also be seen in the distinction between priests and bishops. Both priests and bishops have

power over the sacramental body of Christ insofar as they can consecrate the Eucharist. But only

the bishop is given power over the mystical body of Christ.63

                                                                                                                56 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 57-8. 57 See ST III, qq. 75-77. 58 O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, 181. 59 ST III, q. 73, a. 3c. 60 ST III, q. 63, a. 6c. 61 ST III, q. 73, a. 3c. 62 O’Neill, Sacramental Realism, 209. 63 ST III, q. 82, a. 1 ad 4.

 

 

50  

But this power is for the sake of the unity of the mystical body through the Eucharist. It

falls to bishops to bless oil and chrism, which are used in the other sacraments.64 And since the

Eucharist is the end of all the sacraments, these actions are ultimately for the sake of the

Eucharist. Similarly, it falls to the bishop to bless altars, churches, and the like.65 And these are

used for the sake of worthy celebration of the Eucharist. Thus the episcopal power of directing

the mystical body must be for the sake of the unity found within the Eucharist.

It is interesting that Boersma finds the controversies that began with Berengar to be a

cause of the dissolution of the unity found between the natural and supernatural orders found

within the Platonist-Christian synthesis. I think it more likely that his errors regarding the

Eucharist were the result of this dissolution. Only when Augustinian Neo-Platonism is in decline

can someone get away with saying that something is just a sign.

The same thing, of course, can be said about his opponents who too often accepted his

dichotomy.66 As Colman O’Neill notes, “it is not easy for a culture that was no longer dominated

by neo-platonism to speak of a real presence without interpreting this in terms of material reality

and physical presence.”67 But the theologians of the Middle Ages tended to recognize this

unqualified “old realistic theory” as problematic.68

It was to deal with the problems that arose from the dilemma of focusing either entirely

on the res or entirely on the sacramentum that the tripartite schema of sacramentum tantum, res

et sacramentum, and res tantum was developed.69 I find it interesting that Boersma does not

mention it in his discussion of the Eucharistic Controversies. In fact, I was only able to find one

                                                                                                                64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 O’Neill, Sacramental Realism, 99. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid., 100. 69 Ibid., 98.

 

 

51  

account of this tripartite schema in his writings, and in this case it was referring to Yves

Congar’s understanding of Sacred Scripture.70 While such a sacramental understanding of

Scripture is good, the lack of any application of this schema to the sacraments, and especially to

the Eucharist, is a deficiency with regard to properly understanding the nature of the sacraments.

5. Aquinas and the Juridicization of the Church

The last historical problem I wish to touch on in this thesis is one Boersma sees

developing out of the Investiture controversy. During this period the way that ecclesiastical and

papal power was asserted lead to an increased juridicizing of the Church.

Over time, the increased centralization of the Church’s juridical authority led to the

hierarchy making more decisive and binding claims with regard to the interpretation of Scripture.

In defense of the Church’s authority to do this, arguments were increasingly made that such

decisions were needed because Scripture by itself was insufficient.

Ultimately these juridicizing developments led to a divide between God’s action in the

Church and the juridical actions of churchmen, a divide between Church and Scripture. This

opposition between God and man’s actions within the Church, and between Scripture and

tradition, ultimately led to an increasing division between the natural and the supernatural.

This focus on jurisdiction was foreign to Aquinas. It may be the case that canon law in

the thirteenth century attracted “a growing body of interpreters.”71 And it may even have been

the case that clerical bureaucrats wanted to increase their own power by making the Church “a

                                                                                                                70 Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie, 250. 71 O’Meara, 307.

 

 

52  

machinery of rules.”72 But this was not the case with Aquinas. “Aquinas refused that direction by

making the church the Body of Christ and a people vivified by the Spirit.”73

We know that Christ can be called the sacrament of God because he makes God visible

and known, and in his life he manifested divine power through the instrument of his human

nature. We further know that the Church can be called the sacrament of Christ because through

the power of the Holy Spirit who is her soul, she makes Christ still present and active in the

world. Through her sacraments, she continues to act, giving the divine life of grace to men.

Now, divine life is ultimately Trinitarian life. The ecclesiastical hierarchy would seem to

be required to mirror the Trinity in some way. The life of the Blessed Trinity “is characterized

both by a supreme undivided unity and by a communion of gifting/receptivity.” 74 What does this

mean, and how does the hierarchy mirror it within the created world?

Gifting and receptivity are the very nature of the Trinity, of the divine life of our triune

God. The unbegotten Father gives himself completely to the Son, begetting him from all eternity.

The Son receives this complete gift from the Father and in love seeks to give himself entirely

back to the Father. This perfect mutual love, this perfect reciprocal gifting, is also perfectly God:

it is the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son as Love and Gift.

How does such gifting and receiving play out in the ecclesial hierarchy? At Pentecost, the

Holy Spirit, following after the pattern of the Incarnation, descended upon the Apostles in a

visible way. In so doing, it configured these men, the men who made up the visible structure of

those who followed Christ, i.e. the Church, to his glorified body.75 This vivified them and sent

them out upon Christ’s own mission. The Holy Spirit thus dwells in the structure Church

                                                                                                                72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 Levering, 47. 75 O’Neill, Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, 85.

 

 

53  

primarily through the Apostles and those they chose to succeed them. Through apostolic

succession, men are configured to the priesthood of Christ and “become carriers of the Spirit for

other men.”76

The structure thus supports and mediates the indwelling of the Spirit in the soul of each

believer. “To say that the Church participates in this priesthood [of Christ] is only another way of

saying that she is the fullness of the body; and, just as there is a twofold dimension to the

fullness, so her participation in Christ’s priesthood is realized at the two levels of grace and of

visible structure.”77 The hierarchy receives the Spirit as a gift from Christ through his Church

that enables them to further give the gift of the Spirit to others. “Authority in the Church—

ordered power—depends upon Christ and his Spirit.”78

This giving of the Spirit to others through sacramental mediation helps form those who

receive the sacraments from the hierarchy as gift, i.e. the laity, in the same mode of Trinitarian

receptivity: “In acknowledgement of the gifting that constitutes us, we learn to receive—rather

than grasp on our own terms—the divine goodness.”79 Thus it is fair to state that, “by

configuring the believer to the analogous gifting and receptivity constitutive of the Persons of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, hierarchy belongs to the salvific accomplishment of the unity that

befits the Church.”80

Here we have another example of Aquinas’ understanding of sacramental causality. The

Church does not view the priest as the primary cause of the faith and grace that comes through

                                                                                                                76 Ibid., 86. 77 Ibid., 87. 78 Levering, 19. 79 Ibid., 14. 80 Ibid., 52.

 

 

54  

hierarchical preaching and in the dispensing of the sacraments. Rather, they are instrumental

agents.81

This mediation through instrumental agency does not come between the person receiving

the sacraments and Christ. In the Eucharist, the one receives Christ immediately and personally

under the appearances of bread and wine. But he can only receive the Eucharist through the

sacramental mediation of the priest who consecrates it.

Hierarchical, sacramental mediation makes possible the unmediated encounter between

the faithful and Christ.82 This is well in accord with Aquinas’ understanding of the double

causality of Christ in the sacraments, both primarily as God and instrumentally as man. And in

the sacrament of orders this causality is not used for the sake of the ministers own good, but

rather for the sake of the holiness of the Church. This is because “the grandeurs of the hierarchy

are at the service of the grandeurs of sanctity.”83

                                                                                                                81 Ibid., 136. 82 Ibid., 141. 83 Journet, 218.

  55  

CONCLUSION

If I have succeeded in my task, then this thesis will have clearly presented Hans

Boersma’s understanding of the Platonist-Christian sacramental ontology developed by the

Father’s, carried on through the High Middle Ages, and brought back into focus by the

ressourcement of the nouvelle theologians, who attempted to restore it to its proper place within

the life of the Church.

It will also have shown how, far from being a key figure for the beginning of the end of

this Patristic synthesis, St. Thomas Aquinas deserves pride of place as a thinker within this

tradition. By examining the writings of Aquinas and those theologians who sought to develop his

thought I hope one can see that he preserves the orders of nature and grace in a way that does full

justice to the gratuity of grace while never failing to recognize the close and harmonious

relationship that exists between the two in the divine plan.

With these last few pages, it is my hope to shed some light on a few points of interest that

this discussion has brought to light.

1. Res et Sacramentum

As previously mentioned, Boersma seems to lack a complete picture of the tripartite

schema developed in the Middle Ages to better speak about the causality of the sacraments.

Particularly, he does not seem to have a conception of the res et sacramentum. This seems

especially clear in a few references to transubstantiation and the real presence of Christ in the

Eucharist.1

                                                                                                                1 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 114: “We could perhaps say—somewhat anacronistically—that, for Augustine, transubstantiation meant that the Spirit changed our substance into the body of Christ” (emphasis in original); idem, “Sacramental Ontology: Nature and the Supernatural in the Ecclesiology of Henri de Lubac,” New Blackfriars 88:1015 (2007): 261: “..the extrinsicism of neo-scholasticism, with its focus on the real presence and

 

 

56  

I would note that this apparent lack is problematic. As I hope I showed earlier, it is the

res et sacramentum that provides the necessary link for sacramental causality because it is in this

“abiding presence” that one can see how a sacrament can participate in both the nature of a cause

and the nature of a sign. Confusion with regard to this element easily leads to confusion over the

nature of a sacrament, and the lack of this mediating piece between the sacramentum tantum and

the res tantum played some part in the Eucharistic controversies.2

2. The Nature of Sacraments

But I think it might not be too far off to say that Boersma doesn’t have an adequate

understanding regarding the nature of the sacraments. His understanding of a sacrament as the

sign of a mystery both present and transcendent, and thus a sign that makes present what it

signifies, has something to be said for it.3 But I do not believe that it has the precision necessary

to truly come to terms with God’s bestowal of grace through created reality.

Boersma ultimately says that the created order is itself a sacrament.4 While this can be

true in a certain analogous sense, it can be misleading. Aquinas notes that, properly speaking,

sacraments both signify and cause holiness.5 Aquinas admits that creation can signify holiness

insofar as it is the product of divine wisdom and goodness, but it does not make men holy in and

of itself.6 If it did, the Fall would have been impossible.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     transubstantiation at the cost of the identity of the Church as the body of Christ” (emphasis mine). See also Najeeb Awad’s discussion of transubstantiation as the means by which the end of the Eucharist is achieved in his "Thomas Aquinas' Metaphysics of 'Relation' and 'Participation' and Contemporary Trinitarian Theology," New Blackfriars 93:1048 (2012): 432-3. 2 O’Neill, Sacramental Realism, 98. 3 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 22-23. 4 Ibid., 22. 5 ST III, q. 60, a. 2c. 6 ST III, q. 60, a. 2 ad 1.

 

 

57  

Creation can be called a sacrament analogously insofar as it is recognized as the space

necessary for the drama of man’s redemption in Christ to be played out. But sacraments are

properly said to make men holy because they are the instrumental efficient causes of grace. This

analogy is not even comparable to calling either Christ or the Church a sacrament, as in both

cases grace is given my means of them, i.e. through Christ’s humanity and through the visible

structure of the Church.

3. The Importance of Metaphysics

Ultimately, whatever disagreements one might have with Boersma, or whatever

shortcomings one might see in his work, he is to be commended for making an attempt to restore

the importance of ontology and metaphysics to theological understanding. Colman O’Neill

agrees with Boersma that some kind of metaphysical understanding is presupposed when one

approaches Scripture.7

Ultimately, we must answer the question regarding what is real, what “is.”8 This is

necessary so we can understand how we have contact with reality.9 Without such contact, all our

theological ideas are concepts unconnected to anything, and thus unable to help us to know, love,

and serve God.

Such a discussion about the nature of reality must come to the fore if we are to have

fruitful ecumenical dialogue, because our understanding of reality affects our understanding of

the God who created it. For example, Roland Millare has recently written an article showing how

Luther’s nominalism deeply affected his understanding of the sacraments, and Chalres Morerod

has written an entire book seeking to get at the philosophical presuppositions that can hinder

                                                                                                                7 O’Neill, Sacramental Realism, 142-143. 8 Ibid., 145. 9 Ibid., 146.

 

 

58  

inter-Christian dialogue.10 For attempting to bring ontology back to the fore in theology,

Boersma deserves our thanks.

                                                                                                                10 Millare, "The Nominalist Justification for Luther's Sacramental Ontology;" Charles Morerod, Ecumenism and Philosophy: Philosophical Questions for a Renewal of Dialogue, trans. Therese C. Scarpelli (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2006).

  59  

WORKS CITED

1. Works by Hans Boersma

Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2011. “Nature and the Supernatural in la nouvelle théoligie: The Recovery of a Sacramental Mindset.” New Blackfriars 93:1043 (2011): 34-46. Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. “A Sacramental Journey to the Beatific Vision: The Intellectualism of Pierre Rousselot.” Heythrop Journal 49 (2008): 1015-34. “Sacramental Ontology: Nature and the Supernatural in the Ecclesiology of Henri de Lubac.” New Blackfriars 88:1015 (2007): 242-72. “Theology as Queen of Hospitality.” Evangelical Quarterly 78:4 (2007): 291-310. 2. Works by St. Thomas Aquinas

An Exposition of the “On the Hebdomads” of Boethius. Trans. Jamie L. Schultz and Edward A. Synan. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2001. Light of Faith: The Compendium of Theology. Trans. Cyril Vollert. St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947; Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1993 On Evil. Trans. John A. Oesterle and Jean T. Oesterle. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995 On the Power of God. Trans. English Dominican Fathers. n.p.: Newman Press, 1932; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004. Summa Contra Gentiles, 5 vols. Trans. Anton C. Pegis, et al. Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1955; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975. Summa Theologiae, vol. 7. Trans. and ed. T. C. O’Brien. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Summa Theologica, 5 vols. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican province. New York: Benzinger Bros., 1954; Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1981. Truth, 3 vols. Trans. Robert W. Mulligan, James V. McGlynn, and R.W. Schmidt. n.p.: Henry Regnery: 1952-1954; Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.

 

 

60  

3. Secondary Sources

Alpers, Christiane. “The Essence of a Christian in Henri de Lubac: Sacramental Ontology or Non-Ontology.” New Blackfriars 95:1058 (2014): 430-42. Awad, Najeeb. "Thomas Aquinas' Metaphysics of 'Relation' and 'Participation' and Contemporary Trinitarian Theology." New Blackfriars 93:1048 (2012): 652-70. Clarke, W. Norris. Explorations in Metaphysics: Being–God–Person. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994. ________. “The Limitation of Act by Potency in St. Thomas: Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism?” Explorations in Metaphysics: Being–God–Person: 65-88 ________. “The Meaning of Participation in St. Thomas.” Explorations in Metaphysics:

Being–God–Person: 89-101. ________. “To Be Is to Be Substance-in-Relation.” Explorations in Metaphysics: Being— God—Person: 102-22. Fabro, Cornelio. “The Intensive Hermeneutics of Thomistic Philosophy: The Notion of Participation.” Review of Metaphysics 27:3 (1974): 449-91. Feingold, Lawrence. The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters, 2nd ed. Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy. Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010. Hütter, Reinhard and Matthew Levering, eds. Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Romanus Cessario, O.P. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2010. John Paul II. Fides et Ratio—On the Relationship between Faith and Reason. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998. Journet, Charles. Theology of the Church. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004. La Soujeole, Benoît-Dominique de. “The Importance of the Definition of Sacraments as Signs.” Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Romanus Cessario, O.P.: 127-35. Leo XIII. On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy—Aeterni Patris. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, n.d

 

 

61  

Levering, Matthew. Christ and the Catholic Priesthood: Ecclesial Hierarchy and the Pattern of the Trinity. Chicago: HillenbrandBooks, 2010. Long, Steven A. Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace. Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology. New York: Fordham University Press, 2010. Lubac, Henri de. Augustinianism and Modern Theology. New York: Herder, 1969. ________. The Mystery of the Supernatual. New York: Herder and Herder, 1967. McInerny, Ralph. Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2006. Milbank, John. The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concerning the Supernatural. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005. Millare, Roland. "The Nominalist Justification for Luther's Sacramental Ontology." Antiphon 17.2 (2013): 168-90. Montagnes, Bernard. The Doctrine of Analogy of Being according to Thomas Aquinas. Trans. E. M. Macierowski. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2004. Morerod, Charles. Ecumenism and Philosophy: Philosophical Questions for a Renewal of Dialogue. Trans. Therese C. Scarpelli. Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2006. O’Brien, T. C. “The Divine Names.” Summa Theologiae, vol. 7: 239-51. ________. “The Holy Spirit: Love.” Summa Theologiae, vol. 7: 252-8. O’Connor, William R. The Natural Desire for God. Aquinas Lecture, 1948. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1948. O’Meara, Thomas F. “Theology of Church.” The Theology of Thomas Aquinas: 303-25. O’Neill, Coleman E. Sacramental Realism: A General Theory of the Sacraments. Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1983; Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1998. ________. Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, rev. ed. Rev. Romanus Cessario. New York: St. Pauls, 1991. Pabst, Adrian. Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy. Interventions. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012. ________. “The Primacy of Relation over Substance and the Recovery of a Theological Metaphysics.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81:4 (2007): 553-578.

 

 

62  

Van Nieuwenhove, Rik and Joseph Wawrykow, eds. The Theology of Thomas Aquinas. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Velde, Rudi te. Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae. Ashgate Studies in the History of Philosophical Theology. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. ________. Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas. Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1995. Wippel, John F. The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Monograph of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, No. 1. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2000.