Introduction

In the apologetic sphere, Jay Dyer has become quite infamous for his frequent references to “Thomistic Epistemology” when confronted on a variety of seemingly unrelated issues. The claim is made that Thomistic philosophy has no equipment to justify its own first principles.

In order to disarm this objection against Thomism, it is important to properly locate where the Thomistic solution is to be found.

No Science Demonstrates Its Own Principles

According to the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition, no science demonstrates the first principles from which it draws its conclusions. Each of the sciences does not defend its own first principles, but presupposes them. The reason for this is simple. If a science demonstrates in virtue of its principles. Therefore, if a science demonstrated its first principles, then it would either demonstrate it by the first principle or some principle derived from the first principle. In either case, there would be circularity.

In the beginning of the Physics, Aristotle sets this out clearly, stating that natural philosophy does not dispute with those who deny motion, since the entire science is a study of mobile being. Rather, natural philosophy’s first principles are left to a higher science to defend for it.

Now to investigate whether Being is one and motionless is not a contribution to the science of Nature. For just as the geometer has nothing more to say to one who denies the principles of his science—this being a question for a different science, or for one common to all—so a man investigating principles cannot argue with one who denies their existence... We physicists must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion, which is indeed made plain by induction... No man of science is bound to solve every kind of difficulty that may be raised, but only as many as are drawn falsely from the principles of the science: it is not our business to refute those that do not arise in this way—just as it is the duty of the geometer to refute the squaring of the circle by means of segments, but it is not his duty to refute Antiphon’s proof. (Aristotle, Physics I, c. 2)

The question then arises: what about the ultimately first principles? While natural philosophy’s principles are subordinated to a higher science, the ultimate first principles have no higher science to draw from. So what are we to do in this case?

Metaphysics Defends What the Other Sciences Presuppose

Here, the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition answers that the highest science is unique. Whereas the lower sciences leave the defense of their principles to higher sciences, the highest science is equipped to defend its own principles, although not to (strictly) demonstrate them. Therefore, the treatment of the ultimately first principles is left to the science of Metaphysics, which is the science that studies being as being.

Evidently the inquiry into these also belongs to one science... for these truths hold good for everything that is, and not for some special genus apart from others. And all men use them, for they are true of being qua being, and each genus has being. But men use them just so far as to satisfy their purposes—that is, as far as the genus whose attributes they are proving extends. Therefore, since these truths clearly hold good for all things qua being (for this is what is common to them), he who studies being qua being [i.e., the Metaphysician] will inquire into them too. (Aristotle, Metaphysics IV, c. 3)

It is to be borne in mind, in regard to the philosophical sciences, that the inferior sciences neither prove their principles nor dispute with those who deny them, but leave this to a higher science; whereas the highest of them, namely metaphysics, can dispute with one who denies its principles... (St. Thomas, Summa theologiae I, q. 1, a. 8)

For the other sciences, while they use this first principle, they do not use it in its universal or unrestricted sense. Rather, they use it only insofar as it touches the object of their own science. In that sense, while Metaphysics treats it in an unrestricted and universal sense, the other sciences treat it in a restricted and particular sense:

Although the other sciences use the first principles, they do not use them in their universality, but only in a contracted way. For the geometer does not say, without qualification, that it is impossible for the same thing at once to be and not be, but that it is impossible for a line to be commensurate with another and not commensurate. And the arithmetician, that it is impossible for the same number to be even and not even. (Soncinas, Quaestiones metaphysicales acutissimae, lib. IV, q. 31)

Since the first principle must in some way touch all things, the one studying the most universal science is the one whose task it is to study this problem. Now, the most universal concept is being, since everything is insofar as it exists. Hence, Aristotle explicitly treats this problem against the ancient skeptics in Book IV of the Metaphysics, since Metaphysics studies being as being. For this reason, the classical expositions of this problem are found in the traditional commentaries on Aristotle’s Metaphysics—especially the commentary of St. Thomas on these chapters.

It is for this reason that Metaphysics has a double character. Not only is Metaphysics the highest natural science, since it studies the most universal object in its most abstract degree (being as being), it is also the highest natural wisdom, insofar as it is able to contemplate and defend its own principles and conclusions in light of these principles. For, whereas science seeks to draw conclusions, wisdom seeks to contemplate these principles and the conclusions in light of them:

Wisdom makes use of indemonstrable principles of which there is understanding, not only by drawing conclusions from them, as other sciences do, but also by passing its judgment on them, and by vindicating them against those who deny them. Hence it follows that wisdom is a greater virtue than understanding. (St. Thomas, Summa theologiae I-II, q. 66, a. 5, ad 4)

Owing to the universality of the principles from which it proceeds, wisdom has also the property of reflecting upon principles; it reflects both upon its own principles and upon those of the other sciences, not in such a way as to prove them, but in such a way as to explain and defend them. Wisdom is said to include understanding as well as science because it extends even to the principles whose habitus is called understanding. (The Material Logic of John of St. Thomas, p. 509)

Metaphysics... is wisdom without qualification, as the supreme science of the whole natural order; as such it judges concerning the principles of all the sciences of this order: it explains and defends these principles. This belongs to Metaphysics because its object, in its transcendental universality, embraces under itself the objects of all the other sciences. (Gredt, Elementa philosophiae aristotelico-thomisticae, vol. II, n. 615)

While later philosophers treat this question in their treatments of logic (calling it “major logic” or “criteriology”), the traditional treatment of this question comes under the science of Metaphysics, being called “Defensive Metaphysics” as distinguished from the treatment of being as being, which was called “Ostensive Metaphysics.” Many Thomists of the twentieth century pushed back against this shift in the treatment of the first principle to logic.

Answering the Objector

The objector to “Thomistic Epistemology” would do well to reflect upon these considerations. It is true that, if every science as a whole merely presupposed its principles, then the entire edifice would rest upon a presupposition without any ultimate defense. Yet this is not what we are positing. We posit that every particular science presupposes its principles and relies on a higher science for their defense. This is not a reduction to infinity, because we do hold that there is a science that does not treat being only in a particular mode, but universal being as such—namely, Metaphysics. We concede that even this science does not demonstrate, in the strict sense, its principles (and hence the ultimately first principle), but we deny that this science offers no defense whatsoever of its own principles—and, therefore, of the principles of all the lesser sciences.

This is the role of Defensive Metaphysics, which is not something that was absent from the tradition, but was always present in the tradition’s treatment of Metaphysics, long before Kant or Descartes ever arose to posit their own understanding of these matters.

When these authors treat the first principles, they ask three important questions:

1. What is the absolutely first principle?

2. How are these principles acquired?

3. How are these principles defended?

What Is the First Principle?

In order to commence our investigation of what the first principle is, it is necessary for us to inquire into the meaning of a “first principle.” Like in any investigation, we must inquire after the meaning of terms that is set forth in its nominal definition. There are many principles in each of the sciences from which we draw forth conclusions—what does it mean for a principle (or principles) to be “first”?

The tradition, following Aristotle, lists three conditions a principle must meet in order to be first:

• (a) It has to be universally known, so that nobody can make an error about it or fail to know it, since it must be necessary to have any knowledge at all.

• (b) It is not merely held on supposition or by common agreement, but truly and absolutely held by all, since what is dependent on supposition or common agreement is dependent on something else, and hence not truly first.

• (c) It cannot be acquired by demonstration properly so called, but is natural, because if it were acquired by some demonstration, then whatever principles that demonstration relies on would be prior to it.

As Zigliara points out, these conditions laid out by Aristotle coincide with three conditions that are commonly given by modern philosophers: (a) that it rest on no other principle; (b) that with its removal all other principles collapse; (c) that its admission implies the other principles. (Zigliara, Critica, lib. II, cap. II, a. II)

These three conditions, naturally flowing from the concept of the first principle, are what set us up to identify the first principle, describe how it is acquired, and, lastly, define how it may or may not be defended.

According to the tradition, there is one principle to which this applies: that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time and in the same respect, which is referred to as the “principle of non-contradiction.” This is something that is universally held. The man who affirms anything, by that very affirmation, is excluding the corresponding denial of that affirmation at the same time and in the same respect. If someone affirms “John is tall,” he is, by that very affirmation, excluding the proposition that “John is not tall” if taken at the same time and in the same respect. It is not even possible to think the opposite of this principle, since the very intellectual affirmations rely on it. Those who denied this principle (e.g., Heraclitus) did so merely externally, without their external affirmations conforming to what they truly thought.

Further, this is not a principle that is held on supposition or by common agreement, since the very idea of supposing or commonly agreeing would itself rely on this principle. This follows upon the universality of this principle described above.

Lastly, this is not something acquired by demonstration, since demonstration itself relies on this principle. This is important to highlight. While the objector to “Thomistic Epistemology” critiques it on the grounds that it cannot demonstrate, in the strict sense, the first principle, this is an incoherent objection. It is incoherent both to concede that there are first principles and to demand proof of the first principle, since any such proof would implicitly concede that the principle in question is not really first, but itself relies on prior principles. Those prior principles, in turn, would either rely on further principles for their demonstration (leading to an infinite regress) or would have to be defended in some other way—which is to concede our position.

The Metaphysical and Logical Formulations

Here we should make a quick note. There is both a metaphysical and a logical formulation of the first principle. Metaphysics concerns itself with being as such, whereas logic concerns itself with something called “second intentions.” The former is directly concerned with reality, whereas the latter is indirectly concerned with reality, through logical intentions that exist only in the intellect. Therefore, we can state the “law of non-contradiction” either in a metaphysical mode about being (”it is impossible for a thing to be and not to be,” etc.) or in a logical mode about our intentions concerning being (”it is impossible to affirm and deny,” etc.). The former is about being as such; the latter is about our affirmations about being. Clearly, being is prior to our affirmation about being, and our apprehension of it is prior to our affirmations and negations concerning it. It follows, therefore, that the logical form of the first principle follows upon the metaphysical form, and not the other way around.

Since the operation of the intellect is twofold... in the first operation there is something first which falls in the conception of the intellect, namely that which I call being... And because this principle... depends on the understanding of being... this principle is therefore naturally first in the second operation of the intellect [that of composing and dividing]. (St. Thomas, In IV Metaphysicorum, lect. 6, n. 605)

As Goudin points out, Descartes’s formulation of the first principle (”I think, therefore I am”) is false insofar as it is not absolutely first. (Goudin, Philosophia Thomistica, vol. IV, pt. IV, disp. I, q. 1, a. 1) This formulation supposes that to be (”I am”) and not to be (”I am not”) are not the same, and are contraries repugnant to the same affirmation. This enthymeme supposes the law of non-contradiction as a minor premise—the medium of demonstration. Now, that which demonstrates is prior to that which is demonstrated. Therefore, the law of non-contradiction is prior to the Cartesian first principle.

How Is the First Principle Acquired?

Now that we have identified this principle, we can inquire into how it is acquired. The entire Scholastic tradition understands that our intellectual knowledge begins somehow in the senses. Since we are embodied souls, the mode of knowledge connatural to us is through the senses. Are the senses, then, proper causes of this principle of understanding? Soncinas explains:

The knowledge of the first principle... does not depend on any sensitive knowledge as on a cause contributing something to the being of this knowledge... Yet it is necessary, while the intellect forms the first principle, that some knowledge be actually in the imagination or the cogitative power, so that sensitive knowledge is its cause sine qua non. (Soncinas, Quaestiones metaphysicales, lib. IV, q. 32)

While the senses originate this understanding of the first principle, the very evidence for it does not come from the senses, but from the apprehension of the terms by the intellect under the natural light of reason. The reason is simple: if the senses provided the evidence for the first principle, then the first principle would not be first, but would stand as a conclusion drawn from the senses. Sense knowledge, therefore, is a mere condition for the apprehension of the terms in which we have immediate evidence under the light of natural reason. Further, in that case, the greater would come from the lesser—more certain knowledge from less certain knowledge—which would be repugnant.

In order to give a full account of the beginning of the understanding of the first principle, we must state both the condition for such knowledge (i.e., sense knowledge) and its true and proper cause (i.e., the illumination of the agent intellect apprehending immediately the evidence presented):

The third condition is that it is not acquired by demonstration or by any similar method, but comes, in a sense, by nature to the one having it, inasmuch as it is naturally known and not acquired. For first principles become known through the natural light of the agent intellect, and they are not acquired by any process of reasoning, but by having their terms become known. This comes about by reason of the fact that memory is derived from sensible things, experience from memory, and knowledge of those terms from experience. And when they are known, common propositions of this kind, which are the principles of the arts and sciences, become known. (St. Thomas, In IV Metaphysicorum, lect. 6, n. 599)

But someone could believe that sense alone, or the mere remembrance of singulars, is sufficient to cause intellectual knowledge of principles, as some of the ancients supposed, who did not discriminate between sense and intellect. Therefore, to exclude this, the Philosopher adds that along with sense it is necessary to presuppose such a nature of mind as can not only suffer this—that is, be susceptible of universal knowledge, which indeed comes to pass in virtue of the possible intellect—but can also cause this, in virtue of the agent intellect, which makes things intelligible in act by abstraction of universals from singulars. (St. Thomas, In II Posteriorum Analyticorum, lect. 20, n. 593)

The general outlines of this solution are proposed in common by all the schools, yet there is slight disagreement about a single detail: the role of the senses. Both agree that the immediate evidence for the first principle lies in the apprehension of the terms under the light of the agent intellect. Both agree that the connatural mode in which this knowledge originates is in the senses. Yet the Scotists—following Bl. Scotus—rather than holding that sense knowledge is a necessary condition for such knowledge, argue that the senses are its mere occasion. (Scotus, Ordinatio I, d. 3, pars 1, q. 4) This difference is subtle and should not detain us here, but is important to note.

It is important to note these points with sufficient detail in order to refute those who accuse the Thomistic account of epistemology of being powerless against those who systematically deny the reliability of the senses. Even if, in argumentum, we conceded that sense data was unreliable, it would not matter, because the evidence for the first principle does not come from the sense data as such, but from the apprehension of terms that merely supposes the senses originatively. Even if our senses were completely unreliable, our intellect would still sufficiently apprehend the evidence for the first principle under the light of the agent intellect, and would still be able to form the habit of understanding.

The principle of non-contradiction is a principle about being. Therefore, we acquire it in the way that we are able to come to understand being. We interact with being through the senses, and our intellect is then able to understand things in this way, abstracting from the impressions of the senses. Therefore, we hold that the evidence for this principle comes to us immediately by our apprehension of being, which begins in the senses according to its connatural mode. Whereas the knowledge of other things may come by reasoning from premise to conclusion, the evidence for this principle is immediate, and comes to us by a direct apprehension of being. Hence, the apprehension of being (in the first operation of the intellect) precedes and necessarily induces the first principle (in the second operation of the intellect), which judges that what is apprehended is not what is not apprehended. This is not as a second intention (which would be the logical formulation mentioned above), but as a direct apprehension of being, and therefore as a metaphysical principle. This follows from what was said above: the first principle must be natural rather than demonstrated, and it must be about being, since the first principle must be the most universal, and being is the most universal thing—the object of all thinking and of every proposition:

That which, before aught else, falls under apprehension, is being, the notion of which is included in all things whatsoever a man apprehends. Wherefore the first indemonstrable principle is that the same thing cannot be affirmed and denied at the same time, which is based on the notion of being and not-being; and on this principle all others are based... (St. Thomas, Summa theologiae I-II, q. 94, a. 2)

The origin of this principle, as we have stated many times, comes through the objective apprehension that is natural to the process of intellection. While other principles may come by demonstration, and be seen in light of higher principles, the sole criterion for the first principle is the immediate evidence inherent in intellection. This process terminates in what the tradition calls “understanding,” which is the habit of first principles. Understanding apprehends the first principles; wisdom explains, contemplates, and defends them; science draws necessary conclusions from them. If one mixes any of these together, one falls into grave error—just as the man who demands a strict demonstration of the first principles (a function of science), when he should really be asking for their explanation and defense (a function of wisdom). If a man seeks evidence for the first principle either in wisdom or in science, he errs, since the immediate evidence for it comes by way of understanding.

How Is the First Principle Defended?

All of this is simply preliminary to our last consideration. This principle is accepted by all and comes to us naturally—but how is it defended? It is clear that it cannot be demonstrated strictly, since any demonstration would assume the very principle it seeks to demonstrate. This would be an instance of begging the question. From this fact, many skeptics have concluded that the principle is without evidence or defense. This is the wrong conclusion to draw. As Aristotle teaches, this is a desire that proceeds from a lack of education:

Some indeed demand that even this shall be demonstrated, but this they do through want of education, for not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education. For it is impossible that there should be demonstration of absolutely everything (there would be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstration); but if there are things of which one should not demand demonstration, these persons could not say what principle they maintain to be more self-evident than the present one. (Aristotle, Metaphysics IV, c. 4)

We have already indicated where the objective evidence for this principle comes from: the very understanding of being that begins in the senses.

Yet the second half of the question is properly considered here. How are we to defend the first principle? Obviously not through any sort of direct argument or demonstration, since this would assume what it seeks to prove. How, then? The Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition answers that there are three ways to defend this principle indirectly: an “expository” manifestation, a reduction to absurdity, and a solution of objections.

In this way, Metaphysics also differs from the lower sciences. The lower sciences presuppose and “take” their first principles from higher sciences (although, as stated above, only in a restricted sense); Metaphysics, on the other hand, is able truly to defend the absolutely first principle, and to give this first principle to the lesser sciences for their use:

The first philosopher considers the first principles not only by presupposing them, as the particular sciences do, but also by demonstrating. Yet it is not thereby required that he demonstrate them simpliciter; it suffices that he demonstrate the errors concerning them, arguing from things less known and conceded by the adversary, and by clarifying the terms—which does not belong to the particular sciences. (Dominic of Flanders, In XII libros Metaphysicae Aristotelis quaestiones, lib. IV, q. VI, a. 1, ad 3)

First Mode: The Expository Manifestation

First, there is the expository manifestation, where the truth of the principle is shown by an explanation of its terms (called “imperfect illation”), described as an “analysis and explanation of terms.”

This first defense follows from what was explained above about the first principles forming a habit called “understanding.” If we truly gather the first principles from our ordinary process of intellection, and immediately have evidence of them in our very apprehension of being—forming a habit from this process—then it follows that we are able to defend these first principles by a simple explanation of the terms in the proposition. If these terms are explained in such a way as to show that the subject and predicate are identical, then it follows necessarily that the affirmation is true; the same applies to negation, but in the opposite direction.

As St. Albert the Great says, “everyone who knows what affirmation is and what negation is, knows that of anything whatever the affirmation or the negation is true.” (St. Albert the Great, In I Posteriorum Analyticorum, tr. II, c. 6) It is called an “expository syllogism” because we are simply explaining and unfolding what is already explicitly contained in the terms of the proposition, rather than exercising demonstration. This, therefore, does not violate the principle that the first principle is indemonstrable, but it does provide a defense of it.

The reason for this is that the terms of the first principle are self-evident and universal. Therefore, in order to defend them, one merely needs to manifest the connection between the subject and predicate by explanation:

If the self-evident proposition is considered in positive fashion, it is defined as “a proposition known by reason of the terms themselves, or by the explanation of the terms.”... A proposition is self-evident in itself when there is immediate connection in the object, and it is self-evident to us when this connection is manifested and explained by terms of such a nature that, without discourse and by the mere understanding of the terms, we come to know the connection. (The Material Logic of John of St. Thomas, pp. 461–464)

Second Mode: The Reduction to Absurdity

Second, there is the reduction to absurdity, where the truth of the principle is shown by drawing out the consequences of its denial. Any man we speak to who affirms or denies anything—even affirmations or denials about the first principle itself—affirms the first principle, even implicitly. Therefore, we can reduce such a denial of the first principle to absurdity. What are we to do if he refuses to affirm or deny anything at all? Aristotle says that such a man is no better than a vegetable:

We can, however, demonstrate negatively even that this view is impossible, if our opponent will only say something; and if he says nothing, it is absurd to seek to give an account of our views to one who cannot give an account of anything, in so far as he refuses to do so; for such a man, as such, is from the start no better than a vegetable. (Aristotle, Metaphysics IV, c. 4)

If he says nothing, it is ridiculous to look for a reason against one who does not make use of reason in speaking, for in this dispute anyone who signifies nothing will be like a plant, for even brute animals signify something by such signs. (St. Thomas, In IV Metaphysicorum, lect. 6, n. 608)

According to Avicenna, the man who denies the first principle should be beaten and burned until he admits that it is something different to be beaten than to be not-beaten and burned than to be not-burned. There is a remedial function of these various arguments, which are meant to induce the intellect of the hearer to consider the absurdity of his denial of the first principle.

This is not a begging of the question, because we do not begin with the demand that such a person affirm or deny anything, but with the fact that he does affirm or deny something, even if it merely concerns the first principle. In fact, the very demand itself places the burden of proof on the one making it, since the demand is itself an act of reason, which already implies the first principle.

The starting-point for all such arguments is not the demand that our opponent shall say that something either is or is not (for this one might perhaps take to be a begging of the question), but that he shall say something which is significant both for himself and for another; for this is necessary, if he really is to say anything... The person responsible for the proof, however, is not he who demonstrates but he who listens; for while disowning reason he listens to reason. (Aristotle, Metaphysics IV, c. 4)

In other words, when a process of this kind, from a less well-known to a better-known principle, is employed for the sake of convincing another man who denies this, there will then be disproof or refutation, but not demonstration—that is, it will be possible to have a syllogism which contradicts his view, since what is less known absolutely is admitted by the opponent, and thus it will be possible to proceed to demonstrate the above-mentioned principle so far as the man is concerned, but not in the strict sense. (St. Thomas, In IV Metaphysicorum, lect. 6, n. 610)

It is for this reason that the tradition often calls this demonstration “redargutive,” since it proceeds on the basis of something conceded by the objector, rather than proceeding from something necessary and more universal (which would be a proper demonstration, and therefore impossible in this case, since we are considering the first principle):

Absolute demonstration differs from redargutive in this: the absolute is from things more known simpliciter; the redargutive is from things conceded by the adversary, less known simpliciter, but more known to the adversary himself. From this I prove the conclusion: he who denies this principle... can be led to some absurdity more known to himself than the first principle; therefore it can be demonstrated redargutively. (Javellus, Quaestiones super IV Metaphysicae, q. X)

It is based on the very act of signification posited by the objector, even where that act of signification is itself a denial of the very principle. It is the very act of speaking and signifying that Aristotle latches onto in the Metaphysics. We do not argue (which would be circular) on the basis of whether or not what the opponent says is true or not. Rather, we argue on the basis of their very speaking. Insofar as they speak, they have already assumed that speech signifies something, which he is destroying by his denial of the principle.

He who acknowledges a determinate sense in a determinate word, by that very fact confesses that this word and this sense are distinguished from their contradictory. But to admit this is to assert the principle of contradiction. Therefore the skeptic cannot seriously attack the truth of the principle of contradiction without by that very fact professing it. (Hugon, Logica Maior, tr. II, q. II, art. 1)

But neither can the skeptic propose his own system; indeed, he cannot say a word without contradicting himself. For if he intends to signify something by his words, he already distinguishes what he intends from its contradictory; hence he must be said to admit the principle of contradiction. (Gredt, Elementa philosophiae aristotelico-thomisticae, vol. II, n. 674)

This is also called an argument ad hominem—which is different from the fallacy ad hominem—insofar as one is arguing on the basis of something conceded by the adversary (sometimes called an “internal critique”).

Third Mode: The Solution of Objections

Third, there is the solution to objections, called the “negative office.” This negative office does not receive a systematic treatment in the tradition, because none can be had. It is, rather, something occasional: one hears the objections to the first principle and either shows them to be false or, at least, shows them not to be necessary. (St. Thomas, Summa theologiae I, q. 1, a. 8; Super Boetium de Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3)

Section 1. Fundamental Concepts

Generation and corruption are fundamental concepts in scholastic philosophy. Generation includes the transition of something from non-being to being. If a dark room is illuminated, then the room goes from non-being in a certain respect (the privation of light, i.e., darkness) to being in a certain respect (i.e., the accidental form of light). If a light room is darkened, then the room goes from being in a certain respect (i.e., the accidental form of light) to non-being in a certain respect (the privation of light, i.e., darkness). This leads us to a commonly invoked axiom: the corruption of something is the generation of another. The generation of light in the room is the corruption of the privation of light (darkness). Otherwise, corruption would not be distinguished from annihilation, and generation from creation.

Generation and corruption can be distinguished into accidental generation/corruption and substantial generation/corruption. In the former case, what is being generated/corrupted is a certain accidental form (in our case, light/darkness); in the latter case, what is being generated/corrupted is a certain substantial form, e.g., if we burn a piece of paper, the form of paper is corrupted and in its place the form of ash is generated.

The way that this generation/corruption occurs is by the action of some agent on the thing that is generated/corrupted (which we call the “composite”). In the case of our paper, fire acts upon the paper in order to corrupt the form of paper and cause the form of ash in the composite. The particular means used in order to generate/corrupt is the introduction of certain accidental forms in the composite in order to dispose the composite to “lose” the previous substantial form and “gain” the new substantial form. Fire infuses heat into the paper, which is ill-disposed to receive that greatness of heat; this causes the corruption of the form of paper, while, simultaneously, the heat is a proper disposition for ash to be generated. This is called “accidental transmutation” by scholastic philosophers.

There are a few important corollaries to this common-sense account that are drawn by Thomistic philosophers. First, generation and corruption are not instances of “motion” in the proper sense of the term, since motion exists between two positive termini. Second, generation and corruption are instances of mutation, which involves a privative opposition between the termini: in corruption, between a form and its privation; in generation, between a privation and its form. Third, mutation is something that happens instantaneously, with only an order of nature. While motion happens successively, mutation cannot happen successively with an order of time, since this involves the removal and induction of substantial form, which is necessary for the existence of the composite (if there were a time when it did not exist, then prime matter, which has no proper existence, would exist without substantial form; therefore, any priority/posteriority must be a quo).

This leads us to a clear philosophical account of what is actually going on in corruption/generation. When the agent induces sufficient dispositions for the corruption of the substantial form, prime matter is “stripped” of all forms (both accidental and substantial); upon this stripping, the prime matter, which has a desire for substantial form and cannot exist without it, immediately composes with substantial form, which, in the order of efficient causality, causes the accidental forms of the new composite, although, in the order of material and dispositive causality, the proper accidents are themselves dispositions for the substantial form. It is in this process that substantial form is “educed” from prime matter.

An interesting corollary to this account is that the accidents in the composite before corruption and the accidents in the composite after corruption are numerically distinct accidents. Therefore, for example, since the soul is the substantial form of the man, when a man dies, the accidents that are possessed by the man (e.g., color) after death are numerically distinct from the accidents that are possessed by the man before death.

Section 2. The Problem of the Eucharist

When we carefully look at this account of generation and corruption, a clear problem arises in the case of the Eucharist. The Catholic Church teaches that the substances of bread and wine do not exist in the Eucharist and that the Eucharistic Species exist without an ultimate subject. In this case, there is obviously no prime matter in the case of the Eucharistic Species, since only accidental forms exist and dimensive quantity inheres in no subject whatsoever. Now, this is no problem for the corruption of the species. There exists accidental corruption, and if the species are corrupted, then we can chalk it up to that. The same lack of controversy ought to exist over accidental generation.

On the other hand, there surely exists a problem with substantial generation. In certain cases, it is clear that there is substantial generation that follows upon the corruption of the Eucharistic Species. If a host burns up in a fire, then there is the substantial generation of ashes. It is here that the precise issue arises in our case. The substantial forms of things are educed from prime matter. In the substantial generation of ashes, the form of ashness is educed from prime matter. Yet, where does this prime matter come from? As we stated above, there is no prime matter in the case of the Eucharistic Species. Therefore, it would seem to follow that substantial generation is impossible in this case. On the other hand, it is obvious from experience that there is substantial generation in this case.

It is this precise difficulty that the Author touches upon in his article, although not stated with sufficient precision or clarity.

Section 3. Various Solutions

The easiest way of trying to avoid this problem is by rejecting the testimony of the senses and arguing that generation does not actually occur. While some ancient authors held to this first position, it is universally rejected by the theologians.

For this reason, the authors have always attempted to seek a solution to this problem by admitting that generation occurs. Therefore, a second position arose, arguing that the generation does not happen from the Eucharistic Species (which are annihilated), but from the surrounding air. While this solution is quite creative, it is equally defective. We ought to take as an axiom that we should not multiply miracles. Now, in this case, there would be two equally strange miracles. First, there would be annihilation, which is above the powers of any creature. Second, something would be generated without the proper accidental dispositions (e.g., the air does not create ash when fire is applied, but, in this case, such would occur).

From the rejection of these two positions, we gather two principles that will be key to the resolution of this problem. First, we must hold that true corruption and generation occur. Second, we must explain this case without the multiplication of miracles, explaining things either (a) by natural laws or (b) in virtue of the first miracle of consecration.

These actually give us the limits for determining which solutions are “probable” or “improbable.” Theologians, in their treatments of this matter, are careful not to harshly censure other opinions within these axioms, but clearly admit that any solution within these parameters is “probable,” with their own position as “more probable.” It is for precisely this reason that the entire project of Mr. Hedges is so silly, as I will explain later.

A third position was formed in the early scholastic period that explained this problem by arguing that there is some sort of “return” of the substance of the bread/wine when generation/corruption occurs. Many eminent authors explain this position in a benign way, arguing that it is simply a less distinct way of stating what we will state is the fifth position. Others simply deny this position, since it would pose insoluble problems. Either the substance of bread/wine exists before the corruption of the species or after; if before the corruption of the species, then the substance of bread/wine and the substance of body/blood exist together, introducing the error of consubstantiation; if after the corruption of the species, then bread/wine will exist without its proper accidents, which is repugnant.

It is important to recall that this position in its cruder form (i.e., not explained as the fifth position) is rejected by Catholic theologians. Many of the arguments given by Mr. Hedges in his article are aimed against this third position. The Author would have done better to pass over these in silence and equip himself with arguments against positions that Catholic theologians did not come to universally reject.

With all of the aforementioned positions removed, there remain two solutions to this matter.

We know that we ought not to multiply miracles. Therefore, theologians commonly hold that there is some sort of exigency at the last moment of the corruption of the species that makes the solution to this problem connaturally demanded, whether by some sort of sacramental law, law of providence, or in virtue of the miracle of consecration. Whichever way one explains this, this is not an instance of “multiplying miracles.”

In nature, there are certain cases where there is some exigency for the immediate action of God due to the dispositions for some act being posited. As an example, in the creation of the rational soul by God, when the proper dispositions for such a soul are formed in the fetus (whether immediately at conception or later, it does not matter in this case), it naturally follows that there is an exigency for the immediate action of God in the creation and infusion of the rational soul in the fetus. Cf. Suárez, In III, disp. 57, sect. 3, n. 8; Bellarmine, De sacramento Eucharistiae, lib. III, c. XXIV; Franzelin, Tractatus de SS. Eucharistiae sacramento, thes. XVI, schol. 1; Salmanticenses, disp. VIII, dub. V, § III, n. 55.

The scholastics (both Thomists and others) draw an analogy with the generation and corruption of the Eucharistic Species. God must immediately supply for whatever defect would follow, since there is some real exigency from the dispositions placed in the species. What is done to immediately supply the defect? Here, theologians are divided between two solutions. The most obvious solution would be that God immediately creates the prime matter necessary for the eduction of the following substantial form, naturally following the last instant of the existence of the Eucharistic Species. This is the fifth solution to the problem, commonly followed by Suarezians and (many) Scotists (and even Bl. Scotus himself according to some Scotists).

What are we to think of this solution? St. Thomas and many Thomists call this “probable.” There is no necessary repugnance with this solution. The only difficulty that makes this solution less fitting is the way in which dimensive quantity continues into the generated thing, which is unfitting (although not impossible).

Therefore, there is a second solution that is proposed. We need prime matter from which to educe the form. How are we to find this? From the dimensive quantity that is already there and is the subject of the accidental transmutation that is already occurring, which constitutes the dispositions. In this case, the dimensive quantity is the “vice-matter.”

How does this occur? This is what divides the Thomists. An older group of theologians (and a handful of Thomists) argues that the dimensive quantity itself is that from which the substantial form is educed and that the composite is a composite of dimensive quantity and substantial form. This is the fourth solution and is followed by authors of repute such as Henry of Ghent, Aegidius Romanus, and even Sylvester of Ferrara. Contrary to the claims made by Mr. Hedges, while this was held by Capreolus in his earlier exposition of the Sentences, he later changed to the position taken by later Thomists (In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 1, a. 3, § 3, ad arg. Scoti).

The problems with this position are many. Chief among them is the issue of how exactly we are able to say that there is a substantial composite without prime matter, which is precisely the question that we set out to solve. In this solution, there would be a monstrous composite of quantity and substantial form that can hardly be held without philosophical absurdities. Interestingly, it is precisely against this position (as held by Henry of Ghent) that Bl. Scotus and the Scotists set out their many arguments. Unfortunately, this is not precisely noted by Mr. Hedges in the second section of his article, where he marshals many arguments against the fourth solution that touch neither the fifth solution (taken by Scotists and Suarezians) nor the sixth solution (taken by the vast majority of Thomists).

The later Thomists ingeniously solve this problem in another way, which was commonly received in the school. Rather than arguing that dimensive quantity in its unaltered state takes the place of prime matter, they argue that there is an exigency induced by the accidental transmutation of the species so that God changes the dimensive quantity into prime matter so that the substantial form can be educed. This brilliant sixth solution (more Divine than human) avoids all the problems of the aforementioned solutions: it requires no multiplication of miracles and holds to what is most connatural; it does not require philosophical absurdities in quantity entering substantial composition; and it does not require any sort of annihilation of the species, but a true continuity between the corruption of the species and the generation of substantial form.

Section 4. On Mutation, Generation, and Corruption

Here, the Thomists come to another difficulty. In this case, how is the true and proper notion of mutation preserved? Mutation requires that there be a fundamental unity between the termini in corruption and generation. There must be a certain subject that is preserved throughout the mutation, a form that is introduced in generation, and a privation of this form introduced before generation. In the ingenious sixth solution, it is clear that there is a subject that is preserved throughout; for the very dimensive quantity that is the subject of corruption is divinely changed into the prime matter from which the substantial form is educed in generation. It is here that we also see the weakness of the fifth solution, which is not able to preserve as well the unity of subject between the corruption of the species and substantial generation.

The question arises, upon our close consideration of the problem, of whether we can say that there is truly a privation of the substantial form in this case. When we consider the Eucharistic Species, we see that there is no privation of the substantial form to be educed. Privation is some lack of a due perfection. Prime matter has an appetite for all forms; therefore, whatever substantial form is educed can be said to have had a privation under the other substantial form. Yet, the same cannot be said of quantity, which has no appetite for substantial form and no privation for it, but only a simple lack.

To this difficulty, there are four solutions that could be proposed.

The first solution argues that mutation is not of the essence of generation, but only of its connatural state. This is the simplest solution to the problem at hand. Mr. Hedges offers the following comment on this solution given by many eminent Thomists:

The Salmanticenses attempts to skirt around this difficulty by saying that this real mutation from non-being to being does not pertain essentially to substantial generation, but only in its aptitude. One may see at the outset how they continue to redefine the most basic concepts of metaphysics in order to save their doctrine. In taking this approach, they contradict other Thomists.

This response by Mr. Hedges is one of many instances of a mind that is quite shallowly formed in the principles of scholastic philosophy. When we define terms, there are times in which we include only those essential notes that are proper to them; yet, at other times, we include various notes that are present to the thing in its connatural state or even as it exists in some particular mode (e.g., including “accident” in the definition of a relation, even though it can exist as subsisting).

To question whether an aspect of a definition is an essential note (e.g., rationality in man) or a mere property flowing from the essence (e.g., risibility in man) is not an example of “redefin[ing] the most basic concepts of metaphysics”; it is an example of good scholastic philosophy. The Thomists who hold to this solution argue that this connaturality, as flowing from certain physical laws that are not strictly metaphysical, does not necessarily exist in every instance, because properties that are only physically necessary do not need to exist in something for it to be such a thing except aptitudinally. We use these same principles when analyzing the definition of things in such important doctrines as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the possibility of miracles, etc. If Mr. Hedges wishes to do away with all these as examples of “redefining,” that is his prerogative (irrational as it is), but he is not allowed to use these same tools when he expounds other issues.

I would like to bring three more points to your attention that significantly take away from the force of this article as a whole.

First, by my reckoning, he simply leaves out any other solution to this objection (which should be one of the central points treated in his article). Mr. Hedges spends quite a bit of time attacking solutions that were rejected by the schools and little time “refuting” the positions that are actually held within the schools. Why is this the case? If he is to cite John of St. Thomas on the essence of generation, why doesn’t he quote John of St. Thomas’ solution to this problem found in the same place? It certainly forces us to conclude that the arguments presented in the article are quite weak at sustaining his conclusion, since he leaves many solutions to this problem unanswered.

Second, following upon this, Mr. Hedges does not give any necessary reason for his objection. Shouldn’t this be his central concern? He seems quite aware that this point of whether mutation is of the essence of generation or its connaturality is disputed among the Thomists. He states that the former position is true, but he gives no argument for it whatsoever. What if I follow the Salmanticenses, Complutenses, and many others in denying that mutation is of the essence of generation? While he quotes John of St. Thomas, I do not take the position of John of St. Thomas on all issues. Therefore, his argument is quite unable to force his conclusion. Further, as mentioned in the first point, he does not give any of the resolutions given by Thomists that suppose that mutation is of the essence of generation; therefore, his conclusion does not follow. It does not even have the appearance of following for the casual reader.

Third, related to the first point, from my reading of his arguments, Mr. Hedges’ article lacks such thoroughness that it is nearly devoid of any refutation whatsoever of the fifth position. Admittedly, the reader must remember that it is a Protestant tradition to be terrified by Jesuits, so we must excuse our dear Author for his fault on this point. St. Thomas and the Thomists hold that this position is at least “probable.” Even if Mr. Hedges found some never-before-seen argument that demolishes the sixth position, we would fall back on the fifth position, which we do not hold to be impossible, but even hold to be probable.

The second solution argues that mutation is of the essence of generation, but that we are able to preserve generation by equipollence. Equipollence refers to the state in which there is such a strict similarity between two things that we consider them as one in preserving the logical force of either.

This is very easy to understand and is the exact solution posited by John of St. Thomas. When we speak of mutation, we are simply attempting to articulate some sort of change from one thing to another thing that happens with a fundamental unity between the two, that happens instantaneously, and that terminates in substantial form. All of this is true when we articulate the sixth solution. There is a lack of the substantial form before the mutation, there is a fundamental unity insofar as the dimensive quantity continues in the terminus by conversion to prime matter, and there is substantial form after the mutation. Clearly, by equipollence, there is no other name to give this process than “mutation,” since the privation is present virtually throughout the entire mutation insofar as the quantity is equipollent to prime matter in the Eucharistic Species.

I will await Mr. Hedges’ demonstration of why exactly this solution is not possible.

The third solution argues that mutation is of the essence of generation and that this is preserved by the concept of fundamental privation. While there is no formal privation of the substantial form in the Eucharistic Species, there is a simple lack of the substantial form before the conversion of the dimensive quantity. Now, since there is some obediential potency of the dimensive quantity to be converted to prime matter, we can speak of a privation that is fundamental and remote.

This solution can either be combined with the second solution or taken in isolation from it. If combined with the second solution, we would say that the force of formal privation and the force of fundamental privation are the same in either case; hence, we can equivalently speak of the one present in mutation as the other. This is similar to John of St. Thomas’ solution. If taken in isolation from the second solution, we can argue that the inclusion of privation in the definition of mutation abstracts from formal or fundamental privation, so that the full force of the definition is preserved without an appeal to equipollence.

Again, I will await Mr. Hedges’ demonstration of why exactly this solution is not possible.

The fourth solution argues that mutation is of the essence of generation and that this is preserved by the priority of nature (a quo, not in quo) present in substantial generation. The conversion of the dimensive quantity into prime matter implies that there is some sort of logical priority of the prime matter before the eduction of substantial form. Just as in ordinary generation and corruption, the prime matter is “stripped” of all form, whether substantial or accidental, so also in this case, the converted dimensive quantity stands “stripped” of all form, whether substantial or accidental. This is why Thomists note that there is some priority between generation and corruption (whether properly natural or logical does not matter at this moment). Now, in the case of the eduction of substantial form from the converted prime matter, the prime matter must stand in formal privation to the form educed. Therefore, we can truly verify the notion of privation in our case. In my opinion and the opinion of quite a few eminent Thomists, this last solution stands strongest insofar as it verifies the strictest definition of generation without any equipollence whatsoever.

Again, I will await Mr. Hedges’ demonstration of why exactly this solution is not possible.

Section 5. Individual Objections

It is to be noted from the outset that many of Mr. Hedges’ arguments miss the point in one particular respect. Rather than refuting positions commonly held among Roman Catholic scholastics (i.e., the fifth and sixth positions), he often provides refutations that merely touch certain minority positions that are commonly abandoned after the Baroque period (i.e., the third and fourth positions). To give just one example, we can note the various Scotistic arguments against the “Thomist position” given by Mr. Hedges in the second section of his article. While the Author frames these arguments as “arguments against the Thomistic view that are worth considering,” he fails to note that such a position is extremely rare among Thomistic authors. Many of those quoted as holding this position (Henry of Ghent, Aegidius Romanus) are not even “Thomists” in the strict sense of the term. Another author that is quoted (Capreolus) concedes the Scotistic arguments and then rescinds his previous adherence to the fourth position, holding to the sixth position. The only significant authority in the Thomistic school who holds to this position is Sylvester of Ferrara, who was heavily criticized by the later Thomists, both for holding something that is manifestly contrary to reason AND for holding something that careful exegesis of the texts of St. Thomas (especially in the Sentences Commentary) reveals to be against the mind of St. Thomas.

Therefore, in this section, I simply want to treat those individual objections that I believe may touch upon the sixth position (from my reading, almost none of them even touch upon the “probable” fifth position of the Scotists and Suarezians).

First Objection. “I will argue here that there is a very significant metaphysical problem posed for the Papists here, and also show how, interestingly enough, their theologians and apologists contradict one another vehemently in attempting to escape the argument and solve this problem. The very fact that they argue against one another poses the following strategy for us: we can turn the Roman scholastics and theologians against one another, and mount their arguments against each other in such a fashion as to destroy it from within.”

Response. This fails to understand the approach taken by the Thomists. As St. Thomas himself testified, the fifth position is something that is “probable,” which is also claimed by various Thomists. While they give arguments for why their position is more or less fitting, or why certain solutions to objections are not entirely correct, it is quite silly to claim that these realities are able to fashion tools to “destroy [Catholicism] from within.”

St. Thomas states that the other position is probable in three places. In Quodlibet IX, he states that the third position is a “probable position,” but calls the fifth and sixth positions “plainer” (Quodl. IX, q. 3, a. 1, ad 3). In his Sentences Commentary, he writes about the fifth position that “the opinion can with sufficient probability be sustained” (In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 1, a. 2, qla. 4). In the Summa, he holds that “this position might be sustained,” but ultimately rejects it (ST III, q. 77, a. 5).

This is something that is explicitly stated by later Thomists. The Salmanticenses state the following: “Before we answer this, one must know whether the prime matter which we have said God produces in the instant of generation comes to be by creation, or rather by conversion. In which difficulty the first can be probably sustained, and is insinuated by St. Thomas…But nevertheless it is far more probable that the production of such matter is the conversion of the quantity into that same matter.” (disp. VIII, dub. V, n. 57)

Gonet: “I answer briefly that, although St. Thomas in the place cited above left this undecided and indicated that both are probable, saying that it comes to be either by creation or by conversion, nevertheless it is more fittingly said to come to be from the quantity by conversion than to be created anew.” (disp. VI, a. V)

Billuart: “I answer that this is left undecided by the holy Doctor…and that each is probable. It seems, however, more fitting to say that it is produced by the conversion of the quantity into it.” (diss. I, a. VI, § II)

This is everywhere in the tradition on different solutions to this problem. St. Bonaventure was quite open-minded on this question, arguing that “it is not easy to disprove either [position],” since “each of the aforesaid ways of speaking seems probable enough” (In IV Sent., d. XII, p. I, a. II, q. 1). St. Albert the Great stated, “I prejudge neither [position]…and each can be said quite congruously” (In IV Sent., d. XII, a. 14).

In fact, certain doctors held that the two positions do not actually really differ (while I do not hold this, it illustrates the point). Gregory of Valencia: “Thirdly, some held that at the point of generation new matter is here divinely created. Which opinion St. Thomas…judges probable. And certainly this opinion does not seem to differ in reality from our own, which we explained before. For those who said that matter is created here would not have denied, in the thing itself, that that matter divinely succeeds to the quantity in the office of subject with respect to the dispositions to the form of the generated thing; and since the character of the conversion of the quantity into matter consists precisely in that, neither would they in reality have denied such a conversion here.” (t. IV, disp. VI, q. V, punct. IV)

To turn the argument against the Author, what are we to make of the various disagreements between Reformed scholastics in his tradition, some of which were so violent that they led to bloodshed and political unrest, overturning entire nations? What are we to make of the various disagreements between the Holy Fathers and other authorities that we hold in common? Do these destroy a system or a doctrine from within? Now, how much less does this destroy our Church and our dogma when Thomists hold the other position to be probable and merely fight over the best solutions to certain doubts? I believe that this method is far from admirable and is a species of intellectual laziness, refusing to seek demonstrative arguments for one’s doctrine, a false science that latches onto irrelevancies in order to bolster rhetorical prowess.

Second Objection. “(1) From the corruption of any subject the generation of another thing happens, there necessarily at least is matter, from the potency of which the substantial form of that [new thing] is educted, or ‘drawn out’, as it were. (2) But from the corrupted remnants of Eucharistic bread the generation of another thing happens, namely of worms: therefore there is necessarily there a matter from the potency of which their substantial form is educted. (3). But this matter is not the matter of the body of Christ: Therefore it is the matter of bread which remained unchanged.”

Response. The major premise of the first argument is conceded. The minor premise of the first argument is conceded. The first conclusion (and, consequently, the major premise of the second argument) is conceded. The minor premise of the second argument is conceded. The consequence of the second argument, and therefore the conclusion of the second argument, is denied.

The consequence is false, since there are distinct possibilities besides the matter of the body of Christ. In the fifth opinion, the creation of prime matter occurs by an immutable law due to some exigency following upon the corruption of the Eucharistic Species. In the sixth opinion, the change of the quantity of the bread into prime matter is done by Divine Power, with a similar law and exigency as the fifth opinion.

Neither of these two opinions is excluded by this argument; therefore, the conclusion does not follow from the premises enumerated.

Third Objection. “It is impossible for an accident to pass into the nature of a substance. Those things which do not belong to the same genus cannot be made from one another (for example, you cannot make a line from whiteness), as the Salmanticenses correctly point out: ‘From quantity and substantial form one cannot make a substantial composite that is a being per se.’”

Response. This follows in the line of material cause and in natural potency, which is exactly what the quotation of the Salmanticenses indicates, i.e., the matter with which substantial form composes must be reductively in the genus of substance (i.e., prime matter), or else there would be no substantial composite. This principle does not indicate that, by Divine Power, something could not be changed from one genus to another genus, or that obediential potency is lacking for such a case; for, if God can create something without a presupposed subject in creation, then, a fortiori, from a presupposed subject he can by his omnipotence change something from one genus to another genus; further, due to the entity of quantity, there is an obediential potency for such a conversion.

There is no reason why we couldn’t hold that, while there is no natural potency of quantity to become prime matter, there is an obediential potency for such due to its entity; just as there is no natural potency for the beatific vision in the human intellect, but, due to its extensive object, there is an obediential potency supposing the presence of Divine Power.

It can also be noted that this does not exclude the fifth position.

Fourth Objection. “Quantity is an accident, and matter is not. Quantity has no natural potency to educe a substantial form, for that pertains rather to a natural agent.

If that quantity were converted into the matter of the worm through conversion, and from it the substantial form of the worm were educed, it would follow that they lack quantity, which our very own senses inform us is completely false.”

Response. The first half of the argument only proceeds against the fourth position, which most scholastics (adhering to either the fifth or sixth) deny. In the fifth position and in the sixth position, the eduction of substantial form is from prime matter.

The second half of the argument is a philosophical abomination. As we covered above (which Mr. Hedges should know, since he quotes the eminent Grenier), prime matter is stripped of all substantial and accidental form by corruption and, in generation, the substantial form is educed, which causes, in the line of efficient cause, accidental forms numerically distinct from those before the mutation. Therefore, the issue with this argument is obvious. The worm would not lack quantity, because the quantity after a mutation is numerically distinct from the quantity before the conversion and is brought about from the substantial form. The same problem that he poses for the sixth opinion would destroy all true generation and corruption and negate the stripping of the prime matter as much as it refutes the sixth opinion. Or, if one wanted to hold Soto’s position (which is also held by the Suarezians), he could simply say that the conversion is not into bare prime matter, but quantified prime matter.

Fifth Objection. “If the matter is newly created, this takes place either in the first instant of the generation of the new substance (such as the ashes or worms), or before. It cannot be before, since, as I will say again below, there cannot be the simultaneous coexistence of the body of Christ with the substance of bread or whatever new form takes its place after its corruption. Also, Aquinas and the Thomists deny that any prime matter could actually exist apart from form. But the other alternative has its own problems as well. If the matter is recreated in the instant of generation, then what need is there for a natural agent to generate anything from it, since it cannot do so except from matter that is quantified (so that it is proportioned to the natural agent), which this is not? The only way out of that would be to say that the accidents inhere in matter without any medium in between, which is commonly rejected.”

Response. This is an argument that seems to be posed against the fifth position. This argument confuses logical and temporal order. While generation and corruption occur in the same temporal instant, there is a logical (or, according to some authors, natural) order between corruption and generation (which Mr. Hedges should know from Grenier, who explicitly says as much). The order of the various moments for the fifth position would be the corruption of the species (in which the substance of the body and blood ceases to be under the species, since they are as its “container”), then, in the same temporal moment, the creation of prime matter, then the eduction of substantial form. There is no temporal moment in which prime matter (whether under the Thomist or other reckoning) is devoid of substantial form, but there is a logical order (a quo) between these acts and a logical moment in which such occurs. If this argument, on the principle that prime matter has no existence apart from substantial form, were efficacious against the fifth position, then this would destroy any notion of substantial mutation, since this requires the stripping of prime matter of all substantial and accidental form.

In the second half, we see again the philosophical error of Mr. Hedges. What he does not understand is that, in the Thomistic reckoning of substantial mutation, there is a distinction between those prior dispositions that exist in the substance as corrupted and those proximate dispositions that exist in the engendered substance. These accidents are numerically distinct and, while the latter precedes the substantial form in the order of material and disposing cause, it succeeds it in the order of efficient cause, the proper accidental forms of the substance being naturally and necessarily effected by the presence of the substantial form.

The original accidents do not inhere directly in prime matter, either in the case of the Eucharist or in the case of ordinary acts of generation, because, in ordinary acts of generation, there is a stripping of the accidental forms that is demanded in virtue of the fact that accidental forms ordinarily inhere in something that is actual, which prime matter is not without substantial form. Funnily enough, if he took this to its logical conclusion, he would not even require a miracle for the existence of accidents without a subject in the Eucharist, since he would hold in ordinary generation that accidental forms exist with their own proper existence without any actuality in the line of substance (since prime matter is pure potency)!

While he accuses the scholastics of manifest contradictions, see how contradictory and confused the Author’s attempt is!

Sixth Objection. “The accidents of the newly generated composite would inhere immediately in the quantity itself as their subject (since a true metaphysical conversion requires that the ‘term-from-which’, i.e. that which is converted, ceases), rather than mediately through the quantity, as is the case with the accidents immediately after the consecration (on our opponents’ hypothesis). There can therefore not be any real and proper generation that occurs, on this viewpoint.

Some have attempted to reply that the subject of the mutation remains the same throughout, but according to a priority of nature rather than a priority of time. However, matter is not separated from form even according to such a priority of nature, and if quantity takes the place of matter, it still remains incapable of receiving a form.”

Response. The first half of this argument is simply incoherent. It is difficult to even understand the line of reasoning from the Author. It seems that he is attempting to argue against the fourth position, but understands that numerically identical accidents continue through substantial generation. In any case, nothing follows from this, since we do not concede the principle he is invoking, for accidental forms do not inhere in prime matter, but are stripped from it and come to be from the substantial form as effects in generation.

The second half of this argument touches upon a dispute between Thomists, but poorly reports the positions of the authors (even while he quotes the great Doronzo!). Whether we should speak of the stripping of matter as naturally posterior to corruption and prior to generation (a quo, not in quo) or the stripping of matter as logically posterior to corruption and prior to generation is disputed between Thomists, but everyone agrees with the stripping in principle. The Salmanticenses hold that as much as anyone else in the Thomistic tradition! Even if we were to concede the position of some Thomists that we should only speak of a logical priority, what does it matter? There is still priority, posteriority, and the stripping of matter, each of which refutes the objections given by the Author. The only place where this is relevant (as mentioned above) is the dispute over whether mutation enters into the essential definition of generation or not.

Seventh Objection. “The Salmanticenses attempts to skirt around this difficulty by saying that this real mutation from non-being to being does not pertain essentially to substantial generation, but only in its aptitude. One may see at the outset how they continue to redefine the most basic concepts of metaphysics in order to save their doctrine.”

Response. This objection was already treated above in the fourth section.

Eighth Objection. “Any approach, therefore, that requires the constant multiplication of various new miracles to get out of difficulties (as many of them do in this present situation) has to be rejected as a case of desperate special pleading.”

Response. Here we see the manifest inability of Mr. Hedges to argue against our position, which is quite unfortunate. Earlier in his essay he noted something that we noted above when treating the commonalities of the fifth and sixth positions: “albeit those of the latter opinion say that God does not perform a successive series of new miracles, but that this rather occurs by force of the miracle which has already been accomplished with the consecration. This is the opinion of such figures as Cardinal Franzelin, Gabriel Vazquez, and Suarez.”

This is not merely the opinion of “Cardinal Franzelin, Gabriel Vazquez, and Suarez,” but is something that is repeated by nearly every author in their treatment of this question. When such an act occurs, whether reducing the quantity’s obediential potency for prime matter to act or supplying such prime matter by an act of creation, it is in virtue of the miracle of consecration and not in virtue of a new miracle. The entire point of asking this question in the first place, and of the variety of positions, is to explain how this can occur without a multiplication of miracles and with the connaturality of the components preserved.

If there is a certain exigency present in creation, how is it a miracle for the immediate action of God to be present? Is it the “multiplication of miracles” when God infuses the rational soul into a sufficiently disposed human fetus? No, of course not; there is a certain exigency present in virtue of the sufficient disposition of matter for the creation and infusion of the rational soul. Why, then, is there this inconsistency in respect to Catholic explanations? If there is an exigency present (and there is, since the sufficient prior material dispositions exist in the species immediately before corruption), then how would this one involve the “multiplication of miracles”? Rather, this is something that is as natural as the creation and infusion of the rational soul in the fetus.

If there are any other objections in this article you would like to see me respond to, please comment below and I will get to them.

In this article, I promised that I would expand on certain notes made on the Roman Catechism’s treatment of the conditions for proper contrition. Theologians typically draw nine notes of proper contrition from the Roman Catechism:

This brilliant exposition of the Roman Catechism became the seedbed for the teaching of the theologians that contrition must be true (not apparent), real (not a mere speculative judgment), proper (formal displeasure), per se formal (not merely virtual), loving (i.e., includes some love of God, although not necessarily the theological virtue of charity), essentially supernatural, efficacious (an act absolutely repugnant to sin, i.e., the act is against sin as such, even if a man falls into sin contrary to this act), universal (extending to all mortal sins), and supreme (according to [the subject’s appreciation of the] object, i.e., that the intellect affirms that sin is to be hated above all things and, consequently, that the will is ready to suffer all things rather than to sin). This is extensively explained and demonstrated by Doronzo in his De poenitentia, tom. ii, cap. iv, art. 25.

In this article I will be going over each of these individually, with more or less detail. As mentioned, this article will be more scientific in nature, eschewing the more practical style of my aforementioned article. Therefore, I am paywalling this article.

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“Whatever of piety, of holiness, of religion, has been preserved to our times in the Church, through God’s goodness, must be ascribed in great measure to confession.” (Ibid.)

Introduction

As part of my article on the fewness of the saved from last week, I briefly invoked the testimony of various saints against a certain position held by Fr. Francisco Suarez, SJ, on deathbed conversions. While these saints, of course, concede that such a conversion occurs (which itself is witnessed to by scripture in the case of St. Dismas), on the other hand, they deny that such is always the case, teaching that such confessions often lack the proper dispositions required for the validity of confession.

Some friends and others, acting in good faith and with a zeal for souls, informed me of an obvious problem with my treatment of this matter. Many Catholics, upon hearing this, will draw a quite obvious conclusion: if it is possible for deathbed confessions to be invalid due to improper dispositions, then, likewise, it is possible for their confessions to be invalid due to improper dispositions. In light of this, many of the faithful who read this section were troubled by this possibility, and a few quite openly despaired at the thought.

Therefore, in this article, I hope to rectify this situation, lest I, in teaching others, be found guilty of spiritual bloodshed on that great and terrible day of the Lord, when I will be called more stringently to account for every word that has proceeded from my pen. The Catechism of Trent encourages especially teaching on this matter of the necessary elements for the validity of the sacrament of Penance, “to awaken attention, lest they be found culpably negligent in a matter so very important,” because “there is nothing that should be better known to the faithful than the matter of this Sacrament.” (Pt. 2, On Penance)

To those who may be opposed to my decision to write an article on this issue, remember these words of the Roman Catechism. There is nothing that should be better known; yet, how few know it? How many are unaware of the firm purpose of amendment necessary for the validity of this sacrament? How many are unaware of the true character of the contrition necessary for this sacrament? How many are unaware of the necessity of faith and hope in this sacrament? While these are largely unknown, the Roman Catechism says that there is nothing that should be better known. What should I write about? The Filioque? Divine Simplicity? It is better that ignorance reign on these matters among the entirety of the faithful than that these most important and fundamental matters are ignored.

There is nothing better for me to write about and for you to read about than this topic of the necessary matter of the sacrament of penance.

A Protestation

Before we begin, I should make a note on method. First, I follow the clear judgments of the Catholic Church on the matter of the Sacrament of Penance and the requisite conditions for its validity. Second, I follow the merciful teaching of St. Alphonsus, the moral doctor of the Church, who, as many Popes have witnessed, follows that golden mean between the destructive doctrines of rigorism and laxism. Beyond these standards, I will clearly indicate where moralists have not come to a consensus on the matter.

On Penance in General

To many, it may be surprising that Catholic theologians invoke internal dispositions as in any way relevant to the validity of Penance. Certain heretics demanded the state of grace or, at least, membership in the Church and the true faith as necessary for the validity of the sacraments of baptism and orders. It would seem, upon first glance, that the same error is lurking around the corner with this doctrine.

To understand why this is not the case, it must be remembered that, for the validity of a sacrament, there are five requisite conditions: matter, form, subject, minister, and intention. For Penance, unlike a sacrament like Baptism, the matter is not something external (e.g., water), but something internal. The Council of Trent teaches the following on this matter:

“The acts of the penitent himself, to wit, contrition, confession and satisfaction, are as it were the matter of this sacrament. Which acts, inasmuch as they are, by God’s institution, required in the penitent for the integrity of the sacrament, and for the full and perfect remission of sins, are for this reason called the parts of penance.” (Sess. 14, cap. 3)

In the canons of this session, the fourth canon anathematizes those who teach the opposite doctrine:

“If any one denieth, that, for the entire and perfect remission of sins, there are required three acts in the penitent, which are as it were the matter of the sacrament of Penance, to wit, contrition, confession, and satisfaction, which are called the three parts of penance… let him be anathema.” (ibid., can. 4)

The reason why the saints and theologians I quoted in my last article rejected the validity of the majority of deathbed confessions is that they found, by experience, that the majority of such cases lacked the first of these acts of the penitent, i.e., contrition.

The Council of Trent goes on in the next chapter to explain what the necessary contrition for Penance is, which it says “holds the first place amongst the aforesaid acts of the penitent.” (ibid., cap. 4). It teaches that contrition “is a sorrow of mind, and a detestation for sin committed, with the purpose of not sinning for the future.”

There are three aspects to contrition. First, it is a sorrow of mind. Second, it detests the sins committed. Third, it includes a purpose of not sinning in the future. This is also explained in the following terms: “this contrition contains not only a cessation from sin, and the purpose and the beginning of a new life, but also a hatred of the old… [which] flow[s] from a certain vehement hatred of their past life, and from an exceeding detestation of sins.”

Therefore, for example, if someone came to confession and did not have a purpose of avoiding such sins for the future (called a “firm purpose of amendment”), then his confession would be invalid. Likewise, if someone rejoiced in the sins of his past life rather than detesting them, then his confession would be invalid.

The reason for these acts in particular arises from the doctrine concerning justification taught in Session 6 of Trent, in the chapter on the preparation for justification.

The synod then gives a judgment on a certain problem that arose in reaction to this doctrine. The problem to be solved is quite easy to understand. In order to be justified, we must be in a state of grace, which implies that one possesses charity. Now, in order to have a valid confession, one must have true contrition for one’s sins. Therefore, a dilemma seems to arise; either proper dispositions are necessary, or they are not; if they are necessary, then it would seem that the man going to confession is already justified apart from confession; if they are not necessary, then the entire doctrine is overthrown.

The Council Fathers solve this dilemma by appealing to a distinction between two types of contrition: perfect contrition and imperfect contrition. Perfect contrition is perfected by the possession of the theological virtue of charity. Even in this case, perfect contrition is not apart from the sacrament, since charity implies the will to obey God in all things, including the desire for the sacrament: “the said reconciliation, nevertheless, is not to be ascribed to that contrition, independently of the desire of the sacrament which is included therein.” (ibid.) Yet, it is denied that this perfect contrition, motivated by charity, is actually necessary for the validity of the sacrament; rather, the imperfect contrition (called “attrition”) is sufficient, where the motivation of detesting sin is not the theological virtue of charity, but some lesser motive: “although this attrition cannot of itself, without the sacrament of penance, conduct the sinner to justification, yet does it dispose him to obtain the grace of God in the sacrament of Penance.” (ibid.)

This same doctrine concerning what is necessary for valid absolution is taught by the Roman Catechism with clarity.1

The Roman Catechism then goes on to give explanations of each of these parts.

First, it recalls the definition of Trent that contrition is “a sorrow and detestation for sin committed, with a purpose of sinning no more,” which is “joined with a confidence in the mercy of God and an earnest desire of performing whatever is necessary to the proper reception of the Sacrament.”

Fundamental to this contrition is, first of all, “a hatred of one’s ill-spent life and a desire of atoning for past transgressions.” This does not simply consist in “ceasing to sin, or in resolving to begin, or having actually begun a new life,” as some may suppose. Rather, it is “an intense hatred and a lively detestation of past transgressions.”

It is important to recall that sorrow is not taken here for a sensible feeling, but for an act of the will: “although contrition is defined as sorrow, the faithful are not thence to conclude that this sorrow consists in sensible feeling, for contrition is an act of the will.” Since acts of the will ordinarily overflow into certain affections, such feelings are its natural accompaniment, effect, and sign, but not its essence, and hence not necessary for the validity of confession (St. Alphonsus: “Non requiritur dolor sensibilis; sufficit enim intellectivus”).

The Catechism teaches that there are three chief conditions necessary for true contrition. First, we ought to “detest and deplore all our sins.” If this detestation only applies to some of our sins, then “our repentance is not salutary, but feigned and false.” Second, it ought to include “a desire of confessing and satisfying for our sins.” Third, “the penitent must form a fixed and firm purpose of amendment of life.” This amendment concerns not only the amendment of his own moral character, but also an amendment of the evils of his sins, repairing the injury done to others by his sins. Further, we ought to forgive the injuries done unto us, as Our Lord commands in the Gospels.

This true contrition can be aroused in the faithful by the frequent examination of conscience, not merely considering where he has fallen, but also: “should anyone be conscious of sin, he should immediately accuse himself, humbly solicit pardon from God, and implore time to confess and satisfy for his sins.” Further, above all else, he should “supplicate the aid of divine grace, in order that he may not relapse into those sins which he now penitently deplores.”

This can also be aided by various considerations frequently given in books of prayer and other devotional aids, including the consideration on the “turpitude and baseness” of sin, the evils that are effects of sin, the generosity of God towards us, and the eternal punishment that will be given to those who refuse to be contrite.

This billiant exposition of the Roman Catechism became the seedbed for the teaching of the theologians that contrition must be true (not apprent), real (not a mere speculative judgement), proper (formal displeasure), per se formal (not merely virtual), loving (i.e., includes some love of God, although not necessarily the theological virtue of charity), essentially supernatural, efficacious (an act absolutely repugnant to sin, i.e., the act is against sin as such, even if a man falls into sin contrary to this act), universal (extending to all mortal sins), and supreme (according to its object, i.e., that the intellect affirms that sin is to be hated above all things and, consequently, that the will is ready to suffer all things rather than to sin). This is extensively explained and demonstrated by Doronzo in his De poenitentia, tom. ii, cap. iv, art. 25.

In another article, I will give a more detailed treatment of each of these aspects, but, for the lay reader, the general outline of the Catechism of Trent suffices. Subscribe to receive this article in your inbox when it comes out:

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Second, the Catechism brings to mind the second part of Penance. While contrition can suffice for the forgiveness of sins, how many are able to make an act of perfect contrition? Very few.

“Contrition, it is true, blots out sin; but who does not know that to effect this it must be so intense, so ardent, so vehement, as to bear a proportion to the magnitude of the crimes which it effaces? This is a degree of contrition which few reach; and hence, in this way, very few indeed could hope to obtain the pardon of their sins. It, therefore, became necessary that the most merciful Lord should provide by some easier means for the common salvation of men; and this He has done in His admirable wisdom, by giving to His Church the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”

Therefore, God established the Sacrament so that an imperfect contrition can suffice when we confess and are absolved.

The Catechism defines confession as “a sacramental accusation of one’s sins, made to obtain pardon by virtue of the keys.” It is called an accusation to distinguish it from other ways in which we may recount our sins, since the recounting of our sins is mixed “with a desire, as it were, to avenge them on ourselves.” It is “made to obtain pardon” to distinguish it from forms of judicial accusation where we may confess to establish our guilt, but not to remove it. It is “sacramental” because it is made to a priest possessing the power of jurisdiction to authoritatively absolve our sins.

In order for the confession to be valid, it is required that it be entire, confessing each of the mortal sins that one recalls, with their number and circumstances that aggravate the malice of the act, e.g., it is not sufficient, in a case of adultery, to simply state that one “slept with a woman,” but that one committed adultery, since this aggravates the malice of the act.

What is to be done if he does not recall a mortal sin? If it is through gravely culpable negligence (i.e., if he did not engage in a proportionally diligent examination of conscience), then the confession is invalid.2 If it is not gravely culpable, then it is valid and he must simply state this in his next confession:

“Should the confession seem defective, either because the penitent forgot some grievous sins, or because, although intent on confessing all his sins, he did not examine the recesses of his conscience with sufficient accuracy, he is not bound to repeat his confession. It will be sufficient, when he recollects the sins which he had forgotten, to confess them to a priest on a future occasion. It should be noted, however, that we are not to examine our consciences with careless indifference, or to be so negligent in recalling our sins as to seem as if unwilling to remember them. Should this have been the case, the confession must by all means be made over again.”

Then, the Catechism goes on to give a few other qualities of a good confession: plain, simple, sincere, prudent, modest, brief.

Lastly, the Catechism brings to mind the third part, satisfaction. Satisfaction is the full payment of a debt. Therefore, after absolution, we make acts of satisfaction, imposed by the priest, to satisfy Divine justice for our sins and to repair the offense done by them. Commonly, this is called the “penance.” It is important to note, for validity, that the actual performance of the penance is not necessary for validity, but only, at the time of absolution, that there be a “subjective disposition of the penitent accepting [the penance] in order to fulfill it later.” (STS IVA, On Penance, th. 8)

There are three degrees of satisfaction. First, the highest degree of satisfaction, which is perfect and sufficient, is the propitiation offered by Christ on our behalf in His Passion. Second, there is the canonical satisfaction, which is imposed by the priest for our sins. Third, there are various voluntary satisfactions that are privately done by the faithful.

Satisfaction, as a part of the sacrament, is the second degree of satisfaction. It is joined to a “deliberate and firm purpose carefully to avoid sin for the future,” which is “to cut off all occasions of sin, and to close every avenue against its suggestions.” This satisfaction is instituted in order to pay the temporal punishment due to sin and to remove the scars of vice. The efficacy of this satisfaction is not from itself, but “arises entirely from the merits of the Passion of Christ our Lord.”

The general notion of satisfaction requires two conditions: first, that we be in a state of grace; second, that the work performed be “painful or laborious.” Therefore, there are three kinds of works of satisfaction. First, fasting, which opposes the concupiscence of the flesh. Second, alms, which oppose the concupiscence of the eyes. Third, prayer, which opposes the pride of life.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1447ff) gives the same essential doctrine, quoting both Trent and the Roman Catechism. The same is also taught by St. John Paul II in Reconciliatio et paenitentia, n. 31, and summarized in the Code of Canon Law (can. 987-8).

Laxist and Rigorist Errors

Additionally, the Church has determined a number of details on the nature of this contrition against both the Laxists (under Bl. Innocent XI) and Rigorists (under Alexander VIII).

The Laxists were condemned for teaching that the attrition sufficient for the validity of confession could be something natural rather than the gift of God (“it is probable that natural but honest imperfect sorrow for sins suffices,” DZ 1207), that the sinner is to be absolved who has the habit of sinning with no hope of amendment (“the penitent who has the habit of sinning against the law of God, of nature, or of the Church, even if there appears no hope of amendment, is not to be denied absolution or to be put off, provided he professes orally that he is sorry and proposes amendment,” DZ 1210), and that the sinner is to be absolved who refuses to avoid the proximate occasion of sin (“he can sometimes be absolved, who remains in a proximate occasion of sinning, which he can and does not wish to omit, but rather directly and professedly seeks or enters into,” DZ 1211).

It is for this reason that the Roman Catechism speaks at length of the duties of confessors towards the various states of penitents, especially the indisposed and unprepared.

The Rigorists were condemned for denying the supernaturality and goodness of the fear of hell (“fear of hell is not supernatural,” “attrition, which is conceived through a fear of hell and punishments, with a love of benevolence for God in Himself, is not a good and supernatural motive,” DZ 1304-5, cf. 1410-12, 1525), and demanding “unmistakable signs of the love of God dominating in the heart of a man” for absolution (DZ 1536).

Is My Contrition Genuine?

These various acts of contrition should be familiar to those who frequent confession. We express sorrow for our offense against God (“I am heartily sorry for having offended thee”). We express the detestation that we have for our sins against God (“I detest all my sins”), along with the motives for such detestation, both the punishments of God to us and the offense it gives from us to God, which is repugnant to His intrinsic excellence. Lastly, we firmly resolve towards God that we will avoid both sin and whatever leads to sin, i.e., the near occasions of sin.

The theology of the Church is clearly manifested in the prayer of the Church. Those who go to confession and truly intend what is said in this prayer have the three aspects of contrition. Those who go to confession and do not truly intend what is said in this prayer do not have the three aspects of contrition and, absent an integral part of confession, confess invalidly.

In light of this doctrine, many, attacked by scruples, question whether they truly intended these internal acts. It must be confessed that it is simply part of the human condition that our certitude about even our own internal acts is often lacking in that more perfect certitude that we have about external things, according to experience and the abundant testimony of scripture. This is recognized by Catholic theologians against the Protestants on the certainty with which we know that we are in the state of grace (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, ST.I-II.Q112.A5). This comparison is commonly made by theologians, “confession does not produce its effect, unless contrition be presupposed; concerning which no man can know whether it be true contrition, even as neither can one know for certain if he has grace” (ST.IIISup.Q10.A5.Rep2)

Yet, while this more perfect certitude is lacking in our understanding of our own internal acts, it would be false to conclude from this that all certitude is lacking, such that we would be bound to always fear that such acts do not exist within us. All that is necessary for the validity of the sacrament is that each of these aspects be firm and genuine.

While some may object that this is not helpful, since the very question at hand is how we can know whether some act is firm and genuine, the answer to this is quite simple. I would ask you to spend time reflecting on the various transgressions you have made against others in your life. You understand quite well when the apology you give to them and the purpose of amending your fault are sufficiently genuine. You also understand that, at times, your apology is not sufficiently genuine and the purpose of resolution is not firm. The alcoholic frequently apologizes for his faults for some temporal gain, without any serious purpose to resolve his problems. The adulterer does the same. For those who cannot imagine that we cannot have insufficient contrition towards God, remember that there are many times in which you know that your contrition is feigned in your relationship with others. For those who cannot imagine that we can have sufficient contrition towards God, remember that there are many times in which you know that your contrition is genuine in your relationship with others. The first destroys despair in the presumptuous, the second destroys presumption in the despairing.

If you genuinely seek contrition, you will find it. The Church has not failed in giving you sufficient instruction on how to arouse this act. As mentioned above, the Catechism of Trent has an entire section discussing this matter.

Remember, above all, that the Church clearly teaches, against the Laxists, that the attrition necessary for valid absolution is not something natural, but is a gift of God. Therefore, it is not something that we can conjure up by our own natural powers, it is something that can only be given to us by God.

While this may seem crushing, it is a great consolation for those who recognize the depths of the Mercy of God and the certainty of His promises. Remember the simplicity of the Gospel: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:11) If you ask earnestly and with humility, know that God has bound Himself by His word to give what you ask in accordance with His will. What could be more pleasing to God than your repentance? Therefore, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (v. 7)

Remember, if each and every soul that has been damned had asked God for this gift perseveringly and with humility, then they would be saved from the state of mortal sin (ST.II-II.Q83.A15-16). The saints teach that the prayers of those in mortal sin infallibly impetrate the mercy of God (Mortal Sin, Prayer, and the Promises of God).

While you may wonder at this and how this could ever be true when the vast majority of men are damned, I would ask you to look within yourself. How slow are you to pray? How often do you refuse to persevere in prayer, giving up early when you do not see immediate results? Cease to wonder, then, that many are damned.

The same St. Alphonsus who penned the fundamental axiom of the spiritual life (”He who prays is saved. He who prays not is damned!”) was the same St. Alphonsus who recognized that such prayer often escapes the dying (Preparation for Death, con. vi), leading to the damnation of the majority of adult Catholics (ibid., con. xvii).

NOTE: The remainder of this article consists of a consideration of certain disputes between theologians on more particular questions about what constitutes proper contrition for the validity of the sacrament. In keeping with the spirit of the article, and understanding that many will come to read such an article who will be confused by such discussions, I will not make it public.

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“Do not believe me, but the Fathers; hear from them what the narrow way is.” (Contenson, Theologia mentis et cordis, lib. II, diss. VI, c. 2)

“Since we are debtors both to the wise and to the unwise, and since besides the settling of this question can be useful for stirring up in us the fear of God… I am pleased to show that the opinion which asserts that among Christians and the faithful the reprobate are far more numerous than the elect is more in accord with Scripture, with the holy Fathers, and with Church history than the other opinion, which teaches that the number of the elect exceeds the multitude of the reprobate.” (Gonet, Clypeus theologiae thomisticae, tract. V, De praedestinatione, disp. 4, digr. 2)

“Whoever, amid the uncertainty of this question, wishes to enter upon a sure road, let him conclude practically that the stricter road is the one he must choose for himself, firmly holding that he who lives well dies well, but fearing lest, if he shall have lived as most men live, he be damned perhaps along with most men.” (Theologia ad usum seminarii Mechliniensis, De Deo, n. 50)

“The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Matt. 11:12)

“There are then two things we must consider carefully. Since there are many who are called but few who are chosen, the first thing is that no one should be presumptuous about himself. Even though he has already been called to the faith, he does not know whether he may be considered worthy of the eternal kingdom. Secondly, no one should presume to despair of a neighbor, even if he sees him steeped in vice. He does not know the riches of the divine mercy.” (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Hom. 19 on the Gospels)

“There is a way which seemeth to a man just; but the ends thereof lead to death.” (Prov. 14:12)

Introduction

When considering the question of the fewness of the saved, theologians commonly distinguish between two central questions:

1. Whether most of mankind is damned?

2. Whether most adult Catholics are damned?

The first question is far easier than the second. Before the eighteenth century, theologians answered with uniformity on this first point. The tradition that was passed down to them was clear and certain: most of mankind will be damned. In the eighteenth century, a certain theologian named Gravina (not to be confused with Dominic Gravina) attempted to lower this unshakeable certainty by simply claiming that, while the contrary is more probable, it is in some degree probable that the greater number of mankind is elect rather than reprobate (in the fifth chapter of Plazza’s Dissertatio de Paradiso). In response to this mild suggestion, the Apostolic See was quick to condemn the thesis by a decree of the Congregation of the Index of May 22, 1772, as noted by Hurter (Theologiae dogmaticae compendium, t. II, n. 145) and many other theologians.

The second question, on the other hand, has a quite different history. As Estius notes in his treatment of the matter, on the question of whether more adult Catholics are damned than saved, the Fathers are unanimous: “nor indeed is any of the Fathers found who has written the contrary” (In I Sent., d. 40, § 203). The same is noted by many of the supporters of this doctrine, as was demonstrated at length by Verschueren (Via arcta coeli asserta), Foggini (De paucitate adultorum fidelium salvandorum mira consensio), Godts (De paucitate salvandorum quid docuerunt sancti), and others.

After the Reformation, this doctrine began to be questioned by a handful of theologians who presented their position moderately and with erudition (although, it is important to note, many of them conceded the opposite to be the more common opinion and the doctrine of the Fathers). The illustrious name of Francisco Suárez is often unfairly added to this number. The great Doctor Eximius treats this question in his De divina praedestinatione et reprobatione (lib. VI, c. 3) and distinguishes quite cleanly between three questions:

1. Whether the number of the elect is greater than the reprobate, considering the angels alone? Affirmative.

2. Whether the number of the elect is greater than the reprobate, considering the entirety of mankind? Negative.

3. Whether the number of the elect is greater than the reprobate among Christians? Distinguish.

Those who are merely casual readers of the problems of theology, simply seeking precedent to conform their opinions rather than doctors to learn from, might be quite surprised by the refusal of Suárez to plainly state concedo on this point. If we truly follow the mind of the great Suárez, we will find that his position is more nuanced than many interpreters (both friend and foe) have allowed him to be.

Suárez distinguishes among “Christians” two distinct groups:

1. Heretics, apostates, schismatics, and depraved Catholics (those who live and die badly).

2. Other Catholics.

Based on this distinction, it seems quite evident from Fr. Suárez’s treatment that it has nothing in common with the many lax and benign interpretations given to his doctrine by many moderns. Further, it seems particular enough as not to fall under any condemnation as contrary to the universal consensus of the Fathers (for, the Fathers are less clear on this particular point). Hence, we are forced to ask the question of Godts: “Does Suárez then, in what follows, exclude those Catholics who die badly (whom he had just reckoned among the apostates) and understand as ‘Catholics’ only those who die holily?” (De paucitate salvandorum, c. 4)

This position of Suárez is quite clear from the context of his comment. First, he never denies the traditional exegesis of the relevant texts, nor the authority of the Fathers and theologians, calling their position “truer” (rather, he seeks to “reconcile” these authorities with a certain reality, i.e., the efficacy of the sacraments). Second, when he states his position, he was just in the midst of reporting the position of Cajetan (In Matt. 25:1–2) that, just as only half of the virgins are wise, so also (as Suárez reports) only half of those who live indifferently in the Church and “take some care of their conscience” will be saved. It is this position that he calls “very rigorous,” and against it that he states his own.

When he describes the grounds for his own position, he very clearly describes the individuals who are mostly saved in a way quite similar to how Cajetan describes the ten virgins:

“As for adults, although the greater part of men sin mortally rather often, yet they also rise again rather often, and so pass their life by falling and rising again. But at the last, at the end, few are they who are not prepared for death through the Sacraments and do not grieve for their sins, at least by attrition: and this suffices for their being justified at that time. And once they are justified, they are commonly able to persevere easily, for that short space, without a new mortal sin. Therefore, all things weighed, it is likely that more of these Christians are saved.” (ibid., n. 6)

What could be clearer? Suárez, taking the state of the question from Cajetan, only describes a part of the Catholic Church, i.e., those who take some (quite imperfect) care of their conscience in life and die with the sacraments. Those who live in habitual mortal sin (i.e., do not pass their lives in “rising and falling again”) or are not prepared for death through the sacraments are not included by Suárez in this question.

Hence, those Benignists who promise salvation to the majority of Catholics (or, according to some, almost all) gain nothing from the extrinsic authority of Suárez, who was careful to confine his opinion within the mind of the holy Fathers.

Yet, what are we to make of Suárez’s thesis? Clearly, it is not so explicitly against the consensus of the Fathers as the modern Benignists are; hence, it would be quite inappropriate to censure it as anything except a thesis that is less common or less probable. Yet, this does not mean that there is no room for legitimate disagreement with Fr. Suárez, only a mitigated one. The real question concerns a certain practical judgment: whether those who live and die falling and rising from mortal sin to a state of grace are saved more numerously (Suárez), equally (Cajetan), or less numerously (the common opinion).

It is my firm persuasion that, when the Doctors and Fathers of the Church are consulted, along with the principles given in Sacred Scripture and genuine theological reason, Suárez’s thesis must be rejected.

The refutation of Suárez’s unique thesis is quite simple, laid out by Álvarez:

“As to the objection about those who receive the Sacraments of the Church at the point of death, the answer is that, if the matter is rightly considered, very many Christians die without receiving the Sacraments at all; and granting that the greater part do receive the sacraments at the point of death, fewer prepare themselves to receive the effect of the sacraments.” (De auxiliis, lib. V, disp. 43)

One of the greatest refutations of Suárez’s theory comes from another Jesuit who was quite familiar with Suárez, Cornelius a Lapide. In his commentary on James 2:13, he provides a lengthy disputation on this matter, refuting Suárez’s argument from the authority of the Fathers. The principal argument, drawn from the Fathers, is succinctly set forth by the Roman Breviary, taken from St. Bernard: “Does the death of Christ deliver from eternal death those who live badly right up to death?” (Matins Office of the Sepulchre of Our Lord, Lesson 4)

This is stated with certainty by that immortal principle of the Fathers, as a man has lived, so will he die: “By far the greater part of Christians live in a state of mortal sin: for according to St. Augustine’s rule, as a man has lived, so he dies, so that rarely does one who has lived ill, die well, and vice versa.” (a Lapide, In Iac. 2:13) This principle is often repeated by the authors on this point.

Yet, the objection comes: “Is it not true that many die with the sacraments?” Very true, although not all; yet this is not what is up for dispute. To this objection, many theologians, exegetes, and saints respond with one voice in saying that the conversion of the deathbed often lacks the requisite conditions for a valid confession. As a Lapide argues, of those who receive the sacraments, most who live in such a state receive them invalidly for numerous reasons and hence do not expiate their sins:

1. Many labor under culpable ignorance of the articles of the faith and other truths that they are bound to know explicitly.

2. Many are ignorant of the necessity of a firm purpose of amendment for the validity of the sacrament; and, of those who do know this, many “do not know how strong and constant a resolution of soul is required for the resolution to be deemed absolute and effective” (ibid.).

3. A Lapide confirms this by experience on the basis of the effects of yearly confessions. How frequently does someone who lives in habitual mortal sin come to the confessional as a matter of duty once a year? Countless times. How often is their purpose of amendment genuine? “By their fruits, you will know them.” If the vast majority are almost immediately plunged back into habitual mortal sin, how are we to conclude that the purpose of amendment was sufficiently firm?

Yet, you may object (and many followers of Suárez did) that such is not the case on the deathbed, where the hearts of many are quite open to God and contrite for past sins. Yet, the wisdom of Scripture and the saints refutes this line of reasoning, along with the testimony of reason and experience.

As Ven. Louis of Granada and Cardinal Bona (among others) point out (The Sinner’s Guide; Principia et documenta vitae christianae), in 2 Maccabees 9, the wicked King Antiochus feels the pangs of death, and cries out to God: “It is right to be subject to God, and no mortal should think that he is equal to God.” (v. 12)

More than this, he made many vows to God, promising aid to the people of God and to make many offerings to God in his Temple. More than all of this, the King promised that “he also would become a Jew and would visit every inhabited place to proclaim the power of God” (v. 17). How magnanimous! For those who rely on deathbed conversions, if there ever was one, this would be one of the greatest. Yet, what do the Scriptures say? “The abominable fellow made a vow to the Lord, who would no longer have mercy on him…” (v. 13)

According to the testimonies of the saints, this is not the exception; it is the general rule, giving way to only the most occasional outliers. One of the greatest testimonies to this comes from St. Alphonsus’s golden work, Preparation for Death. In the sixth consideration, on the death of the sinner, he treats the topic at hand:

“Were they at death even allowed time for repentance, who assures them that they will sincerely return to God? To conquer bad habits, St. Augustine had to fight against them for twelve years. How will the dying man, who has always lived in sin, be able, in the midst of the pains, the stupefaction, and the confusion of death, to repent sincerely of all his past iniquities? I say sincerely, because it is not enough to say and to promise with the tongue: it is necessary to promise with the heart. O God! What terror and confusion will seize the unhappy Christian who has led a careless life, when he finds himself overwhelmed with sins, with the fears of judgment, of hell, and of eternity! Oh! What confusion will these thoughts produce when the dying sinner will find his reason gone, his mind darkened, and his whole frame assailed by the pains of approaching death. He will make his confession; he will promise, weep, and seek mercy from God, but without understanding what he does; and in this tempest of agitation, of remorse, of pains and terrors, he will pass to the other life…A certain author says that the prayers, the wailings, and promises of dying sinners are like the tears and promises of a man assailed by an enemy who points a dagger to his throat to take away his life. Miserable the man who takes to his bed at enmity with God, and passes from the bed of sickness to eternity.”

In countless places, the same doctrine is preached by this great saint, most experienced in the direction of souls and knowledge of the interior life:

“St. Bernard says that the man who has been obstinate in sin during life, will make efforts, but without success, to get out of the state of damnation; and that, overwhelmed by his own malice, he will end his life in the same unhappy state. Having loved sin till death, he has also loved the danger of damnation. Hence the Lord will justly permit him to perish in that danger in which he has voluntarily lived till the end of his life. St. Augustine says that he who is abandoned by sin before he abandons it, will scarcely detest it as he ought; because what he will then do will be done through necessity…They will have recourse to God at death; but he will say to them: Why do you invoke me now? Call on creatures to assist you; for they have been your gods. The Lord will address them in this manner, because, in seeking him, they do not sincerely wish to be converted. St. Jerome says that he holds, and that he has learned from experience, that they who have to the end led a bad life, will not die a good death.” (ibid.)

St. Leonard of Port Maurice treated the same objection in his famous sermon on this topic (The Little Number of Those Who Are Saved):

“But you will say: Can penance not profitably repair the loss of innocence?…That is true, I admit. But I also know that penance is so difficult in practice…If you consider the sacrament of penance, there are so many distorted confessions, so many studied excuses, so many deceitful repentances, so many false promises, so many ineffective resolutions, so many invalid absolutions! Would you regard as valid the confession of someone who accuses himself of sins of impurity and still holds to the occasion of them? Or someone who accuses himself of obvious injustices with no intention of making any reparation whatsoever for them? Or someone who falls again into the same iniquities right after going to confession? Oh, horrible abuses of such a great sacrament! One confesses to avoid excommunication, another to make a reputation as a penitent. One rids himself of his sins to calm his remorse, another conceals them out of shame. One accuses them imperfectly out of malice, another discloses them out of habit. One does not have the true end of the sacrament in mind, another is lacking the necessary sorrow, and still another firm purpose. Poor confessors, what efforts you make to bring the greater number of penitents to these resolutions and acts, without which confession is a sacrilege, absolution a condemnation and penance an illusion?”

This is not even considering the presence of the deathbed, which St. Leonard says is even worse than confessions made in life:

“Where are they now, those who believe that the number of the saved among Christians is greater than that of the damned and who, to authorize their opinion, reason thus: the greater portion of Catholic adults die in their beds armed with the sacraments of the Church, therefore most adult Catholics are saved? Oh, what fine reasoning! You must say exactly the opposite. Most Catholic adults confess badly at death, therefore most of them are damned. I say ‘all the more certain,’ because a dying person who has not confessed well when he was in good health will have an even harder time doing so when he is in bed with a heavy heart, an unsteady head, a muddled mind; when he is opposed in many ways by still-living objects, by still-fresh occasions, by adopted habits, and above all by devils who are seeking every means to cast him into hell.” (ibid.)

Ven. Louis of Granada gives a compendious treatment of this doctrine in the twenty-fifth chapter of his Sinner’s Guide, where he sets out the following principle:

“We must bear in mind an undeniable principle, concerning which St. Augustine and all the holy Doctors are agreed—namely, that as true repentance is the work of God, so He can inspire it when and where He wills. Hence if the heart of the sinner, even at the hour of death, be filled with true contrition for his sins, it will avail him for salvation. But, to show you how rare such examples of repentance are, I shall give you the testimony of the Saints and Doctors of the Church.”

He demonstrates this rarity from a number of different Fathers: Ss. Augustine, Ambrose, Isidore, Eusebius, Gregory the Great, and others. He also proves this thesis from the teaching of the scholastics as well, reproducing the reasons of Bl. Scotus, which Ven. Louis explains in great detail (although I skip these explanations here):

“First, because the physical pains and weakness which precede death prevent a man from elevating his heart to God or fulfilling the duties of true repentance… The second reason given by Scotus is that repentance should be voluntary, not forced… The third reason is that a habit of sin confirmed by long indulgence accompanies man as inseparably as the shadow does the body, even to the tomb… The fourth reason given by Scotus is taken from the value of actions done at such a time; for it is manifest to all who have any knowledge of God that He is much less pleased with services offered at this hour than with the same services offered under different circumstances.”

The first reason is one that is frequently repeated by the saints. St. Claude de la Colombière, the great Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, states the following:

“People count a great deal upon what they intend to do at the hour of death. One confesses better then, I am willing to believe: but how many are there who then do not confess at all? Besides which, the sight of death adds nothing to a man’s ordinary dispositions but agitation, dread, and a wholly natural fear; and the proof of it is that when one comes back from that peril, and the fright has passed off, one goes on living as one had lived before.” (Migne, Orateurs sacrés, t. VII, cols. 1589–91)

Ven. Louis of Granada also demonstrates this from the words of the Old and New Testaments. Who is not aware of the many warnings in Sacred Scripture against putting off conversion, and of the promise that God will turn a blind eye to those who defer it? “Many will seek to enter and will not be able.” (Lk. 13:24) For those who wish to read the edifying, scripturally and patristically based, and theologically erudite explanation of this doctrine, there is no better source than Ven. Louis of Granada.

Even granting that such a genuine confession is made with the requisite attrition, including a firm purpose of amendment, even then salvation is quite rare:

“Granted that some, confessing in death, conceive a true resolution, yet after confession, if they lie sick for many days as commonly happens, the memory of former lusts, on which their mind was wont to feed, recurs and bends them to consent, so that they consent to a wicked thought and to morose delight in past and habitual unlawful pleasure; especially because the devil is then accustomed to throw the same thing before the mind and rub it raw, and most grievously to tempt the man in that last duel, and indeed in the very agony in which the soul departs from the body; for God by His just judgment permits this to the devil as a punishment for those crimes and negligence by which, while sound and vigorous, they took no care to mortify those lusts, but indulged them like horse and mule: hence then many succumb and perish, of which thing many sad examples remain.” (a Lapide, In Iac. 2:13)

Fr. Louis Bourdaloue, one of the greatest preachers of the seventeenth century, preached on this topic at length:

“If one were to fall back upon saying that it is death, after all, which decides the eternal lot of men, and that everything consists in dying in Christian dispositions: True, I would answer; but one can hardly hope to die in those Christian dispositions except after having lived in them; and since there are very few who live in them, I would conclude that there are very few who die in them.

It would be easy for me to destroy the false opinion of worldlings who persuade themselves that, in order to make a good end, it is only a question of receiving, in the extremity of illness, the last Sacraments of the Church and of giving certain signs of repentance. Ah, what illusions there are on this point! I should hardly dare to declare all that I think. It is not merely a question of receiving these Sacraments so holy, but they must be received holily, that is to say with a true conversion of the heart; and there is the point of the difficulty. Not being ignorant of what most of these conversions at death come down to, those hurried conversions, those conversions begun, carried out and consummated in the space of a few moments, when one hardly knows any longer what one is doing; those conversions which would be so many miracles, if they were good and true conversions; and knowing how much there often enters into them of policy, of worldly prudence, of ceremony, of human respect, of complaisance toward friends or relatives, of servile and wholly natural fear, of half-Christianity, I would hold to the judgment of St. Augustine, or rather to that of all the Fathers, and I would say in general that it is much to be feared that the penance of a dying man, who is penitent only at death, should die along with him, and that it should be a reprobate penance. To this almost infinite number of false penitents at death, I would still add the very considerable number of so many others whom death surprises, whom it carries off all at once, who die without Sacraments, without help, without consciousness, without any view of God or any sentiment of him. And from all this I would come, without hesitating, after the Saviour of the world, to this frightful consequence: Many are called, but few are chosen.” (Pensées sur le salut; Migne, Orateurs sacrés, t. XVI, col. 622)

This is also confirmed at length from reason, Scripture, and the Fathers by other theologians, such as Recupito, who gives many arguments and testimonies (De signis praedestinationis et de numero praedestinatorum), Turlot (Thesaurus doctrinae christianae, pt. 1, c. 13, lect. 5), and Dionysius of Werl (Pseudo-poenitens, c. 9).

St. Vincent Ferrer writes: “It would be a greater miracle that men who live badly should make a good end, than to raise the dead.” (Sermon 1 on the Nativity of the Virgin) St. Alphonsus echoes the same: “The sinner in his death shall seek God and shall not find him.” (Preparation for Death, consid. 6)

On Method

In this question, more than in any other, we ought to follow proper theological methodology with tranquility and objectivity. This is a mystery of the faith which we cannot know with certainty from experience. As St. Thomas and all theologians affirm, the precise number of the elect and reprobate is something known to God alone. What, then, are the grounds for answering this question?

Certain theologians took occasion of this fact to declare that this question is vain and ought not to be treated; even excellent theologians fell into such a sophism, such as the Salmanticenses (De praedestinatione, disp. 10, dub. 2) and Billuart (De Deo, diss. 9, a. 7), paving the way for the anti-Thomistic turn of Garrigou-Lagrange, Buonpensiere, Hugon, Doronzo, and many others. Yet there were always faithful Thomists in the school who continued to preach this truth ad mentem Thomae, such as Concina, Patuzzi, and many others.

They reason thus: St. Thomas did not treat of the precise number of the elect, therefore he did not treat of the number of the elect compared with the reprobate in the Church. Yet, this is a specious piece of reasoning that was already refuted centuries before St. Thomas’s birth in the distinction offered by St. Augustine (Contra Cresconium, III, 66; cf. De correptione et gratia, c. 10) and other Fathers between the absolute number of the elect (which is many) and the relative number of the elect (which is few). Therefore, we can simultaneously affirm that there are many elect (in an absolute sense), yet that there are few elect (compared to the reprobate).

Further, it is quite clear that St. Thomas did treat this question of the fewness of the saved within the Church, yet it is locked away in his commentaries on Scripture. Commenting on the classical locus “many are called, but few are chosen,” he writes: “those who believe with faith are all called; but those are chosen who do good works, and these are few” (Super Matt. 20, lect. 1). The same doctrine recurs in the other pleaces as well.

In such a difficult question, where do we turn? The Benignists turn to certain specious theological principles and congruities (e.g., “if Jesus Christ wins over Satan, then more will be saved”) or to certain logical leaps from authentic exegesis (e.g., “the entire world will be converted, therefore the majority will be saved”) or to principles of praxis that are contrary to good traditional ascetical and pastoral theology (e.g., “most who receive the sacrament of penance on their deathbed receive it fruitfully”).

Where are we to turn? In such a question, where can we even turn? We must turn to the Sacred Page. God is neither obligated by His nature to save the multitude, nor to damn the multitude. Nature, in us, is not positively and necessarily driven in the multitude of cases to salvation, nor is our nature so repugnant to it as to render it impossible in the majority of cases. The notion of salvation neither inclines us to the multitude, nor to the few.

How, then, can we discover an answer to such a perplexing question? Divine Revelation. How do good theologians determine such mysteries in light of Divine Revelation? By the exegesis of Scripture in light of the exegesis of the Fathers and Doctors, guided by the magisterium of the Church. Woe to anyone who attempts an answer to this question without heeding these principles!

As Estius notes, “Among the faithful themselves there are more evil than good, and hence more reprobate than elect (so that we may say nothing of experience, which in a matter of this sort can be deceptive in either direction); this is taught both by Scripture and by the authority of the Fathers.” (In I Sent., d. 40, § 203)

Godts (who always challenged his opponents to quote one saint) states it well: “It is the Saints, then, that I appeal to, not theologians of whatever sort; it is the testimony of the Saints in the matter of eternal salvation that I want, not that of innovators; to the Saints I most gladly give credence, and to their authority I confidently submit myself.” (De paucitate salvandorum, p. 46)

As Ruiz de Montoya and Concina note, the answers to these questions often come from an overly affective mind, crushed under the weight of so solemn a truth as the fewness of the saved in the Church (De praedestinatione, disp. 54, sect. 1). Yet, we will steer quite clear of this temptation if we follow the interpretation of Scripture according to the above principles. With this in mind, we will swerve neither to the right, nor to the left.

Here, I do not seek to give you a quote mine. The texts I referenced above (especially Godts and Foggini) already do this. Rather, what I seek to do is to synthesize the various witnesses together, laying out the various different points of texts and arguments that are referenced in this debate by these noble witnesses. If you wish to look for a section titled “Fathers,” you will not find one, because the doctrine of the Fathers is reproduced throughout, with their names referenced as thoroughly as possible at each instance.

Answering an Objection

Typically, when treating such a topic, the following objection comes up: “While the doctrine you write about may be true, it is such a crushing doctrine, especially to the scrupulous; therefore, you should not talk about it.”

To this I reply in a threefold way.

First, from the example of the saints. The saints never followed this carnal wisdom, but constantly preached this doctrine to the lay faithful in their age. Far from being discouraged, the topic of the fewness of the saved was a popular discourse for Septuagesima Sunday, as appears from many examples.

From the Fathers, we have St. Ephrem (De patientia; De paenitentia), St. Basil (the sermon De renuntiatione saeculi), St. Gregory Nazianzen (Orations 42 and 27), St. Ambrose (on Psalm 40, n. 7), St. John Chrysostom (24th Homily on Acts), St. Augustine (Sermon 111), St. Peter Chrysologus (Sermon 97), Pope St. Leo the Great (Sermon 49), St. Caesarius of Arles (the two sermons De duabus viis, arcta et lata: Serm. 67–68 among the works of St. Augustine), Pope St. Gregory the Great (Homilies 19 and 38 on the Gospels), Antiochus of Palestine (Homily 94), Bishop Haymo of Halberstadt (Homily 21, for Septuagesima Sunday), Ratherius of Verona (first sermon on the Ascension), St. Peter Damian (Sermon 32), Cardinal Godfrey of Vendôme (Sermon 5), Ven. Hildebert (sermon for Septuagesima), St. Bernard (third sermon on the Vigil of the Lord’s Nativity), Pope Innocent III (Sermon 10 for Septuagesima), etc.

After the age of the Fathers, this same practice was kept by various saints and other holy men, among them St. Anthony of Padua, St. Bonaventure, St. Vincent Ferrer (Sermon 1 for Septuagesima Sunday, Sermon 6, etc.), St. Bernardine of Siena (Sermon 23), St. Lawrence Justinian (De compunctione et complanctu christianae perfectionis), Bl. Denys the Carthusian (Sermon 7 for Septuagesima Sunday, De paucitate salvandorum), St. Thomas of Villanova (Sermon 2 for Septuagesima Sunday, Sermon 1 for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost), St. Peter Canisius (notes on the Gospel for Septuagesima Sunday), St. Robert Bellarmine (De gemitu columbae, lib. I, c. 6; De arte moriendi, lib. II, c. 3), Ven. Luis de la Puente (Meditationes, pt. 3, med. 54), St. Vincent de Paul (Sermon sur la persévérance), St. Claude de la Colombière (Migne, Orateurs sacrés, t. VII, cols. 1589–91), Bossuet (Méditations sur l’Évangile, Last Week of the Saviour, 34th day), Bl. Gennaro Maria Sarnelli (the meditation in Il mondo santificato; Opera omnia, Naples ed., 1888, vol. 2, pp. 216–217), St. Leonard of Port Maurice (Sermon 24), St. Alphonsus Liguori (Preparation for Death; Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent, etc.), Cardinal Giraud (Homélie du petit nombre des élus), Cardinal Wiseman (Sermon 11, Sur le petit nombre des élus), and many others.

This is not including the hundreds of other holy preachers and spiritual writers who follow the same path. Therefore, it is clear that I follow the safe path in writing on this topic.

Ultimately, as Bourdaloue teaches, this is simply a question of fidelity to the gospel:

“This is a question preachers raise: whether it is fitting to explain this truth to the people and to treat it in the pulpit, since it is capable of troubling souls and casting them into discouragement? I might as well be asked whether it is good to explain the Gospel to the people and to preach it in the pulpit. Why, what in fact is more strongly marked in the Gospel than this small number of the elect? What is there that the Saviour of the world, in his divine instructions, declared to us more authentically, repeated to us more often, made us hear more formally and more clearly?…This is what the Son of God taught publicly; this is what he impressed upon his disciples. Are we better instructed than He as to what it is or is not fitting to announce to the faithful? Let us preach the Gospel, and let us preach it without cutting anything away from it or softening anything in it; let us preach it in its whole extent, in all its purity, in all its severity, in all its force. Woe to whoever shall take scandal at it; he himself, and he alone, will bear the penalty of his scandal.” (Pensées sur le salut)

Second, from the utility of the doctrine. The saints teach that this is an eminently practical and useful doctrine for salvation.

Bourdaloue lists six fruits in the hearers from preaching on this topic:

“1º to redouble his vigilance, to arm himself against dangers; 2º not to remain a single day in the state of mortal sin, but to run without delay to the remedy; 3º to separate himself from the multitude and consequently from the world, to separate himself from it, if not in fact (not all can do that), at least in mind, in heart, in maxims, in sentiments, in practices; 4º to follow the small number of Christians who are truly Christian, orderly in their conduct, faithful to all their duties; 5º to take resolutely the narrow way, since it is the only way that Jesus Christ came to teach us; to exert himself, to brace himself against obstacles; 6º finally, to beg unceasingly for the grace of heaven, to commend his soul unceasingly to God by excellent prayer.” (ibid.)

Generally, this meditation on the fewness of the saved (as noted by Gonet, Clypeus, disp. 4, digr. 2) is one of the most efficacious means for inspiring the fear of God in the hearts of the faithful, which is the beginning of Wisdom. As Stapleton notes, “This whole topic, most salutary for continual fear, is scarcely drawn from, or dependent upon, any other head more forcibly than upon this immense multitude of called Christians, but immense fewness of the elect.” (Promptuarium morale, 19th Sunday after Pentecost) It is for this reason that the greatest master of the spiritual life, St. Ignatius, sets in the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises, meant to aid the soul in the purgative way, the meditation on hell in order to inspire the fear of God. Therefore, in his Spiritual Exercises, he writes that “we ought to praise much the fear of His Divine Majesty, because not only filial fear is a thing pious and most holy, but even servile fear—when the man reaches nothing else better or more useful—helps much to get out of mortal sin.” (Rules for Thinking with the Church, n. 18) Ven. Louis of Granada, in the beginning of the Memorial of a Christian Life, proves at length that this is the proper procedure for those who are unconverted or beginning the spiritual life—to strike with terror rather than to simply promise reward—as was the practice of blessed Moses, the Prophets, Our Lord, and the Apostles.

For this principle, we do not only need to rely on the writings of theologians and the praxis of the saints; the Magisterium of the Church has itself stepped in to condemn the opposite position. Trent states that “sinners are usefully shaken by the fear of the divine justice.” (Sess. VI, cap. 6) Pius VI states the same against the Synod of Pistoia:

“[Condemned:] The fear itself of hell, which faith teaches must be imposed on sin, is not in itself good and useful as a supernatural gift, and a motion inspired by God preparing for the love of justice… [It is the teaching of the Church, that] ‘there is need,’ according to the customary order of preparation for justice, ‘that fear should first enter, through which charity will come; fear is a medicine, charity is health.’” (Auctorem fidei, n. 25)

Besides this, there are also multiple errors of Quesnel that were condemned on this point (cf. Unigenitus, prop. 60 ff.).

Therefore, a Lapide rebukes the preachers of his day for concealing this doctrine, speaking only of the mercy of God and the promises of various devotions:

“Preachers often do not teach, do not explain, do not inculcate these things, but follow the common track of explaining the Gospels, commending to sinners the passion of Christ, the mercy of God, the giving of alms, and devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that she will not let her devotees perish; nor do they come down to the vices peculiar to this or that place, so as to thunder and lighten against them and root them out: whence cities and peoples remain in the same evil laws, customs, resolutions, and vices, and reap no, or but tiny, fruit from all sermons. Let them therefore change their manner of preaching, if they would consult God, conscience, the Church, and their hearers, so as to strike consciences and uproot from them every evil seed which they know is rampant in such a place.” (In Iac. 2:13)

Preachers who ignore this truth are compared by Segneri to “physicians who would rather see a sick man dead than afflicted with grief.” (Il cristiano istruito, pt. 1, disc. 5, no. 3) This same image is used by Concina, who says that the Benignists “imitate those physicians who, in treating the gravely sick, often reason thus: an effective remedy for driving out the disease is at hand; but the sick man’s strength cannot bear the harshness and force of the remedy; therefore they apply soothing remedies, not to heal the sick, but to put off death for a few days.” (Theologia christiana dogmatico-moralis, t. I, Praefatio, § IX)

Beyond the general use, applicable to all ages, there is a particular use for our age. As Bl. Pius IX teaches, in the days of rigorism God raised up St. Alphonsus Liguori to show the middle way. What are we to do in the days of laxism, where each man believes that he is on the path to heaven and that penance is an easy thing? St. Leonard of Port Maurice answers:

“It is not curiosity, but prudence, to stir up from the height of the pulpit certain truths which serve marvellously to check the insolence of libertines, who, having never anything on their lips but the excessive mercy of God, the ease of conversion, the firmness of our hopes, live withal plunged in complete security in the very middle of the road to perdition. In order to undeceive them and to rouse them from their torpor, we are going to discuss this grave question, namely, whether the number of Christians who are saved is greater than that of the Christians who are damned.” (The Little Number of Those Who Are Saved)

Third, from the vanity of the excuse. This doctrine, properly considered, does not lead to despair when considered in the totality of Catholic theology.

The discouragement that often comes from this doctrine is either an effect of certain errors in presentation on the part of the preacher, or a certain lack of receptivity and careful consideration on the part of the hearer. As Bourdaloue teaches:

“They say: the idea of so small a number of the elect discourages and drives to despair! Yes, this idea can discourage and can even drive to despair, when it is badly conceived, badly presented, pressed too far, and above all when it is built on false principles and on erroneous opinions. But let it be conceived according to the truth, let it be presented as it really is, let it be kept within just bounds, let it be established on sound principles; then, far from casting men into discouragement, nothing is more capable of engaging us to make the utmost efforts to secure our salvation and to have a place among the blessed company of the predestined. I admit it: there are certain doctrines according to which one cannot preach the small number of the elect without ruining Christian hope. For example, to say that there will be few elect because God does not will the salvation of all men; because Jesus Christ did not offer his death for the salvation of all men; because he does not give his grace to all men…And so the Church has struck down such pernicious errors with her thunder.” (ibid.)

On the part of the hearer, the despair that arises often flows from laxity. If the preacher clearly inculcates the security of the way established by Jesus Christ and the hope we ought to have in him, diagnosing the true cause of the greatness of the reprobate (i.e., our own evil and unwillingness), then there are no secure grounds for despair, which cannot be the vital fruit of such a sermon, but only incidental to it.

As many of the saints and preachers say to illustrate this, it would not matter whether there was only one saved in ten thousand; the way is set forth, and we ought to strive to enter in at the narrow gate to be that one who is saved. Further, it would not matter if only one were damned in ten thousand; we ought to strive to enter in at the narrow gate so as not to be that one in ten thousand who is damned. There is nothing in the doctrine of the fewness of the saved that at all changes the message of the gospel or the narrow path; whether such is achieved by 1% or 99%, this does not matter. Neither is a ground for despair or presumption.

St. Thomas of Villanova is representative here, stating that “it is not said that we may despair, but that we may keep watch the more diligently. For if out of so great a multitude as we are here one man only were to be saved, and this were known, I would strive to be that one.” (Sermon 2 for Septuagesima Sunday)

Although, before continuing, there must be an admission on this point. Many defenders of the fewness of the saved have admitted the many excesses in popular preaching on this point (e.g., Bourdaloue, Verschueren, Godts). Many have used weak and uncertain arguments from various visionaries to establish the doctrine. Others (famously, Jean-Baptiste Massillon) have exaggerated the difficulty of the narrow path (demanding the heroic penance of the saints). Certain theologians engaged in vain speculations, asking whether more priests than laymen, more women than men, etc., are saved. As Estius (In I Sent., d. 40, § 201) and Alfonso de Castro (De iusta haereticorum punitione, c. 3) teach, such speculations have no place in theology, since such truths have simply not been revealed to us. The Fathers and theologians warn monks, priests, and bishops as much as laymen, stating that most of them will be damned as well. Lastly, some have given expression to completely uncertain numerical considerations that have no grounding in divine revelation and no business being presented to a public audience.

Even many canonized saints and learned men have given expression to these defects, although we should be wary of quickly condemning them for these. In some cases (e.g., a Lapide) these were presented in scientific works before a learned audience, and in other cases these were used in sermons in a moderate fashion as an illustration (although even this degree ought to be discouraged, since simple laymen often cannot distinguish between what is certain by public revelation, i.e., the relative number of the elect compared to the reprobate, and what is uncertain and illustrative by private visionaries, i.e., any sort of absolute comparison). In imitation of Our Divine Master, when preachers are asked “will those who are saved be few?” they ought primarily to reply that men should “enter in at the narrow gate” and warn them that “many will seek to enter in that day,” rather than engaging in speculation about the absolute number of the saved compared to the damned. For preachers, Bourdaloue’s advice, cited so many times before, is golden.

Ultimately, the solution of the problem of despair is the opposite virtue: Christian hope. God has promised salvation to those who follow the narrow way. God has equipped the Catholic Church with all those means morally necessary not only to free us from mortal sin, but also to acquire extraordinary, and even heroic, sanctity. Therefore, there is no reason for despair. Rather, to those who piously and perseveringly partake of the sacraments and continue in the spiritual doctrine of the Church, there is no reason to distrust that God will give the graces necessary for salvation.

The Teaching of Divine Revelation

As we have emphasized throughout this article, the chief consideration is the teaching of Divine Revelation. If we simply rely on Scripture as our primary witness, we will receive doctrinal clarity and balance, neither falling into the various excesses of certain preachers, nor falling into the novel method of the Benignists, who wage war against the entire witness of antiquity, casting aside orthodox theological methodology.

In order to establish this thesis, there are two sets of texts that must be considered. First, there are certain texts that establish this doctrine in its literal sense, whether explicitly or implicitly. Second, there are certain texts that establish this doctrine in its mystical sense, providing a type of the fewness of the saved in the Church.

Objection. As theologians generally teach, following St. Thomas, a doctrine must only be established from the literal sense of Scripture. Therefore, it is inappropriate to have the second set of texts.

Reply. I distinguish: a doctrine cannot be established from the typical sense on its own, conceded; a doctrine cannot be established from the typical sense when it is made certain from some other means (e.g., an explicit approval of the typical sense in Scripture, the consensus of the Fathers interpreting the type, etc.), denied.

In the cases of the typical sense presented here, we will be sure to only present those types that are certainly established, not those privately drawn out with little to no certainty of their sense.

As a final note, there are many other authorities that could be listed as an implicit support for each text, from the fact that they invoke and apply these texts in the midst of sermons to the faithful, warning them that many of them shall be damned. If I were to list such instances, each text would have dozens of witnesses; yet, I did not want to do this. Therefore, I am only listing the more explicit witnesses.

First Text: Matthew 7:13–14

“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Certain authors (e.g., St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. John Cassian, Jonas of Orléans, Christian Druthmar, Ps.-Anselm, St. Bruno of Segni, Ludolph of Saxony, Stapleton, John Bosco, O.F.M., etc.) invoke this text in defense of the thesis that most Catholics are damned, taking Our Lord to speak of the faithful in particular rather than of mankind in general; others cite this text for the fact that most of mankind is damned. Texts from St. Thomas can be cited on both sides, describing it as a reference to the entire world and also as a reference to the Catholic Church. However, these references are not necessarily contradictory. For, if such a text applies to the Church, then, a fortiori, it also applies to the world as well.

A certain argument from experience supports the reading that this applies to the Church as well. Our Lord describes the way that the few find as “narrow and hard.” Now, the multitude of members in the Church are not living a life that is “narrow and hard,” but only the few. Therefore, it applies to the Church as well.

The minor premise is supported by the witness of missionaries, preachers, and masters of the spiritual life in all ages of the Church. Their witness is unanimous in this matter, complaining of the laxity and ease with which most Christians in every age live.

“If anyone considers the crowded assemblies of the Churches, and how many lead a pious and upright life and have been made new in newness of mind, and how many live slothfully and are conformed to this world, then at last he will discover the profit of this saying uttered by the Saviour: ‘For many are called, but few are chosen.’ And elsewhere it is said: ‘Many shall seek to enter, and shall not be able’; and: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate, for few are they that shall find it.’” (Origen, Commentary on Matthew; cf. Hom. 4 on Jeremias)

“If you examine the morals of Catholics seriously, you will see so many living negligently, without discipline and basely, that you cannot even doubt that the word of the Lord is true with regard to Catholics too.” (Laselve, Annus apostolicus, Sermon for Septuagesima)

A controversy on this particular point was settled by Verschueren in his Via arcta coeli asserta against Steyaert, who claimed that the “narrow way” was the way in which the common faithful practice religion—which he shows to be absurd on the basis of the text itself and contrary to the universal interpretation of the “narrow way” among the Fathers (who begin interpreting this text from the first century on). This is supported by many Fathers and exegetes in their description of the “narrow way” as the way of the virtues, the commandments, etc., rather than the way of faith alone, which is common to all Catholics (which some even say is the “broad way”).

Further, as Jansenius of Ypres points out (along with Concina and others), there is a good contextual argument to be made from what follows, “beware of false prophets,” etc., which Our Lord said in light of the principle just set out. For, if the gate is narrow and the way is hard, then we ought to have a skilled guide who can lead us in such an arduous way. A guide who is unskilled and preaches ease and comfort cannot lead us on the way ahead, nor even show unto us the narrow gate. Therefore, he warns us (the faithful) of these false prophets.

Other exegetes (especially among the ancients, e.g., Ven. Bede, Paschasius Radbertus, Ps.-Thomas, St. Vincent Ferrer, etc.; among many moderns, e.g., Jansenius of Ghent, Jansenius of Ypres, Calmet, Knabenbauer, etc.) point to the distinction between the “gate” and the “way.” The gate is entered by few, but the hard way is persevered in by even fewer. How could the thesis of the salvation of the majority of adult Catholics be maintained on these grounds? For, even if we were to admit (against the entire tradition) that every adult Catholic entered in at the gate, even then, few persevere unto the end of the way (why else would the way be “hard”?).

Second Text: Luke 13:23–27

“Some one said to him, ‘Lord, will those who are saved be few?’ And he said to them, ‘Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the householder has risen up and shut the door, you will begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, “Lord, open to us.” He will answer you, “I do not know where you come from.” Then you will begin to say, “We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.” But he will say, “I tell you, I do not know where you come from; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity!”’”

In this text, someone explicitly asks him the question at hand: “will those who are saved be few?” As St. Augustine teaches (Sermon 111), Our Lord does not deny the question, but affirms that the questioner is right by his answer—in which he is followed by many others (e.g., Bl. Denys, Cajetan, a Lapide, Gonet, etc.).

Objection. You failed to note that certain Fathers (e.g., St. Cyril) deny that Our Lord answered the man’s question about the fewness or greatness of the saved. Therefore, etc.

Response. It seems that St. Cyril is referring to the absolute number, which is conceded by those who read him as answering the question directly as well. Therefore, there is no difficulty. Further, St. Cyril obviously believes that this passage applies to Christians (while he takes the primary reference to be the contemporary Jews):

“With the above-named, you may number certain others also as able to say to the Judge of all, ‘we have eaten and drunk in Your presence, and You have taught in our streets.’ And who again are these? Many have believed in Christ, and celebrate the holy festivals in His honour; and frequenting the churches they also hear the doctrines of the Gospel: but they lay up in their mind of the truths of Scripture absolutely nothing. And it is with difficulty that the practice of virtue is brought with them even to this extent, while of spiritual fruitfulness their heart is quite bare. These too shall weep bitterly, and gnash their teeth; for the Lord shall deny them also.” (Sermon 99 on Luke)

Bl. Denys the Carthusian, Estius, John of St. Thomas, and Gonet note that this question has bearing on the faithful rather than the unbeliever, due to the fact that Our Lord speaks of those who “seek to enter” and remain in his presence to eat. This text is invoked by many authors. Bl. Denys describes those who “seek to enter”:

“They did not seek efficaciously nor desire fervently, but sluggishly and negligently, or too late, like the foolish virgins. There are therefore very many who have an unformed faith and a servile fear, who often shrink from the pains of hell, think upon their dying, dread the divine judgment, and desire eternal beatitude—but by carnal love, by worldly vanity or ambition, and by a certain womanish softness they are drawn back from the way of salvation, from the good purpose or the good beginning…” (In Luc. 13, on v. 24)

Klofutar notes (along with Maldonatus) that the occasion for such a question was the difficulty of the moral teachings preached to his followers; hence it follows that the question and the answer have in mind the fate of his followers (i.e., Christians) rather than some other group of men (e.g., the Jews) or the entire world (In Luc. 13:23).

Objection. From context, this text is clearly referring to the salvation of the Jews in the first century. Therefore, it is not applicable to the entire age of the Church.

Answer. I distinguish: this text refers to the salvation of the Jews in the first century with principles particular to their state, denied; with principles universal in scope, let it pass.

Of course, each of the texts in the New Testament was written directly and immediately touching a first-century audience. If we were to apply this exegetical principle, no text could be applied to our day about any issue. Rather, we have to ask whether the principles invoked and applied are normative and of universal value. In this text, where the grounds are the objective difficulty of finding the way for those who seek, the principles invoked and applied are normative and of universal value. Therefore, this text can be invoked, as was the practice of the Fathers, in order to teach the fewness of the Catholic saved.

This argument is made by St. Robert Bellarmine:

“What we have said of the number of the Hebrews can also be said, in due proportion, of the number of Christians. For what the Lord says in Matthew and Luke about the narrow way and gate that leads to life, by which few enter, and about the broad way and gate that leads to perdition, by which many enter, is common to Hebrews and to Christians: for the man who asked the Lord whether they are few that are saved did not say ‘are they few from among the Hebrews,’ but simply ‘are they few that are saved’; and the Lord did not answer ‘narrow is the way that leads to life, and few of the Hebrews enter by it,’ but absolutely: ‘and few enter by it.’” (De gemitu columbae, lib. I, c. 6)

Drexel also notes that Our Lord’s response is absolute and universal—“few find it”—rather than particular in any way: “what Christ foretold to the Jews is common to all the rest also: for He did not declare that only a few of the Jews would go by the narrow path to life, but pronounced it without distinction: Few find it.” (Zodiacus christianus, coronis)

The relation between the two is noted by Van Steenkiste: “although Christ adapts his maxim to the Jews of that time, we nevertheless take it as spoken generally: for one who refers a saying to certain persons in particular can at the same time enunciate a general truth.” (In Matt., nn. 267–268)

Patuzzi focuses on the end of the passage in order to establish the thesis. Those many who are damned are those who ate and drank in the presence of Jesus Christ. While there was a population of contemporary Jews who could say this, in the context in which he was speaking (i.e., to his disciples), it is more likely that he was speaking of the familiar communion that was had between disciples and master. Immediately, this refers to the familiar personal communion between them; mediately, it refers to the communion that the faithful now have with Christ, especially in the Eucharist: “Here certainly Christ is speaking not of unbelievers but of the faithful, who eat and drink the most holy body and blood of Christ and are taught by his ministers, and who nevertheless are to be excluded from the kingdom of heaven.” (Ethica christiana, t. I, tract. I, c. 12)

In this, Patuzzi follows Theophylact: “It is said to the Israelites, simply because Christ was born of them according to the flesh, and they ate and drank with Him, and heard Him preaching. But these things also apply to Christians. For we eat the body of Christ and drink His blood as often as we approach the mystic table, and He teaches in the streets of our souls, which are open to receive Him.” (In Luc. 13) This same interpretation is given by Bl. Denys: the literal eating (as St. Cyril expounds) is the eating of the sacrifices of the temple, but the spiritual eating is the eating of the sacrament by Catholics—“spiritually it is expounded of Christians, who partake of the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily, and thereby incur the greater damnation; in whose streets too, and ways, and churches Christ daily teaches through his ministers.” (In Luc. 13, on vv. 25–27)

Ven. Bede interprets this similarly, referring to those who have the “food of the word,” i.e., the knowledge of the Scriptures (In Luc. 13).

Third Text: “Many are called, few are chosen”

In both Matthew 22 and Matthew 20, there are parables that conclude with the solemn words that “many are called, few are chosen.” Therefore, this section will have a threefold division:

1. What is meant by the phrase itself?

2. What is meant by the parable in Matthew 20?

3. What is meant by the parable in Matthew 22?

The phrase itself is one of the most commonly employed statements in this entire debate and runs through the entire homiletic tradition on this subject. An entire book could be written collecting the statements on this phrase. Therefore, I will only give a handful of statements on it, leaving most of the treatment to the parables themselves.

The question at hand is: what is meant by the “called”? Is it in reference to all men (who are, in a sense, called to the Gospel), or is it in reference to those who have a particular vocation to the Gospel (i.e., those in the Church)? Some also argue that the “called” are the Jews (who have a special vocation to the Gospel) or the Gentiles (e.g., Ps.-Chrysostom).

Pope St. Gregory the Great (Hom. 19 on the Gospels), who is quoted on this passage by many authors (Vázquez, Suárez, Becanus, Gonet, etc.), states that this is in reference to those who “come to the faith” and “follow God’s words.” Ven. Bede (In Matt. 20:16), who is cited as an authority on this passage by many authors, states that this is in reference to those who “come to the faith.” Christian Druthmar (Expositio in Matthaeum) refers it to “those who have been made Christians” and to “Christians only, who have been called by preaching but who nevertheless do not follow by their works.” Ratherius of Verona (first sermon on the Ascension) states this as an obvious fact: “who are the called, if not those who have entered the Church through Baptism?” St. Albert the Great (In Matt. 20:16) refers the calling to “confessing the faith.” Tostatus (In Matt. 22) says that the calling is “to the faith” and refers to those who “are converted to it.” St. Thomas of Villanova says that it is about the “faithful” (Sermon 2 for Septuagesima). Nicholas of Lyra places it in those “called to the Catholic faith” (Postilla on Mt. 20:16). St. Francis de Sales states that this is in reference to “all those in the Church” (Controversies, pt. 1, c. 2, a. 2).

The same is referenced by St. Isidore of Seville, Paschasius Radbertus, Remigius of Auxerre, Euthymius, St. Bruno of Segni, Rupert of Deutz, the Gloss, St. Anthony of Padua, Ludolph of Saxony, Tostatus, St. Antoninus, Bl. Denys the Carthusian, Trithemius, Lanspergius, Salmerón, Stapleton, Barradius, Lucas of Bruges, Natalis Alexander, and many others.

Certain authors even apply this “call” to those living in different states of life, whether of religion, the priesthood, or the episcopacy, including St. Basil, St. John Cassian, St. Isidore of Pelusium, St. Thomas of Villanova, Ven. Luis de la Puente, and many others.

This becomes clear when we consider the parables themselves that lead to the statement that “many are called, few are chosen.”

The first parable is the less clear, which is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. In this parable, Our Lord recounts that there were many workers in a vineyard (justice, or the Church) hired by a certain Master (Our Lord) at different hours of the day (the ages of the world, or of a man’s life). Each one, at the end of the day (the final judgment), receives the denarius (beatitude) like all the rest. Then, at the end of the day, when all are receiving the reward, certain men hired at the beginning of the day (those who lived their entire lives in justice, or those converted near the beginning of the world, i.e., the Jews) complain that they received the same reward as everyone else. At the end of the parable, the “many are called, few are chosen” is affixed.

The strange affixture of this final line has led to two responses. First, some (Jansenius of Ghent, Vázquez) taught that the denarius received by those who complained is actually hell. Second, others thought that this line is not meant to be in the text, but was added later by some scribe. Generally, Catholic theologians reject both interpretations.

St. Thomas’s interpretation is best, i.e., that this is meant to remove a false opinion (Super Matt. 20, lect. 1). For, it may seem, from this parable, that everyone who labors in the Church or in justice will receive the reward of beatitude, since each worker received his reward at the end of the day. Therefore, Our Lord added the “many are called, few are chosen” in order to dispel this false interpretation. In this way, the traditional interpretation of the principle has a strong support, indicating that many who labor in the vineyard (i.e., are in the Church, have faith, are justified) are eventually damned and do not, like the complaining laborers, receive their reward of beatitude. This explanation is quite conformable to the mind of Pope St. Gregory (Hom. 19 on the Gospels), who distinguishes between the vineyard (the Church) and those laboring (i.e., “those with right faith and good work”). Therefore, he teaches that “one who lives for himself, nourished by the pleasures of his body, is rightly reproved as idle, since he is not striving for the fruit of good works.” This is also quite conformable to the mind of St. Augustine (Sermon 87) and St. John Chrysostom (Hom. 64 on Matthew) on this passage.

The second parable is more clear. There are two stages in the parable: first, there are those who initially reject the call as the friends of the king and are eventually punished by the sword; second, there are those who come to the feast, but are without the wedding garment and are cast out of the wedding. Therefore, there are three groups of people:

1. Those who never come to the wedding.

2. Those who come to the wedding and are cast out.

3. Those who come to the wedding and remain.

In this, we can distinguish between three groups of people:

1. Those who do not listen to the Gospel at all (i.e., those without faith).

2. Those who listen to the Gospel, but do not clothe themselves with the wedding garment (i.e., those with unformed faith).

3. Those who listen to the Gospel and clothe themselves with the wedding garment (i.e., those with living faith, working by charity).

Hence, when the statement “many are called, few are chosen” is stated by Our Lord, contextually, He is speaking about the man cast out from the wedding feast (i.e., those in the Church), not about the men who were killed previously (i.e., those outside the Church). For, there is a division of two parts in the parable: the first part concerns the reprobation of the Jews and the replacement of the Jews by the Gentiles (as in Luke 14), whereas the second part concerns the final judgment. The phrase “many are called, few are chosen,” as in Matthew 20, is meant to refer to the final judgment, not to the replacement of the Jews. This division is traditional, given by St. Albert the Great, Bl. Denys the Carthusian, and Godts. That the “called” in this instance are those present at the banquet (i.e., are members of the Church) is supported by many Catholic authors, especially those writing on ecclesiology, e.g., St. Robert Bellarmine (De Ecclesia militante, c. 7), Cardinal Billot (De Ecclesia Christi, t. I, q. 7, th. 13), etc.

Objection. The opponents of the fewness of the saved in the Church often point to this exact passage, arguing that many are not damned, due to the fact that only a single man at the banquet was cast out.

To this objection, we may easily reply that parables are not to be taken in all their details. There are certain details meant to analogize and others that are not meant to do so and are just added for the sake of the story. Otherwise, we would have a 50% salvation rate from the parable of the foolish virgins and be forced to affirm only one other man in the banquet to harmonize Scripture! Therefore, the Fathers, especially St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, clearly explain and invoke this principle constantly when interpreting parables. This is explained at length by Coppin in his La question de l’Évangile, which spends some three hundred pages against the Benignist exegesis of the Gospel question.

Already in the Patristic era, the Fathers answered this objection explicitly, including St. Augustine (Sermon 90, § 4; Sermon 95, § 6; In Ps. 61, § 6; De gestis Pelagii, III; etc.), who argues that “many are called, few are chosen” is included here specifically to indicate that there is not only one cast out, but many who suffer the same fate. As Origen, St. Jerome, Pope St. Gregory, Ven. Bede, Radbertus, Druthmar, and many others argue, the “one” is meant to be taken generically or specifically—i.e., the one man is representative of an entire group—not numerically, i.e., as if the lost were few in number. There are many other authors, among ancients and moderns alike, who answered this objection.

As Godts notes, the interpretive framework of this objection is so absurd that it would lead us also to conclude, from the first part of the parable, that every single Jew rejected the gospel and not a single one was included in the feast.

Fourth Text: The Parable of the Sower

In Luke 8, Our Lord gives the parable of the sower, where only a fourth part of the seed bears fruit unto eternal life.

As the Greek Fathers generally teach on this passage, this parable was given to the Apostles in order to relieve them from discouragement when their preaching seemed to bear fruit only among a few. Our Lord explains that it is not in the preaching or in the seed, but in the soil, that the ultimate reason for the lack of fruit lies. This is important to set out from the beginning in order to understand why this argues for fewness, i.e., because it was specifically meant to explain this phenomenon of the fewness of those who fruitfully hear the word.

Now, there are three ways in which the various types of soil could be taken:

1. The entirety of mankind.

2. All those who ever hear the gospel.

3. Only those in the Church.

As Ven. Bede explains (In Luc., lib. iii; In Marc.), this parable cannot concern the entirety of mankind, since it excludes those who do not even deserve to hear. This is clear enough from the text itself.

Yet, it seems more likely that the parable either applies to the Church or is specifically meant to indicate the Church. In the first case, it would denote the soil that the majority of mankind is like in general, which applies to those both inside and outside the Church; in the second case, it is specifically in reference to those who listen to the word, yet do not put it into practice.

In either case, this supports the conclusion. This is clear from authors like Lyra, Ludolph of Saxony, and Bl. Denys the Carthusian, who take this to be a parable concerning the Jewish people and apply the same to preachers in their own day and the fruitlessness of preaching to the multitude.

Christian Druthmar (In Matt.) interprets this of the Church, along with other authors both ancient and modern. This is the common reading of the parable, as noted by Suárez.

As Vázquez notes, citing the Gloss and Lyra, this particularly denotes those who are in the Church, since the seed is said at least to fall upon them and they are said to hear, whether they merely feign faith outwardly (the first group), or truly believe for a time (the second group), or believe, yet are fruitless (the third group). These groupings are more appropriately said of those inside the Church than of those outside the Church.

Objection. As we saw above, one cannot draw a numerical conclusion from a parable. Therefore, etc.

Response. I distinguish: if the number is simply included in the parable, conceded; if the number enters into what is analogized in the parable, denied.

In this parable, the reason of the parable is precisely the small number of those who fruitfully hear the word. Hence, it is not one of those details that are simply included, but enters into the very reason of the parable. Therefore, the objection does not follow.

This is against Knabenbauer, who attacks Victor of Antioch, Theophylact, and Bl. Denys on this point.

Fifth Text: 1 Corinthians 10:1–13

St. Paul preaches about the fewness of the saved in 1 Corinthians 10:1–13 as a corollary to his statement in 1 Cor. 9:24: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize?” This context is quite important. Can the entire world be said to run in the race? Hardly. Rather, those who run are those in the Church. Yet, out of all those who run (i.e., members of the Church), only one (i.e., a few) wins the prize (i.e., is chosen). This context is explicitly stated as such by Peter of Tarentaise in his continuation of St. Thomas’s commentary on 1 Corinthians:

“In the first example, the condition of wayfarers is described; in the second, the great number of those who are called; in the third example, the small number of those chosen. Many are called but few are chosen.” (In I Cor., c. 9, lect. 5)

St. Paul points to the multitude of Israel that was baptized, ate and drank of Christ, etc., yet states that “with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (v. 5) and that “these things are warnings for us” (v. 6). In the end (vv. 12–13), he mixes together the warning (“let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall,” which is also applied by Pope St. Gregory) with the consolation (“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful,” etc.), as if to say: “few are saved, therefore do not presume; yet God is faithful and will give the requisite aid, therefore do not despair.”

It is important to note that the whole section is applied to those within the Church, not those outside the Church, just as the type was those inside the Old Testament Church. This is clear from the statement that such individuals partook of what corresponds to the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. If we follow the line of argumentation commonly brought forward by St. Paul, we see that just as the types drawn from Israel’s past typify the greater benefits, so also do they typify the greater judgment upon the faithful of the New Testament Church. Hence, it is clear that the death in the wilderness is a type of the eternal punishment of hell, just as the promised land is a type of heaven:

“The Apostle, therefore, just as in the spiritual benefits bestowed upon the people that came out of Egypt he saw prophetic figures of the far greater benefits which God was to confer upon Christians, so in the lot of that whole people, cut off in the desert for their sins, he sees a figure of far graver punishments, with which God will punish Christians if they commit like sins…it is to be noted with Thomas that, just as among goods that which is figured is far better than the figure itself (as the Kingdom of heaven than the land of promise), so among evils that which is figured is far worse than the figure that signifies it. And according to Augustine, those punishments which the Israelites underwent were a figure of hell, which is greater than every punishment.” (Rudolph Cornely, In I Cor. 10)

This allegorical interpretation of the death of the Israelites in the wilderness as pertaining to the fewness of the saved among the faithful is one of the most common among the Fathers, ascetical authors, preachers, exegetes, and theologians applied to this problem. Nearly every sermon on the fewness of the saved uses this figure drawn from St. Paul.

Objection 1. As St. Thomas and the theologians commonly teach, the mystical sense of a passage cannot be used to establish a theological argument. Therefore, etc.

Response. While this was already treated above, it is important to apply the same response to this passage in particular. Here, we are not arguing from the type nakedly taken, but from the type as it is explicitly established by the literal sense of Scripture (in 1 Cor. 10) and interpreted as such by the authority of the Fathers, theologians, preachers, etc. Therefore, such a use is authoritative, and not merely confirmatory, as other uses of types will be.

The connection between this text and the “many are called, few are chosen” is made by a number of authors, including St. John Cassian, Ps.-Ambrose, Ven. Bede, Rabanus Maurus, Herveus of Bourg-Dieu, Nicholas of Gorran, etc. As St. Isidore writes, “this figure shows that many pass over to the faith through baptism, but that very few reach the heavenly fatherland, according to that figure in the Gospel in which many are called but few are found chosen.” (Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum, In Num., c. 42, §§ 9–10)

It is for this reason that many theologians of solid authority use this in order to establish the proof (e.g., Bartholomew de Medina, Dominicus Gravina, Recupito, Frassen, Viator of Cocaleo, Godts, etc.).

Objection 2. It is clear that not all who died in the desert (e.g., Moses) were damned. Therefore, etc.

Response. The typological argument does not rely on a complete likeness between type and antitype. In many types, the antitype is only analogously like the type, so that only the general principle—that the vast majority are damned—is drawn.

Sixth Text: Philippians 2:21

In Philippians 2:21, St. Paul writes: “They all look after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.” Now, this indicates that the vast majority, even of the coworkers of St. Paul, have grave faults even in their ministry; therefore, a fortiori, the vast majority of simple laymen in their day-to-day lives.

If even those in ministry seek their own interests, how much more the laity? If even in the very act of ministering they seek their own interests, how much more outside of this act? Therefore, the conclusion follows.

This is used by many theologians, including Estius, Drexel, Recupito, Verschueren, Concina, etc. This is also employed by the Fathers, including St. Gregory the Great in a number of places.

It is on this basis that we can also put forward the further thesis that there is a fewness of prelates who are saved as well, as employed by St. Bernard, Bl. Denys, St. Robert Bellarmine, and others. Yet, such an interpretation is less clear, since, as Godts points out, many authors applied this to all the faithful. Still, from the tenor of the text, it seems that the Apostle intended this of clerics rather than of all the faithful.

Objection. St. Paul says “all.” Now, it would obviously be absurd to say that they were all damned. Therefore, it must be speaking of some lesser, venial fault.

Response. Estius responds that “all” is taken for “nearly all,” as it is taken in other places in Scripture (e.g., in multiple places in Romans 3): “The Apostle also, speaking of the faithful, says: All seek the things that are their own—that is, very nearly all.” (In I Sent., d. 40–41, § 203) Hence, St. Bernard, when quoting the verse, describes it as omnes fere (Serm. 6 in Ps. XC “Qui habitat,” n. 7). That this is a common expression in the Scriptures is pointed out by St. Jerome (In Eph., c. 1), St. Augustine (De unitate Ecclesiae, c. 12), St. Thomas (Super Phil., c. 2, lect. 4), a Lapide, and others.

As to whether such a fault was venial or not, it cannot be established with the clarity of the aforementioned proofs. For, St. Albert (In Apoc. 8:12), Cajetan (In Phil. 2:21), and others apply this text both to the reprobate and to the imperfect, while certain others leave the matter undetermined. Yet, from the more common interpretation of the Fathers, theologians, and spiritual authors, it is more probable that this refers to mortal fault—or, at least, if it applies to venial fault as well, then the majority can be established from this tradition to have mortal fault.

Seventh Text: Canticle of Canticles 2:2

In the Canticle of Canticles 2:2, Our Lord says that “as a lily among brambles, so is my love among the daughters.” Now, from the common interpretation of this book, this ought to be interpreted in reference to mysteries concerning the Church. Therefore, this passage indicates that among the many in the Church (i.e., the daughters), the beloved of Christ (i.e., the elect) are quite rare, speaking of a choice few among many.

That the “daughters” are in reference to members of the Church, St. Augustine says: “He did not say, in the midst of strangers; but, in the midst of the daughters.” (De fide rerum quae non videntur, c. 8, n. 11) This point is brought up by St. Augustine on a number of occasions (e.g., In Ps. 47, nn. 8–10; In Ps. 99, n. 8 ff.; etc.) and applied to the question of the fewness of the saved in the Church, which he proves from their being called thorns: “whence does he call them thorns, if not because of the malignity of their morals? And the same, whence daughters, if not because of the communion of the Sacraments?” (De unitate Ecclesiae, c. 14, n. 35; cf. Ep. 93 ad Vincentium, c. 9, nn. 28–30) These are “daughters by the communion of the faith, as thorns by the bitterness of their morals!” (Vitis mystica, c. 67)

Hence, among theologians, Álvarez uses this proof: “As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. He does not say among strangers, as Bernard noted, but among the daughters, that is, among the household of the faith: for as thorns exceed lilies in number, so also among the faithful the reprobate exceed the elect.” (De auxiliis, lib. V, disp. 43) (The remark he ascribes to St. Bernard is in fact St. Augustine’s, as Bañez rightly cites it.) The same note is commonly made by other theologians (e.g., Paolacci, Recupito, Gonet, etc.). It is to be noted, with them, that the particular comparison made by the author is between the fewness of the lily (which is said to be singular) and the multiplicity of the thorns (which are many). As Bañez points out, this same analogy is repeated again in the next verse, clearly comparing the few to the many: “As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons.” (v. 3; In II-II, Douai ed., p. 86)

Objection. This text is also applied by others (e.g., Origen, St. Ambrose, St. Fulgentius, Bruno of Segni, etc.) in reference to heretics and their relationship with the Church, or to the nations in comparison with the Church (e.g., Bl. Denys, Nicholas of Lyra, etc.). Famously, it is also applied to the Blessed Virgin by many authors.

Response. There are still many authors who use this in reference to the fewness of the saved (e.g., St. Augustine, Ven. Bede, Angelomus of Luxeuil, Haymo, Robert of Tombelaine, the Gloss, Hugh of St. Cher, etc.).

The reason for this is that a multiplicity of interpretations does not destroy the validity of one of the literal senses. This is due to the fact that there are a number of different literal senses, that the spiritual senses are often mixed into expositions, and that authors often accommodate passages.

Eighth Text: Ecclesiastes 1:15

In Ecclesiastes 1:15, it is said that “the number of fools is infinite.” Now, among the Hebrews, “foolishness” is not said in regard to a lack of intellectual subtlety, but a grave lack of moral rectitude (as noted by Bl. Denys and a Lapide). For, foolishness is the lack of wisdom, which, among the Hebrews, is often identified with either sanctifying grace or one of its chief effects (the gift of wisdom). Therefore, etc.

It is to be admitted that the “fools” are not restricted to the members of the Church. Yet, this text is often used by exegetes and theologians in support of this thesis. The reason for this is that these authors applied what is generally applicable to the entirety of mankind to what is also common among the members of the Church. Therefore, this argument does not follow so much from what is formally stated in the text as from what can be drawn from the text. It is to be noted that this text, and the argument drawn from it, can be applied to a number of different texts commonly employed in this way (e.g., the sequence of Romans 3).

Further, as indicated by the beginning of this verse (which is drawn out by Hugh of St. Victor), this is specifically about those whom the author attempts to correct. This principle—that correction more commonly falls on deaf ears due to foolishness—supports the application to the Church, who attempts to correct her children and more often fails. This is clear (as a Lapide points out) from the fact that, among the Hebrews, “and” often has a causal rather than a conjunctive sense, as if to say that “the perverse are hard to be corrected” because “the number of fools is infinite”—which would more principally apply to those inside the Church (who receive correction like that which Solomon attempted) than to those outside the Church (who receive correction to a lesser degree and far more imperfectly). As St. Albert writes, “I so admonish to penance, but I hear the excuse of the many who are unwilling to be converted.” (In Ps. 4:6) A Lapide writes (in the voice of the author):

“By all my preaching, every law and command, all my labour and effort, I make little progress and with few people; because the far greater part of men, ensnared by the painted and deceitful appearance of vanity and of vain riches, pleasures and honours, perversely and obstinately gape after them, and therefore refuse to be corrected; therefore the number of fools who devote themselves to the vain and foolish enticements of the world is innumerable.” (In Eccl. 1:15)

This text is generally employed by theologians in its received reading for its conclusion (e.g., St. Albert in many places, St. Thomas, Bl. Denys, a Lapide, Concina, etc.).

Objection. The Hebrew text does not read “the number of fools is infinite,” but “what is lacking cannot be numbered.” Therefore, etc.

Response. It is to be remembered that the Latin Vulgate is authentic and does not substantially state something contrary to faith or morals. Therefore, arguments can be drawn even from the disputed readings of the Vulgate, especially when these become common in the tradition. For more, cf. the treatments of the authority of the Vulgate among the scholastics.

Yet, it is also to be noted, even upon the original reading, that this text is applied to the same conclusion by certain authors (e.g., Origen, Alcuin, Estius). For, the particular defect (i.e., the “lack”) is a defect of some character of correctability, which would apply most principally to foolishness. Therefore, other authors defend this reading as equivalent to the original (e.g., Cajetan, a Lapide, Dominicus Gravina, the Migne editors, etc.). A Lapide notes that the same is followed by the Syriac version.

Ninth Text: 1 Peter 4:18

St. Peter writes in 1 Pet. 4:18, quoting the LXX version of Prov. 11:31: “If the righteous man is scarcely saved, where will the impious and sinner appear?” Now, the just make up a portion of the Church. Therefore, a fortiori, the minority of the Church will be saved.

Ps.-Oecumenius (In I Petr. 4:18, as reported also by a Lapide) states that the distinction between “impious” and “sinner” is that the impious in no way cleave to God, whereas the sinner in some way cleaves to God, yet transgresses his law. While this is a disputed exegetical point, it reveals the mind of certain Greeks on this point. Bl. Denys also follows this reading.

Objection. The majority of authors appeal to the difficulty of the path of the just, rather than the infrequency with which the just are saved. Therefore, etc.

Response. It is to be replied that infrequency follows upon difficulty. Therefore, it is no objection to the text. It is in this applied sense that the authors who invoke this text ought to be taken. Further, even if we were to concede that the sense of the Apostle is to indicate those just at the end of their life, even then would this still support our conclusion. For, speaking to the Church, it is implied that such concerns a small portion of them, as is evident from the tenor of the Epistle.

Other authors take the “just” to mean “those who appear just to men”—so Hugh of St. Cher, following the exposition he cites from Augustine (In I Petr. 4:18)—which would lead to the same conclusion. Further, others (e.g., Bl. Denys) note that even the presently just arrive at salvation only with difficulty, since it is difficult to persevere unto the end—which would indicate the same sense, i.e., that even those in a state of justice with difficulty remain in that state and often fall from it.

Or, according to some authors, this is meant to indicate the severe temporal afflictions of the just, which will be an image of the future afflictions of the unjust (e.g., St. Ambrose, Estius); although the majority take it in other senses that lead to our conclusion. It is to be noted, for this reason, that this text is not frequently cited for our conclusion; yet it follows clearly enough from the principles of the majority of interpreters.

Tenth Text: The Net and the Threshing Floor

There are various different types from the New Testament that show the fewness of the just in the Church, especially the net and the threshing floor, which are applied against the Donatists, Protestants, and other groups. From the net, the majority of fish are thrown back; from the threshing floor, the majority is chaff, which is burned. Therefore, etc.

This is most frequently employed by St. Augustine against the Donatists: “these same good and true Christians, who considered in themselves are many, in comparison with the wicked and the false are likewise few. So the many grains with which great barns are filled we call few in comparison with the chaff.” (Contra Cresconium, III, 66) “Why do we rejoice at multitudes? Hear me, you few. I know that many of you hear, and few obey. I see the threshing-floor; the grains I look for…Few, then, are they that are saved, in comparison with the many that shall perish.” (Sermon 111 [al. 32 De verbis Domini]) He says as much as to number in a variety of texts (e.g., Contra Cresconium, III, 66, n. 75; IV, 53, n. 63; Contra Faustum, XIII, 16; De catechizandis rudibus, 19, 31; etc.). The same is followed by many authors, including Pope St. Gregory, who pairs the ark and the threshing floor in the same homily (Hom. 38 on the Gospels, n. 8), and Ven. Bede, who joins the figure to the “many are called, few are chosen” (In Luc. 3).

As the Gloss notes, there are three groups: the wheat, the chaff, and the tares. The wheat concerns those Catholics who have faith and charity; the chaff, those Catholics who have faith, but not charity; and the tares, those who are severed from the Church: “The chaff arises from the same origin as the wheat, that is, from the seed; but the tares from a different one. The chaff, therefore, are those who are steeped in the sacraments of faith but are not solid; the tares are those who are severed from the elect both by works and by profession.” (Glossa ordinaria, in Matt. 3:12) The same is followed by many authors, including St. Thomas, St. Bernardine of Siena, Bl. Denys, Vázquez, Estius, Suárez, Bellarmine, a Lapide, and even the Roman Catechism. The floor is the Church, which will be separated into the elect and reprobate at the judgment.

Objection. Nowhere in the text does it state that the number of chaff is greater than the wheat, nor the number of bad fish greater than the good fish, etc.

Response. First, it is proven from the authority of many of the authors above (especially St. Augustine) that the relative number enters into the sense of the parable. Second, the common people would have understood this from the tenor of the parables, which were meant to indicate that the last judgment, like these activities, is meant to separate the few from the many. While this is less certain, it still stands as highly probable.

Eleventh Text: The Little Flock

In Luke 12, Christ refers to the Church as the “little flock.” Now, it appears from history and other texts, along with the note of catholicity promised to the Church, that the Church itself is not a “little flock,” but the mustard seed that will grow quite large and the stone which will encompass the whole world, etc. Therefore, the “little flock” is the elect within the Church, who are outnumbered by the reprobate.

Objection. Christ simply intended to refer to the Church then existing as the “little flock,” not to the Church throughout the ages.

Reply. Contrary to this is the general use of the term by the Fathers and other authoritative authors. For, Ven. Bede (In Luc. 12:32) describes this as the “little flock of the elect” compared to the number of the reprobate. This text from Ven. Bede is used by the liturgy of the Church (Matins, Common of a Confessor not a Pontiff). This text is employed by many authors in this same sense.

Objection. The “little flock” is said in comparison to the world, not in comparison to the entirety of the Church. Therefore, a Lapide says that the Church “is no longer a little flock” (In Luc. 12:32).

Reply. These are morally equivalent; for, if the Church is quite large and the majority of the Church are elect, how could it then be called a “little flock”?

To the argument that the Church is “no longer a little flock”: the Fathers and most other authors frequently apply this term perpetually to the elect within the Church, and not merely to the nascent Church. Therefore, whether this is the literal sense of the text or rests on the authority of its accommodators, it can still be employed as an argument. This application appears in other places in the works of a Lapide himself (e.g., In Isa. 1; In Amos 9:6; etc.). Therefore, Bossuet was able to say, “the little flock is everywhere, and everywhere it forms part of the great Church.” (Seconde instruction pastorale)

Objection. Certain authors take this to be in reference to humility, not number—this is even the member that Ven. Bede himself prefers, and Billuart after him.

Reply. The two readings do not exclude one another. The humility-reading commonly occurs only in conjunction with the number-reading (e.g., Ven. Bede, Bl. Denys, Suárez, etc.); Bl. Denys expressly combines them, the flock being little by humility, by low repute, and by fewness compared with the reprobate (In Luc. 12); as Berti puts it, “in the Gospel they are called a little flock, not only because of their lowliness, but also because of the greater number of the reprobate.” (De theologicis disciplinis, lib. VI, c. 17) Other authors (e.g., St. Gregory Nazianzen) also accommodate this text to the great number of heretics, but such is an accommodated sense rather than the literal reading.

Twelfth Text: The Prophets

This is proven from a series of different texts from the Prophets, who describe the number of the faithful found in Israel (prophetically, also the Church) as very few or none. The most cited text is from Isaiah 24, which looks forward to the future judgment (both of Israel and of the world), stating that the final judgment will be “as at the gleaning when the vintage is done” (v. 13), so that “few men are left” (v. 6)—which implies the fewness of those saved within Israel (prophetically, the Church). For, the gleaning is done from the olive tree that is beaten, which is a symbol of Israel and the Church. Similarly, other texts: Isa. 17:5–6; 1:9; 4:3; 6:13; 9:3; 10:22; 13:12; 30:17; 63:3; 65:8; Jer. 3:14; 5:1; Ezek. 9:4–6; 22:30; Amos 3:12; 5:3; Mic. 7:1–2; etc.

Objection. Many take these in reference to the coming of Antichrist, when few of the elect will remain in the Church. Therefore, it is inappropriate to apply this to the entire era of the Church.

Response. It is conceded that most authors take it in this sense, yet it is denied that our conclusion is inappropriate in light of this fact. For, the prophetic image is taken for multiple realities in the mind of the prophet—whether of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, or of the time of Antichrist, or of the time of the final judgment, when few will be found elect within the entire Church. Therefore, this text is commonly employed by many authors who explain this sense (e.g., Bl. Denys, St. Robert Bellarmine, a Lapide, etc.). Further, many authors use general principles of the smallness of the elect in the Church in order to explain this passage, so that it is implied that they hold such to be the case both at the final judgment and at all times.

The other texts can be read prophetically in this light. The remnant of Israel foreshadows the remnant of the faithful within the Church (Ps.-Basil). Isaiah’s comment that “thou hast multiplied the nation, and hast not increased the joy” (Isa. 9:3) is taken by Stapleton to witness to the same fact—i.e., while the other nations will come in during the time of the Church, it will still be the case that only a remnant of the people of God will be saved:

“The prophet Isaias said, in chapter 9: Thou hast multiplied the nation, and hast not increased the joy, since amid the multitude of nations which throughout the whole world confess Christ with the mouth, so few there are who believe with the heart and show forth their faith by good works.” (Promptuarium morale, 19th Sunday after Pentecost)

It is to be noted that these texts (outside of Isa. 17 and 24) are only quoted occasionally by authors. Therefore, they should be used sparingly, as the typical sense of a prophecy is more difficult to establish than that of a clear and direct statement, as we saw with the texts above.

Thirteenth Text: Minor Texts

There are other minor texts used by authors—e.g., the saints are often said to be “called by lot,” and therefore it is implied that they are few. However, the authority of these texts for establishing the thesis is wholly taken from their application to the problem at hand by certain authors favorable to our thesis, since these texts do not appear clearly enough, or even probably, to be comparing the elect in the Church to the reprobate outside the Church.

NOTE: I have not completed the remainder of this study. There are various different types given by Catholic authors, along with various different theological arguments given. Below, I will be giving these in outline without my usual detail given above. Further, I would like to double check each of my citations and read a handful of other works on the matter that I did not check.

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There are a number of different reasons that can be given to answer this question, although not every answer is equally fundamental to solving the problem at hand. On the side of the recipient, such acts are extremely difficult to make, and the actual use of the sacraments is morally necessary for the ends established, as I argued in the second conclusion of my article titled The Two-Fold Necessity of the Sacraments: “to receive baptism or penance in re is morally necessary in practice in the economy of salvation.”

Yet there is a reason more fundamental than the moral impossibility of initial justification without the actual use of the sacraments. There is also a proper effect of the sacraments that is physically impossible (in the order established by God) to receive without their actual use. This is what we call “sacramental grace.”

“Sacramental grace” differs for each of the sacraments. According to most theologians, it essentially consists in a certain “right” (ius) or “title” to the actual helps (actual graces, auxilia) that are in conformity with the end of the sacrament, together with an influx of sanctifying grace. If this were not the case, and the only effect of the sacraments were sanctifying grace without any additional title, then we would have no reason to have multiple sacraments; the effect of each sacrament would be exactly the same. Further, there would be no difference between the reception of a sacrament in re (baptism, absolution, eucharist, etc.) and the reception of a sacrament in voto (baptism of desire, perfect contrition, act of spiritual communion, etc.).

Pius XI, in Casti connubii, states this succinctly in relation to matrimony: “the right to the actual assistance of grace, whensoever they need it for fulfilling the duties of their state.” Each of the sacraments has a particular end, and the sacramental graces given to the man who receives the sacrament give him a certain right or title to all those actual graces that are necessary for achieving that end.

To give an example, let us suppose that someone has committed fornication. If he makes an act of perfect contrition, that sin is remitted, and he is in a state of grace. All that remains is a certain legal obligation to go to confession before receiving the Eucharist and within the proper time. If he dies, he dies in a state of grace and goes to heaven. On the other hand, let us suppose that a second fornicator goes to confession and receives absolution. How is he different from the first man? Let us assume that they have exactly the same degree of charity. Is there any difference? Catholic theology answers in the affirmative. The second man, who went to confession, actually has a unique title and right to those helps necessary to overcome the particular sins confessed to the priest, whereas the first man does not have this unique title and right, but still has sanctifying grace.

This is the more fundamental reason for the insufficiency of non-sacramental graces. Although both are in the same order, the former gives sanctifying grace (or an increase thereof), whereas the latter gives sanctifying grace (or an increase thereof) together with a certain title or right to those actual graces that are truly, and even proximately, sufficient both for preserving the degree of grace conferred in the sacrament and for attaining the end to which the sacrament is ordered.

[Note: This reflection can be helpfully combined with my article published earlier this week, titled “An Important Note in Sacramentology.”]

There are quite a few corollaries to this doctrine. However, in order to resolve them, we must first determine what the particular character of this ius ad auxilia actually is.

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The atheistic critiques of the arguments for the existence of God look like the work of a child compared to some of the very complex and involved critiques offered by certain scholastics and the responses given by others. While many are aware of the dispute over the Ontological Argument, this is not the only argument that was debated by the scholastics. Famously, the Five Ways of St. Thomas elicited many lengthy critiques from other scholastic theologians, as well as responses from the Thomists of the strict observance.

While the article from is not considered one of these classical debates over a particular argument for the existence of God, it is a classical debate between scholastics that is relevant to defending the arguments for God’s existence against contemporary attacks. In this way, it serves as an exemplar of how these scholastic disputes can be used constructively.

Ite ad Thomam,

Christian B. Wagner

Inertia and Aquinas’ First Way — Aristotle, Impetus, and the Corruption of Thomism

In his monumental work God: His Existence and His Nature, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange presents the five Thomistic proofs of the existence of God and undertakes to defend them against some modern attacks. The first proof — the proof from motion — stands or falls with two foundational propositions. The first, and most contested, is the so-called Aristotelian kinesiological principle:

Omne autem quod movetur, ab alio movetur.

“Whatever is moved is moved by another.”

— Aristotle, Physics VII.1, 241b24; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3

For Aristotle, motion is defined as follows:

“The fulfilment of what exists potentially, in so far as it exists potentially, is motion.”

— Physics III.1, 201a10–11

But such actualization must occur in some order of being. And since being is divided according to the ten categories, Aristotle asks in the third book of the Physics in which categories motion can properly occur. After a careful analysis, he concludes that it can only be in four of them: substance, quantity, quality, and place. Substance changes by generation or corruption; quantity by augmentation or diminution; quality by alteration; and place by local motion. Hence his enumeration:

“There are six sorts of movement: generation, corruption, augmentation, diminution, alteration, and change of place.”

— Aristotle, Categories 14, 15a13–14

Now, the modern critic seizes upon one of these six: local motion, or change of place. And the attack runs as follows. Newton’s first law of motion states that a body continues in its state of rest or of uniform rectilinear motion unless acted upon by an impressed external force. No continuously acting pusher is required. The body, once set in motion, simply persists. Therefore, says the critic, the kinesiological principle is false — as, after contact with the thrower ceases, an object in linear motion is being moved, but not being moved by another. And consequently the First Way collapses.

This is perhaps the most common modern attack on the First Way.

How does Garrigou-Lagrange respond?

By attempting to bite the bullet entirely.

He grants the premise: yes, the principle must be understood as demanding a present mover for every body in motion. He writes:

“There is no less change in the transition from one position to another in the course of movement, than in the transition from repose to motion itself; if, therefore, this first change demands another cause, the following changes demand it for the same reason.”

— Garrigou-Lagrange, God: His Existence and His Nature, vol. I

Following another French Thomist, Goudin, he concludes that after a projectile leaves the hand of its thrower, an impetus is impressed in the object — a force actively moving it from within. This impetus is finite; it therefore cannot sustain infinite motion. And so, for Garrigou-Lagrange, the principle of inertia itself must be contested. There is a conjoined mover of the projectile in motion, but motion cannot be the way inertia claims it is.

The thesis of this article is that this response is flawed. It does not save Thomism. It confuses Thomism with Averroism and creates an unnecessary conflict with modern science and the principle of inertia.

It defends the First Way by adopting the very interpretation of Aristotle that St. Thomas explicitly identified and explicitly rejected in Averroes — calling it, in the words of the Angelic Doctor, omnino falsum — altogether false.

As we shall see, the genuine Thomistic position does not conflict with inertia. When the principle is rightly understood, it can be defended with far greater philosophical precision — and without the unnecessary embarrassment of contesting a well-established physical law.

My aim in this article is therefore fourfold: to distinguish the two interpretations of the kinesiological principle; to trace their historical origins; to establish the authentic Thomistic and Aristotelian doctrine by argument; and to demonstrate its full compatibility with Newtonian inertia and modern science.

This matters not only for the history of philosophy but for the apologetics of the present day. The First Way, correctly understood, is not touched by Newton. The bullet aimed at Aquinas hits only Averroes. And the Thomist should not jump in front of it.

To pursue this, I will divide the argument into five theses, followed by formal objections and replies, and a conclusion.

Thesis I: Aristotle’s authentic teaching on the kinesiological principle and on the three modes of local motion is the so-called “mitigated” view.

Thesis II: Avicenna and Averroes deviated from Aristotle and introduced the idea of motor coniunctus.

Thesis III: Latin scholasticism was contaminated by Arabic Aristotelianism, creating a false impetus theory.

Thesis IV: St. Thomas’ authentic doctrine is true to Aristotle, it is philosophically provable, it is consistent with Aristotle, and it is compatible with inertia.

Thesis V: The Thomistic school initially followed the authentic Thomistic view, but gradually fell away from it.

I. Thesis I: Aristotle’s Teaching on the Kinesiological Principle

In Aristotle’s philosophy, local motion admits a tripartition of fundamental importance for everything that follows. In Physics VIII, chapter 4, Aristotle writes:

“Of things to which the motion is essential some derive their motion from themselves, others from something else: and in some cases their motion is natural, in others violent and unnatural.”

— Aristotle, Physics VIII.4, 254b7–15

Three modes emerge: natural motion, violent or compulsory motion, and voluntary or self-motion. Let us take each in turn.

Natural Motion

Natural local motion is the motion that proceeds from the intrinsic nature of a body, as from an internal formal principle. In Aristotle’s elemental physics, the paradigm cases are the downward motion of heavy bodies and the upward motion of light ones. This motion is not imposed from without; it arises from what the thing is. This is why Aristotle defines nature itself as the principle of motion and rest in the thing to which it belongs, per se and not as a concomitant attribute (Physics II.1, 192b21–23). Nature is literally defined as the source of natural motion.

Notice immediately what this does not say. It does not say the substantial form is an efficient mover pushing the body. It says the form is the principle — the ἀρχή — from which motion flows. The word is not αἰτία, not causa efficiens. This terminological precision will become decisive when we reach St. Thomas’ correction of Averroes.

Furthermore, Aristotle is explicit that natural inanimate bodies do not move themselves in the strong sense. They have a principle of motion within them, but it is a passive principle, not an active self-causing one:

“So it is clear that in all these cases the thing does not move itself, but it contains within itself the source of motion — not of moving something or of causing motion, but of suffering it.”

— Aristotle, Physics VIII.4, 255b29–31

The stone falls downward, but the stone does not move itself. The falling proceeds from the formal nature of the stone as heavy, but the formal nature is a principium patiens — a passive principle — not a motor. Aristotle says elsewhere:

“By heavy I mean that which naturally moves toward the center; by light, that which naturally moves away from the center.”

— Aristotle, De caelo I.3, 269b23–25

The stone moves downward because it is heavy. Its heaviness is the formal source of its natural motion. But the stone is not the mover of itself. This leaves open the question: what, then, is the per se efficient cause of natural inanimate motion? Aristotle does not resolve this question explicitly in the most formal terms as he does with violent motion and voluntary motion — which we will see shortly. He gestures toward the generator, the one who produced the body’s nature. But he does not develop a crisp, formal theory of the generator as the sole per se efficient cause. Here we simply note the gap.

Violent Motion

Violent or compulsory local motion is motion imposed upon a body contrary to its natural inclination. Aristotle defines it clearly:

“whose moving principle is outside, the thing compelled contributing nothing.”

— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics III.1, 1110b15

And he notes its derivative character:

“An unnatural movement presupposes a natural movement which it contravenes.”

— Aristotle, De caelo III.2, 300a24–25

Violent motion is, in a precise sense, parasitic upon natural motion. We call the upward motion of a stone “violent” only because the stone naturally tends downward. Violence is defined by contrariety to nature.

Now Aristotle is aware of the obvious difficulty: a stone thrown upward continues to move after it has left the hand. The mover — the hand — is no longer in contact. Yet the motion continues. What moves it?

Aristotle’s answer, elaborated in Physics VIII and De caelo III, is the medium: the surrounding air. The original mover gives not only motion but the power of moving to the air. The air, naturally suited to move and be moved, carries the projectile onward. And Aristotle adds an important argument for why this power must be in the medium and not in the projectile:

“If the air were not endowed with this function, constrained movement would be impossible.”

— Aristotle, De caelo III.2, 301b29–30

His reasoning: if the power of moving were an internal source of the projectile itself, then violent motion would arise from an intrinsic principle — but that would make it natural, not violent. Violence is always ab alio, always from without. Therefore the motive power must reside in the medium, not the projectile.

Now, this theory of the medium is scientifically indefensible. We know — as the Christian commentator on Aristotle, John Philoponus, already argued in the sixth century — that air does not explain projectile motion. Block the air around a spinning disk and it does not stop; a heavier stone is thrown farther than a lighter one, contrary to what the medium theory would predict. Aristotle’s account of violent motion fails on empirical grounds — and the ancients already saw it.

But notice: the argument structure is not entirely wrong. What Aristotle correctly identifies is the fundamental point that violent motion cannot have its source in an intrinsic natural principle of the body. His error is in designating the medium as the extrinsic mover. The correct response is not to invent an internal impressed force — that would simply re-introduce the very intrinsic source Aristotle rightly rules out. The correct response is what the later Thomists articulate: the impressed force (impetus), if it exists, is not a motor, but an instrumental principle from the original mover. We will develop this fully in Thesis IV.

Before leaving violent motion, it is worth making a formal distinction that Aristotle does not make explicitly but which resolves his error:

Distinction: Internal as Natural vs. Internal as Impressed

Now, an important subtlety must be analyzed, so that the correct meaning of what we are saying may be rightly understood. Aristotle’s argument that the source of violent motion cannot be in the projectile conflates two senses of “internal”:

First sense: an intrinsic, natural, permanent principle flowing from the projectile’s substantial form. In this sense, we grant Aristotle: no such source of violent motion exists in the projectile. If it did, the motion would not be violent at all.

Second sense: an impressed, borrowed, accidental force received from an extrinsic mover, contrary to the body’s natural inclination, residing in it as in a subject. In this sense, there can be something in the projectile without making the motion natural or self-originated.

Aristotle’s argument succeeds against the first sense. It does not succeed against the second. And it is in this second sense that the later Thomistic tradition would speak of an impressed impetus — provided (as we shall insist) impetus is not construed as a mover but only as an instrumental principle.

Voluntary or Self-Motion

The third mode of local motion belongs to animals, which move themselves by their own parts. Aristotle is explicit:

“Self-movement is a characteristic of life and peculiar to living things.”

— Aristotle, Physics VIII.4, 255a6

The animal moves itself, but not in a simple or confused sense. The will moves the nerves; the nerves move the muscles; the muscles move the limbs; the limbs move the body locally. The efficient causality proceeds through really distinct parts. Aristotle analyzes this in a lot of detail in his treatise De Motu Animalium. An interested reader can refer to that work. But for us, for now, it suffices to note that the kinesiological principle applies here straightforwardly: one part is moved by another.

Conclusion of Thesis I

Recapitulating: local motion is threefold — natural, violent, and voluntary. For voluntary animal motion, the principle finds its mover in the moving part. For violent motion, Aristotle designates the medium, though this is empirically untenable and will require correction. For natural inanimate motion, Aristotle correctly identifies the principle of motion as the formal nature of the body — but he does not yet make fully explicit that the sole per se efficient cause of natural motion is the generator of the form. He gestures toward it, as we will demonstrate later, and he explicitly denies that inanimate bodies move themselves. The explicit development of this point belongs to St. Thomas Aquinas.

Two things are already established by Aristotle’s own text. First: the form of a heavy body is not an efficient mover. It is a passive formal principle. Second: natural inanimate bodies do not move themselves. With these two points, the Averroistic corruption is already, in principle, excluded by Aristotle himself.

II. Thesis II: Avicenna and Averroes’ Corruption

The Arabic Aristotelian tradition did not simply transmit Aristotle. It transformed him. And the transformation was nowhere more consequential than in the interpretation of the kinesiological principle.

Avicenna read Aristotle through a distinctly Neoplatonic lens. For him, matter and form are not two co-principles of a single substance, as in genuine Aristotelian hylomorphism, but two quasi-autonomous res, two things that stand over against each other. This dichotomy makes the form look like an active agent and the matter like a passive subject upon which the agent acts. From this, Avicenna concluded that the substantial form of an inanimate body is the motor coniunctus — the conjoined mover — of that body’s natural motion. The form of heaviness actively moves the matter downward, as a kind of immanent engine.

Against this, we lay down our first conclusion of this thesis:

Conclusion 1: The Substantial Form is Not the Efficient Mover of Natural Inanimate Motion

First Argument: From the Impossibility of Self-Motion in Inanimate Bodies

Major: If the substantial form of an inanimate body were the efficient cause of its natural local motion, that body would move itself.

Minor: But heavy and light bodies do not move themselves.

Conclusion: Therefore, the substantial form of a heavy or light body is not the efficient cause of its natural local motion.

Proof of the major: the substantial form is intrinsic to the body. If it were not merely the formal principle but the active efficient mover of the body’s own motion, the mover and moved would both be found within the same inanimate whole — and that is precisely what self-motion means.

Proof of the minor: Aristotle is unambiguous:

“It is impossible to say that their motion is derived from themselves: this is a characteristic of life and peculiar to living things.”

— Aristotle, Physics VIII.4, 255a5–6

“Therefore none of the things that we are now considering move themselves... in each case the movent must be separate from the moved.”

— Aristotle, Physics VIII.4, 255a13–16

Self-motion is the prerogative of the living. To attribute self-motion to a stone is to collapse the distinction between animate and inanimate — a distinction Aristotle regards as fundamental.

Second Argument: From the Distinction of Formal and Efficient Causes

Major: The formal cause as such must not be identified with the efficient cause as such.

Minor: The substantial form is the formal cause of the natural body, while the efficient cause of motion is the primary source of change, really distinct from the thing changed.

Conclusion: Therefore, the substantial form, as substantial form, is not the efficient cause of natural motion.

Proof of the major: Aristotle explicitly distinguishes the four causes, identifying the formal cause as “the form or archetype, the statement of the essence,” and the efficient cause as “the primary source of the change or coming to rest,” such as “the father,” and generally “what causes change of what is changed” (Physics II.3, 194b26–29). The two are not the same; confusing them is a fundamental category error.

Third Argument: From Aristotle’s Own Text on the Passive Principle

Major: That which is a principle of being moved — of suffering motion passively — is not thereby an efficient cause of motion.

Minor: Aristotle explicitly states that heavy and light bodies have within themselves a principle of motion, but a principle of suffering it, not of causing it.

Conclusion: Therefore, the principle in these bodies is a passive formal aptitude, not an efficient cause.

Proof of the minor. This is perhaps the most decisive Aristotelian text against Avicenna:

“So it is clear that in all these cases the thing does not move itself, but it contains within itself the source of motion — not of moving something or of causing motion, but of suffering it.”

— Aristotle, Physics VIII.4, 255b29–31

The principle the body has within itself is principium patiens, not principium agens. Not a principle of moving, but of being moved. Avicenna inverts this.

Averroes saw part of the problem with Avicenna. If the form is simply the efficient mover of the body, inanimate bodies become self-movers in too strong a sense, obliterating the distinction between living and nonliving. Averroes therefore refined the account: the form does not move the body directly, but moves the medium, and the medium then moves the body. In natural falling, the heavy body’s form acts on the surrounding air; the moved air then acts on the body; and so the body moves itself per accidens through the medium, much as a rower moves himself through the boat by rowing against the water.

This is why Averroes concludes that a resisting medium is indispensable not only for violent motion but for all natural local motion. Motion in a void, he also concludes, would be absolutely impossible.

Conclusion 2: Averroes’ Doctrine is Also False

Against Averroes, two lines of argument suffice at this stage.

First, the arguments from the confusion of formal and efficient principles still apply in full. Whether the form acts directly or through a medium, if it acts as an efficient cause, it is still a motor coniunctus, and the previous arguments stand.

Second, and decisively, the Averroistic thesis implies that motion in a vacuum is impossible. But motion in a vacuum is not impossible — indeed the whole of modern physics presupposes it. Modern science has definitively closed this question. The Averroistic framework is empirically refuted. This alone demonstrates that it cannot represent the authentic philosophical truth about motion.

St. Thomas, as we shall see, reached the same conclusion by pure philosophical analysis — six centuries before Newton.

III. Thesis III: The Contamination of Latin Scholasticism

When the Arabic commentaries entered Latin scholasticism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries through the translations of Michael Scot and others, they brought with them this strengthened interpretation of the kinesiological principle: whatever is in motion must be being moved here and now by another, through a present motor coniunctus. This was not Aristotle’s own position, as we will prove. But it came labeled as Aristotle, and it came with the enormous authority of Averroes.

The Latin West was simultaneously being influenced by another tradition of criticism. John Philoponus, a Christian commentator of Alexandria in the sixth century, had already attacked Aristotle’s medium theory of projectile motion on empirical grounds. He noted, among other arguments, that if one surrounds a spinning disk with a container blocking the air on all sides, the disk continues to spin — demonstrating that the medium is not what sustains the motion. He concluded:

“A certain incorporeal motive power is given to the projectile through the act of throwing.”

— John Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, IV.8

Philoponus did not develop this in great detail, but the intuition was there: the motive power, according to him, seemed to be in the projectile, not the medium.

Now the collision occurred. The Latin scholastics received Averroes’ strong reading of the principle — every moving thing needs a present motor — and simultaneously recognized that Aristotle’s medium theory was untenable. Something had to give.

Their solution: accept Philoponus’ intuition, but interpret it through the Averroistic lens. If every moving thing needs a present motor, and if the medium is not that motor, then the motor must be in the projectile itself — as an impressed quality, a virtus motiva, what came to be called impetus.

Francis de Marchia (a Franciscan, writing around 1320) was the first to develop this explicitly, in the context of sacramental theology. Jean Buridan, twice rector of the University of Paris, systematized it into a full theory. Buridan writes:

“The mover, in moving the mobile, impresses into it a certain impetus, a certain power able to move that mobile in the direction in which the mover moved it.”

— John Buridan, Quaestiones super octo libros Physicorum, VIII, q. 12

The crucial point is this: the impetus theorists were not abandoning the strong Averroistic interpretation of the principle. They were desperately trying to save it. Once Aristotle’s medium theory collapsed, they invented an internal impressed force so that every moving thing would still have its present motor — now located within the projectile itself rather than in the surrounding air.

The notion of a motor coniunctus for every natural motion led medieval thinkers to seek some intrinsic mover even in freely falling bodies, and the theory of impetus was an attempt to preserve the principle omne quod movetur ab alio movetur in its strong Averroistic form.

But this entire development rested upon an Averroistic/Avicennian distortion of Aristotle. Aristotle had not said that every body in motion must here and now be moved by a present conjoined mover. He had said that whatever is reduced from potency to act depends upon another already in act. The stronger interpretation was an Arabic importation. The impetus theories were the Latin attempt to preserve that importation after Aristotle’s own physics had become untenable.

The true Aristotelian and Thomistic response is different: not to invent new internal motors, but to clarify that the kinesiological principle never demanded one in the first place.

IV. Thesis IV: St. Thomas’ Authentic Doctrine

St. Thomas Aquinas commented with great care on the kinesiological principle and on the philosophy of motion throughout his career. His position is not simply a reception of Aristotle: it is an active, philosophically rigorous defense of the genuine Aristotelian sense against the Averroistic corruption, with important developments of his own.

His central text for our purposes is from his commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo. Averroes had argued that the form of heavy and light bodies acts as an active efficient principle, requiring resistance, moving the medium, and moving the body per accidens. Thomas responds:

“[Averroes] thought that the form of heavy and light bodies is an active principle of motion after the manner of a mover needing some resistance contrary to the tendency of form, and that motion is not immediately due to the agent who conferred the form. But this is absolutely false. The form of heavy and light bodies is a principle of motion not as a generator of motion but as a means by which the mover moves, just as colour, a principle of sight, is a means by which something is seen... Thus the movement of heavy and light bodies does not come from the generator by the intervention of another moving power. Nor even is there any need to look for resistance here other than that which exists between generator and generated. Thus it follows that air is not required for natural motion of necessity, as in the case of violent motion, since that which moves naturally has a force imparted to it which is a source of motion. Consequently there is no need for a body to be moved by any other force impelling it, as though it were a case of violent motion, having no implanted force from which motion springs.”

— St. Thomas, In III De Caelo, lect. 7, n. 9

Two things stand out immediately. First, Thomas calls Averroes’ view omnino falsum — altogether false. Not partially false, not nuanced — altogether. Second, he provides the precise reason: the form is not an efficient mover, but the means quo — the means by which — the mover moves. Just as colour is not a seer but the medium of seeing, so the form is not a mover but the medium of natural motion. The efficient cause remains the generator who imparted the form in the first place.

This is confirmed throughout his corpus:

“In heavy and light bodies there is a formal principle of their motion; but not in such a way that the natural form is the mover. Rather, the mover is the generator, which gives such a form, upon which such motion follows.”

— St. Thomas, In II Physicorum, lect. 1, n. 4

And with remarkable metaphorical clarity in his opuscule De motu cordis:

“Upward motion is natural to fire because it follows upon its form; and hence the generator which gives the form is the per se mover according to place. Just as a natural motion follows upon the form of an element, so nothing prevents other forms from giving rise to other natural motions.”

— St. Thomas, De motu cordis, ed. Parma, XVI, 359a

The doctrine is unambiguous, systematic, and repeated across every genre of Thomas’ writings. Let us now develop it formally.

Distinction I: Principium and Causa

A principium (principle, ἀρχή) is that from which something flows in any way whatsoever. It is a strictly relational and formal term. It is not an absolute thing in its own right but the source from which a principiatum necessarily proceeds. A formal principle does not act upon something distinct from itself as an efficient cause does; it is the immanent root from which characteristic activities emanate spontaneously and inevitably.

A causa efficiens (efficient cause) is an absolute entity, really distinct from the effect it produces, upon which the effect depends for its coming-into-being. The efficient cause exercises actual agency upon something other than itself.

Nature (physis, natura) as a substantial form is a principium — the active formal source from which characteristic properties, rest, and motions flow necessarily and immediately. It is not thereby an efficient cause of those same motions. As Thomas states in De veritate, q. 22, a. 3:

“The forms of corporeal things cannot be movers, although they can be the principle of motion, as by which something is moved; just as in the motion of the earth, gravity is the principle by which it is moved, but it is not the mover.”

Gravity is not a little engine pushing the stone. It is the formal source from which downward motion flows as naturally as heat flows from fire. The mover is the generator. The principle is the form.

Distinction II: Actus Primus and Actus Secundus

Thomas, following Aristotle, distinguishes two senses of act. Actus primus is the first actualization of pure potentiality by substantial form — the production of a new substance through generation. This requires a genuinely distinct efficient cause, a generans, in actual contact with the matter.

Actus secundus is the exercise or realization of a capacity already fully present in the first act. The geometer who already possesses the science of geometry does not need a new teacher to geometrize; he already has everything required. All that stands between him and geometrizing is the possible presence of an external impediment.

The kinesiological principle — Omne quod movetur ab alio movetur — applies directly and properly to the reduction of radical potentiality to actus primus. It governs generation, the production of new natures. Once a nature is constituted in actus primus, passage to actus secundus requires no new per se efficient cause. The nature operates statim — immediately — and per seipsum, unless there is an impediment. Thomas:

“It is not necessary that it be reduced to a second act by some agent; it operates immediately by itself, unless there is something hindering it.”

— St. Thomas, In VIII Phys., lect. 8, n. 3

With these two distinctions established, the formal arguments follow.

Conclusion I: No Motor Coniunctus is Needed for Natural Motion

Argument from the Nature of a Formal Principle

Major: That which possesses within itself an active formal principle (principium formale activum) of some motion does not require a distinct conjoined efficient mover to produce that same motion.

Minor: But natural inanimate bodies (heavy and light) possess within themselves an active formal principle of their characteristic natural motion.

Conclusion: Therefore, natural inanimate bodies do not require a distinct conjoined efficient mover (motor coniunctus) to explain or sustain their characteristic natural motion. The generans which produced the form is the per se efficient cause; once nature is constituted, it is sufficient to itself for motion.

Proof of the major: An active formal principle is precisely that a quo motion flows immediately (statim), necessarily, and spontaneously, given no impediment, without the intervention of another agent. The function of a principium is not to cause motion by acting on something distinct from itself — that belongs to efficient causality — but to be the inherent source from which motion emanates as from a root. As color is the formal principle by which sight is exercised (without color being a seer), so the substantial form is the formal principle by which motion occurs without being itself a mover. Thomas is explicit: “The forms of corporeal things cannot be movers, although they can be the principle of motion, as by which something is moved.” (De verit., q. 22, a. 3). Where a formal principle is sufficient, an efficient mover is superfluous.

Proof of the minor: Aristotle defines nature precisely as “the principle of motion and rest in those things to which it belongs per se and not as something concomitant” (Phys. II, 1, 192b21–23). In heavy and light bodies, the substantial form is the formal root from which their characteristic local motion follows necessarily, just as their other accidents follow. Thomas states: “In heavy and light bodies, however, it is the formal principle of their movement, because just as other accidents follow substantial form, so also place, and consequently being moved to place.” (In II Phys., lect. 1, n. 4). Empirical confirmation: fire always rises and earth always falls.

The conclusion: the sole per se efficient cause of natural inanimate motion is the generator who produced the form. No additional motor accompanies the falling stone.

Argument from the Two Senses of Act

Major: A body already fully constituted in its actus primus (first act) requires no additional per se efficient cause — no supervening mover — to pass to actus secundus (the exercise of its act).

Minor: But a heavy body in free fall — or any body in natural motion — is precisely a body already constituted in its first act, passing to second act.

Conclusion: Therefore, the natural motion of a heavy or light body requires no per se efficient cause beyond the original generans and (if applicable) the removens prohibens. No motor coniunctus need be invoked.

Proof of the major: Aristotle proves this by the analogy of knowledge (Phys. VIII, 4, 255b1–12): one who possesses geometry in habitu has everything needed to geometrize in actu; no new teacher is required to bring him to actual geometrizing. All that can intervene is either the removal of an external impediment or the will’s own self-determination. The one who taught him in the first place (docens) is therefore the per se cause of both the habitus and of all that necessarily follows from it. Thomas applies this exactly: “It is not necessary that it be reduced to a second act by some agent; it operates immediately by itself, unless there is something hindering it.” (In VIII Phys., lect. 8, n. 3)

Proof of the minor: The heavy body already is a heavy body — it possesses the substantial form from which downward motion follows as from a formal principle. It is not in potency to being heavy; it is heavy in first act. Its downward motion is simply the realization (actus secundus) of what it already fully is. Aristotle: “air is actually light, and will at once realize its proper activity as such unless something prevents it” (Phys. VIII, 4, 255b9–11).

Conclusion II: The Mitigated Interpretation is the Authentic Thomistic Sense

First, from explicit textual testimony. Thomas states the same doctrine explicitly, consistently, and repeatedly across every type of his writings:

• “non tamen ita quod forma naturalis sit motor, sed motor est generans, quod dat talem formam, ad quam talis motus consequitur.” — The natural form is not the motor; the motor is the generator who gives the form from which motion follows. (In II Phys., lect. 1, n. 4)

• “Sic igitur generans est per se movens gravia et levia, removens autem prohibens per accidens.” — The generator is the per se mover of heavy and light bodies; the remover of obstacles is only per accidens. (In VIII Phys., lect. 8, n. 7)

• “formae rerum corporalium non possunt esse moventes, quamvis possint esse motus principium.” — Corporeal forms cannot be movers, though they can be principles of motion. (De verit., q. 22, a. 3)

• “Formam enim ipsius elementaris corporis sequitur talis motus... generans dicitur esse movens inquantum dat formam quam consequitur motus.” — Such motion follows the form of the elementary body; the generator is called the mover insofar as it gives the form. (De pot., q. 5, a. 5)

• “impossibile est quod aliqua natura inclinet ad motum secundum seipsum.” — It is impossible that any nature incline toward motion for its own sake. (Sum. cont. gent., III, c. 23, §6)

This is not a marginal or ambiguous position. It is systematic, repeated, argued, and polemically defended against Averroes with the judgment omnino falsum.

Second, from grammatical precision. The Latin passive movetur — and its Greek original κινούμενον — refer to being moved, to the actuation of a passive principle, not to being currently in motion in the active sense. Thomas never writes omne movens ab alio movetur (every mover is moved by another) — that would contradict the unmoved First Mover — nor omne in motu ab alio movetur (everything in motion is being moved by another). The subject movetur refers to nature as passive material principle: to that which was moved in the generation of a new substance, not to that which is currently in the realization of its second act.

Third, from the structure of the First Way itself. St. Thomas’ First Way in Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3 is not an argument about continuous motion requiring continuous pushing. Even though many Thomists tried to see it that way, it isn’t — this unfortunate reading can be seen not only in Lagrange, God: His Existence and His Nature, but also in Billuart, Summa S. Thomae, I, De Deo et ejus attributis, diss. I, art. II; Gonet, Clypeus I, De Deo uno, disp. I, art. II; Goudin, Philosophia Thomistica, II, Physica, pars I, disp. III, q. VI, arts. I–II; Hugon, Tractatus dogmatici, vol. I, De Deo uno, q. I, art. II; and many others. And nothing in the text indicates such a view. It is an argument about the reduction of potency to act: “Nothing can be reduced from potency to act except by something in act.” That is the metaphysical center. The principle as St. Thomas deploys it in the First Way concerns the actuation of real potencies — primarily the production of new natures — not the perpetuation of motion already in actus secundus.

Conclusion III: The Mitigated Interpretation Is Also Aristotle’s Own Authentic Sense

This must be demonstrated explicitly, because the strong reading is habitually presented as “Aristotle’s view” — particularly by modern historians of science, from Duhem to Dijksterhuis. Weisheipl states the correction bluntly: “the position attributed by modern historians to Aristotle is, in fact, the position of Averroes.” And: “the notion of a substantial form of inanimate bodies being a motor coniunctus or causa efficiens motus is entirely foreign to Aristotle’s own philosophy.” Furthermore: “the Greek equivalent of the phrase motor coniunctus is nowhere found in Aristotle.”

Three arguments establish this conclusion.

First, from the grammar of the axiom itself. The Greek original — ἅπαν τὸ κινούμενον ὑπό τινος ἀνάγκη κινεῖσθαι — employs the middle-passive participle κινούμενον, which refers to being in the state of a passive, receptive principle being actuated, not to being currently in active motion. The strong reading illicitly converts this passive into an active, transforming “is being moved” into “is moving” or “is in motion.” This is bad grammar before it is bad philosophy. The grammatical error generates the philosophical error.

Second, from Aristotle’s own words in Physics VIII, 4. Aristotle establishes the kinesiological principle by induction from the three classes of motion. Then he says:

“light things and heavy things, which are moved either by that which brought the thing into existence as such and made it light and heavy, or by that which released what was hindering and preventing it”

— Physics VIII, 4, 255b31

Anneliese Maier has correctly summarized: for Aristotle, there are only two possible efficient causes of natural motion in inanimate bodies — the generans as per se cause, and the removens prohibens as per accidens cause. No third cause — no motor coniunctus — is introduced by Aristotle.

Third, from Aristotle’s definition of nature as ἀρχή. Aristotle defines nature as the ἀρχή — the principle — of motion, not as the αἰτία — the efficient cause. Thomas notes this precisely: “principium” is placed in the definition as a quasi genus because “the word ‘nature’ implies a relationship of principle.” If Aristotle had meant nature to be an efficient mover, he would have defined it as τὸ κινοῦν, not as ἀρχὴ κινήσεως. The word Aristotle chose is itself the refutation of the strong reading.

We may therefore state: the Averroist interpretation did not have to wait until the seventeenth century to be discredited. It was already discredited in the thirteenth on strictly Aristotelian grounds by St. Thomas Aquinas.

Conclusion IV: Impetus Is Not an Efficient Motor of the Projectile

We turn now to violent projectile motion specifically. The question is not whether something like an impressed force (impetus) exists in the projectile — that is a separate and legitimate question. The question is whether impetus, if it exists, functions as an internal efficient mover, a motor, propelling the projectile from within.

St. Thomas gives the decisive text on this in the same passage of In III De Caelo:

“It is not to be understood that the power of a violent mover imparts to a stone that is moved by violence some power by which it is moved, just as the power of a generator imparts to the generated the form that results from natural movement: for then violent motion would be from an intrinsic principle, which is contrary to the nature of violent motion.”

— St. Thomas, In III De Caelo, lect. 7, n. 6

This is the mirror text to the doctrine on natural motion. For natural motion: the generator imparts the form; the form is the principle (not the motor). For violent motion: the projector does NOT impart a power that functions as the principle of motion; because if it did, violent motion would have an intrinsic source — contradicting its very definition. The two doctrines are structurally parallel and mutually reinforcing.

Argument from the Definition of Violent Motion

Major: If impetus functioned as a motor (motor coniunctus) of the projectile, then the projectile’s continued motion would arise from an intrinsic principle — namely, the impressed impetus residing in it.

Minor: But by the definition of violent motion, no intrinsic virtue (virtus indita) can be impressed into the projectile from which its continued motion arises as from an internal motive principle.

Conclusion: Therefore, impetus — under the description of an internal motor — is incompatible with the very definition of violent motion. As Thomas states: the projectile that moves violently “nullam virtutem inditam habet, ad quam sequatur talis motus” (In III De caelo, lect. 7, n. 9). The motion is always ab alio, always from without.

The major is easily seen to be true. This is precisely what the impetus theory in its strongest (Buridanian) form asserts: that the projector impresses a quality (impetus) into the projectile, and this quality thereafter acts as the proximate causa movens propelling the projectile. Buridan: “ille impetus est una qualitas innata movere corpus, cui impressa est” — the impetus is a quality capable of moving the body in which it is impressed. Under this description, the projectile would be moved from within, by its own internal quality, which is its motor.

The strength of the argument lies in the minor. Aristotle defines violent motion as “that whose moving principle is outside, the thing compelled contributing nothing” (Phys. VIII, 4, 255a2; De caelo III, 2, 301b17–18). St. Thomas explains the force of this definition: “It is not to be understood that the power of a violent mover imparts to a stone that is moved by violence some power by which it is moved, just as the power of a generator imparts to the generated the form that results from natural movement: for then violent movement would be from an intrinsic principle, which is contrary to the nature of violent movement.” (In III De caelo, lect. 7, n. 6). If an intrinsic virtue were impressed by the projector and the motion arose from that virtue, violent motion would have an intrinsic source — which is precisely what makes it not violent. Therefore the definition of violent motion logically excludes any internal motor. To deny this would be to equate violent motion to another type of motion, such as voluntary motion, which has its principle from within, or a motion in quality, which would only beg the question as to the efficient cause of local motion.

Argument from the Analogy Between Nature and Impetus (from Domingo de Soto, Sup. Lib. Phys., VIII, q. 3)

Major: Just as, in natural motion, the efficient cause (causa efficiens) is the generans and not the natural form or gravity — which are merely the principium — so too, in violent motion, the efficient cause is the proiciens (projector) and not the impetus — which is, at most, a principium or instrumental virtue.

Minor: But impetus, even conceding its existence as an accidental quality in the projectile, is an implanted, alien, and extrinsic quality — not an independent agent really distinct from and superior to the projectile.

Conclusion: Therefore, impetus — if it exists — stands to violent motion as natural form stands to natural motion: as a principium, not as a motor. The one and only per se efficient cause of the projectile’s motion is and remains the proiciens, even after the projectile has left the thrower’s hand.

The major we prove as follows. The analogy between nature and impetus is structurally precise. In natural motion: the generans gives the form, then the form is the principium (not the motor), then the form is not really distinct from the body, therefore no efficient causality inheres in the form, so the generans remains the per se cause. Domingo de Soto makes this analogy explicit: “Just as the one who generates a heavy object gives it a natural quality, which is gravity, by which it moves it all the way to the center, so too the one who throws it strikes the object by which it moves it at a distance.” (Super libros Physicorum, VIII, q. 3, fol. 104v). In both cases, the implanted quality (gravity / impetus) is the principium, not the causa efficiens. Capreolus also claims impetus can be no more than a “detached instrumental cause” of the thrower, not a mover.

The minor is easily verifiable. All impetus theorists agree that impetus is a qualitas impressa — a quality received from without, alien to the projectile’s nature, violently imposed and destined to be overcome by the projectile’s natural inclinations. It is not a substance; it is not an independent agent; it is an accident inherent in the projectile. As such, it lacks the ontological standing of a proper efficient cause (causa efficiens), which must be really distinct from, and able to act upon, the thing it moves.

Argument from the Real Distinction Required Between Mover and Moved

Major: An efficient mover (motor efficiens) of a body must be really distinct from the body it moves, such that the motion genuinely proceeds ab alio and not a seipso.

Minor: Impetus, as a quality inhering in the projectile, is not really distinct from the projectile in the required sense; it inheres in the substance as an accident in a subject, forming with it a single per accidens composite — not two really distinct agents.

Conclusion: Therefore, impetus, lacking real distinction from the subject in which it inheres and lacking suppositum, cannot exercise the role of an efficient mover (motor) upon the projectile. It can only be the vehicle — the instrumental principium — through which the original proiciens continues, in a diminishing way, to be the sole per se efficient cause of the projectile’s violent motion.

This follows from the demonstration of Phys. VII, 1: “everything that is moved must be moved by something else” (242a14–16), because to move and to be moved are really distinct acts requiring distinct subjects. St. Thomas: “To move and to be moved differ, because to move implies active causality, while to be moved implies passive causality.” (In VII Phys., lect. 1). The mover must be aliud — genuinely other — with respect to what is moved.

The minor we prove as follows: quality and its composite do not constitute two really distinct agents capable of mutual efficient causality. The quality does not act on the composite as if from outside; it is constituted in it. St. Thomas and Domingo de Soto make this clear: “Because impulse is not a suppositum, it does not act, but is the power of an agent, for example a motor.” (de Soto, op. cit., fol. 104v–105r). What lacks suppositum — subsistence in its own right — cannot properly be a mover.

Synthesis: Compatibility with Newtonian Inertia

We are now in a position to see why Newtonian inertia poses no threat to the authentic Thomistic and Aristotelian doctrine.

Newton’s first law states that a body continues in its state of rest or of uniform rectilinear motion unless compelled to change that state by impressed forces. No continuously acting pusher is required to maintain constant velocity.

The Averroistic doctrine says that every body in motion requires a present motor here and now. Therefore it is in direct conflict with Newtonian inertia.

But the authentic Thomistic doctrine says nothing of the kind. It says:

• The generator who imparted the substantial form is the per se efficient cause of natural motions.

• The projector who imparted an initial impulse is the per se efficient cause of violent motions.

• Thomists do not read the principle as “whatever is in motion is being moved by another.”

• The form and impetus are principles, not motors.

• No conjoined motor accompanies the body in natural or projectile motion.

Far from contradicting inertia, the Thomistic position structurally anticipates its key insight: a body in natural or rectilinear inertial motion does not need a continuously acting external force because it already has, from its generator, everything it needs to move.

Edmund Whittaker, a well-known physicist and historian, published a critique of the First Way arguing that the kinesiological principle “is irreconcilable with sound dynamical science.” But the irony is that he has in fact criticized the Averroist and late Averroist view on sound Thomistic grounds. Whittaker attacked Averroes. He missed St. Thomas entirely.

And interestingly, the Averroist interpretation, presented by modern historians of science as the “Aristotelian view,” did not have to wait until the seventeenth century to be discredited; it was already discredited in the thirteenth on strictly Aristotelian grounds.

V. Thesis V: The Thomistic School, the Moderns, and Garrigou-Lagrange

The authentic Thomistic tradition initially preserved the correct understanding with remarkable clarity. Capreolus and Domingo de Soto accepted the reality of an impressed force in the projectile while insisting, with equal firmness, that this force is not a proper efficient motor.

“The true efficient cause of projectile motion is the thrower. Impetus is at most a separated instrumental cause of the thrower.”

— John Capreolus, Defensiones theologiae divi Thomae, II Sent., dist. 6

Domingo de Soto makes the structural parallel explicit: the generator gives nature from which natural motion follows; the projector gives impetus from which violent motion follows. But nature is not an efficient cause; impetus is not an efficient cause. Nature is an intrinsic formal principle; impetus is an alien, borrowed, impressed principle. In both cases, the efficient cause is the one who gave the principle, not the principle itself.

The stone is thrown by the boy. It is not thrown by a little motor called impetus. The impetus is the instrumental trace of the original thrower’s causality.

Over time, however, this careful balance eroded. The scholastic manuals of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, increasingly influenced by a revived Averroism that came packaged as orthodox Aristotelianism, began treating the impetus as a genuine motor coniunctus. The strong reading re-entered scholastic physics through the back door.

Antoine Goudin, whose manual was widely used, exemplifies this tendency. He says in his Philosophia that the thrower imparts an impetus “capable of serving as motor.” And Garrigou-Lagrange, drawing on Goudin, makes it explicit: the impetus must be posited as a real force capable of serving as present motor. Inertia must therefore be contested.

But as Garrigou writes: “There is no less change in the transition from one position to another in the course of movement, than in the transition from repose to motion itself; if, therefore, this first change demands another cause, the following changes demand it for the same reason.” (God: His Existence and His Nature, vol. I)

This is the Averroistic structure exactly:

• Motion as presently existing requires a present motor.

• If no external motor appears, posit an internal dynamic force.

• Inertia must therefore be rejected.

The Thomistic structure is categorically different:

• Potency requires act for its actualization.

• The natural form is principium quo, not efficient motor.

• The generator gives the form.

• Motion follows upon the form as actus secundus.

• Therefore inertia is not the enemy of the First Way.

To be fair to Garrigou-Lagrange: he is not an Averroist in general. His overall Thomistic metaphysics is acceptable. But on this specific question — the correct interpretation of the kinesiological principle as applied to local motion — his defense of the First Way drifts into the very Averroistic error that Thomas explicitly repudiated.

Summary of Objections and Replies

Objection I

Aquinas says plainly: whatever is moved is moved by another. Therefore, if a stone is falling now, it must be moved by another now.

Reply

I distinguish.

If “moved” (movetur) means: is being reduced from radical potency to actus primus — I grant: it depends upon another, namely the generator.

If “moved” means: possesses continued local motion following upon a form already received and fully constituted in actus primus — I deny that this requires a conjoined external pusher at every instant.

The stone’s form is from another. Its being is from another. Its natural inclination is from another. Its motion follows upon that received nature as actus secundus. So if a stone is falling, the efficient mover of it is the one who imparted the form — for example, the air that cooled the lava, which, in turn, was being moved by the Earth, and so on. The principle is fully preserved without positing a present motor coniunctus.

Objection II

If the body continues in motion without a present mover, then motion exists without a cause.

Reply

The cause is not absent simply because it is not a present mechanical pusher. In natural motion, the cause is the generator who gave the form; in projectile motion, the cause is the projector who gave the impressed principle. In both cases, the motion depends upon another. What is denied is only the need for a present conjoined motor continuously pushing at each instant.

Objection III

Newtonian inertia says motion continues without force. Does it not deny causality?

Reply

Newtonian inertia denies the need for impressed force to maintain uniform rectilinear motion. It belongs to mathematical physics and concerns the quantitative conditions of velocity change. It does not deny the need for a cause of being, of nature, of form, of the initial conditions of motion, or of the order of actualization as such. Those questions pertain more properly to philosophy. It does not say that potency actualizes itself. It says only that, within mathematical mechanics, velocity once attained persists without continuous driving force. That is a theorem of mechanics, not a refutation of metaphysics — one that is, in turn, fully compatible with Thomism.

Objection IV

If Aquinas allows motion in a void without resistance, does he not abandon Aristotle?

Reply

No. Thomas distinguishes Aristotle’s dialectical arguments against the atomists — which were never meant as strict demonstrations of the impossibility of motion in a void — from the properly philosophical account of motion. He follows the philosopher Avempace against Averroes on this point: velocity is determined not by resistance from the medium but by the time required to cover a given distance. Natural bodies require time because they have a given distance to traverse in a quantitative space, not because they need something to push against. This is not a departure from Aristotle; it is a purification of Aristotle from Averroes.

Objection V

But if inertia is true, then local motion as uniform rectilinear motion requires no actualization at all. Does this not contradict the act-potency framework?

Reply

Not at all. Local motion, even when uniform, involves the successive actuation of real positional potencies: the body is successively here, then there. Each of these positions is a genuine actus secundus of the nature in question. What inertia denies is not that these actualizations occur, but that they require a continuously impressed external force to continue occurring. This is entirely consistent with the Thomistic account: the generator who imparted the nature is the per se cause of all that follows from it in second act, unless impeded.

Objection VI

Does not this interpretation make the kinesiological principle trivially true?

Reply

The principle as applied in the First Way is not restricted to local motion. Thomas explicitly intends movetur in the widest sense of any coming-into-being, including every actualization of potency and ultimately the actualization of esse itself. The First Way ascends from physical motion to the metaphysical order of act and potency, and from there to the conclusion that there must be a First Actuality, pure act, not reducible from any prior potency. The scope of the principle, properly understood, is fully sufficient for this ascent. Newton does not touch it.

Conclusion

We can now return to the beginning.

Aquinas opens the First Way:

“It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.”

— St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3

Then:

“Whatever is moved is moved by another.”

— St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3

And the explanation:

“Nothing can be reduced from potency to act except by something in act.”

— St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3

That final line in this section of the argument is the center of gravity of the First Way: not “velocity needs a pusher” but “potency cannot actualize itself.”

This is a metaphysical principle. Not a physical one.

The puck sliding on frictionless ice does not refute it.

The arrow flying after leaving the bow does not refute it.

The stone falling without a visible conjoined motor does not refute it.

None of these things has actualized itself. Each of them presupposes being, a determinate nature, an initial actualization, a causal order. Each of them is what it is because something else made it to be what it is. The principle is not about the persistence of velocity; it is about the dependency of the finite on the actual.

So the next time someone says that Newton refuted Aquinas, ask them a simple question:

Which Aquinas?

If by Aquinas you mean a caricature — the figure who believed that every body with velocity must be continuously pushed by another body — then yes, inertia refutes that. But that figure is Averroes, not Aquinas.

If by Aquinas you mean the philosopher who taught that whatever is reduced from potency to act is reduced by another already in act; that no nature generates itself; that the order of actualization is intelligible only if there is a first actualizer who is not himself reduced from potency; then inertia does not refute him. It does not even address him. It operates on a different plane entirely.

The great irony of the history of this debate is this: many of those who attacked Aquinas were in fact attacking Averroes. And many of those who defended Aquinas were in fact defending Averroes. Both sides accepted the Averroistic framing of the principle, and then fought about whether to affirm or deny it. Neither side looked carefully at what St. Thomas actually wrote.

What St. Thomas wrote, in his commentary on De caelo, is that Averroes’ view is omnino falsum. Altogether false.

The stone falling downward is not being pushed by a hidden motor. Its form is not a little efficient engine. The air is not dragging it. The generator gave the form. The form is the principle by which the motion occurs, not the motor which causes it. The motion follows upon the form as actus secundus follows upon actus primus — immediately, spontaneously, without a supervening agent.

The projectile flying through the air does not need a tiny engine inside it. If there is an impetus, it is not a supposit acting as motor. It is an instrumental virtue from the original projector — an instrument that carries, diminishingly, the causality of the one who threw.

The principle of inertia does not destroy the First Way.

It destroys only the thesis that motion, as velocity, must be continuously sustained by a conjoined pusher.

That thesis was Averroes’.

Thomas rejected it in the thirteenth century.

The true principle is deeper, and untouchable:

Whatever is in potency cannot actualize itself as potency. Whatever is moved — whatever is brought from potency to act — is moved by another. And unless there is a first unmoved mover, a First Act, a being whose actuality owes nothing to any prior potency, nothing in the universe is ultimately intelligible.

The modern critic aimed at Aquinas.

The bullet hit Averroes.

And the Thomists should stop jumping in front of it.

Appendix A: The Proofs of Omne Quod Movetur Ab Alio Movetur

The principle omne quod movetur ab alio movetur is not properly proved as though it were a remote conclusion. Rather, once the terms are correctly understood, it becomes evident. To be moved is to be reduced from potency to act; and what is in potency, precisely as such, cannot reduce itself to act. Still, because one can easily confuse motion, self-motion, nature, and causality, we can explain and manifest the principle in three ways, as does St. Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles.

Proof I: From the Impossibility of Primary Self-Motion in a Divisible Thing

If something moves itself, it must be moved by itself primarily and not merely through one of its parts. Otherwise, it would not be the thing that moves itself, but one part moving another, as in animals: the animal moves because one part is mover and another is moved.

Moreover, everything that is moved is divisible — as is evident from the necessity of partition into potency and act, and from the intermediary states of motion manifesting partly the terms a quo and ad quem during the motion (cf. Aristotle, Physics VI, c. 4, 234b10 ss.; St. Thomas, In Physic., lib. VI, lect. 5, n. 796).

Now, if, while one part rests, another part still moves, then the whole would not be primarily moved; rather, the part that remains in motion would be primarily moved. Therefore, if one part of it comes to rest, the whole must come to rest. But nothing that comes to rest because another comes to rest moves itself. For if the rest of one thing follows upon the rest of another, then the motion of the one also follows upon the motion of the other. Therefore, such a thing is not moved by itself.

Hence, what was supposed to move itself does not in fact move itself. Therefore, whatever is moved is moved by another.

Syllogistically:

Major. Whatever moves itself primarily must not depend, in its being moved, upon another.

Minor. But every moved thing is divisible and depends, in its being moved, upon its parts.

Conclusion. Therefore no divisible moved thing moves itself primarily; whatever is moved is moved by another.

Proof II: From Induction Through All Types of Motion

The second argument is by induction on all the types of motion.

First, as we have seen, objects are moved either per se or accidentally. But to be moved accidentally is not to move oneself, for it is to be moved by another.

Now, if the object is moved per se, it can be moved naturally, by violence, or voluntarily, as we have seen. If naturally, it is moved by the generator and by that which removed the obstacles; if voluntarily, it is the case of animals (one part moved by another); if by violence, it is evident that something is required to contradict nature.

Therefore, we can find a mover for all kinds of motion.

In syllogistic form:

Major. Everything moved falls under one of these modes: accidental motion, violent motion, natural motion of self-movers, or natural motion of heavy and light bodies.

Minor. In each of these modes, we can determine a mover.

Conclusion. Therefore whatever is moved is moved by another.

Note 1: I can see some less attentive readers might think there is some sort of circularity here — in the article we found the movers given the principle, now we prove the principle given the movers. But this is not the case. In the article, we did not assume the principle; we simply found the movers in each case of motion — and thus the principle follows.

Note 2: Throughout the article we have investigated terms such as “violent motion” and “natural motion” for local motion only, but in this case do not forget that it applies to all kinds of “violent motion,” such as the heating of water.

Proof III: From Act and Potency

This third argument is the most famous.

Nothing is, at the same time and under the same aspect, in act and in potency with respect to the same thing. But whatever is moved, insofar as it is moved, is in potency; for motion is the act of what exists in potency insofar as it is in potency. And whatever moves, insofar as it moves, is in act; for nothing acts except insofar as it is in act.

Therefore, nothing is, with respect to the same motion, both mover and moved. Therefore, nothing moves itself. Hence, whatever is moved is moved by another.

In syllogistic form:

Major. Nothing can be simultaneously in act and in potency with respect to the same thing and under the same aspect.

Minor. But the moved, as moved, is in potency; and the mover, as mover, is in act.

Conclusion. Therefore nothing is mover and moved with respect to the same motion; whatever is moved is moved by another.

This is the deepest reason for the principle. The potential, precisely as potential, does not actualize itself. What is moved must therefore be reduced from potency to act by another.

Appendix B: The Fundamentals for Such an Error

While this Appendix deserves a dedicated article, it is nonetheless interesting to outline the following thesis, given its profound structural correlation with the preceding arguments.

The great 20th-century Thomist Cornelio Fabro performed an invaluable service by identifying the various “inflections” or deviations that have historically distorted the Thomistic tradition. A primary concern of his was the introduction of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) — the postulate that every effect must possess a sufficient reason to determine why it is such and not otherwise — into the metaphysical deduction of the principle of causality. This conceptual move serves only to obscure the authentic triumph of St. Thomas: the synthesis of Aristotelian horizontal causality with Platonic vertical causality through the profound doctrine of participation.

Though frequently termed Leibnizian, the PSR was formally anticipated by the Jesuit Sylvester Maurus and finds its earlier roots in the Avicennian De Sufficientia. This principle permeated Scholastic manuals with remarkable speed, eventually contaminating even those claiming the Thomistic mantle; its influence is discernible in Gonet, Goudin, and Billuart, reaching explicit articulation in the works of Pesch, Liberatore, Zigliara, Sanseverino, Garrigou-Lagrange, and many, many others. By founding the principle of causality upon the PSR, these thinkers created a philosophical exigency to seek a motor coniunctus, hic et nunc, to account for the persistence of projectile motion. They demanded a sufficient reason at every instant for the object’s displacement, thereby making the Averroistic interpretation of the kinesiological principle necessary and the adoption of the Buridanian theory of impetus extremely suitable.

The fundamental error, as Fabro rightly insists, is that St. Thomas never employs the PSR as the ground for the principle of causality. And I would go even further than him. The proto-understanding of the PSR by Avicenna was repudiated by St. Thomas (ST Ia, q. 115, a. 6) and further rejected by Cajetan in his commentary — but this will be further expanded on another occasion.

The Fathers and Theologians have always described the sacraments as a sign; it is, of course, unique in the genus of sign insofar as it causes the grace that it signifies, yet a sign nevertheless. A sign garners its precise notion from its order to an intellect. It is meant to cause knowledge of some reality. Therefore, if we are not attentive to the precise nature of a sacrament as a sign, then our sacramentology will be quite deficient.

“Yes, we know that it is a sign, yet we focus on the effect of the sacrament, so what is the harm?” In this common sentiment, there is a subtle error that is quite hard to catch. A sign is determined as such and such a sign by what it primarily signifies. The sacraments primarily signify the internal grace communicated by the sacraments. This much is true. Yet, the subtle error is to go from the premise that the sacraments primarily signify the grace given in the sacrament to the error that the sacraments exclusively signify the grace given in the sacrament.

Since the sacrament is a practical sign, there are two lines that we can distinguish in the sacrament. First, the line of formal causality, i.e., what the sacrament formally gives, the grace that it formally contains, e.g., in baptism the grace of regeneration. Second, the line of intentional causality, i.e., what the sacrament reveals to the intellect.

Let’s say that God chose to sanctify us all at once and perfect man in an instant rather than gradually leading us from grace to glory as he does now; under this supposition, the line of formal causality and the line of intentional causality would be one and the same. There would be no distinction between these two orders. Yet, God has not chosen to sanctify us in this way, choosing to, in accordance with our human condition, gradually bring us step-by-step from grace to glory, through various different stages of the spiritual life. Hence, the graces given in the sacraments signify much more than they formally give. The intentional line, therefore, is much broader than the formal line.

In the formal line are signified sanctifying grace and those particular, unique graces given in each of the sacraments. In the intentional line is signified the total effect of sanctifying grace in general and of those unique graces in particular. Since all are called to mystical perfection, each and every sacrament signifies within itself the total development of the supernatural organism and its highest development (including the unitive way, the perfection of the spiritual life on earth, to which we are all called), along with the glory of heaven. Further, each particular sacrament signifies within itself the perfect development of those particular graces that are given in the sacrament (especially applicable to matrimony and holy orders).

Yet, there is even greater news. There is actually a vital union between these two lines outside of merely the intentional (intellectual) order. Not only do these sacraments signify these perfect realities, but they also cause these perfect realities.

Note that I said that these sacraments signify much more than they formally give. While they only formally give the beginnings and inchoate form of these higher realities, these sacraments virtually give the full development of these higher realities. When one plants a seed into the ground, only a seed is formally given, yet the entire tree in all its vitality is virtually given to the ground.

God, who is faithful and just, always more willing to give than we are to ask, has given and promised the perfection and full development of these graces to those who worthily make use of the ordinary means, including mortification, prayer, and the sacraments. The faithful soul can be assured that God, who infallibly grants these beginnings to those who do not place an obstacle in the way, will also infallibly grant the perfection of these graces to those who make good use of those same sacraments. Thus, the full line of intentional causality is either virtual (for all) or formal (for those who are perfect), yet is absent from none.

The formal cause of something is that which inheres in a thing, actualizing, specifying, and giving entity by its presence. The formal effects are what the form gives to the thing in which it inheres, whether, properly, a) primarily and positively, b) secondarily and privatively, or, improperly, c) consequently and concomitantly. While the first two are proper and per se formal effects, as Ramirez teaches, the last is only improperly a formal effect; it is in the line of efficient cause (effectus quasi effectivi proprie dicti), proceeding from a formal effect per accidens and consequently, in the line of efficient causality (as demeriting). The first takes place in those qualities that begin to reside in the subject (as light illuminates a body). The second takes place in the expulsion of whatever is contrary to the form (as light drives out darkness). The third takes place when something isn’t formally expelled, yet, as a result of some aspect of the form, the reality is dissolved (as when the soul is severed from the body by the corruption of the body).

It is Roman Catholic dogma that the only formal cause required for justification is sanctifying grace. Hence, anything in the line of formal effect in justification must either be grace or be one of the formal effects of grace. This is against the Protestant doctrine that places the personal justice of Christ imputed to us as a formal cause in justification.

Sanctifying grace is a certain supernatural quality that is infused into the soul. Its primary and positive effects are the sanctification of the soul, an adoptive sonship, and right to eternal life. Its secondary and privative effect principally includes the removal of the stain of sin since the stain of sin is a privation of right rectitude, which is exactly what is given by sanctifying grace. Hence, one of the formal effects of sanctifying grace is the “remission of sins” whereby the privation is removed as light drives away darkness and heat drives away cold. Now, as we saw above, the proximate foundation for the obligation to punishment is the order that results from the stain of sin against the order of justice. Hence, the obligation is removed as to its foundation, i.e., consequently and concomitantly, yet not as one of sanctifying grace’s formal effects. The reason for this is that a formal cause and its formal effects change the intrinsic character of the subject in which it inheres. Yet, as a relation, the formal character of the obligation to punishment is found in something relative (respectus), not in something absolute. Hence, the removal of the obligation to punishment is not, properly speaking, a formal effect of sanctifying grace, although it can be described as an effect that is consequent and concomitant to the infusion of sanctifying grace insofar as that quality in which it has its foundation is removed.

Yet, there is more as well. There is a difficulty that is present here in the very order of justice. For, justice ordains that certain acts ought to be punished with proportionate punishments. This rule is upheld ultimately in the eternal law and the very justice of God ordaining it to punishment. Hence, there is a relation of reason on the part of God towards the punishment of the unjust. Now, while the foundation for the obligation to punishment may have been dissolved on the part of the one who is justified, on the part of the penal order and the judge who upholds it, there has not been an adequate satisfaction of the punishment due to such a crime and the judge has not been propitiated as to the punishment he wills to inflict by justice on the one sinning. Hence, while the dissolution of the foundation can explain the removal in the penal order on the part of the one who sins and is justified, yet it does not explain it on the part of the penal order itself (which requires satisfaction) or on the part of the judge who upholds the penal order (which requires propitiation). This is not to say that these other two aspects are not necessarily connected with the removal of the obligation to punishment on the part of the subject, yet it is to say that it does not adequately explain it on its own. Other things are needed. The right to punish is foregone by God by his merciful forgiveness of sins (condonatio). The penal order is satisfied by the voluntary satisfaction of Christ suffering which is imputed to us.

This condonatio must be an objectively conditional decree of God rather than an objectively absolute decree (i.e., “if a man has sanctifying grace and its formal effects along with the satisfaction of Chirst is applied to x, then the punishment will not occur”), which is not purely arbitrary, but based on the real dissolution of the foundation for the obligation to punishment in man from sanctifying grace and the satisfaction of Christ for sins, along with the various inconveniences that would follow from such ordination to eternal punishment from one with sanctifying grace and its primary formal effects.

It would be quite crude to think of this process as we would the appeasing of a wrathful man. The man enraged by an offense receives some beloved object and this quells his wrath, turning him peaceful. Yet, quite the opposite happens on the case of God. The denomination of God as punisher-of-Peter and as not-punisher-of-Peter are each extrinsic and arise from some condition on the part of the object which forms the basis of the relation of reason. God has eternally willed, as an act of justice and mercy, to not punish such-and-such a man if the proper conditions are met on the part of the object (i.e., satisfaction, propitiation, and remission). This is an eternal decree of God; for a man to pass from punished to not-punished does not change anything on the part of God (who is immutable), rather it is some change on the part of the object. It is here that we say that there is a change of extrinsic denomination. To give an analogy, before the creation of the world, God was not ‘Creator’ since ‘Creator’ assumes ‘creation.’ Yet, when creation comes to be, God is now know as ‘Creator’ due to the dual foundation of the eternal act of his immutable will willing creation in time and the actual coming into being of creation in time. There is no change on the part of God, but a change of extrinsic denomination. In a similar manner, God-as-propitiated is an extrinsic denomination as well, based on the dual foundation of his eternal will to accept propitiation (willing not to punish in such a case) and the actual existence of propitiation.

Objection. Doesn’t this make additional formal causes?

It is here that terminological imprecision has tortured the minds of men. Remember this principle from above: the formal cause is that which informs the thing. Not everything can be a formal cause or properly has a formal cause.

First, God has no formal cause. The extinction of the extrinsic order of punishment by God’s merciful forgiveness has no formal cause. What would it be? Who could assert that there is some sort of informing form that actualizes God? Rather, the merciful forgiveness of God is really identical with the simple, eternal, and uncreated act of God. This is simply infallibly connected with the infusion of grace, but does not offer a distinct formal cause. There are many other reasons why such a juridical act would be absurdly labeled as a distinct formal cause, but this is the easiest to see.

Second, the transient act of satisfaction itself cannot be a formal cause. The transient act is only formal in its terminus; a transient act is not form, it produces form in another. Hence, we can either consider it as terminating in God (i.e., ascending to God to impetrate forgiveness) or as terminating in the creature (i.e., descending to us as meritorious cause of grace). In the former case, we can give the same as the first argument. In the latter case, it reduces to our consideration of sanctifying grace above.

Neither of these two aspects to our redemption can be a formal cause for the much simpler reason that they do not inhere and inform some subject, actualizing and specifying that subject. To describe them as a formal cause is a sharp abuse of language.

Hence, when we consider each of the formal effects of justification in the sanctification of man, the expulsion of guilt, and the removal of the foundation for the obligation to punishment, the sole formal cause of these effects is sanctifying grace. Other realities concomitant with or consequent to such an infusion are not additional formal causes, nor can they be in each case that they have been brought forward. Rather, as Catholic theologians teach, such are only properly in the line of efficient cause, not in the line of formal cause.

As mentioned, a word is a conception somehow proceeding from the apprehension of a certain object. Hence, when I see a dog, the intellectual conception of a dog is produced in my mind immaterially as some intentional being. Then, there is the production of a word that resides in the intellect, yet takes upon itself a certain direction towards a material production. Lastly, there is the material production itself of the external word, meant to signify the apprehension of the thing.

Therefore, it quite clearly follows that there is a second question governing our investigation. If a word proceeds from the apprehension of some object by knowing that object, then we can very rightly investigate what knowledge Christ as the Word of God proceeds from. It is not hard to see that the Word of God proceeds from the apprehension of God Himself. Hence, Christ is not only the Word of God, but is also the Image of God and perfect representative of His substance. Just as my intellectual apprehension of a fish produces a fish in my intellect in intentional being, so also does God’s intellectual apprehension of Himself produce Himself in real being. This part is easy.

The difficult part comes in when we begin asking questions about how this relates to creatures, whether possible or actual. Is the Word of God an image of all creation as well? The Fathers and Scholastics quite clearly answer “yes.” This follows as a clear corollary when we understand how God understands creatures; He understands all things through Himself. Hence, it follows that, when God understands Himself and produces a Word, the representation of Himself will also be a representation of what is imaged in Him, which includes creatures. [1]

It is also for this reason that all things are said to be created through the Word, since the intellectual apprehension of some thing is the intellectual principle by which the agent operates. The builder builds through the intellectual image that he has of the building; in like manner, creation comes from the Father through the Son.

Yet, we go even further than this; not only does God create through the Son, but all creation is also spoken in and through the eternal speaking of the Word. This follows as an obvious corollary. God’s knowledge is not only representative and manifestive, but also operative. As St. Thomas teaches, God is the cause of things by His knowledge joined to His will (ST.I.Q14.A8).

It is for these reasons that the Fathers and Scholastics (e.g., QDeVer.Q4.A4-8) spoke quite clearly of the unique way in which the Word represents creation and concurs in the creation of things. It can be said that the Word is the perfect representative of the Divine Substance, that the Word is the perfect representative of Creation, and that Creation uniquely images (improperly, though truly) the Eternal Word.

This eternal reality truly anchors a more profound meditation on the state of the Incarnation. Just as the eternal begetting is the eternal conception and speaking forth of God, so also is the temporal mission (sending) of the Word in time by the Incarnation the temporal conception and speaking forth of God. In this way, it is not only the eternal begetting of the Son that manifests and images forth the Father, but also the temporal Incarnation of the Son that manifests and images forth the Father. Hence, the very flesh of Christ becomes the living, created image of the Godhead in time. Just like my conception of “fish” is clearly and externally manifested in my speaking of the material word “fish,” so also the eternal conception of God in the Word is clearly and externally manifested in the “speaking forth” that takes place in the Incarnation. When Our Divine Master said, “He who sees Me sees the Father,” He was not only speaking of His Divine Nature and Hypostasis; He was also speaking about His Human Nature, His flesh and bones.

Yet, we can go even further than this; remember, the Word is not only the expressive Image of the Godhead; He is also the expressive and operative Image of all creation. Hence, Christ’s Sacred Humanity not only expresses and hence reveals to us a clear image of the Deity as an externally spoken word; it also expresses and hence reveals to us a clear image of Creation as an externally spoken word. It is for this reason that it was especially fitting that the Word become a man and not an angel or some other creature; for man is a synthesis of all creation, both spiritual and corporeal, as a synthesis of soul and body.

It is here that the true profundity of the Sacred Heart is set in full relief. The soul is the principal part of man, and his heart is that image of the entire person, from which his thoughts, affections, and acts flow. Thus, when distinguishing the aspects of Christ’s humanity, we see that the heart is that image of Christ, whose humanity is an external image of God and all Creation. Yet, there is another reality that ties together the reflections on the Word as eternally conceived and the Word as externally manifested to us; the act of the heart is love, and Christ has two loves, the created and finite (yet perfect) love of His Sacred Humanity and the uncreated and infinite love of His Divinity; hence, the Sacred Heart becomes a symbol not only of the dignity and perfection of His Sacred Humanity and its love, but also of the dignity and perfection of His Divinity and its love. It is crucial to highlight this point. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is not merely a symbol of His human love for us, but of His entire love for us, both human and divine.

From this, we conclude that the Sacred Heart is a most perfect synthesis and expression of all things. Its noble affections of love become to us the image of all love and goodness, both divine and created, revealed to us in each of its modes, both internal and eternal in the bosom of the Father and external and temporal in His revelation to men by the Incarnation. Now, since habits are manifested through their acts and externally manifested through external actions, the Passion reveals its true significance as well. What the Sacred Heart is to the line of entity and internal affection, the Passion is to the external line and action. In the Passion, we see nothing but the entire humanity of Christ acting and suffering in order to reveal His Most Sacred Heart to men. Yet, as a corollary of the above, the Passion also becomes true wisdom to us, a knowledge both of the Godhead, the most profound will and affections of the Father for us, and of all of creation reflected most clearly in the Deity and spoken in time most clearly in the Passion of Christ.

Lastly, we can view all of this in light of what was said concerning the third sense of the term “word.” Before we externalize our speech, there is a certain union between the spoken word and the intellectual conception that must occur. The very intention of the externalized word remains in our mind, hidden within us, before we will to reveal this to others.

In this way, the passion and the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus are truly the “mystery which hath been hidden from ages and generations, but now is manifested to his saints” (Col. 1:26) and Christ is the “Lamb who was slain from the beginning of the world.” (Rev. 13:8)

From this consideration, we can take the many statements of Scripture about the pre-existence of Christ, the intentionality of creation, etc., in a truly incarnate sense. It was not that Christ assumed flesh before the incarnation, rather it is that he holds the primacy of all things as that last word which he was to speak in the final days (Heb. 1:2). God created the entire universe for the Sacred Heart of Jesus to express all the modes of mercy and love in His passion as an act and expression of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the greatest Image of God Himself and all creation.

[1] NOTE. I am not aiming precisely for scholastic rigor in this article, but for a more synthetic treatment. It is to be noted that the Word proceeds per se from God’s necessary knowledge and per accidens and concomitantly from God’s free knowledge (cf. Sacrae Theologiae Summa, IIA, Book II, Chapter II, Article II, Thesis 37).

What is the best polemical work on justification?

Most of the scholastic treatments of the topic are simply not good for the purpose for which most people are asking. These treatments often focus more on disputes between theologians and arguments from reason than they do on positive grounds. They are also limited in the detail with which they recount the various positions within Protestantism and are often content with recounting one or two positions in a hasty way.

There is a significant advantage to reading mystical/spiritual theologians on the topic of justification and the supernatural organism. This allows the reader to understand the topic of justification in a more synthetic and organic manner than if they were to read the disputations of the scholastics concerning various school positions. As a personal note, one of my initial exposures to Catholic teaching on justification (outside of the works of St. Thomas) was Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s treatment in The Three Ages, which was when I began to understand the matter from a more profound and unified perspective. Yet, there are also significant disadvantages to this method. The authors of mystical theology are not primarily concerned with a polemical treatment of the matter, and citations of positive sources are given merely for illustration or application.

Finally, there are the positive sources themselves on the matter. There have been many very good commentaries on the Pauline Epistles (the greatest of which was written by St. Thomas, whose interpretation seems more angelic than human). Yet, these authors follow the exegetical method, not treating the matter systematically and often discussing matters outside the interest of the reader concerned with polemics. Another option would be to read the works of St. Augustine (whose writings on this matter are quite clear), such as De continentia, De spiritu et littera, and De fide et operibus. Yet, even this has its difficulties, since those reading such works do not have the conceptual framework necessary to compare the clear writings of the Doctor of Grace with the systems proposed by Protestant and Catholic authors.

Hence, we are relegated to polemical works—but which ones? There are many to this effect: Cajetan’s De fide et operibus, Soto’s De natura et gratia, Vega’s De iustificatione doctrina universa, Ravesteyn’s Apologiae against Chemnitz, etc. Many hold that the greatest work ever written against the Protestants was St. Bellarmine’s De iustificatione in his De Controversiis. I am quite sympathetic to this view. I become especially more sympathetic to it when combined with Fr. Erbermann’s excellent response to Gerhard, Ames, and others in defense of St. Bellarmine (learn more here).

Yet, I believe that the greatest work on the topic that I have come across is Fr. Thomas Stapleton’s Universa iustificationis. Fr. Stapleton’s excellence comes down to two points: method and orthodoxy.

Stapleton’s method is to treat a certain issue synthetically and then analyze the opponents’ positions in light of their root causes. This leads us away from logomachy and toward a true resolution of the problems at hand, while also completely uprooting the opponent’s entire error rather than offering the many partial refutations given by others, which allow for a resuscitation of the error with every new objection. In contrast, Fr. Stapleton virtually resolves all the errors at once.

Further, Fr. Stapleton follows the strict line of Augustino-Thomistic orthodoxy. Other authors in the era were willing to “innovate” on the tradition in order to provide some sort of middle ground between error and truth; yet, a half-truth is simply error. Despite the best intentions, the foolishness of this project was exposed from both sides, simultaneously failing to bring the heretics over to the side of Catholic truth and exposing themselves to the danger of heresy through words contrary to the Tridentine decree. Fr. Stapleton is clear in his orthodoxy and his commitment to the teaching of the Church along Augustino-Thomistic lines. If Fr. Stapleton states a position, you can be sure that he is giving no quarter to the Protestant position.

In this article, I want to give an exposition of his treatment in Book Seven on the issue of imputation and how Catholics envision the role of the righteousness of Christ in our justification. In order to do this, I want to divide this article into two parts:

1. The effects of Christ’s righteousness in general

2. Arguments against imputation

Part 1. The Effects of Christ’s Justice/Passion

While the phrase “righteousness of Christ” might seem quite simple, there are a variety of meanings that can be given to it. First, it is clear that there is a righteousness that is present in Christ’s divine nature and a righteousness that is present in Christ’s human nature. Christ’s divine righteousness is the uncreated attribute of His justice, which is purely actual and infinite. Christ’s human righteousness can be considered either habitually (and then as an accident perfecting the soul) or actually (and then in reference to the distinct acts of love that proceeded from the will of Christ). Christ’s habitual righteousness was so full and perfect that it never increased, yet His actual righteousness can be said to increase as He performs more distinct acts of love.

The distinction between the righteousness of Christ’s humanity and divinity is quite important when considering the causes of our justification. While the righteousness of Christ’s divinity is the efficient cause of our justification in an authoritative and originative manner, the righteousness of His humanity is the efficient cause of our justification as an instrumental and meritorious cause.

Yet, it is important here to make a note before we continue. While we can describe Christ’s righteousness as the “righteousness of His humanity,” such a way of speaking is less proper. Since supposits (persons) are subjects, not natures, it is better to speak of the acts, passions, and attributes of the whole person, who is a divine person. It is for this reason that all the acts of Christ are dignified infinitely, as the acts of a divine person (even if such acts are not always done by the divine nature).

Generally, we can say that the righteousness of Christ is the principle of our justification. The word “principle” refers to that from which something proceeds. There is no righteousness that comes to us except from Christ as the source, fount, and origin. Yet, it is to be recalled that justification brings about multiple effects due to the multiplicity of the aspects of change that must be wrought within us and the multiplicity of our defects. Hence, it must be affirmed that different aspects of the righteousness of Christ concur in different modes to the effecting of our justification in its multiple aspects. For this reason, the debate with the Protestants is not so much whether the righteousness of Christ is the sole, adequate, and entire principle of our justification, but in what mode the different aspects of Christ’s righteousness bring about the distinct effects of justification within us.

Before, we spoke briefly about the excellence of the righteousness of Christ, which is perfect and excels that of all men. In this sense, we speak about the righteousness of Christ as the exemplar of our justification; the righteousness of Christ is that perfect form of both habitual and actual righteousness that any righteousness we have will have as its model, especially in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Pelagians erred in completely restricting Christ’s causality in our justification to this exemplarity (i.e., that Christ is simply a model for the imitation of all believers). It is, of course, not incorrect for us to speak of our justice as imitating Christ, yet it is incorrect to completely restrict Christ’s causality in our justification to an instance of exemplar causality. The Protestants also erred on this point, but more about that later.

Beyond this exemplar causality, there also needs to be an effective or efficient concurrence of Christ in our justification, bringing about the effect of justification within us by some virtuality within Him. Now, efficient causality can be distinguished on the part of the principle, on the part of the effect, or on the part of the act. On the part of the principle, while Christ is a single subject of the acts of His humanity and His divinity, the principle by which (principium quo) He operates in either case is distinct, the former operating by His human nature, the latter by His divine nature. Now, as we went over above, the righteousness of Christ is distinguished into the righteousness of His divinity and the righteousness of His humanity (which is either actual or habitual). The former operates principally, by its own power and authority; yet, since it is created and participated, the righteousness of His humanity can only act as an instrument of the divinity. Hence, we speak about the divinity as the principal efficient cause of justification and the humanity as the instrumental efficient cause of justification.

Yet, we can go further than this. It is one thing to be the principle by which some subject operates (whether as the principal efficient cause or the instrumental efficient cause), and it is yet another thing to be that on account of which the effect comes about, which is called the meritorious cause. The meritorious cause is something in the genus of efficient cause, since it is something that concurs as a principle of the effect. Here, we are able to more precisely indicate Christ’s causality in our justification insofar as we can distinguish particular acts that merit particular effects of justification.

Generally, Christ’s actual righteousness merited for us the entire effect of justification, both the communication of grace and the remission of sin, just as Adam, by his actual disobedience, merited for us the entire effect of original sin: the guilt and corruption of original sin. While the entire life of Christ merited our justification, we especially speak about His Passion and death as particularly meriting the effects of justification.

This Passion justified us in a threefold way (the first two of which are common with earlier genera of causes). First, since the Passion was an act of the humanity of Christ conjoined to His divinity, it functioned as an instrumental cause in our justification. Second, since the Passion was a voluntary act, it functioned as a meritorious cause in our justification. Third, from its particular character, it justifies us by way of sacrifice and by way of redemption.

We denominate the Passion of Christ as a sacrifice insofar as it is something directed toward God, and as a redemption insofar as it brings about some effect within us.

a) A sacrifice is an offering made to another of some lovable thing. In relation to God, our sacrifices have four ends: adoration, thanksgiving, impetration, and propitiation. The fourth is the most important, as a sweet-smelling aroma to God that renders Him “propitious” toward our sins, willing to forgive the offenses committed.

b) Redemption is as distinct as the effects of sin removed in us by the Passion. Now, there are two effects of sin within us that must be removed by the Passion: the stain of sin and the punishment due to sin. Hence, there is a twofold effect of the redemption of Christ: redemption from sin and redemption from the punishment due to sin. The redemption from the punishment of sin is sometimes called “satisfaction.”

In this way, Christ becomes a full and adequate cause of our complete justification in the bestowal of grace and removal of sin in all the modes necessary for this end on His part and in all the necessary effects on our part. Stapleton summarizes:

Christ, then, is in this sense our righteousness: that he is the universal principle of our righteousness, and that in two ways. First, as the head of us all, by way of a spiritual influence into all his members. Second, as the Word incarnate, through whom all things have been restored, just as through the eternal Word all things were made. Again, he is our righteousness by way of merit, because in him and through him all our righteousness is accepted by God. The righteousness of Christ is likewise ours exemplarily, inasmuch as every righteousness worthy of the name must be conformed to it. Furthermore, by way of merit Christ’s righteousness again justifies us, because it merits for us the communication of the grace by which we are righteous, Christ himself, for this very cause, doing and suffering all things for us, that God might confer upon us such grace and righteousness. Finally, Christ is our righteousness because through his passion he reconciled us to God and satisfied for us, two things that necessarily had to precede the obtaining of righteousness (Heb. 9), but besides this, he redeemed and freed us from the very servitude of sin, cleansing our consciences by his shed blood (Jer. 31; Ezek. 36); that is, paying a price which, being accepted according to God’s will, God gave his law in our hearts, and caused us to walk in his commandments according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh. (Rom. 8)

Part 2. Arguments Against Imputation

It is only with this set forth that we are able to see the error of the Protestant formulation. The Protestants go further than what we set out above about Christ’s work in the genus of efficient cause and further posit that Christ’s very own qualities are in some way a formal cause. The formal cause is that cause which immediately communicates its own entity to the subject and denominates it to be such a thing (Zigliara); e.g., through the accidental form of whiteness, we become white. Hence, they teach that, in some way, the internal righteousness that is caused by Christ within us is insufficient to free us from the servitude of sin. Therefore, they conclude that we need an extrinsic form that makes up for what is lacking within us. By some intrinsic form, we are denominated as “non-righteous” (since the intrinsic form of righteousness infused within us is partial and inadequate), yet by the addition of some extrinsic form (Christ’s personal righteousness), we can be denominated as “righteous” when considered in its totality.

From what was taught above, we see that this is an error that principally touches the work of Christ. While Catholics place the entire work of Christ in the genus of efficient cause, the Protestants place the work of Christ partially in the genus of efficient cause (as bringing about a partial and imperfect righteousness within us) and partially in the genus of formal cause (as an extrinsic form that denominates us as righteous). Hence, many Catholic authors will distinguish between “formal imputation” and “efficient imputation.”

It is here that we are able to, without equivocation, analyze how the term “imputation” can or cannot be used by Catholics and lay down a general principle. If imputation is taken in the genus of formal cause, so that the total and adequate effect of Christ’s Passion is only such by extrinsic denomination, then it is non-Catholic; yet, if imputation is taken in the genus of efficient cause, so that Christ’s Passion adequately terminates in its effect, then it is Catholic. For example, we can speak of the “non-imputation” of sins insofar as the punishment for sin is removed on the part of God by propitiation and on our part by satisfaction, both of which are by the efficient causality of Christ. Yet, if by “non-imputation” someone were to posit that the punishment for sin is removed on the part of God by propitiation, yet deny that it is removed on the part of man by satisfaction (or vice versa), then his view would be erroneous.

I want to emphasize this last point since many Protestants cannot seem to understand this teaching. As referenced above, there are many effects of the Passion of Christ, whether with respect to the guilt of sin or its punishment, whether on the part of God or on the part of man, whether as God or as man, etc. In order for the total and adequate effect of justification to come about, each of these is necessary and integral to the effect. Hence, when we name one or another effect (e.g., the infusion of grace), we still require the other effects for the total, adequate, and integral effect to come about. For example, it is for this reason that many Catholic authors require God’s mercy at the final judgment alongside the inherent justice that we have. The infusion of justice and its formal effects within us cannot justify if, per impossibile, it is separated from the other effects of justification (in this case, the propitiation of God by Christ) in the line of efficient cause (how could it?).

Yet, we must deny the Protestant understanding of imputation, which holds that what Christ effects by His Passion is insufficient to justify us; hence, they posit that we are only adequately just by extrinsic denomination.

It is for this reason that many of the texts brought forth by Protestants against the Catholic view of justification lack demonstrative value. It is one thing to say that a certain effect of justification is insufficient of itself to adequately justify when abstracted from the other effects (e.g., sanctifying grace), yet it is a completely different thing to say that the formal effect of what is placed within us by the work of Christ does not denominate us as just without some extrinsic form. To put it another way, it is one thing to say that human life requires a body and soul in order for us to be alive and yet quite another thing to say that our life does not properly denominate us as living without the aid of some extrinsic form. In a similar way, it is one thing to say that a certain effect of justification (e.g., sanctifying grace) is not sufficient of itself without other conditions being present within us (e.g., the non-imputation of punishment), and yet another thing to say that a certain effect of justification does not have its formal effect in an adequate manner but requires an additional, extrinsic form in order to denominate us with such a quality.

To make a more relevant analogy, we can look at the mechanics of original sin. It is quite true that the possession of original sin is required on the part of man; yet, to be punished, it is equally necessary that there be the justice of God willing to punish. In a similar way, it is quite true that the possession of sanctifying grace is required on the part of man; yet, to be justified, it is equally necessary that there be the mercy of God willing to forgive. In either case, the intrinsic form is adequate, and the other conditions act as conditions for the application or continuance of the form rather than as a distinct formal cause.

Note. The Protestants assert some intrinsic form that abides within us. Hence, it is improper to speak of “pure imputation.” The difference concerns the perfection of this form. Catholic authors hold that this form essentially and intrinsically denominates one adequately as just, whereas Protestant authors posit that some extrinsic form is necessary as a co-cause, with the intrinsic form inadequately influencing the effect.

Against this teaching on imputation, Stapleton gives ten arguments, which I will recite and evaluate seven of them, along with adding some additional notes:

Read more

Among the most important works of the Reformation era was St. Robert Bellarmine’s De Controversiis. It prompted hundreds of responses from nearly every major Protestant author of the age, of every persuasion—whether Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, Socinian, and so on. To give some idea of the sheer scope of the anti-Bellarmine literature, the website Reformed Books Online has collected over 165 works against St. Bellarmine from the Reformed, the Anglicans, and the Lutherans alone.

It is often boasted by enemies of the Church that St. Bellarmine has been thoroughly refuted in each of his attacks on Protestantism and his defenses of “Romanism.” Yet this is far, far from the case. While the scope is not nearly so massive, there exists a robust body of Roman Catholic defenses of St. Bellarmine’s Controversies, written in direct response to some of the greatest of the Protestant attacks upon him. In this essay I want to give a brief overview of these works, in the form of notes.

To any Protestant readers: do not believe the anti-Bellarmine propaganda. Most of the responses to St. Bellarmine are not good, and can be readily refuted, whether by theological reasoning or by positive theology—and these works prove as much. While this body of literature is not as extensive as the literature against St. Bellarmine, in many cases the quality of its arguments makes up for the disparity tenfold.

Jacob Gretser, S.J. (d. 1625)

Fr. Gretser belonged to the first generation of defenders of St. Robert Bellarmine; indeed, St. Bellarmine corresponded with Gretser on various theological difficulties. The scope of his output is truly massive, as is evident from the 229 printed works listed by Sommervogel—to say nothing of his unpublished manuscripts.

His roughly 2,000-page defense of St. Robert Bellarmine occupies the eighth and ninth volumes of his collected works (Opera omnia). The eighth volume—split into two parts on account of its nearly 1,200-page length—defends St. Bellarmine’s first general controversy, De Verbo Dei (On the Word of God). The ninth volume defends the controversies on Christ and on the Roman Pontiff, together with appendices on select questions (with related material appearing elsewhere in the collected works).

Fr. Gretser refutes every author he could get his hands on—which, as it happens, included some of the ablest responses to St. Bellarmine. The principal figures he answers are Lambert Daneau (d. 1595), William Whitaker (d. 1595), Franciscus Junius (d. 1602), Aegidius Hunnius (d. 1603), David Pareus (d. 1622), and Sibrandus Lubbertus (d. 1625), among many others.

Vitus Erbermann, S.J. (d. 1675)

Fr. Erbermann represents the second generation of defenders of St. Robert Bellarmine. Born to German Lutheran parents, he directed his polemics mainly against Lutheran theologians, chiefly Johann Musäus (d. 1681) and Georg Calixtus (d. 1656).

His magnum opus, however, is his defense of St. Robert Bellarmine. This work is a thoroughgoing refutation of two important second-generation responses to St. Bellarmine, by the English Protestant William Ames (d. 1633) and the German Lutheran Johann Gerhard (d. 1637); in the course of his full defense he engages many other authors as well. The work was issued in four parts.

Fr. Christopher Holywood, S.J. (d. 1626)

Fr. Holywood was an Irish Jesuit who wrote a defense of St. Robert Bellarmine. Rather than a full defense of the Controversies, Fr. Holywood wrote a particular defense of St. Bellarmine on the question of the Vulgate: the Defensio decreti Tridentini et sententiæ Roberti Bellarmini (Antwerp, 1604). His main opponent in this text was William Whitaker (d. 1595), who was himself frequently refuted by Catholic theologians (e.g., Thomas Stapleton and William Reynolds).

Fr. Andreas Eudaemon-Joannes, S.J. (d. 1625)

Known as Cydonius, Fr. Eudaemon-Joannes was present at the deathbed of St. Robert Bellarmine. Throughout his life he defended the doctrine of St. Bellarmine and of his fellow Jesuits against the English Protestants. He wrote a work specifically against the anti-Bellarmine treatise of Lambert Daneau (d. 1595), titled Castigatio eorum quae adversus Roberti Cardinalis Bellarmini Controversias scripsit Lambertus Danaeus Calvinista (Ingolstadt, 1605).

The Poznań Defenders

In the first generation of attacks on St. Bellarmine, in the late sixteenth century, a circle formed around Fr. Ludovicus Rogerius, S.J. (d. 1602) at the Jesuit college in Poznań, Poland, which produced defenses of St. Bellarmine. These works were issued under the names of Rogerius’s students but are generally credited to Rogerius himself. They include a defense of Purgatory published under the name of Albert Wysocki, a canon of Poznań—Defensio pro libris de Purgatorio Illustrissimi Roberti Cardinalis Bellarmini (Poznań, 1602)—and a defense of the translation of the empire published under the name of Gaspar Hap—Defensio librorum illustriss. Cardinalis Roberti Bellarmini, de Translatione Imperii (Mainz, 1601).

Adam Contzen, S.J. (d. 1635)

Fr. Contzen was a German Jesuit whose principal scholarly work lay in the field of exegesis. He entered the arena of controversy in order to defend St. Robert Bellarmine’s teaching on the state of the first man and on sin against the attacks of the German Reformed theologian David Pareus (d. 1622). Many consider this the ablest defense of Catholic teaching on the subject against the Protestants—a judgment confirmed by St. Bellarmine himself, who reportedly called Contzen the “vindicator and defender” (vindex et defensor) of his writings. The two volumes are titled Defensio libri Cardinalis Roberti Bellarmini de gratia primi hominis (Mainz, 1613) and Defensio trium librorum Roberti Bellarmini de peccato (Mainz, 1614).

Péter Cardinal Pázmány, S.J. (d. 1637)

Born to Protestant parents, Cardinal Pázmány was one of the most important figures of the Counter-Reformation in Hungary—in many ways responsible for the survival of Catholicism there and for the country’s rejection of the Reformation. In 1605 he wrote a defense of St. Bellarmine against Whitaker on the treatise De Ecclesia, titled Diatriba theologica de visibili Christi in terris Ecclesia (Graz, 1605); it was published as an academic disputation, presided over by Pázmány and defended by his student Friedrich Brenner.

Jan Rywocki, S.J. (d. 1666)

At the Jesuit Academy of Vilnius, Lithuania, Fr. Rywocki composed a defense of St. Robert Bellarmine’s teaching on the Unwritten Word of God against the attack of William Ames, titled Arma Catholica Bellarmini (Vilnius, 1638). Following the ordinary form of an academic disputation, the work was presided over by Rywocki and publicly defended by his student Franciscus Miko.

Others

Under the pseudonym “Petrus Malleus,” Fr. Ignace Pien, S.J., wrote a defense of St. Robert Bellarmine’s De Romano Pontifice against the Gallicans Launoy and Du Pin, titled Bellarminus de Romani Pontificis infallibilitate vindicatus (Louvain, 1732).

Fr. Michael Walpole, S.J.—writing under the pseudonym “Michael Christopherson”—wrote a defense of the section of St. Bellarmine’s De Romano Pontifice on the Antichrist, against the Anglican divine (later Bishop of Derry) George Downame, titled A Treatise of Antichrist, conteyning the defence of Cardinall Bellarmines arguments, which invincibly demonstrate That the Pope is not Antichrist (1613).

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Tolomei, S.J. (d. 1726), one of the most learned Jesuits of the era, wrote a work that was both a vindication and a continuation of St. Robert Bellarmine’s controversies. Unfortunately, it remains in manuscript and was never published.

Fr. Johann Andreas Coppenstein, O.P. (d. 1638), wrote a practical guide for preachers titled Controversiarum ex Rob. Bellarmino in epitomen redactarum (Mainz, 1624). This does not engage the later responses to St. Bellarmine, but is a helpful compendium. A similar project was undertaken by controversialists such as Fr. James Gordon Huntly, S.J. (d. 1620), in his Controversiarum Christianae Fidei adversus huius temporis Haereticos Epitome, and Fr. Balduinus Junius, O.F.M., in his Solida Christianae fidei demonstratio.

Note: I have not listed any works on the Oath of Allegiance controversy, on Bellarmine’s political doctrine, or on the indirect power of the Roman Pontiff.

It is quite obvious that unjust censures are to be feared and that those who suffer them, in pride, can easily fall into mortal sin. Such is the teaching of Pope St. Gregory and St. Thomas, which expresses the common opinion. Pope St. Gregory wrote, “the pastor’s sentence is nevertheless to be feared by the flock, lest he who is subject to him—even if, perhaps, he is bound unjustly—should merit the very sentence of his binding from some other fault.” (PL 76:1200B) St. Thomas wrote, “if he should scorn the ruling [i.e., an unjust excommunication], he would sin mortally by that very fact…” (Sent.IV.D18.Q2.A1.Q4)

Yet, what if the ruling is invalid? Hence, due to some substantial defect, the censure doesn’t actually take its effect? Canonists distinguish between a ruling that is certainly invalid and a ruling that is dubiously invalid. In the former case, reasonable doubt has been removed by manifest signs and arguments. In the latter case, while there are grounds to doubt the ruling, there are also grounds that support its validity.

When it is certain that a censure is invalid, canonists are quite careful. While they admit that the censured may continue as if they are not censured, they should be careful to continue to act publicly as if censured insofar as this is necessary to avoid scandal (cf., St. Alphonsus, Homo Apostolicus, lib. xix, cap. i, punct. i, n. 10 near the end) until the censure is removed. To give an example, if a priest’s faculty to hear confession is removed by his bishop and he is certain that such is invalid, then he can continue hear confessions, even publicly, as long as scandal is avoided.

It is for this reason that canonists commonly say that an invalid censure is “not to be feared,” i.e., not to be carried out, while an unjust censure “is to be feared,” i.e., is to be carried out.

When it is dubious whether a censure is invalid, canonists are clear; in this case, even if there is a probable opinion for the invalidity of the censure, then they are morally obligated to, likewise, have the same observance (since, in this case, the judge is “in possession”):

It must be observed however, (a) that these two decrees apply only where the censure or sentence is invalid and not merely unjust; (b) and where its nullity is certain and undoubted. For if it is doubtful whether the censure is invalid or not, the person visited with censure must, as we shall presently see, appeal his case to the judge ad quem, in order to have the nullity declared officially. (Smith, Elements of Ecclesiastical Law, n. 3062; cf. St. Alphonsus, Theologia Moralis, lib. vii, cap. i, n. 68)

So, what is it that makes an ecclesiastical censure invalid?

First, when the one imposing the censure has no power. This can occur either because the individual excommunicating is not the superior, or is putatively the superior, yet has some defect in himself. This defect can be some censure on the superior or if he is a heretic or schismatic. The common opinion (followed by St. Alphonsus, Homo Apostolicus, lib. xix, cap. i, punct. i, n. 3) is that the censure must be by name and the heresy/schism cannot be merely occult. It is for this reason that the Church in councils frequently declares all the ecclesiastical acts of condemned heretics to be null.

Second, when the person upon whom the censure is imposed is not apt to receive the punishment. For example, if one is exempt by some privilege granted by a higher judge (e.g., kings could only be excommunicated by the Pope), below the age of censure, insane, etc.

Third, when it is imposed after a legitimate appeal of the case. In this instance, the judge of the matter is now the higher, not the lower judge.

Fourth, when the excommunication contains an intolerable error.

α) If something illicit is commanded. Hence, if the Pope demanded that a man fornicate or else be excommunicated, then the excommunication would be null.

β) If something good in itself is forbidden. Hence, if the Pope demanded that you not worship God, then the excommunication would be null.

γ) If the censure is grave, yet imposed for a light sin or no sin at all. It is to be noted, with St. Alphonsus (Theologia Moralis, lib. vii, cap. i, n. 31), that the gravity or lightness of the act is not taken purely from the act materially considered, but the act with its end and circumstances. Hence, valid censures can (and have) be wrought against individuals for morally indifferent acts, such as cutting their hair in a certain way or eating certain types of food.

NOTE: St. Alphonsus notes two important points: a) when in doubt over the gravity of the act, the judge is in possession (ibid., n. 32; Homo Apostolicus, lib. xix, cap. i, punct. i, n. 7), and b) when the law threatens with excommunication latae sententiae, there is a grave obligation (Theologia Moralis, lib. vii, cap. i, n. 33; Homo Apostolicus, ibid.).

δ) If something impossible is commanded.

ε) If there was some defect of form in the law.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, recently said the following: “The authority to forgive sins is conferred by Christ Himself in the sacrament of Holy Orders, not by the Pope through his primacy of jurisdiction…”

This was in the midst of answering a question concerning the validity of sacramental confessions at SSPX chapels. Hence, this is simply a premise in the midst of a larger argument by His Eminence. In this article, I do not wish to question the conclusion that he draws from this premise, but the very premise itself: the idea that the authority to absolve is granted in ordination, rather than requiring that it be granted as an act of the power of jurisdiction.

It is important to remember that Cardinal Müller is a prince of the Church and a prominent theologian. It is better to assume that he has misspoken on this matter than to impute error. Yet, as I will note, this question is a much more detailed one than many commentators on the statement of His Eminence have realized. Hence, we ought to set this question forth in all its clarity.

The Power of Orders and Power of Jurisdiction

In order to understand the dispute, we must understand a basic distinction in sacramental theology.

a) The power of orders (potestas ordinis) is the power of administering sacred things, especially the sacraments. It is given by Christ in the sacrament of orders. This is something that consists in the sacramental character that permanently (”indelibly”) resides in the soul of the priest as a participation in Christ’s priesthood. The sacramental character gives the priest the ability to do things like consecrate the Eucharist.

While this potestas ordinis grants a participation in the priesthood of Christ and an ability to bless, consecrate, anoint, etc., it does not give the authority that might be possessed by a ruler or judge. The priest, from his orders, does not have the authority to command me to obey, rule my actions, or impose any sort of moral obligation on me towards him. Hence, there is a second power in the Church:

b) The power of jurisdiction (potestas jurisdictionis) grants a certain executive power. From this, there is a certain right to establish law and a corresponding obligation of others to obey. One is now able to command, to rule, and to judge over the flock over whom he has jurisdiction. This is most obvious when it comes to offices that grant jurisdiction in the external forum, e.g., a pastor over a parish, an ordinary over a diocese, or the pope over the Church. Yet, this can take a number of different forms, including power over the internal forum, e.g., acts of judging sins.

To give a stark example, the Papacy is an office that is constituted primarily by the power of jurisdiction, not by an order. It is for this reason that a layman, elected Pope, upon receiving the election, would still be Pope and have the power of jurisdiction, even without Holy Orders. This same distinction between election and ordination can also occur for parish priests and ordinaries of dioceses.

Further, this is also why many Protestant arguments pointing to a multiplicity of Bishops in Rome throughout her history do little in disproving the Papacy (since we do not claim a unity of those with x grade of Holy Orders in Rome, but a unity of one with the supreme power of jurisdiction in the Church).

The Possible Questions

It is clearly required that one who validly absolves be a priest (i.e., have the potestas ordinis), yet we can ask further questions about the potestas jurisdictionis.

First, does the priest even need the potestas jurisdictionis to validly absolve? Namely, whether the absolving priest needs both powers, or whether a priest can absolve with holy orders alone.

Second, is this potestas jurisdictionis dependent on ecclesiastical authority? This asks the further question about the instrument in granting the potestas jurisdictionis: is it something that is antecedent to the grant of the Church and given in ordination, or is it something that is consequent to the grant of the Church?

Third, what is the mode of dependence of the potestas jurisdictionis on the Church? This asks whether the Church causally confers the potestas jurisdictionis on the priest, or whether the Church merely removes an impediment to its exercise, which is partially caused by the potestas ordinis.

As we can see, the question of the relationship between the potestas jurisdictionis, ordination, and valid confessions is not so simple. While answering wrongly on some of these questions garners grave censures and constitutes teaching that is clearly contrary to the declarations of the Church, other questions have been answered differently by different theological schools.

The First Question

First, there is the opinion of the Protestants, who (for the most part) deny the distinction and hence do not believe that it is necessary. These are obviously incorrect.

Second, there is the opinion of certain pre-Tridentine theologians who so weaken the potestas jurisdictionis that they hold that it practically consists in declaring forgiven those sins that are already forgiven through contrition.

Third, Catholic authors after Trent universally hold that the potestas jurisdictionis is necessary for the validity of absolution.

The relevant documents of the Church will be contained among those cited concerning the second question.

The Second Question

First, there is the opinion of the Jansenists, who hold that the potestas jurisdictionis has no dependence on the Church, being given in the very ordination of priests itself.

Second, there is the opinion of a minority of Catholic theologians who hold that the potestas jurisdictionis is ordinarily dependent on the Church, but in certain cases (e.g., danger of death) the power of orders sufficiently grants jurisdiction. This was even held by some Thomists, such as Capreolus, Cajetan, Cano, and Soto.

Others say that in non-necessary matters, there is no notion of jurisdiction; hence, it is granted by the power of orders. Although there is significant disagreement, some holding it of venial sins alone, others of venial sins and previously confessed mortal sins, and still others of all sins when the confession is taken freely (i.e., when the law of the Church does not require it). The arguments given are various; hence, I will not recount and refute each of them.

Third, the common and certain opinion is that the potestas jurisdictionis is granted by the Church for all sins, both necessary and non-necessary. Doronzo states that the former doctrine on necessary matter is theologically certain due to the teaching documents of the Church, while the latter doctrine on non-necessary matter is common and cannot be denied without temerity.

This is taught by the Fourth Lateran Council (D 437), the Council of Florence (D 699), and the Council of Trent (Session 14, cap. vii; Session 23, cap. xv), along with the Roman Ritual and Code of Canon Law (e.g., in the 1917 Code, can. 872f). There is also Bl. Innocent XI’s rejection of the opinion that simple priests have the authority to absolve from venial sins without proper jurisdiction (Cum ad aures of Feb. 12, 1679).

Hence, the praxis of the Church (as recorded by Lateran IV) from the 8th century to the Council of Trent has generally been that one could not receive valid absolution from a priest who is not his own without proper permission (cf. St. Thomas, ST.IIISup.Q8.A4-5, ContraImpu.C4). Further, there is also the case of the reservation of certain sins to a higher grade (whether Episcopal or Papal), which has been continuously vindicated by the Church against many heretics who sought to deny this authority.

Trent places under anathema the teaching that the absolution of a sin reserved to the bishop, given by a simple priest, is valid. From this, it immediately follows that the jurisdiction to validly absolve comes from the hierarchy of the Church. For this reason, certain theologians declare the doctrine de fide, although (since it is a conclusion) it is better to follow Doronzo in his judgment that this is merely theologically certain.

Yet, the clearest example is found in Pius VI’s condemnation of the errors of Jansenism in Auctorem fidei: “The teaching of the synod, which declares concerning the authority for absolving received through ordination that ‘after the institution of dioceses and parishes, it is fitting that each one exercise this judgment over those persons subject to him either by reason of territory or some personal right,’ because ‘otherwise confusion and disturbance would be introduced’; since it declares that, in order to prevent confusion, after dioceses and parishes have been instituted, it is merely fitting that the power of absolving be exercised upon subjects; so understood, as if for the valid use of this power there is no need of ordinary or delegated jurisdiction, without which the Tridentine Synod declares that absolution conferred by a priest is of no value,—false, rash, dangerous, contrary and injurious to the Tridentine Synod, erroneous.”

The Third Question

There are three opinions as to the third question, each of which is held by Catholic authors. All concede that the Church grants the potestas jurisdictionis, yet each in a different way.

The first opinion holds that the Church simply removes an impediment so that the potestas jurisdictionis may be in act. Hence, according to this opinion, the potestas ordinis grants the habitual possession of the potestas jurisdictionis, but not the actual possession of such. Many authors hold with this opinion that, without the prohibition of the Church, the potestas ordinis naturally flows into act and grants the potestas jurisdictionis. Yet, since the Church has positively decreed that there be an impediment by a right given to it by Christ, there is an impediment that must be removed, the Church acting as an impediment or as a condition, yet not as a cause.

The second opinion, on the other hand, holds that the Church grants the potestas jurisdictionis as a cause mediating this power, but as completing what is in partial act already given in the potestas ordinis in an inchoate manner. Hence, the Church and potestas ordinis act as partial causes of the potestas jurisdictionis. This opinion, contrary to the first, holds the Church as a true cause; yet, contrary to the third, it holds that, antecedent to the grant of the Church, the potestas jurisdictionis is in partial act.

The third opinion holds that the potestas ordinis does not grant the potestas jurisdictionis in any way, whether habitually or inchoately. Rather, ordination simply grants the potestas ordinis, and the Church grants the potestas jurisdictionis. From this, it is concluded that there is a perfect distinction between the two powers. Yet, it should not be said that there is no relation whatsoever between the two powers. These authors hold that the potestas ordinis has a certain aptitude towards the potestas jurisdictionis insofar as the latter completes the former as providing the full and perfect power for the sanctification of men and the worship of God. This is the opinion held by the most eminent authors: St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas (ST.IIISup.Q8, ST.IIISup.Q17.A2.Rep2, ST.IIISup.Q19.A6, ST.IIISup.Q20.A1.Rep1, ST.II-II.Q39.A3, SCG4.C72, QXII.Q18.A1, etc.), St. Bonaventure, Suarez, Lugo, the Salmanticenses, Billuart, St. Alphonsus, etc.

Certain authors (e.g., Lugo) hold that the opinions seem to differ merely in manner of speaking insofar as an aptitudinal jurisdiction could also be described as an inchoate jurisdiction (although remote and not proximate), or, as the Salmanticenses and Billuart say, provides a moral, but not a physical, power of jurisdiction.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the statement by His Eminence is not entirely clear. If, by this, Cardinal Müller meant to indicate that the potestas ordinis grants the potestas jurisdictionis in a certain sense (whether in an inchoate manner or habitually), then this is a minority opinion that is held by certain theologians. Yet, it is difficult to take it in this sense. For His Eminence quite clearly denies that it is given “by the Pope through his primacy of jurisdiction” and uses this to reject that the Pope could remove this power from the Society. Hence, without clarification, it seems quite clear that His Eminence has fallen into the error of those who affirm that the potestas jurisdictionis is given in act with the potestas ordinis, the opinion held by the Jansenists.

A. What is Grace? To begin, it is important to define what Latin authors mean when they use the term “grace.” To ask the question “is grace created?” without knowing the meaning of the terms involved would be a ridiculous endeavor fraught with equivocation. This is especially the case with a term like “grace.” The term has been used to indicate everything from some disposition on the part of God (“God’s grace towards sinners”) to an action of thanksgiving on the part of man (“it is good to say grace before meals”). Yet, the fundamental sense in which we use the term grace is to refer to a certain type of gift.

That this is the fundamental sense appears from our comparison of “grace” in the third sense with “grace” in the first two senses. When we speak of “God’s grace” as a disposition of God, we are really speaking of his disposition towards giving certain gifts. Further, when we speak of grace as an act of man towards God, we are speaking of his acknowledgement of certain gifts given by God to men.

B. Which Question Are We Asking? When we ask the question “is grace created?” which of these three senses do we actually mean to indicate? In the first sense, the disposition of God on the part of God is obviously uncreated. It is a Divine Attribute akin to mercy. In the third sense, an act on the part of man acknowledging God is obviously something that is created. It is a finite action that has the will as its principle.

Hence, what we really mean to ask when we ask “is grace created? is whether the gifts given by God are created or not. This might seem like a simple question to ask, yet even this is wrought with difficulties. In this sense, as St. Augustine points out, even creation is a grace! Hence, it will be important to give further distinctions as to the gifts of God that we are speaking of in order to answer the question properly.

C. Graces in the Third Sense. In the third sense, graces refer to any sort of gift given to men. These gifts may either be of the natural order (e.g., life, food, existence, etc.) or of the supernatural order. In the supernatural order, these gifts are either external (e.g., the Church, Scripture, etc.) or internal. The internal supernatural gifts are either personal (i.e., the persons of the Trinity), actual (i.e., the actual influx of God in the soul), or habitual (i.e., certain inclinations of the soul given by God).

Hence, as you can see, there are a number of different questions that can be answered, which will be treated one-by-one.

Question 1. Are the gifts of the natural order uncreated? R. No, the gifts of the natural order are created. This is commonly affirmed.

Question 2. Are the external gifts of the supernatural order uncreated? R. Ordinarily, we ought to answer that they are created due to the fact that these are realities that were formed by the will of God in time as an act of Divine Liberality. For example, the Bible is something that is created insofar as it essentially consists of certain conventional signs that God has inspired men to write down. One could distinguish as to the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist insofar as something uncreated (i.e., the Divinity of Christ) is present concomitantly.

Question 3. Is the internal, personal gift something uncreated? R. In no sense is the gift of the Persons of the Trinity something created. In theology, we refer to this as the “invisible missions” of the Trinity. Hence, we affirm that the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity reside in the soul of the just. This is clearly and obviously taught in Sacred Scripture and affirmed by Catholic Theologians. In fact, Catholic Theologians frequently critique Eastern schismatics for their affirmation that only the gifts (energies) of God come to reside in the souls of the just, rather than the Persons of the Trinity themselves.

Question 4. Are the actual graces of God something uncreated? R. When we speak of activity, we can speak of activity as wrought by the agent or we can speak of activity as received by and in the patient. To give an analogy, when we throw a rock into water, we can either refer to the activity of the rock as acting on the water or we can refer to the water as it is effected and changed and moved by the activity. The former is something residing in the agent and taking upon itself the character of the agent and the latter is something residing in the patient. When it comes to actual graces, on the side of God operating, it is something uncreated (the very operation of God), yet on the side of the activity residing in and affecting the patient, it is something created (as it is the motion of a creature).

Question 5. Are the habitual graces of God something uncreated? R. The habitual graces, by their very nature, are a) effects of God that conform us to Himself as exemplar, and b) qualities that reside in the soul. From both of these facts, it necessarily follows that it is something that is created. For, nothing that is an effect of God is essentially uncreated, since it is of the very nature of a created thing that it proceed from another as from an efficient cause in its being. Further, nothing uncreated can be the accident of another since accidents, by their very nature, suffer from dependence on another, i.e., existence in another.

This is also something that is supported in Scripture, which distinguishes quite clearly between the uncreated gift (i.e., the Holy Spirit) and the created gift (i.e., sanctifying grace) within us. Hence, when describing the effects of Justification, St. Paul says that we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph. 2:10), which is further reflected in other passages describing the effects of justification as a creation or re-creation (e.g., 2 Cor. 5:17, Gal. 6:15). Now, habits are as the root and principle of a certain operation. Therefore, that which is created within us for good works are the habits given to us in justification (i.e., habitual graces).

This same doctrine is intimated for similar reasons by St. Paul’s statement that we are “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4:24) Here, St. Paul clearly identifies qualities that have their exemplar in God (i.e., justice and holiness), yet teaches that this is something that is created within us (i.e., “in the spirit of our minds,” which indicates that these are qualities inhering in our souls as a “new nature,” which is a quite clear description of some habit).

The decree is as follows:

Despite the admonitions addressed to the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, having committed an act of a schismatic nature by means of the episcopal consecration of four presbyters, without pontifical mandate and against the will of the Supreme Pontiff, has incurred ipso facto the penalties provided for by can. 1387 and can. 1364 §1 of the CIC 2021.

I therefore declare, for all juridical purposes, that both the aforementioned Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta and Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, and Marc Hanappier have incurred ipso facto the latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.

I further declare that Bishop Bernard Fellay, having directly participated in the liturgical celebration as co-consecrator, and having thereby publicly adhered to the schismatic act, has incurred the latae sententiae excommunication provided for by can. 1364 §1 of the CIC 2021.

Clerics and lay faithful are admonished not to adhere to the schism of the Society of Saint Pius X, for they would incur ipso facto the penalty of latae sententiae excommunication.

The explanatory note treats the question in more detail and clarifies the status of clerics and laymen involved in the Society, along with the validity of their sacraments:

From the time of St. Paul VI until the most recent conversations held at this Dicastery, the manifold attempts to bring back those adhering to the movement begun by Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre to full communion with the Catholic Church have proven vain. This situation has been further aggravated by the recent episcopal consecrations celebrated without pontifical mandate, against the will of the Holy Father, in open violation of canon law. Therefore, this Dicastery, in the faithful exercise of the functions entrusted to it, holds it necessary to note that this act has configured the offense of schism, with the canonical consequences for the sacred ministers and for the lay faithful involved. Indeed, as already declared in 1988, “such disobedience—which carries with it a practical rejection of the Roman Primacy—constitutes a schismatic act” (cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei, 3).

In this regard, henceforth:

1. Sacred ministers belonging to the Society of St. Pius X are in schism and must therefore be considered schismatic (cf. Ecclesia Dei, 5 c; Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Explanatory Note on the Excommunication for Schism Incurred by Adherents to the Movement of Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, 24 August 1996, 5–6), and are subject to the excommunication provided by law (can. 1364 §1 CIC).

2. As regards the lay faithful, those are to be held schismatic and excommunicated who formally adhere to the Society of St. Pius X under the conditions established in the Explanatory Note of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts of 1996 (cf. ibidem, 7), still in force, which this Dicastery makes its own.

3. Finally, the holy People of God are advised that the sacred ministers of the Society of St. Pius X illicitly (illicite) administer the sacraments, and that the sacrament of penance administered by them, and the marriages assisted by them, are invalid (invalida).

The Church, as a solicitous mother, will welcome with sincere affection and lively concern all those who wish to return to full communion. The Apostolic Nuncios will arrange the procedures which the Ordinaries may use in the various cases.

Finally, all the faithful are exhorted to remain steadfast in communion with the Roman Pontiff, with the Bishops in communion with him, and with the whole Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, 22; can. 751 CIC), and to abstain from participating in the celebrations and activities promoted by the aforementioned Society of St. Pius X.

Before I get to my own analysis of these texts, there is an interesting line I want to highlight: “under the conditions established in the Explanatory Note of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts of 1996, still in force, which this Dicastery makes its own.” Hence, there is a third document that is relevant to understanding Rome’s response to the recent episcopal consecrations.

To understand the decree, we need first to understand two concepts that are important to distinguish: excommunication and schism. Excommunication is the penalty that the Church inflicts, separating an individual in some way from the Church. As St. Thomas admirably explains, when we are baptized, we are united to the Church in two ways, as members of the Church and as participants of the Sacraments. The Church, as a juridical body, is able to remove members from either union. To be removed merely from participation in the sacraments is called minor excommunication, and to be removed from membership in the Church is called major excommunication. Here, we are referring to the latter type of excommunication.

We are united as members of the Church by the profession of faith, ecclesiastical communion, and baptism. If we violate these by grave crimes in the public sphere (public acts of heresy, schism, or apostasy), then we are no longer members of the Church. According to the more common opinion, it does not matter whether one is culpable or inculpable for these acts, as long as they are public. Further, if the ecclesiastical authorities remove one from membership in the Church (excommunication), one is actually removed from membership in the Church, even if it is an unjust excommunication.

Hence, when discussing the SSPX, it is important to distinguish these two questions: Whether there is schism? Whether there is excommunication? Due to the provisions of law touching culpability, not all who are separated from membership in the Church by publicly schismatic acts fall under the penalty of excommunication. This is quite sensible since a mere lack of membership in the Church (which applies to all public schismatics) is a much more lenient penalty compared to a major excommunication, which includes a whole litany of penalties attached to it beside a mere lack of membership in the Church (hence, it only applies to public schismatics not exempt from the penalty). To give an example, the penalties of excommunication only apply to those who have reached their 16th year. Hence, a 15 year old might be a public schismatic, but they are not ipso facto excommunicated in virtue of their publicly schismatic acts, yet they are still separated from membership in the Church.

First, we can divide excommunication into just excommunication and unjust excommunication. An unjust excommunication can either be unjust on the part of the person decreeing (e.g., if he has sinful anger while declaring) or unjust on the part of the decree itself. On the part of the decree itself, it can either be unjust on account of the lawful form not being followed (e.g., a bishop tweets out an excommunication) or unjust on account of its being without a just cause (e.g., the Pope excommunicates me because I drink a cup of water). If it is unjust in the first sense (as lacking legal validity), then it has no effect, and the excommunicated person is still a member of the Church. If it is unjust in the second sense (with legal validity, yet without moral validity), then it does have an effect, and the person is truly severed from membership in the Church.

This bears repeating: excommunications done in the legal form, yet without just cause, are not without effect. This is the common teaching of theologians and is the teaching of St. Thomas:

Second, on the part of the excommunication, through there being no proper cause, or through the sentence being passed without the forms of law being observed. In this case, if the error on the part of the sentence be such as to render the sentence void, this has no effect, for there is no excommunication; but if the error does not annul the sentence, this takes effect, and the person excommunicated should humbly submit (which will be credited to him as a merit), and either seek absolution from the person who has excommunicated him, or appeal to a higher judge. If, however, he were to contemn the sentence, he would ipso facto sin mortally. (ST.IIISup.Q21.A4)

This sober doctrine of St. Thomas does not require much explanation. Those who are unjustly excommunicated sin mortally by contemning their sentence and are truly removed from membership in the Church.

Second, we can divide excommunication based on the manner in which the penalty is incurred. To understand this, we ought to consider how the penalties of the Church differ from the penalties of the state. In civil society, when someone commits a crime, we (usually) cannot simply declare that they are punished. Rather, we need to capture them and inflict punishment upon them, since the punishments of the state only directly concern the body and other temporal goods. Yet, the Church primarily inflicts punishments that touch the soul; hence, the primary way in which punishments are inflicted by the Church is via declaration.

As you can imagine in such a situation, punishments can be incurred in two ways: either a) the Church simply decrees that “x crime gets y punishment,” hence once the condition of “x crime” is met, then “y punishment” is inflicted, or b) the Church can reserve the right to decide whether to prosecute the crime or not. The first category of crime tends to be those crimes that are more grave, while the second category of crime tends to be those crimes that are less grave (hence, the Church reserves discretion for herself in these cases).

This first kind of excommunication is called latae sententiae excommunication, while the second kind of excommunication is called ferendae sententiae excommunication.

There are three groups that are excommunicated in the three documents: bishops, clerics, and laymen.

For the episcopal consecrations themselves, the bishops are in violation of Can. 1387 of the CIC: “Both the Bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates a person a Bishop, and the one who receives the consecration from him, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.” This is what the decree is primarily about: establishing that the consecrator, co-consecrator, and consecrated bishops are excommunicated. Hence, the first three paragraphs concern this issue, while the last paragraph contains a brief note about schism directed towards the clerics of the Society and the lay faithful who attach themselves to their liturgies.

It is important to note that the canon itself does not mention the co-consecrator or assisting presbyters (much less the lay faithful). While the 1917 Code originally provided for the penalties for the co-consecrators and assisting presbyters, such was changed by a decree of April 9, 1951, and the penalties were restricted to the consecrator and the consecrated. Hence, for the co-consecrator, the decree does not declare excommunication from Can. 1387, but from Can. 1364:

I further declare that Bishop Bernard Fellay, having directly participated in the liturgical celebration as co-consecrator, and having thereby publicly adhered to the schismatic act, has incurred the latae sententiae excommunication provided for by can. 1364 §1 of the CIC 2021.

The assisting presbyters are not explicitly mentioned in the decree, except under the general heading of a warning not to adhere to the schism of Lefebvre. Yet, this distinction between the two penalties is quite important. For the direct participation by Bishop Fellay in the liturgical celebration of the consecrations is declared to be public adherence to a schismatic act. Hence, it would also seem to reasonably follow that the same can be said of the assisting presbyters. This is confirmed by the Exegetical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law:

It must be concluded that the co-consecrating bishops and the assisting presbyters normally do not incur the penalty. However, if such a consecration, whatever the particular circumstances, signifies a schism, then everyone, including the bishops and presbyters mentioned, incurs unreserved latae sententiae excommunication (c. 1364 § 1).

While some will cite mitigating factors which they argue will render the excommunications null (namely, the provision of can. 1323, 4°), this was rejected by the aforementioned document from the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts:

The validity of the excommunications of bishops declared in the Motu Proprio and the Decree cannot reasonably be questioned. In particular, it does not appear that any exempting or mitigating circumstance can be found regarding the imputability of the penalty (Cf. CIC, canons 1323–1324). As for the state of necessity in which Archbishop Lefebvre thought he found himself, it must be kept in mind that such a state must objectively occur, and that there is never a need to ordain bishops against the will of the Roman Pontiff, Head of the College of Bishops. This, in fact, would mean the possibility of “serving” the Church by attacking its unity in a matter connected to the very foundations of this unity.

Related to this, the principle in can. 1323, 4° that “No one is liable to a penalty who, when violating a law or precept…acted under the compulsion of grave fear, even if only relative, or by reason of necessity or grave inconvenience” includes the following exception: “unless, however, the act is intrinsically evil or tends to be harmful to souls.” Now, as the Exegetical Commentary notes, this is meant primarily to be in reference to acts that necessarily involve contempt for the faith or ecclesiastical authority in their outward or objective character. As the Exegetical Commentary notes:

In comparison to CIC/1917, the restrictions ‘contemptum fidei vel ecclesiasticae auctoritatis’ (cf. cc. 2205 § 3, 2229 § 3, 3° CIC/1917) have disappeared. It seems obvious, however, that they should be assumed in the two current cases to the degree that, as Miguélez rightly pointed out apropos of the parallel norm in CIC/1917, a) this is not the contempt that comes from the agent’s intention; it is objective and comes from the very nature of the act or the circumstances; b) it is not simply a lack of reverence, honor, or obedience that is implied in breaking a law, but that the delinquent act must be such that it is coupled in a special way with the necessary and direct contempt for faith or authority.

The final sentence of the decree mentions the effects on the clerics and lay faithful who attach themselves to the SSPX: “Clerics and lay faithful are admonished not to adhere to the schism of the Society of Saint Pius X, for they would incur ipso facto the penalty of latae sententiae excommunication.” Above, we have already seen the distinction between the penalties in can. 1364 and can. 1387. Here, the clerics and faithful are warned that they are in danger of the penalties of can. 1364: “An apostate from the faith, a heretic or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication…”

In the decree itself, we see that the co-consecrator was in violation of the canon. In the Exegetical Commentary, we see that the assisting presbyters were in violation of the canon as well. Yet, the explanatory note goes further than the decree, explaining in more detail what was meant in the last paragraph of the decree: “This Dicastery, in the faithful exercise of the functions entrusted to it, holds it necessary to note that this act has configured the offense of schism, with the canonical consequences for the sacred ministers and for the lay faithful involved.” While the decree explicitly mentions the co-consecrator as incurring the penalties of can. 1364, the explanatory note extends this to the ministers and lay faithful involved in the consecrations. This seems necessarily to follow from the principles outlined above as indicating that participation in such a liturgy (despite one’s degree of involvement) necessarily involves public adherence to the schismatic act.

Yet, the explanatory note goes further. First, it declares that sacred ministers of the Society in general (even if they did not participate in the consecrations) are excommunicated: “Sacred ministers belonging to the Society of St. Pius X are in schism and must therefore be considered schismatic, and are subject to the excommunication provided by law.” While some may be surprised by this, there is actually no change here. This has been the case for decades. The aforementioned 1996 Explanatory Note already stated that “In the case of the Lefebvrian deacons and priests, it seems clear that their ministerial activity within the schismatic movement is a more than evident sign that the two requirements mentioned above are met and that there is therefore a formal adherence [to the schism].”

Second, the explanatory note also makes note of the lay faithful who attach themselves to the movement (as distinct from those lay faithful who participated in the liturgy): “As regards the lay faithful, those are to be held schismatic and excommunicated who formally adhere to the Society of St. Pius X under the conditions established in the Explanatory Note of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts of 1996, still in force, which this Dicastery makes its own.”

The 1996 Explanatory Note set forth two principles for determining whether the lay faithful formally adhere to the schism of Lefebvre. First, “in freely and consciously sharing the substance of the schism,” which is of an internal character. Primarily, this concerns obedience to the Roman Pontiff. Second, in the “externalization” of this internal character. It is to be noted that schism is both a sin and a crime. When the Code speaks of “schism” or “heresy,” these are not in reference to schism or heresy as sins, but as crimes, which require some sort of externalization. This is described by the Explanatory Note as “the exclusive participation in the Lefebvrian ‘ecclesial’ acts, without taking part in the acts of the Catholic Church.” Yet, it is to be remembered that there is both a positive element to this (i.e., that such participation be ‘exclusive’) and a negative element to this (i.e., that participation in the acts of the Catholic Church be lacking), which are two sides to the same coin. Hence, the Explanatory Note explains that “there is the possibility that some faithful may take part in the liturgical functions of Lefebvre’s followers without sharing their schismatic spirit.” If the negative element is lacking and a member of the faithful participates in both, then they do not fall under the crime of schism. If the positive element is lacking and a member of the faithful attends Lefebvrian liturgies with a willingness to attend the liturgies of the Catholic Church, then they do not fall under the crime of schism.

From the complexities involved in evaluating the individual cases of laymen, the following is stated (which is referenced and accepted by today’s Explanatory Note):

In the case of other faithful, however, it is obvious that occasional participation in liturgical acts or activities of the Lefebvrian movement, without adopting the movement’s attitude of doctrinal and disciplinary disunity, is not sufficient to constitute formal membership in the movement. In pastoral practice, it may be more difficult to assess their situation. It is necessary to take into account, above all, the individual’s intention and the translation of this interior disposition into action. The various situations must therefore be assessed on a case-by-case basis, in the competent bodies of the external and internal forums.

Some helpful examples of those who generally do and do not adhere to the schism are given by the DDF in their guidelines for the reconciliation of laymen. Those who are “members of the Third Order of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X” and those who “habitually participate in the celebrations of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, formally sharing its doctrinal positions” are presumed to formally adhere to the schism. On the other hand, those who “have frequented the Priestly Society of St. Pius X solely for liturgical or spiritual reasons” or those who “while aware of the tensions with the Holy See, do not reject the Magisterium or the authority of the Roman Pontiff” are not presumed to formally adhere to the schism.

Further, the Explanatory Note makes a judgment regarding their sacraments: that their sacraments are generally illicit (i.e., against the law), while their confessions and marriages are invalid (i.e., do not exist as sacraments): “The holy People of God are advised that the sacred ministers of the Society of St. Pius X illicitly (illicite) administer the sacraments, and that the sacrament of penance administered by them, and the marriages assisted by them, are invalid (invalida).” While the Church can grant faculties for the validity of these sacraments (which Pope Francis did in 2015), such has been revoked.

Lastly, the faithful are generally exhorted to avoid the liturgies celebrated by the Society: “Finally, all the faithful are exhorted…to abstain from participating in the celebrations and activities promoted by the aforementioned Society of St. Pius X.” For this reason, even those who do not formally adhere to the schism are required (according to the DDF guidelines) to “approach a priest in full communion, with the resolve not to frequent the Priestly Society of St. Pius X in the future.”

On the part of an adult recipient (“subject”) of a sacrament, there are certain dispositions required not only for the fruitfulness of the sacrament, but also for the valid reception of the sacrament. This is commonly called the ‘intention of the subject.’ This is distinct from the intention of the minister that is frequently invoked in Catholic theology within the tripartite division of ‘matter, form, and intent.’

The reason why this is left out of the common enumeration of necessary conditions for the validity of sacraments is for the same reason that ‘minister’ is left out of the common enumeration. Just as a unique minister is not necessary for each and every sacrament (e.g., a layman can baptize, but not ordain), so also the subject’s intention is not necessary for each and every sacrament (e.g., infant baptism). Yet, it is quite important for many sacramental questions, such as the invalidity of Anglican Orders, the practice of annulments, etc.

Hence, e.g., someone baptized against their will is not only illicitly baptized, but also invalidly baptized: “He who never consents, but inwardly contradicts, receives neither the matter nor the sign of the sacrament…the sacramental operation impresses the sign, when it does not meet the resisting obstacle of a contrary will.” (Pope Innocent III, D 411)

Yet, what is the extent of the intention required on the part of the adult subject for the validity of the sacraments?

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This much is evident from their own words, which genuinely express these dispositions. Far from dismissing the value of the Society, His Holiness compliments it with these words: “The Church recognizes the devotion to liturgical life, commitment to priestly formation, apostolic zeal, and desire for fidelity to Tradition that characterize many people and communities connected to your Fraternity.”

Far from casting thunderbolts of derision at Rome, Fr. Pagliarani speaks with confidence and love: “Thank you very much for the letter that Your Holiness so kindly addressed to me. I have been deeply touched by Your paternal solicitude…I am confident that Your paternal heart as universal Shepherd will be moved by this very particular situation. One day, all the difficulties between the Holy See and the Society will be resolved.”

This attitude of the fathers is not shared by the children. These matters are quite weighty and bear on profound and fundamental questions of ecclesiology—and this is clearly comprehended by His Holiness and Fr. Pagliarani. They do not speak as men who fail to understand the gravity of the moment; their clear-sightedness also allows them to see the cherished concerns of the other and to genuinely sympathize with these concerns in their conversations.

Yet what has the discourse about the SSPX become among us? Nothing of this sort. When did His Holiness deride the Society as lacking all pastoral value? Far from it—His Holiness quite clearly recognized the many good qualities of the Society. When did Fr. Pagliarani speak disrespectfully of His Holiness or his predecessors? Never. On the contrary, Fr. Pagliarani spoke with great confidence on the basis of the paternal charity evident in Pope Leo XIV.

So where are we to go from here? With these consecrations and the inevitable excommunications, the break will last another generation. Will these sad realities make the words of His Holiness and Fr. Pagliarani any less true, or their examples any less imitable? On the contrary, it will make their behavior all the more relevant.

May we all become worthy children in imitating fathers such as these.

One of the most popular objections to Catholic miracle claims is drawn from supposed miracles performed in non-Catholic contexts. The line of reasoning is easy to see: if you claim that miracles confirm a religion, and miracles are performed by those of other religions, you must either be an indifferentist (conceding that all religions are true) or place other miracles under such a degree of scrutiny that you refute your own claims. From this, the objector will conclude that miracles are of no value for the authentication of the revelation of the messenger.

We can take this and form a conditional syllogism: if multiple religions perform miracles, then they have no demonstrative force; multiple religions perform miracles; therefore, they have no demonstrative force.

Traditionally, it was quite common to attack the minor premise—i.e., that multiple religions perform miracles—only conceding Catholic miracle claims. For example, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange states:

No miracles are seen in Protestantism, nor any hope for miracles. Luther said: “Miracles must not be required by us, who deny free choice of the will.” And Calvin wrote to the king of France: “Those who demand miracles from us act wickedly.” He said that his doctrine does not stand in need of miracles, for he was preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not a new gospel for which faith would need to be solidified through signs. Likewise, no true miracles are found in Photianism, and those that are sometimes brought forward as having been performed on behalf of the separated church and against the union of the Ruthenians with the See of Peter are not facts of such a nature as to require a supernatural cause. Ioannes Martinov, an expert in Russian matters, affirms with certitude that these miracles are not at all supernatural.

Yet, what if certain of these miracles are authentic? Abstracting from the existence in fact of these miracles, would the existence of such miracles contradict the claims of Catholicism and the demonstrative force of miracles? To put it another way: what if, as a matter of argument, we conceded the minor premise that “multiple religions perform miracles”? Would this refute Catholicism? Are we forced to accept the conditional that “if multiple religions perform miracles, then they have no demonstrative force,” as many enemies of the Church assume?

Some Principles

To better comprehend the solution to this problem, we must first understand the nature of a miracle. A miracle is a type of sign—it is some sort of action that points outside of itself to another truth. Hence, theologians will speak of miracles as tied to “proving” something, i.e., demonstrating some truth. Therefore, the medievals (cf. ST II-II, Q178, A2) would ask the question of “whether miracles could be performed by the wicked.” In response (after excluding the cases when such acts are performed by demons), they would put forward a distinction: insofar as such miracles are meant to demonstrate the truth of the message, conceded; insofar as such miracles are meant to demonstrate the holiness of the person, denied.

Hence, in Question 79 of the 83 Questions, St. Augustine gives a three-fold distinction as to the performance of miracles: the miracles of magicians, the miracles of bad Christians, and the miracles of good Christians (cf. ST I, Q110, A4, Rep2). In his line of argumentation, he assumes that genuine miracles performed by the power of Christ occur among both bad Christians (which include “schismatics and heretics”) and good Christians. The fundamental reason why miracles can be performed by both groups is that both groups possess the “signs of public righteousness,” e.g., the “name of Christ,” “Christian words,” and “Sacraments.” The analogy given for this is the honor due to the emperor’s signs when possessed by a usurper. In this case, the signs are not possessed with legal validity, yet they are still shown honor on account of the emperor for whose honor they are wielded.

St. Thomas, following this tradition in ST II-II, Q178, A2, makes a three-fold distinction on the part of the miracle performed, distinguishing between demonic “miracles” (which either exist purely in the intellect or have a natural cause), miracles that confirm holiness, and miracles that confirm the truth preached. Hence, he writes:

Some miracles are not true but imaginary deeds, because they delude man by the appearance of that which is not; while others are true deeds, yet they have not the character of a true miracle, because they are done by the power of some natural cause…

True miracles cannot be wrought save by the power of God, because God works them for man’s benefit, and this in two ways: in one way for the confirmation of truth declared, in another way in proof of a person’s holiness, which God desires to propose as an example of virtue.

In the first way miracles can be wrought by any one who preaches the true faith and calls upon Christ’s name, as even the wicked do sometimes. In this way even the wicked can work miracles…

In the second way miracles are not wrought except by the saints, since it is in proof of their holiness that miracles are wrought during their lifetime or after death, either by themselves or by others. (ST II-II, Q178, A2)

Yet the most important comment for our purpose comes in the responses to objections. In the third objection, St. Thomas poses an objection based on God’s veracity, arguing: “Miracles are divine attestations… Now God cannot bear witness to a falsehood. Therefore it would seem that wicked men cannot work miracles.” (ibid., Obj3) Interestingly, this objection takes almost precisely the same form that many anti-Catholic apologists present this dilemma in; they argue that if the supposition that “miracles cannot bear witness to a falsehood” is true, why, then, do we see miracles done by non-Catholics and in non-Catholic contexts—on the supposition, of course, that such truly occur? St. Thomas replies as follows:

Miracles are always true witnesses to the purpose for which they are wrought. Hence wicked men who teach a false doctrine never work true miracles in confirmation of their teaching, although sometimes they may do so in praise of Christ’s name which they invoke, and by the power of the sacraments which they administer. If they teach a true doctrine, sometimes they work true miracles as confirming their teaching, but not as an attestation of holiness. (ibid., Rep3)

St. Thomas, rather than denying the major premise (as the Protestants do), distinguishes the minor premise and therefore denies the sequence of the argument. St. Thomas lucidly points out that “a falsehood” needs to be taken in a formal rather than a material sense; a sign verifies the truth of the aspect which it presents and points toward, not the total object materially taken. Thus, for example, if I confirm that “Jay Dyer’s opinion on x is true,” I am not saying that “Jay Dyer is true” as if each and every position he has stated is true—rather, I am merely confirming this or that aspect of Jay Dyer (i.e., what he said in this case is true) rather than the entire body of what he said materially taken. In the same way, St. Thomas concedes that a miracle cannot verify a falsehood formally (i.e., in pointing to the truth of the false preaching), but denies that a miracle cannot verify a truth which materially or incidentally has falsehood attached to it (i.e., in pointing to the truth preached by a false prophet).

This can be illustrated by an example. Let us say that Christ and St. Peter performed the same miracle. Why, in this case, is Christ confirmed to be God by this miracle, while St. Peter is not confirmed to be God by this miracle? Clearly, the reason is that Christ performed this miracle as a sign confirming His preaching that He is God, whereas St. Peter performed his miracle as a sign confirming his preaching that he is an apostle and Christ is God.

Since, therefore, Christ said that he is the Son of God and equal to God, the miracles which he did confirmed this doctrine of his. And for this reason, Christ was shown through his miracles to be God. Yet Peter, although he did the same or greater miracles, was not proven to be God. Rather, through them it was also proven that Christ was God, because Peter did not preach himself, but Jesus Christ, to be God. (QII, Q4, A1, RepSC4)

Here we see that other factors are incidental to a miracle’s demonstrative value. A miracle is a sign pointing to the veracity of a claim. Now, a sign points to that which it signifies, having no necessary relation to that which is outside its significatory value. Therefore, a miracle only has a necessary relation to the truth which it is meant to verify, not to that which may be materially or incidentally attached to it. Hence, it did not matter whether Peter performed the same miracles as Christ or even greater miracles, or whether Peter was in the midst of denying Christ or dying for Christ; all that mattered was the consideration of what the miracle was essentially related to in its significatory value.

To give an example from the history of the Church, we can look to St. Vincent Ferrer. In the midst of his preaching, St. Vincent performed many miracles. In fact, he was so prodigious in the performance of miracles that it was estimated he performed five miracles a day throughout his entire ministry preaching across Europe. Yet this stands in tension with a well-known fact of his life: his opposition to the validly elected Pope and his support for multiple antipopes. Now, what if we were to reason thus: if someone performs a miracle, it supports the truths that they present; now, St. Vincent performed many miracles; further, St. Vincent presented the truth of the papacy of Antipope Benedict XIII; therefore, miracles supported the truth of the papacy of Antipope Benedict XIII.

In light of what we have seen, how ought we to respond to this objection? We ought to distinguish between what a miracle is meant to signify and what a miracle is not meant to signify. A miracle is meant to signify the truth for the sake of which it is performed, not every judgment ever uttered by a man, the system that he subjectively holds, the grounds upon which he holds the truth, or any other incidentally related factor. Hence, the miracles of St. Vincent were meant to signify the truth of the Gospel he preached, not every opinion of St. Vincent.

The Solution of the Problem

With this, we can apply these principles to the question at hand. As a matter of argument, concede the veracity of non-Catholic miracles. With this subsumed, can the following be maintained: (a) the demonstrative value of Catholic miracles, and (b) the falsehood of non-Catholic religions?

First, it is denied that there is any necessary connection between hypothetically conceding the veracity of some non-Catholic miracles and a lack of demonstrative value in Catholic miracles. In any system of belief, there are some truths that are unique and constitutive (e.g., the infallibility of the Pope), while there are other truths that are common (e.g., the existence of God). Now, in order to demonstrate the truth of a certain system, it is not sufficient to demonstrate those truths that are common (since such could hypothetically exist under a number of different views), but only those unique and constitutive truths (which could only exist with the truth of the entire system, as “political animal” could only exist with human nature).

Hence, we place the demonstrative value of miracles under a distinction, yet we in no way deny its demonstrative value.

Second, it is denied that there is any necessary connection between hypothetically conceding the veracity of a certain miracle and the truth of non-Catholic religions. For we can distinguish between the system of beliefs held as a whole and the individual beliefs held within it. As to the first, it would obviously be problematic for a Catholic to concede genuine miracles performed on behalf of a system of belief presented as a whole (e.g., a miracle performed to verify the claims of Islam) or a miracle specifically meant to verify the status of certain individuals as divinely appointed legates (e.g., a miracle performed to verify Muhammad’s status as a prophet). As to the second, however, we must place this under a distinction as well: on the one hand, certain truths of a system are constitutive of that system, such that to affirm the judgment is to affirm the entire system; yet, on the other hand, other truths are commonly held. Now, while the former would imply the truth of the entire religion (e.g., “Joseph Smith is a true prophet” implies “Mormonism is true”), the same cannot be said of the latter (e.g., a Baptist, challenged by atheists to perform a miracle to witness to the existence of God, performs such a miracle). There is no necessary connection between the affirmation of a certain truth and the complete veracity of one’s thought or preaching.

Objection. Does this not concede the entire argument to anti-Catholics who deny the demonstrative value of miracles?

Response. We only claim the demonstrative value of miracles under the distinction presented. We agree with the anti-Catholics that “a Catholic performed a miracle; therefore it necessarily follows that Catholicism is true” is not demonstrative, since the truth of Catholicism may only be connected materially or incidentally with the miracle performed. Likewise, just as many falsehoods are materially or incidentally connected with true miracles (e.g., the denial of Christ by St. Peter alongside St. Peter’s miracles), so also may the system subjectively held by one performing miracles be connected with the miracle in a merely material or incidental way.

Hence, miracles are only demonstrative in one of two ways: (α) if the truth for which the miracle is performed is a truth unique to or constitutive of the system; (β) if the truth of the system is so connected with the truth verified, the mode of verifying, the person who verifies, or the conditions under which verification exists, as to imply the truth of the system itself.

Objection. Doesn’t this contradict St. Thomas’ doctrine who teaches that “wicked men who teach a false doctrine never work true miracles in confirmation of their teaching?”

Response. We can reply to this objection in one of three ways. First, one may concede that St. Thomas simply erred on a matter of fact (i.e., that a true miracle has never been performed by a false teacher). Second, one may conceded that such is the case actually and in reality by the providence of God (i.e., that a false teacher never actually performs a miracle in witness to the truth), but deny that such could not happen hypothetically and by the absolute power of God.

Yet, neither of these two interpretations are satisfying. For, if we continue reading, we see that St. Thomas writes that “although sometimes they may do so in praise of Christ’s name which they invoke, and by the power of the sacraments which they administer.” Now, the praise of Christ’s name and affirmation of the power of the sacraments includes a certain profession of and verification of truth. The same can be drawn from the teaching of St. Augustine who includes heretics and schismatics under the “bad Christians” who can perform miracles. For the solution of this, note that it is quite common for Medievals to speak commonly when they wish to indicate that something is the case reduplicatively. Hence, to say “wicked men who teach a false doctrine never work true miracles in confirmation of their teaching” is not to be taken as indicating that they can never work miracles in confirmation of true doctrine (as in the cases that Ss. Thomas and Augustine conceded), but that they can never work miracles in confirmation of ‘their teaching,’ i.e., their teaching considered reduplicatively insofar as it is properly theirs, which is the same as ‘false doctrine.’

To understand the simplicity of God, we must first understand the meaning of the term. Often, many will erroneously believe that “simple” has its opposite in “distinct.” Hence, when we state that “God is simple,” what we are saying is that “God has no real distinctions.” What compounds this difficulty is that “real distinction” is taken to mean a distinction that is not a mere distinction of name (i.e., a “non-fake” distinction).

Obviously, there would be a number of difficulties if we were to define “simplicity” in this way. It is a dogma of the Catholic faith that the persons of the Trinity are really distinct one from another. Further, the attributes of God would be turned into purely mental abstractions with no foundation in reality.

Hence, the Church has condemned the theses that “no distinction can exist or be understood in God Himself” (D523) and that “every distinction is foreign to God, either in nature or in person” (D524).

First and foremost, it must be understood that “simple” is a negative name of God. When we say “God is really simple,” we are denying something. What is that something? We are denying real composition. It is important to note this again: when we say “God is simple,” we are NOT saying “God has no distinctions,” but “God has no real composition.” So, what is real composition? Real composition is the real union of really distinct things. If you take two lego blocks and unite them together, you have made a bigger block that is a composite of the two smaller blocks. You have taken two really distinct things and united them together, which results in composition. Hence there are TWO aspects to composition: real distinction and real union. Before the lego blocks are placed together, they are really distinct, but they are not composed due to the lack of real union.

Here, we are able to put a somewhat more positive spin on things. When we say that “God is simple,” we are saying that God possesses the fullness of perfection. God contains all the perfections possessed by lower things in a united manner. St. Thomas gives the analogy of the king. The king in his royal power contains all the powers of his lower ministers united in himself. The king does not have separate legislative, executive, and judicial powers, but has the royal power which simply contains all the perfections of the lesser powers in a united way. We can also look at the soul. The soul of man simply and unitedly contains all the lesser powers and their functions in a united way. Man does not possess a vegetative soul, an animal soul, and a rational soul; rather, our rational soul performs all the functions of the lesser souls in a united manner. We can also look at the metaphysical grades. Human nature possesses all the perfections of the higher metaphysical grades in a united manner, possessing the perfections of rationality, animality, life, etc., in a united manner in our humanity.

It is here as well that we see the most manifest reason for why we must attribute this to God. What is the purpose of composition among creatures? When we look at the complexities of machines, the various different parts are united together to perfect each other and to perfect the whole. Yet, as advancements are made, the composition lessens. We are able to create a more perfect machine insofar as the whole needs less outside of itself in order to become perfect in its own grade.

Now, if we apply this same line of reasoning to God, the question “is God simple?” has an obvious answer. When we ask “is God composed of justice?” we are asking “does God need to be perfected by justice?” That is the function of composition: to give something to the whole that it does not already have. The king does not need legislative power because he already possesses it in a perfect manner in his royal power. The rational soul does not need a vegetative soul because it already possesses its functions in the rational soul. So, if we ask “is God really composed of essence and justice?” we are really asking the question “does God’s essence need justice to perfect it?”

From this, the rest of the line of reasoning is obvious. God is the height of perfection. He does not need to be perfected. Hence, it clearly follows that God cannot have composition. His essence already has the perfection of justice in a united manner; it does not need something really distinct from it to perfect it in this way.

With this consideration in particular, we are able to state God’s simplicity in a positive manner and understand it more lucidly in relation to our affirmation that God has true attributes. When we say that “God is just” and “God is merciful,” are we positing purely mental abstractions? No more than when we say “the king has legislative power.” When we say the latter, what do we mean? We mean that the royal power possesses the perfection of legislation. He possesses in a unified manner what lesser ranks possess in a divided manner. Hence, when we say “God is just” and “God is merciful,” we do not imply that the Divine essence has justice and mercy added to it as really distinct perfections; rather, what we mean to imply is that the Divine essence in itself possesses all the perfections of justice and mercy without needing them to be added to it. What creatures possess in a divided way under a multitude of different forms and in a limited manner, God possesses in a simple and unified manner under the sole and simple form of the Deity.

So, how does this work with the Trinity?

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