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In a few passages of holy Scripture, we read that God regrets having done something. Regret, according to Thomas, is a certain sadness for something previously done by oneself. Thus, the reading of these passages is that God feels sorry for having done something evil–as e.g., when he is said to regret that he made the men who have wrought such destruction upon the earth (Gen. 6).

Today, many people take these sayings literally–or, to speak better, they understand them as somehow speaking properly, positing something in God. However, because God’s works are perfect (Deut. 32:4), no divine work can be regretted by God. This is why we instead read that God rather “treasures all which are, and despises nothing which he made” (Wisd. 11:24). Accordingly, no matter that holy Scripture says that God regrets, in reality he nowise does.

This leaves us with two options in handling these passages. The first option would be that these sayings, which admittedly are quite few, are false–and obviously some have held this position. But for the rest of us, the second option is that these sayings were just metaphors and need to be interpreted. Taking this latter line, how then must we interpret such sayings in holy Scripture?

STEP 1: LOOK FOR THE WORK

Initially, the fathers can guide us on interpreting divine passions generally speaking. They almost all agree that whenever we confront “God being impassioned with X” sayings in holy Scripture (where X = some passion), our first and most frequent interpretation is going to be passion put for work: i.e., the divine passion which was uttered by the prophet was only put in place of some creaturely state of affairs or happening–such a happening being considered as a divine work. Thus e.g., God being angered must be interpreted only as e.g., someone suffering pain as due punishment for his sin.

This pattern of interpreting is so universal among the fathers that it carries over into the medievals as well. There, we find the scholastic “rule of thumb,” divine passions are said non secundum affectum, sed secundum effectum. Hence e.g., Anselm in his Proslogion c 8 says that God sympathizing with our pain must not be interpreted as if it posited something in divine will, but only as positing something among us creatures, namely a divine work: e.g., our being saved, our being spared, etc.

Following this and applying it to divine regret, we can conclude that whenever we confront a passage saying that God regrets having done X, we are going to need to identify what creaturely happening is in view, broadly speaking.

STEP 2: LOOK FOR A CERTAIN WORK

Continuing and more precisely, the fathers also guide us as to what sort of creaturely happening we ought to look out for, in order to interpret divine passions. Namely, even before we ever get to God and holy Scripture, we need to determine what creaturely works are unique to the passion in question (or to such an impassioned man): i.e., what works (at least) tend to arise from this principle of man’s being. These creaturely works are going to be similar to the actual divine work which we hope to locate; and thus if we identify the former beforehand, we will be prepared to find the divine work and so actually interpret the metaphor. Hence e.g., among (creaturely) works which are unique to the passion anger, is punishing someone for an offense against oneself. Accordingly, when it comes to anger of God, we are to be on the lookout for concrete divine punishments for transgressions of divine law.

What then when it comes to regret? The certain works which are unique to a regretful man are those greatly differing from the course of his former works. This is because everyone who experiences regret first adjusts his course, and then afterward e.g., makes amends. So much is this so, that whenever any remarkable change occurs in the course of someone’s works, we are inclined to suspect that he must have regretted his former life–even if this isn’t true and the change, say, happened for a different reason.

In line with this, we can conclude that the passages of holy Scripture wherein God is said to regret, have put this passion for some remarkable change in the course of divine providence–either something falling away which was before, or something arising which was not. We might call this a great turnabout or upheaval among creatures, and strong examples would be the destruction of mankind, or the deposition of Saul. Unsurprisingly, from both of these the prophets say God regrets (Genesis 6:6–7; 1 Sam. 15:11), although in reality he nowise does.

The fathers really are unanimous here in giving this interpretation of divine regret. Augustine is a good example here:

“Usually we do not easily change something begun and shift to another except by regretting. Accordingly, although divine providence is seen (by those looking with a steady mind) to administer all realities by a most certain order, nevertheless adjusting all the way down to humble human understanding, those realities which began to be but did not continue as we expected them to have continued are said to have been removed through (so to speak) regret of God.”

In actual fact, all realities have been ordered most certainly, and the course of divine providence–with all its ebbs and flows–is most sure. And those who are wise know well that never is it that something is done, but then God “thinks better of it” so that something contrary arises. God does not tear down disappointed with what he built. The destruction which Genesis 6 reports is not as if God didn’t like his house, demolished it back to timbers, and started fresh–even though the earth really is reduced to its former foundations and built up newly again, and the cause of this is explicitly assigned in verse 7 as “because God regretted that he made man.” This assigned cause was mere metaphor which the prophet deployed to adjust to everyday persons and speak to their level. Hence he feigns that God regretted what he did. This of course has grounds upon the fact that the realities begun did not continue as we expected them to; and it is fitting because “usually we ourselves do not easily change something begun and shift to another except by regretting.”

Thomas, a good representative scholastic, follows suit. Handling Genesis 6:7, and then summarily all passages of this sort, he says:

“This word of the Lord, [namely, ‘that I regret’ in Genesis 6,] is to be understood metaphorically according to our similitude, because when we regret, we destroy what we made (although this can be without change of will, because even some man, without change of will, sometimes wills to make something when he simultaneously intends to destroy it later). So then God is said to regret, according to similitude of work, insofar as man whom he made God through the flood erased from the face of the earth.”

“God sometimes is said to be regretful, insofar as he according to the eternal and immutable order of his providence makes what he earlier destroyed, or destroys what he earlier made–just as we also, being moved by regret, are found to do.”

Thomas thus supplies the same interpretation as Augustine–although he uses a different explanation of the fittingness of this metaphor. He highlights that when this seismic event occurs, its relationship to God is akin to the relationship of a course-correction to a regretful man. Thus, when the prophet recounts this event, he says that it happened because God regretted–this, however, only “metaphorically according to our similitude”: i.e, according to the similarity of our relationship to our course-correction, to this event’s relationship to God.

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Thomas adds one thing beyond Augustine. He reminds that although usually our own course-corrections arise from regret, nevertheless this is not always so. Suppose a man originally intended to build a house whose later destruction by another he simultaneously was intending to permit. In this case, its subsequent destruction appears to arise from some regret in him, although it nowise has done so. If someone were to speak of this and say that this destruction happened from the man’s regret, then either he would be speaking falsely, or merely metaphorically for purposes his own. For Thomas, something similar has occurred in the case of God.

God’s presence, for Thomas, is constructed via agent or efficient causality. In simple terms, he holds (per Aristotle) that every agent is present to and touching its patient inasmuch as it is a patient. As a result, because God is the agent or efficient cause of all esse, he therefore is present to every creature at the very bottom level of its esse. Or as Augustine had seen before in more mystical terms, God is more interior to me than I am to myself.

To wet your appetite, here is the recording from last week’s session. Please do join us for the next!

Initially, Lombard opens his treatment of simplicity by contrasting corporeal and then spiritual creatures with God himself (c 4). Making progress by way of authorities from Augustine, Lombard underlines that among creaturely substances, we find multiplicity and composition: in bodies, there is the obvious multiplicity of corporeal parts; and in souls, there is a somewhat similar composition of parts, e.g., “cupidity, fear, happiness,” etc. “Whereas and by contrast…”--now Lombard quotes Augustine:

“...God is truly and supremely simple–despite the fact that he is manifoldly called. For he is called great, good, wise, blessed, true, and whatever else it seems not unworthy to call him. However, the same is his greatness as his wisdom–for he is great not with bulk [mole], but with virtue; and the same is his goodness as his wisdom and greatness and truth. And there is not there one thing him being blessed, and another thing being great or wise or true or good, or even merely being.”1

To achieve his present intention, Lombard is taking only the opening line of this authority to prove that God is simple in the weakest sense, namely which contrasts with corporeal/spiritual creatures: because Augustine says that “God is truly and supremely simple,” we ought to assent to him lacking body/soulish parts. However, using this authority comes at a cost, for Augustine then continues with a confusing saying which must now be interpreted: “God is manifoldly called.” Lombard elects to pay this cost and use the authority, because the interpretive explanation will enable him to amplify simplicity further–proving that God is simple also in the stronger senses of (1) not having any accidents (c 5) and (2) not being subjected to Aristotle’s accidental predicaments (c 6). The authority thus accomplishes his present intention but also serves as a useful transition.

We are focusing on this interpretation in c 5 and its continuance throughout c 6, as Lombard handles “why Augustine” would ever say that the simple God “is manifoldly called” and then list many terms like great, good, etc.

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The question is, “Whether being perfected belongs to God?” Roughly speaking, Thomas is asking if the term perfected makes a true proposition when God is the subject. Here in obj/ad 1 and elsewhere, Thomas underlines the immediate problem with this term, namely that “something is called perfected as totally made,” whereupon because being made does not belong to God, we (rightly) conclude that neither does being perfected.

The problem is not made-up or some kind of trick. In SCG I c 28, Thomas explains it further. The term perfected cannot make a true proposition involving God when “the signification of the term with respect to its origin is being attended to,” i.e., when it is taken according to its original sense. As Thomas explains, we call anything factus that is made (fit) by another, i.e., reduced from potency unto act and from non-being unto being; and likewise, we “rightly” call anything per-fectus when it is totally made by another, i.e., when all its potency is entirely reduced to act “such that [the something] retains now nothing of non-being” but instead “has completed being.” Perhaps we could call a cake something made (factus) by a baker when it has not yet been decorated; but we would call a house something totally made (perfectus) by the contractor when it is even drywalled, painted, and ready for living. Accordingly, calling God perfectus does not make a true proposition; rather, the opposite is true: God is not totally made.

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We want to consider one primary mode used by Thomas for doing this: the resolutions to objections which involve troubling authorities. Eventually, we will look practically at two examples in ST I q 3, involving the body parts and passions of God. Initially, however, we want to zoom out and consider more theoretically (1) troubling authorities within the scholastic question; and (2) how for Thomas, scriptural sayings present a difficult problem and so unique call for interpretation.

Troubling Authorities in the Utrum Sit Question Form

One could easily misunderstand authorities in the utrum sit question, especially viewing things from our side of history. Typically, they have found their home in one of two places: (1) sed contra, for “good” authorities–those whose (at least) surface sense agrees with or else concludes the true part of the contradiction; and (2) objections, for “bad” authorities, those whose surface sense disagrees with that true part or else concludes the opposite. However, this is the end of a long migration as scholastic methods develop; and tracing that journey helps us understand what all pertains to (2), objections and “bad” authorities (which is our focus). Let us mark only three stages.

The first stage is lectio-quaestio-disputatio. Originally, the student encountered “bad” authorities in lectio, reading a text; this caused a certain question which was then resolved, and the authority interpreted, in disputatio. Thus, reading Genesis 6 he encounters “and God regretted”; but because he knows that God does not have passions, he is troubled: the authority induces in his intellect quaestio, dubium, aporia–in English, perplexity. The student thus inquires how is this said (quomodo dicitur), and his response is disputatio. We must mark this pattern exactly, as it eventually morphs into our particular objections in utrum sit–as seen momentarily.

A second stage could be Lombard’s Sententiae. Lombard determines contradictions by proceeding primarily through authorities and especially those which are sententiae–hence the name of his work. However, after his determination, Lombard usually follows up with two things. First, he rebuts the rationes of the heretics–Augustine’s “chattering ratiocinators”; but then second, Lombard addresses authorities concluding against what was had through patristic sententiae (and, possibly even demonstrated by rationes). We draw attention to two things. One, subsequent objections now involve both rationes and “bad” authorities. Yet two, the same pattern is being replayed in these “authority” objections: e.g., having shown that God lacks passions, Lombard will remark, “But how then is it said that…” e.g., God regrets; he then will resolve this.

Third and finally, we come to the standardized utrum sit form–where things are shuffled around and further complexified. Fundamentally, the quaestio begins with arguments for the false part and then proceeds to arguments for the true. However, each sort of argument now includes rationes and authorities both: arguments pro include “good” authorities (sed contra) and rationes (respondeo); arguments contra, i.e., objections, also include rationes and “bad” authorities (Lombard’s two sorts of objection are now flipped to the beginning).

The purpose of this historical review is to emphasize a single point: what began as a concrete need to interpret texts (in lectio-quaestio-disputatio) has been transposed into now one distinct sort of objections in utrum sit. Today, we easily forget this, obscuring the nature of these “authority” objections and/or confusing them with “ratio” objections. True, all objections are raised with an eye to their resolution, and so possess the final cause of healing intellectual dubia. However, there are dubia and then there are dubia. There are dubia which are caused by the chatterboxes seizing our natural reason and twisting it to conclude, seemingly upon intellectual grounds, a falsehood. Yet there are also dubia which stem from persons possessed of auctoritas (prophets/apostles; fathers; earlier scholastic masters), namely when their authorities are occasioning a false conclusion and thus demanding interpretation. These are two fundamentally different sorts of objections whose value is distinct and also whose treatments and methods of resolution are distinct. Yet most crucially for us, “authority” objections are the primary vehicle being used to directly teach how to interpret texts.

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Notwithstanding this fundamental distinction, there is one even more important to recall today, namely, distinguishing what sort of justice is involved (when speaking of meriting according to its proper sense). There is meriting which runs on commutative justice; and then there is meriting which runs on distributive.

Today, this distinction has become all the more necessary for two reasons. One is the fact that the English meriting is especially used in commercial or mercantile contexts, which all involve commutative justice. Consequently, fo…

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I’ve carefully considered whether to speak about this publicly, and if so, how. In the end, I realized that I genuinely owed something to those who are my friends and/or former students, who will be asking how did this happen. Sadly, I just couldn’t manage to speak directly to many of you whom I wanted and needed to (hopefully, at some time in the future I can remedy this); and unable to take everyone for coffee privately one by one, I’m left with giving a truncated explanation publicly–with all the downsides that involves.

Why then have I converted? (By the way, “converted” is not really a word I’m comfortable with; I use it here only for convenience.) Explanations of a conversion often speak of “pushes” and “pulls.” Accordingly, someone crosses the Tiber when sufficient motives arise to push him away from Protestantism and/or pull him toward Catholicism. This sort of explanation thus identifies the goods of Catholicism which are attractive, and the bads of Protestantism which have proved so sour.

Certainly I could say things here–and also on the negative front. But then, enumerating grievances or frustrations with Protestantism would too easily occlude the goods which I have received and enjoyed there (and this is not even to mention what is more important anyway: the many persons whom I love so dearly). Indeed and although this is hopelessly unintelligible to e.g., my parents, my conversion to Catholicism is the fruit of all the good Protestant seed which has been sown throughout the soil of my life. And if my Catholicism is merely the maturation of my erstwhile Protestantism, then how could I speak ill of it?

Besides, this is not how I think about things anyway, in terms of “pushes” and “pulls” playing upon my passions. Rather, the explanation of the conversion involves–unsurprisingly–the intellectual side of things, bearing upon truth and falsity.

Catholics and Protestants, as is well known, have a fairly large set of real contradictions where they find themselves on opposite sides. To be sure, many of the more commonly-cited “oppositions” are actually not such; they are products of deep misunderstanding–silly (and frustrating) caricatures which each side has of the other. However, there do remain many and actual oppositions which one can pin down. Consequently, a conversion–at least explained along this intellectual front–occurs as someone gradually comes to hold the Catholic part of more and more contradictions (especially principial ones).

This occurred in my case. And here is where we find the reason for me becoming Catholic. Of course, there are always many reasons for a thing like this, a whole host and all very different. Actually, it is my impression that people often cannot point to really a single reason within the mass of them; but in my particular case, I can do so easily. The reason, for me, is precisely what initially determined me to the Catholic part on these contradictions. The name of that reason is Thomas Aquinas, and particularly his auctoritas.

Auctoritas is a condition of a person comprising both his knowledge in a science, as well as his moral goodness. The former is how you know that he is not deceived; and the latter is how you know that he does not deceive when he testifies as to which part is true. When such a person does testify, you assent to that part merely on account of that person’s condition (propter auctoritatem)--and then you proceed from there.

Over time, it happened that Thomas’s auctoritas became supreme in my intellectual experience. Obviously, it is not supreme absolutely speaking–Thomas would be the first person to tell you that. But it is so in my experience–especially as I have undergone the confirming process of (1) assenting initially merely because Thomas said so; (2) eventually found rationes; and then (3) locked the proposition down in a demonstration and achieved scientia. All throughout this, my learning process, I have never found Thomas wanting, not even close. He has never steered me wrong. And over time, my intellect has become habituated to proceed about contradictions in precisely this mode (I have articulated this elsewhere as simply what it means to be a Thomist).

As I became intellectually obliged to follow Thomas wherever he leads me, so withholding my assent became intellectually unjustified–even regarding those contradictions where, initially, I had no reasons for the Catholic part, or even my remaining Protestant doubts. Remarkably, I became obliged to conclude Catholicism, merely because Thomas had told me to do so. And in the end, I listened.

And that’s really it. I’m trying here to just be real, rather frank, and to the point. I could say much more, and would to a friend in private; but, in a public venue, I prefer to be reserved. To close, however, I will only express my remaining love for my Protestant friends, so many of whom have been immensely kind to me; and my sadness to know that some will feel this change creates a barrier between us. Over time, I trust that you will find no barriers are built from my side, and that my life will manifest my goodwill from across the Tiber. And yes, I hope that someday maybe Thomas will prove a boat for you too; but even absent that, I will pray for you—and ask you to pray for me and my wife.

RMH

This is part 3, where we finally handle Thomas’s first interpretation directly. Part 1 addressed three major differences between interpeters today and Thomas himself; part 2 handled the two main errors which Thomas wants to avoid. Now, we proceed to unpack what the “negative intepretation” involves, in ull.

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This is part 2. In part 1, we identified three main differences between how Thomas approaches the Cry and how many interpreters today do. Thomas is seeking the literal sense, merely the pure intellectual content of the Cry; he is open to many literal senses both intended by Christ; and those senses will be dissonant with the surface sense of the Cry as a complaint uttered from e.g., aversion of death. Origen: “Do not imagine that the Savior said this in a mode typically human–viz., on account of the calamity which overwhelmed him upon the cross. If you take Christ’s words so, then you will not hear his loud voice, which shows something great is hidden.”

In this second part, we look at merely the two main errors which Thomas blocks…before actually giving his two interpretations.

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Please share and subscribe, and if you can, support my work with a paid subscription—which makes posts like this possible.

My thanks to my friend Stiven who suggested this essay.

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Romans 8:3 is a notable scriptural authority here, that Christ came “in similitudinem carnis peccati, in the likeness of the flesh of sin.” For Thomas, Christ assumed, yes, what made him not just like, but even the same as ourselves; but he also assumed what made him like unto our “flesh of sin,” i.e., our current flesh poenalized from original fault. The former is a human nature, resulting in a body and rational soul; and the latter are poenal defects, resulting in that body and soul being passible and (inter alia) actually suffering pains (dolores), having sadnesses (tristitiae), etc.

As a consequence of this position, Thomas would agree that we can say that Christ assumed a fallen human nature–to speak in contemporary terms.2 However, almost certainly he would protest that we can say this only with a certain qualification; and indeed, that the same qualification is why Paul said only a similitude of, rather than the same as our fallen flesh.

Here, we want to review Thomas’s main interpretations of Romans 8:3 as they are scattered throughout his opera, doing so in a progressive way and leading up to his own ex professo commentary on the verse. And we will keep an eye on the contemporary debate over Christ assuming a fallen or unfallen human nature.

First, Thomas understands the reality involved as Christ’s passibility or mortality, or else the resulting poenae–whether bodily (e.g., hunger) or soulish (e.g., pain and sadness). These are the only realities involved when we eventually approach Romans 8:3, and this is why Thomas gives such as simple glosses in a number of scattered remarks. E.g., Christ assumed from our second human estate after sin “passibility and death, by assuming a similitude of the flesh of sin with respect to poena, not sin itself with respect to culpa–according to Romans 8:3”; “God sent his Son ‘in the similitude of the flesh of sin,’ i.e., [as] mortal.” “Christ assumed the nature without sin, but with passibility, because he assumed a flesh similar to sinful [flesh]: Romans 8:3, “in the similitude of the flesh of sin.’”3 The point in these three quotations is not how Thomas handles Romans 8:3, but that the underlying reality in Christ is only passibility, mortality, ultimately poenae; and not e.g., sin, culpa, etc.

Second, Thomas underlines an essential contrast. On the one hand, Christ takes what makes him even the same as ourselves, i.e., he assumes a human nature. But on the other hand, he co-takes only what makes him merely similar to our so-called “flesh of sin,” i.e., he co-assumes poenal defects. We are confronting partly why Thomas would only say with a qualification that Christ yes assumed a fallen human nature; and so we must consider this carefully.

In his SCG IV c 29, Thomas emphasizes the contrast by differentiating between the senses of “in the similitude of” found in Romans 8:3 versus in Philippians 2:7. The context is refuting the Manicheans who were arguing that Christ had a phantastical body, taking advantage of holy Scripture saying e.g., that Christ “was made in the similitude of men” (Phil. 2:7), as if this concluded only similarity and not sameness in species. Thomas contrasts with Romans 8:3; and notes that in Romans, the reason for speaking of a similitude is clarified when Paul continues, whereas the Manichaean interpretation of “just similar” in Philippians 2:7 is excluded through what Paul adds. Concentrating here on the former, Thomas remarks:

“[The apostle] does not just say ‘in the similitude of the flesh,’ but he adds ‘of sin.’ This is because Christ yes had true flesh, but he did not have the flesh of sin, because in him sin was not; rather, he was similar to the flesh of sin, because he had passible flesh, the sort which is made the flesh of man from sin.”4

For Thomas, “the flesh of sin” is fallen human nature wherein poenae are contracted from original fault. Christ, by virtue of having a passible body/soul, is rendered similar to, but not the same as, ourselves who have this fallen nature. In his case as in ours, poenal defects are found–thus grounding the similarity which Paul speaks of. But in our case, those defects arise from having original fault (culpa)--thus preventing the sameness, for in Christ’s case, his defects are taken extra and voluntarily (as Thomas explains in many places). Consequently, Thomas would only concede that Christ assumed a fallen human nature if there was added a qualification like “not as if he had culpa,” or “not through a vitiated origin,” or “not the samewise fallen nature as ourselves” wherein all poenae are due to culpa.

Third and moving into actual interpretations, Thomas often handles Romans 8:3 along with other troubling authorities whose outer form can be deceptive–whereupon he adds an exposition (pia expositio). Thus e.g., in SCG IV c 55:

“It was fitting that God assume (without sin) flesh passible and mortal, so that thereby by suffering and dying he would satisfy for us and remove sin. And this is what the apostle says in Romans: ‘God sent his Son in the similitude of the flesh of sin,’ i.e., having a flesh similar to sinners (i.e., as passible and mortal); and then he adds, ‘so that from [this] sin he might condemn sin in [our?] flesh,’ i.e., so that through the poena which he sustained in [his] flesh for our sin, he might remove sin from us.”5

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But before I finalize all my lectures and actually sit down to record it (quite a bit of work!), I’d like to take a quick poll to see your interest in purchasing such a course in its finished form. Here are the concrete details, then the course description, and then the quick poll at the end.

Concrete Details

The course will be 10 full lectures, along with a syllabus/recommended reading list. You’d get permanent access to everything.

Cost: pre-pub price will be $99; normal price will be $149.

Course delivery time: June.

Course Description

This master course is a comprehensive examination of the four main passions of God found throughout holy Scripture:

1. God regretting past misdeeds.

2. God being jealous of Israel.

3. God being angered by sinners.

4. God sympathizing with our pain.

Over ten lectures, we will resolve the seeming co…

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Here, I want to review Thomas’s own treatment of the question Whether if man had not sinned, Christ would have been incarnated. Fortunately, Thomas handles this question in only three texts: III Sent d 1 q 1 a 3; Ad 1 Tim c 1 lect 4; and ST III q 1 a 3–meaning that giving Thomas’s explicit teaching is straightforward.

In short and as an initial summary, Thomas holds that this particular question is not yet determined and that either opinion is plausible. However, unlike e.g., his teacher Albertus Magnus who holds the affirmative as more plausible, Thomas eventually holds the negative as such. Consequently, Thomas himself more firmly assents (opinionatively) to the negative, but still refrains from presenting this as his “position” (sententia) on the question (Albertus also refrained from doing so).

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A simple example outside theology can illustrate this thought process initially: calling Helen of Troy a man. Granted, this saying could signify a judgment which posits the human form in Helen (the name is equivocal); but let us stipulate that this particular name is usurped from someone having the male form: a man = a male. We know with certainty that such a form does not fall in Helen; and so our question becomes, How is she still called the name usurped from a man? To respond, we then identify various facts about Helen, different judgments whose truths we know; and we select a good fact. For example, perhaps she is called a man because she did something which, we analyze, is usually done by a man–for example, when she wrestled in the palaestra. This fact, involving a certain operation or an effect/work, enables the naming and is a good explanation. However, this fact in mind, we must then advance to the problem of justification (in Thomas’s terms, ratio convenientiae): for how is it fitting to call Helen a man, despite her not having the male form, but merely given this fact? One justification (and actually the strongest for this sort of fact) is an analogy of proportionality between a man and his operation, versus Helen and her own: just as a man wrestles naked in the palaestra, just so did Helen.

This example, a bit belabored, nonetheless shows what we mean by a fact and some justification. However, in Thomas’s theological works, he does not aim for just any fact/justification. Rather, he usually intends the best fact and then (when required) the strongest justification for each particular divine naming. This is in line with his scholastic goals.

Earlier theologians, by contrast, often give lesser facts/weaker justifications than Thomas manages. Admittedly, sometimes this is because they are interpreting e.g., scriptural sayings where such lesser facts rather than the scholastic “best ones” are actually in view (e.g., many church fathers like Origen and Augustine); and thus likewise in his own commentarial works, Thomas deploys many different facts in different scriptural situations (one major explanation for the variation throughout his opera e.g., about sympathy of God). However, oftentimes earlier theologians are doing this under the constraints of their own lesser system, and so Thomas will critique them for their insufficiency. Indeed, Thomas will identify overarching sorts of facts (e.g., negative facts; causal facts; etc.) which a theologian tends to use for a certain category of names. Maimonides, for example, often and insufficiently calls God e.g., wise negatively, that is, merely because he is not foolish. Lombard, at least in IV Sent d 46, advocates for calling God wise causally, that is, merely because he did something wise. And Avicenna, e.g., argues for reducing all divine namings to either negative or relative facts: God is called intelligent because he is not material–just a negation; he is willing because, on top of being intelligent (that is, the negation of materiality), he is the principle of the order of all goodness–just a relation.

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Our time consists of commenting slowly through the text, me giving background, explaining the deeper issues, highlighting parallel passages, later Thomistic commentators, etc. People ask questions and, over time, are learning to read Thomas for themselves (I’m very proud of all my “students”). And what is more, we are growing in our understanding of God himself.

Here’s a sample of our sessions. You are most welcome to join us, and the sign-up is here ($10 per session).

There are also other opportunities to join with me and work through Thomas—including a stand-alone course, handling his treatments of the theological habit faith. You can read more about that here.

I’m very excited to make it available to folks. People have asked me for a long time to create something which can introduce them to Thomas Aquinas and his theology—something pitched at the beginner’s level. And this series does just that! Perfect for your own private study, or for preparing to lead your own Sunday School group through Thomas’s commentary!

Thomas’s commentary is really a series of “sermons” (collationes) or catechetical lectures which he himself pitched to laypeople to introduce them to the basics of the faith. It joins his other catechetical works, namely his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments, as an exemplary display of the great theologian putting things on the bottom shelf.

I’…

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1. Faith and Its Equivocations

2. Faith and Its Determinations (Bonaventura and Thomas)

3. In the Beginning, Bellarmine

4. The Protestant Justifying Faith: The Origin Story (1), Notitia and Assensus

5. The Protestant Justifying Faith: The Origin Story (2), Fiducia

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We have at least some understanding of the Protestant three acts of faith–both what notitia, assensus, and fiducia usually are intended as (or, especially for fiducia, could be understood as), and likewise their Thomist verbal equivalents. We now want to trace the genealogy of these acts and, eventually, the Protestant faith as a whole.

Assensus, for a start, need not occupy us. The act is merely a hold-over from scholastic treatments of (their) theological habit faith and its act, assent. The assent in view does not occur on account of any argument, distinguishing its habit from scientia (whose assent is from a demonstrative reason) and from opinion (whose assent is from a plausible reason). No, this assent is merely on account of the authority of God revealing (=the formal object of faith). It is credere, (supernatural) believing–an act elicited from the intellect under the command of the will moved by its own object.

What scholastics developed is merely continued by Catholics and then appropriated, unchanged, by Protestants. Consequently, there is no major difference between Catholics and Protestants regarding assensus–although, to be sure, Protestants are sometimes under-determined as to the dynamics (or, metaphysics) of this assent. Regardless, any notable debate between them occurs elsewhere.

This leaves us with notitia and fiducia. Although it is wrong to think in exclusive terms, the fact is that Calvin especially emphasized notitia and Luther/Melanchthon fiducia–meaning that generally speaking, notitia becomes prominent in Reformed circles, and fiducia in Lutheran. (Throughout the minutes of the Council of Trent, consequently, we find “the fiducia of the Lutherans.”) Beyond this rough difference of context, the addition of each act occurs independently from two different things. Notitia, as an initial gesture, arises in response to ignorance among laypeople and represents the rejection of the Catholic implicita fides. Fiducia, by contrast, arises from humanist (re)interpretation of holy Scripture: many Greek (and, where relevant, Hebrew) sayings originally translated into the Latin fides/credere and so used as authorities for the scholastic habit/act, are now reinterpreted as (quite roughly) trusting something (=fiducia), rather than believing someone about something (=credere). Given that these two things are entirely independent of each other, the addition of notitia and then that of fiducia must be considered on their own terms.

Notitia and Lay Ignorance

The Protestant emphasis on notitia, on an initial and charitable analysis, is merely the response to the real and pervasive ignorance among laypeople. At that time, too many people did not know even the fundamental articles of the faith such as the holy Trinity and Incarnation. From the Protestant perspective, this ignorance is wrapped up with various other ecclesial abuses, e.g., laypeople not having holy Scripture in the vernacular. In response, Protestants claim that notitia, at least about these articles, is a necessary act of justifying faith: rather than have total ignorance, a man must first know and then assent in order to be saved (or, justified).

This, of course, is little more than a recommitment to catechesis; and naturally from the Catholic perspective, there is no objection here. (But when has it ever been the case that laypeople did not require more catechesis?) Unfortunately however, this obvious agreement was not sufficient to stymie debate. Indeed, as Protestants then insisted on enclosing notitia within faith, Catholics tended to reject this addition on metaphysical grounds: philosophically, “of one habit there is one act,” and traditionally, that act is assent. The rejection only reinforces the fear of Protestants, who retort that Catholics advocate for “naked assent” (nuda assensus) instead of the Protestant informed assent (notitia + assensus). Catholics, for their part, also struggle with non-scholastic senses of e.g., notitia; and misunderstand this addition as reduce the assent to being with arguments (rationes) rather than merely on account of the authority of God; or as exalting the assent to terminating to complete understanding (intelligentia) rather than yielding only some understanding (aliqua intelligentia, as Vatican I would later proclaim). Protestants suffer their own misunderstandings: they thoroughly lose their mind when Bellarmine argues that faith is better defined “through ignorance than through notitia,” and overlook the fact that Bellarmine is following scholastics like Thomas who speak of e.g., “not altogether ignorance.” In sum, each of these misunderstandings (and others) triggers a chain reaction for the others; and the situation is an embarrassment of reading on both sides. The consequence, all told, is that although there is no real difference here, there seems to need to be a dispute between parties–so much so that Bellarmine identifies notitia as one of the three main differences between Catholics and Protestants, and Protestants follow suit.

Fides Implicita?

All this is on an initial analysis. Further inquiry uncovers a more complex situation: the Protestant notitia is not just a response to ignorance among laypeople; it is also a reaction against the Catholic fides implicita. Unfortunately, this involves yet another problem of misunderstanding, beginning now with John Calvin.

Understanding the background is non-negotiable here. The scholastic distinction between fides explicita versus implicita has a storied history. Importantly, fides here regards the act of the habit (credere), not the habit itself (fides). Scholastics consider explicitly believing versus implicitly believing after the following fashion. When John actually (in actu) assents to only the universal proposition that every man is mortal, then ipso facto he implicitly assents to the particular proposition that this man is mortal. By contrast, when Peter then actually assents to even the same particular, he explicitly assents to it. John is then said to have fides implicita, an implicit belief in this particular man being mortal, precisely in that he has an actual belief in every man being mortal. Peter, for his part, is said to have fides explicita, an explicit belief in the same particular man being mortal, precisely in that he not only has an actual belief in every man…, but also in this particular one… (Note that an explicit assent presumes knowledge–in Protestant terms, notitia!--of the proposition.)

Scholastics turn this to handle various propositions of the catholic faith, and consider which ones someone must explicitly believe in at various times. In the time of grace (by contrast to e.g., the old testament), each and every person must explicitly assent to both the most general articles on the holy Trinity and the Incarnation. Note (1) each and every person, that is, bishop or lay; and (2) both the articles on the holy Trinity and Incarnation. But when it comes e.g., to more particular or derivative propositions (the subtleties of the faith), then laypeople do not absolutely need (necessitate medii) to explicitly assent to these; rather, given that they explicitly believe in the most general articles, the resulting implicit belief in the particulars is sufficient. By contrast, religious superiors and teachers cannot content themselves with implicit beliefs in these particulars, but must (=necessitate praecepti) explicitly believe in them. In simplistic and summary terms, all persons must actually assent to the majors of the faith; but laypeople, in that they are actually assenting to the majors, are permitted to thereby and ipso facto merely be implicitly assenting to the minors. All this is standard scholastic teaching, albeit summarized directly from Thomas, and thoroughly enshrined in Catholicism by the time of the Reformation.

There is, however, a further and related point, which later proves a stumbling block to the Reformers. There develops a different sense of fides implicita, namely which involves “believing that which the church believes/teaches (credo quod Ecclesia credit/docet). The development of this different sense is complex, and here we must proceed with caution. Beyond implicitly assenting to some particular in actually assenting to its universal, someone can also implicitly assent to that particular insofar as he accepts the authority of the church, which actually and explicitly assents to it. This follows the relation of the student to his teacher. When John actually believes e.g., that God is one and three, that the Son became incarnate, etc. proximately on account of the authority of the church so teaching, then he both believes the universals and believes the church (note equivocal senses of believes!). Ipso facto actually believing the universal, he implicitly believes a particular; and ipso facto he actually believes the church, he also implicitly believes the same particular. Thomas, for one, calls the latter “implicit faith in another’s faith,” viz., implicitly believing a proposition in another’s actually believing it, given the student-teacher relationship. Furthermore, Thomas speaks of both these as implicit beliefs. E.g., a layperson in the old testament “was only bound to have faith about the Redeemer implicitly” (by contrast to a layperson in the new, bound to have faith about it explicitly). Notably, this implicit belief was managed “either in the patriarchs/prophets’ faith, or else in divine providence”: i.e., he either (1) actually believed the prophet and accepted his authority, but the prophet was actually believing in the Redeemer; or else (2) actually believed in divine providence, ipso facto implicitly believing in the Redeemer (for Thomas, the former is to the latter just as a principle to its conclusion). These are, most notably, two very different senses of fides implicita. They are similar to what Thomas says elsewhere “regarding other [minor] credibles,” viz., that “a man is not bound to explicitly believe them, but only implicitly or in preparation of his soul, insofar as he is ready to believe whatever is contained in the divine scripture”: adjusted to our own point, he implicitly believes them either (1) in actually believing their universals, or (2) in the readiness of his soul to immediately assent to the church’s teaching. Thomas indeed is forceful about this latter fides implicita:

“Those upon whom the office of teaching the faith rests are mediaries between God and men. Hence, with respect to God, they are men; but with respect to men, they are gods insofar as they participate divine knowledge through the knowledge of the Scriptures, or through [immediate] revelation–as is said, ‘He called them gods to whom the word of God was made’ (John 10:35). And thus it is necessary [=praecepti?] that the inferiors [=laypeople], who ought to be taught by them about the faith, have implicit faith in the faith of these [superiors], not as men, but as they are gods by participation.”

To review and summarize, we find two different but very entangled senses of fides implicita–roughly:

1. John implicitly believes P in that he actually believes U (P = a particular proposition; U = a universal).

2. John implicitly believes P in that he actually believes Peter, viz., actually accepts Peter’s authority.

The second is often summarized as, “I believe what the church believes/teaches” (credo quod Ecclesia credit/docet); and many later scholastics (e.g., Biel) were proposing this under the name fides implicita. Note that some scholastics were even intending this fides implicita as: actually believing the proposition that whatever the church teaches is true, thereby implicitly believing this, which the church teaches.

On the eve of the Reformation then, according to Catholic teaching, a layperson (1) must (necessitate medii) actually believe in the holy Trinity and the Incarnation; and in so doing, he implicitly believes in their particular/derived propositions (the subtleties in these doctrines)--which is sufficient. In addition, he (2) must (necessitate praecepti?) actually accept the authority of the church, and in so doing, he implicitly believes in all her teachings.

All this background in mind, we can revert to the Protestant emphasis on notitia.

Read more

1. Faith and Its Equivocations

2. Faith and Its Determinations (Bonaventura and Thomas)

3. In the Beginning, Bellarmine

4. The Protestant Justifying Faith: The Origin Story (1), Notitia and Assensus.

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Defining fiducia is very difficult, and this is particularly unfortunate in light of the fact that fiducia becomes primary in Protestant explanations of their justifying faith. Indeed, this primacy is so extreme that we frequently find statements asserting fiducia to be the constitutive difference of justifying faith by contrast to that of demons or unbelievers. For a Catholic, charity makes all the difference for (his) faith as justifying or not–in that its presence forms faith, and its absence leaves it unformed. But for a Protestant, that role (for his faith) is played by fiducia. In this sense, the most important area to consider in Catholic-Protestant debates is fiducia.

Unfortunately, causes for misunderstanding are found on both sides. From the Catholic side, this involves the absence of fiducia in explanations of their faith, but its presence in explanations of their hope. On the one hand, whereas notitia and assensus are actually found in the Catholic faith, fiducia is entirely absent. There is simply no equivalent let alone a “touchstone” in the Catholic understanding. On the other hand, the Protestant fiducia somewhat (or rather sometimes) pertains to what Catholics would understand as their theological virtue hope. Quite interestingly, when Thomas identifies the act of the theological habits, regarding hope he speaks of “fiducia for achieving the ultimate end, as for a reality possible for oneself.” For the later Bellarmine, fiducia is defined as “nothing else except a strengthened hope,” referring to Thomas, ST II-II q 129 a 6. Accordingly, he identifies this as the Protestant (and especially Lutheran) fiducia; and as a general rule, this tends to be the Catholic understanding of the Protestant fiducia. To be sure, there is much truth here–whereupon even Protestants like Turretin will reference the definition (=a strengthened hope) and somewhat accept the charge (although not without scruples).

However, and from now the Protestant side, causing misunderstanding and further complicating the situation is–once again–general ambiguity and equivocation internal to Protestants. Sticking just with Turretin, he identifies no less than three frequent definitions among Protestants in this context (leading to internal disputes, also involving the relation of fiducia to faith as justifying). His second and third senses are most important: (1) “the act of fleeing to and receiving Christ”; and (2) “the [feeling which is] confidence or acquiescence and tranquility of soul which arises from the flight of the soul to Christ for his reception.” Notably, the latter sense best corresponds to Bellarmine’s “a strengthened hope”; and yet the former, we will argue, best approximates the primary sense of the Protestant fiducia, particularly when they are considering it the constitutive difference of justifying faith. Regardless, given that fiducia is all-important for making (the Protestant) faith justifying, the confusion among Protestant theologians about what precisely this is remains quite unfortunate and frustrating for both sides.

So far we are speaking more generally. Let us begin by considering Thomas’s own definition(s) of fidicua, in ST II-II q 129 a 6–and the detour will be very worth it. We can then return to the Protestant fiducia and compare/contrast it.

Thomas’s Definition(s) of Fiducia

In ST II-II q 129 a 6 and in the context of magnanimity, Thomas attempts the definition of fiducia. He makes the initial and illuminative observation that the very name fiducia “seems to have been taken from fides, faith”--a clue to its definition. The reality faith, we recall, involves “believing something and someone,” viz., assenting that something is on account of someone’s testimony. However, according to certain authorities, the reality fiducia itself “pertains to [the act] hope.” Add these two together, and we expect that the definition involves (the act) hope vis-à-vis (an act) faith.

Thomas thus presents his principle definition: “the name fiducia seems to principally signify this: that someone conceives hope from believing the word of someone promising help.” In other words, fiducia (close English: confidence) principally signifies that very hoping caused by believing someone’s promise to help him obtain the difficult good. When e.g., John faces a good almost impossible to achieve, he might first feel despair; however, when Peter promises to help John obtain it, then if John believes this, he now feels fiducia, confidence (consider the English: “he takes heart”). This seems closest to the sense of fiducia which Thomas uses when he speaks of the theological virtue “hope, according to which is in [the soul] fiducia for achieving the ultimate end, as for a reality possible to oneself.”

Thomas continues and provides a second definition of fiducia as well. The additional definition arises given that sometimes a strong opining (=the assent on account of a plausible ratio, particularly one very plausible) is called fides, instead of (more properly) calling believing fides. Consequently, the name fiducia acquires a second definition which (1) still pertains to hope, but (2) no longer involves believing, but rather strong opining. Following this track, Thomas reminds that unlike believing, strongly opining does not occur just from “something said by another”; it also happens from “something considered in another.” Said otherwise, John can strongly opine that it is going to rain not just from the saying of the weatherman, but also from the darkness in the clouds. Adverting to the latter, viz., something existent in something and which is being considered, Thomas reverts to fiducia and considers secondly:

“And thence it is that fiducia can also be spoken of insofar as someone conceives hope for some reality from something considered. Obviously, sometimes the something is in himself: consider when someone, seeing that he is healthy, feels confident [confidit] that he will live long; but other times, the something is in another: consider when someone, considering another to be his friend and also strong, has fiducia [=confidence] to be helped by him.”

This is a tricky quotation; but our understanding is helped by Thomas’s following remark: “fiducia imports a certain strength of hope arising from some consideration which makes a strong opinion about a good to be achieved”; and then what should be taken as his second definition proper in ad 3: “fiducia is that hope strengthened from some firm opinion” (this, notably, stands behind Bellarmine’s own quotation).

Let us consider this carefully. Fiducia, Thomas explains, is a certain strengthened hope, or else the very strength thereof (he elsewhere notes that fiducia signifies the certitude of hope). We recall that hope itself is what someone feels about a future good difficult but possible to be obtained. John feels “just” hope when he considers the initial or “bare” possibility; but he then feels differently when that possibility is increased by something (which he considers). Fidicua is either the difference between these two, the very strength of the hope; or else it is the “new” hope qua strengthened.

Thomas gives two examples, as follows. First, John hopes for a long life. He then considers that he is healthy, and then from this strongly opines (=intellectual act) that he indeed will live long. His hope for that long life is thus strengthened (proximately) from this strong opining, ultimately from him considering his health. Beware lest you convert this into intellectual terms! In English, when we say that John is confident that he will live long, we sometimes mean that he is intellectually certain or strongly opining the truth of this proposition (=I am confident that it is going to rain); but we also mean that he feels very hopeful about obtaining long life (=I feel confident about winning the medal). (As an aside, this confusion between the two returns in Catholic-Protestant debates over fiducia and justifying faith.) Thomas is speaking of the latter, the volitional or appetitive; and not the former, the intellectual–easily confusable when he says that “someone, seeing that he is healthy, is confident [confidit] that he will live long.” Thomas is speaking periphrastically, and “is confident” is better rendered “feels confidence, fiducia.”

This first example involves something in oneself; Thomas’s second example handles something in another. Peter hopes for anice house and so wants to build it. However, as he considers the difficulty of the task, his hope is weakened given the increased or seeming “impossibility”--more properly/technically, in proportion to his intellectual apprehension or assent involving this difficulty. Yet when he then considers that John is a carpenter (=potens) and also his friend (=volens), Paul’s hope is revived and strengthened. Before he was feeling desperation, but now he feels reassurance (=fiducia). Thomas again speaks periphrastically: that Paul “has fiducia, confidence to be helped by him,” does not mean that he intellectually expects that John will help (=I conclude from John being X and Y that plausibly Z), but that he volitionally expects the house on account of John’s help (=I feel great certainty, from considering X and Y and concluding Z, about achieving the house).

Thomas’s two definitions of fiducia in mind, we can now revert to the Protestant fiducia.

The Protestant Fiducia?

Read more

1. Faith and Its Equivocations

2. Faith and Its Determinations (Bonaventura and Thomas)

3. In the Beginning, Bellarmine

Would you take a moment and honestly consider becoming a paid subscriber, to support this and other posts? Doing so not only gets you access to the whole archive as well as paywalled posts, but it genuinely enables my work.

To all my paid subscribers, from my heart, thank you.

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