Abstract
In this paper I carry out a philosophical inquiry that yields an account of religion as a personal disposition. This exercise is also expository, since I take my bearings from two thinkers, Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Newman. Regarding Aquinas, this means delineating his treatment of the virtue of ‘religio’ in the ‘Summa theologiae’; regarding Newman, it means attending to his description of the experience of being religious in ‘Grammar of Assent’. The resulting account captures both the “objective face” of being religious as well as its “subjective inscape,” thus depicting religion as a human perfection imperfectly realized in any given individual.
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Notes
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent [henceforth, “Grammar”] (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), II.10 (pp. 384–385).
F. Crosson suggests “religiousness” (not “religion”) to name the disposition in a human being to serve God, because “religion,” he thinks, has a primarily sociological meaning, referring to a more or less coherent set of beliefs and practices in relation to God associated with a given community. See Crosson, “The Analogy of Religion,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 65 (1991): 1–15. I sympathize with Crosson, but I think it more important to retain a connection in our naming between the personal disposition an individual has toward God and the social reality to which Crosson refers. Using “religion” to refer to both accomplishes this. It opens one up to seeing, moreover, that religion as a social reality truly exists only insofar as there exist individuals with religious dispositions. In addition, as an abstract noun, “religiousness”—or, another possibility, “religiosity”—does not capture as well the “concrete” reality of a person’s being religious.
Yet I sympathize with Crosson, and so, in order to remind the reader that “religion” refers first and foremost to a personal disposition, I regularly use “being religious” as equivalent in meaning to “religion.” I should note, moreover, that Newman’s use of “religion” names both an individual’s disposition toward God and the social reality—and usually the former—and so my terminology matches up well with his.
This paper proceeds chiefly within a monotheistic viewpoint, as do Aquinas and Newman, and so I refer to the divine throughout in the singular, as “God”.
Use of this phrase is inspired in part by M. Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. W. Trask (New York: Harcourt, 1959). Homo religiosus recognizes the distinction between the sacred and the profane, manifesting “behavior [that] forms part of the general behavior of mankind and hence is of concern to philosophical anthropology, to phenomenology, to psychology” (15). Homo religiosus lives in a world that has sacred objects, places, and times, not a “desacralized world”—which is, historically speaking, a recent phenomenon of the Western world: “It should be said at once that the completely profane world, the wholly desacralized cosmos, is a recent discovery in the history of the human spirit” (13). This paper offers an account of religion within the perspective not of a desacralized world, but of a world that admits of the distinction between the sacred and the profane.
See the following: Hume’s Natural History of Religion (religion as a confluence of fear, ignorance, and hope that issues in belief in invisible intelligent voluntary agents similar to us, but superior in power and wisdom); Part III of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil (being religious [up to now, at least, with the possible exception of Homeric religion] as a neurosis tied to asceticism and expressing will to power through a slave morality); and Freud’s Future of an Illusion (religion as a psychological disposition rooted in the illusion of a father-figure that results from a reaction to one’s insignificance and impotence in the face of the universe). The following words by Newman may be relevant here: “A really philosophical mind, if unhappily it has ruined its own religious perceptions, will be silent; it will understand that Religion does not lie in its way: it may disbelieve its truths, it may account belief in them a weakness, or, on the other hand, a happy dream, a delightful error, which it cannot itself enjoy;—any how, it will not usurp” (Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford between A.D. 1826 and 1843 {henceforth, University Sermons} [New York: Longman, Green, and Co., 1909] {available at newmanreader.org}, IV.16 (p. 68).
For more on how irreligion informs contemporary Western culture, see W. Frank, “Western Irreligion and Resources for Culture in Catholic Religion,” Logos 7 (2004): 17–44. Frank captures the built-in limits of an irreligious worldview as follows: “We now live in the secular age—what others have called the technological culture or the opulent society—or what I think might best be termed the age of Western irreligion. The main point, however, is that the immanent realm of history and material reality, the finite world of man and the cosmos, provides the final horizon for human life. In this cultural situation, wherever the human spirit stretches out, it engages either only itself and its own imaginative constructions or impersonal cosmic forces. Mankind’s cosmic loneliness is the conviction that informs and fructifies the governing culture of our day” (19).
The treatment of religio spans Summa theologiae [henceforth, “STh”], II–II, qq. 81–100. I focus on qq. 81–83.
Newman discusses natural religion in his earlier University Sermons, which in some ways was a prelude to Grammar. Grammar, however, is more mature, less theological, and more philosophical, and so I focus on it here, especially II.10.1 (pp. 300–317). For discussion of religion in University Sermons, see: C. Deveney, “Newman’s Concept of Natural Religion in the Oxford University Sermons,” Alpha Omega 4 (2001): 207–230; R. Rosenberg, “Newman on the Relationship between Natural and Revealed Religion: His University Sermons and The Grammar of Assent,” Newman Studies Journal 4 (2007): 55–68.
This notion of adequacy is inspired by John Paul II’s approach in Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. M. Waldstein (Boston: Paulist Books, 2006), where he speaks of developing an “adequate anthropology” that combines a more objective account of the human being with one that appeals to essentially human (subjective) experience. This is opposed, he says, “to reductionism of the ‘naturalistic’ kind” (13: 2, n. 23 [pp. 178–179]). An adequate account, then, puts “personal” flesh on an objective analysis by tying that analysis to the most relevant and telling subjective experiences of homo religiosus.
In this regard, I attempt to imitate in some small way what a “great intellect” does, at least as Newman describes such a person in Idea of a University (New York: Longman, Green, and Co., 1907), VI.5 (p. 134) [available at newmanreader.org]: “And therefore a truly great intellect, and recognized to be such by the common opinion of mankind, such as the intellect of Aristotle, or of St. Thomas, or of Newton, or of Goethe, (I purposely take instances within and without the Catholic pale, when I would speak of the intellect as such,) is one which takes a connected view of old and new, past and present, far and near, and which has an insight into the influence of all these one on another; without which there is no whole, and no centre. It possesses the knowledge, not only of things, but also of their mutual and true relations; knowledge, not merely considered as acquirement, but as philosophy”.
Another way to put this is to say that Aquinas presents religion in an almost prelapsarian light, which disposes one to see how a revealed religion (such as Christianity, in his case) presupposes and completes it. Newman, on the other hand, presents religion in the shadowy light of everyday fallenness—and at times in light of what in his view is an even worse state, namely, fallenness among the pagans prior to the advent of Christianity. This allows Newman to see the revealed religion so much presupposing and completing religion as overturning it in certain ways or reversing some of its tendencies. This paper only hints at these complexities and nuances in their accounts.
This paper tilts toward an objective metaphysical account inasmuch as Newman’s account is presented after—and thus necessarily in light of—Aquinas’s. Presenting them in reverse order (and thus giving Aquinas’s account in light of Newman’s) would be less a process of putting flesh on a definition of religion by reference to germane experiences and more a process of moving from a set of related experiences toward a definition of religion. Presenting them in chronological order also the advantage of indicating ways in which our understanding of religion has developed in the history of thought.
For Aquinas, to understand a reality scientifically is to achieve recognition of it from its causes (cognitio ex causis), namely, its matter, form, efficient cause (or maker), and final cause (or end or telos). This approach derives from Aristotle’s analysis of natural (physical) beings in the Physics. A natural being can be likened to a work of art or craft for which one is responsible. A work of art exists as some matter’s “having-been-put-together” (compositum) in a certain form or configuration that gives it identity and intelligibility. The matter is seen, then, as having been formed by someone for some purpose. Hence we can look both “backward” and “forward” from this put-together reality, asking who made it and to what end. Drawing out these four lines of causality delineates that reality’s intelligible “shape.”
Along these lines, then, Aquinas “objectifies” a reality that he is considering. In other words, he frames it before the mind’s eye after the manner of an external, composite, spatially located, temporally conditioned artifact. Such objectification approximates the reality to the sort of entity with whose intelligible contours we human beings are responsible, and thus to the sort of entity with whose causes we are most familiar. The result is a scientific or causal account of that reality that answers a “What is it?” question. By inquiring along these lines, Aquinas thinks, the human intellect is adequated to a reality in a manner that befits it as a cognitive power most at home when thinking and speaking about the intelligible dimensions of physical, sensible realities.
Such objectification strives to find a point of convergence, as it were, between the reality under consideration and our intellect, which is characterized by dependence on sense perception in order to recognize anything in the first place and whose most accessible objects are physical entities that we ourselves bring into actuality artistically. By objectifying a reality, then, human beings “interface” with its intelligible contours in a manner that best befits their cognitive potentialities and limitations. And so, as with many things discussed in the Summa theologiae, Aquinas’s treatment of religion is understood better when interpreted as an objective depiction of it along the lines of its four causes.
For other overviews of Aquinas’s account of religion (or at least major aspects of it, as indicated by the titles)—though not explicitly through the lenses of the causes and categories—see the following: Thomas d’Aquin, Somme theologique: La religion, t. 1 and t. 2, trans. I. Mennessier (Paris: Desclée, 1953); J. Lécuyer, “Réflexions sur la théologie du culte selon saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste 55 (1955): 339–362; P. Salgado, “The Phenomenon of Religion in Light of Saint Thomas,” Philippiniana Sacra 2 (1967): 305–324; E. Heck, Der Begriff religio bei Thomas von Aquin (München: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 1971); R. Vazquez, “La Religion segun Santo Tomas de Aquino,” Revista de Filosofia 16 (1983): 245–284; N. D’Amecourt, The Moral Goodness of Worship: Thomas Aquinas on the Virtue of Religion, Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, 1999; G. Cottier, “La vertu de religion,” Revue Thomiste: Saint Thomas et la théologie des religions, Actes du colloque de Toulouse (janvier – juin 2006): 335–352; L. Dewan, Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics, Chapters 21–23, “Jacques Maritain, St. Thomas, and the Philosophy of Religion,” “Philosophy and Spirituality: Cultivating a Virtue,” “St. Thomas and the Ontology of Prayer” (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 349–373; M. Levering, “Chapter 6: The Virtue of Religion.” in: Paul in the ‘Summa Theologiae’ (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2014), 186–216.
Aquinas begins his consideration of justice in STh, II–II, q. 57, having just completed his consideration of prudence. His treatment of justice ends with q. 122.
These vague inclinations would be rooted in a natural awareness of God that Aquinas thinks all human beings have. Such awareness, however, is vague and confused, and thus in need of clarification and specification. Consider, e.g., STh, I, q. 2, a. 3 ad 1: “… cognoscere Deum esse in aliquo communi, sub quadam confusione, est nobis naturaliter insertum, inquantum scilicet Deus est hominis beatitudo, homo enim naturaliter desiderat beatitudinem, et quod naturaliter desideratur ab homine, naturaliter cognoscitur ab eodem. Sed hoc non est simpliciter cognoscere Deum esse; sicut cognoscere venientem, non est cognoscere Petrum, quamvis sit Petrus veniens, multi enim perfectum hominis bonum, quod est beatitudo, existimant divitias; quidam vero voluptates; quidam autem aliquid aliud.” See also Summa contra gentiles, III.38: “Est enim quaedam communis et confusa Dei cognitio, quae quasi omnibus hominibus adest: sive hoc sit per hoc quod Deum esse sit per se notum, sicut alia demonstrationis principia, sicut quibusdam videtur, ut in primo libro dictum est; sive, quod magis verum videtur, quia naturali ratione statim homo in aliqualem Dei cognitionem pervenire potest. Videntes enim homines res naturales secundum ordinem certum currere; cum ordinatio absque ordinatore non sit, percipiunt, ut in pluribus, aliquem esse ordinatorem rerum quas videmus. Quis autem, vel qualis, vel si unus tantum est ordinator naturae, nondum statim ex hac communi consideratione habetur: sicut, cum videmus hominem moveri et alia opera agere, percipimus ei inesse quandam causam harum operationum quae aliis rebus non inest, et hanc causam animam nominamus; nondum tamen scientes quid sit anima, si est corpus, vel qualiter operationes praedictas efficiat.”
It is worth keeping these texts in mind when we consider Newman’s account of religion and its rootedness in conscience, which bespeaks a similar natural awareness of God.
Aquinas indicates the efficient cause of religion by placing his consideration of it within that of justice. In addition, he gets at its efficient cause more implicitly in STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 1, when he discusses the etymology of the word religio. Religio derives from the names of three acts, namely, reading closely or rereading (relegere), choosing again (reeligere), and binding oneself (religare). By calling attention to these three acts, Aquinas suggests that religion is formed in a human being by the intensifying repetition (reeligere) of certain acts of will (religare) and intellect (religere). As becomes clear later in qq. 82 and 83, religion’s primary acts are devotio (will) and oratio (intellect). Repeating these two acts in particular, then, engenders religion in a human being.
For further discussion of the etymology of “religion,” see S. Hoyt, “The Etymology of Religion,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 32 (1912): 126–129. Ultimately Hoyt favors the derivation of “religion” from relegere, connecting it to the same roots of “diligent.” This agrees with Cicero’s etymology of religio—and, interesting, it is Cicero’s etymology that Aquinas first entertains, which turns out to be the one most apposite to his subsequent account of religio.
This is (in part) what Thomas expresses in STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 2, the body of which concludes thus: “Cum igitur ad religionem pertineat reddere honorem debitum alicui, scilicet Deo, manifestum est quod religio virtus est”.
See STh, II–II, q. 58, a. 4. Aquinas’s reasoning runs as follows: Justice is not about thinking or knowing something rightly, but about inclining toward someone rightly. Hence the sensitive appetites (concupiscible and irascibile) or the will are candidates for being the subject of justice. But: “Reddere autem unicuique quod suum est non potest procedere ex appetitu sensitivo, quia apprehensio sensitiva non se extendit ad hoc quod considerare possit proportionem unius ad alterum, sed hoc est proprium rationis. Unde iustitia non potest esse sicut in subiecto in irascibili vel concupiscibili, sed solum in voluntate”.
STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 1: “Sive autem religio dicatur a frequenti lectione, sive ex iterata electione eius quod negligenter amissum est, sive a religatione, religio proprie importat ordinem ad Deum. Ipse enim est cui principaliter alligari debemus, tanquam indeficienti principio; ad quem etiam nostra electio assidue dirigi debet, sicut in ultimum finem; quem etiam negligenter peccando amittimus, et credendo et fidem protestando recuperare debemus.” Also, STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 5: “Deus non comparatur ad virtutem religionis sicut materia vel obiectum, sed sicut finis”.
STh, II–II, q. 80, a. 1: “Sunt enim quaedam virtutes quae debitum quidem alteri reddunt, sed non possunt reddere aequale. Et primo quidem, quidquid ab homine Deo redditur, debitum est, non tamen potest esse aequale, ut scilicet tantum ei homo reddat quantum debet; secundum illud Psalm., quid retribuam domino pro omnibus quae retribuit mihi? Et secundum hoc adiungitur iustitiae religio, quae, ut Tullius dicit, superioris cuiusdam naturae, quam divinam vocant, curam caeremoniamque vel cultum affert”.
See, e.g., Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 1, where Aquinas speaks of both the categories and the transcendentals as modi entis: “[E]nti non possunt addi aliqua quasi extranea per modum quo differentia additur generi, vel accidens subiecto, quia quaelibet natura est essentialiter ens; unde probat etiam philosophus in III Metaphys., quod ens non potest esse genus, sed secundum hoc aliqua dicuntur addere super ens, in quantum exprimunt modum ipsius entis qui nomine entis non exprimitur. Quod dupliciter contingit: uno modo ut modus expressus sit aliquis specialis modus entis. Sunt enim diversi gradus entitatis, secundum quos accipiuntur diversi modi essendi, et iuxta hos modos accipiuntur diversa rerum genera. Substantia enim non addit super ens aliquam differentiam, quae designet aliquam naturam superadditam enti, sed nomine substantiae exprimitur specialis quidam modus essendi, scilicet per se ens; et ita est in aliis generibus. Alio modo ita quod modus expressus sit modus generalis consequens omne ens.” So, whereas the transcendentals are “genus-like” (generalis) measures of being (for the transcendental predicate is said of every ens, e.g., “Every existing thing is good”), the categories are “species-like” (specialis) measures of an existing thing (for ens is said of the particular categorial thing, e.g., “This substance is ens” and “This quality is ens”). Hence the transcendentals place every existing thing “under” some notion (such as goodness or trueness), while the categories articulate the “intelligible anatomy” of a reality by identifying its understandable and predicable aspects.
As we saw regarding the four causes, the categories are most suitable for external, composite, temporally conditioned, spatially located entities. In an attempt to approximate religion to the sort of things human beings are best equipped to know, Aquinas stretches the meaning of the categories when applying them to a reality like religion. Consequently, when he unfolds religion categorially, he (again) “objectifies” it, placing it before the mind’s eye after the manner of a physical entity with quantitative, qualitative, relational, and active characteristics. The notion of quantity, e.g., makes sense as an intelligible aspect of religion when one recognizes that it has “discreteness” and “magnitude”—not by being a single, countable bodily substance with determinate height and weight, but by being a habituation with a unified scope or extent of activity proper to it. When stretched along these lines, the categories become powerful ways to bring to light the intelligible dimensions of even non-physical realities.
STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 3: “Ad religionem autem pertinet exhibere reverentiam uni Deo secundum unam rationem, inquantum scilicet est primum principium creationis et gubernationis rerum”.
This aspect of God’s existence as unable to receive addition is what “individuates” God, i.e., makes God altogether unique, and it is crucial to understanding rightly the uniqueness of God’s uncreated goodness. On this point, see, e.g., De ente et essentia, c. 4: “Hoc enim esse, quod Deus est, huius condicionis est, ut nulla sibi additio fieri possit; unde per ipsam suam puritatem est esse distinctum ab omni esse. Propter quod in commento IX propositionis Libri de causis dicitur quod individuatio primae causae, quae est esse tantum, est per puram bonitatem eius”.
Crosson notes this as well: “[N]othing is lacking to God anyway, so the service and cult which religious people offer cannot be linked with any kind of exchange or purchase of special favors” (“The Analogy of Religion,” 2). For a fuller explication of this point, see K. Schmitz, The Gift: Creation (Marquette: Marquette University Press, 1982).
For a thorough discussion of this point, see F. Carrasquillo, “The Role of Gloria in Aquinas’s Philosophy of Religion,” Acta Philosophica 23 (2014): 311–330.
Aquinas captures this concisely in STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 6 ad 2. He is replying to an objection that maintains that religion is less praiseworthy than other virtues, because a virtue is more praiseworthy when it provides something for one who is in need or lacking, whereas religion gives back to God, who needs or lacks nothing. Aquinas says: “… in his quae exhibentur alteri propter eorum utilitatem, est exhibitio laudabilior quae fit magis indigenti, quia est utilior. Deo autem non exhibetur aliquid propter eius utilitatem, sed propter eius gloriam, nostram autem utilitatem”.
Indeed, the Creator has made possible the existence of our very applauding him, which suggests that we must applaud him for that very applauding. This leads to a kind of religious “infinite regress” that captures in some way why religion for Aquinas is a “potential part” of justice.
For Aquinas’s treatment of these, see STh, II–II, qq. 84–86.
Aquinas lays the groundwork for this by a distinction he makes in STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 1 ad 1: “… religio habet duplices actus. Quosdam quidem proprios et immediatos, quos elicit, per quos homo ordinatur ad solum Deum, sicut sacrificare, adorare et alia huiusmodi. Alios autem actus habet quos producit mediantibus virtutibus quibus imperat, ordinans eos in divinam reverentiam, quia scilicet virtus ad quam pertinet finis, imperat virtutibus ad quas pertinent ea quae sunt ad finem. Et secundum hoc actus religionis per modum imperii ponitur esse visitare pupillos et viduas in tribulatione eorum, quod est actus elicitus a misericordia, immaculatum autem custodire se ab hoc saeculo imperative quidem est religionis, elicitive autem temperantiae vel alicuius huiusmodi virtutis.” For more on religion as a general virtue that should order all virtuous acts to God, see F. Carrasquillo, “The Moral Disadvantage of Unbelief: Natural Religion and Natural Sanctity in Aquinas,” Quaestiones Disputatae 5 (2014): 93–104.
A similar conception of the scope of what one should give back to God underlies the oft-misunderstood uti-frui distinction in Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana. All realities except God, says Augustine, are utenda (to be “used” or “treated” or “dealt with”); one ought to bear them back (referre) to God as the sole reality that is fruendum (to be “enjoyed” or “rested in”). Augustine is not suggesting, of course, that human beings “use” realities in a manipulative or self-centered way (which, he recognizes, would be usus illicitus or abusus); rather, he is bringing out how to “treat” or “deal with” realities in a universe created freely, which is oriented to a divine reality existing beyond the realm of utilitas, i.e., the realm of creaturely give-and-take in which we “use” or “treat” or “deal with” things. God simply is not a reality whom human beings can even “use” or “treat” or “deal with,” except in their own (false) imagining. The Creator does not fit within a creature’s “scheme”; no, every creature exists only inasmuch as it is generously included by the Creator in his “scheme.”
The following passages from De doctrina Christiana should be considered in this light: “Res ergo aliae sunt quibus fruendum est, aliae quibus utendum, aliae quae fruuntur et utuntur. Illae quibus fruendum est, beatos nos faciunt. Istis quibus utendum est, tendentes ad beatitudinem adjuvamur, et quasi adminiculamur, ut ad illas quae nos beatos faciunt, pervenire, atque his inhaerere possimus. Nos vero qui fruimur et utimur, inter utrasque constituti, si eis quibus utendum est frui voluerimus, impeditur cursus noster, et aliquando etiam deflectitur, ut ab his rebus quibus fruendum est obtinendis vel retardemur, vel revocemur, inferiorum amore praepediti” (I.3.3). Also: “Frui enim est amore alicui rei inhaerere propter seipsam. Uti autem, quod in usum venerit ad id quod amas obtinendum referre, si tamen amandum est. Nam usus illicitus, abusus potius vel abusio nominandus est” (I.5.5).
STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 4: “Honor autem debetur alicui ratione excellentiae. Deo autem competit singularis excellentia, inquantum omnia in infinitum transcendit secundum omnimodum excessum. Unde ei debetur specialis honor.” I render excellentia as “excellingness.” This is awkward, to be sure, but it captures better than “excellence” the participial and relative character of the Latin word. That Aquinas is thinking about excellentia with those aspects in mind is indicated in this passage by his use of transcendit as well as excessus (which could be translated as “going-beyond”).
STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 5: “… religio est quae Deo debitum cultum affert. Duo igitur in religione considerantur. Unum quidem quod religio Deo affert, cultus scilicet, et hoc se habet per modum materiae et obiecti ad religionem. Aliud autem est id cui affertur, scilicet Deus. Cui cultus exhibetur non quasi actus quibus Deus colitur ipsum Deum attingunt, sicut cum credimus Deo, credendo Deum attingimus (propter quod supra dictum est quod Deus est fidei obiectum non solum inquantum credimus Deum, sed inquantum credimus Deo), affertur autem Deo debitus cultus inquantum actus quidam, quibus Deus colitur, in Dei reverentiam fiunt, puta sacrificiorum oblationes et alia huiusmodi.” Cultus can have a broader sense than “worship,” but in a context like this in which it denotes something offered to God, “worship” seems the best rendering.
STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 8: “… sanctitas dicitur per quam mens hominis seipsam et suos actus applicat Deo. Unde non differt a religione secundum essentiam, sed solum ratione. Nam religio dicitur secundum quod exhibet Deo debitum famulatum in his quae pertinent specialiter ad cultum divinum, sicut in sacrificiis, oblationibus et aliis huiusmodi, sanctitas autem dicitur secundum quod homo non solum haec, sed aliarum virtutum opera refert in Deum, vel secundum quod homo se disponit per bona opera ad cultum divinum”.
STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 6: “Virtutes autem morales… sunt circa ea quae ordinantur in Deum sicut in finem. Religio autem magis de propinquo accedit ad Deum quam aliae virtutes morales, inquantum operatur ea quae directe et immediate ordinantur in honorem divinum. Et ideo religio praeeminet inter alias virtutes morales.” For further consideration of this point and some of its implications, see K. O’Reilly, “The Significance of Worship in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas: Some Reflections,” International Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2013): 453–462.
Cf. STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 4 ad 2: “… omnia, secundum quod in gloriam Dei fiunt, pertinent ad religionem non quasi ad elicientem, sed quasi ad imperantem. Illa autem pertinent ad religionem elicientem quae secundum rationem suae speciei pertinent ad reverentiam Dei.” Cf. also STh, II–II, q. 93, a. 2: “Finis autem divini cultus est ut homo Deo det gloriam, et ei se subiiciat mente et corpore. Et ideo quidquid homo faciat quod pertinet ad Dei gloriam, et ad hoc quod mens hominis Deo subiiciatur, et etiam corpus per moderatam refrenationem concupiscentiarum, secundum Dei et Ecclesiae ordinationem, et consuetudinem eorum quibus homo convivit, non est superfluum in divino cultu”.
The acts of religion that Aquinas discusses in the Summa are the interior acts of devotion and prayer as well as the exterior acts of adoring, sacrificing, offering firstfruits, tithing, vowing, and making an oath. Here we focus only on the interior acts.
STh, II–II, q. 82, a. 1: “… devotio nihil aliud esse videtur quam voluntas quaedam prompte tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum.” For a systematic consideration of devotion in Thomas’s thought, see J. Curran, “The Thomistic Concept of Devotion.” The Thomist 2 (1940): 410–443; 546–580.
The gist of this is nicely put by L. Dewan: “[Devotion] is an interior act that imbues everything we do with the character of ‘giving the whole of oneself to God’” (“Philosophy and Spirituality: Cultivating a Virtue,” Wisdom, Law, and Virtue, 361).
STh, II–II, q. 82, a. 1 ad 1: “… cum devotio sit actus voluntatis hominis offerentis seipsum Deo ad ei serviendum, qui est ultimus finis, consequens est quod devotio imponat modum humanis actibus, sive sint ipsius voluntatis circa ea quae sunt ad finem, sive etiam sint aliarum potentiarum quae a voluntate moventur.” Cf. STh, II–II, q. 82, a. 1 ad 1: “… devotio invenitur in diversis generibus actuum non sicut species illorum generum, sed sicut motio moventis invenitur virtute in motibus mobilium”.
Even though in Introduction à la vie dévote, Francis de Sales addresses his reader from within a primarily spiritual and theological context, his understanding of devotion aligns well with Aquinas’s. Consider, e.g., the following passage early in the work, where it is clear that devotion does not exist as a separate act apart from others, but suffuses them with greater intensity and a deeper significance: “La vraie et vivante dévotion, o Philothée, présuppose l’amour de Dieu, ains elle n’est autre chose qu’un vrai amour de Dieu; mais non pas toutefois un amour tel quel: car, en tant que l’amour divin embellit notre âme, il s’appelle grâce, nous rendant agréables à sa divine Majesté; en tant qu’il nous donne la force de bien faire, il s’appelle charité; mais quand il est parvenu jusques au degré de perfection auquel il ne nous fait pas seulement bien faire, ains nous fait opérer soigneusement, fréquemment et promptement, alors il s’appelle dévotion” (I.1). Understanding Aquinas’s account of devotion illuminates much of Francis’s counsel in this work.
STh, II–II, q. 83, a1: “Est autem aliquid alterius causa dupliciter. Uno quidem modo, perfecte, necessitatem inducendo, et hoc contingit quando effectus totaliter subditur potestati causae. Alio vero modo, imperfecte, solum disponendo, quando scilicet effectus non subditur totaliter potestati causae. Sic igitur et ratio dupliciter est causa aliquorum. Uno quidem modo, sicut necessitatem imponens, et hoc modo ad rationem pertinet imperare non solum inferioribus potentiis et membris corporis, sed etiam hominibus subiectis, quod quidem fit imperando. Alio modo, sicut inducens et quodammodo disponens, et hoc modo ratio petit aliquid fieri ab his qui ei non subiiciuntur, sive sint aequales sive sint superiores. Utrumque autem horum, scilicet imperare et petere sive deprecari, ordinationem quandam important, prout scilicet homo disponit aliquid per aliud esse faciendum”.
Cf. STh, II–II, q. 83, a. 3: “Per orationem autem homo Deo reverentiam exhibet, inquantum scilicet se ei subiicit, et profitetur orando se eo indigere sicut auctore suorum bonorum”.
STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 7: “Deo reverentiam et honorem exhibemus non propter ipsum, qui in seipso est gloria plenus, cui nihil a creatura adiici potest, sed propter nos, quia videlicet per hoc quod Deum reveremur et honoramus, mens nostra ei subiicitur, et in hoc eius perfectio consistit; quaelibet enim res perficitur per hoc quod subditur suo superiori, sicut corpus per hoc quod vivificatur ab anima, et aer per hoc quod illuminatur a sole”.
STh, II–II, q. 81, a. 7: “Mens autem humana indiget ad hoc quod coniungatur Deo, sensibilium manuductione, quia invisibilia per ea quae facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur, ut apostolus dicit, ad Rom. Et ideo in divino cultu necesse est aliquibus corporalibus uti, ut eis, quasi signis quibusdam, mens hominis excitetur ad spirituales actus, quibus Deo coniungitur. Et ideo religio habet quidem interiores actus quasi principales et per se ad religionem pertinentes, exteriores vero actus quasi secundarios, et ad interiores actus ordinatos”.
This does not mean, however, that Newman has no “objective” account of religion. In fact, in University Sermons, II.7 (p. 19), Newman offers a concise account of religion that, when unpacked, is quite similar to Aquinas’s: “Here, then, at once, we have the elements of a religious system; for what is Religion but the system of relations existing between us and a Supreme Power, claiming our habitual obedience.” It should be noted, however, that this concise (objective) account of religion follows immediately upon Newman’s description of the first (subjective) channel for acquiring religion that will be discussed below, namely, conscience. This account, then, is seen in and through the manner in which religion is acquired and experienced by someone.
For more on the objectivity of Newman’s understanding of religion, see especially the opening chapter (“Theocentric Religion”) of J. Crosby, The Personalism of John Henry Newman (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2014).
Grammar, II.10.1 (p. 303).
Grammar, II.10.1 (p. 303).
Grammar, II.10.1 (p. 303).
Grammar, II.10.1 (p. 304). Cf. University Sermons, II.7 (p. 18), where Newman asserts that conscience is “the essential principle and sanction of Religion in the mind”.
Grammar, I.5.1 (p. 99).
Grammar, I.5.2 (p. 110).
Grammar, I.5.1 (p. 106). As the last three citations indicate, Newman refers to the God perceived through conscience as “Creator” in an earlier section of Grammar, whereas in the later section on “Nature Religion” (which is the primary focus of this paper) he refers to the God of conscience as “Judge.” This difference brings to light something I noted in the introduction, namely, that in the later section Newman takes a “normal-case scenario” approach to religion, according to which one perceives the presence of an invisible Judge (and not necessarily a Creator). Here, then, is an instance when Newman’s account does not fully match that of Aquinas, whose “best-case scenario” approach specifies that religion relates one to God precisely as Creator.
Grammar, II.10.1 (p. 304). See also Grammar, I.5.1 (p. 101): “[T]he phenomena of Conscience, as a dictate, avail to impress the imagination with the picture of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive, and is the creative principle of religion, as the Moral Sense is the principle of ethics”.
Grammar, II.10.1 (p. 305).
Grammar, II.10.1 (p. 306).
Grammar, II.10.1 (p. 306). Newman sees grounds for objection to the claim that both conscience and rites involving vicarious satisfaction are channels toward religion. The former indicates personal responsibility for wrongdoing while the latter suggests the possibility of transposing responsibility onto something else. To this Newman responds: “I think this objection avails as far as this, that amendment is no reparation, and that no ceremonies or penances can in themselves exercise any vicarious virtue in our behalf; and that, if they avail, they only avail in the intermediate season of probation; that in some way we must make them our own; and that, when the time comes, which conscience forebodes, of our being called to judgment, then, at least, we shall have to stand in and by ourselves, whatever we shall have by that time become, and must bear our own burden. But it is plain that in this final account, as it lies between us and our Master, He alone can decide how the past and the present will stand together who is our Creator and our Judge” (II.10.1 [p. 307]).
On the naturalness of priesthood in Aquinas’s thought, see S.-T. Bonino, “Le sacerdoce comme institution naturelle selon saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue thomiste 99 (1999): 33–57.
Grammar, II.10.1 (pp. 308–309).
Newman puts the dilemma even more starkly: “I see only a choice of alternatives in explanation of so critical a fact:—either there is no Creator, or He has disowned his creatures” (Grammar, II.10.1 [p. 309]).
Grammar, II.10.1 (pp. 309–310): “Are then the dim shadows of His Presence in the affairs of men but a fancy of our own, or, on the other hand, has He hid His face and the light of His countenance, because we have in some special way dishonoured Him? My true informant, my burdened conscience, gives me at once the true answer to each of these antagonist questions:—it pronounces without any misgiving that God exists:—and it pronounces quite as surely that I am alienated from Him; that ‘His hand is not shortened, but that our iniquities have divided between us and our God.’ Thus it solves the world's mystery, and sees in that mystery only a confirmation of its own original teaching”.
Similar to the one referred to in note 54 above, here is another instance in which the difference between Newman’s “normal-case scenario” approach to religion and Aquinas’s “best-case scenario” approach comes to light. Aquinas’s account of religion appears to presume a well-founded recognition of the Creator beyond nature, which fuels a drive to align oneself aright with that Creator. Newman, on the other hand, offers something less determinative, which may capture a more ordinary situation, namely, that through conscience one senses that God exists, and yet simultaneously one does not perceive God’s presence in the natural world. This complex experience leads not so much to a deliberate and enduring decision to relate justly to the Creator as to a tension in the soul resolved by atoning activities. One could argue, then, that Aquinas is articulating the full actuality of religion that comes about when the sort of experiences detailed by Newman mature healthily and rationally.
The title of an article exploring this phenomenon (though not chiefly through the lens of Newman) captures well what Newman is getting at in our experience of God’s absence: Stephen Dinan, “The Tantalizing Absence of God,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 65 (1991): 87–98.
By “revealed religion” I mean a set of beliefs, laws, and practices held to be rooted in God’s self-communication with human beings. Although I am thinking primarily of the three main monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—each of which adheres to writings held to be inspired or provided by God, it can be argued that followers of every religious tradition trace their beliefs, laws, and practices back to an original divine revelation that they are preserving, reenacting, and handing down to others.
On this point, see J. Jacobs, “The Practice of Religion in Post-Secular Society,” International Philosophical Quarterly 54 (2014): 5–23. Jacobs argues that in our contemporary culture, which at best may see being religious as something useful, it is important to emphasize that being religious is a virtue, since this brings out its intrinsic goodness as well as its contribution to the common good.
F. Crosson, “The Semantics of the Grammar,” Faith and Philosophy 7 (1990): 218–228. See especially p. 219.
The words of Benedict of Nursia at the beginning of Chapter 49 of his Regula come to mind here: “Licet omni tempore vita monachi quadragesimæ debet observationem habere, tamen quia paucorum est ista virtus, ideo suademus istis diebus quadragesimæ omni puritate vitam suam custodire, omnes pariter et neglegentias aliorum temporum his diebus sanctis diluere”.
I want to thank William Frank in particular for taking the time to read and comment on an earlier draft of this article. His comments were, as usual, extremely illuminating and helpful.
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Walz, M.D. Synthesizing Aquinas and Newman on religion. Int J Philos Relig 86, 173–198 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-019-09708-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-019-09708-z