Theology and Intelligibility

Volume III

Michael Durrant

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317832003
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This is Volume III out of nine in a collection of Studies in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion which is meant to provide an opportunity for philosophical discussions of a limited length which pursue in some detail specific topics in ethics or the philosophy of religion, or topics which belong to both fields. Originally published in 1973, this text looks at Theology and Intelligibility and discusses a proposition from natural theology; and also a formula which in the context of sacred doctrine is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

I

God as an End and as the Last End of Rational Creatures

A In my investigation of the two fold proposition I introduced in my ‘Introduction’, namely that man is directed towards God as an end that surpasses his reason and that God is the last end of rational creatures, I shall first raise the question of what it is to say that man has ends, or as Aquinas puts it, ‘that it belongs to man to act for an end’. To do this I shall consider what kinds of consideration Aquinas allows in favour of the proposition or against it and the kind of consideration his central thesis is. These are set out in the Summa Theologica (IIa,q1,a1). I shall not investigate all the considerations in detail, but I shall supply an illustrative list to substantiate my point that St Thomas is pursuing a conceptual inquiry here, an inquiry into the concept of human operation.

A.1 Aquinas, in his customary manner, proceeds by enlisting objections to the thesis in question. The first objection has two contentions:

(1) that an end is not a cause (… finis non habet rationem causae).

(2) that on account of (‘for’, ‘from’, ‘because of’) which (propter), a man acts is the cause of his action since this preposition (propter) indicates a cause. (Sed propter illud agit homo quod est causa actionis cum haec praepositio propter designet habitudinem causae.)

Now it is clear that Aquinas in enlisting this objection is not putting forward an empirical or factual objection, for he is not concerned with any particular end or any particular cause or series of such ends or causes. The question ‘Which end?’ makes no sense whatsoever in connection with (1) above and it would be equally senseless to raise the question ‘Which man?’ in connection with ‘a man’ or the question ‘Which cause?’ in connection with ‘cause’ or ‘action’ in (2) above. These comments are intended to apply to anything which is correctly described as an end and as that for (on account of, from, because of) which (propter) a man acts; both comments could be rendered in terms of the universal quantifier, it being left an open question as to whether there did actually exist any end. The objector’s argument in favour of the first contention above is as follows:

It seems unfitting for a man to act for an end. For a cause is naturally prior to its effect. But an end in its very name implies something last. Therefore an end is not a cause. (Videtur quod hornini non conveniat agere propter finem. Causa enim naturaliter prior est sub effectu. Sed finis habet rationem ultimi, ut ipsum nomen sonat. Ergo finis non habet rationem causae.)

Here also the questions ‘Which man?’ asked of ‘a man’; ‘Which one(s)?’ asked of ‘a cause’ or ‘an end’ respectively make no sense, yet only upon the condition of these questions having sense can the possibility of an empirical or factual inquiry or argument be entertained. The objector’s argument can be expressed as follows: ‘To speak of A being the cause of B necessarily implies that A is an event or state of affairs or substance (following Aristotle) which precedes B in time, whereas to speak of A being the end of B necessarily implies that A is an event or state of affairs which postdates B and has yet to come about or be brought about. Therefore an end is not a cause.’ What we have here is an argument to the effect that the concept of ‘end’ necessarily precludes any x which is said to be an end from being a cause (which is correct).

I have designated the objector’s second contention as (2) above. Here again we are not faced with an empirical or factual contention for the same reasons as expressed above. I construe (2) as a contention to the effect that if it is said that a man acted on account of (for, from, because of) (propter) such and such, then a cause of his action is offered. This contention reports or purports to report what is necessarily implied by the use of propter. So in the first objection we have reports or at least purported reports on what is necessarily written into the concepts of ‘cause’, ‘end’, and the use ofpropter.

I now turn to objection 3 to further support my claim that a conceptual inquiry is being pursued here and not any kind of factual or empirical inquiry—not even a ‘psychological’ one. I shall not investigate objection 2 since such investigation would involve detailed exegesis on Aristotle’s Magna Moralia 1211b27 and parallel passages in the Nicomachean Ethics, and, as I shall have to do some detailed exegetical study later, I shall not trouble the reader with any such study now. Objection 3 has two contentions:

(i) A man does not seem to act for an end when he acts deliberately (… tunc videtur homo agere propter finem, quando deliberat).

(ii) Man does many things without deliberation, sometimes not even thinking of what he is doing—for instance moving the foot or hand or scratching the beard whilst intent on something else. Therefore man does not do everything for an end. (Sed multa homo agit absque deliberatione, de quibus etiam quandoque nihil cogitat: Sicut cum aliquis movet pedem vel manum aliis intentus, vel fricat barbam. Non ergo omnia agit propter finem.)

It is clear that (i) is not intended to be an empirical or factual remark about any given man, for the objection is in terms of a man—any man—and in connection with the phrase ‘any man’ one cannot sensibly ask ‘Which man?’. The inapplicability of the question ‘Which man?’ rules out any construction of (i) in terms of the proper names of individual men standing proxy for ‘a man’ in that proposition, which in turn rules out any possibility of (i) being taken as a factual proposition concerning individual men. Further, to construe this as a factual proposition would make the relation between deliberation and acting for an end a merely contingent relation. In the light of these considerations I construe (i) as a remark on the concept of ‘acting deliberately’—that is, for any action which is deliberate we can always ask the question: ‘For the sake of what did A do Y?’ or ‘With a view to what did A do Y?’, where the answers to these questions is taken to specify an end. Nor can (ii) above be regarded as a piece of factual reasoning, for the question: ‘What tokens of those type actions have you in mind?’ is here inappropriate. Aquinas and his objector are not concerned with given token instances of the type ‘moving one’s hand’, ‘scratching one’s beard’, as can be seen by the fact that questions appropriate to token actions are beside the point (for instance ‘Did he move his hand jauntily or smoothly?’; ‘Did he scratch his beard after the clock struck ten or as it struck?’). Further, ‘that there are many actions which are not deliberate’ cannot, in this context of its use, be regarded as a general empirical (psychological) proposition, for the question, ‘How many?’ clearly makes no sense here. I thus construe the objector to be making the point that having an end in view is not necessary to the concept of deliberate action. In his reply to objection 3 Aquinas says that such activities as the objector cites cannot properly be regarded as human actions ‘since they do not proceed from deliberation of the reason’ (quia non procedunt deliberatione rationis). I support this view on the following grounds—they cannot be regarded as actions, since in relation to them whilst the question: ‘With a view to what are you

ping?’ (where ‘

’ is a verb of action) can sensibly be raised, it admits of no answer. These cases of scratching our beards or moving our hands whilst intent on something else are cases of things we find ourselves doing. They are doings as opposed to actions on the one hand and doings as opposed to occurrences or happenings on the other, for in the case of the latter (i.e. occurrences or happenings), the question ‘With a view to what are you

ing?’ cannot be sensibly raised at all—not that it can sensibly be raised, but that an answer cannot be supplied, as in the former case. Thus the debate between Aquinas and the objector is a conceptual one concerning the relation of ‘end’ to the concept of action.

A.2 Thus far I have contended that the type of objection Aquinas raises against the thesis that it belongs to man to act for an end is conceptual: granted that a similar case can be made out for the ‘replies’ to the objections, as I contend it can, then for Aquinas to be consistent the thesis itself must be a conceptual one. Can this be substantiated? It is my case that Aquinas’s principal reply so substantiates. The mainstay of his principal reply is that the end is the principle in human operations (Sed finis est principium in operabilibus ab homine). Now to say that the end is the principle in human operations is certainly not rewritable as: ‘The end is the principle in particular operations A₁ A₂ A₃ … A_n (where ‘A₁ etc. are token instances of a type action A), for Aquinas is saying that the end is the principle of any human operation, and as I have previously commented in connection with ‘any’, one cannot ask, ‘Which one?’, and hence get the possibility of an answer in terms of a set of token operations. Further, Aquinas produces nothing which could constitute evidence for some empirical thesis of the form:

The end is the principle in every human operation, namely, in A¹, A², Aⁿ, … Aⁿ (where ‘A’ with a superscript denotes a type of human operation) or

The end is the principle in every human operation—namely, in A₁, A₂, A₃, … A_n (where ‘A’ with a subscript denotes token instances of types of human operations)

We have nothing here which could be regarded as a survey of either (a) types of human operations or (b) tokens of such types, purporting to reveal how people actually act. Again, a remark about ‘the end’ cannot be conceived of as a remark yielding a factual truth since, for such a conception to be possible, Aquinas’s remark would have to be renderable in the form ‘Some end …’ and the sense of ‘some’ so employed would have to be that sense which gives sense to the question ‘Which?’. However, ‘The end is the principle in human action’ is only exponible in terms of ‘some end’ in the sense of ’some end or other’ so that we might have:

‘Some end or other is the principle in human operations’ but in connection with this use and sense of ‘some’, the question ‘Which end?’ is not raisable. That use and sense of ‘some’ concerning which the question ‘Which one?’ has application clearly cannot express the sense of ‘the end’ here, for (i) ‘The end is the principle in human operations (namely in any human operation whatsoever)’ is not the equivalent of and not expressible by (ii) ‘Some end (namely x) is the principle in any human operation whatsoever’; not equivalent since (i) might be true and yet (i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Summary
• 1 God as an End and as the Last End of Rational Creatures
• 2 Precursus to the Doctrine of the Trinity in St Augustine: Aristotle on Substance
• 3 St Augustine’S Argument that God is Substance
• 4 On ‘of the Same Substance’; ‘in One Substance’
• 5 Three Persons
• Bibliography
• Index