427224

ITQXXX10.1177/0021140011427224DoyleIrish Theological Quarterly

Article

Changing Hopes:
The Theological Virtue
of Hope in Thomas Aquinas,
John of the Cross,
and Karl Rahner

Irish Theological Quarterly

77(1) 1836
The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0021140011427224
itq.sagepub.com

Dominic Doyle

Boston College School of Theology and Ministry

Abstract
This article examines some of the key variations in content and genre between three major Catholic
accounts of the theological virtue of hope. The successive transpositions of Thomas Aquinass
scholastic and speculative presentation of this pivotal virtue are traced in John of the Crosss mystical
and poetic account and Karl Rahners apologetic essay, each of which takes up and adapts the
Thomistic formulation under pressure from the needs of a different context. The examination of
these adaptations shows theological creativity at work and captures the development of tradition
with reference to a central Christian virtue that is much studied in contemporary theology.

Keywords
Aquinas, hope, John of the Cross, Rahner, theological virtue

ecent theology has devoted much attention to the theme of hope. Whether it be Jrgen
Moltmann, Johann Baptist Metz, or Pope Benedict XVI, theologians have sought to
communicate how Christian hope is at once firmly rooted in Christ and profoundly relevant
for secular modernity. At a time when many fear that this virtue is sorely lacking, Christian
thinkers are attempting to give a fresh account of their hope, not only to encourage cobelievers, but also to attract unbelievers.
One of the classic accounts of Christian hope, vastly influential on subsequent articulations, is Thomas Aquinass treatment in the secunda secundae of the Summa theologiae.
There, he gives a comprehensive and systematic presentation of the key features of
Corresponding author:
Dominic Doyle, Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry, 140 Commonwealth Avenue,
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA.
Email: doyleda@bc.edu

Doyle

19

theological hope. The aim of this article is to explore how that influential understanding
of hope was itself reworked by two thinkers who are not only sympathetic to the Thomist
enterprise but also open to its development. In these reformulations of hope, one sees
theological creativity at work, as an authoritative source of the tradition is ingeniously
adapted to meet the challenges of altered circumstances.
The two creative agents in question, who are more than just commentators, are John of the
Cross and Karl Rahner. Both were trained in Aquinass thought and deeply sympathetic to his
vision; yet both acutely felt the pressures of changes in context and therefore faced questions
that either did not exist or were not pressing for Thomas. Consequently, each took bold steps
to articulate anew what it means to hope, not least by locating hope in very different parts of
the person. Thus, Aquinas placed hope in the will, John located it in the memory, and Rahner
understood it as the shared modality of the intellects and wills encounter with God in faith
and charity respectively. It is this intriguing difference between three major Catholic interpretations of the anthropological dimensions of hope that gives rise to this article.
The following two clusters of questions will be leveled at each author to guide and
control an otherwise diffuse comparative analysis. The first set of questions concerns
content, in this case, the basic features of hope; the second examines the relationship
between that content and its form and context. Specifically, these two sets of questions
are as follows: (1) What, for a Christian, is hope? What is its goal and what is the process
by which that goal is reached? Where is hope situated in the subject? Through what faculty
(or faculties) does hope operate? And how is it related to the other two theological virtues
of faith and charity? (2) What is the form or genre of each account of hope? How does
that form bear upon the content? To what extent does context influence both the form and
the content, and what new questions and pressures, prompted by changes in context, lie
behind the developments offered by John and Rahner? How successfully do their changes
meet the needs of their different contexts?
By tracing these successive transpositions of a classic source, we see how a meditative
reading of a great text speaks persuasively to contemporary concerns, and, conversely,
how the interpretation of a classic text can itself develop as it is submitted to new questions.1 This study of major thematic variations in the Christian understanding of hopeand
of the genre in which it is communicatedwill hopefully stimulate contemporary efforts
to give a creative and effective account of this central virtue.2

Thomas Aquinas:The Speculative Account of Hope

Aquinass classic account of hope can be sketched briefly. As a natural passion, hope is
the desire for a future, difficult, yet possible, good.3 As a theological virtue, it shares these
1 This process is not unlike the fusion of horizons described by Gadamer (see Hans-Georg
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., rev. trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall
[New York: Crossroad, 1989], 3067, 36979).
2 I have offered one example of this in light of Charles Taylors thought in a forthcoming essay
(see Dominic Doyle, The Dialectic Unfolding of the Theological Virtues: Tayloring Christian
Identity to a Secular Age, Gregorianum, 92 [2011]).
3 STh III 40.1.

20

Irish Theological Quarterly 77(1)

general characteristics, but is specified as the divinely infused movement of the will toward
eternal union with God.4 It is a theological virtue not only because it has God as its final
cause, but also, critically, because it relies upon Gods help to reach this goal (and any
other, secondary goods that are ordered thereto). Indeed, it is precisely this reliance upon
divine assistance that makes hope virtuous.5 Without this, it would be presumption and
therefore as misguided as believing on the strength of ones own reason instead of on the
basis of Gods revelation.
Aquinas locates theological hope in the will, or rational appetite, of the believer. Hope
is thus not a fickle or sudden emotion, bereft of supporting evidence. Nor is it a thin,
grimly held existentialist stand. Rather, it is a settled intention that flows from a reason
elevated by faith and, as St Paul says, is an occasion for joy (Rom 12:12). Whereas faith
teaches the general possibility of eternal salvation, hope personally appropriates that
shared belief as something that is possible for me in particular.6 As a virtue, hope is one
of those secure dispositions that are the source of good acts that lead to happiness; in this
case, eternal happiness. It is, then, a theological virtue: divinely infused and directed to
God, yet humanly possessed and beneficial to us.
A comparison with faith and charity, the theological virtues that flank hope, will bring
its specific properties into sharper focus. Aquinas distinguishes these virtues partly on the
basis of the subjects distinct faculties of intellect and will. The intellect, which intends
the true, contains the first universal principles known to us through the natural light of
the intellect, from which reason proceeds.7 This natural power can only achieve the object
of faithGod as First Truthif something be supernaturally added.8 Thus, in faith,
with respect to the intellect, certain supernatural principles are added to the human person,
and are grasped through divine light. These principles are the things worthy of belief
(credibilia), with which faith is concerned.9 The credibilia are summarized in the creed,
4 Aquinas treats hope in qq. 1721 of the secunda secundae of the Summa theologiae.
5 STh IIII 17.1. Contrast Aquinass arguments in In III Sent. d. 26, q. 2, a. 1 and 2, which derive
the theological virtuousness of hope solely from its transcendent goal. By the time of the
Summa theologiae, however, Aquinas begins the treatise on hope by arguing that it is precisely
the reliance on Gods help that makes hope a virtue. The key breakthrough in this development
between the Sentences commentary and the secunda secundae is made in De spe. Servais
Pinckaers, in his genetic studies of the development of Aquinas theology of hope, suggests
that Aquinas may have been influenced by Bonaventure, revising his earlier opinion that De
spe was a later development of the position in the Summa theologiae (see Servais Pinckaers,
Le renouveau de la morale: tudes pour une morale fidle ses sources et sa mission prsente
[La SartHuy: Casterman, 1964], 23132; Servais Pinckaers, La nature vertueuse de
lesprance, Revue Thomiste 54 [1958]: 40542, 62344, at 634).
6 See STh IIII 20.2, which likens faith to the universal estimate and hope to the particular
estimate. See also STh IIII 17.3, which argues for the self-referential nature of hope as primarily the desire for ones own salvation. It should be noted, though, that Aquinas asserts that
hope can be communal when the one hoping is united in love with others (STh IIII 17.3).
7 STh III 62.3.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid. Credibilia, translated here as things worthy of belief, is sometimes translated as the
articles of faith.

Doyle

21

which itself can be distilled to the following two prima credibilia: God exists and God is
providential. Faith, then, is an infused perfection of the intellect whereby the person assents
to truths that are beyond natural reason and necessary for salvation. Importantly, it does
not terminate in propositional assent, but in the minds union with God.10
Even illumined, however, by the light of faith, the intellect cannot comprehend God,
nor even the order of this world in which Gods action remains so obscure. And so there
are required further theological virtues, whose interrelationship Aquinas summarizes as
follows: faith shows the end, hope causes one to move towards it, charity unites [one to
the end].11 The theological virtues follow this order because some apprehension must
precede appetitive movement (since you cannot want something unless you have some
notion of what it is you want), and appetite in turn precedes union (since you cannot unite
with something unless you first move towards it). The theological virtues culminate in
charity since it unites the believer to God in friendship. Through that relationship, bestowed
by Gods sharing of divine happiness, the person dwells with God in benevolent and
mutual fellowship.
Because of the distinct role that each theological virtue performs, they relate to God
under different aspects: faith regards God in terms of truth; hope approaches God under
the aspect of mercy and power (since reaching a distant and difficult goal requires a merciful and powerful helper); and charity, by which the person is in a certain measure, transformed to that end, regards God as friend and thus in terms of the divine goodness itself,
not just self-referentially in terms of the good for me, as my salvation.12 Critically, hope
is the pivotal theological virtue whereby the believer becomes a pilgrim. Over time and
through difficulties, the believer comes into an ever-closer union with God that is modeled
on Christ, the pioneer (Heb 12:2) of the journey to eternal life.
Such are the basic features of Aquinass account of hope. Moving to the second cluster
of questions, we can now ask: In what form is that account communicated? What is its
context and how does it influence the form? And how do context and form together bear
upon the content?
The form of Aquinass authoritative treatment of hope is the medieval summa, which
aspires to a comprehensive and integrated coverage of key theological topics.13 As such,
it seeks to explain how all the various parts of Christian belief fit together within a coherent whole. This systematic approach foregrounds the intelligibility of Christian doctrines.
10 STh IIII 1.2, ad 2. Articles are necessary, though, because cognita sunt in cognoscente secundum
modum cognoscentis and the mode of human knowing is through synthesis and analysis.
11 Fides autem ostendit [finem], spes facit tendere in eum, caritas unit (Thomas Aquinas, In
Epistolam I ad Timotheum, cap. 1, lect. 2, in Opera Omnia, Parma ed. [New York: Musurgia,
1949], 13:587).
12 STh III 62.3. On the appropriation of particular divine attributes to the theological virtues,
see STh III 64.4. On the non-self-referential nature of charity as contrasted with faith and
hope, see STh IIII 17.6, and STh IIII 23.6, where Aquinas states: Faith and hope indeed
attain God insofar as from him comes to us either knowing the true or obtaining the good; but
charity attains God himself in order to rest in him, not to gain something from him.
13 On the history and meaning of the word summa, see M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding
Saint Thomas (Chicago: Regnery, 1964), 297322, esp. 298301, What is a summa?

22

Irish Theological Quarterly 77(1)

To that end, many distinctions are made to differentiate and clarify the various aspects
of Christian belief. But that analysis is at the service of a synoptic vision of the whole.
Something of this synthetic aspiration has been seen in Aquinass treatment of the theological virtues, which exhibit a plethora of distinctions alongside an attempt to comprehend
the integral reality of a graced way of life.
For Aquinas, the context of his pedagogical goals influenced the selection of this form,
which marked a deliberate departure from the earlier tradition of commentary on Peter
Lombards Sentences.14 As Aquinas states in the prologue to the Summa theologiae, the
teacher should not disrupt the orderly presentation of material with circuitous academic
debate or the irksome obligation to follow the order of a text on which one has to comment. Aquinas has in mind the educational needs of his Dominican brothers, who have
been charged with the tasks of hearing confessions and preaching. He is particularly
interested in giving doctrinal depth to the academic training that they undergo for these
practical tasks, and he therefore situates the ethics of the secunda pars within the overarching goal of the human persons return to God. This secunda pars in turn is flanked
by the prima parss treatment of God and creation, and the tertia parss christology, sacraments, and eschatology.15
The context and form influence the content in the following ways. Positively, they give
conceptual clarity to the content of hope. While Aquinass theoretical mode of presentation is sometimes criticized for abstracting from concrete personal experience, such a
conceptually driven account can, in Bernard Lonergans terms, be an enriching abstraction
that answers questions of intelligibility and coherence that naturally arise for reflective
believers. More immediately, the exigencies of the Dominican orders tasks of preaching
and hearing confessions demand a clear definition and explanation of the nature and goal
of all the virtues, including hope. Gathering together traditional elements of the Christian
understanding of hope, Aquinas provides that clarity as he brings out the key features of
this virtue: its fundamental reliance upon divine help (the very first article in the treatise
on hope); its goal of the eternal participation of the human person in divine life (the second
article); facing and overcoming difficulty; and, since it is a motion, its essential temporality (since time is nothing but the measure of motion).
The form of the summa brings a comprehensiveness to Aquinass treatment of hope,
which, unlike in earlier summas, is treated alongside its accompanying vices, despair and
presumption, which would threaten its virtuous activity.16 Hope is also related to its accompanying gift, fear. (The gifts of the Holy Spirit, for Aquinas, make the person more directly
amenable to Gods influence.)17 This correlation of hope to fear brings psychological depth
14 On Aquinass switch from Sentence commentary to the Summa, see Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint
Thomas Aquinas. Volume 1: The Person and His Work (Washington, DC: Georgetown, 1996),
14248.
15 On the context of Aquinass Summa theologiae, see Leonard E. Boyle, The Setting of the
Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Revisited, in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Stephen J. Pope
(Washington, DC: Georgetown, 2002), 116.
16 Leonard Boyle notes this in his comparison of Aquinass Summa theologiae with William
Peralduss Summa de vitiis et virtutibus (see Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 9).
17 STh III 68.1.

Doyle

23

to Aquinass understanding of hope, for his account of the various stages of fearfrom
worldly to initial to servile to filialconveys the sense of development over time that hope
involves.18
More fundamentally, Aquinas gives a clear account of hopes relation to the other
theological and moral virtuesnot least because, without hope, the moral life loses its
direction and motivation.19 Positively, hope elevates the natural longing for happiness.20
The categorization of hope as the fundamental human motion toward God captures how
this virtue pervades all human endeavor, gathering in and perfecting all secondary desires
and goals. Thus, it serves his purpose of giving a clear theological setting for his Dominican
orders concern for practical moral theology. Consequently, hope plays a pivotal role in
the architectonics of the Summa, whose central ethical part treats the motion of the rational
creature to God.21 To recall, motion is simply the reduction or passage from potency to
act. And hope, as the graced motion of the human person to God, is the encompassing
movement, whereby the human potential for divine union becomes actual. As such, hope
underlies the return of the rational creature to the Creator.
On the strength of its conceptual clarity and systematic coherence, Aquinass account in
the Summa theologiae became an authoritative Catholic interpretation of hope. It integrates
this virtues key featuressuch as reliance upon divine help, movement towards eternal life,
difficulty, and temporalitywithin a compelling theological vision. But these very strengths,
especially the systematic intelligibility and clarifying abstraction, inevitably obscure certain
aspects of the lived experience and texture of hope. Aquinas does not cover everything that
can be said about Christian hope. Although, as mentioned, he gives some indication of the
difficulty with which it deals and its temporal nature (in his discussion of its accompanying
gift of fear), his account remains at a level of generality that is detached from the personal
struggle and development over time that constitute much of the lived experience of Christian
hope. That potential shortcoming is compounded as Aquinass text is adopted more and more
in university settings, where it is increasingly taught without attention to the spiritual formation of the readers, who may not actively share in the pastoral work that originally animated
the Dominican order.22 It is the more concrete and personal features of Christian hopewhose
often darker shades escape Aquinass clarifying lightthat John of the Cross and Karl Rahner
evoke. Their accounts give existential depth to the experiences of what it means to rely upon
divine help, to face and pass through difficulty, and, as a result, to be transformed by the Spirit
over time into an ever-closer likeness to Christ.
There is no doubt that Aquinas gives a clear and ordered vision of Christian hope. Its
clarifying order may be compared to that of a map; the terrain, however, is another matter.
This is not to fault the vision and the clarity that the map provides, but it is to say that we
need to learn from someone who can evoke the felt experience of what it is like to journey
on that terrain.
18
19
20
21
22

STh IIII 19.2.

STh IIII 20.3.
STh IIII 17.2, ad 1; cf. STh I 2.1, ad 1.
STh prologue to prima pars (found before STh I 2).
Professional teaching first in the schools later in the universities became increasingly independent of pastoral, spiritual, and moral preoccupations (Chenu, Understanding Saint Thomas, 299).

24

Irish Theological Quarterly 77(1)

John of the Cross:The Mystical Experience of Hope

In John of the Crosss poetic descriptions of the souls movement toward God and in his
sustained commentary on how to guide people through that difficult terrain, we see a major
reformulation of Aquinass position: namely the relocation of the theological virtue of
hope from the will to the memory.23 To understand the reasons for this move and its importance, one must first attend to the different context and audience of his work and appreciate
how these altered circumstances prompt a very different selection of form. Under the
combined influence of changed context, audience, and form, John offers a strikingly different account of hope, one in which contemporary theology finds much resonance.24
Like Aquinas, John wrote at a time of reform in which a new order was establishing
itself. As leading figures in their respective reform movements, they both harnessed and
contributed to the fermentation of new ideas that attend significant changes in ecclesial
organization and vision. Whereas Aquinas wrote with the Dominicans tasks of preaching
and confessions in mind, John wrote for the Discalced Carmelites more concentrated
focus upon individual spiritual development through the contemplative solitude of recollection.25 As John says in the prologue to The Living Flame of Love, one speaks badly of
the intimate depths of the spirit if one does not do so with a deeply recollected soul.26 This
contemplative recollection brings about a general, loving, peaceful, and tranquil knowledge of a timeless presence with God.27 It has three signposts: first a lack of satisfaction
23 I have explored John of the Crosss account of hope in more detail in a separate article (see
Dominic Doyle, From Triadic to Dyadic Soul: A Genetic Study of John of the Cross on the
Anthropological Basis of Hope, Studies in Spirituality, to appear in 2011).
24 See, for example, Constance FitzGerald, From Impasse to Prophetic Hope: Crisis of Memory
and footnotes therein to figures such as Miroslav Wolf, Elie Wiesel, Flora Keshgegian, Rene
Girard, et al. (Constance FitzGerald, From Impasse to Prophetic Hope: Crisis of Memory, in
Catholic Theology Society of America Proceedings 64 [2009]: 2142). For a good overview of
the resurgence of interest in John of the Cross in North America, see Steven Payne, The Influence
of John of the Cross in the United States: A Preliminary Study, http://www.icspublications.org/
archives/others/cs6_14.html (accessed September 6, 2011). See, in particular, footnote 70s
citations of general works on the healing of memories.
25 The very pure spirit communes inwardly with God, alone , and with delightful tranquility,
for the knowledge of God is received in divine silence (St John of the Cross, Sayings of Light
and Love, 28, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and
Otilio Rodriguez [Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1991], 88). Accordingly,
John writes not to address everyone, but only some of the persons of our holy order. Because
they are already attached to a great extent from the temporal things of this world, they will more
easily grasp this doctrine on nakedness of spirit (St John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount
Carmel, 9, in The Collected Works, 118).
26 St John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love, prologue, 1, in The Collected Works, 638.
27 St John of the Cross, Ascent, 2.14.2 in The Collected Works, 192. On the accompanying lack
of awareness of time, see St John of the Cross, Ascent, 2.14.1012 and 3.2.56 in The Collected
Works, 19596, 26970. An alternative description of contemplation is given as: Little by
little and very soon the divine calm and peace with a wondrous, sublime knowledge of God,
enveloped in divine love, will be infused into their souls (St John of the Cross, Ascent, 2.15.5
in The Collected Works, 199).

Doyle

25

in passing things; second, a liking for solitude and silence, and an attentiveness to all that
is all the more perfect; third, the considerations, meditations and acts that formerly helped
the soul now hinder it, and it brings to prayer no other support than faith, hope, and love.28
For John, the heart of the spiritual life is to present oneself before God in the nakedness
of faith, hope, and love, relying on them alone.29 To reach the recollected state of loving
awareness, then, takes more than a conceptual grasp of the theological virtues. It requires
wise spiritual direction because the virtuous soul that is alone and without a master is
like a lone burning coal; it will grow cold rather than hotter.30
Since the activities of preaching or hearing confession remain at a level of generalityfor
preaching is by definition to a general audience, and confession, while it hears individual
sins, remains a general procedure insofar as it does not probe personal history and complexity of motiveAquinass abstract and conceptual approach suited the academic
preparation for these general tasks. The activities of prayer and spiritual direction, on the
other hand, are intensely personal, and Johns experiential and poetic approach correspondingly matches these practical, individual tasks. So, if the summa form suited Aquinass
need for conceptual clarity and systematic breadth, poetry with commentary suits Johns
need to evoke personal experience and to share know-how for the individual direction of
those experiences. The genre of lyric poetrywhich recreates the intensity and uniqueness
of individual subjectivityis the means by which John evokes the concrete experience
of the souls journey to God, which no science can understand nor description convey.31
For although John is trained in scholastic theology, through which the divine truths are
understood, to read, his real concern is with mystical theology, which is known through
love and by which these truths are not only known but at the same time enjoyed.32
This difference is reflected in the prologues of two of their key works. At the start of
the Summa theologiae, Aquinas announces the need for the teacher of catholic truth to
teach briefly and plainly according to the order of sacred science. By contrast, John, in
the prologue to one of his most widely circulated works, beckons the reader as follows:
Let us speak to the heart words bathed in sweetness and love , removing obstacles and
28 St John of the Cross, Sayings, 119, in The Collected Works, 94. See also St John of the Cross,
Ascent, 2.1314, in The Collected Works, 18997 and St John of the Cross, Dark Night, 1.9, in
The Collected Works, 37780.
29 Books Two and Three of the Ascent (on the active night of the spirit) are given over to an account
of how the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love empty and darken, respectively, the
three spiritual faculties of intellect, memory, and will.
30 St John of the Cross, Sayings, 7, in The Collected Works, 86.
31 St John of the Cross, Ascent, prologue, 1, in The Collected Works, 115. See also St John of the
Cross, Spiritual Canticle, prologue, 1, in The Collected Works, 46970.
32 St John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, prologue, 3, in The Collected Works, 470. See also the
commentary on stanza 7s final line ah, I-dont-know-what behind their stammering (St John
of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, prologue, 3, in The Collected Works, 502). For a modern account
of the difference between speculative and mystical theology, see Jacques Maritain, The Degrees
of Knowledge (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1959), 31011, 32627, 332. For a more
refined and historically sensitive distinction between monastic, scholastic, and vernacular genres,
see Bernard McGinn,The Changing Shape of Late Medieval Mysticism, Church History 65
(1996): 197219.

26

Irish Theological Quarterly 77(1)

stumbling blocks from the paths of many souls who unknowingly trip.33 Consequently,
Johns spiritual insight is expressed pragmatically in whatever categories are to hand,
without much concern for the precise meaning of those categories in their original systematic context.
Johns focus on prayerful recollection as a precondition for spiritual growth, along
with the accompanying awareness of the need for wise direction, lies behind his departure
from a dyadic Thomistic psychologyof intellect and willin preference for the more
Augustinian triadic soulof memory, understanding, and will. The presentation of
memory as a faculty of equal standing with intellect and will signals the importance of
this capacity for John. It is a significant shift that allows John to do justice to the specific
concerns that distinguish his work from Aquinass. Since John does not say why he selects
Augustines psychology over Aquinass, we must extrapolate from a brief consideration
of Augustines understanding of memory.34
In Book X of the Confessions, Augustines fullest discussion of memory, he presents
it as more than a storehouse of past images and events. It is the much broader capacity by
which the self, scattered over time and distracted by the dissipation of disordered desires,
is gathered together. Memory is thus of critical importance for Augustine, as shown by
his description of it as, simply, my mind my self.35 It gives unity to the souls temporal
distention, making present at once many different times. Since memory is a capacity for
self-presence over time that makes possible our understanding and love, Augustine conceived the person of the Father, in whom all times are present in the eternal now as a kind
of analogous presencing in the Trinity that brings forth the Word and Love. Augustines
understanding of memory thus clearly resonates with the spiritual ideal of Carmelite
reform for recollected self-presence, the interior peace that underlies the spiritual life.
More generally, Augustines Confessions shows the critical role that memory plays in
the operation of the will. For any movement of the will is conditioned by whence it is
moving. Any future goal or vision depends in part on the prior understanding of the past
from which a person moves. Thus, by retrieving the importance of memory, John is acknowledging the powerful presence that the past exercises in present decisions about the future.
In Aquinass terms, memory is the habitual retention of knowledge and love.36 Memory
thus refers to what a person has become over time through the accumulated acts of knowing
and loving. (This is why Aquinas sees memory as a condition for prudence, for it recalls
the past experience from which lessons are learned in order to make decisions now).37 This
habitual retention, which John elevates to a distinct faculty alongside intellect and will,
makes present past experience that, although past, possesses a weight and momentum that
33 John of the Cross, Sayings of Light and Love, prologue, in The Collected Works, 85.
34 Augustines exact understanding of memory is disputed among scholars and, according to James
ODonnell, is the subject of a monograph not yet written (James ODonnell, Augustines Confessions,
vol. 3 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1992], 176). For overviews, see John Mourant, Saint Augustine on
Memory (Villanova, PA: Augustinian Institute, Villanova University, 1980) and Roland Teske,
Augustines Philosophy of Memory, in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Eleonore
Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2001), 14858.
35 Augustine, Confessions, X.17 (New York: Penguin, 1961), 22324.
36 STh I 93.7.
37 STh III 56. 5 and STh IIII 49.1.

Doyle

27

continue to have ramifications throughout a persons life and that, as a result, condition
any exercise of the will. Given the massive influence of past experience in any directees
life, John, as a spiritual director, highlighted the critical importance of memory alongside
intellect and will.
It seems, then, that the very different context, audience, and form of Johns work prompt
his departure from Thomistic psychology in favour of a more Augustinian emphasis on
memory. On the basis of this shift from a dyadic to a triadic conception of the self, John
gives his strikingly original presentation of hope as a virtue located in the memory, not
the will.38 (John follows Aquinass account by placing faith in the understanding and
charity in the will.) The reasons for this move are clear from what has been said: the past
exercises a profound influence over any present anticipation of what one can hope for the
future. As with Augustine, memory is not just storage space for what has happened; it
is the underlying and unifying self-presence of the soul that is distended across time. It
is, therefore, the capacity by which the future is anticipated. It is this critical relatedness
to the future that allows John to conceive of memory as the seat of hope, the theological
virtue, whereby the person anticipates an eternal future with God.
By this major relocation of the psychological seat of hope, John addresses the limitation we saw in Aquinass speculative theological discourse. For Johns focus on memory
calls attention to the concrete, particular experience of the individual over time, which
Aquinas registers in his account of hope but does not fully explore. John thus gives depth
and substance to Aquinass terse and undeveloped recognition that hope deals with the
unfolding desires of an individual for salvation in particular, beyond the intellects assent
in faith to the possibility of salvation in general. For where else can one gain that confidence in ones salvation except in ones own experience of Gods providential activity in
ones life? Going beyond Aquinass schematic account of temporal development in the
various stages of fear, John gives an immeasurably broader sense of our temporal identity
as shaped by the memory of what has happened and in anticipation of what is to come.
John, therefore, presents a more psychologically convincing picture of the person as moving through time in an ever-deeper appropriation of their hopes.
What are the details of this movement? How does hope actually function, now that it
is directly associated with memory? Although John follows Augustines triadic psychology, he does not follow his actual procedure in the Confessions of sifting through the
memory of ones past so as to see where providence has been at work and, by doing so,
discern hope for the future. Nor does John follow the standard medieval monastic use of
memory as key for meditational prayer.39 Instead, John understands theological hope to
38 As Andr Bord notes, even the influential English Carmelite, Jean Baconthrope, who was
favorable to the Augustinian triadic soul, placed hope in the will (see Andr Bord, Mmoire et
esprance chez Jean de La Croix [Paris: Beauchesne, 1971], 298). Bord suggests that John
may have been influenced by one of Bernand of Clairvauxs sermons, which linked intellect,
memory, and will, to faith, hope, and charity (see ibid., 23436).
39 Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 1990), 46. For John on the inadequacy of meditation, see St John of the
Cross, Ascent, 2.1213, in The Collected Works, 18591. Also, John says elsewhere that God
values in you the inclination to dryness and suffering for love of him more than all the consolations, spiritual visions, and meditations you could possibly have (St John of the Cross, Sayings,
14, in The Collected Works, 86).

28

Irish Theological Quarterly 77(1)

be activated not by reflection on ones past, nor by meditation upon spiritually nourishing
images, but instead through an unrelenting emptying of the memory, which must be purged,
as must the intellect and will. After all, hope always pertains to the unpossessed object
and in the measure that the memory becomes dispossessed of things, in that measure will
it have hope because it has made room to receive God.40 Stripped of both sense images
and personal remembrances of supernatural images, the memory is emptied, initially by
the person and then more intensely by God. Why this negative way? Since God has no
form or image comprehensible to the memory, the memory is without form and without
figure when united to God.41 Nothing in the pastno creaturely experience nor any
dearly remembered eventis in any way adequate to hopes goal of eternal union with
God. Because of the utter disproportion between Creator and creature, John counsels only
a habitual remembrance of eternal life.42 The only exception to this purgative emphasis
is the higher operation of the memory that evokes knowledge and love of God or, more
directly, recalls any touches and feelings of union with the Creator in ones spiritual
experience.43 But overwhelmingly, the emphasis in The Ascent of Mount Carmel is on the
purgation of the memory.
This stress on the purgation of memory brings out a critical feature of Aquinass account
of hope: difficulty. For behind the straightforward Thomistic assertion that hope is a kind
of desire or motion lies a metaphysical precondition, the existential meaning of which John
elaborates with great insistence: motion presupposes privation.44 Any desire arises from
the absence of what is desired, for if it were present, then one would not desire it. (Hence
the twofold meaning of want in English as desiring something and lacking something.)
Thus, one must recognize and experience emptiness in order to activate desire. It is that
recognition of the painful experience of dispossession that John forces into consciousness
through his unflinching account of the dark night of the soul. Inevitably, the hope of
fulfilling the greatest desirefor eternal union with Godrequires the deepest privation.
Once again, John conveys the experiential shadow-side that is implicit in Aquinass
more abbreviated and positive account. He gives psychological depth to Aquinass conceptual clarity. If Aquinas writes for beginners in study and so presents hope in a straightforward manner as the elevation of desire for God, John writes for those advancing in
contemplation and so calls to mind the painful experience of emptiness that such elevation
requires.45 If Aquinas lays out the general metaphysical structure in which hope perfects
the desire for God, then John spells out the individual suffering through which such perfection comes (see Heb 2:10).
Johns practical theological writings, especially his original placing of hope in the
memory, bring a decisively new and rich dimension to the Thomistic enterprise. Occasioned
by a different context and mediated through a different form, Johns account of hope
40
41
42
43

John of the Cross, Ascent, 2.6.3 in The Collected Works, 167, 279.
John of the Cross, Ascent, 3.2.4 in The Collected Works, 269.
John of the Cross, Sayings, 83 in The Collected Works, 91.
John of the Cross, Ascent, 3.14.2 in The Collected Works, 289. It should be noted that John does
not maintain a consistent distinction between the sense memory and its spiritual operations.
44 See Aristotle Physics, 1.7.191a 322.
45 STh prologue; John of the Cross, Ascent, 3.2.2 in The Collected Works, 268.

Doyle

29

adapts Aquinass in response to a very different set of experiences and needs. Harnessing
his literary sensibilities, psychological sensitivity, and spiritual experience, John offers a
profound and compelling reformulation of Aquinass understanding of theological hope.
Before turning to Rahner, it is important to note that Johns suggestively rich association
of hope and memory exhibits some tension. For while the correlation between the tripartite
soul and the three theological virtues is initially pleasing in his description of purgationit
clearly structures, for example, a large part of Johns early work Ascentit becomes problematic in the account of union.46 In his later works, John casts memory as in some way
the totality of the person hoping to inform knowing and loving with divine wisdom and
love. From The Dark Night on, John increasingly talks about the faculties in dyadic terms
of intellect and will. Thus, the process of contemplation infuses both love and wisdom,
and John clearly states that this enkindling of love and the union of these two faculties,
the intellect and the will, is something immensely rich and delightful for the soul.47 Again,
in the commentary on the Spiritual Canticle, John registers the comprehensive breadth of
memory by saying that it concerns the awareness that one lacks all the goods of the intellect (the vision of God) and the delights of the will (the possession of God).48
In Johns later works, then, memory cuts across the distinctions of faculty psychology
and becomes coextensive with the self. Consequently, when John discusses the person in
terms of distinct faculties, he predominately mentions only intellect and will.49 Memory
more and more comes to express the shared yearning of intellect and will as they near
consummation. It is not a parallel faculty alongside the intellect and will, but instead
signifies the temporal unfolding of an individuals knowing and loving. It does not attain
a distinct aspect of being, as the intellect does when it attains truth and the will when it
attains goodness. Rather, memory gives continuity over time to our gradually deepening
encounter with being in its fullest intelligibility and ultimate goodness. No longer simply
the habitual retention of knowledge and love (as it was for Aquinas), memory is more
fundamentally the conditioning and yearning of the whole persons knowing and loving
in the movement through time towards eternity.

Karl Rahner:The Apologetic Function of Hope

In Karl Rahner, we see the resolution of the tensions in Johns account of hope. Even
though Rahner rarely mentioned John of the Cross in his writings, he admired and shared
46
47
48
49

I have detailed the gradual breakdown of this correlation in Doyle, From Triadic to Dyadic Soul.
John of the Cross, Dark Night, 2.12.2 in The Collected Works, 422, 423, emphasis added.
John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, 2.6 in The Collected Works, 488.
John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, 12.67, 27.5, 29.11, 38.3, 39.14 in The Collected Works,
517, 582, 590, 619, 628. See also The Living Flame of Love, whose discussion of the lamps
of fire follows this dyadic pattern. Thus, their light and warmth fill the intellect with the light
of Gods wisdom and the will with the warmth of Gods lovewhereas the memory is once
again described as longing of the whole person for the complete possession of God. The third
cavern is the memory, and its void is a yearning and melting away of the soul for the possession
of God (John of the Cross, Living Flame, 3.21 in The Collected Works, 681, emphasis added).

30

Irish Theological Quarterly 77(1)

his ability to evoke the existential depth of Christian doctrine.50 Like John, he was trained
in Aquinas, although with much greater philosophical precision. So positioned, he could
elegantly resolve the conceptual tensions in Johns theology whilst retaining the existential
resonance. Rahner made this breakthrough not by trying to place hope in a newly elevated
faculty, but rather by re-conceiving it, in his 1967 essay On the Theology of Hope, as
the shared modality of faith and charity, that is, as the intellect and wills common selfdisposition before the absolute mystery of God.
Working within the framework of scholastic theology, Rahner approaches this position
by asking why there are three theological virtues, when there are only two modes to Gods
self-communication (Word and Spirit), which correspond to the two modes of human
self-transcendence (knowledge and love). If faith heals and perfects the intellects ordering
to truth, and charity heals and perfects the wills ordering to the good, then what is the
unique and enduring contribution of hope, beyond being a mere mode in which man, for
the time being, and in his statu viatoris (wayfarer state) strives for this possession of God
as truth and love?51
Rahner begins his answer to this question by distinguishing the theological meaning
of the word hope from its ordinary use. Just because everyday parlance understands
hope to end when the hoped-for object is possessed, that does not mean theological hope
should be so construed. For the object of theological hope, the incomprehensible mystery
of God, can never be possessed. Consequently, Rahner would not be satisfied with John
of the Crosss later understanding of hope as the shared yearning of knowledge and love
for complete possession, a yearning that ends with death. Nor does he entertain Johns
earlier strategy of carving out another, distinct faculty that bears hope (e.g., memory) and
which, for some of Johns modern-day followers, is ordered to a transcendental such as
beauty that is distinct from verum (true) and bonum (good).52 There is no need to justify
the existence of three theological virtues according to a strict principle of distinction
50 Rahner, for example, praises the extraordinarily subtle and psychologically acute divisions,
of great importance for mystical theology in John and Teresa of Avila (Karl Rahner, Reflections
on the Problem of the Gradual Ascent to Christian Perfection, in Theological Investigations,
vol. 3, trans. Karl-H. and Boniface Kruger [Baltimore: Helicon, 1967], 9). Rahner can, however,
be critical of John. In his essay The Eternal Significance of the Humanity of Jesus for Our
Relationship with God, he suggests that John comes close to letting everything in the mystic
act disappear in the face of God (Rahner, The Eternal Significance of the Humanity of Jesus
for Our Relationship with God, in Theological Investigations, vol. 3, 42).
51 Karl Rahner, On the Theology of Hope, in Theological Investigations, vol. 10 (London: Darton,
Longman & Todd, 1973), 24259.
52 It would certainly be false for us to seek to find a solution to the problem by [postulating]
a third basic power to which hope would correspond as its appropriate virtue (Rahner, Theology
of Hope, 247). We must hold fast that there are two basic modes of human (transcendental)
self-realisation: awareness of, and reflection upon the self through knowledge and through free
love, corresponding to the two basic transcendentals of Verum and bonum, in which the one
(unum) being (ens) imposes itself (Rahner, Theology of Hope, 24546). For an example of
a modern-day follower of John arguing for the memorybeauty correlation, see Tracey Rowland,
Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II (New York: Routledge, 2003), 81.

Doyle

31

which is common to them all in the same sense and at the same level, so that they have
precisely the same relationship among themselves.53
Instead, Rahner conceives of hope as the original and unifying medium of the intellects experience of faith and the wills experience of charity, neither of which will ever
possess the infinite mystery of God, even in the beatific vision. Hope therefore derives
its distinct status by virtue of the fact that it names the enduring manner in which both
our knowing and loving will forever stand before the incalculable and uncontrollable
mystery of God. It names that permanent and pervasive attitude of the whole person in
the radical transcendence of self and surrender of self which is entailed in the act of
reaching out for truth into the unfathomable mystery, and radical self-surrender and
self-transcendence of love.54 Hope, then, names the outwards from the self movement that cuts across and unifies the graced transformation of intellect and will as they
receive divine truth and love in the theological virtues of faith and charity. It is the acceptance of the one, fundamental orientation to the incomprehensible God that comprehends
and unifies the subsequent distinctions of knowledge and love, and of faith and charity.55
In a way, Rahners account of hope brings to mind Peguys poetic image: hope is the little
girl who ventures ahead, leading faith and charity by the hand.56
Consequently, far from existing only in the provisional, temporal state, hope is the
process of constantly eliminating the provisional in order to make room for the radical
and pure uncontrollability of God.57 More than just the modality of the historical process
by which we pass through time to that state which is definitive and eternal, [hope is] rather
that basic modality of the very attitude to the eternal which precisely as such sets the true
advance to eternity in train.58 Hope thus names the underlying attitude or basic character or common factor that the intellect and will share in their salvific encounter with
God; and since salvation does not end, neither does hope.59
Rahners account of hope, then, combines the speculative precision of Aquinas with
the existential insight of John. Re-conceiving hope as the shared modality of faith and
love, as the permanent self-disposal of intellect and will to God, Rahner resolves the
shortcomings of Johns unsteady and conceptually imprecise correlation of hope to memory.
With profound simplicity, Rahner captures the pervasive and enveloping nature of hope
that John tried, suggestively but unsuccessfully, to evoke.
Although Rahners striking formulation is original, it has surprisingly strong affinities
to Johns account, especially in his insistence that hope is constantly eliminating the
provisional. This is all the more noteworthy, as it seems unlikely that Rahner had paid
much attention to Johns struggle to articulate the precise anthropological grounds of
theological hope. Rahners reformulation of the Thomistic tradition does not emerge from
53
54
55
56

Rahner, Theology of Hope, 248.

Ibid., 249.
Ibid., 256.
Charles Pguy, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, trans. David L. Schindler (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 10.
57 Rahner, Theology of Hope, 250.
58 Ibid., 251.
59 Ibid., 250.

32

Irish Theological Quarterly 77(1)

a direct encounter with John and his limitations. To shed light on Rahners originality, we
must turn to the context of his work and ask how its pressures and demands channeled
his reflective originality and conceptual rigor to reformulate so creatively the Thomistic
understanding of hope.
Since Rahners context remains, in many respects, our own (at least in the modern
West), we can briefly indicate some features of this context that, we may surmise, influenced his novel account of hope. Three features in particular deserve mention. First,
beginning with the broadest: Rahners context is that of secular modernity, whose features
have recently and painstakingly been described by Charles Taylor.60 An essential feature
of a secular age is the eclipse of transcendence and the corresponding emphasis on human
control of history and nature. The combined effects of political and scientific revolutions
have constructed, in Taylors term, an immanent frame, within which humans aspire
(sometimes) to create a benevolent moral order for mutual benefit. This social imaginary
is supported by philosophical theories that prioritize notions of autonomy and the turn
to the subject and often deny religious transcendence.
As is well known, much of Rahners work tried to show how faith may survive such a
wintry climate. Turn to the subject, he argues, and you will find it opens upwards through
the transcendental dynamism of its knowing and loving, the ultimate fulfillment of which
is not found by controlling immanent causes, but by falling into the abyss of the ultimate
cause of truth and love.61 In the context of the modern West, Christian hope will be experienced, according to Rahner, as the fundamental mode by which the person breaks out of
the immanent frame of human control and enters the uncontrollable mystery of divine
providence. What Rahner is doing in this apologetic strategy is highlighting some particular
features of hope that were handed to him by the scholastic tradition in which he was
trainedsuch as hopes distinctive property as motion and its connection to the concrete
acceptance of providencein order to address the particular needs of his context, one that
limits the movement of human knowing and acting within an immanent frame and relies
instead exclusively upon human control. Once again, context shapes content.
A second feature of Rahners context follows from the first. The very reality of a secular
culture, Taylor argues, makes belief fragile, since it is no longer accepted as a default
option that is supported by an interlocking set of institutions, customs, codes, and so on.
Rather, it faces profound challenges and corroding indifference. Furthermore, it must
compete alongside alternative belief systems. Within this cross-pressured situation, one
cannot simply start with the assumption of faith, as Aquinas and John do. Instead, one
60 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2007).
61 These phrases are both from Rahner: Human being is rather a reality absolutely open upwards;
a reality which reaches its highest (though indeed unexacted) perfection when in it the
Logos himself becomes existent in the world (Karl Rahner, Current Problems in Christology,
in Theological Investigations, vol. 1, trans. Cornelius Ernst [New York: Crossroad, 1982],
149200, at 183, emphasis added); Every fall into the abyss of the unspeakable and incomprehensible in spirit and life means falling into the hands of the one whom the Son addressed
as his Father, when in death he commended his soul into his hands (Karl Rahner, Christology
within an Evolutionary View of the World, Theological Investigations, vol. 5, trans. Karl-H.
Kruger [New York: Crossroad, 1983], 15792, at 192, emphasis added).

Doyle

33

will have to speak to a faith which is under challenge and is by no means to be taken for
granted.62 Furthermore, one will be inclined to lead with an account of the significance
of belief in terms that can be apprehended under the notion of the human good (even
though the eventual appropriation of those Christian beliefs will involve unexpected
developments in, and even radical inversions of, what we usually see as good).
Rahners relativizing of faith is in line not only with this strategic delay in articulating the explicit content of faith, but also with the wish to present ones beliefs as in
some way resonant with the human good. This is so specifically in his presentation of
the theological virtues that prioritizes hope.63 For unlike Aquinas and John, who place
faith first in their account, Rahner cannot presuppose a widespread cultural acceptance
of faith. Consequently, he first places hope as the prior medium of transcendence that
underlies faith and love. Hope is presented first because, negatively, many are alienated
from faith, and, positively, it approaches God under the aspect of the persons happiness
as the human good. The context of the fragility of faith leads Rahner to make the novel
move of prioritizing hope in his account of the theological virtues, for that entry-point
increases the probability that the articles of faith will gain a fair hearing.
The third aspect of Rahners context is closer to home: the profound upheavals of
national and religious identity within his lifetime. Both the violent dislocations within
20th-century Germany and the momentous reforms of the Second Vatican Council gave
Rahner a real assent to the notions of difficulty and change, the signature marks of hope.
As a German (even one with modest political insight) and so living in the epicentre of
the so-called Seventy-Five Year War (191489) that attended the transition from imperial
nation states to a global economy, Rahner could not but carry over the effects of these
difficult changes into his theological work, and his analysis of what he poignantly called,
after the carpet bombing of German cities toward the end of the Second World War, the
rubbled-over self.64 Likewise, the profound changes of Vatican II (196265), which
were in part occasioned by the need for the Catholic Church to address and adapt to these
broader political and social passages, called on the resources of a virtue that deals with
difficult adjustments.65 In light of these unsettling disruptions in national and religious
belonging, it makes sense that Rahner would elevate the virtue of hope in his 1967 account
of the theological virtues, for it is the virtue by which a person copes with difficulty and
62 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 5.
63 Aquinas may also be said to relativize faith since its assent must be taken up and integrated
into the higher movement of the will that, in hope and charity, moves to and unites with the
object to which faith assents.
64 For an example of Rahners limited understanding of the political and economic dimensions
of 20th-century German history, see the section entitled The Church Under National Socialism,
in Karl Rahner, I Remember (New York: Crossroad, 1985), 4954. Karl Rahner, The Need and
the Blessing of Prayer, trans. Bruce W. Gillette (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1997), 3. For
the designation Seventy-Five Year War, see Nicholas Boyle, Who Are We Now? Christian
Humanism and the Global Market from Hegel to Heaney (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame, 1988), 5.
65 As argued by Stephen Schloesser, Against Forgetting.: Memory, History, Vatican II,;
Theological Studies, 67 (2006): 333.

34

Irish Theological Quarterly 77(1)

change, and seeks to re-articulate the significance of faith amid the inevitable tensions
entailed in the transition to a new context.66
If this brief review of some elements of Rahners context explains the conditions that
may have prompted his original account of the theological virtues, then we should expect
that the form in which he chose to deliver that account would align with the needs of the
context. What is the form of Rahners contribution on hope? It is neither a summa treatise
seeking to unpack the intelligibility of a readily accepted and broadly shared faith, nor is
it poetry with extended commentary to guide those advanced in the spiritual life (mainly
religious), but rather it is a short lecture that was subsequently publishedappropriately
enough, given its apologetic characterin the first edition of a journal that he and Herbert
Vorgrimler founded and edited, Internationale Zeitschrift fr das Gesprch zwischen den
verschiedenen Humanismen, the International Journal for Dialogue between the Various
Humanisms.67 Clearly, the very title of this journal reflects the context in which Rahner
operated. The journal (1) is international and so recognizes the realities of globalization,
(2) is dedicated to dialogue and so acknowledges the fact of pluralism, and (3) is unified
by humanistic concerns and so acknowledges his Jesuit orders origins within the milieu
of early modern humanisms aspiration to the common good.
Moreover, the very genre of the essai signals the works status as an attempta
provisional and personal contributionat a broader conversation. It does not pretend to
encapsulate and arrange every aspect of an area, nor seek to evoke uniquely special,
individual experiences of advanced practitioners. Rather, an essay explores a single topic
from a particular location, opens it up for consideration from a new angle and invites
others into the conversation.68 In Rahners use, the form of the essay attempts to convey
the possibility of faith in a secular age. It seeks to catch a glimpse of its vitality and
meaning by prodding around the embers of time-worn scholastic terminology and, thereby,
revealing a still burning core that gives off some warmth to those who must live in such
a wintry season.
A genre pioneered by Michel de Montaigne, the essay strikes a tolerant posture toward
the reader, implicitly accepting difference and democratic in spirit. It is therefore appropriate in Rahners context of Vatican IIs aggiornamento, both ad extra with modern,
democratic, pluralist societies and ad intra with the decisive break from what Ghislain
66 For an excellent study of Rahners evolving understanding of the contextual dimensions of
faith, see Richard Lennan, Faith in Context: Rahner on the Possibility of Belief, Philosophy
and Theology 17(2005): 23358. See especially the discussion of Rahners broadening of the
meaning of the depositum fidei at 25052.
67 Karl Rahner, Zur Theologie der Hoffnung, Internationale Zeitschrift fr das Gesprch
zwischen den verschiedenen Humanismen 1(1968): 6778. This is a slightly expanded version
of the original lecture. The expansion is a paragraph added at the end of the introduction, which
makes some general comments about the nature of dialogue.
68 On the genre of essay, see Theodor Adorno, The Essay as Form, in The Adorno Reader, ed. Brian
OConnor (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), 91111. See also Nicholas Healys interpretation of
Rahners method as ad hoc apologetics, even in his book-length works (Nicholas Healy, Indirect
Methods in Theology: Karl Rahner as an Ad Hoc Apologist, Thomist 56[1992]: 61333).

Doyle

35

Lafont calls the Gregorian form of the Church and its emphasis on the primacy of truth.69
By opening up for consideration the possibility that the gateway to Christianity is better
construed in terms of hope rather than faith, Rahner gives some intellectual basis for this
ecclesial transition.

Conclusion
We can summarize the findings of this comparative study as follows. Aquinass speculative system lays out a comprehensive theological account that is metaphysically coherent
and conceptually precise, but does not resonate existentially nor, at least in modernity,
have immediate apologetic traction. John of the Crosss poetic mysticism evokes beautifully the existential depth of Thomistic hope and makes explicit its unthematized interiority,
but lacks conceptual consistency (although that very lack may indicate that Johns
theology, as an inchoate instance of the modern turn to the subject, exposes the somewhat
overworked distinctions between intellect and will in Aquinass metaphysical account
of the soul). Rahners apologetic essai combines existential resonance and conceptual
precision, although it must be seen as a way into a fuller exploration of the specificity of
Christian faith claims.
Alternatively, one might organize the insights of these authors by using Bernard
Lonergans scheme of cognitional operations.70 Thus, if John of the Crosss mystical
theology focuses on experience and Aquinass speculative theology upon understanding,
then Rahners apologetic theology focuses on decision, specifically, the decision that faces
many modern believers to recommit to a faith that has become fragile and cross-pressured
in a modern context. As Rahner writes in the final paragraph of his essay: Hope is not
simply the attitude of one who is weak and at the same time hungering for a fulfillment
that has yet to be achieved, but rather [it is] the courage to commit oneself in thought and
deed to the incomprehensible and the uncontrollable which permeates our existence.71
However one wishes to conceptualize the findings of this comparison, it is enough to
conclude that John and Rahner advanced significant creative departures from Aquinas in
order to address their context as directly and effectively as possible, while keeping deep
roots in the Thomistic soil in which they were nurtured. Their work exhibits profound
theological creativity in the face of radically altered historical circumstances. Furthermore,
69 Lafont sees this form as extending before Gregory VIIs reign (107385), from which it
derived its name, through its consolidations in the 13th and 16th centuries, and officially up
until Vatican II (Ghislain Lafont, The Gregorian Form of the Church, chapter two in Imagining
the Catholic Church: Structured Communion in the Spirit [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2000]).
He characterizes two features of this interlocking system of ideology and institution as follows:
The first, and unquestionably the most important is the keen awareness of what might be
called the primacy of the truth as it relates to salvation. Next, there must also be an institution
for the proclamation and the defense of the truth. The primacy of the pope is central from this
perspective and will continue to grow in importance with the passing of time, eventually
weakening the other institutions (ibid., 3738).
70 For Lonergans book-length application of his account of cognitional operations to theology,
see Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1971).
71 Rahner, Theology of Hope, 259, emphasis added.

36

Irish Theological Quarterly 77(1)

it shows that loyalty to the insights and achievements of the so-called Thomistic synthesis
does not require slavish repetition or prickly defencewhat the usually mild Jean-Pierre
Torrell calls a repetitious, narrow and legalistic doctrine that was Thomist only in name
but instead can call forth genuine development and adaptation to meet the demands of
different times.72
Author Biography
Dominic Doyle is an assistant professor of Systematic Theology at Boston College
School of Theology and Ministry. His book, The Promise of Christian Humanism: Thomas
Aquinas on Hope (Crossroad/Herder and Herder, 2011) was awarded a 2010 John Templeton
Award for Theological Promise.

72 JeanPierre Torrell, Aquinass Summa: Background, Structure, and Reception (Washington,

DC: Catholic University of America, 2005), 111. I am grateful to Richard Lennan, Gilles Mongeau,
SJ, Howard Rhodes, and Jeremy Wilkins for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of
this article.