Eunomianism and Ontologism

Section 3: Eunomianism and Ontologism

The dogmas expounded in the two foregoing Sections have been attacked by two classes of opponents: (1) by those who deny the incomprehensibility of God, either here on earth or in Heaven; and (2) by those who allege that the intuitive vision of God is proper to man already here on earth. To the first-mentioned class belong the Eunomians, who arrogated to themselves an adequate comprehension of God here below (a fortiori, of course, in Heaven). Prominent among the latter class are the Ontologists, who claim that man has an immediate, intuitive knowledge of God already in this world.

Article 1: The Heresy of the Eunomians

1. The Teaching of Eunomius. — Eunomius, a pupil of Aetius, about A.D. 360, espoused the cause of strict Arianism and became the leader of the so-called Anomoeans, who, in order to emphasize their belief that the Logos was a creature, substituted for the “ὁμοιούσιος” of the semi-Arians the harsher term “ἀνόμοιον” (unlike). In the interest of Arianism, whose premises he carried to their legitimate conclusions, Eunomius soon added to his Trinitarian heresy a theological one by asserting that there is nothing in the Godhead which can elude the grasp of human reason.¹ The Eunomian heresy may be condensed into the following propositions:

a) Human reason conceives God as adequately as He comprehends Himself. According to St. Chrysostom,² Eunomius declared: “Deum sic novi, ut ipse Deus seipsum,” which is merely a more pregnant formulation of the teaching of his master Aetius: “Tam Deum novi, sicut meipsum, imo non tantum novi meipsum, quantum Deum.”³

b) We acquire an adequate knowledge of the Divine Essence by forming the notion of “ἀγεννησία” (uncreatedness), which perfectly expresses that Essence. By sophistically interchanging the terms “ἄκτιστον” (uncreated, derived from “γίγνομαι”) and “ἀγέννητος” (not generated, derived from “γεννάω”) Eunomius infected the unsuspecting masses with two heretical errors. On the one hand, he discredited the Logos, Who, (he said), being “γεννητός,” i.e., generated, is a mere creature of the Father; on the other hand, he employed the handy equivocation as a means to confuse the “ἀγεννησία” (innoscibilitas) of the Father with the fundamental attribute of God, aseity (“ἀγεννησία”), thus poisoning the minds of his hearers with Arianism.⁴

c) Besides “ἀγεννησία” (uncreatedness), he said, there is no other divine attribute. All the other so-called attributes are mere synonyms comprised in the one notion of “ἀγεννησία.” A composite concept of God would necessarily imply composition in the Divine Essence, and therefore could not possibly be true. There is but one simple conception of God that corresponds to the simplicity of the Divine Essence, and that is “ἀγεννησία.”

2. Refutation of Eunomianism. — Though the Church never formally condemned Eunomius, his teaching as to the absolute intelligibility of the Divine Essence has always been held to be quite as heretical as his decidedly Arian view of the Logos. In refuting him the Fathers of his time insisted chiefly on the dogma of the divine incomprehensibility, though they did not neglect to combat this heretic, who was well versed in the writings of Aristotle, with the sharp weapons of philosophy also. It was, as we have already shown on a previous page, especially Basil,⁵ Gregory of Nazianzus,⁶ Gregory of Nyssa⁷ and Chrysostom⁸ who refuted this heresy. After what we have said on the subject in an earlier chapter, we need not enter into a detailed argument here.

Readings: — Klose, Geschichte und Lehre des Eunomius, Kiel 1883. — Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2nd ed., Vol. I, pp. 644 sqq., Freiburg 1873. — Schwane, Dogmengeschichte, 2nd ed., Vol. II, pp. 19 sqq., Freiburg 1895. — *Fr. Diekamp, Gotteslehre des hl. Gregor von Nyssa, Münster 1896. — E. Myers in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. V, pp. 605 sq., art. “Eunomianism.” — Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 239 sq., Freiburg 1908. — Newman, Arians of the Fourth Century, pp. 335 sqq., New Impression, London 1901. — Blunt, Dictionary of Sects, pp. 151 sq., new ed., London 1903.

Article 2: Why Ontologism is Untenable

1. Exposition of the Ontological System. — The system of Ontologism consists of two main propositions: (a) the human intellect already in this life enjoys an immediate intuition of the Divine Essence; (b) this intuition, which is the source and principle of all other human knowledge, is natural to the human understanding, because the Absolute is not only the highest object of our cognition (veritas prima ontologica), but also the first thing that we actually perceive (veritas prima logica). The human intellect can conceive nothing whatever until it has conceived God, because it can apprehend created things only in God, who is their archetype. Sense-perception serves merely to make us reflexively conscious of the ideas which we perceive directly though unconsciously in Him who is Truth itself. The name Ontologism was invented by Vincenzo Gioberti,⁹ for the purpose of indicating, first, that all rational cognition takes place not by the agency of concepts, but of real entities (τὸ ὄν), and, secondly, that as God is first in the order of being (primum ontologicum, τὸ ὄντως ὄν, ὁ ὤν), so He is also first in the order of knowledge (primum logicum).

2. History of Ontologism. — The germ of Ontologism may be traced back to the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, who himself at first favored the theory, in his Commentary on the Liber Sententiarum of Peter Lombard, but combated it vigorously in his later writings.¹⁰ In the fifteenth century Ontologism had an exponent in Marsilio Ficino, an ardent neo-Platonist, who went so far as to demand that Plato should be read in the churches, and who kept a light burning before the great philosopher’s bust in his room at Florence.¹¹

a) Nicolas Malebranche first developed the theory into a philosophical system and may therefore be justly called the Father of Ontologism. He tells us in his famous Recherche de la Vérité (published in 1675): God is as it were the Sun in the center of a world of thinking spirits. He is ever present to our minds, into which He pours the light of His eternal ideas. It is only by peering into this intellectual Sun, i.e., by an immediate intuition of God, that we perceive all things and truths. “Nous voyons toutes choses en Dieu.”¹² Malebranche’s theory was adopted and defended by Cardinal Gerdil in his Défense du Sentiment du P. Malebranche sur la Nature et l’Origine des Idées; but it is said the learned Cardinal renounced Ontologism in his later years. In the nineteenth century, Vincenzo Gioberti¹³ endeavored to strengthen Ontologism by drawing his famous distinction between direct and reflex perception. Direct perception, according to him, consists in the immediate intuition of God, though not of God per se, but in His creative influence on the world. Hence the celebrated principle: “L’ente crea le esistenze — Being creates existences.” In virtue of reflexive perception we realize, though indistinctly and in a limited way, what we see clearly and definitely, though unconsciously, in the intuitus Dei. The essence of Gioberti’s system lies in the assumption that direct intuition of God, though only as “creating existences” — Ens creans existentias, i.e., in so far as He exercises an influence upon the cosmos — is the starting-point of all human knowledge.

b) The Ontological system of Antonio Rosmini (died 1855) created quite a stir, especially in his native Italy. The controversy reached its climax in the condemnation, on December 14, 1887, of forty propositions taken from Rosmini’s writings.¹⁴ The condemnation was pronounced by the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition by command of Pope Leo XIII. Rosmini, who began his philosophical career as a defender of the theory of “inborn ideas,”¹⁵ later entered the camp of the Ontologists, and finally ascribed to the idea entis certain qualities which belong only to the Absolute, i.e., God.¹⁶ By hopelessly confusing the notion of indefinite, general, abstract being (τὸ ὄν) with that of the infinite, concrete, divine Being (ὁ ὤν), he gave the Ontological system a decidedly Pantheistic turn.¹⁷

Among the theistic champions of Ontologism Professor Ubaghs of Louvain (died 1854), whom we have already met with as a defender of Traditionalism, was perhaps the most prominent. “Ubaghs thinks that we are born with the idea of the infinite God, and that this idea is in the beginning unformed, but becomes formed by reflection, to which we are led by our education in human society.”¹⁸ Ontological errors were also propagated by Père Gratry,¹⁹ Abbé Branchereau,²⁰ Bishop Hugonin of Bayeux,²¹ Abbé Fabre,²² by an unknown author under the pseudonym “Sans-Fiel,”²³ and by a number of other writers in France, Belgium, and Italy. There is also, or was until recently, a small school of Ontologists in the United States.²⁴ German writers, with the sole exception of P. Rothenflue, S.J.,²⁵ never grew enthusiastic over Ontologism; but such among them as were tainted with it (notably Krause and Baader) drifted straightway into Pantheism, which is after all only a logical — if covert — sequel of Ontologism.

c) How could so many learned and pious men deceive themselves so egregiously? For a psychological explanation let us turn to the leading arguments of the Ontologists. Some of these arguments are very specious. Thus, one of them, based upon the doctrine of universal ideas, concludes: A universal concept must have a real object (universale in re). Now there can be no universale in re either in the contingent things of this world, which are in a constant flux, nor in the activity of the human mind. Not in the contingent things of this material world, because the universals are as necessary, as eternal, and as unchangeable as Truth itself. Not in the human mind, because the mind does not, by thinking, create truth, but presupposes it and bows before its majesty. Now, necessity, eternity, unchangeableness, etc., can be predicated of God alone; hence in perceiving truth we see the Godhead. Again, it is only on the basis of Ontologism that we can account for the notion of infinity, inasmuch as “the finite is a limitation of the infinite,” and consequently must in thought come after it. The idea of infinity cannot be gained by abstraction, because the finite contains nothing infinite which could be abstracted. Consequently, the concept of the infinite is derived from an immediate intuition of the Infinite Being itself.

Gioberti bottoms one of his favorite arguments on the postulate of a parallelism supposed to exist between the (ontological) order of being and the (logical) order of thought. The order of cognition, he argues, must correspond to the order of being. Therefore we perceive all things in the rank and sequence in which they are. Now, God is the very first thing in the order of being (ens primum); consequently He must also be the first which we apprehend (primum cognitum). The traditional practice of placing the material objects of the senses first, and God last, among the objects of human cognition, he says, destroys the harmony between being and thought (between the ontological and the logical order), and fails to take due account of the unique dignity of God.

With a contemptuous sneer at “German philosophy,” some of the leaders of Ontologism attempted to raise their system into the exalted place of “the only accepted Catholic philosophy.” In endeavoring to explain the origin of our ideas, they argued, we must choose between Cartesian Psychologism and Ontologism. In other words: We must draw our ideas either from the mind that conceives them, or from the object of perception (ὄν = being). If we derive them from the mind, we shall depreciate their objective content, deify reason as the sole source of truth, throw open the door to Pantheism, and drift into the shoals of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Ontologism is the only alternative.²⁶

3. Philosophical Critique of the Ontologist System. — To refute Ontologism thoroughly, we shall have to demonstrate, first, the falsity of its principle of knowledge, and, secondly, the pernicious consequences to which it logically tends.

a) A close examination of the nature of our universal concepts (ideae universales) shows convincingly that God cannot be the principal nor (in point of time) the first object of human knowledge here on earth. We first apprehend the visible world, and thence ascend to a knowledge of God as its Creator. Our knowledge of God is the arch or keystone of science. Furthermore, our conception of the infinite is vitiated by an incurable negation — which could not be were we endowed with an immediate intuition of that Being which is in reality the Infinite. If Ontologism were right, how should we explain the notorious fact that man can know of the existence of God by no other than the syllogistic method? How comes it that we are forced to define the Essence of God by means of concepts that express quality, and to employ the methods of negation and eminence? How is it that theodicy is built up on cosmology and psychology (the sciences of the world and of the soul)? Why do all our apprehensions and judgments contain an admixture of phantasms?²⁷ Why, if we have an immediate intuition of God, are we not conscious of it? All these questions Ontologism finds itself unable to answer.

The fact last referred to, viz., that we are not conscious of possessing an intuitive knowledge of God, is alone sufficient to disprove Ontologism. If our consciousness (sensus intimus) faithfully reports all the interior facts both of sense perception and of spiritual life — which it must if we are to accept it as a reliable source of true and certain knowledge — then it is simply impossible that it should tell us nothing whatever of what, if it existed, would manifestly be the most fundamental of all the facts of our consciousness, namely, the intuitive knowledge of God. Yet conscience is silent on this point, and therefore those who affirm that the human mind enjoys such an intuitive knowledge of its Maker, must evidently be deceiving themselves.

b) The falsity of Ontologism further appears from the circumstance that it entails wrong conclusions. Logic tells us that where there is a false consequent, there must be a false antecedent. The worst feature of the Ontologist system is its immanent Pantheistic bias. We do not, of course, mean to charge all Ontologists, most of whom were well-meaning, learned, and honorable men, with consciously advocating Pantheism, though several of them, like Gioberti and Rosmini, seem to have quite frankly drawn the last conclusions from their premises. What we mean to say is, that the system as such, in its logical deductions, inevitably runs into the marshes of Pantheism. This is most plainly apparent in those forms of Ontologism which identify abstract being (esse universale) with Divine Being (esse infinitum), and confuse knowledge of the one with an intuition of the other. For if abstract being is really identical with Divine Being, then everything that can be subsumed under the universal notion of being is God; in other words: Everything is God. But even the more moderate defenders of the Ontologist system, who put the purely negative necessity, eternity, and unchangeableness of our universal ideas on the same plane with the corresponding positive attributes of God, are guilty of a deification of finite essences and tumble hopelessly into the pit of Pantheism.

4. Theological Estimate of Ontologism. — So much for the philosophical aspects of Ontologism. To ascertain its status before the bar of dogmatic theology, we will first examine the judgments pronounced upon it by the Church.

a) The first in the series of these judgments is a decree of the Holy Office, dated September 18, 1861, in which seven Ontologist propositions are indirectly censured by the remark: “Tuto tradi non possunt.” Chief among them are: “Immediata Dei cognitio, habitualis saltem, intellectui humano essentialis est, ita ut sine ea nihil cognoscere possit, siquidem est ipsum lumen intellectuale” (prop. 1). “Esse illud, quod in omnibus [est] et sine quo nihil cognoscimus, est esse divinum” (prop. 2). “Universalia a parte rei considerata a Deo realiter non distinguuntur” (prop. 3). The Ontologists tried to make it appear that this decree was aimed directly against Pantheism; but when Branchereau in 1862 submitted his theistic Ontologism to the judgment of the Roman authorities, he was advised that the fifteen theses into which he had cast it fell under the decree of the Holy Office.²⁸ The Vatican Council did not enter into a discussion of this aberration, but one of its dogmatic definitions²⁹ plainly strikes at Ontologism, in so far as Ontologism leads logically to a Pantheistic identification of God with the universe.³⁰

Even more telling and important is the condemnation, in A.D. 1887, by the Congregation of the Holy Office, of forty propositions of Antonio Rosmini, “in proprio sensu auctoris” — a decision which Pope Leo XIII expressly ordered to be observed throughout the universal Church. Several of these forty propositions embody a frank statement of the principles of Ontologism. Thus, e.g.: “Esse indeterminatum, quod procul dubio notum est omnibus intelligentiis, est divinum illud, quod homini in natura manifestatur” (prop. 4). “Esse, quod homo intuetur, necesse est ut sit aliquid entis necessarii et aeterni, causae creantis … atque hoc est Deus” (prop. 5).³¹

b) In appraising the theological value of these official decisions the first question that suggests itself is: If Ontologism contradicts two dogmas, that of the mediate character of our knowledge of God here below,³² and that of the lumen gloriae,³³ why was it not condemned as a heresy?

α) There is a vast difference between the Ontologists and those earlier writers who denied the dogmas just mentioned. The latter were outright heretics, while the Ontologists, on the contrary, disavow the heretical consequences of their doctrine and profess loyal adherence to the faith. They deny in particular that the intuition of God which they teach implies the “visio beatifica,” admitting that the latter can only take place in Heaven and by virtue of the “lumen gloriae.” In explaining this distinction they have recourse to various subterfuges, which, while elucidating nothing, at least prove that those who seek shelter under them are not and do not desire to be regarded as heretics.

β) But the laws of logic are inexorable, and Ontologism cannot escape the heretical conclusions that flow from its principles. It is for this reason that the Church dealt the whole system a mortal blow. An immediate intuition of God — no matter whether we consider Him as the Absolute Spirit or as the Creator — necessarily implies an intuitive knowledge of the Most Holy Trinity, and also beatific bliss. He who excludes the visible world as an indispensable medium of cognition, must needs admit that man, if he sees God, Who is simplicity itself, must see Him as He is. Now if, as Ontologism alleges, an intuitive knowledge of the Divine Essence is “natural,” nay “essential” to the human intellect, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that an intuitive knowledge of the Most Holy Trinity, and consequently also beatific vision, are likewise natural and essential to the mind of man.³⁴

γ) For a positive dogmatic justification of the Roman decrees against Ontologism it suffices to revert to the two dogmas which we have already proved above. For, the fact that our knowledge of God is necessarily inferential and imperfect, of itself excludes the possibility of an immediate intuitive vision of the Divine Essence. This teaching being so clearly contained in the sources of Divine Revelation, it is plain that the Ontologists cannot base their claims on the Bible. They adduce Ps. IV, 7: “Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, Domine — The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us,” in favor of their contention that we see God directly here below; but the context makes it plain that the Psalmist merely meant to praise the benevolence of God Who watches over him.³⁵ And if St. John (I, 9) speaks of “the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world,” he clearly means supernatural enlightenment by faith and grace through the Divine Logos. Nor has Ontologism been successful in its attempts to found its teaching upon the Fathers. Its opponents were able to show that not a single one of the Fathers ever taught that man enjoys an intuitive vision of God here on earth; no, not even St. Augustine, on whom the Ontologists chiefly rely.

5. St. Augustine no Ontologist. — More emphatically than any other Patristic writer has St. Augustine insisted on the difficulty of acquiring a metaphysically correct conception of God here on earth.

a) Cfr. De Genes. ad Lit., lib. IV: “Mens itaque humana prius haec, quae facta sunt, per sensus corporis cernit eorumque notitiam pro infirmitatis humanae modulo capit; et deinde quaerit eorum causas, si quomodo possit ad eas pervenire principaliter et incommutabiliter permanentes in Verbo Dei, ac si invisibilia eius per ea, quae facta sunt, intellecta conspiciuntur. Quod quanta tarditate ac difficultate agat et quanta temporis mora … quis id ignoret?” It is to be noted, however, that St. Augustine applies to every species of cognition the term “vision,” of which he distinguishes three kinds: “visio corporalis” (by means of the bodily eyes), “visio spiritualis” (by means of the imagination), and “visio intellectualis” (by means of the intellect). The “visio intellectualis” he subdivides into natural and supernatural, according to the power which performs it (nature or grace). Grace enables us to see God either through faith (“per fidem”) or by revealing to us the Divine Essence (“per speciem”). Cfr. Enarr. in Ps. 149, n. 4: “Est quaedam visio huius temporis, erit altera visio futuri temporis. Visio, quae modo est, per fidem est; visio, quae futura erit, per speciem erit. Si credimus, videmus; si amamus, videmus — There is a kind of sight belonging to this present time; there will be another belonging to the time hereafter; the sight which now is, is by faith; the sight which is to be, will be by the [Divine] Essence. If we believe, we see; if we love, we see.” But the only real and true vision of God is that enjoyed by the angels and the just in Heaven. Cfr. De Trin. I, 13: “Ipsa visio est facie ad faciem, quae summum praemium promittitur iustis — That sight is face to face that is promised as the highest reward to the just.”

b) It is in conformity with this fundamental teaching of St. Augustine that we must interpret those passages of his writings in which he speaks of God as the “intelligibilis lux” of things, and even describes Him as the “lumen mentium.” Solil., cap. 1, n. 3: “Deus intelligibilis lux, in quo et a quo et per quem intelligibiliter lucent omnia — God is the intelligible light, in which and from which and through which all things are intelligible.” De Civit. Dei, VIII, 7: “[Deus est] lumen mentium ad discenda omnia — [God is] the light of our understanding, by which all things are learned by us.” In the first of these passages his purpose is to raise created things to the rank of copies of the divine original, “incorporated thoughts of God,” as it were; while in the second passage he evidently means that the light of reason in man is a reflection as well as an effect of the Divine Light. Cfr. De Trin., XIV, n. 15: “Mens humana non sua luce, sed summae illius lucis participatione sapiens erit… . Sic enim dicitur ista hominis sapientia, ut etiam Dei sit … verum non ita Dei, qua sapiens est Deus, … quemadmodum dicitur etiam iustitia Dei non solum illa, qua ipse iustus est, sed quam dat homini, cum iustificat impium — The human mind then will be wise, not by its own light, but by participation of that supreme Light… . For this wisdom of man is so called, that it is also of God … yet not so of God, as is that wherewith God is wise … as we call it the righteousness of God, not only when we speak of that by which He Himself is righteous, but also of that which He gives to man when He justifies the ungodly.” This teaching has nothing in common with the Ontologism condemned by the Church; else the Schoolmen would surely not have incorporated it into their treatises on God.³⁶

c) The genius of Augustine ascended to heights into which only the profoundest mystic can follow. It is his mystic utterances that the Ontologists adduce in favor of their theory, especially his teaching that we envisage the truths of the metaphysical order “in relationibus aeternis,” nay, “in ipsa, quae supra mentes nostras est, incommutabili veritate.”³⁷ Vercellone and others, from the fact that St. Augustine was favorably inclined towards Platonism, inferred that he postulated an intuitive vision of the archetypal ideas in God Himself. This would stamp him an Ontologist. But the assumption is altogether unfounded. Despite his predilection for Plato — he himself towards the end of his life retracted the exaggerated encomiums he had heaped upon the ancient Greek philosopher — St. Augustine never shared the errors of Platonism. St. Thomas assures us³⁸ that “Augustinus, qui doctrinis Platonicorum imbutus fuerat, si qua invenit fidei accommodata in eorum dictis, assumpsit; quae vero invenit fidei nostrae adversa, in melius commutavit.” Besides, the Ontologist claim cannot be harmonized with Augustine’s well-known theory of knowledge. For he not only insists that the conception of God which men have here below, is a cognition “per speculum” and “in aenigmate,” derived from the consideration of the material universe; but he also teaches that we can not argue a priori from ideal truth to real truth, or to the Divine Archetype.³⁹ Interpreting the above quoted passages by their context, therefore, and in the light of the author’s ordinary teaching, their meaning must be that the Author of all things, in creating them, stamped them with the seal of ontological truth, at the same time imprinting upon the human intellect the eternal and necessary laws that govern thought, i.e., logical truth. That man has an immediate intellectual intuition of all truths in God, is a teaching quite foreign to the mind of St. Augustine, as interpreted by St. Thomas Aquinas and the Schoolmen generally; and the Ontologist construction, which was unknown before the seventeenth century, has no claim to truth or probability.⁴⁰

We have shown that Ontologism has no basis either in Sacred Scripture or Tradition. Its principle runs counter to the teaching of Revelation, in spite of all attempts that have been made to deny or to veil this opposition. In its consequences it leads partly to Pantheism, partly to other heretical doctrines. Hence the Church was fully justified in condemning it.

Readings: — *A. Lepidi, Examen Philosophico-Theologicum de Ontologismo, Lovanii 1874. — Schiffini, S.J., Disput. Metaphysicae Spec., Vol. I, pp. 476 sqq., Taurini 1888. — *Kleutgen, S.J., Verurteilung des Ontologismus durch den hl. Stuhl (Beilagen zur Theol. und Philos. der Vorzeit), Münster 1868. — Zigliara, Della Luce Intellettuale e dell’ Ontologismo, Romae 1874. — Karl Werner, Antonio Rosmini und seine Schule, Wien 1884. — Idem, Der Ontologismus als Philosophie des nationalen Gedankens, Wien 1885. — Idem, Die kritische Zersetzung und speculative Umbildung des Ontologismus, Wien 1885. — Boedder, S.J., Natural Theology, 2nd ed., pp. 12 sqq., London 1899. — M. Schumacher, The Knowableness of God, pp. 136 sqq., Notre Dame, Ind. 1905. — J. T. Driscoll, Christian Philosophy: God, pp. 56 sqq., 2nd ed., New York 1904. — W. Turner, History of Philosophy, pp. 225, 367, 632 sqq., Boston 1903. — Rosmini’s Short Sketch of Modern Philosophies and of His Own System, transl. by Lockhart, London 1882. — For the ecclesiastical decisions in the matter, see the Resolutiones Congr. S. Officii et Indicis de Traditionalismo, Ontologismo, etc.