The Problem of Negligent Omissions: Medieval Action Theories to the Rescue by Michael Barnwell (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 657 similitude can be expressed without implying a greater dissimilitude” (DS 806; ND 320)? Whatever else the word “God” means, haven’t theologians always insisted that the concept of infinity being employed is neither mathematical nor physical, but rather a reference to a reality that stands outside of language because it transcends created being itself? When theologians use the word “mystery,” they are not obfuscating, they are saying that neither humanity nor the reality upon which it debouches can be circumscribed. Should the theologian, aware that God’s transcendence stretches the boundaries of sense, suffer Hallett’s rebuke and yet, like Cordelia, faced with Lear’s intransigent demand, still insist, “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave / My heart into my mouth” (I.1.91-92)? Isn’t there a mystery to human life that eludes language? Don’t theologians have to wrestle with words the way Jacob did his angel? Are we simply to “love and be silent” (1.1.62)? Early on, Hallett acknowledges that “my greatest debt has been to Wittgenstein (specifically, Wittgenstein the philosopher of language, not Wittgenstein the less impressive philosopher of religion)” (ix). In closing let me suggest that the theologian should attend to both. Wittgenstein famously concluded his Tractatus, “What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence” (n. 7). He wrote those words when he still considered the primary work of language to be correspondence to reality. Wittgenstein was sure that “God does not reveal himself in the world”(6.432). Therefore, because God transcends the world, God necessarily also transcends language. And yet Wittgenstein himself was to grow more sanguine: “Theology . . . so to speak, fumbles around with words, because it wants to say something and doesn’t know how to express it” (Remarks on Colour, para. 317). Hallett is certainly right in insisting that words matter, yet wrong in demanding that theologians limit them to the mundane or be quiet. We must, so to speak, heave our hearts into our mouths, because “if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (Luke 19: 40). TERRANCE W. KLEIN St. Bonaventure University Olean, New York The Problem of Negligent Omissions: Medieval Action Theories to the Rescue. By MICHAEL BARNWELL. Boston: Brill, 2010. Pp. 289. $131.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-90-04-18135-9. When I sat down to read Michael Barnwell’s book on negligent omissions, I spent a few moments reflecting on my experiences of forgetting (negligently) to fulfill some obligation. I recalled an important meeting that once slipped my mind, and a student last semester who waited in vain for me to keep an BOOK REVIEWS 658 appointment. Then I tried to think of more recent examples. Suddenly I wondered, “Am I committing a negligent omission right now?” Perhaps I am. But how can one sin (or fail in a blameworthy way) without being aware of it at the time one is sinning? This is the question Barnwell wants to answer—this, for him, is the “problem of negligent omission.” How, he asks, can an agent do wrong when he neither intends the wrong at the time he commits it, nor intended the forgetfulness that led to his downfall? Barnwell assumes, ex hypothesi, that negligent omissions such as failing to keep a promise out of forgetfulness are truly blameworthy. His book is an attempt to find what he calls “a locus of culpability” in the causal history of such an omission. Barnwell’s method of approach to this problem is to look for resources from medieval writers and their sources: the authors he treats are Aristotle, Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, and Suarez. In his introduction, he carefully explains that his goal is not to act as an exegete of the medievals but rather to draw on their resources in solving the problem of negligent omissions as he himself conceives and states it. It is important to note two further things about the way Barnwell addresses this project. First, he abstracts from all considerations of the character of the agent, including the presence or absence of any virtues. His is an “actbased ” investigation; he wants to look only at the voluntariness of particular acts of negligent omission. A second...