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The Thomist 61 (1997): 617-24 REPLY TO STEVEN LONG NORRIS CLARKE, S.J. Fordham University Bronx, New York IN AN ARTICLE entitled "Personal Receptivity and Act,"1 Dr. Steven Long has criticized Prof. Kenneth Schmitz and myself for violating one of the fundamental metaphysical principles of St. Thomas: the universal applicability of the act-potency composition to explain all communication of perfection between beings. The main thrust of his critique (some twenty pages) is directed against Professor Schmitz; only three or four pages are directed at my position. I will not concern myself with the critique of Professor Schmitz but only with what concerns my own position.2 I do not find it helpful to answer all criticisms, but in the present case I think it is well worth doing because there are wider and more important issues at stake "behind the scenes," namely, the intelligibility of a distinctively Christian philosophy. The particular position of mine that is being attacked is my suggestion that the notion of receiving ("receptivity" in the abstract)-which is ordinarily associated in our world with potency, limitation, and imperfection-should be reevaluated and taken as signifying in itself a positive ontological perfection, which is always realized indeed in the world of creatures as mixed 1 Steven A. Long, "Personal Receptivity and Act: A Thomistic Critique," The Thomist 61 (1997): 1-31. 2 [Editor's note: Professor Schmitz has also responded to Dr. Long: Kenneth Schmitz, "Created Receptivity and the Philosophy of the Concrete," The Thomist 61 (1997): 339-71.] 617 618 NORRIS CLARKE, S.J. with potency and limitation, but in itself signifies a purely positive perfection, with all the implications this connotes.3 My defense of this position is quite explicitly an exercise in "Christian philosophy," that is, using the Christian revelation of the Trinity (one God in three Persons) as a principle of illumination (not rigorous, purely philosophical argument) to shed new light on the deeper meaning of both person and being, helping us to notice more positive aspects of both even in our own world that may have escaped our attention so far. This kind of specifically Christian philosophizing has been practiced very fruitfully in recent years in this country by Christian thinkers, including some of the Editors of The Thomist (e.g., taking the Trinity as model of human social relations). My own contribution to this creative and exciting project is its application to receptivity, leading to a reevaluation of receptivity as a positive ontological perfection. The source of this reevaluation is reflection on the inner interpersonal life of the Trinity, where we find that giving and receiving are integral and inseparable aspects of the very fullness of perfection in the loving communion of persons within the unity of one divine nature, that actually constitutes the very infinite fullness of perfection of being itself in its highest realization. For just as the Father's whole personality as Father consists in his communicating, giving, the entire divine nature that is his own to the Son, his eternal Word, so reciprocally the Son's whole personality as Son consists in receiving, eternally and fully, with loving gratitude, this identical divine nature from his Father. The Son, as distinct from the Father, is subsistent Receiver, so to speak. Since this communication is always going on, yet always full and complete, there is absolutely no potency, limitation, or imperfection here. Both are aspects of pure actuality, of Pure Act-in the Thomistic, though not the Aristotelian sense of the term. And according to Christian dogma, explicitly defined by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, both aspects, giving and receiving, the status of the Father 3 This position is laid out in my book Person and Being (Marquette University Press, 1993), chap. 1, sect. 3, and chap. 3, sect. 5; in my article "Person, Being, and St. Thomas," Communio 19 (1992): 601-18; as well as in the forty-page discussion of the point, including a strong defense by the Editor against my critics, in Communio 21 (1994): 151-90. REPLY TO STEVEN LONG 619 as Giver and that of the Son as Receiver, are of absolutely equal value and perfection. Any denial of this...

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