Philosophy is the love of wisdom, and while some might find the exploration of this basic definition disingenuous, thinking it is a field tilled to exhaustion, this essay finds soil still rich enough to sustain an abundant harvest. To claim that the formula is hackneyed presumes that the elements of the definition, i.e., love and wisdom, are primitive implements useful only for nostalgia but no longer needed to reap our current bounty. Such a presumption finds the formula jaded in that both love and wisdom are assumed to be understood; love is of the will, wisdom is of the intellect. However, to leave the interpretation at this level ignores the fundamental question: what is the condition that allows this love of wisdom? Why do we desire wisdom? Even the obvious answer, viz., wonder, begs us to ask the question of wonder’s condition, for the simple answer of wonder does not explain why we question in wonder. Unless we claim that wonder is simply inexplicable, which seems unlikely as we can ask meaningful questions concerning it, simply reiterating that wonder is the condition of our desire for wisdom makes us only parrots of the philosophical tradition instead of thinkers attempting to understand our experiential quest to know. This essay attempts to find the condition of the love of wisdom, of philosophy itself, in Aquinas, arguing that while Aquinas does not provide an explicit answer he allows for an interpretation that provides the condition of wonder. More specifically, part one of the essay frames the discussion by looking to Aquinas’s definition of wisdom in Summa Theologica II-II, q.45, a.2, finding in his mention of connaturality a clue for a proper understanding of wisdom; part two argues that connaturality is a necessary a priori condition for all intellectual operations and thus also for Aquinas’s definition of wisdom as right judgment concerning the Divine; part three argues that connaturality is not only an a priori condition but is itself a virtue allowing for right action and the overcoming of human finitude.

Part I

We must first ask what Aquinas means by wisdom. His answer is not surprising when he speaks generally, for he simply refers us to Aristotle, claiming that wisdom is an intellectual virtue perfecting the intellect for the “consideration of truth,” and that wisdom “considers the highest causes” (I-II, q. 57, a. 2). This is nothing other than Aristotle’s claims in Nicomachean Ethics VI and Metaphysics I. 1,2 – wisdom is knowledge of ultimate causes. In these very sections of the Metaphysics Aristotle also states that it is owing to wonder that the search for ultimate causes ensues. This, however, does little to help us discover the transcendental conditions for why we wonder and why we desire wisdom; it seems more like a brute fact than an object of intelligible questions. Nonetheless, Aquinas’s specific description of wisdom is more helpful, as he writes in the Secunda Secundae:

As stated above (1), wisdom denotes a certain rectitude of judgment according to the Eternal Law. Now rectitude of judgment is twofold: first, on account of perfect use of reason, secondly, on account of a certain connaturality with the matter about which one has to judge. Thus, about matters of chastity, a man after inquiring with his reason forms a right judgment, if he has learnt the science of morals, while he who has the habit of chastity judges of such matters by a kind of connaturality.

Accordingly it belongs to the wisdom that is an intellectual virtue to pronounce right judgment about Divine things after reason has made its inquiry, but it belongs to wisdom as a gift of the Holy Ghost to judge aright about them on account of connaturality with them: thus Dionysius says (Div. Nom. ii) that "Hierotheus is perfect in Divine things, for he not only learns, but is patient of, Divine things."

Now this sympathy or connaturality for Divine things is the result of charity, which unites us to God, according to 1 Cor. 6:17: "He who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit." Consequently wisdom which is a gift, has its cause in the will, which cause is charity, but it has its essence in the intellect, whose act is to judge aright, as stated above (II-II, q.45, a.2).

Here Aquinas begins to shed more light. In keeping with its intellectual nature, wisdom is described as right judgment, and of course this judgment concerns Divine things. We could read Divine things literally to mean God, or perhaps claim the slightly less loaded meaning of ultimate causes, but that hardly seems a crucial distinction given Aquinas’s identification of ultimate causes with what all mean by God in the Five Ways. What is more interesting to our discussion is Aquinas’s claim that right judgment is twofold, for with this our first clue for discovering the conditions of philosophy is given.

The first characteristic of wisdom is the perfect use of reason. Aquinas claims that judgment occurs after reason has made its inquiry. In the more general discussion of the intellectual virtues at I-II, q. 57, a. 2, Aquinas adds clarity to his intent by drawing a distinction between knowing a truth “as known in itself, and as known through another.” What is known in itself is a principle, and is knowledge at once by the virtue of understanding. Now, clearly Aquinas would not hold that we can understand God immediately, for what is understood is known “at once” and “in itself,” but knowledge of God is not self-evident as the principle of non-contradiction is; God’s essence cannot be known but only His existence, and His existence cannot be demonstrated a priori but only a posteriori from effects to cause (Cf. I-I, q. 2, a. 1,2,3; I-I q. 12, a. 4,11,12). Rather, we attain wisdom through another, i.e., through reason’s inquiry from what is known to us to what is most knowable in itself – all knowledge begins with the phantasm. Wisdom, in Aquinas’s first characterization, is the a posteriori working of the intellect from experience through correct judgments concerning ultimate causes.

The second path to wisdom is unexpected; Aquinas claims that right judgments also ensue given a connaturality with what we judge, i.e., a connaturality with Divine things. Aquinas does not go to great lengths to explain what he means by connaturality although some hints are given. First, the example of chastity indicates that connaturality is a habit, and as habitual makes unnecessary the deliberation and inquiry of reason. One could consult an ethics manual and then deliberate as to the proper action or one could bypass this discursive method and simply act chaste because one is chaste. Second, connaturality concerning the Divine is a gift of grace, and as both the example of Hierotheus and the concept of grace indicate, connaturality is receptive, i.e., we receive connaturality just as Hierotheus is patiens, receptive, to Divine things. Connaturality is not then created by us but exists in potency, capable of actualization through grace, but not our own product. Third, connaturality is a result of charity, having its cause in the will and not the intellect. While the essence of wisdom is intellectual, as it is a operation of judging, connaturality has its cause in the will.

These three characteristics provide some clue as to the meaning of connaturality, but there is a more important attribute under the surface. Aquinas thinks of connaturality as a sympathy for the Divine. Sympathy, however, is not adequately disclosed by relation to either the will or the intellect. Sympathy is a feeling; it is not a judgment or assent, neither is sympathy an act of volition. For example, we simply do not judge that we ought to be sympathetic to the unfortunate person and thereby feel sympathy for that person. Likewise, we cannot simply by an act of volition will our sympathy. No matter how much we know we ought to help, and no matter how much we want to care, we can never make ourselves feel sympathy. We can make ourselves act, we can perform acts of benevolence, but we cannot make ourselves feel. Is this not simply because affections are passive; they happen to us whether we desire them or not? Affections, then, are remarkably similar to connaturality in that both occur to us.

What are we to make of this? By his language Aquinas indicates that connaturality belongs to affection, and indeed the receptive nature of connaturality accords well with such a reading, but Aquinas also portrays connaturality as caused by the will, and always in reference to the intellect. The problem seems to be that Aquinas, like many others, does not know what to do with affection. He seems to relegate affections to mere goods desired by sense, in which we are happy if we have food and a mate but sad if in need. At other times he pushes affection into the will as love seems to be volitional. Affection is even forced into cognition if emotions are thought of as judgments. This exorcism of affection from the spiritual soul results in a wisdom dependent on the will and the intellect, but affection in not given a place.

Nonetheless, despite Aquinas’s seemingly explicit attempts to disavow any role of affection in wisdom, and consciousness as well, we see an implicit affirmation of affectivity. Connaturality is a sympathy, it is receptive as are emotions. Not only that, but wonder itself is not captured by either volition or cognition – we do not will ourselves to wonder, it happens, nor does cognitive ignorance explain why we feel wonder and not simply confusion. Thus, if we are to understand connaturality, and thereby wisdom, we cannot be content with Aquinas’s description of connaturality as caused by the will and having its essence in cognition.

So, how are we to understand connaturality? It seems as if all indicators point to affection. However, we cannot understand affection simply as feelings, for feelings are rooted too much to the body and external objects. A better term, borrowed from Heidegger, is mood or attunement (Befindlichkeit or Stimmung), which is the condition for existentiell and particular feelings. Connaturality, then, is an attunement towards the Divine, a tendency towards, a resonance with, a sympathy or conformity to the Divine. In short, connaturality is a co-nature, i.e., is a shared nature or familiarity with the Divine.

This has shown us only how we ought to understand Aquinas when he says that wisdom is the result of connaturality, viz., right judgment concerning Divine things need not be discursive but can bypass inquiry by a leap straight to right judgments due to an attunement with the Divine. This is all fine and well, but as yet only abstract; specificity is needed. Part two of the essay argues that wisdom taken in Aquinas’s first sense, i.e., as the result of right inquiry, has connaturality as a necessary condition. Part three demonstrates why connaturality is itself wisdom, although beyond mere judgment.

Part II

In discussing connaturality as the necessary condition for wisdom taken in the first sense, viz., as the right use of reason, we looked to Heidegger for assistance. Heidegger recognizes mood/attunement as an existentiale of Dasein “prior to all cognition and volition, and beyond their range of disclosure” (Heidegger 1962, 175). The result of this attunement is Dasein’s facticity; we find ourselves as being. More than this, Being becomes as issue, a burden as Heidegger calls it. This ‘burden’ is attunement to Being, and as attuned we can care about Being, and as caring we reach towards Being. This is not to say that we grasp Being, for the “’whence’ and the ‘whither’ remain in darkness,” but Being is an issue for us (Heidegger 1962, 173).

This issue with Being is apparent from our questions and the inquiry of reason to which Aquinas refers. Indeed, there would be no right judgment concerning the Divine, no wisdom, if there were not first questions giving rise to inquiry, and then concepts, and then reflection giving rise to judgments. If we are to take seriously Aquinas’s description of wisdom as knowledge through reason’s inquiry, we cannot view judgment in isolation – wisdom is not only judgment, for judgment has its operation only in relation to other operations of cognition. Bernard Lonergan explicates this:

Now, human knowing involves many distinct and irreducible activities: seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, inquiring, imagining, understanding, conceiving, reflecting, weighing the evidence, judging.

     No one of these activities, alone and by itself, may be named human knowing…

     …without the prior presentations of sense, there is nothing for a man to understand… Moreover, the combination of the operations of sense and understanding does not suffice for human knowing. There must be added judging. To omit judging is quite literally silly: it is only by judging that there emerges a distinction between fact and fiction…

     Nor can one place human knowing in judging to the exclusion of experience and understanding. To pass judgment on what one does not understand is, not human knowing, but human arrogance. To pass judgment independently of all experience is to set fact aside.

     …But human knowing is also formally dynamic. It is self-assembling, self-constituting (Lonergan 1967, 222-223).

To speak of wisdom as right use of judgment through reason is then meaningless without also speaking of sense experience, inquiry, understanding, reflection & etc., and indeed this is what Aquinas attempts in his arguments for the existence of God. The role of connaturality in this dynamic structure is that of a transcendental condition, a necessary a priori condition for the dynamism of the structure. We have already mentioned the concern with why we desire wisdom, why we wonder and question, why we do not simply sleep once fed. Once again we are faced with the question of the dynamism of human knowledge. Why is it that we intend Being and always continue our dynamism? The answer to this is connaturality; without attunement Being would not be an issue for us and the dynamic structure of knowledge would lack the Divine pull motivating us to ask “What is it?” and “Is it?” We would never arrive at wisdom and would be stuck at meaningless sense experience. The following attempts a brief exposition of how connaturality is the transcendental condition of wisdom in the first sense of right use of reason; it does not attempt to explicate all of the functions of cognition but only explains why the structure is dynamic.

“What is it?” is the first question we ask concerning the objects in our world. Mere experience does not tell us what the objects are, or what is their essence. Answers to these questions are conceptual abstractions, for we conceive of the single object of experience as something; the single object of experience is subsumed under a concept. In abstracting we no longer are limited to the single object of experience, as many objects of experience can be subsumed under a single concept. For example, we experience many cats of all hues and sizes but subsume them all under the concept of cat. In so doing we realize that the quiddity of a single object of experience is not exhausted in the single object. This presents an interesting paradox: we are conscious that the single object of sensation is only an individual and is limited to singularity, but at the same time we are aware that we transcend this singularity and push towards an unlimited concept – we reach for more than the single sense object in and of itself.

We could claim that we transcend sense objects by reaching only to the conceptual level. This, however, begins an infinite regress, for concepts in and of themselves do not present totality. While it is true that concepts are relatively unlimited, in that an unlimited number of similar sense objects can be subsumed under the same concept, this is only relative, as the concept does not present the totality of Being. In fact, particular concepts subsume only objects sharing the same quiddity, but not all sense objects share the same quiddity and thus a particular concept does not subsume the totality of sense objects. There are as many concepts as there are types of sense objects, and no one concept subsumes the totality of entities. However, even recognizing this fact, viz., that concepts are not totality, assumes that we realize the limitation of concepts in relation to what is actually unlimited, just as concepts were seen as relatively unlimited in relation to sense objects. This presents the possibility of an infinite regress from more limited to more unlimited unless we actually know totality in some sense, i.e., unless we know Being.

Karl Rahner makes a similar point in Hearer of the Word, arguing that we always reach out for more and in so doing transcend sense objects by concepts, and concepts by a reach for totality; only with totality does the regress end, for totality is the absolute ideal of knowledge. Rahner writes:

This “more” can only be the absolute range of all knowable objects as such. We shall call this reaching for more the “Vorgriff”. Human consciousness grasps its single objects in a Vorgriff that reaches for the absolute range of all its possible objects. That is why in every single act of knowledge it always already reaches beyond the individual object. Thus it does not grasp the latter merely in its unrelated dull “thisness,” but in its limitation and its relation to the totality of al possible objects. While it knows the individual object and in order to know it, consciousness must always already be beyond it.

     …the single objects are grasped as single stages of this finality; thus they are known as profiled against this absolute range of the knowable. On account of the Vorgriff the single object is always already known under the horizon of the absolute ideal of knowledge…That is why it is also always known as not filling this domain completely, hence as limited.  And insofar as it is thus known as limited, the quidditative determination is grasped as wider in itself, as relatively unlimited (Rahner 1994, 47-48).

Thus, we can reach out towards Being, and in so doing we actually make cognition possible, for this reach for more allows us to define the sense object as limited relative to concepts, and concepts as limited relative to Being. An object, in order to be an object for us, is not totality but limited. Thus, an object has limits, but we have seen that an object is known as finite, limited, only by reference to totality. It is not totality, but exists only in this particular mode at this particular time and with only these particular properties. Thus, totality is the backdrop, or the ground, that allows objects to be recognized as de-limited, or de-fined, objects. As illustrative, not as a proof, take a dot on a page. The dot is a dot only because it is not the entire page but is a de-limit of the page. Additionally, the dot needs the page to even be a dot, it needs a ground. Imagine drawing a dot in thin air - impossible because there is no ground in which to put the de-limited object. Thus, objects are understood as objects only in relation to totality.

All this is not to say that we can grasp Being. To grasp Being as an object assumes that Being itself has a ground defining it, in relation to which Being is finite and thus a graspable object. No such ground exists, for Being is totality and subsumes anything that exists. Since objects are de-fined we can know them, but we know Being only as the unlimited ground for limited entities, and that appears to be all we know of it. We have some awareness of Being since we can question concerning it, and we know that it is unlimited. We cannot, however, abstract from objects’ characteristics to Being, however analogous we claim this might be, and so cannot provide positive content to Being. To do so results in an objectified Being, one that is like entities only bigger, but Being is precisely not an object. Thus, the Vorgriff does not present Being as an object to be grasped, but as the ideal of knowledge that allows for the dynamism of cognition’s structure. Mood, strictly speaking, is not intentional, for it does not have an object, but is rather quasi-intentional as it tends towards a totality that is itself not an object.

The importance of discovering mood as a fundamental existentiale is that it serves as the condition allowing for our desire to know. Without attunement Being would not be an issue for us, that is to say that without attunement we would not resonate with Being, would not reach out for Being, would lack the Vorgriff, and would not desire to know Being. It is because of the Vorgriff that we begin to question, for it is in questioning that the intellectual pattern begins, and it is only subsequent to questioning that acts of understanding occur and judgments ensue. So while we do not grasp Being, we do reach out for Being, and it is this reach, or dynamic attunement towards Being, that allows cognition. Thus, we see that connaturality is a necessary condition for wisdom taken in Aquinas’ first sense, i.e., the right use of reason, because without connaturality to provide the Vorgriff and the desire to know Being there would not be any use of reason at all. Without connaturality Being is nothing for us, and we then could not possibly have judgments, right or wrong, concerning Being; without right judgments concerning Being the first sense of wisdom is impossible.

Part III

Thus far we have seen that connaturality is an attunement with the Divine that is the transcendental condition allowing our dynamic structure of cognition, and thereby explaining the first sense of wisdom, i.e., right use of reason. In part three we turn to the second sense of wisdom, connaturality itself, and see that Aquinas, constrained by intellectualism, has not given the attunement of connaturality its due. In the discussion of wisdom Aquinas attempts to describe wisdom only as judgment. This is apropos for the first sense of wisdom, as it is cognitive, but the restriction of wisdom in the second sense forces affective connaturality into the mold of cognition.

Aquinas is well aware that wisdom as right reason is distinct from wisdom as connatural, for right reason is human dynamism but connaturality is a gift of grace, a receptivity. Aquinas writes elsewhere that “the wisdom which is called a gift of the Holy Ghost, differs from that which is an acquired intellectual virtue, for the latter is attained by human effort, whereas the former is ‘descending from above’ (James 3:15)” (II-II, q.4, a.1). Since wisdom in this sense is a gift of grace, wisdom as a gift surpasses merely natural virtue, perfecting us supernaturally:

Man is perfected by virtue…now man’s happiness is twofold. One is proportionate to human nature, a happiness to wits which man can obtain by means of his natural principles. The other is a happiness surpassing man’s nature, and which man can obtain by the power of God alone, by a kind of participation of the Godhead… (I-II, q.62, a.1).

So we see that wisdom as connaturality is a participation in the divine, it unites us to God as of one spirit (II-II, q.45, a.2). Thus, connaturality is literally a co-nature, a sharing or participation of our nature with God. Yet despite this rather exciting distinction Aquinas classifies wisdom only as intellectual.

Aquinas limits the result of connaturality, even though a divine gift uniting us to the Godhead, to right judgment. Aquinas is bent on defending wisdom as an intellectual virtue, and this virtue perfects our power to act only for considering the truth (Cf. I-II, q.55, a.1; I-II, q.57, a.1). It is a bit disappointing to define wisdom as the merely intellectual operation of right judgment, even with the nuance that this judgment concerns Divine things. Even a judgment of Divine things is only intellectual assent, useful for doctrine and fruitful for the mind, but insufficient to overcome our pressing limitation, finitude, and does not unite our nature to God. Unless we become gnostic, mere intellectual assent does not perfect us, does not unite us to God, and does not allow us to escape our mere potential for the Divine. For the human, actuality is the overcoming of finitude. Actuality displaces our potency, and thus Lonergan’s fourth level beckons to us.

Fortunately, Aquinas’s description allows for more than he explicitly says. Aquinas’s examples do not indicate only right judgment but also action, or at the very least the actualization of a potency. The chaste person does not only judge correctly about chastity, she acts chaste, she is chaste. Chastity has become her nature. Further, Hierotheus, Aquinas’ example of connaturality to the Divine, not only learns but is patient; he is receptive in a certain way, he has a certain nature. All this to say that Aquinas allows for more than he says; not judgment only but action, not assent only but ascent. Connaturality, then, somehow surpasses right judgment, but we have not yet discovered how. We know it is an actualization of our potential nature for Divine things, but we are not sure how this comes about. Our clue is affection, perhaps forgotten by Aquinas and forced into the will or intellect. Our clue requires the ending of connaturality’s diasporatic existence in cognition or volition and returning it to the third intentionality of affection.

Actuality overcomes some bit of finitude. This move to actuality, we argued, was proof that wisdom could not be only judgment but had to ascend to action. Aquinas’s description of connaturality implies action: being chaste, being patient. Interestingly, both examples are habits. More properly, we might say both are examples of moral habits, indicating not an isolated act of chastity or love but modes of existence; a chaste person is a certain way. Habits, as we well know, are second natures, or co-natures, where our natural condition is super-natured by a virtuous second nature. Wisdom, as a virtue, is also a habit or second nature; taken in Aquinas’ second sense as connaturality, wisdom is a second nature of being in a certain relation to Divine things. We now explore what this mode in relation to the Divine is.

Lonergan’s cognitional structure works from experience to understanding, from understanding to judgment, and from judgment to decision, and it is at judgment that Aquinas places wisdom. Connaturality allows a leap over levels of this structure; a person might bypass understanding with its questions and insights and move directly to judgment. This is fine enough, but we must recall that connaturality is a matter of affection and ought not be forced into the intellect. For example, the chaste person does not simply know the definition of chastity, they might not even know the definition at all, but they act chaste. Connaturality, then, is not a matter of 3^rd level judgments but 4^th level actions and modes of being, particularly if connaturality is not merely cognitive. Consequently, wisdom in the second sense (connaturality with the Divine) is not knowledge, but is beyond knowledge, and is in the 4^th level of action.

This might seem a bit whimsical if it were not for Aquinas’s distinction that connaturality is a gift of the Holy Spirit. I do not intend to turn this into a theological discussion, but Aquinas does appeal to the Divine for assistance at this point. That connaturality is a gift from the Holy Spirit is especially relevant given Aquinas’s discussion of human knowledge of God, apparently his ideal of wisdom. Aquinas argues that in this life we cannot know the essence of God, but after death we can know when our natural capacity is illuminated and super-natured. Consider these two selections from the prima pars:

I answer that, Everything which is raised up to what exceeds its nature, must be prepared by some disposition above its nature; as, for example, if air is to receive the form of fire, it must be prepared by some disposition for such a form. But when any created intellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect. Hence it is necessary that some supernatural disposition should be added to the intellect in order that it may be raised up to such a great and sublime height. Now since the natural power of the created intellect does not avail to enable it to see the essence of God, as was shown in the preceding article, it is necessary that the power of understanding should be added by divine grace. Now this increase of the intellectual powers is called the illumination of the intellect, as we also call the intelligible object itself by the name of light of illumination. (I-I, q. 12, a.5)

The faculty of seeing God, however, does not belong to the created intellect naturally, but is given to it by the light of glory, which establishes the intellect in a kind of "deiformity," as appears from what is said above, in the preceding article.

(I-I, q. 12, a.6; italics mine)

The importance of these passages is threefold. First, the power to know God’s essence is not natural. Second, but this nature can be bettered by grace, just as connaturality is a gift of God. Third, grace leads to a new state of being – deiformity – which is a second super-nature, just as habits lead to a second nature. I am not suggesting that connaturality allows humans to know God’s essence; this would ignore Aquinas’s proscription and violates our previous stipulation that we are going beyond mere knowledge to a mode of being. However, it is my suggestion that connaturality is in some sense analogous to deiformity. Not only are connaturality and deiformity both gifts of grace but both result in a new mode of being. Both are in relation to God – deiformity is the relation of knowledge and connaturality is the relation of attunement, i.e., a resonance with God more like the union of love than the union of knowledge. Connaturality, then, does not simply result in knowledge, but in union with God.

This union of love is not simply intellectual, rather we receive this gift so that our nature is itself co-natural with God. This is a mode of existence, a way of being not constrained only to proper judgments about God, but instead a co-existence, a participation with God. In short, this is not a cognitive action but elevates our very nature so that we are like God, and thus overcomes the inherent limitations of our finitude.

This second sense of wisdom is higher than wisdom taken as right reason in that connaturality overcomes finitude. Just as deiformity overcomes finitude radically – at the root, at the radix – connaturality overcomes finitude by attuning us to the infinite and enabling a loving ascent to a mode of being co-natural with the divine. Merely intellectual wisdom, at the level of judgment, does not overcome finitude for it is not yet action. Also, connaturality is the transcendental condition for reason even to operate, and thus the right use of reason is dependent on wisdom taken as connaturality. The second sense of wisdom is then far superior to the first – love unites us to the Divine and is the condition for possible knowledge of the divine.

We began the essay with a discussion of whether the basic definition of philosophy was overly cultivated or if it remained a soil rich enough to investigate again. It is for the reader to judge if they found this affirmation persuasive or not. What we discovered is that Aquinas allows a much broader interpretation than he explicitly holds himself. The basis for this broad interpretation is connaturality. Aquinas seems to not know what to do with his own argument, for he identifies the cause of connaturality in the will and its essence in the intellect, all the while describing connaturality as affective, as a mood or attunement. If we rescue connaturality and understand it as attunement we find our soil bursting with new life. Connaturality is seen to be the transcendental condition necessary to explain the dynamic structure of cognition, and thus wisdom taken as right use of reason depends upon connaturality. Not only that, but connaturality is seen to be wisdom in a second and higher sense, not merely intellectual but a gift that actualizes our nature and potential to be united with God. Connaturality is the ground of wisdom, hardly jaded, and still perennial.

Works Cited

Aquinas, Thomas. (1947). Summa Theologica, (Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Trans.). Benzinger Books, Inc.

Heidegger, Martin. (1962). Being and Time, (Macquarrie, J. and Robinson, E., Trans.). New York: Harper and Row.

Lonergan, Bernard. (1967). Cognitional Structure, in Collection: Papers by Bernard Lonergan, SJ. New York: Herder and Herder.

Rahner, Karl. (1994). Hearer of the Word: laying the Foundation for a Philosophy of Religion, (Donceel, J. Trans., Tallon, A., Ed.). New York: Continuum.