Hieromonk Gregory HRYNKIW, Cajetan on Sacred Doctrine. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 202. pp. 330. $75.00 hb. ISBN 9780813233475. Reviewed by Kathleen BORRES, Saint Vincent Seminary, Latrobe, PA 15650.

It would be beneficial to those interested in fundamental theology to read this unique work by Hieromonk Gregory Hrynkiw, a Ukranian Catholic Priest who resides as a monk at the Hermitage of the Three Holy Hierarchs in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Building on his dissertation work, Hrynkow, in Cajetan on Sacred Doctrine, explicates in a detailed and comprehensive way the thinking of the Renaissance Thomist, Cardinal Tommaso de Vi Cajetan, as it concerns question 1 of the Summa theologiae on sacred doctrine. Like Cajetan before him, Hrynkiw “dialogues” with different theologians in the Thomist tradition, as well as interlocutors of other traditions; often times, the same ones addressed in his work. Hrynkiw also addresses some twentieth century scholars who read Cajetan in a way that Hrynkiw does not. In the end, we benefit from this very rich work on a most fundamental question: sacred doctrine.

While Cardinal Cajetan’s commentary on St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae was not universally well received at the time or even more recently, as he has been accused of distorting Aquinas’s thoughts, Hrynkiw offers us an opportunity to look anew at not only Cajetan but Aquinas’s first question on sacred doctrine. As Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P. writes, in his forward to Hrynkiw’s books, “a fresh look can be given to Cajetan . . . whose name is mentioned much more than his work is studied. Hrynkiw invites us to just such a new perspective” (xv).  In my own words, Hrynkiw’s work provides us with an opportunity to look afresh at Cajetan, minus, at least to my mind, the heated polemics and hearsays that can find their way into discussions involving Aquinas and sacred doctrine. I especially appreciate Hrynkiw’s clear presentation of the material and the wonderful summaries he provides throughout the work. Hrynkiw carefully addresses the theological and ecclesial enterprises and their relationships to faith and sacred doctrine, all the while dialoguing with Aquinas, Cajetan, Scotus, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chenu, Gilson, and many other important figures in the theological tradition. 

After noting in particular some hermeneutical keys for understanding Cajetan’s position on the articles of faith and the Summa theologiae (chapter 3 of part 1), Hrynkiw concludes that, for Cajetan, sacred doctrine, revealed knowledge, provides the framework upon which, in varying ways, all hangs. In closing the first part of his book (Sacred Doctrine is the Framework), Hrynkiw writes, “sacred doctrine, whose origin is in the Trinitarian order of origins, structures both reality . . . and theology. Within sacred doctrine, theology is generated and acquired through reasoning from the articles of faith. In turn, theology nourishes, defends, strengthens, and begets faith by explicating what is virtually contained in the Creed” (82). As it concerns the Church, sacred doctrine, as the Church’s framework, sets the conditions for the Church’s authority in the preservation and communication of the faith. Hrynkiw explains this not only in part one of the book but throughout the book, drawing on the work of Cajetan. Here I quote from part one: “The teaching authority of the Church is not the motive by which the believer assents to the truths of the faith. The believer assents to God’s authority, for he is the agent, the object, the end, and the rule of faith. The Church merely ministers to revelation as a created, infallible rule of faith, which unerringly proposes and explicates what indeed has been revealed by God” (38). 

In other words, sacred doctrine (revealed knowledge) is the framework for the teaching authority of the Church. It dictates the terms of the Church’s authority, which, like the authority of sacred doctrine, reflects the providential work that “lies deep within the Trinity’s order of origins” (40). As Hrynkiw writes, “the Father alone is the unique font and authority of the Deity ad intra. . . . The Trinity . . . is the principle ad extra of the effects of creation and salvation within the [divine] economy” (41). From such an “order of origins” flow forth the authority of sacred doctrine (revealed knowledge) and the constituent authority of the Church, the communicator and mediator of that knowledge. 

As expected, Hrynkiw unpacks all this throughout his book, drawing on the work of Aquinas, Cajetan and many others, as already noted. He considers such integral matters as: 

a) the habits of faith and theology (distinct but related habits/co-principles of sacred doctrine for  Cajetan in his read of Aquinas); 

b) Cajetan’s understanding of theology as a “single, simple, and stable habit” (121) and as a “subalternate” science, meaning the first principles upon which theology as a science and habit operate for wayfarers are not known per se but through the mediating habit of faith (cf., 131 and 137); 

c) Cajetan’s understanding of the speculative and practical aspects and judgments of theology as both science and wisdom, that is, a participation in God’s own theology (theology proper), divine light and wisdom. This participation opens up to the theologian not only knowledge about God and God’s work of creation and salvation but prepares him or her to receive the gifts for the realization of that end in beatitude and beatific vision; 

d) relatedly, and according to Hrynkiw, insofar as Cajetan maintains that “the divine act of revelation – a most real relation of reason in the Trinity – is the object and cause of the habit of faith in humans” (35), he affirms that “divine revelation is both that by which (quo) man believes and that which (quod) is believed” (203); 

e) Cajetan’s ecumenical spirit and “dialogue” with Martin Luther serves as a great example of what John Paul II called for in his encyclical Ut unum sint, that is, “the whole lesson of the Gospel . . .[to] be constantly read anew, so that the exercise of the Petrine ministry may lose nothing of its authenticity and transparency” (238-39). Cajetan patiently dialogued with Luther on such matters of the papacy as the literal and spiritual senses of Matthew 16:18-19;

e) and, finally, though not exhaustively, Cajetan’s theological anthropology that humans are “ordered towards the beatific vision-theosis” (253). To Hrynkiw, Cajetan shares this vision with the fifth century theologian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the thirteenth century author of the Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas “orders” the Summa so that a) the intended union of God and man is most clear, in the manifestation of the God-Man in the Incarnation and b) best reflects the Trinitarian “order of origins” of theology and the divine economy. Cf. 78-82 and appendix 3 wherein Hrynkiw provides “a chart that maps out the theological order of reality . . .  and of theology . . . as revealed in Aquinas’s own structural comments and Cajetan’s hermeneutical insights as to precisely how the articles of the Apostles’ Creed form the framework of the ST” (82).

Perhaps perceived from all the above, for Hrynkiw, the key or the “rosetta stone” to understanding Cajetan and Aquinas is the “holistic vision of theology that involves the theologian’s entire being and thus is part of the theologian’s own progressive divinization” (253). For Hrynkiw, this vision of theology is “a perpetuation of the via antiqua, a biblical-theological worldview, handed down through Tradition and echoed in Aquinas” (246-47). As such, it would beneficial to those interested in growing in the progressive realization of faith to read and meditate on this book. There are many very thoughtful reflections and arguments that Hrynkiw clearly, repeatedly and comprehensively makes in his case for a fresh look at Cajetan. Theologians of all ages and experience can benefit from this work, which also includes three well-developed appendices.